Disclaimer:
These characters aren't mine. They belong to Chris Carter, 1013 
and Fox and are made alive by DD, GA and the writers. I 
apologize for borrowing them and promise to return them.

This story:
I'm happy for this story to be distributed uncommercially, 
intact and with my name still attached.

Title: Another Swim
Rating: R 
Classification: S R A

Summary:
Mulder Scully romance or something? This takes us from Elegy to 
Demons in a way that the show is unlikely to depict. This is not 
a heart and flowers story, it's dark in here. 

Rated R for sex and language.

Joann Humby (jhumby@iee.org)

US4 Spoilers:
Minor spoilers for Elegy and Demons but no plot giveaways. 
Spoilers for MM and Zero Sum.

==============
ANOTHER SWIM - 1/1

I sense his approach, I pretend not to have seen him. I don't 
look up, even as he puts his hand against the car's window. I 
hear the click of the door lock and aim a kick at my brain for 
leaving it open.

"Move over." His voice is as soft and as even as I have ever 
heard it. I want to say no, to slam the door shut, to turn the 
key in the ignition and drive. Drive so far and so fast that I 
can run away from him and then I'll keep on going until I can 
run away from myself. Stupid. There's not enough petrol in the 
world to manage that trick.

"I'm perfectly capable of driving. Or don't you even trust me to 
do that."

His voice in reply is even softer. "I don't want to leave you." 

I'm thrown by that, knocked back as if by a physical blow. I 
hadn't expected that, it hits me, creeps in under my defenses. I 
gather the tatters of my life together. "I'll drive."

He nods and walks around the car. For an instant I consider 
throwing the locks and speeding away. But that would be 
cowardice and I'm not a coward.

He loads himself into the passenger seat, fastens the belt, 
avoids looking at me. I can see now why he wanted to drive. If 
you drive you can hold the steering wheel. He doesn't know what 
to do with his hands. He'd like to touch me, reassure himself 
that I'm still here. He'd like to kiss it better. Nice idea. 
There are times when I wish I was a dreamer, not a scientist.

"Scully. We have to talk."

"No. We don't. If we talk now. We'll fight. We can talk tomorrow 
when we've thought about what we want to say."

He swallows, nods, stares blankly out of the window. He no more 
wants to talk than I do. He wants to wave a magic wand and wish 
it all better. Well, so do I. If wishes were horses.

----------

My apartment, my territory, my turf. He's the alien here. 
Invading my space.

I hand him an iced tea. No talk. He says thanks then starts to 
say something else so I shake my head. He smiles and throws his 
head back to shrug away his doubts. I know him, know that look 
in his eye. He'll do as I ask but he won't let go. He'll smile, 
he won't talk until I give permission, he won't give me any 
excuse to push him away any further. Our hands touch as I give 
him the drink. I stay with the touch, I follow his hand as he 
accepts the weight of the glass. He looks startled.

His eyes drift shut and his other hand moves carefully to meet 
me at the glass. My fingers rest between his hands. He has 
beautiful hands. I like this a little too much.

I reach up with my free hand to stroke his face, feel the 
stubble of the day on his chin. He's tall tonight, either that 
or I'm unusually small. I'm not wearing heels but it's more than 
that. I'm suddenly acutely sensitive to what different people we 
are. There are times when we are so close, our minds, our 
emotions so attuned that it's hard to remember where I stop and 
he begins. Two sides of the same coin.

This is different. Tonight we are two people, too far apart.

He puts down his glass. I shiver at losing the touch of his 
fingers. Then I feel them again, running slowly, smoothly 
through my hair, his fingertips raw fire against the outline of 
my ear.

I look into his eyes, I'm sure he expects me to cry. I almost 
do, I think of another time, when I was young, innocent. I think 
of Donny Pfaster and my rescuer. I remember my brave resolve 
melting as Mulder lifted my eyes to look at his. No tears now. 
I've cried enough. I'm alive. My body is sending me all the 
right messages. I'm more alive than I've ever been. Every nerve 
ending is hyper sensitive. Yet my body is craving more, more 
stimulus, more contact, more life. Now, while it can enjoy it.

No tears. Instead I brush myself against his fingers. I arch my 
back, my mind purring like a cat. I let the skin of my cheek 
take comfort from the warmth of another human being.

He opens his mouth as if to speak. I place a finger over his 
lips to stop him. "No words." 

He nods his head in an embarrassed shrug. I smile, let the 
finger guarding his silence drift to outline his lips.

I feel him shudder, a soft sound, more a whimper than a word. 
He's so afraid of making a mistake.

I understand that. I've always been afraid of making mistakes, 
acting on impulse. Not that I ever thought making love to him 
would be a mistake. But other things always overruled those 
impulses, those urges. What if. What if. What if. A hundred and 
one reasons but only one that really mattered. What if we got 
together then fell apart. What if after three hours or three 
days or three weeks or three months we no longer felt the same. 
Mulder's record on relationships is bad, mine appears to be non 
existent.

The great thing about being almost dead is you don't have to 
worry about things like that. You don't have to think of 
tomorrow, next month, next year. Live for now. Now's all I've 
got.

I let my hand stroke his face. I reach my other arm around him, 
not a sisterly hug, a forceful movement that makes him relax his 
body to let me get closer.

His resistance is over. He looks down at me. I lift my face to 
him, offer him a gentle smile of permission. He leans down. A 
touch, his lips trace the line of my eyebrow. Another touch, his 
nose nuzzles quietly against mine. He's overloading my circuits 
with touch and we haven't even kissed.

His lips meet mine, briefly, too briefly, then bounce away and 
he's kissing his way along my jaw. I could scream with 
frustration. Doesn't he know how tightly wound the springs are, 
doesn't he feel my temperature rise.

I raise my hand to slow his movement, to hold him in place. I 
turn my head. His mouth finds my lips. I could scream now. Let 
it all out. The anger, the frustration, the sadness. But the 
screams can wait. 

I take a step back. He stands very still, opening his mouth as 
if to speak. "No words." I tell him. He nods, breathes deeply, 
watches me carefully.

He looks as if there are tears welling somewhere deep inside, as 
if once they start to fall there will be no way to stop them. I 
smile and lead him to my bedroom.

----------

I want to laugh. Mulder in my bedroom. There's a thing. He's 
been in here often enough in my fantasies. I wonder about his 
fantasies, has he been in here? I expect so. We've both been 
alone for so long. Alone together.

I kept him here, drugged and distraught after his father's 
death. That doesn't really count. It's funny though, because of 
course he looks distraught now. Baffled, confused. Why use drugs 
to get the effect?

Strange, he was the first man to sleep in this bed. And now it 
looks like he'll be the only one ever to sleep in it. Perhaps. 
Is the grim reaper a man? I guess so.

I nudge him towards the bed, unlike me he needs words. "It's ok. 
I'm not delirious. I'm not drugged. I know what I'm doing."

He starts to reply, I stop him. "No words." Words would make it 
real. I'm acting out a fantasy, he never talked in my fantasy.

He's beautiful. How ironic. He's not my type. At least that's 
what I thought. Just shows how my imagination has failed me in 
the last five years. Disuse, I suppose. Ed Jerse, they could 
have been cousins. Eddie Van Blundht, don't go there. Mulder 
isn't my type. I like them tougher, more confident, less 
troubled. Now, it seems I like them tall and dark and with eyes 
to drown in.

I reach out, he closes his eyes as I touch him. My heart 
stutters, it's happening, it's going to happen. I start to 
slither out of my clothes. I unfasten his shirt buttons.

"Mulder. It's ok. I'm ok."

His breathing's heavy, I feel almost guilty. I want to put my 
clothes back on. I want to fasten up his buttons. Tell him it 
was all a stupid mistake, a misunderstanding. Send him home.

An instant later and he's suddenly transformed, suddenly ready. 
The shirt's gone. He's touching my shoulders, directing me to 
the bed. I relax, let him take control.

-------

He acts as if he has all the time in the world. I don't know 
whether to laugh or cry. My body, the one that the Doctor told 
me is so near death, is so alive. He's holding me so close I can 
feel his heart beat.

His hands drift over me. How many hands does he have? His lips, 
spared from the job of explaining his thoughts, are using my body 
to tell a story. I want to pull him closer to my secrets. But 
that would mean changing the pace. The pace he sets is torture, 
exquisite torture.

An index finger is slithering along the front of my thigh, just 
the back of his nail in contact with my skin, it glides along 
the inside on my thigh for the return journey. The cat spirit 
that has taken possession of my body purrs, arches my back, 
makes the muscles in my leg tense, makes me stretch, makes my 
breathing loud.

A hand, warm and soft, rolls quietly over my body, works its way 
slowly from my collarbone, brushes over my breast, moves 
smoothly to my pelvis. I chase the contact, stretch into it. He 
reacts to my sudden groan. Repeats the motion. Making tiny 
shifts in the path until I can't stop my sighs from becoming 
continuous. 

His lips take leisurely walks around my face, finding nerve 
endings that I didn't know existed. His tongue, finds a 
weakness, a place on my cheekbone that makes me feel warm, makes 
my eyes close.

He has a patience that infuriates me. I've never known a man 
this patient. Maybe I don't know this man. Breathe. Just 
concentrate on breathing. Live in the moment. Enjoy this. No 
hurry. You're a long time dead.

I feel. I feel his touch. I feel it change tone. Just one 
finger. All it takes. He finds me, slick and warm. He takes the 
slickness and finds the source of the heat. So light a contact, 
so soft a touch, so insistent a rhythm. My mouth falls open. 
Can't breathe. I try and relax, let it all go, but my fingers 
clench into the bedclothes. The muscles of my thighs lock.

He slows, eases the pressure. I want to scream. I want to force 
him to follow through.

But he waits, he's sensed the cramp building in my legs, the 
pain that has arrived to deflect me from the pleasure. His touch 
now is soothing, not sexual. A sensual overload that makes my 
head spin. I suppose that it's really only short minutes later 
before my muscles ease back, relax from their hard tension. Am I 
really so out of practice. I wait. Seconds. It seems like hours. 
He may have patience, I have none. I reach out to him, squeeze 
him tight. The beautiful ache returns, the careful insistent 
rhythm, the touch less focused, not a finger now, a whole hand 
quietly shifting over me. So hot. So precise. So insistent.

It happens. I let it happen. I feel the waves pulse through me.

My body tingles, glows with the after shocks.

He's so quiet by my side. Watching. Waiting. Letting me come 
back down to earth.

I'm glad he's not allowed to speak. Nothing is allowed to 
destroy the fantasy. Nothing. Not even him. He's slow, less 
urgent than my fantasy. We've been making love for... how long? 
Minutes, hours, years. And we haven't even made love. 

I make no demands, I let him decide.

I want him.

Those lips that run across my ears. Those fingers that roll over 
my breasts, my thighs, that make me scream. Wonderful, but not 
enough. I start to panic. What if. What if he doesn't want me?

His tongue licks softly across my lips. Thank God. Please. I'm 
running out of breath. I can't wait.

Kisses so hot, so deep. I let myself enjoy him. I want him.

He's above me. No risk of pregnancy, no fear of dying of some 
slowly incubating virus. No need for reminders of mortality, no 
need for protection, I don't have to worry about the things that 
the alive people worry over.

Perfection. 

Perfection slides between my thighs, opening me, slick and wet. 
He knows his way home. I... I wish... I want....

I want only this. Him, hard and insistent and in me. No hurry. 
Even now he's in me, he doesn't hurry. 

I knew he wouldn't hurry. 

He'd die for me. He'd carry this tumor for me. He'd sell his 
soul for me. If I let him. He values me. His faith validates me. 
He doesn't value himself so highly. I feel no guilt about asking 
him for his body tonight. He wanted to give me something, he 
thought I wanted someone to talk to. I wanted this. A 
celebration of life. For old times sake.

But now it's too late to think, to protect myself from him, to 
preserve my defences. I feel myself melt. I feel our bodies 
merge. This is. This is not fair. This it too much to bear. Too 
much to lose.

No hurry, there's so little urgency in his movements, just a 
strong rhythm, a steady rhythm, his vibrant rhythm taking over 
from my decaying one. Yes, yes please, please hurry. Make me 
feel alive.

I'm sweating, sticky against his thrusts. I say this to him. He 
laughs, sweeps his hand lower under my buttocks dragging my hips 
even closer. A response as unexpected as it is exhilarating.

He lifts his face from me, gives me more room to breathe, almost 
hovering above me now. He changes the angles again so he can 
slide a hand, soft with sweat, against me, slipping into a hot 
space between our bodies. I can only clench my teeth and hold on 
for the ride. His control over me so complete I can only float 
here, a watcher, as my body surges and reaches and begs for 
contact.

I feel I'm flying high above the writhing forms. But, it's too 
much. I have to join in. My mind returns to my body and merges 
with the feline thing that is controlling my movements. The 
muscles in my legs twitch, I can't breathe. Breathing isn't 
necessary. Not as necessary as focusing on the heat burning 
between my thighs.

I reach out, clutch at the sheets, at his hair. Convulsive 
movement is all I have left. No rhythm to it, just a promise of 
release. So close, but I'm holding on, postponing the 
inevitable. His face swoops down on me, his lips graze my ear. 
And it happens, my feet push flat against the bed, my body 
flexes, shudders, spasms, then stops moving, just stretches and 
melts and drifts apart. My muscles become still, except for the 
tremors that ripple out as waves from the base of my spine.

He keeps moving, but he's slow and careful now, quietly milking 
extra contractions from my body, extra gasps from my lips.

I'm dreaming, floating. He starts to move faster. I focus on 
him, the feel of his skin, the sound of his breathing, the smell 
of him, the flutter of his hair, the soft shine of his eyes. 
Beautiful. I listen to his breathing become erratic, the 
movement quicken, the eyes close. Fusion.

We drift. We're both quiet now. I feel him recover his control, 
his hand finds mine, he entwines our fingers. His face nuzzles 
my neck. There's peace, here in his arms.

I didn't want to feel like this. I didn't want to feel anything.


============

I'm still not quite sure what happened last night.

She wouldn't let me talk.

That makes it sound too mild, as if the talking had simply been 
postponed. As if real talk had been replaced by idle gossip, 
sweet nothings. But it wasn't. She wouldn't let me talk, not 
even talk enough to cry out her name.

I'm sure I should be ashamed of what I did, but I can't even 
feel guilty. Throw a line to a drowning man, he'll grab first, 
ask questions later. I wanted it to happen, but I still know 
that it shouldn't have happened, not like that.

I can offer plenty of excuses, I can come up with explanations. 
I can let my psychology trained analytical mind loose on the 
problem. All roads lead to here. 'No words'. No words because 
she was ashamed, so she depersonalised the experience. Told 
herself it wasn't me. Who knows, maybe it wasn't her either.

I don't know why she did it. I don't know why I did it. What 
other signal did I need that this was wrong. 

So often, when we work, we are so close to death; relief tells 
the brain about life. Sex is a natural response, biochemicals 
dictate the celebration of life. Both of us felt that rush 
yesterday.

Scully feels it everyday. Every time she looks in the mirror in 
the morning and thinks of her mortality, of the shadow stalking 
her but not yet at her door. Every time she chooses to fight 
instead of just to fade away, her brain rewards her with a heady 
mix of hormones and signals about living.

I made her cry. High on the drugs the body made to get it 
through the day,  my mask slipped, I let her see the anger and 
frustration and weakness bubbling in my brain. I made her cry.

Then like some dumb fucking kid at a party looking for a soft 
pick up I latch onto her while she's weak, while her defences 
are down. To do what? To talk? To make it better? To screw her? 
Apparently.

I slip out of bed, grabbing my boxer shorts from the floor as I 
go.

She's almost fully dressed when I return. I wonder, did she wake 
up when I moved, or was she already awake but feigning sleep, or 
am I just so insensitive that she doesn't even need to pretend 
that well.

"Hi. How are you feeling?" I try to say it as lightly as I can. 
I can see how she's feeling, her body says it for her. She's 
keeping her back turned to me as she fastens her clothes. Her 
shoulders are squared and tense. I swallow.

No wonder she doesn't look at me. I stand here mostly naked as 
if it's the most natural thing in the world. Natural between 
lovers. Maybe even natural in the right circumstances between 
partners. Not natural now, not between whatever we've become.

I find the rest of my clothes, dress quickly without further 
words.

--------------

I can hear the shower running, washing away the evidence. I've 
drained two cups of coffee and the shower's still running. I 
made her feel like that. Dirty.

Maybe it's just a cover. Maybe she's just going to stay in there 
until she's sure I've left and running the shower is a disguise. 
I clutch at such straws because I have to.

Suddenly she's here in front of me, sitting at the table.

"I'm a little slow getting started in the morning these days. 
The meds,  I can wake up feeling queasy."

I wish my hand wasn't shaking. I wish she was telling the truth. 
I wish. I wish she didn't have to take those drugs. I wish.

"About last night." Her voice is silky. If I knew how to 
shutdown my ears, I would. "I don't want it to affect things 
between us. We've still got work to do."

I don't understand. Does she regret it or not? 

Of course she fucking regrets it. 'No words', so she could 
pretend it wasn't me. I was a stand in last night. I don't know 
who for, probably no one, just for her health, just her future. 
She didn't look at me in the bedroom this morning, not even an 
hello. She stood in the shower hoping I'd leave, hoping she 
could destroy the evidence that I'd ever been near her. How much 
more obvious does she need to make it before I'll take the hint? 
Maybe she could burn the sheets.

"I..." Shit. My voice isn't working. I swallow, try to salvage 
something. "I want to work with you."

She nods her head. "I don't have much time left."

Don't Scully. Don't say it. I know you think it. I know that you 
can imagine a world in which you no longer exist. I can't.

"You need to make arrangements for continuing the work after..." 
She pauses. Don't say it Scully, don't say it as if you were 
just about to tell me what's coming up next on TV. "... after I 
leave the Bureau. I'll help you and Skinner get things ready."

The room is so short of oxygen. She's tougher than me, always 
has been. But this? She's preparing me for life after death, her 
death. I'm barely alive now. She needs me to say something. I 
have her permission to speak, but I don't have these words. The 
words about fighting on, about saving her in the nick of time, 
and about how if we can't save her then at least we'll do enough 
to make sure it was all worthwhile.

I want to run.

I've kept things from her. Things, I suppose she ought to know. 
What if I try and explain, tell her why it's so hard to imagine 
making plans?

Try something, explain the easy part first. My voice isn't 
working. I try to pick up some of her courage and use it. 
"Skinner may not be in a position to help us." There, it's said.

"Why?"

What do I do now? Tell her that Skinner was disposing of the 
evidence on a homicide investigation and I'm probably involved 
in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Sure. Tell 
her. She's sure to feel better if you tell her. Tell her about 
it, that Skinner did it for her, sold himself to the devil for 
her.

I can't look at her, so I look at the table. "He may be 
implicated in a cover up."

"Why?"

"He may have been forced to deal with cancer man."

"Why?"

Why? Scully. Please. Don't ask why.

I hear her chair move, hear her get to her feet, hear her pace 
the carpet. I can hear her anger creating sparks across the 
room. The air crackles with static electricity. I keep my eyes 
averted. I can't believe it myself now. I shouted at her for not 
telling me the truth over a vision in a mirror. A something real 
or not. I keep real secrets from her.  Even when I try to tell 
her the secrets they grow into monsters and freeze my throat. 
Sorry. Hypocrite.

Her voice contains ice and fire in equal measures. "Just because 
I let you fuck with my body, it doesn't mean that you can fuck 
with my head. Tell me what you know about Skinner."

I can't. I can't answer the question. I can't cope with her 
words. Last night. We can't pretend it didn't happen, not now 
she's said the words.

Her voice returns, dripping with quiet despair, horror, disgust. 
She understands, she knows why Skinner did it, she knows why I 
can't explain. "Get out of my apartment." A pause, her voice 
almost a hiccup. "I'll see you at work."

She knows, she understands. She hates what I've done. She knows 
how it happened. She knows what I'm hiding.

She'll see me at work. 

-----------

I leave the house. I've no car here. I start walking. 

I've still got myself, I've still got my work, I've still got 
you.

Soon. It'll all start to drift into the past tense. I'll lose 
her, I may have already lost her. When the rug gets pulled from 
under Skinner's feet, the job will go, the work may become 
impossible. Just me left?

I'm not sure if there is a me anymore. I'm not the same man I 
was. The way I treated Scully last night. The lies I've been 
telling her, by not telling her. My eager complicity in 
Skinner's dirty dealings.

I still look like me. But then Eddie Van Blundht looked like me, 
except he really did just talk to her, like she needed. There's 
a shape shifting alien out there with green toxic blood who 
looks like me when he wants to hurt her.

There's a puppet that looks like me, dancing when someone pulls 
the strings. The strings are all so easy to pull. So easy now 
that even old, long defeated adversaries can pull them. Roche 
pulled them so well. My whole life is imaginary if I believe 
him. And if I don't believe him, what do I believe? Scully. My 
dreams. The rag bag of memories I recovered under hypnosis. 

I don't trust me. 

I try and imagine that with Skinner's removal and Scully's death 
it will be like a time before the X-Files, except with more 
things to mourn, more things to avenge. But it won't be, because 
back then I believed in myself and now I don't.

I believe that the work that I've done with Scully has been 
worthwhile, that we have saved lives, that we have made a 
difference. I believe we fail so often and the price is so high 
that such value judgments about its worth may be my ego 
speaking, not my brain. 

I believe that my memories have been manipulated so effectively 
with so many interlocking layers of lies and dreams that I can't 
judge any one version of the truth against any other.

I believe that my touch kills anything good that comes into 
contact with it. 

I've still got myself, I've still got my work, I've still got 
you. Yeah, right. Enjoy what's left of that little fairy story.

I hail a taxi. An expensive trip. Everything costs.

---------------

It's Thursday. Just me and a dark office. Which is good. It's 
how it should be. If she's not here, I can't hurt her.

The new message icon pops up on the screen. Scully. She'll see 
me on Monday. Medical leave today. I don't blame her. She needs 
some distance. We'll meet on Monday.

I thumb the pages of the magazine article again. The images are 
so familiar, reminders of my childhood. Old haunts from a long 
time ago. As I read the words, look at the place names, view the 
photos, a set of rusty and disused synapses in my brain start to 
fire, bringing in memories that I thought I'd forgotten. Smells 
and sounds. Wading birds. Ice creams. Old stories tucked away in 
cobweb corners of my head.

The selectivity of my memories frightens me. Accurate down to 
the choice of meat on the grill of a birthday cook out and then 
vague to non existent about things that matter. About the only 
thing that matters.

I want Scully to tell me that I'm chasing rainbows. I want her 
to tell me what to chase. I want her to tell me where to get the 
magic formula to cure her. I want her to tell me that our 
mission is honorable. But she's not here. 

Maybe it's nothing, just another wild goose chase. Maybe talking 
to the woman in the photographs will tell me something. Maybe 
she can explain about how she recovered so many of the memories. 
Maybe just walking along the shoreline will trigger something.

The worst thing that can happen is I get to spend the weekend 
watching the waves breaking. And I can tell Scully about it on 
Monday and she'll nod sagely and say that the sea air is good 
for me. And we'll try and rebuild our world.

I pick up the phone and listen to Amy Cassandra as she talks 
about the years of frustration of not knowing and then the 
breakthrough she made. How much better it is, how it helps her 
to understand, to know.

The breakthrough. I need a breakthrough. I need it soon. I can't 
just keep on this way. Soon, I won't be able to fight, I won't 
have the allies or the energy.

The shark dies if it stops swimming. Another swim then.

I'm so tired, but I need to know.



END