Missing Time (1/1) by Jayel jayel@infoave.net DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Archiving is fine. If you have an archive that isn't the basic one where all happy little stories here go in time, just drop me a line and let me know you're using it, please. SPOILER WARNING: Spoiler for Redux I, opening episode of new U.S. season. RATING: NC-17. Actually, this is probably more of an "R," but better safe than sorry. The sex is conventional, but graphically described. CONTENT WARNING: Fairly unsentimental Mulder/Scully relationship. Some medium-ghoulish description of a corpse. CLASSIFICATION: Story/romance/mild erotica SUMMARY: What Mulder and Scully say and do to one another while a corpse cools and morning comes around. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scully looked down at the corpse lying in front of Mulder's couch with a doctor's lack of passion. Her days, maybe even her hours, were numbered; she'd run out of time to freak out. "You have to shoot him again," she heard herself say. Mulder, sitting miserable in a side chair, looked up from his own perusal of the carpet between his shoes. He had been waiting for her to speak since he'd asked her to lie for him, but of all the things she might have said, this was the least expected. "What?" "Too much of his head is still intact." She squatted down closer, her right hand tracing the air above the bleeding mess that had probably held a most comic look of shock before it exploded. "The face could be anybody, but the brow, the hairline." She looked up at Mulder and almost smiled. "He's lost more hair than you have." "It's the stress," Mulder agreed, matching her joke, trying not to worry where it had come from. "So I shot myself twice in the head?" "The second shot will have to obliterate all evidence of the first." She stood up. "I have a shotgun in my trunk." The guy on the floor was dead, but chivalry as yet was not. Mulder took the gun as soon as she returned, wiping it down with his shirttail. "Do you want to wait outside?" Scully shook her head, silent again. She wanted this to be finished, to go home, to move on. She watched without flinching as her partner raised the gun to his shoulder. For a moment, she imagined what the lie would have been like, finding Mulder here in the corpse's place, but her own broken brain wouldn't go there. Even now, some horrors couldn't be imagined. As the gun went off, she thought it strange that she felt so little, just the tiniest traces of rage . . . no more significant than a few living cells encased in a cylinder of ice. "Get your clothes," she said as he dropped the gun beside the corpse, being purposely in cautious--a dead man didn't care where the next shell might land. "We have to get out of here now." Freshly showered, Mulder came out of the bathroom in his jeans as the digital clock on Scully's bedside table flipped over to three a.m. His partner was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands folded limp in her lap. She didn't look up at his approach, even when he squatted in front of her to look into her eyes, expecting to find them brimming with tears. But her entire expression was blank. "Scully?" "I'm dying." She turned her empty eyes on his face. "My cancer has metasticized." She stopped. Before, when she'd first known she was dying, there had been so much to say, so many things she'd felt compelled to convey to him while she still had time, while he was still close enough to hear them. But now that her time was almost gone, her words had all run dry. He picked up her hands, warm with life, and hid his face between them, his own tears spilling into her palms. This was the truth he couldn't face, the lie he wouldn't believe. Scully couldn't die. Not for his sake, not for anyone. He kissed her hands, kissed the pulse that throbbed in either wrist, alive; she was alive. Falling to his knees, he pulled her to him, pressed his cheek to her stomach, his arms wrapped around her waist, and she wrapped her arms around him, cradled him close as she had before, her cold paralysis breaking in a sound between a giggle and a sob. He nuzzled his way upward, kissing, almost biting her soft flesh, first through her t-shirt, then bare skin as he reached her throat, still holding her tight enough to hurt. Her head fell back as she gasped, and her hands slid over his shoulders, feeling the shape of him around her, memorizing his embrace. He kissed her mouth, felt her tremble--she was crying into his kiss. "Shhhh," he whispered against her cheek, comfort broken by tremors of his own. "It's all right . . . . " His hands slid under her skirt, and she reached down to help him, wriggling out of her underpants and hose, reaching for him. "Yes," she murmured, urgent, leaning up into another kiss. He pushed into her, felt her heat closing in around him, opening for him, letting him deep inside. Her face was flushed, and he kissed her lips again, as open as her sex, as welcoming-wet, and he loved her, needed her, felt her more deeply than he'd ever felt anything else. She arched up to him, wanting more, feeding on his tongue, her fingers digging into the solid flesh of his back and shoulders. Real . . . this was real, not shadows, and no one could take it away. His knees gave way beneath him, his whole weight falling onto her, and she shuddered, coming, melting into him, feeling him melt into her. Scully pulled her hair back into a ponytail, facing her reflection in the mirror, imagining what she would say. "You don't have to do this," Mulder said, leaning in the doorway behind her. "I do, and I don't mind," she answered, turning to face him for real. "What's one more lie?" He straightened up and took the last step toward her, taking his face in her hands. "A lie to find the truth." Finis. Comments for good or ill welcome at jayel@infoave.net