TEA AND SYMPATHY (1/3) By: Annie Sewell-Jennings ***** Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. FOX owns 'em. Sorry. Summary: A case involving the brutal deaths of children lead Mulder and Scully to discover the missing little girls in their lives. Category/Rating: SAR/. Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance. Archiving? Sure! Send it anywhere! Author's notes are at the end. ***** TEA AND SYMPATHY ***** "Pass the tea and sympathy For the good old days long gone We'll drink a toast to those Who most believe in what they've won It's a long, long way until morning Plays waste it on the dawn And I'll not write another line For my true love is gone" --Janis Ian ***** Silence was stiff and unrelenting, but quiet was something that one could be consumed by. The way that the rain fell was a splash of gentleness on the windowpanes, and it sounded as comforting and soft as the simple twining and plucking of an acoustic guitar. It was sleepy and sweet, with a pitch that was definite and not dominating or intimidating. It didn't throw itself at the listener, it just reached out and slowly surrounded the subject. It was a trusting entity that crept and crawled its way into anyone who was willing to accept it, and Dana Scully was the vessel that it would fill and swell within. Words of medical reports and vividly colored photographs of autopsies and death certificates were scattered across her kitchen table, creating a feast of the dead and a banquet of ghostly proportions. While most people kept platters of homemade comestibles in their home, Agent Scully preferred a battery of clinical cuisine to feed her body and soul. Working a pencil inside of her mouth like she would a piece of celery or a carrot, she just stared at the words and made notes when necessary. This was her supper, her diet, and her sustenance. This was what she was fed, and so this was what she would eat. Scully wanted to vomit it up. It was sickening, it was disgusting, what she had consumed in the past hours. The reports and the autopsies were of nothing but children, their bodies twisted and maligned, their brittle children's bones battered and broken by hands and knives that were wielded with precise malice. There were small blonde girls, all dead and lifeless on the stark photographs that were handed to her to read and memorize. And though she wanted to starve rather than eat this rotting and decomposing refection, she had no choice but to shove it through her system and pray that she could survive. All the while, Mulder stared at her from across the kitchen table, his own file held between his hands. It was rare that they stayed together when work left the office, but this was a special exception. This was not their usual brand of paranormal fare. When one could attest that a ghoul or a goblin had ravaged the body of a child, it was somehow more feasible and manageable than the thought that a human being had done such an act. And it had been difficult recently for Mulder to finally face the reality that it was humanity that subjected humanity to demeaning and damning acts. His meal was even more twisted and turned than the dinner that Dana Scully ate. While she drank in the details of death reports, the tales that the victims had left behind on their bodies, he was left with the stories and the fantasies of their predators. The words that he read were the manifestos of the mad, the monsters and the molesters who preyed on the shivery innocence of children. These were horror stories that were so grotesque and unbelievable that only the imagination of insanity could weave such terror, and therefore all knew that it was not fictional. The most disgusting and nauseating of tales are almost always the true ones. It was Mulder's job to crawl into these marred psyches and discover the heart of darkness. This was his assignment, his duty, and it was also his talent. Scully knew it as well as he did, and she knew that it was a talent that was more painful than useful. It was a gift that came covered in a barrage of thorns and brambles, and that his heart suffered the casualties of his strife. But today, she was not with him to watch him and support him; he stayed to keep her sane. Fidgeting slightly, Mulder took in their surroundings; the scent of April rain on the glass panes of the window and the aroma of the yogurt container in front of him both smelled like fresh cherries. It was clean and sweet, and it was somehow comforting. His hands twitched in his lap, and the fingers combed and brushed over one another. Scully was utterly absorbed in the morgue reports, and her cool, edgy profile was so stiff and still that he could not read whether or not she was repulsed or just preoccupied with the work. Her crimson hair flamed in small tendrils and licks of golden ruby in the warm lighting, her eyes so clear that they were either the hue of soothing peridot or clear blue quartz. Focused entirely on the crystal profile of her face, Mulder reached out to the plastic container of cherry yogurt and promptly spilled it on her glass table. Without a word, the yogurt splattered on the tabletop, the edges of it threatening to touch the autopsy and psychological reports that they shared. "Oops," he slowly said, and she sighed, looking away from the files and down at the mess on her kitchen table. "Oops is definitely right," she deemed, and Mulder gave her a small grin as he reached for the discarded yogurt cup to throw it in the trashcan. It missed, splashing more yogurt on her formerly clean tile floor. Exasperated, she sighed and stood up, removing the wire-framed glasses that she wore. "I think that you were born to make a mess. I shudder at the thought of you at five years old." "I was cute," he scoffed in return, peering at her over the edge of his own reading glasses, tapping a ballpoint pen on the papers. When Scully usually moved, there was always pride and confidence in her very walk and manner. Her chin was proud, her eyes were calculating, and her demeanor was always one that demanded respect and commanded authority. However, after hours of poring over the autopsy and police reports of over twenty dead children scattered across the Southwest, she was tired. Frame bent over, feet heavy, and uncharacteristically bleary blue eyes scanned the kitchen as she moved with hesitation and exhaustion. His concerned glances didn't go unnoticed by Scully, and she turned in his direction to give him a weary and yet warm smile. "I'm alright, Mulder," she promised, running her hands through her hair after throwing away the yogurt cup. "I'm sure that you are," he dryly said. Dana Scully was not a good liar, and he was incredibly grateful for that fact. Mulder had learned quickly that he should never accept her first response, and to press for a second answer. "I'm tired," she admitted immediately, and Mulder fought a grin. "The case is tough, and the reports are tougher, but I'm managing." And that seemed to be closer to her actual state of mind; it was close enough for him to make a deduction. Nodding briefly, he shot a thumbs-up at her and turned his eyes back to his work. The psychology books that had been pulled from his office walls were highlighted and circled in his messy and yet efficient manner of note- taking, and he furrowed his brow as he cross-checked a note in the case file. This time, it was her turn to sigh over him. "Are you planning on staying here all night, Mulder?" she asked, her voice frank and tone sarcastic. A slow smile spread over his face, and he gave her a faint leer that told just how much the case had worn him down. "That's sexual harassment, Agent Scully, and I don't have to take it," he quipped. Admittedly, that was amusing enough to warrant a smile, and she sat down across from him, placing her face in her hands and massaging her temples with her fingertips. The precise manner with which she treated her wounded nerves was touching to Mulder; she had learned it from him. Her small fingers dug deeper into her temples, wracking them instead of soothing them, and the frustration built on her strained features. Sighing a little, Mulder took her hands away from her face and placed his own fingers there instead. His fingers were exactly what she needed, and she finally felt the stress get relieved from her face and her eyes relax. Mulder used gentle pressure, letting her disquietude creep from her body and allowing the peace to slide in. "Ah, Mulder," she murmured, and she felt the fatigue for the first real time that night. It had always been present, but the firm coil of anxiety inside of her limbs had restricted its realization. Now, she knew distinctly that she was absolutely drained of all strength, all force, and that she was melting into Mulder's careful fingertips. It was then that Mulder saw the full extent of her tiredness, and how much the difficult work had taken out of her. This was not one of their usual X-Files, but a case that the Behavioral Sciences Unit had found impossible to solve. When Mulder had heard about their difficulty in finding the killer, he had volunteered to look at the case involving the murders of little blonde girls across the Southwest. It was difficult, but there were leads that were perhaps a stretch, but they were still leads. Unfortunately, he also found that he needed Scully on this case. Her medical expertise was something that a psychology degree from Oxford just couldn't make up for, and her pathological and medical knowledge could be the key to unraveling the murders. He hated to bring her on the case, fully believing that the images and words would bring back the barely buried memories of her dead daughter. But there were over twenty bodies, and no suspects. None whatsoever. Mulder wanted Scully off of it personally, but needed her on it professionally. So, he compromised. He would ask for Scully's help on the case, but he wouldn't leave her side during the work. So, here he sat, as he had for the past fourteen hours, working across from her and working beside her, and absolutely determined not to leave until she was asleep and he knew that she was all right. His hands left her face to fidget with a pen instead, and she saw that mannerism as a sign that he had stopped paying attention to the papers. It was in the way that he hung his head, the way that he seemed to be staring at the wallpaper pattern, and just the way that he mused was indicative of his mood and focus. "Did Skinner assign us to discover the inconsistencies of my wallpaper pattern?" she teased, and Mulder snapped his head back around, eyes wide and startled. "Sorry," he apologized, sheepishly. Pulling his head back down to the file, a snippet of information caught him and swam inside of his vision, dancing inside of his head with intensity. "Braided hair and ribbons." Samantha. Her hair. Always in those plaited coils of thick dark hair, ended at the tips with brightly colored ribbons. Sometimes they were polka-dotted, and others they were striped. Sometimes, they were just strips of bold reds and blues, and other times they were pastel shades of pink and blue. She wore ribbons trimmed with eyelet lace when Dad took her to church or Mom took her to temple. "Mulder?" Now it was her turn to look concerned, and it was her hand that was covering his shaking right hand. A large blur of blue ink was spreading across the page of the psychology book, and his fist shook from the pressure of his sudden memory. Surprised, he dropped the pen and jumped back, causing her small hand to flutter away from his. "Oh, jeez," he muttered, and she smiled vaguely at it. That was Mulder, all right. One who would use the foulest language on the face of the earth around a criminal, another agent, or a witness, but when it came to Scully, he was as clean as Frances McDormand in "Fargo". "Where were you?" Not "What were you thinking" or "Are you alright", but "Where were you". Mulder groaned and put his hands up to his face, pinching the uniquely shaped bridge of his much-spited nose. "I was here," he muttered, and Scully clenched her jaw slightly. "Physically, yes. Mentally, no." All right, so she had caught him. But what did she want from him? <> "I was thinking," he quietly relented. She cocked an eyebrow, leaning forward on the table and lowering her voice. "Somehow, I seriously doubt that you were thinking about these murders," she gently asserted. "No." Ah, so she was right in her deduction. And she supposed that she was also right in her guess as to whom Mulder was thinking of. With a gentle tug, she pulled the stained murder report from the dark man across from her, and slowly turned the book so that she could read it. In every photograph of Samantha Ann Mulder as a child, her hair had been pulled into dark ropes of brunette locks, tied with little ribbons that had always seemed to make her even younger than her eight years. The stain covered up the remainder of the sentence, but Scully got the gist of it. Sighing, she returned the profile to Mulder, and caught his hand in hers. "I know why you came here tonight, Mulder," she softly revealed. "I know that you accepted this case yesterday, and that you took it home before you asked me to help on it." He was somehow only dimly surprised; of course Scully would figure him out. His motives were rarely deviant from his two main focuses in life: The Truth and Dana Scully. "But I've spent the entire past three hours watching you become more upset and disturbed than I am," she continued, and now he *was* surprised. Jesus, she was *right*. "And so maybe it's good that you're here. Maybe it's good that we're together." <> Pensively, Mulder bowed his head lower and gently smiled, the cautious lines appearing in a tedious network around the corners of his eyes. Lowering his lashes, Mulder bit his lip. "Do you think about Emily much, Scully?" he tentatively asked, his eyes dark. Scully swallowed a resurfacing lump in her throat, that same lump that spun whenever he looked at her with such utter concentration and worry. "Yes," she whispered, her voice rushed. Quickly, she cleared it, and repeated her answer. "Yes. I think of her quite often, but I honestly don't see her in these autopsy reports and these death certificates." She frowned. "Do you think of Samantha much?" "Everyday," he whispered, his voice deep and tight. Pained secretly, Scully inwardly flinched, and Mulder cleared his throat. "I *used* to think of her everyday. But lately... I don't know, Scully, but it's like she's spiraling out of my mind. When I think of Samantha, it's no longer with this fierce determination--" "Or anger," she finished, and he nodded slowly. "Yeah, I suppose that I was angry when I thought about her," he consented. "I was angry at myself for losing her, at my father for giving her up instead of me, at the people who took her--" "At me." Shocked, he lifted his head up to meet her precise blue eyes and she shrugged a little, her eyes dimmer in the soft lighting of the kitchen. "No, Scully," he firmly said, and his dark eyes pleaded with her, emanating empathy with that subtlety that Mulder possessed. "I wasn't ever angry at you. I was angry at myself many times for losing my focus in my journey, but that anger wasn't ever directed at you." "Are you sure, Mulder?" she softly asked. There had been many nights during their long period of distance and estrangement that she had listened to Mulder's regression hypnosis tapes about his sister, studied the face of Samantha Mulder, and compiled a great knowledge of Mulder's Holy Grail in some attempt to understand him again. It had been a desperate attempt, one that left her alienated and alone, but she had tried so hard to find him again. And she had known then that there had been something changing and focusing between them, a sort of link that was being formed between them that was turning their partnership into something richer. She had believed that Mulder had ceased speaking to her because she was replacing Samantha in his life. But there was something that was firm and caring in Mulder's face and the grip of his hands that told her otherwise, and she melted into the jade pools of his eyes as he held her hand assertively. "You know that I'm sure," he promised, and she bowed her head. When she had listened to those tapes of Mulder's faraway voice, his tearful words, she had done so sometimes just so that she could hear him speak. She had missed him so badly. He cleared his throat, and slowly took his glasses from his face. Her hand curled toward them; she loved his glasses as a part of him. "It's hard to think about Samantha, Scully," he quietly admitted. "I'm starting to lose sight of her, and I'm starting to distrust her." He was starting to forget her, Scully realized. "I'm starting to forget her." Her hands clutched his. "The sight of her is a fuzzy image... I never forgot her before." "I know, Mulder," she confided. "I'm starting to lose Emily." That girl's name coming off of Scully's tongue was so beautiful; the words of a mother. "I think of her and I just see any blonde child in a cotton nightgown." "That's not surprising." "But I was her *mother*, Mulder," she pressed, and he flinched. It was difficult to hear her refer to herself as a mother. <<"I never thought of you as a mother before.">> And he couldn't think of her as one now. "Doesn't that count for something?" "Samantha was my sister," he countered. "For twenty-five years, all that I thought of was Samantha. Suddenly, it's growing dimmer and less dependable." "Do you still distrust your faith, Mulder?" she asked, her eyes concerned. Distressed, he looked away. "I'm not sure," he whispered, and his mouth felt dry and sandpapery. His faiths... They were all conflicting beliefs, and they were enough to trouble him and dissuade him. And they left him on a ground that was worse than his faith or his cynicism: Mulder simply didn't know *what* to believe. "Do you still think yourself a fool for believing?" Scully continued, and Mulder swallowed his dry malcontent. "Yes," he croaked. There was no other name for him. If his beliefs then were false, then he was a fool for investing his faith in them. Blindly, trustingly, he had poured his heart into the memories that had shaped him, and had allowed them to consume him, and in turn, consume her. If that quest had been wrong, then he should be damned for what had happened to her. The sacrifices of Dana Scully were simply not worth the evil of a thousand wrong beliefs. And if he was wrong now, then damn him once more for being so hateful, and damn him for being such an idiot. A fingertip brushed over the pulse point in his wrist, and he sighed to feel the gentleness in the caress; the manner in which she checked his determined heartbeat was not so much clinical as it was caring. "Do you think that I'm a fool, Mulder?" she asked, and he frowned, shook his head. "No," he replied. Her eyes were serious; she did not smile. "I would never stand by a fool for five years," she staunchly stated. "I would never give a fool five years of my life, and I would never trust a fool." <> "You are not a fool, Mulder." And oddly enough, he believed it. It was, perhaps, one of the few times in his life that he ever believed someone's words regarding him, and it had been so long since someone had paid him a compliment. Overwhelmed, he gripped her wrist lightly, just barely tightening his hand around the slim bones, and pulled her closer with his eyes. A little hesitantly, and then gracefully, she stood up and walked toward him, then settled down in the kitchen seat next to him. For the first time in ten minutes, he let go of her hand, only to enfold her in his arms. Their embraces were few and far between, and they had not touched in this way since... Oh, God, he couldn't believe that he had not hugged her so close since she had been standing, wan and yet full of life, in that hospital in Allentown. He had held her so close that their bodies had exchanged warmth, and he had tried to infuse his life into her small, terry-cloth body. That last embrace. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, and Scully leaned into his chest, her eyes quiet and pensive as she allowed him to surround her with his body. Smiles curled both their mouths, and his chin perched on the top of her head just as it had in that fateful hospital. <> Yes. Softly, she picked up his hands and traced little lines on his palms, and she noticed the ever-falling rain on the windows outside. <> she reminded, and she felt the silk of his necktie inching on her nose. Her cheek moved a little, and she nestled into his dress shirt and tie. Shifting his chin, Mulder rested his cheek in her hair, and their knees met in the center of their chairs. "You once told me that we buried the dead alive," he murmured, and he took his breath in. The moment that he felt his lips catch her fine red hair, he was certain that he could never feel enough of it. "Yes," she agreed, thinking of the harshness of that old man's craggy face. She had played in his yard with his son, had drank the lemonade that his wife had made. The life that he had led had left him a worn man, a tired man, and a man who sought a peace that he couldn't ever achieve. Scully remembered him and his weariness, and compared his arduous life to her own. There was no comparison. She just hoped that she survived her own life with more success. "And I told you that the dead were speaking to us." "Are we listening?" he asked, and she sighed. "I think that we're trying very hard to listen," Scully whispered. "I think that we're trying hard to do right by them." "Like we're trying to appease them," Mulder agreed. His eyes closed, and his lips moved restlessly in her hair. "I know that Samantha's alive, Scully. I saw her in that diner, and I heard her speaking to me. She told me about..." "I know," she said. It had all been discussed before. When Mulder spoke of the deal that the cigarette-smoking man had offered him, and when he had told her that he had initially refused it. They both knew that he would have given himself up if she had needed it, and so that impassioned truth remained unspoken. There was no necessity to talk about it; they both knew that it was there, and that he would do it. "But Samantha represented so much more to you than a single person, didn't she?" "Samantha..." he mused, and his eyes flickered away from the papers that were piled on the table. They trained on Scully, and he tucked her in closer to him. Her head lowered to his thigh, and she folded her hands neatly on his knee. Fascinated with her hair, he placed his hand in it, covering the cap of red with his large palm. "Samantha was at first all that mattered. Then, she became synonymous with the Truth. And somewhere along the line, I started saying her name just out of practice and habit. She was relegated to the background, a piece of the truth, but not the sole possessor of it." His fingers starting to waft through her soft hair, and he realized that she didn't have silky locks and tresses, but that the threads were thicker and more textured, leaving them more enigmatic and involving. Her bobbed hair waved and curled in the humidity, he remembered that much. Soft, beautiful red hair. The words really didn't need to be said, and they had never been openly discussed before, but the degree and level of confidence between the two demure agents reminded Mulder that this was a momentary opportunity. Soon, their conversation would drop to interpretation and reading between lines. If he wanted to discuss a topic with her, this would be the only time. "Samantha had always represented that truth, and then you took her place." He swallowed. "The quests changed." Startled by his openness, she stopped her hand on his knee, and stared at her formerly vacant seat. "Sometimes quests are meant to be changed, Mulder," she found herself saying, and she bit down on her lip gently. He just huffed a little agreement, and the puff of breath was an assurance to continue. "Did this start after you found her?" Ah, so he wasn't the only one coming forth with new information that night. The slender woman draped across his lap was breathing regularly, and Mulder tentatively placed his hand on the rise and fall of her lower back. That was a place that he was well familiar with from guiding her through doors, using that as an excuse to touch a spot so alluring with all women, but especially magnetic with Scully. "Ah, not really," he slowly started. "It was then that a decision, a choice, *had* to be made. But I suppose that I knew before then where the new quest was." It was in a dingy apartment with a man who reeked of cigarettes where it had all unraveled. It was when he had burst in with nothing but blind despair, thrust a gun in that man's face, and screamed out a plea for his partner. That was when he first saw it, first tasted the essence of what this enigma of a redheaded woman meant to him, and it was then that he knew that he was willing to give his sister up for her. It continued in the foyer of Donnie Pfaster's house, and on a bridge in Maryland. It raged through the barrel of his gun while Robert Patrick Modell shouted orders at him. It ripped and bit at him with the ragged edges of John Lee Roche's flannel hearts. It tore at his very being in the light of a translucent image of Dana Scully's cancer. It pleaded and begged with him in the deepest corridors of the Pentagon, and howled through his marrow in the violet light by her bedside. It wept as she lifted the lid of Emily's pine coffin. "There were times when I hated your sister," Scully confessed, and Mulder was genuinely shocked this time. His hands froze on her body, and his hands lay imbedded in the gently frizzed waves of her hair. She did not speak with any signs of spite or anger, just with the composure that was her signature. Her lovely speaking voice spoke to him, and he listened carefully. "It wasn't jealousy or malevolence that made me hate her; it was never something that petty. I hated Samantha when you ran off because of her. I hated her when you left for the Arctic, and I hated her when you jumped on trains or died in boxcars." <> "And I hated her when you let John Roche manipulate you. I hated her when you drilled holes into your head... I hated her so much when she refused to speak to you in that diner. "I knew then and I know now that it wasn't a real hatred, and that it wasn't a hatred that was direct and malicious. But I always felt guilty for hating Samantha." <> Scully sighed, and closed her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering against the well-sewn cloth of his dress pants. "But I only hated her because she hurt you." The words had been said, and she felt his fingers weaving through her hair. He spoke again, and his voice was very soft and almost inaudible. "I hated her too sometimes," Mulder revealed, "and I hated myself for hating her." He sighed. "I told you that I only recently started distrusting my own memories, but it began long before that." "I know," she said. Of course she knew; she had been present to see his confusion and his need to find some truth from Roche. "When you were gone, Scully..." He stopped. They had never talked like this before. It was all suddenly very intimate, with her head in his lap, his fingers endlessly riveted by her hair, and his other hand lining the rise of her spine. Their relationship had never consisted of late-night confessionals while he held her in his lap, for that closeness had always simmered below, never brought to surface like it was tonight. Perhaps the oddest thing was that this seemed natural; it seemed right. To hold her in his arms, to feel that unique texture of her hair. That was their accomplishment of the night. Hoping that she would never leave, but knowing that she couldn't stay forever, Mulder burrowed his hand into her hair, plunging deeper into the finer red strands by the nape of her neck. Confused and yet not deterred by his actions, Scully let her hand drop from Mulder's kneecap so that it dangled by his ankle. His silence didn't go unnoticed, and she swallowed a lump in her throat then. "It's getting late," she murmured, and her fingers mildly brushed the exposed skin between the leg of his trousers and the black socks. Her fingertips were tickled by the crispness of the hairs on his leg, and Mulder stirred a little underneath her weight. "Maybe we'd better call it a night," he suggested. <> She swallowed again, and her hand brushed the top of his leather shoe. "I'd better... Go." She swallowed again, felt the rapidity of his hands on her back, the verging urgency that was in his fingers as he sifted through the strands of hair closer to the base of her neck. This *felt* good, and it *felt* right. The sake of propriety had been abandoned between them too long ago, and there was no reason why he should leave. Certainly, she had thought of them long ago, but they were all cancelled out by the insistence of his hand in her hair and his fingers tracing the bumps of her spinal cord. "I don't want you to go." ***** (end part one) ***** TEA AND SYMPATHY (2/2) By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com) ***** Disclaimer in part one ***** Bliss settled into his fingers and his hands as she stated her answer; she did not want him to leave. It was an admission that his attentive fingers and gentle palms had been as pleasing to her as it had been to him, and her listless fingers brushing the bare skin above his ankle had been another delight. Slowly, he smiled down at her, knowing that her face was turned the other way, and he gave her a full-fledged grin behind her back. He didn't know that Scully was smiling into his knee, and he didn't know that she knew he was smiling. There was silence building again, and he knew that it was his turn to say something. The safe way was to laugh off her invitation, to cover the emotional surge by creating some sort of sarcastic gem laden with innuendo, a little tidbit of what he really wanted. It had been the means of his survival for many years, to throw off anything that might become too much with a laugh. But they had not played it safe that night, as she lay across his legs, his hands in places that he had touched momentarily before, and was now lingering in tonight. Safeties were disposed of, and she had just invited him to... To what? To stay with her that night. She had asked him to stay with her that night. "I *want* to stay here tonight." The reply was unexpected; she had been anticipating a sexy remark about propositioning him. In fact, she was already generating equally discerning comeback lines to toss at him. But what do you say when Fox Mulder's hands are on your body, and his voice is all seriousness and intensity? The exposed nape of her neck burned with the warmth of his gaze, and she closed her eyes. "Then... Stay," she requested. And this was where Mulder had to ask the awkward question, the question that was burning in the deeper part of his mind as he sat with her there, and the question that was steaming in a place that was both loving and sexual. "Where will I sleep?" he managed to ask, and she knew what he was asking. <> She had dared to ask the dangerous questions that night, and he had taken those same risks with her, but this was a question that she was not fully equipped to answer. She took the easy way out, goddamn her, she decided to let herself off the hook. There had been nothing humorous in his voice. Mulder had been deadly serious. "On the couch, if you don't mind," she said, and the words came as though from a distance. Somehow, they were less than satisfactory. They didn't make her happy, and she could feel Mulder's knuckles tensing near her hairline. <> Scully remembered when her best friend in college had told her that, and when he had cheapened the moment by trying to feel her breast. The same quote ran through her head, while Mulder's hands caressed her hair, and she trusted him. Her hand reached up and smoothed his trousers over his thigh, and Mulder's hand left her spine, covered her hand with his. "I'm tired," he said, and she heard disappointment in his voice. She loved him in that moment because he wanted her, and she nodded. Silently, she uncurled herself from Mulder's lap, and missed where his hand had been in her hair; she missed his thighs underneath her. Separation was suddenly more difficult than the initial merging, and Mulder knew it. "Let's get you tucked in, she murmured, and she walked with her face flushed from both standing up and from the heat of his body toward the linen closet. From there, she produced an old afghan and a couple of mismatched feather pillows, tossing them on her brightly striped sofa. Nothing coordinated with each other. It all seemed a mess. The dark-haired man who would soon be sleeping on that sofa would not match her careful decor, and she liked the idea that Mulder would complete that coziness that she needed. Scully unfolded the afghan, worried about the holes in it, and walked into her bedroom to retrieve the patchwork quilt that had always served as ornamentation on the foot of her bed. Spreading this final touch on the sofa, she smiled at her hasty handiwork, and turned to look at the man who was spending the night in her apartment that night. Jacket spread carefully over the back of a chair. Shoes tucked neatly in the corner of the room. Tie discarded and positioned by the jacket. Belt by the tie. Trousers by the belt. Mulder stood with his dark locks disheveled, his eyes meditative and his eyebrows pensive. Luxurious lashes lowered and lilting, Mulder swayed just a tad on his socked feet. Mulder was never a modest man; she had seen him in his underwear and in his bare skin, and this had never embarrassed him or shamed him. <> But still, his eyes were cast downward, and his arms were crossed over his chest. Mulder only wore a loose white tee shirt and a pair of dark gray athletic boxer shorts. He stood there, head down, eyes withdrawn, shuffling in his socks as though he was undergoing some sort of inspection. She removed her jacket, and he looked up. For some odd reason, seeing her standing in the cadet blue top and black dress pants was a sign that he had been accepted, and she slid out of her shoes while he watched her. Her eyebrow, slim and auburn, was cocked in his direction, and she was now in her black nylon feet. Hair tousled from his prying, she was beautiful, and he grinned and looked back down at the floor, eyes meeting the carpet as he smiled down at her carpeting. Ah, but Scully refused to be cheated out of such a rare and lovely Mulder-smile, and she stepped forward. Closing the distance. She chucked his chin with her first two fingers, urging him to lift it, and he smiled brilliantly into her face. The straight, bright white teeth gleamed at her, and his lips stretched to show his high, feline cheekbones that nearly eclipsed the twinkle of his dark eyes. Warmed, she decided that no one else on earth possessed a smile like Fox Mulder's, and no one else on earth deserved to have one. Still without words, she turned away and caught his hand in hers as she moved toward the sofa. With a toss over her shoulder, she found that he was grinning down at her floor again, and she gave up on him with minor exasperation. <> she resolved, and led him to the carefully made sofa. Her hands pressed down on his shoulders, and Mulder sank into her couch. "It's nice," he complimented, and she just quirked her mouth at him in a complimentary mimicry of his usual response. Her hands lifted the afghan over his sleek, bare body, and then tucked the quilt over him. Mulder's head sank into the pillows, and he waited for her to leave. But she didn't. Dana Scully sat down on the floor next to him, her feet stretched out in the space between the sofa and the coffee table, and Mulder frowned. "You can sleep on the couch," she repeated. "I don't have to sleep in my bed." <> They smiled at each other, and she cleared her throat. "All right, Mulder, you never got to finish telling me about Samantha," she said, folding her arms near his face. Mulder turned on the pillow, allowing his smooth memory to pick up where he had formerly left off. "Samantha," he murmured. "When you were gone." He cleared his throat. "When you were gone, I tried to reason as to why you were taken. It was a difficult time for me... I spoke with your mother a couple of times at the beginning, but as the time went on, things just grew more and more difficult. And I think that it was a mutual difficulty." He looked away from her, down at her hands and carefully filed nails. She was a federal agent who had the most beautifully manicured hands in the history of the Bureau. "I was not the most pleasant person to be around when you were gone," he muttered. It was one of the most trying things that he had ever had to admit to her, that he had flown to pieces within weeks of her abduction. "Looking back, I have to say that I was... I was crazy. Completely nuts-o. And damned if I was going to admit that to anyone." He swallowed. "Especially your mother." Mulder chose not to elaborate. "During that time, I didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Just ran on empty, I suppose, and that was how I felt. Empty. Like the fuel had been drained, and I was just waiting for a breakdown. It would have come eventually; the Bureau heads were beginning to talk about what an embarrassment old Spooky was becoming, and they hadn't done that since you had joined me. Skinner's decision to reopen the X- Files was an untimely and unfortunate addition to my mockery. "And I was trying to understand why they had to take you away from me." He cleared his throat. "It was because of me, Scully." "Mulder--" He silenced her with a fervent shake of his head. "Admit it, Scully. You did once before." She flinched visibly. <<"They gave me my cancer to make you believe.">> How many times had she herself sat at home and thought about those words? They were the words that she most regretted saying to him. Because that staged suicide, that faked finale of a life lost, could have so easily been Mulder. She could have walked into that apartment and seen not the body of a faceless government agent, but the body of a man who had once had such a wonderful face... "If you had never stayed with me, Scully, then they would never have taken you." "Why me?" she asked him, daring him to speak the words again. They both knew the answers to so many of these questions, but tonight had become a test to see how close to the truth they would become tonight. <> His hands lifted toward her head again, and she waited for them to settle in her hair as they had before, and instead, they just brushed over her brow and her nose, then brushed her eyebrow. Yes, he was saying the words with his fingers and his soft, gentle eyes that emoted every iota of feeling he could ever maintain. <> "Because they knew that you are my weakness," he said, and she lowered her lashes at the sound of his voice saying exactly what she knew he would, except he changed a word. She still was his one weakness. She was the great soft spot in Mulder's broken heart, that piece that they could ravage and tear at. All they needed to do was threaten her, and they would have a puppet with a badge and spaniel eyes. "They always have known that, Scully." "Then they already have the one-up on me," she murmured. "I suppose that they know my weakness, too." <> "But what does this have to do with Samantha?" This was a question that she honestly didn't have an answer for, and she expected to get one out of Mulder. "I wondered how it had gotten so bad," he said, and his voice was softening and lessening by the word. "I wondered why I had lost you. And I hated Samantha then because I had lost you for this quest." He felt tears choke his throat -- why tears now -- and she saw the possibilities of those tears glisten in the ducts of his eyes. "I would have traded her then, that moment, any moment, just to get you back. It was all over in that minute." He blinked them back. "It was gone." Those nights of lying sprawled on his floor, his eyes overflowing with unshed tears for a woman who he now realized had become the great center of his life, came back to haunt him as he lay on her sofa, covered in her quilts, resting on her pillows. Her hands nimbly caressed his spread palms. "It's never really gone, Mulder," she comforted. "We think that we've lost them, but they keep coming back." "We bury the dead alive," he muttered, struggling to free his hand from the entanglement of afghan and quilt, and when he could not break free, she reached her hand up and wiped his tears. This was a woman who was never going to be alone; Mulder promised that to himself then. He was going to make sure that she always had him, as shitty a package as he might present. Once his face was cleaned of his meager tears, and her hand was still curled and stroking his vaguely lined brow, she spoke again in a low, soothing voice. "I lost my father," she began, and he was wrapped in the warmer blanket of her familiar contralto. "I lost my sister. I lost my brother..." She trailed off there, and Mulder bit his lower lip, tugging at it with his teeth. Bill Junior was reportedly not on speaking terms with Dana because of the appearance of a certain loony tunes FBI-man over Christmas. "And I lost my daughter." The heart of the matter that had brought him to this apartment was finally coming to light, and Mulder turned away from his pain, his quests, his confusion, and his sister to hear Scully speak. "I found a little girl and lost her." She bit her lip this time, and he lifted his hand to cup the slope of her neck. "I loved her, Mulder. I thought that she was the most beautiful child that I had ever laid eyes on." "She was beautiful," Mulder conceded. Those wide china eyes, the little cap of golden hair, and that bright, cherubic face that was so solemn. Emily was so serious. "I got to sit with her while she cut paper dolls one day," she murmured. "She was playing with Barbie paper dolls, and she dressed the Barbie doll in Ken's clothing." Mulder chuckled at that, and he fondly touched the back of her hand. "Ah, the Scully genes rear their ugly head," he grinned, and she gave a fumbling grin in return. "I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't really her mother," she said, and Mulder's halfhearted attempt at good humor had failed. "She was a ward of the state. She was a daughter of California, not Dana Scully." He sighed, looked down at their union of hands. "And she became my daughter." She looked up at the ceiling, remembering that little tilted face, the sweet mingling of cocoa brown strands underneath the honey gold of her daughter's hair. Did those cocoa strands exist? Or was it just the honey that was there? Oh, what she would give for Mulder's perfect memory then, if only to capture the memory of what her daughter really looked like. Photographs didn't do her enough justice. "When she was in the home, just her and I, I talked to her," Scully murmured. "I talked to her, and she would occasionally talk back..." Her voice trailed off. <> The memory faded, and it was just her and her good guy partner, nestled in the dim room while the April showers flushed the lighting. "And you came and laughed with her," Scully finished. "And I thought that I had been blessed. Because I was empty, because everyone told me that children were an impossibility. And there, sitting across from me, was the essence of that impossibility, contradicting all of heir beliefs and teachings. "And then Emily... When she got sick." She breathed in, clinging to her resolve, and Mulder felt her eyelid tremble near his fingertip. "I saw her go into the CAT scan, Mulder, and I remembered the claustrophobia, the noise, the dead space where nothing was spoken and I was just left there... Wondering if I would live or if I would die. That was where I had wondered all of those months if this was the day that I would be told that the tumor had grown. If this was the day that I would be given my death sentence. "And all that time, lying on that slab inside of that tunnel of light, I kept thinking that the CAT sounded like a gun firing. I heard those guns shooting at us, at us shooting at those guns, at all of the lives that I had taken and thinking that there would be Hell to pay when God passed judgement on my sins. And then, I saw Emily there, in that same place..." Her face started to crumple, and her eyelids wrinkled with the onset of tears. "Oh, and the gunshots..." The first waver in her voice tore at him, and he thrust her to him, buried her in his long embrace and his face. "Oh, God, Scully," he whispered, and he couldn't feel anything except for the ache in his heart and the wracking of her silent sobs. And he remembered what had been written in the rejection reports for her adoption file. They had known with their detached psychology that to watch the sickness of a child, of her child, would do nothing short of decompose Scully. Damn their coldness and their textbooks, for when they were wrong it was infuriating, but when they were right, it was devastating. Seized by a need for vengeance against someone that Mulder wasn't even sure really existed, he just grasped his partner with his arms and pressed his mouth into the deep waves of her bright hair. "Did she know that I was her mother?" Scully asked him, and he swallowed hard. He had never even considered the thought. What if Emily Sim died not knowing that her birth mother held her in her arms? He had heard the nurses talking when he had picked Scully up from the hospital, talking about the redheaded doctor finding that the little girl was dead when she had woken up after lying with her in Pediatric ICU. "I can't answer that," he whispered. "I think that she knew that you loved her somehow." Mulder gave her the best answer that he could give, and she was grateful. And then, he gave another great answer. "I loved her, too, Scully," he revealed. "I fell in love with her." Sniffling, she withdrew, and wiped an obstinate hand underneath her eyelids. "The state of California didn't quite know what to do with Emily's belongings," she murmured. "Her parents were dead, and her grandparents were long deceased. It would all go to charity unless someone wanted some of it, so I took a few things. I kept them in an Emily Box, just like I had boxes for all of the difficult events in my life." "Is there a Mulder Box in there somewhere?" he asked jokingly, and she looked at him with sincerity. "Several." He didn't stop to ponder that; there would be time for it later. She knew that his quiet was contemplative, and so she furthered the conversation herself. "No one else in the world was left to care about her, Mulder," she whispered. "Her parents certainly loved her, but they were at ends with each other. She came from an unhappy home, and from an unhappy family." "You wanted to provide her with a happy one," Mulder supplied, and she folded her hands in her lap and turned her head down. "It was foolish," she muttered, and he brushed his thumb across the tendrils of hair that curled in front of her ear. "I wouldn't follow a fool, either, Scully," he reminded. And she met his rich eyes with hers. God bless the eyes of Mulder for their expressive empathy, because he did not have to speak a word to interrupt when his kaleidoscope eyes shifted to provide her with whatever she needed or wanted. To know that this was a man who would focus solely on her was a feeling that she was thankful for. Looking away, she lowered her lids. "You had nightmares of Samantha," she said, and Mulder's eyes fluctuated again, flecks of darker green and forest hues entering the realm. His nightmares of his sister had been violent, they had been graphic pictures of a girl suspended in hellish time. They were tame in comparison to the nightmares that he had of his partner. <> When Mulder was awake, he felt. When he dreamed, he felt. But the nightmares made him scream when he felt. The nightmares made him *scream*. "When the nightmares were over, Mulder, what did you do?" "I watched television," he honestly said, and she grinned. "Ah, so is *that* why you were so obstinate about refusing to participate in TV Turn-Off Week?" she teased, and he flashed a glitter in his eye at her. "That and HBO is having a marathon of *Perversions of Science*," he joked, and she groaned. Leave it to Mulder... "Seriously, why do you want to know?" She folded her arms on the edge of the couch cushion, and rested her sharply defined chin on the cross that they formed. "I have nightmares of Emily, Mulder," she murmured, and he wondered what she dreamed about. Was it Emily in the house of Sim? Was it Emily in the children's welfare center? Or was it Emily in the hospital, in the CAT, racking with gunshot-sounding blasts of testing? "And when I wake up, I find myself going to that box. I empty it, as though the cure to these nightmares lies in the bottom of it, or in the corners. But there's nothing there except for a girl that I didn't know all that well in retrospect," she lamented. "And all that I'm left with at the end is the certainty that these belongings are all that's left of something that I should still have, or something that I never should have had in the first place." Sighing, she closed her eyes and the ripple of red that waved to the right of her part fell in her eye. "I meant it when I said that this child was not meant to be. But the fact remains that she *was* here, and that I was her mother." She did not know why she was telling this to Mulder, why she could sit here four months after the death of her unknown daughter and finally confess how she had felt to this man, but his eyes pleaded with her to know her. Mulder wanted to listen, and she discovered then that without his defenses and his games, Mulder was a wonderful listener. He was the confessional that Scully had searched for, when the church had provided her with mild comfort and her friends drifted away. Ah, but to find some peace in the man who opened his eyes to her and dealt with honesty in one night. She prayed that Mulder wouldn't leave this place the next morning with his walls reconstructed, his old ways once again in practice, and his sense of humor his protection instead of his merriment. Tucked under the covers that she had placed for him, his eyes searching and scanning the turmoil that was gripping her, Mulder had no intentions of ever allowing them to go back to the place they had started from. "She was here, Scully," he agreed. "And as I told you before, she was put on this earth to serve an agenda. But in the meantime, she found you, and you found her. You loved her, and I believe wholeheartedly that she loved you in return." He struggled to word everything properly, struggled to make sense of what he believed. "I think that you found her, and that you saved her." "How?" she asked, and he turned away from her, turning to lay on his back and stare upward, narrowing his eyes in thought. "I think that you saved her from a life spent in observation and incubation," he slowly said, his words measured. "Emily was nothing more than a specimen in the eyes of her doctors, the men who created her, and the men who killed her. I think that when you decided to let her go, you saved her from that kind of imprisonment." "Then why don't I feel that?" she asked, as though Mulder held the answers to the emotions that she held for her dead daughter. "I think that somewhere you do," he replied, and there was silence as Scully tried to reach down, to find that somewhere that Mulder had described, to find the place where her lost girl was justified. "And I think that after you'll find that place someday." "I think so, too," she said, and she lowered her eyelids. "When I go through that box, Mulder, I get this sense that I'm not doing the right thing by sitting by and not searching for some sort of answer." "Like an external source holds the answers as to why you had her or lost her," he finished, and she knew that he had often held that same thought and feeling. Of course he had; Mulder had been on a quest for years and years to find that source and that reason. "There are answers, Scully. And we'll find them. But don't let it consume you like I let Samantha consume me." He could leave it at that and the meaning would still be there; he could forget the rest of the words and leave it unsaid, and she would still know. But he couldn't feel as though he was progressing, being honest, unless he followed suit and spoke them. Turning back on his side, Mulder reached over her and eclipsed her hands in his. "You should have better than that." "It threatens to consume," she said, and his hands gripped hers tighter. "When I sit there sometimes with Emily's box, I understand your obsession with Samantha." "I made a Samantha box," he blurted, and his eyes were guilty when she caught them. "After I found her, I put all of the things that were directly related to her in boxes, and I had six." "Where are they?" she asked, and he frowned. "Under my bed," he slowly said. He used to have it all spread out *on* the bed, and now it was stored underneath it. There was some sort of psychological symbolism in that, but Mulder didn't have the time to contemplate it or interpret it. Not when there was Scully with him, her hands in his. "I put Samantha away so that she wouldn't take me over again. There is no obsession, Scully. She's... She's dead." "Why?" she asked, and he sighed, feeling the night and the late hour impending as much as the only occasionally intrusive rain outside. "I'm thirty-six years old, Scully. I live in an apartment that has no carpeting. I have a refrigerator that is almost always empty. I have some fish that always die. I don't have a dog. I don't have a wife. I don't have any kids. I don't have any friends. My sex life... Well, let's just say that I don't have one." She gave a faint smile at his sudden modesty; his shoddy sexual practices were the one embarrassment that Fox Mulder conceded to. "All that I have ever done is work and chase pipe dreams, and all because of this..." He remembered what he had told Bill. "All because of this thing that I'm looking for. And suddenly, this thing that I'm looking for is found, and what's left for me? "I'm tired. I'm not just tired; I'm exhausted. I'm thirty-six years old, and I feel as though I'm twice that age. I'm an old man when everyone else is still starting out." "I understand," she told him, and she brought her hand up to stroke his cheek. It was still clean-shaven, just a small amount of peach fuzz dotting the gold skin. Sweeping her thumb along his sideburn, she smiled faintly, and he felt the sense that she was older, too. They were an old couple, this Mulder and this Scully, worn by the world and tossed away. They were used up and they were tired, and they were left wanting the answers not with determination, but with desperation. It was just to make sense of the pain, just to understand why it had happened to them, not as justification, but as closure. Jaded and cynical, they were tired, and they were saddened creatures. Neither of them had chosen this path, and they had not wanted to lead these particular lives. Many times that night, she had found herself choked with aching for him and with him, but this would be the second time that she would let herself spill over with the tears. Lower lip wavering, Scully leaned her head to him and pressed her forehead against his. Their noses met a little, brushing tip to tip, and when he spoke again, he spoke against her cool breath. "I don't have anything to show for my life," he whispered. "I don't have the proof that I wanted. There is no evidence that I had searched for at the beginning. There's no one to back up my stories and no irrefutable fact. I've sowed and sowed, but there's nothing left for me to reap. I don't have a family. I don't have a life." His voice grew wistful then, sadder and heavier than it had been even tonight. "And I don't have you, Scully." She almost protested at that, because he had *always* had her, until she realized that he meant it in a different sense. He had her as a partner, he had her as a champion, he had her as a friend, but he did not have her as a lover. She knew it as well as he did; they loved each other in the heavier sense of the word. In a deeper way that was not explainable to others outside of themselves, but it was all there. Any kind of love, and it was theirs. Their love was a culmination of all other definitions of the word, and it had been building and augmenting over the years. The first tear escaped, promising others to come, and it slid down the corridor of her nose and cheek, till it rested in the hollow of her lip. "You have me," she said, and they closed the slight distance between their lips, tipping heads and tilting faces so that their mouths meshed together in a first kiss. ***** (end part two) ***** TEA AND SYMPATHY (3/3) By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com) ***** Disclaimer in part one ***** Hesitation dissipated as she entered his mouth, passion consuming and claiming them as it always had. Tongues peeked first, then swallowed and delved, engaging in a battle not so different from that war of wits and words that they had always dealt in. Inviting each other to taste and slide, to sleep and sweep, they caught the first possibility of craving to come. Her hands flew to the pulse point in his throat, then tickled through the dark tendrils of hair that curled in the back of his neck. Enraptured by the sweet tang of his mouth, faintly tasting of cherry yogurt, she barely noticed when his fingers started to caress the soft area underneath her chin. It was a first kiss that seemed somehow trite when compared to the depth and length of their long-going relationship, and both parties welcomed the overdue consummation. Caught in the clinging kiss, forgetting any surroundings except for the reality that yes, she had kissed him, and he had kissed her, and their kiss was absolutely magical. Her arm snaked past his jaw until she was diving into his mahogany hair, which was just as satiny and thick as she had always thought it would be, pleased in the simple knowledge that some expectations were fulfilled. The kiss faded, and they were left with their softly smiling faces turned toward each other, the faint puffs of air the only sign of exertion. Her eyes lighted with the desire in that kiss, and his gazed into them. She actually *wanted* him, it was written in the fullness of her lips and the sleepy eyelids, and she wanted him badly. "You want this?" he asked, not teasing or smart-alecky, but really actually shocked. "Yes," she promised. "There is nothing that I want more." <> "You." Words were spilling as easily as oil, and they were warm and thick like gasoline, ready to be set ablaze with another kiss, another pet, another touch. "This is all that I want, too," he whispered in reply, and she smiled at him. "But..." "Ssh," she hushed. "Let me tell you again." Her lips moved forward again, and this time she kissed his throat, felt the racing palpitations of his heart, so swift and strong like the beat of a butterfly's wings. She had sent his pulse speeding through his veins and his body, and she turned to suckle that place, her hand sliding down his side to touch his ribcage and the sinuous muscles and linings of his body. Her hand patted his body through the quilt and afghan that had tucked him in. When her nimble fingers danced over his waist, crept over the roll of his hip, and flickered over his hardening cock, Mulder gave a choked cry and lifted his hips underneath the sheets. All the while, her mouth and tongue traveled over his cheek, and she smiled at him. "Do you believe me, Mulder?" she asked, her voice low in her throat. "This, all of this right here, is all that I want. And I think that you want the same thing." She didn't say it in arrogance, she said it simply because she *felt* it in his stirring erection, heard it in his tight voice, and saw it in his pooling forest eyes. "Uh-huh." And so she stood, her eyes caught in his, her chin proud and her smile firm, and she reached down and undid her pants, unzipping the trousers and sliding them off of her hips. They fell in a pool of tailored black fabric at her feet, and she stood in her knee-high nylons, blue shell, and white satin bikini panties. "Scully," he started, but she was already wriggling out of the shell, so that she was clad in the satin underwire bra, plain, understated, and surprisingly not too different from the first bra he had ever seen her in. But the woman wearing it made the difference. This was not the same woman who had tumbled into his arms on their third day together, and this was not the way that he had felt about that women then. He loved the woman in front of him with the whole of his heart, every injured and mauled piece of himself. Her knee-highs were shed then, and the glitter of her crucifix twinkled in the hollow of her throat. This was the natural progression of something that had begun in the decision that Dana Scully would be the one sent down to Fox Mulder, and perhaps it had started even before then. Their beginnings didn't matter much at the moment, because it was the present that took them now. With a sadder smile, she looked down at herself, remembering the years spent wearing and tearing at both of their bodies. When she had first bared herself to him, she had shown no scars, and no signs of injury or of imperfection. She had her share of wounds and mars, and Mulder's eyes looked over her slim, slender body with the eyes of someone who could love those marks as much as the woman who bore them. Her hands moved behind her back to remove the bra, and Mulder shook his head, his eyes clouded and twinkling still from the full response of his body to her. "Come here," he beckoned, and he pulled up the quilt and afghan to ask her to come to him. The sofa was small, but it was thick, and she could bury herself in the cushions and her partner. She followed his lead, and slipped under the heavy quilt and afghan with Mulder. His arms enveloped her nearly nude body immediately, and they were tightly compressed into her small sofa. She had bought it built for one, and now there were two entwined on it, limbs pressed into limbs. Her entire body shuddered into his, rippling so that she was sinking into his long, svelte form, and he swallowed her with his hug. Scully turned toward him, so that her face met his, and her leg was draped over his. She felt his fully erect cock pressing into her belly, and the hot, hard length of it was inviting and tempting. And then, he sighed, his breath hot on her forehead, and his fingers frisked the top of her bra. "There's still a madman out there, Scully," he whispered hoarsely, and she felt her heart rise for him. "There's still someone... Someone killing kids." "Little girls," she whispered. "What is it with little girls, Mulder, that makes people want to hurt them? Why is it always the little girls?" And he shifted again, the pressure of his cock moving away from her, and she couldn't feel that part of him anymore. Instead, there was just his arms, his legs, and his face, all next to her. "I don't know," he breathed into her hair, and his hand breezed over her shoulder, her collarbone. "Maybe it's because everyone loves little girls. They don't seem as suspicious or possibly threatening as little boys." She smiled, wriggled up higher, and pressed herself up higher through the blankets to press her lips to his forehead. The stray locks of his hair that had been tousled by the wear of the night brushed her nose, and Scully played her fingers through them. "I'll be right back," she promised, and climbed off of the couch, walking back to her room. Their first separation of the night, and Mulder traced his hands on the empty indentation on the sofa where her small, warm body had once occupied. As she left, his arousal started to slow and fade, so that he was not hot and pressured as he had been, but calm and somehow, peaceful. Over the past few weeks, he had been disoriented almost, walking through life in a heavy, constricting haze. There were stories thrown at him that were contradictory and painful, and while he had struggled in the murky webs of conspiracy and mythology, she had been spinning in her own hell. They were old and tired, but their needs were still young. Their bodies were still young. If it was hard to imagine the past five years, it was impossible to think that he was still *young*. He was thirty-six years old, and there were plenty of years left in him naturally. His poor luck got him into hellish situations, but it always left him the survivor. And that meant that there were many more pain-filled years to come. In order to survive these upcoming years, he wanted her with him. He wanted to wake up with her in his arms, with her hair brushing his shoulders, and he wanted to curl up beside her at night. He just wanted one slice of happiness that could sustain him through the rest of the years, and he hoped that she wanted to be his happiness. Before Mulder could continue down the darker path of the future thoughts and past sorrows, she was back, still clad just in her bra and panties, and she held a square piece of paper in her hand. Not a piece of paper; she held a photograph. Frowning, he looked up at her, and she curled into his side again underneath the covers, then passed him the photo that she held in her hand. "You were guileless," she murmured, and Mulder looked down in amazement at the photograph that she had of him at four years old. It was a black and white picture of him at his grandmother's house; he remembered his grandmother well. Helen Mulder was a beautiful woman who had been the most wonderful grandma that any person could ever expect her to be. All of the myths surrounding the grandmas that had baked cookies and been soft, loving women had been true with her, and Mulder sorely missed her. Scully saw the grin that was lighting up his face at the photograph, and she looked down at the soft little boy with solemn, wide dark eyes. She had found the photograph at his apartment once, and had felt slightly guilty when she had thieved it. But there was something so innocent and similar to the man that she knew now that she had been drawn to it. In that photograph, she saw striking similarity to the man that she knew now, but Mulder didn't have a baby face. The child had the grave expression of a wise adult, and those unfathomable eyes were dominant and emotional. His lower lip pouted but did not whine. His cheeks were full, his entire demeanor startled by the camera, and she was touched by his hands, the little fingers slim. Scully looked at the man who was studying himself, and she found differences as well as similarities. The baby roundness was gone from his face, leaving the cheekbones high and distinguished. Fondly, she scanned the planes of his face, and how unique they were. His eyes were still wide and dark like a puppy's, and his mouth still looked like a cupid's bow. His hands still fidgeted, too, and she ran her finger over the backs of them with care. Mulder grinned when she did so, and looked with criticism at the child that he had been. "Where were you when that was taken, Mulder?" she asked, and he put the picture down between them, so that it floated on the rise and fall of their breaths. "I was at my grandmother's house in Rhode Island," he said, his voice almost a sigh. "We were making cookies together... She was one of those rare grandmas who actually acted like a grandma, you know what I mean?" He turned his head toward her with a grin that was the cynicism of Mulder, and she touched the corner of his lip that turned his expression serious. "Mom wasn't handling her pregnancy with Samantha too well. She was bedridden for the last three weeks, and Dad shipped me off to Gram's to keep me out of her hair." He twinkled his eyes at her. "I was..." "Precocious," she supplied, and he smoothed a stray piece of her hair with his thumbs. "Thank you." "Quite welcome. I stayed there until after Samantha was born, and the doctors told her that Sam would be Mom's last. She wouldn't have any other children, and she had almost lost Samantha in childbirth." He grew quiet. "And then, eight years later, I lost her." It was just another pebble to add in Mulder's shoe, something that he could step on to inflict pain upon himself, and another straw to add to the weary camel's back. All of these metaphors and sayings were true in his case, no matter how trite and how cliched they may very well be. Fox Mulder was a collage of oddly collected sayings and words. "Ah, Mulder, it's always little girls," she repeated, and her words were sudden but they made sense. It was always going to be little girls that haunted them. They were touched by little girls, and so this special breed of children was going to follow them for the rest of their lives, together or apart. And she said so. "We're always going to see them, feel them, relate them to Samantha or Emily, whether we're together or apart." "So why be apart, huh?" he finished, and she smiled, ran her hand down his cheek. "There are reasons why you should be home right now," she admitted. "Believe me, I've weighed them many times before." "Then what makes it different this time?" he asked. "Because I figured out finally that no matter what the reasons were, I still loved you." He caught his breath; she had just said it the first time that night. Even when she had asked him to stay the night, when she had kissed him, and when she had removed her clothes and burrowed herself next to him, the words hadn't been there. This night, they spilled over along with their other taboos and forbidden phrases. Scully had just casually confessed that she loved him, and Mulder didn't think that there actually were words that could reciprocate that sentiment. So he kissed her instead, and tucked her head underneath his. They turned on their sides, to face one another, and Mulder picked his arm up and tucked her in with afghan, quilt, and skin. Her nose snuggled into his soft cotton tee shirt, and she pressed her palm to his breast. "I'm in love with you, you know," he murmured, and she smiled mildly. "I've known that for a while," she assured, "but it's still comforting to hear the words." This was what this evening had been about, hadn't it? Airing out tucked away proclamations and unspoken sonnets, and taking the next step in a natural progression of a romance that was more than a romance, and a friendship that was more than a friendship. And it was about two little girls who had never met, would never meet, and yet were connected by the very common thread of grief and love. Because Mulder had loved Samantha, and Scully had loved Emily, and vice versa. "Let's just let that finish off the night," he suggested, and she accepted that ending pleasantly. It had been a night to renew and establish love, not a night to make love. Perhaps that was because their love had been made many nights ago, many years ago, when each found that revelation that there was something indefinable that was constructing their relationship, and something deep and unfounded that had created them. When they finally did come together, it wouldn't be lovemaking. It would be love. That would be all, but it would be something that neither would ever be able to duplicate with anyone else other than each other. Tonight, though, they had each other, and she pressed her head into his chest, closed her eyes, and undulated in his hands and lashed eyes. Weary from everything, but reviving in the knowledge that she would finally wake up and be in his arms and presence, Scully sighed and twisted to touch his with her eyelids. "I always wanted to know," she confided, and he trailed his hand down her spine. She smiled. "I always wanted to know." She didn't need to finish; he always wanted to know to. What it would be like to lie here, spent not of sex but of dissatisfaction, and be in this embrace. "We have to find this guy," he said, referring to their still unsolved case. "We have to find him--" "For the little girls," she completed. "Yes, we do. And we will." With that, he felt somewhat comforted in the knowledge that a killer was loose while he slept, still unsettled and guilty, but he knew that at least she did not blame him. She had faith in him; she had faith in them. She sank then, at last comfortable, and she felt him settle as well. "I want you to know, Mulder, that you hold a woman beautifully." He just held her tighter, and that was all of the gratitude required. Her eyes radiated quiet happiness, and she looked up to see that the lamp was still on. "Mm, turn off the light," she sleepily requested, and he chuckled. Wow, to hear Mulder chuckle was a heady sensation; to feel that rich cascade of laughter was entirely different. It was incredible. She needed him to laugh more. "Scully, you're on *top* of me," he reminded. "I'm not moving anywhere." "Well, neither am I. I'm quite comfortable as is, thank you very much." Their obstinate sides had met, and they briefly battled. Mulder tried to compromise. "We can just leave the light on," he suggested lazily, his voice a bare murmur in her hair. He lined his words with sweet kisses. "I don't mind." But she wanted them off; she wanted to lie in the dark with him for a little while before she was carried off into sleep. Just because she knew that the morning would come, and then, he might leave. "I do," she said, and she sat up in their makeshift bed and flipped off the offending light. Darkness softened the edges of the room, and it was just Mulder and Scully, lying there in indigo rain that poured through the softly parted Venetian blinds. She breathed low in her throat, and spoke again, interrupting the placidity. "Are you tired, Mulder? Right now, I mean." Somehow, though her words were not suggestive, he understood what she was asking. "I'm not leaving, Scully," he promised. "Not tonight, and not ever again. I'm not going to leave you if I know that you want me here. Promise me that you know that." She smiled. "I promise." With the knowledge that this was just the first heady sensation of many nights to follow, she felt trusting of her fatigued body and mind, and felt somehow appeased in going off to sleep. But before she did, Mulder slipped out of his approaching slumber to whisper words to her. "Thank heaven for little girls," he reminded. And he was right. If there had been no Samantha, if there had been no Emily, then there would never have been those little girls to love. Little girls were something to be cherished and regarded with a sense of awe, because they possessed the innocent beauty and trusting openness that could make the most unloved creature feel appreciated. Thank heaven for little girls indeed. Mulder nestled into her, and he felt her breathing slow and regulate, until he knew that she had fallen from consciousness and that a blissful rest had caught her. She was surprisingly small and slim in his arms, and Mulder had forgotten that beneath the force and respect that her very eyes commanded, there was a softness that could be touched and stroked by his hands. With her asleep in his arms, Mulder thought about what he had now. He lived in an apartment that had no carpeting. He had a refrigerator that was always empty. He had some fish that always died. He didn't have a dog. He didn't have a wife. He didn't have any kids. He didn't have any friends. And he didn't have a sex life. Period. But she loved him anyway, in spite of his weariness and his shambled life. She could help him add carpeting, and she could help him stock his fridge. She could feed his fish and keep them alive. She could tell him from personal experience with a funny anecdote why he didn't really need or want a dog. He didn't have any kids, and she could not have children of her own. She was his only friend. He may very well soon be gaining a sex life, except he had a feeling that the sex life he was gaining would be more than that simple phrase. And he had in essence been married five years ago in a basement office with the simple addition of a slight redheaded woman who was more phenomenal than he ever could have imagined. Their life had never been easy, and it never would be. But she loved him. She *loved* him. Their love wasn't going to be filled with primroses and laughter, and he had a sinking suspicion that everything was going to get worse as it went along. As it unfolded. The good old days were dead, if they had ever been alive in the first place. Looking back at five years, written into her brow and her soft red hair, Mulder found it lacking in nothing but the occasional laugh or expression of joy. They had survived the past five years, and now, tired and spent, he would sleep in his true love's arms. Mulder kissed her forehead, and let the rain and her breath sing him to sleep. ***** "Pass the tea and sympathy For the good old days are dead Let's drink a toast to those Who best survived the lives they've led It's a long, long time till morning So build your fires high Now I lay me down to sleep Forever by your side" --Janis Ian ***** (end story) ***** Feedback is much appreciated, and please send it to Auralissa@aol.com. Fe= edback is like heroin except it doesn't leave disfiguring track marks. I need a fix. ;) Author's Notes: This story was just something that I wanted to write out of angst and kindness. It's about grief and the overcoming of grief, and it's about finding the means to survive death and loving those who died. There may or may not be a sequel; I just watched "All Souls" and I see a window for something in there. For Kristin Pohaski as always, and for her Nan, entering sempiternity on April 24, 1998. You are always held dear in the hearts of those who love you. God bless. (end)