FanFic: A Bed Made of Crop Circles (NC-17) Post IWTB

A Bed Made of Crop Circles
by Innisfree

E-MAIL: katclar73@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR
SUMMARY: I am all kinds of in love with that
conversation by the car and Mulder saying "Let it
try." I think we all know what happened when Scully
came home that night. ATTHS. I had to do it.
RATING: NC-17 (language, sexual situations)
SPOILERS: XF2: IWTB
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Film
ARCHIVE: Yes -- just e-mail me.
DISCLAIMERS: They're not mine, I'm not making any
money, and there is no intent to infringe any lawful
copyrights or trademarks.
_____________________________________________

Axes. He'd been dreaming of axes when he awoke with a
start on the couch. Dreaming of one hovering over him,
not swinging, not even moving in any way, just poised
right over his neck like it was waiting for something.
For what, he couldn't be sure. But he remembered the
fear building in him as he waited for the blade to
fall in his dream. He'd felt his entire body tensing,
and then tensing even harder, until finally his eyes
had flown open and he'd realized that, unlike last
night, it wasn't real.

Sitting here in the dim light of one yellowing floor
lamp, he experienced a brief instant of confusion
about the time and the place. For a fleeting second,
he thought he was back in his old apartment at Hegal
Place, waking in the middle of the night the way he
used to do when the couch was his bed and he didn't
even own a pair of pajamas. Waking alone and hearing
the quiet all around him as loudly as if it were
taunting him.

But no. That was a different time and a different
place. He'd been a different man. Years gone by. Back
then, he'd often woken with the feeling that something
was missing, that there was something he needed to
find. Now, a lifetime later, whenever he woke with
that feeling, he knew exactly what was missing.

He mopped a few lines of perspiration away from his
forehead as he checked his watch. It was just past
10:30 and long past darkness falling. She should have
been home by now, he thought to himself. He'd been
waiting for her, reluctant to bother her with a phone
call, and must have finally succumbed to sleep. To
sleep, perchance to dream of axes and endings. He
shuddered.

Last night, he had been busy collecting another near-
death experience to add to his mental scrapbook, and
Scully had accompanied him to the hospital for the
ritual stitching and bandaging of wounds. After that,
Skinner had driven the two of them home and she had
settled him upstairs in the bed. The painkillers
weren't strong enough to keep him from noticing that
she was still wearing her clothes when she lay down
next to him, settling on top of the comforter. But
they were strong enough to keep him from protesting.
She'd been just close enough to watch over him. Not
quite close enough to touch.

For several nights before that, she hadn't come home
at all. A woman of her word. He suspected she'd been
sleeping at the hospital in one of those rooms they
kept free for doctors putting in long shifts. And he
hadn't been surprised to discover that he didn't sleep
well when she wasn't with him.

He checked his watch again, suddenly worried and
nervous. Was she not coming home tonight? Perhaps he'd
misunderstood their conversation earlier that morning.
He thought they'd found some kind of peace today,
accepting that they are the people they have always
been, darkness held at bay but never far away from
either of them. He thought he'd made it clear that,
whatever path she chose now, whether or not she could
allow herself to believe, he chose her. He chose her
and they would be alright together.

The sound of a key turning in the lock interrupted the
trajectory of the panic beginning to move through his
mind. He turned his head just in time to see the thin
rays of light in the room sharpening the angles of her
cheeks and her jaw, just before she caught sight of
him and rather shyly dropped her chin to let long red
hair fall like a curtain over her face.

Home, he thought. She's home.

"What's up, Doc?" he asked her softly, not a trace of
the bitterness that had infused the same words that
morning.

She sighed.

"Long day."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I'm, ummmm... I'm sorry I didn't call."

He simply shook his head and smiled.

"It's okay. I just wasn't sure... well, you know." He
trailed off and found himself suddenly fascinated by
the planks on the hardwood floor just beneath his
feet.

She dropped her black bag on the table and walked
slowly to cover the short distance between the door
and the couch. In the corner of his eye, he could see
that she'd placed her hands in the pockets of her
coat.

"You weren't sure if I was coming home tonight."

He managed to lift his head and find her eyes, even in
this interior twilight.

"Well..." His voice cracked in the middle of the word.
"It's been a tough week. I tried not to make my panic
face."

The edges of her mouth quirked upward slightly and she
nodded.

"Yes," she answered him a little tentatively. "Tough
week."

He placed his hand on the cushion next to him and
inclined his head in that direction.

"Take your coat off and stay awhile." He tried to
sound playful when he said it but, to his ears anyway,
it came out sounding more like a plea.

He thought he saw her hesitate for just one second,
but it was only a second. She pulled her coat off and
flung it over the back of one of the chairs next to
the breakfast table. So not like Scully, he thought
with some amusement. Flinging outerwear onto
furniture.

When she cautiously took her seat next to him on the
couch, he didn't second-guess his own instinct to draw
her to his side, folding his arm around her back until
his hand could form itself into the indentations
between her ribs. He was pleased when he felt her head
settle on his shoulder.

"So... what happened with the surgery?"

She took a long, deep breath and exhaled it toward his
chest.

"We did it. It'll be a few more treatments before we
know if it's working or not, but his parents are
willing to give it a chance."

"That's good," he murmured, his left hand making
short, soothing strokes up and down the side of her
body.

"I hope so. I hope it's the right thing."

"You didn't give up." He heard the note of pride that
seeped into his voice, completely unbidden.

"I'm trying."

"I know you are." He lifted his right hand from where
it lay beside him and awkwardly laced the fingers of
her right hand with his own, just above where the
bandages tapered off.

There was a moment of silence when he felt his eyes
blinking slowly, and he wondered if they would both
fall asleep just like this. Here, on the couch,
holding her as she rested against him. That would be
nice, he thought, as he felt his mind starting to slip
away again.

"Mulder?"

The sound of her voice brought him back from the edge
of slumber.

"Hmmmmm?"

"I've been thinking. About everything that happened
the last few days."

He gave her one of his rumbling hums, a noise that
would have been more like a grunt if it didn't come
out sounding like it carried a question mark.

"I was thinking maybe I should have been there with
you yesterday. Maybe you wouldn't have run into
trouble if I'd been there."

"Awww, you know me, Scully. Trouble and I go way back.
Whether you're there or not."

"I know," she told him, and he heard the sadness in
the words. "But I feel like I let - "

" - No." He spoke before she could finish her thought.
"What did you say to me yesterday? You said I think
you don't understand, but you do. Well, you think I
don't understand. But I do."

She chuffed against him and he liked the way her
breath felt as it pushed against the fabric of his
shirt and seemed to touch the skin beneath it.

"Do you?" she asked him with the hint of a smile.

"All this free time on my hands. I pay more attention
to some things than I used to. I realized last night
that it's been, what, five years since I've been in an
ER? And the last time was when I sliced my hand
chopping up a scallion."

He felt her nodding against him.

"Our life now. It's so different than what it was.
Sometimes I miss it. Sometimes I miss running after a
lead at two o'clock in the morning. I miss talking
about toxicology reports with you. I miss wondering
where we'll go next and what we'll find there." He
paused. "But you don't, do you?"

"I miss those things sometimes too."

Her voice sounded like it was coming from a distance,
and he wondered if it was because she was looking back
in time just as far as he was.

"It's what I don't miss that made me stay away this
time." Her fingers toyed with his, wrapping around
them and sliding over his skin with a feather-light
touch. "I don't miss the danger. And I don't miss
feeling like we were the only good in a sea of evil.
And..."

She stopped suddenly and he looked down to see that
she was biting lightly on her lower lip.

"And what?" he pressed her gently. "You can tell me."

He felt her hand pull away, and the rest of her body
followed before he could even think to stop it. She
drew back a few inches and tucked one leg underneath
her, turning to face him even as her eyes refused to
rise and meet his own.

"It's going to sound selfish, and small, and I'm not
sure it's even fair."

"I can take it," he reassured her.

"Old times for us were... it was you and the work. You
were so focused on finding the answers we needed,
whatever they were. We were in the car, and you were
driving, and it was like your eyes were always
straight ahead on the road in front of us. But for all
these years now, we've been out of the car. And it's
felt like... like your eyes..."

Her voice faltered and she shook her head once or
twice like she couldn't bring herself to finish the
thought. He reached out for her hand again and brought
it back toward him, resting both of their hands
together on the edge of his knee.

"Like my eyes were on you."

Her head jerked up rather sharply and she squinted at
him with obvious disbelief. He'd suspected she didn't
really believe him when he told her he was paying more
attention to things these days than he had before.

"Well, yes." She sounded almost as surprised as she'd
been the first time he'd remembered her birthday.

He swept his free hand across his chin and lips,
pausing to rub the stubble that was breaking through
skin still sensitive from the absence of his beard.

"Scully, my eyes have been on you for as long as I can
remember. But I can see how it didn't always seem that
way. Back in the day. We didn't talk about things back
then. We probably should have, but we didn't. Now, we
talk, and you know how I feel, and you know where you
stand. That's the difference."

She sighed. "It's more than that."

"Well, maybe that's true. There's been nothing else on
my plate. Nothing at all for the longest time. And
maybe I didn't even realize how much I missed having
something to *do* until this case came along. But you
have to understand, Scully. Even if I picked up a
badge and a gun again - and I'm not going to, but if I
did - everything has changed."

"What do you mean?" Her chin was quivering just as it
had when she'd asked him the same question in the
front yard today, the early light of morning dancing
over the unshed tears in her eyes.

"I mean that no matter where the day takes me, I'll
always come home to you when the day ends. And
darkness can follow me, but it doesn't live in me
anymore. There's no room for it when you're here."

She lowered her eyes, and he knew she was trying to
keep him from seeing any more tears. There'd been too
many tears during these past few days. It wasn't that
the past six years had been free of sadness, but he
felt like the FBI had just blown through their lives
again, taking everything that lay below the surface,
unspoken, and cranking it up to level ten.

"I know that now." She was trying to sound strong and
steady, but he heard the catch in her voice, faint as
it was. "I just never really believed that we'd ever
have what we have now. And I know it hasn't been
perfect, and I know that you've been frustrated, but
sometimes it still amazes me when I walk through that
door and you're here, and I wake up and you're there.
It's like I'm afraid we're still in that cave, under
the mushrooms and the spores, being slowly digested,
and this is all some kind of hallucination. I don't
know. I'm rambling."

He squeezed her hand as tightly as he could without
hurting her.

"This is real," he told her. Insistent. Sure of
himself. "This isn't going anywhere. We deserved
this."

"Yes," she whispered. "We did."

"And nothing and no one is going to come in here and
fuck this up. It's not going to happen."

She laughed quietly and the sound made his heart
expand to fill all the empty space in the center of
his chest.

"Mulder..." She breathed out his name with the
smallest hint of reproach for his rougher language.

"I'm serious," he said, the tease in his voice belying
the literal meaning of the words as he disengaged his
hand from hers and began running his fingers along the
inside of her wrist. "The FBI, crazy Russians, the
darkness out there, super soldiers, the world... they
can all just bring it the fuck on because nothing is
ever going to interfere with what's between us."

This time the laugh he heard was loud and unguarded.
She sounded light and free again for the first time in
a long time, and it made him laugh in return. When her
smile finally faded, it didn't leave her eyes, and he
realized she simply wanted to tell him something she
considered worthy of her most serious face.

"Thank you."

She looked at him with such bare sincerity that he had
to fight the familiar twitching of tears gathering
behind the corners of his eyes.

"Eh..." He shrugged off the gratitude in his typically
uncomfortable way. "I just want to make sure you don't
have any doubt about that."

"Like I said," she told him in a voice that suddenly
sounded several levels deeper than it had been a few
seconds before, "thank you."

He smiled, happy as he always was to bask in words
that let him know he'd said the right thing for a
change. He and Scully didn't say "I love you" as often
as he imagined most people did. Maybe they should say
it more, he thought, but it wasn't really their way.
It sounded a little too ordinary, too common to sum up
what they felt. But he always heard it in her words at
moments like this.

And at moments like this, he realized he should have
heard it in the things she said to him for years
before they'd finally admitted that what they had was
something more than friendship. He should have heard
it because he knew now that it had been there for a
very long time, just as it had been implicit in so
many of the things he'd said to her.

What could he say to her to explain that she meant
everything to him? Was there a shorthand for telling
her that he'd travel to the ends of the earth a
thousand times to save her? That he'd step in front of
a bullet or a speeding car and the only thought in his
mind, even as he gave his life for hers, would be
regret that he was leaving her alone? That they could
offer him his sister and his son and the key to saving
the whole world from an invasion and he wouldn't take
any of it if they asked him to walk away from her? "I
love you" really didn't do it justice.

When she stood and pulled at his hand, he realized
that he'd been staring at her with a slightly goofy
look on his face, lost in the once unfamiliar feeling
of being happy.

"It's late," she told him. "Let's go to bed."

"Okay," he offered brightly. "You must be tired after
such a long day."

"Not really, no."

There was no mistaking that tone. After seven odd
years, his ears were tuned perfectly to pick up the
sounds of arousal and invitation. He didn't hear those
notes as often as he had in the very beginning, but it
still struck the same deep chord inside him whenever
he did.

She walked deliberately, tugging him along behind her
as she moved gracefully up the stairs that led to
their small second floor, consisting only of a master
bedroom and a much smaller room that could have housed
guests if they ever had them but instead served as her
workspace at home.

He grinned at the look that passed over her face when
she noticed that the bed was still half unmade. He
knew she hated the fact that he was still in touch
with his inner slob, almost as much as she hated the
comforter that covered their bed.

He'd spilled orange juice all over the last one, a
tasteful off-white quilt that hadn't survived the
large dose of Vitamin C he gave it. Before she could
order a new one, he'd assured her that he could find
something nice on the internet. She'd tried to brush
him off and he'd complained that nothing in the
bedroom reflected his taste or his input except the
fish tank. When he'd presented her with his purchase a
few days later and informed her that it reminded him
of crop circles, she'd scowled for a few minutes
before she helped him unfold it and spread it out over
the mattress.

Now, he was enjoying the feeling of being pulled down
to lie against her in the middle of that blue field
that evoked the things that once filled him with
wonder. Every night in this bed was like the late
realization of a fantasy from his trip to England
eight years before, the one from which he'd returned
to find her looking at him in an entirely different
way. With all the loss and sorrow they'd suffered in
their lives together, he sometimes found it hard to
contain the feeling of joy that washed over him when
he thought of the good things they'd managed to find.

He pulled her body tightly against his and was pleased
to hear her breath catch as he did it. Eyes closed
tightly, his lips still found hers without any
hesitation or unfortunate facial collisions. He didn't
need a map when he knew the route by heart. He began
kissing her slowly and deeply, sliding his tongue into
her mouth in a meager attempt to communicate the
overwhelming tenderness he was feeling for her after
too many difficult days.

He was surprised to feel her pull back from the kiss,
her hand pressing lightly against his chest. She took
a few seconds to catch her breath before he felt her
other hand tenderly stroking the edge of his jaw.

"Mulder... I think I know how you want this to be
tonight. But that's not really what I need right now."

"I'm not following," he responded, sounding somewhat
puzzled and a little bit hurt. He absolutely needed
and wanted this to happen tonight, and he thought he
might actually cry if she stopped him at the gate.

"What I mean is..."

She turned her head to the side and he somehow knew,
even though he couldn't see her face well in the
darkness, that she was blushing. So. She wasn't going
to stop this but she had something to say.

When it came to the acts themselves, Scully was the
farthest thing from shy when they were in bed
together, but even after all these years, getting her
to verbalize what she wanted without dropping her
voice to a whisper and looking away was still a work
in progress. But he counted the fact that she was now
*able* to tell him what she wanted, even if she
sometimes seemed uncomfortable doing it, as a bold
stroke in the win column.

He often had to coax her, reassuring her that this was
okay and that nothing she could say would disappoint
him or sound ridiculous or turn him off. But he didn't
mind in the slightest. He drew her head back down
toward his and moved his lips against her ear.

"Whatever you need. Just tell me."

She let the silence hang in the air for a bit longer
before he heard her take a deep breath and begin to
speak again.

"I want... I don't want this to be slow, or sad. I
want... you to take this over." She pushed that same
breath out, now ragged, and he felt her turning her
head away from him again. So he reached to grab her
chin and pulled her back until her eyes were level
with his.

"Okay," he told her steadily. "I can do that."

He rose up on his knees and yanked his shirt off over
his head, letting his hands fall right back down to
loosen his belt and unbutton his jeans. There was just
enough light from a half-full moon for him to see the
way her eyes roamed over his chest and stomach as he
lay back to pull his jeans and boxer briefs down and
away. He might be pushing fifty - the thought
completely horrified him - but he was proud of himself
for staying in his old fighting shape, and he knew
that she had a particular appreciation for the hard
muscles that gave his torso its structure.

He saw her hands moving to the bottom edge of her soft
v-neck sweater, and he reached to still them.

"Let me. Sit up a minute."

He could see the features on her face beginning to
relax already. She really did want him to run the show
here tonight, although he wasn't completely sure he
understood why. He pushed the question out of his mind
and separated her from her sweater, his large hands
running roughly over her skin even as he took care not
to put too much pressure on the one that was still
bandaged. He easily unhooked the clasp of her bra in
the middle of her back with the good hand and slid the
garment slowly down her shoulders.

God, she was beautiful. How was it possible that she
could be getting more beautiful with all the time that
had passed? It was practically an X-File in itself...
but one where he didn't really care about finding the
answer and the explanation.

"Now lie back."

"And think of England?" she asked him innocently.

"No. Think of me," he told her in a low voice. "Think
of how it feels when I'm inside you."

She moaned when he spoke and he couldn't help feeling
a little proud of himself. He was awfully good at the
talking thing. Considering how many times she'd rolled
her eyes at him over the years while he droned on
about one theory or another, he would never have
guessed that she'd take so much pleasure in the things
he said to her when they were in bed.

In a few quick motions, he divested her of the slacks
she wore and of the low-cut black lace that covered
precious little anyway. She'd kicked the shoes off
herself at some point, and it took him no time at all
to pull the knee-high hose from her legs. There, he
thought, as his eyes swept over her slim form, laid
bare. Perfect.

He fell back down and covered half of her body with
half of his own, pressing her down into the mattress
while his mouth pressed hard kisses against the side
of her jaw, along her hairline, and in the hollow
where her long neck met a delicate shoulder. He was
moving more quickly than he normally would, as she had
asked, but still not too quickly. He wanted to enjoy
this. It had been nearly a week now since they'd made
love, and he wanted this to last for at least a little
while.

He found himself lingering next to her face. He
thought he knew what she was asking him for, but he
needed to be certain.

"Are you sure?" he asked her quietly. "You want me to
drive?"

She turned to catch his eyes and, this time, he was
the one who couldn't help glancing away uncertainly
for a second before he brought his gaze back to hers.

"I'm sure," she whispered.

"Even if you don't know where we're going?"

"I don't want to know." She smiled at him. "Just take
me there. Like old times."

"Like old times," he agreed. "Give me your hand."

He allowed himself to fall away from her as she raised
her hand to where she knew his would be waiting. He
curled his fingers around her wrist and then slid them
up toward the edges of her fingers, until the back of
her left hand fit within the outline of his palm, his
thumb hooked around her thumb so that he could better
guide her movement.

Gently but firmly, he moved her hand down and wrapped
her fingers around his shaft, which had been fully
erect since right after she made it clear that this
was going to happen tonight. Welcome to the life of a
man in a long-term relationship, he thought to
himself, just before he realized that it was going to
be hard to concentrate on random thoughts when she was
moving her hand like that.

He kept his own hand wrapped loosely around hers,
allowing it to be pulled along with her movements,
enclosing her just as she enclosed him.

"God, Scully... you know what I love? I love that you
know exactly how I like to be touched. I... oh yeah...
I used to wonder what this would feel like. Ten years
ago. Maybe longer. I'd be in a motel room next to
yours..."

He groaned and closed his eyes as she continued
grasping him firmly, then more lightly, all the while
stroking steadily up and down his length.

"I'd be in bed at night doing... mmmmmmm... just what
you're doing now. Except not as good. And I'd try...
to imagine how it would be if it were your hand. Your
mouth."

He heard her sigh deeply and felt fingers running
through his long, thinning hair, pushing it away from
his brow. Her thumb began to press more insistently on
the underside of his cock, running along the vein that
often felt like it might burst from the pressure.

"I always wanted to go in there. Where you were. I
wanted... unnnhhhhhh... I wanted to walk through the
door. I wanted you."

He could feel a familiar sensation building in his
testicles, threatening to erupt, and he quickly
grabbed her hand and pulled it away from him before
she brought the curtain down early on tonight's show.
He struggled to steady his breathing for a few
moments, smiling in spite of himself at the way she
continued to pull lightly at the strands of his hair.

Having gathered a small semblance of control again, he
turned back toward her, allowing her to see that
gentle smile on his face as he moved their hands -
still fitted together like glove on glove - across her
stomach and down, slowly, between her thighs.

He moved her fingers into the wetness he found there,
using his index and middle fingers to slide their
counterparts on her hand over the center of nerves
that he could feel was throbbing, filling with blood
in much the same way that the blood filled him. Once
again, he wordlessly encouraged her to set the flow of
their movement and simply allowed his own hand to
trail along hers.

"Before you and I... you know..."

"Slept together," she finished for him, words half
coherent, half senseless gasping, as she slid one
finger inside her and allowed one of his to follow.

"Yeah... I used to wonder if maybe you were on the
other side of that door. Doing this."

Still letting his hand move with hers, the two of them
began working their fingers in slow circles around and
over her clit, and he found that he couldn't tear his
eyes away from her face. He loved watching her at
times like this, times when she was beginning to let
herself go. Her brows knitting together with an
intense concentration while her lips parted and then
closed again with every breath. He loved the way that
her head would roll at three-quarter speed, back and
forth on the pillow, turning away and then turning
back as she let herself feel the sensations shooting
through her body.

"Mulder..." she whispered, sliding her hand out from
underneath his fingers. "You... touch me. Just you."

He leaned over to steal a kiss from her, unable to
resist the way her mouth hung open and seemed to be
inviting him to enter. He never broke contact with the
flesh that they'd been working together only a moment
before. But even as he felt her thrumming beneath his
fingers, he couldn't help himself from asking,
wondering how it was that he'd never asked her before.
Never quite this way.

"When you touched yourself, Scully... before... did
you think about me?" His voice had dropped to a more
modest register. Almost shy. Almost reluctant to ask
in case he ended up not liking the answer that she
gave him.

He heard her laugh lightly just as she sucked in
another deep breath.

"You tell me, Mulder."

"No," he told her quietly, slowing the rotations of
his fingers until they were barely moving and feeling
only slightly guilty when she groaned with regret.
"You tell me."

She opened her eyes, and it looked like it took some
great effort, almost like he was watching two garage
doors struggling upward along their chains.

"It's important to you," she huffed out in a
surprisingly matter-of-fact tone of voice.

"I want to know. I was thinking about you. And I
always imagined, back then, that you were thinking
about me. Stupid, huh?"

He could hear those familiar notes of self-loathing
creeping into his words, and he knew she wouldn't like
the sound. But instead of reproving him for being
silly, or stupid, or insecure, she brought both of her
hands to his face and pulled him down to her. She
kissed him fervently, and he started to feel lost in
the sensation of the moist lips suckling at him,
kissing him, moving over his mouth like they belonged
there as much as his own lips did.

He sighed sadly when she pulled away.

"It took me a long time, Mulder," she told him, and he
heard the regret in her words. "I couldn't let myself
feel those things for a long time, not even in the
dark. Not even when I was alone. I knew what was
there, right under the surface, and I thought I'd get
lost in it."

He tried to hide the disappointment he imagined was
creeping across his face. He shouldn't have asked. It
wasn't important anyway. That was a long time ago, and
this was now. He returned his attentions to stroking
her, pushing the question and the answer out of his
mind. So he was unprepared for the feeling of her hand
covering his own and bringing him to a gradual stop.

"Mulder."

He loved the way his name rolled off her tongue. Found
himself wanting to send a thank-you note to himself at
age thirty-two for insisting that Scully not call him
Fox.

"I walked in on you once," she told him, the long-
suppressed guilt breaking right through. "We'd been
partners for maybe four years and you'd left the
connecting door ajar one night, and I didn't realize
you were already in bed and that the lights in your
room were off because I was thinking about the report
in my hand, and I..."

"You walked in on me?!" He wasn't certain why he cared -
after all, he'd be hard-pressed to count the number
of times he'd stroked himself in front of her when
they were having sex - but he was horrified just the
same. "You walked in on my jerking off? Jesus."

He could see that Scully was trying very hard to
stifle a smile.

"I didn't see very much, Mulder. I realized right away
what was going on and that you didn't know I was
there. I only watched you for half a minute."

"You watched me?!" He brought his bandaged hand up to
his eyes and covered them, embarrassed more for the
man he used to be than for the man he now was.

"Only for a bit," she murmured. "I couldn't... it was
strange... I couldn't walk away. I was frozen there
and it seemed like an hour before I could move again.
Because I just knew somehow that you were..."

She paused.

"That you were imagining me. Imagining us."

"Well if it was any time after 1996, I don't think
there's any question," he told her, sounding a little
indignant.

"I know," she told him softly.

"And you didn't feel the same way." J'accuse! he
thought to himself.

"No... I did. That was the problem. So I turned around
and went back inside my room and I tried to just... to
forget."

"Why are you telling me this?"

She shrugged.

"Because you asked. And because I don't know how else
to explain to you how hard it was for me to let you
in."

Her voice was suddenly full of emotion, having gone
from amusement to something far more mournful in not
much more than the blink of an eye.

"And now that I've let you in... now that you're
here... I can't handle the thought of you ever not
being here."

Her voice broke just as she finished speaking, and he
found himself searching her face for the tears he knew
he'd find there. He wasn't disappointed.

He lay flat against the bed and gathered her into his
arms until her head was tucked into the nook where his
chest and shoulder met.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised her.

He could barely hear the sob catching in her throat,
but he felt it rumbling against his skin.

"Last night..." she choked out.

"Ssshhhhhh. I'm alright. You saved me."

"One of these days... if I'd been even a few seconds
late... if I'd walked a little slower, or taken a
wrong turn..."

"But you didn't," he whispered. "And I'm okay. You'll
always save me, Scully. You always have."

"And when the day comes that I can't?!"

"I don't believe in that day."

"Maybe you should."

"No. I'll be more careful, and you'll be you, and
something out there... someone... will be on our side
like it always has been."

"You're not charmed, you know, Mulder. Whatever you
might think."

He bent down to kiss the top of her head.

"Not charmed. Just very lucky. You're my luck, Scully.
Something watches over you, and you watch over me."

She sniffled several times and he was so happy to have
her in his arms like this, opening up to him like she
never had when they were younger, that he didn't even
feel that badly about his now-flagging erection.

"You don't believe in God," she told him dismissively,
and he laughed out loud at the accusation.

Deciding that it was time to push the evening back on
track, he deftly slid his body out to the left and
then rolled himself on top of her, nestling himself in
the space between her legs.

"Well..." He bent his head to her ear again and
lowered his voice, wanting her to hear all of the want
there, and all of the need, and all of the sometimes
overwhelming affection he felt for her. "You do. You
believe in God. And I believe in you. Transitive
property."

He reached down to take himself in hand and bring all
flags at half-mast back to attention, finding that
this was unfamiliar territory for his uninjured left
hand. Still, he was amused all over again at how he'd
do this without a second thought now and was
completely mortified by the idea that she'd seen him
doing it ten years ago.

"Transitive... really." She sounded skeptical. He knew
he was a completely lost cause the day he realized
that he loved her skeptical tone of voice almost more
than any other.

"Mmmmm hmmmmmm."

Frustrated with the awkwardness of his left hand, he
slid his body farther up along hers and began rubbing
the very tip of his cock against her clit. Yeah, that
did the trick for him. And from the sounds she was
making, it was definitely doing the trick for her.

"Jesus, Mulder!"

His back rose up in a beautiful curve and then dipped
again at his neck where he leaned down to rub his
cheek against hers, humming as he did it and knowing
that the rough stubble on his face was giving her
contrast. A little bit of pain here, a lot of pleasure
elsewhere. Roughness at one end of her body, and a
pure, slick smoothness working over her at the other.

He always enjoyed teasing her this way, but it wasn't
always a tease. As often as he'd play there this way,
lingering at the entrance to her body just before
sliding inside it, there were many times when he'd
stay right where he was and make her come just from
the friction of his cock rubbing against her. He liked
to mix it up a bit. Keep it interesting. And he liked
that she never knew whether or not he was going to
enter her at a moment like this one. Never knew if
he'd choose to bring her to orgasm this way first and
worry about fucking her later.

Much as he ached, and as sensitive as the head of his
cock was becoming, he could also see how close she was
and he was reluctant to break her away from that
glorious build that was beginning to etch itself into
the soft lines of her face.

"Mulder... aren't you... please..." He felt the tips
of her fingers pressing into the flesh of his ass and
struggling to pull him inside her.

"Just wait," he gritted out. "Not yet. I'm...
driving... remember?"

She gasped again in frustration, but the gasp was
interrupted by a much deeper moan coming from
somewhere deep inside her. He could see that it had
caught her by surprise. He increased the pace at which
his hips were moving and let his fingers slide down
the edge of his cock to take over the hard work of
taking her right over the edge.

She lasted maybe a few more seconds before he watched
her face contorting in that unbelievably erotic way it
did when she was particularly tense and the relief was
particularly welcome. Pain, joy, and release all
merged into one incredible look of rapture. He was a
lucky man alright.

He waited for the first hint of discomfort to appear
on her face and immediately removed his touch from the
wet warmth where he'd like to set up camp and stay
forever. Maybe build a fire. Like Dances With Wolves.

She was still breathing hard, but she managed to fling
a hand over on top of his chest when he flopped back
down beside her. That hand moved across the place just
above his heart, tracing lazy patterns there as she
came back to herself.

"Thank you," she whispered, and he was a little
flummoxed by the idea of being thanked right now.
Didn't she know how much he enjoyed doing this with
her? For her? He didn't need to be thanked. So he told
her so.

"Scully, don't thank me for doing something I love to
do. It's weird."

She turned and gave him one of her brightest smiles.
Teeth and everything.

"Sorry," she told him, sounding contrite as the smile
faded a bit. "It's hard to find the words sometimes.
To tell you."

"To tell me what?" He nuzzled her cheek again.

"That... I'm grateful. For you. For what you give me."

He'd always thought that hearts only broke when they
were hurting. But sometimes, when she looked at him
the way she was looking at him now, and she said
something that caught him completely off guard with
its honesty and simplicity, he could swear he felt
something splintering inside his chest. He decided it
must be what you feel when something moves you too
much for words and too much for tears.

So he said nothing. He simply turned and let his head
fall to her breast, sliding his ear around until he
could hear the beating underneath her skin. They lay
together like that for a little while, just listening
to the silence and watching the shadows shifting in
the room as the moon followed its arc through the sky
outside. Long enough, he soon realized, that they'd
started breathing in unison.

"So, I've been thinking, Mulder." Her voice was so
soft and low that it would have been lost if there'd
been any other sound in their bedroom at all.

"Thinking?" he muttered.

"Like you suggested."

Her voice dropped another notch. Was that even
possible, he wondered? Any lower and he'd probably
have to be a bat to catch the sound.

"I'm thinking about how you feel when you're moving
inside me."

Damn. He must have done something awfully good at some
point in his life to have ended up with Scully.

"And about the way you look when you're there."

One of her hands pulled at his left side, encouraging
him to move back on top of her, while the other played
with the hair at the base of his skull and massaged
the tired muscles there.

"Come into me, Mulder." It was barely a whisper but he
heard it. Because he knew what to listen for. "Come to
me."

They'd agreed that he would be at the wheel tonight,
but when the woman he loved - the only woman he'd ever
really loved, he understood now - was asking him to
fuck her... well, for once, he didn't feel much like
arguing with her.

"Tell you what, Scully..." In a flash, he rolled and
pulled her on top of him despite her best efforts to
effect the opposite result. "I think you'll have to
ride because I'm not sure my right hand can take my
weight. Besides, this is always the best view for me."

"And for me," she murmured.

And before he could think of a clever retort, he felt
her sliding down on him, all of the heat inside her
surrounding him, strong inner muscles contracting all
along the length of him. She pushed as far down as she
could go, never stopping until she'd settled herself
against the base of his cock.

This was good. Sometimes he thought that this was all
he really wanted anymore. To be joined with her this
way. To feel her all around him. Like a blanket. Like
a shield. Like armor. Like acceptance he'd searched
for all of his life and never found until he'd looked
up one day and found it staring back at him in the
form of his perfect opposite.

She was moving now, pushing herself up and then back
down, so slowly, and it was like being in a trance to
watch her doing it. He thrust his hips upward to meet
her every other time she moved to take him back in,
and he loved the way she gasped when he did.

He brought his left hand up to grasp her neck just
below where the edge of her jaw was setting hard with
concentration. He ran his thumb along the joint there,
trying to relax the muscle he could see flexing even
in near darkness.

"That's it, Scully... yes... just like that... God, I
love this... so beautiful... I waited... such a long
time... for you..."

"I know," she managed to breathe out as her pattern
picked up speed and lost a little of its grace. "Too
many years... too much time... too dark..."

"It's light here now," he told her fiercely, thrusting
up harder against her, pushing himself up from this
bed in the middle of a nearly pitch black room.
Twisting a little so that his pelvic bone hit her in
just the perfect spot. "Let it try... to find us...
where it's so light."

He saw the smile and the tears crossing her face at
the same time, intersecting somewhere in a burst of
brightness that lit up everything in his field of
vision. He felt the spasms from her inner muscles like
sparks all around him, and he heard her crying out,
and he wanted to look at her now and watch the way her
face danced with light that could have only come from
somewhere inside them... light that didn't exist on
its own in a dark house in the dead of night. But she
pulled him along with her in a wild release of
pleasure and grief and fear, and he was lost in it.
Letting go of everything, here, for now, together.

He felt her collapse against him and he held her to
his chest as tightly as he could, like he could
somehow meld her flesh with his own if only he were
strong enough. If only the world worked that way. If
only the light could always stay.

"Don't give up," she whispered thoughtfully, wisps of
breath from her mouth bouncing off his skin. "It
sounds so simple. Like it's easy to say."

"We've never given up." He realized that he was
stroking the back of her neck, running his finger over
the scar that covered the chip there. "It's not who we
are."

"You really believe that something... God or
something... was speaking through a fallen priest."

"It makes sense. Who could understand redemption
better than someone who needs it above all others? Who
could understand hope better than someone who knows
what it is to take hope away from someone else? Knows
what it is to look for it again."

Resting her head just beneath his chin, she reached up
and touched his face tenderly.

"I always wanted to believe that God could be
speaking. But I was afraid that no one was listening.
That I wasn't listening."

"And now?" He kissed the tips of her fingers as they
passed across his lips.

"And now... now a storm is coming. We've told
ourselves that there'll be time. But I wonder. I
wonder if all of this was meant to remind us... meant
to remind *me* that we can't hide from the storm."

Yes, he thought, as if he were remembering something
he'd been told once that had somehow slipped away from
him. Lying here now, on a bed made of crop circles, he
realized that he'd never really forgotten. A storm.
Soon.

"Let the storm come," he told her, taking her hand in
his and holding her even closer as his eyes searched
above him until they found the light of a fading moon.
"Let it come. We'll be ready."

END

Author's Notes: I can't take credit for coming up with
the idea that those grommet things on Mulder and
Scully's comforter might resemble crop circles, but I
also can't remember who first drew the comparison and
at which message board. You know who you are and I
thank you for the inspiration. It would make my whole
year if the set decorator for IWTB participated in the
DVD commentary.

Thanks also to Mack and Namarie for giving us ATTHS.
It's practically this year's "truthiness" already.

And last thing... I haven't forgotten about A Star
Like a White City (is it AU now?). I've been working
on Part 5. But the film. Come on. I've seen it seven
times. I needed an outlet.