The Cry of the Truth, 13/22
A Gift for Burning
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: NC-17 (sexual activity, language, descriptions of rape)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)
Summary: After ending her affair with Mulder, Scully meets Ed Jerse.

Please forward to ATXC and Gossamer. Thanks.

See part 01 for the Disclaimer.

*From the Author: Let me spoil my own story, and hopefully buy
your tolerance of this chapter, by saying that yes! this story will have a
happy MSR ending. Like a house, a story has to be built in pieces,
and this chapter is not one of the pretty pieces. I considered calling
this story "Great Expectations," because many of the problems come
from the characters' failing to live up to their expectations of each
other. With that in mind, let me reiterate what I said in the beginning:
Mulder and Scully may not live up to your expectations in this story.
They are portrayed as having many all-too-human flaws. They are
capable of hurting each other. Both have made and will make serious
mistakes.

   If I'm lonely
   it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
   in the last red light of the year
   that knows what it is, that know it's neither
   ice nor mud nor winter light
   but wood, with a gift for burning
                  Adrienne Rich, "Song"

Scully unlocked the door to the basement office at six-thirty, before the
sun was all the way out of its eastern couch. Sleep had become
irrelevant at this point. When she finally closed her eyes at four-thirty
in the morning, she could not rest. She was chilled to the bone from
their argument at the Mall, as well as from the cold night air. After an
hour of staring at the ceiling, she took a shower, put her red suit back
on, and went out into the predawn.

If I wanted a lover, I should've looked elsewhere, she told herself as
she paced about the dark office. But I wanted to know what it felt like
to be the focus of *his* complexity, his genius, his -- his angst. I
wanted to experience the sexual translation of the language he speaks.
I thought I understood its expressions. My expectations were founded
on my own naivete. I thought I was taking a lover. What I got was
much more than that. Too much.

She paused at her desk, which was actually a credenza in the rear
alcove of the office. From her e-mail inbox, she retrieved a message
she had read and reread several times already. Stuart Novak had
written to say that he would be coming to New York for a few weeks
on a press tour for a film he had completed before his visit to
Washington. Dana wondered if he had regrown his silky silver beard
since returning from filming in Morocco. It softened his intimidating
countenance. She had told him so, quite often.

She closed the message and paced around the room again. Here,
surrounded by the detritus of Mulder's obsession, she felt a sense of
alienation that she hadn't experienced in years. Since he first fixed his
sultry gaze on her, and leaned a little too close to ask her if she
believed in extraterrestrials, she had been unable to see the situation for
what it really was. Mulder was an addict, the dark, unsolvable puzzles
his drug. In turn, he was her drug. She was utterly and absolutely
addicted to him.

In the far corner of the office stood the old black vertical file cabinet
that marked the site of their first kiss. She could easily call up the
feeling of his lips brushing hers for the first time, and the surprise she
had registered when she realized just how gentle he could be. He held
her hand as he kissed her cheeks, forehead, and nose, before finally
returning to her mouth. Sighing against her lips, he seemed to steady
himself before first touching his tongue to the sensitive underside of
her upper lip.

>From that point there was no more denying her need for him. Now
she just had to figure out how to live without having him as anything
more than a partner. And after the things they had said to each other
last night, he was not even a friend.

Sitting at his desk, Dana considered his nameplate. What an odd name
he had. He had certainly lived up to its singularity. On Saturday he
had asked her to marry him...a joke, of course, but still she wondered
if he would expect her to change her name if she became his wife.
Probably not. He had said last night that their life together could never
be conventional. Even if it were possible, she doubted that being
called Dana Mulder would suit her.

Just before eight, Mulder stormed in and out of the office in a petulant
whirlwind, muttering something about being forced by Personnel to
take his accumulated leave or be fined. Dana suspected it was an
excuse to get away from her, and from the shame he might (he damn
well *should*, she determined) feel over their argument. Once again
he had asked her to enable his addiction by taking on a ridiculous case.
She had tried to refuse. She intended to refuse. Then she realized that
if she didn't go to Philadelphia, the temptation to take the shuttle up to
New York and fall back into bed with Stuart would be too great. She
was in no mood to fight temptation, or anything else, after yesterday.
Besides, it would just be another example of how idiotic Mulder could
be at times. The more negatives she could cite to herself, the faster she
could stop loving him.

Yeah, right.

She went to Philadelphia.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Slightly...tipsy. Somewhat...buzzed. Oh, forget it. Drunk.

Why vodka? Seemed appropriate after a day pursuing Boris Badenov.
Besides, it left few traces. No smell, no color, no taste -- well, no
taste if you didn't call that burning bitterness a taste. By the time she
returned to Ed Jerse's apartment, just before midnight, Dana's nerves
were singing with the combination of the vodka and the tattoo. The
experience had been invigorating, titillating, liberating -- she was still
struggling to define it to herself as Ed closed the door behind them.

She watched him move around the room, touching his desk, his chair,
the windowsill. He was nervous. She supposed she was the first
woman he had been with since his divorce. He seemed too young to
have two kids and an ex-wife, although Dana suspected that his face
would remain boyish when he was fifty. Ed Jerse would never make
a distinguished old man. Not like Stuart Novak. No. But she
wouldn't be with Ed when he was fifty, and that was just fine. For
now was good enough.

Inexplicably, Dana felt that his face was familiar to her. It was that
vague familiarity, more than any sort of original attraction, that drew
her to him. That and the fact that, beneath the cigarette smoke, he
smelled wonderful, like lime and sandalwood.

His kiss was sadly lacking in inspiration. That much was clear with
the first touch of his lips to hers. Dana was not particularly surprised,
nor was she disappointed. She wanted that part of her life to be dead.
Mulder had effectively proven to her that sex led only to heartbreak
and ruin, just like the songs said.

As Ed held her and rubbed her back, carefully avoiding the tattooed
area, Dana tried to tell herself that her feelings for Mulder had been
nothing more than a sexual response. The accelerated firing of
neurotransmitters in answer to stimuli. Had biochemistry sustained
six years of commitment to Mulder? And was it commitment, or
addiction? If biochemistry allows addiction then, after a short period
of withdrawal, I should be fine, she mused.

And to get through the withdrawal period, a little distraction would be
helpful...

She looked up at Ed and tried to smile.

"Ed...I've just broken off a -- a --" A friendship that meant more to
me than my own life, she thought, flinching inwardly.

"It's okay, Dana. Really." Ed reached for her hand and brought it to
his lips. He kissed her knuckles and then smiled back at her, his dark
eyes void of challenge. "Why don't we both get some sleep? You
look beat. I know I am."

She nodded and sighed. "You're right. It's been a rough few days.
I'll take the couch --"

"No, no. Let me. I don't sleep much anyway."

Dana tried to shrug off the familiar ring of his words, but could not
stop the image of Mulder's sleepy face, eyes drooping, long lashes
sweeping his cheekbones, mouth lolling open slightly as he pushed
back against the pillows in her bed. One arm rested on the pillow
above his head; one knee was cocked, tenting the sheet over his bare,
spent body. Weary from their lovemaking, he watched her through
slitted eyes as she moved about her bedroom, preparing to join him in
sleep.

She turned away from Ed.

The emotional exhaustion of the past few days colluded with the vodka
to send her off to sleep soon after her head touched Ed's pillow. And
it conspired with the vodka to bring back the nightmare of Alex
Krychek, his knee in the small of her back, pressing her face-down
into the sticky vinyl upholstery of a narrow couch. When she tried to
lift her head, her cheek peeled painfully away from the fabric, but not
for long -- his palm came down on her head, and her face was back in
the cushion again. Again he was pronouncing his curses in his low,
steady voice, occasionally lapsing into Russian, and using Mulder's
name like an invective. His other hand clawed between her legs, and
then she felt a searing pain that seemed to go right up her spine and
into her head.

She sat up in Ed's bed, sweaty, tearful, and alone. And without really
remembering calling out for him, she knew that Mulder's name
lingered on her lips like the taste of his kiss.

Ed appeared in the bedroom doorway, clad in undershirt and trousers,
his hair tousled. He moved toward her quietly, as if afraid of waking
her.

"Dana? You okay?" he asked in his soft voice.

"Yeah. Just a bad dream," she replied, wiping her tears against the
back of her hand.

Ed sat on the edge of the bed. His movements were jerky and
uncertain, as if he were wearing another man's body.

"Sometimes it helps to talk about it," he suggested, his voice thick
with sleep.

The dingy sheen of the streetlight leached through the slats of the
blinds that cloaked the window at the head of the bed. The light fell
across Ed's face, bringing his cheekbones into sharp relief above the
smooth plane of his jaw. He awaited Dana's reply with the patience
and understanding that had encouraged her to spin a vodka-enhanced,
two-penny self-analysis to satisfy his interest in her. Mulder had
looked at her that way, not so long ago; being the center of Mulder's
attention had turned her resolve to frank arousal.

"I -- There was a man," she began, trying once again to fill the
expectant void that Ed had created. "There was a man who I knew
from my job. Four years ago, he -- he hurt me...very badly. And
now...well, now I can't seem to keep what he did to me from
interfering with my life."

"Oh, Dana," Ed sighed. He scooted closer to her and put a hand on
her shoulder. He squeezed her through the thin fabric of the white
shirt he had lent her. "You can't let the past rule the present. You'd
just be turning back around on yourself, like that snake on your back."

She exhaled a dismissive laugh, and with the movement, her hair
brushed his hand. Ed's hand strayed from her shoulder to her hair.
He rubbed a hank of it between his thumb and forefinger, assessing
the silky thickness of it. Dana watched the fascination she had seen in
the tattoo shop returning to his face, and with it arose in her a
repetition of the strange arousal she had felt during the experience.

"Ed, I...oh..."

Her feeble protest turned into a sigh as he caressed her cheek with the
back of his hand. He moved closer once again, and cupped her face
between his hands. When he kissed her, Dana felt nothing more than
she had earlier. But now the memory of her nightmare was fresh in
her mind, and she was hungry for anything that might obliterate it. So
she silenced her doubts and returned the kiss.

Ed swept his tongue across her lips, and she readily opened herself to
him. He tasted of cigarettes and the gin-soaked olives from the
martinis he had drunk in the bar. The ashy taste stirred a deep sense
memory of the cigarettes she had stolen as a girl, then of the cigarettes
she had smoked in a cosmic rage over Mulder's infatuation with a
small-town detective a few years ago. Suddenly she wished she had
taken the evening's rebellion one step further and smoked one of Ed's
cigarettes. At this point, what was the point of prudence? What was
left to lose, really? She had lost Mulder, and Stuart. Her sister and
father were dead. Her work had alienated her once and for all from
her mother and brothers. But of all those losses, the one that she rued
the most was the loss of her numbness. She had worked hard to
silence her memories of being raped. Since confessing her secret to
Mulder, the pain of the experience had resurged anew. She had
thought that telling Mulder would be just a formality. But Mulder had
expected more.

Ed was pressing her down into the mattress, his fingers dispatching
the buttons of her shirt as continued to kiss her. Once she was on her
back, he parted the shirt and slid his warm hands around her waist.
He was murmuring something under his breath, but Dana was
working hard not to listen, not to feel, not to think. She tried to focus
on the sensation of strange hands coming up to cup and knead her
breasts. Lips that had never called her by her last name nipped at her
flesh. Her nipples were licked by a tongue that had never spoken to
her about a boy who was lightening, or a man who was also a
parasite, or any of the other unfathomable topics that she and Mulder
had studied over the years. Ed was whispering again, something
about her hair and her skin and the way she smelled, but the only
words that Dana could hear inside her head had been uttered by
another dark-eyed young man. "Here your brains, your spotless
record, your pretty face make no difference. Just a cunt. That's all.
You understand, don't you Scully?"

Trembling fingers skittered over her belly and into the thatch of hair at
the crux of her thighs. Ed's tongue thrust in and out of her mouth as
his index finger plunged into her body. With his left hand, he caught
her wrists together and pinned her arms over her head. She
whimpered, and he paused to listen. Dana could no longer hear her
own voice; every sound in the room had been replaced by the memory
of her silent screams in the only warm room in that cold, white place.
Unfortunately Ed took the her utterances for expressions of pleasure
and anticipation, and pressed a second finger into her. And then a
third.

Dana struggled to free her arms, surprising Ed with her strength. He
chuckled with delight as she pushed against his shoulders. As he
opened his fly, he held her down with a hand over her sternum. Again
he was talking to her, small words about her body and its effect on
him. When he grabbed her bare thighs in his hands and pulled her
legs apart, Dana's brain was jarred back to the present. For a moment
she surveyed the scene as if from a great distance, his words filtering
through her terror like a thready transatlantic telephone call.

"I want you, Dana." His words were slightly slurred and his voice
tremulous and rather high-pitched, like a teenage boy's. "God, you're
beautiful. Your pussy is so red, it's like a rose. Like a red rose. Do
you want me to go down on you first? I'm not very good at it, my
wife -- ex-wife -- said I wasn't, but I could give it a try. Or do you
just want me to fuck you?"

For a split second, some part of Dana Scully -- the little girl who had
been left behind too many times by her father, the adolescent rejected
by boys who were felt diminished by her brainy reticence, the woman
who had just lost the love of her life in a battle that spoke of their
mutual fear of dependence and loss -- for a moment, some suffering
part of her said, let him do it. Let him hurt you. You deserve it.

**No.**

She gasped for her voice. As with Krychek, she found that she could
form no words. Instead she wriggled out from under his grasp and
swung her legs off the bed. Ed laughed lightly and, closing his hands
around her waist, pulled her back. He lifted her easily and pressed her
into the mattress, this time on her belly.

"Yeah, that's better. This way I can see your tattoo. Lift your ass, so I
can see your cunt too." He climbed up on his knees and positioned
himself between her legs. "It's so beautiful, Dana. Like the pictures
I've seen on the Web, but better, because you've got hair. Why do
those women shave their --"

"Ed. Stop. Now." His prattling had given her the extra moment she
needed to find her voice. She looked into Ed's crestfallen face and
shook her head. "No. This is not going to happen."

Even in the dim streetlight, she could see him blush with shame.

"Dana, I'm so sorry. I thought --"

"I know you did, and I'm sorry too."

She hurriedly buttoned the shirt, then headed into the bathroom. There
she found a clean washcloth, which she ran under a stream of warm
water and used to methodically clean herself where he had touched
her. She rinsed the cloth carefully and scrubbed between her legs
again.

When she returned to the bedroom, Ed had straightened the sheets and
blanket, as if to erase all signs of what had just taken place. His
trousers had been closed and his tee shirt tucked in. He stood
awkwardly at the end of the bed, slouching and shaking his head as
she pulled on her pantyhose.

"I never meant to hurt you," he said softly. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Ed. I was kind of out of it -- the vodka, I guess -- and I
didn't quite understand what was going on until you had already
gotten the wrong idea." She stepped into her black pants, then
buttoned and zipped them. She looked around the dark room for her
sweater. "I should really go now, Ed."

"There's freezing rain," he said dully. "Look out the window."

She peered through the blinds and saw that the street was indeed
glossed with ice. Her rental car was parked below, the windshield
white with ice. No cars passed. In the beam of the nearest streetlight,
she detected the steady shower that poured from the night sky.

"You're right," she said, facing him again. "I suppose -- Ed, are you
okay?"

"Headache," he mumbled, rubbing his forehead with the fingers that
had so recently invaded her. "Please stay. I promise I'll leave you
alone. It's just that I heard you crying after your nightmare and I
wanted to help you...I can't believe I --"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Ed," she said, not completely certain
of her words. "I asked you to stop, and you did. That's good.
That's what you're supposed to do. We had a misunderstanding,
that's all. And we're probably both still a little drunk."

She sighed. Why was comforting this man who, when all was said
and told, had almost raped her?

"Go back to sleep if you can, Ed," she said. With a sad half-smile,
she added, "I'll see you in the morning."

*Note: Expect a delay in receiving part 14; I'm moving this weekend.
Advance apologies!

End The Cry of the Truth 13/22


The Cry of the Truth, 14/22
Heart Into Stone
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: R (language, adult conflicts)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)
Summary: After Scully's encounter with Ed Jerse, a heartbroken
Mulder confronts her.


   So much to do today:
   kill memory, kill pain,
   turn heart into stone,
   and yet prepare to live again.
         -- Anna Akhmatova

Dana vomited in the bathroom where she had tried to wash away the
evidence of her encounter with Ed the night before. She could not
remember the last time she had eaten; most of what came up was
vodka and bile produced in painful, wrenching heaves. She rinsed her
mouth with tap water and spat in the sink. And then, as she was about
to leave, she caught a glimpse of her own blurry image in the mirror.
The rivulets of blood zigzagging from a cut on her forehead reminded
her of a something Mulder had tried to keep from her, years ago: a
video capture of herself, bound and gagged, in the trunk of her own
car. She had discovered it in her own X-file, about a year after the
incident, when Mulder was out of the office one afternoon. Try as she
might, she was never able to remember actually being there in the car,
bleeding, terrified, as good as dead. For what seemed like hours she
had studied the photo, hoping the draw some connection between that
moment, frozen in celluloid, and her memories of Krychek's brutality.
She had tried to bridge the white void of memory, and failed.

She tore off some toilet paper and pressed it against the wound on her
head. Then, moving automatically, only peripherally aware of the pain
in her body, Dana rushed out of the apartment.

As she clattered back down the wobbly stairs that led to the basement,
she wondered if she would be breaking her Hippocratic oath by not
administering first aid to Ed. She was afraid to approach him. Semi-
conscious, he was writhing on the floor in a pool of his own urine, his
burned arm bent with a horrific rigidity at a ninety-degree angle. It
was not the smell of his suffering that frightened her. In the lurid
yellow glow of the incinerator's flames, his handsome face, contorted
in agony, took on the cast of the man who had hurt her beyond
measure. Scully sank down to sit on a step and cradled her throbbing
head in her palms. As soon as she closed her eyes, she saw thin, pale,
masculine hands reaching for her; a knee clad in gray wool trousers
pushing her bare thighs apart; a bruise in the shape of a hand on her
right breast; splatters and streaks of her own blood, suprisingly vivid.

Ed was moaning. Dana's instincts overrode her fear and propelled her
off the steps. She knelt on the floor beside him and put a cool hand on
his forehead, praying that he would have no memory of this day when
he finally came around.

The paramedics were scrambling down the steps, calling out
information to each other as they approached. Before she could explain
what had happened, Scully was plied away from Ed and taken upstairs
and out into the street. Her forehead was bleeding again, her sweater
was ripped, and she was shivering uncontrollably. As if from a great
distance, she watched herself being wrapped in a blanket and helped
into the back of an ambulance. An EMT gently pressed her down onto
a gurney. As the safety straps were fastened across her body, her
teeth chattered and her skin crawled. She stammered as she tried to tell
the paramedic that she was an FBI agent and really did not need help
from him or anyone else.

In the ER, Scully managed to quote her badge number and Mulder's
cell phone number as a nurse took her vital signs. Each person who
administered to her smiled indulgently as she struggled to string words
into sentences. Finally she was seated on an examination table behind
a striped curtain that occasionally billowed in the breeze released from
the heating system. Alone, Dana wept her longing for Mulder's
familiar smell and the protective cage of his arms. But her tears ceased
to flow upon the entrance of a tall female physician who was only a
few years older than Dr. Scully.

"I'm Dr. Burnett," she said, extending her hand.

Scully shook her hand and looked into her soft brown eyes. Dr.
Burnett's hair was a light brown streaked with gray, and her face bore
a few golden freckles against a background of fair skin. She glanced
down at her hand, entertwined with Scully's, when she realized that
her patient was holding on for dear life.

"Miss Scully? I understand you're an FBI agent?"

Dana nodded. Her blue eyes were tinged with red from the smoke of
the incinerator.

"It's Dr. Scully, actually," she said hoarsely. "I'm a forensic
pathologist."

Dr. Burnett made a note in the chart she balanced against her left
forearm.

"So, Dr. Scully. The paramedic who brought you in tells me that he
took you out of a dangerous situation. How are you feeling?"

"I'm -- I'm in shock," Dana said, tittering lightly. It seemed absurd
that she should be aware enough to diagnose her own shock.

The physician nodded soberly. Her eyes, flecked with streaks of
gold, assessed every outward element of Dana's status as they talked.

"You are indeed," said Dr. Burnett. "Is there anything else you can
tell me about your experience with Mr. Jerse?"

"How is he?" Dana countered.

"He's in good hands," Dr. Burnett said, smirking faintly at the double
meaning of her statement -- he's in the capable hands of my colleagues
and Philadelphia's finest. "But my concern is for you, Dr. Scully.
I've spoken with one of our rape crisis counselors, and she's ready to
help you. Why don't we ask her to sit with you during the
examination?"

Dana shook her head and massaged her temples. When she
swallowed, she noticed that her throat was painfully raw, like a
childhood case of tonsillitis.

"Really, you don't need to examine me. I can tell you that I have some
bruising over the fourth and fifth ribs, and you'll probably see some
hematuria in my labs because of the kidney blow I took." Then Dr.
Burnett's words came over her like a sudden migraine. "A rape
counselor? Why?"

"I'd like to examine you for evidence," Dr. Burnett said gently.

"Why?" Scully whispered.

Dr. Burnett glanced down at her pen, and then back at Dana's face.

"Well...you're showing all the signs of sexual assault...the blow to
your face, for starters. Your top is torn. You're in shock. There are
bruises on your neck and wrists..."

Scully looked down at her wrists in alarm. They were ringed with
fresh purple bruises.

"I...you know, this is...I don't..."

Dr. Burnett shifted her weight from one long leg to another.

"Look, Dana, many rape victims use dissociation to endure the trauma
of the experience. It's perfectly understandable. It may be hours,
days, even years before you remember everything. But I'd like to
document the evidence now, in case you decide to press charges later."

Scully shook her head, and instantly regretted it. Her brain seemed to
be sloshing against her skull, floating in a soup of vodka and smoke.
She slid off the examination table and pulled off the paper gown she
wore over her black bra and trousers.

"I'm discharging myself," she said firmly.

The doctor gaped at Dana.

"Please don't," she said. "Your eyes are still dilated, from -- from
whatever you've been through. I suspect that your labs will come back
showing dangerously low electrolytes and a generally wrecked CBC.
Look at yourself, Dana. You're shaking."

Dana stared at the doctor, surprised that she would use a clinical
appraisal to manipulate her into staying. Then, she remembered that
most physicians struggled to preserve life, rather than to clarify death.

She sank heavily to the floor, and rested there on her haunches. Her
pale back was virtually opalescent in the vibrating fluorescent lights of
the ER. The colors of the snake, permanently etched into her skin,
seemed to glow.

She turned her face up toward Dr. Burnett.

"Someone raped me, some time ago, but it was not Ed Jerse."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Agent Mulder, your partner's jacket and personal belongings --
thought you might want to take these back to D.C. for her." The
evidence clerk, his burly face a study in neutrality, handed Mulder a
crumpled paper grocery bag. He whirled a clipboard around on the
counter. "Just sign here."

Mulder scrawled his name on the roster and took the bag. As he
walked out of the precinct station, he wondered if he would be able to
control his anger when he finally saw Scully. He was not looking
forward to trying. He wanted nothing more than to scream his rage at
her. And then he wanted to gather her in his arms and hold her and
never let her go. Too many times he had come even closer than this to
losing her. This time it was intolerable because she seemed to have
willed the hurt on herself. Was anything better than loving him? Even
a one-night stand with a lunatic?

He found his rental car in the parking garage and tossed the bag in the
passenger seat -- Scully's usual spot. He was in no rush to get to the
hospital. Under the pretense of warming the engine, he turned on the
radio and cruised through the stations until he found some slow,
mournful jazz that suited his mood. Then he reached for the bag.

Her jacket, the top half of a black wool tricotine Donna Karan suit,
came first. He held the collar briefly to his face; it smelled like her, but
also enough like Jerse's dim, dusty apartment to be of absolutely no
comfort. He placed it carefully on the seat next to him. Next he pulled
out a small black suede purse, oval in shape and apparently quilted.
Strange -- he had rarely seen her carry a purse, and this particular
purse seemed entirely too impractical for Scully. Then Mulder
reminded himself that sleeping with any man who asked was entirely
too impractical for Scully, too, but this was not the first time she'd
done it.

He tossed the paper bag in the back seat and concentrated on the little
purse. He pulled the zipper and looked inside. He took out her
badge, which was almost too big for the bag, and flipped it open.
There she was, young and stern, peering out from her picture like a
reprimand. He snapped the case shut and put the badge with her
jacket.

Inside the purse he found two condoms, a tube of burgundy lipstick, a
compact of very pale powder, and a hundred dollars in twenties. She
had left her gun back in her room at the Adams Inn, and Mulder had
retrieved it when he picked up her clothes and laptop. It never
would've fit in this stupid bag anyway, he thought.

Mulder held the two shiny foil condom packets up to his face.
Magnum, extra large. Was that optimism on her part, or were they
leftovers from Stuart?  Had she bought them in Philly, or did she
bring them along, nestled in her toiletry bag between her travel-size
bottle of madder-root shampoo and the pink soap box stocked with a
bar of Dove? Had she always traveled with condoms, on the off
chance that her reticent partner might finally make his move? Why
*two* of them? How many had she started out with? He knew that
she was on the pill, so she must have been planning -- hoping? -- to
engage in some safe sex with a stranger. Cursing under his breath,
Mulder crammed the condoms into his pocket and tossed the purse
aside.

He drove to the hospital.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dr. Burnett sat at a makeshift desk in a small alcove behind the nurses'
station, poring over a stack of patient charts and occasionally
scribbling notes and billing codes on encounter forms. She sipped on
lukewarm coffee as she worked; it was barely nine in the morning, and
she had been on service since six. It occurred to her that maybe Dr.
Scully had made a wise career choice when she abandoned medicine
for law enforcement.

She finished her description of her treatment of an elderly lady's
injuries sustained in a fall resulting from a combination of icy
pavement and excessive consumption of bourbon, then moved on to
Dana Scully's chart. With the intention of reviewing her notes from
her initial examination of Scully, Dr. Burnett flipped through the few
pages that comprised the chart until she found a pink ER sheet covered
in her own familiar scrawl.

"Pt. is a 33 yo wf FBI agent & MD/forensic path. who presents in
post trauma shock. Of note -- tattooing within last 24 hr. Laceration
to forehead -- 2 sutures & butterfly. Contusions to 4th & 5th R. ribs;
no sign of fracture/pleural injury. Chem 11, CBC, tox screen for
ergot, thoracic XR obtained 1013. Admit for 24 hr observ. Informed
pt.'s partner by phone. Order lytes, fluid push, prophylactic
ampicillin IV overnight. Tetanus booster."

Dr. Burnett's signature and billing code were written below the short
summary, but she knew immediately that she was not reading what
she had actually written the day before. She flipped through the pages
in the chart once again, hoping to find her original note among the lab
results and insurance pages. She had inserted the summary page in the
chart herself.

She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Too little sleep and too
much caffeine.

"My mother tried to tell me to go into dermatology, but no, I had to
pick emergency medicine," she muttered to no one in particular.

"Dr. Burnett?"

She put her glasses back on so that she could see the face that went
with the voice. A small smile immediately formed when she saw the
face of an oddly handsome man peering around the door frame of her
little alcove.

"I'm Fox Mulder," he said, showing her his badge as he stepped into
the erstwhile office. "We spoke on the phone yesterday about my
partner, Dana Scully."

"Oh, right. I was just reviewing her chart," the doctor said, her
fingers closing nervously over the edge of the folder that contained the
bastardized version of her summary. "Just move those charts and
have a seat, Mr. Mulder."

He hoisted a two-foot stack of charts off a tattered little chair and
perched himself rather uneasily on the edge of the seat. The tails of his
overcoat pooled on the floor on either side of his feet. He sat with his
forearms resting on his knees and blinked down at Dr. Burnett's feet.
She was wearing a pair of Scullyesque black suede pumps.

"Your partner...uh..." Mulder lifted his head when he realized that
Dr. Burnett had paused to see if he was listening. He nodded, and she
continued. "Your partner is recovering well from a medical
standpoint. She should have no residual problems from the blunt
trauma she received."

"Blunt trauma?" Mulder echoed, internally wincing at the words.

"To the head, lower back, right medial thorax, left knee. She also has
some abraded areas on both wrists, presumably where her attacker
tried to restrain her." Dr. Burnett frowned slightly at the mention of
the attacker. Rules of confidentiality required her to speak carefully of
her suspicions regarding the nature of Jerse's assault. "And the tattoo
seems to be just fine. I had to FedEx her specimen to Boston for the
ergot analysis; our labs here don't do that sort of thing. The results
should be in tomorrow afternoon, possibly the following morning."

"Could you fax them to us?" Mulder asked, offering her his card.
"The number's on there."

Dr. Burnett studied his card for a moment.

"Look, Mr. Mulder, I don't know what the nature of your relationship
with Dr. Scully is exactly, but..."

Mulder wondered how many times he had heard those words, or
similar ones, in situations like this one. He assumed Scully had heard
them too. He gave a grim little half-smile.

"I'm not so sure I know the nature of it myself," he said. "But go on.
We're close friends, if nothing else."

Dr. Burnett nodded her understanding.

"That's what I said about my lab partner in med school," she said with
a wry grin. "Until I married him. But that's neither here nor there.
What I need to tell you is this: she should probably get some
counseling when she gets back to Washington. From what I've
observed, she's been through hell, not just in the past two days, but
over the past several years. Even her blood count shows it. It takes a
lot of stress to show up in labs, you know."

Mulder nodded perfunctorily. Most people, upon seeing his partner's
flaming hair, porcelain skin, and apparently delicate bones, assumed
that she was in need of protection.

"It's a tough job, but it's never been too tough for Scully."

Dr. Burnett's eyes met his for an instant. He could not quite guess her
meaning, however.

"Well. Have her follow up with her usual doctor if the pain increases.
And she can take those sutures out herself."

Mulder made a face at the image of Scully standing in front of her
bathroom mirror, clipping the little black knots and tugging the sutures
out of her pale, tender skin.

"Sheesh..." he murmured, shaking his head. "See what I mean?
Tough."

Dr. Burnett chuckled.

"It's a doctor thing, I guess," she said.

He rose to go, but turned at the last minute to speak to the doctor.

"She *will* be okay, won't she?"

He instantly wished he hadn't said it. Of course she would. She was
Scully, for God's sake.

Then a flicker of something dark passed over Dr. Burnett's face, and
Mulder's stomach began to burn again.

"Mr. Mulder, since you *do* work for the FBI, I feel I should tell
you..."

Oh shit, Mulder thought, returning to the uncomfortable chair he had
just left.

Dr. Burnett opened Scully's chart to the pink page and gave it to him.

"I have reason to believe that Dr. Scully's chart has been altered," she
said. "This is not what I wrote yesterday when I first saw her the ER.
The odd thing is -- that's my handwriting, or a very good forgery of it.
And I ordered two x-rays -- one of her head, one of her chest. Only
the chest film has come back from Radiology."

"And it says nothing about the head here," Mulder said, having
stumbled through the abbreviations and jargon. "Could it just be lost
in the hospital somewhere?"

"It's not unthinkable, but it's unlikely. Especially since she had a
fairly unusual name," the doctor said. "It's also strange that there are
no notes in the chart from the nurse who cared for her overnight.
They usually make entries every two hours. That's standard nursing
practice."

"Do you know which nurse was on duty last night?" Mulder asked.

"She was a temp, filling in for one of our regulars who's out on
maternity leave. I could find out her name..."

"No. That's not necessary," he sighed. Mulder knew the nurse
would never be found. "So is this information -- presumably forged --
is it accurate? Does it sound like something you'd write?"

"Oh, absolutely. The psychosocial evaluation has been deleted,
however."

"And that's the part you can't talk to me about," he said.

She shrugged. "You can ask your partner."

"She won't tell me," he said grimly. He stood to leave. "Thanks for
taking care of her. Call if that x-ray, or anything else, turns up."

He loped down the hall, his head bowed as he tried to order his
thoughts and emotions.

End The Cry of the Truth 14/22


The Cry of the Truth, 15/22 REVISED!!!
A Feeling Disputation
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: R (language, adult situations)
Category: S,A,R (Mulder/Scully)
Summary: Overcome with jealousy, Mulder unleashes the full force of
his anger on Scully.

Note: There was a tiny but IMPORTANT boo-boo in this one. Sorry!

   I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
   And that's a feeling disputation.
               William Shakespeare

Scully lay on her side, off of the still-tender tattoo, and tried to
concentrate
on a year-old copy of _The New Yorker_. Not even the cartoons held her
interest. Her thoughts were still slightly muddled by the ergot and vodka
that polluted her bloodstream, as well as by the depression that had
haunted her since the midnight argument with Mulder on the Mall.

She closed her eyes and wished for the release that came with tears.
Despite last night's pharmacologically enhanced sleep, she still felt
overwhelmed with exhaustion. Here I am again, she silently mourned, in
the same hospital gown, in the same weakened state, brutalized by the
same man -- well, close enough. And all because I wanted to prove that I
could get away with denial. Why is it, the one time I try to take the easy
way out, I get in even more trouble?

Apparently Mulder had been right about the toxic effects of untreated
psychological pain. The after-effects of her abduction, even four years
after the fact, made her sick with despair. Her memory seemed to be the
one thing she could not control. She was beginning to surmise that her
denial of the abiding pain of her rape was related to her fear that Krychek
would come back and hurt her again. She did not want to be herself if part
of her self was a victim who cowered with her memories, waiting for it to
happen again. Admitting that to Mulder was a different matter, however.

For a moment she thought the tears she had suppressed for so long were
finally rising, but upon opening her eyes she saw that the damp fullness in
her throat and nose was just a nose bleed. She sat up and reached for the
box of rough, hospital-grade tissues on the table next to the bed. She
pulled out three or four and pinched her nose shut with them. She
checked the tissues to see if the blood still flowed, and three big red drops
landed on the front of her hospital gown.

"Shit, shit, shit," she muttered, yanking a few more tissues out of the box
and dabbing at the blood with her free hand.

"Scully, you okay?"

She looked up to see Mulder standing in the door, a hangdog expression
of concern on his weary face. He was carrying her overnight bag.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a nosebleed."

Mulder grabbed a washcloth from the towel rack next to the sink and
dampened it with cool water. He offered it to her as he sat in the chair
next to the bed.

He watched as she wiped the blood away, leaving a broad red streak on
the white cloth.

The bleeding quelled, she pulled the blankets up over her shoulders and
tried to suppress a shiver. The look Mulder was giving her was a cross
between a rejected little boy and a vengeful father.

He cleared his throat. "How're you feeling?"

"Fine," she replied.

Of course, Mulder said to himself, shaking his head.

"Jerse is going to live," he said tersely. When he saw no reaction on her
face, Mulder felt even sicker than he had in the car. She had slept with
this man she didn't even care about in the first place. Women weren't
supposed to do that, especially not Dana Scully. "And I spoke to your
doctor -- looks like you're going to live too."

"Figures," she said quietly. She rolled onto her side again, and felt a
slight twinge as the tattooed skin stretched with her movements.

Mulder saw the flash of pain across her pale face.

"Does it hurt?" he asked softly.

"I'm fine, Mulder. Really." She heard her own voice; it was tight and a
bit breathy. "You shouldn't worry -- it was a sterile needle. Besides, I'll
probably get shot in the line of duty long before HIV or hepatitis can kill
me."

He put a hand up to cover his face. For a second he tried to suppress his
anger, out of consideration for her weakened physical state. Then he
remembered the terror he had felt when the ER nurse had called him that
morning.

"What the hell were you thinking? That you're immortal, or something?"
he said, biting off the words. " And forget the goddamn needle -- what
about this idiot Jerse?"

"What about him?" she said coldly.

"HIV, Scully. Have you lost your mind?"

"I did not have intercourse with him," she said in the professional
monotone that she usually reserved for Skinner when he was bellowing at
them.

Mulder opened his mouth to protest. He was astounded by the apparent
ease with which she lied to him.

"I found condoms in your purse, Scully," he said in a low voice that
cracked under the heat of his anger.

She sat up, the sheets rustling around her, and lowered her face into her
hands for a moment. Her hair slipped over her fingers, silky against them
and almost a comfort. Then she looked up at him, a world-weary half-
smile on her face.

"Girl's gotta be prepared."

He leaned across the bed to fix his dark gaze on her, throwing his rage at
her like dice.

"Who else, Scully?"

She frowned at him, her brow drawn in confusion.

"Who else what?"

"Since you started playing this little game with me, you haven't been
sleeping alone, have you." It was a belligerent statement, not a query.
"After four years of celibacy, Stuart showed you a good time and you
developed a taste for it. There's me, of course, but who else? Skinner?
Did you fuck Skinner too?"

She gaped at him, but Mulder was not deterred. He desperately wanted to
hurt her as much as he thought she had hurt him.

"How far will you go to silence this memory, Scully? Is obliterating the
past this important to you? Is this why you jumped into bed with Stuart an
*hour* after you met him? If a man's fucking you for all he's worth, does
that keep you from hurting over what Krychek did to you?"

She stared at him as if he had been possessed by a demon. He pressed
on, mining her heart for agony.

"Now, during the week, there's Pendrell -- he's kinda dull, but he drools
after you. And that seems to be the key, Scully. Unabashed appreciation
for your impressive tits, your thirteen-syllable vocabulary, that
cocksucking mouth of yours -- and probably not in that order."

A flare exploded behind her eyes, and she was nearly blind with anger.
She pulled her arm back to punch him, but he was too fast for her. He
caught her wrist and wrestled her arm down to her side, where he held it.

"What about Nick Barrett, your friend in the VCS? He's a good-looking
guy; even I can see that. He's probably got it all worked out in his head --
he's a profiler, after all -- and he's already developed a pretty solid theory
about what you like, so he could do the job a little more efficiently --
during lunch, maybe. That way you don't miss any time from work." To
his satisfaction, Mulder saw that she was beginning to redden. Still, his
voice splintered as he spoke. "He wouldn't need you to actually love him,
commit to him, sleep through the night with him. That's more like it,
right, Scully? You don't want someone who actually needs you.
Someone like *me*."

She looked away from him. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead,
and her heart was pounding. But at least he had finally revealed
something of himself. Her indignation began to dim a little.

Mulder released her wrist and saw that he had left a bright red ring on it,
just above the purple imprint that Jerse had made. He shook his head and
covered his eyes with his hand.

"Why Jerse, Scully? What was it about him in particular? I saw him -- he
looks like a kid. He looks like --"

"Krychek," she whispered.

Mulder looked up abruptly.

"Is that it? You're trying to exorcise this demon by finding some guy who
looks like him and fucking him?"

"Shut up, Mulder," she said wearily.

"Well? Did it help?" he asked, his voice finally cracking into a baritone
sob.

Shaking her head, she watched the tears crest over his cheeks. He quickly
wiped them away.

"Do you really think I slept with those men?" she asked, her voice flat and
almost indifferent.

Mulder rested an elbow on the mattress and cradled his forehead in his
hand. He shrugged his shoulders and made a little flinging gesture with
his hand before using it to once again cover his eyes.

"I dunno, Scully. You tell me."

"You're being ridiculous," she said sternly.

"Why should I believe you?" he asked softly, still staring down at the bed.

"Because I'm Scully," she said.

He peered up at her then, and saw that she was now sitting very erectly,
her shoulders squared, chin held high, gazing down her impressive nose
at him. She looked very much like the Scully he remembered.

He swallowed noisily. In the light of what he thought she had done, the
reason did not seem to be good enough. And that made him all the more
sad.

She looked back at him again, her face nearly impassive except for the
blush of anger and humiliation that lingered in her cheeks.

"Thanks for bringing my stuff. I'll get dressed and discharge myself."

She threw back the blanket and climbed out of bed again. Accidentally she
brushed against Mulder's knees as she tried to get around him, and he
reached out and grabbed her hand. He stood and tried to embrace her.
She was unyielding at first, and then relaxed only slightly as his warm
hands skimmed over her back.

"Dana. I'm so sorry," he whispered into her hair. It disturbed him to note
that her usual scent had been usurped by the smell of smoke and bandages
and someone else's bed. "Please...Please. I need you. Come on back,
okay?"

She wriggled away from him and bent over to retrieve her bag. Through
the slit in her gown, he caught a glimpse of the gauze bandage taped over
the tattoo. He wondered if he would ever see it.

"Scully?"

"I have to get dressed now, Mulder. I'll be out in a minute."

He knew that, no matter what had led her to that hospital, he had been
dismissed.

End The Cry of the Truth, 15/22


The Cry of the Truth, 16/22
The Forest for the Trees
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: R (Discussion of rape, language)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)

See part 01 for disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.

Author's Notes: Thanks to all my correspondents for your words of
encouragement. Sorry it took me so long to post this!

Thanks, especially, to Becky, for helping me get this and upcoming
chapters written.


   Woman, *you* are a forest
   strange and deep: I see
   you are afraid of yourself.
     --Maria Wine


Her head pounding, her stomach lurching with residual nausea, Dana
Scully rested her slight weight against the edge of the counter that
separated her from the hospital cashier. He was a florid-cheeked man
with a full head of silver hair who spoke with a lilting Delaware
accent. He wore a red bandanna tied around his neck like a dancer in
the chorus of "Oklahoma." His hospital ID badge said that his name
was Cliff.

"Sorry, dearie," he said brightly. "You can't go until Dr. Burnett
signs your discharge orders."

"But I'm a doctor myself --" Scully protested.

"Then you understand, don't you, hon? Right over there. Thanks,
doll."

"You don't understand," Scully said. "I-I need to get home."

"She won't be long," Cliff said, his smile widening even as Scully's
frown deepened.

With a plaintive groan, Scully gave up and walked away from Cliff's
station. She encountered her tall, lithe partner when she was half-way
across the cavernous hospital lobby.

"I called Skinner," Mulder began. "Told him you'd wrapped up the
case and that the tattoo was necessary for you to gain the trust of your
informant. He says well done, Agent Scully, and he's not expecting
to see you on Monday. How come Dad likes you best?"

Ignoring his halfhearted joke, Scully slouched into a seat that was
close enough to the cashier's area so that she could keep an eye out for
Dr. Burnett. She emitted a series of uncharacteristic whimpers as she
struggled to find a comfortable position in the hard plastic chair. Her
body was deeply bruised, and the Tylenol she had been given by the
floor nurse just barely took the edge off the pain. She was desperate
to soak in a warm bath and crawl into her bed.

She squinted at the man who sat next to her. In her pained self-
absorption, Scully had not noticed the twitch of his arms as he forced
himself not to embrace her as they stood talking. She had overlooked
the worry in his face as he watched her wincing with pain. As far as
she was concerned, he was returning to his old emotionally
incompetent self after last week's brief stint as her mature,
responsible, tender-hearted lover, acting as if that horrible
conversation in her hospital room had never happened.

"So what did Skinner have to say about you?" she asked.

"Me? Oh, the usual." He did not look at her as he spoke. "Mulder,
what the fuck do you think you're doing. You can't stay out of
trouble even when you're on vacation. Why can't you take a week off
like a normal person."

She nodded; she could hear Skinner's husky voice berating him even
as Mulder recited the words. And then she tried to imagine that same
voice murmuring to her the endearments that Mulder had bestowed on
her during their forty-eight hours as lovers.

"Mulder."

"Hmm."

"You really think I slept with Skinner?"

They blinked at each other for a moment before Mulder looked away
again. Rubbing his hands over his face, he sighed heavily, and was
about to speak when Dr. Burnett approached them.

She wore a wrinkled trenchcoat over her white lab coat and street
clothes. In her hand was a canvas bag emblazoned with the crest of a
national medical association; it was crammed full of ragged journals,
files, sheaths of printouts, a collapsible umbrella, a pair of battered
running shoes, and what appeared to be a partially consumed two-liter
bottle of Diet Coke.

"Agent Mulder," she said, smiling shyly at him. "I'm glad you're still
here."

"Not for long," he said, offering only the faintest of polite smiles.
"I'm eager to get Scully home."

He felt Scully bristle at his words, and immediately wished he had said
something innocuous about the weather instead.

"How're you feeling?" Dr. Burnett asked Scully.

Dana was about to shrug her response, then changed her mind when
she realized how much it would hurt to lift her shoulders. She gave
the doctor a grim smile instead.

"I'm wishing my bed wasn't quite so far away," she said.

"Stick with the NSAIDs, and the pain will quiet down," Dr. Burnett
said. She presented Dana with an envelope that bulged with yellow
copies of press-through forms. "I've signed your discharge orders.
I'm just on my way out, but I wanted to...Well, I wanted to speak to
both of you, actually. Could we go somewhere a little more private?"

As she tucked the envelope into her overnight bag, Scully tried to read
the doctor's face.

"We were just leaving," Mulder said.

"It won't take long, I promise," Dr. Burnett said, already leading them
across the lobby.

She opened the door of a conference room near the main entrance and
ushered them in. Closing the door carefully behind her, Dr. Burnett
dropped her bag in a chair and asked them to sit around the oak
conference table. It was littered with half-empty styrofoam containers
of Chinese food and empty Snapple bottles.

"Apparently the residents forgot to clean up after journal club --
again," Dr. Burnett said with a tight smile. "These kids today..."

Mulder fidgeted in his seat. He was aching to get Scully alone in the
car in the hope of retracting his accusations of infidelity.

"The sleet from yesterday has turned into rain," Dr. Burnett
commented, looking through the enormous picture window that faced
the street. "Still not the best weather for driving."

For a minute of two, the steady shower falling from a shale sky
mesmerized each of them, even Mulder. As they watched through the
window, a social services van pulled up in the patient drop-off area
near the doors. An elderly man with a menacing hook where his right
hand had once been struggled to alight from the back of the van. He
clutched the van's open door with his good hand and looked around
for help. None was forthcoming; visitors and white-coated staff
jogged past him, heads tucked down, rushing to get out of the rain.
The van's driver slapped the steering wheel in time to the music that
her headphones fed into her brain. The old man contemplated the
gutter between the van's ledge and the sidewalk. The rivulet that
flowed there on its way to a storm drain may just as well have been the
Allegheny River.

Dr. Burnett's low voice, her accent dry and faintly Southern,
perforated their common reverie.

"When I was a resident, in Houston, I was attacked in a parking deck
late one night," Dr. Burnett said. Her eyes flickered from the window
to her hands and then up to Dana's face. "I was just coming off a
thirty-six hour shift, and all I could think about was getting home,
taking a long, hot shower, and crawling into bed with my husband. I
wasn't paying attention to my surroundings...you know how it is to
be that tired."

Mulder's brows twitched together; a warm flicker of hope was
forming in his throat.

Had Dana been any less exhausted, this confession probably would've
made her intensely uncomfortable. But as it was, she simply sat and
listened.

"This man stole my engagement ring, my watch, my stethoscope --
what did he think he was he going to do with *that*? -- and of course
my wallet. I had about five dollars on me; payday was the next day.
Anyway...he raped me there on the pavement between the parked cars.
Then he tried to get me to drive him somewhere. I managed to vomit,
and that seemed to bother him, so he ran."

Dana bowed her head, hoping to hide for a moment behind the curtain
of her smooth auburn hair.

Mulder clutched the arm of his chair to keep himself for reaching for
Scully's hand.

"Did you report it?" he asked.

"Oh, sure. They even caught the guy." The doctor's eyes were wide
and unblinking with the keen-edged wisdom that had come with
survival. "Believe it or not, some good came out of the experience. It
made me a better doctor. I had much more empathy for my patients
after that. And it made me appreciate my husband even more. It was
horrible for him -- it was as if he had been raped himself. But he made
it, without taking his anger out on me, or on himself."

Like Mulder, Scully recognized the turn the story was taking. But her
weariness continued to enforce her attentiveness.

Dr. Burnett took off her glasses and placed them carefully on the
golden oak surface of the table. Without the corrective shield, her eyes
were revealed in all their beauty -- round and long-lashed, without a
trace of makeup, the irises a rare golden olive green.

"You're wondering why I'm telling you all this, I'm sure. It seems so
personal, I suppose. I'm sorry if this is offensive to you...but it's
important."

"It's okay," Dana whispered. "It's not as if I have anything to lose."

Dr. Burnett's gaze rested briefly on Mulder's face, then returned to
Scully.

"Don't you?" she said pointedly.

Dana arched an eyebrow. Dr. Burnett held up a hand to ask that they
listen only a little longer.

"I would never speak so personally if I were still treating you, Dana.
I'm speaking strictly as a fellow rape survivor. It's very likely I'm the
only one you'll ever talk to -- since you're certainly very reticent about
all this. And that's your prerogative, of course. But please hear me
out. I-I've never done anything brave in my entire life.

"Because I'm a stranger to you, I have a lot of license here," Dr.
Burnett continued. "So, here goes: from what I observed this
morning, Agent Mulder is struggling to figure out how to help you
through this. I've seen it before, and believe me, it's not easy for the
good guys. At times like this, a lot of men walk. Some of them think
their property has been defiled. Some of them are overwhelmed with
guilt for not having been able to stop it from happening in the first
place. And a lot of them just can't tolerate the pain, in themselves, in
the woman they love...Your partner's trying really hard, Dana. You
have a right to expect whatever it is you need from him. Just don't
insult him by expecting too little."

Mulder gulped down a protest. His gut wanted to tell Dr. Burnett to
mind her own goddamned business, but his heart was soaring with the
possibilities she was opening with her statements of the obvious.

Scully pressed her lips into a firm line; for a few fleeting seconds she
wanted nothing more than to unleash of tirade of hideous curses while
slinging the leftover garlic chicken at both Mulder and the doctor.

Dr. Burnett shrugged.

Scully's anger subsided when she saw the gleam of tears in the
doctor's eyes. She quickly turned her head to check Mulder's
reaction; he seemed trapped between rage and relief. His forehead was
lined with deep furrows, and his lips were parted in anticipation of a
gasp.

"Let me guess," Dr. Burnett continued. "You're afraid he only loves
you because you're his partner, and you've known each other forever,
and he's never stopped working long enough to meet anybody else?
Kind of a default arrangement?"

"How do you --" Scully uttered.

"As I told Agent Mulder, I married my research partner from med
school. Four years, slaving away side by side in a lab, long hours --
you know the routine. Falling in love was the next logical step. And
in science, logic is paramount."

Mulder shook his head. The scenario was all too familiar.

"You're still married to him?" Dana asked.

A broad grin lit up the doctor's thin face.

"Oh yes, thank God. Twelve years. It hasn't been easy, but luckily I
never expected, or wanted, it to be easy." Her smile faded. "I thought
about leaving him, after the rape. We'd only been married for three
years then; I was in my last year of residency, he was doing his
neurology fellowship. I went back to work too soon after it happened
-- didn't want to any of my colleagues to think I'd lost my competitive
edge. Frank and I...we didn't take the time to grieve together. No
time to just curl up together and shut out the world for a while until the
healing was well under way. A rift developed between us until I
began to really believe that the rape wasn't my fault...and that despite
how badly I had been hurt, I still had certain responsibilities to Frank.
I owed him the opportunity to...well, to love me. I felt horribly guilty
about dragging him into it, but it was true then, as it is now: what
happens to me happens to Frank. That's what they mean by for better
or worse. I had to give him a chance to live up to that vow. And he
did."

Dana had rarely heard a woman speak of her mate so plainly, with
neither rancor nor obnoxious pride.

"You're lucky, Dr. Burnett," she said quietly.

"In finding Frank, it's true, I am lucky," she agreed. "The rest is all
hard work and obstinacy. Look, I've said entirely too much, and I
really want to apologize for putting you on the spot like this."

"No," Mulder said softly. "Don't apologize."

Dr. Burnett hurriedly put her glasses back on, as if trying to hide her
embarrassment. She rose, as did Mulder and Scully. From her
ragged canvas bag, she produced a small spiral-bound notebook and a
pen. She scribbled a few characters, ripped out the page, and handed
it to Scully.

"This is the name and number of a counselor who specializes in
situations like yours -- her office is in upper Georgetown. She -- can
you read my handwriting? -- she and I serve together on the editorial
board of a trauma journal -- I think she's someone both of you could
respect."

Mulder read the notation over Scully's shoulder, committing it to
memory in case Scully destroyed the paper in another fit of denial.

Dr. Burnett hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. Her thin frame seemed
to sag under the weight.

"One last thing," she said as she pulled a set of keys from her pocket.
"I said 'both of you' for a reason. Individual counseling is helpful to
the survivor, but it can work wonders if the significant other is
involved as well. I wish my husband were here; he could tell you
better than I can. He's a lot more direct than I am."

And with that, Dr. Burnett left the conference room.

Mulder let out a slow whistle as they watched her depart.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered. "If he's more direct than *that*, he
must be a real pain in the ass."

End The Cry of the Truth, 16/22



The Cry of the Truth, 17a/22
In Wonder and Pain
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: R (Adult situations, language, sexy thoughts)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)

See part 01 for the disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.

   This word is not enough but it will
   have to do. It's a single
   vowel in this metallic
   silence, a mouth that says
   O again and again in wonder
   and pain, a breath, a finger
   grip on a cliffside. You can
   hold on or let go.
     -- Margaret Atwood, "Variations on the Word Love"

After Dr. Burnett left them, stunned and morbidly embarrassed, Scully
decided to take the train back to Washington rather than sit for two
hours locked in a car with Mulder, wondering what to say. Mulder
was relieved beyond words.

On Monday, Mulder found himself unable to follow his interpretation
of Dr. Burnett's tacit advice -- that he should martyr himself to
Scully's struggle to make peace with her rapes while waiting patiently
for her to accept his love again. Dr. Burnett did not know the entire
story, he told himself bitterly. She did not know that the only woman
he had ever called sweetheart, his Scully, the natural redhead who
understood astrophysics and tasted like Cabernet and camembert, had
crushed his heart underfoot and then opened her body to some pretty-
boy psychopath before Mulder's scent had faded from her bed linens.
No. Dr. Burnett did not know the entire story.

So, rather than offering Scully succor from his deep well of tenderness
and constancy, he was initially asinine and arrogant. He made an
insulting crack about her having the dubious distinction of turning up
twice in the X-files, and then briefly tried to chalk their conflict up to
their poor office accommodations. She didn't take the bait, and this
angered him even more. Finally he ended up hiding behind his desk,
so tense he wanted to snap every pencil in two.

All the while, Dana remained composed, studying the dried rose petal
she had found during their midnight visit to the Wall. As she sat
listening more to the sound of his voice rather than to the words he
was forming, she told herself that nothing he said now could hurt
worse than what he had said in the hospital.

He tried briefly to cover his embarrassing behavior by launching into a
discussion of his next case, but soon went back to the red herring --
the desk.

"Mulder, this isn't about you." She turned the full force of her
beautiful eyes on him, and saw him wince under her examination.
"This is *my* life."

"Yes, but it's --" His mouth continued to move soundlessly for a few
seconds. She saw that his powerful mind was stumbling over his
feelings. For a long, painful moment, they watched each other,
neither willing to make a move. Then he slumped back in his chair
and rubbed his face with both hands. "Scully, it's my life too. You
are central to my life. What happens to you happens to me."

That's what they mean by for better or worse, he said silently.

As she considered the rose petal, the words that recurred in her mind
were as familiar as her own name: Take, eat. This is my body, which
is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Drink all of this, for
this is my blood, which is shed for you, for the remission of sins. Do
this in remembrance of me.

Yesterday, in desperate need of solace, she had gone to church, but
fled the sanctuary in tears as the Eucharist was being offered. For the
first time since her confirmation, she felt unworthy of forgiveness.

"When do you suppose we lost faith in each other, Mulder?" she asked
quietly.

Mulder glanced up at her, then back down at the pencil in his hand.
Yellow, number 2, Eberhard-Faber, like so many he had used to take
those standardized tests that proved that he was a genius. And now, at
37, what good does that do me, he asked himself. If I'm so fucking
smart, why can't I give this woman what she needs?

"At the risk of starting an argument, Scully," he began slowly, "I
never lost faith in you."

"If you had any faith in me, how could you possibly think I'd sleep
with those men when I was in love with you?" There was no malice in
her voice.

Mulder shook his head mournfully and lifted his hands in a gesture of
bafflement and defeat.

"I call it temporary insanity," he said. "And I'm sorry, Scully. That
was horrible. The idea of you sleeping with Jerse really made me lose
it."

"He would be worse than the other three?" she asked, her eyebrow
reaching up into her forehead.

"...Yes," he admitted reluctantly. "Because at least I know them. Oh,
Scully...."

His voice, with his anger, faded under the pressure of regret.

Scully placed the rose petal on his desk, just in front of his name plate.
Then she crossed the room, unbuttoning her jacket as she went. She
hung it on the coat rack and, in an effort to comfort herself, folded her
arms over her chest and clasped her elbows in a sort of lonely
embrace. When she turned to face Mulder again, she was surprised to
see that he was watching her raptly. His eyes bore the familiar sheen
that she had only recently learned to recognize as desire, as well as a
glimmer of something far more delicate.

She glanced down at her suede pumps for a moment, and then her
eyes met his once again.

"Why do you think they took me, Mulder?" she asked softly.

He arched a brow and released a slow breath.

"I wish I knew, Scully," he replied after a moment.

She nodded once, and with a tight half-smile, sat on the edge of the
chair she had so recently vacated. She picked up the file he had been
babbling about and began to skim it.

He cleared his throat.

"I talked to Delia Forrest," he said.

"Oh? How is she?" Scully asked without looking up from the file.

"Better, I guess. The DA is charging one of her students with the
rape. The DNA analysis pegged him." Mulder scratched his brow
absently. "So I guess I owe you five bucks."

For a second, her eyes met his, and he knew she was remembering the
passionate embrace in the parking garage of the hospital after their
meeting with Delia. Mulder took some comfort in knowing that they at
least still shared a few pleasant memories of their brief time together as
lovers.

"No, you don't," she said murmured. "Is she -- does she believe that
he's her rapist?"

"She says she doesn't really care who did it," Mulder replied. He
spoke carefully, expecting to see Scully's sympathetic anger at any
moment. "She says that the identity of the rapist is pretty much
meaningless; all that really matters is that it happened. Her family
thinks she's nuts. They want to put her in a mental hospital."

"I didn't think that kind of thing still went on," Scully said with
surprising mildness. "Except in Catholic families."

His next question popped out before he had a chance to stop it.

"Does your mom know?"

Scully closed the file and pondered her hands for a moment. She
smoothed down a hangnail and wondered if she had any lotion stashed
in her briefcase.

"She suspected, because of the nightmares I had during those weeks I
stayed with her, after I was discharged from the hospital." She closed
her eyes and for a moment was transported back to the strange limbo
where she had hovered between recovering from the coma and
returning to work. It had seemed then that no one would ever leave
her alone again -- they were all so worried about her. And now, four
years later, she felt the most profound loneliness she had ever known.
She opened her eyes and saw that Mulder was waiting for her to
continue. "Melissa knew. I never told her, but she knew. She even
tried to convince me to tell you."

"She did? I thought she hated me," Mulder said.

Scully clutched the file folder across her chest as she remembered her
sister's face -- lovely, yet completely different from her own. It had
been so long since she had allowed herself to think of Melissa.

"Melissa thought you were full of shit," Dana said abruptly. She was
smiling for the first time in days. "She wanted nothing more than for
us to be honest with each other about -- well, about everything. She
was certain that there was a worthy Fox beneath all those layers of
Mulder-denial."

"Denial? Yeah. She hit me with that, once or twice." Mulder rested
his head on the heel of his hand, finally relaxing a little. "I've often
wondered if she knew how I felt about you."

"She was certain of it. That's why she wanted me to tell you about
Krychek."

She lowered the file to her lap and passed one palm over it in a gesture
that was almost a caress. The familiar red letters were distorted by
tears.

"Mulder, I --"

"You can go, Scully."

She looked up abruptly. Tears were cresting over her lower lashes,
but her expression was one of confusion more than grief.

"What?"

Mulder covered his eyes with one hand and rubbed his brow.

"I know how you are, Scully," he said. "When you make a promise,
you stick to it. That's what you did with Stuart, and it was very noble
of you, but...That first night we spent together, you promised me
you'd never leave me. And I'm telling you that it's okay for you to
go."

She placed the folder on the corner of his desk. Mulder did not seem
the tremor in her hand; he was staring blindly at his own forearm.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked evenly.

His voice wavered severely; his heart was breaking all over again, and
there was no point in hiding it, even if he could.

"...No..."

He heard her sigh. That gave him enough hope to look up.

Her eyes bore the tell-tale glimmer of her tears. American's finest,
Mulder thought bitterly. Crying our eyes out like we're on our way to
divorce court, while the bad guys are getting away. Fuck it. Six years
of solving the unsolvable. Enough already.

And then, like the sun peeking out from behind a thunderhead, Dana
smiled.

"Well, then," she said. "Let's do Dallas."

End The Cry of the Truth, 17a/22


The Cry of the Truth, 17b/22
In Wonder and Pain
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: R (Adult situations, language, sexy thoughts)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)

See part 01 for the disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.

   This word is not enough but it will
   have to do. It's a single
   vowel in this metallic
   silence, a mouth that says
   O again and again in wonder
   and pain, a breath, a finger
   grip on a cliffside. You can
   hold on or let go.
     -- Margaret Atwood, "Variations on the Word Love"

Dana was surprised by the humidity of the Texas evening when she
alighted from the sheriff's air conditioned cruiser. Over the past two
days, her appreciation for climate control had been renewed. Her first
night in Arlington had been spent staking out the crime scene -- if you
could call the billboard a crime scene -- sweating in a pick-up truck
between two good-natured but flatulent deputies. Mulder conducted
his surveillance from the roadside ditch, and had spent the next day
whining about his mosquito bites. Last night they had been called to
the scene of a possible murder, a double-wide mobile home in which
the air conditioning did not work and where someone had been
cooking cabbage for days. The victim was the missing child's mother,
the suspect her father. And tonight Scully had been laboring over the
mother's body, trying to determine the details of her death, happily
confined to the icy-cold morgue while Mulder interviewed the father
and his business partner.

Throughout those two overheated days she had been dreaming of a
swim in the motel's pristine pool. She hurriedly thanked the sheriff
for giving her a ride back to the motel and rushed inside. As soon as
the door shut behind her, she shed her suit, blouse, and underwear
and pulled on her plain sapphire blue tank suit. After a moment of
tugging at the leg openings and the shelf bra to get the fit right, Dana
slipped out her patio door and headed to the pool.

For a moment she stood at the pool's edge, toes curled over the lip of
cement and arms crossed over her ribs, watching the undulating effect
of the underwater lights as they flashed turquoise on her pale legs and
arms. Her enthusiastic anticipation of a midnight swim was now
tempered by the little debate she had with herself whenever she swam.
The illogical part of her, the part that she worked to silence every day
of her life, was afraid of the water. It wasn't drowning she feared, but
the seeming irrevocacy of going from standing on two legs, dry and
groomed, a walking, talking member of the master species, to being
reduced by the indifferent blue water to just another amphibious
creature. There she existed on the simplest level; her only concern was
of staying alive while experiencing the cool caress of the water. And
although Dana knew that eventually she would emerge to dry off and
resume her dull human activities, that inevitability seemed too distant
to be of any comfort. The water changed everything, at least for a little
while. That was both the lure and the terror of it.

"Well? You gonna jump, or am I supposed to throw you in?"

Mulder stood in the shadows to her right, a tall, dark form which she
could easily recognize, even without the familiar burr of his voice, by
the slope of his shoulders and the slimness of his legs.  He took a step
forward, into the light, and she saw that he was wearing his
abbreviated red swimsuit. He had already been for a swim: water
clung to the hair on his chest and legs, and the hair on his head was
slicked back in a way that reminded her momentarily of Krychek.

Her gaze returned to the blue water.

"I just...sometimes the water scares me," she said, backing away from
the edge.

"Yeah. Me too," he said soberly.

Scully wondered how he could share such an irrational fear with her.
Then she remembered that he was Mulder; of course he understood.

"How did it go with Mr. Byrd?" she said.

"Got a confession," Mulder said, lowering himself to the patio surface
and dangling his legs in the water. "But only about the daughter.
We'll see about the mother tomorrow. What'd you find?"

"Looks like it a classic case of transdermal arsenic poisoning," Dana
said, sitting next to him.

"How do you mean?"

"She read all the time -- pulp romance novels, up to three a week. Her
fingertips and the tip of her tongue showed a purplish premortem
necrosis. I'd be willing to bet that the pages of at least a few of those
books were dusted with arsenic."

Mulder chuckled as he scissored his calves silently in the water.

"Talk about purple prose," he said. "I wonder if it was just on the
pages with the dirty parts."

"It's ironic, really, because from what her sister said, those books
were her only comfort after Amy disappeared."

"My mom did that after Samantha was taken," Mulder said. "Except
she read Dickens, *all* of Dickens, over and over again."

His profile was set and somber in the dimness.

"Really? Did she ever read to you?" Scully asked.

Mulder shook his head. He was watching his feet as he repeatedly
flexed them just under the water's surface.

"No. I guess I was too old for that. No, she sat by herself in her little
study. It was on the back of the house -- it had a view of the ocean --
and smoked and read all day."

"All day? What about the housework?"

"I did a lot of it," he admitted. "And she did some on Saturdays, or
before Dad came to visit. Not that he noticed, of course. I guess she
wanted to be sure that she was discharging her wifely duties, beyond
reproach, so he couldn't give her a hard time."

"But he did anyway," Scully stated.

He snorted bitterly.

"Yeah, well, he never let reason stand in his way."

She wanted to touch him then, but was afraid.

Mulder cleared his throat slightly, closing the subject.

"So tomorrow, if Byrd owns up to the wife, you think we could go
home?"

"Depends on the lab results. I've asked the sheriff to bring in her
books for us to examine...Maybe Friday. Why? Got plans for the
weekend?"

Mulder exhaled a derisive sound.

"No, Scully. No plans. You?"

"My Mom should be back from San Diego -- finally." He could hear
the smile in her voice, and knew that Scully was anticipating her
mother's renewed demands for a son-in-law. "Thought I'd go see
her. And, you know, the usual. Laundry, bills, sleep."

"Yeah. Me too." Mulder reclined on the cement surface of the patio
and lay there, feet in the water, staring up at the hazy night sky. "Will
you tell her about what happened?"

Scully twisted at the waist and looked over her shoulder at him.

"About you, y'mean, or about Ed and the tattoo?"

"About me, I guess," he replied without returning the look.

She pulled one leg out of the water and tucked her foot close to her
body so that she could rest her chin on her knee.

"Probably not," she said. "Mom doesn't much care what I do these
days if it doesn't involve a church, a ring, and nine months of swollen
ankles."

"You're hard on her," Mulder said. "She likes you, you know."

"She used to like me," Scully said. "Before Stuart. I pissed her off
by not introducing her to him. She's right, of course. How could I
think of marrying a man who'd never met my mother?"

"Temporary insanity?" Mulder suggested.

She smiled faintly at the memory of Stuart's gentle laughter. For a
moment, she could feel his slim waist under her palm as they walked
through the snow. She heard him singing softly to her when he
thought she was sleeping. She breathed the spicy lavender scent of his
soap, and felt the smooth sweep of his tongue behind her right ear.

Mulder heard a low, ponderously heavy sigh escape her lungs.

"You still miss him," he said.

"No. Not really," she said without hesitation. "I miss the simplicity of
being with him. That's all."

A slight breeze cleared some of the haze, and Mulder caught of
glimpse of a constellation he could readily identify.

"There's Orion," he said, pointing to the collection of frosty white
stars in the far western sky.

"And Canus Major -- see, next door?" Scully said, reclining next to
him. She was grateful for a change of subject. "The really bright one
is Sirius A. Ancient astronomers thought it was a red star -- redder
than Mars. But of course it's really white. It has a companion star, a
white dwarf, whose gravitational pull influences the appearance of --"

"Why the ouroboris, Scully?" Mulder interrupted.

"The what?" she said, frowning at the sky.

"The snake, on your back." Mulder folded his arms under his head,
trying to keep himself from reaching out for her. "It's an ouroboris, a
serpent devouring its own tail. Straight out of Jung's big golden book
of symbols."

"Oh, well then, Dr. Mulder, you tell me." A lethal drop of sarcasm
tinged her voice. "Why the autophagic snake?"

"No. Remember?" His response was tainted with an acidic hint of
bitterness. "This isn't about me."

Ouch.

She took a deep breath and released it slowly.

"I was drawn to it. It reminded me of something in myself, like a dim
memory, or a dream...something vague and distant but definitely
there." As Dana struggled for the right words, a balmy breeze blew a
hazy blanket over the constellations. She was relieved when the stars
disappeared. Their brilliance only accentuated the deep, silent
blackness that spread between them and pressed relentlessly on her
heart. "And later that night, after a few drinks, I saw it as a symbol of
that endless pattern I had complained about. Ed talked about marking
the moment, drawing a line in time itself to say, essentially, I'll never
come back here again. I'll never make these same mistakes again. I
was feeling weary and trapped and all I wanted was to break the
pattern, to get a breath of something fresh. With Stuart, I *thought*
that was what I was doing."

"Wasn't it?"

She closed her eyes and shivered under the breeze. She smelled the
metallic traces of rain blowing up from the south.

"Mulder, it's like you and I are the head and the tail of the same snake.
The only way we ever make any progress is by struggling *together*
but in opposite directions, like a snake slithers in the grass. It sins to
the right and repents to the left, so to speak, over and over again, in
some sort of bizarre balancing act that actually leads it forward, to its
goal, to redemption."

"You're saying you got the tattoo because of me?" he asked
incredulously.

"Not exactly."

Scully sat up again, warming to the subject. She had been struggling
to understand her own actions, and now, at last --

She sniffed, once, twice, and then felt a hot splat on her chest as a
drop of blood rolled out of her nose. She pinched her nostrils shut
between her thumb and forefinger while using the other hand to dab
the spot off of her skin.

Mulder was lost in his thoughts and never saw the blood.

Scully cleared her throat and continued.

"If one of us is the head, and one the tail -- it really doesn't matter
which is which," she said. "Then if the head swallows the tail, some
sort of mutual incorporation is reached..."

"When one bites the other, each flinches because its teeth are in its
own tail," he added.

"...Precisely..."

He rose and turned abruptly to her. They sat side by side, arms only a
few inches apart. The radiant warmth of his body was enticing in the
rapidly cooling evening. His hair had dried as they talked, and now
fell in a wild spiky mess over his forehead. He fixed the full intensity
of his perennially sleepy gaze on her. His lips were parted slightly; his
pink tongue licked the full bottom lip before his teeth lightly grazed it.

"That's incredibly sexy, you know, Scully."

One well-groomed brow arched into her forehead.

"What, that you're forever biting me in the ass?"

Laughter, masculine and feminine, emotional and satirical, pink and
gray, spilled out into the evening air, danced with the water lights, and
bounded off into the sky where the stars were bored and restless
behind the clouds.

When it had passed, Mulder drew his feet out of the water and
gathered his knees up close to his chest. He watched her; she was
smiling down at the water, pushing and pulling her leg through the
thickness of it, creating a marvelous musical scale of trickling and
soughing. For the first time, he realized how thin she had become; it
showed in her face more than in her body. Her cheeks were hollow,
her eyes wide.

"You once told me that I wasn't a pain in the ass to work with," he
said with a smirk.

"Yeah, but you're a pain in the ass to love, Mulder."

He swallowed a lump in his throat. His lips pressed together, then
opened, as he formed a question. He took a breath as if about to
speak, but then allowed the question to die unasked.

She had loved him all along, in a platonic way, he reminded himself.
He may've lost her as a lover, but he still had her as a partner and,
apparently, as a friend. He knew he should be satisfied with that.

But she was looking at him. Not staring, but contemplating, as if he
were a painting she had seen studied for years in art history texts and
now, after traveling across continents, was at last encountering in its
original form. The scale was not as she had imagined. The colors
were more vibrant that she had thought possible. In essence, Mulder's
flaws were both disappointing and reassuring in ways she had never
expected them to be.

"Do you..." She let the question flutter to the surface of silence, afraid
to hear the answer.

Mulder thought he knew the question, but did not want to ask it for
her. On the other hand, he feared that if he did not prompt her, she
would never take the step.

His voice was low, but his tongue formed the words with care.

"Do I what, Dana?"

Now it was her turn to shiver.

"You didn't mean those things you said to me in the hospital," she
said.

"No. I was angry, and incredibly jealous, and hurting. Not that that's
an excuse. But it's a reason, at least."

Scully nodded; she could appreciate the difference.

"Mulder, I have many more scars than I realized. And they're
considerably deeper than I thought. But..."

He struggled not to help her. These words had to come on their own.
Still, he was dying to hear them.

"Nothing," she continued. "Nothing, in all these years as friends,
kept me from loving you, until my own pride got in the way."

Mulder grinned, his teeth almost unnaturally white in the strange blue
lights that shone up from the depths of the pool.

"Well, Scully, if it's any consolation, if this were a Jane Austen novel
it would be called 'Pride and Pride.' "

Again she laughed, the soft, redoubling sound that reminded him of
the first time he had touched her body, that night in her kitchen when
she wore the sheer pink nightshirt the same color as her nipples, when
he saw that her pubic hair was dark auburn and thick and lush, that her
waist was tiny and her tummy not at all flat, as he had anticipated, but
beautifully rounded in a womanly show of potential reproductive
splendor, and the skin, her skin...

He groaned audibly and slipped into the pool before she could see the
erection that was peeking out of his swimsuit.

What Scully did see, however, was that he was cautiously
persevering, allowing her to see that he was still her old friend, the one
nobody calls Fox, the one who's afraid of fire, the one with the
monster IQ who can't balance his checkbook for anything, the one
whose heart had been broken long before she met him and who had
learned over the years with her how to let himself love and be loved...

"It's been a long day," she said, extracting her other leg from the pool.
"I'm going in. 'Night, Mulder."

End The Cry of the Truth 17b/22

The Cry of the Truth, 18a/22
The Nearness of You
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: NC-17 (Adult situations, language, near-sexual contact)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)

See part 01 for the disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.


   It's not the pale moon that excites me
   That thrills and delights me
   Oh, no, it's just the nearness of you...
        -- Rogers/Hart


As he swam another twenty laps, Mulder tried to remember the advice
the counselor had given him when he had called, just before they left
for Texas, to make the first appointment. Don't pressure her.
Encourage her to talk. Listen. Above all, listen.

Make her feel secure and loved without initiating sex.

That was easier said than done, he mused, when she was wearing that
swimsuit with the low square-cut neckline.

Mulder was beginning to allow himself to hope that Scully wanted to
resume their affair. During their time in Texas, they had at least
restored their working relationship. He was fairly certain that he had
seen more than just professional regard in her eyes as they talked
under the stars. And she had said that she loved him, hadn't she? She
had indeed.

He climbed out of the pool and shook off the water like a dog. As he
headed toward the sliding glass door that led from the patio to his
room, he passed Scully's door. About six inches of glass were
uncovered by the drapery. Before he could stop himself, Mulder
paused in the shadows and watched as she paced through her room.
Now completely naked, she was in the process of laying out her
clothes for the next day on the second bed. She turned her back to
him, and he caught a glimpse of the shadowy symbol on her flank.

Mulder turned and took a few steps back toward the pool. Even as he
felt burning shame for intruding on her privacy, his heart was
thundering in his chest and he shivered hard despite the warm breeze.
He glanced over his shoulder at her door, and seeing only an empty
room, began to cross the patio again.

He paused among the vinyl-strapped lounge chairs. There, the
counselor's words ringing in his ears, Mulder had an idea. He just
hoped he had the self-discipline to carry it off.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Soft spring rain pattered against the sliding glass door that overlooked
the pool, but all Scully heard was the roar of the shower above her
head. She was rinsing the shampoo lather from her hair, first allowing
the water to sluice off the majority of it, then using her fingertips to
work the residual bubbles out of the her hairline. She lifted the heavy
mass of her hair and bowed her head under the stream. The water
pummeled against the back of her skull, parting the hair like the Red
Sea and cajoling the tight muscles of her neck to loosen enough for her
to forget, at least for a little while, that the past three weeks had been
the most emotionally intense of her life.

As she stepped out of the water's jet and began to rub the soap over
her arm, she heard a tapping sound from beyond the shower's
plexiglass door.

"Scully?"

"Mulder?" She returned the soap to its box and cracked the shower
door. "What is it? Another murder?"

"No, no," he said, peering around the bathroom door. "I, uh, I
just..."

"Are you okay?" she asked, more urgently this time.

Mulder shook his head and exhaled a tiny laugh at his own folly.

"I'm okay, Scully. I just wanted to, uh...I wanted to tell you..."
Mulder looked down at his body, suddenly feeling ridiculous in his
small swimsuit. "This is really strange, I know, especially after --"

The shower door opened more widely, and he was confronted with
her nude, wet form. She was just as he remembered, womanly and
strong. His eyes traveled from the faint, slanted lines of her ribcage to
the clutch of wet, dark ringlets at her base, then up to the gray-green,
shortsighted eyes he loved so well.

"It's okay," she said softly, extending a hand toward him.

He took her hand, so small in his, and stepped into the steamy
shower, closing the door behind him. The water was nearly too hot
on his skin after the cool evening air.

"Swimsuits aren't required in here, you know," she said, tilting her
head toward his pelvis.

"Oh. Right."

He had it off and over the shower door in a matter of seconds.

For a moment all she could do was stare at his face, memorizing the
expression of fear, grief, and regret. He seemed so weary, and older
than his years, yet his almost childlike need to love her was so
apparent to her now that she wondered how she could have possibly
overlooked it for so many years.

She shook her head, face crumpling under the force of her sadness,
and she placed a hand over her heart.

"Maybe I shouldn't've come," he said, more to himself than to her.

"I'm glad you did," she said, gingerly placing a finger in the crook of
his elbow. "I wanted to spend some more time with you, but I didn't
know how to ask."

"I have a feeling this isn't what you had in mind," he said ruefully,
watching the progress of her finger over his bicep.

"No, but...the most important thing, the thing I didn't say outside just
now, Mulder," she said, now clasping his shoulders firmly, "Is that
I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry I did what I did in Philadelphia,
and I'm sorry I reacted the way I did that night on the Mall."

"You believe that I love you, don't you?" he said quietly.

"I wanted to believe...," she said with a tiny smile. "But I thought I'd
given up my right to that. What I did to you was so rotten, Mulder..."

He kissed her forehead as he pulled her into a tight embrace.

"I said some rotten things, too, Scully."

She rested against his chest, enjoying the sensation of the water
pooling between them.

"I didn't sleep with Ed," she said.

"I believe you, sweetheart."

The sound of the endearment, uttered in his half-squeaky, half-sultry
voice, nearly broke her heart.

They stood, toe to toe, arms wrapped around each other, and wept in
the humid chamber of the motel shower. Mulder rocked her in his
embrace, murmuring endearments into her wet hair.

But Scully could not accept his tenderness without further
qualification. She pushed back from him so that she could see his face
as she spoke.

"I know I agree to talk to somebody -- that therapist you called -- about
all this," she began. "And I intend to, as soon as we get back. But
nothing changes the fact that I have scars... on my body and in my
heart. They may never go away, but I think can learn to live with
them. And you have to be prepared to live with them too, if this is
going to work."

He pursed his lips and cocked his head to one side to give her a stern,
questioning look. Her words reminded him of something Krychek
had said about biting her hard enough to draw blood.

"Let me wash you," he said.

She swallowed and nodded, then leaned back against the sparkling
white tile and watched as he took her soap from its pink travel box.
Her tears had eased, and now watching his graceful movements
provided a welcome distraction from the grief that had provoked them.
His biceps and pectorals flexed as he rubbed the soap between his
hands. As he dipped his head to one side in the process of stowing the
soap on the little porcelain shelf, she observed a rippling elongation of
his neck. Her eyes wandered down his belly to the orderly latticework
of abdominal muscles and the patch of dark hair that served as a
background to his quiescent penis. His body was no less beautiful for
its familiarity.

He kissed her wet face, his soapy hands sliding over her back as he
pulled her close into the crook of his right arm. His left hand rubbed
soap over her right shoulder, her breasts and belly, then around to her
hip and down to her upper thigh. All the while he was humming
softly, just under his breath, a song about the disarming effect of love.
She closed her eyes and listened, felt his firm, even touch, smelled the
soap and his Mulderscent as distilled by the warm water.

He shifted so that he was holding her with his left arm around her
waist, washing her left side with his right hand. Still humming, he
pressed soft kisses along her hairline. Her mind wandered, trying to
identify the song, as his hands worked through the tangle of hair at the
apex of her thighs, trailing soap through the crevices he knew so well.
Then, at his unspoken request, she turned to the wall and rested her
head against her forearms.

With her face hidden from him, Scully wept a little more, despairing
over the intensity of her need for him. She had not understood the
extent of her involvement with Mulder until they had spent a week
apart, both expecting never to touch again. Now that she felt herself
loosening, warming, healing under his touch, she had no choice but to
acknowledge the effect of his love on her. It did not wholly jibe with
her ideas of independence and strength, but there it was.

Mulder's humming ceased as he encountered the ouroboris etched on
her back. He covered it with his palm, pretending for a second that it
wasn't there. But denying the tattoo meant denying everything that
had led them to this point. He should learn to love it, he told himself.
He should kiss it, lick it, nibble at it, pour his semen onto and massage
it into the skin there until he had accepted it as part of their common
journey. But tonight it still made him feel an inexplicable, gutburning
fear of her separateness.

Reminding himself that the purpose of these ablutions was to comfort
her, he kept his hands moving up and down her back lest his lingering
over the tattoo alert her to his fear. With his thumbs he massaged wide
circles into the strong muscles that paralleled her spine. He trailed his
short nails down the deep spinal valley between the twin banks of
muscle, eliciting a shiver from her that brought a slight smile back to
his face. She shifted her arms, but did not turn, and Mulder was glad.
At least for a few minutes, he needed to be alone with her body and his
thoughts.

Rubbing her soap between his hands again, he massaged her lower
back, hips, and buttocks with deep strokes. She moaned softly as the
tension dissipated under his hands. Slowly, then, he sank to his
knees. He caught a handful of water and used it to rinse the soap from
her bottom, then pressed his lips to the taut, translucent skin there.
His fingers smoothed over every spot his lips kissed, then oh so
gently parted the firm globes of gluteal muscle. Two small, jagged,
vaguely crescent-shaped scars, white against the delicate pink tissue,
were revealed to him, proving once again the agonizing veracity of
Krychek's story. He kissed the scars, and heard her whimper. Then,
with a tremulous finger, he traced one more ragged scar. It was less
than a centimeter in length, radiating out from the tight little aperture.
He placed another tender kiss there, and hoped that she did not feel the
hot tears that coursed over his cheeks.

He shuddered and, finally rising again to his full height, smoothed his
hands over her belly and down to her thighs. She moaned and moved
against his hands, her strong gluteals rippling under the pressure of his
thighs. She was whispering into the wall, a prayer, a plea, a
confession that had nothing to do with his fear of the tattoo. Her hands
slapped against the tile and reached above her head. She lurched
forward, flattening herself against the wall and then arching back
against his body.

He thought he heard her speak, and leaned closer.

"Scully?" he whispered into her cheek.

"Go ahead. Do it," she said hoarsely, just loudly enough for him to
hear her.

He frowned darkly. Where else she had used similar words, he
wondered.

"No. No, sweetheart." Although his familiar voice was warm, soft,
just above a whisper, it projected through the thunder of the shower
straight to the place inside her where the pain and loneliness were
burning. "I just wanted to touch you, to bathe you, to be with you.
Turn around, my darling. Let me hold you, please. That's it...oh,
Dana."

As she sobbed in his arms, he rocked her in and out of the spray,
smoothing the soap from her back in small strokes, turning her so that
the stream could rinse her belly and chest. He kissed her tentatively,
only with his lips lest he confuse the both of them with his motives.

And then they were clean.

"Let's go to bed," he said gruffly.

"I'm so tired," she admitted.

"Mmm. Me too." He turned off the water and offered her a guiding
hand over the threshold of the shower stall. When she was standing,
tiny and dripping, on the bath mat, he proceeded to dry her with slow,
even strokes of the towel.

Eventually he left her so that she could complete the brief evening
ritual that he knew, albeit indirectly, from years of traveling with her.
Occasionally he would stand in the bathroom door and trade theories
with her as she prepared for bed: brush and floss teeth, put on eye
cream, take sleep-inducing antidepressant drug, smooth on lip balm.
That had been in the days when he had to return to his room alone,
take a cold shower, and spend the rest of the night repeatedly listing
the monarchs of England (in order, with dates) or conducting some
other dry mental exercise to distract him from dreaming of Scully.

Tonight, as he sat on the edge of her bed, he listened to the roar of her
hair dryer and tried once again to think calm, nonsexual thoughts. He
began with William the Conqueror, and had gotten only as far as John,
the loser king, when she emerged from the bathroom dressed in a
simple pair of pale blue cotton jersey pajamas, her hair dried just
enough to give her a halo of auburn waves. She was rubbing lotion
into her hands as she walked toward him.

When he looked up at her through a veil of dark eyelashes and smiled
shyly, Dana had to pause and rethink the situation. What he had just
done for her had given her more comfort than anyone, including her
parents, had ever been able to offer her. But after the emotional
turmoil of the past week, she was not prepared to reciprocate...at least
not in the way that he seemed to have in mind.

"Mulder..."

End The Cry of the Truth, 18a/22

The Cry of the Truth, 18b/22
The Nearness of You
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: NC-17 (Adult situations, language, near-sexual contact)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)

See part 01 for the disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.

   It's not the pale moon that excites me
   That thrills and delights me
   Oh, no, it's just the nearness of you...
        -- Rogers/Hart

"I'd like to stay with you," he said, hurriedly securing the towel at his
waist as he stood. His dusky look spoke of his need to twine his body
around hers and float with her into the warm nighttime respite that he
had found only when sleeping next to her. "I want to sleep with you,
just hold you, Dana, if...That's all. For now. If you --"

"Do you want to go back to your room for your pajamas?" she asked.

He gave her a lopsided grin and a nod.

"Yeah. Good idea. Be back in a minute, okay?"

"I'll be waiting," she said softly, taking up the place he had vacated on
the bed.

Within ten minutes, Mulder was back. He locked the patio door
behind him and closed the draperies, then slid into bed behind her.
She readily tucked her bottom into his lap as he closed his arms around
her torso.

"Fox..."

He sighed his response.

"I have to be honest with you," she said quietly, her fingertips
rhythmically stroking the soft hair of his forearm. "I don't want to go
back to just being friends again. I love you, no matter what, and if
you'll have me, I want to be with you for a long, long time -- as a
lover. That's what I want."

Mulder tugged on her sleeve until she rolled over to face him.

"I like hearing that certainty in your voice."

"I'm confused about some other things, but I know that I love you.
And that I need you."

As she spoke to him, she caressed his cheek, his neck, his shoulder.
He was warm and fragrant from their shower, and in those striped
Brooks Brothers pajamas his mother had given him for Christmas, he
seemed to her a cross between Cary Grant in any of his films and a
virginal bridegroom on his wedding night, circa 1949. Suddenly, in
spite of the gravity of the night's discussion, she wished she were
wearing a fitted satin nightgown and holding a glass of champagne.

Instead, she was curled up in a better-than-average motel bed with the
flesh-and-bone man of her dreams.

Dana smiled in the darkness and smoothed her hand over his breast.
The crisp cotton of the pajama shirt whispered under her touch.

"Mulder -- Fox -- I -- I love these pajamas." He stilled the hand that
caressed his chest and brought it to his lips for a kiss. She felt his
smile forming under her fingertips, and it gave her courage to say what
was on her mind. "I need you for so many things, normal everyday
things, but also I need you to help me deal with this - this thing that
happened to me."

"I will. I promise. And I won't push you into hypnosis, even
though....Okay. Never mind. I'm still amazed that you agreed to any
form of treatment. Amazed, and relieved." He pulled her close in a
tight embrace, even hitched one lanky leg over hers to add to the
intensity of his expression of love and devotion. "We'll do it, and do
it well, just like we do everything."

"You smell so good," she mumbled, sniffing his neck. "You feel even
better."

"Yeah, well, don't feel me too thoroughly, or you'll get a rude shock."

"Not so rude," she said, skimming her hand along his thigh.

Mulder rolled onto his back and away from her hands.

"Cut it out, Scully," he said sternly. "Now's not the time."

Dana sighed. Since when was he the practical one?

"I hear you, Mulder." She stretched, pointing her toes and reaching
for the wall above her head. With a grunt of satisfaction, she released
the stretch and reached for his hand. It was warm and surprisingly
soft. "To be honest, I didn't really intend to...it's just that the
nearness of you, the smell of your skin, your voice in my ear, your
smooth, soft feet..."

"You like my feet?" he asked, cutting a glance her way.

Dana smiled at the ceiling.

"They're beautiful -- like the rest of you," she said.

Mulder curled his toes self-consciously. His mental VCR was
whirring to life again, playing a naughty tape of Scully licking his
instep while wearing nothing but those nearly translucent green silk
pajama pants, the ones she had worn with his gray tee shirt that night
in her apartment. The sense memory of her taste came to life in his
mouth with a rapid accuracy that, even in the darkness, made him
blush. As the scene continued, she straddled his legs and leaned
forward to nibble at his toes, revealing the ouroboris on her bare back.

"Can I see it again, Scully?" he asked, his throat dry with arousal and
worry and weariness.

"See -- oh. Of course."

She rolled onto her belly and reached around, her elbow at an acute
angle, to hitch up her top. The mattress dipped as Mulder sat up and
turned on the light, then squirmed around until he was kneeling over
her, knees on the left and one hand on either side of her hips, to get the
best view of the tattoo.

He traced the mark with his fingertips, at first just grazing the skin and
then touching it more assuredly.

"You said..." He cleared his throat; his voice was cracking with
nearly every syllable tonight. "You said that you and I are the head
and the tail of the same snake, struggling together but in opposite
directions...in an bizarre balancing act that eventually leads
forward..."

"I think I was waxing poetic," she said. "Or waning, maybe."

"But it's true, isn't it." His fingers moved up and down her spine, his
touch as natural in its intimacy with her body as her own hand had
ever been. "Ever seen a snake after it's been cut in half?"

She clenched shut her eyes, trying for a moment to stop the painful
image of a bisected snake struggling helplessly, finding relief only in
death. Then, a quiet voice within her -- one that she had long ago
strangled into silence -- asked that she allow the feelings to live out
their natural lifespan.

"Yes," she said, rolling onto her back and reaching for him.

With a cry that registered somewhere between a whimper and a moan,
Mulder lowered himself into her arms. He nuzzled her neck and took
a deep breath of her. He heard the stubble on his chin rasping against
the velvet of her neck, and wished he had taken the time to shave...but
there was never enough time, was there?

"I can't go forward without you, Dana," he said, his voice clotted with
tears.

"You don't have to."

She held him tightly, his head tucked under her chin, one hand raking
through his hair as the other cupped his cheek. Occasionally she heard
him sniff away a tear. Her own eyes, however, were dry not because
she was denying her grief but because her contentment in holding him
again was greater than the pain that lived within her.

Outside the wind was picking up, slapping the warm rain against the
plate glass of the patio door.

"Hey, Mulder? I'm really cold. Could you grab that blanket?"

He rose a few degrees, just enough to snag the hem of the spare
blanket and pull it over their bodies. He set the alarm on the clock
radio on his way back into her arms.

Dana smiled at the little noises he made as he wrapped himself around
her. His smooth feet touched hers as he assumed a fetal position, and
she sighed her approval.

"Sleepy?" he asked.

"A bit. I wish we didn't have to go back to work in the morning. All
I want to do now is stay curled up with you."

He kissed the part of her neck that was nearest his lips; her skin was
so soft and pliant that it seemed to kiss back on its own volition.

"Which is why the Bureau frowns on this kind of thing between
partners," he said.

"You mean that Skinner wouldn't approve of Sanders taking a shower
with Milwitz, and then getting into bed with him?"

"They'd be protected by the don't ask-don't tell policy, sweetheart,"
he said, spreading his palm across her abdomen.

"This counseling business won't be easy, you know," she said,
abruptly switching to the topic that was uppermost in both their minds.
"How many sessions before we're allowed to have sex?"

Mulder shifted again, this time just enough to rest his weight on an
elbow.

She was waiting patiently for his answer, lips parted slightly, her chest
rising and falling with the tide of her breath. Mulder's brows
furrowed together; in the dark room, he could barely see her below
him.

"It's not that we aren't *allowed* to, Dana. I just -- I'm not -- I'm
worried --"

"Now's not the time," she said softly. "I understand. But do you
still...do you still want me, Mulder?"

He laughed broadly at that, tossing his head back and flopping noisily
onto the mattress.

"Why do you think I swam another twenty laps, Scully?" he snorted.

Under the covers, she smoothed down her pajama top and laced her
fingers together over her waist.

"Fox." Her voice was low and even, and immediately censored his
laughter as it reminded him to take her query as seriously as it had
been made.

"I'm sorry," he said, calm now. "I've wanted you so badly for so
long. The idea that that would ever change is -- improbable at best."

"Very judiciously put," she said.

He made more settling noises as they returned to their side-by-side
position. Soon he felt her breathing slow and deepen, and he realized
that she was asleep. He was ready to follow her, to dream of making
love to her on the beach at Gay Head again. But there was one last
ritual to complete before he could release his hold on the day.

"Dana."

At the sound of her name, she stirred slightly and whimpered.

"Dana, I love you." He uttered the words clearly, but quietly, near her
ear.

She patted his arm where it encircled her body and tucked herself a
little closer to him.

>From the hazy blue rim of sleep, she spoke. "Fox, I love you, too,
and I'm so sorry..."

"It's all right now, baby. Go to sleep, and dream about me."

She chuckled sleepily.

"...Easy..."

End The Cry of the Truth, 18b/22

The Cry of the Truth, 19a/22
Missed Perfection
A.I. Irving
vsmith@ischemia.card.unc.edu
Rating: NC-17 (Sexual activity)
Category: S, A, R (Mulder/Scully)
Summary: Scully shares the benefits of her improved mental health
with Mulder.

See part 01 for the disclaimer.

PLEASE ARCHIVE AND POST TO ATXC. Ask me before putting it
anywhere else. Thanks.

Feedback would be fabulous; we're in the home stretch now!

     I know you've missed perfection,
     But your quirks and flaws
     Are not personal betrayals,
     But are the marks left
     By the kiss of angels,
     Allowing you to live within
     This far too real world.
          --Joseph Zitt, "Psalm 183"

The effort required to save the life of a retired General and help capture
his assassin was child's play to Dana, compared to the challenges she
met in the office of the psychologist recommended by Dr. Burnett.
Every Tuesday and Thursday for the past six weeks, barring out-of-
town cases, Dana had presented herself at Dr. Anna Locke's
Tenleytown office for whatever examination and exorcism the good
doctor could offer.

It hadn't been six weeks of sitting in a comfy chair telling her troubles
to a professional listener, as she had expected. It had been six weeks
of answering tough questions about herself, her needs and desires, her
petty cruelties and her stellar gifts. Dana had recounted, in lurid detail,
everything she remembered about the rape -- after initially explaining
to Dr. Locke that she simply could not talk about the criminal nature of
her abduction because it was still considered an open case. After a few
sessions, she stopped trying to analyze Dr. Locke's methodology and
allowed herself to be mystified by the seemingly effortless way that the
counselor could keep track of the complex facts and feelings Dana
threw at her. She seemed to absorb what she heard and observed,
distill it through the filter of her kindness, education, and experience,
and then return it to Dana in the form of a fresh question that more
often than not led to some sort of epiphany. As the weeks wore on,
the Gordion knot of emotions surrounding the sharp kernel that was
her memory of the rapes began to loosen. Dana's skepticism, at least
where psychotherapy was concerned, was put to rest when she
realized that for the first time in years, the cold, quiet, nameless fear
that kept her company like a war wound nags an old man was more
and more often taking a holiday.

One Thursday, soon after the Teager case was concluded, Dana
emerged from the psychologist's brick office building on upper
Wisconsin Avenue with a vague idea about wanting to reward herself
for all the emotional exertion of the past six weeks. She wandered
northward up the avenue, peering into the windows of small shops
that sold everything from antiques to tie-dye. As she neared Chevy
Chase and the Maryland border, the more expensive the merchandise
became. She considered shoes -- too likely to be ruined chasing after
monsters. A new suit -- enough of those, thank you. Jewelry -- leave
that for Mulder, who was always wanting to give her gifts these days.

She paused outside the jeweler's window and stared vacantly at the
display of platinum and diamonds. Poor old Mulder, she thought.
For six weeks all we've talked about is work and my therapy. I've
cried on his shoulder and kept him awake with my nightmares. He's
given me everything I needed, and more. He deserves a reward of his
own, she declared.

Dana tugged her cell phone out of the small, flat purse she carried and
hit the auto dial code for her partner.

"Mulder," he muttered on the second ring.

"Hey Mulder, what're you wearing?" she said with a smile that he
could certainly hear in the lilting burr of her voice.

"Hmmpf. Same thing I was wearing when you left here an hour ago,"
he replied, feigning peevishness. "Where are you?"

"On the street."

"Oooh, Scully, living beyond your means again? Had to take a second
job?"

"Shut up, Spooky," she hissed, grinning at herself in the shop
window.

"Sticks and stones, my girl, sticks and stones...."

"So you're still at the office?" she asked.

"Yeah, well, I could never make it on the street," he teased. "I always
got picked last for all the teams in grade school, y'know."

"Bullshit. Mulder, pay attention. I'm trying to proposition you in the
best possible way."

In spite of the steady drone of the passing cars, she heard him growl
seductively into the phone. She felt her face flush with the intensity of
a fever.

"Yes ma'am," he said smoothly. "Just tell me when and where and
I'll be there. With bells on."

"My place. Two hours. And you can skip the bells."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder lifted one arm and then the other to sniff himself; he had taken
a quick shower following his after-work swim, but he couldn't
remember if he had put on more deodorant. He was viciously
nervous, which made him sweat, which made him more nervous.
Then he worried for a moment that he smelled like chlorine, from the
pool water. And what about the shirt -- sometimes the ancient dryer in
his building's basement turned itself off before the shirts were
dry...Not this time. It passed. Downy fresh.

He smoothed the plum tee shirt over his belly and tucked it a little more
securely into his jeans. He stopped in front of Dana's door and
wished for a mirror. His hair was still a little wet, and probably
sticking out all over. He patted his head absently and was about to
knock when the door opened as if by magic.

Almost by magic, he mused, facing his love. She was especially
beautiful tonight, her eyes sparkling with a gorgeous, welcoming
smile that until a few weeks ago he had wondered if he would ever see
again.

"Hey," he said, smiling like a child.

She stepped aside so that he could enter the apartment, and then locked
the door behind him.

Mulder felt her hands sliding the leather jacket from his shoulders
before he even had a chance to turn around and study her. Once freed
from the coat, he perched on an arm of the sofa and watched as she
rummaged in the hall closet. When she was finished, she returned to
stand before him.

He fixed his dark gaze upon her and fluttered his long eyelashes once
or twice to punctuate his expression.

"What's going on, Scully?"

She moved forward until she was standing between his long legs.
Without meeting his eyes, she skimmed her fingertip just under his
waistband until he sucked in a breath in response to the shivery tickle
that suffused his nerve endings. He lifted it to his lips and kissed the
freckles that dotted the dorsal surface, noting for the hundredth time
how tiny her bones and joints were compared to his own. As his lips
strayed to her wrist, he looked into her eyes and this time found that
she was looking back.

Again, she was smiling.

"What?" he asked, a hint of paranoia creeping into the question.

"Nothing." She shook her head and, without really wanting to, gently
pulled her hand out of his grip. "I just -- I'm just really glad to see
you."

"Really glad?" he echoed, trying to get a sense of her true meaning.

But Scully only nodded and walked away, leading him into the
kitchen.

"I hope you're hungry," she said. From the oven, she produced a
broad white baking dish containing a whole roasted chicken
surrounded by carrots and tiny red potatoes. "The proverbial spring
chicken."

"Looks great," he said, taking a deep breath of the scent of thyme,
garlic, and butter that steamed up from the bird. "Smells even better.
What's for dessert?"

"That's a surprise," she said mildly. "Have a seat, and I'll bring the
plates. The wine's on the table, if you want to pour..."

Mulder took his usual chair at the pine plank table and draped a simple
white linen napkin across his lap. The table was set in the usual Scully
style: antique hotel silver purchased at flea markets, simple white bone
china, and hem-stitched linens. A bouquet of yellow daisies and ivy
filled a small ceramic vase that looked as if it had been made in art
class by one of her nephews. He touched the small fingerprints that
had been immortalized in the clay, imagining for a moment that they
belonged to a child of their own creation.

"The wine, Mulder," she reminded him from the kitchen, in a
distinctly wifely tone.

"Oh yeah."

He turned the bottle of white wine between his palms, trying to
decipher the label.

"When did you become such an oenophile?"

"A couple of years ago, when I realized I had plenty of disposable
income and too much stress," she replied, placing a small blue faience
plate before him.

Mulder peered down at three oysters, resting in half-shells and dressed
with thin strips of prosciutto and strands of chives.

"What's this?"

"Something like oysters Rockefeller," she replied, scooting her own
chair up to the table. "Oyster season is nearly over, and I know how
much you like them, so..."

Mulder's stomach contracted in horror. He sat as far back in his chair
as he could without actually pushing back from the table, and tried to
look anywhere but at the oysters or her face.

"Don't eat them, Scully," he panted.

"What? Why not? They're not raw -- I steamed them." Her brow
furrowed deeply. "I thought you loved oysters. You were muttering
about them, in your sleep, when you came back from Russia. Don't
you remember my telling you that?"

"Yeah, but it's not because..."

He stumbled out of his chair and into the living room. Dana followed
in time to see him bury his face in the loose cushions of the sofa.

"Mulder? Are you feeling sick?"

He whimpered unintelligibly into the pillows.

Dana watched him for a moment, stymied. She had hoped that a light
meal, a few glasses of wine, and some intimate conversation would set
the scene for a return to their long-delayed status as lovers. But now
her hopes were waning.

She sat on the coffee table, near his head, and rested her elbows on her
knees.

"Contrary to those Mrs. Spooky rumors, I can't read your mind, you
know."

Her words were sardonic, but the touch of her hand on his back was
depthlessly gentle. When Mulder finally looked up from the velvet
cushion, he saw that she was patiently waiting for him to speak.

"I had managed not to think about it, not in the last few weeks," he
said, half sitting. "You were getting better, and I guess I really wanted
to forget. Rape Takes a Holiday -- not exactly the title of a Hitchcock
movie, but..."

"We both need a break from this, Mulder." Her voice was soft and
low, lulling him like a child who had skinned his knee. "That's what
this evening was about. We've both tried so hard to get through this
thing, and it's working. I thought I'd wine you and dine you, rather
than cry on your shoulder, for a change."

"I'm sorry, Scully," he said, taking her hand.

"It's okay. But tell me what the problem is, Mulder." Her eyes bore
into him with that unblinking intelligence that he always relied on to
cut through the crap. "I need to know."

He nodded.

"First get rid of the oysters?"

"Whatever you say," she assented.

He heard the whir of the food disposer and the jet of water rinsing the
food down the kitchen drain. When she returned, she presented him
with a cool glass of wine. Again, she sat on her coffee table, her
knees grazing his.

"You remember when I said that Krychek told me about raping you,"
he began, sipping the wine.

She nodded once, her face fixed in an expression of caution.

"Well, he told me what you smelled like, and -- and what you tasted
like. He said -- oysters. He said you tasted like oysters. And that's
why I can't eat them." He shook his head slowly, horrified by what
he was telling her. "I'm sorry, Dana."

Her first instinct was to run and hide. Secondly, she wanted to vomit.
Thirdly, she wanted to cry. This option held the most appeal, and so
she gave in to it. She hid her face behind her small hands and allowed
the tears to contort her eyes, upper lip, and nose into a mask of pain.
Her throat seemed to fill with tears, and she nearly choked when she
tried to take a breath through the veil of moisture. She swallowed
hard, and then gulped oxygen as if she were drowning.

It was not shame that made her cry, at least not primarily. It was the
automatic resurgence of the memory, as soon as Mulder's words had
been absorbed by her brain, of Krychek's hard, thin lips on her vulva,
sucking at her flesh with the single-mindedness a newborn dog blindly
searching for milk. She had never understood any of what he had
done to her, but his interest in tasting her body had confounded her in
particular. This sort of oral-genital contact was reserved for lovers,
she had thought, not the act of a rapist, someone who takes what is not
freely given for the sake of knowing power over his victim. But Alex
Krychek was not a typical rapist, if indeed there was such a thing. He
had used her creatively, and in perhaps the cleverest move of his
sordid career had applied his sense memories of her body to the
purpose of hurting Mulder. Dana's tears on this April evening were
for her own suffering, but also for the pain she had seen in Mulder's
face when he had to tell her the truth about the oysters. She was
learning to live with her own pain, but coping with the effect of all this
on her beloved Mulder was a different struggle altogether.

So to a certain degree, Krychek had gotten what he wanted.

At times Krychek seemed to enjoy pretending that he was her lover
rather than her rapist, feigning tenderness just long enough to take the
edge off her terror and then, when he knew that she had relaxed even
slightly, he would hurt her with a gleeful vengeance. He had bitten
her at these moments, then threw back his head like a wolf howling at
the moon and laughed about it. She could still see her blood on his
face: a smudge on his chin, his upper lip, the tip of his small nose.

In the agonized posture of her small body and the gasping sobs that
came from behind the screen of her hands, Mulder could almost
witness the memories playing themselves out. He had formed his own
mental images of the rapes based on Krychek's story and, more
recently, on what Dana had been able to tell him in the safe confines of
Dr. Locke's office. It was horrible enough, but he was getting better
at distancing himself from his own grief so that he could attend to
Dana's.

"Sweetheart. Come here. You know you don't have to do this
alone," he said, half-rising from his seat so that he could wrap his
arms around her shoulders and guide her masked, sobbing body onto
the couch. Somehow he managed to kick off his shoes in the process
of positioning her between his legs and then pulling her back to rest,
curled on her side, against his chest. Luckily the sofa was quite deep,
and there was room for him to wrap his long legs around her, creating
a cocoon of muscle and bone that she could easily escape should she
feel confined. He cooed sweet words as he stroked her hair. As she
cried out the last jagged sobs, he rubbed her back like a father trying to
coax a burp from his baby.

Her sobs turned into sniffs, which finally eased into the quiet little
sounds of a contented animal. She burrowed more deeply into his
embrace -- if that was indeed possible -- and draped a proprietary hand
over the swell of his left breast. Mulder's hand came up to cover hers,
as if to hold it in place over his heart. He sighed profoundly, and it
was only then, when she seemed to have recovered, that he allowed
himself to kiss her forehead. He had a rule for himself for handling
these waves of catharsis: no contact that can be misconstrued as
sexual. Comforting only. The stroking, the holding, the intertwining
of limbs did not strike him as overtly sexual when compared to any
sort of kiss. He attributed this to all the years of platonic friendship
between them, when they had from time to time touched each other
without sexual ramifications. It was not until their first kiss that he
really knew what it meant to be heartwrenchingly aroused by Dana
Scully. Therefore kisses had to be kept to a minimum, at least when
she was in tears, lest his body betray him. She needed his embrace,
not his erection.

"Ah, Scully," he sighed. "Sorry about that. I had to tell you the truth,
sweetheart."

"'S okay. You did the right thing." She lifted her head so that she
could kiss the smooth skin over the tendon in his neck. His pulse
thudded reassuringly under her lips. "We're getting pretty good at
this. And that's a sad commentary on our relationship."

"No it's not," he countered. "What kind of relationship is it if I can't
comfort you when you're hurting, Dana? Remember when I told you
I knew how to be half of a whole? You really *didn't* believe me, did
you."

"I was wrong," she whispered into his collar bone.

He rubbed his cheek against her forehead, then stopped when he
realized that his beard was probably scratching her tender skin.

"I could've found sex on the Internet, you know," he said, a faint
smile tugging at his mouth. "I wanted you. All of you. You and no
other."

Reaching up and across, she traced the curve of his ear, then trailed
her fingers into his hair, her nails lightly scratching his scalp.

Mulder shivered slightly.

"I love you too," she said quietly.

She cupped her hand around the back of his neck and shifted so that
she could lift her head to meet his. She kissed him firmly, as if to
clarify any lingering questions between them.

He pulled back, but not without regret. With a few more inches
between them, Mulder immediately understood the frown of
disappointment on her face.

"I know you do, Dana. I'm incredibly *glad* that you do."

"Then what's wrong? Don't you want me to kiss you?"

He made a face over the awkwardness of his situation.

"Of course. More than anything. It's just that when you kiss me, I
want more. I want to make love to you, and I know I shouldn't be
thinking about that right now. So it's easier, you know, if you
don't..."

She placed one hand on either side of his hips and pushed herself up
until she was no longer resting against him. Without her warm, slight
weight, Mulder felt a chill spread over his chest like a shadow.

"You want to make love to me?" she echoed in a dusky voice.

He nodded, swallowing and frowning all at once. Then he saw a slow
smile creep across her beautiful face, and he felt all the heat in his body
descend to his lower abdomen and wait there.

"Tell me, Mulder. Tell me how."

His mouth went dry, and he reached for his glass without taking
his eyes off her face.

End The Cry of the Truth, 19a/22