From: theidiosyncraticstanwyck <theidiosyncraticstanwyck@yahoo.com>
Date: 1 Mar 2005 03:51:35 -0800
Subject: [all-xf] NEW: Spectrum (6/10) NC-17
Source: atxc



Title: Spectrum
Author: the idiosyncratic stanwyck
Email: theidiosyncraticstanwyck@yahoo.com
Category/Keywords: AU, MSR, A (not too much)
Rating: NC-17 
Summary: A woman meets a man who opens her eyes to a vast,
unexpected spectrum of beautiful, terrifying possibilities.
Author's note: Please excuse the time lapse between the last section 
and this one; I've been having major technical difficulties. I hope 
you'll think this chapter was worth the wait.

Chapter 11: Shades of Gray

"The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action.
Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities
and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear
and simple as it first appears." - Bill Watterson

**

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but like 
those words, a photograph can tell a lie. 

Dana and John's wedding photos were in black and white. At 
the time, her mother had chided her and Missy had scoffed, 
but Dana had remained adamant. Black and white, she'd 
insisted, was timeless and classy.

"Just think," she'd teased her mom, "you'll look like a 
movie star in all the pictures."

Melissa had rolled her eyes in that my-little-sister-is-so-
predictable way that had always infuriated Scully. "Black 
and white. Typical, Dana. Someday," she predicted, four 
years older and sophisticated and oh-so-worldly wise, 
"you'll realize they're all just shades of gray."

Sighing, Dana traced her fingertip over the image of her own
smiling face, the finish of the photograph cool and smooth. 
She and John looked amazingly young and innocent, their 
faces almost cherubic. While not overweight, she was 
certainly plump, her curves exaggerated by the baby fat her 
figure had still supported. It had been so many years since 
she'd seen John without a beard that he looked like an 
imposter, some benign young man who had stepped into her 
best friend's spit-shined black loafers for that all-
important long ago day.

She turned the pages slowly, examining each smiling face 
with a sharp eye, looking for any clue of inner turmoil. No 
matter how closely she scrutinized their faces, nothing 
revealed itself, no shadow, no hint of strife or deceit. 
She and John looked happy, ordinary, and disgustingly all-
American. There was Maggie in her shiny silk, shoulder-
padded suit - it had been fuschia - and Melissa with her 
teased, puffy eighties bangs, looking like something out of 
a Wham! Video. Dana chuckled and flipped to the next page.

An eight by ten of John and herself arm in arm stared back 
at her. She narrowed her eyes, and her face became an 
indistinct blur above the white expanse of her wedding 
gown. She tried to remember how she had felt on her wedding 
day. The photos told the story of a happy union. Had she 
been happy, excited? She'd been pledging herself to a man 
whom she loved.Had she felt eager to begin a new chapter 
in her life, or had she been gripped by restless nerves? 
It was strange that she couldn't remember, and now she had 
only these photos as evidence. At the time she thought 
she'd been happy, but in retrospect, it was a sad day, 
the first step on a journey of struggling and self-doubt. 
Neither black nor white, only shades of gray.

Scully closed her wedding album with a snap. She couldn't 
explain exactly what had possessed her to drag it out of 
the dusty recesses of a bottom cupboard; perhaps she needed 
to remind herself that she had a knack for entering into 
disastrous relationships, and the most spectacular of her 
failures was enshrined within these pages. 

Her relationship with John had always been odd, but he had 
been her first love - her only love. And if she fell in 
love with her new best friend? She couldn't explain it, but 
Mulder instinctively knew and understood things about her 
that not even John had discovered, and John had known her 
since childhood. When their relationship failed - and it 
inevitably would, with her as one of the players - when all 
their pretty air castles burned down and they were left 
with ashes and bitterness and the impossibility of ever 
being as close and natural as they were today, could she 
handle it?

No. And there was her rational answer: Pick up the phone. 
Call Mulder, and tell him this was all a horrible mistake.

Mulder, with his big hands and long legs and full lips, who 
could make her boil with a single word or chuckle; Mulder, 
who tasted like gourmet coffee and cherries and whose 
remembered hardness pressed intimately against her had 
moisture flowing between her legs, lubricating, seeping 
into the crotch of her panties. She groaned and closed her 
eyes, restlessly shifting her thighs.

She did pick up the phone, and she did call Mulder. 

And she invited him to take her out to dinner on Friday 
night.

**
 
This time, Mulder was early.

The restaurant Scully had suggested was a bistro, vaguely 
French in flavor, that was perennially popular with the 
uppercrust crowd and newly en vogue among the young and 
trendy. It was more elegant and much more pricey than their 
usual fare - a definite date restaurant.

This was, by his calculation, their second date. The 
thought made him want an antacid, something to go plop-
plop-fizz-fizz in his water glass. It also made him feel 
more tingly and hopeful than he had since his senior prom.

She'd called him from her cell phone in the car to tell him 
that she was running late; Sophia's mom had picked Chloe up 
for the ritual Friday night sleepover, but she was twenty 
minutes behind, so could he hold their table?, and she'd be 
there just as soon as she could. The warm burgundy of her 
voice made his insides clench.

Mulder was a bit surprised when the hostess noted that 
Scully had asked that they be seated in the garden; it was 
no warmer than thirty degrees, at a generous estimate. So 
he followed the young woman through the restaurant to the 
back patio with some trepidation, and discovered that the 
terraced portico was enclosed with a translucent sheet of 
heavy plastic and comfortably heated. The stars glittered 
overhead, their brilliant flames suffering little from 
having to compete with the city lights for visibility. 

He ordered a scotch on the rocks and an extra-dirty martini 
to be delivered when his dinner companion arrived, slipped 
the small bunch of flowers he had brought into the vase on 
the table, and settled back to enjoy the atmosphere if his 
nerves would permit. Soft piano music tinkled out from the 
bar via hidden speakers. A short, squat candle flickered in 
the center of the delicate wrought-iron table. The small 
patio accommodated only five tables, spaced as far apart as 
possible to provide maximum privacy for the diners. 

She arrived in a light cloud of perfume, not the one she 
usually wore but something richer, spicier. Scully had left 
her coat inside and was nothing short of stunning in a 
simple, sleeveless black dress with a peacock blue stole 
tossed around her shoulders and big silver hoops swinging 
from her earlobes. She had dried her hair straight, taming 
out the natural waves, and her makeup was much darker than 
what he was accustomed to seeing her in, but no less 
elegant. Smoky grey shadow and liner accentuated the 
blueness of her eyes, and deep crimson lipstick drew his 
focus to her mouth.

She came in chattering, breathless, animated; then he stood 
up, ever a gentleman, to help her into her seat, and she 
froze. She really looked at him in his charcoal suit and 
silk shirt and olive tie, and she forgot to breathe. Her 
cheeks got hot and her toes felt cold and she teetered on 
her ridiculously high spiked heels, the Prada ones that had 
cost her more than her life insurance policy. 

He was beautiful. She'd always laughed internally when her 
girlfriends called men beautiful, but she watched his 
muscles flexing under his impeccably tailored clothing and 
the fall of his dark hair and oh, God, the way he was 
watching her, as if she were the only woman on earth, and 
he was beautiful. 

They were both still standing, trapped in the magnetic 
field zinging between them, when a waiter returned with 
their before-dinner drinks. Dana collapsed breathlessly 
into her chair as if she had just run a race or been hit in 
the stomach. Mulder sat more slowly, never taking his eyes 
off her, off the bones of her shoulders and the shading of 
her eyelids and the tantalizing shadows beneath her soft 
underarm, and spoke with no forethought and no filter.

"Scully, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

She couldn't think of a response; she propped one hand on 
the tabletop and sipped her drink, the soft curve of her 
mouth entrancing him. Their eyes stayed locked and her 
pulse was steadily accelerating on a tide of adrenaline, 
pounding through her veins and shaking her frame. 

"When you look at me like that -" she began breathlessly, 
and stopped. Mulder regarded her inquisitively, but Scully 
could only shake her head. "We should order," she murmured.

For her appetizer she ordered oysters. Mulder had no idea 
what he was eating as he watched the motion of her mouth 
working the smooth delicacy, her tongue licking a dab of 
butter from the corner of her mouth. She caught him 
watching and smiled very slightly.

"Try one," she offered.

When he assented, she picked an oyster up with her hand and 
fed him with her cool, delicate fingers, the tip of her 
pointer slipping into his mouth with the seafood.  His 
tongue scraped across the pad of her finger and he knew she 
felt it, saw her slight jump. Butter dripped messily down 
her hand and he wanted to lick it off. Scully pulled her 
hand away and wrapped it in her napkin, eyes cast down. The 
electricity between them was powerful, thick.

In his mind, fantasy footage unwound like an epic film: the 
fall of her hair across his pillows, her knee hooked around 
his flank, her naked, open white thighs. Under the table 
his knee brushed hers, and there was no use even pretending 
that he wasn't already achingly hard.

Scully was distracted, her gaze roving the dining area, 
examining the other tables. When her attention returned to 
their own table, he watched her fixate on the flowers that 
formed their centerpiece. Her eyes narrowed.

"Our flowers are different," she pointed out, bemused.

Mulder grinned. "Yeah, they're of the bring-your-own 
variety."

Her lips parted in surprise. "You brought them? For me?"

He nodded, a bit embarrassed. Flowers on a date seemed like 
such an amateurish, high-school thing to do. "They're 
hyacinths," he offered.

She slowly brought her eyes up to meet his and bobbed her 
head. "I know," she said softly, the hint of a smile 
softening her features. "They're beautiful, Mulder. I'm... 
touched."

"They're just your shade of blue, Scully." Her mouth 
tightened slightly and he read her perplexity. Under the 
table he lightly squeezed her knee. "They match your eyes," 
he supplied.

The main course was blissful and painfully long, 
interminable. Scully ate salmon, sucking delicate bites of 
the pink flesh from the prongs of her fork. Mulder watched 
her mouth and the play of the candlelight in her eyes and 
had no idea what he ate. He knew she was perfectly aware 
that all of his attention was fixated on her; she didn't 
seem to mind. He couldn't quite read her expression, but a 
few times he caught a smile playing at the corners of her 
mysterious, kissable mouth. 

Let me in, he thought. Tell me what you're thinking. Show 
me. 

Part of Mulder never wanted the meal to end. He wanted to 
spend time with this side of Scully, shadowy and seductive; 
he wanted to see the fire in her eyes and hear her throaty 
conversation, and he was afraid that when the meal ended 
she would vanish.

The other part of Mulder couldn't wait to leave the 
restaurant, because he was determined to take his date home 
with him, and he was pretty damn certain that was what she 
had in mind too.  

"Ready to go?" he asked softly when their plates had been 
cleared, trying not to sound too eager.

She tilted her head to the side and shook it thoughtfully, 
her long hair shimmering. "I want dessert."

He had to touch her. He reached across the table and closed 
his hand around her wrist, feeling the thrumming of her 
pulse. It was elevated, but you couldn't guess at it from 
her sleepy smile and languid eyes. "Whatever you want."

Her smile widened. "Chocolate," she said, her mouth and 
tongue caressing the word.

She ordered some kind of dark chocolate torte with 
raspberries in the center. Mulder was beyond caring what it 
was; he was enraptured by her eating process, her lush 
mouth making love to the dark sweetness of her treat. After 
the first bite she sighed and he felt the whispery sound 
throb through him.

"Share with me," she invited, her eyes narrowing slightly. 
He smiled, and she scooted her chair close to his, almost 
touching. Scully lifted the fork again, loaded it with a 
big bite, swirled the cake in the raspberry sauce on the 
dessert plate - and popped it into her mouth.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, surprised. "Aren't you going to give 
me any?"

Her lazy smile widened. "Uh-huh."

And he watched her repeat the process, again lifting the 
bite to her own lips, chewing slowly and swallowing.

She put the fork down. Mulder reached for it, but Scully's 
hand on his stopped his progress. She shook her head. "No, 
Mulder."

"No?"

"No." 

Scully leaned in, narrowing the gap between them until he 
couldn't watch her eyes anymore without his own crossing; 
her warm, chocolaty breath bathed the corner of his mouth, 
then he felt her tongue pressing between his lips. No 
preliminaries. He opened his mouth and let her in, tasting 
silky chocolate and the tang of fruit and something 
underlying, sweeter and darker still, that was pure Scully. 

Her tongue played with his until the taste of the chocolate 
dissipated, and then she withdrew enough to speak. Her 
color was high, her breath fast. Mulder couldn't think.

"Do you like it?" Scully's voice was a bewitching whisper. 
Her eyelids were heavy. Her lips sparkled wetly.

Mulder couldn't form a verbal answer. His hand had found 
its way into her hair and he rubbed her neck and the base 
of her skull. He picked up the fork, scooped up the last 
bite of the torte, and swirled it generously in the sauce. 
Then he lifted it to her lips.

This time she brought her mouth to his before swallowing, 
and he felt the graininess of the chocolate and the juice 
of the crushed berries on his own tongue. They kissed long 
after the dessert was gone, tongues rasping slowly, lazily. 
With his hand on her bare back he could feel the increased 
heat of her skin, the shifting of her muscles; and as their 
desire increased, they moved more and more slowly, thickly, 
until finally their open mouths were pressed together, not 
moving, sharing deep, heavy breaths. 

Mulder moved away a fraction and nipped at her nose. 
"Jesus, Scully. You can share your dessert with me anytime 
you want to."

She laughed, the sound catching in her throat. She was 
still close enough that he could feel her breath, 
stretching out the single most erotic experience of his 
life. He would never underestimate what a woman like Scully 
could do with a plan and a piece of cake. 

Scully insisted on paying the check. When she had signed 
the credit card slip, Mulder stood with her, his hand on 
the back of her neck. He was aware of the eyes of other men 
following her shapely figure, following his progress with 
her. She was striking, stunning, certainly the most 
beautiful woman they had seen today. She was the most 
beautiful he saw any day.

"Where's your car?" he asked as they waited for their 
coats.

She bit her lip, chin tilted downward, and gazed up at him 
with the barest hint of a smile. "Parked behind my 
apartment building," she revealed softly, nearly shy.  Her 
body was in deep shadow, the arch of her graceful neck 
blindingly white in comparison, and her eyes were so blue 
that they pierced him.

His fingers followed the fringe of her wrap around the cool 
flesh of her upper arm, bringing goose bumps to her skin, and 
brought his hand to rest beneath the soft fabric, his palm 
on the firm smoothness of her back, not quite hidden by her 
hair. She swayed infinitesimally closer to him.

"That's a pretty serious problem, Ms. Scully. What were you 
planning to do about that?" he asked gravely.

Scully frowned, playing along. "I don't know, Mulder. I 
could take a bus."

His hand moved lower, pulling her closer to his body. "I 
don't think public transportation matches that dress," he 
protested. Or those lips. Or those eyes. Or those breasts.

She bit her lip again. "Maybe that's true. I guess I could 
call a cab."

"I guess you could," he agreed gravely, his fingers 
creeping lower, just brushing the upper swell of her ass.

She widened her eyes. "Mulder!" she exclaimed, delighted. 
"I just had the most brilliant idea. *You* could take me 
home."

He helped her into her black wool coat, straightening the 
lapels and drawing his hands tantalizingly near her 
breasts. Her breath caught and held. He took her hand as 
they walked out into the brisk January night. 

"So?" Scully teased. "You taking me home?"

Mulder nodded. "Of course. What kind of dashing hero would 
I be if I let a gorgeous, well-dressed woman wander the 
city streets alone? But there's just one thing I have to do 
first."

"Which is?"

He stopped, his grip on her hand pulling her back to him. 
His other hand found her hip and guided her into the warmth 
of his body. 

"This." He breathed the word into her neck.

She would swear she could feel his open palm on her flank, 
as if by sheer force of will he had burned through her 
clothing. Scully drew a quick, startled breath, eyes 
automatically seeking Mulder's. But he was too near; his 
broad shoulders filled her field of vision, and his mouth 
covered hers. 

Their earlier kisses had been exciting but, in a way, safe 
- with the ambient sounds of fellow patrons and a 
solicitous wait-staff filtering into the edges of her 
consciousness, she had been able to tease and act the part 
of the seductress with relative impunity. It had been a 
game. 

Now they were alone, and she found herself confronted by 
the raw force of his desire and passion. She felt the same 
icy, racing panic she had felt a week before in her 
apartment. This was Mulder, and this was serious. When 
she'd looked over her photo albums and made the decision to 
be with him tonight, his physical absence had sheltered her 
from the magnitude of what she was doing. The reality was 
momentous and terrifying, and she felt the muscles in her 
calves tensing, readying for flight.

She pulled away just enough to free herself from the kiss 
and panted, muscles jumping and heart thundering, into the 
humid space between them. Mulder drew back a fraction and 
she felt his eyes on her, perplexed. He was waiting for her 
to a make a move, to decide.

Dana shook herself mentally. She had already decided; there 
was no going back now. She let her eyes close and drew 
frigid air into her lungs. She felt his heat, the crisp 
fabric of his impeccably tailored jacket, the possessive 
weight of his hand on her hip. The added element of her 
fear made her desire burn hotter; behind her eyelids she 
watched the blue flame flicker and dance to the rhythm of 
her heartbeat. She had already admitted to herself that she 
wanted him, and she let the sensations wash over her.

Her cold white hands rose to frame his face, and Mulder let 
his eyes close on her regular features and the tiny wrinkle 
of concentration marking her brow. She was utterly still, 
her frozen face beautiful like that of an ecstatic saint in 
a medieval painting. She angled his chin down and her lips 
sipped from his. His trembling fingers tightened and she 
turned fully into his arms, pressing the warm softness of 
her stomach against his groin, letting his hardness rest 
fully against her belly. 

He felt the spike of her pulse and the tremor in her 
breathing, and knew that he had caused them. Mulder had 
wanted Dana Scully since the day he had walked into her 
sun-dappled office, even if he had tried to suppress his 
desire and shun it from his thoughts. Now he had received a 
precious gift in the permission to want her openly. To feel 
her body softening and heating, melting smoothly into his 
like rich, dark chocolate, and to know that she felt the 
same fire and need to touch was almost beyond his 
imagination. He felt her letting herself want him, in the 
tremor of her cold hands and the increasing intensity of 
her kisses. In his arms she was transforming from the lazy 
warmth of lemonade and baseball on a spring afternoon to 
the fierce, primal inferno of a Louisiana summer. 

An icy gust of wind whipped down the canyon formed by the 
buildings lining the street, slicing drops of sweat from 
between Mulder's shoulder blades. A delicate hand had made 
the descent from his face down his torso to hover 
tantalizingly near his 100-percent Italian hand-crafted 
leather belt, and his cock was pulsing pretty seriously in 
time with his heartbeat - or maybe it was picking up 
Scully's, like a satellite in outer space. At this point he 
couldn't be entirely sure. What he was sure of was that she 
was trying to scale his body like a crusader going over the 
Wailing Wall, and he had to get them both to some kind of 
shelter before one of them spontaneously combusted.

Her back arched into a feline bow, Dana was able to gain 
enough height to nip the resistant flesh of Mulder's 
earlobe. Her breath husking into the shell of his ear made 
the hairs on his neck stand up. "Mulder, take me home with 
you." For good measure she undulated sinuously, rubbing 
against his groin like a cat at a scratching post.

Passing streetlights and headlights from oncoming traffic 
turned Scully's profile into sleek alabaster. Her eyes were 
black pool in the darkness, her features perfectly 
composed, mouth compressed into a hard line. As soon as 
Mulder had settled into the driver's seat her hand had come 
to rest possessively on his thigh, long nails digging just 
this side of painfully into his wool trousers and the 
muscle beneath. She spared him a glance, and the predatory 
flicker in the midnight wells of her eyes effectively shut 
off his higher brain function. He shivered, but couldn't 
have said whether he was hot or cold.

Earlier he had promised himself that he'd give Scully 
control of whatever happened tonight. He was, after all, a 
psychologist, and while he usually had enough sense to keep 
his mouth shut, he hadn't missed the rigidity with which 
she organized everything from her kitchen cabinets to day 
planner or her skittishness when confronted with emotional 
intimacy. She was putting on a good front, but such a huge 
change in their relationship must've had her chugging 
Maalox beforehand.

But she seemed to be handling it all very well - pun 
intended, he admitted as one finger danced teasingly up his 
length. Frighteningly well, in fact. He was beginning to 
realize that a concession of control on his part was 
probably superfluous, and his spun-glass angel might be 
more of a sledgehammer.

She didn't give him time to come around and open the door 
for her, but was out of the car like a shot as soon as he 
found a parking space. A dry wind blew her auburn hair back 
from her face and he halted her progress with his arms, his 
mouth assaulting the hard line of her jaw. Her insides 
cringed and Scully squirmed impatiently.

She thought her breathing was unnaturally noisy in the 
confines of the elevator. As it creaked upward, Mulder 
ground his cock into the small of her back and his hands 
skimmed up from her stomach to deftly unbutton her coat, 
gliding inside to cup her breasts. Scully's head cracked 
soundly against his shoulder, and Mulder contorted his 
posture to suck at the ivory column of her throat while 
he lifted her breasts, squeezing and weighing them. 
Her nipples pushed demandingly into his palms. 
She was trapping small sounds in her throat, low, 
dangerous growls. 

She let him frog-march her to his apartment door, one hand 
firmly grasping her upper arm. Inside he backed off enough 
to skim her coat from her shoulders. The air in the 
apartment was cool, and Dana felt goose bumps race down her 
naked arms.

He left her standing in the living room while he hung up 
their coats, accompanied only by the purr of the fish tank. 
At a loss, she toed off her heels and let her stocking-clad 
toes sink into the plush carpet. The chill was creeping 
beneath her skin, seeping into her bones and making her 
feel horribly exposed. 

She heard Mulder moving around the kitchen, opening the 
refrigerator, closing cabinet doors. This was too much lag 
time; she needed to have his scent surrounding her, his 
body crushing hers and obliterating rationality. If she had 
time to think and second-guess the choice she had made she 
would freeze, revert back to her usual concise, colorless 
level-headedness and flee. Worse yet, she might lose her 
resolve altogether, allow him to penetrate the last of her 
defenses and lay her soul bare. Either way, she would 
certainly lose this one precious opportunity that she had 
created for herself.

The ancient floor creaked under her weight as she stole 
into the kitchen. Her hand covered Mulder's as he began to 
twist the corkscrew into a bottle of Vernazza white. 

"Leave it," she instructed huskily, fitting her body to the 
lithe line of his back. She rubbed her cheek against his 
wool sport coat, the fabric abrading her skin. "I don't 
want any more wine."

The fine hairs on the back of his hand prickled at her soft 
touch. Beyond the barriers she warred to maintain, she was 
such incredible, feminine softness stretched over muscle 
and delicate bone. She smelled like freesia, and it was 
humiliating, at this moment when he should be intent on the 
goal of driving between her legs until she didn't know 
where he ended and she began, how much he wanted to scoop 
her up and cuddle her. 

She obviously had a different agenda. One hand continued to 
press his to the sweating wine bottle while the other 
drifted lazily down his starched shirtfront, toying with 
each button. Two fingers absently traced his belt buckle, 
then the whole hand dove in a sneak attack to cup his 
subsiding erection. Her grip tightened and he hissed, 
clutching the edge of the counter.

His muscles twitched. "What *do* you want, Scully?"

Without her shoes, she was too short to reach his ear, even 
stretched on tiptoe. She contented herself with licking his 
neck and tasting the tang of his sweat.

"I want to use my imagination."

Her voice was so low that he felt the vibrations of the 
words before he heard them. When he turned, she surged 
toward him. The Formica edge behind him dug into the base 
of his spine. Her mouth was open when he took it, the kiss 
she offered frenzied and raw. Their teeth clinked, and her 
tongue swiped across his soft palate, her head tipped so 
far back that her neck ached. Intense energy danced in the 
atmosphere around them, barely contained.

His mouth slid away and she followed, flowing with him like 
water, arresting him and drawing his lower lip between her 
sharp teeth. Mulder sucked her tongue into his mouth and 
tasted his own saliva. Fingers threaded through his hair - 
it was thick, coarse, and sleek, like fur - and gripped the 
tense muscle of his outer thigh. The palm that spread over 
her ass, squeezing, distracted her, and his lips darted 
away.

As he trailed down the side of her face, he assumed the low 
grumble he heard indicated displeasure, but it trailed off 
when he settled on the tendon between her neck and shoulder 
and sucked fiercely.  He bit her, not hard enough to cause 
lasting pain, and she surged up on the balls of her feet 
with a gasp.

Oh, God, *that spot*. No one had discovered that spot in 
years, and she had forgotten the scalding knife blade of 
lust that arced through her and settled between her legs, 
bringing an added trickle of wetness. 

The scrap of soaked lace between her legs dragged over her 
clit and she subtly rocked her pelvis, aching for increased 
friction. Her internal temperature was already so high that 
she felt like a furnace, burning and devouring. She felt a 
low-frequency throb with each pulse of her thick, sluggish 
blood through her heart, jarring her like a bass drum. She 
forced herself not to hump Mulder's leg like a bitch in 
heat. If she focused hard enough, she could make herself 
come without a single touch; but she didn't want to blunt 
the jagged edge of her arousal. Instead she tightened her 
grip on Mulder's neck, nails leaving bloodless half-moons 
on the exposed skin inside his collar, and tugged him up to 
receive her kiss.

He yanked her zipper down halfway; the pads of his fingers 
rasped across her skin as he fumbled one-handed with the 
hooks and eyes of her bra clasp. She had worked one small, 
determined hand down the back of his dress slacks and was 
gripping the cool flesh of his naked ass, shooting his 
concentration all to hell.

Mulder was shaking; he needed both hands to complete the 
delicate task he was attempting. His mouth stilled and he 
breathed out in frustration, lips a hairsbreadth from hers. 
Scully panted into the space between them, bathing him in 
the sweet-sour humidity of her breath.

"Bedroom." The command escaped low and gravelly.

He thought that was a fantastic suggestion, unless she 
wanted him to fuck her against the refrigerator door.

She'd never been in his bedroom. It was a dark, masculine 
Muldercave, carelessly undecorated in charcoal grey. A 
beautiful picture window stretched from floor to ceiling, 
and her breath wavered with fear and piqued arousal at the 
idea that someone could see them in here. Artificially 
chilled air surged up from the floor vent, and Dana 
shivered the instant she stepped out of Mulder's embrace.

He reached for the lamp, but her low, rough voice stopped 
the automatic flick of his wrist that would've bathed the 
room in a warm yellow glow.

"Don't. Don't turn on the light."

Mulder's hand slid away, skimming past his pants to dangle 
loosely at his side. Light from beyond the window 
illuminated her moon-clear skin and caught the highlights 
in her tousled hair, but left her face in deep shadow. He 
watched transfixed as she stepped out of her dress and 
folded it neatly over the armchair. With efficient, fluid 
movements she shimmied out of her panties and stockings and 
stood nude before him, fiery hair brushing the tops of her 
breasts.

Without her clothes, she became all curves and hourglass 
smoothness, from her heavy, full breasts to the gentle 
rounding of her abdomen and the compact tightness of her 
thighs and calves. He wanted the full color version bathed 
in the brightest of lights - he'd cheerfully make love to 
her under the hot sun or the buzzing of fluorescent lights, 
to catalog every nuance of her body and flicker of 
expression - but her tension told him she needed the 
darkness. His four remaining senses lurched into overdrive.

His chest tightened as he stalked toward her where she 
stood. The white wash of the moonlight made her skin look 
like finely shaped marble, and he ached to touch her and 
prove her warmth. His hand started at her shoulder, 
traversing the curve of her underarm to rest at her hip.

"People can see in the window, Dana."

Her skin was hot, but her features had again taken on the 
hard, determined lines he had seen in the car. A chill 
crept into the edges of Mulder's passion as he realized 
that even as Scully had removed her clothing and bared her 
body to his wandering gaze, she had slipped back into her 
old armor. 

Stepping closer, she lifted his hand from her hip to cover 
her breast. The pebbled nipple was cool where it brushed 
his lifeline.

"So close the blinds."

"If I close the blinds, I won't be able to see you."

"You can feel me," she murmured, her gaze directed into the 
vague darkness over his shoulder.

He left the blinds open, and she didn't protest.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?" Her eyes were black 
like the depths of the ocean as he rubbed his thumb over 
her nipple. Her softness and her sharp edges filled him and 
squeezed something fragile and bloody inside his chest. 
"You're lovely. You're so lovely."

The old-fashioned term uttered in his familiar voice had 
her reaching for him to stabilize herself. She made contact 
with his shoulder as he knelt before her, his touch at her 
back bending her down so that he could sprinkle baby powder 
kisses on her chest and the undersides of her breasts. 

His tongue swiped across one stiff nipple, tasting her, 
then he drew it into his mouth, eager to gorge himself. His 
hand began at her foot and moved upward in long strokes to 
circle low on her abdomen in wide, lazy sweeps that barely 
brushed the crisp, springy hair at the top of her mound. 

Mulder's mouth tugged, and her eyes flew to his as he 
continued to work her. Just getting your attention, he 
seemed to say. The reverence and bone deep lust in his gaze 
shot straight to her groin; she couldn't let him penetrate 
any deeper. Scully was so wet that her thighs were sticky. 
She wanted to grab his hand and shove it between her legs.

"Mulder," she hissed, giving a single, one-handed tug at 
his shirt. "Take off your clothes."

Her nipple slid from between his lips with a wet pop and he 
rocked back on his heels, gazing up at her with warm golden 
eyes and a dazed expression. His lips shone pink with 
saliva and his hair was mussed. He was the vision of the 
little boy he had once been, open adoration on his face, 
and yet so deadly sexy that he took her breath away. She 
was so tempted to gather him in her arms and make promises 
she knew she couldn't keep. 

She backed away to sit on the edge of the bed, and her 
movement spurred him into action. Mulder had almost 
forgotten that he was still fully dressed; if she would 
just allow him to kneel and worship her, he would be almost 
content. But she was watching him intently now, a tiny 
frown of concentration and impatience marring her smooth 
brow. His hands shook as he tore at the buttons on his 
dress shirt, suddenly aware that his whole body was 
screaming with eagerness and frustration, every nerve 
straining toward Scully.

She propped her chin on her hand and surveyed him. Mulder 
fought his way out of his shirt, yanking at recalcitrant 
cuff links, then tackled his pants, underwear, socks and 
shoes in one fell stroke. He balled hundreds of dollars 
worth of fine fabric into a messy wad and tossed it into a 
corner, and was left flushed, disheveled, and feeling 
slightly ridiculous.

Scully scooted back toward the head of the bed, and he 
could no longer see her face. He heard the mattress 
shifting, and traced the lines of her ivory skin against 
the dark comforter. "Come lie down."

He stalked toward her, proud and male and overwhelming her 
senses, and Dana suddenly felt like a tabby to his panther. 
He crawled over her, nudging the arch of her foot and the 
swell of her belly with his chin, and when he looked up, 
the eyes that met hers burned amber with lust and need. 

He continued up her body until his face hovered over her 
shoulder, and she almost wept with relief. Propped on one 
elbow, he used the other hand to sweep up her thigh, 
fingers scratching through her pubic hair until his open 
palm rested firm and warm between her legs. That simple 
touch alone was almost enough; she hissed and jerked, one 
bent knee falling open. Fierce eyes still boring into hers, 
he pushed her other knee to the mattress, and she felt him 
at the entrance to her body, probing carefully.

She came in the middle of that first long, achingly slow 
thrust. It felt as if he were rubbing sandpaper over her 
nerves, and she kept her eyes shut tight on a wave of 
animal pleasure and embarrassment and a twinge of 
disappointment that that was it. It was like having someone 
tell you how the book ended right before you got to the 
last page.

Her body relaxed, and she heard him grunt in the space 
above her. After a few seconds his mouth found the arch of 
her eyebrow, and she could feel that he was smiling. 

"Eager, Scully?"

She groaned and tried to turn her face away, but he 
followed her. The blush creeping up her neck and flushing 
her chest looked grey in the poor lighting. With a little 
work, he achieved the proper angle to plant a sloppy, 
playful kiss on her mouth. When one arm settled around his 
shoulders and she opened her lips opened to kiss him back, 
he gave a shallow, experimental thrust of his hips.

"Act Two?" she suggested, her words muffled against his 
mouth, and now she was smiling.

"Oh, Scully, that was just the prologue."

He penetrated her fully and fast and she gasped, pierced. 
Her ankles linked behind his back, urging him on. They 
settled into a violent rhythm, Scully's whole body surging 
up like the tide to crash against his, and his back stung
where her nails dug into his skin. 

His eyes seemed to penetrate her more deeply than his body; 
she felt hypnotized, unable to look away. He was so easy to 
read, so comfortable with his naked emotions. She thought 
something inside her had cracked.

Scully felt Mulder's muscles tightening and his control 
wobbling, and she didn't think she could come again, but 
then he slid one hand between their bodies and ground 
relentlessly against her. She heard herself cry out and 
felt as if she were being stretched and stretched, until 
there would be enough of her to wrap around Mulder and hold 
his whole body inside her.

His breath puffed against her forehead. "I love you," he 
gritted out, knowing that it was ridiculously cliched to 
declare his feelings at this point but also knowing that he 
had to say it, she had to know. "I love you."

She whimpered, but the sound was drowned beneath the 
pounding of the blood in his own ears as release screamed 
along every nerve ending in his body.

When he could move, Mulder rolled onto his back and scooped 
Scully to his side. She hadn't said it back, but then he 
hadn't expected her to. The key to understanding Dana 
Scully was often hearing what she chose not to vocalize. He 
could live with that.

Dana slowly realized that the arm draped across her abdomen 
had grown heavy with the dead weight of sleep. She squeezed 
her eyes shut in a prayer of thanks. If he had wanted to 
talk - if he had looked at her with those big, open, 
beautiful eyes - she would've shattered. 

The sweat drying on her body left her chilled, but she 
didn't dare move for fear of waking him. She could lie 
here, in his arms and his bed, for a few minutes; she could 
allow herself that luxury. 

A part of her she wouldn't allow herself to acknowledge 
hoped he would wake up, wrap his arms around her and 
refuse to let her go. If he whispered in her ear, his 
hot breath tickling her skin - if he repeated those 
horrible, beautiful words he had said when he was so deeply 
inside her that there was no him and no her, but only them -

For a dizzying moment she thought of staying, of letting 
herself be lulled to sleep and waking up to make love and 
eat bagels and exchange stilted morning-after conversation 
and knowing smiles. She would have liked to look into his 
eyes the instant they opened and see his thoughts, cover 
him with sloppy, sleepy kisses. 

There could never be just one morning with Mulder, though. 
Her heart raced, with panic now instead of desire. There 
could never be just one anything with Mulder. One night, 
one time - her throat burned with acid. She had wanted him 
so badly. Now her body was sated, and she was in danger of 
caving, falling into the trap of the desire for extended 
intimacy. 

It seemed so stupid and simplistic now, but she hadn't 
wanted to break his heart. Why the hell had she thought 
making love one time and telling him that it meant nothing 
and they could never do it again would be any less 
traumatic than finding out they were incompatible six 
months down the road? So she had drawn a line in the sand, 
to make it seem easy and possible and hopeful.

Realizing this now was not any easier than realizing it in 
the morning, alone with her coffee and her newspaper and 
Mozart on her stereo, would have been. But she couldn't 
stay, no matter how much she wanted to at that moment. A 
relationship was exactly what she shouldn't, couldn't want. 
Dana knew she couldn't be what Mulder needed, what he 
imagined her to be. It would be better, wouldn't it, for 
him to learn now how cold and selfish she could truly be?

With that thought in mind she carefully dislodged his arm 
and sat up. The floor felt like ice under her bare feet.

**

End (6/10)

Chapter 12: Paint it Black

"I see a red door and I want it painted black; no colors 
any more, I want them to turn black... maybe then I'll fade 
away and not have to face the facts. It's not easy facing 
up when your whole world is black." - The Rolling Stones

**

Some soft sound roused Mulder from slumber, and he turned, 
automatically seeking Scully's presence. Realizing that he 
was alone in bed but that the sheets still retained her 
scent and heat, he cracked one eye open and froze at the 
sight before him. Latticed moonlight from the bay window 
bathed her nude body, making her ivory skin glow a ghostly 
white. He'd caught her in a half-crouch, clutching her 
dress to her chest as she searched for her underwear. 

"I have to go," she said, standing, the lines of her lithe 
body straightening, the muscles in her buttocks flexing 
with the fluid movement. Her voice was pitched low, rough 
and hoarse; it slid over his tender skin, chaffing harshly.

He blinked, trying to drag his brain into motion. "Is 
something wrong?"

She dressed quickly, her movements spare and back turned, 
trying to hide the trembling of her hands. She could feel 
his eyes on her, puncturing her brittle enamel shell. 
Turning, Scully resolutely met his gaze. The planes of his 
face were charcoal and amethyst, chiseled with a blunt 
instrument and smoothed with an artist's pencil. The raw 
vulnerability reflected there now was no less stunning than 
the accompanying anger. 

"Scully, what -" He paused, fighting for calm. "Wait a 
minute. Talk to me."

Her hair tickled her shoulders as she shook her head. 
"Mulder, I'm sorry. This was a terrible mistake. I 
shouldn't have let what happened here tonight happen, but 
there's no undoing. So let's try to put this behind us."

"Put this behind us," he echoed dully, sitting up. The 
sheet slipped to his waist. 

He thought he saw moisture shimmering in her eyes, but it 
was so damn dark that he couldn't be sure. "I'm so sorry," 
she said. "I can't be with you in this way. I never 
intended -"

She'd never intended what? To hurt him? Too goddamn late. A 
dull, insidious ache in his stomach began to penetrate the 
haze of numbness her first words had caused. 

He knew she could read his thoughts on his face, and part 
of him was glad. Fuck his dignity. He wanted her to know 
exactly what she had done. 

"You never intended to be in a relationship with me," he 
theorized coolly. "You planned all of this. You wanted to 
come back here so you could avoid the messiness of having 
to throw me out of your bed in the morning, huh? This way 
you were going to disappear tonight, and then what was 
going to happen tomorrow? Were you going to invite me over 
for pizza and videos with your daughter, like a couple of 
old pals?"

She was crying silently, tears racing down her frozen face. 
Her silence told Mulder that he had guessed correctly. 

"Well, Scully, I'm sorry too. It's not going to work that 
way. I can't be 'just friends' any more." Not after I've 
tasted you, heard you moan, felt your body clenching mine 
from the inside.

"And I can't be anything more." Her voice trembled, clogged 
with tears.

He searched her eyes for a glimmer of familiarity but met a 
wall of ice. "You can't, or you won't? Damn it, Dana, we 
made love tonight -"

"We had sex!" she interrupted. She took a deep breath, 
exhaling through her nose, rolling her shoulders backward. 
"We had sex." 

"You're a fucking coward, Scully." He watched his arrow hit 
its mark. She sucked in a quick breath. He saw through her. 
She was scared. She was so scared that she was going to run 
out of his apartment and ruin whatever chance they had of 
creating something together. 

His next words ripped more deeply into the fresh wound.
"I love you."

He wasn't going to let her leave without acknowledging that 
she knew exactly what had happened between them, that it 
meant far more than some one night stand. She bowed her 
head and stared at her feet. She could feel the anger and 
disappointment rolling off him in waves.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. *I can't love you, Mulder. I 
can't let myself.* Her cheeks hollowed as she forced 
herself to breathe, her eyes raking over the rumpled 
sheets and the muted bedroom. 

Her panic was beginning to recede as he recognized the 
finality of her actions. Clean white light from the hallway 
led her toward exit and salvation. It was much too late to 
hail a cab on the street; but she had her cell phone.

"Was it worth it?" His voice was sharp, piercing.

She turned back to the bedroom, absorbing the scene she was 
leaving behind. The air-conditioned room smelled like sex. 
Mulder sprawled on the bed like a centerfold.

Scully met his eyes for the last time. "No," she whispered.

Six steps to the bedroom doorway. Twelve down the hall, her 
heels clacking on the blonde wood. Keys scooped from the 
end table; purse rescued from a careless heap under the 
sofa. The door swung open soundlessly, but whined pitifully 
as she closed it behind her, wedging the swollen wood into 
the doorframe. Gulps of the icy air filled her lungs, 
slicking over her skin and down her throat, bathing the 
damage the night had wrought in a crystallized, 
impenetrable blanket.

**

Dana would have liked to cry and eat ice cream and lament 
her stupidity in the best soap opera fashion, but that 
didn't fit with her personality or her schedule. So she 
settled for silent, galling, carefully contained grief and 
recrimination, and Chloe came home to find a spotless 
apartment and a pancake breakfast fit for a princess.

When she was young and allowed to have problems and be 
miserable, Maggie used to tell Dana to keep busy. Dana took 
Chloe to the mall and bought her new school clothes. She 
stopped on the way home at the nearest convenience store 
and bought herself two packs of cigarettes. Marlboro Reds. 
Chloe frowned but wisely chose not to say anything.

At home Scully pulled out one of her seldom-used cookbooks 
and proceeded to craft a meal that would have made Martha 
Stewart proud, complete with artfully folded napkins - not 
an easy task to accomplish when her hands were trembling 
like the last leaves on a barren tree.

Chloe said everything was good. Dana stared at the very 
balanced meal and pristine silverware in front of her and 
wanted to vomit.

Chloe cut her chicken cutlet into perfect geometric pieces 
and ate them with her usual precise nibbles. Across the 
table Dana sipped from a tall glass of iced jasmine tea and 
studied her daughter, mulling, as she habitually did, over 
the contrasts that provided the building blocks of Chloe's 
personality. She was such a striking combination of 
structure and passion, reservation and enthusiasm, caution 
and spontaneity. She was a deep thinker who made straight 
As and would be equally at home in a science lab or a New 
Age bookstore. Gazing at Chloe's messy ponytail and the 
blue eyes just a shade darker than her own, Scully 
envisioned a fault line running through the middle of her 
child's body, a visible demarcation of the mental and 
spiritual welding of Dana and Melissa's personalities that 
had formed her. Seeing so much in Chloe that was inherently 
Melissa both encouraged and frightened Dana. She was 
thrilled to see her sister's child thriving, and terrified 
of stifling her. 

"Hey, Clo, we need to talk about something."

Her daughter paused in her eating, swallowing slowly before 
lowering her fork to rest on the edge of the plate. Dana 
saw trepidation wash over her face, leeching away a measure 
of her healthy coloring.

"Um, okay." She dropped her hands into her lap. "What's 
going on?"

Scully's grip tightened around her glass. "We're not going 
to be seeing Mulder any more, sweetheart. He's not going to 
come over here, and we're not going to visit him."

The emotion Chloe must have been feeling only subtly 
altered her expression, and Dana reflected ruefully that 
her daughter had learned well from her example. 

"Why not?"

"It's complicated," Scully answered truthfully, unsure of 
what else to say.

"Oh." A muscle in Chloe's jaw twitched as she picked up her 
fork and knife and resumed slowly, methodically slicing 
into her meat. "Okay."

Dana watched Chloe, observing all the signs of someone 
pushing her emotions away, locking down and relentlessly 
maintaining control - behavior with which she of all people 
was intimately familiar. She'd done this to her daughter 
and herself.

Chloe's knife scratched piercingly against the surface of 
the plate, and the vice around Dana's clutched painfully.

**

Chapter 13: White

"The brightest blades grow dim with rust, the fairest 
meadow white with snow." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

**

As a child, Dana had been fascinated with snow, perhaps 
because it was something elusive, mysterious; it never came 
to find her family in sunny Southern California - they had 
to go to it. When she was eight, her parents had taken the 
family snow-skiing. Billy had broken his leg, and Scully 
had been too scared to descend the bunny slopes, despite 
her father's disappointment in her. She'd decided maybe she 
didn't like snow so much after all.

The first snowfall of the year was so incredibly beautiful 
and pure, blanketing the world with its virgin whiteness. 
But then weeks passed and the snow accumulated, and it was 
cold. Barren. 

The February Scully spent locked in her apartment with her 
uncommunicative daughter and her cracked, second-hand heart 
was the coldest month of her life. The immensity of the 
snowfields in the country terrified her. They stretched as 
far as her eye could see, tricking her into believing that 
they had blotted out all the color, leeched away all the 
brightness and light and warmth. She was sure *she* would 
never be warm again.

In Asia, white is the color of death.

Dana slipped back into her old habit of working late, 
staying at Over the Moon long after John and Langly had 
gone home for the night, then taking home an armload of 
files to work through into the small hours of the morning, 
only breaking to step outside onto the patio and chain-
smoke Marlboro Lights. She was eager to take up any slack 
she might have let fall her partner's way during the 
intensity of her... friendship... with Mulder; she needed 
the distraction. 

She felt Chloe pulling away, retreating into herself and 
her books and her art, and tried to make herself believe 
that the roots stemmed from nothing more unusual than 
growing pains. 

For her birthday Dana got cards from her mother and 
sisters-in-law (her brothers could be counted on to 
forget), and a delicate silver watch from John. It made her 
think of the Timex Chloe had given Mulder for Christmas and 
she didn't want to explain to John why her chin quivered 
and her nose turned red as she fastened it on her wrist. 

Chloe didn't mention the birthday, although Dana was sure 
Maggie had reminded her. Scully didn't make an issue of it.

The next day, Chloe had begged to be allowed to stay an 
extra hour at the art studio, and Jane Fetzer had assured 
Dana that it would be no trouble, so the sun was setting as 
Dana walked toward the unassuming storefront workplace. Her 
heels tapped on the concrete and she hugged her tan suede 
coat tightly to her body.

Looking up from her task of scrubbing a long wooden 
worktable, Jane smiled warmly, the skin around her eyes 
crinkling. "Hi, Dana. Chloe's back in the studio. She's 
been working hard all afternoon - I'm sure she'd like you 
to see her painting."

With a murmur of thanks, Dana wandered into the huge, open 
room. The air was heavy with the pungent scents of paint, 
clay, and turpentine, and paintings and drawings covered 
every inch of wall space. The floor was spattered with 
paint, and Dana's attention was immediately arrested by a 
lake of vivid green. It looked like someone had spilled an 
entire can of paint. Scully stared, her stomach knotting as 
the color evoked vaguely familiar, ghostly images of 
flames, light, and charred flesh.

"Mom?"

Scully shivered, unable to explain her visceral response to 
something so innocuous. She mentally shook herself.

"Hey, sweetie." Her voice sounded vacant as she walked to 
where her daughter stood at an easel. "What are you working 
on?"

Chloe quickly turned the easel so Dana couldn't see. 
"Nothing."

Scully stepped to the side. "Can I see?"

"It's not done yet." Chloe gathered her supplies and took 
her brushes to the sink, where she cleaned them briskly.

Scully didn't push. "Are you ready to go?"

Chloe grabbed her backpack, which had acquired a brilliant 
smear of blue paint. "I'm hungry. Can we have breakfast?"

Chloe requested that they go to a coffee shop where they 
often ate with John, but otherwise she didn't speak again 
until she ordered an omelet and buttered toast.

After ordering hashbrowns, sausage, and two eggs over easy, 
Scully nudged Chloe's foot under the table. "Come on, give. 
What's going on, Clo?"

Chloe's expression was a shade too innocent to be believed. 
"Nothing. Everything's fine. I'm just hungry."

Adding creamer to her coffee, Dana reminded herself that 
Chloe was much like her: she would tell what was on her 
mind when she was ready, and not a minute before. The 
waiter brought their food, and Scully's stomach rumbled 
impatiently.

She was vaguely aware of the small bell on the door chiming 
as the door opened, but only in the unquestioning way that 
one accepts ambient sound, until Chloe's expression changed 
and she put down her fork.

"Mom," Chloe whispered, looking pointedly over Dana's 
shoulder.

"What?" Still chewing a mouthful of egg, Dana twisted 
around, and the food on her tongue immediately turned to 
sand. Unobserved, she turned back to Chloe. They ate in 
silence for several minutes.

"Did either of them see us?"

Chloe shook her head slowly. "No. They haven't looked over 
here." She stabbed at a wedge of congealing egg and cheese. 
"I'm finished."

"Me too." Digging in her purse, Scully pulled out cash for 
a tip. "Let's go pay."

As she stood at the cash register, Scully could feel his 
eyes on her. "Mom, Mulder's looking at us."

She nodded and swallowed hard. "I know," she murmured, 
accepting her change from the cashier. "Let's go say 
hello." 
 
Frohike greeted them boisterously. Mulder met Scully's eyes 
for a second before smiling at Chloe. "It's art class day," 
he remembered, looking at her paint-stained hands. "You 
getting good, Picasso?"

Chloe smiled shyly. "I'm more of a Dali fan. I've been 
working really hard. You could come over and see sometime," 
she invited hopefully.

Mulder cut his eyes at Scully. The air between them seemed 
to vibrate with a sudden rush of pain and emotion. Broad-
sided, Dana looked down at her feet.

"We'll see," Mulder replied neutrally. "You'll have to 
invite me to your first show."

Scully placed her hand on Chloe's shoulder. "We should go. 
Nice to see you two."

Four steps took them back out to the street, and they 
walked briskly toward the car. The wind whipped around 
them, pulling Chloe's long hair into knots.

"Gee, that went well," the girl muttered under breath.

Dana pretended not to hear.

**

Chapter 14: Green

"Her green mind made the world around her green." - Wallace 
Stevens

**

She hadn't thought it possible, but the nightmares kept 
getting worse.

The first instant was always the worst - when she surged, 
heart pounding and palms sweating, from stark terror to 
hazy wakefulness. Her dream agony bled into the reality of 
her tangled sheets and the hum of the air-conditioner and 
the blinking VCR clock, and she didn't know where one ended 
and the other began. For a moment, it all seemed equally 
real.

Tonight Mulder had died. She had found his body on the 
leaf-covered floor of a deciduous forest, and the screams 
ripping from her throat had burned her vocal cords.
Silently she repeated the words she had shouted in her 
dream: *This is not happening.*

Sitting up, Scully wrapped her arms around herself in an 
ineffectual embrace and began to rock to and fro, hoping 
the repetitive motion would slow the relentless pounding of 
her heart, thundering so wildly she thought it would surely 
burst. She felt the wetness of tears on her cheeks and 
dimly heard the low keening issuing from her throat, a 
sound so mournful and eerie that it made the hair stand up 
on the back of her neck. 

She could see Mulder's body, so pale and vulnerable against 
the fresh earth, his face bruised and scarred, forever 
altered by the bluish-grey tint of death. He was dead, God, 
he was dead, and the loss, the pain - Why had they taken 
him and left her alone to suffer through the rest of her 
life without him? Why not just kill her too?

Scully had wanted to fling herself on top of his body and 
wail.

She grabbed a tissue and swiped at her runny nose. Her 
dreams had taken on an existence of their own, but that 
didn't make them reality, thank God. Dana couldn't point to 
the source of her nightmares or identify the reason why she 
felt them so deeply, why they resonated in her soul. But 
Mulder was safe, healthy, alive. He was lost to her, yes, 
but the bright flame of his passionate existence still 
burned, shedding light in the dark corners of her soul.

This nightmare had been the worst one yet. When had the 
idea of Mulder's death become more terrifying than the 
thought of her own?

Scully blew her nose again and drew a deep, shaky breath. 
"I'd feel so much better if I could hear his voice," she 
said aloud. Tears swam in her eyes, making the bedroom blur 
into an indistinct haze marked by slashes of blue. She 
couldn't help but recall other nights when she'd agonized 
over this same desire, and ultimately her reason and her 
desire to protect her own image and emotions had triumphed. 
On those occasions, though, picking up the phone had been a 
viable option. Now it wasn't, and she ached because of it, 
feeling as if her flesh were being torn apart.

Everywhere she looked she saw green, and tension coiled 
like a serpent in her stomach. Her muscles spasmed with 
horror and repulsion, and for the first time her response 
made a certain brand of sense. She couldn't count the 
number of days this nightmare had haunted her subconscious 
mind, but now it had fought its way to the surface. She 
closed her eyes, and she was there again.

Dana's dreamscape was shrouded in the obscurity of a hazy 
night. The familiar pitch and roll beneath her feet told 
her that she was standing on the deck of a ship, a large 
one, but she detected no thrum of the engine. She heard 
water lapping against the hull, and peering down into the 
firmament beyond the spot where the ship's railing must 
have been, she registered the inky, oily blackness of the 
waves. Lights reflected back at her, and she realized that 
the hulking shapes rising darkly behind, in front, and 
beside her were buildings; the ship was anchored in a 
harbor. 

Aside from the murmur of the water, an unearthly stillness 
pervaded the atmosphere. No sounds of traffic reached her 
ear; the liner didn't emit a single creak in protestation 
against its moorings. Dana couldn't even distinguish the 
faint rasp of her own slow, expectant inhalation. She knew, 
however, with absolute certainty that she wasn't alone. The 
warmth emanating just behind her, the flesh pressing her 
open palm belonged to her mother; there, too, was Melissa, 
smiling her odd, mystic half-smile. Behind them row upon 
row of faces washed free of color by the moonlight tipped 
back to regard the starless heavens. Scully's muscles 
quivered as she gazed up and up. She breathed in the warm, 
close, humid air, feeling her ligaments and tendons 
elongate with anticipation.

Scully saw the flash before she heard the explosion - 
brilliant orange like a garish fluorescent splash, fire 
falling from the sky in a hideous man-made version of a 
meteor shower.

The herd of bodies on deck surged forward as one; 
scrabbling for Melissa's hand, Dana flung herself over the 
railing toward the water. The thought that the fall alone 
could kill her bounced around her brain, and then warm, 
salty water closed over her, saturating her winter clothing 
and filling her ears and eyes. She began to swim 
frantically for shore, conscious of Melissa slicing through 
the water beside her. 

Another missile from above crashed into the water twenty 
yards in front of her, and Dana began to backpedal. She 
surfaced and scanned the rippling waves, freshly littered 
with bloody, mangled bodies. Unseen crafts continued to 
bomb the city, fire raining down on buildings and streets. 
If the doomed victims were screaming, praying to their gods 
in their last moments, their anguish was drowned out by the 
continual roar of the explosions.

"Mom," Dana gasped, and her sister's face told her that 
their mother was dead. 

"With Ahab," Melissa shouted, her mouth brushing Scully's 
ear. Near the sinking ship, the water, slick with oil, had 
ignited, and was burning green, livid green.

"Oh, my God!" The shout mingled awe and horror into a 
reverential, stupefied doom. The woman's voice faded and 
was replaced by a chorus of strangled, agonized screams, 
overlapping, clashing from every angle. Dana breathed 
raggedly, her heart hammering in a frenzy. The escape 
instinct loosed a flood of adrenaline, but Scully was 
trapped, unsure of the source of the most immediate danger. 
She watched the green spreading, swirling. Emerald green. 

Acid green.

Green like blood.

Her sleep had again been interrupted by terrifying visions 
of fire, strange crafts, and bubbling green blood, but this 
time - after the alarm clock went off and she had showered, 
put on her makeup, and changed into the armor of her daily 
life - she remembered. 

She finally chose to confide in the only person who might, 
just possibly, not think she had gone totally crazy.

"It was blood?" John's calm, well-modulated voice asked for 
clarification, grounding Dana in the present.

She nodded, her hair brushing the shoulders of her pin-
striped suit. Her native frankness underscored the pensive 
nature of her expression. 

"The aliens bleed green. It made so much sense - I knew the 
blood was toxic because I had seen it before. And the 
craziest part is that it didn't seem strange. It felt like 
fate. We knew the aliens were going to come."

"To attack earth?"

One eyebrow arched sardonically, mocking herself. "To 
colonize."

For some reason green blood made sense, and the sheer 
terror the realization brought on caused her to panic. The 
green blood would kill her - She began to swim with every 
ounce of strength she possessed, every atom of her being 
straining toward shore.

Mulder.

Even underwater, she could hear Melissa screaming, but if 
she looked back, if she hesitated, they would both die.
A hand brushed her leg and seared her with an intense, 
gnawing pain a hundred times more intense than hydrochloric 
acid. She redoubled her efforts, her lungs burning, her 
ears ringing.

Her knees met sandy, silty gravel and she fell forward, 
jarring her teeth and scraping her chin. Struggling to her 
feet, Dana threw off her drenched overcoat and began to 
run. She needed to lose herself among the partially burned-
out buildings and acrid smoke. She had to hide. 

She had to find Mulder.

"I was running through the streets, and there was no one - 
The city was totally deserted. I listened to my feet on the 
pavement, counting my steps. I turned a corner and 
confronted a soldier in full fatigues carrying a machine 
gun. He told me to stop, to hide before they came; his 
English was heavily accented, German, maybe Russian. I kept 
running - I wanted to hide, but I had to find Mulder first 
and see that he was safe. He was nearby, but in terrible 
danger - I could feel it. The soldier began to chase me, so 
I ducked into a long, low building, and he followed me. 
Before I could think he had me against a wall, his pistol 
shoved under my chin. He pulled the trigger, and suddenly I 
was in this forest, and Mulder's body was on the ground at 
my feet."

John stretched his long legs and scratched his bearded 
chin. "It makes sense," he reasoned. "Mulder writes science 
fiction; this could very well be a plot for one of his 
books. When you think of Mulder, you think of the 
unexplained, the weird -"

"I know, John. But it's not like I fell asleep after eating 
a chili dog and watching The War of the Worlds." She shook 
her head and forced a smile. "It just felt so real, so 
eerily right. I was this person with this whole different 
history, this entire other life. You weren't there, Chloe 
wasn't there, Billy and Charlie weren't there, and yet it 
was Mulder who was my missing half. I don't know - I can't 
stop thinking about it. He was dead. I knew it as certainly 
as I knew my own name, and I had this vision of his body, 
half buried."

Dana opened the top drawer of her desk and rifled through 
it, securing a yellow highlighter and a fistful of 
paperclips. She dragged a stack of files to the center of 
her desk and flipped the top one open, determined to focus 
and divert her attention. Her low laugh sounded hollow in 
her own ears. 

"Silly, isn't it?" 

Dana plowed ruthlessly through the paperwork, cleaned out 
her inbox, and sorted the day's mail, but her thoughts 
never strayed far from her bizarre dream. She felt as if 
some sort of specter were standing over her shoulder, 
casting a pall over the morning. 

It was so unlike her to be 
sidetracked by anything, particularly something so 
unsubstantial as the unconscious wanderings of her own 
restless mind. The misty terror of a nightmare burns away 
in even the weakest light of day; but the connection to 
Mulder she had felt in her dream and the absolutely true 
chord that vibrated through this other existence clung to 
her as if they were part of her skin. She needed to see 
him, talk to him.

The sun had just passed its zenith when Chloe called. Her 
thin voice was strained as she related the embarrassment of 
vomiting in the school cafeteria. Dana promised to hurry, 
making a quick stop at Food Lion for ginger ale, saltines 
and banana Popsicles. 

She parked beneath the thin bar of shade cast by the middle 
school's naked flagpole. The air steamed and the grass 
seethed with life in the aftermath of the morning shower. 
She stepped off the pavement and sank to the hilt of her 
high heel in the black mud. 

The grass was the radiant, lively green of freshly laid 
sod. In Dana Scully's world, green stood for youth, 
inexperience, innocence, hope, rejuvenation, luck. In the 
world inhabited by her alter ego, green was the color of 
death, a portent of suffering, a messenger of unearthly 
forces at work.

She was raving, Dana decided firmly. Chloe was ill and 
needed her, and Dana liked to be needed. The Popsicles were 
melting in the back seat.

By 4:00 Dana's tuna sandwich and bagel chip lunch had begun 
an exuberant rendition of the Mexican hat dance somewhere 
in the vicinity of her small intestine. By 4:15 the 
remnants were being flushed down the toilet, and Scully's 
rosy cheek was pressed against the cold, hard plastic lid 
in defeat.

"Mom? Are you sick?"

Chloe's voice drifted thinly from the living room, where 
she reclined on the sofa in Cleopatra-esque splendor. Dana 
dragged herself to her feet, groaning when the room tilted 
unnaturally, and vigorously brushed her teeth, willing her 
mouth to absorb the minty, fluoride-enriched flavor. She 
shuffled into the kitchen before venturing an answer.

"Share and share alike." Shit, she sounded like Grace 
Slick. Scully dropped a few ice cubes into a plastic 
tumbler and popped the top on a can of ginger ale. "Need 
something else to drink?"

"Bleh. No. I'm busy 'renewing my spirit.'" Chloe gestured 
at the daytime talk show blaring from the television 
speakers. "You should eat a Popsicle."

"Ugh." Glass in hand, Dana lifted her daughter's feet into 
her lap and sank weakly into the overstuffed sofa cushions. 
"You sound like you're feeling better."

"I'm a little hungry."

"Oh, God." Dana's stomach clinched and she allowed her head 
to loll against the back of the sofa. "Just let me rest for 
a little while and then I'll make you something."

She awoke to a blinding flash of lightning and the sizzling 
pop of the power surge frying the TV. Beyond the half-
closed blinds, dusk had descended. Her bleary eyes focused 
on Chloe kneeling in front of the television, prodding 
irately at the buttons.

"What time is it?" Damn, still Grace Slick.

"'Bout six thirty. I think the TV's broken."

"You must be starving." Dana rolled her head from side to 
side and her vertebrae creaked into place. Frowning, she 
experimentally sniffed the air. "Chloe Winter, did you eat 
pizza?"

Chloe shrugged. "Yeah. You were sleeping, and it was that 
or those leftovers from Grandma's house."

"Jesus, those have been in the fridge for two weeks! - But 
don't you feel sick from the cheese and pepperoni and 
everything?"

Another shrug. "Nah, I'm fine. Don't you feel better?"

Indeed, the thought of food was not as torturous as it had 
been hours earlier.

"There's some left if you're hungry."

Scully's stomach gave an anticipatory clench and she 
blanched. "Unh."

Chloe flopped down on the couch and leaned heavily on 
Dana's shoulder. She yawned so widely that a speedy dentist 
could've done an oral exam. "Do I have to go to school 
tomorrow?"

"I hope not. Tomorrow's Saturday."

"Oh. Yeah." Chloe snuffled against her aunt's flannel-clad 
side and burrowed in so securely that Scully thought she 
might be considering hibernation. The dim quiet of her 
surroundings began to exact their toll, and she gently 
shook her daughter off. 

"I'm going to boil an egg. Do you want anything else?"

"Can I have a piece of cake?"

"If you feel up to it."

Chloe bounded to the kitchen in a startling display of 
energy. Scully followed more slowly and began to prepare a 
modest supper. 

She barely made it through the evening news before she 
began to nod off again. Dana left Chloe taking a magazine 
quiz and giggling over the phone to one of her girlfriends 
and sought refuge in the cloud-like cocoon of the down 
comforter blanketing her bed.

The shrill of the bedside telephone jolted her to bleary-
eyed, stomach-clenching awareness. Red numerals blinking a 
steady 12:00 told Scully the power had been out. Beyond the 
fogged window rain pelted down in a nearly solid sheet. A 
creeping tingling pricked her scalp and the back of her 
neck, and crushing, breathless dread sat on her chest, 
sapping the breath in her lungs. Every cell in her body 
screamed that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

The phone rang again. Her fingers scrabbled on the smooth, 
polished surface of her nightstand before Dana managed to 
snag the receiver. She forcefully jabbed the 'talk' button.

"Hello?" Her voice hadn't caught up with the energy 
coursing through her body; it was scratchy, sluggish.

"Dana Scully?"

"Y-yes?" She hated the hesitant little-girl tremor.

"Ms. Scully, my name is Rosa Cardew. I'm a nurse in the 
emergency room at Mercy general, and I'm calling to let you 
know that your mother has been brought into emergency."

"Oh, God. Oh my God. When - what -" A dizzying, gaping, 
nightmarish blackness swirled up to consume Scully's power 
of speech.

"Ms. Scully, we believe your mother has suffered a heart 
attack."

"Is it - bad?" In the darkness of her bedroom, Scully's 
eyes were squeezed shut with painful tightness, as if they 
could block out the antiseptic efficiency of the stranger's 
voice.

"It would be a good idea for you to come as quickly as you 
can, ma'am."

**
End 7/10

Chapter 15: Translucent

"Cubists cracked the mirror of art. Parts are broken off, 
colors bleed into neighboring objects, and translucent 
facets of space with multiple light sources cut shadows 
across bounding surfaces." - Stephen Kerm, The Culture of 
Time and Space

**

Mulder's cell phone burred quietly. He pointed his toes, 
stretching tight calf muscles. Worn, buttery leather 
soothed his skin. He barely stopped to wonder who would 
call at such an obscene hour.

Her voice was the last he expected to hear.

"I'll be right there," he promised tautly. "Give me fifteen 
minutes."

He scrubbed a handful of water over his face and threw on 
jeans, a shirt, and sneakers, not allowing himself to feel 
or think too much.

She was on the third floor, huddled near the bank of pay 
phones as she'd promised, the fluorescent lights washing 
out her bright hair and painting garish, livid blue shadows 
under her fathomless eyes.

He almost walked past her, but she said his name. He 
wouldn't have recognized her. She looked younger, 
vulnerable; Mulder foolishly realized how small this woman 
was. She was wearing jeans and an oversized white blouse, 
her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Faint lines traced 
the edges of her unnaturally bright eyes.

"You came," she said. "I didn't know who else to call - 
Johnny's away for the weekend - I didn't think you'd 
come..." She trailed off vaguely.

"What happened? Is it Chloe?"

Dana shook her head. "My mom. They said it was a heart 
attack. She's been in surgery for an hour."

"Have they told you -"

"At least two more hours. I've been in the waiting room, 
but I thought I'd walk around."

He walked with her, focusing on the occasional squeak of 
her sneaker on the glossy linoleum. The fluorescent lights 
made him squint. Mounds of garishly white linens and trays 
of instruments came toward them like something out of a 
hallucination.

"I don't understand it. She's healthy, Mulder. She 
exercises every day, watches what she eats -"

His fingertips brushed her shoulder blade. "She'll be fine, 
Scully."

Dana nodded with confidence he knew she couldn't feel. "I'm 
sorry. For calling you in the middle of the night and 
waking you up. I shouldn't -"

"Don't be sorry. Do you want to sit?" He gestured to the 
small lounge area just behind them, a collection of sagging 
plastic chairs cowering under buzzing, overly bright 
lights. 

She shook her head. "I want to walk," she whispered. 

He nodded. As they ambled up and down the corridors, his 
hand hovered near her back, not touching but offering the 
promise of support. I'll catch you if you fall, the gesture 
seemed to say.

Scully felt raw, as if her insides had been shredded. 
Breathing and swallowing were almost unbearably painful. 
Looking down at her hands, she was surprised to find that 
the delicate, blue-tinted membrane of skin protecting her 
aching bones was still whole, unscathed, giving no hint of 
the carnage beneath.

A ribbon of silence unfurled between them, fuzzy and gray 
like static on an old television set. Scully strained to 
hear her heartbeat above it, to listen to the rhythm of 
Mulder's breathing. Would this always be between them now, 
a veil of misapprehensions separating them from one 
another, rendering communication impossible? If so, the 
blame lay entirely at her feet. 

With her mother desperately ill and clinging to life moment 
by moment, the future was too vast and distant for Dana to 
allow herself to contemplate it. She filled the void with 
words.

"I need coffee. There must be a cafeteria or a commissary, 
right?"

"Sure, let's go see."

As they walked into the cafeteria, Scully registered 
scarred linoleum, the smell of stale grease, and the 
relentless continuation of the fluorescent light bars. 

"You sit," Mulder instructed. "I'll find something high in 
caffeine."

Scully selected a two-person table placed in front of a 
floor-to-ceiling window. Sitting, she gazed across the tops 
of the assortment of condiment bottles littering the table 
at the immense, iron gray flatness of the sky. Early 
morning was beginning to differentiate itself from the 
deepness of night, the heavens growing not lighter but more 
leaden. 

"Here." Mulder plunked a large paper cup down in front of 
Scully, a teaspoon of dark liquid sloshing over the side. 
She peeled a napkin from the table's metal holder and laid 
it down to soak up the spill. 

"Thanks," she said, wrapping her hands around the warm cup.

"Don't thank me until you've tasted it."

They drank their coffee in silence, Scully staring vacantly 
out the window while Mulder stared into the middle distance 
over her left shoulder. She ran her fingers through her 
hair, mussing her loose ponytail. "It's after six," she 
observed. "Do you think...?"

She trailed off, her eyes seeking his for the first time 
since they'd begun to walk together. "Yeah. Let's go up and 
check," he offered.

The elevator lurched sickeningly before the doors opened to 
disgorge them into the hallway. The reek of industrial 
strength cleansers again assaulted Mulder's nose and his 
stomach turned. Scully led the way to the nurses' station.

"Margaret Scully?" the nurse on duty repeated in answer to 
Scully's query. She glanced from her computer screen to a 
stack of files beside her. "Her doctor should be out soon, 
if you'll have a seat in the waiting area."

Mulder arranged himself in the best way possible on the 
unforgiving chair in order to minimize his discomfort. 
Scully lowered herself into the seat next to him, and after 
a few seconds edged close enough for their shoulders to 
brush. After a few more minutes, she leaned in ever so 
slightly, allowing his arm to bear a tiny fraction of her 
weight. Mulder's arm felt unnaturally heavy as he lifted it 
to drape around her shoulders, and Dana shuddered.

"I just keep thinking about all the things - I mean - what 
about Lola?"

"The dog?"

She nodded. "Who's taking care of her? Does she have food, 
water...?" Dana trailed off, staring at her shoes. 

"Ms. Scully?"

Dana was instantly on her feet to face the thin, 
bespectacled man in green scrubs, a protective mask hanging 
loosely from his neck. Mulder rose more slowly, his fingers 
skimming the curve of her back.

"I'm Dr. Reingold. I'm pleased to tell you that your mother 
came through surgery without any complications, and the 
damage was less extensive than we had originally believed." 

The cardiologist continued speaking, but she scarcely heard 
him, his words overwhelmed by the crashing roar of waves of 
relief. "Your mother is being moved to ICU now, but I don't 
anticipate that she'll be there for very long. With any 
luck we'll be able to move her into a regular room within 
the next few days." He smiled. "Visiting hours aren't until 
this afternoon, but if you want to go up to intensive care, 
the nurses will let you spend a few minutes with her once 
she's settled in."

When Reingold walked away, Scully slumped backward against 
the island of chairs, bracing herself with one hand. The 
other ran over her face. "God," she sighed. "Thank God."

Mulder extended a hand as if to touch her, but let it fall 
back to his side. "I'm glad."

They regarded one another in uncomfortable silence. The 
crisis over, neither knew how to behave.

"Do you want some breakfast?"

Scully twitched, startled by the normality of the question. 
She hesitated. Craving Mulder's presence during a time of 
crisis was one thing. He was a warm body, a steadying 
presence, and she could allow herself to discount her 
neediness. But breakfast was coffee and eggs and the 
morning paper; it was the mundane bathed in natural light, 
and the simple act of sharing a meal seemed dangerously 
intimate, too reminiscent of all that had gone before. 

"I should go up and see Mom... She'll be in her room soon. 
And, um, I'm really not hungry." When she finished, Scully 
met Mulder's eyes with a generous measure of trepidation.
The tight set of his jaw wasn't a figment of her 
imagination. His body language was easy to read: he had 
interpreted rejection of his offer as rejection of him. And 
wasn't that just what she'd intended?

She let her head loll forward in a futile effort to loosen 
weary muscles, her gaze zeroing in on the  floor. His 
sneakers penetrated the upper left corner of her 
field of vision.

"Well, I guess I'll get going, then."

Dana nodded jerkily. "Thanks." Her voice was a shade too 
loud, almost strident. "Thanks," she repeated, adjusting 
her internal volume control.

Mulder didn't respond, at least not verbally. Scully 
envisioned him nodding, but couldn't bring herself to look 
up. Her fight or flight response waned when he moved beyond 
her reach, and her eyes zeroed in on the play of his 
shoulder blades beneath his denim jacket, each contraction 
and elongation carrying him further away and leaving her 
finally, resolutely alone.

**

Chapter 16: Azure

"Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances
I have remembered when the winter came."
- Henry David Thoreau

**

Almost hidden at the back of the flower display in the 
hospital's tiny gift shop, Dana's eyes lit upon a small 
splash of blue. Tunneling through carnations and lilies, 
she unearthed a petite bunch of hyacinths. Surrounded by 
robust, thick-stemmed roses, the blue blooms looked fragile 
and heartbreakingly exposed. Her emotions scraped raw by 
the events of the last several days, Dana felt tears 
misting her eyes.

"Just your shade of blue, Scully."

She heard his voice in her ears as she paid for the flowers 
and rode the elevator to Maggie's floor.

A young male orderly with spiked hair and deep dimples 
spotted Dana as soon as she stepped into the corridor and 
flashed her a brilliant smile. "Hi, Ms. Scully. Your mom's 
popular this afternoon."

She paused, surprised. "Does she have a visitor?"

He grinned. "Go see."

Mulder stepped into the hallway as she approached and 
closed the door behind him. He didn't look terribly 
surprised to see her.

"Your mom's sleeping," he said.

"You came to see her?"

He gave her question the respect it deserved by ignoring 
it. "I'm going down the street to get a cup of coffee." His 
eyes traveled to the flowers she held loosely at her side. 

She gulped. "Hyacinths," she said as if that explained 
everything.

"Why don't you put them in her room and come with me?"

She stared down at the flowers. "Yeah," she answered after 
a moment's contemplation, "okay."

They walked in silence to the cafe, a foot of sidewalk 
separating them, hands shoved into their pockets. The wind 
was freezing; it stole Dana's breath, whipped her hair into 
her face, and felt like January instead of March. Her heart 
throbbed. She wished she could turn the clock back, simply 
rewind the cosmic video of the last two months of her life. 
Fucking space-time continuum. She fumbled in her purse, lit 
a cigarette, and smoked it as if she and not just it were 
on fire. Mulder offered no comment. 

She imagined the conversation they would have if they were 
different people. He: "Why don't you just tell me what you 
want from me?" And she: "I really don't know. Right now, I 
think I want you to be my friend. Can we try that?"

But they weren't different people. They were Mulder and 
Dana - Scully - whoever the hell she was to him, to 
herself. So they sat there at a small table near the bar, 
each sipping cappuccino, Dana hating herself for the 
impotence of her uncertainty. She hadn't had a plan when 
Mulder walked out of her mother's room, hadn't had a plan 
when he asked her to coffee, and didn't have a plan now. 
Her rational, ordered self needed a goddamn plan. And she 
couldn't talk about it.

"I was going to call you about the book signings," she said 
softly, staring into her mug. "It's a bit tricky since 
you're between agents, but I can handle most of the -"

"I don't want to talk about work." His voice was quiet but 
firm. She nodded. Neither did she. Minutes ticked by; her 
coffee got cold, and her courage evaporated with the steam. 

She stood abruptly. "I have to get back to the hospital."

He nodded, eyeing her speculatively, and stood slowly. 
"I'll walk back with you."

"You don't have to," she said, and her voice was a little 
too sharp.

"I'd like to. Your mom might be awake, and I'd like to say 
hello."

Unable to deny him that, she paid for her coffee and walked 
out into the blustery afternoon as he paid for his. She 
felt as if a vaccuum were sucking at her stomach, drawing 
her vital organs down into her toes. Her shoes pinched her 
feet and for an instant, the heels seemed so sharp that she 
expected them to pierce the pavement.

Then he was standing beside her, not touching, not even 
very close, but undeniably there. They walked the two 
blocks without speaking and took the elevator to the fourth 
floor.

Maggie's door was open and a nurse was just leaving. She 
smiled cheerfully at Dana and Mulder and waved them into 
the room.

"Hi, Mom." Upon entering, Dana's heart seized up in her 
throat as it always did when she re-entered the room, 
whether she'd gone home to sleep or just down the hall to 
get a soda, as if she expected, and dreaded, to find her 
mother greatly changed. Maggie smiled.

"Hi, sweetheart. Hello, Mulder." Maggie shifted her 
attention to the tall, dark man standing uncomfortably in 
the corner. "Thank you so much for being here with Dana the 
other night."

"I'm glad to see that you're doing well, Mrs. Scully."

"Not as glad as I am. Dana, did you have something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry, Mom." Scully lingered at the foot of the 
bed, trying not to get so close that her mother would smell 
the smoke on her clothing. 

"You're so thin already; you've lost so much weight in the 
last few months. Mulder, will you take Dana down to the 
cafeteria?"

Before he could respond, Dana cut in, "Mulder has to go, 
Mom. He just came by to say hello." She cut her eyes at 
him, but she needn't have worried. Mulder could take a 
hint. He smiled warmly at her mother, but Scully recognized 
the guarded, questioning thoughts lurking deeper in his 
gaze. She tried to smile.

"I'll - I'll call you. About the book signings," she 
offered by way of making amends. He nodded briefly, his 
body brushing against hers as he exited the cramped room. 
Her right side tingled where he'd made contact.

Maggie was watching her carefully with the knowledge of a 
mother. "Dana," she began softly, "what's wrong between you 
and Mulder?"

Scully perched on the edge of the bed. She considered 
brushing aside her mother's concern, turning the 
conversation to other topics. Maggie was ill; she shouldn't 
be worrying about - 

"Dana Katherine, I'm your mother."

Maggie's voice held the firm, compassionate authority that 
Scully strove for when she talked to Chloe. She sighed and 
reached for Maggie's hand. "Oh, Mom. I don't know where to 
start. Everything's wrong."

"Did he do something?"

Scully shook her head. "It was all me," she admitted. 

Maggie settled back against the pillows. "Call him," she 
instructed without even hesitating to think. "Talk about 
what's really bothering you. That's hard for you, Dana. 
*Talk* to him." She cocked her head, fixed her daughter 
with a penetrating stare. "Get it fixed. And don't come in 
here again smelling like an ashtray. It's bad for your 
heart."

**

Langly was playing Doom again. He had the volume down low, 
but Dana and John could both hear it. Counting the little 
metallic pings the computer emitted, Dana looked down at 
her watch. 

"What time is it?" she asked.

"1:45," John assured her. "Just relax. He'll be here."

Dana swallowed hard, trying not to clench her jaw. Mulder 
would walk through that door in fifteen minutes and sit 
down at her desk. And under no circumstances would she 
vomit.

"In fact," John continued, "I think that's our key to go. 
C'mon, Langly - turn the computer off."

"Dude, I'm almost to level twelve!" Langly exclaimed. He 
looked up and, catching the look on his employer's face, 
conceded immediately. "Um, yeah. Lemme grab my jacket and 
we're outta here."

Dana sat stock still as the two men bade her goodbye and 
headed out into the cold, rainy afternoon. She'd had all 
weekend to stew, to brood and plan. Mulder was coming over 
to talk about his book, and she was going to use the 
opportunity to talk to him, to tell him - something. Her 
phone call had certainly been vague enough, a message left 
on his answering machine that she wanted to talk about "the 
book signings - and some other things. Um, personal." She 
couldn't even be one hundred percent sure that he'd gotten 
the message.

"I can do this," she said to the empty office.

The minutes ticked by audibly with the grandfather clock in 
the corner marking time. She fidgeted with the pens on the 
desk, aligning them neatly along the edge of her blotter, 
tips facing down. She uncapped a red one and drew a series 
of crimson swirls around March 16 on the desktop calendar. 

At 2:06, the doorknob caught and turned, and her stomach 
dropped into the vicinity of her knees at that small sound. 
Dana was so still that she could hear each individual creak 
as the door swung inward. Her gaze was riveted to Mulder as 
he automatically closed the door behind him before 
surveying the nearly deserted office. She knew when he'd 
seen her; although his gaze continued to sweep the rooms, 
his posture stiffened.

"Hello, Mulder," she said quietly.

"Scully." Both their faces were solemn, pinched. He 
advanced jerkily and stopped several feet in front of her 
desk. 

"John had to go out, so you'll have to meet with me. Or you 
could reschedule," she added as an afterthought, hating the 
cowardice that colored her voice with mild hopefulness. 

"Don't be ridiculous." He sat in the armchair nearest her, 
where he'd sat a dozen times, his pose a picture of studied 
nonchalance. He drug one foot from the rug, as if it 
weighed eighty pounds, to cross it over the other, and eyed 
her with wary expectancy. 

Dana was acutely conscious that she should say something, 
begin the thing on firm professional footing and steer 
their encounter out of personal waters, but she was 
stymied. She studied her calendar for several minutes, at a 
loss, before turning beseeching eyes on him.

"How's your mom?"

The sound of his voice after prolonged silence startled her 
and she actually jumped, banging into the underside of the 
desk. Halfheartedly stroking a bruised knee, she gathered 
the words, "Much better. They're keeping her in the cardiac 
wing at the hospital to monitor her while she starts her 
rehab group, but she should be going home in a couple of 
days."

Her phrasing hung in the air and Dana found herself 
fancifully wishing that she and Mulder could go to 
relationship rehabilitation to repair the damage wrought by 
the emotional heart attack she had brought upon them. 

"You're here about your book tour, though." Mulder looked 
indescribably sad at her abrupt change of subject and she 
was aware that she was blundering again, but had no idea 
how to fix it. Instead, she fell back upon the one arena in 
which she was supremely confident, and pulled out Mulder's 
file. 

"Both John and I have been discussing things with your 
publishing company, but there are just a few details that 
we need to work out, okay?"

Mulder nodded, but try as she might, Dana could elicit no 
feedback from him other than low grunts, and his expression 
grew increasingly morose and brooding as she spoke. She 
began to lose track of what she was saying, her voice a 
staccato clatter as she raced toward the verbal finish line 
that would release him from her presence. When she reached 
the end of her list, she drew up short, surprising herself 
with the abruptness of her finish. 

He'll leave now, she realized, and wanted to kick herself. 
She'd wanted so badly, needed, to talk to him, for once 
really to talk, and she couldn't even bring herself to ask 
him to stay. A cold, damp misery began to seep into her 
flesh and she blinked back tears, almost forgetting that he 
was still sitting opposite her. After a few seconds, she 
collected herself and looked up, right into his eyes. He 
regarded her steadily, showing no signs of moving.

"Did you want to say something, Scully?" he asked, his 
voice neutral. "Something else?"

Her laugh was dry. "Don't you think I've said enough?" But 
she hung her head, signaling him that he was right, she had 
something to tell him. Dana swiveled her chair away and 
felt him watching the set of her shoulders. 

"I had the strangest dream about you the night of my 
mother's heart attack." He looked startled, and she rushed 
to clarify. "Not that kind of dream. And not really about 
you... but you were in it. There were aliens with green 
blood, and the water was on fire, and the city was being 
bombed -" She paused, shaking her head as if to acknowledge 
her own foolishness, and barely noticed his stunned 
expression. "I was searching for you, only - I wasn't 
myself. Not exactly. I had completely different memories, 
Mulder; I was someone else and yet I wasn't, and I knew 
you." Dana turned her head, wide eyes seeking his. "I 
wanted to hide, but even stronger was the urge to find you. 
Do you understand? I knew you."

His eyes narrowed sardonically. "Biblically?"

Her eyes narrowed in response, her expression mimicking 
his, and she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I 
don't know. It doesn't matter. I'm not describing it the 
way it was, the way it felt - I don't know what to say. I 
couldn't find you, and I knew that you were dead. I could 
feel it. I just can't stop remembering how real that dream 
was. And when I woke up, I panicked, because if you 
died..." 

The clock ticked, and she stared at her calendar, pushing 
down whatever emotions threatened to bubble up to the 
surface. She looked up again and spoke slowly, her words 
measured. "I don't know how to fix any of this, Mulder, but 
I want to try. Please."

He shifted, uncrossing his feet and planting them wide 
apart on the rug. Rubbing his mouth, he nodded slightly. 
"Go ahead."

Dana stood up. "Will you come over tonight, to talk?"

"I have plans."

She forged ahead. "Tomorrow night, then. Or the next night, 
or the next. Say you'll come."

Her pleading tone and lovely eyes exerted the same pull 
over him that they had since the first day he'd walked into 
her office, and he was powerless to resist. He wanted to be 
angry, but he looked at her and memory supplied a smiling 
woman with bright eyes beneath a blue cap kissing him in an 
airport waiting area, and teary eyes that had absolutely 
nothing to do with the end of Casablanca, and a lone figure 
hunched beside a bank of pay phones in a hospital corridor. 
He stood up, shoving his fists into his pockets like a 
little boy.

"This weekend," he agreed irritably, feeling that he'd been 
defeated. "Friday night. I'll call first." He took some 
small pleasure in vindictively adding, "But I can't stay 
long."

"It won't take long," she promised, her arms crossed 
tightly over her chest as if to protect herself. Mulder 
nodded twice, tersely, and left her where she stood, as 
cool and unmoving as a statue. 

He missed seeing her flinch when the door slammed.

**
End 8/10

Chapter 17: Lilac

"Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac."
-Amy Lowell

**

Scully clung to the glimmer of hope that she and Mulder 
might be making some tiny bit of progress toward repairing 
their friendship. She had no such illusions about the 
positive nature of her relationship with her daughter.

It had started, really, with Mulder's forced, abrupt 
departure from their lives, and had grown dramatically 
worse in the last few weeks. Chloe wouldn't laugh, wouldn't 
talk with Dana, and had made it perfectly clear that she 
had absolutely no intention of telling her mother what was 
bothering her. It wounded Scully's soul to see Chloe 
building walls and to know that she had learned the skill 
from her. 

Despite her resolute silence, Thursday night found Scully 
perched on her daughter's bedside, carrying out the nightly 
ritual of tucking her in. 

Dana leaned forward to brush a lock of hair from Chloe's 
eye and whispered a kiss across her cheek. "I'll pick you 
up from Tina's around 6:30 tomorrow," she said, her heart 
struggling to beat in spite of the knot of fear borne of 
her daughter's continued silent rejection.

"I don't want to go to Tina's. I want to go see Grandma." 

The defiant pull of Chloe's mouth almost masked the scared 
tremor in her voice. Sighing, Dana continued stroking her 
hair.

"Baby, we've had this discussion. No children are allowed 
on Grandma's floor."

Chloe turned her head, fixing Scully with a glare. "How do 
I know you're telling the truth?"

Scully blinked in surprise. "Of course I'm telling the 
truth, honey. Why on earth would I lie to you?"

"Because you think you need to protect me. You always treat 
me like I'm some stupid little kid. And kids can go to the 
hospital - Tina went when her brother was born, and we were 
only ten," Chloe finished triumphantly, tears welling in 
her eyes.

"Chloe -" Dana paused, gathering her strength and her 
patience. "I do try to protect you, because I love you 
very, very much and I don't want anything in this world or 
outside it to ever hurt you. I know that you're growing up, 
and I can't always keep you from hurting, but I will always 
try, and I will always be honest with you. I know you're 
worried about Grandma, but she's getting stronger every 
day. But even though she's much better, she's in a special 
cardiac unit where the doctors and nurses don't allow 
anyone under sixteen to go. As soon as she's settled in at 
home this weekend I'll take you to visit, okay?"

Chloe said nothing, but rolled onto her side to face away 
from Dana. Scully placed a firm hand on her shoulder.
"Okay, Chloe?"

"You're lying," Chloe whispered.

"Chloe, why would you even think that?" Dana tugged at 
Chloe's thin shoulder but the girl jerked away. "I am your 
mother - I would never lie to you!"

Chloe sat bolt upright, her palms braced against the 
mattress. Her face contorted with tearful rage and her 
words escaped on a shout: "You are NOT my mother! My mother 
is dead!"

Numbly, Scully felt her lungs working to pump oxygen 
through her body, her heart hammering as her pulse raced, 
but she could do nothing to stem the tears pricking hotly 
at her eyes and clogging her throat. 

"I know," she began, trying to control the tremor in her 
voice, "that you're worried about Grandma, and still angry 
with me about Mulder, but -"

"You lied to me about my father," Chloe interrupted, 
angrily dashing away tears. "You told me he was dead - You 
made me believe it!"

Dread welled up in Scully's stomach, tingling along her 
nerve endings and blossoming at the base of her spine in a 
clenching spasm. She had feared the arrival of this moment 
for seven years, and despite her mother's assurances that 
it need never come, Scully had sensed its inevitability. 
The room seemed to tilt, and instead of loving, concerned 
mother, Scully knew that she had become the accused 
standing trial.

From beneath her pillow, Chloe produced a lilac envelope. 
The return addressee was Karl Hemlin in Castle Falls, 
Texas. When Dana reached for the paper, Chloe jerked it 
behind her back. "This came yesterday - I got the mail, 
remember?" Chloe's expression was poisonous. "My dad wrote 
me a letter. He says he misses me and wants to get to know 
me, and you told me he was dead!"

Dana had given up on remaining strong and allowed her tears 
to flow freely. Words she had mentally rehearsed for years 
tasted like gall on her tongue. "Yes, Chloe, I told you 
that, but it was not my decision. You may not remember, but 
Melissa told you the same thing, for many reasons. I have 
hated deceiving you, but I've respected her wishes -"

"Don't say that about my mother!" Chloe shouted, backing up 
against the headboard as if Scully's touch might infect 
her. "You're the liar! You've lied to me my whole life 
about my father so I would love you the most, because you 
can't have any kids of your own. You won't let me see 
Mulder, and you won't tell me that Grandma's dying, but you 
can't keep me from talking to my father!"

Desperate for contact, Dana squeezed Chloe's foot. "Baby, 
please - I promise that your grandmother is getting well. 
You have every right to be upset, but if you'll just let me 
explain -"

"I don't care what you say - you're a liar." Chloe kicked 
Scully's hand away. "Go away. Leave me alone."  Her voice 
was even, wary.  She flopped down on her stomach and pulled 
the covers over her.

"Chloe -"

She bit back a sob and spoke softly. "Go away. I hate you." 
Gathering strength, as if trying to convince herself, she 
repeated more boldly, "I hate you."

Biting her lip painfully to suppress her own sobs, Scully 
backed unsteadily toward the open door. She wanted nothing 
more than to stay and make her daughter understand, but she 
knew that attempting to do so now would only make Chloe 
angrier and likely achieve the exact opposite of what Dana 
wanted to do.  "We'll talk about this in the morning," she 
promised hoarsely, closing the door behind her. 

As her own defenses crumbled and the bottom dropped out of 
her self-possession, she slid to the carpet.  Ear pressed 
against the door, she listened to her daughter's sobs, each 
reverberating through her soul as she shook soundlessly, 
smarting from the wound of Chloe's distrust and grieving 
for the little girl's grief.

**

The morning sun crept across the kitchen floor in an ever-
widening pool, as if someone had upended a carton of liquid 
light that, once released, could only spread inexorably. It 
washed the midnight-colored ceramic tile a vivid blue, but 
only lapped at the breakfast nook, where Chloe sat. She 
stared at her cereal, lips compressed into a thin line, as 
if she and it were engaged in a battle of wills.

Scully had never been able to bear the silent treatment for 
long, and this morning each magnified tick of the wall 
clock compounded her deep sense of guilt. Feeling as if she 
might jump out of her skin, she bolted for the sink and 
began to wash the few dishes waiting there. A coffee cup 
slipped through her boneless fingers and shattered in the 
stainless steel basin. Dropping her chin to her chest, 
Scully let her hair hide her face as the tap ran full 
blast.

"I'm going downstairs to wait," Chloe muttered from across 
the room. Her chair scraped across the floor and Scully, 
eyes closed, listened to the familiar sound of Chloe's 
canvas backpack sliding across the countertop. Dana didn't 
look up until the door closed, and then she resolutely 
turned off the water and began to collect the broken shards 
of green enamel.

Visiting hours lasted from three to six, and Dana, driven 
by a desperate, childlike yearning to confide in her own 
mother, canceled her afternoon appointments. At 3:05, her 
knuckles scraped a tentative knock on Maggie's door. The 
thin wood swung open, but Dana remained hovering just 
outside in the hallway, clutching the newest hardback by 
her mother's favorite mystery writer.

Sitting up in her bed in a pale blue gown and robe, her 
hair brushed and styled, Maggie looked almost like her old 
self. Her eyes lit up and she smiled brightly. "Dana! Come 
in, honey. I didn't expect you so soon - what a wonderful 
surprise." When she took in her daughter's slumped 
shoulders and defeated posture, Maggie's expression 
changed. "Is something wrong?" 

Coming into the room and pulling the door to behind her, 
Dana extended her offering to her mother. "I didn't think 
you'd read this one," she said with a faint smile. "I 
picked it up on the way over."

Maggie Scully barely glanced at the cover as she placed the 
book on the bedside table. "Thank-you, honey. Now tell me 
what's wrong."

Dana turned away from her mother to take off her coat and 
fold it over the back of the visitor's chair. She'd come 
with every intention of telling her mother everything, 
eagerly anticipating the relief of unburdening her soul and 
soaking up Maggie's words of wisdom. But how could she have 
thought it fair or prudent to heap her worries upon the 
plate of a woman who had just suffered a massive heart 
attack? She turned slowly to face Maggie, absently gnawing 
on her lower lip and half-aware of what a guilty, 
downtrodden sight she must be in her mother's eyes.

"Dana." The simple word carried a gentle reproof. Maggie 
patted the edge of the hospital bed. "The Lord has seen fit 
to spare me so that I can be here for my children and 
grandchildren. Whatever it is, I can handle it."

Obediently Dana sat, enfolding her mother's hand in her 
own. Unbidden, the entire story tumbled forth, and Dana 
felt her load lighten fractionally as she related her 
worries to Maggie.

"Oh, Mom," she sighed when she had finally finished, 
dabbing at her eyes with a wadded-up tissue. "What have I 
done?"

"You've done nothing but love that little girl and do your 
best to see her safe and happy," Maggie said firmly.

Scully sniffled, and her voice was waterlogged. "What if 
I've destroyed her innocence and ruined her childhood?"

Her mother actually smiled. "You haven't, Dana. You just 
have to talk to her. Tell her everything she doesn't know, 
and she'll understand. She may not listen right away, but 
she will eventually."

"I love her so much, Mom." Dana bowed her head. "Was it 
this hard for you, with the four of us?"

Maggie's capable, loving fingers sifted through Scully's 
silky hair. "It's always hard, baby. But it's wonderful." 
Her hand slid to her daughter's shoulder and squeezed. "Get 
out of here. Go get Chloe."

Scully blew her nose. "But I came to spend the afternoon 
with you."

"You can come back tomorrow. Some things are more 
important."

On her way back to Georgetown, Dana stopped to get take-out 
from Chloe's favorite deli as a peace offering. Armed with 
two Reubens, hold the dressing, a side of fries, and two 
large lemonades, she surveyed the parking situation near 
the row of trendy brownstones, decided to risk it, and 
wheeled into the fire lane. She jabbed the button that 
controlled the emergency flashers, locked the car doors, 
and walked briskly to the front door of a home with 
cornflower blue shutters and a carefully tended Leland 
cyprus in a huge clay pot on the shallow porch. After 
ringing the bell, she listened for the enthusiastic barking 
of the Wilders' dog and the sound of footsteps in the 
foyer.

Tall, willowy Lisa Wilder glided soundlessly to the door on 
moccasin-clad feet. "Dana, hi!" she exclaimed, flipping her 
long blonde hair over her shoulder and flashing a brilliant 
smile - her first husband had been an orthodontist. "What's 
up?"

Scully faltered, trying to ignore the tingling dread 
prickling her scalp and making all her body hair stand on 
end.

Oh, God, no.

"Lisa, I came to get Chloe." She felt the blood leeching 
from her face and tunneling deep into her veins. "But she's 
not here, is she?" To her own ears, her voice sounded dazed 
and thready.

Lisa frowned. "No, I dropped her off at home." She reached 
out to touch Dana's arm. "Is everything okay?"

Scully swallowed hard and instructed herself not to panic. 
"I hope so. I'm - I'm sure she's there." Turning on her 
heel, Scully flung politeness to the wind and sprinted back 
to her car. She couldn't shake the sinking feeling in the 
depths of her stomach as she shoved the key into the 
ignition and stomped the accelerator, peeling out for the 
first time in her adult life. With her right hand, she 
fumbled in her briefcase for her cell phone and punched in 
her home number.

"Answer, answer, answer," she pleaded frantically as she 
counted off three rings, then four. She heard her own voice 
on the answering machine and swore violently.

"Choe, it's Mom. If you're there, pick up right this minute 
- I'm on my way home."

Even as she spoke, Scully knew instinctively that she was 
speaking to no one. Swerving around a delivery truck, she 
punched the gas, continuing to pray and curse under her 
breath. Fitting the car into the nearest parking space she 
could find, Scully didn't even bother locking the doors 
before she began sprinting toward the building. She took 
the stairs two at a time, gasping for breath and wondering 
for a split second why the hell she'd bothered to stop 
smoking when she was still so out of shape regardless. Her 
hand trembled as she fumbled to fit the key into the lock.

The apartment was dead silent save the maddening dripping 
of water in the bathroom. "Chloe!" she called, her voice 
unnaturally shrill. "Chloe Winter Scully, answer me right 
this minute, god damn it!"

Although she was achingly aware that Chloe was too old to 
play hide and seek, Scully performed a whirlwind search of 
the apartment before seizing the phone and rifling through 
the pages of the phone book at top speed. 

"Maggie Scully's room, please... Mom? Have you heard from 
Chloe, or seen her?"

"No, Dana." Scully could almost see the wheels turning, and 
the trepidation in Maggie's voice was easily audible when 
she spoke again. "Dana, is something wrong?"

Scully bit her lip. "I just got home, and she's not here. 
She was worried about you, so I thought maybe - Don't 
worry, Mom. I'm sure everything's fine, and she just went 
home from school with one of her friends and forgot to tell 
me. Please don't worry. I'll call as soon as I find her."

Feeling as if she were outside her body, observing her own 
actions, Dana grabbed her address book and called each of 
Chloe's close friends. After interrogating the parents, she 
demanded to speak to the girls, but each claimed she knew 
nothing. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Slamming the receiver into the cradle, 
Dana raced into Chloe's bedroom and jerked the closet doors 
open. Her gaze immediately zeroed in on an empty spot on 
the floor - Chloe's suitcase was gone. As if in slow 
motion, she pivoted. Sliding her hand under the bed pillow, 
she felt for the telltale rasp of the lilac envelope. Her 
fingers encountered only soft cotton.

Scully dropped onto the bed, her knees no longer able to 
support her, and scooped up Chloe's dog-eared stuffed pig.
"Oh, fuck," she swore breathlessly.

**

Chapter 18: Ash

"This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes 
grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque 
gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys 
and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, 
of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the 
powdery air." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

**

Scully spent the next twenty minutes in a flurry of phone 
calls: first the police, who could do nothing until Chloe 
had been missing for twenty-four hours, then the bank, the 
airport and bus stations, and finally John. As she spoke to 
him, she bore down on her emotions, ruthlessly keeping her 
voice steady and as calm as possible.

"Johnny, it's me. Are you busy?"

"Never too busy for you."

"I have some bad news." She paused, unable to say the 
words. "Chloe's - missing."

Silence.

"Dana, are you serious?"

Without allowing herself to pause for breath, Scully 
blurted everything out. She sensed John's concern, but he 
remained as calm and solid as he'd always been, and she 
loved him for it. 

"So you think she's gone to find Karl, right? Where is he - 
what was the return address on the envelope?"

She took a deep breath and blew it out through her nose. 
"Texas - it was, oh -" She squeezed her eyes shut, trying 
for an agonizingly long moment to visualize the paper. 
"Castle Falls! Castle Falls, Texas."

"Okay, honey, good. Just try to stay calm. Does she have 
enough money to get there?"

"She has an ATM card for my account, for emergency 
purposes. I already called the bank - she withdrew five 
hundred dollars this afternoon from an ATM near the bus 
station." 
 
"And used a chunk of that to buy a bus ticket."

"She must have. I called the bus station and terrorized 
everyone I could get on the phone until I found a woman who 
thinks she might have sold her a one-way ticket to Dallas. 
I'm in my car right now, headed there to show her a picture 
of Chloe."

"Good. What do you want me to do?"

"God, John, I don't know." As she slowed to a stop at a red 
light, Dana lit a fresh cigarette from the dying embers of 
the one she'd been smoking. She'd worked through almost an 
entire pack in less than an hour. "She has a three hour 
head start, but there's a half-hour scheduled stop in 
Raleigh at 10:04. Can you get us there?"

"It's done," he promised. "Call me as soon as you've got an 
ID from the bus station."

A pencil-thin woman with large doe eyes and a nervous, 
sympathetic smile looked at Chloe's picture as Dana 
concentrated with all her might on holding it steady. The 
woman had to squint, and the harsh fluorescent lighting in 
the station made Scully's head swim. 

The woman nodded slowly. "Yes, ma'am. That's her. Pretty 
little girl with a bright yellow backpack."

As Scully tucked the photo back into her wallet, her eyes 
flashed with outrage. "What's your name, Miss?" she asked 
tightly.

"Yolanda."

"Yolanda. Do you routinely sell one-way tickets to eleven-
year-old children?" she demanded through gritted teeth.

The other woman cringed and shrugged. "Well, no. But it's 
not illegal or anything. I can't get in no trouble over 
this."

For the second time that day, Scully wheeled and raced 
toward her car. As she slid behind the wheel, she already 
had her phone out.

"It was her, Johnny. The woman remembered her backpack. 
Fucking imbeciles - who sells a fucking cross-country bus 
ticket to a little girl? Shit!" She pounded on the steering 
wheel.

"I've got us on an 7:55 flight. Can you be there?"

"I'm on my way right now."

John read off the fight information and they agreed to meet 
at the gate.

Scully parked in the short-term lot because it was closer 
to the terminals and prayed that this would be a short-term 
trip. After she had realized that Chloe was on her way to 
Texas, her mind had shut off and her body was operating on 
autopilot. She and John would fly to Raleigh and beat the 
bus to the station. Chloe would be fine. They'd take her 
home and Dana would explain everything, and things would 
turn out fine. Any other eventuality was too terrible to 
contemplate. So many horrible things could happen to a 
little girl alone; Dana wouldn't, couldn't think of them, 
or her body would seize up with mindless terror and she'd 
be utterly useless to her daughter.

Scully picked up the ticket John had reserved for her and 
sent up a prayer of thanks for the mercifully short line at 
the security checkpoint. For the first time in her life, 
she prepared to board an airplane without so much as a 
carry-on bag.

When Dana came within sight of the waiting area at Gate 
14, she froze. It was a day of firsts - for the first 
time she could remember, her jaw actually dropped.

John looked up and spotted her. Their gazes connected, and 
he nudged the man next to him, who turned to look at 
Scully. As if she had been kicked into gear, she began to 
move forward again.

Mulder rocked to his feet and came to meet her.

"Mulder," she whispered, not certain yet if she was 
amazingly annoyed at his impudence or deeply touched by his 
concern. "What are you doing here?"

"John called me. I had to come, Scully." His eyes, deep 
green in the airport lighting, didn't give much away, but 
as she stood confronting this man whom she had rejected not 
once but twice, Scully felt his incredible kindness. Again 
he was reaching out to her, putting himself out there to be 
not her knight in shining armor, but her friend. Suddenly 
Scully felt overwhelmed, and her tenuously held composure 
threatened to slip. She bit her lip almost hard enough to 
draw blood and sucked in a quick, harsh breath.

"You're a good man, Mulder," she murmured, her voice 
cracking on his name.

He cupped her elbow, not invading her space, but gently 
guiding her. "They'll start boarding soon. Come sit down."

John had hung back, looking on anxiously as Mulder and Dana 
warily circled one another and exchanged a few words. 
Calling Mulder had seemed like the right thing to do. He 
hoped the other man's presence would be a comfort to Dana, 
and Chloe was crazy about him, but he really had no idea 
how Dana would respond. As she walked toward him, she 
managed a tiny smile. John stood up and opened his arms.

As he enfolded her in his arms, Dana breathed deeply of 
John's clean, familiar scent and let herself relax as much 
as she could without completely breaking down.

"Oh, Johnny," she whimpered, feeling the tears on her 
cheeks. "Oh, God."

He kissed the top of her head and rocked her back and 
forth. "It's going to be okay," he murmured. "We're going 
to get her and bring her back. Everything will work out."

On the plane, John sat by the window with Dana beside him 
and Mulder across the aisle. For a while he tried to 
distract her by talking about work, his relationship with 
Blake, the storyline of the soap opera she wouldn't admit 
to watching, anything. When she offered him her tiny bag of 
airline peanuts without showing even a tiny flicker of 
interest in them, he finally gave up and simply held her 
hand.

When the copilot came over the PA system to advise the 
flight attendants to prepare for landing, a rogue tear
trickled down Dana's marble cheek.

"Oh, God, oh, God. What if she's not there? What if she's 
been hurt, or kidnapped, or - What if she hates me? Have I 
destroyed everything for her by keeping this a secret all 
these years?"

They were rhetorical questions. John simply pulled her 
close and kissed her forehead. "We'll find her," he said 
resolutely.

Mulder had been nearly silent during the flight. As soon as 
they were allowed to deplane, he strode to one of the 
myriad rental car counters. John lingered several yards 
back with his palm on Dana's back, rubbing in soothing 
circles.

Scully checked her watch. "We have plenty of time," she 
reassured herself.

She rode shotgun as Mulder weaved easily in and out of the 
heavy airport traffic. As he stopped for a red light, he 
turned to look at her. He eyed her for a moment without 
speaking, then refocused his attention on the road.

Dana swallowed, seeking relief for her burning throat, made 
raw by diligently repressed tears. "Thank you for coming, 
Mulder."

He nodded once. "Here we are. Do you and John want to go 
inside while I find a place to park?"

Even inside the station the reek of bus fumes was almost 
overpowering. Dana and John waited outside under an 
overhang, as near the arriving buses as possible. "If she 
doesn't get off, we're going on to look for her."

"Of course," John replied.

Twenty minutes ticked by, and Mulder failed to appear. Dana 
watched the giant hands on the station clock creep in a 
circle and tried not to think. Huddled inside her overcoat, 
she slumped against the wall and fought against the fatigue 
battling to overtake her. She felt as if she were trapped 
in some T.S. Eliot Wasteland-esque purgatory.

A hydraulic screech filled the moist air as the driver of a 
sleek, purring Greyhound deftly negotiated the curve and 
pulled into the station. DALLAS, proclaimed the 
computerized marquee scrolling above the front window.

"This one," Scully breathed, clutching John's bony wrist 
and standing up straight. The doors opened with a hiss and 
passengers began to spill out, some searching for familiar, 
beloved faces, others moving more slowly, intent on 
grabbing a sandwich or a late-night cup of coffee. Torn 
between the need to run toward the bus and the desire to 
flee, Dana stood as still as if she'd grown roots that had 
tunneled down into the cracked asphalt.

A few minutes passed. Finally a lone, slight figure 
appeared, backlit by the bus's interior lights. She slowly 
climbed down the steps and stopped.

"Chloe!" Dana cried, tearing away from John. Restraining 
herself from flinging her arms around her daughter and 
crushing her, Scully settled for grasping the girl's 
shoulders and squeezing fiercely.

"Mom?" Sounding disoriented, she peered over Dana's 
shoulder. "And Uncle Johnny?" Her eyes flicked back to her 
mother's. Chloe looked heartbreakingly young, scared, and 
miserable. "Mommy," she whimpered, and burst into tears.

Scully's arms surrounded her in a bone-cracking hug. "Are 
you all right? Are you hurt? Has anyone bothered you?" Dana 
demanded.

Chloe scrubbed at her eyes. "I'm okay," she sniffled.

Scully brushed at her own tears. "I love you so much," she 
said, "and you are in so much trouble right now." Hugging 
her again, she buried her face in Chloe's neck and breathed 
her sweet little girl smell. "You're safe, you're safe, 
you're safe," she chanted softly. "I was so scared, Chloe 
Winter. God, you have no idea."

"I'm sorry," Chloe muttered.

"I know," Dana said, nodding. "And I know that you're angry 
and there are a lot of things you don't understand right 
now. But Chloe, whatever happens, you and I will talk about 
it. Don't you ever run away from me, or from your problems, 
again." She tipped Chloe's chin up and met her soulful 
gaze. "Understood?"

Chloe nodded jerkily. For the first time Dana became aware 
of Mulder watching their reunion and she managed a tiny 
smile. Tucking Chloe against her body, she kissed the tip 
of her daughter's nose. 

"Let's go home, huh?"

**
End 9/10

Chapter 19: Gold

"The day she came, I'm freezing that frame... 'How did it 
go so fast?' you'll say as we are looking back, and then 
we'll understand: we held gold dust in our hands." - Tori 
Amos 

**

Scully knew it was April when the rain started and didn't 
stop. The trouble with living in the city was that there 
wasn't much green space where the showers could bring 
flowers, so the best she could hope for was a humid, 
slightly depressing drizzle.

She looked out the window at the nighttime streets, black 
and rain-slicked. Mulder was out there, in his car, 
traveling toward her. She glanced at her watch. 7:49. He'd 
said around eight. She pushed her sleeves up and tugged 
them down again. Chloe was sprawled on the couch, 
ostensibly watching TV, but really keeping an eye on Dana 
and sticking close to the nexus of any possible drama. 

Scully straightened the magazines on the bar and ran over 
the mental list of things she wanted to say, as if she were 
preparing to give a lecture. The chiming of the doorbell 
actually caught her off guard.

Mulder was dressed nicely, tan slacks and a dress shirt 
with a burgundy striped tie. She suddenly remembered that 
he'd had a dinner at George Washington tonight, and 
wondered if he'd left early to meet her. He didn't say 
anything, but looked steadily at her, and she forced 
herself to meet his gaze. Her stomach was tied into a 
thousand of the intricate sailor's knots her father had 
taught her how to make.

"Oh. Hey." Chloe's gaze flicked toward the vicinity of 
Mulder's chest and back to the TV, her guarded tone and 
eyes giving away as little as did Dana's.

"Clo, can you go to your room, please?" Dana requested, her 
voice carefully neutral, her eyes fixed on her daughter's 
profile, which was eerily backlit by the blue glow of the 
screen.

"This is my favorite show."

"Chloe, go to your room. Just for a little while."

The girl looked over her shoulder. "Aunt Dana, I'm watch -" 
Her small jaw snapped shut when she took in her aunt's 
rigid pose. The remote control smacked the glass surface of 
the coffee table, sneakers simultaneously thudding against 
the sofa cushions as Chloe bounded over the back, shoving 
past Mulder. "Whatever."

The bedroom door closed with a muted snick. Scully stared 
vacantly over the top of the television, her thoughts 
clicking with the unyielding rapidity of a stopwatch. The 
muscles in her arm burned when she retrieved the remote and 
aimed it at the screen. A thin, smiling blonde froze and 
dissipated mid-word.

The tension in the apartment ratcheted up a notch. Dana 
rocked to her heels, her hands rising to hug her stomach. 
"Thank you for coming." She sounded and looked as if she 
were anticipating a root canal without the benefit of 
Novocain.

Mulder dragged the sole of one loafer through the lush pile 
of the Oriental rug, bringing his toe to rest behind the 
opposite heel. "I was in the neighborhood." He sat down 
gingerly on the edge of the armchair. He was waiting, 
giving her the floor. 

Dana was hypersensitive to his presence and her 
surroundings; her skin felt tight, hot, and stretched over 
her sharp bones. She sat carefully on the sofa, welcoming 
the soft, downy envelope of the cushions. Her tongue curled 
against the roof of her mouth in a futile effort to ease 
her aching throat.

Words and fragments of thoughts blazed across her mind's eye 
as if they were printed on giant cue cards. The font would
be called something like Cosmic Ultra Bold.

"Remember when we went to the museum, Mulder?" she asked
suddenly. "You taught me how to look at the paintings, how
to understand the colors. I've been thinking a lot about 
that - about color."

He waited for Dana to continue, but she seemed disinclined 
to do so. She'd realized that she was doing it again, 
dancing all around the subject she really wanted to broach.
With a hint of interest Mulder prodded again, "Color?"

She tilted her head to rest her chin on steepled fingers. 
"Each of us is surrounded by colors from the moment we open 
our eyes at birth until they are closed by death. Color 
symbolism is an integral part of our language - we see red, 
feel blue, are green with envy. Colors influence our moods 
and even our health. Red provokes anger; black induces 
melancholy. But how much of the color we attribute to our 
environment is an illusion, merely a fabrication of the 
unconscious mind? Do we add color to the world like a child 
with Tempera paints? Science offers no solid answers.

"Do you know how the human eye works, Mulder? The rods and 
cones within our eyes distinguish varying wavelengths of 
light, and the brain transforms those wavelengths into 
electrochemical signals. We interpret those signals as 
colors. Longer wavelengths look red; the shortest visible 
to the human eye are blue. Bees can see ultraviolet light, 
but they are incapable of experiencing red. Did you know 
that?"

She didn't expect or wait for a reply. "2300 years ago 
Plato advanced the idea that color vision was a result of 
rays that shot out from the eyes toward objects. But I 
prefer Galen's theory. He believed that rays produced by 
our eyes empowered the surrounding air to transport 
miniscule images of objects to the eye. He thought a spirit 
moving between the eyes and the brain interpreted those 
images, creating color. Goethe studied the interplay of 
color and shadow - so you see the link between color and 
poetry is one of long standing."

"I'm not a scientist, Scully. Or a poet."

She chuckled dryly. "Obviously, neither am I. I sound like
Some kind of goddamned encyclopedia, and I'm not saying - 
I can't -" She sighed heavily and gestured vaguely. "But - 
But my point is that we don't really see colors. We see 
light. Absorption and reflection. Things that appear black 
absorb light from all wavelengths. White is the absence 
of color. Blankness. Sterility.

"As part of the vision process, the brain eliminates or 
ignores certain conflicting or confusing impulses, so 
everything we see involves a certain level of distortion. 
How do I know what my mind is distorting? How do I know 
that my mind isn't blocking out too much?"

Her voice had risen to a fever pitch, her agitation 
obvious. Mulder's expression remained blank and he slouched 
more deeply into the sofa. "I guess you don't. Scully, are 
you going somewhere with this?"

Her smooth features twitched ruefully at his flippancy. She 
knew his patience was wearing thin. Her hand drifted up to 
pinch the bridge of her nose in her habitual gesture of 
discomfort and frustration. "I'm trying to, Mulder."

A driving bass beat drifted down the hall and starkly 
delineated the complexities of their tangled relationship 
from Chloe's preteen existence. The glowing green face of 
the VCR clock ticked away three minutes before Mulder 
touched Scully's elbow in a phantom caress. "I know you 
are, Scully. Go on. Please."

"There are so few primary colors; if we see only those, we 
miss the nuances. That's why artists blend... Scientists 
estimate that the human eye can distinguish ten million 
colors. Ten million emotions, Mulder; ten million ways to 
live and breathe and be. Isn't that what you told me at the 
museum? Do you remember?"

She paused a beat. He nodded.

"But some people have dichromatic vision - they're color 
blind. They switch certain colors, have trouble recognizing 
others. In the most severely affected individuals, the 
entire world is reduced to a few shades of gray. Perhaps 
the greatest tragedy is that these people don't realize 
that their eyesight is defective. They learn to use the 
color names that everyone else uses, but sometimes their 
disability puts them at risk."

"You've been doing research," he offered, his voice soft, 
shadowed. "What are you saying, Scully?"

"I think I'm one of those people. Color-blind. Um, 
emotionally." She blushed and looked down for a long moment 
before her eyes finally met his. "I'm emotionally color-
blind. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But that's the way 
I think of it. I lived in this monotonous, 
compartmentalized world for thirty-nine years, and then I 
met you. You swept into my life with all your disorder and 
passion, and there were so many colors - cyan and magenta 
and aqua and sunshine yellow -" She trailed off, shaking 
her head.

Silence stretched out and made herself at home as Dana's 
heart rate gradually slowed and her breath returned to 
something resembling normality. She risked a glance at 
Mulder and found him pensively stroking his chin. A 
chuffing laugh escaped her lips, the accompanying puff of 
air lifting a loose lock of auburn hair away from her pale 
cheek.

"Was that marginally less oblique?"

"Marginally." He sat up and carefully tucked the escaped 
hair behind her ear, his touch tentative. She couldn't 
suppress the resulting hitch in her breath. "You know, 
statistically only one in 200 women is color blind."

"Clinically."

"Clinically, or otherwise."

Precise fingernails toyed with the fabric covering the arm 
of the sofa, tracing the deep wine-colored stripes. Her 
eyes zeroed in on her actions, studiously refusing even a 
glimpse of Mulder as she dredged up the courage to say what 
she truly meant.

"Mulder, I want you to be part of my life."

Her words fell softly into the silence and were subtly 
absorbed by her living room.  The clock ticked. His hand 
covered hers where it lay and squeezed.

"I don't have words to describe the relationship we have, 
but your friendship has meant so much to me, and I want - I 
need - to find a way to return that -" She broke off, her 
nails digging into the fabric and her eyes clinching shut 
as she battled the tears scalding her sensitive skin. "No - 
that's not what I wanted to say, but I don't know how to -" 
She pulled away from his hand and made a tight fist of 
frustration. "I just miss you so much," she confessed.

"Dana - Scully -" He reached behind her, his warm palm 
sliding over the back of her fist, loosening her grip to 
rotate her wrist and link their fingers. "That was all you
had to say, you know. I told you once that it would be a 
privilege to count you among my friends, and that was before 
I knew what an amazing, colorful woman -" His fingers 
squeezed hers and she squeezed back automatically - "you 
could be." His eyes traced her face, and she could 
almost feel it. "I've missed you too, Scully."

She nodded, sifting through her thoughts. "I'm glad. I'm - 
I'm really glad." Her head bounced compulsively, 
punctuating each syllable. She felt that she had said part 
of what she'd wanted him to know, but not all. Maybe she'd 
never have the courage or the words to say it all, and this 
would have to be enough. 

Chloe's door opened and footsteps padded down the hallway 
to the bathroom. The taps squeaked, then the sound of water 
thundering into the bathtub filled the apartment. Mulder 
pressed Dana's hand once and untangled their fingers. "I 
should go. I think we both need some time to process 
things." His voice was sandpaper-rough and oddly 
comforting. She wondered if he realized he was echoing 
words he had spoken in this same room over two months 
earlier.

She hovered near the sofa while he shrugged into his 
jacket. Her gaze flitted anxiously to his and a tiny smile 
curved her lips. "Call me. Or I'll call you."

"We'll talk soon." His fingertips grazed her shoulders, 
following the seams of her blouse, and his lips descended 
to brush her forehead just below her hairline. Dana's 
eyelids fell for an instant, then blinked open to reveal 
wide, wet pools of azure.

Mulder took a couple of steps and paused with one hand 
resting on the doorframe. His grin transformed his serious 
face as his eyes found Dana's and lingered there. 

"Blue."

Her right eyebrow crept upward. "Blue?" she questioned.

The intensity of his stare was disconcerting. "It's my 
favorite color."

When understanding dawned, her grin matched his.

**

"If you have any crises or emergencies, you can call," John 
reminded. "In fact, if you don't I'll never forgive you."

Dana smiled and rested her chin on her fist. "We'll be 
fine," she predicted. "I think my family has undergone 
enough traumatic events for a while."

"Well, still - I'll only be a phone call away."

Crossing from her desk to the cooler, Scully poured herself 
a cup of water. "I think Blake's good for you, Johnny. 
You've been so relaxed lately. I'm really glad things seem 
to be working out for you two."

Flushed with pleasure, John beamed. "He's an incredible 
man, Dana. Funny, tender - I think - Well, I think I'm 
falling in love with him."

Scully set her water down. "That's great," she murmured, 
her back to him and her hands braced on the table. "That's 
really great."

Taking in her rigid posture, John stood up and walked over 
to place his hand on her back. "Are you okay?"

She released a short bark of watery laughter. "I'm fine. 
And I am so sincerely happy for you," she answered him, 
smoothing the lapels of his suit coat and blinking away 
troublesome tears. "I just -"

Scully drew a short breath through her mouth and clamped 
her lips shut. After a few seconds she dropped her eyes. 
When it became evident that no further information was 
forthcoming, John lightly tapped two fingers on her 
collarbone. 

"You just what, Dana?"

"I just don't understand how it can be so easy for you to 
open up, to lay yourself bare to another person like that," 
she admitted, tears again flooding her eyes.

He rubbed her shoulder soothingly. "Love is a risk," he 
offered with a shrug. "You can't hold any of yourself back. 
You have to go into it whole-heartedly and hope the pay-off 
will be worth the risk."

Tears racing down her cheeks and dropping onto her silk 
blouse, Scully sank her teeth into her lower lip. "Doesn't 
it scare you? Making yourself so vulnerable, so terribly 
exposed?"

"Sure. Admitting that you need another person is not a bad 
thing. You have to make the decision not to let fear rule 
your life. "

"Are you talking about the general you or the specific me?" 
she joked weakly. "Because God, John, I'm fucking 
terrified." Her sigh was shaky.

As she tried to wipe away her tears, the stark truth of her 
words struck Dana. Spots of inky black and glaring white 
danced behind her eyelids as if she'd just been captured in 
the light of a blinding flashbulb.

"I'm talking about me, Danes," John replied quietly. "Your 
choices are up to you. They always have been."

After a moment she nodded and grabbed a Kleenex from his 
desk. With quick, businesslike movements she mopped away 
her tears, then drew a deep breath, rising to her full 
height and pushing her shoulders back.

"Well," she said, forcing a smile as she returned to her 
desk, "forgive me for being maudlin. I don't know what's 
gotten into me. Hormones, maybe? Is it too early for 
menopause?" Her tone had turned overly bright. "I'm so 
happy that you're happy, John."

John leaned against his desk and folded his arms. "I am 
happy," he said softly. "But I want you to be happy too. 
What's going on? You and Mulder talked, and I thought you 
were feeling good about it."

She stared blankly at her physics fact-a-day calendar. 
Realizing it was several days behind, she tore away sheets 
until she got to Wednesday, April 4th. 

"We did, and I was. But I just feel - I don't know, 
unsettled. I feel like the air is vibrating around me, like 
the floor might fly out from under my feet at any minute. 
The more I think about what I intended to say, the less I 
think I actually said - with any intelligibility, at least. 
The way we left things was so open-ended that I have no 
idea where we stand. In retrospect, I wish I'd tried harder 
to achieve some closure."

"Maybe you don't need closure - maybe what you need is an 
opening, a to-be-continued. You'll work it out," John 
declared with a confidence that Dana wished she could 
share. Bending, he planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "I'm 
out of here, and I'll see you on Monday. Remember - a phone 
call away."

Left alone in the silent office, Dana's eyes zeroed in on 
the newly revealed fact of the day, which seemed oddly 
appropriate.

"Isaac Newton was the first to demonstrate that white light 
was composed of the light of all the colors of the rainbow, 
which one glass prism could split into the full spectrum of 
colors, and another could recombine into a beam of white 
light."

What Scully needed, she thought, was a prism.

**

The next time Fox Mulder bumped into Dana Scully, he did so 
literally. 

The bottom had just fallen out of the flat, late afternoon 
sky, turning everything a dirty grey, and he, shoulders 
hunched protectively, had ducked into the doorway of an 
Asian grocery store to escape the deluge. As he did, he 
slammed into the woman coming out, jostling her shopping 
bag and catching an elbow in the stomach.

He began apologizing before he realized with whom he had 
collided. "Scully," he murmured, brushing a few stray 
raindrops from the sleeve of her white wool coat.

Her eyes widened so that he could see all the way around 
the irises. She looked bemused and just a little bit sad. 
"Well hello, Mr. Mulder."

"I didn't break anything, did I?"

She peered into the brown paper bag she held with both 
arms. "Everything looks okay," she confirmed lightly. "The 
stir-fry can go on as planned. I'm making Chloe's 
favorite."

He turned to watch the soggy street. "It's raining like a 
son of a bitch," he observed.

She said nothing.

"Look, Scully -" He ran his fingers through his hair. "I 
was going to call you."

She regarded the tips of his well-worn loafers. "It's okay, 
Mulder. I don't blame you."

"No, I was. I just - with the situation with Chloe and 
everything, I didn't know what to say." His eyes sought 
hers. "I didn't know what you'd want me to say." Instead 
he'd worried about her in silence, his forte. Did she still 
smile at silly commercials and hide peanut M&Ms in her desk 
drawers? Was she still having bad dreams?

"What I want to say is thank-you." She tipped her head up, 
and he saw that her nose was already bright red from the 
cold. "Thank-you for going to Raleigh and being willing to 
be there for me and Chloe, and just for everything. I meant 
what I said, Fox Mulder - you're a very good man. One of 
the best I've ever known."

Their breath mingled in light cloudy puffs between their 
faces. Mulder smiled slightly. "Let a pretty good guy buy 
you a cup of coffee?" he suggested.

It didn't even occur to her to check her watch. "I'd like 
that," she responded.

He took her to a dark, smoky coffee house around the 
corner. Once they were ensconced in a high-backed wooden 
booth, their faces being warmed by the curling steam from 
tall black coffees, Mulder watched Scully fidget with 
packets of artificial sweetener and frantically bounce her 
foot.

"Go ahead," he said slowly, his voice tinged with humor. 
"You can smoke."

She released a pent-up breath of relief. "Oh, thank-you," 
she said, reaching into her purse and retrieving her 
lighter and a pack of Marlboro Lights. "That may be the 
nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time." To her 
mortification she felt tears threatening. To hide her 
inopportune attack of emotion, she lit a cigarette and 
inhaled deeply.

"Officially started again?" Mulder assumed.

She shrugged self-deprecatingly.  "Yeah, well, it looks 
that way. Maybe I'll lose a few pounds, at least," she 
joked half-heartedly.

His eyes narrowed. "It looks like you've already lost a few 
pounds, Scully." Indeed, the supple roundness that had 
padded her curves and softened her appearance in January 
had melted away, and with dark circles under her eyes, she 
looked gaunt, almost haggard. "In fact, you look like 
hell."

Mulder's bluntness stung her vanity. Scully stared down 
into the abyss of her coffee cup. "Thanks. I'm exhausted," 
she confessed. "Mulder, you have a way of telling every 
girl exactly what she wants to hear." Cigarette firmly 
anchored between her first and middle fingers, Dana dumped 
creamer into her coffee and stirred before taking a short 
swallow.

He watched her. She was so beautiful to him. Didn't she 
know that?   

"How are things at home?"

She gestured with her cigarette, as if sketching an 
abstract figure in the air. "You know how they say you 
can't go home again?" Dana shook her head. "Life at my 
house is very tense right now. I'm trying to learn to live 
with a lot of silences. You saw how she was the night you 
came over." Scully watched her hand as she stubbed the 
cigarette out in the metal ash tray on the table, then 
looked up to meet Mulder's intense scrutiny. "I'm hoping 
things will change, go back to normal. But eventually I may 
have to face the fact that there could be a new normal. Did 
you notice the other night that I'm 'Aunt Dana' now?"

He heard the dark pain welling behind the simple statement. 
Pushing her coffee away, Scully lit a new cigarette, eying 
Mulder as it flared to life. "I know she didn't say much at 
the bus station, and even less at the apartment, but I 
think it means a lot to Chloe that you cared enough to be 
there. She thinks a lot of you."

"She's a very special girl."

"I didn't realize until later what it must have been like 
for you - an eleven-, almost twelve-year-old girl 
disappearing from her home."

"I had to be there, Scully. To keep it from happening 
again," he admitted.

In the wake of Mulder's words, they sat in silence for 
several minutes, the muted hum of conversation and rattling 
dishes flowing around them, the rain drumming on the roof 
and sheeting down the windows.

"Chloe called her father from Virginia," Dana said 
softly. "He told her not to come to Texas. When she got to 
Raleigh, she was trying to find a way back to D.C."

"He told her she shouldn't run away."

Scully shook her head. "No. He told her she could go 
anywhere she pleased except where he lives, because he 
didn't want her. She called him again a few days ago - he 
said he'd changed his mind after writing the letter, didn't 
want to have any contact with her at all, and asked her not 
to call back - ever. That's what kind of a man he is, 
Mulder - a bastard who would say something like that to his 
own child."

Mulder puckered his lips and emitted a low whistle.

"I told her he was dead, and I've agonized over that 
decision - but only because I hate the idea of any 
deception existing between me and my daughter. As much as I 
would love for Chloe to have a father, I would do almost 
anything to keep Karl out of her life. He's a user and a 
destroyer, and he met my sister when she was at her most 
vulnerable."

Scully, unaccustomed to revealing so much about her family 
or herself, faltered, and studied her coffee intently, as 
if it harbored the answers to all of life's great 
questions. Mulder nudged the back of her hand with his 
knuckle. "Go on," he invited, his moss green eyes earnest.

"Melissa had this boyfriend, Mark. Great guy. Funny, 
affable - the whole family loved him, even Ahab. Mark and 
Missy moved in together during college, and they were 
together for - oh, six years, I guess. Then one day she 
came home to find him in their bed with another woman. 
That's how she learned he was having an affair - affairs, 
actually; plural. Melissa took off out West to find 
herself, and she met Karl. Karl, the modern day minstrel, 
high school dropout traveling around the country with his 
guitar. I hear he played beautifully. Of course, he 
supported himself by stealing cars and spent his spare cash 
on heroin, but these are minor details - He was an artist."

Pausing again, Scully took a long swig of rapidly cooling 
coffee. "Melissa got pregnant, and when she refused to have 
an abortion, he thanked her by fracturing three of her 
ribs. Needless to say, he made it clear that he wanted 
nothing to do with her or the baby. He got busted for theft 
and spent a few years in jail. Melissa made the decision to 
tell Chloe her father was dead because she thought that 
would be easier for her to deal with than the reality of a 
living parent who simply didn't love her."

"And you've told her this now."

"The slightly censored version." Scully sighed, blowing a 
strand of hair out of her eye. "That's the whole long, 
messy story."

Mulder's warm, calloused palm covered her curled fingers 
where they rested on top of the table. His touch 
communicated his compassion, doing away with the need for 
spoken words.

"You're a good mom, Scully," he said after a few minutes, 
straightening her fingers so that their hands met palm to 
palm, elbows on the table. Brow furrowed, she studied the 
disparity in their sizes, the contrast of his dark skin 
against her much lighter flesh. It was strangely intimate.

As if reading her thoughts, Mulder brought his other hand 
up and held Scully's between them. In turn, Dana lifted her 
free hand to cover his. They both stared at Scully's thumb 
repetitively grazing the veins on the back of his hand.

"Mulder -"

"Scully -"

They both broke off and shared a muted chuckle. "You 
first," she encouraged.

"If it wouldn't be too much Asian food in one week, how 
about going out for Chinese tomorrow night or Saturday? An 
amazing woman once let me take her to this great place 
called the Golden Lotus down on D Street."

She didn't smile, but she felt her facial muscles relaxing. 
"Chinese sounds wonderful. Tomorrow night, say 7:30?"

"Pick you up?"

Scully heard the refrain of the conversation they'd had 
five months ago. Her next line was "I'll meet you there." 
This time she nodded, squeezing his hand and releasing.

"I should go. I have to pick Chloe up at my mom's. They're 
watching each other so I don't have to worry about them."

"But you do anyway."

Scully offered a rueful grin as she slid out of the booth. 
"But I do anyway," she agreed.

Mulder helped her into her coat, and as it settled over her 
shoulders she felt the ghost of his touch and shivered. 
Ever the gentleman, she thought.

As he walked Scully back to her car, Mulder's sleeve 
brushed lightly against hers. He waited while she opened 
the door and loaded the groceries inside. As she 
straightened to her full height, he said, "I'm glad I ran 
into you today."

"So am I, Mulder." When she turned to face him, she 
realized that they were only inches apart, close enough 
that she imagined she could feel the magnetic field that 
must surround his body.

His warm fingers grazed her temple as he tucked a wayward 
strand of hair behind her ear. An instant later his 
generous lips gifted her forehead with a slow kiss. "Good-
bye, Scully," he whispered, and she lifted her gaze from 
his shirtfront to meet his eyes. They seemed to glow, no 
longer green but a deep, riverbed brown touched with that 
familiar yellow. Encouraged by her frank perusal, he 
swooped down, covering her lips for a brief, hard, coffee-
flavored kiss that made her toes tingle. His fingers curved 
around the nape of her neck in a quick squeeze.

"Bye, Mulder," she mumbled, dazed.

His lips quirked into a smile. "Enjoy your stir-fry." 
Jamming his hands into his pockets, Mulder strode away into 
the soggy twilight.

Scully stood still, shell-shocked, her keys hanging from 
numb fingers, until ripe drops of fresh rain began to 
splatter impudently on her face and hair.

**

Chapter 20: The Spectrum

"When light passes through a prism, it creates a rainbow of 
color, or a spectrum."

**

The rain refused to stop or even slacken. Mixed with the 
oils on the sidewalks and streets, it glowed with a jewel-
like brightness as if lit from within, here a brilliant 
pink, there ice blue, there the golden sheen of promises 
fulfilled, as if the heavens had tumbled to earth and the 
streets were paved with gold.

Stepping out of the shower, Scully felt liquid, as if her 
body were harmonizing with and being absorbed by the 
moisture pouring down from above and driving into the 
yielding earth. Hair the color of fire refused to be tamed 
by the water, choosing instead to curl wildly around her 
face and spill onto her back and shoulders like a vine.

Chloe opened the door at Mulder's ring, and after her eyes 
surveyed him, her lips curved into a cautious smile.
"Hey," she said. "Mom's coming."

As the door opened wider, Scully appeared in Mulder's field 
of vision, her hair a vivid swirl against the peacock blue 
slash of a soft, clinging blouse. Their eyes met for a few 
seconds as she fastened an earring.

"Hi," she said quietly. "I'm ready. Clo, are you sure you 
wouldn't rather go with us?"

Chloe shrugged and hoisted the overnight bag that had been 
resting just inside the door. "No, that's okay," she 
muttered.

Scully turned to Mulder. "It's Sophia's birthday," she 
explained. "She's having a slumber party tonight. I told 
Chloe we could drop her off on the way to the restaurant."

"Or we could drop her off after dinner," Mulder offered, 
raising his eyebrows.

The girl scuffed at the floor with the toe of her sneaker. 
"I'm gonna eat there."

Scully looked pained. Mulder cleared his throat. "Well, are 
we ready to go?" He removed Dana's soft, wheat-colored 
corduroy jacket from the coat tree and held it open for 
her. "I bet Chloe can't wait to get a head start on staying 
up all night. Pizza and monster movies?"

Chloe actually grinned. "I'm a girl, Mulder. Pizza and 
chick flicks."

"Oh, of course. What was I thinking?" Mulder smoothed his 
hand down to Scully's lower back and gave her a gentle pat.

As they walked to his jeep, Mulder swayed close enough to 
smell Scully's perfume. The scent, fresh and light at once, 
like richly ripe cherries and sweet cream, filled his 
nostrils, and despite the rain he saw the blue skies and 
hazy mellow gold sunshine of a perfect autumn afternoon. 
Mulder inhaled deeply and Scully darted him a quizzical 
glance.

On the short drive to Sophia's family's apartment, Scully 
and Chloe were both silent. Under his breath Mulder hummed 
along with the radio and tapped the drumbeat of the rain on 
the steering wheel.

"Here," Scully indicated, nodding toward the building. She 
twisted around to look at Chloe, who busied herself 
fumbling with the seatbelt and gathering her things.

"I'll see you in the morning. Call when you want me to come 
pick you up," Dana reminded. "I love you."

"Bye." Without looking up, Chloe opened the door and slid 
to the ground. Two pairs of eyes followed her as she darted 
through the fat raindrops and waited to be buzzed into the 
building. When she disappeared from sight, Scully collapsed 
back in the seat with a sigh. Mulder turned the heat on 
high.

"She's still keeping her distance." Scully's words vibrated 
in the lower register, mournful notes soaked in 
discouragement. "I just don't know what to do."

One of Mulder's best qualities, as far as Scully was 
Concerned, was his complete inability to offer meaningless 
words of sympathy or encouragement. Now he simply slid the 
vehicle into gear.

"Hungry?" he asked.

Relieved to move onto a lighter topic, Scully nodded. "But 
I don't feel like having the duck," she cautioned 
teasingly.

"I feel like more of an orange beef man tonight myself," he 
responded.

"Lettuce wraps?" Dana suggested.

"Oh, definitely. And maybe some egg drop soup and fried 
wantons."

Her eyebrows arched comically. "Did you skip lunch, Mr. 
Mulder?"

"No, but you look like you did, Ms. Scully."

They didn't say much until they'd been seated and were 
peering at one another above over-sized leather menus.

"Do you want a glass of wine, or would you rather share a 
bottle?"

Scully's gaze ran briefly over the wine list. "Can I have 
my own bottle?" she asked, deadpan.

Mulder's brow knitted slightly. "Do you feel like you need 
a whole bottle, Scully? Any special reason?"

She tilted her head back and the oil lamp on the table 
picked up the fine gold sheen of the oversized hoops 
dangling from her delicate earlobes. As she spoke the 
golden rays danced, connecting with the gold vein in the 
brocade upholstery, and Mulder felt as if he were 
surrounded by a web of pure gold thread.

"I don't know how I feel tonight, Mulder. I'm not sure I'm 
comfortable about being with you, in this place. It feels 
contrived." Her nails, coated with clear polish, traced a 
starched crease in the tablecloth and her eyes narrowed 
speculatively. "So you tell me - why are we here?"

Mulder shifted and leaned forward. "It's a night to 
remember, Scully." His voice and expression were 
inscrutable. "An anniversary of sorts."

"Anniversary?" she echoed.

"It's been almost six months since I walked into your 
office, Dana Scully. My contract with Over the Moon is up 
next week."

She nodded slowly, remembering the first time she'd seen 
Fox Mulder, those first weekend phone calls, and smiled 
slightly. The waiter interrupted to take their appetizer
and wine orders, and Dana waited until he had left to
speak.

"It feels like longer," she admitted. "More than six 
months.
So is that what this is - an ending? A fittingly symbolic 
bookend for our relationship?"

He steepled his fingers and pressed the tips to his lips. 
"That's not what I had in mind. It sounds a little 
Machiavellian for me, don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think, Mulder. After the way we left 
things when you came over to talk - then bringing me here - 
I'm not sure what's going on, and I really want us to be on 
the same page this time. So why don't you tell me what you 
did have in mind."

He carefully covered her fidgeting hand with his and held 
it still. Against the thin skin stretched taut over her 
veins, she could feel his pulse beating steadily in his 
warm palm. He was silent for so long that she had almost
decided he'd never speak, when he squeezed her hand and
released it.

"I was thinking this could be a beginning."

In her chest, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, Dana 
felt a quiver of relief. "Beginnings are good," she said, 
lifting her wine glass by its delicate crystal stem and 
taking a sip. The rich, smoky wine rolled across her 
tongue, the tartness of the grapes making her palate 
tingle. "But what kind of beginning?"

As unobtrusively as possible, their waiter delivered a 
platterof lettuce leaves and steaming chicken and melted 
out ofsight.

Before answering, Mulder scooped minced chicken and 
vegetables onto a crisp bed of iceberg lettuce and 
folded it into a neat cocoon. Lifting it from his plate, 
he carefully studied his concoction. "I think that's up 
to you."

As Scully considered his words, she watched the lamplight 
glint in the rich burgundy of the wine. Her nose crinkled 
thoughtfully. "No," she said slowly, tasting the word on 
her tongue as she had tasted the wine. "No, Mulder, I don't 
think it is. I believe we moved past the possibility of 
platonic friendship months ago."

"That's not what you said then," he pointed out quickly, 
his tone bordering on accusatory.

Another black-clothed waiter appeared at Dana's elbow and 
whisked their shared entree onto the table. When he 
retreated, Scully met Mulder's uneasy gaze.

"No," she agreed, "that's true. I told myself we could be 
together just once, no strings, and I told you that was 
what I wanted."

Mulder's eyebrows crept toward his hairline. He picked up 
the thick-handled silver serving spoon and dipped spicy 
citrus-seasoned beef onto Scully's plate. "Are you saying 
that wasn't what you wanted?"

Scully lifted the lid from the black lacquered bowl of 
steaming rice. "I wanted to believe that one night with you 
wouldn't change anything, that I could create a night of 
joyous, passionate memories and then keep them carefully 
walled away from the future, but I think I always knew deep 
down that the repercussions would be disastrous. How could 
they not when we were so close? My behavior isn't something 
I'm proud of, Mulder." She tilted her head forward, hiding 
her face behind a curtain of shimmering titian, and Mulder 
mourned the loss of her expressive eyes. "I wanted you - 
*all* of you - so much that I was willing to do anything, 
tell you and myself any lie, in order to possess you."

His spoon clinked discordantly against the rice bowl as he 
scooped a mound onto his plate. He traced the path being 
followed by the steam escaping from the food; blurred by 
the hot, damp cloud, Scully's face wavered into and out of 
focus. She didn't look up. Mulder coughed to sooth the 
tickle in his suddenly dry throat.

"And you did, Scully. Possess me."

She focused on the corner of his mouth, her own tightening 
with pain. "The idea of wanting anything that badly has 
always terrified me. The reality was shattering."

He bowed his head. "I know it's not easy for you to let 
your guard down and open up, Dana."

"No, it's not," she agreed wryly. "I don't deal well with 
strong emotions. I hate making myself vulnerable enough to 
allow another person to surmount my defenses." Scully 
released a shaky breath as her eyes found his. "But what I 
didn't realize was that you're already in, Mulder. You've 
swum the moat and climbed the tower. Now all you have to do 
is kiss the princess and awaken her from her slumber."

The barest hint of a smile graced Mulder's mouth. "I'm your 
knight errant," he kidded. His eyes were dark, questioning; 
hers, filled with trepidation.

"Where does this leave us, Scully? Happy ending?"

She smiled tremulously. "No, it's exactly what you said. A 
beginning."

**

Between the restaurant and Scully's street the rain had 
tapered off, leaving the streets steaming and the night air 
unbearably humid. It was eerily quiet, the sounds of a car 
passing on the street and a dog barking muffled by the 
thick air. As she and Mulder huddled on the stoop of her 
building, the security light flamed through Dana's loose 
curls, setting them ablaze like a fiery halo of red-gold. 
Her key in the door, she twisted her upper body to face 
him, and Mulder tried to read the tension in her face like 
a road map.

She hesitated, turning something over in the opaque 
recesses of her mind.

"Come up," she said resolutely, her jaw tight. "There's 
something I want to give you."

He followed her up the stairs, the old wood creaking and 
popping under the combined weight of their feet. Looking 
down, he admired the way her Achilles tendon stretched and 
bunched as she balanced on her high heels.

Her apartment was cool, and Scully immediately turned the 
air conditioning off. She took his coat and hung it neatly 
beside her own. "Sit," she instructed softly, the word firm 
in the middle but wavering around the edges. "Can I get you 
anything to drink?"

He tried to relax into the familiar giving embrace of her 
sofa. "I'm fine," he assured her. His gaze anxiously 
tracked her movements.

"Good." Briefly meeting his gaze, Scully slid her palms 
over her hips, as if wiping moisture from them, and smiled 
slightly. "Wait here."

Her heels sank into the plush carpet as she walked into her 
bedroom. Her heart was pounding so hard with arousal and 
terror that she thought she might literally pass out, which 
would be both embarrassing and counter-productive. Her 
fingers trembling and bloodless, Dana took off her shoes, 
then stripped her blouse over her head. Next she took off 
her bra and pants, letting it all fall into a puddle on her 
bedroom floor. She hesitated, but told herself it was all 
or nothing. Her panties joined the rest of her clothes, and 
she bent at the waist, gathering the items in her arms. She 
tossed her underwear into the laundry hamper, hung her 
slacks and top in the closet, and finally looked at herself 
in the mirror, trying to turn a blind eye to her 
imperfections. "Okay," she mouthed.

"Mulder?" she called, hoping he didn't catch the tremulous 
quality of her voice.

"Yeah?" 

"Can you come in here?" As she spoke, Dana crawled onto the 
bed and arranged herself in the middle. 

His footsteps approached. For a couple of seconds she 
closed her eyes, then forced them open again. He stood in 
the doorway.

The light from the hallway behind him illuminated her pale 
body against the comforter. Mulder stood stock still, 
staring at her.

After several minutes he spoke. "Scully?" 

"Come here." She sat up and reached out for him. He was too 
far away for her to touch, but he automatically moved 
forward and she caught his hand, tugging him to stand 
beside the bed, his thighs touching the mattress. 

Dana brought their clasped hands to her lips and kissed his 
knuckles. "Anything you want, Mulder," she promised. "I'll 
give you anything you want."

"Oh, Scully." His cock, semi-erect all night and rock hard 
since he'd seen her naked, throbbed with blood and he sank 
down beside her on the bed, bending over her body. 
"Scully." His free hand skimmed up her leg to her hip and 
rested there as he touched his lips to hers in a light 
kiss. She opened her mouth without his urging, and he sank 
his tongue into the proffered warmth. 

She was gorgeous and golden, stretched out in front of him 
like a painted goddess, and he'd have to be dead not to 
feel the scalding flare of desire. Months dissolved, he 
remembered her tiny gasps and her nails skittering across 
his sweaty flesh, and it would have been so easy to slip 
inside of her and let their bodies do the communicating. 
But he wouldn't let it happen, not like this. 

When he'd walked in and seen her lying there, her eyes 
shining with fear, he'd understood. It was the scenario 
they'd played out on an incredible, heartbreaking January 
night, but she was turning the tables. She'd brought him 
into her home and stripped herself bare, literally and 
figuratively, to allow him to do whatever he wanted with 
her. She'd hurt him, and now she was purposefully giving 
him the opportunity to hurt her in return. The magnitude of 
the gesture overwhelmed him, and he sprinkled kisses all 
over her face, his mouth like a benediction, his tongue 
exploring the arch of her eyebrow. 

Finally, dragging his mouth away from her skin, he said, 
"No, Scully."

Her heart slammed into her ribs and she chased his eyes 
with her own. "Mulder?" she asked in a small voice. "Let me 
make it right. Please, let me do this." She clutched at his 
wrist, holding his hand against her warm flesh.

"Not like this." 

"You don't want to?" She thought she was going to cry, but 
she forced the tears back.

His groan sounded tortured. He grabbed her hand and placed 
her palm over his straining erection. "Does this feel like 
I don't want to?"

She shivered, feeling him throb. It felt good.

"We need to talk. Do you want to put some clothes on?"

She sat up and swung her feet over the side of the bed. 

"I'll go into the other room," he said.

"No, just stay." She stepped to the bureau and, opening one 
of the deep drawers, yanked out a sweatshirt. "It doesn't 
matter." Soft gray dropped over her head and slithered down 
her back, hiding her delicate vertebrae from his view. 
Mulder's cock twitched with residual excitement, and 
despite his total certainty that Band-Aid sex between them 
now would have created far more wounds than it might have 
begun to heal, a knot of regret coiled in his stomach. He 
averted his eyes and focused instead on the diamond pattern 
of raindrops zig-zagging down the windowpanes.

After several seconds she sat down on the other side of the 
bed. She'd paired faded blue sweatpants with the 
sweatshirt, and when she tucked one foot into her lap, her 
painted toenails barely peeked out from beneath the frayed 
hem. Mulder expected anger, hurt, maybe confusion, but he'd 
underestimated Scully.

Sighing, she turned her head to meet Mulder's wary gaze. 
"Well," she began with her usual pragmatism, "I guess that 
was a bad idea." Rubbing her hands over her face, she 
curved her spine and let her head fall forward. "I feel 
ridiculous."

"Don't be embarrassed." He wanted to touch her but didn't 
dare reach across the expanse of the bed. "Tell me what's 
going on in your head, Scully."

Seconds stretched into minutes. Scully turned toward the 
wall, hiding her face. "I thought I could give back what I 
took from you," she murmured, voicing what he'd realized as 
soon as he saw the scene she'd created. "I wanted to give 
you that gift."

He grinned. "Scully, the sex was great. It's not like I was 
the village maiden and you were the big, bad city slicker. 
I'm pretty sure we were both willing participants."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not sorry for the sex, Mulder. 
But the way I went about initiating it, yes." Turning to 
face him fully, Scully tucked both legs underneath her. "I 
didn't know that I could want anything as badly as I wanted 
to be with you, and I convinced myself that if I could just 
see what it was like..."

"Take the edge off?" he suggested, his palm coming to 
ground on her knee.

She smiled ruefully. "It didn't work," she confided. "I'm
still not sure I can really explain. It's just that - 
Mulder, before you, there has only been one time in my
life when I thought I was in love. He was my best friend
too, and you know what happened. After - after, it took 
years for John and me to reach a point where we were able
to have any kind of relationship again, and while he's a 
wonderful friend, we'll never have the kind of closeness
and complete trust we once did. 

I've never had that with anyone else, and then it sprang
up between us like an incredible gift, and I just thought
that if I fell in love with you, I'd ruin it somehow, ruin
everything. At the same time Iknew how you felt, but I 
wouldn't let myself see how I felt. Maybe that trust, that
intimacy, is inseperable from love, but I thought I could
choose one or the other. I tried to use you, and I ended up 
destroying our friendship. I took something from both of us."

"Not destroying," he corrected.

"No," she amended. "But if I'd been emotionally honest 
enough with myself to admit that what I was calling lust 
was love, the last few months wouldn't have happened."

Scooting closer, he traced her eyebrow with one long 
finger. "And we might not be here," he pointed out.

"Do you have to be so damn forgiving?" She smiled, her 
forehead crinkling and tears gathering at the corners of 
her eyes. "I do love you, you know." Her voice caught 
roughly as she pronounced the words, struggling to force 
them out.

"I know." He smiled slightly, but his eyes were serious. 
"And thank you for offering me this gift, but you're going 
to have to return it. Because I'm not walking out of here. 
The next time we make love, we're both going to be here in 
the morning. Every morning, Scully."

She took a deep breath, her eyes seeking his. He was making 
sure that she knew what this meant, giving her the 
opportunity to choose whether she was ready to swallow her 
fear and commit everything. 

"I don't know if I ever truly expressed how sorry I am. 
That night, Mulder - I wanted to stay, but I was so scared. 
You were right. I was a coward, Mulder. I was terrified. 
I'm terrified now," she admitted, folding herself into his 
arms. "I don't know how to do this. But I'm more scared of 
losing you again."

He kissed the corner of her mouth, tasting her breath and 
her makeup and her cool skin. "I'm scared too, Scully," he 
murmured, kissing her cheek and the shell of her ear. "It's 
like we're standing at a precipice, hundreds of feet above 
the ocean, getting ready to jump." His mouth traveled to 
her lips and he pressed a gentle, reverent kiss there, 
stealing the breath from her lungs. When he drew back, she 
licked her lips, her tongue rasping against his chin. "And 
when we jump, we might plummet down, down to the rocks. But 
I think we're going to fly." He grinned, nuzzling his nose 
against her cheek. "Fly with me, Scully."

Her lips curved into a soft bow and her eyes smiled, 
sparkling a vivid, heart-piercing blue. She reclined 
against the mound of pillows on the bed and tugged him down 
with her, and as he buried his face in her hair, he thought 
he heard her say something. Her lips were moving against 
his throat.

"What?" he asked breathlessly, pushing her hair away from 
her face.

"Come fly with me, come fly, come fly," she crooned, 
tugging at his shirt.

She was singing. Sinatra. Her voice was off-key and 
scratchy, but he thought it was one of the most beautiful 
sounds he'd ever heard. 

Mulder obligingly shed his dress shirt and divested Scully 
of her sweatshirt. They rolled around on Scully's bed, on 
top of the covers, kissing, touching, nipping, sucking. It 
felt familiar and new at once. He cataloged every 
expression that flitted across her face, every sound she 
made as he nibbled her toes, tickled the back of her knee, 
sucked at the plane of her flat stomach. At some point they 
must have decided they would be more comfortable with no 
clothing to get in their way, although neither could say 
when.

Scully's hands and mouth roamed obsessively over his 
beautiful body, exploring, memorizing, getting 
reacquainted. She draped herself over his back, rubbed her 
cheek against the hair on his chest, and fastened her mouth 
on the soft, delicate skin where his hip bone jutted up 
from his toned abs. 

"This," she whispered, lapping at his skin. "This is my 
favorite spot."

"There?" he chuckled hoarsely, wondering how he'd lived 
over forty years without realizing there was a direct 
connection between that precise spot on his anatomy and his 
cock. 

Grinning devilishly, Scully rubbed her cheek against his 
eager erection and looked up at him. "Maybe here too."

Their mood was light, playful, frothy like the sweet foam 
topping a cappuccino; they reveled in the joy of being 
completely together for the first time in months without 
the barrier of doubts between them. Then their eyes met and 
held, and hers filled with tears. She wrapped her arms 
tightly around him, pulling his body down on hers and 
holding him as close as she could.

"I love you," she whispered, afraid to say it too loudly.

His bright eyes reassured her. "I love you too," he 
murmured, and lightly kissed her lips. His mouth trailed 
across her jaw and down her neck, liberally spreading soft, 
smacking kisses. "I love you," he repeated after each one. 
"I love you, I love you." *It's going to be okay, Scully. 
We'll do it together.*

When his mouth closed around her pebbled nipple, she 
released a tiny mewling noise from the back of her throat. 
When he combed his fingers through the damp curls at the 
juncture of her thighs, her back bowed and her mouth formed 
a perfect, soundless O.

Finally, her heaving chest flushed a mottled, rosy red, 
Scully rolled onto her back and spread her legs. The 
invitation was obvious, and Mulder was not a stupid man. He 
moved into position over her and took himself in hand. 
Their bodies were already slick with perspiration, and her 
leg slid smoothly against his flank as she bent at the 
knee. The heat of his hard length brushed against her 
opening and she closed her eyes on a grimace, her muscles 
tightening then liquefying with anticipation.

She could feel his breath fanning across her face, shallow 
and fast, but he didn't move. Her eyes popped open. "What's 
wrong?" she asked, her concern touched with impatience.

"Scully." Frozen by the enormity, the profundity of the 
moment, he wracked his brain for words that would express 
even a fraction of what he was feeling without sounding 
hackneyed. "Remember how you said that I'm yellow, and I 
said you're blue?" 

She blinked and nodded, obviously humoring him but 
wondering if he had a point.

"The thing about blue and yellow is that when you mix them 
together in exactly the right measure - equal parts of each 
- they create the purest, most beautiful green."

Her brilliant smile told him more clearly than words that 
she understood, and their eyes remained locked as he sank 
into her, her body yielding and gripping his flesh as she 
accepted him. Pleasure knifed through him and he groaned, 
sinking his teeth into his lower lip.

Scully's eyes widened with shock as he bottomed out, sure 
that he felt it too: utter peace. She'd almost lost this. 
He was smiling at her, his face reflecting his adoration, 
and she felt tears pricking at her eyes.

"It's - oh -" she whispered, amazed. "God, it didn't feel 
like this before."

Their movements were slow, leisurely, each intent on loving 
the other and prolonging this moment as long as possible.

"Mulder," Scully whispered, dragging her fingernails up his 
back, "I have to tell you something."

"Now?" His tone was a little desperate, and he was biting 
his lip again, sweat dripping into his eyes as he labored 
against his body's imperative, striving to keep his strokes 
slow and measured.

"Yes, now."

He heard the urgency in her voice and forced himself to 
focus.

"The dream I had about you and me and the aliens, Mulder, 
it wasn't the only one. I've been having them for months, 
since I met you - dreams about you and me, Mulder and 
Scully, FBI partners, and the most bizarre creatures and 
horrible crimes you can imagine, and these mind-shattering 
conspiracies -"

"I know."

She searched his face for some clue. "What do you mean, you 
know?"

"I've had the same dreams, Scully. Every night." Leaving 
the haven of her body, he gathered her in his arms and 
pressed a kiss to her forehead.

She shook her head adamantly. "No, that's impossible. 
That's crazy, Mulder. How could we have the same dreams?"

"I don't know, Scully. A psychic link?" Smiling as if the 
answer didn't matter, he kissed her mouth. "I've seen them, 
Scully. Your abduction, your sister's murder, your cancer, 
Emily."

Her face was slack with dismay, her voice trapped in her 
throat. "Yes," she finally managed. "I don't understand - 
but Mulder, what I have to tell you -"

In one fluid movement Mulder rolled Scully onto her back, 
their legs tangled, and sheathed himself within her heat. 
"I'm listening."

She moaned, her eyes closing, then reopening hazy and 
dilated. "I don't think they're just dreams," she murmured, 
lifting her hips and rocking to the rhythm they created. 
"They feel so real, so familiar. I didn't understand at 
first how you could know me so well, when we'd only just 
met. I think it's because they are real, Mulder, somehow, 
somewhere."

Clouds shifted over the fathomless blue depths of her eyes 
as she wordlessly asked him for reassurance that this was 
somehow possible, that she hadn't lost her mind. With his 
body inside hers, burning and soothing, she felt as if he 
were pushing her closer and closer to the brink of 
insanity, into the embrace of something enormous and 
powerful and incomprehensible.

"They're real," he promised, his thrusts growing less 
controlled. "I think they're us."

Her senses swimming, her body ablaze, she twisted her head 
from side to side in protest. "So what, this is some kind 
of c-cosmic justice?" she stuttered. "Why? To give us the 
love they should have been able to express, an opportunity 
to live the life they can't? Some kind of restitution?"

His eyes crinkled and she saw peace and contentment in 
their murky depths. "Yes. Oh, God, Scully -"

"That's insane," she moaned, despite the tug of truth she 
felt inside, in a place so deep she could never touch or 
locate it. "That's not possible - oh -"

*I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you.*

*The truth will save you, Scully. I think it will save both 
of us.*

*You are the only one I trust.*

*You are my constant, my touchstone.*

*You were my friend and you told me the truth.*

*The truth we both know.*

The world tilted crazily on its axis, making Scully feel 
dizzy and giddy. Visions and snatches of conversations - 
memories? - from this impossible dual existence welled up 
from her bones, as much a part of her as her breath, 
weaving and merging with her 'real' life until the two were 
inextricable, indistinguishable. The idea of it was 
inconceivable, deranged - 

Mulder's fingers found her clit and began rubbing in firm 
circles, and she was right there, teetering, and none of it 
truly mattered because she loved him, she loved him and 
that was real and, oh, the colors were swirling around her 
in a blur. 

This man was her prism, and the brilliance seared into her 
brain, every possible color and shade: deep crimson and 
blushing rose, emerald green and cool blue, fiery orange, 
glittering gold, royal purple, surrounding her and Mulder.
The colors cocooned them and lifted them up, and came 
together to form the most gorgeous, breathtaking, visible
spectrum of futures past and possibilities present and a 
thousand realities and lives lived, narrowing and focusing 
to one undeniable truth.

**

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream, and 
he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were 
enjoying it." - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy

END of the whole damn thing

A thousand thanks to Tali and Jen, without whom this story 
would probably bear little resemblance to its current form,
and without whom it *certainly* would not have been posted.
To those of you who have stuck with Spectrum to the bitter (?)
end, and especially to those who have written to me, an
additional thousand thanks, and I hope the ending hasn't
disappointed. To conclude - I can't go wrong quoting 
Shakespeare, can I?
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend."
(from A Midsummer Night's Dream)

theidiosyncraticstanwyck@yahoo.com