Just Good Friends
SPOILER WARNING: 5th Season-ish post Red & Black, definitely post Bad Blood.

RATING: NC-17

CLASSIFICATION: Story, Scully/other, Mulder/Scully, UST, A and H if you're evil and sarcastic.

KEYWORDS: Angst

SUMMARY: No X-file in this one, it's pure character study and another exercise in response to ickiness. It shares characteristics of two of the most over-used and hackneyed kinds of fan-fic, the "Scully goes out with someone else and Mulder mopes - plot device" and song-fic, a sub-genre of fan-fic that tends to be absolutely atrocious. I have seldom found a song that seemed appropriate to either Mulder or Scully, let alone whatever the story was about. There are a few glaring exceptions to this rule, however. I hope this one is one of the same.

NOTE: It has long been my assertion that Mulder would have to be a Marillion fan. Not only his he totally morose, but he's American, and American Marillion fans are some of the most hopeless geek losers in the entire world. There are only, like, ten of us. They barely even tour here. When they were on the "Misplaced Childhood" tour in 1983, they opened for Rush and were routinely booed off the stage. I, personally, missed the last tour with Fish ("Clutching at Straws", of course) because of an econ exam at 7:45 a.m. the next day and am still kicking myself over it. They played a small club in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I could have been within sweating distance of Fish. A scary thought, but he's still the best lyricist that's ever touched rock and roll for pure angst. Pete Townshend being a close second. It is my assertion that Mulder would like them because they were coming out of Cambridge when he was attending Oxford and he would have had to have heard them. Just think of what "Script for a Jester's Tear" would have done to a boy of Mulder's disposition?

If you don't know who Marillion is, you're probably an American and you will have to buy import CD's. I suggest starting off with "Misplaced Childhood". Very angsty, excellent and the lyrics are killer. The early stuff with Fish, despite some of the dated synthesizer work by Mark Kelly, is far superior to the later Steve Hogarth stuff, though they're much more popular now. At least everywhere in the world but the United States.

DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully et. al are not mine and I don't want money for this. Marillion isn't mine, Fish's lyrics aren't mine, but I wish they were, and please go buy some albums! The song is actually from Fish's second solo Album, "Internal Exile".

See if you can find all the pop and X-files culture references in this one. Hidden bonus Marillion song lyrics are also embedded in the text.


Just Good Friends
It was 4:47 p.m. on a Friday.

Mulder had all of his pencils neatly sharpened and lying in a row on the top of his desk. Like pointy-sharp soldiers, lying at attention, or awaiting the next troop transport. His paperwork was done for once. His desktop was clean. There was nothing in his in box or in his out box. He had oiled the squeak in the pivot of his desk chair with WD-40. He had scraped the ancient gray gum deposited sometime in the mid-seventies off the bottom of the middle desk drawer.

Everything conceivable was done. And he still had to stall for a few minutes more before he left for the day. He had to stay until that clock struck five or he would turn into a pumpkin and be smashed into bits by the hooves of the Prince's charger.

Or rather, he had to stay until the clock struck five to be smashed to bits by the hooves of the Prince's charger.

Scully was going out on a date.

With the new bone man from the Federal forensics lab.

The good-looking one with the curly blond hair and all the teeth. The one who looked happy all the time and like he should have been wearing a wetsuit and carrying a surf board on a beach in California somewhere rather than dating dead bodies by how many cracks had appeared on the minuscule sliver of bone recovered from the lethal woodchipper.

His name was Robert Davies, but everybody called him Rob. Not Bob or Bobby or Robbie or Robert, but Rob, like Rob Roy. That had actually been what the asshole had said when he introduced himself.

Like Rob Roy.

"Oh, like the Scottish freedom fighter," Scully had said, acting much like she had when she'd run into the Buck-toothed Sheriff of Vampire Gap down in Texas a couple of months back.

"Funny, I was thinking like the race horse," Mulder had said. Scully hadn't seemed to think his comment was terribly amusing.

But old Rob, like Rob Roy, had laughed it off good-naturedly, not at all picking up on the "hands off my woman" signals Mulder was not very subtlely putting out. He didn't want another incident like down in Texas where she'd had a roll in the hay in a creepy graveyard with Buck of Transylvania and left him to be nearly exsanguinated by a trailer park load of bloodsucking ghouls. And she knew how he felt about trailer parks and the people who lived in them. He was convinced they all had to be serial killers.

He didn't know when or where the man had seen Scully next, but somehow he had. And somehow he'd asked her out. Despite the five years of rumors about the "Ice Queen" of the FBI, despite the five years of rumors about Mrs. Spooky, despite the five years of rumors about what Scully and her partner had to be doing down in his dark, cluttered basement office with the dusty file cabinets and the video equipment. You'd think the guy would have gotten some kind of a clue.

But apparently he hadn't.

And Mulder wondered what it had been that had allowed him the nerve to do it. The nerve Mulder, himself, had never mustered in five years of the closest of relationships. Had it simply been his own overweening arrogance? Rob, like in Rob Roy? Or had it been something in Scully?

He watched his partner without seeming to watch her. She was typing efficiently into her computer, her ankles crossed underneath her chair. And Mulder noticed, that while she had obviously viewed this as just another working day, there was something different about her. A glow, perhaps. Like she was awaiting something momentous.

Yes, her color was definitely up. Her cheeks had the faintest of blushes even through the base makeup she used to conceal her freckles. Flushed and ready. He could hardly bear to look, but he couldn't tear himself away.

Mulder supposed it was the same impulse that made people look at scenes of horror. The victims of a horrible car wreck, or an explosion. Yes, he was definitely experiencing a gawkers delay. He should have been out the door already, what with his work already done and no case in the offing. But he wasn't. He was rooted to the chair. Stuck there until she gave him some kind of release. Even if it was just to say goodbye.

Just like one day she'd say goodbye forever.

Mulder waited.


There's something I want to ask you
Before it's too late
It's been on my mind since the first time we met.
It scares me now more, now there's more at stake,
It seems we're so close but we're so far away.

What would you do
If I got down on my knees to you,
Would you hold it against me,
Would you stand me in line?
What would you do if I
Opened up my heart to you,
Would I just be another who is wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?


Finally Scully sighed and looked up, directly at him, though he'd hoped his staring wasn't that obvious.

"What is it, Mulder?" she asked. She had that "oh, Mulder" look, but it wasn't hostile or disgusted as she was so often lately when she had to deal with him.

She was so looking forward to spending the evening with Rob that she could even be nice to him. Mulder's heart sank further, if that was possible.

"I'm just wondering how it is that I managed to finish all of my paperwork when you're still typing away," he said with a smile he managed to dredge up from somewhere. It was so insincere he was probably going to go straight to hell for lying like that, but she didn't seem to notice. "It's usually the other way around."

"Well," Scully began, and then stopped looking at him. She looked at her hands. She only did that when she had to say something that was difficult, and he'd been careful to keep his voice and manner light. "I guess I'm a little distracted today that's all. And I noticed you've been sticking right to your work today. You hardly even ate any sunflower seeds. That's really unusual. What's up?"

"Nothing," Mulder said. "I guess it's a holdover from my college years. I just get to a point where the work has built up to an intolerable mass and I have to clear it all away. Before it topples over, anyway. I'll probably even clean my apartment tonight."

"Do the words "manic" and "depressive" mean anything to you?" Scully said, cocking her head to the side and trying not to smile.

"Not really sure. Could you hum a few bars?" he asked, picking up a pencil and tapping it to his forehead, so he'd have something to do with his hands other than dig his fingernails into his palms until they bled.

Scully just looked at him. Uncomfortable.

"Something's bothering you," he said. "And it isn't the fact that I've won the long-haul paper shuffle, either."

"You're right, Mulder," Scully said deadpan. "Something's bothering me."

He waited expectantly, though he had the sinking feeling he already knew what it was about. But she didn't say anything else. She just looked blankly at her computer screen, not really seeing anything that was on it.

"It's been brought up, and it's nearly the end of the day," Mulder began, hoping not to sound too interested. "Do you want to tell me what it is, or not?"

Scully sighed.

She hardly ever sighed except in frustration, and this wasn't that kind of sigh. It was, well, wistful. "It's Tonight, Mulder," she said, capitalizing it with her voice.

"Tonight?" he asked, feigning ignorance as to the significance of the word.

"I'm going out," Scully said, almost defiantly, as if she expected him to say something about it. He wondered if he should. "With Rob."

"Uh, oh yeah," Mulder said, like he hadn't been thinking of it every waking moment since he'd first heard the evil news. "That's tonight, huh?"

"I know you could care less, Mulder," Scully said, and he realized he'd gone overboard on the nonchalance and had made her think him indifferent - when he was anything but. "But it's quite a big deal to me. I mean, I really haven't done this at all since, well you know, since the cancer," Scully was still not able to look at him.

"I don't feel right about it. It's almost like... well, like I'm selling him a pig in a poke.

"I mean he thinks he's getting a completely normal person. Someone he might fall in love with. Someone he could potentially want to marry..."

"Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little there, Scully?" Mulder asked, his stomach twisting painfully that she could already be thinking that far ahead with this guy. She'd known Mulder five years. "I mean, it's only your first date."

"But first dates can lead to second dates, Mulder," she said. "That's what I'm talking about. What if he wants to build a relationship with me? What is he getting? Someone who's nearly died twice. Someone who can never have children. Someone who could potentially go off any day and never come back. And God knows what could happen if they activate the chip in my head again. Next time it might not just be standing on a bridge. Next time it might not just be second degree burns.

"It's so unfair to anyone.

"But... but I don't want to stop living.

"I.... Is that wrong?"

Mulder sighed. He could see how upset she was, how consumed by guilt over this person she'd only just met. This man who wanted her.

He couldn't stand it.

Mulder got up and walked over to Scully's desk. He put his hand on hers, where she was picking at her mousepad with one manicured fingernail.

"You know it's not," he said. "I don't know why you're beating yourself up over this. It's a date. It's not world peace or anything."

Mulder picked up Scully's hand and held it, trying to pretend it wasn't significant.

"Despite the way things have been with us for the past five years, not everything is a matter of life and death," Mulder tried to smile, because she was looking up at him, but he just couldn't do it. He satisfied himself with squeezing her hand reassuringly. "It's a date, Scully. What's more, it's a first date. You're supposed to get to know him a little and have a good time. That's all."

"But what if I like him?" she asked quietly, looking at her hand in his.

"There will be time for all that later," he told her. "You could just as easily not like him."

"But I may like someone sometime," she said, continuing to watch their hands where they were clasped together. "What then? How could I do that to someone I cared about?"

"How could you do what, Scully?" he asked.

But he really wanted to blurt out everything that was in his own heart. He could feel it lurking, somewhere in his throat, just beneath his voicebox. He wanted to tell her that her loving anyone was the greatest gift imaginable. He wanted to ask her how could anyone who cared for her give a shit about whether or not she could have children? He wanted to tell her that they could be nothing but honored with her regard.

But, she spoke before he could find his courage.

"How could I cheat them out of the chance to be with a whole person? How could I subject them to the danger that being with me would bring? How could I do that to anyone I loved? Especially considering what happened to Melissa. To Emily. How dare I?"

"How dare you let them take that from you," he said. "How dare you let that poster child for RJ Reynolds and his band of designer-suited thugs cheat you out of the happiness you deserve? If you think this guy or some other guy can make you happy, then it's your responsibility to go for it, Scully. It's the only way to win. It's the only way to prove that you haven't let them grind you down.

"Don't forget who's chasing who here. We're the good guys chasing the bad guys remember? It's not the other way around. It can't be."

"Why, because we say it's not?" she asked, finally looking at his face. And Mulder could see in her eyes that she wanted him to tell her that was true. So she could believe in that for now, even if it was a lie.

"Because it can't be that way," Mulder said shaking his head slightly. "Not in any kind of a universe I want to live in. Maybe reality is perspective. I don't know. I'm a psychologist, not a philosopher. But if we let them dictate our lives, we let them win, even when we stop them in the end."

"So you think I should do it, then," she said, still searching his face.

"I think you should do whatever you want and not let them force you one way or the other," he said, giving her small hand a squeeze. "They should not be what you're thinking about right now. You should we worrying about what to wear and if you're going to end up with lettuce in your teeth sometime later in the evening."

"Is that what you would be doing?" she asked, obviously wanting something from him, but Mulder was just not able to figure out what.

"I'm not the one doing it," Mulder said, trying to read the expression in her eyes, but not getting anywhere past the blue. "But I won't let THEM dictate my life for me, that's for damned sure."

He could see by her expression that his answer hadn't been the one she'd wanted. He wished he knew what to say. He wished he could tell her the truth. But he didn't know what she wanted to hear. And he feared how she'd react to the truth. It could only be bad.

"You're right, Mulder," Scully said with another sigh, and rose from her place at her desk, her hand still in his. "I can't let them tell me what to do."

"Right," he said.

"But..." Scully was incredibly hesitant. He wondered if she might confide in him. If he'd finally earned that after five years of waiting, of being there for her in the only ways he knew how. "Do you think I could call you afterward? I just don't know if I'll be able to sort it all out in my head once it's over. And you're the only one who really understands, Mulder, because you went through it, too.

"I know it's a lot to ask, but... would you mind it too much? You wouldn't have to talk to me long," Scully's voice dropped off, too embarrassed to continue.

'N...no, Scully, I wouldn't mind," he told her, proud at the way he'd kept his voice from breaking with the pain of it, of the thought of having to endure the blow by blow of Scully's date. Of the fear of having to hear about how much she liked that asshole, Rob. Of how he'd touched her. How he'd kissed her. How he'd done all the things Mulder had longed to for years, but was afraid she would not allow. Of hearing about her desire for another man when he was standing right there with her. He held onto her hand for a few seconds too long before he dropped it and moved back to his own desk.

They both shut down their computers and put things into briefcases to take home for the weekend.

They met again at the door of the office, and he could tell that Scully wanted to say something again. He could feel her watching him as he locked the door, causing him to fumble with the keys and take much longer than usual. By the time he'd finished locking up, she had started down the hall - whatever she'd wanted to tell him remaining unsaid.

Like everything in his heart.


Could you turn me down gently would I
Be out of order
If I declared my true feelings or do I
Act out the part,
Of the father confessor of the shoulder to cry on.
Well, we're always so close, yet we're so far away.

What would you do
If I got down on my knees to you,
Would you hold it against me,
Darling would you stand me in line?
What would you do if I
Opened up my heart to you,
Would I just be another who is wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?


Mulder couldn't stand sitting in his apartment anymore.

It was too depressing.

He just spent the whole time staring at things mindlessly and envisioning that other guy, Rob, with Scully. Picking her up at her apartment. Putting his hand on the small of her back to guide her along the sidewalk. Opening the door of his car for her. Grabbing her by the arms and sticking his tongue down her throat. Humping her until she came like there was no tomorrow.

He just couldn't take it. He had to do something or go crazy.

He decided to go for a walk.

It was dinner time, but he couldn't bring himself to eat anything. The thought of eating made him sick. Hell, the thought of anything made him sick.

But the worst thing was the thought of Scully with that Rob guy, smiling and having a good time as he went on and on about how great he was. Rob, like Rob Roy.

"Yeah, well look what happened to Rob Roy's woman, Scully. What makes you think he can take care of you? What makes you think he can protect you any better than I can?" Mulder thought, as he strode down the Arlington street not paying attention to where he was going.

That was how he nearly bumped into them.

"Mulder what are you doing here?" Mulder could see that Rob wasn't pleased. Well, he wasn't so pleased, himself. The last thing he'd wanted was to see them like this - together. Scully looking radiant in evening make-up and a short navy sleeveless dress that revealed her slender arms and trim legs to perfection. She had her hair up, as she did for special, dress-up occasions, which he'd only seen himself once or twice. Little tendrils escaped to hang loose at the nape of her neck, with the promise of more dishevelment later that was pure sex.

"I live two blocks away," he said.

What the hell were they doing in Alexandria, anyway? Why invade his neighborhood seeing he'd already taken the one thing of value that Mulder had?

Or had thought he had.

"Really?" Rob sounded surprised that Mulder would live somewhere so normal, or so nice. Perhaps he was expecting a cave. "So what are you up to? It's Friday night. Going on a date?"

That was really low. Rubbing it in like that.

Mulder briefly considered telling him he was on his way to rent porn just to shock him, but figured that would make him sound like more of a loser than he already was.

"No, actually I was on my way to buy a new high-powered semi-automatic rifle with a long-distance scope. It's what we angry loners like to do during our spare time," Mulder explained. "Then I figured I'd go on over to the Carillion and while away the rest of the evening."

"Oh Mulder," Scully said, sounding just like a disapproving mother. It made him even sicker. He couldn't stay there and watch them any more.

"Have a nice evening, but don't order the fish here," Mulder said, indicating the restaurant they were entering with a crane of his neck, not removing his hands from the pockets of his leather jacket so they wouldn't see they were balled unto unbreakable fists. "Frohike nearly choked to death on a bone once. See you at the office on Monday, Scully. Davies."

Mulder headed off down the street before they could say anything more to him.


Do I really need to ask you
I'm sure that you know by now,
Do we just play a game where we try to pretend,
That all that's between us is all that's between us,
And all we can rely on is being just good friends

What would you do
If I got down on my knees to you,
Would you hold it against me,
Darling would you stand me in line?
What would you do if I
Opened my heart to you,
Would I just be another who is wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?

He was sitting in his apartment with the lights off. The TV was on, but the sound was muted. It just ground on his nerves.

Ordinarily he would have been watching the television. It was a triple-feature, the Universal Monster series on one of the Turner networks. Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy. They hadn't run into a Mummy yet, even if they had handled man-made undead golems and vampires Southern-style. Maybe later he'd watch Near Dark. He always had liked the idea of vampires traveling around the country in winnebagos. Who'd have thought it would turn out to be the truth? And he'd always been a real fan of Lance Henriksen. A largely underrated actor in Mulder's mind.

He leaned with his head back against the back of his couch. It was nearly 1 a.m. He did not cry. Because he knew that once he started, he'd never stop.

It was nearly 1 a.m., and Scully hadn't called.

That could only mean one thing.

Horror beyond anything writers had ever thought to put on film.

Maybe they were in her bed right now, or in a rented room somewhere. Maybe he was running his hands over her silken skin, kissing her warm lips, burying his cock in her hot, wet...

Mulder put his hands to his head and crushed as hard as he could, but he couldn't stop the visions conjured by his imagination. They were worse than anything he'd endured while drugged or when he'd allowed that idiot, Goldstein, to drill the hole in his skull. They were worse, because he was certain they weren't illusion. They were real. Or if they weren't real at this moment, they soon would be. And if not with Rob, then with someone else.

Because she didn't want him.

It was as simple and as ugly as that.

No matter how many nights he dreamed of her. No matter how many pathetic, lonely releases with his video women he experienced as he thought of her. No matter how much time he spent listening to her breathe on the other side of a cardboard motel door. No matter how the slightest touch of her hand or the accidental rub of her body against his as they tried to find a file drove him nearly to the brink of madness, it didn't matter at all.

He wasn't her type.

He was too moody. Too broody. Too manic-depressive. Too fucking spooky, for the rational person that was Dana Scully to imagine as more than a partner. A co-worker. A joint slave of the corporate bureaucracy that was the Federal Government. She couldn't see it. She couldn't see him. No matter how much or how little he showed her.

She never would.

He might as well just hang up his pecker and call it a day because he would never be getting any again. The thought of any other woman sickened him. He was poisoned by her. She was in his blood. He was a junkie of the first order. A bona-fide Dana Scully addict. He could live a month on just a smile. And with a touch -a year?

He'd have to see. Because they'd be getting fewer and fewer as things heated up with Mr. Wonderful surfer-boy.

Mulder pressed the heels of his hands into his head again and contemplated the long emptiness of his life and thought, why? Why bother? She'd proven she didn't need him. Maybe if things worked out, he could just - stop. It wasn't as if he hadn't contemplated it before. Finding out what had happened to Samantha had kept him going the other times. But now he knew where she was. And that she didn't want to see him.

It seemed that the only women who meant anything didn't really want him around. So why bother? God knew he owned a gun.

Mulder looked into the abyss. And it didn't seem so bad. It almost seemed friendly. Friendlier than the alternative, anyway, which was endless nights doing just what he was doing. Thinking of her with someone else.

He just couldn't do that.

Mulder shut his eyes.

His gun was in the holster hanging over the back of his desk chair. It was only a few steps away.

All he'd have to do was get up and stretch out his hand and it would be all over.

They wouldn't even miss him until Monday morning. And maybe not even then. Depending on how Scully's date went, she might make it a long weekend. She did that sometimes when things had been intense, and they certainly had been intense enough lately. Or she might just figure he'd taken off again and wait for him to come back.

He'd better feed the fish first. It might be a long time until someone came by. He remembered how Scully had gotten Queequeg and was glad he didn't own a dog.

He was just getting up when he heard a key scraping in the lock on his front door.

It was 1:22 a.m.

"Did I wake you up?" Scully asked, her voice sounding somewhat wavery, as she closed the door behind her. Mulder wondered if she was drunk. She was playing with the handle of the evening bag she was carrying and not looking at him.

"No, I was just watching "The Mummy", Mulder lied and quickly shut off the tv before Scully noticed the sound hadn't been on. "I thought you said you were going to call me when you got home."

"I...I... oh, Mulder, I'm sorry," she said and turned around and groped blindly for the door handle. That was what clued him in that she was crying.

"Scully," he hurried to the door and put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel it shaking with her sobs. "You don't have to be sorry. Just tell me what's wrong."

Scully just turned around and threw herself into his arms, burying her head in his chest as she had in the corridor of the hospital one of the too many times he'd thought he was going to lose her. Her sobs were huge and wracked her small frame with their intensity, though she hardly made a sound.

"Scully," he breathed into her hair, wrapping his arms around her shuddering body tightly, letting her know he was there to take care of her. "Scully, what happened? Did he hurt you?"

"N..no," she said, shaking her head from side to side violently. "Nothing like that."

"Then what is it?" he asked. He couldn't remember ever seeing Scully like this. He could smell wine on her. She must have had a few, but she didn't seem drunk. But as he buried his face in her hair he caught the whiff of something else as well - men's cologne.

It was even worse than he'd thought.

What had happened? Had they done it and then he'd rejected her? That couldn't have happened. Not to his Scully. No one was that much of an idiot. Not even Rob, like Rob Roy.

"It's just... oh, Mulder," Scully said, raising her face to look at him, the tears making her mascara run and leave black trails down her face.

"It's just what?" he asked, wiping at the dirty streaks on her perfect cheeks.

"It....it's just that I went out," she sobbed, allowing him to draw her to his couch and set her down on it. Putting his left arm around her heaving shoulders, he reached over to his desk and got some Kleenex from the box he'd left there in case of unexpected nosebleeds before her cancer had gone into remission. She was a lot more effective at wiping away the black streaks with them then he had been with his hands.

"I went out, Mulder, and... and I had a good time. He was nice to me. He was interested. Genuinely interested. I could tell," Scully gasped out between sobs and dabs with the Kleenex.

Mulder listened patiently. Despite what her confession was doing to his insides. He sat patiently with his arm around her and listened to her tell him all about it. And he knew it was going to get even worse.

"So, we finished dinner and I let him take me back to his place," Scully said. "He lives here in Arlington, too. Not far from where I used to. And we went up and he got out a bottle of wine. And we sat and talked. It was nice."

"Ok," thought Mulder. "Don't have to die yet." But he knew it was there, waiting for her to blurt it out. The killing truth.

"And I could see that he wanted more, and he was very gentlemanly about it," Scully said between sobs that seemed endless. "He's a completely decent and good person. So I thought it might be all right. And so he kissed me. And I let him. And while he kissed me I thought about what you'd said. Back in the office. How I shouldn't let them ruin it for me. Ruin my life. Ruin all my chances for something good. Something normal. So I.. I...Oh, Mulder, I..."

Mulder had closed his eyes, as if by doing that he could shut out what he was hearing as well. So he was surprised when Scully flung herself into his arms again and buried her face in his chest once more.

He pulled her tightly into his arms. How could he not, no matter what she said? He planted kisses on the top of her head, as he always did to reassure her. And he waited for her to tell him the rest. He waited for him to tell him the worst news of his life.

"Mulder, I... I tried," Scully confessed. "I tried, but I couldn't. I wanted to do it. I didn't want them to win. I let him touch me, but I felt like such a... such a liar. Such a hypocrite. How could I pretend like that? How could I deceive him, use him? He's so nice. And he was sincere. How could I let him think that it was... that it was normal. That I'm normal. That anything between us could be normal when I'm... when I..."

As Scully continued she raised her head to look at him, her movement catching him mid-kiss so that he missed the top of her head and landed it on her cheekbone instead. She didn't seem to mind or pull away, she tried to continue with her explanation of how she felt, and Mulder mindlessly continued raining down his kisses, lavishing the same attention on the smooth skin of her face as he had been doing on the top of her head.

"Mulder, I just feel so... It would be...It was wrong...for me to...with him...when I wanted...when I ...when I'm...oh, Mulder..."

The next time Mulder kissed her, he found his mouth connecting with hers. And it didn't seem like a mistake. It seemed like Scully had planned it that way. And if the way she pressed herself against him and moaned into his mouth, meant anything, she had.

Mulder did not have to be asked twice. Even if she was hysterical. Even if she had just gotten up from some other man's bed, or couch, or wherever. What mattered was that she was there now, with him. That she'd come there to him of her own volition. That she wanted him now. Even if it only was now.

He kissed her back passionately and she opened her mouth to him, letting him explore just that much inside her, as she pressed herself against him harder, as if she wanted to crawl inside him. Before Mulder really knew what was happening, she was astride him on the couch, her warm thighs on either side of his hips, her bottom pressed hard into his groin.

There was no way of hiding what she was doing to him, short of dumping her off his lap and running the hell away, and Mulder had absolutely no intention of doing either one. Not after five years of longing. Not after all the nights he'd dreamed of something just like this . Not when it was really happening.

Even if it was just some other guy's leftovers.

Scully was running her hands down the planes of his chest. He could feel her nails scraping slightly at his nipples through the cloth of his t-shirt. Still feeding on his mouth, she slowly rubbed herself against the growing bulge in his jeans and moaned softly into his mouth once more.

Mulder couldn't stand it. He ran his hands up the outside of her thighs under the blue fabric of her skirt. He didn't stop until he'd taken firm hold of her bottom, still covered by silken panties, thank God, and pressed her to him while making the slightest of thrusting movements with his hips.

Scully moaned again, and plunged her tongue into his mouth, pressing herself against him and pulling the t-shirt out of his jeans so she could gain access to his bare skin with her hands. They were warm and she ran them all over his back and then again down his chest. But she didn't stop there. Moving herself backward ever so slightly she dropped one hand down between them, caressing his prominent erection through the stiff fabric of his pants.

Mulder trembled, and broke the lip lock for a few seconds to look at her, though he didn't stop caressing her thighs or pressing her against him.

"Scully, are you sure about this?" he asked. "Because if you're not. I'm not going to be able to stop for very much longer."

He realized that sounded weird as soon as it came out of his mouth, but Scully seemed to know what he meant and merely pressed her lips to his once more and pulled upward on the hem of his t-shirt. Mulder helped her by leaning forward from the back of the couch and moving his hands momentarily from her behind to help her get the cotton shirt over his head.

As soon as he was finished it was her turn.

Mulder reached up and undid the zipper on the back of her navy blue dress, pulling it quickly downward to below her waist. He grabbed the skirt in both hands and Scully raised her arms obediently to allow him to pull the dress over her head and toss it aside with his discarded t-shirt.

Mulder saw that Scully's underwear was silk and navy blue as well. Very like her to wear what would match the dress. The bra was one of those kinds that was mostly underwire, straps and not much else. It was navy blue, but the fabric of the cups was sheer and light enough that her nipples had been visible through the fabric of her dress. Mulder reached up and caressed her through the silk of the bra.

He was gratified when Scully gasped. And the way the bra framed her body was fabulous. But he knew it had to go. And it had to go now.

Mulder reached behind her and undid the hooks. The bra found its way to the pile of clothing on the floor as Mulder buried his face in Scully's chest, though not the way she had done to him a few moments before.

Keeping one arm firmly supporting her back, Mulder took one of Scully's perfect, small breasts in his mouth. His tongue made warm, wet circles around her hardened nipple, while he kneaded the other breast with his hand.

Scully gasped several times and murmured his name, one hand burying itself in the hair on the back of his head. Then she put her other hand on him again and stroked the length of his erection, slowly. She moved her hand lower, moving his thighs slightly apart and rubbing his balls through the fabric of his jeans.

The jeans were next. They definitely had to go.

Scully seemed to have the same idea, because she removed her hand from his hair and began working at the button at his waist. It wasn't an easy task however, because she was very nearly sitting on the place she was trying to put her hands. Mulder would have to help, though the last thing he wanted to do was stop what they were doing to one another.

Mulder sucked her nipple hard, evoking a moan from Scully that was pure animal and gratifying in the extreme. But he drew his head back from her and shoved at her hips with both hands to get her off of him.

"Can't go on much longer wearing these," he said, indicating the jeans, and was relieved when she smiled and nodded, unstraddling his lap and moving over onto the other cushion of his couch.

When Mulder was up off the couch and she was no longer touching him, he felt vaguely self-conscious. He'd watched her as she'd helped him remove her clothes, of course, but he'd been helping. Right now she wasn't doing anything. Just watching with her wide, blue eyes.

He was choking. He couldn't believe it. Five years of hoping and wishing and very nearly praying though he wasn't a believing man, and he was choking just because she was looking at him? "Get real, Mulder," he thought, and got the jeans off as quickly as he could. He was rather glad, however, that he'd chosen to wear boxer briefs that day, so they stayed put instead of peeling off with the jeans, and now they were even. Mulder and Scully, down to their skivvies.

But he still felt strange. He had as soon as the physical contact had ceased. He wondered if Scully felt it, too.

Even as he sat back down on the couch and pulled her into his arms, he had a moment of panic.

But then she kissed him, and he knew it was all going to work out.

"Scully, do you want to go to the bedroom?" he managed, a second when his tongue wasn't otherwise occupied.

"You have one?" she breathed into his ear, just before she bit it, ever so gently.

Mulder growled and picked her up in his arms. But not like the hero of a romance novel, because he wasn't. Because it wouldn't be Mulder. No, he picked her up over his shoulder in a oh-so-traditional Fireman's carry, and headed off to the bedroom, Scully's silk-clad bottom by his tingling, bitten ear and her head dangling down somewhere in the near vicinity of his ass.

She caressed the back of his thighs with her hands when he stopped beside the bed, and he quickly tossed her down on top of the covers and then covered her body with his own. He was amazed at the way she was responding to him. She never had before. No matter how he'd teased and suggested, and even how he'd touched her, though he seldom had allowed himself the pleasure when there was a sexual context. He'd been much too afraid of scaring her off.

Scully moved her legs apart and wrapped them around his, holding him to her tightly. Mulder almost lost his mind and what remained of his control of the situation. He had to get a grip and fast, or he was going to embarrass himself.

He started out slowly, reciting the periodic table of elements in his head as he did so, and began a slow march of kisses down from Scully's lips, to her neck, down her collarbone and back to her breasts. She liked that, so he lingered there a while. He was about up to Selenium when he began to move farther south, pressing his lips on a trail blazed by the fingers of his right hand.

Scully trembled and arched herself up to meet his lips. Mulder smiled as he reached her navel, and pressed his tongue wetly into the depression there, gaining another gasp and arch for his troubles. He kissed lower, until Scully's only remaining garment became an impediment. He looped his fingers around the elastic at the top of her panties and looked up. He had to have permission for this, even though he was pretty certain she was going to grant it.

Scully not only nodded, she lifted up her hips to help, and Mulder had the gratifyingly wet blue silk panties off her body and on the floor in a flash. Just as slowly, he was up to Mercury, he continued the march of his kisses down below her waist. She was nearly writhing now, needing him to touch her, but he wanted to make her wait for it just a little bit longer, as he would have to wait, despite his need for her.

Mulder slid his hands between her thighs, spreading them farther apart, as he placed one last kiss just on top of her pubic bone. He had yet to even approach her clitoris and she was gasping and clutching at the sheets in anticipation. It was almost daunting, but Mulder was good at this. It was the one portion of his English education that he had Phoebe Green to actually thank for. And while the bitch had fucked him up royally in the relationship department, she had definitely taught him a thing or two about physical pleasure. And how he had the chance to use what he'd learned on someone who was actually worth it. Talk about gratifying.

Mulder, oh, so gently, oh so lightly ran his tongue over the very tip of Scully's clitoris, while being very careful to keep firm hold on her thighs. She was so ready, she very nearly levitated off the bed.

He felt himself beginning to chuckle with glee, and feared Scully might take that the wrong way, so he quickly went back to the elements, though he was running out. Radium, Actinium, Cerium - only radioactive ones left. Somehow it seemed appropriate, the way they were reacting with one another.

"Mulder, please..." Scully breathed, and the need was so clear in her face that he just had to have mercy on her, even though he might have teased her more if things had been more normal between them - lighter - if she hadn't been proving something to herself.

Mulder switched tactics from subtle seduction to full-frontal assault, and plunged two fingers deep inside her while sucking hard on her swollen clitoris. She wanted it so badly, he actually felt a few preliminary contractions where his fingers reached inside her, but then she calmed a bit and he realized he would have to work a little for it anyway, but he was more than pleased that he could do this for her. He tried not to think about why he was being allowed.

She was tight and warm and tasted just right. Just like he knew she would. Just like he'd imagined it, only better, because this time it wasn't his imagination, it was the real thing.

She was gasping and writhing and letting out little pants as she fought for some kind of control. But he didn't want her to find that control. She spent the majority of her life in control and what Scully needed, and needed desperately, was a chance to lose it. And he wanted to be the one to take her there, because she'd be safe with him, even if she wasn't in control. That's what he wanted her to learn.

Mulder established a firm rhythm, one that kept Scully gasping at the brink, but didn't quite tip her over the edge. He wanted her to stay where she was a moment. He wanted her to know where she was and who she was with. He wanted her to remember who was doing this to her, because it was important for him. He wanted this to mean something. It had to. He couldn't bear the thought of being a one-night stand. Not with Scully. And if he couldn't tell her how he felt, at least he might be able to show her, to let the way he touched her speak for him and say the things he needed to say. He had the courage for that much, at least.

When he thought he'd gone on long enough, when her sighs and the movement of her hips pressing down against his hand had established a rhythm of their own, Mulder changed. Another finger, a faster rhythm, the proper stroke of his tongue across her sensitive flesh, and Scully was gone.

She wasn't a screamer, but then he hadn't imagined she would be. But she did emit a low moan that seemed to go on forever until it ended in his name. And he knew he'd done well.

Mulder held her close against him, and pressed his cheek into the smooth skin of her belly as she regained some semblance of rationality. He hoped she would invite him to continue their lovemaking in a different fashion, but this alone could be enough. Making her come made him feel like a god, and hearing his name from her lips as she did nearly made his heart burst from love and something rather like hubris. Just let Cupid or Apollo try to horn in on his Scully, he could take 'em any day with one hand tied behind his back.

"Mulder," Scully breathed.

He could hear her voice as the sound waves carried it through the air to his eardrums, but also as her body rumbled beneath his head as the sound was created. He imagined that was something like what an unborn child hears when its mother speaks. It made him feel very close to her.

"Your turn," she said, and moved beneath him.

"Please don't let her blow me," Mulder thought, as he followed her lead and allowed her to guide him upward toward the head of the bed and the rest of her.

Ordinarily the thought of Scully's perfect lips wrapped tightly around his cock was enough to fill many a lonely night. But what he'd just had a taste of. That was what he wanted... what he needed. He only hoped that she knew it, too.

Scully drew him gently into her arms, and guided him down to the sheets beside her. Mulder let himself be led, and tried not to be too disappointed when she did just what he feared. She placed soft, wonderful kisses on his bare skin and moved lower and lower, the silken strands of her hair dragging lightly across his body in the wake of her lips.

He hated himself for not being able to enjoy it as he should. What could he really expect from her, anyway? That she'd allowed him this much was a miracle. Why let himself be disappointed that it wasn't more? That she didn't trust him that much, when he knew she trusted him with her life.

But this was almost more than physical existence. This had to do with one's idea of oneself. This was about being able to look at one another every day with respect and affection and not the feeling that you'd somehow cheapened yourself, had admitted something, or had shown weakness. This was about trust. Trust that had to endure. And he didn't think that Scully trusted him that much. He always seemed to be running out on her just when she needed him.

It wasn't that he meant to run, but he just didn't know how to deal with the way he felt. He was afraid, both that she'd feel the same, or that she wouldn't. If she loved him, how could he hope to live up to that? If she didn't love him, how could he live at all?

Mulder sighed as Scully wrapped one, soft hand around the base of his cock. He knew what was coming next and closed his eyes in anticipation and something like regret. But he was surprised when she merely stroked upward, exerting firm pressure along the length of him and began kissing his body again, back up toward his chest.

He opened his eyes, despite how good her hand felt on him.

She couldn't go through with it. Not even that. She was here. She was naked. He'd made her come, but she couldn't bring herself to even blow him. God, he knew women who'd go down on practically anyone and thought nothing more of it than if they'd tangoed with the guy. Admittedly, Mulder knew some strange people, but that Scully couldn't even bring herself to do something as impersonal as that... But he should have known.

She hadn't wanted him. She was only here because some other guy had made her horny and her self-doubt had made it so she hadn't been able to act on it. She was only here because she trusted Mulder just enough to use him to get off.

And the most pathetic thing was that he was still more than willing to accept anything she gave him. Anything at all.

She'd crawled back up almost the entire length of his body, her hand still stroking as far down as she could reach. She planted a kiss on his shoulder, right over the scar from where she'd shot a hole in it to save him and Alex Krycek both.

Mulder couldn't bear it.

He reached down with both hands and took her head between them, raising her face so that she had to look at him. Her blue eyes flew wide in surprise, though he could see the clouds of desire that still lingered despite the completion of her own pleasure. Mulder lowered his own head and kissed her - hard. At least when he did that he could pretend that it was something. That she felt something - for him.

Scully abruptly let go of his cock and raised her arms to wrap them around him. Almost as though she loved him. And though she was no longer in contact with the part of him that he most desired her to touch, it was better. It was far better because he could pretend.

He deepened the kiss, but still let Scully lead the way, rolling to his side as she pulled him closer into her arms. If this was all it was going to be, it was still better than the other. He could do that himself when she was gone. And he'd have nothing to regret and she'd have nothing to hold over him when it was all over. She wouldn't know how much power she had over him. How close he was from just her touch. And kissing her, at least it felt like love - even though he knew better.

But Scully didn't seem content with the kiss. She pressed herself up closer against him and then rolled onto her back, pulling him over her like a blanket. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his, just as she had when they'd first reached the bedroom. And then she reached down between them and took him into her hand once more, guiding him to the one place he most wanted to be.

Mulder trembled in her arms, but he had to be sure she was sure. He broke the kiss and looked at her again. Scully moaned softly as he pulled away. Her eyes remained closed for several seconds and then she opened them. There was fear there.

"Mulder?" she asked, her voice breathy and with a note in it of something that nearly sounded like pleading. "W...why are you stopping?"

Mulder just looked at her, trying to read her expression like a map, like an instruction manual on what to do, how to please her. How to make certain that this wouldn't turn into damage when the morning came or even in the next few minutes. When he didn't say anything, Scully looked away, to her right, toward his curtained window.

When she spoke again her voice was so soft he was almost unsure he heard it at all, "Don't you want to? D....don't you want me?"

"God, yes!" he blurted out, causing her to look back at his face once more. There were tears in her perfect blue eyes. "But do you Scully? Are you sure? I mean... You've never wanted... You've never given me any reason to think that you'd..."

Scully stopped him with another kiss before he made a total ass out of himself. She had a way of saving him from embarrassment sometimes that was quite endearing, and as she guided him into her warm body, he vowed to remember that the next time she did something that pissed him off.

Actually Mulder vowed a lot of things. He vowed not to ditch her the next time something dangerous happened. He vowed not to crack and spit sunflower seeds in the office when she was trying to edit reports. He vowed to let her drive sometimes even if it meant the seat was so far forward that he nearly got a crick in his neck trying to carry on a conversation from the passenger side. But mostly he vowed to tell her how he felt, what this meant to him. No matter what the personal risk to his ego. No matter how hard it was to say something so revealing, something he could never remember hearing from anyone in his life. At least never hearing it from someone who really meant it.

"Scully..." he began, but she silenced him with a kiss and a hard squeeze of her muscles around his cock. And at that point Mulder ceased vowing, ceased almost anything at all. Anything, that was, but what his body was doing to hers. That he increased, clutching her small body tightly, driving into her hard, as if he could drive all thoughts of other men out of her mind by that action. As if he could make this really be about him, about them.

And it almost seemed to be working. Scully moaned and writhed beneath him, as she had before. And she said his name, several times. He wanted to go on hearing her say his name like that forever, but he just couldn't. He wanted her too much, he couldn't hold back any longer. Mulder trembled and buried his face in her neck.

"Now, Mulder," Scully breathed in his ear. "It's all right."

She ran her hands slowly down his back and farther still until her hands were gripping his ass, pulling him closer, farther inside her.

Mulder slipped a hand between their bodies and prayed it would be enough. Then he came so hard he didn't know what happened until he returned to himself and felt the last shuddering contractions from Scully, proving that she'd been with him the whole time even if he'd been so lost in the sensation of his own orgasm that he hadn't been aware of it.

He was lying limply on top of her, like a wrung out dishrag. She was so warm, so solid beneath him, that he simply wanted to stay there forever, wrapped in her arms. But he knew better than that. He had to be crushing her.

Mulder raised his head from Scully's shoulder and levered himself up onto one elbow, at the same time withdrawing from her body. He was afraid to look at her, but he did it anyway.

Her eyes were very wide, and her face was closed - guarded. He imagined he must look much the same. They were both worried. They both waited.

To see how the other one would react.

"Are you all right?" he asked, finally, unable to bear the uncomfortable silence any longer, unable to bear her closed scrutiny. At Scully's questioning look he managed a smile from somewhere and continued, "I must have squashed you, lying on you like that."

"It's all right," she said politely. "You didn't hurt me. Don't worry."

Mulder nodded foolishly, raising his self-contempt level to an all-time high. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he feared every one of them would be wrong. So he just lay there, looming over her like an idiot.

"Are you all right?" he asked her again, after a time, stealing a sideways glance at her composed all-business Scully face.

"Yes," she said, and looked deliberately at the door of the bedroom, as if she wanted to get up and out of it as quickly as she could.

That look killed him. And what was more, it trapped him even more deeply in the web of silence in which he was enmeshed. He couldn't tell her how he felt. He couldn't get the words out. Not with that look on her face. Not with her wanting to get the hell away from him.

He still had her in his arms and was half lying on top of her.

He just wished she'd say something. Anything. He didn't care what it was.

Mulder raised his hand to her cheek and stroked away an errant lock of fiery hair. It made her turn her attention from the door of his bedroom and back to him, at least. But her face was so closed still, that he wasn't certain it was better after all.

He tried desperately to smile at her. To do something to set her more at ease, but he couldn't. He just kept touching her face, stroking his fingers lightly along the flawless skin of her cheekbone, the taut muscle of her jaw, the silken softness of her neck below her ear.

"Mulder," she said finally. "Why don't you go to sleep?"

"What?" he asked. How could anyone sleep when they didn't know what was going to happen? How could he possibly try to drift off when he was afraid she'd just use his unconsciousness as an opportunity to leave? Her interest in the door was pretty apparent, after all.

"You know I don't sleep much, Scully," he said. This drew an almost smile from her. It was a familiar sort of comment - normal. Normal for them, anyway. As normal as the events of the past hour had not been.

"I know you don't," she said, stroking his back lightly with her hand, making him even more aware of her than he already was. "But I thought, somehow, that you would now. I thought it was, you know, a guy thing."

"You snooze, you lose," he said, and did manage a smile this time.

"Lose what?" Scully asked. She seemed to really want to know, and he was rather pissed off at himself for his flippant comment.

He looked at her face for a long moment. He almost felt like he was going to cry. He was such an asshole.

Mulder stroked the top of Scully's head and ran his hand through her hair where it was fanned out on the pillow. He looked at that while he did it, because he couldn't meet her eyes. She'd be able to see him, then. See into him. He couldn't have that. Not when she already had so much power.

"This," he said, and stroked her hair again. "You," he continued and buried his face in her neck, more to hide his expression from her than anything else. He could feel his eyes filling with tears and he didn't want her to see them.

Mulder felt her arms go around him again, almost possessively this time. He wished he did belong to her, that he had a right to feel the way he did. That he was allowed to want what he wanted, which was to do this every night for the rest of his life. He managed to sigh instead of sob. He hoped she wouldn't know.

Scully held him for a long time, stroking her small hands over the muscles of his shoulders and back, just as she'd done many times before when they'd been clothed and upright and being partners and friends instead of lovers. It felt great. It felt normal. It worried the hell out of him.

Scully cleared her throat slightly.

"Are you always this sentimental?" she asked.

Mulder contemplated fetching a serrated grapefruit spoon from the full set of silverplate his grandmother had left Sam that he kept in his closet to return to her when he found her and letting Scully use it to cut out his heart. But, of course, she already had. He could feel himself bleeding inwardly. And getting angry.

"Only when I do it with distraught women who've just gotten out of other guy's beds," Mulder said, levering himself up on his elbow once more and looking into her white, shocked face. "It calms them."

To say that that was the second he realized he'd made a hideous error in judgment was inaccurate. He knew he was doing the wrong thing while he was doing it, while he was thinking it, even. But he just couldn't stop himself. He assumed it was what demon possession was like. Or Turrett's Syndrome.

For a smart man, he could say the most idiotic things.

"Get off me," Scully said coldly, giving him a hard shove in the middle of his chest, while trying to push him away with her thighs as well.

"Not until you tell me what this was all about," he said, taking hold of her hands and pushing them down onto the pillows on either side of her head. "Why did you come here tonight?"

"Because I needed someone to talk to. Because I thought you were going to help," Scully said.

"And this was the "help" you had in mind?"

"No," Scully said, so vehemently that it nearly made him cringe.

"Then why, Scully?" he asked gently. "This wasn't my idea."

"It wasn't my idea, if that's what you're implying," she said, struggling slightly, even though she knew it was hopeless. He was much too big. "You were the one who was kissing me."

"And haven't I done that before when you were upset?" he asked.

"Well, you have, but it was different this time," Scully told him, narrowing her eyes like a cornered cat.

"How?" he asked, neutrally.

"You... well, you..." Scully looked confused, trying to remember exactly what they'd both done in the right order. He could see the wheels of her analytical mind turning behind those big, blue eyes. "You usually just kiss the top of my head."

"And I was."

"No, you kissed my face," she said.

"Only because you moved," he told her. "And you were getting calmer, so I didn't want to stop."

"Don't pretend like you're totally innocent, here," Scully told him angrily. "I didn't seduce you."

"So nearly sucking out my tonsils while riding me like a carnival carousel horse isn't seduction?" he asked.

"I was doing nothing of the kind and you know it!" Scully said, all indignant innocence and flushed embarrassment. "You kissed me first."

"And you usually flop over on your back like a cheerleader at Homecoming for anybody who kisses you? I thought you hadn't been able to make yourself do that for Rob, like in Rob Roy, and that's why you came here to talk," Mulder said. Scully looked like she was going to have a fit of apoplexy. Mulder ran his hand down the side of her face very gently, until she pulled forcefully away. "I just want to know, honestly, what all this was about."

"What the hell are you talking about, Mulder?" Scully said.

She was very angry, but he could tell that she was dealing with him on an intellectual level now, at least.

"What was this?" he asked, trying not to let the pain he was feeling show on his face. "Why now? You've known me five years, Scully, and there's never been anything. You've never done anything to make me even consider that you wanted me like this.

"I don't think you wanted me now. You only wanted something. Something to prove to yourself that you're still alive. That you're still a human being and a woman no matter what they've done to you. But you couldn't go through with it with someone who wasn't in on it. With someone who didn't know you or what you've suffered. You had to fucking practice on me before you could go out and get some on your own.

"That's what this was about, wasn't it? That's all it was. Scully running some kind of diagnostic check on herself. Can she still work it or is she too fucked up? Who could possibly be safe enough for a run-through like that? Well, maybe her loser partner. He hasn't had a date that didn't involve a video machine in a while. Five years, as far as she knows. As far as she knows, Scully.

"That's what it was, isn't it?"

"You're going to think what you want, no matter what I tell you," Scully said neutrally. "It doesn't matter what I thought. What I wanted. You've decided already."

"Then prove me wrong," Mulder smiled sickly. "I'm open to extreme possibilities. Convince me."

"Why should I?" Scully told him. "You'll just put me back in your box, maybe a little redesigned, but I'll just be back to whatever you have in your head as Scully in a few minutes anyway. I just can't believe how stupid I was to think that you could really see me.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me that you care. I know you do. But you care like you care about Samantha. I hate to think what is going to happen if she ever lets you talk to her and you have to try to know her as the person she is, rather than the vision you've carried with you all this time. She's not a little girl who plays Stratego any more, Mulder. And I'm not whatever fucked-up notion of Scully you have in your head. Whatever you created for yourself when I was abducted and when I came back and when I was sick. I'm not that. But you can't see me. You can only see what you think I am. Sometimes you're right. But most of the time, you haven't got a clue."

"So enlighten me," he said.

"I don't think I have that kind of time."

"I didn't know you had pressing plans," Mulder commented. "And I'm not going anywhere."

"I told you already, I want to live my life," Scully said.

"And explaining things to me isn't part of that," he said. He felt a curious numbness spreading from the middle of his chest. Rather like the times he'd been shot, as his blood had seeped away and unconsciousness had neared. He felt like he was dying. And she was the one killing him.

Scully sighed and turned her face once more to look at the door to the bedroom.

"Explaining things to you is so much work, Mulder," she said. "When do I get to have my life?"

"Since when isn't this your life?" he asked, and he bent down his head to kiss her outstretched neck right below her right ear.

"It would be so easy to give up," she sighed, pushing him away, holding his face at a distance between her two, soft hands. "To let you suck me in. To let you suck away the little bit I have left of my soul. There are a lot of vampires out there, Mulder, but do you know what? You're one, too. Only a different kind.

"You don't really want my body, you only want my soul. Or rather, you want to let your quest have it, to consume whatever remains of me, little by little, until there's nothing left but a husk. And there's so little left of me already. I can hardly remember who I am any more.

"Do you know that I don't even think of myself as Dana? I'm Scully. Even in my own head, I'm Scully. I was Dana five years ago, but now I'm not. How sick is that?

"And they didn't do that to me, Mulder. You did. You made me Scully. And, while I like her in some ways, I wonder who I might have been if I'd never met you. I think I would have been nicer somehow. A better person. Someone who trusted people, instead of ... God, Mulder, I can't even bring myself to trust you! Do you know what that's like?

"You don't, because you trust me. Or at least you say you do, but do you really? Do you, Mulder, do you trust me?"

"With my life," he vowed.

"I don't want your life, Mulder," Scully said, narrowing her blue eyes speculatively and looking deeply into his. "I want what you want. I want your soul. Do you trust me with that?"

Mulder didn't know what to do. Now was the time to tell her. But somehow he just couldn't get it out. He was choking again. Choking on the most important thing ever. Choking like the worst coward who had ever crawled the Earth.

"How can I?" he asked. "How can I when... My God, Scully, look at us. How did we get here? How did we get like this? Why are we doing this to one another? Aren't things fucked up enough without us fucking one another over, too? I mean, this hurt you. And I participated in it. I participated in it just like I didn't know what was going on, that you were acting out of some kind of self-doubt. Some partner I am, huh? Never around when you really need him and very much around when you should be running the hell in the other direction."

"Of course it had to be about you, didn't it?" Scully said with a mirthless smile. "It's funny, you know, Mulder, how nothing's changed. Somehow I thought that if we ever got in bed together it would mean something, that it would change something. But it doesn't. It's just the same old song, only horizontal."

"Then you're not going to leave me? You're not going to quit the X-files?" he asked, voicing his worst nightmare, though he couldn't choke out the first thing about his feelings. Thoughts were always easier, somehow, no matter how sick or bad. The worst thought was easier than the best feeling. He was so fucked.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, raising a Scully brow at him.

"Because... because you hate me?" he said, helpfully.

"I don't hate you, Mulder," Scully said, smoothing a lock of his hair as she sometimes did before important meetings with Skinner. "I don't feel any differently about you than I did before I came here tonight. Everything's the same. You don't need to worry about it."

"I worry about everything," Mulder said. "Especially you."

At least he'd managed to get that out.

"Don't," Scully said. "I'll figure it out, myself. You don't have to worry about me."

Mulder just continued to look at her worriedly.

"Go to sleep, Mulder," Scully told him. "You're making me more tired than I already am."

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, and moved off her a little to the right. He tucked his left arm around her small body and laid his head on the pillow beside hers. "Is this ok?"

"It's fine, Mulder," Scully told him, shutting her eyes.

"And everything's the same."

"Exactly the same as before," she said.

"And we'll go to work Monday and everything will be fine."

"I said yes, now goodnight, Mulder. Stop being such a worry-wort," Scully said, and turned her back to him, burrowing her head into the pillow.

Mulder didn't press his luck any further. But he watched her very carefully for a very long time before he fell asleep himself.

He should have told her.


So are we left to chance meetings,
Is that all we can depend on?
Resigned to raise glasses in anonymous cafes,
Reciting our failures as if we really needed
That proof or regret
Over what might have
And what should have been.
Darling are we just good friends?

What would you do
If I got down on my knees to you,
Would you hold it against me,
Would you stand me in line?
What would you do if I
Opened up my heart to you,
Would I just be another who is wasting his time,
Darling are we just good friends?
Are we just good friends?
Tell me, Darling, are we just good friends?



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