This Night by Leyla Harrison Disclaimer: Owned by Chris Carter. Not me. Classification: VA, MSR Spoilers: The End, Detour Rating: NC-17 Summary: The aftermath of the end is only the beginning. For Leigh, because she gave closure. **** It's all over. Or so it seems. What was it that I said to Mulder? "No matter what you think, this time they may have won." Then I told him about reassignment. The closing of the X-Files. He blinked once. Then he turned his face from me. I knew what he felt. What he was thinking. We've never really spoken about reassignment. I've thought about it. I've dreamed of doing it more than once, when I've been really pissed at Mulder. Really fed up with his ditches and his unexplainable behavior. But then I've felt strangely ashamed, and known deep in my heart that I couldn't do it -- that I would never do that to Mulder. It was at those moments that I knew that he needed me too much, and it was at those moments when I knew, as much as I hated to admit it, that I needed him too. We had been separated once before, when the X-Files were closed, when I went back to Quantico and Mulder was assigned a new partner, one Alex Krychek. Those days seem as if they were a hundred light years ago. We cannot be separated now. I cannot allow it. Regardless of what I want, though, it seems inevitable. The office burned. Completely and thoroughly. I stood there with Mulder, the acrid smell of smoke still hanging in the air, the water from the firemen's hoses dripping from the ceiling and the walls. I stood there and looked at him, his face devoid of any expression, his eyes blank, his arms slackly at his sides. I went to him, hesitantly at first, placing my hands on his upper arms, waiting to see if he would push me back. He did not. I leaned my body into his, my head against his chest. His heartbeat thumped against my cheek. Slowly. Evenly. Too slowly. Shock. Oh, God, Mulder, I thought, pulling away from him. His eyes were glassy, and his skin was pale and clammy to my touch. I took his arm and pulled him towards the door. "Let's go, Mulder. We have to get out of here." "...the files..." he murmured. "They're gone, Mulder," I answered him, still tugging on his arm. "We have to go, Mulder. Come on." He pulled away from my grasp, heading towards the filing cabinets that were now blackened with soot and dripping wet. "Don't touch them, Mulder, they still might be --" Hot, I thought, as he pulled the destroyed drawer all the way open and sifted through what was left of the papers inside. I watched as the ashes crumbled and scattered between his fingers. Mulder closed his eyes. "Samantha..." he whispered, and his body swayed. "Jesus, Mulder." I rushed to his side and supported his weight as much as I could. "We're getting out of here. Now." This time, he let me lead him from what remained of the office. From what remained of his life's work. **** I push open the door of Mulder's apartment and he stumbles inside. The car ride was a silent one. I kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other gripping Mulder's left hand as I drove. He clutched my fingers as if he would never let them go. Inside the apartment, I go for the light switch but Mulder's voice, sharp as a blade through the air, stops me. "Don't." I obey and shut the door, following him into the darkness of the living room. This was where we had just had the conversation about reassignment, about the end of the X-Files, mere hours before. And now we have no office, no X-Files, no anything. Mulder sinks down onto the sofa and barely manages to kick his shoes off. "Lie down," I quietly command him. "I'm going to get you something to drink." "Don't go." "Mulder, I'm just going into the kitchen -- " "I said don't go, Scully. Please." Mulder doesn't say please to me very often. It's not that he has bad manners. It's just that pleasantries are usually not important in our relationship. I say, "Mulder, it's me," more than I do "thank you" and he says, "Hey, Scully" more than "please". It's never offended me. I know it has nothing to do with disrespect. His entreaty now is one of raw need and pain. Obliging him, I help him into a lying position on the couch and then sit down in the nearby chair. My head is throbbing insistently and I massage my temples absentmindedly. "It's all gone, Scully," Mulder says softly. I look up at him. "I know." "The X-Files...everything I've worked so hard on. Samantha -- her file was in there. Your file." At this, he looks up at me guiltily, as if he regrets bringing up bad memories for me at a time like this. I say nothing. I cannot tell him that we can get it all back, because I know that we can't. There's no replacing everything that has been lost. In the end, we have wound up with nothing -- right back where we started. We have spent five years building and building, and in the end, like a house of cards, it has all come tumbling down. "I used to think that life was unfair," Mulder continues, his voice devoid of any emotion. "It *is* unfair, Mulder," I tell him. I recall a conversation we had one night in the Florida woods. "Do you remember what I told you recently about how I felt about my cancer?" At the mention of the word, his head jerks in my direction. He nods. "I told you that I thought that I was going to die. I thought that it was unfair. But I realized that was the struggle -- to give it meaning. Mulder, I feel the same way now." If only I sounded like I meant it. My voice is weary, and I know that Mulder knows me well enough to hear it. I know he can hear when I am desperately trying to come up with answers that will soothe him. I feel as if what I have said is only a partial truth. "But the struggle isn't worth it, Scully. Not if it means losing everything. Don't you see that?" "Of course I see that," I say, snapping a bit more than I intend to. "I know that. We've both lost so much, Mulder, that it seems like we couldn't lose any more." I study his face in the semi-darkness, disturbed by the fact that I can't see him clearly. I reach for the small lamp on the desk, turning it on. He squints against the light. "I need to see you when I'm talking to you," I apologize softly. He nods. "Well," Mulder sighs, "neither of us were killed this time." That's the spirit, Mulder, I think. Try to be positive. Try not to think about the fact that everything you've ever worked for has been flushed down the drain. I can hear the exhaustion in his voice as well. "Why don't I get you a blanket and you can get some sleep," I tell him, getting up from my chair. "I don't need a blanket, Scully." I sit back down. "Is this where you tell me that you're really sorry, but you have to be going?" "I'm not going anywhere if you don't want me to, Mulder." A long pause. "Do you want me to leave?" Another pause, and then looks at me directly, his face slack. "No." "Then I'll stay." I lean back in the chair and we lapse into silence, a long silence in which I think of nothing but what the office must have looked like when it was in flames. And I think of the only person I know who carries a lighter with him at all times. I lean forward to tell Mulder, but his eyes are closed. He's asleep. Or doing a good imitation of it. I can tell him later. I lean back in the chair again and close my eyes as well. My head lolls over to one side and I doze off. **** I awaken suddenly from a dream about Diana Fowley and Mulder, seeing them again through the glass as they clasped hands. In my dream, Fowley leaned forward and caressed Mulder's face softly with her hand. His eyes were locked on hers and she looked towards the glass and directly at me, a hint of a smile drifting across her face before she turned her attention back to Mulder. My neck is stiff and I stretch it, satisfied only when I heard the audible crack. I check my watch. 4:15am. Mulder is still asleep on the couch. What awakened me? I look around the room. Everything is in shadows because of the lamp I have left on. "Nooo," I hear softly from the direction of the couch, and realize why I woke up. I get up softly and kneel on the floor next to him, touching his face in an unconscious echo of the way I saw Diana Fowley do it in my dream. "Mulder," I murmur. "Mulder, wake up." What can he be dreaming about this time? The fire? The loss of the X-Files? His sister? There's no way to know for sure. Based on how tightlipped he always is about his psyche, he probably won't tell me. "Mulder, please wake up," I try again. His eyes flutter and open. He blinks a few times, disoriented. "Scully?" he asks. "None other," I assure him softly. "What are you still doing here?" "I dozed off. You were having a nightmare." "I dreamed that you were dying and I couldn't save you." I take a deep breath even as I feel my muscles tighten. So much for evasiveness. "I'm fine, Mulder. I'm right here, and I'm fine." His voice is still small and rough from sleep. "You have no idea how much I need you, Scully," he says, and I lower my eyes, unable to look at him and to face what he has just said. "I do, Scully. Need you." My head is still lowered, and I nod slowly. "I know," I tell him very quietly, still unable to look him in the eye. "Please don't hide from me, Scully," he murmurs, touching my face and raising it so that I have no choice but to confront his eyes. "I'm not hiding, Mulder," I tell him honestly. "It's just that it's not easy knowing that you're needed by Fox Mulder." He chuckles softly. "I'm a handful, I know." "You're more than a handful, Mulder. Being needed by you is like...I don't know, like being needed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You need more than a partner is usually expected to give. You need a co-conspirator, a watchdog, a psychiatrist, a protector, a mother, a lover..." The words are out of my mouth before I realize I have spoken them. I shut my mouth as Mulder looks at me intently. "And which ones are you, Agent Scully?" he asks. I purse my lips, trying to choose each word carefully before I answer. "Most of them." "Not all?" he asks. I shake my head. "Well, you'd be hard-pressed to be my mother," he says, and I chuckle. "You're right. I think I'd have a hard time taking that one on." "You think I need a lover?" he asks, and the chuckle in my throat dies away as quickly as it came. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't think I can answer that truthfully, Mulder." "Because you can't, or because you don't want to?" I shake my head slowly. We are both on thin ice, I think to myself. We are both exhausted and our defenses are down. We are both wishing we had something to cling to for hope. Clinging to each other in this situation would be the worst possible thing to do. There is only one problem. The only thing we have left to hold on to is each other. I clear my throat. "I'm going to get something to drink." I move to stand up but Mulder sits up halfway on the couch and puts his hands on my shoulders, keeping me kneeling on the floor. "Scully." "Yes, Mulder." He pauses. I wonder if he is also unable to give voice to the same things I am thinking. "I do need you, Scully," he finally says, and I nod. "I know, Mulder. And you've got me. I'm not going anywhere. Even if the Bureau reassigns us, we can still --" "That's not what I'm talking about, Scully." Danger, I think. Warning lights flash in my head. I know exactly what he's talking about, and I desperately wish that I could play dumb and pretend that I don't. It's not that I haven't thought about it. It's not even the fact that I haven't wanted it. Him, that is. Seeing him with Diana didn't just make me angry. It made me jealous in a way that I didn't know I was capable of. Mulder and I have been together for the last five years, putting our lives and our souls and our blood into our work, and despite that, he was in there with *her*, not me. After that moment I had sat there in that car and felt the ache as it radiated through my chest and blossomed down into my arms and legs. So it's not that I haven't thought about it. I've thought about it plenty. Recently, even. But it's not what would be considered normal. You would think that if I wanted my partner in a very unpartner-like way, I would fantasize about him. That I would masturbate while thinking of him making love to me. Not true. Not in my case, anyhow. I have never fantasized about Mulder. OK, well, maybe that's not entirely true. I've fantasized about him a few times. I haven't masturbated while thinking of him. I've masturbated and thought of anyone *but* him, trying desperately to erase his image from my mind. Most of the time, I'm successful. But afterwards, once my body is done heaving and groaning from the orgasm, Mulder is all I can think about. I shake my head in shame that I tried to block him out of my mind when I knew he was the only one there in the first place. Mostly, I'm just satisfied with whatever it is that we have together. The meaningful looks from across the room that I know are reserved just for me. The occasional physical contact. The emotional connection that we seem to share. I don't build fantasies from any of that. I just enjoy it. I've never thought that someday Mulder and I would do anything about the obvious sexual attraction that exists between us. I never thought that someday would be this night. "Scully." Mulder's voice brings me back to the present. "I'm here." "I've thought about you...sometimes..." he begins awkwardly, his hands leaving my shoulders and moving up to gently touch my neck with his fingertips. The small fine hairs there rise from his touch and it takes everything in my power not to react. I keep my eyes open, wide open, so that I can watch him, so that I can not be affected by what his touch is doing to me. "Mulder," I caution him. "You shouldn't say that. You shouldn't." "Why not?" he asks. "Everything else is gone. Destroyed. Why shouldn't I say it?" I look at him, shocked for a moment. "Sort of as if we were the last two people on earth and you might as well have me because there's no one else left?" His hands leave my body abruptly and he shakes his head, hurt twisting his features. "No, Scully. It's not like that. Not at all. What I meant was that there was always something standing in our way. Someone who would find out. Someone who could use the information against us. Now, nothing matters. I don't care if anyone knows. I don't give a shit if the entire fucking world knows how much I want you." I know my eyes are wide, but I can't say anything. It's not like he's just promised to marry me and love me forever, but then again, Mulder knows that's not what I would ever want to hear. "Jesus, Scully, there's always been some reason not to tell you. If it wasn't fear of discovery, it was my own stupid fear of rejection. Or--" "Rejection?" I cut in, incredulous. "You're afraid I was going to reject you?" His head bobs up and down. "Mulder, I know I often seem to object to your decisions and your opinions. But I would *never* reject you. Not about this. Not about anything." Now it's his turn to look surprised. "Mulder, your life has become mine. Your quest has become ours. Your search, as much as it's cost me," and at this I pause to swallow back tears, "is no longer just your own." Mulder reaches for me and practically pulls me up from the floor and into his lap. His arms go around me and hold me tightly. My face over his shoulder, I allow a few tears to fall as I ignore the awkward position we are in and instead revel in the feel of his body this close to mine. He is kissing my neck, my ear, my hair, all the while murmuring my name through his own tears. Finally, his hands tangled in my hair, his mouth comes to rest on mine, where my lips seek his with their own urgency. I never imagined what his mouth would feel like, so the heat and the overwhelming force of his need surprises me. I don't have any trouble reciprocating, however. My lips cling to his as we kiss hungrily, tasting each other, devouring each other. His hands are already skimming over my shoulders and my breasts. He wastes no time reaching for my breasts, his hands cupping them, his thumbs moving roughly over my nipples, causing them to harden instantly. The sensation floods through me and I gasp his name into his mouth as he continue to tease them, making them into sharp points, causing me to feel nothing but need and an immediate rush of wetness between my legs. We shift awkwardly due to the position we are in, and soon he is laying across the couch again, and I am straddling him, my legs tucked on either side of his hips. I have to lean down to kiss him now, and in doing so I rock against his cock, already hard and straining against his jeans. He moans low in his throat. It's all happening so fast but I don't care, and Mulder doesn't seem to mind the pace either. My hands slip under the gray t-shirt he's wearing and I smooth my hands across his chest. I find his nipples and tease them with my fingertips briefly. What I want is lower, and my hands move there and undo his jeans. We struggle to get them off, pulling and groaning together, and his boxers end up coming off with the jeans, his cock springing free, and we both reach to pull our shirts off our bodies. He manages to get his t-shirt off first, and then I pull mine off, tossing it onto the rapidly growing pile of clothes on the floor beside the couch. I reach behind me for the clasp on my bra and lower my eyes demurely as I remove it. I know that Mulder is taking in the sight of me topless, knowing that he likes what he sees. He reaches for one breast and pulls it towards him, the nipple going right into his mouth while his fingers again tease the other one. I gasp and momentarily forget that I'm still half-dressed. I pull back from him, and he helps me with my own pants, pulling them off hastily, carelessly, and I throw them overboard as well. I'm clad only in panties now and I reach to remove them, but Mulder pulls me on top of him instead, his hands caressing the skin on my back, along my spine, somehow managing to tug on the waistband of the panties and pull them down. I kick them away. And then we are skin to skin, and I can feel his breathing as my body rises and falls jerkily over his, and I can feel his cock pressing insistently against my thigh. We both pause, my breath warm and moist on Mulder's neck. "Scully," he gasps, "if you're going to bail out, now would be a good time." "I'm not bailing," I whisper back to him, placing a light kiss on his jaw. "Thank God," he breathes, and we both smile. Then, just as I think he is going to slip inside me, I feel his hands on my hips, lifting me. He wants to me to sit up, and I move to oblige him. But he continues to move me, to twist me. I'm about to ask what he's doing when I end up on my back, his cock now planted firmly against the small of my back and the small space between my buttocks. Oh, Jesus. "Move down, Scully," he says softly, and I do. His cock is now twitching at my entrance, his hand somehow squeezes between our bodies, and he is inside me. I have no choice but to sit up at that moment, facing the opposite wall, unable to see Mulder save for his thighs and his feet. And I know exactly why he is doing this. It is a test, of sorts. Do I trust him? Do I really, really trust him enough to make love to him for the first time without being able to see him? Part of me curses his selfishness, wishing that the first time could have been more intimate, more face-to-face, damn it. Of course I trust him. Why does he have to test me like this? I return my focus to him inside me. It's hard to ignore. His hands are on my breasts again, and I can see them; they look as if they are unattached to anything or anybody. One hand slips between my legs and his fingers go right for my clitoris. I'm so wet that I feel as if he's going to slip out of me, and I moan loudly and clutch at him with my inner muscles at the same time. I can't do this. Not this way. "Mulder," I groan. "Jesus, Mulder, I can't see you." "God, Scully," he gasps. "I'm sorry." He slips out of me and I almost moan again from the loss of him. Again, we shift positions so that I am now on my back beneath him, and he is facing me. I reach for him this time and pull him back to my body, and he thrusts deep, entering me forcefully. "Wait," I gasp. "I'm sorry," he murmurs again, leaning down and kissing my hairline. "I didn't realize...it's just that I...God, I want you so much." I relax, inexplicably moved, and enjoy the feel of his body inside me. Jesus, *inside* me. He's already started moving in me, slowly, smoothly, and his strokes are slow and even. "Mulder." I say his name only once, with no intention of saying anything more. I can't think of anything more to say, except to tell him how much I love him, which is something I want to save for later. "I know, Scully," he says, smiling down at me. He's smiling. I make a mental note that this is what it takes to get Mulder to smile in the face of adversity. His strokes are faster now, but still evenly measured. His words are short and clipped as his breathing speeds up. I nod, unable to speak. The sight of him making love is something that I want to memorize. I'm not blessed with the eidetic memory that Mulder has, and as a result I have to work harder to remember things. I'm pretty damn good at it, though, and I think that this particular event is something I'm not ever going to forget. He's sped up considerably now, and I can hear the slapping of our bodies. I realize that I'm gasping, and although I've never had much luck with orgasm in this particular sexual position, I realize with a thrill that my body is reacting sharply to each thrust he makes. He reaches down and pulls up my legs, allowing him to thrust deeper, and I moan, closing my eyes. "Scully, please, open your eyes...I want to see you...when you come." "Mulder," I gasp, "I don't think I'm ready..." But my body is ready, much faster than I thought possible. "Oh, God, Mulder." I realize that it's happening, and that he knows it, and that despite my previous lack of success with the missionary position, this is going to be the exception. "Oh, GOD!" I scream, my hands clawing at Mulder's back, the orgasm ripping through me. Mulder sees it and feels it as my muscles clamp down around his cock, and he begins to groan louder. I struggle to keep my eyes open -- Mulder's not the only one who wants to watch. Mulder's body shudders and jerks against mine as my orgasm begins to lose its intensity, although I'm still feeling spasms of it ripple through my already sensitive tissues as he comes, crying out, my name on his lips as he does. He falls against my chest, and we are both breathing heavily, not speaking for long moments. Finally he lifts his head and kisses me softly, tenderly. "Scully," he murmurs against my lips, "this has to be the most unbelievable day I've *ever* had." "Mulder, no matter what happens, we have this. We have each other, as crazy as it sounds." "Everything else is crazy. Not this," he assures me. I love you, Mulder, I think to myself as he kisses me again. I mouth the words silently against his lips. I have no idea where we're going. I have no idea what we're going to do. Life is unfair. But what I said was true. When things are unfair, the struggle is not to get through them, but to give them meaning. Somehow that's what we're going to do. Together, as always. From this night forward, together more than ever before. END ****************************************** "I'm standing on the edge of common sense here." --Dana Scully, The X-Files