TITLE: Here AUTHOR: Jess Mabe EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@mindspring.com DISCLAIMER: We all know who they really belong to... ME DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know. SPOILER WARNING: There be dragons... Here be spoilers for "all things" RATING: NC-17, of course. When I smutify, I smutify. CONTENT WARNING: Spoilers! They're everywhere these days CLASSIFICATION: Warm, steamy cups of liquid smut, sweetened with honey and other natural flavors SUMMARY: Take a wild guess. Visit my site for all my fiction, lovingly archived by Galia: http://galias.webprovider.com/Jess/jess.htm Then visit Galia's site for more great fiction! http://galias.webprovider.com/visions.html AUTHOR'S NOTES: Wait, bandwagon! Come back! I want to jump on! Email me, I'm leaving a trail of paper breadcrumbs so I can find my way back to my sanity. I think I parked it over by my car... * * * * Scully sleeps, her face slack after what must have been a difficult confession, though it came disguised in the form of a confidence spoken to a friend. Now that I have tucked her in, so to speak, I don't want to just get up and go to sleep in my own bed. Certainly, in some romantic novel, I would sit here and watch her face as she dreams, but I am not a patient man, and I 've always found that sort of obsession a bit creepy. Spooky I may be, but I hope creepy, never. It amazes me, the changes we have undergone in the last year. I say we for the first time tonight, because it was not until tonight that I felt I could fully include Scully in this monumental shift. Certainly, her belief system had been shaken before, and I have seen her struggle to right it before she moved on in much the same way she straightens those lovely tight shirts she' s taken to wearing, when she first stands up. And straighten they do. But tonight, something in Scully was not shaken so much as upended, overturned and spun around. And when that happens, the force of movement makes you to strip away the ballast you have added to keep yourself steady and true to your chosen path. I believe that Scully has finally cut the lines to her fear and guilt and let them go, right over the side. Thank God, wherever she happens to find Him. When I felt I had the answer to Sam's... not so much her disappearance, which is still wholly unexplained, but to her life, it was remarkable the difference in my own sense of need. Gone was the fear that in bringing Scully close to me, I would taint her with my own inability to save those I love; the fear of letting her drown while I stood by, unable to move. I knew then what those around me had been attempting to explain to me since the event itself: a child cannot save another child from the destructive power of the adult world. Sam was saved, but it took a power beyond life itself to wrench her out of Cancer Man's grip. I was free, in the sense that I knew I had done what I could. And it was enough. But Scully still lingered in some nameless place of fear and denial. I couldn't have put my finger on it then, saying perhaps that she feared me. It wouldn't have seemed unreasonable to me to suggest that perhaps she was both attracted to me and repelled precisely because she craved and hated the loss of control inherent in any relationship with someone as driven as myself. That's it, I would have said. She doesn't want to lose herself in me. Now I know that wasn't it at all. Scully has never feared losing herself to a man. She has admired, and loved, many men as forceful in personality as I am. Her father, Jack Willis, and now this man, this doctor. And she has defied them, each of them, in her own way. When they insisted that she do as they wished, she shook her head and pursued her own path. They were simply too inflexible to follow. I know all too well how easily I can push Scully to the edge of that carefully drawn line of control. And I know that unlike her previous lovers or fathers, I have no great pride. I would, and have, willingly followed her to the ends of the earth rather than lose her. Should she have chosen, that day in the hallway, to leave the Bureau, I would have dropped the X-Files like a hot fish until I could either have brought her back, or found a way to have them both. All right, so I do have some pride, some stubbornness. I suspect that she likes me that way. No, what Scully has feared, all along, was herself. Her fear, and hence her guilt, must have taken on quite an addition in the last few days. Suddenly she knew that while she had tried to extract herself from a situation before she hurt those around her, she had failed, miserably. What a shock that must have been to her reasonable and conscious little soul. A woman who prides herself on her ability to detach emotionally is forced, for the first time, to acknowledge that in remaining distant, she has failed to see the damage she has already done, up close and gory. How, she must have asked, wounded and vulnerable, do I know I won't do it again? Then comes the horrible realization that she may have already begun the same process, allowing herself to close a bit of distance between this man and herself. Could she back away in time? Or was the answer not to run, but to face her desire head-on? To examine it and give in to it long enough to provide herself, and him, with some comfort. So she calls in the healer, she lets herself need and want and hope. And lo and behold, something wonderful happens. She has given of herself, and it hasn't made things worse. In fact, it seems to have made things better. She has found a certain peace in this allowance of need, as has the daughter, and eventually, so will the friend. It must have occurred to her at some point, perhaps in that dark time when she thought her friend would die, that she had done the best she could and that it was enough. I know the power of this relief, the strength that has lain dormant beneath the weight of burden. That, however, is where the similarity between our journeys of discovery ends. There is another fear, one peculiar to Scully, to my friend. She fears, not so much the future, but the past. What have I done, she wonders, in striking out for my own desires? This is the legacy, no doubt, of her upbringing. Maggie Scully is a strong woman, but in the end, she deferred, no matter how painful it may have been, to the needs of her husband. Into this world of traditional values is born a little girl with a will that continues to astound me with its ferocity. Is it their fault that the Scully girls wanted as much as the boys? Could it have been made easier for them? Maybe. Certainly Samantha, had she lived, would have had the same struggle in my own family. In choosing for herself, in ignoring the advice of someone older and, ostensibly, wiser, had she brought the pain of her life onto herself? I think this is what Scully struggled with, in that temple. When do we take responsibility for our own choices and say: you know what? This isn't the life that was envisioned for me, but no one, not even the old and wise, can see into our futures and predict what course will serve us best. We must accept where we are. That she had made this startling realization is what she was trying to tell me on that couch. And I, like the idiot I am, thought she was still filled with regret. How was I, after seven years of watching her second-guess the decisions that brought her to me, supposed to absorb in just a few minutes that Scully had decided to be happy with what she had? It was about as plausible to me as star-lit visitations must have been to her. Who knew we could still confound each other? I suppose I did. And now she's asleep and I have, once again, missed the opportunity to tell her that I understand her now. We are in the same place, she and I, and for once in our lives, it's the present. She shifts next to me, her head on my shoulder, and I am aware of my own exhaustion. I've been travelling a lot the last few days and those long flights are a bitch, despite the perky stewardesses. I thought I had missed England, and was, to be honest, looking forward to showing off my knowledge to Scully. How appropriate then that I have made my visit alone and returned to this, to the woman I am in love with leaning gently against me, at peace with our place here. I lower her onto the couch and tuck her small feet up beneath the blanket. She sleeps on, oblivious to my own epiphanies. I brush my teeth and slip into my flannel pajama bottoms, content to crawl into my cold bed alone, for tonight. Of course, I can't actually sleep. My mind races over the same territory it has so thoroughly covered in the living room. We are free, we two. What does that mean, in its entirety? I have no answers, without her warm voice and body leaning next to mine. I am drifting in and out of sleep when I hear her entering my room. She sits gingerly on the edge of the bed and waits there, wondering if I will wake or if she should, as I know she's thinking of doing, just go home. "I'm awake," I say quietly and she jumps. I should tell her: I'm awake and aware. What a difference this could make, but I don't say it. "I was just going to head home," she says softly. "Sorry for keeping you up like that." When I don't reply, we both sit silently, watching each other in the easy half-light from the street lamp outside my window. Finally, I start to touch her arm and tell her to go. I must be reaching right through her thoughts tonight, because she is again startled by me. Her hand goes up, reflexively, and surprisingly, I am not offended. Instead, I match the tips of my fingers to hers and fold our hands together. She looks away, and I cannot read her face, but clearly I have touched a nerve. Her eyes water, though I can't quite call this moisture tears, and she clears her throat. "It's been a long day," she says at last. I ignore this, because we've had longer, certainly and it isn't the issue. "Stay with me tonight," I ask, watching her for signs that I am moving too quickly. Just because someone has had a realization, I know, doesn't mean they're ready to act upon it. I hold her gaze when she looks up. I want her to know what I'm asking, exactly. We have slept in the same bed before, in chaste kinship. That isn't what I desire now, not that it was then, either. But tonight there will be no half-answers. Yes or no, Scully. She doesn't answer, but she doesn't look away either. Finally, I give her arm a small tug and she leans down. At first I think she will kiss me, but she doesn't. Her head comes to rest on my chest, and when I touch the top of her hair to comfort her, I hear a small gasp, as if she is trying not to weep. This isn't exactly the answer I was looking for. In fact, right now, I 'm not sure that I haven't received a "maybe" or even a "not yet". After a moment, she sits up again, pushing her hair back from her face, and I see she is smiling through what are now officially tears. "You aren't in pain anymore, are you?" she asks, her hand still clutching mine. This seems to be important to her answer, so I am truthful. "Not really," I say. "Not any more than anyone else." I guess I've said the right thing. Leaning down slowly, she meets her lips to mine and sighs against my waiting mouth. I let her rest there for a moment, then I let go of her hand and thread my hands through the hair behind her ears. It's soft and surprisingly warm. When I open my mouth, she lets me guide her forward until we are kissing heavily. Then I let go of her head. It was, after all, merely a suggestion. We are leisurely in our kisses, as two people are in the middle of the night when they both know that they won't talk about it in the morning but that it will still be there, changing everything and nothing at the same time. Scully rises again, this time reaching for the bottom of her shirt. So now I have my answer, and I want to stand up and cheer for her. She has said yes. Perhaps, tomorrow, we will question all of this, but for now, we have said yes, and it is a lovely, meaningful world. I still her hand and shake my head. She is watching me, probably convincing herself that I'm about to reject her. She hasn't heard my answer, at least, not out loud. Instead I indulge in a fantasy. Why not, now that we are free? I place my large hand over the curve of her breasts, the bare skin above her skimpy tight shirt. God, how long have I wanted to touch her there? Her breast, not just a sexual symbol to me in this moment, but the place where her heart beats rapidly, where her breaths rise and fall, where she truly lives, in all senses of the word. The skin is cool and rough with excitement, with arousal. She has gooseflesh, my Scully, and it is beautiful to the touch, braille for her own desire. When I remove my hand and lower my lips to kiss the soft rise of each breast, her eyes close before I can get there, preparing for the shock. It's just as well we're sitting down. I trace the neckline of her shirt with my mouth, working across and then back up under her tender throat, so often a target of something evil, until I am kissing her mouth again. Her tongue is warm and slick against my own, mimicking the damp slide to come, body within body. She tries to pull the shirt off again, and this time I let her. I have touched her breastbone, her clavicle, places that held a certain mystery for me in times past, when I would catch her bending over a file or when her coat slipped and let me see some sweet sliver of flesh. Now I want what I haven't seen everyday. She wears what is clearly a Wonderbra. And indeed, it is a wonder, pushing up and out that which nature has sensibly decreed will hang with a delicious heaviness, like ripe fruit. I unfasten it and push it roughly away. Science has no place here, not even the science of the vast undergarment industry. She lets her head fall back weakly when I caress her, lifting her breasts and running the sharp tip of my tongue over her skin. We haven't said a word. Pulling her onto my lap, I can feel her skirt rising up as she settles down, and I follow it, tracing her thighs to roughly hold her ass. She's kissing me again, and sure of herself now, she grips my face between her small hands and holds me there, as if I were planning on leaving any time soon. I am kneeling, supplicating myself, barely able to stay upright. Scully straddles me, her naked breasts pressed against my own bare nipples, a rough brush making us both groan. With less ceremony than I would have anticipated, she runs her own hands up her thighs to her waist, lifting the skirt the rest of the way. Her fingers curl through the waistband of both her nylons and her underwear, dragging them a few futile inches before she seems to realize she must stand. I will never stop being astonished at the sight of her rising like a water nymph, sheened with gleaming sweat, her head nearly brushing the ceiling as she strips off the last of her clothing for me. I have seen many naked women, but never anyone who revealed herself with the intensity of Scully, who must know what this means to me. Trust is coming off her pale body in palpable waves. Be Grateful, the waves say to my quivering skin, to my blinking eyes, and I am. I hold her there, as she balances with both hands pressed against the cool mirrored tiles above her head, and I push my face between her soft thighs and my tongue into the wetness I find there. She gasps and spreads her legs further, allowing me greater access. Warm musk reaches my senses and I am lost, with no sense of technique or even of place, only knowing that I must bury myself in this place, in this woman. Fortunately, technique is not on her mind either and she continues to groan as I run the thick flat of my tongue into every space I can reach. When she comes it is not, I realize even at the time, because I am a great lover, but simply because I am. We are. "Wonderful." It is the first word I have said and she smiles down at me, sinking slowly, a flush spread out across her chest and face as if she has been standing looking up at the sun. Pushing me back onto the bed, she watches as I unbend my stiff legs and then pulls my pajamas off from my feet. I catch them as they go, guiding them over my penis without pain. "Mulder," is the first thing she says, and only as she sinks onto me, so wet I am sure we'll both drown. "Mulder." We move slowly, my own hips rising as she lowers herself, creating a rhythm. Of course she is on top, I think vaguely. She always has been. Her thighs tighten around my hips, her knees press against me and I want her, even though I'm already within her. God, I want her so badly. As if she senses this, she slips off of me and pulls me down onto her, allowing me to slip into her as easily as if she were an extension of my own body. And perhaps she is, just as I am the extension of hers. "Wonderful," I say again. I am able to move now, but my need for her is not satisfied. I kiss her, deeply, straining to touch her somewhere that will make this feel real. She raises her legs until I am sheathed so far within her I can feel her dampness against the skin of my groin. Running one hand between us, she touches me with her fingertips each time I rise, as if she can't quite accept this. And then I know what we lack, what holds us apart. I open my eyes and meet her own and I see she knows it too. "I love you," I tell her. She smiles at me, mostly with her eyes, as her mouth is open and panting. I am still grinding into her, rotating my hips slightly to reinforce it. "I love you," she replies and I was right, it is enough. We have done all it is possible for us to do, and though we can't melt into one another, it is enough. I come within her, listening to her moan "wonderful" over and over. I am awake, several hours later, when she rises from my bed and sneaks into the bathroom. Of course I pretend to be asleep. This morning, we must go to work, as if nothing at all has passed between us. I understand that she needs time alone to find herself in the larger us we have created. I also know that at some point in the near future, she won't rise early and leave for her own apartment. That soon this will all be as natural as breathing, and we will start to take it for granted until I remind her of this morning, when she put on her cold and wrinkled clothing and left to find herself. Only to discover, of course, what we both already know. We are inseparable, because we are both finally here. * * * * End.