From: Georgia <stylus@interlog.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 23:29:04 -0500
Subject: Being There by GeoX
Source: direct

Title:  Being There

Author:  GeoX

E-mail:  stylus@interlog.com

Classification:  Vignette/MSR

Rating:  PG-13 [mild sexual content]

Comments: PRE-Episode [Sein und Zeit] vignette.
Spoilers real and imagined.

Distribution:  Anywhere, just keep my name and e-mail
address attached.

Disclaimer:  If only they WERE mine, I'd give them sweeps
ratings.  They're not, sigh, so no copyright infringement
intended.

Thanks to Beta Readers Rebe, Eliza, Jellybean and Mystfire.


BEING THERE

Somewhere, a window is open.
The room is cold.

As I sit up to get my bearings, I feel a breeze stroke my skin,
flowing heavy and cool like melting ice cream.  Goose bumps rise
along the naked flesh of my arms, back, breasts.I settle back
into the warmth of the comforter, my senses assaulted with the
evidence of what is now just beginning to focus in my
sleep-fogged consciousness.

As the sun begins to rise, there beside me in bed, lies my
partner.  Even the gilded touch of dawn can not erase from his
face the stains of a thousand tears shed.  A pain so deep that
even in sleep he does not look peaceful.

I hear his laboured breathing, inhale the scent of our bodies,
and, as I drop my head to my hands I wonder...what have we done?

Lost in distant dreams, a tear falls from one eye, drawing a
path down his cheek to his lower lip.  Shall I kiss this tear
away?  As I did last night?  When he looked into my eyes and
asked me to stay...

"Please Scully," he had whispered, "you're all I have left".
And he looked at that moment like the agony of his mother's
death could shatter him into a million pieces.

Sometimes my thoughts are like so many autopsies; slice this
emotion, weigh this action.  Even a New Year's kiss couldn't
be savoured for more than a few seconds.  Our tiny, perfect
dream crushed by what I perceived to be the weight of the world
returning to my shoulders.  The look of disappointment on
Mulder's face as my smile faded into an uncertain melancholy
tore at my heart, but I remained unable to reassure him.  I was
unwilling to step away from the ties that bound me to a fear of
crossing a line we had held fast to for so long.

Last night, I didn't think.  I didn't dissect the situation,
slipping instead away from the ragged edge of my composure to
take him in my arms, support his aching sobs, feel the weight
of his soul pressing heavily against me. The intensity of his
grief matched only by an ache deep inside me, opening and
rising from the flames of my strangled desire.

The tears flowed and I had kissed them away.  Each eye, right
cheek, left cheek.  And as they fell into his mouth and he drank
them in, I kissed his lips, tasting the salty liquid.

When his tears were gone, a rush of anger spilled out, drowning
my heart until I could barely breathe.  I accepted his searing
words and held fast to the truth.

He took me by the shoulders and shook me, desperate denial
increasing his power ten-fold, and I held fast to my trust.

In the end, exhausted and spent, he came back to me, raising his
head from my shoulder and opening the last door to his soul.
There, no longer buried beneath a lifetime of guilt and pain, lay
a glowing ember of desire, crackling to life.  He ushered me to
it, urging me to feel its radiant heat.

I wished in that instant to step into a parallel universe, to
move outside myself and know the freedom of a night lost on the
wings of passion's flight.  And my wish was held up to me in the
mirror of Mulder's eyes as he led me to the bedroom.

He let me pass ahead of him into the room.  As I stopped and
turned I found him a few feet behind me leaning hesitantly
on the door frame.

And there we stood, the three feet between us a chasm of seven
years of guarded emotions, restrained passion.

"Scully........can I ....touch you?" he whispered, so quietly I
almost missed it.  In the soft light he looked haunted by his
grief, but so beautiful.

Unable to think of anything to say, I held out my hand, bridging
the distance between us.  He caressed my cheek and called my
name.  "Dana", he had said. "Dana", as he had called me for the
first time in comfort at my own father's death. He knows that I
understand his pain.  We have faced so many losses together.

"Fox," I answered, the name strange on my tongue.  "Mulder," I
said, shaking my head gently.  A small smile lifted the corners
of his mouth as his thumb stroked the soft skin just in front of
my ear.  The gentle movement reminding me of a conversation in a
hallway not too long ago.  What would have happened, I wonder
fleetingly, if there had been no bee?

Perhaps sensing my thoughts, he slid his hand to the back of my
neck and drew my mouth to his.  He moved gently, purposefully,
but he was not insistent.  It was clear he was going to move at
my pace, chivalrously waiting for me to back out, reconsider.  I
opened my mouth to him, wanting him to know I felt no hesitation,
had no doubt.

We kissed and withdrew, and kissed agin. Over and over we met in
gentle experiments of angle and pressure, caught in the rapture
of this new intimacy.  I invited his tongue into my mouth and he
answered hungrily, sealing our mouths together, driving deeper.

Something in him pulled at my blood, and suddenly kissing was not
enough. I took his hand in mine and placed it over my breast,
letting him feel my heart pounding in my chest.  We stood this
way for a moment until he moved his hand, brushing his thumb
across my nipple in a movement that made me gasp and pull back to
look in his eyes.

"Scully..." he said, "are you sure?" his voice was patient but
his eyes were dark and liquid with an intensity I'd never seen
before.

My hands moved up to unbutton his shirt.  Brushing it aside I
trailed my fingertips down his chest, gliding over the warm skin
and soft hair.

"Mulder......so sure..." I said breathlessly as I leaned in and
trailed my lips along the flesh of his neck , flicking my tongue
out to taste him.

I felt his hands go to the fastenings of my blouse.  Were they
trembling?  I stepped back and met his gaze.  "Let me," I
offered, slowly revealing myself to him.  He removed the last of
his clothes and finally we stood alone, naked to each other in
every way.

Now in the dim light of the morning, I lift my head from my hands
to see that he is awake, quietly watching me.  He reaches out to
me and I let myself fall back into his arms.

In the breathless instant before our mutual release, our eyes
meet.  And there is no desperation, no regret.

Only the unrelenting truth of our existence for only each other.

END
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