From: Nicola Simpson Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 12:03:19 -0700 (MST) Subject: NEW: The Body's Rest (1/1) Source: direct TITLE: The Body's Rest (1/1) AUTHOR: Nicola Simpson E-MAIL: nsimpson@ualberta.ca RATING: R (language, disturbing imagery) KEYWORDS: S, A, UST SPOILERS: None SUMMARY: You can't spell trust without UST DISCLAIMER: The characters herein are the intellectual property of Chris Carter and Fox Television; no copyright infringement intended. DISTRIBUTION: Ephemeral. I will send to Gossamer and Spookys. All other interested archivists please ask. NOTES: The fifth and final part of a series, after "The Body's Guest" "The Body's Jest" "The Body's Test" "The Body's Best" More notes at the end of the story. The Body's Rest By Nicola Simpson Where entity and quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly. -Samuel Butler I lost all interest in the naked, headless body in front of me, and turned my gaze on Scully instead. Seeing the icy anger in her eyes, I nearly regretted my decision. She was leaving me? "I don't understand," I said. "You want me to choose between you and you?" It didn't make sense. It was irrational, emotional, illogical--in short, completely unlike Scully. But the woman in front of me with sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes wasn't the Scully I remembered. She sighed heavily, her breath flowing over Jane's body until it was merely a trickle of air brushing up against my face. If Jane had been alive, she'd have been covered in goosebumps. I almost expected to see Scully's breath frozen in mid-air, hovering there like in a cartoon until it shattered into icicles around her feet. Then I remembered something else she'd said. "You think I'm a good kisser?" The smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and that was where I wanted to see it most. "Trust you to latch on to the least important part of my little speech." What could I say? I was a guy. Feelings were obscure. Moist, rosy lips sucking the spit from between my teeth were the here and now. I shook my head. "I'm confused." "Oh, Mulder." Her voice broke. "You always are. Let me give you the scientific explanation, okay?" I nodded. Finally, the Scully I recognized. She leaned over the body. "You're breaking my heart." I couldn't help it. My eyebrow raised even as my stomach turned inside out. "*That's* the scientific explanation?" My head tilted to the side. "Which ventricle?" I joked feebly. She stepped back, her lips twitching. "You don't need me anymore, Mulder. You never have." "How can you say that?" I said, horrified. "You're the only thing that's kept me going all these years." "No." Scully jerked her chin towards the nude body on the table. "She is. A faceless stranger, wrapped in mystery, stained with secrets. Always out there, somewhere." She looked so damn tired when she turned away, her voice barely in competition with the whine of the air conditioner. "Your quest for Samantha, the truth...me--it's all this body here." Now I *really* didn't understand, but I nodded even though her back was turned to me. She shoved her hair behind her ears as she pivoted on one heel to face me again, her eyes suspiciously bright. Shit. How many more ways could I hurt this woman, even without saying a word? "How can I give you answers when you don't ask the questions anymore?" she demanded. "I'm back, Mulder, but you're holding hands with a dead body in the morgue instead of avenging my... well, whatever happened to me." I felt a guilty flush rise in my face and stared at my hands, wondering if Scully had seen me touch Jane before she made her presence known. Not only was I a first class asshole, I was also just a little bit sick. I'd only trailed my knuckles along her side, just to see how cold she was. Just to remind myself of the warm body my hands had moved over the night before. Knotting my fingers together, I looked up at her. "Do you want vengeance?" She never had before. Sure, she'd wanted the truth, but she'd never really asked me to go out and hunt evil down. I just did it anyway. "Yes, damn it! I want you to be enraged, to promise me you'll find out what they did to me. Tell me it means something to you, Mulder. Tell me *I* do." Her eyes pleaded with me in a way her words couldn't. "I told you once that personal interest was all I had left. But it's a two-way street." I rose from the chair, my knees popping underneath me, reminding me of encroaching age and battles past. "Scully, I--" My mouth hung open, and I frowned. How do you tell someone she's your life without sounding like a Hallmark card? Or a psycho? "I can't live without you," I said hoarsely. She gave me a watery smile, but mercifully it didn't extend to a laugh as she shook her head. "Mulder, this isn't living." "So you're leaving me." She wasn't even going to stay and fight? Her gaze shifted to the polished steel drawers. I could barely see her reflection in them--her hair was bright, but her face distorted and fuzzy. Her lips pursed, and she stalked out the door, her hands shoved in her pockets. She really *was* leaving me. I caught up with her in the hallway, but she hadn't gone far. She smiled at the panic on my face, the fluorescent light catching in the wrinkles around her mouth. "Relax, Mulder, I didn't mean *now*. I just didn't want to have this conversation over a dead body. It's...disrespectful." "To who?" Fixing me with a reproachful look, she shook her head. "The body." Had I so retreated into my own guilt and self-loathing that I hadn't considered it? I'd never considered Jane to be an intruder until now, nor an unwilling eavesdropper. Scully was right, but the hallway was just as cold as the storage room. No wonder she was trembling. "So what happens now?" I asked. "I get you a cake and throw you a going away party?" I tried to rein in the words, but couldn't control the smirk. "Not everything is about you, Mulder. I...I could stay without your..." Her brows drew together, and I wished I could hear the words tumbling through her head as she tested them out. "...devotion. But I won't stay without your trust." *Devotion.* I wondered which words she'd discarded before landing on that one. I watched her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, and followed the movement in her pale throat as she swallowed. "Did you even look for me, Mulder?" I froze. Was this a rhetorical question? I remembered lying in bed every night, wondering where she was. Daily I had to wipe the sweat from my face when I imagined the sound of her heels clicking on the floor outside the office. Every week there were new things I wanted to tell her, new questions I wanted to ask her. And instead I sat in the dark on my couch, wishing I'd at least gotten a warm dog instead of those stupid fish. But had I looked for her? No, I'd waited for her to be returned to me. I'd given up the fight, and simply sat back and let all the regrets wash over me. But I didn't do one goddamn thing about them. Until now. "Scully--" I stalked towards her and wrapped my fingers around her wrists, dragging her to me. "God, I'm so sorry. I was so afraid..." Her breath was warm on my chin as she looked up at me, but she didn't pull away. "But you're not afraid now?" "I have you back. What could I be afraid of?" As her eyes narrowed, I bumbled on. "Look, I know you can kick my ass from here until the Fourth of July, and you probably will. I know you're tired of sacrificing yourself for my cause, and I'm so fucking sorry you've had to. But if you leave me now, it *will* all be for nothing." Something died in her eyes. I pulled her closer. If I'd wanted to, I could slip my hands inside her coat and circle her waist, feel the warm skin stretched over her spine. If I--if *she* wanted me to. But I couldn't see past the clouds in her eyes, so my grip tightened around her wrists, and I brought them up between our bodies. She looked down at our twisted hands, and her forehead rested on them. "Mulder, I've tried to leave you so many times. I--I can't," she admitted to the shelter of her palms as I held them up. Was I a selfish sonofabitch to be grateful for it? "It doesn't make you weak," I told her. "It makes you human." "Or masochistic," she said wryly. "No, masochistic is spending the first night of the rest of your life playing patty-cake in the morgue." She smiled at that, and it was like sunshine beating down on my head. "I need you, Scully. More than anything. If only because you *will* kick my ass from here until the Fourth of July." "Hey, I'm not working the holiday again," she warned. Was I forgiven? My hands roamed up her arms, over the curve of her neck until I felt her pulse thrumming against my fingertips. Her eyes darkened, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips. "Mulder..." "I have half a mind to kiss you right now," I said with forced casualness. I learned a long time ago in a Bermuda hospital room that sincerity didn't always win out in the end. Her eyebrow shot up, and I fought the urge to follow its path up her forehead with my lips. "Half a mind might be overstating your assets. And it wouldn't solve anything." "Ah, but you said I'd stopped asking questions. If I asked you now, would you give me the answers?" "I--I guess it would depend on the question." The pad of my thumb stroked the soft skin just below her jaw. "Am I a complete jerk?" "Yes." Her eyes closed as I followed my thumb with my nose, nudging her softly. "Why is it so cold in here?" I murmured against her neck. "Um, to keep the bodies from decomposing more rapidly." I nodded. "You were right before. I didn't look for you," I confessed. "It was too hard." She glanced over my shoulder at the door to the storage room. "Were you afraid of this, of finding me like her?" "I was afraid of never finding you at all. I thought that if I just waited, if I didn't piss anyone off, maybe you'd come home sooner. If they knew they'd gotten to me, they wouldn't have any reason to give you back." "So you're not a paranoid, mistrustful, unfeeling bastard?" Only my Scully could say that and make it sound like a compliment. "No, I'm a paranoid, mistrustful, heartbroken bastard." She snorted, her sympathy obviously paper thin. "Heartbroken? It's hard to believe you could get over yourself enough to let someone else hurt you. You're your own worst enemy." It stung more than I thought it would. "No, Scully, you are, because you show me what a selfish asshole I am. Because you're leaving me for it. You're telling me you don't care enough to work at this anymore, and that hurts." She hesitated, and I waited, breathless, for her reassurance. "Get your head out of your ass, Mulder." Apparently an apology wasn't forthcoming. "You are a selfish and arrogant asshole, and for the last seven years I've been okay with that. But frankly, I'm a little tired of it, and it's not my fault you don't trust me anymore. Only you can fix that, if you want to." I wanted to. Oh god, I wanted to. "But I do trust you, Scully. I really do. I know I stumbled over that trust today, and last night, but it's my responsibility, not yours." "You didn't stumble, Mulder. You stomped it into the ground. And if you ever do it again, I *will* kick your ass. Then you'll be buying that cake. And big red balloons to go with it." I smiled as I felt her heart rate sped up. "Can you find a way to forgive me?" Gently, she pulled away, our chins colliding as she tilted her head back to look up at me. "I can always find ways, Mulder. Now I just have to find reasons." As I watched the firm set of her mouth and the wariness in her eyes, I knew that I'd spend the rest of my life giving them to her. And I already had at least eighty days to catch up on. I could live with that. THE END My thanks to everyone who's sent me feedback on this expedition, good and bad. It wasn't supposed to be a series, but you people are hard to satisfy! And I appreciate the hell out of every single one of you. My biggest thanks go to Leslie, who read more into this story than I'd intended. She made me try harder. I had increasing difficulties writing each part of this series. As Mulder became more and more withdrawn, I realized he might not be redeemable in the context of this story. When I discussed this with my beta, it occurred to me that the Mulder I was writing was the *show* Mulder, not the generous and tender Mulder we've come to admire and even love in fanfic. So while Mulderists may not like this series, I still think it's a worthwhile exploration of his character. More than that, though this story is in Mulder's POV, it's really about Scully's journey--a journey to independence, to self-love, to cutting her losses. With regards to the quote at the beginning of this part... quiddity: 1. the real nature or essence of a thing; that which makes a thing what it is; something intangible. 2. a subtlety or captious nicety in argument; a quirk, quibble. (OED) Thanks again, and I promise my next story will be smut.