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        This author's e-mail address has changed to: shalimar@attbi.com
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From: Shalimar <71061.1041@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 29 Apr 96 03:58:14 EDT
Subject: Everything We Couldn't Say...  pt . 1/3

Disclaimer:
The characters of Scully, Mulder and Skinner are property of Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and FOX and are used without
permission.  The characters of Modell, Frank Burst, Holly and Brophy,
and the final scene from the X-files episode Pusher, are property of
Vince Gilligan, and no doubt Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen and FOX.  They
are used without permission but with no intention of infringement.

The rest of the story belongs to me (and I'm using it without my
permission, but hopefully I'll be too busy to sue myself.)

Summary:
This is a "what happened next" kind of story that occurs at the end of the
episode Pusher and contains spoilers from that season three episode.  It's
written in 1st person, so if you don't like 1st person, you won't like this.

Rating:
There are one or two iffy words.  No sex.  But there's a bit of smushy stuff in
parts 2 & 3.  Enough so you won't like it if you're anti-relationship.  Sorry
folks.  It just writes itself.  


"Everything We Couldn't Say With Words"
by Shalimar
71061.1041@compuserve.com
Part 1 / 3  

Mulder:


I stared hard at the bandaged form of the man on the hospital bed.  

I felt numb.  

I couldn't even begin to grasp what had happened this afternoon
between this man and me.  And Scully.  At that moment I heard her
approaching, her high heels making a distinctive clip-clop on the
tiles of the hospital corridor.  I tensed.

I'd been waiting for her--I needed to see her to make sure she was
okay.  But I was scared to death of what I'd see in her face--there
was no way on earth she could be okay.  I turned as she walked in, but
at the last second we managed to just avoid catching each other's
eyes.

She obviously found it easier to look at the man on the bed.

I studied her as she kept her eyes fixed on Modell's still form.  What
were the rules to play a scene where you'd just nearly shot your
partner?  I didn't know.

She spoke first.  "There's no telling how long he'll hang on," she
said.  "But he'll never regain consciousness."

Good.  

Look at me, Scully, I willed silently.  Then caught myself.  Willing
was out.  But just then she looked at me directly for the first time
since it happened.  I searched her eyes.  Her level stare was
noncommittal.  At least she was looking at me.

"You know we thought he was undergoing treatment?"  I said.  "We were
wrong."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice careful, holding only
professional curiosity.

"Read his chart," I said.  "The MRI's were a way to judge how much
life he had left."
 
Her eyes were as blue and cold as a Colorado winter sky.  They held
mine.  No sign of what she was feeling.

Please, Scully.  It's me.

I knew I was begging her with my eyes, but I couldn't help it.  One of
us has to have the balls to say something out loud, Scully.  And I
think it's gotta be you.

"I think it's like you said," I came up with--at last.  "He was always
such a little man. . . .  This was finally something that made him
feel big."

Her eyes considered me.  Was she checking to make sure if in fact it
was me that was the little man?

I wondered.  We turned together to look at the man on the bed.  My
heart sank.  I could feel her retreating from me.  Scully was going to
play it as if nothing had happened.

Suddenly I felt her cool fingers touch my hand, then slip into it.
Relief surged through me with such an amazing impact that it made me
feel like crying.

I squeezed her fingers gently, then found myself gripping them harder,
straining to tell her everything I couldn't say with words.  Forgive
me, Scully.  Say you forgive me.

"I say we don't let him take up another minute of our time," she said,
and gave my fingers a tight clasp in return.  She pulled her hand from
mine, and left.

I took a last long look at the bastard in the hospital bed.  I said
I'd kill you, Modell, for what you made me do to her.  And I did.

I turned and hurried after her.

At the end of the hall I caught up.  "Are we all done here?" I asked.

She nodded.  "Lt. Brophy will contact us if there's anything else.
Let's get out of here."  Her eyes slid sideways to meet mine briefly.
"I'll drive," she said.  "You look like hell."

Wordlessly I surrendered the keys.

*****

I rested my head back against the headrest, my eyes shut against the
headlights of the oncoming cars, but I wasn't asleep.  The events of
the day replayed and replayed in my mind.  I still couldn't believe
I'd marched in there and instantly succumbed to Modell's power.  I'd
been so arrogant, detached, even curious.

So stupid.  Thinking I could take on Modell.  I was a complete fool.
A worthy adversary, Modell had said he'd wanted.  Huh, right.

What really galled me was that I still couldn't figure it out.

Everyone willed other people to do things all the time.  They willed
an attractive woman to look up and catch their eye, or for their mom
to phone them.  Cats willed people to feed them.  But the responses
weren't outside a person's normal behavior.  They weren't doing
something they wouldn't do of their own free will.

But the things Modell had me doing?  Had it been in me to do it?  Had
it been in Frank Burst to kill himself, or for the young SWAT team
member to perform self-immolation?  For Holly to beat up Skinner?
Well, maybe.  But for me to shoot Scully?

No.  No way.  Never.  My own will -- and anything remotely resembling
it -- had been completely and hideously overrun.

The will had been Modell's and Modell's alone.  And I couldn't even
begin to stop him.

The worst part of it was that Modell had somehow known something that
I don't even admit to myself -- about the real secret to my soul.  And
he knew that if he'd managed to make me kill her, my life would be
destroyed--as surely as if I'd shot myself in the head.  Worse.

I opened my eyes to check on her.  She was driving steadily, nothing
to show outwardly that anything was wrong.  But I could tell she was
thinking about what had happened, too.  From the tight way she was
holding her lower lip.

She must have felt my look, because she looked away from the road long
enough to let her gaze travel over me, but she avoided my eyes.  I'd
put my suit jacket and shirt back on, but my clothes felt disgusting
and clammy with dried sweat.  Her glance rested for a second on my
tie--the one she'd given me.  The one with the X's.  Wearing something
she'd given me made me feel infinitesimally better.  But it was small
solace.

Especially since she still hadn't said anything and we were
practically home.

"How do you feel?" she asked suddenly.  Her doctor tone was
practically perfect--except for the hint of tension running through it
she couldn't quite block.

"I'm okay."  I kept my eyes on the headlights glaring off the
pavement.

"No after effects?"

"No . . . ," I trailed off.  "I feel kind of drained."  Actually I
felt empty, exhausted, defeated. . .  I tried to keep my tone even, I
didn't want her sympathy.

There was a moment of quiet.  Scully seemed to be searching for
something to say.

"You were--struggling. . . fighting. . . him pretty hard."  Her tone
echoed my own matter-of-fact one.

Pretty hard.  More like I'd been in the worst
goddamn-knock-down-drag-out fight of my life.  All without moving a
muscle.  Except of course my trigger finger.  Shit.

"You could tell I was fighting him?" I asked, I wasn't sure.  To her
it might have looked as if I was just sitting there.

There was another moment of silence, longer this time, and suddenly
the air in the car was so highly charged, I expected to be able to see
writhing electrons become visible at any moment.  Then her eyes
flashed to mine, wide and full of raw emotion.  For a split second I
saw right to the vulnerable far reaches of her spirit.  Then she
yanked her eyes back to the road.

Oh.  Hell.  I realized my hands were shaking slightly.  I'd never seen
Scully look like that.  I'd hurt her far worse than I'd even imagined.
I could barely breath.

Just let me out right here, Scully, then run over me.

"I could tell," her voice reflected nothing of the pain in her eyes,
but her voice was higher, more like a little girl's.  If she hadn't
been gripping the wheel as if it were her lifeline, I had a feeling
her hands would be shaking, too.

More silence.  I didn't know what to say.

"Why did you go in there without me?" she asked.

I gritted my teeth.

"I thought you'd be safer.  I thought I was stronger than him.  That I
could beat him.  But I wasn't stronger.  I was stupid--overconfident.
I risked your life--everyone in the hospital's lives.  I can't even
begin to forgive myself."

"But you were stronger than him, Mulder," she said.

"No . . . I was . . . resisting him with every ounce of my strength,
of my mind.  But another second and I would have shot you."

She bit her lip.  I could see her eyes were starting to get a little
moist.  "No you wouldn't have."

"I was going to shoot you.  Believe me."

"But you didn't, you gave me a chance to run."

"That strength didn't come from me," I said.  I shook my head.
"Modell won.  He made me mistrust myself.  I'll never be able to trust
myself again."

Scully narrowed her eyes slightly and remained silent.

"Why did you come in there after me?" I asked.

"I saw him in your camera."

"You knew I wouldn't be able to resist him."  How did she see it when
I couldn't?

"I was worried."

"You knew I wasn't strong enough, didn't you."

"Y-es. . .  No.  Yes.  I was worried he would kill you. I didn't stop
to think he would . . ." she dragged in a deep breath and whooshed it
out softly.  "I didn't stop to think he would have you turn the gun on
me."  She didn't look at me.  "But you did know.  You gave me your gun
before you went in."

"Would you have come after me if you'd known?"  I asked.

"Would *you* have come after me?" she asked, and now her voice was
becoming angry.  "Don't you think I know it was worse for you to turn
the gun on me than on yourself?  Ever since it happened I've been
thinking: How would I feel if the situation had been reversed and it
was me under Modell's thumb, holding a gun on you?  Don't think for a
minute I don't know what it was like."

"You--don't--know," I said slowly.  She turned then and looked at me.
I felt her eyes boring into mine, trying to make sense of me.  She
stared at me for so long, that I inadvertently turned to check the
road.

"Hey, you just missed the turn to my apartment," I said.

She looked back at the road, a stubborn expression crossing her face.
She didn't look at me again.

"I'm taking you home with me, I want to make sure you eat something,"
she said.

"At least let me take a shower at my place first."

"You can take one at mine."

We were both quiet for a moment as she turned the car in the direction
of her apartment.

"I'm going to make sure you're okay," she said.

That was rich.  She was the one I was worried about and here she was
taking care of me.

******

Scully showed me into her bathroom.  She was avoiding my eyes again,
her face had that closed expression. The one that a few peple we knew
thought was cold and and bitchy, but I knew it meant she was fighting
showing some strong emotion.

"There's soap, shampoo, towels -- call me if you need anything," she
said.  She flipped on the shower and left.

I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink.  My face looked
greyish.  Dark circles marked the skin under my eyes.  My eyes . . . I
barely recognized them.  The expression in them was battered, wounded.
I stood and stared at myself until the mirror filled with steam and my
face disappeared.

I stripped off my sweaty, stinking clothes.  I dropped them on the
floor.  I never wanted to see them again.  Except the tie, I hung it
over a towel rack.  After coming out of the stranglehold Modell had my
mind in, I'd been soaked with sweat.  For a minute there, after
shooting him, I'd been sure I was going to faint.  I still felt
strange -- empty, almost light-headed.  Like a drowning victim who at
the last moment had been slammed by the waves back onto the beach.

Obviously, I must still be in shock.  What would happen when the
reaction really hit?  I was afraid to think.

I reached into the shower to adjust the temperature and stepped under
the hot spray.  Closing my eyes, I let the water pound on my skin,
concentrating on the hard stream on my back, trying not to see the
picture burned in my mind of Scully's face when I'd turned the gun on
her.  I shuddered.

The scene played itself again in my brain.  Me, pointing the gun at
her.  Her eyes widening with an expression of such sadness in them, it
tore open my heart.


I knew the sadness had been for me, not for herself.  As if in that
second she saw just how deeply Modell had taken over my mind.  Those
eyes were what had stopped me, held me from squeezing that trigger
long enough for her to think of something.

That tiny thread of something that had come to me from Scully's eyes.
Whatever it was -- it had saved us both.

"Scully, run," I whispered.

I lifted the soap from the dish, the soft scent of it reached my nose
and I felt a gentle tugging at my heart.  It always made me happy when
I got close enough to her to catch that particular fragrance on her
skin.

My gaze moved over the other items in the shower.  Her pretty and
feminine bottles of shampoo, botanical bath oils, shaving lotion, her
razor, her loofah sponge.

Abruptly they all took on a strange importance.  These objects that
Scully touched every day of her life had become so close to becoming
merely her possessions, things that somebody would have had to come in
and pack up in a box - -- if she were dead.

If I'd killed her.

Her mom.  That's who'd be doing the packing.  I saw in my mind's eye
the anguished realization dawning on Scully's mom's face when she
found out I'd killed her daughter.

Grief -- too hard to bear -- went through me like an electrical shock.

I turned and rested my forehead against the cool tile wall.  My eyes
were burning.  I shut them tightly to keep back a tear that was trying
to slip out.  It escaped anyway, then another and another until I was
crying freely.  I'd almost killed her.  My God, I'd almost killed
Scully.  A noise rose from my throat that was a cross between a curse
and sob and I slammed my fist against the wall beside my head.

At that moment the bathroom door opened, I froze, gulping back the
tears, hoping she hadn't heard me.

"Here are some dry things to change into," she called.  The door shut
again.

My eyes focused on my hand resting on the tile by my face.  On my
trigger finger there was a red mark--as if the trigger had seared my
flesh.

Oh, Scully.

I leaned against the shower wall for a long time.


end of part 1 / 3


===========================================================================

From: Shalimar <71061.1041@compuserve.com>
Date: 29 Apr 96 04:09:10 EDT
Subject: Everything We Couldn't Say ... -  pt. 2/3

Part 2 / 3
Disclaimer in part 1 / 3
***********************

"Everything We Couldn't Say With Words"l
by Shalimar
71061.1041@compuserve.com
part 2 / 3

Scully:


I heard Mulder open the bathroom door and took a deep breath.  I
looked up at him warily as he came into the kitchen.

My brother's white sweat-pants fit Mulder's graceful long-limbed form
far better than they'd ever fit my brother.  Although maybe they were
slightly tighter across certain. . . um. . . muscles than was Mulder's
usual style.  His hair was damp and tousled from the shower and he'd
borrowed my razor.

My old over-sized turquoise t-shirt turned his eyes a soft
greyish-blue-green.  The expression on his face and in his eyes was so
endearingly uncertain that it made my throat ache.

I swallowed back the tears.  I'd done enough crying already in the
ladies room at the hospital and just now, while he'd been in the
shower.  Oh, God, this was horrible.

"Feel better?" I said.  That was a dumb thing to say, I thought.  How
could he?  But he nodded.

He pointed at his clothes, giving me an almost-Mulderlike look.  "Did
you get a life at some point that you haven't told me about?"

"Me?  Well, come to think of it the T-shirt did belong to an old
boyfriend, but it's mine now, I sleep in it.  The sweats are my
brother Jack's.  I keep trying to remember to give them back when I
see him, but I rarely ever see him anymore."

Argh.  I was babbling.  I wished I hadn't told him about the T-shirt,
he'd gotten a funny unreadable look in his eyes that I didn't want to
be responsible for.  I looked away from those eyes and leaned down to
slide the broiling pan with the steaks into the oven.  "These steaks
have been marinating for two days, I hope they're still okay."

There was something very. . . immediate. . . about Mulder fresh out of
the shower, and it disconcerted me.  Especially tonight, when all our
attention was focused completely on each other.  I could feel every
hair on my body--like a hundred thousand minuscule antennae--all tuned
in to Mulder.  And I was receiving--something.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," said Mulder.

"What?  Oh, the steaks, yes, good."  I tore my eyes from his shoulder
muscles being hugged proprietorially by my T-shirt and watched as he
shifted from one bare foot to the other.

I found myself staring at his feet, I'd never noticed what nice feet
Mulder had--long, elegant and fine-boned.  I'd always had a thing for
nice feet.

What was the matter with me?

"Um, want to make the salad?"  I figured he'd feel better with his
hands busy.  *I'd* feel better with his hands busy, instead of having
him standing there looking at me like he'd just run over my dog.

 "Use whatever you can find that's edible in the fridge."  I inclined
my head at a bottle of wine I'd unearthed from a cupboard.  "Somebody
gave me this bottle of wine--"

"Yes, please.".

I didn't know what to say to him.  In the hospital room I hadn't been
able to say anything, so I'd tried to reassure him with a touch of my
hand.  Sometimes it was the only way I could figure out how to connect
with him.  I wasn't good at kidding around like he was.  I couldn't
always get across what I meant with words.  And today I'd been afraid
to try.

In the car I'd ended up sounding angry, and I really wasn't.
Sometimes I had to get mad to let the words tumble out.  I hadn't
quite defined what it was I felt but it wasn't mad.  Scared to death
maybe, that everything in my world could have changed in an instant.
Scared for him, scared for me, scared for us.  And vulnerable, because
I cared so much.

I wanted to touch him again to reassure myself that he was okay.  But
that was not where I and Mulder were at the moment.  Too much touching
would make him think that I--that I-- well--.  Maybe I'd better do
something to keep my own hands busy.

Quickly I removed the cork and poured out two generous glasses.

"You're good with a corkscrew, I thought all women were terrible at
opening wine bottles," he said.

Small talk.  Good.

"That's rather a broad generalization about women, Mulder."

I looked at him for a moment, seeing if he'd ignore my inadvertent use
of that old pun.  Yup, he was ignoring it.  Things were bad.

"Here," I said and handed him a wine glass.  "Cheers."  Immediately I
regretted it.  Under the circumstances it sounded awfully flip.

He raised his glass in return, "To . . . " he trailed off.  The
expression in his eyes as they traveled over my face was sad.

To what?  I thought.  To being alive?  To not having to watch your
closest friend blow their own brains out?

"To us," he finished surprisingly enough.  In a voice that sounded as
if it hoped "us" wasn't changed forever.

A huge lump formed all at once in my throat and I closed my eyes,
willing myself not to cry.  I opened them again and saw him staring at
me, waiting.  Now his eyes were blue-green, the grey tint gone, and
the expression in them was intense.  He was trying so very hard not to
look afraid.

I didn't make him wait.  "To us," I echoed and felt myself break into
a weak half-smile.

His eyes lit up with a light that made my heart thump unevenly.  There
was a tightening of the muscles at the corners of his mouth, what
might have been the beginnings of a smile of his own.  Then he looked
away, almost shyly, and opened the refrigerator door.

I turned and gripped the counter top.  This man did things to my
psyche that I couldn't even begin to deal with.  Generally I kept
those feelings tightly under wraps, in that dark buried place that I
went to only when faced with his death.  Well, here we were again.

Today had blown everything out of the water.  Trying to separate what
had happened from the way I felt about him was impossible.  Even for
me, I thought wryly.  The queen of compartmentalizing my life.  Not
now, my thoughts were whirling out of control.  My brain in one
direction, my heart in another.

The last few hours had been the most exhaustively heart-wrenching of
my life.  And that was saying a lot.  I wasn't sure if I could ever
let him out of my sight again.

Why couldn't I just open my mouth and say the words?  I wanted to
reassure him, comfort him and tell him everything was okay.  I wanted
to wrap my arms around him and hold his head against my breasts and
rock him all night long.

All right, so I wanted to.  What of it?

I hoped he didn't think I hated him, I knew there was no way he'd have
killed me.  I was positive he wouldn't--couldn't have pulled the
trigger on me.  I wished he would realize that, too.

But I was still stunned by the whole thing.  I'd been so terrified he
was going to kill himself in from of my eyes.

When he held that gun to his head--.

Those three little clicks . . . they would be the stuff of my
nightmares until I was old and grey.  Those three little
heart-stopping moments of time between each click of the trigger and
the split second when my brain registered the fact that the chamber
had still been empty.  And that Mulder hadn't blown a bullet into his
own skull.

If Mulder had died. . . and me standing there, unable to stop
him. . . I couldn't have been able to live with that.  First I would
have launched myself on Modell and killed him with my bare hands.  And
then?  No--I couldn't even think about the "and then."  That was a
path I prayed I'd never have to go down again.  Today had been as near
a miss as I could stand.

His face, when he'd turned the gun on me, had torn my heart into tiny
little pieces.  The fierce dreadful struggle going on inside him.  His
agonized voice saying my name with his heart in his eyes.

I looked over to where he was carefully tearing up pieces of red
lettuce and dropping them into a bowl. He looked as harmless and
gentle as a puppy dog.  A fierce wave of protective instinct and love
for him tore through my heart and left me holding my breath.

I stared at him and heard again the sound of death in his voice when
he'd said.  "I'm going to kill you Modell."

And then he'd turned and done it.  He'd shot Modell in cold blood.
And I'd wanted him to do it.  I'd wanted it so bad I could taste it.
Wanted Modell dead to stop him from the pain he was putting Mulder
through.  Wanted him dead so that Mulder wouldn't be weighed down with
the burden of having killed me for the rest of his life.  I would have
killed Modell myself, if I'd had a gun in my hand.  The thought didn't
shock me as much as it should.

We'd had Modell then, when the fire alarm broke the choke hold he'd
had on Mulder's mind.  All Mulder had to do was hold the gun on him
until the SWAT team came through the door in two seconds flat.  But he
said he'd kill Modell and he turned around and did it.

Retaliation wasn't exactly smiled upon in the FBI.  Justifying it, to
ourselves, and of course, in our report to Skinner -- was going to
take some time.

I realized I was still holding my breath and let it out with a sigh.
I looked over again at Mulder, now quietly chopping a tomato in my
kitchen and felt all the pent-up longing and frustration--of being so
close to him and yet so far apart for three long years--threaten to
overflow.



End of  part 2 / 3


===========================================================================

From: Shalimar <71061.1041@compuserve.com>
Date: 29 Apr 96 04:30:52 EDT
Subject: Everything We Couldn't Say...  pt . 3/3

Part 3 / 3
Disclaimer in Part 1
****************
"Everything We Couldn't Say With Words"
By Shalimar
71061.1041@compuserve.com
part 3 / 3   Mulder & Scully.

Mulder:

Dinner was finished, we'd eaten on the couch in front of her
fireplace.  I wouldn't have said it could happen but food made us both
feel better.  Now we were just sitting, staring into the fire she'd
made.  We hadn't said anything for awhile. Discussing this was still
beyond me and she didn't seem to want to talk about it either.

Scully poured us each another glass of wine.  We sat close to each
other, but I knew we were both being careful not to accidentally
touch.  I was more aware of her presence beside me than I'd ever been.

Maybe it was the warmth of the fire, or the soft sound of her
breathing, or the wine that was relaxing me.  Or maybe it was a
delighted feeling that kept pricking along my back bone saying "She's
alive, she's alive".  I didn't know when my internal focus had shifted
from "I almost killed her" to "She's alive."  But I was overjoyed that
it had.

So now I was kind of sinking into the couch and feeling the tensions
of the day easing a little.  It had been a horrible terrible day--but
despite my stupid part in the whole mess--we were both alive.  And she
hadn't just dropped me off at my apartment without a backward look.
She'd taken me in, cleaned me up and fed me.  If I was home alone
right now--I cringed at the thought--I'd be a complete and total
basket case.

Modell was dead.  I knew when it happened as surely as if the phone
had rung and the hospital had called. I felt an immediate lifting of
my spirit.

Yes, I'd shot him in cold blood.  As far as I was concerned, Modell
had threatened Scully's life.  I had know in the split second when I
turned and just before I pulled the trigger that the man was still
every bit as dangerous.  So I'd blown him away, but I'd have done it
anyway.

"Mulder, if Modell had killed you, I would have killed him."

Scully was looking down at her hands in her lap.  She straightened out
her fingers and stared at them.  A determined expression crossed her
face.

"He's dead," I said.  I had an impulse to reach over and take one of
her hands.  I resisted.  I was afraid to touch her.

"He is?" she said, still examining her hands.  She was not really
questioning that I knew.

"Yes."

Her head was bent forward and she reached up to tuck her hair back
behind her ear.  I could see her finely cut profile.  Scully was so
beautiful, I don't think she even had a clue just how beautiful she
was.  She was still staring at her hands, I watched as her teeth sunk
into her lower lip and she gave a little frown.

Oh, what the hell, I thought.  You only live once.  And with the two
of us you never knew if you'd even make it to the next day.  I reached
over and took one of her hands in mine.

I turned it over in my hand and looked at her long strong fingers.
Slowly, I traced the life line on her palm with one finger.

She shivered.

I reached over and took her other hand, too.  Her eyes lifted and met
mine.  Her eyes--her impossibly blue--impossibly eloquent and
expressive eyes stared into mine.  A myriad of emotions--surprise,
anger, wariness flashed through them--and one other thing that made my
chest constrict around my lungs and heart and hit me with the force of
a train wreck.

Love.

What I was seeing in her eyes was unconditional love.

"Scully," I breathed.

A little chink opened up in the wall I'd guarded around my heart and I
felt my own feelings for her slip out naked into my own eyes for her
to see.

I saw the exact moment when she realized what I was trying to say.  An
expression of wonder crossed her face.

"Come here," she said and opened up her arms and gave me *that* smile.
And suddenly everything was okay.  Her expression as she looked up at
me was bemused and I think so was mine. Slowly, hesitatingly, I
reached out and pulled her carefully closer to me and into my arms.

I was anxious at touching her at first--and cradled her
tentatively--but no--it was the most natural thing in the world.  She
felt so soft, so warm, so right.  I wrapped my arms around her and
pulled her against me.  Her head fit neatly under my chin and I buried
my nose in her hair.

It smelled like her soap.  I hugged her tighter.

Her arms slipped around my waist and hugged me tightly back.

I couldn't imagine now why I hadn't done this one of the half a
million times I'd had the impulse to take her in my arms before.

Right now was not the time to explore with words the realization of
what we had just seen in each other's eyes.  Our arms could say what
we couldn't seem to say out loud.  But soon it would be time, and the
feeling filled my heart with joy.



**********
Scully:

We stayed that way, not talking, only absorbing each other's warmth
and silent understanding for what seemed like hours.  I had no idea
what time it was.  I couldn't see the clock and I didn't feel like
moving.

"I should go home," Mulder said finally, his voice sleepy.  We lay
propped against the couch pillows, his head resting against my
shoulder.  I knew in another moment he'd be asleep.

"You're not going anywhere, " I said.  I could feel him smile against
my chest.

A few moments later, I could tell by his nearly even breathing that he
was almost asleep.

It figured we were going to sleep on the couch.  My arms tightened.  

"I tried so hard not to kill you," he said, his voice low and drowsy,
but serious.

I brushed my fingers through his hair, stroking his head to reassure
him--and to reassure me.  His temple was warm under my fingers.

"I know," I said.  "Thanks."  For a moment I rested my lips against
his hair, then shut my own eyes and settled down to get some sleep.


The end.


"Everything We Couldn't Say With Words" - Part 3 / 3


************
Hi folks,

I know it's a pain to type in those compuserve address numbers, but
I'd really appreciate any and all comments--good, bad or
indifferent--to me at: 71061.1041@compuserve.com
<g>
Thanks for reading it!
Shalimar