From: i528540@thegrid.net
Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 20:26:49 -0700
Subject: re: fanfic submission

			FALL AWAKE
 		                 by: Caryl Shradaat

	Mulder began in an ominous tone, and Scully instinctively
feared what he was about to speak.  "Scu....no.  Dana,"  As he spoke
it, he rid them of a curse that had plagued them for the six years they
had known one another.  "I want to ask you...marry me?"  Formed 
more as a statement than the question he had intended it to be, Mulder
closed is eyes and leaned his forehead to hers.  Urgency broke his
scentences into fragments, along with fear, and a need to make himself
completely understood.  But she was beginning to back away as the 
confusion ran rampant in her mind.  He began to speak again. " I want
to spend... every day of my life with you.  I..."  Faltering over his own
words gave her the opening she needed.  Dumbness had already 
settled on her.  Her thoughts came out in a vague mess, wanting 
desperately to avoid his words.  "Mulder, we already spend every
day together."  She needed the clarification he was finding so hard to
give.  An arm held her waist, the other grasped her back.  Speaking
into her ear, it became just another of those private conversations they
had shared so many times before...about murders, conspiracies,
abductions, obsessions...but here was one they could devote entirely
unto themselves.  Surprisingly, it would follow the same predictable
course.  Mulder the believer, Scully the skeptic.  He sensed it and
reached out with his words, his presence, his touch.  "I want to wake
up every morning...you in bed, with me.  I don't like waking at four a.m.
needing you."  His voice gained the confidence and passion he had 
used to describe abduction scars, and cow mutilations.  In her mind 
she smiled, then checked herself.  But she was flattered.  "I want 
you to tell me everyday how wrong I am...how crazy I am.  I want
you..."  Mulder's lips grazed the soft area just below her ear.  A 
tender kiss she barely even felt.  Into her amber hair he spoke his
next words, clinging to her in desparation. "I love you, Scully" Her
mind tossed his words over, as if the prase was new to her, and 
the combination of the words made no sense.  Not in application to
her.  Phillip Padgett had wanted to love her, desired her sexually.  Ed
Jerse had been her last ditch attempt, convincing herself she was more
than a doctor and agent.  That her mind and sexuality could be 
considered together, as a whole, was new. 'I love you' she thought.
I love you.'  She had meant merely to repeat his own words back to 
him, in patented skepticism that was purely her own.  To show him the
absurdity and unbelievability of what he had said.  "I love you."  It 
came out not as a question, but a statement of fact.  Fear and sadness
took hold of every joint in her body.  It had felt good to say it. "What?
What did you say?"  He hadn't even heard her whisper of admission.
Grabbing hold of every bit of courage she could, Scully closed her 
eyes.  "I love you."  Emotion choked her words, his grasp so tight it
came dangerously close to pain.  But everything in his eyes spoke of
incomprehensible tenderness.  A soft but passionate love no one had
ever dared shown her.  Finally she looked into his eyes, wishing she
hadn't spoken so forwardly.  "Say it again, for me."  Finally the tears
were held back and a smile played about the corners of her mouth.
"I love you, Fox."  Their kiss was long and hard, and the passion
that drove it was six years of friendship, tears, fear, respect, and 
love.  Suddenly she no longer remembered.  Had he begun the kiss?
Had she?  One fluid movement, simultaneously consentual and 
demanding, had begun what neither of them had the will or power
to undo.  Passion had driven Padgett's hard and cold seduction, a 
desire to take, and not give.  He had tried, wanting to love her.
Padgett failed.  For as long as their kiss lasted, Scully could only
feel the deep satisfaction of a friendship whose outcome was 
inevitable and unstoppable.  A sexual urgency unconcerned with
giving or taking...unhindered by the past...blind to the future. She 
had been subconciously dreaming of this, a waking dream, and 
Agent Scully had just fallen awake.