From: Cecily Sasserbaum Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 18:10:35 GMT Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (1/6) TITLE: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation AUTHOR: Cecily Sasserbaum E-MAIL: cecilysass@yahoo.com DISTRIBUTION: Yes, certainly, but I love to know about it. (It's fine if it's archived at Ephemeral, Gossamer, Spooky site, etc.) RATING: R SUMMARY: Our favorite agents riff on dream interpretation, ethics, the history of France, aloneness, their quest, and of course, their own relationship. While in a motel pool. This is for those who like to hear them talk. SPOILERS: 2F/1S, 6th Extinction, Amor Fati, Triangle, FTF, small for Paper Hearts. CATEGORY: MSR, some A DISCLAIMER: Alas, not mine. Please do not sue. Only borrowing. FEEDBACK: Oh yes, please: cecilysass@yahoo.com. NOTE: This is being reposted due to the nefarious presence of some Smart Quotes earlier this week, and also because some parts were missing on the newsgroup. Terribly sorry for the errors. I'm relatively new at this. *** In Mulder's dream, he was a French Jew from Alsace, and he wore a shabby brown coat before a panel of great men. Angry, standing before the Great Sanhedrin in Paris, he was trying not to shout, but could feel the steady rise of his pitch as he lodged his formal complaint to the Jewish leaders: "You bend and stretch the Halakha as best fits your pocketbook," he was telling them. His hands were shaking. He was speaking French. "The sacred laws are nothing to you! Only the French laws that will best ingratiate you to the Emperor so that he will bestow his blessing on your precious business ventures." "We make the decisions that protect French Jewry," hissed one of the Sanhedrin, his face flushed. "You know nothing of this." " I know that the more gold that piles up in your coffers, the further you're willing to commit all of us to your dirty little bargains with the French government." "No dirty bargains, Monsieur Mulder..." "You promised them we'll give up speaking Hebrew," Mulder said. "And what's next for us, guys? Will we be giving up the rabbis? Everything that makes us Jewish ... until we're all praying rosaries at Notre Dame?" "What is this? I thought he was a rabbinical student," interrupted one member of the Sanhedrin. "This is not scholarly argument. These are insults." "Have him arrested," suggested one. "Show him how Napoleon would handle any Jews who aren't proud French citizens." "I am a French citizen, but also a Jew." responded Mulder. "That's the part you all seem to forget ..." "Enough," said a man in back, who behaved as though he were in charge of the Sanhedrin. He pulled a thin rolled cigarette from his breast pocket and slowly lit it, regarding Mulder. Then he leaned forward: "Your wife and children -- your family, they are at your home in Alsace, is that true, Monsieur Mulder?" Mulder said nothing. "Maybe you're too young to remember when in Alsace, peasants murdered Jewish women and children for sport, but I remember reading about it in the Parisian papers. Bloody times. We were nervous, even in Paris. We didn't forget we were Jews for one moment." How calm this man was, Mulder thought. Infuriating! Mulder wondered what his wife would say, were she here, standing next to him. Her arguments, when angry, were always stronger than his. She kept her cool, like this man did. "Now, because of our... business interests, your family is safe. Our greed equals your lives. Do you understand this, Mulder?" "It isn't enough of a justification," Mulder responded. "It isn't acceptable, to make decisions for people who have no voices, decisions that will affect their lives, how they view themselves...you can't make the decisions for all Jews in France, all Jews in the Empire. It's not moral, it's not right." "Moral," this man shook his head slowly. "Even if their decision-making privilege would mean their certain deaths? The death of your exceptionally clever wife, maybe?" Mulder met his eyes. "She would prefer the choice. That's what being exceptionally clever is for. To make the decisions for yourself." "That's what you say, Agent Mulder, but not what you do. You're long in the habit of keeping those you love safely in the dark, keeping them from information that could cause their deaths. Can you honestly say you never keep information from your wife that would cause her pain or death?" "That's not accurate. It's not even the same," Mulder answered, trying to fight his sense that something was very wrong. "We're talking about an entire people's fate. You sit here, pretending you have control of Jewish lives, but in the end Napoleon only allows the Sanhedrin to exist so that he can manipulate the Jews on a grand scale..." "Agent Mulder, you understand what I'm saying on a level you're choosing not to acknowledge." "It will mean the death of everyone, all French Jewry, but you and your families will save your own asses..." "And yours." The Cigarette Smoking Man took a deep satisfying breath in. "Give my best to Agent Scully, will you?" And in this blurry moment between the dream and the waking world, Mulder awoke, disoriented, with that voice still in his ears. When had that man from the Sanhedrin turned into Cigarette Smoking Man? It was just a dream. Nothing more. The motel room was dark. Mulder shifted in bed: it was very, very hot. - Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (2/6) The motel room was dark. Mulder shifted in bed: it was very, very hot. The events of the dream, already shifting and slipping, replayed in his mind momentarily. Baffling, really, that he would dream his own struggle against such a historical backdrop. Probably just a psychological exercise: calisthenics for the subconscious...but he couldn't help, of course, entertaining the possibility of resurfacing memories, from another life, another time. Reincarnation? Someone else's implanted memory? Probably not. But impossible to tell now, while his mind was still clouded. The answer to a question he hadn't learned to ask, maybe? The dream was ... troubling. His stomach growled. He looked about for a clock, hoping to find out if it were an acceptable time to rise from bed, or if he should lay his head down for more adventures in Napoleonic France. No clock. Not a particularly classy place, the Darien Inn. This is where they bury you, Mulder thought darkly. When you rant about imminent alien invasion, when, after pouting and screaming and running up high bills, you've been grudgingly allowed back into the basement, they give you oddball cases regarding vanishing livestock, cast you out to south Georgia, to motels that lack adequate timepieces, and hope that you'll fade away. Mulder considered this option: fading away, really and truly. How would one go about doing that, even if one wanted to? In another dream world, he'd been offered the option. To live the suburban dream with Diana Fowley, have a pack of children who had his eyes and mouth, find his sister, and grow old. Not a bad scenario, but it was a nightmare in the end. It had been engineered for him, a mind-numbing dream world: it hadn't been his true path. Was there a real way to fade away, of one's own decision, in the real world? How would one even do it? Maybe you buy a house in the wilderness, and read a lot, Mulder imagined. Take long hikes. Swim in the lake. Find a lover. Try to pretend like you were not aware that an invasion of the world by a hostile alien race could happen at any second. Yes. That was the end of any sleep he'd be getting tonight. He rose from bed and fumbled about for his jeans. It felt like it might rain, but maybe he could walk up and down the covered motel walkway for a while. Maybe even jog around a little, or search out a vending machine, get a snack. Mulder, from years of insomnia, had learned not to lie awake in bed for too long. So much better to get up and do something. Walk around in circles. Watch television. Make sock puppets. Why was it so hot, Mulder wondered restlessly? It's winter everywhere else in the country but Darien, Georgia. Mulder wondered how anyone ever exercised outdoors in such a climate: humid, rain about to drop any minute from the sky. Mulder dreaded the trip out to the south Georgia farms he and Scully would make the next morning. He already knew this livestock-disappearing case wasn't an X-File. It had only the slightest appearance of an X-File: cows and fowl disappearing, slightly unusual circumstances, but almost certainly human suspects. At any rate, it was meant to occupy Scully and his time. Why?, he thought for the thousandth time. They'd be interrogating Georgia chicken thieves when there could be an *invasion* about to occur. They wouldn't be here at all, thought Mulder, if Scully hadn't thought it prudent that they behave themselves. Mulder stepped out of his motel room, locking the door habitually behind him, and found a wall of heat hitting him as soon as he stepped out into the night air. His motel room was on the second floor: heat rises. Scully's room light was out. Mulder felt a little disappointed. So childish of him to hope that she might be up, too. Normal people sleep at night, he reminded himself, especially when travelling. Even when under stress. Some people are even *tired*. Mulder considered what it might be like to have a healthy sleeping schedule. For a while, as a teenager, Mulder remembered being afraid to go to sleep at all. He hated being tangled in sweaty sheets, brooding listlessly. Or worse still, he might dream, usually indirectly but just as horribly, of the things that frightened him most. He might dream of Samantha, slipping into a crowd and disappearing. Or himself turning into a tree, like a horrible variation on a Greek myth, his feet plunging downward as deep roots and his arms outstretched and paralyzed. Alone forever. Terrible nightmares. I just had a nightmare of sorts, Mulder reminded himself, although not a typical one. More like an argument, a carefully worded debate. Something about it *felt* like a nightmare, though...like he'd dreamt something wordlessly horrible. he told himself. "Mulder," came Scully's voice suddenly, from across the motel parking lot. Her face was bobbing at him from the swimming pool below. Scully was treading water. Her skin pink, like she had been swimming laps. Mulder tried to remember when he'd ever seen Scully swim laps in a motel pool. What was she doing? "Hey," Mulder called back. "You do know it's not pool hours, don't you, Scully?" "I worked out a deal with the night manager," she said, stretching out on her back a little. "It was so damn hot; I couldn't sleep. But this feels great, Mulder, you should try it." She smiled a little, and ducked underwater again, kicking towards the edge of the pool. The pool's light gave off a funny glow, and Mulder was fascinated for a minute by her moving, backlit silhouette, flickering as it moved to one glowing side to the other. Swimming would feel good, he thought. Cold water. I could splash Scully. Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (3/6) Swimming would feel good, he thought. Cold water. I could splash Scully. He bounded down a nearby flight of stairs. Scully was reaching for her towel on the edge when he approached. She was wearing, miraculously, a black swimsuit, and her skin was flushed. Her hair fell on each side of her face in smooth red sections. "Don't get out yet, Scully," Mulder said. "I'm just getting in." She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "You're not worried you'll be too tired for our big cow-napping case tomorrow, Mulder?" "I can't sleep thinking about it," he said. "What are you swimming in, g-woman? You bring your swimsuit with you for every case?" "It's a good thing I do, isn't it?" Scully said. "Or I'd be swimming in my power suit." She pulled a little on the strap of her suit, and Mulder couldn't help but notice the way it hugged her torso and her breasts. These moments when he was painfully aware of Scully sexually: they bothered him. It was different than a tender kiss on the forehead, or a brotherly stroke of her hand. These were the moments that seemed like they would someday culminate in some terrible, humiliating overture on his part: a glaring violation of their professional integrity. It's just swimming, Mulder, he reminded himself. You used to swim with Sam, too. "I guess I'll be swimming in boxers. You have to promise not to peek, Scully," he said, shedding his jeans. "I'm relying on your honor as an agent." He threw off his white tee-shirt, and standing triumphantly in boxers, stuck a toe in the water. "Do a cannonball," suggested Scully, who was averting her eyes. "It's the shallow end, Agent," Mulder replied. "That's against the rules." He lowered himself into the pool carefully. God, it felt good. He stretched his arms out, back into the water. "It feels...unbelievable, doesn't it?" Scully said to him. She was leaning against the opposite wall, a drop of water moving down her neck... Again the vague sexual impulse, which as always, he nipped in the bud. "Why couldn't you sleep, Scully?" he asked. Her light expression changed. "I was worried about this case, Mulder," Scully said. "Worrying why we're being asked to waste our time." "We could leave. It's not too late," he said. "No, I think we're being wise, Mulder, to pick our battles carefully now. If there is going to be a major war coming up ahead, we're going to need friends to back us up; we can't alienate everyone." "Oh sure, we've got to stay popular," Mulder replied. "Like the Prom King and Queen we are now." Scully looked at him for a minute, opened her mouth, and then closed it. She extended her hand into the water, paddling around a little. "What was keeping you awake, Mulder?" "The usual." But he knew he'd feel better, somehow, if he could just discuss it. I'm like a small child, he chided himself. "Actually, Scully, I had a bad dream...a strange dream." "About...work?" "What else would I dream about?" Mulder said, paddling on to his back. "Maybe the horrors of a world without breast implants," suggested Scully, floating against the side of the pool. "The funny thing about this dream, it was a period piece." "That's happened before," remarked Scully. She kicked, idly, at the water. "Did this one have Nazis, too?" "No," he said. "It was the early nineteenth century. I was a French Jew, arguing again the Great Sanhedrin of Paris, who had agreed to prohibit Yiddish business dealings...it was really unreasonable. I was mad as hell." Scully scowled, thoughtfully. "I'm not particularly familiar with this history, Mulder." "I took a Jewish history course once at Oxford. Wrote a big fat research paper on the topic," Mulder smiled. "Got an A. Which is where this must be coming from, somehow, if it's not something ... else." "I'm listening," Scully replied. "I'm talking about the Jewish community of France in the 1800s, Scully. When Napoleon took over, he found some Parisian Jewish leaders, rich businessmen types, and told them they were the Great Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Judaism, just like in ancient Israel. All that they had to do was cooperate with Napoleon, commit to being French citizens above all else. Which they did, happily, talking about the restoration of former Jewish glory." "This is a strangely historically accurate thing to pop up in your subconscious, Mulder." "The Great Sanhedrin made certain decisions, speaking for all of Judaism, a few changes in Jewish life. They helped to pass laws that directly contradicted the Halakha, the traditional Jew's code of behavior since the Middle Ages. " "So Napoleon gave them this power so that they would lead French Jews to assimilate culturally?" asked Scully. "Give up their unique identity and become loyal Frenchmen?" "Nice sociological thinking, Scully," smiled Mulder, "Right. Melting pot, and all that. " Mulder wiped a stream of water off of his cheek. "It wasn't all bad, of course, because French Jews were relatively protected through Napoleon's reign. Not so many pogroms, massacres like in Eastern Europe. But no one got as much out of any of this as the Great Sanhedrin, whose businesses prospered. While they were selling out the basic religious and cultural tenets of French Jewish peasants, they were getting real rich." Scully nodded. "I'm seeing the parallel here." "In my dream, our friend C.G.B. was their leader," smiled Mulder bitterly, "And I was pretty damn mad at him then, too." Scully regarded him, and kicked closer to him in the pool. "Mulder, this dream is basic psychology, almost predictable. It's not reincarnation." "Who said anything about that?" Mulder said, feigning innocence. "That's crazy talk, Scully." "So reincarnation never occurred to you?" "Oh, maybe for a second," Mulder said, smiling at her. "but I think you're right in this case. It was probably a dream." "Well, hallelujah," Scully said dryly. "And what did C.G.B. say to you?" "He said the Sanhedrin was doing it to protect French Jewry," Mulder said with irony. "He was protecting the peasantry as best he could, making necessary sacrifices." "But also protecting himself," Scully added. "I get it." "It's all bullshit, of course. He was as much a liar and coward in my dream as in reality, but there is this unsettling feeling, Scully." Mulder didn't continue. "You're questioning your own motives, Mulder," she said. "You're wondering about the ethics of your side of this war." A pause. "And where did you get that interpretation?" Mulder replied, softer. Scully bowed her head, and water instantly began to roll down wet red strands of her hair, dripping down her neck. Looking up, she smiled simply, and looked very tired suddenly. "Empathy, I suppose. I've been asking these questions again and again of myself." Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (4/6) "Empathy, I suppose. I've been asking these questions again and again of myself." Mulder watched her, and felt again the familiar guilt, the regret of having forced his own crusade on her. The same old mantra: where would Dana Scully be now, he thought sadly, if he had never entered her life? A more successful agent, her career on the upswing? Someone's lover? Someone's mother? "Have you thought recently about fading away, Scully?" Mulder asked her, suddenly. "Running away from all of this, buying a cabin in Maine or somewhere? Getting some dogs and a stack of paperbacks?" Scully seemed almost shocked. She hesitated. "Have you?" "Plenty of people would be happy to see us go," Mulder smiled weakly. "I wouldn't blame you, if you did think about it, Scully." "No," Scully replied, "I don't. I might have been able to, once. But knowing that something as...horrible as a viral plague is looming on the horizon, that...would be the most immoral and selfish thing I could do, wouldn't it? After so many people have already paid with their lives? It would be cowardly." "That's what you told me before, Scully. In another dream," he said. "And you'd be fighting it all alone," Scully added, cautiously. "We couldn't have that." "God knows I mess things up often enough," Mulder said. "Of course," Scully said, "that is not what I meant." "What if we`re wrong, Scully, and we're the bad guys here?" "I don't think that's the case, Mulder." "What good do I do, running around talking about the Truth, if I get the whole planet killed in the process? I don't have any vaccine to distribute, any weapons to protect us: I only have my own big mouth, spreading danger and panic to everyone who hears and believes me." "That's a misrepresentation-" "What if C.G.B., despite his motivations, is the smart one, the careful one, who actually saves lives and does real good? There's a sense to the idea of cutting your losses, isn't there, Scully? Isn't it better that some of us live, some of us keep fighting, rather than letting all of humanity die nobly with the Truth in hand?" "I know, Mulder," Scully interrupted. "I know this line of thought; I've been through it myself." "Then how can you keep going? Why don't we go, find C.G.B., see what job vacancies he's got for us? Help save some sliver of the populace, no matter who they are or why they're there..." "Because I wouldn't want to be in that particular sliver of the populace. Would you, Mulder? Someone who survived a holocaust and justified it through some cynical logic that helped me to save my own ass? Maybe I'm just echoing my father's old romantic notions about war," Scully said, still holding Mulder's arm, "but it's better to die in the fight. And it's better to let others have the chance to fight, not to make their own decisions for them." "Yeah," Mulder smiled sadly. "That's what I told C.G.B. when he was a leader of the Great Sanhedrin in Paris, and I was a French Jew from Alsace. " And he leaned his head backwards, soaking his scalp in the cold water. "But it's hard to know, isn't it, Scully? For sure? Whether it's one-hundred percent right?" "Oh yes," Scully said, staring outward. "That's where the trust comes in." Mulder nodded. She looked so beautiful now, with her lips wet and water streaming down her face and neck. He wanted to push himself against her, to crush her with kisses. "You want to go find a diner or something? Get some coffee? I've had enough swimming, I think..." he said. "Mulder, I was wondering ..." Scully stopped. "This quest we've been on for so long...do you consider it to be your quest?" Mulder stopped. "I'm not sure what you mean." "I'm not intending to be antagonistic," Scully said, frowning a little. She stretched out her arms, and seemed to regard them underwater. "Or to quibble over the semantics of it. I was just wondering if you think of me as being your partner in this? Or if it's just you versus them, and I'm more like a... side resource, more like Frohike, or Byers-" "I don't think of you like Frohike at all, Scully," Mulder replied, trying to make light. "It's just that I want more out of my work than to be someone's sidekick, I think." "I thought..." Mulder looked down, embarrassed. "I thought I'd tried to indicate to you, Scully, how absolutely necessary you are for this work. That you're the other half of my quest, how I couldn't possibly begin to do this without you." "I appreciate you saying those things," Scully nodded. She hesitated a moment, and added: "And god, Mulder, I like hearing them." It began to rain, lightly, all of sudden, as Mulder predicted it would. But Scully didn't seem to notice. She closed her eyes in thought. "But as much as I like to hear it, I have to question it," Scully continued, opening her eyes. "How-what part do you question?" "Things come up that bother me, Mulder. Like whether I was in your dream, for example, when you were confronting C.G.B.? Or did your subconscious tell you that you were all alone in this confrontation?" "That doesn't seem fair, Scully, to doubt what I say consciously to you, on the basis of what I dream about." "I wasn't in it," said Scully. "Was I?" And here was a problem, Mulder thought. Because as he considered it carefully, Scully *had* been in the dream, but not in the way she wanted to hear. In the confusion of the dream, when Mulder referred to his wife in Alsace, he'd thought of Scully. His subconscious had associated her presence as his partner with an intimate, spousal relationship...oh, it was grotesquely corny, and Mulder felt disgusted with himself. It was so sentimentally charged that there was no way in hell he could mention it to her now. "It's fine, Mulder," Scully said quickly. "You're right that it's unfair of me." "No, Scully, I-" "I was really thinking about moments when you refuse to believe my professional assessment," she began, carefully choosing her words. The rain was hitting the pool now harder. "I usually take your assessment very seriously, Scully," Mulder said. "What are you referring to?" "On cases, you do. But in the matter of the conspiracy, and how it relates to your sister, I think you don't," she said. "Are you referring to last year, when I was working with Diana?" "That's an example," Scully said, her eyes turned away. The rain was pressing her hair even flatter against the sides of her face. "Although I believe in the end Diana was a good friend to you, she did betray you, and you wouldn't accept my assessment. You accused me of making it personal. Which was insulting, Mulder." Mulder felt his pitch rise. "There was nothing to indicate that Diana betrayed me." Scully's voice was quiet. "There was plenty, Mulder." "It was unsubstantiated," Mulder said. "That's nothing." "Oh, so now you're only looking for substantiated proof?" said Scully. "Well, there is also my opinion. That's something." "Not if it doesn't come from an objective source." "And why am I not objective?" "Because you did make it personal," Mulder said, instantly regretting it. "You've said that, Mulder. And I'm starting to wonder what you're intending to imply." Scully was angry now, too. "Maybe," Mulder began. "She was my partner before, and maybe you resent my putting trust in her. Or maybe-" "Or maybe I resent it because she wasn't just your partner? Because you were lovers, too?" Mulder, already chilled by the rain, felt goose bumps rise all over his body. "Maybe your own objectivity is so clouded here, Mulder, by whatever residual feelings you had for Diana, that you are projecting upon me some feelings of sexual jealousy, imagining me to be envious of a past romantic relationship, so that you don't have to face the truth about Diana's betrayal." Mulder's stomach lurched oddly. "That's absurd, Scully. You and I don't have a romantic relationship," Mulder said weakly. There was an odd pause. "Mulder," Scully said, "I know." Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (5/6) "Mulder," Scully said, "I know." She looked at Mulder, with her eyebrows lifted, waiting for more. He hadn't given her a real response, he realized, and she was waiting for him to concede her point. There were aspects of this whole exchange that bothered him about admitting this, although he was unable to pinpoint them. "You could be right," he said, slowly, not meeting her eyes. "Maybe I did...project something on to you that wasn't there, and maybe you had some valid points about Diana. Although I'm not willing to accept that she betrayed us." Scully breathed out, and said, softly: "I didn't mean to bring her up, Mulder. I think before she was murdered, that she redeemed herself. It's not relevant any more." "But ... you don't have the right impression about this, Scully," Mulder said. "Not about your opinion and its importance to me. " "How so?" "You *were* in my dream, Scully," Mulder said, suddenly. "You were in it." She looked startled. Mulder wished he hadn't said it. It wasn't really a good example. "You were very important in the dream," he began. "You're right. It wasn't the way you should have been in it. I do need to question how I think about you. I will do that, I promise you. But you were there, in a sense." She stared at him. "How was I in the dream?" he thought to himself. "You know, I'm tired of talking about it," he said. "It's all an exercise in futility. I've apologized already. And it's raining, Scully, let's get some food inside..." "I'm curious now, Mulder," she said. "You have to tell me. How was I in the dream?" Why did he ever mention it? It was disastrous. "I think there's a Denny's up the road, Scully. We could get some pie." How could he ever explain this to her? "It's just a dream, of course," Scully assured him. "Was I a member of the Great Sanhedrin, maybe? Was I somebody you were arguing with?" "No, no, of course not," Mulder said. "It's not implausible that your subconscious mind would associate me with being an adversary in conversation," she smiled. "I wouldn't take it personally. I might be flattered." Mulder, miserable, said nothing. "Maybe I was the maid, Mulder? The woman cleaning up people's cigar butts, all of the garbage they leave around the office," she said. "Is that how you think of me, subconsciously?" "Scully, I'm very uncomfortable with this," he said. She looked at him for a moment, and some kind of recognition seemed to flicker in her eyes. "Oh, I see," she said. "I was your ... chickadee, wasn't I, Mulder?" He didn't have the words to respond. "It's okay," she said, shrugging, and evading his eyes. "Just a dream." "You were my wife," he said. Scully rolled her eyes, and tried to laugh. "God help me." Now it was important she understand. "I'm sure I've had sexual dreams about you Scully, but this wasn't one," he said. "In the dream, talking to the men, I missed you. I wondered what you would have argued. I wished you were there with me." "You're trying," she began, some tears escaping from her eyes, "to make me feel better." "No, it really makes perfect sense," Mulder said, keenly aware now of the rain falling on to them. "No, Scully, think about it. You're the most important person in my life, my other half, my touchstone. It's only natural that my subconscious would translate it to a spousal relationship, right?" Scully attempted to dry her eyes with a hand wet from the pool, which had Mulder been himself, he would have pointed out did her no good. "No, Mulder, you're right," she said, trying to hold back tears. "If that's true, if I am your other half, it is only natural. But why wasn't I there? Where was your 'touchstone' when you were having that argument?" "I don't know," Mulder said. To his horror, he was feeling tears in his eyes, too. It troubled him, too. "It's so ridiculous, so inane to cry over a dream," she said. "But I can't help but wonder why you see yourself as so alone. If you subconsciously feel I abandon you." "No," Mulder said. "I don't think I do." "What kind of loneliness must you feel, if even in dreams you're fighting by yourself?" she said. "Scully --" "I've had a dream about you, too, Mulder," she said. "Not tonight, but sometimes. Maybe you'd like to hear it? Subject: REP: The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation, (6/6) "Maybe you'd like to hear it?" she asked. "All right," whispered Mulder meekly. She was shivering. He should insist that they leave the pool instantly. "In my dream, you show up on my doorstep late at night. Returning from some wild goose chase. You're frustrated because you haven't found the answers, and you're weary. Your hair is damp. You have bruises and mild abrasions," she said. "It's familiar," Mulder smiled at her. "You look at me, but don't seem to be speaking to me, and you say that you're worried for our safety. You think maybe there are people watching both of our apartments. So we have to leave. We have to spend the night elsewhere. "And so we get into the car, Mulder, with our overnight bags, and we drive. Mulder, we drive so, so far. And we hardly have any conversations. It's like we're in these two separate realities, in the same car. I'm looking out the window, and I'm starting to feel so alone. We're driving in the desert, in Texas, at one point, and then in Antarctica. Everywhere we've been that is desolate and lonely and uninhabited. I start to feel so sad, so worried for us both. I don't want to die alone. "Finally, we pull up a house. It's suddenly many years ago, even though we're both the same age we are now, I think it's the early seventies. The colors are all muted, everything has this sepia tone, like I'm looking at photographs. It's a beach house my parents used to take us to in California when I was little, an old fashioned wooden house with a porch right on the ocean. "'I know this place, Mulder,' I tell you. 'We can stay here, until we feel better.' "And to my relief, you agree. "We go inside and I put on my old sweatshirt, from when I was little, and I light a fire, and I notice again how weary you are. You're sitting in my father's old chair, looking at the sea. And so I..." Scully broke off, and looked at her hands. "I lay you down, on the couch Missy and I used to share when we slept there, and I take off your sweaty clothes. You don't seem to notice. You're still in your own remote place. So I cup your face in my hands -- you haven't shaved, your face is prickly -- and Mulder, I ... kiss you. Not in a sisterly way. And you seem to kiss me back." Mulder stared at her. He could barely manage to speak. "What is it like, Scully?" She looked up, meeting his eyes, slightly embarrassed. "Mulder, it feels so wonderful, so natural, that I ... I hardly can breathe, I'm so nervous that it's not what you want me to do," she said. "But you look up at me, and you seem so full of joy. Amazed. You ... touch me. And you say, 'Scully, I think it's okay. To stay here for a while, before we go on. It's okay to allow ourselves this,' " she said. Her voice suddenly was very small. "And we make love." "We make love?" "Yes," she said, looking away. "God, Scully," Mulder whispered. She shrugged, her eyes filling with tears again. "That's the end. It's not very hard to analyze, is it, Mulder?" He watched her trying to hold back tears, and he knew he could no longer control his impulse. He felt himself floating over to her, his eyes on the water streaming down her neck. With trembling hands, he lifted his finger to trace the slow descent of a single water droplet down her neck. "No, it's not very hard to analyze..." he whispered. "Mulder..." she said, his finger snaking down the base of her neck. The drop of water landed in her collarbone, right underneath her bathing suit strap. His finger followed it. Slowly, breathing unsteadily on her shoulder, he began to move his finger underneath the strap. "Mulder, I wasn't asking for -- I didn't mean that..." she began. "You can't say those things to me, Scully," he said, gently pushing the strap off of her shoulder, "and expect that I won't react to them. Not when I want them so badly." And his mouth was on her neck and shoulder, light kisses tracing the fall of the water drop. His tongue swirled over the collarbone, and he felt his body, god, *surge* at the sensation. Her muscles tensed at the contact of his tongue. "It was just a dream," she whispered, her voice shaky. "Jesus, Scully," he whispered back. "That kind of dream -- I really, really want to believe." Mulder looked at her, her hair curly and wet around her face, her eyes wide. His eyes stayed on hers as his hands trailed down the length of her arms, slowing at her smooth forearms, and then suddenly tightening around her wrists. Abruptly, he pinned her wrists straight back against the side of the pool, opening her to him, and suddenly, with his body, pushed her back to the wall. He pressed himself up against her, his lips against her mouth, his body against hers underwater. "Mulder," she gasped. He kissed her deeply, crushing her against the pool's side and unable to control the involuntary push of his body against hers. Underwater, he felt her shudder. Above water, she made the slightest sound. Suddenly, he stopped, and pressed his forehead against hers, running the palms of his hands down the outline of her hips. Dizzy with arousal. Wanting with every part of him to press forward. "Do you want me to stop, Scully?" he whispered, close into her face. She was out of breath, her lips red from the push of his kiss, staring at him. "Yes and no," she whispered back. "Not clear enough, Scully," Mulder said hoarsely. "Need more clarity. Quickly." "I want this, but ... I'm sorry I disrupted our professional integrity." "I think it's okay, g-woman," he said to her, barely speaking at all. He took her cheeks in his hands for a moment. "I think it means that on our quest, we have an option besides loneliness or giving up altogether. " Her body shifted underneath him. He didn't know how much longer he could handle talking. "Agent Scully, I think that your dream's solution is a better option than being alone in front of the Great Sanhedrin of Paris. I think it's a better option than fading away, too," he whispered. He kissed her, allowing his hands to drop over her smooth swimsuit, to lightly brush her breasts, loving how her eyes fluttered shut. "It's a way we can keep going. A way to allow us to press ahead," he said. "Mulder, it was a dream," she whispered, her breath light against his face. "No," he smiled at her, his voice barely audible. "It was the answer to a question we hadn't learned how to ask." For once, he seemed to convince her. Her mouth was kissing down his neck, now, sending exquisite shivers into his body's core. In fact, he could barely concentrate on the words she was whispering at the same time, but when he heard them, it make him tremble. "Mulder, I love you," she said, her voice low. "Oh god, I love you so." And Mulder pressed ahead. feedback? cecilysass@yahoo.com. -- hell: it is other people. -- sartre