From: Jedi Shipper Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:50:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: xfc: Interlude Source: xfc TITLE: Interlude AUTHOR: The Jedi Shipper E-MAIL ADDRESS: JediShipper@yahoo.com DISTRIBUTION: I would be honored if you want to archive it. Go ahead, just tell me where it goes. SPOILER WARNING: War of the Coprophages, Requiem RATING: PG...to make me feel better. ;-) CLASSIFICATION: VRA KEYWORDS: I'm not sure you can call it post-requiem. SUMMARY: A sleepless night and a memory. AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been writing a fic, an X-File that Scully goes on with her new partner (This being before I read the spoilers). I decided to release this part of it as a stand alone because it...stands alone. The X-File fic will be along shortly. DEDICATIONS: To Ali, Fabri and Carrie (Whoa...I never noticed that before) for their encouragement and just being the wonderful people they are. And of course to Adrienne for being the best damn BETA out there. Love ya all. Scully's journal It's been four weeks now, to the day, and it hasn't gotten easier. If only there was something, any clue I could follow. Something to make me feel like I'm making progress toward finding you. But you left nothing behind. The Smoking Man, Krycek, Marita... they've disappeared into the same hole in the universe that they all came from, taking with them any evidence there might have been. This is the only thing I can think to do. Keeping up with cases like this one, keeping the X-Files open, has become my mission. It keeps me from going crazy. But every night, I have terrible nightmares. The truth, Mulder, is that I miss you. I need you. *_* It was the same nightmare over and over. Once her fears that the child she carried was not Mulder's, or even more insidiously, wasn't even hers, were allayed, Scully had only one fear left. She would dream of Mulder, suffering the tortures he'd only researched. Becoming a part of the experiments he'd heard of countless times over the years. She could hear him screaming, pleading with her for help. No matter what she did, she could never save him. As his screams faded away, Scully could hear another voice. A child's voice. "Mommy?" She couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl. It was simply the voice of a small child. "Yes sweetheart?" she could hear herself answer. "Tell me again about my daddy," the child asked. That night, like the others before it, Scully awoke with a start. She was breathing hard and the child's voice was echoing in her head. What if her nightmares came true? Anger, frustration and despair built up in the empty space Mulder had left behind. Now the burn of her overwhelming sense of uselessness was so physical she felt she might go over the edge at any moment. Scully tossed the covers aside and pulled on a pair of shorts and an old shirt she always brought on trips. Quietly, she slipped out of her room to the hotel's pool. The water was still warm from the heat of the summer sun. Water had always been a comfort to Scully. As a child, when her father was at sea, she would sit on the beach, letting the waves wash over her. She imagined that with each wave, the ocean was bringing her father closer to her, bringing him back. Now she leaned back in the water, letting her body float weightlessly. It was an incredibly surreal feeling. The sounds of the world would fade away from her submerged ears, leaving only the gentle lapping of the water against the tile of the pool. It was as if she was suspended in the air, only the stars above and endlessness below, but safe. Her mind cleared and she was calm again. But the lack of distractions left her alone with her thoughts. Thinking, feeling was not always a good thing. Tonight the stars seemed to taunt her. They twinkled merrily as if to say, "You can see us but you can't touch us. You can't search here." Scully closed her eyes but a memory had been sparked and she couldn't stop it from playing. Once, when their romantic relationship was days new, Scully had slipped out of her hotel room and into the pool. Then, as now, the stars seemed to loom over her like an evil presence she could not escape. But then, Mulder had been there to comfort her. *-* Scully was so deep in thought that she almost didn't hear the sound that could only be another human body in the water. She immediately swung her feet down so she could see who was disturbing her solitude. "There's no sneaking up on you, is there?" Mulder asked, smiling at her. "Hearing is heightened under the water," she reminded him. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, backing against the pool wall. He didn't answer, instead moving closer to her so that his body was nearly pressed against hers beneath the water. He brought his hand to caress her cheek. "You know," Scully started as Mulder lowered his lips to kiss the tip of her nose, beginning their decent to her mouth, "the FBI has regulations about Agents consorting--" "In hotel rooms," Mulder finished for her. His breath was hot against her skin and she moved her arms to encircle his waist. "This is a hotel pool, Agent Scully. There's nothing in the handbooks about that." Scully nodded as she tilted her head up. "The more I think about it, the more I like your loopholes Mulder." For that moment, at least, they were not agents with the weight of the world on their shoulders. They were a normal couple, out on vacation perhaps. Mulder turned in Scully's embrace and she took advantage of the weightlessness the water provided. She wrapped her legs around him and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his back against her chest. They stood like that, Scully leaning against the wall and Mulder leaning against her, just enjoying the feel of holding each other. "What were you thinking about?" Mulder asked softly, his voice vibrating against the skin near her ear as he tilted his head back. Scully sighed, not wanting to break the spell of normalcy. "Do you remember when you asked me if I had ever looked up at the sky and wondered if there was something looking down on me, just as curious about me as I was about it?" She paused as he murmured an agreement. "I guess... I was just wishing that it stopped at curiosity." He pulled away from her slightly so that he could look in her eyes. Scully shrugged lightly, tracing her fingers through the cool water. "I guess the sky just seems a lot more threatening than it did then," she spoke ruefully. He didn't reply for a moment, his hands tracing her legs around him. "I think that," he started slowly, replacing his head at her neck, "there has to be more than 'them' out there." She tightened her arms around his shoulders, her hands roaming the expanse of his chest. "So we just happened to end up with the Adolf Hitlers of the galaxy?" As he turned so that he was facing her completely, her legs fell away from him, her feet landing on the rough pool bottom. She liked the feeling of her legs holding him, so when he pulled her to him again, she re-wrapped them around his waist. "Something like that," Mulder said. His tone was regretful but his hands were becoming more playful. "Hmmm," she sighed against his cheek. "Lucky us." "Scully?" he said, his lips beginning to trace their way from the hollow of her throat up her neck. "What?" she asked breathlessly, beginning to lose herself in his touch. "I don't want to think about it right now," he said, moving his lips to hers and lingering mere millimeters from them. "Do you?" She looked him in the eye and smiled. "No." Then the stars didn't seem so intimidating again. *-* Scully sighed as the memory faded. A sadness began to spread over her, but not the explosive type of earlier. This was a calm sadness, though it ached every bit as fiercely. For the first time since Mulder's disappearance, Scully allowed herself to cry without blaming her tears on hormones. ___ Now remember this takes place during another fic I'm writing... so stay tuned sports fans. :-) Comments? Please?