From: "Dasha Kluz" Subject: Night Vigil by Dasha K (1/2) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:00:59 PDT Title: Night Vigil Author: Dasha K Category: MSR, kind of angsty Time: Oh, about now... Spoilers: Nothing that everyone doesn't know Rating: mild R for some not too graphic sex and language Archive: Oh go ahead, just keep my story and name intact and let me know where you put my story. I already posted this to alt.tv.x-files.creative. Author's Note: While I have been writing for some time, this is my first X-Files fan fiction, so go easy on me! Thanks for all the great writers out there who inspired me to give this a go. Summary: Scully adjusts to life after cancer, and spends the night in a hotel wondering if she has a true love. Feedback: Constructive criticism and lavish compliments to dkluz@hotmail.com. Disclaimer: I don't own Mulder, Scully, Melissa or any ofTen Thirteen, Fox Broadcasting or Chris Carter's characters. I wrote this for fun and will not see one red cent from it, so don't go after me for copyright infringement! Night Vigil (1/2) Danielle Kluz I awaken with a start. It seems I am in an unfamiliar room, lit only by a hazy bluish light. In the background there is the scatchy sound of static and the rise and fall of breathing. What rabbit hole have I fallen into now? I sit up in bed, cold sweat tricking down my neck. My heart thumps rapidly against my breastbone. God, is something awful happening again? My eyes clear and I can see that I'm just in my hotel room, the Hilton in Seattle. The blue light and static are from the television. That's right, Mulder and I ordered the movie "Dante's Peak" from pay-per-view (he wanted "Satanic Nudist Cheerleaders", but I vetoed that one) and it must have been awfully thrilling, because both of us dropped off in the middle of it. I'm half tempted to go over to the other bed and nudge Mulder awake, send him packing to his own room. He looks so peaceful lying there on his back, in a ratty pair of navy sweatpants and an old Nike t-shirt that I decide it won't kill me to have him crashed out in my room. There is no point in trying to go back to sleep now. I feel like I have just downed 3 or 4 shots of espresso. Damn. And I didn't even have that much caffeine today, considering that I'm in Seattle, birthplace of Starbucks. Just a cup of Italian roast at breakfast and one teeny, tiny little cappuccino after lunch. These days I treat my body so gingerly, with such care, as if I have become a delicate crystal figuring, constantly at risk of breaking if I handle it too roughly. It is the cancer I had, the way I came to within the thinnest thread of losing my life. I cannot help fearing it will just as mysteriously return, the bad cells coming back to gobble up my good ones. Every headache, every ache or pain in my stomach or chest, my brain starts racing. Is it back, I think. Is this it; is it all over for me? All my life, I have despised hypochondriacs, I mean I am a doctor, but here I am obsessing over the slightest turn in my health. No wonder I can't sleep . But you are in a dangerous line of work, Dana. I can easily hear my sister, Melissa, saying that to me. Were she alive, of course. Yes, I know the dangers all too well, but if I am killed in the line of duty as a FBI agent, that is something external. I must do everything possible to keep myself safe, but if I am killed, it is something beyond my control. But, if my body betrays me, well, I don't even want to think about it. I get out of bed and slip on my flannel bathrobe, go click of the TV. Mulder rolls onto his side and thickly mumbles, "What?" but he doesn't wake up. At the window I look out onto the twinkling night lights of downtown Seattle, wishing I were back home in Washington, surrounded by my books, my CDs, the afghan my mother knitted for me when I was sick, all the comforting niceties of home. All the nights spent in sterile, anonymous hotel rooms, or grungy roadside motels, chasing after supposed UFOs, mutants and assorted freaks of nature. Mulder and I are here for a FBI conference on Team Building. Yes, another one of those. Today the two of us skipped out on the afternoon sessions, feeling like high school kids on the lam from Algebra class. We wandered around Pike Place market, gazing at the jewel-like organic vegetables, the exotic spices from India and Asia, the other tourists wandering around, gaping just like us at the bounty of the market. Mulder and I stood at one of the fish stands, marveling at the giant salmon and tuna laying so still on the crushed ice and I couldn't help but dissolve into helpless giggles when one of the vendors threw an enormous specimen of a salmon to another vendor and narrowly missed clocking Mulder in the head. He gave one of his lopsided grins and said, "At least it wasn't a Flukeman, Scully." I am beginning to hate these nights I spend awake; all the empty time I have to busily ponder my life. Here I am, in my 30s, living in an apartment, no boyfriend since=E0well, I don't even want to add it up. Few= friends, even fewer nights out just having fun. My career is an endless traipse around the country trying to find the pieces of a puzzle that may never fully be put together. The drama, the angst and gnashing of teeth that has become an every day occurrence=E0 Whatever happened to the= girl I was in college, who maintained all As, but still managed to play Frisbee on the Quad, drink beer and kiss handsome men at parties. It is all Mulder's fault, I think, he dragged me into this mess. All semblance of a normal life disappeared the day I walked into his junky little basement office and he showed me those slides of the dead kids in Oregon. He turned around to look at me, and I thought, what a handsome bastard. I should have looked closer at the obsessive light in his eyes. Look where this has gotten me: I have lost my sister, been abducted by forces unknown, been nearly killed more times than I care to recount and nearly died from cancer. Yes, it is no X-File why I am not sleeping well these days. End of 1/2 Night Vigil (2/2) Dasha K It is all Mulder's fault, I think, he dragged me into this mess. All semblance of a normal life disappeared the day I walked into his junky little basement office and he showed me those slides of the dead kids in Oregon. He turned around to look at me, and I thought, what a handsome bastard. I should have looked closer at the obsessive light in his eyes. Look where this has gotten me: I have lost my sister, been abducted by forces unknown, been nearly killed more times than I care to recount and nearly died from cancer. Yes, it is no X-File why I am not sleeping well these days. A bath is what I need, I think, and I escape to the retreat of the improbably shiny white hotel bathroom. The tub as not nearly as nice as my wonderfully deep claw-foot tub at home, but it will do. Sylvia Plath once said, "There are a few things in life that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know any of them." Of course, look what happened to her. Leaving on only the heat lamp, I turn off the overhead light and climb into the blessedly hot water. I have dumped in a packet of lavender bath salts and the comforting aroma immediately calms me down, slows the rapid beating of my heart. These days I am far too thin and pale, the last vestige of my illness. A peaceful week on some island in the Caribbean is what I need, seven days of lying in the sun and sipping Pina Coladas, soothing my frazzled nerves with snorkeling and sunscreen. I see myself going dancing at night in colorful sundresses, instead of the severe pantsuits I usually wear in my everyday life. Eating grilled shrimp and lobster. Walking barefoot along a moonlit beach. Making reckless love on the beach with a handsome man. Making love with Mulder, our bodies covered in sweat, my skirt hiked up, and his pants around his ankles. He is groaning in my ear and I can't help worrying we'll be caught, but it feels so good to have him inside me, that all I can do is groan in his ear. Wait a minute here, fucking Mulder on a tropic beach? Mulder? I sit up in the tub, shocked at the depraved workings of my own mind. Not that I haven't ever considered it. After all we have been through, we are bound together with invisible cord. When I awoke in the hospital after being abducted, his was the face I was happiest to see. I cannot describe the sense of relief that flooded through my body. It was like coming home to see his eyes crinkle when he smiled. But seriously, how could Mulder and I have a normal relationship after the things we've seen, the experiences we've lived through? How do you go from cracking government conspiracies to making scrambled eggs together? What do you do, go on a movie date after a post-mortem on a mutant corpse? He does do something for me, though. Sometimes when Mulder and I are in the car and I'm driving, I'll catch him giving me little sidelong glances and I can actually feel the blood flowing more rapidly through my veins. I have to dismiss those feelings as soon as they rise to the surface. I cannot love Mulder like that. It has been so long since I have made love, lost myself in a tangle of flesh. I can't even remember how physical pleasure feels, to come so hard it seems that time itself stops. The cancer drained that part of me away, I was so intent on focusing on my will to survive, to not only recover, but to keep up with my job. Now, for the fist time in ages, I feel alive again. I want to make love, to forget myself in someone else. To lose myself in Mulder=E0 Admit it Miss Scully, I tell myself, you love him. He is totally wrong for me, I think, he leaves sunflower seeds everywhere, he is obsessed with the paranormal and finding his sister, he is addicted to porn, for fun he tries to solve the Kennedy Assassination. Why do I want a man like this in my life? But I love him. I love him for saving my life, over and over again. I love him for saving his life, over and over again. I love his crackpot theories, and the way his pupils dilate when he is describing them. I love the way the two of us form a whole in our search for the truth. We are a true team. Out of the tub, I towel myself off and put on my nightgown, a thin pale green cotton shift. I look at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I'm beautiful. It's hard to remember the last time I wore a dress or a pair of really killer fuck-me shoes, or put on makeup that wasn't designed to be unobtrusive. My face is just my face, nothing special, just Dana Scully. I'm getting sleepy now; the hot water has done its job. The room is dark and quiet as I slip into bed. It feels so good, the clean sheets on my damp body. I stretch out and feel something that feels suspiciously like a foot. Oh shit, it's Mulder. I got into the wrong bed. He stirs and he mumbles, "Scully? That you?" I am seriously dying of embarrassment. "Sorry Mulder, I got into the wrong bed, it's dark in here." I whisper, "Maybe it's time you went back to your own room." He groans sleepily, "Hard for me to go back to my room when I'm in bed with a beautiful woman." I mock punch him. "It's late, almost 5:00 am. I need some sleep." Mulder reaches out and touches my hand, I freeze in shock. He says, "Scully, do you ever think about us?" My glib side comes out, even at this late hour. "On the advice of counsel, I decline to answer that question." He chuckles. I love that wry laugh of his. "I woke up and heard you splashing around in the tub, and I wanted so badly to go in the bathroom and wash your back for you." Even in the dark I can feel myself blush. This is wrong, I think, this should not happen. Get him out of here, Dana. But instead the crazy, wild Dana that climbed trees as a little girl, that racked up phone numbers at fraternity parties takes over. I have no control. I want this man, wrong or not. Damn. I love him. I turn to face him. In the pre-dawn light I can just barely make out the features of his face: the bow of his lower lip, the slight cleft in his chin. I could stare at that face forever. In the past five years I have grown to love that face, even if I haven't been able to fully admit it. "Do you know how badly I want to kiss you?" he says. He is so close, it scares me. This can't be happening, I think, this is not real. Our bodies meet in the middle of the bed, until we are right up against each other. "I'm scared to kiss you, Mulder." I whisper. "Just do it, Scully." He says, "Just lean over and kiss me." And then our lips meet and we are kissing like we might just devour one another. God, I had forgotten what this feels like. His hands are in my hair; his tongue in my mouth and it feels so familiar and yet strange at the same time. Time slows down and speeds up as Mulder and I kiss, all I can think of is how wonderful it feels, and how much I want him. The next thing I know, my nightgown is thrown on the floor and his t-shirt and sweatpants are, well, I don't know where they are. He is lying on his back and I slowly run the length of my body down his. Mulder gasps, "Oh my God, you feel so good, so soft." I shut him up by kissing him again. I have always been rather the passive partner in bed, but with Mulder I suddenly feel wild, in control. He is kissing me everywhere, my neck, my ears, my breasts. I can't stand it anymore; I take him inside me and moan as he slowly enters me. Yes, is all I can think, yes, this is it. We start out slowly, but it builds up speed, he is now on top of me and my legs are wrapped around my back as he goes deeper and deeper into the heart of me. I hear someone making noises like an animal and realize that it is me, but I don't care. Just before I am about to come, where I am standing on the cliff of pleasure, ready to jump off, he looks me dead in the eyes and says, "I love you." And I gleefully jump off the cliff. When it is over, we lay entwined together. We can't stop kissing, can't stop touching each other, as if we have finally been given license to finally explore each other. As the room finally grows light I say to him, "Mulder, did you mean what you said, or was that just the heat of passion?" He laughs. "I never say things I don't mean, Scully. I truly love you." I smile, something I have done so rarely lately. "I love you too." "So, what do we do now, Scully?" I kiss his neck. "We go to sleep." And we do. I drop off into a heavy, dreamless sleep, the kind I can't remember having in ages.