From: isis Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 11:44:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: new fanfiction piece, "An Understanding" Hiya! This is my second posting. It's also a vignette, and it follows my first one which is called "Truth." "Truth" is Mulder's point of view, this is Scully's. You don't need to read the first to get the second,= but it probably works better if you do. I am a shipper, this is a romance of the personal angst kind. If you don't like them together, don't read further. It's sexual, but not graphically so. I do try and be true to characterization, so any feed back on either piece is appreciated. X-files, Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, all that stuff, belong to Chris Carter and the actors who make them seem like real people ("like" real people - I'm not THAT out of the reality loop). This writing is for fun, not profit. AN UNDERSTANDING In a normal world I would not be with him. I suppose the truth of this concerns Mulder. He is restless sometimes after we...make love, broodingly so. I like classical music he likes rock-n-roll. He likes speculation and risk, I don't. Yet, I have made choices in my life that are nothing but. I'd prefer to think that I make calculated risks. That I first took in all the facts, and then made my decisions. The truth of the matter is that the circumstances of my life have come about from paths I've taken out of emotion or reaction to something I didn't like. A doctor rather than a nurse, a pathologist and forensic expert instead of a pediatrician. I wanted equality, a bullying older brother will create that in you. I didn't want to be my mother, baking cookies, following my father everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother. I just didn't want to be her: mom was so alone. My father was away more often than not and I wondered how she stood it. I hated when he was away. I can't stand the thought that they may separate us tomorrow. Mulder's reassurances aside, I know they could very well banish me to another state, nevermind just another division. Will I walk away from my career if they do? Is this how my mother ending up traveling all over the world, turning her life upsidedown for Dad, then watching him sail away? The man next to me murmurs in his sleep and tightens his arms around me. I brush his soft brown hair soothingly and kiss the top of his head. I am not my mother. I am not alone with Mulder. There are times I feel we are joined at the hip, or, even worse, by cell. God, even his silly punning humor is rubbing off on me. I can't quite stop smiling though. I like being connected. A few years ago it terrified me. He was, I felt, taking over my life. Furthermore, he didn't even care. Today, I know he does,= despite the fact he never says it. At least not with words. The first time we were together was in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Caught in a snowstorm in route back to D.C. we ended up at yet another tiny no-name hotel. They'd had only one room left and we took it. The tension between us had been high. My cancer was in remission, but somehow we'd become distant, alienated from each other. He made me take the bed while he curled up on the tiny cot we'd asked for. Not logical,= since he's so tall and I'm so....not, but he insisted. I woke up to his whimpering sobs. Another nightmare. "Don't take her, please don't take her..." Samantha. I sighed, got out of bed and walked over to wake him up. "Scully...not Scully...please not Scully." I'd never been so stunned in my life. Had I become a part of his nightmares? I didn't want that. His face was streaked with tears as he sobbed, still asleep. I sat next to him on the bed and gently brushed his hair back. "Mulder. Mulder, it's me, Scully." He didn't wake up. "Scul-lee..." I wanted to cry, too. For all the resentment I felt towards him, I hadn't wished this, this addition to his nightmares, more angst in his life. Without though I stretched out on my side next to him, letting him feel my body as I stroked his hair, kissed his temple. Don't ask what I was thinking - like I said, this didn't involve thought. "Mulder...come on tiger, wake up." Tiger? Where the hell did that come from? The man hated the name Fox, why on earth did I call him Tiger? If anything he's more like a puppy, a bloodhound puppy maybe. I was so intent on trying to figure out why on earth I'd called him tiger that I didn't catch he'd woken up. "Scully?" I remember starting at the sound, then staring into his sleepy, anguished eyes. He reached up and touched my cheek wonderingly. I suppose that would have been the time to say something, but I didn't. Instead, I let him pull me into his arms. It sent me sprawling across his body, but there wasn't time to complain, because then his mouth was on mine and we were kissing. Reverence and raw passion was how he touched me, how he still touches me. His hands never miss an inch of my skin, and his mouth covers nearly as much territory. That night he kept murmuring my name to himself, over and over. I touched him back to reassure him it was O.K. God knows I didn't want him to stop. I hadn't ever known the feelings Mulder brought out in me. I'd always enjoyed sex, yet this was new. In retrospect I think it is because Mulder is always so intent on me, so focused. I was used to being the pleasure giver, used to games of mastery and control. I don't have to do anything with Mulder. My very being is enough to send him into rapture.= I do...things, because I want to. Because I want him to feel loved and cared for, that he deserves it. He can feel so undeserving of being loved,= and when he's in that space it breaks my heart. He'd been in that space when I woke up earlier. I could hear the wheels turning in his mind. It really bothers me when he does that right after we've made love. I mean, he's just done the most incredible things to my body, we've soared to Nirvana and back, and he's wondering why I'm even with him? God. Still, I can see his point; in a normal world I wouldn't be with him. However, I started leaving my definition of "normal" long before I met him. The X-files are beyond what I ever imagined, but I got here on my own two feet, and no longer live in a normal world. In a normal world I certainly wouldn't have seen the things I've seen, nor would I have learned to trust him the way I do. I probably would never have learned to trust anyone. See, that's my little secret. All the rules, all the laws that I've held so dear, the security I've said I wanted, it's all been about not trusting. Anything I couldn't see, couldn't control, I didn't rely on. Like God. Asking if I believed in God was the wrong question. Was there a God? Sure - something had to start this universe. Ask me if I trusted God....I didn't. Life had seemingly proved to me that the only thing to rely on was myself, what I could prove with facts, figures and my God-given intelligence. This is why I found Mulder so intriguing. He was certainly as smart, and (though I hate to admit it) more likely smarter,= than I am. Yet he believed in things he couldn't see, believed with a strength I couldn't fathom. His search was merely to corroborate the truth he already believed. And the scary, awesome thing about it was he was almost always right. Mulder has been my lesson in belief. Perhaps God's way of teaching me, allowing me an understanding of the power that created this world. At first there was only the word....and the word was believe.= isis