From: "jesse bee" Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 18:14:20 -0000 Subject: NEW STORY "Winter Butterfly" (1/1) Title: WINTER BUTTERFLY (1/1) Author: jesse (jesse.bee@mailcity.com) Rating: R Category: V, A, MSR Spoilers: none really Summary: Midnight Mulder-angst after doing the deed with Scully... (sequel to ICING but could probably stand alone) Disclaimer: 20th Century Fox, Chris Carter, and 1013 Productions own the rights to THE X-FILES. No copyright infringement is intended. Archive: If you like the thing that much--sure! Go for it. But let me know where and when, please. Feedback: Please please please. Good bad or otherwise, I'll take anything! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WINTER BUTTERFLY (1/1) jesse022799 ...They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods... Edith Wharton ------------------------------------ Mulder started awake in the dead of the night and realized he was not at home, not on his couch. He lay still a moment, cataloguing impressions. No, not a hotel either. Bed felt too nice, the sheets too soft, smelled too good. Way too good. He opened his eyes. Moonlight poured in around the edges of the blinds, washing the room. He knew this room. Not intimately. But he knew it. His partner's bedroom. His partner's bed. He inhaled deeply to try and slow the sudden racing of his heart; then, almost afraid, he turned his head. Yep--batting a thousand. His partner. Special Agent Dr. Dana Katherine Scully. As naked as he realized he was and as tousled, sleeping peacefully beside him with a smile curving her lips. Oh My God. Mulder looked back up at her ceiling, then closed his eyes and let it all wash over him. He was here. He had made mad passionate love just a few hours ago to his strong and quite unreasonably beautiful partner of five years--hell, she'd started it, even!--and he was still here. In her bed. With her. He felt a tear well up and spill, then another, and he shivered suddenly under the onslaught of way too many unfamiliar emotions --unfamiliar, shit; try unrecognizable. But uppermost was the unquestionable certainty that he loved her. That he, Fox William Mulder, was hopelessly and completely in love with the petite redhead beside him. And that for some utterly bizarre and not easily referenced reason, she was in love with him. And that he'd die before he let anyone or anything separate them ever again. Another tear slipped, and another shiver rocked him. Thank God she was asleep. Then he felt the bed shift and caught a whisper of sound, and opened his eyes to see her propped up on her right elbow, watching him. Uh oh. Busted. Caught between the storm of his emotions and the snare of her eyes Mulder couldn't move, could only lie there frozen and wait. Wait for the ugly play that was his *normal* life to reassert itself; for her to freeze him out, kick him out, for the dream to end and him to wake up alone on the couch, alone as he would always be... But a breath passed and then another, and he was actually awake and she was still there, and on her beautiful moon-lit face was concern and love and wanting to understand and love and...oh Jesus. Love. In that second he knew he would have to turn his face away because in another second the look of--of--well, *everything*--on hers would completely undo him. But he also knew, in a jolting flash of intuition, that to turn away might damage this delicate new thing upon which they had embarked. And that would be much, much worse. So in the same instant that long years of reflex he couldn't control took over and closed his eyes, turned his head, Mulder reached out with his left hand and blindly sought and found hers. Twined his fingers in hers and held on. Tight. For a long moment time stopped, and then it happened. In their relationship heretofore, this moment would have continued only as it was. With a holding of hands. She could not have offered him any more. And if she had, he could not have taken it. Most likely one or the other of them would have pulled away, to deal with the upheaval alone, behind their walls of reserve that neither could quite breach. But not this time. A cool, strong hand touched his waist, brushed across and up his chest, curved around his shoulder. Hesitated. Then pulled. The wall shattered. Mulder rolled over into her arms and buried his face against the warm velvety skin between her breast and her collarbone, inhaled her heavenly scent, as familiar to him as his own. His right arm locked around her slender waist, feeling the corded muscle under the soft curves of her. Scully's own powerful arm came hard around his shoulders, and her fingers held his in a grip that somehow told him that never after this night would she ever let go. Even if he tried to. He got in one shuddering lungfull of air before the dam irretrievably collapsed. The worst thing, the little still-rational portion of his mind informed him, was that he really didn't understand why he was doing this. Why was he dampening his partner and probably her sheets with mostly silent tears on the night of what had been the happiest day of his life? Any moment now Scully was going to ask him what the hell was wrong and how could he tell her what he didn't know himself? But she didn't ask--she just held him tightly and rocked him, murmured soothing somethings into his hair. Gradually the roaring of his own blood in his ears began to subside and her words began to make sense. "Shhh, Mulder, it's all right. I've got you, I'm here. You're here and I won't let you go. Let it all out--it's okay--it hits people funny--I understand. We've got it coming, you and I. You've got me--I'm not going anywhere..." Some indeterminate time later he ran down into soft hiccups and hitches, finally giving way to the odd sense of peace that crying one's self out can bring. A sense of peace that he couldn't remember feeling since...since Samantha. Scully held him close, her capable, beloved hands stroking his back and hair soothingly. Mulder inhaled, getting his first full clean breath in what seemed like hours. Scully's hands stilled, registering his change. Her arm left his shoulders and she shifted, then something soft landed near his face. "Here." Her whisper was warm. Mulder untangled himself and sat up, taking the tissues she'd offered him. Wiped his eyes, blew his nose, did all those unattractive things one does after a crying jag. Tossed the crumpled remains in the direction of her garbage can and sought sanctuary again in her body, hiding his face in her soft skin. Well now, why the hell couldn't he look her in the eyes? Precisely what could he possibly have left to be embarrassed about with Scully, really? She'd long ago seen him at his worst; she'd met and faced down his demons and she knew where all the bodies were buried. Her hands resumed their calming, even rhythm. Mulder swallowed hard and took another deep breath, wondering if his voice would work. "Scully?" Well, it kinda sounded like him, anyway. "Mulder?" "Thank you." Her hands stilled again, and she hugged him hard. "You're welcome. Any time. I think you and I were both way overdue..." ...overdue...? Huh? He heard her words but somehow they weren't quite making sense. It was enough to finally make him lift his head and look at her. Scully's calm eyes regarded him in the moonlight. Eyes that looked a bit too puffy. He reached up tentatively to touch her face. Yes, those *were* tear tracks down her cheeks, and wet hair around her ears. Scully had been crying right along with him. "Scully?" Her small smile was warm and her voice only a trifle shaky. "Happiness, Mulder. It's got a strange way of whacking you sometimes--comes up out of left field and you don't know whether to laugh or cry." Mulder stared at her, his brain coming back on-line, processing. Happiness? What in--that's a silly...no. Wait. Wait just a minute. Well, damn. "Scully, you been taking psych classes at night and didn't tell me?" Her smile widened. "No, I've just been hanging out with you for way the hell too long." Happiness. Not an emotion he'd had any more than a passing acquaintance with; not since 1973, anyway. No wonder he didn't know quite what to do with it. Since that night there had been very little happiness in the Mulder family, either together or later after his parents had split. He shuddered, remembering: every time he'd found even a little bit of it somewhere whichever parent he'd been with had taken offense, had seen it as a betrayal--"You can't have this--you don't deserve this--how can you dare to be happy when your sister is gone--you can't possibly be happy until she's found--WHAT WOULD SAMANTHA THINK OF YOU?!" "Mulder?" He blinked and focused back in on her, her eyes chasing away the bitter accusing ones of memory. "You're self-analyzing again, aren't you?" Scully's voice was warm and rueful and a bit teasingly long-suffering. Mulder felt a chuckle bubble up despite himself and let it out, and Scully gave him a beautiful smile in answer. God, he lived for those. "Scully, I think I--" His eyes closed for a moment, then he forced them back open and looked determinedly into her soft blues. She deserved all the honesty he had to give her. "I'm--I'm not sure if I really know *how* to be happy. If I can. If I can let myself, if I even deserve to be when..." He couldn't finish. "I'll teach you, Mulder--you can and you should, and we'll learn together. And you deserve to be happy more than anyone else I know." Scully touched his cheek. "She would want you to--I know she would. She wouldn't think it a betrayal for you to have some joy in your life." Oh God, right on the money. Scully, how the hell do you DO that? His mouth twitched, the tears threatening to return. Amazing. He really hadn't thought he had any left. "How can you know that for sure?" Lord, his voice sounded so, so... Scully's eyes shimmered. "Because she loves you. And that's what you do when you love someone." Mulder's eyes closed despite himself and would not come back open, and his head was suddenly much too heavy. He dropped it to rest between her breasts, turned his cheek against the incredibly soft pillow and swell of her. He bit his lip, shoulders hitching as he reached for control. Scully's arms came around him again, sheltering him, soothing fingers running along his neck and twining through his hair. The steady double-thump of her heartbeat in his ear calmed him. Strong. Constant. Unceasing. Like Scully. She was the bedrock foundation in his usually wildly shifting world; his harbor and refuge against the storms raging outside and in. The finest challenge and the best damn sparring partner he could ever hope to have. But maybe--if she believed they could do this, this *happiness* thing, if she truly believed it was okay to try--maybe he'd try very very hard *not* to spar with her on this one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Icing?" Whoops. Her heartbeat had lulled him close to sleep, and he hadn't realized that he'd been thinking aloud. Mulder raised his head to meet her dozey, curious gaze. "Just something that floated through my head back at the office--you know how these weird random thoughts are. Particularly mine." Scully grinned. "That we've been intellectual lovers for a long time now, years--and that this," he kissed the soft skin of her breast, "would just be icing on the cake. But I *like* icing, you know." Scully gave him a half-hearted version of her 'I'm deciding whether to be offended' look, and then her lazy grin returned. "Not icing. Usqua." "U-what?" "Usqua." She rolled the unfamiliar sound off her tongue, a touch of brogue in her voice. "The Irish-Gaelic term for whiskey. It means 'water of life'. This isn't icing, it's more like two hundred year old whiskey. The new stuff isn't worth drinking, my father always said. But the longer you let it age, the better it is when you finally tap the barrel." Scully regarded him then with a look of such tenderness that he felt his heart skip in response. "And this is worth every incredibly long minute we waited." Hazel-green eyes searched blue ones for a long moment. Then Mulder moved, scooting himself up to lie beside her against the mound of pillows she kept at the head of the bed, and reached for her. Scully came easily into his arms, and his heart skipped again as she nuzzled into his throat and settled herself solidly against him as if she had no intentions of moving anywhere for a very long time. He stroked her silky hair and looked down at the still amazing sight of her naked body cuddled up with his. "I'll drink to that, Scully," he whispered. "I'll drink to that." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ finis