Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 23:10:51 -0000
Subject: NEW "Woman in Love" By Starbuck
Source: xff

Title: Woman In Love

Author: Starbuck ( BlueRoses@sweetdreams.freeserve.co.uk )

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: In the words of Oscar Wilde: "I have nothing to declare but
my genius." And the fact that I don't own this, CC and Fox are God (I
thought Alanis Morissette was God!!! [obligatory reference to Dogma, my
new favourite movie])

Summary: Doesn't the title say it all? She's a woman, she's in
love, read on for more.

Author's note: I used <> to surround thoughts. Oh, and this is the
first fanfic I ever wrote in my whole life so please don't flame me.
My newer ones are better, honest, although most of them are Voyager
based.

Ten hours on a plane was beginning to grate on Special Agent Dana
Scully's nerves. Her partner, Fox Mulder, was stretched out on the empty
seats beside her, fast asleep, and Scully envied his ability to relax
anywhere, under any circumstances, as it reminded her how jumpy she
always felt on planes. <Look at him lying there. How does he do it? I'm
a nervous wreck every time there's the tiniest jolt and he just lies
there sleeping like a baby. I guess you learn to sleep anywhere when you
don't even have a bed and sleep on your sofa with the TV on.> They were
flying home from a case which had taken them to London, England and
Scully was still spitting tacks from her encounter with Mulder's old
flame and Scotland Yard detective Phoebe Green. <She obviously wanted
him. She did nothing but flirt shamelessly with him the entire time we
were there, even when I was in the room. I don't suppose she knew what
it did to me but still...> She couldn't bear to finish the thought. It
had been like a piece of barbed wire tightening round Scully's heart
every time Mulder smiled at Phoebe; which he did frequently she had
noted. However, watching him sleep peacefully and serenely began to
soothe the pain that her wandering mind had brought back as the voice
came over the speaker, "We are beginning our descent into Dulles
International Airport, please return your seats to the upright position
and fasten seatbelts. Thank you."

"I suppose I had better wake him," Scully muttered to herself as she
gathered her unread magazine and her Walkman and tapes together into her
bag. Leaning over him she watched for a moment before she disturbed the
beauty before her. Mulder's soft brown hair was ruffled and tousled and
she could see that his eyes were moving rapidly beneath his eyelids with
his long eyelashes. <I hope he's not dreaming about Phoebe, although I
know better that to believe that he may be dreaming about me.> After
that thought crossed her mind she was suddenly desperate to put an end
to his dream and, holding herself back from kissing him awake, she
stroked his face gently and whispered, "Mulder, we're landing. Wake up."
His eyes flickered and slowly opened, "Scully...? What...where are we?"
A laugh escaped her lips before she told him, "We're on the plane from
London. You have to sit up and put a seatbelt on, we're landing." Still
sleepy and disorientated, Mulder managed to sit up and fasten a belt
around his waist just before they hit the runway and he had to take it
off again. <I guess better late than never.> Scully considered then
began to stand to deplane.

The source of Mulder's disorientation was nothing to do with his hours
of sleep. The image of Scully's face as she leaned over him was still
imprinted in his mind two days later and he could still remember his
confusion and longing as, for a few minutes, he couldn't distinguish
between the real Scully and that of his dream. <What the hell is the
matter with you, Mulder?> He asked himself as he showered for work.
<You've had so many chances to just tell her. Why would I want to tell
her though? She's the epitome of professionalism and she's never even
given a hint that she might feel the same. I'll just make a fool of
myself; it's better to just hold it in. Why get hurt?> He towelled
himself dry, got dressed and walked into the kitchen for breakfast but
found that his fridge contained only an old aubergine, some sour milk
and a lemon. His breadbasket was empty save for a piece of mouldy bread
and there was no coffee. "I need to learn to start shopping," he mused
as he unlocked his car on an empty stomach. Sitting in a traffic jam he
began on his usual train of thought; Scully. This time it was a slight
variation. <I can't believe I flirted with Phoebe. I know what she's
like and, even worse, I know that Scully hates her. Bill's right, I am
one sorry son of a bitch.>

Coming in to work early was intended to take Scully's mind off things
but being in Mulder's office, as she still considered it despite the
fact that her name was finally on the door, without him just felt weird.
She looked at his things; His poster declaring his desire to "believe",
his case files strewn haphazardly around contrasting with her neat and
tidy desk, his New York Knicks T-shirt thrown over the back of his chair
and the photograph of his sister sitting in pride of place on the one
clear spot of his desk. <Who am I kidding? There's only one woman in his
life and until he finds her he won't be distracted by a relationship.>
Consoling herself with the fact that she was, at least, his closest
friend, Scully walked over to his desk and picked up the photo of
Samantha Mulder aged eight. Scully could almost smell the apple aroma of
Mulder's shampoo as she travelled back through time in her mind
reviewing the times that he had shown her how much she meant to him as a
friend. She had always been there for him and vice versa. She had held
him at his mother's bedside after she suffered a stroke and seemed
certain to die, in return he had spent hours at her bedside as she
slowly succumbed to cancer. Thinking back to the tender way in which he
held her and stroked her hair and kissed her cheek, her skin burned with
his imagined touch and her cheeks flushed with emotion. He had been so
loving and so afraid that she would die; he had cried into her bedcovers
when he had thought she was asleep and she had cried in his arms when
the fight for her life grew too hard and too frightening. <He's my
everything. I have to tell him the truth.>

<I have to tell her the truth.> Mulder suddenly decided that he could
wait no longer as he entered their office to the sight of her sitting on
her desk looking at the picture of Samantha. The fiery red of her hair
took his breath away; he had never seen anybody with hair as beautiful
as Scully's and he could picture her eyes, sincere and at the same time
playful, smiling up at him as he walked in the door. His entry startled
her and she dropped the photograph, smashing the glass of the frame. "Oh
God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, you surprised me. I'll replace it." Her
eyes were troubled and Mulder almost felt like apologising himself for
causing her to worry. "It's fine. I'll get a new one later. I have to
start shopping anyway, the only food in my apartment is some mouldy
bread, a lemon, some sour milk and an aubergine." Scully laughed along
with him at this and then remembered her resolution. It echoed in her
mind, <I have to tell him.> "Mulder..." she began and Assistant Director
Skinner walked in to the room in his usual professional manner. "I need
to see you two in my office right now." Scully knew that her confession
was over before it had started.

As she sat in her apartment alone, curled up on the sofa with her chin
resting on her knees, the lyrics to sappy songs by artists like Celine
Dion, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston kept coming into her mind.

<Every night in my dreams

I see you, I feel you.>

<Deep inside, can't you see

That I believe in you and me?>

<I need psychological help.> She thought as she began to hum "My All" by
Mariah Carey to herself. 

<I'm thinking of you 

In my sleepless solitude tonight.>

"Stop it!" She screamed out loud. She then screamed again when she got a
reply. "Stop what?" said Mulder's voice from the other side of her
apartment door. After she had recovered from the shock of being answered
by her partner in an empty apartment Scully opened the door and let him
in. "Did we have an appointment?" she asked. "I didn't know I needed
one. Sorry." "No, no. You don't need an appointment I just wanted to
know if I was supposed to be expecting you 'cause if I was then I
forgot." <Stop babbling, you idiot. And stop looking at his lips.>
Realising that she was just standing staring at him in what was probably
a very strange way, she pulled herself together and invited him to sit
down and inquired, "So, what's up?"

"Nothing's up. I just thought I would drop by on the way back from my
first ever visit to the supermarket and show you the new frame I got for
Samantha's picture." With this he removed the ugliest frame that Scully
had ever seen from a plastic bag that she had not noticed he was
carrying. "It's really nice. Colourful." commented Scully. Yellow and
electric pink, the two colours least likely to look good together and
most likely to give her a headache every time she looked at it. <Yippee.
Oh well, I inflicted on myself when I broke the last one. He needs
someone to look after him before he attempts to redecorate his apartment
or something equally heinous.>

<Pretty good. She's a good actress on top of being the most beautiful
woman I've ever seen.> Mulder was impressed with how well Scully was
hiding her disgust at his choice of photo frame. If it was not for the
fact that he knew her better than anybody else and that he sometimes
even felt like he knew what she was thinking, he might have actually
believed that she liked it. "Phoebe would have hated this frame." <Shit!
You complete and total IDIOT! What the hell did you say that for?>

"Mulder, when we were in London and you flirted with Phoebe it made me
jealous." The words were out of Scully's mouth in a rush before she
could stop them and she stood, shocked at her revelation, for a moment
in silence before she realised she should elaborate. His face was not
contorted in horror so she assumed it was safe to tell the truth now. "I
felt like it should have been me. I've been here for the past five
years, I've been your friend and cared for you when you needed someone.
I've given you so much of myself and I just hoped for a little back. It
was foolish, I know, to think that you could feel the same but I had to
at least tell the truth and take a chance." She let her words hang in
the air as she found the courage to look in his eyes. He seemed distant
and unattainable as she watched him consider her declaration with the
deep thought which he applied to everything. 

Inside Mulder's head it seemed as if there was a huge choir singing love
songs directly at him and Scully. He had always mocked the way in which
romantic movies played loud swelling music during love scenes but he
suddenly understood. Those few words from her seemed to bring the whole
world into focus; he knew what Lionel Ritchie had been singing about all
these years. <Say something. What am I supposed to say? Just say
something, she'll think she's totally freaked you out then she'll never
want to see you again. OK, OK, I'll say something.> "Uh...um...I don't
know what to say." <Oh, that's good.> "It's OK, you don't have to say
anything," she replied. <Thank God, 'cause I still don't know what to
say.>

<I've scared him. Oh God, I've scared him and he's going to leave. What
do I do now?> Then it no longer mattered what either of them wanted to
do, something else took over. Mulder felt himself walking towards Scully
as if somebody else was controlling his actions and he touched her face
with a touch as gentle as a snowflake landing on the petal of the most
beautiful flower in the garden. Her heart bounced as she realised that
her love was being reciprocated, she almost did not dare to believe that
it was really happening. <In a moment I'll wake up.> She lifted her hand
to his face and grazed his lips with her index finger and then they were
in each others arms. Their eyes linked and they gazed at each other as
if they were joined by an invisible thread, unable to look away or close
their eyes. Their faces moved closer and closer until she could feel his
breath on her face and he could smell her shampoo and then their lips
touched in that glorious first, gentle kiss of people only just
acknowledging that they were born to love each other eternally. As their
arms tightened around each other their kisses grew more urgent as if
they were drawing their very life force from each others lips. The music
swelled in Mulder's head again as Scully stroked the back of his neck
and his hand moved up until his fingers were entangled in her fiery
mane.

Eventually they had to stop kissing and surface for breath. They leaned
in to each other, Scully continued to stroke the nape of Mulder's neck
and he continued to run his fingers through her hair as they held each
other like life preservers, unable to let go for fear of drowning in the
frightening sea of emotions they were experiencing. "I want to hold you
until I die," Mulder murmured into the red ocean of Scully's hair and
that was all it took for the tears brimming in her eyes to overflow and
make tracks down her flushed cheeks. She did not know how long they
stood in each others arms; it could have been minutes or days. One
thousand suns could have risen and set but they were oblivious to
everything but each other. 

When her tears had dried on his faded grey T-shirt, Mulder gathered
Scully up in his arms and carried her towards her bedroom. This would be
the second time that he had slept in her bed but the first time that she
would be there with him. He laid her gently on top of the duvet and
started to take off his shoes. As he undressed down to his underwear,
Scully got up and left the room. When she came back minutes later she
was dressed in only a long silk shirt, deep purple to highlight the
shade of her eyes which were a vibrant aquamarine. Mulder was lying in
the bed when she came back and she drew back the covers and slid between
them with all the grace of a swan gliding across the water. Feeling the
warmth of her beside him, Mulder reached out for her and she moved
nearer. Scully's skin tingled as her leg brushed against Mulder's
momentarily and she could not believe that this had actually happened.
<He said he wanted to hold me until he died.> "You can at least hold me
until morning." Mulder smiled at her reference to his words. "That's not
long enough." "How about every night until every morning; every night
until you die? Hold me, Mulder."

When they both drifted off to sleep it was with both of them knowing
that their lives had been changed permanently, they would never be alone
again because this was forever. They lay intertwined, one body almost
indistinguishable from the other, as the first sun rose on the beginning
of the rest of their lives.

Feedback welcomed and appreciated at
BlueRoses@sweetdreams.freeserve.co.uk