She's a goddess, rising from the depths of the half light, and his eyes slip shut in some ancient, in-born sense of self preservation. He knows what happens to mortals who chance upon the divine. The price of that transgression is always greater then the imagination can fathom.
He hears the rustle of the sheets, the soft padding of her bare feet across the floor, the click of the bathroom door closing before he dares to open his eyes once more. He runs a hand over the emptiness at his side, caressing the cotton as if it were her skin, but he can feel the warmth she left behind already slipping through his fingers to mingle with the chilled pre-dawn air.
The low throb of the ceiling fan is joined by the whisper of water running in the bathroom. He pictures her washing her face, pausing to stare at her reflection in the mirror as the last few droplets of water trail down her cheeks before she blots them away with the towel. Does she think he doesn't know, that he hadn't seen her as she'd fled all those times before?
He wonders if she will ever stay, ever linger past the first hint of dawn chasing away the bruised and broken darkness. Is there more he could do? Something he could say that would have the power to make her hesitate? Something that would make her roll towards him as she stirred awake rather than away, always away, from him?
He turns his head and inhales deeply into the pillow where her head had rested a lifetime ago. The sheets beneath his fingers are now rumpled creases of cool marble, but the scent of her strokes the broadness of his stubbled jawline and runs a thumb over the fullness of his lower lip as he struggles not to gasp. It won't be long before this, too, fades, and he doesn't want to waste it.
The white noise rush of water bleeds away into stillness leaving just his own heart skittering in counterpoint to the sweep of the fan blades. He wonders if she's ever cried afterward, smoothing away the tears with the tips of her fingers as she slipped on yesterday's clothes in today's darkness. He hopes not, but there's still so much he doesn't know. They're good at intellectual discourse, picking apart each other's assumptions and observations and fallacies, but emotionally they've always been stunted, a bedraggled sapling stretching its crooked branches toward the sky.
He knows the way he looks at her, thinks he understands the way she gazes back at him, but she still leaves, and that's the part he struggles with, the part where – maybe – she needs more than what her eyes can say. But he's afraid, afraid of disturbing the waters of this, whatever this is, that is finally happening between them. It's a kind of denial, he's not that naïve to think otherwise, but he feels the need to hold his breath, to stay as still as possible, to fade into the shadows; to pretend that what happens when darkness falls is something not real, something that exists outside the reality of their work and their partnership. Nothing has changed if they don't talk about it, if they don't draw attention to it. Stay still and quiet. Unnoticed. Unacknowledged. Almost like it doesn't exist at all.
He stares up at the fan, watching the interplay of shadows across the ceiling as the watery grey dawn slips between the slats of the blinds that he hadn't fully closed the night before. The blades chase each other around and around in an endless loop, no beginning or end; a jewelled serpent swallowing its own tail long after it can even remember why. The doorknob turns, and his eyes slide shut in time with the smooth motion of the door opening.
His eyes are pressed together too tightly to mimic the relaxed repose of sleep as he hears her footsteps stop at the foot of the bed. She's watching him, and he imagines her gaze tracing over the leg he'd freed from the blankets when he was too warm earlier, when the heat of her body was still pressed up against his back as they'd slept. Up, over the sheets that twist around his body, to his bare chest, to his shoulders she'd clung to the night before, her breath hurried and damp against his neck. She breathes out, steadying herself as she comes to his face. He's not asleep – she must know – and his jaw aches with the tenseness of feigned immobility.
The prickling behind his eyelids spreads down his torso and into his limbs with a restlessness that grows in strength – first the pacing of a caged beast, frustrated by the artificial confines it cannot cross, until it howls in frustration, battering its own body against the bars. He's done with the pretense. He knows what he wants, and he needs to know if she wants it, too. His heart is throwing itself against his ribcage with a snarl that he stifles in his throat and he hears the air leave her body in a swift rush.
He opens his eyes and they find hers.
She stills – one hand poised as though she might have been about to touch him – a deer hidden in the mist at the river's edge as an unexpected wind rustles the long grass.
He half expects to be rendered dumb and blind, for his form to turn to salt. He's trespassed onto forbidden ground and broken one of their many unspoken rules. Although, she must know by now that he's never put much stock in playing by the rules.
"Stay." His voice breaks as it scrapes across the coarse stone of his throat. "Please."
Her eyes widen – wide, blue, wet – and he wishes he could slide into their depths and dive deep, lungs bursting for want of air, to return gasping to the surface with her hidden truths clutched in his fingers. She blinks, slow and careful, but the tension in her shoulders releases as she takes in a shuddering breath. Thinking. Evaluating. Weighing her options. Head over heart, always.
Well, almost always.
He props himself up on one arm and blinks up at her owlishly, rubbing one hand through his sleep-mussed hair. Unlike him, she has already slipped back into her other form, the Scully that everyone else sees. Hair tamed and in place, the lines of her blazer and skirt crisp and even.
The sweep of the fan counts the seconds as they drift past, as the tip of her tongue touches the corner of her mouth, as she blinks again, exhales more slowly. The hand at her side, holding her shoes, trembles.
"I can't," she whispers, her eyes still on his, her voice a flower petal caught in the gust of a summer breeze. "You know I can't."
"Why?" The question hangs in the air between them like a ghost, formless, but a presence all the same.
She shakes her head imperceptibly as her gaze slides from his to the window. Her mouth opens slightly before she presses her lips together and slowly expels a long breath through her nose.
"Why?" he asks again. He's tired of pretending, tired of hiding, tired of the sound of his front door closing behind her and the ache of her absence. "It's Saturday. There's nowhere else we need to be."
The perfect line of her throat moves as she swallows, shifting her balance between her feet, still bare, on the smooth wooden floor of his bedroom. "I don't know."
"Do you regret this? Do you want to go back to… to the way it was before?" This thing between them is still so new, a fragile eggshell that he's terrified of breaking, and even speaking the words out loud makes his chest constrict, makes his stomach feel hot and sick, but he has to know.
"No!" Her response is quick and sharp, her eyes locking back on his as her shoes fall to the floor. "No," she says again, more softly, with a firm shake of her head this time. Her hand touches his and she squeezes his fingers with her own. "I could never regret this. I… I want this. I want this more than I've ever wanted anything, and that scares me."
His eyes are damp as he blinks in relief, the pressure in his chest easing. "Me, too," he whispers back. "But we've already faced so much – suffered so much – to get here, to end up in this moment, right now. I don't want to waste a single second of any time we could have together."
He caresses her hand, the narrowness of her wrist, as she thinks, watching the emotions warring behind her eyes. Stay, his fingers offer up in silent prayer as her heart pulses beneath them.
"Okay," she says at last with a slight nod, with a hesitant almost-smile even though her lower lip quivers. "Okay."
He stays perfectly still as she undresses, removing each item of clothing with as much care as she'd put it on, draping them one by one over the arm of the chair in the corner. The room is slowly growing lighter, grey fading into the muted pastels of dawn.
Finished, she approaches the bed and he lifts up the blanket so she can slip in beside him. Her skin feels cool as she presses against his warmth, burying her face against his neck with a quiet sigh. He slides the rasp of his cheek against the top of her head, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair as he wraps his arms around her to pull her close.
"Is this all right?" His voice is a low murmur next to the shell of her ear and she shudders.
"More than all right," she replies, her breath hot against the space where his neck meets his shoulder.
"Thank you."
Her head lifts so she can look at him. "For what?"
He huffs incredulously, a smile slowly breaking across his face. Could she truly not know? "For this." He kisses her, savouring the softness of her lips as they move against his, the gentle exploration of tongues. "For last night. For this morning." The kiss goes on and on and he never wants it to end. "For tomorrow."
They make love as the sun rises, the rumpled sheets tossed down to the foot of the bed. He suckles at her breasts, tasting the silken salt of her skin, his hands restless as they circle the jut of her hip bones. Her hair is wild, a frenzied brushstroke of fire across the canvas of his pillow as he moves above her. With each undulation of his hips, there is a corresponding response from her, questions and answers volleyed back and forth between them – a moan, a toss of her head from side to side, a tightening of her fingers that are digging deliciously into the broadness of his back. Sweat is gathering in tiny droplets along her hairline and their bodies are slick as they slide apart and then back together.
His thoughts are as tousled and wild as her hair. He wants to worship every inch of her, to leave himself as an offering at the base of her altar. She's a goddess and he's just a man – he's looked upon her in this secret place and she has allowed him to, permitted him this ingress. A sacrifice must be made. All things have a cost.
And so, he gives her everything. All that he is, his heart, his passion. A tear teases its way free from the corner of his closed eyes as he kisses her desperately, as she falls over the edge with a hoarse groan against his lips. He follows right after her, sprinting to the cliff's edge and leaping, unafraid, a leap of faith that she will keep him whole, keep his body from breaking on the jagged teeth of the boulders below.
They lie tangled together for a heartbeat, for a lifetime, as their breathing slows and he pulls the covers back over them when she shivers. The room is bathed in transcendent sunlight as he kisses her forehead, the damp tendrils of hair along her temple, the pink flush of her cheek. He may not believe in the existence of an all-powerful deity out there somewhere, but he believes in her, believes in the inherent rightness of how she feels in his arms. And it's enough. It's better than he could have ever imagined in the years that led up to this exact moment in time.
The sun has risen, and she's still here.
Thank you to my wonderful beta, Josie Lange, for whacking this around with her beta stick!