For Jenny. Surprise! I hope it brightens your day.

Thank you WildwingSuz for a quick, fun, and thorough beta read. You da bestiest.

"You awake?" I type, and press send before I give myself any more time to think about it.

'What are you doing to my poster?' she'd asked me when she found me in the basement sulking over my shattered dreams. She had bought it online and had it expedited to be there in time for our first official day back at the office. She had said it wouldn't feel like home without it as she secured it on the bulletin board.

The day she came to me with the monster case set forward the chain of events that led me to this bed in this motel room-the one that we moved to after I discovered the peeping tom of course-yearning for her company. There's something not only about finding a monster but also shaking hands with him that's got me curiously horny. After she moved out, there were several times where Scully came to me, meaningful anniversaries of sad events in our life together. Whether she knew I would need her or that she needed me, our physical relationship, which had merely been on hiatus, resumed for a few desperate hours.

It's not what I expected from her when I sent the text. I would be completely satiated by a few minutes of mental sparring. I'd love to be pinned down by a scientific fact or two right about now.

I hear her knock on the door so soon that I have to wonder if she even had time to see my text and decide to come over. Perhaps she came on her own. Before I even get up to let her in, she's used her copy of my key to gain entry and the room floods with light from the hallway and dims again as she opens and closes the door. I remain on the bed then as she makes her way to stand in front of my muted TV with her arms crossed.

"What are you watching?" she asks as I turn on the bedside lamp. It's currently on a commercial for a local tire shop.

"I don't know, actually. I was just trying to find whatever species Guy may have evolved from, to no avail…" I bait her, holding up my phone, gauging to see if she's here for conversation.

She merely hums in acknowledgement of my statement and proceeds to untie her robe and slide out of her slippers.

I casually set my phone on the nightstand and entwine my fingers on my bare chest, reclining back to the headboard. My Knicks T-shirt! And bare legs. Mmm. She's wearing one of my shirts again.

My heart picks up the pace as she crawls across the bed to lie down about a foot away and prop her head up on her hand, facing me. I manage to sound calm and collected as I ask, "What are you doing in my shirt? Whatever happened to all of your fancy pajama sets, Scully?"

She grins coyly, looking down at the shirt, then up to me again. "I miss you, Mulder." As if that is enough explanation. And it is.

"Is this going to be one of those nights?" The tone of my voice makes it clear that I would not oppose.

As she rises to her knees and moves toward me, I push the covers down and scoot up with my back against the wall mounted motel room headboard. She wastes no time straddling my legs and descending her mouth onto mine, nor do I in sliding my hands up her back and weaving my fingers into her hair. I don't need to ask her if she's sure about this, it feels more right than it has in years. I haven't felt this flutter in my chest for ages and she certainly hasn't kissed me like this since that time.

We don't need to talk about it and I don't need to proclaim that I'm going to try to right the past, because neither of us knows what tomorrow will bring. I am simply grateful that despite everything I've put her through she's here, and I intend to show her just how appreciated she is.

I move my hands to her cheeks and frame her face, breaking our kiss to gaze into her eyes a moment before kissing her so hard that I have to move a hand to her back to brace her from falling backwards.

She sighs and removes her-my-shirt and discards it on the floor. My mouth wanders from her lips, down her jaw, to her neck and further to her bare chest, planting lingering kisses along the way.

At one point, I mumble against her skin, "I thought we weren't supposed to fool around while on assignment."

I can practically hear her roll her eyes. "That was then," she says on a sigh.

"And this is now." When I insistently begin to tug at her panties, she reluctantly pulls away long enough to shimmy out of them.

When she returns, after my eyes have taken their fill, I resume the job of placing random, scattered kisses between her neck, earlobes, and chest. I pause for a moment, panting against her neck when she impatiently thrusts her hand into my boxers and begins stroking me. For a moment I'm glad I opted against wearing the Speedo again.

I'm far from flaccid, but it takes a little more to get him going at his age, even as aroused as I am in this moment. "This feels so good, Scully."

She moans in reply, sliding her torso up against mine, nudging her neck to my mouth, urging me to continue. I oblige, move my tongue over her throat, and inhale the distinct smell of her arousal when I meant to smell her hair.

After running my hand down her chest and stomach to between her legs, touching her slick folds is all it takes, and I'm ready to go. Before I can even slip a finger inside her, she's moving down on the bed, tugging at the waistband of my boxers. They're quickly removed and she straddles me, taking me in before my back even reclines on the bed.

"Aah…Christ, you're hot, Scully."

"Thank you," she says.

I'd meant she was literally hot, so hot and wet around me, but she does also look it. Her hand is balled up in the sheets near my shoulder, the other between us guiding me into her. Licking her lips, her eyes hooded, she looks like a sex goddess.

My head falls back and I try to control my breathing. It always surprises me how tight she still is, and she hasn't even taken all of me. As if she's read my thoughts, she huffs a quiet laugh and squeezes her internal muscles to remind me how she still feels so good to this day.

"Yeah, yes…" I nod, moving my hands to her hips, not rushing her but anticipating the moment I'm fully inside her again.

I soon am and after only a few moments of feeling her quiver and quake around me, she's moving. My hands frame her tiny hips, pushing her down a little more firmly every few thrusts.

As it always was, my mouth is steady going, continuously encouraging her with words and sounds, and she is nearly quiet besides tiny little intakes and exhales of breath, concentrating on her building orgasm.

She inhales sharply when she quickly stops in the middle of a thrust, her muscles rippling around me in protest, she's trying to delay her release. She wants to make this last. Of course she thinks with the way I'm reacting to her, the way I'm loving her more completely than I have in the better part of a decade, that her coming might also send me over the edge.

Little does she know that I also intend to make it last. He might need a little more to get going, but he also has exceptional staying power. Even considering as fucking beautiful as she looks right now.

I anchor her hips in place with my hands as I adjust my legs so that I can begin to thrust up into her.

"No…" she whimpers, trying in vain not to welcome her imminent climax.

When I feel she's past resisting, I move one hand between us, remembering just what stroke to use and where. "Come on, Scully," I encourage her and seconds later she explodes, the volume of her cry of pleasure surprising me.

Oh, fuck. I greatly overestimated my staying power. It takes all I have to hold back physically. But I experience a sort of mental release that could be similar to the feeling of Tantric sex. It only happened once with her so far in the past I had forgotten exactly how it felt.

When she is spent, with the way I'm coming down, I understand how she's mistaken. "But Mulder, I wanted…" When her hips involuntarily give a little thrust down onto me, though, she feels it. I see it in her eyes.

"I know…" I flip her over, not so gracefully. Though in some ways I'm in the best shape of my life, and she's as light as she ever was, my middle aged man bones aren't what they used to be and they creak in protest.

She hardly notices, gripping my shoulders, catching her breath. I look affectionately into her eyes a few moments before making my way down between her legs. It drives me a little crazy that she's touching herself, still coming down from that intense climax. I brush her hand aside to rest on her inner thigh, taking over massaging her inner labia.

Jesus, man, I'd forgotten what a sight this was. As I help her come down, all I can do is stare at my fingers moving around on her still beautiful, perfect pussy.

But now she gasps when my finger moves over a spot just outside and at the bottom of her vaginal opening. I look up at her face to see her gazing down at me. Her mouth falls open even more and her hand closes where it's resting on her chest when I stroke the spot again, with more pressure.

I lick my finger before beginning to push it inside her, which was unnecessary because she's still so wet. Once I'm sure she's ready, I'm fingering her and slowly building her up again. The little taste I got a moment ago won't do, and after lowering my mouth to her, she's soon gripping my hair as I eat her out.

Fuck, I'm home. In this crummy motel room, home is wherever I can do this. And I haven't been here in a long time.

I'm not in any rush, but she's not trying to hold off any longer. As well as she knows me, she knows she's got at least one more coming after this.

After she's come all over my mouth, I'm catching my breath with my temple on her thigh, feeling like some kind of man. I randomly recall Guy's story, of how Scully came into the phone store and seduced him.

I guess I chuckled a little, because Scully's tugging on my hair now, asking me what's so funny.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." I move myself up the bed, over her again.

"Wha-" she soon forgets, or chooses to forget, when I kiss her. It always did drive her a little crazy to taste herself on me.

Now I'm inside her, holding her tightly, slowly building her up again. I say her name to make her really look at me, letting my eyes tell her how I feel. I can't promise that I'll always be the man she deserves, but I'll try my best to do better by her. Not just so that I can be with her in this way, because she never really left me. The world is a better place when I remember that she's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Soon she is coming once again, and though I try to hold back, I join her. The last thing I see before my eyes close in pleasure is a tear sliding from her eye and disappearing into the hair at her temple.

xxxxx

I awake a couple hours later, as I promised her I would without needing to set the alarm.

She is asleep on my shoulder, mouth open, drooling on my chest. I smile with affection, brushing a lock of hair away from her eyes. "Hey."

She stirs, but resists awakening.

"Hey, I didn't expect to encounter another monster so soon."

"Hmm?"

"Drool Monster."

She giggles and wipes her mouth, burying her head into my chest, pulling up the covers tighter.

"We don't need to rush to the airport, but we do need to get up now if we're going to make it."

xxxxx

We get there on time before coach boarding begins. As we sit across from each other in the terminal, I watch her pull out her phone.

When she looks up at me I guess that it's the first time she's checked it this morning, presumably only now seeing the text I sent her last night.

I smile and sit back, propping my elbows on the backs of the seats on either side of me. When I wink and smugly raise my chin at her, I see her suppress a laugh and try to contain her smile by moving her tongue to the corner of her open mouth and looking away.

It's a trait so Scully circa '99 and it makes me feel so much like the way I did back then that I know I'm falling in love with her.

Again.

Author's notes: It feels so good to complete this story. I was deeply hurt by a member of the X-Files fan community earlier this year, and I'd worried with the times I'd started writing and couldn't get past a few paragraphs that I was permanently damaged. Trust no one, kids.

This story occurred to me on a Season 10 rewatch the other day while getting ready for Season 11. Happy viewing, Philes!