Please be warned: Rated T for mature…
While this vignette could have happened this way, it NEVER took place in the series. It has no actual timeline, except that I place it somewhere in the seventh season… Please grant me my fantasy
The characters herein are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and 1013 Productions.No infringement is intended and no money received. These characters, as they are portrayed by Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, have inspired
this, which is my own.
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SCULLY'S DREAM
The dream recurred. A vague landscape of muted hues swirled in fog around her.
Brilliance bathed her soul; gladness guided her steps. The familiar someone awaited. Alway his face was shrouded in mystery, yet she knew him intimately in her heart.
Each time, their encounter was jubilant, their love equal, and she twirled with him to the music of flawless harmonies, until they bonded like a helix, her DNA to his, creating a new life-one life, inseparable.
And always it would end the same: she could never dispel the vapors and shadows to unveil his identity.
Until now. The dream surprised her by progressing past the customary terminus. For the first time the rhythm of their ritualistic dance slowed, their swirling energies abated, she felt him depart and called to him in disappointment.
*What's wrong?*
*Nothing. Everything.*
She could not see him, though his voice was right beside her. *Where are you?*
*Are you ready to acknowledge me?* His voice was nowhere and everywhere.
*What do you mean? I've always been ready.* She flailed aimlessly in the mist. *Don't leave me. We belong together.* Again she groped blindly in search. *Please? Where did you go?*
Silence panicked her. *Can't we stay together, just like always?*
*It's a lie.* He spoke in her ear. *Truth lies ahead.*
*I don't understand!* Relief softened the fear in her voice. She waited patiently for him to explain.
*Too long we have played the game. It's over. You know I love you. When will you admit the truth.*
*You already know my heart.*
*Not unless you say it!* His voice was a receding echo of "say it, say it," until at last it died out.
*No!* She cried. *Where are you going? Wait! You must know! It's true. I love you! I love you!*
The fog in her mind lifted and unveiled his image. Standing before her was Fox Mulder, his arms open to receive her.
Dana Scully awoke, astonished.
The stirrings in her heart made it difficult to shake the dream this time. Her partner was quartered in the adjacent motel suite separated by the management-locked door. In the past, even when the door wasn't locked, she had resisted the temptation to open it-unless it was business. Being a woman in the Old-Boys' Club of the FBI mandated she overcompensate with the rules and regulations of professional agents. Mulder pretty much respected the walls (and doors) she had kept between them. She occasionally wondered if his success was partly due to his lack of interest-in her as a woman-though she knew his commitment to their partnership was unparalleled.
This thought warmed her.
The man had laid down his life for her countless times. He had asked nothing more than he was willing to give in return. He drew on her intelligence and expertise as one would draw breath, and he had admitted he could not seek the truth without her by his side. What they had was so special that sexual undertones had been relegated to a forgotten sector of their minds and hearts, dismissed as dangerous and detrimental to the machinery of their successful alliance.
How dare she tempt fate now? The dream was nonsense.
Wasn't it nonsense that she found herself standing before the door; nonsense urging her to try the knob? The ball of smooth chrome cooled her cupped palm. Reason suggested she test the lock, and put to rest her ridiculous daze. When the lock betrayed her rational expectations, as the latch gave way and the door squeaked ajar, Scully froze.
Fox Mulder looked up in surprise. He was reclining in a soft chair, feet up on the coffee table, near the standard-issue motel lamp-reading. His glasses gleamed with reflected light.
"Scully?"
He could see her gray silhouette in the doorway. She seemed unsteady, somnambulistic. "Scully?" His voice soothed. "Are you okay?" The psychology journal fell to the floor.
"Ahh-huh."
Mulder rose, more curious by her lack of purpose. This was not the usual business call.
"Scully? Something wrong?" He stretched, removed his glasses, and checked his watch.
"Ahh. No. Just a dream. It, it woke me."
"Nightmare, huh?" With all she's been through on the X-Files, Mulder wondered that they both weren't plagued more frequently.
"No, not really."
Not a nightmare. Mulder registered the information slowly, unsure of how to catalog the tidbit. "What woke you?"
" 'A dream is an answer to a question we haven't yet learned how to ask.'" Scully quoted him." Poised on the threshold between rooms, Scully appeared lost in her own revere. "How reliable is the answer?"
"Depends on the question." He shrugged.
Her long silence, like a magnet to his curiosity, drew him toward her at the threshold. He stood beside her waiting for an explanation, enjoying her. Copper hair, scented with subtle perfume glowed in the ambient light of his room. Her practical pajamas enhanced every curve, despite Scully's conservative measures to downplay her attractiveness.
"Sure you're really okay?" He whispered finally, eager for her downcast lids to rise and unmasked the brilliance of her aquamarine eyes.
"I'm confused." She conceded and rewarded him with a glance.
He arched his eyebrows to encourage her to continue. Full impact of her eyes had, as usual, rendered him speechless.
"Where are we headed?"
"Well, literally," he chuckled boyishly, "back to D.C. Our assignment's over." Somehow, his usual deflective technique seemed off.
"No," Scully's voice gathered strength. "I mean us. Do you ever wonder about our progress, if we've made the right choices in our... ?"
"I have no regrets." The interruption was instinctive. Abrupt and quick, he shut the lid of the dangerous box.
"Oh." She seemed disappointed.
Mulder shivered, suddenly cold. His intuition cautioned him not to play dense to her line of questioning, but he ignored it. "Sure, Scully, our work has been all-consuming, but fulfilling too. We've uncovered so much-it's the tip of the iceberg maybe, but, but we're getting closer, we're making a difference. Don't you feel it too?" His hollow defense was a coward's retreat.
Scully only nodded, the darkness of her room began to swallow her as she backed away.
"What is progress, anyway?" He abstracted, dismissing his cold sweat as another warning.
Scully was nearly absorbed in shadow.
"No! Wait!" Mulder shouldered his way across the threshold to prevent the door from closing. Moments hung between them, precious seconds that would change the future, their future, if he denied the truth any longer. He searched her impassive face for mercy. Was she ready? "I do have personal regrets," he confessed and heard her inhale softly.
"About what?"
"About the progress we haven't made."
"We?"
"Yeah. The us-we." He emphatically wagged his finger between them. "Personally."
"What are your regrets?"
"No fair!" Mulder panicked. "You brought up the topic. You go first."
Scully read the fear in his grin. Good. Game-playing cards were dealt, it was time to call. "Look where our lives have taken us. Traveling constantly from motel to motel, year after year, witnessing the darkest, most troubled side of human and perhaps inhuman life, and yes maybe a bit closer to uncovering answers, but at what cost, Mulder?"
"Is the cause exacting too much from both of us that we are becoming like the people we fight-cold, callus, calculating-inhuman?" Shaking her head in disapproval she confessed in a low whisper. "I've tried so hard to fight the good fight, to restore order, to demand justice. Yet, it seems that all I've managed to do is maintain propriety, and by doing so, I've denied myself the most basic of my human needs and desires."
"Well, the cause demands sacrifices..." Distracted by precipitant thoughts of her 'most basic, needs, and desires,' the sound of his own voice startled him."Without someone making those sacrifices, there might be no humanity." It sickened him to hear his trite reply.
"When can we pass on the responsibility of this sacrifice? When can we think of ourselves first? When can we allow ourselves personal indulgences? To show and be shown love, isn't that what we want from our lives?"
"Do you mean ourselves separately or do you mean ourselves, like the Us-We thing?" Again he stirred his finger between them. "...together, ourselves together, in a personal way?"
His eyes were so beseeching that Scully grinned. "Ourselves together—maybe intimately." She halted as if surprised by her own admission. Softly she added, "I need to know."
It was Mulder's turn to inhale deeply. "You shock me!" he mocked.
Although hidden in shadow, Scully felt herself blush."Is this too out-there for you?"
Without a hint of sarcasm, Mulder replied. "It is the truth I've been seeking for a very long time."
"Oh!" This time, Scully was not disappointed.
Her "Oh" was sweet, like a kiss on the wind. Mulder wanted her to expound.
She watched Mulder fidget politely in anticipation. She liked how he leaned in so close, how he hovered so tantalizingly that she fell charged by his body heat. It wasn't reluctance that kept the stillness; it was the need to savor the moment.
"What about our work?" She finally spoke. "Aren't you afraid it'll interfere?"
"Some people might think," Mulder stammered, "that, that, that a cause is all consuming. That, that, that to be faithful to it, you had to surrender everything, including your personal life."
"Isn't that what you've done?"
"Yes. When you first met me, I believed this strongly."
"And now?"
"I was mistaken."
"But you let me believe it too."
"It took me years-with you-to realize I was wrong."
"When were you going to correct my error?"
He grimaced. "How?" Hands gestured helplessly. "You seemed more determined than I sometimes to keep to the path." Sheepishly, he bowed his head. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?" She followed his gaze to the floor.
"If, if you're set against it. " Intensity filled his leveled their gazes for a moment. "I want to be a major part of your personal life, in whatever way you'll have me. Until you're ready, I'm willing to be patient." His voice and eyes dropped like a stone.
Silence, thick and soft, enveloped them.
Gently, Scully gathered his motionless hands. "I admire your patience, Mulder."
Meeting his eyes on their ascent, she searched his face. "I've been so blind. My dream-my recurring dream-has been answering the question I've been too afraid to ask." A brilliant smile preceded her admission. "I finally understand."
"Understand?" Fearful of being rash, Mulder played dense once again.
"It's you. You are the answer I've been seeking."
Elatedly, Mulder gripped her shoulders, his face dipped toward hers until their foreheads touched. The hoarseness of his voice betrayed every emotion he usually concealed. "I was so afraid, so afraid that if I pushed too hard, I'd lose you."
"Is it possible? I was afraid if I gave in, I would lose you!" She whispered with equal passion. "All this time, have we been sharing the same hopes?
Nodding, so that both their heads moved, Mulder mumbled. "I believe so."
"I believe." She replied. "Only now I realize I always have."
"Say it, say it," he repeated just like in her dream.
"I love you!"
A blissful groan escaped his throat as he touched his lips tenderly to hers.
"I love you." he replied. "I trust you. I want you." Each phrase was punctuated by kisses along her neck.
Ecstasy overwhelmed her, dissolving her last façade of self-control. Even her bones felt pliant. Her arms, entwined about his neck, relied on him to hold her upright. She could feel her nipples grow sensitive through the fabric of nightclothes, and she hugged her body tightly against his.
He moaned and shuddered. Tightening his arms around her, he pulled her closer.
Sensations rippled in waves through her as she melted in his embrace. Then began their passionate dance, the rhythmic swaying; the melding of emotions, reality better than the dream sequence, because the physical appetites were at last requited. Time-awareness ceased, their consciousnesses abducted by mesmerizing strokes and tantalizing probes as they made contact with their human needs.
She discovered her own power. Her confident hands gathered the hem of his shirt and began to lift. With ease, she had bared his chest. Then she bared her own and heard him gasp as her mouth groped for his. Her aroused nipples caressed his skin with a touch so electrifying, they both quivered in rapture.
Amid an exchange of frenzied kisses, she sensed herself tilted back, carried, and laid upon the bedspread. More moments of feverish desire passed, her hands fondling, her body being fondled. The snap of her panties gave her sudden freedom. Then she felt his strength descend upon her, molding into her contours perfectly. Crying aloud in unquestioning joy, she welcomed the love of her life and soul home at last.
Astonished, Scully woke. In the darkness, a hairline ribbon of light rimmed the door of Mulder's room. She leaped from her bed in dismay and stood before it. No! She raged inwardly. Not a dream! Not another dream! She moaned softly in anguished disbelief, still tingling from the memory of their passionate lovemaking. How bittersweet that it was mere fantasy. A cruel dream.
A chill on her alabaster skin made her notice her own nakedness.
"Heeeey, R' you okay?" A sleepy Mulder asked tenderly, rising from her bed to join her at the door. Fear tinged the apology in his voice.
Scully threw her arms in joy around his neck, kissing him repeatedly. "Oh, yes, Mulder. I'm fine! I'm really fine!"