Chapter Six
He looked down at her with her red hair splayed out around her on the white pillow and her eyes moving behind her pale bluish lids. She was sound asleep, as she should be: it was past one in the morning. He tugged at his already loosened tie, still watching her. He wanted to drink her in to the point where his thirst for her might be quenched.
He hadn't seen her in days—days that felt like months. He hadn't even spoken to her. He'd replayed her harried messages endlessly every chance he got, but he hadn't given in to the urge to return her calls. Instead, he'd relayed all messages to her through Skinner. Skinner's tone of voice said it all: the AD was well aware that something was rotten in Denmark, but at least he had the decency not to say something outright about it. If he had, Mulder was certain he would have broken down. The case was too draining as it was; he didn't need his superior asking into the particulars of his broken relationship with his partner.
She stirred on the pillow as he tossed his white dress shirt on the ground and he paused, holding his breath. Her face knit briefly in a small frown. He was familiar with that expression.
Before having the distinct honor of working alongside Dana Scully, Mulder had never given much thought to redheads. He'd always had a thing for brunettes. But, as he was falling for her, he'd spent some time musing on his knowledge of classical redheads as a sort of porno for intellectuals.
Botticelli's famous The Birth of Venus depicted the ancient Roman goddess Venus emerging from the sea with long red tresses. Heady stuff to be sure, but Venus wasn't an apt comparison to his Scully. Yes, she was beautiful and she had sunk him hopelessly in love, but Scully could not be counted as a symbol of fertility. And Venus' epitaph: Venus Felix—lucky Venus—didn't seem to ring true given all Scully had been put through. Moreover, to purely sexualize someone as complex as Dana Scully also seemed entirely inappropriate, if not downright insulting. He'd saved pure objectification for the synthetic women in the videos that weren't his.
Mulder had settled on Boudica, the famous Celtic queen of East Anglian Britain who had fought with a great mass of red hair over her shoulders and was terrifying to behold on the battlefield in her feminine strength. An unorthodox choice perhaps, but she had frightened the seasoned Roman soldiers who faced her: That sounded more like his Scully—beautiful and terrifying. He could pull from history other notable titian queens, such as Queen Elizabeth I, but it pleased him to think of his pale diminutive partner secretly containing the power of a barbarian Celtic queen full of unbridled wrath.
Taking a step towards the bed as he pulled on a pair of sweats, he stumbled over the shoes he had disposed of several minutes earlier while engrossed in reverie.
"Fuck," he cursed under his breath as he righted himself and saw Scully rousing.
She blinked in the darkness. "You're home."
"Sorry, I didn't want to wake you."
He could have waited to take the first morning flight back to D.C., but she was the magnet and he was the lodestone helplessly drawn to her.
She scooted over making room for him, having been spread across the middle of the bed. She patted the empty pillow and Mulder slid into bed. Having been absent from the bed for several nights, Mulder detected Scully's scent no longer mingled with his own on the sheets. Each one of his five senses had missed her. If it wasn't the middle of the night, he would have liked to indulge all of them: run his hands up her thighs, taste the hollow of her throat, bury his nose in her hair, listen to her softly contented murmurs, and gaze upon every inch of her milky white skin. Instead, he lay on his back looking up at the white plaster ceiling and practicing restraint. She had been sick; the gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her rest.
"What time is it?" she asked, turning her face into her pillow and yawning.
"Too early. I caught the last flight out. Roll over."
Instead of rolling over, Scully nudged towards him, slipping her arm over his chest and one leg over his. She tucked her head into the crook of his arm and he could feel her exhale slowly against his chest. She was pleasantly warm from having been under the covers for probably a couple of hours at least. He reached up and began to run his fingers across her arm, trying to help her fall back asleep.
"Alan Hornsby," she mumbled with her lips brushing his skin.
He looked down at her and she stared back at him with half-lidded eyes.
"Yeah. Alan Hornsby."
She withdrew her arm for just a moment so as to tuck her wayward hair behind her ear before returning to Mulder's gentle ministrations.
"He wasn't a suspect in the first investigation," she said clearing her throat.
"Well, parents are never above suspicion in these cases."
"But, he wasn't named as a suspect," she insisted.
"No, he wasn't."
"You saw something no one else did."
"I guess." He continued stroking her arm. "It was no great stroke. Maybe it was just too awful to contemplate for most people…to think a pillar of the community…a father could do that."
He knew that fatherhood did not confer sainthood. Whatever demons Alan Hornsby suffered from, they were not assuaged by the birth of his beautiful daughters. It was Mulder's curse to be able to think like such a monster. It didn't escape him that he could more easily imagine the existence of such evil than what it would feel like to be a loving father. He had his own demons.
"Did his wife know?" Scully asked.
"She did and she didn't. She didn't want to know, I guess." She didn't want to think the man she slept next to at night was capable of the most heinous of crimes. It wasn't so different from any number of lies most people told themselves about their relationships—just on a much larger scale. "But, it was all there if you asked the right questions."
"I didn't know the case involved child-abductions, Mulder."
"I know," he replied, pulling her slightly closer and leaning down to kiss the crown of her head. He'd purposely kept it from her. "Are you feeling better?"
She nodded against him. "Sick or not, I should have been there."
"You needed a break." 'From me,' he silently added. "And I needed you to help out with the evidence."
"The field office in Albuquerque could have handled that evidence. Or I could have taken care of it in the field," she argued, sounding less sleepy and more restless.
"Those idiots bungled it the first time around. Besides, I was being closely watched for signs of insanity. So, your job was covered."
Scully pushed at his chest in a feeble attempt at playfulness. She was probably so convinced that he'd go over the edge on a case like this that she had a hard time summoning up a sense of humor about it.
"I'm sure Skinner told you he had me on twenty-four hour wackadoo watch," he continued.
"He might have mentioned something."
"He's playing fast and loose with Bureau resources," Mulder said with a smirk.
"He was worried."
He could tell from the slight tremor in her voice that Skinner wasn't the only one.
"I told you, Scully. I'm at peace about my sister. Those little girls…that was a tragedy unto itself without having to wrap it up in my own psychosis."
She reached up and ran her fingers lightly down his forehead and nose, stopping briefly at his lips. He enjoyed the sensation of her light touch too much to be concerned about whether she was cataloging his facial imperfections.
"I don't stick around just to keep you sane, Mulder," she whispered, pressing her fingertips to his lips.
"Alright, Scully."
He wanted to believe her.
