Q as Quarantine
They were sitting side by side on the leather couch watching lazily the evening TV news. These last days they had followed the vague and remote viral threat with a nonchalance that wasn't truly them. How could we judge them? They had encountered by the past so many hazards and dangers that they had become tired, or bored, or no more living on a constant edge -blunt knives that would and could sharpen at any critical moment.
Yet, tonight the threat was getting more palpable even if they were far away from the epicenter of the epidemic -the Covid-19 was fiercely spreading out its deadly tentacles in Europe, not having completely reached the whole North America, yet. And then, right now, for whatever logical or irrational reason, they felt in sync the same sensation, Mulder in his deeper guts, Scully in her deeper brain. They turned their face toward each other one, in sync, and all was said in seconds with a shared look.
Mulder sighed and took Scully's right hand in his left one.
"Well, that's it. The world is going to hell. No need of an alien virus," Mulder said.
One Scully's eyelid flickered, a so subtle movement that no one whould have noticed but Mulder. He knew better.
"I guess I can cancel the surprised French trip I had planned for us in two months..." he said, appreciating the light raise of Scully's right eyebrow and the slight opening of her mouth.
"...An incredible hunt of the Beast of Gévaudan," he added before Scully could say a word.
Scully squeezed his hand.
"Let' organize and start our social distancing and quarantine," she said in a less serious tone she had first intented to, thanks to his nonsense lie.
"You know I can be the master of social distancing," he replied.
He instantly regretted his mere words as soon as they have spread out of his mouth -or should he say his witty reptilian brain prompt to manipulate words at light speed?- and instantly felt Scully's reaction -a tension in her fingers, a shadow in her eyes, appearing and disappearing both at light speed as well. He was staring at her and knew the way her thoughts were traveling through time right now, reaching a dark period of their relationship, ghostly years that were still haunting them. He knew that right now she was seeing him sweaty and messily beardy, not at all happy but as closed and alone as a clam deeply sinked into heavy layers of black sand, overpowered and subdued by his commitment to save the world but not himself and them.
No more words... He then brought her hand to his lips, put a kiss on a soft spot he knew so well and draw their intertwined hands to his heart, letting them there. That was his gesture to assure her he had grown up, he had evolved in so many ways that he wouldn't know where to start if he had to list them. He wouldn't let black dogs come around and encircle their unremarkable house, sniffing his scent and howling at night to call him back in their madness. He wouldn't dive into government or militaro-agro-big-pharma corporations conspiracies, in fake news spread out worldwide on the web, nor in ancient or new supertitions that will irremediably emerge alongside fear and ignorance. He knew better.
Nature, mutations and fate had blanketed humanity but that wasn't an X File. They both knew better. Still, that was something they could easily face and apprehend, intellectually, physically and emotionally -they had acquired so much experience during their basement assignation. That wasn't an extraterrestrial ploy, there were no paranormal forces piloting the disease, but there was an X File flavor in the air, an aura of unbelievable facts -even for Mulder- an insidious and invisible enemy to fight for a better future.
Scully's sad memories had soon flown away and she was now focused on the same silent thoughts as Mulder. Back in the days they had got their share of diseases, viruses, genetic mutations and quarantines. However they didn't endure them in the conditions they would now, in the coziness of their house and yard, in the warmth and quietness of their life together, in the safety nest of their deeper and stronger love than ever. She left his eyes she was staring at, and following the rhythm of each of his heartbeat drumming against her hand she moved her gaze along his face, along a path of details that defined him for her -nose, cheeks, lips, jaw, neck. Neck, back of the neck, and she traveled through decades to the Arctic, to her hand on his hot neck in a storeroom. Their first quarantine together among strangers, isolated by the icy weather roaring outside the tiny research station, deadly threatened by an ancient alien worm that could sneak into your deepest primitive brain, frightened by paranoia, fear and distrust creeping in each of them and then seeping into the stifling atmosphere.
She moved forward getting closer to reach his neck with her left hand and closed her eyes. She was remembering so vividly this moment, how their trust and faith in each other had been sealed forever by an exchange of neck offering and palpations, skin against skin. She had felt so alive back then in this closed room despite the presence of death drifting just behind the shield of the door. She smiled and opened her eyes, bringing back her gaze where it naturally belonged, on Mulder's eyes. There she saw him returning her smile and at the same time she sensed his free hand mimic her one, laying down on her neck. His thoughts had rejoigned hers in the Icy Cape storeroom, remembering the sensations and thrills he had felt when Scully had applied her skilled M.D. touch on his sweaty skin. However, both of their remembrances were blurred by the decades that had flown away since then. Years of other restrained touches, of other sensual sealed moments of trust and bond, decades of body language and nonverbal communication, of rare meaningful words exchanged during critical milestones of their partnership. All these had melt and mixed, guiding now their bodies into cherished paths.
Mulder bent down his head and put his forehead against Scully's one. He then silently mouthed with his lips the words that always had the will to emerge in this position, even more in such a context -'when the world is falling apart, you are my constant, my touchstone'. She went along with him on the last ones -'my constant', 'my touchstone'- whispering and exhaling them in the air separating their mouths. The solemn words lingered there a few seconds -for they had that power- and when disappearing they took away some molecules, forming a vacuum in the space between their lips. They couldn't -they wouldn't- defy the laws of nature and physics, of chemistry and attraction, of magnetism and passion. In sync they joined their lips and they dived into primal emotions and sensations.
While sharing foreign cells of innocent bacteria, flavored molecules of saliva, sweet rubs, licks and touches tickling their nerves and traveling through their body to hit their brain, they were exchanging and conversing, reliving in this back and forth some steps of their relationship. They began with the highways of need and greed they had ridden long ago when they had allowed themselves to follow their sexual desire -they were blessed by the Gods to be able to reenact their first times- then wandered for awhile in the tortuous byways of loss, sadness, and grief -they couldn't obliterate the past that had forged them- and finished in the peaceful trails of exactness and obviousness where life has finally led them. Meanwhile their whole bodies had moved and when they broke their life-traveling kiss Scully was sitting across Mulder's lap, their hands having landed here and there under disheveled clothes or hair.
"Well..." Scully said, "we don't have to worry. You don't have to worry. We'll be safe and secure. We'll be fine. All the scientists, doctors and nurses on this doomed planet will handle the problem."
"And you? You'll be fine?" Mulder replied, a black shadow in his eyes and voice.
Scully bit her lips. She had pronounced cursed words -fine, doctors- and she knew instantly where Mulder's thoughts had gone. Her current work at the Quantico labs, her position of authority there, was not meant to put her in the front line of the epidemic, nor to avoid a quarantine at home. But... if they -whoever- needed her expertise and skills, if they called her as a doctor or a scientist, or even if she felt that she could help somehow, she would be available and prompt to leave the house in an instant. That was her, she couldn't deny this part of herself. No need to argue or discuss. There were no things she could do now to prevent that possible future.
She shrugged ostensibly her shoulders, bringing at least a slight smile on Mulder's lips.
"If things must happen, we'll think of something..." she finally said after a few seconds.
That was certainly sufficient for now, for that instant and for the present. That was the perfect sentence to hear for Mulder. He agreed its signification and its implication. Right now, she was her one in -how many now ?- billions with whom he wanted to be quarantined forever in their unremarkable house. Right now, she was her one on this whole damned planet with whom he would exchange microbes and fluids, the one with whom he would connect so intricately that he would touch every inch of her body with every cell of his own, so she would be contaminated by all his excretions and his frenzy movements, so they would reach together the heaven of concupiscence.
Right now on the soon quarantined leather couch.
