X as x

Nowadays - Unremarkable house

Scully dropped down on her night table the novel she was reading then turned her head towards Mulder's. He was completely absorbed in his book, not even noticing that Scully was staring at him. She spent a few minutes scrutinizing his profile, enjoying his lightly stubbled jaw line, appreciating the intellectual look his presbyopia glasses gave him, before looking at the cover of the book he was handling.

"Really, Mulder? You're studying mathematics now?" she launched at him, surprised.

She had never seen Mulder reading that kind of books in their bed.

"I'm consolidating and improving my knowledge in this scientific field," he simply replied.

"It's not before years and years that our baby will learn that," she tested him, guessing that there must be something she wouldn't expect in his new hobby.

"Maybe it would come very soon. I'm sure our smart baby has inherited your scientific genes," he seriously declared.

"Nope. I don't buy it, Mulder."

"My sweet smart Dana... I cannot hide anything from your perceptive eyes," he shrugged while closing his book and tossing it on the floor.

He then took off his glasses and put them on his table, turned his body to his right side to face Scully and gave her a peck on her lips.

"I'm not sure you want to know the whole story," he whispered softly against her face.

"Are you kidding me? Is there some darkness in mathematics?"

"Obviously there exist strange and weird phenomena in math. For instance the so-called 'monster functions'. But no. You don't want me to speak about it in this house, and certainly not in this bed."

They stayed still for a few seconds, Scully frowning and Mulder holding her gaze.

"Aliens?" she finally asked in a bemused yet amused tone.

Mulder nodded.

"I don't bother, go ahead," she said with a smile.

Mulder inhaled deeply and sighed.

"Okay... I've decided to go back to square one with aliens. I mean... In case of an encounter of the third kind that would be friendly and courteous. I would want to communicate and share ideas through a neutral but challenging ground. A worldwide language, an almost perfect lingua franca. In math, a phrase, an expression, is either true or false. No in-betweens to hide shadows, lies, deceit, denial. In math, there's only trust and truths. It's one of the greatest achievement for humankind that is not spoiled by greediness, nor has launched wars but only spacecrafts..." he passionately explained.

He paused for a few seconds.

"Well, it's not really and completely true... but I want to believe in its purity," he added.

Scully stared at him and pondered his words.

"I guess I could agree... But, Mulder, are you intending to somehow... instigate an encounter? Kind of going back to Arecibo? Or..."

"...shhh. Stop there," he quickly interrupted as he had seen in her eyes and on her face the first signs of concern and worries.

"I assure you it remains theoretical. It won't turn into another alien obsession of mine. It's just a way to practice my logical and rational brain and to share a common ground with you. And a way to... to forget our disastrous experiences with those little greys. To have positive thoughts about our traumas... About my abduction and my death. You have noticed that I've still nightmares... I don't know, it could help..."

He made a pause and solemnly declared : "I promise I won't turn foolish. I don't want to loose you, never ever."

He shivered on his final words, but he didn't want to let gravity and heaviness sneak into their minds, not now, not in their bed. He cupped her face with his left hand, slid his thumb over her still slightly wrinkled brow, then leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

"We can talk about it tomorrow, if you want. In daylight. But right now, I don't want you to worry about me or about us," he whispered tenderly.

Then, as he saw Scully's mood changing in a lighter one, he grinned and shifted his facial expression from seriousness to playfulness.

"You don't even know what ideas mathematics have implanted in my head," he said enigmatically.

"Really?" she replied while stroking his hair. "Should I know?"

"I'm sure you'd be interested. I've been hit by the x."

"X? X as in X-Files? X as kiss? X as X rating?" she asked.

"Small x as a variable in math," he deadpanned.

She laughed. And she waited for the development and the outcome. Surely there was something in there and she was wondering where all this would lead Mulder, and them.

"So, first, let's shape the x."

Mulder removed the blanket and the sheets off their bodies and hovered over Scully. He spread her legs, kneeled between them, then spread her arms.

"You're my petite x, Scully. My unknown variable in the big and fundamental equation of my life. A so complex one that we cannot have an explicit formula for its solution, like in quintic equations as you surely knows. Therefore, the only rational method to apprehend you is to approximate you, to discover procedures allowing me to find new digits of your decimal representation each day and forever. As are doing endlessly crazy pi lovers. Me, I'm a Scully lover."

He leaned down closer to her body without crushing her, and kissed her lips while caressing her arms. Scully didn't move her limbs, just responded to his deepening kiss. She didn't want to interrupt his speech and cerebral foreplay despite her will to move her hands on his bare chest.

Breaking their kiss, he unbuttoned her pajama top then slid his mouth from hers to her belly button. He resumed his monologue while teasing her navel with his tongue and squeezing her breasts.

"I have invented the Mulder's method. A very performant one, an iterative method that converges exponentially and brings me so many digits."

Scully shivered, let out a moan then grabbed his hair with her hands.

"See? I have already caught some. All your gasps, pants, groans, moans, all your tremors, quakes, thrills are the digits I'm seeking out. Ad infinitum. All these breathes, sounds and words that you exhale are defining you in its unique way. And they are never the same, nor in the same order. I think I'll have many other interesting ones tonight, Scully. You are already so aroused," he said while pulling down her pajama pants and taking them off her legs.

He continued his journey towards her inner thighs then begun to please her with his mouth and hands, producing even more melodies and quivers.

"Mulder, I love when you're doing the math," Scully managed to say, raising Mulder's head up with her two hands and looking at him straight in his eyes. "Don't stop that fucking Mulder's method. Ever."

He smiled back at her and launched one more smart wit before leaving mathematical concepts for another occasion, another day.

"And you don't know yet the X as a random variable, Scully."