Title: A Matter Of A Moment

Author: ScullyAsTrinity AKA Barenaked Bostonian

Rating: PG, mushy shit, AGAIN.

Category: MSR, UST, RST

Feedback: To BNLXPhile12@aol.com

Summary: Everything changes, in a matter of moments.

Notes: Yes, I'm finally back, after an exTendEd break. Thanks to goading from Ms. A.

~*~*~

My words confuse you My eyes don't move or blink Cuz it's easier sometimes not to be sincere Somehow I made you believe, believe When I speak across my fingers Will you know you've been deceived? I find the need to be a demon A demon cannot be hurt.

~*~*~

Her warm palm against the cool mahogany. It was solid and firm, it supported her weight as her body threatened to drop like a limp rag doll. Her free will was slowly ebbing away, only to be replaced by more of the dread and lonliness that she was already feeling. A second palm placed upon the wood, pressing. The bases of her hands felt like they were on fire, almost sliding against the enamel, dragging.

Dana Scully's eyes slowly blinked open, staring out of her living room window into the bleak white streets below. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that it was piling up too fast to be shoveled, but the thought hardly registered. The white was as expansive as the sheet of her mind, laid out clean. The bottom side of the sheet was dirty and torn, fragile and yet still intact.

She blinked yet again, and felt just how cold her apartment had grown. Moving slowly, languidly, she made her way over to the seldom-used fireplace and knelt down. This time, her palms met the cool resistance of brick. Rough and smooth, varying. Bits of pebbly red dust speckled her hand when she brought it up to strike the match against the box.

Tossing it onto the logs, she watched the dry, dusty newspaper make friends with the flame and ignite. The three logs soon began to crackle and pop, hissing and jumping. But she didn't notice. She didn't notice when the stray sparks began to rain onto her exposed hands. Her eyes were still trained on the window at the front of the room.

Though she knew if she had taken the chance she would be rejected, she had to try. It was an inkling that never stopped nagging her. All she wanted was more, though she could never devise a way that it would work between the two of them. It was easy enough to think that she knew that it was right, because it felt right. It felt like home when she thought of all that they could be, but it also felt so strange and implausible. But, being the person she was, she eventually cracked, the emotions running like blood through the conduits of her mind.

She had tried, and for a moment, everything was as it should be. He was malleable to her words, and for a moment she thought he might accept them. For the brief seconds that his lips were pressed against hers, soft and warm, she was home. She was as home as when she thought of all of the possibilities. The smile on her lips could be felt through the kiss, and that's what made him break away.

Too right, too easy. His hands, calloused and experienced rested upon her cheeks briefly. Then he was gone.

~*~*~*~*~

Palms resting against rough cheeks. Fingers rubbing over eyes that hadn't seen sleep in weeks. Eyes that had only the salvation of seeing a face, a face without a body. Eyes that had traveled every inch of her body when she wasn't looking. Seeking damnation in the curves. Slight perfection tinged by scars. Beauty in reality. Strength and salvation and, positively everything.

Which was why it was wrong, so wrong. He knew, somewhere that was impossible to place that she was everything. Everything that he could ever possibly need, or want. She would be anything that he wanted her to be and he didn't even have to ask.

Sweaty palms on worn denim. Rubbing, uneven, uneasy. Unsure. Fox Mulder's eyes slipped closed on the lingering memory of how Dana Scully's lips felt. Soft and pliant, willing. A glimpse of everything that he could have, of the possibilities.

And yet, something, something nagging, wouldn't let him have what he wanted. That something knew that if they were together she wouldn't be safe or protected or... But without him she was just as weak and vulnerable. Either way, he would lose, and he couldn't choose, it was unnatural. He wanted her so much, so much that every fiber of his being ached to touch her, if only fleetingly.

So much more than he ever imaged, than he ever thought. It was all evolution, simple evolution. No intervention from either of them, simple feelings. Feelings far too strong to just discard as he usually did.

His nails dug into the palms that were slippery with sweat. He should never have even thought about kissing her, about tasting what he had dreamt about. Once he had left her standing there, his teeth had bit into his bottom lip, ingraining the flavor of her onto his memory.

It was wrong to walk away. He needed... everything.

~*~*~*~*~

Titian hair on a cream pillow. A full aching head on down softness. Candles that always soothed, burnt out now, the lingering scent of vanilla in the air. The scented air drifted over her prone form. Cheeks stiff with dried tears. A body held and battered by one man, one man's emoitions. Unfelt and unyielding and everything and nothing.

Knowing that what she wanted was right in front of her, that was what was tearing her apart. Knowing that he knew that she knew was she knew was what was tearing her apart. Knowing that he couldn't possibly need what she needed, breathed what she breathed, felt what she felt. Confused, that was what she was. The bottom line.

A soft knock, starling her out of her dreamlike state. Slowly rising, a blanket falling to her ankles, softly. Her hands, slowly, coming up to straighten her tousled hair. It takes her only six steps to reach the door. It takes her only five seconds to open the door.

It takes him only three seconds to place his lips upon hers and another seven to safely lock them inside.

~*~*~*~

La fin, eh, it kinda sucked, took me ten minutes but I felt it, so I wrote it.