"Home"

**Prompt: Height Difference**

**MSR/Angst. Set after the episode Paper Hearts**

"Coming." Scully's muffled voice came from the other side of her apartment door. Mulder knew it was after midnight, but the compulsion to see her had been too strong. It's what drove him across town in the middle of the night.

His body shuddered as images of blood splatter, across a school bus window, flashed quickly through his mind. God, he was so tired.

"Mulder?" Her familiar inflection stopping the gory memories instantly. It scared him sometimes how his name upon her lips made him feel like he was safe. Like he was home, a place he hadn't known in a long, long time.

"Hey, is it too late?"

"Come in." Scully said, as she quickly looked over his body for any bruises or wounds as she shut the door behind him.

Mulder stopped abruptly and turned to find Scully walking right into him. "Oomph, Mulder."

"Sorry." His arms reached out to steady her. Her head only reached the middle of his chest, its brilliant red, streaked with the moonlight through her windows.

The warmth coming off her, seared him everywhere his fingers touched her skin. He hadn't realized how cold he was. Inside and out. Roche's mind games, pretending to know what happened to Samantha, had screwed him up pretty badly.

Mulder knew he held onto Scully longer than was acceptable, but he had been fighting his urges towards her for too long. He wished that for once he could just be a man and not a friend, not a co-worker. Just a man who wanted to be held, by a woman he wanted to hold.

Her nightgown offered little protection from his eyes. Shadows and curves tantalized him. Standing so close to her he could smell the light fragrance she always wore. Summer flowers.

Scully had to look up, all the way up, to see his eyes, bright and slowly blinking against his exhaustion.

"Scully, I … don't know why I'm here. I…can still feel the soil between my fingers, see the cut out hearts."

"Shhh." She stopped his words by placing her palm against his unshaven cheek, her thumb brushing his lips as she touched him. "When was the last time you've slept?" She asked as her fingers scorched a trail down his jaw.

She gently wound her arm around his waist. He leaned heavily into her, relief from sharing the weight of the past week with her, sapped the last of his energy as she guided him over to her couch.

They both sat down heavily, sinking into the plush cushions.

Mulder's head fell back to rest on the back of the couch. One hand rising to rub his tired eyes.

Scully moved to stand, but his hand on her arm stopped her. "Please, just, sit with me."

"I was just going to get you some water." She said as she placed her hand on his chest. He wondered if she realized that she had instinctively began to rub his chest in soothing circles.

"I'm better now Scully." He whispered as his hand reached to cover hers and their eyes met and held…a full conversation expressed.

I just needed to be with you.

Okay.

"I was so scared one of those hearts would belong to Samantha and then so scared it wouldn't, Scully."

"I know." She said softly as she settled against his body, his other arm coming around to hold her along his side as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Her head fitting perfectly into the crook of his shoulder.

Scully was surprised that she did not feel uncomfortable or nervous being held in his arms. If she was honest with herself, she would admit her private thoughts of such things, were more and more prevalent these days.

"Mulder, you brought two lost little girls home to their families. It has to mean something. It has to count."

They sat together in comfortable silence. She could hear his breaths slow as he calmed. His cheek gradually coming to rest on the top of her head. "It counts." He replied as he laced their fingers together.

Scully hoped her presence offered him a safe haven to rest in and forget about the evil they encountered as they pursued their work.

She let him sleep. The steady rise and fall of his chest comforting as she watched the sun rise and its rays spilling through the slits of her window blinds.