"Umbra" 19/? By Dawson E. Rambo Disclaimer : Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and any other tangentially mentioned characters created by Chris Carter remain his copyrighted property, the property of 1013 Productions, and the property of Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century Fox, Inc. No infringement of any copyright is intended. Characters created by the author remain his property. Original Post : June 22, 1997 Archive Entry : Book I, Chapter 19 Classification : Action Adventure, MSR Rating : R (Adult Themes, Adult Language, Sexual Contact) ***************: PLEASE SEE CONTENT NOTES AND CONTENT WARNINGS. Notes : None Antishipper : 1 on a scale of 1-10. Shipper : 10 on a scale of 1-10. Timeline : 4th year, prior to anything having to do with cancer. Content Warning: This file contains depictions of sexual contact between two consenting heterosexual adults whom are deeply in love with each other. For a fuller description of the sexual acts depicted herein, please see the CONTENT NOTES at the <> of this file. Note: PLEASE send feedback to drambo@azstarnet.com Enjoy! ----------- "Your Love / is like bad medicine Bad medicine is what I need shake it up / just like bad medicine there ain't no doctor that can cure my disease I got a fever / got a permanent disease and it'll take more than a doctor/ to prescribe a remedy I got lots o' money / but it isn't what I need gonna take more than a shot / to get this poison out of me Yeah, I got all the symptoms down 1-2-3 that's what you get for falling in love you get a little and it's never enough" - "Bad Medicine" Bon Jovi Motel 6 Mission Beach, California Mulder watched her depart and hesitated a moment. But only a moment. Shaking his head, he went after her. She had left the connecting door open, and Mulder's psychologist's mind took note of that. A little voice in the back of his head was speaking softly now, gently, telling him what to say and how to say it. It didn't escape that tall, lanky FBI agent that the culmination of the last four years of his life was about to play out, and that if he didn't say exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, he was never going to be able to repair the damage he'd just caused. "Scully," he called softly. She was by the bed, her back turned to him, shoulders hunched. He could tell that she was trying not to cry, trying not to let him know how much his insensitivity had hurt her. He moved behind her, being careful to keep a respectful distance. "Please...let me..." She whirled on him, eyes on fire. "What? Explain?! Go ahead, Mulder. I'd love to hear the overwhelming rationalization your mind has come up with this time!" Mulder paused, not sure how to handle her anger. "Scully...Dana..." "Don't CALL me that!" Mulder took a breath. "Scully...I'm sorry." Her eyes narrowed, and when she spoke, Scully's voice was a hiss. "You think that makes it all right? That you're `sorry'?" "No," Mulder said quietly. "I don't think that makes it all right. But I'd like to...to..." Scully crossed her arms, waiting. At least she's listening, the voice inside Mulder's head observed. You've got one chance at this, pal. Don't fuck it up. He decided to let out all the stops. Go for broke. "Scully, do you love me?" Her eyes widened and her mouth opened. She took a step towards him, her arms coming up, and for a moment Mulder was sure she was going to hit me. "You SON OF A BITCH!" she screamed. He stepped back. "No...wait! Let me finish!" She stopped in her tracks. "Fine, Mulder. Finish." "Answer the question." Scully tore her gaze from him, looking around the room, trying to find something, anything to focus her attention on besides him. How on Earth, at a time like this, could he even ASK this damn question? "Scully...ten minutes ago we were both almost naked, rolling around on the bed, getting close to....to what we've both wanted for so long. It's taken us forever and a day to get here." He paused, searching. Scully was still staring at the bed, her arms crossed. "I'd hate to think that either of us was so shallow that one sentence from me could crush all that. So I'll ask again...do you love me?" Her eyes came up slowly. The anger was still there, he saw. "It's just not that easy, Mulder. What you said hurt me. Deeply. Right now, one thing has very little to do with the other." Mulder shook his head. "No. No it doesn't, Scully." He sat on the bed, purposefully changing his posture from a defensive one to an open, conversational position. "Neither one of us is a perfect human being, Scully. We're both..." he searched for the word. "Complex," he finished. She snorted. That much, at least, was true. "Scully...being sarcastic and insensitive is my way of dealing with pain, with loss. Since Sam...there's only been...a few times when I've been able to...let go. When I've been able to...let myself feel the pain. My father. Melissa." He stopped. "Me," she finished. He stood, turning away from her, the memories of the Dark Time coming back. "Yes," he said slowly, softly. "When you were gone... it was the worst, Scully. I thought...I thought you were gone forever, that I'd...never get a chance to...tell you what I felt, what I was beginning to feel. I thought I'd never get a chance to hold you in my arms and whisper how much I love you." Scully felt some of the anger beginning to drain out of her. Most of it remained, but she could feel Mulder's pain from across the room, and it had a steadying effect on her emotions. "Scully...the way I deal with pain is to make fun of it. To make light of it. And when you told me that Mike had been...that he'd been... my first reaction was to shield you from that pain. To make it go away as quickly as possible." He paused. "To be like me. To ignore it. To pretend it wasn't there. I was trying to give you...some of the strength that you've always given me." He stopped, turned and faced her. "To make you more like me." He saw the anger clouding inside her eyes again and he took a step forward. "I know I was wrong, Scully. So, so wrong. No one should be like me. It's hell having this brain...this mind, doing the things it does to protect itself." He stopped speaking and turned away from her, walking towards the foot of the bed. "I'm so afraid, Scully. So afraid that if I ever let myself feel all the emotions that I feel...that if I ever let myself feel them fully, that I'd do bonkers." "Bonkers?" Scully asked. Mulder glanced at her in the mirror over the dresser and saw her expression, saw the arched eyebrow. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He turned back. "Scully...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said that. I didn't say it to be insensitive or demeaning. I didn't say it to minimize your pain, to make it seem like your pain was any less important than the pain I feel about Sam or my Dad or about Melissa or about my Mom. But I did say it because it's what I would say to in the same circumstances." He paused. "Scully...you've known me for four years. In good times and in bad. Do you honestly think I said what I said to hurt you?" The silence between them hung, heavy and pregnant. "I love you," he said softly, shaking his head. Another long moment. Scully's arms dropped. She took a hesitant step towards him, and he took one towards her. "I do," she said quietly. "I do love you, Mulder." "I know," he said. They where whispering, and he had no idea why. "Mulder...you would never have said that about your mother or your father or Sam or Melissa. Put yourself in my shoes. Say Langley or Byers or Frohickie had gotten murdered while you listened. Imagine if I had said the same thing you did." Mulder flinched. He knew there was only one answer. "You never would have said that," he whispered. His voice sounded lame, even to his own ears. She nodded. "That's right, Mulder. That's the difference between you and me." He nodded, accepting her rebuke. "You're right, Scully." She took another step towards him, her arm reaching out, her fingers touching his bicep gently. "Mulder..." He was looking at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. If he had the damn puppy-dog look on his face when he looked up, Scully thought, I'm gonna slap him. He looked up. Scully felt her heart lurch to a stop. His face was a mask of misery. He wasn't playing, he wasn't pretending. Mulder looked as unhappy as she'd ever seen him. "Mulder..." she said, stepping into his space. "If this is going to happen...between us...you're going to have to learn not to say the first thing that is on your mind the instant it's in there." "No," he said, stepping back. "No, this isn't...I'm supposed to be apologizing to you. You're supposed to be ANGRY with me! Don't comfort me, Scully! Don't try and make me feel better!" She stopped, her arm dropping again. "Ok, Mulder...what is it you want, then?" "Be ANGRY with me, Scully! Chew me out! Tell me what a self- centered jerk I am! What an asshole I can be!" She shook her head. "No." He looked at her, tears streaming down his face. "Why, Scully?!" She spoke slowly, carefully. "Because no matter what I say to you, Mulder...no matter how angry and indignant I get..I'll never be able to satisfy this...strange need you have to castigate yourself over every damn thing." She turned and plopped down on the bed. "You know, Mulder...sometimes I think you like being a jerk, if only to give yourself a chance to beat yourself up over it. Sometimes I get the feeling you LIKE being miserable." Her words caught him short. "Emotional masochist?" he asked. She nodded. "Yeah. You have to admit that...the pattern is there." He nodded. "Yeah. Anger replaces guilt." She nodded. "And you mask it all in this martyr complex. Look at poor Mulder...missing sister...dead father...mother almost killed by the cancerman...chasing aliens and conspiracies...no one understands him. Poor, poor Mulder." Her words stung, and Mulder flinched. "Scully..." he wheezed. "Mulder...you know I don't feel that way. But that's what you want people to feel. It's yet another one of your incredible defense mechanisms. Push everyone away so you can be lonely and forlorn, so you can exist in that little bubble you call a world. So no one can get to you. You think I don't know why you watch this porno movies? Much easier to fantasize about a woman that exists up on that screen than deal with an actual, living, breathing female." Mulder stood there, taking it, welcoming it. Scully set her jaw. "You're even enjoying this, aren't you? In that twisted way of yours...you're loving the fact that I can just pick...you...apart. That I can make you feel guilty for wanting to feel guilty." She sighed. "You're hopeless, Mulder." He fell to his knees in front of her. "Please...Scully..." She sighed again. She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders. "Mulder...I love you. God knows why I do, or when it happened, or why I can't just find it in myself to walk away and leave you to your pain. God knows why you have this effect on me, because I sure as hell don't." He looked up at her, the tears flowing down his face. "Mulder...do you love me?" His shoulders stopped hitching. "Y-yes," he whispered. "Are you in love with me?" He nodded, unable to speak. "Come here," she said, tugging on his shoulders. He came to her, and she lay back, bringing him with her. They lay on the bed together, an uneasy truce between them. "Listen to me, you sorry SOB. I fell in love with you so long ago that I don't remember a part of my life before you. I can't imagine my life without you. So I have a few choices. I can either accept you as you are, warts and all, and spend the rest of my life being totally antagonized by the man I love. Or, I can screw up my strength and walk out on you, this partnership, and my career. I can go somewhere else and find happiness with someone else." A sudden mental image of Dana Scully and Matthew Stone walking down the isle on their wedding day crossed Mulder's mind and he flinched against her, his arms tightening around her. "Shhh," she said. "I'm not going anywhere...yet." That one word, that single syllable froze Mulder's blood. "Or..." Scully continued, "we can work together. As partners. As lovers. As best friends. We can work together to help you find your way out of this pain, Mulder. No one knows more than I do how much happiness you've denied yourself over the years in the name of...prostrating yourself on the cross of Samantha and this conspiracy." He sobbed against her, burying his face against her neck. She stroked his hair, comforting him, part of her hating herself for doing it. "Mulder...shhhh....listen to me. I want to do this. I want to be there for you...to be with you..." She rolled over on top of him, pinning him to the bed with her weight. "But...you have to be there with me as well, Mulder. You have to...let...me...in." He opened his eyes and stared at her, his angle, his savior. She reached up and tucked her hair behind one ear, letting him see her face, her eyes. "Mulder...let it go. Let the pain go. I'm here...and if you let me...I'll never leave you." If he let her. The incongruity of her words hit him like a slap. All this time he'd been pining for her, and she for him, it'd been him, Mulder, that had kept her away. He'd constantly pushed her away with his words and his actions, things said and things done carefully, subconsciously calculated to keep her at a distance, to keep at a distance. It'd been him, all along. His stubbornness, his inability to see what was right in front of him. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes..." Scully looked down into his eyes, through them, and into his soul. The silent channels opened again, and they spoke without words. Do you promise? her voice asked. Yes, he answered. "Mulder," she said softly. "There's one more thing." He waited. "This case...I don't want to sound like a poster for a really bad Steven Segal movie...but this time...it's personal." Her serious voice, the way she'd paced the sentence, it sounded exactly like a radio trailer for a bad Steven Segal movie. Mulder struggled not to laugh. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Specifically." "Mulder...we are not going to stop until Danny Graves is either dead or behind bars. And I am not going to allow you to protect me in the name of your quest anymore. I go where you go, and you go where I go. We tell each other everything: Thoughts, theories, suspicions, every single thing on our minds. That's what partners do." She leaned down and kissed him very softly on the lips. "That's what lovers do." He heard her words, but could not believe them. She saw that in his face, in his eyes, heard the strangled, whispered cry in his soul. She sighed deeply, wondering what she was going to have to do to convince him. "Mulder...I want to be your lover. I want you to be mine. I can't tell you how long I've wanted you. I didn't realize it myself until Matt came into my life. I spent my entire time with him...comparing him to you. And he always came up short. "Don't you realize why I haven't had a date in almost four years? Why I haven't...been with anyone? I always compare them to you. And they always come up short." He looked at her, his eyes wide, not believing her, but desperately wanting to. More than he had ever wanted to believe anything in his life. "Mulder...you said an incredibly insensitive thing. A cruel, thoughtless little phrase. I know now what it was, what you were doing, and in a really weird way, I appreciate it. But, I'm still very angry with you, and part of me wants to just punch the crap out of you." He heard it again, the anger, the impatience in her voice and he realized that she had him at a complete disadvantage. She could do just that, he realized. Scully could just start...whaling on him and he would be powerless to do anything about it. "But..." she added, "the thing I want to do know more than anything is make love to you." He glanced up at her again, searching her face, delving into her eyes. He felt like he was falling and he let it happen, descending into her eyes, seeing the truth there, the honesty, the open, warm desire she felt for him, for his touch, his warmth. He raised his head off the bed and she lowered hers. The kiss started softly, and then caught fire. Mulder had thought that their first time together would have been slow, sweet, gentle. Discovering each other in small bits, learning everything they could about each other, but this was different. This was...hungrier. More eager, more desperate. Each of them had been so alone, for so long, each being the other's only outlet for affection and desire. Now that the gates were opening, the waters were rushing through, pounding everything in their path into submission. Scully was using her hands on him, pushing his shirt off. It came over his head and she tossed it over her shoulder, her hands moving to her own shirt, working the buttons quickly. He moved to help her and she slapped his hands away. No time, she thought. No time. He might change his mind. She might. No time. Mulder watched, amazed as Scully reached behind her and undid the catch on her bra, tossing it to join her shirt. She stood quickly, her compact, perfect breasts bobbling as she moved. She grabbed his pants and pulled, sliding them down and off his legs. He lifted his hips, his thumbs working in the waistband of his boxers, and then they, too were gone. Scully stood before him in just her panties, and she lost them just as quickly. Naked, she leapt back up onto the bed, pinning him again with her thighs. Her mouth descended towards his, capturing it, devouring it. There was passion...and anger in that kiss. Anger at being made to wait so long for this, for him. Anger at having to deny her feelings for him to herself, to the world, to everyone. Anger at having to have so much pain be the catalyst for so much pleasure. His hands found her back, and he stroked her, his fingers sliding down to find her buttocks, spreading them, pulling her against him, his hardness. "In me," she whispered. "In me...now!" She shifted on the bed and Mulder's hand came around from underneath. He felt her, how wet and open and ready she was, and he found himself gaping in amazement. She was soaked, her center dripping. He was iron and steel, so hard he was throbbing with anticipation. She grasped him, using it like a lever, positioning herself and then him, and then he felt it, felt the heat and the moisture at the tip, and then he was inside her and she was sliding down, opening herself, filling herself with him, spreading, accepting. It was a long, wet, hot, slick slide and then she was bottomed out, her ass pressed against his thighs and he was inside her, he was inside her, oh God, he was INSIDE her! He groaned, flexing his hips reflexively. She gasped as he moved inside her. It had been so long since anyone had been inside her, and Scully had almost forgotten the delicious, glutted feeling of having a man filling her up; Mulder had almost forgotten what it meant to BE inside a woman, a woman he cared about, a woman he loved more than anything else in the world, ever. She was wet and hot and slick and tight, gripping him with her walls, tugging at him, trying to draw him even deeper still. "Oh, God, Scully," he whispered. "Fuck me, Mulder." Her voice was strained, hoarse, and Mulder thought he'd never heard a more beautiful sound or two more beautiful words in his life. He started to move, withdrawing and then inserting himself again, setting up a slow, patient rhythm. "Faster, Dammit!" Scully demanded. Mulder moved to comply, not sure he was hearing right. But then he forgot that as he lost himself in the sensations of making love with Dana Scully. He entire world vanished, replaced instead by the sensations of her surrounding him, tugging at him, pulling at him. Her fingernails were digging into his shoulder, urging him on, pulling him up at her, up into her. He rolled, moving on top of her, never breaking the contact. Her legs scissored around his back, her teeth bared in a grimace of absolute passion, passion denied too long. "Harder!" she gasped. Scully wanted to be with this man, be with him any way she could, for as long as she could. But for that to happen, for her to remain sane in the middle of any romantic, sexual relationship with Mulder, she was going to have to get to the REAL Mulder. And that meant forgetting soft, slow, gentle lovemaking. She had wanted that for the first time as well, had wanted it to be romantic and caring, had wanted it to be remembered between them always as "The First Time" should be remembered. But this was more important; this was what Mulder needed. Mulder had an epiphany. His concern for her, his desire to make it good for her, to make it memorable and special was another shield. Another way to protect himself and his heart. As long as he was thinking about her, he was thinking only about himself. As long as his only concern was her pleasure, her enjoyment, he had no room for himself, no room for him to give, to give himself instead of just giving OF himself. Scully knew that. Scully wanted him to...be. To be himself. He roared and began to move, thrusting again and again, filling her over and over. She moved with him, urging him on, her own pleasure, her own desire forgotten. And in that, in that perfect moment of Mulder just being a man, being the big, strong, macho man, Scully found herself climbing towards release. The orgasm took her by surprise and she detonated, feeling the pleasure spiraling out from her center in wet, melting, shuddering waves of emancipation. Freedom to be herself, to be a woman under this man, this complex, flawed, wonderful man that she loved more than life itself. He saw the tears on her face and thought that he'd hurt her. He stopped moving. "Scully?" She smiled through the tears. "Do you know that's the first time you've been totally honest with me in four years?" "I love you," he said softly, leaning down to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they began to move again, slower this time, more gently. He was huge inside her, and Scully grunted with the effort of holding him, loving the feeling of being...possessed by this man. By Mulder. "I love you, too," she whispered. And he knew that it was true. Something inside of him snapped, a button pushed, a switch flipped, and he began to move more quickly, wanting her to come with him, wanting her to be where he was, at the center of a nexus of pleasure that had never had an equal. At the very center of a world of love and desire and passion and pleasure. She felt him moving, saw him with her own eyes as he lost himself inside her, as the pain completely and truly left his eyes for the first time since she'd known him. All your life, the voice inside her head remarked. You've known this man your entire life, because whatever came before you knew him wasn't a life. This is. This is real, the voice said. This is life. This is love. This is what you've wanted your entire life, what you've waited for since you realized what men and women do together in the dark rooms in the darkest hours of the night. Only it wasn't night, it was late afternoon, and the sun streaming in from the window was casting a glow across both of their bodies; Scully felt as if they were being bathed in Life itself. She felt her eyes roll back as Mulder cranked up another notch towards release. His hands, the way they were moving on her body, touching here, stroking there, grasping a breast only long enough to gently twist and pinch a nipple, only to release it so he could go looking elsewhere, for other treasures, for other secret spots to touch and stroke and caress...it was all building inside her, making Scully ache for another release, making her pant with desire to let go, to dissolve under Mulder, to let him do with her what he would, whatever he wanted... And then they were both there. Mulder thrust inside her one final time and she felt him growing, expanding, filling her with his hot girth. "In me," she whispered. Mulder lost it at that moment and Scully joined him. They screamed together, her hands tightening on his shoulders, the nails digging into his skin. He shuddered, once, twice...three times and then collapsed, rolling onto his back, bringing her with him. Their breathing slowly returned to normal. Her face was tucked against his neck and she reached out with her tongue and licked him. He giggled, trying to move away. "Understand?" she asked softly. "Yes," he said. "I love you, Mulder." "I love you too, Scully." ---------------------------------------------------- END CHAPTER 18 Content Warning : This file contains the following: MulderAngst. ScullyAngst. Sexual intercourse between two people that care very deeply about one another. "Bad Medicine" Copyright (c) 1994 Music & Lyrics by J. Bon Jovi, R. Sambora, D. Child. Produced by Bruce Fairbairn. Copyright (C) 1994 Polygram Records. All rights reserved. Used without permission.