From: "Nynaeve" TITLE: Debris Ascending(1/1) AUTHOR: Nynaeve E-MAIL: scully@on-net.net RATING: PG-13 CATEGORY: missing scene - "Sein und Zeit" KEYWORDS: MSR, UST SPOILERS: Sein und Zeit, minor ones rest of show, just to be safe SUMMARY: Between dark and light, what happened? DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter... yadda, yadda, yadda ... 1013 ... blah, blah, blah. Bottom line: not mine. FEEDBACK: Yup. Love it. Keep it all in little folders, specifically marked for each story. Respond to all of it too. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know please where it's going so I can visit. Spookys - feel free to archive. DEDICATION: to A and J, as always. NOTES: I couldn't help it! I promised friends I would *not* write this story and then I did, anyway. It's not quite comfort sex, so I hope I'll be forgiven! Debris Ascending I cradle him in my arms, feel him cling to me, for an amount of time I cannot track. It might be mere minutes; it may be hours. It enfolds twenty-seven years of loss, a life spent in a seemingly futile search for a little girl whose disappearance he is the only one ever unable to accept. It encloses questions never answered, the only willing voice now silenced for all time. It encompasses desperation, hopelessness, guilt, and a bone-crushing, soul-gutting weariness. I hold him in an embrace that spanned seven years of partnership, friendship, loyalty. His arms clutch me tight to him, asking for every piece of myself I still hold in reserve, wanting my unwavering belief in him, needing to know nothing can divide us ever again. When he has calmed enough to breathe in a regulated rhythm and not the ragged gasping of his hysteria, he lifts his head from my shoulder. His eyes find mine. The tears I see in them I know are reflected in my own. His soul, lacerated by this latest round of malevolence and deception, reaches out to me from the depths of those green-flecked, warm brown eyes of his. Only once before has Mulder let me see so deeply into him, into the locked cabinet of his needs and wants. Though I did not run then, could not flee as the coward in me wanted to, that time had nonetheless ended very badly. I want to duck my head, to avoid this, but I can't any longer. He stands, pulls me up with him. His arms are still around my waist. In fact, I would not have believed it possible, but he tightens his grasp on me. My hands are still in his hair, feeling its delightfully rough texture, absorbing the warmth of the skull beneath his flesh. We could be back in his hallway. I am not even sure the last eighteen months have happened. He has told me I make him a whole person and I cannot respond, cannot find the words in me, nor the strength to submit to him. Instead I have kissed his forehead, opened the door for him and am waiting for him to choose if he will stay where he is or follow me through it. I want him to follow me through it. I want him to kiss me, to sweep me into his arms, and carry me back the twenty feet or so to his apartment. I want the game to end and real life to begin. I have to blink a few times, rapidly, remind myself where I am and why I'm here. Those months have passed, some quickly, some with a slowness that was beyond excruciating. We are here, him clinging to me with the tenacious grip of a drowning man, me doing all I can to maintain my grip on him, because his mother has taken her own life, has left him stranded, with no hope of reconciliation. She has taken with her answers he wanted and a forgiveness he needed his whole life. Despite the turn my mind has taken, I am completely unprepared for the assault of Mulder's lips against my own. His kiss rips through me, telegraphing desire from the roots of my hair down to my now-curled toes. Heat burns me, scorching my soul. I register, dimly in a fog, the arm which has curled around my waist, hand resting, fingers splayed along my hip, crawling softly onto my abdomen. He hunches slightly, pulling my head down with his, refusing to release my lips as the other arm slips against my knees, buckles them. He grunts as his actions collapse me into his cradling arms. He straightens. His hand slides, as it must, higher, along my rib cage. His steps are certain, his stride smooth, as he carries me along the darkened hallway toward his bedroom. He nudges the partially closed door open with his foot and we sweep through the doorway. He can't possibly be looking as he navigates his way across the room to his bed. His lips have yet to leave mine. The bed rocks wildly, waves roll and crash in their miniature contained sea beneath us as he sets me down, easing me into the mattress and laying himself next to me. I am growing dizzy with the feel of his arms and the touch of his lips. My head swims not only in reaction to the ocean beneath me, but in response to the flood of desire he has loosed within me. At last he frees my lips and I gasp for air, pant raggedly through lips that have never been kissed the way he just kissed me. His hands are in my hair, tracing the lines of my cheek and jaw, stroking the curve of my neck, sliding along my arms, my sides. He is touching me everywhere at once it seems. I try to convince my brain it should resume some type of rational thought, but it refuses, obviously preferring this pleasant state of auto-pilot. I have waited for years for this night, knowing I had found the one person with whom I can build a life, shedding for him all my secrets, giving in to the desires that pound in my blood. For longer than I've known Mulder, since the first clumsy time Marcus made love to me a few days after the Prom to that last aborted attempt with Ed Jerse, I've known without a doubt what I wanted and needed; it's just taken more years to find than I ever dreamt possible. Mulder's hands travel like sunlight over me, heating my skin, lighting my eyes, making me glow. His fingers tease from me delicate sounds, soft, reserved, genuine, oh so genuine. His lips draw forth sighs soft as wind whispering through new-blooming trees. Nothing has ever felt this way. That one little piece, the one you don't know how to describe until you have it, was always missing. Everything else was a maybe, a what-if, a gamble that it might work out, no matter how unlikely. Nothing was ever a beginning until now, only the inevitable commencement of the end. No need to keep count, to wonder how long it will last. No half-hidden thoughts of tomorrow morning and its inevitable awkwardness. Somehow my suit coat has come off. I don't even remember how. I feel his hands tug at my shirt, pull its hem from the waist- band of my pants. I open my eyes. Were they shut? I don't remember that either. I look at his face and the color drains from my world. My body goes cold. His eyes glitter with the ache and desperation of the day's events. He is intent not on me, but on something far beyond what's here. I don't doubt he wants me. I know how he feels about me; I know I feel the same way about him. But right now, it's not me he wants. "Mulder," I say, my voice barely recognizable, so hoarse is it with desire. He meets my gaze. I put my hands on his, stop him. His face registers a myriad of emotions. Hurt, fear, anger, shame, confusion. "Scully? You don't want ... this?" His voice is low, throaty, disbelieving and incredibly sensual. I repress a shiver. He leans into me, whispers in my ear, his breath hot against my neck. "Don't you want me?" I cannot wholly contain the tremor that rocks through me. I clasp his hands tightly in mine and roll onto my side, facing him. "God, Mulder, yes," I pause, seeking my words carefully. "But not like this, not ... with things the way they are." "Then how, Scully?" His voice is filled with frustration as he demands his answer. "How?" He stifles the answer on my lips with another harsh kiss. His arms pull me to him roughly, his hands traveling my body with rapid design. He strokes my face, my neck, the exposed skin on my collar bones not with the tenderness of love, but with the need of possession. Physical desire courses through me and I ache to give in, to comfort him as he seeks. I pull away from him. I bring a hand to his face, to trace the stubble on his cheek and jaw. "Scully," he begs. "I ... have no one else anymore. You're everything I have left." "Mulder," I say gently, softly, infusing my voice with as much love as I can. "I know. I'm not going anywhere. I won't ever leave you." "Then," he starts, confusion hot in his eyes, "why not now?" "Ohhhh," I sigh, watching my breath ruffle the hair laying against his ear. "I want you to know I'm always going to be here and if ... if this happens now, later ... you'll wonder why. You'll wonder if it happened because I love you or because I was merely trying to comfort you." He is looking at me, his whole soul naked, exposed in all its fragility to my eyes. I am seeing the man I know, the one I've come to love as though there were none other, but I also see the young man, searching so diligently for love that he gave his heart unwisely and had it shattered like eggshells falling to the ground. I am witness to the boy, alone, confused, hurting so deeply there aren't words for it. "The first time, Mulder, we," I pause, look down, wishing that for once these sorts of words would come more easily, more readily. "The first time we make love I want it to be an answer to at least one question." He is silent for a long time, searching my eyes, my face. I am uncomfortable being stared at, being looked upon with such unabashed desire and ferocity, but I keep my eyes level with his. I've promised him I'll always be with him. At last he lets out the breath he's been holding. He draws a hand through my hair, slowly, gently. "Scully?" "Yeah?" "Thank you." I kiss him, lightly, on the lips. He responds gently. "For what, Mulder? Leading you on?" He shakes his head. "You didn't do that, Scully, not a bit." He smiles at me and rolls onto his back. The bed rolls beneath us, expediting my inclination to curl more closely into him. My head rests on his shoulder. He has hold of one of my hands and they lay, entwined, on his stomach. His other arm is around me, fingers playing absently with my hair. "How is it you know me better than I know myself, sometimes?" I smile against his shoulder. "Practice," I tell him. "Do you know how much I want you?" he asks. I bite my lower lip. "I think I have a fairly good idea now, Mulder." I pause. "And for the record, it's reciprocal." "Scully, I've lost every one I've ever cared about. Everyone but you. I was so afraid..." "You don't have to explain," I assure him. "I know," he whispers in my ear, causing those shivers to run up and down my spine again. He is silent for a while and I have hopes he has fallen asleep. After a few minutes I raise my head carefully, intent on not disturbing his rest. His eyes are open and he is staring at the ceiling. He knows I'm looking at him. "So, tell me, Dana Scully, you've thought about a 'first time'?" I blush. Though I had meant those words I had rather hoped he might ignore them. I should have known Mulder better than that. I find my voice has completely fled. I can only nod in response. He transfers his gaze from the ceiling to my face. His expression is intense, speculative. "For how long?" he asks. He dips his head so that his lips touch my ear and he breathes softly against me. "As long as I have?" My body is urging my mind to reconsider my position on this issue of comforting him. I pull away the slightest bit, needing to get my raging desires back under control. He murmurs "un-uh" as his lips close on mine. His kiss is deep, drinks me in as it fills me with longing. I sigh into him. "Well?" he asks, as he breaks the kiss. "Since ...that moment just before the bee," I whisper to him. His face registers surprise. "Not nearly as long as I have, Scully." "That was the first time I started to think it might really happen," I explain. "Before that, it was more like ... what if." "Mmmm," is his only response as he nuzzles my neck. "Mulder?" I ask. He ignores me. "Mulder?! You?" He looks up at me. "When was the first time you saved me?" he says, a faint, ironic grin on his face. I arch the eyebrow at him. "Come on. I told you," I challenge him. "Scully, you think I'm kidding? I've thought about it for a very long time, but when I started believing it would happen? Around the Roche case..." He kisses me again and words are not exchanged for long minutes. His lips are gentle against mine, undemanding, asking permission for more instead. I open my mouth to him and for once don't bother to fight the tide of want within me. His tongue tickles my lips, tickles my own tongue in a soft exploration of my mouth. He rolls me onto my back and settles himself half on top of me. Our legs entwine as I sink into the water filled bed. His fingers glide through my hair, over my face. He touches me with the dedication of a blind man, memorizing a Braille text in case he should in some distant future lose it. I have never been closer to anyone than this, nor have I wanted to be. If God Himself were to look upon right now He would see what we've only just begun to prove to each other, two halves of the same soul, fitted together after a blindingly long separation. He breathes my name into my hair and I shudder underneath him. "You were right to stop me earlier," he whispers. "I thought if I made love to you I could convince myself you were mine, that you wouldn't ever leave me. I just wanted to be in control of something, in possession of one part of my life. You deserve more." "*We* deserve more, Mulder," I correct him. "I love you." His breath hisses past his lips, sharply. My words, even after all of this, were unexpected to him. He lays his lips against my forehead, along my cheekbones, traces the outline of my jaw, coming to rest at last against my mouth. I feel his lips curl into a small smile. "I love you, too, Scully." He shifts so that only his legs still cover me. His arms hold me tightly. He knows the fragile nature of the words we've exchanged and as much as he wants to believe, he needs the physical proof of my body lying closely to his. In a few moments, he is asleep. I doubt he will stay that way for long. The night is still early and Mulder still has to face facts that most men couldn't at all. I know that I will be here though. There are no inducements on this earth that could pull me from his side now. In the days to come I know I will long for a resolution to the events in motion around us so that we two may at last find our way to one another as lovers should, so that the past may be placed in its own light and be finally absorbed into the present. I know I will feel his eyes on me, devouring me, holding me as closely as if they were his arms. I know in his voice I will hear the music of my name telling my of his feelings for me even when the words are not possible. I know too I will ache to be right back where we are, nestled one into the other, neither of us with a beginning, middle, or end. For now, I lie wrapped in the security of his arms and I hold him to me just as tightly. I listen to him breathe. I watch him dream. I wait for him to call my name, as the inevitable nightmares that stalk him close in and rob him of the peace he needs. I wait for the game to end and real life to begin. I've waited this long; I can wait a while longer. END