Sometimes, I just get all caught up in things. Like all the relationship stories that have been coming down lately (or should I say 'going down' lately), so my apologies to non relationshippers. This story fills the gap between the time the MIB's chase Scully and Mulder out of the mine operation and Skinner picks them up at the little cafe in 'Paperclip'. Therefore, THIRD SEASON WARNINGS apply. I rate it a strong R, for me at least. This is as close to 'sex lovingly described' as I will ever get, but it's still not really described. It's strongly hinted at. Hope this isn't too mushy, but if it is, be warned. Standard disclaimer: I would trade lives with Chris Carter only if I got to keep my husband, six kids, dog and friends. Otherwise, he thought up these guys, the basis for this story and the original script. Since I can't be him, I would like to use his ideas for a while. I'll put them back when I'm done, I promise. (Lawyers: please read this as 'no copyright infringement intended') Comments, recipes, income tax questions, complaints against the government, please send to me at vmoseley@fgi.net. REUNITED By Vickie Moseley Night West Virginia/Western Maryland border They caught up with each other at a stand of trees some ways from the mine. Fox Mulder was having a hard time catching his breath and the wheeze in his chest was matching the dizziness he was feeling. He leaned heavily against a tree and willed the spots to leave his eyes. Dana Scully was panting, too. But not so much that she couldn't see her partner was having a bad time of it. Automatically she grabbed his wrist and took his pulse. Even accounting for the run they had just had, he was tachy as all hell. And she definitely didn't like the noise he was making in his chest. She reached up to feel his forehead and he smartly brushed her hand aside. "I'm fine," he hissed. "Just not quite up to par, yet. Dying sort of takes a lot out of you, ya know," he continued to wheeze. At least the spots were gone. He quickly surveyed the area they had just left. "I don't see anybody following us, but we better get moving anyway." He took her hand and started skirting the woods. "Mulder, when was the last time you slept?" Scully demanded in a whisper as they avoided tree roots and saplings. "Let's see, what month is this?" he grinned a death's head grin at her. She wasn't impressed. "Geez, Scully, I don't know. A couple of days ago, I guess. But I got lots and lots of sleep for the couple days I was dead. All caught up, you might say." More grin. Less impressed. "OK, smartass, when was the last time you ATE?" she was getting angry now, but she had no idea why. "Now that I can tell you! I grabbed a Big Mac on the way to my apartment." He felt triumphant in that small accomplishment. In all honesty, he could have eaten more, but it was all the money he had at the time. Being dead did have a decided negative affect on personal finances. "And before that?" she countered. "Some sort of corn cake thing in New Mexico. It was pretty good, actually," he responded, but he really wasn't paying much attention to the conversation. "Hey, Scully, is that a town up there?" Scully put her hand up to her eyes and squinted. The image reminded him of an old Lone Ranger episode he had seen. He struggled not to make the comparison aloud. "Gee, Mulder," she finally answered, "it could be a town. Or, knowing these hills, it could be gophers with flashlights." She smirked at her own joke. "Glad I'm back, aren't you, Scully?" he teased. She took a moment to look at him, reflecting on how miserable she had been just a mere 24 hours before. "Yeah, Mulder. I am." It was a town, or more or less a town. One main street bisected by five or six smaller ones. A 'downtown' business district that consisted of one block. A tiny town park with a cement bandstand. A post office. A police/volunteer fire house. And on the corner, across from a saloon and a greasy spoon cafe, was a small motel. They headed straight for it. "Somehow, I don't think we should split up," Mulder said, half under his breath as they approached the office. He didn't know quite why, but he didn't want to be that far away from her. Not tonight, maybe not ever. But he wasn't sure how she would react. Quickly, he started lining up good reasons for his apprehension. "Ditto," she whispered, as she held the door open and he grabbed it from her hand. She smiled at him in perfect understanding. he pondered for the briefest second as he followed her in the office. After a minute waiting at the desk, a small woman in a ratty wool cardigan came out of door in the back of the room. " 'Help you folks?" she asked. "We'd like a room for the night. Two beds," Scully added hastily. The woman lifted an eyebrow and snorted. She turned to the shelf of keys behind her, took one out of the cubby and handed it over. "Don't have any doubles left. Hunters in town. Got one with a king bed, though. You look feisty, you should be able to fight him off, missy. If you think he'll cause you any trouble, you can always borrow 'ole reliable'," she added, thrusting her chin toward an antique rifle hanging over the doorway. Scully could feel Mulder stifling his laugh behind her. "No, I'm sure he'll behave. Thank you." She handed over her credit card and signed for the room. The room was small, but clean. The bedspread was actually better suited to a queen sized bed, just the fringe hung over the top of the mattress. A tiny bathroom was off the back of the room and one almost antique dresser and mirror stood against the wall. "I think I saw this room in 'Papermoon'," Mulder quipped as he made his way over to the bed and slowly lowered himself down on it. Every bone in his body creaked and groaned. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced his back as he shifted and popped the vertebrae back into their original positions. "It's been a while since I slept in a real bed," he sighed. Already his eyes were drooping down. No lullaby needed for Fox tonight. Scully took a moment to check out the room. She still wasn't sure they wouldn't be ambushed at anytime. Finally convinced that they had lost the seeming platoon of black panel vans that had converged on them at the mine site, she turned her attentions to her partner. Without warning, she plopped down on the bed and put her head on his chest. "Scully, this is nice, but I'm too tired right now to really enjoy it," Mulder sighed heavily. "Shhhh! I'm trying to listen to your breathing," she hissed. "Don't you really need a stethoscope for that," he asked, still not opening his eyes. He was really enjoying the sensation of her hair on his chest, but he could never admit that to her. "Hush, or I go get 'ole reliable'," she growled and he complied. He had obviously suffered from smoke inhalation. His lungs were still recovering. He needed to be resting, for a couple of days, not running through the spring night air in the mountains of Western Maryland. She lifted her head, finally satisfied that he wasn't going to go into cardiac or pulmonary arrest on her. She brushed her hand across his forehead. It was warm, but not hot. The fever that had plagued him for the week before his 'death' had apparently broken during the Navaho Blessing Way ritual. "Are you done playing 'doctor', yet," he grumbled. "It's not nearly as kinky as you'd think, you know," he added. He was slurring his words and he still hadn't opened his eyes. "Mulder, take your clothes off," she demanded, getting off the bed and heading for the bath. That got his eyes open. He stared at the closed door. "I don't know if I could meet a lot of expectations tonight, Scully," he joked, but his mind was whirling at the thoughts rushing through it. "Mulder, take off your clothes and get under the covers," she shouted over the running water. "Your clothes are damp where you were sweating and from the dew. If you sleep in them, you'll catch another fever for sure. I have no intentions of molesting you, so just do what I ask, OK?" He shook his head and shrugged to himself. Finally, he pushed himself off the bed with great effort and stripped down to his boxers. The chill in the room quickly chased him under the covers, where he settled down again. he admitted to himself. Once again, he started drifting off to sleep. He heard her come in. He could smell her, too. Her hair, her soap. The faint scent of perfume that still remained even after the workout she had been through. He felt the bed move as she got under the top cover, but not under the sheet. He smiled to himself. She definitely wasn't a fool, this one. He relaxed again, and this time, sleep claimed him as her own. Scully lay there a long time, just listening to his breathing. The wheeze was much less pronounced, now that his body was finally at rest. She tried to close her eyes, but found them blinking open. So much to think about. So much had happened. She rolled over and faced him as he slept next to her. her mind shouted. He kept referring to the time he was lost as being dead, and she had no doubt that he believed he had died. Ordinarily, she would have scoffed at the idea. You don't die and then two or three days later come back to life. It just doesn't happen. Well, maybe it happened once, but that was about two thousand years ago. . . But he had been lost. Of that, she was certain. And he had been close to death. She would be eternally grateful to Albert Hosteen for caring for him while she had gone back to Washington alone. Mulder had been very sick. And she hadn't been there. He had almost died in a fire. And she had sent him off to face it alone. A rush of self recrimination rushed through her. He meant so much to her and she had turned her back on him, left without really searching. She had been all too eager to write him off for dead because that was the way all the 'evidence' pointed. she decided and finally sleep came to her, as well. It is inevitable when two people unaccustomed to sleeping with each other finally do sleep together that the covers are the first casualty of war. And just as surely, cold bodies seek warmth, where ever it can be found. So it was that in the earliest light of day, Mulder awoke to find himself rather dangerously entangled with his partner, who was sound asleep in his arms. He regarded her for a few minutes. She was so beautiful. Not tall and leggy, like Phoebe. Not dark haired and buxom like his occasional dalliances. Short, red haired, honest face, eyes so deep and blue as to put the ocean to shame. . . And just as quietly and steady as the sun rose over the hills surrounding them, he realized just how much he loved her. He didn't mean to take action on his thoughts. But before he even knew what he was doing, he was placing soft kisses on her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. As she slowly woke up, her sleep-heavy eyes focusing on his face, he leaned in and took possession of her mouth. It was a tender kiss, almost courtly, in another era. She looked at him, somewhat confused. Immediately, he misunderstood. "I'll stop, Scully, if you don't want me to," he hastened to whisper. She still was coming awake and had been taken a bit by surprise. She had little remembrance of the night except that she hadn't felt so safe and warm and. . .'loved' in a long time. She looked into his eyes, those hazel eyes she had come to understand so well. "I don't want you to, Mulder," she sighed. In resignation and with a twinge of sorrow, he started to roll over on to his back, to get out of the bed and into his clothes. She stopped his movement, encircling him with her arms. "No, Mulder. I don't want you to stop," she explained as she leaned up to take his mouth as her own. Sex had always been concealed in darkness for him. Phoebe had been obsessed with it. Even in those lazy Oxford Sunday afternoons, she had insisted that the shades be pulled, the curtains drawn, plunging the room and their bodies into darkness. And the few single-night preoccupations he had allowed himself in the ensuing years had always taken place under the stars, never the daylight sky. By the light of morning, he had extracted himself, and was gone like a wraith is chased by the sun. Not so today. Not so this time, with this woman. As the first rays of the sun lit the room with brightness, he could see her clearly, with loving eyes. As their bodies explored and aroused each other, nothing hid in the corners, no shadow darkened their path. It was in the light of day that they finally found each other, joined as one, stepped off the mountaintop and soared, together. And in the light of that new dawn, they swore their love. They separated reluctantly, neither wanting to let go of the other. They lay there for some time, kissing soft kisses, whispering gentle promises. At last, he rolled over onto his back and she nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder, his arm surrounding her waist. After a moment, she looked up at him. "You aren't wheezing this morning," she smiled up at him. He regarded her a minute . "I always said you were a good doctor, Scully. You've cured me." With a smile beyond all knowing and reason, she shook her head. "No, Mulder. We've cured each other." The end.