JUST A FAN of FAN ART & FANFIC, XFiles

As she feared, Mulder’s apartment is dark when Scully enters. She does a thorough inspection of each room, taking note with her investigator’s eye of any oddities that catch her notice. Because it’s Mulder’s apartment, however, there are plenty of strange things that stand out to her, none of which point her towards any obvious conclusion as to his whereabouts.

After this, she calls him again, and again receives his voicemail, which irritates her so badly she considers leaving. But then she sees his poor fish circling the top of their tank, hungry and abandoned, and feels a stirring of pity. Sprinkling a dash of food into the tank, she watches dejectedly as they fight over the crumbs.

A call to the Lone Gunmen proves fruitless, as none of the men have heard from Mulder in weeks. Frohike offers to join her in keeping vigil over Mulder’s apartment, but she politely declines. After hanging up, she thumbs the phone for a few seconds, wondering whether she ought to call Diana for an update. But when she dials the other woman’s number, there is no answer.

And so she waits, collapsing onto Mulder’s familiar leather couch and listlessly flipping through his T.V. channels. After an hour, she digs out a stale sleeve of crackers from his pantry and attempts to eat, but she has no appetite and ends up tossing them in the trash. Another hour sees her pacing the length of his apartment, redialing his cell number every few minutes. When midnight strikes, she settles back onto the couch, jacket and shoes discarded, and eventually falls asleep to the drone of a documentary on the history channel.

**

Scully jolts awake in the darkness, her skin crawling with the certainty that someone is watching her. She’s reaching for her weapon when she spies the door, which is open, spilling hallway light across the floor. A stranger’s silhouette looms in the doorway, straining under the weight of a second person. She turns her gun on the intruder, who yelps.

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just a driver.” The cabbie’s voice is high and quick. “He—he paid me to bring him up, wouldn’t let me call anybody! Please don’t shoot me!”

Mulder. She’d know him before she knew anything else on this earth. His arm is hooked over the cabbie’s neck and his head rises unsteadily to find her eyes. He tries taking a step forward, tugging the driver with him, and Scully lunges forward, gripping his coat right as his knees buckle. Grunting, she struggles to lower him to the floor as the cabbie backs slowly towards the door.

“I swear I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he says apologetically, raising his hands in surrender, his eyes trained anxiously on her weapon.

“Where did you pick him up?” Scully demands, even as her fingers search for Mulder’s pulse point. “Thready,” she mutters to herself.

“I got him in Maryland, ma’am, I swear I don’t know anything more!”

“Did he say anything to you on the ride here? Was he with anyone?” She moves her hand to Mulder’s eyelids, which have drooped shut, and checks his pupils.

“Nothing, ma’am, nothing but this address. And no one with him.”

Before she can ask anything else, he retreats fully into the hallway and the door clicks shut behind him.

“Dammit, Mulder,” Scully curses, surveying her partner.

His eyes open slightly, flitting uneasily between hers, before he pulls his legs into his chest as if he’s in pain. Her hand moves to his forehead, feeling for fever. Finding none, she continues her examination, confusion rising when nothing flags as physiologically alarming.

Sitting back on her heels, she studies him, curled in on himself, radiating misery. Instinctively, she reaches for his hand, noticing that his fingers are trembling.

“What happened?” she asks, squeezing his hand. When he doesn’t reply, she frowns. “Can you talk? If you can talk, Mulder, you need to tell me where you’re hurt.”

Mulder’s eyes are still doing their uneasy dance, and she levels him with a serious look. “Can you sit up?”

He nods unevenly and she watches him warily as he strains to pull himself to sitting, draping his arms across his bent knees and tipping his forehead into his hands. 

“My god,” he whispers with uncharacteristic anguish, and she ducks her head closer to him.

“Are you hurt?” she repeats more urgently, a hand settling on his knee.

With great effort, he turns his head towards her and grimaces. “It feels . . . my chest,” he moans. “So much pain.”

Alarmed, Scully forces Mulder’s eyes up with a firm hand to his chin, and a full body shudder ripples through him. Sweat breaks out on his forehead.

“Mulder?” she asks, her palm pressing against his chest. His heart beats erratically and he shoves her hand off him.

“Mulder, you have to tell me where you’re hurt,” she demands, leaning closer. “If you’re injured, we need to get you to a hospital immediately—”  

“Nowhere, no hospital,” he grits out, even as his head tips to his chest and his body folds into a protective ball. “My heart.”

Automatically, she reaches for her phone to call an ambulance but seeing her movement, Mulder shakes his head furiously.

His eyes meet hers and there’s so much pain in them that she drops her mobile phone, which skitters across the room. Her heart lurches in her chest and Mulder flinches violently, his face draining of color. Scully grabs for his wrist to feel for his pulse again, cursing when it flutters rapidly against her fingertips.

“I need you to tell me what happened to you,” she commands as calmly as possible, even as her own heartrate picks up. Almost as if in response, Mulder’s pulse ratchets up.

He shakes his head futilely, moaning incoherently.

She bites her lip, weighing her options. Giving Mulder one last look, she rises to standing and grabs his landline, punching 9-1-1. Just as she’s about to put the call through, Mulder raises his head.

“Not the ambulance,” he croaks in what can only be called agony. “I need Diana.”

Outrage, hot and slick, sluices down her spine at the suggestion, but her fury cools the moment Mulder falls to the hardwood with a roar of anguish.

“Mulder!” she gasps, falling to her knees and grabbing his arms.

“Stop it, stop it,” he protests weakly. “Stop being scared,” he gasps, his eyebrows creasing in desperation. “Call Diana! Please! Please.” The last word comes out feebly, as if he’s used all his remaining energy.

His eyes meet hers with a fervor she only knows to trust. Swallowing tightly against her own reservations, she nods. She doesn’t know that she’s ever seen Mulder in this much pain and if he thinks Diana is what he needs, then she’ll get him Diana, despite her own misgivings.

Fumbling in his coat pocket, she pulls out his mobile phone, hopeful that Diana will be responsive if the call comes directly from his cell.

She’s right. Agent Fowley answers on the second ring.

“Fox?” the other woman asks breathlessly.

“It’s me,” Scully interjects, hopefully shattering Diana’s illusions of a frisky reunion with Mulder. “It’s Scully. A cab driver just returned Agent Mulder to his apartment. I’m here with him and he’s asked me to call you.”

“What does he need?”

“Something’s very wrong. He’s afebrile but his pulse is erratic, and he seems as if he’s in an enormous amount of pain.” Scully pauses, glancing at Mulder, who’s rubbing his face with his hands. “His condition suggests to me a possible cardiac event, or some sort of psychotic episode. I’ve also considered the possibility that he’s encountered or ingested a—a substance of some sort. I’d like to get him to a hospital for a tox screen and an EKG. I’ve—I’ve never seen this before—”  

Diana’s voice cuts sharply through Scully’s words. “Ask him if he contacted Daniel Parsons.”

Who? she thinks, wracking her brain for that name and coming up empty. Although the request confuses her, Scully relays it to Mulder, who shuts his eyes tightly before nodding once.

“He said yes.”

“Dammit,” Diana mutters with such vitriol that Scully briefly moves the phone from her ear. She hears the noise of car keys clanging against a countertop. “Ask him if the pain is worse with you in the room.”

“Ask him what?” Scully asks incredulously.

“Just ask him, Agent Scully.”

Scully glances over at Mulder, considering this possibility. He squints at her through distressed eyes and suddenly, despite everything he’s put her through over the past few weeks, she has an intense longing to go to him and hold him, comfort him.

As she watches him, Mulder’s face briefly seems to relax, his hands uncurling from fists and limbs loosening. His eyes fall closed and Scully kneels beside him to study the sudden change in his demeanor. Although she can’t conjure any known medical condition that would connect his behavior to her proximity, she considers Diana’s words.

Does Mulder truly seem affected by her closeness? For a moment, Scully considers whether Diana is simply trying to stir up trouble by digging into an open wound, exploiting the obvious tension that’s emerged between her and Mulder.

Mulder moans beside her, bringing her back to the present. The open pain on his face reinvigorates her, and she reminds herself that she isn’t a pawn in Diana’s game, but a trained investigator and she’ll approach this problem as such. She shakes her head, ridding herself of any ridiculous notions that her presence alone could be causing him pain. As a medical doctor, she must trust herself and her judgment when it comes to Mulder’s health and safety. If she can put her faith in anything, it’s hard evidence.

And Mulder.

“Mulder,” she says gently but insistently, carding a hand through his hair, which is soaked with sweat. “Agent Fowley wants to know if your pain is worse around me.” She hesitates briefly, her words catching on the absurd suggestion. “Am I causing you pain?”

Mulder’s eyes open, his body going rigid again. His jaw works, and she watches him try to form an answer. He turns pleading eyes up at her, an apology written in his expression. Her stomach drops as she realizes what’s coming. Mulder winces, as if struck.

‘I’m ready.’

‘A-are you sure?’

She nodded slowly, feeling the heat travel from her body to reach his. Weeks of sleeping in that tiny bed next to him had been unbearable, as she ached to slide closer, to fit against him in ecstasy. Shared spoons and games of I-spy, kisses and declarations. She wouldn’t wait a second longer.

She watched the realisation spread across his face, chased by delight as his jaw tightened and he lowered his lips to hers. He breathed her in, the floral shampoo that drifted from her freshly washed hair, the glide of lotion on her smooth skin against his.

The kiss started slowly but gathered speed as he pressed his tongue into her mouth, and then lapped at her more urgently when he heard her moan. Scully moaning in his bed was blowing his mind, and he fought against all the pent-up, years-long urges that would tip him over the edge before he was ready.

He brought his kisses down her jaw, laying them lovingly on every inch of skin he could reach as his arousal began to blare in his stomach.

‘Scully,’ he breathed against her neck, his hands slipping beneath the cotton of her shirt and feeling the prickle of anticipation on her skin, chasing it carefully with his fingertips.

‘Mulder,’ she said softly, arching up into his touch, softening beneath him like she could finally let go of something she’d held for too long.

He skirted higher and gasped as his hand cupped her naked breast. ‘No bra, Scully.’

‘Excellent observation skills, agent Mulder,’ she teased, pressing herself more fully into his warm palm and dragging her foot up his calf, making him grind his hips forward.

He leaned back on his knees and ran both his hands from her hips, over her stomach and up to her chest, lifting her shirt higher and higher until it fell away, and she shivered as the cool metal of his ring dragged across her heated skin. His eyes followed it too, fascinated, as the gold stood proudly on his finger, binding him to her more fully than he could ever deserve.

He could hardly take in the sight, pale skin with tightening rosy nipples as his hands drifted, slowly and greedily, touching her everywhere. Testing the slope of her hips and the flare of her ribs. Scully’s ribs. He ached to kiss each one, to count them with his teeth.

He met her eyes and waited, drowning in their depths as he lifted his own t-shirt over his head and then covered her body with his own, feeling her breasts press against his trembling chest.

‘What do you like, Scully?’ He sounded desperate, ragged, a man on the edge as his words pressed against her ear.

‘I like you,’ she said playfully, wrapping her hand around his and guiding it between their writhing bodies.

‘Fuck,’ he grunted as she slipped him inside of her sweatpants, and his fingers grazed her curls.

‘I like that,’ she said.

‘I love that,’ he said hotly against her chest, his lips dragging over her as he ventured lower, pulling at the elastic of her waistband and pushing it down her body.

She kicked the fabric away, and was gloriously, proudly naked before him. He lowered his mouth to her nipple and drew it inside of his body, his arousal spiking fiercely as she moaned and pressed up into him, cupping the back of his head as his hot tongue swirled lazily around her breast.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging on it to make him groan. When his eyes shot up to meet hers, they were dark, hooded and brimming with desire.

‘Jeans,’ she said suddenly.

‘Impatient,’ he muttered with a grin, pulling back from her body to shuck them off, leaving them on the floor and standing before her in just his boxers. His aching cock battling against the fabric at the sight of her.

Scully, naked and waiting in his bed. His eyes dragged over her, her toes scrunched up in his sheets, her legs moving constantly as her thighs pressed together, her chest rising and falling with her heavy, expectant breaths. Her cheeks were warm and her glossy eyes were fierce on him. Her hand shifted at her side and he caught a glimpse of her ring, gold and bright in the lamplight. His.

‘Jesus,’ he said huskily.

‘Boxers. Off,’ she demanded.

This was the moment. His breath caught in his throat at the realisation that he would need to bare himself fully to her. The air around him crackled. His erection would spring free and surge towards her, as desperate as it had ever been, and she would see it all. She would finally know that his blood had pumped just for her, for all these years. He ripped the fabric down and gave himself no time to panic, joining her again on the bed and gasping at the contact. Skin on skin. 

The hot tip of his cock brushed against her and she felt it jolt through her entire body, pleasure and pressure blooming low in her belly and down between her thighs.

This is Mulder’s cock, she thought with a flush, her breath coming in hot and fast as his hands slid low and caressed her where her pulse was heavy. He softly teased her clit and then smiled as her body shivered in response, slipping lower as his fingers tucked inside and began to pump.

‘So wet.’

‘For you, Mulder.’

A hot, heavy need pulsed down his spine, filling his cock again as he rubbed it against the crease of her hip, losing himself to the sensation of her gripping at his fingers, finally safe inside the woman of his dreams.

‘You feel so good,’ he groaned, his voice strained.

She slid her hand between them and grasped him, his solid cock pulsing against her hand as he dropped his head to her shoulder and thrust his hips forward, chasing the relief of her touch.

‘So do you,’ she said.

He pulled back, slipping from her hand as he stared down at her breathlessly, close enough to see the soft freckles across her face. He placed kisses to her cheeks and her nose, then firmly against her lips as she gathered him between her parted thighs. She stroked him softly before slipping him into place and kissing him, teasing her tongue into his mouth with a hum of satisfaction.

He pulled away to steady himself above her. With one hand pressing firmly down into the mattress beside her head, and the other cradling her face, he pushed forward, feeling the heat of her envelop him, drawing him into her body with a flex of her hips.

Soft, slick little thrusts, daring each time to go a bit further, each time her body arched and asked for more, he gave it.

‘Does it feel good?’ he asked hopefully, a little wobble of wonder in his voice.

‘So good,’ she said blissfully, feeling a heat in her pelvis as she opened it up, just for him.

She turned her face and nipped playfully at the skin of his wrist, making pleasure and honour rumble in his chest. To be claimed and bitten by this woman, marked and kissed and burned by her was all he could ever hope to be.

He realised, with a sobering clarity, that he had never made love before. He’d had sex, he’d fucked, he’d engaged in every sort of physical act a body could engage in, but his heart and soul had been waiting, dormant, for this moment with the love of his life.

She tugged on his neck, fingers digging into the soft, fuzzy hairs at his nape, bringing his mouth to hers as her tongue darted out to claim his. His shallow, slow thrusts continued, growing bolder and more urgent, slipping deeper inside with soft gasps.

‘Oh, Scully,’ he whispered with an ache that rose up around the words.

She felt divine, like heaven around him and a rush of fear ran through his body, fear that he could hurt her, taint her, disappoint her.

‘Put me back in this body, Mulder. Make me feel real again,’ she begged with something raw in her eyes.

He nodded, fighting back against the emotions that her words stirred up in him, the storm in his chest, the need that he could feel in her body driving his own higher.

Scully smiled as her head tipped back, and his eyes became transfixed, glued to her mouth as his hips drove up.

They shuddered together in a wave of pleasure as he buried himself deeper, sinking slowly in before returning, over and over again, completely feeling every inch of her burning grip around him. Her mouth was on him then and her thighs slid higher, brushing his torso with her silky soft skin, trusting him with even more of her precious body.

A shiver of lust ran through him as he tucked one hand beneath her body, sliding down to her ass as the other cradled her head, her entire body held within his hands as she welcomed him, and rocked towards him for more.

His breath danced over her shoulder, damp and ragged.

‘I love you.’ He kissed her. ‘God, Scully, I love you so much.’

She started to tremble as he rocked into her, sparking against her g-spot with every measured thrust. His movements were slow and sensual, torturous as he held her body so closely that she was sure they would never separate, that they would never again have a reason to.

It gathered slowly and she felt her thighs clench around him, dragging him deeper as he began to grind against her clit. The pleasure soaked through her and she lost control, tears slipping from her eyes as the sensations overwhelmed her, bursting around him in waves.

‘Oh, Scully.’

‘God,’ she whimpered.

She tightened, drawing his soul into her body, and he screwed his eyes shut. He’d never felt anything so powerful in his entire life. He fell on top of her as his hips lost control, his knees digging down into the mattress as his thrusts became deep and desperate.

‘Scully. Scully, I’m gonna come. Oh god.’

She dragged her nails over the back of his neck, sending sparks down his spine as his balls drew up into his body.

‘Come for me,’ she whispered into his ear and he obeyed, crying out deliriously, spilling into her with a heaving chest.

His mouth found her neck and he wrapped his lips around her, lavishing attention wherever he could as he spun back down to earth, still buried inside of her. She pulsed around him and he twitched as his orgasm gradually faded and they were both gasping against each other’s mouths.

He kissed her with a smile, teeth knocking together clumsily as their bodies recovered. She brought her hands to his cheeks and pulled him down so she could place a long kiss to his forehead.

He rolled from her with a sigh, then clutched her to his chest, her weight in his arms as a precious reminder of what he’d nearly lost. They were both silent for a while, basking in the blissful afterglow, letting every feeling travel through their bodies. When he felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness, her voice caught him.

‘I love you, Mulder.’

‘Y-you do?’ He looked at her with a stunned expression, not at the sentiment but at the words finally leaving her lips.

‘Mmh-hmm.’ She nodded, her cheek against his chest.

‘You love me. And I love you. And we just had incredible, atom-altering sex.’

She laughed against him and he held her even tighter, kissing the top of her head.

‘I can’t believe you’re here Scully. That you.. want to be here. That you love me.’ 

‘Do you think I came back because we’re really really good friends?’

He smiled brightly, something twinkling in his eye in the low light as he brought their faces impossibly close, until her sweet breath brushed his chin and her lower lip caressed his skin.

‘So.. you admit that you came back, as in, a journey? As in, a choice?’ He grinned as his lips danced across hers which pulled up into an amused, defiant smirk.

‘Slip of the tongue, Mulder. I’m sure there was a perfectly plausible explanation for what we experienced,’ she said softly, low and teasing, watching as her words caught fire in his eyes and he pulled her closer, settling over her again and kissing her nose.

‘Mmh, slip of the tongue,’ he repeated, ‘I like the sound of that.’

The sheets tangled around them and between them, but she felt a spark of desire warm through her belly as his hard body pressed against her.

‘I.. I think I was given a choice.’

‘A choice?’ he asked seriously, his eyes wide.

‘I… it may have simply been a dream, a consequence of the sedatives, but I remember a voice. Here or there, they said, and then…’

‘What, Scully? Please tell me.’

‘I heard your voice, Mulder. You were… begging. Pleading, and I.. I ran to your voice.’

He stared at her for a long moment, before he shuddered, emotion prickling down from his scalp. He buried his face against her neck. ‘You heard me?’

‘I may have imagined it, but it was your voice, and you were asking me to come back. It all felt, so real. You were saying that… love is the strongest.’

‘You didn’t imagine it,’ he said, choking back his tears. ‘You heard me. You heard me and you came back.’

‘I came back,’ she said softly, a tear streaking down her own cheek.

‘I love you, Scully.’

‘I know, Mulder, you told me that,’ she grinned, sniffling.

‘You really remember? I didn’t make it up.’ He smiled proudly.

She shook her head. ‘You didn’t make it up. I love you, too.’

He tugged her to lie on his chest and she came willingly, brushing her cheek along his pec as his hands came to stroke at her arms.

‘I-spy,’ he said once the room had settled.

‘Mulder..’

‘Just- just humour me, Scully. Hey, as my wife aren’t you legally obligated to listen to my nighttime ramblings?’

‘We never vowed to do that Mulder, in fact, if I remember correctly, we only said-.’

‘I remember,’ he interrupted, gently sliding his fingers through hers and staring at the perfect fit, her dainty fingers wrapping around his own clumsy ones.

‘Hey, we could say new ones. If you wanted.’

‘New vows?’ she whispered, as though the atmosphere had suddenly shifted.

‘Yeah,’ he said in a simple, honest voice. ‘Ones that mean something different now.’

His foot stroked at her calf, teasing her softly beneath the sheets.

‘If you want,’ he said again.

Her hand drew lazy circles on his chest as his suggestion worked its way through her mind.

‘Ok.’

‘Alright,’ he said, pleased, pulling her closer. ‘I-spy..’

‘Our vows are not going to be formatted through a game of I-spy, Mulder.’

‘Our Vows,’ he said quietly, enunciating them fully as a careful excitement swelled in his chest. His fingers pressed into the soft skin of her upper arms, warm wherever he touched.

He felt as though he should be able to hear a clock ticking. Something vaguely ominous playing in the background of this perfect moment, as though a man in a cloud of smoke had started a timer.

But there was nothing, no sounds to run from, and she nuzzled into his side as though it could be a sanctuary.

‘Thank you, Scully.’

Her breath danced across his skin in reply, a soft little laugh that she could only expel in a room like this, a space he had never been sure they could have.

‘For what?’

‘For coming back. Scully, if you chose to come back, to me, to us.. this. God, I can’t ever make it up to you. I would have..’

She leaned up with her elbows crossed over his chest, her chin resting on them and looked very seriously into his eyes where she could see it all, swirling and loud. The love, and the fear.

She inched forward, glad for her bones and body, glad to have woken up. She kissed him, letting her lips soften and warm against his. Mulder’s.