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The Emilys
Sleepless
==========


The city's opressive August heat wave clung to the sheets and their
bodies, making the night seem to be thick with foul air and sweat. 

Dana Scully rolled over fitfully as the television droned on, the blue
and white and green light flashing over her hot body and illuminating
their entire bedroom with a slide show effect.

Mulder was sleeping peacefully next to her, far enough away that his
body did not add to the sweat and his breath to the stink.

She wished she could fall asleep; it was just too noisy. There were too
many distractions that ran through the room and kept her occupied.

The remote was in between them, perched evilly on the sheets like some
guardian of Mulder's sleep, as if it alone could keep her from
disturbing him.

Why he slept better and more soundly with the television on was a
mystery to her. The harshness of it and the flashing lights like UFO
visions raced around the room and fought with her sanity for control.

She snatched up the remote and killed the sound, then the picture
itself, with an aggressive little growl brought on more by her
exhuastion than the extreme temperature outside.

She turned away from him and closed her eyes, feeling the welcome fresh
air of slumber breeze across her and settle deeply within her bones.

=====

Mulder woke screaming and panicked, sweat streaming from him in
fountains that showed no signs of slowing, even as he came to.

Scully was clutching his shoulders, attempting to calm him down so that
Libby would not hear, and so that he would focus on the waking world
again.

He shuddered and glanced around the quiet, black room.

"The television went off?" he said hoarsely.

"I turned it off after you fell asleep," she replied, letting her hands
drop away until he was sitting up on his own. 

"I sleep better when it's on," he replied, almost numbly. Surely she
knew how much he needed the TV to be on; she had slept in the next motel
room on countless nights, hearing its sounds through paper thin walls.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you needed it," she whispered, as if
lowering her voice would drive his demons away.

"I'm okay," he said. Then it seemed to register what she had said
earlier.

"Wait, were you still awake?"

She nodded. "I can't really fall asleep when there's noise and lights."

He stared at her. Why had this never been a problem before?

She clicked back on the television, but he grabbed her hand.

"We can turn it off," he said.

"No, I don't want you to have another nightmare," she said and kissed
his forehead. "I'll just go sleep on the couch."

He began to protest, but shut his mouth as he realized that would be
unfair to ask her to stay and endure the television and sleeplessness,
or his nightmares and sleeplessness.

"Scully?"

"Hm?"

"We'll figure out a way around this." he said with certainty.

She smiled and pulled her pillow from the bed. "We will."

He watched her slip out the door and into the darkened hallway, half
expecting her to disappear forever.

Instead, he heard her settle down and sigh once and get comfortable in
the stickiness of the heat.

He watched the lights play out along the empty place in the bed where
she should have been.

It made his soul sick.

But it also made him sleepy, and soon, he was back in the darkness.

=====

By the fifth night, the couch was getting flattened and hard and the
heat made her entire body stick like glue to the back of it.

Thursday night she missed Mulder's breathing and crept back in the room
to see if she could possibly fall asleep again, even though his
television seemed to scream every word and flash too bright light across
her.

She rolled around and watched him sleep and counted by twos and thought
of everything she had to do at work and listed the clothes Libby still
needed for the fall and remembered her favorite dream and never fell
asleep.

She got up before Mulder and ran some water for a cold shower, letting
its needlelike jabs wake her up completely.

At work that day four people commented on how tired she seemed and one
of her supervisers pulled her aside and calmly talked to her about the
dire importance of the doctors getting adequate sleep, citing instances
where a life was in danger.

Scully went back to the couch Friday night, a solemn look of doomed
despair riding over her features.

She did not want to stay away from him forever.

Saturday morning, Mulder woke her early and settled her in the bed,
shutting off the television and closing the blinds and simply holding
her.

He had missed her warm body next to his.

=====

"Scully?"

"In here."

Mulder came through the kitchen and halted when he noticed she was
making a cake. Scully only made cake when she was upset.

"I figured out a way to solve this problem."

"Oh?"

She knew immediately what the problem was; it was the only thing that
had been on her mind in the last week.

"Yeah. Headphones."

Her eyes narrowed. "For you or me?"

"Me. I can listen to music or any tape really, and fall asleep just as
well."

"What about in the middle of the night when the tape stops?"

He sighed and frowned. "Maybe it'll still be all right."

She made a face at him. "I don't think it's going to work."

"The only other idea I had was to take turns. One night we sleep with
the TV off, the next on."

She shook her head. "No. I'll never get any sleep between your
nightmares and --"

"Scully. Let's just try the tape idea, okay?"

She nodded and tried to smile, but it ended up halfway and then falling
from her face to shatter on the floor.

He placed an arm around her waist, drawing her near him and holding on
tightly as if she were about to slip away.

"Scully, if it comes down to it, I'll just learn to sleep without the
TV."

"Mulder, I couldn't ask you to give that up just for me --"

He shushed her with a small pinky finger over her lips. "Yes you can,
Scully. You can."

She smiled genuinely this time and it burst into him like a bullet and
exploded his bones into millions of stinging fragments. He hugged her
and kissed the top of her head, relishing in the feel of her under his
hands again, after so long a time without.

=====

She could hear the incessant whir of the tape player, the barely audible
hum of its battery operated parts working in synchrony to produce a
lulling effect upon his ears.

Except it tormented her.

And did nothing for him.

He turned over to see her staring straight at him, such blank sadness
in her eyes that it physically hurt him to see her. He ripped off the
device and sighed, looking back to her.

She had the wounded look of a trapped dove, one that had never in her
life imagined she would come to this kind of fate.

He reached out and drew her into him, disregarding the heat and its
leaching laziness and forgetting the oppressiveness of their
sleeplessness.

She sighed into him and kissed his chest, her eyes closing and eyelashes
butterfly kissing his skin.

"Maybe you won't have any nightmares, Mulder. Maybe I can love them out
of you."

He grinned in the darkness, feeling the humor in her body tremble with
the very needy truth of her words.

"Sure, anytime G-woman," he whispered, letting his lips tease her ear.

After a few moments, when she said nothing and had gone perfectly still,
he realized she was already asleep and that she had probably been
exhausted the entire week from sleeping on the couch.

He chuckled. Maybe *he* should go sleep on the couch, take the
television in there; it was what he was used to anyway.

He hoped that he wouldn't have to do that.

The silence was suffocating, like a pillow had been placed over his head
and held down by some shadowy assailant.

He buried his nose into her hair, wishing that the scent of heavy heat
and sweating skin would replace that of dark night and paranoia.

She was breathing little puffs against his chest that caused it to itch,
but he did not move because he was afraid to wake her. She really needed
a good night's sleep.

He tried to keep himself awake, knowing that if he fell asleep, the
nightmares would come without the white noise of the television to stave
them off.

But he felt himself go anyway.

=====

When she woke, she lay there a moment trying to remember what small
noise or smell or incident had caused her to wake up, her eyes gently
closed and waiting for her to understand.

She felt Mulder thrashing beside her and her eyes popped open.

His face was coated in a thin film of perspiration, eyes rolling in his
head as his dream made him soar, and his legs were tangled in the
sheets, his arms around her.

She wondered if she *could* love his demons away.

Taking his hands firmly, she pulled herself right up next to him,
silently urging him to respond to her, to recognize her in his dream
and be comforted. His body arched and he moaned and she wondered what
exactly was so horrible in his head.

Wrapping her arms around him and tucking her head under his chin, she
held on tightly as he shivered and ran from the nightmares chasing him.
His body relaxed in one instant, as if an exorcism had taken place. She
watched his eyes stop moving and his face slack and she smiled.

She *had* loved it out of him.

His head dipped forward to rest beside hers, as if suddenly a powerful
drug had been shot into his blood.

She closed her eyes and listened to the night's sweet stillnes, its
gratfeully quiet streets and sighing buildings. The window was open and
it let in a breeze from the bay that drifted languidly across them,
spreading its cool fingers down their backs and wiping the gritty sweat
away.

The peacefulness touched Mulder and drew a sigh from him.

She kissed his chin and tumbled into sleep.

==========END==========