Title: Midst of Space Author: RocketMan lebontrager@harding.edu Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013 and Fox. No infringement is intended. Warning: MSR.....Danger, danger Will Robinson......MSR...... SPOILER__Everything from US5. Midst of Space ======= "I wish the real world would just stop hassling me." --does anyone know who wrote this? I forgot..... ======= "To realize itself, love must violate the rules of our world. It is scandalous and disorderly, a transgression committed by two stars that break out of their predestined orbits and rush together in the midst of space." --Octavio Paz, "The Labyrinth of Solitude" ======= It was odd, watching the stars moving when they were usually so cold and still to him. They never showed anything other than a faint promise breathed upon the sky by some ancient god with a penchant for humor. At the planetarium, the stars moved and changed and evolved and you could either listen and learn, or watch and be lost. He chose to lose himself in the blindness of fake stars. Laying stretched out on the uncomfortable seats, his body slumped into awkward postions, Mulder could see for miles in the tiny space of dome. It was as close to being invincible as he could come. He sighed and watched the stars eventually fade and a specific constellation appear; he supposed this was when the official audio cassette started. He had no interest in the raw scientific material. He wanted the myth of the stars; the real truth of their existence. A tape could not tell him where the stars had spirited his sister to. A tape could not tell him why his life was crumbling before him. He left before he could remember who he really was. A lonely old man looking for something he'd lost a long time ago. His soul. ~*~*~*~* The memory was offensive. Dana Scully scrubbed her hands harder under the faucet, rubbing her skin raw where the touch had been. Emily. But it had not been Emily. It had been a girl she had led off to slaughter after promising to protect her. It made Scully sick to think she would have let her go. She let Emily go. That's what hurt the most. Knowing as she did what would happen when the girl saw the seraphim, knowing this and letting *Emily* go. Would she abandon her daughter that way? She choked again on her tears and frustratingly rubbed her face. Rubbed it hard and fast to get rid of the tears, get rid of the sight of her eyes..... Oh God, take this away..... She heard the door thud and she jerked up, heart beating too fast, mouth drying as her palms sweat. She walked quickly into the living room, running head on into a large man and stifling a quick cry of alarm. "Scully." She stiffened in his tensed arms, waiting for him to let her go, to back up and allow her some private time to think. "Scully." "Mulder, not now." "Scully. Something's going on. Tell me." "Mulder, I didn't ask for your-" "That's okay. I'm here anyway. You're going to tell me because right now, I don't care what happens. Do you understand?" "Mulder. I *do* care what happens." He groaned and his lips came roughly to hers, tasting of salt and fear. "Mulder!" She jerked away, yanking her arms from him, but not running. "Tell me. Tell me the truth. I want this, Scully. You're alive again . . . I'm not wasting that." "What truth do you want to hear, Mulder?" He reeled back, for a moment losing the strength of his planetarium stars, for a moment realizing he was mortal, capable of being hurt. But then he saw them moving behind her eyes. The stars moving out of the birth place of the heavens and into her fire. "I want your truth. I want to hear you cry over Emily. I want to see your lips tremble as you remember and I want to hold you as you heal." She glared at him and sniffed. "Are you drunk?" "Only on starlight and a certainty of my own mortality, Scully." "Mulder, get out while you still can." It was like she had slapped him. He remembered where he was, what he had been thinking, how he had wanted to pull her onto the floor and screw her senseless, how he had wanted to hear her scream his name, yet also how he longed to simply have her trust - over all things. "Scully, get out while *you* still can." he whispered urgently. "I'm not in anything I don't want." "Yes, you are. You're trapped in this image you've built around yourself and you don't know how to start over. You thought the cancer, after the cancer, you thought you could do it. You *can* do it, Scully. And I can change too. We don't have to stay the same." She smiled softly at him. "Mulder, you *are* drunk." He let out a frustrated growl and moved to her. She put out a hand. "Mulder, if you kiss me again, I'm-" "What? What will you do?" She stared at him, mouth hanging open and doctor eyes roving over him. He didn't appear drunk. He came forward and let his thumb run over her cheek. "What will you do, Scully? Cry? Laugh? Kiss me back?" She felt nothing below the flushing of her face and the heat of her skin. She gave him a weak smile. "Probably kiss you back. But we can't have that, though." Her lips were slowing, making her words into murmurings, her eyes into drugged lids. She could feel the intensity of their unspoken words charging through them, like a kind of powerful volt of electricity. She could barely make herself remember to breathe. His fingers traced down her chin, along her neck, pausing to her throat, feeling the rapid pulse there, the telltale sign that she was barely controlling herself. "And just why can't you kiss me?" His fingers stopped on her collarbone, tripping along the lines there, to her arm, sliding down seductively in a manner that was intensely intimate and yet rightly familiar. "I can't. We can't." But she was not moving back. "Yes we can." His lips came close, his nose trailed her cheek, moved to her ear and traced her lobe, letting a faint breath create whispers of pleasure tingle through her body to her center. She wanted to whimper, but she could barely make a noise. Her hands were gliding to him, reaching for the fabric of his shirt, feeling the stiffness of its starchy dry cleaning. "Why can't you kiss me?" She wanted to. She wanted a chance to forget things, to lose herself in the feel of love again. She wanted to forget Emily for now and wake up tomorrow not feeling so bad because she finally had something to soothe her. He wanted to hold her while she healed. She wanted to heal. Her lips found his skin, then his mouth and she was high on him. His lips, his taste, his faint scent of a long ago shower and natural oils. The roughness of his chapped lips, the scratching of the spot he missed while shaving--all was in her senses and in her touch. They were rushing together full speed at something indefinable, something healing and new. She let go of his shirt as she realized they had pulled away. His eyes were drained, lifeless again, and she shivered. "I want your truth, Scully. I want it now." She wasn't sure what he was saying, whether he was trying to be poetic or romantinc or spooky. "Tell me." he said and she knew what he meant. "Emily?" "Tell me." "She's dead, Mulder. I don't have her anymore." His silence made her nervous and she wondered if it had been right, kissing him like that. Had he simply kissed her to make her weak, to get her to talk to him, to reveal her deepest, darkest secrets? He led her to the couch and sat down and pulled her across from him, so that only his fingertips were touching hers. A little smile ghosted his lips and he cocked an eyebrow. "So, are you going to talk to me, or must I kiss you crazy again?" She eyed him, as if considering. "How about some more of your insanity?" He laughed and drew close, his fingers making patterns on her knees. "One thing first," he suddenly said. She sighed. "Do you like the planetarium?" ~*~*~*~* adios RM (is the end good enough?)