Title: Cardboard Champions
Author: Dreamshaper
Feedback: Is delighted in, though occasionally eaten by AOL ;) 
dreamshpr@aol.com, or pensivedreamer@aol.com
Archival: Is fine with me--an email would be nice if you're not Spookys, Goss 
or someone who's already archived one of my stories :)
Rating:PG13
Category: UST
Spoilers: Millennium, vaguely...
Summary: "I never know when we're going to take a half-step forward or a 
dozen steps back," he whispered, brushing his long fingers quickly down her 
cheeks before sitting back.
Disclaimer: "I know they're yours," said the little sycophant to the Surfer 
God, "but I couldn't resist taking them out to play."
Notes: I seem to be thanking Shawne a lot lately for all her help, and it's 
starting to get frightening. Unfortunately, it's also a compulsion, and I do 
owe her muchly for her nitpickiness...maybe if I don't say thanks and just 
kind of beat around the bushes of my extreme gratitude...or maybe that's even 
scarier...<g>


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


The box full of files was huge and heavy, and Scully was almost ready to drop 
it on the floor and kick it the rest of the way to Mulder's office. She 
cursed herself for her insane urge to get it all done in one trip, cursed 
Mulder for having an office in the basement, cursed trees for not fighting 
back when being milled for paper. If they had screamed more, she figured, 
fewer of them would have died. And fewer would have ended up in this damned 
box as thin, yellowing reminders of their once mighty stature. 

She paused for a second to cough, shoulders shaking and arms weakening enough 
to make her think the box was surely doomed, but then the coughing fit eased 
and she could catch her breath. She shifted the box, hoping to make it easier 
to carry--hoping she could at least move the corner that seemed determined to 
slice into her torso and straight through to her aching lungs.

"Papercut," Scully muttered grimly, hitching the box higher, taking in a 
grateful swallow of air as the sharp edges ceased their assault on her 
ribcage. The muscles of her stomach protested the deep breath for a second 
and she bit back a moan. She focused on keeping her arms steady, in spite of 
the fact that the papers seemed to be multiplying. They were gaining weight 
even as she fought for balance and breath, and she had a sudden vision of the 
whole box just swelling, becoming three times her size and swallowing her 
whole--

Then true disaster struck.

The box tilted sideways, tilted back, shimmied in her hands with apparent 
delight. Reflexively, Scully tightened her grip, fought to keep the box 
balanced--and lost her equilibrium. 

She stumbled, crashed against the wall. Her shoulder jammed into the plaster 
with a force that made her eyes water, her ankle wrenched, her knuckles 
scraped against the rough surface.  

This, she thought as she desperately tried to retain her balance, her dignity 
and the last crumpled shard of her sanity, *this* is definitely a time to 
blame the trees.

She waited till the pain had subsided, waited through another coughing spell, 
then braced herself and pushed off the wall with a little grunt of effort. 
The box threatened to spill its tree cadavers across the faded linoleum 
floor. A stream of silent curses intended to intimidate it slipped past her 
lips as she wavered for a moment in the sharp light of the hallway. 

It could have gone either way, but Scully finally won the battle against 
gravity and the reams of paper she was absolutely positive had been possessed 
by the spirits of leafy, green ancestors. Then she step-hobble-winced her way 
down the corridor.

His door was closed. 

For a moment, she stared at it and wondered if she ought to pray for him to 
be in there or just drop the box and walk away. She wanted to go back to her 
nice, neat laptop with its scores of tidy electronic, paperless files, her 
mug of tea and drawer full of cough drops and Tylenol...

Her fingers loosened on the crumpling edges of the cardboard, but she caught 
herself. Sheer stubbornness kept her hanging onto the box, determination kept 
her relatively steady on her feet. She shook her head, nearly screamed in 
frustration as strands of her hair shifted to rest annoyingly across her 
forehead, and called her partner's name.

Nothing. No answer, no sound from his office, not even a satisfying echo from 
the hallway. 
"Mulder!" This time, she added a little more command to her voice, raised it, 
made the single word a summons and a warning...

But Mulder rarely heeded those kinds of things. No reply.

Scully gave in to a measure of her frustration and kicked his office door, 
sending a hollow crunch of pain shooting up her leg--she had, of course, used 
the foot attached to the wrenched ankle. She stood on the other foot, bit her 
lip and closed her eyes, every sailor's curse her mother had ever warned her 
against using running rapid-fire and red-hot through her mind.

While she was busy dealing with pain and anger and the memory of her mother 
telling her that God would strike her down if she swore, Mulder opened the 
door.  

"Why didn't you just knock?" he asked, taking the scene in quickly, voice 
colored with concern and something like amusement...something she would have 
*killed* him for if her hands hadn't been so full and her head so light. 

She opened her eyes and glared, ignoring his less than witty comment, too 
annoyed to even ask him to move his ass out of the doorway, relying purely on 
facial expression to get her point across.

Mulder reached out instead of moving, and tried to take hold of the box. In 
the process, he slid his palm over the throbbing knuckles of her injured 
hand. She almost yelped with the pain but fought to keep the box anyway.

"Don't you dare," she said sharply. "Move out of the doorway and let me 
through, but don't you dare take this box until I've gotten it in the damned 
office."

He backed out of the doorway, his hands raised, palms forward in a gesture of 
surrender. Scully started to edge past him, not caring about anything other 
than getting to his desk and dropping the box. She hoped it made a huge mess, 
she hoped it crushed something valuable, she hoped her unbearably frustrated 
mood would ease and the aches settling in across her body would soon pass--

And Mulder moved lightning fast to grab the box out of her hands and cart it 
into the office. He looked around, presumably seeking out an uncluttered 
area, ignoring her as she sputtered incoherently. Then he shrugged and 
dropped the box onto the floor.

Papers and manila folders fluttered everywhere and Scully accepted the fact 
that she had lost the battle for sanity. She dropped into the chair in front 
of Mulder's cluttered desk, angled it so that she was facing him, stared as 
he battled the mounds of paper. Eventually, he emerged triumphant, carrying 
an old, yellowing photograph.

She cleared her throat. "They call me because there are some boxes to be 
delivered to you that look important, and you're not answering your phone or 
the door. So, I go and get them, combine all the files and miscellaneous 
papers into one big box to make it all easier, and nearly break my ankle and 
knuckles getting them down here. You dump it all out onto the floor and find 
one photograph..." 

Mulder nodded, focused on the picture in his hand, standing tall and lanky 
and ankle deep in the carpet of paper. She took a deep breath, ignoring her 
sore muscles, counted to ten, and then to twenty. "Please, Mulder, tell me 
the rest of those papers are vital." Please, she added in her mind. I do not 
want to have to shoot you again.

"No," he murmured. "I just needed this. But it needed camouflage--"

Scully stopped listening. For a second, she allowed her head to drop back, 
and she closed her eyes. Darkness, she thought almost dreamily. If she could 
get Mulder to be quiet, it might be peaceful, and she could sleep...

But he was going on and on, something about a former senator, an alien 
abduction story and a cover-up, and there was no way in hell she was even 
going to try and pretend to be interested. She didn't even have the energy to 
be logical and tear the flimsy story apart. So she opened her eyes, leaned 
forward again and checked her ankle. Not swollen, she noted grimly as Mulder 
explained that this alien abduction didn't seem to have much to do with any 
other abduction story he'd heard, but it was still interesting--

She examined her hand, wiggled her fingers. Nothing broken, though her 
knuckles were red and a little swollen. She tuned in to Mulder long enough 
for him to tell her that he was wondering if perhaps there was a *new* type 
of experiment going on, that he was positive that the picture proved it. 
Never mind the fact that the picture was taken in 1955 and the senator had 
been abducted in 1996.

Finally, she rotated her shoulder, wincing a little as it protested. Deeply 
bruised, she thought, already picturing the huge, grim expanse of color that 
would envelop her shoulder later. She sighed, studied the pile of papers, 
winced as Mulder suddenly began to pace and sent great heaps flying like 
snow. And then she slid out of the chair to kneel on the floor and began to 
pile all the papers back into their cardboard coffin, intending to take them 
out to a custodian's closet and dump them there.

Mulder hesitated, then mumbled something she didn't quite catch, and 
hesitated again. Determined not to be dragged into a discussion of anything 
even remotely paranormal, Scully tossed papers back into the box and refused 
to look up at her partner. 

But then he was kneeling before her, only inches away. His hand rose; he 
touched the side of her face, drawing her attention away from the aches in 
her body and the mess on the floor, asking her to look up into his eyes.

She found something startlingly beautiful there, a clarity of expression that 
was heartbreakingly intense. They were kneeling close together, caught in a 
square of sunlight that made the rising dust particles luminescent. For a 
moment, Scully felt enthralled, caught by a spell she would never have 
expected. But just as she was about to identify the emotion in his eyes, he 
looked away and the spell was broken.

She looked down at the masses of paper in her hand, across the floor, and 
frowned. Shouldn't have had that last spoonful of cough syrup, she told 
herself. The effects were apparently mildly hallucinogenic.

"What are you doing?" Mulder asked, lightly touching her cheek again, then 
dropping his hand away from her skin.

"Cleaning up your mess," she muttered before tossing more of that mess back 
into the box.

"You really don't have to, Scully," he said quietly. "I can get it later."

"Better to do it now than to have you forget." Scully ignored his frown and 
cleared more of the floor. After a few more seconds of hesitation, Mulder 
began to help her, his big hands and longer reach making quick work of a 
large part of the mess. When the last of the thin scraps of tree were crammed 
into the box, Scully climbed carefully to her feet and then bent again to 
lift it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing now?" Mulder's incredulous tone made 
her grit her teeth, but she refrained from snapping at him by sheer strength 
of will.

"Taking the box out to dump it," she said carefully, with very deliberate 
reasonableness.

Mulder frowned at her, rose to his feet. His hands settled just under hers on 
the cardboard and he tried to take it from her. There was nothing in the 
world she wanted more than to be rid of it, but sheer stubbornness kept her 
hanging on.

Or perhaps, she thought as they silently battled for possession of the 
worthless files, perhaps it's just stupidity. Or maybe insanity, on both our 
parts.

"Scully--just hand it over. I'll take care of it." Frustration had slipped 
into his eyes, but it was nowhere near the level of her own, and that annoyed 
her more. This time, she could do nothing to prevent the glare.

"Why? Do you think I can't handle it? Think I'm too weak, maybe, even though 
I already carted it across two floors and down the never-ending hallway of 
gloom that leads to this office?" She had no idea where the words had come 
from, but it didn't matter. Right then, nothing really mattered, not as long 
as she won.

Of course, if she had known what exactly she was fighting for, she probably 
would have come up with a better strategy for winning than pure, stubborn 
refusal to give up. But as it was...she just didn't care. She was too 
miserable to care.

Her partner shook his head, giving her a weird look over the box they held 
between them. "The last thing I think you are is weak," he said, voice 
bemused, uncertain. "Mostly, I think you're incredible. Now, give me the 
box." 

She was startled enough to loosen her grip and he staggered a few steps 
backwards. She stared as Mulder recovered his balance, watched as he carried 
the box back out of the office, and she didn't look away from the door until 
he was coming back through it.

"Done," he muttered, rubbing his hands against his slacks. "Now, where was I 
with the senator's abduction thing?"

"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention." Scully crossed her arms over her 
chest and scowled, figuring that was the best defense against the 
vulnerability that had settled suddenly, heavily, in her chest. 

It was Mulder's turn to stare, and then he rested one hand on his hip, 
pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. "Ok," he said quietly. "Ok. 
Scully, why don't you try telling me what exactly I did to piss you off 
instead of just arbitrarily punishing me for something I'm clueless about?"

Guilt tried to insinuate itself beside the vulnerability--and the 
ache--settled in her chest, but she shook it off. She had carted that too 
big, too heavy, too useless box all the way down to the office--

"Why weren't you answering the phone, Mulder? Or the door?" she asked 
abruptly.

He smiled, a little sheepishly, apparently unsurprised by her veering away 
from his question. "I fell asleep." He gestured vaguely towards the clutter 
on his desk. "Paperwork."

Scully raised an eyebrow. "But you still heard me."

He didn't say anything, just looked at her, eyes on hers but suddenly 
inscrutable. Scully looked away first, then uncrossed her arms, sighed. And 
finally, she turned to leave.

"Scully?" Her partner sounded concerned, worried, and there was something 
like a plea in his voice. But she ignored him and limped away.
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

At home, she changed into a thick, warm sweater and jeans, and she settled on 
the couch with a cup of tea. She had an ice pack for her ankle and a bag of 
frozen vegetables for her hand. She was tempted to ease away the stiffness 
that was building in her shoulder with a long, hot shower but it was only a 
distant temptation. More than sore, she was exhausted and feeling ill. The 
thought of boiling herself away to nothing in the shower had to compete with 
the thought of perhaps napping, just for a little while. And the shower was 
losing, big time.

She sighed, closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the couch. Then 
she rolled her neck to loosen all the tight muscles there and tried to 
massage some of the stiffness in her shoulder away.

It didn't work. She groaned and gave up, lying back again and trying to get 
comfortable. The room was dim and warm, quiet. The tension and aggravation of 
the day began to seep away. The stress of--

Her stomach began to rumble hungrily, and she remembered that she hadn't 
eaten since breakfast, and that had been meager. She gritted her teeth, 
determined to ignore the hunger as she was ignoring the aches, perhaps even 
be grateful that she apparently wasn't coming down with the flu that had 
knocked out three quarters of the Bureau. But once she had acknowledged the 
hunger, it intensified and she couldn't ignore it, or be thankful for it. 

She struggled to sit and stretched, wondering when she had last managed time 
to grocery shop, if she had enough cash on her for takeout. Of course, she 
had ingested too much cough syrup to drive, unless she planned to completely 
disregard public safety. If she could wait the half-hour or so for a pizza to 
be delivered without falling asleep--

There was a knock at the door.

Mulder.

She was more surprised that it had taken him so long to get to her apartment 
than that he had bothered. The concern in his voice as she had walked 
away--part of her had known he would follow, and had been grateful. Her 
irritability during the day...

Her irritability had been something of a challenge to him. A request, an 
admission of need made the only way she knew how. This is what I wanted, 
Scully admitted to herself as she headed slowly towards the door. She knew 
she was coming down with something, and for once in her life, she didn't want 
to be alone with her misery. 

She opened the door and stepped aside, and her partner slid past her, bearing 
brown paper bags redolent with the scent of pasta sauce and fresh bread. Her 
stomach rumbled again, loudly, impolitely, and she sighed. "Perfect timing," 
she said quietly as she shut the door. "I was just about to order something."

He smiled, headed for her kitchen without waiting for her to take his jacket 
or relieve him of one of the bags. "What did you do to yourself earlier? I 
was wondering, but you were gone before I could ask," he said over his 
shoulder when she was slow in following him.

"That box and I had a minor contest of wills."

"Who won?"

She sighed as she finally made it to the table and sat, watching as her 
partner dropped the bags on the counter and emptied them, then shrugged out 
of his jacket. He quickly found plates and silverware, dished out huge 
portions of pasta swimming in a thick, spicy sauce. "I thought I had won," 
she murmured when he settled across from her. "But then I got home. Now, it 
definitely feels like the box was the champion."

He frowned, slid a plate and utensils across the tables to her, but didn't 
say anything. Scully picked at the pasta on her plate for a moment before 
giving in to hunger and the delicious, steamy scent. She sighed with relief 
as the tightness in her stomach eased, as some of her dizziness faded away. 
Even a little bit of her headache had gone by the time she'd cleared her 
plate, and she looked up, almost smiling, wanting to thank Mulder.

He was watching her, sadness, a little tension in his eyes, concern shadowing 
his face. "Feeling any better?"

She pushed the plate away, keeping her gaze steady on his. "A lot. Thank 
you." She hesitated then, wanting to apologize for a thousand things, needing 
to make amends for her behavior earlier, wanting to tell him *why* she had 
been so irritable...and not knowing how to say any of it.

He nodded, apparently understanding what she hadn't said, and she had the 
feeling that he knew and was accepting a great deal more...

He pushed his chair back from the table and rose. Scully reached out 
instinctively, wrapping her free hand around his wrist. "You didn't eat 
much," she said quietly, not quite looking into his eyes.

One of his shoulders rose and fell in an awkward half shrug. "I'm not really 
hungry."

Scully couldn't help but stare. His appetite was prodigious--the passions 
that ran so heatedly through his body demanded constant fueling. When he 
didn't eat--when he was ill, injured, depressed, lost in a case--he dropped 
weight quickly. Sometimes, she was left watching and worrying and marking off 
the hours by the rate at which he lost pounds. 

It was worse when he was worried for her.

"I know, Scully," he said in response to her look. "Don't worry, it's not the 
flu. I'll probably be starving, later. But for now, I'm just not."

Scully nodded, dropped her hand, and he started to collect their plates. When 
she moved to help, he brushed her aside. "My dinner. I'll take care of this." 
His smile was bright on the surface, but uncomfortably fake when she looked 
just underneath it.

Partially suspicious, partially nervous, she watched as he washed the dishes 
and tucked the containers into the fridge. He went so far as to sponge down 
the table and counter, and she wondered if perhaps he wasn't avoiding the 
moment when dinner was squared away and the time came to discuss his real 
purpose for being at her door.

She was certainly willing to put it off. She might have wanted to have 
someone with her right then, might have *needed* it...but that didn't mean 
she was able to blurt out just anything. She needed to brood. To wait till 
the last possible second in the hope that her misery would just lie down and 
disappear.  

But Mulder was done with his self-appointed chores. He leaned back against 
the counter in front of the sink, studying her far more intently than she had 
expected. Careful not to flinch away from his gaze, she looked back, studied 
him in return. But she sensed that he was feeling much more than she could 
discern--he tended to be openly emotional, but his ability to be inscrutable 
when it suited him was amazing.

"So, ankle and hand," he murmured abruptly, his eyes concerned again but 
voice merely considering. "What else did you injure during your battle with 
The Box?" The emphasis was accompanied by a faint twist of his full lips, but 
there was nothing else that suggested amusement and she couldn't work up the 
energy or even enough false enthusiasm to attempt an answering expression.

"Nothing, really." She touched her shoulder, grimaced as heat raced across 
the tender area. "My shoulder's going to bruise, but other than that, I'll be 
fine by tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

"Mulder. How is it that you can always remember that I'm a doctor when 
there's a body at our feet, but not when I've done something so simple as 
bruise myself?" Scully pushed back from the table without waiting for his 
reply and headed for the living room, making a beeline for the couch.

He followed, but didn't sit. Instead, he stood in front of her as she settled 
herself onto the couch and then waited till she looked up at him. "I always 
remember what you are," he said simply, quietly. "But I think that sometimes 
you forget what *I* am."

"I don't know what you mean." The words were stiff as boards and accompanied 
by a cool, deliberately blank look--the kind that usually suggested she knew 
*exactly* what was going on even as she wondered when the conversation had 
slipped off tangent.

He didn't reply, but he settled down onto the edge of the coffee table, 
maintaining eye contact long past the point of comfort...and then he sighed. 

"What was really going on today, Scully?"

Her cough chose that moment to revive itself, and she was forced to curl over 
and press a hand to her chest. Dammit, she thought angrily, it's going to be 
pretty obvious now--

Mulder reached out and touched her shoulder, his concern palpable even in the 
faint press of his fingers to her aching body. She tried to shake his hand 
off, but weakness lingered even after the coughing had stopped, and she 
didn't even manage to shift his grip.

"Pretty sick, hmm?" he murmured, shifting so that he could capture her gaze 
again.

Scully cleared her throat, brushed her hair off her face with fingers that 
shook just a little. "No, I'm not sick," she denied automatically. "I'm fine."

He didn't respond, but he studied her very seriously, with those faint lines 
of worry etched into his skin and concern in his eyes. She'd seen that look 
more times than she cared to count, and it never lost its power. But, out of 
habit, she resisted it--some subtly superstitious part of her had always 
believed that as long as she didn't admit she wasn't feeling well, she'd be 
all right.

Sometimes, that strategy worked. But her chest shuddered again with coughs 
that took her by surprise and left her with teary eyes and a throat that 
threatened to burst, and she knew the battle was lost. 

"Not sick, huh?" Mulder pressed the palms of both hands against her cheeks, 
spreading his fingers out to brush against her temples. "But getting there, 
looks like."

She closed her eyes for a split second, allowed her sore muscles to slacken, 
permitted him to cradle her face between gentle, familiar palms...he was 
silent, the room was warm, and despite her misery, she felt calmer than she 
had in a long time. She rested, and for a moment she was content.

When Mulder sighed and shifted, she murmured in faint protest, and turned her 
head to press a kiss to his palm, surprising herself. Mulder's quick intake 
of breath told her that she had surprised him, too...

"I never know when we're going to take a half-step forward or a dozen steps 
back," he whispered, brushing his long fingers quickly down her cheeks before 
sitting back. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

He was smiling, but it was faint and his eyes were distant, contemplative. "I 
thought the fact that you wanted me to come here tonight despite your 
mood--and I knew you did, don't doubt that--I thought that was another 
half-step, Scully. And I figured that you'd be sending me on my way quickly 
enough, with no explanation, with nothing more than a sense that you were 
retreating again. But that's not the impression I'm getting now. Feels more 
like we just moved ahead quite a bit more." He shook his head, and the faint 
smile faded away again, leaving his face serious and searching. "Care to 
explain to me why we're no longer moving at a glacial pace?" he asked.

Scully shifted, grimaced as her shoulder complained, and fought off another 
bout of wracking coughs. When she finally managed to look back at Mulder 
without tears in her eyes, the worry lines digging into his forehead had 
deepened and one of his hands was hovering over her knee, but the question 
still shimmered on the air between them. 

And her earlier irritability flared to the surface, simply because she didn't 
understand her reasons any more than he did.

"Because," she snapped, ignoring the way her throat throbbed, "I'm at the end 
of my rope. Because I'm tired of moving at a snail's pace. Because I see a 
light at the end of the tunnel, because we're nearing the wire, because we'll 
only live once!" Her mini-explosion ended in a sharp burst of coughing and 
through watery eyes she watched her partner rise, move towards the kitchen. 
She hurt too much to turn her head and watch him, but he was back after a 
brief, painful eternity, sitting on the edge of the table again. He took her 
hand and dropped a half-dozen cough drops onto her palm. 

"I'd offer more cough syrup," he said as she peeled the paper off two and 
popped them into her mouth, "but it seems like maybe you've already had too 
much." There was a faint trace of almost-humor in his voice again and she 
shot him a look as she ground the drops between her teeth.

He touched her shoulder and smiled. "Got any more metaphors in your arsenal 
to mix at me?" he asked.

"Just one," she muttered, eyeing him. "The one that just came to me." She 
swallowed, tasting the burn of menthol, and looked away from her partner's 
dark eyes. "I think that we hit...the 999th mile on New Year's Eve, Mulder." 
The words came slowly, and she had to force them out, but even to her ears 
they sounded like the truth. They *felt* like the truth. "I think we're 
almost ready to finish this leg of the journey, and I'm tired of waiting."  

Silence.

Then Mulder was moving, faster than she'd thought he would, bumping his knees 
against hers and gripping her hands. "I think you're right," he told her, 
even the faintest hint of laughter banished from his voice by something 
darker, softer, more tender. "I think you're very right."

"Doesn't mean I'm glad to have carted that box for you. Or that I'm going to 
take that senator thing very seriously." The words were defensive in tone and 
utterly meaningless, but they were something to say while Scully battled a 
rush of conflicting emotions. Mulder seemed to sense that, moving closer and 
gently rubbing his thumb over her battered knuckles, but otherwise not 
reacting.

She listened to the clock tick, counted her heartbeats. Then she noted the 
warmth of the room, and the strength of his hands, the power of memory--her 
whole body hurt, but that faded as she remembered every moment of attraction 
between them, every second of tenderness...

Mulder slipped his hands free of hers after several long minutes, freed them 
so that he could nudge her chin, and he pressed his lips against hers with 
very careful gentleness. For a moment, the past and present blended and she 
was dizzy, caught off-balance, but then he said her name and time 
straightened itself out.

"No more boxes," he whispered against her lips, and the words were nonsense, 
and they were perfect. "We're in the last mile here. I promise, no more 
boxes."

She shivered and he pressed his lips to hers again for a half-second, then 
moved away to rest his forehead on hers as he sighed, spreading the warmth of 
his breath across her lips. She wanted to say something, anything. but a yawn 
caught her off guard. He chuckled and pushed her back against the sofa, and 
she meant to sit back up but suddenly everything was settling down on 
her--minor illness and injuries, the medicine, the sheer length of the day...

She couldn't manage to protest when he shifted her legs up onto the cushions 
and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch to tuck it around her. She 
struggled to keep her eyes open and focused, wanted, *needed* to stay awake...

"Go to sleep," he whispered, shifting on the table, obviously preparing to 
rise. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, and we'll figure everything out. I hope."

"Thank you for coming here," Scully said quietly, and reached out to brush 
her hand against his knee. "Thank you...for understanding."

He gripped her hand gently, brushed his lips over her knuckles, a simple, 
delicate caress. He was smiling, and it felt...right. 

"Anything for that half-step of progress, Scully," he told her, voice husky 
and quiet. Certain. "Anything at all."

She swallowed, closed her eyes and wondered if she was insane. And then she 
prepared for a half-mile leap. "Mulder...will you risk getting this bug?" She 
opened her eyes and met his gaze; he looked mildly puzzled. She moved so that 
she was lying on her side, pressed her back into the couch, patted the space 
she had created.

For a few seconds, he just stared down at her, and she worried that perhaps 
she had moved too quickly, asked too much. They were both so used to a slow 
pace, a relationship built in tiny increments--

Then Mulder was beside her, wrapping himself around her, surprising her with 
his speed--and his thoroughness. 

"This is asking a bit much," he said as he slipped his arms around her and 
maneuvered himself closer. "But it does seem to fall within the bounds of 
'anything for progress'." One of his knees pressed between hers, the other 
came to rest against her leg. Then he nuzzled his chin down on the top of her 
head, blowing away the few strands of her hair that tried to catch on his 
skin.

Scully slowly relaxed against him. Her forehead came to rest against the warm 
hollow between his neck and shoulder, her arms slipped around his sides, her 
hands began to absently explore the planes of his back.  "I'm all for 
progress," she said, not sure if he would even be able to hear her. 

He kissed her hair gently; she could feel him smiling, and knew that he *had* 
heard. "So I gathered." Silence fell between them for a second and then he 
shifted, sighing. "Now...rest, Scully. Get better quick so we can see just 
how much farther we can go."

She couldn't resist that kind of incentive, and the cough syrup had begun to 
make her drowsy anyway. Her eyes closed and she listened to her partner's 
steady breathing, to his heartbeat.

Content with him, with herself, with the ever-shrinking distance between 
them, she allowed his warmth and familiar scent to lull her into dreams of 
leafy trees and cardboard champions...


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Well, *I* liked it. And I'd love to know if you did, too! ;) 

Dreamshaper, who is recovering from the flu and delighting in fluff...whee! 
<g>
(dreamshpr@aol.com or
pensivedreamer@aol.com)