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Everything happens for the first time.
–from Happiness, by Jorge Luis Borges / trans by Stephen Kessler
*
The week after she was released from the hospital, a gale blew through the city. Mulder had come to her apartment and taken her outside to stand in the wind. The air burned its way through her, the heat of ice in her lungs, the pulse of blood rushing for warmth. And that was the first time she felt it: the lack, the deadening. There was a hollowness to her now that echoed. Her own mind, always absolutely under her control, had betrayed her. A part of her life was gone and with it some of her surety in herself.
On their first case together she had told Mulder that time is a universal invariant, that it can’t just disappear. It was just one truth in her world of truths that no longer seemed to apply. She had almost gotten over being startled by the date on the calendar. Missing time does not mean that time is gone; merely that it is gone from you. The lack was a wound.
There was a three-month void inside her, a knot of nothingness that had mass, had gravity, like a black hole. Her body felt dense and heavy with this absence filling her up. But her family treated her like crystal, something fine and delicate, something that could not possibly bear weight. In the hospital people whispered around her as if she were too brittle to withstand sound, as if any pitch would shatter her.
It only made her want to shout and break things, split something open to show that she was not fragile at all. She healed, just like everyone else.
When she returned to work, Mulder’s eyes followed her everywhere. There was something new in them she couldn’t name. Not as though he thought that she was lessened, but as if he was holding her place in the universe, tethering her. She wanted to assure him of her corporeality. She wanted to tell him that she had missed him in retrospect. When she woke up and knew she had been without him, the missing was a fierce burn inside her. She wanted him to know that she knew he had saved her, when no one else could, to make him believe it.
Instead they worked cases, filed paperwork, flew to Wisconsin to investigate possible teenage possession and eat ribs wearing ridiculous plastic bibs. It made her want to laugh at the absurdity with a peculiar kind of joy. This was her life and she had come back to it. She had come back to him, this man, her partner.
Her sister thought she was in love with him. But she told herself it was attraction, maybe something as simple and adolescent as a crush. She admired him, she respected him. She even liked him. It was chemistry, biology, physics. It was an intellectual fascination. But it was not love. She could not allow it to be.
Now he sat across from her at Clay’s BBQ, his eyes on her but not seeing. She knew the signs of his distraction. She watched his expression grow rigid and the slow motion stretch of his hand to her face. The touch was gentle, fleeting, a soft swipe next to her mouth. There was a momentary flutter of embarrassment, but underneath it hummed a low current of arousal. It was certainly not the first time she’d felt it, though lately it seemed sharper, keener, as if her skin was stretched so tightly over her flesh she might pop. Sometimes the feeling was akin to pain.
Later, all she would remember of the drive back to the motel was his hands on the steering wheel: the movement of the tendons under the skin, the elegance of his fingers, the short square nails. She wanted to know what it felt like to have those hands moving on her just once. The idea made her mouth dry, made every hair on her arms stand on end. She was a lightning rod waiting for the storm.
It seemed only natural that she should stand beside him as he unlocked his door, that she should precede him into the room. Her body felt coiled with waiting, with the tense hush before a tempest the earth knows is coming. The when is almost always a mystery. Lightning is nature’s most unpredictable, inevitable force.
Caught between his body and the table, her arms trapped by her coat, he kissed her. It was a sudden immersion in heat, a plunge and a gasp, and then her hands reached for his body. Her fingers slid up the warm cotton of his shirt and when his mouth parted hers she thought of fire. Suddenly, she was ravenous to touch him everywhere, to feel how solid he was, how real. Her hands would not be still.
When he pulled away she whispered his name. The eyes that met her own were hooded and as hot as his mouth. She felt scalded by his gaze. “I don’t want you to leave tonight, Scully.”
The air was gathering, snapping with electrical charge. Her face was flushed. She nodded and gave him a promise. “Then I won’t leave.” There was no other answer to give.
His mouth was already against hers again and his breath seared her lips when he whispered, “I don’t have anything.” His voice shot straight to her core.
“It’s okay,” she told him, arousal rising bright and terrible inside her. “It’s taken care of.”
“I’m clean,” he said then and in that moment it didn’t matter at all. Nothing mattered but easing this ache, forgetting what she could not remember. He would ground her. He would keep right on saving her.
She arched her fingers against his spine, pressing herself into him. He answered by pulling off her coat and his own and finally brought the bright flame of his mouth back to hers. Their hands stumbled over buttons as she tried to consume and be consumed at once. Then he was naked before her, all velvet and steel, glowing. He backed her toward the bed and covered her like an eclipse, so that only his dark heat could sear her.
His lips and hands were winged things, fluttering over her without mercy. Conquer me, she thought, fill me with light. She came from only the press of his hips and the furnace of his mouth, the roar in her head exultant. “Mulder…” she breathed, astonished.
He was a beautiful shadow beneath her as she memorized his body with her own. There had been times when she couldn’t not look at his mouth. There had been times when she wanted nothing more than to crawl her way up his body and dive in, fuse together like sand into glass at twenty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
When he finally moved into her, she was a city ablaze, a living conflagration. Nothing cold or dark could withstand the crucible of their fusion. Her teeth flashed down on his neck at the exquisite agony and she soothed him with her tongue. He groaned her name and for just a moment he was air and light and all things necessary. “I don’t love you,” she told him silently as he hovered over her. “I don’t.”
“Yes,” she said aloud. Her eyes refused to stay open and the radiance behind them was blinding. Clutching at the curve of his spine she arched against him helplessly and moaned as everything burned away. And somewhere in the ferocity she felt him like lightning inside her, hot as lava, shuddering.
Mulder was the universe, the air she breathed, a blanket of stars upon her. Their sweat and breathing mingled until she could not tell where each began or ended. She felt whole for the first time in months, suffused with warmth and gratitude. Gone was the ache of forgetting, of not being found. It was so unfamiliar, she was dizzy with it. Her mouth curved in a shy smile and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes, contenting herself with tracing her fingers over his forehead, her eyes over his cheeks and chin.
“Hey,” he murmured.
She bit her lip for just a heartbeat, then met his eyes with her own. He appeared as stunned and dazed as she felt. There was caution on his face and she held her breath, looking for the right direction, the X to mark the spot. Then he smiled and it was dazzling, beautiful and perfect as sunrise, as a light in the window after a long journey. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to dance. Instead, she shoved gently at his chest and curled herself around him when he lay back against the sheet.
The silky mapping of his fingers against her skin was hypnotic and she forced herself not to fall under the spell. This moment was too full of wonder for sleep. There would be time later when he stopped touching her, when they were separated by miles of politely professional behavior. For now she would enjoy the silk spikes of his hair and his incorrigible grin.
“Fuck,” he said and she snorted out a laugh at the delight in his voice.
“It certainly was.”
His eyes moved from her face to the ceiling. She watched him map its contours. “This probably wasn’t supposed to happen,” he saidfinally. His tone gave nothing away.
“Probably not,” she agreed, trying to decipher his direction, trying to decipher her own.
“But it did.”
No point in being coy now, Dana, she told herself. “Twice for me.”
Somehow that was the key to the treasure chest. He turned to smile at her and a low laugh rumbled out of him into her. She pressed her lips against his throat in relief and rolled away to go to the bathroom. She needed some time alone, to remember how to breathe with this forgotten fullness inside her. The idea that she might start to hyperventilate from happiness nearly made her giggle.
“Hey, Scully?” She turned at the door to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, all tensile strength and five o’clock shadow. Clothed he upset her equilibrium, but naked he stole her breath. His tongue came out to flick across his lower lip and she swallowed an answering pool of saliva. “Would you bring some water?”
He looked like he could devour her. God, she wanted him to, all over again. In the bathroom she studied her reflection in the mirror as she ran water into a glass. A woman with tousled hair and swollen lips looked back at her. She thought of glassblowers and sand, of matter changing form in extremis into something more beautiful, more complete.
The cool water slid into her mouth as she walked back to the bed and handed Mulder the glass. He took it with a murmured “Thanks,” and the familiar brush of his hand against hers brought an ache to her throat. Her eyes were drawn over the bed to the deepening shadow of their clothes on the floor and she was abruptly aware of her nudity. Then a pair of warm hands landed on her ribs and moulded their way down over her hips. She wondered what he was thinking as he spread his fingers against her skin.
His eyes were so green when he looked up at her, full of something bright and nameless. “I don’t want you to leave tonight, Scully.”
She blinked against the sting of sudden ridiculous tears and stepped closer toward him, enveloped by his limbs. Smiling, she traced his ears, wove her arms about his neck. “Then I won’t leave,” she told him for the second time that night. He would never know how much it was both a promise and a prayer.
He brushed a kiss against her neck, nuzzling the soft spot beneath her chin. “You’re beautiful.”
Oh no. She was so close to the edge of her skin tonight. She couldn’t take any more of his sweetness. She offered her best Dr Scully voice. “You’re horny.”
He grinned against her lips. “You’re hot.”
Her eyes slipped playfully down his body and noted the signs of renewed interest. She felt a knowing smile lift the corners of her mouth. “Possibly,” she conceded.
Mulder shifted closer to her and dropped his voice to a low, throaty growl that vibrated through her. “I’m not satisfied with that ambiguity, Agent Scully.”
“No?” She asked, all innocence, as she climbed onto the bed and straddled his lap. “What’s your recommendation, Agent Mulder?”
“I suggest further investigation. Intensive investigation.” He kissed her then, his lips and tongue making her blood hum.
“Mmm,” she breathed. “Might take a couple of tries to figure this out.” Something buoyant was rising from her belly. It burst rich as wine in her throat at his next words.
“We’ve got all night.”
“All night?” Her heart was beating too fast.
He smiled and his hands were tender on her face, in her hair. “All night,” he said softly. He wrapped himself around her and drew her back into their bed.
*
The first time she woke it was still dark and the wind rushed violently through the trees. Her mind was full of their second time when something had broken open inside her and she had cried out as much in fear as in pleasure.
Easing out of bed, Scully moved to a chair and curled herself into it. For months now she had denied it, to her sister, to herself, to the certainty of Mulder’s body above her. But alone in the dark with only the sounds of wind and breathing and her own fractured heartbeat she could admit the truth.
The heart is deceitful above all things.
A part of her wanted to leave, wanted to harness the panic inside her, gather her clothes and shut the door behind her. Flee. If she left now they might never have to speak of it. She could pretend he hadn’t put her back together, that somehow she alone controlled her resurgence. There were spaces inside her she hadn’t visited in years, where she could shove it down and keep herself safe.
But she already knew there was little hope of that pretending now. She would put it away as best she could, but she owed more to Mulder than an awkward memory. So she would stay and take the morning as it came. They would still be partners, still be friends, and that was the only truth that mattered.
She crawled back into bed and told herself that what she had was enough.
*
The second time she woke sunlight turned the inside of her eyelids a dark orange and Mulder’s warm hand stroked a slow path down her back. She moved sleepily and pressed a kiss above his heart. I love you, she told him in her warm haze with her lips against his skin, then froze as she came fully awake. Had she said it aloud?
When his hand continued its journey, steady, soothing, she relaxed.
“Were you going to let me sleep all day?” Her voice sounded husky to her own ears, clogged with the things she couldn’t say.
“It’s early,” came the quiet response from above.
Raising her head, she offered him a smile. He was so beautiful in the hazy light she could almost believe in the impossible.
“Hey,” he murmured, tucking a strand of hair away from her face.
“Hey,” she returned and had to stop herself from leaning into his hand, caught in the snare of her own wanting.
“You sprawl.” His voice was low and rough and full of the night before. She smiled again, helpless as always to resist his pull.
“You talk in your sleep,” she offered back.
His smirk was quick and not unexpected. “Bet I had some juicy stories last night.”
She rolled her eyes to humor him and pushed herself off his chest.
It was time to make her way back to the factual world. He grabbed her wrist and held her to him. “Where are you going?”
“Mulder, it’s time to get up.” Time to separate herself again, to re-establish the careful barriers between them.
“Give me a minute and I will be.”
The innuendo, the bantering, came so easily to him. She couldn’t blame him now for the pinpricks he inflicted all unawares. So she smiled and gave him what he expected. “Promises, promises.” She stood up, slapping him lightly on the hip. “Come on. We have work to do.”
“Right,” he sighed, squinting again at the ceiling. “Something about cows, isn’t it?”
“Big ones,” she confirmed. She made herself sound business-like and competent; she made herself sound like Agent Scully, despite the way his eyes were a physical presence on her. She struggled for something casual to say as she tugged on her wrinkled clothing.
“You okay?”
He nodded at her glance and she ran nervous hands through her hair. His gaze was entirely too penetrating. It made her wonder what she was giving away.
“Are you?” he asked.
Scully forced herself to meet his eyes, to appear nothing but truthful. “Yes, Mulder. I’m very okay.”
His nod and the slight relaxing of his facial muscles brought a relieved smile to her face and she found she could offer a little something of her own. “A little sore and sticky, but otherwise…”
The smile he flashed then was so unfettered, so out of place with her own collusion. There was no reason for the ache in her chest.
“I think I owe you breakfast,” he offered.
She grabbed her coat and stuffed yesterday’s underwear into a pocket. “At least.”
“I’ll come by and get you.”
“Give me about 45 minutes, okay?” It wasn’t nearly enough time. Tomorrow, she thought, maybe the day after.
He rolled his eyes. “I *know* how long it takes you to get ready, Scully.”
She smiled inwardly at that. In some ways they had no secrets. “You also know that I need coffee in me before you start giving me lip, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you this morning.”
“I wouldn’t mind giving you some lip.” He was sitting up against the headboard, sheet pooled at his waist, hair mussed and eyes gleaming. It would be so easy to let him slip past her new and tenuous defenses.
Instead, she played along, groaned at his pun. “Should have seen that coming.”
She meant to turn towards the door but instead found herself next to the bed. Her fingers slipped into his hair and her thumb took up a slow tracery against his forehead. A line of Keats came to her suddenly: Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and almost absently she spelled out the words on his skin. She kissed him there to seal her mark and smiled down into his eyes.
“I’m glad you didn’t leave,” he said quietly.
It hurt then, a brief sting, but she once again gave him her truth. “So am I.” Moving toward the door she tossed him another quick, conspiratorial smile. “I’ll see you later. Better bring the credit card - I’m starving.”
She was almost out the door when he called her back. “Hey, Scully?” Her eyes closed briefly before she glanced back at him. “Is this ever going to happen again?”
It was the question she had been expecting and dreading. She couldn’t lie to him, but she didn’t know what the truth was this time. In the end she compromised with a slow smile. “You never know what’ll happen on a road trip, Mulder.”
She only hoped the truth, whatever it turned out to be, would set them free.
*
More notes:
The heart is deceitful above all things - Jeremiah 17:9
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats