Title:  Respite

Author:  Anjou  (Anjou@rocketmail.com)

Posting Date: June 2002

Rating:  R for sexual situations  

Classification:  Established MSR, Angst, mytharc

Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral; others please ask.

Spoilers: This is a late S6 story and is the fourth in the
Speechless series. Speechless, Perfect and Angel can be found at
http://home.midsouth.rr.com/xffanfic/anjou/index.html. A series
summary is available in the prologue to this posting.

Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All
other elements are mine. 

Author's notes at the end.

Summary: "Scully, I am not giving up or giving in to fatalism.
I'm just admitting the possibility that we might never get the
white picket fence or any of the trappings of a normal life." He
smiled softly to lessen the weight of his harsh words and said
quietly, "but I'll be damned if I skip the honeymoon. I won't
let that be stolen from us, too." 


*~* *~* *~*
Respite
By Anjou
*~* *~* *~*


*~* *~*
Georgetown
June 21, 1999

  Sometimes, despite all of the years that he had lived in D.C.,
the heat was still a surprise. Mulder felt the weight of the
warm, humid air as he closed the outer door of Scully's
apartment building against it. The collar of his dress shirt was
sticking to his neck. A trickle of cold rainwater had run down
his spine before being absorbed by the sticky cotton undershirt
that clung to his lower back. So far, the rain had done nothing
to dispel the enervating mass of dense air that blanketed the
city. Although the air might smell a bit cleaner, it seemed even
more humid than it had been before the rain began a few minutes
earlier. 

  It was only the first day of summer.

  Mulder sighed as he wrestled the grocery bags down the hall to
Scully's apartment, the rattle of dried pasta keeping time with
his shuffling movements. The bags weren't heavy so much as they
were awkward. The inadequate plastic handles had ripped on two
of them, so he held them against his body as he maneuvered his
way to her front door.  

  He gave himself a score of 8.4 for juggling mastery as he
managed to find his keys, get inside the door and place the
grocery bags on the floor without dropping anything. His keys
clinked against the floor, echoing as he bent over to remove his
wet shoes. In the stillness of the apartment, there was
something charged in the air. He lifted his head fractionally,
his senses on alert. As he stepped out of his shoes he slipped
his snub-nosed pistol from its ankle holster. He planned to meet
Scully later at the makeshift lab the Gunmen had set up for her
in their lair, so there shouldn't have been anyone at home. But
there was no mistaking it -- he was not alone. He stood up,
cradling the gun in both hands as he stepped forward on socked
feet. The rain-streaked windows cast silvery patterns on the
walls as he moved deeper into her apartment. 

  "Mulder, it's me," her voice said from the bedroom. 

  He winced at the two-pack-a-day grit that exhaustion had given
her voice. "Scully?" He didn't bother to hide his surprise. She
hadn't veered from the routine of working two full-time jobs
since they'd returned from California four weeks ago. Scully had
decided that the best course of action that she could take in
their investigation was to apply her scientific training. Since
they had both been exposed and then inoculated against variants
of the alien virus, her efforts were focused on trying to find
antibodies in their blood, in hopes of creating a vaccine.
Although he was happy that she'd decided to take the night off
from trying to tease out the mysteries in their bloodstreams, he
couldn't help but wonder what had provoked such a decision. He
had no reason to assume that it had been good news. People
celebrating didn't sit in their darkening apartments with the
lights off. 

  Mulder's shadow stretched across Scully's bedroom toward her
as he crossed the threshold. She glanced up as he approached
her. Her exhaustion was apparent in the shadows under her eyes
and the streaks of mascara that she had tried, but failed, to
erase. She had tucked herself into the corner of the oversized
armchair on the other side of her bed and was curled around
herself protectively.    

  "What's wrong?" he asked. He had learned these past weeks that
it was best to be direct with her. If he gave her the chance to
avoid answering a question, her first response was still to take
the evasive approach and deny her own feelings. 

  "Nothing's really wrong," she said, favoring him with a
failure of a smile. She spoke in a tone intended to sound
measured and not defensive. He remained silent. After a moment,
she shook her head in a gesture of angry denial. "I'm just being
self-indulgent."  She plucked at the arm of her chair.

  He sat down on the bed opposite her and analyzed that
statement. "Scully," he replied, "you are the least
self-indulgent person I know. Please tell me what's going on."
She made a small gasping noise. He could see the red flush of
hot tears as they surged under her pale skin; they made him feel
beastly. She loathed crying and he had provoked the tears she
was fighting.

  "I'm just being foolish," she said, her tone self-deprecating.
She flinched when he reached out and captured a tear with his
thumb, caressing her skin. She sighed and then yielded to the
warmth of his touch, closing her eyes and pressing against his
hand. She spoke softly against his palm, trying to change the
subject. "Were you going to make me dinner?  That sounded like
groceries hitting the floor." 

  "Mm-hmm," Mulder answered easily, "and you are avoiding my
question. I doubt that my cooking is bad enough to make you
cry."  He gently nudged her face to turn her eyes up to his. She
was trying to blink away the tears that were still threatening
to spill over. He wished that it was easier for her to be honest
about her emotions, but the stiff upper lip example of her
childhood was firmly ingrained in her. He watched her fight for
control. 

  She breathed in slowly, then bit off a statement with her eyes
closed. "I got my period."

  Mulder fought to keep the wrinkle from his brow, knowing that
a neutral expression always got him more information than an
emotional one. "Okay," he said cautiously. 

  Her head sagged against his palm and she sighed. He searched
in vain for a clue. Could he have known this woman for years and
never have known that she got the blues when she had her period?


  She opened her eyes and closed her hand over his. "I was late,
Mulder," she said in a whisper. He felt his heart catch in his
chest. As comprehension dawned on him, she closed her eyes. "I
allowed myself to hope." She pulled his hand down into her lap
and circled the indentation on his left ring finger. "It was
stupid of me."   

  Mulder's hand slipped from hers. Without warning, he picked
her up and turned them both so that he was sitting in the
armchair with her on his lap.

  "Scully," he whispered, "why didn't you tell me?" He held her
as close to his chest as he could before he realized how strong
his anguish had made him and loosened his grip.

  She hesitated for an instant, then turned at the waist and
pressed her torso flat against his, as if she had suddenly
decided to take the comfort he was offering.  

  He tightened his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around
his neck and her chest heaved against his as she struggled not
to cry. He had to fight the urge to make her speak to him. He
distracted himself by touching her, needing to comfort her as
much as himself. He slid a hand low on her back, spreading it
wide across the bend of her waist. A small noise of
encouragement escaped her as he pressed against the ridge of
muscles in her lower back, kneading them carefully for long
minutes. 

  "Scully?" His voice was barely a breath against her ear and
she sighed. He knew that she wished he would just let the
subject drop, but he couldn't. She lifted her mouth from the
skin on his neck and pulled back a little to see him. 

  "I didn't notice at first," she said. "We've been so busy and
I'm not..." she hesitated, "regular." He nodded. "So, it took me
a few days to realize that even by my own standards, I was
really late."  

  "How late?" His hands continued working gently against the
tense muscles in her back.

  "At least a week," she said. "It's not a normal cycle that I
can track accurately," she added in her factual-recitation
voice. 

  He nodded and wiped the tracks of her tears off her face with
gentle fingers before asking,  "When did you realize that you
were late?"  

  "Sunday," she answered finally after the question had hung in
the air for a moment. Mulder flipped his mental calendar
backwards. He blinked in surprise and Scully buried her face in
his neck at the change in his expression.  

  "Scully," he said, emphasizing the last syllable of her name.
Sunday, he had persuaded her to spend the morning in bed with
him. He'd pointed out that in all the weeks they had been
together they had never just lain in bed and read the paper,
drinking coffee, making love and napping while the papers
crinkled around them. At the time, he had thought that her
thoughtful expression amounted to her consideration of his
offer, the argument that he was pressing with his hands and his
mouth. Now he understood that her smiles were not just about the
joy of spending a day playing hooky. She had made love to him
that morning in a fierce and tender manner, her face seraphic,
her focus on him utter and complete. It would always be a
cherished memory for him, but one that would now be marked by
the separate meanings it held for them. "I wish you had told
me."    

  "I'm sorry, Mulder, I am" she whispered, "but ? I just wanted
to hold that little secret inside of me for a while." Her voice
was rough. "I knew that it was too good to be true. I," she
swallowed and blurted out the next piece of her confession in a
rush, "I thought that if I said it out loud that I would jinx
it." She shook her head. "I know how foolish that sounds, so I
tried not to think about it." She broke off again and he heard
her throat swallowing more tears, "But I couldn't stop myself."
When she spoke again, her voice had thickened. "I wanted it to
be true so badly," she whispered. The words sounded painfully
shoved out, as if saying them swiftly would make them hurt less.


  "Me, too," he whispered back and she clenched him tighter in
her grasp.

  For long minutes, the only sounds were the small, wet
exhalations of their breath as she finally gave into tears and
he joined her. 

  "Maybe this is for the best," she said eventually. He could
not help stiffening. "It's not like we could do this now when we
have to focus on stopping them. It's not like we could keep a
baby safe."

  Before he could protest, she shuddered in his arms, then
seemed to gather herself. "Besides," she said bleakly, "we still
don't know what this thing in my neck does. We have no idea what
it would do to a baby." His arms convulsed around her as if he
could keep harm away from her with his touch and the room lapsed
into silence again. "We just don't know," she whispered into the
empty air.

*~* *~*

  She observed him from the end of the hallway as he wiped down
counters and loaded the last few dishes into the dishwasher. The
smell of tomato sautéed with garlic and pepper lingered in the
air, but she had spooned most of their dinner into containers.
Neither of them had had much of an appetite, and after a sad and
mostly silent meal, Mulder had shooed her away from the kitchen
and told her to get ready for bed, even though it was far
earlier than usual.  

  Once again, she fought the impulse to pretend that everything
was just fine. As she watched Mulder, she reasoned that the
emotional response she had had tonight was just a result of
being overtired and overworked, compounded by her frustration at
their lack of progress. She could see by the furrow in his brow
that he was focusing only a portion of his consciousness on the
task at hand. He was barefoot, dressed in his work slacks and
the T-shirt he had worn under his dress shirt. CNN was on in the
living room, but she doubted he could tell her what the top
story was tonight. He looked tired and worn down in the
unforgiving light of her kitchen, his eyes red-rimmed with
sorrow. She knew he was worried about her, worried about how
hard she had been working, how driven she was to find a solution
to the impending crisis, but the truth was it hadn't been
anything less than frustrating for him either. Every lead that
Mulder had had about the Consortium's business dealings seemed
to lead to new dead ends. Companies had folded overnight, with
critical staff disappearing suddenly. There had been more
suspicious 'suicides' of the type that had claimed Agent
Gerard's life in California. Whoever was clearing the slate was
doing an effective job of it.

  She felt a resurgence of the protective anger that he so often
evoked in her, a desire to slay the dragons that persistently
bedeviled him. Her father's wedding ring, now Mulder's, swung
from the chain around his neck as he bent over to place the
containers in the refrigerator and she felt her resolve harden
at the sight of it. If this was all that they were to have, it
was more than enough. She would not be greedy. She went into the
bedroom to change.

  In the dim light of the bedroom, her own damp, freshly
scrubbed face reflected the same bone-deep weariness that she
had seen on Mulder's. She had never been a woman with a rosy
complexion, but now, between her exhaustion and the fact that
she was having her period, her pallor was pronounced. She
smoothed some moisturizer on her skin and looked at herself
critically in the mirror before turning away in resignation.
There was simply not enough time in the day to accomplish all of
the things that they had to do and certainly no guarantee of
success. And if they lost ? she could not stop herself from
shuddering in dread as she remembered the weightlessness of the
pod in the Antarctic ship and the utter feeling of helplessness
as she had hung there, waiting.

  The phone rang and interrupted the whirling spiral of her
thoughts. She could hear Mulder's smooth murmur from the
kitchen, and gleaned that it was one of the Gunmen, probably
wondering where they were. She stuffed a shirt into her
dry-cleaning bag where it sat next to Mulder's. The little signs
of domesticity that served as proof of their intimacy were
everywhere. Aside from their period of estrangement in the late
winter, Mulder and she had spent most nights together since she
had returned home from New York after having been shot. Their
work and personal lives had been completely braided together
even before they had become lovers, and they had decided to keep
the change in their lives private. 

  It surprised her how much she liked finding the evidence of
their shared life among her things. She would have thought that
she would have trouble adjusting to Mulder encroaching on more
of her life, but that part of things had been surprisingly
smooth. The physical intimacy was a relief on a number of
levels; not only was it a refuge from the horrible race against
time that occupied her waking hours, but it was incredible to be
free of the burden of pretense under which she had lived for
years. Emotional intimacy was the most difficult for her. Some
part of her did not like to be known so well; another part of
her resented that he had adapted seemingly without effort to
this new level of their relationship. Tonight, when he had asked
her what was wrong in his soft but blunt manner, she'd had to
tamp down the resentment that arose in her at the cleverness of
his opening gambit. That wasn't entirely true, she had to admit
-- it was only now that Mulder was secure in her love and in the
marriage that they were making that his natural tendency had
reasserted itself. Mulder had always adapted to change better
than she. It was a galling trait.  

  She sighed, eyeing her rumpled suit critically to decide if
she could get one more day out of it.

  "Bag it," Mulder advised from the doorway as he moved toward
the bureau. He took his watch off and put his wedding ring on,
depositing the now empty gold chain on her bureau, then whipped
his tomato sauce-spotted T-shirt off and tossed it by her into
the open hamper. He only slowed down when he took off his pants,
lining up the pleats before hanging them up. He carefully
arranged his suit jacket over them and hung them off the back of
her bedroom door. She observed this small ritual with amusement
as she rummaged around in the back of her drawer for her
comfortable flannel nightshirt. Mulder might have an inscrutable
filing system and be prone to clutter, but he was very careful
with his clothes -- at least the ones that survived the rather
prodigious wear and tear of their jobs.

  She undressed herself, feeling the silence between them. It
wasn't uncomfortable, but notable, continuing as Mulder rooted
around in his overnight bag for something. He barely seemed to
notice her standing there in front of him half-naked, a
happenstance that invariably elicited some sort of comment from
him. She put her nightshirt on, counting in her head until he
began talking.

  "You don't really believe that it's for the best, Scully," he
said with no preamble. She had gotten to seven before he had
spoken. "That's just a rationalization that you're offering
yourself and me, to make us feel better about the situation." He
turned the lamp on beside the bed and laid a book on the
nightstand. "But I don't," he finished. She didn't answer him,
used to the abrupt manner in which he continued conversations.
Although tonight he was focused on what had happened earlier, it
was not unheard of for him to pick up an interrupted
conversation from a stakeout they'd been on five years before as
if there had been no interval. She had always prided herself on
her ability to follow these various and sundry threads of
continuing conversations as they reappeared.  

  She moved over to the bureau to remove her earrings, glancing
up at his reflection as he moved to stand behind her. He stopped
her hands and carefully removed the first earring. She held her
hand out and he dropped the sapphire into it. She watched the
dim light catching the facets of blue and pink in the stone. She
didn't answer.  

  "And neither do you," he continued, removing the second
earring.  

  She sighed as he dropped it into her palm. Mulder had given
them to her the day that he had picked up his re-sized ring from
the jeweler. He'd had them made for her, milling the posts from
the gold cut out of his ring. She knew that he liked it when she
wore them. Luckily, they had become her favorite earrings.   

  "It isn't fair," he said from above her and she looked up at
his reflection in the mirror. His sad face was focused on her
image, pale and silent in her bare feet and baggy nightshirt,
the top of her head level with his heart as she stood in front
of him.

  She clutched the earrings in her palm and looked his
quicksilver twin in the eye as she nodded, then leaned back
until her head came to rest against him. He closed his arms
around her. "No, Mulder," she concurred quietly.  "It isn't."

  Mulder picked her hand up from where it rested over her heart
and kissed her loosely closed fingers. He held her close for a
moment then turned them both toward the bed, giving her a gentle
push toward her side, before he went into the bathroom. He
fingered the material of her nightgown with an arch expression
on his face.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Sex-ay," he said. 

  "Mm-hmm," she said, "what were you really thinking?"

  He laughed and stepped away, saying, "Oh, just that you've
finally proved a theory that I developed from years of being on
the road with you." 

  She huffed out a laugh. "It's a very comfortable nightshirt,
Mulder."

  "And sex-ay," he drawled out as he walked into the bathroom. 

  She shook her head and turned back to put her earrings away.
The dark of her quiet apartment bled into the room as she
glanced out the door at it. All the lights were off. All the
life in this place was provided by just the two of them,
contained within the walls of this room. She shook her head to
clear it of her continuing morbid thoughts and climbed wearily
into bed, shutting off her lamp. She didn't have the energy to
read anything tonight. She just wanted to sleep, to hold onto
Mulder and to be held onto. She allowed her mind to drift as she
waited for him to come out of the bathroom. 

  She felt the bed dip as Mulder slid carefully under the
covers, trying not to disturb her from even this uneasy slumber,
but she roused and moved over to him immediately, laying her
head on his chest with a relieved sigh. 

  "What did the Gunmen want?" she asked as she curled into him. 

  "How're you feeling now?" he said by way of an answer,
smoothing her hair against her scalp. He pressed kisses into the
line of skin where her hair was parted, then on her brow when
she raised her face to his.  

  She shrugged and made a face, her eyes barely open.  

  "What does that mean?" he asked softly but firmly.

  "I just don't know how I feel about anything right now
Mulder," she answered. When he didn't answer her, she sighed and
said, "Bruised. I feel bruised."

  He nodded above her. "That's a good word for it, I think.
Scully," he said in a tone that made open her eyes in curiosity.
"I want to do something different." He hastened to clarify what
he meant when her eyebrow raised. "Even if it's only for a few
days, I want to just be with you without growing cell lines and
vaccine trials, trying to figure out what the chips are for. I
need?" Mulder's voice faltered. Scully pushed herself up onto
her elbow. 

  "What?" she asked. "What is it that you need?"

  He sighed and reached down to lay a finger along the line of
her cheek. "I need to know that if this all ends, that if we
fail after all the struggle," he said in an almost whisper that
grew stronger as he raised his voice to override her protest.
"That we had a few days of peace, a few days where we just
celebrated this." His hand gestured back and forth between the
two of them. "Scully, I am not giving up or giving in to
fatalism. I'm just admitting the possibility that we might never
get the white picket fence or any of the trappings of a normal
life." He smiled softly to lessen the weight of his harsh words
and said quietly, "but I'll be damned if I skip the honeymoon. I
won't let that be stolen from us, too." 

  She felt her rising argument die at that statement. "Oh,
Mulder," she said. Her hand rested on his chest, her fingers
plucking at the hair that grew there. "We really shouldn't.
We're so busy," she offered half-heartedly. She wanted to be
convinced.  

  "When aren't we, Scully?" he challenged her. "When is there
going to be time for just us, if we don't make some? I wasn't
going to tell you tonight, but Byers called to say that the
latest batch of lines don't seem to be multiplying. He fed them
and put them under the lights, but if they don't take, you'll
have to start again, right?"  

  Scully dropped her head to his chest, groaning. "Yes," she
exhaled against him in an exasperated burst. "That is just the
perfect ending to my perfect day." 

  He let her brood for a moment.  "Does it really matter if you
start again this week or the next?" he asked. "I'm going nowhere
with the continuing investigation of the people who were burned.
Every time Frohike and I get to the end of the line the company
is gone, or never existed in the first place and the DOD's got
their system locked up tight. We might have a promising lead on
one of the European companies, but that's going to take a couple
of days for Frohike and Langly to track down. I've got to get
the end of the fiscal year paperwork into Skinner, but I can
wrap that up by Thursday. We can leave Thursday night."  She
lifted her head, resting her chin atop the hands she had laid
against his chest. He smoothed her hair with his hands. "Think
of it like this: we need to regroup before we can figure out
what to try next."   

  "Where do you want to go?" she asked, giving real
consideration to what he was saying.

  He hesitated for a moment. "I'd love to take you to Paris or
to some tiny tropical island where we could just be alone,
preferably naked all the time?" She favored him with an
indulgent eyebrow arch that let him know that she was
considering the possibility, so he continued "but the fact is I
have to take care of some business on the Vineyard."  

  "Oh?"  Her curiosity was piqued.

  "Yes," he answered back, kissing her nose. "I need to go see
my lawyer and sign a bunch of papers. I was going to do it as a
day trip, but?" he ran his hands up and down her flannel-covered
back as she shifted into a more upright position, bracing her
upper torso against his chest. "I really need you to be there
with me."

  Scully's drew her eyebrows down in consternation. "I don't
understand what would be left to do, Mulder. I already hold your
healthcare proxy, your power of attorney and I've been listed as
your next of kin for years."

  He nodded. "That's true," he said. He hesitated, then said,
"I'd already set things up so that you were the beneficiary of
all my assets if something were to happen to me. Now I'm
changing it so you have equal access to those assets." 

  This line of conversation made her uncomfortable. "I thought
you said you weren't giving up," she said. 

  "I'm not giving up," Mulder parried. "I'm being pragmatic,
something you often urge me to be, remember?"  He raised his
hand and wiggled his ring at her. "You say that you consider us
to be married." She nodded. "This is what married people do,
Scully, merge their assets."

  "I don't have any assets, Mulder," she said quietly.

  He leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. "That is not true
and you know it."  

  He sighed when they broke apart. "We should go to the
Vineyard," he said. "It's beautiful there this time of the year.
It's not Paris, but ... who says we only get to take one
honeymoon?"  

  For the first time in hours, she smiled. "Okay, Mulder," she
said, "we'll have our first honeymoon on the Vineyard."