*~* *~*

Aquinnah, MA
June 25, 1999

  Scully watched as Mulder slowly rose to consciousness from a
restful night's sleep. His nostrils flared as the cool,
salt-tinged breeze wafted from the open window and she marveled
as a small smile graced his mouth. After all these years of
strange beds and strange towns, some part of his brain still
recognized that smell, and this place, as home. 

  It was an idea she hadn't ever considered. Fox Mulder had
always seemed to be a man without a country to her, with his
chilly and unforgiving parents and his wreck of a childhood. It
had been her expectation that returning to the island that had
been the site of the defining event of his life would not be a
happy experience, yet Mulder seemed to be content here in yet
another house that he had never mentioned owning. He was
sleeping peacefully in his grandparents' bed, the white sheet
draped over the long arch of his flank. In the weeks that they
had been together, he had eschewed his previous sleepwear of
pajama pants and T-shirt. He complained that he was too hot
since she insisted on sleeping under a heap of covers. She
hadn't thought to argue with him, since the view was too lovely.
Besides, he was the hot one. He radiated heat like a
mini-furnace in their bed at night while she luxuriated in his
warmth.

  She craved his heat in the cool morning air with only the
sheet to cover her, but for now she was keeping her distance so
that she could watch him. He was lying on his left side, facing
the middle of the bed with his arms curled around the pillow
under his head. A movement from him drew her attention. He had a
small frown on his face as if he had suddenly realized that his
early morning dreams were nonsensical. He murmured something
unintelligible. His left hand drifted down from his pillow and
scratched the ruff of hair on his chest, then he snuffled once
and opened his eyes to half-mast. The morning sunlight picked up
the golden hues in them before he let them close again. He
smiled at her and pressed his calves against her toes. She was
lying in a position that was a mirror of his. She smiled as he
blinked at her foggily.

  "What are we doing?" he rasped at her in a voice still thick
with sleep.

  She shrugged. "Nothing." She reached out a hand and smoothed
his rumpled hair away from his brow.  "Interesting 'do," Mulder,
she said wryly. 

  He grinned at her. "The messy look is in right now, Scully. I
can't help it if you're not as hip as you used to be."   

  "Hip?" she said in a threatening tone. She ran her left hand
over the terrain of his body, heading down toward the item in
question, carelessly taking the sheet with it.

  "Hey, hey," Mulder admonished, grabbing at it, "you already
took almost all of the covers, woman? Can't you leave me a
little bit of the sheet?" 

  She moved a little closer to him in the bed, eyes gleaming.
"You're really going to have to work on getting your stories
straight, Mulder. First I'm suffocating you with all the covers,
now I'm stealing them and leaving you high and dry."  

  "Interesting choice of words there, Scully," he waggled his
eyebrows at her. "If I were a Freudian," he began, but she cut
off the end of his sentence by leaning over and kissing him. 

  He pretended that her sudden kiss had been a pounce, feigning
that she had knocked him flat onto his back and scooped her up
to lay on top of him. "Hello," he said amiably when they broke
apart. He was now wide-awake. "Just browsing? Or do you see
something you like?"

   She planted her knees on either side of his body and raised
herself into a crouch, propping herself up with arms placed on
either side of his head. "I'm not sure," she answered
thoughtfully, "but I'm thinking that the breakfast buffet looks
good." She bent forward and nipped sharply at his ear lobe. He
made a noise that could have been described as a squeal and
wrestled her onto her back on her side of the bed.  

  "There's an obvious joke there," he panted. "So obvious that
even I can't bring myself to say it."

  She laughed at that thought. "You? Avoid an opening like
that?" Her words were interrupted by a kiss and a chuckle from
Mulder as he unbuttoned her pajama top.

  "And there's definitely a joke there," he chided, leaning
forward to kiss her breast, "but I'm just too much of a
gentleman to point it out."

  Scully snorted at that thought and wriggled as Mulder kissed
the soft skin of her belly, pressing a kiss near her scar.  

  "Scully?" he asked earnestly as he struggled with her pajama
bottoms, "do you think there's a chance that someday you might
start wearing clothing that's a little more easy access to bed?"
He blew a wet kiss below her belly button and she wrestled with
him vigorously, determined to keep him from zerbetting her
again.  

  "Didn't I mention the little breakaway number I packed in my
suitcase?" she panted. They were now draped halfway across the
bed and Mulder was face down with one arm behind his back in a
classic arrest position. She was holding the other one against
the bed. He craned his neck around to look at her with interest.

  "Really?" he asked in a voice several octaves higher than
normal. "This could be an interesting honeymoon."

  "Absolutely," Scully said, letting him up. She bent forward to
kiss him, running a hand down his torso as he rolled over.
"You'll look really great in those satin shorts," she smirked.

  That answer prompted more of a struggle, which ended up with
Mulder much in the same position as before, only facing the top
of the bed. She felt a little smug at her battle prowess, but
wasn't completely certain that he was trying as hard as he could
have. Dismissing the notion, she kissed him between the shoulder
blades. He shivered when her breasts touched his back.  

  "Mulder, I have only one complaint about this position," she
said. He grunted in response. She had trapped his wrists under
the pillows below his head and he was trying to free them, but
years of autopsies had made her hands very strong. 

  "What's that?" he asked, after failing to loosen her locked
grip on his wrist.

  She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "I can't ride you
like the pony I always wanted but never got if you're facing
that way." She released his wrists as his breath whistled out of
him in shocked surprise. She hovered above him as he rolled
over, then resumed her position from before, straddling him.

  He goggled at her for a moment, stunned into silence by her
innuendo, then recovered enough to say, "I'd like to point out
Scully, that any side benefit you might get from said 'ride'
would be greatly improved if you actually took off your pants." 


  "You think so?" she asked. 

  "I don't like to brag," Mulder said modestly while smiling. He
reached his now free hand up to trace the outline of her right
breast then covered it. "You know," he said conversationally,
"you could've had a ride anytime you wanted this week." He
glanced up at her from underneath his lashes. 

  She trapped his hand over her heart with both of hers, not
wanting to lose the playful mood they had started the day with.
Mulder was transparent in many ways. He'd often touch her near
her heart when he was saying something he particularly wanted
her to hear. "Technically, I think I could get a ride any old
time I want, couldn't I, Mulder?" she fired back.

  "Yes," he said sincerely, then emphasized, "Any day, any
time."

  "I know that, Mulder," she said, "and my not wanting to have
sex with you this week had nothing to do with anything other
than having my period."

  "Are you sure about that?" Mulder asked thoughtfully. She
resisted the urge to smack him. 

  "Yes," she responded firmly. "It's too messy."

  "Sex is messy," he announced, tugging at her bottoms.

  "Not that messy," she muttered, shifting so that she could
help him.  She was suddenly annoyed with her sleepwear and
irritated that he was right about that, at least. 

  "Have you ever?" Mulder began, but she bent forward and kissed
him, swallowing the inevitable question.

  "Mulder," she said when they came up for air. "I missed you.
Can we just focus on where we are right now? Please?" She flung
her pajama top off the bed, then looked down at him. He was
flushed and smiling at her, his eyes full of lust and promise.
 
  "I can do that," he said easily. His hands began to roam over
her skin, traveling from the sensitive skin of her thighs up
over her belly. "Oh, and Scully?"

  "Hmm..." she murmured, intent upon other matters.

  "Yippee-ki-yo ki-ay!"

*~* *~*

  "What're we doing now?" he asked, after silence had prevailed
for some time. Scully stirred from her light doze. The bright
June sunlight poured into the room, filtered only by the clean
white curtains. Now and then, a passing breeze stirred them and
cast interesting shadows upon the floor. 

  They were still in bed. Scully was curled up in front of him,
nestled into the bend of his body. His right hand drew lazy
circles on the soft skin of her stomach as they drowsed. 

  "This is good," Scully remarked lazily. "We could keep doing
this for awhile." He nodded and kissed the warm skin of her
shoulder. 

  "I'd actually vote for staying in bed, if there's a motion on
the floor," he said. He continued kissing her clavicle as she
rolled a little out of his embrace and onto her back.

  "Permanently?" she queried. "Or just this morning?"

  He shrugged and kissed her neck. "Permanently does r sound
good, but I'd settle for all day." He drew back and frowned at
the red marks on her white skin. "Although I think I'll go shave
first." He kissed her and gave her a sharp squeeze. "Meet you
back here in three minutes?"

  She raised an eyebrow. "What about food?" 

  "We can eat in bed," he offered helpfully. 

  "Uh huh, but what about food?" she asked plaintively.

  Mulder grinned in feigned shock at his partner. "Who are you
and what have you done with the real Dana Scully?" he asked.  

  She shrugged. "Oh, please. When you leave me that kind of
opening..." She shrieked as he blew a wet kiss onto her belly
and then rapidly shifted out of the line of fire. 

  When he returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, Scully
was sitting up in the bed with a bowl of fruit salad in her
hands and a basket of baked goods next to her. She had a
suspicious expression on her face. "There's an awful lot of food
in that refrigerator, Mulder," she said.

  "Yes," he answered. "I am capable of planning ahead, you
know."

  He jumped onto the bed and she scrambled to pick up her bowl,
squinting at him with mild annoyance. He lay down next to her,
but propped himself up against the foot of the bed so that he
was facing her. He rustled through the basket, looking for
something good.  

  "I know that," she reproved in a mildly curious tone, "but I'm
just wondering who purchased all this food for you."

  "You put clothes on," he said accusatorily, then uncovered one
of her feet. Her pedicure was growing out, a testament to how
busy she had been. He kissed her little toes, then took a bite
of a muffin.

  "Mulder, my feet are dirty!" she scolded. "Besides, it's just
a shirt. I agreed to 'stay in bed all day', not 'stay in bed,
naked all day'."

  He raised a finger in contention. "Next time I'll be more
specific with my motions, because frankly, staying in bed naked
all day was the point. And point number two," he raised a second
finger, "the caretaker, who cleaned the hell out of this house,
bought all the food. I doubt the top of your foot is filthy from
your little jaunt into the other room."

  "Point three," Scully interrupted and raised her middle
finger, waving it at him. "A little mystery is good for a
relationship." He swallowed some muffin and began choking. "I
mean, you with your suddenly appearing real estate and
caretakers, hardly have a leg to stand on. Plus, you're an
exhibitionist and it's only a T-shirt."

  He sighed. "See, this is why I don't talk about the money. No
matter what I say, I sound like a pretentious snob." He sat up
and spoke in a firm voice. "I have a caretaker for this house,"
he said "and for the other ones I inherited. What else am I
supposed to do? Let them look crummy and piss off the
neighbors?"

  He watched her digesting the information for a moment, and
then she nodded. "No, you're right. I guess I'm feeling a little
weird about this. I mean, my family didn't have a lot of money
growing up, but I think maybe I'm feeling a little put because
you've always been kind of?" she shrugged "secretive is the word
that comes to mind. I suspected you had money, Mulder -- your
clothes when we first met, Oxford, growing up here. It was a
safe bet. I guess I just don't think of you this way. I mean,
why do you live in that crummy little apartment? Why were you
worried about depositing your check a couple of months ago?" 

  He sighed again. "I support myself. I don't live off that
money." She watched him with her implacable blue eyes, clearly
unsatisfied with that explanation. He petted the smooth white
skin of her calf, relishing the curve of her leg. "I admit that
I have a strange relationship with the money. I didn't do
anything to earn it other than to be born." He shrugged. "In my
father's family, money validates things for people, informs the
way they think, how they judge people. I made a decision a long
time ago that I was not going to be like that. Maybe I swung a
little bit too far the other way, I don't know." 

  Scully looked around the comfortable room that they were
laying in. It was tastefully furnished with a few good pieces,
but it all had a truly lived in air. This was not an observation
that she could have made about her erstwhile mother-in-law's
home. "Did your mother's parents feel that way?"

  "No," Mulder said definitively, "my grandparents didn't
believe that money determined character." He let the room grow
quiet; after a while he looked at Scully to find her looking out
the window with a speculative expression on her face. "What?" he
asked. 

  "It's a beautiful day, Mulder," she said wistfully. "It looks
so warm and sunny out there."

  "Are you putting a new motion on the floor, Scully?" he asked,
"'cause I've got an idea, if you are?" he trailed off
meaningfully as her eyebrow raised.

*~* *~*

  "Mulder!" she hissed from the open door of the deck. She
couldn't believe what she was seeing, much less what she'd
allowed herself to be talked into. He ignored her, continuing to
string up the hammock between two trees in the wide backyard,
whistling lightly.

  He was stark naked, his only adornment the wedding ring she'd
put on his finger a few weeks ago.

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he sang in a horrible
falsetto without turning around. He was pulling on the knots on
the hammock, testing their sturdiness. She could see the long
muscles in his back ripple all the way down across his backside
and found herself enjoying the view, despite the absurdity of
the situation. 

  "I can't do this, Mulder!" she stage-whispered to him.

  He dropped his shoulders and sighed, turning around as she
stepped out tentatively onto the deck. She was wearing a toga
made from one of the bedsheets and stopped to pick up the
trailing end. "Hey!" he said firmly, "put on a pair of shoes
before you walk across the deck!" She rolled her eyes at him.
She wished she'd had a camera to record him walking across the
aged deck in moccasins that appeared to be thirty years old and
nothing else. It seemed more than a little silly. "I'm not
kidding," he said, "the deck is full of splinters. I need to
replace it and I haven't gotten around to it." She sighed and
put on a faded and paint-spattered pair of canvas boat shoes
from the pile next to the door.

  "Mulder," she said in a low voice, "this was not what I had in
mind when I said I wanted to go out."

  "Scully!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. She jumped. He
did it again, this time drawing her name out into a Stanley
Kowalski-style bellow, complete with out-flung arms. He turned
and looked around at the wide vista of the green yard, hands on
hips. "You hear that?"

  "What?" she asked. "I can't hear anything."

  "Exactly," he said.

  "Of course, my ears are still ringing," she interrupted. "And
what exactly, was the point of that?"

  "Scully," he said, as if talking to a fractious child. He
walked to the deck stairs, then slipped back into his moccasins
and strode toward her as if he always walked around outside
nude. "I don't have any neighbors up here," he gestured around
the yard, "which is part of the reason I like it so much.
There's conservation land on two sides of this property and the
nearest house is acres away. Caleb knows that we came here for a
honeymoon. He's not expecting to see us until we go to sign
papers."

  She had allowed herself to be drawn out onto the deck, but
drew the sheet around herself reflexively at the mention of
names. Mulder tugged on her hand, and she stepped out a little
further into the open air, feeling curiously exposed despite the
fact that she was actually more thoroughly covered up than when
she usually left the house. "Although he and Elizabeth did
invite us to dinner," he said teasingly and laughed as she took
a step back. "On Sunday, Scully. I'm sure we'll be dressed by
then. Besides, I keep telling you that it's not a big deal up
here."

  "I don't believe you, Mulder," she said sternly.

  He laughed, but they had made it to the deck edge. "I actually
have proof of this, Scully. We could wander over to just about
any of the beaches up here if you'd like to view this proof for
yourself."

  She raised an eyebrow. 

  "Indian Guide's honor," he said. "Up-island is clothing
optional."

  "And of course, you opted out," she said.

  He shrugged, "Yes, I did." He clambered up onto the hammock
and she eased up beside him, struggling to keep her toga wrapped
while he tugged at it. She slapped at his hands and he laughed
and lay down. "I've always hated wearing a suit to swim because
of it. What?" he asked at her snort.

  She smiled as she poked a foot out of the sheet into the warm
June breeze. "I was thinking that explained the Speedo."

  He chuckled. "No, that was the European influence. I had to
buy new trunks when I got to school and, well ? it was the least
of many evils."

  "You do realize that most of the other guys at the FBI pool
thought you were just showing off, don't you?" 

  Mulder flashed her a grin, crossing his long legs at the ankle
after he'd started them rocking. "The truth is out there,
Scully. I've had a lifelong belief in not hiding it."

  She punched him in the shoulder and he chuckled, pulling her
against him and trying to insinuate his hands against her skin.
"How's about you shed your cocoon, my little pupa?"

  "I'm fine, thanks," Scully said. Mulder sighed. "Aside from
being modest, I don't want to get sunburned." 

  He opened an eye and gazed down at her. "I think there's some
sun block in the house," he said. 

 "Let's just rest a bit," she said, listening to the quiet
around them. It was only disturbed by the sound of the wind in
the grass and the trees and the occasional birdsong. It was
Mulder's turn to doze in the sun-dappled shade of their hammock,
but he roused when she spoke again.

  "I never pictured your childhood like this," she said,
adjusting in the hammock so that she was lying on her side. She
was pressed up right against him because his weight made him
lower in the hammock than she. Mulder's purposeful tugging at
her sheet had been partially successful. She lay only loosely
enveloped in her toga. The trailing ends of the sheet made a
soft noise as they ran back and forth on the grass.

  "Lying nude in a hammock?" Mulder asked lazily. "Funny, I'm
pretty sure I pictured you lying nude in a hammock."

  She smiled against his shoulder, "Living in the country," she
said. "I always think of you as being such a city slicker." 

  "Hmm ? " he said, "I like it all. I loved growing up here, but
I was always so excited when we went to Boston or to New York.
All the people," his voice had a dreamy quality, "rushing
around. It was fascinating."

  "Did you go to the city a lot?" 

  "We went to Boston to visit my father's parents," he said,
"but that wasn't the fun part of being there. When we'd go to
buy school clothes and visit my Uncle Thomas, that was fun."

  "You had an uncle named Thomas?" Scully asked and added, "and
your father's name was William?" She leaned against his chest,
exposing her shoulder to the warm air. "Mulder, why on Earth did
they name you Fox?"

  He sighed. "Mulder family tradition decrees that the eldest
son gets named the maternal grandmother's last name and the
father's first."

  "You're the eldest son," Scully pointed out. 

  "Yes, indeedy," Mulder concurred.

  "So, you're telling me that if we had a son, we'd have to call
him O'Brien Fox Mulder?" 

  Mulder laughed out loud. "It's certainly an argument for only
having girls," he said on a sigh, but he opened an eye before he
kissed her. 

  "I'm OK, Mulder," she stated firmly. "I figured there had to
be a good reason you had that name," she remarked wryly as
Mulder groaned  "but what I don't understand is that if you
liked your grandparents, why do you hate your name so much?"
  
  He hesitated for a long time before answering. "It's
complicated.  My name was a battleground in my family. My
grandfather thought that it was a WASP affectation and even
though he had rejected the traditions he'd been raised with, the
idea of naming a child after a living relative rankled him. And
... " he paused again, "he disliked my father intensely."

  "Because he wasn't Jewish?"  She asked. 

  Mulder shook his head.  "Neither was Leo, really." He rushed
on when Scully made a demurring noise. "No, honestly, Scully. My
grandfather escaped Holland before he was transported to the
camps, but when so many of his family and his friends didn't, he
stopped believing in God. He refused to accept that the God he
had been raised to believe in would allow his Chosen People to
be slaughtered. Therefore, he believed that there were no Chosen
People, and no God."  

  Looking pensive, Scully slid her hand across Mulder's chest,
caressing the sun-warmed flesh over his heart. 

  "What?" he asked when she remained silent.

   She hesitated, "So, if it wasn't about religion," she asked,
"why did your grandfather dislike your father?"

  Mulder sighed. "Leo suspected my father harbored war criminals
in his job for the State Department." 

  Scully made a low note of surprise in her throat. "Is that
true?" she asked in a neutral tone.

  "I don't know," Mulder said. They swung back and forth for a
while and Scully drew circles on his chest while she waited for
him to continue speaking. "You saw the pictures of the men that
used to come to our barbecues, Scully. When I was little, maybe
5 or so, Leo said that one of them was a Nazi scientist. He was
insistent about it, even though my father denied it. My father
convinced my mother that Leo was crazy." He shook his head. "Leo
never came to my parents' house again. Never. Sam and I used to
come here to visit Katje and Leo when they were here for the
summers."

  "It must have been hard for you, knowing that your grandfather
and father didn't get along."

  "I know it sounds strange to say, but it wasn't. It was just
the way it was. My father's family didn't like my mother. My
mother's father didn't like my father. My family was always sort
of fragmented, but I didn't really understand it until I was
older. Leo wasn't really a kid person, so we spent most of our
time with my grandmother when we were up here."

  "You make it sound like it's so far away from Chilmark," she
teased.

  "It's a good bike ride," Mulder answered, "especially with a
slowpoke little sister who's stopping to look at every pretty
bird and flower along the way, and hoping to see the deer in the
State Forest."

  "You used to ride up here by yourselves?" Scully sounded
surprised.

  "This is the country, Scully. Only the really rich summer
people came up here when I was a kid. Everybody else was down
island in the towns. It was safe." He smiled ruefully. "I think
that's why my father wanted us to live here. He thought that
we'd be safer here on an island than in Boston or D.C." He shook
his head. "It really doesn't make any sense when you think about
it. What?" he said.

  Scully shook her head and turned over in the hammock to stare
up at the impossibly blue June sky. "I guess I just never
thought of you this way, Mulder. When I think about your family,
I never think about anybody other than Samantha, or maybe your
mother. It just all seems so sad." For a while the only sound
was the creaking of the hammock and the whispering of the breeze
in the grass. "Is that why you don't talk about it?" 

  "Maybe," he answered. He was staring up at the high cirrus
clouds. "I always hated the pitying looks that I got more than
the suspicious ones, but ? none of that happened here. This
place," he gestured at the yard around them, "was always special
and even now when my grandparents are gone, this place holds
that for me." He gathered her up against him. "I've never
brought anybody else to this place, Scully," he whispered, "just
you." Scully felt herself blushing to the roots of her hairline.
"This is my secret from the rest of the world, and I've never
shared it with anybody," he kissed her brow, "but you. I love
this place, and I don't want your thoughts of it to be tainted
by a past you can only imagine. It wasn't all bad for me here.
This is where it was wonderful. I want you to feel that." 

  She raised her face to his and he kissed her softly and then
with more purpose when she opened her mouth. She reached up to
kiss him, wrapping her arms around his neck and Mulder finally
got what he'd wanted all morning as she popped out of the
coverage of the sheet. He stroked the smooth skin of her back as
the sun shone down on them and began tugging at the sheet that
covered her hips as he tried to urge her to her back. The
hammock swung erratically and Scully broke away. "You'll flip us
over if you keep doing that, Mulder." 

  "Scully," he growled, "take that stupid sheet off."

  "I will," she said in a sly voice, "but you're going to have
to let me drive, partner." At Mulder's puzzled expression, she
added, "unless you want us to end up in traction."

  He sighed and threw his hands out in resignation as Scully
carefully moved to straddle him. He'd managed to end up lying on
part of the sheet in his effort to unwrap her, and when she
pulled it out from underneath him she gave his backside a good
squeeze. She settled herself carefully over him in the hammock,
the now freed sheet thrown over her shoulders like a cape.
"Scully," Mulder warned, plucking at the sheet. She smirked as
she sunk down on him, waiting until they were totally joined to
fling the sheet off her shoulders.

  "Mulder," she murmured throatily, "no one would ever believe
how long you were celibate or that we just had sex maybe an hour
ago from the way you're behaving."

  He grunted as she levered herself up and down, helping her
lift her hips as the hammock swayed at their motions. She
planted her hands on his chest, bracing herself as he swiveled
underneath her. This time, she groaned at the contact. Mulder
smiled at her saucily, his point made. 

  For her part, Scully felt the perfect sybarite, exposed as she
was to the open air and the sunshine, Mulder's strong hands
wrapped around her hips, his warm flesh beneath and inside her.
She felt a surge of unaccustomed joy at the freedom of it all
and threw her head back, watching a plane miles above them slide
soundlessly across the perfect sky. She turned her attention to
more earthbound matters as Mulder surged below her. She ran her
hands along his torso. "Mulder," she said to him tenderly. He
was watching her intently through heavy-lidded eyes. "Thank
you."

  "For what?" he asked softly.

  "For bringing me here," she answered easily. "For making me
take a break. I don't think I knew how much I needed this, until
now."

  He smiled at her double entendre, but she cut off any
rejoinder he might have made by grasping him with her body.
"Scull ?" Mulder gritted out. A cooling breeze stole over her
skin and she felt anew the voluptuous shock of what they were
doing as the birds sang in the trees around them and the hammock
swayed steadily. "Kiss me," he implored.

  She bent forward to try to accommodate him, but physics was
not on their side. Mulder strained up on his elbows only to be
unable to reach her as the hammock wobbled alarmingly. The
knotted rope behind Mulder's head slid a few inches down the
tree it encircled. Mulder seemed not to notice, groaning in
exasperation at not being able to reach her. She ground down on
him to distract him just as his pelvis rose up. The intensity of
the contact forced her to close her eyes. She had never given
credence to the notion that the Earth could move, but for a
second there?

  "Scully," Mulder rasped out urgently before she cut him off.

  "I'll kiss you all you want in two more minutes, Mulder, I
promise," she panted, rising and falling against him
insistently, "I just can't, right now -- Oh!" She clutched the
sides of the hammock and rode out her orgasm, distantly feeling
the response she provoked from Mulder. In the aftermath, she
felt boneless with satiation and sank onto Mulder's chest to
cuddle. Her head was spinning and the swaying of the hammock
caused her sparking nerve endings to reignite now and then. She
literally hummed with pleasure.

  "Scully," Mulder said. When she didn't respond, he repeated
her name.

  "I'm resting, Mulder," she said. Her voice sounded blurry,
even to her own ears. She felt dizzy.

  "I appreciate that, Scully, but I've got a little problem
here."

  Reluctantly, she raised her head to question him, only to find
herself forced to look down. "Mulder!" she said into his
reddened face. "How'd you get down there?" 

  He was braced against the ground by one arm, the other
clinging to the edge of the tilted hammock. The head end of the
hammock now hung more than a foot below the foot end. "I've got
no complaints with the ride, Scully, but can you help me? My big
head's filling up with blood here and it's not nearly as much
fun."