EROSION (6/10)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

Disclaimer in part one

*****

This part is pretty tame. If you're upset about that, I can direct you to some
*really* great smut pieces and you can get your sex fix. Just ask me when you
send... FEEDBACK!

*****

Gently, he was washed into morning with the gentle flow of the sea breeze.
Slowly, Mulder opened his eyes, fluttering the sleep out of the lids with his
lashes. Momentary confusion ensued when he couldn't recognize his surroundings,
but with consciousness came memory, and memory was blissful and sweet. Memory
was filled with images of last night, of firecrackers and Scully and
independence. Her lips, how they had blessed his entire body as though she were
communion and he were the redeemed. Yawning, Mulder reached for her in the bed,
but found it to be empty. His arms could not take her in, his lips could not
find her hair, and his eyes could not caress her sleeping form.
	
Blinking again, Mulder sat up in the empty bed, the sheets tucked carefully and
kindly around him. Sunlight streamed into the room in rays of dim yellow and
gold, and his mental clock told the time better than any electric contraption.
It was late morning, and the sky was overcast. There was a soft wind that
lapped against his hair, blowing the locks into his eyes. He pushed the sheets
away from his body and got out of the bed, his feet padding softly on the
carpeted floor as he searched for his Scully.
	
Out on the balcony, he found her.
	
She sat in the nude, her body obscured from his sight by the ripple and wave of
the gauze curtains. Her arms wrapped on the top of the wall, hands dangling in
the air and legs stretched out dreamily on the cushioned chair. Languidly, her
face tilted to gaze at the heavy gray of the sky, and the mild weight of the
clouds was not stiff, but rather gentle. The breeze was cooler, the air was
thicker, and thunder rumbled like rich percussion around them. Her hair was
tied back in a dark coil of red, and it licked her slim back like a ribbon. The
tender curve of her breast was just visible to him, and when she leaned her
head to the right, the thick mass of scarlet twisted around her shoulder. She
was a portrait of color, as ethereal as a Renaissance painting. 
	
Carefully, he pushed past the light curtains with his hand, stepping out on the
balcony to join her. The sky over the sea was tinting an olive green shade, and
the sea seemed like a thousand jagged shards of emerald underneath the oncoming
storm. "It's going to rain," she said when his shadow fell over the splendor of
her body. She did not turn her head, and Mulder was able to revel in her
undisputed beauty for another blissful moment. When she did turn, her
expression was not as tranquil as her heavenly body, but rather sad and weary.
It occurred to Mulder then that she was older than he had last remembered.
Scully had aged during their ten months of separation, and there was a wisdom
that had sunken into her that no one could erase. No amount of lovemaking could
revive the whim of her youth, and Mulder felt his own age settle on him like a
mantle.
	
He could remember her youth burning around her like a flame, defiance and pride
gathering around her to anoint her entire being with power. He remembered that
Dana Scully when she had first walked through his door, bearing her dignity
like a weapon more powerful than the gun the Bureau had issued her. She was a
force not to be reckoned with because of her danger. Now, she was a force not
to be reckoned with out of respect.
	
The fire inside of her hadn't died out. Instead, it simmered like old embers,
when her body was still young and her hair still vivid. There was an aura of
age that was set inside of her, and there was something inside of her that
others would consider untouchable, but Mulder recognized it, knew it well. He
was old, too. They had aged during their work, and this last separation was the
last wrinkle in their souls. 
	
Scully turned around and gave him a half-hearted smile, a smile that was a deep
dusky rose and a smile meant only for him. "You look good," she murmured, and
he shrugged. Their shared nakedness didn't bother her in the least, and there
was little regard for what the public eye might see when she turned her
attention back to the jade sea. 
	
"You look better," he sighed, standing behind her and toying with the rich
spiral of red that fell between her shoulders. "I like your hair this length."
	
"The jury's still out on that one," she said, and he gently undid the rubber
band that kept her hair together. It flew apart in his hands, the crimson
springing to life around his fingers so that it sprayed embers around his
hands. Adoringly, he ran his hands through the thick strands, the humidity
turning them into radiant curls of cherry. Humming to herself, she tilted her
head back and forth in his hands, relishing the feel of his fingers tangled so
deeply in her longer locks. "Ah, but that just scored major points with the
judge, Mulder."
	
"There are some benefits," he agreed, bending down to bury his face in the mass
of carmine curls. Scully's hair was the most pure of reds, deep as ground
cinnamon and as vibrant as the shine of an apple. It was the kind of red that
was too dark and rich to be called orange, and he was certain that no child
ever dared to taunt her with "carrot-top" as a child. 
	
A sharp dance of lightning in the clouds flashed over her hair, and the wind
picked up speed while dropping a few degrees. The heat that was so native of
the South was retreating to make way for the coming storm, and she drew her
knees up to her bare breasts, finding warmth in her own skin. Mulder saw the
beginnings of gooseflesh prickle her smooth, roseate skin, and crouched behind
her on the floor. He wrapped her in his arms, suggesting that she use his body
as a blanket, and the idea was as tempting as it was delightful. "What is it in
life that you always wanted to do?" she asked him, and he frowned.
	
"I already did what I always wanted to do," he simply said, and she frowned in
return. Her face was pensive and her arms lighted over his, smoothing the dark
brown hair on his forearms with her palms.
	
"But is there anything that you wanted to do that your other goals made
impossible for you?" she furthered. Mulder frowned in contemplation this time,
kissing the back of her neck beneath her mass of dark red hair.
	
"I always wanted to make love to you," he began, and she smiled, bending to
kiss his wrist in gratitude. "And I always wanted to see Rome."
	
"Rome?"
	
He smiled at her puzzlement. "Doesn't it sound inviting? Everyone says that
Rome is like another world. It's as though you leave everything behind, leave
the real world and go to a place where everything is ancient and beautiful."
	
"It's escape," she sighed, and he nodded into her hair. Rome was famous for its
paradise, for its offering of solitude and secrecy. Of course a man as troubled
and driven as Mulder would dream for Rome. Though it sounded odd to begin with,
it made perfect sense when she thought deeper about it. Suddenly, she wanted to
see Rome with him. To do all of the tourist attractions. See the Pantheon,
visit the Vatican, taste the fine food... 

Hear that velveteen voice of his murmur Italian fluently.
	
"I would take you to Rome," he said, and she chuckled.
	
"I would go."
	
"I can't ever leave you," he confessed, and she leaned onto his shoulder,
feeling her hair rise and fall with the wind. Bolts of blue lightning crackled
in the clouds again, and she didn't close her eyes against the electric light.
	
She sighed. "I know," she murmured, her lashes falling softly on her cheek.
"But you have to." 
	
Neither one said a word, dreaming of Rome while thunder rolled and rumbled like
velvet.
	
*****

With the threat of the storm turning in the distance, the resort-goers had
abandoned the beach once more, leaving it open for the two to brave the storm
and walk amiably down the stretch. Scully was rediscovering conversation with
Mulder, remembering why she had always liked talking to him. There was no
predictability to his diatribe, and the exchange was always lively and
intelligent. He would go off on tangents about his basic political views, all
of which were fascinating in their idealism. Wistfully, Mulder spoke of a
government that governed justice rather than greed, and while there was
cynicism, it was always dotted with hope. Mulder was an optimistic creature in
spite of all his jaded years, hoping for utopia when he had only lived in hell.
	
Or Mulder would excitedly relate a book that he'd read, his eidetic memory
proving colorful and astonishing when he recited passages from the novel that
he'd enjoyed. He relayed poetry he'd read to her, and she discovered that he
had excellent taste in literature. There were places he had been that he
vividly described, telling her about the Garden District in Louisiana or a
small deli he frequented in New York City. Mulder's eyes lit up when she told
him she'd never seen "The Boxer", and he forced her to promise to rent the
movie if they didn't catch it on vacation.
	
Everything he said was heartbreakingly revealing. The various cities he had
visited told her about his struggle for employment, and the inspired hilarious
imitations of landlords spoke volumes about his poor financial status. All of
the books and fine art he'd experienced spoke of his newfound free time. But
she did notice one good thing about Mulder's new experiences -- the writing.
All of his language, all of the vividness... Perhaps he had found a niche
there. Perhaps he could gather some happiness.
	
She sighed and leaned against him, feeling the wind creep beneath her clothing
and stir against her skin. His arm reached around her shoulder, squeezing
tightly, and she gazed out over the murky ocean. Of all the loving descriptions
that Mulder had offered her, he never told her about the beauty of the water.
Perhaps it wasn't a lack of appreciation that prevented him from telling her
about the ocean; he simply knew that she already knew about it. 

From childhood, Scully had been taught the majesty of the sea. Her family
boasted five generations of seafarers, from fishermen to naval officers. Her
brothers were seamen, her father was buried in the waters, and her mother came
from a family of sailors. Naturally, there had always been such a desire with
her, to float upon the crystalline ocean and feel at the mercy of the wild
waters. Perhaps that was her calling, to dive into the waters and be at one
with the depths of the ocean.

"Scully?" Mulder asked from behind her, and she felt his hand touch the exposed
delicacy of her collarbone. His finger trailed the hollow of her throat, and
her heart rose with the swell of the waves at his simple touch. There were so
many simplicities out of Mulder's complexities, and she was learning them all.
He found solace in gentle things like conversation and chaste kisses, liked
giving her feathery wisps of caresses in the tamest parts of her body. And
these wistful touches were the most arousing strokes she had ever experienced.

"I think I want to live here," she said, and his hand trailed down to the small
of her back, where he fit his hand into the gentle flare he had always
frequented during their partnership.

"Why here?"

The inky green of the sky swirled around, looming dangerously close to the
shore. She turned her head in the wind again, deciding that she liked the way
that her longer hair moved with the storm. "My father was once stationed in
North Carolina, in a small town based on the Navy and on shrimping," she
explained. "And I loved it when we lived there. And I love it here now." She
smiled, turning her head to him. "Do you think that's strange?"

He shook his head. Nothing about Scully was strange. Her odd moments of fancy
delighted him, knowing that she was comfortable enough with him to indulge in
spontaneity. "Not at all," he said easily, and he leaned into her ear
mischievously. "But if you decide to be a shrimp boat cap'n, can I be your
first mate?" he drawled, and she elbowed him in the ribs.

"I liked *Forrest Gump*."

They chuckled for a second, and then Mulder stepped out from behind her,
standing next to her at the water's edge. There was lightning crackling in the
sky, but not a drop of rain. The wind blew ferociously at them, but Mulder
didn't mind a bit. It just gave him an excuse to admire her, more lights for
him to worship her in. Casually, he reached into his jean pocket and pulled out
a pack of cigarettes, removing one and then trying to spark his lighter. Scully
turned her head to him, perplexed.

"When the hell did you start smoking?" she asked, her voice accusatory, and he
shrugged. Under the scolding heat of her gaze, he felt shameful about trying to
light up.

"I used to smoke when I worked with VCU," he admitted, "but I decided to give
it up when I started work on the X-Files. I, um, almost burned down the office
when I fell asleep in the basement with a lit cigarette." She quirked her mouth
at him in a gesture that said "I told you so", and he nodded his eyebrows in
agreement. "Yeah, I know. So, I quit smoking and started eating sunflower
seeds."

"Sunflower seeds?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, well, some people have nicotine gum and others have the
patch. Sunflower seeds keep my mouth busy and my mind off of smoking. And
they're healthier than cigarettes, anyway." He continued working with the
lighter, and she tightened her jaw disapprovingly.

"Why did you start smoking again?" she asked, her eyes hard and piercing.
Jesus, he'd forgotten what Scully was like when she was pissed. He stopped
messing around with the lighter and let the cigarette hang off of his full
lower lip while he spoke. It was a habit that Scully found erotically annoying,
like watching Mulder chew coffee stirrers at work. The motion was irritating
but the mouth was incredible.

"Boredom. Lack of giving a shit. I don't know, maybe the seeds stopped being
good enough a substitute," he offhandedly said, and she finally took the
cigarette out of his mouth and snapped it in half. She briefly entertained the
idea of throwing the remains out to sea for further emphasis, but decided not
to be a litterbug. 

"Well, you're not going to smoke anymore," she strictly said, her eyes daring
him to argue. 

Furrowing his brow, he cocked his head at her. "And why the hell not?" But when
she gave her reason for her anti-smoker attitude, it was enough to make him
want to break all the rest of his cigarettes and throw the lighter in the sand.

"They could give you cancer."

Silently, he licked his lips, the craving still there but not nearly as
demanding as it had been before. The reminder of Scully's disease was enough to
shut him up, and another rumble of thunder pounded in agreement. He placed the
lighter back in his pocket and looked at the woman next to him. Her eyes were
narrowed in thought, her jaw stubborn and her chin jutted and proud. When she
wore this expression, she seemed to be the most scrutinizing person on the face
of the planet. Her hair brushed around her face, torrents and torrents of red,
and she let it fly in the gloomy wind.

"Scully, I'm sorry," he apologized, and she looked up at him, turning that
inquisitive face on him. 

"They're just cigarettes, Mulder," she said, her voice calm and unbroken. 

He swallowed, hooking his thumbs on the belt loops of his jeans. "I never told
you this, Scully, but it's something that I needed to say. It's something I
regretted not telling you after I left, and even if you don't want to hear it,
I need to tell you this." Worried now, she brought her hand to his chin,
crooking her finger underneath it. But Mulder just dropped his face, shrugging
off her touch in what she recognized as guilt. <<Stupid man,>> she thought
venomously for a moment. <<Can't he ever figure out that I'm going to love him
no matter what he does?>> It was her weakness, loving Mulder unconditionally,
and it was what made her stay with him through all the danger.

"Say it, Mulder," she said, keeping her voice steady and her expression calm.

Mulder couldn't look her in the face, turning his eyes to the untamed ocean. "I
want to apologize for your cancer."

She was ready for this. "It's not your fault," she promised, placing her hand
on his shoulder. He didn't turn from her touch, but she felt him slouch beneath
her hand. 

"If you hadn't worked with me, you wouldn't have gotten sick. It's the simple
fact, you know it as well as I do." She sighed. It was tiring, watching him
take the blame and wear the disgrace when there was no time for it. There
wasn't supposed to be any time for regret or pain when they only had each other
for the mere span of a week. But there he was, wearing it like it was something
he had achieved, like it was a medal of shame that he'd earned. As though guilt
was an honor.

"Yes, Mulder, my work with you is what prompted my disappearance." She wasn't
going to coddle him with falsehoods and lies. It wasn't her style. "But the
fact of the matter is that I didn't have to work with you. You forget that I
have a mind of my own. You should know that by now. Even in the beginning, when
you pushed me away and kept me at a distance, it was my stubbornness that kept
me hanging on. And I will not leave you now. I promise."

"You were ready to leave yesterday," he reminded, and she held her head higher.

"Yes, I was," she agreed. "But that was yesterday. And this is today."

"And today is different?"

She nodded archly. "Yes, today *is* different." 

Amused, he gave her a half-smile. "How so?"

She smiled back in whole. "Because today, I promised you tomorrow. And I
promised you the next six days before I leave, and I promised you the same
seven days the next year, and the year after that, and so on. And I'm promising
you that yesterday won't happen again. No matter what, I will always come back
to this beach." She stroked the side of his face, beckoning him to come closer
to listen to her last words. When he did, she whispered the words against his
lips. "I will always come back to *you*."

She touched her lips to his in what would have been a mild kiss, perhaps
nothing more than a peck on the lips, but when it came to them, featherweight
touches were electric with wanting. He reacted almost instantly, brushing her
upper lip with his lower, and his fingertips waltzed over the dainty curve of
her eyebrow. Scully was a small-featured woman; her bones were fine and
carefully placed with her eyes being the most capturing feature about her. But
Mulder liked the little things that only he knew about, the little treasures
that he was constantly discovering about his ex-partner.

There were small hairs at the back of her neck that spiraled like curlicues,
and they were the deepest red out of all her hair. There were dainty little
freckles across the bridge of her nose that she left uncovered because he
complimented her on them the night before. She had a small birthmark on the
sole of her foot, and he kissed it last night after they made love for the
third time. She had a bottle of bright red nail polish in her suitcase and was
planning to paint her toenails scarlet while on the beach. Missy had done that
once when they were in California, and Scully thought that her dead sister
would have appreciated the sentiment. When Mulder had seen the bottle, she had
been certain that he would laugh at her. Instead, he had offered to do it for
her, and she had refused teasingly, calling him clumsy. They both knew that she
would cave in and that he would be granted the pedicure.

That was the Scully he had missed out on knowing all those months apart from
her, and the Scully he was thrilled to find now. Investigation had always been
Mulder's favorite part of the job, and recovering information on Scully was the
best case he'd ever been given. Now he knew that she didn't like cigarettes,
did like red toenails, and wanted to live by the sea. And he knew that she
loved him, too. He knew that somewhere in between everything he'd done to her
and everything that had happened to her because of him, she'd fallen in love
with him. Where other people harbored resentment, Dana Scully had fallen in
love. 

Now *that* was one hell of a woman.

One damn beautiful hell of a woman.

Taking her hand, he pulled her away from the water's edge and brought her to
the rocks behind them. The beach at Seabrook was lined with large, flat rocks
that led up to the cliffs where the large resort lay, an unnatural barrier that
was supposed to keep beach erosion and trespassers at bay. Mulder brought her
onto the rocks, smiling as they climbed up barefoot, and found a long one that
was large enough for two to lie there. 

When he lay down next to her, they lay flat on their backs with the comfortable
warmth of their shared familiarity and stared up at the darkening skies. Their
heads rested temple to temple, mind to mind, and their hair intertwined as the
wind blew above them, mixing his mahogany locks with her vermilion curls. It
was a complementary companionship, just like them. When the lightning flickered
over the Atlantic again, Mulder spoke.

"When we were working together, I had to hold back from you," he said, and she
stretched her arm over his chest, playing with the collar to his button-down
shirt. "I wanted you so badly sometimes that I couldn't face you without the
certainty that you would know it. I kept telling myself to wait for the right
time, but..." He shrugged. 

Her hand rested on her own stomach, and she tapped her navel in thought. 

He continued. "Scully, do you wonder if we missed it?"

She frowned, but didn't meet his eyes. "If we missed what?"

"If there was a time it would be right and we would be together... Did we miss
it somewhere along the line?" 

The question pained her more than possible. All the years, all the
opportunities for her to take him inside of her home and never let him go, and
they had never taken a single chance. They'd had six years to make it work, and
they never took their chance until after the opportunities were gone. It was
sadly ironic without a trace of humor in sight. How they could come together
only everything had fallen to hell and they were never supposed to be with each
other again.

If they had missed their chance, she regretted that more than anything else in
the entire world. He was the best out of her life. She knew that now. Any
insecurity she held about Mulder was gone, because she knew that he was the
most extraordinary thing to happen to her in her entire life. Loving Mulder.
Being loved by Mulder. These were events that she might have missed out on, and
was holding onto by a bare thread now.

"I hope we didn't miss it," she whispered. 

It would be the saddest part of all.

*****

(end part six)

*****

EROSION (7/10)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

Disclaimer in part one

This is a sad one. Sorry. I never promised you a rose garden... BTW, read that
book. Brilliant. :) Sorry for the ad there; read the story. I'll shut up and
let you go on... For now... ::cackles::

*****

He had never unpacked his suitcase. 

In the end, he thought it would be too hard to repack all of his belongings and
retract himself from the house of love they would have built on the island. And
when it was finally time for him to leave, it was hard enough for him to zip up
the suitcase and bring it out to the rental car, placing it in the trunk and
trying not to run back to the house.
	
Scully was leaving later on that day; her flight took off at a different time.
She would have a little time to herself on the beach before going back to
Maryland, and she had opted to take that time for herself rather than see him
to the airport. There were too many people who could see them at the airport,
anyway. Too many possibilities to be caught red-handed at their secret game.
	
Standing by his car, she watched him slam the trunk of the Taurus and looked
out at the sea with the memories of the past week. Add them to her journal of
Mulder. Answer the questions you had always wanted to know the answers to. Like
he called out her last name instead of her first when he climaxed, and yes, it
had felt appropriate and right. He would have been making love to a stranger if
he had cried Dana at his release, anyway. Not that Scully was much who she was
anymore, but she was herself again when she was with him. She knew how his kiss
tasted when he was tender. Warm and slow, like honey. Mulder tasted like honey,
moved like honey, sung like honey in her veins.
	
Last night, when they had finished making love, he had cried. 
	
But she didn't want to think about that now.
	
His watch told him that it was time for him to leave. His heart begged him to
stay. These two contradictory forces battled with each other, and once again,
it was the hand of Dana Scully and her common sense that lay on his arm and
decided for him. "You'll miss your plane if you stay any longer," she gently
said. "It's forty-five minutes out of John's Island, and another twenty to the
airport. And you have to check your luggage, and board the plane. And you'll
catch the bridge."
	
He smiled at her calculations. "How do you know I'll catch the bridge?"
	
She smiled at his misfortune. "Because you have shitty luck."
	
And they both smiled at their synchronism.
	
He held the key to the house in his hand, and he swallowed hard when looking at
her. He thought for a moment before talking, and then decided that even if she
didn't need to hear it, he needed to say it. "You know, Scully, all these
years, you've been my lifeline," he began, leaning on the Taurus and holding
her hand in his. "From the beginning to the end of our partnership, you're
what's kept me going." The tears were threatening to spill again; she saw them
even when he didn't realize it, and she prayed that he wouldn't cry. If he
cried, she wouldn't be able to make him go. "And now, I have to leave you."
	
"I'm still your lifeline," she promised. 
	
"It's not the same," he whispered, and there was a glitter in his eyes that was
the beginning of tears. //Don't cry. Don't cry.// "It won't ever be the same."
	
"I'll still see you next year."
	
His lower lip wavered, and his chin trembled. "It's not the same."
	
No, it wasn't. And she knew it just as well as he did. Ten months of separation
from him had taught her that promises and assurances meant nothing when they
couldn't be made in person, and that one week couldn't last a year of
depression and anxiety. Though it might lighten the hurt a little, in the end,
the aching would crash over them again. They both had shitty luck, shitty
lives, and shitty, shitty existences. She touched his hand with hers, knowing
she would miss it, and wondered if it would have been easier if they had never
met here to begin with.
	
But the ecstasy of her memory told her that if she had lived the rest of her
life without the knowledge of him as a lover, she would have regretted it into
her grave. If she had missed this week, she would have died knowing that she
could have had a real love and never did. All she would have had was the memory
of a beautiful man's love, always phantom and never realized. She regretted so
much already... She didn't need to regret that, too.
	
"Scully," he said, his voice catching in his throat but then steadying. She
sighed; he wasn't going to cry. "Maybe it would better for you if you, well, if
you met someone. If you got married." He swallowed. "If you got married, they
would never suspect..."
	
"No," she said, and she was pained to find herself near tears. "I'm sorry,
Mulder. I know that you mean that with the best of intentions, but... I'm
already married. To you." She lifted her head to smile at him, commitment
burning in her eyes. "It wouldn't feel right to me, and it wouldn't be fair to
the other man, either."
	
Secretly, he was relieved she had turned down his offer while being
disheartened by the fact that she couldn't let him go. The devotion and the
love behind her words and eyes touched him, but the fact that she was keeping
him made him realize that she would never find a happy life. Her existence was
just as meaningless without their old job and partnership, and now they were
leaving paradise to burn in hell again.
	
"Okay," he whispered, and his hand trembled over the top of her head. "Another
year."
	
"Another week." He wished that it were nothing more than another week. Seven
days without her, he could endure. He'd miss her like hell, but it would only
be seven days. One week was tolerable. One year seemed impossible. Tipping her
head back with his hand, he kissed her forehead, and looked sadly at her eyes.
	
"If you ever get in trouble, here's my number," he started, and she shook her
head.
	
"Don't tell me," she murmured. "I would call, and they would know." She
couldn't resist the temptation of hearing his voice if she had the number, and
seven digits would be the proverbial apple that would destroy her burning Eden.
As though life without Mulder was paradise.
	
Bowing his head, he nodded, and she bit her lip. "You have to go," she
reminded, and his eyes blinked back tears again. There was nothing more
heartbreaking than a grown man crying, especially when that grown man was hers.
If he cried, she couldn't do it. If he cried, she couldn't make him leave. She
would simply end up taking him in her arms, never letting him go, and throwing
her family and her lover's life to hell for her compassion. "And you have to go
now."
	
Startled, Mulder lifted his head and found that she wasn't pushing him away.
Scully was telling him that if he didn't leave now, she wouldn't be able to
make him leave. There was no more stalling and no more time for
procrastination. Their time together was over, and the beach would have to be
abandoned until next year. Next year, next time to see her. Next time for him
to be alive, and next time for him to be himself again.
	
Bending down, he kissed her tenderly, tasting her mouth with a wistful quality
that hadn't ever been so strong before. His tongue gently pressed the roof of
her mouth, and she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. When they
parted, he swallowed, his eyes burning. "I love you too much," he sighed, and
she shook her head.
	
"You can't love someone too much," she gently said. "But there's someone out
there who hates us. And that's why this hurts. It's not because of you, or
because of me... It's because of circumstance." She assured herself of this,
too. It wasn't her fault that he had to go. It was *them*. The invisible party
that was responsible for their suffering, and the people who deserved the
hatred she felt.
	
"I'm going to leave now," he whispered, making himself kiss her once more and
then open the door to the car. She kissed him back with a lingering mouth,
never wanting to let go of his lips and let him fall away from her.
	
"I love you, Mulder," she said, wanting him to hear those words. She needed to
know that he could put some faith, some gleaning of hope, into those words. And
a small, dark part of her was afraid that he would kill himself before the next
July. 
	
He lowered himself into the driver's seat, touched her hair again with longing,
and then touched the corner of her mouth. "I love you, Scully." And then the
door shut, his face still looking at hers with intensity that she longed for,
and drove away.

*****

Scully watched the car disappear around the bend in silence. The sound of his
engine fled her, and she willed her ears to ignore the rushing sounds of the
natural world around her. When silence ensued, she managed to walk to the
beach, her footsteps heavy and her shoulders straight. //Clinical detachment.//
It was the phrase that always got her through the hell. The phrase that kept
her sane until she was ready to let loose and weep.
	
Odd, how on a day like this, the sun could shine. Storms had passed over them
during the week, their violence almost frightening her sometimes. But today,
Mother Nature shone perfection and warmth, dancing the sunlight over the water
as though she knew nothing of two distraught lovers. It was like butterflies at
a funeral -- eerily inappropriate.
	
While people swam in the idealistic turquoise waters and others sunbathed
carelessly around her, she turned her head to watch the bystanders with a
hardened eye. There was a married couple there, lying out on beach blankets
with their eyes shut and their bodies motionless. Neither touched the other. A
small girl ran up to tell the woman something, and the woman snapped at the
child until the child gave up and returned to the sandcastle she was building.
	
It saddened Scully to see the negligence of the family. They didn't appreciate
what they had. It was love, it was stability, and it was compassion. There were
no grander forces keeping these people apart from one another. No intricate
system that forbid the other's presence. Perhaps Dana Scully was being
judgmental about this couple, presuming to know their hearts and presuming to
know their minds. But she had just spent one tremulous week in the arms of the
only part of life she liked, and she knew instinctually that it was very
different from what the foreign couple was experiencing.
	
Sitting in the wet sand where the water lapped at the shore, Scully pulled her
bare legs to her chest and remembered the past week. There were the restaurants
where she and Mulder had eaten crab legs and grits at. The Market where she had
bought a sweetgrass basket that had just been completed hours ago. The swimming
pool where Mulder had showed off his tiny red Speedo that she'd always wanted
to catch a glimpse of. There was the lovemaking. There was the beach. There
were the hours of conversation that only they understood, and the tears that
inevitably fell whenever the preciousness of their time was remembered.
	
And she remembered last night again.
	
When they made love on the balcony at sunset, the vibrant indigo dusk lighting
his eyes like violet fire, his head between her thighs and her hand wrapped
blissfully in his hair. That was beautiful, the most beautiful, and when he
entered her at last it was enough to bring her to orgasm immediately. It was
swiftly sweet without an inch of desperation, and when she opened her eyes, she
found him crying.
	
"What?" she asked, concerned, and he held her so tightly she thought she might
suffocate.
	
"Tomorrow, I'm supposed to leave, and I don't think that I can."
	
He had cried, she had swallowed tears, and in the end she was the one who was
the sensible one. She was the one who made him leave, and the one who made him
remember his duties and his promises, and she was the one who made him recall
his responsibilities. 
	
She was the one who let him go when all she wanted to do was hold him.
	
Without him there, without him to smile for and be strong for, Scully sat in
the surf and held back tears until the tide came in and tried to sweep her away
into its cool, encompassing escape.

Only when the tide tugged at her legs, pulled at her clothing, did she let
herself cry.	

Mulder was so like the tide...

*****

She was right. He had caught the bridge.
	
The plane had just reached its final cruising altitude, the seatbelt light was
off, and his seat in coach was positioned, thankfully, at the window again.
Next to him, a teenaged girl was reading a paperback, listening to some loud
rock band bark German in her ears, and chewing cinnamon gum to keep her ears
from popping. When he'd asked her to borrow some, she'd lit up like a birthday
cake and passed him two sticks of Cinnaburst. Mulder thought he might have just
made her day.
	
Glad to know that someone's day was made.
	
The airplane tilted to the side as it flew, and the beauty of the jewel-like
sky wasn't lost on him. It was as azure as her eyes. Yes, that was the color
the sky was that day. It was the exact shade of cerulean as her eyes were when
they were mirthful or laughing. When she looked at him and smiled, the blue in
her eyes sparkled like the sky did now, and these were the things he would
remember about Dana Scully. The color of her eyes when she laughed. The color
of her hair at sunrise. The taste of her mouth after she ate a caramel. Simple,
simple things. He turned his attention to the sky again, and sighed at the
clouds.
	
Mulder liked movies. It passed his hellish day and his even lonelier night, and
he frequented Blockbuster stores like mad, trying to find enough films to
satisfy his craving for company. Recently, his tastes had expanded past the
good old porno and into actual cinema, and that was where he had started
hunting down the good stuff. Along the way, he had discovered some of the best
movie titles ever known.
	
"The Twilight of the Golds." "Breaking the Waves". "Shine". These were poetic
names, names that always fit the film when he finished watching them, making
him admire the writer for the brilliance of the title and the power of the
script. Then he had found a movie title that he really loved. 

"A Walk in the Clouds". 

Mulder never rented the movie. First of all, it had Keanu Reeves in it, and
Mulder knew for a fact that there was more talent in an ash from the Cancer
Man's cigarette than in Keanu Reeves' entire body. He'd seen "Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure" and knew that that was the best performance the guy would
ever be capable of. Second, he didn't want to ruin the majesty of that perfect
title by actually seeing the movie. If the movie was awful, he would never love
the name again.
	
When he looked below him at the pillars of clouds spiraling upward on the
sapphire sky, Mulder thought of the movie again and thought of its title. These
were clouds that seemed so tangible that walking on them not only seemed
possible, it seemed inviting. The desire to fly from the plane and land in the
clouds was incredible, even if he knew that the pillow-like clouds would never
hold his weight. What would it be like to just fall, fall away from everything,
fall into the mass of light that resembled Scully's eyes?
	
Sighing, he turned his head away from the Scully-colored sky and the poignant
clouds, looking down at his folded hands. In all his years with the FBI, he'd
racked up an incalculable amount of frequent flier miles. He felt oddly out of
place sitting on a plane in jeans and a tee-shirt, thinking that he should be
wearing a suit and tie, and that instead of a punk kid sitting next to him,
there should be an immaculate, beautiful woman. 
	
It could never be. 
	
He wondered now if things would have been different if they had quit the FBI
long ago, settled for mundane jobs and each other. What if they had abandoned
everything for their love and existed safely and quietly in their own corner of
the world? The relationship wouldn't have lasted. They would have become
different people, people disgusted with the dissatisfaction of their lives.
They would have resented each other for the sacrifices they had made, and in
the end, parted on poor terms. They needed the danger, needed the fire, needed
the purpose that the FBI had given them.
	
There was no right way for Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. They had been destined
to love and destined to be thrown apart by fate. No matter what, they couldn't
win against Fate. He would have lost her no matter what he did, and this ache
in his heart would always be there.
	
He longed for her hands and the smell of her hair. Whenever it hit his nose,
that long curl of red fluttering in his face... Mulder sighed with the memory
and was slapped in the face with the knowledge that that was all it was. A
memory. A bittersweet token of a week in sanity, returning to a world where
nothing made sense and nothing made him happy. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't
fair. After all their sacrifices, all their hard work, the only thing he ever
understood and ever loved was taken away from him.
	
She was *gone*.
	
A hand touched his shoulder, but it wasn't Scully's. The teenager sitting next
to him looked at him through her dark, spiky bangs, her headphones lying around
her neck so that the German metal band shouted at him with a louder intensity.
"You okay, sir?" she asked, and he almost smiled when he detected a faint
Southern accent in her voice.
	
"Yeah," he managed, and she smiled sympathetically at him, pausing her CD
player so that the band was silenced. 
	
"I left my boyfriend today," she said. "It hurts a lot, but I know that I'll
see him again. And I'm sure that you'll see your wife, girlfriend, hell,
boyfriend even, again soon." Her naive reassurance was vaguely comforting, and
he decided that he might be able to brighten up her day.
	
"I'm not gay."
	
He was right. She beamed at him in a radiant smile. //Not nearly as radiant as
Scully's.// "Well, it's nice to know that *someone* in this goddamn planet will
lay a woman these days," she staunchly said, and he almost laughed again.
Almost. She patted his hand one more time, lingering a little longer than he
usually would allow, and then put the headphones on again to listen to her
foreign band yell some more to her in a language she probably didn't understand
anyway. 
	
He caught himself thinking about the bridge again. She knew he would catch it.
She was the one who understood every fiber of his soul, even if she didn't know
it. She could predict his unpredictability, make sense of his complexities even
when he himself couldn't. She was the missing half of Mulder, what made him
work and what made him function. Without her, he was worthless, useless, and
empty.
	
He was empty now.
	
Mulder wondered how he had ever let the best of him slip away, and was saddened
by the knowledge.
	
The best of him had gently reminded him that he had to go.

*****

(end part seven)

*****

Author's Note: The German band the girl sitting next to Mulder is listening to
is Rammstein, which is an in-joke between Kristin and myself. Rammstein rocks.
:D

*****

EROSION (8/10)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

Disclaimer in part one

*****

Indecisively, Mulder juggled the package of cigarettes from palm to palm,
letting the Camels jump between his hands as he decided whether or not to smoke
them or not. He'd purchased the smokes on a whim, believing that sunflower
seeds and chewing gum simply wasn't sustaining him during the hellish winter
season, and that staving off boredom required something more potent to satisfy
his oral fixation.
	
So, on the way home from the newspaper, Mulder had stopped off at the
convenience store and bought five things: sunflower seeds, aspirin, a six-pack
of Coors, a lighter, and the cigarettes. The clerk had thought nothing of his
purchase, but Mulder had read a thousand analytical pieces of BS into the
plastic bag he'd taken out of the store.
	
He wasn't buying cigarettes as an alternative to sunflower seeds. He was buying
cigarettes as an alternative to Scully. 
	
Sighing, Mulder dumped the bag in the backseat and placed the pack of Camels on
the passenger seat, and looked indecisively at the fire-engine red lighter.
Maybe, maybe not. Scully would disapprove of it strongly, not just because of
the cancer, but because of her profession. She would arch one of those
oh-so-expressive slender auburn eyebrows, tighten her mouth at him, and stare
him down until he snapped the smoke in half and threw it out the window. Yes,
that would be Scully's exact reaction if she were in the car with him.
	
//But she's not here right now, is she?// a little demon in his head taunted.
//That's the whole reason you bought the damn things in the first place.//
	
With a defeated sigh, Mulder reached over and picked up the pack of cigarettes,
opening up the cellophane wrapper and procuring one Camel. "Just this one
pack," he promised himself, but he still saw the chagrined expression on
Scully's face as he flicked the Bic and lit the cigarette.
	
Inhaling deeply, Mulder started the engine to the second-hand Honda, feeling it
stall and hearing it sputter. "Come on, come on," he coaxed, his cigarette
hanging off of his generous lower lip. "I'm fucking freezing; start for me,
Bertha..." So he'd named his car. The Omni looked like a Bertha to him. It was
either that or Shit-Mobile. "Please..."
	
The engine stammered to life, and the heater started to produce warm air.
Mulder gave a sigh of relief, kissed the steering wheel, and backed out of the
gas station. God, he never thought he would miss a Taurus. Time to go back
home. It was Christmas break, a few days away from New Year's, and he was
spending his holidays alone with a cigarette and a crappy car that wouldn't
ever start. 
	
It was a funny thing about New Year's Eve. The coming of the new year was
supposed to signify change and resurrection, possibility and rebirth. It was
supposed to give out second chances, allow people to resolve to change and
become better people. For Mulder, it would be his sixth year without Dana
Scully, not just the year 2004. It should be a year when he finally decided to
get his life together and try to rebuild, but Mulder doubted his capability
when it came to that particular situation.
	
Long ago, Mulder stopped trusting himself with his own life, and he had decided
that that was the limit of his paranoia. Though he should be thinking of how to
make his life better and how to cope with the facts that had haunted him for
the longest damn time, Mulder was pondering her. 
	
It was the little details about Dana Scully that were haunting him, like the
spread of her fingers on the dusky rose of the bedsheets, or the way that sand
glittered in her hair like stardust. Images of her were threatening to consume
him, but Mulder was discovering more and more that consummation was something
that was desirable. If he drowned his sorrows in the thought of Scully's
smooth, manicured fingernails, then he wouldn't have to face his shitty life.
	
Bitterly, Mulder took another drag from the cigarette, making a face at the
hollow taste of tobacco. In retrospect, it was no better than his father's own
addictions, only Mulder's vice was a woman rather than alcohol or silence.
Actually, Mulder was beginning to get into the whole silence idea, too,
choosing to save his words for someone who would actually listen to him -- the
typewriter and Scully.
	
Mulder drove down the road toward his apartment, snow beginning to trickle down
on the windshield of the car like ash. Odd. It reminded him of when he had
studied the Holocaust in school, learning about how the bodies from the
crematorium had rained down on the nearby towns in a blizzard of charred flesh,
and the children had played in it as though it were snow. It was the most
haunting image he carried from that period of history. Imagine being one of
those children, walking outside and lifting your face up in childlike wonder at
the daintily falling whiteness, and never knowing that your nose was sprinkled
with the remains of murdered Jews...

Chilled, he stubbed out the cigarette, the memory of burnt snow crackling
through his memory with lightning speed and vividness. For years after that
history class, Mulder's dreams of Samantha's abduction were always blurred by
swirls and drifts of gray, flaky soot. 

Turning his thoughts away from drizzling human ash, Mulder itched for another
cigarette, and then decided to deny himself the rest of the smokes for a little
while longer. It was still an early night, after all, and it would be a shame
to smoke them all now and start wanting another later. 
	
His apartment was spare, barren of most personal belongings simply because he
never thought of hanging the pictures on the walls or hanging matching curtains
over the window. At least he still had his familiar leather sofa. Tossing his
paper bag on the couch cushions, Mulder sighed and shrugged out of his warm
jacket and peeled off his gloves. Dammit, the heater wasn't working again. He
really shouldn't have been so surprised; nothing in the goddamn building ever
worked. It was the story of his life.
	
When he was suitably bundled up in sweatpants and a flannel shirt, Mulder
walked to the window, his hands on his hips, and stared out at the dimmed
lights of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The city was not exceptional, and the city was
not particularly beautiful. It was just somewhere he had to call home, a postal
address on an envelope. In the winter, it was nothing but white, and the dark,
spindly trees were like phantoms underneath their mantles of crystals and
ivory. Swaying in the mournful January wind, they tilted from side to side,
whispering and moaning like discontented spirits...
	
Shuddering, Mulder turned away from the window and sat down on the couch. He
was tired of discontented spirits and unsettled angels. It was as though he had
unfinished business that he could never take care of, a loose thread that he
couldn't possibly bear to tie up. His life would never be a neat little bundle;
it would be a massive concoction of unraveling strings. 
	
The hushed sighing of the winter trees crept through the windows and rushed
around his ears, and for a moment, it sounded like Scully. The low,
confidential way that his name had purred off her lips had made him feel as
though they were the only two people left on the face of the earth, and at the
time, that sentiment had been comforting rather than alienating. The chaos that
had always surrounded him seemed to slip away when Scully caressed his name in
that divine, intimated alto. 
	
When the wraithlike branches spoke his name, he felt like he was going to throw
up. The warmth was gone, leaving the whisper a dry rasp, like talons running
over his spine in an endless circle of scratches. Ripping at his soul, tearing
it to shreds. It was a mockery of a caress, and rather than wrapping his heart
in gentle hands, it snared his heart in venomous talons.
	
Nothing was the same since they had parted.
	
He had no solace, no reprieve, from the constant ache where Scully was no
longer there. In the spring, it was her mouth that he hungered for, the ripe
lushness of her lips when she gave him that Mona Lisa smirk, or the rare
present of a full, radiant smile that showed the lines on her face and made her
cheeks flush. In the summer, he longed for the clearness of her eyes, the china
blue that either pinned him with inquiry or caressed him with depth. It was her
hair in the fall, that supernova of crimson that exploded like a sunburst
around her face, wild and rich like the changing of the leaves. 
	
In the winter, it was her voice.
	
Moaning, Mulder turned on his side and wondered why he did this to himself. Why
he tortured himself with the constant memory of a woman that he could no longer
have, and why he continued on at all. There was no purpose to his life anymore,
no determination that kept him from picking up the weapon that he still kept
strapped around his ankle and ending his life once and for all. In the past,
he'd had a smorgasbord of reasons to keep himself alive. There was Samantha,
there was the elusive truth, there was Scully. There was the forever-pumping
determination in his blood, the persistence and insistence that had annoyed his
superiors and had driven his entire quest.
	
Stripped of his motivation, stripped of his access, and stripped of his quest,
where was Fox Mulder? Without these elements that had always defined him, what
was left of him? Nothing worth salvaging, nothing worth preserving, and nothing
worth continuing. He was prevented by greater forces from ever daring to touch
another case.  To pursue what he needed to pursue. To satiate the need for
knowledge and understanding of his past and his future. Without these things,
what made Fox Mulder so great? What point was there in continuing his
existence?
	
Mulder was contemplating suicide. He had done so on previous occasions, and
always ended up laying the gun back down on the table or replacing the weapon
back in his holster. There were always those essentials that sustained him
before. Now, it was getting more and more difficult to keep himself from
pulling the trigger. 
	
In the end, it was always her face that undid him, just as it had before. She
waited for him on a shore in South Carolina, alone and bound by her word. She
had promised him that she would come to him, and he had that promise to keep
him going. With the simple meaning of her honor, Mulder found a way to keep the
bullet from entering his skull and finishing the hell he was living in. 
	
Turning on his side and closing his eyes, Mulder pressed his forehead against
the leather and wondered if Scully had always smelled like the sea or if it had
just started when they began their meetings. He would ask her next time. There
*would* be a next time.
	
She had promised.

*****
	
Scully stared emotionlessly out the window, mechanically lifting the mug of tea
to her lips and then mechanically setting it down on the table again. She was
going through the motions, drinking tea that she used to like but couldn't
taste very well now. Constant Comment. The kind that tasted like orange peel
and cinnamon. Outside, snow collected on the ground, blanketing Pittsburgh in a
slope of ivory beauty that seemed incomparable and delicious. It was sugar
snow, delectable and sweet for children to taste. Idly, Scully thought of the
neighbor kids running through the piles of snow, collecting and gathering the
white precipitation, and then she wondered why she tortured herself like this.
	
Sighing, she threw away the last contents of her lukewarm tea and settled
herself down on the sofa again. Her house was silent, her mind was still, and
all she heard outside was the sound of the wind blowing against the house.
Winter was a still season, one that allowed no music from the birds and no
laughter from the children. Silence and solitude were a part of the snow, and
there was nothing graver than the impeccable quiet of a January night.
	
Dressed in an oversized cable-knit sweater and a pair of jeans, Scully wondered
again why she hadn't accepted the invitation. It had been a kind gesture of
goodwill, inviting the reclusive redhead out to the ballet along with the rest
of the staff at the hospital. She could have gone and enjoyed herself for the
night, spent time with others and perhaps be curled up in another's arms,
watching the sun rise in the nearly white sky the next morning. 
	
Instead, she sat in hallowed stillness in the middle of her house, pining after
a man that she wasn't even supposed to acknowledge. He was a part of her past,
a forgotten relic of old times and old Dana Scully. The people that she worked
with now knew that she had formerly worked with the FBI, but they didn't know
that she had been Mrs. Spooky. They had no idea that she had once been a woman
driven by truth and justice. They had no idea who Dana Scully truly was, nor
would they ever.
	
Damn him.
	
It was a thought that was frequently recurring. It was not loathing toward him
directly, but a loathing toward her weakness for him. And yet again, she
contemplated what would happen if she chose not to go down there in July. If
one year, the strip of sand and shore that she had always haunted was left
empty, devoid of its one flame-haired wanderer. How would he react? Would he
weep? Would he scream? Or would he track her down and beg her to meet him
again? The last option was always the most difficult to figure out; weighing
the determination of Fox Mulder against his teeming paranoia.
	
In the end, she always succumbed to his seduction, and in the end, she always
imagined what she would say to him when she saw him next. It was that damnable
affair that kept her from severing the ties to her last life, and that damnable
affair that kept her locked up inside of a house that she didn't even like
anymore.
	
Sleep was a secondary need. If Scully pleased, she could watch the snow fall on
the hills all night, observing its thickness and texture in silent
contemplation. She desired sleep, but it would, of course, be denied her by her
own churning indecision. Perhaps he was the reason she couldn't adjust. All
year, she strove to forge out a new beginning for herself, and every year, she
always ended up reliving the past in the wings of his arms. Damn him and damn
their meetings.
	
Again, her mind created the scenario. It was simple, really. The next year,
when that week in July rolled around, stay at home in Pittsburgh. Gently cut
the cord. He would recover eventually, and it would be the best for the both of
them. She could continue her life without worrying about him, and he could
start anew rather than linger on the love affair that he insisted on
continuing. She wouldn't have to send him a letter or telephone him to tell him
in person. Absence was interpreted in only one way -- death.
	
He would mourn her greatly. Then he would bury her and move on. Perhaps Mulder
would find a woman and marry her, and Scully would find a man and marry him,
but deep inside, she knew that was an impossible scenario. Mulder had told her
that no one would suspect their actions if she were married, but Scully knew
better than that. It would be unfair to the man that she wed. For three hundred
and fifty-eight days of the year, she would be a doting wife, but for seven
days, she would give the best of herself to another man.
	
No, she would never be married.
	
For a moment, Scully regretted discarding her tea. Mulling over ending Mulder
would have seemed more poetic had she been holding a cup of tea. Somehow, being
bundled up on a couch and staring into snow-covered silence seemed disturbing
rather than pensive. Instead, she worked her lower lip with her teeth, gnawing
at the sensitive flesh until she tasted the harsh copper of her blood.
	
What would Mulder do with his life? It was a question that Scully had often
pondered. Without his search for the truth or his missing sister, he had
faltered but found a touchstone in a stolen week with his ex-partner. What
would happen to him if that swindled week were pilfered again from him, and
what would he do with the knowledge that the thief was none other than Dana
Scully? She never wanted to hurt him, did not want to think of Mulder standing
atop the cliffs with his heart ripping inside of his chest, looking out at the
empty abyss of the Atlantic ocean.
	
But in the end, would the pain she would cause him turn out to be the best
thing that could possibly happen to the both of them?
	
She sighed and turned her face away from the ever-thickening snowfall. Life had
become based on her own introspection recently. Amateur psychobabble and
self-evaluation. There had been a great deal of meditation and very little
action or dialogue. Ever since the holiday season, she had been closing herself
off more than usual, refusing to attend the hospital Christmas party and then
loathing herself for her own isolation.
	
She spared herself no pity. Her solitude was self-inflicted. If Scully wanted
to find a friend, she could up off her ass and do it. But the fact of the
matter was that every time someone reached out for her, asked her to come along
and join the parade, she fell back into the embrace where she had promised
Mulder over and over that she would return to Seabrook Island.
	
Snowflakes congregated on the windowsill, creating a pillow of ivory ice, and
Scully seriously considered breaking the promise she'd made to Mulder.
Naturally, the questions that had plagued her before resurfaced again, taunting
her with their quantity and their impossibility. She couldn't answer these
inquiries, couldn't give a direct and accurate estimation of her impact on
Mulder's life.
	
Perhaps she was the biggest fool of all, allowing herself to be seduced by her
former partner for one week out of an entire year. It would be so easy to begin
again, to let go of her past and create a new future. Happiness was just within
her grasp, if only she could let go of Mulder. 
	
"Then, dammit, Scully, why don't you?" she muttered aloud, and then shuddered
when she realized that she was talking to herself. Jesus, she was going crazy
in her solitary lifestyle. Time to reach out for human companionship, Scully my
dear. Yes, she had to be going crazy. She was starting to address herself by
her surname. 
	
She had stopped being Scully the day she tendered her resignation to the FBI.
When Skinner had inspected her signature and nodded her out of his office,
Scully had ceased to exist. But to call herself Dana would be even worse. Dana
had stopped showing up years ago. Besides, for one week out of the year, she
was Scully again, making love to Mulder and stirring the old embers of the
past. 

Well, maybe it was time for those embers to descend into ash.
	
Despondently, she sighed and sank into the cushions of the old, worn couch,
dragging the thick quilt over her body as she lay down. It was cold in the
living room, but she didn't really want to travel all the way upstairs to
snuggle up under the covers and bask in the warmth of the heater. She could
suffice with the quilt and the flames of the past, and let the television set
lull her to sleep. After all, if it had worked for Mulder, it could work for
her... Right?
	
Suddenly, she realized that in many aspects, she had become Mulder. Focusing
all of her attention on her work, withdrawing from the rest of human society
and refusing assistance from anyone who displayed a hint of concern for her
well-being... These were all classic character traits of Mulder's. Stifling a
groan with her pillow, Scully felt like smacking herself. The most obvious of
Mulderisms was staring her in the face, if only she would acknowledge it.
	
She was holding onto the past, seeking a goal that she would never be able to
attain. Typical, typical Mulder.
	
It was only more reason for her to leave him, but it was also the evidence that
she would never let him go.
	
Desolately, Scully turned on her side and turned the television set on. It was
going to be one of those nights; she could already tell. One of those nights
where she tried to ward off insomnia but it would claim her as always. The TV
would provide her with no distraction, and neither would silence. She had tried
many various forms of technology to avoid her sleeping disorder with, but she
always ended up restless and aching the next morning.
	
Tonight would be no different.
	
She turned on the television set and let it cocoon her in its droning voice,
letting it invade the regal silence of January. Idly, she wondered how the
ballet had turned out. It was "The Nutcracker", too. One of her favorites. 
	
She should have gone. She could have gone. But in the end, she had run back to
the beach where Mulder always walked, and threw herself into his kiss.
	
Scully contemplated breaking her promise.

*****

(end part eight)

*****

EROSION (9/10)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

Disclaimer in part one

This part is NC-17, so if you decide to mention this story on the AOL Message
Boards, don't provide a direct link. ;) 

*****

Of course, she kept her promise.
	
Everyday, Scully saw his face in her memory. The gentle lines around his eyes.
The ebony shading of his eyelashes. The prominent and oddly alluring shape of
his nose. The splash of dark hair on his thought-creased brow. The pinpoint of
a mole on his cheek. The silken ripeness of his mouth. His face was the most
beautiful of unwanted memories, marked by the pleading in his soulful, weald
eyes. "Promise me, Scully," he had said, and she had promised.
	
It would have been one thing if she had only promised to appease him. It was
another when she meant the words and still believed in them. 
	
Scully still believed that she would probably be able to start her life over if
she had chosen to discontinue their yearly affair, but she couldn't do it. To
give up Mulder would mean letting go of the most satisfying part of her life.
It would mean letting go of the only part of herself that she even liked
anymore. Scully didn't like who she had become, what she stood for and what she
had forgotten to stand for. This new woman was someone she barely understood, a
calculating woman that never allowed entrance for anyone else, and a withdrawn
and frigid person. In all honesty, Scully only liked the part of her that
surfaced when she felt Mulder's fingertips on her cheek.
	
Or when she saw his face.
	
Dimmed sunlight played with her hair, and gusts of wind whipped her hair about
with zeal, the bright brazen threads flashing about her face with a flourish.
The tide was coming in, waves crashing in a wild symphony of sea spray, and
shells dotted the beach in a rainbow of multicolored delicacy. Briefly, she
wondered if one shell might bring her a song or two, just a melody of the
ocean. It was silly, really. Conch shells that size weren't found in South
Carolina. 
	
But somewhere in the corner of her mind, she still wanted one. A small record
that would play beach music for her to remember South Carolina and her yearly
sabbatical to the shore. Scully had no photographs of her visits, no postcards,
not even a cheesy tee shirt. There could be no evidence of her clandestine
getaway, and that was beginning to kill her from the inside out. She could
trust no one, tell no one what it was like to wade through the Atlantic at
sunrise or see dolphins break the cresting waves at rosy dusk. She could kneel
at no confessional, confide in no priest, disclose in no prayer. After the
terror of losing her diary for a day, Scully quit putting her most private
thoughts on something as silent and undeceiving as paper.
	
It should have been so simple. While she knew that no romance with Mulder would
have been uncomplicated, this was ripping her insides apart. Silence had become
her native language, and she was fluent in reticence. There seemed nothing more
implausible than to describe the taste of Mulder's lips to another living human
being. 
	
Years from now, when she was an old, old woman, would she remember her yearly
pilgrimages down to the South Carolina shore, or would they simply become
moments of dementia, illusions that she couldn't determine from reality? Their
entire partnership had been founded on the search for truth, and she had always
sought hard, irrefutable evidence to back up their work. 
	
Calmly, she brought herself to her feet, and set about on the beach gathering
up seashells. Coral-colored conchs, multifaceted oyster shells, the occasional
sand dollar, and small, perfect snail-shaped ones that she couldn't quite
identify. As the wet, sandy objects began to pile up in her hands, some sort of
serenity touched her. It was just like gathering evidence in the old days,
finding physical attestation to his claims and his ideas. Even in matters of
the heart, she needed hard facts.
	
Each weathered, barnacle-covered artifact was testimony to her years of
romance, and Scully fingered them lovingly before placing them on the rock that
she and Mulder had shared on the first meeting.
	
From atop the cliff, Mulder watched her. How carefully she chose, the careful,
clinical way that her precise hands cleaned the shell, checking for animal life
and shining the inner curl of every conch. Puzzled but fascinated, he thought
of the scientist he used to know, finding every calculated move still resting
in the circumspect movements of her palms and fingertips. As Scully
methodically worked, Mulder remembered her skill as a doctor and physician, the
way that her hands had so systematically catalogued every inch and crevice of
the human body.
	
The insatiable thirst for her was starting to grow, and so he slowly walked
down the rocks, drinking in her image as she came into focus; a portrait in
fire seeming in her element amidst the maelstrom of oceanic beauty.
	
Her eyes lifted from the smooth pearly inside of the shell, seeing him descend
from the dune-covered cliffs above. Immediately, her doctor's mind began to
diagnose all the little differences in him. His hair, still sumptuously thick
and dark, was beginning to gray a little at the temples in a vulnerably
appealing manner. Though he was too far away to tell, she swore that she could
see a stooped quality to his walk, a hunched manner that spoke of long, hard
life and painful times. //Well, of course he's had painful times, Scully,// she
reminded herself. //And you've been through most of them with him.//
	
Shocked for a moment, she briefly wondered if she was walking so despondently,
too.
	
But all curiosity was stolen away when he found her, and all that mattered to
her resided in his eyes. Olive-colored, amber-flecked, soul-shattering eyes.
Sinking into the rich, caramel depths of him, Scully leaned forward and
drooping against his chest, sighing as she inhaled the unmistakable musk of
him. Closing her eyes, she breathed him in over and over, drawing the essential
strength of him inside her blood and capturing it within her marrow, letting it
course through her veins and careen throughout her body. With each small
breath, each awakening awareness to him, she felt herself trudge through the
murkiness of her day-to-day life, rising past and above it. While his breath
ruffled her hair and her cheek pressed against his rising and falling breath,
she felt herself come together again. 

Scully surfaced.
	
The fist that had been so intensely gripping the seashell loosened, and the
conch fell to the sand without a second thought. Scully let go of the misery,
and emerged whole.
	
Chin trembling, lower lip starting to waver, Scully felt the tears come to her
eyes, and she wondered how she ever thought of betraying him. How she ever
thought of leaving him. When the sum and substance of him permeate her, the
emptiness, the hollowness, the nothingness began to fill, and she could never
abandon the sensation of finding some sort of tranquility.
	
The void was made full.
	
He rested his hand in her hair, his palm as gentle and as a cat's paw, and
stroked the back of her head as her tears spilled over, his own silent ones
caressing her brow like a christening. A baptism through saline. A promise that
had long ago been sealed through honor and a mutual respect had been fulfilled,
and they had been returned to each other, battered, bruised, and in many ways
worse for the wear. 

Yet somehow, they had survived. They had not triumphed in their endurance, nor
had they emerged in any sort of glory or heroism. He was older, she was harder,
but it seemed to fade away like the grains of sand beneath the rolling surf,
chipping away at the shells they protected themselves with so that they were,
as always, on equal but different ground.
	
Nothing could break the connection. Time could not wear it down, and
circumstance could not steal it away. Nothing had ever been so clear to her as
that fact was now, and a small ripple of shame began in the back of her mind.
Shame for considering betrayal.
	
The ravenous tide tugged at her seashells, but Scully was sinking, falling,
diving into the rapture of spiritual reconnection.
	
As clouds gathered in the distance, looming thick and black above the crashing
seas, Mulder's mouth slowly met hers, the softness of his kiss more intense
than any violence or any roughness could express. It was what he withheld from
her that made the passion so striking, what was kept tightly behind layers and
layers of his defenses, but what was revealed with the tremble in his lower lip
as it tremulously brushed her upper one, or his fingers twitching in her hair,
itching to do more faster and more thoroughly. 
	
//It would take so little to undo him,// she thought, hearing his shuddering
gasp as she lined the luscious curl of his lower lip with the tip of her
tongue. And she hissed out a sigh when he took her upper lip between his teeth
and teased it with his teeth. //And it would take even less for me...//
	
"The house," he murmured, and as though to accentuate the rasped reminder, the
wind gusted around them, throwing her hair around her face in a streak of
brilliant red. "Now."

*****

Every touch was flammable. Every whisper was ignitable. The whispering friction
of his satin lip brushing across the peach fuzz of her ripe earlobe was enough
to make her jangled nerves set on fire. But still, there was no rush. Their
seduction was slow, their foreplay aching with tension. 
	
Eyelids fluttering open and shut from the shaking gentility of Mulder's hands
on her collarbone, Scully rolled her head back and forth on the pillow as
Mulder shook out cries, moans, sighs, pleas...
	
The side of his hand trickled down the length of her neck, gliding down to
nestle in her collarbone and dip into the hollow of her throat. The tremble in
his fingers was starting to drive her mad, starting to drive her insane. Half
of her wanted the force of his passion, and the other half wanted to be played
as lightly as his butterfly caress.
	
Her heart quickened and her moans increased when the slow, delectable stroke
turned to the south, grazing the tops of her breasts like feathers, and then
the bare whisper of his fingertips circled and twined around her nipples. She
saw her body respond to him, saw the way that her breasts swelled to meet the
teasing palms, saw how her nipples hardened to points underneath his touch. She
saw so much, the way that he was positioned over her, the lowered lashes as he
concentrated on her breasts, the lowering of his lips to her throat. She saw
him make her come alive.
	
Closing her eyes, she felt everything.
	
Eyes open wide, Mulder watched her as he touched her, drinking in the vision
that had eluded him all year. Watched her twist and rise to him under his
touch. Watched her eyelids flutter and her hair writhe as though the red
strands could feel her arousal, too. Back rising in an arch of lily flesh,
Scully was a flaming flower, whose flowers unfurled with precision and caution.
Afraid to reveal too much of herself. Afraid to scare anyone away.
	
She covered up that insecurity with cold confidence; Mulder had known that ever
since the beginning. But this insecurity seemed to be built on different
reasons, different passages of time. Licking his lips, Mulder brought his head
underneath the soft spot of her jaw, nuzzling at the tender skin there with his
lips. "I missed you here," he whispered. He was trying to tell her that he
missed the places that made her vulnerable, like the ticklish spots behind her
knees, or the soft fall of her eyelashes. He missed the delicate skin beneath
her breasts, the soft rosy pink of her cheeks when she blushed. Mulder had
missed all these things, all of these little intricacies about  Scully that
belonged solely to him. The magic of her hair playing against the hollow
smoothness of her throat. The vibrant vermilion and gold that was interlaced
like a tapestry of silk that trailed around her face. Every color, every
shadow, every delicate bone in her body was worthy of worship.
	
The rosy flush of her lips curled into a small smile, the twinge of her lips
inviting him to continue his compliments and encouraging his hands. His fingers
tangled in the mass of her hair, again with that deceiving gentility. Beneath
his tenderness was a magnitude of withheld intensity, kept at bay not because
he thought that it might frighten her, but because he was being overpowered by
the storm. 
	
"And I missed you here," she murmured back, her fingers touching the corner of
his mouth and whispering a little kiss to him. "I missed you here." The slow
seduction, the fumbling foreplay, the radiant restraint was beginning to
overwhelm her, beginning to take over her senses and swarm her with thoughts of
him and him alone. Of completing this. Of finishing it. 
	
The backs of his knuckles trailed down the sensitive skin of her belly, and she
inhaled deeply, sucking her stomach in as his fingertips trailed lower. When
his palm passed over the wine-colored thicket of curls that were deeper in
color and darker in texture, she shuddered out a moan. She knew what was
coming; knew what would come next. Knew that the end was nearing. 
	
"Did you miss me there, too?" she whispered, knowing his answer and yet wanting
his voice. Words had been too few between them since his arrival. She had been
taunted and teased with the elegance of his face, fading and dwindling in the
uncertainty of memory for the past months, and she had been cut off completely
from the velveteen bliss of Mulder's words. 
	
"God, Scully, I missed you," he gasped, feeling the touch of her tongue on his
earlobe, her lower lip caressing the scar from his pierced ear in college. "I
missed you." His voice combined with the eloquence of his words sent waves of
desire through her, and she knew that when she climaxed, it would be a tsunami.
Consuming. Overwhelming. Mammoth.
	
And there was the first brush, the baby's breath caress of his fingertip on her
clit, breathing skin over skin as though too much would destroy her. She knew
that he had learned her rhythms and her pace long ago, and knew that he was
using that knowledge against her right now. She liked the pressure firm,
unrelenting, hard and solid against her, liked the arousal threatening to
consume her. Mulder was pressing against her with more resolution now. The
tease was beginning to fulfill; Mulder was keeping his vow to overwhelm her.
	
Watching her writhe was delicious. The scent of her hair as it washed back and
forth on the pillow, the feel of her hands as she kneaded his ass, the warmth
of her breath as she rocked on the bed, her hips first slowly circulating and
then gaining speed and insistence as his rhythm increased and his finger
quickened. These were the elements of Scully that had been missing from his
life, and without Scully, there was no fulfillment. Pushing against her
clitoris with feverish presses thrown into the gentle caresses, he saw her face
turn rosy from the heat he was giving her. He turned his thumb against her, and
she arched her back and screamed his name with a heat that was almost orgasm,
almost climax, but not yet release. "Mulder, Mulder, God..." she whispered
afterward, and he thrust one finger into her; she clenched around him and
begged for more with her hips.
	
"Come on, Scully," he coaxed. "Let it go."
	
She couldn't let go, couldn't release herself from the *sensation*. All of the
emotion, all of the feeling, all of the senses awakened and brought out of
their prolonged hibernation. She didn't want to surrender that, didn't want to
let it go. She wanted to be brought alive like this forever, existing in
ecstasy underneath the tumultuous touch of Mulder's fingers and thumb. Never
again, never again. She never wanted to be dead like she had been again. All
that she felt now was *life*. Never again, never again...
	
"I'll come with you," he whispered, "just let go."
	
And so he joined her in that steaming place where life rushed around them,
where sensations took the place of the pain and the longing and the arousal was
dominant over everything else. Entering into her, he moaned as she surrounded
him, as her wet warmth consumed his rigid cock. It was no longer an illusionary
pleasure, but one that existed within reality and all around it, too. On the
edge of release, on the edge of climax, on the edge of bliss was a place where
everything felt. The brush of her hair against his chest was like lightning.
The feel of his hand across her belly was like fire. The wash of her lips
across his shoulder was like the ocean. All of life was poured and culminated
into this magical existence, and they were alive again.
	
Resurrected.
	
"Come with me," she finally whispered, and her voice was like a symphony within
this universe of magnified senses. "If you come with me, maybe this'll last."
	
She kissed his mouth, turned his face into hers, and the world shattered.
Sensation was everything, screaming senses and ferocious feeling, and then it
gave way to the world again. Reality slowed. Time regained its usual pace.
Closing her eyes, she gave it away, and Mulder took her in his arms. 
	
*****

Waves turned dark like glass, but their ferocity made them choppy and capped
with white. The hurricane was off the coast, but moving off to the north,
making it virtually harmless. Its rough winds were still enough to stir the
ocean tides, creating danger for anyone who dared to swim or surf. The waves
crashed with astounding violence onto the sandy coastline, the jade-gray water
rampaging the coastline with intensity that was not passionate or loving like
the one that had been unleashed in the bedroom, but a violence that was
malevolent and malicious.
	
Gusts and gales of wind slammed them, and her hair blew about her face in a
typhoon of balmy red. He watched it spiral and flail, watched it try to battle
the ocean air, and then watched it surrender and become a mess of tangles and
brambles. Watched Scully's wild, untamed red allow the wind to blow it and
snarl. There was an element of apathy in that, and there had never been
anything apathetic about Scully. She was a fighter, a battler, a crusader and a
champion. Even when it came to her riveting red hair.
	
Tilting his head, Mulder came to realize that there was some sadness about
Scully that had not been there before. Even before their separation, she had
always been a woman that carried some distant mantle of grief, but now she was
a creature of great sorrow, and this despondency had worn her down.
Disheartened, Mulder knew that he could never completely cure her of that quiet
mourning, that all she had gone through and all she had seen had worked at her
and made her different. He could never know the full extent of her suffering,
and therefore he could never totally cure her. There was no antidote for
anguish like theirs, nothing that could erase it or eradicate it.
	
But for a week, it was lessened, and for a week, there was peace. Even if it
was only temporary tranquility.
	
Seashells littered the beach, broken and chipped by the hurricane's tidal
wrath, and Scully looked at them with sympathy. She understood them.
	
"This beach used to be longer, didn't it?" Mulder asked from behind her, and
she turned away from the shattered shells to face her former partner and annual
lover. His hands were pushed into his pockets, and his eyes were dark and
lacking a little in the intensity that had always stormed there. //His passion
has waned.// 

So had hers.
	
"Yes, it did," she admitted, touching his shoulder and moving to stand next to
him. Propelled by the heavier winds of the hurricane, her hair fluttered in her
face, but she made no move to swipe at the uninhibited strands. What would be
the point; in mere seconds the threads would batter her face again anyway.
"There was a hurricane last year. Hurricane Eliot. The storm surge caused a lot
of beach erosion, and they still haven't worked on repairing it here yet." She
gestured to the rocks and the smaller span of sand. "The winds wear and pound
at the coast, and the sand can't take that. It fades away, and the sand is
carried out to sea with the force of the tide."
	
"It can't fight the surf," Mulder murmured, and she bowed her head. 
	
"Not when the surf is so powerful."
	
He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. The warmth of his
body and the height of him protected her somewhat from the spiteful sirocco
from the storm, and for a little while, there was shelter. Pressing his cheek
against her hair, Mulder inhaled the rich fragrance of her, his arm tightening
in an attempt to keep her tethered to his side forever.
	
"I can't ever make you happy, can I," he whispered, his tone mournful. How had
he gotten so old so quickly? She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her
off. "S'okay. I feel the same way. I just want you to know that I accept that."

	
"Nothing will make me happy the way that you want me to be happy," she
whispered, her hand pressing against his chest. "But this is the only week out
of the year that makes me feel alive. And it's not the water. It's not the
sand. It's you." She said this with simplicity, stating the facts and infusing
it with her once-fervent belief. 
	
"Then promise me that you'll come back, Scully, and I'll be here," he
whispered.
	
It was the promise that had haunted her for a year, the promise that had hurt
her and made her worry and fret over whether or not she would be able to keep
it. It was the promise and the vow that had almost ruined the life that she had
tried to forge for herself in Pittsburgh. The promise that she had considered
breaking and considered abandoning uncountable times over winter snows and
autumn leaves. Mulder was asking for her word again, and if she gave it to him,
she promised him another year of her life.
	
But she would promise him it anyway, because the only week out of the year that
she felt alive was this week, and for the rest of the year, she was dead.
	
"I promise," she whispered, and she kissed his cheek.
	
She promised.

*****

It was the last summer.

*****

(end part nine)

*****

EROSION (10/10)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

*****

I never had a wedding.
	
Silly, really. Wanting a wedding. It seems trite at this point, after
everything that I have seen and done. After all I have withstood, after all
that I have experienced and all of the pain that I have undergone, to feel sad
about lacking a ceremony seems ridiculous. It was a fantasy in childhood, to
have a wedding in autumn under a canopy of gold and crimson. To be crowned with
the delicacy of crumbling leaves and be swathed in the finery of vibrant color
and explosive senses. And over the years, I started to accept that I would
never have such a fall wedding.
	
Now, without him, it comes back to haunt me.
	
And with that never-wedding, so does he.
	
Our sixth year was our final one, but I never broke my promise. He simply chose
not to come. I wandered the beaches for hours, collecting seashells, watching
the tide pull in and then meander back out, and watching the sun arch to the
top of the sky only to plummet back beneath the cerulean sea. Barefoot and
downhearted, I wandered, and with every passing moment that he did not come, I
felt the certainty within me that I would never see him again. I collected
every memory that I possessed of him, gathered them all within me, and
recreated his face with such care that I would never forget him. 

The delicate line of his eyebrow, the arch of it and the lightness of it. The
hooded eyes, the luxuriance of his lashes and the kaleidoscope quality to his
ever-changing color. The plush thickness of his lower lip, pouting when he was
disappointed or ripening when he was aroused. The dark mahogany of his hair
that became sun-kissed during the summer months, so that in our last years as
clandestine lovers, he was always a hybrid between cocoa and gold. The
copper-gold of his skin. The lean, divine muscles of his back. The gentle
agility of his hands. The touch of him, the taste of him, the essence of him.

I memorized him, and then I watched the moon rise alone on the shore. It was
when the full moon became shrouded in a gauzy veil of cloud and sea mist that I
allowed myself to acknowledge him, and when I did, it was a pain that I added
to every line of his face. The pain of loss. The pain of grief. The pain of
never knowing what had become of him, and the pain of knowing that I never
would know.

For years, I have remained silent. For years, I have carried on with no mention
of Mulder, no wistful verbalization of his name and no photograph to capture
his image in permanence. I have never searched for him, knowing that any
attempt to locate him would endanger his life if he were still living. At the
beginning, I believed that he still lived. I believed that there was still life
out there for the both of us, and that perhaps one day, I would see his hair
caress his brow on the rocks and cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on
Seabrook Island.

After fifteen years, I stopped believing that he was still alive, and after
five more, I stopped believing altogether.

The year that I retired from my work, I left Pittsburgh. I was old, I was
aging, and I was finished with that passage of time. I wanted to find a place
to settle down at last, and I wanted to feel alive when I died. I wanted to be
able to spend my last years alive with some sense of him. I thought, somewhat
naively, that relocating to the place where I had known him would give me
peace. I sold my house, I sold my garden, and I sold the life that I had never
really lived. I came back to Charleston.

I bought a house on the Battery with what money I had, and I set up a place
where I could watch the water day in and day out. There was a garden, and I was
finally able to add the magnolias and wisteria that had always been missing
from my Northern plot to the roses and tiger lilies I had always possessed. I
looked forward to this final retirement, where I could start to live my life
again with the memory of him there to overlook my last years.

The day that I moved in, there was a manila folder lying innocently on my bed.
Curiously, I picked it up, and opened it up. For a fleeting moment, I remember
thinking that I had finally discovered where Mulder was.

Instead, six photographs spilled out of the folder and fluttered to the
comforter. 

Numbly, I picked one up by the corner, and felt a pain that hadn't struck me
since his first betrayal on the beach. The photograph was of me, nude, sitting
outside on our balcony, watching a storm approach. He stood behind me, a look
of total adoration on his face, and his hair being blown like luscious ribbons.
It had been our first year. It had been our first morning.

And my first thought was of how beautiful I used to be.

Each photograph was another year, another meeting, and another time that we
thought we had been beating the game. How destroyed I felt with those pictures
in my hand, looking at the youth that was slowly being drained from us from
year to year. They had always known, they had always seen, and they had never
said a word until it was too late. Until he had left, until I was alone, and
until I had resigned myself to my future. Until I had realized that I had no
future.

Just a past that had been handed to me on colored celluloid.

We had never defeated them. We were simply playing into their hand with the
unwitting innocence of true pawns. Leading the life that they allowed us to
lead. It was the ultimate defeat, the most painful string that they could pull,
simply showing me that they had always been in control, and that we had never
won.

And they had waited until I was too old and too bitter to do anything about it.

All I had left were those photographs, and I looked at them for hours. On each
one, there was his love. He had not just loved me; he had worshipped me. Seeing
that in his eyes slowly destroyed me, and realizing the full extent of what I
had meant to Mulder was all it took to undo me. Mulder's love had always
managed to unravel me. 

I kissed his face again, and kept the pictures. They were all I had of him.
They were my seashells, my evidence that I had loved him and that he had loved
me. Those conchs and sand dollars that I had gathered years ago in the sunset
were passed to me in these portraits, and they had given me my concrete
romance. I had proven that there had been six years and six weeks that I had
been able to love Fox Mulder, and though those weeks had been stolen from me,
they had once existed.

That was the year that I stopped believing.

The next year was the year that I began my waiting.

Waiting for the inevitable, waiting for time to claim me, waiting for the tide
to come in and collect me. Waiting for the last little bit of erosion from the
storm. We had been nothing more than grains of sand, miniscule in comparison to
the larger picture and unable to retaliate against the mammoth savagery of the
hurricane. Our life had been a sandcastle, beautifully constructed but with
walls that could suppress nothing. I am the last turret, watching in silence as
grain of sand in that structure is lapped at by the tide and brought out to
sea, never to be seen again.

I am the witness to the erosion. I am meant to watch its destruction and then
wait for my own final demise. Fate has deemed that I will remain. We are
nothing against the vengeance of the waves, and the hurricane has spared us
nothing.

This is what has happened to me for the past thirty-five years. 

This is the woman that I am at ninety-five.

I have managed to outlive too many people. My brothers are dead, and my mother
followed two years afterward. I am sure that by this time, Mulder's mother has
also passed on, and I read in the newspaper that Walter Skinner passed away
just a short time ago. Though I have no way to determine this, there is no
doubt in my mind that our cigarette-smoking nemesis died. I wish that I had a
way to know how he died, and I hope that he did not die peacefully.

I hope that his last thought was of us. 

I know we would give him no reprieve.

And I also know that by now, Samantha has also passed. Again, there is no
evidence that I possess to verify that assumption, but it comes from a place
deep within myself. This knowledge that somehow, somewhere, Samantha Mulder has
passed on, and her brother never found her or saw her again. So, I must mourn
Samantha too, for she was the one who shaped the Mulder that I loved and
consequently lost.

So, I am the one that remains, and all that is left for me to do is wait. Wait
for the current that has been etching away at me to finally become victorious.
It has stolen everything away from me. My beauty faded years ago, leaving me
with my hair purely white and my eyes dulled by cataracts and hidden beneath a
network of creases and wrinkles. There is no red left, no sharp blue. It pains
me to walk, so I reside in a wheelchair most of the time. There is only one
week out of the year that I rise from the chair and force myself to pace on my
arthritis-eaten feet, simply because I want to feel the water lap at my toes. 

All that remains of me is my memory, and all that remains in my memory is
Mulder.

The sun is beginning to set again, darkening from her pure gold to an orb
forged out of fire and flame. Kissing the water with her crimson lips, the sun
begins to set lower into the crystalline waters, setting them afire with her
radiance. The tide is coming in, night is starting darken the sky, and another
year has passed without him visiting our beach. I am not surprised. I am not
disappointed. I have gotten used to missing him. Missing Mulder is like loving
Mulder. It's simply a part of being Dana Scully.

Glancing behind me, I see that the child's sandcastle is nearly destroyed. The
one turret is starting to wear out, beginning to crumble underneath the weight
of the tide and its power. I wonder if the turret has any last words. I do not.
Silence has fit me well over the past years, and I stopped speaking because
there was no one left that I wanted to talk to. All of them had died before I
got to tell them everything, and I would not say another word. 

The foam tries to crown the turret with a circlet of lace, and I wonder if it
has any regrets. I have many. I regret never telling my brothers that they had
become good men. I regret never letting my mother know that I had loved a man
as much as she had loved my father. I regret never really smiling at Skinner.

I regret that I never saw Rome.

Sighing, I know that these are things that were so simple that I took them for
granted, and it's painful to think of them. I could have done these things with
such ease, but fear that I would be rejected or thought poorly of prohibited me
from expressing them. Now, when all of my dignity and all of my pride has been
taken out with the tide, these acts and words remain in my memory. And I regret
them.

The child's sandcastle is torn underneath the tide, and I turn my head away
from it. Suddenly, there is an eerie clarity that I have not known in years. A
purpose that has eluded me for decades fills my being again, and it propels me
to move forward. It is as though all of my waiting has led me to this point,
and I remember waiting for him on the shoreline years ago. In that moment, my
waiting for conclusion has become waiting for Mulder again, and that waiting is
one that rejuvenates all of the parts of me that I thought deceased.

As the sun sets and the tide swipes at my ankles, a dark, incomprehensible
shape appears around the bend of the cliffs. Perhaps it is death. Perhaps it is
nothing. Perhaps it is a delusion. But perhaps it is him.

All of these years of waiting have led me to this one point, this pinnacle, and
I feel a twinge of fear. Should I go forward, or should I remain? Should I dare
to discover the identity of what I have been waiting for, or should I run from
it? 

But this has been all my life has been about. Finding the evidence, finding the
truth. Pursuing the truth. Becoming the truth. I always did so with Mulder, and
it only makes sense that I continue forth now. Sailing forth on Mulder's
impulses, acting with him on a whim or an inspiration, and riding out the storm
with him. 

<<It's like shrimping,>> a memory distantly tells me, and I smile. Yes, it is
like shrimping. It's riding out the storm in a brittle boat, reaping joy and
withstanding both time and sorrow, and depending on the wildness of the tide to
lead you toward rapture.

With that, I step forward and round the bend, and...

Ah, Mulder.

You were always so like the tide.

*****

"Man wonders but God decides
 When to kill the Prince of Tides"
 --Pat Conroy

*****

Author's Notes: The quote at the beginning and end of the story is from the
novel "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy, a brilliant writer who captured the
magic and natural beauty of the South. I highly recommend it to anyone who
hasn't read it. It's quite possibly the best contemporary novel written yet,
IMHO.

And if I have ever called "Wallpaper" my dark little baby, this is my shining
baby. It was difficult to write, painstakingly conceived, and revised and
re-read more times than any of my previous works. It was, without a doubt, the
work that I agonized over the most. I have lost sleep over "Erosion". And yet,
in the end, it is one of the works that I am the proudest of. I hope that you
found something in it that touched you, and if there's anything you want to
comment on, just send me an e-mail at Auralissa@aol.com. Anyone will tell you
that I am more than willing to discuss anything with you, and I'll reply to
every little piece of feedback. :)

This is dedicated to Kristin. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

*****

THE END

*****

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"By the way, the Emmy Awards were moved from Pasadena to Los Angeles so that
David could be closer to his wife."
--Gary Shandling, 1998 Emmy Awards
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