Subject:        "At a Loss for Words" (5/?) NC-17 by K. Rasch
From:   krasch@delphi.com
Date:   Thu, 29 Aug 96 21:10:28 -0500

At a Loss for Words (5/?)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com

 Same old, same old.  Read on, Macduff. :)
************************************************
        Fox Mulder slept the sleep of the innocent.
        Not that his psyche had suddenly been washed clean.
Unsullied.  No longer tainted by the guilt, the fear, the righteous
anger that had for so long added shadows to the shape of his
soul.
        Rather, he was exhausted.
        Scully might be small, but she had the endurance of a
triathlete.
        Not that he was complaining.
        Lord, no.
        Instead, he had recently begun considering whether
perhaps he should start running a bit more frequently.  Maybe
don with more regularity that red  Speedo.  Build up his cardio-
vascular fitness.
        After all, a certain sexy little redhead was, in a
manner of speaking, her very own Olympic event.
        And he definitely wanted to be atop the podium.
        In a manner of speaking.
        Yet, for all his performance anxiety, Mulder had been
able that night to feel that he had at least held his own.  Because
when all had been said and done, the Energizer Bunny known
as Dana Scully had been the one to fall asleep first.
        And while he hadn't received a medal of any sort for
that achievement, the occasion had granted him a kind of bounty.
        He had been allowed to look at her.
        Unhindered.  Without interruption.
        Sappy as he recognized it was, Mulder could never
get enough of watching his partner at rest.  He supposed the
attraction was due, at least in part, to the very novelty of the act.
Hell, they spent so damn few nights together.  And the hours
they did manage to finagle always seemed to the two of them far
too precious to waste on petty things like shut-eye.  But he
suspected the real delight to be had in observing Scully slumber
came from the way in which sleep released her.  Freed her from
the constraints she habitually imposed upon herself.  In her
continuing pursuit of perfection.
        Mulder wondered sometimes whether the woman he
loved even realized that she behaved in such a manner.   That
she set for herself such high standards.  Such strict codes of
behavior and conduct.  In the end, the point was moot.
Because cognizant or no, Scully quite simply accepted nothing
less than excellence from herself.  Always.  And that was tough.
Especially on her.  Such a goal required constant vigilance on
her part.  It never mattered where they were, what the hour was,
or what the situation.  In her mind, she had to be on top of it.
Without fail.
        On the flip side, from where Mulder was standing,
it seemed as if no matter how closely he paid attention, how
carefully he observed, catching Scully with her guard down
was about as easy as getting a good look at old Nessie.
        And yet, he did manage it from time to time.  When
they made love, of course.  And he caught glimpses of it on
those occasions when she would look him in the eye and softly
tell him something true, something intimate, spoken without fear
of misunderstanding or consequences.
        But those scant moments only made him crave more.
Instances of Scully without her defenses in place were as
addictive as the purest heroin.  And Mulder had ruefully
discovered that for this particular high he had become the
most pathetic of junkies.  He couldn't help himself.  Couldn't
conquer the desire to know all there was to know about this
woman.  Not only her strengths, which were obvious and far
too numerous to count.  But the aspects of her personality that
weren't so readily accessible.  The things about herself that she
was loath to share.  Her vulnerabilities.  Her weaknesses.
        And sleep allowed him to indulge that craving.
        When she lie next to him, small and warm and utterly
relaxed, Mulder knew that this was Dana Scully in her purest form.
        Woman as an elemental being.
        He had held her that night until she had nodded off,
softly stroking her hair in that slow lazy rhythm he knew she
liked.  Once he had felt her body slacken in his arms and her
breathing grow deep and even, he had carefully slipped free
from beneath her, rolling her slight form gently onto the mattress
beside him.  Propping his head on his hand, and his elbow on
the pillow, Mulder had then looked down at his partner with a
tender smile, his eyes leisurely sweeping over the smooth perfect
oval of her face.
        Scully's lashes had curled like lush little ladies' fans over
the faint crescents beneath her eyes.  The sort of fashion accessories
that had been used in Jane Austen's day and before as a means to
both attract and repel a man.  Struck by this insight, Mulder had
stifled the urge to chuckle.  He had never before made the
connection.  His metaphor had an unexpectedly circular logic
embedded in it.  After all, a woman could easily choose to use her
eyes in the same manner, for the same purpose, as Emma, Elizabeth
and all the rest of the Regency period's most famous heroines had
utilized the language of the fan.  She could bat her lashes to entice.
Snap her eyes away from a man's admiring gaze in an effort to
dissuade.  The game was as old as civilization.
        But not his Scully.  No game player there.  She didn't get
off on the power such ploys inevitably spawned.  The rush to be
had by dangling the promise of intimacy, the hope of affection
before a man only to all at once deny him.  She didn't have it in
her to make a guy jump through hoops just to see if the fool
would do it.
        Unlike Phoebe.
        No, he had thought fondly, his fingers stealing lightly
once more through the strands of her fiery hair.  Scully was
too true, too kind, too good, for that sort of cruelty.
        Praise God.
        It never ceased to amaze him that such a gentle soul
was shielded by such a fierce intellect, a ferocious spirit.  For
despite the fact that in her present state she more closely
resembled 'kitten', Mulder had always thought of Scully as more
'lioness' than anything else.  The real leader of the pride.  Huntress.
Protectress.  All regal power and calm fortitude.  Brave when she
had to be.  Tender with those with whose care she was charged.
Not afraid to give the guy with the shaggy mane a quick swipe
of her paw across his nose when he deserved it.
        Why had he suddenly felt the urge to get a haircut?
        Fearing that his zoological imagery was getting the best
of him, Mulder had banished it from his head and had focused
instead on the reality of the woman before him.  The simple
incontrovertible actuality of who she was.
        Petite.
        Hardly a revelation, that.  And yet there were times
when the knowledge made a certain powerful impact on him.
Although throughout much of her Bureau career Scully had
managed to avoid physical confrontations, there was no
escaping the fact that her size made her vulnerable.  That despite
her training and intelligence, there was simply no way she was
a match for a person with twice her bulk.  And that, quite frankly,
frightened the hell out of Mulder.
        He had supposed that this fear might be seen by some
as a bit of a slap in the face to his partner's capabilities.
Especially
given that in the course of their joint careers, he had been far more
likely to be on the receiving end of a butt-whupping than she.
And yet, his concern was in no way due to some perceived
deficiency on Scully's part.  On the contrary, he knew that the
woman with whom he worked had routinely recognized her physical
limitations and had adjusted accordingly.  To minimize her risk,
she approached danger with utmost caution.  Unlike his leap-first-
ask-questions-later mentality, she carefully considered all the
potential hazards to be found in a situation before diving in, and
then reacted as needed.   This, of course, wasn't to say that she
lacked bravery.  Mulder felt quite certain that he would never
meet anyone possessing the sort of courage Dana Scully did.
She just fought smart.  Period.  She maximized the odds.
        And yet, odds implied luck.
        And no one's luck held out forever.
        Some variables couldn't be foreseen or controlled.
        Watching Scully softly sleep, Mulder had thought back
to what she had looked like during that nightmarish stand-off on
Old Memorial Bridge.  The one where he had thought he had
watched his baby sister plunge to an icy death.  The one where
something not of this earth had succeeded in stealing his partner
away from him, only to barter her back like some trinket at a
bazaar.  He had recalled seeing the blood on her face when she
had been dragged from the automobile that had brought her to
the exchange point.  Her nose running red.  An ugly looking gash
oozing the same colored stuff through her hairline.  He had
remembered the manner in which her legs had shaken when she
had stumbled back to him, to safety.  And the way her empty
motel room had earlier that night silently testified to the brutality
of the battle waged there.
        The one that she had lost.
        Those memories swirling around inside his mind like
cyanide gas, Mulder had sadly shaken his head, his brow
darkening.  God, how tenuous life was.  How easily snuffed out.
He had been considering all life he had supposed, but Scully's
life in particular.  She had been through so much.  How the hell
had she managed to survive, he had wondered with a touch of
awe.  How had they both?
        Better still, how had she kept herself from hating him
for the sort of sorrow their partnership had shown her?
        His eyes had skimmed down her slender body where
it tented the sheet beneath which she slumbered, his gaze
lingering on silly things like the smallness of her foot, the sharp
narrowing of her waist, the easy rise and fall of her breasts as
she softly breathed, oblivious to his scrutiny.  Lips pursed in
thought, he had taken his index finger and with gossamer force,
ran the back of it from the pale slope of her shoulder, down her
arm, to her hand where it rested heavily on her stomach atop the
bedclothes.
        Fragile, had screamed his brain.  Breakable.
        Mortal.
        Precious.
        Sighing, he had collapsed the arm supporting him and
laid his head on the pillow beside Scully's, his resting just above
hers so that his chin was even with her temple.  His stomach flush
against her side, he had settled his arm across her middle, holding
her to him.  She had murmured in her sleep, but had not awakened.
Instead, she had instinctively turned her face so that her nose
nuzzled Mulder's throat.  At the same time, her hands had found
their way to his forearm where they lightly gripped.
        A ferocious need to protect the woman in his arms had
risen up inside Mulder quite unexpectedly.  A desire he knew
was outdated and would most certainly go unappreciated by
the person in question.  But one of which he couldn't rid himself
just the same.  Pressing an almost furtive kiss to her hair, he had
ruefully recognized the notion as far from noble.  Instead, he had
been painfully aware that his motivation was wholly and entirely
selfish.
        Because he simply didn't know what he would do if he
ever lost her.
**************************************************
        Some time later--he wasn't sure exactly how long--Mulder
was awakened by a slight shift of the mattress.  Scully was slipping
silently out from under the covers.
        "You okay?" he queried softly.
        He had assumed that she was merely getting up to use
the facilities and had actually only asked the question as a
courtesy.  But, when she didn't immediately answer, he became a
bit concerned.
        "Scully?"
        Still no reply.  Instead, she had gracefully gotten out of
bed and, after a moment, walked slowly to a small needlepoint chair
across the room.  There she retrieved her robe and pulled it on
over the black silk camisole and tap pants she had worn to bed.
        Mulder sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist, and
impatiently rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  Running his hand
through his hair, he watched nonplussed as Scully gently glided
across the floor.  Something wasn't right.  True, she was moving
easily, maneuvering through the room's darkness with the sureness
of a cat.  But the motion looked unnatural somehow.  Her steps,
too even.  Her gait, too smooth.
        "What are you doing?" he inquired softly, attempting
once more to gain her attention.
        She continued voiceless.  Mulder's fear escalated.
Then, she crossed through a shaft of moonlight filtering
in through the balcony door.  And he caught his breath in
surprise.
        Scully's eyes were open.  Not all the way; her lashes
drooped at half mast.  But what he could see of her gaze revealed
nothing.  No awareness.  No intelligence.  No spark.
        She was still asleep.
        His mind raced.  Scully, a sleepwalker?  He had never
noted that about her before.  Not once in all the nights they
had spent together on the road had the problem arisen.  She
herself had never mentioned it.  Surely if she was aware of the
condition she would have called his attention to it.  Wouldn't
she?  Or perhaps she had been too embarrassed to do so.  On the
other hand, if this was something new--why now?  What would
have been the impetus for this behavior?
        These questions and others jostling inside his head,
begging answers, Mulder continued to watch Scully make her
leisurely way around the room, bending and swaying as she
moved like a poplar caressed by a spring breeze.  Half mesmerized
by the sight, he woefully realized he had no idea what to do.  He
knew the basics, of course.  That you weren't supposed to try and
rouse a person in this state.  That instead they should be allowed
to come out of it on their own, the shock of being forced awake
having potentially lethal consequences.  And the last thing
he wanted to do was throw Scully into some sort of panic attack.
So he waited, sitting there clad only in his silk boxers, his
heart pounding wildly in his chest, his hands fisting the sheet
in frustration.
        For her part, Scully appeared oblivious to his concern.
She seemed in no hurry, to have no specific destination in mind.
Rather, she wandered.  Floating with an eerie sort of calm across
the shadowed chamber.  Taking a moment to run her fingers along
a bureau top, to inspect a hairbrush, to pause before a mirror.
Most disturbing to Mulder's piece of mind,  her hands returned
time and again to the slick softness of her robe, where they
fondled the fabric with distinctly sensual pleasure.
        Finally, after a time, she stopped.  And stood absolutely
still as if scenting the air.  Then, without warning, she turned
suddenly and began heading slowly, yet steadily, towards the
door.
        "Shit," Mulder mumbled hoarsely.
        Scully had gotten past the bed and him before he had
realized her intentions.  Short of teleporting, he wasn't going to
be able to stop her from opening the door, and if he was going to
follow her out into the hall he figured he damn well better put some
clothes on first.  Fumbling around in the dark, he finally found his
pants wadded up near the foot of the bed.  With the speed of a
fireman answering an alarm, he shoved his legs roughly into them,
yanked the zipper up, and followed his partner into the corridor.
        As it turned out, he needn't have hurried.  When he got
to the doorway, he found Scully standing just outside it, head
turning slowly from side to side as if unsure which way to proceed.
He stayed back, not wanting to crowd her, concerned that such a
sensation might in some way agitate her.  At last, as if coming to a
decision, she turned to her left, down the longest part of the
passageway.
        Their room was situated at the end of what Mulder thought
of as the second floor's main hallway.  He regarded it in this fashion
because their corridor ran the front of the house, and had at its
middle the massive central staircase linking La Lune Argentine's
three stories.  The entire building was designed in a simple hollow
square with the courtyard at its center.  Consequently, each of the
building's three floors was made up of four hallways, one
connecting to another at ninety degree angles.  The inn's guests
all stayed on the first and second floors, the third floor's apartments
being left to Bill and Laura.  Mulder didn't know how many of the
inn's rooms were occupied that night, but he hoped they
encountered no one else up and about at that late hour.  As it
was, he wordlessly said a prayer of thanks that the dainty little
wall sconces had been left on to allow the corridor some small
degree of illumination.
        Trailing behind Scully like a wraith, he once again kept
his distance, hanging back to see what she would do.  He was
concerned that she might try and enter one of the other rooms
along the corridor, and vaguely hoped that those others staying
on their floor had locked their doors before turning in.  Otherwise,
he was going to have a lot of explaining to do.  But that wasn't the
case.  She didn't even seem to consider the notion.  Instead, she
continued to walk slowly down the center of the hallway, looking
from right to left as if examining it, regarding the silent wallpapered
passageway as if it were a mysterious cavern and she, an intrepid
explorer.
        They got to the small narrow galley kitchen that had been
tucked away for the guests' convenience next to a linen closet.
Scully appeared puzzled by this.  Confused by the gleaming white
refrigerator, countertop and cabinets, the spotless stainless steel
sink.  She paused for a moment and turned in to the area.  Head
cocked, she ran her small hands over the appliances as if unsure
just what exactly they were.  Mulder was supremely thankful at
that moment that the little alcove had only a microwave and not
a stovetop.  All they would need would be for Scully to curiously
turn on a burner and have the sleeves of her robe catch fire.  The
mere thought sent a shudder through him.
        Finally, she grew tired of her investigation of the kitchen
and returned to her silent patrol of the halls.  She seemed fascinated
by the art on the walls--the reproductions of scenes painted over a
century before, antique silhouettes and other assorted odds and
ends appropriate to the period--and studied these bits of
decoration intently.
        However, what particularly arrested her attention was the
painting hanging at the top of the wide cherry wood staircase.  It
was an oil of La Lune Argentine as it must have looked during its
heyday.  Mulder was no art historian.  He couldn't tell if the painting
dated from the mid-nineteenth century, or if some modern day artist
had merely managed to capture with his imagination how the
structure must have looked when Selene Broussard had held court
in the building's salon.  But the picture transported its viewer back
to a time of gas powered street lights and horse drawn carriages.
Of ladies dressed in corsets and layers of fabric, and men sporting
top hats and ebony walking sticks.
        Scully came to an abrupt halt before it, her head tilting
back to take it all in.  Mulder thought he might have heard her gasp,
but he couldn't be sure.  Trembling slightly, the small red-haired
woman reached out and lightly ran her fingertips over the painting,
over the thick swirls of pigment, almost as if she hoped to better
see the picture by touch rather than by sight.  For the longest time
she stood there, her eyes still hazed with that unnerving lack of
awareness, her lips parted, her feet bare, her diminutive frame
stretched to allow her hands to caress the picture like a lover.
Mulder folded his arms across his naked chest, and slouched
against the wall some ways from her, lulled into a false sense of
security by her apparent rapt interest in a painting she had, as
far as he knew, done nothing more than glance at previously.
        That complacency was nearly his undoing.  Or, more to
the point, hers.  Mulder would later wonder how he could have
been so careless.  How he could have stood there and almost let
the unthinkable occur.  As with the other things that had held her
for a time in thrall, Scully's enchantment with the large, ornately
framed painting ended abruptly.  Her arms dropped to her sides
and she turned to face the steep flight of stairs.  But, in pivoting,
her toe caught on the edge of the runner extending the length of
the hallway and beyond.
        Her balance faltered.
        She stumbled.
        And began to plunge head first down the staircase's
yawning mouth.
        Biting back a cry of terror, Mulder lunged from his place
against the wall.  Certain that he was going to be too late.  Sure
that her bright head would crack unmercifully against the edge of
first one hardwood step than another.  Her small body twisting and
tumbling, bouncing against the railings like a gymnast out of control.
        But providence was with him that night, and he managed
to snag his fingers on the slippery collar of her robe.  And pull.
        Hard.
        Yanking her away from the precipice.
        And into his arms.
        When she slammed boneless against his chest, he felt
her awaken.  Her body went rigid.  She sucked in air in preparation
for crying out.  Hurriedly, Mulder pressed his palm over her mouth,
his other arm locked around her waist as he staggered back, finally
sinking to his knees on the floor.
        "Ssh.  Easy now," he crooned softly into her ear, rocking
her slightly, his pulse pounding in his head like thunder.  "Quiet
 . . . quiet.  I've got you. . . .  I've got you.  You're all right.
You're
okay."
        They sat, huddled in a heap, Scully on his lap, Mulder's
back resting against the wall upon which the oil painting of La Lune
Argentine hung.  Once he was certain she wouldn't unwittingly
sound an alarm, he gently removed his hand from her lips.  He
held on to her tightly, afraid for her even though the danger of
her taking a header down the stairs had ended.  No, now he was
worried about her less than kindly transition from sleep to
awareness.  Her body was nearly convulsing against him with
the strength of her shudders.  Smooth, Mulder, he mentally
chided himself.  Real smooth.  People have been known to die
from waking too abruptly out of a somnambulistic state.  And
you rouse the woman by virtually shaking her by the scruff of her
neck.
        "M-Mulder?"  The word was whispered, its edges blurred
as if she was drunk.  She had turned in his arms slightly so that
her cheek rested against his collarbone.
        "I'm here," he assured her quietly, rocking her still, his
lips buried in her hair.
        "What . . .?" She sounded lost, out of it.  Her trembling
continued unabated.  "How . . . ?"
        "Give yourself some time, Scully," he instructed softly,
pressing gentle kisses to her hairline.  "You're not even awake
yet.  Just rest.  It's okay.  You're safe.  I wouldn't let anything
happen to you."
        Nodding a bit jerkily against his chin, she seemed to
accede to his wishes.  Saying nothing more for the moment,
she burrowed against him, her arms locked around her middle
as if trying to physically hold herself together, her head
tucked beneath his chin.
        They rested that way a long while, Mulder's hand
combing lightly through her hair.  He continued to hold her
to him fiercely, using the time as Scully did, to rein in his body's
reaction to the near tragedy.
        Finally, it appeared that they had both succeeded with
their quest.  His heartbeat was no longer like that of a hummingbird's,
and she at last sat still in his arms.  Softly, her fingers found his
jawline.
        "Where are we?" she whispered.
        "In the hall," he answered just as softly, still not wanting
to wake any of the other guests.  "Are you all right?"
        She ignored his question, clearly still a bit befuddled.
"I . . . I was dreaming.  It was so vivid, Mulder.  I was here.  At
the inn.  Only it wasn't here.  The inn didn't look like it does now.
It was different."
        "Different how?" he asked, curious in spite of himself.
        She shook her head, but didn't look at him just yet.  "I
don't know.  The furniture . . . it was changed somehow.  Things
were moved.  The colors had been altered.  It's . . . weird.  I don't
know how to explain it."
        "Don't worry about it," he murmured, pressing a kiss to
her hair in comfort.  "It was just a dream."
        "Why are we here?" she queried a tad unsteadily after
a time, her voice sounding like that of a little girl's.
        "You don't remember?"
        She shook her head once more.
        Mulder sighed, not certain the best way to broach this.
"Scully, you wandered out here."
        She sat up straight so she could look him in the eye, her
brow furrowed in confusion.  "Why?"
        He shrugged a bit helplessly.  "I don't know.  You were
sleepwalking.  You got out of bed and you came out here."
        Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly.  Finally, she
sputtered out, "But . . . I don't sleepwalk, Mulder!"
        Her thoroughly disgruntled tone lightened his heart
immeasurably.  Now she was sounding like the Scully he knew.
"Well . . . maybe not before.  But believe me--that's exactly what
you did tonight."
        Impatiently, she pushed her fingers through her tousled
hair.  "But . . . how can that be?  I never . . . .  Why would I
suddenly start doing something like that?  What would cause it?"
        "I don't know," Mulder admitted softly, his hands
smoothing gently over her back.  "Could be a lot of things.  Maybe
the unfamiliar setting, the new bed . . ."
        "Mulder, I spend half my life in motel rooms," she
interrupted dryly, her voice getting stronger by the minute.  "I'm
in 'new' beds more than I'm in my old one."
        Mulder smiled.  Scully would be all right.  She was bouncing
back already.  "What can I tell you?  I'm at a loss."  He lightly kissed
her forehead.  "Although I do have *one* more theory."
        "And what is that?"
        "Maybe it wasn't the bed at all.  Maybe instead it was
your bed =partner=."
        Her lips quirked at that.  "Are you worried that for some
reason I felt subsconsciously compelled to get away from you,
Mulder?"
        His eyes warmed.  "If I was hogging the covers, Scully,
all you had to do was say something.  You didn't need to get out
of bed altogether."
        She kissed him, her eyes twinkling back at him.  "Are you
crazy?  After all the trouble it took to get you into bed in the first
place, do you honestly believe I'd be so quick to leave myself?"
        "Well, I had *hoped* not . . .," he drawled quietly.
        She kissed him again, softly and sweetly, to banish all
his doubts.
        "So what did I do?" she asked when their lips had parted,
and her head was once more nestled beneath Mulder's chin.  He
quickly filled her in on the details regarding her late night stroll.
        Glancing over her shoulder at the staircase when he was
finished, she slowly shook her head.  "Wow.  That's one hell of a
first step."
        "Don't remind me," he muttered ruefully.  "I'm half
tempted to see if we can be moved to a first floor room tomorrow."
        She yawned then.  "It's tomorrow already."
        "Come on," he said, carefully setting her on the floor and
rising to his feet.  "I don't know about you, but if we keep this up,
I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation.  We need to get
some sleep."
        "I am kind of tired," she admitted, as her fingers again
combed wearily through her hair.
        Reaching down, Mulder grasped Scully's hands and
tugged her gently to her feet.  She wobbled when she stood,
her legs still a trifle unsteady.  He caught her, and before she
could offer protest, swept her up in his arms so that her head
rested on his shoulder.  She eyed him with a mixture of fondness
and exasperation.
        "You know, Mulder," she told him softly, her arms
twined around his neck.  "As nice as this is, I *am* capable of
walking."
        "Your walking is what got us into this mess in the first
place," he reminded her dryly.
        She arched a brow, her lips turning up in a reluctant smile.
        Mulder just stood there for a moment in the hallway,
holding Scully's warm, supple body in his arms.   So ridiculously
thankful that they had made it through yet another potential
disaster unscathed.  Bending his head, he placed his lips on hers
and kissed her tenderly, his mouth moving gently over hers.
Rubbing.  Nuzzling.  Coaxing.  Until finally her tongue slipped
out to meet his, and they lazily explored each other.
        "Indulge me," he whispered against her mouth.
        Scully wasn't certain whether Mulder's entreaty was
in regard to his fit of chivalry or something a good deal less
noble--and yet, no less pleasurable.  Not that it mattered at that
instant.  She could deny him nothing.  Not when he cradled her
to him so carefully, his arms strong, his skin hot against hers.
His hazel eyes shining down into her blue ones like twin lanterns,
offering with that gaze safety and sanctuary, the way a lighthouse
beacon promises the same to a battered ship.  So, raising no more
protest, she pressed a small kiss to the bend of his neck and
settled in for the ride.
        "Mulder, what will we do if this happens again?"
        "If what happens?"
        "My sleepwalking.  How do we know that this is a one
time thing?"
        "We don't.  I guess to be on the safe side I should tie
you to the bed."
        "Promises, promises, Mulder.  Promises, promises."
*************************************************
        Oh, she had forgotten what it was like to have form.
Eyes with which to see.  Legs upon which to travel.  Fingers
with which to grasp.  To take hold of silk.  Of wood.  She had
missed that.  The solidity of life.
        She would not be satisfied with only a single taste of it.
*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
Continued in Part VI

At a Loss for Words (6/?) NC-17
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com

All the credits, disclaimers, etc. are found in the intro.  This is 
where you find the story.  Feedback of all kinds appreciated.
Just a note.  While I am by no means a French expert, I *have* 
tried to spell the words right. :)  However, accent marks just
don't work properly in ASCII, I've discovered.  So please
excuse the lack of such things as the little "caps" over the e's
in tete-a-tete.  <g>  Thanks.
************************************************
     The two agents slept in the following morning.  Later 
than either of them had ever expected they would.  Scully awoke 
first, the transition gradual.  She lie on her side, Mulder spooned 
behind her, his arm thrown over her slender body, his breath 
rustling her hair.  For a time she merely rested there in her lover's 
arms, content with the world and her place in it.  Finally however, 
unable to escape the uncanny sense that under normal 
circumstances she would have been up hours ago, she blinked 
away slumber and glanced at the clock on the night stand.  Oh 
boy, she thought in some dismay, the morning was nearly over.  
They may be on vacation, but she still had things she wanted 
to do in the Crescent City.  And not *all* of them involved that 
bed.  Stretching languorously, she turned her head and pressed 
a kiss to Mulder's shoulder.  He stirred at her touch and pulled her 
closer.
     "Hey," she whispered in a voice still cloaked in sleep.  
"Come on.  Time to get up."
     He made a soft wordless sound of protest, then rolled, 
tugging her with him so that without quite knowing how they 
managed it, she wound up draped over his supine body, her 
chest to his.  Throughout the maneuver, Mulder's eyes had 
remained closed, almost giving the impression that this was his 
very own quirky sort of "sleepwalking".  Scully smiled at that 
thought, and with her hands trailing lightly over his skin, softly 
kissed her way up the strong column of his throat.  
     "Hmm," he murmured quietly, his head tilting back to 
encourage her attention, his hands finding their way beneath 
her camisole to smooth gently up and down her graceful back.  
"You make the nicest alarm clock, Scully."
     She chuckled, and nuzzled the corner of his jaw with 
her lips.  "I'm not so sure how good I am at it, though.  You 
aren't exactly 'rising and shining'."
     His warm hands dipped beneath her short silk pants 
and cupped her buttocks.  Gripping, then releasing.  His eyes 
still stayed tightly shut.  "Haven't you ever heard of the 'snooze', 
Scully?"
     "Are you saying I actually *put* you to sleep, Mulder?" 
she asked playfully, her teeth closing over his earlobe just as her 
hips rocked against his groin.
     His breath caught, then expelled on a soft rough groan.
     Scully smiled slyly against his ear.  "I take back what I 
said before.  Something is definitely 'rising' now."
     "You don't have to sound so damn smug about it," he 
growled with mock ferocity as he framed her head with his hands 
and pulled her back so he could meet her gaze, his hazel eyes open 
at last and smiling up at her.
     Her lips answered his look with a subtly teasing smile of
their own that belied the bland recitation of her words.  "I wouldn't 
dream of being smug, Mulder.  I'm a physician, don't forget.  So I, 
of all people, know that this . . . ." She tilted her pelvis against his 
ever-increasing erection with as much detachment as she could 
muster.  And circled.  Once.  Then, because it felt so good--their 
bodies grinding slowly against each other, separated by nothing 
more than two fragile layers of silk--she did it again.   
     And tried not to moan.
     She was more successful with the effort than Mulder.
     His ragged sounding breath played like the sweetest 
music in her head, urging her on.
     "This . . .," Scully began once more in a low voice, her 
hips rolling constantly now over his in a never-ending yet never 
forceful sort of seduction, her lips pressing tiny kisses to his 
face in between her words, "is merely a man's biological 
reaction to waking.  Almost a reflex action, if you will.  The same 
kind of thing as a person's eyes narrowing when they look into 
the sun.  That's all."
     She kissed him then, her full soft mouth warm and open 
against his.
     "Why would I get any satisfaction out of that?" she 
asked ingenuously when the kiss had ended, a brow arched to 
undercut the innocence.
     Mulder's arms had snaked tightly around her waist during 
her calm discourse, the lower half of his body throbbing at a steady 
maddening pace.  Eyes glittering, the corner of his mouth pulled up 
in a rueful grin, he swiftly turned once more, pinning Scully beneath 
him.  She squealed softly in surprise when she found herself on her 
back, Mulder resting heavy and hard between her legs.  He looked 
down at her flushed face, his expression sulky with arousal.
     "So, Dr. Scully," he muttered heatedly, his hands clasped 
in hers and drawn high on the pillow above her head so that her 
back was arched slightly.  "Are you saying that my reaction to 
certain . . . stimuli . . is purely involuntary, nothing more than a 
kind of primitive animal instinct?"
     Her eyes sparkled up at him, her pupils large, her lashes 
lowered just a bit.  "I'd say there's a touch of the animal in you, 
Agent Mulder.  Yes."
     "Ah, but what about you?"
     "What about me?"
     His brows lifted as if in speculation, his smile broadening 
by a fraction.  "I can't help but wonder if there aren't ways in which 
your body . . . behaves . . . that one might term 'instinctive'."
     Watching with satisfaction as Scully's gaze grew a tad 
unfocused with anticipation, Mulder bent his head, and with his 
teeth, gently pulled on the low vee neckline of her camisole, 
tugging it lower still until one smooth, round breast peeked over 
the edge, its nipple already swollen and hard.  He just looked at 
her pale softness for a breath or two, admiring it, and mused that 
the bud crowning the creamy mound looked ripe.  Like a berry
just begging to be picked.  
     The notion made him suddenly ravenous.  
     "Take, for example, this," he murmured, nudging her 
nipple with his nose.  Taking his time, he circled around the 
aureole slowly, battling the urge to chuckle when he felt Scully's 
hips shift restlessly beneath him in reaction, almost as if there 
were some invisible cord directly connecting the top half of her 
body and the bottom portion.  Next, licking his lips, he lowered 
his mouth over the peak, slipping hot and wet over it, covering 
the tip completely then lazily lifting once more, leaving her breast 
glistening, and its nipple tighter than it had been only moments 
before.  "If  moisture is applied, you can see that a change almost 
immediately takes place."
     Looking up at him, Scully watched as with a devilish 
smile Mulder then blew lightly on the nubbin.  She started in his 
arms, undulated softly beneath him, a low breathy moan escaping 
her lips, her eyes sliding shut.  The pale pink tip puckered still 
more, lengthened.  "A change in temperature will also have a 
similar effect," he said in a way that made her feel as if the man 
above her was lecturing to a classroom full of invisible students 
and she had somehow been pressed into service as a kind of 
erotic audio-visual aid.
     "As for pressure . . ." he whispered, his voice ragged 
at the seams.  Almost, Scully thought, as if his body was 
being teased as beautifully as he was teasing hers.  "Well, . . . 
there are two kinds."
     He kissed her tenderly on her breast's sensitive point.  
"Direct."  Then his lips and teeth and tongue began a dizzying 
sort of assault.  He lapped at her nipple.  Stabbed at it with his 
tongue.  Made biting little kisses around its edge.  Carefully 
nibbled it.  Ran his lips up its length.  The man's invention was 
endless.  It was heavenly.  She helplessly listened as a string of
small mewling sounds escaped while she breathed, her head 
twisting feverishly on the pillow.
     Finally, he pulled away from her nipple, lavishing one 
last kiss on it before reluctantly letting it slip from his mouth.  
Oh God, Scully thought, her chest now heaving with the force 
of her excitement, sweat beading at her hairline.  She was 
beginning to understand how some women could actually orgasm 
merely by having their breasts stimulated.  It had never before 
happened to her.  But that morning she wondered if there really 
wasn't a first time for everything.
     Mulder released her hands, and balancing himself on 
his elbows, reached down to cup the objection of his attention.  
"Direct is good," he mumbled, his seduction seemingly beginning
to have its effect on him as well, his hips now rocking against hers 
in a steady, increasingly urgent manner.  "The effect of prolonged 
stimulation is still more pronounced."  He lifted her breast gently, 
plumping it in his hand, and studied it with anything but the 
detachment he was still trying to exhibit in his speech.  "But you 
know something, Scully?  I think I like indirect pressure best."
     With that, he bent his head once more, pulling her into 
his mouth, and suckled.  Easy at first, tenderly.  Then harder, his 
cheeks hollowing with the effort.
     While beneath him Dana Scully went just a little bit nuts.  
The fierce sort of tugging on her sensitized nipple almost sent 
her into sensory overload.  She screamed, a lovely muffled sort 
of cry.  She called out Mulder's name, the word rough and throaty.  
She even invoked a few phrases that would have shocked the 
nuns who had done their best to guide her through childhood.  
But she really couldn't help it.  She was beyond all manner of 
decorum at that point.  She had suspected Mulder might be 
building to this.  Had hoped he was, in fact.  But, nothing had 
quite prepared her for the reality of it.  The way her nerve 
endings felt as if they were being seared by the pull of his lips.  
She couldn't hold still.  Her legs thrashed against the mattress, 
then finally, with a sort of desperation, locked around his hips.  
Her back bowed.  Her fingers tunneled their way into the tangled 
brown silk of his hair, holding him to her, encouraging him
     At long last, the suction eased.  He pressed a trio of 
soft, sweet kisses to her breast.  Then, raised his head.  "I think 
you like indirect pressure best too, Scully," he told her quietly, 
his tone low and hoarse, his eyes shining down into hers with a 
look of distinctly male pride.
     "Now who's smug?" she murmured with an arch of her 
brow and a tiny smile, surprised what with the way her heart was 
racing that she was able to speak at all.
     "Not true," he protested lightly, his fingers gliding over 
her cheek.  "After all, this was merely an experiment, remember?  
An investigation into whether your body was as . . . . prone to 
involuntary responses as mine."
     He kissed her, his mouth urgent and hot against hers.  
Then, pressed his groin heatedly against her mons.  Her legs 
tightened around his middle in response, urging him still more 
firmly against her.
     "So what do you say, Dr. Scully?" Mulder asked with 
deceptive casualness, the majority of his upper body weight 
resting on his forearms, the majority of his lower body resting 
squarely on her.  "Is the female of the species as susceptible to 
her body's more basic biological urges as the male?"
     Smiling more with her eyes than with her mouth, Scully 
shook her head slightly,  "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder.  But I can't 
answer that just yet."
     His gaze bore down into hers, the force of his arousal 
shooting what felt almost like sparks of static electricity into the 
air between them.  "Why not?"
     Her fingertips trailed down the strong line of his jaw.  
"The experiment is inconclusive."
     He managed a smile, but she could see the effort cost 
him.  "How so?"
     "Even the most remedial science class teaches that a 
proper conclusion can never be reached after only one test of a 
hypothesis."
     Mulder cocked his head, his look questioning.
     Scully lowered her lashes for a heartbeat, searching 
for control.  Then, with trembling fingers, she fumbled for the 
hem of her camisole, and lifting slightly, pulled the garment 
over her head and on to the floor, leaving her naked from the 
waist up.
     She languidly raised her arms to frame her head on the 
pillow, the move almost lethally sensual, the posture one that 
clearly called attention to her chest.  Mulder's eyes darkened.  
She smiled.  "Further investigation is necessary," she drawled, 
honey sweet.
     With a small nod of agreement, he curled his hand 
carefully around her previously clothed breast, and bent his head 
once more.
     "We'll make a scientist out of you yet, Mulder," Scully 
whispered as her eyes slowly closed and her hands again burrowed
their way into her partner's hair.
************************************************
     Mulder and Scully wound up finding their way out of 
the inn just after twelve.  Their plan was much the same as the 
previous day's.  Which was to say, of course, that they had no 
plan at all.  They were simply bumming.  With one small 
exception.
     "I'd like to look for a present for my mom," Scully had 
explained to Mulder soon after their trek had begun.  "She's 
never been to New Orleans, and she's watering my plants 
while I'm away.  So, I'd like to bring her something.  You know--
just to show that I was thinking of her."
     "Sure," Mulder had agreed without hesitation.
     So with that objective in mind, they found themselves 
that afternoon drawn particularly to retail establishments as they 
strolled.  Scully was amazed yet again at what a good sport 
Mulder was being about the whole thing.  Most guys would  
rather give blood than go gift shopping.  But not him.  He 
never once raised a protest or gave a long suffering sigh as 
she turned into yet another store featuring unusual art or jewelry, 
those being the sorts of things she thought her mother might 
enjoy.  In fact, he seemed to be as interested in the merchandise 
the various shops had to offer as she.  Still, for much of the 
afternoon neither of them bought anything.  Instead, they 
contented themselves with merely browsing, waiting for that 
one item that would strike a chord.
     And yet, the day wasn't only about finding a gift for
Maggie Scully.  About midway through their excursion, Mulder 
convinced Scully to have her tea leaves read.  
     "Tea leaves, Mulder?" she inquired dryly.
     He shrugged blithely.  "Seems as likely a means of 
prognostication as any.  Come on, Scully.  Aren't you curious?"
     As a matter of fact, she was.  Not that she put any stock 
in that sort of thing.  Not at all.  Still, the idea struck her as a lark, 
especially given where they were:  New Orleans--home of voodoo, 
vampires, and all things mystical.  Having a soothsayer look into 
a china cup and pronounce the future seemed to her to be on a 
level with the sorts of things little girls did at slumber parties; right 
up there with Ouija boards and seances.  What harm could there 
be in that?  And besides, Mulder's eyes were dancing at the very 
notion.  Her saying no would be like denying a little boy a puppy 
at Christmas.
     "What the hell.  I'm thirsty anyway," she said with a small 
subtle smile.  "All right, Mulder.  But if our gypsy fortune-teller 
informs me that  I'm going to meet a tall dark stranger I'm going to 
have to tell her I've already met one."
     "No one stranger than me," he murmured with wry good 
humor as he placed a gentle hand on the small of her back and 
ushered her inside the Bottom of the Cup Tearoom.
     The establishment was more than a place to grab a quick 
cup of Earl Gray, hot.  In addition to serving beverages, it also 
sold fortune-telling supplies, books on the occult, and several 
ominous looking types of charms.  In the back, a number of 
curtained booths were set up in what Scully assumed was an 
attempt at providing privacy for the variety of readings taking 
place.  Mulder shepherded her in that direction and soon they 
were both ensconced in one of the room's cozy cubbyholes.
     Their tasseographer's name was Rachel.  She was a tall 
exotic looking African-American woman of indeterminate age, with 
a head full of long jet braids and a deep melodious voice.  After 
pouring her two customers their cups of tea, she explained a bit 
regarding what they were about to experience, her nearly black 
almond shaped eyes glowing with a blend of intelligence and 
humor.
     "It is not all about the leaves, you know," she murmured 
softly; a faint difficult to pinpoint accent lacing her words.  "They 
are merely a means to an end."
     "In what way?" Mulder asked intently, clearly fascinated.
     She shrugged lightly.  "They suggest.  They do not tell."
     Scully glanced doubtfully at Mulder over the rim of her 
teacup.  He smiled at her with encouragement.  She lifted her brows 
in silent reply, then turned to address the woman across from her.  
"I'm not sure I'm following you," the petite redhead confessed.
     Rachel sipped her tea.  "The leaves are like the tarot.  
They are a way for the seer to focus.  To clear the mind and open 
the gateway to the other place.  They do not dictate.  They only 
guide."
     "What other place?" Scully queried, a tad impatient with 
all the otherworldly mumbo-jumbo.
     For a moment, the woman with the braids said nothing, 
her eyes merely narrowed in consideration.  Finally, she slowly 
shook her head, her full lips quirking in a smile.  "I do not need to 
tell you, I think.  You have been there, after all.  You both have."
     Scully felt a shiver trickle through her, and her enthusiasm 
for the venture all but instantly shriveled.  Almost as if sensing 
this, Mulder placed a comforting hand on her forearm, and calmly 
asked, "What *can* you tell us, then?"
     Rachel dipped her head as if silently agreeing to proceed, 
and laid her hands on both their now empty cups of tea.  She 
closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep unhurried breath.  
Slowly, her lashes lifted once more.  
     "You are not married."
     Oh, great opener, Scully thought with a touch of derision.  
No mighty leap, there.  Neither she nor Mulder were wearing rings.  
And despite the change in their relationship from professional to 
personal, she somehow doubted that either of them gave the 
impression that they were in any way domesticated.
     "No," Mulder confirmed evenly.
     Rachel pursed her lips thoughtfully.  "And yet you 
are . . . together."
     Mulder's gaze slid to Scully's.  He smiled tenderly.  She 
strove not to blush.  "Yes, we are," he said quietly.
     Rachel smiled for a moment in understanding.  Then, to
Scully's way of thinking, the African-American woman's expression 
changed.  Shifted subtly.  Her eyes grew suddenly keen, urgent.  
All at once, her stare seemed as if it might somehow pull the two 
people sitting across from her inside of her to a place of shadows 
and specters, of mysteries and truths not meant to be known.  
Scully found the sensation patently unnerving.
     "Together you are stronger than either of you are 
alone."  Rachel spoke the words in a hushed, low voice.  "You 
must always remember that.  No matter what occurs; turn to 
each other, not away."
     Scully was =really= beginning to regret this little tea 
break.  The things Rachel was pronouncing, while in no way 
earth-shattering none the less disturbed her greatly.  She couldn't 
escape the notion that the woman seated on the other side of the 
table was in some unknowable way privy to parts of her life Scully 
was more than unwilling to share.  However, before she could 
offer protest, call a halt to the whole thing, the fortune-teller 
continued.  And Scully felt like one of those people who stares 
at car crashes as they drive by on the interstate.  Appalled, yet 
fascinated.  
     Saying nothing more, Rachel picked up Scully's cup with 
two hands.  Closed her eyes.  Swirled the vessel three times in a 
clock-wise fashion.  And peered inside.  Her dark, bottomless eyes 
studied Scully over the rim.
     "You are in danger," Rachel said softly, the words spoken 
in an oddly calm manner.  Then, her lips curled ever so slightly in a 
smile.  "But, this is not so strange, I think."
     Scully arched a brow in Mulder's direction.  He wouldn't
meet her gaze.  Instead, lips pressed thin, he tightened his hand 
on her arm.  But whether the gesture was meant to offer comfort
or to reassure himself that she was still seated beside him, Scully
couldn't say.
     The ebony-skinned woman squinted into the dainty cup 
cradled in her hands as if trying to read some particularly fine print.  
"However, this time is different.  The enemy is one you least expect.  
You must be on your guard.  But do not fight him.  For he is as 
much friend as foe."
     Scully had to stifle the urge to roll her eyes in amusement.  
Oh for crying out loud, could the woman be any more melodramatic?  
Some of the dangerous mood that had only moments before made 
her stomach turn traitor melted away.  Despite the fact that Rachel 
was imparting to her a warning, she really had to shake her head in 
bemused dismay.  The words the woman used, the dark foreboding 
tone with which she spoke, reminded Scully of nothing so much as 
fortune cookie messages read aloud.  How could she fret over 
something that inane?  Smiling at the notion, the red-haired agent 
whimsically wondered if the whole exercise would end with she and 
Mulder being told their lucky numbers.
     Scully chanced another glance at Mulder.  He didn't seem 
to be taking Rachel's words with quite the same cavalier attitude 
as she.  He still wouldn't meet her eyes.  Instead, he stared at the 
woman who claimed she could see the future, his brow furrowed, 
his teeth absent-mindedly gnawing on the corner of his lip.  Scully 
wanted to shake him.  To urge him to get in on the joke.  But, after 
seeing the look on his face, she somehow doubted that he viewed 
Rachel's declarations as the least bit funny.  And so, Scully merely 
watched in silence as Rachel repeated her simple little ritual with 
Mulder's empty tea cup in preparation for telling his fortune.
     "As for you," Rachel murmured after a moment, her 
attention now focused on the leaves at the bottom of Mulder's 
cup.  "You are a believer.  A believer in all things except that in 
which you most desperately *need* to believe."
     She raised her eyes, and pinned Mulder with them.  
Scully felt him shift a bit uneasily next to her under the woman's 
unblinking scrutiny. 
     "Yourself."
     Setting down the cup, Rachel continued to look at him 
pointedly, her gaze old and wise.
     "What do you mean?" Mulder mumbled after a beat.
     Rachel sadly shook her head, her smile gentle.  "You 
don't trust yourself.  You never have.  You doubt your strength.  
Your resolve."
     Now it was Scully's turn to offer comfort.  Rachel's words 
were getting to Mulder.  Her comments were hitting a little too 
closely to home.  Scully could feel him tensing beside her.  Softly, 
she laid her hand atop his.  His grasped it gratefully.
     "Others know what kind of man you are.  You must know 
it yourself," Rachel instructed quietly as she folded her hands 
upon the table.  "Everything depends upon it.  Everything you 
value.  Everything you love hinges upon this.  Be strong.  Soon 
you will need to be for both of you."
     Scully could feel a cleansing sort of anger bubble up 
inside of her, burning away the remnants of the disquiet that had 
troubled her earlier.  She didn't know who in the world this woman 
was, but she sure as hell had an awful lot of nerve laying that sort 
of burden upon Mulder.  Good God, there couldn't be a man on the 
planet who was any harder on himself than Fox William Mulder, 
and the warning that 'everything depended upon him being 
strong' was certainly not going to make things any easier.  They 
had to get out of there.  Now.
     "Well, thank you for your time," Scully said with 
excessive politeness as she abruptly stood, tugging Mulder to 
his feet as well with a strength that belied her size.  "We appreciate 
it."
     Rachel just looked at the pair of them a moment before 
chuckling, the sound low and musical.  "No.  You do not.  But 
you will.  Remember what I told you.  Both of you."
     Scully was halfway out the curtained alcove when she 
turned to see Mulder lingering.  Taking a beat, he nodded his 
good-bye to Rachel who was still seated behind the rickety old 
table, her dark eyes fastened on him.
     "The one thing you can trust is each other," the serene 
looking woman at the table said softly, her brow arched in a 
meaningful fashion.  "That is everything."
     "Yes, it is," Scully heard Mulder quietly agree.
     And then he pushed past her and out of the shop.  
*************************************************
     "Well that was interesting," Scully ventured with a grim 
smile after they had walked nearly two blocks in total silence.
     "That's not quite the word I would use," Mulder mumbled 
at her side.
     God, he still hadn't gotten his pulse rate under control.  
Great way to spend an afternoon, Mulder, he silently chided.  
Fabulous idea.  Spend money to have someone tell you that the 
life of the woman you love is in danger and you--a person whose 
neuroses are obvious enough for a stranger to pick up on at first 
glance--are going to have to be strong enough to see her to safety.
     Oh yeah.  He knew how to have a good time.
     "You know, if I had known you were going to do this to 
yourself, I would have clubbed you over the head and bodily 
dragged you from that place before subjecting you to that woman's 
shtick."
     Hearing the vehement tone of voice the woman beside 
him was using, Mulder stopped and turned to her.  "What's that 
supposed to mean?"
     Scully glared up at him, hands on her hips.  "Mulder stop 
torturing yourself."
     "I'm not--"
     "You =are=!  =Why=, I don't know.  Rachel whatever-her-
name-was did nothing more than whisper the kind of nonsense
those guys on Mystery Science Theater make fun of."
     He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, knowing 
his fears were out of proportion to the threat, but unable to stifle 
them just the same.  "Scully, she said your life was in danger."
     Scully rolled her eyes.  "Yes.  And then even *she* 
admitted that the problem wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  
It means nothing, Mulder."
     "It does to me."
     Mulder could see his softly spoken confession took 
some of the starch out of Scully's sails.  While that was not his 
intention, he was still pleased to see her anger ebb.  The last 
thing he wanted to do right at that moment was fight.
     Her eyes shone up at his softly.  "I'm fine, Mulder.  
Finer than I've been in quite awhile, if truth be known."  She 
reached up then and touched his cheek gently with her 
fingertips.  "You're the one I'm worried about."
     He stood there on a busy French Quarter street, 
unmoving, utterly beguiled by the delicate stroke of her fingers 
along the curve of his face, and fighting like crazy not to 
stammer like a schoolboy.  "What are you talking about?"
     She smiled with just a hint of sympathy.  "No one 
likes to have people play amateur psychologist with them.  
Least of all a professional one."
     He smiled wryly after a second or two.  "You noticed 
that, did you?"
     "I could hardly =not= notice.  All that stuff about 
believing in yourself was awfully heavy-handed.  She 
sounded like a motivational speaker on speed."
     That forced a reluctant chuckle out of him.  Then 
Mulder sobered once more, his expression tinged with self-
deprecation.  "She wasn't far off the mark, Scully."
     She shrugged.  "So, she got lucky.  That doesn't 
make her omniscient.  Despite what you may think, you're 
not that hard to read, you know.  The minute the woman 
started talking your face gave you away."
     Mulder's lips twisted, his eyes still clouded with 
doubt.
     "Mulder, she was consulting tea leaves,"  Scully 
said in a voice dripping with disdain, her gaze one of profound 
disbelief and scarcely contained laughter.  "=Tea leaves=!"
     Finally, his sense of the ridiculous kicked in and he 
grinned down at her upturned face.  "Kinda crazy, huh?"
     "Absurd," she assured him with a smile.
     "All right," he said resolutely.  "Let's forget about it 
then."
*************************************************
     And so they did.
     Until they returned to La Lune Argentine that evening.
*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
Continued in Part VII




Subject:        "At a Loss for Words" (7/?) NC-17 by K. Rasch
From:   krasch@delphi.com
Date:   Mon, 2 Sep 96 23:05:44 -0500

At a Loss for Words (7/?) NC-17
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com

You guys know the drill.  This isn't where you find a summary,
my acknowledgments, or anything else.  This is where you read
Chapter 7.  So go for it. :)
*************************************************

        "So what do you think, Mulder--is it me?"
        "Only in some of my kinkier fantasies, Scully."
        "You know--you keep that up and there is *no way*
I'm going to be able to give this to my mother."
        Having done her best to make the last statement as
prohibitive as possible, Dana Scully pulled the delicate papier-
mache mask she had been modeling from her face to see
whether her partner appeared the least bit abashed at her
censure.
        He didn't.
        Instead, he sat sprawled across from her on the floor
of their room, grinning unrepentantly, his weight resting on his
elbows, his denim-clad legs stretched out before him.  Between
them the remnants of their recently completed picnic dinner lay
scattered on the towel that served as a sort of makeshift
tablecloth for their feast.  A nearly empty bottle of red wine sat
there surrounded by a variety of cheeses, a few leftover slices of
ham, half a loaf of French bread, a bag containing a handful of
grapes and a single peach, and a paper plate upon which remained
one last bite of a sinfully decadent napoleon that neither of the
pair would give in and eat.  Everything on the menu had been
purchased at the French Market that afternoon.  True, their meal
hadn't possessed the same sort of flair as that of the previous
evening.  But it had been casual, intimate, and most important, tasty.
They simply hadn't felt the urge to go out that night, the weather
having undoubtedly contributed to their mood.  Through the open
balcony door, the soothing patter of a misty spring rain tapped
against the roof and railings in the twilight, the sound hushed.
Lulling.
        Giving up on trying to make Mulder behave, Scully
studied the mask in her hands, her head tilted in consideration,
her lips pursed.  She really did hope her mother liked it.  She
thought she would.  Even if Maggie Scully owned nothing even
remotely like it.  She had found the gift at the kind of place at
which her sister would once have frequented, a cozy tucked
away little store that had been lit more by candlelight it had
seemed than by any sort of bulb.  The pungent scent of patchouli
had mingled sweetly in the air with that of melting wax as she and
Mulder had silently browsed.  They had taken their time.  They
had needed to.  Although the establishment had been small,
it had been crammed floor to ceiling with an eclectic assortment
of odds and ends.  Whimsical paintings, hand blown glass,
pottery of all shapes and sizes, ornately carved bits of wood,
and jewelry sparkling with a blinding array of stones had all vied
for their attention.
        But what had drawn Scully into the shop in the first place
had been the item in her hands.  Light as the peacock feather that
adorned it, the dainty little mask covered only its wearer's eyes and
nose.  Tiny rhinestones glittered along its ocular cutaways.  Ribbons
trailed from its sides.  Teal and hunter green and indigo and black
swirled in a dizzying pattern that seemed to suggest a contour map
of the human face.  Streaks of deep burnished gold accented those
hills and valleys, giving the disguise a movement and a flow that
dazzled the viewer, intimating the fantastic while merely spotlighting
the mundane.  She had spied the mask in the store window as they
had strolled by.
        "You know, Melissa would have loved that place today,"
she murmured a tad wistfully after a time, watching with apparent
rapt fascination as her fingers ran between them the long wispy
feather attached exactly midway between the mask's two painted
brows. "All that stuff is . . . was . . right up her alley."
        Mulder drew in his legs and looped his arms around his
knees, his shift in position bringing him closer to her.  "It seemed
like there was plenty there that you liked too."
        "Oh, there was," she hurried to agree, not wanting her
sudden spell of melancholy to put a damper on the evening.
"They had some beautiful things."
        He nodded.  Then, with a small smile, he rose fluidly
from the floor, and crossed to the bureau behind her.
        "I thought so too," he said conversationally as he
opened one of the dresser drawers and rummaged around inside
it as if searching for something.  "I had a chance to look
around a bit myself while you were shopping for your mom.
They had some really unique pieces."
        Scully chuckled as she bent her head and carefully
returned the mask to the tissue lined box in which it had been
packed.  "I didn't know you were so into shopping."
        He tsked with mock disapproval as he brought his
foraging through the bureau to an end, and gently slid the
drawer shut once more.  "Those gender stereotypes will
trip you up every time, Scully."
        She glanced over her shoulder at him as she too stood,
and with her newly rewrapped present in one hand and her glass
of wine in the other, crossed to the closet to put the former away.
"Sorry, Mulder.  I should have realized that you're a tough one to
type."
        "Part of my charm," he retorted dryly, his arms crossed
against his chest as he watched her.
        She smiled, the twinge of sadness she had felt when she
had earlier thought of her older sister forgotten for the time being.
Chatting about everything and nothing, she and Mulder cleaned
up their dinner leavings, ultimately making use of the sink and
refrigerator housed in the hallway kitchen with which Scully
had been so intrigued the night before.  By the time they were
finished, the rain had increased in power.  Gone was the gentle
April shower that had underscored their meal.  In its place
was the beginnings of a storm.  Thunder could be heard in the
distance like the faraway boom of an angel's bass drum.
        "Hmm.  Looks like we made the right decision in staying
in," Scully murmured thoughtfully as she stood in the balcony
doorway watching the rain bounce off the inn as if the drops
were made of rubber, oblivious to the light mist that drifted in
through the portal to dot her face, to sprinkle ever so faintly her
khaki walking shorts and plum colored cotton t-shirt.
        Mulder came to stand behind her, his arms folded heavily
across her collarbone to pull her close.  "You're sure?" he asked
quietly in her ear, his lips pressing a soft kiss to her temple.  "It's
still early.  We could grab a taxi.  Go to a club, listen to some
music."
        With a small smile, she shook her head.  "No, let's just
stay here tonight.  Okay?  I don't really feel like getting dressed to
go out, you know?  I don't want to fight the crowds.  I'd much rather
stand here watching the rain with you."
        And relaxing against each other, they did just that.  They
stood, chest to back, chin to hair and watched the sky unload its
burden.  It was turning into quite a show.  Thunder now peppered
the rain's steady thrum, building in both power and frequency.
Jagged bolts of lightning added to the festivities, criss-crossing
the flint grey sky like silvery veins.
        "I've always loved the rain," Scully murmured after a time,
her voice velvety low.  "When I was little, maybe six or seven, the
house we were living in at the time had this enclosed back porch.
No walls to speak of really, just screened in windows all the way
around.  At night, when it would rain, Missy and I would get up
sometimes while the rest of the family was sleeping and sneak
downstairs to sit on the porch and watch the storm."  She paused
for a moment, smiling bittersweet at the memory.  Mulder tightened
his arms around her almost imperceptibly.  "The thing was that
because of all the windows, the least little bit of wind would bring
the rain pouring in.  But we didn't care.  Not Missy and me.  We'd
sit there, side by side, slowly getting soaked to the skin, watching
the rain like most kids watch tv.  It drove my mom nuts.  I know
she thought that one day we'd both end up catching pneumonia."
        "And did you?"
        She shook her head, her soft smile lingering still, sadness
dulling its glow.  "No."
        Saying nothing, Mulder nuzzled her hair in comfort.
        Scully sighed, wondering at her mood.  Where were all
these thoughts of Melissa coming from, she silently questioned.
        Why now?  Why tonight?
        It wasn't that she was depressed.  Not at all.  Why, in
many ways she felt more content than she could ever remember.
How else could she feel?  After all, she was cloistered away in the
lap of luxury with the man she loved.  She had just been fed, stuffed
full to the brim with their simple yet hardy meal.  Was as mellow
as a cat napping in the sun as a result of the wine she had drunk
and the feel of Mulder's strong body pillowing her back.  Hell,
she was so relaxed she was almost drowsy with it.
        In fact, she was beginning to have to resist the urge to
let her eyelids slide shut.  Funny.  The compulsion had hit her
awfully hard all of a sudden.  Maybe it was the wine.  She had
never been much of a drinker.  And yet, she was *really* turning
into a lightweight if she couldn't handle the couple of glasses she
had enjoyed with her meal.
        Still, if she couldn't blame it on the alcohol she was
hard pressed to come up with an explanation for the numbing
sort of torpor currently washing over her like the rain sluicing
down the inn's gutters.  Even her blood was starting to feel
as if it was flowing sluggishly through her veins.  The sensation
was beyond odd.  Her whole body felt muffled somehow, almost
as if it was swaddled in flannel.  Even her breathing seemed to
be slowing.  Deepening.
        Giving in to the urge, she closed her eyes for a moment,
relaxing totally against Mulder.  He supported her easily, while
appearing seemingly oblivious to her plight.  Not that she blamed
him.  After all, they had been standing there quietly for the last
however many minutes, leaning against each other, speaking only
in spurts.  How was Mulder to know that her condition had in any
way changed?
        And changed it had.  No doubt about that.  For much
to her dismay, with her eyes shut, her disturbing sense of
unreality worsened.  She could see things in her mind's eye,
hear them, smell them--images, people, places that she recognized
without a doubt were wholly foreign and yet which beckoned to
her with shards of memory attached, poking at her, pricking her
to recall their significance.
        But, how could she know them, she wanted so desperately
to ask.
        They weren't from her life, but from another's.
        <That ivory handled brush is the one that Jack gave you.
The one he traded for with that African slave runner.  When he
stands behind you, slowly pulling it through your hair, it's all you
can do to keep from groaning aloud.>
        <Our bed.  Our haven from the world.  Silken sheets,
ivory duvet, crocheted canopy, and  mounds and mounds of
feather pillows.  I may never rise again.>
        <Stupid man!  Bete!!  To risk our being found out--
at the theater of all places.  What could he have been thinking?>
        Seeking to banish these unnerving bits of psychic debris,
Scully opened her eyes once more.
        Only to find that the view had changed.
        True, the rain still poured down.  So much so, it seemed
to affect her very vision.  For some reason, she couldn't see as
clearly as she had been able to only moments before.  The sky
looked darker, more ominous.  Throwing shadows.  Making it
difficult to pick out shapes.  Edges were blurred.  Outlines hazy.
Everything felt skewed somehow, tilted on its side the way a
sidewalk square might buckle after an earthquake.
        The building itself appeared to have inexplicably altered.
Where had all that ivy on the walls come from?  And those windows
across the courtyard--they hadn't been covered by shutters, had
they?  What about that weather vane?  There, sitting squarely
atop La Lune Argentine's green tiled roof.  Had she noted it
before?  The cast iron one, in the shape of a mermaid.
        A mermaid named Calypso.
        How could she know that?
        And that smell . . .
        Overpowering.  Too sweet by half.
        Lilies.  Purest white.  Like her skin, he had told her.
        Who?  Who had told her?
        Becoming well and truly frightened now, Scully trembled
suddenly, violently, in Mulder's arms.
        Breaking the chimera's hold on her.
        "Scully?"
        Saying nothing, she turned in Mulder's embrace and
buried her head against the navy blue cotton knit of his shirt,
her arms locked tightly around his waist, hugging him.  In
response, his hands smoothed gently up and down her arms,
the motion hesitant and filled with questions.
        "What's wrong?  Hey, you're shaking.  What--did you
catch a chill?" he queried softly, his voice gruff with concern.
"Come here."
        Arm draped around her slender shoulders, he walked
her away from the open doorway to the burgundy wing chair in
the far corner of the room.  Sitting first himself, he then tugged
her down on to his lap and wrapped his arms protectively
around her.
        "You okay?"  he asked while he tried to rub some warmth
into her upper arms, her back.
        "Yeah.  I'm fine," she murmured, her head nestled on his
shoulder.  "It's just . . . .  It was weird."
        "What was?"
        She hesitated.  How could she explain the sensations that
had so unexpectedly swamped her?  She herself had no idea what
had prompted them.  No explanation for what exactly they were.
        Her imagination?
        Possibly.
        *Probably*, when one considered the influence of the
wine.  After all, the inn was nothing if not atmospheric.  And,
her mood had already been reflective.  The way in which memories
of Melissa kept drifting through her consciousness was proof
enough of that.  Add both the depressive and intoxicating
properties of those two glasses of merlot, and voila!  Fantasies
of a time long ago and far away.  That had to be it.  The innocent
combination of mood, fancy, and alcohol had no doubt led to her
musings.  Simple as that.
        So why bother telling Mulder about it?
        She shook her head, her palm resting lightly on his chest.
"Oh, it was nothing.  I was just kind of daydreaming, you know?
Imagining what this place must have been like when it was first
built."
        "When Selene Broussard ruled the roost?"
        She smiled.  "Yeah.  'La Lune Argentine' herself."
        Mulder chuckled, then shifted beneath her ever so
slightly.  "Sit up a minute."
        Scully did as he requested, figuring that he hadn't
gotten himself situated comfortably when he had first settled
them both on the chair's roomy seat.  Thus, she was surprised
when instead of adjusting his position, Mulder merely brought
his hands forward to in front of her throat and fastened around
it a long silver chain.
        "What's this?" she asked with an arched brow, her
fingers running lightly over the shiny links encircling her neck.
        "La Lune Argentine."
        Smiling with surprise and appreciation, she looked
down at the delicately formed charm dangling from the necklace,
and held it up for closer inspection.  Rendered in silver as well,
it was a crescent moon, etched with the face of a man in profile,
his hooked nose pointing skyward.  And sitting astride this
curved perch, facing the whimsical man-in-the-moon was a
woman.  Head tipped back as if in ecstasy, she braced her arms
against the heavenly body that served as her throne, her lips
curled in a smile, her legs trailing naked from beneath the
loosely flowing dress she wore.
        "Oh, Mulder . . . " she whispered, the pendant cradled
in her hand as she studied it in the room's muted lamplight.
Outside, the soft rumble of thunder continued as the rain did,
unabated.
        Mulder shrugged as if the gift was no big deal, and yet
she thought she detected more than a hint of pleasure over her
reaction to it.  "I saw it, and I thought of you . . . of this place.  I
thought you might like a momento.  You know . . . of the trip.
Besides, you need one.  A necklace, I mean."  He reached into
his shirt and touched the slender gold chain upon which was
suspended the cross that had once belonged to her, but had for
the past several months hung around his neck instead.  "Some
guy is wearing the one you used to wear."
        "Thank you," she told him with a gentle smile as she
kissed him tenderly on the cheek.  "It's absolutely beautiful.  I
love it."
        He smiled back at her, his eyes warm.  "Good.  I'm glad."
Then his gaze turned intent, and he studied her face for a moment.
"You're sure you're okay, Scully?" he asked quietly, his hand
cupping her cheek.   "You seemed kind of distant before . . .
like maybe something was bothering you."
        She thought to deny it.  And yet, after a beat, she
nodded, her lips twisted.  "I'm sorry.  I don't know what's wrong
with me."
        "What do you mean?"
        She shook her head, not willing to go into the details,
all of which seemed far too fantastical to her way of thinking.
"It's nothing.  Honest.  I'm just kind of in a weird mood, you
know?  I can't explain it.  I . . . I don't know.  Maybe with my sleep
getting interrupted last night, and all the walking today, then the
wine, the rain--it all just got to me for a minute.  It's no big deal
though, Mulder.  So don't worry.  Okay?  I'm fine."
         He looked at her for another second or two.  "And
you're sure you're not concerned over what Rachel had to say
this afternoon?"
        "About you or me?" Scully queried dryly, a brow
arched to accentuate her point.
        He grimaced, then shrugged.  "Take your pick."
        "All right," she said softly, deciding to answer the
challenge.  "In regard to what she said about me--I'm still taking
it with a grain of salt.  I mean--first of all, I *don't* believe that
anyone can catch a glimpse of my future by examining my dirty
dishes.  And secondly, when all is said and done, I don't see how
I can be in any more danger here than I would be at home.  I think
it's far more likely that her *warning* was all part of the 'act'.
You know--something mysterious to tell a customer, something
theatrical, so that I'd feel I was getting my money's worth."
        As reasonable as she was sure all that sounded, Mulder
didn't look the least bit convinced.  Knowing that the next part
was going to be even tougher on him, she turned on his lap to
face him more fully, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders.
A flash of lightning momentarily threw the face of the man before
her into harsh relief.  Despite her reassurances, he still looked
concerned.
        "As for what she said about you," she began slowly.
"Well, I'm not really inclined to believe that any more than I do
the rest of it.  And yet, I'm not so sure that what I believe really
matters when all is said and done."
        "What do you mean?" Mulder asked, his brow furrowed.
        "Because =you= believe it, Mulder," she told him softly,
her fingertips reaching up to smooth the crease between his
hazel eyes.  "Whether you think she got it from looking at a bunch
of soggy tea leaves, or instead that she's simply a good judge of
character, Rachel's assessment of you struck a nerve."
        His eyes dipped from hers guiltily.  His hands tightened
slightly on her waist.
        "I wish you'd tell me why."
        Their gaze met once more.  And for a moment Scully
could see in Mulder's expression the boy that had witnessed his
sister being snatched away before his own terrified eyes so many
years before.  Waiting to see if he would respond, she said
nothing for a time.  Instead, she combed gently through his hair,
and waited.  In the end, he remained silent.
        "Why are you so hard on yourself, Mulder?" she
inquired finally when she was certain that indeed he would not
speak on his own, a tender smile tugging on her lips.  "Why is it
that you're willing to forgive me for putting a bullet in your
shoulder, and yet you refuse to cut yourself even the tiniest bit
of slack?"
        She could feel him tense beneath her.  Coil, as if in
preparation for movement.  Could sense the way in which his
breath had become less even, more choppy.  His eyes flickered
away from hers, darting instead to land on random objects around
the dimly lit room, the action nearly furtive, almost as if he was
looking for an escape route.
        Or someplace he could hide.
        "Scully, I'm . . .  I mean . . hell--I'm not very good at--"
        "Shh," she crooned, kissing him first on the forehead,
then on the cheek.  "I know.  I know.  And the last thing I want
to do is put you on the spot.  But, Mulder, you have to know
something."
        She cradled his face in her hands, and looked at him,
some of the fog that had settled over her that night lifting
as she focused on him and his needs.  His fears.
        "None of us is perfect, Mulder," she said quietly,
her eyes burning, glowing like twin candles.  "None.  But, I'll
tell you something.  I think you strive harder to be than anyone
I've ever known."
        "Scully . . ." he muttered, clearly embarrassed.
        "It's true," she insisted, pushing back his hair from his
forehead as a mother might caress an over-excited child.  "You
push and you push and you push.  It may not make you popular,
but it gets the job done."
        "It does?" he challenged with thick irony.
        She tilted her head at his question, her smile almost
whimsical.
        "Maybe not all at once," she allowed.  "Maybe not
even every 'job'.  But you never stop trying, Mulder.  No matter
what.  You just don't know when to quit."
        She kissed him then, softly on the mouth.  When their
lips parted, the smile she gave him eclipsed in brilliance the
lightning that pulsed behind her in the balcony doorway.  "And
that tenacity somehow manages to be both your most endearing
and your most infuriating character trait."
        Even he had to chuckle at that.
        They merely smiled at each other for a moment, listening
to the thunder and the sting of the rain against brick.
        Then, Scully turned serious once more.
        "But, I admire it.  And you . . . more than I can say."
        He frowned at her disclosure and shook his head.
The gesture silently speaking of his disbelief, his astonishment,
his extreme discomfort, at her praise.
        "I wouldn't lie to you, Mulder," she promised, her eyes
solemn yet warm.
        He nodded slowly, a rueful smile tilting his lips.  "I know.
I know you wouldn't.  It's just . . . the funny thing is, Scully, I'd
been thinking the same thing about you."
        "What?"
        His hands were moving again, smoothing over her arms.
"That you were the one who was always striving for perfection.
The one who was always so hard on herself."
        "Me?" she asked in surprise.
        He nodded once more.
        Scully chuckled.  "Mulder, next to you, I'm a rank
amateur."
        His lips quirked.  Then, his fingertips traced the curve
of her cheek.
        "Thank you," he murmured, his eyelids drooping, his
gaze focused on her mouth.
        "For what?" she queried softly, leaning in to rest her
head on his shoulder.
        "You know," he whispered as, bending his head, their
lips met.
        She did know.  And sighed, giving herself over to him,
to his gentle kiss.
        Yet, as she did, the strange lethargy that had plagued
her that night on and off washed over her again unexpectedly.
She started with it, stiffened for a moment in his arms, even
though the sensation itself was anything but painful.  Instead,
it was not unlike being slowly filled with warm heavy liquid.  It
started in her head, behind her eyes, and then slowly flooded
her body.  Until, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes,
she felt a potent sort of languor weighing her down.  Making
both her mind and body sluggish.  Hazy.  As if she were viewing
the world through a lens smeared with Vaseline.
        Mulder must have sensed the moment that the change
hit her, because he hesitated for just an instant as his lips moved
over hers.  Pulled away so she could feel the soft puffs of his
breath against her mouth.  Then, almost as if there were no
questions to be asked, no doubts that had been raised, he
continued, the pressure of his lips more needy, the sweep of
his hands over her arms, her back, her waist, more forceful.
        Finally, he tore his mouth from hers and instead
pressed kisses down the length of her throat, his hands now
cradling the back of her head, maneuvering her easily, bending
her this way and that so that his lips could touch her at will.
        "You are so lovely."
        The words were spoken hoarsely.  Low.  Rough.
Coming from just beneath her ear.  They sounded like Mulder.
And yet, it was as if there was something overlaying his voice.
Filtering it.  Something unknown.  Coarser somehow than her
partner's usual wry tone.
        She felt a shiver trickle down her back.
        And far, far away, so distant as to almost convince her
that the sound was solely a product of her imagination, Scully
heard the faint muffled sound of a woman crying.
        She opened her eyes.
        Draped across Mulder's lap, her arms around his neck,
her lips swollen from his kisses, she looked up into his eyes.
        And saw a stranger gazing down at her.
*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
Continued in Part VIII


"At a Loss for Words" (8/?) NC-17
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com

Comments are appreciated at the above address.  This particular
installment leans towards the violent side.  Not anything you
wouldn't see on the show.  But those folks who are sensitive
might appreciate the warning.  Thanks very much for sticking
around. :)
************************************************

        <He was taller than Mulder.  Burlier.  Broader chest.
Thicker neck.  His hair was the color of raven's wings, and fell in
untidy waves down nearly to his shoulders.  His nose was long
and crooked, as if it might once have been broken and reset
improperly.  His skin looked like fine leather, butter soft yet
tanned.  And his eyes shone deep brown with flecks of gold
around the pupil.>
        The color that Mulder's eyes sometimes turned.
        And with that thought, it was suddenly her partner
whose befuddled gaze met hers.
        But only for an instant.
        Then, Mulder was gone once more.  Leaving Scully to
battle the stranger on her own.
        Questions careening through her head, she stiffened,
and tried to push away from whoever the hell it was who shared
the chair with her.  But he held her fast.  His arms locked around
her.
        What in God's name was going on, she wanted to rail.
Who was this man?  What had happened to Mulder?
        And why was it so ridiculously difficult for her to get
her bearings?  She was having trouble focusing once more.
Everything seemed blurred.  Hazy.  Things that shouldn't have
been visible shimmered on the edges of her awareness, tempting
her to acknowledge them.  A midnight blue ball gown trimmed in
ebony lace hanging against the closet door.  A cut glass bottle
filled with amber liquid sparkling on the bureau top.
        However, as much as these images disturbed her, she
got no attendant boost of adrenaline.  Instead, the lethargy that
had been stealing her will since she and Mulder had stood in each
other's embrace watching the rainstorm confused her, dulled her
desire to flee, even as she knew without a doubt that escape was
her best option.
        The man who held her trailed his hand along the line of
her jaw, his eyes following its path, his expression an unsettling
mixture of passion and disdain.  "So lovely," he repeated in a
hoarse whisper.  "And so false."
        Hearing that, she struggled more vehemently in his
arms, not understanding to what exactly he was referring, but
knowing instinctively that trouble loomed on the horizon.  The
battle was not for naught, and she managed to finally sit upright.
And yet, he didn't release her entirely.  His hands held her upper
arms like a pair of vises, his fingers digging into her muscles with
a force she knew would leave bruises.
        "I gave you everything," he told her softly, fiercely, his
voice accusing, his face only inches from hers.  "Everything I was.
Everything I owned, I handed over to you.  Like some boy wet
behind the ears would do for a miss fresh from the schoolroom.
But I should have known better, shouldn't I?  After all, it was no
secret what you were."
        She twisted there, on his lap, but it was difficult to get
any leverage.  Her feet didn't entirely reach the floor, and despite
the fact that she continued to press against his chest with all her
might, she still couldn't break free from his hold.
        To complicate matters, part of her didn't really want to
get away.  A portion of her desired nothing more than to sit there
for all eternity and just look at him, drink in the harsh unforgiving
planes of his face, the strong line of his brow.  To run her hands
over his cheeks, through his hair.  To feel his eyelashes flutter
against her fingertips.  To burrow against him and absorb his
strength, his warmth.  She had been so cold.  And so alone.  So
terribly alone.  All she had wanted for all those years, decades
upon decades condemned to wander through the twilight world
on her own, was him.  Only him.
        "Jack."  The word slipped from Scully's lips unbidden.
        The eyes of the man before her darkened dangerously
at the sound.
        "You whisper that so sweetly," he murmured, his brow
furrowed.  "But then, you always did.  Calling out my name when
I was between your legs.  There was a wonder in it, wasn't there,
my love?  An innocence that almost allowed me to forget just
what a whore you really were."
        He stood then, this man Scully knew but didn't, dragging
her with him as if she weighed nothing more than the clothes she
wore.  She wanted to fight him, to break free from his punishing
hands, to scream, to run.  But defense of any sort was denied her.
She felt like a puppet, a prisoner in her own body.  True, she
resisted.  But it was mostly flailing.  Ineffectual.  Useless.  Try
though she might, she wasn't able to bring into play any of her
training, any of the hand-to-hand technique that had been drilled
into her at the Academy.  Despite her best efforts, her limbs just
wouldn't respond.  Instead, in some bizarre way it seemed that
she had been cast as both audience member and star in a melodrama
that threatened at any moment to turn lurid.
        "Did you scream Antoine's name when he was here,
Selene, in our bed?  Did he make you tremble the way I do?  Did
he take it long and slow the way you like?"  He was backing her
towards the bed now, his step measured and filled with menace.
        "No, I would never . . . .  I didn't betray you, Jack."  The
words tumbled from her lips, her voice sounding strange to her
ears, hushed and throaty, rising and falling with an unrecognizable
lilt.  "Please . . . you must believe me . . . ."
        Her denial only infuriated him more, his ire reminding
Scully of the thunder claps still echoing beyond their window as
the storm outside gradually wound down in power.  "Don't you
lie to me, you bitch!  I =saw= you.  I saw you with my own two
eyes.  Lying here naked, that bastard's hands all over you."
        The backs of her knees were flush against the edge of
the mattress.  And suddenly she knew what he intended, what
this man who should have been Mulder but was not wanted from
her.
        And that, she could not let him have.
        "I loved you," he said in anguish, the words little more
than a moan.  "I loved you more than my own life.  And all the
while you and Antoine were laughing at me behind my back."
        "No," Scully protested automatically, the word spoken
not by her but by another as she herself looked left and right,
trying to judge whether she could slip past him to safety.  If her
body would even allow her to try.
        "Stop lying!" he commanded as he pushed her roughly
to the bed.  "Just stop it!  =Stop it=."
        And then, the moment her back hit the mattress the
presence that had for a time shared her head vanished.
        Instantly.
        Without a trace.
        She didn't know whether it was her own fear of what
was about to occur that pushed the entity she recognized must
be Selene Broussard from her head, or whether the long dead
woman left of her own accord.  But, Dana Scully was once
again her own person.
        And faced with a man intent on raping her.
        Who, ironically enough, happened to be the man she
loved.
        Now that she no longer viewed the world through
Selene's eyes, she could see Mulder plainly.  Could witness the
way in which his face was contorted with the rage of another
man.  A man who held her partner prisoner just as she had been
held only moments before.
        His face dark with a combination of anger and lust,
Mulder reached out for the waistband of shorts.  "Come here."
        She turned away from him on the bed, rolling, her legs
coming up to kick at his mid-section.  But she was off balance
when she tried, and the attempt was paltry at best.  He blocked
the blows easily.
        The man in Mulder's body chuckled.  "Oh, so you
want to play rough, Selene?  Well, I'm more than happy to oblige."
        He grabbed hold of her t-shirt and tossed her down on to
the comforter.  Bouncing, she scrambled on to her knees once
more.  But before she could crawl off the other side of the bed to
freedom, Mulder reached out, seized a fistful of her shirt, and
with his other hand struck her hard, his palm to her cheek, the slap
catching the edge of her mouth as well.  She reeled, falling back
as much in amazement as by the force of the blow itself.  Her eyes
watered.  Her face stung as if it had been set upon by a hive of
bees.  Touching her tongue to the corner of her mouth, she tasted
blood.
        "Why do you fight me?" he demanded heatedly as he
loomed over her, his hands planted just above her shoulders on
the mattress.  "You always liked what we did here well enough
before.  And I know damn well that you didn't try to discourage
Antoine."
        Think, Dana, think, a little voice inside her head urged.
What was her best plan of action?  Physical strength appeared
most definitely to favor the man above her.  He moved with
Mulder's quickness and struck with a power far outreaching
anything she had ever before seen from her partner.  Although
she might indeed manage to somehow make it off the bed, she
doubted that he would allow her to get to the door.
        The gun.
        Oh, God, not that.  Anything but that.
        She had put a bullet into Mulder once before and had
sworn as she had struggled not only to heal him, but to transport
his battered body to safety that she would never again take that
kind of chance.  Not with him.  She couldn't.  She just couldn't.
And besides, she wasn't even certain where Mulder had stored
his weapon.  Searching for it would take valuable time.  And
even if she did manage to locate it, she still had no guarantee
that in the midst of a fray the firearm wouldn't be turned on her.
No.  As it stood right now, that thing in Mulder's body had no
idea that a gun lay tucked away somewhere in a dresser drawer.
        And she had no intention of enlightening him.
        So what should she do?  She supposed she could scream.
After all, the inn was full of people.  But crying out for help would
put poor Mulder in an untenable situation.  How could she
explain their predicament to any would-be rescuers?
        <Please, don't hurt him.  It's not what you think.  He's
just possessed.  Taken over by the man who murdered Selene
Broussard.  If we give him time, I think he'll snap out of it.  After
all, I did.>
        No.  The circumstances were entirely too gothic for
her to successfully clarify for anyone else.  Even with this being
New Orleans.  For the sake of Mulder and their partnership she
was going to have to extricate herself from this dilemma on her
own.
        And yet, how the hell was she going to do that?
        What about psychology?  That's a ploy Mulder would
have been sure to attempt were he in her shoes.  Why not try
appealing to the entity who was at present running his hands
over her torso as he stared moodily down into her frightened
blue eyes, defilement on his mind.  But what could she say to
him?  What did he want?
        Selene.
        Well, she couldn't help him there.
        And yet, maybe that was the key.
        Perhaps it was time for Jack to be made aware of just
who exactly he was dealing with.
        Deciding to risk it, she reached up to tentatively touch
Mulder's chin, lightly, soothingly.  As if she hoped to gentle
a wild beast.  "I'm not who you think I am.  You don't want me.
I'm not Selene."
        His eyes narrowed, the intelligence shining from them
regarding her intently.  Something flickered deep inside him, and
she thought for one breathless moment that she might actually
have gotten through.  Then, he blinked, and the doubt that she
thought she had seen in his eyes disappeared.  Saying nothing,
he tugged on her shirt, nearly pulling it free from the waistline
of her shorts.  Fabric bunched in his hands, he raised her to a
sitting position, his nose brushing against her own, his breath
hot and hurried against her face, his eyes glittering down into
hers.  "I don't know what game you're playing here, Selene.  But
I'd know you in the dark.  And if you know me even a little bit,
you know better than to try and tell me what I do and do not
want."
        "You're confused," Scully insisted a bit more strongly,
trying reason one more time, even as she feared the tactic might
prove unwise.  "My name is Dana Scully.  You were made to
believe that I was Selene.  I don't know how.  I don't know what
happened.  But, I think that in some way she called to you.  Lured
you here--"
        "SHUT UP!" he roared, as with his hands still clinging
to the front of her shirt, he shook her back and forth like a dog
with an ill used toy.
        Her hands covering his, Scully closed her eyes against
the onslaught, certain that her brain was in the process of being
churned with his manhandling, altered somehow, like cream
being agitated into butter.  Her ears were ringing.  The ache in
her head that had begun with the slap to her cheek now screamed
with intensity.  Points of light pulsed behind her lowered lids.
        Definite miscalculation, Dana, she silently chided herself.
        Big time.
        Seeking in some way to recover what she had lost, she
thrashed her legs between them both, her bare feet windmilling
as she wildly sought to make contact, to score some sort of
point in their terribly one-sided battle.  Finally, whether it was
as a result of Irish stubbornness or just pure dumb luck, she
connected.  Her small hard heel slammed into the side of Mulder's
hip with a force powerful enough for her to feel the blow vibrate
up the entire length of her leg.  Muttering an ear-singeing curse,
he threw her from him, the combination of pain and fury fueling
his motion.  She flew through the air, awkwardly, like a nestling
testing her wings for the first time.  In the end, however, her
flight was short, coming to an abrupt halt when her head cracked
against the brass headboard and her side was pierced by the
corner of the night stand.
        OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.
        That hurt.
        That really hurt.
        That did some damage.
        While she didn't believe that she had broken any ribs
when she had collided fast and furiously against the spear sharp
edge of the small yet sturdy table beside the bed, she felt certain
that the tissue around the area of impact was bruised.  Badly.
        Oh dear Lord.
        She was having trouble catching her breath, taking in
more than a sip of air was utter agony at that moment.  Her eyes
welled from it.  From the awful blinding pain searing her middle.
At the same time, her poor head suddenly felt in danger of spilling
her brains onto the mattress beside her.  Her skull seemingly too
battered, her skin too thin to contain them.  One of the bed's brass
knobs had caught her squarely on the temple when she had landed,
the result being a slender jagged gash and a doozy of a headache.
With a degree of calm that amazed even her, Scully wondered
dispassionately if she might just pass out from her injuries.
        But that was not to be.
        Although a trifle muddy, she stayed awake when the
man she loved took her by the hair and pulled her upright once
more.  When she sat before him, hunched in pain, he let go of
the fall of her auburn hair he had used to lift her.
        And instead closed his hands around her neck.
        "I'm going to kill you," he muttered hoarsely, his tone
low and matter of fact, his eyes little more than slits.
        And with that, his fingers tightened around the pale
soft arch of her throat.
        Scully twisted her head, trying to find a position that
would allow her to steal oxygen despite her assailant's attempt
to deny her.  But, it was tough.  He was strong.  So very strong.
And had no compunction about using that strength against her.
        She heard a roaring in her ears, like surf pounding against
the beach.  She could feel the necklace that Mulder had just that
night given her digging into the tender flesh around the base of
her throat, abrading the skin there.  With a terrible sort of certainty
she knew that unless she did something, and did something
quickly, she would soon be unconscious.
        And utterly helpless.
        Searching for and finding reserves of determination
she hadn't known she owned, she methodically worked to pry his
fingers loose.  But, despite her best efforts, they barely budged.
Still, anytime she felt a momentary lessening of pressure she
sucked in what air she could, knowing she would need every last
gasp of it if she hoped to survive.
        "Mulder, don't," she whispered finally, her voice reedy,
her legs twitching beneath her.
        At first, he appeared not to listen to her, not to hear his
name stumble past her drawn lips.  Instead he seemed unaware that
he was slowly choking the life from her, reenacting a murder that
had taken place in that very house so many years ago.  Then, Scully
thought she spied something in his hazel eyes.  An awareness.  A
fear.
        Mulder himself.
        Heartened, she tried again, her raspy voice pure torture
to produce.  "Mulder, please . . stop . . . ."
        The confusion in his gaze intensified in a way that made
Scully's heart ache in sympathy for him.  =Damn you=, she silently
cursed at the spirit she knew only as Jack.  How can you do this
to us?  How can you do this to him?
        Despite her pain, despite her fear, she was livid.
Absolutely beside herself with rage at the way in which Mulder
and she had been manipulated into playing hosts for these two
dead parasites.  Why them?  Why after all these years spent as
nothing more than a sort of ghostly tourist attraction had Selene
Broussard suddenly decided she needed to turn corporeal once
more?  What did she hope to gain?  How and why had she
summoned her murderer back to the scene of his crime?
        And what in the world would Mulder ever do, Scully
wondered, if through no fault of his own he somehow wound up
being responsible for her death?
        No, she vowed, even as her vision began to dissolve
into tiny black dots.  She would not let that happen.  To either of
them.
        Summoning every last bit of oxygen available to her, she
locked her watery blue eyes on Mulder's.  Reaching up with
trembling hands, she placed them gently on his cheeks and
whispered as clearly as she could, "Mulder, I need you . . . to
stop.  Mulder, . . .you're hurting me."
        He stared at her.  His pupils large, his eyes
uncomprehending.  His mouth agape.
        The pressure around her throat as fierce as ever.
        Oh God, it didn't work, she silently moaned after a
heartbeat or two, her hands falling lifelessly away from his face.
Mulder still hadn't released her.  The steady rumbling in her head
grew deafening.  The only thing still visible to her were her
partner's wide unseeing eyes.  Scully had run out of time.
        And air.
        Then, like a wall crumbling inwards against a wreaking
ball, she saw the change occur.  His expression shifted.  Grew
softer.  More vulnerable.  Familiar.
        And Mulder came crashing through.
**************************************************
        Fox Mulder's head felt as if someone had drop kicked it
through the uprights.
        Thirty or forty times.
        Ow.  What the hell had happened?  How had he wound
up on the bed?  Had he managed to somehow hurt himself again,
he wondered in bewilderment as he raised himself carefully on to
his elbows, his head pointing towards the foot of the bed.
Wouldn't be the first time, of course, he admitted to himself in
silent chagrin.  Hell, all the evidence seemed to point in that
direction.  Every muscle in his body felt as if it had been replaced
with high tension wire.  His hands ached.  And a spot high on
his hip throbbed like a son of a gun.
        Not to mention his head.
        Maybe the wine was to blame.
        That, at least, would explain the sore noggin and the
reason why his memory was so fuzzy.
        Yet, drinker or no, surely he wouldn't have passed out
from what little alcohol he had imbibed with dinner.
        Still, he had no other solution that satisfied the queries
swimming around inside his brain.
        He couldn't even really recall much of anything that had
happened after giving Scully that necklace.
        Scully.
        Where was she?
        Then, before he could ponder that question in any
greater detail, the answer was provided for him.
        In horrifying fashion.
        Mulder heard a faint rattle of a moan from just over
his shoulder.  Scrambling awkwardly to view its cause, he came
face to face with the object of his inquiry.
        Only she wasn't looking at him.
        Scully was curled on her side, facing away from him and
towards the edge of the bed.  Her tangled hair obscured her face
and neck.  And yet, through the tousled strands he spied the
small trickle of blood smeared in the corner of her mouth, and
the swollen split lip beside it.  Her clothes were wrinkled badly,
hanging awry on her slender frame, with her shirt pulled free
entirely from her shorts and riding up on her back, exposing its
tender slope.  She had her arms wrapped protectively around
her middle, and her eyes shut.  Her breath appeared rapid and
uneven.
        "Scully?"
        Her body stiffened.  Then slowly, with great effort, she
rolled over to face him more fully.
        "Oh God. . . ."
        The words slipped mindlessly from his mouth before
he could edit himself.  She was hurt.  His Scully was hurt.  Beaten,
it appeared.  Not only had she suffered a blow to the mouth, but
her temple was bloodied and bruised as well.
        And her throat. . . . .
        Mulder felt as though all at once Mike Tyson had
landed a solid right to his solar plexus.  Sweet God in heaven,
what had happened here?  Who had done this?  Why the hell
couldn't he remember?
        It was beyond awful.  Scully had ghastly purple and
blue and red marks all up and down the length of her neck.  They
weren't large, perhaps only an inch or two in length and even
narrower in width.  Still, despite their comparatively small size,
they stood out like blood on snow.  Their presence, an atrocity.
A crime against all things good.  Against sanity itself.
        Struggling to her elbows, she met his eyes, her own
gaze wary.
        "Mulder?" she asked softly as if for identification, her
voice demolished.
        He swallowed hard and nodded, reaching for her.
Intending to pull her into his arms, to comfort her.
        But the sight of those hands--his hands--stretching
towards Scully's shoulders, her neck, brought it all hurtling back.
        <Whore . . . bitch . . . >
        <The crack of his hand against her tender cheek.>
        <The sight of her head snapping back against the
ornate brass headboard.  Her eyes sliding shut in agony.>
        <The feel of the muscles in her neck condensing,
shifting beneath his hands.  Her fingers clawing at his, begging
him for air, pleading with him for release.>
        <Mulder . . . you're hurting me.>
        And suddenly it was only through sheer force of will
that Mulder didn't lose the contents of his stomach right then
and there atop the bed's beautiful quilted comforter.
        "No," he muttered, the word little more than as grunt.
Shaking his head in horrified disbelief, he pulled his hands back
suddenly as if the simple touch of her skin would burn him
somehow.  As if she had the capacity to wound him in ways far
more devastating than he had hurt her previously.  His eyes went
wide with fear and revulsion, their expression more than a bit
wild.
        "Mulder . . ." Scully whispered as, grimacing, she leaned
forward, her hand outstretched to lightly touch his arm, to attempt
in some small way to calm him with the gentle caress.
        "No," he repeated, shaking his head now more vehemently,
almost as if he thought the side to side motion would somehow
erase what had happened only moments before.  Wipe the slate
clean.  "Scully, I . . I wouldn't . . . .  I could never . . . ."
        She refused to let him continue, apparently not needing
to hear what she already knew.  "It wasn't you."
        Still he inched away from her on the bed, shrinking from
her hand, not feeling fit to even look at her.  Not after what he had
done.
        No way could he crush her to him the way he longed to.
Not for an instant could he cradle her in his arms, rocking her
while he murmured his apologies, his pleas for forgiveness in
her ear.
        No.
        The man he had been that afternoon, the man he had
been the night before, a week before, a lifetime before--that man
might have been worthy to offer this woman solace.  But not him.
Not now.
        Oh God.
        At that moment, Mulder quite happily would have gone
to the bureau drawer, retrieved his service revolver, stuck it in
his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
        Only he suspected the display would only distress
Scully.
        He was an expert at guilt, an aficionado of self-loathing.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda, Mulder, continually whispered the
insidious little voice that lived inside his head.
        <If you had only been braver, stronger, your sister
would never have been taken.>
        <If you had only been a better judge of character, a
little more careful, you would never have trusted Alex Krycek.>
        <If you had only been faster, put the pieces together
more quickly, the woman you love wouldn't have lost three
months of her life, wouldn't have been subjected to God only
knows what sort of horrors.>
        But never, never in his entire life had he ever so
thoroughly despised himself as he did at that instant.
        When her eyes clung to his, wide and moist in her
pale battered face, seeking reassurance.  Her body trembling,
the set of her slender shoulders rigid with pain and leftover fear.
        And he knew without question, without excuse, that
he was the cause of her suffering.
        "Dana . . . I--," he began haltingly, licking his lips, his
hands clenching and unclenching without conscious thought
on the bed beside him, like an echo of the violence that had
occurred.  "I'm just . . ."
        Then, not waiting for him to finish, Scully moved.
The shift wasn't smooth.  Her speed was only a fraction of
what she would normally muster.  In the end, the change
could probably best be described as half crawl, half fall.
But, regardless of how her motion might have been catalogued,
it was her destination that ultimately proved important.
        She ended up in Mulder's arms.
        Scully threw herself into them, her breath hitching
in pain as she did so, the way she favored her side telling
him that she had still more wounds than those he had
already noted.  Seemingly ignoring these injuries herself,
she tucked her head beneath his chin, and wrapped her arms
tightly around his middle.
        "I never believed it was you, Mulder," she said
softly, the effort to speak clearly costing her.  "Never.  You've
got to know that."
        He closed his eyes and buried his face in her sweetly
scented hair, his voice tight and hushed.  "Scully, those marks
on your throat might as well be my fingerprints."
        "No," she whispered hoarsely, her fingers tracing the
line of his jaw, his cheek.  "No.  You saved me."
        With as much gentleness as he had in him, Mulder
pulled back with anguished eyes to look at her.  "I nearly
killed you."
        Scully was having none of it.  "You didn't.  Jack did."
        He merely shook his head, unable at that point to
trust his voice.
        She smiled at him tenderly.  "He wanted Selene dead.
He wanted me dead.  But you wouldn't let him win."
        Still not willing to let himself off the hook, Mulder looked
away.  But Scully captured his chin with her hand and pulled
it back so that their eyes met once more.  Her gaze was soft and
as warm as a cottage hearth on a blustery autumn day.  "I called
to you for help, Mulder.  And you answered.  Just like the cavalry.
I  want to thank you, not blame you."
        "You don't have to blame me," he told her bleakly.  "I
blame myself."
        Sighing, she pressed against him once more, hugging
him with a fierceness that surprised him, her words muffled by
the fabric of his shirt and her own exhaustion.  "Don't, Mulder.
Okay?  Please.  Don't take this on yourself."
        "Scully, I can't promise you--"
        "No promises.  No vows," she murmured, her voice
more croak now than anything else as she sagged against him,
her resources apparently running down.  "None except this.  I love
you.  And we will get through this.  Together.  Just like always."
        Slowly, he nodded, his hair sliding against hers, and
held her to him as tightly as he dared.
        All the while wondering if he didn't hear a ghostly
voice or two laughing with malicious mockery at the surety of
Scully's words.
*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
Continued in Part IX