Say Goodbye? (NC-17)
by SportJava@aol.com
6/15/96

Part One of Two

Hi all! I've written a few stories that have Mulder and Scully as a
couple, but I jumped from their first tentative acknowledgement of their
feelings for one another ("One Glance") to full-blown couplehood without
addressing the moment they decided to actually cross that line of being
friends and partners to being lovers. So here's that story....

General Disclaimer: The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the
property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, Twentieth Television and the
FOX Network. No infringement intended -- simply said, they are great
characters who lend themselves marvelously to fanfic.

Thanks to: my friends Steph and Jose; Steph for encouraging me to try
writing something a little bit longer than I usually attempt, and Jose for
his enthusiastic recommendation of the Dave Matthews Band CD "Crash". A
portion of the lyrics of the song "Say Goodbye" is quoted here -- I
thought that the sentiments penned by Dave Matthews echoed what Mulder and
Scully might feel for each other at a crucial turning point in their
relationship, plus it's a genuinely heartfelt song that just aches with
desperation and want.

*****************************************************
"Say Goodbye"
(Dave Matthews Band,
  lyrics by David Matthews)

So here we are tonight,
   you and me together
The storm outside, the fire is bright
And in your eyes I see
  what's on my mind
You've got me wild
  turned around inside
And then desire, see, is creeping
  up heavy inside here
And know you feel the same way
  I do now
Now let's make this an evening
Lovers for a night, lovers for tonight
Stay here with me, love, tonight
  just for an evening
When we make
  our passion pictures
You and me twist up
  secret creatures
And we'll stay here
Tomorrow go back to being friends
***************************************

Late Thursday night,
Mulder's apartment

Fox Mulder reclined on his worn leather couch, staring but not seeing the
campy science fiction film on the television set. For once, his sleepless
state was not due to being overly fatigued or too much thinking about his
chaotic life, but rather his growing frustration over the state of his
relationship with his partner, Dana Scully.

After that first tentative acknowledgement of their feelings for one
another along that isolated country road in Wisconsin, Scully had been
drawing away from him. Retreating from what had been said in the quiet of
that government-issue car, and hiding behind the mask of professionalism.
Mulder's brow twisted as he remembered how he had bared his feelings to
her, of the pain and guilt he had suffered during her three-month
disappearance. "I thought that I would be the emotional coward in this
situation," Mulder mused tiredly. With a sudden, impatient movement, he
reached for the remote control and turned the television off. Grabbing the
throw blanket ( a present from Scully) off the back of his couch, Mulder
wrapped himself in the muted shades of her gift and tried to fall asleep,
succeeding only in a light doze that was permeated with half-formed dreams
of his redheaded partner.

Same Time,
Scully's apartment

Dana Scully stared absently at her bedroom ceiling. She had tried herbal
tea, revised her field notes on the most recently concluded file that she
and Mulder had worked on...nothing could induce blessed sleep. In the
silence of her bedroom, she acknowledged what her mind refused to consider
during the daylight hours: she was in love with her partner, and even
though they had voiced their feelings for one another in Wisconsin, she
continued to hold herself back from him. Contrary to her vow to put
herself on the line for no one but him, she could not put her emotional
life on the line for him out of fear-- fear of losing that almost-mystical
understanding between the two of them in their professional partnership,
fear of loving him and the possibility of losing him somewhere down the
line if she allowed their relationship to progress past a point of no
return. All this fear, and she knew that sometime soon, a decision would
have to be faced and made; one that had the potential to affect her future
in life-altering ways. With a worn sigh, Scully threw her forearm over her
eyes, trying to hide from a sudden image of Mulder giving her a look that
sparked a warm ache in her lower abdomen. "Sleep!" she commanded herself,
and twisting around in her bed, she managed to fall to sleep in spite of
the turmoil of her thoughts.

****************************************

Friday morning,
FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building

Scully briskly walked down the corridor, her immaculate appearance masking
to all but the most observant the residual fatigue of her restless night.
Reaching the basement office that she and Mulder shared, Scully pushed
open the door and noted that Mulder was already seated at his desk,
reading glasses on and eyes focused on an open casefile folder.

"Good morning, Mulder. Breakfast." Waving a white wax paper bag at him,
she set her briefcase down, tossed the bag at him and shed her damp
trenchcoat.

"Thanks, Scully. It's raining out now?"

"Yeah, and it's freezing cold too." She walked over to her neat desk and
noticed the large cup of coffee from a favorite coffeehouse sitting
squarely in the middle of the desk blotter. "Hey, Mulder, thanks for the
good stuff!" With an appreciative sniff, she drank the dark liquid and
sighed in ectstatic delight at the flavor.

Mulder's eyes were caught on the look of pleasure on Scully's face.
Mentally giving himself a shake that a wet dog would be proud of, he tore
his gaze away from her and mumbled through a mouthful of bagel, "You're
welcome, Scully."

Preoccupied with their morning treats, Mulder and Scully set to work on
the files stacked on their desks. Minutes passed in comfortable silence,
then Scully glanced up and just stared at Mulder. An erstwhile dab of
cream cheese was smeared near his lower lip, and a shiver ran down her
spine at an abrupt flashback of Mulder wiping barbecue sauce from her
mouth a few weeks ago in Wisconsin. Her eyes went hazy with the
rememberance of that sensual moment, and she fantasized about returning
the favor to Mulder but without a napkin, using her tongue instead.

Mulder felt her eyes on him, and with a sudden shift of his own, stared
back at Scully. Instantly, the sexual tension in the room kicked into high
gear as he noted the foggy look in her eyes, and he answered her look with
a highly-charged one of his own. Clearing his throat, Mulder began,
"Scully..."

With an impatient and somewhat desperate shake of her head, Scully quickly
jumped ahead of his conversational opener and told him, "Mulder, you've
got cream cheese right next to your mouth. There should be some napkins in
the bag." With that, she turned back to her computer and determinedly
began typing.

Disappointed at the loss of the opportunity to discuss their standoff on
the topic of their relationship, Mulder absently grabbed one of the
napkins and wiped the offending foodstuff from his lip, his eyes never
leaving his partner as she continued to pretend to concentrate on her
computer screen. Sighing inwardly, he reached for a file, and began to
read.

The day progressed slowly for the two agents. Both were feeling the
effects of several restless nights, and the backlog of paperwork and a
deadline for submitting a report on a complex and difficult case to the
Assistant Director loomed uncomfortably. By mutual agreement, they set
aside other workfiles to concentrate on that casefile. Scully was busily
analyzing the report summary when she called over to Mulder, who was bent
over the photographs of the physical evidence. "Mulder, could you take a
look at this?"

Mulder walked over to Scully's desk and leaned over her shoulder,
squinting at the computer screen. Absently, he reached for his glasses and
put them on, and moving closer to Scully, focused on the screen. Quickly,
he scanned it, and asked, "Where are the field notes?"

"Right in front of me, Mulder".

His eyes still on the screen, he reached down blindly for the handwritten
sheets but his aim was off. His hand brushed something soft and gently
rounded, and he caught his breath. Scully stiffened, and her head turned
upwards, their eyes meeting and locking instantly. The companionship of
the past few hours melted away, replaced by the palpable tension of
extreme awareness of one another.

"Sorry," Mulder muttered. He blindly shifted a step back from her and
reached again, successfully, for the field notes. Clearing his throat, he
flipped through the sheets until he found what he was looking for and
began to suggest improvements on the final report summary. Scully
suppressed a barely perceptible shudder, and forced herself to nod at his
comments and concentrate on his recommendations.

The rest of the day passed without incident, but that accidental touch had
torched a slowly burning sexual tension that hummed in that basement
office. The lack of sleep, the taut awareness of one another and Mulder's
barely disguised impatience over Scully's reluctance to discuss their
relationship had a cumulative effect on the two of them, and with a sigh
of relief at the hour, Mulder suggested, "Let's break for the day, Scully.
The report is almost done -- we can print it out later."

"Sounds good to me, Mulder." Switching off her computer, Scully stood and
stretched languidly. Mulder swallowed and turned in his chair, disguising
his physical reaction to the sensual grace of that movement by reaching
for the suit jacket draped carelessly over the chair's back. Scully walked
over to the coat tree and put on her coat, and with a smile, bade Mulder a
good weekend and escaped through the door.

*********************************************

Friday evening,
Scully's apartment

Dana Scully sat back on her heels, staring blindly at the flames that were
beginning to lick greedily at the kindling in the fireplace. Upon arriving
home, she had immediately changed into comfortable clothing -- a pair of
leggings and a warm, faded flannel shirt that she suspected was one of
Mulder's emergency shirts that he kept stashed at her place. Hugging
herself and the shirt closer to her body, she reflected back on the
tension of the day and winced. "At least I can try to make up the sleep
this weekend," she thought. "Maybe I'll get a grip before Monday."
Standing up, she leaned over and closed the glass doors of the fire screen
and enjoyed the flare of warmth from her proximity to the fire. On her way
to the kitchen to start dinner, a knock sounded at her front door.
Detouring to it, she peered through the peephole and sighed.

"Mulder, what are you doing here?"

Walking through the door, her casually-clad partner grinned at her and
said, "Gee, Scully, a good evening to you too."

A reluctant smile on her face, Scully nodded her head in acknowledgement
of her rudeness and inquired, "What do you have there, Mulder?"

Shaking a large brown bag, Mulder simply said, "Dinner."

An hour later, the remnants of an Italian takeout dinner scattered on her
coffee table, Scully finally broached the topic that she'd avoided for the
past few weeks. "Okay, Mulder, let's talk. I can't stand many more days
like we had today -- I feel too wound up at the end of the day, and I
can't sleep."

"Oh, by all means, let's talk so you can sleep and work more easily," he
muttered sarcastically. A warning glance from bright blue eyes cut off his
next comment, and he forced himself to calm the spurt of irritation at her
words. Leaning back on the couch, Mulder said, "Scully, I don't understand
why you want to ignore the fact that we said some important things to each
other in Wisconsin. Hell, we kissed too, but you've been avoiding me
whenever I try to talk about it. Why?"

Silence. Nothing but the sound of the steady fall of rain from beyond the
closed windows filled the living room. Scully folded her arms around
herself tightly in a subconscious attempt to protect herself. Somewhere in
the vicinity of his heart, an ache spread through Mulder's chest. Closing
his eyes briefly, he struggled to contain his disappointment. She looked
at him, and a corresponding pain echoed through her as she realized how
much she was hurting him with her silence. She reached out and gently
touched his face, and his eyes flew open.

"Mulder, I..." Getting up suddenly, she walked up to the fireplace and
rested a hand against the mantle, staring down at the flames. "How can I
make you understand how much I want what you want, but it's also equally
balanced by my fear that I'll lose you one day?"

"Lose me? How?"

"One day, will you leave me? Just say goodbye? If a relationship between
the two of us doesn't make it, will that be the end of our partnership as
well?"

Staring at the reflected lights from the flames dancing in her bright
hair, Mulder listened to her hesitant voice. Slowly rising from the couch,
he walked over to her and stood as close as he could without touching her.
Somehow, it didn't seem like the right time to touch her just yet.

"Scully, I don't know what lies ahead for us, and I always thought that of
the two of us, I would be the one who would have the doubts that could
hold us back from taking that last step. I can't promise that everything
will work out all the time and that we'll never disagree on personal
issues, but we've always managed to respect one another's opinions and
stand together as one when the odds were against us."

His quiet words were puffs of air stirring the hairs on her vulnerable
nape, and she shivered and unconsciously leaned back, brushing lightly
against his chest.

"I care for you very much, Scully. You are the one person who matters to
me -- when you disappeared, life was just a grey blur of one day to the
next, hoping and looking for some lead that would bring me to you.
Wherever this may lead us, I know that you'll be a part of my life always,
because I can't bear to *not* have you in my life again." With that,
Mulder reached out and wrapped one arm around her slender waist, the other
arm raised and his had gently pushing a tendril of red hair from her cheek
and behind her ear. Trailing his fingers along her jawline, he brought
them to a rest on the tender skin of her chin and slowly tilted her head
back to bring her lips up towards his. Bending down, he stared into her
eyes, and touched his lips to hers undemandingly.

Scully shuddered, and thought, "This is it. Fish or cut bait." With a
sudden, whimsical smile at that old saying, she turned in his arms and
brought her arms up around Mulder, encircling his neck. "Mulder, I want
this." With that emphatic statement, she rose on her toes and kissed him
with the full strength of her feelings behind the kiss.

Stunned, Mulder kissed her back just as passionately. He broke off the
kiss, giving a barely-heard whimper at the sight of her mouth blindly
following upwards after his retreating lips. "Scully, are you sure?"

She opened her eyes and said simply, "Sure enough that we'll never say
goodbye." With that, her arms brought his dark head closer to her, and her
lips and greedy tongue brought him to the edge within seconds.

Gasping slightly, Mulder looked down at her and lowered them down to the
floor.

End Part One

"Say Goodbye?" (NC-17)
SportJava@aol.com
Part Two of Two

Disclaimers in Part One

Desperate hands wrenched at clothes as their mouths meshed hungrily.
Mulder rose up to his knees to rip his shirt above his head, and he leaned
down to quickly unbutton her shirt. Scully sat up and the shirt slipped
from her shoulders. Her arms reached up again, intent on bringing him down
to the floor with her, but he resisted.

"Wait...wait" he urged her softly. At the hungry, wordless noise she made
at his hesitation, he soothed her with calming hands and laid her back
down. By the light of the fire, Mulder feasted his eyes on her body,
limned by the glow of the flames. Getting up, he quickly walked over and
snapped off the table lamps by the sofa and hurried back to her, wanting
only the light of the fire to define the curves and lines of her body.
Dipping back down to his knees, Mulder reached out and trailed his hands
over the smoothness of her skin, rubbing his palms over the curve of her
hip and eyeing the shadows cast by her breasts over the shadowy v between
them.

Scully twisted and arched under his exploring hands, coming very close to
climaxing under his intent gaze and skilled hands. "Mulder," she breathed,
and reached out her own hands to run them down his chest. Fingers found
their way down to the waistband of his jeans, and worried the button and
zipper loose. Pushing her hands downwards to take the offending jeans
down, she giggled at the coffee cup theme imprinted on the boxers he wore.

Mulder grinned and cracked, "Want some more coffee?"

With a seductive smile, she shot back, "Something tells me that I won't be
'sipping' from a coffee cup anytime soon." And proceeded to wrench the
boxers down over his buttocks and long legs to cast them aside to join the
tangled heap of clothing lying just beyond the firelight.

Mulder gulped at the imagery of her words, and followed her down back to
the floor. The glow of the flames painted the bodies of the two lovers as
they twisted and grasped one another, lost in their first lovemaking.
Scully pushed against Mulder, urging him onto his back, and she bent her
bright head over him, trailing a teasing tongue over the tiny nipples on
his chest. That wicked tongue slowly slid lower and danced over his
erection, bringing an involuntary lunge of his hips against her absorbed
face. She looked up and saw the tight expression of control on his face
and the pleading look in his eyes, and brought her mouth down to take him
in. Mulder grasped her shoulders lightly, and let her set the pace. She
licked the tip of him, circled him and reached down with careful hands to
gently fondle flesh drawn tight with need. Under the twin sensations,
Mulder moaned in agonized delight and looked down at the red hair draping
his groin, hiding his view of her unselfish act. With shaking hands,
Mulder caressed her cheeks and felt them draw in and out as she suckled
him. "Not yet, not alone", he managed to gasp out. Scully raised her head
and released his hardened, glistening flesh from the humid confines of her
mouth, and she raised an eyebrow at him. Licking her lips, she scooted
back up his lean body, and wound herself around him again. Mulder wrapped
his arms around her and rolled her under him, eager to explore her body
and drive her to the edge.

Mulder combed his fingers through her hair and kissed her deeply. Lifting
his head, he proceeded to let his mouth wander at will downwards,
delineating the delicate line of her jaw with his tongue and nibbling at
the soft skin where her neck met her shoulders. She moaned and he smiled
secretly, making a mental note of that sensitive spot. He trailed down to
her breasts and circled the hardened tips with a pointed tongue, flicking
and tormenting them to a near-impossible hardness. Scully writhed against
his tongue, and he painted a line down from between her breasts to her
belly, tracing a circle around her navel. In mimicry of the sexual act, he
stabbed his tongue gently into it, and she arched upwards with a cry.
Grasping her hips, he laid himself flat and rested his weight on his
elbows, raising her up to meet his questing tongue. He wove his fingers
through the humid tangle of reddish hair, and parted her to begin
pleasuring her as she had done for him. Finding and manipulating that
small bundle of nerves, he pressed his avid tongue against it and was
rewarded with a small scream of pleasure from her. Varying the pressure,
and giving soothing swipes of his tongue in between, Mulder raised her
level of excitement upwards and found himself growing even more excited by
her pleasure. Her hands scrabbled blindly for his head, and she raised him
to meet her frantic gaze.

"Mulder...together?" she pleaded.

With a nod, he came back up her body and winced slightly at the pressure
in his groin. "God, I feel like I'm gonna explode." he thought. He picked
her up, and at the small question in her eyes, he sat back on his heels
and brought her onto his lap, pressing her closely against him and feeling
her humid warmth against his erection. With a small smile, he lowered his
mouth to hers again, and they kissed deeply, softly and slowly, trying to
express themselves through the simple act. Scully reached around his
shoulders to brace herself, and Mulder brought his hands to her hips and
slowly lifted her and began to lower her waiting body over him, eager to
feel her body enclose him. With echoing moans, Scully and Mulder meshed
their bodies together, and he buried his head in relief against her arched
neck, her red hair spilling down her nape. They remained still to try to
absorb and memorize this first for them, but the long-building pressure
could not be halted anymore. Scully began to rock in his arms, using her
strong legs to levy herself up and down along his length, and Mulder
thrust his hips in counteraction. Moving like flame, she gave a throaty
laugh of delight as she moved even faster upon him, enjoying the grimace
of pleasure-pain on his face. Mulder bent his head and sucked at her
breast, wrenching another groan from deep within her throat, and moments
later, they climaxed together.

With racing hearts and sweat-dampened bodies, they slowly lowered
themselves back to the floor and remained joined, their arms and legs
wrapped around each other protectively. Quietly spilling into sleep, their
faces reflected the peace and satisfaction in their hearts.

****************************************************

Mulder slowly came awake at the sensation of a hand idly trailing along
his bare chest. His legs brushed against soft skin, and he shuddered as
warm lips and a curious tongue breached his lips. Opening his eyes, he
looked at Scully, whose tangled red hair and swollen lips were evidence of
their passionate night together. With a smile, he gathered her even closer
against him, enjoying the sensation of her bare flesh rubbing along his.
Murmuring "good morning", he rubbed an affectionate nose along hers,
eliciting a giggle from her.

"Good morning to you too, Mulder." She whispered a gentle kiss on his chin
and then tucked her head under it, breathing in his warm scent. The room
fell to silence then, and each was lost in their thoughts.

"Scully?"

The serious undertone of his voice had her heart suddenly racing.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"Last night....was it an anomaly for you? Do we go back to being friends,
or do you want to move forward? He held his breath unconsciously, awaiting
her reply.

"As I said, Mulder, no saying 'goodbye' to this or us. And we will
*always* be friends."

He released that anxiously-held breath, and folded her closer to his
heart, his eyes dampening in silent gratitude for this brave, brilliant
and fierce woman who was now his lover.

The End