Subject: NEW "Between Then and Now" by Anne Haynes
Date: 6 Jul 1998 05:17:43 GMT
From: mmezirinka@aol.com (MmeZirinka)
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative

NOTE:  Sadly, I did not write this.  I'm just posting for a friend.
Please direct all glowing feedback and pleas for more to
annehaynes@juno.com.  Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER - Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter,
1013 Productions and the Fox Network.  I mean no
infringement.

Category:  MSR
Rating:  NC-17
Spoilers - US Season Five plus the movie

"Between Then and Now"
by Anne Haynes
annehaynes@juno.com

So, Mulder had kissed her.

It wasn't like they couldn't just forget it ever happened.
Hell, she was GREAT at denial.  Lost sister.  Lost ova.
Lost child.

I deny it.

Dana Scully closed the file on her desk, giving up on
completing the tasks she'd hoped to accomplish before
she and Mulder moved into their new office on Monday.

This once, denial was getting her absolutely nowhere.

He had kissed her.  Even if the fullness of the gesture
had been denied by the sting, the very fact that he'd
thought to do so, thought to shatter the barrier between
what they were and what they could be--

She lowered her head to the desk, pressed her forehead
againt the cool wood.

What would have happened next?  Was he kissing her
goodbye?  Or hello?

That they had not spoken of the kiss since it's untimely
abortion was hardly noteworthy.  God knows, they'd
built a whole partnership on significant silences.  How
could she expect this to be different?

The problem with silence, she thought, was how easily
one could read the wrong message into the void between
words.  Not that words between them provided much more
clarity.

*You made me a whole person.*

At the time, the words had shattered her heart.  But now,
in the cold light of distance and time, what the hell did
they mean?

I fill in the blanks of his jump-now-look-later psyche?  I'm
the glue that holds his sanity together?  I'm Watson to
his Sherlock?

What?

The knock on her door was loud.  Repeated three more times.

She pushed wearily away from the desk, knowing who it
would be.  Suspecting, even, what she'd smell on his
breath when he walked through the door in some hideous
bit of deja vu.

Fuck it, Mulder--I'm not going to break into a Naval hospital
with you this time.  And I'm not going to run through corn
fields in the middle of the desert.

And if you had to fucking get smashed in order to come
over here and kiss me again---

"Scully?"

She paused at the door.  He didn't SOUND drunk.

"Scully--are you okay?"

She heard panic in his voice.  It set off something equally
frantic within her, spurring her into action. She opened
the door quickly and looked up into his widened eyes.
"It's 2 a.m."

His panic subsided a bit, and he looked properly chastened.
"I know.  I'm sorry--did I wake you?"

She shook her head.

"I haven't been drinking," he added, as if expecting her to
ask.  He touched his fingertips to his nose as proof.

She bit back a chuckle and a nose joke.  "So what brings
you here at this time of night?"

"I guess it just struck me that--"  He sighed and started
again.  "Monday, we get to be partners again.  Officially.
And I--"

God, he was struggling here.  If she had a half a clue
what he was trying to say, she'd help him out.  But he
was lacking coherence, even for Mulder.

Finally, he just subsided.  Leaned back against her door
and looked at her, uncertainty in every fiber of his being.

She cocked her head, beginning to realize what this was
about.

That damned kiss.

"Mulder--you're absolved."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"I absolve you, okay?  It was one of those moments--it
seemed like a good idea at the time.  Hell, I'm sure it
would have been very nice."

I'm sure I would have puddled onto the floor and lain
there, a throbbing mass of sexually-stimulated goo, but
we don't have to say that to him now, do we, Dana?

"Nice?"

Oh shit.  Now she'd insulted him.

The odd thing was, he didn't look all that insulted.  He
looked--

--challenged.

Intent.

Determined.

Oh God.

He moved away from the door and took a step toward her.
His eyes seemed to glow from somewhere deep within
him.  He looked---

--feral.

Hungry.

Exciting.

She felt the telltale spread of moisture at her center.
Heat seemed to radiate from her flesh in waves, so
intense that surely he could feel it, even from where
he stood.  Especially as he was swiftly, purposefully
closing what little distance remained between them.

She parted her lips, found her voice.  "Very nice."

He chuckled.  God, what a sound--low, like a growl.
Dripping with sexual awareness.  So mind-bendingly
different than the boyish look of fear and longing
she'd seen in his eyes in the hallway outside his
apartment.

What had happened between then and now?

Between now and just a moment ago, when he'd been
so flustered he couldn't put together two coherent
thoughts?

She took a deep, swift breath to steady herself.

And smelled it.

Sex.

Raw, female, heated and heady.

God, no wonder his confidence had made a comeback.
She might as well have hung a sign around her neck--
Do me, you big strapping hunk of he-man.

And even that thought, that flippant, self-deprecating
thought, was enough to send a new flood of wet heat
between her thighs.  Enough to paint vivid pictures in
her mind of his body sheathed in hers, limbs tangling,
grasping, tongues sliding, mating--

He caught her before knees buckled.  He had the
decency not to laugh as she pressed her hot forehead
to his chest and lashed herself with a few sharp bits
of humiliation.  In fact, he had the decency to simply
hold her, his arms loosely wound around her waist,
while she found the strength to pull away and meet
his gaze.

He was still hungry.  Still exciting.  But some of his
momentary cockiness had faded, leaving questions
swimming in the murky depths of his eyes.

And she knew just what had to be done.

Slowly, she lifted her hand to his neck, threading her
fingers through the soft, dark hair at the base of his
skull.  She drew his head down, lifting to her toes in
order to press her lips against his forehead.  Then she
leaned her forehead against his.

They stood just so for what seemed like an eternity,
serenaded by the ragged cadences of their breathing.
Slowly, the dissonance dissolved into harmony, until
their breasts rose and fell in concert.  It was a strange
sort of intimacy, sharing the rhythm of their lives.

He pulled away first.  As it had been before, so it was
now.  As it should be.

She gazed into his eyes, wondering now, as she had
wondered then, if they were tempting fate one time too
many.

But now, as then, she recognized that fate was on their
side.  It had to be, or neither of them would be standing
here now, bodies arching toward each other on the
brink of something new and necessary.

His head dipped.  Her chin lifted.  Lips parted and brushed.
Hovered, as if waiting.

And nothing happened.  No flood, no fire, no pestilence.

His mouth moved lightly over hers again.  Softly.  Feeling
its way.

It wasn't enough.  She rose, pressing her lips more firmly
against his.  Her arms slipped around his neck, ensnaring
him.

God, his hands were big.  Big and long-fingered and suddenly
everywhere---on her hips, her back, her ass, her breasts.
Two fingers closed over the hardened peak of her nipple,
squeezed gently through the thin fabric of her silk pajama
top.  He released her, flattened his palm and soothed the
tender nipple with a brush of heated silk.

She gasped into his mouth, and he answered with a long,
slow slide of his tongue against hers.  Filling her mouth.
Stilling her breath for a long, aching moment.

He drew away, and she shuddered at the loss.  Her breath
came in ragged, shattered gasps.

"Scully?"

"Yeah?"  Was that her voice?  God, how humiliating.

"You're absolved."

It took a moment for the words to pierce the cottony haze
of desire.  When they did, she saw red.

"You son of a--"

He caught her hands before she could finish her half-
formed intention of throttling him.  "Now we're even. And
now--"

He lowered his head again, and God help her, she didn't
have the strength or resolve to stop him from kissing her
again.  And after a moment, she didn't even remember
being irritated.  He was good at this.  Amazingly good,
considering how little practice he'd had in recent years.
And she wasn't fooling herself about that---if anyone in the
world would know if Mulder was getting any action, it was
Special Agent Dana Scully.

Of course, she hadn't been getting any, either---so her
judgment regarding his lovemaking prowess might be a bit
on the lenient side.

Oh, fuck it, Dana.  He's Don Juan, Lothario, Valentino,
Cary Grant, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas all rolled up
into---

Holy Mother of God.

His fingers had found her center.  Through the silk of her
pajama bottoms and the soft, wet cotton of her panties, he'd
found her.

She was fucking seeing stars.

No, really. Bright, speckly, darting stars.

She arched her hips without planning to.  It just--happened.

Sort of like the way her right hand just happened to curl
around the unmistakable bulge in his Levis and give a little
squeeze.

"Jesus, Scully!"

Yeah, she thought, her head still spinning.  It's almost a
religious experience, isn't it?

Their hands dueled for a few moments, his fingers tracing
her folds through the drenched silk, while hers stroked his
erection through rough denim.  And it occurred to Scully,
in a rush of dark mirth, that they were both going to come
fully clothed, which was probably made some sort of
strange, cosmic sense in the greater scheme of their
highly dysfunctional lives.

Well, fuck fate.

She unbuttoned the waistband button of his jeans and
unzipped his fly. He made a soft, growling noise deep in
his throat.

His jeans were too tight to provide any room for her hand.
They had to go.  She tugged them downward, baring the
soft heather gray of his shorts. Not quite boxers, not
quite briefs, and not cut quite full enough to handle the
impressive results of their foreplay.

"Are you going to just stare at it all day?"

She looked up into the mingled laughter and pain in his
gaze.  "Five years, Mulder.  You don't wait five years and
just settle for a glance."

"Hell, you could've seen it five years ago if you'd asked
nicely."

She bit back a grin.  Okay, this was just getting too weird.
Standing here in the middle of her living room, sopping wet
with arousal, looking at Mulder's remarkable hard-on and
Actually Discussing It.

Weird...but somehow wonderful.  A reminder that with all
the other things they were to each other, they were also
friends.  Confidantes.

Soulmates who could talk about erections as well as
ectoplasm.  Orgasms as well as organisms.

And speaking of the big O....

"Mulder--"  She gave a little thrust of her hips against his
hand, which had gone still when she had begun to undress
him.

He grinned slightly and moved his fingers against her. Her
body leapt in response, so strongly in fact for a moment she
was briefly delayed from her own task of removing his shorts.
But her multi-tasking skills kicked in and she reached her
goal in seconds.

He was...large.  She'd had a clue long before this--it wasn't
the first time she'd seen him naked.  But Mulder at rest and
Mulder at full staff were considerably different prospects.

Not too large---she didn't have the sudden urge to run screaming
for a chastity belt at the sight.

Quite the opposite.

Fingers through silk definitely did NOT get it.

"Mulder--"

"Yeah?"  His voice was in her ear, little more than hot breath.

"I think I've had enough foreplay.  You?"

"Five years too much."  He slid his hands over her hips and under
the waistband of her pajamas.  He slipped his fingers lower,
beneath her cotton briefs.  Lower, gliding over the muscles of her
ass.  Lower, sliding down her thighs, pulling the bottoms and
the panties with him.

His breath was hot against her knee as he lifted one foot, then
the other, and tossed the garments aside.  Then, hot against her
thigh.

Then, hot against her cleft.  Hot and intense.

Okay, I was wrong, she realized as his mouth closed over her,
his tongue and lips and teeth working magic at her core.
I haven't had enough foreplay.  Her knees buckled and his
hands rose up her back, holding her steady as he drove her
inexorably toward insanity.  She clutched at his hair, probably
hurting him, but she was beyond any rational thought now,
too caught up in the whirlwind of pleasure his mouth wrought.

When he finally drew back, she was mere millimeters from
release.  She moaned in frustration when he rose, abandoning
his ministrations.

"Soon," he murmured.  He reached out and flicked open
the buttons of her pajama top, then lifted his own t-shirt
over his head.  He tossed it aside, then slid her shirt
off, tossing it aside as well.

He paused for a moment, just looking at her.  His gaze
was impenetrable; she couldn't read him for a moment,
and that scared her.

Then he lifted his gaze to meet hers, and doubt fled in
the onslaught of need and passion and--yes---love that
flowed over her in that one look.

She reached out and threaded her hands through his,
pulling.  Her body thrummed, still on the verge of
satiation, still clamoring for release, making her movements
sluggish and unsteady.  But somehow they made it to
the sofa--the bed was too far away for realistic consideration.
And though the sofa was too small, really, she just didn't
give a damn.

She lay down on her back, opened her thighs and reached
for him.  He sank atop her, his hips shifting restlessly,
seeking harbor.

There was never anything romantic about this moment,
she thought.  No delicate way to handle the logistics
of two bodies joining.  And yet, somehow, when his
fingers slid between her legs and opened her to himself,
there was such tenderness in the touch, such reverence
for her body and for what they were about to share that
tears filled her eyes.

When he entered her, the tears spilled, sliding silently down
her cheeks.

He kissed the tears, his lips gentle. "Am I hurting you?"

She shook her head swiftly.  "No."

He was still for a few moments, giving her body time to
adjust to the unaccustomed fullness.  And fullness it
was.  Tight, thick, almost overwhelming.

Almost.

He took advantage of the quiet time to move his lips
gently, teasingly over hers.  "Nice?"

She flicked her tongue against his lips in answer. He
parted his lips and welcomed her exploration. She
tasted the mint of his toothpaste and a dark, smoky
flavor she realized must be the essence of herself still
lingering on his tongue.

With some surprise, she felt her center contract in a
series of hot, sharp spasms.  Pleasure flooded through
her in growing, undulating waves.

Oh, my God, she thought, I'm coming.

And coming and coming, without Mulder making the
first stroke inside her.  She didn't know whether to be
embarrassed or impressed.

He waited for the spasms to ease before he lowered his
head next to hers and murmured in her ear,  "So
damned independent."

She chuckled self-consciously.  "Or else, you're better
than you thought."

He lifted his head and gazed down at her.  "Ooo, a
theory to test."  He rocked his hips, and once again,
she saw stars.

Bright, speckly, darting stars---

He set a rhythm and dared her to keep pace, his gaze
challenging her with each thrust of his hips.  She was
hurtling fast toward another climax, but she was damned if
she was going to go there alone this time.  So she strained
against him, biting her lip to keep the pleasure from
erupting too soon, arching her back and tightening her
muscles to drive him toward the same beckoning insanity
that loomed before her.

Come, Mulder, she thought, squeezing his ass as he
drove into her.  Come for me.

He went rigid in her arms, his back arching.  A low,
rumbling moan escaped his throat and his hips bucked
hard against hers.  Once.  Twice.  On the third time,
his pelvis ground hard against hers, triggering an
explosion of sensation that rocketed straight from her
core to the pleasure center of her brain.  With a keening
cry, she dragged him with her over the edge and they
flew together toward the sun until they burst into flames.

Sunlight was peeking through the curtains of her living
room when she formed her next coherent thought.  The
clock on the mantle read 5:35 a.m.  She'd fallen asleep
on her sofa.

Check that.

THEY'D fallen asleep.  For Mulder was still there with her,
his head on her breast, his body still joined with hers.

Hard again.  And growing harder as her body flexed
involuntarily around him.

He stirred, rubbing his chin against her chest.  His beard
had grown overnight, stubble leaving a little path of heat
against her sensitive flesh.

He lifted his head and looked at her, his gaze sleepy and
warm and faintly surprised.  "You're still here."

Somehow, that soft admission deconstructed her.  She
lifted her hand to his head, and stroked his hair.  "Yes,
I am."

His expression grew almost comical as he came more
awake and realized just what the bottom half of his body
was doing at the moment.  She could almost see the
calculations in his head---how best to disengage without
betraying his cool exterior....

"Mulder?"

He just looked at her, nibbling lightly at his lip.

"Since you're already...here..."

He dipped his head, resting his forehead against her
collarbone.  "Bless you."

She didn't expect another orgasm.  Early morning hard-ons,
based on her somewhat limited experience, weren't known
for their staying power.  So it was with some surprise that
she found herself wracked with yet another climax--milder,
perhaps, than the volcanic proportions of last night's
pleasure, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Mulder followed soon after, closing his lips over the tendon
in her neck and sucking hard as his body shook with
release.  She would have marks.  More rumors would start.

She pushed those thoughts firmly aside and cradled her
lover in her arms.  There would be time for worries and
fears and doubts later.  Time to figure out the logistics of
loving her partner.  All those considerations could wait.

Right now, she just allowed herself to feel. His arms,
tight and possessive around her.  His lips, moving lightly
over her throat.  His body, soft and spent and pressed
so intimately against hers.

So, Mulder had made love to her.

Denial could go fuck itself.

End