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Repressed I – IV by Jori
Repressed I
Title: Repressed I
Author: Jori
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Scully discovers she has forgotten something she really shouldn’t have.
Category: SRA
Keywords:MS something
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Repressed I Part 1
June 1999
I can barely catch my breath as the elevator slowly ascends to the fourth floor. I can’t believe this is happening. I just cannot believe that after all this time he never said a damn word. For five years Mulder has known and remained silent, his memories still perfectly intact. Mine apparently were damaged more than I thought. I believed I didn’t remember anything after Duane Barry kidnapped me until I woke up again in that hospital room. I guess there were some holes in my memory from before my abduction. And Mulder never fucking bothered to clue me in.
Breathe, Dana, I keep telling myself over and over. Just remember to keep breathing through this. This isn’t that bad. Right. For all that time I have been kept in the dark. He never once said a damn thing. Did he think it was normal to forget such a thing as this? Perhaps he was glad I forgot, forever letting him off the hook. We could just go back to what we were and he was set free from whatever obligation he might have felt. A part of me feels violated, as if something precious has been stolen away, but I push that feeling back. I will deal with that later.
I look down at the box in my hand again. It is what started all of this, and it is what brought back the memories. I found it this morning, while cleaning out a carton full of old papers. I have held this package before, but it never had this effect on me. All of a sudden, a tangle of memories came flooding over me, as they bubbled up from the deepest recesses of my mind. These memories couldn’t possibly be mine, could they? Memories of entwined legs and arms and mouths and souls. There is no way these memories could be real. No way. It is a trick my mind is playing on me. That is all it is.
But somehow I know better.
The elevator doors slide open and I step out. I can still turn back. I can still step into the elevator and continue living like I never knew, or I can continue down this hall and face him. I have faced Mulder nearly every day for years now. I have faced him after he admitted to other things he neglected to tell me. Why should this change anything? Hell, it just does. I hear the doors finally slide shut behind me, leaving me with one less option. Of course, I can still push the button, ride it down, get in my car and just go home. Or I can go face the truth. The truth he has hidden from me for years now.
I take slow, deliberate steps to Mulder’s door, still inventing and reinventing my exact game plan in my head. How do I ask these questions? How do I admit that I forgot this. What if I there wasn’t anything to forget, and my mind is playing tricks on me, creating images of something that never happened? I do not want to humiliate myself any more than I might possibly already be. I have spent the day deliberating about how I should confront him with my new found information, playing out multiple scenarios in my mind. I want to be calm and collected when I finally see him face to face, but I am beginning to find that calmness hard to hold on to.
I’m in front of his door, and yet I am undecided. I can still leave. Something in my brain cries for me to just walk away. Pretend it never happened. Come on, you can do it. You can walk away.
Something else is telling me to find the truth. It is always the damned truth. The ever elusive search for it always wins out.
I knock hard under the number forty-two, hoping I find all my answers here. My fingers are clenched around the package in my other hand, for it is my evidence. Actually, it is the only evidence I’ve got. There is nothing else from the last five years that even remotely hinted at what I am remembering.
Mulder swings the door open and looks surprised to see me standing in his hall at two o’clock in the morning.
“Scully? What’s wrong?” he asks me as he wipes his sleepy eyes. I can tell he just threw on a pair of jeans, not even bothering to fasten them, and he doesn’t even have on a shirt. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Mulder, why in the hell didn’t you ever tell me?” I ask him, holding up the package I brought over with me.
He leans up against the doorframe and sighs, taking the video package out of my hand. He examines the title as if it were new to him, as if he wasn’t the one who gave this to me. His eyes finally meet mine, and I know the truth. His eyes always tell the truth. The memories are real.
Sweet Jesus, I think, as I feel my knees involuntarily begin to go out from under me. Mulder grabs my arm and holds me up, pulling me into his apartment. My attempts at staying rational about this are slowly fading away.
“Scully, come in. We need to talk,” he tells me as he guides me to the couch.
I cannot answer for I cannot talk. I have lost my voice.
________________
July 1994
“Hi! What are you doing here?” I ask, surprised to see Scully again today. I had already spoken to her earlier, after getting my ass chewed out by Skinner for leaving my weak excuse of an assignment. I certainly didn’t expect to see her again so soon.
“I just thought I’d stop by to see how you are doing. I know you are upset about that tape…” she starts to say, as she remains standing in the hall.
“Don’t worry about it. It is just one more incident of ‘so close but yet so far’ in my life. Someday I will get used to it. I’ll probably expect it as the norm, actually,” I tell her.
It is true. I’m always on the verge of discovering everything I need to know, only to be thwarted back again. This isn’t the first time.
“Can I come in?” she asks, and I feel stupid for not inviting her in. Just a few days ago I was afraid to be seen with her, afraid they are following us. Fuck them all now. It doesn’t matter who I’m with.
“Yeah. Sure. I’m sorry,” I say, stepping back to let her in to my apartment.
She walks by me, sits down on my couch and focuses on the television.
“Did you get enough evidence on your wiretap yet?” she asks. She knows that there will never be enough evidence as long as they want to keep me there. I might be sitting in that damn hotel until I’m sixty-five. They will have to come and fetch me for my retirement party. I know she just wants me to talk about it. To open up. I sit down next to her and stare blankly at the TV.
“No, I didn’t get enough evidence to make any arrests yet. That’s okay. I have nothing better to do but sit and wait. Well, I have better things to do, I’m just not allowed to do them anymore,” I say, and she still focuses away from me.
“We, Mulder. We aren’t allowed to do them anymore,” she tells me with all seriousness.
I wish I felt that way. She was assigned to the X-Files, nothing more. It is her job to watch over me for them, make sure I trod the straight and narrow. The X-Files were borne of my body and blood. Not hers. Her sacrifices have been nothing compared to mine.
“You aren’t stuck in the world of mundane wire tap, Scully. They let you go back to your old assignment. You aren’t the one being punished,” I tell her, a little too harshly I guess.
“Is that what you believe? That you are in this alone? You said it yourself this afternoon. You still have me. I am being punished by being separated from you and this isn’t just a one way street. Get over yourself, Mulder,” she says, as she turns to me, her eyes flaring with anger.
“That isn’t what I meant, Scully. They aren’t trying to get rid of you. They don’t want you to quit. They never will. It’s me that’s the thorn in their sides, not you,” I say.
“I didn’t choose to walk away. I would never walk away from you unless I was forced to,” is all she says as she places her hand over mine. It is true. She never would.
Neither of us says anything for several minutes. Her hand doesn’t move from mine. My eyes don’t move from the TV screen.
“What are you watching, Mulder?” she asks.
“‘Superstars of the Superbowl,’” I answer.
“Isn’t that the one you get for free when you subscribe to the swimsuit issue offer of ‘Sports Illustrated’?” she asks, a slight touch of playfulness reaching out through her voice.
“You know me. Can’t pass up a Kathy Ireland picture,” I say, “No, actually, had I subscribed to the swimsuit issue offer, you’d be watching an entirely different type of video. You know, girls wearing thongs and seashells frolicking in the sand.”
“I would say they would be wearing too much clothes for your taste,” she says with a sly grin.
“Actually, the most beautiful woman I know is usually buttoned up from neck to ankle and has of late taken to wearing a large trench coat almost constantly even in summer,” I say, and I don’t know why. It just comes out of my mouth.
Scully knows she is beautiful, but that isn’t all she is. Her beauty would be nothing without that mind that goes with it. That is what makes her so damn special to me.
Her hand is still over mine. It is warm and soft. One would never know what these hands do all day.
“I should be going,” she says, as she finally pulls her hand away. I catch it quickly in mine before she can escape.
“No. Stay,” I say.
________________
July 1999
Mulder tries to make me sit down on his couch, but images of what happened there years ago rattle off in my mind, one after another, with such newfound clarity it is as if it happened yesterday. I shake his hand off of me, confident my own legs can carry me to the chair in the corner.
I sink into the chair and hug the throw pillow, who’s place I’m occupying, close to my chest. It must be my feeble attempt to put another layer between myself and what I now know is true. Mulder sits opposite of me, not needing to hide behind anything. I can’t bring myself to look him in the eye yet. Instead, I choose to watch one lonesome fish circle its large home. The fish. I remember something about those damn fish.
“I always wondered if you would ever remember,” Mulder says quietly.
“Now I am left to wonder why you never told me,” I say, bitterness rising up into my voice.
“I thought I was, uh…” he starts and our eyes meet.
“Please say anything but you thought you were protecting me, because in this case, there was nothing to protect me from but you,” I tell him.
He says nothing back to me, instead our eyes watch each other from across the room, locked on to one another. Words about personal issues were never easy between us, and talk of feelings or emotions rarely make it to the surface. Maybe that is why he never told me. Maybe that is why I never remembered.
“Can I ask you something?” he says, breaking the careful silence enveloping the room.
My eyes do not move from his. How could he have questions? He’s the one with the answers.
“Go ahead,” I say, sounding as detached and distant as I feel.
“What upsets you more? The fact that you didn’t remember after you came back or the fact that it happened in the first place?” he asks, also presenting his best detached, clinical voice.
“Don’t you dare try to analyze me, Mulder! Don’t you even dare,” I say vehemently, pointing a finger at him like I’m scolding a child.
“I’m not trying to analyze you. If I were, you’d be the one on the couch. I just want to know,” he says, a softness edging back into his voice, working me over like it always does. I can hardly believe that it must have worked so well once. Was it just once?
I don’t even know what bothers me more about this whole thing. Was it because it happened in the first place? Was it? I can’t even answer these questions for myself. Maybe I’m even mad at myself for not remembering.
“Mulder, I know something happened, but I can’t even remember enough yet to tell you whether we made love, had sex or just plain old fucked on your stupid couch.”
________________
July 1994
I don’t know how it happened so easily. My arm is around her and she is snuggled next to me watching this piece of shit video. So much for needing a romantic, chick flick. Then again, Scully and chick just don’t belong in the same thought anyway.
I will admit it has been hard working without her. That is one of the unbearable parts of the X-files being shut down. I never realized how far Quantico, Virginia really was. Well, maybe not so far mileage-wise. Just far when you miss someone.
Hopefully they won’t go trying to reassign someone else to be my partner. That would be the final blow. Not only would I have lost her, but the thought that she could be replaced is unfathomable. If I can’t work with her, I will work alone.
Scully seems so content in our closeness, and I’m afraid to move. If I do, she might shift away and this moment will be broken. This is the closest thing to normal life I’ve felt in years. Could we make something like this last between us? I doubt it. I can’t make anything work these days.
“Mulder, I need to go home,” she says quietly, as if she is trying to convince herself of it.
“No, you don’t. You can stay right here with me for awhile longer. I miss you,” I admit to her, and she doesn’t get up to leave.
“I miss you, too. Even if we just spent hours together flying back from Puerto Rico,” she says.
I was sad when our flight was over. It was like old times, the two of us sitting so close, crowded into our cheap coach seats. When did I begin to miss her physical presence so much?
“Mulder, you know everything is going to work out, don’t you?” she says, more of a statement than a question.
“I don’t know about that, Scully. I don’t think anything can get worse than listening to and transcribing hour upon hour of wiretaps. This is shit work, and they know it. I swear they just want me to quit, to force me out,” I say. It doesn’t get much lower than what I’m doing now.
“You will know they are serious about getting rid of you when they have you doing background checks,” she says with a smile, “But, seriously, would you ever quit?”
“Not this week,” I say. Maybe my breaking point will come next week. Or next year. I don’t know. What would make me give it all up?
She shifts against me, moving in closer. I could get used to this. I shouldn’t be thinking like that. This is Scully, my partner. Scratch that. Former partner. But that still doesn’t make it right. Can she hear my heart beating faster as she gets closer?
I lean over and kiss the top of her head, offering up what little reassurance I can that I’m glad she is here with me and that everything will be okay. Judging by her reaction, maybe that was a little closer than she wanted to be. Scully pulls away from me, and sits up straighter, a look of concern crossing her face. It only took a second, but she has become Scully, my all too serious former partner again.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hoping I didn’t cross any line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
“There is nothing to be sorry for. If anyone should be sorry, it should be me. I was getting a little too comfortable on your shoulder,” she says, and she gets up off the couch.
I follow her to the door, not wanting her to go. I have no idea when we might see each other again.
“Goodnight, Mulder,” she says, as she turns to me.
“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” I say, as I pull her into my arms just to hug her. No, nothing more. Honestly. She would never want more. I don’t even think I want more. Do I?
She lingers in my arms longer than I ever imagined she would, and I lean down and kiss her forehead, pressing my lips against her longer than I ever should have. She doesn’t pull away. My hands move up to her face, and I gently caress the curves of her cheekbones. She looks up at me, her face a picture book, each individual feature telling a story of apprehension or anticipation or exhilaration. Each one of those emotions is struggling there, battling for the proprietorship of Dana Scully’s face. I think apprehension is winning.
I lean in slowly, giving her all the time in the world to back away before our lips brush. It is so slight it barely registers, but I know it is real as I pull away. She is still watching me silently, waiting on me as I wait on her. I kiss her again, this one is given with far more intention then the first. She rises up to meet me, her mouth opening up under mine, pleading for more.
This can’t be happening, can it?
________________
July 1999
“I certainly would have never called it ‘plain old fucking,’ Scully,” he snaps at me, and it begins to register that perhaps he cherishes these memories I’m just discovering. I do not want to diminish his feelings, but I want some answers.
How many times have they played through his head? How many times has he looked at me and had those memories repeat over and over? Mulder and his damn memory.
“Then what was it, Mulder?” I ask again, somehow missing the whole issue of why he never told me. I need to steer this conversation back that way, but I need to desperately find out what in the hell went on here.
“It was… it was great, Scully. And then you were gone,” he tells me, his voice laden with emotion.
“Mulder, I feel as if I woke up this morning and discovered I had slept with my brother,” I say to him.
“Is that what you think of me as? A brother? I thought I was more than that,” Mulder says, his eyes leaving mine.
“You are. You have been. I just don’t know what to think right now. What do you want me to think of you as, Mulder? A lover?” I ask him.
“Your partner,” he simply says.
I close my eyes, allowing the memories to flood my brain. The missing pieces are starting to fill in. I came over here. We sat and watched that video together. I was going to leave him here. We kissed. I was going to leave and we kissed…
“Mulder, last summer, if it hadn’t been for that bee, would we have made love?” I ask.
“I can’t answer for you,” he says, but he doesn’t answer for himself, either.
“Would you have wanted to? Would you have continued this charade and pretended it was the first time?” I ask, needing desperately to know, yet not knowing why.
“It would have never gone that far,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask.
“You would have stopped it.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently I’m more like a brother to you now.”
________________
Repressed I Part 2
July 1994
“What was that?” she asks, as she pulls away from me slightly.
“I don’t know, but please don’t stop,” I tell her, pulling her back to me. She comes back into my arms without a second thought. Scully’s face is lit up with what I can only describe as happiness. The two of us haven’t had much cause for being happy lately, and this isn’t really how I intended to make her smile again. It sure is working, though.
I stand in front of my door, swaying slowly with her in my arms to music that only we can hear, the rhythm section consisting mainly of my pounding heart.
“Would, you, uh, like to sit down again?” I ask her, forcing myself to be willing to accept what ever answer she gives me. A puzzled look crosses her face, as if she is weighing her options carefully before she moves one way or another. Kissing while standing in front of my door was okay, but getting out of our present vertical position seems to be her hold up.
“Um, I don’t know about this, Mulder,” she says. Scully’s expression keeps alternating between a smile and that little furrow she gets in her brow.
“I promise, we won’t take this anywhere you don’t want it to go,” I tell her, as I gently move the two of us back into my living room.
________________
July 1999
Mulder is silently brooding over on his side of the room, clearly upset about the brother comment I made. It is true, though. I cannot view him as a lover. I have thought about it before, wondered what catalyst would push us to that next level. I never suspected we already had gone there without any real catalyst at all.
I see some of it so clearly now. I remember him pulling me across this very room, pulling me back to the couch. I can’t look at him while these visions filter through my brain, for I’m afraid my face will flush with embarrassment. He chooses not to look at me either.
Mulder and I were on that couch, I was under him, he was over me, kissing me. He pulled me to that couch. A thought flashes through my brain like wildfire. He pulled me to the couch.
“Mulder, was I a willing participant…”
He is up and off the couch in a second, standing before me with his hands on his hips.
“What in the fuck are you implying, Scully? That I raped you? Christ! You don’t remember anything, do you?” he nearly shouts at me.
“No,” is all I can say, for it is the truth. What I do remember is so hazy, it as if it were a dream.
“I would never hurt you. Never. Not then, not now. I can’t even believe you would think that. Fuck this whole thing. I’ve gone from being your damn brother to a rapist in a matter of minutes,” he says as he begins pacing angrily in front of me.
I can’t believe I would even think that, either. Mulder would never do that. This is Mulder, my partner. Mulder, who believes in aliens and ghosts. Mulder, who’s whole life is centered around finding the truth. He would never commit such an act.
“Mulder, I’m sorry, I’m just so confused. I’m angry. I’m hurt. I don’t really know what to think right now,” I tell him, but he still keeps on pacing.
The phone rings, causing both of us to jump. He grabs for it, answering it after one ring. Mulder sounds angry. I’m the one who should be angry. He’s the one who should be apologizing.
“Mulder. No, Frohike, now is not a good time… no, I don’t have a ‘chick’ here. Yeah, Agent Scully is here. No, no… we are discussing something about work. Yeah, if I get a chance.”
He hangs up the phone and tosses it across the room to the couch.
“Does he know?” I ask, wondering if perhaps Mulder told Frohike while I was missing, just in passing. Maybe he missed me and told someone. Anyone. I don’t even know what he did while I was missing.
Mulder stops pacing and looks squarely at me.
“No one knew but me. And now you,” he says.
________________
July 1994
She is under me, her mouth open to my kisses, her tongue darting in and out of my mouth, teasing me ever so slightly. I feel her hands move in between our bodies, unbuttoning my jeans. She is so close it is hard to tell where I end and she begins, yet we could be closer. We are going to be so much closer to something if she keeps that up with her hand.
I somehow manage to sit up, pulling her with me so she is straddling my lap. She is in control now, her mouth meeting mine in fiery, hot kisses. I would have never imagined she could kiss like this. I have never imagined her like this at all.
I undo the buttons on her suit coat, and when she sheds that, I help her pull off the silk shirt she had on underneath followed by her bra. I sit back for a moment, to admire her breasts, before I pull one perfect nipple into my mouth and feel it grow hard under my tongue. Scully moans. I made Scully moan. I will never forget that sound for the rest of my life.
My fingers fumble at the side button at the waist of her suitpants and she rises off of me, and undresses the rest of the way quickly. She is completely nude on my lap and she is beckoning me to join her. I thank God that I changed into jeans and a T-shirt when I got back from my job, because I would not have the patience to wait for all those little buttons on a dress shirt to be undone.
Her tongue is traveling a slow line down and around my neck, and she nips at me slightly. It doesn’t matter if she leaves a mark. No one sees me all day anyway.
“Scully, lie down. I want to do something,” I tell her, and I dip my head in between her thighs, slowly, teasingly working my way to just the right spot. Oh, yeah. I love this, I think, as she shifts her hips ever so slightly, moving her closer and closer to me.
“Mulder, please. Yes. Like that,” she moans, and I am only too glad to oblige.
I can feel the tension building in her body, and I bring her to release quickly, hoping I can do just that many more times tonight. That was far too fast. I want it to be slow.
As I sit up and watch her body rock with delightful tremors, the forgotten tape in the VCR hits the end and ejects itself. The TV station is much louder than I remembered, and images of Apollo 11 roaring into space fill the screen.
“I believe you made me see rockets fly, Mulder,” Scully says with a sly grin.
“It’s been twenty-five years this month since Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Anybody watching TV in the next few days has a chance to see a few more rockets fly. Maybe even you…”
She sits up and pulls me to her, her mouth meeting mine again. I am filled with the taste of Scully and I still want more. Scully backs up a little to look at me.
“Now I’m going to take you to the moon,” she says, pulling me yet even closer.
________________
July 1999
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I ask, getting to the heart of the matter. So, we had sex and I don’t remember it. I can’t change that. What I do want to know is why he never said a damn word about it all these years.
“At first, after you came back, I thought you remembered. When I came to the hospital, you said you didn’t remember anything after Duane Barry. Then I handed you the video, and you made a comment about knowing there was a reason to live. I was so sure you wouldn’t forget something like us… together, no matter what trauma you suffered,” he tells me. He has stopped pacing, and is back to sitting on his side of the room, his arms crossed in front of him, protecting him from any more barbs I may throw his way.
“Didn’t we ever discuss it after it happened, Mulder?” I ask him. I’m sure I would remember something. Even if my mind blocked out the primary event, how could it block out any mention of it?
“Actually, no. After we, uh, slept together, things got a little hectic. I ended up chasing through sewers and such, and we talked, but it never came up. I did ask you if you wanted to come over once, when you came to meet me at the park, but you said no. Then came Krycek, and things never were the same again,” he says, giving me his best, ‘please forgive me puppy dog face.’
“And all these years you didn’t wonder if I remembered and I just didn’t say anything?” I ask.
“Damn straight I wondered. At first, I just thought you needed time, but then weeks stretched into months, followed by years. I didn’t want to say anything for fear you didn’t want to be reminded. I thought perhaps you didn’t want to deal with one more thing after your abduction,” he says.
“I don’t remember much of it,” I say, getting frustrated with myself.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
“Scattered images, really. I remember watching the football video with you, then going to leave. Then… some more stuff. I’m beginning to remember something on TV about space travel. Apollo 11, I think…” I start to say. All of a sudden, images of a bar and a keychain for a birthday present come to mind.
He just looks at me, seriously. He is not taking this lightly, his respect for me running deep.
“The keychain, Mulder. Is that the reason behind it?” I ask. He gave me some off the cuff reason when I rationalized that gift years ago. He thought it was cool or neat. I can’t even remember his words.
“I wanted to see if you did remember. I wanted to see if you were just hiding from me for all that time. It was then that I realized you didn’t even know it ever happened.”
“And you still didn’t tell me?” I ask, still angry at him for keeping this all from me. Still angry that he had memories of me that I could not share.
“By that time, I didn’t know how, and then your cancer… it just didn’t seem right,” he tells me. His eyes carry a message of apology across the room.
Can I forgive him for one more omission?
“What else do you remember, Scully?” he asks.
“The couch. That couch. I remember…” I begin to say as images of his face between my thighs comes into my mind. I can feel my face becoming flush with the new memory and I look away from Mulder.
“There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Do you understand, Scully? No matter what, I do love you. I don’t want this to hurt you.”
________________
July 1994
I can hardly believe this is happening, as Scully and I slip and slide in sticky delight on my couch. Thank God it is so easy to wipe up wet spills on leather.
Scully is on top, rising and falling on me with an ever quickening pace. Her face is marked with an expression of pure delight, which is great, for I can hardly contain myself, either.
“Mulder,” she says, as she leans forwards, “the fish are watching us.”
I laugh out loud. Leave it to Scully to be concerned that my fish are voyeurs.
“I think they will recover from the experience, Scully, though I doubt it is something they will ever forget,” I tell her, pulling her down into a frenzied kiss.
“I wonder if I will recover?” she says, as she moves away from my hungry mouth.
“I don’t think I want you to,” I say. I put my hands on her hips, wanting her to speed up. Instead she gets a teasing grin on her face and stops moving all together.
“We don’t want things to go too fast, do we?” she says, as she starts to rock ever so slightly up and down my cock.
“No, but…” I start to say, but she silences me with a kiss. If she doesn’t move faster soon, I will be a begging man.
“I want to fuck you so hard, you never forget it. I want you to come hard inside of me, Mulder, and I want to watch your face while you do it,” she says. I’m sure her laughter that follows that statement is directly related to the stunned look on my face. Scully talks dirty.
“Trust me, Scully, I will come how ever you want me to. You’ve just got to start moving,” I say, and I do sound like I’m begging now.
“How’s this?” she asks. Like she even has to ask. I’m sunk to hilt in Scully, and she has to question if is right.
“That is so good,” I say, as she bounces on me with a maddening ferocity. I am so close to toppling over the edge into heaven, I can barely take it.
“Scully, slow down. You’ve got to catch up to me,” I tell her, not wanting to take this trip on my own.
She leans back with her hands on either side of me, giving my fingers better access to her most sensitive spot. Scully and I suddenly moan in unison. Who ever decided we should be split up ought to have their head examined.
“I’m so close, Mulder,” she moans, and I’m glad for it. I don’t think I can hold off for a minute longer.
“Come for me, Scully. I want to see your face while you do it,” I say, mimicking her earlier words.
“Not without you,” she says, as she returns to a more frenetic motion up and down on me.
“You have nothing to worry about there,” I say, as my hips buck up under her, finally reaching such sweet release. I cannot think to move my fingers on her body anymore, and am thankful when she takes over.
“Oh, God!” I barely hear her exclaim as she topples over on to me.
“Scully?” I ask quietly.
“Wha…” she ask, her breathing still hampered by the orgasm I can feel traveling through her body.
“You were right. I did see the moon. And a few thousand stars along the way.”
________________
July 1999
“What do we do now, Mulder, when tomorrow comes?” I ask. I need to know how I’m going to get through this. I know there is really nothing he can do to help me, besides understand my feelings.
“We do the same thing we do every day, Scully. We try to save the world,” he says rather snidely. He’s had years to explore all these feelings. I’ve only had a few hours.
“I just don’t think this is anything to joke about, Mulder. I’m still angry at you for covering up something so immense for all these years. What ever happened to the truth, Mulder? Or does that only apply when it concerns you?” I say. I still haven’t left the chair in the corner, still haven’t given up the pillow I was hiding behind.
“No, the truth doesn’t only apply to me and you know that. After so much time went by, I just saw no point in telling you. It wouldn’t have brought…” he stops, as if he is afraid of what response his next words might bring.
“Brought what, Mulder?” I ask, “You can tell me anything. I don’t know why you don’t believe that.”
“It wouldn’t have brought you back to me,” he says, his voice flat and calm.
“Is that what you wanted all these years?” I ask. There have been days when I wanted nothing more than to run away somewhere warm and tropical with Mulder, but I’ve always managed to contain those feelings. Or at least I thought I have.
Besides, that isn’t what we are about. We are partners in the FBI. Platonic friends. Nothing more. Platonic friends who would go to the ends of the earth for one another, and who have no other friends anymore.
“Scully, I don’t know what I’ve wanted all these years, but I realized years ago that what happened here wasn’t what you wanted. I think you may need to talk to someone else about this if you feel it is going to have an effect on our working relationship,” he says.
“You want me to go talk to Karen? About this? Do you understand what might happen to any relationship we might still have? They will use this, Mulder. You know that,” I tell him flat out. We are hanging on a tenuous thread as it is at the FBI. This could just be what they need to snap that thread, leaving us to dangle on separate ends of what used to be the same strand.
“Whoever you talk to, I will be there if you need me. I will go with you. All I know is that I can’t be your therapist on this one.”
“You? Be my therapist? The idea of you as anyone’s therapist is asinine, Mulder,” I snap at him. How could he help anyone with their problems when he can’t even figure out his own. He hasn’t even learned to trust me enough to tell me something that involves me and my body. God only knows what else he is hiding.
“It was just a suggestion. You are the one wondering where we go from here,” Mulder says, as his hand gently glides over the surface of his couch. I can only imagine what he is thinking.
________________
July 1994
“What a mess!” Scully exclaims, as I grab a kitchen towel to wipe off my couch.
“But it is a good mess,” I say, as she sits in the chair opposite of me while I finish up my ‘housekeeping.’
She is silent as she sits all wrapped up in my blanket watching me. I just pray she doesn’t regret this. I certainly don’t.
“So, where do we go from here?” she asks, just as I sit my naked ass down on my somewhat sticky couch.
“Well, look on the bright side. They can’t split us up over this,” I say to an all too serious Scully.
“Right,” is all she says.
“Come on, Scully. Don’t go weird on me now. We can work through anything. Besides, I always knew this day would come,” I say, and a tiny smile flits across her face with my choice of words.
“I really should be getting home, Mulder. I have a class to teach early in the morning,” she says as she rises out of the chair. She is still wrapped in the blanket as she picks up all her clothes.
“You don’t have to leave, Scully. You can stay here with me,” I plead. I don’t want her to think this is it, a one time deal, filed away, never to be mentioned again. I want her to know how much I need her here by my side.
“Where would I sleep? On the couch with you?” she asks, and I can already tell she is leaving.
“I have a bed, Scully. Somewhere back there. Please stay,” I tell her, hoping something will make her change her mind.
“No. Not tonight. I really need to get home,” she says, as she gathers up the last of her clothes and goes into my bathroom to get dressed.
Scully comes back into the living room just as I’m putting the football video tape back into its box and turning off a picture of Neil Armstrong bouncing across the moon.
“Well,” she says. We are quite the picture. She’s the buttoned-up FBI agent again, while I’m standing naked with ‘Superstars of the Superbowl’ in my hand.
“I’ll call you, Scully,” I say, realizing how stupid it sounds too late. She just smiles.
“Of course you will, Mulder. The one thing I know I can always count on you to do is call me,” she says, as she gathers up her purse and walks towards the door.
“Scully… I, uh. well,” I start, but can’t get the next words out.
“Yeah, me too,” she answers as she slips out the door.
________________
July 1999
“I need to go home,” I say as I begin to rise out of this chair.
“No. Please stay,” he says, and I begin to remember our parting words from that night. Or, rather, our lack of parting words.
“Why?” I ask. Mulder has no reason for me to stay. He has told me what he can. The only blanks he could fill in now would be exactly what happened, and I don’t know if I’m ready for all the finer details yet.
“I don’t want you to leave here mad. Scully, I’m sorry. I should have told you. It was unfair of me to keep something like this from you, but you’ve got to understand, it hurt me a lot back then. You came back from the dead, and the one thing you forgot was being with me,” he says.
“Mulder, for once, this isn’t about you and how you feel. This is about me,” I say candidly. He has a special knack in his way to manipulate everything so he is the focus. He is a pro at it.
“No, Scully, this time it is about us.”
Us? Since when has there been an us that he recognizes?
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Mulder? That I forgive you for not telling me? That I want you to tell me in vivid detail everything that went on here that night? Or was it day? I don’t even know. God, Mulder, my memory of it is so filled with holes, I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I say, wanting to just get up and leave this place.
“Ask me anything. I will tell you as honestly as I can without hurting you, Scully. I think I’ve said that before,” he says. He is watching me through slit eyes, pondering my next move. He expects me to leave. One of us always leaves the room when things get too close, and this time should be no exception to the rule. Except there are so many questions still in my head.
I can only think of one question. It flutters to the top of my mind and out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Was it so good that it is worth all this?”
He doesn’t answer, but instead looks at me, stunned. I walk to his door, and leave him there, with the memories that are only his now.
________________
Repressed II
Title: Repressed II
Author: Jori
Summary: Scully tries to make sense of the memories she has repressed for years, and her mother tries to make sense of the loss of Scully.
________________
July 1999
There was always a future promise, waiting somewhere at the edge of our present existence. The word ‘someday’ was just on the tips our tongues, but never spoken. Instead I always believed it was just left hanging between us, a sweet hope that it would happen. It could happen. We just had to wait, until the time was right, until everything else was behind us. We would wait for it.
Until someday.
I wanted so many things someday. I wanted a big, white wedding. It sounds silly, but it is one of those childhood dreams that is never outgrown. Melissa and I would sit and discuss what song would play during the first dance, what our dresses would look like, how many guests we would invite. I just never figured into the equation the lack of a groom.
Children. I have always wanted children. Someday, I thought. I always felt I had time. I know there are ways that children are possible in my life, and I know that dream isn’t over, but it has changed. I wanted to hold my newborn child to my breast, watching that child as they watched me with those all-knowing baby eyes. I wanted to cradle this person, fresh from God and fresh from the heavens, in my arms while I told them all was right with the world. I wanted to fall in love with someone I hardly know but someone I couldn’t possibly know better.
And then there is that unspoken promise. That someday Mulder and I would be together. I believed I was willing to wait until our job, this quest we are on, wasn’t the driving force in our lives. I thought we were going to wait until we could focus on us, not the world coming apart at the seams and little green men supposedly descending from the sky above. I imagined for so long that we were held together by an invisible bond of things to come in the future. I trusted him, believed that he wanted those things, too. Someday.
Now I’ve learned that someday has already come and gone, years ago. There is no future moment to wait for. That moment has been lived already. Just not by me. I was with him, but I was not the person then that I am now. I want this person to be with him, not that naive soul from 1994. I wanted to remember the occasion, to mark it in time as a final declaration that we defeated them and could be together without fear of harm.
I still don’t know how to feel about him, or rather how I feel about this. I know I care a great deal for him, but was never sure it was enough to cross that one final boundary just yet. I was afraid of not being able to go back, of having to trade what we are for what we could perhaps be. Afraid of what we could lose for just one indiscretion. Maybe that is what scares me the most, that I am so unsure now, but was so sure way back then? I am stunned with myself. Absolutely stunned. I have done impulsive things in my life. I am no trembling virgin, untouched by man. Oh no. Not at all. But this?
There is only one other person I can talk to about this, someone who won’t use this as their final betrayal. I need a sympathetic, non-judgmental ear, and a shoulder to cry on. At one time I would have confided in Melissa, shared all my dreams with her; expressed all my worries and all my fears about this whole situation. But now she is gone. There is only my mother left now for me to share this with.
“Dana? Why did you want to meet here? Is something wrong?” my mother asks, looking puzzled at our surroundings. The sun is hot yet I needed to be out of the Hoover building. Out of my apartment.
“I need to talk to you, mom, about things that aren’t easy to talk about. About things no one else can know about,” I say, as we walk to a place to sit down. I do not want to discuss this behind closed doors. I need it all out in the open. The fountain behind us splashes, and it sounds like summer.
“What is the matter, Dana? Did something happen at work or… with Fox?” she asks as we both sit down next to each other.
“Why would you ask that, Mom?” I ask, wondering why she thinks I’m so intrinsically linked to Fox Mulder that I’d ask her here to talk about him. I know that is why I’m here, but I want to know why she would think that’s why I’m here.
“I don’t know. Usually that look on your face is reserved for when something has happened to or with him. Dana, he’s been in your life for years now. It isn’t like I don’t know,” she says.
“Don’t know what?” I ask hesitantly, almost choking on the words. How could she know something I didn’t, see something that isn’t there? Maybe I’m the only one too blind to see the obvious.
“How much you care for him. Now, what did you want to talk about?” my mother asks, leaving any mention of Mulder behind.
________________
August 1994
“Don’t you want to keep it?” he asks, not taking his eyes off of me.
I close his hand around this most precious of objects, and meet those eyes for just a few seconds.
“When you find her, you give it to her,” I tell him, not able to look at him anymore. Ours is a combined grief for the loss of the same person. Ours is also a combined hope, that she will be found. I’m afraid to look in his eyes, afraid of whether at that moment I will see the grief or the hope, and afraid my eyes won’t echo back the proper response to keep him going.
I barely know this man that my daughter once called partner, but I know he thinks of her as so much more than that. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
“We will find her. I will find her,” he tells me, though I can hear in his voice he has no idea how he intends to do this. I know that he is her last best hope.
I meet his eyes once again, only to see a deep sorrow written there. Sometimes I don’t want to share my sorrow. It should be mine alone, not some old partner’s. Dana was — is — my daughter. His eyes do not falter, do not move from mine.
I can feel tears welling up again, and I fight to suppress them. I feel that tears would admit that she is gone, that it is now okay to grieve for my baby girl. I’m not ready for that yet, but there are moments when I can’t hold them back.
“I know you will find her,” I say to him, as I withdraw my hand from over his.
“I, uh, didn’t ever mean for this to happen,” he says. He breaks his focus on me, and chooses to stare at the ground. Guilt. He feels guilty for what happened to her. Perhaps he should.
Don’t let yourself go there, pointing fingers, trying to find someone to blame. Fox Mulder did not do this to your daughter. She remained loyal to this man even after they separated them. Her reasons are her own, not mine to question.
I look over to Agent Mulder, sad to see him so lost. He doesn’t look like he has slept in days. Neither have I.
What he needs is a mother, someone to take him in their arms and tell him it will be all right. Someone to tell him to close his eyes and let go if only for a little while. I can’t be that for him now. I cannot even convince myself to let go. So far I cannot sleep, knowing my daughter is out there.
Agent Mulder looks away from Dana’s necklace towards the sky, as if all the answers are going to be written there in the clouds for him. It is something learned with age and experience, knowing that the answers aren’t always so easy to find. And sometimes the answer we receive is not what we wanted to hear, but we must learn to accept it. As I always told my children, God answers all your prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘no.’
I watch him lean forwards, his face in his hands, and I know that he wants to cry as badly as I do.
“It’s okay. Go ahead,” are the only words I say to him, as I put an arm around his shoulder.
________________
July 1999
“What is upsetting you so, Dana?” my mother asks, and I find that I cannot look her in the eye. I had what I was going to say planned out, carefully choosing each word so as not to give away too much information. Then I realized I had very little to give away. In the last day or so, my memory hasn’t filled in all the missing pieces, hasn’t given me the reasons why. Only one person can do that, and I haven’t seen him since I left his apartment. He and I have been, perhaps by accident, alternating working and sick days, avoiding one more issue in our lives.
“Mom, there are things that happened, a long time ago, right before my abduction, that apparently I…” I begin to say, not knowing yet how to go on.
“That you what?” my mother asks, taking my gloved hand into hers.
“I apparently have been repressing certain memories of certain events that occurred right before my abduction,” I say in one quick breath.
“Bad things?” my mother asks cautiously.
Bad? Good? Indifferent? I don’t know the answer to that. Life changing, yes. Bad? Perhaps. Good? The jury is still out on that one.
“Nothing life threatening, if that is what you mean by bad,” I tell her, not wanting to cause her any more worry in this life than I already have.
“Then what is it, Dana? It must be something big if it is bothering you this much,” she asks, and I choose my next words cautiously.
“It seems that I had, um, a relationship of sorts with someone right before I was taken, and I, um, have only begun to remember the details in the last few days,” I say, sounding like a teenager admitting that they had sex in the back of the Dodge Dart. I can’t make eye contact with her while I confess this.
“You mean you don’t remember an intimate relationship? How did you forget something like that?” my mother asks, her voice as non-judgmental as always.
“I would have to guess that my brain had enough to deal with upon my return, and it just tucked this away until I was ready,” I say. I don’t want to go into a lengthy discussion of repressed memories right now.
“Did Fox know about this relationship you had started?” she asks.
“In a matter of speaking, I would have to say yes,” I say. I know she is catching on, without having to be told. Or maybe she really did know the whole time.
“And he never said anything to you?” she asks.
“He tried, but he says that by the time he realized I didn’t remember, he didn’t know how to tell me,” I say.
“And he knows who this man is?” she asks me. Her voice tells me that me with certainty that she knows who this man is, too.
“Yes.”
My mother is doing what she used to do to all of her children when we were young. She always asked questions, trying to get us to willingly divulge whatever information we might have been holding back. My mother is quite the expert at asking all the right questions.
I can feel tears well up in my eyes, as I slowly begin to unravel. I haven’t cried over this yet since I left Mulder’s apartment, instead I’ve been trying to keep my emotions firmly in check. I want to be in control when I finally have to face Mulder again. We can’t avoid each other forever.
My mother wraps an arm around me, pulling me close.
“It’s okay. Go ahead,” she whispers to me as I feel the tears begin to fall.
________________
August 1994
Special Agent Fox Mulder weeps. And I would weep with him had I not wept a thousand tears already today. I know he is trying to keep everything together, but sometimes it all gets the better of you.
“Tissue?” I ask, realizing all of a sudden how carrying around a travel package of tissues showed my age. I’m a widow. I cried exactly like this man did once, over losing Bill. I felt I had to keep it all together. For the children. For friends. Just until the funeral. I had a million reasons why I had to hold it all in. And then I wept for hours.
I once cried like this. I cried for someone I didn’t think I could live without. I cried for someone who I had willingly spent my life with. I cried for someone I … loved.
I look over to Agent Mulder as he quietly removes a tissue from the package. He makes no attempt to use it just yet, as if he knows that the tears are going to start up again any time.
“It’s okay. You can use it. I’m a grandmother, so I have more. I probably even have some breath mints around if I looked really hard,” I tell him, and he smiles slightly as he blots the tears from his eyes.
“Scully, I mean Dana, hardly ever talks about her family,” he says. That sounds like my daughter. She will let someone get incredibly close, yet manage to hold something back, as if she’s protecting that part of her.
“That will give the two of you something interesting to discuss when she gets back,” I say, as I hand him another tissue.
He makes a soft snorting sound at my last remark. I wonder what these two vastly different people did discuss during all the time they spent together? I know enough about Agent Mulder from Dana to know that he is the believer to her skeptic and that he sometimes frustrated her so much she’d call me from strange locales just to complain for half an hour. I never minded her calls and always told her to just go work it out.
Maybe I should have told her to walk away, give up the FBI, get into medicine. Should’ve. Could’ve. Would’ve. They don’t mean a damn thing right now.
“Listen, Agent Mulder…” I start to say.
“Call me Fox,” he tells me.
“Fox,” I say. His red rimmed eyes meet mine and he nods his head.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want you to blame yourself for this. Do you understand me?” I say, as if I’m speaking to an impetulant child. I can feel the guilt emanate from this man’s being. He is going to take it all upon him self yet, and from the little I know about him, I don’t know if he can take one more thing.
He doesn’t reply. I can see a million thoughts written across his face, and to not blame himself isn’t one of them.
“It is my fault,” he says, his glance dropping away from me again.
“So what if it is your fault, Fox? You still have to live. You have to go on. And you have to forgive yourself. If you love Dana as much as I think you do, you have to do it for her.”
________________
Repressed II Part 2
July 1999
I can feel my mother’s arms around me, and I want to sink into her. This is the safety that I need right now. I always thought of Mulder as safe, but I guess I was wrong. How could I have not known?
“That man is Fox, isn’t it?” she finally asks, as she pulls me closer to her.
“Mmm hmm,” I manage to mumble as I nod my head yes.
“What is upsetting you more, Dana? The fact that it happened in the first place or the fact that he never told you after he realized you didn’t remember?” she asks me, almost word for word what Mulder asked me the other day.
I’ve had more time to think about it now. Although I can’t believe it happened in the first place, can’t believe I did something so out of character, the part that still upsets me more is he didn’t tell me. I feel as if he took the six years of trust I had for him and threw them right out the window. If he could be so dishonest about this, how many other things has he omitted? I thought we were waiting for something, when in reality, I was the only one waiting, simply because I couldn’t remember.
“I don’t know if I can trust him anymore, Mom. I don’t know if I can continue working with Mulder, putting my life on the line for him,” I say, as I feel the tears I’m struggling so hard to stop just well up again.
“Dana, honey, look at me,” she says, as she turns me towards her, “I don’t know what his reasons or motivations might be, or why he did what he did, but is this what you want to throw this partnership away over? After everything you’ve been through?”
I don’t know how to answer. I want my mom to tell me everything is going to be all right, that I can cry all I want. I don’t want her questioning my motivations, even if they might not be good ones.
“But how can I go back there knowing that he knows such … such an intimate part of me? How can it ever be the same?” I ask, as she takes my hands into hers again.
“Was it consensual?” my mother asks, and I feel my face burn with embarrassment. From the little I can remember, it was beyond consenual, with me taking control of a good portion of the action.
“Yes,” I mumble.
“You are both adults, Dana. You both have worked together for many years now. Has it effected his job performance from what you can tell?” my mother asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking down at my feet. I really don’t know. Maybe some of the things he has done in the past is because of him trying to protect me, and maybe that all stems from this one issue, “Mom, it’s just so unlike me. I can’t believe I did that, for no rhyme or reason. I just can’t believe it. I feel so…”
“You feel guilty?” she asks.
I don’t know why I would. I’ve had several intimate relationships, Jack Willis being the one that lasted the longest.
“Yes,” I say, “I feel as if it is my fault this happened in the first place. I feel guilty for crossing a line that should have never been crossed. Not back then.”
“So what if it is your fault, Dana? You made a mistake. He made a mistake. You have to forgive yourself and you have to forgive him. If you love Fox as much as I think you do, you aren’t going to throw away everything over this.”
________________
August 1994
I watch Fox Mulder gently play with the cross hanging from Dana’s necklace, spinning it slightly on its own chain. It is now his only connection to her. I need no physical connections, no reminders of my love for her. I am her mother. I have a connection that no one else can share, and I have memories that are mine alone.
“Fox, do you have someone in your life right now, that you can talk about this with?” I ask, as I watch the little cross I gave her so many years ago. He is hypnotized by it, and what ever memories or thoughts it conjures up.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” he says, as his eyes close, no longer paying attention to the cross or the world around him.
Dana was in his life. That is who he talked to. I know that after she dated Jack Willis she said never again to dating people she had to work with. I never felt that she and Jack were right for each other, never felt the bond she apparently shares with the man sitting next to me. Funny how she could date someone for so long, yet not be nearly as close as it appears she is to this man who was simply… her … partner.
I look at Fox Mulder, and watch him closely. He looks like a child, like someone who has lost his way. Someone who needs to be protected and cared for. And one of the best people in the world for protecting lost souls is Dana.
Simply. Her. Partner.
No. it couldn’t be. She said she learned the hard way with Jack. She said it over and over. But look at this man next to me, looking as if he lost his puppy. His partner. His best friend. His … lover.
I inhale a quick, sharp breath and he looks at me again.
“Are you okay?” he asks, as he takes one of my hands in his. He must feel that now it is his turn to take care of the grieving mother. Or perhaps mother-in-law?
“Yes. I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was just thinking,” I say, as I pull my hand from his.
“About?” Fox says. His tears are over for now, and he almost appears back in control.
“Oh, about relationships. About how hard it is to let go sometimes. How hard it is to forgive those who leave before us,” I say, wanting to know where he stands with my daughter. I want to know exactly how close he is to her, so I know how to include him into our family.
He doesn’t budge, doesn’t supply any information easily.
“There are things I should have said to her, things I would have done, if only I had known,” he says.
“Like what?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Like tell her how much I enjoyed working with her. How much I appreciated everything she put up with during all those cases we had. I should have at least put up her name on the office door,” he says, not even remotely hinting at anything personal. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it doesn’t go past the purely professional.
“Well, Dana is quite capable on putting her own name on the door. I don’t think she expected you to do it. If Dana wanted her name there, it would have been there. You can trust me on that one,” I say, and watch his head droop down again, “What?”
“Maybe she never wanted to be there,” he says.
“Listen, Fox. I can’t be your therapist when it comes to my daughter. Not right now. I’m in as much pain about this as you are. When she gets back, you two are going to have to deal with what ever relationship you have. Then the two of you can work out the kinks of putting her name on an office door,” I say in a sudden outburst, and watch him reel back from me. I stand to go, but he grabs my hand.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload all of this on you. It’s just that I …” he starts to say, not able to finish his sentence.
“Miss her? Oh, Fox. So do I. Trust me. So do I,” I say, sitting back down beside him.
“I just never expected it to hurt this much,” he says.
“No one ever does,” I say to him, as we both just sit and watch the people go by, moving on with their lives while ours seem to be at a standstill.
________________
July 1999
“When was the last time you talked about this with Fox?” my mom asks.
“This past weekend. I went to talk with him after I started to remember. I haven’t seen him since,” I say. We have avoided each other for a few days now, each taking turns calling in sick to work.
“Dana, you need to think seriously about what it is you expect from him, and from yourself. You were a different person then, more open, more willing to trust, more willing to love. A lot has been taken from you since your abduction. A lot. You cannot blame that younger version of yourself for doing things this Dana wouldn’t do. You have to forgive yourself, and you have to forgive Fox,” she says, holding both my hands firmly in her own.
“I don’t know if I can forgive him,” I say, looking away from my mother’s eyes.
“Why not?” my mother asks.
“Because I always, somewhere deep inside, believed that he loved me. That when this was all over we could be together, and now …” I stop, not knowing what now brings.
“Now you doubt his love for you? Dana, he loves you. I know what he was like when you were gone. I sat and watched him cry for you while clutching on to this, as if it were his lifeline,” she says, as her fingers go to the cross around my neck.
“He should have told me,” I say quietly, as I cover the hand holding my cross with my own.
“Yes, he should have. Now you feel as if something was taken away from you, as if a dream was shattered before it ever even began to take life. But it isn’t, Dana. You two still have a future, just now you have a past to reconcile with, too. A lot of mistakes are made in any relationship, but if it is worth it, and I think this one is, you find a way to move forward,” my mom says, her hand releasing my cross, her arms pulling me towards her.
I rest my chin on her shoulder, and I feel the tears begin to fall again. It is worth it. I know that. I just need to think, to redefine what were my dreams for the future.
________________
August 1994
“Fox, can I ask you something personal, about you and Dana?” I ask of the man sitting next to me.
“I, well, yes,” he stammers back, as a blush creeps up his face. I don’t need to ask. He just answered any question I might have.
“Did you ever discuss your feelings towards her with her?” I ask, not wanting to delve into my daughter’s personal life too much. She is, after all, an adult. When she comes back, she will have to deal with how this man feels about her.
“No. We rarely discussed things outside of work. I think she knew that I …” he stops mid-sentence, not knowing how much to divulge to me.
“That you cared a great deal for her,” I say, not wanting to put words of love into someone’s mouth, even if I can clearly see how much he does love her.
“Yes. A great deal,” he says, his tired eyes closing in deep thought. I don’t want to make assumptions about the status of their relationship, but I don’t want to leave this man, who could possibly be my daughter’s lover, out of any of the planning that may have to take place in the near future.
If she doesn’t come back, I know I will have to face the inevitable. I will have to plan my daughter’s funeral. The mere thought of it weights heavily on my chest, crushing the breath out of me.
“Fox, I think you need to reconcile how you feel about Dana, in case …” I start to say.
“Don’t even think it yet. She will be back. I promise you that. She has a future, here with us,” he says, as he rises up from his seat, “I will keep in touch, okay? I’ll let you know of any changes,”
“What are you going to do now?” I ask him.
“I have to go somewhere, to the place her future, our future, was ripped from us,” Fox Mulder says as he walks away.
________________
July 1999
“You need to talk to him, Dana. Tell him how you feel, and that you love him,” my mother says.
I look at her with shock. Love? Now? How could we discuss that now?
“Mom, he lied to me, by not telling me. It is as if he was leading me on in a way, making me believe that we were waiting for something that had already happened,” I say, still crying on her shoulder.
“Maybe that is just how you perceive it, Dana. Maybe he is hurt, too. Hurt that you came back all those years ago, and forgot about a fledgling relationship. Forgot that you loved him,” she says softly in my ear.
“What difference does that make, Mom?” I ask, wondering who’s side she is on.
“Again, Dana, you need to talk to him. You two can’t avoid each other forever. This was years ago, and you have worked together well since then. Just don’t throw it all away now, okay,” she tells me, still holding me close.
“I have to go somewhere,” I say, as I pull away from her hug, and stand up, “I have to get away and think.”
“Where are you going, honey?” she asks, as she takes hold of one of my hands.
“To the place the future was changed,” I say, pulling my hand from hers and walking away.
________________
Repressed III
Title: Repressed III
Author: Jori
Rating: PG
Summary: Mulder and Scully do some soul searching.
Keywords:MS getting even further
________________
July 1999
The heavens spiral out above me, with the stars trailing into eternity. They reach out to a place most can only dream of touching. Could I have touched that place once? No. I was earthbound even then, just someone’s experiment. An experiment with repercussions that will follow me for a lifetime.
I want to stand here, and let time wash over me. Or do I want time to wash back to me? To just erase the years and take me back to where it all began. I want something, I just don’t know exactly what it is yet. Perhaps I simply want to remember. And to know why.
Where would we be if this hadn’t all happened. Would Mulder and I be together, would it have gone on? I do want to know how he feels, and how he felt upon my return. But I want to be sure of what my heart feels, too. I want all the answers so badly. I want it to be settled.
My mother is right. It isn’t enough to end this partnership over. I made love to him once. I care about him. I love him.
I look out over Skyland Mountain into the cloudless night sky. Stars fill the sky, shining brightly like they should during summer. People should sit under this sky and fall in love. But this place has brought me nothing but pain.
The spot where I stand is where the future and the past collide right now, within me. I don’t know why I was so drawn to come to this location. It shouldn’t want to be here as much as I do. I want time to slip back, I want it all to be made right. I don’t want to carry this heavy ache in my heart anymore.
The attendant at the gate looked concerned that a lone female wanted to come up here so late in the evening. He even gave me a stern warning and a lecture about a woman who disappeared from here years ago. I smiled politely at him and flashed him my badge, wanting to tell him that nothing more could happen to me in this place. I wanted him to just let me by without more questions, but he didn’t. He wanted to know if I was here about that ‘incident’ from last year, and I just nodded yes. That seemed to be the trick. He finally let me by.
Now I stand here, looking for answers that aren’t written in the stars. Why didn’t he tell me? Would it have made a difference? Would I have gone back? I don’t know.
The memories are beginning to come back to me, piece by piece, of that one night so long ago. I can no longer say that the memories are just his now. I can see the events unfold around me, and I swear I can taste his kiss on my lips again. I know that is impossible. No one can remember a taste. Or a touch. Or a scent. But this feeling is overwhelming. Maybe it isn’t really a memory. Maybe it is just what I think he would taste like, and feel like. I wish I knew. He knows about me. Yet, I don’t know about him.
I don’t understand why I did what I did that night. Perhaps it is like my mother said. I was so much more open then, more willing to love and be loved. It couldn’t have just been sex, could it? No. With anybody else, I might say yes, but with Mulder? The answer has to be no.
I look up again, to that place in the sky that children believe angels inhabit, and I plead with God to give me the answers to questions I’m not even sure I know how to ask.
________________
August 1994
Gone. Just gone. I stand in the spot where I found Duane Barry, screaming and laughing like a lunatic, so happy that they took Scully instead of him. I hate him. I hate everything that he is or ever was. He was a coward. She was his victim.
I want her back. My heart still can’t accept that she isn’t here. I can’t listen to mine beat out in perfect time while hers might be stilled somewhere, never to beat again. I can’t stand the ache that spreads through my body. It starts in my heart and with each beat, it sends that ache everywhere. I can’t feel anything through this ache. It is the only thing that reminds me I’m alive.
I felt her heart against my chest, beating in time with mine. I held her not that long ago, and it was something though would remain a unattainable dream. I never thought that the walls would come crumbling down so easily, that she would be under me, around me, and with me.
And I never thought I would lose her so soon afterwards.
Her mother said I shouldn’t blame myself, but I can’t help it. I could have done something. I should have. She was mine to take care of. No, that isn’t right. We were to take care of each other. And I failed.
The night sky reaches far above me, with the stars twinkling brightly on this cool mid-summer evening. Could it be true? Could she be out there somewhere? Isn’t that what I’ve always believed? Why do I not want it to be true this time? I don’t want this to happen to prove anything to me. I don’t want Scully to be the goddamned proof I’ve been looking for. They don’t have to use her to teach me a lesson.
No, I want her back. I want to hold her again, tell her the things I should have said.
Where would it have gone, if this didn’t happen? I have to stop thinking of it all as past tense. She will be back. We do have a future together. Somehow. If I could just get her back, I could tell her what I need to say. I could hold her again, and hope that those walls can come down again.
My heart might beat, but the rhythm is empty, devoid of any will to live. I know it will continue beating out its empty rhythm. And I will just go on. I have to. Maybe I’m the only one who can find her. I just don’t know how.
I look up at those distant stars. I haven’t wished upon a star in years, not since the days of my childhood. I once wished that Samantha would come back, and everything would just go back to the way it was. It never happened. Those stars betrayed me.
This time I raise a wish up again to those same stars that continue to shine no matter what tragedy humans endure. This time I wish that Scully would just come back, and everything will just go back to the way it was. I would trade the one night we spent together just to have her back for a lifetime.
Do you hear me? Just give her back to me and I won’t ever ask for anything more.
I wonder if somewhere she is looking out at the same stars. Or does she see a different set of stars? I cannot believe my heart has been reduced to hoping we are wishing on the same star. Yet, I hope she is. And that she is alive and they will return her to me.
I want to have her back. No, I need her back.
________________
July 1999
I need to talk to him again, now that the anger has passed. I haven’t seen him since I left him sitting in his apartment, looking shocked. I wanted to know how he remembered me, if he thought that evening was worth keeping to himself. I don’t know why I asked what I did. It just seemed so unfair that he could answer that one question, and I couldn’t answer the same about him.
Now I can, yet I can’t. For years now, I’ve felt that we would have a ‘first time’ someday, and it would be special, not just a roll on his couch for no good reason. I guess I came back from where ever I was a different person. I wish I could get a hold on that person I was in 1994. That person who went over to his place and made love to him freely and happily while a football video was playing. Where in the hell is that woman hiding? She appears to be more carefree than the woman I am now. Maybe she was just more naive. I don’t know. And I don’t know why I’m referring to myself as a different person. ‘She’ is me. I’m the one who had sex with my partner, not someone else.
I look out over the hills around me, wondering why this place would be chosen as it has been, branded now by the deaths of so many. Why is this place the turning point in so many lives, including mine? How many people wish they could turn back the hands of time because of this one tiny place on the map?
If I could turn back time, perhaps the best thing I could have done was to never have gone to his apartment in the first place. Or maybe I would have never left the way I did the other night. I don’t even know to where I would turn the hands of time back to. Good thing I can’t do it anyway. No use hoping for the impossible.
All I can hope for is to make amends with myself and with him. We do have jobs to do, lives to lead. Such that they are. It seems as if I left a life behind when I came back, a life that might have been more satisfying then this one. Maybe I would trade this life to just have that one back. Or to just have that one night back. So I could remember every detail, etch them into my memory so I could hold onto them. Like he has held them.
I watch the stars above me again, wondering if he looked out over these same stars so many years ago? Did he try to make deals with time like I’m trying now? What would he have given up to change time? To bring me back to him? Would he have given up his search for Samantha? For the truth? Was I worth that much then? Am I worth that much even now?
I don’t know.
________________
August 1994
She means everything. More now than ever before. Is this my punishment as much as hers? Is she being punished for following me while I’m being punished for loving her?
That is what it is. Love. Because of that love, she is gone. Damn it. Could I stop loving her if it meant they would bring her back? Yes. Her world is more than just how I feel for her. I want her back for her mother’s sake. I want her back for her own sake, too.
But all the bargaining in the world never brought Samantha back. I promised ‘God’ everything if she would just show up again but apparently my everythings just weren’t enough. Now I have even less to bargain with. I no longer have the soul of a twelve year old boy to offer to God, untarnished yet by the years.
If I could trade this soul, could use it as a bargaining chip, I would. To bring her back, I would give up everything. If — when she does come back, I will give her up. I can’t have this happen again. This is my punishment. To prevent it from ever happening again, what we were … what we could have been, must end.
Partners. That is what we should have remained. She might still be here. It doesn’t matter how much I love her. How much I want her back in my arms. It can’t be.
________________
Repressed IV
Title: Repressed IV
Author: Jori
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The past and the present collide.
________________
Repressed IV
July 1999
The soft rapping on my door can only be one person. After a week of not speaking to each other, it looks like Mulder is the one making the first move. I wasn’t ready for this, for him to be here. I was hoping we would run in to each other on neutral ground. But there is no such place. Any place either of us would be is either mine or his. The office doesn’t even count as neutral. It is his. Says so on the door.
This had to happen sooner or later. We are both running out of sick days.
I open the door and he hands me a small package. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. I know he has been going to work. Just not on the days I’m there. On the days that I did show up, I could tell he was there because his coffee cup was moved. But besides that, he kept his presence quiet.
“Peace offering?” he asks and I take it from his hand. The bag holds a snow globe, tacky and plastic. Inside is a miniature model of an Apollo rocket standing under the water. It looks like something you could buy at any gas station on the east coast of Florida. But this one more than likely came from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
“Is there a reason?” I ask, knowing that he probably has no reason. He never does.
“This month is the thirtieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission,” he says, looking at me only briefly. Just long enough for me to look away. I know what he is trying to say. Five years have passed. Either we survive it and move on or let our partnership die from it.
Was it that easy for him to move on all those years ago? Does he expect it to be that easy for me?
I shake it and watch the glitter float around and finally sink to the bottom. Kind of like this relationship. Then I look at him. I know the look on my face is not one of amusement.
“It was either that or a model of the Spirit of St. Louis and I didn’t want you to suspect that we did it in St. Louis. Or in an airplane. Or with a Jimmy Stewart movie playing on the TV,” he says and for some reason that strikes me as funny. From now on, he will be far more selective of the gifts he gives me.
“Did we?” I ask, trying to sound serious.
He looks at me, puzzled. “I, um, don’t … no,” he stammers.
“I’m kidding. Come in,” I say, letting him by.
We nervously keep our distance from each other. This is almost insane. We are acting like two old lovers running into each other after not seeing each other for years, and not quite knowing what effect it has had on our lives. Instead, we just saw each other a few days ago.
“Would you like to sit down?” I ask. He sits down on one of the side chairs while I sit down on the couch, an opposite seating arrangement from the other night.
Silence hangs heavily between us, and I can feel him watching me. I cannot return his glance for more than a few seconds yet. I’ve spent the week preparing myself for this, yet somehow, it isn’t the same now that the moment is here.
“Do you want me to answer your question now, Scully,” he asks, and my eyes finally meet his. I expect to find a smug grin on his face, or at least a look of amusement. Instead I find him looking as solemn as I’ve ever seen him, his hands gripping the arm of the chair as if this is as hard for him as it is for me.
“No, Mulder. It’s starting to come back to me. I don’t need your view of the situation just yet,” I lie, knowing full well that it hasn’t all come back to me yet. I am hoping somehow we can get through this painlessly. Get through this and get back to the way it used to be. But is that what I really want? Now that I know we went that far before, could I just let us go there again?
“I was lost without you,” he says. I assume he means when I missing, not in this past week.
“That still doesn’t explain so many things, like why you never told me. What were you afraid of, Mulder?” I ask, hoping he has a logical explanation for the silence he has maintained for so many years.
“Afraid of?” he asks.
“I need to know what you felt when I came back, I need to know how you feel now. This can’t go on, Mulder. We can’t run from the past and pretend it never happened anymore,” I say to him, and watch as his eyes shift from mine, uncomfortable with this line of questioning.
“When you came back, I was ecstatic and angry and then I discovered I was lost. I was happy you were alive. I was angry that whatever happened to you had happened, and lost … because I couldn’t help you,” he says, not mentioning anything that I already didn’t know.
“But what did you want from me? What did you hope would happen when I woke up out of that coma, when you came to see me?” I ask, remembering once again him handing me that video and then placing my cross in my hand. My hand goes up to my neck and covers the tiny piece of gold dangling from the chain.
“I wanted … for everything to be better. For things to just return to normal,” he says, our eyes finally meeting for more than a second.
________________
December 1994
“Hi! What are you doing here?” she asks as she opens the door.
“I just came by to see how you were doing, if you needed anything,” I say to Scully, and she waves me into her apartment.
She is looking much better than she did the last time I saw her in the hospital and I know she has considered returning to work in the next couple of days. I want her to take more time, but during all our phone calls, she keeps telling me she needs to get back to work and get her life back.
I wanted to see if she was in any condition to return to work. And I’m curious about how much of her life she wants back.
Scully smiles at me, her face still slightly swollen from whatever they did to her. I don’t care. She is still beautiful. I watch as she self-consciously pulls her bathrobe tighter around her, and reties the belt more securely. I don’t know why she would be shy now. I’ve seen all of her before, but that isn’t what I’m here for. She should know that. After everything that has happened to her, I would never ask that of her. Besides, I made a deal with myself. If she came back it can’t happen again.
Maybe she is just self-conscious, after everything that had been done to her. Afraid to be exposed again.
“My mother and my sister have been taking care of me. I finally gave them the day off, so I could get a little alone time in before returning to work,” Scully says as she sits down on her couch. I don’t know exactly where to go, so I sit down next to her. She moves over slightly, but enough for me to notice.
I know she has been to hell and back, but it is only me. I don’t know why she is acting so nervous in my presence.
“Am I disturbing you? I can go and we can talk later,” I say as I go to stand up. She puts her hand over my arm and tugs me back down.
“No. This is fine. I’d like for you to stay,” she says, and I smile. I’ve missed her so much.
“So, did you, um, get to watch your Super Bowl video,” I ask sheepishly, knowing that if anything brings up that night we spent together, that will.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t. It came home in one of the boxes of gifts from the hospital and I haven’t seen it since,” she says to me, her eyes not even showing the tiniest spark of emotion at the mention of that video.
Something is wrong. She doesn’t want it to ever happen again. But to pretend it never happened? That just isn’t Scully.
“Scully, what do you remember from before your abduction?” I ask hesitantly.
“Right before it? Not much besides Duane Barry. Before that, I do remember that the X-Files were closed, and I had been reassigned to Quantico. And you had a new partner. What was his name?” she asks, not even coming close to what I’m curious about.
“Krycek,” I say. She doesn’t even know everything about him yet.
“Yes. Now I remember. Those are some of the last clear memories I have,” she says.
“Anything else?” I ask, putting my hand over hers. She tenses, as if she is unfamiliar with my touch.
“I remember feeling better than I do right now. I remember … that things were going to be okay,” she says, as she moves her hand from under mine.
________________
July 1999
“Are things going to be okay?” I ask Mulder. “Are we going to be okay?”
He did not do this to me. He did not erase my memories or steal periods of my life away. He is guilty of one thing. And the sin of omission is just as bad as what they did to me. The opportunity was always there. He should have said something right away. No senseless gifts. No half clues. No hiding in the shadows of forgotten memories.
“Nothing has to change, Scully. We are still the same people we were last week, before all of this happened. Nothing is different,” he says. He settles back into the chair, getting comfortable. I still can’t be comfortable in his presence. He knows me in a way I don’t know him, and right now I despise that fact.
“But it is different. It will always be different from now on. We aren’t the same people we were just a week ago. Look at us! We couldn’t even manage to make it to work on the same days this week. Yet nothing will change?” I ask him. The anger that I’ve been trying to hold back is starting to bubble up again.
“Everything will be fine,” he says in a tone so sincere I wish I could believe him.
“I want to believe that, Mulder. I would love to be so sure of what we might be tomorrow or the next day. But I don’t even know what we were before. I can’t remember it, dammit! Why didn’t you tell me!” I shout, getting off the couch and moving away from his presence as quickly as I can.
He bolts out of his chair and follows me. This apartment isn’t big enough to escape him or the past. He grabs my arm and spins me around, pulling me to him, crushing me in his embrace.
“Do you want to remember it? Do you?” he says, holding me so tight I can feel his heartbeat pulse through my body. It is going as fast as mine, combining as one solitary beat between us. “Is it coming back to you, Scully? If I make love to you now, will it all come back to you?”
I don’t know which way I want to turn. I want it all to come back to me. I want all that lost time back. I want the hurt to go away. But like this? Will this answer all my questions? Fill in the blanks?
“I don’t know,” I say, tears beginning to fill my eyes.
“I missed you so much, I could have died. I bargained with God or Satan or who ever would listen that if you came back, I’d never do this again. The punishment for making love to you just once was too severe. No matter how much I wanted you … all these years …” he starts to say before his voice fades away. He says nothing for a while. Just holds me. “You think I haven’t wanted to? I spent so much time wishing you’d remember and come back to me. And now you do remember and it is worse than I ever imagined.”
“I know what happened … but I don’t remember, Mulder. But I do know that what happened to me wasn’t a punishment for what ever might have transpired between us. It is not your fault. It never was,” I say to him, and he tips his head toward mine so our foreheads are together.
It all feels so familiar. Having him this close. This is a person I’ve spent almost every day with for years. A person I know I can trust with my life. A person who would never betray me without good reason.
Images begin to swirl in my head. Mulder held me then and I wanted to be there. I was able to hold him back, able to love him without worry of what tomorrow might bring. He and I were so much younger. Not in years, but in experience. It was so much easier then because we just didn’t know.
“I never told you way back when I first realized you didn’t remember… because I was afraid … afraid that you would come back to me and it would happen again. They would take you again,” he whispers to me. “Look at what happened not too long ago. I went to kiss you and they took you away. I love you too much for that to ever happen again.”
I move my face away from his and look into his eyes. I want to remember. I want to know what I once knew. How it feels to kiss him. What it feels like to hold him. To feel his heart race even more than it is now. I always thought I had to wait for all those things. But I don’t.
“That’s not why they did it, Mulder,” I tell him, not so sure that is true. I have always been their best weapon against him. But that has to end. They have too much control over our lives.
“They do it because they can, Scully.”
It can all start over right here. Right now. Old memories can be replaced. Forgotten memories can remain forgotten. We can’t ever be what we were then. We can only be this. And ‘they’ don’t matter right now.
“I don’t want you tell me what happened in the past, Mulder,” I say to him, and I feel him begin to release me from his arms. His eyes cloud over with a sadness with a depth like I’ve never seen before.
“Okay,” he says quietly, trying to move away from me. But I don’t let him.
“I want you to show me.”
________________
December 1994
I hand her a cup of hot tea and she stirs the sugar at the bottom of the cup and then she sets the spoon on the edge of the saucer with deliberate precision. I can’t help but watch her and everything she does. Each tiny action is a miracle. She shouldn’t be here.
Perhaps ‘God’ listened to me beg this time and returned her to me, but I find that hard to believe. Someone arranged her return and it certainly wasn’t her God.
“So …” she says, setting down her tea and covering herself up with the blanket she retrieved from her bedroom.
“So …” I say back, not really knowing what to say next. Do I tell her? Remind her in some subtle way that our relationship had changed drastically right before this happened.
What purpose would it serve? She doesn’t want to go back to there and I can’t let us go back there.
“I’m really sorry I don’t remember more about what happened to me, Mulder. Occasionally an image flashes through my mind, but it is a feeling more than anything visual. A feeling of being alone somewhere yet at the same time, I’m not alone. I can’t describe it,” she says.
Scully has been asked so many times over the last few weeks and she still doesn’t remember how she got back and into that hospital. She doesn’t know where she was. She looks disappointed that she can’t supply me with all the answers.
“Maybe someday you will remember again,” I say, knowing that my words have more layers to them then she might realize.
She looks away from me and focuses on her cup of tea. Maybe she does remember. What would be worse? What if she does remember and she doesn’t want it to ever happen again? What if she realized she made a mistake? I don’t want to be a mistake.
“So, what went on at work while I was … gone?” she asks as she moves to pick up her tea again. She blows steam away from the top and takes a sip. Her eyes are filled with curiosity and concern.
And what did I do, Scully? I wandered around aimlessly trying to figure it all out. I didn’t go to work unless they called me. I didn’t go down into the basement until I had to.
And I ended up on a case the led me to the arms of another.
How could I ever explain that to her? Maybe it is better that she never remembers. She was barely gone and I found another.
“Nothing happened while you were gone,” I answer her. “It was quiet.”
“And how were you while I was gone?” she asks, her eyes narrowing. I’ve yet to answer this questions. This isn’t supposed to be about me. She is the one who needs to recover. But maybe I do, too.
What do I answer? That I was lost? That there were days I couldn’t move from my couch except to get up and take a piss and then come right back? That daylight hurt because I didn’t know if you would feel that warmth again but the night hurt more because that is where you could be for forever. Somewhere in the dark. And it scared me.
Does she want to know that I wouldn’t allow myself to cry after I went to Skyland Mountain right after she was abducted? If I did, I was afraid I’d never be able to stop. And I tried to forget that we made love, but I just couldn’t?
Should I tell her that minutes and hours were longer without her? Days lasted for weeks and weeks lasted for months. Does she want to know these things?
She doesn’t remember. Why would she care about these things? Those are things a lover cares about.
“I missed you,” is all I answer. She smiles a little and pulls her blanket tighter around her. “Besides that …”
“So, tell me what I missed?”
________________
Repressed IV Part 2
July 1999
He’s pulling me along with him toward my bedroom and I can feel my heart pounding through the very fabric of my being. So many times before this could have happened but didn’t. It is as if I have been freed of everything that told me this is wrong. Just because it happened before.
And just because in the last few days I learned that I love him.
“Do you remember?” he asks. We are standing outside of my bedroom door and he places a kiss on my forehead. His thumbs are stroking the curves of my cheekbones. I look at him and even though he is pushing me forward he looks apprehensive, as if I’m a snake ready to strike out at him at any moment.
“You remember everything?” I ask, knowing that it is a foolish question. He always remembers everything. Why would he forget this?
“This isn’t about what I remember,” he whispers, his lips brushing slightly across mine. “This isn’t about the past at all.”
This time he kisses me with a kiss not of a brother or friend or partner. No, this can only be the kiss of a lover. Somehow, we manage to walk to the bed without ever breaking that kiss and it only ends when he push backwards onto the bed. I am under him and I know from the look in his eyes that I am safe. That this is something he wants.
But more importantly, this is something I want.
The next kiss is even more frenetic than the first; so carnal, so impassioned. He tastes different than I imagined and his mouth feels different than I imagined. He tastes and feels better than he did in any dream I may have ever had. My body burns under his, and I no longer care that he remembers this and I don’t. I will remember this.
I slip my hands in between us, wanting to feel him. I pull down the zipper on his jeans and he sighs with relief as he is freed from the denim material.
Somehow he moves us so I am on top of him, straddling his hips and looking down at him, watching his eyes. Suddenly, long lost images dart through my brain of the first time. The memories rush in and I try to keep them separate from what is happening right now. I was above him way back then. His eyes were filled with surprise and desire. Did he love me then the way he does now?
What happened next or rather what should happen next? His fingers begin to undo the buttons on my cardigan and soon he is sliding it down my arms. I throw it to the side of the bed and that is soon followed by my bra. He urges me to bend forward and his tongue circles a nipple with such deliberation that I want to scream for more. I grind down on him and he lets out a throaty moan, hungry for more. I made Mulder moan just by being me. I cannot allow myself to ever forget that sound.
I stand up and remove the rest of my clothes. He never takes his eyes off of me. Are these memories replacing the older ones, or are both just as precious to him? Naked, I get back on the bed and help him finish getting undressed. Soon we are both bare and more memories flood my brain. We were so much younger. So less damaged then. But this is better. There is no way I could have loved him then as much as I do now.
I am on my back as his tongue traces a slow line down my neck before focusing on my breasts. His fingers move tenderly over my body, as if he is trying to remember every line of my form again. Just in case.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I say, reassuring him.
“I won’t ever let anything happen to you again,” he says.
“I know,” I tell him. He moves lower, his tongue searching for more. He moves in between my thighs and places fluttery kisses down my abdomen until he reaches his goal.
I can’t keep my hips from bucking as he makes contact with my sex. He shifts in closer while his tongue swirls around me and his lips tug just right. This happened before. Hazy memories of him doing this have returned in the last week. I was embarrassed at first, but now I no longer am.
He finds just he right rhythm and I try to hold on to the comforter to keep from from floating right off this bed. How could I not remember this? Someone must have taken those memories from me somehow, because I can’t image forgetting any other way.
Soon, I can no longer keep my eyes open as my whole body shudders with pleasure. He crawls back up the bed and I half expect to find a smug smile on his face when I open my eyes. I don’t. It is nothing but a look of pure love.
“I’d give you back everything you’ve lost if I could, Scully. If I could go back and do it over, I’d tell you what happened. And then I would make you leave me forever,” he says to me, his voice barely a whisper.
“No,” I say. “I wouldn’t have gone.”
We watch each other closely. How did we ever get to this point? One of us should be dead by now. And then there is always that question that hangs over us. What are they going to do to us next?
“I’d give you the stars and the moon if I could, Scully,” he says as I pull him to me again.
“I know.”
________________
December 1994
‘You didn’t miss much,” I lie. She doesn’t need to be bothered with that now. I am here because of her. Not because of me.
“I’d like to thank you for everything, Mulder. Especially for taking the time to talk to my mom during it all. I really appreciate it,” she says. She sets down her empty tea cup and I move to get her more.
“I like your mother, Scully. She’s nice and straightforward. She’s everything my mother can’t ever be,” I say, sitting back down and handing her another cup of herbal tea.
“She likes you,” Scully says with a smile. “And she calls you Fox no matter what I say.”
I smile at her. She yawns and apologizes.
“You are tired. I shouldn’t be here, especially if you really plan on returning to work in the next few days. You need your rest,” I say, going to get up again.
“No. Stay,” she says, reaching for my hand.
Those are the words I said to her only a few months ago. But the reasons they were said were so different then. I was the one who was lonely then. Is she lonely now? Maybe she is just scared. Or maybe she does remember. I sit back down and she lets go of my hand.
“Mom and Melissa will be back soon. I’m sure they would love to see you again,” she says. She looks at the clock and then at me.
My heart can’t decide whether to be broken or not.
________________
July 1999
He is over me and a part of me cannot believe this is happening. Or happening again, apparently. He slips in and out of me with the sweet familiarity that only comes with time and trust and love. How many times have the images of the first time come rushing into his brain? Every time he looks at me? How about when I was dying?
“Don’t,” he says, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. “This is the first time for both of us, okay?”
I nod my head yes and allow myself to feel everything around me. I match him thrust for thrust, my hips rising up to meet his. I know I can’t climax again like this, but that isn’t what this about. I don’t want to move now. I want to be able to see him and watch his eyes.
He has other things in mind. He moves so we are on our sides, and he continues to thrust into me, desperate for release. His fingers touch my clitoris and I stifle a moan. The feeling of him inside of me while his fingers stroke me is enough to bring me back to the edge again.
I watch his face as he drives into me harder. I can only imagine how many other women he’s been with since the last time. Somehow, I know I couldn’t have been the last. I know how attractive he is to quite a few women. I’ve watched them around him. And I know he wasn’t the last. How come I couldn’t have forgotten that incident and remembered the one time with Mulder?
“Scully?” he asks me, shaking me back to the present. It doesn’t matter who we’ve been with. We are together now.
“What?” I ask, closing my eyes and concentrating on all the sensations traveling through my body.
“Come for me, Scully. I want to see your face while you do it,” he says and I open my eyes.
“Not without you,” I say, grinding against his hand as much as I can. He stops moving and he just smiles at me.
“That is what you said the last time I asked you to come for me. Those exact same words,” he says, as he begins moving again, more slowly this time.
Maybe I haven’t changed as much as I thought I have. Maybe there is something in me that still remains from that naive, trusting soul I was back then.
I can tell he is close by the soft whimpering sounds he begins to make. He is trying to hold back, waiting for me. Was he like this the first time? Was he this patient and concerned?
Just thinking of what we are doing … of who I am with … pushes me to that chasm of pleasure again and I can feel my body begin to tremble again.
“Yesss…” hisses out of me as this orgasm travels through from my core to every cell in my body. Within seconds, he is following me to that place, and I feel his warm release fill my body.
“Ohhhh,” is all he manages to say as his all his muscles contract and quiver.
Then all is still. He rests his head on my breast and I touch his face. How could either one of us ever forget this?
“Mulder, I don’t need the stars or the moon because I have you,” I whisper to him.
________________
December 1994
My punishment didn’t end when they took her. I now continues with the knowledge that I love her and she does not love me back. I thought she did but now I’m not sure. I can never be as sure as I was that one night ever again.
“It will be nice to return to work again. To get out of here,” Scully says, looking around her apartment. “As glad as I am to be home, being cooped up in here all day does get old. My mother says you paid my rent while I was gone. I will pay you back for that as soon as I get back to work.”
“No,” I say to her. I did it for reasons she will now never understand. Because I couldn’t let her go. Because I wanted her back so bad I refused to believe anything else. “You don’t have to do that, Scully. I’m just glad you are back home.”
“It’s good to be back,” she says, looking away from me.
I don’t know what to say to her next. I am now the sole bearer of this secret we once shared. And I am too scared to tell her. I just got her back. I don’t want to lose her again.
“I really should be going,” I say, wanting so much to pull her into my arms and hold her forever. Instead, she stands up and waits for me. She wishes for me to go, too. Scully needs her rest. It has nothing to do with me.
She walks me to the door and I finally hug her. She holds on to me briefly and I place a kiss on her forehead before she moves away.
“I’ll see you at work later this week,” she says, and puts her a finger up to shush me when I go to protest.
“I’ll see you later this week,” I say as I slip out the door.
I leave her building without looking back and get in my car. It is only then that I allow the tears to flow freely again after all this time.
________________
July 1999
Mulder holds me as if he is afraid I’ll slip away from him in the middle of the night. I’m not leaving him even though he told me last time I did. First of all, I don’t want to. Second of all, this time this is my apartment.
We are wrapped up in the sheets and blankets even though it is a hot summer night, simply enjoying the warmth of each other. I love the feel of his body this close to mine, the feel of the hard lines and angles that make up him next to the soft curves that make up me. All this damn time wasted. If only I would have remembered.
“Will you ever forgive me?” he asks, breaking our silence that has lasted for over an hour. “I know you are still angry that I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, I am. But I think for different reasons than you are imagining. I guess what I regret most is the lost time. I can’t get it back, Mulder. We can’t get it back,” I say, snuggling in closer to him.
“Can we go on from here? Is this just a one time … rather a two time thing?” he asks. I can feel him kiss the top of my head so tenderly.
“Barring any abductions, disappearances or severe illnesses, I don’t think this is it,” I say and he sighs gently.
“You don’t know how hard it was, Scully. I didn’t know what to do,” he says, explaining once again.
“Mulder, it is okay. We will just go on from here,” I say. I roll over, propping myself up on my elbows and looking at him. His eyes are the most content I’ve seen them in years. We are both free from the ties that have been binding us.
“Can I stay here tonight?” he asks, and he sounds like he expects me to throw him out.
“Yes you can, if you answer one question for me,” I say, and he looks hesitantly at me.
I reach for the snow globe I put on my night table and I shake it. The glitter seems to stay up longer this time before it lands on the miniature rocket. I give it another shake before putting it down.
“What question?” he asks, waiting for my question.
“Was it … better this time?” I ask and he answers me by rolling us over and pressing his lips to mine.
________________
The end of the Repressed series ….
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