DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth all
belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. I
promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris would.
SUMMARY: "He remembered it in flashes... Sitting so close. It
was hard not to bury his face in her hair."
TITLE: FLASHES
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar (rowandarkstar@gmail.com)
RATING: NC-17
CLASSIFICATIONS: Post-ep, Angst, MSR
ARCHIVE: Just let me know.
TIMELINE: Post-episode story to "Endgame".
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was written for the Virtual Season of
Smut, Season Two, Episode "Endgame".
Special thanks to Kudra for the speed beta! :)
FLASHES
by
Rowan Darkstar (rowandarkstar@gmail.com)
Copyright (c) 2005
He remembered it in flashes. Close together and logical at
first, farther apart and jumbled later on. He was never quite
sure whether to blame the phenomenon on his weakened health, the
drugs he was still downing, or the pure rarity of the sequence of
events; his mind could not process a reality so near to dreams.
This couldn't be Scully...
But he remembered everything that mattered.
**FLASH**
He found it in the moment she caught her breath. Not in the
beautiful smiles that welcomed him back to the land of the
living. Not in the soft skin of her hands in the dry arctic air
as she twined her fingers through his, hovering at his hospital
bedside. Not in the multiple glimpses he caught down the front
of her sweater when she lowered herself to the chair by his bed.
But in the simple intake of breath when he clasped her wrist and
caught her off guard.
He had been out of the hospital for 24 hours. Their flight for
Washington wasn’t scheduled to leave until the next morning. She
had gotten him a room just two doors down from the motel room
she'd been staying in for the duration of his convalescence.
She'd taken her own leave time. Said it was a nice break for
her. A chance to catch up on things. She'd somehow brought her
laptop along. He wasn't sure sitting alone in a cheap motel in
the snow with a laptop could possibly be a nice break, but he had
never pretended to fully understand Scully.
He had never pretended he wasn't afraid to ask.
**FLASH**
The sun had vanished into the cold night long ago. She had
lingered in his motel room just a bit longer than usual. Making
sure he had everything he needed for the night. Trying to fix
the bad reception on his TV. Checking his vitals and taking away
the phone when he tried to order a pizza with everything on it.
Her own wounds were nearly healed. At least the ones he could
see. Even when she brushed back her hair, the cut on her
forehead was barely visible.
She was doing nothing more extraordinary than tucking a second
water bottle into the ice bucket on the motel table when he
stepped up beside her (he couldn't stand to be sitting or lying
any longer, too much time in that black hole of a hospital) and
he stopped her menial task with a hand on her wrist.
He was caught off guard when she reacted to his touch with
something like fear. And the hoarse gasp for breath was the most
intimate sound he had heard from her lips.
"I’m sorry." His apology was reflexive. He didn't know what he
was sorry for. He only knew she'd been hurt. And it needed to
be fixed.
**FLASH**
He could see her shoulders hitch higher, the tendons in her neck
pull taut. She shook her head at his apology. But she side-
stepped away.
"I just wanted the second bottle right now. Not too cold, ya
know? I'm still...a little cold." He was speaking, but his
words were asking something wholly different than the surface
syntax would imply.
She was looking at him, wide blue eyes peering into him like a
laser-light gathering information. She nodded distractedly,
maybe answering what he had said, maybe hearing what he was
asking.
**FLASH**
Sitting side by side on the motel room bed. Shoulders almost
touching. Almost really talking.
"I just...I knew it wasn't you, Mulder, before he... But, when I
opened the door and I let him in and I thought..." The soft
light reflected off the thick coating of tears in her eyes and
Mulder held his breath and tried to forget the last time only
time he had seen Scully cry. Scully sniffed and cradled her
hands in her lap. "He threw me through a glass table," she said
simply.
"Oh, Jesus, Scully. I'm sorry...I had no idea you were--" But
she shook her head. Just a single motion--enough to silence him.
"No. I'm fine. I mean...I didn't have any serious injuries."
"Then...." He hesitated for a long moment, and the dull hum of
the muted television seemed to bloom in the silence. He smoothed
a cautious hand up and down her upper arm. Her muscles were
rigid beneath her soft sweater. "...what is it?"
Scully stared down at her hands, interlaced her fingers and
slowly stroked one thumb down the length of the other. "I opened
the door. I opened my trust to you--and I got assaulted and
violated and hurt. And I know that none of that had anything to
do with you. I know that. I know that. But it feels..." She
shook her head and trailed into silence.
Scully smelled like herbal shampoo and whatever perfume she wore
and the cheap laundry detergent they always bought at vending
machines on the road.
Sitting so close. It was hard not to bury his face in her hair.
"I want to trust you, again," she whispered at last, her words
more breath than voice.
The tremor in her voice turned his thoughts to action.
**FLASH**
"Look at me," Mulder said, hands cradling Scully's face as he
turned his body to face her. He angled her chin until she was
forced to meet his gaze. Her blue eyes were achingly open,
looking to him for something he hoped he could give. "I would
never hurt you. Do you hear me, Scully? My hands would never
hurt you." Emotion hung thick in his voice. Because he was at
the far edge of the earth. And Scully was all he had ever had.
She couldn't be afraid of him.
Scully remained there, inches from him, breathing heavily. And
with every moment he grew more aware of how close her body lay.
The sound of her breath, the scent of her hair, her skin. The
texture of her eyelids, the dusting of freckles across her
breastbone. The rise and fall of her breasts, so close they
brushed his arms with each breath. And as always, she didn't
move away.
**FLASH**
His lips were on hers. His lips were on Scully's. Scully's.
And he didn't want to be taking advantage of her when she was
hurting, aching. But there was more here than a passing need
for comfort; he felt it, and for once he wanted to be the one to
give her what she needed.
She tasted better than he had ever imagined.
"Please, Mulder. I want to trust your hands again."
Oh, God. Scully...
**FLASH**
His hands on her back. Her skin hot to the touch. He couldn't
decide if she was too warm or he was still too cool, but the
contrast flared the fire in his groin. Her sweater was gone, and
Scully's breasts were displayed before him, encased in nothing
but a thin lace bra. There was gooseflesh where the air caressed
her skin.
"Where did he hurt you?" he whispered.
The faulty TV reception flickered shadows across her pale skin
and softened the hard edges of the stark motel room.
Scully took his hand and smoothed his palm over her bare
shoulder. She closed her eyes. She was trusting his touch to
heal. No one had asked that of him before.
His mouth was back on hers before he could breathe.
**FLASH**
Beneath the covers. The town was so far north, the only high
class item the motel room could not be without was a thick, heavy
comforter.
He was buried beneath the warmth with Scully. Red hair and moist
lips, white skin and freckles, moving above him in the gentle
light. Her hair was still tied back, but half of it had fallen
like an elegant shawl around her face. He had come to the end of
the earth thinking he had lost everything, that he had nothing
left to give. And he had found out no matter how far he ran, he
was never alone. He pulled his salvation down tight to his
chest, and she held on with equal desperation. Her fingers
grasped a fistful of his hair, and the heat between her legs
burned into his stomach.
Scully...
**FLASH**
"Oh, God, Mulder. Please. I can't...wait... Please..." Her
voice was hoarse and throaty and pleading and Dana Scully with a
sex flush was everything on Earth he ever fantasized it could be.
**FLASH**
On her stomach beneath him, head to one side and arm across her
face, grasping at her own irresistibly disheveled hair, her other
hand snaking up to find a finger hold on the edge of the
mattress.
He pushed the hair off the back of her neck and hunched down to
press his lips to the tender flesh. "I'm sorry, Scully. I would
never hurt you. We're safe now. We're safe."
She held her eyes tight closed and seemed beyond words as his
hips pressed into her ass again and again, reaching his length up
inside her, finding the place long-neglected that seemed to
almost make her cry.
**FLASH**
She ran her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. She
moved her hands over the muscles of his shoulders and he could
almost believe she had imagined this moment as many times as he.
Her legs were twined with his and he was cradled between her
thighs. And for the first time in too long, he felt like he was
worthy of being with someone so rare. He couldn't remember the
reasons this moment might be wrong. He and Scully had existed in
a world outside the ordinary rules for so long...they were making
their own way through the darkness tonight.
**FLASH**
Face to face in the first instant of the afterglow, he had fallen
beside her and expected her to collapse in the wake of the rush
same as he. But there was still an urgency in her eyes and she
was clinging to the moment. Fresh tears blurred her clear blue
eyes and she reached out a hand to cup his face, holding his gaze
tight to her own.
"You traded me for Samantha," she breathed. And her voice rose
from somewhere too deep to touch.
This was it. He had given her his all. There was nothing left
to hide.
He reached out and pushed her hair from her cheek, freed an
errant strand from the corner of her flushed lips. "Yes," he
said simply.
"Why?"
He shrugged, pretended to brush it off. "It might not have been
her. Wasn't her."
"But you didn't know that. You thought it was your sister.
After all these years..."
He nodded. "Yes. I did."
"Mulder..."
He offered her the faintest smile. "It was you, Scully."
**FLASH**
****
rowandarkstar@gmail.com