TITLE: Almost Home (10/?)
AUTHOR: Shoshana
EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Gossamer, Spookys site, Xemplary,
etc.
SPOILER WARNING: Seventh season episodes through Requiem.
RATING: NC-17 (Most of the story is rated R, NC-17 parts will be
clearly marked)
CONTENT STATEMENT: MSR
CLASSIFICATION: SRA
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully Romance
SUMMARY: Post ep for Requiem. Mulder comes back... but he's
missing something.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me.
NOTE: Thanks to my great beta readers Keleka, Lisa and Teresa!

Almost Home (10/?)
By Shoshana

February 22nd, 2001
Thursday
2:30 p.m.
The Mulder Summer Home, Quonochontaug, Rhode Island

The white frame building was sorely neglected, paint was peeling
from the eaves, its windows were covered in filth. The Gunmen had
been kind enough not to mention how decrepit the structure had
become, but Scully wished they had. The look of dismay on Mulder's
face said it all; he'd never seen it so rundown.

Teena Mulder must have scheduled regular maintenance on the home
when she was alive. Mulder had been too busy or preoccupied to do so
last year and it certainly wasn't foremost in Scully's mind after his
abduction last September. So the yard was overgrown with weeds and
cluttered with trash.

Scully was surprised the city fathers hadn't sent Mulder a nasty
letter yet. Evidently most of the decay had occurred since last
September when the summer residents all scurried back to their larger
homes in Massachusetts or elsewhere. The year round residents most
likely ignored the place's condition, thankful to be rid of traffic
jams and long lines at the grocery store which seasonal residents
brought to town.

His shock quickly turned to resignation as they walked toward the
front door. With a wan smile on his lips and a half-hearted shrug,
he turned to Scully and quipped, "Welcome home."

"Oh, Mulder. It's not that bad. Anyway, it hasn't been like this
long. It's one of those details that got lost in the hundred
other things you had to do after your mom passed away." She reached
over and grasped his hand firmly. "We're only here for a few days.
Let's go in."

He smiled and pulled his key out of his jean pocket. It opened
easily; it was a new lock, courtesy of their friends' handiwork.
They entered the house, and disabled the alarm. Most of the
furniture was covered with white sheets or clear plastic covers.
Several millimeters of dust covered everything, disturbed only by
hand or thumbprints left behind by the Gunmen as they accomplished
their tasks.

The air was musty and it was chillier inside the house than it had
been outdoors. Mulder shivered, not from the temperature so much but
from the knowledge his whole family was deceased now, would never
gather in this home again. They were apparitional creatures,
haunting this cold, shadowy place.

He moved to the back of the house and threw open the patio doors.
Somehow the backyard didn't look so awful. The grass had always
grown high back there; the path leading to the sea had always been
rocky and unkempt. He had some wonderful memories from his old life
here, mostly ones having to do with Samantha, the seashore, and
sandlot baseball games.

Scully walked out the door and stood several feet away from him,
gazing out at the churning Atlantic. At that moment, watching her
breathe in the salty seaside aroma, he realized how premature it was
to listen to this haven's death knell. They'd soon have a baby to
bring to this place; a son who would love to crawl through the thick
grass and play in the sand. His family hadn't vanished into the
netherworld; his lover and his unborn child were alive and well
beside him.

He walked up behind her, threading his arms under the suede material
of her jacket, and pulled her close to his chest. He kissed her neck
once, then positioned his chin on her shoulder so they could stare
out at the vista before them. She caught his hands, placing them
just below her breasts, just above the curve of her belly.

"This is such a splendid place, Mulder. The house can be mended.
It's the view that counts," she said optimistically. She rubbed her
hands against his briskly, warming them both.

"It's not only the place, Scully. It's the company I keep," he
breathed in her ear.

She shuddered against him, chilled by the brisk February wind, but
warmed by the low whisper of the man she loved. She rubbed her
cheek against the rough texture of his jaw, then turned within the
shelter of his arms, facing his unshaven countenance.

She lifted both hands to caress him with her thumbs, then said,
"Lazy guy, didn't shave today, huh?"

"Thought I'd wait for nightfall. And a reason for being clean-
shaven," he teased.

"Oh, you *are* so confident, aren't you?" she retorted, pinching one
cheek with her thumb and forefinger.

"Ouch! Okay, not so confident. Just hopeful," he answered, leaning
his forehead against hers for just a few seconds before trailing soft
kisses down the now familiar bridge of her nose, then descending
slowly to its very tip. His lips continued downward, in pursuit of
her rose-colored mouth.

After one languid kiss, she pushed him gently away. "Let's go for a
walk, Mulder. I don't think I've ever seen the beach here."

"All right," he responded. "Just let me reset the alarm and close
these doors."

He turned toward the house and sprinted inside, grabbing an old
afghan off a chair in case it got too cold. He didn't see Scully
outside the patio doors, so he quickly secured them, then raced down
the grassy knoll leading to the shoreline. He spotted her once he
got a hundred yards off the Mulder property, slowly making her way
down the well-trod path to the sea.

He caught up with her within thirty seconds, annoyed she'd gone off
without him. "Scully, wait up," he gasped breathlessly, grabbing her
elbow with one hand.

She paused in her tracks, arms akimbo. "Gonna have to get back in
shape, Agent Mulder," she joked.

"Not funny, Scully. Don't take off like that! You may be armed,
but you're not that dangerous." He let go of her arm and leaned
over, placing one hand on his knee for support as he recovered from
his dash down the slope. His other hand still clutched around the
old blanket as he struggled for air.

She raised one eyebrow, questioning his assertion. "Don't make me
prove you wrong."

Straightening his spine as he regained his composure, he shook his
head, rolling his eyes heavenward. "You know what I mean, Scully.
You have to take me seriously on this. You're in no shape for hand-
to-hand combat! Let me protect you." He extended his free hand to
her, palm facing upward, and entreated her, "Please." His voice
reflected the anxiety he'd felt moments before.

Scully shrugged her shoulders and gave him a wry smile. "I guess
so." She studied the ground between them, one hand still poised on
each hip. "I guess it's time to relinquish some control-- " Her
eyes lifted to meet his worried ones. "I've had to be very assertive
lately. The society for the protection and care of Ms. Dana Scully
was getting on my nerves. Even when I told the guys I was going to
be fine, that I didn't need a ride to the grocery... they insisted on
taking me."

Mulder laughed and reached for her hands, taking them off her hips
and into his own. The afghan fell to the ground between them.
"They're good people. I'm glad they worried about you."

"Yeah, well the last few weeks since I stopped working have been
boring as hell. I haven't even filled you in on everything that's
gone on at the office."

"You told me about your temporary partner. I'm surprised he
survived as long as he did," he said, tightening his grip on her
hands when she tried to wrest them away. "It's true," he grinned,
"He must be very tolerant."

"Mulder!" She smiled back, cheerfully accepting his gentle taunts.
His perceptions were on the mark, if not a little too frank for her
ego. She'd been very fair to Charlie Huber. At least she'd thought
so at the time. Perhaps she'd been a little aloof at first, but
she'd warmed to him after awhile. She'd never bossed him around.
No, never.

"Truth hurts," he teased, pulling her close and wrapping his arms
around her. The wind was increasing in velocity from a northeasterly
direction and Scully shivered in its forty degree blast. Mulder bent
down to retrieve the blanket from the ground.

"Put this around your shoulders, Scully," he offered, unfurling the
dusty thing.

She complied, preferring his arms, but realizing they'd never make
any progress down the beach if she were clinging to him. It was warm
and woolen and looked like something Mulder's grandmother had
crocheted for a formerly happy family.

They walked along the sand without conversation for several hundred
yards. One of her hands held the wrap around her, the other was
entwined with Mulder's larger one.

"What was our first kiss like?" he asked out of the blue.

"Huh!? I thought you'd caught up with your journal reading,
Mulder," she said, hoping to avoid a play by play narration of the
night in question.

"Nope. I've been too busy with hypnotherapy, techno nerds, and my
new roommate," he responded playfully.

"Roommate. Good euphemism, Mulder. I'll try using that this Sunday
when we see Bill. 'Bill, meet the father of my unborn child, my
roommate.' I'm not responsible for what happens after that, Mulder.
You'll have to defend yourself-- he's already mad as hell..."

Her voice trailed off as she noticed the abrupt change in Mulder's
facial expression. She stopped walking forward and said, "Mulder,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up. I don't care what he
thinks-- about the baby, or about us. All I care about is being with
you, sharing this time with you."

Mulder squeezed her fingers tightly and made a dismissive gesture in
the air with his free hand. "I know, Scully." He paused, looking at
the sandy terrain below their feet. "But, I have to agree with Bill,
Scully. We ought to be married. If only to please your Mom," he
added.

She closed her eyes, an uneven smile on her lips. "Mom is very
pleased, and there's no pressure either way from her. There won't be
from me, either. I think we have enough to deal with right now; we
don't need the extra pressure of planning a wedding, too."

"No, not a wedding, Scully. Just a ceremony," he said earnestly.
"Why can't we just make it legal?"

Scully took several long breaths. "We will. We can. I don't want
to get married because of what Bill wants. Or Mom, for that matter.
I know you want to do the right thing, but sometimes it's best to
wait. You've just been through a tremendously confusing experience,
one which hasn't resolved itself yet. I think we both need time to
reacquaint ourselves with one another."

Mulder worried his bottom lip with his teeth, solemnly considering
her words. He knew she was right, but he wanted to extract some
promise from her today, some assurance she'd adhere to his wishes.
After all, it wasn't like he was asking her to run away to Las Vegas
on the spur of the moment.

They certainly had good reason to get married; he very much wanted
to legitimize the baby in society's eyes. It wasn't only about
outward appearances though-- he hadn't felt this way about a woman in
years, ever since Diana had left him for greener pastures. He wasn't
sure why he needed Scully so much... perhaps because he'd lost so
much lately; there were so many memories he might never recover. He
wanted to rebuild his life around her, and he needed to know she'd
accept him completely-- as her husband, and the father of their
child.

Mulder smiled at her affectionately, leaning down to kiss her on the
cheek. "All right. You're right." She beamed back at him. "Just
this once."

"Just once? I think I've been right more than that," she alleged.

"You probably have, Scully. I'll take your word on it. Now tell me
about our first kiss and I'll postpone our marital plans. Deal?" he
proferred.

She scrunched up her nose in obvious distaste for this 'deal.'
She'd tried to avoid further conversation on their first kiss and
been rewarded with a dispute over marriage. Too bad it hadn't lasted
long enough to distract him completely from his original question.

Scully bit her lower lip, then tossed her head to one side,
pretending to ponder a response. It was all pretense; she just
wanted to postpone this stupid rehash of their New Year's Eve kiss.
She'd peeked at his diary and read how disappointed he'd been with
her initial reaction. She knew what had happened later, when they
arrived at her apartment building, and wished she could skip to that
part of the story.

"Scully? Is there something I should know? I would have asked you
this eventually, even after reading my journal entry. I purposefully
left it at the apartment. I want to hear about some things from your
perspective, not my own."

Mulder only persisted in his inquiry because she seemed so reluctant to
spill the details. After reading what happened to her in his hallway
in 1998, he needed some reassurance nothing abysmally wrong had
occurred the day of their first kiss.

"Okay." She took his hand and started walking slowly down the beach
again, glancing at him often as she spoke. "I'll play. We'd just
rescued you from some zombies-- "

"What?" he snickered.

"Zombies. Zombies created to speed the end of the world, the advent
of the apocalypse." She threw him a look of disgust. "Mulder, if
you're going to interrupt me at this point, I won't continue."

He waved his hand in the air, offering her the floor. He puckered
his lips, exaggerating his silent promise.

"As I was saying-- it was New Year's Eve, 1999. Not really the
Millennium, but what most people perceive as the Millennium," she
reminded him. "Four FBI agents were transformed into zombies by a
man who thought he was doing God's work. To make a long story short,
you ended up in a basement surrounded by the undead, and I arrived
in time to save you and Frank Black. You remember him, don't you?"

"That I do. He was legendary when I was at the academy."

"Well, he was helping you out on the case. I'd tell you *his* story,
but we'd never get to the point, so I'll tell you about that later
on. We all ended up in a hospital waiting room close to midnight.
Frank left with his daughter and we stayed to watch the ball drop
on the television monitor."

"So we were surrounded by people?" he asked.

"Not really. Hospital personnel were having a party, of course, not
far from where we stood. We were pretty much by ourselves, watching
people on TV kiss in Times Square."

"So what happened, Scully?" he prompted. He was like a kid being
told a bedtime story too slowly.

"I'm getting to that! Have patience. You had your right arm in a
sling, and I had some injuries on my neck. We were both transfixed
by the images on the television, by the countdown, by Dick Clark's
voice, I guess."

"I'm *sure* I wasn't thinking about his voice, Scully."

"No, you weren't," she chuckled. She stopped walking so she could
finish telling him the tale. "I knew you were leaning in toward me.
I felt your breath, the heat of your body. I didn't want to turn
away. Even if you only intended to give me a New Year's Kiss as a
friend, Mulder... I wouldn't have turned away."

"Did you enjoy it?" he questioned softly.

"It was nice." She noticed Mulder's tiny grimace. "No, really. It
lasted just long enough. We were in public, after all. Everyone
knew we were FBI partners. I think you did the right thing, keeping
it chaste. If you hadn't... "

"What? What would have happened?" he asked with a smile.

Scully let out a laugh. "What would have happened? Exactly what
happened when we pulled up in front of your apartment thirty minutes
later."

"Oh," he said, smiling to himself. "So, Scully... if we didn't get
together till April... was New Year's Eve more like my high school
prom than my college days?"

"Heh, you could say that. I definitely put the brakes on things
before they went too far. But what happened in the car was far
better than our first kiss, Mulder. It was... intense."

"But a little too much for dead tired federal agents sporting
injuries?" he guessed.

"That had a lot to do with it, but also I wanted to think about how
it would change our relationship. I never wanted you to think I was
rejecting you. That's not why I made you go up to your apartment
alone. I just needed a little time."

"'Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness lady were no
crime," Mulder quoted from memory, raising his eyebrows at the
conclusion of the line.

"Yes, I know. I'm just as familiar with that poetic argument as you
are, Mulder. 'The grave's a fine and private place, but none I think
do there embrace,'" she recited back to him quickly.

"'Let us roll all our strength, and all our sweetness, up into one
ball: and tear our pleasures with rough strife, through the iron
gates of life. Thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet
we will make him run.' I knew there was a reason for eighth-grade
English class, Scully," he mused.

"Well, seventeenth century poetry will always impress the girls,
Mulder," she answered.

He moved toward her slowly, stealthily, as if he were stalking her.
"What else can I do to impress you today, Ms. Scully?"

Mulder stood mere inches away from her, arms slack at his sides.
His smile exuded mischief and she gleamed right back at him. It was
a virtual standoff-- how close could they get, how long could they
maintain their composure?

They grinned at one another in spellbound silence, waiting patiently
for one of them to crack. It only took a few more minutes of torture
for Mulder to relent, extending his hand to Scully. He hoped to
reinact their New Year's Eve festivities, and he knew the perfect
place to take a girl, having spent several teenage summers on the
island.

She wasn't a teenaged girl, and it wasn't summer in the least, but
Mulder felt the years melt around them-- he boldly led her toward
a memory they could recapture from his past.

fin

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