From: akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
      
   TITLE:  Four Loves   
   AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan   
   EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
   DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.   
      
   RATING:  PG   
   CATEGORIES:  VR   
   KEYWORDS:  UST, Mulder/Scully romance, Scully POV   
   SPOILERS:  None   
      
   SUMMARY:  "You know I love you."  It is not a question.  You say it   
   with absolute certainty, the same certainty you have about aliens and   
   conspiracies and Truth.   
      
   Disclaimer:  Everybody in this belongs to somebody else.   
      
   Author's notes at the end.   
      
   *********************   
      
   "I would die for you."   
      
   I turn your words over in my head for perhaps the hundredth time, and   
   I still don't find any surprise.  Die for me?  Of course you would.   
   Gladly.  In a heartbeat.  You wouldn't, in fact, think twice about it,   
   and that's what terrifies me.   
      
   Make a deal with the devil, put a gun to your head, offer yourself as   
   a willing sacrifice - all in the name of saving me, and all leaving me   
   to somehow go on without you.  I don't think you've ever thought about   
   that, about how I would face a world without you in it, even though   
   you of all people should know what that kind of desolation feels like.   
    I know you weren't thinking about it that night, as you ripped open   
   your chest to give me another look at your heart.  Another dark night,   
   another whispered declaration, another impossible promise.  Your   
   timing always stinks, because these moments inevitably send me   
   spinning, suck the breath from my lungs and disrupt my equilibrium for   
   days.  Maybe your timing's perfect.   
      
   This time I didn't let you get away with it.  There would be no   
   feverish confessions, no scorching caresses this time.  Instead, I   
   sighed.  "Dying's easy, Mulder," I said quietly.  "Anyone can die -   
   for a person, for a cause.  It only takes one moment of courage."  I   
   looked at you and saw that this wasn't the script you had playing in   
   your head.  I had your attention.  "What's really tough is to live for   
   someone."  Ask me, I think.  I could write you a book.   
      
   A week has passed, and the words have hung between us like smoke,   
   harsh and rasping in our lungs, pricking tears from our eyes.  I begin   
   to think that I could pluck bits of ash from my sleeve.   
      
   We haven't spoken any more than absolutely necessary since then.  You   
   have been grim, stoic.  I know that you took it as a reproach.  I   
   suppose on some level I meant for you to.  I don't want a reward for   
   sticking with you - I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be.  But   
   dammit, Mulder, not everything is about you.  If you'd look up for a   
   minute from your self-crucifixion, you'd see that every nail through   
   your hand sends pain singing through my heart.   
      
   You are nurturing the hurt, what you think is the rejection, and   
   finally I can't take it anymore.  I think I'm just too tired to add   
   one more thing to our shared burden.  When I look over at you, you are   
   gazing into the middle distance, your eyes fixed on whatever your mind   
   sees, a pencil dangling forgotten from your fingers.  "Are we ever   
   going to talk about this, Mulder?"   
      
   You glance up at me.  You are instantly back from wherever you were,   
   and I am amazed again at the way your mind works in agile leaps.  "You   
   want to?" you ask.  There is just enough criticism in your voice to   
   make me weary again.   
      
   I take a deep breath.  "We can't fit too many more elephants into this   
   room."   
      
   You look at me thoughtfully, and your face would be unreadable if I   
   didn't know it so well.  You are holding yourself very still.  "I   
   think that's an answer to a different question," you say quietly.   
      
   "Then ask me one I can answer."   
      
   I'm afraid for a moment that the shade will drop down over your eyes,   
   and then I almost wish it had because it's like you're gathering all   
   the light in the room there and blazing it at me.  I have seen your   
   eyes in every incarnation - flashing with mischief, glassy with fear,   
   glazed with passion, and a hundred other emotions that are inscribed   
   on my heart's memory - but this is the one I have always feared the   
   most.  They are fierce, glinting like chipped jade, and I think of   
   those Mayan masks with their teeth bared to eternity.  There will be   
   no escape from this.   
      
   When you speak, your voice is low, not soft, and a tremor of fear or   
   maybe desire shoots up my spine.  "You know I love you."  It is not a   
   question.  You say it with absolute certainty, the same certainty you   
   have about aliens and conspiracies and Truth.   
      
   Of course I know it.  I've lost sight of a great many things in the   
   years we've been together, but this fact has loomed larger with every   
   piece I've lost, filling up the spaces that are left behind.  You show   
   me, and probably the rest of the world, every day.  You've even told   
   me, once from a hospital bed and more than once with your lips pressed   
   hot against my skin.  I can't pretend not to know this, and one look   
   at your face tells me that you won't stand for any equivocation or   
   prevarication this time.  "Yes," I say simply.   
      
   "And you love me."  I hear the doubt creep in, but I know it is not   
   about my love.  It is doubt that you deserve it, doubt that God or the   
   cancer man or fate will allow it.  I am slowly chipping away at the   
   first, but nothing I have ever said or done has made any difference in   
   the second.  I've got time.   
      
   You are waiting for an answer, reading the thoughts passing across my   
   face so clearly that I wonder why I bother not speaking them.  "Yes,"   
   I say again, and this time my voice betrays me, going soft and husky   
   without my consent.   
      
   You take it as an invitation, which I should have seen coming.  In a   
   motion so fluid I don't really see it happen, you move to sit in front   
   of me.  You are too close.  Our knees brush together, and I can smell   
   the faint memory of your aftershave, and there is no way to avoid your   
   eyes.  I see your relentlessness there, and I wonder if this   
   conversation will end up with me taking you into my bed or hating you.   
      
   "What kind of love?" you ask.   
      
   Your voice is cool, clinical, and at such odds with the fire in your   
   eyes that my mind cannot make the leap for a moment.  I blink to hide   
   my discomfort, although I know you don't miss it.  "What do you mean?"   
   I manage at last.   
      
   "We love each other, Scully, but I wonder if we're speaking the same   
   language.  Let's try it in Greek."   
      
   You don't speak Greek, I think irrelevantly.  I have foolishly kept my   
   eyes on yours, because you want me to and because I can't deny you   
   anything, and I shiver at the sensation of smoke and blood and battle   
   cries.  I brace myself as if against a coming assault.   
      
   "We only have one word for love," you say quietly.  "It's...ambiguous.   
    There are so many experiences it can describe.  The Greeks had four   
   words for it, four different kinds of love.  Overlapping, perhaps, but   
   distinct.  Do you know the words?"   
      
   I nod warily.  You have let your voice go smooth and dreamy, but I am   
   not fooled.  "Storge, philia, agape, and eros."   
      
   In another conversation, you would look pleased by this shared   
   knowledge.  Now your eyes narrow a little, and I realize I have given   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)