From: akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
      
   TITLE:  We Two   
   AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan   
   EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
   DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.   
      
   RATING:  G   
   CATEGORIES:  VR   
   KEYWORDS:  UST, Mulder POV   
   SPOILERS:  None   
      
   SUMMARY:  Two is the answer to every question we both have.   
      
   Disclaimer:  Everybody in this belongs to somebody else.   
      
   Author's Notes at the end.   
      
   *********************   
      
   The light hurt.   
      
   It wasn't a physical pain, not exactly.  It burned, somewhere deep in   
   my head.  The light blazed a seemingly endless series of pictures into   
   my mind, afterimages of horror.  Boggs.  Pfaster.  Incanto.  Roche.   
   Mostow.  The pictures kept coming, flashing in my head like a slide   
   show of my worst nightmares.  I covered my face with my arm to try to   
   block them, but the light still bled into my brain with every pulse.   
      
   What I wouldn't have given for oblivion.  I've always understood the   
   siren call of a gun to the temple, a bottle of pills.  Just end it.   
   Stop the pictures, stop the screams.  Bliss out into darkness and   
   then...nothing.  No more scenes from the devil's own home movies.  Oh,   
   yeah, I get it.   
      
   There was a soft click, and suddenly the room was dim.  The light   
   wasn't stabbing through my eyelids, the pictures faded.  They were   
   still there, but the burn eased, rippled out through my skull and   
   dissipated.  I shivered as it left me.   
      
   "Thank you," I whispered.  I didn't have to look to know it was   
   Scully.  There was no one else it could be, slipping unnoticed into my   
   hotel room a thousand miles from home, no one else who could take one   
   look at me, stretched out and immobile on the bed, and know that I was   
   fleeing from the light in my head.   
      
   The mattress sank slightly under her as she sat down next to me.  I   
   could feel her looking at me.  It burned almost like the pictures.   
   She knew better than to touch me yet, knew I would flinch as if she'd   
   pressed a match into my skin.  "You okay?" she asked softly.   
      
   Gingerly, I brought my arm down to my side, keeping my eyes shut,   
   testing the shadows in my mind.  Not perfect yet, but flickering,   
   fading.  "Getting there."  A few more long breaths, careful silence,   
   and I slowly opened my eyes to look at her.  That little crease of   
   concern was between her eyebrows, and I could see in her face how   
   badly she wanted to touch me, to reassure herself, to comfort me.   
   "It's okay, Scully," I murmured.   
      
   That was the permission she needed, and her fingertips brushed my   
   forehead, gently stroking across it, smoothing away my grimace of   
   pain, soothing the lingering sting of the images.  I let my eyes drift   
   shut again, my breathing falling into the same slow rhythm as her   
   touch.  Her voice was very quiet.  "I hate these cases.  I hate what   
   they do to you."  Another soft stroke.  "It scares me, Mulder."   
      
   "It scares me, too."  I reached up and caught her hand, wrapped mine   
   around it.  I could see the fear in her eyes, the worry, the care.   
   Scully's eyes always tell me everything I need to know, everything   
   she's feeling.  Sometimes it's safer not to look.  "I'm glad you're here."   
      
   She smiled softly, and I could see it all as if she'd said it.  Where   
   else would I be?  You needed me.  We're all we've got.  It wouldn't   
   sound as sad in her voice as it does in my head, but it's true.  We're   
   walking through this world as a party of two, a very small   
   expeditionary force against the darkness.  I know it frightens her   
   sometimes, how alone we are.  But other times, like now, I look at her   
   and see the same gratitude I feel to have found the half I didn't know   
   was missing, the same fierce confidence that whatever we face we will   
   do so together, the same faith that for us two is enough.   
      
   I pulled her gently toward me, but she stiffened her elbows, resisted.   
    One eyebrow arched uncertainly.  "Mulder?" she asked, leaving me to   
   fill in the blanks.   
      
   "I just want to lay here, with you," I said quietly.  "Is that okay,   
   Scully?  I just want to forget the world for a while."   
      
   She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, but when I drew her toward   
   me again she came willingly, stretched out alongside me.  She propped   
   herself on one elbow so she could look down into my face and let her   
   other arm curl over my waist.   
      
   Her trust in me made my throat tight with a dozen things I didn't   
   quite know how to say.  I reached up and touched her face, letting my   
   fingertips drift over the curve of her eyebrow, the sweep of her   
   cheekbone, the slope of her nose, the strong line of her jaw, the soft   
   swell of her lips.  My eyes followed my touch as I tried to memorize   
   every place my fingers ventured, every sensation they captured.  This   
   woman...  She lay still above me, welcoming my touch, embracing every   
   weakness and failing I had and lifting up whatever was still good and   
   pure in me.  The only words I knew to say had been said so much, and   
   they weren't nearly enough to tell her what she was to me.  So, as   
   ever, I said nothing, just looked up into her eyes and hoped that she   
   could see my truth there.   
      
   Her eyes had gone deep blue, like the sky, like space, pulling me   
   toward them with the call of oblivion to be found there.  "Do you ever   
   think that we're missing our chance?" I whispered, my fingers still   
   tracing her face.   
      
   She turned slightly into my touch, almost a reflex, and I felt the   
   merest brush of her lips against my palm.  "Sometimes I'm afraid we   
   are," she answered.   
      
   I cupped her face in both my hands and reached up to her.  "I don't   
   want to miss you," I breathed as my lips touched hers.  I drew her   
   back down with me, and she followed, never breaking the contact.   
   There was nothing particularly sexual about the kiss, but it was   
   deeply sensual – the soft warmth of her lips against mine, the heat of   
   our breaths mingling, the silken feel of her skin as I brushed my   
   thumbs over her cheeks, the delicious weight of her body on my chest.   
    I could have stayed there all night, maybe forever, my entire world   
   reduced to the softness of her mouth on mine.  But with a movement so   
   gentle it was barely a parting, she drew back enough to look into my   
   face again.   
      
   Her eyes.  God, they undo me, even as they make me.  I let myself fall   
   into her eyes that night, as I have a thousand other times and will   
   untold more.  In Scully's eyes I see myself more clearly than in any   
   mirror.  Everything I have ever been is there, everything I am.  Her   
   perfect eyes, clear as air, deep as the ocean, were all I could see.   
   I saw myself reflected back, a man made whole in her eyes.   
      
   I don't know when it happened.  I don't know when Scully became the   
   only person in the world who knows me, when I became knowable only by   
   her.  I don't know when two became the answer to every question we   
   both have.  But I know that as long as we both draw breath those   
   things will never change.   
      
   I reached up again, touched her face, my fingers following a slow new   
   path across her features.  "Just lay with me a while," I murmured.   
   "Just forget the world with me."   
      
   She didn't answer, but settled closer to me and let her fingers start   
   at my forehead.   
      
   -Fin-   
      
   *********************   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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