From: redartangel@yahoo.ca   
      
   *Already posted to ephemeral & gossamer   
   Title: Tilt and Dream   
   Author: xangel   
   E-mail: redartangel@yahoo.ca   
   Spoilers: Beyond the Sea   
   Rating: Nc17   
   Classification: MSR   
   Summary: Boggs may be dead and gone but Scully is still   
   experiencing problems related to the case and her father's   
   untimely death. Her solution to solve her sleep problem is   
   a little unorthodox.   
      
   Notes: Thanks to Tali, xdks, & Foxcat for extraordinary beta   
   and hand-holding. Your encouragement is priceless! (and   
   your ability to withstand my abuse of the lowly comma)   
   Thanks to Mimic who kicked my butt just a little when   
   I needed it.   
   A very special note of thanks and big hugs to Tali who   
   is responsible for getting them 'off the couch'. I hit   
   a mental road block and she was instrumental in   
   getting me unstuck! She helped write that little scene.   
   Hmm....should we poking her to write for us?   
      
   Written as a 'Fando' first challenge -- a virtual first season   
   of smut.   
      
   Disclaimer: I still don't own them. I always clean up   
   after play.   
      
      
      
   Tilt: to forge or work steel with a tilt hammer   
   ********   
      
   It was night number seven. The seventh night of waking with damp   
   sheets tangled around her legs, her body sore and exhausted from   
   fending off faceless enemies, and a scream swallowed by the darkness   
   of the night. There were small variations to her dream, but none   
   significant enough to tell her what she was supposed to be seeing,   
   what her subconscious was trying to tell her. Not that she put much   
   stock in the whole dreams as revelation thing. That was Missy's   
   department. With shaking hands she pulled the tangled sheets away,   
   freeing her legs.   
      
   Every evening, sleep seemed to come later. The first two nights, the   
   dream seemed a silly coincidence, brought on by the stress of the   
   case, her father's death, Mulder's injury, and the weird   
   circumstances surrounding Luther Boggs, her strange connection to   
   him. The third night she lay, struggling to quell her uneasiness,   
   dreading closing her eyes only to open her mind to the thing   
   lurking, waiting, paused on instant replay. On the fourth night, she   
   found herself trying one of Melissa's harebrained dream directing   
   ideas. She spent forty-five minutes repeatedly telling herself what   
   she would do the moment it began. She woke that night with tears   
   falling, and that horrible feeling in her throat, the one that came   
   from trying to scream and scream, but no sound would come out. She   
   decided Melissa's dream directing was a stupid idea.   
      
   The idea of a hidden meaning or message became a credible one, on   
   the fifth night. That was the night a new act was added. She   
   considered the possibility that, unable to get the meaning across,   
   her mind had added another piece to try and grab her attention. On   
   that night,when her hands had finally stopped shaking, she spent   
   the first few moments trying to analyze it, and the rest of the time   
   trying to put it out of her mind so she could get a few hours rest.   
   She was afraid, afraid to sleep, to dream, to close her eyes and   
   once again find herself trying to run and not able to, screaming,   
   and yet making no sound. Each night brought a little less rest, and   
   tonight she may have managed fifteen or twenty minutes before it   
   began. Her feet, finally free of the sheet, landed with a soft thud   
   onto the plush carpet and she made her way to the kitchen to put the   
   coffee on. Seven nights of nightmares had taught her that there   
   would be no more sleep for her. Fighting it only made the headache   
   she knew would be coming, worse.   
      
   ******   
      
   As Scully made her way through the building she decided to be   
   thankful for small mercies. Mulder was still recovering at home,   
   which meant no new cases and no Skinner. Buried in paperwork, hidden   
   away in what passed for Mulder's office, she didn't have to explain   
   the dark smudges under her eyes that make -up had failed to hide the   
   last two days. Well, she might have managed to hide it, had she   
   decided looking like a two bit hooker wasn't to her liking. It took   
   more to cover those than it did the mole above her lip. She pushed   
   open the door, and stopped, coffee sloshing out through the small   
   opening she had made in the lid. Shit. Mulder sat, leaning   
   precariously back, injured leg up, propped on a pillow. He grinned   
   at her.   
      
   "You brought a pillow in?"   
      
   "Morning to you too, Scully."   
      
   "Mulder, what are you doing here?"   
      
   "This is where I work?"   
      
   "Skinner made it clear you were to take the week, the whole week,   
   off."   
      
   "I'm a fast healer."   
      
   "That isn't the point."   
      
   "I was bored."   
      
   "So?"   
      
   "Aw, you missed me."   
      
   She dropped her briefcase by the table, and set the coffee down.   
   "Mulder, you don't want to complicate things for yourself. There's a   
   very good reason the doctor told you to stay off it."   
      
   "I'm fine. I feel great. I can rest here just as well as I can at   
   home." He crunched another seed between his teeth. "What have you   
   been up to?"   
      
   "Paperwork."   
      
   "Still?"   
      
   "Still. We're behind. Skinner decided that it would be a good use of   
   my time to finish it up instead of sending me over to Quantico for   
   the week."   
      
   "Damn. I came in to watch you do paperwork?"   
      
   "No, you came in to help me finish the paperwork." She booted up the   
   computer. "Do you want to go home yet?" More crunches, but no words   
   came from her now silent partner. "Mulder?" She looked up to find   
   him staring intently at her. "What?"   
      
   "Scully, have you lost weight?"   
      
   "What?"   
      
   "Are you feeling okay?"   
      
   Scully bristled a little at his familiar concern. "I'm fine."   
      
   "Dana--."   
      
   "What's with that?"   
      
   "What?"   
      
   "The name thing. You hardly ever use my first name."   
      
   "I don't?"   
      
   Scully let it go. That Mulder did anything without knowing seemed a   
   little far-fetched. What she had learned, to date, about the man who   
   was her partner, led her to believe nothing he did was by chance. He   
   was far too intentional in his pursuits, too deliberate in his   
   choice of words for that.   
      
   It was with some relief, on both their parts, that they busied   
   themselves in the paperwork. When Mulder, frustrated at his lack of   
   mobility, decided to cut out early, she breathed a sigh of relief.   
   The simple act of sitting up straight was wearing, she just wanted   
   to lay her head down and close her eyes. She forced herself to   
   remain until quitting time; Scully wasn't sure she could handle   
   another night like the last few, and wasn't anxious to get home and   
   face her empty apartment, inhabited as it was by the ghosts of the   
   last week.   
      
   Which was why she found herself, a few hours later, sitting at a bar   
   stool, nursing a whiskey, straight up, no ice. She wasn't fooling   
   around tonight. She had caught a taxi over, anticipating - - well,   
   actually, it embarrassed her to even think about what she was   
   anticipating. She didn't want to think tonight. She just wanted to   
   get drunk enough to prevent her usual cautious introspection.   
   Tonight she was aiming to pick up some nice, twenty-something stud,   
   and let him fuck her senseless.   
      
   In the background, Garth Brooks could be heard, crooning over the   
   clinking of glasses and the chatter of the patrons. She had only   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)