Title: Light
Author: foxcub
E-mail: fox_cub@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Category: UST, V, A (lots of it)
Keywords: Scully!Angst, with a little bit of Mulder!Angst on the side
Spoilers: Milagro and a tiny one for Never Again
Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, you all know darn well they aren't mine.
Many thanks to the Surfer Dude for creating 'em. S & M will now and
forever belong to the wonderful G.A. and the love of my life, D.D. :)
Archive: Oh, please do! Just let me know when you do--and be sure to
keep my name and e-mail on it.
Feedback: This is my first X/F fanfic, so I'd be eternally greatful to anyone
and everyone who shares their thoughts with me on it!
Summary: A week after the events of "Milagro," Scully is still dealing with
the trauma of near death....and realizes Mulder shares her pain.
Author's note: Many thanks to Hannah for beta reading, who made me
realize I obviously cannot do this on my own :)

********************
"The bright day is done,
And we are for the dark."
--William Shakespeare
********************

The light has been off for over an hour.

She's been lying in the cheap motel bed, wrapped around her pillow, trying
disconnect herself from the flood of thoughts.

There's no light in the room; even the outside street lamp has somehow
burnt out. Maybe it's the near complete blackness that keeps her from
signing off, from letting her mind disengage....

He liked it completely dark.

She shivers slightly. It's still there in her mind....bare rooms, a lone table
with a typewriter....a bed with a lamp.

No, no....case files....forensics pictures....car keys....clean suits....my plants need
watering....what time is it....

She needs the light on. Without it, she can sense it.

Can sense *him*.

She untangles herself from the pillow and blindly paws for the switch to her right.

A silent sigh.

Light.

She hates this new paranoia of the dark. She was never one to be scared at night
with the lights out; as a kid, she considered night-lights for babies.

But in the last week there have been visions--memories--of her following the
writer, Padgett, into a darkened room, with a bed, him screwing a light bulb into a
flimsy lamp, her heart beating in anticipation, him purring words at her, her mind
screaming Why are you here??.....

Why did she go there? She knows, but it's strange to admit it. Embarrassing.

Flattery. It could be that simple. She was flattered, intrigued.

A man wanted her.

She passes a hand across her eyes.

Surely she isn't *that* love-starved that she trailed after any decent-looking
man that batted an eye toward her. She isn't like that, she knows she isn't like
that.

She doesn't need that. She doesn't need another tattoo on her back to remind her
of her mistakes.

Her hand rubs at her chest.

That ghost, the thing in black, had tried to rip her heart out. Jesus, if that wasn't
a metaphor for some pathetic lovelife.

That terrifying moment in her partner's apartment that keeps sticking to her brain
is worse than any tattoo she could have ever gotten.

I'm sleeping with the light on--again, she finally tells herself disgustedly as she
curls herself once more around her pillow. If the light keeps her mind sane, then so
be it. It has only been a week, anyway. There's nothing to feel guilty about.

The thoughts have just started to settle when she hears a noise.

A muffle, perhaps a loud mummble, followed by a thunk, coming from the room
next door. She hears it through the joining door.

For a split second her heart bounds into her throat with fear. Damn her paranoia.

The second passes, but the lingering fear is still with her.

There it is again--that noise.

Mulder's room.

She swallows hard, knowing that it *is* nothing, but her damn brain is still
stuck on obsessed writers and frightening men in dark cloaks, reaching for her heart....

Completely against her usual better judgement, she slides out of bed and
pads toward the door. Her left hand unconsciously reaches across the nearby table
and closes around her gun. She presses it against her side as her other hand closes
around the knob.

The door opens with just the faintest creak.

It's dark in his room, too, but somehow he's been blessed with moonlight. It spills
across the bed and blends with the lamplight from her room.

He's lying on his back, his head to one side, with his right arm flung above his head
and the other across his stomach, clutching his shirt. The sheets are a jumble at his
feet.

She suddenly glimpses a glint of light on the floor at the foot of the bed and sees
his gun lying there, nestled in the carpet.

So that was what made the thunk, she thinks. He left his gun on the bed. But....
since when does he sleep with his gun on the bed? When I'm next door?

Bending, she picks up the weapon and places it on the dresser. Her own piece
has gone limp in her right hand.

There's nothing wrong. I'm just being paranoid again. He's fi--

A low, barely audible moan comes from the bed. It nearly makes her jump.

It sounds almost like "No."

She sets her gun down next to his and takes a few cautious steps toward him.
His body is outlined in moon/lamplight. She suddenly realizes how wet he is, how
his dark hair is clinging to his forehead in damp threads.

The hand across his stomach clenches and she freezes. There is a gasp--not
her's--and hen she hears it again, clearer this time.

"No...god...."

His body shifts slightly and the hand above his head comes down to grip a
handful of sheet. His mouth is parted slightly and she can hear his breath in low,
shallow spurts.

This isn't anything new, Mulder having a nightmare and her witnessing it. She'd
been around long enough to have nudged him awake more than a few times.

He suddenly rolls to one side and his pillow is pulled into his arms. His cheek
rests against it, his eyes squeezed shut, and he sighs a terrible, choking sigh. He
embraces it like....

She swallows again, her throat tight.

Like her.

Like he had in his apartment, right after....

Oh, God.

Jesus, it was as if her fears were seeping through the walls, right into his
subconscious....

Damn their connection, their bond. She doesn't want him to always have to
carry her terrors with him. She can suffer alone, on her own, but knowing he suffers
right along with her nearly rips her in two. She knows he already carries with him
enough guilt and sadness to last ten lifetimes.

It hurts her to know how deeply he cares for her.

How deeply he loves her.

She sucks in a staggered breath, moving silently to the bed and easing her weight
down onto the mattress beside him. She leans over so very carefully and rests a hand
against his damp shoulder.

"Mulder--"
He jerks suddenly, nearly sending her careening off the edge of the bed. He sits up,
gasping, staring at her like she's a ghost.

She composes herself and tries again. "Mulder--"

"You were dead."

He says it like he's informing her, his voice far off in the distance. The wet hair is
hanging across his face.

"No, it's all right now. You were dreaming--"

"You were dead, Scully. Your blood was on my carpet....on my hands...."
He stares down at the pillow clenched in his hands.

She swallows again against the knot forming in her throat. "I'm here now, Mulder."
Trying to comfort him, comfort herself. "I'm not dead....I didn't die." She reaches out
a tentative hand and brushes his wet bangs back from his forehead.

"I walk into my apartment and the blood is there, Scully. I see it everyday."

Her hand stills at his temple. He isn't talking about the dream.

God, how can I expect him not to carry this with him when the evidence is there
to greet every time he comes home?

"I didn't die," she repeats, firmer this time. It's really all she can think to say; she
can no longer bring herself to beg his grief off onto herself.

There is deathly silence between them, his eyes still focused on the pillow, waiting
for the blood to appear. An overwhelming need to touch him, to let him now that
she *is* alive washes over her. She links her hands around his neck and draws him
close to her. She plants a soft, lingering kiss on his damp forehead. He lets out a
sigh and she feels it against the skin of her neck.

"Go back to sleep," she whispers, tasting the salt of his sweat on her lips. She
slides her fingers from his neck, preparing to return to her room. She'll never get
sleep of her own, she realizes; all her guilt and fear and love will never allow her
brain to shut down.

She begins to rise and then feels a hand griping at her pajama top's hem.

"Scully...." Almost pleading.

She knows now that she cannot leave him. She can never leave him when he
whispers her name in that cracking, hoarse way of his....

Nothing else is said. She only empties her lungs with a deep sigh as he lowers
himself down onto his pillow, taking her with him. His arms slide around her middle
and he draws her to him. She is fitted against his chest; she can feel the thudding
of his heart between her shoulder blades. She feels his nose nuzzling softly in her
hair.

Barely a handful of minutes go by before his breathing comes deep and slow.

She smiles. He fell asleep reassured that she is alive.

To her surprise, her eyelids become heavy. Her mind, she realizes, is empty.
The heat of his body and the feel of strong arms locked around her are swirling
there instead.
No more writers. No more dark men.

All the darkness in the world could descend upon her now and she wouldn't
care.

She's not afraid.

Her eyes drift shut and she slips into sleep barely aware that the light in her
room is still on.

End.
************************

Feedback will "light" up my life :)
fox_cub@hotmail.com :)