TITLE: Benediction AUTHOR: Alelou FEEDBACK: Alelou123@aol.com CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Vignette, MSR, some H RATING: PG-13 DISCLAIMER: Not mine. 1013's & Chris Carter's, et. al. SUMMARY: A strange little mixture of the sacred and the profane adding up to ... well, fluff. NOTES: Many thanks to MystPhile for beta. More notes at the end. He imagines kissing her. His hands open unconsciously while he imagines it: He is holding her head in his hands, maybe kissing her forehead first to get his nerve up, giving her a chance to push him away, then shifting down to those gorgeous lips if she shows even the slightest sign of lifting them up to him. He grazes them softly at first, seeking permission, seeking an answer. When he imagines hugging her, he imagines her small frame gathered up into his arms and crushed against himself, but not too hard. He imagines her head tucked under his, and his hand moving up and caressing her hair. And then, he hopes, she turns her face up so that he can look at her and she can look at him, and they kiss. Maybe this is the first kiss after all, a kiss that comes after a hug. Reassurance that turns into something more. Or maybe this is the second kiss. If it's the second kiss, he is bolder -- he begins to explore her hips with his hands, and cups her bottom and lifts her up against him even as his tongue plumbs the depths of her mouth. What is *she* doing? That's what he has a hard time imagining. God, to have her hands on his skin. He has a permanent sense memory of how those hands pulled and clutched desperately at him after Padgett. And he vividly remembers all the little caresses she's graced him with over the years. He knows instinctively that the touch of her hands would be a benediction beyond all others, that there is nothing more sacred than to be touched by the hands of the one you love. "Mulder?" He jumps. He thought she was deep into her autopsy notes. "Yeah?" he asks. "Are you all right?" "Yeah, fine." "They want the tray tables up." "Oh," he says breathlessly. Crap. He sits up straight and shifts the magazine he wasn't reading from the tray table onto his lap with studied nonchalance. Down, boy. Yeah, she thinks, he was definitely thinking about a woman. She had seen his hands open as if holding something, but she hadn't been sure whether it was a basketball or a woman. Probably he was imagining grasping some nubile porn star's DDD breasts. She looks down at her Wonderbra-enhanced bosom and sighs. The last man to get his hands on her breasts is now in a state mental institution. Figures. The stewardess passes by and gives Scully an approving look. Yes, she'd gotten her man to toe the line for them. But what does she have to show for it? It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that Mulder imagines grabbing her breasts, she knows that -- but there are times, like this trip, for example, when it seems her carefully enhanced mounds will never feel any man's hands on them again, let alone Mulder's. Maybe it's the case, she thinks. The victims had all been couples engaged in sex at the time they were attacked. It wasn't a vengeful ghost, however, but the repressed son of the hotel owner who had done the deeds. True, there turned out to be a long history of strange goings on at this particular hotel. Mulder had made a few halfhearted attempts to connect the murders to past rashes of violence at the hotel, but ultimately even he was more than willing to take Steven Bridshaw's confession -- that he had been empowered by God to punish fornicators -- at face value and head back home. Which leaves them on this flight, sitting next to each other. And they still have to change in Dallas. Scully hates the Dallas airport. She sighs again. He eyes her sideways, wondering what's making her sigh. Probably something he did to annoy her. Had she figured out what was going on just a minute ago? Mulder doesn't usually allow himself to think about his partner as a lover. Well, at least not in an airplane while she's sitting right next to him. He puzzles out how he let it happen, and decides it was this case. All those people making love. Going to hotels because they wanted to make love. How many hotel rooms had he stayed in for the last six years without making love in them? He's reminded of Clyde Bruckman and how he had woefully remarked, "Sometimes it seems like everybody's having sex except me." You ain't the only one, buddy. But really, what had stopped Bruckman, he wonders. Maybe he should have asked him that instead of all those psychic ability questions. "Scully, do you ever wonder why Clyde Bruckman never got married?" She peers at him. "What?" "Clyde Bruckman. Why do you suppose he never got married?" Scully is reminded of Bruckman himself asking what made one of those murder victims collect dolls. He'd asked, "Was it one specific moment when she said, *I know, dolls*?" She wonders -- do people just wake up one day and go, *I know, marriage*? "Why does anybody not get married?" she asks back in her reasonable Scully voice. "Maybe motive and opportunity never presented themselves." Motive and opportunity? Sounds a little cold, Dana, she thinks -- marriage, murder, whatever. "I suppose it might be hard to get involved with someone when you can see exactly how they're going to die," she adds. He is stunned. She's actually buying that Bruckman had psychic abilities? She sees the look on his face and fears he's about to launch into one of his "Dear Diary" remarks. "Or at least you think you can," she quickly corrects herself. "I mean, there you are, in the first flushes of a crush on somebody, probably don't even know them yet, and you can see how they pass from this life in every miserable detail." "So you'd just keep moving on?" "Wouldn't you? And imagine you get married anyway, and have kids, and you can see how your kids are going to die. Who could stand that?" They both push away thoughts of Emily with an ease born of practice. The plane is descending rapidly and Scully sends a quick prayer to God that this isn't how they're going to die. It would be kind of ironic to smash into pieces on the hard ground below while having a conversation about death. Although it is completely illogical, she always feel slightly more at risk in situations with the potential for irony. The plane bobbles down onto the runway and starts braking. Scully relaxes without even realizing it. Mulder also relaxes, reflecting with satisfaction that talking about death has completely eased any embarrassing swelling in his lap. Now Scully is thinking about Clyde and also remembers that remark about everyone having sex except him. He had no idea how wrong he was, of course. "You know," Scully says, "All the jokes aside, statistics show that married people have a lot more sex than single people." "Is that a proposal?" he asks, before his mouth can connect with his brain. She blushes the faintest tinge of pink. "No, just an observation." He cocks his head. "So maybe Clyde's psychic powers came from all that sex he wasn't having? All that orgone energy backing up into his psyche?" "Orgone energy? A la Wilhelm Reich?" she asks, puzzled. "No, I wasn't suggesting that." "Good, because if that were true I'd be able to solve all our cases without any actual investigation." "I doubt that, Marty," she says. His mouth falls open, and he looks away, furiously trying to figure out how the hell Scully could know about his alter ego. "Who?" he finally asks, deciding to pretend ignorance. He really forgets sometimes that I'm a trained investigator who spends hours in his apartment, she thinks. She doesn't know whether that's more insulting or reassuring. "Hey, I'm not getting on your case." "Yes, you are." "No, I'm not," she insists. "I'm the last person who'd want all that orgone energy to back up on you. You're hyper enough. Besides, it's not good for your prostate." "Jesus, Scully, you gonna ask me about my hemorrhoids next?" "You have hemorrhoids?" "No!" Mulder said. "It's just -- it's like --" His mouth keeps opening but nothing comes out, like a fish out of water. Scully realizes just how far over the line she's crept. Her face turns pink. "Embarrassing and none of my business, I know," Scully supplies for him. What on earth was she thinking? "Sorry, Mulder, I was out of line." She turns back to the window. Watching her curl in on herself, he feels like shit. "I wasn't going to say that," he says. "That doesn't mean it isn't true," she says in a low voice, then looks out the window. She hates Dallas. It's the only airport she knows of where getting the plane to the terminal can take as long as it takes her to get to National in a taxi. Right now she just wants to get her bag and move. Once they're moving in the usual routine, it will all be forgotten. "Scully," he says, grabbing her hand as he senses her taking off for parts far away. "I don't want you to feel like you can't talk to me about anything. It's just, some things..." "I understand, Mulder," she says, wishing he would just shut up. "No, I don't think you do," he says. "I mean, I wish we did talk about stuff like that. But it's just sort of embarrassing, you know, and depressing, when we talk like an old married couple and we've never actually enjoyed being an old married couple. I mean, you're talking about my prostate and you've never even *met* my prostate." She looks up at him with a mixture of confusion and distaste, as if he'd just asked her to snap on the latex and perform a rectal exam. Oh yeah, smooth one, you stupid fuck, he thinks. That's gotta be one of your greatest lines of all time. Then her face clears and takes on an alarmingly merry cast. "You'd like me to *meet* your prostate?" Just go with it, he decides. "Well, yeah, to be perfectly frank, but I assume that's been fairly obvious for some time." "I see," she says, with false gravity. "Something like 'Hello, Mr. Prostate, how nice to make your acquaintance' ... 'Why hello, Miss Scully, the pleasure is all mine?'" Mulder just stares for a minute. Clearly, he has been granted a reprieve. Something good may yet come of this disastrous conversation. "No, no, no, Miss Scully, I guarantee you the pleasure would not be *all* mine." "Well, that's good to know," she says, settling back with a smile tucked behind her eyes. The plane slowly lumbers its way down what appears to be the jet equivalent of an interstate highway, complete with overpasses. "So?" he asks. She appears to have already completely dismissed the conversation. "What?" "Whaddya say, Miss Scully?" She looks surprised that an answer is required. "Well, you can tell Mr. Prostate that I'm flattered, really I am, but --" "But what?" It's impossible for him to keep a note of whining disappointment out of his voice. "Do you have your eye on someone else's prostate?" "You know I don't." "So? This just isn't what you had in mind?" "It wasn't exactly your prostate I ever had in mind. Mulder -- look, after six years of a very complex relationship that has always had this unspoken potential to become something more intimate, I guess I really just don't feel it should suddenly change direction on the basis of a desultory conversation in an airplane about prostates and hemorrhoids." "Oh." He thinks he's getting it now, but he'd still like some clarification. "You find it somewhat lacking in -- what -- taste? Romance?" She just looks at him, deadpan. He nods. "I guess that's fair." He sighs and settles back against the too-small airline chair, feeling let down but willing as always to take his lumps. She looks critically at him. "Mulder." "Mmmm?" She settles back in her chair as well, then turns her head toward his and murmurs, "That doesn't mean I think we should wait another two years to have another conversation on the subject." He allows himself a tiny smile and murmurs back, "When, then?" She looks up at his face, inches from her own, his eyes fixed on hers, and is overcome by a sense of the inevitability of it all. Okay, so they wooed each other over a conversation about sex, masturbation, prostates and hemorrhoids. Get over it. "I think we should at least get off the plane." xxx Scully will never feel the same way about Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport again, because she is standing in a quiet alcove of Concourse C and Mulder is kissing her. His hands are tangled in her hair, framing her face, and he is kissing her, and her mouth is opening to his, and their tongues are meeting and exploring and plumbing each other for the first time. He is delighted to find her tongue pushing into him with equal interest. She is delighted that this is finally, finally happening, and that the taste of Mulder is as sweet to her as she'd ever hoped, even with the unmistakeable hints of airline coffee and roasted peanuts mixed in. They are clasped in each other's arms with the ferociousness of longlost lovers reunited at last, and she is reaching up and feathering her hand into the nape of his hair, his beautiful hair that she has so often had to resist the urge to ruffle, and tracing his strong shoulders and loving the power of his arms wrapped tightly, but not too tightly, around her. And he is thinking, oh the things I could be doing now, if only this weren't the middle of an airport terminal ... what were we thinking starting this here, but of course we weren't really thinking much. And he is delighted, to think of Scully not planning something out for once -- and not letting him back off, either -- and much as he'd like to carry this further right now, as desperate as he is to discover her in every possible way, this is also enough. It is more than enough, because he is kissing Scully, and he can feel her hands on him, not clutching, or even caressing, but exploring and claiming him as hers. And for the first time in his life, he knows what it is to be blessed. THE END AUTHOR'S NOTE: This little piece of fluff was inspired by Mystphile's "Scully and Clyde," because it got me thinking about Clyde Bruckman (one of my all- time favorite X Files characters), and to "Backtracking," which makes great comic and dramatic use of the differing thoughts and perceptions of our heroes. (Sorry, authors, but I've lost your names!)