DISCLAIMER:  The characters herein are the property of Fox Broadcasting and
1013 Productions.  The situations into which I have placed them are of my
own creation.

CATEGORY:  SA, MSR
RATING:  PG-13
ARCHIVAL:  My site only; however, feel free to link to it.
SPOILERS:  "Millennium"
SUMMARY:  "It was a new year, and in the magic of tonight she let herself
believe that anything could happen."


Thanks to Steph for lunch and for convincing me that the world needs
another "Millennium" story, and to Suzanne and Rachel for last-minute beta
reading duties.

A BOUNDLESS OCEAN
by alanna

+++++

Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving
look cast backward,
And then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.
And you, vast sea, sleepless mother,
Who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream,
Only another winding will this stream make, only another murmur in this
glade,
And then I shall come to you, a boundless drop in a boundless ocean.
          -- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"


Just beyond the next rise of the road, sleep beckoned.  It called to her,
flowed through her veins, nudging aside blood and oxygen.  She felt the
fatigue begin in her toes, then move up her body.  Her legs felt heavy, her
hips sank into the seat, her left arm rested on her belly and its hand had
slowly uncurled from a small fist in a moment long past when it wasn't
holding the steering wheel.  It now resembled a "C", wanting to cup the
still air circulating inside the car.  The tingling in her palm felt like
the air itself.

The car was so still, its engine quietly purring in a hypnotic trance.  If
she weren't the one driving, she could sleep so easily.  Let her head fall
back, hair spilling over her face in defiance of the hairspray she'd used
that morning, close her eyes, and just sleep.

But even if she hadn't been driving, she would have refused to comply
because she knew something incredible was about to happen.  The grownups
had told her that she had to get to bed now, so that Christmas morning
would arrive sooner, but she just couldn't.  The excitement was in the
anticipation....

... because she knew something amazing was about to happen.

She was not one given to flights of fancy, but she couldn’t help herself.
It had been, to put it mildly, a night to remember, in so many ways.

"Come with me," he had said as they left the hospital and walked out toward
her car.  His had been abandoned back at Mark Johnson's place, and even
though his arm was in a sling, she could tell Mulder desperately wanted to
drive.  She had held tight to the keys in her pocket, but she did allow
herself to lean into him as his arm around her shoulder guided them to her
car.

She might never have known how he managed to know just which roads to take,
if she hadn't seen him pouring over a road atlas while she was speaking
with the officers who had accompanied them to the hospital.  Scully would
have called his remembering the route an amazing feat of intuition, until
they pulled into an all-night service station off I-64 and he took out the
map, which he'd probably charmed a nurse into giving to him.  He navigated
by moonlight and the occasional high beams of passing cars as she continued
to drive forward through the inky-black of the first night of the new year.

A math geek she might be, but she also couldn't deny the magic of the
date.  The year 2000:  nine hundred and ninety-nine years since the last
turn of the millennium.  Even if the numbers were a year off, she imagined
an odometer moving, each of the wheels clicking over to produce a shiny new
date.  It was a new year, and in the magic of tonight she let herself
believe that anything could happen.

She glanced over at him.  He sensed the motion and turned to look at her.
Scully knew better than to look away from the road for longer than it took
to return his gaze, but she let the corners of her mouth turn up slightly
before training her eyes back on the ribbon of road before them.  Another
quick glance at the digital dashboard clock showed the time as 5:17 a.m.
They'd left the outer suburbs of Richmond exactly five hours and eight
minutes earlier.  Mulder still hadn't revealed where they were going, but
she knew they were running out of land.  So he wanted to go to the coast?
She was more than happy to be going there with him.

"5:18 a.m., Scully," he said in a voice not at all sleepy.

"Yes it is."  She was surprised by how dry her voice sounded, and made a
quick resolution not to let it sound so anymore, not while speaking to him.

"Five hours and eighteen minutes into the new year.  Into a new century,
even."  By contrast, his voice had taken on a lovely, dreamlike quality.

She couldn't help but smile a little.  "Mulder, you know--"

"Yes, I know," he parroted.  "The new millennium won't start for another
three hundred and sixty-four days."

Small victories are victories nonetheless.  "I knew you'd eventually see
the light, Mulder."

A small whoosh of breath was his responding chuff of laughter.  "Well, even
if it isn't a new millennium, the year 2000 is an extremely important
event.  I'd even go so far as to call it 'awe-inspiring'."  She didn't
respond immediately, so he continued, "Surely you realize its importance,
Scully."

"I do, Mulder.  I might not be showing it, but I'm just as excited as you
are."

"You could have fooled me."  His words were gently mocking, not stern.

She tried to figure out how she could explain her feelings to him.  She was
very good at being analytical in conversation, but being emotionally
verbose was a different animal altogether.  Scully needed silence, a calm
place where she could close her eyes and compose her thoughts when her
emotions were on the line.  She'd never been good at being able to talk
about emotions off-the-cuff, as her occasional visits to a therapist had
proven.  During such times, the sessions would resemble an interrogation,
or a scripted dialogue where she would sit for a few moments, composing her
replies, then recite them with little outward emotion.  Anything more
spontaneous made her feel flustered, emotionally naked.

That moment in the waiting room had left her more emotionally naked than
she had been in her life.  Standing under his gaze, her lips tingling from
the kiss he'd given her and her body flushed and swelling in amazement,
she'd felt like everything she felt for Mulder and for life was lain bare
on her face.  When she realized that, she had to turn away from him, to
look down and regain her composure.  Scully could physically feel the
energy draining from his body because of what he must have perceived as
rejection, and her heart broke a little for him as they walked out of the
room, his hand heavy on her shoulder.  She had wanted to pull him close, to
tell him no, everything's okay, I'm just so overcome by *this* that I can't
think straight right now.  But the deed had been done and she didn't
immediately know how to make it right again.

Mulder was a dreamer, a risk-taker.  She nearly collapsed in relief when
he'd turned to her and asked her to drive with him.  Perhaps she hadn't
failed them after all.

They had been silent for most of the drive thus far, but now he was
beginning to speak to her and she owed him more than perfunctory answers in
return.  She wanted to give him more than that.  She wanted to explain her
heart, her emotions, without having to script them in advance.  He gave her
a kiss.  She would give him her mind.

"Whether it's this year or the next, the idea of a millennium or even a
century turning isn't really that important to me.  The last thousand years
have encompassed most everything we know about the human condition, at
least with regards to recorded history.  I'm not a historian, and it just
doesn't impact me all that much.  If I were to sit down and look at what
has happened since the year 1000, it might make more of a difference, but
not now.  It's all very grand, yes, but its significance just hasn't hit me
yet."

She paused to take a breath and Mulder, as was his wont, interjected, "It
is important, Scully.  Think of everything that has happened in the last
thousand years.  We're nothing like the people who existed back at the turn
of the millennium.  We've come so far."

"And we have far to go.  I didn't say it wasn't important period, Mulder,
just that it didn't make that big of a difference to me."  Her breath
quickened as she began to think about what really was significant to her
about this date.  "It's the year 2000, though.  That," she emphasized the
word, "is amazing."

He gave a faint sound of confusion.   She continued, "The year 2000,
Mulder.  Wow."  The awe of her voice sounded strange to her own ears.
Scully wasn't accustomed to speaking like that, as in the past she'd
reserved awe for her own private thoughts.  "From now on, whenever we look
at a date on the calendar, see it written on a memo or on the computer
screen, it will have a 2 at the beginning.  It's such a silly thing,
really," she smiled at the dark road she was driving, "but it's just
amazing.  It's like --"  she stopped, again at a loss for words.

"It's like the future," Mulder finished.

She turned to him and smiled.  How lovely that with this, they were in
synchrony.

Scully couldn't explain it further, but somehow Mulder was able to continue
her thoughts without knowing exactly what they were.  "I remember back when
I was a kid, doing the math to figure out how old I'd be in 2000.  God,
back then, 38 sounded like the edge of old-manhood.  I used to imagine
'2000' as this magical number.  You know, HAL and outer space and all those
Kubrick futuristic worlds.  Yeah, that was actually 2001, but it's all the
same thing.  It was like the entire world would change in 2000, that we
would enter this new world just like in science fiction.  And now, here we
are."

"And nothing has changed," she replied.  "That sounds pessimistic, but
that's not how I mean it, Mulder.  It's strange to suddenly be here and
realize that we're still the same people and the world is the same place as
it was yesterday.  Nothing has changed.  As far as I can tell, even all
those apocalyptic things the media keeps warning us about -- terrorists,
the power failing -- they haven't happened.  The world has continued.
Somehow, that's more amazing than anything else.  We are the future."

"Are you going to start impersonating Diana Ross or Quincy Jones, Scully?"
he asked with laughter in his voice.

She chuckled in response.  "'We are the children?  We are the ones that
make a better day, so let's start giving?'  No, Mulder.  But if you want to
pretend you're Michael Jackson, I won't stop you."

His voice a breathy falsetto, he said, "Thank you very much."

Perhaps in the future they could laugh together more.

Before the tone could become serious again, a green sign emerged at the
side of the road and he said, "Keep following these signs to Kitty Hawk.
There should be a bridge coming up in about two miles."

"Are we going to go fly a flimsy airplane, Mulder?"

"That's something which happened almost a hundred years ago.  Does that
make tonight more significant, Scully?"

"No," she replied.  She began to realize what he was planning, though.
They were nearing the Outer Banks, and the sun would begin to rise in
another hour.  She remembered reading a story online recently about two
cities in New England who were vying to have the first sunrise of the new
millennium.  At the time it seemed like a lot of foolishness, but now she
began to associate the first sunrise of the millennium with Mulder.  Now it
seemed much more important.  It was something to anticipate.  She was
suddenly hit with a wave of excitement.

Was this his plan all along?  To kiss her and then take her to see the
sunrise?  Surely he couldn't have planned it.  A day ago they'd been on a
case.  He couldn't have known it would have been wrapped up just in time
for all this to happen.  Yet....

"Mulder, did you plan this?"

"Plan what?"  His voice didn't seem to have any mock innocence, just a
touch of bewilderment.

"Sunrise on the beach.  The first sunrise of the year 2000.  You couldn't
have known we'd be in a position to do this now."

He was silent for a long moment, and began to speak as the headlights hit
the green sign announcing the bridge to Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.
"I didn't decide to come here until we were at the hospital and I saw that
road atlas.  But I've been planning tonight for a long time."

He seemed to hear her mind ask, 'tonight?'

"Ever since you came to see me that morning when Diana died, I've been
planning this.  I didn't know what would happen, but I knew that I had to
be with you on New Year's Eve, no matter what happened.  I knew that I had
to kiss you at midnight and watch the sun rise with you."

The gentle thud of the tires as they moved over the bridge's pavement was
not as loud as the beating of her heart.  She was overcome by a sudden need
to touch him and hold his hand, but couldn't as long as they were driving.
So, at the other side of the bridge, she pulled the car over to the
shoulder of the road.

So this is what it's like to be able to touch him, she realized.  To simply
be able to touch him, hold him, kiss him without worry about how he felt
and what it might look like to everyone else.  As she pulled his face close
to hers and kissed him the same sweet, gentle way he'd done when the clock
struck midnight, she wondered how she'd keep from doing this every moment
of every day in the year 2000.

+++++

The world is in a constant state of upheaval.  People are born, people
die.  The ocean slowly changes the shoreline and trees are cut down to
build houses.  Wars are fought and governments constructed and toppled.
Nobody seems content to stay the same.

Scully wondered if she and Mulder were staying the same or becoming
different.  She could make an argument for either side.  She was the same
woman who had awakened yesterday morning ready to bring down a man who
fashioned himself one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.  Then at midnight,
Mulder kissed her and changed everything.  Feelings which had simmered
beneath the surface for years were suddenly out in the open, expecting to
be handled and improved upon.

But did this mean that they were different now?  They were the same
people.  The fact that feelings had been acted upon didn't mean that they
had fundamentally changed.  It simply meant, she realized, that they could
now add another term to their relationship;  they were now lovers.

She could feel herself changing.

The park was dark.  Oak and cypress trees ringed the edges of the parking
lot and she let her feet shuffle as they walked, kicking the dead leaves
like a child.  They went "hooeeee" around her feet, a sound like a
breathless woman doing lamaze.  She was wearing boots -- expensive ones
she'd bought the same day as that suede jacket she couldn't afford, buying
them because they were soft and pretty and stylish and sure she shouldn't
be able to afford them but she could.  She'd managed her money wisely and
all this change in her appearance the last year or so was because she could
die any day and she just wanted to be beautiful and stylish when it
happened.  Now it seemed like silliness, but she did feel beautiful.  And
so she was here in this darkened park on the first morning of the magic
date 01/01/2000, kicking leaves in expensive boots but wishing they were
dress heels so she could feel the scratch of the leaves against the arch of
her feet.

And so she was here with him.

In the moonlight -- yes, it was real moonlight, not streetlights which we
pretend are natural -- she saw a wooden park bench painted something which
seemed like green in the darkness.  Scully walked around the bench, wanting
it to prop her up so she could look at the sky.  She rocked back on her
feet and leaned, then gasped when the top board of the bench gave way and
she was tumbling and leaning and bouncing, foot to hip to hand, trying to
right herself again.

And Mulder was there with her.

His reflexes were quick.  He grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulled her
close, righting her.  Righting the world.  She lost her balance but it
didn't matter because she was falling into him and that was so much better.

It was like a moment in a movie, a novel, standing here with his arm around
her in the moonlight.  Wanting to kiss him but also wanting to laugh.
Knowing that wasn't "her".  Trying to bury the laugh within her stomach,
held back by her diaphragm but finally just giving up because she wasn't
"her" anymore.  She was someone new and better and there was now a "2" at
the beginning of every year so that made it right, didn't it?

Her thoughts kept tripping over each other and she began to laugh.  Mulder
had brought them to this middle-of-nowhere and he deserved to hear her
laugh.

She looked up at him and couldn't see his face clearly in the darkness, but
she knew it was there.  Perhaps some movie heroine had said it better
before, with more finesse, but she felt like she was up on the silver
screen as she said, "Kiss me like you mean it, Mulder."

So the hero swept the starlet into his arms and kissed her like he meant
it.

It was cold outside but so warm in his mouth.  His lips just weren't
enough.  She needed more.  The kiss at the hospital had been calm and
lovely, but she needed him to show her that it wasn't just
six-seconds-too-long kiss of friendship.  Then he opened his mouth and she
pushed her tongue inside quickly, decisively.  I was right earlier, she
thought as she lightly traced his teeth.  He is my lover.

The kiss was not easily defined as anything other than pedestrian terms
like "incredible", "magical", "beautiful".  They seemed determined to
experience every possible style.  She opened her mouth wide and pushed her
tongue against his in passion.  He broke away and placed light kisses on
the corners of her mouth.  Her hands came up to trace the muscles of his
back as she opened to him once again and felt a tingle move up her body as
the kiss deepened, slow and true.

Scully wished she could see his face clearly.  She knew what it must look
like, but she wanted to see it for herself, to have that proof.

She wanted to see him look at her with love.

But it was too dark, the world around them inky-black as only the hour
before dawn can be.  She stepped up onto the cement base of the bench and
discovered it to be a much better place for her to kiss him, more
comfortable for her neck.  Kissing let her forget things like breathing,
and she finally pulled away from him, needing to see that sky for herself.
The night was cloudy, but God's paintbrush had scattered a few drops of
white paint across a swath of the sky, and the stars became other worlds
where they could go to kiss, to simply be together.  She felt Mulder's
fingertips on her brow, on her cheek, gently pushing away her hair and
tracing the curves of her bones.  His lips were warm, so warm, as they
moved along the side of her neck, tracing her tendons.  Perhaps God's
paintbrush had also painted his lips with heat in this cool New Year's
night.

Scully felt him pull away from her at last, and she wondered how he could
be sated now, how he could find his fill of all this beauty so soon.  But
instead his fingers fell like a waterfall down her arm, running over fabric
until they touched the skin of her hand.  His nails tickled her palm as
they seemed to be tracing her lifeline with the grace of a wizened fortune
teller.  Strange that he could find her lifeline in the midst of all this
darkness.  But he loved her and had seven years' knowledge of her
lifeline.  Maybe it wasn't strange after all.

She felt a bubble of laughter spring in her belly.  Part of it was her
being ticklish, the other part was surprise as he grasped her hand more
firmly and led her away from the bench.  She kept her gaze trained on him,
wanting to look only at him, trusting him to lead her safely to wherever
they were going.  They slowly walked forward, the crunch of winter leaves
giving way to hardened ground and sea grasses which brushed over her legs.
Then she felt the shift of sand beneath her feet and let her ears be
assaulted by the loud crash of waves.  She wondered why she hadn't heard
them before, or why, as she opened her eyes to the glow of the sea before
her, she hadn't seen the moonlight on water.

He is overwhelming my senses, that's why.

"And you overwhelm mine, Scully," he said, his voice carrying over the
waves.  Maybe she'd said it aloud.  Maybe he just knew her that well.

Everything was so bright now.  The sea wasn't blue yet or the sand beige.
It was all monochromatic, waiting for the sunrise to give it color.  The
sun would rise soon -- the first sunrise of a new century.  She could
believe in the magic of the new millennium now, if only for a moment.  This
moment deserved to be given the grandeur of such a label, even if science
proved it otherwise.

Mulder stopped a few feet before the sand became wet with the surf, then
asked her to sit down.  She complied, not caring that the sand would get on
her clothes.  He knelt before her, and she laughed when he lost his balance
and fell back on the sand with a thud.  He was the lucky one, of course, in
his jeans and t-shirt, one arm in the sleeve of his jacket with the other
side resting over his sling.  She felt like she was wearing too many
clothes, but didn't want to shed them to the chill of the air.

He pulled one leg out from where she had crossed them, lotus-style.  She
watched him make a valiant attempt to pull off her boot until he realized
they were laced.  Tugging on one lace, he tried to undo them until he gave
up, not realizing how difficult it would be with the use of only one arm.
So his fingers traced the cords and that motion tickled her too.  She
didn't stifle the laugh this time, remembering her resolution to let him
hear her laugh more in this new year.

The idea of walking barefoot in the water was lovely, but the chill of the
water was not, and she said, "Leave them on.  It's cold."

"So wise, Scully," he replied.

"Not wise, Mulder.  Practical."

The moonlight on the water illuminated his face, and he smiled as he said,
"Of course.  I forgot."

She didn't want to walk with him now, anyway.  She wanted to sit with him
and watch the sun rise and let the tide roll in.  But thoughts of the tide
reminded her that it would soon wash up to where they were sitting, so she
rose to her feet and led him further away from the water, to where the
grasses grew out of loose sand.

Role-reversal was in their nature, and she put her arm around him and let
him lean into her.  His body was larger than hers, but it didn't matter.
She was strong enough for the both of them.  And she learned something new
that early morning:  when they sat together like this, their faces were
perfectly level.  Close enough to kiss without cramping their necks or
arching their backs.

Scully remembered being younger, how some silly New Wave band played on the
tape deck as she sat in her bedroom, sharing her first kisses with a boy
named Craig and worrying the whole time that her parents would find them
and stop it all.  When she was 15, she described kissing as "cool".  She
would be 36 soon, and her years of education still hadn't provided a word
to use to describe kissing Mulder.   So instead of trying to describe it,
she and Mulder spent the half-hour before dawn kissing, speaking quiet
words about nothing and everything, and simply sitting together, holding
each other and watching the sea.

The sky began to bathe itself in the first color of the new year.  The
waves were loud but everything else was so quiet.  She couldn't sense
anyone close to them, but she also couldn’t imagine the rest of the world
not wanting to be here to see this with her and Mulder.  This gift of his
was meant for them alone, and Scully wanted to keep it a secret for as long
as possible.

The beginning of the sunrise was bold and heartening.  She shifted her body
so she could look at him, and realized that she could say the grand It.

"I love you, Mulder."

He had told her before, but this time it meant the world to her to hear him
say, "I love you too."

She looked at him and could finally see him gazing at her with love on his
face.  This was yet another way for the rising of the sun to be so special.

"C'mere," he murmured, and spread his legs for her to sit between them.
Seeing that love on his face meant that she could now look at the sunrise
without looking at him, because she knew what open secrets his face showed
behind her.

It was still cold outside, but his body against her back and his arms
around her were warm.  She knew what they had to talk about now, and she
wondered how she could be dark with the world becoming so light around
them.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Sometimes love isn't enough."

"No, it's not."  His voice also darkened.

"This will change everything, you know."

"Yes it will."  But though his voice was dark, his kiss was light on the
top of her head.   "It's a good change, though, Scully."

"Yes it is, I think."  The conversation felt too simple for the gravity of
its meaning, but the sunrise was beautiful and it was the year 2000 and
perhaps simple words were okay when deep thoughts were being discusses.  He
continued to speak and she wanted to interject until she realized that it
was okay, that she could still speak in response instead of creating the
conversation.  Maybe this was one of the good changes -- not feeling like
she had to interject, to force her words to be out there.

"I've thought about this a lot.  I've known that I've loved you for so
long, and I've been biding my time, waiting for you to see the light, so to
speak.  I may be the dreamer in this partnership, but I have also debated
and second-guessed myself about all this a thousand times."  He breathed
deeply against her back and she chose not to speak just yet.  "I know that
love isn't enough.  I saw that with my parents.  They loved each other, but
their relationship was so flawed that it wasn't enough to keep them
together, even before my sister was abducted.  We learn so much from our
parents, and I learned what it takes to make a marriage work.  You and I
are married, you know."  She caught her breath.  "Not on paper, but what we
have fits all the criteria for a marriage.  Well, everything except the
marriage bed."

She shivered, and murmured, "Soon."

She could feel him smile behind her.  "Maybe today."  Scully wanted to tell
him not to rush things, but the stirrings in her belly didn't feel like
rushing things at all.

And yet it all seemed so fast.  Seven years in the making, yes, but still
so fast.  Was the space of seven hours from first kiss to this conversation
too fast?

What were they waiting for?

"Nothing has to be different," she murmured in a soft voice nearly
overwhelmed by the sound of the surf.  "We don't have to change everything
about our lives right this moment.  Let's just take it one step at a time,
Mulder.  Everything will fall into place.  And if it doesn't, then we will
have enough breathing room to fix it, and make it work."

Scully felt him move behind her and place a kiss on the soft skin where jaw
meets ear.  His voice was so close as he said, "You're the wisest person I
know, Scully."

"I know."  She smiled at the sea.

The sun began to rise above the horizon.  The sea was wild, waves crashing
on the shore and thousands of shades of blue mixing with the spray, but the
sunrise was calm, as if tempering the chaos of the sea.  It seemed to want
to be every color at once, to welcome in the new year with fireworks of its
own.

She leaned back into Mulder's body, feeling his arms circle her and hold
her tightly within him.  The world felt wise this morning, all-knowing and
able to solve all problems by simply letting the sun rise on a new year.
Scully knew problems awaited this new lover-relationship of theirs, but
there was a new date on the calendar, beginning with "2".

It was enough.

+++++

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
     To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the
night.
     To know the pain of too much tenderness.
     To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
     And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
     To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of
loving;
     To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
     To return home at eventide with gratitude;
     And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a
song of praise upon your lips.

          -- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"


I would love to hear from you -- emmalanna@aol.com