Posted October, 1997
By Maybe-Amanda and Not-Johanna
The X-Files

So Simple (1/?)

notjohanna@rocketmail.com

Spoilers:  Fourth Season
Category:  SRAH (how's that for a category?)
Summary:  That would be telling.
Notes:   At the end, cuz it's trendy, like us.
Disclaimer: CC owns it all.  We just wanted to play.  Please
please please do not send cash.  Your love and support are
thanks enough!

Rating:  NC-17,  maybe.

Send us feedback!  Send us lots!!  All feedback will be
answered with outpourings of gratitude and
appreciation!  Flames included.

****************
Later, when she could breathe again,  when she remembered
how and her heartbeat had returned to near-normal and her
eyes could focus in the murky light, she rolled into him
and tucked herself against his sweat-slick chest.

That smell.

That wonderful smell.  She soaked it in,   the scent of Dial and
honest sweat and even a faint trace of the half cup of coffee he'd
choked down the front of his shirt when she'd flat-out
propositioned him in the restaurant.    *Fox mocha
delight* she thought sleepily, and couldn't  bite back the
smallest chuckle.

He didn't move.  She'd clearly worn him out.

One point for her side.

She inhaled deeply once more, and pulled him into her lungs.
It wasn't heady or intoxicating, this *freshly-laid-and-happy-as-
hell about it* man-smell; it wasn't inebriating or exhilarating or
exciting or arousing; it wasn't any of the things books said it
should be.  No.  It was something  simpler, easier, as basic
as blood and bone.


Something she'd been without too long.

The moon, nearly full, washed the room ghostly white, the way
only a winter moon in a cloudless sky could.  She watched,
mesmerized, as the shadow of his pulse beat in the hollow
just below his Adam's apple.  Light, then dark, then light again.
Strong and steady.  As invariable, it seemed, as spring after
winter, and as welcome.

It's been a long, dark, metaphorical winter, she thought, trying
to  rest her arm some where without disturbing him,
and she was good and ready for some metaphorical spring.

She hadn't even realized that she'd missed this.  With the
endless pattern of wake and sleep and meaningless chores that
her life had fallen into, she had forgotten.  Forgotten, and
allowed herself to do so.  Or forced herself to do so.

But it was all coming back to her.  Like a junkie falling off
 the wagon, the power of it hit her full force, overwhelming her
 with its simplicity, dizzying her every sense with its strength.

She was going to need more.

She tried again to make herself comfortable against him.   He
was taller than she, and a great deal taller, in fact, than any
of the other men she'd shared this bed with.  Broader,
too, come to that, and leaner, his frame built of more planes and
angles, more straight lines and taut expanses of firmly-muscled
flesh.   There were rough edges, too, some jagged bits.  But those
were psychic rather than physical:  figurative, not literal.

In the end, he was simple.  Most men were.  It was what
she most liked about them.

Funny, really, how a few minutes--barely an hour, from
stuttering start to noisy conclusion--could change things.  The
tension that had hung between them as they'd gone, fumbling,
from clothed, to naked, to joined, had vanished.  All the fears
of consequences, of complications--everything that had
seemed forbidden and dangerous,  reckless and
wrong, had undergone a mystifying transformation.

Forbidden?  By whom?  Wrong?  Hardly.  Reckless?  Never.

Consequences?   Fuck 'em.

No.  This wouldn't work, either.    Maybe if she rolled over . . .

"Hey,"  his sleep-slurred voice rumbled in his chest and he
pulled her closer. "Where you goin'?"

"My arm," she jerked the shoulder tucked into his chest by way
of demonstration.  "It's falling asleep."

"Uh. . .huhmm,"  he mumbled, but didn't loosen his grip.

She tried to turn again, but he had to outweigh her by eighty
pounds.

"My arm, Fox.  You have to let go."

He blinked suddenly,  startled and trying to rouse himself,
"You leaving?"

What?   "Leaving?  Why would I be leaving?"  She completed
her turn and settled against him, easing her chilled back into
his warm flesh.  Oh, she could get used to this.  "Besides,
you seem to have forgotten:  this is *my* bed."

"Oh." His every muscle suddenly stiffened, and the timbre of
his next words shaded ever so slightly darker.  "Right.  Yeah.
Um. . .do you want me to. . ah. . . go ?"  and he began
disentangling his limbs from hers.

Oh, so that was it.  She asked him to let go and he'd assumed
she wanted to leave.  She mentally shook her head in wonder,
trying to imagine a woman stupid enough to leave that bed.  The
task was beyond her.

Sweet, some how, and sad. Really sad. And it was so
heartbreakingly endearing  that she thought about rolling back
over and waking him properly.   But she was sleepy, too, and all
 this was new again,  and it could wait.

"No," she answered honestly.  "I don't want you to *ah*. . .
go," she echoed his intonation.

She smiled, in the darkness, knowing he couldn't see it, waited
a beat.  "I want you to . . . ah . . . stay."

"Good," he half-sighed and kissed the top of her head where it
fit, as if by design, beneath his chin, and wrapped those
wonderful arms around her, relaxing again.  "Cuz I really . . ."
his hand wandered lazily then, from her belly to her breast,  his
thumb and forefinger  began gently tugging,  ". . . really,
wanna stay."

Oh, yes,  she thought as her eyes slid shut and she sucked in
her lower lip to hold back a moan, she could easily get used to
this again.   "Then we're agreed.   Now go to sleep,  Fox.  I
have to work in the morning."

"Me too." His attention to her breast became more focused,
and she felt him twitch and lengthen and prod  the small of her
back.

"I can't sleep with you doing that."

Somehow, he rolled her over and was on her and in her and . . .
oh God . . . all over her before she could properly register any
of it. "That's the point," he smiled and drove, slowly, deeper.

His expression, backlit by  the spectral moon, was part demon, part
innocent.  And wonderfully, terribly, himself.

How could she deny him?   Or herself?

"If I'm miserable at work. . .oh. . . tomorrow and . . . ah  . . .my
boss gives me grief,  I'm gonna . . . oh. . . I'm gonna send him
to you."

"I'm not scared of him," he assured her. "I'll ... a ...explain.
He'll . . .oh god . . . he'll understand."

They were silent then, except for her occasional gasp or his
occasional moan, and the slick, full sound of their bodies
gliding together and easing apart again and again and again.

******

"I mean it,"  he said after, when she lay happily exhausted in
the crook of his arm, her head against his chest. "I really want
to stay this time."

She knew.  She knew he wanted  a promise
that this time, some how,  some way,  it would work.

A promise that she'd make it work.

Wrapped in his arms in the dark it would have been such an
easy promise to make, such an easy lie to tell.  Pass it off as
pillow talk, nothing more.   Everyone knew lies told in the dark
weren't really lies.

"I know, Fox," she closed her eyes, tried to think of something
other than how good this felt, how right it seemed. "I know you do.
Now go to sleep."

"Yes ma'am."  He pulled her closer and almost instantly obeyed.

*******

When she woke,  it was still dark.  She lay there, waiting for the
first
ray of sun to slip through the curtained window and stretch across the
stucco ceiling, bringing this night to an end.   She listened as he
breathed
quietly beside her,  and envied how easily he slept.

*Men*, she thought.   Feed them and take care of their baser
desires, and they had no worries.

Take care of those baser desires twice in two hours, and *you*
had no worries.

The post-coital euphoria was starting to wear off,  she sadly
realized.
Oh, she was felt no less for him, cared no less, wanted him no
less.   But all those ghosts banished a few hours before  were
returning to haunt her.

She prided herself on being decisive, on cutting  to the
chase and making the hard choices.  On doing what was right,
and having no regrets.

But  in this case,  as with all things Fox Mulder, nothing was
that easy.  How could she have thought they would be?

"This is nuts," her better judgment chimed in without waiting to be
asked.  "This is crazy and wrong and stupid and dangerous and
unseemly and inappropriate and improper and nonsensical and
HAVE YOU EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOING
TO TELL YOUR FAMILY?"

Great.  Leave it to her to get a busy-body know-it-all better judgment.

Yes.  Her family.  She would have to tell them eventually, because,
um, because. . .

Wait.  Maybe she was putting the cart about six miles ahead of the
horse. Maybe there was, in truth, nothing to tell.  Maybe, come the
light of
day, she'd change her mind, realize that, as nice as it was to have
her
bed filled again, it wasn't worth the price.

Or maybe--doubt rose like gall in her throat--maybe he would?

The sprawling mass of good looks and charm next to her
stirred, rolled to his left.  He looked so untroubled.  At peace.
And yet,  she knew, he had as much to lose as she, maybe more.

She looked at the hair falling in his eyes, and it hurt not to
allow herself to brush it back.

How could  he be as certain of this - of them - as he seemed?

He turned again and smiled in his sleep.

She could not help but smile back.

She would have to tell them eventually because, this time, she
could not give him up.  Not for their outrage, not for her better
judgment, not for any reason at all.

Ah, well.  There was perhaps an hour left of darkness, and a warm man
in he bed.  Tomorrow  was soon enough to worry.

She snuggled up against his back, breathing in the scent of him -
of them - again, and  fell asleep, dreaming fondly of showers.

*****************************

Mulder was that first to admit that, in his time, he had done
some stupid things. Getting involved with Phoebe had been one
of them.  Sex with the vampire-lady had certainly been another.
Not killing that rat bastard Krycek when he'd had the chance
had been about six of them.

Leaving her the first time had been superlatively stupid.  He
would guess that counted for about, oh, a zillion stupid things,
right there.

He squeezed a generous dollop of shampoo into his hand,
began massaging it into his scalp.  His shoulders ached.  Oh
Christ.  His shoulders were killing him.  And he was feeling
it in the knees, too.  When, exactly,  had he stopped being young?

He couldn't imagine which category of stupidity falling
in love with her was in.  He didn't want to think about it.

The conditioner smelled strongly of peaches,  and he wondered
as he worked it into his hair who had decided that all the American
consumer really wanted was to smell like a fruit salad.

It didn't help that, right now, falling in love with this woman
seemed like the most brilliant thing he'd ever done.  On the contrary,

it only proved it was beyond stupid.   Well, maybe not *proved*, but
strongly suggested.   He soaped his chest, thought about the
paperwork sitting on his desk and tried not to wonder how stupid
he'd been to come crawling back.

He'd like to say he hadn't seen it coming, that he'd been taken
by surprise at her renewed interest.  And it was true inasmuch
as he'd never dared hope for it.  He'd almost resigned himself to
thinking of her as the one it was better to have loved, and lost,
than never to have loved at all.  No big.  He could
handle it.

So his pulse had raced when she walked into view?  So he all
but broke into a cold sweat?  So his mouth got so dry remembering
how wet and warm her mouth was that he damned near choked
on anything he tried to say?

So?  To the casual observer, it just looked like Mulder being
an idiot again.  And that was  common enough that hardly any
one took notice any more.

Scully sure hadn't.

He'd just made a decision to  avoid being alone with her.

And he'd failed miserably.

"Fox?" the bathroom door whooshed open.  "You almost
done?"

"Uh huh," he answered.  "Unless you wanna join me, in which
case there's this spot I can't quite reach in the middle of  my
back. . . "

"I'd love to," he could hear the smile in her voice, "but I've got
breakfast on the stove. . ."

The scent of bacon hit him then.  This was too good--sex on
clean sheets, a hot shower, and a home cooked meal to top it
off.  He wondered vaguely if he had died and gone to heaven.

"I'll be right out," he assured her.  He waited for the click of
the closing door, but it didn't come.  Causally, he stuck his
head out from behind the shower curtain as if looking for an
absent wash cloth or bar of soap.  Through thick clouds of
steam, he saw her leaning against the door jamb, arms folded,
her expression unreadable.

He stopped himself from thinking about what she wasn't
wearing under the terry bathrobe.

"Problem, Fox?"

He frowned mentally.  Well, at least she didn't beat around
the bush.  There was something to be said for a direct woman.

Even one who was about to gut you.

"No.  No problem."  He turned off the water with deliberate ease,
pulled back the curtain and emerged.  He reached for the towel he'd
placed on the counter and began drying himself.  He started
with his feet, so he could look down at them or at the floor or
anywhere other than into those steely blue eyes. "Why do you
ask?"

She shifted slightly, and he knew, without seeing, without
having to see, that the tiniest frown wrinkled her brow.  He
hoped her words wouldn't kill him.  "You've been in here a
long time."

A reprieve from the governor, he thought, relieved.  He finished
toweling one leg and then began the other.  He smiled at the floor
tiles,
stood, wrapped the towel loosely around his hips.

"No problem, " he smiled again. "Absolutely not.  I just ache."

She looked puzzled. "Ache?"

"Yes, 'ache',"  he  leaned against the counter, taking a second
towel to dry his hair.  His extended his long legs before him,
folded his arms loosely, echoing her stance. "I'm hearing from some
muscles I don't get to use all that much.  You got anything like
 a razor around here?"

"Hmm.  We'll have to fix that," she replied to the first, "and in
the top drawer, some disposables I think,"  to the second.  He
tried to ignore her scrutiny as she watched him shave.

"You like waffles?"

"Waffles?"

"Doughy things with little square depressions.  Best
experienced dripping with maple syrup and butter.
You've heard of them? "

He squirmed a little, uncomfortable.  "You don't have to . . ."

"Yes I do," she  waved a dismissive hand.  "It's the curse of my
generation.  We feel this overwhelming urge to feed the men
we seduce."

Mulder frowned at his reflection.  "Really?  I don't remember
Anne Bancroft fixing Dustin Hoffman any waffles."

"Yeah," she replied, "and I don't remember Dustin Hoffman
complaining of aching muscles, either."

"You're a cruel woman, Margaret."

"Poor you, " she replied with no sympathy at all. She looked him up
and down as he wiped away what soap the razor hadn't removed
from his face.  Her lips pursed and she shook her head disapprovingly.


"What?"

"Dana must be nuts,"  she told honestly.  "I'll see you downstairs
 in five minutes," and closed the door behind her.

****************

Here Endeth the First Part

End Notes:  Four weeks ago, when we started this, it was an original
idea.  Now, well, it's just a new-ish one.