Title: In Medias Res (1/1)
Author: Elanor G
Email: ElanorG@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.geocities.com/ElanorG/
Distribution: Wherever you wish! Please send me an
e-mail, just so I know.
Spoilers: Requiem
Rating: PG-13
Classification: mid-ep (?) vignette
Keywords: MSR, Angst

Disclaimer: The X-Files is the property of Chris
Carter, Fox, et al. I'm writing this simply to amuse
myself - and a few others, I hope.

Summary: In the middle of things.


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They both lay silent for some time, Mulder's words
hanging in the air. 

He was wrapped around her and could feel her shivering
subside and her breathing gradually slow. Unwilling to
move and disturb her, he closed his eyes. He tried to
ignore his churning thoughts and instead concentrated
on the lulling rhythms of Scully's body. Soon he began
to drift.

Scully stirred slightly in his arms. The change in her
rhythm brought him back to wakefulness. "What time is
it?" she whispered. "I ought to go back." She moved
again.

He tightened his hold on her in response. "No, Scully.
Stay. I'll get your stuff from your cabin later if you
need it."

He had opened the door earlier to find Scully
shivering and miserable, embarrassed and absurdly
apologetic because she needed him. And he stood there
paralyzed for a moment, surprised and embarrassed to
find himself needed. Even now, even after everything,
the transition between their normal selves and these
new, private selves was awkward. 

"Someone could notice," Scully said.

"Do you really care?"

"Not anymore," she admitted and relaxed into Mulder's
embrace. She cleared her throat. "Um, Mulder, I think
we've established that you can be *under* the covers
with me."

Mulder smiled into her hair. "I wouldn't want my
chivalrous motives to be misconstrued."

"Misconstrued," muttered Scully. The sense of sadness
that covered them before seemed to lift slightly.
"Well. If I'm going to stay here, you better get under
the covers too."

"Allow me to slip into something more comfortable
then," said Mulder, gently disentangling himself. He
stood, stretched, shed his jeans, and crawled under
the blankets in t-shirt and boxers to rejoin her. She
was shivering again. As he curled around her warm
body, Mulder wondered how she could produce so much
heat and still feel so cold. "Better?"

"Yeah."

They were silent again and relaxed, but sleep had left
them for now. Mulder could feel the thoughtful frown
forming on her face, even though he couldn't see it.
"Mulder," she said, her voice serious.

"Hmm?"

Scully turned in his arms until she was facing him,
lying on her side. Her free arm rested on his waist.
Her face was troubled, her eyes focused somewhere
around his chin. "Last summer, when you were...sick,
do you think...do you still believe that you could
hear people's thoughts?" She lifted her eyes to his,
searching his face.

The timing of her question was surprising, if not the
content. "Yes. I do."

"What was it like?" she asked. There was something
urgent in her questioning eyes. 

Ever since his exhausting recovery, Mulder had tried
not to think about it, much less talk about it, and
until now Scully reluctant to ask. He had just wanted
to push the experience away. Now, in this warm,
private, safe place, he felt able to think back. "It
was like being crushed, Scully," he said, his voice
even lower. "Thousands of voices were smothering me
and I couldn't stop them. And I had to scream to make
sure I still had my own voice. And afterwards, it felt
like the day after you go to a loud concert and your
ears are still ringing." He shook his head a little.
"But I don't know if that's the best analogy. I think
of them as voices, but there was no language, not
really."

"So you could discern the individual thoughts, but not
their content."

He hesitated. "For the most part. I couldn't
concentrate on one person for any length of time, I
tried but there was just too much. Some people
were...stronger, or clearer, and I got bigger doses of
them."

She looked at him expectantly. How could he put it
into words? Haltingly, he tried to share the
impressions that he remembered: Krycek's thoughts
swimming restlessly like a shark, flat and predatory.
Kritschgau, desperate, driven by the image of a young
face that Mulder later realized must have been his
son. Skinner was an dark angry presence, uneasily
contained.

By contrast, Mulder could barely sense his own
mother's thoughts - elusive, faint, not much more than
a thin disquiet stream of worry. And the gray man who
leaned over him...he must have been part of that
consuming dream, because Mulder could sense nothing.

His mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "I got the
clearest picture from Diana, probably because she was
deliberately trying to open herself up to me. It
was...bad." And it had been bad to see the way Diana
pictured herself, the many layers of self-
justification and self-delusion.

It was worse to see the madness hidden beneath her
crisp exterior.

Diana had lied for so long, to herself and to
everyone, that she had a only a slippery grip on
reality. He almost didn't tell Scully the worst part.
He almost didn't tell her that he had blamed himself
for Diana becoming who she was. It all stemmed from
the mistake he and Diana made together, the wound that
he thought was healed and ignored but had apparently
been festering all that time. "She was sick, Scully.
It was hard to see that, because I felt responsible."

Scully nodded very slightly, with a tight expression
that probably meant that she regretted bringing up the
subject at all. Mulder reached up to smooth hair from
her face. "And there was you," he said quietly. "And I
tried so hard to search for you. Your thoughts seemed
like relief to me, the few times I could sense them."
Scully was cool and ordered and lit underneath by
something fierce and warm. And something huge in her
center anchored her, tinged with a bewildering range
of emotions.

Not until his recovery did Mulder realize that was her
image of him. It amazed and terrified him to think
that her need for him might be as great as his for
her. Embarrassed that he had intruded on her privacy,
even if it was unwillingly. Terrified too that he
would make this into another mistake.

Scully did not say anything for a moment, but lowered
her eyes and tightened her hold on him. Worry and fear
briefly wrinkled her forehead. "I don't understand but
I believe," she said. "Whatever it was, it changed
*you*. It chose *you*. There was some part of you open
to it. And I don't think it can simply be lifted out."

You mean excised, Mulder thought. He had wondered much
the same thing, and he did not like any of the
answers. "Scully, I really think I'd prefer X-Ray
Vision over the Mind Reading thing," he said, in a
sudden, desperate attempt to lighten the tone.

"Sometimes I wish I could have experienced it," Scully
said in a rough whisper. "Sometimes I think it would
be worth it if I could see your mind, just for a
little bit. Just enough to experience some of your
thoughts." Her eyes are bright.

"Oh no, Scully. It hurt too much. Believe me, you
don't want it." But the idea of opening himself up to
her like that moved him nonetheless. For a second he
could imagine it. What would she see? Do you really
want to know, Scully? It can't make up for everything
you've lost, but here's the rest of me. There's not
much left here any more but it's all for you.

But that couldn't happen, that couldn't ever happen.
All he could do was pull her face up to his, his thumb
near the corner of her lips, and kiss her tentatively,
and her mouth welcomed him despite her weariness. All
he could do was roll her over gently, sliding a hand
under her shirt to touch her skin. All he could do,
all he could ever do, was give himself to her in this
simple animal way, the only way their bodies would
allow.

And together hold off the approaching darkness for a
little while longer. 


End


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I wrote this conversation a while ago, but it
didn't seem to really fit in anything else I was
writing. Then I saw the rerun of Requiem...

Thanks for reading - let me know what you think 
about this little piece of mush.

EG
ElanorG@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/elanorg/