Title: Before I Sleep (1/3)
Author:  Kristin Mackenzie
Category:  SRA
Keywords:  Angst.  Sex.  Did I mention angst?
Rating:  NC-17
Spoilers:  Assumes knowledge of Darkness Falls and of the cancer arc.

Disclaimer:  Mulder, Scully and the big bad Alien Bounty-Hunter don't belong
to me.	Especially the Bounty-Hunter.

Summary:  Ignorance was bliss; knowledge can be deadly.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
                                       -Robert Frost
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The beat up four-wheel drive truck lumbered persistently up the barely
discernible road.  Scully kept control of the steering wheel with a white-
knuckled grip.  Darkness was settling fast, and she didn't relish being caught
in the dark in this particular forest.

A nice trip to the woods.  Frohike had suggested it to her as a means of
relaxation when she went to the Gunmen with her concerns about Mulder's most
recent disappearance.

A message, in code based on shared memory and experience.

Scully shuddered slightly at the thought of their last experience among these
trees, years ago.  Carnivorous, glowing, nocturnal insects, swarming and
inescapable.

The biggest threat now seemed to be the heavy, wet snow that clogged the road
and held the tree branches above her immobile.  She pressed the gas pedal down
harder, and the truck growled in response.

Scully reached the tiny cabin just as the sun was setting completely behind
the trees.  The winter twilight was both cold and damp, and her heart
squeezed tight in fear that Mulder was gone, even dead, and she would be
alone up here, in the dark, without anything but a flashlight and some basic
supplies.

As she slid out of the truck's high front seat, she sensed rather than saw a
slight movement near the doorway of the cabin.  Her hand went automatically to
the gun in her hip holster.  Blinking, she could make out the outline of a
man.  He stepped forward slightly, and she could see that he was dressed
entirely in black so that he seemed only a part of the shadows.

She slammed the truck door shut and took two long strides, and then she was
in his arms, being held so tightly that she could feel her ribs creak.	She
brought her hands up to touch his hair and the lines of his face; to make
sure that he was here and real.  "Mulder," she finally said, on a sigh, and
laid her head against his chest to listen to his heart beating solidly; proof
that he was alive.

* * * * *

Mulder had been waiting twenty-four hours in the damned cabin.  He'd sent the
message to Frohike on an anonymous account, heavily encrypted, yesterday
morning.  He'd expected Scully this afternoon at the earliest, and had been
skulking around the cabin, keeping out of sight, watching and listening, since
about two o'clock.

When he finally heard the unmistakable sound of a truck laboring up the
narrow road, his heart had clenched with hope and fear.  Either it was
Scully, or else They had found him sooner than expected, and his time was up.

He hung back in the shadows, eyes straining for some clue.  As the truck
rounded the last bend and came up into the clearing, he could see a flash of
bright red in the drivers' seat and sent a silent prayer of thanks to a God in
whom he didn't believe.

Scully, thank you, God, for letting me see Scully one more time.

As she opened the truck's door, he stepped forward a little.  She was
startled; her blue eyes fixed on him with that probing scientist's gaze. 
Then recognition, and joy and fear and uncertainty all at once, and then she
launched herself at him, and he caught her, pulling her fiercely against his
chest.	He breathed in the sweet scent of her hair, and turned his cheek to
feel the full caress of her hand as she reached up to touch his face.

"Mulder," he heard her whisper, and sorrow whipped up a sudden icestorm in his
gut as he remembered what he must tell her.

* * * * *

Scully followed Mulder into the tiny cabin, and she could see that he had a
few lights inside, although they were dim enough not to be seen through the
rough curtains.  He turned back to her and grinned.  "No green bugs last
night, but I kept all the lights on just in case."  She smiled shakily in
return.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, indicating a bag of Cheetos on the table.

She smiled and shook her head.  "I'm fine, Mulder."  They were suddenly
awkward, silly as it was, Scully thought.  Silly to be embarrassed by a hug
when the whole world was collapsing around them.

Mulder helped her out of her jacket and then turned her back to face him.  He
reached out tentatively to put one hand on her shoulder, and withdrew it in
uncertainty.  Another moment, another breath, and the hand came up, pausing
only a moment before reaching out to stroke the curve of her cheek and jaw.
She sighed, and closed her eyes, and felt the fingers of his other hand
entwine with her own fingers.

Gently, he drew her back to him, until her face was cradled in the hollow of
his chest.  The hand that had cupped her cheek came up to stroke her hair. 
She felt the warmth of his breath at her hairline, and then the firm pressure
of his lips in the same place, and she relaxed a little, leaning into him.

"Scully," he said, with a voice like cashmere. "I found what I was looking
for.  Communiqués, manifests, plans.  It's all been laid out."	Still his
voice was warm and soft and wonderfully hypnotic.  "But I wasn't careful
enough, and they know that I -- that I can be dangerous to them now.  They
want me dead. They've been tracking me."

Scully pulled slowly back, and looked at him with eyes wide with dawning
horror.  "How long?"

"It usually takes them about forty-eight hours to find me.  I only had to
fight them once; the other times, I've made sure to be long gone when they
arrive." Scully made a small sound of distress, but Mulder put one finger
over her lips and shook his head slightly.  "They can track a person by
searching for a unique bio-electric signal.  It's a slow process, but a
certain one.  If I stay too long in any one place, the bounty hunters will
eventually show up."

Mulder saw tears beginning in Scully's eyes, and his own welled up.  "I'm
tired, Scully," he said softly.  "I've been running for so long, and they will
always come for me."  He gripped her shoulders tightly, bracing them both for
the next part.  "Scully, I'm a dead man."

She jerked away.  "No," she insisted, her voice shrill and unsteady.  "You
can't just give up.  You don't have the *right* to give up.  No."  Mulder
tried to catch her hands, to hold her, but she pulled away again and began
pacing. "You are the only one that can stop them," she said in her best
Scully-logical voice.  "You've gathered the manifests and the communiqués;
you know their plans.  You must stay alive."

"Not only me," he said softly.	"I have no right to do this, Scully, but I'm
asking you to take the data I've collected.  They won't necessarily look to
you as an adversary if you're working alone, and in any case, you're a test
subject.  They want you alive."  He took a few steps toward her and tried
futilely to get her to look at him.  "It's dangerous, of course.  But I can't
finish what we've started -- they'll make sure of that -- so you're the only
one who can, now."

Scully opened and shut her mouth several times, unable to decide what to say
next.  Finally she just looked at him, and Mulder thought irrationally that
she seemed to have aged ten years in front of him.  He recognized the look;
he'd seen it on his own face often enough over the years.  It was despair.

"So basically you've brought me up here to tell me that you've decided to
check out of the game, and that I have to go it alone from now on.  To pass
the torch, or whatever."  Her voice scaled up as she spoke, becoming brittle
and edgy.

Mulder's jaw tightened, clenching hard.  "What would you have me do?" he
asked.  "You've always been my rock, Scully, my one link to reason and
practicality.  Tell me how I can run from these people and accomplish anything
but the running.  They will always come for me, Scully.  They'd only let me
live before because I didn't have enough information to harm them.  Now I do,
and they will kill me.  It's only a matter of time.  Tell me how I can fight
this."

"Mulder . . ." Scully felt utter cold finality wedge itself into her chest.
This was never supposed to happen; she was not supposed to do this without
him.  Dizzy with unreality, she sank into a chair.  "I'll stay," she heard
herself say as if from a great distance.  "I'll stay with you until they come,
and go with you . . ."

"No." Mulder spoke with quiet intensity.  "You can't do that.  I won't let
you.  You have to be long gone before they ever get here.  You *must* be.  You
need to find a way to fight them, to stop further colonization."

"Skinner can do that.  Chances are good they'll come for me after they . . .
after you, anyway."  Scully drew her chin up and struggled to compose her
face, but her lower lip trembled just slightly.  "Guilt by association, and
all."

Mulder had crossed the room in two giant strides and had her out of the chair
and into his arms again almost before she finished speaking.  "I'm sorry," he
murmured into the warmth of her hair.  It was inadequate, but there was
nothing else to say.

"This journey was always a choice," she said, almost inaudibly.  "And even
with everything we've lost along the way, Mulder, we've won.  You found the
antidote and the colonization plan.  They can be stopped.  Our work is done."

Mulder felt the warmth of her small body against his, and pulled her even
closer, pressing his lips against the tiny hairs at her temple.  "Not quite,
Scully.  Please see this through for me," he whispered.

A long shudder went through her, and she made a small noise like a sob, but
he felt her nod against his chest.  Her hands came up around his neck and she
held on tight.	"Where's the data?" she asked dully.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"What do you think it will be like?" Mulder asked her sometime later.  "Dying,
I mean."

Scully was silent.  "I thought about it a lot, with the cancer," she finally
said.  "Or actually, tried to avoid thinking about it.  But reality is pretty
hard to escape at three o'clock in the morning, you know?"

Mulder tightened his arms around her.  They had collapsed, exhausted, on one
of the cabin's tiny beds, and the knowledge of impending separation lay
heavily over them.

"I hoped mostly that there was truly something -- anything -- beyond this
life.  It was the thought of just going into a void, just ceasing to be, that
scared me most of all," she said softly.

"After having *lived*," Mulder added, understanding.

"Exactly.  Whatever else this has been, Mulder, it's never been boring," she
said with a shaky laugh, feeling him squeeze her again, leaning into the hand
that came up to brush a few stray strands of hair away from her face.
Remembering all the times they had lain just so, barricading each other
against a dangerous world.

Mulder's hand had roamed further down, to the curve of her breast.  She
shifted restlessly in his arms, turning so that they lay forehead to
forehead.  His breath was cool on her cheek as his lips brushed the corner of
her mouth, barely touching her.

Scully turned her head just a little so that she could taste him.  She heard
the sharp intake of his breath as the tip of her tongue touched his lips --
felt his hips arch involuntarily against her -- and she leaned in, feeling his
mouth open under hers.  The kiss was gossamer, almost nothing, just the
softness of lips and the barest tips of tongues.

Neither deepened it.  They moved slowly against one another, hands moving
languorously over familiar curves and planes.  Breathless, wondering, like the
first time -- but with the intimate knowledge of souls already mingled and
entwined for a thousand lifetimes.

Mulder pulled suddenly away, gasping.  "You have to leave at dawn, Scully.
Please."

"Hours," she murmured against his neck, refusing to be impeded.  "Hours
away." Her tongue flicked against the strong column of his throat, and he
groaned. Deft fingers worked the buttons of his shirt, finally coming to rest
and tangle in the curly hair on his chest.

Scully felt a sudden shudder of pleasure as the tips of Mulder's fingers
found the sensitive skin at her waist and teased it, moving up to dance along
her ribcage.  She had always loved the way his hands caressed her, even in
the days when the caress was never more than a gentle pressure at the small
of her back.  His lips found the very sensitive spot just below her jaw and
she arched against him, clinging, as one hand came up to cup her breast,
fingers toying with the nipple until it tightened into a hard nub under the
fabric of her bra.

She fought the sense of urgency that rose up between them, forcing her hands
to move incredibly slowly across Mulder's shoulders, pushing his open shirt
away from them.  She ran her fingers across the smooth expanse of his back,
committing the exact texture of skin and the solid heat of muscle to memory.
Pressing her face into the fuzzy warmth of his chest, she let her hands slide
further down, to the waistband of his jeans.

Mulder caught her hands just there, stilling them, and then raised her arms
very gently over her head so that he could pull her sweater away.  Her bra was
sprung open and tossed away, and they pressed tightly together again,
memorizing the comforting animal-pleasure of skin against skin.  His head
lowered against her shoulder, his teeth nipping lightly at the freckled skin
there, and Scully once again went for his jeans, needing to feel all of him
against her.

When his pants and her own were discarded, along with underwear and socks,
she pushed him over and stretched out on top of his length, shifting to
cradle his erection in the crease of her hip, watching his expression shift
from almost- pain to pleasure.	He brought one hand up to cup her cheek, and
then pulled her head down to his, kissing her with exquisite tenderness.

It was that kiss that brought sorrow back to the fore, and when they let go,
lingering just a little, the anguish in Mulder's eyes brought tears to her
own. His hand shook as he brushed the tears away.  "Don't," he said.  "Not
yet."

Scully nodded, swallowing hard.  His hands smoothed down along her back,
coming to cup the curves of her ass, and he pressed himself harder against
her.  She forced herself to concentrate on the feeling of him there, beneath
her, but in a sudden movement he had rolled them so that he was on top,
obliterating any sensation, any thought that was not him.  He kissed her lips
once, and then moved lower, his lips trailing along her collarbone to her
breast.

He was reverent and agonizingly slow, his movements that of a man intent on
conquest, not of a longtime lover going through the motions, however beloved,
of a well-known dance.  Scully felt a hot flush creep up her cheeks as she
remembered their first time, long ago, and the heady skittering breathlessness
engendered in her that night by a younger Mulder focused on seduction.

His tongue found one of her nipples, and worked it mercilessly, creating an
unstoppable flood of arousal that pooled between her legs.  His hand was busy
elsewhere, sliding down to cup the mound of her sex, squeezing but not
invading.  Scully found herself powerless to do much but lay there and
whimper, but his turn would come.

He dipped his middle finger inside her, just an inch or so, avoiding any
direct contact with her clit, and then slid it out again, slowly.  In again,
still only an inch, and out, leaving her breathless with want.	His tongue
renewed its energies at her breast as he set up a slow, shallow rhythm below,
and Scully writhed as her senses were assaulted and overwhelmed from two
directions.

She lost all sense of time.  Only Mulder's hands and mouth existed, and her
reality became focused on them.  She pushed and bucked against him, trying to
increase pressure and intensity, but he would not be drawn in, and she was
lost, powerless.  When he seemed to think that she was suitably incoherent,
his mouth trailed away from her breast, leaving a wet path across her ribs
and belly, pausing briefly at her navel.

Mulder shifted his body lower, taking his hand momentarily from between her
legs.  He spread her thighs apart, and used his fingers to open her to him,
and then stopped.

Scully could feel the heat of his breath against the part of her that wailed
for his touch.  Her hips bucked involuntarily as her arousal became painful.

The first flick of his tongue against her was so brief that she thought she
might have dreamed it.  The second was firmer, and sent an electric jolt
through her entire body.  Then he leaned in and began licking her, slowly, as
if she was coated in honey and he didn't want to miss a bit of it.  Her
overwrought nerve endings screamed; it was too much, and she tried to pull
away, but he held her firmly, forcing her to feel every movement of his agile
tongue.

She was dripping, drenched, and two of Mulder's fingers slid easily inside
her.  He did not invade her all the way, but pressed the two fingers firmly
upward, massaging her inside at the spot certain to drive her wild, even as he
continued licking and nibbling at her clit.

Scully grunted, giving herself up to the rhythm he set, letting the waves of
his attention wash over her.  The orgasm rose up suddenly, unexpected and
sharp, startling a harsh cry out of her.  She lay, gasping, feeling the
aftershocks rippling along the length of Mulder's fingers.  His breathing was
as ragged as her own.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Mulder waited, tense with his own undiminished arousal, for Scully to float
back to earth.  He had stretched himself out alongside her, and lay stroking
damp tendrils of hair back from her forehead, pausing occasionally to kiss her
flushed cheeks.

He felt her hand move before he saw it, creeping across his abdomen to where
his cock stood up, waiting for her.  Her small fingers curled around the
shaft, and he let out a long hiss, pressing his hips into the bed.

His mind groped, once again, for some way out of the inevitability before
him. Resignation was not part of his natural makeup, and the necessity of
consigning himself to unknown death and any separation from the woman now
curled against him wedged in his gut like an ice pick.	He'd spent the past
three months trying to think of some way to elude his hunters permanently. 
There was no path that he could see, and so, with a finality born of
desperation, he had called her here to say goodbye.  He was too selfish to
regret it.

She was watching him, her blue eyes wary and sad.  "Don't," she whispered,
echoing his earlier words.  "Not yet."

He nodded shortly, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

Scully's hand descended again, cupping his balls, tickling, distracting.  She
was moving lower, trailing kisses, meaning to take him into her mouth, but he
stopped her.  "Please," he said simply.  "Just inside you.  One more time,
inside you.  Please."

Her head bowed, her hair falling across her face, she moved to comply.  She
straddled him, stroking her wet center against his hardness, and then, with a
minute tilt of her hips, took him inside.

Mulder groaned; he couldn't help it.  She was moving against him, so slowly,
taking in every inch of him.  He forced himself to open his eyes.  She was so
beautiful, hovering above him, hair mussed and skin flushed.  Her eyes were
heavy, half-closed, and she was chewing on her lower lip.  He watched as her
breasts bobbed gently with her movements, and brought his hands up to cradle
their smooth weight.

In one fluid movement, he reversed their positions, and Scully was gazing up
at him, wide eyes glazed with resurgent pleasure.  He bent to kiss her again,
deep and insistent, and at the same time pushed his cock so far inside her
that she flinched just a little.

"Sorry," he gasped.

She arched her hips against him in answer, and he pulled almost out, pausing
just a second before thrusting again, just as deeply as before.  She moaned,
letting the pain turn to pleasure, he realized, and wanting to keep the
feeling of him inside her through whatever means necessary.

He was quickly moving past the point of gentle.  Scully's movements below him
were frenzied and irregular, her mouth open in a loose 'o' and her eyes
unfocused.  Mulder's jaw clenched as he pushed into her again and again,
feeling the long red rise build inside him, focusing on the feeling.  Beyond
himself, he clenched her hips in his hands and drove into her wet depths, two
dozen sharp strokes and he was coming, coming, feeling her spasm around him,
her cries filling his ears.

They collapsed in a sweaty tangle of limbs, panting, trying desperately to
hold on to this moment, this reality, not letting the other take over just
yet.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

She came back to herself slowly, heavy with the knowledge of what must come.
Mulder was asleep, or at least very still, beside her.  I can't, she thought
suddenly.  I cannot.

Promises to keep.

I promised him that I would see this thing through, but I can't do it.	I
can't physically walk away from here, leave him to face his executioners
alone.	I don't have the strength.

The spectre of a lifetime without Mulder, however short, stretched before her
like a thousand dreary miles of highway to be traversed.  Death stood,
welcoming and real, at the end of the journey.

Miles to go before I sleep.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Mulder woke just as the first crystal shards of dawn cut through the trees
outside.  The woods seemed preternaturally quiet, and he was instantly on
guard, listening.

Then he heard it.

The far-away rumble of a vehicle, coming closer every second.

"Scully!" he said frantically.  "Wake up.  Get up, Scully, they're coming, you
have to go."

She jerked out of his arms, wild-eyed.  "Now?  Already?"

"I can hear them," he insisted.  "Scully, please . . ."

"Mulder, I can't . . . I can't take the truck down the road, they'll see me,
and I can't anyway . . ." her eyes filled with tears that finally spilled
over, not to be stopped.

He took her roughly by the shoulders.  "You'll have to go on foot.  Hide.
Wait.  You can come back for the truck, after . . ."

"No!  Dammit, no, I will not do this!" she cried.  "Mulder, you can't ask this
of me."

"You will," he told her, picking up her clothes and tossing them at her.  "Put
them on."

She did so, sobbing, while he collected her coat and bag, making sure the
digital tape he'd given her was stowed safely inside.  Eventually she stood
before him, ready but unmoving.

Mulder put his arms around her, hugging her fiercely, and bent to kiss her
hard.  "Scully, please.  Our work -- our lives, our deaths -- will have been
meaningless, unless you see to it that this information is put to use.	You
can do this, Scully.  You have strength that astounds me sometimes."  His
voice broke off, and he tilted her face up to his.  "You are the *only* one
who can do this."

She nodded, tears still streaming.

"Scully," he said gently, "I have faith that we will see each other again. 
We will."  He bent and kissed her once more, the rumble of the truck coming
up the road filling his ears.  "I love you," he said against her lips.

She lifted shattered eyes to his face, searching, memorizing, and she could
only nod back at him, biting her lip.

The truck was closer; they could hear the snap of small branches and the
crunch of snow as it neared.  "Go, Scully," Mulder hissed.  "Go!"  He pushed
her toward the back door of the cabin, pausing only to open it, and then
pushing her into the cold outside world.

She ran, stumbling, not looking back, into the dense forest.  Ran until her
side ached and she was gasping for breath, until she could hear nothing behind
her but the simple forest sounds: birds, and the rustling of the trees.  And
then, sobbing, she collapsed into the snow.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

End.

Feedback greatly appreciated at krismackenzie@my-dejanews.com