Title: Rue for You Author: Ariadne Rating: NC-17 Classification: Sc/Sk, angst Spoilers: Anasazi/Blessing Way/Paper Clip Summary: Nothing comforts like skin. Disclaimer: The X Files is the sole intellectual property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and 20th Century Fox. No copyright infringement is intended or should be inferred. This story is for entertainment purposes only. To Kim - Happy Birthday 1999! This story is an unauthorized but loving companion piece to her gorgeous "Rosemary for Remembrance." *** Rue for You *** There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb o' grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. -Ophelia, "Hamlet" *** Nothing could ever be as depressing as a funeral in the rain. Scully toed off her black pumps, feeling cold splotches of mud soaking through her stockings like the worms that feed off of the dead. She shuddered at the mental image: Melissa's body, already divested of corneas and heart and kidneys, artificially colored at the high cheekbones by a gum-snapping mortician in order to give her mother comfort, was growing lax and liquid in the cold ground. The sleek, tall body of which she had been rightly vain had been sent into the clammy dark that had frightened her so. Melissa was a child of the light, happy in the sunshine and shivering with fear in the night as she perceived pirates in the shadowy foliage outside the bedroom she shared with her more prosaic little sister. Scully allowed herself a thin sliver of a smile at the recollection of her father slaying dragons made of oleander leaves and girlish imaginings. Now they were both gone, the two mainstays of her young life, and she could not imagine going on without them. She stepped over the faint outline of blood at her threshold. God bless the Gunmen, who had come over in the dead of night to scour away the worst of the mess. Frohike, his sad eyes shimmering with compassion, had promised to send over someone to sand the floor and revarnish it, but later, after the funeral, after she and Mulder were reinstated to their jobs at the bureau. Now all she wanted was to clean herself of the cloying sweetness of floral tributes gone to seed and the soggy souvenirs of the place where her sister had been laid to rest. Slowly she peeled the damp nylon serpents from her legs and deposited them in the bathroom sink, then thought better of it and tossed them into the trash can. She would never wear them again, anyway. The suit fared better, going carefully into the hamper for clothes to be sent to the cleaners. Let the professionals sort out the mud and water and tears. Scully turned the tap for the shower and held her hand under the running water. Unlike the rain that had fallen, cold and uncaring, on her sister's grave, this flow could be controlled, its temperature and pressure regulated. Something could be done, if not for Melissa or the world, at least for the shower. Take comfort where you may, Scully told herself as she stepped into the steaming waterfall. No fragrant soaps would do, nothing that would add to today's assault on her senses, just plain Ivory, about whose other 56/100% Scully had always wondered. Mulder had gaped at her one night when, after a couple of beers in some hick town, Scully had theorized about the mysterious unpure contents of that soap. Mulder. She turned the temperature up higher as if to steam Mulder out of her brain. He had come with her to the church, sitting one row behind the family but leaning so close that she could feel his humid breath just behind her right ear. At the cemetery he had remained a respectful distance away from the mourners; only at the very end did he come up behind her and guide her away with a familiar touch at the back of her sodden raincoat. His offers of a ride home, of dinner, of companionship would have been welcome had he not sealed his fate with the foolish words: "This is my fault." Poor Mulder, fresh from the wound Scully had inflicted and reeling from his own loss, had tried to take on this burden and been rebuffed, for the guilt was engraved deeply on Scully's heart and she guarded that guilt like a treasure. She shuddered as she turned off the water, partly from the sudden chill and partly at the memory of Mulder's sad, wistful expression as he parted from her. Scully chafed her skin dry with a thick towel, then put on the robe that her brothers had sent for Christmas. Two sizes too large, its velour sleeves hung past her wrists and the hem reached to her ankles, but its capacious pockets made the awkward fit worthwhile. Shoving her hands into the warm depths, Scully made her way back into the kitchen and considered making tea. Just as she reached for the canister with its assortment of exotic blends, a knock on the door startled her and she drew back her hand as if it had been burned With an exasperated sigh she walked into the living room and barked at the door. "Mulder, I'm fine. Please go home." "Agent Scully?" Oh, God. Skinner. "Sir. Just a moment." She ran her hand through her hair and secured the worn sash around her waist, overlapping the front of the robe so far that only Kevlar could have been more protective. After taking two deep breaths to quiet her pounding heart, she unfastened the locks and opened the door. He was still in his suit, tie knotted in perfect sartorial fashion at the base of his throat, the small creases in his trousers serving as tree-rings to determine how many hours he had spent in his office. His hand clutched a manila envelope. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Agent Scully, especially today. I had hoped to just leave this for you." "I just got back a few minutes ago." They stared mutely at one another. Skinner slowly extended the hand that held the envelope. Scully watched the graceful arc of his arm, her eyes not really focusing on anything other than the smooth motion itself. Only when Skinner nudged her wrist with the paper did she react and put her own hand on the slightly-damp cover. The label read: "Scully, Melissa--VCS Report" and the handwriting, strong and broad, was Skinner's. Scully's hand shook only slightly, but it was enough to dislodge the envelope from her grasp and let it slip to the floor. She bent awkwardly and reached for it and the angle sent blood coursing to her head. Her body began to tremble as she fell to her knees, her shoulder bumping into Skinner's shins, and her tears added salt water to the rain that spotted the brown paper. "Dana," Skinner whispered as he crouched beside her. "I'm so sorry." His arms hung limp and useless at his side like the crippled wings of a condor asked to fly through water instead of air. He was bred for command, for rapid-fire decisions made in the heat of battle, not consolation - especially not consolation of someone as rock-steady as the woman who sobbed brokenly into the oversized sleeve of a well-worn robe. Scully felt that Skinner did not know this incarnation of herself and had no idea how to treat her. Instinct, primal and ancient, was directing him to swoop down over her and warm her with his body, but surely his modern intellect was reminding him that Scully was a notoriously good shot and might well have her revolver tucked into one of those enormous pockets. She solved his dilemma by straightening up, one hand clutching the lapels of her robe and the other one reaching for the fallen packet of information. "I'm okay," she said in the familiar tone that would have told him she was lying even if he had not been able to read it in her expression. He shook his head. Extending a hand to her, he got them both to their feet and pressed Scully back through the doorway into the apartment. Scully very obviously avoided the darkly stained floor, so Skinner steered her toward the kitchen. "That's where they found her," he said gently. "None of the neighbors saw anything unusual. There were no footprints, there weren't fingerprints anywhere, not even on the gun." "And the gun wasn't registered," Scully said in a dull monotone. "That's what he said would happen to me." "Who, Mulder?" "No. The English 'gentleman' at William Mulder's funeral." "English? Oh." Skinner took off his glasses and wiped them, as if buying enough time to make his explanation sound plausible. But there wasn't that much time in the world, not for Scully, whose universe was imploding toward her with breakneck haste, so Skinner told the truth. "He's in with the Cancer Man. I think he's trying to protect you, maybe Mulder, too, though I don't know why." "He saved me, but in doing so he gave me the means to cause my sister's death." "Scully, there was nothing you could have done..." "I could've stopped her, met her halfway, but you...you made me get in your car..." "Agent Scully." She recognized the timbre of his voice, the one that shook her to her foundations because it reminded her of her father when he would brook no denial. She half-expected Skinner to call her "Starbuck." Scully took a step toward him, her hands apart in a gesture of something that in a lesser woman would be called submission. "I know," she said placatingly. "I know what you risked by coming to get us. I know that you told my mother that I was alive and all right. I know that you kept Cancer Man at bay. I know all these things. I...know them." "Yet you still don't trust me." "I do. I...I don't know." She looked up at him, her freshly-scrubbed face glistening with new tears. "I want to trust you." Her posture sagged under the weight of her grief and guilt and she tottered toward him. "I need...to trust you..." Strong arms went around her, strong like her father's but with a lean hardness that was all Skinner, enough to drive away all thought except how good it was to be safe, to be held close to a heart strong enough to survive her many transgressions. She let herself weep then, not out of weakness but because Skinner needed to be given the chance to sustain her and because he was the one person for whom she did not need to be strong. Skinner's body absorbed the shocks of Scully's tremors, his wool jacket soaking up her tears as Meilssa's freshly-dug grave had taken in the cool rain that fell on the softly packed earth. Scully felt the slight tightening of his embrace, which was enough to support her but not so much as to crush her. After a few moments she pulled away and found that his face was capable of an expression of immense compassion. "Will you be all right?" Skinner asked. He deserved her honesty. "Not now, not for a while, but eventually," she said, the truth grating like sand on her tongue, roughening the edges of her dark voice. "And until then, what will you do?" "I'll...manage. I have my work. Mulder's and my work," she corrected out of habit. "I'm not giving up. I'll find out who did this." "Scully." His utterance of her name was almost inaudible. "Don't...don't pin your hopes on the chance for justice. These people operate on a plane you and I can't even imagine. You may never know exactly what happened here." "Oh, yes I will." She raised her chin and stared into sable eyes that were warmer than she had ever seen them before, weary and concerned. "I have to believe that." He nodded, swallowing hard, and headed toward the door. Scully stopped him with her next sentence: "You can tell Mulder that I'm all right." Frozen, he stood mid-stride. "You knew?" "I suspected. You're not the type to hand-deliver paperwork to my door. I'm figuring that between the time I ditched Mulder at the cemetery and the time you got here, he managed to call you and convince you to make up some flimsy excuse to check up on me." He barked out a laugh and turned toward her. "Busted. But I was glad to do it, Scully. I was worried." A pause, full of every unspoken emotion in the world. "I still am." Scully's bare feet slapped against the kitchen floor as she walked toward him, the beat of her footfall coming faster until she was close enough to feel the heat of his body. Without knowing why, she pulled his hands far enough apart so that she could lean against his chest, then wrapped her own arms around his waist as if she wanted to push her body through his. "Scully," was his warning growl. "Don't. Don't push me away." "This is..." "Please." She looked at his lips, then up into his eyes, the elegant gesture rendering him helpless. With the smallest of groans he placed one hand at the back of her head and dropped a hard, passionate kiss on her tender mouth. Scully kissed back. Her tongue, strong and lithe as the rest of her, fluttered at the fine line between Skinner's lips. When he gasped in surprise she made her assault, touching each of his teeth as if saluting a row of soldiers. She felt his spine straighten under her hands and she kneaded the small of his back, reaching slowly downward until she reached the hard muscles of his ass. "God," Skinner breathed into Scully's open mouth. "Oh, God..." She silenced him with a deeper kiss that lasted until they both were breathless and dizzy. There was a gap in the front of her robe that made a deep v-shape between her breasts and pointed to her narrow waist. Skinner's hands, large and calloused yet somehow curiously tender, traced the white skin while Scully busied herself with his shirt buttons. "I can't stop," he whispered just loudly enough to be heard over the sound of Scully's robe swishing to the floor. "I don't want you to," she answered, her voice as smooth as the silken whisper of Skinner's shirt as it slid off of his broad shoulders. His cotton undershirt was in Scully's way so she yanked it upward far enough to crush her breasts to his naked chest, the hair scratching deliciously at her newly-washed flesh. His hands went everywhere - her neck, her spine, her waist, and finally to her hips and forward until his fingers brushed hair, plump flesh, and a warm wetness that beckoned him further. Scully's breath hitched in her chest but she willed herself to calm down, to savor the pleasure of a knowing touch after such a long, long era of loneliness. She held on to Skinner's wrists, directing the tempo just slightly, rising on tiptoe and then back down over and over, a ballerina on pointe, striving to touch Heaven at the apex of each relevé. Skinner's hips pushed forward and Scully felt a sudden jolt of power at bringing him to such a complete state of arousal. She undid his belt and snapped it out of the restraining loops, then let her fingers dance over his bulging fly until she heard him cry out in frustration. "Christ, Scully! You're...killing me..." The zipper rasped down as Scully slowly traced the pull along the metal teeth. Skinner took his hands away from Scully long enough to shove his trousers and briefs down with a single motion, not even bothering to disentangle them from his ankles. He devoured her mouth at the instant her hands wrapped around him - he was big, and her palms were so, so tiny, and she wanted to touch all of him at once. Scully moaned softly in time with Skinner's thrusts, her hands working over his heated flesh until Skinner's knees were shaking and his breathing was ragged. She wanted him, not only for the pleasure he would give her but also to let him know that she trusted him with every fiber of her being. "Skinner," she whispered. "Please." She knew that he was aroused enough to take her right here, against the wall or on the kitchen table or even on the floor, but she also knew that he would rather choke on his own lust than hurt her. She was not in the least surprised when she heard his sex-laden voice choke out the word "bed" just as he stilled her pumping hands. They kissed all the way to the bedroom, tripping on clothes and banging shins against furniture but not noticing anything except one another. Skinner lay down on the bed and held his arms open. "C'mere," he rasped, and Scully's face broke into a radiant smile. She straddled him, tugging his shoulders so that he sat up with her on his lap. Her arms went around his neck and they kissed with such intensity that, for just one moment, they forgot that his penis was perfectly aligned with her vagina, and his entry came as a surprise to them both. "Oh, God," Scully murmured as she felt herself being filled, not taken in lust but joined to a man who revered her. "Skinner...oh, my God..." He moved slowly, sheathing himself centimeter by precious centimeter until he could not see where he ended and Scully began. He lowered his head to her breasts and tongued each nipple in turn while Scully adjusted to the sweet intrusion. She fingered the soft fringe of hair at the back of his head and crooned wordlessly to him. She rose and fell, a glorious carousel nymph with streaming scarlet hair and brilliant sapphire eyes. Skinner slipped two fingers into the juncture of their bodies and let Scully rub against them, to take what she needed from without as well as within. It was too intense to last long, yet in those brief moments Scully found her legs weakening from desire and exhaustion. Sighing deeply with regret, she collapsed against Skinner's chest. He wasted no time in pushing her gently backward as he knelt in front of her, dragging her thighs up over his. He was the supplicant, not the conqueror, and he entered her as if he were blessing himself at the nave of a church. Invocations of the deity mixed with the slap of flesh on flesh and the throaty groans of desire. Scully's back arched and she stretched her arms wide, her fingernails scrabbling in the twisted sheets where she had lain weeping the night before. Forgive me, Missy, she thought as she succumbed to Skinner's caresses, knowing full well that her beloved sister would have understood exactly why Scully chose this time and this man to assuage her loneliness. Skinner was teetering on the rough, agonizing edge of climax, his body bedewed with perspiration that clung to the sculpted planes of his chest and abdomen. Scully tightened around him, urging him on with her hips and her heart. She watched, fascinated, as Skinner undulated above her like the waves of orgasm that were building to a crest in her own body. He groaned and gave one final thrust, coming so hard that Scully could almost count the pulses. "That's it, that's it," she whispered as he shuddered against her, providing her an oddly erotic sensation from the friction of his pelvic bone against her aching clitoris. "Oh, God, Skinner...I'm so close..." Somehow he managed to move one shaking hand from the bed and stroke her, finding the sweet spot that made her cry out in delight and shudder once, twice, and then convulse against his teasing, caressing fingers. He waited out the aftershocks before pulling out of her with a regretful sigh and collapsing at her side. She was cold, shivering in a feverish sweat as she curled instinctively up in a ball, reaching behind her for Skinner's arms. He responded automatically by spooning against her back with one hand in her hair and the other caressing her breast as she struggled to return her breathing to normal. The pace was too close to the sobs of grief that had wracked her for days, reminiscent of pain rather than pleasure. Not enough minutes passed before she could no longer keep her eyes open. She squeezed his wrist in lieu of words; there were no words to express her gratitude for his gift. Besides, if she did not ask him if he would be there in the morning, he would not have to lie. *** END Feedback would be appreciated - .