Wireless
RivkaT@aol.com
Rating: NC-17.
Spoilers: Set in the sixth season, during the Kersh era.
Classification: SAR.
Summary:  Somewhat fragmentary, this piece has all the sex and angst you might 
have come to associate with my name.


"Agent Mulder?"

It took him a few seconds to identify the voice, and then several more to be
lieve it.  "Assistant Director Kersh?"  He blinked blearily at the clock on 
the bedside table, which thought that it was after two in the morning.

"Agent Mulder, I regret to inform you --"  But the fact that he was alone was 
information enough.  Nausea, nausea and rage and fear rose in him like a 
tidal wave.  He was on his feet, pulling on his hastily discarded pants 
one-handed as he tried to think.

"Where is she?"

"Georgetown University Hospital --" Kersh was saying more, but Mulder slammed the 
phone down, grabbed at his T-shirt, and shoved his feet into a pair of
running shoes lying by the bedroom door.  He'd known, part of him had always 
known that they were enacting a fable.  Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, y
ou name it: Don't ever open that door, Agent Mulder, or you'll lose it all. 
 Don't ever look at me at night, or I'll have to go back whence I came.  Don
't ever touch her that way, or she will be taken from you.  He'd thought tha
t they were safe, because she'd been taken despite all his proper behavior, 
and then he broke the spell in Antarctica, but he'd been mistaken when he th
ought they'd found a place beyond Happily Ever After, after the credits fade
d and they could be themselves again, life-sized and free to make their own 
decisions instead of playing out the script.

He should have known, he told himself as he started the car and wheeled out 
of his space, clipping the fender of the Saab next to him.  He should never 
have allowed it to happen.

****

They were doing Kersh's ridiculous paperwork at Mulder's apartment, an indul
gence Scully had only recently allowed him.  He thought that the decreased i
ntensity of the work emboldened her to spend more non-work hours with him; t
his way, they averaged the same amount of contact as they had on the X Files
.

It was Scully's turn to wash the ice cream bowls and so he paid no attention
 when she returned from the kitchen and came up behind him.

"Do you want me?"

"Want you to what?" he asked, and later he would reassure himself that he ha
d only been understandably confused by the lack of context.

Although he was looking down at the paperwork, he could still hear her.  Scu
lly sighed the way she did when he insisted that the Yeti was more than a my
th.  "Want to fuck me.  Want me to ride you like the pony I never had," she 
clarified.

Turning so quickly that a muscle in his neck twanged like a snapped guitar s
tring, he gawped at her.  He was standing up now, which was good, it gave hi
m some perspective, but she was closer now than she had been a minute ago an
d things were still strange -- she wasn't smiling (not that Scully would jok
e about a thing like that) and she wasn't looking at him with the concern th
at would have been appropriate if an auditory hallucination had made him jum
p out of his chair.

Her hands were around his neck as if by magic, fingers interlaced against th
e razored smoothness of his nape and pulling him down.  He couldn't feel his
 lips against hers, shock like Novocain distorting his senses.  Her tongue w
as a revelation, the undiscovered key to Scully.  With his fingers against t
he fine hairs on her cheek he felt like Adam in Michelangelo's painting, bru
shing against God's perfection.

She danced away from him and he could only watch, as if she'd had the Midas 
touch and turned him into a statue.  "Scully --" he shook, as confused as wh
en he'd been burning with fever and psychoactive drugs. "Wha -- what do you 
want to happen?" he asked, glad that his voice was obligingly husky and not 
cracking as he always feared it would.

She began to move backwards, towards his strange new bedroom, her eyes still
 fixed on his face.  "I thought I made myself clear."  He moved with her eve
n as she turned, trying to keep the distance from increasing, down the hallw
ay and through the door where, praise God, he'd gotten rid of the leopard sk
in but he'd been too lazy to change anything else, given how implausible it 
was that anyone else would see the place.  He should have known better; impl
ausible was his middle name.

He winced as she entered his bedroom, but she didn't say anything cutting at
 first and he followed her in, still wondering if some hallucinatory gas had
 been pumped under his door.  He bumped up against her as she turned back to
 him, and then she was giving a hand-job to his tie as she kissed him with l
ethal intent.  He skimmed his hands over her shoulders, afraid that to prod 
the dream too hard would be to burst it like a soap bubble, and she groaned 
and released him.

He had to slow this down.  Every instant would be one more reason to have li
ved so long and suffered so much.  Every minute would be worth a year's furt
her struggle.

"Let me --" he begged and guided her onto the bed, so that they were both si
tting and she was facing away from him, despite her muted protests.  He ran 
his hands along her arms. Without thinking about it, he rubbed up and down, 
from the bracelets of Venus at her delicate wrists, past the curve of her el
bow to the firm muscles of her biceps and triceps, stopping at the top of he
r shoulders to reverse course and journey downwards again. He could feel her
 pulse, a butterfly fluttering within her. And up, brushing the fine hairs o
f her arms as he went. They tickled like angel's kisses.

After a few passes, he felt her relax more completely. Her pulse was slowing
 and her breathing was deep and even. She leaned back, letting him take her 
weight, and he brought his legs around her so that he could encompass her mo
re fully.  He put his hands on the back of her neck and began to knead, and 
she relaxed again. Even through her silk shell he could feel her heat, enoug
h that he thought he might have blisters in the morning. How could she withs
tand all that heat?  Up and down he went, in slow, gentle strokes, feeling e
very variation in skin and muscle and underlying bone.

Up and down, learning every inch of her back. He hadn't realized how well-mu
scled she was there. It was not a part of her body that she'd shown to him, 
at least not since their first night together. And he'd had other things on 
his mind then; he hadn't yet realized that Scully was a kind of fractal, per
fectly detailed at each level of scrutiny, with infinite treasures waiting t
o be revealed. Her back was as sleek as seal's fur.

His hands moved in to her spine, tracing every vertebra, and slowly out again, 
skimming the edges of her shoulders, the shirt tight against his moving hands, 
then down the smooth curve of her waist, stopping only at the top of her hipbones.

His fingertips buzzed with the shock as he almost grazed the sides of her br
easts.  Unthinkingly, he moved his hands from her back to the front of her w
aist, laced his fingers and tugged, and she was pressed up against him. He c
ould taste her hair, the faint citrus scent of her, and she had to be able t
o feel his erection.

Her head lolled against his shoulder and she ran her fingers lightly up from
 his knees over his thighs, just a few inches.

This can't be happening, he thought, as he ever-so-gently raised his thumbs 
and brushed them against the outer edges of her breasts. They were smooth, s
mooth as living marble, and she moaned and it wasn't enough to sate the howl
ing need inside him.  He couldn't, could never show her the extent of that n
eed because it would frighten her.  He had to maintain control at any cost.

Mulder put his hands on her breasts as his mouth came down where her neck me
t her shoulder. She jerked in his arms but she wasn't trying to get away, on
ly to deal with the overload of sensation and she was just going to have to 
live with it because he wasn't going to let her move. Her breasts fit perfec
tly in his hands, hard little nipples pinched between his fingers.

He didn't want to hurt her, he would never hurt her, but it still wasn't eno
ugh. He began to roll the flesh in his hands slightly, feeling the weight an
d the texture of her shift as she cried out and her heels drummed on the bed
spread, trying and failing to get purchase so that she could squirm against 
him.

He was sucking at her neck, worrying the porcelain skin there with the edges
 of his teeth, just enough so that she tossed her chin up and tried to get a
way. He pulled back immediately. She reached behind herself--he could feel h
er hands shake--and grabbed his hands, moving them back to her body. He coul
d hear her gasping for breath. Stroking and squeezing her breasts, he turned
 his attention to her other shoulder. Her head whipped back and forth. He ha
d no idea what she was trying to say; he doubted she did either. It didn't s
ound in any way negative, however, and thus it was of no importance.

He had to tear his hands away from her breasts for a second, just to get the
 shirt and bra off of her, and then she was back, safe and warm and perfect 
against his palms. He didn't want to let go again and yet he thought that th
ere might be better to come, though he could not at the moment imagine how. 
Her little fists pounded against his legs, hard enough to leave her mark.

Finally he took his right hand off her breast and slid it down, over her bel
ly and the dimple of her navel, and under the waistband of her skirt. She th
rust her hips up and his fingers slid through her hair and found her clitori
s. He circled the tiny flap of skin and nerves, trying to be gentle, collect
ing the moisture she was generating and GOD she was hot and wet and slick, e
lectric, an electrocution, she jerked and cried his name and he slid his fin
gers into her so he could feel her convulsing, she was doing it because of h
im, she was doing it with him, and his left hand still on her breast was tig
htening, almost bruisingly hard as her hips rose and fell, grinding against 
him.

And then the tremors subsided, mostly, but he still had two fingers inside h
er and that was entirely the wrong configuration. But there was still the pr
oblem of her breasts, or of letting go of them to be more precise. Scully wa
s gasping and rubbing herself against him like a kitten; she'd be no help th
inking this through.

Then he had a revelation. He withdrew both hands from their wonderful locati
ons and rolled her over so that she was on her hands and knees. Her skirt wa
s a minor impediment, easily disposed of. Gritting his teeth, he took a mome
nt to deal with his own clothes, somehow managed to discard them, and knelt 
between her legs.

She was still shuddering, but she was waiting patiently for him. He could he
ar her ragged breath through the fall of hair that obscured her face.

A moment's guidance, a thrust, and he was inside her. It was indescribable, 
lightening and thunder and torrential hot rain. He let her take all their co
mbined weight on her elbows and forearms and returned his hands to their rig
htful places. Scully's face was pressed into the pillows and she made little
 noises every time he pulled out and louder cries each time he thrust back i
n. He could feel his balls slapping against the tops of her inner thighs. Hi
s pelvis slammed against her perfect ass--which he'd unforgivably neglected 
up to this point--each time he sheathed himself in her.

His strokes became rougher, his hands more demanding. Scully could barely mo
ve underneath him, pinned by his weight, but she did her best to set a count
ering rhythm with her limited range of motion. He wanted her to come again s
o that he could feel her around him, but he didn't think that it was going t
o be possible.  He needed some distraction to keep him sane, and when his te
eth grazed her skin and she groaned it seemed perfectly natural to take her 
sweat-gilded shoulder in his mouth, keeping her in place.  As he bit down, s
he gasped and he could feel her, feel them together, and the white light fla
shed behind his eyes.

All he could manage was the first syllable of her name as he came and came, 
diving down into the light with her.

Long afterwards, Mulder realized that he was still completely on top of her,
 his chin hooked over her shoulder and one hand still firmly wrapped around 
a perfect breast. He began to move off of her, but she protested sleepily an
d so he pulled half of the bedspread on top of himself to stay warm and then
 turned her over to explore her breasts with his mouth and hands.  She had a
 tiny mole on her right breast, matching the one she always tried to hide on
 her lip. He brushed his thumb over it, feeling the slight change of texture
 in the skin.

Before he knew it, she was squirming underneath him, awake and ready for mor
e serious attention.  He framed her face in his hands as he parted her legs 
with his knees, preparing to enter her. Her eyes were as grey as the sea bef
ore a storm. He gasped when he felt her hand on his cock, guiding him. He pu
shed into her and she sighed, her eyes slamming closed.

Scully's legs wrapped around his waist, then moved up even further, to his s
houlders. She was doubled up underneath him and he still wasn't sure if he w
as deep enough.  He hooked his chin over her shoulder and braced his hands o
n either side of her. Wrapped around him, she was incapable of setting up a 
countering rhythm, so he had to keep moving.

She was completely his, hot oil and spices and forgiving darkness around him
.  He wanted to be so good that she would forget all hesistation, but it was
 late and he was already worn out from the shock of the first encounter, and
 he came in one long shuddering gush before he could be sure that she'd foll
owed along.  He made a quizzical sound and moved his hand between their bodi
es, to see if she would ask him for something, but she only smiled a slow se
cret smile, half-lost in the dim light of the bedroom, and pulled him closer
 to her.  The last thing he knew before he slipped into oceanic sleep like a
 torpedoed ship was her breathing underneath him, ragged and gasping.

****

At the hospital they would not allow him to see her.  Instead, he was direct
ed to a waiting room, where Kersh, a white-coated doctor, and a bored-lookin
g police officer were waiting.

"What happened?" Mulder panted, one heartbeat away from cardiac arrest.

"We're ... not sure," the doctor said.  "I'm Doctor Ramsey, I saw Agent Scul
ly when she was brought in.  She's been sedated so that we can ... look afte
r her."

"What do you *think* happened?"

"Agent Scully was brought in by a squad car.  She was disoriented, unrespons
ive to questioning, walking down the street barefoot and wearing only a man'
s shirt.  Along with the lacerations to her feet which we think were simply 
caused by walking unprotected, there are --" the doctor broke off and turned
 to the Alexandria police officer, who was watching everyone suspiciously.  
Mulder couldn't tell if it was gender-based or jurisdictional; you never cou
ld tell with women working sex crimes.  Dr. Ramsey addressed himself to her,
 ignoring Mulder and Kersh.  "I feel very uncomfortable discussing this with
 Agent Scully's partner.  There are privacy issues --"

"Agent Scully worked in Violent Crimes for five years," Kersh informed Dr. R
amsey.  "There is sufficient reason to consider whether this attack might be
 related to one of her past cases.  As such, we may have jurisdiction.  She'
s one of ours, doctor."  His voice softened on the last sentence and became 
darker, more intense.  Mulder could finally see how he could have climbed th
e ranks in the Bureau -- he was very good at emoting his message.

The police officer nodded and Dr. Ramsey took that as permission to continue
.  "The, ah, the good news -- we were able to retrieve a semen sample, and p
ubic hairs from the assailant.  Also, we were able to get some decent dental
 impressions --" Kersh winced and looked down.

Mulder felt like a cannonball had landed on him.  Unless something else had 
happened, those were signs of his presence.  Had it been so traumatic for he
r to finally give in that she'd gone wandering the streets in her sleep?  Sc
ully was the type to suffer buyer's remorse, he knew this for a fact. 20

It was suddenly, sickeningly obvious.  The chip in Scully's neck had been re
activated, sending her out into the night with nothing but his shirt on her 
back.  But had it been after?  Or before?

Dr. Ramsey was at his side, easing him into an uncomfortable plastic chair, 
urging him to put his head between his legs and mumbling something about cou
nselors and support groups and the particular problems of law enforcement pe
rsonnel, missing the point completely.  With his head at the level of his kn
ees and his hands clutching at his shins, he could still smell the sex on hi
mself.

He should have known that she would never -- but he no longer knew what Scul
ly would never do these days.  If she remembered she could explain.  Explain
 that she'd had consensual sex with her partner and then fell into a fugue s
tate because it had been so damn good, right?

He had to talk to her.  Before the others did.

"I have to see her."

Dr. Ramsey and the police officer executed a polite minuet of glances, and t
he doctor sighed.  "She's unlikely to be conscious for another few hours, at
 least.  Sleep might be the best thing for her right now."

"I won't disturb her, I promise."  He was getting very good at going from no
rmal human being to wild-eyed lunatic at the drop of a partner.  "Let me sta
y with her."  Kersh looked at him with surprise; he supposed the AD had neve
r known that he was capable of begging.  He searched his brain for a rationa
l argument.  "If ... if there is a case-related connection, she needs someon
e to watch over her.  Let me be there for her."

Kersh nodded fractionally.  "Agent Mulder has a point.  Is that acceptable t
o you, Doctor?"  He was making it clear that the FBI was running the show, w
hich would have been funny if Mulder hadn't known that he was the suspect th
ey were looking for.

Kersh nattered on about generating a list of possible suspects as he walked 
Mulder to Scully's room.  Mulder tried to nod at the least inappropriate poi
nts as his mind spun scenarios of manipulation and devastation.

****

The sedatives kept her out for hours.  Each minute dripped like acid through
 Mulder's soul.  He discarded ten, twenty opening statements, trying to deci
de how best to present the evidence to her.  After the rape kit, they'd give
n her a sponge bath, so at least she'd be spared that horror, though it woul
d no doubt be matched in her mind by the humiliation of having a stranger in
trude on her body once again.

When she opened her eyes, they swept the room in one quick reconnaisance and
  then targeted Mulder, sitting in the chair pulled next to her bed.  He had
n't felt that he had the right to hold her hand again, so he'd watched and w
aited, alone in her presence. 20

"The last thing I remember," she said huskily, "is paperwork at your apartme
nt.  Why don't you start from there?"

That he had expected this amnesia didn't make it any more acceptable.  "Scul
ly, you were -- you were brought in by a cop who found you walking the stree
ts."

"The chip?"

He couldn't bring himself to nod, which was answer enough to her.

"There's more," he choked, knowing now what it was like to write one's own d
eath warrant.  She waited, calm as a pieta, her hands folded neatly over the
 whitish hospital sheets.  "The last thing we were doing before you left -- 
uh, they're going to come in here soon and they're going to ask questions.  
Questions based on the theory that you've been raped."  He had to finish bef
ore she could decide what to say.  "Because there are signs of recent sexual
 activity, but the thing is that it was me, Scully.  It was us.  So, um, you
 should know that now, before they start --"

"Mulder," she said.  "Could you leave?"

****

He went to the cafeteria and bought food that chilled and warmed to room tem
perature while he sat.  Then he went and got the Post and tore shreds off th
e margins while he waited.  For some reason the Style section seemed particu
larly demonic to him that day.  Officers and nurses moved in and out of Scul
ly's room and it would have been in character for him to challenge them, to 
interrogate and demand to see her, but he couldn't make himself play that ro
le anymore.

When Kersh came out, he looked older and fatter, defeated somehow.  His face
 didn't twist with disgust when he saw Mulder, though, so that Mulder knew t
hat Scully had protected him as best she could.  "She'd like to see you now,
" he said and left, apparently aware that any words of solace would not be w
ell received.

Mulder swallowed and opened the door to Scully's room, which swung open as s
moothly as a guillotine blade falling down the greased slide.  Five steps to
ok him to her bedside, where she was lying on her side, facing away from the
 door.

"Scully, I swear, I swear I thought you were -- I thought you wanted --"

She turned, her face blank with anguish.  "You thought I wanted to be brutal
ized?  This, this is what 'I love you' means?"  She gestured to the bite mar
k on her shoulder.  "Like I was some sort of wild animal for you to catch --
" her voice broke and she rolled again, twisting in the bed like a girl unwi
lling to look under the bed for fear of the monsters there.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into the nothingness that had replaced air.  Her a
rms were folded over her chest in a futile gesture at self-protection.

She still wouldn't look at him when she spoke again.  "How could you think -
-?"20

Mulder felt a flare of anger shoot up.  She was being blind and unfair again
.  Did the name Ed Jerse ring a bell?  What about Jack Willis?  He'd talked 
to people at Quantico, he knew what kind of man Willis was.  But it wasn't h
is turn to get angry.  "I had no reason to believe otherwise, Scully.  As fa
r as we know the chip is unable to control conscious behavior, it's only dra
wn people to go certain places.  We've never seen it able to make people say
 specific things..."

"What are you saying?" she asked in a voice like a hail of gunfire.  "Are yo
u saying that I'm just blaming this on the chip, that really I wanted it and
 I'm blocking it out because now I'm feeling conflicted and ashamed?"

"I'm not -- I'm not -- I can't speculate on what happened because we just do
n't *know*."

He saw her rub her cheek into the pillow as if she could erase herself.  "Ho
w do we know anything, Mulder?  How do we know that I'm still with you of my
 own volition as opposed to some secret design, programmed and broadcast to 
me?

"Don't you think I haven't considered that?" he rasped, and her shoulders sh
ook as if he'd hit her.  Again.  "I'll tell you the truth, Scully.  The last
 time this happened your memories were unclear around the time you received 
the summons, or whatever it was.  I would prefer to believe we're dealing wi
th the same thing here, maybe interference with the formation of short-term 
memory.  If -- if we were under surveillance, it might have seemed like a go
od time to sow dissension in the ranks --"

"Short-term memory is only about five minutes," Scully said wearily, finally
 shifting to look at him again, tangled in the hospital sheets like a burial
 shroud.  "Everything longer than that is stored differently."

"That doesn't mean the chip couldn't affect it --"

"You're right," she said, and her face was blank as newfallen snow.  "The ch
ip could do anything and we would never be certain.  We'll never be certain 
until it's gone."

"Until it's gone?" he parroted, falling one level deeper into Hell.  "You ca
n't, Scully."

She half-smiled, the friendliest look she'd given him yet, and it went throu
gh him like an icicle.  "You only get to exercise my medical power of attorn
ey when I'm incompetent to do so."

"The chip didn't do this," he said, shivering.  "It didn't make you want me.
  This is another trick, another manipulation."

"Even if you're right, what then? You may not be worried now, since this is 
only the invasion of my body we're talking about, but what happens when I lo
se a crucial piece of evidence or wander off during an investigation?  You c
ould always write it off as disloyalty but --"

"Stop."  Strangely enough, she did.  Possibly she heard the blood in his voi
ce.  "What you can't admit -- what you don't want to admit -- is that it was
 all real to me.  Don't make me watch you die."

They stared at each other in the whiteness of the hospital room, so out of s
ync with the darker locations that had defined them.  Like animals living fa
r underground, they had been so long in shadow that the light brought only p
ain.  He watched, and grieved just a little, as Scully's underlying sympathy
 for his weakness conquered her anger.

She stretched out her arm towards him, and he went to her, knowing that he s
hould respect her personal space just this once but unable to resist even th
e shadow of her touch.  He pressed his head into the softness of her barren 
stomach and held on to her hips as if their enemies were going to carry him 
bodily away from her.  There was no need, really, since they'd stolen her sp
irit, but he grasped at her anyway, no doubt adding fresh bruises to the one
s from hours ago.  At least when she looked at these she'd know their proven
ance.  The sobs that wracked him were dry and ugly.  He thought she might be
 crying with him, but he couldn't be sure.  If he looked up surely her face 
would burn him to a cinder.

"Mulder," she whispered as her hand weaved through his hair, "you know you w
ouldn't love me half as much if I could give you what you wanted."

He gasped against her in a parody of the lust they'd enacted hours before.  
There was a hand -- her hand -- wrapped around his heart, squeezing it as if
 to drain it of all blood and life for ritual slaughter.  He should be able 
to cry,  now, but he could only gasp like a beached dolphin as he felt her r
ecede away from him like the tide.  Her truth overwhelmed him; he was buried
 alive in it.

"Just one thing," he said into the scratchiness of the hospital gown that in
sulated him from her witches'-oven heat.  " I have to know --"

"Yes," she said.  "Always," and if there was a note of regret in her tone he
 decided not to hear it. 20

And if she wondered who it was who decided to say the words, she betrayed no
 uncertainty to him.

End

Goodbye, and thanks for all the feedback.
RivkaT@aol.com

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