The Matter at Hand
by Anjou

Title:  The Matter at Hand

Author:  Anjou  (Anjou@rocketmail.com)

Posting Date: November 2000

Rating:  NC-17 for sexual situations  

Classification:  MSR, H

Keywords:  None

Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Haven, Galia, Hidden 
Gems; Others please do ask

Disclaimer: M & S have sex in this story. Therefore 1013 had
nothing to do with it.

Spoilers:  post 'all things' 

Summary: Why was Scully in such a happy, confident mood the
first time we saw her in Je Souhaite?

~*~*~*~ 

  Dana Scully made a circumspect inventory of the laboratory
before making her way quietly to the communal desk that was
tucked into a secluded alcove. At the other end of the
laboratory, a lone tech named McBride was pipetting under one of
the closed hoods installed in the wall. The other benches were
filled with testing in various stages of progress, but were
empty of personnel. It was after 5:00 p.m.; this was the
government. She pushed aside the stack of entertainment
magazines and scientific journals that cluttered the surface of
the desk to make a clean space for herself.  She tore a piece of
paper out of her day planner, then cushioned it on an issue of
Sports Illustrated so that none of her thoughts would be
recorded on the desk blotter. She would bury the magazine in the
recycling bin on her way out of the lab.  She would tell herself
that she was not paranoid, but merely wanted to safeguard her
privacy.

  She tapped the paper thoughtfully with the end of her
expensive fountain pen, one of her few true indulgences.  She
told herself that the weight of the pen forced her to slow her
writing down, allowing her the time to gather her thoughts
before she committed them to the page. It was not merely an
object of beauty; it was an instrument of control.  She frowned
at the pen as it yielded no ready answers, didn't jump to
attention in her hand and point her in the right direction.
Perhaps her lack of insight was due to her unfortunate
regression via this activity. It was counter-intuitive that she
should attempt to reason out emotional matters. If the events of
the recent past had taught her anything, hadn't they taught her
that insight into her own desires would come to her whether or
not she was looking for it? She needed only to open her senses
to the world around her. She glanced around cautiously to ensure
that she was still unobserved before she closed her eyes
attempting to cast herself out into the metaphysical universe. 

  After five minutes of communing with the unseen world, she had
only confirmed that she was a little hungry and that she was
definitely sexually frustrated. She sighed and contemplated the
stark whiteness of the blank page. Scully wasn't particularly
envious of Mulder's intuitive ability, but she did sometimes
covet his swift, incisive leaps of logic. Especially in matters
of romance, she associated impulsivity with disaster in her own
life. Leaping before she had truly looked had led only to
unpleasantness. It was better to know what one truly wanted
before one leapt, she told herself. It was better to have a
plan. She busied her hands with tearing the ragged edges of the
page off so that it was neater.  This wasn't a perfect system
for finding answers but it did give her a measure of comfort to
engage in the ritual of problem-solving that she had always
followed. Her childhood diaries were littered with lists full of
her observations and evaluations based upon them, her earliest
training as a scientist. Experience had taught her that analysis
was often the best means to evaluate the matter at hand. She
took a deep breath and plunged in.

  "Regret." She chewed her lip thoughtfully as she pondered the
implications of that word.  It was so stark and accusatory on
the empty page. Her handwriting was cramped and hurried, as if
she'd attempted to discard the most upsetting explanation first.
She forced her mind to focus on the possibility. Mulder's
actions of the past few days did not seem to constitute regret,
although he did seem to have trouble meeting her eyes for longer
than a few seconds at a time. He seemed almost painfully aware
of her. Although he hovered nearby her, he floated just out of
the range of her personal space. Perversely, that thought
conjured the image of his easy grace as he rose above her while
they were joined, bowing away and then bending back down to kiss
her. She shivered at the memory, then drew a thick line through
the word.  She'd not believe it.

  "Indifference" appeared on the list and she stared at the pen
for a moment.  Where had that come from? Automatic writing? She
rolled the pen around in her fingers and gave the concept due
consideration. Had the event itself been the culmination of all
the tension that had existed between them for years? The
question of 'how it could be' had been answered.  Was that all
there was to it? She underlined the word once; she allowed that
it was a shallow idea and one that didn't give Mulder a great
deal of credit. Her mind searched for evidence of his
indifference to her these past days.  She realized that Mulder
had acquired a new tic in his vast repertoire of activities, but
it seemed more of a self-soothing gesture than anything else. 
He had taken to stroking a spot on his neck when he read,
touching it lightly with his fingertips, a small smile on his
lips.  The spot lay under his left ear, in the tendon next to
his jugular. She hadn't left a mark on the rough skin of his
neck, but that was the exact place where she had fastened her
mouth when he'd gotten to the breaking point. No. The case for
indifference was not proved. 

  "Insecurity" she wrote, then frowned at the word. She placed
the pen on the surface of the desk and ruffled the pages of an
issue of Science. Mulder was insecure about many things; there
was no doubt about that. But in what context was she using the
word insecurity? Did she think that he felt insecure about his
performance? Study after study had shown that men were very
anxious about just this sort of thing. And Mulder had been
celibate, or at least sexually solitary, for a long time by his
own admission. Yet, just behind her eyes, Mulder's hips kept an
easy, loose rhythm with the beat of the music from his boombox
as he set up a slideshow in their office. The unselfconscious
promise implied by his fluid motion had not been overstated. He
had been almost shockingly comfortable being sexual with her,
eager to provoke a response in her once he was certain that she
truly wanted him. 

  Her breath caught as clarity washed over her. "Uncertainty,"
she wrote on the list, her hand trembling. The first two times
that Mulder had approached to kiss her, he had moved in slowly,
giving her every opportunity to anticipate what he was doing,
giving her every chance to stop him.  But when she had
approached him … the pen dropped on the desk and Scully rolled
the rickety seat backwards, propping her feet on the desk's
edge. When she had approached him, there had been only certainty
in his response. She smiled fondly at her now discarded list and
crossed her ankles, lacing her fingers behind her head. If she
could have, she would have whistled a happy tune. She was
flushed and triumphant, warm with the success of having figured
out a problem. How could she ever have doubted a system that had
always worked so well for her?

*~*~*~*~   

  Figuring out what the problem was and fixing the problem were
two entirely different things, Scully reflected grimly. She was
completely at a loss as to what to do. How was she to start this
conversation? 

  "Mulder, I want to make love to you." 

  That sounded so formal, not to mention all the pressure that
such a declarative statement implied. It wasn't that she wasn't
a bold and forthright woman in many ways, but she was also
repressed. It was easier to allow herself to be swept away by
someone's else passion than to attempt to provoke passion in
another. Of course, yielding to passion also sounded easier than
it was, at least for her. More than once, she'd found herself
becoming dispassionate during sex, feeling as if any woman could
fill the role that she was playing for her partner, that on some
level all that was required was a warm and yielding body to
grind against to attain pleasure.  Melissa had been appalled
when she'd espoused this belief, had hastened to assure her that
this only meant that she hadn't had sex with the right men, or
that she wasn't in the right relationship. Dana had discounted
this thesis as a possible explanation.  At the time of the
conversation, she had been sure that Daniel was the love of her
life. Yet, she had begun to experience that disconnection from
him when they had sex, wasn't sure who he was seeing as his eyes
glazed over.

  Her experience with Mulder had been singular.  Mulder had
seemed to know exactly who she was while they had been together.
He had even seemed to know when she began to question the
wisdom of what they were doing, whispering to her "Just kiss me,
Scully," until he swept her back up with him. She wanted to see
if he still knew her that well, but wasn't sure just how to
begin.  In fact, she wasn't sure she actually knew how to make
love to a man, beyond the crude mechanics of the situation. It
didn't help that there were no really workable tips she could
refer to on how exactly one seduced a man. Or at least, the
blueprints of such a scene as they were represented in "women's"
magazines had never appealed to her. Lace was scratchy and she
was most emphatically not buying a bustier.

  It had been so much easier that night when she had slipped
into his bed while he was sleeping. Being herself, she'd left
her underwear on, on the off chance that if Mulder rejected her
overture she could try to suggest that sleep, not seduction, had
been on her mind. He had twitched when she finally pressed her
cool flesh next to his warmth, mumbling something and seeming to
rouse a bit. Then he had taken one deep breath in through his
nose and snuggled next to her, a smile on his sleeping face. He
had murmured her name and her heart had clenched in her chest.
She had kissed him awake. There had been no doubt, no confusion,
no discussion other than his ardent professions of love.  

  Perhaps she could sedate him and recreate the scenario that
had worked so well for her. It really was much easier to deal
with him when he was unconscious.  She eyed the mug on her
counter as she waited for the coffee to percolate. Mulder had
driven her home from the airport after their latest case.  It
was late and, ostensibly, he was here in her apartment to have a
cup of coffee before he made the drive back to Alexandria.
Caffeine, however, was not what he needed. Didn't she have some
Ambien left somewhere? Scully toyed with the idea as she heard
Mulder prowling in her living room. He had already run through
all of the channels on TV to his dissatisfaction.  She had heard
the thud of her remote hitting the coffee table after he
switched the TV off. Now he was sighing over her record
collection, which held too much classical and not enough rock
for his taste. He was too restless to settle down for longer
than a minute, as if he had picked up on her mood of discontent
and imbalance. Knowing Mulder, he probably had.      

  "Mulder, let's have sex."

  Well, didn't that sound clinical and detached. Why didn't she
just say sexual intercourse? There wasn't anything remotely
friendly about that sort of a statement, as direct as it was. 
Maybe she could say it in a sultry sort of way. She pictured
herself leaning against the doorjamb of her kitchen, arm over
her head, palm open and flat against the wall, kind of purring
out the words.

  "Mulder, I want you to…" 

  Her brain froze.  Even in her imagination she could not
picture herself saying what she wanted him to do. Maybe she
could just walk out into the living room in her underwear.  She
imagined the scene, but for some reason in her mind's eye she
was still wearing her trouser socks.  

  Maybe she could try humor.    

  "Mulder," she would say teasingly, "Are you doing anything
important right now?" 

  That seemed a little weak.

  "Mulder, I know it's late, but are you feeling up to (breathy
pause) a little something extracurricular?"

  Her expression became sour. She knew better than that. One
should never use the word little in any sexual context with a
man.  Talk about dampening desire! Besides, it was hardly the
case. 

  There was one last option, the one that people were likely to
use in porn.  

  "Mulder, fuck me." 

  When exactly had her mental voice started to sound like Arnold
Schwarzenegger?  Not to mention the fact that lightning would
more likely strike her dead before she would actually say that
aloud.  It just wasn't her.

  "Scully?" 

  She whirled around from the coffeemaker, arms tightly crossed
at her waist. She wobbled on her high heels, caught off-balance
in more ways than one, and Mulder stepped toward her. His tone
indicated that he might have said her name more than once
already. "I'm really not that sleepy and you clearly need to get
some rest, so I'm…"

  "It's almost ready," she blurted out, while her mind grasped
at straws, trying to find the exact words she needed to say to
make him stay. She wondered if her eyes were bulging out of her
head cartoonishly.  That's certainly the way they felt right
now, not to mention that Mulder was looking at her oddly. He
seemed to be focusing on her mouth as if he lip-read instead of
hearing her voice when she spoke.  He was still staring, even
after she had finished talking.  She wondered if her lips were
still moving, like an out of synch soundtrack in a badly dubbed
movie.  When he glanced up at her eyes, she noticed that the
tops of his ears were red and that he was bending towards her
like a tree in a constant breeze. "Yes, Mulder," she chanted
mentally. This would be perfect! If he made the first move, all
she needed to do was to make him certain that she wanted him.
She could do that. Besides, she had made the first move last
time. It was only fair. He leaned infinitesimally closer. "Yes,
Mulder, yes!"  He blinked and seemed to snap out of his daze. 
Damn it.  Wasn't he supposed to the mindreader in this
partnership?

  "Well, it's late," he began again.  He was doing that annoying
thing he'd been doing all week, the one where he was sort of
looking at her sideways, as if looking at her directly for too
long made his eyes hurt. He began to back up, shuffling his big
feet toward the door slowly. 

  He was moving away from her! What was she supposed to do now?
She was beginning to feel a little frantic. It was imbecilic
that two people as intelligent as they were supposed to be
should behave in this fashion. She was 36 years old, for God's
sake. Shouldn't she be beyond this stage of adolescent fumbling?
Why couldn't she just open her mouth and say something? 
"Mulder," she said, uncrossing her arms and stepping toward him
until the distance between them was what it had been the minute
before.  God, her mind was a complete blank.

  "Yes," he said, "that's me." His face was completely still,
without a hint of a smile on it, as if he was bracing himself
for some sort of blow. It was his panic face, she realized
miserably. He thought that she thought they'd made a mistake and
that this was what she wanted to tell him. Why had she left
without waking him up? She dropped her chin, feeling chastened
by her behavior. Her own actions had made this situation more
awkward than it already would have been. Then again, the fault
wasn't hers alone. Not talking about things had become habit for
them, and old habits were so hard to break. She truly didn't
know how to begin the conversation. She had broken out into a
light sweat everywhere, including her palms. She began to rub
them nervously on her trousers to dry them, her brain searching
for something to say to make him stay.

  "Mulder," she said, looking up and then stopped, drawn up
short by the expression on his face. He was watching her hands
rubbing against her thighs as if mesmerized. She felt hope for
the first time that this situation was salvageable. She forced
herself to keep moving her hands, slowing down their motions
until it was less a nervous gesture and more of an erotic one.

  "Yes," he practically whispered. He glanced up at her face for
a second before his eyes returned as if magnetized to the sight
of her hands brushing against the dark fabric of her slacks. She
felt infused with courage suddenly, felt the sense of surety
that she had been sorely lacking returning to her.
  
  "I don't want you to go," she said calmly. This time when his
eyes focused on hers, she wouldn't let him break the gaze. She
stepped in a little closer and Mulder swayed, as if he wanted to
move toward her but was holding himself back.  

  "You don't," he said in that same quiet voice.  

  "No." Her answer was firm and decisive. She took another step
forward and Mulder's chest heaved, but he wasn't bending towards
her as he normally did, damn it. He was too darn tall for her to
kiss unless he would cooperate and he didn't seem to want to.
Their bodies were mere inches apart. Mulder shifted restlessly,
but maintained their separateness. He was looking down at her
with an expression that she could only describe as wary.

  "What do you want?" he asked after they had stood there in
suspension for a moment.  She felt the air from his words caress
her hair as they slid around her.  

  "I want…" she began to say, sure that she was going to be able
to vocalize her desires. She raised her head looked up at his
burning eyes and felt her voice fade. Mulder was really
good-looking, she thought with some astonishment. When had he
become so familiar to her that she had failed to notice that?
She swayed a little closer to him, feeling the smooth fabric of
his suit pants on the backs of her hands. Mulder shuddered and
his eyes closed for a second.

  "What do you want, Scully?" he asked for a second time, his
voice sounding harsh and constrained.

  She shook her head, watching the lights in his really
interesting eyes move as they followed her. She was beyond the
speaking thing at this point, intoxicated by the nearness of
him, the crackle and spark of heat that shimmered between them.
She felt bold, predatory and possessive. Her knuckles brushed
against Mulder's pant legs again and she felt the firmness of
his thighs underneath them. It was too much temptation for her.
She watched him attempting to remain impassive as she turned her
hands over, placing them on the smooth muscles and sliding them
slowly upward. Her hands were moving of their own volition, as
she watched Mulder blink and breathe shallowly at her
exploration.  She took her time, moving her hands from the
curved roundness of his quadriceps to the flat, narrow space of
his pelvis. She curved her left hand up and over his hipbone as
her right hand diverged from its parallel track and found the
zipper on his pants. Without a word, she pulled it down and slid
her hand in to grasp him gently but firmly through the slit in
his boxers. Mulder jumped to attention in her hand as his back
hit the door. 

  She sensed, rather than saw, his hands come up to cradle her
head from either side as his lips descended from above to kiss
her senseless. Or perhaps he was kissing sensation back into
her. She was aware of herself at every point in her body where
they connected, the tips of his fingers against her scalp, the
wet, firm warmth of his tongue in her mouth, the pull and press
of his lips against her own.  Moreover, she felt the rush of
blood thrumming through his body, stretching the flesh that she
was still slowly caressing. Thankfully, her normally cold hands
had been warmed up when she rubbed them against her thighs and
he was responding to her the way she wanted him to. She was not
quite sure whose rules she was playing by right now, but for the
first time in forever, she was not concerned with whether or not
she was doing something correctly. Instead, she was doing what
she wanted.

  Mulder's hands had crept under her jacket and he'd pulled her
against him as he kissed her face, her ears, her neck.  She
couldn't do much more than hold onto him in this position, one
hand around his back under his jacket tracing the dip of his
spine, one hand wrapped around him as he pushed against her.

  "Scully," he choked out against her neck and she remembered
sharply how much she loved the way he'd repeated her name when
they made love earlier in the week. It wasn't just the name he
had baptized her with all those years ago -- Scully was a
separate persona from the Dana of her childhood years. Scully
was fearless, forthright and bold. Scully was who she'd wanted
to be when she was a girl, the hero in the fairy tale. Scully
was who Mulder had always thought she was. She brought her left
hand up to his head and caressed him, kissing his hairline where
the scar he acquired last fall lay hidden.  

  "Mulder," she named him with assurance, trying to convey her
understanding that in those two names was the essence of their
partnership. He straightened up at her words and sighed.  He
seemed as if he wanted to say something. She shook her head,
silently telling him that now was not the time for speech. They
weren't that good at talking anyway, but she was willing to bet
that they could become excellent at this form of communication.
She stroked him firmly, her thumb caressing the declivity on the
underside of his penis where the head met the shaft.  Mulder
shuddered from head to toe and bent forward as if compelled to
kiss her, his tongue caressing hers.

  When they broke apart panting, she wrapped her free arm around
his neck and drew him down, stretching up out of her shoes.
"Come with me, Mulder," she whispered in his ear and he jumped,
straightening out of her grasp to look down at her. He was
flushed and wearing what little lipstick she'd had on when she
had started this seduction. His eyes were dancing with laughter
and she knew that she should be blushing from head to foot at
the leering double entendre in his glance, but she wasn't.  She
stood her ground instead, still holding onto him, her thumb
tracing the ridge around the head of his penis as she stared
into his eyes.  She had never known exactly how one made a
glance smolder before, but she seemed to know how now. She could
see it in his surprised, appreciative glance. He knew with
certainty, that what she wanted was him.

  She stepped backward out of her shoes and still holding him in
her hand, gently pulled him toward her. For the first time in
her life she felt truly grown up in a sexual situation. Not
wanton but womanly, secure in the knowledge that the responses
that she generated in him, while physiological, were just for
her. Bent at an awkward angle, he stooped to kiss her as she
began to walk backward to her room. He kept whispering her name,
almost like a mantra, as she pushed at his jacket one-handed. 
He shed it behind him as they traversed the living room, his
tie, shirt and T-shirt left in a trail as she ran her hands over
the warm flesh he exposed, stopping to nip at the rill of
muscles that ran over his ribs. In the bedroom, he toed off his
shoes while she shrugged out of her jacket. She was loath to let
go of him, having towed him all the way to her bedroom by his
penis, but she needed two hands to dispense with her own
clothing.  

  They hit the bed hard, falling on their sides wrapped in each
other's embrace. He had tried to gather her close at the exact
moment that her hand returned to caress his rigid flesh; they
had lost their balance as the shock of their joint nudity
occurred to them simultaneously. Mulder regained his equilibrium
first and wanted to spend some time exploring her flesh, but her
firm grip on his parts prevented him from being able to reach
lower than her breasts.  She flipped over onto her back and he
followed, covering her as she tried to wiggle into position
beneath him.

  "Scully," he gasped, trying to lodge some sort of protest as
he vainly tried to get a mouthful of her vanishing breast. 

  "Not now," she hissed, trying to align their hips so that she
could get him inside of her. "You can do that later."

  "When?" Mulder croaked, keeping his hips away from hers
defiantly.

  So much for their silent communication.  "Later," she moaned,
wrapping her legs and arms around his back and trying to pull
him down. 

  "Tonight?" he demanded. He was stronger than he looked. He was
resisting her.

  "If you're up to it," she said agreeably, putting more
pressure on his lower back. His expression was pinched and he
was gritting his teeth, but he still managed to hover above her.
"Or tomorrow, if you'd prefer."  She felt the resistance lessen
sharply and used her strong thigh muscles to pull him down to
her. 

  "What about Sunday?" he asked.  

  "What's wrong with now, Mulder?" she muttered, trying to get
her hand back in between their bodies. If she could just get a
hold of him, then she could get him inside her. He had pressed
himself tightly against her, maddeningly close to where she
wanted him to be, but tantalizingly not there.  He was trapping
her hand quite effectively. She glared up at him.  "Catholics do
have sex on Sundays, Mulder. That's just a myth."  She could
feel him throbbing against her aching labia. "What?"  She was
going to kill him if he didn't do something soon.

  "What about next weekend?" he asked quietly. He was braced
above her on his elbows. He ran his fingers down the sides of
her face to make her look up at him.

  "I don't have any plans next weekend, Mulder," she fumed. "But
I did have some plans for tonight."

  "I noticed," he said earnestly.  "I just wanted to know how I
fit into those plans."  She thought she could see a glimmer of
fear in his eyes.  Even though she felt like gnashing her teeth
in frustration, she forced herself to focus on that.

  "You're in all my plans from now on, Mulder," she said
sincerely.  "I promise."  He hunched over to kiss her and the
friction of their lower bodies was almost enough to make her
scream.

   "And no making plans with anybody else, right?" Mulder asked.

  "Absolutely not," she said firmly. Mulder rose up above her,
pushing her knees up, then slid into her in one smooth stroke. 
"Ohhh…" she sang out as her eyes rolled back into her skull. 
She flung her arms over her head and arched her back as he
surged in and out of her. This felt so good that she never
wanted it to stop. "Mulder," she murmured and opened her eyes
halfway. He was balancing his weight on his hands, hunched over
above her, his eyes focused on her face. 

  "Hmmm…" he hummed at her, questioning.  

  "Don't stop," she requested.

  "Wasn't going to," he said in staccato fashion.  He was
speeding up already. She couldn't have that.

  "Make it last," she pleaded and he slowed down. She remembered
an article she'd read in Rolling Stone years ago in which Sting
had gone on and on about how he routinely had sex for four or
five hours before achieving orgasm.  At the time, she could only
think of the potential for chafing and soreness and of the sheer
annoyance factor of having sex with a man who refused to have an
orgasm to prove his sexual prowess.  But right now, she wanted
this to go on for as long as possible.  "I really missed you
this week," she whispered to him as they pushed back and forth.

  "Scully," he said in an agonized sort of way and bent to kiss
her.  She smoothed her hands over his rounded back, feeling that
its shape somehow was a declaration of love for her, of the way
they had accommodated to each other over the years. She
stretched to kiss the freckles on his shoulder as their rhythm
picked up and he moaned low in his chest. 

  She felt a sense of connectedness even more powerful than the
first time they had made love. Every nerve ending in her body
was alive and tingling.  When she laid back down, he was
watching her with his articulate eyes. She peered back from
under half closed lids because it was too hard to keep her eyes
wide open against the weight of all the pleasure coursing
through her. He made her feel so much.

  She reached between them and he groaned, eyelids slamming shut
as she grasped him at the root while he slid in and out of her. 
Her actions provoked the teeth-gritting tremble of lust from him
that she had wanted and she smiled, pleased with her power over
him. She wondered where the uncertain woman in the kitchen had
gone as he surged against her harder.  The friction built to its
inevitable peak and she gave herself over to it willingly,
pulling Mulder along with her for the ride. Every muscle in her
body tensed, then relaxed into exquisite relief. Her back
cracked. Her sinuses cleared and her ears were ringing from his
hoarse cries. She cradled his limp, trembling body against hers
tenderly. The girl who had always needed a list to analyze the
situation had finally been transformed into the woman who could
improvise, using whatever tools happened to be at hand. 

  She ran her hands up and down Mulder's heaving ribs; there'd
be no stopping her now. "Mulder," she whispered sweetly, "why
don't you get some rest?"  She kissed his ear gently and he
turned in her embrace, a dazed smile on his face.  Scully smiled
in return and murmured,  "You're going to need it." 

~*~*~*~

Author's Notes: Well, it wasn't my normal rather angsty fare,
was it?  However, since Chris Carter seems determined not to
amuse me during Season 8 (if the spoilers are to be believed),
I've decided to amuse myself.  I hope that you were amused as
well.

Feedback is always welcome at: Anjou@rocketmail.com.  Website:
http://www.stas.net/fanfic/anjou/

Thanks to Lauryn, Spookys Mistress 2001 and my patient
webmistress.  Special thanks to Miss Moe for putting up with my
tirades of late.  Extra special thanks to Suzanne, my sister,
friend and editrix.