Katabasis by Johnie

Disclaimer: Believe me, I don’t own anything worth suing me for
so I'm not even writing one.

Rating: NC-17 for sexual content

Category: MSR, angst

Summary: Sequal to In My End Is My Beginning. Scully deals
with Mulder's disappearance.

Spoilers: Never Again.

Comments: If so inclined to JohnieRed@aol.com. This is for CC
(no, not that CC) who is never happy with my 'lady or the tiger'
endings.

October 1998

Dana Scully curled the cream colored cashmere sweater into a jelly
roll shape and tucked it in neatly into the last available space in her
suitcase before zipping it closed. She made one last walk through
the apartment that had been her home for the past several years,
stopping briefly to secure the plastic drape over the couch. She
wasn't sure when or even if she would ever be back. She
unplugged the phone, picked up her suitcase, and walked out the
door. She was headed to the airport and back into Fox Mulder's
life.

He wasn't going to know what hit him.

Exactly one year ago Scully awoke in the bedroom of Mulder's
apartment in Alexandria, Virginia to find herself alone. Sunlight
had been streaming through the window giving the stark room with
it's plain white walls an almost iridescent glow. She basked in the
warm beams for several minutes before opening her eyes. Dana had
known she'd be alone, had known Mulder would be gone before
daylight, leaving her feeling like the recipient of an incubus
visitation.

She pulled the plain white sheet, eerily like the sheets she had seen
hundreds of times covering corpses awaiting autopsy, away from
her. She lay on her back, running her hands over her body as
though she expected to find it different, unfamiliar, changed
somehow. The only visible differences were a love bite just over
the arc of her pelvic bone on her right hip and several spots of
whisker burn on her thighs, breasts, and on the flat of her stomach.
And her lips, she ran her fingers over them, they felt bruised,
swollen. She smiled beneath her fingertips, remembering the brutal
passion of his kisses. She had always imagined Mulder unleashed
sexually would be as close to perfection outside of her fantasies that
she would ever get.

She had been wrong.

Mulder *was* her fantasy that night.

When he had pinned her against the wall in the hallway of his
apartment without saying a word, and begun kissing her, she had
resisted momentarily, thinking he was in too much pain after all he
had been through recently to take the leap forward to being lovers.
Then she remembered the phone call that had summoned her there.

“Scully, I need you,” was all he had said.

She had needed him too.

She rubbed the love bite on her hip, not remembering exactly how it
got there. She was sure Mulder's excellent memory would recall
every motion, every sound and texture, and the exact sequence of
events of the previous evening but all she remembered specifically
after fucking him in the hallway was being carried to his bed. The
rest was all a blur of sensation and the intoxicating feeling of having
a fantasy played out.

Oh, she held no illusions that they made love. She knew they had
been like animals in heat. Yes, she thought, animals. They had
mated wildly like jungle cats, biting, clawing and growling. She
smiled to herself. Mate, such a basic, primal term but she thought it
perfectly described her relationship with Mulder. It had even before
they had sex.

Scully wondered if Mulder had known that, in bed she would be far
from the chaste woman she was raised to be. She suspected he
might have. After all, he knew about the tattoo and Ed Jerse, and
judging from how he had reacted to the whole thing, he thought she
had acted out some wild sexual scenario with Ed.

Mulder didn't know he was the only one she had ever trusted
enough to let herself be completely free with, the only man who
knew her enough to even guess she could be pushed beyond
passion and into the feral state that overcame them both that night.

As she boarded the plane, she bit her bottom lip at the memory.
She hadn't known where Mulder went after he left. All that had
been in the apartment was the remains of her suit, Mulder's cell
phone, miscellaneous furniture, and a handful of legal documents
and other paperwork. She left the sub-leasing agreement that said
Langley would be moving into the apartment in three days, and had
taken the power of attorney stating she would handle his
government pension, a copy of his will, and the folder of genetic
testing records that had been used to prove his sister was the long
dead body found on Martha's Vineyard.

She took the folder out of her carry on and pulled out one of the
transparencies, running her fingers down the strips of stained
heterochromatin.

She hadn't looked through the folder until three weeks after Mulder
was gone. It had been a grey, drizzly Sunday. Scully had lain in
bed crying all morning. When she awoke that morning she realized
she had her period, until then she hadn't thought about the fact that
she and Mulder hadn't used protection. If Mulder couldn't paste
together his cracked psyche, he might not be coming back, and the
sudden realization that she wouldn't have his child had been more
than she could bear. Needing to feel some contact with him, she
had taken out the folder to try to ascertain why he had left it for her
to find. She knew him too well to think there wasn't a reason for it.

She looked down at the transparencies in her lap. She remembered
spending all that afternoon with medical journals spread out over
the bed, making phone calls. By evening she had figured out the
reason but didn't know how Mulder had. The FBI DNA Analysis
unit's reports hadn't mentioned it, they had only been interested in
identifying Samantha not Mulder's paternity. But somehow he had
discovered William Mulder wasn't his father.
Scully had immediately called the Lone Gunmen. Frohike and
Langley had taken note of her brittle demeanor and wisely left her
for Byers to deal with. Byers wouldn't tell her a thing for over two
months.

She smiled remembering the conversation. She had met him at the
Lincoln Memorial for the fourth time that month. She was growing
increasing agitated with the Gunmen's evasive behavior and had
decided it was time for confessions.

“Byers, I understand the sense loyalty you feel toward Mulder and
that you're reluctant to break his trust but I know he must have
brought the tests to you. You have to tell me if he gave any
indication-”

“Agent Scully, I know Agent Mulder was your partner but he-”

Scully interrupted, “Byers, do you know why I need to find
Mulder?”

“I imagine it's because you were partners for five years and *you*
feel a sense of loyalty toward him, and you're worried because of
his abrupt departure.”

Scully had taken a deep breathe and braced herself. She looked him
straight in eye.

“Byers, Mulder and I were lovers.”

Byers shock registered on his face momentarily, then he sighed,
stroking his beard with one hand. He paused and then asked, “For
how long?”

Scully hadn't anticipated his question. She expected disbelief, a
comment about Bureau protocol, but not this. She knew she had
to be straight forward or she would never get an answer out of him.

“One night, for just one night. He left Washington the next day
before I woke up.”

Byers had turned and walked to her car silently; and then stood by
the passenger door until she got in and popped the automatic lock.
As he slid into the seat she asked, “Where to?”

“The Gunman office,” Byers said looking out the side window, “I
had no idea. I knew he was upset, grieving but I had no idea he
was so desperate...”

“So desperate as to sleep with his partner,” Scully commented
wryly.

Byers shook his head, “No,” he said, leaning forward to brush a
strand of stray hair out of her eyes so he could look straight into
them as he replied , “So desperate as to leave the woman he had
loved quietly and completely for so long after making love to her
for the first time, so desperate as to risk hurting you.”

She didn't correct the semantics of his statement; there was only so
much she was willing to tell Byers. Frohike would probably
willingly sacrifice an appendage for the details but she was sure it
was the last thing Byers would want to know. Scully smiled,
“You'll help me then?”

He nodded, and becoming very businesslike said, “This
conversation goes no further. Langley and Frohike don't have to
know why I changed my mind, it's my secret to tell. Mulder
brought the tests to me and I confirmed that the man he had
thought was his father wasn't.
He told me his mother had just died and that he had had her and
Samantha buried together out on the Vineyard. He harbored no
hopes of finding out who his father really was and didn't care.
Mulder then said something about taking a leave of absence and
wanting a blessing way chant. When he asked Langley if he wanted
to sublet his apartment, I assumed he just planned to hang out in the
Navajo Nation for a while but if...” he trailed off.

Scully started the car and said simply, “Thanks Byers”

Curiously enough, she reflected, it had been Byers that had gotten
her through the months following the conversation. They had
located Mulder in the Navajo Nation; he had stayed there for
another six months. After that he disappeared, resurfaced in
Montana and disappeared again, during which time Scully fought
increasing panic and constantly questioned her decision to allow
him to be alone while trying to exorcise his demons.

Byers had been reassuring and when Mulder turned back up in
Canada in September, she had decided it was time.

Byers had agreed, “Dana, I think you've given him enough space.
Now you need to see for yourself if he's ready to resume... life.”

So now here she was thirty minutes away from Montreal. Most of
her belongings were in storage, her teaching positions at Quantico
and the University of Maryland resigned, and her friends and family
thoroughly confused. Her mother had come by and quietly said
goodbye the night before. “Dana, I argued when you resigned as a
field agent. I demanded to know what was going on when I
realized Fox had disappeared and you hadn't said a word to me.
I've pushed you for months to tell me what's wrong and you haven't
wanted to confide in me. If you're leaving now I can only assume
it's for a good reason and that you'll keep in touch to let me know
you're okay.” Her mother had kissed her cheek and left.

The plane touched down and she prepared to disembark. She had
only been to Montreal once before when she was in college on
break. She was sure Mulder would miss an alien landing to hear
about how, on a dare, she had gone bar hopping through strip clubs
with her friends, up and down St. Catherine Street.

She walked through the now remodeled airport to the baggage
claim area and picked up the two bags she brought with her;
everything else had been sent ahead. She was exhausted; all she
planned to do tonight was pick up her rental car, check into her
hotel and sleep. Tomorrow she would check on Mulder.

Scully had been following Mulder for six days. She had no
intention of contacting him if she didn't think he was ready. She
had watched him on campus teaching his classes at McGill
University. He was at ease teaching, the students seemed to like
him. But everything he did besides teaching, he did alone.
She watched him walking through the old section of the city along
the river; watched him eat at a sidewalk cafe, and watched him go
home.

He was tanned and slightly thinner than he had been a year ago.
She noticed a more quiescent manner in his actions but he still
managed to carry a slight aura of tragedy about him. She knew him
well enough to know he would wait for her to make the first move.
She was pretty sure, healed or not, he still thought he brought
unhappiness into her life, and she was also sure he felt he had used
her that night.

'I need you'- his words echoed in her head. He probably didn't
know how badly she had needed him. She had been drowning just
as surely as he had, he just reached the critical point before her. His
situation had become acute and hers had been more chronic in
nature. If he felt he might not have made it through the last year
without that night, well, she knew for certain she wouldn't have.
She had been treading water for so very long.

She waited until the lights in his apartment had been out for an
hour. It was eleven o'clock. From watching him at night, she
noticed he slept longer and a lot more peacefully than he had when
working at the Bureau.
She crept up to his second floor apartment and picked the lock with
the tiny instruments Frohike had given her as a goodbye gift. She
had no idea why he chose them in particular but she hoped it wasn't
because he had grown to know her so well that he guessed her
course of action. The thought that Frohike might have read her
mind was something she found much too frightening to contemplate
unless she was in a public place during broad daylight.

She padded softly through the apartment to the bedroom.

Mulder was asleep on his back with one arm thrown over his head.
Moonlight dimly lit the room allowing her to see he was naked
except for a bear fetish hanging around his neck by a leather thong.
She quietly undressed and slid into bed next to him, careful not to
disturb the sheet lightly draped over the lower half of his body. He
stirred slightly. As she ran the back of her hand down his face,
fingers trailing across his cheek, his eyes flew open. She leaned
forward lightly brushing her lips against his. His lips mouthed her
name as a sigh escaped them and his arms reached up to pull to
him. They kissed softly, mouth exploring mouth for several
minutes until Mulder broke the silence.

“I don't dream anymore so this must be real.”

She smiled at him and pinched his forearm.

“Real,” he whispered, amazed, as though he really hadn't believed it
when he said it. To prove it to himself he ran his hands over her
face, into her hair, pausing she noticed, at the back of her neck to
feel for the tiny scar from the implant. His hands continued,
caressing her back, her stomach, her breasts, her hips while he
rained gentled kisses across her cheeks, her neck, and shoulders.

“I missed you Dana. I never thought...” his voice grew raspy with
emotion and he couldn't finish.

She kissed him again. “I need you,” she whispered. The bright
look of anguish disappeared from his eyes at her words, and was
replaced with a darkened look of desire.

He pulled the sheet back exposing her body and leaned forward to
slowly lick her hip bone. His ran his tongue slowly, so slowly
across the spot, where a year ago he had given her the love bite.
He then gently kissed each spot that had been red from whisker
burn as though apologizing, confirming her guess that he vividly
remembered every detail of that night.

His long fingers reached down and began stroking her, he groaned
when he felt how wet she was. She felt him harden against her
thigh and reached down to caress him. She could feel his heart rate
increase as she touched him and leaned forward pressing her breasts
into his chest. She could see a fine sheen of sweat breaking out
across his face and realized he was holding himself in check.

“Please Dana,” he pleaded, “please let me make love to you this
time. Tell me what you need.”

But there were no words. She had no words to convey how she
had longed for him,
cried for him, silently begged fate to keep him safe, how she had
raged at his inability to see how necessary he was to her, so instead
she lost herself in their lovemaking.

She straddled his hips and slowly lowered herself onto him. He
groaned, grasping her hips to try to slow her down but her need
was too strong and she set a pace that pushed him to the edge.
When he felt her convulse around him, he spilled into her, chanting
her name, DanaDanaDana.

Mulder awoke in the faint light of early morning. It was raining and
he was alone. He smiled, it was her way of letting him know they
were equal. Equal in actions, equal in loneliness, equal in need and
healed equally. He was free.

Scully drove through the rain to the airport, her flight to Boston, to
her new life, left in just over an hour. She looked down at the
bloodstone bear fetish that Mulder had placed around her neck
sometime during the night. “For strengthen, Dana,” he had
whispered. She realized he hadn't called her Scully once, hadn't
spoken of the past. After whispering to him his words from a year
ago, she hadn't spoken at all.

The End