Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998

Heresy (Pine Bluff Variation) by Khyber and Alanna Baker
khyberpass@geocities.com / emmalanna@aol.com

GENRE: XRA (Missing scenes from "Pine Bluff Variant")
RATING: R for mature themes, language, and non-explicit sex.
SYNOPSIS: Mulder faces death at the end of "Pine Bluff Variant." Has
the most important discovery come too late?
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst, Scullyangst, Queequegangst, Flukemanangst,
Mulderfishangst, angst, angst everywhere, and angst-laden MSR for
dessert! (Of COURSE it's MSR, what *else* would we write?)
SPOILERS: "Pine Bluff Variant".
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This was originally supposed to be a follow-on
to Kelli Rocherolle's missing scene, but it didn't really work out
that way. Thanks to Kelli for the inspiration, and the ever-wonderful
Sabine for an early read.

***
He never even finished closing the door.

Her eyes had been deep and desperate, and he knew that his own must be
the same. She glanced at his newly bandaged hand, trying to give him
some appropriate caution for it.

Minutes before, their words had slid around each other, trying to
touch while avoiding, to reach around the fragile dark web of unspoken
things between them.

"You've got to tell me, Mulder."

"Tell you what, Scully, something that will get you killed?"

"Tell me what I need to know, Mulder. What I need to know to help you
and to help me."

"I couldn't, Scully, they told me you'd be in more danger knowing than
not."

"When the hell did you start trusting the people who tell us what to
do, Mulder? When did you start trusting them more than you trust me?"
Fierce, Mulder thought, all blazing blue eyes and hard, tense female
muscles. What have we become, Scully. How can we spend days together
and never smile anymore?

Fierce creatures mate for life.

"It's not about trust, Scully, it's about keeping you alive."

"Look at this, Mulder, look at us. This isn't superstition, this isn't
faith, this is cold fact, Mulder, every time we have been in danger
it's because we're separated. Somehow. Because you've run off
somewhere. Because I've let you run off somewhere. Because we're not
communicating. Because we let our guard down to them."

He tried to remember times when they had communicated -- when words
had flowed from his lips, from his mind, to be met by her
understanding -- but those moments were few and far between these
days, scarcely able to be conjured by memory. They had told
themselves they didn't need training, that they had it down to a
science, yet that was a fallacy which made them comfortable,
complaisant, and apart.

"Scully, now you're starting to sound paranoid."

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get
you." She responded to his attempt to lighten their exchange slightly,
reassuring him that tonight there would not be any slamming doors, any
half-thought resignations on late-night computer screens.

"I'm serious, Mulder."

Mulder no longer noticed that she had to look up at him, it was an
accomodation both automatically made. Her hand took up an unaccustomed
position low on the lapel of his jacket, tugging slightly at one of
the buttons seemingly independent of her awareness.

"If something happened to one of us, Mulder, how long do you think the
other would last?"

Fierce began giving way, her head tilting sideways slightly.

"What else do we have?"

***

The gimp likes to follow close, I think he wants to smell me. He's
stupid, I might be able to take him out inside the gun but Bremner is
a good ten feet back, and I don't think he's too worried about having
to shoot through buddy if necessary to get me.

Who knows I'm here? Lots of people know I'm here, they just don't know
where 'here' is.

And they probably don't care, so long as their objectives are met.
Only Scully cares.

Is she out there? I hope she's wearing a vest, these guys will go down
shooting now with sixteen murders at stake. I'm the closest guy to
shoot.

We're running out of time, Scully.

***

I can't say it. I don't know what to say. Don't leave, Scully. Follow
me tomorrow. Don't listen to me. Save me, Scully, make it stop. She
turned, silhouetted in the open door. He placed his hand, the one with
the new cast, on her shoulder, and tried to say 'thank you.'

Her coat was thick, dull-warm, not Scully's sharp, heated angles. She
pulled off her leather gloves, quickly but deliberately, reaching up,
small hands taking his large one, careful of his broken finger. Her
touch was slightly cool and almost damp, nervous. He had never felt
her skin like that, by accident or design. Scully held his hand there,
then pulled it to her face, pressing the back of it against her cheek.
Shallow breath both of them.

Please say it. Speak.

"Scully, I, I..." There was a crystal, a luminous trail beginning on
her cheek as she turned, clatter of heels, four steps near-run. Then
she turned back, a lurching half-step forward. Mulder realised that
tears were starting to burn down his face.

"Mulder?" Another step. His sound was gritted teeth and sob, trapped
in the need to speak things too great. "Mulder..."

Two steps.
One.
Too close.

"I'm sorry, Scully..." It was a whisper, a plea, a confession.

Scully against him was a whirlwind of shadowed pale skin, sea tears
and open mouth, edges of sharp teeth. She was so strong, pushing him
backwards, a trail behind her of shoes and coat, hands pulling his
leather jacket down from behind, binding his arms and making him
stumble backwards. Soft noises in her throat that would be one long
wild cry if she was not breathing more Mulder than air.

"No, Mulder, no, no, you're not sorry, I'm not sorry, not now, just do
this now..."

"Scully..." Small hands fluttered around his face. Slight scratchings
and pullings, then on his cheeks, turning his attention slightly
upward as he brought Scully's small body closer and higher, her hips
grinding against his belly.

"...what are we doing..."

There was a brief flicker of Special Agent Scully in the smokestorm of
the beautiful woman's eyes.

"I don't know..." Her chest jumped once with a sobbing breath, breast
escaping open blouse brushing his neck.

"I love you Scully. I'm sorry, Scully." His throat burned as if from a

scream he had forgotten.

"I don't care, I don't care, Mulder, I just need you to love me..."
Need, he finally understood need as it began to devour him, and
Mulder laid himself open to the wild, sinuous love he was carrying
towards the darkened bedroom.

***

No damn cover here anywhere. Even if I get to the gimp, Bremner has me
cold. He's walking us a long way.

Jesus do I not want to die.

Not like this. I never thought I'd actually die before.

I always thought someday I'd have to live without her, that she would
be first. I'd never have to not live with her.

I never thought I'd see it coming. I don't want to know that I didn't
get a chance to say goodbye. I never thought I would have to say
goodbye or have anyone to say it to.

***
When he was twenty-one Mulder understood the word "glee", in a dorm
room, pot smoke heavy in the air, listening to Zappa or something
crazy like that, making wild skittery cartoon voices, throwing chips
at each other. Rolling on his side on the floor with his roommates,
belly hurting from laughing so hard, lost. It was the dope, of course,
and his life did not change when he awoke with a dry mouth and a
trashed room, but that word now had a real, concrete meaning like few
others. That moment then was "glee."

Some true meanings would remain forever hidden, but a few could be
understood by experience.

Now Mulder understood "cling", eyes shut tight, unwilling to see
beyond the feeling of Scully against him. The room was cool but her
body sweat-damp and warm, and they moved against each other as if to
find ways to press even closer, to shut out what was around them.
Closed into a reality of each other's scent and flesh and weight, all
language the pressure of muscles against each other. Scully's breasts
were a lush, ripe softness in their spare and lean world. Constant
small movements led to a moment at which it was impossible for more of
their bodies to be in contact without violating dimensions. They
stopped there, silent and grateful, in a place which was theirs and
theirs alone, in which two bodies were rimmed with void and there was
no other form.

***
You asked me once, Scully, what I would do differently with my life,
Given the opportunity to begin again, the slate wiped clean? Of
course, you were dying at the time, so all I could think of was
psychology, that you were distancing yourself from your own possible
fate by projecting it onto me. But now it seems so real, because I'm
dying now.

What would I do differently?

I would not live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the
time to be "right", whatever artificial construct "right" became. I
would not search without, I would search within.

But these thoughts were luxury, were beautiful, were dulling liquor
rolling over his tongue as Death marched behind him armed with a semi-
automatic pistol, and Bremner holding its leash.

***

"You're supposed to meet Skinner in an hour." Her head did not move
from his chest, hearing her soft voice through his heart and ribs.

Reverberating, filling empty space with her.

"No. I'm not going."

"Mulder...?"

"We can stop, Scully. We can get out." She could tell his tears were
starting again, his breath lifting her on rapid, jerking waves. "I
have money. I can, I can get passports." Mulder's voice had a
feverish, whispered excitement. "They're used to it from us, Scully,
it'll be days before they really look, and I know people, I know
things, we can make them leave us alone. We can go to Canada, Scully,
we can go to England, we can go, Scully, we can just go..."

He was so much bigger than her, arms dragging her naked body closer,
higher, feeling a faint glow of humidity from Mulder's face as her
cheek settled against his. Liquid together, melting, tears and our
sex, the trace of us all over these sheets, she thought. I will make a
dress of them, my wedding gown. I will marry Mulder in England clothed
in our tears and our love. Oh my god I am losing my mind.

She wanted to make love in the street, in front of people, in
front of *them*, something that could never be forgotten or erased.

"We can't, Mulder." Scully shifted, and Mulder thought for a second
she was going to turn away, to leave his bed. Instead she rolled
directly on top of him, her body covering little of his, pressing
close, her hands working on his biceps.

"Should I follow you tomorrow, Mulder?"
"If I tell you not to, will you anyway?"
"Yes."
"Then don't."

***

"Get down on your knees."

This is the ground I'm going to die on. It's too late, Scully, they
got me, get the hell out of here. Remember what I told you last night,
about the safe deposit box. Here's my heresy Scully, however many
lives I saved dying here it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth not
living with you. I love you. I got to say it on the last night of my
life, gonna say it again, I love you Dana Katherine Scully, my Scully.

I'm spared a click. The rounds were chambered long ago.

British Airways 983, Scully, DC to London, we left my car at the
rental place and the rental in the airport lot. You're wearing one of
my shirts, your jeans from your overnight bag in the car. The wheels
just came up and we're going to drink wine on a transatlantic jet at
eleven in the morning because we can do anything we want now, my
Scully, my love. I set it up last night because it was morning in
London, Scully, money there, money in Zurich, we are gone, Scully, we
are gone, we are gone

BANG

and I still see the ground and Bremner is telling me to move, telling
me there's a car. This is what it means to escape, to have every part
of me trying to outrun the other and she will be safe and safety when
I reach her. Tripping over soft earth, she has never been the safety
of warmth and softness but now that is all I can think. Scully how
far away are you.

I need to be there. Now.

Not to prevent Armageddon, not to serve justice. Only to share the
life given back to me in this ragged place where trees drip tears onto
the ground.

***

Skinner has left us as they carry the money away. Scully is holding my
injured hand gently and flares of tension releasing are shaking me. We
are glancing at each other nervously as a slower, longer uncertainty
replaces the fear of death. I see clearly, though I was not there,
naked, frighteningly beautiful Scully wrapping herself in our sheets,
the first person to spend the night in my bed in years. I know she lay
with eyes open and knees pulled up until the sun started to light the
room.

I gently push her hand away from mine and sense her stiffening across
the space between us, feel those small, powerful shoulders hunching
forwards slightly. My hands slowly move forward, onto the fabric of
her blazer over slim arms, then hesitating a moment before I hold on
as tightly as I can to this fierce, terrifying thing that makes me
want to betray everything to just keep feeling it. There are still
inches between us, and casual eyes still uncaring around. We share
fear for a few moments, and knowing its mutuality bounds it and makes
it easier to bear.

***

August Bremner switched off the laser unit, unclamping the mounting
bracket from the car's dash. He had heard enough to know that this
battle was probably lost, but that the man upstairs exchanging final,
desperate kisses and caresses with his lover as he dressed hurriedly
was fighting the same war Bremner himself was. Bremner was a patient
man, and he knew when to plan for the future.

*end*

+++++ alannabaker +++++
melodia@mindspring.com
fanfic: members.aol.com/emmalanna/fanfic.html
"they say goldfish have no memory
guess their lives are much like mine
and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time"
--ani difranco