Title: Ominous
Author: Louise Marin
Email: mibosh@earthlink.net
Rating: PG-13
Category: S, A, Semi-R (should be oddly noromo safe)
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST; ScullyAngst with a capital A
Spoilers: Milagro, FTF, Two Fathers
Disclaimer: Scully and Mulder belong to Chris and Co.  Maybe in 
some alternate universe we're all making money off of this 
stuff...but not in this one.
Archive: Certainly.  Just please leave my name and email on it, 
and please let me know so I can come visit.
Feedback: YEAH! Bring it on!

Summary: Scully and Mulder share a bed and a prophecy.


Ominous - by Louise Marin


The pain in my head sets the world at an angle.  I have felt this 
particular throbbing on several occasions, mostly over the past 
five years.  I feel now like something dark is coming.  I wonder 
how I can do anything to stop it.  My head feels like large, hot 
hands are wrapped around it and won't stop squeezing, like a tiny 
black bird is picking and tearing at my brain from inside. 

I turn the lights off, letting the night fill the room.  Then I  
curl up on the couch.  Cupping my forehead in my palm, I 
concentrate on my breathing.  I let my mind fade and I close my 
eyes.

Some time passes before I hear him at the door.  He uses his key 
and enters the room, his steps brushing the carpet in a familiar 
pattern that should comfort me but tonight does not.  I hear him 
stop suddenly, and I assume he has spotted me here on the couch.  
I wonder what he thinks.  We never speak when he comes at night.  
Never.

With the exception of that first night, that first time right 
after the last time I almost died, right after Padgett, he has 
always shown up around this time to find me already tucked in bed.  
But tonight he does not know what to do.  Slowly, his steps 
different now, he comes to the couch.  I hear his clothes rustle 
and his knees crack as he squats down in front of me; I can just 
feel his breath stirring above my face.  I crack open my eyes to 
find his brow creased, his eyes dark and fixed on me.  I know that 
he is uncomfortable.  He's probably concocting some smart-assed 
joke to hide behind.  I wonder if he will come up with anything at 
all appropriate.

When he does finally speak, though, it is not in jest.  "Do you 
feel okay, Scully?" he asks softly.  I know when I changed last, I 
know that I am different since Padgett.  But somehow he managed to 
change too when I wasn't looking.  I wonder briefly and for the 
thousandth time if I have lost myself, if this is some kind of 
Wonderland and everyone I knew before is gone, even him.  The 
world is beautiful to me again, and I don't understand how that 
could be.  Especially now with this pain in my head.  Especially 
with everything that's happened since I met him.  But I am still 
here, and at night he comes in the darkness, slipping into bed 
next to me.  And we never speak.

"Scully?" he gently prods.

"Hmmhm..." I murmur.  I close my eyes again.  I can't look at him.  
I don't know what to say.

He remains still and quiet.  He doesn't know what to say, either.  
He gently pushes my hand from my forehead and then touches the 
skin there.  "You're warm," he says.  His voice is a whisper in my 
hair, and then he is gone.  I hear him retreat into the bedroom.  
He does not return.

Now that he is here, I want to sleep.  Not surprised, I force 
myself up.  The ache in my head neither intensifies nor abates 
with the movement.  It is simply there.  I know this pain, but I 
am too sleepy to be afraid.  I pad into the bedroom.  I am already 
in my pajamas.  It is dark, but I cannot miss his form in the bed, 
under the covers.  I slide in next to him.

Mulder is not my lover.  There is no room for that.  Not now, 
maybe not ever.  I have known since we were first partnered that 
he could never give me what I want from a man.  I could never be 
more beautiful, more worthy of him, than the truth.  Intimacy with 
him has never been part of the game, but he tries now to give me 
what he can.  I wonder if he knows that I have always found him 
attractive, intimacy or not.  I am a woman.  I am alive.  It's 
odd, I think, that when he comes to me like this, sex is far from 
my mind; I can focus on nothing but sleep.  Most nights I lie here 
awake, waiting, and the instant he appears in my room my eyes 
begin to close.  It feels like I am making up for some time I lost 
somewhere.  I suspect he feels the same.  He never sleeps.  Or he 
never used to.

Tonight he is on his back, as always.  That first night, when he 
tucked me in and climbed in after me, I turned my back to him.  
But lying there, looking out the window into the darkness, I 
realized I did not want to look so far away anymore, and I turned 
back to face him.  Now I scoot up next to him and stretch out on 
my side.  We are just barely touching.  My head is close to his on 
the pillow.  I let my chin dip until my lips touch the top of his 
shoulder.  In this position, my hand falls to the inside of his 
wrist where his arm stretches out along his side.  I press my palm 
against his pulse, as always.  It would all be perfect now if not 
for the throbbing in my head that continues on and on, a distant 
prophecy, as I slip into sleep.

We never speak in the morning, either.  Nor in the night if one or 
both of us happens to wake.  Sometimes we wake on opposite sides 
of the bed.  Sometimes we wake tangled around each other so that I 
don't know where he ends and I begin.  Most of the time, I wake 
with him spooned up behind me.  He seems to like to spoon.  Or, at 
least, his subconscious does.  First thing in the morning, he 
leaves.  Always.  Still we never speak.

It's still dark out when I wake from a dream I wish I could 
forget.  Before I am even fully aware of my surroundings, I know 
that I would give anything to escape this dream.  I can hardly 
breathe.  My body shakes with a frightening lack of control.  I 
detest ignorance, but this dream is something I would rather not 
have haunting me for the remainder of our time together.  But I 
know it will not go away.

My hands are clutching him now around his shoulders, clawing at 
him, like they did after the last time I almost died.  I don't 
think there is anything I could do to stop them.  I am fully on 
top of him, like I'm trying to crawl up into his chest and 
disappear.  I ask God why He never takes me.  Why am I going to be 
the one left behind?  My headache is, not surprisingly, gone.

I know the moment my movement wakes him.  His arms tighten around 
me, panicked.  I lift my face from his neck to look at him.  He 
speaks.  I see his lips move, but the pounding of my heart is the 
only thing I can hear.  I wonder, irrationally, if he can hear it 
too.  Fighting the irrational always clears my head.  I can hear 
him now.

"Scully."  There is fear in his voice.  "What's wrong?  Was it a 
dream?"  He shakes me a little.  "Talk to me."  We never speak.

He is hard beneath me, pressed up against my thigh, down where our 
hips are joined.  I wonder how long we have slept, how close it is 
to morning.  "Sorry, Mulder," I whisper as I slide off of him.  

Before I can move away, he pulls me up against him.  He holds me  
hard to his side as he wipes the sweat from my face.  Then his 
hands begin to caress my back in long, sweet strokes that I cannot 
ignore.  I let my head fall to his shoulder.  I am still shaking.  
The dream won't go away.  I close my eyes.

"Please, tell me," he pleads quietly.  Six years have gone by, and 
never once has he begged me to open up to him.  Never once.  Not 
like this.  I wonder if he has dreams too.  I wonder if he knows 
what I know.  I wonder if he has changed as much as his plea makes 
it seem.

I try to speak.  "Mulder," is all I can get out.  I say it again 
and again.  Mulder.  I try again.  "You..."  I shake my head.  "I 
can't.  I can't, Mulder."  I can't tell him.  Intimacy has never 
been part of the game.

His sigh is long and heartbreaking.  Then his hands slip beneath 
my pajama top.  They continue to stroke me, warm on my back.  Oh, 
Mulder, no.  Don't take us here.  I can't speak.  I can't.  I feel 
tears in my eyes as I listen to his palms glide across my skin 
with a soft, pretty swish.  I don't know why I allow him to 
continue touching me this way.  Maybe it's the dream.  Maybe it's 
the sound of his heart beating beneath my ear, so close.  He never 
touches me this way.  

"Please, Scully," he whispers.

I roll over within his arms, putting my back to him.  His hands 
end up around my hips.  He scoots up behind me and pulls me 
against his chest.  His breath stirs around my ear.  I don't want 
to recall the dream.  I want it to slip away into oblivion, never 
to return.  That won't happen, and I wonder whether or not what I 
know now is something he should know as well.

When I remain silent, he clutches me more tightly to him.  I feel 
him inhale deeply, like he's about to drop a secret into my ear.  
Instead of speaking, though, he exhales and goes back to touching 
me.  I would almost rather he spoke.  His hand creeps up to my 
stomach.  I feel his fingertips brushing lightly at the skin just 
above my waistband.

"Mulder..." I warn softly.

"Shh..." he murmurs into my ear.  Beneath my shirt, he spreads his 
palm flat on my stomach, stroking my skin with his thumb.  Then 
slowly, his fingers stretched wide, he pushes his hand up my 
stomach and my chest, pressing firmly with his palm.  When he 
reaches my collar bone, his hand slides back down to my belly.  He 
repeats this again and again.  

His caress is no more sexually charged than any of our other 
touches.  His whole hand rubs over my breasts with each steady 
stroke, but he does not pay them specific attention.  He does not 
cup them or heft their weight in his hand.  He does not tease at 
my nipples, though I can feel them growing hard.  He does, 
however, give heed to my heart, stopping several times to press 
his palm hard against it, pressing me back into his own chest.  I 
know what he is doing.  He is strengthening our connection, 
injecting intimacy into us, making it okay for me to talk to him.

"It's just me," he says over and over.  And before long "It's just 
me" turns into "It's just us."  As his hand lands over my heart 
again, I look over my shoulder and find his eyes.  He holds my 
gaze without hesitation or distraction; he is focused solely on 
me.  For a second I almost feel like I am the truth.  Me.  Just 
me.  It is just enough to make me spill my guts.

"I want to go with you," I say.  I pull my eyes from his and drop 
my head back onto the pillow.

"Where?"

"With 'them,'" I say with emphasis.

"Who 'them'?"

Okay, so maybe he hasn't changed all that much.  "Your damned 
little gray men, Mulder."  

"Shh," he soothes and strokes my chest again.  "Start from the 
beginning."

The story tumbles out of me like I'm on auto-pilot.  Believe it or 
not, he is quiet and lets me speak.  "They come," I begin as I 
stare at my bedroom's dark window.  "But then they have to go, and 
they say they'll take you with them, to the truth.  They say 
they'll take you to your sister.  She's with them, like Cassandra 
said.  Then we're in a forest, and the ship arrives.  God, Mulder, 
it's so bright and beautiful.  It scares me so much, I can hardly 
speak."  I am shaking anew remembering it.  His hand continues to 
move across my skin.  "The hatch opens and the ship extends a long 
ramp that reaches almost to our feet.  We can see them inside, 
waiting, and before I can say a word, you make a decision.  You 
decide to go.  And you won't let me come with you.  We argue, but 
it doesn't matter.  And then..."  I don't want to tell him this 
part.  I don't.  And I can't believe that I am.  It's like I'm 
watching us from across the room, like I don't know us at all 
anymore.  It's me, but I have no real control over the situation 
and the words spill from my mouth.  "You kiss me, for the first 
time.  And then you turn and walk up the ramp.  You don't look 
back.  Just before the hatch closes, I see two of them latch onto 
your arms."

There is silence, and then, "Scully."  That is all he can say, and 
suddenly I feel like I am back in my body.

"How could you, Mulder?  You leave me here to spend the rest of my 
life looking for you."  I want to hit him, but I would never.  One 
of his arms, the one that's not up my shirt, is wrapped around my 
waist.  I reach down and grab his wrist.  I squeeze it tightly.  
"How could you, Mulder, after all these years?"

"Come on, Scully.  You do realize you've just described to me the 
final scene of E.T., don't you?"

"Mulder," I growl.

He sighs.  "It was only a dream.  I'm right here.  I won't leave 
you," he says, his lips brushing my ear.  "It's okay."

I wiggle out of his arms and turn to face him.  "It's not okay," I 
say.  "It's not going to be okay."

His brow creases, and then his lips begin to twitch.  He is trying 
to keep from smiling, but it doesn't quite work.  "Scully, you 
never told me you have prophetic dreams."  His voice holds a 
familiar mock exasperation, the bastard.

I look down at my hands.  "Once just before I was assigned to work 
on the X-files.  Once when you were a dead man in New Mexico.  
Before Emily.  Some other times."

I look up to find him blinking at me, his mouth open.  "I was 
kidding," he whispers.

"No, you were coming to a very good intuitive conclusion.  Typical 
for you."

He shakes his head.  "I can't believe you're admitting this."

"Why not, Mulder?  You know I believe in God, and in angels.  Why 
not dreams?  Maybe I'm not quite the absolute skeptic you seem to 
see me as.  Maybe, Mulder, I just play the role I have to so we 
can get to the truth without getting ourselves killed or fired in 
the process."  I let my words sink in for a minute.  I wonder if 
he's ever thought about any of this himself.

"You don't believe in aliens, Scully."

I shake my head.  "I want to go with you," I whisper again.  Now 
he looks down at his hands.  I know he cannot accept my request.  
He knows, too.  "See?"

"What?"

"Forget it," I mumble.  I move to roll away from him, but he stops 
me, his grip firm on my arm.  

"Wait," he says.  I look into his eyes, willing him to let this 
drop.  He blinks twice and then closes the dark inches between us.

He seizes my mouth without reservation, sinking into me slowly.  
He does not bother to test the waters.  My heart is in my throat.  
He opens his mouth and tastes me, his tongue flicking out to lap 
at the tip of mine.  Then he proceeds to drink me down.  He starts 
with each side of my tongue and finishes with the roof of my 
mouth.  All I can think about is the fact that we are finally 
fused together by the sweet, silky mixture of our saliva between 
our gliding lips.  Minutes fly by and then we pull apart, 
breathless and stunned.

"There," he says.

"There."

He shakes his head.  "We've shared that first kiss you spoke of.  
Here.  Not in a forest in front of the entire Reticulan army.  So, 
your dream could not possibly be a true indicator of the future."

I sigh and finally roll over.  He snuggles up against my back, but 
the intimacy is gone.  He's wrong, but I don't have the heart to 
tell him.  

The physicality of his kiss was as perfect as a sunrise and as 
sweet as all the stars in the sky.  But it was wrong.  My heart 
has dropped from my throat into my stomach, and I am as 
disappointed as I have ever been.  This is not how I wanted it to 
be.  He is both the most decent human being and the most prolific 
user I have ever met.  I wanted our kiss to happen because it was 
right, because we needed to express ourselves.  I wanted it to be  
for the simple fact that we adore each other despite the fact that 
we drive each other crazy.  I wanted it to be serious.  I was 
willing to wait forever.  But I should know better.  I should know 
him better.  We may have changed some, but our relationship is 
essentially the same.  The kiss did not come from want for the 
kiss itself, but from want for something else.  It was not unlike 
last summer, when he tried to kiss me to keep me from leaving him.

It was our first kiss.  It has come and gone.

"I'm always here," he mumbles into my hair.  I can hear sleep 
creeping up on him.  

But he is wrong.  What I cannot tell him is that the dreams, when 
they come, are not necessarily accurate to the detail.  I remain, 
though, cursed with the big picture.  My mind is as clear as it's 
ever been, and I know for certain that, when the time comes, he 
will go.  It may not be aliens who take him, but he will go.  And 
I will be left behind.  The kiss there will not be our first.  
Maybe the kiss will not happen at all.  Maybe it will be something 
else, a different first. Maybe it will be our first kiss good-bye.  

I turn some and bury my face in the pillow.  The night plays on.  
We never speak.


(End 1/1)


Author's Note:  This story came to me when I woke one morning from 
a nightmare of my own.  It's the second fanfic that I've posted.  
You can read my first story, "Cubed," here: 
www.angelfire.com/la/xspot

Special thanks to my regular beta reader ytwolf for disappearing 
for a while.  If she were around, I probably wouldn't have put 
aside the long character death story I'm working on in order to 
write this little puppy.

One last plea for Feedback: This story's style is very very 
different for me.  I'd love to know what you think of it.

Thanks for reading,
Louise
mibosh@earthlink.net
www.angelfire.com/la/xspot