Two Fish Swimming
by Rachel Anton
Website: http://members.aol.com/ranton1013/page/index.htm
Rating: MSR, NC-17
Summary: Mulder thinks about astrology and other things
Comments: Wow. This fic is breathtaking, that's all I can say just about now
*g*. Loved that it was Mulder narrating about Scully's past, it was such a
good idea, and such a neat way of talking about what happened while still
in the context of the M&S relationship. And wooh. Maaaaan, I feel honoured
to be able to archive this here. *ggl*
Title: Two Fish Swimming
Author: Rachel Anton
E-Mail: RAnton1013@aol.com
Spoilers: all things (yes, it's the obligatory all
things fic)
Category: V
Keywords: MSR
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Mulder thinks about astrology and
other things
Distribution: Yep. Just let me know where it's
going.
Disclaimer: Uh, yeah. Not mine.
Thanks: To Cynthia for a top notch beta (as
usual) and Laura for terrific suggestions and
encouragment.
xxxxxx
The strange thing about astrology,
he thinks,
tracing the circles on his partner's back, is that
it's usually right.
Compared to what he knows about other
similarly paranormal pseudo-sciences, his
knowledge of this particular art of divination is
relatively limited. It isn't lack of belief that's
kept him from research, but rather a profound
lack of interest. He's seen the darkness that lives
in the human heart and has no desire to attribute
horrible, senseless acts to the stars. He fears
that delving too deeply into this way of viewing
the universe might destroy his perceptions,
distort his thinking, upset his belief in ultimate
free will.
Still, he knows enough to understand
what his
being a Libra means, to recognize the Pisces in
Scully.
Libra is an air sign. Pisces- water.
It was raining when she told him the
story. Just
a light drizzle at first, begun when she put the
teapot on his stove, but by the time she started
talking, it was a constant, heavy, dull
thrumming on the windows and roof.
He was tired, so tired from his trip.
Pointless.
Boring. God, what a waste of time it had been.
He wondered why he'd even gone. It was
supposed to be a vacation, a chance, in what he
recognizes now as a subtle bit of irony, to share
something of his past with her. But she hadn't
come along and he'd missed her so profoundly
that it exhausted him. He was ready to sink into
a deep and dreamless sleep, but he couldn't have
ever been so tired that he'd send her away. Not
when she was talking the way she was.
It wasn't the story itself that pricked
his heart
like a candy-coated dagger. It was the fact that
she was telling it to him at all.
He's often wondered what she was,
is, would
be, without him. Tonight he thinks he has
learned all of these things, and more.
What she was- this has been shrouded
in
mystery for so very long, he can scarcely believe
that he's been given so many answers in so few
minutes. Before, he'd only had snapshots. Brief
moments in time that she'd shared with him,
doled out through the years with the same
frequency as her smiles. He kept them in a
scrapbook in his mind, tried to piece them
together into a cohesive image of a person, but
it was always difficult. Never clear.
Now he has it. Has her. He can see
her, young,
fresh, plump little face and long mousy hair, but
beautiful. Always beautiful.
She is sitting, squirming inside although
no one
can see it, taking careful notes and watching the
words fall out of her professor's mouth, wishing
she could kiss those lips. If only she were older.
If only he didn't have that damn ring. She's
smart enough, interesting enough, everything
enough to hold his interest. But he'd never give
her a second look. Or would he?
There she is again, hair pulled up
into a
professional looking bun, studying as if her life
depended on it, but still waiting. She knows he
comes here, to this coffee shop, when he needs
to get away. At least that's what she assumes
he's doing.
He's talking to her. Not as a teacher,
but as a
man. And she is a woman. Just like she's always
known in her heart. Hours pass and the
conversation grows deeper, more intimate. He
tells her things he hasn't ever told another living
soul, pours his desperate heart out to her and
she takes it all in, absorbing his pain and making
it her own just as she always does.
Pisces women have a penchant for falling
in
love with the wrong men, for drowning
themselves in the sorrows of another. He tries
not to ponder that too extensively.
A meeting place is set and many evenings
pass
in this fashion. She feels pangs of guilt the first
time she takes him to her bed. This is another
woman's husband and she is not- shouldn't be-
the kind of person she is becoming. But she
loves him, he loves her, it's fate. She's as sure of
the rightness of their relationship as she's ever
been of anything. He's willing to sacrifice
everything for her. Surely that must be worth
something.
She plays it cool with her friends,
keeps her
secret life to herself. She's thrilled to have
secrets. She loves secrets.
Finally the day she's been waiting
for has
arrived. He's come to her empty, without. He's
left his family and he needs her to fill him, to
take the place of his wife and child. He stands
on her doorstep, car keys in hand, wanting to
take her away to- where? She doesn't even
know.
Earlier that week an unexpected option
had
presented itself. The FBI. Quantico.
Washington DC. She is frightened, but excited.
She thinks she might enjoy this, might find her
passion here. She tells him of her plans. They do
not fit within the parameters of his vision of
their life together.
They argue. She wonders why she wanted
another father, what was lacking in the first one.
Her life flashes before her eyes. She tells him to
go home.
She spends the night hunched over
the toilet,
vomiting and crying for the lives she's ruined
with her stupidity, her childishness and nativity.
She vows to never love again. Not like this.
This hurts too much. She will close her heart
and she will run at the first sign of need.
"Do you think less of me as a
person, Mulder?"
she'd asked him.
"No. More." Has been his
answer. More, not
just because she'd been through this hell and
made the right decision in the end, but because
she had the strength to tell him. He wished he
had her bravery.
Is- what she is. What is she when
he is not with
her? This too has become startlingly clear.
He's often wondered how much of him
she
carries with her, how much of herself is for his
benefit only. He knows that there are patterns
between people, when one half of a partnership
reacts to a given situation in a certain way, the
other half will often react in the opposite
fashion whether or not the reaction is genuine.
Balance. He knows a great deal about
maintaining balance. The visual symbol for his
sign is Justice, the scales.
He's wondered how much of her stubborn
skepticism, her unwillingness to accept certain
ways of thought, certain approaches to a
problem, is merely a reaction to his action. He's
wondered how much of his insistence on a
certain way of thought is a reaction to her
stubbornness. He's wondered if he's expanded
her viewpoint more than she's been willing to let
him know, and she his. If she says the things she
does out of pattern, habit, and to keep him
tethered to the Earth and reality.
Now he knows. When he is absent, she
is
willing, open, extreme in her thinking. When she
is absent, he is closed, skeptical, bored. Crop
circles, cmop shmirkles. He doesn't even know
if anything happened because he never checked
it out. As soon as she was gone, he realized that
she was right.
And what would she be? If he'd never
known
her, never been a part of her life. Or if she'd
walked away from him before he had the chance
to change her. This is the question that has
haunted him the most, twisted up the darkest
parts of his soul. Would she be better?
He knows that she wouldn't be with
Daniel,
despite the brief temptation she revealed to him.
He is too weak for her to withstand, too needy
and selfish. Too arrogant. To stand idly by for
ten years, waiting for her to happen upon him
and recognize her rightful place beside him, it is
too foolish for her to comprehend.
Pisces is a romantic at heart. She'd
never admit
it to anyone, perhaps even herself, but she needs
a man who is not afraid to come for her, who
would follow her to the ends of the Earth and
let her know that he's done so. Who'll stand in
front of her and hand over his heart without
expectation, bitterness, or condition.
No, she would not be with a man like
Daniel,
but where would she be? Happy perhaps?
No, he knows now. He knows better.
He wasn't surprised when she fell
asleep
listening to him talk. It certainly wasn't the first
time. And the days she'd just endured had been
hellish and long. He left her on the couch,
determined to let her rest and not disrupt her
peace with more talk of destiny and choosing
paths, despite the fact that he was itching to
continue the conversation, to dig even deeper.
He found himself restless despite
his fatigue.
His bed was a welcome refuge, but it held no
sleep for him. His pajama pants and sheets
became a hopeless tangle within an hour and he
decided to watch a movie. Distraction.
She found him halfway through the
original
King Kong, sprawled out on top of his blanket,
head resting on his palm at the foot of the bed.
She sat on the bed without a word
and watched
the rest of the film with him. He thought he saw
a tear trickle down the side of her face when the
giant ape fell to Earth, but he couldn't be sure.
As the credits on the screen gave
way to silent
snow she asked, "Do you think I would have
found you, no matter what choices I made?"
The question evoked a violent reaction
in his
stomach, almost like he'd eaten some bad
Mexican food, but less focused.
"I...I'd like to think that,"
he stammered, not
daring to look at her.
"I believe that," she told
him with such
conviction, such absolute confidence, that he
was utterly floored.
"I believe in free will, Mulder.
I believe that we
are responsible for all of our choices and that
the decisions we make have the power to
change our paths, but...but I also believe that
some things are inevitable. Some things are
meant for us to experience and there's very little
we can do to avoid experiencing them. There
are certain things that we will do, certain people
that we will know, no matter what. We don't
usually recognize them, but they are there. If we
take the time to pay attention, it becomes
obvious."
He tilted his head to the side, looking
up at her
finally, and saw the calm in her face. She was
staring straight ahead, gazing at a point past his
television set, perhaps even past his apartment,
somewhere distant and secret.
"And you think that we are one
of those
things?"
She nodded and met his gaze.
"I think that you are my destiny, Mulder."
There was no arguing that statement.
"Does that frighten you?"
he asked. It
frightened him. To his very core. Even as it
thrilled him.
"Not any more."
So there it was. The answer to his
question was
that his question was invalid. There was no way
to know what she would be without him
because she wouldn't be without him. No matter
what.
She rose to her feet and he was afraid
she was
going to leave him then, as she so often did
after revealing herself. Instead, she revealed
more.
Watching her undress for him, her
gaze steady
and calm and never moving from his face,
reminded him, strangely enough, of puppies.
When Mulder was five years old, he
asked his
parents for a puppy. Not just once, but every
single day for close to six months. Every time
they told him no. Puppies are messy. Puppies
are difficult to care for. Puppies require an
emotional and spiritual investment that is too
much to ask of a five year old. Maybe when
you're older, they told him. Maybe.
Six months seems like a very short
time to him
now, but to a boy that age, it's an eternity. It's
years. Eventually he grew impatient and
distracted and discouraged. He gave up.
Two months later he returned home
from a play
date with his cousin to find the living room
swimming with puppies. A neighbor's German
Shepherd had given birth to eight pups the night
before and his mother had agreed to keep one
and help find homes for the other seven.
It wasn't his birthday. Nor was it
Christmas or
Easter or his first day of school, or even Flag
Day for crying out loud. It was just an ordinary
day when ordinary things were supposed to
happen. He wasn't supposed to get puppies. But
there they were.
Mulder had been so overwhelmed and
surprised
and excited that he'd peed in his pants.
Watching Scully disrobe for him, he
prayed he
wouldn't make the same mistake.
She stopped when she reached her bra
and
panties, leaving a bit for him to unwrap himself,
and smiled at him with her eyes and her mouth.
Libras have a profound love of beauty,
a love so
vast it could even be called worship. When
faced with the choice between what is beautiful
and what is right, Libra will almost always
choose what is beautiful. Fortunately for
Mulder, Scully was both the most beautiful and
the most right thing he'd ever seen.
"You look shocked," she
said and he was
amazed to find that she still had the same voice.
That this small act hadn't altered her entirely.
"Wu- well...Scully...this...I
guess I am.
Shocked. I suppose."
He ducked his head and laughed quietly,
nervously.
"Haven't you expected this? Don't
you think it's
time?"
"I...I thought it was time a long time ago."
He didn't mean for the words to come
out the
way that they did. He feared she would read
them as an accusation. She didn't.
"I know that you did, Mulder,
that you have...I
suppose I just needed to stop for a minute and
let time catch up with me."
He was suddenly struck with her vulnerability,
the fact that she was standing before him,
stripped of the remnants of her armor and her
clothing, simply waiting. Waiting for him.
Outside, the rain continued. A flash
of
lightening lit the contours of her body, the
shadow of the valley between her breasts.
He moved so that he was sitting upright
on the
edge of his bed and she stood between his legs.
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he let his
head drop into that valley and stifled a groan
when her nails pricked his scalp.
He allowed himself to rest there,
nestled in the
comfort of her chest, enveloped in her scent and
her warmth. Moments passed, but for Mulder,
time stood still.
When he pulled back there were tears
in his
eyes.
She took his face in her hands, tickled
his skin
with small butterfly kisses. When their lips met,
it was much like the first time, but also very
different. Tender and sweet, yes, but not
without the promise of something more.
Something now.
He remembers the feel of her tongue,
pressing
gently on his lips, requesting entrance, and the
way he parted his own lips, that first contact.
Freedom. It was dizzying freedom. To touch
and to taste and to feel all of it, all of her.
His elation and arousal grew to devastating
levels and he found himself groping almost
blindly, wanting everything at once.
"Mulder, Mulder..." She
stroked his hair,
looked down at him with passion and
compassion. "Slow down. We've got forever."
"I need you, Scully," he
whined, pulling
desperately at her underwear.
"I need you, too. I'm right here.
Just enjoy it,
Mulder. I want you to savor this, to really feel
it. Hold on to every moment of it as if it were
our last."
He is very glad that she reminded
him. Had he
allowed his eagerness to overwhelm his
consciousness he might not remember now. His
hands slipping under the straps of her bra, the
smooth satin between his skin and hers giving
way to hot flesh on flesh, the catch in her voice
as she sighed his name when he caught her bare
nipple with his fingers; all of this might be a blur
of recollection had she not reminded him to pay
attention.
Now he will never forget...her bare
chest
against his, lying together on the bed, his first
grip of her soft, round, perfect ass, her smile as
she stroked him through his pajama bottoms,
her sigh when he kissed her stomach, licked her
belly button, her hand clenched in his hair when
he pressed his lips against the wet spot on her
panties, the sweet, hot moisture of her when he
took those panties off, her thighs wrapped
around his neck as he buried his tongue as deep
inside of her as it could go, trying to remember
how to lick a woman properly because it's been
so painfully long, remembering hearing
somewhere, sometime, that you're supposed to
trace the alphabet on her flesh, but she only
seems to like I, I I I, faster and faster against
her clit, her whole body trembling and writhing
against him, calling his name three times in a
row as she came for him, she came for him, oh
God how she came for him.
Burned into his memory now, more vivid
than
anything he can recall...her hands in his as she
moved on top of him and then down, the first
few seconds in her mouth lasting an eternity
because he let them last, let the sensations wash
over him like warm water, feeling her tongue all
the way in his spine, seeing tiny white lights as
she brought him closer and closer, her fingers
tracing patterns on his thighs as he told himself
first to hold it back and then to let it go, let it
go, we have forever, and then bucking into her
mouth with the loudest sound he could ever
remember making and feeling her take it all,
drink him down, her crawling back up his body,
kissing like she told him to, like it was their last,
curling himself around her from behind and her
peace as she allowed herself to fall asleep in his
arms.
The visual symbol for Pisces is two
fish
swimming in different directions, he thinks as he
runs his finger over the outline of her tattoo.
She swam towards him tonight. He wonders if
she will swim away before the sun comes up,
when the rain stops. He trusts the strength of
her convictions and the certainty and calm she
displayed in making this decision, but he knows
that some things are beyond her control, a
portrait drawn in the stars. If she still holds
some doubt, some inner conflict, he will not
blame her for it.
He sleeps.
When he opens his eyes again, she
is gone. The
sun is halfway risen and he is holding his blanket
with love and care.
Libra is patient, but also insecure.
He reaches for the phone beside the
bed, dials a
number without having to look. He's memorized
the pattern his fingers make on the keypad.
Her voice is calm and warm when she answers.
"Scully."
"It's a little cold this morning,"
he says, knowing
she'll catch his multiple meanings.
"Would you like me to bring you
some hot
chocolate?" Her tone is so similar to the one
she'd used during their most intimate moments
that he is suddenly aroused once again.
"Scully, where are you?"
"I'm in my car."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going home, Mulder. It's
almost six
already. You don't want me showing up for
work in yesterday's clothes, smelling like...well,
do you?"
That sounds like something he could
live with if
it meant her staying with him a while longer.
But he can also live with this. She still smells
him. She didn't need to say goodbye because he
is still with her. And this is her. She is still
Scully, still practical and neat and professional.
"What was that about cocoa?"
She laughs softly, a smooth, sensual sound.
"I'm stopping at Joe's for coffee
and bagels on
my way to work. Did you want some cocoa?"
"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would."
"Everything bagel with veggie cream cheese?"
"I love you, Scully."
"I love you too, Mulder."
He hadn't expected her to say it back.
Hadn't
even expected her to take his own proclamation
seriously.
She hangs up the phone, the sound
of a horn
blaring in the background.
Seamless, he thinks. Perfect.
Perhaps the fish are not swimming
in different
directions. Perhaps they are swimming towards
each other. He thinks that maybe he has become
a fish.
xxxxxx
