TITLE: "Late-night Desires" AUTHOR: Kirsten Kerkhof * kirsten_xf@yahoo.com RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: Mulder-Scully Romance KEYWORDS: S R A SPOILERS: none DISCLAIMER: Not mine ... and I make no money from the story either ... SUMMARY: "Tell me what you want" FEEDBACK: Mulders on offer since Fox doesn't need him anymore. At ARCHIVING: Gossamer I'll do myself, others, just drop me a line, 'kay? XxXxX Another night, another motel room. The air around us is cold and slightly damp and I pull the covers a bit tighter around us. Then I pull her closer, savouring her soft warmth as her back curves against me. I'm spooning her, but it hardly seems to help anything. God, it's so friggin' cold ... I know she's not asleep yet, although I know also that she is incredibly tired. She looked so pale today, she was so quiet. Frankly, it scared the shit out of me, but I knew better than to let her know that while we were at it. She sighs deeply. "What?" I whisper in her ear. She just shrugs and I sigh imperceptively. Wrong answer, Scully. "What's the matter?" I push, still whispering. "You cold?" She shakes her head slightly. "I'm just tired. So so tired ..." I kiss her hair softly. "Then go to sleep." She shakes her head again. "That won't solve it," she says in a low voice. Scarily enough I already know that. And even more scary is the fact that I cannot help it. Not when I want to have it my way. "What would?" She shrugs again. "I don't know. I'm just exhausted. And I shouldn't be, I never would have been if ..." "If what?" She takes a deep breath. "If ... things were ... different ..." "Different?" "I never used to feel so tired," she sighs, "so ... empty, I guess." We are silent for a bit. Then I try again. "Is there something I can do?" She chuckles softly. "Not unless you can turn back time." "You want that?" I ask, a little surprised by her reply. Her mirth has gone again. "These cases, chasing and catching some bad guy ... they used to exhilirate me, feed into my energy. Not tap from it." I touch my lips to the soft skin of her neck, the downy hairs parting on nothing more than my breath. I can't really reply in a way that would give her comfort or strength because I've been feeling that way for a while now too. She, of course, notices this almost instantaneously. "What? No pep-talk?" I sigh softly. "Not when you're right. Not when I feel that way as well." That answer seems to be her cue to turn around and face me. She's still deadly pale, but there is an old, well-known fire in her eyes. A kind of fire I now realise I never saw all through this investigation. Then her eyes go sad. "Are we getting too old for this?" "Possibly," I say, "after all, we're not exactly 25 anymore, there is a good reason why, after a while in the field, a lot of people aspire executive jobs. I mean, the pay and the status are better, but it's also a lot less draining physically." She frowns. "I'll never get that," she says in a low voice. This remark makes me frown as well. "What do you mean? You've got everything that they would require, you'd make an excellent SAC or even higher." She chuckles sadly. "I've chosen the wrong allies, Mulder, kissed the wrong butts, written the wrong reports. Fell in love with the wrong guy," she adds, looking at me, denying me another guilt-trip. She won't have it, but I can't help it anyway. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "You deserve so much, you have so many abilities, so many talents and you wasted it all on a quest that is so essentially mine ..." She smiles a little. "It's not your fault." I let out a soft incredulous laugh. "Damn right it is! Don't defend me, I know I screwed up your career." She touches her fingers to my face. "Alright then, it is your fault. But I'm not going to blame you." And with that she hides her head under my chin, snuggling up cosily. "I'm still really exhausted." I don't reply for a while, instead process her words of tonight, trying to figure out the deeper meaning. I'm a psychologist for God's sake, this should be easy, but I find it is anything but. "What do you want?" I then ask. "What?" "Just that, what do you want?" She sighs. "I can't have what I want." "What is that?" "It doesn't matter, because I can't have it anyway!" Defensive Scully is back and I want that part of her to go. "But would it be worse if you talked to me about that?" I say gently, trying to get round her defensive attitude so she'll open up to me on this. She sighs. "It would make it so real ..." It's my turn to sigh and I pull her closer to me, stroking her hair. Oh sweetheart ... "I think it's already too real for you, Dana." "I can't ..." "Talk to me," I push. "I can't, please ... I don't want to." "Please, tell me, don't shut me out," I whisper. "Tell me what you want." Her voice is shaky with tears when she speaks again. "I want ... I want a family, Mulder, a normal family ..." My heart breaks and I pull her even closer. "I'm sorry ..." "I want children, and a house, and a husband," she continues, her voice brimming with tears. "I want what everyone wants, and everyone gets, and I can't have it." I press my lips into her hair, trying to comfort her without really knowing how I could possibly achieve that. "It's so unfair," she says, sounding so sad. "It is," I say in a low voice. "It is so unfair." We are silent for a bit, both thinking our own thoughts. "What else do you want?" I eventually whisper. I feel her breath on my throat as she chuckles soundlessly. "It's stupid." "You mean your wishes?" "Yeah, they're so trivial," she answers. "Really, I don't know why I haven't done those before, they're ..." "So normal?" I supply and she chuckles again. "Scary, huh?" That makes it my turn to laugh. "So tell me then. What trivial normal wishes do you have?" "Mulder, they're stupid. Honestly. Besides, we need to get some sleep." "Tell me. I'm not tired." "Liar," she admonishes me gently, but then she gives in. "Well, the normal stuff, you know. Spend more time reading novels and less time reading reports. Learning to cook proper Italian food, and take tango lessons, just for the heck of it because it's fun, and not because it's good for me. Take more long fragrant bubblebaths, with a glass of good wine and Haydn playing in the background and less hurried showers on my way to another case. Stuff like that." "Sounds wonderful," I whisper, and it does. "What else?" She sighs. "I'd like to ... I'd like to get more socially involved too, you know. Do volunteer work at a church or day-care centre, feel useful to society, maybe also reassure myself that there are mostly good people in this world." "We don't see many of those in our line of profession, that's true," I comment softly. "Perhaps you should do it." "Mulder, you know as well as I do that our job doesn't exactly lend itself to those kinds of activities." "I think it could be if we tried. At least it should be possible. Do you really want that?" She shrugs lightly. "Actually, I don't really know, I never took it beyond just a vague ambition. Maybe I do, but ..." "But what?" "I don't want to give this job up, even when it's less fulfilling than it used to be." I stroke her hair. "Then this is in fact *the* moment to go for that ambition." I kiss her forehead. "You need to follow your dreams and desires, Dana, no one can do that for you." "My dreams are different from my desires," she says, looking at me, smiling a little ruefully. "You want more?" She nods. "I do. So far it was all sensible, you know, nobody would find fault with what I wanted so far." I nod to indicate that I know where she's going with this. "But sometimes I want ... stupid things, silly things. Things that make no sense." I let my eyes ask her for an explanation. She looks down. "Sometimes ... Sometimes I want to ... to eat chocolate mousse with my fingers, scoop it out of the bowl and lick it off my fingers slowly. Eat a whole pint of cookie dough ice cream and not feel guilty. I want to eat dinner with my hands, just because it would be so un-me, you know. I want to shop till I drop and love everything I've bought and not care about the money or feel guilty because I spent so much. I want to buy a slinky sexy dress and wear it when I'm going to have that dinner. I want to hit the town and dance the night away with a handsome man and afterwards have mind-bending sex with that man. More than once. I want to ..." She falls silent. I'm smiling. "What?" I say gently. Her eyes meet mine again and I'm surprised by the openness in them. "I want to lose control with someone who won't take advantage of it ..." I nod. Still looking at me, she goes on. "I want to buy that slinky sexy dress and hit the town with you." Her voice is barely audible, but that doesn't lessen the impact it has on me. "With me?" She nods. "I know we've been intimately involved for some time, but ... you've never made me lose control. Because you know how important it is for me to have control so you always let me keep it." She takes a deep breath and I realise again how monumental this revelation is. "Have you ... have you ever told anyone this?" I ask. She shakes her head. "No, I never dared and it was never important. But with you ... you're different. I already know rationally that you would never take advantage of me, of what I have to give. But I need to feel it to. I want, I feel that I *need*, to lose my inhibitions and fears and control or I'll die regretting it. And I want to die knowing that I was brave enough." "Scully, this has nothing to do with bravery and for goodness' sake, don't feel like you have to prove something to me!" "Not to you, Mulder, I need to prove it to me! I know it, I know I'm a control-freak, but I don't always want to be one. It would be so liberating if I knew I could just ... let go sometimes." She sighs. "But I'm scared ..." We are silent for a while. I don't feel the cold anymore, and my exhaustion has disappeared as well. Granted, I still need to get some sleep, but I don't feel as drained anymore. This is much better. "I think," I begin slowly as I kiss the crown of her head. "I think you've been very brave to tell me this." "I've never told anyone, it was never an issue," she whispers. "But you deserve to know this, I need to let you know because you need to know it. If I want this relationship to work, I cannot hide." I nod. "I want, well, I would love for you to take me on that night on the town," she then says. "Do you trust me with that? I'll lead you through it, but it may get frightening, you know," I reply very softly. She pushes herself up so our faces are level. "I trust you," she says, looking me in the eyes. She kisses me softly. "I trust you completely, no one but you," she adds against my mouth. Then she kisses me again and I can't but respond. I know that she means it, that she means every word of it, and, God, I love her so for it ... We keep kissing and I could lose myself in this. She's so warm, so soft ... "Love me," I hear her whisper between kisses. I frown. "Now is not ..." She places a cool light finger against my lips. "I know, the decision of when is up to you. What I want now is to fight the cold, fight the demons. Give me life, Mulder, give me heat." A sad expression crosses her beautiful face. "Give me what I don't have ..." I close my eyes for a moment, then look back at her. "You have, Scully, you've never had it more than now." She smiles before she rolls us both over. And with that we drive away the cold. THE END Kirsten Kerkhof The Netherlands, 29 December 2004 (c)