Title: In Medias Res(1/1) Author: Elanor G Email: ElanorG@yahoo.com URL: http://www.geocities.com/ElanorG/ Distribution: Wherever you wish! Please send me an e-mail, just so I know. Spoilers: Requiem Rating: PG-13 Classification: mid-ep (?) vignette Keywords: MSR, Angst Disclaimer: The X-Files is the property of Chris Carter, Fox, et al. I'm writing this simply to amuse myself - and a few others, I hope. Summary: In the middle of things. XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX They both lay silent for some time, Mulder's words hanging in the air. He was wrapped around her and could feel her shivering subside and her breathing gradually slow. Unwilling to move and disturb her, he closed his eyes. He tried to ignore his churning thoughts and instead concentrated on the lulling rhythms of Scully's body. Soon he began to drift. Scully stirred slightly in his arms. The change in her rhythm brought him back to wakefulness. "What time is it?" she whispered. "I ought to go back." She moved again. He tightened his hold on her in response. "No, Scully. Stay. I'll get your stuff from your cabin later if you need it." He had opened the door earlier to find Scully shivering and miserable, embarrassed and absurdly apologetic because she needed him. And he stood there paralyzed for a moment, surprised and embarrassed to find himself needed. Even now, even after everything, the transition between their normal selves and these new, private selves was awkward. "Someone could notice," Scully said. "Do you really care?" "Not anymore," she admitted and relaxed into Mulder's embrace. She cleared her throat. "Um, Mulder, I think we've established that you can be *under* the covers with me." Mulder smiled into her hair. "I wouldn't want my chivalrous motives to be misconstrued." "Misconstrued," muttered Scully. The sense of sadness that covered them before seemed to lift slightly. "Well. If I'm going to stay here, you better get under the covers too." "Allow me to slip into something more comfortable then," said Mulder, gently disentangling himself. He stood, stretched, shed his jeans, and crawled under the blankets in t-shirt and boxers to rejoin her. She was shivering again. As he curled around her warm body, Mulder wondered how she could produce so much heat and still feel so cold. "Better?" "Yeah." They were silent again and relaxed, but sleep had left them for now. Mulder could feel the thoughtful frown forming on her face, even though he couldn't see it. "Mulder," she said, her voice serious. "Hmm?" Scully turned in his arms until she was facing him, lying on her side. Her free arm rested on his waist. Her face was troubled, her eyes focused somewhere around his chin. "Last summer, when you were...sick, do you think...do you still believe that you could hear people's thoughts?" She lifted her eyes to his, searching his face. The timing of her question was surprising, if not the content. "Yes. I do." "What was it like?" she asked. There was something urgent in her questioning eyes. Ever since his exhausting recovery, Mulder had tried not to think about it, much less talk about it, and until now Scully reluctant to ask. He had just wanted to push the experience away. Now, in this warm, private, safe place, he felt able to think back. "It was like being crushed, Scully," he said, his voice even lower. "Thousands of voices were smothering me and I couldn't stop them. And I had to scream to make sure I still had my own voice. And afterwards, it felt like the day after you go to a loud concert and your ears are still ringing." He shook his head a little. "But I don't know if that's the best analogy. I think of them as voices, but there was no language, not really." "So you could discern the individual thoughts, but not their content." He hesitated. "For the most part. I couldn't concentrate on one person for any length of time, I tried but there was just too much. Some people were...stronger, or clearer, and I got bigger doses of them." She looked at him expectantly. How could he put it into words? Haltingly, he tried to share the impressions that he remembered: Krycek's thoughts swimming restlessly like a shark, flat and predatory. Kritschgau, desperate, driven by the image of a young face that Mulder later realized must have been his son. Skinner was an dark angry presence, uneasily contained. By contrast, Mulder could barely sense his own mother's thoughts - elusive, faint, not much more than a thin disquiet stream of worry. And the gray man who leaned over him...he must have been part of that consuming dream, because Mulder could sense nothing. His mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "I got the clearest picture from Diana, probably because she was deliberately trying to open herself up to me. It was...bad." And it had been bad to see the way Diana pictured herself, the many layers of self- justification and self-delusion. It was worse to see the madness hidden beneath her crisp exterior. Diana had lied for so long, to herself and to everyone, that she had a only a slippery grip on reality. He almost didn't tell Scully the worst part. He almost didn't tell her that he had blamed himself for Diana becoming who she was. It all stemmed from the mistake he and Diana made together, the wound that he thought was healed and ignored but had apparently been festering all that time. "She was sick, Scully. It was hard to see that, because I felt responsible." Scully nodded very slightly, with a tight expression that probably meant that she regretted bringing up the subject at all. Mulder reached up to smooth hair from her face. "And there was you," he said quietly. "And I tried so hard to search for you. Your thoughts seemed like relief to me, the few times I could sense them." Scully was cool and ordered and lit underneath by something fierce and warm. And something huge in her center anchored her, tinged with a bewildering range of emotions. Not until his recovery did Mulder realize that was her image of him. It amazed and terrified him to think that her need for him might be as great as his for her. Embarrassed that he had intruded on her privacy, even if it was unwillingly. Terrified too that he would make this into another mistake. Scully did not say anything for a moment, but lowered her eyes and tightened her hold on him. Worry and fear briefly wrinkled her forehead. "I don't understand but I believe," she said. "Whatever it was, it changed *you*. It chose *you*. There was some part of you open to it. And I don't think it can simply be lifted out." You mean excised, Mulder thought. He had wondered much the same thing, and he did not like any of the answers. "Scully, I really think I'd prefer X-Ray Vision over the Mind Reading thing," he said, in a sudden, desperate attempt to lighten the tone. "Sometimes I wish I could have experienced it," Scully said in a rough whisper. "Sometimes I think it would be worth it if I could see your mind, just for a little bit. Just enough to experience some of your thoughts." Her eyes are bright. "Oh no, Scully. It hurt too much. Believe me, you don't want it." But the idea of opening himself up to her like that moved him nonetheless. For a second he could imagine it. What would she see? Do you really want to know, Scully? It can't make up for everything you've lost, but here's the rest of me. There's not much left here any more but it's all for you. But that couldn't happen, that couldn't ever happen. All he could do was pull her face up to his, his thumb near the corner of her lips, and kiss her tentatively, and her mouth welcomed him despite her weariness. All he could do was roll her over gently, sliding a hand under her shirt to touch her skin. All he could do, all he could ever do, was give himself to her in this simple animal way, the only way their bodies would allow. And together hold off the approaching darkness for a little while longer. End XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX I wrote this little conversation a while ago, but it didn't seem to really fit in anything else I was writing. Then I saw the rerun of Requiem... Thanks for reading - let me know what you think about this little piece of mush. EG ElanorG@yahoo.com http://www.geocities.com/elanorg/