Spoilers: None

     Time Frame: After "The X-Files: Fight The Future," since that's when I'm writing this.

     Rating: PG

     Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the property of Chris Carter. He created them. I just thought they deserved a sweet moment or two of relaxing UST.

     Note: This is the second in a series of "Moments" vignettes. The first was entitled "A Moment of Spontaneity." The two are mostly different in tone, merely carrying the theme of a very, brief, sweet, UST laden period in the lives of Dana and Spooky.

     Archive: Anywhere you want as long as I get credit :)

     Comments? Questions? Love Notes? Flames of 6th Degree Burns? Insane Musings on Cancer Man? Send 'em here - arabian@ite.net

     She looked at the sheathe of papers sitting before her and her vision began to blur. Shutting her eyes swiftly, she let loose a soft, long sigh and stretched her back. After a few seconds of mindless thought, she opened her eyes once more and all was clear, but weariness and tension still assailed her.

     She arched her back and twisted to and fro trying to relieve the ache that ran along her spinal cord. The stretching did no good. Again, she let out a long sigh, this one heavy with frustration.

     "Scully?" he questioned from the chair to the side of the sofa she sat upon. She looked up.

     "Hmm?"

     "You okay?" He reached up and removed his glasses and she felt an immediate regret at the motion, one that was inevitable, but passed swiftly. Her brain reminded her that he had asked her a question; she struggled to recapture it. Okay, he'd asked if she was okay.

     "I'm fine," she began, then hesitated and decided to forgo the independence of her usual response. "Actually, no, I'm not fine. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, my back aches and I feel as tense as a coiled spring," again she paused and then met his gaze with a slight smile, "although, I'm not exactly sure how tense a coiled spring is."

     He smiled suddenly, a bright, warm smile and one that she rarely, very rarely, saw on his face. "You're not fine," he mumbled happily under his breath.

     "Mulder?" It was her turn to question, she must have heard him wrong.

     "You want a back rub?" He asked instead.

     She looked at him and was fairly certain that her mouth must be hanging open. "Excuse me?"

     "A back rub? I can give you a massage, I'm not an expert, but it might make you feel better." And he smiled again.

     "Sure," she responded almost warily, idly wondering who this man was and what he had done with her partner.

     And could he please stay around long enough to give her that promised back rub?

     "Okay," he said, still smiling and stood up, rubbing his hands together. He moved towards her and then stopped, looking down at her. "You might want to go and slip into something more comfortable."

     Regretfully, she noted that this man, who looked like Mulder and sounded like Mulder in voice (if not tone), had spoken the decades old sexually-inclined line without a hint of a leer or sensual expectancy. She sighed and dropped her gaze down to her clothing: a pair of tailored dress pants and a fitted, pale blue silk blouse.

     "Go on, Scully, go put some shorts and a tee-shirt on, get more comfortable," he cajoled, his eyes alight like a little boy's. She shook her head wearily and then offered a hand up. He accepted it gladly and up she stood. "Okay," she replied simply.

     The smile brightened his face again.

     She shook her head and walked to her bedroom. In the midst of changing out of her work clothes and into the 'comfortable shorts and tee-shirt' he had suggested, he called out, "hey, Scully, bring out a brush." She inclined her gaze towards the door and raised an eyebrow. A brush, she mouthed silently and then shrugged. She was too tired to wonder.

     A few minutes later she returned to the living room in a white tee-shirt and baggy dark green shorts. She was comfortable.

     She yawned as she headed towards the couch and stopped mid-step to complete the yawn. Once she was finished, she noticed for the first time that the room was dimmer and that a soft tune was playing by Sarah McLachlan.

     She glanced at him, a question very obvious on her face.

     "Setting the mood," he offered with a hint of sheepishness. She raised an eyebrow as her gaze lowered and noted the glass of white wine sitting on the table before her couch. He smiled . . . again. "Just wanted to give you a moment of relaxation or two. Come on, sit back down."

     She sat back down and immediately reached to pull the reports back onto her lap, he just as immediately reached for them and pulled them out of her grasp.

     "Relax, Scully. These can wait five minutes. Here." He handed her the glass of wine and moved to stand behind her as she gingerly sipped at the liquid. He waited until she had set the glass back down before sitting down next to her.

     "Turn to the side a bit," he directed. She complied and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pick up the rounded brush she had brought out with her, and a few seconds later, that brushes' bristles were weaving through her hair with a ginger air of utter cautiousness. They caught on a slight knot and, very carefully he pulled the brush away and used his fingers to carefully untangle it. When the task was done, he continued brushing with soft, even strokes that soothed and relaxed her.

     She sighed in contentment and leaned back a little. "This is nice," she mumbled lazily. A laugh, slight and barely audible, emanated from him, "good," he softly said. He brushed her hair through one more time before laying the brush to the side. And then she felt his hands on her shoulders and she stilled for a moment, feeling a sudden energizing thrill spread throughout her body at their solid heat. His hands tightened ever so softly; he leaned over her shoulder and whispered into her ear, "relax."

     At that exact moment in time, relaxing was not the first thing on her mind, but, releasing another long, shaky sigh, she willed her body to loosen up as he'd indicated. She must have succeeded marginally because his grip eased up and then he was turning her body even more to the side and she shifted with his guidance so that her back was facing him.

     "Close your eyes," he whispered and his breath was soft against the flesh of her ear and her flesh tingled where his breath lingered and again she sighed, this one a soft, melting sigh of acquiescence. If he was aware of her complete willingness of surrender, he did not take advantage.

     He did as promised.

     His hands began to move, his fingers gently sinking into her shoulder blades, alternately pressing down and then gliding across her upper and then lower back.

     She groaned aloud and his movements stilled for a moment. "Don't stop," she whispered and arched her back in his direction, demanding more. The massage continued.

     After a few more moments of this unadulterated bliss, she found her voice and although it was a bit shaky, it sounded mostly like her. "Why are you doing this?"

     He paused briefly and then began once more. "What do you mean?"

     "Why are you," she paused with another groan as he hit a particular tense spot and with his magic fingers, leavened the pressure, "doing this?" She repeated at last.

     "Why wouldn't I?"

     "Mulder," a light laugh filled her words. "This isn't like you."

     "What do you mean?" He repeated again.

     "Well, this, I mean, you're giving me a massage," she smiled, "a wonderful massage. Don't get me wrong, it's nice, but, well, it's not something you normally would do."

     "You were in pain, I was just trying to help." He paused in speaking, but thankfully not in the movement of his hands and fingers. "Scully, why this is so unusual?"

     She straightened slightly. "It's just that you're thinking," she paused, "you thought about me, about my needs and acted accordingly." His hands stilled on her back. "Mulder, I'm not saying that you don't care or act usually as if you don't care, but it's the big moments. You're there when I need your help, when we're on a case, when something bad has happened, when I wind up, unwittingly, playing the role of damsel-in-distress --"

     "--Scully," he interrupted. "You could never be a damsel-in-distress. I mean, not in the traditional sense. You rescue my ass a hell of a lot more than I do yours."

     She nodded in casual agreement and then continued, "Mulder, the point is," she stopped and turned to look at him and immediately missed the soft warmth of his hands pressed firmly against her back. "The point is," she began again, "is that little things like this -- the music, the wine, the back rub -- they are all very considerate and wonderful, but they're little things and you normally don't do 'little things.'"

     "Neither do you," he offered honestly and hesitantly.

     She nodded, "I know."

     "So, is this bad? Should I not have done this?"

     She shook her head, "no, I don't mean," she broke off and her head dropped for a moment, her eyes resting on his hands which were now clasped together in his lap. She looked back up at him and she was smiling. "I don't mean that this isn't wonderful in every way. It is. And I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't have done it or should never do it again. I just was wondering why. That's all."

     He was silent for a moment before responding and reticence was in his voice, something else she was not used to in Mulder. "Maybe, I let my walls down a bit, so to speak, because you let yours down."

     "Hmm? What do you mean?" It was her turn to ask.

     He looked away and then stood up, his hands reaching into his pockets and burrowing in. She absently noticed how well he wore the jeans-hung-low- on-the-hips look as she awaited his response.

     "I asked how you were," he practically mumbled, his gaze locked on her carpet. And then he looked up at her and his eyes were a melting green in the softened light of the room. "And you admitted that you weren't fine."

     She opened her mouth to speak and then decided not to. Silently, she repeated his words in her mind. 'You admitted that you weren't fine.' Is that all? she wondered to herself and then decided to ask him.

     "Is that all?"

     He nodded with a slight smile, "yeah, that's all."

     Their eyes met and a flow of warmth passed between them. And in the moment before that warmth would have blossomed into something more heated, they both looked away -- she, to the papers sitting on the table and he, to the side as he swiveled and headed to the light knob.

     As the room brightened, he turned back to her and headed towards the chair he'd been sitting in earlier. She glanced at the papers once more ensconced in her lap and then over at the glass of wine. She looked up at him.

     "Mulder?" His name was soft on her lips.

     "Yeah?" He looked up, the husky timber she so loved heavy in his voice.

     "Thank you."

     He paused for a moment and then nodded, that lovely warm smile shining across his face once more. "You're welcome," he replied and his gaze held hers for a moment before dropping to his own batch of papers.

     She sat, looking at him a moment longer, and with her own smile, she savored the moment, the mood, the man. And then with one final sigh, this one of contentment, she began reading the sheathe of papers on her lap.