Implications

Author: Ann K

Rating: NC-17 for explicit sexual situations

Summary: Scully makes a decision that changes everything in her relationship with Mulder, and she struggles to cope with the consequences.

Timeline: Vague, but somewhere in late season six or early seven.

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An installment in an occasional series. Each story stands alone. This is not a work in progress. See author's notes, thanks, etc. at the end.

I.

It was on the flight back from Minnesota that she decided. The moment was clear, frighteningly so. Mulder was sprawled in the seat next to her, both of them tucked in the back corner of the darkened plane. The lights were dim, and she assumed most of the other passengers were asleep, judging from the hushed whispers which occasionally reached her ears. Mulder was flipping through the paperwork from their case, adding a few items to her field report.

In that moment of clarity, she knew she would be risking everything. Everything that was important to her: Mulder, her family, her career with the Bureau. But then he leaned over to whisper into her ear, and she watched as his long fingers wrapped around the sleeve of her jacket. She didn't know if he would even go along with it, but, in that moment, Scully decided that it was time. Past time, really, if she thought about it. She and Mulder were destined to cross the line between partners and lovers, and the time was now.

"I really think we should eliminate that last witness report, Scully. We both know that Mr. Jones was not in a rational state of mind when he gave that statement." She watched as his lips moved, and then she nodded her head absentmindedly. Sure, Mulder. Whatever. But, when they crossed the line, that imaginary line which had guided their every interaction in the past five years, it had to be by the rules. Somehow, in her exhausted brain, it made perfect sense. If they were about to break all the rules, then they had to create new ones. The rules would be their own, separate from the daily regimen of their lives with the Bureau. And the rules would have to preserve their professional relationship, their search for the truth. Sex would potentially ruin everything, and they couldn't risk that.

As the plane began to make its descent into Dulles, she sat very still. Mulder was putting papers away into their bag, and fiddling with his seat belt. He had no idea that everything was about to change. Of course, he would go along with it. She refused to even consider the implications if he didn't. She numbly walked a half-step behind Mulder as he navigated their way through the crowded airport towards the luggage carousel.

"You okay, Scully?" he asked, as they stood away from the crowd, waiting for their bags. "I'm fine," she answered, well aware that her legs were trembling, with nerves and excitement. "It's just that you have seemed a little preoccupied since we got on the plane. Are you okay with the case?" Mulder learned a long time ago never to take her responses at face value. To be honest, she didn't even remember the case. She only remembered the way Mulder had brushed against her as they knelt and looked at the victim's body, and the smell of morning coffee on his breath as he whispered into her ear at the police station. Every nerve ending in her body was on edge, screaming for his attention, and she knew.

She knew they had to cross the line, or she would break. And then nothing would be the same. At least, if they went down in flames like this, they would go down together.

He picked up her small overnight bag just as she spoke. "Meet me tomorrow, Mulder." Her voice was small, but confident. "Tomorrow?" he asked uncertainly, turning to face her. Mulder was tired, she could tell, by the dark shadows under his eyes and the way a lock of hair fell over his forehead. She had never wanted him more than she did at this moment. "That's Saturday, Scully. Don't you want a day away from me?" "No," she whispered, and, based on the tone in her voice, she saw his eyes widen in surprise. That was a tone she had never used with Mulder. It was a sultry, come-hither tone, and she knew he was confused. They played their roles very well. Trusted partners, good friends. Even Mulder's constant sexual innuendo had a friendly banter. The tone she used in her voice was anything but.

"I can't keep doing this, Mulder. Being your partner, working together like this. I need more, and I think that you do, too. I want you. I want you to be that something more for me. I need you to be." She watched him with a steady gaze, cataloguing each subtle expression crossing his face. Confusion, surprise, trepidation, uncertainty. "Check your doorstep in the morning," she added, tightening her grip on her overnight bag. "And meet me at nine o'clock tomorrow evening. If you aren't there, we don't mention this again."

With that, she turned on her heel, and walked towards the sliding doors. She needed to get away from Mulder. But what she needed more was Mulder, his body, the physical warmth of holding him close to her. She couldn't tell him that, though. She didn't trust him not to refuse her out of some noble version of sacrifice and good intentions. She wanted to tell Mulder that they had both lost their nobility a long time ago, when they started working together on the X-Files. That their sense of right and wrong mattered only to themselves, and she was more than willing to twist that to satisfy her physical urges. If that was wrong, then she really didn't give a damn. But she wanted to tell him that with her body, not her voice. And he had to understand.

Scully blessed her good fortune as a taxi pulled up to meet her at the curb, and she could ignore Mulder's perplexed expression, and his lanky figure growing smaller as the taxi drove away from the airport.

II.

She paced the small apartment nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear for the thousandth time. Checking her watch, Scully forced herself to exhale, deeply, and then she smoothed her black slacks and adjusted her silk blouse. Ten minutes until everything changed. One way or another, the words she had spoken last night were the catalyst. Even if Mulder didn't show, even if he refused her invitation, she wasn't sure how she could face him in the office on Monday and pretend that nothing had changed. Because everything had.

She had been busy that morning. After she got home from the airport, she was barely able to sleep, tossing in her bed, and finally waking up around seven. She navigated her mental checklist. The meeting place had to be neutral, a place they would feel comfortable. Someplace anonymous. By eight o'clock, she was standing in front of a neat apartment building several blocks from her home. She handed the vacancy notice to the manager, for a fully furnished studio, and, twenty minutes later, was out the door with two keys in her hand.

Delivering the key to Mulder wasn't as easy. She didn't want to see him. Not yet, anyway. She didn't want to answer any questions as to what the hell she was up to. She didn't quite know herself, and she wanted them to figure it out together. So Scully turned off her cell phone, and sat at the end of Mulder's street. Mulder walked out of his building a half- hour later, basketball in hand, and she took the opportunity to slip inside the building. The note she left for him on his doorstep was brief, but direct. "Meet me at nine o'clock tonight at 120 Louisiana Avenue. Apartment D." Inside the small envelope, she slipped a gold key, and rushed outside before she changed her mind.

She spent the afternoon at the park, hoping to avoid Mulder if he decided to go to her apartment, and, when it was finally dark, she went home and took a quick shower. And, now she was here. Waiting her fate. Their fate, really, because she instinctively knew they needed this. Not just physically, though the urge to take Mulder, for him to take her, was primal in its intensity. She needed something to make her feel alive, after all the death and evil they confronted together.

But, mostly, she needed him.

When she heard the key turn in the lock, and watched the door open slowly, she unconsciously relaxed, her tense shoulders slumping slightly for the first time that day. Whatever they were about to do, they were going to do it together. She had turned off all the lights in the small studio apartment, so Mulder stood at the doorway for some time, letting his eyes adjust to the candlelight. He had changed from his basketball game, and wore jeans and a black sweater, his hair brushed back from his face, and still somewhat damp. He hadn't shaved. He looked rough, dangerous, and sinfully appealing.

"I'm here," she said, drawing his attention over to the corner of the studio, where she sat tucked in a small chair by the window. The shades were drawn, but scattered fragments of light still entered from the street. Mulder shut the door behind him, with a deliberate click, and walked closer to her. She was glad she was sitting, because her legs were trembling, and she wanted desperately to sound confident, in control. "So you are," Mulder finally answered, the first words he had spoken to her since the airport, and she watched as his eyes narrowed, taking in her blouse, and the way her wavy hair was loose around her face. "Care to tell me what we are doing here, and why I couldn't get in touch with you all day?"

Who was the man? Surely this wasn't Mulder, her partner, her companion just last evening on the flight from Minnesota. This man radiated a confident sexuality, an appeal to which she already felt herself succumbing. How in the hell had she ever resisted him for so long? "I think you know what we're doing here, Mulder. I know why I am here." Scully stood as she spoke, and walked closer to him, until they were separated only by the queen-size bed. "You can leave right now if you decide, but, if you stay, then we have to abide by the rules. Our rules."

"Rules?" he repeated, and she saw by the tight line of his jaw and the way his eyes were shadowed in the darkness that he understood.

"It stays here. Whatever we do in this room stays in this room, and nothing affects our professional relationship. I need this, Mulder, and I know that you do, too, but we have to do it the right way. Else we are risking too much." With that, she felt as if she played her last card. Everything was out on the table, and still Mulder watched her, his damned expression impenetrable. Her heart was beating in her throat, and she prayed that he didn't notice. The silent seconds ticked away in her mind, and she clenched her hands against her slacks, refusing to consider the idea that he would turn around and walk out the door.

"You know what you're offering here, Scully? Do you really know? Because this changes everything." Oh, god. She did know. That was why she mulled over this possibility for days, weeks. But, when his hand wrapped around her forearm on the plane last night, her last defense crumbled. She didn't answer him. Instead, she reached up to the delicate row of buttons on her blouse, and slowly began to unbutton them.

And then he spoke, and the delicious anticipation nearly brought her to her knees. "Why don't you let me do that?"

III.

He should have gotten more sleep last night, because he had the distinct feeling he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. But, after he arrived home from the airport, sleep was the last thing on his mind. All he could think about was Scully, and her proposition. There was no other way to describe it. In all their years together, he learned her moods, her emotions, the way the slightest lift of her eyebrow could speak volumes. But he had never seen the woman who stood before him in the airport, offering herself to him, telling him that she needed him. And he had never seen Scully like she was at this moment, her hands frozen on her buttons, her lips slightly parted. It was semi-dark in the room, but he could still decipher a faint blush tracing the slope of her neck.

He already had too much invested in Scully emotionally. He knew it, and he knew that others were aware of it as well. He worried that it could be used against them, could be used to destroy him. Investing himself in Scully physically, as her lover, was insanity. He knew it. So then why was he standing here, in this unfamiliar apartment, his fingers itching to touch Scully's skin? Because he never wanted to disappoint her. And because Scully was right. He needed this. They both did. He was unsure when he was first aware of it, the physical attraction between them that was an always-present undercurrent to their relationship. He had always been scared to acknowledge it, worried about what changes it might bring to the most important relationship in his life. Yet here he was.

"I've never cared much for someone else's rules, Scully," he managed, his voice low, as he stepped closer to her, reaching out to trace the slender outline of her neck with his fingertips. Her skin was hot to the touch, and he felt a rush of arousal at the feel of her pulse beneath his hand. She shivered, and he wasn't surprised to feel his cock surge in response.

Scully's set-up had been careful and deliberate. The room reeked of physical passion. He vaguely wondered how he could have been so blind, how he could have turned away from this woman for so many years. If this was how she was offering herself to him, in this out-of-the-way apartment, this oasis from their real lives, then this was what he would gladly accept.

"Tell me your rules then, Mulder," Scully whispered, and he watched as his fingers bound themselves in her hair, pulling the strands tightly around his fingers and bringing her face just inches from his own.

"For tonight," he heard himself say, "I want you to let me take you." And she nodded. He pulled her even closer to him, and then tasted her, licking her lips softly. She tasted of coffee, and a hint of liquor. Brandy, he guessed, or cognac, and he imagined Scully taking a stuff drink, trying to give herself the courage to go through with this. She moaned, and he took the opportunity to let his tongue slip inside her mouth. Definitely cognac, he realized. He let his hands drift from her hair, down to her hips, and began to pull her shirt loose from her slacks. All the while, he memorized her taste, the poignant taste of so many things that he associated with Scully.

It was her smell, the hair which draped near his shoulders, almost engulfing him in her scent. It was heaven. Somehow, he forced his lips away, and took a step back, watching her. She was breathtaking. Her lips were parted, her face flushed, and her eyes were wide, with arousal and desire. Jesus. Whatever rules he might be able to make were to be useless. He was lost from the moment he walked into the door.

Desperate to regain control, he walked around Scully, to the chair near the window. She turned, watching him go, but said nothing. "I want to see you," he said, after he sat down. His voice was tightly controlled, just as the way he gripped the armrests of the chair illustrated that he was fighting to regain the upper hand. Too much was at stake here for the moment to be lost. Scully said nothing. She watched him carefully, and he worked to control his expressions, purposefully keeping his face bland and emotionless. He knew her face so well, yet this version, this wantonly sexual Scully, was new to him. He savored every detail.

Finally, her hands went back up to her shirt, and she began the slow process of slipping buttons through silk. She never took her eyes off his face. He let his gaze fall from her eyes, and watched as her deliberate fingers unveiled creamy skin, inch by inch. Then she pushed the shirt off her shoulders, and reached down to unbutton her slacks, stepping out of them in one fluid motion.

He remembered a case some time ago, when they chased their suspect through a deserted warehouse. It was hot that day, and Scully was dressed in her usual heels. But he sensed her only a step behind him, and, after he tackled the guy and cuffed him, he knew Scully was there backing him up. But he never expected to turn and see her, her Sig drawn, her face intent, and fall in love with her all over again. It was something in her eyes, the way she watched him. "You okay, Mulder?" she had asked. He hadn't been able to answer her.

And now he couldn't find his words, even if she had spoken.

Scully was exquisite. Her breasts were barely hidden by black lace, and his gaze narrowed as he took in the way her hips curved softly into a pair of low-cut lacy briefs. "Come here," he managed, not wanting this moment to end, but needing to feel her next to him. She walked over to him, the streetlights sliding across her intent expression, and she knelt next to his chair. Oh, Scully, he thought, desperate to understand how they had gotten to this point. What are we doing here? What game are we playing with each other? "Undress me," he said, and he knew by the way her gaze darkened that this was exactly what she wanted.

IV.

"Undress me," he said, and her heart thudded in her chest, and she shivered involuntarily. Even all her imagined scenarios paled in comparison to the way he looked at her, the closeness of his body, and the feel of his skin beneath her hands as she fumbled with the snap of his jeans, finally managing to lower them to the ground.

"Do you want to taste me?" he asked. It wasn't a demand, but a request, and she was reminded of Mulder's gentle nature, the way he easily rested his hand on her lower back, or the way he would occasionally open the door for her at work. Even if he was creating the rules, he would never force her. "This changes everything," he had said, and her mind momentarily tried to understand how everything and nothing could have changed at the same time.

But then her hands were moving of their own accord, slipping his boxers from his waist, and her rational thoughts escaped her. The words in her mouth were replaced by his cock, and the deep groan which escaped from his mouth echoed in her ears. Mulder, she thought, silently chanting his name over and over. Oh, Mulder. He was so hard, and his hands came up to grasp her head. Not pushing, but, instead, his fingers stroked her hair, and he whispered her name. "Scully," and then his head fell backwards against the chair. "What are you doing to me?" She had no answer for him.

Instead, she touched the base of his cock, and slid him in and out of her mouth in a slow, deliberate rhythm. They were doing this to each other. She lost track of time as she tasted him, with deliberate concentration. "Enough," he said suddenly, pushing her away, and she got a glimpse of ragged passion before his face again slipped into an expressionless mask. "Are you sure you want to do this, Scully? This is your last chance." She nodded before she even fully comprehended his words. She made her peace with this well before Mulder walked in the door.

"I want you, Mulder," and she had never spoken anything so true in her life. She stepped away from the chair as he stood, reaching down only to step off of his jeans and boxers, pulling the sweater up over his head. He was naked, breathtakingly so, and she let her gaze travel upwards, slowly, until she reached his face. It was amazing, really, to see him like this. After everything they had been through together, even the times of panic and turmoil when she had seen him unclothed, she had never experienced the pleasure of this Mulder.

And then he touched her, unsnapping her bra with a deft hand as he reached down towards her panties, slipping his fingers inside. There were no more thoughts. There was only Mulder's fingers dancing against her wetness, and the sound of harsh breathing. His? Hers? She didn't know, and didn't care.

"I want you," he whispered in her ear. "If this is how it's going to be, in this room, then that's what I'll take. I want to fuck you, Scully, I want to make love to you." Somewhere, the word "love" resonated in her brain, but it was lost as Mulder turned her around, pulling her panties towards her feet. She was standing next to the wall, and reached out with both hands to brace herself.

Without warning, Mulder yanked the blinds upwards, and, from their third-story view, she saw the tops of trees, muted streetlights, a cloudless sky, and the reflection of her face in the window pane. "I want to watch you, Scully, when you come," Mulder whispered, closely in her ear, and then he pushed himself inside her. It was everything, and more. He waited for just a moment for her to adjust, and then began to move in a slow, deliberate rhythm, his hands cupping her breasts, squeezing her nipples between his fingers.

She couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't speak.

She could only feel, as his thrusts became deeper and harder, and she felt herself losing control of the moment. But she had never had control. Neither of them had. She came hard, and threw her head back against him, a scream escaping from deep within her. A scream of fulfillment and frustration, of ecstasy and agony. She was too lost to notice his orgasm seconds later, and the deep cry he emitted against her sweaty skin. "I love you," he whispered, but it did not register. Nothing registered, except the wave of physical pleasure, tinged with bittersweet regret.

Minutes, maybe hours passed. Time was lost in the darkness of their haven. Somehow, she ended up on the bed next to him, curled against his body, his hands lightly stroking her forehead. "Are you okay?" she asked, and she didn't recognize her own voice. She thought she heard him laugh before he answered. "I think so," he said. "I think we are both okay."

The sweat had long cooled on her skin, and she shivered. "I've got to go," she said, and she felt him tense in surprise. Scully wasn't sure where the words came from, but, the longer she was there, the more saddened she became. This is what she wanted. Mulder. But not like this. Not in this unfamiliar apartment, not for only a few hours at a time. But this was the choice they both made. She slid out of the bed, and quickly pulled on her clothes.

By the time she turned to face him, she had schooled her expression into a neutral, bland one. He was sitting up against the headboard, the bedspread draped over his lap. "Mulder, I want to see you again," she said. He looked at her in surprise, and she blushed. Of course she would see him again. He was her professional partner and friend. She saw him almost every day.

"Here," she clarified. "Next Saturday. Will you be here?" He was silent for so long, that her legs began to tremble.

Please say you will, Mulder. I need this, I need you, I need you to need me just as much. Please, Mulder. This is all I know how to offer you right now. Please don't deny me, not after we've seen how good we are for each other. Please, Mulder.

"Next Saturday," he said, in a solemn tone, and she had a perverse echo of "I do" ringing in her ears. Their vow, she realized. Saturdays of intimacy, packaged between chasing monsters and aliens and fighting for the truth. She nodded, and grabbed her bag as she walked to the door, fighting back tears. Just as she opened the door, she heard him speak.

"Scully?" he said, but she refused to turn around. Seconds passed, and then he spoke again. "Drive carefully."

She managed to fight the tears until she reached her car, and then slipped behind the wheel, sobbing, unaware of Mulder's gaze from the window above, only aware that somehow, everything had changed.

FINIS

Author's notes: I originally started this story with a very different idea than the end result. But I am intrigued by the concept, and anticipate adding more stories to this series when time and real life permit. I do not have a defined writing schedule, however, so please read the story as a stand-alone piece with the possibility, but not certainty, of more later. Thanks as always to my wonderfully supportive beta, Kayla, who always provides constructive and encouraging feedback. Feedback welcomed and much appreciated at annhkus@yahoo.com

November, 2002