Title: The Point Author: Georgia Email: Moonrock66@aol.com Rating: R Spoilers: Theef Summary: A breaking point. Disclaimer: Held hostage until we know about next season. And depending how that goes, we might not give them back. --------------------------- There comes a point. There always does. Mine came last night. Three months after the world didn't end. Three months after Mulder's lips first brushed mine. He said I kept him guessing. And as I lay there in bed hours later, I knew that he was right. I did. I had. I had kept us both guessing. For too long. I ran my fingers through my hair, over and over again, trying to get his voice out of my head. To still the sinking feeling in my stomach. But the night was quiet. So dark and cold that every sound was amplified, the ticking of my watch on the dresser all that I could hear. I prayed for noise. A car alarm, thunder, footsteps upstairs. Anything to let me know I wasn't the only person on earth. But I was alone. Almost sick with a distant uneasiness that was welling up inside me. A loneliness I had fought, ignored, thought I could live with. Not a simple I'm alone lonely either. No. This was the loneliness that strikes when you go home alone from a party and can still feel the laughter stretching across your face. Or the void created when one person, the person, steps out of your presence. The first moment of internal echo when you feel a part of you is missing. An out of the sunlight, unable to see God's face, away from home on Christmas Eve kind of lonely. The cure was easy. Simple. I only had one question. How? No longer if. That question was answered with a promise made in his doorway, a lingering of my thumb across his lips. No longer when. Soon. We made that clear on New Year's Eve. Now only how. I knew I'd never be able to say the words Mulder needed to hear. But I had already made one admission without so much as opening my mouth. That I would put up no fight, make no assertion of science over magic, said more than any spoken syllables would ever be able to. Not that I believed. But that I was willing to. That not so simple confession gave me hope that my presence alone could make another one. ---------------------- He wasn't home. I knocked a little louder, called his name. I was about to knock again when the elevator opened behind me. He was carrying a grocery bag. He saw me immediately. I think at first he was a little confused. Just thought I stopped by to talk about the case maybe. He had that happy to see me twinkle in his eye as he got off the elevator. Then I turned to face him, stone still, my face so stiff with fear it felt like it might shatter with the smallest smile. He stopped dead in his tracks at my expression. Maybe he'd never seen it before. Maybe my eyes were softer than usual. Maybe my heartbeat was audible down the hall. I don't know how, but he knew. His eyes flew to mine, held searching, then widened to take in my whole body, roaming as if for the first time, completely indulgent. My throat seemed to close as I slid back against the door, forcing a swallow. Through moist eyes, I watched the realization play across his face, evolving from a glimmer of hope into blood-hot anticipation. With a snap his eyes came back to mine, an invisible force driving him forward in a sudden fury, that brought him against me in one clean movement. I heard my startled gasp sound down the hallway, heard his groceries land with a forgotten thud at my feet, as his body molded mine to the door, his hands resting above either side of my head, not touching me yet. He held me there, rapid breathing against my neck, until we both began to shake. Me out of nerves, amazement. Him, I think, out of restraint. When he finally lifted his eyes to look at me, his eyes were so hungry. I practically expected him to take a bite out of me. But Mulder is a patient man. I already knew this. And he's good at fighting these particular urges. He brought his lips down to mine in a slow, deliberate kiss, so soft it seemed he had all night to kiss me and was content with nothing more. But the heat that tinged the edges gave him away, his lips grazing mine, settling more firmly. He pulled away after a few seconds, his breath still unsteady on my face. When the warmth moved away, I opened my eyes to see him pull his keys from his pocket and quite adeptly, under the circumstances, unlock the door. He took a step inside the apartment, reaching blindly for my hand and with one small tug pulled me into motion behind him. If I hadn't been scared out of my mind and so turned on that his voice alone could've probably make me scream, I might have laughed at his next move. He didn't turn on a light, didn't lock the door, didn't hesitate. Mulder always was single minded. I guess he wasn't allowing for any diversions. For no turning back. He simply closed the door behind us, kicked a pair of shoes out of the way and lacing his fingers with mine, led me to the bedroom. He turned on a lamp beside his bed, my hand still in his, my front pressed to his back. The dim light brought his first words of the night. "I did laundry," he explained, nodding at his stripped bed. I don't know why he seemed almost embarrassed at the mess. I'd certainly seen his apartment a lot worse. Not to mention I practically live in that pig sty he calls an office. He could've suggested we make love on the bathroom floor at that point and I really wouldn't have cared. I sat down on the unmade bed, Mulder standing over me, slipping between my legs. For a moment he just looked down on me. Then, he placed his hands on both my thighs, pressing me with gentle strokes into the mattress. My hands came up to circle his waist, to slide down his hips, pulling him into me. His eyes flickered shut, his hips moving involuntarily. I never realized that my head had dropped back, my closed eyes in a prayer directed at the ceiling, until I felt his palm sweep up my neck. I felt him tense with a shudder at the airy moan that came from inside me. "Let's do this right," he groaned pulling away. I opened my eyes, confused, not caring what right was as long as it included me and Mulder in that bed soon. He turned, pulling some sheets from a laundry basket on a chair in the corner. Soft, well washed gray sheets. Like one of his t-shirts. God. That image sent rippling waves of nerves back up from my stomach. What would it be like to sleep, surrounded by Mulder? Comfortable, familiar but dangerously unknown. I was about to find out. I stood up in a daze where things seemed more real than they were, where each heartbeat seemed four minutes long, brushing against him as Mulder tucked the first corner of the fitted sheet under the mattress. I moved with him to the head of the bed as another corner was secured. Then, instead of walking around the bed to reach the far side, Mulder stretched the length of his body across, anchoring the third corner at the foot of the bed. He moved for the top of the bed, but my hands wouldn't stay still any longer. I felt like a cat, stretching across the bed after him, my fingers clawing into the planes of his back. I stroked up and down his back, Mulder pulling desperately on the sheet, my touch going deeper, the sheet still not cooperating. Mulder gave one last frustrated grunt and in a flash gave up, pinning me beneath him, tangling us with the half loosened sheet. I loved him for trying. But his resolve was apparently spent then. He showed no mercy, his mouth burning into mine, his hands moving directly under my shirt, one circling the bare skin of my stomach, the other sliding impatiently up to my breasts. He screeched to a surprised halt for one half second when he found I wasn't wearing a bra. I'm pretty sure I felt him smile, his fingers smoothing lazily over the soft incline of my nipple, around and around, taunting the straining peak. My tongue pressed deeper into his mouth, so deep I know he had to be thinking of other things. A moment later his hips settled over mine, my legs spreading automatically as he ground into the soft fabric of my pants with an almost pained sigh. I loved him. I loved him more than anything in the world. He had to know. God he had to. "Mulder.." My throaty voice seemed to surprise him in the silence that was all breathing and rustling sheets. He looked up from a new found spot on my neck, leaving my pulse to throb under the wetness. His dark eyes found mine, more than a little afraid, clouded, but so honest. I never thought I'd be able to say it. "I love you," I whispered, not sure he'd believe me, the amazement in my voice more about our current position than my feelings for him. That I loved him was not a sudden realization. Not a realization ever really. More a fact of life. But God, how much, how intense this would be, I think I underestimated. But he understood. "I love you," he said simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, bending to place one kiss across my lips to seal the vow. His weight shifted then, his shirt pulled from the back of the collar over his head. And I looked up into the beautiful skin of his chest. I reached for him automatically, my fingernails grazing lightly from the hollow of his throat down his stomach moving just under the waist of his jeans. His eyes fell shut, no longer hungry, everything he wanted so close he could taste it. And he did. In a rush that allowed for no passing of bowls or saying grace, his mouth blazed over my stomach, working his way down my body, taking my pants with him. The next few minutes became a blur of sensation, disjointed images floating in my consciousness. His mouth everywhere, his tongue, the weight of his body. I suppressed a cry when his naked skin pressed full on against mine. His dark eyes turned sad for a moment, pleading with me to not hold back, to show him everything. And I found that I wanted to, had to, my head falling back in a relieved, heady sigh. He kissed my cheek like a shy schoolboy, so grateful, lingering by my ear for a moment. Then, he slid fully inside me. The rhythm. Despite everything else, the spiral of pure ecstasy, the emotional wonder that our souls had somehow stepped outside and wrapped themselves around our joined bodies, it was the rhythm that overwhelmed us both. It was too good. An intimate give and take we had so long laid the groundwork on but weren't prepared for. I felt him quiver long after both our bodies had stilled, his lips brushing over the smooth skin of my inner arm. The hum in my throat brought his eyes to mine. "Why tonight?" he asked hesitantly, like he wasn't really sure he wanted to know. "I got tired of guessing," came my honest reply, my fingers winding gently through his hair. "Yeah?" he seemed to wonder aloud. "Yeah," I agreed. "I've been guessing how you'd feel for a long time," I said, my hand straying down his back. "Guessing how you'd sound...how you'd taste," I finished, my lips finding his. "Me too," he grinned up at me, before settling his head contently on my chest. The first drifting of sleep came fast, with the thought I'd like to go this way every night. His sudden jump startled me. "Shit," he said, pulling quickly to his feet. "What?" I said sitting up in a daze behind him. I watched him disappear from the bedroom. "Mulder?" I called after him. He didn't answer. I was just about to go after him when he returned, melting tub of ice cream and two spoons in hand. "Do you like mint chocolate chip, Scully?" he asked crawling back in beside me. The naughty glimmer in his eyes told me I was in for trouble. As I met his amused gaze with a challenging one of my own, a single thought ran through my mind. You do keep me guessing, Mulder. Thank God. end. ---------------------------- This one's for Marie who always sends email sunshine. moonrock66@aol.com