TITLE:  Little Things
AUTHOR:  Menagerie
EMAIL:  menageri@linkline.com
WEBSITE:  Brand New!!!  Thank you, Aly!!!!
http://menagerie.gq.nu
FEEDBACK:  Yes, please.
CLASSIFICATION: V, MPOV
KEYWORDS:  S, M, UST
RATING:  G
SPOILERS:  Through most of S8
ARCHIVE:  Yes, but let me know where so I can stop by!
DISCLAIMER: If I owned 'em scenes like this would be on the
screen!!!  No money made, no profit gained, no skin off
anyone's nose...
SUMMARY:    The little things in life ARE life.



 He tried to concentrate on the little things.

 The icy sting of cold beer sliding down his throat.  The
salty, cheesy flavor of hot pizza in his mouth.  The smell
of a clean towel filling his nose.

 The feel of Scully's petite frame in his arms.  The sound
of her low voice tickling the innermost part of his ear.
The smell of her shampoo.  The vanilla taste of her lips.

 These were the things he could handle.  The bigger picture,
well, he just couldn't get it all straight in his head.
Colonization.  Rebels.  Super soldiers.  Miracle babies.
Resurrection.  Just a few questions to answer there.

 He closed his eyes and pressed his face deeper into the
pillow.  He was going nowhere with this.  Why torture
himself?  It should be enough that he was alive.  That he
was back.  That they were going to have a child.  It was
enough.  It had to be.

 But with the scars still healing on his body and his mind
still reeling from her words, it didn't feel like enough.

 "We thought you were dead, Mulder.  We...we buried you."

 A coffin.  He had spent three months in a box, under the
ground.  He didn't remember any of it.  Or at least he
didn't think so.  He desperately tried not to.  He didn't
like to close his eyes, much less in a dark room.  There was
always a light on.

 He didn't have nightmares about it.  Not yet.  He was
praying, yes praying, that he never did.  He dreamt about
the ship, about the tests.  He dreamt about screaming her
name as a whirling blade sliced into his chest.  The
penetrating cold.  The paralyzing loneliness.  The
overwhelming certainty that he had been the consummate fool.

 Why had he stepped into that force field?  Was it his
unending quest for the truth?  His natural curiosity?  Or
his hubris?  The part of him that said he could handle it,
no matter what it was.  He knew they had the technology, the
ambition, certainly the bloodlessness to use and discard
him.  He went anyway.

 He suspected it was none of those things that motivated him
to step forward.  It was fear.  He was dying and there was
nothing he could do about it.  He couldn't bring himself to
tell Scully.  To see the pity and the fear.  To see the
love.  The love they had but just couldn't talk about.  He
didn't want her at his bedside as he lapsed into insanity.
He didn't want to face it.

 So he had gone into the light and left her to face it.  To
hear that he was gone.  To search for him month after
month.  To bury him and mourn him.  To bring him back.  He
had run.  She had prevailed.

 And once again he was afraid.  Afraid to look into her eyes
and see what the last six months had cost her.  To see the
price she had paid when he had refused to.  She tried to
talk to him about it, to share it with him, and even then,
he had run.  'Look at poor me', he had suggested in action
if not word.  'I am so stunned, so out of place now.  Don't
ask me to face this now.'

 And so again she had relented and borne the weight alone.
The weight of his pain.  His loss.  The weight of his child
heavy in her belly.

He really didn't know how to feel about that.  Of all the
things that he was trying to re-digest in this second life
of his that seemed a pale imitation of the first, this was
the one that he just couldn't wrap his brain around.

 A baby. Their baby.  His.  He was going to be a father.  Or
some sort.

 They hadn't talked about it.  When did they talk about
anything?  He referred to it as her baby, not his, and
certainly not theirs.  He was certain that it was his child,
even though its existence was a miracle of the sort he had
told her to hope for.  The how and the why scared him and he
knew they scared her, too. But they didn't talk about it.
Of course not.

 So, he concentrated on the little things.  The way the sun
glinted off the polished top of his desk.  (She had kept the
apartment clean; cleaner than he ever had.)  The smell of
spicy Thai food.  The cold smoothness of the shower wall
against his forehead.  The taste of tears in the back of his
throat.  He relished them all.  They nurtured him.  They hid
him from the wide open expanse of life.

 He turned his head to the side and glanced at the glowing
numbers on the clock.  2:25 AM.  Maybe he should just get
out of bed.  Read a book.  Flip channels.  Anything but
stare at the dim outlines of his bedroom.  He sighed and
closed his eyes, breathing in the soft cotton of the
pillowcase.

 A quiet sound in the doorway startled him and he looked up
at the doorway.  Her red hair glowed in the back light from
the living room.

 "Scully?"  He furrowed his brow.  Was she real, or was he
dreaming?

 She stepped through the doorway, advancing on the bed until
she reached out and touched his hand.

 "You're awake."

 "Big surprise, " he said, amazed that he could still be
sarcastic.  It felt like a lost art to him now.  "Is
something wrong?"

 "No."  She sat on the edge of the bed and he scooted back
to make more room for her.  She laced her fingers through
his.  "I just wanted to check on you."

 "At two thirty in the morning?"

 She chuffed at that.

 "I couldn't sleep, so I decided I might as well do
something useful."

 "Like baby-sit me," he said bitterly.  He saw her wince at
his tone and mentally kicked himself.  He was glad she was
there.  He was.

 "Not baby-sit, Mulder. Just...check."  She sighed and
rolled her head around on her neck, stretching the muscles.
She sighed again.  "I just...sometimes I wake up, Mulder,
and I can't keep straight in my head what's going on. I
wanted you to come back for so long and now...you're here."

 Mulder disengaged his hand from hers and flipped it palm up
and then palm down.

 "Dead.  Alive.  Dead.  Alive.  It does get to be a little
confusing.  Even for me."

 "Mulderrr," Scully said, exasperated.  She was obviously
not in the mood for his acerbic commentary.

 "Sorry," he said, shortly and mentally kicked himself
again.  Why was he always such an ass to her?  The minute
she was gone, he missed her desperately, but every moment
she was with him he spent trying to drive her away.

 She took his hand again.

 "Sometimes I just need to see with my own eyes that you're
okay.  That you're really here.  Is that so hard to
believe?"

 It was his turn to sigh.

 "No.  I don't mean to be such a jerk, Scully. I'm
just...lost, I guess.  My feet aren't back on the ground.
Or above the ground, as the case may be."

 "It's okay, " she said softly, and reached up to stroke his
hair.  "No one can understand what you've been through."

 "Likewise."

 They sat in companionable silence and he saw her rub her
neck again.

 "Here," he said, sitting up and leaning back against the
headboard.  He gestured for her to sit between his legs.
She smiled and kicked off her shoes before settling her
considerable girth between his thighs.

 He smiled as her weight settled against him and the smell
of her shampoo wafted into his nose.  She purred as his
fingers began to knead her flesh and her head dropped
forward to her chest.

 "Oh, Mulder, that feels so good."

 He smiled wider and leaned forward to place a feather soft
kiss against the back of her neck.  Her skin was smooth and
soft.  She smelled like strawberries and vanilla.  His
fingers buzzed with the warm friction of skin on skin.
These were the little things.

 This *was* life.



The End!

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