Title: Some Turbulence Expected (4/4)

Author: Tesla

Address: gah1093@hiwaay.net

Rating: NC-17 (sexual situations, adult language & lawyers)

Category: Mulder/Other

Spoilers: Assume that this alternate universe careens off track after "Field Trip,"

But spoilers for "Millenium" and "Orison".

Archive: Sure, everyone, I would be in a tizzy of pleasure and tell everyone I knew.

Feedback: See above, only I'll also write charming replies.

Disclaimer: If Ten Thirteen is even reading this, settle with Duchovny!

Summary: Continuation of "Flying Under the Radar", and "Gaining Altitude"

THANKS to Emerex for excellent beta work, and general encouragement, and to the small select band of folks on my reading list--and Fran58's site, at www.atmosphere.be/media/fran58, which has my other stories.

Mulder was sitting at a desk outside the Quantico morgue. It was late Wednesday afternoon, and he was waiting for the results of an autopsy. He didn't have to--he could have called her. It was just something he had always tried to do--go up, wait for Scully to finish, bring her coffee or a Diet Coke, ask her for her impressions. Now, he wondered why he was there. She didn't want his coffee, she didn't want his conversation, and the main impression she would give to him was that he had wasted her valuable time.

He had left Scully in mid-cut, but not because he was unnerved by the procedure after all this time. He left because he realized he was staring at his partner, and working himself into a fight. At what point in this long, strange trip had she started rolling her eyes at almost every thing he said? Earlier, he had asked a question as to the cause of death, and she had not even bothered to reply, just hunching a shoulder and grimacing under her mask.

Like he was some mental defective she was burdened with. He took a deep breath, and unclenched his fists. He didn't want to fight, and especially didn't want to have a screaming fight at Quantico.

He absently rolled a pencil back and forth on the curling desk blotter, and stopped. Scully acted like every single idle gesture he made proved his immaturity and idiocy. Every nervous twitch, every twiddle of keys or jingling of change in his pocket, every toss of a crumpled soft drink can in the trash basket was expressly designed to piss her off. God knows he wasn't the most sensitive man in the world, but it was starting to grate on him.

"What are you doing?" seemed to be her constant question. At any moment, he expected her to morph into Sister Dana Katherine, complete with steel-edged ruler. "Don't mumble. Straighten your tie. Comb your hair. Give me those reports." Shit, he rather longed for the fertilizer checks. At least he wasn't the sole focus of her annoyance back then. He pulled out the case file and pretended to be studying it. Count to one hundred, backwards. Breathe slowly. Why get upset now? Why feel like an anxiety attack was coming on, that this wasn't just another autopsy, just another case, but the end of the world?

Because once in a while, she would smile, and act like they were still partners. Just long enough for him to remember all the hope and trust he had put in their partnership. He would start to hope. And then he'd crack a joke, and Sister Grim would reappear. Obviously the collapse of the conspiracy had had meant two different things to them. She still wanted to find Cancerman, and Krycek. Someone still protected Diana Fowley, but Scully wanted to tie her to the Consortium. Scully wanted to move on, find all the leaks, find all the divided loyalties in the Bureau, and find out Skinner's motives.

Mulder wanted to find his sister, and bring her to his mother. And then? Walk away. Try to remember where he was going before he had hypnotic regression, back when his name was Fox. Before he was allowed to remember Samantha screaming his name and vanishing. Profiling seemed like an easier job than fruitlessly investigating the unexplained. But ironically, Scully seemed determined to explain the unexplained.

He hated being alone with her. He hated bearing the weight of her grief and disappointment in her life. If she had ever loved him, and he could have sworn she had, it was gone. And gone a long time before he knew or could prevent it.

True, he now had a lover, but he didn't know if being with Janet, for all of her decency and passion, could keep him from repeating how things had gone so wrong with Scully. He had a new Magic Hospital Memory, too, of running down the hall to Janet, thinking, Not her, not her, not her, please no.

And now, all the good memories, of how he and Scully had managed to arrest the perp, or just get out alive, how they worked together, how she had bailed him out and backed him up, and the day he found out that she was in remission; all that was swamped by the bitterness. Just like the hallucinations from the Giant Mushroom from Hell--the good stuff he remembered was breaking down into yellow goo and melting away.

He hated his life.

When Scully came out with her briefcase, ready to leave, he was staring unblinkingly at the file. He closed it and stood up, heavily, still feeling nothing but a load of darkness hovering over him. "Anything?"

"I don't see anything that ties this victim to the UNSUB they have in mind," she said, "But this is an expert. Nothing here shows that he did anything that wasn't necessary. Gangster execution, I think."

"Should we advise them that Tony Soprano is behind it?" Mulder asked automatically. Gotta give her what she expects. (And what, he asked himself, trying to swerve into the trivial, is this black push-up bra under the tight white blouse? Is that Scully's Look for this season?) Ooh, good, there was the token eye-roll. And, wait for it….

"Good night, Mulder," she said tonelessly, and walked past him.

Janet was riding Mulder like some pornographic movie star. She came, and came, and came: he found lubricant, and put her in positions she had only seen in the Kama Sutra, and still he didn't come. She was crying from the sensations and the over-stimulation. And because she knew he was going to leave her. And still, he fucked her. She knew it wasn't "making love." Mulder was fucking her, and her mind was going, and she was screaming, and sore, but she couldn't tell him to stop. He seemed so desperate, so angry at something. She couldn't stop crying, because he wasn't making love to her. He didn't even know who he was with. He was fucking her, and fucking her, and fucking her.

Mulder hated himself. He hated having the closed doors in his head, in his emotions flying open. All the monsters, all the fears, all the demons were trying to get out. Sex had always been the relief, the mindlessness, the answer that shut those doors. He couldn't come, no matter what position he put her into, no matter how loud she screamed, no matter what videos he thought about--he wasn't coming. He was grinding into Janet, and he couldn't stop. He couldn't come. He was in Hell. But he still coated his dick and fingers with lube, and still moved her into another position--You are so fucked up, he thought. Stop. Stop hurting your baby. She doesn't deserve this. Janet is your baby. Janet loves you.

But he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop what he was doing, and he couldn't find release. After a long time, he realized that Janet was crying, even as he pumped in and out of her. She was crying in such a desperate, hopeless fashion, that he felt like a rapist. She must have been weeping for a long time.

"Baby," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Janet couldn't reply,

He got up, and found a bottle of bourbon he had bought, and returned to the bedroom with the bottle and two shot glasses. Janet lay where he had left her, her hands over her face. He felt suddenly jolted into focus; now he felt even worse than he had sitting outside the morgue. "Janet. Sweetheart. Please. I'm a shit. Please, sweetie." He had set the liquor and glasses on the bedside table, and was holding her, trying to kiss her. Finally, Janet put her arms around his neck, still gulping with sobs. Mulder kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead, her neck. He released her long enough to pour a shot of liquor into each of the glasses. She gulped hers back, and leaned back against the headboard, looking at him through red eyes. She looked desperate; she looked almost dangerous; she looked drunk. "My baby," was all he could say. He picked up her hand and kissed it. He couldn't even think about whatever the hell had taken him over. Maybe, he could tell Janet--later. Much later. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked.

"No," she said. Despite her best efforts, it still came out in a sob. Mulder's heart melted. He put her hand in her lap.

"Oh, God, Janet. I'm such a shit." He couldn't say the words. "I'm all yours, Janet. Please don't throw me out." He pressed his face into her neck.

"I'm not going to throw you out," Janet choked. She wrapped both her arms around him. But maybe I better throw myself out, he thought coldly, even while he held her. I can't take it if Janet hates me. I can't take one more thing. Why did I think I could do this? I have to get out of here.

"Look," he said, getting up. "I'm gonna go for a run. Sleep at my place. Give you some peace." He pulled out his gym clothes, and dressed, and started to leave. He hesitated at the door, and came back, and stood in the bathroom door. "Janet," he said.

Janet turned off the shower, and came out, wrapping herself in her terry robe. "I thought you were gone?" she said, and picked up the Tylenol from the sink. "Forget your gun?"

"It's me, it's my problem." he said.

"Yes, it is. But let me remind you that the earth is round."

"Is that a koan?"

Janet's voice cut like a scalpel. "I mean that the world is round, and when you finish running, you come back to the place you started, and I'll still be here, across the street. I don't change. I won't go out and find a new life in the suburbs. I won't hate you, and I won't fight with you, and I won't let you off the hook."

"So, you'll just wait for me forever?" he dully. "No matter how much of an asshole I am?"

"No, but I'll certainly wait a minimum of six months," she said. "But not forever. I'm not stupid." She turned off the light and brushed past him to the bedroom, where she straightened the bed linens. "But I don't change," she repeated, and dropping the robe, got back into bed.

"I really need to run," he said. "I do."

"I know, but you're thinking about not coming back," she said, in a softer tone. "And I've got to go to sleep. Look, I want you to do what you want, and I want you to have what you want."

"I need to run," he repeated, and finally left.

Janet turned off the light, and wondered if she had done the right thing, before falling into an exhausted sleep.