A Child's Awe By Talia HyperTalia@aol.com Spoilers: The X-Files: Fight the Future *Major Spoiler Warning for the Movie!!!!* Rating: PG for some minor language Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance Classification: MSRA, FTF Summary: Mulder returns to the bar for an entirely different reason, and before he realizes it, he and Scully are back in that hallway ... Disclaimer: We love you Chris Carter oh yes we do You made a shippy movie - yes it's true! We always knew you'd pull through But Chris Carter, please don't sue! And, um, youownthesepeopleIdon't. Thanks. This story is dedicated to the members of the M&STD, who have stuck together through thick and thin, from the best times to the very worst. I value our ties and always will! After four viewings of the movie I am still wanting more. That's how I know I liked it . Anyway, that film was screaming for a fanfic. Here we go! Enjoy! And tell me what you think! (HyperTalia@aol.com). Quick note: A friend of mine pointed out while reading this that the song playing in the background of the bar scene is actually "Crystal Ship," not "One." I apologize, I really believed that it was the latter. However, since I had already finished the fanfic, I will leave it as it is. Just pretend that "One" was playing in the bar scene and you will be fine. (Thanks to Paula and Julie for pointing this out). * * * * * A Child's Awe by Talia HyperTalia@aol.com * * * * * "One" was playing on the radio again. Ironic. A week ago he had been sitting in the exact same bar, listening to the exact same song ... then, of course, the song had seemed to be mocking him, a pinching prodding relentless reminder: "Hey shithead, you're all alone ... nyah nyah nyah..." Now the song did nothing but remind him of his situation that week ago, and how he had felt. Man, what a contrast it was to what he was feeling at this moment. Now, he couldn't keep that goofy grin off his face. He let his eyes wander lazily over the people in the bar. No Scully. He glanced at his watch. He was early, and she had to find the place. When he had first suggested the idea, she had protested, laughing. "Come on, Scully," he had whined over the phone. "This is a cause to celebrate." Fact was, he hadn't seen her since the day that she had told him she would stay by him. One long wordless gaze, a clasp of her hand, and a silent walk along the pool. The next morning, when the phone rang, he knew it was she even before he picked up the phone. One section of his brain had just screamed, "That's Scully!" "Mulder, it's me." Pause. He could hear her breathing on the other end of the line and for some reason this unnerved him. "I know," he said as lightly as he could, trying to conceal the dread of finding out what she was about to tell him. Was it still Salt Lake City? Farther? Closer? He voice was so soft he didn't even think he had heard her. "The X-Files are reopened," she said. An imaginary hammer thwacked Mulder in the skull. He blinked. "What?" "The X-Files. They're reopened." There was no mistaking the excited tremor in her voice this time. "They're reopened, Mulder, and they're ours." He felt his goofy grin grow wider as he slid into the barstool. The barmaid turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, well, well, Spooky Mulder. I'm gone for one day and I miss your thundering around here looking like you were hit by a bus." Mulder shrugged. "It's been a long week." "Uh-huh." The barmaid's gaze locked on the scar on Mulder's forehead, and with a hesitation she pushed the question out of her eyes. "The usual?" "Not yet. I'm waiting for someone." "Uh-huh." She stepped back, hands on hips, and regarded him. There was a long pause. "You told her, didn't you." Mulder looked up, surprised. "What?" "You. Told. Her." A knowing smile was starting to spread on the barmaid's face. Another customer interrupted Mulder's question. He waited impatiently, then blurted out, "Told who what?" She started to rinse out the glasses one by one. "The woman. The one that makes you ... I don't know how to explain it ... the one that makes you more than one." Taking in his confused demeanor, she let out an exasperated sigh. "You were in here a week ago getting royally drunk, telling me that one is the 'loneliest number' and blabbering on about little green men. Sir, I've worked here long enough to tell one kind of drunken sorrow apart from another. You were in here because of a woman. Someone you cared so much about that it was gnawing at your soul that she wasn't with you. But you told her how you feel." She paused. "And from the look on your face a few minutes ago I'd guess she returned your feelings with enthusiasm." Mulder's jaw was hanging open. She grinned. "Well?" He snapped his mouth shut and averted his gaze to the floor. The barmaid was waiting. "Yeah," he said finally, ashamed at how dumb the word sounded. He nodded and looked at the barmaid. "Yeah," he repeated louder. "Kind of. I guess you could say I told her how I felt - without saying *it*..." he trailed off. She hesitated, then nodded. "*Does* she feel the same way?" Mulder self-consciously fumbled for a sunflower seed. "Well, she didn't *say* ... I guess you could say that we were interrupted." His mind played out his plan for the quick extermination of Africanized honeybees for the trillionth time. He barked out a laugh. "I've been working with this person for half of a decade, finally have to stammer out how I feel, and we're INTERRUPTED." His good humor was sinking fast. "Damn the bee," he ground out. The barmaid looked up. "What?" "Nothing." Silence. Mulder crunched on his sunflower seeds, lost in though. Damn. It was back at the bee. He didn't like thinking about the bee. He didn't like thinking about his hallway, either, which was bad considering he had to walk down it at least twice a day. Each time was torture. Step. *Here's where I started after her. * Step, step, step, step, step ... *Here's where I started to speak ... * Step, step, step, step ... *Here's where she stopped, turned, and ... * And that part of the hallway he always slowed, unable to resist it. One several occasions he couldn't even help stopping completely, lost in the memory of the moment. And then came the waves of reminders of the repercussions of what he had done. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to. He had read it in her eyes; it was as clear as the tear that had slid down her cheek. She had leaned in too, felt the same pull. He had felt each fraction of an inch that closed between them like a wave of warm seawater, refreshing, beckoning, and yet warning of the dangers of the deep. He hadn't been able to help himself. He had stood in front of her, fumbling for the right words. It was like trying to use one drop of color to paint a vast portrait. After the first stammered word, it was over. The dam cracked, the waters flooded forth - he spilled his guts. And it made her irresistible. But now it was a memory. A lingering question. An unsolved case. A hindering curtain. A roadblock. It was there - there in the tender smile on her face with the whispered "I had you big time," in regaining consciousness to the feel of her trembling arms around him, warm in the freezing snow, in her muted murmurs, her lips caressing his brow, temple, hair ... *You - you make me a whole person ... * He could remember the feel of the weight being lifted off his shoulders as those words shot out of his mouth. "Thank you!" they screamed as they rushed out. "It's about time!" Yes, he had said "I love you" in every way without using the actual words. And now whenever he looked at her he was whooshed back to the hallway, feeling the gentle yet decisive mark of ownership her lips pressed into his forehead, the feathery, almost phantom brushes of her hands on his face. The split second brush of lips was something he was consistently fumbling to remember; the exact FEEL of it eluded him with a teasing arrogance. Couldn't the damn bee have waited a minute longer? *If you hadn't been pressing against the back of her neck, it wouldn't have stung her in the first place, * a voice in the back of his head crowed. That's right. It was always his fault somehow. He had almost forgotten that. Mulder had been positive that she had jumped away from the kiss when the bee stung her, that she would launch into the "I love you like a brother" spiel, something he really could not have beared to hear then. Her quick reassurance had stopped him from moving out her personal space - moments before she slumped into him. Before she collapsed. Was carted off. Half-frozen. Almost killed. Because of the bee. Because of *him*. Jerk, Mulder thought. Asshole. Chickenshit. Coward. Idi - "Uh-oh." The barmaid's good-natured tone brought him out of the pit of self- loathing. "Looks like we've dropped a couple notches from cloud nine. Was it something that I said?" "No." Mulder sighed, then glanced at his watch. "Something I've known for a long time now." Suddenly he hoped Scully wouldn't come. He wasn't in the mood to celebrate anymore. At this moment he preferred to stay in his cozy little basket of self-loathing. He started to slide off the stool. "If you see Scull - uh, she's short, red hair ... tell her I wasn't feeling well and left to go home." He stopped when the barmaid's hand settled over his. Startled, he looked at her. Her expression was grave. "Whatever it is," she said softly, "don't forget how happy you were moments ago. And how dejected you were last week. Some people never find what they need; others are too blind to notice it even when it hits them in the face. And then there are some that are just scared. They're like that doctor that you would always talk to in here. Suspicious of everyone. Lonely. He was crazier sober than you were drunk." She released his hand with a tight smile. "Remember that." Kurtzweil. She was talking about Kurtzweil. Jesus, he was what Mulder would have become -- if not for Scully, of course. Nodding his thanks, Mulder swallowed and left the bar. * * * * * The ceiling was incredibly uninteresting. Yet he still lay there, staring at it. Coward, his mind chanted. Bastard. Son of a bitch. The phone rang. That's her! his brain screamed. Mulder picked up the phone. "Hey Scully." "Mulder, it's -" she paused. "How did you know it was me?" He squeezed his eyes shut. "The voices in my head told me." He stood. "Where are you?" "I could ask you the same thing. I thought we were meeting." Mulder tugged on his jacket and opened the door. "We were - I wasn't feeling well." "The barmaid told me that much. Actually, she said that you were upset about something. You okay?" "Yeah. Just needed time to think." Mulder fiddled with the door lock. "Are you drunk?" He smiled. "No." Pause. "Okay." Mulder locked the door and started for the elevator. "Where are you, Scully?" He rounded the corner -- and stopped dead. Scully flashed him a quick smile and turned off the cellphone; the click of it resounded in his ear. "In your hallway," she replied. AAAAARGH IT'S THE HALLWAY, his brain yelped. Delayed reaction. Scully frowned. "Mulder? What's wrong?" He gave his head a small shake. "Nothing. Let's just go." He started to move past her. She grabbed his arm and peered into his face. "Mulder - wait. Are you sure you're okay?" He stood still, staring straight ahead, and exhaled. "Yes." "You're sure." "Yes." "Mulder?" "Yeah?" "Tell me." Her voice was gently and soothing, yet it was obvious that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. With a sigh he looked at her. Blue eyes radiated concern, set out on a pale face still dotted with traces of the cold. He trusted those eyes - the quiet gratitude when he had regained consciousness cradled in her arms, the sparkling mirth on the rooftop, the -loving?- brightness of regained life after he had breathed it back into her. Right now they were pleading with him. *Tell me.* He took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush. Her hand was still resting on his arm, and he tried to ignore the rush of sensations that the simple touch evoked. "Scully," he began, embarrassed at the way he could not keep from stammering. "There have been things ... we've ... uh ... said to each other in the past .... Times that I thought that those words meant something --- that they might have, in any case ... but we never brought it up again, and I've wondered..." his breath ran out, he felt the walls close in, choking him. But her eyes, her eyes were still fixed on him, locked onto his face, getting wider. He stopped, floundering in confusion and fear. "Yes..." she prodded gently. He felt her fingers on his arm tighten slightly. He swallowed. Hoo boy. "Go on, Mulder." *Please*, her eyes added. "And .. When you were about to leave ... when you told me that you had been holding me back ... I couldn't let you leave thinking that. What I said ... what I said when we were standing here ... It was the truth, all the truth, every word of it. It's just that it took me five years to realize it. Maybe it's the truth that I've been looking for all my life, something to put my back up against, to live for, something that convinced me that there was some reason for me to go on every day. I found it in you." He was babbling again. Her hand had not moved, her expression had not changed, but her eyes, her eyes were so wide, so full of wonder; the bright awe of a child watching one of the unexplained mysteries of the world. He felt a sharp stab of triumph. Scully, his Scully, finding wonder in the unexplained thing called - "I love you," he choked out abruptly. "That's what I had been trying to say, trying to let you hear. It's the truth I've been searching for. What I said, what I expressed, it was all real. Real and true, Scully, all of it. Even kissing you. I wanted to, I have wanted to. But I was always afraid because those that I love are always taken away from me. Just like you were, right here in this hallway, taken away from me - " His heart thumped in shock when his mouth was suddenly stilled by one finger against it. "Mulder, look at me." He looked. They locked eyes. If her eyes had been full of wonder before, they were overflowing now. Thin films of unshed tears made them sparkle. He took in the tears uncertainly. What had he done wrong now? "They took me away," she said softly, "but I'm here. Right here. With you. Like I always was. Like I always will be. I've fought to stay by your side, Mulder. And I will continue to do so. I can't afford to do anything else; I need to be with you. I'm strongest when I'm with you. That's the truth I've found. I have faith in it." Her finger brushed his lower lip, then gently traveled till her hand rested against his cheek. Her words dazed him. *She* dazed him. He cleared his throat. "So, you ... uh..." "Why else would I have stuck around for five years?" she teased, then confirmed, "Yes, Mulder. Of course." He bit back the insatiable urge to grin. In the back of his brain the demons decided that this would be a good time to resurface. Asshole. Coward. Freak. Idiot. Son of a - Oh, shut up. They shut up. Her gaze broke from his and traveled to his lips, resting there. Her other hand came up and cradled his face. Her thumb brushed across his lips once, quickly, lightly, and almost imperceptibly. She glanced back into his eyes for permission. He cupped the back of her neck with his hand, and drew her towards him, feeling her breath near his face as his eyes closed, every cell in his body screaming of her closeness ... "DAMN!" she shrieked suddenly, jumping away, hand clamped to the back of her neck, eyes begging fretful apologies. Disappointment whumphed him in the stomach, followed by fear as the blood drained from her face and desperation filled her eyes. *No no not again ... * Scully slumped against him, one hand gesturing feebly for him to listen to her. "Mulder ..." she wheezed. Frantically he put his ear near her mouth. "Had you big time," she whispered. Comprehension dawned, relief seeping through his veins as she graced him with a tender smile. "I saw your face. You panicked." Mulder chuckled. "I did not." "Yes you did. I saw you." "Scully, I -" It was here that the speaking stopped. It did not resume for a long, long time. THE END Fluff, fluff, fluff ... but isn't that what we all need sometimes? Please email me and tell me what you thought! HyperTalia@aol.com