Title: Shadows and Light Author: Gina Rain (ginarain@aol.com) Category: MSR, Fluff Rating: PG-13ish Summary: Sometimes, in an effort to help others, you have to help yourself. Disclaimer: CC and Co. own it. Like many people, Dana Scully experienced random moments of free-floating anxiety. Although her life was full of occasions that gave her just cause for panic, she usually dealt with them calmly and rationally. It was the vague feelings of unease without tangible sources that she found difficult to deal with; moments when a sense of dread leached on to her like a shadow. However, being an extraordinarily rational human being, she developed a plan of attack. She used these rare moments as an opportunity for continuing medical education. She fired up her mental microfiche machine and scanned it for the latest articles on anxiety disorders, trying to remember them word for word. While she didn't have Mulder's memory, hers was still pretty damned good. And she remembered birthdays, to boot. After fifteen or twenty minutes of study, she'd be ready to bravely walk on until, like all good shadows, her fears slipped from conscious radar and were taken for granted. The latest episode occurred the minute she walked through their office door. It had been a rough week, case-wise. The conspiracy was once again in full swing and paranoia was running high. She *knew* that. She also knew she was in a bit of trouble. She hadn't really read anything new on the science behind panic and her coping mechanism was looking as sad as her dentist's waiting room; the one that was famous for its huge collection of 1978 National Geographic magazines and 1983 Family Circles. "Has the place been swept?" she asks Mulder after only a brief nod of greeting. He looks up from his monitor with a small smile. "All neat and tidy. Good morning to you, too." I'm sorry, Mulder. Good morning." She stores her briefcase under her desk, quickly double- checking to see if their "exterminating service" missed any stray bugs. She fires up her computer, knowing that she'll be powering it down in a few minutes after Mulder informs her of their daily wild goose chase. They seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. "Hey, Scully," she moves her mouse into position to make logging off easier. "It looks like we'll have a pretty quiet day of paperwork ahead of us." Paperwork? No. It can't be. Mulder never sits still for paperwork while there was an unjustice to be rectified. A dragon to be slain. A hole to be spackled. And never on a day when she wants to be away from these walls, this basement, this desk. Sometimes, life sucks. 'SSRIs have become first line medication for the treatment of panic disorder'. . . Damn., who authored the article and what followed? And, more importantly, why didn't she have some handy dandy Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors in her purse? Two hours later, she finds something better than SSRIs: Mulder's version of their latest expense report. A work of fiction could not be as creative or amusing. She gets up from her desk and heads toward the file cabinet. She knows she needs to present him a copy of the list of justified expenses in order to change Mulder's mind about charging the FBI $37.53 for a pair of red silk boxer shorts. She's just reaching for the top drawer when the lights go out. Completely. Goodbye thoughts of Mulder's creative writing assignment, hello desperate need for the serotonin stuff. She *knew* something would happen. Didn't she feel it the moment she walked in this morning? They are probably waiting just outside the door, ready to come in—guns drawn and ready. Guns with silencers. Skinner would come in here in a few days, because the cleaning crew would refuse to enter a room that had such a godawful smell permeating through the door, and he'd find their bloodless bodies lying on the cold, dank floor. "Scully? You okay?" She hears him rise from his somewhat squeaky chair, and walk in her direction. This is followed by a "Fuck!" She can easily identify that as the sound of Mulder injuring a random body part. Good. Well, not that he injured a random body part but that she could try and remain calm as she identified normal, reassuring, fairly commonplace sounds. It would keep her mind from things of a more fatal nature. "I'm fine, Mulder," she says. "You don't sound fine. In fact, your breathing sounds really . . . loud." "I'm fine, Mulder," she says again, feeling anything but. "I'm on my way," he says and she hears his light steps on the bare floors. This is followed by another "fuck," along with the metallic sound of a wastepaper basket being overturned. An "oomph" follows this and she jumps in the dark as one hand slams into the file cabinet to the right of her face, while the other clumsily grabs on to her left breast. Her accompanying gasp sounds louder than all the breathing, fucks and oomphs that preceded it. "Tell me," he says, "that's not what I think it is." "I can't do that," she says and feels him disengage by just opening his fingers and drawing them away without fondling her in any way, shape or form. "You're gonna have to take my word for this, Scully, but, boy, is my face red." "Just—forget about it, Mulder. Did you hurt yourself?" She could feel him standing up straighter and moving aside rubble from the trashcan with the toe of his shoe. He leaves his right hand on the file cabinet and leans some of his weight against it. It was beginning to feel like a conversation by the water cooler. Except there was no water and no lights, of course. "I'm sure I'll have some bruises tomorrow. Nothing I can't handle." "Good. What do you suppose happened to the lights?" "I don't know. Blackout? Circuit breaker overload? Fuse blew? It's just too damned dark down here. We're safer just staying where we are for a while and seeing what happens. If the lights don't come up in a few minutes, we can try and make our way across to the other side of the office and see if we have any flashlights there." "Mine is in the car," she says sadly and notices her own breathing quicken a bit in response. She feels him move his other hand over to her left side— just to the side of her breast. And he isn't exactly touching the file cabinet, either. "Mulder, there is no garbage can in your way and you haven't tripped in the last few seconds, so you damned well better have a good explanation." "I'm checking your heart rate. I noticed before that it was going a mile a minute." She puts her hand on his arm and pushes it away. "I have a pulse in my wrist, you know." "Oh," he says. "I sort of forgot about that. Still, your pulse is really too fast. Are you scared?" "No, but I was. I was afraid of being compacted by a giant klutz." His chuckle is warm and reassuring in the dark. She feels his hand touch the side of her face. She can't see a damned thing, yet he has perfect aim in locating all her body parts. What is he? Part-cat? Or ex-male-hooker? She feels him move closer. Why is he moving closer? Doesn't he know about the imminent bloodbath waiting outside their door? Doesn't he care that twenty-seven members of the conspiracy could be out there with silencers? Doesn't he . . . oh. He kisses her neck. No doubt about it. He kissed her neck. She knows because she still feels the electrical surge that went from his lips all the way down to her toes, with a few strategic stops in between. "Mulder? What did you do?" She asks and hears a breathless quality to her voice that hasn't been heard in quite some time. "If you have to ask, I guess I must really be out of practice." "No. You seem good enough at it. I guess I meant, why?" "Because I wanted to. Because we’re alone in the dark and I've already committed a grievous offense without meaning to, so I might as well go ahead and get in trouble for something that I intentionally set out to do. Or not get in trouble. You can never tell with the dark. There are so many choices. So many infinite possibilities," he lightly brushes his lips against the pulse point in her neck. "You could smack me and tell me to stop—which I notice you didn't do, by the way. You could participate, which you didn't exactly do, either, but I didn't really expect you to. Or you could charge me with sexual harassment and ruin my otherwise stellar career in law enforcement, which you probably will do once the lights come back up." "You're very cavalier about the possibility." "Maybe it's because I thought it was worth the risk. Maybe I thought it was worth almost any risk." "*Almost* any?" "Well, I'd still like you to speak with me and not think I'm some pervert who has been lying in wait all these years waiting for a fuse to blow, or a circuit to break. I'd like you to still sort of like me." "Well, it depends," she says with a frown he can't see. "On what?" "Did you do that—neck thing—because you sensed I was uncomfortable and wanted to help me take my mind off the situation?" "Hell, no. My hand was on an erogenous zone, Scully. That does something to a man. It fires off neurons or testosterone or something. You're the scientist. You tell me. All I know is I was standing in the dark with the one person I've always wanted to kiss and the only one I wanted to help is myself—to you," he says, then adds sheepishly, "Was that the right answer?" It was desire. Not pity. Not mercy. Good answer. She reaches out a hand and aims upward. Nothing. One more inch forward. There he is. Her fingertips touch his nose. Nope. Cute nose in its own way, but no. A little to the right. There, right there. His cheek. Slide a bit more to the left. Hair. Curl her fingers a bit and push toward herself. Hello, Mulder. Scully feels his breath as it nears her own cheek. She moves her other hand up to the other side of his face and manages not to poke anything in the interim. She pulls him forward some more and feels Mulder's lips touch her face. She slides hers over until they are lined up with his own and then puckers for all she's worth. The hand he's using to lean against the file cabinet comes down and joins the other to hold onto her waist. For a moment, she thinks about what an odd picture they must present. Mulder is pretty much bent at an odd angle while Scully is leaning up as far as her toes can take her. Both of them perfect poster children for future chiropractic care. But then he participates in the kiss and she turns off all the machinery in her mind. She feels his lips part and she meets him halfway. They are both eager to be the first to taste each other. That first velvety slide of warm wetness sends another shockwave down to her toes with detours along each erogenous zone Mulder didn't manage to hit, intentionally or unintentionally, before. She melts just a little along each one. And then the lights come on. She opens an eye to find his eyes opened and looking just a bit frightening in close-up, hazel-toned technicolor. Busted. Her tongue is still in his mouth and there is just no way to ease out of this kiss in any kind of dignified, business-like manner. So, she closes her eyes and lets him do it. He pulls her up against him for a moment—continuing their kiss for a few seconds more. As she starts to pray for another blackout or equipment malfunction or whatever the hell this was . . . he breaks away and sets her back on her heels. When Scully opens her eyes, Mulder's seated behind his desk. She knows she is flushed and notices the matching color in his cheeks, not to mention the tell-tale Raspberry Sherbert lipstick smear around his mouth. She walks to her desk and pops up a tissue from its cardboard container. 'A shadow is a dark space where something blocks light.' Ah, success. Fourth grade science is still in the memory machine. But she isn't seeing shadows at the moment. Nope. No vague feelings of despair are haunting her now. She can put all those feelings of silencers and serotonin away for the moment. She is being presented with a greater problem, however. Dana Scully is now desperately afraid of the dark. But she would have to find out why later. When she was alone, she would pull out the microfiche machine in her mind. No, that was only for articles. She'd have to fire up the mental VCR instead. Pull out the tape of their kiss. Their kiss . . . She'd replay that moment . . . again and again and again, if she had to. All to figure out whether she was afraid of the dangers of the dark with its promise of infinite possibilities, or actually afraid that whatever caused the lights to go out was now repaired forever and they'd never be caught in that situation again. Yup, she looked forward to a long and fruitful investigation. But, for now, she has Kleenex to dispense.