TITLE: The Parting Glass

AUTHOR: Aloysia Virgata

DISTRIBUTION/FEEDBACK: Just let me know first on 
distribution. Feedback always welcomed and appreciated at 
aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com 

RATING: NC-17

CLASSIFICATION: MSR

SPOILERS: Fight The Future

SUMMARY: It's too hard to stand here and see him stripped 
down like this. She turns and walks away.

DISCLAIMER: Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of 
agreement. Proceed at your own risk. Do not use while 
operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. For 
recreational purposes only. Driver does not carry cash. 
And, as always, thank you for choosing Aloysia Airlines for 
your direct flight from 1013 to fanfic.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story was written for enj412 who won 
my help_haiti auction and requested an NC-17 continuation 
of the deleted kiss from FTF. The dust jacket was 
commissioned by paigehunt as her winning item in 
scarletbaldy's help_haiti auction. You are all lovely, 
generous people and I thank you.

The title is from an old Irish song of the same name.

***

Dana Scully rejects tasseography, astrology, tarot cards, 
chiromancy, augury, crystallography, spirit boards, 
runecasting, scrying, and all other methods of 
prognosticative divination. She is not a Calvinist. She 
does not subscribe to the idea of predestination beyond the 
usual faint notion that God has plans for each of us.

In short, she does not believe in fate.

And so it was her own sense of fairness that led her to the 
clanky old elevator at Hegal Place, her desire to be 
gracious that made her walk down his hallway with her tired 
eyes cast to the worn floorboards. Her ears are still 
ringing faintly from the reassignment; Skinner's voice 
tolling in her head like Donne's bell. And in that spirit 
of shared human experience, she feels she owes Mulder the 
sight of her rumpled clothing, the resigned cadence of her 
parting words. 

Standing in his doorway, watching him sit among the arcane 
jigsaw puzzle pieces he's assembled into this half-life 
he's living, it's not as difficult to tell him as she 
thought it would be. She is still comfortably numb and he 
isn't holding out a better offer.

"I need you on this, Scully," he says, almost begging, and 
what kills her is that he thinks he means it. 

Scully tells him he's wrong, which is what she always does. 
"I gotta go," she mumbles, as though there is anywhere she 
has to be other than the unemployment office. She prefers 
to think of Mulder as a lone knight on an inviolate quest. 
He is not supposed to need anyone, and certainly not her. 
It's too hard to stand here and see him stripped down like 
this. She turns and walks away.

He follows her to the hallway, which makes her nervous. 
Scully is not an airer of dirty laundry. There's no real 
fight left in her, but it's still unseemly to continue this 
in a communal space full of peepholes. They argue in 
corners, in basements, in quiet apartments and anonymous 
cars on endless highways. He's from good New England stock 
and should be genetically predisposed towards 
circumspection.

Mulder tells her that she's wrong, invading her personal 
space as he does it. Their usual exchange is now complete. 

And though she also rejects psychic ability, she saw all of 
this coming. His hurt, her irritation with his hurt, their 
retreat to familiar roles. It's not a bad note to leave on, 
Scully thinks. 

But she decides to see this final disagreement through to 
the end. And so she casts his own words up in his face - 
his accusations and paranoia. She reminds him of her 
treachery, hoping to litter the ground between them with 
enough mines that one at least will blow up and provide her 
with the smoke and chaos needed for an easy escape. She 
realizes with sudden clarity that she had no choice in 
coming here after all. She had to see him bleed for her.

But Fox Mulder, consummate whipping boy, ruins her best 
laid plans and tells her that she's saved him. 

//Fuck you,// she thinks, when she realizes that she's 
crying. She wants to hate him. She wants to scream at him 
about her sister and her daughter and the chip in her 
goddamned neck but the words won't come. Her throat feels 
as though it's still choked with thick Texas dust, filled 
with crawling bees. She has two choices to ensure that he 
can't look at her, and she picks the coward's way out.

His shirt is soft against her cheek, his arm firm at her 
back, and she lets herself pretend it's all okay. None of 
it really matters, does it? She can get another job - a 
better job - and they can still have pizza after work. 
She'll meet a nice guy, let Mulder run a background check 
on him for her. They can...they can hang out some time, 
right? People do that, don't they?

Right.

People do. Not them. And she can't stay in this city as a 
civilian; she'd feel disgraced, a second-class citizen. 
Maybe she'll end up in Utah after all. //Anywhere but 
here// is all she knows for certain. Her Navy brat 
upbringing taught her how to be a brave little soldier in 
the face of painful goodbyes. Mulder is holding on to her 
as though he never means to let her go and she can't stand 
this awful, aching limbo another second. 

Scully pulls back and presses her lips to his bowed 
forehead, his untidy flop of hair brushing against her own. 
She wants desperately to say something wise, something kind 
and tender to negate her jumping ship, but there's nothing 
to be said. They're both so good and so bad at being alone. 
They'll be all right.

But suddenly her face is in his hands and that burning 
thing in him is staring out at her through his eyes.  He 
looks much as he must have at twelve, internalizing his 
loss, eroding from the inside. Her own eyes dart about, 
unable to meet his unyielding gaze, and she can feel a 
nervous laugh welling up. He leans in then, his thumb at 
the tender place beneath her ear, and Scully realizes she 
has miscalculated.

//This is my panic face,// she thinks.

But something else pipes up, something that reminds her she 
doesn't have a professional image to maintain anymore, that 
Mulder isn't her partner now. There will be no slideshow 
tomorrow, no red-eye flight to chase down shadows and 
nightmares. She doesn't have to see him as anything other 
than beautiful long hands and six feet of well-toned 
muscle. 

Scully tips her face upwards to meet his, waiting for 
something terrible to bring her back to her senses, to 
remind her that she is not allowed such indulgences. But 
there is no crack of lightning, only the welcoming heat of 
his lips against hers. He lifts her up when she slips her 
arms about his neck, and she clenches his waist between her 
thighs.

They stumble against the wall, where the chair rail hurts 
her tailbone, but she couldn't care less. The curve of his 
jaw is sculpted to fit her palm, and his fingers are wound 
tightly in her hair. Her mouth feels deliciously bruised 
and swollen, her inner thighs already slick. She'd never 
own up to it, but there's something feminine about being 
held this way, feeling light and slender as she's pinned in 
place like a butterfly by his larger body. His shirt is 
starting to cling a little, and she picks up the musky 
scent of clean sweat on his skin. It tantalizes her animal 
brain, and Scully wriggles free only to expedite a return 
to his apartment. Mulder takes her hand and pulls her after 
him through his still-open door. He kicks it shut the 
second her feet clear the threshold.

She glances at the couch, then questioningly up at him.

He jerks his head towards the hall and she follows him to 
the bedroom.

Mulder's fingers are deft at the buttons of her blouse, 
which he pushes off her shoulders along with her jacket. 
She stands there, faintly stupefied as he touches her 
through her clothing. His hands go to her waistband, 
opening the two buttons there before undoing her zipper. 
Her trousers slip to the floor, and the soft noise breaks 
the spell she's under. The lull in their momentum has built 
up potential energy for conversion to kinetic and Scully, 
as a student of physics, acquiesces to the demands of 
science.

She leans up to kiss him again, fumbling at the stiff 
fabric of his jeans while she untucks his shirt. He tugs 
his jeans off, his erection tenting the worn fabric of his 
boxers against her abdomen. Stepping out of her shoes makes 
the height difference a significant inconvenience, so she 
pushes him to the bed to level the playing field. He sits 
on the edge of the mattress, working his t-shirt and boxers 
off while Scully watches. The sunlight marks paths along 
the oatmeal-colored carpet between them.

She studies him for a moment in the golden evening, 
appraising his body with her anatomist's eye. It's not the 
first time she's seen him naked, and his physique is not a 
surprise to her. But she had always been his doctor then, 
been the one in control, and there's no way she can 
convince herself she's in control of anything at the 
moment. She steps between his long runner's legs, which 
radiate heat against her own.

Mulder reaches up to unhook her bra, which he slides off 
her arms and tosses to the floor. His fingers run under the 
elastic of her underwear, easing them down her legs. He 
takes the cursory glance that men always take, then gives 
her a wry smirk. Which she returns.

"You can't blame a guy for wondering," he says.

"Do I seem upset?" she asks, drunk on the way he's looking 
at her.

Mulder pulls her roughly against him, hard enough to send 
her mind racing. He stares up at her, eyes dark and 
dangerous. There's a sensory echo of the tattoo needle at 
her back, the sting and scrape of it letting out the 
restless thing in her that likes to play.

He's a profiler. He has to know.

"No," he replies. "No, I'd say you're pretty pleased with 
me at the moment." He takes her nipple between his teeth.

"JE-sus," she hisses, jerking back out of reflex rather 
than intent. In response, he grips her body so hard that 
she knows full well there will be ten little purple bruises 
blooming soon. It's the finest balance between pain and 
pleasure, a razor blade dipped in warm honey. She sinks her 
nails into his scalp, her head falling back as he makes her 
twitch.

She wants very badly to let go of herself, to forget this 
is Mulder lighting her synapses on fire, setting off a 
dopamine cascade in her overheated brain. But she doesn't 
know how to turn that caution off with him. Letting him see 
her body is one thing - she is not ashamed of it - but to 
let go entirely, to go limp and gasping in his arms is 
quite another. 

"I can't do this," she says, already breathless.

He slips two fingers inside of her, making her knees 
buckle. "Tell me to stop," he says in a low voice, his 
thumb at her clitoris. "Say it and I will." 

//Say it. Now, Dana. Say it and get yourself decent and 
then get the holy hell out of his bedroom because this is 
fucked up even for you.//  

Who is she kidding? She knew what she was doing when she 
kissed him in the hall, and this is not the time for second 
thoughts; not when he's turning out to be some kind of 
sexual savant with a copy of her owner's manual. The 
lateral orbitofrontal cortex - the seat of reason and 
control - shuts down during orgasm. Mulder found the device 
to cure her cancer. He can certainly find *that* off 
switch.

"Hmmm?" he asks, his mouth at her breast again, his thumb 
drawing infinite tiny, tortuous circles.

She pulls away from him, her nipple painfully cold outside 
of his mouth, her thighs achy. Mulder is not used to 
failing to anticipate the unforeseen and looks surprised. 
Scully puts her hands on his shoulders and steadies herself 
against them as she straddles his lap. He is hard against 
her leg, but she doesn't look down.

Mulder uses his arms to propel them both back against the 
headboard. "Scully-"

She covers his mouth, shaking her head slowly. 

He looks intrigued, settling his hands at her waist, 
sliding her forward so that she's -

Oh.

There's a thump when his skull meets the headboard, and 
liquid shivers sluice down her spine at the solid heat of 
him inside her. Mulder holds her tight against him, 
thrusting up into her with fast, steady strokes that are 
well on their way to shutting down the more distracting 
parts of her brain.

She presses her hands to the hard plane of his stomach as 
she rocks against him. Their panting breaths are harsh in 
the quiet room, and the ragged sound of it - the feel of 
him, the bread-dough smell of sex - all have her on sensory 
overload. 

Warm hands slide up her back and she leans against them, 
her hips tilting just so, just so, and she's -

Suddenly underneath him 

Mulder's looking decidedly smug above her and she laughs a 
little, reaching up to touch his face. He turns to kiss her 
palm, then pins her wrist above her head with one hand, 
holding himself up with the other.

Scully's draws a sharp breath of surprise and she wonders 
if he's always suspected this about her. 

He cocks his head, chameleon eyes unreadable as he moves 
into her again with agonizing slowness. Scully raises her 
left arm above her head, resting it next to the other.  The 
resulting expression on Mulder's face is one of lust 
uninhibited, and she's quite certain that it's mirrored on 
her own. She draws her hands together and he grips them 
both with the span of his fingers. The pain in her wrists 
is disconcertingly erotic.

His rhythm is still unhurried and Scully squirms beneath 
him in an attempt to return them to the spine-jarring pace 
of moments ago. He tightens his hold on her and shakes his 
head. She arches her back in utter frustration, a low noise 
tumbling from the back of her throat. Mulder slows down 
further, observing her with interest.

She'd always believed he'd drive her insane one day, but 
she hadn't foreseen it going quite like this.

Scully tosses her head against the pillow in something 
approaching fury, scrabbling at his hands, grinding her 
hips up against his. She can't believe he's holding back on 
her even now, when she's given him everything, everything 
and he -

Drops of sweat have beaded up on his forehead, running down 
his face and slaloming over the lean tendons of his neck.

She stills, watching him in fascination.

Mulder bends his head to kiss her, his lips salty and firm 
against her own. She nips at them and feels him speed up, 
feels his fingers tighten around her wrists as she slips 
her tongue into his mouth. He lets go of her to brace 
himself against the headboard, which bumps steadily against 
the wall. She rakes her manicured nails down his back deep 
enough to draw blood.

Their slick bodies are nearly frictionless and Scully's 
swallowing great draughts of air as they move, hair half-
soaked and tangling across her face. She draws her knees 
up, heels digging into the base of his spine, and her 
pelvic bones are aching and sore. If it were possible to 
take him any deeper she would, but settles instead for her 
calves against his back. She sucks at his throat, making 
him groan, and her thighs tingle at the animal sound of it. 
She can feel how close he is, feel his veins throbbing 
along her tongue, and she slides her knees up higher. He 
groans again and raises his head to gaze down at her.

Scully entertains the idea that this won't be the first 
time he's come while looking at her face, that he's rasped 
her name in his shadowed apartment as he thought of her and 
twitched like this and...oh, *oh*...the sudden hard jerk of 
his hips against hers is urgent and primal as she clutches 
his back. Mulder's body shudders beneath her grasping 
hands, his muscles straining with his pounding heart. He 
buries his face in her neck, his teeth grazing her fevered 
skin as he gasps against her ear. Scully has the sudden 
awful feeling that she is going to cry.

Her eyes are squeezed shut, her nails at his shoulder 
blades, and she is grateful for their pact of silence 
because she is terrified of what she might say otherwise. 
The orgasm is building low in her back, and she focuses on 
that instead because she needs this to be over. It's too 
much, too intense to be so needful beneath him in the 
straw-colored light. She's a pathologist. She deals best 
with aftermath.

Mulder props himself up on one elbow and peppers her face 
with kisses, rubbing her clitoris with every thrust until 
she's at the verge of calling his name after all but she 
can't; she can't say it like this even when he's got her 
hot and wet as the Mid-Atlantic summer outside. A low, 
frustrated moan draws itself from deep in her chest, and 
she peers at him through half-lidded eyes. Mulder glances 
up to regard her - reading the raw, hungry look on her face. 
He takes her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and 
there's that bite of pain again, dark and bittersweet as 
fine chocolate. Her nerve endings are so keyed up that it's 
a glorious relief when she comes, head arching back into the 
pillow. Her back rises off the bed, crushing her breasts up 
against his chest, and she takes his flushed face in her hands. 
The air is full of stars, which are coming down like rain.

"Hi," he says in a stage whisper, smoothing her hair from 
her face.

She laughs breathlessly and drops a hand to her fast-rising 
chest. "Hi," she replies.

Scully waits to feel awkward, to hear herself babbling 
excuses about how they've been under so much stress and 
she's sorry for showing up at his door in the first place. 
But there's nothing other than this easy silence and his 
safe, warm weight. Mulder nibbles at her clavicle and she'd 
give anything for this moment to be the rest of her life. 
She coughs a little, her throat dry and ticklish.

"Water?" he asks.

She nods, appreciative.

He rolls to the side and she sees streaks of blood along 
his back when he leans over to grab his boxers. It is 
perversely arousing. The sweat is drying on her body, and 
she can only imagine what a wreck she must be at the 
moment; raccoon-eyed with smudged mascara, her hair a 
snarled mess.

Mulder pulls his shorts on and, bless him, regards her as 
though she's a Renaissance masterpiece. He tugs the rumpled 
covers back. "Get some sleep," he says, though the sun 
hasn't even set yet.

"I really should-"

He makes a sound that could be construed as amusement. 
"Come on, Scully. You haven't slept for days." He goes to 
the bathroom for a moment and returns with a glass of tepid 
water, holding it out to her.

She sits up to accept it, taking a few sips before resting 
it on the bedside table. Spending the night was not part of 
what she'd bargained for. But what the hell? She can hardly 
play the shy ingenue at this point, and she's too exhausted 
to drive. "Okay," she agrees, crawling under the light 
blanket, sheets cool against her skin. "Thank you."

He grabs the pillow beside her head and tucks it under his 
arm. 

"Mulder...?" 

"Crashing on the couch," he says. "I don't want you 
drooling on me in your sleep." 

He would break her heart if she'd let him. "Mulder, get in 
bed this instant. You haven't slept for days either." 
Scully can see his relief, imperceptible to any eye but her 
own.

She slides over to make space for him, and his long body 
feels wonderful next to hers. She'd forgotten the simple 
comfort of sleeping with someone in the non-euphemistic 
sense.

She smoothes her hand over his belly, and leaves a gentle 
kiss on his cheek. "Good night," she says, curling onto her 
side.

"Good night," he replies, kissing her shoulder once and 
then turning over onto his back.

She drifts off listening to the somnolent thrum of his 
breathing, absorbing his familiar scent from the soft folds 
of his bed.


***

Scully wakes when something tickles the top of her shoulder 
blade. She swishes her hair, but the sensation continues. 
Mulder's sleeping form is sprawled beside her, and she sits 
up carefully so as not to wake him - mindful of how rare a 
good night's sleep is in this apartment. She reaches around 
to scratch the itchy place when the itch moves up and 
settles at the tiny scar on her neck. 

Gently, gently she extends her fingers and feels a fuzzy 
bump beneath them. She pinches the little body between her 
fingers and brings the wriggling thing to her face.

A bee. And she knows with certainty that it's one of 
*those* bees.

Moving carefully, trying to ignore the fact that she is 
walking stark naked through Mulder's apartment, Scully goes 
to the kitchen and flicks on the small light over the 
stove. Holding the bee by its wings, she watches the 
furious lashing of the hair-thin legs. She opens a few 
cabinets until she sees a meager stack of scuffed and 
ancient Tupperware containers. She removes one of the 
smallest ones, puts the bee inside, and secures the lid. A 
few slashes to the plastic from a cheap steak knife from 
the wooden block on the counter, and her apiary is ready.

Scully hurries back to the bedroom, her mind racing. Mulder 
hasn't moved from the tangle of sheets. Nothing has to 
change because of this, does it? Nothing has to change 
because she's not his partner now. She can wake him and 
they'll be in this together still. Spirit the bee off to a 
lab somewhere, have analysis done, and return with proof.  

Or run the risk of Mulder haring off with the damned thing 
and trying to use it as leverage to get her back, riling up 
God knows who in the process.

She sighs and gathers her scattered clothing from the 
floor. Her jacket is crumpled in the corner, and she picks 
it up, wincing as the keys tumble from the pocket and land 
on Mulder's discarded t-shirt. But he doesn't even twitch 
at the sound. She stoops to pick them up, a disc of metal 
glinting dully in the moonlight.

//Don't look at the keychain, Dana. Don't look at the -//

Happy birthday, Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully

Not any more. 

Scully resists the impulse to leave the keychain on his 
pillow, the urge to run her fingers down his spine and kiss 
the slope of his neck. Instead she dresses, then treads 
noiselessly through his room, stopping to pick up her 
shoes, taking the bee from the kitchen. She opens the door 
by inches, slipping out sideways, and pulls it closed with 
only the faintest click before stepping into her shoes and 
heading outside. The sky is the dusky purple of mission 
figs, the wet summer air heavy with honeysuckle and exhaust 
fumes. Her car shines with dew. Scully gets in then drives 
herself home.


***

Once in her apartment, Scully sets the bee on the coffee 
table.  She walks to her bedroom, unfastening her clothes 
as she goes. The suit and blouse go into the dry cleaning 
bin, the lingerie into the delicates bag, the stockings 
into the bathroom sink. She avoids her own reflection and 
steps into the shower. Tendrils of steam curl around her as 
she rubs exfoliating scrub all over herself, removing the 
traces of makeup that didn't get left on Mulder's pillow. 
She works shampoo into her tumbled hair, massaging it into 
her scalp and trying desperately not to think about what 
she may have unleashed a few hours ago.

With appropriate precautions taken, casual sex does not 
violate her worldview. But this wasn't the least bit 
casual, was it? It was more like finally setting off a 
carefully hoarded Roman candle. He has to understand it was 
an act of desperation for both of them though; the way 
people have sex after funerals. He can't think it means 
anything more than that. She can't let him think it, 
however much a repeat performance seems like the best idea 
she's had in a long time. However much more it means to 
her.

But of course he will, you idiot, she tells herself. You 
had fantastic sex with your closest acquaintance directly 
after giving him some highly distressing news. And then! 
Then you snuck out with stolen Tupperware. Stolen 
*evidence.* You've pretty much given him carte blanche for 
any wild conjecture that strikes his fancy. He can arrest 
you for obstructing justice, if you want to get technical 
about it. And now he knows for sure you'd like the 
handcuffs.

Scully finds herself not terribly enamored of her goddamned 
strict rationalism at the moment.

She turns off the water and gets out, pulling her robe from 
the hook and slipping it on before acknowledging the 
mirror. She is not yet ready to see herself as Mulder so 
recently did, to see the places he's marked on her body. 
When she looks up, she is dismayed to note how tired and 
run down she is. Unsurprising, considering both the 
emotional duress of the last few days combined with the 
ongoing lack of sleep. She's not quite as hollow-eyed as 
her cancer days, but definitely looking peaked. Well, she's 
certainly got the free time for a vacation now.

She towel dries her hair and ponders what to do with the 
bee. Her FBI channels are out and the Gunmen are risky 
because of Mulder. She knows the Entomological Society is 
headquartered somewhere on Constitution, and it seems a 
likely place to start. She still has her badge if 
necessary, and they don't need to know she's got a letter 
of resignation pending.

Thinking about the bee sitting unattended at the coffee 
table makes her nervous and she wonders if Mulder's 
paranoia could be a sexually transmitted thing. Maybe he 
caught it from Phoebe.

Jesus. It would be so very easy to pretend it never 
happened. Pack a bag, go away to somewhere sandy and 
tropical, and arrange job interviews from an oceanfront 
hotel room. Maybe she'll move back to San Diego, watch 
Matthew grow up. Leave some flowers on Emily's grave every 
Christmas. It's awfully tempting.

But for now, her little arthropodic friend awaits. Scully 
steps into her slippers and pads back out to the living 
room.

Where Mulder is sitting on her couch, holding the 
Tupperware container, and regarding her with a deceptively 
benign expression. "Fancy meeting you here," he remarks. 
"New pet?"

Shit. "Mulder," she says. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd make some pancakes, but I was all out of 
sugar and didn't want to wake the neighbors at this hour. 
Can I get some sugar, Scully?" 

She suspects he's being lewd, but lets the comment slide. 

"Though actually," he continues, "perhaps I should ask what 
*you're* doing here."

"I live here," she says archly, watching him twirl the 
container slowly in his fingers, fighting the urge to 
snatch it.

He looks disappointed in her. "Come on, Scully. What 
happened last night... if you're regretting it we can talk. 
But sneaking out? And what's up with the bee? Why didn't 
you tell me you had a bee?"

She walks around to sit next to him on the couch. What had 
she expected, really? "I don't regret it, Mulder. But that 
doesn't mean it was a good idea, either. As for the bee, 
can you blame me? You don't always exercise restraint in 
these situations. Which is how we ended up with the thing 
in the first place." She holds out her hand for the 
Tupperware, which he gives her. "Besides, you were asleep," 
she finishes lamely. ??And if I'd had to face you, I never 
could have left,// she doesn't say.

"Still," he says. "You could have told me. And I believe 
you owe me a few late-night wakeups."

"I had a lot on my mind this morning." She meets his eyes 
when she says it.

"Fair enough," he concedes. 

Scully lifts the bee to eye level, squinting to watch it 
buzz angrily against the slick walls. And though the light 
is dim, it almost looks as though - 

"Mulder, we need to get another look at this thing." She 
says it evenly, but little butterflies of tension are 
hatching in her stomach.

He yawns and rubs his hands over his face. "What's up?"

She squints harder. "It almost looks as though there's 
something on the bee. Maybe a chip of some kind."

"Shit. You think someone's tracking it?" He gets up and 
locks the door, which they both know is largely pointless, 
but Scully appreciates the gesture.

"I have no idea. Ordinarily I'd say it's impossible, that 
they don't even make RFID tags that small, but..." Her 
fingers wander absently over the back of her neck and then 
she stares up at him, open mouthed. "I woke up this morning 
because the bee had settled at the back of my neck, right 
on the scar. Mulder, what if it's -"

Mulder's already taking the lid off the container, ready to 
fish out his quarry.

"Don't," she says. "We need to be careful with it."

He re-secures the lid. "Will taking the chip off kill it?"

She twines her fingers together a little, anxiety 
tightening in the small muscles of her hands. "I don't 
know," she says. "Probably. But they'll have to kill it at 
some point to study it, and it's likely going to die soon 
from being outside the hive for so long."

"They?"

"They. Them. Whomever. I was going to take it to the 
Entomological Society. Anyway. Hang on while I get some 
tweezers." 

Scully hustles to the bathroom, fumbling around in her 
medicine cabinet for the fine-point tweezers she keeps for 
splinters. When she comes back, the room is bright and 
Mulder's staring at her light fixture, looking extremely 
pissed. 

She sighs. "You had to open it, didn't you?"

"Call me Pandora. But fear not. My theory is that it will 
be drawn to the bulb where it will have the hell zapped out 
of it and we can de-tag its scorched carcass. You ever 
autopsy a bee, Scully?"

She smiles. "I haven't had the pleasure. Not even a 
Mothman."

He snatches at the air and swears. "Well, today may be your 
lucky day."

Yesterday was her lucky day. "Mulder," she says, watching 
him, "it wasn't a mistake. Ill-advised, I think, but not a 
mistake."

He regards her thoughtfully. "Would you care to split that 
semantic hair a bit further?"

"No," she says, disliking even this level of discourse on 
the matter, recalling her intense emotional reaction when 
he...well. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Mulder returns his attention to the bulb, around which the 
bee is making a drunken orbit. "So what now?" he asks.

Scully sighs, walking over next to him. "It's not the 
beginning of anything," she tells him with marked regret. 
"I'm sorry, but it can't be. I'm...I'm not planning to stay 
in DC."

He stares at her. "I thought the whole point was that you 
didn't want the Bureau kicking you *out* of DC. And you can 
still rethink your resignation. Skinner doesn't want to 
lose you. We'll have the bee - we'll have *proof,* Scully. 
They're not going to ship you to Utah once we can bring 
them this."

Exactly what she had been afraid of.  "You have to 
appreciate what it would be like for me to continue living 
here, Mulder.  How that would feel, being stripped of all 
my authority."

He rolls his eyes. "All your authority? Even if you go 
through with your resignation, you have a medical degree. 
It's not like you're going from Fed to burger-flipper."

She shakes her head. "My mind is made up. I'm sorry. I 
really am." She wonders if last night will make things 
harder or easier when it's really time to say goodbye.

Mulder closes his eyes "You're acting rashly."

Scully drops her head, afraid it might be true. "No, I'm 
not. 'Acting rashly' is what I've been doing the past few 
years. I'm thirty four years old, Mulder, and I'd like my 
life to be more than staying one step ahead of OPR. 
Yesterday was a wake-up call to me. I joined the FBI 
against my family's wishes because it felt right. It felt 
like a place where I could do some real good for people. 
But I haven't been behaving honorably. I may not like the 
rules we have to play by, but how can I claim to be a voice 
for law and order if I can't follow them?" She glances 
upwards, afraid of what she might see in his face.

He nods slowly. "I understand. But what choice have we been 
given? What has playing by the rules ever gotten us in our 
line of work? Ignoring the rules got that building 
evacuated, Scully. It saved lives."

Her shoulders slump. "I know that, Mulder. On an empirical 
level, I completely agree with you. But we're not 
vigilantes. We don't get to breach protocol when the fancy 
strikes just because it might turn out well. The FBI 
doesn't operate on a code of consequentialism."

He's smiling a little, even though his eyes are sad. "You 
keep me honest," he says again. "I told you so. You'll be 
leaving the Flukemen and mutants of this fair land to my 
vigilante mercies if you go."

She chuckles despite herself. "You're impossible."

"Nothing's impossible in a universe if infinite 
possibilities, Scully. I'm just highly improbable."

She takes his hand. "I'm glad I stayed the night," she 
murmurs. 

He runs his thumb over her knuckles. "I'm glad you did 
too."

"And I'm sorry it's all shaking out this way. But we can 
keep in touch."

"Sure." He squeezes her hand. "Sure, we can do that."

There's a prickling feeling in her sinuses. Her throat 
aches. "Mulder I'm -"

"Don't. Move."

"Mulder?"

"The bee," he says softly. "It's on your collar."

Her stomach clenches with the surreal creepiness of it. 
What in the hell did she let them put in her body? "Get 
it," she hisses, revolted by thought of the thing touching 
her.

"Let me get the container," he murmurs, reaching to get it 
from the table.

A touch lighter than a feather as it moves onto her neck, 
making her skin crawl. Mulder holds the open box, then cups 
one hand around the insect and - "Ow!" 

"What is it?"

"It stung me," she says. "Get the tweezers and pull the 
stinger out. Try to keep the venom sac intact for when 
we...oh." She staggers to the couch, suddenly woozy. "Mulder, 
something's wrong." 

He sits next to her, putting the bee back into the 
container. "What? 

The pain is spreading down her neck and through her 
thoracic cavity, sharp and stabbing as though her robe is 
lined with needles. "I'm having lancinating pain in..." Her 
vision's blurred, but she can see the hard panic in his 
face.

"*What?*"

"...my chest," she manages, gasping.

"Scully..."

Her limbs are like jelly, her skull made of concrete and 
the air she drags into her lungs feels thin, oxygen poor. 
"My motor functions are being affected," she mumbles, 
falling back, her head hitting Mulder's thigh. Fear sloshes 
through her in a sickening lurch.

"Scully." He gently moves her so that she's fully across 
the couch and gets to his feet. Everything's slowed down, 
rippled, happening underwater.
Focus, focus. Tell him what's happening. What are the 
patient's symptoms, Dana? Get as full a picture as 
possible. "My pulse is thready...a funny taste in the back 
of my throat."

"I think you're going into anaphylactic shock," Mulder 
says, the words sounding thick and far away.

"No...I have no allergy."

Her vision's black now, her brain quietly disengaging from 
her body. As she fades out, Scully hears Mulder talking to 
someone...the phone? "This is Special Agent Fox Mulder, I 
have an emergency! I have an agent down!"

//Liar,// she thinks fondly, and lets herself fall into the 
welcoming arms of the dark.

***

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