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Title: Illumination
Rating: PG-13. Not for the morally tender. 8/3/99 . Illumination. Yes, I can imagine we need that. Mulder has turned on the bedside lights. He's s he has his glasses on--bifocals, now. He really does need them, these days, and the print in the old records is tiny and smudged. He's keeping one hand on my hip. The base of his hand is tucked in the indentation, his knuckles line on the bony turn, and those long, beautiful fingers hang loosely down the curve. And it's not that I'm unhappily married. God. No. And it's not that we live a boring life, that we have bad sex or that he doesn't take care of me or he doesn't take care of our children--it's just-- And I know *Mulder*'s not unhappy in his present relationship. Hell no. Anderson walks into the room and he just lights up, lights up. In unguarded moments, he'll babble about her like a high-schooler with his first love. So.
But. I keep lying to myself. I keep trying to say to myself that it was the pressures of this job, of this case, of this situation, that brought us together. That it was the need for human comfort. I keep trying to lie to myself, but it doesn't work, because every now and then, I'll be watching Mulder and I'll get a pang of emotion so strong and fierce that I can't breathe for a moment, that I can't even see straight or think straight. Like that first time-- We were in the conference room. Midafternoon. The curtains were open to the street, and the windows were open, so we could hear the street down below, and Mulder was watching the traffic with his back turned to me. The sunlight came in through his hair, traced his shoulder, followed his waist and picked out the fine hairs. You'd think that after eleven years in law enforcement I'd be immune to beauty in a suit and a gun by now, but perhaps it was the light or the circumstances, but Mulder, standing there, caught in a beam of light that was made just for him--something about it caught at my throat, and I stood there, staring, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to touch. And, suddenly, as if turning his back on someone, he turned around. There was a little sadness in his eyes, a little gallantry to the way he tossed his head. I wondered what old memory he was reliving, and when I asked him, it broke into his reverie, and I saw his eyes come back to me. He looked at me--merely looked at me, absolutely quiet and calm behind still eyes. I was half-fearful he'd kiss me, half-hoping that he would, and all of a sudden, he reached over lifted the lapel of my suit mid-shoulder, where it covered the end of my collarbone, and he ran the tip of his fingers along the bone there. Gently, so lightly that his touch wasn't really the touch of his fingers on my skin, it was the brush of his fingers on the fine hairs attached to my skin, a whisper of movement--he started a few millimeters underneath my suit at my and followed my clavicle outwards and onto a gold chain I was wearing, and then he followed the drapes of that over my collarbones, and when he got to the hollow of my throat, he paused there a moment, then let his hand drop. "You're not wearing your cross." His voice was curiously rough, almost harsh. "It's at the shop. It fell off the table one night and I stepped on it." I remember trying to convince the jeweler that that plain little cross was worth mending. "You don't wear it to bed anymore?" I shook my head. I don't remember when I stopped doing it, but I have. "Oh." Silence. He was still standing; I could watch his shoulders straighten and fall with each breath. It's strange, but Mulder does that. It's got to do with his horrible posture, the way he holds himself all slumped and careless; he's a lot taller than he looks, and it's all because he slouches, because it almost looks like he's trying to make himself smaller. "Nice necklace." My stomach clenched; I would not look at him, and I would not back away. "Yeah. Anniversary present." "He's got good taste." I made a pained smile. And the moment ended. We were awkward around each other for the rest of the afternoon, for a day or two afterwards, but then, one day, at lunch, he left a bit early and I followed him. We had a wordless discussion and then lapsed into bed. I love my children, I love my husband, I love my life, but there wasn't any guilt in it. Just the comfort of sliding into an old routine, of slipping into an old habit. Going to bed with Mulder is like water going down a hill: it's the natural thing, it's the only way things can go. But I keep needing to justify it to myself. I think, it's the circumstances. It's the pain and pressure of being alone, of being in the middle of this horrible investigation, of having to deal with all those bodies, all those bodies, and the specter of the past. Of having a madman we thought we had laid to rest come back and haunt us--it's old times visiting. I haven't been to Mass or to Confession since I left home. I haven't called home for a week and a half now. I don't love Mulder--at least, I don't think so--but every time I see him, I somehow end up sleeping with him. I would never leave my life for Mulder, but, all the same, when he angled a seat next to me at the group lunch, I left five minutes after he did to make sure that no-one suspected. Yes, this clandestine little affair should be racking my conscience, but that's not what's sending me sleepless nights and lonely thoughts--it's that I don't, that I can step into Mulder's bed so easily, that Mulder and I fit together so neatly. You can almost hear the click. Leave it to someone raised in the Church to feel guilt about not feeling guilt. My husband was raised Episcopalian, but he's non-practicing, and the kids went to church once for High Mass. Mulder reaches onto the far side of the bedside table, and the bed creaks and sways. It makes another type of creak when he opens a drawer, and still another when he leans back over towards me. "There's something I've been meaning to give you." He hands me a black little box, a jeweler's box. "I got it yesterday at lunch." He gives me a small, quiet smile. "I thought it'd be a nice match to your necklace." A thin gold cross spills into my hands. It looks exactly like my old one, albeit without the scratches and dents it. Shiny and new, and I wonder how Mulder, lapsed Jew, went about finding me one of these. I can't quite get up the voice to thank him or to refuse him, so I just sit there and stare dumbly at the light reflecting off the metal. And after watching me for a moment or two, he turns back to his books. Illumination. .
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