Chapter Text
Chapter IV: Fourth
They had driven so long that Scully was afraid that by the time they stopped, she'd be unable to get out of the car under her own power. But she knew that they had to get as far from the ruins as possible, even if they were still going the exact opposite way that had been recommended. Finally Mulder turned into the driveway of a small motel with a rather garish neon sign, the type of sign Scully remembered from her childhood travels back and forth across the country in the late '70s and early '80s as her family went from Naval base to Naval base. She got out of the Suburban with Mulder, groaning as she stretched her stiff back and shook out cramped legs, then went into the motel office with him. She watched as he signed the register “Mr & Mrs Petrie”--no surprise there—and went over to the soft drink machine in the corner to get them Diet Cokes while he paid and got the key.
–
“I remember all this, Scully, where are you going?”
“Trust me, Mulder, I'm getting there.”
–
He drove the big black truck over to the room and she walked, needing the exercise even if it was just a couple hundred yards or so to the far end of the L-shaped motel building. By the time she got there he was already inside, the door ajar. The three large shopping bags of supplies they'd picked up a few hours ago at a Wal-Mart in the middle of nowhere were on the floor at the foot of the bed. Sprawled across the king-sized bed on his back was Mulder, arms flung wide, his shirt pulled up allowing a wide strip of pale, bare skin with a line of dark hair to show above the waistband of his jeans. Scully couldn't take her eyes from that expanse, the main thought in her head that it had been years since they'd made love despite his staying with her for a time right after William was born. She'd been in no condition for anything sexual then and by the time she was he was long gone, safely far away. She set the Cokes on the dresser to the right of the door, closed it, and headed for the bathroom, determined despite her thoughts to clean up before anything else. She'd never felt so grimy in her life, not even after waking up in the Antarctic covered in green alien pod goo.
–
“Now I know where you're going.”
“Going to let me finish telling it?”
“From your point of view? I'm dying of curiosity.”
–
But as she was crossing the room she was tugged over to the bed by the back of her shirt. “Mulder, I need a shower”, she objected weakly, turning into his arms. He sat on the edge of the bed and just held her, arms around her waist, head against her breasts. Scully kept her arms down, worried about how she smelled as she hadn't had a shower in two days, but cradled his head to her, running her fingers through the remembered softness of his hair.
–
“Really? Trust me, Scully, you smelled wonderful even before your shower that day. No offense, but especially after that pissy room where they kept me for a week. The whole place smelled like someone had whizzed on the radiators or something.”
She chuckles. “No offense taken, I know what you mean.”
–
On one hand she could have stood there all day, but on the other she desperately needed to get clean before anything else. When she tried to move away, however, his arms only tightened and then he flipped her onto the bed, his body covering hers. Her protests regarding the desperate need of hot water and soap were not only ignored, they were muffled beneath his mouth as he gave her a kiss that should have lit the entire motel on fire.
–
“Keep in mind that all that kept me going during the years we were apart, Scully, was thoughts of you and William. And the thoughts of you were very often erotic whether or not I wanted them to be.”
She tilts her head at him inquiringly.
“Sometimes I just wanted to remember what you looked like day-to-day: down in our office bent over a microscope, or walking on the Mall in the autumn with your hair matching the leaves. But then I'd remember what you looked like beneath me, or recall the sound of your voice crying out in passion, or even sleeping naked next to me.”
Scully knows that her eyes are growing a little misty and clears her throat. “You're waxing quite poetic there, Mulder.”
“I'd have gone crazy--again--without those memories to sustain me.”
“Me too. I had my share as well while we were apart, believe me.”
“And so when we got to the motel room I simply couldn't wait any longer.”
–
When Mulder's hands begin to explore, Scully has no strength or desire to stop him no matter what condition she's in. Dirty, clean, slimed, whatever, she wants him as badly as he obviously needs her. This time is a hodgepodge of the roughest, most uninhibited times they've been together and the slow, rolling, romantic ones; both wild and hard as well as soft and loving and sweet, an incredible mix of both that she never wants to end. When it does, as it must, they manage to shower together and end the evening sitting on the bed talking before dozing off twined together on top of the covers, exhausted, sated, and simply content to be together again no matter what happens from here on out.
–
He smiles into her eyes with the shared memory. “Now I see why you consider it the fourth time.”
Scully takes the wineglass from his hand and moves it aside. “I think our reminiscing is done, Mulder. Time to make new memories.”
He lets her roll him on his back and smiles up into her eyes as she slides on top of him. “Something to add to one through four?”
Scully smiles as she bends to kiss him. “Let's make a five.”
Finis