judas kiss

by fatladysing

They lie.

And yet… On the surface it looked like any other fact that filled the drawers and lined the shelves: manila folder, leaves of paper, photographs, computer disks.

But this fact slid in beneath the door under the cover of night. Picked up without a thought on the way into the office, like coffee and donuts, and set on the desk for later. Yet later, upon perusal, it drained the color from her face.

“Scully, are you okay?”

This fact was sealed with the red stamp of confidentiality: a scrawled directive and a phone number on a note that smelled faintly of burnt tobacco.

Find her. Call me.

On paper it seemed irrefutable. A name unrecognizable beneath a picture familiar, a secret history that answered questions and posed more. In her hand were two possibilities vying for one truth.

“Scully, isn’t that…?”

Isn’t it? Is it? She tucked the folder into her bag, away from his prying eyes and reached for the phone.

They lie.

And yet…

* * * * *

She was a face in the crowd that smiled when all others sought pretense to look away. It was this familiarity, dancing on the fringes of her memory, which first drew them together.

They began to spend time together, time that neither of them had but managed to find. Stolen moments of laughter and comfort as strangers became friends and friends became something more.

When the changes came they were slow. The days were grim and barely tolerable. There remained the ferocious struggle for sanity amidst the chaos. A sanity mortgaged precariously against the cost of human tragedy.

The nights were Scully’s refuge. A soft voice, a gentle touch, a strong embrace to gird her against the darkness of her days. It was a softness she remembered from a time she had forgotten and she allowed it to fill a void she'd long since surrendered to.

* * * * *

The first time was remarkable.

It was the movie that made Scully cry and the tears that did her in. Even more astounding was the fact that it was laughter that reclaimed the tears long lost to tragedy. And the fingers brushing against her cheek stilled her heart with nervous fear in a way even death and dying could not.

But the fingers did not stop with the tear tracks. Instead they continued, following the line of her jaw and down the length of her neck. Scully sighed then, languorous and longing, causing the touch at her throat to hesitate.

“Please don’t tell me to stop.”

She reached for the warmth that was near her, drawing it close and feeling timid caution replaced by bolder, daring fingers that moved swiftly from the buttons of her blouse to the zipper on her skirt. Barriers removed, softness melted against heat and eyes she did not realize were closed fluttered open to gaze upon a face gentle with adoration.

“You make me so happy.”

Scully felt lips against her own, full and comforting like the curves and swells that pressed against her. Her own hands found their way, sliding over the smooth skin of her back and sides and chest, coming to rest on the warm slope of her breasts. It was at once intoxicating and disorienting.

“I have always wanted you, Dana.”

The body above hers slid down and away. Her lips tingled in abrupt abandonment. She protested, clutching weakly at shoulders that evaded her grasp, but received only murmurs in return.

“Let me. Just let me…”

She had to close her eyes again as those lips found the sensitivity of her inner thigh. And it was her own voice that she heard pleading as lips and tongue continued slowly upward. She writhed beneath fingers that tenderly stroked her open and burned with the tongue that slid into her. She felt the heat flaring ever higher in rhythm to the stroking between her legs until she was fire, burning beyond thought or feeling. And as the flames receded she rolled toward comforting arms and allowed herself to curl into the protective embrace. 

* * * * *

Telling Mulder became an event. He was happy for her, but suspicious. He insisted on meeting her and was surprised when the date they set arrived without interference from acts of God or man. Nervously he waited for them, but by then, suspicion had lessened considerably in the wake of his partner’s obvious happiness.

They sat in the corner booth, talking and laughing, safe in the anonymity of the evening crowd and catching only the polite curiosity of passersby admiring the well-dressed gentleman and his two beautiful lady friends.

They spoke of common interests: science and politics and current events. When time came to pay the bill, Mulder found himself reluctant to end the evening but Scully was charming and firm in declining his invitation to coffee.

That night on his couch, with writhing images and urgent voices taunting him from the television, Mulder found himself alone with his loneliness.

* * * * *

Two possibilities vying for one truth.

The information in the folder could not be verified nor denied. It came from sources that had led them astray as many times as it had led them true. Yet she hesitated, with quivering hands hovering over the phone, to ask the question of the only person who knew.

Her heart hung between uncertainties. There was the familiarity to contend with, which had allowed this one woman to slip with supernatural ease through the barriers and defenses that defined and haunted her.

I have always wanted you, Dana.

Yet what was most disorienting was the unfamiliarity, the unusual but pervasive feeling that commanded her days and left a tingling in her spine. It affected the way Mulder and the other agents looked at her. It was beginning to affect her work.

You make me so happy.

Complacency was trouble. Satisfaction was trouble. She looked over her shoulder and saw the tombstones trailing behind her. It was her lot in life. She moved her hand from the phone with a sigh full of regret and resignation.

* * * * *

It started coming back, as best-forgotten facts are wont to do, at first slow and vague then stronger and more urgent.

An echo of a laugh, a ghost of an image.

These are the memories you hide, deeper and deeper until they are within you, beyond consideration, analysis, and judgment. So far down you forget they are there, forget why they are dangerous. Until one day, sitting at an outdoor café, she turns to you with a smile so familiar it steals the breath from your lungs. And as she reaches across the table for a taste of your soup, it’s not a spoon but a syringe in her hand.

* * * * *

“Agent Scully. You have some information we are interested in.”

“Who is this?”

“We’re looking for someone and we want you to find her.”

“Her? You’re going to need to be more specific.”

“An operative. Part of a government test team evaluating the efficacy of extraterrestrial colonization. AWOL these past 5 months.”

“I don’t know who she is. I can’t help you.”

“You have her file, we sent it to you last week.”

“What happens if I find her for you?”

“She goes into… protective custody.”

* * * * *

Scully took her hand as she walked by but didn’t let go with a squeeze, didn’t let go with a smile. Instead she tightened her grip fiercely and demandingly. The hand, the arm, the body she clung to did not pull away but submitted to her need.

They grappled on the way to the floor, a tangle of clothes and limbs. They were hands and lips and teeth everywhere. Their intensity was warm and red: lips bruised with kissing and fingernails raking, drawing blood.

Scully’s fingers slipped between thighs, open and eager. It was warm and liquid but not enough. She thrust in, hard toward the heat and was rewarded with a choked gasp. She crushed her mouth against a bared breast, sharp teeth finding a swollen nipple.

Quicker. Harder. Bodies rigid with sensation arched upward and together drawing forth sobbing moans. When climax came, it ripped through them both with pleasure and pain.

* * * * *

She wasn’t floating. If she strained, she could lift her hips slightly. Otherwise, she was heavy, particularly at her wrists and ankles. There were lights, bright and hot despite her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Everything was hazy, but the vagueness seemed familiar. Her neck and shoulders were throbbing and there was a spot at the base of her skull that itched so badly she thought she would go crazy from it.

She wasn’t dreaming, she was remembering.

A cool breeze and movement to her left. She tilted her head toward it, the tendons in her neck burning with protest. A voice soft and familiar preceded a gentle touch. She tried to open her eyes but the lights were fading. She wanted to say something but her jaw dropped open, slack and useless. The voice was still there, low and soothing.

She wanted to ask a question but words were not part of the memory. She blinked furiously; willed the haze to pass so she could see. A shape coalescing, leaning in. So close. So close…

And then a prick in her arm…

* * * * *

Scully woke to darkness. The body by her side stirred and then settled. The visions, faint to begin with, were fading fast. Her body was tense with anger and remembered pain. She got up, remembering who she was. She got dressed, remembering what she had. She walked away, remembering what she lost.

They answered the phone after the third ring. It took thirty-two seconds to complete a trace and by then Scully had walked out the front door into the night.

* * * * *

From her vantage point on the bed, Scully could see yellowed plaster cracking and crumbling from the ceiling above. The television was off so she could hear the frantic coupling next door. The girl was a screamer, her loud cries carried easily through the thin motel walls.

Scully closed her eyes but snapped them open again to dispel the face that flashed, image unbidden, in her mind. She contemplated knocking on Mulder’s door and dragging him to get food they weren’t hungry for, but the thought of sitting in a booth across from him, mirroring his darkest guilt, was more than she could bear.

In every new city he was seeking and running away. Memory, regret, choice, and guilt. She understood him now. And unprotected by the all-consuming mantle of work, he would look across that greasy formica table and understand her too.

She rolled over instead, pulling the threadbare blanket out of its precise tuck, and curled into a protective ball. Next door, the headboard banged unabashedly against her wall and the girl squealed her pleasure. Scully gritted her teeth against the hot tremors that rolled sympathetically through her. And when the activity beyond her wall finally subsided, she used the sheet clutched tightly in her fists to dry the tears that fell.

* * * * *

THE END

* * * * *

fatladysing@hotmail.com