SERIES: Flight

TITLE: Final Approach

AUTHOR: Tesla 

RATING: NC-17 

CLASSIFICATION: Mulder/Other

KEYWORDS: None 

ARCHIVE: Sure, everyone, I would be in a tizzy of pleasure and tell everyone I knew. 

SPOILERS: Assume that this alternate universe careens off track after "Field Trip," but back for "Goldberg Variations" and "Millennium"

DISCLAIMERS: If Ten Thirteen is even reading this, HI! I know a copyright lawyer who said he'll defend us!

SUMMARY: Continuation of "Flying under the Radar", "Gaining Altitude", "Some Turbulence Expected", "Visibility Zero", "Flight Delayed", and "Shuttle."

THANKS to my beta, Emerex, for encouragement and all-round good cheer, and to MaybeAmanda for the MulderClone, and advice disguised as wisecracks. 

Scully felt like she was running a fever.

That was ridiculous, of course. Her thermometer measured a rocklike ninety-eight-point-six. She still felt hot. Her mouth was dry, and her eyes burned. She went outside, making up reasons to talk to the smokers in the crisp late winter air. Downtown D.C. still smelled redolent of bus fumes and hot air, but she could breathe when she was outside. Unlike inside, in the basement with Mulder.

Not that the basement was stuffy, but it was a basement. Mulder kept his Mr. Coffee brewing, and brought in exotic blends for no discernable reason, since he either gulped his coffee down or forgot about it and poured it out. Coffee was the dominant smell, overlaying the smell of paper, the forest-scented air freshener he was inexplicably fond of, and the humidor of expensive cigars someone had given him. He never lit one up, but he liked to open the lid and smell them, and gave them away as bribes to the lab guys.

This week, he had to requalify his weapons proficiency, so he tended to skip out early, and head to the practice range. That was a laugh, Mr. Dropped My Gun. He left his notes and files and shrugged when she asked him what the next case would be.

Scully kept going to the restroom and running cold water on her hands and wrists. What was he going to do? He certainly wasn't interested in finding Diana Fowley or the elder Spender. He sat there, almost placid, staring at old photos and rearranging them.

So that's what having an enabler does for you, she thought. Someone to tell you that you are brilliant and correct no matter what stupidity you professed to believe. Who lets you get any haircut you want. He was oblivious to Scully.

She went home that night, after a long day spent gazing into the faces of the dead, after writing autopsy reports, and took a long shower, methodically washing, rinsing, over again. She got out of the shower and stood, cupping her breasts, looking in the mirror.

Maybe I should have kissed him back, on New Year's Eve, she thought. She thumbed her nipples absently, watching them harden. When did he get so far away? When did he start seeing Janet again? Her lawyer. Mulder's girlfriend. Janet had been so strange and secretive about Mulder. The entire time they had been in court together, Janet had behaved as though Mulder was just an old fling, and Scully her new best friend. They had even gone to lunch and to bookstores together. Maybe that's what she did with all of her clients.

And the entire time, Mulder had been living with Janet. She touched her mouth, smoothing her fingertip over her lower lip. She thought he loved her. He kept telling her that…telling her things. Staring at her. Watching her all the time.

Look at me, I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. She walked, still nude, to the kitchen for a glass of wine. Yes, good Catholic girls can walk around nude. (But it excited her, still. She felt ironically wicked.)

She lit the fireplace and threw incense in it, and then she lay on the couch with her vibrator and slowly made herself come.

"Mulder," she murmured.

*

She had asked him to her apartment to go over their yearly expense reports, and said that she would provide dinner. So, Mulder dutifully called Janet, advised her he'd be late, picked up his box of receipts and notes, and stopped to get a six-pack on his way to Scully's place. She wanted him to see the apartment since she'd had it redone, she had added.

A familiar sting of guilt, like an old jellyfish sting, had jabbed him. He really shouldn't avoid Scully like he had been doing. He had a life outside of work, now, so he didn't spend his free time obsessing over what he thought were the tragedies of Scully's life.

The real tragedy was that Scully had followed him into obsession with The Work, capitalized, with The Conspiracy; and now he was ready to stop obsessing, while she had just begun.

At Scully's apartment, she ushered him inside, taking the beer. He could smell dinner being microwaved. "I just picked something up, " she told him, nodding at the kitchen. "From the Mexican place. I thought you'd bring Coronas."

"Well, its my brand," Mulder said. Light jazz on the Bose, curtains drawn, spicy incense--like a hopeful seller showing a home, he thought, but wisely did not say.

Scully brought out the heated dishes on a bamboo tray, and put it on the coffee table before the sofa. Whoa. Real estate sellers usually wore bras. Well, maybe she wanted to be comfortable. They sat cross-legged and ate, going over the notes.

He wolfed down the last of the food on his plate, while he stacked the December receipts in order. "I think I have them all, for once," he said through a mouthful of chimichanga. Scully smiled, and reached across him for a burrito. She brushed his arm, and her breast bounced against him. He felt flushed, aside from the beer.

No. She couldn't be. Coming on to him. And she was wearing heavier cologne; his visual memory tracked backwards: no visible panty line under the sweats.

He blushed brick red, as her eyes met his. She smiled, and her hands were on his shoulders and her mouth on his.

Shit. Scully was giving him the tongue. And he was giving it back. He elbowed the coffee table away from the couch, and pulled his mouth off Scully's. Yeah, big hero. Her mouth was wet, her cheeks reddened. If this had happened last year.

he thought, and then stopped.

"Scully, we can't." He was panting.

"Yes, we can, Mulder. Don't stop." And she pushed him against the couch, her mouth on his. One hand felt for the zipper of his dress pants. "Hmm," she murmured, feeling his erection. (Pricks are traitors, Scully, he thought, don't take it personally.) Her hands were hot, too; her face was feverishly hot when she nuzzled his neck, nipping it.

"Scully," he said, in a strangled tone. Damn it, he felt like a fifties teenage virgin. Well, that thought was a little anti-erotic. "Stop." He caught her hand, but she pulled it between her legs. Jesus God, she was wet.

"I've stopped for years, Mulder, it's time to start--"

"We can't do this now, Scully--" Christ, she was all over him, still clamping his hand to her groin.

"What's the matter," she breathed, "afraid to finish what you started New Year's Eve?" She arched her back and pulled her sweatpants off. "Come on, Mulder."

Well, now he knew that she wasn't a natural redhead. And her breasts were practically in his face as she yanked off the top. But her eyes were scary: they were blazing, but not with lust.

Anger.

She was trying to set him up.

Yeah, she was wet, and her nipples were hard, but she was very much in control of herself. His own temper took over. He deliberately put his hand in her pubic hair and combed his fingers through it. "Is this what you want, Scully?" he asked softly, trying not to shout. She could take that tremor in his voice and hand as passion, rather than fury.

Her eyes closed. "Um," she breathed. She leaned back, bracing herself on her hands, then her elbows, head flung backwards.

He flicked her clitoris with his left hand, and slowly began working his right index finger inside her. She jumped involuntarily. Well, if she was telling the truth, it had been a long time for her, he thought clinically. And his skills had been recently honed through enjoyable use.

"There?" He rasped. She moaned. Oh, she was good. He settled to it in earnest, watching her breasts, watching her toss her head. Maybe he could---

"Oh, Jesus, GOD!" Scully actually wailed and she clenched around his fingers. He watched her in detachment, in anger. Then he silently withdrew, and, wiping his hands on the napkins, stood up.

Scully lay on her back; her legs still flung open, and heard him moving around. Jesus. Her thighs were still quivering.

And that's just the first course, she thought exultantly. Wait until I get my hands on you.

She heard a thud, and her eyes snapped open.

No.

He had left. Just like that.

Is that what you want, Scully? Said a ghostly voice in her brain.