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SPOILER WARNING: Through Season 7
RATING: NC-17
CLASSIFICATION: V, A
SUMMARY: It's a dark and stormy night. Answers are sought.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Shawne, Branwell and Ambress all lent a hand, but Kari...Kari went above and beyond, to a place where clammy palms reside.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story is written in Fic Noir style. It's a darker vision of the characters and situations. So, no misty-eyed decorating of the nursery in this one.

*******************
Every word's so...
Every word's so fragile
Inside passion that feels like chasing rain
********************************************

"Where is he?"

I've never noticed before how vibrantly green Krycek's eyes are
-- they glow like decaying nuclear waste -- then long, dark lashes
drop to shield his deceit and plotting from me.

"Who?"

"Pick a man, Krycek."

"I don't know where Mulder is." He lets a sigh of regret pass
through his pretty mouth. I want to slap his lips hard enough to
make them bleed.

"Okay. How about your boss?"

"Who?"

"God." I only say that to see if I can get a reaction.

His heavy eyelids snap up. He's been smoking pot. A gurgling
giggle from the shadows of his couch sounds stoned too.

I flick my gaze to her. She smiles at me slowly, all promise and
invitation.

The smell of sex mingles with the marijuana smoke in the dark
room. I can't keep a low growl from escaping the back of my
throat.

The pain of need and despair and longing and missing hits me all
at once. Lazy decadence never has had much appeal to me -- more's
the pity, Mulder would say -- but in some perverse way, Marita and
Krycek have each other now, and Mulder's gone.

We've been at this for an hour and suddenly, I can't take it for
another second. Harsh, I say, "I know the two of you like to fuck
and fuck hard. But I'm not that kind of woman. Give me the
answer."

The word 'fuck' finally wakes Krycek up. "You're sure?"

I press on, even as I wonder to which statement he is referring.
"Where is the old man?"

His long finger traces circles on his dark pant leg. "He's dead."

"Are you sure?"

"I saw the body."

"Did you poke it with a stick?"

Another laugh from the shadows. "I like you," she drawls.

"My life is complete." I redirect my attention to him. "Are you
sure?"

Doubt flickers on his face for the first time since I entered his
apartment.

"How did he die?"

The lashes aren't quick enough to cover the sick laugh dancing
across the plastic pupils. "He suffered a fall. Men of his age
should be more careful."

I sink into the cushions of the chair. That damn exhaustion is
back, with a touch of vertigo. The two of them lean forward, like
vultures bending from their perch. I sense danger, sudden and
bright in the dark room.

A pounding on the door sends them both leaping to their feet.

Bellowing comes through the door. "Open up!"

None of us get a chance. The doorframe splinters as the door
swings open. Skinner, breathing hard, fills the doorway. I bet
he'd love to do that every day of his FBI career.

I find enough energy to rise from the chair. "I must be going. My
ride is here."

********

Skinner fumes, fists wrapped tight around the steering wheel, as
the dark, rain-wet city ripples past the car windows.

"Thank you for picking me up, Sir."

This time, I'm the one who's surprised. "I thought you were going
to call me Walter from now on."

"All right."

He huffs out, "You shouldn't have gone with them." He's obviously
been composing a lecture in his head for the last five miles.

"I thought they would give me some information."

"Information they wouldn't give you at your apartment?"

I can't tell him I didn't want their stink polluting my home. That
sounds silly even to me.

He interrupts my thoughts. "Did they tell you anything?"

I'm tired again. "No. Just some bullshit about the smoking man
being dead."

"You don't believe them?"

He's giving me the $10 tour. We're passing the Jefferson Monument,
its gleaming ivory dome seeming an ironic parody of a maternal
belly.

I think a minute. "I believe Krycek believes it. I don't know if I
trust that woman."

"You trust Krycek?"

I turn to look at his face as I counter, "You seem to."

He licks his lips before answering, "When I think his interests
are our interests."

I lean against the cold car window. "That sort of plotting takes
too much energy. I just want to find him."

"Mulder or the smoking man?"

That's a good question. One path is to redemption. Another is to
revenge. If one presents itself before the other, will I take it
and forget the other?

************************************
When the slowness of the day is gone
Leaving shadow-like feelings to depend upon
********************************************

After pushing a protesting Skinner out the door, I try Mom's
house. She answers on the fourth ring. "Yes?" There's a fearful
quiver in her voice. When did I do this to my mother?

"Mom, it's me."

"Dana? What's wrong?"

What's the one answer to that question? I'm stumped.

"Dana?" She's insisting I respond.

"I left a message earlier--"

She clears her throat and I can see her pushing herself up in bed,
arranging the pillows. "Yes. I got home late. I thought you'd be
in bed--"

"I just got home myself--"

"Dana, what's wrong?"

I've pulled the objects out of my trench coat pockets, laying them
on the desk, and have been toying with them. I click the lamp on
to watch as my fingers dance over them.

My badge. I slide a fingertip across the smooth plastic and then
skip it over the barrel of my gun. I pick up a small, rubber
figure shaped like an alien that glows iridescent purple in the
dim light. I was going to give it to Mulder when he got back from
Oregon. I twist the creature's arms behind its back.

"Dana," she prompts me, her tone heavy with a mother's patience.
"Have they found Fox?"

I realize I've been chewing on my lower lip. The pain is sharp.
"I--no, Mom."

She releases a breath. "Oh. I'm sorry, Dana. I'm sure--"

"Mom, there's something more." My words begin to tumble out.
"Something's happened. Something that wasn't supposed to ever be
able to happen to me--"

"A baby?"

Damn. She's good. But I expected nothing less from my mother. I'd
been avoiding her for days because I knew she'd guess. All it
would take would be one long, slow body-length glance and my
poorly acted response to 'How're things?'

Even now I feel this incredible urge to slam the receiver down
like a prank caller.

Or talk and talk and talk...I'm suddenly tired of pretending I can
keep secrets from the men who lurk even in the shadows of my mind.

"Yeah, Mom. A baby."

********************

When I finally rest the hot, sweat-slick receiver in its cradle an
hour later, the exhaustion returns. I should try to sleep. The
rain pounding against my windows has lulled my senses into a
stupor.

Listlessly, I rise from the chair and go to my bedroom. I catch
sight of myself in the large mirror over the bureau as I open a
drawer to find fresh pajamas.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stare back at my crumpled
figure. My black wool trench envelopes my body. A small white face
peers out from under a limp orange screen of hair. My roots need
to be touched up. My gaze twitches away but not fast enough to
stop the memory from rushing back.

I've decided that was the night we made our baby.

"Scully, turn around. I want to watch you watch."

After a few grumbling protests, I'd repositioned myself. As he
scooted to support himself on the headboard, I straddled him, my
back to his heaving chest. With his sex-befuddled face resting on
my shoulder, our eyes met in the mirror and dropped together. His
erect penis rose from the curls under the swell of my lower belly.
I felt the urge to stroke him...and gave in to it.

He groaned. The sound passed through my body -- slow beats on a
drum.

I joined in -- feeling the heat rising from between my legs, the
vibration in my pubic bone, our hips followed my strokes together
-- it was my cock.

Our eyes met again and we grinned at each other.

"Yes," we whispered together.

His hands rose from my waist to cradle my breasts.

"Mine." I smiled at the pleasure in his voice...and then matched
his groan as he traced the outline of my nipples.

Rising up on my knees, I sank down onto our cock.

Moments ticked slowly by, his large hands under my breasts
supporting my rise and fall.

Usually my eyes are closed, letting the sensations of fullness and
pressure overwhelm me. That time, I couldn't tear my gaze away
from the place where my body swallowed what seemed to be an
impossibly huge cock again and again.

On top, pressing Mulder down to the pillows, I was powerful --
dominant.

It was my turn. "Mine," I told him.

But I became disconnected to me as we became one body -- an eight-
limbed Shiva.

The swell of need rose but my orgasm was too far off. I wanted to
feel my own nerves. I had to banish the image on the wall and be
fucked.

Reading the discontent in my low groans, he reached down to stroke
my clitoris. Our chests rose together, caught a breath -- a
hitch...

No.

Make them go away.

I'm a black-robed figure hunched on the edge of the bed, holding
my eyes wide open to the point of tears, trying to block out the
images. I have to remind myself: I'm alone -- alone -- alone.

Squeezing my eyelids shut, I flop back on the bed.

I can't stop the memories any more than I could stop my orgasm
then. We fed back and forth, "Yes, yes, yes, yes," giving over to
the hermaphroditic spell of mutual sensation.

I went limp, held fast to his surging hips only by his tight grip
on my ribcage. When he came, his semen was an exploding star:
fragments of life and energy seeking a nursery to incubate a new
planet.

That was the moment I always felt a stab of anger; the moment when
I had to admit that wasn't going to happen.

I keep my eyes tightly closed, trapping that night -- that moment.
Fresh sweat forms between my breasts. My hands tentatively push up
my sweater, graze across my stomach, and down under the waistband
of my pants. My skin chills. Nothing. I feel nothing. Neither
desire nor the stir of a growing fetus. The slight swell low on my
pelvis is as firm and still as touching a cold boulder.

I've taken the word of doctors and tests, both of which have lied
to me in the past. But I cannot imagine the depths of a despair
that would come with finding my womb was as empty of life as the
other side of my bed.

The ringing phone startles me, jolting me upright.

"Hello?"

Oil slides down the phone line. "Agent Scully, it's Alex Krycek."

"What?"

"I've been thinking--" I bet he has. "I can tell you where
Spender's body was. You can check for yourself."

"Why haven't you checked it out yourself?"

He chuckles. "I don't possess your curiosity." He affects
indifference. "If you're no longer interested--"

"Where?"

********************
And the tease cries,
Weeping listless laughter,
Always thirsty like an attractive flower
****************************************

I've been directed to an apartment at the Watergate. I vaguely
remember it being Fowley's home, but I don't question these
people's odd dwelling choices.

This is dangerous. More dangerous than going on a field trip with
Krycek and Covarrubias. Mulder would kill me. Skin...Walter would
too, if he caught me. I'm a bad girl.

Well, it's too late to change that character flaw now.

The lock opens after a few scrapings with a tool from Mulder's
picking kit. I stand in the doorway for a bit, assessing the
scene. The room smells like catacombs: dust and death.

I try the light. Nothing. The old man must not have had automatic
bill paying.

I wait, and when my eyes have adjusted to the dimness, I move
slowly through the rooms, finding no signs of life or a body.

As I head to the front door, darkness descends, swathing the room.
I must sink into a chair. Drowsiness settles on me like a thick,
black cloth.

Panicked, I try to fight, but to no avail. I remember this same
sensation in the car as Spender serenely steered down the road
into the night.

"Hello, Dana. How good of you to come calling."

I force my head to turn. He's lying on the floor beside the chair,
in a tattered, gray robe, wrinkled hands crossed over his slightly
distended belly.

He sighs. "No one comes. No one cares. You care, don't you, Dana?"

I would spit but my mouth is completely dry. "No, I never will,"
falls like grains of sand from my cracked lips.

"Then why are you here?"

I force out, "I want to know why, old man. Why you did this to
us."

He doesn't move from his prone position but his gaze slides over
me to rest on my stomach. I realize I've been clutching my coat
tight around me as armor.

"I've always had your best interests at heart--"

"Did you do this to me, you bastard?" I yell, the words bouncing
off the blank, shadowed walls.

"You curse the man who you think gave you a gift?" He seems
puzzled.

Through tight lips, I ask one more time, "Did you do this to me?"

The effort of shaking his head seems to great, so it only wobbles
slightly on his stem of a neck. "No, I fear not."

"Then who--what did?"

He cast his eyes to the ceiling. "The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away," he says as he reaches up to touch the tracheotomy
tube in his windpipe.

I pause; a part of me horrified at his evocation of the Lord's
name and another part rising in hope.

He rambles on, "A power I was foolish enough to try to control. A
power that maddened Fox. A power that caused the seas to bleed.
The power that brought an old man to your side -- brings this old
man to you
now --"

"God?"

He can barely shrug. "Perhaps. Perhaps something you named God.
All I know is I was foolish to cross that power."

From nowhere, a gale of hysterical laughter rises in me. He joins
in, his chuckles weak and wheezing.

"Are you real, Spender? Are you telling me the truth?"

His smile would be described as loving on any other lips. "Do you
believe, Dana Scully? Mulder's not here for you to impress. You
can tell me the truth."

The laughter is wiped away and I feel sudden tears burning my
eyes. I listen to see what my voice will say.

"Yes. I believe."

He smiles again, with the light of a child. "Oh, good. We can go
to sleep now."

He closes his heavy eyelids and mine have to follow.

*************************************
When the danger in the touch is gone,
Changing delicate evenings to reflecting ones...
************************************************

"Scully? Scully?"

His warm fingers tap me awake.

"Mulder?"

I struggle from the chair and blink in the cool light of dawn. I
glance around the dusty room. No Mulder.

I call out anyway. "Mulder?"

There's no body on the floor. No trace of one.

I hurry from room to room, knowing I'll find nothing.

Frustration and rage whirl together, causing that damned vertigo
to come back. When I lean against the wall for balance, I feel his
light touch again.

I whirl, crying out. "Mulder!"

There it is again...on my abdomen.

My eyes widen, and my hands slide under my sweater to return the
touch. It's coming from within.

Our baby has awakened.

I say the words again, loud and strong in the empty room. "Yes, I
do believe."

*************************
You sleep like breathing,
You sleep like breath...gently
*******************************
The End
********

FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTES: If I were Scully, I'd go look for the old
man. I'm not, so I wrote a fic instead.

The title is from a Film Noir. No, I couldn't come up with a
better one on my own, so I had to steal it. Oh, the song is Alison
Moyet's 'Sleep Like Breathing'