Chapter Text
Greenwich, CT
October 26, 2006
8:07 p.m.
He knew he’d arrived first by the smell. It was earthy—earthy—like soil and grass and fall leaves. The black void had given way to wind swirling around him as he pushed through the tesseract. It whipped his hair, catching the familiar scents of Connecticut in autumn. He felt the quick popping of his ears, and then he was through, his feet on solid ground.
Clouds obscured the moon, but there was enough illumination to see that he was standing in the side yard of his own property, in the twins’ vegetable garden, where the last of the peppers, broccoli, and kale studded the raised beds around him. Mulder let out a choked sound of surprise and relief and dropped onto his knees beside a withering tomato plant. The porch light was on, as were the lights from the kitchen, the dining room, the foyer. Silhouettes moved in the illuminated spaces of the house: the shapes of family and friends.
He was home.
Nothing prevented him from running to the front door and letting himself in. He wanted to see his family. But some feeling made him hesitate. Adrenaline coursed through him, a wave of anxiety—because what if he’d been gone so long that Dana was angry? What if he’d made a mess of things simply by being absent? He looked down at his ragged clothes, ran fingers through his rough beard, then through his shaggy hair. What if the state he was in disappointed her?
Mulder sucked air into his lungs and forced himself to breathe out slowly. He looked up at the stars again and pushed his palms back into the earth. This is where he was. All he had to offer was himself, and it would have to be enough. He stood and took a few steps toward the porch, but again some intuition pulled at him, and he stopped. Heading toward the front door still felt wrong somehow.
The side yard, he thought. The star-gazing rock. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that he would find her there.
Carefully, he made his way around the house in the dark. As he came within sight of the rock, a break in the clouds caught the moonlight just so, and it filtered pale and dreamlike to where his wife sat on a blanket. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them for warmth. Her eyes were closed, face tilted toward the sky, as if in prayer, and he wondered if it were him she prayed for. He spent a long moment just drinking in the sight of her: still so beautiful it almost hurt to look. Soon, though, the tension of their proximity became overwhelming: it was unfair to see and not be seen. He needed all of her. So he walked forward.
Dana startled at the sound of his footsteps. She turned and saw him, and for a long moment she sat perfectly still, like she was afraid to break some spell.
Mulder was still several yards away, so he took another few steps. “It’s me,” he said. He had to clear his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She remained motionless for several seconds more, in which he noticed a wobble forming in her lips and chin. She brought one hand up to her mouth and shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was low and raspy. “I know. I knew it was you.”
Another step. He was close enough to see the wet shine of her eyes.
A sob escaped her, though she tried to stifle it with her hand. She stood on shaky legs. Then she ran to him and threw herself into his arms.
He caught her. Mulder held her so her feet didn’t even touch the ground, arms tight around her waist, face buried in her neck. They both shook under the weight of it—the magnitude of relief and love, the sense of two wounded halves finally coming back together. Dana sobbed so hard, he felt his shirt growing wet under her face. “Shh, don’t cry, Love,” he whispered to her.
She shook her head, trying to explain that she couldn’t stop. When he swiped at his nose after an involuntary sniffle, he realized that he was crying, too. He gave in and let himself. He cried hard into her hair and kissed her neck, breathing in the smell of her, and he was afraid his knees would go out from under him again.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, voice thick with tears. “I never meant to leave you.”
Dana slid back down to the ground, where she was eye-level with his heart. She pressed her lips to it, then let her ear rest there. “I only care that you’re here.”
Mulder rubbed his hands up and down her back. He kissed the part in her hair, eyes closed. “I won’t disappear again. I promise.”
She held him around his middle like an iron clamp. “Good.”
When he trusted himself to look at her without breaking into sobs again, Mulder leaned back to catch her face between his hands. He brushed her cheeks with his thumbs, and she reached up to test the prickly texture of his beard. A half smile appeared on her lips. He turned his face to kiss her palm. “Anybody miss me?”
She choked out a half-laugh and pulled him down to kiss her. It was shaky at first, anxious and out-of-practice, still trembling with the enormity of their reunion. But then, for both of them at once, something clicked—it was them—and the kiss became sloppy and desperate, hungry and horny, as befitted their long separation, while still somehow painfully sweet. They poured their months of longing into it, even as they pawed at each other like teenagers. When they broke apart, they were breathless, light-headed, and laughing just a little.
“I guess I missed you,” Dana said.
Mulder scooped her up and kissed her again. This time, his hand went under her sweater and top, sliding up her back to the hook of her bra. But she pushed it away with a reluctant whimper.
“Can’t,” she said. “Your boss is inside.”
He made a low disappointed sound. “What about that blanket?”
Dana laughed and let her forehead plonk against his chest. “God, I love you.”
Mulder grinned and wrapped both arms around her, this time with more affection than lust. “I love you more than anything.”
--
Dana wouldn’t let go of him all evening. Even as he hugged and reunited with his children, answered a litany of questions from his supervisor, and dodged awkward insinuations from his friends, she managed to hold onto a hand or a shoulder or a belt loop. They sat thigh-to-thigh now on the living-room couch, wrapping up the last of Skinner’s preliminary questions.
Mulder seemed just as clingy. His palm rested just above her knee, and he drummed his fingers impatiently on it every few minutes. He’d changed into his own clothes, surrendering up the strange cotton jumpsuit he’d acquired on the alien world as evidence.
“Of course, I’ll need you to come to Washington and make a full report as soon as you can,” Skinner said.
“Right away?” Dana asked. Mulder’s fingers tensed on her leg, and she managed to press her body even closer to his.
Skinner shook his head, holding up a hand. “Take a few days. Settle in with your family, and I’ll get started on all the paperwork. I’ll contact you when it’s ready.”
Mulder nodded. “Thank you.”
Skinner looked at his watch. It was after ten—the kids had all gone to bed, and Calvin had called home. He’d decided to bunk on the floor of William’s room, which would be a reassuring comfort to them both.
“Well, I’m sure you’re both exhausted,” Skinner said. “We’ll head back to the motel for tonight, then we’re driving back to Washington in the morning.” He stood and walked into the dining room to fetch the others, who were playing cards again.
She and Mulder were more than ready for the day to be over. Dana leaned against her husband, and his arm came around her shoulders. “Almost,” he whispered into her ear. They got up and moved to say goodbye.
“Mulder, my dude, I think you should keep this Mountain Man look. I dig it,” Langly said as he met them in the foyer, reaching out to shake Mulder’s hand.
Mulder chuckled and looked down at Dana. She smirked. “Somehow I don’t think that decision will be entirely up to me.”
“Now that’s a smart man,” Frohike said, shaking his pointer finger. “That’s how you keep a lady as lovely as this one.” He took Dana’s hand and raised it to his lips, making a somewhat dramatic bow.
“Watch it,” Mulder said, but his eyes were smiling. Frohike winked at her.
Dana couldn’t help but laugh. She’d come to like these strange characters who had rushed to help her without a second thought. They were surprisingly good with kids, too. Then her expression grew more serious. “Thank you so much for coming. All of you.” She swallowed. “I don’t know what I would have done if—”
“It was our pleasure,” Byers said. He shook her hand, then Mulder’s.
“And you, Mr. Skinner,” she said. “I know I was, um, difficult sometimes over the past year. So thank you for your understanding. For everything.”
He only offered a terse nod, but there was color in his cheeks. He turned to Mulder, all business. “It’s good to have you back. I’ll see you next week.”
Then all four of them were out the door, leaving Dana and Mulder alone together at last. She turned to him and reached up to run her fingers through the beard. “I kind of like it, actually.”
He smiled. “Really?”
“Uh huh.” She wrapped both arms around his neck and hung back from them, pressing her lower body against his. “I think it’s bedtime,” she said.
His hands found her hips. “Is that so?”
The look he gave her quickened her breath and sent a bolt of something warm and electric down her body, straight to the place between her legs, where she was already aching for him. He held the look for a long moment, making her squirm. Then he bent and kissed her with a quiet desperation that made Dana’s vision blur. Without another word, he scooped her into his arms and carried her upstairs to their bedroom.
--
They managed to turn on the bedside lamp and close and lock the door before they were pulling each other’s clothes off. Onto the floor went boots and sweaters and jeans. Dana couldn’t stop running her fingers through his shaggy hair, gripping it, using it to pull his mouth to hers or to her neck. He chuckled against her skin, letting his tongue drag across her collarbone before he nipped at the place just above it.
“You do like it,” he growled.
Dana arched up toward his body, letting him pull her with a hand on her lower back. “The beard is scratchy,” she said, voice breathy. “But the friction is… nice.” She angled her head to look at him and grinned.
Mulder pressed his forehead to hers, then dragged beard across her cheek, making her outright giggle. “I can give you some friction wherever you want it, baby.”
She laughed again and tugged him closer to the bed. “How about over here?”
“Hmm, I like this plan.” He sat down and dragged her by the hips onto his lap, then he lifted her t-shirt over her head, so she wore only her bra and panties. “Nice,” he said. He lay a hand flat across her belly before sliding it up to her breast, cupping and holding the weight of it in his hand.
She made a small sound of pleasure into his mouth and pulled at his shirt. “You, too,” she said.
When his shirt came off and landed on the floor, Dana saw her own cross necklace there in the hollow of his throat and gasped. One hand came to her mouth and the other reached out to touch the delicate gold. Her eyes went to his, ripe with questions, overwhelmed with feeling.
He studied her expression, then covered the hand touching the cross with his own. “I never took it off,” he said. “And I think it might have saved me… It kept me connected to you.”
Dana tried to process this. She nodded. She lay her hand flat on his bare chest, just below the totem. Still, her eyes filled with tears, and she found herself trembling. She didn’t want to cry again. She wanted to kiss him more, to make love to him, to get their lives back to where they’d been, and to never be apart from him again. But that cross was a heavy reminder of their separation—of the pain of this past year.
Mulder’s arms came around her, pulling her close so her cheek rested over his heart. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I know it’s a lot.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just … a little overwhelmed. And really really glad you’re back.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He rubbed a palm from her hip down the side of her thigh to her knee. “But right here, right now, it’s just us, okay?” He pressed their foreheads together in a way they’d done hundreds of times before. They breathed each other in. In moments like these, there were only the two of them in the whole wide universe.
Dana let her hands slip over his shoulders and chest, refamiliarizing herself with the shape and solidity of him. “Still you,” she said.
He kissed the tip of her nose and ran his hand the other way up her thigh to the hem of her underwear. “Still me. Still you.”
Her nails found the skin of his biceps. His skin responded with goosebumps, and he shivered. “I missed you every minute of every day,” she said.
Beneath her thigh, other parts of him responded as well. His hand moved back up to her breast. Knuckles brushed her belly; fingers curled around her waist. “Even while you were asleep?”
She leaned up for a soft kiss to his lips. “Especially then.”
He kissed her back, deeper this time, and deftly undid the clasp of her bra. Mulder teased her by brushing the side of a breast, then sliding his hand around to touch her back. She shifted slightly on his lap, urging his hand back to where she wanted it. Her bra slipped off. She shifted again, moving her thigh more deliberately, and he sighed into her mouth at the friction. He knew the signals. She wanted more of him, all of him. He could deny her nothing.
Mulder rolled them both, angling Dana onto the bed so she was laying on her back, head on the pillows. She looked up at him, smiling, and held his gaze in the warm light of the bedside lamp. His arms bracketed her shoulders, and she held a forearm in each of her hands, running her fingers over the soft hair. She told him with her eyes how much she loved him, how much she’d missed him, how much she needed him.
Mulder leaned down to kiss the place between her eyebrows, her chin, her lips again. He knew. His gaze returned every sentiment.
Dana lifted one of her legs to wrap around his back and an arm around his neck. She pulled him down to her mouth. Body against body, they found a familiar rhythm. Every brush of skin on skin burned hot as the last of their clothes slipped off to land around the bed.
While she was still splayed across the pillows, Mulder sat on her thighs, just above her knees, and studied her. He lay both hands flat across her belly and chest, feeling the rhythms of her body, her heart beating. He thought about how much of his home was really just her. He traced the underside of each breast with his thumbs, drew circles around her nipples with his middle fingers, making them harden into small peaks. Then he kissed each one.
“Perfect,” he said before kissing his way up to her collarbone, her neck, her jaw, her lips. Dana raised her hips under him, hungry. But she was trapped under his weight. “Not yet,” he whispered.
“You’re such a tease.” She ran fingernails up his bare thighs to his hips, then slipped one hand down to squeeze his cock gently. He growled and thrust against her, then bit her shoulder, eliciting another little yelp. He kissed the spot, then slid down her body, out of her reach.
“If you think I’m not going to taste you after all this time, you’re crazy.” His tongue marked every inch along her body until he came to the soft patch of curls. He hummed against it, kissing the place where her thighs came together.
He finally moved to free her legs from under him, letting them spread apart. The sight of her elicited a low, primal sound from his throat. Unable to help himself, he sunk his teeth into one of her inner thighs. Dana gasped and thrust against him, so ready to be touched. Again, he kissed the spot where he’d nipped, soothing it with his tongue, before moving to her center. Mulder used his fingers first, gently prodding her slick folds, spreading the slip up from her entrance to her clit and making her roll her hips with little rhythmic moans.
“I love when you do that,” he whispered into the crease of her inner thigh.
She let out a breathy laugh. “I love when you do that, too.”
He moved in next with his mouth, tongue replacing finger so he could slide it deep inside her, all in one motion. She clenched around him with long moan, and he knew she’d almost come right then. It made him smile into her (he knew her so well, had missed this so much) and work harder with his mouth. Her hips lifted off the bed in their circular motions, and she grabbed his shaggy hair in one of her hands. The other grabbed at the bedding, squeezing desperately as she rode his face.
Mulder made a contented humming sound as he alternated tight swirls and flat laps with his tongue, leaning into the former as her breathing grew faster. When her moans turned into a steady stream of breathy affirmatives (yeah yeah yeah yeah), he added suction and curled his middle finger inside her until she erupted in pulsations and moans around him. He met her with a long and happy hmmmm and felt her muscles grip like waves. Her fingers grasped his forearms, desperate to hold onto some part of him.
Dana’s breathing slowed, and the pulses stopped, so he pulled his hand back gently and kissed his way back up to her face again, smiling all the way. She was loose-limbed and pink-cheeked, hair messy all around her, when he reached the pillows. She smiled a little bashfully. “Jesus, Mulder.”
He reached out a hand to smooth down some of her hair and run a thumb over her cheek. “I can’t get over how beautiful you look when you come. I’ll never get over it.”
She rolled closer to him, into his arms, while she continued to ride the small waves of pleasure that still moved through her. She ran steady hands over his warm back and kept her nose pressed against his chest. “Love you,” she murmured.
As his hands teased, the heat built back up in her, beginning in the places where her nipples touched his chest and his erection pressed into her belly. He smelled so damned good, and his skin was so soft. She kissed the place over his heart and pulled at his hip, so he thrust more firmly against her.
“Your turn,” she said to him as she slid down his body, dragging mouth and tongue along his skin.
He pulled his hips back from her and grabbed at her shoulders. “Oh. Uhm, Dana, I don’t think I’m gonna last very long if you do that…”
“Hmm,” she said, already running her thumbs over his hip bones and her tongue down the line of hair leading from his navel. “Just a little, okay? I want to.” He was huge and hard and hot, and it had been so very long. She was half tempted to just climb on top of him and start riding him right then, but she needed to do this first. She missed the intimacy of it, how hot it made her, and how good she knew it made him feel.
He was already breathing hard when she took him in her hand and bent to kiss the impossibly soft tip of his erection. She began the slow tease of taking him into her mouth. He made a helpless moaning sound and reached out for her, so she took his hand with hers, interlacing their fingers above his right hip. Her movements were slow at first, easing him into it, reacquainting herself. But he was already so sensitive. She could feel his restraint, trying not to buck up into her, and finally he ran his fingers through her hair to hold her steady.
“Dana, honey, please… it’s too good.”
She nodded, mouth still around him, and gave him one last swirl of the tongue before moving back up his body and into his arms. “I need you so badly. I want you to feel what it does to me.” She took one of his hands and trapped it between her legs, letting him feel how swollen and drenched she was, how completely turned on it made her to do that for him.
“Oh god,” he groaned into her hair. “Jesus. Okay. Fuck.” He rolled her over and smothered her with kisses, pushed her legs up and open, slid his aching cock along her own needy sex.
“Please.” She grasped at him. She was kissing any part of him she could reach. She needed him now.
He brought his mouth down on hers at the same moment that he pushed inside her, and they both nearly wept with the sweet pressure and relief of it. “God,” he groaned. “Oh Dana, I love you so much.”
She whimpered, arching up to meet the weight of his thrust. “Love you love you love you,” she mumbled into his mouth, his neck, his ear. Over and again, he filled her, and she took him in with such need. It was everything they’d wanted to say to each other for the past year but could not. She felt his need mounting, the pleasure building toward a tipping point, and she hooked her ankles around the base of his spine to pull him harder, deeper, faster into her. More, more, more, always, forever, never enough, until finally they both cried out and he spilled into her, squeezing her, groaning and burying his face in the sweet smell of her hair.
They were still for long moments, just listening to each other’s breathing as it slowed with their heartbeats. Dana ran her fingers over his sweat-covered back in soothing lines, still holding him inside her.
After some time, she realized that he was shaking.
She pushed at his shoulders to lift him up, to look at his face. “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”
He nodded but didn’t fully lift his head. He was crying, she realized—little shuddering sobs. She understood completely, even as she couldn’t possibly know all of what he’d been through. She just wrapped all of her limbs around him and held on as tightly as she could.
“You’re okay,” she told him. “You’re safe and you’re home. We’re all okay.”
He clung to her for a long time, and eventually the shaking stopped. He lifted his head to look at her face. “Thank you.”
Her soft smile held enough love to build a hundred tesseracts. She raised a hand to touch his face. “You’ll never be alone again, Mulder.”
He kissed her, another gentle thanks, then shifted his weight away from her. They maneuvered under the comforter and sheet, never fully separating, and fell asleep so tightly entwined that neither was quite sure whose limbs were whose.
--
Sometime after two in the morning, Dana wrenched herself from the bed to clean up and brush her teeth. When she came back to him in her underwear and a pajama top, Mulder was awake. He’d rolled to face the bathroom door and was propped up on his elbow, watching her silhouette emerge.
“Miss me already?”
He nodded, smiling. “S’okay. I saved your spot.”
“Thanks, Mountain Man.”
He chuckled, scooting back to make space for her. Dana snapped off the light and climbed back into the bed, where he scooped her into the circle of his arms. He rolled them so she lay across his chest: his security blanket, his partner, his redemption, his everything.
Now were the quiet hours of night. Tomorrow would bring the dark uncertainty of the future, but they were not afraid. They’d faced the distant reaches of an expansive universe, both together and apart, and they’d found nothing in it more worthwhile than each other.