Summary: "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." - Revelations 2:4, KJV. Mulder/Diana, bittersweet and dark. Written for the Harem Deslea's Birthday Challenge.

Yes, for the Birthday Challenge, in a round about way.

Happy Birthday, dearest Headwife!

TITLE: Revelation
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
RATING: R
ARCHIVE: List archives, otherwise please ask.
KEYWORDS: missing scene, Mulder/Diana
SPOILERS: Biogenesis, slight ones for season
eight revelations
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, thank you very much.
SUMMARY: "Nevertheless I have somewhat against
thee, because thou hast left thy first love."
- Revelations 2:4, KJV

***

Author's Notes at the end.

*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*


She hangs up the phone and takes off her blouse.
Fox is resting and she really needs a shower. It
hasn't been an easy day. The phone call from Alex,
telling her Fox is in a stairwell and half-delirious
from pain.

It has begun. Deja vu all over again. She'd gone
to him, collected him, and she's just told his
greatest enemy that game is in motion.

She almost expects to trip over Fox's briefcase on
the way to the bathroom, find her own good silk
blouse hanging in the bathroom in hopes that shower
steam would get out the wrinkles.

She turns on the tap and hears Fox moan. She
chooses to ignore it this time and tries to get the
water scalding hot. The pipes creak and she sighs.
They're old, the building's old, and she's old. Too
damned old to be here now, playing games and letting
that smoking bastard give her orders.

Fox was never supposed to get hurt. He wasn't
supposed to get in this deep. She came back to
ensure that. Jeff Spender was supposed to follow
his father dutifully and Diana was supposed to hold
Jeff's hand in the basement until the case could be
made to close the X-files for good. Cassandra
Spender was never supposed to be a successful
prototype. None of this was supposed to happen.

She was supposed to be happily married, living in
a Connecticutt suburb with Fox and their children
(two, a boy and a girl). He was supposed to be
fighting tangible villians and to have found
Samantha. She was supposed to love him and honor
him, and instead she was here, betraying him even
now. For ten years, she had told herself it was
for his own good, for their own good, that they'd
be together in the end.

She closes her eyes and lets herself believe it was as
simple as all that. She hears Fox call her name once,
twice, and when she answers him she wants to believe
it
was always like this. Fox lying in bed waiting for
her, not lying in bed sick and likely dying. He calls
out another name, not Diana but Scully. Scully.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

The water alternates hot and cold in the shower and
settles on lukewarm. Diana cringes but washes her
hair and scrubs her skin, trying to get rid of the
cigarette smoke smell.

She climbs out of the shower and wraps herself in a
towel. She's trying to put her hair up in one to dry
it when she hears his voice.

"You look incredible."

He used to tell her that after long days in the field
or battles with surly assistant directors. She
doesn't dare look up, because it might just be her
tired mind playing tricks.

"Diana, I..."

It's real. He's real. He puts his hands on her
shoulders and she gives up on her hair.

"Don't say anything, Fox." She turns around, and
without stopping to look at him, kisses him. He's
shaking and clammy and she can almost feel his head
pounding but he wraps his arms around her anyway and
leans into her.

They break apart only when she can no longer support
him. He sways and grabs his head, a low moan having
nothing to do with pleasure escaping him.

She takes his hands and leads him back to bed. Her
towel falls off somewhere along the way and she
doesn't notice until he looks at her, wide-eyed and
even amused through the pained and foggy expression.
She blushes and tucks him in, not saying a word in
acknowledgement. She turns to go back to the bathroom
and he grabs her hand, pulls her down. He's squinting
and wincing and clearly in no condition, but he kisses
her with such force she forgets that she shouldn't.
She forgets that she isn't supposed to.

She wants to.

He moves over on the bed and pulls her even closer, so
that she falls down next to him. He struggles out
from underneath the blankets and tries not to separate
himself from her. She knows this urgency, remembers
it from a time that might never have happened at all.
She helps him pull off his shirt and removes his
jeans.

They're frantic, unwilling to stop lest one of them
realize how foolish this is. Diana moves on top of
him, and when she comes she falls on him. That's the
way it always was, and is now because she wants the
fantasy, wants her vivid memory silenced for once. He
groans beneath her and clutches her back, and she is
thankful it has nothing to do with the pain this time.

She lays still, listening to him breathe. A phone
rings and she doesn't want to move to answer it. She
buries her face in his shoulder and he strokes her
hair. When the phone doesn't stop ringing and his
hand tenses and his body goes rigid, she moves. He
curls up, away from her, into a tight ball and moans
louder than before. The pain is back and the phone
doesn't stop ringing. It has to have been twelve, now
thirteen rings. She gets up and answers it.

The voice on the other end is so familiar, so
convincing in its sugarcoated menace. She is
surprised, as always, that he has no smoker's rasp to
give away his vice.

"We'll need to move him soon."

"I know. How long?"

"In the morning. Will he hold out that long?"

On cue, Fox muffles a scream into a pillow behind her.

"I'm not sure."

"Make sure. Have him there in the morning."

She hangs up and goes to the bathroom. She closes the
door and kneels down in front of the toilet. She is
nauseous, like before. Ten years ago, the lies began
like this. She remembered it so well. An afternoon
in bed with her new husband, tangled in sheets and
slick with sweat, giddy and horny and happy. An
afternoon destroyed so effectively with one phone
call, and Fox could never know.

She gets dressed and goes out to him. He's sweating
now, tangled in the sheets. He's slipping away,
grasping his head and mumbling unintelligibly. She's
losing him.

She goes to get a glass of water and a wet washcloth.
She wipes his forehead and leans down when he opens
his eyes and pleads for her to come close.

"Scully." He says it and looks up at her as if she's
supposed to understand.

She nods, not trusting her voice.

He closes his eyes and sighs. He turns over with some
effort and buries his head in her lap. She hates
herself for craving it.

She looks down at him and gives in. She stretches out
next to him and holds on to him as another wave of
pain crumples his body. She fears for him, but
doesn't think about it.

She doesn't leave that night, and doesn't sleep. She
just holds him, and cries silently for everything
she's lost.

She cries for the dying man in her arms.

*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*

Author's Notes:

Well, I'm posting this for Kristen's Headwife
Birthday Challenge because it is Mulder/Diana,
but it is much darker than birthday fic should
be. Happy Birthday anyway, Deslea. Scully/DaSilva
is underway!

=====
''I don't enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has
single-handedly lowered SAT scores.'' - Joss Whedon
-----
fic - http://users.pdsys.org/~maidenjedi
sam houston motor lodge recs - http://users.pdsys.org/~maidenjedi/fanfic2.html