Scully and I stroll off the movie lot, hand-in-hand.
I'm vaguely surprised at how affectionate Scully is
being. Not that she isn't affectionate. She is.
Extremely so.  But generally speaking, public displays of affection aren't her thing. She prefers to keep our private life private.

The studio has provided us with a limousine and we
slide in with a vague suggestion to the driver about
heading toward the coast. I slide one arm along
Scully's shoulder and stroke her thigh with the
opposite hand. She raises one eyebrow at me, but
spoils her "look" by letting her mouth relax into a
soft, sexy smile.

"So, have you ever comparison-sized my. . .flashlight
to Skinner's?" I ask.

She giggles and swats me. "No, Mulder. The only. .
.flashlight, I'm interested in is yours. Not only is
its size *MORE* than adequate, you know what they
say."

"What?"

"It's not the size of the flashlight. It's the density of the beam."

I laugh and pull her close, bending my mouth to hers
for a gentle kiss.

"Mul-der," she murmurs, flashing a glance at the
chauffer.

"It's okay, Scully," I say. "He's used to driving
hotshot movie stars around. He's not going to pay
attention to a couple of anonymous F.B.I. agents."

So we kiss again, deeper this time, and finally I'm
the one who breaks it off. Scully makes a small,
whimpering sound of protest when my lips leave hers.

"We'd better slow down for a minute, honey," I
whisper. "Or I may be flashing my light prematurely,
so to speak."

She smiles and snuggles down into my arms, then says,
"Where are we going, anyway?"

"There was a place I saw along the coast the last time we were here," I explain. "A pier with a bunch of little specialty shops along the dock, and a
restaurant or club at the end, over the water. I
thought we'd go there, look around, maybe grab a bite
to eat or dance a little."

"And then?" she asks with a smile.

"Then, Agent Scully, I think my. . .flashlight. .
.will be ready for full illumination."

When we reach the area I was thinking of, we ask the
limo driver to pick us back up in a couple of hours.
Scully immediately walks me to the end of the dock and stands overlooking the sea. There's a brisk breeze, and she shivers a bit. I draw her into my arms and lean over her shoulder to whisper in her ear, much the way I did the night we played baseball together almost a year ago.

"I love you," I whisper.

"I love you, too, Mulder," she replies, turning her
head to gaze into my eyes. "Know what?"

"What?"

"I kind of wish we *HAD* ended up on top of each other in a crypt 18 months ago! It would have spared us a lot of lonely nights."

I sigh and shake my head slowly. "I don't think we
were ready then, Scully. As much as we love each other - and God knows I've loved you for a lot longer than 18 months - I don't think we were ready to fully
commit to each other at that point. I was still
obsessed with finding out what had happened to
Samantha. You had some issues about Daniel that you'd
never really dealt with. It's only been in these last
couple of months, since we've finally put our pasts to rest, that we've been able to truly give ourselves to each other."

She smiles up at me. "You say the sweetest things,
Mulder. But a girl can't live on words alone. Feed
me."

We go into the restaurant and order. Neither of us is
really all that hungry, so we select a variety of
appetizers and a bottle of wine. We end up feeding the appetizers to each other, and it's a toss up as to whether or not I can stand Scully licking my fingers one more time before I explode. When our dinner is over, we dance. The band is playing a collection of soft, seductive ballads from an older era. The whole mood - the songs, the sea, Scully in my arms wearing a fancy dress -reminds of the time we were on the boat together in 1939. I know Scully doesn't believe we were really there, thinks it was all just a dream of mine. I know differently, but the last thing I want to do now is argue with her, so I don't bring it up.

Finally, after paying the bill and leaving the waiter
a generous tip on Skinner's credit card, we wander out of the restaurant and into the shops. Scully finds something she wants in one of them. A basket
containing what seems to be two bottles of wine and
two wine glasses. Closer examination reveals that one
of the bottles is actually filled with bubble bath. We charge it to Skinner and reach the street just as our limo is returning.

When we reach our hotel room, I swing Scully up into
my arms and head toward the bed, but she puts her
fingers on my mouth and shakes her head. "Not the bed, Mulder."

"You don't want to?" I ask with disappointment.

She smiles at me. "Oh, I want to, Mulder. Just not in
the bed. At least not yet. Why do you think I bought
the bubble bath?"

"Oh," I say. I'm sure she's astounded by my witty
reply. Scully and I have been lovers for barely a
month and, unfortunately, I spent two weeks of that
time recovering from yet another near-death
experience. That means our lovemaking has been fairly
limited in regards to places and positions. The end
result - earth-shattering orgasms for both of us - has been better than anything I've ever dreamed about, but the preliminaries have been a bit tame. Guess Scully has decided it's high time to get a bit creative.

"You go get a bucket of ice to stick the wine in and
meet me in the bathroom," she says, sliding slowly
down my body and walking toward the tub with an
exaggerated wiggle.

"Yes Ma'am!" I reply.

When I return, Scully is immersed in bubbles. I set
the ice bucket with the wine in it, and the glasses,
on the ledge at the side of the tub. Scully and I
murmur, at the same time, "God, you're gorgeous!"

I laugh and look at her for another minute, then say,
"I'm just going to go into the bedroom to take off
this tux, then I'll join you."

"Don't go, Mulder!"

"You just want me to stay and watch?" I ask. Funny
thing is, six weeks ago I would have sold my right arm for the privilege of simply being allowed to watch Scully take a bubble bath. But now I'm itching to join her.

Scully pouts and shakes her head. "I want you to join
me in the bathtub, silly. I just don't want you to go
in the other room to take off your tux. You look sexy
in a tux, I wanna watch you take it off."

"Uh. . .okay," I say. I remove my shoes and socks
first, then began removing my jacket and shirt. Scully keeps making these hooting and whistling sounds every time I take off an item. It occurs to me that she is tipsy and this is ridiculous, but she's having such a good time I can't bring myself to stop. Happy Scully is a rare enough occurrence; if I have to behave like a Chippendales dancer to bring this about, then so be it.

Finally, when I'm naked, she grins and says, "Nice
flashlight, Mulder."

I ignore that and ask, "Did you want me to sit facing
you or straddling you?"

"Whichever you want."

"Scoot up a bit."

Scully does, dislodging a few strategic bubbles in the process. I slide in behind her and lift her up onto my lap. The feel of her naked ass against my thighs revs my flashlight to full alert status. I grab the soap and begin washing her arms, shoulders, neck and breasts.

"Mmm!! Mulder, you're making me wet."

"You're in a bathtub, silly. Of course you're wet!"

"That's not what I mean, G-Man!"

"Somehow, I figured it wasn't."

We drink and kiss and splash each other and I'm torn
between wanting to prolong this pleasant interlude and an almost painful desire to get to the main event. Then Scully drops the soap and over the side of the tub and gets up onto her hands and knees to reach for it and I'm gone.

I kneel behind her and glide my hands along her bubbly back and bottom, then between her thighs. She lets out a loud moan as I fondle her.

"Is this position okay, Dana?" I whisper. Our previous encounters have all been face-to-face.

"Yes. Please, Mulder!"

I slide into her and we both groan with pleasure. The
water is cushioning my weight, allowing me freer use
of my hands. I play with both Scully's breasts while
biting lightly on her shoulder and she rears back
against me in a climax that probably registers on the
Richter scale. I thrust a few more times and join her, then pull out and we resume our former position.

Scully leans back in my arms to kiss me, then closes
her eyes with a dreamy smile on her face. Between the
wine and the lovemaking, I'm pretty relaxed myself,
but I guess I ought to move us out of the bathtub
before we both lapse into a post-coital coma and
drown. That wouldn't be a bad way to die, actually,
but I think I'd prefer us to wait until we're in our
80s for it to happen.

Once we get dried off and into bed, Scully pillows her head on my chest and immediately falls asleep. I'm relaxed and content, but find my mind drifting back to that ridiculous movie. It's funny, but when that idiot was following us around, Scully and I had yet to so much as even kiss. Somehow, though, he apparently picked up on the vibes between us.

The ringing of my cell phone pulls me out of my
reverie. "Mulder," I say.

"Hey, Mulder, it's me," Skinner replies. His voices
sounds funny. It actually sounds apologetic, which
would be the first time in seven years I've been on
the receiving end of an apology in one of our
conversations.

"Hey, Skin Man!"

Skinner huffs into the phone, but doesn't reprimand
me. "I just wanted to say. . .that line in the movie.
. .I didn't know it was going to be in there. What are you and Scully doing, anyway?"

"Scully's sleeping. I'm not doing anything
particular."

Scully chooses this moment to wake up and say, "Who's
on the phone?"

"Skin Man," I reply.

"I thought Agent Scully was sleeping," Skinner says.

"She was," I answer.

Skinner is silent for a moment and I'm beginning to
think Scully and I are toast. He'll split us up, send
me to me to Miami and Scully to Seattle or something
else awful. But finally he just says, "Don't wear out
the batteries in your flashlight, Agent Mulder."

"My flashlight has rechargeable batteries, Skin Man,"
I reply before hanging up.