***

I've got a long night ahead of me. We're running surveillance of a suspected serial killer and I promised to take a shift on the stakeout. Technically speaking, as the head of the task force, I'm supposed to be beyond the sitting-around-being-bored-out-of-my-brain part of my career. However, half my agents are out with the "flu from hell" as it's being described on Washington area radio stations, so a lot of management types are back out in the field. Even Skinner has been pounding the pavement; he was the arresting agent on bank robbery the other day.

I don't have time to make it all the way out to our house in suburban Maryland and back to northern Virginia in time for my shift, so I drop by the Gunmen's place for a few minutes instead.

"You guys got anything to eat around here?" I ask after they buzz me in.

"Some pizza left over from last night," Byers says. "Feel free to warm it up in the microwave.

We're sitting around eating pizza and shooting the breeze when Jimmy's cell phone buzzes.

All I can hear is his side of the ensuing conversation, and he never mentions a name, but I can tell right away it's Yves on the other end. There's something about the tone of his voice, even when the actual words he's saying are just things like "yeah" and "right now, if you want" that clue me in on the fact that he's talking to his wife. There's also the look of dopey bliss on his face. I wonder if I have that same look of idiotic wonder on my face every time I talk to Scully on the phone? Probably.

Just in case there had been any doubt in my mind, Jimmy ends the phone call with "I love you, too. See you in a bit. Bye."

"Let me guess," Langley says as soon as Jimmy has hit the disconnect button. "The pregnant princess wants you to come home immediately."

Langley's always making those sort of snide comments about Yves, especially now that she's pregnant. Brilliant profiler that I am, it took Scully to point out that the obvious reason for his remarks is jealousy. Either he's specifically jealous of Jimmy -- as in, maybe he'd been hoping to attract Yves' attention before Jimmy appeared on the scene -- or he's just sort of generally envious of the whole situation; two people a decade or so younger than he is embarking on marriage and parenthood while he nears middle age unmarried and childless.

"Does she have a craving? Does she want you to bring her a pickle or something?" Frohike asks.

"Uh. . . yeah, you could say that," Jimmy says. One corner of his mouth lifts up in a lopsided grin and I notice that his ears are turning slightly red. His eyes meet mine in a moment of shared amusement, then he says, "Bye, guys. See you tomorrow." Despite the fact that Jimmy's IQ is probably a few points below average and I graduated with honors from Oxford, in some ways I have more in common with him than I do with the other gunmen. Jimmy and I were both high school jocks and we're both married men who are wildly in love with our wives.

As soon as Jimmy has left, Langley says, "That's why I'm glad I'm not married. I'd hate having to stop something I was enjoying doing to run home every time wifey called."

"You're much weirder than I ever realized, Langley," I say.

"Why?"

"Because you'd rather sit around eating day-old pizza with a bunch of middle-aged men than make love to a beautiful, twentysomething woman."

Frohike drops his pizza on the floor at that remark, makes a garbled choking sound and says, "Why do you think they're going to make love?"

"It was obvious," I reply with a shrug. "The way he was talking to her, the speed with which he left. . .the look on his face when you asked him if she was craving his pickle."

"That's not what I said!" Frohike exclaims.

"Look, whether they are or not isn't really any of our business," Byers points out. "We know they do sometimes, obviously: they're married and she's pregnant. The specifics are between the two of them."

"Yeah, you're right," I agree. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"So what are you working on?" Byers asks in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

"I could tell you," I deadpan, "but then I'd have to kill you."

***

A couple of hours later, I'm behind the wheel of a non-descript sedan staring morosely at a lower-middle-class apartment house that may -- or may not -- have a serial killer inside. Special Agent Andrew Chan and I have exhausted every possible conversation topic either of us could think of and now he's jogged up to the convenience store on the corner to take a leak and grab us both a couple of coffees.

Technically speaking, both agents are supposed to remain in the car during the entire time they're on a stakeout, but it's one of those rules that even the most anal, by-the-book agents in the whole bureau routinely disregard. People have to pee. They need caffeine. They get so bored that if they don't get out of the car for a few minutes, they're going to fall asleep. So usually one agent leaves the car for a few minutes every couple of hours. I let Chan take the first break. He's a good guy; my favorite among the agents I supervise and, while I would never use the word 'partner' to describe him -- that word is forever linked in my mind to a mental picture of Scully -- that's pretty much the way we function when we're in the field together.

I take advantage of his absence to call Scully. Not that he'd care if I called her while he was there -- Chan and Scully get along great -- but, mindful of Jimmy's conversation earlier this evening, I'd prefer to keep my cell phone chat with my wife private.

"Scully," she says sleepily.

"Did I wake you?" I ask.

"Not really. I was sort of half-asleep. I've just been lying in bed listening to the rain and waiting for you to call. I figured you would, when you got a chance."

"How's Melissa?"

"Fine. She's asleep, of course. We went ahead and ate with my mother, since you weren't coming home for dinner. How are you holding up?"

"I wish you were here with me. I was spoiled by all those years of having my beautiful wife in the car with me while I was on stakeouts."

"Mulder, we only worked together for eleven months after we got married!"

"Well, my beautiful partner who eventually became my wife," I clarify.

"Personally, I always found the situation damned frustrating," she says. "All those long hours in an enclosed space with you would get me so horny I could barely think straight and there was nothing I could do about it."

"There was plenty you *could* have done about it, Dana," I point out. "You just chose not to."

"Want to play a game, Fox?" she asks, her voice a husky purr.

"I don't think Chan wants to return to the car and find me engaging in phone sex, sweetheart."

She kind of snorts at that. "Well, good. Because we're not going to. This is a game for after you get home. A game of let's pretend."

"Pretend what?" I ask, although I have a pretty good idea of where she's going with this. Scully and I aren't big into role playing games -- dressing up like a harem girl and a sheik or whatever isn't really our thing -- but we sometimes like to do a bit of fantasy time traveling. I guess it's all those years we worked with each other, experiencing the longest and most frustrating case of mutual unfulfilled sexual tension in recorded history, that leads to us sometimes liking to make believe it's our 'first time' all over again. We'd both imagined it so often over the years.

"Pretend that you're a lonely, single agent who has the hots for his usual partner."

"The skeptical-yet-sexy Dr. Dana Scully."

"Uh, well. . ."

"Sexy," I repeat, the tone of my voice making it clear that I'm not backing down on that part.

"Thank you," she says softly. "Anyway, pretend that you've been temporarily partnered with another agent, on some sort of bullshit routine surveillance duty, while I've been out at Quantico."

"Okay."

"But when you come home to what you expect to be your lonely, empty bed you find me there instead."

"I used to fantasize about finding you in my bedroom."

"It would have been difficult for me to have found the bed during much of our partnership, Mulder."

"There is that," I agree. "Set the stage for me a little bit more, Scully. What point of our relationship are we supposed to be at?"

"Well, when we'd known each other long enough to have sexual fantasies about each other, but before we'd ever made love."

"For me, that would cover everything from our first case together until our wedding night. You said you wanted to make believe you were out at Quantico while I was on routine surveillance. Are we pretending it's way back when they closed the X-Files and split us up the first time? Before you were abducted?"

She's quiet for a minute and then says, "No; later than that. When they'd put Jeff Spender and Fowley on the X-Files and reassigned us to the anti-terrorism detail. Technically we remained partners during that time, but they were always trying to divert one or the other of us off somewhere else, like that time they sent me to New York City on my own. Let's pretend it's after the enchanting Christmas at the haunted house, and after we'd saved Skinner's life, but before we got the X-Files back."

"After the first time I'd told you that I love you," I clarify.

"Yes, Mulder. Because, even though I might have written it off as drug-induced rambling at the time you said it, only after hearing those words would I ever have had the courage to attempt to seduce you."

"Here's your coffee," Chan says, scaring the shit out of me and making me drop the phone. I've had my eyes fixed on the house across the street -- even while talking sex fantasies to Scully I was able to keep my visual attention oriented in that direction -- but I hadn't been paying attention to anything other than whether the guy was emerging and what Scully was saying.

"Mulder?" Chan and Scully both say at once.

"Just a minute," I say to Chan. Then I pick up the phone, tell Scully, "Sounds good. I've got to go now. Bye."

"I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation with Dr. Scully," Chan says as he slides into his seat and closes the door.

"How did you know I was talking to Scully?"

"Um. . .I guess I didn't really *know*. I assumed. That's bad, huh?"

I shrug. "If you're trying to build a case for criminal prosecution, it's bad. In everyday life, people have to make certain assumptions or they'd never get through the day. In any case, you're right; I was talking to Scully."

"It's just. . .this hour of the night. . .if they'd been something major going on work-related, you would have have shared it with me before I left the car. So I assumed it was personal and that personal meant your wife."

"Yeah," I agree.

***

After several more hours of tedium, which are only relieved by my own trip to the convenience store to pick up sunflower seeds and more coffee, we finally have another pair of agents show up to take over. I say goodbye to Chan and head for home.

I make it home in record time. In part, that's due to the lack of traffic at this hour, but mostly it's due to my desire to start playing "Why, Agent Scully, whatever are you doing in my bed?"

As I near our house, I mentally shift gears so that I'm operating on two levels at once. With one part of my brain, I'm perfectly aware that this is where I live with my wife and daughter and of my identity as homeowner, pet owner and proud member of the FBI's middle management. But another part of my mind is totally in sync with the idea that I'm still the bureau's maverick X-Files agent, with only my loyal yet skeptical partner to believe in me and only unauthorized sexual fantasies of said partner to keep me warm in my lonely bed at night. Carried too far, this ability to disassociate is what causes multiple personalities and schizophrenia. But being able to do it to a certain extent is what makes me a good profiler and might, I suppose, have made me a good actor if I'd ever attempted to pursue that profession. It also makes for really intense sexual fantasies. Let the games begin.

***

I make my way down the hall and into my bedroom. I'm cold, I'm tired and I'm horny. Unfortunately, my bed will relieve only two of those problems. Well, maybe I'll get a little relief from the third condition, but only at my own hands; if I pop in one of those videos that aren't mine and call Scully on the phone. She'll kill me if she ever realizes how frequently I jack off while talking to her. But what the hell am I supposed to do? I'm a normal man, I have to have some relief for my sexual desires. I love her, but she doesn't love me in the same way. I can't have sex with her and I can't face with sex with anybody else, so I make do with porn and her voice.

I notice that the bathroom door is open and the light is on, pooling a patch of brightness within the shadows of my bedroom. I drop my topcoat and suit jacket on the floor, then remove my holster and weapon and put them up. I take off my shoes and tie, then hesitate as I reach for my belt buckle. If I'm going to go into the kitchen and forage for something to eat in my under stocked refrigerator, I'd rather keep my pants on.

"Keep going, FBI man," a sultry, sleepy voice says from the depths of the blankets piled on my bed.

"Scully? What are you doing in my bedroom?"

"Just keep going, Mulder. We'll discuss it in a minute."

I nod and strip of my shirt and pants. I keep my boxer-briefs on, though. It's not as if Scully's not going to notice my erection, but setting it free to wave in her face seems a bit blatant. For a couple who's not a couple in the accepted sense of that word and who don't "sleep together" in the usual meaning of that phrase, Scully and I have actually slept in the same bed -- in a strictly literal meaning of the words -- on several different occasions. But usually it's when those are the only accommodations available or when one or the other of us has just escaped from some sort of near-death experience. We don't, generally, just show up for sleepovers at each other's apartments.

I lift the covers and scoot in next to her. As soon as I touch her shoulder, I make a startling discovery.

"Scully, are you naked?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Mulder, I'm naked and I'm in your bed. If you can't figure out why, you're not half the brilliant profiler you're rumored to be."

I'm quiet for a moment as the implications of what's about to happen sink into my brain. Apparently misinterpreting my silence, Scully says, "Okay, Mulder, I guess I took some remarks you meant as jokes *way* too seriously. I'll leave now. Tomorrow at the office, we'll just pretend this was all a crazy dream."

I throw out a leg, pinning her to the bed with my weight and framing her face with my hands. "On the contrary, Scully, I just want to make sure you're taking this seriously enough. Because this can't be a one-night stand. I love you too much for that. If you're only doing this because you're bored or you're curious or even because you feel sorry for me. . .I can't handle that. I want you as my lover as well as my partner and best friend, Dana. But I'll need to you to be all those things, for always."

"I will, Mulder. Forever."

I bring my mouth down to hers. I mean for the kiss to be tender and questing, like the one I almost completed in the hallway last summer. Somehow, though, it slips out of control. There's tenderness, yes; but also a raw passion so intense that it practically sets the air on fire. Before I quite know what's happening, her tongue is in my mouth and mine is in hers. Maybe there's something to be said for skipping all the usual preliminaries -- like first date and first kiss -- and going directly for a grand slam with the bases loaded.

"Mulder, there's something important I need to ask you."

"Yeah?" I ask, wondering if the doctor side of her is going to insist on a mandatory discussion of our sexual histories before this proceeds any further. I'd hope, after all the years we've been together, that she'd trust me enough to know that I wouldn't have let things get even this far if I wasn't absolutely aware that I'm perfectly clean. It's been almost four years since my last sexual close encounter and I've had three annual FBI physicals during that time, which included testing for AIDS and a variety of other STDs. As for the other possible consequence of unprotected sex. . .while I realize it's unlikely, given her medical problems, I'd be thrilled if we conceived a baby and I'm pretty sure she would be, too.

"Do I get to call you Fox now?"

I chuckle at that. "You can call me anything you want when we're alone together."

"It fits, you know. You are a fox. So damned sexy it's unbelievable."

Sexy? Scully things I'm sexy? Well, yeah, I guess she must. She's naked in my arms. Still, having her actually say it makes me grow even harder. . .which I would have thought was impossible, given that I'm already rock solid.

I run the fingers of one hand delicately down her neck, across her collarbone and start heading toward previously forbidden territory. I push the blankets down so that I can see my hand against her breast. It's such a contrast: the cream and pink of her skin against the sun-browned tanness of mine. I gently shape and mold and watch in wonder as her nipples peak.

Scully's hands are at the back of my head and she seems to be trying to push my face toward her breasts.

"Say it, Scully. I want to hear you use words to tell me what you want me to do to you."

She blushes a bit but then whispers, "Lick my nipples, Mulder. Please? I want you to use your mouth on me with the same oral intensity you give those damned sunflower seeds."

I grin and lower my lips to do as she's asked. I take my time, licking gently the entire breast first and then lightly sucking at her nipples. First one and then the other. After both are wet and glistening, I latch firmly onto one with my mouth while playing with the other one with the opposite hand. Then I switch my oral attention to the other breast.

Scully is moaning. My beautiful, beloved, skeptical, rational partner is moaning with pleasure, just inches above my ear, because of the touch of my mouth and my fingers. Damn! Forget graduating with honors from Oxford and first in my class at the FBI Academy. . .making Scully moan has now moved to the head of the list as the accomplishment in which I take the most pride.

While I don't think I could ever get tired of Scully's breasts, I don't want to spend the entire night on them; not when there's so much uncharted territory left to explore. I start moving further down, kissing my way along her belly.

"Mulder, where are you going?"

"Three guesses, Scully."

"I never let anyone do that before. It seems so. . ."

"You don't want me to?"

She's quiet for just a second. Then she takes a deep breath and says, "I want *YOU* to". The implication isn't lost on me. This is something she's a bit uncomfortable with, but she trust me enough to allow it to happen. I vow to make it good for her.

I kiss to the top of her pubic hair, then lift her legs and, beginning at her knees, kiss and lick my way up the inside of first one of her thighs, then the other. I lightly outline her lower lips with my tongue and then begin to slowly eat at her. She holds herself rigid for a moment, and I'm about to pull my tongue out of her pussy and suggest we move onto the main event, while saving this particular activity for another night, when she just. . .melts. There's no other word for it. She goes practically boneless and begins to make a tiny, whimpering sound while moving herself against my face.

I keep eating at her, and can feel her beginning to tense up as a prelude to orgasm when she says, "Stop. Stop it, Mulder."

"What's wrong? I thought you were enjoying it?"

"I was. Too much. I want a turn to touch you and when I come I want it to be during actual intercourse, not during foreplay. Get up here an lay down."

"Yes Ma'am," I reply.

Scully almost immediately flips me onto my back and then proceeds to blaze the same kind of trail down my body that I'd followed on hers. My chest seems to hold a great deal of fascination for Scully, she nuzzles her face into the sparse patch of hair in its center and uses both hands to stroke my skin. Finally she looks up, smiles, and states the obvious, "I like your chest, Fox."

"I like yours, too, Dana."

"My breasts are so small. I thought you might be disappointed."

"In you, Scully? Never."

She smiles again and moves her hand further down my body. Her smile turns to a slight grimace of displeasure when she realizes I still have my boxer-briefs on. I quickly shuck them off and she grasps me. No preliminary touching, just her small, warm hand wrapped around my cock.

"God, Mulder, you're so big," she murmurs.

"Better than you were expecting?" I ask.

"You're long," she whispers, "but I was kind of prepared for that, because you're tall and have big feet and long fingers. What's surprising is that you're so *thick*; my fingers don't even meet."

I grin. I remember reading once that, while men brag incessantly about length, it's actually width that is responsible for increased sexual pleasure in women. . .that most women would much prefer a lover with a short, thick penis than a long, skinny one. Glad to know that I measure up.

Scully strokes me for a minute or two then I whisper roughly, "Stop, sweetheart".

"Why?"

"Same reason you asked me to stop when I was licking you. I waited a long time to have you in my bed, Scully. I don't intend for the first contact my semen has with your body to be all over your hand."

"Okay," she says. There's eagerness and arousal in her voice, but I detect a tiny hint of nervousness, too.

"Would you like to be top?" I ask. "You'd have more control that way."

"No, I want you on top. I don't want to be in control. Not tonight."

I kiss her once more and slide in. She's wet and hot and tight and it's all I can do not to just start fucking her so hard she sees stars. I grit my teeth and try to go slow. A swift plunge in and then a slow withdrawal; an ancient, timeless rhythm.

"I love you, Scully. So much. More than I ever believed it was possible to love anyone."

"I love," she pauses to gasp as I give a little swivel of my hips, "you, too, Mulder. Can you do that again?"

I make the swiveling motion with my hips again and she comes. Scully's like a wildcat as she climaxes, clawing at my back and hollering out my name. I hold on long enough to watch this amazing display of passion, then I give a couple more quick, hard thrusts -- this time, I don't try to hold back -- and experience my own orgasm, which goes on for longer than anything I've ever even dreamed about. Baby, I think while I'm gushing into her. Please, God, let us have a baby from this.

When I finally stop pulsating inside of Scully, I slide off and lay beside her. I try to roll her from her back to her side, so we can spoon up together in our usual sleeping position, but she resists me. "No, Mulder."

***

"Dana, I don't want to play any more," I say, a subtle note of panic in my voice. "I don't want to pretend that we're not married, that we don't have Melissa."

"Shh, Fox!" she murmurs, turning her face to kiss me lightly on the cheek. "Of course, we're married. And our daughter is asleep just across the hall. Although I must say you just gave a very convincing performance of a man who hadn't been laid for a year or longer."

"Then what's wrong, sweetheart? Why don't you want to cuddle?"

She sighs softly. "I suppose it sounds silly, but. . .I'm trying to enhance our chances for conception. I realize it's unlikely that we're going to have another baby without medical assistance, but lying on my back for a few minutes after intercourse might move things along if all the other factors are in accordance."

I'm quiet for a moment, staring into her eyes. Then I whisper, "You know that unspoken communication thing we've got going, Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought about a baby, too. Just as I was climaxing. Well, I thought of it briefly when I first got into bed with you, but again right when I came. Spooky, huh?"

"That's us," she agrees with a sleepy murmur, "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky".

I arrange us as best I can without jiggling her, lying on my side and tossing one of my legs over both of hers. Then I kiss her once more and settle down for sleep.

***

The next morning I wake up to find that the family member touching my cheek is not the one I expected. It's my daughter, not my wife, who's lying beside me in bed.

"Up, Daddy, up!" Melissa says.

"Good morning, Melissa. Where's Mommy?" I start to add "And how did you get in here?" but then remember that we moved her out of her crib and into a toddler-sized bed last week. She can now simply climb out of her bed and walk across the hall to ours. Which has its advantages, but also some disadvantages.. . .like the fact that I never did put anything back on last night, so she's caught me naked.

Scully is pretty casual about appearing naked in front of Melissa; I don't know if that's due to Melissa being a little girl or just the way mothers are. While I honestly don't feel it would warp our daughter for life if she happened to see me nude, I don't want to deliberately flash her, so I'm trying to work out a complicated maneuver where I snag my boxer-briefs from the floor beside the bed and work them up my legs without removing the blankets. I'm also trying to figure out where Scully is.

"Dana?" I holler out.

"Mommy!" Melissa says, obviously having figured out that these are two different words for the same person.

"In the bathroom," comes the muffled response from the other side of the door.

Scully emerges a minute later, wearing my dress shirt from last night. Damn! It's a good thing that I've managed to become semi-clothed by this point, because she looks so scrumptious that I start to rise. However, rather than greeting us with smiles and kisses like she usually does in the morning, Scully groans and dives under the covers, where she curls herself into a tight ball.

"Sweetheart, are you okay?"

"I think I will be, but not for another hour or two."

"You're not coming down with the flu are you?"

"No, I don't think it's that."

"Um, Dana, I realize you're the doctor, but I don't think morning sickness normally starts barely," I pause to glance at the clock, "six hours after conception, even assuming we did get lucky last night."

"Mommy sick?" Melissa asks, leaning over to peer at Scully's face.

"It's not exactly that, but. . .Mulder, do you know what 'mittleserch' means?"

"Is it another word for ovulation?" I ask, searching my memory.

"Sort of. It refers to a brief but intense pain some women experience during ovulation, often accompanied by gas and diarrhea. I used to get it when I was in high school and college, then it subsided. A couple of months ago, I felt it for the first time in years, but it was during a week when you were out-of-town on business."

"So does this mean we need to uh. . .you know. . .again tonight?" I ask, not wanting to be specific with Melissa sitting there.

"It would probably maximize our chances, but actually the peak day of a woman's fertility is the one right *before* ovulation. So last night was good timing."

I don't say anything, just smile at her and Melissa. Scully peeks over the top of the covers and says, "Don't look at me like that, Fox. I could be wrong, this could be nothing more than me coming down with the flu or experiencing a mild case of food poisoning. And if I *am* ovulating even as we speak there are still dozens of different factors -- in your body as well as mine -- that would all have to be aligned just exactly right."

I lean closer and brush a strand of bright red hair off her cheek, then whisper in her ear, "Stop being such a skeptic, Scully. You know me. I want to believe."

"I just don't want to disappoint you."

"I could never be disappointed in you, Dana. I'd be thrilled with an addition to our family, but I've already got so much more than I ever even dared dream about."

"Mommy, up! Beckfest!" Melissa says.

"We're going to let Mommy rest for a while," I answer. "I'll get breakfast for you and help you get dressed. Can we bring you anything, Mommy?"

"No. Just let me rest for a little bit longer. I may need to make one more trip to the bathroom, then I should be fine."

I pick up my daughter and waltz downstairs.

Author's e-mail addy: tapw63@yahoo.com