Ancient Elements IV: Plate Tectonics 
By Mesa (Mesa98@juno.com) 

Spoilers: None 
Rating: NC-17 
Category: V, R 
Keywords: MSR 
Summary: How do we measure time, and how do we know where we 
belong? Mulder muses about Scully. 

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the X-files are the 
property of 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No infringement 
is intended. 

Note: This completes the Ancient Elements series. Chronologically 
it is the fourth, but you do not need to have read the others to 
understand this. 

This is for Shari and Lisa, who asked, and for Deb whose idea it was. 
And, of course, my deep gratitude to Meredith, without whom I 
wouldn't be writing at all. 

Feedback would be most gratefully received at Mesa98@juno.com 

PLATE TECTONICS 
March 1999 

Millions of years ago, when the earth was forming--heating and 
cooling in vast, unimaginable expenditures of energy--the continents 
were not separate. They were conjoined, whole. In elementary 
school, my teacher demonstrated the way that if you could shift the 
current landmasses around you could see how parts of Africa would 
tuck neatly against South America. Although I was young, I still 
remember the strange wrenching feeling in my stomach--a sympathetic 
pain at the force that had rent one land from another. I thought 
it must be like a family being ripped in two. It was a pain that 
was familiar. 

Even after the continents had drifted apart, there were landbridges. 
Small spits of land that defied continental drift. That stubbornly 
tried to hang on, in one small place or another, until they too 
disappeared and we were left isolated in our own lonely lands for 
so many years. 

Eventually the continents were joined again by ships and then planes 
and by the bold adventuring spirits of explorers -- both good and 
bad outcomes to that -- but our loneliness remained. We humans 
were lost in the knowledge that what had once been joined was 
torn apart, and we couldn't ever really be whole again. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Tonight I hold her. 

It is such a simple thing. And it is everything. 

It is cool here tonight. The campfire on the beach keeps us warm 
against the chill ocean breezes, but not so warm that we don't need 
to huddle together, sharing a heat that is only partly the result 
of our physical closeness. 

Another case, another chase, another mystery solved, and a mutual 
agreement that we needed time that wasn't defined by the bureaucratic 
strictures and structure of Washington, and so we stayed here for 
the weekend. Away. Together. 

Such a simple thing. 

//In my end is my beginning.// 

We are back where we started. 

On a beach, with the ocean in front of us, and the world seeming 
to wait, holding its breath to see what will happen next. Only this 
time I know. I know how this evening will end, and where we will 
go from here. As much as I can know anything, I know this. I will 
be with her. And she with me. 

We are surrounded by unfamiliar elements: the crackle and spark of 
an open fire that blazes up and out into the night air, the sound 
and scent and sentience of the ocean just beyond, the looming cliffs 
behind us. Out here on the Pacific Coast, it feels like we are on 
the edges of the known world. Isolated, insulated, at least for a 
time from all the petty annoyances of time and obligations and 
paperwork. 

The cliff behind us rises dark and brooding up into the night-- 
sweeping lines of black stone that contain the records of time 
and the mysteries of life trapped and hidden between their tightly 
compressed layers. The edge of a continent--eroded now, by time 
and wind and water, and yet still bearing the form of what it once 
was. The imprint of the place it was once joined to, and from 
which it was wrenched away during the vast upheavals of the 
earth's formation. 

I pull Scully a little closer to me, feeling the soft curve of her 
back as it fits against the lines of my chest. Wrapping my arms a 
little tighter around her, pressing my legs along hers. 

She seems lost in the fire--her gaze trapped in the flames that dance 
and spark and pop with a murky crispness in the night. Her silence 
is warm, too, encompassing, not excluding. We do not need words 
here and now. Her hands running softly up and down my forearms 
are all the answers I have ever sought. 

She is both near and far away from me. So close I can smell the 
cardamom and vanilla scent of her beneath the smoke of the fire, and 
yet, I know her mind is leagues from here, floating in some quiet 
current of contemplation and memory. 

I slip into my own stream of memory... 

Last night, in my room. The two of us, wound up from the adrenaline 
rush of catching the killer, but also so tired from the case. Weary 
of evil and the loss of innocents. 

We had suffered through the obligatory final dinner with the local 
police, and finally escaped to our motel. As soon as the cruiser 
that had dropped us off cleared the parking lot, I heard Scully's 
knock on my room door. 

She was still wearing her trenchcoat as she drifted with languid 
purpose through my door. I could see fatigue written on every line 
of her face, underscored by a glimmering purpose. She took my 
breath away. 

Using nothing but her gaze, she froze me into place as she closed the 
door and purposefully discarded her coat, a casual puddle left on the 
floor behind her as she advanced on me with the slow determination 
of lioness culling the weakest gazelle from the herd. You know all 
my weaknesses, Scully, simply take me, make it quick, be merciful. 

Her hands reached for me--sweet and sure. Gentle, but firm. Brooking 
no arguments, no denials. Not that I would offer any resistance. 
I surrendered to her pull, her gentle tugging on my lapels until our 
mouths met. And met and clung, and touched, and tasted. 

Kissing Scully is indescribable. It is nothing less than a full 
commitment of myself, my soul, our souls. She is fierce in this, 
as she is in all that she does. But there is a special daring in 
the way she surrenders herself to the force that rages between us. 

When her mouth touches mine--each time--I can almost envision her 
standing on the edge of cliff and then suddenly hurling herself over 
the edge. Trusting the living passion that binds us together to keep 
her from destruction on the rocks and waters below. There is never 
any hesitation in her in these moments. She leaps into our joining 
with a joyful abandon that never fails to awe me. 

My fingers cradled her face, slowly moving back to tangle in her 
hair, to caress the fragile bones of her head and neck and shoulders. 
We were careful with each other last night. Aware of our mutual 
tiredness, seeking to please one other, to restore each other in 
this declaration of what we are--together. 

Her hands smoothed over my body, knowing, kind, demanding. Long, 
smooth strokes that aroused and soothed. I found myself trembling 
and couldn't even find the words to name the reason. 

Pragmatic concerns finally broke our kiss--I always forget that 
oxygen is a necessity. I somehow always believe that I can subsist 
simply on Scully. 

She looked solemn in the odd, yellow-dim hotel light of my room, 
but her eyes were ablaze with a fire that rose up from the depths of 
her soul--the fire of the earth's core, molten, slow-burning, 
white-hot. 

She pushed my jacket back from my shoulders and down my arms, and 
helped me as I shrugged it off and let it drop, unremarked, to the 
floor. Then she carefully removed my tie and unbuttoned my shirt. 
A studied seduction that asked for only my total trust, and belief 
in her. 

It was my turn, fingers rendered suddenly clumsy by the feelings 
gripping me, fumbling to undo her blouse's buttons, to gently tug 
the fragile fabric off and away. A quiet humor lit her face as she 
simply unclasped and shrugged out of her bra by herself. 

My hands were no longer clumsy as I reached out to trace her skin, 
to feel the warm velvet smoothness of her, the delicate architecture 
of her bones beneath, the sinuous connections of her muscles and 
tendons moving under my questing fingers. 

Long, languid moments of exploration, of touching and tasting. Lips 
and hands flowing over territory long since marked by claims of 
possession. Our bodies melding together, drawn by a gravitational 
pull that we had tried to deny for too long. 

Another endless kiss, and I felt her deft hands undoing my 
belt, and the quiet passion of the evening began to spark to a 
different rhythm, a more urgent pull. 

More quickly now, the rest of clothing removed, and we tumbled onto 
my bed, limbs tangling, breaths mingling in husky laughter that was 
drowned again by our mouths fusing. 

And then she was over me, lowering herself, joining us in a single, 
fluid movement. Oh God, Scully. Yes, always yes. There are no 
words for this moment. Ever. There is only us. And yes. 

My palms skimmed up her ribcage to gently cradle her breasts, 
simply holding them, feeling their weight and heft as she moved 
over me. Her hands covered mine briefly, and then stroked down 
my arms until she rested them lightly on my chest, just for balance. 

For a time, we recaptured the slowness, the unhurried, erotic 
leisurely pace of the night. She rocked up and back, stroking 
deliberately--an even steady motion that carried us smoothly 
forward. Ever forward. I could feel my orgasm beginning to build, 
the tight, cutting coil of pleasure beginning to unwind in my balls 
and gut. I could see her matching arousal building in her eyes-- 
an echoing hunger that both fed mine and sharpened it. I could 
smell us, our mingled scents wrapping around my consciousness, 
causing me to gasp, trying to take us ever deeper into my lungs. 

She whispered my name, "Mulder," and leaned over to kiss me again, 
and the pleasure swirled upward, past my racing heart. All pretense 
of languor was swept away in the lust and need and love that washed 
over me with her honey-dark voice. 

"Scully--?" 

"Yes," and I rolled us both until she was beneath me, and began to 
drive into her with an arrhythmic intensity that should have 
frightened us both, but only drove us more quickly forward. 

I felt her tightening around me, and heard her call out, an 
inarticulate crying of need and need met, and then my own release 
hit and I was flung into welcome oblivion.... 


The fire pops suddenly, a resin bubble exploding loud and 
unexpectedly, startling us both. Scully stirs in my arms, bringing 
me fully back to the present. I wonder what she has been thinking 
about. 

"Mulder?" Her voice in the darkness is soft, but certain. 

"Yes?" 

Her hands tighten around mine for a moment, and I can hear her smile. 
"Nothing. Just, Mulder." 

I think, but do not say, "I love you, too." The words are too 
dangerous, and anyway, she knows. 

Silence wraps around us again. 

The earth moves through space at thousands of miles per hour-- 
circling the sun, spinning and spinning in its long, elliptical 
orbit, taking us through all the seasons, moving us in and out of 
meteor showers, and years and time. 

And yet, held here by gravity, and centrifugal force, we don't feel 
it at all. We are not aware of the motion carrying us through the 
vast reaches of our galaxy. We don't feel the dizzying whirl of 
our orbit. We feel nothing at all but the surety that we belong 
here, that we are anchored to this reality. 

There was a time when I misjudged her. I thought she was stolid, 
unimaginative, prosaic. I missed her speed, her motion, her long, 
smooth passes around the sun. Her sure navigation through space. 

It was only much later that I realized that she did make me dizzy-- 
but in a strange grounded way, as though her gravitational pull 
would both undo me and be the only thing in the universe that 
could hold me together. 

Holding in her my arms last night, holding her on the beach tonight, 
I now know the truth--I can feel her movements beneath her stillness, 
can sense the energy that she barely keeps harnessed. 

I can barely express, even to myself, what she is to me. 

I spent years adrift--lost, separated from all the others like me-- 
ever in search of something that I couldn't even define. I had 
distinct quests, I still do, but always I knew that there was 
something more. Some nameless something else that lay beyond 
my immediate goals, but which was the thing that would end my 
searching forever. 

I almost didn't realize it when I finally found it. We all spend 
our lives, I have come to see, in search of something. Trying to 
reconcile that human sense of loss that is an unconscious echo 
from the time when we were all joined. When the continents 
weren't separated. We look for landbridges, and all too often we 
fall into oceans or canyons when those bridges collapse without 
warning. 

The lucky few, though..... 

It has gotten colder. I can feel a small shudder wrack Scully and 
realize that I am feeling a little cold and stiff. 

Ever the practical one, she speaks first, "Ready to go back?" It is 
not a question I want to answer, because tonight is our last night 
here. Tomorrow we must return to Washington, and the Bureau and 
the mad game which is our lives. No, I am not ready to go back. 

"Yeah. It is getting sort of cold." 

We untangle ourselves and bury the embers of the fire. She starts 
to take my hand for the walk back across the sand to our hotel, but 
instead I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her into my side as 
we turn to go home. The crash-hiss-wash of the waves serenading 
us as we quietly leave. 

As we walk from the beach, I feel the continental shelf of my 
heart meet hers and the fit is perfect, and we are whole once more. 

END 

Feedback would be very appreciated. Mesa98@Juno.com