Ancient Elements I: Undertow

[vivfic]

Fandom: X-Files
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Summary: The danger of the oceans is that you can never see the undertow until it's too late.



Ancient Elements I: Undertow
Originally posted as Mesa
October 1998

Rating: NC-17
Category: V, A, R
Spoilers: None
Keywords: MSR

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Broadcasting.

Feedback always greatly appreciated.

My deep gratitude to Meredith The Wonderful. Extraordinary editor
and writer.

My thanks to my friends, who keep my laughing, and remind me why
we do the things we do.

It called to her.

The crash-hiss-wash of the waves breaking against the shore permeated
the air. Less a sound than part of the atmosphere. Oxygen, carbon
dioxide, hydrogen, fluorocarbons, and this sound--combined into a
breathable mixture of air, salt, sound, sand, and the scent that was
simply ocean.

Crash. Hiss. Wash.

Relentless. Remorseless. Inevitable.

It was the sound of her childhood. The tidal rhythms of the seas ran
through her - tugging at her at odd hours, in strange nights.
Stranded in some hotel in the heartland of America during one of
their assignments, she would find herself restlessly awakening to
the knowledge that the tide was going out. Somewhere far away.
Somewhere she longed to be.

She was a child of the oceans. She understood them. Feared them.
Respected them.

Needed them.

Needed this--this communion with the slow drag of the waves against
the sand, the feel of salt and water against her skin, the smell of
seaweed and danger in her senses.

It was March. The Atlantic Coast along this stretch of the
Massachusetts shore largely deserted. The case had ended,
unsatisfactorily, earlier that day, but it had been too late to begin
long trip home. So one more night here, at this beach front motel.
Vaguely shabby in the off-season light, but near the water.
Her water.

She walked slowly along the shore line, unconsciously shivering a
little in the wind that cut through the unseasonably warm early
Spring air. Dusk now, just past dusk. Barely light to see, but the
moon was bouncing off the water, and she didn't want to turn away
yet. She required this time to be near the water.

The waters of sea were life, but also death.

As a child, growing up with a sailor father, she had instinctively
known that the sea might one day rend Ahab from their family.
Every year the Scullys had attended the funerals for the sailors
who didn't come home. Sailors lost due to their own carelessness,
sheer accident, or simply because the sea demanded respect, and
sometimes exacted the price at random.

At each funeral Dana had been unable to stop herself from imagining
the day that the empty casket would be for her father. But she
never asked him to turn down the next sea-faring assignment--they
were both too proud for such requests--and he had always come back.

At the end, of course, the sea had reclaimed him--accepting his ashes
in the same silence that it had accepted his love, his service.
Ashes to ashes, but the Scullys lived from water to water. You
gave the sea its due.

The wind shifted, sharper now, and Scully realized the chill came not
from her memories, but from the cooling air. Still she was
reluctant to turn back. The siren call of the Atlantic pulled her
along, deeper into the night.

Deeper.

The hazards of water lie in their apparent transparency. You believe
that because you can see through them, that you know them--understand
where the danger is. But you never see the riptide that pulls you
under. Never recognize the undertow until it is too late.

Scully had nearly drowned twice.

She was twelve the first time it happened. The warm waters of the
Pacific had been a natural playground for her and her siblings when
they were stationed in San Diego. Summer weekends at the beach
were crowded, noisy, and frenetic. She'd loved being part of the
bustle, but sometimes felt left out of things.

Missy and Charlie and Bill would strike up casual friendships for a
day or a weekend, playing in pickup games of volleyball and trading
surfing tips. But Dana was small, scrawny really, and also inclined
to a certain shyness. She was not a natural "pick" for the teams
that coalesced on the sand courts, not inclined to easily chatter.

She quickly found that simply heading out into the waters, swimming
and floating and swimming that she could be a part of it all, but
not have to pretend to be a part of group that probably didn't want
her. That she was never entirely sure she wanted, either.

She became a very strong swimmer. She reveled in her strength and
endurance. The feel of her body cutting through the water, moving
with and against the current, outwitting the sea--always managing to
return to shore. Out there in the waters, she imagined herself a
sea-faring animal: a dolphin, an orca. Something graceful, with
just an edge of danger. Swimming alone became more than a habit.
It became a necessity.

It had been a normal day. Bright, sunny--maybe slightly breezier
than normal, but nothing out of the ordinary. She'd walked down
the beach a little way. A little removed from the shrieking children
and laughing kids. The waves were up--perfect height for diving
through. She'd walked out into the water, until she was submerged
to just below her waist--shivering at the cold-hot sensation of
adjusting to the chilly water.

A perfect wave approached--she tensed, dove through, and was
instantly caught in an undertow. Suddenly blind, deaf,
directionless, she was tumbled rough in the surf. Over and over,
she was spun, pushed, pulled. Her skin was scraped raw by the
sand small rocks, shells snatched up by the same lurking maelstrom.

There was only the sudden surprise of the taking--no time to fight,
no time to panic, no time to do anything but surrender to the forces
of the ocean. There was only the green, brown, watery, sandy,
relentless force that sucked her under and kept her down, down,
down....and she let go of everything, and let the water carry her
away...further beneath the surface, out into the water...until
suddenly there was light and air and her lungs were sucking in
oxygen, great tearing gasps, and there was the shore.

She was surprised to find that she could stand, that she hadn't been
swept miles out to sea. She staggered ashore a mile from where
she'd entered the water--shaky, disoriented, bewildered. For an
endless time, she simply sat on the sand, and looked at the
deceptive waves.

Eventually her heart returned to its slow steady beating, and her
breathing evened. She stood and walked back to the others, who
never remarked on her slightly torn suit, her unusual (even for her)
quiet.

It was her first real lesson about her own fragility. And strength.

The second time the ocean nearly claimed her was years later. On
Spring Break from Berkeley her freshman year, she had impulsively
jumped in her car and driven down the coast. No plans, no particular
destination--she had just needed to drive, to move, to break out.
She'd found herself in a beach-front town near where they had lived
during their tour at San Diego, and decided to stay for a day or two.

It was a weekday, so the beaches were less crowded than usual, and
she'd found a stretch that was reasonably isolated. In the back of
her head, she knew that she should have checked in with a life
guard station, found out the swimming conditions. She was older
now. She Knew Better. But it was Spring Break, and she was
strong, and the waves looked gentle. Surely wading out and testing
the waters couldn't be too dangerous.

She trusted the ocean. She knew the ocean. It wouldn't hurt her.
It protected her father. It would allow her this. It would feel her
need, and support her, carry her.

And once again, an innocent wave masked the deadly menace of
riptides. Once again, an undertow nearly destroyed her.

This time she fought--tried to claw her way to the surface, find the
light and air. Tried to overpower the forces that overpowered her.
Tried to stop the immutable fact of the waves and pull of the
currents. She turned and twisted, pushing against the force of the
waves, trying to outthink the tides, to analyze which direction she
needed to go. It availed her nothing. In her panic, she began
losing air more quickly, sucked in a great mouthful of seawater.

She was still fighting when once more, the ocean relented, and
she was eventually cast ashore--battered, bruised, aching, but alive.

She never stopped swimming in oceans. At every opportunity, she
would go to the water, seek to touch the waves, to swim through the
breakers at the shore line, to reach open water and simply be.

To exist in a place where she could feel the beat of the waves like
a heartbeat. Where the slow pulse of the world was all she knew,
all she needed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He called to her.

She felt the pull along her limbs, her veins vibrating with the dark
awareness. The tug of the moon calling the tides in and out.
Silver black fire coursing through her--the fire of lava, infinitely
hotter than the mere red, white, orange flames of forest fires.
Cool fire. Utter devastation. Utter seduction.

The lure of danger. The siren call of the unknown. It had infected
her. Taken her unaware some deep night, and she had never been
the same.

An awareness moved over her body, prickling, touching. Light
trails of sensation tingling up and down her spine--skirting the
edge of hot-cold. Knife blade trailing along skin.

The tidal rhythm beating in her heart changed--deepened, faltered,
and then picked up, just slightly asynchronous.

She turned away from the water.

He was waiting for her. She could only see his silhouette back lit
by the light spilling from the open door of his room. He was out
on the porch in front of their rooms, leaning against the railing.
A passing observer would think he was casually taking the night air,
but she knew him. She could read the tension in him from yards
away, could feel the waiting in him, the longing, the reaching.

She could feel his silent calling to her. Wondered if he even knew
that he was doing it. Wondered if there were times when she
called to him without knowing it. But she knew the calling was real.
That it existed between them--binding them, balancing them,
keeping them whole.

She knew he was watching her--felt his eyes cutting through the
darkness to find her shadow against the deeper shadows of the night.
Knew that he had found her outlined against the ocean. Was now
watching her every moment. She shivered again, but there was no
trace of the night air in her consciousness.

She stopped. Waited. Let the tension reel out, stretched taut and
thin between them. Pulled back against the calling. Resisted the
rhythm of him, of them.

Undertow.

Dark, deadly, waiting for her beneath the surface of that need, that
longing. The silent, merciless riptides that reached out to pull
her under and away and beneath.

She began walking toward the motel. Toward him.

Her thoughts snarled and tangled--creatures caught in fishing nets,
drowning without knowing what had undone them.

Closer and closer, until she stood just below him, looking up to
him as he stood on the porch.

An endless moment of lost language--silent communion.

"Aren't you cold?" His tone was careful, but held so many
undercurrents. Come in from the cold, help me find warmth, let
us find heat.

"A little." She looked back at the water for just a second. "But
I needed to...."

"Yes, you always do." And there was that understanding. That touch.

She walked around and up onto the porch, meeting him on common
ground.

"I miss the ocean."

He turned to stare out at the water with her, moving subtly closer.
Not quite touching, but no real space between them. She could smell
his scent--subtle, musky, secretive--underneath the salt and sand.
"I know. It....it gets in your blood doesn't it?"

Barely a whisper. "Yes. I can feel its rhythms."

Careful movement, and a hand brushing across her back. Hovering for
a moment, indecision, and then she was pulled gently against him.
The dark night and their isolation enhanced her sense of danger, but
she fought back against her instinctive stiffening. They had denied
themselves basic human contact for too long. She could feel him
sigh when she relaxed into his pull. "It's a heartbeat."

Her own thoughts echoed back to her had become familiar, but she
felt a sudden flare of acknowledgment at the intimacy. He knew
her as no other did.

"The pulse of the world."

Small snort. "You're the scientist in this combo, Scully, when did
you develop these poetic tendencies?"

"It's the ocean. The tides. Out here, at the water's edge, I
understand why early scientists thought that the elements were
water, fire, earth and air."

"There are forces beyond even your philosophy, Horatio." A vague
laughter evidenced in his tone, but something uncertain
underscored it.

"More things in heaven and earth...." She was dislocated from time,
drifting, listening to the heartbeat of the world. Beginning to
hear the heartbeat just 8 inches from her ear.

"It feels like we're the only people in the world out here, doesn't
it?" His tone was so solemn. She felt an ache begin in her chest.

"Maybe we are..." It wasn't what she had meant to say, but it felt true right then.

His only reply was to turn and pull her into the shelter of his body,
pressing her against him tightly. In the dark, alone in the world,
no one for miles but the two of them, she wondered if he needed
comfort, or the simple touch of another.

Until she realized that he was trembling slightly--felt the hard
heat of his arousal against her body. He made no further movement.
Merely held her, cradling her head lightly to his chest; his other
arm wrapped gently around her back.

Her mood turned suddenly mercurial--liquid, quicksilver,
unpredictable. Mind darting down passages of sensation and need
and longing and knowledge. They were the only people in the world.
This was the only moment in time.

She tilted her head and nipped at his chin, then soothed the sudden
pain with her lips and tongue.

His indrawn breath was harsh, ragged. He lowered his head and his
lips met hers. Fully, demanding, seeking, asking.

There is a moment of surrender when the undertow claims you. A
moment when you must commit yourself to capitulating your will to
that of the elemental forces of nature. The moment when you accept
the destiny that the seas will for you--to be swept out to sea and
drowned, or cast back to the safety of shore.

It is only in accepting the consequences of your folly to test the
waves, that you have any hope of survival.

Her mouth opened beneath his, permitting him access to her--her
heart, her soul, her body. Everything had always been his. For a
long time now. For too long.

Her arms moved to pull him closer, tighter, deeper. His mouth moved
over hers, his tongue touched hers, tangled briefly, conquered,
claimed and retreated, so that she might claim him, too. He tasted
vaguely of cinnamon and coffee and the undefined truths of night,
and love, and trust.

Their hands began to rove, restlessly touching, caressing, holding.
His hands moved along her sides, her back, until they brushed
along the side of her breast. Even through the sweater she wore,
the touch sparked and jolted--pleasure washing over her.

Her groan reverberated through them both, shaking them, awakening
them to this--this moment, this reality.

He pulled back, and for a moment looked almost startled.

No words. No need for words. A look that was 'yes' and 'yes' and
the hand holding hers only shook faintly as they made their way into
the room and closed the door.

A sudden attack of near awkwardness as they closed the drapes and
turned on the dim corner lamp and shed coats and suddenly faced each
other across the 4-foot abyss that seemed to separate them. But
then he stepped forward, and she stepped forward and there was
nothing between them but laughter and touch and their bond.

He was beautiful--long limbed, lithe, lanky. She couldn't stop
touching him, running her hands over the skin and hair and scars
and sinew and muscles that strained up to meet her touch. She washed
over him with her hands and mouth and hair, insinuating herself
against him, upon him. Beneath her hands she felt the smooth-rough
of the hair on his chest, the heat and dampness of his sweat-
slicked skin.

Finally he laughed, mock-growled at her and rolled them over to
lavish the same attention on her. His heavy weight across her legs
and body a welcome burden as she writhed and trembled beneath the
onslaught of the pleasure he brought. He suckled her breast--
worshipping her with touch and kiss. She cried out, wordlessly,
incoherent with pleasure and the knowledge that it was him here with
her, in this room, in this bed.

Their mouths fused once more, imparting acceptance and need and
acknowledgment of need met. Soft and rough, sweet and sharp--past
meeting present, defining a future that had never been thought
possible.

And then she was beneath him, looking up into eyes dilated into
ebony discs surrounded by emerald fire. She twisted, her legs
parting in invitation, mirrored need, acceptance. He sank into her
with a slow inexorable thrust, filling her. Filling spaces she
hadn't known were empty.

"Ah."

The waters are so beautiful

He pulled back, and she felt the movement vibrating through her.

But you must always beware of what lies beneath.

He surged forward again--tight, deep. Home. His eyes were wide
open, and meeting them, she felt herself falling, pulled into the
endless oceans.

And back.

She shifted underneath him, meeting him and pulling them onward,
out to sea.

Forward. They could hear the waves crashing outside their room.
The ocean's relentless, inevitable, unchanging voice echoing through
their years.

And again, and again, and their rhythms meshed, and merged, and
mimicked the ocean's, until the undertow caught them, pulling them
under, tumbling them faster and harder. Rough, ragged rhythm.
Falling, sinking through the waters, breath snatched from them,
rolling, riding the waves, until finally she surrendered with a cry
that was half a sob, "Mulder!"

He surged against her once, and twice, and then he, too, abandoned
himself to the currents that swept them under.

Just before daybreak she dreamt that she was adrift in the open sea.
There was no sound but the beat of the waves. She was utterly
alone, but somehow she felt safe, secure in the ocean's embrace.
She awoke in the harbor of Mulder's arms.

END