DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the 
creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten 
Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, 
using them without permission. No copyright infringement is 
intended. All other concepts or ideas herein are mine.
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Through US season 7
ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE 
(http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS 
COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later 
parts develop...

WATER'S EDGE
by
Elizabeth Rowandale (Elizabeth Boyd-Tran) <bstrbabs@earthlink.net>
Copyright (c) 2001


CHAPTER 8b


"Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you"
--Lifehouse, "Hanging by a Moment"



The air was a little warmer here beneath the street lamp.  
The crosswind off the water lost some of its strength.  
Daniel was seated on the ornate wood and iron bench at the 
center of the park.  Beside him, close, but not touching, 
sat Dana Scully, the woman he could never forget.

He was watching her again.  Watching the lines of her face 
in the deceptive light as she carefully removed each sign 
of the vulnerability she had opened to him only moments 
ago.  First the set of her mouth shifted from open to 
tight, then the angle of her jaw set, then it was her eyes.  
The gentle tenderness in their depths faded as the glaze of 
distance washed into place.

He wasn't certain when any sense of control he had felt 
over the course of the evening had slipped through his 
fingers.  Their heated exchange had torn open countless old 
wounds, fresher for all concerned than they would ever have 
guessed.

He was certain of one thing.  He could not let her walk 
away angry.  Not again.  Not when her anger clearly masked 
so much.  He had waited too long for this moment to let it 
pass them by.  He had seen too much in her eyes moments ago 
to believe she had nothing left to feel.

But it was his turn to talk.  Dana had laid her cards on 
the table.  And if anything was going to break the impasse 
it would have to come from him.  Which meant admitting to 
his own barriers.  Diving in with both feet and ceasing to 
guard himself against the potential of the pain he so 
clearly remembered.

Time was ticking.  And with each silent second she pulled 
further away.

He needed to speak.  He needed to tell her what he had 
truly felt, so long ago, and then...now.  The trick was, he 
had to admit the truth to himself before it could pass 
convincingly across his lips.

Dana shifted slightly, lowered her gaze to the uneven stone 
path.

He had to leap.  "Dana.  Do have any idea why I reacted to 
your decision the way I did?"

For a long moment she didn't respond, and he wrestled with 
the irrational notion that she could no longer hear him.  
Perhaps it was preferable to the far more obvious slight.  
His thoughts quieted when she said simply.  "No."

"Right or wrong, you weren't the only one who felt betrayed 
that day."

She drew a soft breath through her nose, her chest rose and 
fell and he wished like hell he could touch her.  Always so 
close, and just out of reach.  "How did I betray you?"  Her 
tone was neutral, guarded.

But there was a doorway there.  He felt it.

"I was in love with you, Dana.  More so than I have ever 
loved another woman in my life.  Barbara included.  You 
were what mattered to me.  I was willing to give up my 
wife, my security, my career, my daughter's respect, my 
home..all to be with you.  Without a single regret.  Not 
for a moment.  And then you walked into my office, and you 
told me that you..." he trailed off for a moment, gathering 
the reins on his emotions.  "You never hesitated to put 
your career above me.  And you didn't even act as though I 
should be shocked or hurt or...You just wanted me to be 
happy you were leaving.  You chose a job that would almost 
certainly take you away from me.  Dana...do you have any 
idea how that felt for me?  I thought we shared a dream, a 
passion...a *future*.  And when you walked in and announced 
you were joining the FBI, abandoning everything we had 
planned together..."

"Planned?  Don't you mean dreamed??"  She looked at him 
now, and he realized she was back in the conversation.

"Dreamed?  What do you mean?"

"Daniel...you fantasized about our life together, you 
*talked* about leaving Barbara and getting married.  And I 
believed you, and I waited for something to happen.  But 
nothing happened Daniel.  You weren't moving.  And things 
were getting harder and getting worse.  I didn't really 
belong in medicine anymore, not in the capacity I was 
aiming towards practicing it.  And I had thought I belonged 
with you, but I was beginning to doubt that, because I was 
becoming a permanent third wheel with no real sign of 
moving up the ladder.  I saw what I needed for myself, and 
I took it.  And I assumed that if you wanted a way out, I 
was handing it to you on a silver platter.  And if you 
didn't...well...then you'd follow me."

"I did follow you..."

She gave a weak laugh, but it hurt them both to hear it.  
"But you didn't tell me."

"No.  I didn't tell you."

"Why?"  She could give a single word such depth.  Her hair 
blew in ripples at the corner of her mouth.  Torturing him.

"I drove to your apartment one night.  You weren't home and 
I sat outside and waited for you.  Another man drove you 
home.  Kissed you goodnight.  I left."

Dana raised her eyebrow.  She held his gaze for a long 
moment, her eyes narrowed as she searched through her 
thoughts.  Then she said softly, "Jack.  Jack was rebound 
guy.  Then later...a good friend."

They sat in silence for a long moment.  And as he watched 
her, his body prickled with awareness.

"Dana...are you crying?"

She didn't respond, but her breath was shallow, her face 
hidden in the uneven shadows.

"Dana?"

"How did this happen?" she whispered, and the tears were 
now water in the flow of her voice.


*****


She asked him to walk with her.  They seemed to have agreed 
in silence that this was no longer the time for words.  
What needed to be said had been spoken, and now the truths 
needed to wash over them and settle into place.

Scully lead the way back to the main path, back toward the 
bridge.  Because she wanted to be near the water.  Because 
water had always smelled of home.

Daniel's warm hand held fast around hers and the sense of 
him was dizzying.  They stopped once more at the railing.  
The after dinner crowd was thinner now, the trees seemed 
taller, nature reclaiming its own in the blurred lines of 
night.  Daniel moved his hand to trace slow circles on her 
back.

"I strike out when I'm hurt, Dana."  His whisper was almost 
too quiet to be words.  There was a thickness in his voice.  
"You know that.  But I should never have hurt you.  Not 
you.  I'm sorry."

Dana nodded.  "I know."  She could hear Daniel's posture in 
his voice, the way he pulled up so regally when he was 
saying something honest, something noble.

She had loved this man.

Daniel brushed his fingers across the back of her hand 
where it rested on the railing.  "You're shaking," he said 
softly, intimately, and she shivered, feeling him reaching 
out for something within her.  "You seem...*scared*," he 
finished.

Scully glanced out into the darkness, swallowed to loosen 
her voice.  "Terrified," she whispered, trying to soften 
the admission with a nervous laugh.  The immediate rush of 
exposure made her stomach hurt.

"Dana..."  The word was almost a caress, though their 
bodies remained apart.  Scully closed her eyes, feeling the 
nearness of his aura.

"Why are you scared?"

A public park.  People nearby.  And yet the darkness and 
the wind made her feel somehow sheltered.  Alone with 
Daniel.  Once upon a time, they had been practiced at being 
invisibly alone in plain sight.

"It's just...it's been a long time.  I don't think I know 
how to do this anymore."

"Do what?"

She shrugged helplessly, chanced a moment of eye contact.  
The dim light softened the lines of Daniel's countenance.  
The streetlight reflected off the water and caught the 
spark in his gentle, hazel eyes.  Those eyes had always 
turned her blood to sweet cream.

"Trust," she said, her own answer surprising her.

Daniel's soft lips parted, spreading into an easy smile 
below his neat moustache.  "Dana.  Trusting is like riding 
a bicycle.  Your body will remember."  The intimacy of his 
tone, the gentle double-entendre, the cool night air, all 
were working to bring down the last of her guard, expose 
her vulnerabilities.  And the deep pools of his shadowy 
eyes were sinking through to her soul.

"My body never forgot yours," she said, eyelids heavy.  
"That was never the problem."  She could feel the 
electricity gathering in the air.  *Damn*.  It was just too 
easy to heat things up between them.  It had always been 
too easy.

The hungry anticipation remained in the air for several 
beats.  To kiss in that moment would have been without 
effort, instinctual.  But they were being so very careful, 
working so hard not to surrender until they had a solid 
mental hold on it all.

Daniel compromised.  He stepped up behind her and began a 
gentle massage of her shoulders.  His ministrations felt 
good.  Damn good.  She was strung like a steel wire, crying 
out for a soft touch to bring her back down.  She turned to 
face the water.  The wind was like fingers along her 
throat, and Daniel's warm hands were soothing her from 
behind.  She could hear him breathing.  Mulder had been a 
silent breather; creeping through dark hallways and 
sneaking up on her like a cat.  But Daniel...Daniel's 
breath had been an ever-present rhythm to the soundtrack of 
their lives.  She had missed that sound.  The sensory 
memory was almost overwhelming.

"Your right shoulder's so much tighter.  Why?"  The 
intrusion of words made her jump.

She took a moment to fathom a clear response.  "Mmmm...oh, 
I was in a fender-bender a little while back.  Hurt it on 
the seatbelt.  This morning's...*entanglement* tightened it 
up."

She felt the intent of Daniel's fingers shift ever so 
slightly from purest soothing to practiced probing.  
"You've had it x-rayed?  You want me to look at it?"  He 
leaned forward slightly to breathe into her ear.  "I *am* a 
doctor, you know."

Scully smiled softly, eyebrow raised.  When she spoke, she 
was only half-teasing.  "As am I."

Daniel took a step around her, placed a finger beneath her 
chin and turned her face up to his.  His tone was deeply 
serious.  "Yes, Dana.  You are."

Even the wind seemed to stand still.  The magnetism was 
overpowering.  Her face upturned, Daniel's gazing down upon 
her with unparalleled tenderness and respect.  She could 
still hear his breath above the wind and now she could feel 
it, ever so softly warmer than the air, brushing the bridge 
of her nose like a feather.  His fingers moved from beneath 
her chin to cradle her cheek, and the warmth of his touch 
spread beneath her skin.

He gave her more than enough time to move away.  But she 
didn't want to.  Not this time.  In fact, she moved toward 
him.  Their lips met like old friends, and the taste was 
sweet and clear and stronger than the greyed spices of 
memory.  It took no effort to turn her body to his, to slip 
her arms around his waist, beneath the shelter of his 
dinner jacket, inside the protective layers.  The tensing 
of his back muscles beneath her hands sent a thrill through 
her stomach.  There was power there.  Masculinity 
unhindered by years.  And she could remember what it felt 
like to have that power over her, around her, humbled 
beneath her.

Their kisses deepened.

Her own soft sigh as she caught her breath between kisses 
sent a symbiotic ripple through Daniel's body.

He was the one to break away.  Just enough to speak for a 
moment.  They couldn't separate further.  Forehead to 
forehead, breath meeting breath.  "Dana.  I have to know.  
You have to tell me."  His fingers curled her hair behind 
her ear.  "I don't scare you.  Not me.  Please."

"Not you," she whispered in return.  "What you bring out in 
me."  Eyes still closed, breath deep and ragged.

"What I bring out in you is beautiful, Dana."

She held the quiet, wrapped it around her like a blanket.

"Dana..."

"I want to be with you," she said softly.

Daniel pressed his moist lips every so gently to her 
eyebrow, then the corner of her eye, her cheekbone, her 
jaw.  And her head tilted back, indulging him, indulging 
herself, breathing in the night.

"I have always wanted to be with you," he whispered.

Dana slid her arms around Daniel's chest and pulled him 
tight against her.  "Keep me warm," she said, her cheek 
pressed into the expensive cloth.  "Keep me warm."

Something stopped hurting.


*****

(End of Chapter 8b.  Continued in Chapter 9a...)
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