This is for Rachel, who taught me by example about *Holy shit, what have I done?!* and who probably sent me the brain burning image by telepathy.

 
In Case of Emergency

by Lyrica
 
 

The door to the room opened and a hand holding a gun edged around the frame. It was a bit more tentative than what she'd anticipated and a bit smaller...she'd expected the door to be slammed open and that the gun would be a MAC10. Or at least a shotgun. She'd had up-close and personal introductions to each in the last two and a half days. So Dana Scully was prepared. Even though it was a pistol instead of a shotgun and the door slid open tentatively instead of being torn off the hinges, she'd been expecting it. And her anticipation left her calm.

Then a head topped with soft brown hair, one hank of it hanging loose over a hazel eye, edged peered at her over the pistol, and her heart leapt up into her throat. Something very nearly like a sob pushed at her breastbone. "Mulder," she croaked, her throat suddenly dry.

The rest of his head appeared around the facing. His boyish face split in a grin. "Clear?" he mouthed.

She nodded, not trusting her voice. Facing death, she had been tranquil. Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, seeing rescue and hope in the gaze of her partner, she choked up with tears and a thousand questions. How had they found her and how had they slipped past the guards without raising an alarm and-- Wait until Mulder heard about her reaction! That profiling little mind
would have a field day.

He edged his head in further, scanned the room just to make sure it was empty and pushed the door all the way open. The rest of the cavalry came through the door behind him, guns drawn. Skinner, inevitable black coat swinging with his long strides, and two agents she knew vaguely--Scott and her partner, whose name was something like Green or Black or Brown. The two
paused in the doorway, taking up positions where they could see opposite ends of the hallway outside. Mulder came towards her, grin widening.

Her teeth started to chatter.

"You look like hell," he pronounced cheerfully.

She struggled to her knees on the dirty mattress that had served as her bed and couch and dining room for three days. She knew she looked like hell. The whole of entertainment in the small room was the cracked mirror on the opposite wall, and it had been telling her since the first day of her captivity that she was smudged and dirty, hair tangled, the side of her mouth bruised where one of her captors had slapped her. Her jacket was ripped loose on one shoulder, the top button of her blouse was missing and she was barefoot and barelegged. They'd taken her shoes after the first time she speared one of them with a heel, and the concrete floor had shredded her pantyhose so she'd discarded them a day ago.

She licked her lips, wetting them. "You look like an angel," she replied, and she wasn't lying. To her tired eyes, he was warm and golden and clean, even in the moldy green light from the only window.

Mulder holstered his gun, caught her arm and helped her to her feet. "Are you okay?" His voice was lowered, intimate and concerned.

Scully nodded. "I am now. Just get these things off me." She turned her back to him, lifting her handcuffed wrists as high as they would go. She lowered her voice, too, so that only he could hear her. "Mulder, this is not what you think--"

"Drug ring." He interrupted, fishing in his coat pocket for his handcuff key.

"We know." Skinner slipped past her and edged up to the window. Leaning well back from it, he wrapped his fingers around the crisscrossing bars and tested it with two quick jerks. They held solid. The fire escape, visible through the dirty glass, was maddeningly unreachable.

"Are there only four of you?" She waggled her hands impatiently at Mulder, watching Skinner repeat the movements she'd gone through three days ago when she'd first been tossed into the room. Her attempt to escape was the reason she was cuffed. That and her left hook. "There are--"

"We know, Agent Scully. About twenty of them. Armed to the teeth. The rest of the team's outside, waiting for us to get you out. We're--"

Gunfire erupted, cutting off his words. Sharp staccato burst of automatic weapons fire, followed by shouting voices.

Skinner ducked automatically, pulling away from the window.

"First floor," she supplied. "Towards the front." After three nightmarish days and nights, she'd begun to know the creaks and echoes of the warehouse complex.

Skinner's mouth drew back in anger, his lips forming a curse she couldn't hear. If it was one of the SWAT team that had jumped the gun, she pitied him or her at the debriefing.

"Everybody out of here! Now!" Skinner snarled, motioning for Mulder to go ahead of him.

The two agents who had been guarding the door slipped out, swallowed up in the gloom of the hallway beyond. Mulder released his hold on the handcuffs, grabbed her forearm and dragged her after them.

Unable to use her arms and hands to right herself, she stumbled and fell heavily. "Mulder, get these things off me!"

"No time. If we don't get out of here..." Skinner caught her from the other side, wrapping his fingers around her other arm and righting her. He almost lifted her off the floor. Dull pain throbbed through her shoulders. He pushed her through the doorway into the hall, following so close she was afraid he'd step on her if she hesitated.

The hallway was dark and dank, too, only a little warmer than her cell. The concrete floor was cold and gritty beneath her bare feet. And she was so glad to be free of the room, she didn't care.
 
Mulder led the way, moving fast, left, then right down a hallway she didn't know. They caught up to Scott and White, crouched in the shadows where the hall opened into an arch. The second story of the warehouse was visible over their shoulders, spread out before them. Wide open and menacing.

"I can't see anybody, but I can hear them. Sounds like they're everywhere," Scott whispered to Mulder. As if to emphasize the words, shouts and gunfire echoed off the high ceiling. Still below them, but closer than before. Maybe in the stairwell now.

"Move it," Skinner demanded from behind her. "Go!"

Scott and Green looked at each other, then at Mulder. They all shrugged in unison and the two took off, spreading out across the open floor, heading for the back of the cavernous room.

Now that she had a clear view of the room, Scully knew where she was. The back part of the second level. The packing level. Scott and Green were heading towards the metal ladder that led down to the garage at the back of the building.

"How am I going to--?" she protested.

"Go," Skinner growled in her ear, cutting off her question.

Mulder grabbed her, putting her on his left so that he shielded her from the warehouse, and they ran. Across the open space, behind an overflowing trash can, to the wall near the ladder. He risked a glance over the edge, down into the garage, and Scully strained to see around him. Scott and Green were already at the foot of the ladder.

"Clear," one of them whispered loudly. "But hurry. I can hear them."

"How am I going to get down that?" Scully finally got her question out. The drop to the garage floor was at least fifteen feet. The only way down was the narrow metal ladder.

"Jump?" Mulder suggested helpfully. He started patting his pockets again, looking for his handcuff key.

She shot him a glare. "Mulder, if I was the one with the gun..."

Skinner caught up with them. Glanced over the edge. He aped Mulder's movements, patting his pockets quickly. When his search turned up nothing, his mouth tightened down in yet another curse. "Go, Mulder. I'll hand her down."

Mulder nodded, holstered his weapon, grinned at her as his head disappeared below the second floor. "You should've jumped." Then his feet sounded on the rungs of the ladder, each thump growing fainter as he descended, until his leather soles slapped the floor. "Okay," he called up.

She peered down. It looked like a long drop, even with Mulder holding his hands up to catch her.

Skinner scanned the room quickly, waiting until the last moment to stuff his gun into the holster. He caught her arms just above the elbow. "Brace," he said, looking at her with a concentrated, narrow eyed expression that said *This is going to hurt.*

She took a deep breath, nodded, and a bullet pinged off the metal railing so near her leg she felt the sparks.

Skinner used his grip on her arms to yank her away from the opening. He slammed her into the wall and wheeled, putting his back into her, gun drawn and ready to fire. But the shots were coming from the back of the garage, behind them.

Straining towards the opening, she saw Mulder duck and roll. Saw shards of concrete spray outward from the wall near the foot of the ladder. Saw him look wildly up towards them as he came to his feet and dove for cover.

"What's the best way out of here?" Skinner's hands, clasping his gun, swept back and forth, back and forth, covering the width of the room.

Before she could answer, gunshots rang out on the opposite end of the warehouse. Shouts and the pounding of running feet followed. Coming closer.

"We're pinned." Instead of snarling, his voice was calm. Almost toneless. His head turned quickly, eyes darting as they searched for a place to hide. "Over here." He gestured with the gun toward a raised platform piled high with boxes.

She tried to look back for Mulder.

Skinner grabbed her, dragged her, stumbling and falling, reminiscent of Mulder but with more force. He stepped easily up onto the three-foot high platform and swung back for her. Was just lifting her up as the door at the far end of the room burst open.

Even from so far away, she could see the twisted mad face of the first man who burst through the door, a MAC10 cradled against his chest. He was the one who'd hit her. Who'd taken such pleasure in pulling her arms nearly out of their sockets to cuff her. He was the one she'd expected on the other end of the gun, when they came to kill her.

From behind, Skinner wrapped both arms around her waist and shoved her up under the boxes. He powered them forward, falling with her as the wall of cardboard gave way.

A shield of boxes against automatic weapons. She whimpered in fear, in pain as her knees hit the concrete floor hard. The muscles across her back contracted, skin bunched in painful tightness. Shoulders hunched as if she could ward off a bullet.

Boxes crumpled under her weight, falling, gouging, more boxes falling onto her head, into her unprotected face. She ended up against the back wall of the bay, half on/half off a crushed box, arms twisted high up against her spine, sharp cardboard corners digging in her chest and face, Skinner's weight like concrete above her, but warmer. She tried to twist. "Mulder..."

"Sh-h-h." He covered her head with his arms, pressed his mouth to her ear. "Don't move. Don't make a sound." The butt of his gun was digging into her temple. His body was tense, his arms tight on her, pressing on her head so heavily she could barely breath. His breath was harsh and hot in her ear, then abruptly not there at all, and she realized he was holding it.

In the sudden silence, she could hear the scrape of feet on the concrete floor. Slowing to a walk. A man's voice, low and nasty, whispered, "Spread out. There's more of them back here." Footsteps so near she imagined she could feel the vibration in the concrete beneath her.

She held her breath, too. If they found them... If they suspected anyone was there... They'd open up and splatter the whole room. The guns would tear them to ribbons. Would tear Skinner to ribbons. She wasn't sure the bullets would reach her, crammed as she was into the corner formed by the wall and floor, with the shield of heavy, hot bone and muscle covering her. She would probably live to actually see the violent eyes of her killers when they shot her.

"Over there," a voice said.

She imagined the crazy one, pointing at the pile of boxes over their heads. She shivered, fingers clutching reflexively on Skinner's hard flat stomach. Like electric current, the shiver passed through her to him. His body shuddered and his fingers tightened against her head. The fear current escaped from his mouth into her ear as another tiny warning, more air than sound.
Reminding her. *Don't move. Don't breath.*

She stilled her breath even though her lungs were screaming at her to pant. Tried to make herself go limp even though her body was tingling, screaming at her to run. The soles of her bare feet twitched as if a feather was being brushed back and forth against them.

Shoes scraped again on concrete, so close their owner had to be on the platform, standing right where Skinner had lifted her up. Voices joined the footsteps, speaking in whispers. So close she could almost understand their words. Her heart was pounding so hard they must surely be able to hear it. She could feel Skinner's, tripping like a jackhammer against her back.

But instead of zooming in on the booming of his heart, the feet scraped the edge of the platform as their owner climbed down. The voices moved away. Slowly died out.

Skinner arched, pressing even harder into her, bending her arms until she could feel the bones creak. It took a moment to realize he was twisting, listening, trying to tell whether there was anyone still nearby.

She strained with him, twisting to tilt her head. The silence was maddening, more threatening than knowing the men were just inches away. Then she picked up a sound, familiar, placeable. The scrape of the heavy door at the end of the room.

Relief washed through her, so strong she gasped. The muscles in her back loosened, trembling with the effort she'd been exerting on them. The pressure on her elbows eased, and she managed to shift her hands down just a bit. She gasped as blood rushed into her fingers, stinging and tingling. With the relaxation, her body thrust itself rudely into her consciousness, each bump
and bruise and sensation blinking on, one after the other, like lights on a map board.

The sudden commotion was stunning, too much for her brain to catalogue. Damp cold from the wall against her arm, gritty cold from the floor beneath her knees. Warmth from the body at her back. A new ache, low on her ribs. Old ones from a dozen different places. Pain, cranking toward excruciating, where her wrists were pinned in the small of her back. And something else
despite the pain, something she didn't quite want catalogue. Something that skittered along her nerves as she tested the tightness of the handcuffs binding her wrists.

The realization of how heavy and solid Skinner was came flooding along behind the dancing jitterbug of sensations. Turned the sensitivity of her skin up a notch, from cold/hot/abused to singing. She shook her head, pushed back against him, trying to shove him away as if she could push away the sudden swirling heat in her belly. "Mulder?" she murmured again, concentrating on
concern for her partner, on the coldness of the wall against her arm. On anything but the heat and solidity of the man above her, on anything but the sudden awareness of her arms, cuffed and pinned against his torso.

"He's okay," Skinner murmured, his breath hot and sweet across her face. "I saw him make it to the door." Sweet like candy and clean teeth and stolen kisses.

She whipped her head away from him, away from the touch of his breath. If she thought about his mouth right now, his taut, hard mouth, she'd lose it. She wriggled to get away from him before she started writhing against him. The short links between the cuffs popped as she snapped her hands as far apart as they would go.

"Easy. Easy." The gun moved away from her head, make a soft little metal on concrete snick as he laid it down. "Let's see if we can get you loose."

So damned solicitous. So maddeningly careful. She could feel him, easing his weight back to his knees, off her slightly. Despite the rush of cool air down her back, she was suddenly, hotly aware that his legs were between hers, riding against the insides of her thighs. His pants were rough on her bare legs, chafing.

She whipped her head around. Soft whisper of clothing being rearranged behind her. A hand moving behind her back, out of sight. A quick, crude image flashed against the backs of her eyelids, of him taking his cock out, pushing it into her. One smooth hard thrust... She tensed.

He made a soft sound. Triumph. Shifted left, then right and produced a key into her peripheral vision.

She answered with her own wordless moan of frustration. Irrational disappointment. She rotated her hands inside the circles of metal, and the feel of the bindings, grinding against her wrists, was like stuffing her fingers between her legs and rubbing hard.

He reared, pushing boxes off his back, reaching between them, hands rough and warm on hers as he tried to fit the key to the cuffs.

She sucked in air between her teeth, twisted, and her hips settled back against his.

He jerked the lower half of his body away from her as if she'd burned him, mumbled, "Sorry." But not before she'd felt his cock, pressed into her bottom. Not hard, but not soft either. Like her, somewhere on the edge, walking the line where the adrenaline pumping in her system could send her nerves screeching into anger and defensiveness...or throbbing into arousal.

As a small, cold, metallic something dropped into her hand, he swore softly. "I dropped the key." His fingers moved beneath her hands, across the small of her back, down her ribs. Searching the folds of her jacket.

She wriggled, telling herself to tell him she had the key. That it was right there, in the center of her palm. Knowing that the dark corner of her brain that was registering the smooth metal of the cuffs and the burning pressure of his hips didn't want him to know. The feel of him was branded into her flesh, hotter than the flush of heat to her face.

Voices again, shouting, and shots. Not in the room, but nearby.

He froze, hand under her hip, breath catching in his throat. And the abrupt movement swung his coat forward. The heavy, dark edges of it swept down her thigh, enveloping her in a rush of warm air. A sauna of heat and scent.

A fresh shot of adrenaline pulsed through her veins. She closed her fingers over the thin, rounded edges of the handcuff key. Plucked it from her palm where he had dropped it, tucked it into the fleshy pad between her index finger and thumb. The surreptitious movement zinged straight through to her nipples, as if he'd run rough fingers inside the lace of her bra.

She arched, hands spreading across his stomach. His belt buckle dug into one palm, warm and metallic, like the metal circles entrapping her wrists. Warm from his body. Suddenly, being restrained and helpless was not the horror it had been. It was forbidden and arousing and maddening.

The voices were closer.

"Don't move," he warned, though he was moving. Retrieving his gun. Curling protectively over her. His weight shifted forward, the coat sliding along her side. His hand came down heavily on her shoulder. Gun against her shoulder blade. He wanted her to sink down again, let him cover her.

And she wanted to be covered. Hidden inside the tent of his coat, heated by his weight on her
spine. She scrabbled handfuls of her skirt up. Hooked her fingers in the waistband of her
panties and yanked down.

"Be still."

His warning was nothing. Discarded. Ignored. She could feel the cold metal of his gun, the warmth of his fingers, through her jacket. She moved, quickly, deftly. Before sanity could kick in. Before he could resist. She rocked up, onto her knees, all her weight shifting to her shoulders and face, pressed into the odd, sharp angles of cardboard. She rocked back into him, fingers slipping and sliding over his stomach, snagging on his belt, down his abdomen and coming to rest on his cock. Soft, thick curve, spongy and restless. Already partially erect. Growing and hardening in instant response as her fingers curled around him.

He hissed. Surprise, warning, pleasure, denial. Stifled the sound. Shuddered beneath her fingers.

Arousal made her dexterous. Or lucky. She caught at his zipper and it slid open as if it was oiled. Thrust her fingers inside through layers of cloth and stroked the whole burning length of his cock.

The breath he'd hissed out was drawn back in. Quick and harsh. No denial now, just surprise and ragged acknowledgment of her touch.

The voices sounded again. Unintelligible. Far off, then closer, as if the men were shouting to each other across the enormous warehouse space.

He tensed, focus shifting. She pushed back and up, pulling his cock from his pants, fitting herself to him from shoulder to knee, spooned in the protective curve of his body, his erection pressed against her bare bottom. She moved against him, needing his help. She couldn't push him down far enough. "Do it," she whispered. "Do it now. Fuck me."

She felt his reaction to the word. Felt him turn away from the voices as if they weren't there. She knew he was going to do it before he did. His hips tilted towards her though his upper body resisted, poised and listening to some distant song of reason and sanity.

"Fuck me now." Her voice was alien, growling and husky, not anyone she recognized.

He sucked in air, twitched. As if he was a puppet and she'd jerked the strings with the one feverish obscenity. The gun went down beside her head again. His weight shifted against her back. His hand pushed her panties further down around her thighs, pushed her fingers away from his cock, dragged it down, down, across her bottom, then forward, across her slick flesh until
he was fitted to her and she rocked back to acknowledge him.

His breath caught in his throat, echoing hers. He pushed forward, steady pressure, and slid home inside her. Just the way she'd imagined it.

She sobbed and went all the way down onto her shoulders, giving up control to him. He followed her down, body plastered to hers, trapping her arms and cuffed hands. Buried completely, sweetly inside her. Not moving. Just filling her. Binding her. Covering her.

She was held so tightly. Trapped inside the steamy heat of his coat. Arms and hands completely restrained. Stretched so full. Strung so tight, too tight, even without him moving. She surged, suddenly, desperately on the edge of orgasm. Needing... Needing. Biting back a scream.

He surged with her, moving solidly for the first time. Completely back, almost withdrawing, then forward.

"Harder," she demanded.

He obliged. Solid. Rocking into her rhythmically.

And then "Slower. Slower but harder."

He slowed. Drew a ragged breath as if her words or the pressure on his cock was too much. "Do you need...?" His mouth was right below her ear, breath hot. His fingers finished his question, slipping across her breasts, down her belly, down between her legs to where they were joined.

He brought the wetness from his cock, sliding in and out, back up to her clitoris, smoothed it across. Slick circular motion that ordinarily would have set her to moaning.

But not today. She hissed. Too intense. Too raw.

As if he felt the pleasure/pain that skittered across her nerves, he eased the contact, stopped moving his fingers and just pressed. An overall pressure back up towards his cock.

It was just what she needed. She dropped off the edge, soaring into orgasm. With the scent of cardboard and sweet, hot breath mixing in her lungs. The sharp edge of a box cutting into her cheekbone. The smooth metal of the handcuffs pressed by his weight into her wrists and her spine. The gentle pressure of his fingers, the brutal pressure of his cock.

She took him with her. He whispered "Oh," in a strange, startled, pleased tone as she started to come, and then "Oh" again, as he followed, and it was the sexiest sound she'd ever heard a man utter. He lost the good, smooth rhythm as his fingers tightened down on her.

Pleasure washed up and down, up and down her spine, pausing with each swelling trip to spangle down into the pressure point beneath his fingers. She rocked against him, in perfect non-rhythm, never quite connecting with his ragged movements. And it was so good tears welled up behind her eyelids. So good she was melting, muscles turning loose from her bones.

She could feel him straining, arching, body wanting to lunge, pulling back from it, trying to maintain the slow, rough rhythm she'd wanted. Feeling him struggle to please her started it all over again. Pleasure undulating up and down her spine, a new wave borne outward with each slow, hard thrust of his cock. Hot. She was so hot. Barely able to breathe. He was breathing for both
of them, harshly, hotly, shaking.

Tension eased slowly until she was trembling and spent, and he was collapsed on top of her. His rested his forehead between her shoulders, his breathing so harsh she knew it could be heard in the next room. Leaving a damp hot spot on her jacket. He was still partially erect inside her, moving slowly, still coaxing little waves of pleasure from her liquefied nerves.

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard the voices again, dull and echoing but not very far away. Gradually, she realized it wasn't her captors, but Mulder, calling her name.

Skinner realized it at the same moment. He shifted, back and up, disconnecting from her, and for a moment, she was so overwhelmed by the feeling of emptiness that Mulder's voice blurred. Then it came back, calling from nearby, panicky edge adding sharpness to it. Bringing her sharply back to reality.

She struggled to get up, flooded with a sudden, unaccustomed sense of *oh, my god, what have I done!?* She never put herself in *what have I done?!* situations. Almost never.

Skinner's hand came down to her hip. Held her still when she would have moved. "Wait a minute." Speaking in a shaky whisper. He rose up to his knees

A rush of damp air, so cold in contrast to him, swirled around her as he shifted, but she could still feel him, warm and solid against one leg. At the edge of her vision, she could see him, patting his clothes again. Finding, inside his raincoat, a white something. Wiping himself. Tucking, rearranging, soft whisper of his zipper.

Then she could see him again, folding the white square of cloth. The softness of the handkerchief and his hand stroked her, mopping up the excess of their passion. Folding motion again and he tucked the cloth against her and held it there with a gentle pressure.

A sluggish roll of leftover sensation, like a giant, corkscrewed wave, rotated through her body. From head to toes. Skinner shuddered against her, as if she was feeding it to him.

He rested there a moment, one hand pressed between her legs, the other beneath her skirt, fingers spanning her bare hip. Stayed there against her until his breathing settled down from ragged and heavy to just ragged. Until his muscles steadied.

He pulled at her clothes, rearranging her panties and skirt with such tender skill that she wondered how often he dressed women as they crouched beneath him. *Oh, god, what have I done? I've had unprotected sex with my boss.*

Then he stood, leaving her to struggle up, batting boxes away, calling to Mulder.

She tried to push back, to rise up to her knees, but her muscles simply refused to work. She stifled crazed laughter against the box under her face. What was Mulder going to say when he found her, on her knees with her ass in the air, too weak to sit up? *Holy shit, Scully, what have you done?*

Skinner came back down to her, caught her around the waist and lifted her. Set her on her feet against the wall. She gasped as blood rushed into her legs and feet and arms. Away from her face. Her brain. The pile of tan cardboard spun in a lazy circle.

Mulder came towards them from the opposite end of the room, relief evident in his face, in the soft, playful jeer in his voice. "This is where you've been all this time, while I was getting shot at?"

His voice steadied her. She looked up at Skinner.

He was concentrating on Mulder. Carefully, studiously not looking at her. His hand on her arm lightly impersonal. He looked like he was thinking, *Holy shit, what have I done!*

"They were all around us," she told Mulder, moving unsteadily around Skinner to the edge of the platform. "Every second, I expected them to start firing into the boxes."

Skinner hopped down. Reached up before Mulder could get to her, fitted his big hands to her waist and lifted her down effortlessly. It was like being floated to the ground. Another shiver passed through her, and she peered at him, trying to see if his body absorbed the sensation.

But he was already stepping back, letting Mulder take her, his face impassive. Already retreated into stonefaced mode. Unreadable.

Mulder turned her, holstering his gun, reaching into the pocket of his trousers and withdrawing the handcuff key he hadn't been able to find before.

She gasped as he released her wrists. Pain shot through her shoulders as her hands fell forward. Not dull this time. Searing pain like knives thrust into the tendons.

Skinner took the cuffs from Mulder. Mulder took her shoulders. He massaged downward. Prickles like fire and nettles fled before his fingers. He worked down her arms to her hands, turned them, inspecting the bruises encircling her wrists like red and purple and yellow bracelets. His fingers were warm and gentle, bringing life back into her numb fingers.

Skinner dropped the handcuffs into his coat pocket and turned away, still not looking at her. "What happened, Mulder? I need a situation report. Is everyone okay?"

Mulder's fingers slipped lower on her hands. He opened his mouth to answer Skinner and instead, found the key, still gripped against the base of her thumb. "What's this?"

Her fingers were so stiff and numb, she'd forgotten it was there.

Skinner turned back. He blinked. His gaze locked on the shiny silver key in her fingers. He tried for control. Achieved it, because Mulder barely glanced at his boss as he stepped closer. Only she saw the twitch at the corners of Skinner's mouth, the sudden dark flare in his eyes. Only she heard the catch in his voice.

"It's mine. I dropped it." He took the key, his fingers grazing her palm. "Thank you, Agent Scully. I didn't realize you'd found it." Cool irony in his voice. And he wouldn't look at her. Now definitely thinking *Holy shit, what have I done?* Or more likely, *What did she do?!*

She caught her breath. It mattered, more than it should have, that he was standing there, cold and regretful.

"You're bleeding, Scully." Mulder reached out and touched her face.

She followed the lead of his fingers and found slick blood high on her cheek. And a small,
square-cornered cut, right where Skinner's weight had been pressing her face into a box. As she
touched it, the wound throbbed, awakened as if it had only just happened. "It's nothing." She
glanced up at Skinner.

He turned his head casually away.

"A box caught me."

Mulder started a distracted pat down of pockets. Came up with a folded square of white. "Here. Use this." Handed it to her, already turning away, taking up a recitation of events for Skinner.

"I didn't realize men still carried handkerchiefs." She said it before she thought, more to herself than to either of them. Then realizing they'd heard, she pressed the folded square of cloth to her face, using it as an excuse to not look up. Her face was suddenly suffused with heat. She was suddenly, achingly aware of the handkerchief folded and tucked inside her panties.

Interrupted, Mulder shrugged--that movement he used sometimes when he'd been caught doing something he didn't consider cool. "What do you think I do? Wipe my nose on my sleeve? Besides, my mother says a gentleman always carries a handkerchief. Just in case of emergency."

Laughter bubbled up, escaped before she could stop it. She looked up, biting her lip in an attempt to stifle the fluttering sounds. And even more remarkable than the events of the last few minutes, behind Mulder's head, Skinner looked at her and his mouth lifted in a sweet, secret smile.
 

The End