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I'LL KNOW MY LOVE
By Char Chaffin
MSR, R, Vignette, some AU, some angstSpoilers: "Pilot"
Disclaimer: Clones on Loan
Dedication: To Rita, who asked for romance. It's been my pleasure and honor to write it for her!
"I'll Know My Love"
I'll know my love, of this I'm sure.
In my world of uncertainty, of willing solitude, I'll know my love the first time I see her, touch her hand. Her smile will be as familiar to me as the air that I breathe. Her voice will be the voice I've heard in my dreams, on those rare occasions when sleep hasn't eluded me. I'll stand before her as a supplicant, needing to learn all about her, those small things that I haven't already sensed. The shape of her. The color of her eyes, her hair; the scent of her.
Will she recognize me? I'd like to think so, but perhaps not at first. I can live with that. It's a moot point, you see... because I'll know my love.
I'm a loner by choice and by circumstance, a man who owns little of emotional value and who has learned to accept and to live with less. My family - what few I claim - has never understood me. That's not really a problem since I rarely understand myself. Raised in cold comfort, rich in material possessions but dirt-poor when it came to familial affection... my childhood was a painful twist that I'd sooner have avoided completely. I lost my family in one fell swoop the night my younger sister left me. I've searched for her for years, refusing to give up on the smidgen of certainty that she still lives, still waits for me to rescue her.
I am under no illusions as to what to expect of my sister's frame of mind when I at last locate her. I expect she won't remember me. It doesn't matter. Once I find her, a part of me will finally heal. Only a part, however... for the other wounds that I've been accumulating over these many years will only be soothed by one person... and I'll know her when I see her.
I've grown to the age I am without strong ties to friends or lovers. I've had both; I've lost both. They didn't understand me, either. What friends I've made have found that friendship with me has meant dealing with my peculiarities. Most of them couldn't handle it, so they've gradually stopped calling me. Of those friends, I have a few left, fellow oddities like myself, as solitary in their own right as I am. I find myself grateful for their frequent presence in my life, even as the hermit that dwells inside me sometimes longs for the quiet and solitude of my self-imposed cave.
Women have smiled on me, seeing the outward and never really attempting to decipher the inward. They've taken me and I have allowed myself to be taken, understanding that I required the experience in order to mature, to strengthen my inner resolve. Some of them hurt me; a necessary evil, unfortunately. I once took an older lover, a woman who taught me technique if not much else. I once had a lover my own age, calculating and avaricious, wanting not so much to love me as to swallow me in one painful bite and then spit out the used husk, rendering me unfit for further female consumption.
I was unfaithful, to first one woman and then the other, as I found myself searching for some kind of balance between two such opposite poles. I later discovered that neither cared all that much about my fidelity, or lack thereof.
I learned a great deal, even from the most cruel of them. I learned how to recognize the woman who will mean the sum total of the world to me. So, in a way, I must thank those past lovers regardless of how badly they may have scarred me. Because of their careless handling, I'll know my love when she comes to me.
I lean back on my sofa, another, possibly sleepless night beginning, and I think about what I've done so far in my life, the accolades as well as the defeats. All I have endured, bad or good, has helped to mold me into who I am this moment in my life. For all of the important things, the tasks that have given me professional prestige and fulfillment, still I sit and I wait for the day I can look up and see her, smile at her, at last speak to her. I have no real sense of when it will happen; I only accept that it will.
I'll know my love... but will she know me?
Will she look into my eyes and see her future there, understanding with perfect clarity that it's been ordained, fated, for more years than either of us could count? Will she see the need I have, to bond with someone who can relate to me on more than a few select levels; will she feel the same way? Will she come to me openly, freely and joyously, uncaring of the outer and only seeking the inner me?
Yes. I want to believe so many things, and this is one of them.
A friend once asked me if I thought we'd all lived before, and whether reincarnation was a matter of fact for 'someone like me.' Oh, he meant it in a kind way, I suppose. Because he knew my fascination with the existence of life on worlds other than earth, he also labeled me as wildly open to any and all extreme possibilities. He knew a small amount of my past as well... the sister who'd been taken when I was still a vulnerable young boy too weak and too frightened to find a way of saving her. But I carried my guilt close to my heart, so he never knew how viciously I blamed myself.
I considered his question carefully. Of course, I'd have liked nothing better than to accept that our souls remain after physical death, to be scattered elsewhere. I'd spent time imagining what I would most deserve to return as, and usually my imaginings were rarely human. Would I be reincarnated as a feline, perhaps a barn cat with only a lowing bovine or two as company, finding sparse warmth from the winter harshness in a loose bale of hay? Would I return as a dog, perhaps a hungry mongrel roaming the streets in search of that one boot that would walk beside me in camaraderie instead of kicking me into the gutter where all mongrels belonged? Even in my thoughts, even back then, I was less than kind to myself.
It's funny how I never thought beyond the animal and into the human realm. Not in the past when I was still beating myself up over losing my sister... not when my family was still, in their own vague way, placing residual blame on me.
Ask me what I now believe, and I'll tell you that I'm a strong promoter of fate. Even more so than trying to reassure myself that I'll die and live again in another body somewhere in some future, I believe in fate. Kismet. I believe in that one woman, out there looking for me, even as I look for her.
I've sensed her many times, in what dreams I have. I've touched her satin hair; have stroked her skin, softer than rainwater and twice as sweet. I've kissed lips that have clung to mine with every emotion from passion to desperation. A hundred scenarios, a thousand bouts of lovemaking...
I know what she likes. What she needs. What she demands from a lover. What she'd take of me, and what she'd give back.
Oh yes, I'll know my love.
I dreamed of her, last night. I have trouble sleeping but when I'm particularly wrung out from the job; when all the late nights and nightmare cases catch up to me, then I sleep. I never make it to my bed; haven't slept there in months. I zone out on the sofa, the television flickering, and that's when she comes to me. That's when I run to her. When I take her, give to her, and reaffirm her future existence in my life. I swear she keeps me sane, though we have yet to meet.
Sometimes I can almost see the image of her; can almost make out the detail of body, hair, eyes. Other nights it's heat, desire, need that I feel. Last night it was both.
I reached out my hands and touched her soft skin, appreciating the firm musculature beneath. My eyes were closed but it was as if I could see through my lids, some kind of magic enabling me to make out shiny hair, bright eyes shimmering with emotion. Delicate bones. Tender curves. Small but so, so perfectly proportioned. A low, cultured voice speaking my name like no one had ever spoken it before.
That first kiss, deep and wet, seeking and rough then gentle, gentle; it was more than I'd ever hoped for and as necessary to me as air to breathe. I drank her in, holding her so tightly it would have been impossible to find her beginning and my end. I felt her fingers gripping my hair, keeping my mouth on hers, my tongue fully engaged as well. When she wound her legs around me I groaned and shuddered... so did she.
There was that matchless feeling of utter rightness, that finally I'd found what I'd searched for, as we kissed and pushed our bodies closer together. The cradle of her hips, her slender thighs, everything that fit my larger frame with such ease... the way her breath hitched when I slid inside her. The way she moaned when I burrowed deep, when I pressed against her very heart. The hot pulse of her, surrounding my hard flesh, taking it as was her rightful due... if I groaned in my sleep I hoped the neighbors would understand, for if anything thus far in my dreams was groan-worthy, this certainly was.
The dance of our movements against each other was a perfect beat; surely I'd never buried myself so deeply in a woman before, been so utterly absorbed into another body, as I was with her, this love I knew so very well. She ground every past relationship of mine into complete dust, with nothing more than her arms, the tight cocoon of her center; the power of her kiss. Without words and with only motion and speed we locked up a promise, sealed our next seventy or so years. I knew where I'd be, three years, seven years from now, with this woman by my side. I'd be out slaying dragons; out saving the world. She gave me that much confidence, that kind of fortitude and assurance.
When each hard thrust we shared between us brought us that much closer to sweet release, I opened my eyes, looked down at her. And saw, for one tiny flashing moment, her face.
How utterly beautiful...
I shattered in my lover's embrace when she convulsed all around me; I shouted a name I could not yet hear in my dreams, bathing her with my life, my essence, knowing as well as I knew my own identity that someday I'd give her my children.
I cried in her arms as she cried in mine, both of us somehow understanding that all good dreams must come to an end, sooner or later. And I awoke with the taste of her on my tongue and the proof of her passionate imagery staining my jeans. This time, however, there was no feeling of shame as I roused myself from the sofa and stumbled into the bathroom. This time, however briefly, I'd seen her. I took that as a sign that our actual meeting was very, very close.
As I cleaned up in the bathroom, I smiled to myself. I'll know my love, I thought.
Soon.
Another day, and I'm so tired. A new case, this one promising to be especially agonizing; I wonder if I'm ready for it. There's a change in the air, I can feel it. I don't like it, but I have no say in the matter. If I were my own boss, how different a story it would be! But I'm not, and I haven't a choice.
I rub my tired eyes and I readjust the eyeglasses I dislike wearing. It's hot in my office; I roll up my sleeves and once again mire myself in the job that I sometimes hate and sometimes love.
For once, the work preoccupies me, enough that thoughts of the dream I had just a few nights before are pushed aside a little. When I hear the knock, I barely respond.
When the door opens, I look up... and only years of self-discipline keep my jaw from dropping to the floor.
"Agent Mulder? I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you."
A small hand, delicate, with long fingers, reaches out to shake mine. I touch her skin and find it softer than rainwater...
I smile.
I'll know my love, when she comes to me.
I'll know.
End
Final note: Rita, may you always love to read De Love, and in doing so, help to keep it alive! I hope you liked your gift!
Thanks for reading! Love to hear from you any old time; email me! char@chaffin.com
Please visit my website, too! http://char.chaffin.com
If you enjoyed this story, please feed the author.
Title: I'LL KNOW MY LOVE
Author: Char Chaffin
Details: 12k · R · Standalone · 01/01/06 · Email/Website
Gossamer Category(Keywords): Vignette [Romance] (Pre-XF)
Characters: Mulder/Scully
Pairings: Mulder/Scully romance
SPOILERS: Pilot
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