SUMMARY: Any excuse for a smutfic...

DEDICATION: Overall, all my X Files work is dedicated to my writing partner, Ravenwald, without whom I would still be doing all this using a ballpoint pen. She introduced me to fandom on the `Net and awakened the Muse, who had been sleeping for a VERY long time. This piece is for the Sisters Spooky, for mink roses and homemade candy, nifty Christmas cards and fresh-burned CDs, for grins and giggles and healing candlelight...for being the sisters I never had in Real Life.

All my gratitude to my Sissy Mims for being my Beta Goddess.

Scully woke up slowly, with difficulty. Everything ached. She was cold; she was naked. Moving cautiously, she levered herself to a sitting position and looked around.

Steel floor, steel walls, steel ceiling, no windows, no sign of a door. Cold due to being uncovered gave way to the chill of fear. She looked the other way and froze, stunned. The center of the huge room was dominated by a counter built of what appeared to be large glass blocks. The blocks were lit from within, providing the room's only light. There was a familiar form lying on it.

"Mulder!"

She stood up, hurried to his side. He was naked, lying very still, flat on his back. His arms were outstretched so that his body formed a "T" shape, cuffed at wrists and ankles. He was breathing and his heart was beating.

"Mulder? Mulder, can you hear me...?"

He did not respond. She began to examine him and quickly became concerned at the bruising and minor lacerations she could see. She found her answer promptly: his arms and hands were covered with needle tracks. He had been drugged repeatedly in the days she had been away. She tried shaking him gently.

"Mulder? Mulder, wake up."

There was no response.

She turned her attention to the cuffs holding his wrists to the glass surface, but with her bare hands she could do nothing to loosen them. They were firm and snug, but not so snug as to impair his circulation.

"Mulder, c'mon. Don't leave me alone here like this!"

"Have no fear, Agent Scully. You are not alone."

She whipped around to face that familiar, smoke-ravaged voice... and could see no one. Her attention went to the ceiling and it only took her a moment to see the speaker screen there. She made a face and looked away.

"Agent Scully, our experts tell us you have been suffering from a form of PTSD since your abduction in 1993. Since you have perceived the experience as a form of rape, one of your compensations has been a mild case of haphephobia resulting in a dearth of physical affection in your life. Since otherwise you've been functioning reasonably well, we would not ordinarily have interfered. However, time forces our hand."

She was frozen, desperately glad that Mulder was unconscious and could not hear this.

"Fox Mulder needs you in his life, Agent Scully, for many and varied reasons. We have known for some time that the world desperately needs as many children from the two of you as possible, and our tests demonstrate that you are both fertile. To that end..."

Behind her, Mulder moaned. She looked at him and hurriedly looked away. He was stirring restlessly and the reason was clear: he was erect, now, gloriously so. She averted her attention while her mind puzzled over what stimulus could have triggered arousal in an unconscious man. Could he be dreaming? Hallucinating?

She threw a disgusted glance up at the speaker. "If you have a point, please feel free to come to it at any time."

"We have attempted to get children from the two of you by several different methods without much success," the voice admitted.

Scully's teeth grated together as she fought not to react visibly to those words.

"We are now desperate enough to make another attempt using more traditional methodology."

She glanced at Mulder, then cast a jaundiced eye at the speaker. "If you think this is traditional methodology, you need to get out more."

"It's vital, Miss Scully--"

"You think that we'll cooperate to provide you with an infant so you can treat another child the way you treated Emily Sim?" she spat. "I will not be a party to this."

"Emily Sim was only the most successful of our attempts to raise a child from you and Agent Mulder. None of the others survived past infancy."

Mulder moaned quietly but Scully was stunned into silence. She had never considered trying to identify Emily's biological father. There had seemed to be too many possibilities, all of them ugly: Cancerman himself, Krycek, any of the other agents of horror who worked with them had seemed to be the prime candidates. However, the Consortium had been granted access to Mulder all his life by his parents' complicity. Just because he did not remember an abduction did not mean anything; that had been proved when she got him back from Ellens AFB and he had lost an entire day's-worth of memories. A sperm sample from her partner would not have been difficult to acquire.

She forced herself to pay attention as the implacable voice continued. "We have injected Agent Mulder with a fairly unforgiving combination of drugs. There are a limited number of outcomes. If left alone, he will die. The hormones activated by stimulation to orgasm will eventually clear his system of the toxins. I don't want you to think you can just assist him without becoming actively involved, yourself. You've been injected with the same drugs, though the proportions are different for a female. Our experiments indicate that when both participants are so medicated, the probability for pregnancy approaches certainty."

Mulder moaned and tugged weakly against the cuffs that held him to the tabletop. She shuddered in response and deliberately concentrated on her anger and outrage instead of the stirring arousal in her blood.

"Why?" she cried. "Why would you do this to us?"

The only response she got was a brief series of clicking noises and then the room was utterly silent.

No, not utterly silent. Mulder was panting, clearly experiencing discomfort. She went to him, bent over him to check the pulse at his throat. It was racing and he was sweating lightly.

"Mulder, wake up. Please, wake up!"

His head tossed and his eyes opened, finally. He blinked at her, confused.

"Scully?" His voice was hoarse and faint. "How'd you find me?"

She grimaced, remembering his wild screaming from the padded room. "I didn't find you. They grabbed me, too. How do you feel?"

"Tired," he sighed.

"Is that all?"

He closed his eyes to stall for time. He remembered the telepathic cacophony of all the people in the hospital, everywhere, a deafening roar, like standing too close to a waterfall. He had been startled every time an individual mind had become clear through the din. Krycek's sly wickedness, Fowley's cold calculation, Cancerman's arrogant self-assuredness, Skinner's terrified submission before the constant threat of agonizing death, his mother...

(*Oh, God, Mom... I understand so much, now... and still not enough!*)

And Scully. Always Scully: a searchlight through blinding darkness, the clear tone of a bell through deafening pain. He tried to reach for her and came up against the rigid cuffs.

"I don't care about anything except that all I can hear is your voice."

Scully gasped. She had forgotten, in their immediate predicament, how he had ended up here in the first place. "Oh, my God..."

"What did you find in Africa, Scully?"

She found herself panting, whiplashed between her own train of thought and his, struggling to regain her intellectual equilibrium. She opened her eyes to find herself clutching at his hand, his wrist, rubbing her chin and cheek against his palm. She had no recollection of dropping to her knees... She pushed herself up, stepped back, though she could not stifle a whimper of protest at her own actions.

"That's not important right now, Mulder."

He frowned. "Scully? What's the matter?"

She blinked several times and then forced herself to settle down. "I'm sorry, Mulder. We're both captives here and... and they're... they didn't just toss me in here like this to embarrass me."

His eyes raked over her once and then he looked up at her face. "They want us to...?"

She saw how his body reacted to the sight of hers and she blushed furiously. "They claim they drugged us both. If we don't engage in sexual intercourse to orgasm we'll die. The allegation is that the hormones thus triggered will scour the toxins from our blood. There has to be something they're not saying; that logic's as twisted as a bag of pretzels. But I can't think..."

Mulder frowned. "Why do they want it so badly, though? It's a pretty elaborate set-up for a snuff film."

She snorted. "They don't want us dead, Mulder. They want me pregnant by you."

"What?" He could only stare at her.

She nodded grimly but avoided meeting his eyes because she wanted to drown in their hazel depths. "Stated reason for all of this is that the world needs as many of our children as possible. They didn't say for what."

"We can speculate." Mulder's tone matched her expression. "Scary concept." He swallowed hard. "I suppose it never occurred to them that if they'd just left us alone I might've made a move on you years ago..."

She arched an eyebrow at him. He grinned. Then the grin vanished as a spasm of pain wracked him from head to foot. He gasped in shock and tried to curl up only to be held in place by uncaring steel. After a few moments the pain subsided and he went limp on the table.

Scully noticed that part of him was decidedly not limp, despite the situation and his emotional state. She did not believe that a normal man could sustain an erection under these conditions without specialized training that she did not believe Mulder had had. Both his continued sustained arousal and the pain appeared to substantiate Cancerman's statements. She shuddered. It was starting.

Mulder focused on her through tears. "What the hell wuzzat?" he demanded.

"Cancerman's idea of roses and champagne," she growled. "We're drugged. If we don't capitulate, we die."

"And if we... capitulate?"

"We have another Emily."

He stared at her in shock. She had not said that name aloud since they had left the cemetery after burying the child's empty coffin. Then the rest of her sentence registered.

"We have...?"

She nodded quickly, fighting back sudden tears. "He said they'd been trying for years to breed children from us, Mulder. Emily was the most successful attempt."

"I was Emily's father?"

"He said so. I hate believing him, but even he must tell the truth sometimes."

There was a long moment of silence. "I wish I'd known," he said softly.

"Why? You were wonderful with her, even not knowing."

"I'd have liked to have told her she was ours," he replied. "I would've proposed to you, quit the Bureau and settled down somewhere to be her dad."

"Mulder!"

"What? All I've ever wanted is a family, Scully. The old one's gone. My father's dead and I'll never find Samantha. I know that. But if I can't be the older brother ever again, for the chance to be the dad...? I would have, if I could've done it with you."

"I would've gone with you."

He smiled at her tiredly. "Sounds like a plan, to me. What do you think?"

Before she could respond, another spasm hit. She waited while it wracked him, saw him grit his teeth to keep from voicing pain that must have been terrible. When it subsided a little he panted, trying to catch up on his breathing.

"Mulder?"

"It hurts," he whispered, his eyes still closed. "Are you in this kind of pain?"

A shudder went through her, but it was not pain. "I'm all right, Mulder. Just uncomfortable."

Another spasm hit, cutting off his response. His body lurched and she had to acknowledge that the drug was significantly affecting her partner: he was drenched with sweat and his arousal had already reached a point that, under more normal circumstances, would have been painful. She reached for his face, stroked his cheek lightly.

He flinched away violently. "Don't touch me!"

She recoiled. "What?"

"Your touch... makes it... worse..." he panted.

She shuddered, though she was no longer cold. She was hot, sweaty and sticky. She tried to dry her palms on her hips and realized that it was not sweat she felt running down her thighs. Involuntarily her hand went between her legs. She moaned low in her throat as she felt herself wet and slick.

A short snapping noise drew her attention back to her partner in time to see him spit out something white.

"Mulder?"

"Broke a tooth," he panted. Then he slammed his head back down onto the countertop and fought the urge to mindlessly thrash against the metal cuffs, to free himself.

Some part of her, back in the most rational part of her brain, realized that capitulation was inevitable, but some other part of her needed this to be more than that.

"Mulder," she whimpered, as the fingers of both hands stoked her own arousal. "Will you love me tomorrow if we survive this?"

"Till I die," he promised. He rolled his head to look at her and managed a smile. "You know that."

She nodded. "I do."

"Will you love me tomorrow?"

"And forever after."

He sighed. "There is a God. Come here, Scully. I can't stand much more of this without screaming, and if there's going to be screaming I'd rather be making those bastards jealous."

Laughing, crying, panting with need, Scully moved to stand beside him.

"Climb aboard."

That was a double entendre that made her laugh but the actual logistics were difficult. The counter upon which he lay was as high as an operating or autopsy table. She had to go to the foot and jump up to sit on the edge. Then she got to her feet and walked up between his legs. He smiled at her, though the tension in his expression was clear.

"If you're expecting foreplay I think you're S-O-L, this time," he pointed out shakily.

She did not answer him. She knelt straddling his body and leaned over to kiss him lightly.

At the first touch of lip to lip he lurched upward, trying to reach her and she descended on his mouth with devouring kisses until he was sobbing with need and fighting the bonds mindlessly. She pulled away only because she needed air.

"Scully...!" His wail shocked her out of her self-absorption.

"No begging. I'm here."

He had to shut his eyes against the sight of her, blocking any more stimulation. His body shook as pain raced along the same nerve endings as his arousal.

Then she was leaning on his chest and slowly, steadily, impaled herself on him. At the first touch he could not restrain himself and his entire body tried to rise to meet her. The moment he was fully inside her he exploded in orgasm. Scully cried out and climaxed as well.

When she recovered a few moments later, she realized that Mulder was still hard within her, still struggling to thrust. She did not bother to comment, but cooperated. He came again and collapsed, panting desperately. Scully leaned over and kissed around his mouth so he could catch his breath.

"Oh, God, Scully," he moaned, "this isn't how I wanted this to be for us."

"I know," she whispered in his ear. "We'll have a honeymoon later. This is just the shotgun wedding night. Relax and roll with it, Mulder."

"I wanted romance," he breathed against her skin. "I wanted seduction, soft music, candles..."

She smiled through the tears she hid from him. "I wanted that, too, Mulder," she assured him. "And we'll have it all when we get home."

He moved against her and she felt him hardening again, still inside her. She began moving slowly, gently, using her inner muscles. He moaned appreciatively.

"I wish I could use my hands," he fretted.

"You just work on not hurting yourself," she said sharply. "Those cuffs are metal and the edges aren't smooth."

"Don't worry," he panted. "All my blood has gone south."

She chuckled and started moving a little faster. A few more strokes and he came hard, slamming up into her so strongly that she nearly lost her balance. She clutched at him to hold on and accidentally clawed him on the chest. With a cry, he came again.

This time when he collapsed beneath her, she lay down on his body, letting him slip free as she relaxed, listening to his heartbeat settle back to more normal levels. In a few moments she cautiously decided he was asleep.

(*After four orgasms he should be out for the night,*) she decided. Few men could have managed what he had, and he had been physically depleted when they began. She nestled down against him and settled in to take a nap. She could not help but take the time, however, to appreciate the smoothness of his skin against her own, the scent of him and the warmth of him.

She felt as if she had been asleep for only a moment when a moan and a shudder beneath her woke her. She saw him open his eyes and sigh in evident relief.

"It is you," he breathed.

"It's been me, Mulder."

"Thank God for that!"

"Nightmare?"

He nodded. "This situation, different... companion."

"I'd kill her."

"Who?"

"Whoever."

He smiled at her and stretched up toward her. She met him halfway and they shared a kiss. When it broke they were both breathless and he was hard again. Scully grinned as she mounted him. There was not quite the urgency as before. She moved slowly but steadily, massaged her breasts, pinched her nipples as Mulder watched, his eyes gone black with lust. He managed to hold off until she came, then flooded her one more time before relaxing beneath her still-quivering form.

Shakily, she straightened, stroked his face, kissed him lightly. "That's five. That's pretty impressive."

"I wish I could take the credit," he admitted. "But I don't think it's me."

She ran her hands down his body, sat up and slid back to straddle his thighs. She began to gently fondle and stroke him. He just closed his eyes and appreciated the sensations washing over him.

"Feels like you," she commented with a wicked grin. "Looks like you. Smells like you." She leaned over to lick him from base to tip. "Tastes like you... and me." She took him into her mouth then, using her hands to rub what her mouth could not reach.

In moments he was hard, his head thrown back and fists clenched as she sucked and hummed and quite efficiently brought him off in her mouth. She swallowed, and then crawled back up his body to hug him as best as she could.

He calmed himself and rubbed his chin against her hair. "Are you okay? I can't do much, tied down like this..."

"I'm not uncomfortable," she assured him. "Actually, I feel wonderful, Mulder. I'm buzzing, almost high."

He grinned at her. "Sit on my face so I can return the favor."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. You don't have to do that."

"Scully..." He stared up at her intensely. "Please. I want to."

She slid back just far enough to be sure her suspicion was correct, and grinned at him. "That's okay. Save it for another time." She mounted him again and he groaned in appreciation.

"You're having fun," he panted. "So not fair."

She tightened her grip on him and watched as his entire body leapt in response. "Nothing about this entire situation is fair, but the least I can do is keep you exhausted so the pain doesn't come back."

"Please," he sighed, watching her through half-closed eyes as she rocked above him. His arms ached to hold her, but the cuffs that held him to the tabletop were unyielding.

He came again and seemed to fall asleep at once. Scully just waited, sure he would be back in fighting form quickly. She was worried. She knew that generally a male expended a significant percentage of his metabolic resources maintaining his reproductive system. She had lost track of how many times Mulder had ejaculated, but the number was clearly far more than a normal, unmedicated man could have managed within the available time frame. He had every right to be exhausted, and lack of food and water were going to become a survival issue soon, at least for him.

Suddenly she went utterly cold inside. Cancerman had never said that she or Mulder would be freed after conception was accomplished. He had never said she would be allowed to carry, much less raise, this infant. There was every reason to believe that they expected Mulder to die here, chained to this table till his body simply wore out. As for herself, these people did not need women to carry embryos to term; she knew that, to her sorrow.

He was asleep and she was exhausted. She lay down on top of him and let herself drowse. She was not leaving without Mulder. Unless and until they could free him she was staying.

She slept deeply, dreamlessly, only to be awakened by her partner's poorly-stifled moan. She moved to accommodate him and tried to bring him off as quickly as possible to minimize his exertion. However, his erections kept coming, only minutes apart, unrelenting. Her body was always ready and she climaxed as often as he did. Her stamina was waning; she could only imagine how tired he had to be.

He was not fully conscious, anymore, she decided a short while later. His body was responding because it had no choice, but he was no longer aware.

She coped, biting back tears, wondering how much longer it would be before his body simply wore out. She was startled when he spoke.

"Scully?" His voice was breathy, barely there, but she could hear him.

"I'm here, Mulder."

He relaxed a bit. "God. I was afraid..."

"I won't leave you here, Mulder."

He blinked at her, plainly exhausted. "Escape?"

"I can't get your cuffs open."

"Try harder. I can't take much more of this..."

She could not argue with him; she did not want to squander his strength. She looked around for a tool of some kind and reconfirmed that the room was empty except for them. Then she frowned and started searching more diligently, trying the doors of the cabinets that lined the walls.

Mulder could not watch her easily and did not to try. Everything about her aroused him, even as exhausted as he was. Just thinking about how much she aroused him could bring him up to and beyond the point of pain with shocking speed. He shifted uneasily, unwilling to bother her. She was trying to get them out of this mess and he did not care to interfere with that.

He was sweating with pain more than arousal when he felt her hands on his shoulders, heard her voice gently scolding him. Her words were unimportant: all he was truly conscious of was the wet heat of her body as she engulfed him, gripped him, held him, drained away all his pain and allowed utter relief to wash over him.

Once he was asleep again, Scully dismounted and hurried back to the cabinet where she had found a door that had not caught entirely. She worked her fingers into the tiny opening and pulled, using all her strength. The cabinet door splintered, revealing that it was made of flakeboard covered with melamine. She tossed the pieces aside and reached inside.

Several boxes and screw-top jars filled the space revealed. She searched them quickly and found one box contained bottles of mineral oil. She glanced at her partner quickly and was relieved to find him asleep.

It took a few minutes for her to oil his wrists and hands and work them out of the cuffs. She was pleased that she managed to do it without any more damage than a few inconsequential scrapes. The minor seepage of blood would be irrelevant if it got them out of this situation.

She had freed his left foot and was about to walk around to his right when he moaned in exhausted arousal. She moved to stand by his shoulder.

"Mulder. Mulder, look at me."

He blinked up at her dazedly.

"Your hands are free."

His eyes lit up and he moved experimentally. She saw him bite back a groan as he flexed muscles stiffened by immobility and stress.

She squirted a few ounces of mineral oil onto his right ankle and spread it around a bit. She noticed how his arousal increased at her touch.

"Pull," she instructed, feeling her own breath getting short again.

He obeyed. She helped, twisting and pushing. It was easier than freeing his other foot had been, since he was pulling.

They were both stunned for a moment when his foot slipped free. After hours of stress and fear, now, suddenly, there was an end in sight.

Mulder sat up carefully, swung his feet off the edge of the counter where he had lain for so long. She was at his side in case he wavered, but he was careful, continuing his stretching. As soon as he was stable, he reached out with one arm and swept her up in a tight hug.

She stood between his legs, her arms wrapped around him as he rocked her, and realized that they were both crying.

A moment later they were kissing deeply and desperately. Passion flared yet again, no less true and intense than any time before. This time she climbed up into his lap and spread her legs for him. He used a newly-freed hand to guide himself home. She wrapped herself around him as she felt herself impaled and clung to him with strength that surprised them both.

He was holding her, too: one hand cupped her skull and the other, flattened on the small of her back over her tattoo, pulled her body tight against his own. Fulfillment came swiftly and they held each other tearfully for long moments.

"Much better," she whispered in his ear. "When this is over and we have time and a real bed, I want to try the missionary position. You game?"

He laughed delightedly. "Always, Scully. Always, if it's with you."

She got down carefully and stood by, watching as he stood up. "Are you dizzy? Any vertigo?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm fine. Let's blow this pop stand."

His hand reached for hers and they found the door unlocked when they tried it. Mulder threw a glance at her.

She shrugged. "They knew I wouldn't leave without you."

The hallways were deserted. Scully found a door ajar, opened it. Shelves were stacked with scrubs in all colors and sizes. Mulder grinned when he reached for the top shelf and handed her a set in size small; she could not reach them. He found a pair in size large for himself and they dressed hurriedly.

"We look like a fire sale," she grumbled good-naturedly when she realized that they were both wearing green.

"It looks good with your hair."

She glared at him, about to make a comment about his colorblindness, and was struck by a new fact. "God, it makes your eyes look like emeralds."

They smiled at each other and kissed. Then, still holding hands, they continued following the EXIT signs till they found a set of doors with panic bars.

Scully held her breath as Mulder pushed on the bar and the door opened.

Cool night air bathed their overheated bodies and they shivered, chilled.

"Scully, is that your car?"

They were facing a nearly-empty parking lot. The depths of it were lost in darkness; the only light they had was the dim illumination from a half moon. But that single visible vehicle looked a lot like her new metallic blue Aztek. After all, no other car had a silhouette like that.

"Looks like it. I'd gotten a tip that you were being held at a private medical facility in Fairfax County." She looked around. "This is it. I don't remember the end of the trip but it does look like I drove here myself."

"No backup? I'm shocked."

"I told Frohike where I was going and when to send the balloon up," she growled. "I didn't know who else I could trust."

He had to agree with her judgment on that score.

They approached the Aztek still holding hands, wary and anxious. Each of them saw the evidence that it was her vehicle. The license plate was hers, the stickers matched: one for parking in the basement ramp under the Hoover Building, one for parking at the FBI Academy at Quantico, and one for parking in her apartment complex's lot.

There was a green duffle bag inside the vehicle on the driver's seat. The doors were unlocked and the key was in the ignition.

"That's my keychain," she said unnecessarily.

He recognized the Apollo keychain he had given her years ago and nodded. "So long, and thanks for all the fish," he commented. "Experiment step one accomplished. Subjects released to resume normal activities pending stage two."

She threw a frightened glance at him and he pulled her close to hug her tightly.

"Don't worry," he whispered in her ear. "We're together. The only times they ever defeat us is when they separate us. That's not happening ever again."

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

"Come on," she smiled. "Let's blow this pop stand." She pulled open the door latch and got into the driver's seat.

The green duffle contained the clothes she had left home in, her wallet and ID, badge and Glock. Mulder walked around the other side and got in. As he was buckling his seat belt he looked up and grinned.

"Cavalry's here."

Scully saw a familiar battered van sneaking toward the driveway, all lights off. She started the Aztek, turned on all her lights, and drove toward the van.

"Good. We've got plans to make."