ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME LOVE

By Char Chaffin

DEDICATION: To the wonderfully supportive BtS Seafarers, this story goes to them! And for the list birthdays I'll be missing in 2003, this belongs to all of you, too! And a special dedication to Tess and Sallie, who usually read my ramblings before they grow up and become actual fic... I decided to give you two a break this time, My Loves!

Additional Notes: At the end of the tale!

Summary: A man's inner voice can play havoc with his emotional hide-and-seek...

"Once-In-A-Lifetime Love"

'Some people have it, some people don't—

some people never will...'

You think it'll never happen to you. This feeling, this intense need.

***********************

All your life you've been a loner, and not always by choice. When you were young you had a couple of buds, and they hung out with you because you knew your way around a few sports and your sense of humor was just strange enough to be entertaining. You aced your classes without effort and functioned just fine on a minimum of sleep. You sneaked out of your house at all hours of the night; your folks never knew. That ease of self-freedom made you accessible to those pals of yours. You never told them your open-ended life had less to do with your ability to sneak out, and more to do with having parents who'd ceased to notice or particularly care what their teenage son was doing.

You were the lone boy on the court sinking one basket after another, late at night when your friends had to give up the game and go meet their parental curfew. The kid who spent so many hours in the batting cage that your arms would hurt like double toothaches and the tendons in your hands would clench up from gripping the bat. You learned how to speak Latin because it challenged your brain and it was something different from whatever bland language classes your pals chose to stumble through. You practiced kissing on the back of your hand because you'd seen some cool looking guy in a French flick doing it - and then after you got damned good at it, you never had a chance to practice on a real live girl until senior year.

You weren't really a geek; too handsome for that. Never a jock - too intelligent. Not exactly cool, either - too much inner integrity...

You were just you. And from the get-go, you always imagined your future would be spent alone. You figured nobody would want you because you were somehow flawed, although you weren't exactly sure how. You just knew your parents gave you a wide berth and your sister had gotten herself taken - and maybe it was your fault, after all. You were in pain a lot, but you never quite learned how to fix it.

You grew to manhood by trial and error, same as a lot of your friends, but without the familial support they were lucky enough to claim. Your brilliant mind got you the best education a guy could ever hope for, and your personality and single-minded drive got you into the toughest job you'd ever grow to love, as much as hate. Your passion for the truth snagged you the FBI basement and its myriad of secrets - and that same passion netted you a partner. And that assignment in turn gave you so much more to live for than just the need to find the answers surrounding your sister's disappearance.

It gave you the woman you'd eventually crave, desire, love - love with every cell of your body.

Oh, it happened slowly, enough to make you think these feelings were at first nothing more than the biological response you'd expect, when faced with a beautiful woman. From the beginning you wanted her; how could you not? Maybe she wasn't the usual type you went for, but then again it's not as if you'd had hoards of girls in school and then in college. It's not as if you walked through your days zeroed in on one set look.

Over the years you've found yourself zipping through all levels of emotion, with this woman. From protectiveness to possessiveness, good-humored frustration to out-and-out anger... amazement at her intelligence and humility at the ferocity of her heart. She has challenged you, frightened you, comforted and cared for you. She doesn't let you get away with very much and what she does allow owes more to her tolerance of your more quirky attributes than it does for her absolute acceptance of your theories. And that tolerance only makes you love her all the more.

Yes, it's love - because you have never before cared to know the innermost workings of a woman's mind, until now. You've never wanted to crawl inside a woman's soul and find yourself so deeply within that you could look out her eyes and see the reflection of your own soul. You want to cherish her, treasure and adore her; you want the right to strip off her clothes, slide her body down onto a soft mattress and cover her with your skin. You want that first thrust to mean the world to her and you want the last thrust to vibrate with the moaning words she gasps into your waiting ear...

That she loves you. Endlessly, she loves you... and when she says those words you want to hear the passion of her voice when she echoes her love in your name.

You could die a happy man tomorrow, if today you knew your evening would begin in just that manner.

You want to tell her. You're afraid to tell her... You don't think you deserve her and yet you'd want to kill any other man who caught her eye and got into her heart before you could. And it's been going on for too long already, her availability as a single woman. Any day now, she could meet someone, a man who has a hell of a lot more on the ball than you think you do. Someone with little or no excess emotional baggage, with good future prospects and a family who's intact and loving and who'd welcome her with open arms. A man her brothers would approve of. A man her mother would be proud to call 'son'.

You want it to be you. It throbs inside you, how desperately you want it to be only you. There are nights when you dream of it, of the way it could go down, if only you had the balls to tell her.

Just tell her...

Then stare into her lovely blue eyes and see for yourself the bottomless love, right there for you and you never spotted it before.

Touch her skin, the silk of her nape and the sweet curve of her cheek. Let your thumb skim her lips, feeling the brush of moisture there when she kisses that thumb.

Pull her close, then closer, finally having the right to tell her more, show her everything... love her forever.

Right here, right now, it's too far to the bed in the other room, you can't wait another moment and neither can she. There are too many clothes between your bodies, and for once you don't wait for her to make a move because you know she wants you as much as you want her.

Buttons fly from their moorings and zippers are lowered in the blinking of an eye... layers are peeled back to reveal flesh aching from the need of each other.

Every inch of her is beyond your wildest imaginings, and you have a very wild imagination. You've dreamed of her breasts, the narrow curve of her waist and the sweet swell of her hips. You've wondered how her legs would feel tangled with yours, how those smooth limbs would cradle you. The way her hands would grip your arms, slip over your chest, trail down your stomach and cup your swollen penis. Those small palms, all over you, holding you...

Her lips, on yours. You've longed for her to kiss you, have ached to kiss her. Not just some small and meaningless peck on the mouth but a full-blown Frenchie, teeth clashing and tongues curling into a wet dance of want. You've been dying to taste the inside of her cheeks, run your tongue along the roof of her mouth, drink in her saliva. You've imagined plunging your hungry tongue into the recesses of that luscious mouth, in tandem with the plunge of your body, into hers.

Her perfect torso, crushed against you, nipples boring into you, back arched in your hands. All of her flesh and every drop of her desire, all for you. The tight cling of her and the hard little clit, pressing itself into your sensitive flesh with every push. It's beyond paradise and it's taking you straight to Nirvana - and that's a place you've never had the pleasure of visiting. Ever.

It's all new because this time it would be a trip planned with the love you never wanted to give to anyone else but her. All the pieces of yourself that you couldn't fork over to past women, that small chunk you withheld from your mother, the jagged spot of your boyish hero-worship that your father didn't want, until it was almost too late to give it to him. The vast stores of emotion labeled with your sister's name, all tucked inside the heart you hand over willingly and happily to the woman you know would cherish it and protect it as she has always seemed to protect you. With each thrust and every kiss you give it to her, and you celebrate the giving. You celebrate the knowing that at last, finally your devotion is returned, that here is a woman who wants you just as you are, imperfect, flawed and suffering from far more than basic human loneliness. Here is the woman who'll heal you. She'll complete you...

And as you shudder in her arms, as she convulses through her release, holding you so tightly that neither of you can draw enough breath to groan out your adoration to each other... you understand what a 'once-in-a-lifetime' love truly means.

*****************

'Once in a lifetime love—a love like we've all dreamed of,

It may go disguised or be right before your eyes...'

You stare at her when she's not aware of your hunger, and you think of what could be. Some days it's all you can think of, how it'd be if you could tell her - show her.

You know she loves you. She has never said the words, but you know it. All this time she's put down your teasing and silly innuendoes, not understanding that you threw them out there as a test, to see if she'd respond in kind. Of course she wouldn't; that's not her way. You're dying to know how she'll react when she finds herself in love, what she'd say. Would she dress a little differently, smile with every muscle in her face, hum underneath her breath - blush when her eyes met yours? Would her hand linger in yours, would her touch finally progress beyond that of a caring friend and zoom all the way to that of a would-be lover? Would she kiss you first, or would the glow in her eyes tell you it was time for you to take that initial, full-bloom caress of lips?

You may never know, because you're too chickenshit to take the first step. Too afraid that your actions will drive her away even though you have yourself convinced she's gathered enough affection for you to help it along; assist in its nurturing and blossoming. If you asked her straight out, right to her face, if she loved you... could you accept the response you'd hear? Are you determined enough, strong enough to push the issue if she tries to dodge the question? And if you're not, then are you content to let things drift on this way, a man in love but unwilling to act on it, and a woman who seems happy to have respect and affection but not passion?

Well, you've been existing in just that manner, for much longer than you could ever have wanted. And yet...

You'd better make up your mind. Because there are a few new male agents in the Hoover, and they're single - and they've already begun to notice the women who work around them. You've both been out of the basement on a case and you missed the welcome lunch and the office-to-office introduction. They haven't seen the woman you love, yet...

But when they do, they'll make a beeline for her. It's happened before and it'll no doubt happen again.

So, what are you waiting for? You'll never know until you ask. You stand to lose it all, simply because your bravery meter is over the top when it comes to your job and somewhere down underneath a worm's ass, when it comes to declaring your love for your partner.

You'd better get your own ass in gear... just ask her. You may be surprised what she says. You may hear everything in this life you ever wanted to hear, if you just ask her.

Just ask her...

Ask her.

****************

'So if you think you've got it—if you feel it inside you - Don't let it slip away -

'Cause you may not ever find what you never thought you'd have anyway -

And if you've always had it and just realized, you know how lucky you are -

To wake up beside what some never find... A once-in-a-lifetime love...'

"Scully?"

"Hmmmm?"

"I need to ask you something."

"Okay... go ahead. Is anything wrong, are you feeling -"

"I'm completely healthy. Not even a sniffle. I just, um, I have to ask you... something."

"Well, what is it?"

"Okay... I need to know - shit, this is harder than I thought!"

"Mulder, you're starting to worry me. What IS it?"

"I want to ask you... oh, fuck... I need to ask you. Do you love me?"

"Mulder..."

"DO you? Love me? Not as a friend - but as a mate? Do you love me, as in a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love?"

"I can't -"

"Yes, you can. Tell me. Do you? I can't function for another day, unless I know. I HAVE to know."

"Jesus. You can't just spring this sort of query on me and expect an instant answer! It doesn't work that way, Mulder..."

"Yes it does, actually. It works just that way. A man falls in love and he asks the woman of his dreams if she feels the same way."

"You're saying you've fallen... in love... with me?"

"Yes. I have. You know I have. And I need to know where we stand, Scully. When people fall in love they should declare themselves."

"Oh, really? And then, what exactly happens after they declare this great love?"

"Well, they act upon it. You know. They kiss, and touch..."

"Do they make love?"

"Do they make - well, sure! They say the words and then they kiss - then they make love."

"Then what?"

"Well, they spend the rest of their lifetimes showing each other how many different ways the human body and mind - and heart - can be loved."

"Ah. Is that the way it goes?"

"Yes. That's the way."

"Once-in-a-lifetime love, huh?"

"You bet, Scully."

"Oh. Well, in that case, I'd better prepare my answer. Go ahead - ask me again, Mulder."

"Um, you want me to..."

"Yes, I do. You started this, you know. So finish it - ask me."

"Hell... Okay... here goes. Do you love me, Scully?"

"Yes. Mulder, yes. I love you."

*****************

'I know it's out there—I've seen it happen, I know the way it should feel.

'Cause there's no mistaking that good kind of aching—

Of a once-in-a-lifetime love...'

End

End Notes: ::sigh:: Sometimes I go on vacation for a few days and end up hunched over my laptop... like this past weekend!

Of course, this one was inspired by a song I heard - some of my stories have started out that way - and this time it hit me while I was listening to Alan Jackson's lovely "Once In A Lifetime Love".

Hope you liked! I love hearing from you anytime; email me!