"The Last of the Chambord"
by Juliettt@aol.com (January 23, 1996)

This is a short Marriage story, and I would have to describe it as 
"horribly romantic."  Not that I think it's horrible -- at least, I hope 
not! -- but it is unabashedly romantic and fraught with meaning and 
all the things the non-Relationshippers on this newsgroup hate.  
Consider yourself warned on that point.  Oh, yes -- and it's highly 
suggestive and, I hope, erotic, without being at all explicit.  I guess 
I'd rate it PG-13.

It is set during Scully and Mulder's wedding night, and thus falls 
between "Wonders Wrought" and "Waking" in the Marriage series.  
Flashbacks are to an earlier story called "Once in a Blue Moon," 
set some years earlier.

As always, Dana Scully (Mulder) and Fox Mulder belong to CC, 
1013, FOX, GA, and DD.  If you don't know what all these letters 
and numbers mean, you should.  I am borrowing them (the 
characters) without permission but intend only Good Things 
toward Scully and Mulder and promise to return them relatively 
undamaged when I'm done.  This story as well as the alternate 
universe in which it is set is mine.

***********************************
"The Last of the Chambord"
by Juliettt@aol.com
***********************************


	The candles had burned very low but there was still enough 
dim light to cast soft, flickering shadows across the two bodies 
entwined on the bed.  Scully lay in Mulder's arms, her cheek against 
his chest, feeling the rapid pounding of his heart slow and his 
breathing even out.  Over the faint smell of Mulder and sweat she 
caught the sharper scent of melted candlewax and the faint aroma 
of wood smoke on their discarded clothing from the fireplace in the 
other room.  She smiled and pressed another kiss against the hair 
and damp skin beneath her face, shivering slightly as his fingertips 
traced lazy patterns on her naked back.  She lifted her head 
languidly and rested her chin against his chest.  

	He was smiling at her, his eyes soft and his entire body 
relaxed and replete, his face glowing with love and satiety.  His 
fingers slid up her neck and around to her throat, tracing the curve of 
her cheek where luminous white skin met the velvet dark of the room, 
then up and back through her hair, savoring the feel of warm silk 
slipping through his fingers.  She smiled again and pressed a kiss 
against his inner wrist, feeling his pulse there as well.  His fingers 
dropped to her lips so that he felt rather than saw her whisper, "I love 
you."

	The air in the room was heavy and warm, an almost 
perceptible weight against their sensitized skin, and the feel of the 
crisp cotton sheet against her back as she slid up to kiss him 
raised goosebumps on her flesh.

	"I love you," he whispered into her kiss, "so much."

	The kiss deepened, languid and liquid and slow.  It had the 
opposite effect on their blood, and now he shivered despite the 
sudden heat that rushed through his veins at the simplest touch of 
this woman, his wife.

	Finally she pulled away and looked at him.  "I have 
something to share with you," she said, her eyes warm.

	He raised his eyebrows.  She had already given him 
everything -- had given him herself, her heart, her mind, and, tonight, 
her body.  What else was left to give?

	She turned over and reached for something on the bedside 
table that she must have placed there earlier and which he had not 
noticed.  Of course, after she had come back into the living room and 
he had glanced up to find her standing there wearing that creamy silk 
gown and robe he had noticed nothing else but her, nothing but the 
living fire of her hair that, to him, rivalled the flames on the hearth, the 
deep blue of her eyes, the warm curves of her milky skin, the heat of 
her hands and mouth on his. . . .  He shivered again, then sat up 
against the headboard and waited.

	She turned back around with an object in either hand.  He 
glanced down.  One was a round, almost spherical bottle with a minute 
amount of a dark liquid in the bottom and the other was a small glass.  
He glanced up and caught the look in her eyes and then he 
remembered.

	And smiled.

	She smiled back and handed him the empty glass while she 
worked with the intricate fastenings of the bottle.  It was always a 
production to open the bottle of Chambord, but the results were quite 
worth the wait.

	"You remember," she said, and he nodded.

	"Our first Blue Moon Night."  Both of them thought back to that 
night on the beach, celebrating the rarity of a blue moon, when she had 
first pulled out this bottle and shared a drink and a story with him, the 
story of this bottle and the important role it had played in the special 
times in her life.

	"I told you that night that I saved this bottle only for special 
occasions," she reminded him, and he nodded.  "And that I was 
saving the last drink of it for the most important moment of my life."  
He nodded again.

	She took the glass from him.  "What I *didn't* tell you, Fox 
Mulder," she continued softly, "was that I already knew what that last, 
most momentous occasion would be."  He watched, mesmerized, as 
she carefully tipped the bottle and poured the precious dark red liquid 
into the glass.  And then she turned the bottle upside down and 
allowed the last few drops to trickle out.  He looked up into her eyes.

	And then he knew.

	She turned away long enough to set the bottle on the bedside
table, then faced him again, the glass held between them.

	"I had already decided that I would save the last of this bottle
for the night I gave myself to you."  Her voice was almost a whisper.  
"This night."  She lifted the glass slightly in a silent toast and then 
sipped, her eyes never leaving his.  Then she handed him the glass 
and he took it, his fingers wrapping around hers for a moment before 
she released it.  He brought it to his lips and tilted it back, his nose 
catching the scent of raspberries a split second before the cool, 
sweet liquid poured over his tongue and down his throat.  He smiled 
and handed it back to her.

	She looked down.  The very last of this special liqueur was 
pooled at the bottom of the small glass.  Carefully, she tipped it back 
and then set the glass next to the bottle on the bedside table.  Then 
she reached for him.

	He came to her willingly, his mouth melding with hers in a 
deep kiss.  He was somehow unsurprised to feel a faint trickle of the 
liquid enter his mouth, the precious liqueur made even sweeter by 
her lips.

	She pushed him back and bent over him, her mouth warm 
on his.  When she finally pulled away for breath he smiled.

	"You were pretty sure of yourself, weren't you."  It wasn't a 
question but she answered with a nod anyway.  "What if. . . ?"  He 
couldn't finish his sentence.  It was too awful to consider.

	She smiled.  "It never would have been drunk."  Then she 
shook her head and her smile deepened.  "But that was never really 
an option," she whispered, bending over him once more.

	He closed his eyes, feeling the sensation of heavy warmth 
creep over him again as her mouth caressed his throat and chest.  
The most incredible night of his life -- of their lives.

	A night, indeed, for the last of the Chambord.


*End*