TITLE:  Four Loves
AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan
EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.

RATING:  PG
CATEGORIES:  VR
KEYWORDS:  UST, Mulder/Scully romance, Scully POV
SPOILERS:  None

SUMMARY:  "You know I love you."  It is not a question.  You say it 
with absolute certainty, the same certainty you have about aliens and 
conspiracies and Truth.

Disclaimer:  Everybody in this belongs to somebody else.

Author's notes at the end.

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

"I would die for you."

I turn your words over in my head for perhaps the hundredth time, and 
I still don't find any surprise.  Die for me?  Of course you would.  
Gladly.  In a heartbeat.  You wouldn't, in fact, think twice about it, 
and that's what terrifies me.

Make a deal with the devil, put a gun to your head, offer yourself as 
a willing sacrifice - all in the name of saving me, and all leaving me 
to somehow go on without you.  I don't think you've ever thought about 
that, about how I would face a world without you in it, even though 
you of all people should know what that kind of desolation feels like.  
I know you weren't thinking about it that night, as you ripped open 
your chest to give me another look at your heart.  Another dark night, 
another whispered declaration, another impossible promise.  Your 
timing always stinks, because these moments inevitably send me 
spinning, suck the breath from my lungs and disrupt my equilibrium for 
days.  Maybe your timing's perfect.

This time I didn't let you get away with it.  There would be no 
feverish confessions, no scorching caresses this time.  Instead, I 
sighed.  "Dying's easy, Mulder," I said quietly.  "Anyone can die - 
for a person, for a cause.  It only takes one moment of courage."  I 
looked at you and saw that this wasn't the script you had playing in 
your head.  I had your attention.  "What's really tough is to live for 
someone."  Ask me, I think.  I could write you a book.

A week has passed, and the words have hung between us like smoke, 
harsh and rasping in our lungs, pricking tears from our eyes.  I begin 
to think that I could pluck bits of ash from my sleeve.

We haven't spoken any more than absolutely necessary since then.  You 
have been grim, stoic.  I know that you took it as a reproach.  I 
suppose on some level I meant for you to.  I don't want a reward for 
sticking with you - I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be.  But 
dammit, Mulder, not everything is about you.  If you'd look up for a 
minute from your self-crucifixion, you'd see that every nail through 
your hand sends pain singing through my heart.

You are nurturing the hurt, what you think is the rejection, and 
finally I can't take it anymore.  I think I'm just too tired to add 
one more thing to our shared burden.  When I look over at you, you are 
gazing into the middle distance, your eyes fixed on whatever your mind 
sees, a pencil dangling forgotten from your fingers.  "Are we ever 
going to talk about this, Mulder?"

You glance up at me.  You are instantly back from wherever you were, 
and I am amazed again at the way your mind works in agile leaps.  
"You want to?" you ask.  There is just enough criticism in your voice 
to make me weary again.

I take a deep breath.  "We can't fit too many more elephants into this 
room."

You look at me thoughtfully, and your face would be unreadable if I 
didn't know it so well.  You are holding yourself very still.  "I 
think that's an answer to a different question," you say quietly.

"Then ask me one I can answer."

I'm afraid for a moment that the shade will drop down over your eyes, 
and then I almost wish it had because it's like you're gathering all 
the light in the room there and blazing it at me.  I have seen your 
eyes in every incarnation - flashing with mischief, glassy with fear, 
glazed with passion, and a hundred other emotions that are inscribed 
on my heart's memory - but this is the one I have always feared the 
most.  They are fierce, glinting like chipped jade, and I think of 
those Mayan masks with their teeth bared to eternity.  There will be 
no escape from this.

When you speak, your voice is low, not soft, and a tremor of fear or 
maybe desire shoots up my spine.  "You know I love you."  It is not a 
question.  You say it with absolute certainty, the same certainty you 
have about aliens and conspiracies and Truth.

Of course I know it.  I've lost sight of a great many things in the 
years we've been together, but this fact has loomed larger with every 
piece I've lost, filling up the spaces that are left behind.  You show 
me, and probably the rest of the world, every day.  You've even told 
me, once from a hospital bed and more than once with your lips pressed 
hot against my skin.  I can't pretend not to know this, and one look 
at your face tells me that you won't stand for any equivocation or 
prevarication this time.  "Yes," I say simply.

"And you love me."  I hear the doubt creep in, but I know it is not 
about my love.  It is doubt that you deserve it, doubt that God or the 
cancer man or fate will allow it.  I am slowly chipping away at the 
first, but nothing I have ever said or done has made any difference in 
the second.  I've got time.

You are waiting for an answer, reading the thoughts passing across my 
face so clearly that I wonder why I bother not speaking them.  "Yes," 
I say again, and this time my voice betrays me, going soft and husky 
without my consent.

You take it as an invitation, which I should have seen coming.  In a 
motion so fluid I don't really see it happen, you move to sit in front 
of me.  You are too close.  Our knees brush together, and I can smell 
the faint memory of your aftershave, and there is no way to avoid your 
eyes.  I see your relentlessness there, and I wonder if this 
conversation will end up with me taking you into my bed or hating you.

"What kind of love?" you ask.

Your voice is cool, clinical, and at such odds with the fire in your 
eyes that my mind cannot make the leap for a moment.  I blink to hide 
my discomfort, although I know you don't miss it.  "What do you mean?" 
I manage at last.

"We love each other, Scully, but I wonder if we're speaking the same 
language.  Let's try it in Greek."

You don't speak Greek, I think irrelevantly.  I have foolishly kept my 
eyes on yours, because you want me to and because I can't deny you 
anything, and I shiver at the sensation of smoke and blood and battle 
cries.  I brace myself as if against a coming assault.

"We only have one word for love," you say quietly.  
"It's...ambiguous.  There are so many experiences it can describe.  
The Greeks had four words for it, four different kinds of love.  
Overlapping, perhaps, but distinct.  Do you know the words?"

I nod warily.  You have let your voice go smooth and dreamy, but I am 
not fooled.  "Storge, philia, agape, and eros."

In another conversation, you would look pleased by this shared 
knowledge.  Now your eyes narrow a little, and I realize I have given 
you permission.  "Four loves," you say softly, leaning forward into my 
space with your elbows on your knees.  "Which one is this, Scully?"

My mind flies ahead to the end of this line of thinking.  All right, 
Mulder.  You're pushing me, and you know it, but we'll do this if this 
is what you need.  I just watch you and wait.

"Storge," you begin.  "Affection.  The natural feeling between family 
members, or people who have been brought together by chance.  
Fondness brought about by familiarity.  We were certainly brought 
together by chance, at least as far as we understand the 
circumstances.  Are we fond of each other's familiar habits?"

"Of course."  You look at me, and a hundred images run between us, the 
stuff of living intimately with another.  Knowledge shared and learned 
over time, minutiae that builds the foundation of any relationship.  
How I like my coffee, how you hate brown socks.

You nod.  "So is this storge?"  You don't expect an answer, and I 
don't give you one.  "What's the next love?"

"Philia.  Friendship."

"Hm.  Is this friendship, Scully?"

"Philia involves loyalty, equality, a commitment to another, a sense 
of shared purpose."

"You're the most loyal person I've ever met," you say, and I think the 
confession slipped out before you had a chance to bend it to your 
will.

"Only to you," I reply, daring you to contradict me.  We both know 
there have been times when my loyalty to you has eclipsed my loyalty 
to everything else in my world.  "You've always treated me as your 
equal."

"You are."

"You didn't know that at first."

A vaguely troubled expression passes over your face, but it is gone 
quickly.  "You've stood by me in a few moments of grace and an 
infinite number of horror."

"Where else would I be?"  It has been so long since I could imagine 
any other possibility that I truly wonder if you have an answer.  
Your eyes give you away, as they always do.  You can dream another 
path, but you can't believe in it.  "Your purpose has become mine.  
Your quest is my quest."

Grief flickers in your eyes.  You are thinking of all that has been 
lost, everything that has been taken from me, because of this shared 
journey.  You never mourn the loss of your own innocence - you never 
expected to keep it - but you hate that I now know the things you 
know.  This is not the time for your guilt, however, and instead you 
nod slowly and say, "Yes.  Maybe this is philia, then."

I find my voice before the recriminations in your mind find their way 
into your heart.  "I think there's more to it than that."

"Do you?"  Your gaze catches mine again, and for the first time in a 
week I see more than ashes there.  There is a faint glow of a phoenix 
being born.  "Maybe it's the third love, agape."

"A spiritual love," I murmur.

"A transcendent love," you reply, and your hands find mine, our 
fingers twining together.  "Unconditional.  Volitional."

I think about reminding you that this is a later, Christian 
definition, that the Greeks described agape as something that creates 
contentment, but I realize that you know this and that it doesn't 
matter.

"You love me without condition," you say softly.

"Anything else is manipulation."  I dare you to defy it, my chin 
tilting up a little, but you shake your head almost imperceptibly.  
You have no argument against this.  I relax slightly.  "You love me 
with your will."

Your eyes flare fiercely again, but I am not afraid of the fire this 
time.  "Anything else is transitory."  I feel your fingertips brushing 
slow circles against the pulse in my wrists.  "You are every moment of 
contentment I've known."

My heart clutches for a moment at the understanding that this is true, 
that in all those years between childhood and me you were never 
satisfied, never comfortable.  I reach for you unthinkingly, brush the 
backs of my fingers against your temple, and you close your eyes.  I 
am suddenly bereft without them, cut off from you.  "I'm sorry," I 
whisper.

You open them, slowly, and I see the reds and golds of the phoenix.  
"It brought me to you."

"I'm still sorry."

"So am I."  You turn your head into my touch.  Your lips are soft 
against my wrist.  "Is this agape?" you ask.

"Something like it," I answer.  My voice sounds like it came from 
somewhere deeper than my throat, and your eyes flicker up to mine.

"There's only one other choice," you say.

I nod.  "Eros."

"Sexual love."

I think of moonlight on skin and sweat and the slide of our bodies 
against each other.  I think of you hovering over me, within me, your 
breath hot on my neck, your mouth blistering my skin.  My belly grows 
hot, and I look at you and know you are thinking the same things.  I 
wonder how I look to you in those moments.

"Beautiful," you whisper, as if you heard me.

I press my palms to yours.  "There's more to eros than heat," I remind 
you, although the tiny tremor in my voice is unconvincing.

"Tell me."

"Eros is just, temperate, brave."

"Love is patient, love is kind," you murmur.  "It does not envy, it 
does not boast, it is not proud."

The sacred words flow from you as easily as abduction statistics.  I 
hesitate, knowing the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose, but 
the demons have vanished from your eyes.  "Eros means seeking beauty 
and goodness," I continue, my voice a breath.

You fill in the blanks I have left.  "It strives toward wisdom, toward 
what it knows it lacks.  It begins with love of a single beautiful 
body, and from that grows a love of all beauty.  It gives wonder."

You have moved closer to me, and I lick my lips without meaning to.  
You do not miss it.  "Do we find in each other what we lack in 
ourselves?" I ask quietly.

"I've already told you this, Scully.  You complete me.  You make me 
whole."

My thumb is tracing over your lower lip.  "You fill places I didn't 
know were empty.  You lead me toward the truth."

"You are my truth."  You lean in the last few inches, and you are 
kissing me, your hands cupping my face, our breaths mingling.  Your 
mouth is undemanding, your touch soft, but I am slightly dizzy when 
you draw away.

"This must be eros," I whisper.

You shake your head.  "All four.  Four loves - that's almost enough to 
describe this.  How will we make do with only one?"

"We'll say it four times."  A smile twitches your mouth, and I claim 
your lips.  "I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

-Terma-

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

I don't know of any ancient work that collects discussions of all four 
loves in one place, but the dialogue in Symposium gives an excellent 
look at eros.  Robert Cavalier's essay "The Nature of Eros" was 
invaluable and can be found on the web.  C. S. Lewis' The Four Loves 
gives a modern, Christian interpretation, from which I also borrowed.  
The Scripture Mulder quotes (somewhat improbably) is 1 Corinthians 
13:4.