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They were three beers deep on a Friday night, and she’d made a sly comment about his wise-ass mouth getting them into irrevocable institutional trouble one of these days. Wrung out and anxious after being hollered to hell and back over their expenditures, Mulder had made a tight little quip about saving money by sharing a room when out on cases. She had pinched him, Skinner had growled, and then shouted at him to get the fuck out of his office. Kept well past the five o’clock hour, they had simply left work and retreated to his apartment for libations and a liberal amount of shit-talking. Thai takeout had yet to arrive; the buzz of alcohol on an empty stomach was making her more loose-lipped than usual. He loved when she got a little drunk and feisty.
“I’m serious, Mulder,” she giggled while taking another swig. “You keep it up with those provocative statements, and we’ll get a hard HR inquiry about the nature of our partnership.” Her eyes were glimmering with mirthful tears.
“Let them speculate,” he shrugged, unbothered.
“You won’t feel so blasé about it when they actually separate us,” she put a hand on his knee, a bit more serious in her delivery. “You can’t make jokes about us like that.”
“Scully, Skinner has believed we’ve been doing the wild thing for years, and at this point-.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she cackled, shaking her head.
“Does, too.”
“No, Mulder,” she took another sip. “If he really did, like, earnestly believe that, we wouldn’t get to work together.”
“I think you underestimate Skinner’s desire to keep me even minimally under control. I think he sees it like this: if this is my best behavior, he’s terrified as to what I’d do without you to rein me in.” Unspoken, he also knew that Skinner rightfully anticipated that any attempt to divide them would fail. It had failed before, it would fail again. They were tied to each other, irrevocably.
“That’s not true, and you know it. He values your work. And mine. But Skinner is also beholden to the FBI. He will always save his hide first, Mulder. We will be separated, even if I supposedly ‘rein you in.’” She leveled him with another quasi-serious glare. The door bell rang and he stood, grabbing his bill fold. “You make it sound like I’m some aggrandized babysitter.” He opened the door, taking the numerous bags and paying the kid. He returned to her quickly, pulling packages out of the brown paper sacks. The receipt was pulled off the bag and set aside. She insisted on paying half when it was a larger order. It wasn’t necessary, he’d told her half a million times, but when he had outright refused before, he’d found cash placed in his wallet later. She was insufferably stubborn, and it was only one of the many reasons why he loved her.
Scully’s hands eagerly reached for a rice bowl, handing him his portion.
“Not my babysitter,” he laughed. “Scully-.”
“And in any case,” she interrupted with precision, “we aren’t intimate, Mulder. Not like that, anyway. So I would appreciate it if you kept this long standing fantasy of yours to yourself.” He looked at her, surprised by her bold statement. He wasn’t sure if he ought to be hurt, but he saw the glimmer of mischief in her eyes; the tenderness. She was just teasing him.
Sometimes, he genuinely wondered if she didn’t know how much he loved her, and if her teasing was all that innocent.
“Keep it to myself?” He returned, careful to maintain a playful tone as he analyzed her.
“Yes, don’t implicate me with that silver tongue of yours,” Scully rolled her eyes. “You’re the one making sexually charged jokes in the workplace. Not me. Keep me out of it.” He studied her as she munched on an egg roll, pleased by their bounty. Scully grazed, stealing some beef from his rice dish. A few moments elapsed as he studied her while she ate. Did Scully really not understand, or was it contrived? She realized he wasn’t eating and frowned. “Mulder, eat something.”
“Scully,” he sighed, leaning back. He smirked at her sudden disquiet. “You are such a tease.”
“Excuse me?” Her eyebrow flicked up high over her forehead. There was a little pulse in his lap. He loved that skeptical eyebrow. “How?”
“You like it when I implicate you.” He watched color rise in her cheeks. “If I so much as implied possessing any other person of interest in any setting, professional or private, you wouldn’t talk to me for weeks.”
“Mul-.”
“And who else would I even have long standing fantasies about? Who the hell do I spend time with? You’re the only one who matters.” He cocked his head to the side, the beer making him too bold for his own good. She set her food down, glowering at him; a modicum or fear obvious behind her steely facade.
“Mulder,” she warned.
“And in any case,” he parroted her earlier tone, “those ‘sex jokes in the workplace’ are more to call out the ludicrous standards you and I are held to. Not to make a sport of our dynamic. No other partnership is criticized as much as ours. No one else gets audited with the frequency we do.” She sat straighter, eyeing him with shared frustration on that score. “We side step a lot of rules. They know that. But for fuck’s sake, they want us to get our numbers down that much? It’s not possible. Even if we stayed in the shittiest motel in the shittiest small town. It’s ridiculous. Why don’t they come out and say what they’ve all been suspecting for years anyway, offer their solutions, and save us the time of day.”
“Which is what, exactly?” She had shape-shifted from irritated Scully to nervous Scully to insulted Scully in a matter of moments.
“That one of those hotel rooms stands empty each time we pick up two sets of keys.”
“That’s absurd, they don’t think that,” but even as she uttered her response, he saw the doubt flicker in her eyes due to the truth she heard in his rebuttal.
“Callously, I think they do. Mr. And Mrs. Spooky? Remember? As if they could fucking prove it, anyway.” He drained his beer and set it down on the coffee table. She tossed her napkin down next to it, exasperated more with the concept than with him.
“Prove that we check out two rooms and sleep in one together?” She qualified with a scoff. “Mulder-.”
“No. That we’re intimate. That we’re romantically involved.”
“Well, they can’t prove it, if we were,” her nose scrunched in annoyance. “We’d have to admit to it,” she put a hand to her temple. “And, further, we aren’t. We aren’t romantically involved.” To that, her jaw clenched. Mulder detected some bitterness in the statement. “You’re talking in circles, and my head hurts from too much beer. I’m not sure if you are insulting my conduct, yours, ours, or theirs.”
“All I’m saying is that, yeah, my silver tongue may get us into trouble one day. But for all the times that they try to shut us down, defund us, and make our work even more difficult, the reason the files get closed won’t be because of us being intimate. We won’t get separated for a romantic liaison.”
“You make it sound like an inevitability,” she shook her head, finishing her own beer; cheeks flaming red. Scully shifted uncomfortably, weighing his words.
“Does that idea bother you so much?” He attributed his own boldness to the alcohol. Her eyes flashed over his. He detected a flicker of a deep-seated hurt that she quickly masked.
“Mulder,” she whispered with an anxious, reserved lilt. “Please don’t.” Subtly, Scully tilted her body away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Does it?” He insisted, staying on his side of the couch. Everything about her was confusing him. Either Scully felt the same way as he did, and was simply terrified to act upon that desire, saturated as it was by utter devotion, or she didn’t. Her body language all evening had been a frustrating mixture of reaching out to him, yet withdrawing when he returned the gesture. This dance was getting old. He was tired of pretending that she wasn’t all he wanted. How she wasn’t equally tired of avoiding the unspoken tension between them was fucking baffling.
“I don’t want to be separated from you,” she said after a bitterly long interval. Mulder sighed with frustration, and ran a hand down his face.
For too long, they sat in silence. The food was growing cold, but neither party moved to eat it or pack up the remainder for left overs. With a deep sigh, Scully reclined into his leather couch. Her eyes were fixed on nothing; deeply sad.
An impasse, as always. Disquiet and refusal, as always. He watched Scully close her eyes, silencing something inside of herself that was beyond his reach.
For fucks sake.
He was so tired of never saying the critical things aloud. When you love someone so deeply, spiritually, physically, and perhaps even metaphysically, denying the other person such information felt cruel.
Shouldn’t she know that no matter what, he was in this with her? Lived for her? Wanted her? Would do anything at all for her?
“I should go home,” she uttered, shaking her head.
With a growing sense of obligation to make it abundantly clear how fervently he cared for her, he slid from the cushion and knelt before Scully on the rug. It could almost be prayerful, the position. Well, it was worship of a kind. A worship that he was more keen on than any potential conversation to be had with God. Scully’s eyes widened as his hands rested on her knees. Gently, he encouraged her to uncross her ankles. A charming, bright flush took up residence in her cheeks and neck.
“Does the idea of intimacy between us truly bother you so much? Especially knowing they couldn’t prove it?” His repeated inquiry invited Scully’s wary gaze to scan his face, analyze the flex of his fingers on her knees, and then with a deepening blush she looked anywhere but his eyes. “Scully.” She exhaled hotly, and fixed her gaze upon the ceiling. After a long, tense stretch, he whispered, “Dana.” With a nervous shrug, she shook her head.
“Of course not,” her reply was no louder than a breath. The high color that dominated her features fascinated Mulder. Why would Scully be so nervous in the face of his admiration? His attention? His lust?
Mulder gently urged her skirt up at a glacial pace with both hands, feeling the warm expanse of her thighs. He never looked away from Scully’s face, watching indecision and fear fight with something else. As he got to the beautiful curve of her upper thigh, all toned and strong, she put her hands over his to halt the fabric’s climb.
“Mulder,” Scully stared down at him, unsure and deeply nervous. He’d seen that expression before, in a hallway two years ago, when a bee interrupted a would-be kiss. The step between partners to lovers had been easy in the seconds prior. Again, he saw that expression: a torrid mingling of want, fear, and hope.
“Yes?”
“What are you planning on doing exactly?” Her tremulous, low voice revealed little. Nerves, he detected, only in her face, in her trembling hands. Nervous as to what he was intending, perhaps afraid that she was grossly misreading him. There was definitely no lack of interest. No fear of him.
“Well, I’d like to show you what else this troublesome mouth of mine can do.”
Scully’s eyes were the size of saucers. The gigantic, deep and dark pupils that overwhelmed the aquamarine iris weren’t lost on him.
“We shouldn’t,” Scully whispered in an emotionless tone; further evidence of just how afraid she was.
“Do you want me to stop?” He couldn’t push her skirt up any higher without her assistance, as it wasn’t yet clearing the apex of her legs. Scully continued to stare at him.
“We’ve been drinking.”
“I would do this stone cold sober if you let me.” Her eyes grew wider, disbelieving. “And you know that.” The flush of embarrassment and her need to briefly glance away acknowledged what he suspected in that regard. They danced around this constantly, but they knew each other too well to hide such affection, such intrigue. It was an unspoken agreement to not discuss the depth of that affection.
“W-We might regret this.”
“I never would.”
“I don’t believe you,” Scully let out a shaky breath.
“Why?”
“Because you’re making a move when we’ve been joking around. I think you’re doing this more to prove a point than out of an actual desire to…well,” she trailed off, shrugging haplessly.
“Than an actual desire to what?” He prompted, refusing to look away from her eyes. Scully’s plush, rosy lips trembled. Even in distress, she was so goddamn pretty.
“Than an actual desire for intimacy with me,” she whispered after a terribly long moment, her resolve coming out in a heated, shaky exhale. Scully looked away, arms crossing her chest; a barricade against him.
“Scully,” he squeezed her legs, voice low and coaxing. A scared Scully was a notoriously difficult creature to wrangle, to invite close. He knew of no person with higher walls around her heart. When she wouldn’t return his gaze, Mulder reached for her chin, redirecting her to his face. She bit her lip, but allowed it. “Tell me no, and I will stop.”
His partner sat in silence, staring at him, looking for all the world as if she might cry. Contrary to her, Mulder too often wore his heart on his sleeve. It broke his far-too-exposed heart, how distrusting Scully was of his genuine affection and attraction. That was his fault, he knew that. Too often did he joke around and flirt, while never assuring her of how ardently he meant it. Gazing up at her, his resolve crystallized. He needed to fix that. With a hand on her thigh and one under her chin, he knew he needed to use his wise-ass tongue for better ventures: telling this woman, and demonstrating, how much she meant to him.
“Are you teasing me?” She asked, the insecurity made his chest ache.
“No.”
“Making fun of me?”
“Never,” Mulder stated with such solemnity it shifted something in her face. Slowly, Scully licked her upper lip, evaluating him.
“You won’t regret this?” Her soft voice was ever so slightly higher. Vulnerable. Mulder’s fingers flexed against her skin, heart sick and more in love with her than ever. Being invited to see her emotional vulnerability surpassed any physical intimacy, though it was undeniably the prelude to the latter. Her emotional vulnerability with him was a privilege he didn’t intend to waste.
“Absolutely not,” Mulder replied firmly. “You mean too much to me.”
She continued to hold his gaze. Something solid formed behind Scully’s eyes as she took his measure. Her shaky right hand shifted, and nimble fingers ran through his hair. With the gentlest pressure behind his head to encourage him to come near, Scully elevated her hips. Mulder pushed the tight material of her skirt up the last few inches, and reverentially laid his lips upon her mound.
Black cotton met his mouth. The fragrant heat of her sex filled his nose. Scully’s sharp, surprised inhalation urged him forward. He kissed along her panty line, nipping just west of her clothed labia, thoroughly enjoying her subtle squirming.
“Oh,” the sound escaped her involuntarily. His eyes flicked up to meet hers as he saw Scully cover her mouth with her other hand. The surprise in her expression at her own arousal gave him a boost of confidence. This was right. It was time. Screw the rest of it.
Slowly, bracing his hands on her thighs, Mulder rose up on his knees. The slow ascent towards her face was measured. Her hand fell from her lips, resting just below her neck as Mulder slowly closed the distance. Wet; so magnificently wide and wet were her eyes. For a split second, he was a bit surprised by what seemed to be genuine shyness. Usually forthright and assertive about what she wanted in her professional life, the restraint was unlike Scully.
Scully’s nerves weren’t so easy to discern. Scully was so damn practical about bodily matters, so unfazed by organs, hormones, natural reactions. It wasn’t the nervousness of a prudish or religious nature, either. They weren’t teenagers after all, despite how excited, clumsy, and unabashedly aroused she often made him feel. The shyness of the first time with a new partner didn’t sum it up. He wondered if it was anxiety, because it’d been a long time for her. Hell, if it was as long as it had been for him, he understood the reserve readily. No. It was something else, and whatever it was it had a markedly sad aspect to it.
As Mulder really took in her expression, the flush of her cheeks and neck, and how her hand remained connected to him, the underlying reasoning slammed into his consciousness. What Mulder was witnessing in her face was the thick, complex reserve of knowing what could be lost should things go sour. If this went poorly, it would be disappointing beyond measure. If it went poorly and ruined their work as a result, it would be fatal to their relationship. It would destroy them both, he knew, if further entanglement and intimacy was the death knell of their relationship.
Mulder was witnessing what was a preemptive mourning for what had been, could’ve been, or should’ve been.
“Mulder,” Scully’s fingers trailed along his jaw. His name was a statement, a question, and a confirmation; wrapped up in one. The sadness in her eyes worried him.
How had he waited so long to do this with her? Hell, do this for her? She had nothing to worry about. The only course of action he knew was to make her come so hard that she was drained of every ounce of anxiety she had left.
“I don’t want you to censor yourself,” he insisted on an out breath. She gave a subtle nod, biting her lower lip again. “It’s okay. Talk to me.” He smiled at her continued hesitation, the way she clearly wanted something but wouldn’t share it. “Tell me what you want, Dana.” It was almost foreign, using her first name, but it gave him the response he wanted; a breathless shudder, a searching gaze. Her eyes landed on his lips.
“Kiss me,” she requested, voice velvet soft and gentle. Scully’s hands cradled his face, studying him. Something distinct and sad remained in her features. Mulder threaded the fingers of his left hand through her hair, pulling her close. He would make her set down her sadness for at least a little while.
When their lips touched, his whole body simultaneously lit up and melted into hers. This was desire. This was relief. This was what made life bearable. Her. Her. Her. Her. His senses, his mouth, absolutely filled with her. Mulder pushed Scully further into the cushions, devouring her mouth, jawline, and neck. Strong thighs wrapped around his torso as he tasted her skin, her mouth. The quiet moans that escaped Scully’s throat only encouraged him to further smoosh her against the soft, worn leather. Just as she had entrapped him with her legs, he wrapped his arms about her. Scully’s compact, strong body was half cradled against him. Greedy hands raked his back, clutching at him. His own hands traveled over her form, feeling every curve of her frame through her work clothes.
When Mulder snuck his hand between her legs, she froze. Scully’s eyes popped open, studying him at close range as he caressed her over the thin material. A lick of pride bloomed in Mulder’s chest at the soft stutter that infiltrated her breath, the way her cheeks burned with warmth; rosy and obviously aroused. Her eyes minutely rolled at the pressure he provided right over the tight knot of nerves that he’d ached to taste for years.
“Talk to me,” Mulder whispered, wanting her vocalized desire. He couldn’t help but smile as her breath began to shake at the slow, firm, circular pressure he applied. Her fingers curled in his hair. A quiet whimper escaped her throat.
“I-,” Scully bit her lip as Mulder lifted the sodden gusset of her panties away and rubbed the opening of the most private place on her body. A quick, sharp stream of air left her nose as she tried to quiet her reaction. He kissed her until that lower lip was firmly held between his teeth, earning a quiet, shuddering moan. He played with the opening of her sex, a circling teasing motion with the tips of his fingers, and fucked her mouth with his. The pinch between her eyebrows was one of utter agony. Her half-restrained whimper was swallowed by him. God, but he wanted to hear every sound she made. He wanted to know what she sounded like when she submitted, completely and totally, to her sexual needs. Greedily, he wanted to hear her scream, cry out, lose track of any and all sounds coming from her body. It had struck Mulder as odd, not knowing this aspect of her, this other dimension to her character. In so many ways, they understood and knew each other better than anyone else in their lives. The fact he didn’t have this carnal knowledge of Dana Katherine Scully struck him as…functionally, cosmically, and spiritually incorrect.
“Talk to me,” Mulder repeated gently, teasing her labia, stroking back and forth from clit to opening. Her head fell back, limp, as she began to lose sight of her anxiety amidst the foreplay. His smile grew, adoring the flush that was blooming across her chest, her neck. She was so, so pretty. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want your mouth,” Scully finally breathed, an edge of desperation punctuating the statement.
Mulder slunk back down her body, and put his damnable mouth to work. Eagerly, he eased her legs further apart, lifting one strong thigh over his shoulder. His tongue glanced over her clit, and a halting exhale and muted whimper filled the air. His fingers dug into her hips. He feasted upon her.
Nine minutes. That’s all it took.
Nine minutes, like time lost in Oregon.
Nine minutes, which was about how long it took for him to fall head over heels in love with her from their first encounter.
Nine minutes, before Scully was gasping and shaking around him; her cunt strangling his tongue buried deep into her sex. His cock was leaking in his trousers. He ached under the weight of his want of her.
Starry-eyed, and a bit embarrassed, Scully stared at him framed between her thighs as she descended from her high. Nerves were redressing her system, laying anxiety over the afterglow and dimming it exponentially. Words were lost on her, that was clear. In contrast, the delicious ambrosia and slick of her sex coated Mulder’s mouth, his face. He was drunk on her, intoxicated by every part of her person. It was unfair that he would remain high while uncertainty laced through her.
“Mulder,” she began, a nervous edge filtering through.
Mulder had no concrete answer to her anxiety beyond repositioning her on the couch so that Scully was on her back while he hovered above. A startled gasp escaped her, but she otherwise didn’t protest or stop him. He analyzed Scully’s pretty face, the way her chest heaved with renewed anticipation. Minor confusion furrowed Scully’s brow when Mulder didn’t move for a long, heated moment. A question was forming on her lips. He caressed her face and kissed her tenderly. He felt her mounting anxiety immediately dip.
He decided that the only means to assuage her doubt was to offer more: more dopamine flushing through her system, more care, more unfurling of needs and needs met. Pulling back, Mulder’s eyes raked her body, beyond curious about the rest of her figure and eager to see her nude. Self conscious awareness permeated her features. Once again, Scully loosely crossed an arm over her chest and fiddled with her cross. Kissing her lips, then her cheek, he slowly pulled her arm away and undid several of her shirt buttons. The cream colored lace of her bra invited wet kisses, causing her back to arch and breath to ramp up. Undressing Scully fully meant getting up off the couch, so he settled for the sexy disarray of half undone work clothes. It was a pornographic picture, that was certain: her hair tousled, cheeks flushed, thoroughly kissed with love bites blooming. Her shirt was splayed wide, but still tucked into her smart, tight skirt. Said skirt, pushed high up over her thighs to reveal soaking wet panties and thigh-highs, was straining across her feminine hips.
“Talk to me,” he requested softly, leaning closer. His fingers trailed over her exposed upper thigh, gripping the muscular underside. She put a hand on his chest, trying to guess where he was going. Mulder laid parallel to Scully, propping himself up on an elbow while he wedged a leg between hers. He draped her supple thigh over his hips, enjoying the way her grip scrunched the fabric of his shirt in turn. His fingers slunk back to her sex, fondling and stroking.
“Yes,” Scully’s eyes rolled back as she allowed him to further tease her, touch her, suggest that he might send her back over the edge.
“Tell me what you want,” Mulder whispered in her ear.
Scully’s arms slid around him, one hand firmly threading into the hair at the nape of his neck while the older gripped his shoulder blade. The more he teased, the more her hips wriggled against him. It was obvious she wanted him inside of her, but for whatever reason Scully wouldn’t say so.
“Your body is speaking pretty loudly,” Mulder smugly informed her, lips right at her ear. Her whole frame shuddered against him. “Do you want my fingers in your pretty pussy?” The intensity of Scully’s spasm and the way she clawed at his back would’ve made him laugh if he wasn’t so eager to feel her orgasm again.
“Yes,” she managed. With care, Mulder slipped two, then three, fingers inside of her, eliciting a surprised and eager moan. “Oh, God, yes,” she whimpered. Mulder kissed her jaw, her neck, anywhere he could reach as he began a firm, even pace. “I-I want you to talk to me,” Scully stated clearly, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Just keep talking to me.”
Mouth hovering by her ear, Mulder spoke of nothing but his undiluted, long-standing desire for her.
He told her how often he touched himself, thinking about her, how the skirt she wore on Tuesday just about did him in due to how perfectly it outlined her ass, how many times he’d thought of throwing open their adjoining door at whatever shitty motel they occupied and fucking her until they got a sound complaint. He described how much he wanted to see her face when she came, how beautiful he found her, how arguing with her in the office turned him on. In excruciating detail that threatened to cause an accident in his boxers, Mulder relayed his years-long fantasy of bending her over the desk in their office and fucking her so thoroughly and completely she couldn’t stand after; of leaning over her from behind and holding the delicate chain of her necklace in his mouth.
Every salacious detail earned him a desperate arch of Scully’s back, a thrust of her own hips against his fingers, a half-restrained moan that was barely muffled against his shoulder. The way she was gushing with arousal made his actions audible, kicking his ego and desire up several notches. Mulder told her how much he enjoyed her wet, generous heat, which earned a set of claws at his neck, his back. When the tell-tale fluttering around his fingers began, Mulder bit her ear lobe, crooning her name. Scully went rigid, and with a beautiful cry she surrendered to her orgasm. Lips pressed firmly against his shirt, he caught the edges of what was perhaps his name. She kept her face buried against him, the delirious gasps and moans growing frantic and louder as he fucked her through the heights of her bliss. Mulder greedily sucked on the skin of her neck as her body spasmed. The orgasm seemed to go on forever. It was only when she went deliciously limp that Mulder removed his hand from between her legs, laying his wet fingers across her partially exposed ass.
They laid there, unmoving, for several minutes. On a loop, he kept thinking about how he’d finally been inside of her, at least with his hand, and not a single layer of clothing had been removed. What would she allow if they were naked? Could he get her naked in the future? Would she welcome more moments like this? His cock ached, brutally, in his pants. Her body wormed closer, and Scully held him tight. She was shaking from the erotic aftershocks still moving through her. Mulder rubbed her back, feeling his own nervous system relax as hers did.
Silence continued between them. His erection started to wane a bit, bringing some relief. Mulder pulled back to look at her, and couldn’t contain his laugh when he realized she’d fallen asleep. In sleep, she was gorgeously relaxed. He wanted to see her relaxed more often. He wanted to be the source and cause of her relaxation. Cradling her against his chest, Mulder closed his eyes for what felt like a minute before he, too, surrendered to sleep.
When he awoke, the room was completely dark and he was alone. The VCR player stated it was nearly four in the morning. Mulder sat up slowly, gaining his bearings with weary eyes and a mild headache from what was probably a minor hangover. He turned on a lamp beside the couch. The food they’d ordered, then neglected, was gone. The only thing left was the receipt from their take-out order with a precise, perfectly neat little stack of dollar bills and change sitting beside it.
It was unclear how long she had been gone. He tried not to let the fact she’d up and left hurt his feelings, but it did.
Leaning forward, feeling unsure how to process her absence, he registered her recognizable, flowing cursive on the back of the receipt. When he reached for it to read the message, his chest filled with warmth.
Please don’t regret it.
He could still taste her on his tongue, encouraging him to pop the button of his pants and reach inside.
The last thing he felt was regret.