Title: Partners, their Pasts, and the Long Push Forward

Author: Brandy Thatcher

Email Address: naderafuro@yahoo.com

Spoiler Warning: Story takes place in the first half of the Sixth
Season,  prior to Tithonis. There are references to other X Files
prior to that.

Rating: R

Classification: Story, MSR.

Summary: "Between these two crap cases, getting bitched at by Kersh,
being  on the verge of losing his job and dragging Scully down with
him, and the  appearance of this psycho Ethan guy, this could have
been one of the worst  weeks of his entire life.  So how was it then
that when everything was going  so wrong in his life, he could be so
completely happy?"

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully et al are the property of Fox, Chris Cater
and  TenThirteen Productions.  This is a work of pure fiction and is
posted with no  intent to profit.  I mean no harm.

Author's Notes:  In some ways the "what happened with Ethan" thing is
kind of  cliche, but I never said I had any imagination, so I'm hoping
everyone will  let it slide.  As usual, what always interests me in
other people's  fanfiction and in writing my own, and in the show
itself for that matter, is  the relationship between Mulder and
Scully, so I recognize that more often  than not the "action" as it
were tends to fall secondary to the  "interaction."  Still, I hope the
story is enjoyable.  Feedback always would  be so amazingly welcomed. 
Thanks.

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

PARTNERS, THEIR PASTS, AND THE LONG PUSH FORWARD

He couldn't say for sure, but it seemed like Scully was in a hurry to
get out  of the office.  She had been typing like a mad woman for the
past hour and  now was grabbing each page from the printer before they
even had a chance to  drop.  As far as he knew their report to Kersh
wasn't even due until 5:00,  and it was only 2:00 now.  It wasn't like
they had anything else to do that  afternoon, having wrapped up their
current shit assignment doing background  checks on large amounts of
chemical requests coming from farmers in the Ohio  Valley - checks
that had turned up nothing that could even remotely pass as 
interesting.  

She grabbed the last page from the printer, stacked them in order and
stapled  them together with a violent smack on the stapler.  He
wouldn't say it to her,  but Scully was acting bizarrely.  It was true
that nothing had been the same  with them lately.  What, for five
years, had been a world that consisted wholly  of the two of them was
now a complicated web of obstacles: a controlling  Assistant Director,
an ex-girlfriend, a nosey butt kissing young agent taking 
over his work, events in the Artic that neither remembered the same. 
He  would be the first to admit he'd been an ass up late.  Running off
without  her against all orders to the contrary and all possibly
acceptable FBI  protocol.  Pitting her against Diana in a contest for
who he was going to  believe most.  Resenting her and her science.  On
second thought, maybe it  wasn't so bizarre for Scully to be in a
hurry to get out of the office.  

It's not that he wanted to be an ass.  No one really sets out to treat
someone else like shit.  But he had so much anger stored up in him;
anger  that burned through him hotter and stronger than the fire that
burned through  his basement office, that burned through hundreds of X
Files, that burned  through his life's work.  He wanted something to
hold on to now.  He wanted  something concrete to point to.  All the
years he'd spent looking for his  sister, all the years he'd spent on
the X Files, only to wind up here, at the  end of it all, with nothing
to show for it.  He wanted proof to hold on to,  but everything he
reached for - the ship he had seen, the virus Scully was 
infected with - she just knocked it all out of his hands because her
science  couldn't prove it, because her memories couldn't corroborate
his own.  He  didn't mean to, he knew it wasn't right or fair, but he
blamed her for it  anyway.  He took his anger out on her. 

Yet she stayed.  She put up with it.  She put up with his anger, his
second  guessing, his running off leaving her behind, his disobeying
of orders, his  deference to Diana, a deference he used to hurt her,
to watch Scully squirm.   She stayed.  And her face had grown a little
harder because of it.  He hadn't  seen her smile in weeks, much less
laugh.  He noticed that her suits had  gotten darker, and that her
hands had developed a constant resting place  folded across her chest.
 But she never left him.  And in a way, that made  him even angrier at
her.  No one in his life had ever stayed by him when he 
had given them every chance to leave.  No one in his life had ever
stayed by  him period.  That she did, that she continued to do so, was
something he  didn't quite know how to handle.  

It wasn't like he didn't realize that he loved her.  Of course he
loved her,  and of course he knew it.  He'd known it for years.  And
in the past two  years - two years in which he had watched her body
ravaged by cancer; her future  as a mother disappear; her life
threatened over and over again - he had come  to realize that he
couldn't live without her, that he needed her.  And in the 
past year alone - a year where he'd been pushed to the edge, where
he'd been  accused of a murder he didn't commit, put in a psych ward
for seeing monsters,  where she had stood by him, saved him and held
him through it all - he had  come to realize that his love of her was
reciprocated in turn by her love for  him.  And that too was something
he didn't quite know how to handle.  

So maybe he was pushing her away on purpose.  Maybe he was testing her
to see  how far he could go before she ran out.  Maybe he was just an
ass.

Scully was signing the last page of the file and walking towards him. 
He had,  like usual, been of no help in putting it together, choosing
to spend the  past few hours playing Spider Solitaire on his FBI
issued computer while  secretly watching and analyzing her every
move.

"Sign on the dotted line, Mulder," she said dropping the file on the
desk in  front of him.

"Why, what did I win?"

"A toaster.  Now come on and sign."

Mulder chuckled.  Scully wasn't a funny person per se, but that just
made any  of her attempts at humor that much more enjoyable.  He
looked up at her.  She  was leaning against his desk with her arms
folded characteristically across  her chest.  He noticed that her
black skirt had a slit on the left side and  the angle in which she
was leaning made it open slightly, exposing the soft  white flesh
above her knee, hinting at what else was under there.  He 
couldn't help but stare, his heart rate increasing despite himself. 
But she  didn't notice.  She wasn't even watching him.  She was
looking ahead at the  wall, looking at the clock.

He flipped through the file.  "I don't know, I think I should read
this  first," he said, trying to stall her overeager attempts to get
away from him.

She looked down and made a face at him.  "Mulder," she said in her
stern  whiny voice.  "You haven't written or read a single file we've
turned in  since we were reassigned from the X Files."

"All the more reason to start now."

She groaned. "Please just sign it so I can turn it in and..."  She
trailed off  looking back to the clock.

"And what Scully?  Where are you trying to run off to?"

"I'm not running off anywhere, Mulder," she said but refused to look
him in  the eye, looking instead at her feet.  She was wearing clunky
black shoes  with high heels.  She pushed her left foot back and forth
on the cheap carpet  and hummed under her breath.

Now he was completely certain, Scully was acting bizarrely.  Mulder
pushed  his chair back and swung his long legs up resting his feet on
the edge of his  desk, and stared at her.  "Spill it Scully."
	
She sighed and stood up straight, running her hands down her skirt to
smooth  it out.  "Mulder, I don't know what you're talking about. 
Just sign the dumb  report so I can turn it in to Kersh."

"You're avoiding me."

"You're paranoid."

"And so?"

"Mulder, sign the report or I'm going to forge your signature."

"Why, Scully.  I am going to have to report you for that.  Forgery is
a serious crime."

"So is pissing me off Mulder.  Now come on."

He smiled and reached for his pen.  He had forgotten how much fun fake
fighting with Scully could be.  Lately their fights consisted only of
him  getting pissy and her just taking it.  He had missed their usual
banter.  

"And Mulder, sign your real name.  None of that George Hale stuff."

He laughed and signed the file.  Fox W. Mulder.

She grabbed it from him before he even had a chance to hand it to her,
and  then she was up and heading down the hall as he called out behind
her, "I'm  on to you Scully."

In her absence he turned his attention to her desk and saw her
briefcase  and keys still there.  Perfect.  She had to come back
before she could run out  completely.  Already formulating a game
plan, he quickly closed down his  computer, packed up his things and
waited.  He was an actual investigator once,  before he'd gotten shit
detail.  He'd simply investigate her.  

Sure enough within ten minutes the redhead of his waking and sleeping
dreams  strode purposefully back to their desks.  

"How did it go?" Mulder asked, trying to sound normal.

She looked at him quizzically.  "I turned it in Mulder.  It went on
top of a  pile of other files.  It fit right in."

"Oh.  So it went well then."

She shut her computer down and gave him another unsure look.  "Are you
all  right, Mulder?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

She shook her head and didn't bother to answer.  She reached for her 
briefcase, and then her keys, then she grabbed her coat and walked
away from  her desk and over to him.  "There's nothing left to do
Mulder.  Call it a  day."

"It's 3:00, Scully.  We'd be cutting out early."

She raised her eyebrows at him.  "Since when do you care about
observing  official work hours?"

"Since I became a pencil pusher at the Bureau," he said sarcastically.

She sighed.  "I know you're unhappy with this assignment Mulder.  But
you  can't let that affect every waking moment of your life."

He just looked at her.  He hadn't meant to get serious with her, much
less  depressed.  It was like it came out of him without even
realizing it.  

She reached over and put her hand on top of his, curling her fingers
around  it until she was holding it.  "Get out of here, Mulder.  Get
away from this  office.  Go have some fun."  She wiggled her eyebrows
at him and smiled.

He smiled back.  It was impossible not to.  "Okay, Scully.  Let's go
have  some fun."

She pursed her lips together and leaned in close to him, her eyes
twinkling  with mischief.  "I already have plans Mulder," she
whispered softly, her warm  breath whispering around his ear and
landing on the sensitive angle of his  neck.

He didn't respond.  He was having a hard time concentrating on
anything other  than the sound of her voice, smell of her hair, and
the fell of her breath.   It dulled his mind and all but obliterated
his response time.  She had leaned  back, smiled again and walked out
of the room before he could do much of  anything.  By the time he
snapped out of it she was long enough gone that he  had no chance of
catching up with her.  He started to get up to try, but 
realized that her earlier proximity had made his anatomy, well, change
from  its normal composition.  He'd have to give it a minute or so
before strolling  down the FBI hallways.  Think unhappy thoughts, he
mumbled to himself.  El  Chupacabra.  Fire.  Cockroaches.  Oh, wait
Bambi, okay, not the best thought.   Krycek with one arm.  Yep that
works.  Anatomy back to normal, Mulder shot up  from his seat grabbed
his coat and rushed to the elevator.  

Scully's car was gone.  With a disappointed sigh, he got into his own
and  strummed his fingers against the steering wheel.  She could be
anywhere at  this point and he had nothing to go on.  He thought about
calling Danny and  getting a trace on her cell phone, but something
about it just seemed, well,  over the top.  He considered consulting
the gunmen, but thought it best to  leave Frohike out of it. 
Ultimately he figured his best bet was to check her  apartment.  He
started the car and headed out of the parking lot towards 
Georgetown.

He'd stopped on the way to her apartment to pick up some supplies:
binoculars,  an extra battery for his phone, a bag of sunflower seeds,
a collection of  baseball's greatest hits on cd.  He pulled up in
front her place on the  opposite of the road and slumped back.  Spying
on her would have been a lot  easier if it had actually been dark out
and not the middle of the afternoon,  but he'd make do.  He pulled his
Yankees baseball hat down to hide his face  and put the binoculars to
his eyes.

She wasn't there.  He looked up and down the street and didn't see her
car  anywhere.  This would certainly put a cramp in his stake out, not
knowing where  the primary suspect was, but he sighed and opened the
bag of seeds.  She had to  come home eventually, didn't she?

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

Mulder couldn't have guessed, or known, or even had reason to suspect,
but  Scully hadn't even stopped by her apartment after leaving the
Hoover building.   Instead she'd come straight here, here to The
Churchill Hotel in Adams Morgan.   She sat in the car for longer then
she should have, noting the clock and  realizing without much concern
that she was officially late.  She wasn't even  sure why she'd agreed
to come, or why she'd actually shown up.  But then she 
had to admit she was curious.  Just like she had been about Ed Jerse. 
Just  like she always was when the possibility of her living a
different life  presented itself, which is exactly what this little
trip was - an exercise in  what if, what could have been, maybe even
what things should be.

But as curious as Scully was, her hesitancy was fueled not so much by
the  questions of what could have been but the memories of what were,
and those  memories were far from good.  She shouldn't have agreed to
come.  A part of  her knew, no matter how much she wanted to believe
otherwise, that this  meeting wasn't going to bring closure.  It was
only going to bring back  things she'd already moved on from.  Why had
she agreed to meet him?  Why had  he even bothered to call her?  

Scully sighed and looked at the clock again.  She wasn't going to back
out  now.  She opened the car door and made her decision, walking
purposefully  into the hotel and the Trocadero Cafe inside.

It had been nearly six years since she last saw him but she recognized
him  right away.  He looked the same, just older, his body having
gotten fuller  the way men did, his hair cut shorter and no more
glasses, but he looked the  same to her.  

He was sitting at the bar facing the entrance of the restaurant and
saw her  immediately as she entered.  He smiled, waved slightly and
came over towards  her.  She wondered if she too looked the same to
him.  She wasn't.  And not  just because her face had gotten older and
darker, or that her hair was  shorter and redder, or that her clothing
had changed from colorful pant sets  to designer black tailored suits.
Regardless of what she looked like, Scully  was nowhere close to the
person she'd been when she'd last seen him.

"Dana."  His voice was soft and sweet and happy, and to hear it and
the way  he said her name sent a flood of memories through her.  Six
years or not, the  pain he had caused or not, she did still remember
good things.

"Hi Ethan." She responded and began to reach out her hand to him, but
he had  already pulled her into his embrace and hugged her tightly to
him.  Scully  stiffened out of impulse.  It wasn't just that they had
parted on less than  amicable terms, it was that she hadn't let any
man but Mulder touch her like  that in years.  She found that out of
impulse she was comparing Ethan to him,  noting that he wasn't quite
as tall, that his arms weren't as firm, that his  chest wasn't as
comfortable, and that he smelled nothing like fresh soap and 
cedar, the way Mulder did.

He released her then and she took an involuntary step back trying to
put  distance between them.  "You look amazing," he said, his eyes
traveling up  and down her petite body.

"You look the same."  He laughed and she smiled realizing the curtness
of her  words.  "It's good," she added.  "I mean you look good,
Ethan."

He nodded, his eyes still wide and happy from the laughter.  "Are you
hungry?" he asked, turning  towards the restaurant.  "We could..."

"No," she said quickly.  "I, um, ate a late lunch, and I have plans
for  dinner later."  She smiled weakly.  Scully hated to lie, but she
wasn't ready  to commit herself in any way to him, to being there. 
"I'm sorry, Ethan.  I  thought you just wanted to get coffee or
something."

Ethan watched her and eventually he nodded and smiled, but for just a
second  he had seemed off to her.  Something in his eyes had seemed
angry and  irritated.  But then it was gone.  "Of course," he said. 
"C'mon, Franklyn's  is just down the street."

They walked out of the hotel and to the coffee shop on 18th with
little  fanfare.  She had asked Ethan what brought him back to DC
after all the time  that had passed and he had told her of a position
he had recently taken at  NPR, having made the transition from
television producing to radio.  He had  asked her about her family and
she had answered a simple, "they're good,"  glossing over her father's
death, Melissa's death, or even the way Bill had  grown to resent her
and her decisions, primarily those revolving around  Mulder.  At the
cafe he had ordered coffee black, just like he had always 
gotten it, and she had ordered an almond soy latte, her latest drink
of  choice.  He had raised his eyebrows giving her an odd look and
commenting for  the first time that she'd changed, a lot.  

Scully stayed longer than she should have.  It was an odd place to be,
catching up with an old boyfriend, especially when, in all actuality,
she  wanted to talk very little about herself.  How could she explain
to him  everything that had happened to her in the past six years? 
She couldn't even  explain it to her mother or frankly herself.  She
couldn't tell him about her  abduction, about a cancer she was
miraculously healed from by a chip of  unknown origin being implanted
in the back of her neck.  She couldn't speak  of Emily, or of her own
inability to have children.  These were just not the  things you
shared in these circumstances and they were not the things Scully 
shared with anyone other than Mulder.  But the reality was, when those
things  were taken away, Scully didn't have much to say about the past
six years of  her life.  She could only regale Ethan with stories of
FBI investigations and  her crazy, albeit brilliant, partner, and even
that was testy, considering.

She couldn't lie to him and he had asked her point blank if she was
still  with Mulder.  He had asked it just like that too.  Not, "do you
still have  the same partner?"  He'd asked quite pointedly, "Are you
still with him?" and  the way he'd sort of placed emphasis on "him"
made her skin crawl.  She  wasn't going to re-live this with him.  She
wasn't going to defend herself or  justify her decision or be made to
feel like a child.  She chose to ignore  his tone of voice and answer
"yes" simply, firmly, before launching into her  standard diatribe on
Mulder's brilliance and their high solve rate,  regardless of whether
Ethan actually cared.  He had calmed down after that,  even asked how
Mulder was, not that the two had ever met, not that the later 
even knew the former existed much less that he had come between them.

But whatever rhythm they'd gotten into, whatever level of comfort
there had  been when they had started catching up, the discussion of
Mulder and work had  cast an eerie feel over them, and Scully felt the
urge to get as far away as  she could.  "It's late," she said looking
down at her watch.  It was quarter  past seven.  She'd been there
almost four hours. 

"And you have plans," he reminded her.

She nodded, still embarrassed by her lie, but now even more glad to
have a  reason to leave.  "I'll be late if I don't go soon."

He nodded and got up from their table and she followed him out of the
shop,  heading back to The Churchill, where her getaway car was still
waiting.

"How long are you staying at the hotel?" she asked as they walked.

"I can move into my apartment at the end of the week."  He sighed. 
"Don't  get me wrong, there's nothing nicer then someone cleaning up
for you every  day, but I can't wait to be in my own place."

She smiled and nodded.

"Dana?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm not sure quite how to do this," he began and she looked over at
him  quizzically.  They had reached the hotel and had stopped in front
of the  stairs to go inside.  "But I'm going to be here in DC again,
and I'd, well,  I'd really like it if we could be friends.  I know
it's been a long time and  we don't really know each other anymore,
but I'd like to get to know you  again.  If that's all right with
you?"

She hesitated.  If today was any indication she wasn't sure it was
such a  good idea.  But then, Dana Scully, at her basest level had
always been a  romantic and a part of her still held onto the idea
that Ethan was a good man,  that she hadn't been wrong to be with him
in the first place.  It was the  same reasoning that had led her to
agree to met him in the first place.  She  had had so few serious
relationships in her life, she simply refused to look  back on them
all as mistakes.  "Friends?" she asked hesitantly.

He nodded.  "Friends."

Scully sighed and smiled.  It had been decided.  She wanted to believe
in the  goodness of this man.  She had once lived with him, had wanted
to spend her  whole life with him.  She wanted to believe they could
still be friends even  after everything that had happened.  "That
would be nice, Ethan."

Ethan smiled brightly.  "I'll call you then."

"Sure."

"Okay.  Bye Dana."

"Bye Ethan," she said and turned back toward the street to her car. 
She  didn't turn back around to look at him but she felt he was
watching her.  She  hoped she had made the right decision to let him
back into her life, even if  only in a small capacity.

She got in the car, started the engine and sat for a minute.  She
decided  that she didn't want to go home right away so she drove to
the market near  her apartment and lingered there taking in the fresh
smells of the fruits and  vegetables and the pre-made Italian pastas. 
She even bought two lilies and  held them close to her face as she
walked, inhaling their sweet smell.  She  was a mixture of emotions. 
Relieved.  Happy.  Nervous.  Uncertain.   Generally off balance.  For
the most part, things with Ethan had gone better  than she had
expected, but still Scully couldn't help but feel the effects of 
dredging up the past.  And that past included more than just fighting
with  Ethan, than his jealousy over her new assignment at the FBI,
more than  finding him with another woman.  The past was more then
Ethan.  The past was  also Mulder.  It was meeting him.  It was
letting him in.  It was beginning  this six year relationship that
defied all her ideas of how people could be  with each other and what
two people could mean to each other.  She was no  psychologist but she
suspected that the re-emergence of old love in a  person's life
naturally led them to contemplate current love, which was, if 
she permitted herself to admit to it, exactly what she'd been doing
since  she'd left Ethan at his hotel.  Contemplating Mulder.

Mulder.  She had left him at the office with no explanation.  A
perfectly  good Friday night where they could be watching videos or
chasing down some  stupid lead he'd come up with to give them an
excuse to get out and do  something.  True things between them had
been strained lately, an unfortunate  side effect of his own past love
inserting her way into their lives,  disrupting their usual rhythm. 
In a way, she understood more today than  yesterday how that was
possible.  She thought of Ethan and understood the  pull past
relationships could have on a person, especially if that person had 
few relationships, had few people he had ever let in.  They were alike
that  way, her and Mulder, either by destiny or default.  It didn't
seem to matter.   What mattered was that they had each other and in
that moment, standing alone  in the market she wanted desperately to
be with him.  She wondered what he  was doing.  It was now near 8:30. 
She could probably still catch him and  convince him to eat dinner
with her.  She hurried to her car and headed home.

She had called his cell but he didn't answer.  She'd called his
apartment but  he didn't answer.  She'd rushed back to her own
apartment hoping to find him  on her couch, but he wasn't there
either.  She instinctively panicked that  he'd gone off on some case
somewhere without her.  That any minute now the  gunmen would show up
at her door saying they'd lost him in the desert, or off 
the shores of the South China Sea or while hiking Antarctica.  But so
far  there were no messages on her machine, no one knocking on her
door, and no  messages on her cell phone.  She wandered into her
kitchen and made some tea.   It was getting late.  She was missing
him.  When the tea was ready she  wandered over to the windows in her
living room and looked out at the night  sky, which is when she saw
it.

She laughed and let her head lean forward and rest on the window pane.
 
She  had been in such a hurry to get inside and check for messages
that she hadn't  even bother to notice, but there it was, plain as
day, Mulder's car parked on  the opposite side of the street.  She
shook her head.  She had no idea how  long he'd been there or what he
thought he was doing.  Two years ago stunts  like this would have
infuriated her, made her scream and yell and kick him  out of her life
for at least a day.  But she'd given up on changing him and 
instead learned to take comfort in his ministrations, in his constant
need to  make sure she was okay, and his unwavering commitment to her.
 
It was also  how she figured out he loved her.

Oh, she had seen that look in his eyes.  The one he got when she was
in a  hospital bed, or the most recent psycho had tried to kill her,
or she came  into the office wearing blue.  She wasn't blind, but she
had for too long  assumed incorrectly that these looks were ones
fueled by lust and desire and  nothing more than that she was
convenient and there and not entirely hideous.   It had taken her
looking at the whole picture, at the actions he took to 
realize his desire was firmly rooted in love.  And when she did
realize it,  she hadn't quite have the nerve to do anything about it,
except reveal in it.   And then things changed.  They lost the X
Files, Diana Fowley showed him, his  trust in her wavered.  She looked
at his car through the window pane and  sighed, maybe his impromptu
stake out was a sign of sorts, a re-ignition of  his interest in her. 
She sighed again.  Only she would find a stalker  romantic.

She slipped her shoes back on and headed downstairs and outside.  It
was  early March in DC and the air was getting warmer already.  She
was wearing  the same black pants as earlier and a light blue t-shirt
but she wasn't cold.   The wind was breezy and toyed with her hair,
but it only felt good to her,  the way the breeze did when it came off
the ocean.  She crossed the street to  his car and peered inside.

He was asleep, stretched out awkwardly in the front seat, his long
legs,  smashed between the steering wheel and the door closest to her.
 
He had food  wrappers scattered everywhere and the empty hulls of
sunflower seeds spread  randomly around, including a pile that had
formed on his chest, contrasting  the grey t-shirt he had on.  She
also noticed his Yankees cap on the  dashboard as well as a pair of
binoculars.  She laughed.  He was the most  adorable stalker in the
world, but he was also going to freak out her  neighbors, lying here
like some crazed vagabond.  

She knocked lightly on the glass of the driver side window and when
that  Didn't work she banged louder.

He shot up in an instant, the pile of seeds on his chest scattering
onto the  floor and seat cushion and she had a feeling she'd be
pulling them out of  crevices of that car for trips to come.  He
seemed confused and out of it and  shook his head to clear the cobwebs
before he finally registered where the  noise had come from and turned
to look out the window.  There she was and he  smiled sheepishly at
her.

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

Mulder had given up all sense of pride years before he'd even met
Scully and  though, all clich‚s aside, she made him want to be a
better man, he'd found  that while loving her gave him pride, his ways
of showing that love almost  always wiped out any potential for said
pride to sink in.  That night was no  exception.  He had planned to be
sneakier than this.  He had planned ideally  to not get caught.  And
if he was to get caught he had planned to be looking  a little savvier
then he did at that moment.  

"What are you doing?" she asked as he opened the door and stepped out,
her  eyes holding back laughter.

"I was, um, I, um..."

She leaned up on her tip toes and ran a hand through his hair
dislodging  several sunflower seeds.  He shrugged.  She was going to
kill him, he just  knew it.  She was going to be furious with him. 
She could quite possible  even shoot him again.  He braced himself.

"C'mon up," she said simply.  She grabbed the wrist of his hand and
headed  back across the street to her apartment building with Mulder
in tow.

He smiled brightly.  This was going much better than anticipated. 
Unless of  course she was taking him upstairs to kill him because
there would be less  witnesses.  Still he didn't mind so much.  If the
last thing he got to see  was Scully maybe it wasn't such a bad way to
go.  He followed her inside and  up the stairs to her apartment.  She
had to drop his hand to open the door.   He missed the contact but
decided it was best not to complain or push his  luck, considering.

"I just made some tea, you want some?" she called behind her as she
headed to  the kitchen.  

Mulder stepped inside her apartment closing the door behind him. 
"Sure."

"Mulder are you hungry?" she asked him.  He knew that tone of voice. 
It was  her 'I'm hungry so please be hungry too so I can have an
excuse to order a  large pizza' voice.

"Yep," he obliged.  "Wanna order a pizza?"

"Hmm," she drawled out from the kitchen and then followed with a
resounding,  "Well, okay.  Now that you mention it, that sounds
good."

He smiled and shook his head in quiet laughter.  She was amazing even
when  was being predictable.  He heard her call the pizza place from
the kitchen  and then she came back over to him, two mugs in her
hands.  She handed him  one and collapsed on her couch with a sigh.

He followed her, sitting at the opposite end of the couch and taking a
sip of  the tea.  Fuck.  It was really hot.  He tried to maintain a
manly look while  pulling his mouth away from the cup and swallowing
the boiling liquid. He  heard her giggle slightly and suspected that
he hadn't quite pulled it off  with manly flair after all.  He put the
tea down on the coffee table to let  it cool and returned to watching
his petite partner sip hers.  

"What gives, Scully?" he asked after awhile.

She just raised her eyebrows at him, still sipping her tea.

"Not that I'm complaining, because believe me I'm not, but shouldn't
you be  mad at me or something?"

She shrugged her shoulders.  "I'm too tired to be mad."

It has his turn to raise his eyebrows at her.  "Tired?"

She nodded.  "Long day."

"Right, the long mystery day that Mulder wasn't invited to."

She took the tea away from her mouth and stuck out her lower lip,
pouting at  him.  "Wasn't the kind of thing I could invite you too."

"More mystery."

"Have you seen High Fidelity?" she asked, finishing the last of her
tea and  placing her cup on the table next to his.

"Sure," he answered.  "Jack Black was hysterical."

She smiled.  "Yeah, well my day's kind of been like that."

"So you spent the whole day sitting in a record shop trying to figure
out why  your relationships never work?"

She titled her head and shrugged.  "Pretty much, except for the record
store."

"Let me guess, you were in a coffee shop."

She nodded and laughed at the absurdity of just how predictable and
clich‚s the whole coffee shop thing could be.  "Yes, exactly."

"Scully?"
	
"Hmmm?"
	
"I like coffee."
	
"I know you do Mulder, I've made it for you."
	
"So why couldn't you invite me to the coffee shop to ruminate about
your love  life?  I may have valuable things to add to the
conversation." 	
She smiled slyly.  "Cause I wasn't at the coffee shop alone."
	
Mulder jumped slightly in his spot and screamed, "Aha!  I knew it
Scully, I  knew you had something going on."  She laughed and watched
his congratulatory  dance change from one of self-assurance to one of
insecurity when the reality  of the statement sunk in.  "You weren't
alone?"  He asked suspiciously, his  voice now carrying a hint of
vulnerability. 	
She shook her head, but offered no additional information.
	
"Jesus, Scully, you called up an old boyfriend to figure out why it
didn't  work out, didn't you?"
	
"God, no, Mulder." She responded indignantly, her face scrunching
together in  disgust at there mere thought.  "He called me."
	
Mulder laughed and leaned back in the couch.  This was getting more 
interesting then half of the cases they'd been on recently, and he was
driven  by the dual desire to learn everything he could about Scully
and to make sure  this old boyfriend was staying in the past.
	
"So who was the lucky guy?  Marcus?"
	
She shook her head and sighed.  "Ethan."
	
"Ethan?"
	
"Ethan Minette."
	
"College boyfriend?"
	
"Nope."
	
"Med School?"
	
"Nope."  Mulder was running out of acceptable options and his face was
starting to show it.  Scully watched his face panic and volunteered
the  correct answer.  "We went out about six years ago."
	
He nodded and then paused.  "Six years ago, but Scully that would
mean?" 	

She nodded.  "We were dating when I was assigned to the X Files."
	
Mulder hadn't meant to make the face he did, but he did.  It was a
contorted  face making him look mad, sad and constipated all at the
same time.  She had  never even mentioned this guy.  She'd never
mentioned she was ever dating  someone at all.  He found that anger
and jealousy were building inside of him,  despite himself.
	
"Mulder?"
	
"Hmm?" he grunted at her.
	
"You all right Mulder?"
	
He relaxed his face.  "Sure."
	
"We broke up within a few months Mulder.  Right before you went
chasing after  that beast woman in Atlantic City."
	
He smiled at the memory and at the way she was trying to reassure him
even  though she technically had no reason to.  "Why?" he asked.
	
The content, almost happy smile she'd had since she knocked on his
window  faded and her face fell.  She didn't speak for a long time and
he regretted  having asked but was too desperate to know what this guy
had done to her to  take the question back.  She looked up at him
eventually, a crooked frown on  her face.  "It just didn't work out,"
she said as if it were that simple.   "We wanted different things."
	
"Like what?"
	
"I wanted my career. I wanted my assignment with the X Files, with
you.  He  wanted the stage manager at the station he worked at."  She
smiled ruefully  then.
	
He shook his head.  "Idiot," he stated flatly. 
	
She smiled at the sweetness of Mulder's gesture.  There was a knock on
her  door and her eyes went wide with pleasure.  Mulder smiled and
rose from the  couch to get the pizza, paying the delivery man and
handing the warm food  over to Scully who languidly inhaled its aroma
before heading to the kitchen. He used her distraction to take the
time to steel himself against the conversation and the pangs of
jealousy it had sparked in him.  He watched her  in the kitchen
getting plates from the cupboard and napkins from the table.  
He wondered idly if this was how she had felt about Diana, but he
dismissed  the thought.  It just didn't seem like Scully to be
jealous, especially not over him.

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

Ethan was annoyed.  He was trying to keep his cool, but the scenes
playing  out in front of him were nothing short of infuriating.  He
had been watching  her apartment for almost two hours now, binoculars
glued to his eyes,  focused sharply on the visible action within the
windows.  It was awful the  way she was practically throwing herself
on him and it was pathetic the way  he was acting like he lived there,
walking around her apartment like he knew  where everything was,
answering her door, cleaning her dishes, running the  remote on her
TV.  
        
When she had fallen asleep on his shoulder Ethan had hit the wall.  He
had  always suspected there was something going on between them, it
had been the  reason things had ended in the first place, but this,
well, this was not how  things were supposed to be.  He was back now,
he was here in DC, in her life,  she didn't have to settle for that
gangly son of a bitch.  He was riled  realizing that she had left him
that night to be with him.  So these were her  plans?  Her plans were
with him?  

She was supposed to be with me, Ethan thought absently kicking his
foot  against the street lamp he was standing under.  She was supposed
to be coming  back to him.  He had seen it in her eyes.  He had known
it the first time  they saw each other.  They were meant to be and she
knew it.  She wanted it  too.  She had to.  She was just being misled
by this guy.  He was using her.   He was keeping them apart.
	
Ethan took a final drag on his cigarette and tossed it on the ground,
stamping it out carelessly with the big black boot of his left foot. 
It was  all becoming clear to him now.  He turned and headed down the
street away  from her apartment.  He had things to do.  Preparations
to make.  If she  couldn't see for herself that she was meant to be
with him, he was going to  have to find a way to show her.

**********************************************************************
	
She couldn't say for sure, but Mulder was acting bizarrely.  He was
less  talkative then usual, less flippant and goofy with her, and he
was actually  working.  Scully absently chewed on the tip of her pen
as she watched him at  his desk.  He was definitely acting bizarrely,
especially for a Monday.  

She ran her mind over the weekend trying to find some clue as to his
behavior.   After their shared pizza Friday night, she had fallen
asleep on him and woken  to his loud snoring Saturday morning.  It was
possible he was annoyed with her  for the large drool mark she'd left
on his t-shirt.  She shrugged.  He'd  probably forgive her if she told
him what exactly she'd been dreaming about  that produced that much
drool, but she had her pride, or at least a modicum  of pride and a
large fear of embarrassment, so she'd kept it to herself.  

She'd spent most of Saturday helping him go through some of the boxes
that  had magically been moved from his bedroom to his storage unit in
the basement  of his apartment complex, and she didn't think she'd
done anything in the  course of the work to upset him.  She had gotten
slightly exasperated with  him for his continued refusal to explain
why he'd finally cleaned out his  bedroom and bought, of all things, a
waterbed and a mirror for the ceiling.   He was still denying it,
trying to put the blame on spirits or even a stalker.  
She just continued to roll her eyes at him and ignore his
protestations.  But  he hadn't seemed mad about it. 
        
She hadn't seen him Sunday, since it was her Aunt's birthday and she
was  stuck at her mom's house all day fielding questions like, "Dana
when are you  going to settle down and get married"" and "Aren't there
any nice men you  could meet at the FBI?"  But if something had
happened to upset him he  certainly hadn't mentioned it when she'd
called that night before going to  bed to regale him with Scully
Family hour and to make sure he was safe at  home and not off
gallivanting around looking for UFOs by himself.  

It was a new thing she'd started doing ever since the Bermuda
incident,  calling him right before she went to bed to make sure he
was still there and  staying put.  It was pedantic and probably
overbearing, but if he had minded  it he'd never said so, or given her
any reason to think it.  He just answered  every night and talked to
her about random thoughts or what he was watching  on TV, or he did
his Spender imitation just to make her laugh.  And if it was 
past 11:00 and she hadn't called him yet, he would call her.  She had
gotten  used to the calls.  She had started to look forward to them. 
And the only  time the calls didn't come was when they were both in
one of their apartments  together, usually the result of one of them
falling asleep on a couch.  It  was their way and she loved it, even
if she couldn't explain it to her family.

She sighed.  It was official, she had no idea why he was acting the
way he  was.  Mulder was acting like, well, like a regular FBI agent,
who was just  doing his job.  In short, he was not being himself.  She
felt a strange sense  of deja vu and involuntarily shivered.
	
"Cold, Scully?"
	
She looked over at him and crooked her left eyebrow at him.  "I'm
fine, Mulder," she said slowly.
	
He nodded and turned back to his computer.
	
She tapped her fingers against her desk.  "Mulder?"
	
"Yeah Scully?" he asked not looking up from his screen.
	
"Are you all right?"
	
"Mmhmm.  Snug as a bug in a rug."
	
That's it, she thought to herself, he'd completely lost it.  "What
exactly  are you doing Mulder?"
	
"Finishing a background check on Mr. Thomas J. Thumb."
	
"And?" she drawled out.
	
"And outside of having a rather limiting name, Mr. Thumb is by all
accounts a  big success.  He'll make a fine janitor, Scully."
	
"No, Mulder.  I meant, and what else are you doing""
	
He looked up at her then and tilted his head in mock surprise. 
"Scully, what  are you implying?  I'm one hundred percent dedicated to
my work."  She rolled  her eyes and he smiled at her, his normal
mischievous twinkle returning to  his eyes.  He pushed his chair away
from his desk and rolled his way over to  Scully until he could lean
in close enough to whisper, "Is it lunch time yet  Scully?"
	
She looked at the clock.  "It's 11:30," she whispered back, looking at
him  with uncertainty.  
	
He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows.  "Good enough for government
work."  She  wrinkled her brow in further confusion.  "C'mon, Scully,
let me take you to  lunch."
	
She hesitated, searching his face to try and figure out what he was
getting  at.  "Okay," she agreed.  Hell, she always agreed.  Whether
she'd admit to it  or not, Scully loved this dance of theirs.	

He wiggled his eyebrows again and rolled back to his computer.  He
printed  out his report and she noticed him grab an unmarked file from
the middle  drawer of his desk before grabbing his jacket and tossing
it over his arm to  cover the file.
	
She shook her head.  It was just classic Mulder, she'd given up trying
to do  anything about it.  They passed by Kersh's office to drop off
the background  check before heading to the elevator and the parking
garage.  He was quiet  the whole way, heading to his car, opening the
door for her, getting in,  starting the engine, pulling out into the
sunny DC day. 	

She waited about five minutes before giving in and breaking the
silence.   "Mulder, tell me."
	
He looked over at her briefly before returning his attention to the
road.  "Tell you what?"
	
"Why we've taken off early.  What that file is in the backseat under
your  coat.  Why we've already driven past all the places we normally
eat lunch." 	
Mulder smiled brightly.  "I just thought I'd take you somewhere
different  this time."
	
"Mm, hmm.  Somewhere different Mulder?"  He nodded, his smile getting
larger.   "And just how somewhere different are we talking here,
Mulder?"  He shrugged  and looked out the driver side's window
purposely turning away from her.   "Mulder," Scully probed, and then
she noticed a particularly disturbing sign  pass by on the road. 
"Mulder why are we getting on 95?"  He smiled again and 
still refused to look at her.  "Mulder," she whined.  "Where somewhere
different?"
	
"Um," he coughed, "New Haven."
	
"What?"  Scully turned entirely in her seat to face him.  "Please tell
me that's the name of a new restaurant in Georgetown."
	
He grimaced and looked away.
	
"In Alexandria?"
	
He lowered his head while keeping his eyes on the road.
	
"So, what you're saying is New Haven, Mulder.  New Haven,
Connecticut."  	

He finally turned to look at her and smiled sheepishly while nodding.
	
"Mulder!"  
	
He turned back to the road and braced himself for her fist, but it
never came. 	

"Mulder," she continued, her voice strained and whiny.  "You've been
planning  this whole thing, and now you just take off for what has to
be like a seven  hour drive."
	
"It's actually only a little over five," he interrupted in a hopeful
voice. 	

She glared at him and he shrugged.  "We're in complete defiance of FBI
orders  and regulations.  I have no idea why we're even going, and I
don't even have  a change of clothes."
	
"I packed you a bag Scully," Mulder answered her, his face still full
of  smiles and hope.
	
She sighed.  "That's kind of creepy." He laughed, but she just shook
her head.   "You brought me out here until totally false pretenses,"
she mumbled,  crossing her hands over her chest in a humph.
	
"I did not," Mulder defended himself.  "I have every intention of
buying you  lunch."
	
She looked at him.  At the end of her life, she suspected that the
greatest  mystery of Dana Scully would not be her abduction, her
cancer, her barren  womb, it would be this, this man and how he got
her to do things no one else  could ever get her to do.  Like blow off
her job, believe in UFOs, and follow  him anywhere on simple faith
alone.  She turned back in her seat and kicked  her clunky heels off. 
She curled her feet under her Indian style, glad that  she had chosen
to wear pants that day.  She might as well settle in for the 
ride if she was going to take it.
	
"Give me the file, Mulder."  She said as she leaned back in her seat. 
	
He smiled brightly, reached his hand around to the back seat and
produced the  brown folder, handing it over to her.  
	
"I have a friend on the force in New Haven," he began.
	
"You have a friend?"
	
He rolled his eyes at her. "Yes."
	
"Other than me?"
	
He laughed. "Well not quite like you, but I got one or two lurking
around." 	

She smiled as she opened the file.  "No, Mulder, I don't think you
could ever  find another friend like me."  She could see him turn to
look at her, unsure  of what she meant, but she stared at the file,
enjoying the way she could  make him uncomfortable with her honesty. 
She looked at the file closer.   There was a picture of a man standing
next to a giant circle of scorched  Earth, and another picture of a
billboard on fire, and then another of a  house that was partially
burnt down.   	

"Mulder?" she asked her voice nervous as she looked up at him.  She
titled  her head and looked at him closely trying to read him.  "Fire,
Mulder?" 	

He looked over at her and saw the concern on her face.  "I know what
you're  thinking, Scully, but I'll be okay.  I've fought fire before. 
I'll be okay." 	

She watched him for a second before nodding.  "Okay, Mulder."
	
"Anyway," He said and reached a hand over and tapped the photos while
nodding  at her.  "Two nights ago in New Haven, Connecticut, it rained
fire." 	

"I'm assuming that's a euphemism."
	
He smiled and shook his head.  "In 1953 local residents identified a
'fiery  Object' that came down from the sky, crashed through a
billboard and then  rose up to the sky again.  Two nights ago another
object, described in  exactly the same way crashed through the same
billboard." 	

"Uh, huh."
	
"C'mon Scully, that doesn't give you chills?"
	
"Oh, it gives me something all right."
	
He smirked at her and was about to expand on his theory when her phone
rang. 	

She raised an eyebrow at him, he was with her so she couldn't think of
who  would be calling.  She pulled out the phone and flipped it open. 
"Scully." 	

"Dana?"
	
She sighed, relieved it wasn't Kersh, but less than thrilled at who it
turned  out to be.  "Hey Ethan."  She saw Mulder tense in the seat
next to her, but  ignored him, turning instead to look out the
passenger side window as DC  faded from sight.  
	
"Dana, how are you?"
	
"I'm, um, I'm fine.  How are you?"
	
"Good.  I was wondering if we could get dinner tonight.  It was my
first day  at my new job and I wanted to celebrate with someone
special." 	

Scully felt an odd sensation in her stomach at his words.  She wasn't
ready  or willing to be someone special to Ethan again.  She'd thought
they had just  agreed to be friends, to get to know each other again. 
He seemed so  insistent to her that she began to question having ever
agreed to meet him  the Friday before.  But she shook her head at the
thought.  She was so used  to being closed off, guarded, protecting
herself.  She figured it was  probably only her overreacting; her
being abnormally cautious.  Maybe this  was how normal people were. 
"Sorry, Ethan" she finally answered him.  "I'm  actually out of town
on a..." she paused and looked over at Mulder, "on a  case."
	
"Oh, a big one, huh?  A real thriller?"
	
"More like a head case, but yeah."  Mulder made a face at her. 
	
"When will you be back?"
	
"I'm not sure.  It's hard to tell at this point."
	
"But when you get back we can celebrate right?"
	
She sighed again.  She hated feeling pushed into things.  "Sure
Ethan." 	

"Great, so you'll call when you get back?"
	
"I'll call."
	
"Okay, Dana."
	
"Bye Ethan," Scully responded starting to press the END button.
	
"Dana?"  Ethan asked once more.
	
"Hmm?"
	
"I miss you."  

Scully's nerves twitched again.  She had no idea how to respond.  She
paused  for a long time and eventually said, "I'll talk to you later
Ethan," and hung  up before he could say anything else.  She flipped
the phone closed and slid  it back into her jacket pocket.  She looked
out the window away from Mulder  and tried to make sense of Ethan's
words and phone call.

It was not unusual to have strong feelings about past lovers.  She had
been  with Ethan for almost two years, and they had considered a long
and full life  with each other, it made sense to have residual
feelings.  That Scully did  not reciprocate them didn't seem
justification to punish Ethan for holding  onto them.  She decided she
was being unfair to him, but at the same time, a  small part of her
still felt uneasy about him and she had the desire to not 
call when she got back, to cut off all ties completely.  Something
about his  words and the way he'd said them just didn't seem like the
Ethan she had  known.

"You okay Scully?"  Mulder asked, his voice steady but uncertain.

She didn't turn back to look at him, but she nodded and responded
simply,  "I'm fine."

**********************************************************************
	
He probably deserved some of it, but it seemed to him that she was 
overreacting.  He hadn't meant for things to turn out this way.  He
certainly  hadn't meant to rip her pants or smash her cell phone into
itty bitty pieces.   Things just turned out that way.  He had at least
figured out what the  supernatural fire balls were, which you'd think
she'd give him some credit  for.  It wasn't entirely his fault that
he'd burnt part of her hair in the  process.
	
"I've got your bag, Scully," he called out to her as he entered her
room from  the adjoining door connecting to his.
	
Scully was sprawled out on the bed, her arms and legs stretched out
like  DaVinci.  She smelled like sewer and burnt toast, and she didn't
look much  better, but she was still beautiful to him, and he hoped
her anger would wear  off long enough that he could get her to eat a
late dinner with him.  "I was  thinking about getting pizza," he said
hopefully. 	

"It's three in the morning," she grunted from the bed.
	
"True, but aren't you the slightest bit hungry?"
	
She leaned up slightly from the bed resting on her elbows.  "I'm
starving,  and I just fucking hate that about you."  She glared at him
and collapsed  back on the bed.
	
"You hate me cause you're hungry?" he asked in confusion.
	
"Don't mince words with me, Mulder," she snapped with distain, still
staring  up at the ceiling.  "It's your fault I haven't eaten in over
twelve hours."   She sat back up again with a sad sigh and looked at
him, less angry then  frustrated.  She stuck her bottom lip out and
pouted.  "Sorry, Mulder, I get  testy when I'm hungry," she mumbled
shyly. 	

Mulder smiled.  She really was so beautiful. 
	
She looked down at herself following his eyes, she shook her head at
the  sight, looked back up at him and sighed again.  "I also get testy
when I'm  tired, smelly, and burnt."
	
Mulder tried not to laugh, but she looked so sad and broken, like a
lost dog.   He wanted to cuddle up in bed with her, and he probably
would have tried it  if he didn't think she was likely to beat him to
a pulp. 	

"Mulder," she continued to whine, "I'm burnt.  Burnt, Mulder.  I smell
like  burnt popcorn."
	
He came over to the bed and sat down next to her, finally letting his
laughter out.  He reached for her hair and the small spot in the back
were a  little had been burnt.  He put it to his nose and inhaled. 
Good God, he  loved this woman but even he wasn't sure love could
overcome the smell of  burnt hair.  He let the piece fall from his
hands and then tried to smooth it  back in place.  He moved his hand
from her hair, and down the side of her  face, wiping a patch of dirt
and sweat off her cheek.  "I am sorry Scully,"  he said sweetly.  "At
least we solved the case." 
	
She glared at him again. "Sure Mulder.  Next time Connecticut is under
attack  by two sixteen year olds with ski masks and a flame thrower,
they can count  on you."
	
He grimaced.  It certainly sounded ridiculous when she said it.  He
ran his  hand over her face once more and then dropped it to her
shoulder, squeezing  it as he leaned in close to her.  "You want extra
mushrooms?" he asked  sweetly.  She pouted again and nodded.  He
smiled and leaned forward to kiss  her forehead.  "I'll order, you
shower." 	

She smiled back and got up from the bed, grabbing the bag he'd placed
on the  side table and heading into the shower.
	
The pizza arrived a half hour later, about the same time that Scully
finally  emerged from the bathroom.  She looked a hundred times better
and a lot  happier.  Her skin was back to its normal fresh glow, and
her hair had gone  back to smelling like almonds.  She was wearing
blue silk pajamas and bare  feet with her toenails painted a pale
pink.  He watched her step out of the  bathroom into the room and stop
to inhale the smell of the food, an act he  was happily familiar with.

Her eyes went wide and her lips turned up into an  impish smile.  She
hopped on the bed with him with a happy sigh and pulled a piece of pizza 
from the box, moaning loudly as she took her first bit.

Mulder just watched her, taking it all in, and reaching the ultimate
conclusion that he was no longer hungry, at least not for pizza.  Half
way  through her first slice she turned to him and smiled brightly,
aware that he  had been watching her.  He smiled back.  
	
"We're going to be late for work tomorrow," she said discarding the
crust  back into the box and grabbing another piece.  Scully didn't
eat crusts.  He  couldn't explain why, but he loved that about her.  
	
He nodded.  "Even if we left now we'd never make it."
	
"I can't leave now, anyhow," she mumbled between bites.  "Too tired."
	
"Me too," he said leaning back against the bed and stretching his legs
out.   "I feel like I could sleep for days."
	
She finished her second piece and closed the lid to the pizza.  "You
want any  More?" she asked turning towards him.  He shook his head and
she picked up  the box and walked into his room.  She came back a
moment later without it. 	

"What did you just do?"
	
She smiled and walked back to the bed, hitting the overhead lights on
the way,  leaving the room dark but for the small lamp on the bedside
table.  "I didn't  want my room to smell like pizza."
	
"So, what, you put it in mine?"
	
"Yep."  She smiled brightly and pulled the covers back on the half of
the bed  Mulder wasn't lying on.  She slipped under the covers and lay
down, snuggling  against the pillow, and turning on her side so she
was facing him.  "Before  you get mad about it," she said looking up
at him, "let me remind you that  you burnt me."
	
He sighed.  "I didn't mean to burn you."
	
"Burnt, Mulder."
	
He nodded.  "Fair enough."  
	
She closed her eyes and sighed into the pillow.  "Detective Kouratz
seemed  nice though."
	
"Sure," Mulder said sarcastically.  "Cause he wanted to get in your
pants." 	

She giggled.  "He did not.  Besides, he was your friend."
	
"I think operative word there is 'was,' as in he was, right up until
he tried  to get in your pants."
	
Scully opened her eyes and tugged at Mulder's arm until he slide down
the bed  and lay next to her.  "So you don't like it when people try
to get in my  pants?"
	
He paused.  This was dangerous territory they were getting into, and
neither  or them were in the best state of mind for an all out heart
to heart.  On the  one hand, it seemed inane.  Of course it bothered
him when other guys hit on  her, she had to know that.  On the other,
it was the kind of thing they  didn't talk about, and especially given
the strain in the relationship  brought on by Diana, losing the X
Files, AD Kersh, it was the kind of thing  that had taken a back
burner in their attempts to just keep their partnership 
on track.  Still, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the
possibility of  her, lying on a bed next to him, with her blue eyes
twinkling and her mouth  curved into a sly smile, her hand still
holding the end of his grey t shirt.   He didn't answer her.  Instead
he reached a hand up and ran it gently along  the side of her face as
he had done earlier.  She closed her eyes and moaned  so softly that
had he not been lying less than an inch from her face he 
wouldn't have heard it.

"When I said that before, about not finding another friend like me,"
she  started to say to him, opening her eyes to watch him.
	
"Mmm, hmm" he responded still running his fingers across the soft skin
of her  face.
	
"I wasn't trying to be mean."
	
He nodded.  "I know," he whispered.
	
"I just meant, that you and I, well..." she sighed into his touch. 
"I've never  had a friendship like ours before."
	
He smiled softly.  "Me either," he said, removing his hand so he could
view  her face completely.  

She was smiling contently.   "Come to bed, Mulder," she said tugging
at the  covers beneath him.

He looked at her, titling his head, and when she nodded her approval,
he got  up, pulled the covers back, and slid in under them, turning
off the lamp on  his way.  It was official: he was in bed with Scully.
 He laid there happy  but uncertain at first, still turned towards
her.  In the dark she cuddled up  to him, and pressed her body against
his.  On impulse he wrapped his arms  around her and she sighed,
snuggling closer.

"I know," she started to say into his chest, "that this is," she
paused.   "Actually, I don't know what this is." He felt her shake his
head against him.   "But can it be okay? At least for tonight?"

He held her tighter and kissed the top of her head.  "Of course."

She sighed loudly and relaxed into him.  "You know something funny?"
she  asked, her voice drowsy.

"Hmm?"

"You were all jealous about Detective Kouratz getting into my pants,
but""  Scully stopped mid thought to laugh, a silly schoolgirl giggle.
 

"But what?"  Mulder urged her on.

"But you picked out the pants I'm wearing."

He shook his head and laughed with her.

"It'd be creepy," she mumbled into him, her exhaustion winning out
over her  giggles, "If it wasn't just, so, us."

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

Scully woke up to the sound of irregular humming and the light
sensation of  wind through her hair.  It reminded her of standing next
to the ocean, her  second favorite thing to stand next to.  But she
didn't remember being  anywhere near the ocean, and she didn't smell
the fresh salty air of a  seashore.  She smelled something more
rustic, muskier.  She opened her eyes  slightly and saw grey.  She
closed them tightly and opened them again, she  still saw grey but now
it was softer and in the shape of a chest.  She moaned 
happily to herself as it all came together.
	
She was leaning against Mulder's chest, the soft grey of his t shirt
rubbing  against her cheek.  He was humming a song softly, and when
she listened  carefully she could tell it was "My Girl."  He was
absently running his right  hand across her hair, as he hummed into
it.  She smiled against his chest,  and he stopped humming when he
realized she was awake. 	

"Hey sleepy head," he said leaning back to create enough space between
them  that he could look down and into her face.  
	
"Good morning," she said lazily, looking up at him.

He shook his head. "Not morning."  

She raised her eyebrows.  

"It's past noon."

Scully groaned and slid out of his arms to sit up in bed.  She
regretted the  decision immediately and longed for the warmth and
comfort of his arms again,  but her Agent Scully sensibilities had
kicked in.  In the past two days she  had skipped out on work to
follow a case that they were not assigned to, that  turned out to be a
complete waste of time and that Kersh was going to ream 
them out for.  Then she managed to go to bed with her partner, which
was not  only strictly against Bureau policy, but only added to the
increasingly  confusing nature of their relationship, one which they
had both been pushing  since the weekend.  Now she had managed to miss
another day of work with  absolutely no good reason except that they
had been tired from the non-case  they had pursued and were going to
get reamed out for.  

She shook her head and dropped it into her hands.  She wasn't sure
which was  more frustrating, that she was on a one way track to
fucking up her career,  or that she didn't really care, that she only
showed up every day and tried  to rein them in for Mulder's sake. 
Scully wasn't afraid of leaving the FBI.   She wasn't a quitter and
her whole life she had worked hard and given her all,  so it was a sad
thing to realize that at the moment, her all was not in her.  
She had loved her job, but this work they were doing now, this wasn't
her job.   She was inclined to leave, to start a career in medicine,
but she stayed  because her all was in him, in being his partner, in
getting his life and  their real work back on track, which was what
she needed to be doing then. 	

She pulled the covers back and got out of the bed, walking to the
bathroom.   She didn't look back at him.  One glimpse of Mulder in
that bed with his  drowsy eyes and humming voice and his messy bed
hair and she would have  crossed all lines they had ever drawn or that
had been drawn for them.  So  she closed the bathroom door and started
the shower, opting for cold water. 
	
When she stepped out of the bathroom later Mulder was finishing
packing their  bags.  He looked up and smiled at her.  "I just need to
drop off the keys and  pay the bill and we can get on the road."
	
She threw her toiletries and dirty pajamas in the top of her bag and
zipped  it up as she nodded at him.  "I'll come with," she said and
slung her bag  over her shoulder.
	
He picked up his bag and they headed out of the motel room, walking
the three  doors down to the reception desk.  "Rooms 1012, 1013,"
Mulder said to the  attendant, an older gentleman with silver hair and
an absent minded smile. 	

"1012," he mumbled to himself as he flipped through what looked like
an old  recipe box filled with index cards.  Finally he looked up and
smiled  triumphantly as he pulled out two cards.  "1012, 1013."
	
Mulder smiled his annoyed hurry-it-up smile and placed the two keys on
the  counter.
	
"78 even."
	
Mulder nodded and handed over the Bureau credit card.  Scully rolled
her eyes.   Kersh was going to kill them.  The attendant ran the card
and handed Mulder  the receipt to sign.  "Are you Mr. Scully, he asked
him"" 	

Scully choked back laughter as Mulder looked up and stared
disbelievingly at  the attendant.  "I'm Agent Scully," she said,
biting back her giggles. 
	
The attendant looked up at her, and she recognized that he was
processing her  title as Agent, probably having assumed that she was
just "the little Mrs.".  "Um, Ms. Scully, I have several phone calls
for you." 	

Scully furrowed her brow. "Phone calls?"
	
He nodded.  "Twelve of them."
	
Her eyes grew wider.  "Twelve?"  It was conceivable that Kersh was
trying to  reach them, but he would never leave twelve messages, and
besides, even if  her cell phone had been smashed to bits Mulder's was
working just fine.  She  looked up at Mulder whose face was as equally
confused as hers.  Besides, how  had anyone even knew where they were,
let alone what crappy motel they had  checked into"
	
"Wrote them all down here," the attendant said to her, handing over a
stack  of pink While You Were Out papers.  "Tried to ring through to
your room, but  the guy said you weren't answering."
	
"The guy?"  Scully reached out slowly and took the messages from the
attendant. "Thanks," she said hesitantly.  She looked at the pink
slips of paper in her  hand and then turned and walked out to the
parking lot. 
  	
She stood next to the car, leaning against it, while Mulder finished
paying  and walked toward her.  She had looked at the first message
and though the  attendant's handwriting was small and messy she could
clearly make out the  purpose, it was Ethan.  She had looked at the
second message, the third, the  fourth, and then flipped to the
twelfth, they were all from Ethan.  She had  stopped looking.  Scully
had always been hesitant and guarded about her  emotions, but she had
not developed true paranoia until she was partnered  with Fox Mulder. 
Over the past six years she had honed it into her own kind 
of exact science, and it was in overdrive now.  She hadn't told Ethan
were  she was when he called.  She hadn't told anyone where she was,
and she  sincerely doubted that Mulder had somehow contacted Ethan and
let him know.   A wave of nausea came over her and she dropped her
head, staring at her feet  as she pushed her left foot back and forth
on the asphalt.  This was beyond  someone wanting to be her friend
again. 	

"You okay Scully?"  Mulder asked coming to stand in front of her.
	
She nodded but didn't look up.
	
"Who were the messages from?"
	
Scully hesitated.  They were at a strange place, her and Mulder, a
place  where they were letting their guard down around each other,
letting the other  in and enjoying the feel of togetherness.  There
had been a great weight  between them since the X Files had burned
down, since they returned from the  Artic, since Spender and Diana and
Kersh and their work life had been turned  upside down, but in the
past few days all of that had seemed to fade away  until it was only
them, only ever about them.  Ever since Friday night, since 
she'd found him staking out her apartment waiting for her, they had
seemed to  make an unconscious yet mutual agreement to push forward,
to push their  relationship forward.  So much so that sleeping in the
same bed, curled into  each other, actually felt normal, right, like
something they should have been  doing for years.  In short, she was
closer to Mulder now then she had ever  been.  And yet she wanted
desperately to keep this from him, to hide the  nerves and uncertainty
she had over Ethan, and to ignore the insanity of  twelve messages and
the doubt over how they had shown up in the first place.  
She wanted to avoid his worrying.  She wanted to avoid having to
explain the  past.  She wanted to avoid having to think about it at
all.  She was torn  between wanting to be close to Mulder and wanting
to push him away.   
	
"Scully?" he was asking again.  "Who were the messages from""
	
She pushed her foot back and forth with increasing speed and kept her
eyes  from him.  "No one."
	
He reached over and grabbed the messages from her hand.  She hadn't
expected  it and he was able to slide them easily out of her weak
grasp.  She sighed  deeply and leaned back against the car.  It wasn't
up to her anymore.  She  should have realized that when it involved
Mulder no choice was hers alone. 
	
He flipped through the messages and she finally looked up at him.  His
face  was growing hard at each one and, unlike her, he read them all. 
When he  finished he looked up at her, his face hard but otherwise
expressionless.   She'd thought he'd be angry, or worried, but he just
watched her and she sunk  a little when she realized he was in
profiler mode. 	

After awhile he stuffed the pink slips into his coat pocket and then
reached  behind her and pulled at the door handle, pushing her
slightly out of the way  to open the car door completely.  "Let's get
going," he said and walked  around to the other side of the car.  She
watched him, trying to read him,  but he was unwilling to let her in,
and so she got into the car and waited.   She had to wait twenty
minutes before he finally spoke.  When he did she  realized that he
had relaxed some, that he had let go of the anger he had 
been hiding from her and that he was returning to her as her friend
and not  an FBI agent.  After twenty minutes he had simply said, "you
wanna talk about  it?"
	
Of course she didn't want to talk about it, but it wasn't like she
could  avoid it now.  "How did he know I was there?" she asked, all
the frustration  and tension exiting her body in a loud sigh.
	
"I don't know, Scully.  Did you mention it on the phone?"
	
She shook her head, looking out the window as it started to rain
outside.   "You were there, Mulder.  I'm sure I didn't."
	
He nodded.  "I'm sure you didn't either."  He hesitated and shifted 
uncomfortably in his seat.  "What did he want?"
	
"Huh?"
	
"I mean why did he call?"
	
"The messages don't say, except that my cell wasn't working.  He
called on  the way up to ask me to go to dinner with him."
	
"And?"
	
"And I told him I couldn't obviously.  He asked me to call when I got
back.   Apparently he couldn't wait."
	
Mulder looked out the window and she thought she heard him mutter
something  under his breath.  She couldn't be sure and she was too
tired to argue with  him over it.  The rain outside increased from a
light shower to a full on  downpour, and although Mulder driving in
the rain always made her slightly  nervous, she appreciated the change
in weather.  She felt rainy inside.  She  felt damp and dreary and
like life would look better wrapped in wool sipping  hot tea.  A sunny
day under these circumstances would have been cruel. 
	
"Scully," Mulder started to say after awhile.  "What happened with
this guy"   I mean, really, what happened between you two?"
	
Scully sighed loudly, a new pastime she was perfecting.  She'd known
this  moment was coming.  In a way she was looking forward to getting
it out there,  to being honest with him, to having someone who could
understand why Ethan's  reappearance and current behavior was having
such an effect on her.  She  stretched out her legs in front of her
and folded her arms across her chest  before beginning.
	
"I met Ethan while I was teaching at Quantico.  I'd just made this
huge decision  to not pursue a career in medicine, and no one was
supportive about it.  Well,  except Missy," Scully stopped and smiled
despite herself to think fondly of  her big sister.  "She thought the
FBI held the key to my future."  She turned  and saw Mulder smiling at
her.  "Anyway, Ethan was a friend of a friend.  He  was a producer of
a news program, really into politics and the D.C. culture 
and I liked that about him.  I liked having some one to argue with." 
She  stopped again to listen to Mulder laugh, and then continued,
giving him a  rueful glare.  "Things just clicked.  He was what I
thought I wanted: smart,  goal oriented, had a strong career going,
wanted a large family.  It was a  good fit."
	
"Good fit?"  Mulder interrupted.  "That sounds romantic."
	
She smiled at him.  "It wasn't.  At the time I didn't want romance. 
Actually  I thought I never wanted romance.  Ethan was always more
open, more emotional  than I was.  It upset him sometimes, but I
didn't know how to change, and  frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to." 
	
"So what went wrong?"
	
"I don't think I can say for sure.  I'm not sure you ever can really. 
We  were together for nearly two years.  After the first year we even
moved in  together, in this small apartment in Crystal City."  She
stopped and laughed  at the memory.  "Thinking about it now, after all
these years in my place in  Georgetown, I don't know how I managed to
actually live with someone.  I need  my space so much."  She shook her
head absently. "Anyway, things started to  deteriorate after awhile.
Little things that added up to me realizing that  while I loved Ethan
in theory, while I loved all the characteristics he had, 
I wasn't in love with him, not so that I wanted to spend my whole life
with  him.  I guess I started to pull away then.  I was just starting
actual work  at the FBI and was putting in a lot of time, you know,"
she said waving her  hands in the air for effect, "wanting to make a
good impression and what  not."
	
"Yeah," Mulder said sarcastically.  "And look where that got you."
	
She smiled.  "Don't make me bring up the burnt hair again."
	
He raised his arms as if to say "don't shoot."
	
"Anyway, Mulder.  Ethan was annoyed with the hours I was spending at
work,  and then I got assigned to spy on this crackpot in the
basement," Mulder  reached over and playfully hit her in the arm. 
"Anyway, said crackpot kept  wanting to fly around the country to
implausible places like Oregon, so I was  gone even more."  She paused
then, and let her lips slide against each other  in thought.  This had
been the part of the story she was not looking forward to.  She turned 
in her seat so that she was facing Mulder.  He noticed the change in her 
position and raised his eyebrows at her.  
	
"I tried to tell him about you," she started slowly.  "I was
frustrated and  annoyed with your theories and that case in Oregon but
I was mostly intrigued.   Those first cases opened up all these
questions, all these new ways of seeing  things.  You'd been on the X
Files already, and you, you have this ability to  openly believe in
things and that is just not me.  Those first few months 
were a doozy for me.  I tried to tell him about you, but," she sighed
loudly  and gave up hesitating.  "He got it in his head that I felt
more than  partnerly toward you."  She looked over at Mulder, his eyes
were slightly  wider but he had the presence of mind not to say
anything and she was  grateful.  "Every case, every time I even went
into the office he would fly  off the handle.  I had no idea he could
be so jealous, and so irrational  about it.  There was nothing I could
say to him to get him to believe me, and  he, he kind of lost it I
guess." 	
"What do you mean he lost it?"
	
"He would call constantly; my cell, any hotel room we were at, even
the  office.  When I'd get home he would start these fights and then
storm out and  be gone all night.  I never knew where he went or if he
was okay or if he was  even coming back.  He demanded I quit.  Once I
even came home and he had cut  up all my suits."
	
"Oh My God," Mulder exhaled, turning to look at her.
	
She shrugged.  "I had decided to leave him, but when you live together
it's  never easy to just get up and go.  I spent two nights at Missy's
and then I  rented my apartment in Georgetown and told Ethan we needed
to talk.  He  agreed and we made plans to meet at what was still our
apartment the next  night for dinner.  I didn't want to be with Ethan,
but I didn't want to hate  him either.  I wanted to be able to end
things amicably.  I still believed he  was a good person.  When I got
to the apartment at the time we agreed, he  didn't answer the door.  I
still had the key so I let myself in.  Dinner was  on the table.  And
so was Ethan, screwing one of the women who worked down at 
the station with him. He'd made Chicken Marsala, too, my favorite."	
	
"Ouch."
	
Scully looked at him and smiled.  "I haven't eaten it since.  I still
can't  get the image of her ass sloshing around in the mushrooms out
of my mind." 	

Mulder laughed despite himself and the horrific story she had just
told him.   He was somehow glad to know that Scully had moved past it
enough to speak  with such irreverent sarcasm.  When he had collected
himself he reached over  and grabbed her hand in his.  "I'm really
sorry Scully.  That's awful." 	

Scully squeezed his hand.  "Yeah it was, but don't be sorry Mulder. 
He made  it easy to walk away and not look back.  And besides, I like
where I am now." 	

He turned and looked at her searching her face, then turned back to
the road.   "Me too."

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

Ethan slammed the cheap beige hotel phone down and punched the
mattress he  was sitting on.  He was furious.  Things weren't supposed
to go like this.   This wasn't how he planned it.  First she couldn't
have dinner with him  because her jackass partner dragged her away on
a case, and now she wasn't  calling like she said she would.

Why wasn't she calling him back?  It was going on five o'clock.  She
hadn't  checked into work today.  He knew.  He had called and
pretended to be Bill Jr.  looking for her for a family emergency.  She
couldn't still be in Connecticut,  could she?  It had been a stroke of
genius that she had figured out she was  there in the first place, and
it had come at no small price.  But in  retrospect, paying that guy at
DC cellular to trace her and her stupid  partner's cell phone had been
worth it.  Even when hers mysteriously stopped  working, he could
still figure out that her partner had called the New Haven 
police department several times over the course of the past two days. 
It  wasn't hard to deduce where she was, and with New Haven being a
relatively  small town, it had only taken him two hours to call all
the hotels in  the area before he found her.  Suffice it to say he had
been even more  outraged when she refused to answer the phone in her
room.  It was a good  thing that desk clerk was willing to take
messages or he was going to head up  to New Haven himself.  God,
didn't she see how much effort he was putting  into their
relationship?  Didn't she understand just how hard he was willing 
to work at it?  Just how much he was willing to do?  

He decided that he would have to show her.  He would wait her until
she  showed up.  He would wait until he could show her.  He would wait
until he  could have her all to himself.  He rushed out of his hotel
room and drove his  car to Georgetown and her apartment.  It was the
same place she had rented  years before when she had first left him. 
He hated this place and happily  thought of a time when he would take
her away from it.  

He drove back and forth and back and forth past her apartment complex
but she  still wasn't there.  He just knew that she was off with him,
that he had been  right all along.  He thought about the two of them
touching, remembering the  way she had fallen asleep on him the other
night.  Ethan pictured the way his  long gangly legs would wrap around
his delicate Dana, how his hard face would  press against her soft
skin.  It infuriated him. It had been a good thing  he'd come back to
DC after all.  

Oh, he had tried a life without her.  He had moved away and tried to
forget  about her, but how could a person forget their destiny?  Every
where he went,  every thing he did, every woman he fucked, all he
thought about was her.  Six  long years of thinking about her, and now
he had enough.  He would not go  another day without having her.  He
would not waste time.  He knew in his  heart that she must still want
to be with him, that she could not deny their  fated life together. 
All he had to do was get to her, was to get him out of 
the way, then she would see, then she would be all his again.

He put the car in park and waited.  

*********************************************************************
	
It was late when Mulder finally pulled up in front of her apartment. 
They  had gotten stopped in the longest traffic jam in history when a
tractor  trailer carrying beer had jackknifed on the freeway nearly in
front of them.   She'd had to sit in the car in completely stopped
traffic listening to Mulder  make frat boy jokes as waves of wheat
beer rolled past the car.  She loved  him with all of her heart, but
even she wasn't sure love could overcome bad  beer jokes.

"Gee," Mulder said as he stopped the engine and yawned.  "It's only
quarter  to midnight, Scully.  I think we made amazing time."

Scully would have smiled at him but she was so tired that it came out
like a  grimace instead.  "Good night, Mulder," she said as she
started to reach for  the door handle, but she felt him grab her other
hand and tug her back away  from the door.  "What?" she asked, turning
back to him.

He pursued his lips in thought.  "I'm a little nervous about you being
alone."

She sighed.  "Because of Ethan?"

He nodded.  

She thought about it.  If Ethan was looking for her, it would be easy
to find  her here, maybe it wasn't the safest place.  But it was her
place and she  longed for her apartment, her space, and especially her
bed.  She wasn't  going to let a few abnormal messages scare her
enough to hide from her own  apartment.  She looked over at Mulder. 
She could invite him up, but the  truth was she needed space from him
too, and not just because of the beer  jokes.  They were clearly on
the brink of becoming something else and she  still wasn't sure if
that was even a good idea.  One more night in the same 
place, one more night in the same bed and she'd lose all ability to
make a  rational decision.  Besides, she knew that whatever she
decided she wanted  with him, she didn't want to act on it tonight. 
Tonight she was too tired  and worn out for it to be anything other
than an exhausted declaration of  love before she passed out on the
couch and from the way he was yawning, she  figured she'd be lucky to
even get out the declaration before he passed out.   It seemed best
for both of them to spend the night apart and she reasoned 
that Ethan's behavior, while creepy and uncomfortable, was not
threatening  her in anyway.  He was being overeager, but he wasn't
stalking her per se,  and he had never been violent.  So after much
thought she finally shook her  head and let go of Mulder's hand. 
"I'll be fine, Mulder.  I'll lock the  doors and be safe."

He titled his head skeptically.
	
"Please," she whined.  "I need to go to sleep in my bed so badly."
	
He hesitated again, pursuing his lips in his own thoughts and staring
at her.   Eventually he sighed and nodded, giving into her.  "But you
promise to call  right away if you so much as get a chill."

She nodded, but his face was still full of concern and uncertainty. 
"Don't  worry," she said using the last ounce of energy she had to
sound chipper and  reassuring.  "I've got my gun and I know how to use
it." 	

"Don't I know it," he said purposefully reaching his hand to rub his
shoulder  where she'd shot him years before.
	
She glared at him.  "Don't make me bring up the burnt hair, Mulder."
	
He smiled and nodded.  "Good night Scully," he said sweetly, his voice
dropping just low enough to flood her stomach with desire.
	
She sighed and opened the door.  "Good night, Mulder."  Scully grabbed
her  bag from the backseat and shut the door, waving good bye to her
partner.  She  headed into her building and up the stairs to her
apartment, slowly opening  the door and turning on the light.  She
headed to the window and watched as  Mulder, satisfied that she was
inside and safe, finally started the car and  drove off.  She smiled. 
Despite everything, he really was the sweetest man  she knew.
	
Scully closed the curtains to her window and absently wandered around
her  apartment, turning off lights and discarding articles of clothing
on the way  to her bedroom.  She didn't bother with pajamas or her
usual nightly ritual  of washing her face, or brushing her teeth.  She
didn't even bother to go to  the bathroom.  She headed straight to her
bed and collapsed on it letting out  a long and happy moan as her body
relaxed into the soft cotton sheets.  

She was so close to sleep now, so close to finally resting, that when
she  heard the knock on her door it took all her strength to pull
herself back up.  She was wearing only a t-shirt and absently grabbed
the pants she'd had on  earlier, sliding them on as she walked to the
door.  She was so tired and  exhausted that she wasn't thinking
clearly.  She figured it was Mulder second  guessing her, second
guessing his decision to go home.  She wished idly that 
he would just use his key, let himself in, and leave her to her
sleeping, but  he didn't and the banging just grew louder and more
urgent until she finally  undid the lock and opened the door.
	
It wasn't Mulder.  A new wave of panic and adrenaline hit her like a
triple  espresso of what-the-fuck when Ethan pushed past her and into
her apartment.   She was tired and pissed and freaked out and in the
back of her mind she kept  thinking, God is Mulder going to be
pissed. 	

"Ethan, what are you doing here?" she demanded with more anger in her
voice  then she'd meant.  Pissed or not, with his unpredictable
behavior she didn't  think it was wise to upset him.
	
"You didn't call me back, I was worried."
	
Scully reluctantly closed the door and headed to her couch to sit
down.  If she was going to maintain enough energy to find a way to
get him out of here  she'd have to conserve somehow.  Sitting seemed
like a good option.  "I'm  sorry, but I told you I was gone on a case,
Ethan." 	

He paced back and forth in front of her, seemingly annoyed.  "You said
you'd  call when you got back."
	
"Ethan, I just got back, literally, like ten minutes ago."
	
He stopped and stared at her.  "You were out with him," he said
accusingly. 	

Scully narrowed her eyes at Ethan.  "Him?  You mean Mulder?"
	
Ethan nodded and began pacing again.  
	
"Mulder is my partner Ethan.  We were working on a case together." 
Ethan  didn't respond and Scully was reaching the limits of her
patience.  "Ethan,"  she said sternly and he stopped pacing and looked
at her.  "I thought you  said you wanted to be friends."

"I do."
	
"This doesn't feel very friendly Ethan.  This feels like you being
jealous  for no reason."  Scully stood up and placed her hands
defiantly across her  chest.  "You're making me very uncomfortable."
	
"How can I be your friend if you're off with him?"  Ethan demanded and
Scully  was struck with the illogic of everything he was doing and
saying.  She  wanted to call Mulder.  She wanted to pick up the phone
and scream for Mulder.   She thought maybe the two of them should get
red hotline phones like the USA  and USSR had during the Cold War, so
that they wouldn't even have to worry  about dialing.
	
"Ethan," Scully continued sternly, walking toward her door.  "I don't
think  it's such a good idea we try to be friends."
	
"What?"
	
"I think you should go Ethan."
	
"But Dana..."
	
Scully slammed her foot down loudly on the floor.  "I want you to go
Ethan,"  she said opening her door, "Now."  
	
He stared at her for a long time fuming and then walked toward the
door.  He  stopped in the doorway and turned to her.  "You're making a
big mistake," he  said bitterly.
	
"I doubt that."  Scully slammed the door in his face, locking it
behind her.   She moved quickly back to the bedroom, grabbing her gun
from the drawer she  kept it in and pulling her phone off its stand,
taking both into bed with her.   She placed the gun on the pillow next
to her and pressed the speed dial on  the cordless phone.  Her heart
was racing and her breathing was panicked.  She needed to calm down.

He picked up on the second ring, croaking "Scully?" into the phone.
	
"Hey," she said softly, her breathing started to even out and her
heart  slowed at the mere sound of his voice.
	
"What happened?  What is it?"
	
She smiled at the panic in his voice.  "Nothing, Mulder.  I'm fine. 
Just  wanted to, well..."
	
She heard him sigh.  "I know, Scully."
	
The following morning, she decided not to go into work.  She was
avoiding a  lot of things, namely the possibility that she'd run into
Ethan who had  apparently had the eerie way of knowing where she was
at all times, and  getting yelled at by Kersh.  She'd left a message
for Mulder at work that she  was calling in sick and was surprised
that he hadn't called her yet.   Surprised, but also relieved.  She
couldn't shake the uncomfortable  confrontation she'd had with Ethan,
or why she had called Mulder but not told  him about it.  He was going
to be mad when he found it, and he always found  out.  But she just
couldn't get the words out over the phone and had  eventually given
up, falling asleep to the sound of his breathing on the 
other end.  
       
She'd woken up in the middle of the night from a nightmare about Ethan
and it  had kept her up for the rest of the night, so much so that
around four in the  morning shed given up entirely and just gotten out
of bed entirely.  She'd  wasted a good half hour rearranging her CD
collection, taken a long shower,  made an unusually large breakfast,
cleaned out her fridge and then come 5:30  had just given up entirely
and sat aimlessly in front of the TV.  That had  been two hours ago
and now she was sitting on her couch trying to plow  through the
backlog of paperwork she and Mulder had accumulated and 
collectively put off.  Expense reports, hotel receipts, follow ups on
autopsy  findings.  There was a lot to go through and thankfully it
was mind numbing  which is just what she needed that morning; her mind
numbed.  It had been  going so well, until he showed up.
	
He didn't even bother to knock, or if he did it was so quiet and quick
that  it didn't even register.  She was sure she'd locked it too, so
he must have  been in some kind of craze to have just unlocked her
door and slammed it open  the way he did.  But he did, slamming the
door to her apartment open at  exactly 7:47, his bravado so large and
urgent that she was forced to make a  note of the time.  "You kissed
AD Skinner!"  He shouted.  It wasn't even a  question, it was like
this primal declaration of a reality that he refused to 
believe but was stuck facing anyway.  "You kissed AD Skinner!"
	
She stared at him from the couch, her face incredulous.  She was still
focusing on why he had stormed in there at 7:47 in the morning looking
like  Elliot Ness.
       
"Scully?  Did you hear me?"  Mulder asked with annoyance as he slammed
the  door behind him.  
       
She nodded.  "Something about AD Skinner?"
       
"Um, yeah," he said with annoyance, shrugging his coat off and coming
around  to the other side of the couch to point his finger at her. 
"You kissed AD  Skinner, Scully."
       
"What!?"  She gasped as the words sunk in.  What the hell was he
talking  about?

"Oh, don't deny it Scully.  I heard it from Walter himself."  

"He said that?  Mulder I swear I never..."

He was standing next to her now towering above her as she sat on her
couch,  his hands on his hips and a facial expression that she
couldn't quite read.   He could have been joking, but then again he
may have been completely serious.   "Scully, don't..."
	
She was flabbergasted, and in shock that Skinner would make such a
thing up,  much less tell it to Mulder.  "Mulder I swear."
	
"You did."
	
She stood up to match him, even though she wasn't nearly tall enough. 
She  put her hands on her hips and dug her heels in anyway.  "I did
not." 	

"A few months ago, Scully.  Right before you fished me out of
Bermuda." 	

"I did not...oh, wait, I did do that."
	
"Aha!"  He shouted pointing his finger in her face again.  He wagged
the  accusatory finger in front of her and then put his hand back on
his hip,  leaning back to look down at her and shake his head. "You
kissed AD Skinner." 	

She sighed and slumped back onto the couch.  "I kissed AD Skinner."
	
She saw the slight smile come to his lips then.  He continued shaking
his  head and making an annoying "tsk, tsk" sound in his throat as he
plopped down  on the couch next to her.  "What do you have to say for
yourself Agent  Scully?"
	
She shrugged. "He had made me a very happy woman."
	
"Don't I make you happy?"  His face was tilted in mock pain but she
could see  the laughter he was holding back.
	
"Hmm, yes you do Mulder."
	
"And?"
	
"And what?"
	
"So where's my..."
	
She leaned over, invading his space and said "Mulder," in that slow
teasing  voice of hers before he could finish.  She leaned in further,
so close that  she could smell him, could feel her breasts brush
against the edges of his  open jacket, could hear his heart beating
faster than usual.  She reached her  hands up to his shoulders and
traveled across them until they centered at his  neck.  Then she took
his tie in her hands and began to fiddle with it,  straightening out
the knot.  "Mulder, at the time," she looked up at him and 
batted her eyelashes, "I was very, very angry at you."  She pulled the
knot  tight so it pushed into his throat, and then dropped her hands
and sat up  from the couch, heading into the kitchen.

He coughed, letting out a loud gasp and reached up to loosen his tie. 
"Fair  enough," he mumbled.
	
She smiled as she brought him a cup of the coffee she had just made
before  he'd shown up.  It had been a silly game but a nice one
nonetheless.  It had  been just what she needed to get her mind off
Ethan and the night before.   "Why did he tell you that anyway?"
	
Mulder wiggled his eyebrows as he looked down at her coffee table over
the  paperwork she had been going through.  He made a face when he saw
it. 	

"You know it wasn't like, well, you know."
	
He smiled at her.  "I don't know Scully, AD Skinner is an attractive
man." 	

She titled her head and pretended to think about it then shook her
head back  and forth a few times.  "Not my type."  She settled back on
the couch next to  him.
	
"So what is your type?"
	
She wiggled her eyebrows in turn and he smiled.  
       
When it was clear she wasn't going to answer, he made an executive
decision  to move on.  "So," he said, his voice getting that
I-heart-the-paranormal  ring to it.  "I picked up an interesting case
report from a particular trash  can in a particular basement office of
a particular government building," he  said waving a brown folder in
front of her.  "I wanted to get a head start  before any one else gets
there." 	

"Early bird gets the whatever."
	
"Early indeed.  But you still beat me, Scully.  I got the message you
left at  five this morning.  What were you doing up so early?"
	
"Couldn't sleep."  She saw his eyes narrow in concern as he looked at
her,  but she shook her head.  "Just couldn't sleep." She lied.  He
hesitated,  wanting to believe her.  "Really, I'm dandy.  Coming up
roses and all that."

He just smirked at her and nodded his head.  "You do have a certain
floral  odor to you, I'd thought it was just a new perfume."
	
She shook her head.  "No I cleaned my fridge with Glade Mountain
Wildflowers  disinfective this morning."

He laughed.  "So you want to hear about the case, or are you really
not  feeling well and taking the day off?"
       
She shrugged.  "Bring it on, G-man."

He smiled like a kid in a candy store.  "A shooting," he started. 
"One Jimmy  Lupino shot point blank in the head, died on impact.  One
weapon was  recovered at the crime scene, registered to Mr. Lupino
with his fingerprints  all over it."

"So far I'm not intrigued," she quipped.  "Have you considered
suicide?"

He shook his head.  "Ballistics and paraffin tests clearly show that
Mr.  Lupino did not fire the weapon.  In fact, the gun found at the
scene was not  fired at all."
	
"But the bullets match the gun?"
	
"Yep."
	
"And there are rounds missing from the gun?"
	
"Exactly one."
	
"So there was a second gun."
	
He shook his head.  "I don't think so Scully.  This is the third
shooting the  local PD has had in the past week with exactly the same
fact pattern.  Each  shooting occurred in a relatively public place. 
The first was outside of a  crowded nightclub downtown, the second in
the parking lot of a restaurant on  a busy Friday night, and Mr.
Lupino here was shot outside his home, while his  entire family was
inside.  No one at either scene even heard a gun shot.  And 
there's no evidence to show this guy has an accomplice.  In fact the
only  evidence they have is the statements of two eyewitnesses at the
first  shooting, both of whom claim to have seen a man running from
the body and get  into a car that drove by, but with nobody at the
wheel." 	

"Mulder, he doesn't need an accomplice, he could have, I don't know, a
second  hand.  And the driver could have been dressed in all black, or
crouched down  so he couldn't be seen."
	
"Even if there was another gun that matched exactly, the bullets don't
show  any evidence that they were actually fired from a gun.  And the
gun in each  shooting belonged to the victim.  So the shooter would
have to have had the  exact same gun in each case, that's three
different guns, Scully." 	

"That's not so implausible if the murder was premeditated."
	
"And the bullets?  The ones that shot these men, yet weren't actually
fired?" 	

She sighed.  "Well they moved somehow, Mulder."
	
He nodded.  "Yes they did."
	
"Fine," Scully said standing up from the couch and stretching.  "Let
me  shower and we'll go back to the crime scene and re-interview the
witnesses,  but Mulder..."
	
"Yes Scully?"
	
"You are not allowed to say 'telekinesis' until after I've had
lunch." 	

He smiled again.  "Fine.  Sure.  Whatever."  He headed into the
kitchen to  rinse out his coffee cup and she headed through her
bedroom to the bathroom.   
	
"Mulder," she called after him as she started to run the hot water.  
"Seriously why did Skinner tell you that?"

She heard him laugh in the other room, but didn't bother to answer
her.

*********************************************************************
	
Mulder was zero for two and she was way too happy about it.  At least
this  time he had not been wrong per se about the telekinesis, he was
just wrong  about any possibility that they could investigate
completely without  authority and not get called in and chewed out by
Kersh, which had been the  longest four hours of his life, worse then
the IceCapades.  He didn't even  get to buy her lunch, which meant he
didn't even get to say "telekinesis"  with dramatic aplomb.  Now they
were both officially on administrative leave,  pending an
investigatory hearing.       

This had to be the worst week of his life professionally.  In fact
between  these two crap cases, getting bitched at by Kersh, being on
the verge of  losing his job and dragging Scully down with him, and
the appearance of this  psycho Ethan guy, this could have been one of
the worst weeks of his life  entirely.  So how was it then that when
everything was going so wrong in his  life, he could be so completely
happy? 	

He suspected it had something to do with the woman getting them drinks
at the  bar, and the way she'd let him drape his arm around her when
they'd walked  into the bar.  Or the memory of sleeping in the same
bed with her, or the way  she let him storm into her apartment for no
reason and mill around as he  pleased.  Or it could have been the way
her eyes had softened around him, and  how she began to touch him as
frequently as he did her.  Mulder wondered if  there was a
proportional relation to everything in his life.  When work was 
good, his personal life would suffer.  When work was in the crapper,
his  relationship with Scully was at its all time best.  He decided it
helped that  he'd stopped acting like an ass; stopped blaming her for
everything that was  going wrong; stopped even thinking about Diana.  
	
"Beer and whiskey," she announced dropping two bottles and two shot
glasses  on the table in front of him before sliding into the booth
next to them.   They'd come to drink to the demise of their careers
and to AD Kersh for  winning the most annoying jackass of the year
award.  Normally Mulder felt  that real drinking was to be done at the
bar itself, but he'd sacrificed the  convenience of proximity to the
booze for the privacy of a booth.  He wanted  to sit in the dark where
no one could see them, could find them and complain  about
conspiracies and FEMA and bees that ruined all his plans.  He wanted
to  drink with Scully and toy with her hand and watch her cheeks and
the tips of  ears turn red as she got drunk.  
	
He picked up the shot glass and raised it to her. "Cheers."
	
"Cheers," she echoed and then she did this strange routine with the
glass,  lifting it up and knocking it twice on the table before
clanking it against  his and titling her head back to take it all in. 
He watched in surprise as  she swallowed the drink and slammed the
glass back down.  "What?" she asked,  opening her eyes to look at him
still sitting there with his full shot glass  raised in his hand.

He raised his eyes and titled his head toward the empty glass on the
table. 	

She shrugged.  "I'm the daughter of a sailor."
	
He shook his head and downed the shot.  "Hoo boy," he shouted shaking
his  head and slammed the glass in turn.  
	
She was already starting in on her beer.  "Next round on you."
	
"Already?"  he asked.
	
"The faster the better," she said.  He looked at her in surprise and
then  slid out of the booth.  He ordered two more rounds to save
another trip and  then returned to the booth with the four glasses.

She grabbed another shot and downed it before he'd even slide back
into the  booth.  "Jesus, Scully, slow down."
	
"I'm building up nerves," she told him.
	
"Is that what alcohol does Dr. Scully?"  She rolled her eyes at him. 
"What  do you need nerves for anyway"  You plan to go back and fight
with Kersh some  more?"
	
She looked up at him and he saw a strange fire in her eyes: determined
but  wavering.  She took a swig of beer and then put the bottle down
pushing it to  the side so she could lay her hands down flat in front
of her.  She leaned in  slightly towards him and took a deep breath. 
"I lied to you." 	

He leaned back in the booth and looked her up and down.  "What are you
talking about?"
	
"Yesterday morning when you came over."
	
"Is this about you and Skinner?"
	
"No, you moron."
	
"Okay, so yesterday morning you lied to me."
	
She nodded.  "And the night before, on the phone."
	
Things clicked in place and Mulder slammed his beer down, annoyed and
frustrated.  "What happened?" he asked through clenched teeth.
	
"After you left," she paused and twisted her mouth into a grimace, but
she  didn't look away from him and she didn't back down.  "Ethan
showed up." 	

"What!?" Mulder screamed, his voice loud enough that a few of the
patrons shot  nervous looks in their direction.  He ignored them. 
"What the hell happened?" 	

"He knocked and I thought it was you so I let him in.  He was angry I
hadn't  called him."
	
"Jesus, Scully.  How did he know you were even back?"  She shrugged
and  reached for the beer, finishing the last of it.  An eerie
realization hit him.   "Fuck, he was probably there you know. 
Probably right there waiting,  watching us.  Fuck, I didn't even
see..." 	

"You don't even know what he looks like, so cut out the guilt crap. 
But yeah,  he saw us."
	
"How do you know that?"
	
"Because he was screaming about how I was with you, how he and I could
never be  friends as long as you were around."
	
"Friends?" Mulder mocked, his voice thick with distain.
	
Scully rolled her eyes.  "I kicked him out, Mulder, and he left."
	
"And?"
	
"That's it."
	
He rolled his eyes. "Is that really it, Scully, or is that all you're
going  to tell me?"
	
She glared at him.  "He said I was making a big mistake and left, and
that is  completely it Mulder."
	
He stared at her until she squirmed slightly.  "I think you should
press  charges."
	
"On what grounds, Mulder""
	
"He threatened you."
	
"Mulder, it was an idle threat. Christ, I don't think it even counted
as a  threat, it was just some stupid shit he said to make me feel
bad.  I told him  I didn't want to see him, he left, it's over."
	
"Then why are you telling me this?"
	
"Cause I hate lying to you."
	
He nodded and seemed to calm down a little.  "You're going home with
me  tonight."
	
She looked up at him and they stared at each other, a mini-contest
that  neither intended to win or lose.  "Fine."  It was what they both
wanted  anyway.
	
"Scully?" he asked leaning back into the booth and looking at her with
softer  eyes.  "Why didn't you tell me?"
	
She sighed.  "I'm not sure.  I didn't want you to worry.  I didn't
want to  worry you.  It just seemed easier."
	
He shook his head.  "No, the first time around.  Six years ago.  Why
didn't  you tell me?"
	
She leaned back, matching his earlier movement and sat quietly as if
really  thinking about it for the first time.  "I guess," she started
after awhile,  "that I was afraid of what you'd think.  It's not that
I didn't trust you, or  didn't consider you a friend at the time, it's
just that we were still so new  to each other, our partnership was
still so new, and I felt like I was still  proving myself to you. 
Having a bad breakup seemed like a juvenile thing to  be worried
about.  I guess I didn't want you to think less of me."
	
"Scully, it was worse then just a bad breakup.  He was awful to you."
	
"I guess I didn't really see it that way.  It's not easy being a woman
in the  FBI, especially starting out.  The last thing I wanted to
convey to you or  anyone else was that I couldn't handle myself."
	
"I wouldn't have thought that, you know.  I wouldn't have thought it
was  juvenile or that it made you less of an agent."
	
She smiled.  "I know that now, Mulder."
	
He nodded.  "But not then?"
	
She shook her head.  "Not then.  Besides," she added with a shy smile,
"how  was I going to explain that my boyfriend had gone nuts because
he basically  thought I was having an affair with you?"
	
Mulder grinned.  "You did de-robe for me, Scully."
	
She glared at him.  "If I'd known at the time you had a photographic
memory,  I'd never have done it."
	
He wiggled his eyebrows at her and then pushed the last shot glass
toward her.   "Drink up Scully, I want you loused before I take you
home." 	

"Damn," she muttered as she grabbed the glass.  "That was my plan." 
She  downed the drink in time with him, and they got up together from
the booth.   He threw money on the table and grabbed the hand she had
extended to him, and  headed out to get a cab.  They didn't have to
wait long.  One was already  there.  They climbed in the back seat
together and sat in silence on the ride  to his apartment, her hand
remaining firmly in his.   	

He didn't let go of her hand the entire ride and he didn't let go when
they  got out or when they walked into his building or when they rode
up the  elevator or when he couldn't get the key to work in his door
or when he  finally did get it open and they made it inside.  He
didn't let go of it  until she began hopping around like an idiot,
mumbled something about  racehorses and took off to the bathroom.  He
smiled at her fading from and  made for the couch, flipping the TV one
and finding Nosferatu on the sci-fi  station.  He sighed contently,
could his night get any better than this? 
	
She returned from the bathroom with a happy smile and sat on the
couch,  leaning into him with little fanfare, as if they were the kind
of people who  always sat crushed together with his arms around her
and her hands trailing  finger kisses up and down those same bare
arms.   	

"Good movie," she declared, leaning her head back into his chest.
	
He was distracted by the feel of her fingers on his skin and the soft
methodic way they were caressing him.  He managed an "mmhmm," while
leaning  his head back against the wall.
	
They sat in silence watching the classic movie together, enjoying it
in a way  that only they could.  Mulder inhaled the sweet smell of
Scully's hair,  almond and vanilla and warm and sweet just the way she
was.  He thought about  all the things they had been through together,
about how long it had taken to  get to this point where they could be
so together, so in sync, even when they  weren't together, well, in
any conventional sense of the word.   "Hey  Scully?" he asked quietly
into her hair. 	
"Hmm?"
	
"Do you ever wish you were somebody else?"
	
"Like who?"
	
"I dunno, just some one other than yourself."
	
She hummed slightly, giving it some actual thought, and the humming
made her  chest vibrate which in turn made his vibrate as well.  "Not
really.   Sometimes I look at other people, just on the street, or at
a restaurant or  something and I wonder how things would be different
if I was them.   Sometimes I wonder about choices I've made and how
things could be different.   But in the end it's a strange thing to
think, to think of yourself as someone  other than you.  I can't
really fathom it.  Or maybe I just lack  imagination."  Mulder
chuckled softly and wrapped his arms around her tighter.  
"The truth is," she added.  "I like who I am, overall."
	
"Overall?"
	
She nodded against his chest.  "There are some things I'd like to
change." 	

"Like being taller," he teased.
	
"No, jerk," she responded playfully slapping him on the leg.  
	
"Then what?"
	
"I don't know.  I guess I'd like to be more open to things.  I'd like
to be  surer about things."
	
"You're more open to things than you think."
	
"Wow, that means a lot coming from you."
	
"Are you mocking me?"
	
"No," Scully said sincerely, reaching down to lightly squeeze the same
spot  on his leg she'd slapped earlier.  "I mean it."
	
"What do you want to be surer about?"
	
Scully laughed slightly and shrugged her shoulders.  "Things."
	
Mulder smiled.  He wasn't stupid.  He may have been obtuse when it
came to  Scully and him and the possibility of love, but he wasn't
stupid.  He was a  top profiler after all.  Of course, he was also an
ass sometimes.  "What  kinds of things?"
	
She sighed and pulled one of his hands from around her, lifting it up
and  placing her palm against it.  They watched in unison as they each
pressed  their hand against each other.  "Like what it means to really
love someone,"  she whispered just loud enough for him to hear.
	
He moaned slightly into her neck and let their fingers twine together,
and  their hands fall back into her lap.  Mulder ran his cheek along
the smooth  curve of her neck, her head thrown back and resting on his
shoulder as she  emitted small moans that were driving him nuts.  It
was a strange game they  were playing.  Each day pushing the envelope
a little farther, testing just  how far they could go without having
officially gone too far.  He hadn't  kissed her.  He hadn't let his
mouth actually caress any of her tantalizing  body parts.  They held
each other, and moved against each other, and moaned  into each other
and made their mutual effects on each other perfectly clear, 
but they each held back that last step, that last touch that would
send  everything in motion, that would push them to a place where
things could only  end in one scenario.
	
He was getting to that step, to that touch.  He could have done it. 
He could  have pushed it.  She wouldn't have denied him.  But he
didn't.  Something  stopped him, and as if thinking the same thing,
Scully leaned up at that  moment, uncurling herself from his arms and
starting to stand up.   	
"Bathroom," she whispered.
	
He rolled his eyes. "You give a whole new meaning to not holding your
liquor."
	
She smiled brightly at him and then moved back toward him, this time
facing  him.  She leaned her head forward, grazing past his cheek and
whispered in  his ear, "You want to know a secret?"
	
He nodded, their cheeks rubbing against each other.
	
"I don't really have to go to the bathroom."
	
He tilted his head back away from her so he could look into her eyes
and  raised his eyebrows in confusion.
	
She smiled a sad, heart breaking smile at him.  "We just can't keep
doing  this to each other," she said softly.  She closed her eyes and
moaned one  last time.  "We're driving each other nuts."  She opened
her eyes and looked  into his.  Then she sighed and stood up straight,
raising her arms to the  ceiling in a long stretch before heading down
the hallway to the bathroom. 	

Mulder exhaled loudly and let his head fall back against the wall.  It
wasn't  like she was wrong.
 
*********************************************************************
	
Friday lost some its excitement when you were on probation from your
job.   Scully had left Mulder's early in the morning, when he was
still groggy and  without coffee.  She wasn't trying to hurt his
feelings, but she had to get  out of there, get away from him.  That
and sleeping in that horrific waterbed  of his had been anything but
comfortable.  Whoever actually though sloshing  around on those things
were relaxing was clearly a complete moron.  But  mostly she left
because she needed time to herself, time to think. 
	
They had been so close in the past week, all their touches and
caresses,  honesty and, the moaning.  God, the moaning.  That low
humming he did in his  throat had to be the most amazing sound she'd
ever heard in her life.  She  was so in love with him, and his love
for her was so great as to be palpable.   She could feel it when she
was with him, wrapping around them like a blanket,  protecting them,
warming them, pushing them together.  She wanted him, wanted 
to be with him.  But she held back, not because of FBI regulations or
the  fear of losing a friendship that was impossible to lose.  She
held back  because at a fundamental level she feared giving in. 
Already they were so  much in love.  Already their lives were so
intertwined.  Already their  touches were more erotic and passionate
then all the lovers she'd had in her  life.  She couldn't fathom the
depth of taking the next step.  She feared she  would lose all sense
of herself completely. 	

And so she had made a decision, this Friday, the whole day and the
whole  night, she was going to spend away from.  The only problem was
now that she'd  made the decision, now that she was out and about on
her own, she really  wished Mulder was with her.  Of course part of
that was because she was  without a doubt certain that there was no
way she'd be able to drive home  tonight.  The thing was she didn't
really think she'd had that much to drink.   And she wasn't usually
such a lightweight.   	

Not that she was some regular Friday night drinker, only that she'd
grown up  with brothers, had always had more male friends than female,
and was stubborn.   Her previous night out with Mulder not
withstanding, it had been awhile since  those days, but it just didn't
make sense to feel this way after one glass of  wine.  But she
couldn't deny it, all the signs were there: her eyelids felt 
droopy, her body was warm all over, her eyesight was fuzzy, and she
felt the  constant impulse to press her lips together, to pout, and to
giggle.  And the  truth was, despite a noticeable drop in her motor
functions, Scully was still  able to register a rather pressing
thought: this was not the time or place  for being drunk.
	
She was at The Black Cat, downtown on 14th St..  It had been her idea
to come.   Mates of State were playing and she was going to come
whether she was  avoiding Mulder or not.  Despite assumptions to the
contrary, Dana Scully's  taste in music expanded beyond Classical. 
And despite her frequent gripping  while on cases with Mulder, Dana
Scully was not so old that she'd miss a band  she loved, even when
they weren't going on until midnight.  Besides, if she 
was being honest Mates of State reminded her of Mulder.  They were a
simple  band consisting of one man and woman and they created music
that managed to  combine dissimilar sounds and intents and transform
them into something  beautiful.  She liked to think that Mulder and
her did the same, only without  the whole guitar and keyboard thing. 
Oh, and she and Mulder weren't married,  unlike the couple she admired
so.   	

Scully sighed.  She should have been here with Mulder.  She should
have  shared this with him.  She had to give up her crusade to carve
out a life  separate from him.  Not that she wanted a whole life
separate, just pockets  of one; just little things here and there that
were only hers and not simply  the reality or byproduct of the two of
them together.  Still, given the  outcome of the evening she should
have invited Mulder, because instead she'd  gotten drunk in a dark
crowded bar by herself and without her gun.   The  truth was she was
getting nervous.  	

She was just about to contemplate skipping out on the first encore and
calling a cab, when a hand reached out and touched her shoulder.  
	
"Are you having fun?"
	
She turned around and jumped slightly, the quick movement causing her
to lose  her balance slightly and she had to quickly put her hands out
to steady  herself, knocking over her drink in the process.  Ethan
reached out to steady  her and then sat down next to her.  She noticed
him push his chair closer to  hers and could feel his breathing on her
shoulder. 	

She wanted to vomit.  "What are you doing here?"
	
Ethan smiled.  "Just enjoying the show."
	
She stared at him with death in her eyes.  Why was this happening to
her? When had he turned into a full on stalker?  "I was just leaving,"
she said  bitterly and began to stand up but he reached out and
grabbed her wrist  tightly.
	
"Have another drink," he said firmly.  "I'll buy you the white wine."
	
Scully's eyes flew open.   He had known what she was drinking.  God,
why  Hadn't she paid more attention when she was at the bar getting
her drink.   She couldn't remember any of it now.  He could have put
anything in her drink  and she wouldn't have known it.  She tried to
pull her arm free but he  squeezed tighter.  "Dana," he said, his
voice a testing command, a warning. 
	
"Ethan, let me go.  I want to leave."
	
"We can go back to my place," he said ignoring her anger, and her
fear.  It  hadn't been a question.  It hadn't been anything remotely
resembling a  question.  Scully noticed a stillness come over his
eyes.  The same she had  seen two nights before when he refused to
leave her apartment.  She was  starting to put it all together, to see
the signs.  She was starting to  realize that Ethan was beyond
overeager, beyond controlling.  Ethan had  become someone she was not
physically safe with, and between her current  position physically and
her drunken state mentally she felt panicked and  trapped and unsure
what to do about it.  She had to find a way to get help or 
get out of there.
	
"I'm real tired Ethan, I just want to go to my place and fall asleep,"
she  said, a tiny edge of fear and pleading crept into her voice as
she spoke.   She was trying to hide her anger, trying to placate him,
appeal to a part of  him she once knew.
	
Ethan turned to her and his cold eyes were frightening.  "You can
sleep at my  place."
	
Scully knew with certainty that she could not go home with him.  That
to do  so would certainly jeopardize her life, her sanity, and most
likely, her body;  three things she was not willing to part with.  She
was an FBI agent.  She  had faced terrors and monsters greater than
Ethan Minette.  She would have to  find a way out of this.  If only it
wasn't getting harder and harder to see,  to hear, to even sit up
straight.  She really didn't think she had had that  much to drink,
and she was now convinced that Ethan had drugged her.  She 
began to realize that if she didn't do something soon she was going to
lose  consciousness before she even got to his apartment, and then
there would be  no way out.  Since trying to convince him to let her
go wasn't working, she  decided to play into what he wanted.
	
"Okay, Ethan," Scully said pursuing her lips into a smile.  "But I
have to go  to the bathroom first."
	
Ethan watched her face.  He was hesitant she could tell.  She smiled
sweetly  at him, trying to exaggerate her current state of low
consciousness so he  wouldn't fear anything.  Eventually he released
her arm and leaned back from  her.  "Hurry," he said simply.
	
She stood up, having to put her hands out on the table at first to
steady  herself, and then slowly made her way to the bathrooms,
weaving in between  people and tables that passed as mere blurs, with
Ethan watching her every  move.  Inside the bathroom, free from Ethan,
but still on the brink of  blacking out she began to panic.  She threw
herself in a stall and locked it.   He couldn't come in, and if he
did, a stall door was not going to stop him,  but she was going to
employ every caution she could.  She sat on the toilet, 
lid down, and curled her feet up under herself.  She pulled her phone
out and  prayed to the gods of clear reception that she would get a
signal. 	

It wasn't easy.  She had to hold the phone towards the wall and only
against  her right ear but eventually it rang.  Please, please,
please, she repeated  to herself.  It rang over and over but she
refused to hang up fearing that so  much held in the balance and then
at last, just when she was ready to forsake  the world, he picked up.
	
"Scully?"  His voice was hoarse and tired.  She had woken him.  "It's
two in  the morning."
	
"Mulder!"  She cried, her voice a strange combination of frantic and
slurred. 	

He sensed her fear right away and she could hear him rushing out of
bed  banging drawers to find clothes and shoes.  "Scully what is it?"
he was  practically screaming into the phone.
	
Tears flew rapidly down her face as she spoke.  "Mulder I need your
help.  I  think I've been drugged, and everything blurry and can't
walk and..." 	

"Drugged?  Where are you?  Where are you Scully?"
	
"Black Cat."
	
"What?"
	
"Prrr, Prrr," she imitated into the phone.  
	
"Scully you have to keep it together.  You have to tell me where
you." 	

Scully furrowed her brow.  She had to keep thinking clearly for just a
bit  longer.  She had to get him here.  Then she remembered.  "14th
St.  Black Cat  on 14th St."
	
"Got it!" he said and she heard the sound of his door slamming shut. 
"I'm  coming Scully."
	
"Wait," she cried out in a panic.  "Don't go."
	
"What?  Scully, I'm in the car now, you want me to stay here?"
	
"No!  Don't go from phone."
	
"Still here, Scully."
	
She heard the door to the bathroom open and she screamed slightly
despite  herself, curling up against the cold porcelain on instinct
before she saw the  high heels walk past the stall and into the one
next to her.   	

"Scully?  Scully?  You okay?"
	
"Mulder, he wants me to go.  I can't go with him."
	
"Who Scully?  Who wants you to go?"
	
She cupped the phone closer to her ear and whispered, "Ethan."  She
looked up  then to see if anyone had heard and then whispered back
into the phone, "So  scared, M...Mud...Mud...Fox."  She was out of it
for sure now and if her inability  to say his name wasn't clear
enough, losing balance and falling on the cold  tile of the bathroom
floor was.  To make matters worse her phone beeped  loudly and when
she looked at the screen, the blurry words resembled  something like
"Nos Gal."  She wanted to cry.  She wanted to banshee wail cry.  
She wanted to stay there until Mulder came and got her.

But then there was a knock on the door.  "Dana?"  She panicked again. 
It was  Ethan.  "Dana, you in there?"
	
She had little choice.  A man willing to drug her was probably not
going to  abide by the unspoken privacy laws of public restrooms. 
Besides, she was  going to have to try and placate him to keep them
there long enough for  Mulder to arrive.  "I right deer," she shouted
loudly at the door. 	

She dragged her body up from the stall and wandered to the sink.  She
turned  on the faucet and tried to splash her face with water.  Most
of it landed  squarely on her shirt, but these things couldn't be
helped.  She finally  turned to the bathroom door and opened it. 
Ethan was standing in front of  her leaning against the wall and
tapping his right foot impatiently.  She  only hoped Mulder had
remembered to grab his gun.

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

He had never driven so fast in his life and yet he still felt 
that he was moving so slowly.  Stop signs and traffic lights be 
damned.  He was relieved that few cars were out on the road and 
he was able to make it downtown to the club in record time.  The 
adrenaline and fear coursing through his body was greater than 
any drug he could have experimented with, and though his mind 
was reeling with so many questions - what was she doing at some 
club downtown in the middle of the night?  Had she gone with 
Ethan or had he followed her there?  Why had she gone without 
telling him?  Why had she gone without him? - the natural human 
impulse to fight and protect cut through his confusion, 
uncertainty and doubts and replaced any question with a simple 
answer: get there, get there, get there.   And so by will and 
force and an excessive 90mph, he got there, hastily parking the 
car on the curb before running into the club, flashing his badge 
and gun at the doorman as he went.
	
Inside the bar was dark and smoky and crowded with way too many 
people.  A band was playing on stage and had Mulder had any 
clarity of mind or space left in his head to add a thought other 
than "Scully," to it, he would have realized that the music, 
although odd at first, was rather good.  But he had no clarity 
of mind and instead acted on a single megalomaniacal motive to 
find his partner, his best friend, his, for all intents and 
purposes, lover and soul mate.  He scanned the crowd frantically, 
and on a hunch made his way towards the back, towards the 
restrooms, where he'd suspected Scully had called him from.  
There was no sign of her, and though he still had no idea what 
Ethan looked like, he was guessing that he wasn't the guy 
getting to second base with the tattooed blonde in the corner by 
the payphone.  Mulder knocked on the women's restroom and called 
for Scully, but when no answer came, he pushed his way in and 
looked around.  She wasn't there, no one was.  He checked the 
men's restroom but found it deserted as well.
	
He began to panic.  If they'd left, if Ethan had taken her 
somewhere he would have had no way to find her.  He grabbed his 
phone and dialed her number, but she didn't answer.  He was 
running out of options.  He pushed his way to the bar and 
quickly got the bartender's attention with a frantic wave of his 
FBI badge.  
	
"Is there a problem?" the man asked, wiping his hands with a 
dirty white rag.
	
"I'm looking for a woman who was in here.  Short, red-hair, blue 
eyes..."
	
"There's a lot of women in here, have been all night."
	
Mulder glared at the bartender, his fists clenching in rage.  He 
was considering jumping over the bar and shoving the barrel of 
his gun into his face to see if it would refresh his memory, but 
a moment of lucidity provided another option.  He pulled his 
wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and quickly flipped 
it open.  It was something he normally kept from her, and 
everyone else, but ever since Scully had been diagnosed with 
cancer he'd taken to keeping a picture of her in his wallet.  
All those nights he'd spent trying to track down a cure, 
contemplating deals with devils, breaking into secure facilities, 
he would turn to her picture, think of her lying in a hospital 
bed dying, and that would be all he needed to keep going.  He 
didn't need sleep or food or water - only her face, the image of 
her perfect healthy face.  He'd never taken the picture out, and 
as time went on, it became less of a catalyst to action and more 
of a comfort of what he already had: her.  
	
He pulled the picture out and flashed it insistently to the 
bartender.  "She's an FBI agent and her life is in danger," 
Mulder added with fervor.
	
The bartender's eyes perked up with his words, and he glanced up 
at Mulder, searching his face, before giving his full attention 
to the picture.  After a minute or so he handed the picture back 
and nodded.  "White wine," the bartender said.   "Yeah she was 
here.  I saw her walk past about ten minutes ago, some tall guy 
basically dragging her.  She was drunk in a bad way."
	
Mulder turned on his heels and headed back to the entrance of 
the bar, his eyes still scanning.  Ten minutes wasn't too much 
time, but it could have been just enough for them to be long 
gone.  He went to the entrance of the bar and found the doorman, 
shoving the picture at him and asking him the same question.
	
The doorman raised an eyebrow.  "Dude, just missed her, 
literally just left..."
	
Mulder was out the door, scanning the street before the doorman 
could even finish.  Then he saw her, barely able to stand, a 
tall thin man holding her up as he essentially carried her down 
the street.  "Scully!" Mulder screamed and run down the street.
	
Ethan turned at the sound of his voice and seeing Mulder shouted 
"Shit!," while grabbing Scully tighter and attempting to run.  
It was no use, Mulder was a hell of a lot faster than Ethan 
could ever have been so long as he was dragging a drunk Scully 
with him, and to her credit, Mulder could see her struggling 
against him, even in her drugged state exerting as much stubborn 
resistance as she could.
	
"Freeze, FBI!" Mulder shouted, raising his gun to aim at Ethan.  
The street was practically abandoned, as they moved down 14th, 
past a string of other bars and clubs.  "Ethan!" Mulder screamed 
again.  "Let her go, god damn it!"
	
Ethan stopped moving and turned to face Mulder, he held Scully's 
limp form in front of him so Mulder couldn't get a shot.  She 
was kicking her legs, trying to break free, but she could barely 
stand, and her eyes were half closed, and though she was 
struggling to get away, it was only Ethan's arms that kept her 
from falling onto the cold cement.  Ethan's eyes were feral and 
almost inhuman as he shouted "Fuck you!" to Mulder, holding 
Scully tighter.
	
"You can't get out of this, Ethan!  Let her go.  I know you 
don't want to see her get hurt."
	
Ethan's eyes registered Mulder's words, and Mulder flashed back 
to another time he'd used negotiation strategies: at a travel 
agency, with a man who and up stealing Scully from him.  His 
fingers twitched around the gun as he pushed the memory aside.  
Not this time, he thought to himself, not this time.  
	
"Damn't, Ethan, let her go!"
	
Ethan's eyes clouded over again and he looked around furtively.  
At that moment the door to the club between them opened and a 
flood of people streamed out into the street, filling the space 
between Mulder and Ethan.  Mulder panicked, and began shouting, 
"Move, Move, FBI!," as he made his way through the crowd.  When 
he finally got to where they'd been, Ethan was gone, and lying 
on her back on the cold cement sidewalk, with a crowd forming 
around her was a nearly unconscious Dana Scully, mumbling "Fox?  
Fox?"

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

For all intents and purposes she should have been curled up on 
his couch staring out into space, completely closed off to him 
and everything else - not because that was some kind of typical 
response to the previous night, as if there was a typical 
response to being drugged and threatened, it was just that after 
six years, that was her typical response.  It was also how she 
had been for most of the morning.  Granted he had been gone for 
over an hour and a half, at the grocery store, the video store, 
and, against her wishes, her apartment for clothes and 
toiletries, and it was now going on 7:00 at night, meaning she 
had been curled up on that very couch for about ten hours 
straight, but still, for all intents and purposes she should 
have been sitting there, staring out into space, completely 
closed off to him and everything else.
	
Whatever she should have been, without a doubt, he was not 
prepared for what he was.  Not that he didn't like it, he 
definitely approved.  So much so that he was careful to not make 
a sound in fear that he would disturb both her and the most 
beautiful sight he'd even seen.
	
He didn't even know he owned an Aretha Franklin cd.  But there 
it was playing loudly from the stereo on his desk, loud enough 
that she didn't hear him come in and loud enough that it made 
the fish in his tank appear to be dancing with her.  She was a 
good dancer, moving her hips to the sultry rhythm of "Don't Let 
Me Lose this Dream."  Most of the women he saw dance were in 
videos and were in the process of simultaneously trying to turn 
some guy on and take her own clothes off.  Scully was doing 
neither.  She was dancing just for herself.  She was dancing 
just in response to the music.  She looked free and content, and 
quite literally moved, and Mulder realized he had never seen 
anything so erotic in his entire life.  He had never wanted to 
spend the rest of his life with someone so much as he did then.  
He had never felt his heart clench with love quite so completely 
as it did upon seeing Scully be free.  
	
Her hips were mesmerizing; especially when she slid her hands 
down her side and held on to them as she bent her knees and 
swayed up and down.  The smile on his face was unstoppable and 
he considered for a second that it might get stuck like that, 
grinning wildly like the joker, and then he'd have to explain to 
her and her family why he was happy to the point of being scary.  
	
"Don't Let Me Lose this Dream" transitioned into the slow sultry 
"Baby, Baby, Baby," and he watched as Scully stopped moving.  
She was standing in front of his window now, looking out, and he 
wondered for a second if she was looking for him.  She wrapped 
her arms around herself and began to sway back and forth to the 
beat.  He hesitated for a second, letting every fear, concern, 
and insecurity flow through him before discarding them, and 
going to her, quiet but purposeful, and when he got there, he 
simply slid his arms around.
	
She jumped but only slightly from the surprise, and then she 
leaned back into him.  She moved her arms from under his, 
grabbed each of his hands in hers and then re-crossed their arms 
together around her.  He leaned his head down resting it on her 
shoulder and inhaling the sweet smell of her hair.  "You're so 
beautiful," he whispered lightly into her ear.  
	
She pulled his arms tighter around her, squeezing his hands in 
hers and purred slightly.  It was enough to drive him over the 
edge, the edge they'd been teetering on for years, the one 
they'd been walking together for the past week.  He groaned into 
her neck and the vibration on her skin made her giggle.  
	
"You get groceries?"  she asked.
	
"Mmmhmm."
	
"Real groceries, Mulder?"
	
He laughed.  "Real groceries, Scully."  He turned his head from 
her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder, looking ahead out 
the window.  "Were you okay?"
	
She nodded, her head rubbing against his chest in the process.  
"Got tired of just sitting on the couch."
	
"I saw."
	
She titled her head down a little and he suspected she was 
blushing slightly.  "It was Aretha Franklin, Mulder."  She said 
simply, as if it explained everything.  "Your body can't say no 
to Aretha Franklin."
	
He smiled and titled his head slightly so their cheeks were 
touching.  "I'll have to remember that."
	
She sighed and uncrossed their arms.  She lifted his left hand 
to her face and kissed it before dropping it and disconnecting 
them.  "Need food," she said and turned from the window into the 
kitchen.
	
He stayed for a second longer, looking out the window at the 
night sky and reveling in the warmth their bodies had created 
together.  He inhaled deeply, taking in the faint scent of her 
perfume that still lingered there, and then followed her into 
the kitchen.  She was already pulling things out of the two 
brown bags he'd placed on the counter.  She had just gotten to 
the small bouquet of lilies he'd bought on impulse.  
	
She lifted them delicately from the bag, her eyes wide and happy.  
She held them tightly to her chest and bent her head down, 
breathing in deeply to fully capture their sweet smell.  She 
squeezed them tightly as if she was hugging them and then turned 
around to rummage through his cabinets.  If she'd asked he could 
have told her he didn't have any vases, but she hadn't, and he 
was enjoying watching her ministrations so he leaned against the 
counter and remained silent.  She eventually opted for a regular 
drinking class and filled it partially with water.  She placed 
the lilies delicately in the glass and then placed the glass and 
flowers on his table, arranging the flowers just the way she 
wanted them.  She stepped back for a second to admire her work 
and then leaned in and gently kissed one of the sweet flowers.  
Mulder's stomach did somersaults watching her and when she 
turned back to look at him her smile was almost as wide as his 
own.  
	
"How did you get so adorable?"  He asked her as she headed back 
to the counter to continue unpacking the grocery bags.
	
She smiled brightly at him.  "I was born that way.  How about 
you?"
	
"How about me what?"
	
"How did you get so adorable, Mulder?"
	
"You think I'm adorable Scully?"
	
"Did you buy me lilies, Mulder?"  He smiled and nodded 
enthusiastically.  "So then how did you get so adorable?"
	
He shrugged.  "With my family I doubt I was born with it."
	
She looked up at him and made a disapproving face.  She hated 
thinking about his unhappy childhood and he knew it.  
	
"It must have rubbed off from you."
	
Her smiled returned at his words, but only briefly, she had 
located something in the grocery bag that made her mouth hang 
open in shock.  "Mulder!" she cried out. "Chocolate?"  She 
pulled the chocolate bar out of the bag and palmed it greedily.  
"You're the best," she called out as she walked past him back to 
the couch where she sat down happily and began ripping through 
the wrapper.
	
He laughed.  "That's it.  You don't want any real dinner?"
	
"Mmmm," she mumbled as she savored her first bite.  "Make 
whatever you want, I'll eat anything."
	
He headed over to the couch and sat next to her.  "I can't cook, 
Scully," he said flatly and opened his palm to her.
	
She broke off a piece of chocolate and placed it in his hand.  
"I don't want to cook either Mulder."
	
He ate his piece happily and stuck his hand out again.
	
She placed another square of chocolate in it.  "And, I think I'm 
tired of being here."
	
"Huh?"  he asked, trying to talk with food in his mouth.  "You 
don't want to be here?"
	
"Oh, no, I do.  I just think I need to get out.  Get some fresh 
air."
	
"Okay," he said, extending his hand again.  "You wanna go out to 
eat?"
	
She placed another piece in his hand saying, "Last one."  
	
He stuck his lip out and pouted, then shrugged and ate the 
chocolate.  "You sure you want to go out?"  She nodded.   
"Scully, don't you think we should talk about what happened?"  
She shook her head.  "I want to file charges against him, 
Scully."
	
Scully sighed and looked over at Mulder, her head titlted, her 
eyes tired and heavy.  "Not tonight, Mulder.  Can we just leave 
all of that to tomorrow?"
	
Mulder hesitated.  He hated the very idea of this Ethan guy 
still out and about, but he could deny Scully nothing, and he 
recognized the toll it was taking on her.  He figured as long as 
he was by her side, as long as he didn't let her out of his 
sight, then he could give her tonight, give her this time to 
relax, before she would have to go through all the shit that 
would come with arresting this guy.  "You're sure?" he asked as 
one last ditch attempt.
	
She nodded again.  "Very.  Let me clean up, I suspect I might 
smell."
	
He shook his head.  "Smell good Scully, but okay."  She smiled 
and headed off to the bathroom.  "What are you in the mood for?"  
he called after her.
	
"Don't care, as long as it doesn't involve wine."
	
"I brought you some more clothes from your apartment," he said 
to her, heading back to the door to get the bag he'd left there.
	
She came around the corner, toothbrush in her left hand, her 
right on her hip.  "You'll just do anything to root around in my 
underwear drawer."
	
He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows at her before handing over 
the bag.

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

He'd chosen Italian, primarily she suspected, because he ate 
there a lot and knew the place well and because it was always 
crowded with plenty of people who would be able to spot a psycho 
like Ethan if he came in trying to kill her.  She'd eaten there 
once before too, with him of course.  She liked it.  It felt 
just like home, if she had grown up in a large loud Italian 
family, which she hadn't, but hey, she'd seen The Godfather.  
	
Their waitress was a large woman with the warmest smile Scully 
had seen in ages.  She had introduced herself as Marie, and when 
Mulder was looking over the menu, she had turned to Scully, 
pointed her head back at Mulder and given her an approving nod.  
Scully had smiled and giggled slightly, causing Mulder to look 
up and eye her suspiciously.  People were always confusing 
Mulder and Scully for a couple - married or otherwise - and she 
was used to it.  Lately she didn't even mind.  Outside of work 
related incidents, she even welcomed the confusion.  In a 
fundamental sense she and Mulder were a couple, they just hadn't 
slept together yet, or really kissed, or gone a date, or even 
admitted their feelings to each other, but other than all of 
that, in a fundamental sense, she and Mulder were definitely a 
couple.  They at least had devotion and fidelity going for them, 
and not many official couples could even say that.
	
She smiled across the table at him as he finished ordering and 
handed his menu to Marie.  To the left of them was a young 
couple obviously very much in love.  Scully watched them briefly 
and the way they held hands across the table and made eyes at 
each other.  She was envious of their love, but only slightly.  
Even if she and Mulder were different people, and she had a hard 
time even imaging that possibility, she didn't think they'd be 
so openly affectionate in public.  It had never been her style 
and despite his need to announce to the world that she was his, 
she suspected such open displays weren't his style either.  She 
looked back at Mulder and realized she had been envious of the 
youth of the couple's love.  She and Mulder had been doing this 
dance for so long and were still waiting for the next song to 
come on.
	
He smiled at her.  "You look good.  You feel okay?"
	
She smiled back and nodded.  "All that sleep helped, thanks."
	
He nodded back. "Of course."
	
"Really, Mulder, thank you.  I mean, not just for the sleep, 
for..."
	
He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers briefly 
before pulling it away.  "Don't thank me for that," he said 
seriously.  "I'm just grateful you called me when you did.  I 
don't want to think about what could have..."
	
"Don't," she said shaking her head.  "Don't think about it."
	
He leaned in, his voice lower and more urgent.  "I still think 
you need to press charges against him Scully."
	
She sighed.  "I know Mulder, but I keep thinking, there's 
nothing to press charges on."
	
"He drugged you."
	
"Which we can't prove."
	
"He was going to...God, Scully, you know what he was going to do."
	
She cringed and closed her eyes for a second to compose herself.  
"I know that Mulder, but that's not something we can prove much 
less arrest him for.  Nothing did happen."
	
"Only because..."
	
She shook her head again and raised her hand.  "I know, okay.  
Can we please just not talk about this?  I thought we weren't 
going to do this tonight."
	
He pursed his lips together in frustration.  "Scully, I'm 
just...He's still out there and could come after you again... I 
just...I need to know you're safe."
	
She looked at him for awhile, her face hard but her eyes soft 
and warm, torn between what she wanted for herself and what she 
wanted for Mulder.  "Mulder, it's fine.  Honestly, with the way 
you acted...with what happened last night I don't think Ethan is 
going to try anything again.  I am safe, right now.  So please, 
let's eat dinner, just you and me."  He watched her face for 
longer than she would have liked and then nodded.  She sighed in 
response and smiled as Marie approached with their dinners.
	
A week later she would remember saying those words to him and 
the memory would cause her to cry for an hour in her bathroom, 
cold and alone in the wee hours of the morning, wondering how 
she could have been so stupid, so brazenly na‹ve.  But as it was, 
at the time she had meant them, and she there had been no reason 
to think otherwise.  There was no way she could have known what 
was going to happen.  There was no way she could have seen Ethan 
enter and no way of knowing what he carried in his pocket.
	
It was Mulder who was facing the door.  She didn't see Ethan 
entered, but she saw Mulder.  She saw the look in his face, saw 
all the blood drain out, his eyes go wide, his panic face take 
over.  Ethan was already at their table and screaming when she 
realized what was going on.   
	
"You son of a bitch!" 
	
Mulder was up and out of his chair in a flash, stepping forward 
to block Ethan from Scully.  She was slow to respond still 
taking it all in, but she felt Mulder push her and she scampered 
out of her seat and moved behind him.
	
"Get the fuck away from her," Ethan screamed, his eyes feral, 
his voice enraged.  "Get the fuck away from her you son of a 
bitch."
	
Mulder spread his arms out to his side to prevent Ethan from 
reaching for her.  "Call the cops," he shouted toward Marie, who 
was still standing there with their two plates in her hands.  
She moved awkwardly as if physically stuttering before it 
finally sunk in and she dropped the plates.  She moved to run to 
the front of the restaurant, but Ethan took a few steps back and 
grabbed her, pulling the gun swiftly from his jacket pocket and 
pressing it against her temple.  Marie screamed.
	
"Damn it, Ethan," Mulder cursed.  "Let her go."
	
Ethan looked past Mulder at Scully.  She was standing behind him 
but not cowering.  She didn't have her gun or she'd have pulled 
it and shot the bastard by then.  She had no idea whether Mulder 
had his or not.  She took a step to the side, still behind 
Mulder but where she could see Ethan and he could see her.  She 
figured if anyone could talk him out of this it would be her.
	
"Ethan?" she called to him tentatively.
	
"Dana?"  His voice was fragile at first, and she realized a part 
of him still believed in the hope that she wanted to be with him.
	
"Ethan let her go."
	
His eyes narrowed and she saw his face change like a switch had 
been flipped.  The fragile hope she had registered before seemed 
to disappear.  "I won't let him have you Dana.  We're meant to 
be together."
	
"Like this Ethan?  Is this how you want to be together?"
	
He shook his head wildly and wildly pointed the gun from Marie 
to Mulder to Marie to Mulder to Marie.  "This is all his fault.  
He's ruined everything."
	
Scully shook her head despite her negotiating training that had 
taught her to never say no.  "Ethan Mulder only wants to help."
	
Ethan shook his head more violently and began to speak with 
vengeance and sting, his voice raising until he was shouting.  
"He took you from me.  He took you six years ago and he's still 
taking you away.  I saw him.  I saw him touch you.  He's just 
going to hurt you.  He's hurting you and I can make it stop."
	
Mulder took another step back trying to get closer to Scully.  
"Ethan you're the one hurting her," he spoke.  Scully could tell 
he was trying to be calm like they had been trained, but he was 
losing a battle between his FBI training and his personal 
emotions.  "You're the one doing this to her.  You can stop this.  
Drop the gun Ethan.  You can make all this go away."
	
"No," Ethan shouted back at him.  "I'm the one she's supposed to 
be with."
	
"Ethan, please," Scully tried to reason with him again.  "Please 
put the gun down so we can talk about this."
	
Ethan turned to look at her again, steadying his hand, steadying 
his gaze.  She thought naively that she could save him, that she 
could save them all, if she could just say the right thing, do 
the right thing, make this man understand.  In the back of her 
mind her FBI training reminded her otherwise.  Reminded her to 
stay on her toes, to not push, but her mind was slowly losing 
its ability to string coherent thoughts and rationalizations 
together,  She was overcome by fear, and she longed for Mulder's 
apartment, to be there again swaying to Aretha Franklin with his 
arms around her and his face pressed into her hair.  Out of 
impulse she turned her eyes from Ethan to Mulder, whose small 
steps backward had placed him next to her, standing only 
slightly in front of her but to her left so that they appeared 
to be standing side by side, together in this.  In the midst of 
everything, it was a comfort she had needed to verify.
	
She turned her eyes back to Ethan.  She had only glanced at 
Mulder for a second.  She had only needed to see him, to see 
what she already knew, that he was there, that they were in this 
together, that they would get through it together.  She hadn't 
thought anyone would notice, but looking back at Ethan she knew 
in an instant that he did.  That he'd seen not just her look at 
Mulder but something in that look that was the last straw, that 
pushed him over the edge; that did everything she and Mulder had 
been trying to avoid.
	
Ethan's eyes were so large and enraged that she was struck with 
how inhuman they appeared.  She thought instantly of other such 
eyes she'd seen: Victor Tooms, Virgil Incanto, Donnie Pfaster.  
It probably happened within a matter of seconds, even less, but 
to her the movement of Ethan's hand, lifting the gun from Marie 
and pointing it straight ahead would be one of the longest 
moments of her life.  
	
He looked at her, his soulless eyes bore through her as he shook 
is head in disbelief.  He had seen what she could not hide and 
what he was unwilling to accept.  "No," he said quietly at first, 
his head still shaking as he pointed the gun at her.  He let his 
other arm go free and Marie ran from his side screaming.  "No, 
no, no."  His voice grew louder until, in a fit of rage, he 
shouted "No!" one last time, moved his hand slightly and fired.
	
The single gun shot hit Mulder in the chest and he stumbled 
slightly, lurching forward first, and then collapsing backwards 
onto the red carpet.  
	
Scully screamed.  She dropped to her knees and reached for him.  
The blood was seeping through his shirt, his face was blanched 
and his eyes were wide with shock and fear.  She ripped his 
shirt open, buttons flying everywhere.  The gunshot wound was 
inches from his heart and she inhaled a gasp of relief followed 
by a second gasp of panic.  She cradled him in her arms and 
pressed her hand hard against the wound, but the increased 
pressure wasn't enough to stop the bleeding.  His eyes were 
becoming glassy and his skin was growing paler by the second.  
He was going to lose consciousness soon and if he didn't get to 
the hospital she would lose him completely.  She felt her world 
close in on her, the air escape completely from her lungs, and 
all reason and valor leave her mind.  
	
"Please," she cried, her voice filled with fear, with anger, 
with desperation and with more sadness than she had known in her 
entire life.  "He needs help.  I have to get him to a hospital."  
She looked up at Ethan, her own face pale in comparison to its 
usual glow; her own eyes clouded over with more emotion then 
they usually showed.  She was crying out to him with every inch 
of her body, with every fraction of her soul.
	
Ethan watched her, watched the pain she felt for this man, 
watched the way her palm pressed tightly against his bare chest.  
He tried to remember the part of himself who used to believe in 
love, who used to understand desire, need, and the possibility 
of soul mates, but whatever part of that person was left in him 
paled in comparison to his anger and hatred, his utter 
contentment for any man who got in the way of her, any man who 
touched her, who so much as looked at her.  
	
Scully could see it in his eyes - she could see the war battling 
between the person he used to be and the person he had become.  
"Please, Ethan," she implored him.  "I know you can hear me in 
there.  I know you're a good man.  Please help him."  She was 
desperate, racing against time and reason.  She was an FBI agent, 
she was trained for these circumstances, but she was falling 
apart.  She did best in a lab, a controlled environment.  She 
was suited for analyzing, categorizing, making logical 
conclusions, finding patterns and following them.  All of her 
science, her logic, her rationalism only failed her in these 
situations, and that this particular version of the scenario 
placed her at the very center was beyond any capacity she could 
have been trained for.  
	
The other patrons of the restaurant were cowering and coping in 
their own ways.  The young couple she had been envious of only 
minutes before were in the corner, holding each other tightly.  
The kind waitress that had approvingly winked at her when she'd 
eyed her dinner companion was now lying flat on the floor and 
crying loudly, shouting "Oh, God.  Oh, God."  For once Scully 
thought that God had nothing to do with it.  She was giving up 
on God.  She had been devout, she had devoted her life to 
helping others, and she'd been a direct servant to God on more 
than one occasion.  But this time, this night, with Mulder 
bleeding to death beneath her and her ex-boyfriend putting a gun 
directly at her face, this was the last straw.  God had 
abandoned her.
	
"Why?'  Ethan asked and the sound of his voice jerked her head 
up to look at him.  He hadn't spoken a word for what seemed like 
an eternity.  He hadn't said anything since he'd first pulled 
the trigger, since that single bullet had escaped from his gun, 
since Mulder had gone crashing to the floor, shot in the chest.  
He had stood there saying nothing, lording his power over her as 
she begged and pleaded.
	
"He's going to die," Scully said, her voice strained with more 
anger.  She was furious at him, that she would have to justify 
saving someone's life to him, that he had power over her at all, 
that Mulder, who was nothing but strength and brilliance, would 
be in danger because of this shadow of a man.
	
Ethan's eyes were cold and dead as he watched her.  "Why should 
I care if he dies?  
	
Scully was a woman pushed to the brink of her personhood, pushed 
to the edge of every thing that made her who she was and then 
asked to leap off, to jump off the cliff, to take a plunge she 
had never been willing to take before.  Scully was a person 
defined by strength, stoicism, guarded privacy, firm confidence 
and the utmost integrity.  To love freely was not easy for her.  
It meant letting down walls.  It meant opening herself to hurt, 
to abandonment, to losing control.  She feared love just as much 
as she longed for it, and that was perhaps why it was so easy 
for her to love from afar, to love silently, to fall in love 
with men who could not commit to her completely, to love and to 
never admit to it.  She preferred emotions that could be hidden 
behind reason, supplanted by explanation and overcome by 
practicality.  But in that moment, when Ethan - by virtue of his 
gun, his threats and his demands - had stripped her of all the 
things that made Scully Scully, it was only love and emotions 
that remained.  
	
"Please, Ethan," she said, letting tears fall, letting emotion 
take over.  "I need him."  Her voice was soft yet high, cracking 
as she said the words and the air left her.  "Please, I," she 
hesitated again; it was not that she doubted the sentiment, the 
reality of her feelings, it was only that she was scared and 
overwhelmed by the emotion itself.  She had never spoken the 
words before.  Not to him.  Not to anyone.  Not even out loud to 
herself.  "I love him."
	
She would remember later small details that she didn't even 
realize completely at the time.  Details like the way the red 
checkered tablecloths were only a shade lighter then the blood 
covering her hands, or how the hardwood floor felt soft on her 
bare knees, the smell of garlic and parmesan and tomato sauce, 
and that Sinatra was singing "Someone to Watch Over Me."  These 
would become the components of a singular moment that defined 
her life and her future.
	
She turned to Ethan, cradling Mulder in her arms.  "I can't go 
on without him," she shouted through gasps of air and tears.  
"You have to understand, I love him.  Please, I need him so 
much."
	
She watched Ethan through tear stained eyes.  She had lost all 
control and it seemed that nothing, not her life, not Mulder's 
life, not even her love was in her control anymore.  It was a 
feeling Scully didn't know well and it was a feeling she hated.  
She pleaded over and over for Ethan to put his gun down and she 
prayed to the God she'd just given up on, to the fates Mulder 
believed in, to anything and everything that was good and just 
that he would drop the gun, that this would end, that Mulder 
would live.  
	
Ethan was faltering.  She could see it in his eyes.  She had 
known him so well once.  She had been able to read his every 
thought, but this man who had come back into her life had been 
someone completely new.  She looked desperately for the man she 
had once shared a life with.  "Ethan," she cried again.  "I know 
you understand that.  You were always so willing to believe in 
love.  Please believe me now.  Don't do this."
	
Ethan's eyes flashed back and forth between Mulder's body and 
her face.  She knew the signs - he was cracking, he was falling 
apart, he was now completely unpredictable and even more 
dangerous.  
	
"Ethan?"
	
His arm had been steady, pointed directly at her, but he moved 
it now, bending his arm at the elbow and pointing the gun to the 
sky.  She panicked.  She couldn't read him at all.  She couldn't 
decipher what he was doing.  She could do nothing but cry out 
his name - a pleading cry of complete fear.  His arm began to 
bend again, the gun re-aiming and suddenly she knew.  "No!" she 
screamed, loud and guttural, echoing throughout the restaurant.

Ethan pulled the trigger and his lifeless body crumpled before 
her, a single gun shot to the head.
      
Scully was still screaming, inside and out, but she managed to 
shout for an ambulance before she gave into the emotion of the 
moment and any part of her brain still capable of thought shut 
down.
      
****************************************************************

When asked later, she could not explain how long it took for the 
ambulance to get there, or how she had gotten to the hospital or 
how long the whole thing took, or even what hospital she was at.  
She had no recollection of who called the ambulance, or who 
called Skinner, who called her mom, or of talking to the doctor 
that had operated on him.  Her memories only began the next 
morning when she woke up in his room, having fallen asleep in 
the chair to the right of his hospital bed. 
      
Her first memory was of lilies, the fresh smell of lilies.  A 
bouquet of them had been placed on the table next to his bed.  
The chair she woke up in was angled towards them.  The early 
morning sunlight was streaming through the blinds of the window, 
lighting up the large white flowers.  They seemed to her to be 
indicative of new beginnings, of re-birth, and of peace.  She 
smiled at the thought.  Though she hadn't realized it at the 
time, when she had talked to Mulder about a normal life, about 
getting out of the car and settling down, she had been thinking 
of lilies.  They had always been her favorite flower.  No one 
had known that.  She considered the reality that she had a 
favorite flower to run counter to the image she had constructed 
of herself, the image she projected to other people.  She had 
cultivated an image of a person who was anything but delicate, 
sweet, or fragile.  The idea that Special Agent Dana Scully had 
a favorite flower just seemed best left in the dark.  But she 
did.  Special Agent Dana Scully had a thing for lilies - for 
their simple purity, for their beauty, for their sweet smell.  
Special Agent Dana Scully admired lilies.  Special Agent Dana 
Scully even wished at times that she herself was more like a 
lily.   
      
She wondered who had picked them out.  Who had brought them here 
and placed them next to Mulder.  She didn't remember them.  She 
didn't remember anyone coming in to the room.  She turned then 
from lilies to Mulder, and found that the leap from favorite 
flower to favorite person didn't take much effort.  
      
He looked pale.  It wasn't surprising.  It had most likely taken 
mass amounts of blood transfusions to stabilize him.  He had 
been lucky.  She had been lucky.  He was still asleep, his eyes 
closed, his strong hands limp at his side.  It reminded her of 
how he'd been when she found him in shock in that shower almost 
two years before, there, but not in her reach.  
      
She stood up from the chair and groaned.  She was sore 
everywhere and would be paying for it for at least a day.  She 
stretched her arms toward the ceiling, then bent down to the 
ground, pulling at her legs, stretching out her back, then 
standing back up and pushing her head from side to side.  When 
her muscles no longer ached enough to keep her in one spot, she 
wandered over to the window.  They'd spent a lot of time in 
hospitals, but she didn't remember a lot of windows.  She 
wondered why he had a window this time, if windows were directly 
proportionate to risk of death.  Through the window she saw a 
young man wheeling a young woman out to their car.  She had 
balloons tied to her wheelchair and a baby in her arms.  They 
looked happier in that moment then she had been in the entire 
past six years.  Scully smiled weakly.  She wasn't the kind of 
person who stood around feeling sorry for herself, being envious 
of other's people happiness.  In the grand scheme of a glass 
being half-full or half-empty, Scully had always been grateful 
to just have a glass.  It was how she had been raised.  It was 
in her nature.  It was, quite simply, who she was.  
      
She turned away from the window and back to Mulder, leaning 
against the wall and folding her arms across her chest.  She 
wasn't young anymore.  She was likely to never marry.  She would 
never have a child.  So, in short, no adoring man was ever going 
to be wheeling her out of the hospital with balloons and a baby.  
But she would be leaving this hospital in a week or so, wheeling 
Mulder out to her car.  She smiled.  It was a fair trade.  It 
was worth it.  She had, after all, gotten the better end of the 
deal.
      
Perhaps because she had officially been awake enough for things 
to sink in, or perhaps because she had seen the young couple and 
it sparked a memory, Scully thought for the first time that 
morning about Ethan.  She closed her eyes.  The thought stung.  
She pictured his face and it tugged at her heart.  She was 
having a hard time processing the two versions of him that came 
to mind.  The man she used to live with, and the man who shot 
Mulder.  
      
She wondered if she had loved him.  She had thought so at the 
time.  She had said so on more than one occasion, and she had 
meant it at the time, had always been sincere with him.  But she 
had not felt for him anything near what she felt for Mulder.  
She had not felt a level of emotion with Ethan that she felt for 
the man in that hospital bed, a man who wasn't even her 
boyfriend, who she'd never even told that she loved.  And Ethan 
had known it.
      
It was particularly hard to think of having loved him after all 
that had happened.  The way he'd changed.  How he'd come after 
her.  How it had all ended.  And now he was gone.  She slumped 
against the wall and began to cry.  She had cared so deeply for 
him, whether it was love or not.  And despite everything she had 
never wished death on him.  She had never wanted things to work 
out like this.  Scully was confused, a series of competing 
emotions playing out in her mind until it was simply overloaded 
and she fell to the ground overcome with racking tears.

A series of images flashed before her mind, each causing a new 
gasp of tears to reach her.  Her first date with Ethan.  Their 
first kiss.  The apartment they'd shared in Crystal City.  The 
first time she met Mulder.  Mulder reaching for her in his 
hallway.  Wrapped in Mulder's arms on his couch.  Ethan pointing 
a gun at them.  Mulder beneath her, shot and bleeding.  Scully 
cried more tears than she thought possible.  The corner of the 
hospital room became like a second skin she'd slunk into and she 
suspected she'd have never taken it off, never stopped crying, 
never come back to the world, if she hadn't heard it.

"Don't cry."

It was a quiet voice.  It was a scratchy voice, rough and 
strained and had she not known it better than her own, she 
probably wouldn't have heard it through the sobbing.  But she 
did know it, and she did hear it, and she came back to the world, 
stopped crying, left the corner of the room and came to the side 
of the bed.

"Mulder?"

"Don't cry Scully," he whispered to her.  His breathing was 
still labored and the three words came out slowly, each one 
lightly caressing her face as they reached her.

She smiled wide and let out a surprised laugh that was less 
about joy than it was relief and awe.  She looked at him through 
wet eyes and saw a peace and stillness in his face that was 
matched only by the lilies to his side.  He was more beautiful 
then she remembered and more precious to her than she'd even 
realized.  "Oh, Mulder," she said, her voice higher than usual, 
a wave of emotion pushing it to depths of honesty that she 
otherwise avoided.

He smiled weakly at her, "I don't...I don't remember."
      
She put her hand to his mouth and pressed lightly on his lips to 
stop him.  "Shhh," she said like a mother to a baby, like a 
lover to her partner.  "You're still so weak.  You were in 
surgery all night."

Mulder raised an eyebrow.  He looked down at himself then, saw 
the bandages wrapped around his chest, the tubes sticking out of 
his arms, noticed the tubes around his face.  He tried to sit up, 
but she placed her hand on him again and shook her head.

"You were shot," she said, her voice catching as she spoke.  How 
could she explain that he was lying there because of her?  "Shot 
once in the chest."  She ran her fingers lightly over the 
bandage where the bullet had gone through, only inches away from 
his heart.  "You lost so much blood," she said quietly, lost in 
her own thoughts again, lost in her own memories of Ethan, of 
the gun, of Mulder dying in her arms.

He was watching her, confusion and concern in his eyes, but 
something else as well.  Something that she'd seen before in his 
hallway, at her bedside when she was fighting her cancer - 
something she usually tried to ignore, the something they'd been 
pushing before all this had happened.  She was still moving her 
hand in circles over his chest when her eyes locked with his, 
and she could not ignore that extra look.  Mixed in with his 
concern and uncertainty was great desire.

She pulled her hand back, but his face did not change.  She had 
no way of knowing what he remembered, what he was going to 
remember when he finally recovered.  She had no way of knowing 
if he blamed her for what happened.  She had no way of knowing 
if he'd heard her confession to Ethan.  She had no way of 
knowing how anything would play out between them.  And despite 
the image she'd built of herself, despite the comfort of their 
relationship, not knowing had the strange effect of making her 
feel shy, and so when his face did not change and did not turn 
away from her, Scully did a rather unexpected thing.  She 
blushed and looked away herself.
      
Had she not she would have seen him raise his eyebrows at the 
sight.  His partner blushing was something new to him.  He 
reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling it back to him.  
"You?"  he asked, his voice became more worn as he used it.

She looked back at him and titled her head, unsure at first of 
what he meant, until he began to look over her body and lift his 
arm to feel more of her.  She shook her head then to answer.  
"I'm fine, Mulder.  Not a scratch on me."

He nodded and sighed with relief.  She smiled at him.  She'd 
only half lied.  She was fine physically.  That she had been 
torn to shreds emotionally, that her world had been turned 
inside out and that now she didn't recognize anything in it, not 
who she was, not what love meant, not who he was to her, for 
that she was not fine.  But that was not the kind of thing she 
shared with him anyway, and given the circumstances, it hardly 
seemed like the time to start.
      
"Mulder," she asked, reaching up to brush a strand of hair back 
in place.  "Do you feel like you could eat something?"  He tried 
to shrug but an odd grunt came out of him instead.  She smiled 
at the awkwardness of his gesture and got up from the edge of 
the bed she'd been sitting on.  "I'm going to get the nurse to 
get you some food."
      
She started to go but he held onto her hand and pouted a sad 
puppy dog face at her.  She smiled and leaned in close to him.  
"I'll be right back okay?" she said sweetly.  He smiled back 
like a child and nodded.  "Okay."  She leaned down and kissed 
him on the forehead, letting her lips linger longer than a mere 
partner's would.  Then she pulled back slightly and smiled.  
"Maybe I'll even find some green jell-o."  He wiggled his 
eyebrows and squeezed her hand before letting it go.  She headed 
out of his room, looking back once more before she left, 
beginning a pattern that would continue through the rest of the 
week.

He stayed in the hospital for a total of six days.  Six days, of 
which she had spent all of them in his hospital room, sharing 
his green jell-o, doing the daily New York Times crossword 
puzzle, watching baseball games and inevitably falling asleep in 
the same rose-colored chair.  She would wake up late at night in 
that chair, head home when she was sure he was asleep, and sleep 
for a few hours in her own bed.  Then she'd wake up early, 
shower and change, and head back to the hospital, with fresh 
coffee and the day's paper.  She had requested time off to match 
his and Skinner had agreed without hesitation.  Mulder hadn't 
asked her to come everyday, to stay with him, to question his 
doctors, to pick up his mail, or to take his calls.  She just 
did it.

She'd thought at first that she was acting out of some level of 
guilt.  He was in here because of her.  But Catholic or not, 
Scully was rarely motivated by guilt, and when she was being 
completely honest with herself, she knew that she was doing it 
because she couldn't fathom not doing so.  She wanted to be 
there.  She needed to be with him.  She wanted to take care of 
him.  And for once he didn't question it.  He didn't blow off 
her maternal musings over him, or make light of her actions.  He 
didn't tease or drop innuendo.  He just smiled every time he saw 
her and looked forward to their routine, for the way she fed him 
jell-o even though he could do it himself, and the methodic way 
she filled out the crossword puzzle, and the way she cheered for 
the underdog team in every game they watched.

He should have stayed longer, but on the fifth day she had 
arrived in the morning to find him awake and arguing with his 
doctors.  In all the years she had known him Mulder had never 
been able to sit still for any period of time.  He was a 
restless soul, so aware of the world around him that the idea of 
slowing down or letting it pass by was incomprehensible to him.  
Even with her company he was going stir crazy in the hospital, 
so when his doctors, frustrated with the perennial problem 
patient, came to her she insisted that with her medical 
background she would be able to watch over him, and take care of 
him if they released him the following day.  And so when she 
arrived on the morning of the sixth day she found Mulder sitting 
on his bed, dressed in the jeans and t-shirt she'd left him, 
with his Yankees cap covering the matted hair that had not been 
washed in days, his tennis shoes on, but untied, and a grin the 
size of Cincinnati.

"Let's blow this pop stand," he said to her when she walked in.

She smiled at him, relieved that so far he had come back to her 
the same irreverent goof of a genius he had been before.  "Did 
your doctor's bring your prescriptions?"  He pointed to a small 
stack of white papers stacked on the table by his bed and Scully 
went to them, picking them up, thumbing through them quickly, 
and continuing her questions.  "Did you sign your release 
forms?"

"Yep."
      
"Are they going to bring you a wheelchair?"
      
"Nope.  Told them you'd carry me."  She raised an eyebrow at him.  
"I can walk, Scully."

"Mulder, you can't overdo it."
      
He groaned and slipped off the bed standing up completely in 
front of her.  All that time sitting with him in bed she had 
almost forgotten how tall he was, just how much he really did 
tower over her.  "Scully," he whined at her.

She smiled and nodded.  "Let's go, Mulder," she said heading to 
the door of his room.  He smiled brightly and followed behind 
her.  

She held the door open for him and looked back on the room as he 
walked out.  She was glad he was coming home today, but a part 
of her had wished they could stay in that room together forever.  
It had become a safe place, a microcosm of the world where no 
one was after them, where their lives were only about being 
together.  In that room they hadn't spoken of Ethan, of the past 
two weeks, of that night in the restaurant, or of the things she 
had said to a roomful of strangers with a gun to her head - the 
same things she had never been able to just say to him, her 
partner, her best friend.  She had known that eventually these 
things would have to be talked about, that Mulder would not let 
any of it go, and, more likely, he was bound to be curious, to 
want her to fill in the moments he couldn't remember.  Without 
the comfort of that room, without the comfort of their routine, 
she felt exposed, vulnerable, out of control.

"Scully?"  Mulder was asking looking back at her when she did 
not follow him down the hallway.  She had a far away look in her 
eyes and a sadness to her face, but she turned quickly to him 
when he spoke, as if broken from some fog.

She shook her head to clear the thoughts.  "Sorry Mulder."  She 
took two large steps away from the hospital room until she was 
next to him.  She began to reach her arm around him, unsure of 
how steady he was going to be, but she didn't know where to put 
her arm.  The idea that she'd be able to support this man twice 
her size seemed ridiculous.  "Do you need help?" she asked, her 
arm still half extended awkwardly.

He smiled at her, aware of the debate battling out in her mind.  
He reached for her extended arm and grabbed the hand attached to 
it, holding it tightly in his.  "Just this."

She smiled and they headed down the hallway.  She slipped her 
hand around his until they had changed positions, until his hand 
was inside of hers, and smiled.  It felt more like she was 
helping him this way.  She could see him turn and smile at her 
as they went.  

She took him to his apartment.  She had been debating the 
decision ever since the doctor's had given her the go ahead to 
take him home.  She'd known the next week or so would be one of 
constant checking on him and a part of her wanted to just take 
him back to her place, dump him in her bed, and make it all easy 
on herself.  But that raised complications.  It assumed he'd 
even want to be there, be stuck in her apartment 24-7 for a week.  
It assumed she'd be able to handle it.  To handle him in her 
space, to handle him in her bed without something disastrously 
dangerous happening.  She decided he probably missed his own 
place, his bed, his couch.  She decided it was best to take him 
there, even if his apartment lacked some of the nicer 
accoutrements that hers had - like another place to sit, and 
food.  

****************************************************************
      
She had taken care of the later at least, and he had been 
surprised when he stepped over the threshold of his apartment to 
find that it was clean, that the fridge and cabinets were filled 
with food that smelled fresh and edible, that the sheets on his 
bed were clean, that the curtains were open letting the 
afternoon sun stream in, that there was a stack of mail divided 
into piles of relevancy for him, a stack of newspapers waiting 
to be red, and a larger stacks of movies she had rented from the 
indie/art house rental store down the block that he frequented 
for B movies.  She was Scully though and made little of her 
actions, focusing instead on making sure he was comfortable and 
had whatever he needed.  Which was how she left him an hour 
later, deposited on his couch with an Afghan wrapped around him, 
a sandwich, a cup of coffee and Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill, Kill 
in the VCR.  She had gone to fill his prescriptions and to stop 
by her own apartment and though he was thrilled to be home, and 
though he was by nature the kind of person who enjoyed being 
alone, he felt empty without her.

Even the best Russ Meyers film wasn't holding his attention the 
way it used to.  Big busted women kicking ass was entirely 
Mulder's forte, and this was a classic, but he couldn't help but 
stare at the expanse of his couch, at the spot she would have 
been sitting in had she been there.  She was coming back, and 
that single thought provided him with comfort, it wasn't like 
this was the end of it all, the end of the world.  It was just 
that he had become used to her constant presence in the past two 
weeks, both before and during his hospital stay, and missed the 
way she stilled his mind and heart.  

It was that and that they needed to talk.  He hadn't lied to her.  
When he'd first woken he hadn't remembered much at all.  But as 
the days went on it came back to him, and what didn't come back 
to him, Mrs. Scully had managed to fill him on in.     

Mulder shifted positions on the couch and felt a pain in his 
chest where he was still sore.  He reached under his shirt and 
moved his hand along his chest.  The wrapped bandages put on him 
in the hospital had been replaced by a single square of gauze 
bandage over the entry wound, inches above and to the left of 
his heart.  The area around his chest was blue and purplish - a 
large mass of sore muscle and bruising that resembled something 
he had left in his fridge before Scully had cleaned it out.   He 
knew under the bandage would be a scar, a mass of puckered skin 
that had healed over the entry wound.  His body was marked by a 
series of scars and wounds that when mapped out plotted the 
story of his adult life., one more should not have made a 
difference, but he fingered the bandage gently knowing that 
somehow it did.  He had been shot before.  Hell, he'd even been 
shot by his own partner.  But this time it was different.  He 
hadn't been shot in the line of duty.  He hadn't been shot while 
trying to track down the truth, bring down the Consortium or 
even protect another person.  He had been shot by a lunatic for 
taking Scully to dinner.  
 
He had remembered the second gun shot, not clearly and not with 
any certainty.  But he had heard the noise, and he had seen her 
face, had felt her press harder against him, had heard her voice 
screaming out.  The scene had been strange to him.  The sounds 
he heard had been awkward as if filtered through glass so that 
each sound echoed and reverberated in his head.  The colors he'd 
remembered had been brighter than usual and confused and had he 
been able to speak at the time he would have asked Scully if the 
bolts of light he saw coming from her were what red looked like.  
He hadn't been able to make sense of much of it, so on the 
fourth day of his hospital stay he had, as an excuse to get her 
to leave the room, asked Scully to talk to his doctor about 
getting him off the pain killers, and when she was gone, he had 
turn to Maggie and implored her to tell him the truth.

The thing he admired most about Mrs. Scully, besides the natural 
way in which she embodied all that he had longed for in a mother, 
was the careful way she navigated between protecting her 
children's wishes and protecting her children - a task that was 
particularly pertinent when dealing with Dana.  It's not that he 
thought Scully didn't want him to know what had happened, or 
that she was trying to keep it from him.  Ethan was dead.  It 
wasn't the kind of thing she could hide from him even if she had 
wanted to.  But he suspected nonetheless that she didn't want 
him to know how he died, or that she had watched it, or 
especially that she had been powerless to stop it.  To that end, 
he feared Mrs. Scully would abide by her daughter's silence and 
keep Mulder in the dark.  But she didn't.  Maggie had smiled 
sadly at him, walked over to the door to his room, closed it 
firmly and returned to his bedside before speaking.
	
"She doesn't want to talk about it," she had started.  "Not to 
me.  Not to anyone."
	
He had nodded.  They both knew her well enough to understand 
this, to know that it was her way.  
	
Maggie sighed.  "I suppose she can't avoid it forever."  She 
looked down at him and smiled knowingly.  "I suppose she can't 
avoid you forever, Fox."  He returned her smile and nodded.  She 
took in a deep breath and told him what he wanted to know.  "He 
shot himself.  Right there in front of her.  Turned the gun away 
from her and shot himself in the head."
	
Mulder gasped and his hands grabbed the blanket covering him, 
squeezing it roughly inside his fists.  
	
Maggie's sad smile returned to her face and Mulder thought for a 
second about how much he and this woman had in common; how many 
times their emotions had been in sync over the same person.  "I 
don't know exactly," she continued.  "But I know he asked her 
why he should save you.  I know he asked her and then he shot 
himself."  Maggie shrugged, not out of indifference, but in 
response to the weight of it all.  "I don't think I'm supposed 
to tell you that," she added.
	
He nodded and released the blanket from his left hand so that he 
could reach for her.  That was how Scully had found them, 
walking hesitantly into the room to see Mulder with his hand 
resting on her mother's, both looking sad and harrowed.  She had 
given them a quizzical look, her eyes moving between them before 
resting ultimately on her mother, suspicious of what had taken 
place in her absence.
	
"Your mom just figured out 12 down," he'd said smiling brightly 
at her.  She had smiled back and shook her head not really 
buying it, but at least being willing to let it go.  And Maggie 
had smiled as well, patting his hand and saying her goodbyes for 
the day.  He and Scully had returned to the crossword puzzle, to 
his jell-o and to SportsCenter, getting back to their routine.
	
A routine that he now missed despite being glad to be at home, 
and despite having known that it couldn't last - that life 
couldn't just be crosswords and jell-o.  They had a life already, 
even if it was one that was anything about routine.  They had 
jobs to get back to.  They had the X Files to get back to.  They 
had solid food to get back to.  And now that they were on the 
road back to these things, Mulder realized that the time left 
for avoiding what had happened was running out, for if they were 
ever going to get back to their version of normal, they had to 
first get back to being partners,  back to being Scully and 
Mulder.  They would have to talk about Ethan.  They would have 
to talk about the words he'd heard her say - the words he had 
replayed in his mind every morning and night in the hospital, 
every time she left the room, every time she came back and every 
time she breathed around him.
	
To be fair, he had known that she loved him even before Ethan 
returned in her life, even before the two weeks of close 
proximity physically and emotionally had begun, even before he 
was shot.  Scully had never tried to hide her loyalty and 
devotion to him.  Their connection had been apparent to everyone 
they'd encountered within months of her assignment to the X 
Files.  But while Scully's trust and loyalty were displayed 
proudly on every inch of her being, whether that devotion meant 
love was less clear, and whether that devotion meant desire was 
completely opaque.  It was perhaps a good thing for him that he 
had both a knack for profiling and for putting his life in 
danger - two characteristics that made it easier for him to read 
her emotions.  Which is how he figured, about the fifth or six 
time that she was nursing him back to health, that her eyes were 
filled with more than devotion and loyalty, and which is how he 
confirmed, by the tenth or eleventh time she was weary of 
someone taking interest in him, that her eyes were filled with 
love for him - a cautious, unsure love, but love nonetheless.  
	
If he had been a slightly smarter man, or more importantly, a 
more confident man, a less masochistic, insecure man who blamed 
himself for everything and had given up on being loved, actually 
loved, by a woman, he would have also realized that on a hundred 
and one occasions her eyes held not just devotion, loyalty and 
love, but desire as well.  But even if some part of him had 
recognized it, had seen it in her eyes, he still would not have 
allowed himself to process it much less believe in it.  He had 
not thought it possible.  He had not dared to even look for it, 
until he heard it from her own mouth.   And now he did more than 
dare.  He lingered over the words, memorized them and recited 
them like a mantra.  He hoped and reveled and he basked in them 
and waited for her to say them to him, to say them when his life 
was not in danger, to say them when he was kissing her.
	
Mulder groaned and leaned his head back in the couch.  The 
thought of kissing Scully had the uncanny ability of causing his 
anatomy to stand at attention and, without any help at all from 
the Faster Pussycat beauties on his screen, his jeans had become 
stretched tight to the point of discomfort.  He looked at his 
clock.  It had been almost an hour since she'd gone and he had 
no way of judging how much time he had left before she got back.  
It probably wasn't worth the risks.  But then again, it had been 
over a week since he'd been able to, well, relieve some tension.  
It wasn't like hospital beds were conducive to those things, and 
besides, recovering from a near-fatal gun shot wound had made it 
difficult in more ways that one.  It hadn't helped that the past 
week had been one chock full of Scully time.  It wasn't that 
they didn't essentially spend all their time together anyway, it 
was just that in a normal week of Scully and Mulder time, he'd 
be able to sneak off three, four, okay, seven times at least to 
tend to his baser desires.  He was pretty far behind at this 
point.

Mulder checked the clock once more, bit his lower lip in thought 
and finally decided to give in.  "Fuck it," he shouted out loud 
in his apartment.  He was pretty sure he'd be able to finish 
quickly anyway.  Still, as a precaution he decided to relocate 
to the bedroom.  He left the tape on, threw the Afghan to the 
floor and headed into the next room.  Already he'd let the 
floodgates of his mind open and was picturing Scully before him, 
her soft hair falling against his face, her bright lips pressing 
against his neck, her breasts rubbing against him, her legs 
wrapping around his waist.  

He sat on the edge of his bed and began to unbutton his jeans, 
his hands grazing over the mound in his pants causing him to 
moan loudly.  He thought of Scully's tongue traveling down his 
neck to his chest, across a waiting nipple.  The image was 
almost too much and his hips bucked involuntarily into his own 
hand.  He was trying to pull his jeans off but the movement of 
his hips, the bunched up jean material around his thighs and the 
sudden pain that ran through his rib cage from the odd angle 
he'd been sitting in overwhelmed him.  He lost his balanced and 
toppled over onto the floor, hitting his head on the hardwood 
with a loud thump.

The thump seemed louder than it should have been and at first he 
thought oddly that his apartment had developed an echo, until he 
realized the second thump had not come from him falling but 
rather from Scully opening the door to his apartment.

Oh, God!, he thought nearly delirious at this stage, his head 
hurting, his hand located precariously close to a bulge he would 
have no way to explain.  He laid flat on his stomach, pressing 
his erection into the floor in an attempt to make it go away, 
but the forceful contact was unbearable and he yelped in pain.

"Mulder?"  Scully called out in concern.  

He could hear the sound of feet coming and tried gallantly to 
pull his pants up.  The click, click of her heels grew louder 
and Mulder squirmed in panic causing his jeans to bunch up 
further around his thighs until he could not get them to budge 
and then it was all too late. 

"Mulder?"  Scully was bending down to him, putting her hand on 
his shoulder.  "My God, Mulder, are you okay?"

"Mmhmm."
	
"Let me help you up."
	
"No!"  Mulder tried to back away from her attempt to roll him 
over, but Scully just looked at him like he was crazy and 
refused to leave.  "I can do it Scully.  I just...I mean, I was 
just trying to...I, um, I..."
	
"Mulder," she said simply.  "If you need help getting changed, 
you can just ask.  I'm sorry that it's still hard for you."
	
Mulder groaned at her unknown pun and lifted himself up on his 
arms.  "Jesus Scully, I can do it."
	
She sighed and stood up, heading over to the other side of the 
bed to give him some privacy.  He exhaled with relief and pulled 
himself up, facing away from her.  To his great pleasure, well 
sort of, the overwhelming humiliation of the situation had 
caused his erection to disappear almost completely.  He pulled 
his jeans up and re-buttoned them.  He ran a hand through his 
disheveled hair before walking around and sitting down next to 
her on the bed.

She was playing with her fingers, twisting them around each 
other.  After a minute or so she said quietly, "You're mad at 
me."
	
"What?"
	
"I'm babying you.  I'm being too pushy.  I know.  I just... I 
don't know.  I just wanted to help."
	
He sighed.  He had been a jerk.  "Scully, you're not being pushy.  
You've been a saint.  I love your help."  She looked over at him, 
her face was unsure and sad.  "Besides," he added mischievously, 
"I like when you baby me."
	
She smiled and leaned against him, pushing him in the shoulder.  
"Mulder."
	
He pushed her gently back and smiled as well.
	
"So you're not mad at me?"
	
He shook his head.  "I've never been mad at you."
	
"Liar."
	
He gave her his typical you-are-so-wrong look and asked 
skeptically, "When have I ever been made at you?"
	
"Do you want that alphabetically or chronologically?"
	
He smiled condescendingly.  "You're bluffing.  You can't even 
give me one."
	
"Um, how about when I told you you were wrong about Linda 
Bowman?"
	
"I didn't get mad."
	
"You told me I should give you call when I thought you'd come to 
your senses."
	
He smirked.  "Okay I was rude about it, but I wasn't mad."
	
"How about Comity, Terri Roberts, Marjorie Kleinjan, you 
smooching it up with Detective White."
	
"Not fair," he whined throwing his arms in the air.  "We were 
under the influence of odd cosmic phenomena."  She raised her 
eyes in typical disbelieving Scully fashion.  "And I was not 
smooching it up with Detective White."
	
"Sure.  Fine.  Whatever."
	
He laughed.  "C'mon, what else you got?"
	
She paused, hesitant to bring this one up, but deciding 
ultimately to do so.  "When I questioned Diana's motives, out in 
Arizona."
	
Mulder paused.  It had been a sensitive subject, even more so at 
the time.  It was a time he had feared that she would leave him 
and his world had been upside down.  He had no longer known 
whether his crusade was even the right one, much less who he 
could or couldn't trust.  He turned to her, but she was looking 
away from him, so he reached for her hand and tugged it until 
she looked back up at him.

"I wasn't mad at you for that Scully."  He squeezed her hand and 
offered her a weak smile.  "And I was being an ass."

She returned his smile, hers sad but accepting.  She nodded and 
squeezed his hand back.  "I've got one more," she said after 
awhile.

His brighter smile returned and he let her hand go to cross his 
own hands over his dramatically puffed out chest.  "I'm ready," 
he declared.

"Philadelphia.  Ed Jerse.  My tattoo."
	
He exhaled loudly, the joking bravado he'd put on before fading 
into rigid muscles and a tensed body.  She got him.  She was 
right.  He had been pissed off.  At the time he hadn't even 
realized he could get so mad at a single person, much less 
someone who wasn't one of his parents.  He had been furious.  He 
had also recently realized he was in love with her.  He had been 
insanely jealous.  He had been insanely angry.  Just remembering 
it now was upsetting to him.
	
"I told you," she said quietly next to him, looking back down at 
her hands.
	
It had been years ago, and even then he hadn't had the right to 
get angry - well, not technically.  In his own mind he had 
already declared her as his, and that had given him every right 
to fly off the handle.  But now he looked at her and realized 
that she wasn't the same person she had been then and neither 
was he, and as a result neither were they.  Now they were people 
with claims on each other, whether they were said out loud or 
not, whether they were consummated or not.  And she had been 
more than loyal and devoted to him.  The thought of Ed Jerse 
turned to a thought of Ethan Minette.  He remembered what Mrs. 
Scully had told him, that which Scully herself had kept hidden, 
but which he knew was eating away at her.  He was in love with 
this woman; she was his everything, so Mulder figured it was his 
job to make it all better.
	
He leaned back on the bed and turned to her, his body moving 
slightly closer to her and slightly behind.  He moved his head 
around her back and with his right hand gently pushed her 
forward.  She gasped at the touch and the movement and he could 
feel her slightly shaking beneath him.  He slowly moved his head 
down her back, not touching her but breathing softly enough to 
make the cotton of her shirt rustle beneath him.  He felt her 
breathing increase against the palm of his hand.  And then his 
face reached its destination, the small of her back, the spot 
his hand knew as home, the patch of skin she'd given to some 
other man.  

He gently lifted her shirt with his other hand and bent his head 
down, and with complete care and all the love in his heart he 
gently pressed his lips against the Ouroboros tattoo.  She 
tasted like lilacs and spice and he found the combination of 
pure beauty and hidden fires addictive.  He thought instantly of 
continuing the soft kiss elsewhere, of tracing her entire body 
with his tongue and then delving into her mouth.  But he would 
never let his desire for her, no matter how intense, push her 
into something she wasn't ready for.  He was willing to wait 
until the end of days to have her.  He wouldn't want her any 
other way.  So he softly lifted his lips from her and sat back 
up next to her, looking into her face.
      
Her eyes were as he had seen them before, awash of devotion and 
loyalty, the reality of love and now the blinding undeniable 
presence of desire.  But there was also uncertainty, a lingering 
sadness, and a hungry need for forgiveness.

"I was mad," he said quietly.  He was sitting so close to her 
now that they needed little more than a whisper to communicate.  
"But it's only because I - "
      
She raised her hand and pressed it against his lip to quiet him.  
"I know," she whispered back, her eyes lingering over his lips.  
She traced them gently with her index finger, and then she 
lifted her hand from his mouth, holding it for a second in the 
air inches before his lips, as if hesitating, as if not sure she 
wanted to stop touching him, but she finally dropped her hand in 
her lap and sighed.  She smiled sadly and got up from the bed, 
taking the time to smooth her shirt down with her hands and then 
walking toward the doorway to the kitchen.

He knew it better than he knew himself and he had seen those 
eyes, had known what she longed for, what she had been afraid of.  
He wasn't going to push her, but he wasn't going to let her run 
away forever either.  "I heard you," he said to her back, his 
voice returning to normal levels.
      
She stopped in the doorway and put her left hand against the 
doorframe as if to steady herself.  She didn't turn around to 
look at him and she didn't respond.
      
"I heard you," he said again, remaining in place on the bed.  
"In the restaurant.  When Ethan asked you.  I heard what you 
said."

Her shoulders slumped slightly.  It was small enough that only 
he would notice, only someone who had learned to read through 
her lines, to see through her fa‡ade of strength.  It was nearly 
imperceptibly the degree her head bowed, but he saw it.  
      
"Scully?"
      
"I thought you might have," she said simply.

"Well, I did."

"So..."

"I didn't know," he said and then admonished himself for the 
stupidity of the remark.  "I mean, I thought, but I just didn't 
realize, I mean, how much..." he was stammering and stumbling over 
himself like an idiot, but the truth was that for once, he had 
no real idea what he was doing.

"I knew," she said again.  Her words and demeanor a cool 
contrast to his own.  "Ethan knew."

He paused.  He feared their love had become a landmine to her, 
that she would always associate it with Ethan killing himself.  
"You couldn't have known he would do that."

She didn't respond, still standing in the same spot she'd been 
since he'd started this.  

"Scully," he continued.  "It's not your fault."

She sighed, and he noticed the slight slump and head bow of 
earlier fade away as she re-positioned herself more confidently.  
"I know."

"But?"
      
"But it doesn't make it any easier."
      
"What can I do Scully?  How can I make it easier?"
      
She leaned against the wall, keeping her back to him.  "You 
already did it, Mulder."

He raised his eyebrows on impulse, even though she couldn't see 
him.  "I don't understand.  What did I do?"

She lifted her left foot and moved it forward and backward 
against the floor, like he'd seen her do so many times before.  
"You lived."

He smiled inwardly and sighed contently.  To the end of his days 
she would never cease to amaze him.  He wanted desperately to 
have the same effect on her.  "I can do more Scully."

"Hmm," was all she said in response, a low mumble of 
acknowledgment.

"I can love you."

"Can?"
      
"Do.  Have.  Even more than you can imagine."
      
She laughed a little then, and he thought he saw some tension 
leave her body.  "It's not a contest Mulder."

He laughed in turn but only for a second before fear and concern 
overcame him again.  "The thing is," he said to her, "you have 
to let me."

She sighed then and turned around, finally turned around to face 
him.  She leaned back completely against the wall and crossed 
her arms over her chest.  Her eyes looked at him and they were 
soft and open but sad and even a bit complacent. 

"It's not that easy," she said to him.  She sighed again before 
speaking.  "The thing I've been thinking about this past week, 
over and over, is that I had thought I had loved him."  She 
looked over at Mulder and shrugged sheepishly.  "At the time I'd 
really thought I'd loved Ethan.  And I don't want to say now 
that I didn't just because things changed, because he changed, 
because this whole thing happened, cause I just don't think 
that's fair, and I don't think it's honest either, and despite 
everything, I fee like I owe him that, you know?"

Mulder nodded when she paused, but he didn't try to interrupt 
her.

"But then I think, how could that be love if it could go so bad?  
How could it be love if it ended with two people hurting each 
other so much?"
      
Mulder shrugged.  "You always hurt the one you love."

She shook her head.  "No.  No, I don't buy that.  I don't want 
to buy that.  I don't think love is perfect all the time.  I 
don't think loving someone means that you don't fight with them, 
or get frustrated with them.  I think love means you're more 
likely to do those things because you care most of all about 
that person's opinions and ideas and how they respond to you.  
But, God, Mulder, the things Ethan did, even before all of this.  
You don't do those things to someone you love.  Look at us," she 
said smiling sheepishly to be admitting, even indirectly, what 
they really were to each other.  "We fight all the time.  We get 
so frustrated with each other all the time."

He smiled brightly at her.  "But it's only cause your opinion is 
the only one that matters to me."	

She nodded and returned his smile.  "And yours to me.  But I 
couldn't, in my wildest dreams, ever imagine hurting you.  And I 
know I've made you angry.  God, Mulder, I saw the way you looked 
at me after that thing in Philadelphia.  But you never hurt me.  
You never tried to even the score.  You just let me back in."

"I would never hurt you, Scully.  I would never mean to hurt you.  
That whole thing with Diana, I was never trying to hurt you."

"I know, Mulder.  I never thought you were."  He nodded, glad to 
hear her say the words.  She titled her head.  "But then, I 
never thought Ethan was capable of this."

"Scully?"  he asked incredulously, but she raised her hand to 
stop him and shook her head.

"I'm not comparing the two.  Believe me," she said to him.  "You 
and Ethan are nothing alike.  Me and Ethan, and me and you are 
nothing alike.  But that's the thing.  I keep trying to figure 
out if I loved Ethan so that I can understand what it means when 
I say I love you.  Because whether I wanted you to hear it or 
not, I did say it."

"I did hear it."

"I know."

"It could have been a dream though.  I do dream about things 
like that."

She smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood.  "It wasn't."

He sighed and pretended to wipe sweat from his brow.  "Good 
thing."  Then he tilted his head, unsure, and asked her, "Scully, 
did you not want me to hear it?"
      
She shook her head.  "Not like that.  At the least, not like 
that."

He nodded.  "Were you ever going to say it to me?"

She looked at him for what felt like forever and then ultimately 
shrugged her shoulders.  "I honestly don't know."  His shoulder 
slumped slightly, but he tried to hide his disappointment.  "It 
doesn't make it less true, Mulder."

"I know.  It's just, when I think about all the time we've 
wasted..."

"I know.  I think about that too.  And I'm sorry for that, cause 
it's my fault."  He looked at her quizzically.  She nodded.  
"I'm not good at this Mulder.  I'm no good at being in love, at 
needing other people.  I need to be in control of my life.  I 
need to be in control of myself.  And love, love makes that hard.  
And you, Mulder, you make that really hard.  So loving you, it's 
like," she shook her head and laughed.  "It's like a sucker 
punch to everything that makes me me."

Mulder looked down at his feet, a sadness coming over him.  "I 
never want to make things hard for you, Scully."

She laughed again and the sound of her honest humor made him 
raise his face again.  "Mulder, it's not you doing anything.  
It's just, I don't know, it's who you are.  You call into 
question everything I've ever relied on - my science, my strict 
rationalism, my belief in God, my understanding of the entire 
world."  She giggled at him as she continued.  "Mulder you 
epitomize the expression, 'rocked my world'."

He grinned at her and the smile on her face and the way she 
looked five years younger when she'd said that.  "I try, 
Scully."

She smiled slyly at him.  "I know you do.  And you do a good job 
of it, in more ways than one."

He raised his eyebrows at her innuendo and tilted his head at 
her.

She just kept on smiling.  "The thing is Mulder, all this 
wondering about Ethan," she sighed heavily, "all I can figure is 
that I have no idea what it really means to be in love with 
someone.  I'm starting to think it's me.  Maybe I'm not cut out 
for this."

"Maybe you've been picking the wrong guy."

"I suppose you know the right one."

He nodded.  "I could set you up."

She smiled and shook her head at him.  "I think I know the right 
one too, I'm just scared of messing it up."

"You couldn't."

She smiled again but her demeanor had changed ever so slightly 
and he picked up on it again.  She sighed deeply, a sound he was 
getting overly familiar with.  "The thing is I knew I loved you.  
I've known that I love you for a long time.  But that moment," 
she paused as her voice hitched and she had to breathe in deeply 
to keep from crying.  

He could see her struggle and wanted to go to her, to hold her 
close to him, but he sensed that she needed the distance to get 
out whatever it was she felt she needed to say, and he had to 
give her that.

"That moment in the restaurant, when I saw you fall, and you 
were bleeding, and I knew, I knew it was serious, that you could 
so easily die.  I just lost it."  She bowed her head and shook 
it slowly from side to side before looking back up at him.  
"I've seen you on the brink of life so many times, whether 
you're half frozen on some artic tundra, or floating in the 
waters off Bermuda."  She shook her head again, but this time 
she was back to near laughing.  "I never known two people who 
end up in the hospital more than us," she said throwing her 
hands in the air.  "It's ridiculous. It's improbable."

"But not impossible."

"No, not impossible."  She folded her arms over her chest again 
and the smile faded once more.  "For some reason, I've always 
known you'd come back to me."  She shrugged her shoulders. "I 
don't know why.  I can't explain it, but each time, every time, 
I've known you're going to be okay.  Except..." she trailed off, 
and began to move her left foot again, back and forth, back and 
forth.

"Except for in the restaurant?"

She nodded.  "Except for that night.  It all felt out of control.  
I couldn't get Ethan to stop, and I couldn't get you to a 
hospital if he didn't stop, and I just couldn't figure out how 
we were going to get out of there.  And it just hit me like that.  
I didn't even realize how much I needed you until then."  She 
moved her foot back and forth faster.  "I can't breathe without 
you," she said softly, daring ever so slowly to look up at his 
face.  "I can't be me anymore without you."

Mulder had seen men die, children killed, his sister robbed from 
him, but through it all, he'd never felt his heart lurch as 
deeply as it did then.

"I'm not used to that," she said shyly.  "I've never willingly 
lost control to anything before.  I've never wanted to lose 
control before.  But if it means that I get you..."  Mulder only 
watched her, his eyes growing wet from tears.  He wanted to say 
something, the right thing, the best thing, but he no longer 
knew what that was.  "I hate that I had to realize it then.  I 
hate that I had to first say it there, in front of Ethan, in 
front of strangers, with a gun in my face.  But mostly, I hate 
that you heard it, that you found out that way."
      
"Scully..."

"Mulder, I know, I mean, I think I know how you feel," she 
paused and he realized just how nervous she was.  Her foot was 
starting to leave marks on his floor.  "But there's love, and 
then there's scary, out of control love, and I can't expect you 
to reciprocate that.  I don't know if you can feel that way, and 
I don't know if I can even expect you to be okay with me feeling 
that way.  I just lost it.  The thought of...I just lost it.  So I 
didn't want you to hear it. Because I didn't want to scare you, 
and cause I wanted it to be just about us, and cause, well, I 
guess I was also afraid, that you couldn't feel that way about 
me."  Scully blushed, biting her lip, and circling her foot in 
front of her like a thirteen year old girl.  

Mulder had seen enough, had heard enough, had had enough of her 
standing across the room from him.  He stood at last, raising 
from the bed he'd so dutifully sat on while listening to her 
confess to him, expose herself, unfold like a flower.  He took 
three steps and was there with his hands on her face, lifting 
her chin so that she would look up into his eyes.  He could not 
have in any reasonable or unreasonable way, denied everything 
she displayed in those eyes - all the love, all the desire, all 
the peace, all the anticipation.

That he had dreamed of this moment for years, that he had longed 
for it so completely, that he had wanted nothing more should 
have made it difficult, should have overwhelmed him with fears 
of messing up.  But the reality was that when things are right, 
when you love someone so much that you know nothing can ever 
mess it up, everything about that love becomes easy and every 
expression of that love - smooth or awkward - becomes perfect.

He smiled at her.  Through his own tears, their own doubts, 
through desire greater than both of them, Fox Mulder leaned down 
and pressed his lips against Dana Scully's.  It had been two 
weeks in the making, it had been six years coming, and Mulder 
finally pushed, that one last step, that one exactly right touch.  

He pressed his lips gently at first, getting used to the terrain, 
but she was eager and insistent and pressed her own lips back 
against his until he opened them and she could run her tongue 
lightly across them.  He reached his own tongue out to capture 
hers, and moved his hand from her cheek to the back of her neck, 
pulling her in closer until they were nothing but lips and 
tongues, people who had given up entirely on air.  

She raised her own hands to his face, cupping his cheeks and 
lightly running the tips of her fingers across the angles of his 
cheekbones.  He found it intoxicating to be cared for so gently 
by this woman and he was driven to have more of her. He lowered 
his hands to her hips and pushed her squarely into him.  She 
moaned into his mouth and increased the sweet torture of her 
tongue tracing every inch of his, his lips pressing languidly 
against his, her fingers running through the hair at the base of 
his neck.  

He hesitated only once, as they fell onto the bed, her body laid 
out on top of his, when he was faced with the last possible 
chance for turning back, and he took his head in hers and asked, 
perhaps more for himself then for her, "Scully are you sure?  
Are you sure this is what you want?"

She looked down into his eyes, green orbs of unwavering devotion, 
and answered simply, "We've been making love for the past two 
weeks, it's time we finish."  And then his world was her lips 
and her breasts and the warmth he felt when he finally entered 
her.

Before that night, if someone had asked him what it would be 
like to finally act on six years of foreplay he would have 
answered: explosion.  He would have expected insatiable grabbing 
and holding, insistent, demanding, out of control.  And while 
his emotions were all of those things, insistent, demanding, 
defiantly out of control, their bodies were not.  Their bodies 
were slow, detail-oriented, meticulous in their caresses, gentle 
and innocent.  In the weeks, months, years to come they would 
learn to be loud, to be brazen, how to fuck in the office with 
no one finding out, how to best utilize adjoining motel rooms 
and magic fingers beds, how to fulfill every fantasy either had 
ever had.  But that night, that first time, they were as tender 
and reverent as the most devout believers.

He was after all still recovering, still too sore and fragile to 
wow her with his stamina or dexterity and she was still 
recovering herself from wounds that weakened her spirit and 
sense of adventure.  They sought reprise in each other, and in 
turn they each sought to heal the other.  She was tender, her 
touches light, her kisses soft, her hair crowning his face like 
the velvet tapestries of a king.  He was devoted, his 
declarations of love constant, his arms protective, his body 
wrapped around hers like the warm rays of the sun itself.  They 
were lost in each other, never to be found again as the people 
they had been before.

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

END