From:             KiMeriKal@aol.com
Date sent:        Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:16:16 EST

************************************
Title:    BY COINCIDENCE 
Author:   Cathleen Faye / kimerikal@aol.com
Web Page: http://members.aol.com/kimerikal
Archive:  anywhere anybody wants
Genre:    MSR
Rating:   NC-17 (some language but mostly for sexual content)
Summary:  Set in 1995.  As Mulder recovers from brush with death in the 
Arctic Circle, he reflects on the things that he has to tell Scully before 
he starts running out of chances.  On the same day, across town, Scully 
uncovers a moment from Mulder's past which she thinks provides her with 
clues about his present.  But sometimes all is not what it seems on the 
surface.  By coincidence, they meet in a park on a cold winter day and what 
looks like happenstance actually just might be fate taking over matters of 
the heart from two people who clearly need some help.
Notes:  Lots of romantic musing & introspection, with touches of angst & 
humor.  Oh, and a bit of smut.  A romantic character study really and my 
first attempt at FanFic in this genre.  It's set in 1995 because so much 
fine stuff has been written surrounding recent 4 th & 5 th season events 
that I decided to go back in time a bit and examine Mulder and Scully's 
feelings in the beginning. 
Spoilers:  Everything the Pilot to End Game.
*************************************


BY COINCIDENCE
Author: Cathleen Faye / kimerikal@aol.com




Sunday, February 19, 1995
Mulder's Apartment
11:21 am


	God, he just hated Sundays, Mulder thought as he reluctantly opened his 
eyes and tried to focus in on what he'd heard, his body tense and on alert 
as he tried to identify the sound that had broken apart his blessedly 
dreamless sleep.
	As usual, he'd fallen asleep on his couch the night before, or rather, 
early that morning as it'd been just a little after 4am the last time he'd 
glanced at the clock before sleep had finally overtaken him.  From his 
supine position, he gazed languidly about his living room, blinking a few 
times as he pushed his way further up into consciousness.  Then the sound 
came again; it was just a dog barking out on the street somewhere.
	With a deep groan, he sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear 
his head.  Mulder was most definitely not a morning person.  He rolled his 
head slowly to loosen the stiffened muscles in his neck and shoulders then 
stretched his arms out as far as he could reach, trying to loosen the kinks 
in his back as he yawned deeply and loudly.  Exhausted from his efforts, 
Mulder flopped back into the couch and focused in on the clock on the side 
table.  He was somewhat pleased to discover that he'd managed to sleep away 
the greater portion of the morning.  This was good, he thought, less Sunday 
to have to struggle through.
	From his sprawled position, Mulder looked slowly about his place feeling 
a bit depressed and claustrophobic.  It was stuffy in the small room and the 
gray morning light from the overcast sky only added to the dreariness.  
Every once in a while, he was stuck by the fact that his place often felt 
strange to him, as though he didn't actually live there.  It was like a dorm 
room without any of the fun that usually went with the mess.  It wasn't like 
Scully's place which felt like a home, like a human being made a life there.
	He turned towards the window and squinted out at the dull sky, feeling 
that since he was awake, he really should get up and do something with his 
day.  Of course, one of the reasons Mulder hated Sundays was that they were 
filled with the necessary chores of everyday living.  Boring things like 
laundry, picking up dry cleaning, restocking his food supply, clearing a 
path so he could at least move about his apartment without danger of 
crashing into something and breaking his little toe - again.  However, truth 
be told, the real reason he didn't care for Sundays was because Scully 
wasn't around and he was alone.  Saturdays weren't so bad, but as the 
weekend stretched along, Sundays started to become intolerable because of 
the separation from her.
	64 hours.  He'd pathetically counted it up once and 5pm Friday to 9am 
Monday was 64 hours.  True, he and Scully rarely worked anything that even 
slightly resembled regular office hours.  But when not in the field on a 
case, or during a slow period like now, their schedule was like that of any 
other civil servant.  In the past, he'd often been able to turn Sunday in to 
a working day too and he liked that much better.  If nothing else, the 
American taxpayer certainly got their money's worth on Fox Mulder's salary.
	However, he'd had many Sundays free since the end of last year.  Scully 
had almost died when she had been unceremoniously returned from where ever 
she'd been held for three months.  Her body had undergone serious trauma 
with strange, unnatural changes to her blood and organic structures and her 
recovery to full strength had not been as quick as she would have liked.  
She'd come back to work full time much earlier than she should have and 
she'd paid the price with a slight relapse in exhaustion just before 
Christmas.  Mulder had been irritated with her about her insistence on 
returning to a full caseload.
	Jesus, she was a doctor, had she worked with only corpses for so long 
that she'd forgotten that it takes time for the living to heal and 
regenerate?  As much as he loved her, the fact remained that, on occasion, 
Scully just irritated the ever-loving shit out of him.  But in a good way, 
he was quick to append mentally.  Her determination and independence were 
two of the things he admired most in her and yet, if he was honest, they 
were also the same things that, at times, exasperated him to the point of 
beating his head on the wall.
	That's when Skinner, in collusion with Mulder, had lightened their 
workload for a short time in order to force Scully to take time to recover.  
It'd worked too; she was completely back to her old self.  Or rather, as 
completely back as one could be who couldn't account for three months of 
their life.
	But then again, tracking him down to the frozen wastelands at the top of 
the world probably hadn't done much for her stamina either.  He'd 
deliberately left her behind for a variety of reasons, some selfish, some 
not.  But as usual, Scully wouldn't be dismissed so easily and Mulder was 
left torn between feeling grateful that she'd followed him, for there wasn't 
a doubt in his mind that he'd be dead otherwise, and feeling angry that she 
had taken such a chance because of him.
	Now, of course, in the last two weeks, *he'd* been the one who'd needed 
time to recover.  The retrovirus that would have killed him except for 
Scully's intervention had raged through his body, forcing him into the idle 
time he hated.  Although the last series of blood work had shown that 
Scully's prescribed course of antivirals had eradicated the virus, he was 
still weak and Mulder hated feeling weak - hated it worse than almost 
anything in the world.  He'd refused to give into it, pushing himself and 
Scully had nagged at him daily to rest more, just as he'd done to her.  They 
really should be together, he thought, smiling slightly, what other sane 
person would have either one of them. 
	Mulder stood up slowly and made his way to the bathroom.  He started the 
shower as he peeled off his sweaty T-shirt and the boxers still stained from 
last night's little adventure with his video collection.  He wondered 
absently if he would ever have sex again with anything except his right hand 
or perhaps his left when he was feeling kinky.  That thought naturally 
brought his mind back to Scully and his brain went all foggy again.  He 
opened the bathroom windows hoping the fresh chilled air would help.  
Stepping into the shower, he let the hot steaming water pour down over his 
aching back muscles, feeling them finally loosen up slightly.  He washed his 
hair then soaped down his body, finally just standing under the hot 
pulsating flow and imagining, as he'd started to do lately, what it would be 
like to have Scully enjoying this with him.  The hot water began to fade to 
be replaced with cold, which was just as well given the direction his 
thoughts had been taking.
	As he stepped out of the shower, he shook his head like a dog, just 
beginning to feel human again.  He shivered slightly because now, of course, 
it was cold from the open window.  Mulder wrapped himself in the seldom-used 
thick terry robe that hung on the back of the door - a birthday gift from 
his mother a few months ago.  Granted, the robe had been delivered by UPS 
the day *after* his birthday and accompanying card that said, "Best Wishes 
on your special day," had had a *printed* signature, but hey, at least she'd 
remembered.  But somehow though, Mulder was also very sure that the kid who 
delivered his mother's newspaper probably got the same card on his birthday 
too, although he supposed that Mom's personal shopper had picked out a more 
appropriate gift for a 13-year-old.
	Mulder wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at his 34-year-old 
face.  The dark bruising around his eyes from the retrovirus had faded, but 
he still looked tired and a bit older than his actual age.  After a moment's 
debate, he decided to forgo shaving, opting instead to put his full effort 
into brushing his teeth.  He styled his wet hair by running a hand through 
it and contemplated a nose job for about 3 seconds.  Finally, he padded back 
into the living room and resumed his spot on the couch, propping his feet up 
on the coffee table, exhausted from his efforts of doing almost nothing.  He 
glanced over at the clock again.  Wow - He'd managed to kill 40 whole 
minutes.  Now what?
	Mulder surveyed his domain again with a certain dismay.  The apartment-
cleaning fairy had not made an appearance while he was in the shower.  I 
should get a maid, he thought before he rejected the idea immediately.  He 
couldn't have a maid - he had way too much stuff for her to get into and 
mess with.  Mulder hated people messing with his stuff.
	Scully had tried to mess with his stuff once, he remembered.  Just after 
she'd been assigned to the X-Files, she'd offered to help him organize.  
He'd looked at her with complete horror and assured her that he knew exactly 
where everything was.  It was a lie of course; he knew it, and she knew it.  
But the offer had come very, very early in their relationship and the truth 
was he hadn't trusted her then.  Of course, he thought affectionately, now 
that he trusted her with life, heart and soul, the little bitch hadn't 
volunteered again.  He'd blown that one big time.
	Mulder looked in the general direction of the kitchen.  There was coffee 
in there - it was calling out to him.  The only problem was that getting it 
from the kitchen to the couch would require some movement on his part.  What 
was the deal with that, he thought resentfully, not yet ready to stir from 
his spot.
	He wasted a few more minutes contemplating his feet & toes a bit.  Why 
was it that some people's second toe was longer than their big toe, he 
wondered.  That didn't make any sense and while he was at it, who came up 
with the word "toe" any way?  It was one of those words that when said 
repeatedly in one's mind, as Mulder was unfortunately doing right that 
moment, it became completely non-sensible.  He'd have to ask Scully her 
medical opinion on Monday, if only to see the look on her face.  He loved to 
do that.
	He closed his eyes and imagined Scully curled up on this couch in his 
robe, fresh from her shower with her hair damp and her body sweet-smelling.  
She'd sit at that end and put her feet in his lap so he could massage them.  
He thought about the deliciousness of tickling her slightly and getting that 
smile back.  Maybe she'd let him paint her toenails, it was a weird little 
thing he had a desire to do, just as he'd had this equally crazy longing to 
brush that one errant strand of hair back off her face.  Mulder thought 
about how he would hold her foot on his lap bend down and suck Scully's big 
toe deep into his mouth as he....
	The resulting picture in his mind snapped his eyes back open and stirred 
him into action.  With some effort, he managed to unfold his bones to a 
standing position and gravitate towards the kitchen and his new coffeemaker.  
Another heart-felt gift from mom left on his doorstep by UPS - this time to 
mark Christmas.  The printed card said, "Best Wishes on this Happy Holiday."  
Mom's printer was apparently very big on the Best Wishes thing.  But hey, at 
least he bet the paperboy hadn't gotten a coffeemaker for Christmas.
	Mulder dug through the cupboards.  Shit, he was out of filters - he'd 
have to remember to buy some, another one of those mundane things he hated 
remembering.  Making do with a paper towel, he dumped what seemed to be an 
appropriate amount of coffee in and set it to brewing.
	Fox Mulder made truly shitty coffee.  His fine, keen mind was able to 
hypothesize the most elusive of metaphysical concepts but for some damn 
reason the correct ratio of coffee to water just completely eluded him.  
When Scully was there and they were going over files together, he could 
often con her into doing it and it always tasted wonderful.  On the other 
hand, he thought, maybe it was just the fact he was sharing it with her that 
made it wonderful.  Maybe there was just the illusion that Scully's coffee 
was better than his was.
	Mulder padded to the front door to pick up the paper and then headed 
back to the couch to wait for the coffee to finish brewing.  He read the 
comics and he wondered if poor Charlie Brown was ever going to nail that 
cute little red-headed girl who followed him about.  Then he thumbed through 
the TV guide.  The Fox Network was re-running that God-awful alien autopsy 
special, yet another reason to live, he thought sarcastically, echoing 
Scully's words spoken to him a few months back.
	Within a few minutes, the coffee was ready and he shuffled back to the 
kitchen where he rummaged around to find his last clean mug.  He poured the 
coffee and then added the usual immense amounts of sugar and cream necessary 
to turn it into something he could actually stand to drink.
	His stomach rumbled slightly so he stood in front of the open 
refrigerator a few minutes searching for something to eat - something that 
didn't look alien with green fuzz.  After a moment, he settled on the two-
day old leftover ravioli.  He briefly considered popping it into the 
microwave, but then decided the hell with it and carried it along with the 
coffee back to the living room.  He resumed his position on the couch, ate 
cold leftover ravioli out of the Tupperware as he drank his too sweet coffee 
and read the paper.  Wow, he thought acerbically, life just doesn't get any 
better than this.  He wondered what Scully was doing right this moment.  He 
wondered if he should tell her the things he wanted so badly to tell her or 
if he should just shut the hell up and leave it all be.  He really didn't 
like having all this free time to think about all of that.
	God, he just hated Sundays.





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

Simon's Used Bookstore
Alexandria, Virginia.
	
	It was by coincidence that Scully and her sister, Melissa, ended up in 
the used bookstore.
	They'd gone for brunch at their favorite place in Old Town Alexandria.  
That part of the city was beautiful, with its historical brick buildings, 
quaint streets and stores.  In the last couple of months, she and Melissa 
had taken to meeting up on Sundays whenever they could to catch up on sister 
talk and just spend some time together.
	Since the day had turned very cold and dreary, they'd planned on taking 
in a movie.  However, they'd ended up talking so long at brunch that they 
missed the start time and now had to kill a couple hours.  After leaving the 
restaurant, they wandered a bit, where they happened upon the old store 
stuffed to the ceiling with old books, magazines and newspapers.  Melissa 
wanted to go in as the window sign promised a large New Age section.
	Once inside, the sisters each went their separate ways.  Melissa watched 
fondly as Dana wandered over towards the science books, just feeling so very 
pleased that she was even there to share the day with her.  Like many adult 
siblings, the sisters had drifted apart a bit since childhood - Not though 
argument or design, but simply by chance and laziness.  But since Dana's 
return months before, Melissa stuck closer to her sister than she had in 
recent years.  After months of absence, she'd given her sister up for dead.  
Then she'd almost lost her again when they had acquiesced to Dana's wish 
that her life not be maintained by artificial means.
	Melissa knew that she'd been given a second chance to rebuild the 
closeness they'd once had and she wasn't going to waste it.  That's why 
today had been so nice.  During lunch, she'd teased Dana gently as she had 
when they were young and was pleased to see that somewhere in the ensuing 
years her little sister had learned to give back as good as she got.  Dana 
had always had a sense of humor but few outside the family had ever seen it.
	Other things were different too.  Once unbending almost to a fault, 
she'd become less rigid in the last few years and more open.  At brunch, 
Dana had actually listened to her as she'd talked about some of her 
spiritual beliefs without either giving her The Look or outright dismissing 
them with a sound of derision, as she would have once.  No, she wasn't going 
to see Dana at one of her spiritual gatherings anytime soon, but at least 
she was willing to look at other possibilities.
	Melissa remembered back when they were young and moving from base to 
base with their parents.  She'd made new friends easily, but it had been 
harder for Dana.  Fair or not, being very smart was often tough on a girl 
socially and somehow, Dana's confidence in her intellect was often mistaken 
for arrogance.  Melissa knew her little sister was often passed by or left 
out, but she wasn't about to tell her to pretend to be less than she was in 
order to fit in.  By the time Dana made friends who could appreciate her, it 
was often time to move on again and leave them behind.
	The end result was that Dana had grown up far more serious and 
introspective than she had.  That's why it was so nice to see her laugh and 
be happy now.  Melissa could tell that she loved her work and she felt she'd 
found a place she belonged.  There was no denying that Dana's years at the 
FBI had definitely changed her for the better and Melissa was certain some 
of it was certainly due to that partner of hers.
	Melissa often had insights that she couldn't explain any more than she 
could explain to Mulder just how she knew not to call him, "Fox."  The 
minute Dana's handsome partner had walked into the ICU, she'd sensed that 
there was more going between Mulder and her sister than met the eye.  She 
didn't suspect anything as boring or conventional as office love affair.  
Rather, she sensed a deeper communion between them, something that was far 
more rare.  She wasn't even sure if they understood it themselves.  Mulder, 
for all his outlandish beliefs, certainly hadn't realized the power his 
heart held for her sister.  When she'd come to him with the grim news that 
Dana was slipping away, his refusal to return to the hospital had infuriated 
her.  Nevertheless, in the end, he'd given up on his useless earthly 
struggle for justice and had come to stay Dana in a kind of spiritual 
battle.
	Melissa wasn't sure if she could attribute Dana's restoration to any one 
person, entity or thing, nor was she even particularly interested in doing 
so.  All she knew was that by the next morning, her sister's conscious mind 
had been restored to the body that had been useless without it.  All she 
knew was that had happened *after* Fox Mulder had come to Dana.  All she 
knew was that her sister was whole again and Melissa Scully did not believe 
in coincidence.
	She looked down the long aisle from where she sat and saw Dana looking 
though stacks of books and she smiled to herself.  Things were good, Melissa 
thought.
	Scully glanced briefly up at her sister who was now happily sitting on 
the floor next to a stack of books on crystals, astrology and other things 
that didn't fit into her ordered world.  She wandered to the back of the 
large store where the medical books were stacked.  As she squeezed down one 
aisle, she noticed that the store had a large section on UFOs and other 
paranormal phenomena.  She half expected to see Mulder standing there, 
pouring over some obscure reference with excitement in his hazel eyes.  He 
didn't live too far from here so chances were good that he knew about this 
place, but in case he didn't, she'd have to remember to mention it to him on 
Monday.
	Scully paused and looked through the stacks thinking maybe there was 
something she could pick out for him.  She and Melissa could drop it off on 
the way home in fact, she thought.  Would it be too strange to get a gift 
for no reason?  Would it seem too obvious that she was looking for any 
excuse to see Mulder?  Was it pathetic that she counted down the 64 hours of 
a weekend?
	Scully sighed and shook her shook her head.  Not a good idea, it was a 
pitiful pretext at best and anyway, she reasoned, she could be pretty 
certain that he already owned most of the books there no matter how 
outrageous or far-fetched.  She glanced back up the far end of the aisle at 
her sister again.  Melissa was so like Mulder, she thought, they each had 
very different, but nonetheless passionate beliefs in things that were often 
without the hard scientific proof she needed.  In Melissa and Mulder's view 
of the world, two and two didn't necessarily need to add up to four.  But it 
was so hard for Scully to make that same leap of faith  - something in her 
just demanded that the addition work out right.  She was willing to listen, 
even willing to suppose on occasion.  However, she wasn't quite able to just 
openly believe, not yet anyway.
	Scully moved on down the aisle.  She'd forgotten how much she had loved 
these dusty, disordered places.  A voracious reader during childhood and her 
high school years, she'd spent many afternoons wandering places such as 
this, looking for a special find or author.  Later, during medical school 
when she'd hardly had the time to waste on sleep, let alone something as 
frivolous as pleasure reading, so she'd been forced to put such little joys 
aside.  In those years, her main topics of reading were on the forensic 
sciences & chemistry.  While those had certainly proved helpful as she now 
navigated the labyrinth of the amazing and unique ways that people managed 
to die, they did little to feed her soul.
	During her first years at the FBI, she'd had little time for reading 
either.  She'd concentrated on teaching and she'd had an active social life.  
It had been a fun time and her star was rising fast within in the bureau.  
But then came the X-Files assignment and by *amazing* coincidence, her 
private life took a dumper about the same time she was directed to watch 
over the investigations of one Fox Mulder - Boy Genius and FBI loose cannon. 
	Scully hadn't been happy about the assignment and she definitely didn't 
view it as a promotion.  In spite of their assurances that it was all in the 
interest of scientific verification, the underlying tone had been very 
clear: discredit the man she was being partnered with.  She wasn't naive, 
she was aware that all agents' actions were scrutinized due to the sensitive 
nature of their work, including her own.  Nevertheless, while she hadn't 
known Agent Mulder except by reputation, she didn't like the idea of being 
assigned to spy on a fellow agent.  It wasn't her style and certainly not 
why she'd joined the FBI.
	She'd never understood why she'd been picked for there were other 
individuals with the scientific & medical backgrounds just as suited to the 
Official Version of the assignment.  The answer that had made the most sense 
to her was that perhaps because she'd been so clearly ambitious they'd 
thought she could be manipulated.  Perhaps they'd thought that in order to 
work her way up the FBI hierarchy she could be induced into delivering the 
Unofficial Version they really wanted.
	Had Fox Mulder been a different kind of man, that scenario might even 
have happened.  However, the more she observed about her new partner, the 
less she was inclined to believe the rumor and innuendo she'd been carefully 
fed.
	Scully knew that Mulder had, at one time anyway, all the makings of a 
brilliant career with the FBI.  Entering Oxford at an early age, he'd 
graduated with highest honors before moving on to gain his Ph.D. in 
Psychology.  After joining the FBI, he became a masterful and brilliant ISU 
profiler, whose insights into deranged minds had been the downfall of many 
brutal criminals.  His move to the Violent Crimes Unit only brought more 
accomplishment.  True- there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Mulder had 
skipped the class at Quantico on working and playing well with others, but 
his string of success had, in the beginning anyway, made it easier for his 
superiors to overlook his eccentricities.
	That was, until he'd discovered the X-Files.  Once he'd encountered the 
long-neglected cases, Mulder's meteoric rise crashed back to the ground like 
a defective test rocket.  By the time Scully was assigned to his entire 
investigation division of one, the FBI scuttlebutt was that the guy was 
completely off and he'd been without a partner for sometime.
	However, his obsessions were only a small part of the much bigger issue 
that Melissa had nicknamed, "The Mulder Problem" several months back.  
Scully had never put a name to it before, but the one Melissa had chosen fit 
just fine.  Of course, Melissa seemed oblivious to the fact that she'd 
already been wrestling with the Mulder Problem almost daily for the last two 
years.  Well, that is when she wasn't busy wrestling with the possibility of 
giant flukeworms and liver-eating maniacs, she thought ruefully.  Yes 
indeed, Mulder had indeed opened up a whole New World for her, she thought 
with a small grin.
	But still, the Mulder Problem clung to her like a new puppy almost from 
the minute she'd put on her most confident air, walked into that basement 
office and laid eyes on Special Agent Fox William Mulder for the first time.  
He'd looked up at her, wearing those impossibly cute glasses with that great 
head of hair and that god-awful tie.  His beautiful, deep-set eyes had sized 
her up openly as he'd shaken her hand.  Then, with a strange combination of 
friendliness and sarcasm he'd immediately proceeded to accuse her of spying 
on him and mocked her in that laconic voice.  Basically he'd managed to so 
completely piss her off that she'd decided on the spot that this guy was 
never going to best her in anything.  But then, even as she was 
contemplating killing him, he'd immediately moved on to pique her intense 
curiosity.  He'd shown her people who needed their protection from the 
predators of the world, be they terrestrial or extra-terrestrial as Mulder 
believed.  He'd dazzled her with strange theories and challenged both her 
mind and her sense of wonder.
	Nothing in the last two years had changed since except along the way 
he'd challenged her heart also.
	*Damn that bastard*, she thought with deep affection.  He was a lethal 
combination of being one of the most unconsciously seductive men she'd ever 
known and managed to have that brilliant, albeit somewhat unstable, mind to 
boot.  Loving a man like Mulder was hadn't been part of her life's master 
game plan, but love him she did and that game plan was now just a distant 
memory.
	In the beginning, she'd wondered which fascinated her more, the work or 
Fox Mulder.  Soon, she'd realized that the two were so completely 
intertwined that there was no separating them.  "I'm not crazy, Scully, I 
have the same doubts you do," was his response to one of the first times 
she'd looked at him like he was demented.  But then he'd entice her to 
follow him out on the precarious limb of his logic and she, who'd always 
preferred to stay close to the trunk in the past, found herself edging out 
on that branch more & more.
	Just what was she gonna do about the Mulder Problem?  Scully sighed; she 
had no better answer today than she'd had almost two years ago, when she'd 
made her decision where her absolute allegiance would lie.
	Very shortly after her assignment to the XFiles, her former classmate, 
Tom Colton, had asked her to work with the Violent Crimes Section when 
Eugene Toomes first raised his ugly, liver-eating head.  She'd been eager 
for the opportunity for she and Mulder to distinguish themselves.  She'd 
wanted them all to see just how good Mulder was.  However, the disrespect 
shown her partner had astounded her - It was so blatant that the other 
agents didn't even bother to whisper when they called him, "Spooky."
	After a particularly ugly confrontation with Colton, Mulder had told her 
that he would understand if she decided to continue working with the VCS.  
She knew his offer was sincere; that he'd realized how being his partner was 
beginning to affect how the rest of the FBI viewed her.  But even as he'd 
said the words he'd reached out and toyed with the long pendant she was 
wearing, seemingly to just be straightening it.  As she looked up into his 
eyes, something made her feel as though he was also holding on to her, 
silently hoping she wouldn't go.  She hadn't gone of course, had never even 
considered going.  But looking back, she realized that signaled the first of 
many times she would feel subliminal messages from Mulder; a look, a touch 
or action that was very different from his spoken words.
	Over the next two years, her former friends within the FBI began to 
distance themselves.  They had careers to think about and after all, Scully 
was now part of that Spooky Patrol.  Since everyone knew that Mulder was 
off, there certainly had to be a little something off about Scully too.  No 
one who valued their career wanted that stigma attached to them.
	Yes, the truth was out there, she thought ruefully, and the truth was 
that it was entirely Mulder's fault that her social life became a dry 
lakebed of inactivity.  Men who'd once called her quite regularly stopped 
calling.  Female co-workers that she used to go shopping or to a movie with 
suddenly became very busy.  She even stopped being invited to boring FBI 
social functions, not that she particularly wanted to go, but she did want 
to be invited.  In Scully's mind, perhaps the lowest point came when the FBI 
softball team told her they were full and couldn't use her.  That was 
particularly disheartening as they were so pathetic that even a poodle who 
could play catch would have been welcomed with open arms.  However, they 
didn't want Dana Scully, AKA Mrs. Spooky.
	Now, other than having the occasional need to mess with other people's 
heads, if Mulder minded their ostracization he didn't show it.  As long as 
he was given relatively free rein, Mulder didn't seem to mind that his 
assigned office had, in fact, once been the copy machine room and had no 
windows or heat.  He didn't mind that it was so far away from everyone else 
in the FBI that it was something akin to being assigned to steerage on the 
Titanic.  He didn't seem to mind that the FBI hadn't provided his partner 
with a desk or even had her name inscribed on the door almost as though they 
were unwilling to acknowledge that this wasn't a slam-dunk temporary 
assignment.  He didn't seem to mind that his chances for advancement within 
the bureau were now roughly the same as Cancer Man marching one of his 
little gray friends up before Congress to sing songs and tell tales.
	But Scully had minded.  In fact, it had infuriated her for the longest 
time.  How could it possibly be that no one, except perhaps Skinner, saw the 
value of their investigations?  Eventually she'd became reconciled to the 
fact that she and Mulder were the bastard children of the FBI, the kind 
spoken about in whispers and rarely invited to family reunions and that 
together they had indeed become the FBI's most unwanted.  She never 
regretted her allegiance, or her decision to stand with Mulder in their 
search for the truth.  But of all the other injustices they'd faced, the 
ones perpetrated by their fellow FBI agents particularly galled her.
	After a bit of more browsing in the travel section, she went back in 
search of Melissa.  She'd apparently moved on from the New Age section and 
after wandering up and down for sometime, Scully found her ensconced on the 
floor in front of the paperback romances.  She watched in fascination as her 
sister methodically pulled a book off the shelf, shook it and started 
reading where it fell open.  She'd scan the paragraph quickly and then set 
the book aside in one of two stacks.  "Missy, what the hell are you doing?" 
she finally asked after a few moments of watching this procedure.
	Melissa looked at her sister with great patience, as though Scully was a 
slightly slow child who needed extra help.  "I'm reading the sex scenes to 
see if it's worth buying," she answered.  "If that part is good, I'll buy 
the book."
	Scully noticed that three other people in the aisle all immediately 
started shaking their books.  Scully nodded her head slightly as a smile at 
her sister's technique crossed her face.  "So what you're saying, is that 
you don't judge a book by its cover, you judge a book by whether or not is 
shakes open to great sex?"
	"You got it.  You ever read these, Dana?  You can pick up some rather 
interesting tips.  Listen...'Hank gasped as Cassandra took his proud manhood 
deep in her....'  "
	"I *get* the idea, Melissa - Thank you."  Scully interrupted because she 
knew Melissa and she knew where this conversation would head.
	Melissa looked up from the book in her lap to her sister.  There was 
nothing she enjoyed quite so much as tormenting her little sister just a 
bit.  Dana wasn't a prude by a long shot.  But she was also letting her best 
years slip by chasing little green men with that partner of hers, when 
actually, it the partner that she should be chasing down.
	"Well, you might want to try reading a few of these sometime; might 
relieve some of that sexual tension in your body.  I mean I bet your aura is 
a dark ugly color by now."
	Scully tried to ignore the fact that the people, who'd been shaking 
their books a moment ago, had now turned to see the aura of a sexually 
deprived woman.  She gave Melissa The Look.
	"I'm *only* trying to help," Melissa protested.  "I know it's been a 
long, excuse the expression, dry spell for you now."
	Now people were actually poked their heads around the aisle to get a 
gander.  Scully knew that when Melissa was in a goading mood she could be 
relentless and she knew that Melissa blamed Mulder for her appalling lack of 
social life.  OK, so Mulder *was* to blame, but she didn't want to discuss 
it in the paperback romance section of store.  Besides, Scully already knew 
her sister's next question - it was always the same.
	"So, Dana, you ever gonna *do* anything about that Mulder Problem?"
	Scully sighed, where had she heard that question before?  Oh, yeah, she 
asked it herself that about 10 minutes ago.
	She leveled her best stern look at her sister.  "I'm going over to the 
history section for a while - take your time."  Scully turned on her heel 
made her way back down the narrow aisle.  Just as she was squeezing past an 
elderly matron who was pouring over the cookbooks, she head Melissa's voice 
call loudly out to her.
	"You know Dana, a little one-handed fiction won't make you go blind, it 
might even do you some good."
	Scully felt her fair-skinned face turn red as the matron looked up at 
her.  Then the older woman patted her on the arm gently and said, "She's 
right you know, dearie."  As she glanced around, she noticed that the few 
other patrons in the bookstore within earshot all smiled and nodded 
sympathetically at her plight.
	Scully she felt like she was wearing a sign: Untouched By Human Hands In 
Over Two Years."  Suddenly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard a 
Mulderesque voice in her head, "Yeah, but a few aliens may have copped a 
feel or two, huh Scully?"  Even the imagined sound of Mulder's voice made 
her smile a bit.
	She liked that Mulder called her Scully.  In many ways, Dana seemed 
almost a different person to her.  Still part of her, of course, but a far 
less interesting part.  Dana seemed rather ordinary now, very tame.  Dana 
was earnest, efficient and just slightly dull.  Her dentist called her Dana.
	But Scully lived a far more extraordinary life.  She loved the 
extraordinary man who had opened the doors to that life.  She'd stepped 
through on her own to be sure, but she never forgot that it was Mulder who'd 
made her realize there was far more in the world to challenge her intellect 
than lecturing to the bored faces at Quantico.  He'd shown her that there 
were people who needed the help and protection that they alone could offer.  
Over the last two years, she'd discovered that she liked *being Scully* a 
hell of a lot better than she had ever liked being Dana.
	She had no real desire for Mulder to use her first name, never believed 
that it would bring them any closer.  Indeed, the very few times he'd used 
her name had mostly disturbed her.  She remembered just after her father had 
died, Mulder had called her Dana when speaking to her.  She knew, in his 
way, that he was trying to be solicitous in his manner towards her.  But 
instead of creating intimacy, it had caused her to feel distant to him and 
caused her to hesitate from telling him what she'd wanted to tell him.
	Once, long ago, she'd started to call him Fox and he'd corrected her.  
It was funny, but she'd never once viewed that as a privilege he denied her, 
but granted others.  Quite the opposite, she wondered if he'd come to feel 
the same way about their connection as she did; felt that just as Fox & Dana 
were there for family and associates to use, Scully and Mulder were for each 
other.
	Scully decided to wander over to the fiction section.  The *real 
fiction* section she thought smugly, not that stuff that was holding 
Melissa's attention so adroitly.  Mulder also was a voracious reader, 
although mostly in the paranormal exploration areas, and *if* you could 
count the letters to Penthouse as literature, she thought.  An Oxford 
graduate and avid peruser of Celebrity Skin, her partner was a true 
Renaissance Man.  Scully smiled thinking about Mulder's quite adolescent 
glee when he had the opportunity to zing her with some salacious observation 
or remark.
	Over the last two years, she'd discovered other little bits of Mulder, 
tantalizing glimpses of what lay behind the merely obvious.  In this case, 
familiarity didn't breed contempt; it only bred a deep longing to know more.  
Sometimes he had a reserve that was like a thick black tar that she couldn't 
push through.  His quick, deft mind easily deflected any personal inquiry 
with a smart-ass and well-aimed barb and he could go days with conversation 
that was no meaningful than the disclosure that he had dry cleaning to pick 
up.  Then, in a quicksilver mood swing, and out the blue, he'd volunteer 
something incredibly personal.
	Like the time he'd returned from the Puerto Rico fiasco with nothing but 
bank tapes.  She knew he'd thought that may have been his last chance to get 
hard evidence of his beliefs just as she knew coming up empty had to be one 
of the more crushing disappointments in his life.  He'd been so close and it 
had been taken from him just as they'd earlier taken the tools away to do 
his work when they'd shut down their office and sent her back to Quantico.
	They'd at least assigned her back to her old position, something she was 
trained for.  But they'd put Mulder on meaningless, tedious cases.  
Punishment cases really, far below his talents and worth as they tried to 
break him.  She'd feared that the loss of the tapes would be a lethal blow 
to his spirit.  But she'd underestimated his resolve.  He'd gotten past the 
frustrating setbacks, determined that they wouldn't grind him down.
	"I may not have the X-Files, Scully, but I still have my work," he'd 
said to her resolutely.  But then a moment later, he'd softly added, "and 
I've still got you."
	He'd said it so quietly, as though the realization had just occurred to 
him.  It had been the first time he'd ever really acknowledged to her face 
that he knew her to be his ally.  With Mulder, she'd learned to rely on her 
gut feelings to determine what he was thinking and she'd become very good at 
it, but his simple words had brought tears to her eyes on her drive home.
	During their time together, other words had passed between them, at 
times stubborn & bitter.  There were times when they'd hurt each other, both 
accidentally and intentionally.  In her heart, she would always remember the 
look in his eyes, as she'd shut the door on the quarantine room in that ice-
station in Alaska.  The betrayal on his face cut her so deep, she thought 
she'd literally start bleeding right there.  In her mind, she knew she'd 
done the logical thing, the rational thing, and the right thing - And never 
before had any decision she'd made felt so unconditionally wrong.
	She'd sat outside that room for hours as miserable as she'd ever been in 
her life, knowing Mulder was feeling utterly alone, scared and abandoned by 
her.  She'd not expected him to understand her reasons for her actions, not 
expected him to ever trust her, and not expected him to forgive her.  But he 
had.  He'd said to her, "I *want* to trust you" and he'd put it behind them, 
never once throwing in back in her face.
	Alaska had been a turning point for her.  She knew that she could never 
again allow her natural instincts to be totally overruled by cold logic and 
that she would have to find a way to meld the two opposing factors.  She 
struggled with that war everyday but she would rather live with that 
struggle than ever see that look in Mulder's eyes again.
	On the day they'd met, he'd asked her, "when convention and science 
offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a 
plausibility?"  In the last two years, she'd discovered the answer was yes.  
As the layers of conspiracy piled on, his once solitary quest had become 
*theirs*.  The more she saw, the more she questioned and the more she 
realized that the fantastic might, in some cases, be the only explanation 
she would be able to deduce.  It was so...so.... Perhaps the word she was 
searching for was schizophrenic.  Looking up, Scully she suddenly realized 
she was in the abnormal psychology section.  Maybe the truth was in there, 
she thought wryly.
	The real truth of the matter was that she loved the man, even though he 
drove her fucking nuts sometimes.
	She loved that there was nothing half-hearted in Mulder's feelings; he 
was open to his own emotions in a way she rarely allowed herself to be, he 
allowed himself to *feel* the extremes in a way that she was unaccustomed to 
and it both frightened and fascinated her.
	She seen him shake with rage and with tears of despair.  She'd seen him 
consumed with bitter disappointment and frustration.  She'd seen him be 
self-centered, selfish and arrogant.  She'd seen him be gentle with children 
and compassionate to victims.  He was deeply suspicious of his superiors, 
never thinking to hide it and he was incapable of suffering fools gladly.  
On rare, rare occasion, she'd even heard him laugh with genuine happiness 
and not the sarcastic glibness she was more accustomed to.  He was both 
tough on her and fiercely protective to a fault.
	Along the way, she'd also sensed his craving for her although it was an 
unspoken topic between them.  But it was there, just as hers was.
	The first time she realized he felt what she did was shortly after she'd 
joined the X-Files.  They'd been sitting closely side-by-side as he showed 
her something on his computer.  His physicality beckoned to her and she'd 
used his distraction with whatever he was showing her to study him closely & 
openly.  As his voice soothed from the background, she'd surreptitiously 
breathed in his scent and noted the nape of his graceful neck in particular.  
She took close stock of that tiny dark mark on his smooth cheek, the one she 
had this insane longing to touch her lips to.  Fearing she might act on the 
impulse, she moved shifted her gaze slightly and she noticed something she 
hadn't before.
	Mulder had a pierced ear.
	There was something so incongruous about that discovery that she'd  
smiled and leaned in to look more closely.  However, Mulder chose that 
moment to turn to say something to her and they nearly bumped noses.  Their 
eyes locked together and he was clearly startled to find her so close.  
Their faces lingered mere inches from each other and other all movement 
froze.  Neither blinked and she saw the change in his face as he searched 
her eyes for something - permission perhaps.  She could see the tiny gold 
flakes in the green hazel of his eyes.  Scully saw Mulder swallow hard as 
they could each feel the other's slow breath against their lips and the 
moment stretched on as the only sound in the room was her thudding heart, 
surely he could hear it.  All she would have to do is move forward two 
inches and take what she wanted.
	But she hadn't, she'd chickened out completely.
	"You have a pierced ear," she said instead, breaking the bond as she 
leaned back slowly into the safety of her own personal space, feeling 
absurdly pleased that she didn't stammer.  "I've never seen you wear an 
earring."
	Mulder blinked out of his trance and nodded slowly, never once dropping 
his gaze from hers as he too leaned back slowly.  "I don't wear the diamond 
drop in the office, the FBI tends to frown on that," he said after a long 
pause, but there was no smart-ass grin as would have usually accompanied 
such a comment.
	"How long have you had that?" she babbled, but really wondering if she'd 
been any more successful at covering the truth in her eyes than he had.
	"It was something I did back in school."
	"Oxford?"
	Mulder nodded again and after a moment more he turned back to the 
computer screen, launched into a monologue on his findings on the case and 
clearly closing any further discussion on the subject that had piqued her 
interest.
	Both the closed subject and the unrealized kiss had played in her mind 
for days and she'd been left with the certain knowledge that he'd wanted her 
to kiss him as much as she'd wanted to.  But she at the same time, she was 
also left wondering if his reasons for not acting on the moment were the 
same as hers.  Probably not, for their individual experiences in the world 
before they'd met had been vastly dissimilar.  Each of them had brought very 
different baggage along on their journey together.
	Scully didn't need Mulder's educational training to understand that most 
of her life, she tried to gain her father's approval, never realizing until 
after he'd died that she'd always had it.  She also knew that in some ways 
she'd substituted Mulder for her father.  His approval was deeply important 
to her because he was the only man she'd ever respected as much as she'd 
respected her father.
	But her father's death had also shown her a valuable lesson.  She'd 
learned that feelings didn't always need the validation of being spoken 
aloud to be real, they merely needed to be felt.  Her father, for whatever 
reason, hadn't said the words that she'd thought she'd needed to hear.  
Working with Mulder had taught her to trust what she *felt* as much as what 
she saw or heard.  When she finally stopped turning away from her feelings, 
she'd realized that she'd had her father's approval all along.  Even though 
she was scared to believe in it all, Mulder had given her that gift of 
trusting her own insight and he'd unknowingly freed her a lifetime of 
unrelenting questions.  She only wished she could help to free him the same 
way.
	Her natural love for Mulder made her wish she could erase all his past 
hurts and disappointments.  Yet, at the same time, she was fully conscious 
of the truth that the painful experiences of Mulder's past had combined to 
make the man she loved *into* the man she loved.  Had his past been 
different, he would not have become the singular man he was.  He would be 
merely ordinary, he would be average, he would not be..Mulder.
	She had to stop and remind herself of the difficulty of Being Mulder 
from time to time.  He could be so driven, so single-minded and even 
arrogant that he could lose sight of the more reasonable possibilities and 
she'd begin to lose patience.  Her aggravation would begin to rise to 
intolerable levels, but then she would step back and recall what being 
Mulder entailed.  She would remember that he had every good reason to be the 
way he was.
	For Mulder, all semblance of an ordinary family life died abruptly the 
night his eight-year-old sister Samantha disappeared while in his care and 
it was never resurrected.  Mulder had suffered for its demise more than 
anyone else had for he'd been completely unable to account for what happened 
to her.
	Scully could only imagine what it must have been like for the boy Mulder 
had been.  He would have been harshly and relentlessly interrogated by 
disbelieving law enforcement officials.  He would have had to face the 
questions, whispers and looks from incredulous family members, neighbors & 
friends.  She wondered what it must have been like to have had to return to 
school in a community where people just didn't disappear without a trace, 
where no one have believed that he didn't know what happened or rather, 
didn't remember what happened.  Scully knew the thoughtless cruelty of 
children, knew the torment and ostracization that they were capable of.
	It must have been an ordeal such as she could only imagine and one that 
Mulder had had to face alone with no support.  For in a very true sense, 
Mulder also became an orphan at age 12.  First he'd lost his baby sister to 
God knows what and then he'd lost his parents by their own choice.  From 
what little Scully had been able to ascertain, it seemed that Mulder's 
parents, instead of cherishing & loving their remaining child all the more, 
had done little of either.  Mulder, in fact, had received the brunt of their 
blame and indifference towards each other.  Scully's heart ached for both 
the little boy who'd been abandoned so cruelly and for the man who still 
searched so desperately for answers.
	As a child, he would not have known of the conspiracies and lies they 
knew of now.  No, Mulder would have only known that his sister had been lost 
while entrusted to his care and no matter how much he wanted to, how much he 
tried to, he could not offer any answers or explanations.  It wasn't until 
1989, at age 28, when Mulder first underwent regressive hypnotherapy 
treatments that he finally recovered any memory of that night.  What he'd 
remembered had set him on the course he was on now.  No matter how fantastic 
that answer might be, she knew he clung to it partly because it held his 
*only* explanation for what happened that night.  It became his only chance 
for salvation from the guilt, responsibility and sense of failure that fate 
had imposed upon a 12-year old boy.	
	When she'd first seen the poster in Mulder's office that proclaimed, "I 
want to believe," she'd assumed that he'd meant that he wanted to believe in 
the existence of extraterrestrial life.  But after listening to the tapes of 
his hypnotherapy sessions, she realized that she'd been very wrong in her 
initial assumption.
	She'd come to understand that what Mulder wanted to believe in was the 
promise made by the voice he'd heard in his head the night his sister 
disappeared.  That voice had promised him that his sister would be returned 
unharmed someday.  He wanted to believe in that elusive promise when all the 
conventional wisdom in the world would tell him not to.  Scully knew in his 
heart that there were times when Mulder doubted the voice's promise, even 
doubted the existence of the voice itself.  But it was all he had and 
because she loved him, as much as the possibility of that voice didn't fit 
anywhere into her scheme of the world, Scully would die before she'd tell 
Mulder to give up his hope in that promise.  Because she loved him, she was 
determined to see that that promise was kept to him.

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


Mulder's Apartment
Alexandria, Virginia.
	
	Mulder could now honestly say he was alert.  The shower, hot coffee and 
cold ravioli had revived him.  He'd expanded his knowledge of the world by 
reading the sports section.  He'd even managed to dump a load of laundry 
into the washer and dress himself in jeans and turtleneck sweater.
	OK, a few more hours shot down - Now what the hell was he gonna do?
	He thought briefly about calling Scully with the excuse that he wanted 
to talk about the case they were wrapping up, but then he remembered that 
she'd mentioned that she had plans with her sister today.  Scully's family 
both amazed and discomforted him.  They actually seemed to *like* spending 
time together.  It was very weird.
	He remembered the first evidence he'd seen of this phenomenon.  It was 
just before Christmas in 1993.  He'd stopped at Scully's to pick her up on 
their way to the airport for an assignment.  He'd been early and as he 
waited for her to finish packing, he'd looked at Christmas cards on her 
mantle with a kind of amazement.  Scully actually got Christmas cards from 
her family, he thought, with like, real handwriting in them.  Seeing a 
particularly beautiful card he picked it up and saw it was from Scully's 
mother.
	Mulder had taken an immediate liking to Mrs. Scully, perhaps because she 
was the mother of the woman he'd come to love or perhaps because for some 
strange reason, Mrs. Scully seemed to *like him*.  That had surprised him a 
bit and he'd wondered what the deal was with that.  He knew that he wasn't 
exactly the kind of person that people immediately warmed to because of his 
sweet nature and even temperament.
	Inside the card, she'd written her daughter a affectionate, warm note; 
telling her she loved her, that she was proud of her, how much she was 
looking forward to having her family come home soon Christmas dinner in a 
few weeks.
	Mulder had stared at the note, re-reading it several times, suddenly 
feeling a little blue.  Wow - He bet Scully's Christmas present didn't 
arrive by UPS on the day after Christmas either, he thought.
	"What is it Mulder?"  Scully had returned to the living room and noticed 
his pensive look as she placed her bag by the door.
	Mulder had covered his unusual outbreak of sentiment quickly as he 
placed the card back on the Mantle.  "Just looking at the note from your Mom 
- Hey, you sure have her fooled."  He immediately regretted his sarcasm.  
Why the hell did he say that he wondered, that wasn't what he'd meant at 
all.  "It's just nice that she says those things to you," he amended.
	Scully had smiled, seeming to understand him as she usually did.  "I'm 
sure you'll be getting one too, Mulder.  Mom does like to spread it around.  
'Tis the season to gush in the Scully family, you know."
	"Ah well, you see that's where our family holiday traditions vary - In 
the Mulder clan it's the season to be constipated."  Scully had laughed 
quietly at his joke but as she'd predicted, when they'd arrived back in town 
a few days later, he'd found a card from Mrs. Scully waiting for him with 
all his other mail.  In it, she'd graciously invited him to Christmas dinner 
if he wasn't busy with his own family.  He'd laughed aloud at that - not a 
problem Mrs. Scully.  She'd written something about how often Dana spoke so 
highly of him.  Mulder had smiled rather insensibly at the words and 
wondered desperately about what Scully had said.  Jesus, I'm like some dweeb 
in high school, but he still wanted to know what she'd said.
	He hadn't been able to bring himself to go to the family dinner that 
year, but the invitation extended by Mrs. Scully had meant a lot to him.  
He'd received another card from her this last Christmas.  Same kind words, 
this time thanking him for being there to support her during her daughter's 
disappearance and for his efforts to bring her back.  They were words of 
thanks Mulder didn't feel he'd earned, but he knew they were sincerely 
meant.  Mrs. Scully had extended another dinner invitation and again, he'd 
declined.  But he'd kept that card also; it was still in the back of the top 
drawer of his desk.  Someday, he might be up for the family thing on 
Christmas, but not yet.  Maybe when he and Scully were..were.
	The sound of a large truck rattling down the street broke into his 
reverie, causing him to return to the present, irritated with himself.  When 
he and Scully were what?  He didn't even know what the hell were they *now*.  
What he and Scully were fit no known category neatly.  His only comfort in 
the matter was the fact that he knew that not being able to categorize what 
they were probably drove the ever-analytical Scully more nuts than it did 
him.  Mulder took a mild, malicious pleasure in that knowledge.
	He sighed.  No, he couldn't call Scully, even with a lame excuse.  She 
wouldn't be home yet.  *Although*, his little voice enticed, she did say 
they were coming to Alexandria to a restaurant in Old Town.  Granted, Scully 
hadn't asked him to join them but on the other hand, she hadn't really *not 
invited* him either.  He briefly pondered the ramifications of accidentally 
running into them there.  There was a slight chance that Scully might buy 
it, after all, she still believed in coincidence, whereas he knew better.  
Glancing at the clock he realized it was probably too late for that and that 
he'd missed his window of opportunity.  He sighed.  He'd missed a hell of 
many windows of opportunity, he thought, so what's one more?
	Besides, as much as he wanted to see Scully, the thought of spending 
time with her sister Melissa was just a little too unnerving.  He'd met 
Melissa Scully for the first time three months ago, standing over her 
sister's hospital bed.  She'd told him that Scully had told her not to call 
him Fox.  He'd been too preoccupied at that moment to really ponder that 
statement, but later he'd thought about it a lot.
	How the hell had Melissa known that?  How had she known to come to him 
that night a few days later and slap him up aside the head over Scully?  
Although he was an absolute believer in psychic abilities,  he wasn't sure 
if that was what Melissa had or not.  Whatever it was, she was just someone 
who saw and understood just a little too damn much for his comfort.  
Basically, between Scully's visions of her dead father, Melissa's 
spiritualism and their mother's pre-cognitive dreams, there was something 
just a little too damn spooky about the female side of the Scully family.
	A restless feeling nagged at him.  He needed to get out from the close 
confines of his apartment; he needed to get moving somewhere.  Normally, 
when such a mood struck, he would go running, but he wasn't quite up to a 
long run yet.  After some more internal debate, he decided to go for a walk, 
after all, you never knew whom or what you might run into.  Mulder yanked 
his long black winter coat off the rack and headed out the door.

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

Simon's Used Bookstore
Alexandria, Virginia 
	Scully had a restless feeling; she'd now looked at virtually every row 
the bookstore had to offer.  Who would have thought there could be twenty 
yards of books on electric trains?  Not to mention that wandering wasn't 
doing anything to get her mind off of Mulder.  Indeed, everywhere she 
turned, she kept running into things that reminded her of him.  Even while 
in the biology section, she'd found a whole row of books on worms.  She 
laughed a bit thinking she could have used them a while back while Mulder 
was tracking down that flukeworm.  As she remembered that case, she'd 
remembered that was when Mulder had told her that he was thinking of leaving 
the FBI.
	His words had literally knocked the breath out of her.  It was bad 
enough that they'd been separated as partners, but the thought of him gone 
for good had rocked her.  He'd told her that was becoming clear that they 
weren't going to let them work as partners and the hope that that would 
change was the only reason he could think to stay with the FBI.
	Later, she'd tried to tell him that she didn't want him to go.  It had 
come out all wrong.  She'd babbled something about how she hoped that he 
knew that she would consider it more than a professional loss if he were to 
leave the FBI.  It had come out sounding so completely lame that she'd been 
mortified.  Mulder had merely looked at her blankly and nodded slightly.  
Gee, she told herself contemptuously, he'd probably been *so underwhelmed* 
by that persuasive outpouring of emotion, that he didn't know what to say.  
God, I'm just *such* a loser sometimes, she thought.
	It wasn't until Mulder had been partnered with that bastard Krycek, that 
it had finally dawned on Scully that he was really no really no longer her 
partner.  As much as that hurt, she also realized that action had also 
lifted the professional barrier between them.  As far as Scully was 
concerned, their professional relationship had been the least of the 
restrains that had separated them but still, it had been there and now it 
was gone.
	After her pathetic little speech, she'd started to do a little better at 
communicating her feelings.  She'd played with him softly and seductively on 
the phone about his new partner, telling him with her words that it must be 
nice to have someone who didn't poke holes in all his theories, but her tone 
really asking if he missed her.  In response, she could almost feel his 
smile and surprise over the phone line.  He'd responded with his voice 
lowered to that soft growl as he teased her back, his slightly stammering 
words telling her that he didn't know how he'd put up with her so long, but 
his tone telling her that he'd loved every minute of it and that he missed 
her.
	But before she could act any further, she'd run out of time.  Duane 
Barry, among the so many other things he'd taken from her, had taken Mulder 
away from her too.
	"Dana!"
	Scully was startled out of her thought when she heard Melissa scream her 
name and she went running back to where Melissa was only to discover that 
she wasn't in the paperback section anymore.  Scully looked about 
frantically, searching, but she couldn't see through the tall shelves and 
stacks of books.
	"Melissa?  Melissa where are you?" she called.
	She heard Melissa's voice come over the shelves.  "I'm over here."  
Scully relaxed a bit, nothing appeared to be terribly wrong.
	"Where are you?" she called again.
	"Here."  Melissa supplied helpfully.
	"WHERE here?"  Scully yelled in irritation.
	"Against the very back wall on the right.  Get over here.  Now!"
	Scully ran down the main aisle to the back wall where the used magazines 
were stacked by category.  There she found again found Melissa sitting on 
the floor in front of tall stack of magazines, clutching a one to her chest.  
She appeared to have all her body parts and no one was holding a knife to 
her throat.  I swear, Scully thought, if she screamed like that because she 
saw a cute purse in a 10-year old catalog, I'm gonna kill her
	"What, what is it?"
	"You have to see this - I can't fucking believe it."  Melissa was 
giggling like a 12-year old.
	"See WHAT Melissa?"
	Melissa held up a magazine in triumph.  It was an ancient edition of  
Playgirl sporting a stunning young surfer on the cover.  Jesus Christ, 
Scully thought in exasperation, she'd scared the shit out of her over that?  
"Melissa, for God's sake, it hasn't been that long," Scully hissed, "I do 
remember what a nude man looks like!"
	Melissa grinned and shook her head.  "Not this one, I bet."  She opened 
the magazine and held it up as Scully leaned over to focus in.  A very young 
and very naked Mulder stared back at her.
	Scully screamed.  It was most definitely a girly scream.

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


Old Town Shopping District
Alexandria, Virginia

	Mulder had been wandering for quite some time.  The cold brisk day was 
refreshing and he felt physically better now that he was outside the 
confines of his apartment.  In spite of his best intentions, he'd found 
himself walking down the street where the restaurant Scully had said she'd 
be at was.  He knew this part of the city well, just a few blocks over there 
was a used bookstore that he visited often.  Feeling like a total blockhead, 
but too far gone to care, he'd casually walked by the restaurant a few 
times, surreptitiously looking in the window.  By the third pass, it was 
clear that Scully wasn't in there, although he was sure the patrons by the 
window thought him a little strange.
	He stood on the corner a few moments trying to decide what to do and 
where to go as he scanned the parked cars on the street, looking for 
Scully's.  Of course, Melissa could have driven, he remembered.  Of course, 
he could always pass her a note in study hall on Monday too, he thought 
ruefully, his overt adolescent behavior making him somewhat foolish even as 
he indulged it.  Why was he as such a loss for words around her?  When they 
fought, he always had plenty to say.  When they were in danger, he had no 
problems talking.  But when it was just *them*, talking about personal 
matters he almost squirmed.
	He remembered when he'd been partnered with that rat-bastard Krycek.  
He'd been consulting Scully on his cell phone when his new partner walked 
up.  Scully heard and suddenly her expressive voice turned soft & seductive 
on him as she'd teased him about how it must be nice to not have a partner 
who second-guessed his every move.  He'd actually stammered as he told her 
that he hadn't known how he'd put up with her so long, but really longing 
telling her that he wouldn't have traded a moment of it.  Then a silence 
came over the line; a silence where he should have said something else, he 
*could* have said something else because, after all, she wasn't his partner 
anymore and it wouldn't have been in appropriate in the least.  He'd had no 
professional excuse for his hesitation, only personal ones and so he hadn't 
said what he wanted to.  She'd opened the door and he'd just stood there 
even though he knew it probably wouldn't be slammed in his face.  Then, just 
a few days later, she'd been abducted.  God, I'm *such* a loser sometimes, 
he thought.
	He was startled out of his reverie when someone asked him if he was lost 
because he'd been rooted to the same spot for quite some time.  Mulder shook 
his head and began walking again.  He was lost all right, but just not quite 
the way the passerby had thought.  He continued his stroll along the quaint 
brick streets and historical buildings, winding his way towards the bay 
front.  A wander along the many parks along Oronoco Bay might be the thing 
he needed to get his mind off Scully.
	As he walked, he stopped to look in the windows of Simon's Used 
Bookstore.  Mulder had frequented the store for years and knew the owner 
Simon, a long-retired DC cop, pretty well.  As he did for all his regular 
customers, the old man kept a eye out for new acquisitions that would be of 
interest to them so he would call Mulder from time to time when something 
new on UFOs or other paranormal phenomena would come in.  Mulder considered 
going in for a bit, but he knew that Simon would want to talk.  Once the old 
man had discovered that Mulder worked for the FBI, Simon had apparently 
decided they were comrades and he would regale Mulder with long stories 
about getting the bad guys.  Lately, being from the old school, Simon often 
teased Mulder about having a woman for a partner.  He kept asking him when 
he was going to bring his "lady friend" in.  Mulder would explain that she 
was a partner and not a lady friend.  Simon would just smile and offer up 
some free and unsolicited advice on Mulder's personal life.  Most of the 
time, Mulder didn't mind, in fact he was kind of fond of the old guy, but 
today he just didn't want to deal with it so he moved on past the window.
	"Fox!"  Sighing inwardly, Mulder turned to see Simon standing in doorway 
of his store.  He'd obviously seen him though the windows.  "Fox, you're not 
coming in?" the old man asked as he shuffled over toward him on the 
sidewalk.
	"Hi Simon.  No, I can't today.  I have to be somewhere."
	"Always in a hurry, Fox."
	"Not always, Simon.  Just today."
	"Off to see your lady friend?"  Simon smiled as he teased the younger 
man.
	Don't I wish, Mulder thought as he played along with a half-hearted 
smile.  "Nope.  Not today, Simon.  She ditched me."
	"What, ditch a good looking guy like you?  Women - go figure!"  Simon 
retorted.  "Come on in, I've got a new shipment you can look through."
	Mulder begged off.  "Simon, really, I really can't right now - but save 
them for me." 
	Suddenly from deep inside the store a playful scream emanated followed 
by some loud giggling and the sound of crashing books.  Simon looked at 
Mulder in exasperation.  "Damn kids, they're always getting into something.  
Well, take care Fox, you look tired.  Get that lady partner of yours to take 
better care of you."  With that, the old man turned and headed back in the 
shop to go make some teenaged girls get back in line.
	"You take care too, Simon," Mulder said eternally grateful for fate 
stepping in and taking Simon's attention.  Mulder moved on, crossing the 
street quickly before Simon could come back and turned the corner, heading 
on to the waterfront again.  As he walked, he thought about his "lady 
friend" and about how he would love to get her to take care of him and about 
how he would love to take care of her.  Forever.
	Yes, this was a *great* idea, he thought ironically; this walk was just 
doing wonders for getting his mind off of Scully.

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


Simon's Used Bookstore
Alexandria, Virginia.
	
	Upon hearing the screams from the back of his store, the owner came 
running.  As he came around the corner, he was surprised to see two grown 
women instead of the teenagers he was expecting.  Scully, who had knocked 
over a stack of books as she'd snatched the magazine from her sister's 
hands, instinctively hid it behind her back as though the old man was going 
take it away from her.
	"What the hell is going on here?" he asked in irritation after 
determining that neither woman was bleeding or being held at gunpoint.
	"I saw a mouse?"  Melissa offered lamely as she quickly went to work 
stacking the books back up.
	"Lady, I got real customers and since, " he looked pointedly at Scully, 
"we already got to hear all about your sex life a little earlier, would you 
two mind moving along?"
	Melissa finished replacing the last book.  "Pay the nice man for the 
magazine, Dana," she said with as much dignity as she could muster.  They 
followed the man to the counter, paid for the magazine and almost ran out 
onto the sidewalk.  Once safely outside, they sat on a bench and quickly 
turned back to page 41.  They looked at the magazine, looked at each other 
and both screamed again.
	"How did you find this Melissa?"
	"I was just digging through the whole stack and it was just there, about 
the 9th or 10th one I looked at."  Scully looked over at her sister 
pointedly.  "I was looking for an article," Melissa insisted.
	Yeah right, Scully thought turning back to the magazine.  Oh God, oh 
God, oh God, her mind chanted in mischievous and completely adolescent glee.  
Naked Mulder.  Scully flipped the magazine closed and looked at the date on 
the cover.  Mulder would have been 21 or so.
	The photo wasn't one of the professional model shots; it was in the 
section where people sent in home photos of their favorite naked husbands or 
boyfriends.  It was absolutely, positively Mulder, clear down to the mole on 
his cheek.  The caption below said, "A Yank at Oxford."  It was a stunningly 
sensuous photograph in black and white, large, clear, sharp and leaving no 
doubts as to Mulder's religious background.
	"Holy shit, what a babe," came Melissa's elegant assessment.  "That 
could be in a museum."
	Scully nodded in agreement.  Mulder did look like a work of art, he was 
sprawled on his back on a huge bed filled with crumpled white sheets and 
pillows, his head rested on one arm behind his head and the other the other 
curled gracefully over his flat belly.  One leg bent upwards and the other 
stretched out.  Sunlight streamed in to the picture from somewhere, creating 
shadows and highlights across his skin.  His dark hair was longer than it 
was now, but one strand still flopped over his forehead in that same manner 
that had teased Scully for the last two years.  The rest was tousled and 
spilled down the side of his neck and over the pillow under his head.  
Stupidly, she reached out and touched it in the photograph, noticing as she 
did so that he was wearing a small hoop earring.  Her eyes moved down the 
lean body, taking in every rounded curve and flat plane...
	"Who the hell would have thought a body like *that* lurked under that 
boring gray FBI suit?"  Melissa asked peering over her shoulder.
	I knew, Scully thought as she continued her slow perusal.  I knew.  I 
knew just by the way he moved, walked, and wore his clothes that he was this 
beautiful.  Mulder's body had been something of much idle speculation in her 
mind.  She'd been careful to be covert in her observations of him ever since 
that incident on their second case together.  She'd been sitting on the 
chair in her dingy hotel room as Mulder stood at the window, gazing out as 
he talked.  As she listened, her eyes had wandered down from his profile, to 
where his hands were placed on his hips as he shifted his weight to one leg.  
She took in the sight of his firm, rounded ass encased in blue jeans.  She 
was just thinking that it was really quite impressive, when he'd turned back 
to her suddenly and she'd raised her eyes quickly.  He hadn't said anything, 
but she was never sure if he'd caught her looking or not.
	  While it was true that in the last two years she'd seen him in all 
various states of undress, somehow, while she was administering cardiac 
shock or trying to keep his blood from coagulating it just hadn't seemed 
like the appropriate time to take full inventory.  The photograph simply 
confirmed what she'd suspected and put together in one package what she'd 
only seen bits and pieces of as she returned to her careful perusal.
	Mulder's chest had wonderful definition with that beautiful hollow over 
his heart where a hand could be perfectly placed to feel its beating.  Just 
a smattering a chest hair led down to the delineated muscles of his stomach 
and deep set naval.  The photo revealed long, lean, but hard-muscled legs, 
the thighs solid and merging into slim hips which then segued to another 
downy trail leading to the proverbial Holy Grail nestled in a courser bed of 
hair and lying in well-endowed repose like its owner.  That's just as well, 
Scully thought with a smile.  A photo of Mulder fully erect may have caused 
her to leave a puddle in the street.
	"Well, it looks like God gifted Mulder with both a great mind and more 
than enough of the essential equipment to, ah, perpetuate his gene pool."  
Melissa interrupted her thoughts again with a lascivious tone.
	"Melissa!"  Scully lifted her eyes to glare at her sister.  "Do you mind  
- I think I'm having a epiphany here."
	"Is that what they call them now?"  Melissa asked with a laugh.  
"Besides, I was trying to couch it in terms you would appreciate, I would 
have just said he's really well hung to anyone else!"
	Scully closed her eyes and dropped her head with a sigh.  This is what 
my life has come to, she thought.  Come Monday, I'll have to sit across the 
desk from Mulder and try to look at him without the phase, "well hung," 
springing to mind.  Of course, the photograph only confirmed her 
speculations in that area too, after all, she hadn't been *that* busy while 
in her Doctor Mode.  Suddenly, she had guilt attack; I'm sitting here 
evaluating the merits of my partner's cock like it's a case file, she 
thought.  Scully suddenly closed the magazine.
	"Excuse me, but I wasn't through looking!"  Melissa protested.
	"I feel like I'm invading his privacy," she said.
	"What privacy?  It's not like you're peeking though his bathroom window.  
Obviously Mulder knew that quite a few women and probably a few men were 
going to get a gander when it was published."
	Scully nodded in agreement, but still somehow feeling like she was being 
intrusive.  The photograph itself didn't bother her in the least, it was 
beautiful and she found nothing vulgar about it - She would have loved to 
have such a photo of the man she loved looking at her like that.  No - It 
was the *publication* of the photo that confused her.  Somehow, someway, 
this kind of smug and egotistical exhibition seemed very out of character 
from what she knew, or at least what she'd thought she knew of her partner.
	It was true that Mulder never failed to miss a sexual innuendo or a 
double-entendre and judging from his rather extensive magazine and video 
collection, he was certainly not a neophyte to sexual innovations.  However, 
even knowing all that, in her mind there had always been something 
charmingly, well... nerdy about Mulder.  Certainly not uninitiated or 
unpracticed sexually, but still somehow guileless.  But then again, maybe 
again she didn't know him at all.  This was from a long time ago, long 
before she'd even heard of Fox Mulder or the X-Files.  Back when he was a 
"Yank at Oxford," she was reminded as she flipped open the magazine again.
	I wonder what possessed him, she thought, examining the photo in detail.
	The expression in Mulder's eyes back then was far less wounded than the 
eyes she loved so well now.  She knew that change had less to do with 
physical youth and more to do with what those eyes had seen in the ensuing 
years.  She noticed again the manner in which he was gazing at the camera; 
his sleepy, soft gaze turned towards the camera as though someone had called 
his name and he'd awakened from a very good dream indeed.  His expression 
was both seductive and well satiated, his full lips parted slightly in the 
beginnings of a smile meant for the person taking the picture.
	The person taking the picture.  The light finally went on in Scully's 
brain.
	Phoebe Green.
	Of course, she thought.  Phoebe is what, or rather who, had possessed 
him - He'd loved her enough to pose for the thing to please her.  Scully 
just knew that if Phoebe had asked, Mulder would have let that snotty, upper 
class, egotistical bitch take and publish this picture just as she was sure 
that Phoebe would have liked to show off her trophy.  That beautiful gaze, 
that almost shy smile was meant for Phoebe Green.  
	*Shit*.
	Scully was immediately transported into a foul mood, even as her heart 
constricted a bit.  The knowledge that one point in his life, Mulder was 
comfortable and light-hearted with another woman enough to do this just 
somehow bugged the ever living crap out of her as the jealously began to 
seethe within.  I can't even get him to stop ditching me, she thought, and 
yet for Phoebe he was ripping his clothes off and lying in splendid repose 
for her to show to the world.  In fact, the more she thought about it, the 
more it really pissed her off and irrationally she was focusing that anger 
at Mulder.  Phoebe, she thought in disgust, she should have known.
	"Who's Phoebe?"
	Melissa's question interrupted her thoughts and Scully hadn't realized 
that she'd spoken the name aloud.  Or had, she?  She never knew with 
Melissa.  Suddenly feeling very agitated; Scully closed the magazine and 
handed it back to Melissa.  She stood up from the bench and started walking.  
She needed to get moving, get some activity going besides looking at the 
pictures forming in her head of Mulder and Phoebe.
	"Dana, what it?"  When she didn't answer or turn back, Melissa got up 
and followed her down the street.
	Melissa allowed her sister her silence as they wandered the brick 
streets, heading towards the bay and the parks.  Eventually, they ended up 
near the children's playground with the tall slides and big swings left from 
a time when cities still felt safe about letting children play in public 
parks without fear of parental lawsuit.  The park was nearly deserted due to 
the cold weather.
	Scully hadn't spoken a word or lifted her eyes from the ground as she 
walked.
	"Dana, what's going in your head?"  Melissa asked finally.
	Scully shook her head just slightly, feeling oddly close to frustrated 
tears and she wasn't sure she could make Melissa understand if she didn't 
fully understand herself.  It was well over a year ago that she'd first 
learned about Phoebe Green.  She still had the picture in her mind of Phoebe 
in Mulder's arms as they'd danced, of when he'd kissed her.  She hadn't been 
meant to see that, it was a private moment and she'd just happened into to 
it.  However, it had disturbed her more than she would have thought and it 
had been a long time fading in her mind, but it had never left completely.  
The problem was now she had a new picture in her mind.  Now, she was 
imagining Phoebe and Mulder together all those years ago at Oxford when this 
picture was taken, back when he was the kind of person who would let someone 
love him.  She was imagining what she missed, missing what she'd never had.
	Melissa saw the varied emotions crossing her sister's face and was 
worried.  "Dana, talk to me!"  she finally demanded impatiently, touching 
her arm.  "Look, I know how you feel about Mulder, you know you can't hide 
that from me.  So talk to me God damn it!  What's the story here with Mulder 
and this Phoebe?"
	Scully took a bit of time answering.  "Phoebe was Mulder's lover while 
he was at Oxford," she finally said.  "She's the one who took this picture, 
I know it."
	"What makes you say that?"
	"Because he loved her, because I think he would have done anything to 
please her."
	"You don't know that," Melissa said practically.
	Scully turned to her sister, exasperated at begin second-guessed on what 
she knew.  "Look at the damn photo Melissa.  Look at it!  Tell me I'm wrong 
about how he felt about her."
	Melissa looked again at the magazine, this time concentrating on 
Mulder's face for the first time.  She shook her head slightly - She 
couldn't honestly tell Dana she was wrong.  She slid the magazine back into 
the bag and looked at her sister.  "So what do you know about this Phoebe?"
	"I met her when she blew into town last year.  She and Mulder had 
attended Oxford together.  She's an agent with Scotland Yard now and she 
requested Mulder's help on a case.  He didn't seem at all happy to see her 
again and I'd kind of teased him at first because it was obvious they had 
had a past of some sort, but I hadn't realized the extent of it."  Scully 
was quiet a moment before she continued.  "I had the impression she was the 
one who'd broken it off, I overheard him tell her that she'd driven a stake 
through his heart.  But Phoebe was all over him though."
	"So do you think she was on the prowl again?"
	"I thought so at first, but later it became more obvious what she was up 
to.  Mulder had told me that Phoebe liked to play mind games and I certainly 
saw first-hand evidence of that."
	"Like what?"
	Scully shook her head as she remembered Phoebe's rather sick game.  
"Mulder went off to Oxford at an early age, but more than that, I think he 
was pretty young & raw emotionally too.  Even Mulder admitted that he'd 
gotten in over his head with her in the past.  I think their relationship 
may have been one where Mulder was constantly trying to gain her approval or 
respect, almost like she was the damn prom queen and he was the high-school 
geek that she deigned to turn her gaze to."
	Scully's voice was full of disdain as she continued.  "Phoebe called 
Mulder in on a arson case knowing full well that he had deep fear of fire.  
She very deliberately pulled him into a situation where he was likely to 
falter.  It was almost like she could use Mulder to solve a case and amuse 
herself at the same time.  I think she did it because she wanted to see him 
struggle and fail."
	"Did he?"
	Her sister nodded.  "At first.  There was a fire in a hotel and he 
froze."  Scully sighed, remembering Mulder's self-recriminations.  "God 
Melissa, he was so ashamed, so angry at himself.  Later, he took control 
back on the case and saved the lives of two children, but Phoebe had already 
done her damage.  She'd already screwed him over and made him feel 
worthless."
	"Jesus, she sounds like quite a piece of work."
	"She is that," Scully agreed with contempt.
	"But why would Mulder ever even be involved with someone like that?"
	Scully shrugged, it was certainly a question she asked herself many 
times.  "I think it's as simple as he couldn't see what she really was 
because he was obsessed with trying to gain something he thought was 
unobtainable.  That's very much his nature."
	Her sister was spilling this story far too slow for Melissa's taste.  
"So, you said she was coming on to him, did Mulder return her attention?"
	"I saw him kiss her.  They were dancing together and I saw him kiss her.  
It seemed almost like he was testing the waters again."
	Melissa waited for more information and when it wasn't forthcoming, she 
asked, "Well?  Did he plunge in?"
	"No."  Scully shook her head.  "We solved the case and Phoebe was gone 
as suddenly as she'd arrived."
	"So do you think he's still in love with her?"
	Scully had thought about that question a lot.  In spite of what she'd 
seen, she was confident in her conclusion.  "No," she answered honestly.  "I 
don't think he's still in love with her.  I think he finally shook her loose 
from his head."
	"Ok, he doesn't love her, she's long gone and you're here.  I'm a little 
confused as to why you're upset about her then."
	You're not the only one, Scully thought.  "It's not Phoebe herself, but 
what she left behind that bothers me.  She may be gone, but her lingering 
after-affects live on in Mulder.  I think she twisted him up so badly that 
he may never get un-kinked.
	Melissa reached out and touched her arm with a smile.  "Well, maybe 
kinky's not so bad.  You can work with it."
	Scully gave a small laugh.  Like Mulder, Melissa could always make her 
smile in spite of a black mood.  "No, kinky is not so bad," she agreed.
	"So I still don't get it  - what's the deal?"
	Scully could almost hear her sister's mind whirring away and she knew 
Melissa was gearing up to tell her the optimistic, touchy-feely obvious.  
All that bullshit romantic idealism that had so little chance for survival 
when planted in the harsh soil of Scully's real world.
	She turned to her sister with frustration and a certain sadness in her 
voice.  "The deal is, Melissa, is that just everything connected to Mulder 
scares me to death.  I'm scared that he'll never allow me to love him, or 
let me be close to him.  But you know, in a weird way, I'm also scared of 
getting what I want as much as I'm scared of not getting what I want.  I 
mean, Mulder exists in such an intense and fragile state.  It's like his 
entire world is built on a soap bubble.  His convictions are as strong as 
his doubts and he scares me because I think that it's entirely possible that 
he's a bit unstable and yet, for some reason, *I don't seem to care*!  I 
mean, sometimes I'm not sure if I love him *because* of all that he is or 
*in spite* of all that he is.  The fact that I've allowed myself to become 
so unbalanced scares me.  I mean really - who the hell am I to judge 
Mulder's stability when the reality is that I'm an equal mess who's just 
little better at hiding it."
	Scully ran out of gas with her tirade and fell silent.  She wandered 
over to one of the empty swings and sank down heavily in defeat.  Melissa 
dropped her purse and the paper bag on the nearby park bench and walked over 
to where her sister sat staring at her feet so forlornly.  She sat down on 
the adjoining swing.  "Wow - That's a lot of fucking scary," Melissa said 
with no sarcasm, just compassion.
	"Yes, indeed," Scully nodded in melancholy agreement.  "That's lots and 
lots of fucking scary." 

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


Waterfront Park
Alexandria, Virginia

	Mulder had walked virtually the entire length of the bay.  The late 
afternoon coldness of the day and the warmth of his coat had strangely 
comforted him.  He should have brought gloves, but instead made do by 
burying his hands deep in pockets of the long wool coat he wore.
	He stopped to gaze out over the water.  Mulder loved the sea, or at 
least, he liked the idea of the sea.  The reality of seasickness had made 
him realize early on that a life on the water was not going to work out for 
him, but something about its vastness and unknown depths appealed to him 
anyway.  Perhaps for the same reasons the vastness of space caught and held 
his imagination even before his sister had disappeared.  He watched a 
particularly large ship smooth by slowly to its homeport.  He didn't know 
what kind of craft it was and wished he did.  If Scully were here, she could 
tell him, he thought.
	The daughter of a naval captain, Scully knew boats.  She could name 
virtually every naval & air craft, which had impressed the hell out of him 
the first time he'd discovered it.  Of course most things about Scully 
surprised and delighted him as he discovered them.  The far-reaching bulk of 
her knowledge never ceased to amaze him.  Beyond loving her, he also took 
such pride in having her as his partner.
	It certainly hadn't started out that way.  He'd fought Scully's 
assignment to the X-Files bitterly.  When Skinner had called him in and told 
him that Blevins had decided to assign him a partner, he knew what was up.  
He knew the FBI didn't have any interest in assisting his investigations.  
There wasn't a doubt in his mind that the partner that he hadn't asked for, 
didn't want and didn't need was there to spy on him; there to find reason to 
shut him down.  So he'd decided to check her out before she got there in 
order to facilitate his campaign to get rid of her.
	Everything he discovered about Dr. Dana Katherine Scully intrigued him.
	She'd been a navy brat and Mulder knew that meant she'd moved often as a 
child.  That she would have had to learn to deal with new towns, new people 
and new schools, always leaving the familiar behind.  She'd earned her 
undergraduate degree in physics, graduating with honors.  In spite of 
himself, he'd had to admire that she'd even had the temerity to re-write 
Einstein in her senior thesis.  He'd read the whole damn thing, although he 
hadn't understood a hell of a lot of it.
	From there, she'd apparently thought a degree in medicine was her next 
best move.  But instead of going into practice, she was recruited by the 
FBI; a good-old-boy outfit if ever there was one.  She'd completed her 
internship and residency and she'd excelled in everything she'd been 
assigned to.  Challenge was clearly not something this woman backed down 
from and even before he'd laid eyes on her, it was clear to Mulder that Dana 
Scully was a woman of substance.  He'd thought that it was almost too bad he 
had to get rid of her somehow as he geared himself up to repel the slight 
intruder in his world.
	But Scully was not a woman easily dismissed.  Over the past two years 
he'd occasionally seen some guy attempt to discount her simply because she 
was a woman.  He'd actually enjoyed watching her mentally slice and dice 
some poor sap who had quite mistakenly thought he'd had the upper hand 
solely on the basis he had dick.  It turned out she also wasn't half-bad at 
physically kicking someone's butt if needs be and in the end, she'd 
certainly saved his ass on more than one occasion from the tropics of Puerto 
Rico to the frozen wastelands of the North Pole.
	Mulder settled into a park bench and sipped the hot coffee he'd bought 
at Starbucks up the street.  It was pretty deserted out, just the occasional 
jogger or couple strolling by, people who had the privilege of living real 
lives.  People who didn't know what he and Scully knew.  People who didn't 
need to live and work in shadows, trying to determine what lie or truth to 
believe and struggling constantly to outwit those who sought to manipulate 
them.  Scully was good at that part of the game, he thought.  She'd 
outsmarted them all on numerous occasions, including himself.  She'd been 
the one to find him in Puerto Rico with the smallest of breadcrumbs.  
Although, to this day, he still wondered why she'd even bothered considering 
his callous behavior towards her during that time.  He'd been a selfish 
bastard; he knew that now.
	He'd been so discouraged at the closure of the X-Files project, so 
enraged at the tedious, unchallenging cases he'd been assigned.  His 
separation from Scully had depressed him more that he'd ever thought 
possible and so he'd defended himself the only way he knew how, with 
coldness and distance.
	His only excuse was that he'd been so used to being on his own that he'd 
just assumed that what had befallen them hadn't affected Scully the way it 
had affected him.  He'd been so involved in his own misery that it honestly 
hadn't occurred to him that Scully might be having difficulties too; that 
she might been feeling the same as he did about their separation and the 
shut-down of their work.  He'd just presumed that she'd moved on to her new 
assignment and had gotten back on the career track that had been derailed by 
her assignment to the X-Files
	He'd been wrong about it all, he knew that now.  Scully had quietly 
shown him he'd been wrong.  She'd come to him in that dark parking garage, 
having summoned him under false pretenses.  She'd told him that she needed 
to know how he was faring, needed to know if he was all right.  She'd pushed 
all the right buttons and she'd looked at him with such deep disquiet that 
he'd finally stepped away from his self-absorption long enough to realize 
that maybe she might be wounded by all that had happened too, that it hadn't 
happened to *just him*.  God, he really was an unbelievable ass sometimes.
	So he'd given her what she asked for; he told her of his frustrations, 
of the doubts he harbored about Samantha, of the jumbled mess that was his 
emotion state.  Scully hadn't offered any platitudes or false hopes.  With 
her soft firm voice, she'd simply insisted that he not give up, even if it 
all seemed too elusive to ever hang on to.  As they sat together in that 
dark garage, he was the one looking for the hard proof and she was the one 
encouraging a quest of faith.
	It was at that moment that he'd realized just how far they'd actually 
come together, how much each had gained from the other, how much they'd 
learned in spite of themselves.  It'd taken a long time and he'd fought it 
all the way, but it was during that time when they'd been separated as 
partners that he'd admitted to himself that he loved her.  Admitted that his 
need for her was far deeper and complex than the simple sexual attraction 
he'd also felt.  But then, before he could deal with on his realization, 
Duane Barry separated her completely from him.
	Duane Barry.  Just his name made Mulder rage in anger still.  
Rationally, he knew there'd been no way to predict that Barry would take 
Scully that night.  But even so, what remained is the fact that when his 
nightmares didn't revolve around Samantha calling out to him, they revolved 
around Scully's voice on his answering machine.  Her voice calling his name, 
begging him for help.  He'd never once, in all the time he'd known her and 
in all the situations they'd been in, heard her voice sound like that and it 
had deadened his heart as he'd listened to it.  Mulder closed his eyes, 
hardly able to stand the thought and a sweat broke out on his forehead.  He 
didn't need his Ph.D. to know that he was suffering from a kind of delayed 
stress syndrome from Scully's abduction and her equally perilous return just 
a few months ago.
	The weeks following Scully's abduction had so eerily mirrored the weeks 
following Samantha's disappearance that it was uncanny.  The hopeless 
unanswered questions, the dead ends, his inability to rectify the situation 
or have prevented it in the first place were all just further confirmation 
in his mind that he sucked at caring for the ones he loved best.
	He still remembered, with chilling clarity, the honestly sincere look on 
Barry's face as he said he hoped that "they" weren't hurting Scully too much 
with their experiments.  Mulder thought he would die right there.
	He'd been on the bleeding edge with seething rage and frustration when 
Skinner had sent him out to Los Angeles to investigate the strange vampire-
like murders occurring there.  Mulder was certain that the main reason 
Skinner had sent him to California was in the hope that when he finally fell 
prey to his self-destructive behavior he'd at least be in another state.  
What Skinner hadn't realized was that Mulder had been the perfect choice for 
the assignment.  By coincidence, Skinner had unknowingly sent the undead to 
investigate the possibility of the undead.  Mulder had worked the case 
methodically, automatically, in a trance - The undead wishing to be dead.  
But still, California had been a turning point for him.
	Before California, he'd been despondent down to the very soul he hadn't 
thought he possessed.  Before California, Mulder had wondered if death would 
afford him any alleviation from the ache.  In the weeks before California, 
when he was alone at night in the dark, the promise of such relief would 
beckon to him.  When he was tired, so very tired and afraid to sleep, he'd 
contemplated the tempting prospect of such a rest, considered the 
possibility.  But after California, after Kristen, he'd changed his mind.
	Kristen.  Mulder could recall her name, but not her face.  Perhaps 
because she'd been no more real to him than he'd been to her and the whole 
strange matter seemed so completely removed from him now, as though it had 
happened to someone else.  Perhaps in a very honest way, it had.  In the 
end, he and Kristen had used the other to feel human for just a moment that 
one night.  She'd accepted the release of his body and never questioned why 
he'd left her immediately, replaced Scully's cross about his neck and taken 
to the chair to sleep.  When Kristen had died the next day, the only emotion 
he'd felt was a sadness that she hadn't been able to find the peace she 
sought in the living world.  But he'd also decided that Kristen's way to 
that peace could not be his way.
	Scully was lost and he had to find her, he didn't have time for selfish, 
self-indulgent pity.  She'd called out to him for help and he still had to 
answer her - He couldn't have the last time he ever heard her say his name 
be in a cry of desperate fear.  He had to hear her say his name again in her 
warm, soothing voice that made him go weak inside.
	A few weeks later Scully had been returned to him.  He could take no 
credit for it.  Her return hadn't been due to any action on his part.  She'd 
simply appeared in that hospital bed, tethered to what seemed dozens of 
machines, her eyes taped shut and while one nightmare had ended another had 
begun.  Yet, somehow, they'd come through that one together too.
	He still remembered the moment she'd turned towards him as he came into 
her room and said his name.  It was the moment he'd dreamed about and hung 
on to since she'd been taken from him.  Mulder was not a man used to getting 
wishes granted or prayers answered.  The feeling of humbleness had 
overwhelmed him to the point where he'd had to leave the room within a few 
moments until he could get a grasp on his running emotions.
	He'd never loved her so well or thought her more beautiful than at that 
moment.
	He hadn't realized Scully's beauty at first.  When he'd first met her, 
he's noted that she was attractive of course, but he'd been so completely 
tied up in defensively testing her that her deep heart-stopping beauty had 
snuck up on him somehow.  It had always been there of course, he'd just been 
an idiot with blinders on, but her pull on him had been there long before 
he'd finally had the courage to give a name to what he felt.
	Originally, he'd hoped to use some moment of incompetence to get the 
little spy out of his basement office.  However, it was apparent before they 
had even gotten to Oregon on that first case that that just wasn't going to 
happen.  Scully had already gone through the case files, found the small 
facts, laced them together and had drawn the correct conclusions.  
Reluctantly, he'd had to acknowledge she was good.  "Better than you thought 
or better than you hoped?" she'd asked him dryly when he'd arrogantly voiced 
his approval to her and he knew that getting rid of her would be no easy 
matter.
	In the next few days, her demeanor was calm, assured, detached & 
professional - and she'd questioned every move he made.  But he'd also 
discovered something else on that first case: the seemingly self-possessed 
Dr. Scully had a vulnerable side.
	In the middle of a dark rainstorm, he been taken aback when, shaking and 
clutching her robe about her, she'd knocked on his hotel room door and asked 
him to look at the marks she'd found on her lower back.  Certainly, part of 
his surprise came from the obvious; his new partner was standing there in 
her underwear asking him to look at her body by candlelight.  He'd been so 
flustered that he'd not even had the presence of mind to take close 
inventory; an opportunity lost that he'd long since regretted.
	More than that though, there was the knowledge that Scully had honestly 
been very frightened and she'd come to him.  She'd believed that he would 
somehow, someway help her if there were something wrong.  As a rule, he 
wasn't used to that kind of faith and the realization she'd decided to place 
her trust in him had kind of upset his resolve to be coolly distant.
	That night, the storm and the darkness had somehow been conducive to 
letting down barriers and they'd talked for hours.  He'd told her of sister, 
something he'd discussed with almost no one, and about how he'd come to find 
the X-Files.  He decided that he might as well be honest so he even told her 
that he believed she was being used as part of the agenda of conspiracy.  
She'd denied it of course - any good spy would - but strangely, he'd wanted 
to believe her.
	Even more strangely, just a day or so later, he started to believe her.
	In the middle of the night, in a freezing rain, he and Scully stood 
facing each other over an open grave.  They were wet, tired, cold and 
seemingly at a dead end.  Perhaps encouraged by their talk the night before, 
he suddenly decided that now was the time to blurt out his entire theory on 
the case, including the whole alien abduction part.  As he looked into her 
increasingly incredulous face, it was painfully apparent that she thought he 
was deranged.  He'd turned and walked away, feeling more disappointment than 
he'd thought possible.
	But something made him look back her way and that's when he saw the 
change in her face.  He saw that in spite of her initial instinct to dismiss 
it, her mind began to process his information.  She began speaking; applying 
her cold logic to his theory as though it was actual possibility.  Mulder 
began to shake, not with the cold, but with the excitement of someone 
finally, finally listening to him and he crossed back over to her, to look 
down at her face.  He knew better than to think she would buy into it 
totally, but to just have someone give some slight credence to his notions 
gave him physical rush.
	Suddenly, she'd begun to laugh - Not at him but at herself, he realized.  
She laughed because she'd caught herself speculating on his theory as though 
it was actually a possibility.  She'd truly considered the fantastic as a 
plausibility for the first time and the realization had so astounded her 
that she'd broken into wild laughter.  He'd found himself laughing along 
with her.
	As Scully quieted down, her eyes met his for a moment before she looked 
away.  At that moment, he'd wondered for the first time what it would be 
like to kiss her, what her touch would feel like on his skin, how it would 
feel to be buried deep within her and have her look up into his eyes as he 
moved over her.  Caught deep in the unexpected grip of that thought, he'd 
even leaned just slightly towards her before an uncharacteristic jolt of 
good sense jerked him back to reality.  He'd stood for a moment, just 
looking down at the woman whom he now felt was his partner, the fleeting 
temptation in his heart gone for the moment, but by no means gone for good.
	Because of her slight build, and delicate features a fool might have 
easily discounted her, might not fathomed her depth of heart and the 
strength of her mind.  *They* had made that mistake, Mulder thought, smiling 
at the delicious irony of it.  His adversaries in this strange game, 
intending to use Scully as their means of destruction, had actually sent her 
to him.  Once again, Mulder realized that there were no coincidences, for 
instead of assisting in his ruin, she'd become his vindication.
	Scully had questioned his motives, his theory, and his focus.  She'd 
challenged what he saw as the truth, even forcing him to look at himself 
through her eyes on occasion.  She'd never been afraid to call him on it 
when he acted like a selfish bastard, which had been often.  She'd made him 
realize there was value to hard evidence she demanded from him.  Over time, 
and for reasons he still didn't comprehend, she'd become a defender of his 
faith though not a convert herself.  She'd become his resolute ally in his 
search for answers.  When he faltered, she was his formidable champion who 
protected him from evils both within and without.
	"Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you," she'd 
said to him once in a simple honest affirmation that he knew in his heart 
was true.  Those words and the knowledge that he was no longer alone in this 
had both rocked him to his core and terrified him.
	In trusting her, he'd lost his singular edge for now he thought in terms 
of "we" more often than "I."  In allowing himself to love her, he'd given 
her a certain dominion over himself now too.  Scully owned him, certainly by 
soul if not by body yet, but if she was aware of that power she never let 
on, she'd never used it to her advantage.  She'd never acted without the 
reason that ruled her mind or the compassion that ruled her heart.  However, 
there were times when a look or the tone of her voice made him feel that she 
was aware of his feelings and that she was waiting  - just like him.
	In a lot of ways, his life was really much easier when he'd just been a 
solitary selfish spooky bastard.  Really, he'd managed just fine - no one 
but himself to consider.  But Mulder never lied to himself - He knew he was 
going to crack.  He wasn't sure where or when, but he knew it was going to 
happen because otherwise, he was going to go insane.  *Really insane*, not 
just the simple insane that everyone already thought he was.
	With a sigh he got up from the bench, tossed the empty coffee cup in the 
trash and continued his northern walk along the bays.