Title: Simple Gifts Author: J. T. Filipek (aka Livasnaps) E-mail: jtfilipek@yahoo.com Classification: MSR Rating: PG-13 (maybe R in Section 7, but I'm fairly liberal about these things) Spoilers: (lots and lots of spoilers) Pilot, Squeeze, The Jersey Devil, Fire, Beyond the Sea, Tooms, Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath, Irresistible, Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip, Grotesque, Pusher, Wetwired, Memento Mori, Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II, Detour, Christmas Carol/Emily, Fight the Future, The Beginning, Triangle, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Tithonus, S.R. 819, Two Fathers/One Son, The Unnatural, Biogenesis/Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati, Millennium Summary: A week apart following the events of Millennium gives Mulder and Scully a lot of time to think. They come to the decision that a late Christmas is MUCH better than none at all. Archive: Anywhere, but please let me know so I can visit Feedback: Pretty please with sugar on it. I'll be your best friend. I'll clean your house. I'll cook you dinner. (But I won't watch your kids. Sorry.) Disclaimer: Is there really any doubt about who owns them? They belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Television. Has anyone ever really been sued for fanfic? I've read some where the author should be sued, but not for copyright infringement. Notes: The events in this story occur one week after the evens in Millennium. The events in Sein und Zeit and Closure have not yet occurred. Read on for my guesses as to what Moose and Squirrel got each other for Christmas last year and what I made them get each other for Christmas this year. I know it's past the holiday season, but this one took me longer than I thought it would. Warning: non-shippers turn back now!!! This one is not for you. For my beloved Asti. You've awakened passion and love from a long-dormant sleep. Brie loves you. Really. Simple Gifts 'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free. 'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. Shaker Song, 17th Century Friday, January 7, 2000 Mulder's car 3:08 p.m. Mulder jabbed impatiently at the *seek* button of the car radio. Music--jazz, country, metal, hip hop. Talk-- sports, Dr. Laura, political stuff, traffic, public broadcasting fund drive. None of it was what he wanted. None of it satisfied his mind or his soul. But still he punched the button because the only other option was silence and he really didn't want that. If it got too quiet, he might have to go inside his head and there was too much going on in there for him to have much desire to visit. One more defeat that was still too raw and tender. Friday afternoon. It had been a long, frustrating week. And lonely. Last Friday, New Year's Eve, seemed like a month ago. The memory brought an ache to his heart. He'd kissed her--finally--as the clock struck midnight and for a few too brief seconds, there had been nothing in the world but the feel of her lips like satin against his, the warmth of her breath on his cheek as she breathed through her nose. Nothing else in the world. No hospital paging sounds. No people walking back and forth. No television spewing the idiotic rantings of Dick Clark--an X-File unto himself, the post-modern Dorian Grey. Just Scully's mouth against his, his mind rejoicing all except one small part that cursed the arm in the sling that came between them. It had been a sweet kiss and he recalled the swift beating of his heart as he tried to brace himself for any eventuality--fire, pestilence, nuclear destruction, the roof falling in, a right hook to the jaw, although he still thought his Scully would go for the left. Instead, they'd simply parted and he opened his eyes quickly to see her reaction. Prepared for a fist, instead he for once got his wish. She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him, her eyes fluttering just a bit. "The world didn't end," he'd said, full of the wonder of the moment. "No it didn't," she replied, the smile there just a second longer before her face went inexplicably sad. He'd failed her again somehow and that look he'd seen so often over the past couple of years was back. The expression he'd do anything to dispel, but he didn't have a clue as to how to do it. So much for the idea of a new beginning for them. And suddenly, they were both aware of where they were and how important it was to get away from there. It was a new year, a new century, a new millennium. Enough of hospitals. They'd both been there enough, had enough of sitting beside one another's beds, enough of pacing dark, lonely waiting rooms. They moved at the same time, as they often did, and he'd draped his good arm--the left one, unfortunately--around her shoulder as they left the hospital. She didn't flinch from contact, but walked just far enough away from him that the gesture became something completely different than he had intended as they made their way to her car in the almost deserted emergency room parking lot. With a pang, he'd removed his arm to walk to the passenger side of the car and waited for her to unlock his side with the button in the handle. At the sound of the lock, he popped the door open and slid quickly inside, happy to note that no one had adjusted the seat since the last time he'd ridden in her car. He turned his head to watch her slip behind the wheel, briefly illuminated by the dome light before she slammed the door shut. In the dark of the car, the halogen lamps of the parking lot cast a bluish light that reflected wondrously in her eyes, making them seem to glow with a strange luminescence. Wanting more than anything to reach over and touch her, he couldn't even blame his injury for his inability to do it. His right arm was the one farthest away from her. It was cowardice, pure and simple, that caused his hesitancy. It was fear of screwing things up even more than he already had that wouldn't allow him to ask what he'd done, how he could fix things. He felt behind him with his left hand for the seatbelt and he tried to twist and pull it across his body to fasten it. She smiled indulgently at his fumbling and leaned over to click it into place, and he was ridiculously grateful for the smile, even at his own expense. Scully backed out of the space, her hand on his headrest as she looked behind her. Their eyes met momentarily and he felt one of her fingers graze his scalp as her hand left the headrest to move to the gearshift lever. She maneuvered through various city streets until she found the onramp for 395 to Alexandria. The road was strangely empty and Mulder supposed, it barely being twelve-fifteen, that everyone was wherever it was they'd decided to ring in the new millennium. They drove through the silent night, silent themselves, and he couldn't help but stare down at her small hand resting on the gearshift lever. He wanted to rest his on top of hers and the frustration of not being able to, along with a throbbing in his shoulder that was increasing in intensity, was making him restless and fidgety. "How's your shoulder?" she asked, concern for him coloring her voice. "Hurts some," he answered. "It'll be okay." "It would hurt less if you'd just relax and let the shot they gave you at the hospital kick in." Her hand moved from the steering wheel to the back of his neck, gently kneading the tight muscles there. It felt fantastic and he pressed against her strong fingers, turning his head slowly back and forth as she worked the muscles. He heard himself hum low in his throat with delight as he slumped toward her so she wouldn't have to reach so far. For the first time in weeks he felt himself relax, and he breathed deeply with it, inhaling her scent as an added bonus. His mind drifted and all he could think about was her fingers drifting upward from his neck, entwining in his hair as she rubbed at the knots at the base of his skull. Carried off by whatever they'd given him for pain, it wasn't too big a leap for him to imagine what those warm, capable fingers would feel like working down the skin of his back, massaging the muscles right above his ass. Then maybe she'd work her way back up, and scratch her way back down. He could almost feel the gentle pressure of her nails raking against his skin. The sensation of the familiar rush of blood to his groin jolted him away from where those thoughts were taking him. He really didn't want a woody at this point in time as he didn't really think he possessed the wherewithal to conceal it. He needed a distraction, but couldn't quite make himself straighten up and pull away from the hand tugging lightly but insistently at his hair. A distraction, something to let Mulder, Jr. know that this wasn't an opportune time to spring into action. "You didn't tell me, Scully. How was Christmas with the family?" His voice was low with desire and he almost chuckled at the sound of it, hoping that she didn't think he was trying out his new imitation of Barry White. She was silent for so long it made him wonder if she were going to answer the question. Finally she spoke. "Okay, I guess. It was good to have everybody together again, to see Charlie and Angela and the kids, and Tara and Bill and Matthew and new baby. It was about on par with any of the visits I've had with Bill over the past few years." She seemed ill at ease with the memory and he wasn't surprised when she changed the subject. "Do you have any food in your house?" "Hmm?" He said, surprised that he'd zoned out a little. "Are you hungry?" She shook her head with a smile, and he was saddened to feel her pull her hand back. She brought it to the steering wheel and negotiated the off ramp and turns to head for his neighborhood. "For you," she replied. "For tomorrow. You're inside for the day, resting. Doctor's orders." His brow knitted in confusion. "The doctor didn't say that." "*Your* doctor did, Mulder," she insisted. "I mean it. You stay in bed and take those pills tomorrow." "I thought maybe you'd come over..." he began, but clammed up. She glanced over at him, concerned. "Do you need me to? I could cancel..." he cursed himself. Just because he didn't have a life didn't mean she didn't. "No, I'll be fine. I've actually got some food for once and if all else fails, Hunan Dynasty is on my speed dial. I'll just veg out and watch the Bowl games. Probably wouldn't have gone anyplace anyway with all the football." He smiled at her reassuringly. "Whatcha doin'? Spending the day with your mother?" She shook her head. "She's still in San Diego. Coming back on Tuesday." Something in her tone caught his attention and he cast his eyes sideways to look at her. It was the same as when she'd talked about Christmas with the family. He wondered if something had happened while she was in San Diego. She'd found Emily at this time two years ago and lost her again a scant few days later. Christmas with her brother the asshole and the memory of the only child she'd ever know. And she hadn't said a word about it when she'd called him just a few minutes after midnight on Christmas. He'd been so glad to hear from her, had missed her to an almost absurd degree. Although it was just nine o'clock in San Diego, he'd been touched by the fact that she'd called to be the first (and only) person to wish him a Merry Christmas. And, to his surprise, to ask him to tell her a story. Had he been so thrilled that she'd thought to call that he missed something important, something she needed? She continued, seemingly unaware of his scrutiny. "I'm going to my friend Ellen's house for brunch, then spending the day with her family." "Ellen?" He was surprised. He hadn't heard Scully mention her friend in years. "Yeah, you remember. Her son Trent is my godson. Anyway, it's kind of an annual tradition. We get together every New Year's Day. I bring over Christmas presents for Trent and the other two kids. Ellen and I sit around and pretend we still know one another and make vague promises to get together more this year. If you need me to, I'm sure I can cancel." He listened closely, knowing from experience that her tone often spoke more than her words. There was no sadness or regret in Scully's voice. More like a weary resignation that he couldn't quite decipher, didn't know how to respond to. "If you're looking for an excuse to cancel, Scully, I'd love it if you came over. But don't cancel because of me. I'll be fine." Something in her demeanor told him that he hadn't responded as she'd hoped, that he'd disappointed her yet again. "Oh, okay. As long as you promise to stay in, I'll go to Ellen's." Her voice was back to *partner* tone and he didn't want that. They were just pulling up to the front of his building and he grasped for a way to fix whatever had happened just now. "But you know, by Sunday, I could have a relapse." She pulled into an empty space in front of his door and turned to him with a smile that made him sigh inwardly in relief, although he couldn't quite interpret its meaning. "I'd better check on you then. I'll call you Sunday morning to let you know when I'll be coming over." He turned to look down at the seatbelt buckle at the same time she turned to release it. Their eyes met and held and he was amazed when Scully leaned forward to press her mouth against his. This kiss was different, less hesitant, promising more than questioning. Not knowing mentally what she meant by this gesture, his only option was to react to it physically. He brought his left hand to weave into her hair, holding her against him as he moved his mouth against hers, the way he'd wanted to in the hospital. Her hand snaked down between them and she pressed the button to loosen the seatbelt and she scooted closer to him--as close as bucket seats, the gearshift column and the sling holding his arm would allow her to get. Her mouth beneath his yielded as she brought her hand around to caress his back and opened her mouth to admit his beckoning tongue. She tasted incredible, like something he'd never had but always known, and the little sounds she was making sent shivers down his spine. It was Scully who broke the kiss, but not abruptly. Instead, her face hovered next to his, her lips mere centimeters away, smiling as if very pleased with herself. "Happy New Year, Mulder." Her already throaty voice was low and breathy, and Mulder, Jr. was threatening to start paying serious attention again. "Happy New Year, Scully," he answered and moved in for another brief touch of his lips to hers. "Wanna come up and help me look for reanimated corpses in the closets?" He saw her eyes widen briefly. In shock? In dismay? And he cursed himself for not being able to keep his mouth shut yet again. He had to hand it to her for quick recovery as she gave him the patented Scully smirk. But it was nothing like the smile she'd given him after their kiss--a smile he'd do anything to see again. "Sounds tempting. But I'd better get home and get some sleep if I have any hope of surviving Ellen, Todd and three kids. The past few days have been fairly eventful." He nodded in resignation, glancing briefly at the wicked scratches on the skin of her throat. Scully--his strong, logical, beautiful, rational Scully--had nearly been beheaded by a dead man come back to life. Always a deadly aim, she'd shot a reanimated corpse three times in the head to save his and Frank Black's life. She'd killed, nearly been killed by, a thing that everything inside her screamed could not exist. Then calmly stated it had been an eventful few days after he had joked about finding one in his closet. Why wasn't there some key, some map, to help him figure her out? Maybe Ellen would try to fix her up again and Scully might meet someone who actually deserved her. The thought made him physically ill. He looked over at her tired face, still trying to give him a smile. If she was even half as tired as he was, she was exhausted. "Okay, I'll talk to you on Sunday." He popped the door open and slipped out of the car, pausing to lean down briefly. "Be careful driving home." He walked to the door, touched to note that she'd waited until he was inside before pulling away. She'd done it before in the past, but the gesture seemed to mean something more in light of what had happened between them over the past hour. Saturday, New Year's Day, passed in a drug assisted haze where he couldn't recall the final score of a single Bowl game, mainly because he'd spent a good portion of the day recalling the feel of Scully's lips against his, the taste of her, the scent of her. He wished the day by quickly, so Sunday would come and he could talk to her, wanting to make things better, yet scared that he wouldn't be able to. He wondered where they would be emotionally and his eagerness to hear her voice was mixed with apprehension. It was a not unpleasant combination, he was surprised to find out-- simultaneously sweet and angsty. She did call at just after ten on Sunday morning and his hopes were cruelly dashed upon the rocks. She told him that Skinner had called her and told her to fly out that same day for Boise. "Scully," he said anxiously. His first thoughts were of her nearly disastrous experience with the almost tragically inept Agent Ritter in New York, when Kersh had sent her on a field assignment without him. He'd come so close to losing her again. Almost as if she could read his thoughts, she hastened to reassure him. "Skinner says no field work. I'll just be in the morgue. Seems they've found some kind of mass grave in a deserted area a couple hundred miles north of Boise. Twenty-eight bodies so far and they're still digging. They think that most or all of them are Mexican nationals-- illegals. They're not sure if it's a mass murder or serial killing, but the Bureau's involved and they need an extra set of hands to do autopsies." "And Skinner volunteered you," he said, trying unsuccessfully to avoid sounding petulant. "You're on light duty this week," she replied. "Desk jockey stuff." "And you're supposed to stay with me and make sure I follow orders," he said in a *you know the drill* tone of voice. She chuckled, a sound he wished he could hear more. "Like I've been real good at that for the past seven years. Come on, Mulder, this is Skinner. He knows us, remember? He knows that if you found anything even remotely interesting to investigate, you'd be able to talk me into it so fast we'd be arguing about who was driving by the time we got to the parking garage." Now it was his turn to laugh. "Really, they need some help out there. It's just this week. Skinner said I could come home on Friday, no matter where they are in the investigation." Mulder sighed, accepting that any protests he might lodge were useless. The AD had ordered it, so Scully was gone. It certainly didn't matter to the Bureau that two of their agents were at a crucial stage in what might become a personal relationship. In fact, they were probably pretty far into breach of protocol-land as it was. "When do you leave?" he asked quietly. "A little before two," she replied. "I have just enough time to throw some stuff together and get to the airport." "Take comfortable shoes," he advised. "Sounds like you'll be on your feet a lot." Twenty-eight bodies so far, she'd said. Knowing Scully, she'd probably take most of the workload on herself. "Yeah," she said sadly. "Mulder, I'll m..." Her voice trailed off. "What?" he prompted softly. "I'm sorry about today." "Me too." He tucked the phone between his neck and should and rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache of frustration coming on. "I guess I'll have to handle my relapse on my own." She didn't answer, but Mulder thought he could hear her smiling in the silence. "Well, I better go." "Okay," he replied. "Call me and let me know what's going on. Oh wait, you said your mother was coming back from San Diego on Tuesday. Does she need to be picked up at the airport?" "No, she left her car in long-term parking. But thanks for offering." That time, he knew he could hear her smile. "Talk to you soon." He heard the soft click of her disconnect and wondered, not for the first time, why they never ended a phone conversation with goodbye, like normal people. He made a New Year's Resolution to work on that. The week had been dismal at best. He sat at his desk and caught up on every bit of paperwork he'd been putting off for the last few months. He culled through the files so mercilessly that Scully would have been amazed at how many he was willing to concede as not being genuine X-Files. All the space in the file drawers made him grab old issues of the *Inquisitor* to see if he could find anything for them to pursue. And sometimes he just sat at his desk, staring at the phone as if sheer will alone would make it ring. He was worried when he hadn't heard from her by Wednesday but successfully fought off the urge all day to call her with a series of empty and meaningless organizational tasks. It wasn't as easy later on at home with nothing to distract him from thoughts of all the reasons she might have had not to call him. The worst, and the one that popped into his head most often, was that she'd reconsidered. That being away had made her think about things and decide that they'd made a mistake, had just gotten foolishly carried away. God knows, he'd given her plenty of reasons to believe that over the years, but the idea that she might really believe it tore his heart in two. By eleven that night, he couldn't take it anymore. He needed to hear her, even if it was to tell him that it wouldn't work. He called her cell phone and she answered on the third ring. Surprisingly he found he'd awakened her from sleep, despite the fact that it was two hours earlier in Idaho. "Scully," she said with a drowsy slur, a lot like she sounded mumbling in dreams, when she fell asleep in the car on stakeouts. "It's me. Listen, I'm sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep." "No, wait," she interrupted before he could press the disconnect button. "It's okay. Don't hang up." She immediately sounded more alert. "You sure?" he asked hesitantly. "You sound exhausted." "I am," she conceded. "But the last few days have been so horrific. It's good to hear your voice." Her words warmed his heart and he relaxed a little, glad that she didn't sound like she was going to voice regrets. "What's going on there?" She sighed. "Thirty-seven bodies. I've done fourteen postmortems since Monday and have six slated for tomorrow. It's like it will never end. The local guy here is just overwhelmed. Things like this just don't happen here. He just keeps saying it over and over." He swallowed hard. Things like that shouldn't happen anywhere. "Mass murderer?" "Serial killer," she replied. "Looks like it's been going on for three or four years. All female, Latinas, mid- to late teens. At least all the ones that have been autopsied so far. From the most recent bodies, it looks like he holds them for a few weeks. Evidence of long-term torture and repeated rapes prior to death." "Jesus, Scully," he said, grimacing at the thought. "Thirty-seven." "Yeah," she whispered, her anguish evident. "They died horribly, Mulder, and now it's like we're... It's like an assembly line." She sniffled softly and he wished for the thousandth time that week that he was there with her. To hold her, to rub her tired feet and shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wish there was something I could do." "I know," she said wearily. "I just have to make it through tomorrow, then I can come home." "Yeah," he said, smiling. "When will you get here?" "Friday, mid-afternoon." "Good," he said simply. "Now you need to rest. Try and get some sleep, huh Scully?" "Easier said than done," she said doubtfully. "The things we see, Mulder." "I know," he answered sadly. "But try, huh?" He could close his eyes and picture her nodding. "Hurry home." "Can't be soon enough." He waited for her to click off, the conversation ended. But she surprised him. "Thanks for calling, Mulder." "Thanks for answering." Again, he waited for her to press the *end* button, but she remained on the line, and he could hear her soft breaths. He listened for a moment with a small smile tugging at his lips and felt a New Year's Resolution Moment hit him. "Goodnight, Scully." "Goodnight." And with a click she was gone, leaving him with a pleasant ache in his chest and a feeling that he might actually be able to sleep. Late on Thursday, Byers called to say that a guy they knew in Wilmington had seen Alex Krycek in Philadelphia a few days before. Mulder had asked the guys to put feelers out for Krycek when he learned what the Ratboy had done to Skinner. Mulder needed that control box for the nano- machines free floating in Skinner's bloodstream. And maybe in the process, he could find out what Krycek might know about what had been taken from Mulder's head. But first he had to find him. Mulder arranged to take one of his seemingly endless supply of vacation days and drove to Wilmington to see the Gunmen's associate, Vernon Glint. Glint was a NICAP member who said he'd seen the picture the Gunmen had circulated on the Net. He said he'd seen Krycek coming out of a seedy hotel in downtown Philadelphia, the Bluebird, and that he looked like a man in a hurry. Mulder then drove to Philadelphia, found the hotel and discovered that Krycek had checked out a few hours before, leaving no forwarding address. A quick check of his room revealed nothing and Mulder cursed himself for his timing. Krycek had a six-hour lead and there was no telling where he'd gone or how he was traveling. Which was how he came to be driving down the I-95 just a little north of Baltimore headed back to DC, punching the *seek* button on his car radio. Nearly three-thirty. Scully should be home and he really wanted to talk to her. He pulled his cell phone from the breast pocket of his jacket and hit the number one on his speed dial. +++++ Georgetown 2:58 p.m. Scully felt the shoulder bag holding her laptop slide down her arm as she fumbled with the key to her apartment door. A medium sized suitcase and garment bag lay at her feet, and she clutched a small carry-on bag in her left hand, her mail tucked under her arm. Would it have really been such a big deal to divide the load and make two trips from the car to her apartment? She finally managed to turn the key and she kicked the suitcase and garment bag inside, swinging to drop the laptop onto the chair near the door. She looked around in the dim light and sighed with relief to be home. Walking through the apartment kicking off her pumps as she went, she switched on a few lamps and adjusted the thermostat up to try and diminish the chill of a place too long unoccupied. She dropped the mail on the coffee table in front of the couch and pulled off her trench coat, draping it over the back of her armchair. She gratefully sank into the cushions of her sofa, feeling the soft popping of several vertebrae relieved to be allowed to relax. After a minute or two, the gun fastened to the back of her slacks began to bite into her skin and she sat up long enough to unclip the holster and place it on the coffee table. She scooted across the sofa until her back pressed against the armrest and brought her feet up, clasping her knees to her chest. The week had been grueling and it appalled her that she couldn't recall a week in recent memory that hadn't been. What did it say about her life when autopsying the bodies of twenty-two teenaged girls in four days was just something that happened the week after she'd killed a man who had already been dead for months? A week where she had almost been killed by someone that she, herself, had confirmed dead at the scene of his murder at the hand of someone who had died a week previously. Scully shook her head to dispel thoughts she wasn't ready to think about, might never be ready to think about. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, exhaling completely before starting the process again. She tried to clear her head but the same thought kept coming back. And, amazingly, she felt her lips twitch into a smile at the thought. More worlds than she could hold in her hand. Just a few years ago, she would have denied the statement completely, but not anymore. For so long, that idea had terrified her--enough so that she felt her only option was complete denial of even the possibility that other worlds might exist. Now, why not? Everything she'd seen, had experienced, could not be explained by science. Why not other worlds? What was so great about this one that it should be the only one? There was a man in Idaho who'd raped, tortured and murdered thirty-seven girls. And there would be more before they caught him. And how many others like him were out there? No, this wasn't such a great world at all. She was so very tired, way past exhausted, nearly to numb. The only decent sleep she'd gotten in days was Wednesday, after she'd spoken with Mulder. Mulder. Thoughts of him had filled the small nooks and crannies of time during the odious week in Idaho. She found herself thinking of him at the oddest moments. Pushing through the doors to the autopsy bay, she'd recall the feeling of finding him restrained on that strange table in the Department of Defense facility. The feeling of walking through the door and her first thought being alarm that he'd gotten so thin that she could count his ribs from across the room. That his breathing was so shallow she wasn't even certain he was breathing at all until she touched his skin and found it warm. That with his arms outstretched, his shoulders looked like skin pulled taut over bone and nothing more. The feeling of relief that flooded her when his eyes briefly fluttered open the first time. The joy she'd felt when she heard him speak. *You help me.* She thought of him when she'd stumble from the bitter cold Idaho night into her hotel room and instantly turn on the television set. That was something she never did at home, yet there in that anonymous room--like so many others they'd stayed in--she needed the sound of the television, a sound she'd always heard through the walls of the cheap motels they'd stayed in. She'd stumble home from the morgue, turn on the tv, and fall onto the bed nearest the television, remote in hand looking for something she thought he'd watch so the sounds would be right. But mostly Scully had thought of him as she lay in bed in the darkness of an unfamiliar room, unable to put away the horrors of her day. There she'd be, between the scratchy, industrial grade sheets, mentally craving sleep and her traitorous body refusing to comply. It was then that her thoughts turned to Mulder. And how much she'd hurt him. Again. She could recall with perfect clarity watching his smile turn to confusion and awkwardness in the seconds following their kiss in the hospital. She could see him come to believe that he had done something wrong, something she didn't want, hadn't enjoyed. And even seeing that, knowing his thoughts and fears, she hadn't been able to reassure him that nothing was further from the truth. The kiss had been completely unexpected. But once begun, it had been welcomed. His lips against hers had been so unbearably superb that she'd been afraid to move, even toward him, for fear of breaking the spell. His lips were soft and cushiony, as she'd always suspected, and the tip of his nose had tickled her cheek a little. Warmth and chills had hit her spine simultaneously and she couldn't believe he had finally made the move she'd both hoped and feared that he would. And it had been wonderful. Until he had made the end of the world comment and she'd been unable to control her reaction to it. Mulder had misread that reaction and thought it was because of what he'd done. But how could he not misinterpret when she hadn't explained, couldn't explain? About Christmas at Bill's house. Bill had radiated mild hostility at her from the time he'd come to the airport to pick up her mother and her. A mild, constant hostility that wasn't voiced and was only partially relieved when Charlie and his family were around. She knew she deserved some of Bill's animosity. She hadn't exactly made any sincere overtures toward reconciling the differences that had sprung up between them since her cancer, but then neither had he. But he was taking things too far with his snide comments and sneers and Scully found herself becoming more and more angry with him. The first day hadn't been too bad, with all the catching up. They'd sat together drinking wine well into the evening, laughing and talking about Christmases past. Charlie's family had driven down from Seattle in a Winnebago, so when bedtime came they retired to the house in the driveway and Bill had told Dana she and Mom would be in Missy's old room. Not Dana's room, not even Dana and Missy's room. Just Missy's. Her mother seemed not to have noticed Bill's jibe, but Dana saw her hesitate slightly at the threshold of the bedroom that had been hers and Melissa's in the house they'd lived in with an identical floor plan. She knew it was difficult for her mother to go into the room and felt her millionth pang of guilt for the fact that Missy would be here if not for Dana. Neither she nor her mother spoke except to say goodnight before turning off the lamp on the table between the twin beds. The next day was busy with last minute shopping and cooking, and late that afternoon the family gathered to set up and decorate the Christmas tree. Like Ahab before him, Bill did not allow the tree to go up before Christmas Eve and it was taken down on New Year's Day. They snacked on hot hors d'oeuvres and spiced cider as they decked the halls, finally sitting down to a light late dinner served by the light of the tree. Dana looked around the table at the faces gathered there, watched them talking and laughing and eating and felt a sudden twinge of loneliness. These people who surrounded her were of her, she loved them, yet she barely knew them and they didn't know her at all. Her brothers gazed at their wives and children with something akin to awe, and her mother beamed at all of them with such pride and love. They had their children around them. But her only child-- one she'd never known she had--was represented by a coffin full of sand in a cemetery not ten miles away. There'd been no body to place beneath the marker that did not bear Scully's last name and with a first name that Scully had not chosen. Two years ago. Emily would have been five this Christmas, a year younger than Charlie's twins. "Dana?" A voice broke into her sad reverie and Tara smiled at her with sympathetic understanding. But not empathy. She hoped Tara and Bill would never be able to feel empathy with her in that area. "Bill says you always got to put the angel on the treetop when you decorated the tree." "Yeah," Bill answered sarcastically. "She was the only one small enough for Dad to still be able to lift her up over his head when she was a teenager." "Funny, Bill," she replied without rancor, happy to find distraction, even for a moment, from her thoughts. "I seem to recall one Christmas when you tried to put the angel on and you jumped up against the tree. How much did it cost Dad to replace the picture window when you drove the tree through the glass?" "Ooh," Charlie piped in with a grin directed at Bill. "Pop was so pissed at you, Billy-boy! Get this," he said directing his story to everyone around the table. "We're stationed at Great Lakes just north of Chicago--perhaps the nastiest place on earth to be posted." Maggie, Bill, and Dana nodded in agreement.. "It's Christmas Eve, blizzard going on outside, wind blowing off Lake Michigan that would freeze the bal..." "Charlie," Angela warned, looking at the children. Charlie reddened a little and nodded. "Anyway, it was really cold, Christmas Eve, and Dad's gotta find someone to come and replace a double pane picture window because gale force winds are invading the living room thanks to Bill's stunt. Trying to put the angel on the tree just to spite Dana. So Dad's on the phone turning six shades of red and snow's blowing in the hole in the window. Like having a little slice of Antarctica right in our own living room." Everyone at the table joined in hearty laughter and Dana tried to force a laugh as well. But she had that sudden feeling of apartness again. She knew Antarctica, and what had happened in their living room so many years ago didn't come close. She'd experienced Antarctica and no one at the table knew about it, not even her mother. She'd never told them about it. Or how she'd be there still if it hadn't been for Mulder. "Your father wasn't that mad," Maggie said, grinning at the memory. "Mom," Bill protested. "He made me wash the car by hand every week for six years to pay off the window. Have you ever hand-washed a car in January in northern Illinois? Talk about brass monkeys. I had to wash it the morning I left for the Naval Academy." They'd continued to hash through old Christmas memories and stories of childhoods long past, seeming not to notice that Dana contributed almost nothing to the conversation. After dinner, they moved into the living room to continue talking closer to the lights from the tree. Finally, Bill proclaimed that it was time to honor the age-old Scully tradition of singing carols. With some friendly prompting, Tara sat at the spinet and everyone gathered around, eggnogs in hand, and began to sing. Dana, careful to stand next to the twins, smiled and moved her lips to the familiar words, but no sound passed them. She never participated in the caroling--hadn't since she was a child, but she was certain that no one else knew that. It was why she always tried to stand next to the kids, who sang so loudly themselves that they were oblivious to the fact that Aunt Dana didn't sing along. For the most part, she was usually content just to listen, relishing their mumbled words and tenderly off-key voices, for these were the people she loved, who loved her. And she did love them with a love so longstanding that she knew it must be a part of her cells. As she mouthed the words to the Jingle Bells, she stole a glance at her mother who was holding Bill's new daughter Lareena, born the day before Thanksgiving. With her mother's attention on her only granddaughter, Dana felt free to just look at her. She smiled watching Maggie bounce up and down, making faces at Lareena as she sang softly to her. She'd always thought her mother was beautiful, but here--with this child, with all the children--she glowed. But on closer look, she saw that her mother's rich, dark hair had more strands of silver and that, even in the joy of her family, there was still a sadness to her eyes that Dana knew to be a longing for those no longer with them. Dana knew it because she felt it, too. Her glance passed over the other members of her family. Bill, holding Matty in his right arm, his left arm resting on Tara's shoulder and looking down on her with such tenderness, she could scarcely believe he was the same brother who used to give her a friendly punch in the arm just because he could. Or the same brother she'd seen over the past two days casting her looks of confusion and anger. Tara returned his gaze with a quick glance away from the keyboard where she played the piano not with great accuracy, but with great heart. She looked serene and joyous, fulfilled in the motherhood that had come to her so late in her marriage, after years of trying to the point that they'd almost given up. And Charlie and Angela, standing wrapped in each other's arms, their six year-old twins on either side of Dana, flanking her like bookends. She touched the tops of their heads, loving the silky feel of their hair beneath her fingers, matching heads with hair the color of cherry wood- -a combination of Charlie's carrot red and Angela's deep black. Charlie, of all of them, was the sibling of her heart. The one who shared with her the experience of being the younger. The younger brother, the younger sister. The one who stood with her bearing the brunt of Bill's bossiness. Melissa had never tolerated it, but to Bill the *runts* were fair game. Dana had fought back as best she could, but Charlie--gentle Charlie--just smiled and did what Bill told him to do, so that maybe Bill would leave him alone to read in peace. Charlie, diminutive and with his face forever in a book, had eventually become a geologist and met the gorgeous, willowy Angela on a dig in Wyoming. Fully four inches taller than Charlie, she still displayed the good sense to pay attention to the quiet man with the carrot-colored hair and had determined by the end of the dig to be his wife. They were married three months later and welcomed the twins two weeks after their first anniversary. Aaron and Zach--from A to Z because they were the beginning and end of Angela and Charlie's children. At six, the children were a handful and the lights of their parents' lives. They'd moved from Jingle Bells, through the First Noel, and from Tara's spirited introduction, Joy to the World would come next. Dana bent her head forward a little, hoping that the hair falling into her face would hide the tears that had spring to her eyes. She blinked them away quickly as she heard her family begin the song, their voices sure and cheery. Dana looked up, startled. "The Lord is come!" They sang in unison, their faces--all but Dana's--split into wide, open grins. "Let earth receive her King!" She shook her head. They couldn't have sung that. With a slightly anxious expression, she looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Only Charlie was looking at her and he gave her a smile that seemed sad to her. End of the world. She'd heard it plain as day, although she knew she couldn't possibly have heard it. End of the world. How many more Christmases would there be like this one? Was this the last? In her heart, she could no longer deny what she'd seen, what she'd touched, what Mulder had had and what they'd taken away from him. Even to herself, whom she'd always been able to fool, she could no longer deny what Mulder had contended for years. Plans were afoot--plans so awful that they were beyond the scope of contemplation, so unbelievable that their sheer inconceivability was what allowed them to move forward unchecked. Unchecked save for her and Mulder. Had they made even the slightest difference in the Plot or were they as inconsequential as Don Quixote and the Sancho Panza tilting at windmills? The end of the world. When would it come? What was the timetable? How would it be? Unbidden, her thoughts turned again, as they often had for the past month, to the man who had been killed in Arizona, the Raush employee found ripped apart in his own living room. They had argued bitterly that day, she and Mulder. Especially over Mulder's contention that an alien life form had gestated inside the man and burst free at its birth. But Scully had not had a more rational explanation for the man's gory death. Now, more than a year later, she was finding it more and more difficult not to dwell on it. That she herself might have suffered that same fate had Mulder not come to her with the vaccine. He'd saved her in more ways than one, although he probably would never be aware of any but the most obvious. He'd saved her life. Even at his most self-deprecating, she couldn't imagine that he would not realize that. But he'd also saved her from the awful irony, the final most cruel joke, that she would die bearing the only life she'd ever carried inside her to full term. Dana looked at her family again and couldn't help the vision of them, spread out grotesquely as the man in the crime scene photos had been, bloody and torn open. And she couldn't suppress the shudder that accompanied that vision. She stopped even pretending to sing as she gazed at their faces, alight with Christmas bliss. They didn't know that this could be the last Christmas like this and she envied them their ignorance. At the same time she feared for it. They didn't know, couldn't know, for only she could tell them and there was no way to explain that they might possibly understand or believe. No one could know except Mulder and she. Suddenly the room seemed too small, too close and confining, and she realized she was being smothered by her own thoughts. She slipped away while everyone else was engrossed in a debate about whose turn it was to pick the next song. A nearby doorway gave off to the kitchen and back porch where her jacket hung on a peg by the door. Walking out onto the porch, the late December night was warmer than it would have been in Washington, but still cool enough that she was glad to have the dark green suede to drape over her shoulders as she sat on the porch steps. It was better outside, the quiet darkness soothing her fevered thoughts somewhat. She pulled her jacket more tightly around herself and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the suede. A good smell, a comforting smell-- almost as nice as black leather. It had been a stretch on her G-Woman's salary to afford the jacket, but the color was one of her favorites and the smell of the suede had finally clinched the decision. Mulder had seemed to like it that night that they'd played baseball. Mulder. She'd tried to keep busy and occupied to keep her thoughts from constantly returning to him. She'd been hesitant to make the trip to San Diego because she didn't feel right about leaving him so soon after all he'd been through. But he was officially back at work without restrictions, so she couldn't really justify staying in Washington when her family had plans to meet in San Diego. Alone in the dark, however, it was easier to admit to herself that it wasn't so much his health that concerned her, but the fact that she missed him. She'd been away from him for what seemed an eternity while she was in Africa, so scared that she wouldn't be able to help him that she'd been able to put out of her head all that she had seen. She knew the panic, the helplessness, of not knowing where he was when he was taken from the hospital. Those feelings were still recent enough that she often felt as if he might disappear if she didn't keep a vigilant enough watch over him. Had he felt anything even close to that while she was missing all those weeks? No wonder he hovered over her when she got back. She wanted to hover over him. Scully leaned her back against the porch rail and looked up at the sky. A thin layer of wispy clouds blotted out all but the brightest stars. She could still hear the piano, although not the voices anymore. But it was enough to let her know what song they were singing. A slight breeze stirred her hair and she slid her arms into the sleeves of the jacket to ward off the cool air. She looked down at her feet and smiled at her slippers, the ones Mulder had given her for Christmas last year. Black slippers with little glow-in-the-dark alien heads--ala Whitley Streiber. They almost always made her smile when she wore them at home. Nobody had said anything about them since she'd arrived here. They must not have noticed or Bill, at least, would have mentioned them, more than likely disparagingly. She recalled last Christmas and sitting on Mulder's couch wondering what he possibly could have got her that was cylindrical. He'd folded them up into a plastic tube, one alien head at each end, and wrapped them in silly man fashion. She'd laughed out loud when she'd finally gotten them unwrapped and immediately doffed her laced boots in favor of the more comfortable footgear. Mulder, looking particularly pleased with himself, had turned off the lights so that Scully could get the full effect of their luminescence. Mulder opened his present then. She'd been checking out one of the on-line auction sites and saw for sale a copy of *Close Encounters of the First Kind, the Special Edition* with the box autographed by Steven Spielberg. On impulse, she bid on it, knowing it was the perfect gift for Mulder. She'd been overbid twice, but she persevered and finally got it. His mouth fell open in delighted amazement when he saw what was beneath the red and gold foil wrapping. "Scully," he said, his voice soft with wonder. "This is incredible. The greatest movie ever made *and* autographed by Spielberg." He turned the box over in his hand to examine the signature and the cellophane wrapper crackled beneath his fingers. He looked back at her and his eyes twinkled in a way she hadn't seen in a long time. "Have you ever seen this movie?" She nodded. "Once, a long time ago." "You want to watch it now?" he asked eagerly. "I haven't seen it in a couple of years." "Pop the wrapper," she replied with a smile. He looked at her, aghast. "Scully," he said. "I can't pop the wrapper on this. It's a collector's item. It has to stay wrapped. We'll watch my tape. My *other* tape." He bent over to dig through the videos in the cabinet beneath the television, seeming to Scully to be careful about what he pulled out. With a small triumphant "hah!" he grabbed one of the tapes and stood up. He looked at the tape to make sure it was rewound then, strangely, looked at his watch. "This movie is long, like two-and-a-half hours," he said regretfully. "You'll miss family roll call under the tree at six." Scully looked at her own watch. He was right. The movie wouldn't be over until after six and then there was travel time to her mother's house. She shouldn't start a movie with him that she couldn't finish. She glanced out the window for a moment and noted the snow falling gently but steadily. Road conditions might be bad, too. But then she looked around Mulder's apartment and saw the red striped stocking hanging from the shelving unit that held the aquarium and the little white reindeer on the shelf, and something about these small attempts to add holiday cheer to his life both tore at and warmed her heart. Her feet in their cozy alien slippers curled in protest at the thought of having to put her boots on again and her spine was settling in quite comfortably against the worn leather of the sofa. And she knew in that moment that there was nowhere in the world she'd rather be than right here, sharing Mulder's favorite movie with him. "I'll call them later and tell them to go on without me. Let's make some tea and watch the movie." His smile was worth whatever her family would dish out to her later about missing roll call. "I've got some microwave popcorn, too." "Bring it on," she replied and followed him into the kitchen. They watched the movie, huddled together under the wool blanket he kept on the back of the couch to ward off the chill that always seemed to permeate Mulder's apartment in the winter. Scully was amazed at how good a movie it was and it seemed that there was more to it than the first time she'd watched it all those years ago. "Spielberg reedited it in 1980, I think," Mulder explained when she asked him about it. "If you saw it in the theater the first time around, the whole ending's different. I remember at the time not believing that he could have made it better, but he did. Just a phenomenal movie." His voice held something like reverence. Scully nodded, understanding why he loved the movie so much. It was about a man who wanted to believe, did believe, and was rewarded for his belief. The message was one of hope that the truth was out there and that it was good. The movie was finished and they found themselves famished, even after the microwave popcorn. They left the apartment and trudged through the snow to Rose's Diner close to Mulder's apartment where they gorged on blueberry pancakes and hot, strong coffee. She went back upstairs long enough to grab her slippers, and said goodbye to Mulder, the end of the longest, strangest Christmas Eve she'd ever passed. When she arrived at her mother's, Bill was predictably miffed but kept it to himself as she'd joined them at the breakfast table. To avoid further hurt feelings, Scully forced down some breakfast, although she was still full from the meal she'd shared with Mulder. The kids were delighted to have one more gift to open and feelings were seemingly smoothed over. Now, sitting on Bill's dark back porch, carols wafting to her as if from someone else's dream, she longed for another Christmas like last year's--haunted house and all. She missed Mulder and wanted to be with him so she could give him this year's present--a glow-in-the-dark universe for the ceiling of the bedroom she hadn't known he had until the past year. Tara had put one up in Matty's room and Scully found out where she got it and got one for Mulder. She'd have to wait until she got back from San Diego on New Year's Day. But she wished it were tonight. And that he'd tell her the story of Maurice and Lida again. She could do without the house experience, truth be told, but she wanted desperately to hear the story again, in the same soft voice he'd used to tell it to her the first time. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her and felt something in the pocket below her left elbow. Her cell phone. She'd left it there earlier that afternoon when she'd come back from shopping. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was three minutes after nine. Just after midnight in Washington--Christmas Day. She pressed the *on* button and dialed Mulder's number. He answered on the second ring. "Scully?" "Yeah," she chuckled in amazement and amusement. "How'd you know?" "Christmas wish," he said and his tone stirred something in her soul. "Merry Christmas, Scully!" "It's not Christmas here yet," she answered. "I called to wish you a Merry Christmas, Mulder." "You're the first to say it, you know." His voice was deep and somewhat wistful. "So how is Christmas in sunny San Diego?" "There's just something wrong with Christmas lights on palm trees and cooking the turkey on the barbecue. And after last year, it's kind of mundane." She wondered if he'd heard the sigh she'd tried so hard to conceal. "And that's a bad thing?" he kidded her. She smiled to herself, feeling something akin to happy for the first time in a long time. "Mulder?" "Hmm?" She paused, not sure she could ask for what she wanted, embarrassed within her own mind that she might even need it. "What, Scully?" he prompted gently, as if he could sense her hesitancy. "Would you tell me the story again? The one about Maurice and Lida?" "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts." His voice was warm and lightly teasing. "Technically Mulder," she said, rising to the banter. "I think they're called *apparitions.*" "Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes," he said with a chuckle. They were both quiet for several moments, and she listened to the sound of his breathing. "Wanna hear a story, little girl?" "Yeah," she replied, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder and pulling her knees up to her chest as she leaned against the porch rail. "Okay, settle in." She did as she was told, shifting her behind a little and finding the perfect spot between her shoulder blades for the post supporting the railing. Eyes closed, she tilted her head back, her face toward the sky, and waited for him to begin, counting on his eidetic memory to make it just like before. "Christmas, 1917. It was a time of dark, dark despair." His voice was low, rough and silky at the same time, just as she remembered. "American soldiers were dying at an ungodly rate in a war-torn Europe while at home, a deadly strain of the flu virus attacked young and old alike. Tragedy was a visitor on every doorstep." He kept on with his story, his voice soft and soothing. To her delight, he embellished his story here and there-- adding details and providing comments--confident in the fact that Scully wouldn't bolt in the middle of it. It made her momentarily sad to think that she might have left him last year and never heard the story. she admitted to herself. "...never to spend another Christmas apart. And their spirits still haunt the house at 1515 Larkspur Lane." He finished his story and a comfortable silence hung between them, connecting them by an invisible thread across thousands of miles. "That was a good story, Mulder, and very well told," she said, just as she had the previous year. This time, though, there wasn't any hint of dismissal in her voice--no *but* followed by a rational explanation. She hoped he heard that. "Think Maurice and Lida got anyone this year?" "Is that a concession that they almost got us last year?" Although Mulder's tone was light, Scully didn't get the feeling that he was joking anymore. "I don't know that I'm ready to concede that fact. But you know, even if it *did* happen, it's not the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to us, Mulder." "Yeah, I guess not," he admitted. Scully shivered slightly, suddenly feeling as if she were being watched. She turned her head toward the door to see her mother's face in the small window. Scully caught her eye and nodded, unable to decipher her mother's expression. She looked... Hurt? Angry? It seemed she'd lost the ability to key into what her mother was thinking. She was certain she was about to find out. Her mother turned and walked away from the window. "Hey, you okay?" Mulder asked and she realized she had stopped participating in their conversation. "Hmm, sorry," she said. "I think I was just getting serious signals to rejoin the clan. I better get back to them." "Yeah, I guess you should. Have a great Christmas," he said and she could hear in his voice that he was trying hard for a cheery tone. "Scully, I'm gl... It means a lot to me that you called." "Me too." They were both silent for a scant few seconds then with a soft click, he was gone. It was just such a Mulder move that the thought that it was rude didn't even cross her mind. She'd ended other of their phone calls in the same way. Had they ever actually ended a phone conversation with goodbye? Maybe with everything they'd been through, goodbye was too scary a word. She held the cell phone a moment longer before placing it back into her pocket. When she turned to stand up, it was Bill's face in the door. And there was absolutely no problem reading his expression. She braced herself for an attack when she walked through the door. He actually let her get her jacket off and hung on a hook before he started. "Is it too much to ask that you spend Christmas Eve night with your family?" She sighed and moved past him to go back to the living room. Entering the living room, she say her mother sitting beside Charlie on the sofa. Tara, Angela and the kids were not in the room. "Where is everyone?" she asked, trying her best to smile at her mother and brother. "Tara and Angela are putting the kids to bed," Bill replied, although the question was obviously not directed toward him. "It might have been nice if they'd been able to say goodnight to their Aunt Dana." "Don't start, Bill," she replied wearily. "I was away for twenty minutes." "Try forty-five," Bill spat back and she looked at her watch. Going on nine-fifty. "So what?" she challenged, tired of his attitude--one that she'd put up with for longer than she could remember. "Yeah Bill," Charlie piped in taking his lifelong place with his sister against Bill's tyranny. "So Dana was gone for forty-five minutes. It's not the end of the world." She swung her head to look at Charlie, unsuccessful in fighting off images she'd had earlier. She shuddered, but neither Charlie nor Bill seemed to notice, facing one another. Her mother, though, looked at her with an expression she could not interpret. Why wasn't her mother saying something to make Bill stop? "Charlie, you're not even in this so shut up, okay? It wasn't bad enough that he... that Fox Mulder wrecked our Christmas last year, but he's got to do it this year, too? That's who you were talking to, wasn't it?" When she didn't answer, he continued his rant. "Damn it, Dana. This time is supposed to be for family." "Bill," she said angrily. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm here with the family." "Bullshit," he replied, matching her tone. "You're here but you're not *with* the family. You've spent the past two days here moping, and trying to get three words in a row out of you is like pulling teeth. Two Christmases in a row you let him wreck things. No, make that three. Two years ago he was here encouraging you in that... that..." "Don't," her voice dropped, low and dangerous. "Don't you dare go into that. For your information, Mulder did not encourage me. He thought my trying to adopt Emily was a mistake, too. But the difference is that he realized the choice was mine and he supported that choice." Her voice fell to a whisper. "And he believed me, which is more than I can say for any of you." She looked around the room. Charlie's expression was one of confusion. Nobody, it seemed, had told him about the events of two years ago at Christmas. But then, why would Bill or her mother have told him about Emily when they never really believed it? Her mother refused to meet her eyes and hadn't said a word since Dana had walked into the room. Bill obviously took her silence as tacit agreement with what he was contending and Dana hoped and prayed that wasn't true. "He believed you," Bill sneered. "Well, from what I've heard, he'll believe any asinine thing that comes down the pike. You know, I met an FBI agent from the LA field office a few months ago. He was on base for some kind of investigation. I asked him if he knew Mulder..." Dana interrupted him. "And he told you that everybody calls him Spooky Mulder. That he used to be a brilliant investigator, but that he's pissing his career away chasing little green men and things that go bump in the night. Hello! Bill! I've worked with Mulder for over seven years. You think I've never heard that? You think there haven't been assholes who call him Spooky to his face? They've never been very subtle about it." "Well did you know they call you Mrs. Spooky?" he said in a tone that implied he'd just dropped momentous news. She smiled and shook her head. "Let's see. I think the first time I heard that was when Mulder and I had been working together about a month. We get interdepartmental mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Spooky. So what's the point?" "No, Dana, that's my question to you. What's the point? What are you doing there? The guy's obviously a nut case." "Bill," she said trying to regain her composure. "I've been working on the X-Files for nearly eight years. We're an actual division of the FBI. They give us badges and guns. We investigate cases so difficult that others have written them off as unexplainable. Eight years, Bill. This isn't just some silly, frivolous... We do legitimate investigations and, damn it, we save lives. Ask your buddy in the LA field office what his solve rate is. During our last evaluation, they told Mulder and me that ours is eighty-three percent. Eighty-three percent of cases that are labeled unsolvable before we even get them. I do my job, Bill. A job I chose to do and keep choosing every day I do it. In the meantime, I don't really give a good goddam what other agents think of me--especially those I've never met." "You save lives," he said with a nasty smirk. "Is that what he was calling you to do? Come back and save a few lives with him?" Save a few lives. If they only knew. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "For your information, I called him," she sneered. "As if it's any of your business. Who died and named you phone monitor?" "Who died?" he repeated and his voice broke. "Our sister Melissa died. You almost died--three times that we know about. How many more times were there that you didn't tell us about? Like you ever tell us about anything." "You wouldn't believe the things I could tell you," she said defeatedly. "You can't tell me why my sister died," Bill said through clenched teeth. "Because of the choice you've made, the one you make every day you continue on in that job. What I just don't understand is..." "Anything, Bill," Dana said, interrupting him. "You don't understand anything. I know you blame me for what happened to Melissa." She looked over at her mother sitting on the end of the couch clutching the armrest. "You blame me, too." She finally gave in and let the tears that had threatened since the beginning of the conversation fall from her eyes. "Not you, Dana," Maggie spoke through a lump in her throat. "I don't blame you, honey. But sometimes I can't help thinking that she'd still be with us..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I just miss her so much." "And you don't think I blame myself, that I don't carry that blame around every day? Melissa has a lot to do with what I do. I want to see the people involved in what happened to Missy punished--for what they did to her, for what they did to me, to us." "To everyone except Mulder," Bill countered, bitterness dripping from his voice. "He seems to come through all these things basically unscathed." "Mulder unscathed," she said with a caustic snort, almost as if to herself. "I said it before, Bill. You don't know anything about anything. I'm you sister and you don't know anything about my life. What would possibly make you presume to know about Mulder's? Now, if you'll excuse me, I think this conversation has gone as far as it should. And maybe too far. I'm going upstairs." "But we're leaving for Midnight Mass soon," Charlie protested, shooting wicked glares at Bill who stood still as a statue. "Come on, Dana." He strode across the room to catch her hand at the bottom of the staircase. "Come to Mass with us, Daynee." Smiling at his use of his childhood name for her, she shook her head. "I can't, Charlie, not after that. It's better this way, really. Bill and I need a breather from each other and this way, both Tara and Angela can go to Mass with you. I'll be here with the kids." She squeezed his hand and turned to climb the steps, letting him know that he couldn't change her mind. She sat on the bed in the room identical to the one she and Melissa had shared in their early teens. They'd giggled and laughed and fought and made up in a room just like this one. She'd first tried on one of Missy's cast-off bras in this room. Missy had taught her how to use a lip-liner at the vanity they shared. This was where they'd sneaked peeks at each other's diaries. Dana had read her sister's and found it so much more exciting than her own that she started to make up stories for her own diary. Melissa had read the fabrications and told their mother that Dana was up to things she shouldn't be up to. They'd fought viciously about invading one another's privacy, but the anger dissolved into hysterical laughter when they realized they both were making up tall tales for the other's snooping pleasure. Neither one of them were very good at staying mad for a long time, anyway. How could they not understand her wish for justice for the life those men had snuffed out when they killed Melissa? How else did they think that she would ever be able to live with what had happened to her sister instead of to her, Dana? If she didn't follow through and try to stop this, for good and for all, Melissa's death would be more bitter and meaningless than it already was. She heard her family trudge out of the house about an hour later and she finally left the room, going in to check on Matty and Lareena in the nursery and Aaron and Zach temporarily crashed on the bed in Bill and Tara's room. Everyone was calm and dry, and sleeping so sweetly, she could almost believe that visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. Heading back to the bedroom, she hauled her suitcase from the closet and began to pack her things. Years of traveling, often with little or no notice, had made her an efficient packer and in just a few minutes, she found herself zipping her suitcase and latching her cosmetic case. She carried both pieces of luggage down the stairs and tucked them around the entryway to the living room, so that they wouldn't be visible from the front door. Pulling out the yellow pages, she found the number for a cab company and asked that one be sent at one-thirty to Bill's address. The family would certainly be home from Midnight Mass by then. She called the airport and found that she couldn't get a flight back to Washington before late afternoon and she took the opening they offered her on the 2:58 flight. She'd stay the rest of this night at a hotel near the airport. Not that she expected to get much sleep, but a hotel beat the prospect of spending sixteen hours in an airport waiting area. After her flurry of activity, she found that she still had nearly an hour before they were expected home and the time weighed heavily on her. She knew that what she was doing was actually proving the points that Bill was trying to make, but she just couldn't stay knowing how they felt. She left a note for her mother, apologizing and trying as best as she could to explain, although her best couldn't possibly be good enough here. Dana jumped at the sound of the key in the lock and quickly rose to meet them at the door so that she could make her move before any of them thought to stop her. She glanced at her watch--the cab should be arriving any minute. Bill opened the door to allow Maggie to enter first and she met her mother's eyes for what seemed the first time that night. And Dana knew her mother knew that she was leaving. "The kids are all asleep," she said. "I just checked on them." But her words did not stop either Angela or Tara from going up to see for themselves. And to let the *blood* Scullys do whatever they were going to do in that moment, for the air was thick with the emotions between them. Dana bit the bullet and retrieved her bags from the living room. She saw her mother's eyes fill with tears, and felt her own eyes brimming over. Bill and Charlie looked on-- Bill with contempt and Charlie with anxiety--as she spoke to their mother. "I've gotta go, Mom. I can't stay here. It's just... too much." "Dana, honey," her mother protested. She shook her head. "No, I'm going. I've got a reservation and a cab will be here in a few minutes." She felt tears running down her cheek and rubbed them away quickly with the back of her hand. Pulling her mother close to her in an embrace, she whispered. "I'm sorry, Mom. I love you and I'm so sorry." She felt her mother's head nod against her own and pulled away. She reached for Charlie and hugged him as well. "Bye, Chuckles," she whispered, using the nickname she'd given him after they saw the Mary Tyler Moore episode about the death of Chuckles the Clown. "Remember, you have the key to all the great mysteries of life." "Yeah," he said with a melancholy smile. "*A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.*" His words brought an unexpected smile to her face. "I love you, Charlie. Kiss Angela and the kids for me. And tell the kids not to worry, I left their goodies under the tree. Next year, baby brother." She quickly hugged him again and turned to Bill, who turned his face at her attempts to meet his eyes. "You think I didn't love her, too? You think I don't wish every day that it had been me instead of her?" Her head turned at the sound of the cab outside tooting its horn. "I love you, too. And someday I hope I can tell you how much. I'm sorry Bill, but I have to go home now. Give my love to Tara and the kids." She grabbed her bags and headed out to the waiting cab, confident that someone would shut the door behind her. So she'd arrived home early the morning of the twenty-sixth and Mulder called her cell phone a few days later to tell her about the case Skinner had given him. He seemed surprised to find that she wasn't still in San Diego, but he didn't pry, and he seemed glad when she told him she'd meet him at the scene. And then life went into overdrive with the case and the necromancer and the undead and Mulder's injuries and her own and Frank Black and his daughter. Until that night in the hospital watching Dick Clark. She'd been so relieved to see him walk through that door, his arm in a sling but otherwise intact. She'd been scared by the amount of blood on his shirt at the scene, but they found out that his lacerations, although numerous, were mostly superficial and that his most serious injury was a dislocated right shoulder. Not exactly a new experience for Mulder. In fact, he had talked the med student on duty through the procedure and suffered what most people found to be excruciating with barely a whimper. And then he kissed her, softly and tentatively and for those few seconds, time slowed and stilled. Until he'd mentioned the end of the world, and all that had happened and all that she'd thought about in San Diego came back to her. And Mulder thought her reaction was because of him. He'd asked in the car about her trip to San Diego and she hadn't been able to talk about it with him. Again. Hadn't been able to express her sorrow, her fears. And as a consequence he'd misunderstood what she was feeling. Scully had tried to make it better with another kiss outside his building. And things might have gotten better if Mulder hadn't been so cavalier with the comment about finding reanimated corpses in his closet. But was he being cavalier? The circumstances of that case had been easier for him to accept, was had most of what they'd faced over the years. Did he understand, did he have any idea what the events of the past few months had done to her? The very foundations of her life--the things she knew, the things she believed--were crumbling around her? Did he know what that felt like, what it meant to her? She rubbed her tired eyes, glad to be home, in a place where it didn't matter if she smeared mascara halfway down her cheeks. Mulder did know what it felt like to have his beliefs shattered. She'd watched him experience it over and over--in the months following her remission from cancer, during their removal from the X-Files in the wake of the events in Dallas and Antarctica, in the weeks after Cancer Man told Mulder that his life's work was fruitless, had always been fruitless. Yes, Mulder knew how it felt to have his beliefs shattered. And each time it had torn her heart out to watch him, to see the defeat in his eyes. Did he see the same thing when he looked at her? Yet every time it had happened to Mulder, she'd pretended that nothing was wrong--simply worked beside him and watched him hurt. Was Mulder doing the same thing? God, it was all so stupid--this *don't ask, don't tell* thing they'd built around their emotions and feelings. If there'd ever been a valid reason for it, surely everything that had happened to them and between them canceled it out. Were they both so afraid of appearing weak in front of the other that they'd hidden their fears from each other? The fears certainly were justified. Their lives were terrifying and completely unbelievable to anyone but each other. There was much to fear and of all the people in the world, only she could understand Mulder's fears, and only he could understand hers. Yet they kept them to themselves, like dark gifts tightly wrapped in their hearts. And for what? For what? If it had ever made sense, she could no longer remember why that was. Scully suddenly had an overwhelming urge, nearly an ache, to talk to Mulder. To tell him what had happened in San Diego, to talk about how incredibly horrible the case in Idaho had been, to hear his voice and hope that one more time, it could be what held her soul together strongly enough for her to keep functioning. Tired. Had she slept soundly for even ten hours since Monday? She was just so damn bone-weary that she wasn't certain she could reach for her cell phone, or even press the buttons that would connect her with him. Taking a deep breath, she tried to muster the last of her reserves to make the call. Her fingers had just brushed the phone, when it chirped beneath her fingers. She expelled the breath and felt her eyes sting with tears of relief. Of course, he would know when she was due home. "Scully," she said thickly as a single tear escaped and ran down her cheek. "Dana, it's Mom." A familiar voice drifted into Scully's ears. "I got your message about having to go out of town. I was taking a chance that you'd be home." "Yeah," she said, her tone careful and cautious. "I just got in a couple of minutes ago." She brushed away the tear on her face with a trembling hand, struggling to swallow the lump that had sprung to her throat with her disappointment that it wasn't Mulder, and feeling instantly disloyal to her mother. "You get back okay on Tuesday?" "Yeah," her mother answered. "The flight was crowded but on schedule." "That's good." Scully replied, feeling awkward and ill at ease with her mother. She wanted to apologize for Christmas Eve but she wasn't certain even of where to begin. "Honey, do you think you could come over and see me?" Maggie asked hesitantly. A sudden pang of anxiety hit Dana's stomach and, coupled with her exhaustion, it felt like a blow from a sledgehammer. She really didn't want to have the inevitable conversation with her mother, not just yet. "Mom," she said softly. "I just got back and I'm kind of tired. Can we do this tomorrow?" She heard the disappointment in her mother's sigh. "I was really hoping... I want to talk about what happened. And there are some things I really need to give you," Maggie replied. And truly, Scully wanted to make things right between her mother and herself, knew that she had to for both their sakes. "Okay, Mom. I'm going to wash up a little and change my clothes. Then I'll be over." "Thanks honey," her mother replied, her relief evident in her voice. "I'll see you in a little while. Bye, sweetheart." "Bye, Mom." She pressed the disconnect button and pulled herself to a sitting position using the back of the sofa for leverage. Dragging herself to a stand, she headed for the bathroom where she washed her face and retouched her makeup, trying to ignore the deep shadows below her eyes. Maybe a little more concealer would diminish them somewhat. She did what she could, but wasn't very convinced by the results. She dressed in black jeans and one of Mulder's seemingly endless supply of gray t-shirts, which she'd somehow ended up with over the years. Grabbing a fleece jacket from her closet, she stopped by the coffee table to retrieve her keys, bag and cell phone. Leaning forward to pick them up, she became a little lightheaded and straightened quickly, waiting for the spell to pass. It did, quickly enough, and she headed for the door. The phone in her pocket rang, startling her somewhat. "Scully," she said with an impatient sigh. "It's me. I was hoping you'd be back by now." She almost managed a smile. "Yeah, I got in about twenty minutes ago. You sound mobile. Where are you?" "In the car. I'm driving home from Philadelphia. Probably halfway between Baltimore and DC." 'Did you find a case?" she asked, hoping he hadn't. She was so tired, she couldn't imagine having to go right back to work. "Nah," he replied. "Just running down a lead from the Gunmen. I'll fill you in on it when I see you." With Mulder, that could mean anything, but it was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it on the phone. He was silent for a few seconds and she listened to the sound of his breathing. "Did you finish out there?" His voice was low and dark with concern. "Yeah," she said, her eyes closing involuntarily at the memory. "Finished my last postmortem just after midnight last night. Twenty-two autopsies in three-and-a-half days." "Scully," he admonished lightly, but nonetheless seriously. "That's too much. You sound so tired. I hope I caught you on your way to bed and if so, I'll hang up now." "No, Mulder," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I was just on my way out." "Out?" he asked incredulously. "Out where?" "My mother asked me to come over. She has some stuff she wants to give me." "Can't it wait till tomorrow?" he asked. "You need some rest." "She says it's important," Scully answered with a sigh. "So are you," he replied. "Listen, I could swing by your mother's on my way back into town and drop the stuff off at your place. It's pretty much on the way." She smiled to herself. Pretty much on the way if he veered thirty miles off his path and added an extra forty-five minutes to his trip. "Thanks, Mulder, but it's okay. I'm fine and I kind of have to do this." She paused and Mulder waited for her to continue, saying nothing. "When I was in San Diego, there was kind of a discussion... Hell, there was a fight, maybe even a blowout." "I thought so," he said softly. "I couldn't figure out any other reason for you to come back ahead of time." "It was pretty bad," she admitted. "Things were said that shouldn't have been, mostly between Bill and me, but Mom, too. And I think my mother wants us to fix things." "Whatever happened between you happened over two weeks ago. I don't see how one more day's going to make that much difference." "Maybe it's not for you to see," she answered more sharply than she had intended. "It's for me to decide." There was a moment of awkward silence between them until he muttered, "Okay, fine." He paused and she was about to speak, to apologize for her sharpness, when he continued. "No, damn it, it's not fine. I'm not trying to make decisions for you. I just care what happens to you." "Mulder, I'll be..." "Fine?" he said wryly. "Scully, I want you to think about how you feel right now. If you knew for certain that I felt just like you do right now, would you let me drive?" "No," she whispered, knowing that she'd never let him behind the wheel if he felt like she did. "I just want you to be safe," he said and she felt tears spring to her eyes. "Like I said, I can swing by her place and bring back whatever it is she wants you to have." She sighed, her heart heavy. "I don't think that's a good idea, Mulder." "Why won't you ever let me help you?" There was no anger in his voice, only bewilderment. It was on the tip of her tongue to deny his question as being untrue, but she hesitated. He'd helped her so many times over the course of seven years, but how many of those times had been at her request, or even with her full knowledge. "It's not that I don't want you to help me," she replied, hoping to reassure him. "It's just that part of what happened at Bill's house was..." She paused, not knowing--not wanting to know--how to go on. "Part of what happened was about me." She didn't answer, knowing he would understand her silence. "It doesn't take a huge leap to figure out what Bill was mad about. I'm not exactly on his Christmas Card list. The gist was why do you continue to stay with a raving lunatic." "God, he was such an asshole," she said angrily, but immediately dismissed the anger. "He doesn't understand. None of them do." "Your mother included," Mulder said quietly. "She didn't stop him," Scully replied, her voice thick with long unshed tears. "She didn't disagree. That's why I don't think you should pick up those things from her." "Geez, Scully, I'm not going to move into her spare bedroom. I'm just going to pick up a few things. Three to five minutes, max." It sounded so tempting to her. Just a little sleep. A couple of hours would make all the difference in how she felt. But she'd promised her mother, and Maggie had said it was important. "I already told her I was coming," she protested weakly. "Scully, no matter how your mother feels about me, I know she wants you to be safe, too. Listen, let me call her and explain things. Then if she still thinks she has to talk to you today, I'll come down and take you to her place." "I think whatever Mom wants to talk to me about will take quite a while." "I'll go have coffee, go to a movie, something. You can call me when you're ready to leave. Please, let me do this for you." He certainly seemed to have all the bases covered. Longstanding habit tugged at her, making her reluctant to let herself be taken care of. When had the concern of others come to seem like a relinquishing of her self- determination? Did she really believe that someone couldn't care about her without trying to control her? She hoped that she didn't believe that, but she was simply too drained to think it through. "Okay." "Yeah?" Mulder asked, seemingly surprised at her acquiescence. "Okay then. You get some sleep and I'll be there later, either with the stuff from your mother, or to take you to see her. I'll wake you up when I get there." She was already taking off her jacket and heading to the couch for a nap, her body barely believing that her mind had allowed this. Neither of them spoke as she gratefully kicked off her shoes, but neither of them seemed ready to end the conversation, either. She reclined on the sofa and pulled the afghan off the back, drawing it tightly around her. A warm lassitude enveloped her almost immediately, and she finally broke the silence. "Thanks, Mulder." "You're welcome," he replied, his voice soft and honeyed. "Now go to sleep." "Halfway there," she said on a yawn and pressed the disconnect button before she was too far gone to remember to do it. +++++ I-95 just southwest of Baltimore 3:47 p.m. Mulder smiled at the fuzzy, drowsy sound of her voice right before she hung up. He couldn't believe she'd actually agreed to his suggestion. She must be really exhausted. He sobered a little when he realized that part of the deal was having to call her mother. It shouldn't be a problem. He'd called Maggie a lot during the time when Scully was missing. They'd spoken often and at length during that awful time when they'd both been naive enough to believe that that was as bad as things could get. That was before all the things that had happened to Scully since, each seemingly worse than the one before. He hadn't spoken to Maggie since they'd spent time together in the hospital in New York when Scully had been shot. This wasn't going to be easy, especially in light of what Scully had told him about the family Christmas. But it had to be done and it wasn't going to get any easier. He pushed Mrs. Scully's button on his speed dial. "Hello?" Maggie answered. "Mrs. Scully, it's Mu... It's Fox." "Hello, Fox," she said without hesitation. He wished he knew her well enough to read her tone. "Are you looking for Dana? I think she's probably on her way here." He grimaced slightly. "Well, that's what I was calling to tell you. She's not on her way there." "Oh? Why not?" "I asked her not to go." "You asked her not to," Maggie repeated. "She's so tired, Mrs. Scully." He waited, but she didn't say anything. Gap in the phone conversation. Maybe that's where Scully got it, that ability to just listen--to wait for information to come to her rather than to press for it. "You know she just got back into town. Did she tell you anything about the case?" "No," Maggie answered, her tone sounding sharp to his ears. "She hardly ever tells me about her work. She just left a message on my machine. She didn't even tell me where the two of you were going." "It wasn't the two of us. It was just her," he explained. "I was on light duty this week and she was sent on another assignment." "They sent her on an assignment without you again?" she asked tightly. Maggie had been livid when she found out that her daughter had been shot by a fellow FBI agent--the only person more outraged than he himself had been. "She wasn't in the field, Mrs. Scully," he said, trying to offer the only idea that had given him any comfort over the past week. "Have you seen the news--the thing about the mass grave they found in Idaho?" "It was all over the tv, the papers," Mrs. Scully replied. "Thirty-seven bodies, from what I heard. You mean Dana...?" "Yeah," he said on a sigh. "Some of the victims appeared to be Mexican nationals, so the Bureau was working jointly with the local authorities. The nearest town of any size... Their coroner just couldn't deal with it, so they sent Dana out there to help him out." It felt strange to call her *Dana,* even when talking about her with her mother. "It was pretty bad, Mrs. Scully. She did twenty- two autopsies between Monday and Thursday. It's hard to sleep when you see something like that." "Oh, Fox," she said sadly. "How could she do it?" "Because she's the best there is," he replied with sincere admiration. "But if she got ten hours of sleep in all that time, I'd be really surprised. She's exhausted and I didn't think it was a good idea for her to drive like that. I convinced her to let me check with you to see if I might be able to pick up the stuff you wanted to give her. I'm already in the car and not too far from you." "I was hoping to talk to her, but if you don't think it's safe for her to drive, I can't ask her do it." "I told Dana that if you really had to talk to her, I'd go down and get her and bring her to your house." "No, Fox," Maggie replied. "If Dana needs rest, she needs rest. Come on by. I've got everything in a bag waiting for her." "Thank you," he said wondering if his voice reflected the relief he felt. "I should be there within an hour." "I'll be watching for you. Bye, Fox." "Bye, Mrs. Scully." It was after five when he finally pulled up at the curb in front of Maggie's house. It had been years since he'd been there and he didn't think he'd ever be able to go there-- with or without Scully--that it wouldn't remind him of the time she was missing. He'd visited often in the months that Scully was gone, ostensibly to bring Maggie progress reports on the status of the search for her daughter. But more often just to be in the presence of the only other person in the world who knew how much it hurt to be without Scully. Mrs. Scully would talk to him, make him a meal-- often the only food or conversation he'd had in days. He recalled that time, as well as the day he'd pulled up in front of the house to drop Mrs. Scully off after they'd seen the grave marker she'd selected for her daughter. Mrs. Scully had seen it more than Mulder had. After a brief initial glance, he turned away, unable to bear to look at it anymore. He could not, would not, absolutely refused to believe that she was dead. And blessedly, miraculously, she hadn't been. Mulder popped the door open and unfolded himself from behind the steering wheel. He stretched to work out the kinks from the long drive and moved his head back and forth resulting in several quite audible pops. Nothing more he could do. There was just no getting around approaching the house and ringing the doorbell. Maggie answered almost at once, throwing the door open and greeting him with a smile that Mulder didn't know how to interpret. Not the warm welcoming smile she used to give him way back when, but still one that felt genuine to him. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. "Fox," she said. "Please come on in." "Hi, Mrs. Scully. Took me a little longer than I thought to get here." He stood awkwardly in the foyer, his hands folded in front of him, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "You just never know what the traffic will be like," she said, seeming as uncomfortable to him as he himself felt. "I made some coffee. Would you like a cup?" He felt anxious, as though she were simply being polite. "No, thanks," he said, fighting the urge to look away, down at his feet like a nervous teenager. "I should get that stuff to Dana." Even without seeing her face, he could feel her looking at him curiously. "Dana's probably asleep right now, isn't she?" "I hope so," he replied automatically. "She was almost there when I hung up from talking with her." "Then if you stay and have a cup of coffee with me, she'll be able to get a little more sleep." She smiled at him reassuringly. "I wish you would, Fox. I'd like to talk to you if you have a little time." "Sure," he replied, trying not to be too reassured by her smile. He wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security about how Scully's mother felt about him. But she was right--Scully would at least get a little more sleep. "Why don't you go into the living room and I'll bring the coffee in there?" He walked through the double doors to the living room, recalling the feeling of finding Scully here--paranoid, crazed and pointing a gun at him. Would she have shot him if Maggie hadn't stepped between them? He hadn't believed then that she would shoot him, and he was still certain of it now. She'd have fought it off, listened to that part in her head that corresponded to the part of him that hadn't allowed him to shoot her when Robert Modell had tried to *push* him into it. Pacing the room, he found he was somehow too wound up to sit down alone in Mrs. Scully's living room. A couple of pieces of furniture seemed different--the sofa and an armchair. He drifted over, just as he used to do when he'd visited her, to the large bookcase in the corner of the room that she had decked with photographs. Many of the pictures were ones she'd had on display before, but there were other, newer ones in among them. Bill and the mythical Charlie with their families. One of Melissa that he hadn't seen before, standing on a pier in what appeared to him to be San Francisco. A fairly recent one of Scully- -about two years old, according to her hairstyle--at what appeared to be a family barbecue. He smiled when he noted a gap in the group of pictures and wondered if she'd kept them that way for all these years, or had rearranged them knowing that he'd wander over to look at them like he used to do. During one of the last times he'd visited Maggie during Scully's abduction, he'd finally given into the temptation he'd fought off for so long, and took a small brass-framed picture of Scully and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. He'd seen the photo during his first visit and it made him ache when he realized he didn't have a single picture of Scully--other than the surveillance photo of her gagged in the trunk of the car driven by Duane Barry when he'd taken her. For weeks, he'd stared longingly at the picture on Maggie's shelf, wanting more than anything to have a different image of her in case she was gone forever. The night, weeks later, that he'd slipped it into his pocket was the night he first admitted to himself that he loved her--enough to steal her picture from her mother. It was the picture she'd had taken for her graduation from medical school. Her hair was longer and smoothly styled and she looked so young and beautiful--so much like she had that first day she'd walked into his office. Her eyes sparkled with her smile and she looked so poised and confident and stunningly gorgeous. He'd kept his jacket on during his visit with Mrs. Scully, but couldn't stop his fingers from surreptitiously reaching into the pocket to touch the frame. He'd taken it home later and was happy to be able to close the file containing the grainy abduction photo and have something good to replace it with. Staring at it for a very long time, he was stunned at how much he missed her and by the gaping hole her absence had left in his heart. That first night, he'd kept it standing upright on the coffee table next to the sofa. But when he'd seen it upon awakening from another fitful night's slumber, he felt ashamed that he had taken it. And somehow disloyal to Scully, as if he'd accepted a good image, a happy image, as his final memory of her. Like he was giving up. He'd opened the file again and stared at the picture of his terrified partner until he could feel and anger and rage banking in his heart like a carefully tended fire. And with it came a grim determination to keep going, to search for her for as long as it took. But even then he hadn't been able to return the picture, to slip it back into the place where he'd found it. Instead, he'd placed it in a drawer in his desk, where he'd kept it for years--taking it out every so often, just to look at it, just to remember what her smile looked like. He'd looked at it a lot over the past year. "I counted those pictures, Fox. I'm hoping the same number will be there when I count them again later." Her voice started him, interrupting his thoughts, and he turned quickly hoping his expression didn't look as guilty as he felt. He strode across the room to take the tray laden with coffee things from her hands. "I'll empty my pockets before I leave." Maggie smiled and indicated a space on the coffee table for Mulder to set the tray down. He waited for her to sit before seating himself. Maggie poured coffee into two mugs and handed one to him. "Just black, right?" He nodded and took the cup she offered. She smiled apologetically and passed him a plate with a sandwich cut into quarters. "I was hoping to find something for you to eat. I just got back Tuesday, and I haven't had a chance to do any real grocery shopping. But still, you look like a peanut butter and jelly man to me." He smiled with delight at her offer. Peanut butter and jelly, cut into quarters like tiny tea sandwiches. He was surprised to find that she hadn't removed the crusts. "Who doesn't like PB and J? One of the few things I can make for myself that I can eat virtually without fear." He bit into one quarter and realized that he was hungry--something that hadn't happened in a long time. Had he eaten anything all day? "You're too thin, Fox. Is something wrong?" she looked at him with genuine concern. "I'm okay now," he replied and took another bite of the sandwich, hoping that a full mouth would keep him from having to answer questions about his recent state of health. "But there have been some problems?" she asked. He nodded, not seeing the point in lying to her when she could see for herself. He hoped she wouldn't ask for details. "Is that why you were on light duty and Dana had to go to Idaho?" "No, that was a separate thing. Dislocated my shoulder last week." "You should still have your arm in a sling," she chided him gently, still with a look of worry on her face. "Took it off a couple days ago. It was..." "Too constricting, gets in the way, too hot, itches. Generally a pain in the ass." She noted his surprised look. "Four kids, two sons involved in every sport that was ever invented. I've seen dislocated shoulders. Your arm should be in a sling. You're thinking, what? Maybe Dana won't notice?" "Not likely, huh?" he said with a chuckle. "It's in the car. I'll put it on before I go to see her." Maggie smiled at him knowingly. "Five bucks at ten to one says that she'll be able to tell that you haven't worn it all week." "You don't think I can fool her, huh?" "My daughter is not easily fooled," she replied, not without a great deal of pride. "No, she's not," Mulder replied, and suddenly felt inexplicably somber and uneasy. Scully was not easily fooled--unlike her too often gullible partner. She seemed to pick up on his mood change and noted that he'd only eaten three of the four sandwich sections she'd given him. "Fox, I don't mean to pry..." He saw her eyeing his plate and forced down the last quarter of the sandwich in an unsuccessful bid to erase the worried look on her face. His appetite was not yet back to normal, and he couldn't put away near the gargantuan portions he could when she used to cook him meals. "I had some medical problems a couple months ago," he said quietly. "I'm getting better every day. Dana knows about them and she's helping me keep an eye on things." Maggie nodded, "Except when she's out of town and you don't take care of yourself. If she hasn't slept well since she's been gone, I'd be willing to bet that you haven't been eating regularly since then either." She gave him a skeptical look that was almost identical to one in Scully's rather impressive repertoire of doubtful expressions. "Well, maybe that's part of the explanation." Explanation? "For what?" he asked. "For the way Dana was at Christmas," she answered. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Did she tell you anything about Christmas at Bill's house?" He shrugged in a non-committal way, reluctant somehow to discuss things she'd said to him, even with her mother. Not that he knew that much to begin with. She smiled at him in sad understanding. "Don't worry, Fox, I won't ask you for details about your conversations with her. She told you that she and Bill had a fight and that's why she left early, right?" He nodded. "Did she tell you what the fight was about?" She paused. "Never mind, I said I wouldn't ask for details. I'll tell you what happened." "Mrs. Scully," he interrupted, uncomfortable with the idea of his mother sharing things with him that Scully might not actually want him to know. "I know you think that I'm telling you our family secrets. But you're in this, Fox. And I think our failure to recognize that is part of what happened on Christmas Eve. You're in this and it's not fair for everyone but you to know what happened. And I'm pretty sure Dana didn't tell you all the details." He suddenly realized that he did want to know the details. Maggie was right, he was in this. He was the one who'd had to watch the quiet and subdued Scully who had returned early from San Diego and gone right back to work. "We haven't had much time to talk," he said defensively. "We had a... fairly demanding case right away when she got back. That's where I hurt my shoulder. Then she got sent to Idaho." Maggie nodded in understanding. "You know we got to San Diego on the twenty-third. Bill picked us up at the airport. Maybe I should have said something right away. Bill picked at Dana for little things right from the start, but she didn't seem to take much notice. She was, I don't know, preoccupied, I guess. Now I know she was probably worried about you. I wish she'd have told us. But anyway, she didn't react to anything he said to her and that seemed to make him even more determined to get a rise out of her. I probably should have told him to stop. But Fox, my kids are grownups. I just figured they'd have to work out any problems between them on their own. So I didn't say anything. "By the time we got back to Bill's, Charlie and his family had arrived in their Winnebago, and there was lots of catching up to do. So things weren't so bad, at least until bedtime. You remember Bill's house in San Diego?" Mulder nodded. "Our family was stationed on that base when the kids were young and we lived in a house with an identical floor plan to the one Bill's living in now. Three bedrooms upstairs, so the boys shared a room and the girls shared one. Anyway, Bill put Dana and me in the room that she and Melissa used to share when we lived in the house like that. It seemed so sad and strange to be in that room that used to be Melissa's. I miss her so much of the time, but it's really bad at Christmas. It's been years now, but it just seemed worse this year." He nodded in understanding. "It's Matty's room now. Tara put a whole bunch of glow-in- the-dark stars on the ceiling. It was kind of eerie that first night. I woke up in the middle of the night and was startled by those stars, then I rolled over to face the other bed where Dana was sleeping and there were those alien head slippers of hers. And they were glowing in the dark, too." "She wears the slippers?" he asked, surprised and unbelievably pleased. He'd thought they were really cool when he found them in the store while looking for a gift for her. But he never thought that she'd actually wear them. "A gift from you?" she asked and he nodded. "Fox, we have to talk about gifts." She chuckled a little, then sobered. "I think I did better this year," he said, but not feeling too sure of it. "You did fine last year," she said reassuringly. "Yes, she wears them. And she washes them by hand even though the label says you can put them in the machine because she wants to make sure they don't stop glowing in the dark." Embarrassing as it was, Mulder could feel himself grinning as he looked down, adding hot coffee to the cooling liquid in his cup. She liked the slippers. "But just being back in that room, all I could think about was Melissa, and then Ahab and all the Christmases we used to have. The next day was Christmas Eve and we all pretty much went our separate ways. You know, last minute shopping and things. That afternoon we all got back together and worked on trimming the tree. Dana helped right along with everyone else, not saying much but joining in. We have a Scully traditional lineup for Christmas Eve. We trim the tree, we eat some dinner, then we gather round and sing carols. I was keeping an eye on her and Dana just got quieter and quieter all through dinner. She smiled, she spoke when spoken to, but it was like she wasn't really there. Then we gathered around for the singing. Of course, Dana never joins in on the singing but..." "She doesn't sing with you?" he asked, surprised. He sometimes heard her absently humming carols in the office in the weeks before Christmas and he loved the low, slightly off-key sound of it. When she did it, he had to concentrate on not looking at her. Sometimes out of the corner of his eye, he'd see her bobbing her head slightly in time with the song. She'd stop if he caught her, but he liked catching her, too. It made her smile and blush just a little, like he'd caught her at some secret activity. "No," Maggie answered. "She hasn't for years, not since she was a kid--twelve, thirteen maybe. That year at Christmas, she was just getting over a pretty bad case of bronchitis. So while we were singing, Billy made fun of her and said she sounded like a dying cow, which for some reason he found astonishingly funny. Then Bill--my husband Bill--joined in and said *more like a dying cow in a hailstorm.* Well, that was it. If it had just been her brother teasing her... She was just at that age where young girls can get hurt by a glance. She had braces, and chubby apple cheeks, and red hair, and about a million freckles. Sounding like a dying cow in a hailstorm was just one more thing to add to the list of things she already didn't like about herself. If it had just been Billy, it would have gone in one ear and out the other. But her father said it, too, and I think that really hurt her. He didn't mean to be cruel, he was just joking, but it was the wrong joke at the wrong time. She never said anything about it, just stopped singing and never sang with us again, although she did move her lips and pretend. She still tries to fake it." "I think she has a nice voice," he said quietly, almost to himself, and his lips tugged in a small smile at the memory of her singing to him. "You've heard Dana sing?" she asked and he nodded. "We never heard her sing again. Not even with the radio in the car. I've always wondered if she even sings to herself when she's alone. I hope she does." Mulder half expected Maggie to ask how he'd come to hear Dana sing, but to his relief, she didn't. Mothmen in Florida wasn't something he wanted to try to explain to Scully's mother. "So we were all gathered around the piano. Tara was playing, everybody was singing--or pretending to. I was holding the baby and singing to her. I glanced around for a second and saw Dana just standing there, not even pretending to sing, with the damnedest look on her face. She'd been acting strange all night, so I just went back to paying attention to the baby. And when I looked up again, she was gone." She twisted her hands together as if they were cold and looked away from him. "God, Fox, I just didn't think. Suddenly I was just so tired of how she'd been over the past couple of days. Hell, the past couple of years. And I got mad--mad about her moods, about her *need* to abandon her family right in the middle of the Christmas Eve thing. So I went to go look for her and looked out the back door and saw her sitting on the porch. Just sitting there in the dark with that ever-present cell phone pressed to her ear. And I knew she was talking to you." "Who else would ruin your family's Christmas?" he said sardonically. "No, Fox, that's not how I knew," she replied with a quiet despondency. "I knew it by the look on her face. I just stood there for a while watching her through the window. She didn't even know I was there. She was just sitting on the porch, her knees drawn up, the phone propped up against her shoulder. Not saying a word." "I was telling her a story." "It must have been a good story, Fox. She had her head tilted back and she was smiling. A smile like I hadn't seen from her in years. Maybe ever. And she looked so pretty, sitting there in the moonlight. It was almost like I was seeing her for the first time, like she was so beautiful that she couldn't possibly have come from the likes of Ahab and me." Mulder felt a pang in his heart that he hadn't been allowed to see that smile. But at the same time, he was elated that he had been able to bring it to her. She had let him see a smile like that one night, in exchange for something as simple as baseball, and he'd do anything to see it again. Maggie took a deep and shaky breath. "This is where the hard part starts. I stood there watching her, seeing how lovely she was, and I could literally feel myself filling with anger. Just pure rage. At her... and at you." He nodded his understanding and placed his cup on the tray, readying himself to leave. She placed a hand on his forearm. "No, please stay. Let me finish explaining. Please, Fox?" He did not reply, but stayed in his place on the sofa, sitting straight backed and not allowing himself to relax against the cushions. "I'm so ashamed of this," she said softly, lowering her head. "But I stood there getting angrier and angrier that she'd spent the last two days creeping around, looking like it took every bit of strength she had just to stay in the same room with us. But for you, she could smile. Not just smile, she glowed. And instead of being glad that someone- -that you--could bring a smile to her face, I was resentful that it was you and not us, not her family. And I thought of last Christmas when she chose to be with you instead of us. And the dinner party she left because you called. And all the canceled lunches and movie plans." Her voice was getting shakier as the tears that brimmed in her eyes spilled over. "And the fact that I learned that my daughter had an inoperable brain tumor from you. She told you first. Fox, I'm so ashamed, I'm so sorry, but right at that moment, I hated you." He swallowed hard and closed his eyes against the blinding pain of holding back tears. This wonderful, strong, resilient woman--who'd kept him alive and sane while Scully was missing--had hated him. And for so many good reasons he could use both hands and feet and still run out of digits before he ran out of reasons. Yet he was here in her living room, drinking her coffee and eating food she had prepared for him. How could she? What did it mean? Maggie continued. "Bill came along, looking for both of us, I guess. Dana had already seen me looking at her and hung up from talking with you. I went back to the living room and she came in and he started right in on her. I could hear him in the next room. About how she should be spending Christmas Eve with her family. She tried... I think she was really trying to avoid an argument. She ignored him and came into the living room where Charlie and I were. And he just wouldn't let up. And I just couldn't seem to make myself stop him because I was mad, too." She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and dabbed at a tear that sneaked down her face. "He was yelling about you, about her job. Charlie tried to intercede and Bill told him to shut up and stay out of it. Bill told her he'd met an agent from the Los Angeles field office and he..." "Told him about Mr. and Mrs. Spooky," Mulder finished for her and she nodded. "Word gets around. I guess working with me has pretty much finished any high career aspirations she had with the Bureau." "Fox..." she began. But he kept on talking. "That's why they sent her on that case in New York last year. One last chance to save her career." "And look where it got her!" Maggie exclaimed in disgust. "Fox, Dana doesn't consider her career ruined. Bill always says that when he talks to me about her, and I guess I believed it because she never talks about her work with me so I just didn't know how she felt about it. But I heard her that night. She's proud of the work you two do and set Bill straight on that one right away. She told him that you have an eighty-three percent solve rate on cases and that she doesn't give a damn who calls her Mrs. Spooky. Because you two do good work and you save lives." "She told you that?" he asked, astonished. "She could do so much better than me. I told her once that she'd be Director someday. And she could have been if she'd have transferred out when I said it." "What makes you think she wants to be? She'd never trade in a chance to save lives for a title. And she'd never trade you in for one either. She let us know in no uncertain terms that she's where she chooses to be." She paused and cleared her throat, as if a lump had formed there that was difficult to talk around. "I should have seen it coming. I would never have let him say it if I'd known he was going to." "What?" he asked suspiciously. "I should have known he wasn't thinking when he brought up Emily," she said miserably. Mulder took a shaky breath, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. "He brought up Emily on Christmas Eve? He brought up her dead daughter on the anniversary of the day she found her?" "I should have stopped him. But he never believed that the child was Dana's daughter." "I don't suppose it mattered to him that she believed it," he said coldly. "But that's not what caused the blowup, was it?" She shook her head sadly. "No, no it wasn't. She hung on pretty well through that. But then, then... He basically blamed her for Melissa's death. Said that Melissa was dead because of the choices Dana made. It stopped her cold, Fox. He'd never said anything like that to her before and I was stunned." "Fucker," he whispered under his breath. He could feel his heart constricting in pain and rage. "I know he's your son and you love him, Mrs. Scully. But if he was here right now I'd kick his ass all the way back to San Diego. How the hell could he say something like that to her?" Tears spilled from her luminous blue eyes, so like Scully's. "Fox, I know it hasn't been your experience with him, but Bill is a good man. Really. He's a good husband and a good father. And I really believe that he wants to be a good brother and protect Dana, but she won't let him. Since my husband died, I know Bill sees himself as the head of the family." But Mulder's fury would not be appeased. "And as head of the family, it's his job to destroy her," he said bitterly. "Fox," she said gently. "You know yourself that sometimes people say angry, hurtful things before they even think about them." Her words brought him up short. How many times had he himself blurted out things that he knew had hurt her as soon as he said them? How many times just in the past year? "Besides," she continued softly. "There's plenty of blame to spread around. After Bill said those things, she turned to me and asked if I blamed her for Missy's death. I don't know what came over me, but I started to say I couldn't help thinking that she'd still be here if... I stopped myself but it was too late. She knew what I was going to say." He felt his own eyes fill with tears at how that must have hurt her. Knew her pain from the blame his father had always placed on him for losing his sister. "Mrs. Scully, you should have put the blame where it belongs. Do you have any idea how guilty she feels about Melissa? How much she blames herself?" She nodded looking down at her hands clenched together in her lap. "Let me finish, Fox. After that, she went upstairs and the rest of us went to Midnight Mass. She wouldn't go with us, said she'd stay there with the kids. By the time we got back, she had her things packed and had called a cab. She insisted on leaving, and I couldn't blame her for it. I wanted to apologize for everything and I know Bill did, too. But she wouldn't have listened. She just hugged us all and left. I watched her face and all I could think of was how beautiful she'd looked before, out on the porch talking to you. And it tore my heart out that I'd taken that away from her. I took that away from her. She wasn't beautiful when she left." "She's always beautiful," he insisted and Maggie graced him with an indulgent smile that was heartbreaking in its sorrow. "After she left, I went upstairs and found a note from her on my pillow. To answer your question Fox, no I didn't know how much she blames herself. I really didn't know until I read her note. We Scullys always had plenty of love, but none of us talk about emotions very much. It's just not our way. I knew she was heartbroken about Melissa's death. They'd just started to get close again when Melissa was killed. But she never talked about the guilt. She was too ashamed to, I guess. Maybe too afraid of upsetting me more than I already was. "But I sat there in that room and read her note and she apologized for the fact that it was Melissa and not her who'd died. Dana thought... thinks I'd rather have had it be her who was killed instead of Melissa. She apologized and promised to keep at it until everyone responsible for what happened to Melissa was brought to justice. Said that it was the only way she could live with what had happened to her sister." He nodded his understanding, knowing that about Scully, knowing that about himself. "I did a lot of thinking that night, Fox, and in the next few days. It broke my heart to think that Dana believed I would rather have had her die than Melissa. I can't imagine my life without Dana. And I thought a lot about Melissa, too. About how I hadn't come to grips with her death because there were so many things between us when she died. For so many years, I disapproved of the way she lived and the things she believed. When Dana was abducted, it took me weeks to track her down. I didn't have any idea where she was or what she was doing and when I finally got ahold of her to tell her about her sister, I just *had* to blast her for how irresponsible she was, always had been. If she hadn't loved Dana so much, I don't think she'd have come home at all after the way I talked to her. I wasn't even sure she was coming home until I saw her in the hospital standing next to you doing that aura thing or whatever they call that New Age crap she was so into. And even then, even when she'd come home to be with Dana and me, I still got so angry at her when she started spouting that spirit communication stuff. But she stayed around after Dana got better and she and I started trying to work things out. But there was still so much that was nresolved when she died. And I think that I've never resolved those things. That my own guilt about Melissa made me unable to see the truth. Made me blame Dana somewhat. But mostly, Fox, I blamed you--for Melissa, for everything that's happened to Dana." He swallowed hard, alarmed to find himself shaking with grief. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Scully. I'm so sorry." He wanted to leave, just get away from all the hurt he felt, the hurt he'd caused. But he couldn't, wouldn't, until she was finished. Maggie Scully had earned the right to vent her rage at him and he wouldn't deny her the chance. He lowered his head in submission and waited for her to continue and was amazed to feel her hand on his, gently squeezing. "No, Fox, no. Listen to me." She reached over and raised his head with two fingers beneath his chin. "I was wrong. I was wrong to blame you or Dana." Shaking his head, he tried to avert his gaze, unable to bear the kindness of her eyes, the compassion there. He found, though, that he couldn't look away from eyes that were so like Scully's--vivid blue and almost breathtakingly full of strength and simple humanity. She dropped her hand when she saw that he wouldn't look away. "My daughter was murdered. It's an awful thing but thousands and thousands of parents have had to live through the murder of their children. The man who shot her, the men who ordered him to kill Dana... They wouldn't have done it if you and she hadn't been trying to keep them from doing something wrong, something bad. Something so bad that they'd murder over it. You were trying to stop them?" He nodded. "Then you were doing what both of you took an oath to do. You swore to protect us--just like my husband did when he joined the Navy. Just like my son did. *Those men* killed Melissa. Not you and not Dana. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell you that. "I did so much thinking in San Diego. I realized Dana does what she does... She does it because she truly believes it is the right thing to do. But I think she also does it as her way of coping with what happened to Melissa. She wants justice for what happened to her sister." "We both do," he said quietly. Maggie nodded. "And your sister, and your father, and Dana and you. So much has happened to all of us. I thought a lot about what Dana does, as much as I know about it. I know she doesn't tell me a lot of things because she doesn't want me to worry about her. Though I can't see how the real thing could be more dangerous than what I imagine." Mulder closed his eyes in a moment of anguish. He could never tell Maggie that her imagination couldn't come anyplace close to their reality. Or that he was glad that it couldn't and afraid for it, too. "But the fact of the matter is," she continued, "that no matter what I imagine or believe or want for her, Dana is doing what she's doing. And she's doing it for justice. I have to believe that's why she joined the FBI. Even if all these things hadn't happened to us, I think Dana would have wanted justice against anyone who would do the things that those men have done. She's going to keep on doing what she does. If I didn't believe it after all that's happened, she didn't leave me any doubt after I'd read her note. She's coping with Melissa's death in the best and most honorable way. I wish she wouldn't. I'm scared to death for her. But I'm proud of her, too." Mulder smiled and swallowed back the lump that was forming in his throat. "I should have brought her here," he said regretfully. "It would mean so much for her to hear you say that." "She will, Fox," she reassured him. "I plan on telling her that a lot from now on. But I needed to talk to you, too. To apologize to you for what I was feeling about you." "You don't have to apologize," he interrupted. "I do," she insisted. "You were in my thoughts a lot, too. I didn't think, Fox. I forgot to think about the fact that I still have a daughter because of you. You're the one who never believed she was dead when she was missing, refused to believe she would die even when everyone else-- even her sister and I--thought she should be removed from the respirator. Missy told me you stayed with her all that last night, when they made me go and rest. She said you sat there and talked to Dana all night. We'd been there for days, just waiting for her to die. That's the difference. We were saying goodbye, giving her permission to go. You were asking her to stay and she did." In fact, he'd begged her to stay--many times in that long and awful night when it didn't seem like anything he was doing was making a difference. When nothing about her condition indicated that he had been right to stay with her rather than kill some of the men responsible for what had been done to her. "I'd like to think that I had something to do with it," he said wistfully. "But I think it's more likely that she just came out of the coma because she's incredibly strong and I was... we were lucky enough that it just wasn't her time yet." "I think you're wrong," she replied simply. "But even if you aren't, you're still the reason she's here. That thing you brought to the hospital and had them insert in her neck. You don't get something like that at Radio Shack. What did you have to do to get it, Fox?" She paused and he looked away, hoping not to have to explain something so completely unbelievable. "Don't worry, it was a rhetorical question. I know that I'm even less likely to hear about what you do from you than from Dana. The point is, you did whatever you had to do to get what would save her life." "They didn't prove that the chip was responsible," he said, not understanding his own need to deny what he knew to be true. "It could have been the radical treatment the doctor was giving her. Hell, it could have been the Rosaries everyone was saying for her." "Do you believe it was the treatment or the prayers?" she asked challengingly and he did not reply. "I didn't think so. But even if it was, it doesn't change the fact that *you* did something and Bill and I just waited for her to die. And I believe that what you did saved her life. How many other times that she didn't tell me about? How about Antarctica?" He stared at her, his brow knit in concern and confusion. "She told me she wasn't going to tell you. Made me promise not to say anything." "She didn't tell me," Maggie said sadly. "I found out from Mr. Skinner. I was trying to get in touch with Dana and when I couldn't reach either one of you, I called him. He tried not to tell me but I pretty much browbeat him until he couldn't take it anymore. He chuckled, acutely aware of how good it felt to laugh a bit. "You browbeat Skinner? I wish I could've seen that." "Scully women have always been gifted with the power of persuasion--even those of us who married into it. You think it's harder dealing with an ex-Marine than a Navy captain? Piece of cake," she gave him a little smirk, then grew serious. "He told me--finally--that Dana had been taken again and that you had left a hospital bed to go and get her." "I was okay. I didn't need to stay in the hospital," he said, almost defensively. "I had to go get her. The man who told me how to find her, he wouldn't have given that information to anyone but me. And I couldn't let her be gone again..." His voice drifted away. "You've saved her, Fox. How many other times that I don't know about? You've earned your place in her life." He shook his head. "Probably about as many times as she's saved me. I'm alive because of her." Maggie shrugged. "Then she's earned her place in your life, too." Her words gave him an inexplicable chill. "What I'm trying to say is... I don't know if I can explain this right. Dana is doing what she wants to do, what she's chosen to do--maybe even what she needs to do. She chose the Bureau well before she knew you. She was assigned to work with you and I imagine it wouldn't have been that hard to get a transfer but she never did. She's still there, with you, seven years later. There's a great deal I don't know about my daughter, but one thing I am sure of is that she would never have put so much time and energy and sacrifice into something that she doesn't believe in. And I think she'd have done this even without everything that happened to her, because she believes it's right. God forbid, if anything ever happened to you Fox, I think she'd still keep on." She stopped to swallow and look at him in frustration. "What I'm trying to say is, thank you for Dana's life and..." She was thanking *him* for Scully's life? When it never would have been in danger without him? His face must have given him away, for she turned to him and spoke before he could. "She. chose. this." She spoke each word distinctly, her hands raised for emphasis. "That's what she was trying to tell us on Christmas Eve. I think she's been trying to say that for a long time but none of us got the message, including you it seems. Well, I've got it now. I can hate it, I can wish it weren't true. But I have to live with the fact that it's her choice. The way she lives is up to her, just like the way Melissa lived was up to her. I don't want the same regrets with Dana that I have with Missy. "I have to accept the choice that she's made. It's so difficult, Fox, to know that she's choosing something so dangerous, something that's already cost her so much. But if she has to choose that, I want you to know that I'm glad it's you who's beside her in it. It's the only thing that's ever given me any comfort in all of this. You've shown over and over that you'll do whatever is necessary to protect her. You've earned your place in her life and a better place in mine. I'm so sorry about my resentment, Fox. I owe you her life, many times over. Bill will have to believe whatever he believes, but never doubt that I understand what you've done and what we owe you. And how much a part of Dana's life you are." He wanted to thank her, to say something to let her know how monumentally her words had touched him, but he was rendered speechless--barely able to absorb what she was saying to him. The concept that she was forgiving him nearly blotted out the concept that she was expressing gratitude to him for protecting a life that was more vital to him than his own. He felt suddenly restless, needing to get away to ponder what all of this might mean. Maggie seemed to sense his uneasiness. "I know you want to get to Dana's house," she smiled, trying to ease his discomfort. "I've got the things I wanted her to have right here." She reached into the space between the sofa and an end table and pulled out a large paper shopping bag with looped string handles. "These are her Christmas presents I brought back from San Diego. I guess it's up to her what she does with them." She pulled another, smaller canvas bag from the space. "This other bag... I realized so many things after Dana left, Fox. Things I wish I'd realized before I let things get to where they are. Another thing I figured out is that I've never let Melissa go. I was just so full of regret for what we never got to say, for the closeness we were never quite able to achieve. I buried her, but I never let her go. And I realized that if I didn't let go of my dead daughter, I was going to lose the one I had left. For years, since Missy died, I've had all of her things in boxes in my basement. I never went through them because that would mean putting her away in my heart and I just couldn't do it. "Well that's what I've been doing since I got back on Tuesday. Going through Missy's things, saving some things, giving away things that other people might be able to use. And it surprised me. It felt kind of... I don't know. I don't want to say *good.* It wasn't that. It hurt to do it, but at the same time it felt like something she would have wanted me to do a long time ago. I just went through her things and remembered. So many of the things didn't hold any memories for me, but still they were things that at one time or another, she'd taken to herself as something she wanted or needed. They were small keys to who she was. And some of them told me things about her that I never guessed. Things I wish I had known years ago." She grabbed the canvas bag and brought it to her knee. "Tucked away in a corner of a steamer trunk, I found what I think she intended to be Christmas presents for all of us, if she'd lived till Christmas. And a manila envelope addressed to Dana and me. The thing I really needed to give her is in that envelope. It's in the bag along with Melissa's Christmas present to her and one for you, Fox." "A present for me?" He was surprised, amazed really. He hadn't known Melissa Scully well. Aside from the time Scully was in a coma, he'd only met her a few times when she came down to the office to drag Scully away for lunch. Melissa wasn't unpleasant, nor was he. They smiled, they made small talk. She was Scully's sister, but hardly someone he'd expect a Christmas present from. Maggie nodded. "I think it will all be clearer when Dana reads what's inside the envelope." "What is it?" "I can't tell you before my daughter knows," she said simply. "It wouldn't be right. Let her read it first and then she'll tell you." "Will she?" he asked quietly. "Yeah, I think she will," Maggie replied, her brow knit in confusion. "Is there some reason you think she wouldn't?" He had a sudden, overwhelming urge to spit everything out-- how he felt about her, how he'd always felt, how he'd hurt her, how she confused him, how scared he was sometimes that he'd finally say or do the thing that would be the last straw and she'd decide to leave him forever. Tell her all these things and beg her to help him figure her out. But he tried to bite back the urge, knowing somehow that that was not how he should learn the things about her that he needed to know. Still, he couldn't ignore her question and it would be so good talk to someone about this. "We've had some problems for..." For how long? He couldn't even pinpoint the time when the possibility of her leaving started being the most frightening prospect of his life. "Especially since the thing in Dallas, where we were reassigned. I've made so many mistakes, so many..." He paused, looking for the right word. "Monumental errors in judgement." "Everyone makes mistakes, Fox. We're only human." He winced briefly at the irony of her statement. "I think I've made more than my share and some that have hurt her-- hurt us--badly. I almost died because of those errors in judgement--errors that hurt her. But she still saved me." "Of course she did." Maggie's tone reflected slight disdain at his astonishment. "She always will. Dana is the most forgiving person I've ever known. She always has been. I'm counting on that myself." "But I've never apologized," he said quietly. "It's like... I want to but I'm afraid that if I bring those things up, she'll remember all over why she should just get out." Maggie nodded in understanding, "Maybe she will remember. And maybe she'll tell you how she feels about those *errors in judgement* as you call them. And then maybe you'll tell her why you made the decisions you made. And maybe you'll both know something new about each other that you didn't know before. All that might happen if you apologized. But you know what, Fox? She'd forgive you if you didn't apologize, probably already has, because that's her nature. Quick to forgive everyone but herself. Sound familiar?" She arched her eyebrows in a rather eerie mirror image of Scully's own soaring eyebrow. "I'm not that quick to forgive," he said abruptly. "Aren't you? she challenged. "Has Dana been perfect through all of this?" "Yes," he whispered without hesitation. "Has she? Fox, I know my daughter. I know that she keeps things inside her, that there are times that you don't have the first idea what she's thinking or feeling. That's not something she made up just for you. She's always been that way. Sometimes it would make me crazy. I always knew when she was sad or hurt or upset at me about something, but so much of the time I didn't know what it was about. She'd go all quiet on me, sometimes for days at a time, and I just couldn't get it out of her what was wrong. Probing her about it usually just made it worse. But it was like she had to process it through, look at it from different angles. I think... I think she's always been able to see peoples' motivations, even as a kid. And it was like, after she'd worked it out in her own mind--figured out what had happened and why--she'd be okay again and all would be forgiven. She never explained, she just forgave. But sometimes I didn't know what I was being forgiven for because she wouldn't say what had hurt her--or what made her sad or what scared her. And sometimes it hurt me that she wouldn't let me know, wouldn't let me in so I could help her. Doesn't that hurt you, too?" Mulder didn't answer. He didn't have to. "But you forgive her for that," she said. "You accept it and forgive it. You're so amazed that she's still with you. Well, maybe she's amazed that you're still with her, too. Maybe the fact that you are still here means to her that you're the one she can tell those things to. I don't know. I only know that I want her to be able to say them to someone." "I want her to be able to say them to me," he said before he thought about the fact that that might not be an admission he should be making to her mother. "She already does. Dana tells you more than she tells anyone else, and maybe even more than you realize because sometimes it's hard to hear what she says. But you already know that because you can hear a lot of the things she says in what she doesn't say. And that was part of the resentment, too, Fox. I think I felt that as her mother, she should tell me a lot of the things she tells you. But that's just not right. I can't expect her to tell me about things I can't possibly understand. Of all the people in the world, you're the only one who could understand what's happened to her, what she's afraid of. What you're both afraid of. I see that same fear in both your eyes." He didn't even bother to deny it. "But I can't make her less afraid," he countered. "If there's something to be afraid of--and I've felt that from Dana for a long time--maybe you're not supposed to make her less afraid. I think the reason for fear is to keep you alert and aware. It's good sometimes to be afraid. But it's hard, too. Sometimes it helps to have someone to be afraid with. When Melissa was in the hospital and you and Dana were gone, I was so afraid that she was going to die. And there was no one to share that fear with until you sent Mr. Hosteen to us. He didn't make me less afraid. He never told me anything but the truth, never gave me false hope. But he was there with me and he was afraid with me. He was a remarkable man, Fox." Mulder nodded. "But the point is, you and Dana have each other to be afraid with. And really, only each other. And it doesn't seem to me that either of you wants anyone else." Anyone else? Mulder couldn't remember a time when serious consideration of anyone who wasn't Scully came into his mind. Of course, he noticed other women and found them attractive. It was a hetero male thing. But pursuit hadn't entered his mind in a long time, some part of him knowing on sight that none of the women he saw could possibly measure up to the only woman he needed in his life--on whatever basis she wanted. He was startled from his reverie when Maggie continued. "So if you can share the fear why not the joy, too? Listen to me," she said urgently. "You can't be afraid all the time, neither of you. There has to be some joy in there, otherwise you forget what you're fighting for. But joy doesn't always just happen. Sometimes you have to make it, and you've got to because everyone needs joy sometimes. And if you're strong enough to share the fear, you've both earned the right to share the joy." "Most of the time it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to make joy out of," he replied quietly. "Then you better take it when it comes." She pointed to the manila envelope in the canvas bag. "I think this will help both of you. I know it helped me. And I know Dana will share it with you because she'll know what it means to you, too. Because you're a part of this and you have been for a long time." Maggie stood up and Mulder automatically followed suit, sensing that she felt it was time for him to leave. And he was eager to go, to see Scully, to bring her a message from her sister. He felt a surge of excitement for her, imagining what it would be like if someone gave him a message from Samantha. They walked together into the foyer, Mulder carrying the bags in his left hand. Maggie turned to face him, placing her hand on his arm. "Fox, Dana's father and I were married for a long time. But you know what? It wasn't long enough. You don't know how many times I've wished for just one more day. I still miss him so much. The only things that get me through it sometimes are the memories. You've got to make some good memories, Fox--both of you-- because you're going to need them later on. And we don't get all the time in the world. There's nobody who should know that better than the two of you. And no matter how much time you get, it's never enough." He nodded gratefully, understanding the blessing she was giving him, the gift. Seemingly unable to speak, he set the bags gently on the floor and stepped forward to hug her, not knowing how else to express his gratitude. She returned his embrace then pulled away, wiping a tear from her cheek with her finger. "I want my daughter to be able to smile like she did on Christmas Eve. And I want it to happen as often as possible--for her and for you--'cause wait'll you see her. My baby girl is a knockout!" "Yes she is," he replied sincerely. He opened the door and started to step out, but paused and turned. "Thank you, Mrs. Scully." She gave him a watery smile. "Thank you, Fox. Now drive carefully, okay?" He was already making his way down the sidewalk, but raised his hand in acknowledgement. He opened the front passenger door of his car parked at the curb and placed the bags inside before going around to the driver's side. His hands gripping the steering wheel, he drew a deep breath and exhaled it shakily. He shivered a little, then started the car. About to shift into gear to pull away, he hesitated and reached behind him for the seatbelt, clicking it securely into place. He needed to be careful. He had a message for Scully from her sister. +++++ Georgetown 7:26 p.m. Scully came awake slowly with a deep yawn and a stretch. As her eyes came open gradually, she was glad that she'd turned on a few lamps when she got home because it was completely dark outside. The luminous hands on her wristwatch glowed in the dim light, indicating that it was almost seven-thirty and that she'd slept nearly four hours. She stretched again and swung her legs over the side of the couch, just to test the waters, and found things much improved. The throbbing ache in her temples that that plagued her for days was gone. And she didn't seem to be feeling the constant chills she had felt the whole time she was in Idaho. And surprisingly, amazingly, she felt hungry for the first time in almost a week. She rubbed the back of her neck, scratching her scalp a little as part of the process. Seven-thirty. She'd have thought Mulder would have arrived by now. Knowing it was useless, she still felt a twinge of anxiety. She tried to dismiss it--he wasn't really late--and worrying about Fox Mulder was a great way to train for an early heart attack. He was probably just driving around to give her a little more time to sleep. She smiled at the image of him circling the block, checking her window for signs of movement and, on impulse, she went to look out the window. His car was nowhere in sight. As long as she was up, she decided to check the kitchen to see if there was anything she could stand to eat. Hungry though she was, it was still difficult to overcome the images her mind carried of the past few days. She, of all people, knew that there was evil in the world. But there was something different about the calculated evil of the men she and Mulder were up against and the mindless, almost helpless, evil she had seen visited upon the girls she'd autopsied. The latter evil was, strangely, more rightening to her than what the Consortium posed. Those men were always present, always to be watched for. The mindless, helpless ones stayed hidden for so long, people seemed to forget that they could come out of nowhere. The randomness of the horror was what was so awful to her--not just because of the horror but because it was an affront to her sense of order and rightness. She had a hard time wrapping her imagination around the idea that such horrors could be conceived, even by the sickest of minds. Maybe that's why Mulder was the profiler and she wasn't. He could imagine it. Trouble was, he could imagine it too well. Wondering again where he was, she put a kettle of water on the stove for tea. She missed him and the accompanying pang she felt no longer even surprised her. She'd been able to admit to herself at the end of the first day in Idaho that she missed him. It was just after she'd overheard a comment between two other agents about Mr. and Mrs. Spooky taking separate vacations that the realization hit. She didn't resent the agents' caustic remarks nearly as much as the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Spooky *were* taking separate vacations. Field work, autopsy work--it didn't matter. It didn't feel right to be working there without him. The hastily assembled FBI team for this operation was a good one, but she couldn't help thinking that Mulder would have been the better choice as a profiler. Another part of her, though, was glad that he hadn't been assigned to the case. He'd been through far too much lately and he always put way too much of himself into profiling. Of course, Skinner would have been aware of that, too. But there were so many times when she'd tried to brief other members of the team about things she'd discovered in the autopsies, having to explain over and over things that Mulder would have known without asking. Although he'd never actually participated in the *slicing and dicing* as he called it, Mulder had gleaned a great deal of knowledge in the science of forensic pathology during the years of their partnership. And what he didn't understand, he took at her word, not requiring lengthy explanations. But aside from her frustration with the pace of the investigation, she just missed him. Just missed having him there--someone who would understand the nearly mind-numbing horror of the case. Thirty-seven girls whose lives from start to finish had been filled with pain and most of whom would probably never be identified. Coming from lives of abject poverty, their families had decided to do whatever it took to improve their lot by coming to America. Instead, their daughters were taken by a madman and, in most cases, they were too frightened even to report them missing. There would be few, if any, identifications by dental records for these girls came from families where dentist visits were a luxury beyond imagining. No, these girls would be buried unnamed, grieved from afar by families who would never be sure what had happened to them. Sometimes in the midst of it all, Scully had felt such anger and helplessness that it felt like she would explode with it. But she couldn't. She had to hold it together because there were always more until it seemed like it would never end. It would have been good to have Mulder to talk to about it. But would she have talked to him? She could have, though, and maybe that was enough. No, not anymore. For a long time it had been enough knowing that she could speak with him if she wanted to, if she'd been able to make herself do it. But that had changed the morning she'd gone to his apartment to tell him of Diana's death and had learned of Albert Hosteen's first. She'd told him of her fears about not knowing what to believe or who to trust. And he hadn't shrugged off her fears or begged for her belief or her trust. He simply told her that when he felt that way, she was his touchstone--how he measured what was real and genuine. And since that time, though they'd never spoken of it again--so typical for them--he'd shown her in subtle ways the truth of his statement. They were different together now. She wanted to believe that if he were here right now, she would tell him about the case and what she'd felt. And that she'd missed him. She could say that. What would be so hard about that? Maybe he'd missed her, too, and that wasn't a scary thought at all. She smiled as she promised herself that she'd tell him she missed him if he was wearing the gray suit with the black and burgundy tie when he got to her house. Had he made the same kind of deal with himself that night? It made her grin to think so, and kick herself for bringing liverwurst and root beer. Liverwurst and root beer? Eww! What had she been thinking? No wonder he wouldn't let her call him Fox. But the thought of calling him Fox caused her nose to wrinkle more than the idea of liverwurst and root beer. No, he was Mulder, now and forevermore. And she felt a little sorry for people who only got to know the Fox of him and not the Mulder. She heard the key in the lock and set her cup on the counter to meet him at the door. Brushing away a tear she hadn't realized she'd shed, she smiled watching how slowly and noiselessly he opened the door. She pulled the door open so quickly that he was startled into dropping the bags. They stood and looked at one another for a moment, neither of them speaking. He was wearing jeans and his black leather jacket--his day off apparel--and his expression was one of uncertainty. "I missed you," she whispered finally. The suit thing had been a stupid game anyway. The leather jacket was way better than the gray suit. And the smile he gave her in return made her wonder why she hadn't told him she missed him before. She reached for the bags, setting them inside the door, and backed away slightly to allow him to enter. "You, too," he answered, smiling at her almost shyly, and stepped hesitantly over the threshold to her apartment. How strange after all these years to feel butterflies at seeing him and to be fairly certain that he was feeling them, too. Strange and awkward in a vaguely pleasant way. Vaguely pleasant yet mildly annoying to the practical side of her that was trying to tell the butterflies that it was just Mulder. And for once, she had no qualms about telling that side of her to shut up because right now, just Mulder was all she needed. And just to piss that practical side off, she threw caution to the wind and stepped forward to take him into her arms. For no better reason than just because she missed him. Mulder apparently thought it was a good idea, too, as she felt his arms wrap around her in return, lifting her up just a little to nuzzle his face in her neck. Now that's something new, she thought as she felt herself shiver slightly. "Sorry, I should have knocked. I thought... I was hoping you'd still be asleep." His voice was honey and smoke as his breath warmed her neck. "Woke up a few minutes ago," she replied, turning her head a little hoping to encourage him to keep breathing because it felt so singularly wonderful on her skin, but still trying to find some way to keep her face in contact with the leather of his jacket. She chuckled inwardly, remembering how the nuns at school dances had always reminded her and her high school classmates to leave enough room for the Holy Spirit between them and the boys they were dancing with. If nuns only knew what this felt like, they'd realize they were fighting a losing battle. This was much better than it had ever been in high school. To finally be in Mulder's arms... Arms. As in plural. "Mulder?" "Hmm?" His voice caused a gentle vibration against the skin of her neck. She could definitely lose her train of thought here. "Where's your sling?" She felt him tense slightly in her arms as he loosened his grip to allow her to slide back to firm footing on the floor. "I left it in the car," he replied, and she could see his self-annoyance at the fact that he'd forgotten to put it on. He looked at her closely and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "You've lost weight. You haven't been eating." She shook her head at the feeble attempt. "Mulder, don't try to divert me when I'm about to nag you for your own good. You know your arm should still be in a sling." She stepped behind him to help him with his jacket, both of them being careful of his still sore right shoulder. Throwing the jacket over the back of an armchair, she led him to the sofa and sat beside him. "I wore it till Wednesday," he said defensively. She nodded, her lips pressed together to avoid laughing at him. "Five days out of two to four weeks. But that probably is a personal best for you. Why'd you quit wearing it this time?" "The usual," he answered with a grin. "Plus, I kept hitting my arm with the file cabinet drawers. I mean, how smart is it for them to stick your arm out in front of you where it gets in the way all the time?" "You hit it with file drawers?" she asked and he nodded. "As in more than once?" "I spent the week cleaning out the file cabinets, getting rid of files that didn't belong there," he said sheepishly. "You culled the files?" Her tone was mildly disbelieving. "What did you get rid of? Three, four files?" "Try a drawer and a half," he replied smugly. "At this point in time, we have one and one-half empty drawers." He smiled with pride at his accomplishment. She looked at him skeptically. "We've been through a lot together, but now you're starting to scare me. The real Mulder would never throw away a drawer and a half of files. Let me draw a little blood. I want to do a quick blood typing just to be on the safe side." He laughed and she loved the low, rumbling sound of it. "You'll know it's the real me when you see the stack of files I want to reopen, and some of the new stuff I've found for us to work on." She watched his grin fade as he brought his hand up to brush his fingers against her cheek. "I wasn't kidding before, Scully. I was pretty sure you'd have a hard time sleeping, but I thought you'd still eat. You've lost a lot of weight." "Not even ten pounds," she countered. "Besides you aren't exactly Mr. Hale and Well-Fed yourself." He smiled at her indulgently. "Scully, don't try to divert me when I'm nagging you for your own good." She smiled, allowing him points for being able to use her own words against her so soon after she'd uttered them. "You don't have ten pounds to spare." She thanked him with her eyes for not finishing his thought about how she hadn't really gained back all the weight she'd lost when she'd had cancer. She knew how scared he had been during her illness--she herself had been scared. Now he respected her need not to talk about that time and maybe that respect stemmed from his own need to put it behind them. She still had regular appointments with her oncologist and Mulder never asked her about them, which she hoped meant that he trusted her to tell him if her emission ended. "What's the deal, Scully?" he asked, his tone worried. "So bad you couldn't eat?" Hesitating only a second, she nodded unable to suppress the sudden shudder that wracked her body. He slid closer, bringing his hand up to her neck in response to her shaking. He understood. Mulder had been involved in cases so bad he couldn't eat. Anyone else in her life--those who were left in her life--would have admonished that she should have forced herself to eat. Mulder understood the very real fact that sometimes you just couldn't. His hand at her neck was warm and strong, his touch her undoing. She took a deep, shaky breath. "No time to eat and even less desire," she said with a heavy sigh. "It was ugly right from the start." She told him how she'd arrived in early evening and was picked up at the airport by a county sheriff's deputy who brought directly to the crime scene "The gravesite was all lit up with klieg lights brought up from Boise. Looked like a high school football field for a homecoming game." She shuddered again at the imagery. "The team started drifting in. They were coming from all over. But they'd set up a big tent thing on site and we were all there by about nine o'clock and the ASAC filled us in on the situation and what had been discovered to that point. Thirty bodies and not much else except a high probability that there would be more." She felt Mulder's thumb rubbing light circles over the muscles at the base of her skull. How long had he been doing that, increasing the pressure slightly with each leisurely pass over the knots in her upper neck? Did he even realize he was doing it? His attention was focused on her, his eyes never leaving her face. She was afraid to move in case the he interpreted her movement as a signal for him to stop. "They finished the preliminary meeting at about eleven, which my body thought of as one in the morning. Too late to eat and I was so tired. But I couldn't sleep thinking about the fact that there were thirty bodies waiting to be autopsied. Thirty so far. The county morgue couldn't even hold them all. They had some stashed at the local hospital and some left in the care of the three local morticians. They got mobile refrigeration equipment to us by Tuesday, so we could keep them together near the morgue. It was strange to walk through when they were getting the mobile unit set up and transferring the bodies--surreal, like walking through a war zone or a place that had been devastated by some kind of awful act of nature--earthquake, tornado." Scully didn't know how it had happened, but she found that she had turned slightly away from Mulder. She knew it was a subconscious movement, but she wished her subconscious had been a bit clearer about what it meant. Had she turned away because it was easier to talk to him when she couldn't see him looking at her? Or was it to quietly urge him to use his other hand to soothe the muscles on the other side of her neck? He seemed to have guessed the latter as she felt his fingers work their way lightly over her skin, both hands now working her protesting muscles. But maybe he guessed the former, too, accepting her need, conscious or not, to look away from him. He said nothing, merely waited for her to continue. "By Monday morning when we started the autopsies, they'd found thirty-three bodies. So the local guy and I got to work. His name was Seth--Seth Easley. He was a nice enough guy and did what he could. But he was just a coroner in a rural county out west. So few questionable deaths happen in places like that that being coroner is almost an honorary title. No way was he ready for what we got. Hell, no way was I ready. Nobody should be ready for what was waiting for us. First we had to make some kind of guess as to which bodies were those most recently killed and work chronologically backwards from there, as best as we could determine. The most recent victims would be most likely to have usable trace evidence and they needed more evidence fast for the investigation." "No, Scully," Mulder said softly from somewhere close behind her right ear. "Not the investigation. You. What happened to you?" He was using the index and middle fingers of each hand to make walking motions from her shoulders up the column of tendons on either side of her neck. Slow movements with a pressure that was gentle but that she seemed to feel deep within her tissue, breaking up the knots and easing them away. she thought to herself as she tentatively moved her head back and forth to test the loosened muscles. "We started the autopsies mid-morning on Monday, after discussing how to proceed. That first day, between us, we got nine of the bodies autopsied. Sometimes I have a hard time doing an autopsy first thing in the morning, so I usually don't eat." "Even after all the years you've been doing it? Wow, I just assumed it would get easier and easier." His voice was low and even, soothing her simultaneously with the work of his hands, nearly mesmerizing her. "It's something you get used to, I think, but it doesn't get any easier," she whispered, as if to herself. "I don't think it's supposed to get easier." "Hmm," he replied. "I guess you're right, it shouldn't." "I thought nine was a lot," she continued. "Considering the fact that I had to pretty much talk Seth through the first couple he did--how to gather evidence according to Bureau lab standards, new techniques that he might not have had reason to know about. He was just overwhelmed, but doing the best he could. I thought we were doing okay but the ASAC came by at the end of the day and said we needed to work them faster if possible." Mulder gave a disgusted snort. "Couldn't they get you some help?" She shook her head. "Only two autopsy bays. There wouldn't have been room for another pathologist. On Tuesday, they sent up a couple of surgical residents from the university hospital in Boise to close for us. We'd finish the postmortem, they'd take them to a corner of the room and stitch them up. It did save some time and we worked faster. But early afternoon on Tuesday, it started to feel like someone had inserted glowing coals between my shoulder blades." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Just this white hot pain that seemed to shoot all the way down my back." Scully felt his hand move to rest on her shoulders as his thumbs unerringly found the spot where the pain had been the most intense. She arched into the pressure and he stopped, his hands gently bringing her shoulders into better alignment. He then resumed the tempered circling motions of his thumbs. She luxuriated in the feeling, not saying anything for several minutes, but feeling as if she could breathe in and fill her lungs all the way--something she hadn't felt in many days. Mulder didn't urge her to continue, he just kept rubbing the shoulders she didn't realize were still so sore. She finally spoke. "Somewhere along the line my feet went from aching to numb. And my hands--the saws and cutters, and scalpels. In an autopsy, your hands are constantly pulling or pushing or cutting something. After a while, they just started hurting constantly. And you have to wash them all the time. The soap dries out your skin and it was so cold and dry there." His hands moved from her shoulders to her upper arms and, still silent, he turned her to face him. She felt his hands slide down to reach for hers, placid and still in her lap. She tried to pull away, embarrassed by the state of her hands, but he held firmly, squeezing her fingers and gently caressing the weathered skin of her knuckles with his thumb. She hadn't noticed that her hands were so cold until they were enveloped in his much warmer, much larger ones. Unable to make herself look at his face, she simply watched his hands as he transferred both her small hands into one of his. She followed the path of his free hand as he reached over to the coffee table and opened the flap of her purse. Curious but not alarmed, she watched him rummage through it, finally emerging with a tube of hand cream. She looked up as he brought the tube to his eye level to read the label. His thumb flipped the lid open and he brought it to his nose to inhale the scent. "You always use the same hand lotion," he said, setting her hands on his leg just above the knee. "I'd be able to pick you out blindfolded in a crowded room just by this scent." He squirted a generous amount into his palm. Holding his hands together, he warmed the lotion between them, then rubbed them together, spreading a layer across the underside of his hands. Mulder took her right hand in both of his, moving them over her skin to distribute the lotion. She gasped when he threaded his fingers through hers, and she felt the pads rub the cream into the webbing. His fingers moved in and joined his palm to hers and she found herself squeezing back before she even knew it, relishing the connection between them. She smiled up at him and found him looking at her with such tender concern that it made her heart race wildly in her chest. He added more lotion to her hand, her thirsty skin having quickly absorbed it, and began a slow and languorous massage of her hand starting at the fleshy part of her palm just above where her hand met her wrist, one hand moving up to her pinky finger and the other working on her thumb. His skin glided effortlessly over hers, warming it and causing it to tingle from the stimulation of the tiny blood vessels beneath it. She wanted to weep with how exquisite it felt after days and days of an ache that was so constant and deep that she'd almost started to think that it was a part of her. He began again at the bottom of her hand and worked toward the ring and index fingers, his movements firm and slow. It almost seemed, though, that the motions were unconscious as his eyes were riveted to hers. "Physically, it was one of the most grueling things I've ever done," she said and he nodded encouraging her to continue. "But I think I could have handled the work, if not for... Damn it, Mulder, it was just so wrong. Thirty- seven teenage girls, illegal aliens. Their entire lives probably consisted of poverty and fear, and then they were dead before they got a chance to see that it could be better. And the way they died... Strangulation, slow poisoning, burned, tortured. It was like that bastard just tried out every hideous thing he'd ever heard of. They kept bringing me bodies and each one where there was enough left of the remains to determine a cause of death... each one was more horrible than the previous one. And all I could think of was how scared they must have been, waiting and probably praying to die. I'm a pathologist, Mulder. I'm supposed to be detached enough to do autopsies..." She stopped to swallow, trying to ease the burn to her throat from the tears she was trying so hard to fight. She looked down and saw that he had finished working on her right hand and moved to her left without her noticing it. "Scully," he said on a sigh. "You could never detach yourself from something like that, not you. But you'd still expect yourself to. Sometimes you ask too much of yourself." She nodded, acknowledging the truth of his statement. "When I decided to go into pathology... Nobody understood why I did it--not my family, not my friends. My father was appalled. I guess he expected me to go into a field of medicine where I actually had returning patients. My classmates thought I was *settling*--that I really wanted to be a surgeon but didn't have the guts to face the *good old boys network* that surgery is. And who knows? Maybe that was part of it." "Come on," he said skeptically. "You know that's not true. If you look up the word *guts* in the dictionary, your picture is there. You're the bravest person I've ever known. If you'd wanted to be a surgeon, you'd be a surgeon." The tears she'd been fighting finally won the battle and brimmed over her eyes onto her cheeks. He didn't hesitate, but dropped her hands to gather her into his arms and she went gratefully. With her face pressed firmly against his chest, she wondered at his words. How could she be the bravest person he'd ever known when she was afraid so much of the time? Yet she knew by his tone that the words were true to him. "So what made you choose pathology?" he asked, and she marveled at the fact that she could hear his voice leave his mouth, and feel the vibration of it as it rang through his body. "You know," she said softly, "not one person in my life back then asked that question, not like that. Everyone asked why are you doing this? And it was like they left off the last two works--*to me*--but I still heard them. They acted like I was doing something to them instead of making a choice for me. So instead of answering them, I usually just went on the defensive. I chose pathology. I didn't settle for it and I didn't set out to shock or disappoint people. We all had to take a class in forensic pathology and I knew--I think maybe from the first day-- that that was what I was supposed to do. The professor, Dr. Carmani, said on that first day that an autopsy is the victim's final chance to say what happened to him and that the pathologist is the victim's voice, his last chance for justice. Those words have stayed with me and I try to think of them every time I do an autopsy and I try to give them the dignity after death that they didn't get while they were dying. I want them to have... They deserve to have my attention and my thoroughness and to be treated like valued individuals. They deserve it and so do their loved ones." She shuddered and felt his arms tighten around her. "But those girls, they just shuttled them in one right after another--an assembly line right out of Henry Ford's worst nightmare. They weren't treated with dignity. I passed them off to the medical students before I was even inished. I couldn't take the time to listen to their voices, but they'd still come to me. Later, when I'd be trying to fall asleep I could hear them talking, telling me about their horrible lives and even worse deaths. And I'd hear their families, weeping with the agony of never knowing what happened to them." She pulled away slightly to see his face. "It made me hurt for them because I know what that's like, that uncertainty. I know from watching you. And I missed you because I knew you'd understand if I just told you. I promised myself that night after you phoned that I'd tell you about it and about Christmas at Bill's so you'd know why I was the way I was when I got back." "You mother told me about Christmas," he said quietly, his head resting easily on hers and his mouth near her ear. "My mother?" she repeated, feeling slightly fuzzy headed and unable to understand. She pulled away slightly to look at him, to clear her head. And somehow, looking at him did nothing to clear her head at all. "Yeah," he answered. "That's where I've been till now. We talked for a long time and she told me about what happened on Christmas Eve. She's pretty anxious to apologize for it." "She doesn't need to apologize," Scully insisted. "I should be the one to apologize. But I can't because she'd expect an explanation and I can't give her one." "What do you have to apologize for?" he asked, his expression confused. "The whole thing was a mistake right from the start. I shouldn't even have gone. I didn't want to." She sighed deeply. "I mean, I wanted to see my family but I didn't want to be there. I was..." "You were worried about me," he finished for her. He must have seen her perplexed look because he continued. "You mother figured it out once she got a look at the new emaciated version of Fox Mulder. You don't have to worry about me, Scully. I'm f..." "Don't," she interrupted as unexpected and inexplicable tears rushed to her eyes. "Not fine, Mulder. Please don't be fine." He brought his hand up to lightly caress her cheek. "You're right. How 'bout we both retire fine? You saw the test results--the blood work, the CAT scans, the EEG. They all said everything's okay, right? That's what you told me." He gave her a look that was slightly anxious. "Yeah," she reassured him, reaching up to touch his face as he had hers. "You tested normal. But Mulder, we don't know what they did to you. What they took out of you--or put into you." Her fingers found their way to the scar at the base of her neck. "You can't expect me not to worry. Has telling you not to ever stopped you from worrying about me? We're supposed to worry about each other." He nodded and smiled at her--the smile with all the teeth-- and Scully was struck by how incredibly handsome he was. She'd always known it, of course, had been aware of his attractiveness from their very first meeting. But it was different now, after all these years and everything that had happened. Always attractive, now his face--older and more knowing, as was her own--was one that was beloved to her. And she knew the smiles he gave were for her. Very few others ever got them. And the one he was giving her now caused her pulse to quicken. Unable, unwilling to resist, she used the hand still resting on his slightly stubbled cheek to urge his face toward hers. Finding no resistance, she felt him move closer and their lips met for the first time in a week. A week that felt like a year. And the third time was the charm. His mouth was warm and welcoming over hers and she felt his fingers move into her hair as he held her head close to his and his other arm wrap around her waist to draw her nearer. Her own arms wound around his neck as she simply let the feelings wash over her. He felt so good and he tasted so *damn* good. And suddenly she couldn't think of a single reason for all the years they had denied themselves this. She tightened her grip and sought control of the kiss, wanting more than anything to show him what she'd never yet been able to say. He made a small groaning noise that sent a shiver down her spine and she intensified her effort to see if she could get him to make that sound again. To her delight, he did but that sound was followed quickly by the simultaneous growling of their stomachs, each of them loud enough to be audible to the other. They both started to laugh, their mouths still fused, and she was filled suddenly with a feeling of all-encompassing joy. They broke apart slightly, their foreheads still resting against one another. "Am I to assume that means you're hungry?" he asked, his voice, low and breathless, adding to her own breathlessness. "Ravenous, actually," she whispered back. "You, too?" He nodded and with their foreheads pressed together, it made her nod with him. "Got anything here?" "Nope," she replied. "I haven't been shopping in weeks. My kitchen looks frighteningly like yours. Oh, except for the science projects you keep in your refrigerator. Of course, I didn't check the vegetable bin. No telling what's growing in there. I have saltines, pasta, and rice." Mulder gave her a look like the one he'd given her when she told him about the tofutti rice dreamsicle. "Yikes," he said with a shudder. "You wanna call out for something?" She wrinkled her nose. Delivery food was pizza or Chinese and she couldn't stand the idea of either of those. "I don't think I can handle the kind of food that people bring to you. I must have some soup or something out there." This time it was his nose that wrinkled. "You need some real food." He was quiet for a moment, then smiled. "I know just what we need. I'll go get it, but it'll take a while. It's in my neighborhood, but I'll go get it and bring it back." "That means you'll be gone almost an hour," she protested. Not only did she not want to wait that long to eat, she didn't want him gone that long. "I'll be as fast as I can. Just nibble on some saltines to take the edge off. This'll be worth the wait, I promise." He looked at her enthusiastically. "What about you? You're hungry, too." "I'm okay," he replied. "Your mom gave me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich." "My mom gave you a sandwich?" He nodded. "She thinks I'm too thin. We talked for a long time, Scully. I'll tell you about it when I get back. In the meantime, I have what she wanted you to see. She says it's from Melissa." He moved away slightly and touched her face. "Melissa?" she asked, a shiver passing down her spine at his touch and his words. "Yeah," he said standing up to cross the room where the bags still stood by the door. "Your mom said she was going through some of her things and found these." He returned to the couch and pulled the manila envelope from the canvas bag. Taking it from him, Scully looked down to see her sister's familiar flowery handwriting--Mom and Dana. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, looking up to meet his eyes. "No," he said, shaking his head. "Your mother wouldn't tell me. She said you should know about it first." She turned the envelope over in her hands. The flap was not sealed shut, just held in place by the metal clasp. But she had absolutely no doubt that Mulder had not even considered reading the contents. She folded the clasp to the upright position and opened the envelope. As she started to remove the contents, she felt his hand cover hers. "Wait," he said. "I'm gonna go. I'll go get us something to eat and that should give you enough time to read this." "No," she interrupted. "Stay. You should see it, too." He shook his head. "Your mom said you first. I'll be back and we can talk about it if you want to." He moved to stand and she followed. But he stopped her, taking her hand in his and pressing it to his lips. "Just stay. I can find the door. I'll be back in a little while." Scully watched him walk to the door, where he turned and gave her a little wave. She smiled at him and he left. She heard the lock snick into place behind him and looked down at the envelope in her lap. +++++ Mulder's car 9:28 p.m. Mulder looked down at the speedometer, trying to stick to the posted speed limit. He was fighting back an urge to floor the gas pedal and get to Alexandria and back to Georgetown, and Scully, as quickly as possible. But he also wanted to give her enough time to read and digest whatever it was her mother had sent her. He was admittedly curious about the contents of the envelope, and was pretty sure she'd share it with him. Almost certain. She'd already shared so much with him that evening. It had nearly floored him that she'd told him so much about how she was feeling while she was in Idaho. It had made him ache for her and with her, but at the same time the fact that she was letting him know her heart filled him with both awe and gratitude. He'd loved her for so long, and so many times had silently begged her in his heart to give him a glimpse into hers. And for so long it seemed as if it would never happen, as if every time there was a chance, he'd say or do something stupid that hurt her or scared her. Or else, shit just happened--as it did so often in their lives. But tonight he'd just listened, lulled by the low softness of her voice as she gave him her pain and her life. He hadn't been able to keep himself from touching her and was amazed--and a little apprehensive--when she hadn't moved away. But his apprehension vanished as she encouraged him to continue, allowing herself to let him help her feel better. Touching her, he found, was exquisite torture. He couldn't remember a time since he'd known her that his hands hadn't wanted to roam her skin and, once allowed, they'd longed to touch her everywhere. But somehow he'd found the strength to keep them in control, to make them do what she needed rather than what he wanted. And in doing so, he found a need within himself that he'd long since given up hope of indulging--a need to give her what she needed. He'd given up hope that she would ever allow that. Well, maybe he hadn't completely given up hope. He had watched the video, after all--twice. One evening a few months back, he'd found himself at the video store. Surrounded by tens of thousands of videos, he hadn't been able to find a single one that interested him enough to rent it. Not in the mood for his usual choices--porn, sci- fi or action adventure--he drifted over to a rack he'd never really paid much attention to in the past. Special Interest. There he found documentaries--historical, nature films--public service videos, how-to for home and autos, videos about various medical conditions. He'd never even been aware that things like this were available. He was about to reach for a video about Hiroshima when another title caught his eye. *Fundamentals Of Therapeutic Massage.* He shrugged his shoulders and grabbed it, not even bothering to read the blurb on the box. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was pretty sure he'd been expecting something like soft-core porn that was trying to be educational, but the film surprised him. It really was a video about therapeutic massage. The woman performing the massage demonstration talked about the process as she went along, using the proper names for the muscles and carefully explaining why she was doing what she was doing and the benefits derived from it. The person receiving the massage was carefully draped with a sheet, showing nothing revealing, and the therapist only uncovered the area she was working on. As he watched, his mind wandered--as it often did--to Scully and he wondered what it would be like to touch her like that, to try and ease some of the tension she was so obviously and so often under. It was a few weeks after the evening they'd played baseball and the first time in months and months that it didn't seem totally beyond the realm of the possible that he'd ever be able to touch her like that. They'd slowly been working their way back to each other after the awful way he'd treated her that night at the Lone Gunmen's place when his complete and utter stupidity should have cost him everything--should have cost him her. Somehow in the midst of disaster--both personal and professional--they'd been reassigned to the X-Files, and though it had been painfully awkward at first, they'd been working their way back. So he'd watched the video twice just to be sure he'd know what to do if, by some miracle, he would ever get the chance to rub Scully's neck. And he got the chance. And though feeling her muscles loosen and relax beneath his hands was a wondrous experience, it was nothing compared to the feeling of listening to the strings of her heart loosen as she spoke to him. She'd given him her emotions, her life, and he was awed by the gift. Then, even more miraculously, she'd let him give her comfort. She'd allowed him to hold her without her walking away, had let him see into her eyes deeper than he'd ever been. There was so much there, he wondered if he'd ever be able to see everything. But suddenly his eyes were closed because she was kissing him--the kiss he'd been trying for on New Year's Eve. The one he'd wanted for years. And to his delight, he hadn't imagined it nearly as fabulous as it really was. Kissing Scully was an all- sensory experience--the feeling of her in his arms, the silky texture of her hair beneath his fingers, her taste, her scent, the soft throaty noises she made. He'd reveled mindlessly in it, just letting it wash over him--until he felt his stomach growl with hunger. He was mortified, until he realized that she was making growling noises herself. And as much as he didn't want to let her go, he wanted more for her to eat something, worried at her thinness. It was time to feed this phenomenal woman. Finally, he reached his destination and pulled into the parking lot of Rose's Diner. It was just a couple blocks from his apartment and a favorite place to eat. He'd taken Scully there for breakfast early Christmas morning a year ago when they'd eaten so many blueberry pancakes he thought they'd explode. He'd taken her that morning and several times since then and she seemed to like it. Rose served good hearty food. Comfort food. Food like Rose's chicken and dumplings, so much like Sophie's. Sophie had been the Mulder family's cook when he was a kid. His mother took care of their home because his father had said he didn't want some stranger poking through their things. Now, of course, Mulder knew it was because his father had things to hide. But Bill Mulder did allow them to have a cook, probably because his wife was, perhaps, the worst cook of her entire generation and had absolutely no interest in remedying the situation. So Sophie had been with them for as long has he could remember--up until he left for college in England. She lived in the apartment over their garage, but there was no doubt in the whole Mulder family that she owned their kitchen. She did all the shopping and cleaning and meal preparation and his mother gave her a wide berth, only visiting the kitchen to discuss weekly meals and schedules, as closely as she knew schedules. His father was away a great deal of the time and his mother's social obligations often kept her away from home for dinner during the week. But Sophie also had to be prepared to make and serve large meals often on very short notice, for sometimes his father would show up unannounced with three or four other men in tow expecting them all to be fed and fed well. A task that she performed without batting an eye. But for the most part, she'd cooked for him and Samantha. And just for him after Samantha had been taken. During that sad, strange time when none of the Mulders seemed to speak to one another, it was often just he and Sophie for dinner and she'd make them a big steaming pot of chicken and dumplings with cornbread on the side. Then she'd sit down with him at the small table in the kitchen and talk to him while they ate. She'd ask about his day, his schoolwork. Sometimes she'd tell him about her childhood in Mississippi and make growing up poor and black in the segregated south sound more like an adventure than a travesty. After Samantha was gone, sometimes he felt as if he were invisible. He could drift through rooms where his mother and father were screaming at one another and they never stopped, never acknowledged that he was even there. So sure of his invisibility was he that he sometimes would try walking right between them and it never made any difference in the pitch or volume or vehemence of the arguments. And it frightened him to be that nonexistent. At those times, it was only because of Sophie that he believed he was real and able to be seen. She always knew when they couldn't see him. Or when his father would finally remember he had a son--a son who hadn't been able to protect his own sister--and scream at him or smack him or belittle him. She always knew and was always ready with a hug and a brownie or an attentive ear if he felt like talking. But she never pushed. She knew when he needed to be quiet, too, and she'd just let him stand beside her while she made the chicken and dumplings she knew would help him feel better. And together they'd pinch off the dough she'd made for the dumplings into the boiling water where the chicken was stewing. And the warm steamy smell and the mindlessness of the task would soothe him as he stood beside the only person in the world who actually seemed to care about him. She passed away during his third year in the Bureau. Although she no longer worked for his family, he'd kept in touch with her after returning from England, visiting her in the assisted living center in Boston where she'd taken up residence while he was away. His life had pretty much always been lonely and he needed the visits with Sophie as much as she did. He'd bring groceries to her small apartment and she'd make him his favorite meal and they'd talk for hours. When she died, he'd taken care of everything making sure she had the kind of funeral she deserved and he was heartened to see how many friends she had. He still missed her and the comfort and love she'd always given so freely. One day he'd gone to Rose's Diner and saw chicken and dumplings on the menu and felt a craving for them that he hadn't known in years. Although he was certain that he'd be disappointed because nobody could make them like his Sophie had, he ordered them anyway and was pleasantly surprised. They were close to Sophie's and he'd made a point of telling Rose how good they were. They'd struck up a conversation about home cooking and how nobody seemed to do it much anymore and Mulder found himself coming back again and again for good food and conversation. As always, the door jingled as he entered. This late in the evening, the diner was nearly empty--just a few hearty souls sharing coffee in booths in the back. Rose was behind the counter, filling the sugar dispensers and humming to herself. She looked up at the sound of the door and greeted him with a smile. "FBI Guy!" she called out as he approached the counter to sit in front of her. "Haven't seen you in a while. From the looks of things, nobody who makes food has seen you in a while." She eyed him critically and waved him to a stool to sit down. "Jesus, Rosie!" he exclaimed. "Lay off. You're the third person today to tell me I'm too thin." She rolled her eyes. "Don't you investigative types call that a clue? You could use some fattin' up, Mulder, so I guess you come to the right place. You got that chicken and dumplin' look about you." "Ah, Rosie, you must be psychic." Without asking, she pulled out a mug and poured Mulder a cup of coffee. "So where's that pretty redhead you been bringin' in here? How come you're here on a Friday night and not with her?" "Actually, that pretty redhead needs fattin' up as much as I do, so I thought I'd take her some of those chicken and dumplings. Can you make me up a pretty good sized container and some cornbread if you've got it?" "If I've got it," she snorted. "Have you ever known me not to have cornbread? You should have brought her in, Mulder." "She's had a tough week," he said simply. "I just wanted her to stay home and rest." "You gonna take care of her, right?" Rosie gave him a knowing grin. "I hope so, Rosie," he said, before he was aware of the double entendre she made. Strangely, it made him blush-- something he thought he'd gotten over years ago. "Don't doubt it, Slim." She laughed at the arch look he gave her. "I seen her looking at you. She's crazy about you." He chuckled and shook his head. "She's my partner, Rosie. We work together." "And that means...?" She looked at him skeptically. "It means these *crazy 'bout ya* looks you two give each other are purely professional? Not buyin' it, Mulder. You are smitten, son, and last time you two were in here, I watched that girl checkin' out your ass when you went to the men's room. And she was smilin' like she liked what she saw. 'Course your pants fit you better then." He gave her a warning look that she didn't seem to take too seriously. "I get the message, so knock it off. And don't toy with me. Scully does not check out my ass." "Just because I'm old now don't mean I didn't check me out some asses back in the day." She threw her head back with laughter. "I know the look, Mulder. When she gives it to you and when you give it to her. Now why don't you sit here and drink your coffee while I go back and get you some food to take to your lady? I made some pie today, thinkin' I might see you in the next couple of days. Sweet potato pie, fresh this afternoon. Want a piece while you wait?" Rosie's sweet potato pie--nirvana with a fork. "Want to save my appetite to eat with Scully. But why don't you put in a couple of slices and we'll have it for desert." "You got it," she said as she walked back into the kitchen. Mulder reached over the counter and grabbed the pot to refill his coffee cup. Rosie said Scully checked out his ass! Not even the realization that he was sitting alone at the counter grinning like an idiot could wipe the idiotic grin from his face. *And she was smilin' like she liked what she saw.* It was strange to think that Scully might find him physically attractive. He'd wondered off and on over the years if she ever thought of him that way, but he didn't dare dwell on the idea for a lot of reasons--the biggest of which was, what if she didn't? But the idea that she might... To hear someone else say it... It filled him with... with something he couldn't name, but that made him grin like an idiot. He'd been attracted to Scully from the start, although she definitely was not his usual *type.* When she first walked into his office, he'd thought she was cute in a fresh- faced, head cheerleader kind of way. She'd dispelled the *cheerleader* notion in his mind before she'd spoken a hundred words to him. Smart, self-assured and quick witted, by the end of their brief initial meeting, she'd gone from cute to pretty in his mind. Mulder couldn't pinpoint as easily when she'd gone from pretty to beautiful. Whenever it was, it must also have been the moment he'd fallen ass over ax handle in love with her. And now he wondered how he ever could have thought of her as anything but beautiful--in all her incarnations, and through whatever shade of red she and Andre, her stylist, decided on over the years. She was lovely in dowdy suits and bad hairstyles and drop-dead gorgeous in sleek black and hair so smooth and shiny it was all he could do not to run his hands through it. Fathomless blue eyes and lips he'd wanted to run his tongue along from the first time he'd seen them. No doubt about it, she could never be anything but beautiful to him. He could look at her for hours at a time if she'd just let him. Her physical beauty, though, had little to do with who she was, but was more like a reward for who she was. He loved that she was beautiful, but he didn't love her because she was beautiful. Her face was lovely to look at, but it was her expressions that he lived for. You could look at Scully's face and see the intelligence, the compassion, the determination. There was so much that was good in her--her integrity, her loyalty and strength, that quirky dry sense of humor. How could he not love her? But it wasn't blind love for he knew she could also be opinionated, closed off, stubborn and self-righteous. But the thing was, he loved those qualities, too. Sometimes he stood in awe of her, sometimes she frustrated him beyond even his own imagining, sometimes he loved her so fiercely it felt like his heart couldn't hold it all. And sometimes she hurt him--she'd done it both by accident and on purpose. She made him feel all those things. She made him feel everything. She made him feel--something he hadn't done in so long that until she came along, he thought he'd lost the capacity for it. How could he not love her? He looked up at the sound of the door to the kitchen swinging open and Rosie coming back carrying a large brown paper bag. He walked beside her on the other side of the counter toward the cash register, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He felt the sag of the denim as it drooped across his butt. Damn! He was too skinny. If by some chance Scully actually was scoping out his ass, there was hardly anything there to look at. Maybe he should have Rosie mix up a milkshake or something. It probably wasn't realistic to expect to gain weight by the time he got back to Scully's. "There ya go, Mulder," Rosie said with a smile. "Enough food to feed a small regiment. Should help fatten the two of you up. Here, take this candy bar, too, and eat it on the way." She handed him a Butterfinger from the display case beneath the register and he slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. He gave her a twenty and waved her hand away when she tried to give him his change. "Tell Scully hi from me," Rose said, coming around the counter to walk with Mulder to the door. "This'll make you both warm and comfy. Things are always better when you're all warm and comfy. Now get going and bring her in next time." "Will do, Rosie. See you soon." He found that he couldn't be as patient on the way home with the smell of their dinner wafting up from the empty seat beside him and a picture of Scully waiting for him floating in his mind. Taking short cuts, breaking speed limits, he made considerably better time on the return trip. +++++ Scully's Apartment 10:44 p.m. He knocked once before using his own key to let himself into her apartment so she wouldn't have to get up. As he entered, he saw that she was pacing the floor in front of the couch talking on the phone. Had to be her mother. And he could see a tear glistening on her cheek in the glow of the lamp next to the sofa. She walked over to him and put her hand on the receiver. "I'll be done in a sec," she whispered, giving him a watery smile. "No, keep talking," he answered back. "I'll just go in and heat this up a little for us. Go sit down and I'll bring it in." She nodded and reached out to squeeze his hand before going back to the couch--a gesture that brought a smile to his face. As she walked away from him, he noticed that she was wearing a t-shirt of his--a gesture that widened the smile already there and caused a pleasant stirring in his loins. God, she looked hot in his clothes! Picturing his wardrobe, he started to wonder what else he could bring her to wear. No doubt about it, the Knicks shirt. That blue with her hair and eyes? It could kill him even to imagine it. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and went to heat up their food. Her kitchen, as always, was spotless and he set the bag on the counter to unpack it. The container of chicken and dumplings was still slightly warm and he pulled it out and dug around in the cupboards until he found a saucepan. Dumping the contents, he set the burner to low and looked in the bag to find the cornbread. He found it, wrapped in plastic wrap and ready for a few quick seconds in the microwave. Also in the bag, to his surprise and delight, were an entire sweet potato pie and a can of whipped cream- -the squirting kind. He picked up the can and found the note taped to the side. *Hey, Slim, I heard this stuff ain't just for pie anymore.* He chuckled to himself and crumbled the note, shoving it deep inside the pocket of his jeans. Rosie, apparently, had a lot more confidence in him than he had in himself. But he had to admit, he liked the idea of the whipped cream. It made him think of the Knicks shirt again. Crumpled up on the floor. He stirred the mixture on the stove as it heated so that the dumplings didn't stick to the pan and when it started to bubble, he gave the cornbread a quick heat through. Just as he was bringing everything into the living room, he saw her place the phone on the coffee table. Although her face was stained with tear tracks, she didn't look upset but, rather, gave him an expectant look and he saw her nose twitch slightly as she tried to guess what he was bringing her. "Rosie's chicken and dumplings! You're amazing, Mulder. I didn't even know I wanted that till you brought it in. And cornbread. This is the only thing I can imagine eating now." Her voice was shaky, her tone indecipherable to him. "She said to tell you hi," he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound nonchalant. Finally, he gave up trying. "You okay?" "Yeah, I think so," she said quietly. "Mulder, this stuff..." She indicated a small sheaf of papers spread out on the coffee table. He shook his head. "Put it aside for a bit. Let's just eat first." Scully nodded in agreement and gathered everything together to clear a space on the table for Mulder to put the tray. They sat side by side, knees touching, and ate from bowls resting on plates on their laps. He almost forgot his own meal, just watching her attack hers. Slurping dumplings, mopping up gravy with her cornbread, making the occasional appreciative grunt, Scully was doing some seriously impressive scarfing. She'd told him she was ravenous and he searched his mind for just one other time when he'd seen her eat with such gusto. Well, there was that rib place in Wisconsin where, between them, they'd performed a major eating initiative on a rather sizeable plate of ribs. He remembered wiping the barbecue sauce from her face with his napkin and now, as then, she had a tendency to wear her food on the rare occasions that she ate like a linebacker, evidenced by the dribble of gravy at the corner of her mouth. This time, though, he ventured to do what he'd wanted to do then and swiped at the gravy with his thumb. "You dribbled," he said, noting her curious glance. "Hmm," she replied looking from his thumb to his face. Her expression told him that she was waiting to see what he would do with the gravy he'd removed. The right thing to do--the safe thing to do--would be to wipe his thumb on his napkin and continue eating. He rejected it immediately and brought his thumb to his mouth, licking the sauce off. Her smile told him he'd made the right decision. Was he imagining it or did he really catch just the slightest taste of her on his skin? Scully took the tray of empty dishes back to the kitchen and Mulder looked across at the sheaf of papers she'd placed beside her as they ate. It surprised him how little he was tempted to reach for them, to try and catch a glimpse of their contents. He found that he wasn't as curious about what they said as he was about whether Scully would choose to tell him. He still felt fairly sure that she would, although he could feel some part of himself trying to steel himself just in case she decided not to. She saw him looking at the papers when came back bearing two sweating glasses of ice water, handing his to him before she sat down. "Love Rose's chicken and dumplings, but she sure doesn't go light on the salt." She drank deeply from her glass and placed it on the table before them. "You could've read them, Mulder," she said, picking up the pages she'd lain face down on the sofa. He shook his head. "I don't make a habit of reading your personal stuff." She looked at him doubtfully. "You read what I wrote in the hospital in Allentown," she challenged. "You wrote that to me," he countered. "And besides, I stopped when..." She looked at him curiously. "When what?" "Nothing," he said quietly. "Look, it was a long time ago. W... you got through that." They both sat quietly for what seemed a long time, staring at their hands folded placidly in their laps. Mulder had almost given up hope that either of them would speak again when he spied her hand approaching him and he watched it come to rest on his with a gentle caress to his thumb. "Why the hell do we keep doing this, Mulder?" Her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. "Things have happened to us, earth shattering things, and we never talk about them. We're blessed enough to make it through them, and then we act like they never happened. I had cancer, Mulder, and *we* got through it. I got through it and you got through it. But damn it, we could have gotten through it together." She drew his hand over to hold it between both of hers on her lap, her top hand rubbing gentle circles over his. "I know I was mostly to blame for that. I pushed you away and shut you out. I knew I was doing it at the time, but it just didn't seem like I could stop it. That was wrong and I'm sorry. But I didn't know what you were thinking or feeling then, either." How could he begin to describe what he'd been feeling? He hated even thinking about that time, let alone talking about it. But she was right. How long could they keep avoiding talking about these life-altering events? And why had they decided they needed to avoid them in the first place? Well, if he expected her to give him her heart, he would have to be willing to share his own. He thought about the night that he found her book on the bedside table in the hospital in Allentown. He closed his eyes briefly and could picture a whole page of it, word for word. Sometimes it sucked to be eidetic. He could see all the words in her pretty, precise, Catholic school handwriting--her neat and orderly-written goodbye to him. "I stopped reading when I..." He swallowed hard trying to force down the lump in his throat. "I stopped reading because it scared the piss out of me, Scully. You were going to leave that for me to have after you died. Reading it there, beside that empty hospital bed, it was too much like the real thing. It started to feel like you were already gone. And you know, I could picture it. That's what was really scary. I sat there holding that book, running the whole scenario in my mind. You know, like one of those daydream-y things you get sometimes. In my thoughts, I could see you getting thinner and sicker until they finally had to put you in the hospital. And I could picture your mom and me sitting by your bed. I didn't know Bill then, but I wouldn't have pictured him anyway. But I pictured your mom and me, each of us holding one of your hands. Then I pictured the heart monitor going off and I could hear the beep--droning on endlessly until I reached over and turned it off. I could see me standing there just in sheer disbelief that you were gone. And I could see me bending over to kiss you goodbye, and leaving your room, and riding the elevator and even getting to the door of the hospital. But I couldn't see any farther than that. There was absolutely nothing after that. I simply could not imagine the rest of my life without you. And that terrified me. I was so scared I could hardly breathe." He took a deep and shaky breath. "That's how I felt. Like my heart was being ripped out. And... you want to know how else I felt?" Looking down at her, he could see the tears brimming in her eyes as she nodded. "At the same time it was ripping my heart out, it was pissing me off." He hesitated, unsure how to proceed, and he felt her squeeze his hand in reassurance. "The things you wrote, Scully... they were beautiful. Things I never knew you thought, things I never would have guessed that you felt. But I was stealing them from you. You hadn't given them to me and the only way I could have them was if you died. They were beautiful words, but they were still goodbye. They were the words of someone laying down to die. You were going to go gentle into that good night and leave me with beautiful words. And it pissed me off and ripped my heart out and I went down to wait for you by Penny's room because I wanted to know why I couldn't have those words until you were dead. And I wanted to know why you were just rolling over. "I had it all planned out. I was going to tell you what I'd found at Lombard and you were going to get dressed and we were going to go there and take care of business. I actually thought that. Until you came out of Penny's room. Your back was to me and when you turned around... I could see it. You were sick. I got hit with one hell of a dose of reality. All I had was a vial of your ova, not even viable because I'd been carrying them around in my fucking pocket. A vial from a place that was surely swept clean of any evidence within an hour after they'd discovered me there. I had nothing. And you were sick and nothing I'd done or found could change that." Mulder could recall it all with perfect clarity--every word, every second, every agonizing breath of that encounter. His conscious mind had played it over and over again during the time she was sick. And his subconscious mind still showed it to him occasionally in dreams. "And you stood there and told me that those words weren't for me after all, that you were going to throw them away. And that hurt, Scully, that you were going to throw away the words you wrote to me. That if I hadn't stolen them, I would never have gotten them. That hurt. Hell, it still does. But it didn't hurt as much as the realization that you were sick, dying. Then you were spouting some bullshit about living with cancer and proving things to your family. And I knew then... I just knew that I had to play it however you had to play it. If you had to deny it, so did I because I had no other hope to give you. I was so afraid during that time that when... when the end came, you'd just bolt and you wouldn't let me be with you. I hoped... I hoped that if I went along with it the way you wanted it, you'd let me stay. So you came back to work and I watched there be less of you with every day that passed and it didn't seem like there was anything I could do but watch because I... because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't find the answers. Not once during the whole damn thing did I ever know what to do." He fell silent on a sigh. "Not true, Mulder," Scully protested, shaking her head. "You did all I could let you do. And so much more. When the time came, when the answer was there, you found it. And you brought it to me and let me decide." He started to speak, but she placed her fingertips gently against his lips, not allowing him to interrupt her. "Don't even start, Mulder. I know you. I know what you're going to say. Yes, it was at the very last minute. If you'd just found it sooner... That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?" He nodded, not really needing to. "I told you. I *know* you." Her voice was low and gentle, and her words stirred something in his chest. She knew him. Scully knew him and knew she knew him. The thought brought a rush of emotions so overwhelming that he almost missed her speaking again. "Do you think it matters to me now that it was at the last minute?" she asked. "Do you think it ever mattered? It was this side of the line, Mulder, and three years later I'm still here. See?" She took the hand that was clasped in both of hers and brought it to her face so that her cheek rested in his palm. The touch of her skin against his palm jolted him momentarily into the now and sent him reeling off again almost immediately. He was feeling too much, more than his underused heart knew how to cope with. Scully knew him and knew she knew him. The only person in the whole world who did, who knew him. Truly his one in five billion. Scully knew him and she was still there. Despite him and despite her, despite the Bureau and the mutants and freaks and psychos, and despite Them--she was still there. He caressed her cheek once with his thumb before sliding his hand back to thread his fingers through her hair. Pulling her against him, he enfolded her with his other arm. Her hands were pressed against his chest and she rested her head on them and it felt as if he were wrapped all the way around her. "I'm so glad you're still here," he whispered into her hair as he nuzzled it with his nose. "I don't know where I'd be if you weren't. You're the best thing in my life, Scully. The only light there is." Cocooned, swaddled in Mulder, Scully felt his words stir individual strands of hair as they simultaneously entered her ears and touched her soul. She was the best thing in his life. Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought. In his life full of pain and loss and deceits and lies and manipulation, she was a light for him--his only light. And even though she'd doubted nearly every theory he'd ever proffered, argued with him, pulled him back at times when his only instinct was to hurtle forward, tried to keep him out of her heart, he still made his way back to her light. Because even as she was doing those things, she was protecting him, defending him, covering his back, doctoring his wounds, soothing him when she could, loving him. Loving him. The realization struck her with something akin to the feeling of entering a well-heated building on a bitingly cold winter day. Suffused in warmth. She loved Mulder. She was fairly certain that thought had come to her in dreams, the good ones, the warm ones. But she'd never before consciously admitted it and it elicited a small gasp from her. He must have heard or sensed her gasp for she felt his arms around her loosen, as if to pull away. In turn, Scully moved her arms from between them, twining them around his waist, holding him there--partly because it just felt so damned good to be enveloped in him. But mostly because she wasn't ready yet to face him, to look at him with eyes that loved him. She needed to process this strange new idea, to play with it in her mind, to test its truth as she, seemingly, was born to do. He didn't seem to mind that she didn't want to let go quite yet and she felt his nose resume its nuzzling in her hair, making her shiver just a little. Her mind kept repeating it over and over as if she were learning a strange, new language. After just a few times, it felt right--like the longstanding truth it was--and she was amazed at how easy it was to accept it. And how good it was. She loved Mulder. her rational side countered in that snotty tone she'd always hated. And the answer was surprisingly simple. Huddled inside the warmth of him, her heart felt warm, too. For the first time since... since... She could call up no point of reference for this feeling. Had her heart never before felt this? If so, this heat burned away any former feelings she'd ever had, and even the memories of them. There was absolutely no doubt that what she was feeling right now was past friendly, *way* past partnerly, and heading for the sublime. Another realization came to her, bringing with it a feeling that was a strange mixture of elation and regret. Mulder loved her. Just like he'd said in his hallway the week after she'd found him in the DOD facility. Just like he'd said in the hospital in Florida when she'd scoffed and dismissed him. Just like he'd said before the bee and the side trip to Antarctica. He'd told her over and over again and she'd never said it once. Many more times than that, he'd shown it to her. And he kept trying to tell her, warily and hesitantly, risking her scorn and desertion, without once ever receiving a verbal glimpse into her heart in return. Yet he'd never given up. And he'd just done it again. Suddenly she was aware of his apprehension. His breathing no longer matched hers. There was a tension in his arms as he held her, becoming worse the longer she remained silent within them. He'd put his heart out there one more time and she hadn't responded. It was time for her to start giving, too, to take the leap he had taken over and over. No walking away. The thought brought the return of the butterflies she'd felt earlier when he'd first arrived at her apartment. Excitement, fear, joy, adrenaline all coursed through her at the same time--a powerful cocktail that left her somewhat lightheaded and breathless. She relaxed her hold on his waist and felt his hands glide down her arms as she pulled away just enough to see his face. And what she saw there amazed her. To anyone looking at Mulder--anyone except her--it would seem as if his face were completely impassive. But it was his eyes that were playing out his every thought and emotion, almost like one of his slide shows. He looked at her and she could see the love that had been there for so long, but that she'd never allowed herself to see before. A gentle look that no one but her ever saw--because if was for her alone. And she could see his anxiety at her silence and the potential for regret in the creases of his forehead as he wondered whether he'd said too much again. And it she ached to have caused that. "I'm sorry Mulder," she said and she felt him suddenly make as if to move away from her. "No, no, no," she said, pulling him close again. "That's not what I meant. I mean, all those times you tried to tell me--you *did* tell me--and I.. My turn now, Mulder." She snaked her arm up between them to touch his face and wondered whether his skin was abnormally warm or her fingers were abnormally cold. But the contrast was electric, amazing. Almost as amazing as watching his eyes change color right before her from their usual hazel to a deep mossy green. She knew of his chameleon-like eyes, of course, but had she ever actually witnessed the transformation? Knowing full well that there was a scientific reason for it, for once she opted for magic. How could she possibly not... "Love you, Mulder." The words came out even as she thought them, whispered but not tentative in the least, and in the saying of them, elation won out over regret. She'd said it and it wasn't difficult in the least. She could feel the smile breaking out on her face as this newfound emotion took hold of her. Elation. He wanted to smile, but he was holding himself back. She could see it in the twinkle that was building in his eyes, but he couldn't quite let himself do it. "Say it again," he said, softly but urgently. "Please. It's the only way I'll know for sure that I'm not delusional. That it's not just another *gotcha big time* here." His plea tugged at her heart and she thought of all the things that had happened in his life that could make him doubt even his own ears, his perceptions. Well, not this time. This time there could be no room for doubt. She reached up to cup his face between her hands and locked her eyes to his. "Never about this. I said I love you, Mulder." And Scully saw it happen. She watched his face and saw him believe. It was the same expression she'd seen as she drifted in and out of consciousness on that ice field in Antarctica, when his faith had been reborn at the sight of something she hadn't seen--again. This time, though, the look was aimed at her and she was made aware, one more time, of what a powerful thing Mulder's belief could be. It had to be to sustain him for as long as it had. But she had little time to contemplate his belief before his mouth descended on hers and solidified her own belief. His kiss this time was different from any of the too few they'd shared thus far--resolute and certain, yet incredibly tender. A declaration of intent. For the first time, he didn't doubt that he could give her what was in his heart without fear of rejection because she'd told him she loved him and he believed her. He pulled away slightly to trail tiny wet kisses over her face, her eyelids, her forehead, until he reached her ear where his warm breath and lips sent delicious chills down her spine. "So much, Scully," he whispered. "Love you so much." And she was rocked to her very core at how it felt to hear those words from him and allow herself to believe them. Rocked by something she hadn't felt since childhood and never thought she'd feel again--sheer, undiluted bliss that seemed almost like a separate physical entity sharing her body. It felt like laughter, like balloons and cotton candy and roller coasters with big high drops and loop-the- loops. Did he feel it, too? Her answer was written on his face, plastered there, painted with neon colors. She thought she'd seen him smile before, seen him chuckle, seen him laugh. But nothing she'd ever seen had matched this. His teeth, his eyes, that fabulous mouth, his cheeks, his nose--hell, even his ears were in on this Muldergrin. She was absolutely dazzled by him and completely awed that it was she who'd brought him this amazing expression. But just as suddenly as it came, she watched it fade and found herself bereft at its loss. He smiled still, but she saw the change in his eyes--not in their color this time, but in their light. Scully had seen the look too many times not to know it for what it was. Confusion, uncertainty. "What?" she whispered, still gently smiling at him, but somewhat anxious just the same. He winced slightly and gave a self-conscious snort. "I don't have the first..." He lowered his eyes briefly but brought them right back to hers. This was obviously something he found difficult to say and she wondered if she really wanted to hear it. "I'm afraid I'm going to say something stupid here and completely blow this whole thing like I did on New Year's Eve." The words came out of him in a rush--the verbal equivalent of pulling a Band-Aid off in one quick swipe. It hurts less if it's fast. She sighed with relief and risked a small chuckle. This was something she could dispel right here as she'd already promised herself she would. "You didn't blow it on New Year's Eve, Mulder. Okay, maybe the undead in the closet thing was too much, but it was pretty much blown by that time anyway." "It was the end of the world thing, wasn't it? That was the stupid thing that time." Scully nodded. "But it wasn't you, Mulder, it was me. And Christmas and all the things that have been going on for so long. All the things I never told you." He looked at her curiously, but not in accusation. "Can you tell me now?" His tone was still and even, completely without challenge or demand. It said to her that he would accept it if she couldn't tell him, that the choice was hers. But could she? She almost wished he had demanded that she tell him, or at least asked her to. For given the decision, she found that it was more difficult to make than she had hoped it would be. She loved this man. She'd admitted it to herself and to him. Why should it still be so difficult to tell him her fears? It wasn't as if he wouldn't understand. Mulder knew fear, had borne it for longer than any one man should have to carry such a load. And he alone could comprehend what she feared. She wanted to tell someone, wanted it badly. And if not him, who? Karen the Bureau psychologist? Oh yeah, she could just picture that! Who except Mulder wouldn't have the psych ward preparing a room for her if she said something like that? Taking a deep, trembling breath, she closed her eyes and willed herself to speak. "You said before that I'm the bravest person you know." He nodded in confirmation. "And it meant so much to hear you say that. But it's just not true, Mulder. So much of the time..." She realized that her head was bowed, her eyes squeezed shut and she made herself look up at him. If she was going to share this with him, he'd earned the right to see it in her eyes. "So much of the time I'm afraid, terrified. Sometimes it's all I can think about. I'm afraid for the world, for my family, for you, for me." She hesitated and her voice dropped to a whisper. "For us." "Scully..." he whispered and she watched his eyes fill with tears. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "I need to say this, please. And you need to know this. It could be dangerous if you don't know this, if you don't know how afraid I am. I'm not brave at all, Mulder. Sometimes I worry that I won't be there when you're counting on me." She lowered her face, hating that she'd had to make that confession. But he needed to know and she needed to admit it, having carried it around for so long. "You know, Scully, that may be the only thing in my whole life that I *never* worry about," he said simply, dropping his head to speak the words softly near her ear. "You've saved my ass so many times. No matter what kind of stupid shit I get myself into, you're right there to pull me out, kicking the ass of anyone who gets in the way--even when it's me getting in the way. You're the one who cares enough about me to save me, even from myself. That's as much a fact to me as Napier's constant is to you." He stroked her hair, rubbing his fingers gently over her scalp, and she couldn't help resting the crown of her head against his shoulder. But even the play of his fingers in her hair couldn't soothe her rushing thoughts. How could she be feeling so many different things at once? His words warmed her to her very soul and she wanted to be able just to bask in them. She had his trust, his love, completely and it filled so much of her. Except that small part that questioned how wise it was for him to trust her like that, when she was afraid so much of the time. And when he spoke again, it was almost as if he'd read her mind. "Being afraid doesn't mean that you're not brave. In fact, I think being brave means knowing what there is to be afraid of and still choosing to face it, to try and do something about it. Like you've always done, Scully. Like you keep doing. Like you help me do when I'm afraid." He tilted her face up to his and she saw love and admiration shining in his eyes, gold-flecked now in the light of the lamp beside the sofa. "You'll never be able to convince me that you're not the bravest person I know, so you might as well stop trying." And for the first time, she felt a shift in the feel of the fear that had dwelled within her for so long. That seemed sometimes to have such a tight grip around her throat that she could barely breathe. Of course she was afraid. There was much to fear. Mulder was afraid, too, though he rarely seemed to be. Any rational human being facing what they had experienced would be afraid. Their fears didn't reflect their weakness but rather, their humanity. Maybe if it was all right to have the fears, she could begin to allow herself to see what they were. Scully shifted away, loathe to leave the warmth of his arms, yet needing a little space to clear her head. She was going to tell him something that she'd never really allowed herself to think through because even beginning to examine the fears had always led to more of them. She turned on the sofa and bent her knees to sit cross-legged beside him. Grabbing the hand nearest her in both of hers, she found herself reluctant to abandon all contact with him when she'd waited so long to be able to have it openly between them. Surprising her, he turned, mimicking her seating, somehow managing to maneuver his much longer legs into the same position she had assumed, his knees touching hers. He brought both of her hands to rest on his knees, covering them with his own, and they leaned slightly toward each other, as if there were others around for them to keep secrets from. And she whispered as though that were true. "It's been there for a long time even though I tried to deny it, even to myself, for so long. But I couldn't anymore, not after Africa. Right at this very minute, Mulder, they have the ability to bring about the end of the world. The end of the fucking world. That's what I'm afraid of. One of the things. Sometimes it's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. What if today is the day? Other times it's just a random thought here or there throughout the day. And it's other things, too. It's not only because I've been gone that I don't have any food in the house. I don't... I don't buy very much stuff anymore. Because what if it's the end of the world and I have a refrigerator full of food? Is that why you don't buy food?" He gave a small shrug and she knew that she'd hit upon a truth about him. Silent, his attention focused on her words, he regarded her seriously and waited for her to continue. And, to her surprise, she found that she was eager to because she wanted to give these truths to him and he wanted to hear them. Her mind flashed briefly to the words she'd written to him so long ago in Allentown. *I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other.* A truth she knew in dying that she'd cast aside when that danger was no longer immediate. But the fact was, he would willingly share the burden of any fear she had--of all the fears she had. He would have shared them then and he certainly would now. Scully swallowed hard against the lump forming in her throat. "Holidays are the worst. Kurtzweill said it would happen during a holiday when people were away from their homes. For a long time, I tried to tell myself that we didn't know for sure that he was telling the truth. But they killed him, Mulder. They killed him because he talked to you and the little bit he told you turned out to be right on the money. I still tried to believe that it wasn't true, though. But after Africa, I couldn't deny it to myself anymore. I saw it. I saw the ship and touched it and I suddenly knew that it was true. I understood what it all meant. They could end the world and I was nearly half a world away from you. And all I could think about was getting back. I just left everything and got on the next plane. Because nothing I'd found could help you and..." She stopped, jolted by the realization that came to her mind. "And what, Scully?" he prompted her gently--as close to a demand as he would allow himself to get. His hands over hers were warm and she felt his fingers curl to grasp them. She shifted her own hands so that their fingers intertwined, and her palm rested against his. "What?" "And I... I couldn't stand the possibility of the world ending and not being with you when it did." She heard him issue a noise something like a sigh, something like a moan. He moved quickly, placing his outside foot on the floor, and pulling and turning her until she was nestled resting on her side against his chest. One of his arms clasped her tightly at the waist, the other pressing her head against his heart. "I know," he whispered and she could feel him shudder at the thought, pulling her even closer. And for the first time, she allowed herself to accept without question the comfort being near him brought her and found that it gave her the strength to keep going, as it always had. "Then when I got back here, they'd only let me see you for a few minutes, but it wasn't you. I couldn't see you in your eyes. It was like a shell of you and then they even took that away. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to find you. I didn't know the meaning of anything I'd seen. I just felt so damned... useless. And afraid." She issued a shudder of her own and this time it was she who tightened their embrace. "I don't know what I'd have done if I hadn't been able to find you," she whispered. "Then you were back and we were *us* again, like we used to be. Only better somehow." She pulled away slightly to offer him a hesitant smile, and was glad to see agreement in the smile he gave back to her. "Those weeks after you were back, when we knew for sure that you were getting better, I loved those weeks. Even the work felt new and fresh, like we were a team again." He nodded in accord. "I hadn't felt that for a long time. It was..." He paused as if uncertain whether or not to continue. "What?" "It was almost worth what happened to me to get that back." "No," she relied immediately and with vehemence. "They could have killed you and nothing would have been worth that. But during those weeks, I was so glad that you and I were better. There were so many times I wondered if we'd ever be there again, and I missed us." A small catch crept into her voice, although she didn't feel near tears. "And everything was okay when we were working. Most of the time I didn't think about it. It was when I was by myself--at the end of the day, early in the morning, stuck in traffic- -that the fear would come back, but I could usually push it back when it got too bad. Years of practice. Then pretty soon Thanksgiving was coming. A holiday where a lot of people are away from home. Thinking about it now, I don't believe it was even a conscious thing, not then. You wouldn't come with me to my mother's house for Thanksgiving." And suddenly they were just there, an onslaught of tears completely without warning. "What?" Mulder asked, a mixture of deep concern and confusion on his face, apparently as alarmed as she was by the sudden appearance of her tears. "What's wrong?" She shuddered again and felt his arms tighten around her in response, and she burrowed in against him. "I was mad, Mulder. I know, I ask you every year and every year you don't feel like you belong there. This year, though, it made me so mad, especially after everything we'd been through. But now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't anger so much as fear. What if Thanksgiving had been the day? My mother's house is forty miles away from you. We don't know how this might happen. We don't have a clue. What if... if all hell had broken loose that day? If it all fell apart at once, there'd be utter panic and chaos. Forty miles would be like... Even assuming we lived through the beginning, how would we ever have found each other? If it had happened while I was in San Diego, we'd never have found one another again." "I'd have found you." His voice was solid and certain and, once more, she found herself slightly envious of his ability to believe. Scully felt the cold hand of fear trying to break into the newfound warmth in her heart. She pulled away a little, needing to see his face. "How? We need a plan, Mulder. Some way to find each other if..." "Scully," he interrupted, pressing his fingers softly against her lips. "We can't live like that, trying to make plans for any eventuality. For me, if we did that... It would be like we were accepting that there's nothing we can do about this. And I refuse to believe that." Of course he refused to believe that. He was Mulder--as steadfast in disbelief as he was in belief. "Planning doesn't mean accepting. It means being ready. We... *I* need to be ready, Mulder. I need to know how to find you. Because I couldn't find you last time. And as afraid as I am that the world is going to end..." She paused and took a deep breath, biting back the tears that threatened yet again. "I'm even more afraid of it ending and not being with you when it does." This time it was Mulder who cried, shedding tears without shame. "Okay then, we'll make a plan. But never doubt that I'll find you, no matter what it takes." He was silent for a moment. "Is this what...? Your mother told me about Christmas. Did this...?" She understood the question he didn't quite seem able to form. She sighed deeply. "Christmas was so many things. I just shouldn't have gone and I knew it at the time. But it didn't seem like there was any way around it. I was worried about you--I guess on more levels than I even knew about. I missed you, too, and I hated the idea that you were back here all by yourself. And when I got to San Diego, it was other things, too. Bill ragged on me constantly. When we were all together, I just felt so separated from them. Because of what I know, what they won't know until it happens because they wouldn't believe me even if I could find some way to explain it to them." He nodded, a look of empathy on his face. "They were all sitting around, swapping stories and laughing, and all I could think about was... They didn't know it might be the last Christmas Eve like that because it could have happened the very next day. Or next Memorial Day or Fourth of July or Labor Day could be the end of the world. I'd look at them, my family, and I could picture them in my mind, like..." She paused as she felt her throat swelling with emotion. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard, knowing well the tricks of holding tears at bay. "Like that man from Rausch. They were singing Christmas carols and I was envisioning the end of the world. They sang *Joy to the World* and *I* heard end of the world. I swear, that's what I heard them sing, but they were acting like nothing had happened, so I knew I just imagined it. I was so scared." "That's when you called me," he said quietly. She nodded. "I just slipped away. I had to get out of the house, so I snuck through the kitchen and grabbed my coat to go out on the porch for some fresh air. I didn't think they'd even realize that I was gone, but Mom did. But, you know, I went back in not caring what they thought. I eeded to talk to you, and it was the first time I hadn't been afraid since the last time I talked to you. So, I went back in knowing that Bill would go ballistic on me, but that didn't matter. And he did, and I was doing okay with it, all the standard bullshit about you and my job and what a waste I'd made of my life. I was even okay when he brought up Emily." She felt his arms tighten around her, and saw just a shadow of doubt cross his face. "No, I really was okay." She looked deeply into his eyes, wanting to show him that what she said was true. "It didn't matter what he thought about Emily because I know the truth about her and so do you. That's all that matters. I was okay--holding my own in the whole thing--until he said that Melissa would still be here if not for me." A rogue tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek, but her voice remained strong. Mulder couldn't conceal his rage from her. His eyes flashed with it and she could see his jaw clench. "Your brother must have gotten every stray asshole chromosome in your family's entire gene pool," he said bitterly. "Now there's a theory I can believe in," she said with a laugh that felt unbelievable good to her. "My brother does have a tendency to be..." She paused, searching for the right word. "A dickhead?" he offered helpfully. "That works," she replied. She felt the grin on her face widen briefly but then grew serious again soon enough. "But I know why he feels the way he does, Mulder, I understand it. Melissa *was* killed because of choices I made. But he was wrong believing that she'd still be here, even if I hadn't chosen as I did. He was wrong but neither of us knew it at the time." "What do you mean?" he asked a perplexed look crossing his face. Scully disentangled herself from his warmth with even more reluctance than she'd felt before. Sitting up, she turned to face the coffee table, feeling his scrutiny of her every movement. She reached for the sheaf of papers that had somehow ended up back on the coffee table after they ate. "You haven't even asked me about this, Mulder," she said, somewhat in awe of his self-control. "Weren't you curious about what's here?" "Not as curious as I was about whether you'd tell me about it if I didn't ask. If you'd tell me about it just because you want to." His response made her heart swell with love for letting her decide, but at the same time with a melancholy feeling she couldn't quite identify. "Did you think I wouldn't tell you?" "Honest?" "I thought this was about honesty." He nodded, his eyes apologizing for his question. "I don't know how to explain. Right now, I know you'll tell me. But before, when your mom gave me the envelope, when I was bringing it here... Most of me was sure then, too. But part of me... I was trying to prepare myself in case you couldn't tell me, didn't want to. In case this became another one of those earthshaking things that we never talk about." How could she fault him for trying to prepare himself for something that had happened over and over between them? Maybe what was happening here would mean that they wouldn't feel this need to keep so much to themselves. She wondered how difficult it would prove to both of them to reveal the things they'd always kept hidden. She scooted back beside him, looking down at the papers she held in two trembling hands. "Mulder, Melissa left this envelope for Mom and me because she knew she was going to die." "She predicted her own death?" She had to smile a bit at Mulder's expression. Even in the midst of this, he couldn't help his finely-tuned professional interest in the strange and unusual. "No," she replied. "There's a letter from her inside, along with some other things. I'd rather you didn't read the letter. There are personal things in it to my mother and me. Stuff that should just remain between us. But I'll tell you what she said and show you this other stuff." Mulder watched Scully spread out some papers on the coffee table before them and he eased forward to get a better look. But he found he couldn't stop watching her. Hunched side by side over the table, he took in her profile, finally able to do so without worrying that she'd catch him doing it. She looked down at the papers and he watched her eyes move back and forth, though she'd certainly had time to read them several times while he was gone. Her eyelids fluttered in a movement only a little more obvious than the slight quivering of her chin. Would anyone but him even have seen these things, known what they meant? He'd seen enough medical records in his years of investigating to know with a mere glance what the papers were that she'd laid out. Melissa's name and date of birth were at the top of each of them. "Missy wrote the letter a couple of weeks before she was killed. She'd just found out... Her doctor had just told her she was entering the final stages of ovarian cancer." "Cancer? She had cancer?" "Yeah," she replied sadly. "At the very best, she had six months--more likely half that. She'd already been treated with chemo and radiation in California. She didn't want us to know what was happening. That's why she disappeared from our lives for so long. But it didn't work and she refused to take another course of treatment. She talked to other women who'd had the treatment and read about the survival rates and thought she'd do just as well with alternative medicine. That was just like her. But I understand why she'd decide to do that. The treatments are horrible." Her voice drifted away and he could see by her expression that she was recalling her own experiences with chemotherapy and radiation. Would Scully refuse treatment if her own cancer returned? He decided not to ask a question he might not be able to stand the answer to. Instead, he asked, "How do you feel about all this, Scully?" She shrugged her shoulders forlornly. "One way I look at it, this doesn't change anything.. My sister was killed ahead of her time when it was me that they were after. But in another way, it changes how I see everything. I talked to Mom and she said... She said that after she read Melissa's letter... She said it proved to her again how merciful God is. She believes that, Mulder. Merciful!" She spat the word out as if it were poison. "You don't believe that God is merciful?" "I don't know what I believe about God anymore." Her voice was small and weary, not just tired but weary to her soul. And it made him ache in some vague location that he'd never be able to physically identify if she asked him to. They'd had debates, quarrels, arguments, knock down drag outs over the existence of God through their years together. Some that they'd glossed over in their usual style, some that had hurt one or the other, some that had hurt them both, as they each clung to beliefs that were incomprehensible to the other. But the fact was, although he didn't fully comprehend her belief in something she couldn't see after all he'd shown her that she didn't believe, he suspected he needed her faith as much as she did. The rare times that she doubted tore at his heart because what little faith he could allow himself came only from her. How could he completely disbelieve something she so firmly believed in? Her existence, her continued presence in his life, was what kept open for him the possibility of a higher power out there somewhere. Sometimes when he let himself think about it, he could come up with no other reasonable explanation for this one good thing in his life. Her faith, so much a part of her, hedged his bet for him. If there was a heaven after all this, she'd find a way to get him in, not to make him spend eternity without her. Her God couldn't possibly deny that request from Scully, not after all she'd given-- all she'd had taken from her--in her quest to do the right thing. He could spout his theories, voice his doubts because in the end, his Scully would convince her God that his poor, worthless ass was worth saving. And maybe it was worth saving because, with Scully, he was trying to do the right thing, too. "Maybe..." He fumbled for the right words, not sure how to speak in terms he'd never used in reference to himself, but wanting to show that he understood the belief. "Maybe God was merciful, at least to your mother." She laughed bitterly. "Is this some newfound belief, Mulder, or have we done it so long that we just automatically assume opposite viewpoints?" Mulder chose to ignore the small but insistent pang her question caused. "I don't know that God doesn't exist. Maybe he or she or whatever actually does exist, but only for some people. Maybe God exists but just sits back and watches. Maybe there is a vengeful God out there and I'll burn in hell for the life I've led. I just don't know. Maybe it was God's hand or just the way everything turned out, but I can see the mercy in it." She looked at him with something like a desperate curiosity, as if hoping he could give her an explanation that that would hold open the door that was slowly swinging shut on her faith. And maybe he could. "I can see the mercy in it," he repeated. "If you'd been home that night, if they'd killed you instead of Melissa, your mother would have buried two daughters within the space of only a few months. I don't mean to be unfeeling here, you know that." She nodded. "But God or fate or just dumb luck took the daughter who was going to be dead anyway. Your mother still has a daughter, Scully. You're still here for her. Don't you think that was merciful for her? Don't you think she thanks her God for that every day?" He watched her luminous blue eyes mist over and marveled as a single tear slid down her face. He'd never seen anyone but Scully who cried like that, with one perfect, flawless tear. Like she'd shed when Modell made him point a gun at her. Like she'd shed as he held her in that empty hospital corridor in Allentown. Or in his hallway when he'd begged her not to leave him. Or the single tear that had fallen on his face, like rain on desert sand, when she'd found him after the smoking bastard had taken what he wanted and left him to die. How could she look so beautiful when she cried when everyone else looked so awful? "Your mom thanks her God for you every day, Scully. I know she does. I only hope she thanks her God for you from me, too." She smiled at him then and it lit his heart as her rare and gorgeous smiles always had. "Sometimes you're such a sap," she said, her voice thick and throaty with emotion, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. "I love that about you." She lowered her head a little and he knew that it was because she was blushing. And she jumped back to the topic just in time to save him from being sappy again. "Okay, I can see how Mom would see what happened as merciful. I just wish it felt that way to me. Somehow it almost... it almost seems worse that they killed her when she only had a few months to live. There's so much we should have gotten the chance to say and time was so precious." "It's always precious," he countered. "Or it should be. How do you know you would ever have gotten the chance to say those things? Melissa wrote you a letter. Maybe she wasn't planning on telling you at all. Maybe she didn't want to be treated differently just because she was dying and maybe that runs in the family." He gave her a weak smile and got the *eyebrow thing* in return which, in truth, was almost as good as a smile. "Scully, you never would have had enough time with her and there always would be things left unsaid. Melissa wasn't afraid of death, you know that. She believed it was just another phase in the order of things and that she'd be back. Hell, maybe she already is. There's mercy if you let it be merciful, sweetheart. We both know what the last months of her life would have been like." "Either in unbearable pain or so doped up that it wouldn't have been her anyway," she said sadly. He nodded. "And I think she would have been more afraid of that than of dying." "Yeah, maybe," she conceded. "But does that really change the fact that she died because of choices I made?" "No," he answered. "We make choices every day that we can't possibly know the consequences of. Maybe Melissa did die because of choices you made, but you couldn't have known that when you made the choices. And even though she was killed it doesn't mean the choices you made were wrong. Because in the years between then and now, you've saved lives, too. Lots of 'em. Was there just one choice that you think doomed Melissa? Even if you could, what would you do differently?" "I don't know," she admitted. "Of course you don't," he replied with quiet understanding. "Because there isn't one single thing that was the deciding factor in what happened to your sister. The world isn't cause and effect, Scully. It's cause and cause and cause and cause and effect. It's all tied together. A billion different things could have happened that might have changed it, or maybe not. What if the murderer's gun had exploded in his hand when he was doing a little target practice? What if Cancerman had been hit by a bus bending over to pick up his pack of cigarettes before he had a chance to give the order? What if Melissa had been stopped for speeding on her way to your house or run out of gas?" "None of those things happened," she protested. "But my choices did. This isn't some intellectual game here, Mulder. This is my sister we're talking about. And who are you to talk? We could say all those same things about *your* sister and the guilt you wear like a second skin about what happened to her." He felt his heart constrict in a pain that still surprised him even though he'd carried it for more than a quarter of a century. He watched her face register her alarm at what she'd said and he could see her mouth starting to form an apology. Shaking his head, he placed a finger against her lips. "No, don't apologize. God knows you have reason to believe that. But it's not the same as it was when we first met, back when you first came to me. I don't think it's about the guilt anymore. It was when we first met. But since then... all the things we've learned have shown that there was never anything I could have done about it. Now I just want to know what happened. That's the difference, Scully. You *know* what happened to your sister. Horrible as it was, you know. I just want to know." "Do you?" she asked quietly. And he comprehended the meaning behind her gentle inquiry. Even if the fate of Samantha ended up to be the same as Melissa's? "Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I've thought about the possibility that Samantha is dead. How could I not at least consider that? All the facts speak to that. But none of them speak to me and I can't stop looking until I find the thing that speaks to me. They've lied to me so many times about her, knowing that I'd run down whatever trail they said she was at the end of. And I did, and so did you. And they know I'll keep doing it, and we both know it, too. I hate that they have that kind of power over me--over us, because you've never left me alone in this. I hate that they know that I have to follow any lead they feed me. If I could just find out what happened to her, whatever it is, they couldn't hold it over us anymore. And..." He swallowed hard, suppressing a small shudder. "And I still think that when we find out what happened to her, we'll find out what happened to you, too. We've gotta know and somebody's gotta pay." He waited, giving her time to voice the denial that he hoped was no longer there. She didn't disappoint him, instead simply nodded without a word. "We have to find out what happened to you, and to Samantha, or everything that's happened to us will have been for nothing. And we're going to find out. You know, that used to be all that mattered." He touched his fingertips briefly to her face, and his heart leapt at the chill his touch caused her. "But now I want more. For so long I've known that having you in my life is essential, and you've been in my life and it's meant everything, even when it didn't seem like it to you. But I don't think I realized until I talked to your mother this afternoon that I want more. I want you in my life and happy. I want to be with you in my life and I want us both to be happy." "Mom told me some of what you talked about," she said softly. "That's good. Your mother is a remarkable woman, Scully. She helped me see a lot of things. One of the things she said was that we don't take the joy when it comes our way. She says when you don't have joy, you forget what you're fighting for and I think she's right. I think maybe that's the key. We've spent so much time denying what we feel, trying to keep our focus on the work, that the focus has become the focus. We're fighting so hard to keep fighting that we forget what we're fighting for. Isn't that what you were trying to tell me in the elevator that morning, when I first started hearing things? That you didn't know why you were still doing what you were doing? Why I was doing it?" "I was so tired then, Mulder..." she began. "I know," he interrupted her gently. "We both were. And that had to be part of their plan, too. To keep us off balance so much that even when we were in balance, we'd spend all our time and energy wondering when the rug was going to be pulled out from under us again. So afraid of it that we lost the times when there could have been joy, things that could pull us together. They've taken our joy and I want it back." "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die, eh Mulder?" She was attempting to tease him, as if to draw him away from the subject, as they'd both done so many times in the past. But he could see by her expression that she knew it wouldn't work. "That's not what I'm saying and you know it," he said, refusing to take the bait. "What I'm saying is, what would be so wrong with us being happy sometimes? That's not what's going to cause the end of the world. I'm tired, Scully. I'm tired of being consumed by the fear and the focus and I'm tired of seeing you consumed by them, too. Our lives are like endless penance and we didn't do anything wrong, except maybe what we've done to each other in all this. And I think we've paid for that in spades. I don't want more than anyone else has, but I'm tired of always expecting less. I just..." His voice faltered a little. "I just want to see you smile sometimes, Scully. Like the night we played baseball." And he got his wish as he watched her recall that evening so long ago and a watery grin emerged from her tears. "I accepted the gift," she whispered, almost as if to herself. "What?" he asked, confused. Scully closed her eyes briefly and he saw the tears shimmering on her eyelashes. When she opened her eyes again, they locked to his and her smile became wistful. "In the letter, Missy told me that life is full of gifts and that it's okay to accept them because they belong to us. She said that sometimes the best gifts are right in front of us and we don't see them because they're so close. I'm pretty sure she meant you, Mulder." She smiled at him, almost shyly. "She liked you a lot." He grinned back at her and sent out a quick thanks to Melissa's soul--wherever it was. "And your mother told me that sometimes people have to make their own joy, and I'm pretty sure she was talking about us. Looks like a couple of people who love us are trying pretty hard to tell us something. And I, for one, want to believe. But that's just the kind of guy I am." "Even I want to believe in that one," she replied. "Melissa used to love presents. I could never figure out if she liked getting or giving more. Her gifts were always special. She usually made them herself. I guess I never told you, but she was an artist. She used to do caricatures--you know, at Renaissance festivals, fairs, parties, things like that. She did her serious work in lots of media, but she earned her living doing caricatures. My dad kept wondering when she was going to get a real job, but she actually made pretty good money at it. So she'd make things for all of us, things that sometimes seemed bizarre when you opened them but the more you thought about them, you realized that she'd given you the perfect gift. She just *knew* things about people, Mulder, and she loved to give presents. She knew she wasn't going to make it until Christmas and she left presents for us. For the whole family. And for you, which I have to admit surprised me a little." "I know. Your mom told me and it surprised me, too. Did you open yours?" He smiled but not without a twinge of apprehension, for he wondered what else Melissa had known about him. He recalled how she came to his apartment that night to tell him Scully was going to die, to beg him to see her one more time to say goodbye, and how Melissa had read him like a book after knowing him only a few days. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "I wanted to wait for you. Want to?" "Why not?" he replied, curiosity winning out over apprehension. He watched her reach into the canvas bag that Maggie had given him and pull out two boxes exactly the same size and shape. They were wrapped in ribbons and bright foil Christmas wrap, unfaded in the years they'd spent in the steamer trunk. Scully looked at the tags and handed him the one with the gold and white paper, while the one she held seemed to be various shades of gray and brown, which told him it was some combination of green and red. Had she wrapped them that way on purpose? Could Melissa tell he was colorblind? Did it show in his aura? He examined the box, unwilling to shake it in case it was breakable. It was rectangular and not very deep and from its size and what Scully told him, he imagined it was a picture of some sort. And since the boxes were the same size and shape, hers must be a picture, too. "Who's first?" he asked and he felt a stirring in his heart like he hadn't felt since he and Scully exchanged Christmas presents the year before. Surprises were fun when they were from loved ones. "Together," she said, eyeing her own gift with guarded excitement, then raising her eyes to meet his once more. It's different for her, he thought. A present from her sister, so long dead. A communication she'd never expected, a final message. A present that was also a gift. She looked at him expectantly and he saw that, indeed, she wasn't going to start opening until he did. So he made an initial tear in the wrapping paper and they were both off, heads bowed, attention on the boxes in their laps. The wrapping gone, he lifted the lid of his box and pushed aside the tissue paper Melissa had used to protect the contents. As he'd guessed, it was a picture--a caricature as Scully had told him about--in a beautiful weathered wood frame, which he suspected that she made as well. He lifted the frame and brought it before him, amazed and charmed by what he saw. It was Scully and... him, he was sure. In the picture, Scully had a big head, as is common in caricatures. The facial features were remarkably accurate and drawn with love, for this gentle rendering of Scully was gorgeous, not crude or cruel as some caricatures seem. She was dressed in a white lab coat with a stethoscope in her ears, holding the other end to the chest of a fox--a grinning fox, also with a big head, who looked surprisingly like Mulder. The fox even had an FBI identification badge clipped to a collar around his neck and his grin showed both elation and adoration. The caption below the picture read, *She hears your heart.* The picture was signed and dated in the lower right hand corner. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the sensation, the realization of one of the few real truths in his life. She'd heard his heart for a long time--even Melissa knew it. And tonight, she'd actually acknowledged it. Scully wanted to see the picture Missy had given Mulder, but she found she couldn't look away from her own. The frame was made of ornate silver filigree with mother-of- pearl inlays that must have taken her months to make. It was absolutely stunning, as so much of Melissa's work had been, and it warmed her heart to think that her sister had loved her enough to put so much into her gift. It warmed her heart, but not as much as what the frame contained. She'd always loved her sister's caricatures for they showed so much of what made her Melissa--her talent, her humor, her innate understanding of people. But this one made her heart beat faster, for it pleased her inordinately but at the same time, it scared her a little, too. This caricature was of her and Mulder. In it, she was sitting in an overstuffed chair, comfortable and old- fashioned looking, with an expression Scully could only classify as serene, content. In love. She'd drawn Mulder as a fox, curled up on her lap, gazing up at her as Scully stroked his fur. She loved the picture and she found that forgotten how talented Missy . Scully was especially intrigued by the drawing of Mulder, wondering how her sister had managed to give the fox Mulder's distinctive features without making it look grotesque or silly. The expression on the face of the fox *Mulder* was the same one she'd finally allowed herself to see that evening. Allowed herself to see and name for what it was. Melissa had seen it years ago. The scary part, though, was the caption. *He calms your fears.* How strange, years after she was supposed to receive it, to get her gift on this particular night. This night when she could finally admit to the truth of that statement. Received a year ago, even six months ago, this gift would have broken Scully's heart. It would have seemed like a hoax too cruel for her sister to commit, for a year ago she was gripped by fear--like hands that not only clenched around her heart but also covered her eyes, rendering her blind to any escape from it. Fear not only for the world, but also for them--as partners or friends. Fear that what they once had was damaged beyond repair. Mulder had found her at the end of the earth, yet at that time they seemed lost to one another even when in the same room. A year ago she would not have been able to stand the sight of Melissa's gift. Instead she'd received it this night, the night that she realized that, with him, her fears were calmed. Not gone, for there was much to fear. But not nearly so overwhelming, so weighty because he was here to help carry them. He was here and it was okay to be happy. He said so, so it must be true. Her mom and Melissa said so, too, so how could that be wrong? Melissa had given her this gift on exactly the right night, this January... She glanced at her watch and found that it was after midnight. This January eighth. The new Christmas to go with her new birthday, April twenty-fourth. She looked up to find Mulder looking alternately at the frame in his own hands and at her, and his smile turned up the voltage on her own. She felt the muscles in her face stretching with her grin, her eyes crinkling with it, almost amazed that her face still remembered how to do this, at how wonderful it felt. Could her smile possibly be transforming her face the way Mulder's was transforming his? Had she ever really seen him happy before this night? She could feel an energy rolling off him that fed perfectly into the energy that seemed to radiate from her. She felt happy. She felt free. She felt... powerful. And it was suddenly very clear to her, why those nameless men had done everything they could think of to keep this from them. There was power in this kind of joy. "It's the key to everything," she said, her voice hushed with awe. He nodded, understanding her meaning exactly, and threaded his fingers through hers, pressing their palms together, and they both felt the surge of the circuit completed--a tingle that caused them both to laugh simply because there was no other outlet for it. "What'd you get?" they asked simultaneously and laughed at that, too. Each offering the other the item in their hands, they both found that they were reluctant to release their clasped ones. Instead, they held the pictures up so that they could see them side by side, nodding appreciatively. "God, she's good!" they said in unison, chucking again. "Stop that!" "Really, Mulder," she said, trying to get her laughter under control. "I can tell you right now that this isn't going to work if we keep talking in stereo. I don't do that. It's just... it's just icky." "Icky?" he repeated, teasingly. "Is that a scientific term, Dr. Scully?" "Yeah," she retorted. "I read it in the last New England Journal of Medicine. You know what I mean, Mulder. It's creepy. It's saccharine. It's Danielle Steele. It's *Moonlighting* for God's sake. It's just icky." He threw his head back and roared with laughter. "There was something I kinda liked about *Moonlighting* although I could never figure out how two people who were so stupid could ever solve anything. They were glib but vacant--a bad combo. Cybill Shephard was hot, though." That earned him an elbow in the ribs and a grin. "We're nothing like them, Scully. We're lots smarter, I have better hair than Bruce Willis, and Cybill couldn't name all the phases of cell division if her life depended on it, which is why she is nowhere near as hot as you." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Gorgeous and brilliant. I never stood a chance." She blushed with pleasure at the same time she sighed and shook her head. "See Mulder? This could get icky. Saying the same things at the same time, you telling me I'm gorgeous, me telling you that watching your eyes change color might become my new hobby." "You never told me that." Now it was his turn to blush. "I want to," she answered quietly. "But it... it doesn't feel like us. I guess maybe I'm scared of this, too. I don't want to lose who we are now." "Even if we become something better?" he challenged her gently. "I understand what you're afraid of. I am, too. But look at us, Scully. Together we've trekked through cellars and sewers and deep dark woods with hardly a second thought, but we don't dare let ourselves be happy. I want to tell you you're beautiful. I want to tell you I love you. I would love to hear you say you love me. Maybe it doesn't feel like us because we never let it feel like us." She was silent for a long time, thinking about his words. "It doesn't have to change who we are," she said softly, and he knew it was to convince herself more than him. "Everything changes us, Scully," he said quietly. "You know we're not the same people we were when we started this. I understand the simultaneous chatting part, though, although I suspect that I have a higher icky tolerance level than you do, because I think it's kinda cute. But, there's probably not much chance that we'll spend a lot of time talking in stereo since our ideas are almost always diametrically opposed. I don't think that's going to change." She shook her head. "Nope. Science is still science." "Of course it is," he replied with a grin. "But it still doesn't explain everything," "I wouldn't have you believe anything else." she said simply. She looked down at the pictures they still held side by side in front of them. The looked like they belonged together. Even the frames were surprisingly complementary. "Pretty amazing, huh?" "Yeah," he answered, giving her hand a squeeze. "She knew even then. So did your mom." "So did we," she said, not without a little sadness for all the wasted time. But she pulled herself out of it because sadness had no place there with them on Christmas. "You know what, Mulder? I think I understand Missy's thing with presents. It's just damn good to get 'em. And good to give them, too." She smiled brightly at him and he didn't hesitate a second in returning one of his own. They sat in quiet contentment, appreciating their gifts and each other. "I have a theory," she announced suddenly, her tone conspiratorial. "Special Agent Dr. Dana Katherine Scully posits a theory," he said with a playful grin. "And what would the subject of this particular theory be?" "It suggests why they've never been able to beat us," she replied smugly. "Why they never will. Wanna hear it?" He nodded. "It's simple. They don't understand our calendar. They keep watching us and waiting for that major holiday, but they miss it because we usually work right through them. But then when they think things are quiet, we have the real holidays. They think my birthday is on February twenty-third, but we both know it's on April twenty-fourth. They think Christmas is on December twenty-fifth, when it's really on January eighth. It's the answer, Mulder. They'll keep watching us and we'll keep confusing them. We'll have Easter in August. Your birthday every week. Fourth of July on the seventeenth." She gave him an expectant look that brought a smile to his face. "I like it, Scully. I think it could work. I especially like the birthday every week as long as I get to pick the age I am and presents are involved. I think that'll confuse them all the more. But you have to have more birthdays, too." "Okay," she said agreeably. "But let's take care of Christmas first." Without warning, she stood up--so quickly that he didn't have a chance to release her hand and she fell back down, landing squarely in his lap. Never one to miss a golden opportunity, he pulled her face to his and kissed her soundly, liking this new position a lot. "Man, Santa finally came through. I've been writing, e-mailing for seven years. This is *exactly* what I wanted for Christmas." His voice was a whispered groan against her open mouth. "Mmm," she moaned her agreement, but suddenly remembered her initial intent. "Wait. I have real presents for you." His mouth smoothed kisses down her throat, moving the collar of her shirt aside to nibble on her shoulder a bit. "It don't get much more real than this, Scully," he muttered around a mouthful of clavicle. His tongue blazed up her neck, leaving a warm moist trail in its wake, as his lips found her earlobe, eliciting a breathless, throaty chuckle from her. "Wait, I want to give you your Christmas presents," she said with weak insistence--a tone she didn't even know she had. But then, she also didn't know that Mulder's mouth could do such marvelous things, although she'd long had her suspicions. He tried to sneak back to his new favorite spot at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, but she tiled her head, closing off his access. "You mean this isn't it?" His face clouded over like a stormy day. Scully pulled his head away and gave him a knowing smile. "I was thinking of more than just Christmas for this. You know, the gift that keeps on giving." "Oh, Scully, I like the way you think." He grinned and kissed her nose. He helped her to her feet and rose with her, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Okay, you want to do presents? I can do presents. I have to go down to my car, though." "You brought my present with you?" she asked, excitement tingeing her tone. "Presents," he corrected her. "They've been in my car since... since I got 'em. I mean, would you keep anything that meant anything to you in my apartment? In case you haven't noticed, anybody can get in there and almost everybody has. Funny, they don't seem to fuck with my car, though. Except Phoebe, of course." "Don't even go there, Mulder," she warned, knowing it was only half in jest. She pushed him toward the door. "Now why don't you take your cute little ass down to the car and get my Christmas presents? We're way into Christmas here. Time's a-wastin'." He looked at her curiously. "Are you going to be bossy like this all the time?" "Don't go there, either. I think it's gotta be my turn, Mulder. I've been following orders from you for years." "That is such bullshit, Scully," he replied, looking back at her over his shoulder. They'd made it to the door and she handed him his jacket. "I never..." The door closing gently in his face cut him off and he laughed. He opened it again to find her standing on the other side, still laughing. "My ass is cute? Rosie told me you checked out my ass!" He closed the door before she could either confirm or deny and she heard maniacal cackling as he walked down the hall. Damn, busted by Rosie! Scully recalled the day she caught Rosie checking out Mulder's ass, too. Some things you never get too old to appreciate. It was, after all, a mighty fine ass. She looked around her living room, regretting that she hadn't put up a Christmas tree this year. If she had, it would undoubtedly still be up. But knowing she'd be in San Diego, she hadn't bothered this year. She could do a few candles, though. That would be nice and she had literally hundreds of them, having accumulated them over the years with too few occasions to use them. Well, that was going to change. She ran to the cabinet where she stored the candles and opened the door. The scent that wafted out was slightly reminiscent of a head shop in the seventies. Too many different scents closed up together for too long. Grabbing a few, she closed the door as quickly as she could, hoping the scent hadn't overpowered the room. She placed the candles in what she hoped would be strategic places and went automatically to the CD player, not sure what to do. She wanted to put on some jazz, but knew that would feel too sleazy, too seductive. Which wouldn't be a bad thing some other time, but not tonight. Only one answer. Christmas songs. She certainly had plenty of those. And who else but Nat King Cole? Christmas-y but still leaving room for extreme possibilities. She smiled and headed for her room to get Mulder's presents, just as the velvet tones of Nat King Cole drifted out of the speakers. She pulled out Mulder's presents from their hideaway beneath her bed and brushed a few imaginary bits of dust from the surface of the paper. The larger box she'd had for some time, having bought the present shortly after Mulder's return when she was finally able to convince herself that he would, indeed, recover. The smaller box-- the glow-in-the-dark universe--she'd wrapped upon her return from San Diego. While she was pleased with her gifts to him, she suddenly wanted to give him more, knowing instantly exactly what that should be. She looked at the drawer of her nightstand, pausing only a moment before opening it and taking out a notebook. Opening it to the first page, she read the words, remembering the feelings behind them. Fishing around in the drawer, she found a pen. Then she sat at her vanity table, turned to the very last page and began to write. In her hurry, her words were less legible, but she knew that their meaning would be clear, for he heard her heart, too. Outside, Mulder popped the trunk and was surprised when the light came on over his head. He thought the trunk light had burned out a long time ago. He dug around through the stuff in his trunk, amazed at what he found. His trunk was similar to his bedroom, only in a more concentrated space. Two of the three books the Bureau Resource Library had been on his ass about. The purple sweats with the hole in the knee--his personal favorites. A file folder containing the report he swore to Skinner that he'd turned in and Skinner made him do all over again. A nine iron. He had golf clubs? Another Christmas miracle occurred when his hand emerged from a laundry basket holding a bottle of Chardonnay, with his Knicks jersey snagged on the neck. A bottle he couldn't for the life of him remember buying. "Melissa, is that you?" he called out into the quiet night, his face pointing upward. "Good one! So you think I should go for it?" He grabbed the shirt and wine, and set them to the side. Ah, finally. He pulled the plastic bag that held Scully's presents from the back of the trunk, glad that he'd thought to put them in a bag because they still looked good. He'd actually wrapped the two boxes himself, after a quick lesson from the grandmotherly lady who worked in the gift wrap booth at the mall. He managed to sweet talk her into letting him watch her wrap a few presents and then letting him try it. She helped him pick out some great paper and ribbons and decorations. It was almost a shame that she was just going to rip them open. Almost, but not quite, because he couldn't wait for her to open them. He felt much better about the whole thing after learning that the slippers had been a success. He stepped back, his hands poised to slam the trunk shut, but he hesitated, wanting to give her more, knowing exactly what, but wondering if he dared. Taking a deep breath, he reached back behind the spare tire, pulling out another, smaller plastic bag and sliding it into his pocket. It had been there in the back of his trunk for so long that the plastic had grown brittle, making a crackling noise even surrounded by the fabric of his pocket. He'd wanted to give this particular gift to her for a long time, but the time was never right. It felt to him like maybe it was right tonight, but what if it wasn't? If he brought it up, just the noise it made might commit him to giving it to her. He slammed the trunk closed, tired of second guesses and doubts. She loved him. She'd told him so, and she was the one who never lied to him. He sprinted across the street and up the steps to her building. +++++ In the now Mulder uses his key for a record third time that evening, musing about how many times in the past he's let himself in by kicking her door in. This time, he kicks the door shut behind him, his hands full of presents and wine. Taking a deep breath, he looks around and smiles, remembering the scent from his wayward youth--eau de head shop. For once, he thinks things through and decides to forego the bong joke as he throws his jacket back over the armchair where Scully put it earlier. With soft lights and candles and Nat King Cole, things are shaping up pretty well and he doesn't want to take a chance of blowing it. The only thing that could be more perfect would be if she were actually in the room, too. "I'm back bearing gifts!" he calls out, resisting the *honey, I'm home* option. "Be right there," he hears her call back in return and smiles for no good reason whatsoever. "Take your time." He takes the presents from the bag, setting them on the coffee table. Realizing that the Knicks shirt is tucked under his arm, on impulse he rolls it up and shoves it down between the cushions of the sofa. He can retrieve it later if he finds he's misreading the situation. He takes the wine to the kitchen in search of a corkscrew and glasses, finding them with a minimum of difficulty. The cork leaves the bottle with a satisfying pop and he grabs the glasses, heading back to the living room. She is waiting for him when he comes back in, sitting on the sofa, her presents to him beside the ones he placed on the coffee table. Even too thin and too tired, her beauty takes his breath away. Smiling shyly at him, her skin is flushed, her eyes glittery. Her hair catches the glow of the candles, shining like it did in that shoddy motel room in Bellefleur, Oregon on their first assignment. Back when she was just pretty instead of beautiful. The night he'd first touched her skin, fragrant and velvety, and his reward for holding himself back from nuzzling his face against it was that that spot on her lower back became his for all time. He thinks, with a little effort, he could have gotten her into his bed that night and he thanks any entity that might be listening--benevolent, omnipotent or otherwise--that it didn't happened. Because if it had, she'd have been gone within a week. And right now he'd be... Absolutely no picture comes to mind because even his imagination, open to all extremes, can't conceive of his life without her. Scully watches him watch her and wonders what he's remembering. His scrutiny is intense- -disconcerting and compelling at the same time and she finds she can't look away from him. Doesn't want to look away from him. She knows that she is aware of him in a way that she never has been before, yet has always been aware of--since the night she felt his fingertips trace the bare skin of her lower back. As she tries to look closely enough to see if his eyes have changed color again, she notices something that had completely escaped her attention before. The tee shirt he'd been wearing beneath his jacket is another of his seemingly endless supply of gray ones, like the one she's wearing. And she can't believe how much it turns her on that they're wearing the same shirt. Somehow the awareness of her arousal arouses her even more but although she knows that she can act on it--that it would not only be accepted but welcomed--she still feels shy and self-conscious. "Wine," she says, immediately feeling foolish for stating the obvious but wanting to move the moment along, afraid that they might spend hours just watching one another. The butterflies return to her stomach like the swallows to Capistrano and she is alarmed, and a little thrilled, to realize how nervous she is about this. To her relief and delight, Mulder seems that way too. He looks sheepish and... and *smitten.* Smitten is a good look for him, especially since she is the *smittee.* "Yeah," he replies. "I found it in my trunk." He sits down next to her, his leg pressed up against hers and she's glad not to be able to think of a single reason to move away. In fact, she moves a little closer and isn't sure if the trembling she feels is coming from her or from him. "I've seen your trunk and that scares me." She smiles at his hearty chuckle. Usually it's Mulder who tries to alleviate nervous situations with humor, and she finds that it's a lot more fun than just clamming up like she usually does. Still admiring his smitten look, she wonders if she is wearing one of her own. Because she certainly feels smitten. "Have no fear, Scully. It was at the bottom of a basket of clean laundry. I'm pretty sure it's safe." He pours a glass and hands it to her before pouring one for himself. "Merry Christmas!" They clink their glasses together and drink deeply from the wine, neither of them complaining about the fact that they've talked in stereo once again. The wine is good--dry and crisp and chilled to perfection. Mulder's trunk, all purpose catch-all and wine cellar. Both are eyeing the four boxes on the table with curiosity and awkwardness. Was exchanging gifts so difficult last year? Finally, Mulder can't wait any longer. "Same as before? Together?" She nods and smiles as they each take the bottom one of the two boxes meant for them. "I hope you tipped whoever wrapped these, Mulder. They're beautiful." She runs her hands over the paper, fingering the sprig of plastic holly that adorns the package. "I wrapped them," he says, beaming with pride, and she wishes she had a camera to freeze this particular grin-- smitten and smug. She looks down at the box once again, even more impressed with it now that she knows he wrapped it himself. Impressed and touched, and as she feels her eyes mist up, she berates herself for her newfound emotionality. Then she berates herself for berating herself because this newfound emotionality is something she thinks she's yearned for a long time. This time, he makes Scully start ripping first, then dives in after her, attacking his present like a cat pouncing on a mouse. Nothing but the sound of tearing paper and Nat singing about the Little Drummer Boy. They both hit box at about the same time and lift the lids together, looking down and looking up in near mirror image. Ice skates. They'd each bought the other a pair of skates, his large and black and hers small and white. "I thought we should have a winter sport, too," she offers by way of explanation, envisioning them skating around a rink together, arm in arm, prosaically enough, to strains of *The Skaters Waltz.* "Winter sports are good," he replies grinning goofily, envisioning standing behind her, his arms enfolding her, teaching her the fine art of maneuvering a hockey stick. She toes off her slipper and grabs one of the skates from the box. Bending to slip it on her foot, she feels his hand as it grips her arm and she looks up to find his face near hers. Without a word, he takes the skate from her and reaches for her foot, his fingers grazing tentatively against her ankle. He asks permission with his eyes and she responds by twisting so that he can place her foot in his lap. As he rubs his hand across the top of it, he stops to give her toes a little squeeze and Scully realizes that this could be a lot more interesting than trying on the skate herself. "You need socks. There's a pair in with the skates." His voice is low and just slightly gravelly, and his attention to her foot makes her glad she gives herself the gift of regular pedicures. Her toenails are painted a vibrant red and coated over with a layer of gold glitter. In her staid life, bright toenails are her one concession to that side of her that would just sometimes like to go a little wild. She digs through the tissue in the box until she finds them. The thought strikes her funny and she's about to giggle, when the giggle dies abruptly in her throat and surprises the hell out of her by turning into a moan, as she feels him trail a line of small, wet kisses down the top of her foot from her ankle to her toes, now curling in bliss at this wonderful new sensation. He opens his eyes to find hers again and they are there in her beautiful face as she leans forward to watch him worship her foot. Wordlessly--and a little breathlessly he notices--she hands the socks to him and he pulls on the plastic connector until it snaps, making sure to take the little plastic tab out of the inside of both socks. He slides a sock over her foot, regretful to have to cover those delectable red-capped toes. Her foot is almost ridiculously pretty--tiny and narrow and almost as soft as his memory of the skin on her lower back--and he looks forward to spending some quality time with those feet later. Sliding the skate over the sock, he carefully adjusts the tongue and laces it up, making sure to secure it tightly enough at the ankle to give her good support. He squeezes along the outside of the boot, pleased with the fit and how pretty her foot still looks in the bright white leather. Running his thumb along the blade to test its sharpness, he pushes on it to be sure that it's safe. "Stand up," he says, taking her hands. "We won't know how it fits until you put some weight on it." She shakes her head. "Let's put one on you, too, then we'll both stand up. Come on, my turn." She holds out her hand, waiting for him to give her one of his skates. The look she gives him, gazing up from slightly lowered lids, sends a rush of blood to his loins immediately catching the attention of Mulder, Jr., who is amazed to find that the big guy isn't fighting this one off. "No, my turn," he replies with a grin as he stretches out to put a foot in her lap. She unlaces his shoe, pulls it off and drops it with a thud to the floor. Even in socks, she can see that his feet are a perfect match for his hands, slim and elegant, and she longs to pull the sock off and investigate further. But this isn't about feet. It's about skates and Christmas. But still, she can't help giving the sole a firm rub with her thumb from heel to toes and smiles at the instinctive curling of his foot. She holds the top of the skate boot in both hands and as he pushes his foot inside, she watches his face to judge the fit. His smile shows that she has chosen well. She is not as adept at lacing as he is and the process takes longer for her. The leg of his jeans covers the top of the boot and she must raise it to finish lacing the skate. Pushing up with both hands under the hem, she soon encounters the bristly hair on his calf, and the sinew of muscles well-developed with years of running. He sighs, a sound that makes her heart beat a little faster, and straightens his leg even more, causing her fingers to drift further up his leg. His skin is warm against her slightly cool hands. Meeting his eyes once more, she finds him grinning playfully and with just a hint of a challenge. Nope. Skates and Christmas--at least for the time being. She rakes her nails lightly over his skin on her way back down to finish lacing the skate, just to show him that she's not backing down, and she feels him shiver. Their skates ready, they clasp hands again and manage to pull themselves and each other to a standing position. Their ankles wobble slightly after many years of not being on skates, and it allows them an excuse to clutch at one another for support. Even though excuses aren't really necessary now, it somehow still seems right, like something they do. "How's it feel?" he asks her, looking down at their skates. "Feels great," she replies, bending at the knee to shift her weight experimentally. "How 'bout yours?" "Like it was made for me," he says with a grin. "So when do we go skating? Tomorrow?" "Don't you mean later today? Are there any rinks open on Christmas?" "They don't even know it's Christmas," he answers, mock scorn in his voice. "They'll be open because they think it's just Saturday. Will you go skating with me, Scully?" "It's a date." And they are both struck with the sudden and pleasant realization that it would be a date--something neither of them has actually dared to believe would happen between them. Their smiles are twin reflections of surprise and a giddiness they've never before allowed themselves. "I can't believe we both got skates," she says, falling back onto the sofa with a happy sigh and propping her foot up to admire her new skate. "I was just going to use my old ones from college. They still fit. Well, I know you didn't get me what I got you on the next one." Her other present is cube shaped. "The packages are completely different," he says, reaching for the shirt-sized box in front of him, enjoying this present thing immensely. Mulder tears into his second package, no longer bothering with niceties. This time, he gets to box first and laughs out loud when he sees his gift. "A glow-in-the-dark universe. This is so cool! You mom said that Matty's room has one and I wanted one, too." He looks at her, and sees she is paying more attention to getting to her present than to him and he loves the sight of her face in deep concentration as she slowly and carefully unwraps her present. "I'm glad you like it," she says, still opening her present, trying to keep the paper from this package more intact. She's never been one for keepsakes, for holding onto objects for sentimental reasons. But she thinks now that maybe that was because she'd never received the right one, for she finds that she'd really like to keep this wrapping paper. "Will you come over and help me put it up?" he asks suggestively, hoping for a yes, but keeping enough of a joke in his voice that she has a way out if she wants one, and she looks up at him from her task. Realizing an out when she hears one, she nixes it immediately. Not this time, not anymore. "Wouldn't miss it," she replies, looking down again and picking at a piece of tape with her fingernail. "Especially since you got rid of the waterbed." She looks up again and meets his eyes, preferring to project her suggestiveness in the way they've communicated for so long. "They're bad for you, ergonomically speaking, and highly overrated in other ways." She loves the look of eager pleasure that crosses his face. Mulder finally loses patience with the keepsake idea and reaches over to tear at the wrapping. "Hurry up. This is going to make you laugh." He can barely contain his own laughter. She gives up when she sees that he's ruined the paper anyway. Oh well, there will be other keepsakes. The paper gone, she stares at the box, which boldly proclaims that she is the proud owner of a home planetarium and she can't help the giggles that emerge from her. Leave it to Mulder to find the high-tech version of her gift to him. "Look," he says, excited as a kid. "It's this big globe thing with a halogen light inside and it shines the stars up on your ceiling. And you can change the settings. You can set it for the place and any date you want and it will show you where the stars were that night. Or even will be." And strangely, this intrigues and enchants her, the idea of falling asleep under the stars from any night in history on her ceiling. It enchants her almost as much as his excitement does. She's always been interested in, aware of, the stars. As the favored child of a Navy captain, she learned navigation by the stars at an early age and she still loves the fact that stars are both constant and mysterious. Suddenly the difference between their gifts strikes her and it gladdens her to realize how well they know each other. She's given Mulder stars that he can arrange any way he imagines. He's given her stars as they are perceived from earth--factual stars. Same concept, different viewpoints--as their partnership has been from the first. And she realizes that all the years she thought they'd never be on the same page, they were on the same page all along. She reads the lines and Mulder reads between them. Together, they can see everything. "I love this, Mulder," she says, her voice catching slightly in her throat, hoping he knows by her tone how much she means it. Then she remembers. She doesn't have to rely just on tone anymore. She can show him how much she loves the gifts he's given her, how much she loves him. Tucking a foot beneath her to give her a little more height, she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him down for a Christmas kiss. His mouth against hers is warm and welcoming and she swoops in to taste every inch of it. The part of her mind that still has some semblance of rational thought wonders if every single kiss is going to be better than the one before it, for this is the best one of all. As she moves her mouth over his, varying the angles to make sure she finds all the hidden nooks and crannies, she feels him shift so that he can wrap both arms around her waist. However they soon find that her sitting on her foot and him twisted sideways is not the best they can do in this wonderful new situation they find themselves in. Never losing contact with her inquisitive little mouth, he holds her tightly and shifts again, bringing her around to straddle his lap. She remembers to lift the foot wearing the now cumbersome skate so that neither of them is injured by the blade. They both sigh their contentment at this intriguing new position as she settles more comfortably into his lap. Scully. He's kissing Scully. Scully is sitting in his lap and he is kissing her. And even more significantly, she is kissing him, in a way I adore you that is so thorough and Scullylike that it warms his heart at the same time it makes him incredibly hot. His hands, having declared independence from the rest of his body, roam up and down her back completely of their own accord. He feels her threading her fingers through his hair, her fingertips rasping his scalp. He always loves it when she touches his hair. Mulder's hair is silky beneath her fingers, as it always has been. She can recall each of the too few times that she's ever allowed herself to touch his hair. Never too often because it terrified her how much it affected her when she did, how much she wanted to plunge both hands into its thickness and warmth. And now she can and she does and he breathes out a low, satisfied sound that she breathes in, keeps for herself for a moment and gives back to him. His hands on her back seem to be chasing the chills that are now continually, deliciously running up and down her spine. She presses closer and she can feel the force of his desire and is amazed by it. Not that he feels it for she knows that if he is half as excited as she is, he's ready to go. No, she is amazed at the fact that it's there against her. That they're here, together in this wonderful new way. His hands find the hem of her shirt and easily slide beneath it for it's much too big for her. And, finally, they encounter what they've waited seven long years for and splay across her bare skin like weary pilgrims who've finally reached Mecca. In return, she presses against him and moves her lips across his face to his throat to nibble and lave the skin there. He can feel himself breathing as if he ran full-tilt for three miles as her mouth settles on a place at the base of his neck and he wonders if she's going to give him a hickey. No one has given him a hickey since the night of his senior prom. He's hoping for hickey as he tilts his head, a low hum coming from somewhere inside him. His hands, rediscovering their own power again, come up with a plan. One slowly pushes the fabric of the shirt up her back, while the other escapes to plunge between the sofa cushions. He tastes so damn good as she gnaws and licks the smooth skin of his neck. And there is something really wonderful about making him squirm the way he was doing it to her. She finds a particularly savory piece of skin and grazes her teeth along it, unable to believe what she's considering. She hasn't given anyone a hickey since that disastrous night with Marcus after her senior prom but she finds she wants to give it another shot. Sinking her teeth in just slightly, she sucks the tender skin into her mouth, tracing circles and figure eight's with her tongue. She feels him gulp in air and arch up against her with a groan and a whisper of her name. His hands are raising her shirt, trying to remove it, but she is reluctant to release her claim on his neck, although she knows that losing the shirt is a pretty good idea at this point in time. Finally she does and raises her arms to allow him to take it off of her. She pauses a moment to look at him looking at her and to admire the mark she's left on his neck before returning to plunder his mouth a little more. She's just settling in again at his mouth when, to her dismay, he pulls away slightly. Eyes still closed and about to protest, she is stilled by the feel of her shirt being placed back over her head. Wait a minute! Him putting clothing back on her is not in this scenario. Her eyes fly open, the hurt in them showing only momentarily before she looks down to see him trying to slip her arms into his Knicks jersey, and the hurt turns into glee. She sits back willingly and pulls the shirt over her torso, running her hands over the dark blue fabric with a grin. She giggles at the soft, fuzzy, slightly goofy look his face has taken on. "Another Christmas present for me?" she asks, her voice so low it startles even her. The giggle turns into a gasp as his fingers trail down the front of the shirt, lightly grazing her breasts on their way. His smile has changed from goofy to seductive as his eyes rake over her hungrily. "For both of us," he whispers and the love and desire in his eyes sets a blaze in her belly. "I knew you'd look hot in it." "I can have this?" she murmurs, bringing her face close to his. "You can have anything I own," is his simple reply. She smiles gently, hoping he sees the same love in her eyes that she sees in his. "You don't own much stuff, Mulder." "No, I don't," he agrees. "And you already own the thing that matters most to me." "Your shirt?" she asks, confused. "Yourself." And that single word removes the final brick in the wall she'd begun carefully constructing almost from the day she met him. "God, I love you," she says and without the slightest hesitation, she enfolds him in her arms and descends on his mouth, adoring it, adoring him. She feels her heart laughing, singing, and tears seep through the lashes of her closed eyes. "Love you," he whispers against her mouth, around her tongue and she understands him perfectly. And he kisses her and kisses her until this dizzy, lightheaded feeling seems like her normal state of being. His mouth is hot and tender and hungry and loving and demanding and giving. His kisses are everything she's ever needed and never felt. Finally, to his dismay, he finds he must break away slightly--to breathe, to process, to believe that this isn't just another of the sometimes painfully cruel dreams he has. He opens his eyes and just watches her. Her head is tilted back, her eyes closed, her skin flushed a rosy peach, and she is breathing rapidly through lips that are swollen with kisses. With *his* kisses. Her eyes open slowly and a tear that's been trapped in her lashes drops to her cheek and, unable to resists, he leans toward her and takes it onto his tongue. It tastes salty-sweet with her joy and lets him know that the time is right. He pulls her close to whisper in her ear, to inhale her scent, to have her near him at last. "I have another gift for you," he says softly, planting a chaste kiss behind her ear. "Yeah?" she sighs, her whispered tone matching his. She snuggles her pelvis against his and feels his come up to meet hers in a gentle rolling thrust. "I think I know what it is." "Hmm," he groans into her ear, and she can't help but pull him closer. "I bet you don't." "That's not for me?" she purrs, mock disappointment in her voice and she nudges against his hardness once more, making them both ache and burn. "It's for you," he replies breathlessly. "It's because of you. But it's not the gift." She pulls back and he sees her wondering look. "You want the gift now?" "You want me to have it now?" He nods. "I want you to have it forever." He makes to tip her off his lap, and sees the look of disappointment. "It's in the pocket of my jacket." She nods and slides to his side and the point of the skate blade accidentally pokes into his leg. "Hold it, you're going to hurt somebody with that thing." He catches her foot and quickly unlaces the skate, removing it and the sock and placing them back into their box. Leaning forward, he snags the fabric of his coat in the chair adjacent to the couch, as she sits beside him trying not very effectively to cover her impatience. Scully hears the crinkle of the bag as he takes it from his pocket and places it into her hand. "Sorry it's not wrapped," he says and she detects a hint of nervousness in his voice. She reaches into the bag and pulls out a box made of rose quartz, pale pink and gorgeous. All over its surface, in bas-relief, are carved what seem like hundreds of tiny, perfect roses. She gasps and brings it close to her face to admire its delicateness. "This is absolutely beautiful," she says, her voice struck through with wonder. "It came from my great grandmother, my father's grandmother," he explains softly. "I found it when I was cleaning out my father's house on the Vineyard before I sold it." "Mulder, I can't..." Tears spring to her eyes and when she looks at his face, she knows that she'll accept it, that she must accept it. "Are you sure?" "Open it," he requests. The box has a hinged lid and she lifts it carefully, anxious that the hinges might be weak with the age of the box. Inside nestled on a bed of plush, cream-colored velvet, rests what may be the loveliest ring she has ever seen. A large sapphire--she has no idea of carat sizes-- flanked by two baguette cut diamonds only slightly smaller than the sapphire, set in a platinum setting. "Oh!" she gasps, not knowing whether from the beauty of it or her surprise at seeing it there. She finds she can't look away from it, but can't quite bring herself to touch it, either. It is absolutely stunning, the deep blue of the sapphire a dramatic contrast to the sharp white of the diamonds. The butterflies make an unprecedented fourth appearance in her stomach, bringing reinforcements with them this time, and in her shock she wonders what the collective adjective for butterflies is. Mulder looks at the ring briefly. It's been a long time since he's opened the box and looked at it. But its impact on him is not so profound, for he's seen it many times since childhood, when his mother would occasionally wear it. She returned it to his father after the divorce. He watches Scullly's face as she stares down at it, a hundred different emotions playing in her eyes, none of them staying long enough for him to be able to interpret it. She doesn't seem aware that another of her single, perfect tears is sliding down her face. And this time, he is afraid to taste it, waiting for her reaction, wondering if he might have done the wrong thing again. Finally she looks up at him and everything is in her eyes-- hope and fear and joy and confusion and certainty. How can so much be there? "What does this mean, Mulder?" He knows all the sounds of her voice, knows that this is the studied neutral tone, the one she uses to ask questions she's not sure she wants the answers to. And he knows this might be the most important question she's ever asked him and the most important answer he's ever given. "It means..." he hesitates. "It means whatever you want it to mean, Scully." He shivers slightly, remembering that he once said those same words to her under radically different circumstances, after Jack Willis had died. He sees her eyes widen and knows she remembers, too. "It means, if you said you'd marry me today, I could have us to a Justice of the Peace by ten o'clock. If that's not what you want, it means that I thought of this ring the first time I ever got a good look at your eyes. It means I love you and I want whatever you want. It means you're the only person in the world who could wear this ring." He watches her face and sees when she finally gets the nerve to touch the ring, running her fingers lightly over the stones but not picking it up. "Shouldn't it go to Samantha?" she whispers. Mulder shakes his head. "It goes from eldest son to eldest son. It was always supposed to go to the love of my life." His voice seems thick and heavy in his throat. The love of his life. She is the love of his life. She smiles, overjoyed at her complete lack of doubt in his words. "And you are mine," she says with the same absolute certainty with which she spoke those words a few months before. And when he bends to kiss her, she is ready for it, welcomes it, relishes it. And when he pulls away, she is breathless--from the kiss, from what she is about to say. "I have another present for you, too." She bends over to reach beneath the couch, bringing out a flat brown paper bag. Her hands tremble somewhat as she hands it to him. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a blue covered notebook, knowing immediately what he holds in his hand. He can feel the astonishment on his face as he looks to her for confirmation that this is what he thinks it is and she nods. He opens the top cover and recognizes the handwriting and the words immediately--words he'd read beside her empty hospital bed in Allentown, Pennsylvania when they both knew she was dying. *For the first time, I feel time like a heartbeat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning; the numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal, threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you, is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not long ago, and began again shaken and strengthened by your convictions. If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.* He reads the words slowly, this time without the fear that she will come upon him stealing them. A tear falls, hot with the bitterness escaping his soul, and he wipes it away quickly. Not because he is afraid that she'll see it, but because he doesn't want it to fall on the paper and smudge the ink. He looks up to see her watching him as he reads, her eyes directed at the page, the rose quartz box clutched in both hands in her lap. Turning the pages of the notebook he finds entries later than the last one he'd seen in the hospital. Not only did she not throw it away, she kept on writing in it. Glimpses of the dates reveal that the writing is sporadic, but that throughout the whole thing, she uses the word *you.* She'd always written to him. His heart is beating rapidly in his chest and as he longs to read the words, at the same time he is terrified to do it. So much has happened between then and now. But either way, he can't do it here, can't make her sit here watching him as he learns the secrets of her heart. The secrets she says can be his. They look up at the same time, and their eyes lock as they have a million times over their long years together. His eyes can always find hers--in a crowded meeting room, at the end of a long corridor, in his mind's eye when the need is there. "Mine?" he asks on a whisper, his hand unconsciously swiping back and forth on the page. "It's always been yours." She lifts one of the hands resting on the notebook and raises it to her lips for a kiss. She has his full attention when she says, "There are things in here that will hurt you, Mulder, things I wrote in reaction to times that you hurt me, too. But there are some happy times in here, too. I think you need to know about both sides, but when you read it, I want you to remember that we made it through everything. We're right here right now." "Do you want me to read it now?" She shakes her head. "Not all of it. But I'd like you to read what I wrote tonight. It's on the last page." She watches him turn the pages and drop his head to read in the dim light. As he reads, she looks at the ring again. Finally, she dares to take it from it's velvet bed and she hooks it over her index finger to bring it before her face. She clasps it in the palm of her hand and feels the stones warming against her skin. Mulder looks down at the page. He sees that she wrote this in a hurry, probably while he was down at the car. It is Scully's handwriting, but slanted slightly to the right with hurried points on some of the words. Over the past few years, he's noted subtle changes in her handwriting. Several times he was tempted to take samples to a handwriting analyst for interpretation of the changes but not only would that be a huge betrayal of her trust, but part of him hadn't been sure he could stand the answers he might get. He takes a deep breath and reads the entry, so brief in comparison to some of the others. *January 8, 2000 *Happy New Year, Merry Christmas! *It's a long strange road we've been traveling, that we keep traveling. I just read the words on the first page. Three years since then, Mulder. Three years and at that time I thought I'd be lucky to get three months. Back then I looked at you incomplete. That's not who I see in you tonight, or who I see now as I look in the mirror at my own reflection. Tonight I can finally allow myself to believe that, for some reason, I actually do complete you. And I hope I can finally tell you that, for reasons I also don't understand, you complete me as well. I don't understand them, Mulder, but not only do I accept them, I rejoice in them. *I'm glad I was wrong three years ago. You were right when you said that this was meant to be a nicely worded goodbye. But luckily, maybe blessedly, I'm still on the journey. I want you to know that I'll stay on the journey for as long as it takes, wherever the road goes, for it's become my journey, too. Not just because of what's happened to me, but because I have to be with you. The only one in the world who knows me. *You know this will be difficult sometimes. We'll still argue and we'll still disagree because that's who we are. But always know, in any battle--I am for you. Your side is mine. And for any important question, the answer is Yes. *I love you. *P.S.: I've decided that your birthday is next Wednesday. How old will you be?* He laughs his delight out loud, though tears stream openly down his face. And as she watches him she can see the years drain away until she sees the man who laughed in the rain with her all those years ago. Only more, because there is love in these laughing eyes. She looks again and sees he has crinkles in the corners of those eyes and she loves them. She's watched them form, knows what's happened to cause them, what's happened to both of them. They've earned their scars and their wear, paid for with their youth. They've earned who they are and they've earned one another. She goes willingly, eagerly, when he pulls her back into his lap, for a deep kiss that speaks of love and gratitude. She sits there for once at his eye level, her arms resting on his shoulder and for what seems a long time, they just look at each other. His eyes are serious, pensive, and she can feel him looking into her. And it is a surprisingly familiar sensation. Has he always been able to do it? "You are for me," he whispers, trying it out, testing the truth of it. And it feels good and true. "Always," she replies without hesitation and watches the smile spread across his face, joyous and just a little mischievous. "And on any important question the answer is yes?" Scully nods, knowing what is to come and she is both anxious and anticipating. "I believe there's an implied question on the table," he says, serious once again. And she's glad for this tone. Although she knows he would not choose now to be whimsical and flirty, it calms her apprehension to know by his tone and demeanor that he is absolutely serious about this. It is an important question to both of them. The ring is still clasped in her palm and she opens her hand to see it again. She closes her hand again, giving the ring a squeeze then lifts one of Mulder's hands to drop the ring into it. "The answer to any important question is yes," she says in confirmation. She extends both of her hands, palms down before him. It's up to him to choose the hand on which she'll wear the ring. She has given her answer and his action would ask the question. He understands what she is asking and goes unerringly for her left hand. He raises her ring finger to his lips and gives it a reverent kiss before slipping the ring onto it. Surprisingly, and not surprisingly at all, it is a perfect fit. She leans forward and captures his lips with her own and she feels him pulling her close to him, leaning into the cushions until they are nearly reclining. And suddenly she is filled with joy, moaning, laughing, weeping against his mouth as he is against hers. She wants this, wants it more than she knew she was capable of wanting anything. She thought the wanting was gone forever, having died shortly after the last of her expectations. But it's there and with the knowledge that she can have what she wants--at least for now--is a joyous thing. A gift that she can accept because it belongs to her. Mulder feels as though he has always wanted. It never died within him, simply hovered there in his existence taunting him making him believe in what others saw as impossible just on the chance that the endless wanting might be quelled. But the years of longing had never felt like this, like the taste of her mouth, open and giving against his. Like the feel of her warm small hands easing under his shirt to finally give him the touch he'd never had. He pulls away, needing to ask, and her mouth finds a place at his throat, making it difficult for him to speak. "Does this mean Justice of the Peace by ten?" A yes springs instantly, impulsively, to her lips, but she bites it back. So long, it's taken so long to get to this place. But finally here, she wants to explore it, to explore who they are becoming, especially to explore him. "Let's go skating first and see where it goes from there," she whispers and is relieved to see the understanding in his eyes. He is eager to explore, too, and the proof is pressing insistently against her, his hands pulling at her recently acquired Knicks shirt, just as hers are tugging at his gray tee. They burn for each other. They are sliding off the couch, threatening to become wedged between it and the coffee table and she realizes that this is not how it should be. This time that they've waited for, fought for, almost died for should be something special for both of them. "Mulder," she says, chuckling at his grunted response and the feeling of his stubbled cheek against the sensitive skin of her neck. "Make love with me under the stars." He pulls away to read her face and knows instantly that the home planetarium doesn't have a chance of matching the stars in her eyes. He helps her ease off him and she stands taking his hands to help him to his feet. He's forgotten that he's still wearing a skate and nearly falls, but she is there to catch him--as she always has been. "Why don't you take off the skate and I'll go in and set up the stars." She picks up the box and looks at the photograph on the outside, determining that it shouldn't be too complicated. "I already programmed in a date," he says. He sits down and begins untying the skate's lace, his eyes never leaving hers. "March 6, 1992," she says, not even needing to see his nod. "Good choice." She wonders briefly what Missy would have seen in the stars on that first night of their partnership. He watches her head toward her bedroom as he drops the skate into the box and hurries after her. There are still gifts left to give and receive and he doesn't want to miss a single one. THE END Thanks for sticking with me this far. Hope you liked it. If so, I'd love to hear about it. jtfilipek@yahoo.com