author: Cathleen Faye / kimerikal@aol.com

Genre: MSR - This is really an in-depth character study, with angst, humor, love, pain, and the whole damn thing. I would call this a deep characterization study with a payoff of smut <g>
Rating: NC-17 for sexual content, adult themes, and language.
Spoilers: This is a post End-Game story, but it pretty much includes spoilers for every episode prior to this. 
Summary: Set in 1995 following Mulder's recovery from his brush with death in the Arctic Circle. An Sunday on his own brings about a day of introspection as he struggles to get through it. At the same time across town Scully and her sister discover a moment from Mulder's past that causes her to question whether she really knows her partner. Mulder would probably call it fate whereas Scully would call it coincidence, but either way, something draws them to the same place at the same time where they'll straighten it all out and maybe even learn something about each other I would call this a deep characterization study with a payoff of smut <g> 

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Sunday, February 19, 1995
Mulder's Apartment
11:30 am

Oh God, he just hated Sundays, Mulder thought as he reluctantly opened his eyes. He focused in on what he'd heard, his body tense and on alert as he tried to identify the sound that had broken apart his blessedly dreamless sleep.

As usual he'd fallen asleep on his couch the night before, or rather, early that morning as it'd been just after 4am the last time he'd glanced at the clock before sleep had finally overtaken him. Now, he gazed languidly about his living room, blinking a few times as he mentally pushed his way further up into consciousness. Then the sound came again; it was just a dog barking out on the street somewhere.

With a deep groan, he sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head. Mulder was not a morning person. He rolled his head slowly to loosen the stiffened muscles in his neck and shoulders then stretched his arms out as far as he could reach, trying to loosen the kinks in his back as he yawned deeply and loudly. Worn out from his exertion, Mulder flopped back into the couch and focused in on the clock on the side table. He was somewhat pleased to discover that he'd managed to sleep away the greater portion of the morning. This was good, less Sunday to have to struggle through.

From his sprawled position, Mulder looked slowly about his place. It was stuffy in the small room and the gray morning light from the overcast sky only added to the dreariness causing him to feel claustrophobic and a bit depressed even. Every once in a while, he was struck by the fact that his place sometimes felt strange to him, as though he didn't actually live there. It was like a dorm room without any of the fun that usually went with the mess. It wasn't like Scully's place, which felt like a home, as if a human being made a life there.

He turned his face towards the window and squinted out at the dull sky. He felt that that since he was awake, he really should get up and do something with his day. But of course, one of the reasons Mulder hated Sundays was that they were filled with the necessary chores of everyday living. Boring things like laundry, picking up dry cleaning, restocking his food supply, clearing a path so he could at least move about his apartment without danger of crashing into something and breaking his little toe--again. However, truth be told, the real reason he didn't care for Sundays was because Scully wasn't around and he was alone. Somewhere along the way over the last two years, he'd become so accustomed to her presence in and about his life. Saturdays weren't so bad, but as the weekend stretched along, Sundays started to become interminable because of the separation from her.

Sixty-four hours. Pathetically, he'd counted it up once and 5pm Friday to 9am Monday amounted to sixty-four hours. True, he and Scully rarely worked anything that even slightly resembled regular office hours. But when not in the field on a case their schedule was like that of any other civil servant. In the past, he'd often been able to turn Sunday in to a working day too and he liked that much better. If nothing else, the American taxpayer certainly got their money's worth on Fox Mulder's salary.

However, he'd had many Sundays free since the end of last year. Scully had almost died when she'd been unceremoniously returned from where ever she'd been held for three months. Her body had undergone serious trauma with strange, unnatural changes to her blood and organic structures. Her recovery to full strength had not happened as quickly as she would have liked. She'd come back to work full time much earlier than she should have and paid the price with a slight relapse in exhaustion just before Christmas. After that, Skinner, in collusion with Mulder, had lightened their workload for a short time in order to force Scully to take time to recover. It'd worked too; she was completely back to her old self. Or rather, she was as completely back as one could expect considering that she still couldn't account for three months of her life.

But nonetheless, she'd forged ahead in her inimitable Scully-way.

Mulder had been irritated with, although not surprised by, her insistence on returning to a full caseload. Jesus, she was a doctor; had she worked with only corpses for so long that she'd forgotten that it takes time for the living to heal and regenerate? As much as he loved her, the fact remained that, on occasion, Scully also just irritated the ever-loving shit out of him. But in a good way, he was quick to append mentally. Her determination and independence were two of the things he admired most in her and yet, if he was honest, at times, they were also the same things that exasperated him to the point of beating his head on the wall. All he'd wanted was for her to be completely well; he had things to tell her.

Of course, tracking him down to the frozen wastelands at the top of the world probably hadn't done much for her stamina. He'd deliberately left her behind for a variety of reasons, some selfish, some not. But of course, Scully wouldn't be dismissed so easily and Mulder was left torn between feeling grateful that she'd followed him--for there wasn't a doubt in his mind that he'd be dead otherwise--and feeling guilty that she'd taken such a chance because of him.

And so, over the last two weeks, he'd been the one who'd needed time to recover. The retrovirus that would have killed him but for Scully's intervention had raged through his body, leaving him decimated, and forcing him into the idle time he hated. Although the last series of blood work had shown that Scully's prescribed course of antivirals had eradicated the virus, he was still weak, and Mulder hated feeling weak--hated it worse than almost anything in the world. He'd refused to give into it, pushing himself and Scully had nagged at him daily to rest more, just as he'd done to her.

The irony was not lost on him--they were indeed, an oddly matched set. God, what other sane person would have either one of them he thought, smiling slightly and shaking his head.

Mulder stood up slowly and made his way to the bathroom. He started the shower as he peeled off his sweaty T-shirt and the boxers stained from last night's little adventure with his video collection; a crude reminder of the inferior satisfaction he turned to when the tension and aloneness would overwhelm him. He wondered absently if he would ever have sex again with anything except his right hand or perhaps his left when he was feeling kinky.

That thought naturally brought his mind back to Scully and his brain went all foggy again as he wondered about what she did to relieve her tension. He rather liked the picture that appeared in his mind. But then again, maybe she didn't do anything; maybe she was just storing it all up. Maybe she was just going to explode on her 35th birthday.

He opened the bathroom windows hoping the fresh chilled air would help. Stepping into the shower, he let the hot, steaming water pour down over his aching back muscles for a very long time, finally feeling them loosen up slightly. He washed his hair then began to soap down his body, standing under the pulsating flow. A shower was one of the great inventions of mankind. Now if only Scully were here to enjoy this with him.

He closed his eyes against the warm water flowing down over his head and shoulders as he hauled out a now-familiar fantasy. As his hands moved slowly over his body, gliding through the thick lather, his imagination changed them to Scully's hands, soothing his skin and stirring his blood; touching him everywhere he wanted, stroking softly and then firmly, as the steamy water coursed over his body. He'd gotten so good at indulging this daydream that he swore if he leaned back just slightly he would feel her body pressed into his back as her hands moved around to touch him.

Suddenly, the hot water began to fade, replaced quickly with cold, which was just as well given the direction his thoughts had been taking. Mulder slowly opened his eyes, abandoning the story in his head as he stood under the cooling water, cooling down himself, and then finished rinsing off quickly. As he stepped out of the shower, he shook his head like a dog, just beginning to feel human again. He shivered slightly because now of course, he was chilled from the open window and the cool water.

Mulder wrapped himself in the seldom-used thick terry robe that hung on the back of the door--a birthday gift from his mother a few months ago. Granted, the robe had been delivered by UPS the day after his birthday and accompanying card that said, "Best Wishes on your special day," had had a printed signature, but hey, at least she'd remembered. But somehow though, he was also very sure that the kid who delivered his mother's newspaper probably got the same card on his birthday too. Although, he supposed that Mom's personal shopper had picked out a more appropriate gift for a 13-year-old.

Mulder wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at his 34-year-old face. The dark bruising around his eyes from the retrovirus had faded, but the reflection that stared back at him still looked tired and a bit older than his actual age. After a moment's debate, he decided to forgo shaving, opting instead to put his full effort into brushing his teeth. He styled his wet hair by running a hand through it and contemplated a nose job for about 3 seconds. Finally he padded back into the living room and resumed his spot on the couch and propped his feet up on the coffee table, exhausted from his efforts of doing almost nothing. He glanced over at the clock again. Wow--he'd managed to kill 40 whole minutes. Now what?

He surveyed his domain again with a certain dismay. The apartment-cleaning fairy had not made an appearance while he was in the shower. I should get a maid, he thought before he rejected the idea immediately. No way. He couldn't have a maid, he had way too much stuff for her to get into and mess with. Mulder hated people messing with his stuff.

Scully had tried to mess with his stuff once, he remembered. Just after she'd been assigned to the X-Files, she'd offered to help him organize. He'd looked at her with complete horror and assured her that he knew exactly where everything was. It was a lie of course; he knew it, and she knew it. But the offer had come very, very early in their relationship and the truth was he hadn't trusted her then. Of course, he thought affectionately, now that he trusted her with life and heart, the little bitch hadn't volunteered again. He'd blown that one big time.

Mulder sighed and looked in the general direction of the kitchen. There was coffee in there--it was calling out to him. The only problem was that getting it from the kitchen to the couch would require some movement on his part. What was the deal with that, he thought resentfully, not yet ready to stir from his spot.

He wasted a few more minutes contemplating his feet a bit. He wondered why was it that some people's second toe was longer than their big toe. That didn't make any sense and while he was at it, who came up with the word "toe" anyway? It was one of those words that when said repeatedly in one's mind, as Mulder was unfortunately doing right that moment, it became completely non-sensible. He decided to ask Scully her medical opinion about toe length on Monday, if only to see the look on her face. He just loved to do that. In fact, tweaking her was one of his few joys.

Now he closed his eyes and hauled out his other fantasy--the living room one. Truth was that Mulder had a rather large repertoire of fantasies. One for every room in his apartment, along with the hallway, the elevator, his car, and that dark area in the very back of his office. But he liked his living room one. In this one, Scully was curled up on this couch, wearing his robe and fresh from her shower with her hair damp and her body sweet-smelling. She'd sit at that end over there and put her feet over in his lap so he could massage them. He thought about the deliciousness of tickling her slightly and getting that smile back and maybe a laugh as she wiggled her toes. He suddenly wondered if she giggled. God, he didn't even know if Scully would giggle given the right circumstance. Shouldn't he know that about her? There seemed to be a lot of things he didn't know about her.

But one of her secrets that he did know was that she painted her toenails as he'd seen her naked feet on several occasions when they'd changed shoes after slogging through the mud somewhere. He'd found that fact rather intriguing in light of the fact that she never painted her fingernails. He supposed that if he asked her why, she'd give him "The Look" or perhaps even some sensible explanation having to do with the chemicals she worked with. But he suspected that she just did the toes in some strange homage to femininity that she did to please herself and no one else. Mulder liked that. In fact, he liked that a lot. In fact, the thought was something of a turn-on. God, maybe someday she'd even let him paint her toenails. It was a weird little thing he had a strong desire to do, just as he'd always had stop himself from brushing her hair off her face when it flopped down.

Returning to his musings about Scully's toes, Mulder thought about how he would hold her foot on his lap then bend down and suck Scully's big toe deep into his mouth as his hands moved up....

The resulting picture in his mind snapped his eyes back open and stirred him into action. Jesus, if he kept going he was going to end up needing another shower he thought as he put his hands up to rub his temples as though to push away the thoughts. Coffee, this digression had all started with coffee. With some effort, he managed to unfold his bones to a standing position and gravitate towards the kitchen and his new coffeemaker. Another heart-felt gift from mom left on his doorstep by UPS, this time to mark Christmas. The printed card said, "Best Wishes on this Happy Holiday." Mom's printer was apparently very big on the Best Wishes thing. But hey, he bet that at least the paperboy hadn't gotten a coffeemaker for Christmas.

He dug through the cupboards. Shit, he was out of filters--he'd have to remember to buy some, yet another one of those mundane things he hated remembering. Making do with a paper towel, he dumped what seemed to be an appropriate amount of coffee in and set it to brewing.

Fox Mulder made truly shitty coffee. His fine, keen mind was able to hypothesize the most elusive of metaphysical concepts but for some damn reason the correct ratio of coffee to water just completely eluded him. When Scully was there and they were going over files together, he could often con her into doing it and it always tasted wonderful. On the other hand, he thought, maybe it was just the fact he was sharing it with her that made it wonderful. Maybe there was just the illusion that Scully's coffee was better than his was.

Mulder wandered to the front door to pick up the paper and then headed back to the couch to wait for the coffee to finish brewing. He read the comics and he wondered if poor Charlie Brown was ever going to nail that cute little red-headed girl who followed him about. Then he thumbed through the TV guide. Oh joy; they were re-running that God-awful alien autopsy special. Yet another reason to live, he thought sarcastically, echoing Scully's words spoken to him a few months back. Yet another reason for people to look at him as though he was insane.

Within a few minutes, the coffee was ready and he shuffled back to the kitchen where he rummaged around to find his last clean mug. He poured the coffee and then added the usual immense amounts of sugar and cream necessary to turn it into something he could actually stand to drink.

His stomach rumbled slightly so he stood in front of the open refrigerator a few minutes searching for something to eat--something that didn't look alien with green fuzz. After a moment, he settled on the two-day old leftover ravioli. He briefly considered popping it into the microwave, but then decided the hell with it and carried it along with the coffee back to the living room. He resumed his position on the couch and ate cold ravioli out of the Tupperware as he drank his too sweet coffee while he read the paper.

Wow, he thought acerbically, life just doesn't get any better than this. Scully just didn't know what she was missing. He wondered what she was doing right this moment. He wondered if he should tell her the things he wanted so badly to tell her or if he should just shut the hell up and leave it all be. He really didn't like having all this free time to think about all of that. He glanced over at the clock again. Another 20 minutes down.

God, he just hated Sundays.

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Sunday, February 19th, 1995

Simon's Used Bookstore

Alexandria, Virginia.

It was really by coincidence that Scully and her sister, Melissa, ended up in Simon's Used Bookstore.

They'd gone for brunch at their favorite place in Old Town Alexandria. That part of the city was beautiful, with its historical brick buildings, quaint streets and stores. In the last couple of months, she and Melissa had taken to meeting up on Sundays whenever they could, to catch up on sister talk and just spend some time together.

Since the day had turned very cold and dreary, they'd planned on taking in a movie. However, they'd ended up talking so long at brunch that they missed the start time and now had to kill a couple hours. After leaving the restaurant, they wandered a bit, browsing in the stores when they happened upon the old store stuffed to the ceiling with old books, magazines, and newspapers. Melissa wanted to go in as the window sign promised a large New Age section.

Once inside, they each went their separate ways. Melissa watched fondly as Dana wandered over towards the science books, just feeling so very pleased that she was even there to share the day with her. Like many adult siblings, the sisters had drifted apart a bit since childhood. Not though argument or design, but simply by chance and laziness. But since Dana's return months before, Melissa stuck closer to her than she had in recent years. After months of absence, she'd given her sister up for dead. Then she'd almost lost her again when they had acquiesced to Dana's wish that her life not be maintained by artificial means.

Melissa was grateful that she'd been given a second chance to rebuild the closeness they'd once had and she wasn't going to waste it. Today had been so nice. During lunch, she'd teased Dana gently as she had when they were young and was pleased to see that somewhere in the ensuing years her little sister had learned to give back as good as she got. Dana had always had a sense of humor but few outside the family had ever seen it.

But other things were different too. Once unbending almost to a fault, she'd become less rigid in the last few years and more open. At brunch, Dana had actually listened to her as she'd talked about some of her spiritual beliefs without either giving her The Look or just outright dismissing them with a sound of derision, as she would have once. No, she wasn't going to see Dana at one of her spiritual gatherings anytime soon, but at least she was willing to look at other possibilities, she wasn't so closed off. In Melissa's mind, she had a ways to go, but she had to give her credit because she knew better than most why Dana didn't often let people near.

When they were young and moving from base to base with their parents, she'd made new friends easily, but it had been much harder for Dana. Fair or not, being very smart was often tough on a girl socially and somehow, Dana's confidence in her intellect was often mistaken for arrogance. Melissa knew her little sister was often passed by or left out, but she wasn't about to tell her to pretend to be less than she was in order to fit in. Sadly, by the time Dana made a friend or two who could appreciate her, it was often time to move on again and leave them behind. Their father didn't help matters. He was often a loving but tough taskmaster, rarely praising and often finding just the one little thing that he thought could have been done better. Somewhere along the line, Melissa just realized that it was useless and learned to let it all slide, but she saw that Dana struggled for his approval even harder. She never seemed to realize that she was his favorite and if he was harder on Dana than the rest, it was because he thought the most of her.

But the end result was that Dana had grown up far more serious and introspective than she had. She protected her feelings because she felt inadequate sometimes. That's why it was so nice to see her laugh and be happy now. Melissa could tell that she loved her work and she felt she'd finally found a place she belonged. There was no denying that Dana's years at the FBI had definitely changed her for the better and Melissa was certain some of it was certainly due to that partner of hers.

Melissa often had insights that she couldn't explain any more than she could explain to Mulder just how she knew not to call him, "Fox." The minute Dana's handsome partner had walked into the ICU, she'd sensed that there was more going between Mulder and her sister than met the eye. She didn't suspect anything as boring or conventional as an office love affair. Rather, she sensed a deeper communion between them, something that was far more rare. She wasn't even sure if they understood it themselves. Mulder, for all his outlandish beliefs, certainly hadn't realized the power his heart held for her sister. When she'd come to him with the grim news that Dana was slipping away, his refusal to return to the hospital had infuriated her. Nevertheless, in the end, he'd given up on his futile earthly struggle for justice and had come to stay Dana in a kind of spiritual battle.

Melissa wasn't sure if she could attribute Dana's restoration to any one person, entity, or thing, nor was she even particularly interested in doing so. All she knew was that by the next morning, her sister's conscious mind had been restored to the body that had been useless without it. All she knew was that had happened after Fox Mulder had come to Dana that night. All she knew was that her sister was whole again and Melissa Scully did not believe in coincidence.

From where she sat, Melissa looked down the long aisle saw Dana looking though stacks of books. Her sister, feeling her glance, looked up and smiled a bit in return. Things were good now, Melissa thought.

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Scully glanced briefly up at her sister who was now happily sitting on the floor next to a stack of books on crystals, astrology and other things that didn't fit into her ordered world. She wandered to the back of the large store where the medical books were stacked. As she squeezed down one aisle, she noticed that the store had a large section on UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. She half expected to see Mulder standing there pouring over some obscure reference with excitement in his hazel eyes because in spite of the many things they didn't share, one of the things they did was a love of books and learning. He didn't live too far from here so chances were good that he knew about this place, but in case he didn't, she'd have to remember to mention it to him on Monday.

Scully paused and looked through the stacks thinking maybe there was something she could pick out for him. She and Melissa could drop it off on the way home in fact, she thought. Would it be too strange to get a gift for no reason? Would it seem too obvious that she was looking for any excuse to see Mulder? Was it pathetic that she counted down the sixty-four hours of a weekend?

Scully sighed and shook her shook her head. Not a good idea, it was a pitiful pretext at best and anyway, she reasoned, she could be pretty certain that he already owned most of the books there no matter how outrageous or far-fetched. She glanced back up the far end of the aisle at her sister again.

Melissa was so like Mulder, she thought. In many ways, they were far better suited to each other than she and Mulder were. Each of them had different, but nonetheless passionate beliefs in things that were often without the hard scientific proof she needed. In Melissa and Mulder's view of the world, two and two didn't necessarily need to add up to four. But it was so hard for Scully to make that same leap of faith--something in her just demanded that the addition work out right. She was willing to listen, even willing to suppose on occasion. However, she wasn't quite able to believe openly, not yet anyway.

Scully moved on down the aisle. She'd forgotten how much she had loved these dusty, disordered places. A voracious reader during childhood and her high school years, she'd spent many afternoons wandering places such as this, looking for a special find or author. Later, during medical school when she'd hardly had the time to waste on sleep, let alone something as frivolous as pleasure reading, so she'd been forced to put such little joys aside. In those years, her main topics of reading were on the forensic sciences and chemistry. While those had certainly proved helpful as she now navigated the labyrinth of the amazing and unique ways that people managed to die, they did little to feed her soul.

During her first years at the FBI, she'd had little time for reading either. She'd concentrated on teaching and she'd had an active social life. It had been a fun time and her star was rising fast within in the bureau. But then came the X-Files assignment. And by amazing coincidence, her private life took a dumper about the same time she was directed to watch over the investigations of one Special Agent Fox Mulder: Boy Genius and FBI loose cannon.

Scully hadn't been happy about the assignment and she definitely didn't view it as a promotion. In spite of their assurances that it was all in the interest of scientific verification, the underlying tone had been very clear: discredit the man she was being partnered with.

She wasn't naive; she was aware that all agents' actions were scrutinized due to the sensitive nature of their work, including her own. Nevertheless, while she hadn't known Fox Mulder except by reputation, she didn't like the idea of being assigned to spy on a fellow agent. That wasn't her style and certainly not why she'd joined the FBI.

She'd never understood why she'd been picked for the job. There were other individuals within the FBI with the scientific and medical backgrounds just as suited to the Official Version of the assignment. The answer that had made the most sense, of course, was that because she'd been so clearly ambitious they'd thought she could be manipulated. Perhaps they'd thought that in order to work her way up the FBI hierarchy she could be induced into delivering the Unofficial Version they really wanted.

And had Fox Mulder been a different kind of man, had he been what they claimed, that scenario might even have happened. However, the more she observed her new partner, the less she was inclined to believe the rumor and innuendo that she'd been carefully fed.

At the time, Scully had known that Mulder had, at one time anyway, all the makings of a brilliant career with the FBI. Entering Oxford at an early age, he'd graduated with highest honors before moving on to gain his Ph.D. in Psychology. After joining the FBI, he became a masterful and brilliant ISU profiler, whose insights into deranged minds had been the downfall of many brutal criminals. His move to the Violent Crimes Unit only brought more accomplishment. True--there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Mulder had skipped the class at Quantico on working and playing well with others. But his string of successes had, in the beginning anyway, made it easier for his superiors to overlook his eccentricities.

That was, until he'd discovered the X-Files. Once he'd encountered the long-neglected cases, Mulder's meteoric rise crashed back to the ground like a defective test rocket. By the time Scully was assigned to his entire investigation division of one, the FBI scuttlebutt was that the guy was completely off and he'd been without a partner for sometime.

However, his obsessions were only a small part of the much bigger issue that Melissa had recently nicknamed, "The Mulder Problem" several months back. Scully had never put a name to it before, but the one Melissa had chosen fit just fine. Of course, Melissa seemed oblivious to the fact that she'd already been wrestling with the Mulder Problem almost daily for the last two years. That is when she wasn't busy wrestling with the possibility of giant flukeworms and liver-eating maniacs. Yes indeed, Mulder had opened up a whole New World for her she thought ruefully.

But the Mulder Problem clung to her like a new puppy from the minute she'd put on her most confident air, walked into that basement office and laid eyes on Special Agent Fox William Mulder for the first time. He'd looked up at her, wearing those impossibly cute glasses with that great head of hair with that strand that flopped down on his forehead, begging to be touched. His beautiful, deep-set eyes had sized her up openly as he'd shaken her hand and then he'd smiled. Of course, she didn't know at the time that what she was seeing was Mulder's sarcastic smile--the one he gave when he least felt it. It would be a while until she saw the genuine article and when she did, its slow intimacy would take her breath away.

But even without that, her immediate impression was that this man was stunning. The attraction she'd felt had been immediate and she felt a warm flush even in the cool chill of the basement office. Spooky Mulder was most definitely not the UFO geek she'd been expecting.

But then, with a strange combination of friendliness and sarcasm, he'd immediately proceeded to accuse her of spying on him and he mocked her in his laconic tone. Baiting her. Within moments, he'd managed to so completely piss her off that she'd decided on the spot that this guy was never going to best her in anything. But then, even as she was contemplating killing him, he'd immediately moved on to pique her intense curiosity. He'd shown her people who needed their protection from the predators of the world, be they terrestrial or extra-terrestrial as Mulder believed. He'd dazzled her with strange theories and challenged both her mind and her sense of wonder.

Nothing in the last two years had changed since except along the way he'd begun to challenge her heart also.

Damn that bastard, she thought with deep affection. He was the lethal combination of being one of the most unconsciously seductive men she'd ever known and yet he managed to have that brilliant, albeit somewhat unstable, mind to boot. Loving a man like Mulder was hadn't been part of her life's master game plan, but love him she did and that game plan was now just a distant memory.

In the very beginning, she'd wondered which fascinated her more: the work or Fox Mulder. Soon, she'd realized that the two were so completely intertwined that there was no separating them; even pondering that idea was folly. "I'm not crazy, Scully, I have the same doubts you do," was his response to one of the first times she'd looked at him like he was demented. But then he'd turn around and entice her to follow him out on the precarious limb of his logic and she, who'd always preferred to stay close to the trunk in the past, found herself edging out on that branch more and more.

Just what was she gonna do about the Mulder Problem? Scully sighed; she had no better answer today than she'd had almost two years ago, when she'd made her decision as to where her absolute allegiance would lie.

Very shortly after her assignment to the X-Files, her former classmate, Tom Colton, had asked her to work with the Violent Crimes Section when Eugene Toomes first raised his ugly, liver-eating head. She'd been eager for the opportunity for she and Mulder to distinguish themselves. She'd wanted them all to see just how good Mulder was. However, the disrespect shown her partner had astounded her. It was so blatant that the other agents didn't even bother to whisper when they called him "Spooky."

After a particularly ugly confrontation with Colton, Mulder had told her that he would understand if she decided to continue working with the VCS. She knew his offer was sincere; that he'd realized how being his partner was beginning to affect how the rest of the FBI viewed her. But even as he'd said the words, he'd reached out and toyed with the long pendant she was wearing, seemingly to just be straightening it. As she looked up into his eyes, something made her feel as though he was also holding on to her, silently hoping she wouldn't go.

She hadn't gone of course, had never even considered going. But looking back, she realized that signaled the first of many times she would feel subliminal messages from Mulder. Where a look, a touch, or an action were very different than his spoken words.

Over the next two years, her former friends within the FBI began to distance themselves. They had careers to think about and after all, Scully was now part of that Spooky Patrol. Since everyone knew that Mulder was off, there certainly had to be a little something off about Scully too. No one who valued his or her career wanted that stigma attached to them.

Yes, the truth was out there, she thought ruefully, and the truth was that it was entirely Mulder's fault that her social life became a dry lakebed of inactivity. Men who'd once called her quite regularly stopped calling. Female co-workers that she used to go shopping or to a movie with suddenly became very busy. She even stopped being invited to boring FBI social functions, not that she particularly wanted to go, but she did want to be invited. In Scully's mind, perhaps the lowest point came when the FBI softball team told her they were full and couldn't use her. That was particularly disheartening as they were so pathetic that even a poodle that could play catch would have been welcomed with open arms. However, they didn't want Dana Scully, AKA Mrs. Spooky.

Now, other than having the occasional need to mess with other people's heads, if Mulder minded their ostracization he didn't show it. As long as he was given relatively free rein, Mulder didn't seem to mind that his assigned office had, in fact, once been the copy machine room and had no real windows or heat. He didn't mind that it was so far away from everyone else in the FBI that it was something akin to being assigned to steerage on the Titanic. He didn't seem to mind that the FBI hadn't provided his partner with a desk or even had her name inscribed on the door because he knew that it was because the bureau was unwilling to acknowledge that Scully's "temporary" assignment to get rid of him didn't turn out to be the slam-dunk they'd hoped and that they were both still there. He didn't seem to mind that his chances for advancement within the bureau were now roughly the same as Cancer Man marching one of his little gray friends up before Congress to sing songs and tell tales.

But she'd minded. In fact, it had infuriated her for the longest time. Not the crap about the desk, but about how they were perceived. How could it possibly be that no one, except perhaps Skinner, saw the value of their investigations? Eventually she'd become reconciled to the fact that she and Mulder were the bastard children of the FBI, the kind spoken about in whispers and rarely invited to family reunions. Together they had indeed become the FBI's most unwanted. She never regretted her allegiance, or her decision to stand with Mulder in their search for the truth. But of all the other injustices they'd faced, the ones perpetrated by their fellow FBI agents particularly galled her.

After a bit of more browsing in the travel section, she went back in search of Melissa. She'd apparently moved on from the New Age section and after wandering up and down for sometime, Scully found her ensconced on the floor in front of the paperback romances. She watched in fascination as her sister methodically pulled a book off the shelf, shook it, and started reading where it fell open. She'd scan the paragraph quickly and then set the book aside in one of two stacks. "Missy, what the hell are you doing?" she finally asked after a few moments of watching this procedure.

Melissa looked at her sister with great patience, as though Scully was a slightly slow child who needed extra help. "I'm reading the sex scenes to see if it's worth buying," she answered. "If that part is really creased in the book, it must be good."

Scully noticed that three other people in the aisle all immediately started shaking their books. Scully nodded her head slightly as a smile at her sister's technique crossed her face. "So what you're saying, is that you don't judge a book by its cover, you judge a book by whether or not is shakes open to great sex?"

"You got it. You ever read these? You can pick up some rather interesting tips. Listen, 'Hank gasped as Cassandra took his proud manhood deep in her--'"

"I get the idea, Melissa! Thank you." Scully interrupted because she knew Melissa and she knew where this conversation would head.

Melissa looked up from the book in her lap to her sister. There was nothing she enjoyed quite so much as tormenting her little sister just a bit. Dana wasn't a prude by a long shot. But she was also letting her best years slip by chasing down little green men with that partner of hers, when actually, it was the partner that Melissa thought she should be chasing down. "Well, you might want to try reading a few of these sometime Dana; might relieve some of that sexual tension in your body. I mean I bet your aura is a dark ugly color by now."

Scully tried to ignore the fact that the people, who'd been shaking their books a moment ago, had now turned to see the aura of a sexually deprived woman. She gave Melissa The Look.

"I'm only trying to help," Melissa protested. "I know it's been a long, excuse the expression, dry spell for you now."

Now people were actually poking their heads around the aisle to get a gander. Scully knew that when Melissa was in a goading mood she could be relentless and she knew that Melissa blamed Mulder for her appalling lack of social life. OK, so, Mulder was to blame, but she didn't want to discuss it in the paperback romance section of store. Besides, Scully already knew her sister's next question--it was always the same.

"So, Dana--you ever gonna do anything about that Mulder Problem?"

Scully sighed, where had she heard that question before? Oh, yeah, she asked it herself that about 10 minutes ago. She leveled her best stern look at her sister. "I'm going over to the history section for a while--take your time." Scully turned on her heel made her way back down the narrow aisle. Just as she was squeezing past an elderly matron who was pouring over the cookbooks, she head Melissa's voice call loudly out to her.

"You know, a little one-handed fiction won't make you go blind, it might even do you some good."

Scully felt her fair-skinned face turn red as the matron looked up at her. Then the older woman patted her on the arm gently and said, "She's right you know, dearie." As she glanced around, she noticed that the few other patrons in the bookstore within earshot all smiled and nodded sympathetically at her plight. Scully she felt like she was wearing a sign: Untouched By Male Human Hands In Over Two Years.

Suddenly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard a Mulderesque voice in her head, "Yeah, but a few aliens may have copped a feel or two, huh Scully?" Somehow, even the imagined sound of Mulder's voice made her smile a bit.

She liked that Mulder called her Scully. In many ways, Dana seemed almost a different person to her. Still part of her, of course, but a far less interesting part. Dana seemed rather ordinary now, very tame. Dana was earnest, efficient, and just slightly dull. Her dentist called her Dana.

But the extraordinary man she loved called her Scully and that woman lived a far more extraordinary life than Dana had ever dreamed of having. Mulder had opened the doors to that life. She'd stepped through on her own to be sure and she stayed because she wanted to. But she never forgot that it was Mulder who'd made her realize that there was far more in the world to challenge her intellect than lecturing to the bored faces at Quantico. He'd shown her that there were people who needed the help and protection that they alone could offer. And over the last two years, she'd discovered that she liked being Scully a hell of a lot more than she'd ever liked being Dana.

She had no desire for Mulder to use her first name, never once believed that it would bring them any closer. Indeed, the very few times he'd used her name had mostly disturbed her. Just after her father had died, Mulder had called her Dana when speaking to her. She knew, in his way, that he was trying to be solicitous in his manner towards her. But instead of creating intimacy, it had created distance. It had caused her to hesitate from telling him what she'd wanted to tell him.

Once, long ago, she'd started to call him Fox and he'd corrected her. But she'd never viewed it as a privilege he denied her but granted to others. Quite the opposite, she believed he'd come to feel the same way about their connection as she did; felt that just as Fox and Dana were there for family and associates to use, Scully and Mulder were for each other.

Scully decided to wander over towards the fiction section. The real fiction section she thought smugly, not that stuff that was holding Melissa's attention so adroitly. Mulder also was a voracious reader, although mostly in the paranormal exploration areas. Unless, of course, you could count the letters to Penthouse as literature, she thought with a laugh. An Oxford graduate and avid peruser of Celebrity Skin, her partner was a true Renaissance Man. Scully smiled thinking about Mulder's quite adolescent glee when he had the opportunity to zing her with some salacious observation or remark. Someday, she would take him up on one of those innuendoes and shock the hell out of both of them. She thought quite a bit about what lay behind the humorous words often so deftly used to divert attention from the moment.

Over the last two years, she'd discovered other little bits of Mulder, tantalizing glimpses of what lay behind the merely obvious. In this case though, familiarity didn't breed contempt; it only bred a deep longing to know more. Sometimes he had a reserve that was like a thick black tar that she couldn't push through. His quick, deft mind easily deflected inquiries with a smart-ass, well-aimed barb and he could go days with conversation that was no meaningful than the disclosure that he had dry cleaning to pick up. Then, in a quicksilver swing, he'd volunteer something incredibly personal. He would be open about his feelings in a way that she never expected; it was almost always out of the blue, almost always under duress. But even so, the honesty was there for her to feel.

Like the time he'd returned from the Puerto Rico fiasco with nothing to show but useless blank tapes. He'd been so close and they'd taken the tools away to do his work when they'd shut down their office and sent her back to Quantico. They'd at least assigned her back to her old position, something that she was trained for and could still use her skills in executing. But they'd put Mulder on meaningless, tedious cases. Punishment cases really, far below his talents and worth as they tried to break him. Tried to get him to just shut up and go away.

He'd thought that Puerto Rico may have been his last chance to get hard evidence of his beliefs and she knew that coming up empty had to be one of the more crushing disappointments in his life. She'd feared that the loss of the tapes would be a final lethal blow to his spirit. But she'd been wrong. She'd underestimated him and his formidable resolve. Instead of folding as his adversaries had hoped, he'd gotten past the frustrating setback, even more determined that they wouldn't grind him down. "I may not have the X-Files, Scully, but I still have my work," he'd told her resolutely. But then a moment later, he'd softly added, "And I've still got you."

He'd said it so quietly, as though the realization had just occurred to him. It had been the first time he'd ever really acknowledged to her face that he knew her to be his ally. With Mulder, she'd learned to rely on her gut feelings to determine what he was thinking and she'd become very good at it. But tears had come to her eyes on her drive home as she thought about his simple words, actually hearing them spoken had meant so much to her.

Other words had passed between then during their time together, at times stubborn and bitter. There were other times when they'd hurt each other, both accidentally and intentionally. She would always remember the look in his eyes as she'd shut the door on the quarantine room in that ice-station in Alaska. The betrayal on his face as he stared at her cut her so deep. In her mind, she knew she'd done the logical thing, the rational thing--and never before had any decision she'd made felt so unconditionally wrong in her heart.

She'd sat outside that room for hours as miserable as she'd ever been in her life, knowing Mulder was just on the other side feeling utterly alone, scared and abandoned by her. So near and yet so far. She'd not expected him to understand her reasons for her actions or ever trust her again. She'd not expected him to forgive her. But he had. "I want to trust you," he told her. Then when it was over, he'd put it behind them, never once throwing it back in her face that he'd been right. Apparently, he valued their partnership more than he needed to satisfy his ego and she loved him for that.

Alaska had been a turning point for her, both in this job and with Mulder. She knew that she could never again allow her natural instincts to be totally overruled by cold logic and that she would have to find a way to meld the two opposing factors. She struggled with that war everyday but she would rather live with that struggle than ever see that look in Mulder's eyes again.

On the day they'd met, he'd asked her, "When convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?" In the last two years, she'd discovered the answer was yes. As the layers of conspiracy piled on, his once solitary quest had become theirs. The more she saw, the more she questioned and the more she realized that the fantastic might, in some cases, be the only explanation she would be able to deduce. It was so...so.... Perhaps the word she was searching for was schizophrenic.

Looking up, Scully she suddenly realized she'd wandered into the abnormal psychology section. Maybe the truth was in there, she thought wryly.

But she loved that there was nothing half-hearted in Mulder's feelings; he was open to his own emotions in a way she rarely allowed herself to be. He allowed himself to feel the extremes in a way that she was unaccustomed to and it both frightened and fascinated her. She'd seen him shake with rage and with tears of despair. She'd seen him consumed with bitter disappointment and frustration. She'd seen him be self-centered, selfish, and arrogant. She'd seen him be gentle with children and compassionate to victims. He was deeply suspicious of his superiors, never thinking to hide it and he was incapable of suffering fools gladly. On rare, rare occasion, she'd even heard him laugh with genuine happiness and not the sarcastic glibness she was more accustomed to hearing. He was both tough on her and fiercely protective to a fault. The real truth of the matter was that she loved the man, even though he drove her fucking nuts sometimes.

But she knew that she drove him crazy too, in more ways than one. Along their journey together, she'd sensed his craving for her, although obviously it was an unspoken topic between them. But it was there, just as hers was for him.

The first time she realized he felt the same pull she did was very, very shortly after she'd joined the X-Files. They'd been sitting closely side-by-side as he showed her something on his computer. His physicality beckoned to her and she'd used his distraction with whatever he was showing her to study him closely and openly. As his voice soothed from the background, she'd surreptitiously breathed in his scent and noted the nape of his graceful neck in particular. God, how could a man in a plain white shirt be so damn sexy? Her gaze moved along that strong jaw line and she took close stock of that tiny dark mark on his smooth cheek, the one she had this insane longing to touch her lips to. Fearing she might act on the impulse, she shifted her gaze slightly and it was then that she noticed something she hadn't before.

Mulder had a pierced ear.

There was something just so completely incongruous about that discovery that she'd smiled to herself and leaned in to look more closely. However, Mulder chose that moment to turn to say something to her and they nearly bumped noses. Their eyes locked together and he was clearly startled to find her so close. Their faces lingered mere inches from each other and other all movement froze. Neither blinked and she saw the change in his face as he searched her eyes for something--permission perhaps. Scully saw Mulder swallow hard as they could each feel the other's slow breath against their lips. The moment stretched on as the only sound in the room was her thudding heart; surely, he could hear it. She could see the tiny gold flakes in the green hazel of his eyes and his lips parted softly.

"You have a pierced ear," she said quite unnecessarily, trying to explain her intrusion into his personal space and feeling absurdly pleased that she didn't stammer. "I've never seen you wear an earring."

Mulder nodded slowly, never once dropping his gaze from hers. In fact, he leaned in closer to her ear as though sharing a secret, "I don't wear the diamond drop in the office, the FBI tends to frown on that," he said quietly and a shiver ran through her at the feel of his breath against her ear. He drew back to look at her again, but there was no smart-ass grin as would have usually accompanied such a comment. He was waiting for her. So close.

It was her turn to swallow slowly. "How long have you had that?" she was actually whispering now because to speak in her normal voice with him so close somehow seemed like shouting. She wondered if she was any more successful at covering the truth in her eyes than he was. Probably not, because now a small smile appeared on Mulder's face. The genuine smile. The one that took her breath. Oh God, she was going to get lost here any second.

He was seeing what was really going on in her head, what was happening behind the words. "It was something I did back in school," he answered. His eyes seemed to be looking inside her.

All she would have to do is move forward two inches and take what she wanted. What he wanted. But she didn't. Instead, she'd chickened out completely as some bit of unwelcome good sense gave her a mental slap. She leaned back slowly into the safety of her own personal space. "At Oxford?" she'd asked in a normal voice, breaking the fragile and tenuous bond between them.

Mulder held her gaze a moment and his eyes narrowed slightly as though making a decision. After a moment, he blinked slowly and the warmth left his eyes, replaced by cool acquiescence. He too leaned back and nodded. "Yeah," was all he said, his voice deliberately measured as he turned back to the computer screen. He then launched into a monologue about his findings on the case; his voice moving back into that professional cadence and clearly closing any further discussion on the subject that had originally piqued her interest.

Both the closed subject and the unrealized kiss had played in her mind and she'd been left with the certain knowledge that he'd wanted her to kiss him as much as she'd wanted to. He'd been disappointed that it didn't happen. That night had been the first of many that she gone home alone, but carried Mulder in her head all night. It was a while longer until she allowed herself to find relief by her own touch that she imagined to be his. She didn't know it then, but over their time together many such moments would come. And go. And always, the ridiculousness of it all ran through her mind and yet, she also wondered if his reasons for not acting on the moments were the same as hers.

Probably not, was her final conclusion, for their individual experiences in the world had been vastly dissimilar and the end result was that each of them had brought very different emotional baggage along upon their meeting and subsequent journey together. She didn't need Mulder's educational training to understand that for most of her life she'd tried to gain her father's approval, never realizing until after he'd died that she'd always had it. She also knew that in some ways she'd substituted Mulder for her father. His approval was deeply important to her because he was the only man she'd ever respected as much as she'd respected her father.

But her father's death had also shown her a valuable lesson. She'd learned that feelings didn't always need the validation of being spoken aloud to be real. Her father, for whatever reason, hadn't said the words that she'd thought she'd needed to hear. But in her time working with Mulder, she'd learned to trust what she felt as much as what she saw or heard. Even though she was scared to believe in it all, Mulder had given her that gift of trusting her own insight and he'd unknowingly freed her a lifetime of unrelenting questions about her father.

She only wished she could help to free him the same way.

Scully understood her own fears and during their time, she believed that she'd begun to understand Mulder's. As she slowly discovered more about him, she discovered the turmoil in his head that wouldn't allow him the freedom that others took for granted.

Her natural love for Mulder made her wish she could erase all his past hurts and disappointments. Yet, at the same time, she was fully conscious of the truth that the painful experiences of Mulder's past had combined to make the man she loved *into* the man she loved. Had his past been different, he would not have become the singular man he was today. He would be merely ordinary, he would be average, he would not be...Mulder.

She had to stop and remind herself of the difficulty of Being Mulder from time to time. He could be so driven, so single-minded and even arrogant that he would loose sight of the far more reasonable possibilities. She'd begin to lose patience and her aggravation with him would begin to rise to intolerable levels. But then, she'd step back and recall what Being Mulder entailed. She would remember that he had every good reason to be the way he was.

For Mulder, all semblance of an ordinary family life died abruptly the night his eight-year-old sister Samantha disappeared while in his care and it was never resurrected. Mulder had suffered for its demise more than anyone else had for he'd been completely unable to account for what happened to her.

Scully could only imagine what it must have been like for the boy Mulder had been. He would have been harshly and relentlessly interrogated by disbelieving law enforcement officials. He would have had to face the questions, whispers, and looks from incredulous family members, neighbors, and friends. She wondered what it must have been like to have had to return to school in a small community where people just didn't disappear without a trace, where no one have believed that he didn't know what happened or rather, didn't remember what happened. Scully knew the thoughtless cruelty of children, knew the torment and ostracization that they were capable of. She knew that often, adults were little better.

It must have been an ordeal such as she could only imagine and one that Mulder had had to face alone with no support. For in a very true sense, Mulder also became an orphan at age 12. First he'd lost his baby sister to God knows what and then he'd lost his parents by their own choice. From what little Scully had been able to ascertain, it seemed that Mulder's parents, instead of cherishing and loving their remaining child all the more, had done little of either. In fact, Mulder had endured their blame and indifference towards each other. And Scully's heart ached for both the boy who'd been abandoned so cruelly and for the man who still searched so desperately for answers.

As a child, he would not have known of the conspiracies and lies they knew of now. No, Mulder would have only known that his sister had been lost while entrusted to his care and no matter how much he wanted to, how much he tried to, he could not offer any answers or explanations. It wasn't until 1989, at age 28, when Mulder first underwent regressive hypnotherapy treatments that he finally recovered any memory of that night. What he'd remembered had set him on the course he was on now. No matter how fantastic that answer might be, she knew that he clung to it partly because it was his only chance for salvation from the guilt, responsibility, and sense of failure that fate had imposed upon a 12-year old boy.

When she'd first seen the poster in Mulder's office that proclaimed, "I want to believe," she'd simply assumed that he'd meant that he wanted to believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. But after listening to the tapes of his hypnotherapy sessions, she realized that she'd been very wrong in her initial assumption.

She'd come to understand that what Mulder wanted to believe was the promise made by the voice he'd heard in his head the night his sister disappeared. That voice had promised him that his sister would be returned unharmed someday. He wanted to believe in that elusive promise when all the conventional wisdom in the world would tell him not to. Scully knew in his heart that there were times when Mulder doubted the voice's promise, even doubted the existence of the voice itself. But it was all he had and because she loved him, as much as the possibility of that voice didn't fit anywhere into her scheme of the world, Scully would die before she'd tell Mulder to give up his hope in that promise. Because she loved him, she was determined to see that that promise was kept to him in some manner.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

February 19, 1995

Mulder's Apartment

Alexandria, Virginia

Mulder could now honestly say he was alert. The shower, hot coffee, and cold ravioli had revived him. He'd expanded his knowledge of the world by reading the sports section. He'd even managed to dump a load of laundry into the washer and dress himself in jeans and turtleneck sweater.

OK, a few more hours shot down--now what the hell was he gonna do?

There were some files piled on his desk that he couldn't bring himself to be interested in at the moment. He thought briefly about calling Scully with the excuse that he wanted to talk about the case they were wrapping up, but then he remembered that she'd mentioned that she had plans with her sister today.

Scully's family both amazed and discomforted him. They actually seemed to like spending time together. It was very weird.

He remembered the first evidence he'd seen of this phenomenon. It was just before Christmas in 1993. He'd stopped at Scully's to pick her up on their way to the airport for an assignment. He'd been early and as he waited for her to finish packing, he'd looked at Christmas cards on her mantle with a kind of amazement. Scully actually got Christmas cards from her family, with like, real handwriting in them. Seeing a particularly beautiful card, he picked it up and saw it was from Scully's mother.

Mulder had taken an immediate liking to Mrs. Scully, perhaps because she was the mother of the woman he'd come to love or perhaps because for some strange reason, Mrs. Scully seemed to like him. That had surprised him a bit and he'd wondered what the deal was with that. He knew that he wasn't exactly the kind of person that people immediately warmed to because of his sweet nature and even temperament.

Inside the card, she'd written her daughter a affectionate, warm note; telling her that she loved her, that she was proud of her, how much she was looking forward to having her family home soon Christmas dinner in a few weeks.

Mulder had stared at the note, re-reading it several times, suddenly feeling a little blue. Wow, I bet Scully's Christmas present doesn't arrive by UPS on the day after Christmas either, he thought.

"What is it Mulder?" Scully had returned to the living room and noticed his pensive look as she placed her bag by the door.

Mulder had covered his unusual outbreak of sentiment quickly as he placed the card back on the mantle. "Just looking at the note from your Mom--Hey, you sure have her fooled." He immediately regretted his flippancy. Why the hell did he say that, he wondered, that wasn't what he'd meant at all. "It's just nice that she says those things to you," he amended, looking at her a bit contritely.

But Scully had smiled, seeming to understand him as she usually did. "I'm sure you'll be getting one too, Mulder. Mom does like to spread it around. 'Tis the season to gush in the Scully family, you know."

"Ah well, you see that's where our family holiday traditions vary--in the Mulder clan it's the season to be constipated." Scully had laughed quietly at his joke but as she'd predicted, when they'd arrived back in town a few days later, he'd found a card from Mrs. Scully waiting for him with all his other mail. In it, she'd graciously invited him to Christmas dinner, that is, if he wasn't busy with his own family. He'd laughed aloud at that. Not a problem Mrs. Scully. Then she'd written something about how often Dana spoke so highly of him. Mulder had smiled rather insensibly at the words and wondered desperately about what Scully had said. He felt like some dweeb in high school, but he still wanted to know what she'd said.

He hadn't been able to bring himself to go to the family dinner that year, but the invitation extended by Mrs. Scully had meant a lot to him. He'd received another card from her this last Christmas. It had the same kind words, this time thanking him for being there to support her during her daughter's disappearance and for his efforts to bring her back. They were words of thanks Mulder didn't feel he'd earned, but he knew she offered them sincerely. Mrs. Scully had extended another dinner invitation and again, he'd declined. But he'd kept that card also; it was still in the back of the top drawer of his desk at home. Someday, he might be up for the family thing on Christmas, but not yet. Maybe when he and Scully were...were...

The sound of a large truck rattling down the street broke into his reverie, causing him to return to the present, now irritated with himself. When he and Scully were what? He didn't even know what the hell were they now. What he and Scully were now fit no known category neatly. His only comfort in the matter was the fact that he knew that not being able to categorize what they were probably drove the ever-analytical Scully more nuts than it did him. Mulder took a mild, malicious pleasure in that knowledge.

He stared out the window as he realized that he couldn't call Scully, even with a lame excuse, because she wouldn't be home yet. Although, his little voice enticed, she did say they were coming to Alexandria to a restaurant in Old Town. Granted, Scully hadn't asked him to join them but on the other hand, she hadn't really not-invited him either. He briefly pondered the ramifications of accidentally running into them there. There was a slight chance that Scully might buy it, after all, she still believed in coincidence, whereas he knew better. Glancing at the clock he realized it was probably too late for that and that he'd missed his window of opportunity. He sighed. He'd missed a hell of lot of windows of opportunity, he thought, so what's one more?

Besides, as much as he wanted to see Scully, the thought of spending time with her sister Melissa was just a little too unnerving. He'd met Melissa Scully for the first time three months ago, standing over her sister's hospital bed. She'd told him that Scully had told her not to call him Fox. He'd been too preoccupied at that moment to really ponder that statement, but later he'd thought about it a lot.

How the hell had Melissa known that? How had she known to come to him later and slap him up aside the head over Scully? Although he was an absolute believer in psychic abilities, he wasn't sure if that was what Melissa had or not. Whatever it was, she was just someone who saw and understood just a little too damn much for his comfort. Basically, between Scully's visions of her dead father, Melissa's spiritualism and their mother's pre-cognitive dreams, there was something just a little too damn spooky about the female side of the Scully family.

A restless feeling nagged at him though. He needed to get out from the close confines of his apartment; he needed to just get moving somewhere. Normally, when such a mood struck, he would go running, but he wasn't quite up to a long run yet. After some more internal debate, he decided to go for a walk; after all, you never knew whom or what you might run into. Mulder yanked his long black winter coat off the rack and headed out the door.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

February 19, 1995

Simon's Used Bookstore

Alexandria, Virginia

Scully also had a restless feeling; she'd now looked at virtually every row the bookstore had to offer. Who would have thought there could be twenty yards of books on electric trains? Not to mention that wandering wasn't doing anything to get her mind off of Mulder. Indeed, everywhere she turned, she kept running into things that reminded her of him. Even while in the biology section, she'd found a whole row of books on worms. She laughed a bit thinking she could have used them a while back while Mulder was tracking down that fluke worm. As she remembered that case, she'd remembered that was when Mulder had told her that he was thinking of leaving the FBI.

He'd told her that it was now clear that they weren't going to let them work as partners again and that hope had been the only reason he could think of to stay with the FBI. His words had literally knocked the breath out of her. It was bad enough that they'd been separated as partners, but the thought of him gone for good had rocked her.

Later, she'd tried to tell him that she didn't want him to go. It had come out all so wrong. She'd babbled something about how she hoped that he knew that she would consider it more than a professional loss if he were to leave the FBI. It had come out sounding so completely lame that she'd been mortified. Mulder had merely looked at her blankly and nodded slightly. Gee, she told herself contemptuously, he'd probably been so underwhelmed by that persuasive outpouring of emotion, that he didn't know what to say. Scully shook her head, still embarrassed by the memory. God, I'm just such a loser sometimes.

It wasn't until Mulder teamed with that bastard Krycek that it finally dawned on Scully that he was really no longer her partner. As much as that hurt, she also realized that action had also lifted the professional barrier between them. Granted, as far as Scully was concerned, their professional relationship had been the least of the restraints that had separated them. But still, it had been there and now it was gone.

After her pathetic little speech, she'd started to do a little better at communicating her feelings. She'd played with him softly and seductively on the phone about his new partner, telling him with her words that it must be nice to have someone who didn't poke holes in all his theories, but her tone really asking if he missed her. In response, she could almost feel his smile and surprise over the phone line. He'd responded with his voice lowered to that soft growl as he teased her back, his slightly stammering words telling her that he didn't know how he'd put up with her so long, but his tone telling her that he'd loved every minute of it and that he missed her.

But before she could act any further, she'd run out of time. Duane Barry, among the so many other things he'd taken from her, had taken Mulder away from her too.

"Dana!"

Scully was startled out of her thought when she heard Melissa scream her name and she went running back to where her sister had been only to discover that she wasn't in the paperback section anymore. Scully looked about frantically, searching, but she couldn't see through the tall shelves and stacks of books.

"Melissa? Melissa where are you?" she called.

She heard Melissa's voice come over the shelves. "I'm over here." Scully relaxed a bit; nothing appeared to be terribly wrong.

"Where are you?" she called again.

"Here." Melissa supplied helpfully.

"WHERE here?" Scully yelled in irritation.

"Against the very back wall on the right. Get over here. Now!"

Scully ran down the main aisle to the back wall where the used magazines were stacked by category. There she found again found Melissa sitting on the floor in front of tall stack of magazines, clutching a one to her chest. She appeared to have all her body parts and no one was holding a knife to her throat. I swear, Scully thought, if she screamed like that because she saw a cute purse in a 10-year old catalog, I'm gonna kill her.

"What, what is it?"

"You have to see this--I can't believe it." Melissa was giggling like a 12-year old.

"See WHAT Melissa?"

Melissa held up a magazine in triumph. It was an ancient edition of Playgirl sporting a stunning young surfer on the cover. Jesus Christ, Scully thought in exasperation, she'd scared the shit out of her over that. "Melissa, for God's sake, it hasn't been that long," Scully hissed, "I do remember what a nude man looks like!"

Melissa grinned and shook her head. "Not this one, I bet." She opened the magazine and held it up as Scully leaned over to focus in. A very young and very naked Mulder stared back at her.

Scully screamed. It was most definitely a girly scream.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Old Town Shopping District

Alexandria, Virginia

Mulder had been wandering for quite some time. The cold brisk day was refreshing and he felt physically better now that he was outside the confines of his apartment. In spite of his best intentions, he'd found himself walking down the street where the restaurant was that Scully and her sister were having brunch. He knew this part of the city well, just a few blocks over there was a used bookstore that he visited often. Feeling like a total blockhead, but too far gone to care, he'd casually walked by the restaurant a few times, surreptitiously looking in the window. By the third pass, it was clear that Scully wasn't in there, although he was sure the patrons by the window thought him a little strange.

He stood on the corner a few moments trying to decide what to do and where to go as he scanned the parked cars on the street, looking for Scully's. Of course, Melissa could have driven, he remembered. Of course, he could always pass her a note in study hall on Monday too, he thought ruefully, his overt adolescent behavior making him somewhat foolish even as he indulged it. Why was he as such a loss for words around her? When they fought, he always had plenty to say. When they were in danger, he had no problems talking. When he was enticing her to investigate something that he knew she would balk at, words fell from his lips. But otherwise, he almost squirmed when it came to something personal.

That changed a little when he'd been partnered with that rat-bastard Krycek. He'd been consulting Scully on his cell phone when his new partner walked up. Scully heard and suddenly her expressive voice turned soft and seductive on him as she'd teased him about how it must be nice not to have a partner who second-guessed his every move. He'd actually stammered as he told her that he hadn't known how he'd put up with her so long, but really longing telling her that he wouldn't have traded a moment of it. Then a silence came over the line; a silence where he should have said something else, he could have said something else because, after all, she wasn't his partner anymore and it wouldn't have been in appropriate in the least. He'd had no professional excuse for his hesitation, only personal ones and so he hadn't said what he wanted to. She'd opened the door but before he could step through, she'd been abducted. God, I'm such a loser sometimes, he thought.

He was startled out of his reverie when someone asked him if he was lost because he'd been rooted to the same spot for quite some time. Mulder shook his head and began walking again. He was lost all right, but just not quite the way the passerby had thought. He continued his stroll along the quaint brick streets and historical buildings, winding his way towards the bay front. A wander along the many parks along Oronoco Bay might be the thing he needed to get his mind off Scully.

As he walked, he stopped to look in the windows of Simon's Used Bookstore. Mulder had frequented the store for years and knew the owner Simon, a long-retired DC cop, pretty well. As he did for all his regular customers, the old man kept an eye out for new acquisitions that would be of interest to them and so he'd call Mulder from time to time when something new on UFOs or other paranormal phenomena would come in. Mulder considered going in for a bit, but he knew that Simon would want to talk. Once the old man had discovered that Mulder worked for the FBI, Simon had apparently decided they were comrades and he would regale Mulder with long stories about getting the bad guys. Lately, being from the old school, Simon often teased Mulder about having a woman for a partner. He kept asking him when he was going to bring his "lady friend" in. Mulder would explain that she was a partner and not a lady friend. Simon would just smile and offer up some free and unsolicited advice on Mulder's personal life. Most of the time, Mulder didn't mind; in fact, he was kind of fond of the old guy, but today he just didn't want to deal with it so he moved on past the window.

"Fox!"

Sighing inwardly, Mulder turned to see Simon standing in doorway of his store. He'd obviously seen him though the windows. "Fox, you're not coming in?" the old man asked as he shuffled over toward him on the sidewalk.

"Hi Simon. No, I can't today. I have to be somewhere."

"Always in a hurry, Fox."

"Not always. Just today."

"Off to see your lady friend?" Simon smiled as he teased the younger man.

Don't I wish, Mulder thought as he played along with a half-hearted smile. "Nope. Not today, she ditched me."

"What, ditch a good looking guy like you? Women--go figure!" Simon retorted. "Come on in, I've got a new shipment you can look through."

Mulder begged off. "Really, I just can't right now, but save them for me."

Suddenly from deep inside the store, a playful scream emanated followed by some loud giggling and the sound of crashing books. Simon looked at Mulder in exasperation. "Damn kids, they're always getting into something. Well, take care Fox, you look tired. Get that lady friend partner of yours to take better care of you." With that, the old man turned and headed back inside the shop to go make some teenaged girls get back in line.

"You take care too, Simon," Mulder said eternally grateful for fate stepping in and taking Simon's attention. Mulder moved on, crossing the street quickly before Simon could come back and turned the corner, heading on to the waterfront again. As he walked, he thought about his "lady friend" and about how he would love to get her to take care of him and about how he would love to take care of her. Forever.

Yes, this was a great idea, he thought ironically; this walk was just doing wonders for getting his mind off of Scully.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Simon's Used Bookstore

Alexandria, Virginia

Upon hearing the screams from the back of his store, the owner came running. As he came around the corner, he was surprised to see two grown women instead of the teenagers he was expecting. Scully, who'd knocked over a stack of books as she'd snatched the magazine from her sister's hands, instinctively hid it behind her back as though the old man was going take it away from her.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked in irritation after determining that neither woman was bleeding or held at gunpoint.

"I saw a mouse?" Melissa offered lamely as she quickly went to work stacking the books back up.

"Lady, I got real customers and since, " he looked pointedly at Scully, "we already got to hear all about your sex life a little earlier, would you two mind moving along?"

Melissa finished replacing the last book. "Pay the nice man for the magazine, Dana," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. They followed the man to the counter, paid for the magazine, and almost ran out onto the sidewalk. Once safely outside, they sat on a bench and quickly turned back to page 41. They looked at the magazine, looked at each other and both screamed again.

"How did you find this Melissa?"

"I was just digging through the whole stack and it was just there, about the ninth or tenth one I looked at." Scully looked over at her sister pointedly. "I was looking for an article," Melissa insisted.

Yeah right, Scully thought, like your stack of naked men magazines doesn't rival Mulder's naked women collection. Scully turned her attention back to the magazine at hand. Oh God, oh God, oh God, her mind chanted in mischievous and completely adolescent glee. Naked Mulder. Scully flipped the magazine closed and looked at the date on the cover. Mulder would have been 21 or so.

The photo wasn't one of the professional model shots; it was in the section where people sent in home photos of their favorite naked husbands or boyfriends. It was absolutely, positively Mulder, clear down to the mole on his cheek. The caption below said, "A Yank at Oxford." It was a stunningly sensuous photograph in black and white, large, clear, sharp and leaving no doubts as to Mulder's religious background.

"Holy shit, what a babe," came Melissa's elegant assessment. "That could be in a museum."

Scully nodded in agreement. Mulder did look like a work of art; he was sprawled on his back on a huge bed filled with crumpled white sheets and pillows, his head rested on one arm behind his head and the other splayed gracefully over the flat expanse of his belly. One leg bent upwards and the other stretched out. Sunlight streamed in to the picture from somewhere, creating shadows and highlights across his skin. His dark hair was longer than it was now, but one strand still flopped over his forehead in that same manner that had teased Scully for the last two years. The rest was tousled and spilled down the side of his neck and over the pillow under his head. Stupidly, she reached out and touched it in the photograph, noticing as she did so that he was wearing a small hoop earring. Her eyes moved down the lean body, taking in every rounded curve and flat plane...

"Who the hell would have thought a body like that lurked under that boring gray FBI suit?" Melissa interrupted her thoughts as she peered over her shoulder.

I knew, Scully thought as she continued her slow perusal. Oh God, I knew. I knew just by the way he moved, walked, and wore his clothes that he was this beautiful. Mulder's body had been something of much idle speculation in her mind. She'd been careful to be covert in her observations of him ever since that incident on their second case together. She'd been sitting on the chair in her dingy hotel room as Mulder stood at the window, gazing out as he talked. As she listened, her eyes had wandered down from his profile to where his hands were placed on his hips as he shifted his weight to one leg. She took in the sight of his firm, rounded ass encased in blue jeans. She was just thinking that it was really quite impressive when he'd turned back to her suddenly. She'd raised her eyes quickly back to his. He hadn't said anything, but she was never sure if he'd caught her looking or not.

It was true that in the last two years she'd seen him in all various states of undress. But it always seemed to be while she was trying to keep him from going into shock after a fire, or trying to keep him from bleeding to death from a gunshot wound or conversely, trying to keep his blood from coagulating. But none of it had ever seemed like the appropriate time to take full inventory. The photograph simply confirmed what she'd suspected from the bits and pieces she'd seen.

She returned to her careful perusal. Mulder's chest had wonderful definition with that beautiful hollow over his heart where a hand could be perfectly placed to feel its beating. Just the right smattering of chest hair led down to the delineated muscles of his stomach and deeply set navel. Mulder had a great navel. The photo revealed long, lean, but hard-muscled legs, the thighs solid and merging into slim hips which then segued to another downy trail leading to the proverbial Holy Grail nestled in a courser bed of hair and lying in well-endowed repose like its owner. That's just as well, Scully thought with a smile. A photo of Mulder fully erect may have caused her to leave a puddle in the street.

"Well, it looks like God gifted Mulder with both a great mind and more than enough of the essential equipment to, ah, perpetuate his gene pool." Melissa interrupted her thoughts again with a lascivious tone.

"Melissa!" Scully lifted her eyes to glare at her sister. "Do you mind--I think I'm having a epiphany here."

"Is that what they call them now?" Melissa asked with a laugh. "Besides, I was trying to couch it in terms you would appreciate, I would have just said he's really well hung to anyone else!"

Scully closed her eyes and dropped her head with a sigh. This is what my life has come to, she thought. Come Monday, I'll have to sit across the desk from Mulder and try to look at him without the phrase, "well hung," springing to mind.

Of course, the photograph only confirmed her speculations in that area too; after all, she hadn't been that busy while in her Doctor Mode. Suddenly, she had guilt attack; I'm sitting here evaluating the merits of my partner's cock like it's a case file, she thought. Scully suddenly closed the magazine.

"Excuse me, but I wasn't through looking!" Melissa protested.

"I feel like I'm invading his privacy," she said.

"What privacy? It's not as if you're peeking though his bathroom window. Obviously Mulder knew that quite a few women and probably a few men were going to get a gander when it was published."

Scully nodded in agreement, but she still felt intrusive somehow. The photograph itself didn't bother her in the least, it was beautiful, and she found nothing vulgar about it. She would have loved to have such a photo of the man she loved looking at her like that. No, it was the publication of the photo that confused her. Somehow, someway, this kind of smug and egotistical exhibition seemed very out of character from what she knew, or at least what she'd thought she knew, of her partner.

It was true that Mulder never failed to miss a sexual innuendo or double-entendre and judging from his rather extensive magazine and video collection, he was certainly not a neophyte to sexual innovations. However, even knowing all that, in her mind there had always been something charmingly, well... nerdy about Mulder. Certainly not uninitiated or unpracticed sexually, but still somehow guileless. But then again, maybe again she didn't know him at all. This was from a long time ago, back when he was just a young "Yank at Oxford," she was reminded as she flipped open the magazine again. Long before he became the man she knew now.

I wonder what possessed him, she thought, examining the photo in detail.

The expression in Mulder's eyes back then was far less wounded than the eyes she loved so well now. She knew that change had less to do with physical youth and more to do with what those eyes had seen in the ensuing years. She noticed again the manner in which he was gazing at the camera; his sleepy, soft gaze turned towards the camera as though someone had called his name and he'd awakened from a very good dream indeed. His expression was both seductive and well satiated, his full lips parted slightly in the beginnings of a smile meant for the person taking the picture.

The person taking the picture. The light finally went on in Scully's brain.

Phoebe Green.

Of course, she thought. Phoebe is what, or rather who, had possessed him. He'd loved her enough to pose for the thing to please her. Scully just knew that if Phoebe had asked, Mulder would have let that snotty, upper class, egotistical bitch take and publish this picture just as she was sure that Phoebe would have liked to show off her trophy. That beautiful gaze, that almost shy smile, that body--it was all meant for Phoebe Green.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Scully was immediately transported into a foul mood, even as her heart constricted a bit. The knowledge that one point in his life, Mulder was comfortable and light-hearted with another woman enough to do this just somehow bugged the ever-living crap out of her as the jealously began to seethe within. I can't even get him to stop ditching me, she thought, and yet for Phoebe he was ripping his clothes off and lying in splendid repose for her to show to the world. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it really pissed her off and irrationally she was focusing that anger at Mulder. Phoebe, she thought in disgust, she should have known.

"Who's Phoebe?"

Melissa's question interrupted her thoughts and Scully hadn't realized that she'd spoken the name aloud--or had, she? She never quite knew with Melissa. Suddenly feeling very agitated; Scully closed the magazine and handed it back to her sister. She stood up from the bench and started walking. She needed to get moving, get some activity going besides looking at the pictures forming in her head of Mulder and Phoebe together.

"Dana, what it?" When she didn't answer or turn back, Melissa got up and followed her down the street.

Melissa allowed her sister her silence as they wandered the brick streets, heading towards the bay and the parks. Eventually, they ended up near the children's playground with the tall slides and big swings left from a time when cities still felt safe about letting children play in public parks without fear of parental lawsuit. The park was nearly deserted due to the cold weather. Scully hadn't spoken a word or lifted her eyes from the ground as she walked.

"Dana, what's going in your head?" Melissa asked finally.

Scully shook her head just slightly, feeling oddly close to frustrated tears and she wasn't sure she could make Melissa understand if she didn't fully understand herself. It was well over a year ago that she'd first learned about Phoebe Green. She still had the picture in her mind of Phoebe in Mulder's arms as they'd danced, of when he'd kissed her. She hadn't planned to see that, it was a private moment and she'd just happened into to it. However, it had disturbed her more than she would have thought and it had been a long time fading in her mind, but it had never left completely. The problem was now she had a new picture in her mind. Now, she was imagining Phoebe and Mulder together all those years ago at Oxford, back when he was the kind of person who would let someone love him. She was imagining what she missed, missing what she'd never had.

Melissa saw the varied emotions crossing her sister's face and was worried. "Dana, talk to me!" She finally demanded impatiently, touching her arm. "Look, I know how you feel about Mulder, you know you can't hide that from me. So talk to me God damn it! What's the story here with Mulder and this Phoebe?"

Scully took a bit of time answering. "Phoebe was Mulder's lover while he was at Oxford," she finally said. "She's the one who took this picture, I know it."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because he loved her, because he would have done anything to please her."

"You don't know that," Melissa said practically.

Scully turned to her sister, exasperated at being second-guessed on what she knew in her gut. God, this must be how Mulder feels she thought. "Look at the damn photo Melissa. Look at it! Tell me I'm wrong about how he felt about her."

Melissa looked again at the magazine, this time concentrating on Mulder's face for the first time. She shook her head slightly; she couldn't honestly tell Dana she was wrong. She slid the magazine back into the bag and looked at her sister. "So what do you know about this Phoebe?"

"I met her when she blew into town last year. She and Mulder attended Oxford together and he told me she was 'brilliant'. She's an agent with Scotland Yard now and she requested Mulder's help on a case. He didn't seem at all happy to see her again and I'd kind of teased him at first because it was obvious they'd had past of some sort, but I hadn't realized the extent of it." Scully fell quiet a moment, remembering back.

"Like what?"

Scully shook her head, remembering Phoebe's rather sick game. "Mulder went off to Oxford at an early age, but more than that, I think he was pretty young and raw emotionally too. Even Mulder admitted that he'd gotten in over his head with her in the past. I think their relationship may have been one where Mulder was constantly trying to gain her approval or respect, almost like she was the damn prom queen and he was the high-school geek that she deigned to turn her gaze to."</