Truce
Prologue

Disclaimers, etc. in Headers



On the third night, he wanted to make love to
her.  To join with her in the final step of
their reunion and forget the lonely months spent
apart.  At first, she was receptive, though the
shadows in her eyes were almost too much to
bear.  She thought she hid them well, avoiding
his gaze as she pressed hungry kisses to his
face.  But he knew better.  The realization that
she wasn't as in to the moment as he was didn't
stop him, however.  He wanted her as much as he
ever did, even more because of their separation. 
It wasn't until he moved between her thighs,
hovering above her with shaking arms, that he
heard it.

Soft, keening sobs hidden in the slick curve of
his shoulder - she thought him too caught up in
the moment to notice, but he did.  He tried to
ignore the emotional outburst; after all, with
the tenseness of the past week, he knew it was
nothing but a release for her.  Still, it moved
him to silence and motionless grief that equaled
her own.  Such a great weight settled upon him,
one of responsibility not tied to preventing
global annihilation.  He found he couldn't
continue; with assuring murmurs he knew her too
wrought up to hear, he pulled away, denying
himself the needs of the flesh.  Instead, he
kissed her cheek and held her close until she
fell into an exhausted slumber.  It was enough,
he thought.  A beginning that would eventually
lead to more.  He could wait; they would get
past the hurt as they always had.  Even if it
took years, as before.  He was a patient man -
with her, he'd had to be.

Hours later, the first one came.  He shot the
stony-faced bastard twice in the chest, then
watched him stagger and fall as if in slow
motion.  Scully was dressed by then.  How she
made it out of bed and into her jeans and t-
shirt so fast, he didn't know.  Nor did he care. 
His own clothes gathered close, they sprinted to
the car in the pre-dawn Arizona light.

And in the open door of the pitiful hotel room,
it moved.  First the hand, illuminated by the
glare of headlights as they backed away.  Scully
screaming at him to go, just go, he paused. 
When its torso bent in half, somewhat jerkily,
he knew what it was.  And as his tires spun in
the gravel, he knew it wouldn't stop.

On the fifth night, as he laid beside her,
unable to sleep, it came again.  This time, he
was ready.  He'd bought it the afternoon before,
at a hardware store outside Amarillo, Texas. 
Spent all day sharpening it as Scully drove,
answering her questions with grunts until he
finally told her to shut the hell up.  It pained
him still, the way he'd spoken to her.  But
nothing could deter him from his plan.

The machete sliced its head off as soon as it
walked through the unlocked door.  Again, Mulder
watched it all unfold like some bad horror
movie, watched the body separate from the brain,
heard the double thumps of flesh meeting floor
in the darkness.  Knowing his unspoken purpose
by then, Scully had been ready.  Together, they
made for the car.

Still, he saw it move.  Cursing, he listened to
her stunned gasp and knew what he had to do.

On the seventh day, he made sure she woke up
alone.  And safe.


**********


Four months later

It took some getting used to once again, the
daily grind.  Slipping in and out of her classes
at Quantico like a wraith, she knew the
challenge was gone.  Skinner had pulled some
strings, so had Kersh, to her amazement - and
she found herself reinstated and working within
a couple of weeks of her return to Washington.

But it wasn't the same.  Even if she had the X-
files, which ably laid in the hands of Doggett
and Reyes now, she didn't think she could muster
the energy.  Because he'd left her behind.

Stole away like a thief from the ratty hotel
room in Houston in the dead of night, his short
note explaining nothing really.  But she knew. 
She knew he had figured it out, just as she had. 
They would never have been safe together. 
Hounded by the FBI for his trumped-up
conviction, he could never walk the streets in
safety.  With her as companion, they'd be easy
to spot.  But that wasn't the real reason.

It was the things who began to come for them. 
The Knowle Rhorers and Billy Miles that surfaced
almost immediately into their lives on the run. 
They're after me, he'd written.  And I can't let
you die with me.  Go home.

She waited for two days.  Paced the room on the
first, wanting one of those replacements to come
in and kill her, for nothing else than to prove
he'd been wrong.  Went out on the second and
walked the streets, the malls, the open spaces
where she was sure to be seen.  Still nothing
but a sunburn and scratchy throat.  It was then
she admitted he was right.  They wanted him, not
her.  William was safe and no longer a threat to
their plans.  But Mulder... no matter how
downtrodden, how desolate and poor, would
continue.  She'd felt it herself the last few
days they were together.

In the way his voice slowly became heavier, more
resolute.  In the way he held her and touched
her with possessiveness, as if no one could take
her away again.  In the way his body slowly
straightened, as if remembering all who died for
his cause... as if vowing to stop the fateful
day he knew was coming.  It hadn't taken long
for the hero within to reappear.  He wasn't a
quitter, never would be.

The realization that they were not meant to live
their lives together hurt her more than she
thought possible.  But she picked herself up as
she always had, called her mother, and within a
day was back home.  The Bureau wasted little
time in grilling her for Mulder's whereabouts,
but as it was before he'd returned, she was able
to be truthful and say she had no idea.  Skinner
and Kersh called off the dogs immediately, and
she was soon forgotten as the case faded from
lack of evidence.  Knowle Rhorer's body had
disappeared, and there were numerous sightings
of him to back up Scully's insistence that he
was never really dead until John Doggett saw him
crumple into a pile of rock.  Not that the
conviction would have stood up in a real court
of law, and they all knew it.

Mulder was now a free man, but in reality, he
was chained to his lone existence more than he
ever was.  Still pursued by things far more
deadly than the gas chamber or electric chair,
he stayed away.  Scully knew he'd heard of the
overturned verdict, but stayed far from her. 
Even his email account was no longer there. 
He'd cut himself from her life as efficiently as
possible, with a severing move more clean than
the hatchet job on the alien.

So she walked through her pristine - by Mulder's
standards, at his sole decision - life, without
her man by her side, her baby in the arms of
another, her work an endless round of
frustrating course work surrounded by green
students.

It was not surprising she jumped at the chance
to go undercover.  Ana was reborn, as hard and
jaded as ever.


End Prologue