FRIENDS EVEN IN CHILDHOOD - The Collector's Edition

Author: Penny Daza (majick@webquest.com) with a whole lot of help from the
very talented Joseph Connell.

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, The X-Files and all its characters
belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and Fox Network.  We are
NOT making any money out of this experience. In summary, no copyright
infringement is intended.  

These characters I've written about also belong to David Duchovny and
Gillian Anderson, who gave them life, who gave them soul and gave me enough
inspiration to keep going.

Rating: PG-13 for a few nasty words after chapter 1.

Classification: A little angst, mostly friendship bonding in Chapters 1 &
2.  MSR in Chapter 3.

Spoilers: Small mentions from various episodes.

Summary : Mulder and Scully meet as teens. 

ARCHIVE anywhere.  Retain author's e-mail and disclaimer.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Mulder and Scully share a very special relationship.  We
all know that.  It's the kind of relationship I think, would come from
years and years of friendship.  Not just four or five, so this is my way
writing what it would've been like if they'd met each other as teens. This
is an alternate universe kind of thing, but it does meld into the CC
Universe (sort of) in the later chapters.

This is dedicated to Michael, who is proof undeniable I have found my
soulmate.  

*****************************************
CHAPTER 1: Friends Even in Childhood
*****************************************


Massachusetts
1977
------------------------------------------------------
Fox Mulder was a good-looking boy.  But he was weird, weird, weird.  

Dana Scully was sick of hearing the same things over and over again in the
girls' bathroom at the high school she had just moved to.

She had to admit, she was truly intrigued in the beginning who all the
girls were always gushing about, but at the same time lambasting like there
was no tomorrow.  Dana figured it was mostly frustration on their part,
because from what she'd gathered, this Fox Mulder character had no interest
in any of them and it was perhaps a collective defense mechanism on their
part to nurture their bruised egos.  

Today, a blonde girl about three years older than she had something new to
say.

"I'm sure of it - he's gay," she said, brushing her hair back with luxury.
Her cohorts all blushed at the statement and twittered nervously.

"No foolin', Liz?" asked Cindy, who was the most gullible of the group.

"Yep.  Marsha said that Annie told her that Linda had him cornered in the
football field the other night and she got his hand up her blouse and
everything and like, nothing happened.  He like, pushed her away and
stormed off really pissed." 

Dana couldn't stand it anymore.  She left the bathroom, her hair still a
mess, but not really caring.  The airheads inside had reminded her too much
of the conversations her sister Melissa was constantly engaged in with
friends she so easily made no matter how often or where they  moved.

Dana often envied Melissa, but not at times like this.  All she could think
of was the poor boy who was being verbally victimized and labeled as gay
just because he wasn't interested in any of the popular clique.  

She brushed the thought away, realizing it was really none of her business
interfering with school rumors and the like when she was just a newcomer.  

It had been about a week since they moved to Massachusetts, and for 14
year-old Dana Scully, just as uneventful as all the other moves.  She
hadn't bothered making any friends at the last stop, her dad and mom had
mentioned they would be there probably 3 months tops, and she feared that
the pain of saying goodbye the last time she had cultivated friendships
would be just as bad or perhaps even worse.

The rest of the day was spent going in and out of her classes.  Almost all
of her teachers requested a little talk with her after each class was
dismissed, asking her how her first week had been.  After her usual answer
of 'fine', they would always follow up with 'Well, I hope everything stays
that way during your stay'.  

Apparently, they'd all taken a look into her file and saw she was a Navy
brat not really used to planting roots.  They spoke to her as a hotel
administrator would to a new guest.  It made Dana very sad, but there was
nothing she could do about it.

A few girls had introduced themselves to her and were pretty nice,
especially Camille, who invited her over to her table for lunch the next
day with other friends if Dana didn't have anything else to do.  She
graciously accepted, and the two new friends swapped phone numbers and
promises to call each other.

On her way home, Dana had a small bounce in her steps.  The last stop the
family had made had less-friendly teens.  At this one, she hardly made any
effort to make friends, but already she had a phone number in her pocket
and an invitation to dinner.  She crossed her fingers and hoped this would
be the last stop, even if she didn't really believe it could come true.

She went into her house, calling out she was home just as her mother pulled
a tray of freshly-baked cookies out of the stove.  "How was school today,
honey?" asked Mrs. Scully.

Dana plucked a cookie from the tray, blowing on it and juggling it from one
hand to the other.  "Pretty good.  I made some new friends today."

"That's great, honey.  You're more than welcome to invite any of them over,
if you want."

"I know, mom.  I might take you up on that pretty soon.  I met a girl today
and she's really nice.  I hope her friends are like her too."

Mrs. Scully smiled.  "That's wonderful, sweety.  You're going to fit right
in with them."  

She hugged her daughter hard and resumed placing the cookies on a plate
before shooing Dana out of the kitchen to change.

Dana went up to her room, glad that Melissa and her brothers weren't home
yet.  Her siblings were a riotous bunch, always talking and joking,
screaming and laughing.  It was in this respect that Dana felt she never
quite belonged.  She and Melissa were middle children, but Melissa was
always like an chameleon, in Dana's opinion.  She changed as she wanted to
fit in, no matter how often or how much, she could always do it.

Her thoughts drifted involuntarily to Fox Mulder.  She hadn't seen him, or
at least she THOUGHT she hadn't seen him, and wondered what his views on
fitting in were.  Apparently, he didn't give a damn, or else he'd be making
more of an effort.

She decided to go back downstairs and offer her a mother a hand making
dinner.  En route to the kitchen, the doorbell rang.  "I'll get it!" she
yelled, already heading for the door.

Dana swung it open, and saw a tall boy, almost six feet tall with short
brown hair and deep-set eyes.  "Can I help you?" she asked.

The boy looked down at his feet and thrust a small notebook at her.  HER
notebook.  "Actually, it's the other way around.  You dropped this."

Dana took it from him and wondered vaguely what his problem was.  He was
clearly older than she was, but it seemed as though he was withdrawn and
had little or no self-confidence.  "Thanks.  How'd you find me and know who
I was?" she asked.

He raised his head and finally looked at her.  What she saw in them made
her sad, although she couldn't fathom why.  "I figured it was yours.  I've
never seen you around school before, and I remembered my mom mentioning a
new family had moved into this house."

Dana looked him over once again, then remembered they hadn't even traded
names.  She extended her hand out to him.  "Dana Scully."

The boy's face froze for a microsecond in anxiety before grasping her hand
in his.  "Fox Mulder."

Now it was Dana's turn to freeze for a microsecond.  She shook his hand,
hoping he didn't detect her hesitation.  "Thanks again."

He nodded and turned around, then walked away from the house.  He'd gotten
about 10 feet away when she called him back.  He turned around, a look of
surprise and suspicion on his face.

"My mom just baked a tray of cookies.  They're great.  Want one?" she
asked, then almost winced after realizing how lame that sounded.

Fox stood his ground for what seemed like an eternity.  He wondered what
Dana Scully's hidden agenda could be.  He was sure she'd already caught
wind of his reputation, everyone did whether he like it or not, and he was
an outcast plain and simple.  But her straightforwardness was intriguing
and appealing to him for some reason. Not many 14 year-olds could do that,
but it seemed natural and refreshing.  He nodded and walked back to her
front door.

Dana smiled and led him inside, directing him to the kitchen.  Her mother
was washing out the cookie tray, and turned when she heard Dana enter.  She
smiled warmly at the stranger with her daughter. 

"Mom, this is Fox Mulder.  He came over to return a book I dropped."

Mrs. Scully wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing and extended her
hand.  "Pleased to meet you, Fox.  Thank you for the favor."

Fox smiled.  "No problem, Mrs. Scully.  Welcome to the neighborhood."

Margaret Scully looked the boy over again.  He had smiled at her, and given
her a firm handshake, but there was a sadness in his eyes that ran so deep
she couldn't believe the man in front of her was only a teen-ager.  It
seemed as though the guilt and pain of ten lifetimes were etched into his
beautiful eyes.

Dana reached for the plate of cookies and offered them to Fox.  He took one
as she hopped to the fridge to retrieve milk.  Mrs. Scully excused herself,
after mentioning calls she had to make but Dana knew better.  It was her
mother's way of making Fox feel comfortable in the house by making herself
inconspicuous.

She poured him out a glass of milk, silently praying she wouldn't do
anything stupid like spill it.  This was a big step on her part, something
she had never done before.  Invite a boy to her house, one who was older
nonetheless, and serve him food. 

Dana felt guilty she had managed to override all of her previous
hesitations about boy-girl relationships simply because this Fox Mulder
character so intrigued her.  But that wasn't even the gist of it.  

The bottom line was, she felt sorry for him.

Biting into the cookie in his hand, his eyes closed.  Dana grinned.  Her
mom's cookies always managed to do that to people.  "Chocolate chip.  Good,
huh?" she asked.

"They sure are," he said, swallowing.  "Best I've ever tasted."

"I'm sure your mom makes great cookies too." 

He stopped chewing suddenly and looked down again.  "My mom isn't what you
can call 'domesticated.'"

Dana regretted the comment.  She made a mental note to herself not to bring
the topic of his mother up again.  She remembered her dad telling her and
her other siblings a while back that not all families were as happy as
theirs was, and it was a sad reality they had to remember not to flaunt in
their friends' faces.

A silence fell over both of them.  It was uneasy.  Fox resumed his chewing,
then grasped the glass of milk Dana had poured for him and took a long
swallow.

"So," he said.  "Like school so far?"

She gladly went along the sudden change of topic.  "It's okay, I guess.
The kids here are a lot friendlier than the ones from the place I came from."

"You move around a lot?"

Dana passed him another cookie.  "Yeah.  My dad's with the Navy."

"Oh.  My dad…he works for the government too."

It looked like he had just revealed something very important to him.  Dana
resisted pushing him for more information, fearing she'd hit another sore
spot.

She stood up and dusted her hands on her jeans.  She was just about to
invite him to dinner when Melissa came bouncing in.

"WHO are you?" she asked Fox directly.  Before he could reply, she turned
to Dana and asked again.  "WHO is that?"

"Missy, this is Fox Mulder.  Fox, my sister Melissa."

Missy looked at him from head to toe. "FOX?!  Did your mother just KNOW you
were going to be good looking when she named you that?"

"MISSY!!"

Dana's big sister looked at her innocently. "What?"

Fox stood, flustered and stammered, "Er…I think I better go."

He headed for the door, Dana hot on his heels.  "Wait a second, Fox."

He turned and looked at his feet again.  "Thanks for the cookies.  They
really were the best I've ever tasted."

Dana looked behind her.  Melissa was on the phone already, no doubt setting
up her network of friends to investigate the boy she found talking to her
little sister.  Dana sighed.

"I'm sorry about my sister.  She has a knack for coming on too strong."

"It's alright.  I'm used to it." 

"Look.  I'm new here and I don't have many friends yet.  You're the first
that's ever been to my house."

"I've been here all my life and no one's ever come to my house."

Dana didn't know what to say.  She looked at him, silently begging him to
end the uncomfortable silence.

"Do you know where the park is?" he suddenly asked.

"Yeah.  Why?"

"9 o'clock tonight.  By the swings.  Think you can make it?"

She smiled at him.  It gave him courage.

"I'll be there."




Dana walked back into the house, a smile on her lips.  Missy caught it.

"Dana and Foxy kissing in a tree.  KAY EYE ES ES EYE EN GEE."  She sang aloud.

"Shut up, Missy."

"Better be careful with that one, Dana.  EVERYONE says he's weird."

Dana wanted to scream.  There was THAT word again.  Weird.  Was the whole
town in a conspiracy to use that word on him?  She ignored Missy and walked
up the stairs.

"Aww…bet you're DYING to know WHY he's weird." Her sing-song voice one
pitch higher.

"No, I'm not," answered Dana with a maturity that was well beyond her 14
years.  "Because he hasn't done anything to ME for me to label him weird.
And until that happens, I am NOT going to judge him."

Missy let out a low whistle.  "Oooooh.  Defensive about your new friend
already, huh?  That's fine.  Puppy love is in the air and at least he's
cute.  And I bet he'll be a knock-out when he's older!"

Dana resisted the urge to scream.  She walked up the stairs as calmly as
she could and headed for her mother's room.

Inside, Margaret Scully was folding laundry.  She smiled at Dana, but it
fell after seeing her facial expression.  "What's wrong, sweety?"

"Nothing.  Mom, can I meet Fox at the playground tonight at nine?"

Margaret put her laundry down.  "I don't know, Dana.  He's an older boy and
you just met him.  Do you see where I'm going?"

"Yes.  But I trust him, mom.  I know I just met him, but I'd really like to
go.  Can I?"

A frown creased Margaret's brow.  "Okay, dear.  But you have to be home by
10:30, or I'll send your brothers, okay?"

Dana smiled and kissed her mom.  "Thanks, mom.  And please don't tell
anyone, specially Missy where I'm going, okay?"

What Dana didn't know was that Margaret had heard the entire conversation
downstairs.  She was proud of her youngest daughter for standing up like
that, and Missy always had a knack of well, coming on too strong.  "I won't
dear.  But remember - 10:30 or the whole neighborhood finds out.  Agreed?"

"Yup.  It's a deal.  Thanks again, mom."

"You're welcome, honey.  Now vamoose and let me finish the laundry."




It seemed to Dana that dinner was taking forever.  Her frequent glances at
the clock only seemed to slow it down all the more, and after she helped
her mother and other siblings wash the dishes up, it was finally time to go.

Missy remained suspiciously quiet about Fox with her brothers, Dana
suspecting that her mother had spoken to Missy about it.

Her mother gave her a knowing glance right before she went up to her room
to change into jeans, a t-shirt and jacket and she was off.  She left her
house at around 8:45, expecting it would take her around 10 or 15 minutes
to get to the park on foot.

The night was cold, and she hugged her jacket tighter around her as she
walked.  She wondered and was faintly worried at what she and Fox would
talk about, they'd only just met and exchanged just a few sentences.  She
hoped he was a better conversationalist tonight than this afternoon.

When she got to the swings, she saw that he was already there, sitting on
one of them, gazing at the stars.  His long arms embraced the chains,
linking them with his hands and he was swinging slowly and steadily to and
fro.

"Hi," she said.

He looked at her and smiled.  Again, she saw the pain in them.

He patted the seat next to his.  "Over here."

Dana sat beside him and started swinging herself.  

"I was expecting you not to show up.  I realized a few minutes after I'd
left your house that your parents might not like the idea of you meeting up
with a stranger at this time of the night."

"Mom said it was okay, as long as I was back by 10:30."

"That's fine.  I'll walk you back, okay?"

"Okay.  So what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked.

"Nothing.  I just… I don't know.  I just get lonely sometimes," he
answered, his gaze wandering back to the stars.  "You're new in town and
everything and well…"

"Well?"

"You seem nice.  'They' haven't gotten to you yet.  Or at least I'm HOPING
they haven't got to you yet."

Dana frowned.  He was speaking in riddles.  "They?"

He nodded.  "'They' being what people say about me."

Fox hesitated then, and he looked at his feet.  "Or have they?"

"You want me to answer honestly?" she asked.

He nodded and looked at her again.

"They have.  But I really don't care."

His eyes widened a little bit right before he smiled.

Dana smiled back.  She didn't know why, but something inside her told her
this was going to be the start of beautiful friendship.




Their friendship blossomed quickly right after that night.  He had walked
her home as promised, but before that they talked about everything and
nothing they could think of.  Movies, music, television, books, food,
religion, clothes and past friends.  Fox enjoyed Dana's stories about all
the places she had lived in, and she enjoyed his attention.  He never
mentioned his family, which Dana thought was quite odd, but kept silent
about it.

But Fox was careful when they were around school.  He explained to Dana his
reputation would affect hers as well, and while he remained a stranger
within its walls, much to Dana's annoyance, she still appreciated that he
was doing it for her.  They knew each others' locker combinations, and when
no one was looking, would open the other's and leave notes, usually about
what time they could hook up again whether at her house or over the phone.
Fox didn't want Dana to go to her house.  All he said was that his parents
were pains in the butt and left it at that.

Margaret Scully enjoyed Fox's company.  He usually arrived at their house
before Dana did, because while he headed straight for the Scully's, Dana
dilly-dallied around school for a few minutes chatting with her girlfriends.  

He became her secret weapon at finishing her crossword puzzles, and he was
eager to help her out in any way he could.  

It took a little hard work on Margaret's part, but she was glad that her
slow acceptance of him into their home reaped a lot of benefits.  She could
see the pain and trauma in the young man's eyes and by the way he moved,
and her heart went out to him.

It started with her inviting him into the kitchen while she prepared
dinner.  Gradually, she asked him to participate in her cooking by
requesting, if he didn't mind, to pass the mixing bowl or the broccoli in
the fridge.  She made sure he saw her warm smile each time he followed her,
and from that, she asked him to participate in the cooking.  

Slowly but surely, Fox became comfortable in the Scully household.  The
purpose of Margaret accomplished.  Now that he was familiar with where
everything was, he felt at home and welcome.  

The boys accepted him without qualm, but Missy was an entirely different
matter.  She relied too much on Fox's reputation from her friends, but
Margaret knew Missy had a small crush on him by the way she often watched him.

Dana loved her family all the more for accepting Fox.  After about a month
of merciless teasing from her siblings about her 'first boyfriend', it
finally wore off when they saw firsthand no romance was involved between
them.  This was fine for her brothers, who would not have hesitated to beat
him into a bloody pulp if they knew his intentions were less than pure.  

But as much as Fox had wanted to remain a secret in Dana's school life, it
was just impossible.  A lot of the kids would walk by Dana's house and
catch a glimpse of him sitting in their kitchen, or spot him on all those
Sundays he came over to play touch ball with her and her brothers on the lawn.

All the girls in school suddenly wanted to make friends with Dana,
especially the popular ones.  If Dana had a nickel for every time someone
started with, "Do you think you can set up me and Fox?", she would have
been able to buy that bracelet with the moon and stars she wanted a long
time ago.

After hundreds of questions and evading answers, she finally came up with a
standard reply that left the questioner with something to think about.
"Why don't you talk to him and find out?"

But Fox remained as elusive as his name.  When the secret was out, yes, he
openly spoke to Dana and her siblings in the corridors but no one else.  At
least now Dana actually saw him around lunch and recess, and he often sat
beside her or her brothers if she was absent.  But he was always, always
silent during most of the meal, except when it was only him and Dana.

Bill's friends had also started hanging out with him, enjoying not only his
dry wit but his talent in sports as well.

He never shared his views on religion, growing up, politics, or social
status with them.  In fact, Fox never bonded with any of them in the way
boys are supposed to bond.  Theirs was a very we-get-along, highly-platonic
kind of relationship and Bill and his friends and most especially Fox were
fine with that.

At the start, many of the boys would ask Bill and his friends questions
like, "Why do you hang around with that loser?" or "Stay away from the
retard, why doncha?" 

Bill and his friends would never answer, "Because he's lonely and he's a
great friend."  Instead, they would say, "He's got an awesome arm for
baseball," or "You should see his lay-up," or "He's one funny guy."

Unbeknownst to their newly-formed clique and Dana, this caused her a lack
of suitors.  Some of the boys were just too afraid of dying at such a young
age, others just felt that the competition was too much for them.

She had been surrounded by the top athletes in school, who were not
brainless jocks nor hard on the eyes.



Dana always loved the end of the day.  Fox would be waiting for her at her
house, puttering around the kitchen with her mom.  He knew how to smile
more often now, and she had learned to expect one from him as soon as she
walked through the door.

Today, she knew her mother was cooking spaghetti from the smells that
wafted out of the kitchen.  She walked in on both of them, just as Fox was
smacking his lips together, a wooden spoon poised near his lips.  He looked
at Margaret and looked at the ceiling.

"I know," said Mrs. Scully.  "More oregano, huh?"

Fox nodded his head slowly, licking his lips.  "Just a little, little bit."

She handed him the small bottle.  "Shake away."

He opened the bottle just as Dana decided to make her entrance.  "Hey, you."

He looked up from his task and gave her a smile, just as she anticipated.
"Hey."

Dana sat at the counter, her usual place while she waited for Fox to finish
up whatever he was helping her mother with.  As soon as he was done with
that, they'd usually go into the living room and watch some TV, and her mom
would, without fail, bring in a tray of snacks exactly twenty minutes after
that.

After flipping through the channels and finally finding something worth
watching, Dana took her usual spot.  Fox would always be stretched out on
his stomach, his face propped in his hands, and Dana would rest her head on
his lower back, her legs on top of the sofa.  Her mother had given up
warning her what she was doing to her neck, and both of them LOOKED
comfortable.  If  Dana's siblings didn't come home soon after that, Mrs.
Scully figured both of them could stay that way for hours.  Bill Jr. and
Charlie always got home before Melissa, and as soon as they stepped in
would call Fox for some boy talk.  Basketball was always on their minds,
and Bill and Fox had a new project to work on, which was Charlie's lay-up
skills.

In the beginning, Dana resented her brothers for taking away time she had
with Fox.  But seeing him socialize was obviously good for him, and she
decided it wasn't as bad as long as Bill and Charlie didn't hog him the
entire night.

Besides that, Fox was teaching her a thing or two about surviving in the
male world.  Already she knew the fundamentals of basketball, baseball,
soccer and football.  And she was a better tree climber than either of her
brothers.

It had been about two months since they'd become best friends, and Dana's
only regret was that her father had only gotten to talk to Fox once.  He
was away at sea so often, and the one time he managed to come home since
they moved to the new place, Fox had needed to go home early because his
mother was sick.

He'd made a good impression though, Capt. Scully having told his wife,
"That's a fine boy there.  Smart, polite, clean-cut.  Your youngest has the
same taste you have, honey."

He had been unofficially adopted by the Scully family.  So great was
Margaret's trust in Fox that two weeks earlier, when a small tea party of
Margaret's seemed to displace the two teens from their usual spot, she
suggested to Dana to move her quality time with Fox up to her room.

Missy of course, had thrown a fit - bemoaning the injustice of never having
been allowed to do that in her life - but Mrs. Scully had made a good point
saying, "When you find a boy like Fox Mulder, you can have the same
privilege as your sister."

Fox liked Dana's room.  The first thing that caught his interest were her
books, and they spent the rest of the afternoon discussing Moby Dick,
Siddharta, and many others.  He sprawled himself over her bed, and invited
her to take her usual position beside him.  Since he was on his back, he
pet his stomach, indicating it was alright for her to place her head there
instead.  He read to her, while absently playing with her hair.  It was
comforting to Dana, and yet again, she found herself wondering in amazement
at how close she and Fox had become.

She knew that not many girls her age had a best friend who was a boy three
years older, and the depth of their relationship transcended about 98% of
those who did.  The girls at school often asked her if she and Fox had ever
kissed, and with a wrinkled nose she gave them an emphatic no.  To her
really good friends she confided it would be as gross as kissing Bill or
Charlie.

Dana felt herself eyelids start to feel heavy.  School had been hectic that
day, and she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before getting a book
report finished, in spite of Fox's help over the phone.  When it had been
apparent it would be better if he were actually there, he'd shown up at her
front door and finished it with her at 2 AM.

She turned her head to tell him he better leave, or if he wanted, wait for
Bill or Charlie to get home.

But Fox had beaten her to the punch.  She hadn't even noticed that he'd
stopped reading and fallen asleep before she did.  It was not the first
time she had seen him asleep.  But this was the first time she had ever
seen him asleep in her bed.  

Dana thought he looked cute.  She wanted very badly to sleep too, and it
would be really comfortable to fall asleep where she was, but she didn't
think her mother would approve, and the carefully cultivated trust between
mother and daughter might falter.  She sighed and retrieved two blankets.
One she used to cover Fox, the other she used on herself as she sat in the
comfortable lazy-boy in her room right before she fell asleep.




Margaret Scully softly opened Dana's bedroom door.  She smiled at the sight
before her.  Fox was lying vertically on Dana's bed, her favorite book on
his chest, and Dana was asleep on her lazy-boy.

Her tea party had finally wrapped up, and dinner was on the table.  Charlie
and Bill were already home, shooting hoops right under Dana's window,
hoping they would make enough noise to wake Fox up.  They too had peeked
into their sister's room and found them both asleep.

Melissa was off in her room on the phone as usual.

She walked slowly to Dana and gently roused her.  "Honey, it's dinner time."

Dana opened her eyes slowly and stretched, then nodded.  She checked on
Fox, and saw that he was still asleep.

"Invite Fox over for dinner.  But don't push.  He's had dinner here for the
last four days and his mother might get angry if he does it again."

Margaret left the room then, quietly shutting the door.

Dana sat on the bed, stretching lazily about to wake Fox up, when she
noticed how his eyeballs were rapidly moving beneath his eyelids.  She
watched, fascinated, the task of waking him up momentarily forgotten.  His
lips suddenly parted, and his hand clenched.  He suddenly cried out,
"Samantha!!!" and Dana jerked back in surprise and alarm.  

Fox bolted up, almost knocking her off the bed, his breathing suddenly
ragged.  His eyes were wild, as though he had no idea where he was, Dana
had grabbing him by his shoulders to shake him to his senses.  "Fox!!  Fox!!"

Her yell seemed to frighten him all the more.  He suddenly buried his face
in his hands, and hard, painful-looking heaves wracked his shoulders.  Fox
started crying, and poor Dana was left there to only hold him and rub his
back in an effort to soothe him.




The crying slowed and finally came to a stop, just in the nick of time.
Margaret called for both of them to come down, and after answering "In a
minute, mom!" Dana turned back to Fox.  He was wiping his eyes with his
sleeve, and couldn't look her in the eye.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked, still rubbing his back.

"Sorry about that," he said, hiccuping.  

"It's alright.  Do you remember what you dreamed about?"

"Yeah.  But…if it's okay with you I'd rather not talk about it."

Dana considered the statement.  She wanted very badly to ask him who
Samantha was, then decided against it.  Fox would tell her in his own time.
 Or so she hoped.

"I know this isn't what you want to hear right now, but mom's expecting us
downstairs for dinner.  Think you're up to it?" she asked.

He sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve again.  "No…I don't think
so.  I'll just say I'm needed at home and excuse myself, okay?"

Dana nodded and gave him a few more seconds to compose himself before they
went down.




Charlie and Bill looked up as soon as they heard Fox's footsteps.  "Hey,
Fox!" they called simultaneously.  Melissa smiled shyly, then resumed her
eating.

Fox high-fived both brothers before Margaret invited him to sit down.  He
already had his own place at the table.

"You know I'd love to, Mrs. Scully.  But my mom…well, she says she doesn't
see me around anymore so I think I should go home tonight."

"Of course, Fox.  Just remember you're always welcome here, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am.  I'll see you all tomorrow."

Charlie looked up.  "How about we work on my lay-ups again, Fox?"

"No problem, Charlie.  I'll remember to bring my basketball tomorrow."

Bill grinned.  "Bud, I know how much you hate the girl talk, but I heard
Vanessa Parker talking about you."

Fox was heading for the door, Dana right behind him.  She couldn't wait for
what his response to THAT was going to be.  "Not my type, Bill.  Goodnight,
all."

He left then, softly closing the door behind him.

Dana turned and joined the family for dinner.  

Missy was almost beside herself after hearing what Bill said about Vanessa
Parker.  "Bill, you have  GOT to be kidding!"

Swallowing a large gulp of milk, Bill shook his head vehemently.  "Nope.
Heard it with my own two ears.  She stopped cold when she saw me though.  I
guess she knows about Fox and Dana."

Dana scowled at that one.  "Fox and Dana?  WHAT Fox and Dana?" she asked,
spooning some spaghetti sauce onto her plate.

"Don't worry, li'l sis," assured Bill.  "Everyone knows you and Fox aren't
an 'item', and I guess all those things they used to say about him are
finally dying down."

Margaret couldn't resist finally joining in.  "WHAT things?"

Missy jumped right back in.  "Wow.  Where do I begin?"

Dana looked at her sister with a warning.  Missy didn't care, or didn't
notice.

"There was this big hullabaloo in town about five years ago.  His sister
was like, kidnapped or something and boom!  What you see is what you get."

"Missy," said Mrs. Scully.  "Slow down before you choke on your broccoli."

Missy let out an exaggerated sigh.  "Okay.  It goes like this.  All the
kids say that Fox has never been a socializer.  And his neighbors were
telling me that even before that kidnapping thing, they'd hear fights late
at night over at the Mulder residence.  Kate even said that her mom saw Fox
with bruises on his face several times, and she said her mom felt sorry for
him because obviously his dad was beating him up."

The entire Scully table was now entranced with the story.  Bill and Charlie
had long stopped eating, their eyes widening with each detail.  Margaret's
face was painted in sadness, as she thought over and over how or why a
parent could possibly do that to their own child.  Even Dana, who had been
oblivious for so long couldn't help but listen.

Missy loved that she was the center of attention.  "Anyway, when that
kidnapping thing happened, Fox got even worse.  He became a like - hermit
or something!  And boy, EVERYONE was talking about Dana because she's the
first and only person Fox has actually spoken to.  And I mean REALLY spoken
too."

"I heard about that too," Bill said.  "I didn't know what Fox wanted from
Dana in the beginning.  But it looks like he found a little sister."

Margaret smiled.  You could always count on Bill to make an observation
like that.

Dana sighed heavily.  Well, she thought.  <I was bound to find out.  And
now I have. >

A lot of things were running through her head.  She put two and two
together, concluding that Samantha was Fox's kidnapped sister.  More than
ever, she felt sorry for him, even if she tried hard not to.  She knew that
Fox didn't want her pity, or anyone else's for that matter.

Her siblings went back to discussing and dissecting Fox Mulder.  Dana
didn't hear much of it anymore.  She was too busy thinking.




That night, she lay in bed, having a hard time falling asleep.  She
attributed it to her nap that afternoon, but after tossing and turning for
three hours, she admitted to herself she was thinking about Fox.

She was startled when she heard pebbles tapping softly against her window.
She got out of bed and looked out to see Fox.  No words were needed.  She
disappeared for a few minutes and emerged from the house, closing the door
as quietly as she could.

Still no words were spoken.  They walked in companionable silence.  It was
3 in the morning, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder were headed to 'the spot'.  It
was a place that they went to.  A refuge from the harsh realities of life
to talk things through, or just enjoy each other's company from the rest of
the world.

The field was vast, the lush green grass always welcoming them to lie down.
 Dana loved this spot.  She and Fox had only been there twice before, but
it was dear to her.  He had pointed out the constellations to her and told
her stories.  His voice always soothed her.  She knew tonight it was her
turn to do all the soothing.

They lay down, Fox extending an arm out for Dana to rest her head on.  They
were silent for a few minutes.  Dana turned her head and looked at him.

Fox looked back at her and gave her a sad smile.  "You're wondering what
this afternoon was all about."

She nodded her head.  "I'm here for you."

His arm circled her shoulders, hugging her tight for a few seconds before
releasing her again.  "Thanks, Dana."

It was then that Fox started talking.  He told Dana about the horrible
night his sister was taken.  The bright light, his incapacity to do
anything.  How his parents, in not so many words, blamed him for what had
happened simply because he'd been in the same room when it happened.  The
nightmares he had every single night.  How the family fell apart all the
more after what had happened.  And finally, how his father's methods of
discipline were from gentle.

Dana listened, not saying a word.  She fought back tears for her best
friend, and wondered what she could possibly do or say to make things
better.  

The entire time Fox was speaking, his voice was monotonous.  Like he was
reading from a book, involved yet detached.  

Dana sat up, cross-legged and faced him.  She took his hand, interlaced her
fingers with his and pulled him up to face her.

He complied, and looked her in the eye.

"Fox," she started.  "I can't say anything or do anything to make what
happened all better.  But…" she squeezed his hand.  "If you need someone to
keep the demons at bay - I'm here for you."

A tear escaped his eye.  He looked down, that patented move of his, then
looked at her again.  "I think I'd die without you, Dana." 

She hugged him tight.  After a few seconds, she felt him tug at her gently
to lie back down on the grass.  

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, best friends, fell asleep under the stars.
There was nothing that could possibly break the bond now, and destiny knew it.




5:26 AM
----------------------------------------
They'd woken up right before sunrise.  When Dana had opened her eyes, she
took a peek at Fox, who was also just opening his eyes.  They grinned at
each other, then watched the sunrise.  The pink champagne colors washed
over the horizons, flames of orange and purple licking at the clouds.  

Fox and Dana had seen sunrises before, but both of them knew, this one was
special.  Because they were watching it with their best friend.

A few minutes later, Fox nudged Dana.  "Want to get some breakfast?  My
treat."

"Sounds good.  I'm kind of hungry, too." 

They stood and started walking, but Dana stopped in mid-stride then
clutched at his sleeve.  "Wait!  We need to swing by my house.  Mom might
be wondering where I am."

He nodded and they changed directions.  Fox was a little worried Dana might
be in trouble.  He glanced at her and noticed she was smiling.  He placed
his arm around her shoulder and suspected she had an ace up her sleeve, one
that would be able to pacify Mrs. Scully should she be angry at her
daughter who had cavorted off in the middle of the night to meet him.

They walked into her house a few minutes later, Mrs. Scully already in the
kitchen preparing breakfast for her own family.  "Hello, you two.  Woke up
early to catch the sunrise?"

Dana walked up to her mother and kissed her cheek.  So did Fox.  He really
was part of the family now.

Dana said, "Yep.  Fox wants to treat me to breakfast at the diner mom.  Is
that okay?"

Margaret looked around at the elaborate food she had prepared.  "I cooked
enough for Fox, too, honey.  Why don't you look around first and see if
there's anything here that either of you might like."

Dana turned to Fox.  She had her answer.  He was sniffing at the waffles on
the counter with a heavenly expression on his face.

Margaret and Dana smiled.  Fox straightened up, a small blush creeping on
his cheeks.

"Take a seat, Fox!" laughed Mrs. Scully.

One by one, the Scully siblings came down.  First, it was Melissa.
Followed closely by Bill and Charlie.  They were all surprised to see him
at their home so early in the morning, but made no mention of it.  Charlie
was delighted, thinking Fox was there to start him off on his lay-ups.  His
coach had said he had improved a lot, and Charlie knew that it was all
because of Bill and Fox.

Right after breakfast, the three boys went out to the backyard to play.
Dana took a seat on the pavement, and was surprised when Missy sat down as
well.  Usually, right after breakfast, some boy or another would drive by
and pick her up, his car filled with other screaming and laughing girls.
Dana wondered what had happened that day to change that.

She and Melissa watched as Fox, Charlie and Bill played basketball.  Dana
loved the way Fox moved in spite of his height, and his patience with
Charlie.  His face would always change just before he shot the ball, into
one of absolute concentration.  As soon as the ball was released from his
hands, it would change back again.

Beside her, Missy had taken a hold of a little weed growing out of a crack
in the pavement, her expression one of controlled agitation. 

Dana touched her shoulder gently.  "Missy?  Something wrong?"

Missy looked at her little sister.  She needed to tell SOMEONE.  ANYONE
what had happened yesterday.  Dana wouldn't tell their parents if she swore
her to secrecy.  Missy trusted her.

She inhaled deeply and told Dana what was wrong.  

Missy told Dana about Carl Litch.  Missy liked Carl.  He was tall,
good-looking, and considered a prize catch in their clique.  Carl had told
Missy he had intentions of courting her several weeks ago, and Missy had
been delighted, to say the least.

What Missy didn't know was that Carl had made a bet with his friends,
wherein a total of $65 changed hands on whether or not Carl would've gotten
Missy to have sex with him within two weeks after he proposed.

Missy had to give it to him.  When, after two weeks, they hadn't even
gotten anywhere NEAR having sex, Carl was still very sweet, caring and
understanding.  Missy never suspected that behind her back, Carl was
already painting all sorts of lurid scenarios of both of them in bed together.

Her girlfriends told Missy, and it broke her heart.  She confronted Carl's
friends in school, her troop of girlfriends behind her to back her up.  One
by one, each boy confessed.  When Missy asked one of them exactly how many
people knew, he gave a vague answer along the lines of just about everyone.
 Actually, the boy continued, he was amazed Missy hadn't heard about it
sooner from her brothers.

Missy had flown to the bathroom then, tears flowing down her cheeks.  Her
girlfriends had consoled her, and swore vengeance.  

But Missy knew her reputation was scarred permanently.  Try as hard as she
might not to, she started crying.  Hard.

Fox was the first to notice.  Charlie had just passed him the ball, but it
remained in his hands as he walked over to Dana and Missy.  Bill and
Charlie stopped playing too, finally noticing why their sister was crying.  

Missy had buried her face in her hands, Dana rubbing her back.  How was she
supposed to keep this a secret if she had to explain why Missy was crying?

All three boys squatted to Dana and Missy's level.  

Bill asked, "What's wrong, Missy?" 

Shaking her head violently, Missy refused to answer.  She wasn't all too
concerned about Charlie.  He was still young, but there was no telling what
Bill would do if he found out.  Bringing her big brother into the situation
would only make matters worse.

Fox whispered to Dana, "What's wrong?"  He was genuinely concerned about
Missy.

Dana felt helpless.  She looked at Fox, silently telling him she wanted to
tell him, but couldn't.

Suddenly, Bill spoke up.  "This is about Carl Litch, isn't it Missy?"

The dam burst.  Missy cried harder than she ever had in her life.  Bill
KNEW.  Of COURSE Bill knew.  He was a boy, and all the boys knew.  A litany
of curses poured out of her mouth then, like the seasoned Navy-brat that
she was.  She was so busy cursing Carl to hell and back, she didn't notice
when Fox and Bill stood up, and exchanged glances.  Without another word,
they left, unnoticed.  




Bill and Fox were men with a mission.  It was a Saturday morning, and
football try-outs were being held in school.  Bill knew that Carl would be
trying out for the team.  The tidbit of information would've been
meaningless, but it wasn't.  Not today.

"You don't have to be here, Fox," said Bill.

Fox looked over at Bill, and gave his friend a pat on the back.  "Yeah, I
do, bud.  Even if Missy and I haven't really bonded the way we have, bottom
line is - she's still Dana's sister.  She's still YOUR sister, and I can't
put up with seeing her get hurt like that."

Bill shook his head, his fists clenching hard at his sides.  "I heard about
these things.  I just thought it didn't matter to Missy.  We're always
moving around, and well, it'll just be a matter of time when she can put
this behind her.  But when I saw her cry, it changed things, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Do you want to hear the things this guy said about her to make this easier
for you to do?"

"I don't need to, Bill.  Whatever it was, I know it's bad.  I can only
guess, but I won't even bother."

Bill nodded.  They were about 10 meters from the football try-outs.  Carl
was laughing it up with his buddies.

A sudden hush fell over the group.  Carl, who'd had his back towards Bill
and Fox as they approached, kept laughing at the punch line of some inane
joke he just told.  Finally, he took notice that his friends were staring
at something behind him.

Carl could never say he was psychic.  But at that moment, something inside
him was afraid.  Very, very afraid.  He turned his head slowly and saw Bill
and Fox.  His face paled by at least five shades.

Between the two of them, he had 12 feet and 320 pounds of pure masculinity
to deal with.

Bill grabbed the scruff of his jersey.  "Need to talk to you, Carl."

Carl let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a whine.

Fox grabbed Carl's arm, assisting Bill in hauling him away. The rest of the
kids watched, frozen is fascination.  Cheerleading try-outs were also being
held that day, and the girls in the bleachers were whispering among
themselves, their eyes wide and their mouths agape.

Bill, Fox and Carl disappeared behind the bleachers.  The only sounds
anyone could hear were the very calm and controlled voices of Fox and Bill
and the sobs of one Carl Litch.  To say it sounded pathetic would have been
the understatement of the decade.

Missy's girlfriends were gloating.  Carl's friends were afraid.  And
embarrassed for Carl.  Anyone else who was there listening in were enthralled.

A few more minutes later, the three of them walked out from behind the
bleachers.  Carl's face was red, his jersey soaked with snot, a thick layer
of perspiration all over him.  He was also sporting a busted lip.

Fox and Bill delivered him back to his friends.  Bill smiled warmly at him.
 "Monday, dickhead."

Carl nodded.  

Fox placed a consoling hand on Carl's shoulder.  "That lip's going to heal,
Carl.  But if you don't live up to Monday, Bill and I will break something
else that won't.  Got it?"

Carl nodded again.

Bill and Fox left then, the hushed crowd watching them in awe.  Once they
were out of earshot, tongues started wagging at 120 mph.  




Dana was in her bed reading a comic book when Fox walked in.  He and Bill
had been gone for over an hour, and she didn't need three guesses to figure
out where they'd come from.

She put the comic book down and sat up.  "So I take it everything's fine
and dandy again?"

Fox grinned.  "Not till Monday," he said, then plopped down beside her and
picked up the comic book.

"What's happening on Monday?"

"You'll see."

Dana took his hand.  "Well, whatever's happening on Monday, thanks, Fox."

They hugged each other again, and settled into bed.  The next three hours
were spent reading comic books, eating Twinkies, and generally goofing off.




Monday morning at school was a riot.  Everyone was talking about what had
happened at the football try-outs.  Dana's friends were all gushing about
Fox and Bill.  Everyone couldn't wait for lunch break.

"What's happening at lunch?" Dana asked, over and over again.

Her friends refused to tell her, only saying it was going to go down in
history.

Dana's ears were starting to hurt from all the swoons being exchanged in
the halls and bathrooms.

"God!! If only MY brother were like that!"

"He's sooo protective of her, because she's Dana's sister!"

"Boy, I never thought he'd EVER do ANYTHING like THAT at ALL."

Finally, it happened.  The entire school was in the cafeteria, and Bill had
set up a table for him, his siblings, Fox and his other friends.

Melissa didn't have an inkling as to what was going to happen.  She found
out about Fox and Bill paying Carl a visit, and that something was amiss,
but nothing else.

A few minutes later, Carl walked into the cafeteria.  Bill and Fox sat back
in their chairs, and watched him with eagle eyes as he walked to the
furthest table on the left side.  He stood at the head of the table, and
started talking.  The kids at the table listened to him, their eyes
widening.  As Carl would walk away, the table would burst into boisterous
laughter.  The same process was repeated from one table to the next, until
finally, Carl reached theirs.

His head lowered, his eyes still filled with fear, Carl approached Missy.
"Missy, I'm sorry for what I did.  It was wrong and I apologize.  I hope
you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and I hope that by what I did
to make up for it, you can sleep better at night."  His monologue sounded
memorized and rehearsed.

"WHAT did you do, Carl?" asked Missy.

Carl swallowed.  "I just went from table to table and told everyone that
all those things I said about you were not true."

"AND?" Bill and Fox asked together.

Carl gulped down a gush of air.  "And I told them it could never happen
because… because… I'm…I'm…impotent."

"We had to teach him what impotent meant first." quipped Fox.

His head bowed low, his shoulders slumped, his reputation ruined forever,
Carl Litch turned around and walked out of the cafeteria.

Missy's eyes widened.  So did Dana's.  Charlie was sitting there, more
confused then ever.  Bill and Fox were grinning from ear to ear.  Bill's
friends were trying hard to control their laughter.

A loud wail startled the whole table.  It came from Missy.  Bill and Fox
jerked back, thinking they'd gone too far, until the wail turned into
shrieks of laughter.  She was practically crying from laughing so hard, her
hands wrapped around her stomach.

The whole table joined in.  Bill and his friends were exchanging
high-five's, guffawing and throwing food at each other, Melissa's head was
buried in her hands as she struggled to control her hyperventilating, and
Charlie had decided the best thing to do was laugh along.

In the midst of all the laughter, Dana and Fox made eye contact.  Her hand
reached beneath the table and squeezed his hand.  His hand squeezed her
knee.  

Dana's lips formed the words, "Thank you."

Fox smiled at her.  "You're welcome."




When school got out, Missy had run up to Fox and hugged him hard.  She
kissed him on the cheek and said thank you, and all the walls between them
came crumbling down.

The Scully siblings and Fox were in wonderful moods, and they all met up at
the lake nearby to while the day away swimming.  

Dana was feeling very conscious.  Fox had never seen her in a swimsuit
before, and she was aware she had more baby fat on her than necessary.  Her
reservations doubled when she saw Fox slip out of his jeans and t-shirt,
leaving on a pair of well-fitting boxers.

He was thin, but fairly well-muscled, an accomplishment for any 17 year-old
whose only past time was running, eating and an occasional swim.  Dana had
a feeling he would tease her, even if he never had, and decided to pretend
she would rather sit near the shore and dip her feet into the water.

Bill, Charlie and Melissa had already started a game of Marco Polo,
beckoning Fox to join them.  He was already waist deep in the water when he
noticed Dana.  He called out to the others to give him a minute, and walked
over to Dana.  

The Scully siblings exchanged knowing glances.  All three of them knew Dana
was beginning to be concerned about her body.

He offered her his hand, then a smile.

Dana shook her head no.  "I don't feel like swimming today.  Just dipping
my feet in."

He looked her in the eye.  <Uh-oh,>  Dana thought.  <He knows.  Darn this
weird bond of ours.> 

"You're just right for your age and height, Dana."

"Am I?"

"Yes.  And you could be a hippo and I'd still think you're cute.  But
you're not, so I think you're beautiful."

Dana was startled by his statement.  Fox had never said he thought she was
cute, much less beautiful.  It thrilled and embarrassed her at the same time.

He offered his hand again, and as Dana lifted her shirt off, Fox helped
her.  They walked to the lake and swam to the others.

Charlie refereed a game of tumble-toss.  Dana sat on Fox's shoulders, while
Melissa was on Bill's.  Melissa and Bill won 3 out of 5, but Fox and Dana
laughed twice as much as they did.

Every time Dana would lose her balance and tumble into the water, she would
make sure so would Fox.  Underwater, away from the eyes of the others, they
would tickle each other, only going up for air when their laughter incited
a snort of water.

Amid the sputters, their laughter would be even stronger.

When sunset approached, they decided to head back home.  They were all
disappointed Fox could not join them for dinner, instead choosing to show
his face around his house for a change.  Dana walked with him a little
further.  Something was bothering him.

"My dad's coming home tonight," he said, the words enough for Dana to
understand the underlying meaning.

"I want you to come over to my place if anything happens, Fox."

He nodded and held her hand.  There was that fear in his eyes again, and
Dana hugged him.  "No matter what time, Fox.  Promise me."

"I promise."

He left then, Dana watching him go.  She and her best friend both knew
tonight was going to be painful for him.




12:00 midnight
----------------------------------------
The soft tapping on her window didn't wake her.  She hadn't been able to
get any sleep.

Dana launched herself out of bed and went downstairs immediately, silently
opening the door.  Fox was standing there, his head bowed low, till his
chin was practically on his chest.  

And Dana knew.

She stood in front of him and lifted his chin up to see the damage by the
porch light.  She winced when she saw the angry black and purple bruise on
his eye, and the cut on his upper lip.

Dana took his hand and led her inside.  They went up to her bedroom, and
sat him down while she got the first aid kit from the bathroom.  She
cleaned the wounds carefully, her fingers light and gentle, then applied
the bandages.

"Any more?" she asked.

He nodded and removed his jacket, then lifted his shirt.  An angry gash
with dried blood greeted her.

"He knocked me over and something sharp cut me on the way down."

Dana cleaned the wound and dressed it.  She went into the bathroom again
and came back with a cup full of tap water and a pill in her hand.  "Drink
this.  It'll help when the pain starts up."

Fox took the cup of water and pill and drank both down.  "You should be a
doctor, Dana."

She smiled before telling him what was on her mind.  "This has to stop,
Fox.  He shouldn't be doing this to you."

"This is the last time."

"How do you know that?"

"Because tonight…I fought back."

Dana gave him a hug.  She didn't have the heart to tell him fighting back,
in her opinion, was going to stop it.

They cried in the other's arms.  Even Fox knew it wasn't going to stop.

The pill he had taken was starting to have an effect.  His crying became
softer, and Dana felt the tense muscles in his shoulders and arms relaxing.
 She gently extricated herself from his grasp, the small protest he made
futile, his eyes were involuntarily shutting on their own.

She took his rubber shoes off, then pulled the covers over him.  When she
was sure he was asleep, she turned the light off and left the room.




Margaret Scully was lying in her bed, waiting for Dana to come.  She had
heard Fox's arrival, then Dana going into the bathroom twice.  She had
picked up a few words that drifted to her bedroom, and knew what had
happened as only a mother would.

She felt sorry for the boy who she had grown to love as a son, and her
heart went out not only to him, but her daughter who was sharing his pain
as well.

When Dana crawled into bed beside her and started crying, Margaret wrapped
her arms around her little girl.  

Dana was strong for Fox when she was near him, but when he wasn't, she
could cry out the pain she felt for her best friend.

"It's alright, sweety.  Someday, Fox will be stronger and bigger than his
father.  Not just physically, but in every way.  Because you'll always be
there for him."




6 AM
----------------------------------------
The following morning, Dana woke up in her mother's bed, her mother already
gone.  She stretched and suddenly remembered what had happened the night
before and made a mad dash to her room.  Fox was still in her bed, still
fast asleep.  She sat down beside him and saw in the morning light the
extent his father's abuse.

His eye was completely shut now, the coloring twice as bad as it had been
the night before, and his lip looked like a piece of sirloin cut open by an
unskilled butcher.  She gently touched his forehead, clearing it of his
hair.  Fox inhaled deeply and moved his cheek to her palm.  She cupped it
gently, then remembered the bruise on his ribs.

Lifting his shirt, she was glad the bandage she had placed was still
intact, then replaced his shirt and pulled the covers over him again.  She
took a book out and placed herself into the lazy-boy, deciding not to wake
him.  He needed all the rest he could get.

At 7 AM, Dana saw Fox stir.  He opened his eyes slowly, then jerked a
little at the unfamiliar surroundings.  She stood up and walked over to
him.  "Morning," she greeted.

He tried to smile back, but his lip hurt.  "G'morning."

Fox sat up, his fingers tentatively feeling the bandages on his face, then
on his chest.  He sighed deeply and said, "Thanks for last night, Dana."

A sad smile swept Dana's delicate features.  There were millions of things
she wanted to tell him, but she didn't know where to begin.

But right now, she needed to get ready for school.  Fox didn't need to tell
her that he obviously wasn't going in that day, and probably wouldn't till
some of the swelling subsided.  It was a good thing he was always at the
top of his class, so he could afford to miss a few days, even if his
graduation was only a few weeks away.

Dana walked over to her closet and selected some clothes and changed in the
bathroom.  When she came back, she sat cross-legged on the bed in front of
him, and took both his hands into hers.

"What's your plan, Fox?"

"Go home.  I'm sure he isn't there anymore.  Rest a bit."

Dana nodded.  "And if he is?"

"He'll do what he usually does.  Hug me and say he's sorry, but I deserved
it.  Then order me into my room."

"You'll be here when I get back from school?" she asked.

"Does your family know about this?"

Dana looked down.  "Mom does."

He nodded.  "I don't know how to face Bill, Charlie and Missy with this."

"Don't worry about it.  Bill and Missy will pretend there's nothing there,
and Charlie will bug you where you got those cool bruises."

Fox smiled.  "Let's just tell him you got a little rough with me when we
wrestled."

"Okay," she grinned.  "that ought to be good.  He'll stop pestering me when
he sees what his big sister who's considerably smaller than you can do."




When Dana got to school, Bill, Charlie and Missy asked her how Fox was
doing,  She told them he was okay, and asked them not to tell anyone what
had happened.  Missy said, "That goes without saying."

The other kids in school asked her as well, and she told them he was sick
with the flu, and probably wouldn't be back till the following week.
Everyone seemed to believe the story, but some of the older kids gave her
suspicious looks but said nothing.

At the end of the day, Dana excused herself from the usual chit-chat she
and her girlfriends engaged in.  She was anxious to see Fox, but was
disappointed and a little worried when he wasn't in her house.

Her mother was worried as well, and suggested Dana give him a call.

She dialed his number.  His mother answered.  "Hello?"

"Hello.  May I speak with Fox, please?"

An abrupt silence.  "He's not home."

Click, and the line was cut.

"What happened, honey?" asked Mrs. Scully.

"That was his mother.  She said Fox wasn't at home."

"And you don't believe her?"

"I do.  I called the phone in his room.  If he were there, he would've
answered, but where can he be, mom?" her voice was almost cracking in fear.

Margaret hugged Dana.  "I'm sure he's fine, dear.  But he needs to be alone
for awhile.  He'll come back when he's ready."

The day went by slowly for Dana.  Every time she heard a door open, her
heart leapt, hoping it was Fox.  She strained her ears for the sound of
tapping against her bedroom window.  The phone ringing was awful on her
nerves.

At dinner time, no one mentioned his name, but it was obvious he was
missed.  Dana was silent during the entire meal, pushing her food around,
not really listening to anything but the door, the phone, and her window
upstairs.

She helped her mother clean up, then excused herself and went up to her room.

Dana lay in bed, fighting the fear, pushing it deep down.  She shouldn't -
COULDN'T - think this way.  Fox would come.  She had to trust him.




At 9 PM, something inside Dana tingled.  Fox was on his way over.  She
didn't know how she knew, she just DID.

She stood up from her bed and went to the window.  Fox was outside, picking
pebbles to throw at her window.  She opened it and called out to him.

He was startled, but he gave her a grin.  He still looked awful, with his
swollen eye and injured lip, but he looked like a puppy.  A really cute puppy.

"Hey!" he called.  "I have something for you."

She motioned for him to come up, and smiled when she heard her mother greet
him delightedly, then fuss over him for a few seconds before sending him up
to her room.

"WHERE have you been, Fox?" she asked, trying her best to sound angry.

He was without remorse, giving her a smile as wide as he could manage
without pain, before reaching into his jacket.  He brought out a little
box, about 5 inches long and handed it to her.  "Took me awhile to find the
right one."

She took the box from him and sat down on her bed.  It was wrapped in a
pink, tissue-like material with a ribbon red ribbon around it.  "What's
this for?"

His answer was simple.  "Last night."

"You… you didn't have to get me anything."

"I wanted to.  Open it please.  I really hope you'll like it.  Something to
do with our spot."

She removed the ribbon and wrapping carefully and opened the box.  It was a
gold bracelet with little stars and crescent moons hanging from it.

"Like it?"

Dana didn't answer.  She flung herself into his arms and rained kisses on
his face, words sputtering out of her mouth that didn't make any sense.  A
tear escaped her eye, and Fox chuckled.  "I'll take that as a yes?"

Her head bobbed vigorously up and down.  She thrust her hand out to him,
silently asking him to put it on.

His movements were strong and sure, as though he had rehearsed a thousand
times how he would place it on her wrist.  "I spent the whole afternoon
looking for it.  And when I did, I could picture what it would look like on
you.  It looks great."

Dana was holding her wrist up, looking at the beautiful bracelet.  It
sparkled, as if winking at her, when something caught her eye.  There were
little words engraved on the stars.  She was just about to read them when
Fox grasped her wrist.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

He looked down before meeting her eyes.  "It's not time yet.  Promise me
you won't read the words till I say so, okay?"

Dana felt something tug at her heart.  Something was wrong.  Or something
was going to go wrong.  

Fox touched her cheek.  "Trust me."

She grasped his hand and searched his eyes.  "I do."




Dana heated up some dinner for Fox.  She could tell he had not eaten all
day, and the way he wolfed down everything she placed in front of him led
her to believe the last meal he had eaten had been in her house at
breakfast the day before.

Charlie, Melissa and Bill came down to say hi and exchange a few words.  

Charlie was beside himself - his coach said he was good enough to play in
next week's game.  Bill had more juicy stories about Vanessa Parker.
Vanessa having confessed to one of Bill's friends she would "just die" if
Fox ever asked her out.  Melissa was bubbly the entire week after seeing
Carl walking around school like a ghost, all of his friends having
abandoned him.

But each sibling went up immediately after that - they, like Dana, sensed
something was wrong.  Something that went deeper than Fox's physical
injuries.  

Dana and Fox washed his dishes after that.  For once, the silence they
shared was uncomfortable and uneasy for both of them.  She could sense Fox
wanted to tell her something, but refused to, and every minute that ticked
by seemed like an eternity.

He left right after that, a sad smile on his lips when he said good-bye.
Dana's heart wrenched itself into knots at that smile.  It was exactly the
first smile he had given her, the one full of sorrow before she came into
his life.  It was back now, and all that Dana waited for was Fox's solitary
figure to disappear down the street before she let the tears out.

As Dana was in bed that night, her fears caught up with her.  She had found
Fox, Fox had found her.  It terrified her how close they'd become in such a
short span of time, because nobody knew when her family would have to pick
up and leave once again.  How in the world could she get through leaving
him by himself again after everything they'd been through.

It seemed to her that God was playing a cruel trick.  

She buried her face into her pillow and cried.




At the Mulder house, everything was quiet save for the heaves and anguished
screams which emanated from the bedroom of a 17 year-old boy.

A mother or father should have been there to comfort him.  Even a sister.
But he had none of those loved ones in his life.  In blood he did, but not
in heart.

His fists swung violently around his room, knocking all of his possessions
down.  He hit the walls angrily, tears streaming down his face as a chant
played over his lips.  

<Whywhywhywhywhyw.  Why now.>

He reached for the letter again from his mother and father.  They didn't
even bother telling him face to face.  The white paper, with immaculately
typed letters effectively ending his life, telling him how we would be off
to Oxford in a few weeks.  A brief history of his parents' covert actions
explaining how they'd been sending his school records since the third grade
to a friend of his father's who was a professor there.  How this was all
for the best.  His future.  His career.

The boy, amidst the chaos in his room sat on the floor, depleted of all his
strength.  Even his lips were too exhausted to continue his chant.  He had
finished crying as well, thankful.  But when a single name plowed out from
the depth of his soul, a new wave of tears poured forth.

Dana.




The next few weeks were a blur for the best friends.  Fox still hadn't told
her about Oxford, but the nitpicking ache in Dana that told her her time
with his was limited was there.  Her biggest fear - that her family would
up and move again, was the main source of her concern.  

If she only knew.

They took long walks and ventured to their spot almost every night.  On
weekends, they would fall asleep under the stars, Dana's head on Fox's
shoulder, his arm surrounding her protectively.  They would watch the
sunrise together, still lying in the tall grass.  Sometimes, they would
suddenly realize they were both shedding silent tears, and hold each other
closer.

Her siblings respected what they were going through.  Inevitably, they had
given up their time with Fox for Dana's sake.

Sometimes they would go swimming in the lake, just the two of them, and
these were the happiest times they had together.  They were the only two
people in the world, surrounded by nature and the comforting other world
under the water.

Here they could laugh and tease each other, because it seemed that time had
stopped just for the two of them, but sunset would always come, signaling
yet another day was nearly finished.  And what was in store for them was
closer.




"I need to tell you something, Dana."

Seven words.  And Dana knew her life was going to change forever.

They were sitting in their spot again.  Thousands of stars were littered
across the skies, more than ever they had ever seen.

Dana knew tonight was the day her world was going to collapse.  She had
woken up that morning in Fox's arms, his face buried in her hair, as his
lips placed tender kisses on her forehead.  He had come over before
sunrise, climbing the tree in front of her bedroom and let himself in.

He had smiled sadly at her when she woke up, playing with the charms on her
bracelet, caressing each moon and star like a saddened lover.

They had breakfast together, Fox's treat.  Then swam at the lake till
lunchtime.  They ate hotdogs for lunch while they caught a movie.  Then she
and Fox went back to her house so she could collect a large blanket and
some pillows before moving to their spot.

It was dusk when they got there, and they watched as each star came out,
twinkling like diamonds.  

Dana turned around to face him, her cheeks already stained with tears.  His
thumbs brushed them away consolingly, before he kissed her forehead with
his eyes closed.  She clutched the front of his shirt, as if by doing so,
the bad news would go away.

Fox stared at the night sky again.  "Graduation is tomorrow.  My parents…
they're sending me to Oxford for college."

Dana inhaled deeply.  And the crying started.  She whispered fiercely,
"You're leaving me."

Fox's arm tightened around her as he started crying as well.  "Dana…god,
don't say it that way."

"You are.  This isn't fair.  I'm the one who always leaves.  And
now…you…you're leaving me behind."

She stood up then, launching herself from his arms.  Her arms wrapped
themselves protectively around her, trying to keep the biting cold  away.

Fox stood as well, but made no move to touch her.  "This isn't the  end."

Her fury at his words surprised her.  "Damn you this isn't the end!  It IS!
 I'M the one who's supposed to do the leaving, Fox!  NOT YOU!"

"Dana," he said, forcing her chin up to look at him.  "Look at me, dammit!"

She looked.  He was crying too.  "I.  Will.  Find.  You."

Dana shook her head.  "Don't say things that aren't true."

"I AM telling you the truth.  This isn't the end.  Jesus, Dana… " he turned
around, thrusting a hand into his hair, then turned again violently,
grabbing her hand and hauling her against his chest and hugged her
fiercely.  His head bowed, till his lips were against her ear.  "This isn't
our destiny.  It's only the beginning of the journey.  Fate knows it can't
keep us apart.  I WILL find you Dana."

The tears started up again.  Her arms encircled his waist, hugging him
closer till nothing but tiny atoms separated them.




Margaret, Bill, Melissa, Dana and Charlie went to his graduation.  The
applause he received was the strongest than any other of the graduating
class.  He had snagged all the honors, as Dana had suspected he would, and
the standing ovation from his fellow classmates lasted long after he had
left the stage.

His mother was there, his father wasn't.  Dana introduced herself, but all
she got was a polite smile.  Dana wanted very badly to give Mrs. Mulder a
piece of her mind.

Dana watched as, after the graduation, Fox approached his mother, his toga
riddled with medals.  She hugged him, but there was a lot of space between
them, as though Fox was too hot too touch, or not worth getting her make-up
or hair ruined for.

She got into her car, her driver opening the door for her and drove  off.

Dana snuck up behind him, lacing her fingers into his.  "Congratulations.
Told you you'd sweep the awards."

He smiled at her.  They had silently agreed what had happened the night
before and what they had talked about was too painful to bring up.  Fox
would be leaving the next day, and the last few hours they had together
were more precious than anything in the world.

Fox took Dana out to dinner that night to the fanciest restaurant in town.
She dressed up for the occasion, and so did he.  They looked like a very
young couple very much in love, barely able to keep their eyes off each other.

The two nights that had passed after he had told her about Oxford were
still a blur.  Any second spent without the other were spent crying.

Dana had given Fox her most well-loved pillow.  Fox had given her a shirt
of his.

Dana would stare at her bedroom ceiling, her fingers caressing the charms
on her wrist, Fox's shirt to her knees enveloping her.

Fox hugged her pillow tight in his arms and cried himself to sleep,
promising himself he would bring the pillow with him, and praying her scent
would never leave it.



Fox's flight was at 6 am.  After dinner at 10:23 PM, they headed for their
spot.  They had less than six hours together, and many things still needed
to be said.

Fox removed his coat and laid it on the ground.  Dana placed her head on
his shoulder, where it belonged.  His arm around her, his fingers caressed
her face as he fought back the tears that threatened to fall.

They fell asleep for a few hours, and when Dana awoke, Fox was kissing her
softly on her lips.

Her arms encircled him, her hands playing with the soft, short hair at his
nape as she opened her mouth to him.  It was her first kiss, and his.  

Catharsis.  Hope.  

Destiny would find a way.

Dawn came. 

Fox gave her a letter.  A hug.  A caress.  A final kiss.

Dana watched him walk away, into the sunrise.  Out of this life.  But he
would come back because he promised.  The rays of the sun touched her
tear-stained face, and the small smile on her lips.

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Dana,

In a few hours, a plane will take me away from you.  The tears in your eyes
when I told you the news will haunt me forever, and when my thumbs reached
for your cheeks to wipe them away, I burned inside with a pain I never knew
was there.

The unfathomable bond we shared Dana will always be in my heart.  You
pulled me from an abyss full of darkness, demons and monsters and for that
I will never ever forget you.

The love you and I shared will never be duplicated.  For the first and last
time in my life, my soul found its soulmate and whatever you were to the
world became everything to me.

When I look into your eyes, and I travel to the depths of your soul, and we
share a million thoughts without a trace of a sound, I know that my own
life is inevitably consumed within the rhythmic beatings of your own heart.

My love for you cannot be fathomed, and no written words on paper will ever
do it justice.  This in not a thing of the mind but of my heart, and of my
soul.  

And yours.  

It is a feeling, felt by you and I.

The pain will go away, Dana.  But only in the knowledge that my soul will
find yours.  

Read the inscription.  It's time.

Love,
Fox.

------------------------------------------------------

Dana sat on her bed, and lifted her wrist.  There were five stars on the
bracelet.  She grasped the first star.

<My.>

The second.  

<Soul.> 

The third.

<Will.>

Fourth.

<Find.> 

Fifth.

<Yours.>  



A promise from Fox Mulder.  A promise from destiny.


**************************************************************
CHAPTER 2: Friends Even in Childhood: Destiny Finds a Way
**************************************************************

1992
----------------------------------------
Having hackers for friends could come in handy.

You do, however, have to trust them enough to know they won't be screwing
around with your own privacy when the inevitable and unavoidable exchange
of information between acquaintances occurs.

Mulder wanted to trust the Lone Gunmen.  But he didn't.  At least, not all
that much.

When he met them through a series of complex clues they used to test him
before handing over some very confidential information, his guard went up
all the more.

But like Mulder, The Lone Gunmen were complex personalities who learned to
develop a pseudo-friendship with him.  If there was one thing they had in
common, as warped as it sounded, it was paranoia.

Mulder frequented their office, sometimes needing information, sometimes
out of curiosity, sometimes out of sheer boredom.  They had all shared a
few meals together, some beers and a few stories, but if anyone could get
into any of their heads and read their thoughts, it would be more like
sitting around a campfire of thieves fresh from a haul than a group of
friends.

The latest tip Mulder donated to them gave him enough leeway to ask for a
favor.  Using the Bureau's resources would only make his complicated life
all the more complicated.  

What he wanted was to contact one Dana Scully without having to hear her
voice or speak to her.  Mulder knew he was crazy, but certainly not stupid.
 Exposing himself to her voice would just kill him all over again.  He
needed closure on that last part of his life, and he wanted it bad.

Perhaps, he thought, they could find her mailing address.  In true Lone
Gunmen form they went one step higher.  They provided him with an e-mail
address.

Frohike had the widest smile on his face when he handed it to Mulder, who
almost choked when he saw who her server was.  @FBI.gov.

Mulder thought one thing.  <Destiny…you sick bastard.>  




Washington DC
----------------------------------------
The apartment was littered with moving boxes waiting to be unpacked.
Furniture had just been moved in, but only the bare necessities.  The bed,
oven, microwave, TV and stereo had already been placed in the spots they
would probably remain in till the duration of the new occupant's stay.

For now however, these bare necessities were not being minded, the new
occupant of the apartment somewhat excited with her new toy.

The laptop bleeped as soon as it was turned on, but it wasn't the laptop
that was the new toy.  It was the modem attached to it that was.

Teaching at Quantico had its benefits, she thought.  E-mail for one, when
not many people had it yet.  She didn't really expect to have any letters
yet, having been given her account just that morning, and not having had
time to give anyone her address.  

To her surprise, there WAS one letter in the IN box.  Being the e-mail
virgin that she was, she clicked on the box without bothering to look who
it was from.  There were only three words in the message box.

<Told you so.>

Dana Scully sat back in her chair, a frown across her forehead.  <Who the
heck is this?  And how the heck did whoever it is get my e-mail address?> 

She scrolled the screen up to see, and her breath caught in her throat just
at the same moment her heart stopped for a beat.


------------------------------------------------------
TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
FROM: F_Mulder@fbi.gov
Subject: Promise kept
------------------------------------------------------




Oh. My.  God.

Fox.

Dana frowned.





Oxford, 1982
----------------------------------------
It was yet another cold day at Oxford.  His leather jacket barely able to
keep the biting winds away, Fox Mulder sighed at the memory of his best
friend.  He missed her red hair, her red lips, her pale skin and pert
cheeks.  He missed her infectious laughter.  

He missed it badly.  Since his arrival at Oxford two months ago, he had
forgotten how to laugh, or smile.  

He had written to her everyday since he got there, and he had received many
letters from her as well.  His phone bills were catastrophic but he didn't
care.  His parents sent him a sizeable allowance, his mother encouraging
him to buy as many clothes as he wanted, books he always craved for and to
put some meat on his bones.  Little did she know every pound he received
was used to call Dana.

Or did she?




Massachusetts, 1982
----------------------------------------
William Mulder worked for the government.  He was privy to information even
the President didn't know about.  He was always under a lot of stress, and
his job inevitably caused his and his family's downfall.  His guilt for his
actions, all for the love of country and government pushed him to
alcoholism.  The alcoholism pushed his dark side to abuse his family. 

A vicious cycle that could not be broken.

His son Fox, had a promising career.  But in Bill's line of work, it had to
be considered not only as an asset, but a liability and danger as well.

Fox had always been a fantastic pupil.  His grades from the first day of
school were extraordinary, and his IQ level, when tested, always ranked him
along with the top 8% of the population.

Bill's psychologist friends were baffled at his son's brilliance.  He had a
photographic memory, but his comprehension skills were in no way affected,
as is the case for most individuals with this gift.

When Bill Mulder's connections, and he had many of them at Oxford, reported
that Fox had been making overseas calls everyday since he arrived, he did
not hesitate to have his son's phone bugged.  Shortly after, one of his
spies reported mail from a certain Dana Scully, and that Fox wrote to her
everyday.

The Consortium he was working with found out as well.  Their paranoia
increased ten fold when Fox's apartment was bugged as well without Bill's
knowledge and they discovered that Dana Scully was the daughter of a Navy
captain.  From what they could pick up from his end of their conversations,
the relationship was no where near platonic.

Fox would confide to this Dana Scully, and she would do the same to him.  

Bill Mulder's greatest fear was that they had no secrets between them, and
he knew that his son would have to learn about secrets early on for his
destiny to be fully realized.

Fox was number one on their list to recruit into the organization.  He was
the son of William Mulder for one thing, and his closely monitored progress
convinced them he would fit well and bring their agendas to new and
unimaginable levels of power.  

Last but not least, blood was always thicker than water.

Drastic measures needed to be taken and whether or not Bill Mulder liked
it, they were already hatching ideas left and right for Fox's future.

On this particular night, Bill was sober for a change.  He had come home
from a long day at work, once again, in his mind, having saved the people
of the United States and the rest of the world from mass hysteria.  

The only reason he was sober was because he needed all his faculties to
analyze yet the newest problem that had risen.

His wife breathed a sigh of relief after Bill had arrived, the scent of
alcohol not on his breath or anywhere else on him.

Under his arm was a large brown folder, fat from its contents.  He laid
them on the supper table and gestured for his wife to sit across from him.

Opening it, a wave of letters poured out, all addressed to either Dana
Scully or Fox Mulder.

After a brief list of instructions to his wife, they started reading the
letters.

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Fox,

Everyone over here misses you.  I most of all.

Charlie has made the team, Bill has a girlfriend, and Missy has a new beau.
 Neither Bill or she is worried.  The repercussions of messing around with
Scully women is still fresh in the minds of everyone at school.  I guess
the credit goes to you and Bill.

We discussed Einstein in school today.  I was bored out of my wits.  It was
much more interesting when you were telling me about his twin paradox.  It
was easier to understand, and you managed to hold my attention for a lot
longer.  I gave him a run for his money though, when I told him your
interpretation.  

My mother always asks about you.  It took her about a week to get back into
cooking for five and not six, and I've caught her several times setting a
place for you only to snatch it away when she realizes what she's doing.
She sends you her love, and cookies if you want any.
 
At night, I lie in bed and think of you.  Something inside me hopes to hear
the sound of pebbles hitting against my bedroom window and almost everyday
when I come home from school, I still expect to find you in the kitchen
helping mom out with dinner.

I miss you.

Love,
Dana.

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Dana,

I hate Oxford.  I hate the campus, I hate my classes.  I hate my
professors, I hate my books.

I'm sorry for starting this letter on a negative note, but I can't seem to
find it in myself to like anything knowing you're so far away from me.

Intellectually, I am being stimulated.  And whether or not I want to,
everything I've been learning has been seeping into my head.

Charlie made the team you say?  That's excellent news.  

Bill has a girlfriend.  Good for him.  I hope he's happy and tell him not
to do anything I would.

Please tell Missy to enjoy her new beau's attentions.  God knows she
deserves to be treated right, especially after that run-in with Carl Litch.

What I DO want to know is how YOU are doing.  I have the same anxieties
that you do, being separated from each other.

At night, I hold your pillow and wish it were you.  I miss our spot so
much, but mostly, the spot on my shoulder where you used to lay misses you
even more.

I miss our talks, and the way you could make me feel better just by
squeezing my hand.  My sadness is boundless.

I'll be calling you in a few minutes.  Hope you're at home.

I miss you too.

Love,
Fox.

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Fox,

I had a dream about you last night.

We had just finished swimming in the lake and you and I spent the evening
on the shore stargazing.  I thought it was odd that we weren't at our spot,
but it was  short-lived.  Somewhere at the back of my head, my conscious
mind was still present, and it told me to just enjoy the time with you.

It is only in my dreams that I can see, hear, and touch you all at the same
time.

I miss you.

Love,
Dana

------------------------------------------------------

Dear Dana,

It's been raining here for a week now, and it never lets up.

I stand in front of the window of my apartment, listening to it, smelling
it and end up missing you.  I move to my bed then, looking for the pillow
you gave me and hug it close.  It still smells like you, and when I hug it
tight enough and close my eyes, I can fool myself into thinking it's you in
my arms.

What makes the rain painful for me is the memory I have of you and I.
Remember when we took out your sleeping bags and placed them outside on
your patio?  We read books listening to the rain beating on the roof, and
ate grilled cheese sandwiches with just a touch of oregano your mom had
cooked for us.

You were lying on your back and I was lying down on your hip.  If I pressed
down hard enough, you would laugh and swat my head because you were getting
tickled.

I miss your laugh.

We had fallen asleep to the sounds and smell of the rain, my fingers
clutching at your shirt, and your hand in my hair.

God, I miss you so much.

Love,
Fox.
------------------------------------------------------

Letter after letter read the same way.  They were only words on paper, but
the emotions conveyed were that of two people who were bonded in body,
mind, soul and spirit.

Bill Mulder would have liked to attribute it to youthful fancy, perhaps
even puppy love but he couldn't.  This was not any of those things.  Words
spoke volumes, and he didn't like what he was reading, and hearing what his
mind was telling him.

Romance would distract his son from his destiny.  Romance would lead to a
family.  Bill Mulder had a family.  Sometimes he wished he didn't.  The
least thing he thought he could do was not allow his son to make the same
mistake.

Bill had power.  Bill knew people who owed him a lot of favors.  Phone
calls and letters would not stand in the way.




Oxford, 1983
----------------------------------------
Another test.  Three hours to finish.  

Fox was done in 45 minutes.  He turned his paper in to the
no-longer-surprised professor, who gave him a smile.  A smile that meant he
was looking forward to checking his brilliant student's work.

Fox didn't really care.  He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible
to check his mailbox.  Dana hadn't written back in over a week.  Odd
behavior.  

He walked over to campus administration and went straight to his mailbox.
There was nothing there.  He was starting to worry.




Massachusetts, 1983
----------------------------------------
The last box had been packed.  Dana sealed it with packing tape, a tear
threatening to drop from her eye.  She had written to Fox they were moving
once again, and added that perhaps it was a good thing to get away from the
place which reminded her of him everywhere she looked.  She told him the
memories she had of their places would always be in her heart, but visiting
without him was just too painful.

By moving, the only memories that she would have were the ones she could
share with him and picture them in her mind.

Her last letter to him contained her new address and phone number.  To be
sure he would receive it in spite of some postal mix-up, she had made a
copy and sent them both out, just to make sure.




Oxford, 1983
----------------------------------------
Professor Gillis, leading and respected psychologist had an amazed look on
his face.  His red pen was sweeping down sheet after sheet of test paper
while making check after check.  The name at the top of page one read Fox
Mulder.  He should've stopped being surprised, it wasn't the first time it
happened.  It was at the very least, twelfth.  

He had watched his prized pupil calmly open the test booklet, read it over
once while chewing on his pen.  And with the speed that never ceased to
amaze him, the scribbling began.  It almost looked as if he didn't even
bother reading the questions again.

His colleague hadn't exaggerated about Fox Mulder's mind.  It had been an
understatement, if anything.

He stood up, checking around the room for a student's wayward eyes and
caught none.  He would only be gone for two minutes.  All he had to do was
make a phone call.  His students could cheat to their heart's content for
those two minutes.  Right now, the information he had was more important
that any of them.




Fox stormed into his apartment.  This would make the ninth call to Dana,
the previous eight having reaped only irritating busy signals.  His fingers
punched in the numbers, and as he listened to the soft clicking, he offered
silent prayers that at the end of the monotonous drawl, a ring would be
waiting.

Busy signal.  Again.

Fox stood up, and let the rage take over.




Dana stared at the phone.  <Ring, dammit, ring!!! >

Silence.  

The moving people were almost finished loading all the moving boxes.  It
was almost time to leave.

Fox had stopped writing.  He had stopped calling.  No explanation in his
previous letters why.

Dana reached for the charms on her bracelet.  Looked at each little
inscription.  My soul will find yours.

She cried long and hard.




Oxford, 1985
----------------------------------------
She had met him three months ago, drinking by himself in a spot where most
of the went to, to have some illegal fun.  It was a vast field off the
Oxford campus, about a 15 minute walk, and drugs and grass were another
staple of the rebellious students who went there, aside from sex for those
either too horny or too cheap to do it somewhere that had four walls.

Phoebe had seen him many times on campus.  In fact, he was in a lot of the
same classes as she. He was so brilliant she became wild with desire at the
thought of what intellectual foreplay could be with him, and his trim and
lithe figure and dangerous good looks were the cherry on the ice cream. The
first time she had ever laid eyes on him, she knew he was going to be hers.

She sat down beside him without an invitation, and with her thick British
accent asked him if she could have a sip of whatever he was drinking.

His answer was curt.  "Go away."

It made him all the more attractive, and she persisted. Had he not been so
drunk he would have stood up and walked away for sure but some invisible
force was on her side.  Finally, he relented and passed her the bottle, and
with her most seductive look, licked her lips before taking a swig.

Vodka.  She hated it, but kept herself as composed as possible.  It would
be tough to seduce him if she started spitting and sputtering.

She lay down on the grass, making sure the short skirt she wore hitched up
just enough for him to notice her long and silky legs.  For good measure,
she placed an arm behind her head, thereby stretching her blouse to its
ultimate elasticity over her breast.

She started making small talk with him, taking note of how much alcohol he
was consuming.  In another 20 minutes or so, she would make her first move,
and her timing needed to be impeccable.  If he was too inebriated, he would
be useless to her sexually, and she didn't want to put all of her hard work
at risk.

His answers were always one worded.  He never made eye contact.  And his
words were beginning to slur.  

Phoebe made her move.

She grasped his shirt sleeve and pulled him down to lie beside her.  Her
hand reached for his face and pulled him to her waiting lips.  His mouth
opened, ready to protest but was effectively silenced as soon as she
slipped her tongue in.

Her hand grasped his and placed it invitingly under her blouse and over her
breast.  He moaned.  She knew he was hers for the taking.

Later, they ended up in his apartment.  What a prize catch, she thought.
He was housed in one of the most expensive compounds, and the clothes she
saw littered around the living and bedroom were all expensive designer labels.

Fox was still a little drunk, and still reeling from what Phoebe guessed,
was his first taste of sexual power.  They hadn't had full intercourse yet,
she didn't want her first time with him to be in a damp field.

Forcefully, she pushed him down into his bed.  Her sexual appetite wetter
than it had been in years at the knowledge this handsome and brilliant man
was a virgin, hers to teach and mold into whatever she wanted him to be.




He pushed her away from on top of him, depleted.  She smiled sensuously,
placing a kiss on his bare shoulder before rolling away.  It was better
than she had expected.  He was intense in his lovemaking, fully
concentrated on her and her wants.  He was a fast pupil, Phoebe's first
ever virgin since she had started becoming sexually active at fourteen.

She had always wanted a virgin, and could have had her pick, but none of
them seemed like worth the effort.  Besides that, for her fantasy to
finally be fulfilled and live up to all of her expectations from it, her
chosen one had to be as perfect as possible.

It would not be easy, but she was convinced his inexperience would come in
handy.  She would act like his girlfriend whether or not he liked it, and
gradually become accustomed to the idea.

Fox stared at the ceiling as Phoebe dozed off, her hand grasping his.  She
tried to place her head on his shoulder, but he pushed her away.  The spot
she wanted to occupy was sacred to him.  It belonged only to Dana.

Try as he might to enjoy the afterglow of his first sexual experience, Fox
could not.  He hated himself more than ever now, for what he had done.

It was Dana's fault.  When her letters had stopped altogether, and a
stranger had picked up the phone number that used to be her family's, the
last tethers he had to sanity collapsed.  Not a letter to inform him she
was moving away, not even a telegram.

In the daytime, he became obsessed with his schooling, and at night, he
drank.  Sleep became a foreign word to him, and the extent of his body's
need for rest were twenty minutes here and there throughout the day.

Often, he thought of putting himself out of his misery.  

He would often sit on the edge of his bed, a razor in his hand and wipe the
flat side of the blade against his wrist, then trail the sharp edge across,
applying a light pressure.

When his skin would start feeling the tingle, he would stop and fling the
blade across the room and weep.  He would call himself a coward, too scared
shitless to face death, too scared shitless for anything.

He was scared of his father, scared when Samantha was taken, scared when
Dana stopped writing and calling, and now scared of escaping it all.

He was the worst kind of coward of  them all.


<You should be a doctor, Dana. >

The voice in her head was familiar.  Fox had said those words to her that
night his father had beaten him and he had come to her house.  She had
treated his wounds lovingly, and cried in her mother's arms for her best
friend's pain.

Those same words replayed themselves over and over in her head during the
last several years.  The first time she heard it again was the day she sent
her application out to medical school.  Again, when she received the letter
granting her application.  Again, during her first test.  And hundreds of
times during her studies.  When she got a good grade, at the lab, during
study sessions, and when she was giving up hope she was ever going to be a
doctor.

When the letters stopped and so did the phone calls, a part of Dana died.
She found herself slowly degenerating into nothingness, and realized she
needed something to concentrate on to move on with her life.  Something
challenging, something that would keep her away from thoughts about Fox.

Medical school.  It was the perfect solution.  Everyone knew what kind of
dedication was entailed at taking on the career of a doctor.  She would
spend sleepless nights studying, and hours concentrating on her studies.
No time to think about Fox.  It sounded like an absolution.

Dana didn't allow herself to think of what might have happened.  The one
time that she did, her heart felt as if it were going to explode from all
the pain.

A horrible thought that he was dead without her even knowing it surfaced in
the form of a dream one night. Maybe he had fallen in love with someone
else, maybe he had fallen out of love with her.  Maybe he chalked up what
he felt for her as a passing fancy.

She had even written letters to his parents asking how their son was doing,
but the letters always came back unopened.

But there was that damn voice in her head that always spoke up, retrieving
the memory of him.  If in the beginning she hated it and herself for
remembering, it actually came in handy.  It gave her strength to move on.
But the bracelet that he had given her was removed and placed in a little
jewelry box and at the back of her bottom drawer.  

Out of sight, out of mind.

It was painful to do.  But she had to start somewhere.




The yell woke Phoebe up.  She had been snoring softly, having a delicious
dream about Fox's hands roaming over her.

Before she could open her eyes, the pillow she had been using was viciously
torn out of her arms.

She sat up in bed, absolutely enraged at the disturbance.  Her new boy-toy
had a habit of exaggerating emotions, but this was getting ridiculous.

If he weren't so bloody good in bed and intelligent, and so bloody rich,
she would have dropped him like a hot sack of potatoes a long time ago.

She watched in with absolute disgust as he hugged the pillow into his arms,
burying his nose in it and inhaling deeply.

The look of rage in his eyes would forever be one of the most frightening
things she would ever see in her life.

Fox had just come home from his class, and she had wanted to surprise him
by showing up in his bed, already naked and ready for the taking.

Instead, he had woken her up with a vicious yell and yanked the pillow she
was using out from under her head.

"Get out!" he yelled.  "THIS is all I have left of her, and you doused it
with your fucking perfume!  You've ruined it forever!"

Phoebe stood up.  No amount of fantastic sex or money was worth this.  He
had lost his head, plain and simple.  She dressed with dignity, taking her
sweet time.  From the corner of her eye, she watched as he cried into that
damn pillow.

Pathetic cry-babies she could do without.  He LOOKED dangerous, but deep
inside, all he really was, was a  pitiable male specimen.

She walked to the door, then turned around.  "Good-bye, Fox.  Which one was
she?  Samantha or Dana?" she asked.

Fox looked up from the pillow, his tears soaking it.  "Where the hell did
you get those names?"

Phoebe laughed hysterically before answering.  "Silly boy.  The few times
you get to sleep and I'm here, you talk.  Yes, indeed.  Samantha or Dana.
That's all you ever say."

Cruelly, she walked back to him and bent her knees a bit so they were eye
to eye.  "SAMANTHA!!!!  SAMANTHA!!!"  she mocked, as she stood to her full
height and changed her facial expression so that she looked like  a sad
clown.  "Dana, come back .. PLEASE!!!  I miss you Dana!  I miss
yoooouuuuuu!!!!"

She laughed heartily, then turned and walked out, ending their affair with
a loud slam of the door.

Fox went back to weeping into Dana's pillow.




Quantico Training Academy
1990
----------------------------------------
Thump.  

Dana Scully grinned at her opponent.  He had a look of pain on his face,
but it hadn't been come from being slammed into the floor.  It was his
pride that had been injured.

A woman had managed to pin him down twice in three minutes.  In spite of
her 5'3 stature, she could pack a wallop like the best of them.

He took her offered hand, and pulled himself up while dusting off his hands
on his sweatpants.  His last thought before the bell rang was that he
really needed to hit the gym more often.  This was getting embarrassing.  

As each student filtered out of the gym, Dana remained behind.  She and
Jack had agreed to meet up here at the end of her class.

Jack.  Tall, intense.  Brilliant.  Deep set eyes.  Short, dark hair.
Sounded like someone Dana knew.

She shut her eyes and forced her mind to think of someone else.  Or
something else.  Anyone, anything, but him.

She had to move on with her life, and move on she would however painful it
might be.  

On the occasions that Dana would be alone, her mind would wander and think
of Fox again.  It mortified her that her heart could be broken so easily by
a simple childhood experience of first love.  This wasn't natural, what she
was going through, was it?  She asked herself this question over and over
again.  

Other people's first love, when experienced at that young age, would always
be summed up with words like "fond memories" or "puppy love".  What she had
gone through felt nothing like that at all.  It had been all-encompassing,
complete and total, and nothing less.




Oxford, 1986
----------------------------------------
He was sick of being drunk all the time.  His grades had not suffered and
that in itself was already a miracle.  The fact that he was not lying in a
ditch somewhere devoid of a heartbeat was another.

His luck, just like everything, he thought bitterly, would run out soon
enough.

One night, after a particularly nasty drinking spree, he had to crawl his
way to the toilet and empty the contents of his stomach.

His mouth tasted as though a stegosaur had crawled into it and died there,
and Fox reached for the bottle of mouthwash in his medicine cabinet.  He
gargled several times, spitting into the sink, his head bowed low as he
waited for the rinse to have an effect.

Once his mouth felt fairly normal again, he looked up and jerked at the
reflection.

He saw his father there.  

He had actually become his father. 

The pale, sallow, red-eyed face staring back at him was no longer his.  It
dawned on him that he had become everything he stood against, and it
terrified him.

Tomorrow, things were going to change.  He would put his life back together
again, and quit drinking.  He developed a taste for iced tea, which didn't
muddle his mind and tasted a lot better than vodka.

Tomorrow, there would be no more Fox.  Only a shadow of the memory, and
nothing else.

The pillow, tattered and skinny and  once very well-loved, was thrown to
the back of his closet.

The change in him was sudden and pronounced.  He no longer walked around
like a zombie.  His grades became even higher, if that was possible.  He
started working out in a gym and filled his body out, bought clothes that
suited him well enough for half the female population of Oxford to have
nightly wet dreams of him.

With a calm voice, he asked his professors and the few friends that he had
to stop calling him Fox.  No explanations, and no one was stupid enough to
ask for any.

It was Mulder from now on, and he didn't offer any reasons.  Simply putting
it, no one would ever understand how painful it was to him to be called by
that name.

There were two people in this world he truly, truly cared about who called
him Fox.  One was taken from him, the other vanished from his life without
a trace.

After Samantha was taken, it was hard hearing his name.  The last words she
had spoken to him were cries of desperation, depending on him, her big
brother, to help and save her.  

He had failed.

But Dana had changed that.  Unwittingly, she had become his salvation.  He
came to love his name again just by the way she said it, and she had healed
many of his demons by doing so.

Samantha hadn't abandoned him though.  Dana did. She was gone. 

He needed to sever all ties from the past for him to keep his sanity and to
keep him from becoming his father.

Those were Mulder's plans.  But not the Consortium's.




Violent Crimes Section 
1992

------------------------------------------------------
TO:  F_Mulder@FBI.gov
FROM: D_Scully@FBI.gov
SUBJECT: Re: Promise kept
------------------------------------------------------
You found me, but not my soul.

------------------------------------------------------




Mulder sat back and took his glasses off.

What the hell did she mean by that?  She was the one who had done the
disappearing act.

He had sent her that e-mail as closure.  To remind her that unlike her, he
kept his promises.  It was revenge and an extortion of guilt on his part,
but he hadn't anticipated such a curt reply.  No "Dear Fox" or "Love, Dana."  

Mulder didn't care.  The Fox she knew no longer existed.

Mulder suspected so was the Dana that he once knew.




Nowhere, USA.
1994
----------------------------------------
In a large room in a small building, a group of the most powerful men in
the world gathered.  There were no presidents among them, or prime
ministers or even senators.

The men in the room had no written or known positions, and it was this
secrecy that made them all the more powerful and dangerous. 

The assembly decided the fates for entire nations, which made today's
agenda seem rather shallow.

Today, the only thing they needed to decide on was the fate of  but two
people.

In the center of the room was a large oak table, and on it were a large
stack of files.  Every file was marked "TOP SECRET."  Half of them were
labeled "Fox Mulder".  The other half were labeled "Dana Scully."

The brief run in he had with a fellow classmate had worried them for
awhile, and so was that alcoholic phase.  But it seemed their recruit was
only using her and the drinking  as emotional battering rams.  He had moved
on, as hoped and anticipated.

The men in the room reached a consensus.  It was time to see if their
golden boy was ready.  It was time to see if he was worth all the effort,
all the monitoring and the vigilance.  

They would give him Dana Scully.  The spite they had masterfully
orchestrated and cultivated between her and Mulder would be his final test.

If he passed it, then it meant he belonged to them mind, spirit, body, and
blood.




FBI Headquarters
Division Chief Blevins' Office
1994
----------------------------------------
Dana walked into the office, without a clue as to what was going to happen.
 She was informed she may or may not be assigned a partner, but her
informant was vague and evasive about the subject.

Special Agent Blevins was seated behind his massive desk when she entered
after knocking.  There were two other men in the room with him, although
she didn't recognize them, and Blevins didn't bother introducing either of
them. 

"Agent Scully, thank you for coming on such short notice.  Sit down, please."

Dana sat.

"We see you've been with us just over two years."

"Yes, sir."

Blevins flipped through her file.  "You went to medical school but you
chose not to practice.  How'd you come to work for the FBI?"

"Well sir, I was recruited out of medical school.  My parents still think
it was an act of rebellion but I saw the FBI as a place where I could
distinguish myself." <My SISTER on the other hand…thought I did it to find
Fox and make his life a living hell.  Surprise, surprise...he's an FBI
agent too. > 

The other man seated next to Blevins spoke up.  "Are you familiar with an
agent named Fox Mulder?"

<Ohhhh, CRAP.>   "Yes, I am."  <If only you knew how much.> 

"How so?"

Dana inhaled just a little.  Little enough for the men in the room not to
notice.  "By reputation."  <BRAVO, Dana.  You didn't even twitch.>  "He's
an Oxford educated psychologist who wrote a monograph on serial killers and
the occult that helped catch Monty Props in 1988. Generally thought of as
the best analyst in the violent crimes section.  He had a nickname at the
academy.  "Spooky" Mulder."  <Heck, I can even tell you who started it. > 

"What I'll also tell you is that Agent Mulder has developed a consuming
devotion to an unassigned project outside the bureau mainstream.  Are you
familiar with the so-called x-files?" asked Blevins.

"I believe they have to do with unexplained phenomena." <Kind of like what
he did to me. > 

"More or less.  The reason you're here Agent Scully is we want you to
assist Agent Mulder in these X-Files."

Dana felt a tad nauseous. <Breathe deeply, Dana.  Calm down.  Cool, calm
and collected. > 

"You will write field reports on your activities, along with your
observations on the validity of the work."

<Oh, joy!  This should be good.>  "Am I to understand you want me to debunk
the X-Files project, sir?" she asked.  <Nothing is as sweet as sweet
revenge.> 

"Agent Scully, we trust that you'll make the proper scientific analysis.
You'll want to contact agent Mulder shortly.  We look forward to seeing
your reports."

She had left the room then, and been given instructions by Blevins'
secretary to Agent Mulder's office.

Walking down the tiny corridors in the basement, Dana half-wished she had
listened to her parents.

She knocked in the door, expecting the usual reply of "Come in" or "enter".
 But this was Fox Mulder.  So naturally, he had something entirely
different to say.

"Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."

<Just the FBI's? >  she thought.  She walked in tentatively, eyeing the
posters and pictures tacked to the wall.  He was busy perusing slides.  A
flashback to her teen years.  Fox Mulder was weird, weird, weird.  His back
was turned to her, but his hair color was still the same, although his
shoulders had widened considerably.

When he turned to face her, Dana steadied herself.  He had grown up a lot
since they were kids, but his soulful eyes hadn't changed at all.

"Agent Mulder, I'm Dana Scully.  I've been assigned to work with you."
<Don't make this hard, you jerk. >  For good measure, she smiled even if it
was damn hard to do.

He eyed her from head to foot, a small, small smile on his lips as though
taunting her.  "Well isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded."  He
shook her hand floppily, trying to bait her.    

"So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, SCULLY?" <If you
want to play it that way, fine.

God Dana, you've grown up so much… I wish I'd been there to see it.> 

<From the looks of it, fate and destiny.>  "Actually, I'm looking forward
to working with you. I've heard a lot about you."

<I'll just bet you are.  And have. >   Mulder went back to his slides.  "Oh
really?  I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me." <Or
kill me.  You did once before. >

<Spy on you.  What a laugh, you magalomaniacal, delusional, self-centered
creep. >    "If you have any doubts about my qualifications or credentials -"

<Doubts?  I know more about you than you'd care to imagine. >   "You're a
medical doctor.  <Took my advice. >   You teach at the Academy.  < You hate
the freckles on your shoulders. >  Did your undergraduate degree in
Physics. < You still have a few of those freckles on your cheeks, I see. >
 Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation.  Dana Scully senior thesis.
 < And a little of mine. >   Now that's a credential - re-writing
Einstein." <You re-wrote me too. >

< I re-wrote you too. >  "Did you bother to read it?" she asked.  

He stood up and loaded the slide carousel.  "I did.  I liked it."

< Damn right you did.  I debunked most of those lines you fed me when I was
14. > 

"It's just that in most of my work, the laws of Physics rarely seem to apply."

He turned the lights off and started the slide show, but not before
allowing himself to score one final point.  "Maybe I can get your MEDICAL
opinion on this, though."  <You're a doctor now.  Let me gloat and think it
was thanks to me. >




The clock read 11:21.  Scully stared at it, unable to sleep.  It turned to
11:22.  The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Scully.  It's me.  I couldn't sleep.  I talked to the DA's office in
Oregon.  There's no case file on Billy Miles.  The paperwork we filed is
gone." He paused for awhile.  "We need to talk, Scully." 

"Yes, tomorrow." 




Thousands of tomorows came and went, but the talk never did.

It was obvious what they were avoiding.  Even in their maturity, the losses
they had sustained in their childhood could not be healed.  Throughout
their search, they rekindled what it was like to lose the other on several
occasions.  No one with half a heart could go through that over and over
again.

Mulder reflected on this reborn dependency on Scully frequently.  He
yearned to be able to call her Dana again, but perturbation always lurked
ready to pounce on what the aftermath might be.

Sometimes, he would slip and call her Dana.  When he was worried beyond
belief, or when he felt that she needed for him to be tender with her.

It was hard a lot of times, really.  When Scully had disappeared he had
lost half of his faculties, never having dreamed that he could lose her
twice in a single lifetime.  

He had sat for hours staring into nothingness, listening to his body's
needs only when he wanted to.  Sleep came in spurts.  Hunger was satisfied
with a few sunflower seeds.  If breathing hadn't been an involuntary motor
reflex, he would have altogether forgotten how to do so.

At night, he would lie on his sofa and dream of her.  

When they were little -  the first time they laid eyes on each other again,
that time on the rock in what they thought was the middle of a lake.
Finding her comatose after Duane Barry.  The fear in her eyes with Modell,
the night she had ruffled his hair in the parking lot.

He would wake up and cry because all he would remember was having dreamed
of her, but rarely remember the dreams themselves.  

And having to face her at the office day after day as though nothing
between them ever happened was the cruelest joke of them all.  Having to
see Scully - DANA - with her red, red lips, her blue, blue eyes and her
perfect, perfect skin.

For anyone to describe Mulder as a tortured man was an understatement.
Tortured was what you used to describe perhaps getting your fingernails
ripped off with pliers.  Or, sticking your leg into a meat grinder.

Mulder would have gladly chosen either instead, even both.  It would be
considerably less painful.

Instead, their relationship moved from restrained spite to quiet tolerance
to almost absolute dependency.  Neither of them would ever be able to
pinpoint when they started caring for each other so much again.  

The silent language they had cultivated  when they were younger surfaced
again, and this time, they got it perfected.  A small  frown, a little
smile.  A raised eyebrow.  Eyes closing.  This was how they talked to each
other.  Words were not needed.  

People who saw them together could see it.  Many of them were envious,
others jealous.

Skinner, who knew the agents as a team almost as well as he did
individually more than anyone else could attest to that.  Scully was the
one and only voice of reason that Mulder listened to, and Mulder was the
one and only person Scully would allow to protect her, or see her
vulnerable side.

When he got a chance to see them together on a case, he himself was envious
for never having had the privilege of sharing the kind of connection they
had with anyone in his life.  Not even his wife.

Mulder and Scully were different.  One look, one gesture equaled thousands
of words.  One word from Scully and Mulder behaved.  One touch to Scully's
back from Mulder calmed Scully. 

A soft smile, a humorous quip, a rational explanation in an irrational
situation and everything was right in the world again.

Their arguments (and they had a lot of them) did more good then harm; a
formula for keeping one another's feet on the ground.

It was a beautiful and unique kind of love.

Scully got to play doctor to Mulder again.  Mulder got to be protector to
Scully again.  It was just like old times with a twist.  

They were both apprehensive of broaching the topic of their past.  Neither
wanted to take the first step into rehashing all the agony and anguish, and
things were better this way.

They learned to trust each other again with their lives, and the
coexistence of their souls was harmonized once again.

Fox Mulder had kept his promise.  His soul had found Dana's.  Not just
Scully's.




Washington DC, 1997
----------------------------------------
When Dana Scully was called in to identify a body that died from an
apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound as one Fox Mulder, she went home and
sat on her bed.

The memories of her childhood with him flashed through her mind one at a
time, and Scully savored each memory like a fine wine because it was all
she had of him for now.

Tears streamed down her face, and she stood up shakily, then walked to her
bedroom dresser.  She sat down and opened the bottom drawer and reached in,
then took a small box out.

Scully opened it and lifted the bracelet out.  It was tarnished from age,
but the inscription on the stars were still as vivid as the day when the
man she loved completely had given it to her.

My soul will find yours.

She slipped it back onto her wrist.  Fox, not Mulder had kept his promise
once before.  He would do it again.  

It was just a matter of time. This time, she would wait for him no matter
how long it took.

Fox would find a way.  And Dana would be waiting.

**************************************************************
CHAPTER 3: Friends Even in Childhood: Soulmates Reunited
***************************************************************

The amazing thing was, she hadn't even been looking for the damn things
when she found them. 

As the named executor of Mulder's estate, Scully of course had to go
through his personal effects. 

And that meant going into his apartment. 

Her only reluctance was the thought that perhaps she should call her
other.  That way, it wouldn't come as too much a shock when the paramedics
called to tell her where her daughter's body had been found.

If the cancer didn't kill her, this definitely would.

In the end, she decided against it. Margaret Scully had considered Mulder
as much a part of the family as her own sons. Probably more so, given the
amount of time they'd known each other. And consequently would insist on
helping in the chore.

Scully couldn't allow that. This was her cross to bear, and hers alone.
The last thing she needed was her mother distracting her from the task of
nailing the condemned (herself) to it.

The police tape had long since been taken down, though the chalk outline
of the body still covered the floor in front of that damned sofa. The dried
pool of blood still obscured the tracing of the head. Medically speaking,
it had been amazing at how little damage there'd been to the face and head
when she'd...identified...the body. Now, looking at the outline and the
brown stain, even that bit of interest was gone. 

So she felt nothing, thought nothing, was...nothing.

Nothing except the duty before her, which would be done with the same
competence and care as she might perform a routine autopsy...or tear apart
five years' worth of investigative work and lifetime of belief. Then, when
that was finished, she'd let herself go. Maybe even shed a few tears in the
process, though Scully was absolutely certain she'd run out of tears long ago.

Just like she'd been absolutely certain about so much in her life. 

The nonexistence of extraterrestrial life, Ahab's undying love for her,
her faith in science...

Her complete faith, trust, and love for Fox William Mulder.

Scully spun on her heel and decided to start with the bedroom. It would be
an adequate start, small enough to be manageable and likely bare enough
that reminders of Mulder would be few. She needed to build up her tolerance
before moving to the rest of the apartment.

At first glance, the bedroom looked like it belonged in a monastery
somewhere. A futon, its mattress covered and a couple ragged-looking
pillows at its head. But no sheets or blankets. 

A desk, barely the size of a card table, and chair pushed up against the
wall. Odd papers and journals littered its top, a reading lamp perched
precariously atop a stack of glossy magazines.

There was a bureau whose mirror needed a good wipe. A few articles of
dirty laundry here and there. A single pair of boxes directly beside the bed.

All in all, nothing to suggest much about the late occupant of the place.

The laundry was gathered up quickly, almost comically so as though she
feared each article would come alive and attempt to make a meal of her
hand. The journals, clips, and magazines ("Celebrity Skin" and "UFO
Universe"; why was she not surprised?) were gathered into a convenient pile
for later disposal. A croak of laughter escaped when she saw the lamp had no
bulb in it. It was set back atop the pile. 

There wasn't much in the walk-in closet. Expensive suits and shirts (how in
the world he could afford them was still a mystery), shoes, jogging
sweats and boxers, all of which would join the lamp-with-no-bulb. She'd
need to find a box to cart it all away in. 

Distantly, clinically, Scully was amazed at her control. No tears
threatened, not the merest twinge of pain or loss. 

Resolving not to examine this blessed numbness too closely, Scully moved
to the boxes stacked beside the bed. The smaller one on top had been opened
recently, the tape recently torn aside with what looked like a considerable
amount of vehemence. His latest delivery from Adult Home Video? Another
laugh-which-was-not-a-laugh threatened.
 
 More out of a vague sense of curiosity than actual interest, Scully opened
the box and began removing its contents. No videos or skin magazines, but
rather a number of manila folders dusty and green with age. No labels or
indication of their contents, save years written unto their tabs: 1974,
1979, 1980. No order or sequence involved. More 'evidence' of aliens, no
doubt. Still, Scully flipped open the top folder, by far the thickest,
dated 1984. A mass of legal pad and writing paper, held together by an
over-stretched rubber band and all looking quite ragged.
 
 A small hand-written note was paper clipped to the top sheet caught her
attention. It read "Intercepted Correspondence: Oxford/MA 1983-1984".
 
  The page itself was a letter, written she could see very clearly in
Mulder's handwriting, though neater than his later work. He'd taken obvious
care to every stroke of his pen to paper, as though terrified of the
smallest misspelling or blemish. 
 
 The date was clear in the upper right corner. September 21, 1983. Two days
after he'd flown to Oxford. The salutation was covered by the clipped-on
note, which she moved aside with her thumb. 
 
 Two simple words, written with the utmost care and precision: 
 
 "Dear Dana,"
 
 And the whole damn world fell out from under her feet.
 



Somehow, Scully had managed to maneuver herself out of the bedroom and
back into the living room, settling herself unto the sofa. The chalk
outline beside her no longer existed. The leather cushions she sat on, the
dusty air she breathed, the distant noise of evening traffic beyond the
walls outside...none of these things were real to her. The clothes she
wore, the blood in her veins, even the cancer eating at her lost all
reality or importance to her. 
 
 Her universe, all that existed, were two words:
 
 "Dear Dana"
 
 The sun had set outside, casting long shadows through the blinded windows.
The universe slowly expanded to include her physical surroundings, as well
as the pain her eyes suffered for staring too long without her glasses.
 
 This headache was a very small thing compared to the tripled-hammer
pounding of her heart. Itself little against the roar in her ears and mind
which washed away all thought, and threatened to cast her into a pit deeper
than any philosopher might have envisioned. 
 
 Dana Scully almost welcomed the abyss. A place where she'd never know the
pain of betrayal... or be constantly tortured by love. 
 
 Almost.
 
 But rather than sink into that blessed release, Scully tore away the
rubber band and let her eyes skim the page. The dusk had already settled
outside, and so reading light was minimal. 
 
 It might as well have been high noon on a cloudless day, the words
standing out as though themselves glowing with all fierce emotion behind
them. Which, given her state of mind just then, they very well might have.
Oh, she might not have been able to read word one clearly, but no matter. 
 
 They were his words. Fox's words. Fox's words to her. Fox to Dana.  Not
Mulder to Scully.
 
 With greatest care, not to so much as crease the already-tired paper,
Scully bent down the page so to examine the one immediately behind it. It
suddenly became quite hard to breathe, as much because the air lacked any
oxygen as because her windpipe was crushed to the diameter of a cocktail
straw.
 
 The date was likewise in the upper right corner: 9/19/83
 
 The salutation was almost illegible in a stylish cursive perhaps she alone
could read, given Scully herself had written it:
 
 "Dearest Fox,"
 
 It was fortunate the world had already come crashing down around her ears.
Seeing her own handwriting like this...
 
 Even so, it was quite enough to wipe the outside world from existence for
another span.
 
 She didn't faint. Fainting was not something Dana Katherine Scully did,
period. No, she didn't faint. She simply...simply blacked out for awhile.
With her eyes open. Open and staring straight ahead. 
 
 Seeing nothing. 
 
 The night was well along before Scully came to, and immediately became
more than mildly annoyed with herself. Not so much for the episode itself.
That much she could simply write off as plain shock coupled with too much
stress and fatigue.
 
 No, what angered her was that she'd ended up gripping the letters so
tightly they were now a bit creased on one side. If someone had taken a
match to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence right then,
Scully doubted she'd have been even a tenth as upset.
 
 This anger gave her strength enough to face the next page, dated September
22, 1983. It was from Mulder, again in uncharacteristically neat
handwriting. The salutation nearly undid her a third time: "My Only Love."
Had it come from another, Scully would surely have thought it absurdly
sappy, even amusing.
 
 From Fox, it was nothing short of crushing.
 
Rather than dwell on it, Scully quickly looked up and away from the words.
Her training took over; all her emotions in a stew threatening to boil
over, and so her mind had to switch to auto pilot or she was likely to
crash and burn and burn and burn until there was nothing left. 
 
Scully examined the bundle in her hands. It was a very thick pile of
letters, easily spanning the two years the folder had indicated. Two years
of words she and Fox and exchanged but neither heard. Two years of feelings
and secret confidences offered...and never received. 
 
It hurt to think about that. And in unconscious desperation Scully's mind
threw up a dozen possibilities that these letters were not from Fox. That
she had not misjudged him, hating him for all the wrong reasons and
believing only lies she alone had concocted to explain his inexplicable
silence away. That their enemies could forge his handwriting, intercept his
letters to her, hers to him and switch them...
 
 She felt something slip from her grasp at the bottom of the batch, but
strangely had only been felt in her left hand. It landed in her lap, its
gentle impact a welcome distraction from the mental turmoil even the secure
blanket of logic and reason gave her no sanctuary from.
 
 The room had become dark, the shadows too diffuse to see anything clearly.
More by instinct than by intent, her fingers found the object. An envelope,
an oddly heavy one. The letters in one hand, the envelope in another,
Scully quickly made her way to the apartment's bathroom, wincing as she
turned on the lights there. Obviously she'd been in the dark too long, and
in more ways than one. That, or the tumor was making her photosensitive. 
 
 The envelope was addressed to her, at the address her family lived at
while Ahab had been stationed at in San Diego. The canceled postmark was
faded but clear enough: February 23, 1985, care of Oxford, United Kingdom.
 
 Setting the pile of letters as far as she could from the faucet, Scully
tore open the envelope with greatest care, not willing to risk damaging
whatever might be sealed within. A single, precisely folded sheet came to
hand. Dana Scully was a strong woman, but now had not the strength to do
move than sink to her haunches and stare at the paper in her hand, and wish
with all her might the cancer festering within her would consume her whole
then and there.
 
 Eventually, strength and courage enough returned to her numb fingers that
they could open the letter and reveal their words, though it was longer
still before she could do more than simply stare at them with blind eyes.
Scully took a moment to resign herself to the inevitable, and began reading
his words. Words which would tell her of meeting Phoebe, of how she'd
driven thoughts of all others from his mind, and of how he wished her well
with whoever she herself found.
 
 That first time she had met that wench, he had explained to her who she
was.  No doubt assuming that her lack of a response meant one of two
things:  she had not received his letter or she had received it but had not
bothered reading it.  A vision had probably entered his mind of her in her
room, and Mulder knew intimately what her room looked like.  She receiving
it, reading his name, and uncaringly tossing it into a wastebasket.
 
 The words were in the familiar Mulder-scrawl. There were stains of light
amber on the page, but the words themselves were perfectly clear to her
practiced eye. 
 
 When she was done reading, all the blessed numbness was gone, all the
shock melted away, and all her precious, vital control had collapsed. 
 
 
 Dana -
 
 For the first time in years, I pray to God. I pray that this finds you. I
pray that somehow, someway, you find it in your heart to forgive whatever
happened...what HAS happened. What I have done.
 
 I betrayed you. No, worse: I betrayed US.
 
 These past few months I've been with someone, her name doesn't
matter...she doesn't matter...or maybe she's the most important thing ever
to have happened to me...us... Christ, I don't even know what I'm thinking
any more.
 
 I have been with her for awhile now. And know what, I fucking hated it.
Every time I fucking came I hated it...because she wasn't YOU. 
 
 What's worse, I liked it. 
 
 Not HER, never fucking HER. I liked...being with her...because then I
could imagine being with you...only you...imagining it was under me was the
only way I could come. I HAD to imagine it was you or nothing would happen.
And here's the joke: she doesn't look a damn thing like you.
 
 So why is she the most important thing ever to happen to me? Because,
Dana, she's shown me I can't be with anybody else, ever...except you.
You're all I have, and all I'll ever want. 
 
 I don't know why you've stopped writing, and I don't care. I don't care if
you've found somebody else. If he makes you happy, I'm happy you're happy
and I'll be happy for both of you. 

All I care about is you...
 
 I won't betray us again. Never again.
 
 I skipped my lectures today and went shopping. I found the enclosed is
some shop somewhere here, I...don't really remember...but that's because
I'm so drunk right now I probably won't remember writing this or mailing it
in the morning. Just as well, as I'm so goddamn chickenshit I'd destroy the
letter and give...it...to HER tomorrow. Drinking myself stupid is the only
way I can write this.
 
 She doused your pillow in her perfume. Did I write that already? 
 
 Like I said, I don't care if there's someone else. And that's why I bought
what's enclosed. I don't care if you ever wear it, or toss it in the
fucking ocean. Just so you know...just so its on the record.  Just so
there's going to be one single fucking chance in this damned world I can
move on with my so-called life.
 
 God please get this. Please please please let this get to you.
 
 Yours, only yours, always 
 
 Fox 
 

A camel's strong back can be broken with but a single strand of straw. And
Harry Truman might have felt an entire bale of hay had dropped upon his
shoulders taking over the Oval Office. 
 
 For Dana Katherine Scully, all the moments of every second of the past
fourteen years built up in her stomach. Uncomfortable to say the least, but
hardly producing enough nausea to drive her to empty her stomach with the
force with which she heaved and gagged over the next several minutes. 

No, the letter itself, even the obvious agony with which afflicted its author
(testified to as much by rambling content as the almost scrawling
handwriting she found too familiar), was far from enough for that.
 
 It was his references to 'the enclosed' which caught her attention. The
weight of the envelope, too heavy for just the one page to account
for...the envelope was still heavy in her hand. 
 
 Scully tipped out its contents into her palm, at once dreading and fully
prepared for what she knew she'd find. 
 
 A small ring, its band of thin gold, crowned with a tiny diamond. 
 
 Though both band and diamond were dull with years of neglect, the message
was communicated as clearly as though he'd just screamed it into her there
and then. And scream he would have had to, were she to hear anything beyond
the jackhammering of her heart which pounded her every thought and all else
into dust. 
 
 Even with the ragged gasps for air, the cries which interspersed with her
gasps for precious oxygen, the raw agony of living every second which took
him further and further from her...not one second did either eye wander
from the ring nestled in her palm. Even when she could no longer see it for
the tears, the ring became all she could see. 
 
 Only when everything in her stomach was prepared to reach upwards through
her throat did she have presence of mind to lunge for the nearby toilet.
Scully gripped the ring all the tighter, the pain of its bite into her palm
a thousand times more reassuring for its continued presence.
 
 And she fell to the floor, curled in a fetal position, in a futile attempt
to flog the pain away from her. 
 
 The mind of Dana Katherine Scully can be an awesome thing to behold in
action. Dozens of possibilities could be conceived and as quickly discarded
with scientific rigor, facts and observations might be reinterpreted and
connections made with logical clarity their accuracy would be without
doubt. In her own way, within her own framework of belief and reference,
Scully's capacity to reach answers was really no different from Mulder's
particular manner. 
 
 But at that moment, it was not forensics evidence or some manner of
reality-defying phenomenon Scully ruminated over, all emotion at least four
rooms distant and all thought consumed. 
 
 It was five years of looks, touches, words and arguments. It was over
seventeen years worth of beliefs and thoughts and hopes and fears and
expectations. It was close to two decades worth of every memory her mind
could summon.
 
 All of it suddenly suspect. 
 
 "You seemed a little territorial.  I don't know--forget it."
  "Of course I was."
 
 "I still have my work. . .and I still have you."
 
 Finding it so easy to pull the trigger on himself, but using every ounce
of restraint and mental prowess to tell her to run.  Run to safety.
 
 How he'd gone against Deep Throat, or any of his other informers when she
told him he was chasing after shadows.

"If there's an iced tea in that bag…could be love."
 
 The way he hugged her after Donnie Pfaster.  At first with reluctance,
then with fierce protectiveness.
 
 The turn of his gun when she told him to let it go after the quack doctor
drilled a hole into his head, reducing him to a guilt-stricken, sobbing
mess with his head and hands on the floor.
 
 The way his face froze when she told him why she had been infected with
cancer.
 
 Every meeting of their eyes and brushing of hands now having new meaning. 
 
 Every word and clash of opinion suddenly taking on new significance. 
 
 Each and every dream and fantasy which had fluttered through her head
since that day at summer's end in 1983 becoming more...so much more.

They were still the Fox and Dana that had found each other and fallen into
the purest kind of love.

Free of the cynicism, free of the hatred, free of it all.  Just pure,
unconditional love.
 
 This was not a completely good thing, as it left her suddenly with nothing
but suspect memories and feelings which she'd left festering too long. Such
was not good material upon which to build the foundations of a career,
never mind a life. 
 
 It was still incredibly hard to believe just how far the conspiracy had
gone.  That a bunch of  old men in shadowy rooms found it so much easier to
kill with the silence of deception, rather than the noise of lies.  
 
 Peddlers of souls.
 
 She somehow found herself back in the bedroom, the letters in one hand,
the ring still clutched in the other. The first light of morning shown
through the window and its thin curtains. The long shadows it cast
illuminated room. 

Scully might have prayed with fevered desperation that
they could likewise light as clear a path through the maze of disjointed
thoughts and emotions which her whole being swayed through.
 
 To this point, Scully had clung to the desperate belief that Mulder (Fox!)
could not have taken his own life. That if he'd still felt even the
smallest fraction of the feelings in that last letter, not even his
all-consuming guilt and self-loathing would drive him away like this. That
he'd simply ditched her once more, not abandoned her to her fate, whether
death at the end of some felon's weapon, or to be slowly consumed by the
cancer. Even the supposedly sure knowledge that she had been deliberately
poisoned with this disease, simply to further support already-established
lies, would not have been enough to drive him away.
 
 The open flaps of the box, sitting illuminated by the first shafts of
morning's light, supplied her the final piece of the puzzle. Written there
in black felt-tip was a very clear "Vineyard House 1986". Why Mulder had
returned to his father's house in West Tillsbury was beyond her just then,
as well as why he'd chosen to return with this particular box. 
 
 Had he known about the letters before going to the Yukon? If he'd known,
what would his reaction have been? To know that his motives, his career,
his every decision to date was built upon...lies? 
 
 To come to realize they were both so...irrelevant...that the last letter
he would ever write to her was not even significant enough to be opened
like the rest?
 
 To come to believe that he, Fox William Mulder, was directly responsible
for the death of the only...the only...woman he would ever love?
 
 Scully knew that if she let herself believe even a tenth of this...the
Alexandria police would find a second suicide in this apartment in the
morning.
 
 So, she refused to believe it, this great and elaborate lie. Any of it. 
 
 All of it. 
 
 There were little gray men abducting men and women and breeding hybrids
off them. 
 
 Aliens did build the pyramids of Giza, wrote the Ten Commandments, and did
sculptures of themselves on Easter Island. 
 
 The Bavarian Illuminati changed everything from the stock market to the
length of women's skirts on a annual basis. 
 
 Masons conducted secret rituals every night around the world to call up
dark forces and seize control of the world... 
 
 The Cubans were still fermenting revolution across the Caribbean... 
 
 Nikoli Tesla invented a reverse gravity engine in 1912...
 
 The fucking moon was made of green cheese...
 
 All of it was true. It had to be.
 
 This was the mantra that looped over and over in her mind. For her to
believe anything else at that point would have proved lethal. Logic and
scientific certainty were useless to her now, telling her only of her
coming death and the impossibility of love. The first she already knew, the
second she rejected as casually as she might the claim that the Earth was
flat or that the clear afternoon sky was lime green. 
 
 So, rather than ruminate over the obvious shortcomings of her holy and
all-knowing science, Dana Scully let her mind wander hither and yon for
some time. It was a strange, new experience for her, and not an
unpleasurable one. One, she knew Mulder (Fox!) no doubt experienced on an
almost daily basis in their work, for how else could he draw out such
brilliance from the ether, and find the answer before the question itself
was ever asked?
 
 It was perhaps as close to making love with him, to him, she would ever
taste. 
 
 Unless of course, he was alive.  
 
 And he was.
 
 Scully looked out his bedroom window.  It had started to rain. 




He woke up engulfed in darkness.  For a second, he had forgotten all that
had happened, but in a torrent of memory, everything came back.  Everything
that mattered.
 
 Scully?
 
 Dana.
 
 My soul will find yours.




The room was cold and dark.  She was depleted of strength, even her
breathing was an effort.  Yet another round of treatment over and done
with.  Yet another obligatory fight with an enemy that could beat her no
matter how hard she raged against.
 
 Rage.
 
 Rage against the dying of the light.
 
 
 
 "Fox!  Stop squirming!"
 "Why?  Does THIS tickle you to the bone?"
 Laughter.  Her laugh was magical.
 
 
 "Checkmate.  I win again."
 "I'm going easy on you."
 "Are not!"
"Am too!"
"Are not!"
"You're the older one and but you're brattier than Charlie!"
 He grinned mischievously.  She loved it when he did.




 It was too much of an effort to sit up.  Slowly, he tried feeling which
muscles had started functioning again.  His feet were out of the question,
but he could tell they were in shoes and socks.  He could also make out the
rasp of jeans against his legs.  Curling his fingers, it gave him hope that
the rest would soon follow.  His left hand had almost gained complete
feeling again, but his right was suffering from a bad case of pins and
needles.  He laid back and decided that what he needed was time.
 
 But how much of it would he still have?  He closed his eyes and thought
about her.
 



They were at school again.  Some fifteen years ago.  It sounded like ancient
history, but the memories were clear and undiluted.
 
 He was standing beside her locker as she violently wrestled with the lock
and refused his help.  Finally, it opened with a tiny click.  She looked at
him triumphantly.  He grinned at her and ruffled her hair.  She swatted his
hand away.  And smiled at him.  He put his arm around her shoulders and
walked her to her class.  She punched his ribs and asked him what he was
grinning about.
 
 
 
The smell of the antiseptic was not unfamiliar.  Her mother sat in an
uncomfortable looking chair, asleep with a rosary in her hands.
 
 Tired.  She was so damn tired.
 
 She missed him.  So, so much.
 
 To escape, her eyes closed so that she could dream.  And remember.




He was trying to bake her brownies.

He was such a lousy cook.  It was the only typically male
attribute that he had, aside from the lack of order with his things.  Her
mother and siblings were laughing hysterically at the picture he made,
covered from head to shin in dough.  Egg white was dribbling down the front
of his shirt, and where the yolk might be was anyone's guess.
 
 He looked adorably helpless, and he looked at her ashamed for making a
fool of himself.  She had walked over to him and hugged him, absorbing a
third of everything that had stuck to him, then whispered into his ear,
"You're a lousy cook but I'd bet any girl would still want to have you."
 
 She was embraced fiercely, and right before her brother pulled them apart,
he whispered back, "Would you?"
 
 
 
 I miss you, Mulder.
 
 I miss you, Fox.
 
 
 
 I miss you, Scully.
 
 I miss you, Dana.
 
 He was strong enough to sit up.  Sunlight peeked from the closed drapes.
His muscles groaned in protest, and so did he.
 
 "He's awake!  Guys!  He's awake!"
 
 Footsteps scrambled towards him.  He was still woozy, and had a hard time
focusing on the faces.  A glimpse of a beard here, a messy lock of dirty
blond there.  The smell of alcohol somewhere.
 
 Pats on his back.  Hands grasping his arm, helping him to sit up.
 
 He was back.




 "Are you sure you're feeling well enough, honey?  It wouldn't hurt to stay
an extra day to recover some of your strength."
 
 "I'm fine, mom.  There's no more nausea."
 



She came home and opened her computer, just like she did every day.  The
ritual kept her sane, because there was hope that one day she would get
what she was waiting for.  A sign, a signal.  That everything was going to
be alright.
 
 E-mail from Frohike.




------------------------------------------------------
 FROM: bigstud@hot4U.com
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: Hi there!
 
------------------------------------------------------

 Hi, pretty lady.  A mutual friend of ours asked me to give you a message.
 
 Message is as follows:
 
     Promise kept once again.
 
                                   Whips and chains,
                                       Fabulous F
 
 PS  Have no worries.  The anonymity of this letter is just to make me more
 mysterious.  No one can hack into this e-mail.  Or whatever you'll send
out.  Your 3 Musketeers have made sure of that.  Both our systems are more 
 secure than the MJ documents in the Pentagon.

PPS How about a date?  

------------------------------------------------------


She sat back and smiled, unaware her fingers were already caressing the
charms hanging from the bracelet on her wrist.
 
 The following morning, she woke up bright and early and went shopping.
Memories of a night so long ago pushing her on.  The first time she had
seen him as a victim, his eye and lip bruised badly.  The night he had
slipped the bracelet on her wrist and smiled sadly.  The night he wrote her
a letter asking her to read the inscriptions.
 
 He had kept his promise.  She needed to let him know she understood and
would be waiting.




-------------------------------------------------------
 TO: bigstud@hot4U.com
 FROM: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: RE: Hi there!
------------------------------------------------------
 
 
 Thanks, wonder lust.  I need a favor.  Think you're up to it?
 
------------------------------------------------------
 
 
 
------------------------------------------------------
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: bigstud@hot4U.com
 SUBJECT: RE: RE: Hi there!
 ------------------------------------------------------ 
 Hell, YEAH!!!!!!!!
 
------------------------------------------------------
 



Frohike grudgingly handed Mulder the box.  He was having dinner with Byers
and Langly when he walked in, reeking of cologne.  Langly almost choked on
his pizza when he walked in from the stench.
 
 "My god, man!  Why do you reek?!" asked Byers.

Langly started sneezing.
 
 "Thought the red-headed angel finally came to her senses.  Turns out she
wanted me to play Mr. Postman for Mulder here."
 
 Mulder grinned and took the package.  "That could've sounded kinky enough
for your taste, Frohike."
 
 "Shut up."
 
 He stood and walked to a quiet corner and opened it.  Inside was an ID
bracelet made from white gold.  An inscription on the plate.
 
 <Soul mates reunited.>
 
His hand closed around it tightly as he fought back the tears of
exhilaration.
 
 Then he slipped it on.




Something inside her tingled.  She was familiar with it, but had not
experienced it this strongly for a long time.  When they were younger, it
was the same feeling she got when she knew he was coming.  
 
 In their adulthood, when the cynicism and arrogance of old age, and the
products of broken hearts affected them, it had diminished almost
completely.  Almost, but not quite.
 
 He had the bracelet, and she knew he was wearing it.
 
 
 
 "Ouch ouch ouch ouch!"
 
 "Quit being a baby."
 
 "It hurts.  Blow on it, for pete's sake."
 
 "Blowing on it increases the chances of an infection, you know."
 
 "Why, do you have cooties?"
 
 "Shut up, Fox."
 
 
 
 "I can't believe you did that!"
 
 "He was a jerk.  Bill and I were looking out for you."
 
 "Throwing the very first date of my life out the door is NOT looking out
for me!"
 
 "It is when you're 14, and the guy you're going out with is MY age.  And
hell, Dana, sorry but that home-made tattoo of a woman with breasts the
size of a Marvel comic heroin on his arm didn't do anything to endear him
to Bill or myself."
 
 "I HATE both of you!  No, no.  I take that back.  I hate both of you, but
I hate YOU more!!"
 
 "Hate me all you want, but when it comes to you - "
 
 "When it comes to me what?!"
 
 "I - never mind."




He spent the long and boring hours looking at and caressing the bracelet
lovingly.  Sometimes, boredom would not have to progress before he found
himself staring at it again.  
 
 It happened many, many times a day.  Sitting in front of the television.
A meeting with the Lone Gunmen.  Dressing up.  In the shower.  
 
 He never, ever took it off.




It would hit the small area of her laptop as she typed.  Or get in the way
of her cooking.  It snagged on a lot of her clothes.  But she kept the
bracelet on.  On the instances it would become an irritation, she would
merely smile at it, as though telling it to wait for better things to come.
 
------------------------------------------------------
 
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: bigstud@hot4U.com
 SUBJECT: miserable
------------------------------------------------------
 
 Red-headed angel,
 
 Our friend would like to give you a message:
 
 Never allow yourself to be subjected to second-hand smoke.  Great gifts come 
 to those who wait.
 
 Your jilted and miserable lover boy,
 Fabulous F
------------------------------------------------------
 
 
 
------------------------------------------------------
 TO:bigstud@hot4U.com
 FROM: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: RE: miserable
------------------------------------------------------
 Fabulous F,
 
 Please tell our friend - that goes without saying.
 
------------------------------------------------------




Scully sent the e-mail off and smiled.  She noticed she'd been smiling a
lot since she got back from the hospital.  It had become a luxury, smiling.
 And then she tried to remember the last time she had laughed out loud.
Really, really laughed out loud.
 
 Not since she and Mulder had been on that first case in Oregon.  And even
that was an isolated incident.  Before that she had FBI anxiety, Quantico
anxiety, defying-your-parents anxiety, and first-love-never-dies anxiety.
But Scully never had post-adolescent anxiety, no.  She had Fox back then,
not Mulder.
 
 
 
 "So the guy says - 'Ohhhh.  I thought you said TESTICLES."
 
 She had burst out laughing.  He told jokes so well.
 
 "That's gross, Fox."
 
 "But you're laughing your head off anyway."
 
 
 
 Mulder missed the couch at his apartment.  He could sleep in a bed like a
normal human being but not for weeks at a time.  Rolling over was
uncomfortable for him, and it irritated him when he did.  He liked knowing
what he was doing every micro-second of every day, and unconscious movement
deprived him of that security, menial as it was.
 
 But like the trooper Mulder was, he discovered a position that made it
alright.  On his side, one hand tucked beneath his pillow, the other
clenched in his fist just a few inches away from his face.  He enjoyed that
position a lot, because he fell asleep looking at the bracelet on his wrist.
 
 
 
 "Dana, wake up."
 
 "Hm?"
 
 "Wake up.  It's sunrise."
 
 "Three more minutes, mom."
 
 "Dana!  I'm not your mother.  Who, by the way, will kill me for keeping
her little girl out all night stargazing AGAIN for the third straight night
in a row."
 
 "I like stargazing."
 
 She snuggled into his arm even more and fell asleep again.  He hugged her
and gave her ten minutes more.
 
 
 
 
 
 With bated breath, she waited for several days for a sign from anyone
about the cover-up.  Two weeks after the last report had been turned in,
filed and marked as 'closed', she relaxed and kept up the
partner-in-mourning façade.
 
 She and Skinner maintained communication.  FBI related cases that needed
to be discussed were always conducted in his office.  Non-related FBI
matters were discussed much more covertly.
 
 The Lone Gunmen had sent him a security program similar to Scully's
e-mail, virtually unhackable.  But Scully's had been worked on much more,
thanks to Frohike's undying love which he was not prepared to do for Skinner.
 
 Grudgingly, he accepted his new e-mail address but not without giving
Scully a piece of his mind.

"Is this some sort of a joke, Agent Scully?!" he asked her in his
don't-bullshit-ME-pal voice.

Scully could have killed Frohike with a toothpick at that moment.  "I'm
sorry, sir.  It was… the best they could come up with on such short notice."

He pocketed the scrap of paper and gave her a final look that epitomized
the word 'pissed.'




-------------------------------------------------------
  TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: TopGone@hairless4U.com
 SUBJECT: All clear?
------------------------------------------------------
 
 Case files on Mulder has been finalized.  The investigating committee has
put it to rest.  Confirmed suicide from the autopsy report, based on
fingerprints on the weapon, bullet entry angle, circumstantial evidence,
and blood-splatter pattern. 
 
 
 Now all we do is wait. 



------------------------------------------------------ 
 TO: TopGone@hairless4U.com
 FROM: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: Sources
------------------------------------------------------
 
 Our friend says second-hand smoke should no longer be tolerated. 
 
 No attempts at contact from the source anyway.
 
------------------------------------------------------




The room which had housed the X-Files division in the basement of the J.
Edgar Hoover Building had been turned into a make-shift, hi-tech
fax/copier/e-mailing room.
 
 Scully had received a memo informing her to take all of her belongings out
before the end of the month, and to kindly set aside Mulder's belongings to
be sent to his mother.  All other material found after that would become
official FBI property.
 
 Taking Mulder's poster down had been the hardest part, but this she rolled
up and placed into her own box.  The meaningless knick-knacks, like pens,
folders, notepads and other office supplies she sent off to his mother.

She played with a small sandwich bag full of his sunflower seeds she had
found in his desk drawer as she continued probing around the office.
 
 Another big change which happened in just that one day were all the male
agents who suddenly thought of asking her out, which would have been
flattering really, to any other woman, except that one female agent asked
Scully out as well.
 
 When she politely said no thanks, her suitors smiled understandingly, but
misinterpreted her reaction.  They thought Scully was still in a period of
mourning, and would of course feel obligated to remain celibate till an
appropriate time had passed.  
 
 With her back turned, Scully would smile to herself and shake her head.
If they only knew.
 
 All these changes left Scully exhausted, both physically and mentally.
Skinner had given her a choice between joining the VCS or moving back to
Quantico.  The offer was made in his office, merely as a formality, and
merely for the benefit of the listening walls.  Both of them knew weeks ago
she would choose Quantico.




When a man as brilliant and excitable as Fox Mulder gets confined to a
small space for a long time, things are bound to happen.  
 
 He can spend hours staring into space and recalling events in his life
which flood him with happiness, or thinking and nitpicking his future so
that plans, when executed, are flawless.  But a brain like Fox Mulder's
gets tired too, after all, it is also only human, and it becomes stubborn
and refuses to do any thinking until he gives it a break.
 
 Those breaks would be the death of the Lone Gunmen.

They had bought him a basketball, brought in a VCR and gave him his
favorite movies to watch, bought his favorite magazines, all to no avail.

They needed to desperately put an end to his whining, or risk having
themselves committed to an insane asylum when all this was over.

He calmed down a little bit when Frohike whipped out the picture he had
taken of Mulder and Scully during their first visit together at the
headquarters.  

Mulder had smiled warmly at the picture, caressing the image of Scully
sitting beside him, as the Lone Gunmen observed him closely.

"If he were any more in love, he'd be cupid," whispered Langly.

"Lucky S.O.B.," remarked Frohike.

Byers shook his head.  "Never thought I'd see Mulder like this.  I mean,
this is the same man who once told us the only good thing about
relationships was carpooling."



Board game after board game had been played just for Mulder's sake.  It
irritated all three of them to no end when they asked him why he was in the
mood to play Mind Trap and he answered, "My brain's
tired.  I need to give it a break," then win five out of five games.  Byers
barely made it to second place.
 
 Next was the computer.  Mulder was no hacking genius like Langly, but
boredom took its toll once again.  He sat beside Langly looking over his
shoulder for a few minutes at a time, ask a question here and there and
stared again.
 
 Langly answered him patronizingly, the way hacking geniuses do when a five
year old asks them similar questions.  He explained to Mulder the
fundamentals of hacking into a system, and what measures should be taken so
as not to be caught.
 
 Today, Langly was trying to hack into the computers of the Centers for
Disease control and had started talking to his computer screen in
exasperation when Mulder sat down beside him again and asked him to give
him a shot.
 
 Langly gallantly waved his arm and let Mulder at the keyboard.  "Be my
guest."  
 
 Two minutes later, a large "ACCESS GRANTED" screen flashed repeatedly.
Mulder stood up without a word or gesture, off to find something else to
keep him preoccupied.
 
 Frohike was an entirely different matter.  He and Mulder really got along,
especially during Mulder's intellectual malaise.  He enjoyed Mulder's tales
of the cases he and Scully had worked on, from her very own theories to
reactions of his.  
 
 Mulder regaled him with Scully-kicks-ass stories too, and
Scully-gets-fed-up stories.  Frohike listened in absolute rapture.
 
 "So you and Scully never…never, uh…" he asked.
 
 Mulder grinned.  "Nope, never."
 
 "Didn't you ever want to?"
 
 "I'm a flesh and blood man, Frohike.  What do YOU think?"
 
 "So why didn't you?"
 
 Mulder thought that one over for a long time.  He wasn't quite prepared to
tell Frohike that he and Scully had known each other as kids and that she
had broken his heart.  Frohike knew all about Phoebe, thanks to a
tequila-with-the-buds session they once had.  But he needed to give Frohike
a good enough answer.
 
 "I couldn't stand being rejected.  I don't think she finds me attractive."
 
 Frohike stared at him with his mouth open.  He took in the 6'0 frame,
strong jaw, deep-set eyes, soft and brown tamed-to-perfection hair and
lanky physique.  Then he thought about HIS lack of hair, pot belly, overly
hairy torso and fish lips before standing up and walking out on Mulder.
 
 Mulder grinned to himself.  Three for three.  Mulder, he thought. <You
sure can be a bitch when you're bored.>




A thought suddenly occurred to him.  It came when he was dreaming of her
at 3:42 AM.  He bolted out of bed into a sitting position, his mind coming
awake so quickly it gave him an instant migraine.
 
 His hands burrowing themselves into his hair, Mulder condemned himself for
his carelessness.
 
 He had been so obsessed with their plans, thinking about it day in and day
out, second for second of  his existence he had completely forgotten about
everything else.
 
 Three hours before she had been called to identify his body, she had
received directions on what to do.  It was a six page letter that detailed
what had happened, what was happening, and what would happen in the future.
 It was - THE PLAN.
 
 But Mulder had forgotten about everything else.  
 
 It wasn't the first time Mulder had forgotten something, although many who
knew Fox Mulder would say he was a man who never forgot.  Unfortunately for
Mulder, the two times he did have lapses in memory were the most vital in
his life.  This wasn't the first.  It was the second.
 
 He had forgotten he had named her executor of his estate, which meant that
would make it her duty to go through his belongings.
 
 Had she found them?  Did she already know?  If she did, what was she
thinking?  Did she find them before or after giving him the bracelet?
 
 He almost drove himself crazy with all the questions.  Well, maybe he did,
but only for a couple of hours.
 
 The memories came back.  And with his blasted eidetic mind, they were as
clear as they could ever be, perhaps even clearer.
 
 Mulder cursed it, and cursed his mind.  The last few months, although
deprived of Scully, were one of the happiest periods of his life.  Because
as the old cliché goes, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder".  But this
absence of her in his life came with the profound anticipation that once
reunited, everything was going to be alright.  Better than alright.
 
 He was in his father's home again.  It seemed as though he had taken a
quantum leap back in time.  Everything was still so clear.
 
 Blood was soaking his shirt and hands, as his father passed away in his
arms, but not before motioning to him a thick pile of envelopes on the
dining table.
 
 But Mulder had called Scully first - he was too sick to do anything else -
and the toxins in his system were too busy wreaking havoc with his internal
organs for any cognitive thinking to get through.  The envelopes he stuffed
into the trunk of his car without another thought, a small mental note was
taken to be retrieved at a future point when rationality would come back.
 
 It was days later that he remembered them, what with Scully shooting him,
his venture into the land of the dead, and his return to the world of the
living only to be thrown into plot after plot and conspiracy after
conspiracy against him and Scully and the rest of the world.
 
 Not much could be said as he opened them at his apartment.  He was
prepared for the shock after reading the first label.  "Intercepted
Correspondence: Oxford/MA 1983-1984".
 
 And then he knew.
 
And he wept as the fury, betrayal, pain, sorrow and loss of a love that
never was became a litany in the form of hundreds of letters made from
paper and ink.




Everything was clicking into place, just as she and all privy had
anticipated.  
 
 Gradually, the figures that followed her around disappeared one by one.
The clicks on her phone diminished until they disappeared completely.  The
vans and cars parked around her home finally found somewhere else to park.
 
 Skinner had informed her he too was experiencing the same welcomed losses.
 
 Now it was 'their' turn to keep their end of the bargain up.
 



The grossly expensive charcoal suit was wrinkled.  It had been
immaculately pressed as always just a few minutes ago, and for the first
time in its occupants life, he was scared shitless.
 
 Scared enough to sob.  Scared enough to shake.  Scared enough to forget he
had watched presidents die.
 
 He was surrounded by men who were once his allies, and as powerful as he.
But all that crumbled to ashes in the last twenty minutes.  Now, they were
his superiors.  Now, they owned him, everything in his life and everything
that he had become.  Including his soul.
 
 What they were planning to do with it was nothing short of terrifying to
no one else but him.
 
------------------------------------------------------
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: 20:12:12 oxClII-^%^^Iiiaswe 2312-322-5%^** recip$ient suppr&essed 
 at source+==
 SUBJECT:
 
------------------------------------------------------

 Success is at hand.  Stand by.
 
------------------------------------------------------
 
 
 "Almost two decades of vigilance.  Down the drain.  Because of your
delusions of authority and power."
 
 "Fox William Mulder is dead.  Our fears that his mission would turn into a
crusade is now inevitable.  Thanks to you and your reckless impunity with
his life, and the life of Agent Scully."
 
 "We were so close to having him.  He could have been ours."
 
 "You were supposed to watch him.  His father, one of our own, asked that
much from you, in spite of your betrayal."
 
 His heart started pounding in his ears, the roar of fear drowning out all
else in the room.  Calm, monotonous, controlled voices verging on whispers
sounded like shrieks from the very depths of hell to him.  All beckoning.
All taunting.  
 
 A shadowy figure stepped forward from across the room.  And another from
behind him.  His arms were grasped, he was lead out, the deathly silence
from his former colleagues serving as his sentence.
 
 In the hallway, his eyes welled up and the tears started pouring.  He
laughed bitterly, amazed his tear glands still knew how to cry.  But a
niggling voice inside gleefully reminded him that his end would surely
justify any tears he would shed. 
 
 His escorts, stone and steel-faced said nothing, until they led him into a
room and shut the door quietly behind him.
 
 "Sir?"
 
 He turned to face them, his cheeks soaked with tears.  "Yes?"
 
 A small cigarette, pinched between two fingers was extended to him.  "One
last cigarette?"
 
 He wasn't going to show fear to these men, who would never ever fathom the
power he once held.  With his hands shaking, and his voice cracking, he
managed to answer with some degree of dignity, "That isn't my brand."  
 
 The escort smiled ruefully at him.  "Dead men can't be choosers."
 



------------------------------------------------------
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: 20:12:12 oxClII-^%^^Iiiaswe 2312-322-5%^** recip$ient suppr&essed at
source+==
 SUBJECT:
 
------------------------------------------------------

Your partner's benefactor has been dealt with for failure of protection of
his ward.  Stand by for your next bread crumb.

------------------------------------------------------




Back in the room, when the first anguished scream echoed through it, men
with no names or labels stood, preparing to leave.  Their coats were slid
over their shoulders by their assistants, as papers were gathered from the
table.
 
 In the far corner, a figure veiled in darkness sat.  One by one, the men
in the room passed and gave their silent till-next-we-meet-again-nods.
Perfunctory, actually.  It would be years till all the confidences and
secrets would be shared with her.  
 
 The last man to leave hesitated, then turned.  "Be careful."
 
 She looked up at him and gave a small, reassuring smile. As he watched,
she sent a final message off and shut the laptop.  "I'm always careful,
father."
 



------------------------------------------------------
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: 21:42:23 oxVljkIiiaswe 2312-322-5%^** recipient s$$-_uppre#ssed
at=source13 +==
 SUBJECT:
------------------------------------------------------

 Luna Nicole Patterson.
 
------------------------------------------------------
 
 
 
 ------------------------------------------------------
 TO: bigstud@hot4U.com
 FROM: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: name
 ------------------------------------------------------

 Luna Nicole Patterson.
 
------------------------------------------------------




And the ball rolled.




Toronto, Canada
 ------------------------------------------------------
Luna Patterson was finished washing her dishes.  All her daily chores
finally done.
 
 She sank into her living room couch with relief, and ran her fingers
through her hair.
 
 <Thicker than it ever was.>
 
 In spite of her exhaustion, she was happy.  Just three months before, with
only half her chores done, would already leave her more exhausted than she
already was now.
 
 Her hands caressed the sofa's armrests distractedly, as she gave a silent
prayer of thanks to God for her recovery, her happiness, and the
comfortable life she was leading.
 
 A loud knock on the door interrupted Luna's devotions.
 
 "Ms. Patterson?  Hello.  This is Richard Langly, Lawrence Frohike and I'm
John Byers."




Mulder became a borderline schizophrenic after his realization that Scully
might have found and read all the letters. 
 
 Mulder the control freak had lost all control.  Guilt-stricken for having
put her through the denial of their past - the magic of a first love that
transcended most romances throughout time - and had blamed her for his
inability to love and cherish, had driven him to a two day alcohol binge.
 
 Unsure of how to face her, he had kept everything inside and let his
silent suffering be his penance, till perhaps one day he could find a way
to purge himself and find absolution.
 
 The knowledge that it was HIS father's doing that had tragically affected
both their lives almost made Mulder hate his dead father again, and for the
first time in years, he had honestly felt like he was a rebellious,
confused teen once again.
 
 Between his fear of how it would affect her and himself, he had to oversee
the execution of one of the last stages in THE PLAN.
 
 When Penny had died, Mulder and Scully had been led to believe she had
been the last link to finding an answer for her cancer.  What had been kept
from them care of the consortium, was a single name of the true remaining
survivor.
 
 Frohike had received a name in his e-mail from her, which had started the
proverbial ball to roll long and hard.  Langly had accessed several hundred
government and private data bases to learn more about Luna Nicole
Patterson, who, it turns out, was a former MUFON member.
 
 There was an inordinate lack in records about her, and it had been Byers
who had recognized why.  He recalled seeing similar cases similar to hers
for individuals under the government's witness protection program.
 
 Ironically enough, all the information had been stored in FBI databases.
Luna Nicole Patterson, formerly Janet Goodwin, had been witness to a mob
rub-out shortly after her membership with MUFON.  Her name had been under
Mulder and Scully's noses the whole time.
 
 But the power and tenacity of the consortium had already sunk their teeth
into her way before then.  What Ms. Patterson/Goodwin had not known and
still didn't, was that the entire murder she had witnessed was staged
entirely for her benefit.
 
 It was an excuse, albeit a very large and convoluted one, to pull her out
of the public's eye and plunk her into an entirely different situation
where she could be closely monitored and used as a guinea pig.
 
 Perhaps, if Ms. Patterson/Goodwin, had not been so blinded by what the
'FBI' had to offer her - a brand new, upper-middle class home, a higher
paying job and of course, completely free, 'state-of-the-art' medical
treatment for her newly-discovered cancer, she might have been just a tad
more suspicious.  In her delight at a chance for a new life and a cure from
her disease, she had not even questioned the lack of press coverage, or the
inordinate speed of the judicial system.
 
 When The Lone Gunmen had showed up on her doorstep, she had rushed into
her kitchen and retrieved a butcher's knife and her broom, ready to defend
herself.  The three diverse strangers, she assumed, might have been the
'mob' who had found her somehow, but her fears were quickly allayed when
Frohike used Langly as s human shield for two seconds before running as
fast as his feet could take him away from her.
 
 Langly and Byers had stood rooted to the spot, their hands held up as
their mouths opened and their jaws started spilling out the reason for
their visit.  Luna decided then that no mob hitmen could be as chicken as
that.
 
 She had let them into her house, the knife momentarily put away, but the
broom handle still clenched firmly into her palm.  Frohike had poked his
head out, watching his comrades disappear into the house, before meekly
following inside as Luna gave him a 'you-chicken' look.
 
 Luna, The Lone Gunmen noted, was a very pretty woman in her mid-30's.  She
stood only 5'2 in height, and weighed 100, maybe 105 pounds.  Her extremely
short-cropped hair, obviously recovering from some sort of chemotherapy,
solidified their stance they had found the right woman.  She had a gleam in
her eye that sparkled in tranquillity, in spite of all that she must have
suffered.
 
 It had been difficult for Byers, reluctant representative to be spokesman,
to open up the reason they had come visiting.  But after an elbow into his
rib cage from Langly, and a swift kick to his ankle from Frohike, he
managed to talk.
 
 He pulled uncomfortably at his collar.  "Ms. Patterson… you're wondering
of course why we're here -"
 
 And Luna had startled them all by interrupting, "Quit it.  You Mulder?"




One by one, she read every letter.  In her sofa, by a small light, with
music playing somewhere in the background she carefully opened the
envelopes lovingly, and let her eyes wander over the paper line by line.
 
 The Mulder scribble she had come to know from her working relationship was
nowhere in sight. Instead, every little loop, every little line and every
cross on a T and every dot on an I was carefully written.
 
 The words were never familiar, she and Mul- Fox…had not reached that point
in their relationship where undying and eternal love had been discussed.
His words conveyed emotions that only Scully and Dana could ever understand
he was capable of feeling.  The sorrow and loneliness he was feeling while
he was at Oxford made her feel guilty she had not been there for him, in
spite of her efforts which she could not have known had been futile, to say
in the least.
 
 The lengths which they had taken to get him.  It was nothing short of
amazing, and in the five years she and Mulder had worked together she had
seen some pretty amazing stuff. 
 
 Scully often thought of Mulder as a victim, but of his own choosing.  His
paranoia, his lack of commitment to anyone, his inability to trust people
and cultivate friendships - damn it all to hell if he wasn't right after all.
 



Dear Dana, 
 
 Months have passed, and yet I can't bring myself to forget you.  God, if
you only knew how much I've tried.
 
 Why, Dana?  Why?  
 
 Fox
 
 
 Dear Dana,
 
 At night, the dreams take control of me and I find myself in darkness.  I
get to relive Samantha's abduction, and I get to relive the pain of losing
you.  
 
 I write these letters like a fool, insisting to myself that you get them
and smile when you read them but something else inside tells me that they
all end up somewhere in your room where the rest of the garbage goes.
 
 Nothing can be more fatal to me than your silence, and silence is all that
I have from you.  Yet I continue to live, Dana.  Hoping that one day, the
silence will be broken and I can learn to live again.
 
 Fox.
 
 
 Dear Fox,
 
 Why haven't you written?  Did I do something so wrong that you've banished
me from your thoughts forever?  You could have at least said something,
anything, to sever the last threads of hope I kept so I could move forward.
 
 Is it another girl?  Someone you met at school?  I would understand, you
know.  How can I compete with all those college girls who are prettier than
me, smarter than me and can interest you more than me?
 
 I just wish you would come out and say it, instead of totally ignoring me.
 
 
 Dear Fox,
 
 I've resigned myself to the idea that what you felt for me was nothing
more than youthful fancy.  Painful as it was, I've gotten over it and have
now moved on.  I don't think about you as often anymore and although once
upon a time, I wished you the same pain I was going through, now all I have
are hopes that you are happy.
 
 I've matured, Fox, and I guess it's all thanks to you.  My mom is very
proud of me, and so am I.  Very, very proud.
 
 Dana




She fell asleep just as she finished the last letter.  A lot of them she
couldn't even remember having written, but the convictions and notions were
definitely hers.  
 
 Every letter of Fox to her made her cry.  She could almost hear him in her
head as he must have written them.  The low voice, trying desperately to
keep his emotions veiled but not really succeeding.
 
 Dana could feel his pain.




As Mulder sat before Luna Patterson, a feeling of overwhelming
satisfaction and hope soared higher and higher inside.  His heart began
thumping more loudly, and he was almost sure she and The Lone Gunmen could
hear it.
 
 The adrenaline in his system was coursing throughout his veins, and his
hands started shaking in excitement.
 
 Luna explained that a woman had come to her home maybe two months ago,
with a thick envelope which had everything from newspaper clippings to top
secret government files, to dossiers about her and her situation.
 
 This woman - blonde, very pretty with an indescribable accent, she said -
proceeded to tell her about her unique condition.  The staged murder she
had witnessed, the witness protection program's many benefits, and most
importantly, her cancer treatment.  She also told Luna that the men who had
fabricated this lie were capable of having her 'taken care of', mob-style
for believability should she be deemed no longer an importance to them.
 
 After a healthy screaming frenzy, she had managed to calm down and hear
the rest of the story.  How, in a few months, a man named Fox William
Mulder from the FBI would come knocking at her door and ask her how she had
survived and beaten the tumor that had grown inside her body.  
 
 The woman went on to explain that Fox Mulder was a man who needed answers,
because his partner of five years, Dana Scully, was suffering from what
Luna had successfully subjugated.  
 
 She explained to Luna how important Dana Scully was to Fox Mulder, and she
explained it so well that Luna, at first reluctant to be any more part of
the lie she had lived than she already was, finally agreed.
 
 Luna never did get her name.  When she asked the woman, she had only
smiled and answered that her name was irrelevant.  What was important at
that moment was for Luna to give Agent Mulder all the information he would
need to save his partner.
 
 She stood up and disappeared into her bedroom for a few moments, then came
out with a portfolio-sized leather satchel, and gave it to Mulder.  "The
woman said for you to let your partner read through this.  She'll know what
to do."
 
 Reaching out, Mulder smiled at her gratefully. "Thank you so much, Ms.
Patterson.  You'll never realize just how indebted I am to you."
 
 Mulder turned, allowing Frohike, Byers and Langly to proceed him out the
door, when Luna suddenly asked him, "Does she know?" 
 
 Mulder turned.  "Excuse me?"
 
 Luna stepped forward and gazed at him.  "Does she know.  How much you love
her."
 
 A soulful sigh escaped his lips, his head shaking confusedly, unable to
find the words he wanted to say. 
 
 "Mr. Mulder… I'm not a psychic, a psychologist, a counselor or a
psychiatrist.  But a blind man could see the love in your eyes.  And you
know,"  she sighed.  "If that woman was anywhere near
ballpark range about how much you care about your partner…chances are, Dana
already knows.  But it would be good for her if you told her.  And you too."
 



At 5 AM, Dana woke up to an insistent knocking on her door.  A little boy,
about nine years old with dark brown hair smiled at her apologetically for
having obviously woken her up.  "A scruffy man paid me five dollars to give
this to you, ma'am."
 
 He bodily picked up the thick leather portfolio in his bright read wagon
and deposited it into her arms.  "He also said to tell you to read it
through real well."
 
 Scully had ruffled his hair and thanked him, taking the package to her
dining table and spilled the contents out.
 
 Medical forms.  Extremely detailed and well-documented medical forms of
Luna Nicole Patterson.  
 
 The extraction of a chip from the dermal layer of her skin.  Initial
diagnoses of cancer exactly three months after said extraction.  X-rays of
the tumor's growth.  A log of the cancer's progress, including day to day
blood-work analyses, and finally, the insertion of a chip at the bottom of
the nape on month 6.
 
 A mere three hours after primary insertion, another x-ray was taken along
with some blood-work.  Medical findings showed an immediate cessation of
unhealthy cells' growth.  A few hours after, unhealthy cells became normal.
 And then healthier than normal.  
 
 They became something incredible.  
 
 They became anti-cancer cells, viciously attacking what they once were and
effectively turning them into what they had become.  According to the
records, Luna Nicole Patterson was cured completely within 8 days of
insertion  of  the second chip.  Total, absolute and undeniable absence of
cancer cells throughout the entire anatomy.
 
 On the 10th day, the chip was extracted, but regular check-ups continued
displaying the presence of the soldier cells, although retroactive. 
 
 Scully stared incredulously at what the journals were telling her,
thinking this had to be the cruelest hoax of all.
 
 But there they were.  The colorful DNA sequences speaking volumes, as were
the chemists' and doctors' findings.  The medical doctor in her refused to
believe, but Dana wanted to very badly.  
 
 If only there was some way to test it first.




"What's taking her so long?!" Mulder screamed.
 
His pacing and violent outbursts were causing some degree of fear among
the Lone Gunmen.  He had at first started pacing.  That they could handle.
 
 Then he started perspiring.  They could handle that, too.
 
 But then Mulder had started swinging his arms, kicking furniture and
hitting walls and doors.
 
So The Lone Gunmen started getting worried.

Byers took to rubbing his beard furiously, practically starting a forest
fire.  Langly fidgeted with his glasses so much they fell to the floor
several times, and Frohike stared at the computer blinking at it rapidly as
his hand toyed with the mouse.

They all sighed in relief when Mulder plopped himself into a chair and
contented himself with tapping his foot and rubbing his chin.
 
 None of them were willing to voice any theories as to what was taking
Scully so long to read through the reports.  Perhaps she had read through
them and found them totally unacceptable.  Perhaps they had never even
reached her.  For all Frohike knew, the kid he had paid five bucks was
lying in a gutter somewhere, his red wagon a shambles, cursing him to hell
and back.
 
 An electronic voice interrupted them.  "You have mail."
 
 All four men pounced on the computer console. 




------------------------------------------------------
 TO: bigstud@hot4U.com
 FROM: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 SUBJECT: thumbs up
 -----------------------------------------------------
 
Reports have been received.  I've read through them.  On paper, it's
plausible.  But in reality - it's an altogether different matter.  The
miracle chip they're talking about is not here, nor does it give an idea or
even an inkling of where it is.
 
 Is he there?  
 
 Tell him I want to believe.
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 



 "The chip?  What chip?" asked Byers.
 
 Frohike stood up and faced him.  "The chip, you narc!  Haven't you been
paying
attention?"
 
 "Paying attention?!  Langly!  Do YOU know anything about this wonder-chip?"
 
Langly  slowly shook his head.
 
 "See!  Unlike YOU, Langly and I didn't snoop the reports before handing it
over to Scully, so don't -"
 
 "GUYS!  Shut up!" bellowed Mulder.  "Step aside, big stud.  I need to get
to the keyboard."
 
 "But Mulder, what about the chip?!"
 
 Mulder reached into his leather jacket. "You mean this chip?"
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 
 TO: D_Scully@fbi.gov
 FROM: bigstud@hot4U.com
 SUBJECT: RE: thumbs up
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Believe, Dana.
 
 
 
 Fox.
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 



Fox.  Dana.

She sat back and smiled.




Although Mulder desperately wanted to see Scully again, he felt it was
still too dangerous for him to come out of hiding.  Although confirmation
of the Cigarette Man's death had long since been validated, there might
still be those who would rather see him dead for good, for real.  Despite
the assurances of their ally, Mulder was still understandably worried.
 
 He put Byers in charge of escorting Scully to a private medical facility
in Canada, where one of Mulder's former associates who owed him a favor was
chief of surgery.  
 
 Langly and Frohike were in charge of surveillance of Mulder's friend.
When he contacted no one as promised, they alerted Mulder and Scully, who
headed for Canada, paying cash for their plane tickets under aliases.
 
 Scully checked herself into the small hospital under the name Danielle
Langly, and Mulder checked into a motel under the name George H. Frohike.
Technically, they would only be approximately 15 miles apart, but the short
distance, considering their situation, might as well have been three
galaxies over and a few light years away to the left.




Scully oriented Mulder's friend, Dr. Peters and his 'best and most trusted
friend Dr. Hope' on her surgery.  Peters would implant the chip while Hope
would do the local anesthesia and assist.  The operation would be over in
less than an hour.
 
 She had been in the hospital a total of 8 hours now, having had to wait
for most of the staff to leave before talking to the doctors.  The
corridors were empty, with only a few orderlies and one or two nurses
making their silent patrols like faceless phantoms in white and blue.
 
 Langly, Byers and Frohike waited outside in the corridor, checking on her
every few minutes to ask her if she needed anything.  She smiled at them
reassuringly, unable to bring herself to ask what was really on her mind.
 
 Frohike walked in and sat on the edge of her bed.  Taking her hand in his,
he smiled. "It'll work, Scully.  Mulder promised it would, and he always
keeps his promises."
 
 Come to think of it, Scully thought, that much was true.  He had made a
promise to find her before and kept it, when all the odds were against
them, when there was no one in the world on their side.  He had found a way
then, he would find a way again.

It eased her anxiety tenfold.  




She was wheeled into the operating room about an hour after that, with
Langly and Frohike guarding the door.  The doctors had allowed them access
into the operating room if they wanted, but only Byers took them up on the
offer.  He wanted to make DAMN sure that it was THE chip they implanted.
The same chip which he and the rest of The Lone Gunmen kept their eyes on
for the last three days to make sure it hadn't been switched with something
else.
 
 Scully didn't even need to be asleep during the surgery.  She watched as
Byers' eagle eyes observed every move of the doctors, and wished Mulder was
in there too.  To at least hold her hand and tell her this was going to
work.  She would be okay.  Better than okay.  




At a nameless and faceless motel, Mulder watched as a light rain began
pouring on the pavements, as a chill began seeping into his room.  The cold
went unheeded, his mind adrift on blissful memories of his treasured
childhood with Dana Scully.  
 
 A small, small smile graced his handsome features.  A smile that said to
anyone who saw it he was blissfully aware only of the little world he had
created for himself, as Fox Mulder remembered.




"Fox?  How come you don't have a girlfriend?  Bill's courting Kathryn, and
even Charlie's been eyeing Stephanie."
 
 He had been startled by her question.  It had come from nowhere, as they
busied themselves eating Twinkies and playing gin rummy.  It was rare that
Dana could shock him, and he wanted to have some fun. "Because you're not
old enough yet."
 
 "What does my age have anything to do with you having a girlfriend?"
 
 "It has everything to do with it.  You're going to be my girlfriend when
you're old enough."
 
 "Blech!" she had said, as she stuck her tongue out at him.
 
Fox dramatically clutched at his heart and fell over.  Then he grabbed her
arm, threw a
pillow across her belly and started tickling her.  "What's WRONG with my
being your boyfriend, huh?  Huh?"
 
 She laughed hysterically, trying hard to push him off and failing.
"You're too skinny is what's wrong!!"




Drowsy from the sleeping pills Dr. Hope had given her, Dana settled
herself into her bed as she checked that Byers, Langly and Frohike were
still there guarding her door.  She promised herself to show her eternal
gratitude to the trio for what they were doing for her as soon as she was
able, then drifted to sleep, a silent mantra of hope replaying in her mind
over and over again for the chip to get to work and cure her off all this
misery.
 
Her dreams turned to memories.  Of a little girl with a best friend named
Fox Mulder, who was her confidante, her ally, her pillar of strength.




"What's wrong, Dana?"
 
 "Billy said I looked like a hillbilly idiot with all my freckles."
 
 "Billy?  Your brother Bill?"
 
 "No!  Billy Connors!  Do, I Fox?  I hate them!  I hate them so much, you
know!!"
 
 Fox hugged her, tucking her under his chin as his arms circled her
protectively.  "Billy Connors doesn't have that much going for him, ya know."
 
 Sniff. "What do you mean?"
 
 A chuckle.  "Your freckles will fade with time, but he'll have that
potbelly and grossly exaggerated overbite for the rest of his humanly
existence."
 
 A small laugh, another sniff.  "You think so?"
 
 Fox cupped her chin.  "I know so.  Freckles fade.  They're just pigment on
the skin, but a genetic potbelly and bad bone structure are for LIFE.

"You're going to be breaking a lot of hearts when you get older, princess."
 
 She felt better.  Fox knew it.  Hook, line and sinker.  "C'mon, princess.
Race ya to the lake!"
 


 
 
 3 Months Later
 Room 1231
 ----------------------------------------
 "Well, Dana.  You were asking for a miracle.  Here it is."
 
 A pile of medical records were handed to her, as thick as her wrist and
maybe a pound heavy.  Her heart beating frantically, she opened the first
one slowly, her eyes focusing on the charts before her.  At the bottom of
the last page:
 
 Cancer appears to be in full regression.
 
All the remaining folders from X-rays, blood work, chemical analyses, DNA
testing and CAT scans lead to the same conclusion.  Dana inhaled deeply,
confused at what to do first.  Cry in happiness, jump out of bed and do a
dance of joy, or hug Dr. Hope and Peters.  
 
The tears won out as they started falling across her cheeks, and breathing
became difficult.  Hope and Peters smiled at each other, before giving her
a gentle squeeze on her shoulder.  "When's Mulder going to get the good
news?" asked Hope.
 
 Dana smiled.  "I think he already knows."
 



The Lone Gunmen Headquarters 
 Washington, D.C.
 ----------------------------------------
 "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS!!!!!"
 
High fives, whoops, cheers and much hopping and jumping.  If a computer
monitor could think, it would be wondering why four grown men were acting
so hyperactively.  All it did was present a screen that read Danielle
Langly on the top, and "Cancer appears to be in full regression" at the
bottom.
 
Amidst the rejoicing, no one, not even Fox Mulder, noticed the tears that
poured down his cheeks.

Hurriedly, he pulled his jacket on and shot out the door.

"Hey, Mulder!" called Byers.  "Where are you going?"

He paused briefly at the door, wiping his tears away with the sleeve of his
jacket.  "I've got a date.  The second one I've been on with Dana Scully,"
he said.   "And it isn't going to be the last." 




TWO YEARS LATER
Washington, DC
8 PM
----------------------------------------
"Where are you?"

"If I told you, you might become enraged with jealousy."

"Mm-hmm.  'Fess up, princess.  Where are you?"

"Well, at this moment, at home.  A  distractingly handsome man is about to
serve me an appetizer to dinner."

"Anyone I know?"

"Maybe.  He's almost as tall as tall, dark and handsome as you are."

"Give me a hint.  How much taller does he need to grow?"

"About 5'0 feet."  Dana grinned and smiled at her son, teeter-tottering his
way towards her with a cookie wedged between his teeth, a Rubick's Cube in
his tiny hands. 

Fox smiled warmly into the phone, picturing his perfect son - born almost
two years ago - walking over to his perfect mother.  "So what you're saying
is, for the moment, he's the one who has to stand on tip-toe and you're the
one who needs to stoop to get a kiss.  When was the last time you did that?" 

"Yep," Dana answered, ignoring his last remark just as her son walked to
her legs and hugged her thighs, offering his cookie before tugging on her
pants to give him a kiss on the lips.  "That's what we're doing right now."

Fox heard the wet smack.  "Should I be jealous?"

"Not unless you're planning to come home tonight."

"Can I talk to him?"

Dana placed the phone to her son's ear.  "It's daddy, sweetheart."

Her son chortled and grasped the receiver in his tiny hands.  "Dada!"

"Hey there, big boy.  How are you doing?"

"Good!"

Dana smiled.  "Tell daddy you love him, honey."

"Wuv ya dada."

"I love you too, sport.  I'll be home in a few minutes and I want a kiss
from you as soon as I walk through the door, okay?"

"M'kay!"

"Okay then, sport.  Give the phone back to mum."

The little boy thrust the phone back at his mother.  "Dada," he said
matter-of-factly, then walked to his little arena of toys.

"What's my son doing now?" asked Fox.

Dana peered over the couch where her son parked himself to play.  "OUR son
in playing with your Rubick's Cube."

"Has he cracked it yet?"

She laughed into the phone.  "Almost. You should have seen him a few
minutes ago, he was using his feet too.  He's got two sides already done.
When his hands and fingers grow out a bit more he'll have more success."

"Takes after his father," teased Fox.  

She raised an eyebrow.  "Are you taking all the credit for our son's
brilliance?  Why don't you get your ass over here so we can discuss that."

"For shame!  Talking dirty to me while our son innocently plays a few feet
away."

The doorbell rang.

Dana walked over and opened it, greeting her husband who was just tucking
his cellphone into his overcoat pocket.

"Just like old times, Dana.  You call, and I come running," he grinned,
opening his arms to envelop her into his embrace.

She smiled and kissed him passionately, the phone in her hand dropping to
the floor.  "Just like old times, Fox," she whispered against his lips.
"'Cept for this part… came a lot later than it should have, doncha think?"

"Mm-hmm," he agreed breathlessly.  "But look, we're doing our best to make
up for lost time."

Soon, they were locked in a torrid embrace, momentarily forgetting a world
existed around them just as always.  All it took was a brush of flesh, the
hint of cologne, or a locked gaze.  A lot of times, even less.

>From his play spot in the living room, 1 year and six month old William
Daniel Mulder grinned at his parents locked in their embrace, then at the
Rubick's Cube in his tiny hands with six sides of matching colors.  He
wanted to show his mother and father his little victory but decided they
looked much too preoccupied with what they were doing.  

Oh, well.  He'd show them some other time.  It wasn't the first time
anyway, and it surely wouldn't be the last.

After all, he WAS the son of Fox William Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully.
And destiny already had a few galaxies in mind for him to conquer.




------------------------------------------------
THE END