Author: Daydreamer
Posted: 18 August 1999

My Love Story

"Mom?"

Scully looked up from the crossword puzzle she was working, took in the tear-streaked face and red eyes, and patted the sofa next to her. "Come. Sit," she said softly, opening her arms for the tall young woman to snuggle into. "Tell me."

"Oh, Mom, it hurts so much. It's been three weeks, and it's not getting any easier. We were supposed to go out tonight, and celebrate our one year anniversary."

The girl began to cry, and Scully murmured soft nonsense sounds into her ear as she stroked her back and rocked her. The boy had been her daughter's first real love, and this was the first real break-up she'd ever been through. And it didn't help that he had broken up with her -- leaving her lonely and sad and still a bit in love.

The crying began to ease, and Scully reached behind her to the end table, finding the tissue box and pulling out a handful. She took one and wiped the girl's eyes, then grabbed another, holding it to the young woman's nose, and ordered, "Blow."

That brought a reluctant smile, and the girl took the tissue and did just that, then reached out for several more. After a few minutes, she looked at her mother and asked, "How did you know Daddy was the one? How were you sure?"

A soft, dreamy look came over Scully's features. She looked out the big window into the yard, where her husband of nearly twenty-five years was puttering, gave the girl another hug, then smiled and began.

It all started when I was called to the Hoover. I was just out of the Academy, still basically a raw recruit. Oh, I had my MD, so I was older than some of the others, but I was still very much a new Special Agent, with my shiny badge and the ink still wet on my ID card.

I was called to the Section Chief's office and I couldn't imagine what for. I didn't think you had to meet with a Section Chief to get your new assignment, and that was what I was waiting for. I was expecting Podunk somewhere -- that's where almost everyone starts. But I reported dutifully as ordered, promptly on time.

I was confused by the meeting; I came away from it with a bad taste in my mouth, convinced something was not right. I had come to the FBI to make a difference. Oh, I know it sounds childish and idealistic, but I really did want to use science and medicine to solve crimes and make the world a safer place. It was naive, I know, but that was what I wanted to do. What I did not want to do, was have my very first assignment be to spy on the Wunderkind of VCS. Especially when said Wunderkind was someone I'd heard so much about and was intrigued by. He was a bit of a mystery man, even then.

But, one of the many things I learned as a military brat was how to follow orders. If the powers that be said work with Fox Mulder, then I would work with Fox Mulder. But spying or discrediting I would not do. I wanted my work to stand on its own merit; I would give him the same courtesy, however strange his work might be.

I wandered down to the basement, lost in thought, and knocked absently on the closed door. Fox Mulder, Special Agent, the small plate said. It sounded like something from a comic book. A voice called, "Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted." That gave me pause for a moment; this was a man with academic credentials that put mine to shame, with a successful solve rate that even the most experienced agent would kill for, and a job that had been custom-tailored to his demands. Why on earth would he describe himself in that way? So I pushed the door open and he was there, seated before a slide display unit.

I'd seen him around, there at the Hoover, over at Quantico. I'd even seen him in the Academy building a time or two. He'd been working VCS, always looking beaten and dead tired and half-destroyed, and always seeming to be racing from one case to the next. It was like he was in another place, somewhere far different from the world the rest of us inhabited, and I could see it made him sick. I'd never spoken to him, or seen him smile. And when I first opened that door to the basement, he had not been smiling either, and then he did.

Oh, it transformed his face entirely. From the exhausted, worn-down man I had passed in hallways and on walkways between buildings, he was changed into someone who looked as if he belonged in front of a college class. He looked professorial, all burning enthusiasm for his subject and blinding intelligence, and I felt my mouth curve into an answering smile of its own volition.

I still remember how it started, the first time he said it.

"So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?"

And that was it. I was Scully from then on. It spread and others began to call me Scully as well. Within six months I was introducing myself as Scully and before a year had passed, I don't think anyone still called me Dana. But he was the first. And when he said it -- "Scully" -- it was more than just my last name, it was a caress, a commitment, something shared between us two. I was his Scully. It was on our third case, chasing a very strange mutant with an unnatural need for human liver, that I accused him of being territorial, and he simply said, "Of course I am," as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oh, that man knew how to keep me off balance.

That first day in the basement, I said something about his credentials, and how I was pleased to be assigned to his department. He didn't believe me -- he saw himself as an outcast, in exile. But I was truly pleased to be there. His reputation was incredible, his abilities amazing. To work with someone of his caliber -- in whatever department -- was a real coup for a raw agent like I was.

But he was tough, or at least he showed a tough exterior to the world. He wrapped himself in an armor of arrogance and disdain, and everyone thought that was who he was. But even then, I could see it was an act. I didn't realize how much he had been hurt, the ridicule and discredit he had been subjected to. And I didn't realize he wouldn't take me at face value. He would be looking for me to be something I wasn't. He would expect me to be the good little agent who followed orders and then in a year or two, got him thrown out and could expect her reward in the form of a hefty promotion.

So he mocked me. He made fun of my thesis in that Oxford-educated, old-money-from-the-island voice of his, always staying just this side of contempt and never crossing into an actionable offense. But he mocked me nonetheless. He had that air of sophistication about him that comes from birth and breeding and is nurtured through private schools and 'coming out' parties and a European education. I could live a thousand years and never develop that level of poise. I heard him and felt the hated red crawl up into my neck and face. His grin deepened.

"I like the blush," he said. "Makes you look almost innocent."

My face grew hotter and I wanted to die. Please don't be like this, I said silently to him. I really want to work with you. I want to learn from you. Somewhere down the road, I want to be accepted by you.

Somehow, something must have gotten through to him, because he dropped his head, fiddling with the slides again, and said, "Look, it was an interesting thesis, really. Well-thought-out and well-researched. And I could tell, even if I didn't agree, that you are one smart cookie."

"Not so smart," I muttered automatically, hating myself for the denial. Why was it so hard to admit my intelligence? Was I ever going to get beyond this need for acceptance?

"Look," he said, "let's not play games. Not their games," his eyes darted upward and I wondered if he was referring to Blevins and the other man in his office, or something else, "and not our games. No junior-senior games, no supervisor-subordinate games, no male-female games."

No male-female games? I could feel myself start to blush again. Had my attraction to him been that obvious?

"I don't work well with others. Just read my record. Even in kindergarten, my mom used to get notes home, 'Fox does not play well with others.'"

He spoke in a clipped voice, sliding into a high, childish chant at the end. I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

"You come from a military family. You're focused on success. You're ambitious and you want to get ahead." He paused then, grinning up at me again. "See I did my homework too. But that's not why I picked you."

"You picked me?" I could hear the disbelief in my own voice, despite the slight crack that slipped out. "Have you picked me?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because, I like the way you talk -- or don't -- and I like it that you don't giggle. And you're talented; I checked up on some of the reports you filed. Your professors in med school used to say you were 'intuitive,' in reaching your conclusions. And that you were fair and open-minded, never discarding a possibility until it had been explored and exhausted. And you're smart. No matter what you say, or why you say it, you're smart and you know it. You won't bore me. And you're not like all the others."

"How do you mean?" I said faintly. I watched him steadily, a bird hypnotized by a snake. It struck me suddenly, that his nose was slightly larger than it should be for his face. I decided I liked it. It gave him character.

"You're just different. You must know by now that you are. So am I. I figure we might as well be different together."

"Do you always come on to women like this?" I could not think of anything clever, profound, or even basically intelligent to say.

His face had grown still. "No," he said. "Only one time before."

I didn't have a clue to what he was referring and I could see he wasn't going to talk about it now. I couldn't think of anything to say. The silence between us spun out, and finally, I said, "I have to go now," and turned to leave. He watched me without speaking, and I turned and walked away.

Somewhere in there, he'd briefed me on our first case, and I knew that we would be traveling together soon. I was caught in his spell; I would have followed him anywhere, and I'd only just met him. I remember thinking that this infatuated girl couldn't possibly be me. Not Dr. D. K. Scully, FBI professional. That was me on the outside, but inside, I was sixteen and hopelessly enthralled, and my heart was pounding and the blood rushing in my veins and all I could think of was when I would see him again.

"See you tomorrow, Scully," he called after me, and I nodded without looking back. Looking back would have betrayed me, though I think he knew how I felt even then. He's always known the innermost me. A sudden joy had started up at his casual words; I knew it would soon flood me.

"Hey, Scully?" he called after me once more. This time I did turn.

"Don't forget your jammies," he grinned, a devil-may-care grin that seduced me where I stood. After that smile, that look, I didn't stand a chance, even if I had wanted to resist him.

I left the office, laughing, and near tears with the rising of the joy. I don't remember driving home or packing or anything else from that night.

And that was how it all began, the first time that took all my bottomless aches and scattered yearnings, all my subterranean fires and raging storms and midnight tears and sunlit laughter, all my ravenous hungers and long-denied thirsts and buried terrors, and focused them on the haunting face and the long, lean body of Fox Mulder. He gathered me up in his beliefs, and his search for truth and answers. Tall, slender, slouching, with his long gray eyes and wide, sensuous mouth, he was filled with the kind of banked passion capable of whirling a girl up and sweeping her away. But instead of capturing me for love and romance, he seduced me for my intellect and training and skill. And for a while, it was enough for me to just be in his shadow.

It was my time of becoming. A time of changing from girl to woman. I know now that not everyone has such a time; despite my own affairs, I had not realized it would come to me. I'd thought the mere physical act had changed me, made me a woman. But before Mulder, if I had looked far ahead at all, I saw myself, as I was then, only older, and in a different place. But then, after one day in his presence, less than a day, an hour, a pittance's time, I could look and see a woman I did not know, and I was both tremulously grateful for her, and terrified. She was all appetite and response, and when it came to this man, she had no boundaries.

I wanted him physically, from the very beginning, fiercely and sometimes savagely. I would sit across from him at a diner, or on a plane, or in the car, and I would be weak and almost sick with the longing for him to touch me. I would have to strain to hear his words, to follow his thoughts, for my body constantly threatened to overwhelm my brain. I sat in a car with him one time, that first year we worked together. I'd come to relieve him, but he wouldn't go, so I gave him my dinner -- a sandwich and a drink. He said, "If there's an iced tea in that bag, it could be love," and my world imploded. I felt every inch of warm, thick air on my skin, wherever my clothes were not, and so wanted to feel his hands there on me that I grew dizzy and blushed. In the private places beneath my clothes, the longing was so particular and piercing that I was frightened and appalled, and wondered in shame if he could read my animal need written plainly on my face. I had never felt anything like it before.

I have no idea how I got out of the car that night.

Every day, after that first one, I was with Fox Mulder, I walked beside him, I worked beside him. I laughed lightly and talked glibly, worked efficiently and professionally, and I think I challenged him in ways that were new to him. Outwardly, I would listen to him in cool amusement and inside I would be near to shuddering apart with this thing I could not control, and could not abjure. His hand at my back would weaken my knees, and when he touched me, hand to skin, it was all I could do not to bolt like a spooked horse.

But he didn't. Touch me, that is. Or at least, not the way I longed for him to touch me. Fox Mulder, he with his dark good looks and old money, Italian shoes and Armani suits, the man the girls in the typing pool talked about constantly -- and so did half the female special agents -- this man did not so much as indicate he might like to do so. He smiled at me, and teased me, and sometimes laughed aloud at me, and asked me questions about myself, and listened when I answered, and he talked. Mostly, he talked. He talked and I listened. I would have listened to him forever. He talked about his sister, and his family, and his beliefs, and his search, and his passions. And he acted. He acted on his beliefs in a way I had never seen before.

There was a case in New Jersey. I was seeing a man I'd met at Trent's birthday party. He had a boy Trent's age, was divorced, and was boring as hell. But I was still pretending I had a life outside Mulder. I refused to go with him since the case was not really authorized by the Bureau. But then he called me from jail. That, by the way, was the second time I'd had to spring him from incarceration -- the first was by the military. And it was far from the last. That man always could attract trouble.

I took him to breakfast and fed him and listened to him talk about a wild woman living in the woods of Jersey. I questioned him, and fussed, and finally left him, trying to do the right thing, present the right image. And all the time I was thinking that if he was that interested in wild women, maybe I should consider showing him just how wild I could be.

That case was the first time I saw him cry. An ignorant policeman who couldn't see beyond tourist dollars and casino revenue, shot the woman before Mulder could reach her, before he could save her. He's spent his life trying to save people, and it takes a little bit of his soul each time he doesn't succeed.

I pulled a gun on him that first year too. It also wasn't the only time I'd do that particular trick. I even shot him once. What a life we lived, that I had to shoot the man I loved to save him. But that was years later. That first time, we were at an Alaskan research station and I thought he was infected with a deadly and contagious parasite. I quarantined him, locking him away from the others, but I couldn't make him stay by himself like that. He'd had too many times alone, and I couldn't add to that. I just couldn't. So I went in, by myself, to talk to him, to get him to submit to an exam.

And he said he trusted me.

Oh God, it nearly broke my heart. I pulled my gun on him, locked him away, and still, still he trusted me. He let me examine him, and then, as I turned to go, he reached out, and grabbed me, and I could feel his hand move slowly over my neck and shoulders. I should have been scared, worried that I was infected, worried that he was infected and not himself, but all I could think of was how right his hands felt against my skin. A deep warmth flooded me, and I flushed beneath his touch, my skin growing hot in the chill Alaskan air. Then he was content, reassured that I was still who I was, and his hands lifted and I was alone again, bereft of his touch.

I met his old flame that year. The one he mentioned that first day when I asked if he came on to all the women and he said "Only one." And after meeting her, I could understand the coldness that had so consumed him when he answered me, and the stillness that had possessed him as he stood appraising me. She was like fire and ice -- setting him aflame, reigniting his passions even as she used her own brand of icy coolness to keep him at a distance while still getting what she wanted. She didn't care for him, and it was a terrible weight on me to know he went to her, and know she would only bring him pain. Of course, in the end, he came back to me.

When my father died, he called me Dana, and it shook me. It didn't sound right, not coming from him. I think it was his awkward attempt at comfort -- for a psychologist, he's never been all that good at putting his own feelings into words. He wanted me to take some time, but I wanted to work. I wanted to be with him. If Phoebe Green was a fire for him, I was a raging conflagration. I was utterly consumed by him. And then, while tracking a serial killer, he was shot and I thought he would die before my eyes. He was bleeding, and bleeding, and it poured out so hot, covering my hands in its hot stickiness, and I that night, that night, I cried for him for the first time. I mourned him as I would if he had really died, and I realized then I would have no life without this man.

And then one day, he suggested a trip, over a weekend, to see some lights in the sky. "Bring a sleeping bag," he said, "I'll bring the tent."

The tent. Singular. I didn't know for sure if he meant it for me or for both of us, but my heart began a pounding that made speech impossible.

"Uhnm" I managed, idiotically.

He laughed.

"Don't knock me over in your rush to accept, Scully," he said.

And then he touched me. Not a guiding hand on my back or elbow, or a reassuring pat on my arm, or even the gentle pressure of his hand on mine, but a real, man-to-woman touch, his hand snaking out to cup my cheek as he looked deeply into my eyes. "Thank God for you, Scully. You're always there and you make me work. But you give me space. If you hung on me, I don't think I could stand it."

Then it was over and he was bent back over his desk, and I leaned back from him, then moved away, trying to slow my runaway heart. What was he doing to me? He spoke of singular tents, and weekends away, of my always being there, and then of my not hanging on to him. Was the dichotomy purposeful? Did he even know he was doing it?

I made a fool of myself that night. I dressed so carefully, in expensive slacks and a silk shirt, with totally inappropriate shoes on my feet. I took time with my hair, piling it up on my head in a style I knew other men liked, and wore more makeup than I ever did at work. And he showed up in tattered old jeans and a black turtleneck. He raised an eyebrow at my attire, but, for some reason known only to himself, spared me his razor-edged tongue. I flushed brilliantly, then excused myself and went and scrubbed the makeup from my face and changed my shoes. My clothes I left, refusing to humiliate myself any more before him.

I went with him that weekend, and we stayed up until three in the morning, just staring at the starlit sky. With any other man, it would have been an open invitation for romance and seduction, but it was an oddly sad night. He wanted so badly to see something, anything, and when there was nothing to be seen, he was so disappointed. When we crawled into the tent at last -- he into his sleeping bag, I into mine -- I wanted to say something, do something that would ease the ache in his heart.

He woke before the dawn, his half-swallowed cry of anguish bringing me to startlingly clear wakefulness. In the false light that precedes the sun's arrival, I could see tears on his face, and sweat on his brow. He glanced once at me, then turned away, and I was immobilized by the need to do or say something, but had no idea what that something was.

And then he spoke, his back still toward me, his face studying the side of the tent.

"You always know when to speak and when to keep silent. I like that, Scully."

And somehow, without knowing how, I had done the right thing, even if it was purely by chance. It just made me love him more. It made me want him more. I wanted to be able to comfort him when the demons drove him from his sleep. I wanted it to be OK for me to speak, and to hold him, and touch him, and ease him back to peace. I just wanted him.

In addition to being hopelessly in love that year, I was painfully and permanently off balance. I'd never been so close to tears so often as I was that first year. They would sneak up on me suddenly and silently and I would have to excuse myself and slip away, finding a private corner or a spot in which I could give in to the heartbreak and exaltation that would overwhelm me without notice. It was hopeless love for that man that triggered it, a mature and obliterating and sometimes crippling thing, that left me flayed and vulnerable, as if I had no skin. An astonishing number of things pierced me and brought me to tears in those days. It would have helped, I think, if I could have talked to someone. But I didn't think that I could. He was miles away from anyone I knew or had ever known.

Aside from out-of-town cases and that one trip to see the lights that weren't, I didn't see him at night. He did not make any effort to see me then, and I could not bring myself to mention it. I knew he often worked into the wee hours of the morning, staying late at the office or taking work home. I was loath to hang around his office; while I seemed welcome at any time, it still bore only his name. And though I spent my days there, I couldn't see myself spending my nights there as well.

I didn't know how we would see each other somewhere else. I knew where he lived, of course. I'd not been invited over, but I'd driven by his place more times than I wanted to count or admit. And I knew without knowing how that it would never occur to him to take me to a movie or to get a hamburger. My work was interesting, intriguing even, but I supposed, bleakly, that I was doomed to see him in an endless succession of days at the office and trips to places near and far.

And so I spent my nights alone, or dating this up and coming young man, or that divorced young father, and all the while, Fox Mulder was roaring in my blood like a fever, unseen and all-consuming. I tried to keep my life normal, to pretend that I still had a life separate from Fox Mulder, but it was a sham pretense that fooled no one, least of all myself. I took to driving by his building at night, staring up at the window that was so often lit with a big X taped in the middle. It all just intrigued me more.

It wasn't long until I found reasons to decline dates, and excuses to call the office in the evening. And we would talk -- he would talk and I would listen in a ridiculous schoolgirl haze, enthralled not by what he said, but by the sound of his voice. The intensity when he spoke of something he believed in. The teasing lilt that lifted his tone when he was amused. The sadness that made his voice crack and tremble when he spoke of past losses. It was all part of what bound me to him in ways I couldn't begin to understand.

And then one day, I was driving home, a surprise visit up to see Grandma for the weekend. I was still living in Annapolis then; when I'd taken the apartment, I'd thought it would be a nice compromise between work in DC and home in Baltimore, but it was just a hassle anytime I wanted to go anywhere. I was heading out from my place, down through the center of town then out past the Naval Academy, when I suddenly realized -- I didn't want to spend the weekend with my mother.

The car turned, I don't remember doing it, and then the miles passed and I was in front of the office again. It was deserted now -- DC at night is not a place most want to be. A few homeless people, the occasional misplaced tourist. It was a desolate and banal little street scene; but suddenly, it was as dear and precious and full of splendor and nuance as any I had ever seen. This was home. This was where I wanted to be. No place where he was not could ever be home again.

I felt a surge of simple longing that hurt my heart and brought tears scalding to my eyes. They ran over and down my face and I tasted the salt of them. I could feel my mouth working. I pulled the car into a slot in the garage and got out and ran into the building, the only other person who ever pushed "down" in the Hoover elevator. I tripped down the narrow hallway, knocking over a box in my haste to get to the office and then when I pushed the door open, I thought for a moment it was empty. Then I saw him. His dark head was bent over his desk, one hand held something he was examining closely under the only light -- a small lamp situated on the desk's far edge.

He raised his head and looked at me. We had said our carefully casual goodbyes for the weekend earlier, but somehow I don't think he was surprised to see me. He stared at me levelly. I stood in the doorway, feeling as foolish as it was possible to feel, trying not to cry.

He grinned then, and gestured me to him with his free hand, and before I knew it, I was sitting on his desk and our heads were together as we both looked at the odd piece of material he held in his hand. He kept looking up at me, smiling, his teeth white in the darkness of the room and his head cocked to one side. A comma of hair fell over his eyebrow and I longed to brush it back. I did not think I had ever seen such a wonderful looking man. I grinned back at him, feeling the color rise in my cheeks.

"Forget something?" he said.

"Nope. Remembered something," I answered, trying to match his nonchalant tone. "I remembered you said you wanted to see that new movie, and I -- uh, that is -- I thought we could go."

He did not move, and the grin did not fade.

"Do you need to call home first, tell your mom you'll be late?"

Trust him to have actually listened when I casually mentioned my weekend plans earlier that afternoon.

"She's not really expecting me -- till later," I said, face beginning to burn again. "I can be home by midnight."

To this day, I still don't know why I lied and told him she was expecting me at all. I always called my mother when I went home; this time I had not. I didn't want to examine my reasons for that too closely.

"Sure?"

Was I sure? What was he really asking? What did it matter? That I was sure I wanted to be here, at this time, with this man, that was enough.

"Yes," I said firmly, glad my voice did not betray me.

"Then let's go," he said, and switched off his desk lamp and followed me out of the now dark office, his hand a comforting weight in the hollow of my back. Except for that gentle pressure, he did not touch me at all, but I could feel his presence behind me as palpably as if he had both hands on my shoulders. He was so close, I could feel his breath on my hair.

I have no idea what movie it is that we saw. He would know. With his memory, he never forgets, but in my case, it's not that I've forgotten, it's that I've never known. I didn't see any of it. That night, I sat in the darkened, crowded theater next to Fox Mulder and saw nothing but flickering idiot images. He did not talk to me, or even move often; he seemed totally absorbed in the drama unfolding on the screen. But his physical presence consumed me. My flesh seemed to pull toward him of its own accord: my head inclined toward the dark bulk of him. Every atom in my body whirled toward the answering atoms in his flesh; I became aware, about the middle of the movie, that I was breathing in unison with him.

Toward the end of the movie, he took my hand. Fire seemed to leap from his fingers to mine. I would not have been surprised to see a spark arc through the darkness, as from the end of God's finger to Moses' on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. All sensation left my body and flew to dwell in the hand that he held in his. For the rest of the movie, I sat breathing lightly and quietly, my hand in his as hot and heavy as if it had been fresh cast lead ... seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

When it ended and the house lights came up, he dropped my hand and we walked silently out of the movie house and into the fragrant, mothy dark of late May. Honeysuckle poured its scent like a river from the banks of a privet hedge behind the parking lot, and over that the light, heart-shaking smell of wildflowers swam from somewhere near. Katydids called off in the thick, warm darkness. Otherwise, there was little noise, even there, in Arlington. It was as if the city was suspended at the bottom of a dark, still sea. We reached my car before he spoke.

"Why did you take me to a sad movie?" he said quietly, and I looked up to see the silver tracks of tears on his dark face. I thought of all the losses in his life, and all the failures, and all the betrayals. I thought of his sister, gone these many years. I thought of his parents, ripped apart by something they never fully understood. I thought of him, his young life destroyed by something so far outside the normal ken, that it had consumed him, swallowed him whole, and taken any hope for the future from him. I did not think I could bear, for him, whatever brought those tears to those sad, dark eyes.

I reached up with both hands and took his face in them, and kissed him. It was, in the beginning, a soft kiss, but it turned to fire and thunder under my mouth, pure, tearing need. I was totally without wits or breath when he finally let me go. We looked at each other silently, and then he said, "Oh, shit. Let's go."

"Where?" I whispered. I hadn't enough breath to say anything else.

"To my place. I'm going to cook for you. You can call your mom from there."

"Okay," I said. But I knew I would not.

I fished the car keys out of my purse and handed them to him. My hands were trembling; I knew I would drive badly.

"Would you mind driving?" I said. "I don't know where you live."

In the darkness, he laughed softly.

"Yes, you do," he said. "I've seen your car go by about a million times. I thought you were looking to buy the place."

"I'm sure you're mistaken," I muttered, even as my face flushed and I wanted to die from embarrassment.

He stopped and put his hands on my shoulders, staring into my eyes. "One thing you don't ever have to do with me, Dana Katherine Scully, is lie. I'm not going to lie to you, and I don't want you to do it to me. You don't need to. Okay?"

I nodded then and he opened the door and helped me in.

He drove calmly and competently and his control and forbearance would have annoyed me if I had been aware of anything beyond my own impassioned yearnings. I was going home with Fox Mulder. I couldn't stop chanting it in my head.

He parked in the lot in front of the building, then laughed. "Let's be quiet. My landlady thinks I've gone gay because she hasn't seen any women here in so long. Once we're in, though, it's okay. She's used to lights and music at all hours."

"I don't really have to be anywhere," I said, and then I wished I could have bitten out my tongue. Now he would think I had planned this night, even if he had not before.

He laughed again, and opened the door for me very quietly, and motioned for me to go ahead of him. We rode up to the fourth floor in silence, both of us staring straight ahead. He led me to his door, unlocked it, and ushered me in. Then he was behind me, standing close again in the dark entryway.

"I can feel you blushing in the dark," he said. "You put out heat."

"I'm not really accustomed to going home with my coworker," I whispered, wishing someone, something, would stop my idiot mouth. He was light years, millenniums away from being just my coworker.

He still didn't touch the light. Instead, he reached out and turned me to face him. I could see only his outline, and the gleam of his eyes in the warm dark.

"When I said I was going to cook for you, I meant just that," he said gently. "I'm not going to seduce you. I'm not going to put the make on you. Later, almost certainly, but not until you're ready for it. Until you're sure. My self-control is legendary. You're going to have to ask."

The sucking, shimmering apprehension died in my chest, but under it flickered a feeling I recognized as loss.

"What if I don't?" I asked, curious.

He pushed the hair off my forehead very gently, and smiled. His teeth flashed white in the dark.

"You already have," he said.

"Sighhhhh." She dragged the word out, turning it into a real sigh, and Scully laughed.

"You nut! I'm supposed to be cheering you up and here you go, making me laugh."

"I always sigh when I hear about how you and Dad got together." The younger woman narrowed her eyes then as she looked at her mother. "I must say, I don't think you've ever shared the parts about 'burning passion' and 'subterranean need' before."

Scully chuckled again, then grew serious. "You've never broken up with your first serious love before either." She reached out and took her daughter's hand. "I just wanted you to know I understand all of your feelings. And I do know how tough this is for you. Your father wasn't my first love, but once I met him, all the others faded in a way you can't imagine."

"Hmmmm," her daughter replied, tilting her head to take in the slight flush on her mother's cheeks. "Perhaps I can."

Her words caused Scully's color to deepen, and she was soon laughing again. "You know, you imp, you have your father's sense of humor. He always loved to embarrass me -- said he liked to see me blush." She sighed now. "It's the curse of the fair-skinned redhead."

"What curse? What'd I miss?" Mulder wandered into the room and dropped a kiss on his daughter's head, then went to stand behind Scully, his hand lingering on her shoulder.

The women ignored him for the moment -- focused on the end of their talk.

"So, you think I'm gonna find the great love of my life someday, just like you?"

"I'm sure of it, sweetie. I was almost thirty when I met your father. You're barely nineteen. It doesn't seem like it now, but, really, you have time. When it's right, you'll know."

The girl leaned forward, into her mother's arms, and Scully hugged her tight. "It's going to be all right. In time, it won't hurt so much, I promise."

Mulder cleared his throat. "Excuse me, ladies," he said as he leaned down and wrapped his arms around them both. "Can I be part of this little talk?"

"You already are," his daughter replied, catching one large hand in her own.

"You're always part of everything I do, Mulder," Scully murmured affectionately. "Don't you know that by now?"

He hugged them both tightly, then pulled away and stood again. "Uhm, look here," he began awkwardly, "I, uhm, know you were supposed to go out with him tonight." He paused, still uncomfortable, then struggled on. "I guess I'm a poor substitute, but I, uhm -- oh, shit!" He cut his eyes to look at Scully, taking in the amused look on her face. "I've always been bad at this stuff," he admitted, then went on. "Would you like to go out with me? We could go to dinner or a movie, or something. Whatever you want."

The girl bounced up lightly, then leaned back down and kissed her mother. "Thanks, Mom," she whispered. She circled the sofa, coming around to stand beside her father. She was tall like he was, but she had her mother's coloring. He held out an arm, and she came willingly into his embrace.

"Thanks, Dad, I really appreciate it. But I'm OK." She frowned slightly, then went on with characteristic honesty. "Well, not totally OK, but a lot better. And I'm going to be OK. So I'm gonna pass on a night out. I think I'll just hang tonight -- chill in my own room and do some thinking." She smiled up at Mulder, then gave her mother a sly look. "But Daddy," she went on, a slight teasing lilt in her voice now, "I think you should take Mom out instead." She stepped away, heading for the stairs to the upper part of the house. When she was at their base, she turned back and added, "And get a room, Dad. I happen to know Mom still has the hots for you!"