DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the 
creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen 
Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, using them 
without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. All 
other concepts or ideas herein are mine.
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Through US season 7
ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE 
(http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS 
COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later 
parts develop...
TIMELINE: Though this takes place sometime after "all things", in 
this universe "Requiem" did NOT happen...


"Water's Edge"
by
Elizabeth Rowandale (bstrbabs@earthlink.net)


Chapter 24:


"I still believe it when you say
it's another perfect day"
        --American Hi-Fi , "Another Perfect Day"



**It was the closest we ever came.  You in that burgundy suit of 
yours and the cream blouse with the low low neckline and the deep 
red lipstick and black heels that almost made you look tall.  We 
were working so late, hunched close over the drafting table in 
the back of the office.  No one else had set foot in the dark 
basement hallways for hours.  Your neck smelled so sweet and raw, 
and we had been so much closer to one another that winter, 
clicking at every turn.  You had started to talk to me, really 
*talk* to me, every now and then.  I had started to catch 
glimpses of the woman behind the façade.  And I had started to 
let you see parts of me I had thought would always be trapped 
inside.  Subtle, these glimpses back then, for both of us.  But 
they were real, and they were progress.  We were tired that 
night.  Knit close.  Bonded in battle.  And I came nearer than I 
ever had to pushing you down onto that drafting table and 
smashing my mouth against yours and running my hands up your 
thighs to claw at the lace tops of those stockings that had 
flashed and tempted and teased me for countless hours.  I could 
hear your breathing--the pace, the depth.  I could feel your 
thoughts, the physical pull.  You wanted it, too.  I would have 
bet my life on it.  Jesus, Scully.  If you hadn't called it a 
night...if you hadn't stopped it...something would have happened.  
And if it had...I couldn't have left.  I couldn't have left.  And 
if I hadn't left, none of this...**



"Mulder, when you said 'after dinner surprise' I thought you 
meant double cappuccinos or Mrs. Field's Chocolate Chip cookies 
or something."

Mulder just lifted his eyebrows, glancing briefly away from the 
road and toward her sodium-vapor lit figure, his expression pure 
innocence and sincerity .

"So?" she prompted.

"So...."

*Frustration, thy name is Mulder.*  "*So*, Mulder, why are we 
driving so far out of town I'm starting to see more cows than 
people?"

"Do you have to be home right away?"  He glanced at the dashboard 
clock, half serious now, hazel eyes darkening.  "Does Ashleigh 
need to get home?  Or is Christopher likely to wa--"

"They're fine, Mulder.  I've got time.  But where are we going?"

"Scully, are you unfamiliar with the word 'surprise'?"

She tilted her head back, eyeing him through narrowed eyes.  At 
last she looked back toward the road ahead, playing along.  
"Okay."

She caught the suppressed grin beside her.

They kept driving.

When Mulder pulled onto the dirt shoulder of the narrow road, she 
thought for a moment he had gotten lost; that he had pulled over 
to consult a map or check on their bearings.  But to her 
surprise, he opened the door, popped the trunk release, and said, 
"We're here, Scully."

"We're *where*?" she asked, eyeing the surrounding darkness.  But 
Mulder was already out of the car and circling to the trunk.

She climbed out of the car and onto the rocky shoulder.

Meeting Mulder at the trunk, Scully found him retrieving an open-
topped bag of supplies that had partially spilled across his 
trunk as they drove.  He took a thick, tightly rolled blanket 
from the wheel well and tucked it under his arm.

"Mulder, I'm not camping in an evening gown."

"Faith, Scully.  You wound me."

She sighed, a small smile of acquiescence curling her lips.  
*Mulder, you have no idea the faith I have in you.  The faith I 
had in you...have in you...had...*

She squinted out across the dark expanse of road and remembered 
rain and orange spray paint.

He closed the trunk of the car, and held out his hand.  "Ready?"

She grabbed on tight.  "Right behind you."

The grass was soft beneath her feet, the ground forgiving but not 
so soft her high heels sank into the dirt.  She trailed up the 
make-shift path behind Mulder, letting him hold her hand, letting 
him lead her as she once would have refused.  Except for those 
rare times she let him be chivalrous, let him look out for her in 
the field.  *Burned onto her skin, jumping down from a helicopter 
in the Cascade mountains, strong, protective hands tight on her 
ribcage, the subconscious sense-memory of other, unauthorized 
hands far too fresh in her mind.*

The trees grew thicker as they climbed and the landscape darker.  
She was wondering why Mulder hadn't switched on the flashlight 
she had seen in his bag, when he said softly over his shoulder, 
"People don't like flashlights.  Makes it harder to see."

"See what?"

"I think we're almost there."

They slowed their pace to be sure of their steps.  And just when 
Scully was starting to feel the pressure of the woods around her 
and the deeper darkness of country life, they caught first wind 
of muted voices above.  And before she could comment on that, 
pale moonlight cut through the trees, and their next steps 
brought them out of the foliage into a wide, lush clearing.

Six, maybe seven other bodies peppered the clearing, most sitting 
or lying on the carpet of grass.  One stood fussing with a tripod 
camera.  Another was spinning around leisurely, eyes on the 
stars.  No one seemed surprised by the arrival of the man and 
woman in dinner dress.

Mulder and Scully hovered at the edge of the clearing, hand in 
hand as they surveyed their surroundings.

When Scully turned to Mulder, he was grinning like a five year 
old with a new train set.

Her mouth twitched at the corner, unable to resist the contagious 
effect.  "Mulder...where are we?"

"Faerie's Meadow."

"Faerie's Meadow," she repeated.  She lifted her eyebrows, 
waiting for more.

He continued to smile.  "It's a local hot spot right now.  The 
word's spreading like crazy in all the usual circles."

"What word...?" she asked, tone growing more cautious.  The 
question 'What circles?' would have frightened her more.

"About the lights."

"The lights."

"Yep."  Mulder started to walk out into the field.  He kept hold 
of her hand and she was obliged to follow.  He slowed, then 
stopped at a place off to the left, a fair distance from the 
other spectators, the shadows of the distant trees giving a kind 
of privacy despite the moonlight.  He let go of her hand to shake 
out the blanket rolled under his arm.  She watched him for a 
moment, then finally took pity on him and grasped the far side of 
the blanket and helped smooth it over the ground.

Wordlessly, Mulder guided her to sit on the thick furry cloth.  
Scully settled herself, legs stretched out before her, ankles 
crossed.  She leaned back slightly onto her hands.  Mulder took 
his place beside her.

"Look up, Scully," was all he said.

She looked up at the beauty of the night sky, the endless stars 
of the clear night.

"It's beautiful," she said softly.  "But what am I looking at."

"I don't know yet," Mulder said, his own throat stretched as he 
gazed at the night sky.  "But they say they appear almost every 
night, now."

"They?"

"The lights.  For weeks, people have been gathering here to see 
the lights in the sky.  They're amazing and no one can explain 
them.  The authorities won't even acknowledge them.  Or they 
explain them away with something completely uncredible.  They 
were first sighted by a couple of teenagers, out here using this 
field as the local Inspiration Point, but since then researchers 
and astronomy professors have been out here...  It is, also, 
incidentally, still used as the local Inspiration Point."

"Mulder?"

"Yes?"

"You brought me out here to look at UFOs?"

He finally looked across at her, eyes bright in the moonlight, 
looking right through the pale blue of her eyes, reaching beneath 
her skin to tickle her soul.  "Yeah.  I did."  The playfulness 
was still there; but there was something deeper.  A question.  
And a hint of...need.

"Thank you," she said softly.

Mulder took that in.  "And if nothing should happen to appear, 
it's also a beautiful hilltop.  With a great view of the 
constellations, and a stunning look down over the valley."  
Scully followed his pointing finger, having not even bothered to 
gaze out through the break in the trees on the fourth side of the 
clearing.  She was awed by the expanse and distance, visible even 
in this deepest dark.

"Wow..." Scully breathed.

"Yeah." 

"Why do they call it Faerie's Meadow?" Scully asked, still gazing 
out over the valley.

"Historically speaking, I don't know, I haven't had a chance to 
look it up."

She heard the subtext.  "But you have a theory?"

He didn't speak for a moment, and she looked at him in the 
shadows.  The glimmer in his soft eyes sent a flutter of pleasure 
through her stomach.

"I do have a rough outline of a theory, yes."

"I'm waiting."

"Well, as I said, I haven't done the research yet, but I'm 
guessing the lights aren't new.  They're most likely just now 
*recurring*.  I mean, you know as well as I do, Scully, that many 
places are UFO 'hotspots' for years, decades even.  Sometimes 
constant through that time, sometimes recurrent after downtimes 
of days or months or years.  And I'm sure you've heard the 
theories on the correlations between the alien mythology and the 
faerie legends."

Scully nodded.  "The idea that the phenomenon has been present 
all along, we just process and categorize and define the 
experience according to our cultural perceptions.  Irish peasants 
see Faerie Lights, we see ships carrying Little Greys from 
Reticula."

Mulder was grinning again.  "Should we be picking out china 
patterns or what?"

Scully smiled, holding his steady green eyes.  He was the first 
to turn away.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I see a thermos in that bag?"

"There is a thermos in that bag."

"Would it happen to have tea in it?"

"Cocoa."

"Cocoa?!"

"I thought you liked--"

"Pour."


*****


The night was cool, but not cold.  The blanket was thick enough 
to keep the cold from seeping up from the ground.  The cocoa, 
still amazingly hot, warmed them from within.

It was easy to speak here in the dark, to slip into a more 
intimate place.  More than a few quiet secrets had been shared or 
revealed in the dim early morning hours of stakeouts.  Dark 
softened the edges.  And she could still feel his arms around her 
on the dance floor.

Mulder had shifted closer on the blanket.  Or maybe she had.  But 
parts of their bodies were touching now, and the points of 
contact were hot on her skin, warding off more than the chill 
wind.

Mulder was speaking softly as she gazed into her half empty 
thermos mug.  "Well, things were different by then, Scully," he 
said.  "I mean, after your cancer....you were much more open to 
letting things come into your life.  You had...a better 
perspective on what you wanted out of your life, I think.  Or at 
least...that you needed to focus on finding out.  And such a 
short time later, when Emily came into your life, I think you 
were so much more ready to take on the possibility and the 
challenge of a little girl.  Much more than you would have been a 
year or two earlier."

Scully sat quietly, eyes on the hem of her dress.  She said 
softly, "I didn't know you were paying attention."

Mulder, gave a half laugh, though his meaning was entirely 
sincere.  "Who else was I going to pay attention to, Scully?  You 
were the only one who would put up with me."

She winced, stung as always by his self-deprecation.  
"Mulder...there are a lot of people who would want to be friends 
with you.  You just don't let them.  You push people away."

Mulder nodded.  "Then why did you stick around so long?"

"Well...mainly because I didn't like you very well."

His eyebrows rose.  "Excuse me?" 

She nodded.  "You pissed me off.  I mean, when I met you, I was 
very much in my 'prove myself to the world' era.  You didn't 
trust me from day one, never even considered that I might 
actually be an *asset* to your work.  You didn't think it was 
possible I could ever understand where you were coming from.  So, 
there you were, one in a long line of arrogant male authority 
figures telling me I was in a job I didn't belong in and couldn't 
possibly excel at, and naturally that powerfully motivated me to 
prove you mistaken."

"Which you did, ten-fold."

"I believe so, yes."

He smiled.  He was sitting so casually now.  Like a man in a park 
in a GAP ad, long legs folded, arm draped across his lifted knee.  
His easy grace had always drawn her.  For someone with so many 
insecurities, Mulder carried his GQ frame with an engaging 
confidence and lack of vanity.  "So, what kept you around after 
that?" he asked.

"Well...by then, I liked you a little bit better."

"Really."

"Really."

They shared a smile for a long beat, and Scully had forgotten how 
perfect the world could feel, just for that moment when she and 
Mulder were smiling together.

"There she is," he whispered.

She didn't understand.

"My Scully.  The Scully I risked my life for.  The Scully I've 
missed more these past two years than I've ever missed anyone or 
anything in my life."

She couldn't breath.  His fingers drew down the line of her 
cheek, and she closed her eyes and savored the touch.  She kissed 
his fingers as they passed, grasped his wrist with her hand.

"This is so amazing," he whispered.

"What?"

"Seeing you.  Like this.  Scully.  No Bureau.  No morgue.  No 
conspiracies or dark alleys.  No schedule to make it stop.  
Just...you."

She swallowed hard.  "Just us."

He nodded.  "Just us."

"Why did you let them have a funeral?  Why did you make me do 
that?"

"I asked them to.  I insisted, actually."

"Why?"  Her voice was fading.

"I thought...it would help you."

She closed her eyes.

The answer was thick in the air.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Mulder's hand was against her cheek, her fingers on his wrist.  
"No more, Mulder.  I can't watch you die again.  I won't."

"I know.  No more."

*It's hard to believe your 'no mores' Mulder.  It always was.*  
"Okay."

The gathering around them had shifted.  The college date crowd 
had thickened.  Another professorly type with a camera had set up 
camp.  But they were still fairly sheltered on their private 
patch of ground.

Scully sat up straighter and reached for the thermos, pouring out 
the last of the cocoa.  She pulled her coat closer around her.

"Are you cold?" Mulder asked, rubbing his open hand over her 
back.

*If I say yes, will you keep touching me?*  "I'm fine.  It's kind 
of nice to be outside again, actually.  I'm stuck inside so much 
more in my new position.  I miss field work.  Fresh air.  At 
least Christopher gets me out of the house on the weekends."

"I still can't believe you have a little boy, Scully."  The sense 
of childlike wonder in his voice made her forget the cold.

"Pretty amazing, isn't he?"  She sipped her cocoa.

"That doesn't even begin to cover it.  This whole new little 
life, discovering the world.  And ten years from now, you, 
Scully, will be a Mom with a ten year old boy who plays soccer or 
basketball or plays the violin or travels the country for chess 
competitions and reads comic books and races a mountain bike."

She laughed.  "Pretty crazy, isn't it?"

"It's wonderful, Scully.  Did you want a boy?"

She shook her head.  "I didn't care.  I think maybe Daniel was 
hoping for a boy, since he already had Maggie, but he would have 
adored a girl, too.  We didn't try to choose.  But, you know, 
when I found out Christopher was a boy, I couldn't have been more 
thrilled.  It just felt...right."

"It was right."

The first flicker of light caught her eye, and Scully nearly 
dropped her cocoa mug.  "Oh, my God..."  Three of them.  Tiny, 
glittery lights, like blinking stars, flitting around the sky 
like fireflies.  "Oh, my God, Mulder, what *is* that?"

The hillside came to life around them, voices rising and bodies 
shifting as everyone remembered why they were out on this 
hillside tonight and scrambled for the best possible view.  
Scully was captivated.  Four lights now.  Five.  Moving through 
the sky like choreographed dancers.  "Mulder, how can they do 
that?  That can't--that can't be aircraft, can it?  They're so 
close together, and the speed, the turn ratio.  Mulder, what--"

She glanced over her shoulder.  Mulder had not moved, still 
seated beside her, knee lifted, gazing at her profile.  "Mulder, 
look."  She pointed at the sky, glancing back and forth from the 
lights to the man beside her who had single-handedly reinvented 
The X-Files.  "Mulder--"  But he still had not moved.  A gentle 
contentment hazed his eyes.  "Mulder, *look*!  You're missing 
it!"

But he shook his head and said softly, "I'm not missing a thing."

The timbre of his voice stole her breath.  Suddenly she couldn't 
remember the lights.  She only knew the heat of the body beside 
her and the way he was watching her that made her feel like the 
most beautiful woman in the world.  The voices rose and fell 
around them, closed behind a velvet curtain of darkness.  Mulder 
leaned in first, but she was only a breath behind, her hand 
rising to his cheek as his lips met hers.  His mouth was warm and 
gentle in the cool night, and tasted of cocoa and night sky, and 
she couldn't drink enough.  A thousand stakeouts and terrifying 
nights and dark cars and dusty station houses and a decade of 
need and they were finally breaking through the glass wall.  She 
slipped her tongue into his mouth (*her tongue inside Mulder, 
inside Mulder*) and he was instantly open to her, his hand 
clinging to the back of her neck.

Right where they had left off in the rain.  She caught a glimpse 
over his shoulder of the glimmering lights in the sky, but they 
couldn't pull her away.  Nothing could have pulled her away.  She 
slipped her hand beneath Mulder's open jacket over the thin silk 
material of his shirt, feeling the heat of his skin beneath as 
she pressed her lips harder against his.  Mulder.  This was 
Mulder.  Her shelter, her touchstone, her other half.  No longer 
kept apart, but wrapping himself further around her by the 
second, his long fingers in her hair, the rough collar of his 
suit coat brushing her throat, his body sheltering her from the 
night and the dark, his tongue in her mouth, hands on her back.  
She had never felt so warm, so safe.  So hot.

She functioned on instinct.  She tugged at Mulder's shoulder 
until he lowered her gently onto the blanket, grass textured and 
soft beneath her back.  His long body stretched out beside her, 
half on top of her.  She was achingly aware of how close his hips 
lay to hers.  The pull in her core was like a physical ache, 
drawing his heat to her own.

He hovered above her, the moonlight angling over his shoulder 
onto the skin of her throat.  And he was gazing down upon her 
with the purest adoration she had ever felt.  Her stomach 
trembled.  He stroked the side of her face, devoid of words.  She 
gave him the faintest smile.  Acknowledging it all, opening to 
him.  She pulled his mouth to hers again--this man who had lost 
the security of his family at such a tender age, who had spent a 
lifetime alone and searching for his sister--and her body was 
instantly alive, prickling and glittering like the Faerie Lights 
above.  Scully rolled toward Mulder as she reached over his back, 
dimly aware in the shadow of her mind that they were probably 
giving the others in the clearing more of a show than any of the 
college couples.  But she didn't care.  And Mulder didn't seem to 
care either, as his hand slid up her leg, beneath the hem of her 
dress, and up the back of her thigh.  She felt her vaginal 
muscles contract in reply, moisture softening her.  She wanted 
this so deeply it hurt.

She had never been so terrified.

She lost track of time.  She didn't know how long they lay there 
beneath the celestial wonders, drowning in each other's taste.  
Like a couple of teenagers in the back of a car.  When she 
registered reality, the sky had darkened, and much of the crowd 
had cleared.  She was lying on her side, Mulder's arm beneath her 
neck, her leg draped partially over his.  His hand rested on her 
ribcage and he was merely watching her.  She never wanted to look 
away.

Her body was shimmering.  Her breasts longed for the return of 
his too brief touch.  The rushing blood between her legs seemed 
audible, and the thought of going without the necessary contact 
to slake that thirst seemed unbearable.  But they couldn't rush.  
She knew that.  He knew that.

It was hard to speak.  So they lay, wordless, in the soft 
darkness of the middle of nowhere, where at least, for once, it 
was not raining, and gazed into each other's eyes, breathing one 
another's skin.

"I want you," Mulder whispered.

Scully closed her eyes, shaking.  His husky voice was like a 
touch.  Her breath accelerated.  "I want you," she replied.

"I've wanted you for so long.  Just you."

She couldn't speak.

He reached up and tenderly brushed her hair behind her ear.  She 
touched his lips with her fingers.  Mulder had the most sensual 
mouth she had ever seen on a man.  Not a day had passed in their 
time together when she had not been aware of that.  Even on the 
days she wanted to kill him.

"You ready to go home?" he whispered.

"No.  Yes.  If you come with me."

"Try and tear me away."

She closed her eyes.  She took his hand.


*****


Christopher was sleeping like an angel.  The baby monitor hissed 
softly from the end table.

They sat, half-lay, together on the living room sofa, ostensibly 
watching TV and talking, truly just avoiding separation.  They 
didn't want the evening to end.

Mulder's eyelids were sinking.  Scully herself was courting 
Morpheus.

But she didn't want to surrender the day.  Because Mulder was 
back.  And tonight, she had come home in a way, and her thoughts 
were spinning, but all she was certain of, was that she never 
wanted to let this feeling out of her grasp.  And she was afraid 
to sleep, lest it slip through her slackened fingers.

In the end exhaustion won out, and she was forced to content 
herself with the warmth of Mulder's body against her back and the 
reassuring rhythm of his snores.  Her last sleep-ridden memory 
was a shifting of weight as Mulder spread the sofa afghan over 
their bodies.


*****


"Mulder?"

Scully woke to cold and dark.  For a moment, she couldn't 
remember where she was, only that Mulder had been there and now 
he was gone.  But her focus gradually returned and she recognized 
her own living room, remembering the evening in a rush of rich 
smells and flickering sky lights.

But Mulder had fallen asleep beside her.  And now he was gone.  
She sat up in the dimness, draping the afghan around her 
shoulders, and scanned the empty darkness of her apartment.  He 
had probably gone home.  Perhaps he had kissed her goodbye and 
she had slept through the gesture.  She squinted down the hall to 
the guest bathroom, but the door stood open and the light was 
off.  He had probably gone home.

But something felt wrong.  Scully swiped a hand over her eyes, 
remembering she had never even removed her make-up.  Most of her 
hair had worked its way loose of the clasp, though she had never 
taken out the adornment.  She padded gently in her stocking-ed 
feet around the couch and into the dining room where she caught 
sight of Mulder's car keys still tossed on the table.  And then 
she saw the sliding door to the balcony slightly ajar.

Pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she neared 
the trail of cool air snaking into the apartment, Scully crept 
toward the door.

Then she stopped, ice cold spreading through her stomach at first 
hint of the sound.  Someone crying.  No, not just crying.  
Sobbing.  Gut-wrenching sobs.  And she knew the voice too well.

The mixture of urgency and aching hesitation in her were dizzying 
as she slipped into her black pumps and hurried toward the 
balcony.

Scully stepped out into the cold night air, squinting at the 
security lights in the garden below and bracing against the blast 
of wind.  At the far end of the balcony, Fox Mulder knelt, arms 
folded on the railing, slender neck stretched to rest his head on 
his hands.  And he was sobbing, body shaking, as she had not seen 
or felt since the night his mother died.

She felt sick.

"Mulder?" she whispered into the surreal night, uncertain if he 
had even registered her presence.

He didn't startle, didn't react.

She took a small step closer.  "Mulder, what's happened, what's 
wrong?"  She pushed a clump of hair away from the corner of her 
mouth.

He didn't look at her, barely raised his head, but he started to 
speak, and the tone of his voice was so deeply desolate, she felt 
her knees melting beneath her.

"I just...I can't believe you married someone else.  I left...but 
I was only gone two years."  He was almost talking to himself; 
his long hands grasping at the air, trying to catch something 
that was no longer there.  "Two years, and I just...I thought...I 
just thought you'd be here..."  She could barely comprehend his 
words through his tears, but the meaning hit her in the gut, and 
she couldn't breathe.
 
There was nothing to say.

She sucked at the cold air.

"You married someone else..."  Mulder dropped his head, 
surrendering to a fresh wave of quiet sobs and he could just as 
well have clawed her guts out.  The hunch of his powerful back 
was an unnatural clash.  Such a man as Mulder should never be 
broken.

Scully started to move toward him, but Mulder jerked his head up 
and looked her dead in the eye.  The intensity of his gaze nearly 
pushed her back a step.  "What would you have done?" he asked.  
"What would you have done if Daniel had been alive when I came 
home?"

Scully shook her head, sharply.  "Don't do that.  Don't play 
that.  I won't.  I thought you were dead.  If you hadn't left, I 
would never have married Daniel.  That's all we can say."

Mulder searched her face for an excruciating moment, then he 
turned away and let his forehead fall back onto his hands.

Scully stood in the cold wind on the balcony above her treasured 
garden and felt stiff and hard and dark.  There was nothing to 
say.  Nothing she could deny.  She clung to her solidarity, 
resurrected her deep belief in herself.  She would weather the 
moment.

Scully advanced.  She reached out and touched a tentative hand to 
Mulder's shoulder, bracing for the possibility she would be 
pushed away.  But with less than a second's hesitation, Mulder 
reached blindly toward her and locked his arms around her waist, 
burying his face in her stomach.  Her blanket fell to her elbows, 
and she encircled him as best she could, sheltering him, running 
her fingers through his hair.  She sank to the edge of the deck 
chair, and Mulder pressed his face between her breasts, knelt 
between her legs.  Scully draped the afghan around them both like 
the wings of a mother bird and sheltered him to her breast, 
feeling the shakes of his sobs rock them both.

She kissed his hair, stroked his chilled skin.  She wanted to 
tell him it had never happened.  That she had never loved her 
husband.  But she had.  Words couldn't convey how she truly felt.

Finally, she whispered into his hair.  "It's okay."

And Mulder pushed off of her, hard, and stood up.  He was through 
the glass doors and into the apartment in less than a breath.

"Mulder!"

He was gathering his keys by the time her shoes touched the 
carpet.  "I have to go, Scully."

"Mulder, don't do this.  This is hard, I know, so much has 
happened--"

"Scully, I have to go."  He swiped across his eyes with his 
sleeve, picked up his jacket from where she had missed sight of 
it on the back of the couch.

Her blanket dropped, forgotten, to the floor; her bare arms were 
exposed to the air.  She was trembling.  "Goddammit, Mulder.  You 
left me.  You *lied* to me.  You were dead.  And I suffered 
through months, years, of mourning the most important person in 
my life, because you made a choice without my consent to--"

But he was striding briskly across the carpet to stand in front 
of her, touching a painfully tender finger to her lips to silence 
her words.  His nearness cut into her edge.  "Scully, it's all 
right.  Stop."

She was breathing like she'd run five miles, heart pounding in 
her chest, and her eyes were hot with unshed tears.  She knew he 
saw them.  She was barely awake.  It all still felt like a bad 
dream.  "Scully, I know all of that.  And I'm not shirking my 
part of the blame.  But right now all I know is that six months 
ago," he caught hold of her hand, held it up between them, so 
gently, and fingered her wedding ring, "you were in love with 
someone else."

Her breath hitched, her gut clenched as her reply caught in her 
throat...  She snatched back her hand; protective, hurt.

"And Scully, I...I've *never* loved anyone else."

*Oh, Sweet Jesus.*

"Don't leave."

Mulder drew a finger ever so lightly down her cheek, his tears 
fading now, a deeper sadness pooling in his dark eyes.  "Scully, 
I'm not leaving you.  Not like that.  I promised you I wouldn't 
let go of the rope, and I'm not.  And I'm not blaming you for 
your choices.  It's okay.  It'll be okay.  But I just...I can't 
be here tonight.  I can't..."

She winced, tried to reach for his hand, but let her own fall 
away.

"It's okay," he said again, eyes kind, a ghost of a sad smile 
gracing his lips.  She wanted the anger back.  "Don't be scared.  
We'll get there.  I just...I can't stay tonight."

"Why?"  Her voice was hard, but it wasn't anger.

Mulder cupped a hand to the back of her neck and leaned down and 
kissed her lips hard.  The intimacy of the contact rushed her 
eyes with tears and she wanted to pull away and she wanted to 
never let go.  He kept his mouth against the skin of her cheek as 
he whispered.  "Because I'm somewhere you're not."

And in a breath he was gone, pulling a gust of cold wind from the 
balcony as he closed the door.


*****

(End Chapter 24.  Continued in Chapter 25a...)
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