There's more to this, but I started this eight years ago and didn't finish it, so the ending is a) going to take a while and b) be entirely unexpected, I'm sure. Just to warn you.

Set probably early Season 6.


She'd been feeling lonely.

That wasn't something she felt too often anymore. He was just a phone call away, just a button pressed hesitantly and his voice would come, and offer comfort.

But he wasn't answering his phone.

Earlier, though, they'd had something of an- altercation. An argument that seemed far too contrived for her liking. There was, as always, the usual alien abduction case, but with a new twist. After all, Michael Kritschgau had left his mark on Mulder. And Scully knew it irritated him.

For some reason, it even irritated her.

All the years had passed, and all the denials of his theories hadn't grown a hair weaker, but it was like a groove they had fallen into. Her denials were often as intangible as his realities; more often than not the truth was somewhere between.

But then there was Michael Kritschgau. He'd struck too close. He had become, in a way, an ally of Scully's.

But in that, he'd alienated Mulder from her.

And, if anything, she'd wanted to believe. It didn't make her happy every day, to see his face crumple even slightly at the newest rebuttal. Even when he made some sarcastic or flippant remark. Even when he quietly and calmly restated whatever he'd been trying to say to her. She'd kept it up all these years because it was her duty, and because he expected no less of her. Like Abraham drawing Isaac nearer and nearer the top of the mountain and hoping against hope that the cause would change. Whether it be God or her own heart she was following, she had believed in that cause.

Until Kritschgau.

He had ruined everything.

Scully was the enemy; Scully had always been the enemy. But the last thing Mulder needed was a friend. In her being so contrary to him, he had a sounding board. He'd finally accepted her as such, as something to reflect back his ideas in a new light, if only so he could revise them and throw them at her again.

But then her gaze had turned away from him, and inward. To fight the battles for him she had had to at least gain knowledge of the one growing within. And while she fought for knowledge in that lab, Kritschgau began talking. Saying the things Mulder needed to hear, or maybe only the one thing Mulder needed to hear.

The one thing Scully could never tell him.

Even if it were within her power, Scully was terrified that she would bend the truth for him. If reality was as heinous as Kritschgau's description, Scully was afraid that she could never present it to Mulder so bluntly. Somehow there would have to be a little sugar coating, if only to ease it down. Just like the lies she had told Skinner. But even that was still up in the air.

All of it had made her feel a little hurt. But it had only surfaced once she'd had recovered; the whole ordeal of the hospital, the memory of his face as he gazed down into her own, the touches and the whispered words, the arguments even as she was barely clinging to life with her fingernails. After the rosary and the whispered prayers she could begin to think and breathe and remember again. Remember that Mulder's trust had extended past her again. There were others; the trust of Skinner was suspicious to her, trust of Krycek had been facetious, Deep Throat had been valued but he had lied, and X had led Mulder to a source that Scully wanted to kill with every fiber of her being. Marita Covarrubius made Scully's blood boil. The one time they'd met had been enough to convince her that maybe Mulder didn't have enough brains when it came to women. Phoebe Green certainly spoke of that affliction.

The argument had begun over some little thing. Maybe it had been when their flight was to leave. Some silly little thing like that. If the same wiretap agent had been supervising their office for the past four or so years, he might have caught the nuances in Scully's voice, the stress in Mulder's, and understood that there was an undercurrent of frustration and mistrust there. Something that she found alien now. Something she'd never wanted him to feel toward her again.

Though they had patched things up a little, she was still a little worried as she knocked at his door. Could he have gone without her? She would beat him into the ground, if he had; maybe even give him a little guilt trip about leaving a still-sick woman to fend for herself around Skinner.

Mulder was wearing only jeans when he answered the door. His apartment was utterly dark and he squinted out at her from within. "Scully?" he said.

"We need to talk," she said. The harshness of her voice sounded somehow reassuring inside her own head.

"Yeah, I'll be over at your apartment in an hour or so, we can talk then."

"I'd rather it be now, Mulder."

"Why, Scully? It's still early." His hand was still resting against the doorframe, preventing her from crossing the threshold into his apartment.

"Fox?"

The voice hit Scully's ears like a bullet. Female, slightly breathy, late twenties or so. From the bedroom that she wasn't sure of the existance of, by the sound of it. Maybe the bed was hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets. At least she was sure those existed.

Mulder glanced back into the apartment, then back at her. Their eyes met, and Scully knew that her disapproval was showing in her own.

He chooses to trust another, and then he chooses to do this.

Why shouldn't he? You don't make love to him. Partner and lover are two very different things. You knew that. You knew that whatever ounces of attraction might exist in you, you were still only partners. And you wanted it that way. No more of the double standard for you, you said. You said that none of the rumors would ever be true about the two of you. But the truth only exists between you, him, and the wiretap agent.

"I'll see you in an hour." She began walking down the hall, toward the elevator.

"Scully, wait." Only a slightly pleading note in his voice. He wouldn't reduce himself to begging unless she demanded it.

"I can't, I have some research to do before we talk."

"At least let me walk you out to your car." His voice faded, as though he was going to grab a coat and make good on his statement.

"No, Mulder, that woman in there probably needs you right now. More than I do."

She turned away and walked to the elevator, punched the button with some trepidation.

"Scully, come back here."

She made no response. She didn't understand why tears were stinging the backs of her eyelids. She didn't want to understand.

"Scully, I told you to come back here," Mulder said, leaving the safety of his doorway for the harsh light of the hallway. Again, Scully faintly heard the breathy voice from within.

He reached her and grabbed her arm just as the elevator car arrived.

"Mulder, let me go." There was no hint of panic or excitement in her voice, only dry firmness. She knew that he would never hurt her.

"I'll see you in an hour," Mulder said, finally releasing her arm and allowing her to step inside the elevator. She pressed the button and set her eyes forward, but they caught his own.

She tried to read his eyes but it was a wasted effort.

The doors closed.