The Forgotten, Part One of a Series,By D. Tyrian

Disclaimer: Chris Carter isn't sharing? Damn.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
---Italics mean she's dreaming.
---AU, MSR later
---SPOILERS: Millenium
---The first scene is out of nowhere, it never happened, only in my universe.


Silence. Tears glittered in her eyes; the blue eyes which had so long ago enthralled him in their depths, feminine and intelligent all at once. They had once looked like shimmering pools of molten diamond-sapphire, laced with a rare silver hidden deep within her strength. Now they were the color of the sea after a storm, a gray-blue that appeared dead and lifeless. In essence, they reflected the woman who bore them without complaint, never asking for a minute's pity. She remained proud, and it tore her down easily, dragging her to this very moment. Silence. Tears glittered in her eyes.

She whispered quietly, and it might have been lost to him, had he not trained every one of his senses on her. "Damn you." It was all she said; it was all she needed to say. It summed up everything she could have ever thought to say, and it indeed communicated every hateful thought she had born to him in a very spiteful way. She meant every thought, every feeling, but she dared not tell him, for fear her voice might betray her, and let go of what was really in her head. That would be the last of her.

So she let the stillness close in again, allowing her words to flow over him in waves. All was lost. It was unspoken, but it hung in the oppressive air, smothering any other thought. Sleep would not come tonight. Tears fell down his cheeks regretful streams, his breath hitched in his chest in undulating gasps that betrayed his real thoughts. And words did not come.

Defeat enveloped him in its black grief. His vision wavered, no longer focusing on what he saw, only knowing the pain. He fell to the floor at her feet, wishing death near. He beckoned to it, but it did not heed his call. He suffered. She felt a moment's pity, but it lasted only a moment. The end had come. "Leave," she commanded of him, and he obeyed. Rising to his feet, he shuffled out the door, head hung low. She wouldn't see him until Christmas, four years later.

She could feel his soft, pouty lips envelope hers, his arm snake around her waist. She closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the moment, and to him. How long she'd waited for it, and how easily it was dismissed. They pulled apart, reluctant, but knowing what they would have to face if they continued any longer. He gazed at her sweetly, his beautiful hazel eyes softening with love. A stray lock of hair fell on his forehead, and she resisted the temptation to brush it away. "The world didn't end," he whispered, and his voice melted over her like honey, sweet and comforting.

"No, it didn't." she responded, returning the same look of affection. She loved him, with every shred of her soul. She did not say this, did not commit sacrilege to the moment that, by regulation, was not supposed to exist.

"Happy New Year, Scully," he sighed. She allowed him to lead her out of the room, completely content to be in his arms.

She did not remember this man, or the time that went with it. It simply would not come to her. She did not force it, for with the feelings of joy and ecstasy, came pain and sorrow. And regret. Most of all regret. She wanted to go back, change whatever went wrong. She knew she loved this man, or at least knew it in her dreams. But her dreams she also forgot, just as she could not remember any scrap of the man in them. None at all.