AN: This is an all things fic, with spoilers for the Goldberg Variation. It's just a short fic tieing Scully's thoughts through the episode together, and what leads her to Mulder's bed.
Cause and Effect
"Dana, why now?" he had asked as she'd slipped into his bed and begged him to make love to her, not just tonight but for the rest of their lives.
She pondered his question in the dim moonlit bedroom. It was Daniel, Colleen, and even Maggie, who had led her to this place. Ultimately though, only she could be held responsible for the actions which had led her to Mulder's apartment on that night. It had started she supposed years ago, perhaps when she had first decided to attend medical school, before that even. She had met Daniel, and that had set a sequence of events into motion, one which would span many years. It was her relationship with Daniel which had turned her away from medicine and towards the FBI. It was for this reason that she had met Fox Mulder, and it was because of Fox Mulder she had been inside that hospital only two days ago. If she hadn't been in the hospital she would never have seen Daniel. It was also Mulder who had bought Colleen into her life.
She hadn't wanted to hear the things Daniel had told her, the accusations from Maggie and the guilt she felt. She'd realised eventually that Daniel had never made her happy, yet she'd devoted so much of her life to him. She was happy now, she'd never been happier. Mulder made her happy. She told him so.
He pressed his lips against hers, and she knew that all her decisions had somehow led her to this moment, she also believed that the moment was inevitable even. That thought alone had given her the courage to make a move, overstepping the line they had been dancing on for seven years. Colleen's words came back to her "everything happens for a reason", she wasn't sorry she'd seen Daniel, maybe things wouldn't have come together. She was reminded briefly of Henry Weems, 'cause and effect', Mulder's words flitted through her mind. Mulder's fingers danced across her skin and she smiled, maybe that's all life was, a rube Goldberg machine, and the world was just a lot of rube Goldberg machine's interacting somehow. With that thought she turned her full attention to her partner and new lover, these philosophical thoughts could wait. Her final thought was that it didn't matter if all things happened for a reason, so long as they happened.