A/N: Hiya! Just finished season five today, and the last scene of "The End" just stuck with me. So this is basically a retelling/not-quite-missing scene from the season finale. Two more days until I'm on home wifi again, so what's the consensus here - do I wait to watch the movie and then go on to season six, or do I just go on and watch the movie some other time? Thanks in advance.

Hope you like what I threw together - reviews would be oh-so lovely!

The office is gone.

You know it before you even start towards the stairwell, before you take the steps two, three, four at a time going down to the basement. That's why Skinner called, after all. He didn't say it in that many words; he didn't say it at all.

But you understood, still.

You smell it before you see it. You taste bitter ash in the back of your throat as you duck your head in, and the sight of everything – or, rather, nothing – is enough to force you speechless. Because it's gone.

The walls are black with soot, and whatever coverings were there at some point had either been burned completely – or just partly, and then subsequently soaked through. The desk, just off-center, is half-gone and all-useless. And then there are the files.

The files. The filing cabinets that always stretched across the far wall of the room were made of sheet metal, and in the moments before you stepped through the doorway, that had been your one stringent hope. But you've found over time that hope is not reliable. Not in the slightest.

The X-files are gone. Destroyed. Each metal drawer – and there were many – had been pulled open, exposing the files inside to the open flames, and from the look of it, they cannot be closed. The tracks are all melted and bent, leaving the burnt files to stare at them from where they lie. You take a single step forward and peek over, as if you could find just one thing that isn't completely destroyed by force of will. And, finding absolutely nothing, you turn your head to glance sidelong at your partner. And here you are

You stand in the center of the room with water sparsely dripping on your hair, and in that moment, it is the closest you've ever come to seeing him cry.

Because all of it is gone. And not just the files. Not just five years of your time, but seven years of his. Years on years of work, of successes and failures, of near-death experiences, of times you both wondered if this fight was really worth it. Years of half-baked paranormal theories and strange scientific discoveries and puzzle pieces that always seemed to fit together but never quite perfectly.

Standing in the wreckage, you start to realize that the X-files had slowly become your life; and they had always been Mulder's.

He would have died for them. He almost did, too.

But, just like you, he stands surrounded by the blackened remnants of the last seven years. You imagine the sinking feeling in your chest, the heavy pit in your stomach, the sudden soreness in your throat being a thousand times stronger inside him.

So you take a step back towards him and place a gentle hand on the sleeve of his tee shirt, because that's what you do – even if all he can offer you in return is a thousand yard stare and a slow, unsteady breath.

You're silent. Still speechless, because the only thing you really want to say is that you're so damn sorry. But you find there's hardly a point in saying it when you aren't to blame, and when you yourself are similarly levelled.

So you don't say a word. You stand in the middle of the wreckage with your cheek against your partner's shoulder, breathing in ash and soot and failure until Skinner finally comes to pull you out.