Authors note: Ok so this is my first X Files Fic and I've been a fan since it started when I was just eleven. So I hope I do it justice.

Disclaimer: Wish I owned it, but alas it belongs to Chris Carter. If I did, I'd have tried to get Gillian Anderson into bed. That woman is a goddess!

Chapter One

Loyalty doesn't account for anything it seems. I've given that man six years of my life. Six years of pure devotion, in which I have lost so much, yet seem to have gained so little. I lost my sister, my beautiful free spirited sister because of his cause. I almost lost my life because of his pursuit for the truth. Duane Barry may have abducted me but if had never met Mulder then I would be living a normal life. Living in suburbia with a husband and small children. That was another thing that had been taken from me. Because of what they had done to me, I was barren! I was unable to bare children, the one thing that all women should have the ability and right to do. The men who had violated me with their endless tests had snatched it away from me.

I kept going even after the things that had happened, shaped my future in a way that was anything but normal. Why? Because I would have followed that man to the end of the world and back. I had done so several times in fact. The love I feel for him is what keeps me going. I have never felt this way before and I doubt I ever will again. I had thought that I'd been in love before. Marcus my high school boyfriend had been the first to break my heart. At the time I thought I'd never recover. I was going to die from the endless pain that had filled my body. Then came Daniel, my sweet Daniel who had made me realise that there was more than one love for everyone. Leaving him, in the hope that he would repair his failing marriage and fractured relationship with his daughter. I could not have breaking up a family on my conscious.

Jack had taught me that love lives on forever, that even after his death I still grieve for the lover and more importantly the friend I lost. And then we come to Ethan! He taught me that if you love someone you don't posses them. That was all I was to him, just a possession, something that he could control, bend to his will you might say. He taught me that this was not love, this was toxic, this was volatile and that there was no way that it could have ever ended pretty.

And it hadn't! It had ended in a series of screaming rows, a whole dinner set being thrown from all ends of the room and an assault charge being made against him. He had tried to stop me working on the X Files, demanded I said no. Decline my assignment and become the good little wife he had wanted. The X Files and more importantly Mulder had been my escape route. That night hadn't been the first time he had hit me, surprisingly it had happened a couple of times. The strong, independent Dana Scully had let a man put his hands on her, something I had been extremely ashamed of. I had never told Mulder about Ethan, I hadn't dared. I knew him well enough to know that even after all these years he would have hunted him down and kicked the crap out of him.

I thought that with each of these men that I had been in some state of love, but none of them compared to Fox Mulder. My Mulder, who would not only protect me, but would also respected me. Respect me as an agent, a doctor, a woman and most importantly as a friend. These were only a few of the reasons why I am so ass backwards in love with him. I'd have done anything for that love to be reciprocated, but it wasn't, he loved someone else. He loved the woman I despised the most in the entire world.

When she came back into his life I knew that it would only be a matter of time before she would drive a wedge between us but I never expected it to be so quickly. It feels like it was almost instant, he started to ditch me more than normal, he ignored my calls frequently. As much as this had hurt and had left me both jealous and seething, it paled into insignificants when he began dismissing the facts that I presented before him. I gave him evidence that implicated that vile woman, that linked her to the very men that we were fighting against. But he dismissed it, he had dismissed me so it would seem.

Then the final betrayal was laid out before me and my heart and my soul shattered into a thousand pieces and I had never felt pain quite like it. It was almost exquisite. Excruciating even! The sight that awaited me when I went over to his apartment will be etched on my brain until the end of time. Every time I chose my eyes I can see them together. Riding around on the bed, kissing, touching, and basking in the pleasure that they were giving each other.

My Mulder was making love to Diana Fowley. Even the thought now has made a small amount of sick fill my throat. I swallow down the bile and I can feel the tears falling fast. I had never been one to openly show emotion. Having a father from a Naval background had taught me discipline and an ability to mask my feelings. But right now in this moment all I could do was cry. I feel like a fool to have ever believed that he could feel anything other than a fondness for me. I was just his sidekick and that's all I'd ever be.

It had taken them a few moments to realise that I had walked through the door. It had taken me a few moments to realise that I was rooted to the spot, dumbstruck at what I was seeing, unable to react, unable to move my feet and run from the scene that I was so desperately wanting to get away from. His calling my name had woken me from my shocked slumber and having revived some of my senses I quickly turned on my heel and ran from the room. Not wanting to look back at nightmare behind me. I heard his voice calling after me and I prayed that I would get to the elevator before he got to me.

I have moved with some speed before, I've outrun men ten years younger, desperate to get away from me. But in this moment I was unable to out run him. He was pursuing me with a greater speed, barefooted and wearing only the jeans he had thrown on. I was heading for the stairs when he grabbed my arm in an attempt to pull me back to him. All the anger, shock and betrayal bubbling up inside of me rose to the surface and as he swung me round to face him my hand connected with his cheek hard.

And when I say hard I mean hard!

My hand stung from it, so god knows how bad his face felt. He dropped me almost instantly and replaced the hand, that been holding me with to his cheek. Shock filled his face as well as the pain. It paralleled mine. My pain may have not been physical like his but is stung as badly as any slap I had given him. We stared at each other intently for what felt like an eternity, both of us trying desperately to read the others thoughts. I was failing miserably, but he knew. He knew exactly what I was thinking because Dana Scully's façade had slipped. The Ice Queen had melted. Frosty knickers had thawed! My heart was on the table for him to see and it dawned upon him ever so slowly that I wanted to be Diana. That I wanted so badly for him to love me the way he loved her, the way I had caught him loving her.

Tears forming I tare my eyes from his turning slowly I walked away. The determination was written all over my face.

If Mulder couldn't love me then I'd have to find someone else that would.