TITLE: Only Just Begun

AUTHOR: Lisa
EMAIL: Saturn_girl19@yahoo.com
CATEGORY: M/S Angst and Romance

RATING: PG-13
ARCHIVE: Please just let me know.
DISCLAIMER: Last time I checked, I didn't surf, and my name wasn't Chris, so I guess that means they're not mine. I'm not Karen Carpenter either.
SUMMARY: A post episode for Requium. Mulder comes back.


X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X
Before the rising sun we fly,
so many roads to choose.
We start our walking and learn to run.
And yes, we've only just begun.

~The Carpenters, Only Just Begun
X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~ X~X

~~~~~~
Mulder
~~~~~~
I stand in complete awe. I'm frozen, utterly and completely frozen. I can't move. I don't really know what happened. I blinked, and in a micro second I was simply standing in my hallway. Apartment 42, yup, that's me.

Everything has been a complete daze. I don't know how long I have been gone ...The things that I saw are indescribable. But all I kept thinking about was Scully ... Scully ...Scully. Oh God, where is she? I have to find her. Tell her I'm actually back. My mind starts to rush in a panicked haze, running, running, twisting, spinning....

Suddenly, as if the good lord himself could feel my panic, (I'm getting religious. What the hell did they do to me up there?) I hear that all too familiar noise: click click click. Could it really be her?

Oh God. I almost feel like jumping up and down like a teenager on a sugar high. It's her. It's really her!! But she hasn't noticed me yet. Her head is bowed, and she's looking through some papers. Oh, the trouble she must have gone through trying to find me. Don't worry Scully, I think. No more... Oh lord. Her overcoat just swung open... Could it be?

"Scully?"

Why isn't she saying anything? She's just standing there, her eyes in a glaze, her lips moving in a silent prayer to herself. It's worse than I thought. My disappearance has literally left her crazed.

"Scully, it's all right now."

I move towards her slowly, as to not startle her trance. I can see her hand grasping her gun. I would prefer to run, but I have come this far without dying, lord knows it would be a tragedy to be killed by the very person who has kept me alive all this time. Talk about irony.

I finally reach her, and am greeted with widened blue saucers of amazement, of fear. Oh God, the fear.

"Don't be scared, Scully. It's me. I'm back. I'm home."

Suddenly, like a light burst in her brain, like china crashing on the kitchen floor, she is broken from her trance, and I see the light return to her eyes.


"Miracles are possible, Scully."


And I seize her mouth, I absorb her, and as always, I relish in the ironic miracle that is our love.

But soon, Scully breaks the kiss, and starts asking me questions, just as I knew she would. How? Why? Where? And all of the above.

But I couldn't help it. I was smiling. "I should be asking you the same things."

I couldn't believe it. Scully was pregnant with my child, with our child. After all this time, our love had finally conquered all, manifested itself into something real and tangible.

I knew Scully would be a magnificent mother. I could tell in the way she moves and speaks; firm in her delivery, but gentleness hidden in the message; in the way she nursed me when I was hurt, in the way her hands swept across my skin in feather-light touches.

Soon, Scully convinced me to go to the hospital, though they couldn't find anything wrong with me. In the car, on the way there, we both broke down. The pure weight of it all just hit us like a ton of bricks, and I had never seen Scully cry so much in my life. I felt guilty for causing her so much grief, but I felt elated to be back in her arms again. And I swore to her I would never let her go.

When we got home, I rocked her in my arms, telling her everything. "It was phenomenal, Scully, but all I thought about was you. You are all that matters to me now. We have so many roads to choose in life, but the road that leads me back to you is the only one that matters."

I meant it, and for once, I know that she believed me. Now, we will finally be able to live that normal life Scully was talking about. It's true. It is always darkest before the dawn.

~~~~~

Scully

~~~~~

Words eluded me when Mulder first came back. It had been seven months since Mulder had first gone missing, and with each passing day, my belly became bigger, and my essence emptier. I had just come from The Lone Gunman's with some new files to look over, but I really didn't think they were going to help. At that point, I knew only a miracle was the answer. I never would have even admitted to saying such a thing years ago, but Mulder changed my entire outlook on life ...Miracles are possible. And it was a miracle when he finally appeared.

At first, I was frightened. I could feel someone watching me. I felt eyes bore into me like nails into wood. I grabbed hold of my gun on instinct, and jerked my head up, ready to fight fire.

"Mulder?" I thought I was losing it. He was standing directly in front of me. I thought I was hallucinating. I had learned in the last seven months that pregnancy does strange things to the mind. I had some of the most surreal dreams of my life during those seven months; majestic mountains swallowing me, chasing buildings, drowning in my own tears … I found myself craving pickles and rocky road ice cream; Mulder's sunflower seeds and cream cheese. I will never understand it.

Then, the unearthly vision I thought my mind had created was moving towards me. But all I could do was stand, like some monument in remembrance of the sanity I used to hold, but was slowly but surely losing grasp of.

I just stood there; breathing, but just beginning to live again. How strange it was to actually feel my blood flow again. I simply wasn't used to it. But when Mulder came to me, planted that first kiss on my lips, I finally realized it really was him. I was finally awakened after seven months of walking death.

 
I didn't care about anything except that Mulder was standing in front of me. I didn't even care that he seemed to just appear there. My scientific mind should have invaded the moment, and started to ask the questions: How did this happen? When did you get here? What did they do to you? Do you feel all right? But I just stood there and let my passion rule me, instead of my sense.

Mulder's simple kiss soon became warm and sultry, filled with a heat I had never experienced before. He started to run his hands down my back, and tiny pinpricked thrills started to rush through me. It was so much better than before. It was like we had just begun again, fresh and new.

I was the first to break the kiss. Still out of breath, with my lips still slightly swollen and ruby red, the rational side of me had finally won the battle inside my head.

"Wait, Mulder."

And I started popping the questions at him, one after the other, like some crazed school teacher. But Mulder just stood there, a small smirk developing on his face.

"I should be asking you the same things," he said.

So, he just threw the same questions back at me again, and I remembered. I had almost forgotten amidst the frenzy that had just now settled in my brain.

"I don't know how to explain it. I'm not even sure if I even believe it. This whole time, I thought I was just going to wake up from a dream, but it's real. No matter how many times I try to convince myself otherwise, it's real. We are going to gave a baby, Mulder."

Mulder didn't do anything right away. I think for once, I had rendered him speechless. And then, a real smile, the smile I had been craving for so long escaped across his face, and he took me in his arms again.

My voice slightly muffled from lying against his shirt sleeve, I said hoarsely, "Mulder, in all seriousness, are you all right? I think we should take you to the hospital.

"This is the only place, I need to be now, Scully; with you, and our baby."

With that, he smiled again, and held me tighter. But I just couldn't let it go. I had to know he was really all right.

"We're here, Mulder, but I should really drive you to the hospital."

He grunted, but obliged, and we made our way to the emergency room. At first, the car ride was fairly uneventful. Mulder just kept staring at me, this tranced look on his face, like some forlorn teenage boy.

"Mulder, what is it?" I asked.

"I was wrong. It's all worth it. It's worth it because you were there. Before I left, I felt like giving up, like it was the end. It may be the end for my quest, but it's just the beginning for us ... and our baby."

I started to cry. I couldn't help it. The tears started to take command, and I couldn't see where I was going, so I had to pull over. Mulder held me, and we both let oceans fall.

X~X~X~X~X~X~X

Mulder and I made it safely back home after we finally made it to the hospital. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong, but we still had trouble explaining how Mulder could simply appear in the hallway. But for once I didn't demand a "logical explanation." All that really mattered was that Mulder had made it home to me ... to us.

We stayed up all night, and Mulder told me everything. I listened, wide-eyed and unbelieving, as Mulder told me first hand about all the things he was trying to prove all these years.

"It was phenomenal, Scully, but all I thought about was you. You are all that matters to me now. We have so many roads to choose in life, but the road that leads me back to you is the only one that matters."

And Mulder wrapped his arms around me, and around my swollen belly, whispering into my ear, "We have only just begun ... We have only just begun."