an: So, hi. This is my first x-files fic, and pretty much the only thing I've really written for this fandom. So, I'd ask for a little leniancy, but that's not exactly manning it up. Just don't be too harsh! This is kind of a series of "missing moments" during and between each episode I like/feel like writing about. I think it's been done before, but I'm not claiming to be original. Just kind of hoping it'll help with writer's block and help to get a little creativity back.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. And my memory of episodes will fail from time to time, so just go with it?

"If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find."
-John Churton Collins

The X-Files had been a child born from the unexplained phenomena of time and the American government's quest of such mysteries (and their inexplicable need to keep records), and Fox Mulder had always believed it fell into his lap for a reason. Well, it hadn't fallen into his lap so much as he had inquisitively dug into the filing cabinet. Still, he required some sort of reasoning; after all, these things weren't for just anyone's eyes. They were for the believer. The determined.

And, apparently, the skeptic.

Coincidentally, Special Agent Scully had been placed beside him. Though a bit green, she was quite intelligent and he found he didn't mind her so much. No, he minded why she was placed in that basement. Why she, a definitive-answer type of woman, was thrown down there where definitive answers didn't happen, where there was never a credible explanation. Not only was it rare to find out "why", but often it was difficult to find the "how" in a given situation. Motive was one thing, though, and the manner of death seemed to be a whole separate ball game at times.

In the short time he watched her read through a case file, she had crossed her right leg over her left, and then her left over her right. She wasn't quite nervous. He would call her shy, though. And perhaps fully aware of him. That enclosed environment had been uncomfortable in the beginning. She later determined the basement she shared with her partner was more of a home than her apartment.

In her short time assigned to the X-Files, she had come to see enough that had her questioning the scientific methods she had so deeply believed in. But, they were logical theories and Mulder's were not. So naturally, she stuck to her roots.

"I don't see how you could have believed you had any reason to submit this 302, Mulder." She sighed, setting the file on their desk and sitting up right. "A newspaper clipping is hardly grounds for a case."

He fiddled with the cracked sunflower seed in his mouth until he was satisfied the shell was all that was left. "But you don't really think that, do you?"

She furrowed her brows.

"Because if you did," He continued. "You wouldn't have recommended we give this a shot when you were meeting with Chief Blevins." He went on to spit out the rest of his sunflower seeds and replaced them with the remaining contents of the bag.

She shrugged, knowing better than to question him. "You had a hunch." She offered.

"I guess that means you do too."

Of course he knew she had been called in to see Section Chief Scott Blevins. He knew from the get-go she would be under scrutiny, that she would be continuously questioned just to be sure he hadn't lost his mind. Though, he certainly hadn't been so kind in the beginning. She had ultimately been sent to debunk his work, and he was quite aware of that. A few cases later and she had proven herself to be a person he would begin to trust. He could only conclude that Scully was sent to keep his feet on the ground.

It wasn't long before they were boarding a flight headed to Sioux City, Iowa. He had to admit, the redhead was a trooper. While she stayed true to her skepticism (and at times her superiors' initial orders), she went along with him. She was eager to see what he did, to understand it on his level. She wanted to believe, but it would go against everything she knew.

In the meantime, she continued to follow him to every end of the country if it meant finding the truth, as Mulder had so diligently put it.

He was searching, but she wondered if what he had so badly wanted to find was long gone.

She was infuriated, to say the least.

Her alarm for that particular morning just happened to be the NSA busting through her hotel room door, at 5:30am. She couldn't say she was surprised when they had demanded to know where her damn partner was. She could only conclude the binary strings a certain little boy had scribbled down was indeed something.

And, as it turned out, it was a very important something. A transmission from a defense satellite sort of something.

Later that day, Scully realized she had no right to be so upset about a small disturbance when the boy's home had been renovated, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. No, the NSA had been the tornado from hell. Their home had been destroyed.

And Mulder... he was livid. He had invested so much of himself into the case already, and she knew they were far from done. The eldest child, a teenage girl, had been abducted by what he so desperately believed were aliens. The incredible bright lights everyone had claimed to see had been his only steady form of proof. Even then, with the "witnesses", it was hardly anything.

Throughout the remainder of the case, she had watched him closely. While she didn't truly know him, she was able to see he wasn't himself. He was impulsive, obsessive...

So he was still himself, but to what degree?

That night, in a darkened motel room, he had told her of his sister's fate. Little Samantha Mulder was cast into a bright light, floating in mid-air, and taken from their home. He was visibly upset – eyes red and puffy, hopeless – and she wanted nothing more than to take the pain from him.

He was twelve, his sister only eight. He blamed himself, and told her how he wasn't able to move.

"You were shocked."

She believed she understood, but in actuality she was far from understanding what he meant, what he knew. He described a sudden temporary paralysis, one he couldn't quite explain to a doctor. His voice grew shaky as he told of how he was never able to call out for help. He, a grown man with a fantastic composure ability, broke down.

And she, a woman who loved more than she did anything else, had done the only thing she knew how to in such a moment: she held him there, still as ever.