Disclaimer: How about, "I disclaim, therefore I am"? Not good enough? Well, how about if I mention that I own nothing pertaining to the X-Files, it's characters etc. And that they all belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen and whoever else out there who legally owns a piece.

Spoilers: Well, just to be safe, we'll say anything after Season Seven, especially 'Dead Alive'.

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In a detached manner, Scully began to take stock of how she had behaved during the past few months. She had been restless, in both mind and body, unable to stop her search and unwilling to admit defeat, even when she had reached the point where nobody would have found fault with her doing so.

She wondered idly about how many people she had insulted or annoyed during her sojourn as the believer in the X-Files office. Agent Doggett certainly thought that she was on the far side of sanity and she knew from gossip that many agents considered that Mulder's abduction and her pregnancy combined, had finally addled Mrs. Spooky's mind.

It was, she had decided with resignation, a theory that was both popular and unstoppable. Even Skinner's secretary had started giving her pitying looks every time that she saw her. It had it's purpose however, the pity helping to fuel her determination to find Mulder-and to find him alive.

She felt a chill pass through her as she remembered how exactly they had found Mulder, and the overwhelming, mind-numbing grief that had followed. The funeral itself was a memory that would be burnt into her consciousness- her mother standing beside her, and the Lone Gunmen looking as crushed by sorrow as she had felt. Afterwards, the pitying looks had increased until she had to fight the urge to hit each and every person who sighed when they saw her, or began whispering when she left a room.

It was only now that the image was beginning to be replaced-replaced by Mulder's was and scarred face as he lay in the hospital bed. The joy in that recollection lay in the fact that he woke up, and that he knew who she was-whatever about his twisted sense of humour as he tried to give her a heart attack when she spoke to him. She had relished the sense of being right when she had returned to work, enjoying the knowledge that at least now the whispers were about Mulder's reappearance, and not her relentless quest to find him-or the fact that she had found him, but that he had already been dead.

That brought her back to the present, where she was waiting for Mulder to come over with the pizza, and thinking about the past.

A knock at the door startled her out of her reverie. A second knock sounded, as she reached the door, followed by a stifled yelp. Rolling her eyes theatrically, she opened the door to find Mulder balancing the pizza in one hand as he sucked on a thumb.

"I don't even want to know Mulder," she said with an attempt at severity.
"Why, Doctor Scully, I'm appalled by your lack of concern!" he retorted with a grin as he stepped through the doorway.
Scully shook her head slightly before shutting the door, content for the moment to allow the past to be ignored and to concentrate on enjoying the present.