Author's Note:

This is the beginning of what is currently a two-part story arc. The length is beginning to take on epic-like proportions. The story takes place during season 7 and afterwards. Anything post-season 7 diverges from canon. Canon kept slipping in though. William is named William, whereas I'd named him something else before he was finally born in season 8—it took him a long time to be born! If you're familiar with the later seasons, you'll recognize some other similarities.

Chapter One is post-Orison 7x07. Angst, UST, MSR, Comfort. Scully tries to pick herself back up after the incident in Orison. Mulder provides what comfort he can and a place to crash.

PART ONE

Chapter One

After shooting Donnie Pfaster in her apartment, Scully couldn't bring herself to stay there that evening. Not that it mattered once her apartment became a crime scene. She needed some place to stay, and Mulder rose to the occasion, telling her to come back to his apartment. With this gesture Mulder had come to her rescue once again, as they both had done repeatedly for each other—in both large and small ways. Accepting his invitation almost had seemed like the logical thing to do. They were partners and friends, so she could bring herself to accept his help, when she knew she needed it. If Scully was anything, she was logical.


Standing in her apartment, Mulder could sense that Scully was wrestling with some inner conflict. "If you want to pack some things, we can get out of here." He paused for a moment: "You can't judge yourself."

"Maybe I don't have to."

"The Bible allows for vengeance."

"But the law doesn't."

Mulder had intimate experience with getting himself into unpleasant situations when running abreast of the law as an agent. "The way I see it…he didn't give you a choice. And my report will reflect that…in case you're worried. Donnie Pfaster would've surely killed again if given the chance." He couldn't have endured it, couldn't have carried on, if she'd been killed—he knew that as well as he knew his own name.

"He was evil, Mulder. I'm sure about that, without a doubt. But there's one thing that I'm not sure of."

Mulder looked at her concernedly: "What's that?"

"Who was at work in me? Or what…what made me…what made me pull the trigger?"

Mulder considered for a moment. "You mean if it was God?"

"I mean…what if it wasn't?"


Mulder had given her his jacket, but she still was shaking somewhat from shock as they entered his building, and Mulder put his arm around her. Thankfully he was giving her space in the silence between them. Mulder either knew she didn't want to talk or was too uncomfortable himself to think of what to say to her. She had a feeling it was the latter: Mulder could be a coward when it came to probing her emotions. Her standard "I'm fine" seemingly was just as much a relief as an annoyance to him. She sometimes wanted more from him, but for the moment his silence didn't matter. Mulder was the person she trusted most in the world, and she knew he felt the same way: he'd said as much many times during their partnership. His arm around her provided the only comfort she was bound to be afforded, and her shaking had stopped by the time they reached his apartment door. He fumbled with his keys and flipped the light on as they entered, tossing the keys down on the table by the door.

For years Mulder's apartment had been almost uninhabitable—lacking in essential creature comforts, such as a bed, but about six months ago that had changed overnight. He now actually had a bed and bedroom furniture and the bedroom itself, formerly a storage room for files and porn, had been cleared out to make room for these new additions. His apartment was now fairly respectable, and she actually didn't mind staying there. She had stayed there before its current transformation: formerly she'd sat in the reddish-brown leather chair watching him or waiting for him on a few occasions when it was necessary, but she had never considered it to be a relaxing place in general.

"Do you want something? I can get you something to drink. I'm afraid I don't have much to eat."

Mulder's refrigerator was perennially empty, as Scully was well aware. He had a personal relationship with every delivery place in a two mile radius. That photographic brain of his had probably memorized their carry-out menus years ago.

"Do you have any wine? I think that might calm me down."

"Yeah. Sit down, and I'll get it." Mulder turned on his heel, heading for the kitchen, and Scully walked into his living room.

Carefully arranging herself on the black leather sofa that faced the television, Scully folded her legs underneath her and pulled the jacket around herself tightly; she didn't want to give up that jacket yet. Her pajamas had been stained with blood, and she had quickly changed into a pair of grey running pants and a white men's undershirt that she sometimes ran in. She'd also carefully wiped the blood off her upper lip.

She could faintly hear Mulder in the kitchen fumbling through drawers and cabinets. She pictured him looking for glasses and uncorking the wine in his somewhat dated kitchen. Scully mused that the kitchen with its white brick walls and outmoded kitchen units seemed more like Mulder's style, even if the rest of his apartment had visibly improved. He appeared around the corner, carrying two glasses and a bottle tucked under his arm.

He set the bottle and glasses down on the low wooden coffee table, straightening up and immediately running his large brown hands through his hair, one of the little personal habits that Scully knew very well; he did it a lot when he was thinking. What he was thinking about she couldn't fathom, but he was thinking—that much she knew. He joined her on the couch and she glanced sideways at him. His face was in profile, and she considered how used to him she had become: when first she was assigned to work with Spooky Mulder, she had thought him attractive. She still did, but now she was less impressed and more comfortable with the way he looked.

"I don't know how good this is. Someone gave it to me somewhere along the line, I guess," he apologized handing her a glass.

"Anything will do," she said watching him lean forward and pour them each a glass.

'I should probably appreciate him more,' she thought to herself as he handed her a glass, which she accepted and sipped from before closing her eyes momentarily. 'Start appreciating him and stop pushing him away.' After all, he was only a selfish shit some quarter of the time. She could sense Mulder sitting back due to the subtle shift of the sofa beneath her. "Mulder, would you talk to me?" she asked gripping the stem of the glass more tightly. Silence wouldn't do anymore.

His eyebrows knit together, looking confused and concerned, but still saying nothing.

"About anything…anything at all. Just talk: I don't want to think right now."

"Of course…"

Thinking back on that night, Scully couldn't perfectly recall exactly what he said or if she had responded to much of it, but she had a feeling that she hadn't. Nonetheless, something changed that evening between them. They had been through so much that she would have never imagined that one evening could change much of anything. After all, they had saved each other's lives, sat by each other's hospital beds, fought the unknown, and she had even shot Mulder. How could one evening on a sofa change anything? And yet, it did. Maybe it had been building up over the past few weeks and months. Long ago she had begun to tell time in terms of cases, and Mulder's mysterious illness and subsequent disappearance from the hospital had not been so long ago. Maybe her boundaries had been irretrievably weakened by that experience. Maybe it was more a game of atrophy for the both of them stretching over the years.

Scully was on her third glass of wine, and being exhausted, was feeling the effects ooze into every limb of her body and cloud her brain. She did some muddled calculations of her body weight and blood alcohol levels. Even if she wanted to, she wasn't going anywhere under her own power tonight. Mulder was sitting with his head back against the wall behind him, arms crossed over his chest and feet propped on the coffee table. Somehow in the course of the evening Scully had come to sit alongside Mulder with her legs pulled up onto the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her head resting on his shoulder. Scully couldn't remember when it had happened, nor was she fully conscious of the fact either.


Mulder, on the other hand, painfully aware of his partner's closeness, was silently afraid to move. If he moved, if he spoke, if he breathed Scully was bound to awaken from whatever trance she was in and pull away--reestablishing her strict code of conduct. He was conscious of every breath that entered and exited her body, as it sent a small electrical pulse through the fabric of his shirt to his skin. It was pleasant having her like this, but his fear that it would abruptly end made enjoying the moment next to impossible. Her behavior was baffling--Scully had been through some awful things, but she had never curled up alongside him in such a manner—then again, maybe he'd never given her that option.

The long silence must have finally allowed Scully's mind to have its way with her emotions: she lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him and he saw the tears streaming down her face. Mulder had suspected that she was crying having felt a change in her breathing patterns, but her face had been hidden to him and he still had been afraid to move. Not a lot frightened him anymore, but Dana Scully could really throw him sometimes.

Before he could say anything, she blurted out, "I'm lost, Mulder."

Without having to explain any further, Mulder knew the full weight of her declaration and it extended beyond the moment and beyond this evening. Scully was talking in bigger terms than that, and Mulder could understand her pain acutely.

He took both of her hands. "You're not alone," he said simply, and he hoped that would be enough.

He wanted desperately to draw Scully's pain into himself, so that she might not feel it. He let go of her hands and slid his arms around her waist, lightly pulling her to him. Scully leaned into his embrace burying her face in his chest and placing her arms around his neck. Held tightly against him, he rested his cheek on the top of her silky head. Mulder could instantly feel her tears dampening his blue oxford shirt.

Mulder felt extremely guilty about the projection of Scully's life since he had entered it: he was convinced that he had cheated Scully out of a normal life and perhaps any hope for one in the future. What she had seen and experienced had virtually tied her to him. Whenever this overwhelming guilt began to creep over Mulder and he would contemplate telling Scully to quit the X-files or the FBI altogether and join the average Joes of the suburban world, he would choke and lose his nerve. If she quit, he would lose her, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing the one person he could trust, let alone the person he loved most in the world. At times when he had been lost, Scully had been the one to ground him and keep him from going over the edge.

He felt that familiar sinking feeling that evening and again he couldn't bring himself to do it: he felt certain that it was his fault that she had been attacked and nearly murdered this evening, but his insecurities and inner ache kept him quiet.

I'm a selfish asshole,' he thought as he pulled her tighter.

He was terrified of losing her. And yet, he was also fearful of telling her the way he truly felt: he liked to think that he knew Scully, and the Scully he knew pushed him away much of the time and relegated all mention of that grey area to the realm of don't ask, don't tell.

Responding to Mulder's tight squeeze, Scully lifted her head, so that Mulder also raised his head, looking into her blue eyes brimming with tears yet unshed. He cupped the back of her red head with one of his large hands and kissed her forehead. He held the kiss for some time, before pressing his forehead against hers with eyes closed. Her skin felt so smooth against his own that he drew back to kiss it yet again. Scully slightly tilted her head upwards so that Mulder's lips met her own, and very gently he pressed his lips against her soft smooth ones. Pulling back just the smallest bit so as to look at her, Mulder brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, slowly wiping away the tear stains that were there. Scully opened her eyes slightly and bent her head closer to his once more, and obligingly Mulder kissed her again. Scully's hand went from Mulder's chest, where it had been resting to grab the back of his neck and pressed her delicate fingers into his flesh, a sensation that required Mulder to suppress a moan. A small sigh escaped from her as their lips parted. They did not meet again: Scully closed her eyes and rested her head once more against Mulder's shoulder.

It wasn't the first time he had kissed—or nearly kissed—Agent Scully. They'd come very close on a couple of occasions. Mulder tended to be more physical than his partner: he was always trying to draw her into his personal space, put an arm around her shoulder, rest a hand on her back, trying to remind her—I'm here. Maybe even convince himself or those around him that she was his, if only professionally. Scully, on the other hand, kept everyone—including her partner—at an arm's length. In spite of that, he was almost convinced that she would have returned the kiss he had initiated in his hallway a few years earlier if it hadn't been terminated by a bee laden with an alien virus. That was his kind of luck.

Those missteps only seemed to further solidify Agent Scully's reserve, rather than weakening it. It had taken years to briefly surmount the invisible fencing that had marked the boundaries of their relationship. It had been New Year's Eve, and they were standing in a hospital hallway at that very appropriate time of midnight after Mulder had been treated for minor injuries. Staring up at the TV screen, listening to Dick Clark enthuse about the millennium, Mulder had watched a happy couple giddily kiss. He'd glanced down at his partner: even in hospital lighting with zombie scratches on her throat she was beautiful. Mulder reflected later that had he been clicking on all four cylinders, he would have deliberated longer before kissing her and perhaps would have decided against it; but he had been exhausted and he hadn't reconsidered acting on the oft repressed urge. After straightening back up and seeing Scully's smile—her surprised smile—he'd mused: "The world didn't end." She'd agreed. He'd meant—the world didn't end just because we kissed, Dana Scully—but he wasn't so sure that she hadn't meant—the millennium was a lot of hype.

He had never found out what Scully thought about that kiss; he never found out how she felt about a lot of things. He could get her to rehash the details of a grisly case, but detailing how she felt on a personal level was not something he'd been particularly successful at dragging out of her. Scully could be closed off. She had been mostly quiet in the early morning of the first day of the new year, playing doctor and worrying about his arm as she drove him home and helped him into his apartment. He knew that Scully sometimes had trouble taking him seriously outside of the professional realm, which was admittedly his own fault for being so flippant. Hell, even his onetime, doped up, and half-recollected confession of love hadn't elicited a real response from her.

And if he didn't know what the New Year's kiss meant to her, he sure as hell didn't know what the kiss tonight had meant. They probably wouldn't ever mention that either. Go on as if it had never happened. And as someone who mechanically pushed down all irrational hope that Scully thought of him as anything other than her partner, every time something happened between them the job of swallowing his hope became that much more difficult. He was spending too much time thinking about her unprofessionally as it was. He figured at some point he would reach his breaking point and he'd do something stupid, potentially driving away the ever professional Agent Dana Scully.

After a few minutes, Scully had fallen asleep against him. For awhile Mulder mused that he might let her stay there all night and have the satisfaction of watching her chest rise and fall against his own and feel her warm breath, but then he realized that he was being selfish and she would sleep more soundly in bed. Besides acknowledging his selfish motivations, Mulder began to feel unsure whether he could stand the sensation much longer: Mulder was a gentleman in most respects and he knew what his partner had been through, and yet the heaviness of her head resting against him was becoming all too appealing. So, begrudgingly, he hooked his one arm under her legs and grabbed her under the arms with the other. Cradling her like a child and even now taken aback to find her to be so small in comparison to himself, he carried her into his bedroom. How could someone so strong be so small?

He slipped her beneath the tan heavy feather comforter that was already turned down. As he tried to sit her upright to take his jacket off, she awoke with heavy lids.

"Mulder?" she mewed.

Mulder liked the way Scully said his name when she wasn't angry, and the sound of her sleepy voice made him smile somewhat. "I'm just taking this jacket off."

"Why?" she asked, letting her eyes close once more.

By this time, Mulder had been successful and was pulling the covers up around her. "You're all right now. I'm going to sleep on the sofa, if you need me."

She nodded with closed eyes before turning away from him to face in the direction of the door. Mulder switched off the light and was half way out the door when her eyes popped back open. "No, Mulder."

"What is it?" he asked turning around and taking another step back in the room.

"Don't."

He came to the side of the bed, and she held out her hand, which he grasped.

"Don't sleep in there," she commanded squeezing his hand.

He brushed a stray piece of red hair away from her eyes. "All right…I won't," he said getting the impression that she did not want to be left alone for now.

Mulder went to his chest of drawers to pull out his grey Georgetown T-shirt. He unbuttoned his shirt, traded it for the T-shirt, and then shed his pants, remaining in his blue and white boxers. He did this all in the dark, hoping that she had fallen asleep and was resting comfortably. Mulder eased himself into bed and poised on the edge, wondering whether he too should get beneath the covers. He saw nothing inherently wrong with it, but he wondered what Scully would think when she awakened, possibly unsure of where she was at first. Sleep overwhelming him, he decided to be content with the remaining atop the covers. He carefully arranged himself on the far edge of the bed, so as to give Scully room to move around in the night without bumping into him.

"Good night, Scully," he whispered looking at her one more time before closing his eyes.