Author's Notes: I'm not quite sure where this one came from, to be honest. Written when I was watching Season 3, after Anasazi and before Grotesque.

Spoilers: Pretty much the entire show and both movies, though there are few actual mentions of anything in particular.

Summary: Scully's thoughts on her life, many years apart.

Déjà Vu
Rated PG
By Suzanne L. Feld

1995

She watched as the young family went by; father pushing stroller, mother walking alongside, a towheaded boy about ten or eleven holding the leash of the small black dog that accompanied them. The baby in the stroller was sleeping, the parents looking around and occasionally pointing something out to the others while keeping an eye on the older child and dog, the entire family seeming happy and content. She was sure that they had their problems, but you wouldn't know it watching them as they gazed at the Tidal Basin and surrounding cherry trees vivid with autumn colors.

Considering her own life, she wondered if she would be happier in that woman's place than her own. She looked a bit older, early thirties instead of late twenties perhaps, but she knew that if she'd chosen a different path she could have been in that same situation. Instead, she had just returned from an insane cross-country trip after shooting her partner and going on the lam from the very government she worked for. All in a day's work for Dana Scully.

A light wind kicked up and swirled some of the brightly colored leaves around the legs of the bench she sat on and caused a few more to drift down from the trees around her. Like a colorful wave, she thought abstractedly.

Some days, like this one, made her really think twice about her life choices so far. Up until she applied to the FBI she was doing what everyone expected of her; though her choice of medicine as a career had appeared to surprise her parents, they fully supported her. Her father had been alarmed and disappointed when she chose the FBI and pathology over having her own practice, and while he'd never openly disapproved she'd known that he wasn't happy with her choice. Her mother was more openly supportive, but she knew she didn't like the danger she put herself in either. Her brothers were more vocal about disliking her line of work, though she rarely saw Charlie anymore and Bill seemed to be more concerned about her relationship with Mulder than any real danger. Missy, as she always had, fully supported her.

She was, right now, more than young enough to start over. To find a good man with a steady job, settle down, have children, forget the horrors she'd seen and the atrocities she now knew that their government was capable of. She had a choice, she realized. Right here, right now. She could walk away from the Bureau, from the hazards that threatened a regular agent never mind the extra dangers they went up against on the X-Files. If she took Mulder out of the equation it became a difficult question but when she considered him, there was no decision. She was staying; not just for him, or because of him, but for his quest that had become hers as well.

Dana was feeling melancholy and rather sad as she watched the small family disappear from sight, leaning back on the hard bench and crossing her legs. It was a beautiful if cool autumn afternoon and she was AWOL from work, having had to run to Quantico to pick up an autopsy report that the morning's courier had forgotten to bring. On the way back she'd spotted the stunning autumn colors and stopped, wanting to take just a few minutes to herself to stop and smell the flowers, as the case may be.

"Hey, Scully, figured I might find you here."

Unsurprised, she looked over at Mulder as he sat down next to her, stretching his long legs out. "What, you have a bug in my car or something?"

"Nah, you've been acting restless all week and I know this is where you like to go and think."

"So you decided to come along and bother me."

He grinned, and she'd never dare tell him how that grin affected her. "Only because Skinner called an impromptu meeting for four o'clock. I tried calling your cellular but it was off."

"And I left it in the car," she qualified.

"Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered you," he continued, stretching his arms along the back of the bench, one of them going partway behind her shoulder. His suit jacket gaped open, showing his belt holster and long, lean torso beneath the white shirt. After undressing him in her bed she knew exactly what his body looked like, and she worked hard to forget it. "But it's quarter after three now so we don't have much time to get back."

She heaved a sigh and stood, tugging down her blazer and smoothing her skirt over her hips. "Let's go," she said with resignation.

He stood up next to her, closer than made her comfortable, but she refused to move away. "I was watching you watch that young family that went by," he said in a low voice, tilting his head down towards hers as she looked up at him. "Do you regret your choice here, Scully? To follow me into certain insanity instead of having the two-point-five garage house in the suburbs and a couple of little miniature Scullys to chase around?"

Dana gazed right back up at him, not showing the surprise she felt at his words. For all that Mulder could be a cocky, selfish son of a bitch, sometimes he surprised her with this kind of insight and consideration. "I don't regret it," she said slowly. "I was just wondering if I might not have been happier in her place than where I am now. But I don't think so, Mulder. I think I'd be bored stiff and drunk by two in the afternoon and having an affair with the mailman."

The grin returned, his clear grayish-green eyes sparkling down at her. "You could always marry me. I wouldn't let you get bored."

She raised an eyebrow up at him. "Is that a proposal, Mulder?" Sometimes giving as good as she got was her best defense.

"And what if it was, Scully?"

He was still grinning, but she heard the serious tone in his words. Uh-uh, we're not even going there. "Then I'd have to tell you that I had already decided to stick with my life as it is right now. It's not where I'd have guessed I'd be when I graduated from high school or even college, but I love what we do and, especially, knowing that we're helping people and making the world a safer place by removing one evil bastard at a time. So try again another time, pal."

"I'll be sure to do that," he said, falling into step beside her as she began to head towards her car. "In the meantime, what do you say we grab some coffee on the way back?"

"We're certainly going to need it if we're going into a meeting with Skinner."

2008

Déjà vu.

Despite everything she'd seen in her years with the Bureau and Mulder, Scully still didn't believe that déjà vu was anything more than a hiccup of the brain, its way of making sense out of random patterns.

But on the other hand, she remembered being here fourteen years earlier, sitting and soaking up autumn sunshine and wondering if she was doing the right thing with her life. And that was before they had discovered the black oil or the Consortium's true plans or the Super Soldiers or even before Mulder had died and then come back, never mind before William had existed. Before she'd known what they'd done to her, when she'd still thought she had a chance of settling down and having a 'normal' life. When she'd still thought she could separate her life from Mulder's.

I was so innocent, even then, she mused.

Another family was walking along the Tidal Basin, clearly tourists, with three small children but no dog or stroller as she recalled from the last time she'd sat here. But like those others long ago, they were enjoying the view although this time it was spring and not autumn. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, though it was chilly enough that not a lot of people were out even on a sunny afternoon. Every once in a while the breeze picked up and a rain of snowy white petals drifted down, coating the sidewalk and floating on the water.

With a chill she realized that the man, who had a toddler on his shoulders, could easily be the ten-or-eleven year old she'd seen walking the dog that autumn afternoon so long ago. The couple was in their early to mid twenties, looking very young even for having children at all, never mind three ranging in age from an infant in a backpack to a four or five year old clinging to the mother's hand. God, at that age I was just graduating from college, she realized, or maybe starting med school. Either way, I was just a child myself.

"Getting melancholy again, Doc?"

She smiled a little up at him as Mulder seated himself next to her, unconsciously mimicking that long-ago autumn afternoon although he sat much closer to her now than he had then.

She heaved a sigh as he slid his arm around her shoulders, careful as he put it over her loose hair. "Just thinking."

"Dangerous territory for us both," he said with amusement in his voice, but she didn't turn to look at him, instead letting her eyes linger on the young couple and their brood as the moved out of sight along the curved sidewalk. "So whatcha thinking about?"

"Our lives," she said briefly, and then turned to look at him. At forty-eight Mulder was even more handsome than he had been at thirty-four in her opinion; for one thing he had grown into his nose, although his face was careworn and eyes shadowed with all that he'd seen and done. She loved him more than ever, even after everything they'd been through in the preceding few weeks. "About the last time we sat here."

"October of '95," he said, curling his hand around her shoulder and tugging her against him. "I wanted to do this then but knew if I did, you'd cold-cock me."

Dana let herself relax, sharing his warmth against the cool spring wind that gusted up now and then. Neither of them had worn jackets since it had been warmer when they'd left the house to come to D.C. hours earlier, and her jeans and blouse were no longer adequate as the day waned. "I'd probably have knocked you into the Basin," she said. "And then fished you out."

Mulder laughed out loud, squeezing her briefly then kissing the top of her head before sitting back again. "You were a little spitfire even then."

"And just beginning to realize how much you meant to me," she admitted, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Me too," he agreed, and then heaved a sigh. "We should probably get going if we want to get home before dark."

"Yeah, no convenient helicopter ride this time," she agreed.

But before she could stand up, he had removed his arm and turned to face her on the bench, taking both of her hands in his. "You know… we could, now."

"What?" Totally baffled, she stared at him.

"Get married. I'm totally free and clear, Skinner just confirmed it."

"Where in Heaven's name did this come from?"

"Don't you remember our conversation here back in '95? I told you that you should marry me and you'd never be bored. You told me to try another time, so I am."

"Mulder…!" Damn him and his eidetic memory!

"What? Are you happy living in sin? Doesn't that bother your Catholic conscience? I mean, come on, how many times do I have to ask you?" Despite the words he was grinning, and added, "This makes three, you know."

"You never really have, not meaning it, and you'd better not do it here," she said with a warning flash in her eye that he knew to take seriously. "As for living in sin, we've been doing it so long I've totally forgotten about it." Or at least I pretend that I have, until someone thinks you're my husband and then I snap at them.

"Ah well, then. Another time, perhaps." He squeezed her hands, and then still holding them, got up and tugged her with him. "C'mon, let's get a coffee for the drive back. I know where there's a Starbucks on the way."

They began to walk along the Tidal Basin hand in hand, her loose auburn hair blowing back in the light wind that sprang up as the day turned from afternoon to early evening. Had she known even that early in their relationship that she would someday be happy with this man? When she'd made that decision to stay with him, with the Bureau, all those years ago while so blindly unaware of what was coming, had she had an inkling of how intensely their lives would become intertwined? Had she already loved him, then?

She glanced up at him just as he looked down at her. Their eyes met, held, and almost-identical smiles lifted both of their faces. He let go of her hand and swept an arm around her shoulder, pulling her against his hard body; she reciprocated by slipping an arm around his lean waist and leaning her head against his chest, her hair flowing back over his arm like living flame. Together they walked away from the blossoming cherry trees as tiny white petals showered around them, away from the life they had once led separately and back to the one they now shared.

finis