'Three days of questioning,' Mulder slammed his fist into the table, 'and finally Joanne gives us Dana's location.'

'Mulder,' Reggie placed a hand on his agents shoulder in comfort.

'Where did she go?' Mulder asked to the universe at large. 'We opened that room expecting to find her body, to find her dead. What did we find?'

Reggie realised this to be a rhetorical question and chose to say nothing.

'Nothing, that's what we found,' Mulder's furry surfaced, 'not a single sign that she'd been in that room. Not now or ever.'

'What do you want me to say?' Reggie asked, 'the investigation is over. Joanne confessed. She and Sharon are going away for a very long time.'

'Tell me how I'm going to live my life without her,' his eyes pleaded. 'Tell me how I'm supposed to walk away from a fake marriage that felt more real than the real thing.'

Everyone seemed to magically forget about his partner, his wife, even though Mulder refused to take his ring off his finger in the hope she return to him. Unable to continue with the Violent Crimes Section, Mulder transferred to the Behavioural Science Unit based at Quantico. If the loss of Dana ate at his soul, the work under Bill Paterson completed the job. As a new decade commenced, the impossible occurred. A student entered the academy in January 1990, a young doctor by the name of Dana Scully.

She entered the FBI academy as she stated, as she'd done in her alternative life. Mulder gave a key note speech to her class on their first day. Ignoring the whispers about "Spooky" Mulder, he zeroed in on his target.

Three months and one week since he'd last seen his wife and Dana didn't blink an eyelid at his appearance. Judiciously he approached her with the intention of discovering if she'd demonstrate any awareness of him. If she remembered their time together she didn't show it. Mulder believed, as did everyone else in the room, that they'd never met.

Dana's truly experienced a time slip, Mulder experienced an epiphany, neither she nor her family or my colleagues remember her. It's as if she didn't exist before today.

Mulder should know, after all he'd tried to find her. The Scully family thought him a crack pot. His colleagues now openly referred to him as "Spooky". The chance of seeing her every day, forced him back to D.C. and the Violent Crimes Section under the supervision of Reggie. At least he found some peace and consolation with his friend.

A year to the day after losing his wife, in October 1990, Mulder became drawn into his first X-file. An anonymous file landed on his desk when a man died with his family name on his lips. Everything Scully, he could no longer think of her as Dana, explained came to make sense. It caused a reaction in him, two in fact. In discovering the X-files, Mulder searched, not for his sister and the reason for her abduction, but an explanation of what occurred to his wife. What happened to Dr Dana Scully and her memories of the three weeks they spent together? It also forced him to acknowledge the time had come to remove his wedding ring.

Lost and lonely, he threw himself into the work. A torrid but short lived affair with Diana Fowley occurred when he realised Dana Scully wouldn't be returning to his life. Diana, a fellow graduate from the academy joined him in the quest to have the X files opened in its own right. They succeeded and became partners, yet Mulder never saw her as an ally, just someone to travel this road with.

Making connections at the highest levels of power, warned by Scully's memory of the men waiting to pounce, the axe fell in March 1992. Word came down from Section Chief Blevins office. He'd soon meet his new partner after Diana transferred to Europe with the International and Domestic Terrorism Unit.

Mulder hid his surprise at the face walking through the door. Two and a half years after she'd disappeared from his life Dr Dana Scully had returned. Not much had changed in the interim.

'Oh,' Mulder turned to look into blue eyes his memory could never forget, 'isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded? So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?'

Over the years, he came to know Scully. At times he couldn't help the little innuendos falling from his lips in the hope she'd remember their time together. Late 1994, she'd joined him in his car, illegally staking out Tooms.

'Mulder,' Scully had looked at him, her blue eyes soft, 'I wouldn't put myself on the line for anybody but you.'

Unable to help himself, Mulder answered, 'If there's an ice tea in that bag, could be love.'

'Must be fate, Mulder,' she'd smiled at him, handing over a takeout cup, 'root beer.'

With his first sip, Mulder discovered his partner had indeed purchased iced tea. Peach flavoured, just the kind he liked. Then came the separation and Scully's abduction. It almost killed him, to lose her again. The cancer diagnosis made so much fall into place. Scully, the Scully who'd come back from the future wanted a baby so desperately. Only now did he understand why. When he discovered those vials of ova, of Scully's ova, he felt impelled to take them, to give his Scully the very best opportunity of one day carrying a child.

Too soon, Mulder discovered just how much she'd given up to follow him. It explained so much, why she'd felt the need to protect him. Against the odds, she'd survived the cancer, only to find and lose Emily. In all the emotional upheavals, that silent communication had survived. He saw too much, he knew too much about her not to be able to trust Dana Scully with his life.

Finally, it happened. After the assignment as Rob and Laura Petri, names he chose because he knew the story before it began, Scully broke down. Scully's reaction to the sight of returning her wedding and engagement ring, Mulder knew the moment had come. The moment he'd waited nine years for.

Scully opened her eyes slowly expecting to find a blue/violent illuminated room. Instead she saw her apartment. The bedroom of her apartment the night she'd demanded Mulder tell her about the Lone Gun Men to be exact. Somehow she'd returned to 1999. Heavy limbs draped over her body. Mulder's distinct smell surrounded her. A warm male body, morning glory in the middle of her back, stirred. He started to nibble on her ear in preparation for waking her in the most glorious fashion.

'Scully?' Mulder questioned, realising something had disturbed her. The woman in his arms stiffened ever so slightly.

'I had a really wearied dream,' she returned, rolling over to face her lover.

'Tell me about it,' Mulder coxed. After hearing the first sentence, he couldn't keep the hope from infusing every part of his mind. Half way through the story, he reached for his trousers on the floor. From the change pocket he took the wedding ring he'd used for the Arcadia assignment.

'It's the same one,' Scully sounded as shocked as she looked.

'Yes,' Mulder watched her startling eyes, 'I kept it for just this moment. Reggie thought me mad, purchasing it from the FBI. I hoped, one day, you'd remember. Nothing I could say would make you believe.'

'I believe,' Scully told him. Taking his head in her hand, she leant in to kiss Mulder. 'I believe.'