Disclaimer: Scully and Mulder belong to Chris Carter.
author's note: okay, i'm turning this back into a one-shot. I have gotten stuck and can't figure out where to really go with it. it's still a big work in progress and ideas haven't been firmly put to this story yet, so i was never really happy with the chapter's that followed. i know i could do better, so i pulled it. i'm working on it on my own time. i won't give up on it, because the outline for it is really good, it just isn't stuctured too well. when i've finished it and am satisfied with it, i will turn this back into a chaptered length story, well maybe, until then thanks for reading what i had put up, and hopefully i can't make this story better.
Chapter one
Dana lay silent in bed next to Fox. She sighed, she was feeling restless. She turned on her left side away from Fox for the eighth time that night.
Dana looked at the clock it was only eleven. She had gone to bed only a couple of hours ago. Fox had just lain down, but he drifted off immediately.
Dana watched his sleeping form for awhile. She loved him so much. He meant so much to her. It killed Dana to know how much she loved him now, but to also know that she had betrayed him.
Dana sighed again and decided to get up. She didn't want to wake him up and then to have to explain why she couldn't sleep. She wasn't ready for that discussion yet.
Dana walked downstairs to the living room of their house. She sat on the couch in the darkness. She didn't turn on any lights. She felt more comfortable in the darkness. It was where she belonged now.
She hugged one of the throw pillows from the couch, and buried her face in it.
She had no idea of what she was doing anymore. Nothing felt right.
Dana looked up and out of the living room window and sighed. She felt stuck.
She made a mistake and now because of it, she couldn't move forward, and there was no way to go back, not that there really was anything to go back to.
Things had been so messed up a few months ago, but now everything was great, nearly perfect. But still the mistake existed; burned into her flesh, into her life now.
Dana looked at the wedding band on her left hand. Everyday that she put it on, she felt so fake. She had broken her vows to Fox and he didn't even know it yet. He still went on daily thinking she was his perfect little 'Scully', although she was a Mulder now.
Dana felt so tired, but she couldn't sleep, maybe it was that she couldn't sleep next to Fox.
She got up from the couch and walked onto their front porch.
The night air was cool, but not unbearable. It was nearing summer now. She liked this time of night, the silence and solitude, but it brought back the memory.
Dana hung her head, to keep from crying out. Every time the memory invaded she nearly died of shame.
She had destroyed everything.
Dana wished she could just take it back, erase it. Maybe think before she decided to do it.
Dana inhaled deeply, no this was just something she would have to live with, but she also knew that she couldn't go on lying to Fox. He didn't deserve that.
It hurt every moment she spent with him, every kiss they shared, anything that showed how much he loved her. She screwed up and since then she had to face him like everything was still perfect.
Dana was starting to space out. She watched the neighborhood. It was so peaceful. Everyone in their homes. Sleeping peaceful, without any worries, although she knew that many held their own kind of secrets. She knew that a lot of her friends, female, male, weren't all that faithful. She never thought that she would be one of them.
She felt a tear escape. She wiped it away quickly.
The memory lived vivid in her mind. She could still feel the man's hands on her, and a man's hands that were not Fox's and she hated that instead of cringing at the other man's hands, she now cringed at Fox's touch.
She could still hear the whispered words of the beautiful lies the man spoke to her, the beautiful lies that she bought. Fox would never lie to her.
The words echoed nonetheless, and Dana still remembered the words she spoke to herself so that she wouldn't feel bad about it the next morning.
It was now three months since her encounter with that man, a man she didn't even know nor his name and she knew that he didn't know hers, not that he showed any interest after.
Dana didn't care about him either, but his presence was still felt.
Then she came back to her life and she got to live with the shame. Every moment she was haunted by it, and she so very much wanted to tell Fox, but now too much time had passed and everything was so much better with them. She was afraid to destroy any more of her life.
Dana watched as one of her friends Julie Nolan came home. Without her husband. Dana knew what her friend had been up to, and Dana nearly envied how Julie could just come home with her head held high, like she was doing nothing wrong.
Julie parked her car, saw Dana and smiled and waved at her. Dana waved half-heartedly.
Dana watched Julie go into her home and knew that the woman would greet her husband, and make him her world again and everything would be fine. Dana wanted to pretend, to be just like Julie, but Dana knew that she just wasn't cut out for it.
At first it had felt right, a good idea at the time.
Back then She and Fox were fighting all the time. He had escaped by staying at work, it only made things worse. Then she started doing it too, but then she started to accuse him of cheating on her, although she knew that it would be out of his character.
Either way things were just too stressed between them. She feared that divorce was going to be apart of their future.
She needed an escape that night. To be away, to find herself again.
She had decided to find herself in a bar that night. She didn't want to be with anyone that knew her situation with Fox. She didn't want pity, and she didn't want to hear anymore that 'she should just wait it out', 'it'll pass', or 'things will get better'. She had been hearing that for months before that night.
Dana went to the bar straight after work. She entered and sat by herself sipping her whatever it was with a lot of vodka. The man entered and she was immediately drawn to him. He was dark and he didn't intentionally draw attention to himself. He didn't enter to exist for someone else, he was just there.
It was a long time since she had been attracted to another man.
He showed interest in her too.
Dana made the first move, she walked over to him and flirted lightly with him.
Dana felt the tears begin again. She wiped them away, wishing desperately that it never happened.
The man spoke kindly to her that night, words that she longed to hear from Fox, but all she got from Fox was anger and resentment.
The man bought her another drink and they laughed and spoke of nothing important. He made her feel good.
She spent most of the night with him, but in the back her mind she knew that she should be heading home. It was getting late and she knew that no matter how much she and Fox fought, he would still wait up for her. But she was enthralled by this man, she wanted to know everything and nothing of him at the same time.
This man made her feel so calm and at peace with herself, unlike if she had gone home, Fox would surely have picked a fight, or she would have, about nothing in particular.
Dana kept trying to convince herself that night, that she was going to head home, that that was her every intention, but then he asked her to come home with him, and for some reason only god knew, she said 'yes'.
Dana followed him to his apartment, it was well after midnight, and still her mind screamed to go home to Fox, but she ignored it. Dana didn't care and she liked the freedom.
They entered his apartment, and they made a feeble attempt at conversation before she found herself in his bed. They…she would never call in 'made love', but she didn't like the word 'fuck' either. She could never assign a word to describe what she did with him, if anything, they 'screwed', because that was how she felt when it was over.
It was three am when she was dressing to leave. He nor she made any effort to want to try and contact each other after this moment.
She left his apartment without a word. Apparently he had used all the words he found necessary to get what he wanted, after that he was done.
Dana sat in her car for a while before she left. She had felt worse then she ever had, even after one of her and Fox's fights. She felt used and there was no denying that she had been.
At least when she fought with Mulder, she knew that he still loved her and she hated that tonight she had forgotten that. She cried at the mistake she had just made, then she left for home.
When she arrived home, she was glad to see that Fox had gone to bed. Then she thought he would have had to. It was nearly four when she came home.
Dana showered quickly and lay in bed with him. He didn't stir, but all she wanted to do was to wake him up and tell him the truth, but she never found the courage to.
Tonight, she walked back into the house, still feeling restless.
Dana went into the kitchen, deciding to make herself a cup of tea, hoping that it might help her relax.
She waited for the water to boil.
Dana had figured out too late that night, that she truly did love Fox and that all their fighting was worth just being with him. She knew then that it had to get better eventually, but either way, she had betrayed him.
Then days passed, that turned into weeks and she kept telling herself that she would tell Fox. Every day was going to be 'the day'.
Then things between them began to get better. There were fewer fights, they started to do things together again, and slowly the love and care returned. And that ironically made her feel worse.
He was her best friend again. They could talk and once again she loved being in his presence. That just made to incident more prominent in her mind.
Everyday that things were good, all she could think was that she had just betrayed her best friend, the man she loved.
It was three months since her infidelity. She still tried to act like she was fine.
Dana tried to put everything that belonged in the past in the past and just move forward.
And that is where she ended up tonight. Not able to move forward, not able to go back.
Dana made her tea and took it back into the living room. She sat in the darkness again.
Dana looked at the ring as it gleamed in the moonlight on her hand. She finally cried. She hurt herself as much as Fox. She couldn't live with the fact that she had broken her vows to him. She felt disgusted with herself. It was unfair to keep lying to him.
Dana cried silently as she realized that she messed up big time.
There was only one thing she could do to make things right and it broke her heart to make this decision, but it was for the best.
Dana wiped away her tears and walked back up to the bed room.
She stood in the doorway. She watched him for a moment. He looked so peaceful, perfectly unknowing of the truth she hid so well apparently.
Dana looked away, if she lingered too long then she would find it even more difficult to see that she was making the right decision.
She knew that if she told him he could never forgive her. He could never see her the same again. She would be tainted, not the pure angel he always thought of her as.
Dana had to do it, it was the only thing she could do to spare him the pain, and to not feel that she was now a fallen angel.
She quietly packed a bag. She would leave everything behind, put all of it in the past, all the good, all the bad. Leave the life she knew that she had just completely ruined.
Dana changed and was nearly ready to go. She knew that she needed to come up with a lie for the reason she was leaving. She knew that she could never tell him of the other man.
Dana moved over to sit next to him. She watched him for a moment. She hated this, but she wanted to leave of her own will, and not to be cast out of his life for such a demeaning reason.
She caressed his face gently. He woke and looked at her. He smiled slightly.
"Dana?" he said sitting up.
She removed her ring and placed it on his bedside table not making eye contact with him. He watched her curiously and confused.
"We need to talk," were the words she spoke that she knew would be her undoing.