When It Happened
There were plenty of times it could have happened. There have been so many cases that could have changed our relationship indefinitely.
There was Robert Modell, the case that damaged us both. Mulder's trust in himself was shattered then more than my trust in him. There was Donnie Pfaster. Both times. The night I shot Donnie Pfaster in my apartment, I was cold and distant until we reached Mulder's apartment where I fell apart in his arms. But it didn't happen that night. There was Phillip Padgett, a case I'm not sure I've ever wrapped my head around. I was attracted to Padgett in ways I can't describe. My attraction caused a tinge of jealousy in my partner, jealousy that flattered me. Mulder held me after Padgett, too. I cried then, too. But after each of those monsters, Modell and Pfaster more than Padgett, our emotions were raw, but our heads hard. We didn't let each other in as much as we could have. We comforted each other, but we weren't intimate.
Then came my cancer. It left as inexplicably as it came. It could have happened after my cancer had gone into remission and I had recovered from the treatments. It didn't. I could sense the fear in Mulder that he might lose me and that his quest might be to blame. I could sense the sadness in Mulder after my brother Bill spoke to him, about what I'm still unsure. I could sense the belief of Mulder's that I was fragile, that he might break me. Those were trying days for our partnership. A partnership that has come to encompass so much more than two agents who have each other's backs.
The night he sat in my dark apartment after I'd identified the body on his apartment floor as his, there was a moment where I thought it might happen. Certainly my walls were threatening to crumble until his innuendo killed the moment. I'd certainly imagined a similar scenario—undressing in front of Mulder. I wanted to go to him that night. It wasn't to be.
After I found and lost Emily, he was my rock. There were nights when I called him in tears, nights I called him angry at the world, and nights when we simply sat in silence. One night not long after I lost Emily, I was leaving the office and he helped me into my coat. After holding my lapels for a moment, he leaned in and kissed my forehead. We shared a look that spoke to our mutual appreciation and care for one another. I've often wondered if in that look we told each other of a hidden lust. Like so much with Mulder and I, it was unspoken. Unspoken until the night when it happened.
The night we exchanged Christmas gifts on Mulder's couch after investigating that "haunted" place out in Maryland could have been the night, but it wasn't. We had agreed to not exchange gifts this year, yet neither of us was able to resist. I stayed on Mulder's couch sharing memories of holidays past far longer than I should have. My time with my family suffered because of it. However, I don't regret it. I also don't regret that it didn't happen then. Mulder and I merely hugged when I departed his apartment then; a hug that lasted longer than any of our prior hugs.
Had anyone been watching us the night he taught me how to swing a baseball bat, they certainly might have assumed that the two of us were already intimate. We weren't and we didn't take the leap that night. Mulder pressing into me was unavoidable and incredibly enjoyable. We went home separately that night. I sought release from my own hand that night.
After I returned from Africa and Mulder was released from the hospital, we were closer than ever before. We spoke of my journey and fell back into our lives. I found Mulder looking at me more frequently, really looking at me. When we had reason to touch, each touch lasted longer than the one before. We were reaching a point when something was about to break.
Maybe from the outside it might have appeared that it could have happened after our New Year's kiss, the night the case with Frank Black came to an end. The kiss caught me off guard, but was beautiful and gentle. When Mulder led me out of the hospital that night, my anticipation was high. Like so many nights before, it wasn't to be. We reached Mulder's apartment, settled in on the couch and Mulder dozed off from the pain medication he was prescribed for his arm. I watched him as he slept and eventually fell asleep as well.
When Skinner came to Mulder's door the night after Teena Mulder died, it may have appeared to the A.D. that it had happened that night, but it hadn't. I'd held Mulder, yes. I'd comforted Mulder, yes. I'd even kissed the tracks of his tears. But it didn't happen that night.
When it happened, we'd returned to the motel where Mulder had been staying after he'd seen his sister and hundreds of other 'walk-ins' in the field near the nurse's home. April Base had been a jarring experience, yet Mulder seemed at peace. That night we walked into his motel room, I closed the door behind us, and when I turned around toward him, he was looking at me with a desire I'd never been seen in him. His lips crashed into mine, our bodies came together, and we made love. When it happened, it exceeded every expectation of what I thought our first time would be. Passionate, slow, gentle. When it happened, there wasn't concern over whether it should be happening. My Catholic guilt never manifested. We both wanted it, needed it. It was a beautiful melding of our souls, souls that had been intertwined for longer than either of us would admit.
It happened again after my trip with the Smoking Man. And it happened the night Mulder came home from chasing crop circles, after I'd seen Daniel again. It stopped feeling like a response to something, Mulder's mother's death, finding Samantha, and started feeling like where we both should be.
We belonged together in every way two people can. I'd felt like I belonged in Mulder's company for quite some time, but when it happened we both began to feel as if we belonged with each other and we weren't denying it.