Author's Note & Disclaimer: Hey everyone, so this is my first shot at writing for X-Files. The tone is hard to capture, I think, but I did my best. If you are reading this, please take the time to review. I know it seems like an effort or not important at all, but getting any kind of feedback is both very helpful and the best reward ever imaginable. Seriously. Every time I open my inbox and see one of those "Review:…" emails, I get nervous and incredibly happy all at once and have to wait for a moment before opening it.

Obviously, I own nothing, all characters belong to Fox and whoever holds the copyright. I am just writing this for fun in anticipation of the upcoming finale.

"Water on Earth moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation and transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea." - Wikipedia: Water

Credere

Science. The way one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms come together to form H2O, the compound that gives life to this planet. One would think there is more to it than this, but the simple fact is that its atoms are held together by polar covalent bonds, while the molecules are connected by hydrogen bonds. There is a certain poetry to how water can pass through different states and still remain, essentially, water. But basic chemistry is all there is to it. It is what currently allows her to relax her muscles in the warmth, what allows her head to let go as she lets herself go under, submerging her ears until all she can hear is the rushing of her own blood. Her face is the only thing that remains above the surface while her hair fans out around her. She has always loved taking baths – not necessarily the extremely foamy bubble bath kind, but the kind where the scent is so heavy it makes her drowsy, the water allowing her body to feel light as a feather so she might disappear in it. She likes touching her skin in the scented water, all soft and smooth, feeling as if she is floating in some sort of womb.

His lips brush against her neck, barely touching the point above her shoulder, and she lets out a girlish giggle she hardly recognizes, leaning her head away from him.

"Agent Scully? We may have hit on something here."

"Shut up." She splashes him behind her as his fingers continue to run up and down the outside of her arms, making the little hairs on them stand up. She barely notices that the water has cooled down, the skin on her hands wrinkling in it.

"Or what?" he asks playfully.

"Or I may choose Skinner after all."

"Ouch. Stop."

There's something to be said about bald men. You know, studies have shown that-"

"I may have to get out and puke."

Science. Pheromones and instant attraction depending on hormonal levels, evolutionary reasons for this evolved phenomenon or social construct (depending on who you ask) called "love". An initial feeling which is based on appraised survival fitness and investment in offspring to ensure genetic survival as long-term partners grow more alike and resentful of each other at the same time. But they have no offspring. Not anymore.

The wind blows across the bare fields, barely raising a movement among the shorn stubble that remains around this season. The backless wooden bench is cold underneath her thighs. If she ran her hand across it, she would run the risk of drawing a splinter out of the moist wood. Yet in spite of the grey clouds hanging low, in spite of the sting in her cheeks and the way her skin feels stretched too far across her face, she is glad to be outside. She is relieved he agreed to talk here, in this deserted setting, rather than over packed bags around the clutter of memories. There isn't much left to say, either way, and she is unsure if she has the courage now, if she can find the words. She had to get out of that house.

He is the one to break the silence, calm as a summer's day. "You are not coming back."

"No" she replies calmly, "I am not." There is no 'not for now'. No 'I'll stay in D.C. a little longer after the conference'. No 'needing space', no 'taking a break'. This is not how they talk. She won't insult him by couching her decision in euphemisms.

He, in turn, will not make a scene. "I figured…from the bags."

She looks at him, studying his now grim face, the way he hasn't shaved in days, his graying temples and the lines on his forehead. She wants to remember this. Call it masochism. She can't recall the last time they touched. "Don't you want to know why?"

"I think I already do. Self-preservation."

"Something like that." Her eyes are beginning to sting against her will and she blinks it back, not wanting to make this harder than it already is. It's his complete resignation that gets her. She wasn't expecting him to fight her, but the way he is slumped on this bench, a picture of defeat, the way he simply accepts her decision, is not how she wants things to end. This is not who they are. And she can't take pity on him now, because if she does like so many times before, she will never leave. And they will never change. And she can't do this anymore. "I tried, Mulder. I really did."

"I know." He glances up at the sky, studying a flock of birds flying by overhead, their black wings beating fiercely against the wind.

"But I need to do more."

This gets a frown out of him as he is still watching those damn birds. "I never stopped you, Scully."

"That's not the issue. Mulder, I want you to get well, I want you to be happy…and myself. But the evidence suggests that we haven't really been helping each other in that department, have we? That's why I'm doing this."

"After 20 years?"

"Yes. After 20 years."

Science. The incorrect rejection of a true null hypothesis. And the premise that, as long as she keeps the probability of this at below 5%, this is somehow okay. It's perfectly acceptable to take that chance, although 0.049 or 0.051 really doesn't make that much of a difference, mathematically speaking. But which powerful test is there for relationships? How can she reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis that this has no chance? The only measure she has is her own happiness and fulfillment, which she does experience in moments – with or without him. Her pride at completing a successful surgery, at having her own things to take care of, away from him and the dark cloud that looms over them. Her joy, her life in investigating these impossible cases with him. But there are too many confounding factors to establish a causal relationship, and she lacks a control group. There are piles on top of piles of despair and hopelessness, the threat of loss, the crippling fear that kept them together for so many years. Need alone is not enough. So how does one differentiate?

He rubs his thumb against the outside of her hand, slowly at first, then applying more pressure as his arm is wrapped around her from behind, holding her like he never wants to let her go. They have been in this position before, lying in bed with her back to his front, and she is glad of it because when they are like this, they are close yet they don't have to face each other. He doesn't have to see the tears running out of the corners of her eyes down into the pillow, soaking it. But he is here, his voice near her ear, his body warmth against hers, and she is glad of it. Glad they needed no words between them for him to take her back to his place –their place- after they scattered her mother's ashes, glad he knows what this is and isn't, glad he seems utterly crushed at this loss, too, confirming that the soft spot her mother had for him all these years wasn't entirely misplaced. Glad that when things get rough, it is always, always him. And yet it doesn't fill the void, doesn't seep through every crack in her foundation, doesn't wrap that protective coat around her that she once felt. Some things are too big to forget. They weigh on her too heavily, and the passage of time hasn't let them fade. There is no acceptance in the lack of resolution.

"I don't think she was trying to hurt you" he whispers into her hair. "She never would have wanted that."

"Doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it? Her intention in saying these things to you…to us?"

"I'll never know, Mulder. There's no way of finding out. And it hurts either way."

"I know." She barely feels his lips against the back of her shoulder, kissing it. "I know."

Curling her fingers around his, she takes his hand. "We gave up our child. No other mammal would do that."

"Bears do."

"I really don't care what bears do. We abandoned our only child."

"To keep him safe, Scully. We've been over this-"

"What if we've been telling ourselves a lie all this time? What if it was a selfish choice after all?"

He seems either struck by this question, or unwilling to answer it. Or unable to. "Either way, William grew up thinking other people were his parents. He grew up in a family who wanted to take him in. I know it hurts us more than anything, but for him…these people are his parents. He is safe. He is loved."

"You don't know that. What's the point in telling ourselves a comforting story if we will never know the truth?"

"What's the point in telling ourselves a horror story if we will never know the truth? Except to punish ourselves."

"Maybe it's a deserved punishment."

"Dana…"

Science and the manifold ways it has failed her over the years. She can run to it for explanations in an endless cycle, and they will be multifaceted. Alien threats, government conspiracies, mysterious illnesses, all the big secrets can and will be explained. And hers? This depends on who you ask, again. Maybe William was –is- a mutation, the product of genetic engineering, and she had to give him away to keep him safe. This is the version of the story she clings to. Or maybe she was alone and scared, suffering from depression and/or anxiety and projecting those fears on him. Maybe she was too weak to be a good mother.

He is a miracle. Their miracle, with ten tiny fingers and ten perfect toes, human skin, a human head, innocent eyes. No foreign invader to her body to be feared, no creature to be rejected. He is her baby. Hers. Theirs, but mostly hers. Each sleepless night and each breastfeeding struggle is proof that he is a human child, a living, breathing being who needs her. She refused to let herself think of him as her son, even after she found out the sex of the baby, because up to the last minute, she was afraid of losing him. There are miracles too great to be unencumbered, too good to be true. William isn't. He screams, feeds, spits up, poops like any other baby, robbing her body of food and sleep, exhausting and frustrating and exhilarating her. He is everything.

Her breath hitches as she stands in the doorway watching them, towel drying her hair. She wishes she had a camera to capture this. William is lying on his tummy on Mulder's chest, fast asleep with his head facing her. Mulder is watching TV at a near muted volume, lazing around on the sofa with a couple of pillows behind his back. He looks over at her, a small smile playing around his lips. "Good shower?"

She walks over to them, strangely conscious of her bathrobe as he takes her in, and sits down on the edge of the sofa in front of his feet. "I finally feel and smell human again."

"I was gonna say…"

"I had a baby, Mulder. What's your excuse?" She can't remember the last time she washed her hair. This was the first shower since the birth that took longer than five minutes. She looks around, noticing the beginnings of order or rather, the removal of clutter. "You cleaned up the living room."

"I started, but…" He puts his hand on William's back, stroking it gently, gazing down at him. "…he was crying, so…I know you are not supposed to let babies sleep on their stomachs, but I was watching him."

"It's all right." She smiles faintly at his concern. Somehow, watching her son sleep on Mulder's chest is making her tired as well. It stirs a desire to rest, to get comfortable in her little bubble and forget about the dangers of the world outside as the rain taps against her windows. She could let down her guard. She could let herself feel that there is hope here, that they could be something. The word "family" has begun to lurk along the threshold of her consciousness of late, creeping in when she least expects it.

"You know, the Beng in West Africa believe that babies come directly from the afterlife, where all of our ancestors live in perfect harmony. That's why infants are said to understand all languages. But as they grow part of our world, they lose this ability...and their connection."

"There are many cultural myths around infancy." She reaches over, barely touching one of William's clutched little fists. "Do you speak all languages, little one?"

"Do you think he could have been sent to us, Scully?" he asks as earnestly as only he can, his eyes full of the thing that always teeters between hope and insanity.

"By an angel in a dream?" she replies drily, ignoring the surge of pain at his words. This would be exactly the kind of thing Melissa would have suggested. "Do I really have to explain to you how babies are made, Mulder?"

Science. The endless arguments about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, Einstein's rejection of wave function as a description of physical reality, The way the second law of thermodynamics moves the universe to an increasingly disorganized state, with life as a mere phase along the way. But if one can never determine the exact position and speed of a particle at the same time, how can it be understood? What do probabilistic theories mean for causality? The understanding she so desperately seeks is limited by the very fact that she is but an infinitely tiny part of the cosmos trying to make sense of the whole thing. She is mortal, limited by time and space as well as her simple cognitive structures. She will never know God –whatever God is- and at one point, that was almost okay. Now, however, she seeks a certainty she can't find, or at least a probabilistic knowledge. She wants to let go of the past, to know the present and future. Yet even if she could read all the books of (wo)mankind, soak up the entire knowledge of her species, she would still not know. Her methodology is failing her, as there is no certainty in this world other than the fact that she will die one day.

And yet…

She cannot breathe under water.

And yet…

She breaks through the surface, sitting up, stroking back her hair, filling her lungs with air.

And yet…

She wants to believe.