She's not sure how long she's been sitting there, her feet in the water, grains of sand gently touching them with every wave. She loves the beach at night, when the stars reflects their lights in the dark water of the ocean like hundreds of fireflies.
When she was a kid, she used to wish upon shooting stars. She'd sat on the grass with her sister in summer and they'd point at every one of them, closing their eyes, scrunching their noses, hoping to get whatever toy they dreamed of those days. Then she learned that shooting stars weren't even stars at all, just pieces of galactic garbage burning through the atmosphere, so she stopped wishing.
She looks at the stars now, at these burning lights so far away, and she thinks about him. She always does so when looking up at the sky. She thinks about that day, so long ago, when she opened the door of a basement masqueraded as an office and stepped into a world of wonders she could have never imagined, falling through the looking glass like Alice.
She's starting to get chilly, but she doesn't wanna go back to her room. Not yet. It's too beautiful out here.
She hears footsteps in the sand. She doesn't need to turn around to know it's him. She can feel his presence, like a magnetic field surrounding the both of them. She doesn't wonder how he found her. She knows he always does.
Without saying a word, he puts his leather jacket over her shoulders. She feels his fingers lingering on her for a moment, before he takes off his shoes and sits next to her.
He looks up at the sky. She looks at him instead. She wonders what he sees when he gazes at the stars. She knows he sees something she can't see, something only he knows. She can tell by the way his eyes sparkle. She feels jealous of those stars for a moment; they shares with him the only part of his soul she's not allowed into. But it's just a moment, cause then he looks at her and her eyes meet and she knows. She knows she holds his heart in the palm of her hand, so she's okay with sharing him with the stars from time to time.
He leans toward her, pressing his forehead against hers, their noses touching, and she can't help but smile. He touches her face and she shivers like always. He kisses her tenderly and suddenly she thinks that if a shooting star would fall right now, she would wish for this to last forever.
She knows it won't. They have a war to fight and they might as well end up dead tomorrow. There will be fear and pain and losses. That's what she signed up for when she chose this life. When she chose him.
She could have walked away at every moment, turned his back at him and moved on with her life, asking to be reassigned, having a brilliant career. That's what he expected her to do when they first met. No one is crazy enough to follow Spooky Mulder. No one except her.
She believes in fate. She believes there's a reason she left a promising medical career to join the FBI. She believes there's a reason why she was assigned to the X-Files. This cause is her destiny. He is her destiny.
He pulls back and she already misses his taste. His thumb brushes gently against the little bruise under her right eye, courtesy of a suspect who tried to escape.
"Does it hurt?" he asks, his eyes fixated on the red and black spot. She takes his hand away from her face, kiss its palm and let it rest in hers. "I've had a lot worse." She empathizes the 'a lot' on purpose, to remind him she can handle way more than a bruise. She's not a fragile damsel in distress. She doesn't need a knight in shiny armor. She needs a partner.
Suddenly there's something dark in the beautiful shades of his eyes, and to hide it from her, he pulls her in his arms. She nestles against his chest, breathing him in. She has no doubt she belongs there. She had known it even before they were together like this.
He kisses her head, and she almost falls asleep in his arm, lulled by the sound of the wave crushing at her feet and the rhythmic beating his heart. It's probably time to go to bed.
She untangles herself from him, and he looks a bit disappointed. She puts his jacket on properly, she's really getting cold now. She's aware she must look absolutely ridiculous in it, the sleeves so long she has an hard time picking up her shoes, but she doesn't care. He's looking at her every movement with that look that always makes her blush a little. She offers him a hand and he takes it, intertwining his fingers with hers, never breaking eye contact.
They walk like this for a few second before she notices something. "Mulder, your shoes!"
He has the cutest expression on his face when he realizes he left his shoes near the water. She feels her heart burst with love for this goofy, amazing man.
She looks at him while he gets the shoes and walks back to her. He looks so handsome in the moonlight, she feels a strange burst of pride that he's hers.
When he reaches her, he puts his arm around her and kiss her head. "How would I ever survive without you?" he whispers.
She puts her arm around his waist and looks at at him with a smile: "You wouldn't."