Disclaimer: Is this seriously still necessary? Has anyone ever really been sued for Fan Fiction? All right, all right, here's my obligatory spiel: Not mine. It sucks. The end.

Rating: PG…13. Probably going to escalate.

Spoilers: Heavy Fowley spoilers. The End/The Beginning, Two Fathers/One Son. Also FTF. Post-Agua Mala.

Author's Notes: Omg, this was hard. Like my hardest challenge yet. Usually, Mulder is easy, but this was a earlier, more brooding Mulder than I usually dwell on.

Also, after some discussion on a Facebook group, I decided I'm going to ignore that there was a Hurricane so early in the year…though it doesn't seem likely. If Chris Carter wants to put an episode about a Hurricane so soon after Christmas, I will make it Scully's birthday. Damn it.

Feedback: I stalk my email for feedback harder than I stalked David Duchovny last year.

"You going to submit this with yours?" Scully asks as she puts her report in front of me. We've been in the office all afternoon, completing our reports after the hurricane in Florida. She moves to the door, putting on her coat.

"Yeah." I flip through hers, making sure she remembered to sign it in all the right places. I look at the pictures of the puncture wounds in my own neck, scratching an itch there as I think about them.

"I want to take the day off tomorrow, Mulder."

I glance up at her, by the door. She has one hand on the door, carrying her bag now with the other. Tomorrow is…Tuesday? "Ok? Any big plans?"

She smirks and looks down. "Nothing in particular. I'm tired. I'm going home. Have a good evening, Mulder." Then she is gone.

I'm staring at the door, tapping a pencil against my chin, thinking she's been in a funk all day. Then as she was leaving, she acted as if I had forgotten her birthday or something. I look at my calendar. "Shit…" Of course, tomorrow IS her birthday. I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. The business day being through, I don't care that I mess it up.

I tear February 22 from the calendar and look at February 23. I had not acknowledged her birthday since the year she was ill. Besides a stupid childish card the next year, with the same 'Mulder' scribble I would leave after a note saying I would be right back. I was pretty much a dick about birthdays. Always have been. But there had been a greater divide than forgotten birthdays between us as of late.

I hear her voice in my head 'You don't need me, Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back.' Back when we had gone through what we went through last summer, with them threatening and succeeding at shutting us down, her deciding to leave…I knew I needed her with me like I needed my next breath. With the thought of her leaving, the feelings I felt when I chased her into my hallway came spilling out of my mouth. Even as I was saying them, I questioned where they were coming from. I did not question if I meant what I was saying. No, of course I meant it. I just wasn't aware that I had felt them before that moment.

Her doubt of her importance in my life, in our work stemmed from Diana. I knew that then as I know it today. The words of self-doubt she spoke came from her distrust in Diana, my own trust in Diana. Not over Scully, but I did trust Diana when Scully didn't. And that hadn't even been the worst of it. 'I guess it all comes down to a question of trust. I guess it always has,' she had said to me. I have to admit now, I was torn. It felt as if Scully did want me to make a choice. Surely she knew if we could all work together, get on the same page, we could fight the darker forces. I had told her that she was making it personal. 'Because without the FBI, personal interest is all that I have.'

She was right on that count. As much as I wanted answers, so did she. She had lost just as much, if not more than I. I lost my sister, there is that. I could say I lost my father, but what kind of relationship did we have, anyway? And my personal relationships? Who's to say I wouldn't have turned out a selfish moron whether my sister was taken from me or not. I smirk, thinking I was doing a pretty good job of fucking it up with the one person I did call my friend. The one person who had fought and sacrificed with me.

I had almost pushed her away after I brought her back from Antarctica. So soon after losing her both as my partner AND for good. It had occurred to me only then, as it usually only did after such an ordeal, how much I couldn't take losing her. For good. I had come SO very close to losing her. It was a miracle-for lack of a better word-that I had even found her in a craft so big to begin with. 'If I quit now, they win.' She had echoed back at me. She needed the Truth as much as I did. But in a way, I was reluctant to let her back in. And to lose her because I pushed her away, it would have been in my control. If she'd left, done something else with her life, at least she would have been safe.

I nod slowly as I feel a wave of realization wash over me. Was Diana a better choice on the X-Files because I simply cared less about her? I shake my head, trying to figure out what kind of logic that might be.

I have…no, had…feelings for Diana, certainly. Sure, it had hurt when she left all those years ago. But I had no reason to distrust her now. When she left, our relationship had been falling down around us. She had grown disenchanted with my dreams for the X-Files, and I was all too willing to let her go. I loved her, but was willing to let our relationship fall away. Neither of us fought, really. It was just over.

When Diana kissed me in her apartment, I considered for the first time that she had come back to into my life with more than a renewed interest in the X-Files. For a brief moment, I had kissed her back. It felt comfortable. And comfort is certainly what I needed after learning what I had just learned from the Cigarette Smoking Man. But then, I remember, I thought of Scully. Of calling her, of getting her to that Air Force Base. If I could take one person with me, it would be Scully. I felt like a traitor. My heart was through with Diana.

I don't remember how exactly I came to the realization, with Diana's lips on mine. I only recall that I had a vivid memory of nearly kissing Scully in my hallway. I still wanted to. As I had done with someone that looked so much like her on the Queen Anne, knowing even then what I had to get back home to.

This was all a moot point, now. I had not heard from Diana since the mass murder at the Air Force Base. I, to this day, will not jump to conclusions about her lack of contact. But her body was not found there.

I run the metal part of the pencil over my lips as I think of nearly kissing Scully. What would have happened if not for that bee? Would I have taken her into my arms, continued to convince her in a new and different way to stay? Would she have let me? Would I have taken her inside? I clear my throat, looking to her area of the office with a guilty look. My mind had just promptly recalled a glimpse of her breasts in that decontamination shower a few weeks ago.

I try to steer my mind back to my original subject. Though Diana was currently out of the picture, a divide remained between Scully and I. I told her in my hallway what she meant to me, how much I needed her. Yet, time and time again since I had brought her back from Antarctica, my actions had shown the opposite, hadn't they? In the months that we had lost the X-Files, I had drug her off of our background checks to follow hunches, putting her up to the wrath of Kersh. I had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, leaving her to move Heaven and Earth to rescue me. I had stolen her car keys to make her follow me into a haunted house. Why I felt I needed her on those excursions was becoming clear to me now, I just wanted her there. Whether she wanted to be there or not. I would push her away, then reel her back in. What kind of sick bastard was I?

I'd even drug her to Area 51 to follow a lead by an informant that didn't pan out. I recall a conversation we'd had in the car on that trip. She was rambling something about slowing down and, I don't know, picket fences? There was something about a dog.

I am tapping the eraser of my pencil against my forehead now. February 23 is still staring back at me. I've been brooding for so long, you'd think it was my birthday tomorrow. It really is no wonder she had been in a funk all day. Turning 35 tomorrow, back on the X-Files with me. For the first time ever, I considered what it would be like to lose her to a normal life. Not to some government conspiracy, not to some fearsome mutant, but to some normal guy. With a house and a two car garage.

Could Scully ever be interested in such a thing? It was hard to picture my Scully playing house, double dating on Fridays. It was more fearsome than the most gruesome mutant my mind could imagine. I suppose I could deal with it by saying I was happy for her happiness, but it made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. I imagine her, happy in some man's arms and I snap the pencil in my hand. I look at it, surprised. I want her in my arms. *I* want to kiss her.

I drop the pencil on the desk, my hand hanging there, frozen. What is this? Certainly I'd had non-platonic thoughts of her. On more than one occasion. But what of…more? I pictured her happy in my arms. I lower my chin to my forearm on my desk, smiling despite myself. After all we've been through, lately, I imagine waking up with her on Sunday morning. Having her for breakfast.

I bury my face into the crook of my arm, groaning. I shouldn't really be thinking such things, not knowing if she felt the same. Could she, even? I am, have been, a horse's ass. Arthur Dales had been absolutely right. 'It takes a big man to admit this, but, if I had had someone as savvy as her by my side all those years ago on the X-Files, I might not have retired.'

Forget all of the other mixed feelings, she deserved to know where she stood in my eyes, I thought as I looked at the date of her birthday once again. And not with some Snowball cake with a damned sparkler on top. I could slow down, I could take time and appreciate her as a partner and a friend. Couldn't I?

"It's a question of lust

It's a question of trust

It's a question of not letting

What we've built up

Crumble to dust

It is all of these things and more

That keep us together"

Depeche Mode-A Question of Lust

To be continued...