Disclaimer; I do not own The X-Files or anything affiliated therof. I seek no profit, nor do I intend any copyright infringement for publishing this work of fanfiction.
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"Who are you?"
In three words, Dana Scully felt her world crash down around her.
Of course, this was not foreign to her (she had been through many such moments in the past year), but it remained no less crushing.
Seven years vanished in that instance. To the man in a hospital gown who was hooked up only to a heart monitor, she was no more than a stranger, and Scully didn't know how to react to not being recognized by the man who had been dead these three months.
This same man had saved her life on more than one occasion. He had opened her eyes, her mind, and her heart to the extensive truths of the universe and the very foundations of their existence. He had challenged her in ways she had never been before, forcing her to think differently. He had teased her, but never on anything that would provoke her or offend her. Despite his nearly pathological desire — no, his need — to discover the truth, he was always sensitive to Scully's well-being, and made every effort to assure it. He was the father of the life that was growing inside her.
And none of this did he remember.
Fox Mulder was the sum of his memories. Everything he was came from the controversy and conspiracy revolving around his sister's abduction, and without that, without his theories and speculations and connections and shaky facts, he was no more than a wasted FBI agent with a tiny flat and a few good friends. Scully had no idea of what kind of memory loss he had endured, but as she tried to rationalize and conclude that this was bound to happen, she couldn't stop the tears that welled up in her eyes.
Then, when she dared to look back up at him, she saw the corner of Mulder's mouth stretch upwards, and she released a strangled mix of a sob and a laugh, rebuking him with a teary smile for playing the fool and making such a horrible joke out of amnesia.
But then, that was just how Mulder was, and as Dana Scully tucked her head in the crook of her partner's neck, she knew she wouldn't have him any other way.