'Mulder,' he answered his cell in a distracted tone just as the first rays of sunlight began chasing away the night sky.

In his hand, sheaths of paper held the history of three, small, helpless children. Proof, positive proof, gave Mulder the opportunity to fulfil his partner's dreams of becoming a Mother. Possibly mime too, but he didn't allow himself to dwell on the thought too often, even now with the dream close enough to touch.

'I have no idea how you live in this apartment you call home,' Scully stated acidly, standing before a door she'd never noticed before. Less than one minute ago she taken her life in her hands and dared to open it. What fell out, she could only speculate. The cloud of dust still floating in the air made visibility almost impossible. 'I can only guess at the last time you opened your bedroom door.'

Smiling, despite the fatigue he felt, Mulder answered in a teasing tone, 'I don't need a bed, Scully.' A crash in the background alerted him to Dana's current location and the reason why. The smile became a grin creping across his weary features. Trying to make his warning subtle, he continued, 'surely you know that by now. You dropped my suits into the drycleaners before our trip to Florida last week.'

'While the rest of you unmentionables are sitting on top of my machine, folded neatly, ready for you to collect,' Scully fired back. Their exceptional bond working over the airwaves, ensuring Dana played long without lying. 'If you hadn't been injured once again, Mulder, I'd make you do your own laundry.'

'Come on Scully,' he moaned, pulling his hurt puppy dog expression. The soft sigh ensured she'd "seen" it as yet another thump reached Mulder's ears. He knew exactly what she'd uncovered.

'How do you access your bathroom,' horrified, Scully managed to push several boxes of offensive reading material to one side and locate the ablutions. They look completely untouched since the day he'd moved in, barring the inches of accumulated dust. 'After seven years together, you'd think I might've realised your apartment contained another two rooms,' she complained.

'We're never home long enough to need either the bedroom or bathroom at my place,' Mulder baited. Mentally, he counted until the penny dropped.

'No,' Scully agreed, sounding a little less peeved, 'you're always invading my home.' He could hear her thoughts over the static on the line and see her biting her bottom lip with indecision. They both realised how important this conversation might become. 'I think it's time you officially gave up your place, Mulder, and made a permanent move to Georgetown.'

'Let's wait, Scully,' Mulder sounded wistful, 'we might need to find somewhere bigger in the near future, and then we'll both have to give up our apartments.'

They'd have to give up a whole lot more than apartments, Mulder realised. Their work on the X-file couldn't continue, at least not together, not as partners. One of them would need to keep more social hours for the sake of the three innocent lives they hoped to mould as a family. Under the extreme circumstances, Scully would be granted maternity leave and he'd get a new, if temporary partner. Given what he'd uncovered, Mulder wondered if his determination to find the truth would survive the translation to family man. That dream, now so close, he wouldn't allow crushed at the hands of un-named men for reason's he still didn't understand or comprehend.

'I doubt you'll find a house by the lake in D.C.,' Scully teased, reminded of the time they sat on a rock, metres from the shore and discussed where they wanted to live one day.

'I've still got my parents Quonochontaug real estate for a weekend getaways,' he teased, while a list of the property he technically owned crossed Mulder mind. Mrs Mulder's Connecticut home, two houses on the Vineyard, including the one Samantha had been abducted from. His father keeping it astounded Mulder.

Both parents held reasonably large life insurance policies with Mulder as the sole beneficiary. The funds had been safely invested for the future, along with the trusts Teena Mulder set up for her children from her parents' estate. He'd never called on his parent's wealth, except to pay for his Oxford education, it felt like blood money after his sister's disappearance.

Recalling the time he'd inferred he couldn't pay the rent made Mulder shiver. Pride caused the outburst. Nothing could be further from the truth. He'd been afraid Scully would abandon his life work without him to watch her every move. She'd compared the investigation to an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle. After years working together, Mulder should have known his partner better.

Turning serious, Mulder stated, 'I've found what I came for Scully. I'll be home in time for our meeting.'

'The Clark at the circuit court in Alexandria arrives at nine,' Scully stated sweetly, 'I need your signature on the Marriage Licence before it can be processed.'

'In a hurry,' Mulder teased. Of all the states surrounding Washington D.C., Virginia's laws allowed a couple to marry within minutes of obtaining a legal licence. Waiting periods and blood test weren't necessary.

'Considering you asked me to marry you almost a year ago,' a sly smile crept over Scully's lips as her voice turned saccharine. Remembering a phone conversation while she holidayed in Maine, she said, 'I believe I've been very patient.'

Speechless, Mulder ended the call. The tone of his partner's voice alerted him to the real state of her mind. Dr Dana Katherine Scully held in her fury. He could only guess at the reasons, but using his mother's ring and the method of his proposal formed a good part of her anger. He wondered how she'd take the confession about his donation to the IVF clinic. Scully's wrath now would be nothing compared to her finding out about his previous marriage, his first wife's death and the reason Katherine Mulder asked her husband to save his sperm for future use.

'I should have told you, Scully,' Mulder mourned the oversight. The subject had never come up, retrospection proving how important that discussion might have been.

Finally gaining the courage to turn the key and start the ignition, Mulder pulled his car from the curb. Beside him sat the remainder of Dana's DNA in a container "borrowed" from the clinic. Packed in dry ice to ensure the survival of the biological material, her ova had been fertilised with his ten year old donation. Eleven blastocysts remained, their future children, frozen in time. Records retrieved from the clinic confirmed this to be the only chance she'd ever have to carry her own flesh and blood.

'They destroyed the rest,' Mulder muttered under his breath. He couldn't help feeling highly amused at the content of his current thoughts. 'You didn't pass genetic muster, Scully, or maybe you did, too well. The Syndicate couldn't use your DNA in their hybridisation experiments even though you appeared to be the ideal candidate. Like you, your ova refused to consort with just any piece of genetic material.' A laugh escaped as a stray thought crossed Mulder's mind, except mine. You don't know it yet, Emily was mine too. They considered her a failure and took her from us. I won't let that happen to these three children.