Hi everyone! I'm so sorry this has taken me so long, life was pretty hectic! Thanks so much for staying with me though, and for the reviews! Hope you enjoy the next bit :)


Mulder sighed with satisfaction as he stood waiting for the coffee to boil. He had had the best night with Scully that he could ever imagine, both of them craving the feel of each other after such a long and painful separation. And even better was that she didn't regret it in the morning, and was still just as loving towards him as the night before. He quickly made the coffee just the way she liked it as he waited for her to come back, having gone to get Joe ready for the day.

The knock on the door made him jump, having not expected anyone to be calling. Looking around, he saw no signs of Scully, so made his way to the door instead. Pulling it open, his heart constricted painfully as he looked onto the face of that one woman who seemed intent on ruining his life once more. His eyes took in her face, seeing a haunted look that he had never seen there before.

"Please, Fox, just listen to me. I only need a minute of your time. Please?" she begged, her face showing signs of strain.

He hovered uncertainly by the door until he heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw Scully standing behind him, Joe in her arms. Her face was a picture of hatred as she looked at Diana standing in the door, her eyes flitting from her to Mulder, betrayal written on her. She backed up, her face a mask to him as he was kept on the outside once more.

"Please, Fox, please hear me out. Agent Scully, please let me tell you what I have come here to say. It concerns you too."

Turning again, Mulder looked to Scully for some sign of what she wanted him to do. She gave the smallest of nods, letting him know that it was alright to let this woman that she despised into her apartment. Stepping in, Diana gratefully sank onto one end of Scully's couch, Mulder taking the other. He looked across at Scully, but she was refusing to look in his direction from her chair, Joe fast asleep in her arms.

Mulder sighed, running his hands over his face. "Where's Beth?" he finally asked quietly, seeing Diana take in a shuddering breath.

"I'll get to that," she promised. There was silence for a moment, as Diana fought to try and find something to say.

"What have you come here for, Diana?" Mulder asked, the hard edge in his voice making her start.

"I've done something incredibly stupid, Fox, and I've hurt you. I've hurt both of you. And for that I am incredibly sorry, you have to believe that. Because I've come here to beg for your help."

Scully snorted at that, still refusing to look at either of them, her eyes trained firmly on the ground in front of her. Mulder sighed, looking at Diana again. He had never seen her like this before.

"What do you mean? You're going to have to do a lot more explaining than that, Diana," he started, stopping suddenly when she held up her hand to him.

"I know. I just...I'm not sure where to start."

"From the beginning?" he suggested sarcastically, seeing her wince again at his lack of feeling for her.

"OK." She sighed, looking away from him as she started her tale. "That night when I came over to your apartment, I already had a plan that I was ready to perform. You let me in against your better judgement after I played on your good nature, claiming that I wanted to discuss conspiracy theories like we used to. I know that you missed that part of our friendship, so I was aware that you would let me in.

"You went to the toilet almost as soon as I'd got there, and it couldn't have been more perfect if I had planned it that way. While you were gone, I spiked your drink with a powerful drug that would cause you to black out and remember nothing from the few minutes before. As soon as you had passed out, I called the men I had waiting outside, who helped me to get you to your bed and strip you. Then it was just a matter of me lying next to you, waiting for you to wake up. We never slept together, Fox, even though I personally wished that we had. I have always been jealous of your relationship with Agent Scully."

She watched as Mulder stared at her, his mouth hanging open as he tried to process the information that she was telling him. He had no idea how to feel, his whole body just feeling numb.

"I'm sorry, Fox, I really am. Beth isn't your daughter, they used technology to impregnate me before I came to your apartment. Smoking man was looking for a way to separate you both, and I was it. But it didn't work, because you two love each other too much, and are too stubborn."

He was relieved, and angry at the same time. Walking around for a moment in the oppressive silence that suddenly cloaked the room, he ran his hands through his hair irritably before bringing his hands down with a bang onto the table in front of him.

"God damn it, Diana, what the hell were you thinking? How could you do this? The things I missed...Joe, I missed having a part of his and Scully's lives and you..."

He broke off, unable to talk anymore. Turning around, he suddenly realised that his shouting had upset Joe, almost as if everything were so surreal he hadn't heard it before. His heart broke when he saw Scully with tears rolling down her cheeks, desperately trying to quieten him.

"Oh, Scully, I'm sorry," he said, walking over to her and taking Joe gently from her arms. He rocked him gently in his arms, whispering quietly to him as the little baby finally fell quiet, Mulder's anger dissolving the instant he saw his face. Looking up, he saw Scully sitting with her head in her hands before he turned his anger on Diana again.

"Why? Why tell me all of this now?"

Diana stayed quiet for a moment, watching and knowing that she had done the right thing. Mulder crouched down in front of Scully, taking her hands gently from her face with his free hand so that he could see her eyes, trying to see what she was thinking. Scully sighed, still letting the tears flow as she looked at the poor man in front of her, who had suffered for such a long time for having done nothing but be too kind and honest. It killed her that she had made him suffer, made both of them suffer, for no reason, and yet he was still there, sitting in front of her, making sure she was alright.

"Why, Diana?" he asked, standing again and rocking Joe in his arms now that he knew Scully was as alright as it was possible for her to be.

She closed her mouth, the silent connection that he had with Scully overwhelming enough, without seeing the love he already had for his son.

"Cancer man visited me last night to make sure I finished the job properly. He..." she broke off, trying to swallow her own tears. "He took Beth to make sure I did it correctly. I was going to do what he asked, I needed to so that I could see my daughter again, but then I realised that I had been so wrong from the start, and I know I'll never be safe, because it is not possible to separate to people so obviously in love. So me and Beth would never be safe, he'd always be asking for more. And I couldn't hurt you anymore, Fox. I did love you at one point."

She smiled softly at him, seeing his face lose some of it's hard expression. "I just want a life with my daughter. So I came to ask for your help, even if I don't deserve it, because that's the only way to end this. And I wanted to give you the peace you both deserve in knowing the truth."

Scully looked up as she stopped speaking, her eyes going straight to Mulder's face as she tried to see what he was thinking. He was lost in thought, his face unreadable as he considered what he had been told and how he was feeling. Eventually, he looked down at the tiny child in his arms and imagined what it would be like to have him taken away. Sighing, he looked across at Scully, begging her to understand with his eyes before turning back to Diana.

"I'll help you," he told her, seeing her let a couple of tears slide as she heard the answer she hadn't dared to hope that she would get.

"Mulder..." Scully started, standing to put an arm warningly on his arm. He smiled so tenderly down at her, kissing her cheek gently.

"I have to do this, Scully. She didn't have to tell us the truth and give us that closure, and that fresh start together. And besides, I don't even want to imagine how I would feel if Joe were taken away. At the end of the day, she has just been a pawn in cancer man's game, just like we could have been."

Looking down for a moment, Scully thought about what he had said, and how much he meant to her. Nodding slowly, she looked back up at him, worried but stubborn.

"If you feel that you should do this, Mulder, then you have to. But if you're going, then I'm going with you."

"Scully, you can't, it's too dangerous," he said, starting forwards instantly at her words, worry written all over his face.

"If it's too dangerous for me, then it's too dangerous for you too. I can't lose you, Mulder, not when I've just been given a way to have the life I've always wanted. And besides, we're a team. I watch your back and you watch mine. That hasn't changed."

"But we have Joe to think about now. Someone has to take care of him." He stroked her hair gently, seeing her stubborn expression stay firmly in place.

"We'll both be taking care of Joe when we get back."

"But what if something happens? What would we do then?"

She sighed, running her hand over his cheek gently. "Mulder, I have no intentions of letting you walk into that kind of danger alone, especially when we only have Diana's word that this is not some kind of strange, elaborate trap. She's lied to us before, there's no reason to think she isn't lying now. Either we both go, or neither of us do."

He sighed, knowing that he wasn't going to win this argument once Scully had made up her mind. Leaning his forehead against hers for a moment, he took in the feeling of being surrounded by his family. He leant to kiss her lips gently, before standing up again.

"Alright, we'll both go," he told her, seeing her smile at him, her expression radiant as she took in her man standing with her child. Despite the dangers now facing them, she somehow knew that it was all going to turn out alright.

Spinning around, he saw that Diana was already standing, knowing that her welcome was wearing thin. She stepped forwards towards them before thinking better of it from Mulder's cold expression.

"OK, Diana, we'll get the Gunmen onto tracing where your daughter is. I'll contact you when I know more."

She nodded. "Thank you, thank you so much. Both of you. Thank you. And I'm so sorry for everything that I've done to hurt you. I just...I really wish I could take it all back."

He nodded, watching expressionless as she turned and walked out of the door, closing it gently behind her. She stopped in the corridor, taking a deep breath as she realised for the first time in the last few hours that everything was going to be alright, now that she had Mulder and Scully on her side.


Scully took Joe from Mulder the moment the door had closed, placing the sleeping child gently in his crib. Mulder watched her in surprise, just about to ask her what was going on when she whipped around, running across the room and throwing herself onto him. He only just caught her in time, laughing softly as he had never seen her so affectionate before.

"Scully, what's wrong?" he asked as he became aware of her sobs, his neck and shoulder wet from where her tears were running, her lips kissing every part of him that they could reach.

Walking carefully forwards, he scooped Scully easily into his arms, sitting them on the sofa so that she was in his lap. Wrapping his arms firmly around her, he cradled her while she cried, shushing her softly until she was ready to speak. Once her sobs had quietened, he gently eased her forwards, taking her face gently in his hands so that she was forced to look him in the eye, no secrets as his gentle hazel eyes searched for answers.

"What is it, Scully?" he asked gently, watching as she bit her lip against the emotions again.

"I just...I can't believe I made you suffer, made both of us suffer, for such a long time when you didn't do anything wrong. I just feel like such a horrible person, Mulder, and I'm so sorry for putting you through this."

He laughed gently, seeing her look hopefully into his eyes, even as his face softened as he looked at the beautiful woman in front of him that he loved.

"Scully, Dana, you haven't done anything wrong! Even I believed Diana, so if I believed her, what chance did you have? All that matters is that we're together now, we fought through it together even when we did believe it, and we have a clean slate to get back to where we were before."

Smiling, for the first time since that morning with happiness, she leant forwards and buried her head on his chest, sighing as she felt his arms come to rest around her shoulders.

"I love you, Mulder, so much more than you could ever know. I always have, despite everything that we thought had happened, I couldn't stop loving you."

Mulder was speechless for a moment, loving hearing those words again after such a long time. Leaning down, he captured her lips in his own, kissing her passionately, needing to show her how much she meant to him. Eventually, they broke apart, and he laid his forehead against hers gently, needing to be near her.

"I love you too, Scully. Always have, always will." He paused for a moment. "I can't wait for our family to start properly again now."

Scully nodded, feeling exactly the same. And yet at the same time it was tinged with a little bit of sadness and worry as she prayed to God that nothing would happen to change this over the next few days, when the future seemed so uncertain. Yet for now, she was just content to lay in Mulder's arms, her heart feeling full and healthy knowing that she was lying in the arms of a man who loved her just as much as she loved him.


Yay so cleared up part of it! More action next time ;) Anyway please let me know what you think and if you're still reading, hopefully I can get the next part out in the next few days if you're all interested? Thanks so much for reading!