TITLE - FIVE YEAR REUNION

AUTHOR - DUCKYS_DREAM

RATING - PG-13 FOR SOME LANGUAGE

START DATE - 15 NOVEMBER 2002 (I'M GOING ON SCHOOLIES TOMORROW SO THERE'S GOING TO BE A WEEK THAT I CAN'T USE TO WORK ON THIS STORY)

FINISH DATE - 25 NOVEMBER 2002 (one minute to midnight!!!)

DISCLAIMER - FOX, CHRIS CARTER, AND 1013 PRODUCTIONS OWN THE X-FILES AND ALL ITS CHARACTERS AND EPISODES, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS STORY WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION AND IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE.

SPOILERS - NONE

SUMMARY - MULDER AND SCULLY REUNITE AFTER FIVE YEARS APART. THEY'VE BOTH CHANGED BUT HAVE REALISED SOMETHING IMPORTANT...

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW - SCULLY LEFT THE X-FILES.

                      - SCULLY CAN HAVE CHILDREN.

                      - MULDER AND SCULLY LEFT EACH OTHER ON BAD TERMS AND HAVEN'T SPOKEN IN FIVE YEARS.

AUTHORS NOTES - OI *SIGH AND HEAD SHAKE THROWING HANDS IN THE AIR* PS. I GRADUATED TODAY SO I'M ALL FOR SOPPY REUNIONS BECAUSE I'VE SPENT FIVE YEARS WITH AN EXCEPTIONAL BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHOM, AFTER TODAY, I MAY NEVER SEE AGAIN.

AUTHORS NOTES (21st June 2003) – It was recommended to me that I put chapter breaks in this story...so that's what I'm doing. Nothing new but read and review again anyway if you want J.

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Mulder sipped his coffee and looked back out onto the street. A young woman had stopped just outside. She had a little girl, twin toddlers and a pram with her.

Another woman, obviously the children's mother, walked out of a hairdresser. The little girl ran up to her and hugged her. Mulder gasped. He realized that other people in the diner were looking at him but he ignored them.

Scully.

She looked up and saw him as she walked past. She said something to the other woman and pointed towards the diner. She nodded and walked in. The woman sat the little girl and the twins at the counter. She angled the pram in beside her own stool.

Scully walked over and sat opposite Mulder. He didn't look at her. He looked at the children.

"What can I get you?" The young man behind the counter asked.

"I don't know, you think you can handle us?" The woman asked. She had an accent. Australia, Mulder guessed.

"Try me." He smiled.

"Ok," She smiled. "I'd like a warm up please," She said quickly and put a baby bottle on the counter. "Three milkshakes and an extra cup. I'll need two travel lids and four straws. Vanilla, Caramel and Strawberry." She spoke so quickly Mulder almost missed the order himself.

"All right," The waiter said. He filled the order.

"Nice work. Congratulations." She took the caramel milkshake and tipped half of it into the empty cup. She put lids on the two half-shakes and handed one to each twin. The little girl took the strawberry. After shaking and testing the babies bottle she held the bottle into the pram.

"Quite a handful I'll bet."

"Well four kids, what do you expect?"

"Not them, you." He said.

"Oh," She smiled. "Well you're doing well so far."

"Well enough to get your phone number?" He asked. She smiled.

"Mulder," Scully said snapping his attention away from the woman and children.

"You look good Scully," He said.

"Dana," She said.

"Hm?" He said confused.

"I'm not Scully anymore." She said. "I married Brad."

"So they are your kids." Mulder said. She nodded.

"Hayley's almost five. Andy and Max are two. William," She smiled. "He's three weeks old."

"You really do look well. I'll bet four children's a handful."

"Well that's why I have Sarah." Scully said. "How long Mulder?"

"How long what?" He asked.

"How long are we going to pretend nothings happened?"

"A lot's happened Scully,"

"Don't call me Scully." She said.

"The X-Files is closed, I've changed professions, you're married, you have four kids."

"That's not what I meant Mulder. I meant how long are you going to pretend nothing's happened between you and me. How long are you going to ignore what happened all those years ago?"

"As long as I can, Sc," He stopped receiving a sharp glare from across the table. "Dana," He finished. "Because I miss you and I don't want to acknowledge the fact that I hurt you so much you left. I don't want to have to accept that I finally drove you away. After all the psychos and the near death experiences, after all that had happened to you, you left because of me."

"I didn't leave because of you Mulder."

"Excuse me, why did you leave?"

"For a lot of reasons. I suppose you were the main one but you're only one in a pile of many."

"Like what?"

"Well," She sighed. "The X-Files, the FBI, it wasn't what it used to be. It didn't mean the same things it did when I first started out. I woke up one day and I just knew that I didn't want to be Special Agent Dana Scully any more. That's why I left the FBI."

"But I'm the reason you haven't spoken to me in five years. It's the anniversary of your absence today."

"I know."

"Why didn't you throw my cup of coffee in my face and walk away. You should have."

"I guess I'm over it." She shrugged.

"You're over it."

"We fought Mulder, but we were best friends. I suppose at the time I'd convinced myself that you'd betrayed my trust. I've thought it over these past years."

"To what end?"

"I analyzed everything." Scully said. "I played that argument over in my head a million times, maybe more. You stood there, months after crossing a line I never thought we would, you cursed me and called me a lot of mean things. You told me I'd betrayed you and that you couldn't trust me.

"On top of everything else that had happened to me that day, I couldn't handle it and I retorted. God Mulder, you just snapped. I thought you'd finally gone completely insane. I can't recall provoking you in anyway. You went totally psycho."

"I know," Mulder nodded. "I never got a chance to explain why I was so pissed off that day."

"Tell me now."

"They'd closed the X-Files and asked me to leave the bureau. They were taking my life's work away from me and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. You walked into the office looking like death warmed up, sulking around like you had for days before."

"I had my reasons too you know." Scully said. "I'm sorry about the X-Files, but you have no idea what was happening to me at that time. It was one of the hardest times of my life and I felt that I had no one to talk to about it. I couldn't talk to Brad, I couldn't talk to my mother, I couldn't even talk to you."

"Why couldn't you talk to me about it? I thought you could come to me with anything. You know you could, you can, always."

"I couldn't, not about this, I still can't. One day I'll explain it to you."

"Are you a doctor?" Mulder asked changing the subject. Scully nodded.

"I'm taking a year off. I'm going to spend a bit of time with my kids. What do you do? You're obviously not with the FBI anymore. You said you'd changed professions. To what? Cop?"

"No," He shook his head. "More of a change than that. No law enforcement. I'm a lecturer at NYU."

"New York?"

"Mhm," He nodded.

"Congratulations." She said. Mulder smiled. Scully looked over her shoulder when she heard a baby start crying. Sarah lent down and lifted a tiny baby out of the Pram. Mulder and Scully stood simultaneously and walked over to her.

"This is my former FBI partner." Scully said in response to the questioning look on the younger woman's face. Scully took the now quiet child.

"G'day," She smiled and held out her hand. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Sarah,"

"Mulder," He said grasping her hand firmly. She smiled and let recognition of the name cover her features.

"Excuse me please," Sarah smiled and walked towards the bathrooms in the back of the diner.

"You don't strike me as the Nanny type Scully,"

"Mulder." Scully whined.

"Sorry, I'm not used to it." Mulder said. Scully sighed.

"Anyway, I don't really strike myself as the Nanny type but I don't have a choice. I have to work to feed my kids and someone has to take care of them while I work. Sarah's not your typical Nanny either. Taking Food and Board out of her pay I hardly have to pay her anything and she's great with the kids. They love her. She cooks, she cleans and she's reliable."

"She lives with you."

"Uh huh. In the room with Hayley and the twins. I might have to let her go. If I'm not working for the next year I don't think I can pay her, and I don't need her if I'm going to be around anyway. I just hope I find someone as good when my leave is over."

"What about Brad?" Mulder asked. Scully shook her head.

"Things didn't work out. He didn't want one child. When he found out I was pregnant with William, well it was the straw that broke the camels back. Our marriage was annulled on the grounds that he didn't want to have children."

"Good old Catholic church." Mulder smiled. Scully sighed.

"I can't be angry anymore Mulder. I want to build up what we had before. I need all the support I can get at the moment. I might need to call on you to baby-sit from time to time."

"I'd love for us to try again. I can certainly be more understanding."

"So can I." Scully said.  Sarah returned. Scully put William in the pram. "Come for dinner tonight." Scully said. She took a pen from Mulder's breast pocket and wrote her address on a napkin. She returned the pen to his pocket.

"What time."

"Seven?"

"Great." Mulder nodded.

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