Title: A Goose egg and Dinner

Author: Gillian Leigh

Disclaimer: See chapter 4, writing it again is depressing.

~(X)~

Sitting in her office with her feet up, Dana couldn't help but remember how she had turned down Mulder's many advances in the past month. She'd refused him time and time again for dates, but he persisted, convinced she would crack eventually. The day had been unusually quiet, and just when she felt her eyelids getting heavy with an approaching mid-afternoon nap, her pager beeped and buzzed at her waist, jolting her to full attention.

Hurriedly, she jogged to the ER, and asked of a nearby nurse.

"What am I looking at here?" The nurse frowned.

"I really wouldn't have called you for this one, Dr. Carver, but Dr. Miller had to pick her daughter from a friend's house. We have a thirty-four year-old male, with a concussion, possible further trauma. They should be bringing him in now..." Both women instinctively looked toward the emergency bay doors, to see a gurney being wheeled in. She felt a knot in her stomach when she saw that Mulder was the one with the goose egg on his forehead.

"Mulder..." she said, lowly. He grinned at her.

"Hey.."

"You'll do anything just to get a date, won't you?" she questioned as she sat him up and examined his head. He only smiled again. "Yowch. What'd you do to get *this* bump?"

"Let's just say that Jake's b-ball coach taught him well. I never expected that my eight year-old son would be able to hit my famous curve ball."

"Well, we'll have to get a CAT scan to make sure that everything is okay, and then we'll get you some painkillers," she said. "Joan, take Mr. Mulder up to x-ray, please." The nurse nodded, moving Mulder into a wheelchair, and pushing him down the hall.

"Hey, Dana," he called over his shoulder.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"What do you say to dinner when I get out of this joint?" She sighed in mock aggravation, and the smiled.

"If it will keep you from getting hurt so you have an excuse to come back here..."

"It's a date!"

~

She could feel herself withdrawing; pulling into herself. If she kept the barriers up, she couldn't get hurt; so that was what she intended to do. Mulder broke the silence that had settled over them as they sat in the cozy corner of the restaurant:

"How long has it been?" Dana looked up abruptly, startled at the sudden question.

"Since what?" she asked. Mulder set down his water glass on the table and nodded toward her left hand.

"Since he broke your heart?" Her eyes met his, her expression frightened. She could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

"H-how...?"

"You've been withdrawing into your self all night, and you wear that ring, but you still agreed to date me. How long has it been since he left you?" Mulder asked. Dana's face reddened with anger.

"He didn't just *leave* me," she said, defensively. "He's not a deadbeat who just up and abandoned me, for God's sake. You can't just spend two hours with me and know what my life is about, Mulder!" She rose out of her chair and threw her napkin onto her plate. With that, she stormed out of the restaurant, and collapsed onto the bench just outside the door. Cradling her head in her hands, she cried. Who the hell was he to make assumptions about Mark? About her? But she couldn't help remembering, as she sat on the bench, how she had blamed Mark at one time or another for leaving her. The days just after she lost custody of Elena, when she had taken to blaming everyone; Mark, God, the man who'd gone out to drink himself into a stupor so he could forget that his wife took his kids away, the doctors who couldn't save him... But most of all she blamed herself. If she hadn't asked him to run to the market to get milk... If she had done it herself, she would've been in the car when that driver ran his red light...

It occurred to Dana then that she was freezing, and she realized she'd left her jacket inside the restaurant. She sighed. She couldn't exactly walk back in there after storming out in such a manner.

"Are you in the mood for a jacket and an apology?" She looked up to see Mulder standing before her. With a sigh, she said,

"Sit." She slipped on her jacket and said, "Thank you."

"Listen...Dana, I'm really sorry. I guess it's just the psychologist in me. I meet someone and make it a point to psychoanalyze them; I've gotten good at it over the years, and I assumed I knew what was going on with you. But I guess I assumed wrong," he said, calmly and evenly.

"There are things I haven't talked to you about. Things you should really know," she said, her gaze meeting his. "Mark and I were married for four years. He had a daughter, Elena, from his first marriage. We were so happy together. The only thing we ever argued about was kids..." Dana smiled. "He wanted six, and I only wanted four. We settled on five; Elena would be the sixth.." Her expression darkened. "We were out of milk, the day before Thanksgiving. I sent him to the market for a gallon of milk so I could make a cake. He was pulling through an intersection when some guy who had had far too much to drink ran a red light and hit him going sixty. By the time I got to the hospital, he was gone." Mulder was speechless, and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry I suggested..." he began. She shook her head.

"You're not the first. And you most certainly will not be the last." Sighing deeply, she rose off the bench. She looked up at the stars before speaking. "Though Mark left me custody of Elena in his will, his ex-wife contested it, and won. I haven't seen her in a year. I miss them both every day... and I always think, that if *I* had gone to the market, if *I* had been the one to get behind the wheel of the Jeep...." Mulder shook his head.

"No, you can't say that...."

"No *you* can't say anything, Mulder. Do you know what it's like to live with the guilt? I mean, I might not have been the guy behind the wheel of that other car, but it was close enough. I blame myself for his death." Mulder had risen to his feet as well.

"And I've been distant because, I can't let myself get close to anyone, because I'm scared that they'll all leave me too..."

Something happened in that moment; Dana let down the walls she'd built around her heart, and as her tears fell, she found herself collapsing into Mulder.

"When you love," Mulder began, "you put your heart on the line. You make yourself vulnerable. Maybe things don't always turn out the best, but everyone you let yourself get close to isn't going to leave you. I can tell you from experience, you never lose everyone you love."