CHAPTER THREE

"I know a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way...
There's a little cafe, where they play guitars all night and day."
--Bruce Springsteen, "Rosalita"

The table I sat at was outside, and the California sun was just beginning to set. I had always liked this place, Sandy's. It was a little cafe, and they always had some form of live entertainment, almost always someone on an acoustic guitar. Currently, it was someone playing classic rock covers, and I hummed along quietly. My table was in the front, so I'd see Mulder as soon as he approached. I glanced down at my watch, seeing it was 7:05. Mulder never was punctual when it came to things like this.

I liked San Diego. Everything had a bit of a Spanish flair, considering its proximity to Mexico. It was warm, and it was nice to go from chasing monsters in the rain to laying out on the beach in the sun. I wondered why Mulder would be here. A case, most likely. A sand monster, perhaps.

I thought about what had changed since I left. I looked pretty much the same, although my hair was a bit longer now, and cut differently. It was just falling to my shoulders, where it'd curl out just a bit. The color was a little lighter, to go with the whole California sunshine thing. I was three years older, but I didn't feel it showed too much. I was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a low cut black shirt. I may not have known how I felt, but I wanted to look good regardless. This was what he was missing, I reminded myself. I was almost the same woman he left on the outside, but everything else had changed.

Three years. That's a long time to be without someone who was once your best friend. Three years felt like too long of an absence from someone who I once thought was my soul mate. Someone who I still didn't know whether I loved or hated... Although I leaned toward the latter, the former was still there in my heart.

Then I saw him. He was wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt that was clinging to his lean chest. He was almost the same, only looking slightly worn. He hadn't shaved that day, I could tell from the razor stubble adorning his face. He looked lost, and I could tell that maybe this hadn't been a trip out to San Diego for the sun and the surf. Part of me, the cruelest part, was happy that he looked like he needed me. He met my gaze and smiled. I returned the smile half-heartedly, and he sat at the table.

"Scully," he said, seeming at a loss for words.

Scully. God, I hadn't been called that in ages. Dana, Sweetheart, Doctor Scully, but never just Scully. That was just him.

"Hi, Mulder," I said, a smile genuinely forming now. He may have hurt me, but he was once my best friend.

"You look stunning," he said.

"Thank you," I replied modestly, looking away from him.

A waitress came by and we ordered drinks, wine for both of us.

"So, Mulder, what brought you here all of a sudden? For three years you haven't tried to reach me, but now..."

"It's a combination of things, but my life's been falling apart," he answered honestly.

The waitress returned with our two glasses, and then left.

"I realized, after you left, what I had lost," he said. "I was wrong in everything I told you, Scully, everything."

"It's a bit late for that, Mulder," I told him.

He saw the ring on my finger and said, "I know. You're engaged?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him simply.

"He's a lucky guy," he said.

"Could've been your luck," I found myself saying, without thinking about it.

"I know. To think I threw it all away," he paused, taking a moment to regroup. "Once you were gone, I had nothing left but my work. I found a lot of things, things about Samantha...my family... I found a lot of answers," he said.

"I'm glad," I told him, honestly meaning it.

"That's not all. I was alone, and I found..." he trailed off, almost afraid to speak, "the colonization date. I know that you never really fully believed, but after I got sick I know that you opened up to it and..."

"Mulder, I'm not on the X-Files anymore. I'm not with the FBI anymore. I'm not Scully now, not to anyone but you. I'm just Dana."

"I know, but I need Scully. I mean, I need her for my own personal reasons, yes, reasons that have nothing to do with work, but I understand that I had my chances. I understand that I threw away my one and only chance with--"

"Mulder," I warned him, not wanting to hear his self-deprecation.

"That's only part of this, Scully. I'm not asking you to help me for myself. I wouldn't expect that."

"Then what are you asking, Mulder?"

"You're the only one I can trust, even now. You're the only one who ever stood by me--you left, but it wasn't because of the work or my beliefs. You left because I made you, because I thought that would be the best for you, to get away. I know what I did, even if I wasn't sure of it then. I stole your choice to stay. A lot's changed since then, Scully, you said that yourself, and I was no exception to that rule. I changed," he paused again, sipping his wine. "They know I found the date."

"Who knows?"

"The Syndicate, the remaining members. Smoking Man is still alive, and he's got several others with him. They've set the colonization date."

"When?" I asked.

"December of 2012," he said.

"Well, Mulder, it's May of 2003. You come to me, after three years, with a story about colonization way in the future, asking me for what?"

"Your help. You have to help me stop them. You're a doctor, a scientist, an investigator. You're my partner. You were such a big part of the X-Files... I thought you'd want to help me stop this."

"Why should I even believe you? I mean, after all we've been through--"

"Can't you leave personal matters aside, Scully?"

"No!" I found myself saying, annoyed. "No, because it always was personal to me. Mulder, you have no idea what you did to me, what you put me through. I loved the X-Files, I loved you," I admitted, "and you made me leave it all behind. You made me hate you. I don't know what to feel now, and you're here with some tale of the Syndicate and colonization--"

"They're trying to kill me, Scully!" he said. "They want me to forget about it, let the end come, and I can't do that. Look at me! I'm a mess! I don't know what to do anymore. I knew that I had to see you. I knew that as often as I fuck things up, you always do the right thing. I knew that you'd know what to do," he said.

"Why do you believe they're trying to kill you?" I asked.

"The Gunmen found bugs in my apartment. They've been watching me. I've received several threats on my life, and I even had a run-in with Krycek. He cornered me in an alley, a gun to my head, and told me to stop looking. To forget what I'd found. I don't know why I'm still alive, Scully. All I know is that I have time, time to stop colonization...but I can't do it alone."

"I thought that the Syndicate had fallen apart," I said, remembering their deaths at the hands of the alien rebels.

"The Smoking Man and Krycek survived, as you know. The faceless Rebels has eliminated the other members of the Syndicate, and all work on the hybridization project was lost, including the only successful hybrid, Cassandra Spender. The Rebels stole the fetus, to use in their war with the colonizing force. Smoking Man still held a great amount of power, amassing a new group--the group that included Diana Fowley. The group that had experimented on me. They were desperate, looking for a way to save themselves now that the option of hybridization was lost. The vaccine has been created, but they don't know how much help it'll be in a large scale attack. So they began new experiments, like the one on me, to try to develop a new defense against them. The projects are highly classified. Like I said, the aliens aren't helping them anymore...everything has gone to hell, and they'll do anything to save themselves, including sacrificing everyone else. I found the date Scully. I found it, and I need you to help me stop it."
I took a moment to think before I finally spoke.

"I can't do it, Mulder, I'm sorry. That part of my life is over now," I told him, sipping my wine. "I'm not going to lie, I miss it in a way. Here, though, I've got too much... I can't just go back to the way things were before...that night. I've got commitments; a job, a wedding to plan..."

"Scully, even if you'd listen to me, I'd never be able to explain how I've felt these three years. What you took with you when you left..." God, why did his thoughts mirror my own? Why did everything have to be so complicated? "...but I know that you love someone else now. I know that I wouldn't let myself love you until you left, and then, NOW, it's too late. I know all of that. But please, don't deny me--and the entire world--your help in saving it."

"Please don't imply that if I don't help you the world will end, because I know and you know that I can't save the world," I told him.

"No, Scully, but you can help. You can be a part of it. There's a group of people like myself, like you, and I've got Skinner...we are planning to fight colonization-"

"I don't know if I even believe in colonization!"

"Don't do this to me, Scully."

"Don't do this to you? What about all you've done to me? Why should I come back, Mulder? To fight against something I don't really believe will happen? I'm following your own advice. I'm staying as far away from you as I can."

"Scully, I'll prove it to you. I'll show you, I'll take you to the place where I found the dates, the plans... They're serious this time, and they know that I know. We have to stop them before it's too late. Nobody except me and a few others are aware of this...I've got Skinner with me, but there's still only a few of us, and if they get rid of us, then no one will stop them."

"I'm sorry, Mulder, I have a life here... I can't leave that now," I told him. I wanted to, just for a moment when I looked into his eyes...

"I'm not asking you to leave forever, I'm not even asking you to come with me... I just need your help," he said.

"Mulder, I'm sorry," I told him simply. "I'm a different person, with different needs..."

"I NEED you--"

"Well you didn't then!" I found myself snapping. Then I quietly added, "Not when I needed you the most."

"I needed you then, Scully, I was just too blind to see it," he said. "I want to make this personal, but I can't, because someone else's heart is involved," he said, looking at my ring.

"I love him, Mulder," I said. "I love my new life. Once upon a time I loved other things, but that's changed," I said, a sad smile adorning my lips.

"Think about what you're doing. Think about what you're risking. Everything you're staying for will be gone in a few years if you don't help me," he said. I said nothing in return and he handed me a card with a telephone number written on it. "This is where I'm staying. I'll be here a while, it's not safe for me to leave yet."

"Okay," I sighed softly. God, he was leaving again and part of me wanted him to stay SO badly...

"Think about it," he repeated again, placing money on the table for our drinks.

I sat in silence as he walked away. He turned to me once more and said, "Hey Scully?"
I looked at him in reply.

"I've missed you," he said.

I smiled sadly, wordlessly, and he walked away.

NOTES: Set in May 2003! Gosh, I started this so long ago! Thanks for the reviews. Sorry for the delay with this chapter, but I was at yearbook camp learning how to be an editor-in-chief. So you know I'm cool.