CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Oh how we've shouted, how we've screamed. Take notice, take interest, take me with you. But all our fears fall on deaf ears... Tonight, they're burning the roads they built to lead us to the light, and blinding our hearts with their shining lies, while closing our caskets cold and tight, but I'm dying to live..."

--Dashboard Confessional, "Several Ways to Die Trying"

The smell of antiseptic. Stiff sheets, uncomfortable mattress, dry throat, bright lights... A hospital. I was in a hospital. I had an awful headache, and groaned low in my throat before opening my eyes. I found myself staring at Mulder, hovering over my bed. My head was swimming. What on earth was going on? What had happened? I remembered the computer...and then the password. Oh, god, Krycek...

"Scully, God it's good to see you open your eyes," Mulder said. I realized he had been holding my hand, and probably had been for quite some time.

"What happened, Mul'er?" I asked, my voice tired from the drugs.

"You were shot, in the stomach. Ripped right through the Kevlar...but if you weren't wearing it, we, uh, probably wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"Mm, was it a clean entry?" I asked clinically, going right into doctor-mode.

"Yeah, you're a lucky woman. You've amazed the doctors yet again with how well you're recovering. The bullet didn't shatter, and it didn't enter too far. The surgery could have been much worse, though you won't be doing much activity for a few days. Of course, with abdominal surgery, you could have been down for months..." he trailed off.

Suddenly, a thought came to mind--the infiltration, how did he get out?

"Mulder, what happened after I was shot?"

He took a deep breath and began. "I shot at Krycek. I hit him, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't a fatal, but it got him bad enough to send him crawling off somewhere. I was more concerned with trying to help you. Seeing you like that, Scully, it almost killed me. There was so much blood..." the pain was evident in his eyes while he paused to regain composure, "I tried to do what I'd seen you do when someone was shot, you know? Apply pressure or whatever, but I was so panicked. The Gunmen called for an ambulance. Some other guys came out, shot at me... I was lucky I guess. I got you out and didn't look back."

"And the files?" I asked.

"I went back after I knew you would be okay. Everything is gone. Vanished. Completely cleared out. The Syndicate planted some drugs and the entire thing is being reported by the FBI higher-ups as a drug bust with a following shoot-out. Skinner protested the cover-up but he's been overruled. His job is on the line, too, just like ours." He paused for a moment and said, "Nothing, we gained nothing, Scully. All of our careful planning. The danger we put ourselves in...and it was all a setup."

"Vanished? Everything?" I asked, shocked.

"Completely. It was all a set-up..."

"Krycek was the informant, then," I gathered.

"Yeah. I took the paper with the password written on it with me. It loosely translates into English as betrayal. Hell of a sense of humor on that crafty son of a bitch." There was a pause, and then he added, "I'm so sorry, Scully."

"Mulder, no--"

"I told you to trust me on it. You were worried, but I--I was so caught up in finding answers... I put you in danger, again. Over and over again, I just keep on hurting you. Maybe I never should have come to see you in California. You could have been happy."

"Stop it, Mulder, stop it right now," I hissed, "I am a grown woman and I make my own choices. I put myself in that warehouse. I left California to come with you on my own. I stayed on the X-Files for my own reasons--you never forced me to search for this truth. And you know what? With all the pain, with all I've lost, I don't think I would have changed a thing. Everything happens for a reason."

"You think that all that happened...everything I put you through--"

"You did not put me through anything. I put myself in every position I found myself in. You may have hurt me--that I won't deny. But you are not the reason for every bad thing that has ever happened to me, Mulder. I involved myself in this conspiracy."

"And all of that...there was a reason for all of this pain?"

"You and I are both here, aren't we?" I took his hand in mine. "Would we have found each other again if it wasn't for all of this? Everything that happened...especially this," I gestured to my bandaged abdomen, "taught me something. Opened my eyes to things I hadn't wanted to believe before."

"What things?"

I took a deep breath. Now or never, Dana Katherine... "I love you, Mulder. As many times as I told myself I shouldn't, because of what happened...I do. This opened my eyes. I almost never got the chance to tell you."

I said it. Finally, it slipped from my lips. It took a near death experience, but there it was, out in the open. I was ready to bear my heart to him. I was confident that he wouldn't break it for the first time in a long time. As blind as he was to the fact that I was not made of glass--not something he could protect--I was trusting that his eyes were open to see that what we had together was what both of us needed.

"Dana..." Oh, first name--my clue that he's going to say something tender. "I want you to know how hard I'm going to try to do this right. I promise that I'll try--but both of us know that I have a history of fucking these things up."

"Mulder, what happened between us...I told you once that I can't pretend it never happened, and I can't. It was an important part of my life. But, that doesn't mean that we have to think about it. My past will not control our present, or our future. It doesn't matter what you have a history of. We can't truly feel joy until we have felt pain."

"Well then, between the two of us, joy is going to feel pretty damn good," he smiled.

"Yeah, I think it will."

We were quiet for a moment, his hand in mine. We were starting out on a new journey, with a slate that was not quite clean. The scars along the way--whether they were from bullets, from the loss of loved ones, or from fights between lovers--punctuated our lives. They were reminders of the hard times we had faced. They marked the hope that those hard times would be equally matched by great times.

"What are we going to do about finding proof of the colonization date?" I asked quietly.

He sighed. "I'm not sure yet. There are other bases, other places to find the answers. I don't think it would be fair to stop looking. I want to find those files. I want answers...about what they've done to you, to Samantha, about what they're going to do in the future. About what they would kill innocent people to protect."

"I don't understand why didn't they kill us as soon as I got back here..."

"I don't know, although it's possible that they didn't know you were back. Of course, I'm sure they probably had someone in the FBI who knew. Most likely, Scully, I think it's all a big game to them. I think that both of us know that if they really wanted us dead, Smokey could have it done in an instant. They've done this in the past--other attempts on us. The bullet through my window, the bullet that killed your sister, your cancer... They keep dangling the truth in our face, and when we get close, they fire a few shots to keep us back. To frighten us. This time, I found the answers--but not the proof. This is colonization, Scully. We can't let it happen. If we can stop it, we have to. We were so close to finding everything... They led us on, sent us on this wild goose chase for answers, and then when we were about to hold them in our hands, they tried to kill us. Thank God Krycek isn't as great a shot as you are, Scully, because..."

"Don't think like that. So what do you suggest we do? Do you think we're in immediate danger?"

"No. Firstly, this whole event has discredited us. I guaranteed proof in that building, and there is none. Next time, we'll probably have to go about an infiltration without backup agents and possibly without Skinner. They know that. To be honest, Skinner still believes in us. He managed to talk the Director out of putting us before an OPR panel. Either way, the Syndicate know that as of right now, we are no threat to them. We have no leads, no idea where to begin looking again. They eliminated the problem without killing us and causing the delay of covering it up. Now, they figure that they've scared us away for a while, maybe forever this time...but I don't believe that they have. We can't give up now, we can't accept colonization. I guess in that way, they haven't succeeded."

"They haven't. Like I said, we can lay low a while, and then look into entering another facility, without the help of an informant. In the mean time, we can investigate some other X-Files..."

"So then you'll come back on the unit as my partner again?"

"Of course, Mulder. My life is in those files. My life is here with you now."

"I wouldn't want it anywhere else."

"Me either, Mulder. Me either."

"You should get some rest, Scully. Your mother went out to grab a bite to eat for lunch. She should be back soon, but try and sleep some more before she arrives. "

"Now that you mention it, the drugs have made me a bit groggy..."

"Close your eyes, Scully, I'll be here when you open them. Along with better days for both of us. Along with a new search for a greater truth."

All I wanted at the moment were better days with him. I wanted to jump into a relationship with him, and I wanted us to be close again. I wanted to learn things about him I never knew, and I wanted him to learn those things about me. We never got to have a relationship, we never got to be lovers... I wanted to go through those files in that old basement office. I wanted chase mutants and monsters and shadowy figures down dark alleys. I would be kidding myself if I said that my work was needed more anywhere else. If colonization was imminent, I needed to be working to stop it. Things would get better for us...even if after our defeat at the warehouse things looked grim. We wouldn't let a setback--even a major one--deter us.

We were ready to embark on another journey. At the time when things should have been looking down, they were looking up for us. We had found one another again, and although it was through pain, we hoped that it would bring us happiness. Dreams of the future filled my head...waking up in Mulder's arms, late nights in our office, arguing with him over expense accounts, making up with him after such arguments in the most enjoyable way possible, and finding the answers that we had sought for so long. I would wake up the next morning to begin a search for all of those things.

NOTES: As someone who is horribly impatient with other authors when they are writing fic, I must apologize for taking sooo long to post this. I have a million excuses but I won't bore you all with the madness that has been my life for the past month or so...or the fact that I'm a lazy bum. But on another note, the end of this fic is very near...so just hold on a little bit longer. Thanks soooo much for reading, everyone, reviews rock my world!