Well my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well, I've been to London and I've been to 'gay Paris'
I've followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

-Bob Dylan

The guys didn't know what to say. Faced with the knowledge that Mulder's 'squeeze' had just awoken from a year long coma, only to run away from him and their infant daughter.

It didn't sound like the Scully they knew and worshiped.

Sure, they expected her to kick his ass. Byers had long called dibs on the camera to capture the moment for posterity. No one expected her to leave, to run off. No one.

Mulder wasn't the se, he had showed up at their office pleading for help, needing to find out where she had gone. They gave him the info, but it had come across by low tech means.

"Mulder, " Frohike began in a low voice. "If she is really angry with you, where is the one place she would go to be sure to be protected from you?"

He hadn't thought about that. His mind had been so clouded lately. First the baby, then the phone call. Maybe it had been the perfect time to leave the FBI, maybe he had been spread too thin. He slammed his fist on the table. The act made the gunman jump. "Damn It She went to the one place that–

' He stopped. "Thanks guys." he grabbed the baby and headed for the door.

"Mulder, you aren't going to go out there are you? If she is that bad off are you sure you want to do this?" Langley did not want to see his friend of ten years get twisted into a pretzel, right in front of his daughter.

He saluted and headed out of the door.

He was used to being able to fly at a moments notice. He could pack a bag in seconds flat. There were no easy answers today. Her Royal High Maintenance required an entourage of objects. Once again reminding himself of a pack mule, the out of work agent headed for the door.

The note addressed to him made him stop dead in his tracks. It was taped to the fish tank, and he recognized immediately it was the scrolly looping handwriting of Maggie Scully.

What The Fuck? He asked a little confused. Some one had crept in and played a sick joke on him, but it was someone that had a good rendition of Maggie's handwriting. Shaking from somewhere deep within, he slumped onto the couch and read the note.

-Fox,

I know you are upset and angry, and you have every right to feel every emotion that you are feeling right now. She did ask for you when she first woke up, and she did want to see you, but something changed when she was the picture of you and Dylan. She flung the picture across the room. I don't know what has transpired between the two of you, I myself had such high hopes and when I walked into that room and found you were not there...

Well anyway, she won't talk Fox, not about you, or work, or what wento on to put her in a coma. And she especially will not entertain any discussion about Dylan. I believe that whatever had out her into this state, for some reason she ties it to you and Dylan.

If you just give her some time Fox, I think she can work through this. You are a smart man, and given that I know you probably have already figured out where we are. Please I ask you not to come. She is so fragile, and I don't want her health threatened, and if you only calm down and think for a while you would agree, you have always wanted what was best for her, even when you could not give it to her.

You need to focus on Dylan. You raise your daughter, and I will raise mine. I cannot live without seeing her and I know that if I ask to come for a day you will allow it. You are so good to her and she is what you need. Please Fox, I don't know how long she will need, she is so angry, so unlike the Dana we both knew. I think that giving her time would be best for all in the long run.

Thank your neighbor again for me for delivering this note, she said she would put it where you were sure to look, I didn't want to go inside and find you two there. I will always think of you as a son, and I am intrusting in you the life of my grand daughter.

-Maggie.

To say he was shocked would have been the understatement of a lifetime. He was unable to form a coherent thought for twenty minutes, just sat on the couch reading and re reading the note. He realized she must remember the whole thing, the baby, him, the night that lead to the events. Everything was out of his power now. He had to formulate a plan and go on, to raise Dylan and try to find some kind of happiness until Scully moved past her anger, and at least agreed to see Dylan. He hopes it would be sometime before Dylan realized that everyone else had two parents. It was only the baby's demands for feeding that shook him away from his wallow.

So where does an out of work FBI agent end up when he doesn't want to stand on the wrong side of a gun anymore? That was an easy call. Somehow he had realized in the last few months that he loved being around kids. Their honesty and single-mindedness reminded him of happier times in his life. He wanted to create as perfect a world for Dylan as he could. He wanted her to enjoy a life of simple joys. So he took a job as a high school social science teacher with a part time gig as boys basketball coach. He had most of his summers off, and he could keep up on his lay ups and hook shots

He had honored Maggie's requests, and in the last year had not made any attempt at seeking out Dana. He was too busy anyway. Dylan, while a trial as an infant, became a terror on two feet. She handled everything, from dumping the contents of her pink sippy cup into the laptop, to flushing his keys into the toilet–repeatedly. She even hid the remote on him for so long he had given up and gone and bought a replacement. Only to have her march out of the kitchen clutching the missing one so that there was a matched set.

"Dylan, I love you but I thank fate everyday you only came in the single serve pack." She was his joy. He loved to take her to new places and watch as she through herself completely into the new experience. The first time he took her to the beach, he had debated on using a leash. Not one of those dog leashes, but the DCFS friendly kid versions you see young over taxed mothers using on little monsters that would no doubt wind up in his class one day. In the end he figured she could be trusted, at fourteen months of age she was pretty smart and had a natural sense of fear.

They were happy, at first when he had packed up and moved out here, he had questioned himself every day, pondering if he had really done the right thing, if he had merely been complacent in not seeking Scully out and forcing her to live up to her responsibilities. But he had done one thing, though if Scully was Scully again, she would have called it a passive aggressive move to subconsciously try to control the situation while remaining within the parameters of Maggie's requests.

So what if he had moved out to Fresno, that still didn't mean he would see her. He knew she had moved out there on a permanent basis. Even had received a few emails from Maggie remarking on how well her progress was at lead physically. She had met him a few times before he moved out to California, she had wanted to see Dylan, wanted to touch her and tell her how much she was loved. But deep down Mulder worried that she was just checking up to make sure whatever he had done to Scully was not being repeated with Little Scully.

When she was told of where he was moving to, she didn't get upset as he had feared, merely wagged the fickle finger of fate at him and gently reminded him of his promises.

Oh yeah Maggie, he mused, there were promises to be kept, but not just to you.

He needed Dylan to know her mother. He thought of it every day when he picked her up from the school day care. Only in America would you have a day care where both teachers and high school students could drop their kids off. He watched the other children that had mothers, even the children of young single mothers. They all possessed a softness that he feared Dylan would never have. He was concerned that too much ESPN was going to turn her into–what Scully.

She still fell asleep listening to Bob Dylan. The older acoustical stuff always hit her right when she was ready to fight til the dawn. He knew she had inherited his insomnia, she wanted to stay awake with him and hang out. She didn't yet realized that Daddy needed a break from the over demanded high maintenance Dylan. He spent his nights correcting papers, or watching an old science fiction flick on tv. Sometimes he would just curl up and feel sorry for himself, slef loathing being his favorite pass times.

But most of the times in the still quiet of the house he shared with his young daughter, he spent much in the same way as apartment 42, thinking of Scully.

Ok, WoW once again I am overwhelmed at the kindness es of my readers,

-Rosie, thank you for the extremely kind words, and I loved those quotes, but I have to qgree there are too many to name LOl

Moscully- thank you for that kind affectation

Lil gillian- I wish i could tell you how it turns out, but then I would have to kill you LOl-seriously, dont send out the little grey guys on me i will be good i promise

damandabear-man i loved that site of yours, laughed so hard i couldn't write for like an hour, thought the roomies would have to call 911 for oxygen. thank you for that wonderful break. LOL

I am home for the weekend where the internet roams free, so i will try to get in as muych as possible How am I doing? What dont you like? Let me know and I will consider it! Sorry this story is so long, but i swear it has a point really