In case you haven't figured it out, their dreams are also memories. Hint: they will help paint a picture of the events that led to their seperation.

DISCLAIMER: The song by Staind, It's Been A While, aren't mine, but I used them to add more to the story.


Dawn was snaking upon the horizon, its feeble light illuminating the room just enough so that he could see her, in all her beauty. His thoughts began at her fire red hair, – the hair that shone golden red in the sun – which now appeared a soft chestnut in the meager dawn. Itfell around her face in a mess of curls that accentuated her beauty more than it diminished it. Then his thoughts turned to her eyes, cerulean pools of liquid sapphire, with a streak of molten silver to enhance her strength. So often he had dived into those depths, lost in her. Then he thought of her full red lips, which he had first crashed upon in ages past.

His hand stole out and traced her jawline, his fingers hovering just above her perfect skin. They traveled down her neck, across her shoulder, and stopping at her hand, which he took in his. With a final squeeze, he slid from beneath the warmth of the sheets, putting more that the cold air between them.

Without a single word, he gathered his things and tip-toed over to her door. It was just sex anymore; he could no longer hold on to the link which had been strong once. It seemed a fog had slipped between them, obliterating his love for her, a love he could no longer feel. He'd become numb, his love transferring into lust, a simple physical attraction. It was all it boiled down to, all he could feel. Somewhere between distancing themselves at work and sleeping afterwards, they had lost what they had shared. And in the nights they spent together, he knew she felt it, too.

What exactly had gone wrong? It wasn't an event he could make out. Love just wasn't enough one day, until even that had begun to slip past his feeling, across a barrier he had built around his heart and soul. He didn't know what to do, but as they continued their escapades of desire, he realized that one day he would have to leave her.

All of this he mused on his way back home. It was certain that he could not leave her, not yet. But he couldn't continue to ignore the pain that this was causing him. And it was true that it was killing her as well. And as more miles separated them, both literally and figuratively, and as the fog between them grew ever denser, he knew only one thing to do, only one way to bide his time. And then the inevitable would come.

Mulder's eyes fluttered open, welcoming the darkness that he knew only as early morning. Every night, he had the same torturing dream. Why was he forced to relive those moments? It was a rhetorical question; he knew he relived them because he hoped that, if only in his dreams, he might not make the same mistake as he had then, the mistake that had wrenched them apart. But it was the same every night, and every night he remembered vividly how he felt then. The loss. And every morning he remembered wishing for death to overtake him, the night he had paid for his mistake. He wished he could take it back, for all the pain it caused him. That night he had remembered what it was to love her. And he had known what it was to lose her.

And it's been awhile
Since I could hold my head up high
And it's been awhile
Since I first saw you
And it's been awhile
Since I could stand on my own two feet again
And it's been awhile
Since I could call you

And everything I can't remember
As fucked up as it all may seem
The consequences that I've rendered
I've stretched myself beyond my means

And it's been awhile
Since I can say that I wasn't addicted
And it's been awhile
Since I can say I love myself as well
And it's been awhile
Since I've gone and fucked things up just like I always do
And it's been awhile
But all that shit seems to disappear when I'm with you

And everything I can't remember
As fucked up as it all may seem
The consequences that I've rendered
I've gone and fucked things up again

Why must I feel this way?
Just make this go away
Just one more peaceful day!

And it's been awhile
Since I could look at myself straight
And it's been awhile
Since I said I'm sorry
And it's been awhile
Since I've seen the way the candle lights your face
And it's been awhile
But I can still remember just the way you taste

And everything I can't remember
As fucked up as it all may seem to be I know it's me
I cannot blame this on my father
He did the best he could for me

And it's been awhile
Since I could hold my head up high
And it's been awhile
Since I said I'm sorry