Sorry it's been forever. But I really like the way this is turning out, and I think you will too. P.S. THIS IS NOT THE END.


A soft knock resounded through the apartment, and although its suddenness caused her to jump in mild surprise, the silence afterwards formed a vacuum in the air that sucked life and happiness. She padded softly to the door, dreading its opening. She'd called him as the blood red of sunset began to turn into the hollow orange of a night in the city. The knob was cold in her hand; dead and lifeless, she imagined it sucking the warmth from her until she was frozen on the floor. The image would not leave her. Yet she managed to turn the knob and swing her arm inward. And there he stood.

He smiled at her weakly, and it was a mere shadow of the sparkling grin he'd once worn. It was fake, she saw, and she returned it with only the same veracity he'd shown. She was not ready to smile yet. She stepped away from the door, allowing him in. He entered the apartment with an awkwardness he'd never shown before.

She was reminded of how comfortable they both used to be with each other – they'd even swapped keys, and he used to let himself into her apartment on late evenings and they'd dance on her living room floor. He'd wrap his arms around her waist and bury his nose in her hair, and she would float on the scent of his cologne as she laid her cheek on his chest. She thinks now that, on those evenings, she loved him more than on the nights when he would show up and they would laugh their way to her bedroom, where they would do a different type of dancing; how the term making love always seemed to apply less to sex than to the comfort of his arms as they swayed together in a harmony that never applied anywhere else, not even in the bedroom.

Words were not anywhere to be found; silence hung in the air between them, robbing her of breath. It was an oppressive blanket laid over them, swift and black. She had to act soon. "Tea?" she croaked, and an amused smile made an appearance on his face for a split second. He nodded. And eternity was born and passed before the tea was ready, and coming out of the kitchen, she saw with bemused delight that he'd seated himself on the couch, something she hadn't expected him to do.

He took the tea with a whispered, "Thanks," and she'd smiled in return. "I needed to see you," she told him, not looking at him but gazing out the window into the night sky, devoid of stars from the city lights. He nodded. "After everything... after everything I remembered, I couldn't help thinking I still need you." She turned to him. "I know we don't have much of a chance. I know we probably couldn't even make it as friends. But Mulder, I just couldn't help myself. Thinking after all this time you waited for me... and I'd waited for you too. I just couldn't help wondering," she confessed, returning to view outside the window, "if I could make it on my own now." There was no need to specify the meaning of the phrase, on my own, because they both knew what she really meant was without you. And somehow that spoke more volumes than she knew to say.

"I know, keed. But what can we do?" She smiled with nostalgia at that: keed. He used to call her that, and she never knew where he got it, but she'd loved it when he said it from the start. It had just seemed... right.

She turned to him, her heart evident in her eyes. "Stay," she asked. "Stay with me." And in the morning, when the sun rose orange in the sky, she would smile. She would smile and think, Stay. Stay with me. They didn't sleep with each other. Instead, she beckoned him to dance on her living room floor; he wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his nose in her hair, and she floated on the scent of his cologne as she laid her head on his chest. It was not an end, but as the glow from the rising sun filled her room, she knew it was a beginning.


Hope you liked it. PLEASE, please, I'm begging you, write a review, I live off reviews. Please.
: )