Scully Residence

8:35 P.M.

"Mommy, can you tell me another story?" Chelsea asked. Although it was her bedtime, she did not want to go to bed. This is how most four year olds act. Her room was a light purple, and all of her furniture in her room was white.

Ding-dong. Scully heard the doorbell downstairs, but she did not get up to go and get it because she was putting Chelsea to bed. However, she heard voices downstairs. She kissed Chelsea on the head, looked at her and said, "No, Honey, I can't tell you another story. You need to go to bed now."

Scully turned off the light in her room, shut the door almost all the way, and went downstairs. It was then that she placed the voice that she heard. It was Mulder's. Why was he here this time of night? What did he want, she thought to herself.

"Mulder, what are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I wanted to talk to you, and since we don't talk at work, I thought I should come here," Mulder explained. Her husband was standing in the middle of the two.

"You know him, Dana?" her husband said, perplexed.

"I used to work with him when I worked in Washington, and he is here working on the case that I am working on right now, ironically," Scully explained to her husband. "Mulder, this is my husband, Richard Geller."

It was just about then that Chelsea came downstairs. Although she knew it was past her bedtime, she wanted to see who the mysterious visitor was. Chelsea did not recognize him. In fact, he scared her a little because he was so tall.

"Mommy, who is that?" she asked Scully.

"This is a friend of mine from work, Sweety. This is Agent Mulder," Scully explained.

"This is my daughter, Chelsea," Scully told Mulder. He stared at the child, not knowing what to say. There was nothing that he could say. Scully had a family, something that seemed impossible when they were working in Washington together.

Her husband picked Chelsea up and said, "Hey, now, aren't you supposed to be in bed? I'll leave you two alone for a bit." He took Chelsea up to bed, and Mulder and Scully went out on the deck.

"Nice kid," Mulder commented. He sat down in one of the patio chairs, still amazed.

"Mulder, what did you come here to talk about?" Scully pressed.

"Well, since you ask, I just wanted to come here to talk to you. I feel like since I've been here, you have done everything you can to distance yourself from me," Mulder explained.

"Look, I'm sorry, but this is not appropriate. We are working this case together," Scully replied.

"Scully, look, we used to be friends. What happened to that? Why can't we be friends and partners again?" Mulder pondered out loud.

"We can never be partners again, you know that -" Scully tried to say, but Mulder stopped her in her tracks.

"You know what I mean, though," Mulder stated. He looked at her with this sympathetic look. Finally, she gave in and they started talking.

"I have a funny feeling about Amanda. I feel as if she is hiding something. She seems very..." Mulder trailed off.

"Do you mean cold, and bitter?" Scully filled in. Although they had not worked together in a long time, she could still finish his sentences.

"Yeah. I mean, she is only eleven, but she seemed like she had been a green beret in Vietnam or something by the way she talked," Mulder said.

"We should call the parents in for questioning tomorrow, and ask them about her," Scully replied. She wrote it down on a little piece of paper.

"So how did you meet your husband?" Mulder asked changing the subject. Scully looked at him oddly.

"We met at a restaurant six years ago, just after I moved here. We have been married for five years,"Scully told Mulder.

"He seems nice enough," Mulder commented.

"He is. He's terrific. He's great with Chelsea," Scully said.

"I thought you couldn't have children," Mulder said.

"We didn't think so either. She was conceived through in-vitro fertilization," Scully explained. "She's four."

"What does your husband do for a job?" Mulder asked. Although he knew her husband's name, he could not bring himself to use it.

"He works for the local university as a psychology professor," Scully replied.

Mulder looked at his watch. It was half past nine. He knew that it was time to go. He got up from his chair, and went back into the house. Scully followed him.

"I'll see you tomorrow at work, okay?" Mulder said.

"All right," Scully answered. Scully went into the living room where her husband was and sat down on the couch. She sighed. She felt like she was being dishonest in her marriage, but at the same time, she was glad that she had spent that time with Mulder.

"How long did you two work together in D.C.?" Her husband asked.

"Six years," she replied.

"Six years. You never mentioned him before. What were you both assigned to?" her husband probed.

"Mulder started working on this project called the 'x-files' back in 1991 with another agent, Diana Fowley. In 1993 she asked to reassigned to another area of the bureau, for reasons I don't know, and don't care to know. That was when I was brought down to work with Mulder on the x-files - " Scully explained but Richard cut her short.

"Was it just the two of you?" he asked.

"Yes, it was. I was originally sent down there to investigate the legitimacy his work, but I couldn't because I felt that his investigations were just. We worked together until I was transferred here," Scully continued.

"Why were you transferred here?" her husband asked.

"Well, they shut down the x-files, for a couple of reasons, actually. One, the office burned, and two, they did not like our investigations, and what our work was uncovering. They said our work was not legitimate. We were reassigned to a general assignment type of task force. That June, there was a bomb threat called into Dalles, Texas. We were some of the agents that were assigned to find it. We found it; however, we didn't find it in time. The bomb went off. The Office of Professional Review, or OPR felt that it would be best if we were separated, and I was to be transferred. That's how I ended up here," Scully concluded.

"Were you anything more than partners?" her husband finally asked.

Scully looked at him. She really did not know what to say. Mulder and she had a special relationship, but they had never even really kissed. In her mind, that meant that they had been nothing more than friends; however, she knew the possibility was there. She answered, "No we were just friends, and he just wanted to catch up."

Scully went to bed that night not knowing what to think. It had been years since she had last seen Mulder. She never thought that she would have to deal with her feelings for him again. She laid there in bed that night wondering if her husband could detect the feelings that she had for Mulder. She wondered if Mulder had those feelings for her.

F.B.I. Field Office

10:35 A.M.

Later the next morning, the parents of the missing girl were called in for questioning.