Title: Second Chances

Rating: PG 13

Classification: Post Ep Eventual MSR MPOV/SPOV

Spoilers: The Field Where I Died.

Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit, no harm.

Summary: What if Melissa survived? Would a relationship blossom between herself and Mulder? How would Scully cope?

Feedback: Love all feedback. Thanks inAdvance!

Authors Notes: My first attempt at a 1st person POV...be gentle. A thousand thank you's to Sally for taking the time to help me out with rogue punctuation and bad tense's and giving me that final fatal push over the cliff when I got stuck. Thanks Sally this one is especially for you.

Second Chances

By Skinfull

CHAPTER 1 --Mulder POV--

Temple of the Seven Stars.

My heart is beating faster than I ever knew it could, it's stealing power from my lungs as it pushes it's way up to lodge in my throat. I can't swallow or breathe properly as I step through the field. Scully's voice carries over the cool breeze but it's not enough to stop me.

Cautiously, I reach for the handle but it's locked or stuck so I just barge through, ignoring the sharp pain in my shoulder where I connected with the thick oak.

My heart is yelling at me to hurry and my brisk walk becomes a run through the cluttered hallways of the temple. Bouncing off the close walls, I'm sprinting now, my mind screaming a mantra: hurry, hurry, hurry, and hurry. But it doesn't matter. I'm too late. I know it.

The door to the oratory is heavy as I push it open and move a body aside. My feet halt my progress all of their own accord, pulling me up short just inside the door where I can see them all lying on top of each other, piled in a gruesome fashion. The bodies are warm. Their heat evaporating too quickly, rising up to meet my face as I step over them in what seems like a futile search for her face. My eyes are squinting through the dusty air scanning the still and frightened faces when I spot her.

From the corner of my eye I can see Vernon, by the podium, clutching his bible in what must have once been a powerful grip of faith, but I can't be bothered to check if he has survived to face justice for what he has done. There she is. As still and lifeless as the others. But she can't be, I'm pleading with myself and god or anyone who might be listening. She seems to be sleeping even though I can feel it in my heart that she is not.

I need to reach out and touch her even though I shouldn't. My hand is shaky and I'm not sure why but I force it to move to her shoulder and check her neck for a pulse. But there is nothing.

With my other hand, shaking just as hard, I reach out for the torn photo curled loosely in her fingers. Across the room I can hear the other agents finally catching up with me and I know they can see me from their vantage point inside the door, Scully included. But it doesn't stop the tears from falling. It doesn't stop the pain from penetrating my body and soul at the loss I am feeling right now.

Looking up to the windows of broken glass, I can see the field with it's wisps of tall grass blowing gracefully in the wind and I know now as surely as I have ever known that I will see her again. At times I almost dream, I muse, blinking the sting of the tears away.

"Mulder! Move!" Scully's voice seems so far away, but her small strong hand is on my shoulder, pushing me aside as she leans over Melissa and unfurls her from the foetal position to lay her flat on her back.

"Over here!" she yells and I look behind me to see one of the ATF members lifting a young man from near the door. Looking closer at his face I can see his eyes are open. Amazed, I turn back to Scully to see her pumping Melissa's chest in the familiar motions of CPR then breathing into her mouth.

"Scully?" I can barely manage to speak as she pumps again on Melissa's chest and turns to me.

"Mulder the poison hasn't worked fully on all of these people. Some of them will survive." She stops to breathe for Melissa again then pulls away and rolls her onto her side. Melissa coughs and vomits out most of the poison.

"Melissa?" Struggling to my feet, I clamour over to her side and gently touch her shoulder.

"Get her outside Mulder."

Scullys voice rattles in my head for a few seconds before my brain kicks in and obeys. I hook one arm under Melissa's knees and the other I wrap around her shoulders to lift her. She is so light I can hardly feel her in my arms so I hug her closer to my chest as if I can save her with warmth alone.

Outside in the grass the swat team has pulled out most of the church members who are now coughing up and spewing all over. They are shrouded in blankets and ATF officers circling the small group with trained weapons, so I bring Melissa off to the side. Sitting her on the grass slowly, I take the blanket from the pile and drape it over her.

"Melissa...can you hear me?" Her cheek is stained with red liquid where she vomited in the church and her breathing is raspy with effort, but her eyes blink over to me before they close tightly. "Everything will be okay now. Relax."

But before I can move she rolls over towards me and coughs up more tacky red liquid onto my knees. I'm rubbing her back gently and telling her she'll be okay when I hear the swat team next to me yelling out.

"That's all. The rest are dead."

Standing up, I watch Melissa as I walk away, unable to believe she is lying there, and turn in time to see Scully stepping out of the temple. Her usually impeccable navy pant suit is marred and stained with the viscous red remains of the victims inside, but part of me, the part that glances back to Melissa's weakened form, is too stunned to realise what has happened fully.

Scully's walk is slow and deliberate and more than once I catch her eyes straying over to Melissa but as she approaches me her eyes lock with mine and I can't hide the relief in them, I don't even try.

"Mulder," she says softly and it's the tone I recognise for when she is about to tell me something I don't want to hear. "Seven. We saved seven."

"Vernon?"

"No. Four women and three men who will still need to be pumped out and under observation for a few days." She is looking at me with strange eyes. Searching me for answers to questions she doesn't want to ask, maybe even answers she doesn't want to know, so I turn away and walk over to Melissa. Scully's soft footfall is right behind me and she crouches with me to examine her more closely, but then sees the photo still clutched in my hand. "Mulder?"

"'Behold...I am alive forever more'," I quote as I glance at the photo, before reaching out to take Melissa's cold and shaking hand in my own.

A/N : This is chapter one...how is it so far? And yes...of course it's MSR!