Spoilers: Vague for The Truth; you should have seen that to understand where this takes place at.

Synopsis: Mulder's early morning musings after they go on the run after The Truth.

Author's Notes: This was originally designed as a short smut biscuit but when I got to the ending I knew it, and stopped there. Now just a brief non-smutty vignette, although there will be a very smutty sequel and perhaps a non-smutty sequel to that. Who knows?

Thanks so much to my recent beta readers Julie, Melissa, and Karen—
I very much appreciate your taking the time to look this over for me.

To the Future
By Suzanne L. Feld
Rated PG

I woke early in the predawn dimness and just lay there for a time, still holding Scully in my arms with both of us on top of the covers although we had shifted around some in the night and I was curled around her, both of us on our sides. Finally, carefully, I lifted myself up on one elbow and gazed down at her beautiful face, which I could just see in the dim lighting. She was peaceful and serene in sleep, the recent worry lines that now bracketed her mouth and above her brows absent while she was so relaxed. She looked very much like the brash young agent who had walked so confidently into my office nearly a decade ago, not the woman who had been through so much with me and was beginning to show the strain. My gaze slipped to her soft full lips, parted as she breathed silently. I wanted to kiss her, but refrained since I didn't want to wake her yet.

That made me remember the first time I'd really kissed Scully. And no matter how many times I had since then, it was still one of my most frustrating yet wonderful memories. Even now, four-some-odd years later and after we'd made love countless times, I looked at her sleeping peacefully next to me in this cheap Scottsdale motel room and reminisced…

###

October 1998
I kissed her impulsively and unexpectedly while we were standing in the hall of yet another cheap anonymous motel and she was trying to get her keycard to work, suitcase at her feet. Only a few months before, a bee had aborted our true first kiss and I'd been waiting ever since for the right time. Now I decided on the spur of the moment that this was it. Without warning I dropped my bags and whirled her to face me, then grabbed her head gently but firmly in both hands, sinking my fingers into that rich hair I had wanted to touch for so long, and lowered my mouth to hers. She froze for a moment but then responded, her soft lips moving against mine and our tongues meeting gently, tentatively before we both grew bolder and deepened the kiss. So I was shocked when she suddenly broke the kiss and pushed me away—although I managed to grab her upper arms to hold her facing me. "Scully, what the hell?"

"Mulder, what do you think you're doing?" She braced her hands on my chest, but didn't appear alarmed.

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm finally kissing the woman I love to show her how I feel."

"I love you too, but we can't do this now. Don't you know that?"

"What do you mean? And you love me?"

"Of course I love you! I thought you knew that. I wouldn't put up with the shit I've put up with from you from a man I didn't love with all my heart and soul. But that doesn't mean we can just throw our work aside to get involved in a love affair."

"Neither of us is married, so what's the problem?"

"Because I have worked my ass off, Mulder, to be a woman who makes it in a male profession. I made a huge mistake in getting involved with co-workers twice before and I won't make it again. Someday we'll be together, but it won't be now."

"I want you so badly that I can't see straight. Do you feel that way too?"

"God yes. I've wanted you for so long that I don't remember a time that I didn't, anymore. But we're not going to do this now."

I let go of her and stepped back, scowling, my anger rising. "So when will the right time be? I suppose you know."

She shook her head, mussed auburn hair brushing against her flawless cheeks as she turned back to the door and jammed the keycard into the slot again. "No, I can't say I do. But I'm sure I will when it comes along."

I put my hands on my hips and glared down at her, trying to be at my most intimidating although I knew that she took zero shit off me no matter how much I postured. "What if this is my moment and if not now, never?"

"Then we're SOL so I suggest you wait. I'll see you later and we can finish going over the case at dinner," she said, clearly unimpressed with my show of alpha male supremacy, finally getting the lock to click to green and pushing the door open with one slender, padded shoulder. I stood outside her room as she closed the door behind her, my mouth open and mind whirling over what had just happened.

Somehow, knowing that she loved and wanted me as much as I did her gave me the fortitude to never mention it again until the unforgettable, wonderful night a year later when she finally came to my bed after talking to God in a Buddhist temple. And yes, she had been right—it was the time we'd both been waiting for, no sooner and no later.

###

"Mulder, where were you just now?"

The object of my musings was smiling up at me sleepily, still curled warmly in my arms. It was light enough now that I could see her clearly and let my eyes linger on her elegant features-the arched auburn brows, sweep of sooty lashes above and below those clear blue eyes, patrician nose, and full, soft rosy lips-having missed them for so long. Her hair, longer now, was spread over the pillowcase like a golden-red sunrise around her beautiful face. I couldn't resist drawing her even closer with the arm that was around her waist, leaning over and giving her that good-morning kiss I'd been thinking about earlier before answering. "In the past," I replied briefly as I pushed the thick white bathrobe she still wore away from her slender body. "But I'm in the present now and looking towards the future. With you."

finis