disclaimer: not mine, don't sue


When he said her name, her eyes lit up like they hadn't in a long time. She couldn't believe they had found each other again, after all that time and separation. She couldn't believe she was standing in the middle of a crowded reception hall, his strong cheek in her hand. It seemed as if the whole world had turned off for them. And while it hadn't (because real life is not like the movies), a great number of people were watching them.

"Dana," Mark started, "who is this?"

"Mulder," she said dreamily, getting used to saying the name that had not left her mind in two years. She said his name more to him than to her partner.

"Hi," he whispered, unable to speak in an audible tone. She heard him, though. She could almost hear his thoughts.

"Hi," she mouthed back, her smiling lighting up the room. Mark saw how happy she was with the man. He wanted to step in. A chauvinistic part of him told him to. Unfortunately, he listened to it.

"Dana," he said, taking her arm and effectively breaking their magical gaze. She turned her eyes to extra-icy when she looked at him. Nobody had the right to take her away from Mulder. Not even herself.

"Excuse me," she said, and Mulder could tell she was pissed off. It felt good to have that part of her again. To have her loyalty. He thought he lost it. He feared he would never get it back.

"Who is this?" Mark asked, not caring if he made a scene in front of his co-workers.

"This is Mulder, I told you. Fox Mulder, my partner…"

The word came out before she had a chance to stop it. Did she say that to Mark because she hardly felt like he was her partner at all? Did she say it because Mulder was there, and she was subconsciously trying to mend bridges? Either way, he stepped in.

"Hi, Fox Mulder," he introduced himself, shaking Mark's hand. Mark just stood there, bewildered. He didn't consort much with Dana outside of work. But he knew she didn't have a social life. He knew she wasn't in a relationship. Why was she looking at this man with a look he had never seen her give before? It was a look of love, he was sure of it. How could she love this man? How could she call him her partner?

"Mulder, this is Special Agent Mark Sloveny," she said, leaving out what he was in relationship to her. Mulder could tell. He didn't need to be told.

"Fox!" he heard his partner call him. Had she not been so loud and whiny about it, he would have just ignored her. Scully heard, though, therefore, he heard.

"It's Mulder, Lucy," he wanted to get one thing straight before he introduced the most important woman in his life to the least. He saw Scully try to hold back a laugh. It was so good to see her laugh. It was so good to see her.

Period.

"Who's that?" Lucy asked, ignoring his correction once again. Mulder was about to introduce them, but Scully beat him to it.

"I'm Dana Scully. We were partners," she says shortly because Mark is still standing close by.

"Oh wow. Good to meet you. I haven't heard much about you," Lucy said. For some reason, this hurts Scully, but she understands. She hadn't told Mark about them either. Why she was sent to Salt Lake City. Why she was short and curt and never happy. Why she wasn't a whole person.

For a second, they have their privacy. It is not a true privacy, because once the formalities were out of the way, so was the interest in them. They no longer had twenty agents' eyes on them. Their partners, either out of embarrassment (Mark) or disinterest (Lucy), had looked away. She seized their opportunity by standing on her tiptoes and whispering in his ear:

"Let's go somewhere where we can be alone."

He took her hand, and they walked like the partners they were, out to the courtyard.


"How did you end up here, Mulder? You hate teamwork seminars. You hate FBI balls. You hate that woman in there," she said a little too loudly once they were alone in the courtyard, in the night air.

"Well, a great big hello to you too, Scully," he says, taking her hands in his and squeezing her small body against his. He loves the way she squeezes back. What he feels is the opposite of what he felt when she left. That is the way he always imagined their reunion to feel.

"I missed you," she mumbles against his chest. He was glad she said it first. He always tried to allow her to do things first.

Ladies first.

Scullies first.

Scully in his arms.

"I missed you too. So much," he whispers into her hair. She squeezes him tighter, trying to absorb what she missed in the past two years. Trying to make herself a part of him again. Little did she know that she had never left him.

A moment of loud silence before she looks up at him and says:

"You really do hate your partner though, don't you?"

So, like good friends, they spend a considerable amount of time catching up. He told her about DC. She told him about Utah. He told her about Lucy. She told him about Mark (and the others). He didn't tell her about his misery, but she knew. And he knew of her's. Something about the way they instantaneously felt together made them realize that in each other.

We are exactly the same.

"You really went on the Ferris wheel with her?" Scully asked in disbelief when Mulder told her about his special day in Chicago. All he could do was nod his head.

"I am sad, Mulder. You never took me on any Ferris wheels," she pouted.

"Well, Scully, I felt that every case we were one was so much like a roller coaster ride that a Ferris wheel would just bore you." They were sitting on a bench now. They were sitting close. They were holding hands.

They

Couldn't

Get

Enough

Of

Each

Other.

They knew it, too.

"I'm so glad I found you," he confessed. Scully's blush was violent, even in the dark. He knew what she was thinking. She hadn't really wanted to leave. She was doing what the old Dana would have done. She was doing what he head felt was best.

Little did she know that

Heads

Can't

Feel.

"I'm so mad I left you," she confessed a much greater secret. She didn't normally admit she was wrong. She didn't like to. She would rather find a way in which she was right. This time, however, she can't say that she wouldn't do it over again. She would.

She would take the last two years back.

She would not leave his side. If she would feel every day like she felt right at that moment, she would never have left his side. She would have never even considered it.

Especially since her life in Salt Lake was not a life.

Her

Life

Without

Him

Was

Not

A

Life.

And she was beginning to realize that.

"I'm mad that I let you leave."

He was.

"You were just trying to give me my space."

"You told me I could have said something to make you stay."

"I wouldn't have listened."

"I still needed to say it."

"I was afraid."

"Me too."

They were exactly the same.

"Scully, I don't want things to leave off where they did. These past two years have been hell, and I just want you back in my life."

"Mulder--"

"I'm not saying that you have to move back to DC and rejoin me on the X-files. I just want to hear from you. I hate not talking to you. I hate not being able to hear your voice. Or see you. It's been too long. And now that I've gotten a taste of you, I don't think I'm going to be able to go cold turkey again."

She smiled and put her head on his shoulder.

"I would like that very much."

"Are you going back to the ball?" he asked, her head still on his shoulder.

"No."

"Where are you going? You're partner is going to be worried about you."

"He'll be fine. He wanted to get drunk anyway. I don't want to be around for that."

"With my luck, Lucy will take off her clothes and dance on a table."

They laughed.

Together.

"Mulder…" she got an idea. Ideas like these rarely popped into her head, even when she had been working with him. And she believe that the fact that she hadn't been working with him added to the idea. She couldn't let him go. Not yet. Not after just getting him back.

"What's up?"

"I don't want to be alone tonight," she told him, not seductively (almost). She rubbed her face against his shoulder, inhaling his scent.

He was about to suggest the same thing.

Two bodies. One mind.

"Come on," he grabbed her hand and kissed it, then stood them up and walked with her, hand-in-hand, to his room.

Never say goodbye.

Not yet, at least.

They were just beginning to say hello.