disclaimer: not mine, don't sue


Their absence had been noted.

Mark realized she was not there when he popped into her room that morning (he used his key).

Lucy realized he wasn't there when it came time to actually start the partner work.

And the two were left alone.

They were exactly the same.


"Mulder, my pants are going to get wet!" she yelled over to him in the water. They were back on the beach after their Chinese-even-though-they-weren't-in-Chinatown. They had walked there without knowing. Of course they would walk to the beach and stare out past the unforgiving lake into the forgiving horizon. They could have been at the edge of the world, yet the horizon would still be forgiving.

Little does she know that he looked out to the horizon more than once while she was gone, each time hoping that mere want could bring her back.

Little does he know that she looked out to the horizon more than once while she was gone, each time wanting to spread her wings like a bird and fly to him.

"Come on, Scully! The water's great! You'll love it!"

No.

I love you.

But in order to get to him, she had to get in the water.

She had to risk wet pants.

She had to risk taking off her shoes and never seeing them again.

In a world where she had risked very much and very little for this man, Scully decided to take off her shoes and roll up her pants and wade over to him.

"Jesus, Mulder!"

"What?"

"It's cold!"

"No, you just gotta get used to it."

"How long will that take?"

"However long you want it to."

A wave of warmth spread through her. Unfortunately, so did a real wave.

"Mulder!"

He chuckled, actually sorry for what the playful lake had done to them.

"My pants are wet!"

"Now, you knew your pants might get wet when you came out here."

"But I still came out here," she reminded him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Why did you come out here?"

"Because I can't be away from you for too long."

"Was two years too long?"

"Two years was torture."

It was something worse than torture. What was torture even more was that they knew they could have run back to each other at any time.

What was more than torture is that they didn't.

He hoisted her up on his hips and put their foreheads together. He loved it when their foreheads touched. Even though Mulder knew he didn't have a psychic ability, he liked to think that he could read her mind when their foreheads were together.

He believed that he could know what was running through her brain. He felt he shared a synapse with her.

She just felt that, when their foreheads were together, he knew he could kiss her.

Even before that morning, even before she left, she knew that if their foreheads were together, she would not be able to push him away from her.

If he kissed her, she would have to kiss back.

Only if their foreheads were together.

Otherwise, she could make her own decisions.

If he could read her mind while their foreheads were together, why didn't he kiss her?

Because

Real

Life

Is

Not

Like

The

Movies.

The wall was still there.

"You know I haven't checked the time since we left the hotel?" she asked, smiling.

Time had become her master. She lived by it, like some people live by religion.

She was a timeologist.

She was never late, never early.

She

Was

Always

Right

On

Time.

And she found it ironic that perfect timing existed in her even when she wasn't looking at a clock. For instance, her timing with Mulder.

The man she shared a forehead with.

The man she shared a soul with.

"Can you feel time, Scully?" he asked. It was one of his philosophical questions.

The ones they always disagreed on.

"What do you mean?"

"Can you feel time? Can you feel that it's been an hour? Half a day?"

"Two years?"

"Can you feel that time has gone by? Or does it all feel the same?"

"I can feel the passing of time."

She could feel what it did to her body.

Her hair and eyes were dulling.

Her muscles and bones were complaining.

She could feel what it did to her soul.

It was dying.

"Can you feel time itself? Could you feel that it is almost 3:00 in the afternoon?"

"I don't think I can feel time like that. I can only feel the effects of time."

"Like how I got wrinkles?"

"You don't have wrinkles, Mulder."

"Scully, you are close to me. Look at my face, and tell me I don't have wrinkles."

She looked at his face. The face she used to see every day.

The face she still sees every day.

And she saw wrinkles. Some were faint and some were pronounced, but they were there.

And she knew that she did that to him.

She brought one of her hands from around his neck. She touched one of those wrinkles, and she knew that was when she went to his apartment that night.

She touched another one and knew that was from when they had their fight.

She touched another one and she knew that was from when she slammed his door.

She touched one around his eye and knew that was from when she left on the plane.

She touched the one in the corner of his lip and knew that was from when he showed up at the airport five minutes late.

"You have wrinkles, Mulder," she said, and somehow, this pains her.

It is the fact that she did that to him.

"Can you tell, by the wrinkles on my face, how much time has elapsed since you last saw me?"

"Mulder, it looks like ten years since I last saw you!" she exclaimed, hugging him around the neck. She didn't want to look at his face anymore. She didn't want to see what she did to him. But she knew that she would never get that image out of her mind.

"That's how much I missed you," he whispered into her hair.

"You missed me ten years?"

"I missed you like you had been gone ten years."

She pondered this.

"Just ten years?"


getting back into the writing groove, it feels good! so i must give credit to arundhati roy, who i learned to write from. she is amazing, and you should all read her books.

after you review, of course :)