Dear Diary,

Today is 7th March 1992.

I am known as Dr Dana Katherine Scully, although that is only one version of my name. You may ask why? The answer is simple and yet so complicated. It's the reason for starting this diary.

One day, I might be forced to give it to the person it's intended for, although not yet. I'm not sure that the time will ever present itself, but this will be my insurance if it ever becomes necessary. You don't understand yet, but you will, I promise. You just have to stay with me. This story is somewhat convoluted. As such I have to explain the background before I get to my actions today and the real start my life or maybe the unravelling of my past. Time will tell.

The event causing the need to commence this diary occurred six years ago. A few weeks after my 22nd birthday, a college friend lured me to Martha's Vineyard for spring break. He had ulterior motives, namely to introduce me as his prospective wife to his family. They hated me and the feeling soon became mutual. My interest in Chris had only ever been platonic. So, you see, the situation was doomed from the beginning.

It ended up with me at a bar, consuming more than the two standard drinks I allow myself. Even then, even surrounded by the excess of youth and the general folly of college, I maintained a strict moral and ethic code. You could say it's the ethos of my life. The catholic school girl melded with the strictly rational scientist nurtured in a military home under a regime of strict discipline. The end result, Me. My one weakness seems to be for older, powerful men. Some might say a father figure.

Anyway, I'm digressing. I'd snuck out of my friends' family home, found a hotel room for the night, rebooked my plane ticket for the next morning and proceeded to drown my sorrows at the quaint little bar attached to the lobby. That's when I first met him, I mean you. At the time I didn't know him - you at all and in a very inebriated state, I had no intention of discovering your name, let alone anything about you. I'm sorry to say, you held no interest for me.

Then all hell broke lose. Chris walked in with his father. I'd consumed just enough alcohol to take up his stupid dare. The stranger's name, I found out on my civil marriage certificate. I'd married one Fox William Mulder in a drunken rage. Worse, we spent the night together. It's not what you're probably thinking, although I don't know you well enough to judge how or what you think.

He, Fox, no you asked me to call you Mulder. Stop, this diary is intended for you Mulder, one day, maybe. You asked me to call you Mulder, not that you probably remember on that long ago night. You even joked that you'd make your new wife call you Mulder. So I'll honour that.

Anyway, Mulder, you were a complete gentleman. Well, as much as a man can be after consuming a pint or more of liquor. Actually, I found you charmingly sweet, under the circumstances. I remember thanking god you kept your hands and everything else to yourself. Then you passed out, telling me that you'd never remember this in the morning. I thought we'd both escaped unscathed.

I was wrong. Chris happily informed me that our marriage had been made legal several days after we both left the Vineyard. More that he'd ensured an annulment impossible when he changed my hotel booking. I called the Vineyard Inn and they confirmed a one night honeymoon stay for Mr and Mrs Fox Mulder. Chris had informed them we were newly weds. You told me I'd made a very bad enemy that night, I didn't believe you at the time but you proved me wrong.

I didn't know what to do. I had proof, incontrovertible proof. I'd gotten married to a man I'd known only a half hour at most. How could I explain it to myself, let alone tell you. So I wrote a letter, actually I typed out a letter, printed three copies. It took me months to find the courage to send them. I didn't want to face my folly, my stupidity. Every time I looked at those dam envelops, I felt guilty and angry and imprudent and ludicrous. I cursed myself, falling into a ridiculous dare which might ruin not only my life, but yours as well. At times the shame became almost unbearable.

Finally, around October, about the time of your 25th birthday, I mustered up the courage. I sent one letter care of Oxford University wondering about the woman who'd caused your drunken state and inadvertently, allowing this marriage to take place. Had you kissed and made up. Would this shock kill any hope for your romance? I hoped not. I never meant to screw with your life like this. Guilt swamped me every time I considered the ramifications to your life. For all I knew you could have been a bigamist and not even know it.

The second, I sent to what I believed to be your Mother's home. I kept the third. It's in the back cover of this diary for you to read at your leisure. Funny but they both came back, unopened. My heart sank. You still didn't know and I didn't know what else to do. I kept the secret. The longer I kept it, the easer it became to ignore it, parcel it away in the back of my conscious and forget our marriage ever took place.

It never felt real and yet so real I had to run away from it. I've followed you sporadically over the years, not physically, but intellectually. I requested a copy of your Ph.D. theses though the medical school library. Even then your love of the supernatural and paranormal was apparent. It formed the basis of your doctoral work. You didn't tell me much about your lost sister, but the dedication within your thesis told me how much she'd meant to you. I lost track of you after that.

I graduated Medical School the following year and worked 100 hours or more each week. My personal life didn't exist outside of my determination to become a forensic pathologist and a short lived love affair. So you see, there was no need to find you, search you out and get this thing between us sorted out. Besides the idea of being a divorcée at age 25 didn't thrill me. It went against my every belief, moral, ethical and religious. I think I mentioned before, my family are Irish Catholic so you see Marriage for me is a very important intuition and I'd made a mockery of it.

Life is strange, Spooky you could almost say. The FBI approached me, recruited me out of medical school. Realising I'd be more useful after two years residency I worked hard to gain my boards as a pathologist. I started teaching at Quantico eighteen months ago after completing basic training. Five weeks into that training and my introduction to the FBI, I first became aware of an agent called Spooky Mulder. I guess this is where this story really starts.

The next day I made some excuse to visit the Hoover building and asked to see your personal file. The monograph you wrote on the occult leading to the arrest of the serial killer Monty Props is legend among new recruits. Using this as the reason for my interest, the clerk updated me on your Spooky reputation. She handed over your details, official, objective and subjective, more easily than I'd thought possible. Seems few people weren't interested in you in one capacity or another. Everyone had an opinion and they seem happy enough to give it at the slightest opportunity.

I didn't learn much about Fox Mulder the man, only your working history with the Bureau. That, in it's self, told a story. Initially considered brilliant, your unorthodox methodology and beliefs soon gave you a Spooky reputation. This seemed to happen about 1989, which coincided with an incident where you were found naked in an empty warehouse, babbling about them being here. Things for you never seemed the same again and I wondered what you suffered to be so changed by the incident. One day maybe I'll find out.

I followed your decent from the Behavioural Unit to the Violent Crimes Section and finally into the X-files at about the same time I join the FBI. The number of commendations rivalled your official reprimands for not playing by the book. I have to admit to being fascinated and yet not surprised considering the subject of your doctoral work.

I believe in making up my mind, not allowing others to influence my thoughts and opinions. Setting off to the basement, I made it as far as the lift door opening the first time before my feet refused to move. No matter how I rationalised it, I stood frozen inside the car. A copy of that long ago letter clutched in my hand.

The doors closed and the elevator ascended. Determined by my failure, I pushed the basement button again. While passengers entered and exited the carriage as it reached the top floor before once again descended, I used the time to gather my courage, calming my rapidly beating heart and forcing my mind to consider this logically. I managed to step out on the second attempt. Two strides up that musty hall I stoped.

What the hell am I doing here, I remember thinking before turning back to the safety of parking garage and leaving, appalled with myself for being so weak when I pride myself for my strength and ability to overcome anything.

The very next day, I'd tried to collect my composure for a third go. I made it to your door but found I couldn't knock. Terror griped me at the sound of your voice on the phone. It hadn't changed since the night I met you. Images of that time cascaded through my mind. I wondered what I'd say to you, how I'd tell you. I found myself unable to utter a word.

Turning back to the elevator, I fled. I've tried since, on many occasions, even picking up the phone and calling. When I hear your voice, I find myself terrorised, unable to speak, my mind closes down at the enormity of the secret I've kept so well protected for so long. In the end my fear and knowing that you'd never held anyone special in your life stoped further attempts. I hate myself for not having the courage when you have been so accessible. Even now, I feel the sweat on my palms, my heart beat a rapid tattoo and my breathing catch at the thought of facing up to my indesctessions. Writing this diary is the cause of my physical reaction.

Then I met Jack. Older than me by seven years, Jack seemed to be everything I ever wanted, kind, caring, funny, lovable, so totally in control of his life. He knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to go after it. I admired him personally and professionally. The question I had to ask myself, did I love him and if I did, what was I to do about it. Then he stated on a new case and it became so hard for Jack to relax, impossible really. Suddenly he was always so intense, so relentlessly determined. Before I had to make a decision about telling him, about facing you, it ended. No blaze of glory, no fireworks, just a slow decline until we both realised somewhere along the way, friendship remained the only bond between us. I'd been saved, once again, from facing my demons. I couldn't be more relived and guilt ridden at the same time.

Then this morning the careful web of lies I'd purposely built about myself crashed and burned. A supernova occurred and I had no way of stoping it. Section Chief Blevins called me into a meeting without warning. No explanation just a summons to appear in his office in Washington in one hour.

I remember the conversation so clearly. A thin faced man, never introduced to me, asked, 'are you familiar with an agent named Fox Mulder?'

What could I say? The evidence lay before them in my personnel file, open on Blevins desk. So I answered, 'Yes, I am.'

I really think I surprised Blevins and the man standing to his left smoking a cigarette. Yet the response from the unnamed individual drew my attention. He demanded to know how and gave Blevins a knowing look.

'Yes,' my mind retorted sarcasticly, 'I know him, he is my estranged husband whom I met in a bar while drunk and married half an hour later. Oh and by the way I've not seen him since that night six years ago.'

I settled for a version of the truth which, I hoped, would display my professionalism, 'By reputation. He's an Oxford educated Psychologist, who wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult, that helped to catch Monty Props in 1988. Generally thought of as the best analyst in the violent crimes section.'

Ok so the last made me feel that I'd defended you, even though I don't know anything about you, Mulder. Still we do share a bond which deserves at least a passing loyalty and might be expected from our relationship. What these men requested I do next almost made me choke. Not for you specifically, but any agent. 'We want you to assist Mulder on these X-Files. You will write field reports on your activities, along with your observations on the validity of the work,' Blevins directed me, his meaning obvious.

'You want me to debunk the X-Files project,' I asked. They didn't say yes, they didn't have too.

I became so angry at these men, at the political game they played and their use of me. I found myself marching down to your office. Without a second thought I exited the elevator which had proved such a stumbling block and found my hand nervously knocking on your door. You have no idea how difficult it became to turn that knob and walking into your office this morning. Every fear I've ever held paled into insignificance with the enormity of what lay before me.

Would you remember anything at all? Mulder, I honestly considered the appearance of one Dana Scully stirring long forgotten memories and you'd have a flash back. I didn't know if I wanted you to recall or not. How could I feel terrified and hopeful at the same time.

The appearance of your office shocked me. Knowing a person believes in ideology outside the main stream is one thing. To be confronted with it in such a public display is quite another.

After I introduced myself, you examined at me like a specimen under the microscope. My heart leapt from my chest into my mouth, so sure you remembered something. Then you held out your hand to take mine. It's the only the third time I've touched you. I knew if this didn't force your memory, nothing would and our secret safe for the moment. It brought a slightly egmatic smile to my lip.

'Isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded?' you asked with so much sarcasm it shocked me. Mulder, I could tell you were prepared to hate me on sight, 'who did you tick off to get suck with this detail, Scully?'

I had to bit my tongue because on the tip, Federal Judge Carter and his son almost made it past my better judgement. Somehow I managed to tell you, my husband, 'actually I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you.'

'Oh, really? I was under the impression,' you paused, spearing me with a glare that said I neither want nor trust you and I'm going to frighten you away at the earliest opportunity. If only you knew me better, Mulder, you'd understood your next words proved a challenged I intend to take up. You continued with 'that you were sent to spy on me.'

What could I say, you knew Blevins reason as well I did, but don't know me. You thought reading my senior physics thesis gave you an insight into my intellect, and my personal file a handle on me. Then you presented our first case in a way that could only be considered Spooky. Mulder, you tried to frighten me off. If only you knew my fears concerning you, you would have known nothing you said would break though the rational professionalism I needed to display were you were concerned.

Then you threw down your final challenge, 'we leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at 8AM.'

I returned to Quantico, cleared as much off my desk as possible and transferred the rest to my hastily arranged replacement. Finally able to analyse our first meeting, I found the drive home somewhat cathartic. You didn't remember which cooled my immediate fears. You hadn't been given access to sealed section of my personal file which intrigued me. Surely, with the discrepancy between our marital statuses, Blevins would have allowed you access to it. I have to wonder if there is an alternative political agenda occurring. I guess time will tell.

With this field assignment, my first by the way, well be out of D.C. and on neutral territory so to speak, giving me the opportunity to know you better, Mulder. I'm planing to keep my secret just a little longer. I need to get to know you, Fox Mulder the man and what drives you. What I've heard, the rumours and innuendo, they don't match the person I met, truly met, today. You intrigue me on so many levels. My curiosity is picked. I have to go to bed now, if I'm to be in any fit state for that plane flight tomorrow.

You don't know it yet, I hate flying. Well it's the take off and landing that terrifies me. I have no logical explanation, just an all intimidating fear. If it gets too much, I maybe forced to confess a lesser fear. I'm not sure which would open the biggest can of worms.