Thanks to Sintah for rescuing this piece with her review. I appreciate the words of wisdom and hope you enjoy the result of your suggestion. I have changed to format, as you'll see from this chapter. If you don't like it, please let me know and give me ideas of what you'd like to read. I'm always open to positive criticism. Word of warning, the next chapter will be at least T rated if not M. If you object to this, please let me know and I'll see what I can do to tame it down.

Mulder pushed the leather bound book off his lap. Closing his eyes, using his index finger and thumb, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Following his internal filing system, Mulder opened the memories he searched for. In a flash, that first meeting with his wife came back. Well the one he remembered.

'Scully,' Mulder called. He needed to share his thoughts and feelings, to have her close, if they wanted to go forward from here.

Alert to any noise or movement, Scully stoped her pacing. Wobbly legs carried her into the living room to find Mulder perched sideways along her couch. Patting the area between his thighs, she sat, her back compressing his chest. Once settled, Mulder moved his other leg, effectively trapping Scully. Picking up the diary from the table, laying it in her lap, he surrounded her, pulling Scully further into his arms.

'Dana,' he spoke quietly into her ear. The sound of her Christian name falling from Mulder's lips warned her of the seriousness of their conversation. Letting out a huge sigh, he commenced, 'your mom gave me a copy of the letter you mentioned.'

'I know,' Scully confessed easily, 'Mom told me while we prepared dinner tonight. She also said you were glad you never received it at Oxford.'

'More than you know,' Mulder paused to consider his words. 'I need to go back to the beginning. Scully, you know how screwed up my childhood became after Samantha's disappearance. The only aspect of my life my father participated in concerned my education. They packed me off to prep school because of my academic abilities which allowed mom and dad to shut down completely and distance themselves from one another. I graduated Valour Dictorian, after effectively skipping two grades and won my scholarship to Oxford. I chose psychology in the youthful attempt to heal the breach within my family. Then I met Phoebe, I'm sure you'll have something to say about her later in your diary, but at the time,' Mulder knew she didn't miss the sarcastic smile gracing his lips or the mockery aimed at himself, even if she couldn't see his face. 'I believed I'd found everything I'd been missing.'

'I can understand that, Mulder,' Scully didn't like making the admission. The doctor in her, hearing the loss and loneliness ached for the boy who'd moved countries in the attempt to pull his shattered family back together. Recalling her almost affair with a married man during college, not that she realised his marital status at the time, Scully understood Mulder's need to feel loved and wanted for himself. That didn't mean she had to like it.

'I can feel hear you thinking,' Mulder teased.

'Umm,' Scully muttered, sinking further into his embrace. 'I wonder why it took me so long to let you do this,' she mumbled.

'If I'd realised mentioning another woman made you this affectionate, I would have tried it years ago,' he mocked. A chuckle escaped as Mulder's comment abruptly woke Scully from of her solace. 'Phoebe was a mistake I had to make. I needed someone wild and carefree, but I got in too deep. I though we formed a bond, that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. Phoebe's a player, she excels at mind games. She almost did a better job with mine than Samantha's abduction did.'

'That a big admission,' Scully comment lightly, realising how much damage this woman had accomplished with Mulder's ego. The fact she'd been able to reel him back in years later only to shatter the walls he'd managed to build against her, seriously affected his self-worth.

'I came home between submitting my thesis for my Ph.D and the oral defence because the FBI wanted my skills in the BSU. I knew Phoebe had her heart set on MI5 or 6 as a career after a stint in New Scotland Yard. She'd never leave England, I couldn't see myself leaving her and I needed to be married to her to stay once my student visa expired. But the FBI and its resources called to me. I would have the opportunity to really investigate my sister's abduction. Even then it formed a wedge between us because of my determination to find Samantha drove my life decisions.'

'You went back and told her you were returning to the states to take up a position with the FBI,' Scully guessed.

'You can imagine how well she took that. Something about control issues,' once again that self mocking smile and sarcasm Scully had come to realise meant more about his lack of self confidence than he'd ever admit. 'It bent her enough to agree to live together while I completed the famous monograph on serial killers and the occult and consider the long term ramifications to our relationship.'

'Disastrous?' Scully enquired.

'Lets just say the coloured glasses started to fade. Living together proved interesting, but your letter forced those glasses to come off,' Mulder state easily.

'How?' Scully craned her neck around to look at Mulder.

'I can't concede Phoebe might have been right in this instance,' he considered thoughtfully, 'but she accused me of having an affair and a secret lover at home in the states.'

Scully laughed, 'secret yes, lover no.'

'I sent the letter back unopened which seemed to belay her fears.' Then the hurt from all those years ago covered his features as he continued, 'until I caught her en flaco flagrante with her married college professor. Turns out it hadn't been their first time or her first indiscretion. Once I realised, I broke it off but the stories from friends just poured out.'

'Mulder,' Scully didn't know what to say. She felt his pain at the worst kind of unfaithfulness.

'I told you once she did a job on me. It's taken a long time to overcome her betrayal. We'd been together years and you can't dismiss that overnight as much as you might want too,' Mulder explained. 'Then along came Diana Fowley, my first female partner and your predecessor on the X files.'

'You had a relationship with your partner,' Scully asked, astounded that she hadn't heard about either.

'More like fell into something,' he grinned at the memory, 'I'm not really sure what.'

'It ended badly,' Scully guessed, knowing that office romances did more often than not. Someone always got hurt in the process. In the male dominated law enforcement sector, a woman gained a certain reputation when the affair became public knowledge.

'You could say that,' the mocking smile came back, 'I didn't realise the depth of her feeling.'

'You used her, Mulder,' Scully asked, aghast at his easy dismissal.

'I though we were using each other,' he replied in a much more serious tone. 'Turned out Diana had secret hope of white picket fences and a house in the burbs.'

'Thank god I didn't tell you that first day,' Scully muttered under her breath.

This time his rich laugher rent the air. 'I might have worked in your favour. I didn't want you, I didn't need you, I didn't trust you and yet you attracted me. Scully, your stoicism, your inability to be frightened off, your defence of scientific rational, I found more appealing than you can imagine. You challenged me intellectually and I have to say, colour blind or not, you not exactly hard on the eye.'

'You got off on me because I didn't run away from you screaming,' she asked, appalled by his honesty, 'or believed all the rumour and innuendo I'd heard.'

'Yes,' he answered easily, comfortable with his version of the truth.

'Mulder,' Scully snapped. Momentary anger flashed in her blue orbs. Considering the four years as his partner and how she'd attempted to remain completely professional, he'd harboured a secret attraction for her because of her rational, scientific approach.

'Let me read some more, Scully,' he smiled down at her. Their eye's met for a moment, a conversation occurred and her anger instantly dissipated.

'I can hardly wait,' rolling her eye's, Mulder planted tender kiss on the crown of her head before pulling the diary into a position he where could read Scully's deliberately neat and precise words.

12th March 1992

Dear Mulder,

I've decided to personalise this diary now that we have some kind of acquaintance. It is, after all, about my feelings toward the predicament we find ourselves in, even if you are still unaware. I hope, after concluding our first case together, this might change in the future

What am I attempting to say? Spending time with you, has given me some insight into your psyche. So far you confuse and astound me. I find no bases for the general rumour and innuendo. Your intelligence is beyond doubt. Yet your reasoning is so very different from mine. It is abductive, giving the appearance of leaping to conclusions or simple guessing. I have been taught to scientifically deduce my answers using logic and rationalism. As partners we will either form a symbiotic relationship, using the others strengths as we did in this case or we will fail more spectacularly than even C.S. Blevins imagined.

You say I'm part of an agenda, you may be right but not in the way you think. You have secrets, information you're unwilling to share, but you're not the only one. I still wonder about the reason for choosing me, out of all the agents who might have the correct amount of scientific rigour to analyse your work. My loyalties must be torn from the beginning. I may not know you, Mulder, still you are my husband in name and now my partner. This bond forms a cornerstone of our professional life. Trust must follow if our partnership is to thrive, if we are to keep each other safe in the field. Surely those who placed me in this position are more than aware of this. I can not help but ask why? What is the real agenda? Why do they feel the need to debunk your work using your wife as the tool? I know I am just a pawn, but to what end?

I am not going to mention our assignments unless it directly affects my relationship with you, Mulder. For the purpose of this diary, the cases we investigate are a secondary consideration. I know they will have some impact on how I view Fox Mulder the man and what I learn about you. My intention has always been to explain why I keep my secret and how it affects me.

In the three days of this case, you finally spoke of the sister you lost so long ago. Mosquitos in the woods must have been fate, for I wonder if you would open up to me had I not shown such vulnerability. Do not expect it again, I loath the feeling and attempt to conceal my emotions both privately and professionally. Yet, in this instance this weakness served a greater purpose. Don't under estimate the terror those marks generated in me. You took me from my comfortable realm of scientific answers and introduced me to a world beyond any I have ever considered before. In the moment, my fear that every theory, every assumption I ever held true might disintegrate before me tipped my sane world on its axis. Yet you understood, you consoled, you opened up and demonstrated you own defencelessness. I have never been more grateful.

I believe you saw in me the beginning of an ally, perhaps even someone you might learn to trust. Your concern for me, established the man beneath the obstinate, driven professional determined to find the truth. In three days we have come so far, so much further than I believed possible in the beginning. There are only the reports to write and file over the next days. This, I believe will further test our new partnership but it is a storm I now trust we can withstand.