A/N: This is not the last chapter... three more to go, I promise.

"I need to walk off this crab," Mulder said as they made their way out of the seafood restaurant.

"I told you to get a half order."

"Half orders are for wussies."

"I wouldn't think any less of you, Mulder."

He laughed and took her hand, leading her down the sidewalk. This week had opened up a new facet in their friendship. They'd always expressed themselves through small physical gestures- a hand on the back or shoulder, fingertips across a feverish face, lips to forehead- but now things were less measured, less purposeful. This didn't mean they had less meaning. It was just a different kind.

"I think," she started, turning halfway to face him, "that this is the best vacation. Ever."

"I agree," he said with a smile. "I'm glad you begged me to come."

"I'm glad you have no willpower."

"Ha, ha, you're a riot."

She grinned as he pulled her closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"I don't want to leave tomorrow," she admitted with a sigh.

"I don't either. We should make this a yearly trip. Get away from it all and really relax."

"There's one more place I want to take you before it gets dark."

"Yeah? Where?"

"It's this summer camp I went to as a kid. I think it's my favorite place in the world."

"How long will it take to get there?"

"Twenty minutes, tops."

"Alright, let's go."

They walked back to the restaurant parking lot and got in the car, Scully in the driver's seat.

"Did I ever tell you about summer camp?" she asked, once they were on the highway.

"I don't think so."

"I think I was 8 or 9. My cousin Maegan was going to camp for a week and since we were already going to be here for vacation, my parents let me go too. Of course, Missy was really jealous, which only made the idea more appealing to me."

He laughed at that, imagining a young Dana and Melissa competing and fighting with each other.

"I ended up coming here every year until I was 14. Maegan and I were in the same cabin every year, always the same beds. There was a spider that lived in the bathroom and I remember that the bunkbeds were metal and painted orange. There was always sand on the floor and in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I remember waking up in the morning and setting my feet on the floor and getting mad because there was sand on my feet again."

"You've never liked getting dirty."

"Not particularly."

He smiled and looked out the window as she turned the car off the highway and onto a small paved road. It wound down around a wooded hill and spit them out in a clearing where they could see sand dunes. She parked the car in a small lot and they got out, looking around.

"It's a summer camp and there's no camp going on?"

"Not this week. I checked the internet before we came."

She slid her hand into his and tugged him towards the first big building.

"That's the gym. Behind it there's kind of a swampy area, and you can get to the lake that way. Then those are the bathrooms, but they always stunk, so no one went in those ones."

They walked a little further and she pulled him off the dirt road.

"This is where we'd have campfire. If we were really quiet, we could hear frogs and stuff, and sometimes you could even heard them jumping into the water."

"It feels like Fern Gully back here," he commented, taking in the green, mossy dampness of the area. The trees were thick and the whole place felt like a protected fortress.

"Come on, there's more to show you."

He chuckled and followed her, listening to her narrative as they made their way deeper into the camp.

"That's the Snack Shack. We would get soft serve vanilla ice-cream and Skittles every afternoon during free time. And there's where we went swimming. You could also take paddle boats out, which turned out to be a really bad idea."

"What happened?"

"Well, everything was fine until we got too close to a stand of reeds."

"Did you sink the boat?"

"Actually, it's more like we sunk the reeds. We weren't so good at steering and we ended up on top of the reeds, and we couldn't get off of it."

"What did you do?"

"We were just stuck. We thought about swimming for the shore, but neither one of us really wanted to get wet, so we just kept pedaling and moving the rudder and… stop laughing."

"Were you crying?"

"Of course not. I was cursing, but I wasn't crying. Eventually, we managed to get the boat turned the other way and get off the reeds."

"Did it ruin the boat?"

"No, but the reeds had seen better days. They looked like whipped cream."

"How's that?"

"They were all spiraled up, like when you put whipped cream on pie."

He laughed and she shook her head, pulling him back down the road.

"That's the cafeteria. The bacon tasted like seaweed. And this, right here was my cabin."

"Yamhill West."

"Yep."

She climbed up onto the bench that was below the window and peeked in.

"That was my bed over there," she said. "The top bunk in the corner. Maegan slept on the bottom. There was a girl named Tracie that slept across from me one year. She talked a lot and got us in trouble when we were supposed to be asleep."

"You remember a lot."

"I loved camp," she answered, jumping off the bench. She headed down the road and he followed after her. They walked quietly for a while, the woods getting slightly thicker until they came to a bridge.

"This is the creek that runs from the lake to the ocean. This was my favorite place and my least favorite place too."

"How come?"

"I loved how quiet it was. I could come here and sit and not have to be around anyone. But I also hated it because it was the end of camp. It's the southernmost point of the property, and it was kind of like the magic ended."

She climbed up on the slats of the small bridge and watched the creek flow lazily below her.

"I used to imagine that I could shrink down and sit on a leaf and float out to the ocean. I'd close my eyes and sit right there and imagine how it would feel to just drift."

"That's not really your inclination anymore."

"Sometimes it is. Come on, it's gonna get dark soon."

She broke into a run and he followed her as she made her way towards the beach. It wasn't a frenzied run but he had to work hard to keep up. She came to the sand dune and began to climb it, the sand slowing her progress so he had time to catch up.

"Scully, where are you going?"

"The top of this dune. It's the most amazing feeling, looking out over the water, especially this time of night."

They made it to the top and she stopped suddenly, catching her breath and closing her eyes.

"Smell that? The whole coast has a smell, but right here on this stretch of beach, somehow, it's different. I get this strange feeling in my stomach when I think about it or see pictures, but being here, it's like… I feel totally complete and content, and like all the stress goes away."

"Wow," he whispered, his eyes fixed on her face. "I've never heard you say something like that before."

She smiled and turned to look at him.

"You've never seen me here," she countered. "I wish I could start out every day with this feeling. I can't even really describe it."

"Maybe when you retire you can get one of those beach houses you were eyeing yesterday."

"Maybe."

Her feet sunk into the sand and she ached to put them in the water, but knew they needed to leave soon. Taking one last deep breath she headed down the dune. They made their way slowly back to the car, but halfway there she took his hand and led him back to the bonfire area.

"I had my first kiss at camp," she offered, leading him through the trees.

"Who was the lucky guy?"

"Chad. I don't remember his last name."

"Oh, so he was a soulmate."

They came out of the woods and to a gazebo that had a deck over the lake.

"It was right here," she said, coming to a stop on the deck. "We were fishing and I'd just caught a trout or something and I turned around and… he just kissed me."

"Did you go steady?"

"Mulder, it was summer camp. I never saw him again."

"Did it break your heart?"

"I recovered," she said with a laugh. "We'd better get going."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Just one more stop."

"Where?"

"See that the top of the hill up there?"

He looked up to where she was pointing and found three rugged crosses on the top of the hill.

"From up there, you can see the whole camp and the ocean and the lake all in one look. I wanna see it before we leave."

They got into the car and she drove out of the camp and partway up the road they had come in on before making a left turn onto an even smaller road. It curved and dipped and made its way slowly up the hill where she finally parked at the top. She walked towards the crosses and for a while he was content just to stand back and watch her. She stood unmoving, except for her eyes which were scanning the land below her. There was a serenity in her features, one that was not a surprise, but certainly not familiar either.

He walked up slowly behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, his lips brushing against her ear.

"Nothing. It's morbid."

"Scully, compared to what we do for a living, nothing could be morbid."

"When I die I want my ashes spread here."

"Okay, I stand corrected."

"I'm sorry. Sometimes I just think about those things."

"I know."

Silence blanketed them for a brief second before the hum of crashing waves registered in their ears.

"Okay, time to go," she said, gently pulling out of his arms.

"You're ready?"

"I'm ready."

He nodded and they got into the car, leaving the beach behind them for the last time.