A/N: As sort of a follow up to yesterday's chapter, a Scully POV. This takes place in between "One Breath" and "Firewalker", after Scully gets out of the hospital after her abduction and all that.

X Files doesn't belong to me.

It feels nice to be out of the hospital. Even though it was barely a few days, it felt like weeks in there, with the fluorescent lights and individually-wrapped food. Then I had to take a few days off work, which wasn't so bad. But I woke up this morning nearly excited. Excited to go to work, that's so funny.

When I step into the office, Mulder is sitting at his desk staring into space. "Hi, Mulder," I say. He glances up and his eyes brighten, just a little, but he doesn't say anything and we begin our day.

Today our work consists mostly of paperwork but I see him paging through case files, looking for something new. "How have you been?" I ask after a few moments of sort of uncomfortable silence.

"Alright," he answers. "It's been quiet."

"Why, am I usually loud?"

"No, just...I was all alone for awhile, and it was so weird. I...I missed you, Scully. I missed you a lot. A-and it was so quiet and cold in here...it was lonely, and I'm never lonely. I guess I...I just..."

"Mulder," I stop him, "I'm back. I'm back, and I'm not going anywhere again." I walk over to him and take his hand in mine. His is so callused and rough and warm, and mine looks small as I interlace my fingers with his. "That's a promise."

He looks up at me, smiling sadly. "Your hands are cold."

"Mulder," I begin. "Please believe me. I'll never leave you like that again. Don't you believe me?"

He closes his eyes. "I want to."

"Why can't you?"

"Because I'm not sure what happened and how it happened and if it will happen again...if I knew all that, maybe I could prevent it, but I can't. And so I just have to trust what you say, I guess."

"Please do. I've always trusted you."

He looks surprised. "You do?"

"Well of course I do. I wish you didn't doubt that." I straighten out his collar. "I always will."

Now the smile is becoming a grin and his eyes are less sad. "I trust you, too, Scully." He plays with my cross, and I smile as I remember when he gave it back to me in the hospital; he had kept it all that time.

"Did you know I was gonna come back?"

"I convinced myself I did. I guess I got lucky. Did you know?"

"I don't remember what happened, if anything did. All I remember was waking up in the hospital. I think we should move forward and not think about it too much," I know I've done too much thinking about it in the past few days.

"Okay," he says softly, and I return to my paperwork. It is quiet for nearly half an hour and I wonder why he didn't come visit me while I was stuck at home. Nearly every time I have a sick day he shows up after work with that schoolboy grin on his face. I suppose it would've been hard for him, but I couldn't deny that I longed for him there, just to take comfort in his presence. But now I am here and I can hear him scratching out something on a notepad, I can hear the crack of sunflower seeds and it is so nice to hear again. "Scully?" he says after a few more silent moments.

"Hmm?"

"I never said hi when you came in. Hi."

I laugh for the first time in days. "Hi, Mulder."

A few more minutes of silence. "Scully?"

"Yes?"

"I'm happy you're here."

"Me, too."

And in that moment I know we don't have to dwell on what happened anymore, we can move forward together again.

A/N: I'm trying not to write these as too mushy. I'm not used to writing POVs and I'm still relatively new to writing MSR. But thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

-Lulamae