CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:

November 11, 1985

Dear Melissa,

"You are one of the best gifts I have ever received."

Those were the exact words Mulder told me two weeks ago, during his birthday celebration after I handed him my small present. I bought him something I was sure he would appreciate: a vintage Frank Sinatra 1960's album that had one of his most favorite songs on it - "Blue Moon". I was quite happy that it lifted his mood for the rest of the evening and we spent the final hours of his birthday together on the lawn while looking up at the stars. We had the party in one of our shooting locations and it had this huge, sprawling lawn that had well-maintained grass despite the constant Texan heat.

All the other crew members were given the thumbs up to leave the area … and for no reason at all, Mulder decided that he didn't want to go back to the hotel that night. So we gathered what little props the crew left for the bedroom sequences and we laid down there under the stars, as we did back in Rhode Island.

For once, I felt that everything was back to normal.

He joked and shyly sang to me Sinatra songs as I listened eagerly. We swapped stories with one another: I mentioned that I've forever wanted a puppy, but that Charles was allergic to dog fur. He confessed that he once had an affair with a woman named Phoebe who was also British, but was from Oxford. He said that the most difficult women he has ever met were all from one part of the world and I laughed, because it was probably true. He loves joking, Melissa. His sense of humor is something that you would not be quickly acquainted with when you meet him. It will take a while and maybe a dozen layers to peel off to reveal that little boy within him who reveals himself when he's finally comfortable with you.

I believe that this may be the reason why I am so drawn to him. I have lived my whole life as an adult, never once as a child, and even if I am only twenty-years-old, I feel as if I'm older than Mulder. I feel as if I'm an eighty-year-old woman living in a twenty-year-old body. I feel used, tired, beaten down.

I left Wales months ago thinking that if I tried my luck here in America, I might feel worthy of who I am supposed to be. I came to America looking for a reason to live. And what I found was so much more.

I feel different now, Melissa. If you have the opportunity to look at me now, you would notice how much I've changed. I'm happier, for one. The darkness I've been carrying for most of my life has been pushed back. It's still there, sure, but I'm happy to let it rest for the first time in a long time.

I truly feel that I have a chance to live happily. And I owe it all to Mulder.

Without a doubt, he is the most important person I've ever met here so far, Melissa. I trust him with my life – and if he asked me to lay down in front of him with my skin split into two, I'd do that if it means that I could earn the same trust I have for him. I believe that what we share is beyond physical or emotional … I feel as if it's a spiritual connection. I'm certain that if he died right now, I would lose the will to carry on. I know it sounds rubbish, Missy, but he means everything to me, and it is amazing: to know one person this way, to trust him with everything you have, to receive his understanding, to sense that maybe (just maybe) he feels the same way …

However, I'm not even sure if he feels the same way.

Mulder has his secrets, as I have mine. I know I'm being unfair here, but the way he has kept something from me for the past few weeks have hurt me so. He sometimes looks at me with so much fear in his eyes that I physically feel my heart breaking into two.

He's my life right now, Melissa. Don't take it that way – we're not lovers, we're not related, we haven't even been friends long enough! But deep inside me, as strange as this sounds, I believe that I've met him in another time and place. And in that time and place, we both danced on the same stage and nothing else mattered but one another. We were but two people dancing their lives away to an invisible melody; two people who have forgotten that they stood yesterday … all that matters is the beat, the movements, and where it takes them.

I'm afraid, Melissa. I'm afraid that it'll forever remain this way.

Give my love to Bill, Charles, Nana, and your baby.

Mama well dodi fi ybron.

Signed,
Dana

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR