A/N: This is it, dear readers. This is the end. More of my notes at the end of these four chapters!

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN:

Milford Haven, Wales
November 17, 1986
Monday

If it wasn't really fucking bad enough that he had to endure almost twenty hours in flight just to get to Cardiff (and this was in spite of being on a private plane courtesy of Walter), he had to dream about her. The Scully dream-version he hadn't seen in over a year … she came to his subconscious while he was sleeping somewhere over the Atlantic. But this time, she glowed – it wasn't the pregnancy glow that his Scully had been sporting since hitting her second trimester, no, it was different …

She was literally glowing yellow.

The pond was there once more, it was summer, but it was so cold. In the dream, he wore scarves and a thick wool jacket, much like he was when he boarded the plane, but he was still chilled to his bones. The lilies swayed around him, softly at first, then quickly, as if they were being picked up by a tornado, and before he could run away, they dropped heavily onto the ground right in front of him. Suddenly, she was there. She wasn't pregnant anymore – at the back of his brain, this scared him, but he couldn't move or talk. Scully was on the ground, her back to him, her feet crumpled against her chest, her clothes torn and ragged. She was crying.

Lifting her chin, tears streaked down her dirty cheeks and he noticed something – she was younger, so much younger than the first time he met her. "Help me, Fox," she whispered, and that was when he woke up with a scream. The two stewardesses onboard stared at him with concern for a moment, until he apologized and they went back to the galley.

It was cold in Cardiff - much colder than Massachusetts and of course, a whole lot more than Los Angeles. He didn't realize how adapted his body was to the hotter side of the pond until his nose twitched upon hitting the frozen air. The chauffer assigned to drive him to Wales was there in an instant with a cardboard cutout of his name. He only had one suitcase, mostly stuffed with newly-bought winter clothes he asked Marita to get him, but the most important part of his belongings was one piece of paper that was obtained by his daughter through connections in the WB. He showed the elderly driver the address and wasn't surprised when the man's bushy eyebrows shot up.

"We're going to this area?"

"Apparently," Mulder replied, his breath forming white before his already-irritated nose. "It's near a harbor, I think?"

"Why, of course, old chap! The Milford Haven Waterway – you'll be gobsmacked to see this beaut!"

"You know the house?" Mulder prodded as they walked to the car. When the driver placed his luggage inside the trunk, he nodded imperceptibly.

"I'm not from Milford Haven, but I know that area. And I may have a vague recollection of that house and the fellows that live in it." The engine started and Mulder buckled himself in the backseat. "Scully, am I right?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Mulder replied, a bit too eagerly, he supposed, but he didn't care. He was lost in between time zones: he wasn't really sure what time it was now and he was surprised that it barely mattered to him. There was a faint light coming from the horizon somewhere, so it must be sunrise or something … or sunset. Whatever. He knew there was an eight-hour difference between LA and Wales, but was too tired from the long flight to compute.

"Well-known family around that area. You ready?" the driver chirpily asked. Mulder nodded and looked at the driver's eyes through the rearview mirror.

"How many hours until …" he didn't even have to finish, because the driver held up four fingers. Mulder suppressed a groan and looked out the window, where gray mountains in the distance greeted him.

It was even colder in Milford Haven, he learned too late. The Waterway was indeed "beaut," yet it also blew cool winds to every direction. Mulder was an American popsicle and his nerves were not helping him.

Before him was one of the biggest houses he had ever seen, and this was a generous observation since he lived in Hollywood. The walls were made of pure brick and they seemed to span from one block to the next; the house must be over six blocks long or longer, he couldn't really tell from where he was standing. The doors were huge, a bit medieval for his taste, and intimidating as shit. The windows were also all draped by thick red curtains, so he couldn't see anything inside. He searched around for a doorknocker (seemed appropriate), found one, but also found a doorbell. He rang once, finding it more difficult because of his frozen fingers. He looked back to see his driver giving him a thumbs-up. He smiled wanly – that was when the door abruptly opened with a humongous creak.

In front of him was a butler: an honest-to-fucking-goodness butler, with the high uptight nose, white gloves, and a tuxedo. He was shorter than Mulder, but he did scan him from head-to-toe while the Director gathered his voice box to cooperate with him.

"Hi … I'm Fox Mulder and I'm here for Dana Scu-"

The butler's head twitched into what looked like a nod and moved out of his way to let him in. The hallway inside, which led to God-knows-where, loomed at him like a labyrinth that was enticing him to hell. "You are expected," the butler croaked with a low-pitched voice, and Mulder raised an eyebrow. He was expected? How was that possible? He wasn't due for another week in Milford Haven and Scully had told him he should be patient …

"By whom?" he had to ask, the fucking ass persistent guy he was. That's so bloody you, Mulder, he could hear Scully say in his head.

The butler had no answer. He only took the suitcase from Mulder's hand and waved him in.

This isn't a house, Mulder bemused while walking through the hallway where there were portraits of obviously dead relatives in old British army uniforms for the men, and the women in different states of luxury – one with flowing violet gown and a velvet chair, another outside in a garden looking prim and proper with tea in front of her. Each one had a coat of arms behind them – something with a sword, a thick rope, and a cross in between that … Mulder shook his head. The cross seemed similar to Scully's pendant. That necklace, Cadsburr, as his jeweler Mr. Tennyson had mentioned.

The last portrait there brought Mulder to a complete stop.

It was the same photograph he had seen from Scully … the one of her mother, the one with the song's lyric at the back of it … Margaret stared back at Mulder with her piercing blue eyes, much like her daughter's, and he stood frozen in front of it. It was eerie, as if she was speaking to him somehow, someway.

The butler had to clear his throat to remind him to keep moving.

The hallway opened up to what he assumed was the living room: dark blue carpet, wall to wall thick red draperies, a fireplace with the same coat of arms framed in gold atop it, elegant velvet furniture. There were few toys scattered around – some guns, toy soldiers – and Mulder remembered Scully telling him about Missy being pregnant when she left. All the cold vacated Mulder's system and he felt faint. He held his ground, though. He didn't want to risk looking stupid in front of the family.

The butler started to take his coat, something Mulder wasn't used to, and as he turned to tell the butler he could do it himself, he spotted another framed poster across the hall – it was one of the earlier promotional posters for Danced Yesterday, one that showed Scully leaning into Pendrell. He liked the shot particularly because they were smiling candidly at each other, faces flushed, during one of the more difficult dancing sequences that his stars shared. They finished the scene, leaned against each other mid-pose to rest, and he ordered the on-set photographer to take a shot of them.
It made Mulder wonder how updated her family was of what had happened to her at the other side of the pond … though, of course, with her present condition and all the press conferences they had been doing as a couple, he wouldn't be surprised if they showed up with a shotgun to his head. He was scared shitless, but he was too tired to actually show it.

The butler disappeared, along with his bag, much to his chagrin. Before he could protest, a woman's voice came from the hallway: "Mr. Mulder." It wasn't a greeting, much less a command. It didn't sound surprised either.

He turned around and was face-to-face with a tall redhead. She had Scully's eyes, unmistakably so, but her face was smoother around the edges. She had a child on her hip, a small brown-haired boy, but then a maid (in complete uniform, Mulder noted in awe) took the boy away. She acknowledged him with a gesture to sit.

He did so on the thick cushion of the couch, running his hand on the fine velvet. "I take it you're Melissa?" he inquired, voice even.

"And I take it that you're my sister's fiancée. It is nice to finally meet you," she retorted, taking a seat on a single velvet chair across him. Mulder noted that her accent didn't seem as sharp as Scully's.

At the corner of his eye, he saw another maid throw logs into the fire and then disappear into one of the many darkened hallways.

Melissa curled her fingers on her velvet seat's arms and crossed her legs. "She stopped writing a few months ago. Now, we know why." She had a wry smile and a dimple that reminded Mulder of Scully's own, only that Melissa's was deeper.

He knew she was referring to Scully's pregnancy, and he opened his hands as if to apologize, but wasn't really sure of what to say. He wasn't going to apologize for the best thing that ever happened to them, even if she was the youngest Scully or something. Instead, Mulder sighed, feeling the weight of his body crashing down. "Where is she?"

Melissa opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a grumpy male voice behind him. Mulder craned his head towards his back and saw a tall, stocky redhead who had the same piercing blue eyes as his Scully's. He was followed by a younger man, also muscular, but thinner. This man was more relaxed, subdued, than the first. The first man regarded Mulder with an air of superiority and sat down near Melissa. The other stayed behind and called to a maid. "Bring us something to drink and eat, Veronica. Yes, thank you," he said in a singsong voice, then moved to sit down beside his brother.

"This is Bill," Melissa pointed to the one with piercing eyes that seemed to want to gut Mulder alive, and then to the younger one who smiled at him like a lunatic, "and Charles." She shot Bill a sharp gaze. "I'm speaking on behalf of us: we're really pleased to meet you."

"Yeah, the pleasure's the same, I'm sure. If I'm not showing it, the twenty-four hour journey to get here sucked the pleasure out of me," Mulder deadpanned. Charles' smile widened and Melissa cracked a small grin. "Dana warned us about your sense of humor," she admonished, then made a tinkling Ah! when yet another maid brought in a plate of cookies and hot tea.

The maid handed Mulder a cup and he didn't hesitate to take it, warming his fingers by wrapping them around it. He took a sniff and decided it was Earl Grey. He sipped, rolled the hot liquid around his mouth a bit to wake him up, and put it down.

"You're not used to our winter here in Wales," Charles noticed, raising an auburn eyebrow. Mulder shrugged. What a fucking understatement.

"That's why I decided to live in Los Angeles."

"Let's cut this bloody bullshit," Bill growled, pointing a cookie at his direction. Mulder's spine straightened at the territorial tone of the eldest brother. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Bill, Dana mentioned that Mr. Mulder will follow after her arrival," Melissa calmly said through her tea. Mulder immediately got the impression that she was the pseudo-leader of the siblings, though she didn't rub it off on any of the boys. "I'm curious though as to why you are here a week earlier."

"Probably couldn't wait to bonk Dana once again!"

Charles leaned back and laughed a little. "Brother, they're engaged! She's already pregnant and wondrously so!" He took a bite of his cookie, in a dainty way that told Mulder he had learned how to do so in many, many elegant parties. "Whether they are bonking or not is none of our business. He has taken good care of her on the other side of the pond, anyhow."

"Excuse my brother, Mr. Mulder," Melissa said, placing her teacup on its saucer, "he's always been a bit protective of Dana."

"Where is she?" Mulder once more demanded, a bit firmer this time.

"You'll see her, in due time," Melissa replied, "she's safe, if that's what you're worried about. She is with Nana, our longtime help. She wants to make sure we get to talk to you first."

"We're positive you have questions in your head that you are dying to ask us," Charles supplied, biting and chewing on his cookie before continuing, "because you are here a week earlier than expected."

"Is Dana aware that I'm here?" Mulder asked, scanning their faces. Melissa curtly nodded, her red curls bouncing off her forehead.

"We've had a help inform her."

"Let's get this bloody interview going," Bill sighed, seemingly giving into the mood of his two other siblings. He loosened up enough to take another biscuit and chew through it, eyes locked on the crackling fire a few feet from him.

"Have you seen all our press conferences? Our interviews?" Mulder began, knowing where he wanted to start but not knowing how to start it, afraid of being taken as rude by his fiancée's family.

"Most of it," Melissa answered, "we do not watch a lot of television here. But I was in London a couple of months ago and … I watched a few. I saw the movie. It was wonderful."

Mulder cleared his throat and decided to go straight for the kill, literally: "Tell me about the … alleged murder."

Everyone tensed: Bill stopped chewing, Melissa placed her tea down on the table, and Charles lost his eternal smile. Yet again, and he Mulder was not surprised, it was Charles who first relaxed with a twitch of his clear blue eyes. "To do that … we have to start from the beginning."

"Go ahead," Mulder encouraged, keeping his hands on his lap to stop them from shaking. In his chest, his heart pounded mercilessly and he was almost afraid that the three siblings could hear it beneath the room's static.

Apparently not. Through a mouthful of biscuit, Bill continued on. "It wasn't intentional. But it did happen."

Mulder's blood ran cold. His ears caved in – for a moment, he couldn't hear a thing – until Melissa began to talk once more.

"At fourteen … Dana was married of by our father to a billionaire, Donnie Pfaster," Melissa said the man's name with a hiss to her tongue, "Bill and I were away for university and Charles …"

"I was beaten to a pulp so I don't say a thing," the young Scully finished with a smile. Mulder inwardly shivered.

"Our father was not a good man, Mr. Mulder," Melissa softly said, and all three of them shared a curious look. Mulder was about to call them on it when she proceeded, "Dana was married off without our knowledge to save our fortune that had been squandered away by our father's mismanagement. And the man she married … he wasn't good either."

"He had held Dana in a room and …" Bill's voice broke, and Mulder could see the tears shining in his eyes. "… and he … abused her there. Every fucking day and night."

Mulder's gut bottomed out. His feet were numb, as if he couldn't feel the ground anymore. For one second, he wondered where he was – was he still in that same dream over the Atlantic? Was Scully-dream about to come through the fireplace and cry out for help once more? Was this really even happening?

And like any other nightmare, he was frozen in place and had no choice but to listen: "His abuse continued even if she got pregnant when she was very young. She wanted that baby," Melissa whispered, wiping the tears that came to her eyes hastily with a napkin, "but he hurt her so bad she lost the child … she did not even know she was pregnant. She was that innocent."

"It was then that Missy and I decided to come home," Bill said, locking eyes with his sister. She nodded, then looked at the carpet. "We were going to end this once and for all." She stared up and this time, locked eyes with Mulder. The hair at the back of his neck stood up.

"We don't doubt your love for Dana," Melissa said, her voice steel and cutting, "as you shouldn't doubt our love for her."

"We did what we had to do," Charles interjected, staring at his hands. "Father … he was wasting away the fortune that was the payment for Dana's hand in marriage. Soon, we would be penniless and all her sufferings would be for naught."

"There's a fucking reason for everything," Bill supplied. Melissa sadly agreed. "We had to … get rid of the smaller problem first, before the bigger one …"

"We Scully, we fix our own problems. If Dana was difficult to deal with and if she has not shared her problems with you until now, it's because that's the way she's built. She's a Scully," Charles proudly said, until his voice lowered, "It is easy to kill someone if you do it for the one you love."

It was then that Mulder began to sob.

As if happened everyday in front of her, Melissa wordlessly handed him a napkin. He accepted it and wiped his eyes.

"Do you want us to go on?" Melissa implored. Mulder barely nodded, but they caught it and told the rest of their tale.

"The next part was tougher. When father died it was easy to conceal. We wanted to save Dana … then she got pregnant again."

"The stillborn?" Mulder was able to croak out. They didn't have to answer him.

"It was a girl, a beautiful girl just like her and our Mother." Melissa lost interest in her tea and she abandoned it on the table in front of her. Its dark grey liquid swirled, illuminated by the fire's reflection. "I did not want her returned to her husband … goodness, I didn't want it. So I kept her in this house. Until he came and he demanded for her."

"He threatened us and our reputation. He threatened to kill us all," Charles said in a faraway voice, as if he could see the same scene playing in front of him.

"We wanted to save Dana, she has suffered so fucking much, so I …" Bill faltered. Melissa reached out to touch his hand. "Bill took the shotgun, but I fired the shot. He died on the spot."

"It wasn't easy to hide the crime," Charles shook his head, "but we did it. We can't divulge how … but we were able to do it."

"You need to know these things, Mr. Mulder, before you marry our sister," Melissa stood up and sat down beside him on the plush couch.

By that time, Mulder was too weak, too emotional, too confused to even flinch when Melissa took his hand into her own and cradled it near her stomach. A gasp escaped his throat when he tried to control his emotions.

"Mr. Mulder, Dana has endured so much for this family. She was broken, so broken, when Pfaster died. We thought she could start her life again, but she locked herself in her room and danced furiously. She only came out to visit our Mother's grave. We knew she would never be happy here in Wales. Her peace is not here. Too much memories, too much pain." She deeply sighed and Mulder felt her stomach flutter against his knuckles. "That was when she left. I tried to stop her, I did … however, she needed the space, the distance, to be out on her own. She needed to find herself after all the horrors of her young life. We tried to take care of her the best we can – it was easy to find out all about you once she provided us with your name." Melissa's eyebrow raised, much like Scully's does, and Mulder gave a pitiful nod to acknowledge that he got what she was talking about.

"We thought she would never … be happy again," Bill admitted, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye.

"And then we saw her a few days ago after almost two years and amazingly, she is the most beautiful pregnant woman we've seen in a while!" Melissa laughed, in the same genuine string of hahahaha that Scully had, Mulder noticed. "She looks even better than I did when I was pregnant!"

"Don't feel bad, Mr. Mulder, you're good for her," Charles retorted, to which Bill grumbled against. The elder brother was silenced by Melissa's stern voice: "And if you want to marry her, we're very happy to let you do so. Los Angeles is where she wants to be." Then Melissa's grip on his hand tightened. He snapped his head up to meet her clear blue eyes.

"But you should talk to her first. There are things that Dana needs to tell you herself. And she told me yesterday that should you come earlier than expected, she's ready to tell you everything."

"Everything?" Mulder parroted, the fear gripping him once more.

"Everything," Melissa assured him, letting his hand go. "How much do you love our sister?"

"Undisputedly." Then, after a heartbeat, he said, "I have waited for her for forty-one years. She's my home."

Again, the three siblings shared teary-eyed glances at one another. Finally, after a long pause, Melissa placed a hand on his shoulder. "You should go and see her, then."

In Wales, the wind howled in a peculiar way outside. It sounded like a banshee at first, then it would syncopate into a rhythm that he was afraid only he could hear. The howling permeated in his brain, assaulted his senses, and almost made him trip as he walked out of the huge Scully mansion. Yet, he could not deny the raw beauty of it all: the mountains in the distance, the cliffs he passed by as he was driven onto the dirt road that led to the mansion, the ocean. He understood how Scully could miss Milford Haven, despite all the horrors she experienced in it.
Melissa told him to follow the cobblestone steps, which he did with difficulty since they were partially covered in thick snow; soon, he was in front of a glass house with flowers in them – wait, not just flowers, lilies. There were rows and rows of yellow in the glass house … and in the midst of it all was the love of his life.

She was there, and he was here. Her unruly curly red hair was tied up in a messy bun, with tendrils of red falling on her flushed cheeks. The corners of her lips were turned up into a mysterious smile as she gingerly trimmed the dead leaves of the flowers. She was wearing a green scarf and a thick black sweater that didn't hide the enormous swell of her belly. He stood frozen outside, watching her cut a dead leaf, pick it up with her gloved hand, and laugh at something her companion – an elderly woman – was telling her. It was a mesmerizing sight to behold and he remembered, with fondness throbbing in his chest, that same girl who refused to let him enter her dressing room back in Lone Glitter. That same girl who stared back at him from the burgundy couch of that ratty bar with her big blue eyes and those goddamn shoelaces she kept tying again and again so that they'd be perfect - that one who threatened to "tie his balls behind his waist" if he even tried calling her Spunk.

That same girl is a woman now. She was still feisty, but her feistiness had been tempered down by the pure unadulterated joy she shared with him. She only became Spunk if it was to scold him about his expense reports or to tell him to stop being so bloody persistent … or maybe at times in front of the paparazzi. She also wasn't too careful about mess anymore – the past few months had been a flurry of different things in their bedroom and she oftentimes didn't care if she fixed it before she slept or not. She just let things be: "Relax, Superman," she once whispered to him after making love one morning. His subscription to the Daily Inquirer came (he wasn't sure why he had a subscription to it) and he read an item that alleged THE Fox William Mulder's attempt to date an older, more beautiful woman from the WB. He was so enraged he almost flew off the bed – one, he had been with Scully for a prenatal checkup when the alleged "date" happened; two, they had barely been apart since making up after their disastrous fight in the hospital. With the phone in his hand to call Marita, Scully eased him back to the bed by kneading his shoulders. "Relax, Superman – don't bother," she hissed, rubbing her slightly-rounded belly on his bare backside, "you'll be wasting your resources to negate news that isn't true at all. Let them speculate," she clasped her fingers around the hand on the phone and dragged them to her mound. His body immediately responded, and as if in a trance, his fingers dipped into her slit, where she was still wet from their previous lovemaking. "We have other, better things to do," Scully said, afterwards dipping her tongue into his ear for a preview of what was to come. "Stay with me here."

He learned early on, from the moment he woke up in Vegas and saw her face hovering above him, that he loved complying with her requests.

Without hesitation, he let himself inside the glass house. The warmth attacked him as he did, and he had to adjust his breathing before he could straighten up enough to remove his coat and hang it on the coat rack that was beside the door. Scully turned to the commotion he was making, smiled her lilies-and-carnations grin when she saw who it was, and placed a hand on the back of the elderly woman beside her.

"Nana, this is my fiancée, Fox Mulder." She leaned into Nana's ear to whisper, "but you should call him Mulder. He has tantrums when you call him Fox."

Mulder chuckled, as did Nana. The elderly woman who had the kindest brown eyes Mulder had ever seen greeted him and shook his hand. However, rather than breaking their handshake, Nana pulled him in for a big hug.

"You've taken such good care of my Dana," she whispered in his ear, voice quavering, "thank you."

When they broke off, Mulder reassured her in return: "She took care of me too. I would either be in the poorhouse or wandering LA with a concussion if she were not around." Nana's only reply was to smile at him, her eyes crinkling at the sides. Turning back to Scully, she declared, "I reckon Matthew may need me now."

"Go, Nana. It's fine," Scully replied. Nana gave Mulder one last smile before putting on her coat and leaving the glasshouse.

Mulder devoured the next logical step: to sweep his fiancé into his arms and try to carry her as much as he could without squashing the belly between them. Scully sighed happily, burying her nose in his neck, murmuring, "I missed you, too." It was only then he was cognizant that he actually said those words out loud.

When they broke apart, Mulder shrugged towards the rows of lilies. "I would've brought you flowers, but … you sure beat me there."

She laughed, music to his ears. "There's tea here, Mulder. I've asked Christine to bring us some while you were still talking to my brothers and sister. Come," she beckoned, taking his hand and pulling him to the end of the glasshouse, where there was a clearing for a white garden table and some chairs. While wondering which one of the many maids he had previously encountered was Christine, he pulled a chair apart for her, which she struggled some to get into because of her stomach, and sat opposite her. In silence, she served him tea (green, this time) and biscuits. The silence they shared was comfortable, much like the silences they sometimes shared in the Manor after a long hard day; he would be cooking her favorite pasta primavera (spaghetti, she'd always argue) and her feet would be propped up on the coffee table while reading the latest medical journal (or a magazine with Aerosmith or Moonlighting on the cover).
Halfway to his tea, she broke the comfort and shifted in her seat, looking down on her half-eaten biscuit.

"There are a lot of things I need to tell you."

He didn't answer; only encouraged her with a hum.

Scully removed a tendril of red from her face. She seemed pale all of the sudden, and she bit her lip nervously. "A lot of things I owe you since I met you." Mulder placed his cup down and reached over the table to hold her clammy hand. Scully smiled, her dimple showing. "It's about time you know all about me. It's about time I stopped … running. Away."

They both nodded their heads in agreement. His grip on her hand tightened.

"Mulder, I once told you that my Mother had a friend … the real love her life, Mr. Billy. I told you he died early on, before she could marry him. That was, that was bullshit. He didn't die. It was a story Nana told us so that we'd never doubt our Mother's virtue." She deeply sighed. "He was always there. He was there when I, I was born."

Oh. Mulder raised his eyebrows. That only meant one thing: "Is he your father?"

Scully's smile turned wry. "Yes. The necklace I wear is his … a gift for my Mother."

The portraits of Scully men and women in the hallway flashed back in Mulder's mind. The coat of arms that got his attention, he recalled that the cross that was there, too. What did that mean? "Scully, I saw your coat of arms … the cross was there …"

"My father is my Mother's cousin, first cousin," Scully blurted out, and she heaved her chest in, as if she had been waiting to tell him all this for the past two years. "That's the reason why they couldn't get married. They wanted to, oh God, they did. However, the family was against it so she was married off to the first boyfriend she had in university. For a while, it worked. My Mother thrived in being a housewife, she tried, but when my father came back from the military, they rekindled their romance once more. And I was … born." Scully shook her head, alarming Mulder with the tears that angrily rolled down her face. He made a move to wipe them away, but she continued talking, so he stayed put. "It wasn't long before my Mother's husband found out. I was two years old."

It crashed in on him: her Mother's death … that wasn't from any illness like he deduced beforehand, either.

Jesus Christ.

Mulder's stomach flip-flopped, but he held onto the woman he loved. She needed him now, more than ever. He needed to be there for her; he had an inkling that the story was going from bad to worse.

"He didn't treat me kindly when Mother died. She was my only protector and my father was so depressed when she died he disappeared from Milford Haven. My Mother's husband, Duanne, he was very abusive. He knew I wasn't his and he hated me for it. There were times, nights, when he … he'd go into my room and hit me for no reason at all. I don't know what he wanted from me – maybe he saw too much of my Mother in me or it mocked him, how I looked so much like her as if, as if I didn't even have a father. I was the proof of her infidelity, but even I cannot be proof enough." Scully's lower lip quivered. In reflex, Mulder stood up, dragged his chair closer to hers, and directed her to rest her head on his chest. He had to; he couldn't let her tell her story alone. She had been with him for the past two years as his constant, his touchstone. Now that she needed him, he had to be there for her … and it was from his warmth, from his touch, that she always relaxed. He wanted to readily give her that now.

Through his chest, she continued talking, "I was scared to sleep, scared for what the night might bring. The physical pain … I could take that. I'm a Scully. I could take that, no matter how young I was. But the emotional pain, of not knowing the truth, of why … that hit me hard. I began to sleep in Melissa's room, but she couldn't protect me because Duanne would threaten to hit her, too. Bill tried to protect me, too, and he got hit quite bad until Duanne sent him to university so he wouldn't intervene anymore. The scar I have," Scully ran her hand down her rounded stomach, and Mulder remembered that scar he was so fascinated with during the early stages of their relationship, "it was a scar of gratuity. I begged Bill and Charles to kill me when Duanne permitted me to go hiking with them. I begged them so bad, but they relented and I fought for that knife. Charles panicked … that was when I was cut." She shook her head at the memory. "When that didn't work, my only escape back then was to dance." She stared up at him, her eyes seeking his understanding. "That was when the nightmares began. They only intensified when he gave me up for marriage."

"Oh, Scully," he hissed, feeling her pain through and through his skin. Christ, what she had been through, he couldn't even imagine at all.

"For a while, I thought it was salvation: I was leaving this dreadful house behind. But Donnie was even worse – he locked me up in the master's bedroom all alone and, and … left me there for days. A maid would only come everyday to bring me food and water. It was psychological torture – I almost lost it back then. The only things that saved me were my babies." Scully's voice changed into a steel timbre, making him shiver. "I wanted those children. I wanted them so bad. But he took them from me. When I lost the stillborn, damn it, I never even named them …" she buried her face into his chest once more, "I left it all to my siblings. I knew what they wanted to do and I let them do it. I knew what they did to Duanne. I let it all happen. Because I wanted to die, too."

"Darling," he encouraged her, hoping that somehow it helped ease her painful journey … because it surely did not ease the painful, prickly throb in his chest.

"And I felt dead for a while, Mulder. I did. Throughout the trial, the court case, the endless attempts of my siblings to make me feel better – acting and dancing classes, medical school, this glasshouse," she threw her hands up to the air, her eyes fondly scanning the expanse of the room they were in, "everything, they tried so hard. But I died inside. I was dead, and inwardly, I hated them, too. I thought they should've done more; they should've done enough before all the shit that happened to me happened. I thought they had my marriage's blood money and were enjoying it, too. I had nothing, I was left with nothing – not even my children. I thought all those terrible things. Until my father came home and, and we met for the last time." She fingered her necklace, "he was dying and he wanted to see me. It was the last push – my last hope, for a new life. It was when I decided to go to Las Vegas." She pulled up and held his face in her hands. "But goddammitt, for some reason, there was no available fucking plane to Vegas so I ended up going to Los Angeles."

They snickered, despite it all, they really did snicker; Mulder placed his forehead against hers until their breaths mingled together. He felt Scully taking one last deep breath, as if releasing all the pain she had inside, and then she spoke with a softer voice, "You saved me. I never saved you. You SAVED me." Her lips met his in a touch so light he could've imagined it. "Every single night, you saved me. Every single nightmare, you were there. Every single morning, you were there – whether you wanted to be or not. I have a lot of healing to do, but I've begun because of you. I'm still here because of you." Another kiss, lighter than before. "This is the woman you're marrying, Mulder: your Dana Katherine Scully, your Spunk, your darling, your fiancé, the mother of your child. I am this woman. I wish I could be different, I wish I could be better for you, but this is who I am. Take it, or leave it."

This is it, he thought, the mark on the map that said, "You have to quit. It is time to for you to stop." The silence surrounded their shaking bodies, engulfing their very souls, and he drew her against him until they were again one molecule – until science itself couldn't bring them apart.

Mulder pressed his lips on hers, firmer this time, and he closed his eyes as his thumbs stroked the roundness of her waist. "I used to dream about you before we were together. I dreamt about you every night … in a pond, where there were lilies everywhere. And you were so beautiful, you looked exactly like your Mother in the photograph you showed me." He kissed her at the corner of her mouth. "Scully – Christ, I wish I could call you Dana but, but you started this last name thing," they both grinned wide, "Scully, where I live, Los Angeles, may seem to be all about me: my Manor, my family, my friends, the studio, my script, my movie. But the story is all about you. It IS about you. You're my story. I wouldn't want it any other way. So take me, please. Let me help you heal, with our child. Let me give you the family you want. Let me be everything you lost when you were young." He directed her head so that they could look at each other eye-to-eye; she scanned his eyes, searched for something in them and must've found it, because she smiled the smile that made him understand how he never knew what he needed until she came along. In that smile, Mulder saw her – the woman he always knew was there from the beginning. It was not Spunk, that girl who shouted at him in Las Vegas and ran away with the touch of his lips; it was not Scully-girl, the little lady who begged for him to stay in her bed when the nightmares came. It was not even Dana Katherine Scully, the movie star who signed autographs of young girls in leg warmers outside the restaurant they ate in or would give the paparazzi an extra wink when he was exasperated with them all.

No, this was Dana Scully. This was Scully as a whole woman, the woman she worked so hard to find on her own in a foreign country. This was the woman she was meant to be, after all.

He sighed a huge breath of relief. It was going to be okay. They were going to be okay. They will push forward, together.

"There used to be a pond – it was where I ran off to when it all got too much, before Donnie married me. Missy told me it dried up a year ago. But my Mother's grave is there, so with my father's. I can take you there tomorrow morning so you can see it for yourself." Scully's smile widened, her dimples carving on her cheeks, and unshed tears reflected in her eyes. As her eyes crinkled, they dropped on both their skins.

Mulder agreed to see the pond, but he didn't need to see it for himself, he already saw it in his dreams.

And maybe this was all a dream - this reunion, this wounded honesty, this chance for her to heal. Maybe it was all a dream, Mulder thought, as he caressed her belly and they melded their mouths together to kiss. He tasted biscuits, salt, lilies and carnation. He tasted the woman he was going to marry, the one he had waited for so long. Maybe it was a dream, all of this.

But God help him, he did not want to ever wake up.

When they broke off, Scully coursed her mouth to his earlobe and whispered, "Then, after tomorrow, take me home." It warmed his blood, tickled his heart, and he knew that this was finally reality. This wasn't a movie anymore. This was he and she: the Director and the Spunk, living their life together.

"Where's home, Scully?" he had to make sure, for the very last time.

Scully drew back, placed a hand on her stomach, and nudged his ankle with her foot. "Wherever your bullshit is." She winked.

Some Spunk will never change, he decided, and winked back. He stood up, beckoned her to do the same by gently pulling on her arms, and when Scully did, he held her tight in a bear hug. He sniffed her hair, that familiar Scully-scent, and thought of the mornings he'd wake up with her and the evenings he'd sleep with her.

"Last rule, Scully," he whispered, "I made this up when we first slept together. You know what's my last Spunk rule?"

"Oh, Mulder," she sighed, "What's that?"

"It's to love you forever."

Scully, his beautiful Scully, threw her head back and laughed a genuine string of hahahas so loud it echoed in the glasshouse. Mulder chimed in, and soon, they had tears in their eyes like children with uncontrollable fits of the giggles.

Standing there, in the middle of the glasshouse and out in the coldness of Wales, Fox Mulder had finally found his way. He was never getting lost again.

END OF CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

A/N: For my one and only Stella, who has brought on this beginning and gave me a reason to strive for the end.