Six

Mulder found Scully sitting in the light just a metre from the upper exit of Tower One. Upon not finding her in their quarters as he had expected, he had searched the medical areas and then decided to stick his head out into the cold. The sky was bright blue and unobscured by clouds. The sun was high in the sky and reflected the white of the landscape straight up into his eyes. He had to squint, but in the foreground to the brightness he saw the petite female silhouette sitting in the snow.

After retreating briefly to find sunglasses and the thick, dark jacket and navy beanie they kept for him at the top of the tower he joined her. His footsteps were slow and heavy in the snow and ice, and when he sat down beside her he knew they would need a hot shower in the near future; his backside was instantly numb. Scully was dressed in her own coat, he realised, but she wore no protection on her head or face, and her hands were also bare as they wrapped around her raised knees. Her chin rested on them, and she stared straight ahead with unshaded blue eyes. Mulder took a similar position beside her, but kept his eyes on her and waited. He knew she had something to say; he could see the need to speak in her face.

"Mulder do you think I'm weak?" she asked suddenly, her familiar voice gentle. He shook his head, smirking. How could she possibly think that, he wondered?

"They believe us, for now," he mumbled, not sure how to reassure her and deciding to tell her the information he had gleaned from their 'roommates' since her sudden departure. "They are all curious about the magnetite and how it will kill the supersoldiers. You really captured their imaginations with the roadrunner reference and by saying their cells would self-destruct. I think they were happy somebody has been doing something, but I have a feeling they still think we are aliens, and I also think...there's a portion of them who are very suspicious of us because you have survived. Nobody suspects Eddie or Michael."

"Michael's a pig," she whispered.

"I know," Mulder agreed softly, reaching a hand out to comb through her hair. It was so cold it felt dry and almost brittle beneath his fingers. "Honey we shouldn't be out here dressed like this," he added. "You'll hurt your eyes without sunnies."

"I just wanted some fresh air."

"What's going on, Scully?" Mulder asked with a confused frown. "I'm starting to worry about you. You've been quieter than usual over these last...over this last year. It's light again all the time. It's been a year. Here." He removed his sunglasses and handed them to her but she pushed his offering away with a gentle hand, shaking her head. "Scully," Mulder continued. "You've been withdrawn since Shannon visited us a while ago now, and sad and... Is there anything I can say to...make it better? Can you talk to me?"

"At first," she whispered, staring straight ahead to avoid looking down at the blinding white of the snow. "We started off so strangely here, but I thought it was getting better. But I think I've come to realise that it was never really better, just different."

"What are you talking about?" Mulder asked. His brown eyes were wide beneath his sunglasses and he shook his head, his brow deeply furrowed. He had no idea what was bothering her so much. He knew it was something important, but though he had the keys to the rest of her Scully's mind continued to evade him. He thought it always would, and it was why he could never leave. He had to know her thoughts. He wanted to hear everything.

"Mulder you're right," she huffed, blinking back tears. "They don't trust us. I'm not sure anymore even if Eddie trusts us. We're just humans. We're simple to them. What do we have that they need? We have nothing. What if all this is just an illusion? What if it's not real?"

"Scully, it is real," Mulder insisted.

"I'm really tired Mulder," she admitted in a whisper. "I'm really tired of living like this." Mulder sighed and wrapped an arm around her back. She leant forward and cried into her knees as he watched her, tears stinging his eyes. He knew what was coming and he knew he couldn't say anything to help, but her words still cut at him because he felt them too. "I want to go home," she wept. "I don't want to die here."

Mulder remained silent and let her cry. He didn't dare speak. What was he supposed to say? How could he tell her that he would die for her if he could, and how was he meant to remind her that she was home with him, no matter where they were? Had she forgotten?

"We've been working long days in the lab without any breaks," he mumbled eventually. The words sounded useless to his ears. What were they for? To justify how tired she was? Hardly.

"And I'll keep doing that," she promised seriously, not lifting her forehead from her knees. "I'll keep doing it until we can defeat the supersoldiers, but then... I don't want to stay here."

"What are you saying?" he asked. "Look at me, Dana." She turned her head towards him then, squinting into the sun. Tears marked her cheeks and her breath puffed between her lips in little clouds, mixing with his. His heart was beating quickly in his chest and his rapid breaths matched the rise and fall of her shoulders as the anxiety built between them.

"If we defeat the supersoldiers," she hissed, her blue eyes silently pleading with him in an expression Mulder had rarely been able to refuse. "I want to go home, to one of the colonies, to be a doctor and to...help Mulder. I feel useless here, and don't tell me that I'm not and that I'm doing good work and building some sort of legacy because I don't have any friends here and I don't feel human anymore. I feel like something else. This isn't...my world here, and it's not yours no matter what you can bring to that room. It's too easy. It's all just...too easy."

"So you're ready to give up?" he pressed seriously. "How can 'this' not be challenging enough? You've resigned yourself to the fact that you're going to die? That we all are?"

"Mulder," Scully hissed, shaking her head with those wise eyes sparkling with what he had sometimes read as pity for his lack of understanding. "I don't think I'll be happy until I die."

Mulder turned his head away and exhaled all the air out of his lungs in a sharp breath. He felt sick. He felt like she had just stabbed him in the gut. He pushed himself to his feet and stormed a few paces away before turning back and putting his hands on his hips. He needed distance. He was angry, and he knew she was hurting but dammit, he was angry at her.

"What the fuck gives you the right to say something like that to me?" he exclaimed. Scully's expression dropped in shock as she scrambled to her feet. "Does this mean absolutely nothing to you? Do you lay awake at night beside me wishing you hit the vein when you tried? After we make love do you think about how much happier you would be if you were dead? You're saying you're not happy? With 'this'?"

"No, Mulder," Scully pressed, watching as he gestured frantically between them, panicking. "Mulder, I love you-"

"Oh sure, but you won't be TRULY happy until you're dead!" he yelled. "Isn't that right?"

"Mulder we could already be dead for all I know!" she shouted. "We could be on a table somewhere and this might be all some sort of sick test!"

"I refuse to believe this is all some dream, Scully." He sighed, waiting for her to say something else but she didn't. "How can you not be happy here?" he asked, his voice cracking. "How can you want to leave me?"

"I never said that Mulder," she sobbed, taking a few hurried steps towards him before changing her mind and backing away, afraid of his anger, afraid she might break down if she got too close to the arms she knew made her feel safe and loved. "I never said that," she repeated, hissing as she fought against her tears. She was sick of crying. She did not want to do it anymore. She did not want him to comfort her again. She had to match him. She could not let him think she was weak; in fact she had been a source of HIS strength many times.

And he had just put words in her mouth about their relationship that she had NEVER said.

Anger quickly quelled any lingering sadness. Scully planted her feet in the snow and leant forward, her blue eyes squinting, her expression glaring. Her anger had always been cold, controlled and icy, but not anymore. Once beckoned, her fiery, unbridled temper surged through her at a frightening pace that left her breathless and with a throbbing headache.

"You wanted to know what was wrong with me, dammit!" she exclaimed, her voice steadily rising as hot, passionate rage engulfed her. "You wanted to know what was wrong and so I told you. What gives YOU the right to throw it back in my face? What's WRONG is that I don't feel myself lately. I don't feel like 'me'. I feel like some scientist in some alien laboratory trying to save the world. I CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD, MULDER. I CAN'T!"

"Scully, together we can do anything," Mulder replied, his voice serious, gentle and innocent. He was stunned by the rapid swing in mood and her high pitched screams. He had never heard her so distraught. There was no longer anything holding her back. There was nothing keeping her together. Suddenly he could really picture her coming apart in her mother's house with the broken glass. He could finally believe it. He felt like he was dying believing it.

"We can't do ANYTHING together!" she cried. "Mulder, we can't do anything. We can't even..." She hesitated, laughing into her hands and turning around in a full circle before throwing her arms elaborately against her sides, as though defeated by the frankness and stupidity of her words. "Mulder we can't even help repopulate the earth. We're STUCK here and I HATE that I never got a choice. I HATE IT!"

"Scully-"

"Don't 'Scully' me!" she growled. "I just stood up and told those people that their world was ending. Do you know how that makes me feel? And you, and Eddie and Michael were all too CHICKEN SHIT to do it yourselves! Oh no, Scully can handle it. Mulder what makes you think I have EVER handled it? You piece of shit! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE-"

"DANA!" Mulder screamed. "Shut the fuck up for a second, will you?" Scully shook her head and turned away from him, beginning to trek across the snow and ice as fast as her short but strong legs would carry her. Mulder jogged up to her and grabbed her arm, stopping her midstride.

Scully screamed as soon as he touched her, but it was a deep and pained scream. It was a scream not of fear but of frustration, and it was the only sound above the ice sheet. Her anger sliced easily through the still air. She ripped the silence apart so her scream could fill the void created, so she could be heard. Mulder knew all she wanted was to be heard. He did not let go of her arm. The scream went on for what seemed like a long time, until her voice cracked, and then it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then the silent fight began.

"I know, I know," he whispered, allowing her to wordlessly and viciously struggle against his grip, allowing her to fight him the way he thought she wanted to. "I hate you sometimes too," he told her, fully aware he was hurting her, but knowing that when she was done he would take his words back and tend to her bruises with all of his heart. "You know why?" he asked.

She reached up to try to pry his fingers from around the upper arm of her jacket but Mulder clasped his other hand around her waist on the inside of her jacket, underneath her denim coat, against the black cotton of her top where he could get a tighter hold. Mulder really hoped his decision to let her hear him and fight him was the right one. It was not something he had ever tried before, but he was desperate. Maybe they needed it. Maybe she needed it.

"Do you know why I hate you?" he pressed. Scully refused to look at him as she twisted violently in his arms. "Because you gave away our son," he told her, his voice a constant, serious monotone. Inside, he was breaking. "Because you tried to kill yourself. Because you're so Goddamned proud it's hard to love you. Because you would rather die proud than die with me. Because we've known each other more than fifteen years and you still won't let me in. Because you can't give me children and your fucking 'everything' won't let me leave. Because you sucked me in and then you took everything away. Somewhere along the way you stopped believing in us but I never, ever stopped believing in you. Do you understand?"

Scully had stopped struggling and she stared at his chest, her breath coming in hurried gasps as she sucked in what little oxygen she could. Mulder wanted to sit her down before she hyperventilated and passed out, but instead he remained standing, his large, strong hands clasped around her waist and shoulder. He was not sure how long they stood silently right in front of each other as though the whole world was between them. He had never felt so far from her, and she was right beneath his hands, right in front of him. She was lost, he realised with a stab of grief. He hadn't been paying enough attention to see. He had to get her back.

"Dana, look at me," he urged once more, giving her an eternity to find the strength to lift her chin and face his eyes. He released her shoulder to take off his sunglasses, throwing them into the snow at their feet. She was not distracted by his movements, and neither was he. He needed to look her in the eyes. "We've been here before," he told her. "Maybe we have never come quite this far, but we have been here. When I lost Samantha, when you had cancer, when I was abducted, the year I left you and William, and after the invasion. We got through it because even though there were things that made us angry, there were more important things that kept us moving forward. And maybe now we are moving forward to death, but how is that different from any other path we have travelled before? You and I have seen death, Dana, and you of all people should know that there is nothing to fear. Talk to me."

Scully opened her mouth to speak but stopped as a single tear drifted down her cheek. He felt her breathing change and knew she had come back to him. The expression in her eyes shifted from wild comprehension to genuine passion and strength. He could almost feel her return.

"Losing you is the only thing I truly fear," she whispered as another tear trickled to join its mate. "I don't hate you Mulder."

"I don't hate you either," he conceded with a smile, reaching gentle fingers up to stroke along her jaw, soothing the tension he could see there. Her lips parted more naturally as she relaxed and sniffled, watching him with wide eyes. "I get angry about our lives sometimes, but I could never hate you. Will you really not be happy again until you die? Is it me? You can tell me the truth sweetheart."

"It's not you," she promised, swallowing heavily. "I...I think I am happy now but I...I am afraid, Mulder. When I was dying with cancer I was afraid, but not like this. Back then, I was afraid that life would go on without me. Now I am afraid that life won't go on, and this hurts more because...I guess I...don't know how to accept it, and I don't know how to survive in limbo pretending that everything will be okay when it probably won't."

"Do you understand that I have the same fears?" Mulder asked, still holding her jaw. She pressed her lips together and gave a brief nod. "Do you know how strong I think you are? How beautiful? Do you know how much I respect you? It's okay to be scared, it's okay to scream until you lose your voice, but please, Dana, don't lose faith, not in this, or in me, or in us, or in your ability to make a difference. We will make a difference, Dana. We will."

"But then what?" she asked, worried. Mulder shook his head as his thumb brushed over her cheek, red from her tears and the cold.

"Then we can go wherever you want," he promised. "I just want you to be happy. I just want you to talk to me."

"I 'just' tried that," she insisted, chuckling when he stared at her blankly. "You bit my head off! I never, I never said...Mulder, when we're in bed together I could never think...Those moments are when I am happiest, Mulder. When you read me Charles Dickens or Moby Dick off the top of your head to help me sleep, when we are together, when we cuddle I... Please don't take those things away from me."

"I couldn't," he assured her, pulling her to him for a hug. She slid her cold, numb hands onto his bare back underneath his jacket and sweater and he flinched but pulled her closer to him. "You're freezing," he whispered to the crown of her head.

"I feel horrible," she conceded. "I feel like my insides are coming apart, like there's a gaping hole and I, I can't feel anything. I don't feel cold."

"It's the shock and the chill," he promised. "Come and have a shower with me, and then maybe I'll read you another chapter of your favourite book?"

"I think I need some quiet time; my head is throbbing. I should take something tonight," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut when Mulder trailed concerned, chilled fingertips through her hair and around her neck. "A sedative," she elaborated. "Would that be okay?"

"Of course that's okay," he hissed, resting his chin on top of her head, contemplating the fact she was voluntarily prescribing herself a relaxant. Ten years previously he might have had to force one down her throat. But if it meant her sleep was deep and painless, he did not care.

"I just want to pass out," she told him. She remembered saying those words to Skinner a long time ago, and the admission still stung her pride. "I'm so sorry, Fox. I try to let you in, I do."

"I know. You do let me in. I overreacted. The only way I'm getting through all this is by telling myself how much being here with you matters, and to think that you would rather be-"

"Don't say it," she interrupted hurriedly, looking up into his eyes as he stared down at her. "Please don't say it," she repeated in a whisper. "I didn't mean it. I didn't. Please."

"Shh," Mulder hushed, leaning forward and touching his forehead to hers. Their eyes shut as they breathed deeply against one another, the sensation of their shared skin calming and spiritual. "I promise. I know you didn't mean it. I didn't mean what I said either."

"I don't know how to explain to you what I meant."

"You don't have to, Dana. Can you walk? If we stay out here much longer you'll burn, and your head is freezing. I know you dislike being taken care of, but let me put you in a warm bath before you take anything?"

"I don't dislike it when I feel this raw," she whispered, stroking her fingers along his stubble-roughened jaw as their noses nuzzled. "I am so in love with you Fox," she hissed. "I already feel better. A bath sounds wonderful, but can we just stand here a bit longer?"

"No rush," he assured her. "But I'm glad. You might not realise this Scully, because maybe sometimes it seems the other way around, but 'you' are carrying 'me' through this. You always have been. As soon as Gibson told me on that bus what was going to happen, all I wanted...was this. I need you." She nodded as they remained in their intimate embrace. Mulder only pulled away when he felt her forehead trembling. He stared at her, worried, as she glanced upwards. There were no tears in her eyes but they were ringed with exhaustion, and her nose and ears were red from the sub-zero outdoor air. He smiled at her kindly.

"Little chilly?" he teased hopefully. She afforded him a small smile, but it was more than he could have hoped for. Her eyes glittered with unexpressed humour. She would be okay, he realised gratefully. A long sleep, a warm cup of tea and a few talks and cuddles, and they would both be just fine. And no more talk about extinction or death. At least not for a while.

"How are we going to need to package all of this?" Mulder asked as he stared at their bottled collection of magnetite-rich ferrofluid stacked in large, industrial bottles against the wall of the research lab. Scully had her back to him, working against the bench to review her inventory of vaccines and antibiotics. She turned at the sound of his voice and walked to him, surveying the filled bottles. She tried hard not to look at Mulder; he was wearing a white lab coat over his jeans and dark jumper and though she had forced him to wear it on earlier occasions she still thought he looked adorably out of place. "Is it enough?" he asked nervously. It did not look like enough. There were only one hundred litres of fluid.

"We have such small samples to test I don't think we will know until we try. Strategically, Michael wants us to take out the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa first, before we go after the smaller supersoldier establishments in Australasia. Michael says the estimated supersoldier to human ratio is five to one, which equates to approximately ten thousand supersoldiers. At least half of those are in America. Shannon's act of terrorism in West Africa has caused that establishment to scatter."

"Okay but what I don't understand," Mulder continued, leaning up against the bench. "Is how do we find them, and then how do we coat them with enough of this ferrofluid, and then how do we keep them still long enough to subject them to the magnetic field?"

"They're going to have to deliver it over a wide enough area to affect as many as possible," Scully agreed. "I'm hoping we have directional assistance from Ted and Shannon, but I am leaving that up to Michael and Eddie. I just hope Shannon realises she will need to stay hidden for that time. I would hate for this to harm her somehow."

"I'm sure they'll look out for her," Mulder reasoned. "They need her. It would be useful if they could just make it rain this stuff hey? I mean how do you shoot it 'at' the supersoldiers?"

"Mulder, do I look like the captain of an alien spacecraft?" Scully asked in a dry voice. Mulder took the time to cast his eye appreciatively over her long hair tied in a loose braid and her lab coat buttoned at the waist, accentuating her figure. He also did not miss the raised eyebrow and wide smirk as his eyes drifted back to her porcelain but tired face.

"Well..." he began thoughtfully. Scully laughed, reaching out to shove him playfully. Mulder grinned as she turned back to her work.

He was not sure if it was the day after they had fought. They might have slept too long and it was really night time. He couldn't know. But it was their first period of sustained wakefulness since going to bed, so conceivably it was the next day. Mulder tried not to let the confusion about time stress him out; there was nothing he could do about their warped body clocks. As long as it didn't hurt them, they would continue to simply sleep and be awake when it suited them. All he cared about was that they kept the 'same' time, which was why he was so well-rested he was actually missing his bed.

Under the influence of a sedative Scully had slept for a very long time. Mulder was certain he had woken up hours before her, but he had stayed close, reading over notes on their research and dozing. The warm bath had only worsened her headache and he had been worried. He had never been with her when she had taken sedatives or painkillers or whatever she had taken, and he had not been sure whether she would wake remembering every detail of the previous day's lapse in control. He had not been sure whether she would wake up still hating him even though she had promised him she didn't. She had never said that to his face before, but she had told him she had said it the night she cut her wrist. Mulder, like Scully even at the time, had never really believed it was true or truly directed at him. But the previous day's breakdown had unsettled him. What if it was directed at him?

True to their form, they hadn't yet spoken about it. Mulder had finally decided he needed a shower, and by the time he came out Scully had been awake and dressing with a smile on her face.

'Big day of stocktake today,' she had declared. Mulder must have looked stunned and wary about her sudden burst of energy when just minutes beforehand she had been deeply asleep. Or perhaps she hadn't, he realised. Maybe she had just been waiting until he left the room so she could get up and look 'okay' when he returned, so that he didn't hover.

That plan had not worked though. He was still hovering. Subtly. But she knew it.

"Should we talk?" he asked. His back was turned to her back but he felt her flinch.

"Why, Mulder?" Scully asked in a whisper. It had surely been hours since they had gotten to the labs. Why would he want to talk now?

Scully had no words for the shame still burning a hole through her stomach lining. She had dark, brown finger-sized bruises around her upper arm and she knew he had only been trying to help. She had covered the bruises with long sleeves before he had returned from his shower. He had not seen them, so he could not feel guilty about manhandling her just to save her from losing her mind, right? She was the one that felt guilty.

He'd had to hurt her to make her stop. She had driven him to express deep hurt and anger at their lives, thoughts they only shared in their weakest moments. They had never physically struggled before. Scully felt horrible for provoking it, and at the labs she had thought she would be safe from confronting him.

Put the lab coat on, Dana, go back to being Doctor Scully, and give Mulder a labcoat too; another barrier between you both. He won't talk about personal stuff until they're off.

Yeah, good one Doctor. Any more bright ideas?

Scully waited for Mulder to answer her question. He was taking his time. She could hear him breathing and she risked a quick glance over her shoulder. He was still turned away from her, staring at the dusty bottles lined and stacked against the wall. His shoulders looked slumped and his right knee was bending as he shifted his weight thoughtfully from side to side. She turned quickly away before he turned to look at her, still not ready to meet his eyes.

She had been avoiding really looking at him since she had woken to feel him snuggled in beside her in bed, awake and stroking her hair, kissing her temple. She could have started crying then, because how badly did she have to treat him to make him not love her? But she had held it in, not ready, too fragile. She remembered her enforced solitude after the last episode but the latest had not been nearly as severe, and she had Mulder with her, the one thing that had been missing the last time, the one person that would have saved her. Yet with him she felt just as vulnerable and embarrassed.

He was with you the first time too, she told herself, remembering the feel of his arms around her. So perhaps his actual physical presence was not something that should have made her feel better. Perhaps it was what was driving the guilt.

I hate you because you tried to kill yourself.

Please stop. Don't do this sweetheart. Please stop.

I hate you. Because you tried to kill yourself.

"Mulder I'm sorry," she hissed before he found the words. "You don't need to explain why you want to talk to me, that's...a given. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, all this."

"You think there's a catch," he surmised, turning around slowly to see her leaning against the bench, her back still to him. "You think...we got the special treatment and you miss our friends and you're afraid of losing them, or losing us, or losing the world. It upsets you as a scientist because the world is your study, and it upsets you as a person because it's...yours."

Scully scoffed, shaking her head so her braid moved from side to side against her back.

"You always pin me," she mumbled, blushing.

"That's funny, because I don't think I ever have," he admitted with a soft laugh. "Are you gonna turn around?" She shook her head and he grimaced, walking up behind her. He rested his hands gently around her upper arms and let his chin sit on the crown of her head. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable," he whispered. "But you scared me yesterday. I've never seen you...lose it. I'd never been able to picture it."

"And now you'll never forget it, right?" she whispered sadly.

"No, but I've got a lot of wonderful memories to bury it under," he assured her, kissing the top of her head and holding his lips to her. "Did you see it coming?" he asked.

"No," she hissed, fighting the urge to reach up for his hands to draw his arms securely around her. She needed to know she could stand on her own. She needed to explain to him. "I didn't see it coming the last time either. I had woken up from a nightmare, and I just crashed into this emotional oblivion. I never see it coming. Maybe I ignore the signs, but yesterday I did not think I was that upset. I was thrown off by having to talk about certain things but I...I never thought I was that upset, Mulder. I can't believe it, I...it's like it wasn't me, and then it was again and you were holding onto me and staring at me as though you were afraid I wasn't standing right in front of you. Were you afraid of that?"

"Yes," he conceded. Scully reached up then for his hands and slid her palms over the sleeves of his labcoat as he wrapped them around her chest and waist.

"I don't want to go crazy out here," she continued. "But I don't feel like I am. Right now I'm not claustrophobic, I want to do my job, and I'm glad that I'm alive. I'm ecstatic to have you. I don't deserve you."

"Some people who knew us once might say we deserve each other," he teased into her hair. She chuckled. "I love you," he added in a whisper, tilting his head around hers to touch her temple with his lips. Scully's eyes shut.

"I know Fox," she assured him softly. "I love you too. I don't feel depressed. I just get tired sometimes."

"Everyone needs a release," he promised. "I get tired too. I don't think you're depressed either. You would not have jumped out of bed so eagerly upon waking up if you were."

"I was already awake," she admitted. "I just wasn't sure...you were taking care of me thinking I was asleep and I didn't want to wreck the mood. Does everyone know?"

"I haven't seen or spoken to anyone else today," he replied. "And last night I never left you. I don't think they would have heard your scream, although I'm pretty sure the elephant seals on the coast heard you-" Scully reached her arm up to take a swipe at his head as he laughed.

Mulder tugged on her to turn her around and she complied, tilting her head up as he angled his down. He kissed her with very little warning but it was exactly what she had felt ready for, and she took his face in her hands and opened herself to him, kissing him with all the desire she suddenly felt. The kiss was possessive and reassuring and Mulder reached for the bench either side of her hips, pinning her against it but giving her hands plenty of room between them to freely explore him. He might have been pinning her and steadying them against the bench, but she was in complete control.

"Not here," she huffed once he drew his lips from hers and claimed her neck. She pressed herself into him as though to seek his touch but he was purposefully using all his self-restraint not to touch her.

"Where?" Mulder mumbled into her skin, wet with his saliva, her pulse drumming fast and hard against his tongue. She moaned and arched back against the table, reaching for one of his hands. Impatiently, she pried his fingers away from the metal and unlike his grip on her arm the previous day, he let her. She pressed his hand into her lower back and with that permission he held a firm arm around her underneath her lab coat. He felt her relax in his embrace and nibbled his way up to her ear. "Where?" he repeated. He expected her to tell him they would be hurrying back to their quarters. He did not expect her to do what she did, which was run her lips over his rough jaw and nod towards the closed storage room door.

Mulder did not know why, but he was suddenly incredibly turned on. She wanted to have sex with him on the floor in the room which held the cures for all of mankind's ills. Was that meant to mean something he should understand on a primal level? Had she thought about it? He found himself nodding before he had answered any of his own questions and seeking out her lips once more. He finally pressed himself against her, hunched over to meet her height, trying to pull her up so her shorter frame fit against his. Their hips thrust instinctively and Mulder knew there was to be no finesse. Not that he minded. Not this time, anyway.

xxx

Mulder let his back rest against the cool shower wall as he fought back tears he had been holding in for at least the day. After defiling the storeroom with the kind of sex reminiscent of something he might have seen on the National Geographic channel, he had been stroking Scully's reddened, aching kneecaps in the storeroom while trying to ignore his own sore knees. He had commented that he thought they were getting too old for sex on floors, and she had suggested going home. Luckily there was a bridge between the top medical floors of Tower One and their quarters in the top floor of Tower Two, and they had not been seen scurrying with mismatched buttons and flushed faces.

What had then gone on in their bedroom had been anything but hurried. Watching Scully drift to sleep had caused something inside him to hurt and instead of falling asleep with her he had forced himself to the warm safety of the shower. A part of him knew nothing had happened which had not happened before. As a psychologist he understood her shame, her desire to apologise, to reassure him that she loved him, and he knew he had those same cravings. But as her partner he was having difficulty reconciling her mood swings. Was it depression? He did not think so. They had just bestowed what felt like hours of attention and affection on each other and when she had fallen asleep she had been smiling softly to herself.

If she was not depressed, Mulder could only assume she was confused, and he understood why. He was confused too. He had experienced various levels of confusion since the invasion, and they all seemed to be broken up by something happening with Scully. Maybe they were also seeking some kind of reassurance. A year of work had finally paid off and their first attempt to destroy the supersoldiers was near. Imminent, even. That was frightening and exciting, but neither of them knew what would happen after that.

"Mulder?" Scully asked, her voice cutting through his thoughts. He saw her naked body through the wet, steamy shower glass and he knew she would be able to tell he was not standing underneath the water, but leaning against the wall. "Mulder you've been in here a long time," she continued gently, opening the door and peeking warily inside, searching his half-lidded brown eyes with her wide, probing blue ones. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Our lives aren't anything like I wanted," he stated sadly. Scully's mouth parted in surprise. That comment she had not been expecting. "I wish we could have done it earlier, before all this, like in the eighteen hundreds, or the twenties. It might not have ended up like this."

"Maybe," she agreed seriously, frowning at him with concern. "But I might have died in childbirth, or you might have been killed in the war. And how do you know we haven't done those things, Mulder? How do you know that never happened for us? How do you know that this isn't the last thing we have to do before it's all over? Monica once told me that one of my numerology numbers was a nine. She said...that it meant I had evolved through all the other numbers, that I'd come full circle to realise this life was only part of a larger whole. And when she told me that I thought of you and us and I realised it was true.

"Maybe a part of these breakdowns I have is me accepting that I believe within myself that what she said is true, that this is our end, that there will be no more for us here, but it doesn't make us less complete. It doesn't change how I feel about you, or God, or myself. It's just upsetting because I know in this life I wanted so much more with you than what I got, but that in itself is so selfish because I could have lost you a hundred times since I met you, and somehow we held on. Somehow we moved forward, as you said. And so all we can really do is cherish the time left that we have together in this world, however long that is, no matter what is in store for us after we die. The only comfort I can find in this whole situation is that in the present I have you, and when it's over, somehow I will still have you. Now are you going to have a shower or just stand there? Because if you're not using the hot water, can I?"

Mulder smiled widely and gestured for her to be his guest and step inside. She giggled, opening the door and blushing when he reached for her bruised upper arm to make sure she did not slip on the wet tiles.

"And how long did it take to rationalise what happened yesterday into that lovely and sensible summary?"

"From the time you last came inside me to the time I opened my mouth to say something I hoped would be the right thing to say." Mulder grinned, stepping under the water and wrapping his arms around her waist for a hug.

"It was the right thing to say," he whispered, delighted to hear her humming happily against his chest and feel her hands smoothing over his lower back in soothing circles. "Dana," he continued thoughtfully as the embrace continued, still and patient and calming. "What do you want to do before you die?" He felt her smile against his chest and could picture the smug smirk. "I mean besides me," he added. She laughed loudly, stepping back so she could look up at him without getting a face full of water.

"Anything?" she asked hopefully. He nodded. "What do you want to do?"

"I asked you first, cheater," he laughed, tickling her ribs briefly.

"Okay," she sighed, stretching up dangerously onto her tiptoes to lay her arms around his shoulders. He stooped to hold her, not wanting either of them to fall in the shower. They were getting old, but they were not yet that old. Thank Christ, he thought to himself with a smile. "I...want to go sailing again," she answered. "I want to see a real sunset again, and watch the sun rise. I...want to see everything that is here exist in nature. I don't want to see flowers grown in genetically engineered nurseries; I want to see them coming up out of the soil. I want to sit under a big, old tree and have a picnic. I...want to swim in the ocean and feel rain on my skin and...I want put on an expensive dress and go dancing."

"Is that all?" Mulder asked, raising his eyebrows arrogantly. She rolled her eyes. "You know what I've been thinking?" he asked. She shook her head and stared at him hopefully as he ran his fingers through her loose, knotted hair. "I've been thinking I want to run away with you."

"Why, Fox Mulder," she taunted in a distinctly southern accent with all the skill and ease of an accomplished actress. She even tilted her head just right, her expression innocent and naive but for the upwards pull of her lips, which was single-mindedly seductive and enticing. "You wouldn't be tryin' to get an honourable girl like me into trouble, would you?"

"Agent Scully, as much trouble as I can, ever since I met you," he replied with a grin. She flashed him one of her own, wide grins, and his heart soared. He smirked daringly. "Game?"