He should have known better. He should have listened to her. He should have protected her.

Should. Should. Should.

That's all Mulder could think when he burst through Scully's front door to find Donnie Pfaster standing in her living room. A nightmare come to life.

Scully had warned him. There were signs. The song. The power outage at the exact time of Pfaster's escape. But did he listen? No. For all the times he believed something blindly with the scantest of evidence, why didn't he fucking listen to her? Scully rarely indulged in hunches or went out on a limb for no reason.

Taking the case was a bad idea from the start. Scully had insisted she would be fine, but they both knew it was a lie.

Five years prior, the case had disturbed her to a worrying degree. And that was even before she became a victim herself. The case had rattled her, shook her confidence. Perhaps it had been too soon after her abduction to delve into such an unsettling case. Back then, his offers of support had been vehemently rebuked. She had pushed him away. That is, until Pfaster kidnapped Scully and fucked with her head. Once freed, she fell apart in Mulder's arms. It had been the first time she showed such visceral, raw emotion in front of him. It was the first time he really held her. And that's when he knew the true severity of Pfaster's assault. He attacked the mind; he threatened his victim's psychological safety even more than their physical safety.

That's why he should have known to keep her far, far away from this case. He should have known Pfaster would come after her – the victim who got away. He should have requested police protection until that monster was locked up again. At the very least, he should have insisted she stay at his apartment.

Should. Should. Should.

As Mulder held Pfaster at gunpoint, he prayed he wasn't too late. He prayed to every god he didn't believe in that Scully was alive. His stomach dropped when she walked into the room, gun in hand. Her lip was split, her nose bloody. A gag hung around her neck, just like the first attack. What frightened him most, though, was the hatred in Scully's eyes. A wave of nausea hit him imagining what happened before he showed up.

When Scully executed Pfaster with little hesitation, he was shocked. Not because Pfaster didn't deserve it. He absolutely deserved to be put to death. But Scully had always been so principled, so by the book. Killing a man who Mulder was holding at gunpoint, who was seconds away from being handcuffed, was murder. It was justifiable murder, in Mulder's opinion, but murder nonetheless. In fact, if she hadn't done it, Mulder may have murdered Pfaster himself after seeing Scully bloodied and bruised.

After the paramedics released Scully into his care, Mulder took her back to his apartment. She had relinquished her pajamas as evidence and changed into jeans and a sweater. She had been quiet since they arrived, silently contemplating something while she sat motionless on his couch. He hoped she wasn't condemning herself for shooting Pfaster or worried that she could be censured. As he told her before, he planned to portray the incident as self-defense in his report.

"I'll hire someone to clean up your apartment once the dust has settled," he offered, breaking the silence. He sat on the coffee table across from her, trying to catch her attention. "And you can stay here as long as you need," he added.

She nodded, but her face remained blank.

"Are you still worried about god's judgment?" he asked gently.

That question got her to meet his eyes. He guessed right.

She wrung her hands together nervously. "I just . . . can't stop replaying it all in my head."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

In truth, he didn't want to know what happened. He knew the information would torture him and only confirm all the ways he had failed her. However, if talking about it would help her in any small way, he would endure it. He was no stranger to masochism anyway.

She ran her tongue over her bottom lip where it was cut.

"You know that feeling when someone is staring at you? Even if you can't see the person, you can just . . . feel it?"

"Yes."

"I had that feeling when I came home. Like a presence in the room. I just knew."

Mulder already felt sick, and the story had barely started.

She continued, "I tried to shrug it off at first. I thought maybe the case had messed with my head, and I was imagining things. But then I saw my clock."

"Your clock?"

Scully looked down momentarily, breaking eye contact, like she didn't want to tell him the next part.

"What is it?"

"Remember when I told you my power went out?"

He nodded.

"What I didn't tell you is that my clock flashed 6:66 before the power was cut."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Honestly, I thought maybe I imagined it. But then it happened again. Tonight."

"Your clock said 6:66?"

"And then the power went out. That's when I knew for certain he was there." She swallowed. "He was hiding in my closet."

He closed his eyes for a moment, his mind spinning. That son of a bitch had been waiting for her like a fucking creep. Violating her privacy. Watching her. Why didn't he think to go home with her? How could he have let this happen?

She went quiet. Then, "There was a struggle." She said it so detached, so matter-of-fact. He had seen the destruction in her apartment – the shattered mirror and furniture toppled over. Her battle wounds told him she was downplaying what happened. A struggle was a euphemism they often used when investigating cases of murder. It didn't seem right to use it on herself. This wasn't about some unknown victim in an investigation. This was Scully, for god's sake.

She said, "He bound my hands and put me in the closet while he . . . started a bath."

Mulder's stomach lurched, but he tried his best to suppress an overt reaction. Inside, he was disgusted. He had seen her bathroom adorned with candles and floral-smelling bath products. A set-up for a sick seduction. He pushed the feeling down and reached into Scully's lap, taking both her hands.

"He was gone for a while, so I was able to free myself," she said, gazing down at their hands. "And that's when I heard you come in."

Thinking her story had concluded, he said, "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner."

She shook her head, indicating she didn't want to hear any apologies. "There's something else I want to tell you," she said, her voice shaky.

"What?"

"I'm a little embarrassed about this, but I want to tell you. I need to get it out."

"Sure."

"When I was trying to break free, I had this . . . thought that I couldn't shake. I think it's what made me pull the trigger in the end." Scully tensed, and he felt her retreating, like she regretted venturing down this conversational path.

"It's OK. You can tell me anything, Scully. I would never judge you. You know that," he said reassuringly.

She nodded, but she didn't look fully convinced. She ventured forth anyway, saying, "I thought . . . what if I lost the baby?

Mulder's eyebrows knitted together. Lost the baby? What baby?

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"What if I had been pregnant and the fight with Pfaster made me lose the baby?"

"I don't understand," he said as gently as he could. "There is no baby."

"I know that, Mulder," she said, frustrated. "You're not understanding me."

"Help me understand. I want to understand."

"In the moment, I thought . . . What if I had been able to get pregnant? Or, what if the doctor was wrong and I was pregnant? And then I lost the baby in the attack?" She shook her head and looked away, "Sorry, I know this doesn't make sense."

But it did make sense. When the IVF failed, in a sense, she did lose a baby. Or, at least, the idea and the hope of one. Her thoughts were a manifestation of her grief. She was still processing the loss. These were the thoughts of someone in the throes of fight-or-flight. Maybe it wasn't logical, but it didn't need to be, even if it was Scully.

As if she could read his mind, she said, "I know it was irrational. But I was fighting for my life."

He squeezed her hands. "I get it. I understand now," he said. "Situations of extreme stress can bring up emotions you don't expect."

"You know, I convinced the judge to give him life instead of the death penalty. Me. I did that," she said, her voice quivering. "And, after everything, if he also made me lose the baby – lose my only chance at motherhood – I could never forgive that."

He didn't know if she meant to forgive Pfaster or forgive herself, but he didn't want to ask. The words continued to spill out of her, and he didn't dare interrupt.

"I became so angry at this . . . imaginary scenario in my head. I felt this pain and loss that was overwhelming. I think it's why I was able to pull the trigger."

She took a deep breath, and her bottom lip trembled like she was on the verge of breaking down but desperately trying to hold back. Tears filled her eyes, and she gripped his hands tighter.

"Fox," she said, her voice breaking, "what if I had lost our baby?"

The question felt like a punch to the gut. The use of his first name. The way she used "our" instead of "my." The raw vulnerability in her voice. He felt all of it deeply. She had used his first name maybe one other time in the seven years since they met. In the early days of their partnership, he had asked her not to use it. At the time, he could only hear Diana's voice when she said it because the wound was still fresh. Hearing Scully say it now, however, felt completely different. He didn't hear Diana at all in the word. He heard an intimacy that took his breath away. He heard an invitation to understand her and let him bear witness to her innermost thoughts. He heard only her.

More than anything, he wanted to say the right thing and not squander this opportunity for a deeper connection.

"You didn't," Mulder insisted, looking deep into her eyes. "You didn't lose the baby. You did nothing wrong. Nothing."

"Didn't I? I killed a man, Mulder."

"It's like you said. He was evil. He was trying to kill you, and he would have killed again if you hadn't stopped him," he affirmed. "And I promise you, if there had been a baby, and he did anything to harm it, I would have killed him myself. With my bare hands."

She smiled at his hyperbole, a tear slipping down her cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have known he would come after you."

"And I should have listened to my instincts," she replied.

For the next ten days, Scully stayed at Mulder's apartment. He walked a precarious line between watching over her and giving her the space and privacy to recover. Some days, she left the apartment without an explanation, not returning until the evening. Perhaps she spent those days with her mother or a friend. Or maybe she just needed to be alone, away from him. He didn't ask; he didn't want to pry. For sleeping arrangements, he took his cues from her. The first night, she wanted to be held. Most days, he slept on the couch.

That was the extent of their physicality during those ten days. They didn't kiss. They didn't touch unless she initiated a connection. They hadn't kissed at all in the weeks following their IVF attempt. That night, she proposed that they sleep together, and he had to turn her down. He knew that she was embarrassed at the time, but she had no reason to be. Still, he wondered about her motivations that night. Had she wanted to have sex with him for a while and the suggestion slipped out? Or, had the proposition been born solely of loneliness and grief? Regardless of the reason, he knew he couldn't make love to her that night. He wanted it to be just that – making love – not just a physical release to distract from her pain.

After the ten days together, he dropped her back at her apartment. His memory of the shattered glass and blood filled his mind as he stood in her living room. He relived the moment anew – throwing open the door and seeing Pfaster there. Watching Scully shoot him dead. As she surveyed the apartment, he could see the same in her eyes. She was replaying the events as well. He didn't want to leave her there.

"You can stay with me longer if you want," he offered.

"No," she said, "I need to do this." She looked up at him, determination in her eyes. Ever the brave one, his Scully.

"You'll call me if you need me," he said. It wasn't a question.

Later that night, she did call him. She was lying in bed but couldn't fall asleep.

"Should I tell you a bedtime story?" he asked, reclining on his couch.

"As long as it doesn't involve aliens," she replied, exhaustion permeating every exhale.

He laughed. "OK, I can do that. Once upon a time, there was a lonely basement-dwelling ogre. One day, a brilliant redheaded princess was assigned to work with him –"

Scully chuckled, "Mulder, come on –"

"Don't interrupt. When I ask you for a bedtime story, you can tell me about Einstein's theory of special relativity or something."

It worked. Eventually, she fell asleep to the sound of his voice, keeping the memory of Pfaster at bay for the night.

After he knew she was asleep, he concluded the story, "And the ogre and princess lived happily ever after."