TITLE: "Judgement" (1/5)
BY: Ten
E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au

CATEGORY: Vignette, Angst, X-File, MSR
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully have been put on trial by two
unforgiving prosecutors on a crime they are both guilty
of. And the penalty is death.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Set during season six -
probably late season 6 (definitely after Rain King &
Monday - but goes off into alternate universe before
Milagro).

ARCHIVE INFO: It goes to Gossamer through xff. Can be
archived anywhere as long as my name, addy and disclaimer
stay intact.
FEEDBACK: I love to know who is out there in the ether!
THANKS TO: Suzanne and Vickie. And to Gerry and Mac for
going over all the drafts this went through, and
especially to Sally and Judie for coming up with the
solution to a major stumbling block (and thus sparing us
all from yet another warehouse scene!).

My website for all my X-Files fanfiction, thanks to the
wonderful Arria, is at:
http://ten.bitter-moon.com/xf

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files, the episodes referred to, Mulder
and Scully and all other characters from the show belong
to Chris Carter and his team of writers, Ten Thirteen
Productions and Fox Broadcasting, and are used without
permission. No copyright infringement is intended, no
profit will be gained. Characters not recognized from the
show are mine.


The X-Files: "Judgement" (1/5)
By Ten, November 2003 - April 2004

xXx

Just past Frederick, Maryland
2.34 pm Saturday afternoon

Joe's weekend had so far been too boring for his taste,
so he was heading over to visit some friends near
Frederick. Driving down the rural highway, the twenty
year old got more action that he counted on. Rounding a
bend, a tire blew on his Toyota Camry and suddenly he
found himself fighting to keep the car on the road.

He managed to do so, but it was a case of out of the
frying pan into the fire. Now he was in the wrong lane
and about to hit an approaching Ford Taurus. He yelled in
alarm.

Then the Taurus swerved, disappearing from his view and
from the collision course, allowing Joe to bring his car
to a stop on the side of the road. His body was hunched
over, still braced for a crash that had not occurred. He
was all right. But what about the other car? It had gone
off the road.

It wasn't fair! He hadn't been speeding! The tire had
just blown and now this . . . .

Shaking, he stumbled out and fell onto his hands and
knees when his wobbly legs betrayed him. Taking a deep
breath, he propelled himself up and went along the side
of the road as fast as he could, heading to where the
Taurus had swerved off. It had gone through a flimsy-
looking fence, into a field.

While hurrying along he reached into his jacket pocket
for his cell phone. But he had once again forgotten to
charge it recently and the battery was dead. Joe felt
horrified he wouldn't be able to call for help if needed.
Hopefully there would be a phone in the other car or
someone else would drive by and stop. And hopefully these
people were all right. He thought he had seen two people
in the car.

Joe stopped at the break in the fence, now able to get a
good look, but scared of what he was going to see.

The car was about fifty yards away, still upright, but
against a large old piece of farming equipment that had
been left in the field. Churned ground showed how the car
had skidded and swerved until brought to a halt by the
unyielding machinery. The whole passenger side of the car
was up against it, though from where he was standing at
the fence, Joe couldn't tell just how hard they had met.

Then he saw movement inside the car.

Thank God. He tried to get his legs moving again.

"Hello?" Joe called out. Due to that piece of rusting
equipment, the people wouldn't be able to get out of the
passenger side.

Then he saw smoke starting to rise from the car's hood.

As he yelled a warning and started stumbling into the
field, the driver's side door of the Taurus opened and a
red-haired woman appeared. As soon as her feet hit the
ground she was turning back to the car, reaching inside
for the passenger. Flames made their appearance at the
same time as a tall man scrambled out of the vehicle. He
was shoving at the woman, yelling at her to go, but she
wouldn't until he was clear of the Taurus.

They both started to run together. It looked like the man
was trying to keep his body between the woman and their
vehicle. Then the car exploded.

Joe hit the ground, covering his head, making his body
into a tight ball. He felt some debris hit the ground
near him, but otherwise the fallout missed him. When he
cautiously looked up, the car was burning. The man and
woman were lying on the ground, her body mostly covered
by his.

Bodies. He knew that they would be dead. They were right
near the car when it went up. There had been no time to
get far enough away.

Two people. His fault.

He threw up, then kept moving in numb resignation and
shock to face what he had done.

xXx

Mulder came to with a start. He was standing in a white
room, not near the car. Not lunging forward or diving to
the ground, trying to shelter Scully in the process.

And she wasn't in his arms.

What the - ?

"Scully!" Frantically he wheeled around, looking for her.
There she was, also standing and looking bewildered,
about ten yards away from him.

"Mulder!"

They hurried towards each other.

"Are you all right? What happened?" he was saying as they
drew closer.

Mulder's hand reached for Scully, but the movement was
abruptly halted when it smacked into something solid, but
unseen. Then his rapidly following body also hit the
invisible barrier, causing him to stagger back. The same
thing happened to Scully as she reached that spot.

Cautiously checking for the obstacle, her hand
encountered something invisible, but solid. She moved her
hand back and forth. Up and down. "It feels like there's
a wall here." She rapped her knuckles against it. "But
. . . this isn't glass . . . ." Not that she was sure
exactly what it was. But it was between them, and, more
importantly, not letting them reach each other.

"Like a force field," Mulder said. He quickly looked
around. They were the only people in the strange white
room. No car, no accident, no road or field. No sign of
any explosion. But that made utterly no sense. They had
completed a case and had almost reached the town of
Frederick, on their way back through to D.C. when the
accident happened. But now . . . .

Mulder took in the high ceiling, the floor which shone
like mother-of-pearl, and a large door set across on the
other side of the room. There was no furniture, no
objects or ornamentation. Scully was on Mulder's right
hand side, also gazing around.

"Mulder, where are we? What happened?"

He turned to look at his partner as he considered the
options. "The car exploded. Perhaps . . . . Do you think
we're dead and this is heaven? Or some sort of cosmic
waiting room? Or the inside of a UFO?"

Scully stared at him, feeling rattled and knowing she
wasn't having much luck in hiding it. "I think we're just
dreaming. Or rather, I'm just dreaming. Though . . . when
I was in the coma, I remember being in a white room or
white space, but I was lying on a table in a long white
dress, and I saw my father." She looked at her clothes
and at Mulder's. They were wearing the business clothes
they had been wearing in the car, and the material was
not damaged. There was however no sign of their weapons,
or even their holsters, which was almost as disconcerting
as them not being able to reach each other.

Scully continued, "Perhaps I dreamed about being in the
accident and this is just the next part of the dream or
another dream. Or we are . . . ."

"Dead," Mulder supplied uncomfortably. He took a deep
breath, and yelled, "Hello?" They listened. There was no
reply.

Mulder made a fist and knocked against the barrier, and
then pounded against it, getting more and more frustrated
that he couldn't reach or touch Scully.

"Let's see how far it extends," Scully suggested, worried
he would break a finger or his hand. "It might not go too
far."

Exploration quickly showed that they were both 'boxed
in', literally, in separate cells. The force shields or
whatever they were fitted around each agent in a square,
about ten feet square per box, with one shared wall.
There was no sign or 'feel' of any latch or keyhole or
door.

"This is so strange," Scully remarked, poking at the
barrier. "I must be dreaming, because physics would have
a hard time explaining this. It's a barrier, but we can
clearly see and hear each other and air is obviously
getting through." She paused, before adding, "Though
these boxes might not have 'lids'." She looked up toward
the ceiling, then started going through her pockets to
find something to throw up in the air to test the
question.

At that point, the door slid open with a quiet hum, which
got their complete attention. They tensed, wishing they
had their guns.

Two people entered, shuffling slowly. They were a man and
a woman, both very old and wizened, who were dressed in
white robes.

"Hello?" Mulder tried.

"Hello there," the woman replied matter-of-factly as the
door closed behind them.

"Who are you? Where are we?" Scully asked.

The old man and old woman exchanged looks, and kept
walking towards the agents. "This is a courtroom. You
have been judged here," the old man said.

Mulder blinked. "Judged? Okay, I am definitely having a
dream. I don't remember a trial. What's the charge?"

"A very heinous crime," the old woman said with grave
seriousness. "One you have repeatedly committed."

"And that would be what?"

The old man made an exasperated noise and said severely,
"You know what it is. You keep vowing not to, but you
keep doing it!"

"At least give us a clue?" Scully asked in bemusement,
also convinced by the appearance of these strange people
that she was in dreamland. Or perhaps on medication in a
hospital from the car accident.

The old couple were now standing in front of the cells.
Both Mulder and Scully noticed their eyes - the irises
were an intense, magical violet, which stood out against
their white hair and robes.

The colour made them look ethereal, otherworldly. Perhaps
they ARE aliens, Mulder thought. But their demeanours
seemed very world-weary.

"You know what you have done," the old woman replied in
response to Scully's question.

Frustrated by the lack of straightforward answers, Mulder
muttered, "This is getting real old, real fast."

"So are we!" the old man fired back. "But it is no longer
a problem. You have been found guilty. As we knew you
would."

"Of what? How could there have been a trial -I don't
remember it! This has got to be a dream." Mulder paused
briefly for breath. "What's the sentence, while we're at
it, and which one of you was our defense?"

"Neither of us. We were the prosecution."

Mulder blinked. He gave a short splutter of laughter,
turned to Scully and opened his mouth. Before he could
make a wisecrack, the old man said, "You might think that
is funny, in fact, I know you do, but things are even
worse on your end. On this charge, you defended
*yourselves*!" He gave a cackle of glee. "No wonder you
were as good as doomed!"

"But what's the charge?" Scully nearly yelled at them in
frustration, now fed up with this bizarre dream and
hoping it would end soon.

The old woman supplied the answer. "The charge is gross
contempt and neglect - in regard to your feelings for
each other."

"Come again?" Mulder asked in surprise.

The old man rolled his eyes and muttered, "You haven't
even come once!"

The old woman gave the old man a pointed look, then said
to Mulder and Scully, "Do you think a love like the one
you have is handed out every day?"

"A love beyond the normal. Beyond the paranormal even,"
the old man added. "You are too busy looking for 'The
Truth', when the most important truth is right in front
of you, but you are too blind to see it! Or too unwilling
to grab it."

Mulder was still sure that he was asleep, and thought, So
my subconscious is now in 'relationship analysis mode'
again in regard to us . . . .

"How many chances have they been given over the years?
But they never learn!" the old woman said.

The old man nodded in agreement. "All those chances from
that Monday alone!"

To Mulder it looked like two parents discussing their
wayward children. He wondered what they meant by 'that
Monday' before realizing it could have meant the strange
day when Pam -

"The bank robbery," the old man supplied in confirmation.
"The day kept repeating over and over."

Mulder opened his mouth to ask whether the old couple had
been behind that repetition, but Scully had realized they
had not answered one of her earlier questions in the
melee, a very important question. So she got in first,
asking, "And what's the punishment?"

However the old man and woman were still on their
soapbox.

The old man told Mulder, "You do get points for trying to
tell her you loved her after your little trip to the
Devil's Triangle - which by the way, was a miraculous
survival on your part."

The old woman told Scully, "And you get points for: 'I
wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you.'"

"But both times the other blew it!" the old man said,
nearly stamping his foot in irritation.

The old woman gave him another look then turned back to
Mulder and Scully. She said, "Speaking of blew, that is
what brings us here today. The two of you were about to
be killed by an explosion."

She continued, growing more heated, "Serious illnesses
and brushes with death often make a person realize what
is important and reevaluate their life. The two of you
have had so many of those, yet you are the master and
mistress of going into reverse gear whenever you get too
close to each other! Two intelligent people, who have
been given their soulmate and inwardly recognize that
fact. You will never feel this way about anyone else.
What has to happen for you two to admit your love to each
other and act on it? Frankly, we're fed up."

The old man chimed in, "People are supposed to learn from
their mistakes. It was so easy to prove you two do not
deserve any more chances, no more second tries. This
explosion is it. Curtains."

END PART ONE OF FIVE 

xXx

Mulder and Scully exchanged looks.

"I'm having a dream. A very realistic dream," Scully
said, hoping that in saying it, she would wake up.

"So am I," Mulder agreed.

Scully shook her head. "No. I'm having this dream, so
you're just a figment of my imagination who *thinks* he's
having a dream."

"Not from my point of view."

The old woman sighed and said to the old man, "It's going
to take an effort to convince them this isn't a dream.
Not that we really have to. They're guilty anyway and
that is that."

"Definitely."

Mulder stared hard at the old man and woman. There was
something about their personalities and mannerisms. . . .
It had been niggling at his profiler's brain since this
whole 'discussion' had started. Then it clicked in his
mind. "You're me, aren't you? And you're Scully."

The old man gave him a round of mock applause.
"Congratulations. Took you long enough."

Scully stared at them in amazement, and the old man
struck an exaggerated body builder pose for a moment.

Mulder took another look at their elder selves. They
didn't have wings or halos or ethereal airs about them,
apart from their violet eyes. But . . . . "Are you
angels? Or us from the future? Do you mean we survive the
explosion, but never get together?"

"We are your inner selves. Your souls," the old woman
explained.

"So why are you arguing against us surviving this
explosion? What good will that do you two?"

"Because then our souls will truly be together, without
you two getting in the way by keeping OUT of each other's
way," the old woman said in a perfectly logical tone. "It
will be the end of us in the physical world only."

"Look at us! You're killing this love!" the old man
snapped. "We deserve to be together. We need to be."

The two old people reached out for each other. It was the
first time they had made physical contact since entering
the room. Or at least, they tried to make contact now,
but it was like a wall was between them. Strain showed on
both old faces as they kept pushing their hands towards
the other. With a lot of effort, finally they were able
to touch.

Suddenly they glowed. Their features changed, becoming
younger, more recognizable as the two agents.

A pure light was radiating from their togetherness. The
love in their expressions made Mulder ache inside. Scully
stared, feeling overwhelmed.

But then the strain reasserted itself on the couple's
faces. Their hands began to tug away from the other,
clearly against their will. They reluctantly released
each other's hands, and became old again within the space
of a few heartbeats.

The old woman said, "So, do you see our problem? Having a
taste of paradise, of such joy, every so often, only to
have it ripped away from us, thanks to you two. Now you
can't do that to us anymore - soon we will be together
forever."

"So we're dead?" Mulder asked them, still feeling shaken.
He was becoming less and less sure that this was a simple
matter of him reading too many psychology texts before
bedtime. It felt very real.

"You're not dead yet. We froze time just as the car
exploded. But your fate has been decided," the old man
said.

This dream was very unsettling. However, overcoming her
acute sense of unease, Scully's natural sense of justice
rose to the fore. "Who judged us? Why weren't we allowed
to defend ourselves or to see the case against us?"

Her older counterpart calmly replied, "We are judge, jury
and executioner. Your own conduct damns you. But since we
have already frozen time, I suppose we can show you some
of the evidence. There is certainly enough of it. Then
perhaps you will finally see, too late, what you let slip
through your grasp. What you wasted in the mortal world
we will cherish together on the astral plane."

The old man nodded. "A good idea."

"That is the only type I have."

He laughed, before becoming serious again. They turned
away from the cells to have a quick, whispered
conversation.

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, then back at the
old couple. Mulder again considered his older self's
personality. Even though he had realized and recognized
the man was himself, he was still shocked by how cynical
and dour his soul was being. Even the occasional wry
cracks were not relieving the man's demeanour much. Have
I really done that to myself? Mulder thought. Then he
remembered Eddie Van Blundt's assessment of his life, and
how much he had given up for his work. Humour was often
an outward shield or safety valve for him, but underneath
things had been piling up. Now were they taking an actual
physical form?

The old couple turned back to the agents. The old man
said, "Now, there is no point showing you two things you
already know you have done for each other. Those things
in themselves would be enough to convince any other
person of the amount of love involved here and the
importance of accepting and admitting it. Instead we are
going to show you things you weren't aware the other had
done. We will start off with a classic case of
misunderstanding on both sides."

A section of the barrier between Mulder and Scully
suddenly shimmered, and an image formed on it, like a
movie. The image was about as big as a large screen
projection TV. Only in this case, the image was visible
on both sides of the wall.

The screen looked solid to Mulder, but it did not take up
all of the wall. He could see Scully watching it from her
cell, and he wondered if the image was in reverse on her
side. Anyway, he could not recognize the room that was
being shown on it.

"A psychiatric facility," the old woman informed them.
"Your X-File where you first met Gibson Praise, when he
was the target of an assassination attempt at a chess
match."

The partners blinked in surprise. The screen showed
Mulder and Diana Fowley talking. Scully watched very
carefully.

Diana said, "I sense you could have used an ally, though
- someone who thinks like you, with some background."

"Oh, you mean Scully?" Screen Mulder asked.

"She's not what I would call an open mind on the
subject."

They laughed, though Mulder's was a little forced.

"She's a, uh . . . she's a scientist. She just makes me
work for everything."

"Yes, but I'm . . . I'm sure there were times when two
like minds on a case would have been advantageous."

At that his face and voice became matter-of-fact. "I've
done okay without you."

"Hey ... I'm on your side." Diana took his hand.

The screen froze.

Scully took a deep breath. Mulder had defended her to
Diana, and it was Diana who had initiated the hand hold,
not the other way around. Because . . . .

The image on the wall changed to Screen Scully walking
down a hallway of the same psychiatric facility, carrying
Gibson's file, approaching the room Diana and Mulder were
in. Through the window panel in the door Screen Scully
saw them smiling and holdings hands, unaware of her
presence.

Mulder was watching the unfolding events on the screen,
his mouth open. He saw the look of surprise on Screen
Scully's face, and how she kept walking past the door, a
little way down the hall, before pausing and turning to
walk back the way she came. She did not look into the
room again when she quickly passed it.

Mulder stepped over slightly in his cell to look at
Scully in her own cell. She was looking just as surprised
as her screen counterpart. He turned back to the image,
to find Screen Scully going down to the parking deck. She
got into her car and just sat there staring out the
window. There was a long pause. Then she phoned her
partner, deliberately interrupting whatever was going on,
telling him she had something to show him about Gibson.
She pretended she was on her way to work instead of being
at the facility, so that he would have to leave
immediately to meet her there.

The little movie stopped, and disappeared.

"I didn't know . . . ." Mulder and Scully both said at
the same time, staring at each other.

"In a lot of ways you two have amazing non-verbal
communication," the old man commented. "But verbally, you
suck!"

Mulder couldn't help but defend himself against . . .
himself. "Hey, that one was lousy timing and
misinterpretation!"

"Yes, there's *always* some excuse, isn't there? The
amount of times you two have misinterpreted the other's
actions or words - or lack thereof - is surely in the
Guinness Book of Records!"

"Let us move on. Then the sooner we can be together," the
old woman told the old man.

He smiled at her and nodded.

She said to Mulder, "Now, here are some examples - by no
means exhaustive - of Agent Scully's love for you."

"Luther Lee Boggs," the old man said briskly, not wasting
any time. "Agent Mulder, after you were shot on the docks
and were in recovery from your surgery, in critical but
stable condition, Agent Scully paid a little visit to
Boggs. Here it is."

Mulder watched the screen fire up again. A young Screen
Scully marched into a prison cell. Her face was pale and
upset but her eyes were incandescent with anger.

Boggs was sitting in a chair, and Screen Scully let him
have it. "You set us up. You're in on this with Lucas
Henry. This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put
you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies
because of what you've done, four days from now, no one
will be able to stop me from being the one that will
throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good,
you son of a bitch!"

The screen halted on that image.

The old man gave a whistle of admiration. "That's an
extremely strong threat, even to a guy who was on death
row," he pointed out. "Especially when it was said so
loud that not only the guard would have heard but the
whole prison."

The old woman said to Mulder, "You inspired strong
passions in her even that early in your partnership. And
don't either of you give me the 'just lost her father and
was in grief and didn't want to lose her best friend as
well' argument . . . . Trust me, I know."

"Exactly," the old man agreed, as Mulder and Scully
stared at each other. Seeing his normally calm and cool
partner confront Boggs like that was startling to Mulder.
Scully blinked and broke their gaze, looking down.

The old man continued, addressing Mulder, "Scully is
someone very by the book, but even in the first year of
your partnership she lied to protect you - for instance
during your second encounter with Eugene Victor Tooms.
And you had not asked her to. She did of her own free
will. Plus when you were kidnapped Deep Throat was able
to convince her to go into a high security facility to
steal the ransom required to free you."

The old woman took over. "Even when the X-Files were shut
down at the end of that case and you were separated as
partners, Scully continued to seek you out. She did not
have to."

More images were shown, of instances during that time
when Scully would be at work or home and her attention
would wander, thinking of him.

The screen changed to show her walking down a busy
hallway at Headquarters and seeing Mulder coming along in
the opposite direction. How her face had softened at the
sight of him, her anticipation as they neared.

"Good afternoon, Agent Mulder."

He had walked right by without even acknowledging her
presence. Mulder looked at the screen in surprise, unable
to remember if he had been so distracted he hadn't
noticed her or if it had been deliberate - Spooky Mulder
doing Dana Scully a 'favour' by keeping away from her.
Also, around that time he had been paranoid they were
being watched.

Mulder saw the hurt look on Screen Scully's face, which
she quickly hid, but there was another expression she
could not quite manage to remove. Worry.

The old man said, "And when you ditched your surveillance
assignment and took off to Puerto Rico she went to great
lengths to find and reach you, including outwitting the
agents who were on her tail and paying for two different
air fares - one credit and one cash - to throw further
dirt over her tracks. She didn't care about the hole it
put in her bank balance because you were worth more than
that to her. Much more."

Then the image became Scully phoning Melissa and
exchanging small talk.

"Little sister, I can sense you didn't just phone me to
catch up for a chat. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Dana," Melissa said firmly.

"It's just that . . . . Mulder told me he's thinking of
quitting the Bureau."

"He might find another job in D.C. but he might not. What
are you going to do if he moves somewhere else?"

"I don't know."

"You do, but you're not ready to admit it yet."

Scully swallowed as she listened back to that years-old
conversation. A part of her, a part so large it scared
her, had been willing even back then to throw away all
logic and go wherever he did.

The old couple showed snippets of Scully's reaction when
told Mulder had traded himself for one of Duane Barry's
hostages at the travel center, and during the rest of
that time until the hostage crisis was resolved.

"And now we jump to when Scully was in the coma after her
abduction return," the old woman said.

A white room, but not a hospital room. Scully was lying
on a table, dressed in a long white gown. Her eyes were
closed. A man wearing naval dress uniform came up to her.
Mulder realized he was Scully's father.

"Starbuck, it's time for you to come with me."

He held out his hand. Screen Scully sat up and took his
hand. She got off the table and started to walk away with
him.

But then Mulder could hear his own voice speaking, and it
halted Screen Scully.

"I feel, Scully . . . that you believe . . . you're not
ready to go. And you've always had the strength of your
beliefs. I don't know if my being here . . . will help
bring you back. But I'm here."

William Scully was looking back at his daughter, still
holding her right hand. Screen Scully did not move any
further forward with him, hesitating. Her left hand
moved. Screen Scully gazed at it in amazement, watching
as her left hand lifted, moving back the other way, as if
someone was holding it. Trying to coax her back.

"He doesn't want you to go," her father said.

"I don't want to go," Screen Scully told him. "I don't
want to leave him."

The image faded. Mulder saw his partner was just as
surprised as him at what they had been shown. The old
woman gave a wistful smile. "Scully couldn't remember all
of that when she woke up, but she did remember a few
vital things. Observe."

Another scene appeared on the screen. It was rush hour at
Scully's bedside. Doctor Daly was there, Maggie and
Melissa, some nurses . . . .

Screen Scully smiled at her mother and sister, but
instead of answering their or the doctor's questions,
asked, "Mulder? Where's Mulder? He was here . . . ."

"I sent him home. He was with you all night. I'll go
phone him in a minute," Maggie said, trying to battle
away tears.

When Scully had been moved out of ICU, she had been so
distracted, waiting for him to come, that several times
her mother or sister had to say things twice before she
heard them or responded.

Then telling him, "Mulder . . . I had the strength of
your beliefs."

"Quoted proof that she heard you," the old man said,
"That your bond brought her back."

Before Mulder or Scully could say anything to each other
or to their captors, the old woman commented, "That whole
ordeal really clarified in each of your hearts how you
felt about the other. You had to live without each other
when the X-Files were shut down, but at least then you
knew the other was safe. Mostly, anyway. But even after
Scully survived her abduction, guess what set in:
retreat, denial and fear. The same old pattern. Soon
though, another mother of an ordeal occurred. And by the
end of this one, it was Mulder's life in the balance.
Deadhorse, Alaska."

An ER room appeared on the wall screen.

Mulder knew he had been defibbed in Alaska - he had even
found out Scully did the honours, thanks to one of the
nurses who was taking care of him. But no words could
describe 'Woman on a Mission' Scully as he saw her burst
in those ER doors. He could even hear her heart skip the
proverbial beat when she entered the emergency room and
saw him motionless in the tub.

He watched in amazement as she took on the ER staff to
try to save him. "You've got to listen to me! If you keep
him in there, you're going to kill him! The cold is the
only thing that's keeping him alive."

The incandescence was in her eyes again. How her
determination tripled when his heart stopped. But she
revived him.

"This patient is not even recovering -" a doctor began,
only to be cut off by Screen Scully's iron vow.

"He's going to make it."

"Just like how you were the only one who wouldn't give up
on Scully when she was in her coma," the old man
interjected as the image dissipated. The partners looked
at each other, both feeling rattled. Unaware or uncaring
of their apprehension, the old man forged ahead. "Now,
the SS Ardent, a ghost ship that was giving you both a
nasty case of old age. Let's take a peek at the point
where it had been figured out the recycled water was safe
to drink, but Mulder was still aging rapidly despite
that."

The screen showed Mulder as an old man, handing his
partner a urine sample and trying to joke about lapping
George Burns. He sat down to rest while Scully took the
sample over to her makeshift laboratory to test it, out
of range of his failing sight and hearing. Trondheim
edged up behind her.

"If you've got something to say, say it but don't hover
behind me like that," she said with an edge in her voice.

"The water isn't helping him," the shifty fisherman
replied.

"Then maybe we should double his rations."

"What for? A lake full of water isn't going to bring him
back."

"We don't know that for sure. Not yet."

"Look at him! We've wasted too much water on him as it
is."

"Who are you to decide?" Screen Scully said angrily.

"You don't have to be a doctor to see that he isn't gonna
make it. But you and me, Scully . . . you and me . . . we
better start looking out for ourselves."

Mulder remembered one of her comments she had written in
the captain's log. He had read it while recovering.

"Mulder's urinalysis continues to indicate his kidneys'
failure to excrete the substance I'm calling 'heavy
salt'. Whether the untainted water taken from the sewage
system is even helping him at all is unclear. What does
remain clear to me is that I can't give up trying."

"Scully was determined to find the cure. And not just
because she had the affliction too," the old woman said.
"Now, we go to a boxcar buried in the New Mexico desert.
One that young Eric Hosteen told Scully you were in when
the Smoking Man ordered it blown up."

Mulder watched Screen Scully scramble down the rocks
towards the now-smouldering boxcar. She was moving so
fast it was a miracle she didn't trip and break her neck.
He saw her being driven back by the heat emanating from
the open top hatch. "Mulder?" She gazed around
desperately, her face becoming more distraught by the
second. "Mulder!"

"Those tears in her eyes are not just from the heat and
smoke, I assure you," the old woman supplied.

Screen Scully searched around, her voice and movements
getting more and more desperate. "Mulder, please . . . ."

At that stage he would have been unconscious in the
concealed tunnel, unable to hear her or alert her.

He watched her fall to her knees, sobbing. Eric, the
native American teenager who had taken her there, came
and stood beside Scully. Uncertainty showed through his
badly bruised and swollen face - whether to try to talk
to her or lead her away or just what to do.

Suddenly she screamed, a banshee-wail of rage and
anguish. She pounded the sand with her fists. There was a
long pause as she stared at the rising smoke. Then, just
as suddenly, her feelings curled up inside her and her
face shut down.

Watching from her cell, Scully swallowed. She could well
recall the emotional overload, the devastating sense of
loss.

"Now, we jump forward in that timeline, when Scully is
back in Washington D.C., about to face the consequences
of her insubordination and also facing life without her
partner," the old man said, sounding dangerously like an
emcee.

Screen Scully was standing in front of her dressing
table, staring into the mirror. Mulder watched her hand
touch her cross; she picked the tiny object up between
her fingers. Anger spread across her face and her fingers
tightened, one curling around the chain. It looked like
she was on the verge of violently yanking it from around
her neck. It would not take much to break the delicate
chain.

Scully released the cross. She reached around to the back
of her neck with both hands and undid the catch. Holding
the chain in one hand, she opened a jewelry box which sat
on the dresser and, without care or ceremony, dropped the
necklace and cross inside. Then she slammed its lid shut
and tears appeared in her eyes. She struggled to hold
them back.

Mulder stared at the Scully in the vision and then at
Scully in her cell. She always wore that necklace. It was
her favourite piece of jewelry, even in the days before
she returned to her faith. He had watched the other
scenes in silence, but now he had to know . . . .

"You stopped wearing it because you thought I was dead?"
She didn't answer him, instead looked at him with an
expression that was half-haunted, half-hunted, then at
her elderly counterpart, as if seeking help or clemency.

END PART TWO OF FIVE

xXx

The old woman sighed and said, "Let's have a look at a
few hours later on the night she put her cross away."

Scully was driving her car with a sort of robotic focus
about her. The engine began making a strange noise. She
pulled over to the side of the road just in time before
the car went dead. Screen Scully tried to restart it,
without success.

Screen Scully got out of the car and locked it. She
didn't try using her cell phone to summon help or a taxi.
She simply started walking. Mulder stared in disbelief.
He knew she was a tough FBI agent trained in self-
defense, but . . . .

Plus she was walking as if in a daze, oblivious to any
possible dangers. After about ten minutes she started
limping, but it took several blocks before the pain
finally seemed to register in her mind. Scully merely
stepped out of her shoes, scooped them up, and kept going
in her stocking feet.

"A logical woman acting in an extremely illogical way,"
the old man said. "Gee, I wonder why?"

Finally she arrived at her destination. Mulder recognized
it as Maggie Scully's house even before the door was
opened.

Maggie stood there in her bathrobe, waking up rapidly at
the sight before her. "Dana, wh -"

"Hi, Mom."

"What did you do with your shoes?"

"They, uh, they started to give me blisters, so . . . ."

"You walked here at this time of night?"

Scully began crying. "Oh, Mom . . . ." She stepped into
her mother's embrace, still unconsciously clutching her
shoes in one hand.

"What is it, Dana?"

"I've made a terrible mistake. Dad would be so ashamed of
me." It took her several attempts before she could say to
her mother, "It's Mulder. He's dead." The shoes fell from
her hand.

Then she broke down, even more completely than the time
in his own arms after she had been rescued from Pfaster.
Her mother managed to get her inside, into the living
room. Mulder saw it took a while for Maggie to be able to
find out from her daughter just what had happened. Or at
least a censored version. Scully blamed herself for
letting Mulder go off into the desert in his weakened
condition. And sending him off to find answers for her as
much as for him. She had gone against the orders of her
superiors and this was the result.

Maggie was compassionate, but also clearly stunned
herself. Melissa came in. Upon hearing the news of
Mulder's death she didn't believe it. Or that Dana did
either, deep down.

"No, I do believe that," Screen Scully replied.

"I'm getting very strong feelings otherwise."

"I wish it weren't true."

"No, no, honey, it's more than that. You're radiating,
Dana. You have a connection with him that is still strong
and powerful."

This 'new age waffle' did not go down well with Screen
Scully.

Poor Melissa, Mulder thought, even as his mind reeled at
what he was seeing. The bond between his partner and
himself was so strong that her sister was able to see it
where the grieving and in-denial Dana couldn't. But
Melissa hadn't been able to see that her own death was
very close by.

Mulder looked over at Scully in her cell. She was on the
verge of tears. "Stop it!" he called to the old couple.
"You're hurting her!"

In answer they just gave him another 'slide show'.

He saw an image of himself come to Scully in a dream,
telling her he had 'returned from the dead to continue
with you'. And then he saw how that visitation was enough
to give her hope where Melissa could not. Enough for
Scully to introduce herself to Tena Mulder at Bill
Mulder's funeral, and actually go out on a limb in
telling her that her son would be found alive.

Mulder turned to his partner and said, "So that's how you
knew I'd be okay . . . . I don't remember 'dropping in'
on you though." Or did he? Somehow, when he thought hard
about it, it did seem familiar.

Scully was now up close to the barrier wall between them.
She touched her cross and finally admitted to him, "When
I thought I'd lost you, I just couldn't bear wearing it."

"We have some progress," the old woman said with a degree
of admiration in her voice.

"Too little too late," the old man muttered. Before
either of their prisoners could comment, he said, "Okay,
the next example is from your first case with a certain
Robert Patrick Modell. For all the bad pushing he did, he
did also nearly push you two together, even if
inadvertently. I know you both remember the moment in the
SWAT van where Mulder decides to go into the hospital
alone to search for Pusher. How Scully couldn't manage to
hide her concern."

"And that beautiful handhold - in front of the SWAT
Lieutenant, no less! Capped by an even more beautiful one
later on beside Pusher's hospital bed. Both initiated by
Scully. Brava!" the old woman cheered.

They showed Mulder what he hadn't been party to in-
between those two handholdings: Scully and the SWAT
Lieutenant in the van watching his foray into the
hospital on the monitor. Gunshots going off. Screen
Mulder raced right towards the source of the sound, and
the frenetic activity caused the link to be lost
temporarily. In that time, Scully was out of her headset
and heading for the doors of the van, only to yank
herself back when the link returned.

The worry and fear on Screen Scully's face again
surprised him. But it was nothing compared to the moment
shown next: Scully seeing on the monitor that Pusher was
holding a gun point-blank to Mulder's face.

"Mulder!" Pusher yanked the headset off her partner and
this time the link was really lost, and possibly Mulder's
life as well. "God!" Screen Scully ripped off her headset
and rushed out so fast it was a wonder she didn't just
burst through the van doors without opening them.

The screen shut down again.

The old woman eyed Mulder speculatively. "How far would
she go for you? Well, we know she came back from the dead
for you, which is a biggie. And she went into the 'lion's
den' to try to save you from Pusher, despite the risks.
She's even been held in contempt of Congress for you,
which led her to end up in jail."

When he was in Tunguska. They played a memory of a
senator demanding Scully reveal her partner's
whereabouts. How she had refused.

"I believe that answering that question could endanger
Agent Mulder's life."

"You don't seem to understand. Your response is not
optional. You are an agent of the FBI."

She remained resolute. And got put in prison. Skinner
visited her there.

"These are congressmen we're talking about, Agent
Scully."

"I know that, sir. And it is my natural inclination to
believe that they are acting in the best interest of the
truth . . . but I am not inclined to follow my own
judgement in this case."

"You're going to follow Agent Mulder's? Is that it?"

One look at her face and Skinner and Mulder knew that was
exactly what she was doing.

The screen froze and the old man narrated, "Mulder came
back from Tunguska and you both went to Terma to try to
track down the Mars rock. You split up: Scully going to
the refinery, Mulder going to examine the truck. Now, the
helicopter is able to drop Scully off inside the refinery
on a landing pad before it leaves, but she still has to
climb one inner fence to get to the buildings." He smiled
at Scully. "I guess you'd forgotten your lockpick. But
the fence was small, so probably just as quick to climb
it. Observe on the screen. Nice style."

"All this just to watch me climb a fence? Good thing I
had a pantsuit on!" Scully told him caustically.

"All will become clear soon."

"That will be a first!" she muttered, and saw both Mulder
and the old man grin in spite of themselves.

The old woman said, "All right - so Mulder finds the
truck a distance from the refinery, but near an oil well.
He sees a pipe next to the truck and, hunting around,
sees the rock jammed in the pipe. He tries to reach it,
but oil gushes from the well, and then the bomb goes off
in the truck. A normal day for you, really."

The old man took over the telling as the images kept
playing. "But when the explosion goes off, Scully can see
and hear it from the refinery. See? Look at the
expression on her face. But the Russian assassin uses her
distraction to come up and take her gun."

Mulder knew about the encounter from the report Scully
had made at the end of the case, but he still watched in
alarm as the aged but sprightly assassin snuck up and put
a choke-hold around Screen Scully's neck with one hand
while grabbing her gun with the other.

The assassin pointed the weapon at her head. "I would
just as soon kill you, but please, don't make me. My work
is done. Sur Posidive." He released her and backed away,
with the gun still trained on her, until he could quickly
leave.

The old woman said to Mulder, "Her life was in danger but
her fear about that was nothing compared to the fact that
you might be dead."

"Do you see a pattern emerging here?" The old man asked
mockingly. "Look, see Scully run. Saving you is the
reason why she's never fallen over in those heels. She
can't afford to. And here's the fence again. Remember how
she got over it last time? Well, look at her go now -
it's between her and you, and for all she knows, you
could be dead. Then there's the much taller outer fence,
but it is no problem either. Fortunately it wasn't
electrified though! Observe - she's moving so fast she'd
win gold if fence climbing was an Olympic sport!"

Indeed, Screen Scully scaled it in a jaw-droppingly short
amount of time, spurred by adrenaline and the fear she
might be too late.

The old woman said, "Now we go to the case of the bowling
alley ghosts, where Scully kept to herself the fact she
had seen an apparition."

Both Mulder and Scully flinched when she said that,
before anything even appeared on the screen. An image of
Scully talking to counselor Karen Kosseff materialized.

"You've kept working?" Kosseff asked her.

"Yes. It's been important to me."

"Why?"

Screen Scully was surprised by the question and took her
time answering. "Why? Um . . . Agent Mulder has been
concerned. He's been supportive through this time."

"Do you feel that you owe it to him to continue working?"

"No," came the quick response. Then there was a pause. "I
guess I never realized how much I rely on him before this
. . . his passion . . . . He's been a great source of
strength that I've drawn on."

Mulder stared at Screen Scully's epiphany. He wished he'd
known that at the time - during those dark days he had
felt useless, guilty and a failure for not finding a
cure. Scully had marched through her cancer, determinedly
managing to keep things as normal as possible, by virtue
of her own remarkable strength, or so he had thought.

"What happened last night, Dana?" Kosseff asked.

Screen Scully was struggling to articulate her feelings,
and fighting not to show how rattled and upset she was.
"I saw something. I, I don't know what to trust. If I saw
it because of the stress, because the image had been
suggested to me or if it was a suggestion of my own
fears."

"Your fear of failing him?"

She took a deep breath, then let it out. "Maybe."

Before the two agents could say or do anything about what
they had seen, the old woman said to Mulder, "That case
showed her how upset you were when she kept something
from you, but then she did it again very soon after. Many
of the same reasons and fears apply. When you wanted to
go to Canada to see the supposed alien in the ice, Scully
refused to go with you. Here's why. She's addressing the
sub committee about your 'suicide'."

"What I couldn't tell Agent Mulder, what I had only
learned myself, was that the cancer which had been
diagnosed in me several months earlier had metastasized.
And the doctors told me, short of a miracle, it would
continue to aggressively invade my body, advancing faster
each day toward the inevitable."

Mulder closed his eyes. Across in her own cell, Scully
swallowed.

The old man said, "When Scully was on her deathbed with
the cancer and you were going to face the hearing about
the shooting in your apartment, she asked to see her old
priest. Her mother thought it was to discuss her faith
with him and pray for a miracle. In a way she was right."

A hospital room appeared. Screen Scully said to Father
McCue, "Thank you for coming, Father. There are a lot of
things I want to discuss with you, to tell you, but first
I would like you to pray with me please. For my partner.
That he will be all right."

They did so, Screen Scully with tears streaming down her
face.

That shook Mulder, though not so much in surprise that
Scully would be selflessly praying for him instead of for
herself. Instead, seeing it happen and remembering
everything which had gone on at that stage brought a lot
of repressed pain and angst close to the surface, and he
nearly missed the old man's next words.

"And now we go to your little detour on the way to the
team-building conference in Florida," the old man said.

A forest. Screen Scully was sitting against a log,
holding an injured, sleeping Mulder. It was well into the
night, but Mulder could see she was alert, listening to
every sound the forest was making, ready in case the
mothmen visited. However, every so often she would drop
her gaze to Mulder's face and her expression would
change.

She ran a hand through his hair. She would keep him safe.
Not just because he was her partner and an injured man
under her care as a patient, but because he was the man
she loved.

He moved in his sleep, and winced, moaning. "It's okay,"
she soothed, rocking him gently. "I'm here, it's okay."
And she bent down and kissed him on the forehead, then
sang softly, half under her breath.

"No wonder the mothmen didn't attack that night," the old
woman said. "They were out there. But even they could
tell that some things are not to be messed with."

"And it was the same when you passed out on the ice in
Antarctica. She practically held the cold at bay there,"
came from the old man. "Now there are many, many more
instances we could show you from over the years, but we
will end with this next one, from Kroner, Kansas. Scully
having a little woman to woman talk in the ladies room
with Sheila at the high school reunion."

"Not even a kiss?" Sheila was saying in disbelief to
Screen Scully, who just shook her head. "Trust me, the
man knows how to kiss. I just never thought of Holman
that way, you know. He's my closest friend. And to not
even suspect . . ."

Screen Scully replied, "Well, it seems to me that the
best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently
the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day
you look at the person and you see something more than
you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked
somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is . . .
suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself
with." There was a wistful tone in her voice.

"Personal experience talking!" the old woman said to
Scully. "Too bad you didn't act on it."

Scully was feeling very rattled by the visitations of so
many of her past memories, especially since most of them
were so emotion-charged. This was the strangest, most off-
the-wall dream she'd ever had. She couldn't help snapping
defensively at her older 'self', "It took me long enough
to admit that my switch had been flicked. But knowing if
Mulder felt the same way was, and is, a whole other ball
game. You should know that!"

"Oh please!" the old man said with a groan. "You *do*
know how he feels."

"Well, let's see examples of his love for you, shall we?"
the old woman told Scully, as Mulder stared at his
partner. "Just to make sure there is no doubt."

Mulder wished there was a chair handy because he felt
like sitting down. Scully had just admitted her feelings
for him. He had thought she did love him, but until now
she had not actually said as much. But was this just a
dream or . . . .

And now what were they going to show in regard to his
feelings?

The old man said, "The period of Scully's abduction was
choc-a-block with proof of his love. Roll tape."

Scully watched Screen Mulder get out of his car out the
front of her old apartment. He had to get past yellow
police tape and a lot of people, including policemen. She
swallowed, both out of her own memories and of the look
on her partner's face. As Mulder approached her damaged
apartment, she got glimpses into his mind, seeing him
reconstructing how Duane Barry had broken in. This
continued inside, with her blood marking the coffee table
and wall. She could feel his panic, how he was mentally
trying to hold it down with one hand while letting his
profiler mind work, knowing it was the only way to find
her.

His eyes were horribly haunted and guilty.

She saw how he didn't sleep, didn't even try, while he
was trying to deduce where Barry had taken her. How he
worked out what 'ascending to the stars' meant, and took
off for Skyland Mountain with Agent Krycek.

Screen Mulder was driving along Route 211 when his tired
body started to shut down. She saw him struggle to keep
his eyes open, but it was too much. The car began to
drift over to the other side of the road, where a Mack
truck was coming along fast. She opened her mouth, about
to yell: "Noo!"

Fortunately Krycek realized and his alarmed yell woke
Mulder. They got out of the way in time.

Scully found herself gasping with relief, her heart
racing. If she'd awoken from her coma only to be told
Mulder had died, and worse, in trying to find her . . . .
But then again, without Mulder she probably wouldn't have
woken up in the first place. "I had the strength of your
beliefs."

Screen Mulder was talking to Screen Krycek. "Look, I know
you think we should have told Skinner but if he sends in
the whole cavalry, Duane Barry might go over the edge."

"You're right."

"If we find him first, we'll notify the Bureau. All
right?"

Across from her in his cell, Mulder winced. "What a wrong
call that was," he muttered bitterly.

Scully sent him a look she hoped conveyed to him that she
understood. She wanted to say more, but the images were
still coming and she was compelled to watch.

Screen Mulder and Krycek talked to the tram operator at
Skyland Mountain, showing him a picture of Barry. Yes,
the tram operator had seen him, but the tram was shut
down so he was told to take the back way up the mountain
in his car.

Krycek asked, "How long ago?"

"About forty-five minutes."

"Did he have a woman with him?" came from Mulder.

"No."

"How long does it take to drive to the top?" Krycek
queried.

"Little over an hour."

Screen Mulder said to the tram operator, "You gotta get
me up there."

"No, no way. We just got done refitting the cable. It
hasn't been tested with passengers yet. You'll have to
drive."

"I don't have the time."

"You don't have a choice."

"No." Mulder revealed his gun and unhooked the holster.
"You don't have a choice."

In short order, they were ready. The tram operator said,
"Okay, I can't stop you from going up there but if
there's a problem with the cable, I'm shutting this down.
I'm not going to be responsible for your death."

I would have been the one responsible, Scully thought,
her eyes fixed to the screen. Screen Mulder headed for
the tram car, giving one glance up at the top of the
mountain. His gaze even in that one second was so single-
minded and determined it burned its way indelibly into
her memory.

END PART THREE OF FIVE

xXx

She watched Screen Mulder get into the tram car and tell
Krycek, "Stay here and whatever happens, don't let him
stop the tram."

Scully heard the old woman say, "Despite the tram
operator's warning not to crank the tram speed faster
than fifteen, look at that. Mulder sent it up to twenty-
six."

"Slow it down," the tram operator told him over the
radio.

"You're breaking up," Mulder lied.

"Slow down or the cables'll jump when you hit that
tower!"

The old woman continued her narration over the action.
"Fortunately Mulder had enough sense to obey that
instruction. However, Krycek didn't have enough sense -
he was still obeying instructions from the Cigarette
Smoking Man. So he killed the tram operator and stopped
the tram in mid-air."

Screen Mulder gave up trying to raise a response on the
transmitter. He looked out the window. The tram was 'dead
in the water', or rather the air, but it wasn't far from
the top of the mountain. To Scully's amazement, instead
of sitting tight, Mulder pulled a ladder down from the
ceiling and climbed onto the top of the tram. And as the
sun rapidly set, he kept climbing up towards the cabling.

Now Scully really was gaping at the lengths he was going
to. She knew this was for her, not simply because he was
stuck in the tram car. Was he planning on swinging along
the cable lines like Tarzan?

The tram restarted, the motion nearly throwing Mulder
off. Even though he managed to hold on to the side, he
still had to scramble back up onto the roof to avoid
getting squashed by the next tower the tram car passed.

Images. Screen Mulder reached the top of the mountain and
found the abandoned car. Blood on the steering wheel.
Bloody rope and her necklace in the trunk. Horror was in
his eyes and heart. A giant light came from over the
hill, blotting out everything, then he found Barry. No
sign of Scully.

"Where is she?" Screen Mulder demanded.

The old man's voice heralded a change of scenes on the
screen. "A few hours later, at the Skyland Lodge, while
the cavalry searched the mountain for Scully, Mulder was
left alone with Barry for a few minutes in a room."

Screen Mulder had seen Barry's hospital ID band, with
blood and some red hairs on it. "Did you hurt her?"

She saw Mulder's eyes fill with a murderous rage and he
started to strangle Barry, before hauling himself back
from the edge in the nick of time.

How Mulder had gone back to Skyland Mountain a few nights
later, alone at the top. Just staring up bereft at the
stars.

Scully was so distracted by Screen Mulder's pain that she
almost missed the old woman's voice saying, "A few months
later, just before you were found . . . . "

Mulder and her mother. They were waiting somewhere.
Screen Mulder looked pale and exhausted. He was insisting
to her mother it was too soon. A man carried something to
the counter. Mulder took a very brief look, and turned
away. A gravestone. 'Dana Katherine Scully'.

Her mother had ordered her gravestone . . . .

The screen changed before Scully could even register the
shock. She saw Screen Mulder hurrying through the halls
at Georgetown Hospital, before breaking into a jog. He
ended up running to Screen Scully's bedside. A Scully who
was literally covered - engulfed - with medical
equipment.

"Who brought her here? How did she get here?" He was
shouting at the staff, demanding answers. Just like how
Mulder had been amazed at Scully On a Mission on the
screen, Scully was now experiencing the same thing. Her
mother and sister had told her some of what had happened,
but their words didn't even begin to cover it.

Screen Mulder was nearly taking the nurses station to
pieces in trying to find Scully's paperwork, before
security guards seized him and tried to drag him away. He
resisted grimly. Even while being dragged out, he was
yelling, "Listen, if you're hiding anything, I swear, I
will do anything, whatever it takes, I will find out what
they did to her!"

The old man said to Scully, "All right, so not only did
he nearly get creamed by a truck in pursuit of his lady
love, and almost plummet to his death from a tram car, he
also got shot at while chasing a man who stole your blood
sample from the hospital, then got beaten up by said man.
Plus, he wasn't able to prevent your living will from
being enforced by your mother and sister. Observe."

Melissa was saying, "I love her. This is right."

Maggie said to Screen Mulder, "Dana has made our
decision. Fox . . . you and Dana had a friendship built
on respect. Now, in the last year . . . I have lost my
husband. And God knows I don't want to lose my baby girl.
But like you, I have always respected her."

Scully watched her mother walk to the door and turn back.

"Fox . . . this is a moment for the family. But you can
join us if you want."

Screen Mulder shook his head, powerless to stop them.
Margaret, Melissa and Doctor Daly walked out. There was a
pause, then Mulder nearly punched the wall, before
pulling back at the last second.

Scully blinked. Even Melissa with her intuition had not
picked up that this was not the end.

A brief snippet of a scene came up: Mulder and Melissa
sitting in what Scully knew to be Georgetown Hospital's
cafeteria from her own frequent times there.

Her sister said, "You know, Fox . . . sorry, Mulder . . .
you could spend the rest of your life finding every
person who's responsible and it's still not going to
bring her back. Whoever did this to her has an equal
horror coming to them."

"Including myself?" he asked bluntly.

Scully saw Screen Mulder confront the Cigarette Smoking
Man, again with incredibly murderous rage in his eyes as
he held a gun to the man's head.

Then the screen changed to a completely defeated and
despondent Mulder who was printing out a page in the
basement. Scully read what it said and its contents were
enough to momentarily tear her eyes away from the screen
at last, to turn to Mulder in his cell next to her.

"You resigned?"

Before he could respond, if he was even going to, she
heard Screen Mulder say, "All the forensics, the field
investigations, the eyewitness accounts . . . to still
know nothing. To lose myself . . . and Scully. I hate
what I've become."

How X set up retribution - the chance to kill the men who
had taken her. But how Melissa had confronted Mulder and
pulled him back from his dark path.

The hospital. Screen Scully was still in the coma. Scully
saw Screen Mulder walk slowly up to her bed and sit down
in a chair. There was a long pause as he stared at her,
and at last he covered her motionless hand with his own.

"I feel, Scully . . . that you believe . . . you're not
ready to go. And you've always had the strength of your
beliefs. I don't know if my being here . . . will help
bring you back. But I'm here."

"I know you were," she whispered to the image.

She saw Screen Mulder walk into his apartment the next
morning - it had been totally ransacked. He halted in the
doorway of his living room, then slumped against the
frame. She couldn't see his face, but she didn't have to
as he slumped down to squat on the floor. She could hear
him crying.

When the screen went blank, the old man said, "And if
that wasn't powerful enough, do not forget how in the
same year he traded who he thought was his own sister for
you in a hostage situation."

The old woman continued presenting their evidence to
Scully, though she was still reeling from the last
images. "And now we visit the case in the third year of
your partnership when signals in peoples' televisions
were causing strange acts of paranoia and hallucination.
You were affected by the signals and thought your own
partner was in league with the Cigarette Smoking Man. You
fled, and Mulder couldn't find you. We drop in for a
visit when the Lone Gunmen had worked out the cause
behind the paranoia."

The Lone Gunmen's office. The guys were clustered around
one of the devices which had been causing the strange
signals, studying it. Screen Mulder's phone started to
ring and he answered it in the background while the
Gunmen were busy debating.

"But why design a color-dependent signal?" Langly asked.

"Why not?" Frohike countered. "Red-green color blind
affects only a small percentage of the male population."

"Which still leaves the vast majority of the American
public vulnerable to its effects," Byers said.

Unbeknown to the Gunmen, Mulder's serious look had frozen
on his face as he listened to the caller. "I'll be right
there," he said into his phone, before hanging up and
heading for the door.

Frohike asked, "What happened?"

"Maryland State Police. They think they've found Scully."
Mulder was talking rapidly, in almost a monotone.

Just before he opened the door, Frohike asked, "Is she
okay?"

Mulder paused for a moment, his expression fearful and
stunned, not looking at his friends. "No, um... they
think maybe I should come down and I.D. the body." He was
out the door before he finished the sentence, as though
he couldn't bear to be in the same room as it. The
possibility of it.

The screen showed Mulder pulling up in a parking lot and
stopping his car. He bowed his head, fists clenched,
before slowly getting out. He was heading towards the
coroner's office when a car came to a halt in front of
him. A man told him to get in the car, that the evidence
in this case was being destroyed, but Screen Mulder had
Scully on his mind and refused, only to be told, "You're
wasting time. While you're chasing your partner, they're
destroying the evidence."

Mulder ended up kicking the car door and resuming his
journey towards the coroner's office. He found the
coroner, who was standing next to the closed blinds of a
morgue viewing room.

"State highway patrolman found the body off a rural
highway at 2:00 P.M. Nude, shot in the forehead."

Screen Mulder closed his eyes in pain. But he ended up
opened the blinds himself and took a long look at the
body.

"It's not her." He looked like he was about to pass out
from the relief and stress.

The old man said to Scully, "You would recall that during
your cancer Mulder hared off to Rhode Island for some
radical experimental memory recovery. You thought it was
just to do with his quest for Samantha, to uncover what
happened to her, but it was also because he was hoping to
find information he could use to help you with. Something
on the Cigarette Smoking Man or the Consortium, which he
could bargain for your cure." The old man paused briefly,
"Then you both faked Mulder's suicide - though believe
me, Dana, when I tell you it was pretty close to being
the real deal for a while there."

She stared at Mulder. "How close?" she asked him. Her
partner didn't reply. She turned to the old man. "Show me
how close."

"No!" Mulder told his older self emphatically.

"We've shown so many of Scully's secrets - equal
opportunity must be given," the old man said. He turned
to Scully. "This is a few hours after you told him 'they
gave me this disease to make you believe'."

They showed Mulder alone in his apartment, holding his
gun and crying. Scully was soon crying too. "If
Kritschgau hadn't phoned when he did, would you -" she
started to ask her shaken-looking partner.

"No more time for second guesses or what if's!" the old
man declared. "That's the whole point of this."

The old woman said, "So Mulder was 'dead' and while
searching for your cure he saw many things in the bowels
of government agencies which shattered his faith in the
paranormal. But instead of using his 'death' to his full
advantage, he blew his cover when he turned up at the
hospital you were taken to after your collapse in the FBI
building."

Mulder was walking down a hospital hallway, with the same
scared, determined look on his face as the time he first
saw Scully in Georgetown Hospital in her coma. He
confronted every nurse in his path, trying to find out
where his partner was, and getting progressively louder
and frustrated at the lack of immediate help.

When he finally got the answer, he found Skinner and two
male agents in his way.

"Where you going?" his boss demanded.

"ICU."

"You're looking pretty good for a dead man," Skinner
remarked.

"I'm only half dead."

"You have a lot to answer for, Agent Mulder!"

Screen Mulder ignored him and headed for ICU. Scully
stared at the screen, but movement caught the corner of
her eye and she looked over at her partner in his cell.
He had turned away from the scene, unable to face it even
now.

His screen counterpart was having the same trouble. Upon
laying eyes on his partner, the sight of her lying
unconscious in bed, breathing with the aid of a
respirator, was enough to make him stop his headlong
rush. He stared and bent at the waist, grabbing his knees
as if he'd just received a physical blow.

"What happened to her?" he asked Skinner.

"She went into hypovolemic shock."

"Due to what?" When he got no answer, he tried again more
forcefully, "Due to what?"

"She's dying! Let's go." Skinner took Screen Mulder's
arm, only to have Mulder shove his hand off.

"Let go of me."

There was a struggle. "There's nothing you can do,"
Skinner told him. Mulder punched at his chest.

Once again Screen Mulder was dragged away while staring
back at Scully's motionless form.

The image disappeared and she looked across at Mulder in
his cell. His eyes were wet, his voice hoarse as he said,
"The bastard didn't even let me reach you. He took me
away from you, when that could have been your deathbed.
The last time I ever saw you. I hated him for that."

But he had still instinctively known Skinner was not the
mole inside the Bureau. Scully went to speak, but once
again the old woman cut in. "And soon after that, the
Cigarette Smoking Man brought a woman to Mulder, claiming
she was his sister and the Cigarette Smoker's daughter,
as your partner later told you, then offered Mulder a
deal - to come and work for him."

On screen, their arch enemy said to Mulder, "I intend to
keep my promises, I just need something from you."

"You murdered my father, you killed Scully's sister, and
if Scully dies, I will kill you. I don't care whose
father you are, I will put you down," was the emphatic
reply.

"Then, that night," the old man said, and the image
changed again, to a hospital room.

It was very late. Scully watched Screen Mulder standing
by her bedside. He touched her hair, then took her hand.
She slept on, sedated, while he collapsed crying at her
side. How could she have remained oblivious and
unconscious through that, Scully wondered. Even though
she was drugged, his pain was so encompassing it should
have shaken her awake.

Then came Mulder's run-ins with her older brother. In one
Bill called Mulder a sorry son of a bitch and Mulder took
it, because that's what he believed he was too.

Then she saw her partner and her boss in a hospital
corridor.

Screen Mulder smiled at Skinner, then said, "Scully's
cancer's gone into remission."

"That's unbelievable news."

"It's the best news I could have ever heard."

"What turned it around?" Skinner asked.

"I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know," Mulder
replied.

"Can I see her?"

"Yeah, she's in there with her family right now, but I'm
sure she'd love to see you."

Scully stared at the screen. Then she turned to Mulder
and said quietly, "You were the one I would have loved to
have seen then. But you didn't come in. I was waiting for
you. I know my family was there, but even when they left,
you didn't come in."

Then she saw the reason why: Screen Mulder started crying
outside her hospital room, clutching a photo of himself
and Samantha, while Scully was inside with her family and
Skinner and the priest. It nearly made her break down
too. Then Screen Mulder pulled himself together enough to
leave the hospital, though he was still very much a
wreck.

The old man gave his two cents worth. "Just like when you
woke up from your coma, Mulder was the one you wanted
there beside you. But a few years in-between these events
and still the same result. A huge life-threatening crisis
miraculously resolved, and the two of you go bury your
heads in the sand again. Nice to see you'd learned your
lessons!"

More scenes and images appeared.

Scully saw just what Mulder went through to rescue her
after she was stung by the bee, from sneaking out of the
hospital to a truly mammoth trek through the bowels of a
spaceship.

What he had done for her was even more staggering than
the fact that there was a spaceship . . . .

"Trust me," said the old man. "Guilt was *not* the main
reason why he went through all that. Or the reason he
survived it."

"He should NOT have made it," the old woman said. "It
should not have been possible."

The old man added, "You've gone to Alaska and Puerto Rico
for him, and he's gone to Antarctica for you." His
exasperated eyes drilled into both agents. "Do the two of
you not realize that indicates something mighty special
between you? These aren't just jaunts to the corner store
for some milk or a few hours on a plane!" he scolded the
two agents.

Scully saw Screen Mulder kissing her 'double' on the
ocean liner in the Bermuda Triangle. Really kissing her.
Scully gaped at the screen.

"And let's round out again with Holman and Sheila!" the
old man said.

Weatherman Holman was talking to Mulder as they walked
through the television studio. "I've been envious of men
like you my whole life. Based on your physical bearing,
I'd assumed you were. . . more experienced. I mean . . .
you spend every day with Agent Scully. A beautiful,
enchanting woman. And you two never, uh . . . ?" Mulder
did not respond. In fact, he looked a little defensive.
Holman continued, "I . . . confess I find that shocking.
I . . . I've seen how you two *gaze* at one another."

There was a long pause. Then Mulder put an arm around
Holman's shoulders and guided him towards Sheila's
office.

"This is about you, Holman. I'm here to help you. I'm
perfectly happy with my friendship with Agent Scully."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" the old man yelled.

"Will you give it a rest already!" Mulder bellowed back
from his cell.

The old man gave him a smirk and said in a voice dripping
with irony, "I get so few pleasures in life."

Holman said, "So according to your theory I walk in
there, tell her I love her and the drought will end?"

Screen Mulder straightened Holman's tie. "Just tell her
how you feel."

The old woman interjected, "And I notice you're really
into taking your own advice. Oh, okay, you did try it
when you were rescued from the Devil's Triangle."

As Holman moved towards Sheila's office, Mulder said
firmly, "And Holman. I do not gaze at Scully."

The old man said, "No, of course not. You just look at
her like she's the only woman in existence. That's all."

The screen vanished.

"That's it," the old woman said briskly. "Your guilt in
this matter is clear. Prepare to die so we may live."

"Hold it!" Mulder yelled. "We didn't know all this
before!" he protested, waving his hand at where the
screen had been located.

The old man rolled his eyes. "Listen, buddy, these may
have been some of the times that you were unaware of, but
there are all those times you *were aware*, ample
evidence, and you still did nothing! Did the two of you
ever broach the subject of the near-kiss again? No. Even
in the case before the car accident, you may not have had
any arguments, for example, but you were just drifting
along doing nothing in regard to each other, squandering
your gift instead, ignoring all the chances and miracles
that allowed you to still be there - to be together."

The old woman said, "Look, even if you didn't realize
until now - an argument which is not going to wash, by
the way - this next argument is the most damning of
all..."

The screen reappeared and played a montage of scenes,
mostly in hospital rooms, but a good deal from the
repeated Monday as well. The injuries varied, but the
serious condition of one partner and the heartfelt prayer
of the other did not change.

"Please God, bring him/her back to me. Let him/her be all
right. I promise this time I won't waste this chance.
I'll tell him/her how I feel. I can't live without
him/her."

Over and over.

Mulder and Scully stood quiet, watching the scenes,
watching the anguish on the face of their onscreen
partner.

So many times they had made a vow. So many times they had
broken it.

As the old woman had said, it was a pretty damning
argument.

END PART FOUR OF FIVE

xXx

The old woman addressed Scully again. "You get worried that he
doesn't feel the same way you do or that his quest will always
take first place, so you withdraw. That leads him to believe you
don't reciprocate his feelings and that you deserve better than
him anyway, so he retreats. Or you get hurt or abducted and his
guilt causes the same thing to happen. We could spend years
analyzing and discussing this relationship."

"I feel so much for him that it scares me," Scully admitted
quietly.

"A large love seems to have larger fears and larger obstacles,"
the old man replied, not unkindly.

The partners looked at each other through the wall. "Mulder, this
is probably just a dream."

"Scully, can we afford to take that chance?" he asked her
intently, and watched his partner hesitate. "And even if it IS a
dream, it's giving us a message we can't keep ignoring."

She looked at Mulder, then at the purple-eyed old man and woman.
She thought about everything revealed on the screen. Somehow, as
fantastical as this whole courtroom was, it was all ringing so
true. Especially the memories shown she had not already been aware
of.

Scully turned back to the old man and old woman. "We've learned
our lesson. Please let us survive this explosion so we can act on
it."

"No more second chances," the old woman said firmly.

"Make this our last chance!" Mulder said. "Then if we don't follow
through on it, fine, we deserve to never get together!"

The old woman shook her head. "You'll wake up and just think this
was a dream. Or if one doesn't, the other will. Or that this was
some hallucination which aliens or the Consortium or hospital
drugs stimulated in your temporal lobe."

"We'll talk. I'll tell Scully about this, about all the things you
showed us that only she should know about, but that I do now. And
she'll realise we shared this and it was real."

"Talk?" The old man nearly spluttered the word out. "The two of
you actually *talk* about your feelings for each other? Let me go
lie down - this is too novel a concept! If one of you tries to
broach it with the other, your history shows that the other will
probably panic, react badly, retreat, be convinced it was all in
your minds, etc . . . ."

"I promise you that if you let us out of here and if we survive, I
will not give up on talking to Scully about this. About how I
feel," Mulder said with the same determination that had kept him
on his feet on his trek through Antarctica to find Scully.

The old woman did not seem moved. "A pretty promise. But that is
also a pretty strong explosion you're extremely close to on the
mortal plane."

"You've frozen time!" Mulder argued. "If you're capable of doing
that, then you must be able to also do something so we survive the
blast, or so it never happens in the first place."

The elderly couple merely exchanged dubious glances. Mulder
couldn't tell if they were doubtful about the partners' ability to
make the most of this chance, or their own abilities in regard to
beating the destructive force of the explosion.

"Let us out! Let us live!" Mulder said, a mixture of a demand and
a plea.

"That's exactly what the two of us have been trying to tell the
two of YOU for years!" the old man replied. For a moment his
frustration was replaced by regret. "You have both deprived
yourselves of so much."

While Mulder was arguing with their elderly selves, Scully watched
him, one hand pressed up against their adjoining cell wall. She
was listening to the argument, but her mind was also going over
all of the visions they had just witnessed. She loved Mulder and
could no longer deny or shy away from the fact he felt the same
way about her.

And suddenly her hand began to sink into the barrier. Through it.
Her fingertips were actually coming out the other side, in
Mulder's cell, when she suddenly registered what was happening and
instinctively jumped back. Her hand came back through into her
cell without losing any digits. Scully checked her hand and then
looked at Mulder, but he was still too distracted, the argument
getting more heated.

Feeling nervous and panicky, she touched the forcefield again. It
was solid. Unyielding.

Then she remembered the struggle that the old man and woman had
gone through in order to touch hands earlier.

"Let us out!" Mulder reiterated. "We've learned our lessons."

"No, you haven't. Not really," the old woman said like a prim
schoolmarm.

"Look, if you're both us, then surely you can see and feel that
we're determined to change."

"Yes, but the two of you don't have a great track record when it
comes to promises and best intentions."

"We're the ones trapping ourselves," Scully said in realization.

That got Mulder's attention. "Huh?"

"They aren't holding us here. We just think they are. We're the
ones trapping ourselves," she repeated.

"Scully, they ARE us!"

"Yes, and so is this place." She waved her hand around. "These
cells. All representations. This forcefield - it's our fears, our
hesitation. You and I have ourselves boxed in by them. And we're
the ones with the power to get rid of them." She indicated the old
man and old woman. "We don't have to ask them to free us. They've
been trying to make us see that we can free ourselves. Or perhaps
giving us a test to see if we could get there. Not even a minute
ago I had my hand against this wall and I was thinking about my
feelings for you. My hand started to go through the barrier. Let's
try it."

Scully held both her hands up against the forcefield, at almost
shoulder height, and looked at Mulder. She closed her eyes and
concentrated on their feelings for each other. Mulder immediately
hurried over and put his hands in the same spot as Scully had
hers, from the other side, and concentrated too.

The wall shimmered, yielding slightly, tantalisingly.

There was one more chasm to jump. Scully took the first leap. She
opened her eyes and asked Mulder to look at her. He did so. "I
love you," she told him. And once the words were said, it didn't
seem so hard or scary at all.

A beautiful smile appeared on Mulder's face, one she had only
rarely seen before. "I love you too."

Then their hands were touching. The wall was gone. Both moved
forward, embracing each other like shipwreck survivors or
newlyweds.

Eventually they looked over at their captors, who were now no
longer old. In fact their other selves were looking a little smug,
holding hands and glowing to beat the band.

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Mulder asked.

"What, and give you yet another easy second chance that you would
then disregard?" his purple-eyed double asked. "You had to EARN
this one. And you both got there in the end. Eventually."

"So you're going to let us survive the explosion?"

Scully felt Mulder's arms tighten around her protectively as he
asked that question. She was also doing the same with him.

"It's still a big ask. And there's still the chance that you two
are going to go back to your old habits anyway," Scully's soul
said. "There is after all, still the matter of the quest and the
danger, things the two of you can't seem to get around to just
live and love, regardless."

Mulder's duplicate began putting his two cent's worth in, but
Scully ignored him. Still wrapped in Mulder's embrace, she looked
up at her partner. She rested her chin against his chest for a
moment, then said with all her formidable determination and
certainty, "Again, this is up to us, not them. We're going to make
it."

xXx

Outside Frederick, Maryland
Field
Aftermath of explosion:

Joe had managed to reach the vicinity of the still-burning Ford
Taurus, albeit unsteadily. Fortunately the flames had not spread
to the grass, which was thick and green from recent rainfall.

There was no movement from the bodies as they lay together.

Joe called out, even though he knew it was hopeless.

The bottom of the man's trenchcoat had flipped up and was covering
their upper bodies and faces. Like a shroud, Joe realized with a
shudder.

He could feel the heat coming from the car as he reached the
bodies. To his surprise they weren't scorched or blackened as far
as he could see. But who knew what damage and destruction was
lying beneath the trenchcoat? He imagined lifting the coat, only
to find skin coming away with the material, peeling off a corpse.

He swallowed. Leaning over, he uncovered the man and woman . . .
to find that they were clinging together fiercely. Two pairs of
eyes blinked up at him for a second, then swiveled to each other.

Alive.

And then, amazingly, they actually managed to hold each other even
tighter. The man let loose a dazed little chuckle.

They were alive. And even more astonishingly, okay. At least, they
*looked* okay.

Joe dropped to his knees beside the pair in a mixture of relief,
shock and adrenaline-ebb. "Are you all right?" his anxious
question was lost, drowned out by the couple worriedly asking each
other the same thing.

"I'm okay - are you?" the woman replied to the man.

"Yeah. And with a grip like that, you must be fine!" the man said.

They cautiously sat up, still holding each other. Joe was relieved
and stunned to see they showed no signs of blood or pain. He also
thought they must be husband and wife, from the way they were
looking at each other. The woman and man helped each other stand,
and remained very close together, still holding hands.

All three moved a safer distance away from the car, then the woman
turned and scrutinized Joe. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry - a tire blew on my car. I tried to get out of
your way . . . ." Then Joe's amazement broke through his daze.
"You were right there when the car blew up . . . . How the hell
can you still be alive?"

"Hell didn't have anything to do with it," the woman said very
quietly.

Joe saw a long, searching look pass between them. Then the woman
dug around in one of her pockets and produced a cell phone. At the
same time a car pulled up on the side of the road, perhaps a
passerby or someone who lived nearby who had heard the explosion.
Joe wasn't sure if the noise in his ears was just ringing from
shock or the blast or was the faint sound of sirens approaching
instead. And when he heard the woman announce into the phone that
she was an FBI agent, Joe knew he'd had quite enough action for
one day. Months, even.

xXx

The scene of the accident
A little while later:

"Yes, sir," Scully said into her cell phone. "The EMTs have
checked us out and we're fine. There's no need to go to an ER.
There's not a scratch on us."

She listened for a few beats, then replied, "No, sir. We
appreciate it, but there's no need for you to come out here or
send anyone. Sheriff Breen is going to give us a ride to the
county offices. Once we give our statements and fill out the
paperwork we're going to catch a train back into D.C."

After a few more minutes she hung up. Mulder was standing right
beside her, but had not been able to hear what their boss was
saying, just surmise, so Scully told him, "Skinner insisted that
we don't have to write our case report up today. He said we can
have a little break after what happened and then come in first
thing Monday instead."

"That's good. And it helps that the case was straightforward."

"Yes, no injuries or weapons discharged, so that cuts down on the
paperwork. Too bad the trip home wasn't as straightforward."

There was a pause.

Scully found herself looking at the blackened, extinguished shell
of the car, then at her partner. Once again she was trying to
reassure herself that they were alive and not still in the strange
limbo, and to reassure herself that he was really all right.

We investigate the X-Files, and now we've both become one, she
thought. Surviving a crash and an explosion without a mark on
either of us.

"The paperwork dealing with the demise of the Bureau car is not
going to be pretty," Mulder said with a sigh. "It's anal enough
when a passenger side mirror just gets sideswiped!"

"I think Skinner is so relieved we're okay that he'll do his best
to get a lot of it done, but I'm sure we'll still be faced with a
substantial amount on Monday. At least that's not just yet,
anyway," Scully replied.

A few minutes later they were heading for two of the patrol cars.
Two deputies were taking Joe in one car, while the sheriff was
driving the agents. Other deputies were still going over the scene
of the crash.

Neither Mulder or Scully attempted to get into the front passenger
seat or offer it to the other. Instead, without a word, both got
in the back. Even in just the space of a car interior, they wanted
and needed to stick close together, in easy sight of the other.
Scully even found herself inwardly admitting that she would not be
able to handle being apart from him at the moment.

Mulder wanted to ask her about the dream, but also wanted to wait
until they were alone. So he reluctantly held his questions for
the time being as they went to the county offices.

Statements and paperwork were duly completed. Copies of the
documents were also going to be sent to Skinner so he could get
the insurance claim started on the destroyed Bureau car. Mulder
hadn't even tried to make a joke about how this was at least a
change from losing cell phones or guns.

The scene of the accident was still being investigated, but the
preliminary findings indicated that Joe had not been speeding. The
results of his blood test were still being awaited, however it did
not appear that drugs or alcohol were a factor either. The
accident appeared to be simply that, and it was likely the young
man was not going to be charged.

After thanking the local law enforcement officers and reassuring
the still apologetic Joe, the agents headed for a cab to go to the
train station. Again, without needing to say anything, they sat in
the back seat.

During the drive, Mulder and Scully held hands, both reaching out
at the same time to do so, but didn't speak for a time. Mulder
knew it would be a while before they would be alone, especially on
the commuter train, and he couldn't wait any longer to talk about
what had happened. He leaned over and quietly asked, "Scully?"

"Yes?"

"When - when the car exploded . . . . I found myself somewhere
else. Did you?"

She paused, her inherent skeptic side and emotional walls
automatically trying to do their thing. She fought them
determinedly. "Yes."

His breathing quickened. "Where?"

"A white room. With you," she admitted.

"Being judged?"

"Yes." They had shared it, Scully thought. That meant . . . . She
hesitated. "Mulder, I saw things." She gave a few examples of what
the old couple had shown her about Mulder. Her partner confirmed
they had really happened.

They stared at each other as the implications sunk in.

"We convinced them." Mulder sand back against the seat as if
boneless. "We survived without a scratch."

"My subconscious feels like it has taken a battering," Scully
replied, not quite managing to add a wry tone to her voice. She
paused. "But it was a worthwhile one."

They searched each other's eyes and faces, and didn't hide their
feelings from each other. They knew their souls were right - there
were still some issues to go over, like Mulder's quest. But they
also knew they would go over them, and that they were not going to
put their lives and feelings on hold anymore. Both were smiling
when they arrived at the train station.

xXx

The commuter train took them to Union Station in Washington and
from there the agents got a cab to Scully's place.

They reached her apartment door, and she pulled out her key while
saying, "One thing I would like to rectify is that you gave my
1939 counterpart one rather remarkable kiss, but you and I haven't
even had a proper first kiss yet."

"I'll rectify that very soon. And anything else my lady wishes."

Scully had the feeling that soon they were going to survive even
more explosions of a different kind which would also have quite a
remarkable and cosmic impact on them . . . .

Her eyes sparkled at him with a light he liked very, very much.
"Well, knowing you, you've probably got some scratches or
abrasions somewhere. So I'm going to have to examine you myself to
find them and be satisfied that you're okay."

"If you insist. I won't argue," Mulder said with a grin as they
entered her apartment.

The door closed behind them and they were cut off from the world.
For a moment awkwardness settled, despite all that had happened.

Mulder made the first move. He stepped forward and reached out to
cup Scully's cheek with his hand. She leaned into his touch, and
moved closer to him, reaching her own hand up, around the back of
his neck. He leaned down and she raised up.

Their lips met in a first kiss that was sweet, tender and
uninterrupted.

When it finished, they stayed in place, just looking at each other
and smiling. Scully's hand was still on the back of Mulder's neck,
some of her fingers in his hair, stroking gently, and his hand was
still against her cheek.

Then their love was verbally redeclared, this time on the physical
plane instead of the astral.

This time Scully moved forward first. The next kiss was longer,
bolder and hotter. It quickly became full-blown necking and hands
started to wander with intent and full permission. Eventually,
needing to catch a decent breath, they reluctantly parted lips but
not anything else, and for a moment Scully saw a purple glow in
the hazel of Mulder's eyes. With a smile, she resumed kissing and
unbuttoning him.


THE END (PART FIVE OF FIVE).

***********

"Let's face it, they are just not lusting after each other.
They've got everything going for them as partners. Do they need
more? <This is fun, ain't it? Messing with Ten's mind . . . .>"

A noromo friend back in March 2000 in a 'trio email' where I was
the lone voice of romo-dom among the three of us.

And also a big thank you to the transcript sites, which made
referring back to certain scenes a whole lot easier, especially
with adding in the dialogue where needed. Always handy in a
'memory lane' fic!