Title: again

Author: Gillian (cerulean_blue)

E-mail: blue_cerulean@hotmail.com
Feedback: graciously appreciated

Rating: gentle

Spoilers: none, just some hope for The Truth

Key words: MSR

Disclaimer: These characters and all things X-
Files are the property of CC and 1013. Story
created out of respect for that amazing gift.

Story: Short, fluff.  Scully goes down to the
basement to say good-bye to the X-Files.

Dedication: this story was inspired by Agent
Spooky's "Mulder & Scully Meet Again." Thanks!!!


Again
by Gillian


She knew both John and Monica were out in the
field.  She knew nobody would be there.  She still
had a key.  She wanted to go down to the office
and just look.  She wasn't sure why.  She just had
a feeling.  An intuition of the kind that over the
past nine years she had come to trust and believe
with the essence of her being.

Riding the elevator down, she thought of all the
times that she had stepped into the elevator with
him.  All the times that in the seconds it took to
ride from one floor to the next at the F.B.I.
headquarters something profound had happened in
her life.  A revelation.  A touch.  A frantic
conversation.  The beginning of his brain illness. 
Kissing Skinner.  Watching the door close on
Mulder.  Krycek.  Billy Miles.  Learning that
maybe she could conceive after all.

As the doors opened and she took those familiar
steps towards the office she felt conflicted and
flooded with emotion.  Nine years.  And now it was
ending.  She just wanted to go in there one more
time.  Sit, while no-one else was there and feel
it.  Feel him.  And say good-bye.

It was funny that the office looked virtually the
same as it had that first day.   John hadn't dared
to change anything.  Or wanted to.  All the images
were the same, even that god damn poster.  How
hard it had been to replace that poster after the
office had been burned beyond recognition.  But
what that space would be without it.  As her eyes
surveyed the hundreds of clippings he had pinned
up over the years, she noticed just how many
photographs of her with Mulder there were amongst
the images.  How they looked together.  As she sat
down in his chair and looked around her she
realized, that from any angle, there was in view a
picture of the two of them.

She wondered if he had done that on purpose.

And there were still pencils in the ceiling. 
Probably new pencils, but pencils nonetheless. 
She half expected to look down and find a small
pile of sunflower seed shells.  She closed her
eyes.  When suddenly she heard the elevator door
ring.  Her initial surprise that someone was here
on a Sunday was replaced by annoyance.  She had
just wanted one quiet moment here in Mulder's
space, and now it was about to be interrupted by
Doggett or Reyes.  She wanted just to be alone,
remembering the very first time she had come down
to this tiny, basement haven.

Caught in the moment she smiled, and called out
"Nobody down here but the F.B.I.'s most unwanted."

But the voice that met her was not the voice of
Doggett or Reyes, it was the earthy, caramel voice
of the love of her life.

"Agent Scully, I'm Fox Mulder.  I've been assigned
to work with you."

He stood in front of her, and extended his hand. 
As if he didn't know what else to do.  He looked
gaunt.  His hair was a bit shorter than she
remembered, and he seemed pale.  He was wearing
blue jeans and a grey t-shirt, and the black
leather jacket he had been wearing the last time
she saw him.

She stood, and took two very certain steps towards
him.  She held out her hand, and when their hands
met she first shook it firmly, and then held it
tightly between her two hands.  He felt frail.

"Oh," she smiled, feeling even more powerfully
that first conversation that had taken place in
this exact spot nine years ago, "Isn't it nice to
be suddenly so highly regarded?  So, who did you
tick off to get stuck with this detail, Mulder?"

Playing with her, but not letting go of her hand,
Mulder replied, "Actually, I'm looking forward to
working with you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh, really? I was under the impression... that
you were sent to spy on me."  With these words,
she moved into him and laid her head against his
chest.  She could hear that his heart was beating
as fast or faster than hers.

"If you have any doubt about my qualifications or
credentials, th..." he whispered into her hair.

Tears now pouring down her face, she began to
laugh.  His hands were in her hair, but he was
stroking gently as if they had never touched
before.  "You're a former Special Agent with the
X-Files.  The love of my life and the father of my
child.  And, you've been gone too long."

Mulder stepped back from her, lifting her chin
with his hand so that he could look into her eyes,
and then in a way that only he could actually pull
off, he responded with a smirk, "I think this is
where you show me some kind of slide show."

She took a deep breath that seemed to catch in her
throat.  "Mulder."

"I know, Scully," and in a voice that was now
choked with emotion, "but I'm back.  I promise.
And..." he pulled his leather jacket back to
reveal a gun in an old familiar holster, "they
have reinstated me, at least for now.  At least
until you and I have the answers that we need,
about William.  And, until he is home where he
belongs.  With us."

He reached a hand up and began to softly stroke
the side of her face.  "I stood here, that first
day so many years ago, and told you why they put
the "I" in F.B.I.  The irony is, that at that
exact moment I stopped being an "I" in the world. 
From that moment on, "we" were a "we."

She put her hands behind his head and for a moment
they stood, the very way they had years ago in the
hallway outside his apartment.  A moment when it
looked like they might actually have been going
their separate ways.  A moment whey they realized
that the intensity of their partnership was so
much more than either of them had imagined.

But this time, nothing stopped their lips from
meeting.  No bees.  No inhibitions.  No worries
about the F.B.I. and their rules.  It was the kiss
of two people who had found their perfect other,
their perfect opposite, protector and endangeror. 
Two people who had been with each other on the
greatest of journeys.   But this final truth
wasn't one that was either fugitive or
imponderable.  They had one more X-File to solve
in their partnership.  The final truth. 
Confronting who their son was so they could bring
him home.

(the end...)