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Article: 21678 of alt.tv.x-files.creative
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From: aad25@cas.org (A. Allen Driskill)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* Don't Get Used To It!
Date: 22 Jul 1996 15:56:11 GMT
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service
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Status: RO

Characters, settings, and background herein are the intellectual
property of Chris Carter, The Fox Network, Ten Thirteen Productions and
others.  They are used here without permission and without intent of
infringement.  Permission is granted to copy this document for
non-comercial entertainment purposes only.

Comments and suggestions via e-mail are always welcome.  If you like my
work, please let me know so I'll be encouraged to continue.  Debate and
discussion about anything that happens in my stories is free of charge!

All posted items are part of works in progress and are subject to further
revision, so please let me know about mistakes, confusion, typos, etc.

I hope you enjoy this!

P.S. - I'm happy to ship missing parts via e-mail; just ask!

"Don't Get Used To It"
by A. Allen Driskill

The J. Edger Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
The X-Files Office
10:45 a.m.

Mulder had been acting strangely all morning, again.  No, correct that,
thought Dana, he's been acting strangely all week, and even stranger
than usual this morning.

Across the narrow open area that separated their desks, a simple glance
was enough to know that Special Agent Fox Mulder was deeply
preoccupied.  He was sitting forward on the edge of his chair and
leaning over his desk, propped up by his elbows.  He was holding a pen,
one end in each hand, and was rolling the pen back and forth.  He gave
the impression of intently reading a message from the pen's surface, or
scrutinizing its construction.  He had been in this trance, rolling the
pen back and forth, for the better part of an hour.  At least, Dana had
been trying to ignore him for about an hour; the aberrant behavior might
have been going on even longer.

>From long experience, Dana knew that trying to get Mulder to explain his
own odd behavior was like asking a chicken why it crossed the road.
Even if you got an answer, you probably wouldn't understand, and you
never knew if you could believe it, anyway.  She sighed.  He was
probably struggling with some overload of guilt associated with one of
their cases.  It was probably some action on his part that he insisted
on seeing as failure, despite their phenomenal case closure rate.  How a
man could set such lofty standards for himself was beyond Dana's
comprehension.  He was never satisfied with their work, and Dana could
not imagine never allowing herself any feeling of closure or
satisfaction.  Mulder's work ethic would make the most rational of
people crazy, and Dana knew Mulder was far from the most rational of
people.

On the other hand, Mulder's behavior might be as trivial as a date gone
bad last weekend.  Although, come to think of it, she couldn't remember
Mulder mentioning having a date for the last several months.  Maybe that
was the problem?  In any case, she'd watched this quirky attitude all
morning, and if Mulder didn't snap out of it soon, the reports on their
last case were never going to be completed today, and she did not want
to work the weekend.

"What does it say on the side of that pen, Mulder?"

No response.

"Mulder?"

Silence.

"Mulder!"

Nothing.

Dana looked around her desk for a projectile of some sort, and finally
settled on her desktop dictionary.  Stopping to consider the situation
like a physics problem, Dana first carefully fastened the cover closed
with a rubber band.  Content that she wasn't about to damage her
dictionary, she then carefully tossed the book underhanded toward
Mulder's desk in a high arc.  Her aim was good, and she managed to land
the weighty book flat, in the only open space on Mulder's cluttered
desk.  Touchdown was punctuated by a tremendous 'SLAM!'.

Even as the satisfyingly impressive sound effect reached her ears, Dana
suddenly realized the severe consequences of her prank.  Introducing a
new foreign object onto Mulder's desktop was a risky business when done
gently.  Doing so with the violence of a Webster's College Dictionary
dropped from low orbit was positively catastrophic.  A chain reaction
formed, carrying the damage far beyond Dana's initial intent.  In horror
she watched the effects of her little joke cascade into a major
disaster.

First, Mulder threw himself back from his desk in reaction to the
initial sound.  His pen went flying in a high arc back over Mulder's
head and into the No Man's Land of X-Files cabinets, folders, and boxes
that cowered in the dark recesses of the office.  Dana realized
immediately that the pen would be unrecoverable in her lifetime, and
hoped it was one of the bureau's cheap BIC pens, and not some personal
favorite of Mulder's.

Second, a slide of paper started across her partner's desk from left to
right.  It began with a stack of X-File folders that had occupied the
corner of Mulder's desk for as long as she'd shared the office.  The
stack tipped to the right, and then collapsed from the bottom up like a
dynamited building.  One by one, the folders cascaded down and across
the desk like snow from a mountain top.  As the avalanche crossed the
desk, untold anonymous papers and folders shifted, stirred, and,
probably, mutilated themselves into a higher order of disarray.  At the
right end of the desk, a surprisingly small amount of paper slipped over
the edge and fluttered to the floor.

Third, but not least, was Mulder's personal calamity.  Dana had only
sought to gain his attention, but Mulder had lurched backwards in his
desk chair so violently that he overbalanced.  The chair tipped over
backwards and fell solidly to the floor.  Throwing his arms out wildly,
Mulder barely managed to cushion his crash enough to prevent a painful
bash on the head.  Somehow, miraculously, the agent had managed to keep
his seat and was now lying on his back atop the betraying chair, staring
upward at the ceiling.  Dana had the irreverent thought that he looked
like an astronaut in launch position.

Eyes wide and mouth agape, Dana was still frozen in her chair.  Her
first reaction was to run to her partner and check for injury, but
something made her hesitate.  Closing her mouth and lowering her
eyebrows, she decided to break with tradition and NOT play the concerned
doctor role.  For once, she decided to give Mulder a dose of his own
medicine.  Dana leaned back in her chair, and tried to adopt an
unconcerned posture.

"Mulder," she inquired in the sweetest voice she could muster, "Could I
have your attention for a moment, please?"

>From his position flat on his back behind the desk, a stunned Mulder
considered his situation.  Either aliens were testing some mild form of
explosive on top of his desk, or his partner had let some kind of joke
get way out of hand.  From the uncharacteristically sweet and innocent
tone of her voice, he had to guess the second possibility was more
likely.  His mind flashed to the time that Scully had apparently eaten a
live cricket as a joke, and wondered where she had inherited such an odd
sense of humor.  Anyway, a quick internal systems check was telling him
that he had survived this latest example of Scully humor with
extremities intact.  He decided it would be best to respond, before she
tried something even more dramatic.

Mulder replied directly from his position on the floor, without making
any motion to get up.  He tried to match her sweetness - and - light
tone with one of his own.

"Yes, Scully?"

With relief, Dana read most of what she wanted to know from the tone of
Mulder's voice; everything was O.K.  He wasn't hurt, and far from being
angry, he was in a playful mood.  Now she truly relaxed into her chair,
and let the tension drain away from her shoulder muscles.  She was on
firm ground now, because she knew how to play this Mulder Humor game.

"Mulder, would you please explain your odd behavior?" Scully tried to
mimic the tone of voice used by her high school teachers when they
caught her being inattentive.

"Odd behavior, Scully?  What odd behavior?" he asked, still laying in
his chair on the floor.  He shifted his feet slightly, to bring them to
rest in a more comfortable position, supported by the edge of the desk.
Except for the rather hard headrest, which was the floor itself, it was
not an entirely uncomfortable position, he decided.  "You mean lying
here on the floor?"

"O.K.  Mulder, that's a start.  Why are you lying on the floor?"

"I dunno, Scully.  I think there was some kind of explosion on my desk.
I'm working on the theory that it was a bomb planted by a secret
government group intent on disrupting our work.  I think I'm gonna just
lay here a while until I'm sure nothing's broken, and to be sure there's
no backup device.  Is that O.K.?"

Scully struggled to keep the laughter out of her voice.  Succeeding, but
barely, she decided to continue the joke as long as possible.

"Sure, Mulder, that's fine.  Maybe the perpetrator will return to the
scene of the crime.  If you find any bomb fragments down there, let me
know and I'll send them along to the lab.  If you die, tell me about
that, too, and I'll do the autopsy personally."

"Great!  Was there anything else you wanted to talk about, as long as
I'm down here, anyway?  Did you know there are exactly twenty-four
ceiling tiles across the width of our office?"

"Well, what I really wanted to ask about was the pen you were playing
with a minute ago.  Some new gift?  You seemed very engrossed, so I
assumed it had to be special somehow."

His pen?  Scully was definitely getting weird; probably too many years
of associating with me, thought Mulder.  He flipped back through his
eidetic memory and recalled a glimpse of his pen flying up over his head
toward the back of the room.  Probably a total loss, but no big deal: it
was just a BIC, anyway.

"No, Scully, there's nothing special about the pen.  Did you want to
borrow it?  Is that what this is all about?  Are we out of pens in this
office?"

"No, Mulder.  I wanted to know why you've been studying your particular
pen so intently for the last hour.  Does it have an implant?  Is it a
bug, perhaps?"

"I don't think so, Scully; it has no legs.  Anyway, I wasn't studying
the pen, as such, I was just, uhh, thinking.  Isn't that allowed any
more?  Must I rely completely on intuition these days?  How am I
supposed to come up with my insightful theories if I don't have a few
ready in advance?"

A typical Mulder dodge; he was working on the next case.

"Mulder, I always try to encourage you to think; it's a very useful
skill.  Thinking would have saved us both a lot of trouble in the past
if you'd practiced a little more often!  Can I ask exactly what thought
you were trying to think about when your accident occurred?  It looked
like a pretty heavy notion from over here; after all, the chair couldn't
support the two of you.  Something about our last case?"

Mulder put his hands behind his head and interlaced his fingers to form
a cradle for his head; much more comfortable, he thought.  And maybe
this is the perfect position for what I have to say; after all, she
can't knock me down if I'm already down, can she?

"Actually, Scully, I was thinking about a highly personal matter.  And
yes, it *is* a pretty heavy notion.  A life-altering idea, you might
say."

Mulder thinking personal thoughts at work, and admitting it?  Will
wonders never cease, thought Dana, or is this just another joke?

"Did you reach any conclusion Mulder, or will you have to start all over
in your deliberations now?"

Mulder reached out mentally and grappled with the subject in question
again, only this time it seemed less murky.  Maybe being dropped on my
head is a good thing, he thought.  The answers he was struggling so hard
to find a few minutes ago now seemed a lot clearer, almost obvious, in
fact.

"No, no.  I think this little accident has actually cleaned my head,
Scully.  Maybe it's the rush of blood to the brain, maybe it's a mild
concussion, but the answer to my problem seems pretty clear, all of a
sudden.  Sometimes the best solution to a problem is sitting there right
in front of you, staring you in the face."

Dana was getting mixed signals from Mulder again, and she stopped to
consider.  He was obviously in a far better mood than he had been a few
minutes ago, but maybe she ought to back off?  Although he was making
noises like he wanted to explain, he wasn't being very forthcoming with
information.  Of course, nobody had ever accused Mulder of being too
forthcoming with information.

Dana swung her chair around so that her back was to Mulder.  She tried
to adopt an air of indifference about Mulder's situation, and picked up
a file so she could pretend to start reading it.  She even reached out
for her glasses, and slipped them back on, as she leaned back in her
chair.

"I always suspected that a sharp blow to the head might do you a lot of
good, Mulder, and now you've developed supporting evidence.  Maybe we
can use that technique on our next case.  Anyway, give!  What personal
matter is so distracting that you can put away X-Files to think about
it?  Is this something you can share, or should I just butt out?" There,
she thought, now he has an 'out' if he doesn't want to tell me.

Mulder tried to grapple with his problem again, but it seemed to have
capitulated; he found himself wondering why he'd thought he'd had a
problem in the first place.  Basically, he wanted to tell Scully
something she needed to know, and he was afraid it would upset her.  And
yet, here he laid in the floor of his office, in a totally stupid and
childish situation, and she was playing along.

Mulder knew Dana had acted out of concern; he was surprised that she
hadn't taken him to the infirmary after his crash, since she usually
over-reacted to his little bumps and bruises.  Right now, she was trying
to snap him out of his brooding state.  She understood his moods so well
that she was just playing along now, giving him all the space he needed
to either talk or not.  This woman was his best friend, and his partner,
and the only person on earth that he trusted with every aspect of his
psyche, including the dark side.  So what was his problem?

His real problem, Mulder realized, was fear of the unknown.  If he
shared this problem with Scully, it might change everything.  No, it
*would* change everything.  But holding back from Scully would also
change things; things *had* changed, and she needed to know.  The
roughest times of their relationship, he knew full well, had been caused
by his attempts to protect Dana from himself.  He tried to protect her
from the danger of sharing his work, from damaging her career by
association with "Spooky" Mulder, and from the pain of getting too far
inside the torture dungeon he used for a mind.  In every instance,
Scully had shown him that she was stronger, more stable, and more
confident and capable than he; his efforts were usually unneeded and
unappreciated.

Now is not the time to repeat the sins of the past, he thought.  I've
got to tell her.  Now.

Across the room and still with her back turned, Scully silently urged
her partner to open up.  Tell me, Mulder, she thought.  What could be so
difficult?  Haven't I earned your trust yet?

"Scully, before I tell you about this, maybe you ought to join me down
here."

Dana swung back around to face Mulder, and looked down at him over the
top of her glasses.  Mulder's meaning was clear, but she knew she'd be
expected to play along with the game, or he might clam up again.  At
least, he was trying to tell her something that was difficult for him;
this was almost-new ground for Mulder.

"On the floor, Mulder?  You want me to lay down in the floor with you?
Is this some new pickup technique that Frohike has been teaching you?"

"We still think you're 'hot', Scully.  But no, it's not a pickup line.
I just thought it might save you a few bruises when you fall down.  But
if you don't want to play along, then don't say later that I didn't warn
you!" He turned his head for a moment to glance at his partner, then
looked away again.  "Could you at least brace yourself, Scully?"

"Spit it out Mulder, I'm not the fainting type.  What's so momentous?"

Mulder visibly took a deep breath.  "I've been thinking about you all
week, non-stop.  Scully, I want you to know that you're the most
valuable person on earth to me.  You're the best partner, and the best
friend, I've ever had.  I respect your abilities and admire your courage
and intelligence; you challenge me.  I hope we never loose the special
relationship we've developed these last few years.  You've become my
anchor to reality, and my inspiration to continue pursuing my insanity.
In my own way, I routinely bless whatever providence brought us
together."

Compliments from Mulder?  Dana frowned, even before Mulder finished.
This excursion into amateur psychology was suddenly making her
uncomfortable.  She had anticipated agony over his sister, plots and
conspiracies; she'd never thought he might be thinking about her!  She
considered clones, metamorphing aliens, implants, and
personality-altering drugs.  This did not sound like her partner, at
all.  She struggled to marshal a reply as he caught his breath.

"You're insane, and a 'finely reasoned insanity' it is, too, Mulder.
C'mon, what are you getting at?  This sounds like something you
memorized from a Hallmark greeting card!  We get along O.K., we work
together O.K., in our somewhat unusual fashion, and we get results for
the bureau.  So what's the point?"

Instantly, Dana regretted the sound of her own words, as she saw Mulder
flinch as if slapped.  She started to say more, to try to soften the
words, but Mulder was, for once, undaunted.

This is not going the way I intended, Mulder lamented.  She was supposed
to take a few minutes to say how wonderfully *I* am.  Well, that's
probably what she *intended* to do.

"Scully, you don't mean that.  I saw the look on your face when I awoke
in the hospital after almost dying from that virus.  Your mother told me
things she probably shouldn't about how you were acting while I was
unconscious.  And I suspect she told you a lot of things about how I was
acting while you were missing, am I right?"

Dana nodded, and rushed to reply.  "So what, Mulder?  So we're best
friends; we both know that.  So we've come to depend on each other;
partners do that!  So my Mom is a meddler; mothers do that!  So our work
leaves us no room for anyone but each other, Mulder, so we've become
dependent on each other; it happens!  So what's the big deal today?"

For no reason she could think of, Dana had to fight down the urge to
scream her words at Mulder, and the effort shocked her.  She fought to
get control of the odd emotions that were suddenly making her feel a
little irrational.  As she struggled, a small part of her watched
Mulder, and expected him to close down.  She desperately feared, and
hoped, that he'd stop pouring out this un-Mulderish emotional babble
that was trying to overwhelm her.  She felt a jolt of pain from her
hands, and looked down to see that she was clenching her hands so
tightly that her nails were digging into her palms.

Mulder's eyes were locked onto his partner at that point, and he had
resolved to speak his mind despite whatever words Dana threw out to
distract him.  He understood what she was doing; he'd been there many
times himself.

"So, Scully, I'm trying to tell you that I've been up to my old tricks.
I've been trying to protect you again, and, as usual, it's not working
out for either of us.  So I'm going to stop protecting you, and then we
can deal with it together.  Whatever it takes, I think we can handle
it.  We always do, when we work together."

Dana felt like a deer locked staring into the headlights on an oncoming
car; she couldn't break away from Mulder's gaze.  Thoughts flew through
her mind in a frenzy of insecurity.

Oh, god, she thought.  He knows how I feel, and he's going to confront
me with it.  He'll ask me to transfer away from the X-Files.  This is
the "We'll still be friend" speech.  Ohgod, ohgod.

Mulder took another deep breath.  Oh god, here it comes .  .  .

"What I'm trying to say, Scully, .  .  ."

Ohgod, ohgodohgod.

" .  .  .  is that I'm in love .  .  ."

??????!!!!!!  who?

" .  .  .  with you."

!!!!!!!!!!

As Mulder delivered his final words, he broke gazes with Scully and
looked at the ceiling.  If the reaction he was praying for wasn't there
in her eyes, he didn't want to see it just yet.  Better, he figured, to
wait and hear what she said, instead of trying to read an answer from
her face.  He fought against the urge to hold his breath, and started
consciously taking slow deep breaths as he waited.

When Mulder looked away, Dana felt a wave of dizziness wash over her.
Maybe Mulder's idea of joining him on the floor had been hadn't been as
silly as it sounded.  She was experiencing a sensation like having the
floor drop away beneath her feet.  Like in the old cartoons, she felt as
if she was running in midair and neither moving nor falling.  She felt
short of air, and was puzzled until it dawned that she was holding her
breath.  She started taking slow, deep, cleansing breaths, and waited in
silence for another shoe to drop.

The office grew dead silent.

.

.

.

After a couple of minutes, both partners were still sitting silent,
motionless, and alone with their thoughts.  Finally, cautiously, Mulder
looked away from the ceiling and toward his partner, to "test the
waters".  She was still there, and looking a little shell-shocked.  A
mood passed, and Mulder decided it was no longer dignified to be laying
in the floor behind his desk, so he rolled quietly to his feet and
righted his chair.  The simple actions steadied his thoughts, but he saw
his hands were trembling slightly.

As Mulder sat down in the righted chair, he saw that Scully's eyes were
following his movements.  Otherwise, his partner still showed no signs
of life, except for her gentle breathing.

"Scully, I'm sorry to have to dump this on you.  I know you didn't
expect to deal with this today, but, well, neither did I.  But somehow
it just started pouring out, and I couldn't .  .  ."

"Shut up, Mulder." The request came softly and tersely.

Mulder shut up.

Dana suddenly became animated, and turned back to her desk.  She grabbed
up a pen, and started imitating Mulder's earlier interest in BIC
technology.  She leaned back in her chair, then leaned forward over her
desk and planted both elbows on its surface.  A moment later, she turned
the chair backwards to the desk, and stretched her legs out before her
with her elbows on the arm rests.  Apparently this last position fit her
mood, because she continued to sit that way, twirling the pen between
her fingers, for more long minutes.

They were agonizing minutes, endless minutes; Mulder spent them being
scared.  His worst fear was that Dana would not only reject any
possibility of a deeper personal relationship, but also find their
professional relationship untenable.  In one stroke, he feared he had
lost a friend, a partner, and a lover.  When he thought in that
direction, he saw his future as an enormous, black, yawning pit of
despair.  He had a few tastes of complete despair early in his FBI
career, and he wanted no return to a haunted life of mood elevating
drugs and tranquilizers.  If Dana Scully decided to have no part of Fox
Mulder, then Mulder was determined to put as much distance between
himself and the FBI, and especially it's X-Files department, as
possible.  In any case, his life was about to change radically, good or
bad.

"Scully, shouldn't we .  .  ."

"Shut up, Mulder.  I'm trying to think."

Scully was scared, too, but only of herself.  Getting any more seriously
involved with Fox Mulder would not be an easy thing.  She'd already
given the man more devotion and commitment than she'd ever dreamed of
being capable of providing.  She understood the part she'd come to play
in his life: the skeptic, the rationalizer, the conservative.  Now he
was asking for more, and she didn't know if she had any more to give.
She had watched Mulder be hurt by women, and listened to him talk about
the pain of growing up with a father that let his son undeservedly bear
the guilt of his sister's disappearance.  She didn't want to be added to
the long list of people who had failed and hurt Fox Mulder.  She felt
Fox deserved more joy and happiness in his life, not more pain.

But there were obstacles; there were many, many obstacles.  Mulder knew
them as well as she, and she was sure that the notorious Mulder Angst
had already run rampant with each and every one.  She had seen his
turmoil at the office, she could only guess that he'd also been spending
sleepless nights and taking midnight runs across the city.  Taking this
huge step so unilaterally must have cost Mulder dearly.

Suddenly, she looked up, as if she'd only now realized how she was
acting.  She blushed, and smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry, Mulder; I'm being rude.  You deserve some kind of response.
This isn't the kind of thing that *ought* to require thought, it ought
to be enough to know how I feel."

"Then could we get that part out of the way, Scully, please, before I
die of anticipation?  How *do* you feel?  Am I off base here about my,
your, our, feelings?  Do you want to give me the 'Let's just be friends'
speech?  I've told you I love you." He grinned one of the Big Mulder
Grins that Scully had almost never seen.  "See?  I said it again!  So,
say something back to be Scully; tell me how you feel."

Mulder paused and took a breath, then looked thoughtful and cocked his
head to the side.  "Was that over the top, Scully?  Today I can't tell."

Scully's blush got deeper, even as she laughed at Mulder's boyish
humor.  Dana sought Mulder's eyes with her own, found them, and held
them captive as she spoke.

"I love you too, Mulder .  .  ."

Mulder's face split into a smile, and the slump disappeared from his
posture.  She loves me!

".  .  .  but .  .  ."

Despite himself, Mulder's humor returned full force, and his grin
widened even further.  He pushed his hair back nervously with one hand,
and started to rise from his chair.

".  .  .  it doesn't make sense Mulder!  If we get involved .  .  ."

Fox gained his feet, and started around his desk toward Dana.

".  .  .  things will only get even more complicated!  Those people out
there that want to shut us down will have the perfect tool to use
against you, .  .  ."

Fox reached Dana's chair, reached out, and swung her to face him.  She
looked up into his face as she continued to rationalize.

".  .  .  and I don't want to become that tool!  And the bureau will
separate us .  .  ."

"Scully, shut up."

Dana held out her hands, as if to ward Mulder away.  He took her hands
in his own and pulled her to her feet, instead.  Dana stood without
resistance, as if sleepwalking.

"Scully, have I mentioned that you're beautiful?  Did I talk about your
eyes yet?  Or how much I love the way you look in heels?"

"Mulder .  .  .  !"

"Scully, shut up!  Never mind all those logistics; we'll work all that
out later, together."

Agent Katherine Scully had more to say on the subject, but no one will
ever know what she wanted to bring up next, because Agent Fox Mulder
chose that moment to cover her mouth with his own.  When Mulder released
her hands, Dana at first braced her hands against his shoulders, but
then surrendered.  Mulder reached out and drew her against him, and Dana
let herself settle into his arms.

When Fox wrapped his arms around her waist and back, Dana wrapped hers
around his neck and shoulders.  When he seemed to try to pull back, she
tightened her hold and deepened the kiss instead.  Mulder moved back
against Dana's desk and sat on the edge, equalizing their heights.  Dana
took the opportunity to move in even closer, and pressed herself tightly
against Mulder's chest.

That first kiss lasted a long time.  Occasionally it seemed to stop for
a moment, but then it began again, with new variations.  It was a kiss
all about reassurance and commitment, releasing barriers, and dropping
guards.  It was a kiss less about passion than it was about eagerness
and joy.  It was a step over a precipice, and it made them both dizzy,
but they clung together physically as they'd done so many times
spiritually.  There was no shyness, no hesitancy, no reserve; those were
things of the past.  The kiss went on, and on.

Finally the mood lightened, and they moved apart, grinning like kids and
searching each other's face faces for reaction.  Mulder tried to speak
first, but Dana cut him off by covering his mouth with her hand.
Instead of speaking, he kissed her fingertips and waited.

"O.K.," she said, and smiled.

The simple reply confused Mulder.  His eyebrows raised and puzzlement
was obvious on his face.  "What?"

"O.K.  Yes.  You're right.  I believe you.  I agree.  Let's go with your
plan.  Whatever you say.  When you're right, Mulder, you're right."

Comprehension and a smile dawned together on Mulder's face.  "Scully, if
you only knew how I've longed the hear those words from your lips!"

Dana pulled Mulder close again, this time into a hug.  As Dana felt his
arms close around her, she turned her face into his neck, and spoke with
her mouth close to his ear.

"Don't get used to it, Mulder.  I don't expect to say them very often."

			       ****

-- 
A. Allen Driskill      |Chemical Abstracts Service|internet: adriskill@cas.org
5193 Taylor Lane Avenue|P.O. Box 3012             |"My opinions are my own, not
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(614) 876-0885         |(614) 447-3600 x2876      | listen to me, either"