From: "Gossamer Help Desk" <help@gossamer.org>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:02:38 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [Fwd: Correction to Found by Innisfree]
Source: revision

TITLE: Found
AUTHOR: Innisfree
E-MAIL: katclar73@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION:  SRA
SUMMARY: The trailer for the new film started me 
thinking about what might cause two people who are 
clearly meant to be together to part ways... at least 
for a while. Heavy angst throughout but I do like 
things to end well and hope Chris Carter feels the 
same way.
RATING: R (language, sexual situations)
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Series
SPOILERS: Through The Truth.
ARCHIVE: Yes -- just e-mail me.
DISCLAIMERS: They're not mine, I'm not making any 
money, and there is no intent to infringe any lawful 
copyrights or trademarks.
__________________________________________


I used to think that I knew what it meant to be alone. 

Fifteen years ago, I spent every day by myself in a 
cluttered basement office at the Hoover Building. 
There were no windows. No one stopped by. Hell, no one 
even walked by. I could have dropped dead of an 
aneurysm while pouring over reports of recent crop 
circle sightings and I doubt anyone would have noticed 
my absence until someone from the cleaning crew 
tripped over my body.

Fifteen years ago, I went home every night to a 
slightly musty apartment. I fed my fish, ate my cheap 
take-out food, and fell asleep on my couch in the 
flickering light cast by the television and whatever 
bad porn movie I'd found on pay-per-view. I didn't 
even own a bed, much less have someone in my life to 
share one with me.  

If I'm being honest, I was almost alright with being 
alone back then. Not happy, maybe, but alright. I had 
my work. I had the memory of my sister. I believed 
that I was right, and everyone who didn't understand 
that my cause was noble and necessary could bite me. I 
could handle being alone just fine, and eventually my 
aloneness came to define me... like some strange badge 
of valor in my solitary quest for the truth. 

I see everything more clearly now. Now I see that 
locking yourself in a basement and hiding in an empty 
apartment has nothing to do with being alone. I chose 
to cut myself off from everyone else so that I could 
wallow, uninterrupted, in the glorious conviction that 
I was misunderstood. That's not alone. It's a 
political statement. It doesn't cut to the bone. 

Alone is what you are when the person you love, the 
person who puts up with you when you're an ass and 
smiles at you on the rare occasions you do something 
right, the person you'd die for without a doubt or a 
second thought... walks out of your life.  Alone is 
what I've been since the day Scully said goodbye.

* * *

May 5, 2006

I remember it was a Friday because Scully had a 
graveyard double shift at the morgue from midnight 
Thursday to late Friday afternoon. I thought I'd be 
able to slip away for a few hours without her being 
any the wiser. 
 
Scully and I had been fugitives for nearly four years. 
We'd lived in a dozen different places, always trying 
to stay under the radar and one step ahead of the 
super-soldiers and their apparently large cadre of 
government collaborators. We lived in a constant state 
of alert, and sometimes outright fear. Needless to 
say, we never met the neighbors. 

It seemed as though every time we started to think 
that we might be okay - that maybe the Knowle Rohrers 
of the world had forgotten about us or decided we no 
longer posed a threat to their plans - Skinner would 
find a way to get us a message: They're getting close 
again. Time to go. Sometimes we could last somewhere 
for five months before Skinner reached out to us. A 
couple of times, we were gone again in less than two 
weeks.

I was always the one who decided where we'd set up 
shop next. It was an easy rhythm for the two of us to 
fall into. After all, I had dragged her with me to 
every backwater town and third-rate roadside motel 
from the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border during the 
seven years we were together on the X-Files. In the 
beginning, when I was annoyed that she'd been assigned 
to the X-Files to spy on me, I figured I could shake 
her if the travel itinerary was sufficiently 
unappealing. In the end, I couldn't have imagined 
being in any of those places without her. But she was 
always there, all along, right next to me. 

So when we went on the run, I picked the destinations 
right from the start. Neither of us ever stopped to 
wonder who the hell put me in charge again this time 
around. 

Arlington, Massachusetts. Barstow, California. 
Seattle. Barbados. Ottawa. Some town in the middle of 
nowhere, Texas. Scully would usually ask me why I 
wanted to go wherever I told her we were going and 
she'd get some answer that probably wasn't any more 
convincing than "evidence of ritual sacrifice" or "six 
exsanguinated cows" had been when we were back in the 
basement looking at slides. But whether she nodded, or 
rolled her eyes, or sighed with exasperation and 
stormed off to the bedroom, she always packed her 
bags. She always climbed into the car with me for the 
next stop on what must have felt to her like the "I 
Wish I'd Listened to My Brother Bill" World Tour. Some 
things didn't change.

In May 2006, we'd been in Denver for three months. I'd 
read once that Northern Colorado had as many sunny 
days in a year as Southern California, so I figured it 
wouldn't be the worst place to spend a winter.  Or at 
least that's what I'd told Scully. 

I didn't tell Scully that I'd been trying to track 
down our son. William. She didn't know that I'd spent 
hundreds of hours trying to find the child that was 
never supposed to be found by anyone who knew his real 
name. I think I may have been a little hard on Chesty 
Short during his budgetary review of the X-Files for 
the FBI's Accounting Department. Turns out you can 
search for a lot of things while sitting at a desk. 
From the internet, to chat rooms, to a handful of 
well-placed phone calls to people with certain 
sympathy for a father whose child had been given up 
for adoption without his knowledge, I had finally come 
up with a solid lead. William had been adopted by a 
family living somewhere in Wyoming. 

It was always easier for Scully to find work as a 
pathologist in larger cities, and Denver was less than 
a hundred miles from the Wyoming border. I figured I 
could do some legwork in the southern part of the 
state, and the next time we had to relocate, we could 
head to Salt Lake City or Helena, Montana and I could 
cover ground in the northern and western counties. 
Wyoming may not have a lot of people but it's a big 
ass state when you're trying to drive it. 

So that's where I was on the morning of May 5, 2006. 
Driving around Laramie, Wyoming, searching the faces 
of children who looked to be five or six years old, on 
their way into daycare or running around in 
playgrounds and parks. Stopping by the county records 
office to look at birth certificates, hoping to figure 
out which families had definitively given birth to 
their own children and cross them off the list. I left 
Denver around 5 a.m. and gave myself about four hours 
to do my work, just as I'd done each Friday for the 
past nine weeks. I knew I had to get on the road again 
by 1 p.m. so that I'd be back at the house well before 
Scully returned from her double shift. 

She wasn't supposed to be home when I walked in the 
door. She wasn't supposed to see me carrying a satchel 
full of photocopied birth certificates and my digital 
camera bag with enough room for the long telephoto 
lens. She wasn't supposed to take one look at me and 
know for certain that I'd been lying to her for years.

* * *

"Uh... hey, Scully." I froze even as the words were 
coming out of my mouth, my hand still on the doorknob 
and the bitter cold air rushing into the house behind 
me. 

She was sitting directly opposite from me in a 
tattered armchair pushed up against the far wall. 
Perfect posture, head held high, legs crossed. The 
house where we were living at that moment faced east, 
so the front room was full of soft shadows cast by the 
late afternoon light. It was a little hard to see her 
face clearly from where I stood, but I didn't need to 
see Scully to feel that something wasn't right. I know 
her better than I know myself.

"Shut the door, Mulder." Her voice was quiet. Tired. 
And sad. Sad always scared me.

"Sure, sure... sorry." I turned to close the door behind 
me, wrestling just a little with the wind that, in 
that part of the country, seemed to push against 
everything that had any give to it. As I wheeled back 
around to face her again, I tried to let my satchel 
and camera bag slide quietly off my shoulder and fall 
to the floor where they would be slightly less 
obvious. I could almost feel her eyes following them 
as they dropped.

You know those times when you'd come home as a kid and 
your mother would be waiting for you with a look that 
told you she knew you'd stolen a few beers out of the 
back room? Or that you hadn't really been at your best 
friend's house like you'd promised you would be? When 
you knew with absolute certainty that you were busted, 
but you still tried to start up some innocuous 
conversation like everything was right with the world? 
Yeah.

"Home from work kind of early, aren't you, Scully? I 
was at the library doing some research for my article. 
I figured I'd have time to get back here and start 
dinner before you got here. But hey, here you are! 
Even better."  

I gave Scully the most charming smile I owned and then 
hesitated for half a second. Should I walk over and 
kiss her like I usually did when she came home, or 
head directly to the kitchen like a man who had truly 
been planning to chop some vegetables? Stick with the 
routine, Mulder. Just a little too carefully and a 
step too slowly, I moved toward the chair. As I did, 
the shadows in the room seemed to shift and a soft ray 
of light passed across her face. She'd been crying. 
Shit.

"Hey... hey now..." I squatted down at her feet and put my 
right hand on her knee. Carefully. "What's going on?"

"Oh, just stop it, Mulder. I know where you were. And 
I know what you were doing." 

Wait a second. I knew I was in trouble. I knew that 
she'd figured out I was up to something. And I knew 
that she'd be pissed that I'd gone anywhere without 
calling her or leaving her a note. We'd both agreed 
early on that it was dangerous for either of us to go 
off on our own somewhere without telling the other 
one. But there's no way she could have known where I 
was and what I was doing.

"Scully, I was at the library. I'm working on that 
freelance piece I told you about and I needed to look 
at their newspaper archives on microfilm. I'm sorry I 
didn't leave a note, but I thought for sure I'd be 
back a couple of hours before you came home."

"Yeah. I bet you did." She practically spat the words 
at me as she pushed my hand off her knee, hard enough 
that I lost my balance and fell backward. And there I 
was, sitting on my ass and my elbows and looking 
sufficiently confused that she must have taken pity on 
me. 

"I took your cell phone with me by mistake last night, 
Mulder. I was in a rush, and yours was next to mine on 
the counter, and I guess I wasn't paying attention."

Without thinking, I reached into my front pocket and 
pulled out the phone I found there. Hers was silver. 
Mine was more like charcoal gray. Huh. I guess I 
didn't notice either when I shoved a silver phone into 
my jeans on my way out that morning. But I still 
wasn't following how any of this...

Oh. I remembered leaving my cell number for a guy at 
the county records department in Laramie earlier that 
day. He'd been out to lunch when I got there, so I 
left a note asking him to call me about whether it 
would be possible to get copies of birth certificates 
for male children born in 2001. I never heard from 
him.

"I got a call a couple of hours ago from someone named 
Steve at the Albany County Vital Records Office. I 
didn't even realize I had your cell until I picked it 
up to answer and the guy said he was trying to reach 
Steven Byers." My latest false name.

Scully paused for a few seconds to let it all sink in. 
I would have appreciated the gesture more if I hadn't 
already put the puzzle together myself. 

"Good news," she said with a coldness that suddenly 
reminded me of lying with my face against the ice in 
Antarctica all those years ago. "They can get you 
copies of birth certificates for boys born in 2001, 
but it'll take five weeks and they need a money order 
for $500 to put toward the copying costs. He says you 
can call him on Monday to work out the details."

A ragged breath slipped out through my lips. I hadn't 
even realized that I'd stopped taking in air while I 
was listening to her. Even though nothing in the room 
was moving, it felt as though the world had been 
running around me at the speed of sound and then came 
to an abrupt and complete stop.

"You promised me, Mulder. You held my hand, and you 
looked me in the eye, and you swore that you would 
leave this alone."

* * *

She was right, of course. I did promise. 

I started looking for him not long after we set out on 
this new life together. This hard life of changing 
names and running and always looking over our 
shoulders. When I told her I was trying to find him, I 
had been completely caught off guard by her reaction. 

I couldn't search for him, she said. I would be 
putting him in danger. He had parents who loved him 
and a life somewhere far away from all of the death 
and horrors of our world. It was because she loved him 
so much, she said, that she had given him up. She had 
to save him from our fate. 

She had left everyone in her life behind to be with me 
and she'd done it gladly, she told me. But in this new 
life, where we had no one but each other and our 
stubborn will to stay alive long enough to find a way 
to stop the coming colonization, she was haunted by 
all that had been lost. And when she faltered... when 
she felt as though she didn't have the strength to 
spend the rest of her life as prey... what kept her 
going was the knowledge that our son was safe. That he 
was playing with toys in a quiet corner of the same 
home where he would grow to be a teenager and then a 
young man, or falling asleep to the sound of a quiet 
lullaby sung by a woman she imagined to be very kind. 
He wasn't being dragged from motel room to rented 
house to dingy apartment with parents who cried more 
than they should. The best possible life she could 
give William was the one where he would never know her 
and never know me. And she couldn't allow me to take 
that perfect life away from him. 

So she demanded a promise that I wouldn't try to find 
him. I told her I couldn't make a promise like that. 

I remember she stared, considering me for a moment. 
And then she took my face in her hands, her palms 
pressing hard against me as she crushed her mouth 
against mine. When she finally pulled back from that 
kiss, I could hardly catch my breath. I was almost 
panting from the force of it. 

That was when she looked at me and told me she knew 
how much I missed him. Whispered that she missed him 
terribly. She told me she loved me more than I could 
ever know, and that she'd rather die than be separated 
from me ever again. But William's safe and happy life 
would be destroyed if we were to touch it, and if I 
couldn't promise to let him be, she would leave.

Well, when you put it that way, Scully...

You know, I wasn't lying when I told her I would stop 
looking for him. Because William was already gone, and 
I knew that Scully meant every word she said, and I 
couldn't imagine losing her too. In my mind at that 
time, everything she said reduced to the simplest of 
equations. Stop or she'll leave. So I stopped.

But of course I couldn't let it go, anymore than I 
could let Samantha go during all the years I searched 
for her. I kept thinking of that little boy who had 
Scully's eyes and my smile. I found myself doubting 
that he could ever be safe separated from the only 
people who had some idea of how to protect him from 
the forces that might mean to harm him. And I found 
myself dreaming, as I had once before, that I was 
sitting on a beach and watching a little guy with 
sandy hair trying to build a sandcastle. But this 
time, when the boy told me that I was supposed to help 
him, he called me "Daddy." 

And I broke my promise.

* * *

"How long has this been going on, Mulder? How long 
have you been lying to me?"

I sat there on the floor in front of her, thinking I 
should be dreading this scene that was about to play 
out. Thinking that I should say something to calm her 
down; to make an attempt at minimizing how long I'd 
been searching and how much work I'd put into the 
effort. Thinking that she would leave me forever this 
time and that I needed to say something that would 
make her stay. So I was surprised to feel the anger 
rising from somewhere deep inside me. It must have 
surprised her as well, judging by the look on her face 
when I pulled myself to my feet and started to speak.

"How long? You want to know how long I've been looking 
for William?" I think I might actually have been 
snarling. "Years. I've spent years looking for our son 
because I don't believe for a minute that he's safe 
out there with some sweet couple who probably don't 
even lock their doors, never mind know how to defend 
themselves - and him - if a couple of super soldiers 
sweep in some day. I don't believe he's safe because 
I'm probably the only person interested in finding him 
who can't easily break into his sealed adoption 
records. They can find him if they want to find him, 
Scully. And he's out there in the middle of God-knows-
where with people who have no idea how much danger he 
could be in. I mean, for chrissakes, Scully... for all 
we know, they've already found him."

I heard Scully suck in her breath. "Don't say that. 
Don't even think that. He's fine." The fear in her 
voice was palpable.

"How can you know that? How can you possibly know 
that?"

The anger was taking hold of me. I could feel it 
forming words in my mind... words that I'd always kept 
buried because I knew they would hurt her. But 
somehow, this time around, I couldn't stop myself from 
giving them voice. 

"And what made you think you could hide him when 
they've infiltrated every corridor of every 
bureaucratic machine that exists in this country? 
There is nothing that they don't have access to. It 
doesn't even make sense, Scully, after everything that 
you've seen! You need to believe he's safe but, 
somewhere inside you, you have to know better than 
that. He needs us!" 

My voice had become louder and louder with every word. 
I suddenly realized that I had been shouting at her. 
Scully, for her part, had moved past her shock at my 
unexpectedly defiant reaction to being caught red-
handed. She rose from the chair where she'd been 
sitting since I had entered the room and I could see 
that she was more than ready to go a few rounds.

"You cannot begin to imagine how hard it was for me to 
give him away. After everything we went through to 
bring him into this world. But you weren't there! You 
could have been dead again for all I knew. Because you 
decided - unilaterally as usual - that the only way to 
keep me and William safe was for you to go into 
hiding. Which didn't make a hell of a lot of sense 
either, Mulder. But no, you had made up your mind. So 
I went along with it and I let you go. And every time 
someone came for William... every time someone kidnapped 
him, or tried to kidnap him, or shot him up with some 
mystery vaccine because they were convinced he was the 
alien messiah or the savior of mankind or whatever... I 
imagined that the next time would be the time when 
they took him away forever or killed him where he lay 
in his crib."

Scully turned away from me and moved slowly toward the 
corner of the room, her shoulders sagging just enough 
to make me realize how painful all of this was for 
her.

"I didn't know what to do, Mulder. I wanted to talk 
through it with you like we talked through everything 
else, but you weren't there. Monica and Agent Doggett 
meant well and they did everything they could to help 
me keep William safe, but I didn't believe that they 
could save him like I believed that you could save 
him. And I think maybe I just broke one day from the 
strain of trying to protect him on my own. That year 
of losing you, and trying to find you... and then you 
were dead, and then you were alive, and then knowing 
they wanted to kill my baby before it was even born... 
it was too much."

"Scully, listen..."

"And then it just hit me that William didn't have to 
have that life. Didn't have to be in danger every day. 
That it was my life - our life - that put him in 
jeopardy." She folded her arms tightly across her 
chest. "Maybe I was wrong. I've asked myself that 
every day for the past four years. But I believed that 
I was doing what was best for our son."

A small sob punctuated her last words, and I could 
feel most of the rage in me draining away as the sound 
registered. I never could stand to see Scully cry.  At 
that moment, I wanted to stop what I had started and 
pull her into my arms and feel as though I could 
protect her from everything bad in the world. 

"Our son, Mulder!" She seemed to lunge at me from 
where she had been pacing in the corner, her eyes wild 
with this desperate need to make me understand what 
she must have been carrying inside her for too long. 
"I have to live every day knowing that I couldn't 
protect my own son. Your son." Another hitch in her 
breath. "Our son."

"Scully..." I found myself taking her hands in mine, and 
without even thinking, I fell to one knee in front of 
her. It might have looked a lot like worship to 
someone peering in from outside, but it felt like I 
was both asking for forgiveness and begging her to 
admit that I'd been right all along. "I never should 
have left you alone with the responsibility of taking 
care of him and keeping him safe. I was wrong. And I 
understand why you did what you did, but giving him 
away was a mistake. It's a mistake we can fix. He 
belongs with us, Scully. Together, you and I could 
keep him safe."

Scully gazed down at me with the expression of someone 
who's hopelessly lost. Defeated.

"No, we can't. We can't fix it. It's done. He's almost 
five years old now and he doesn't even know who we 
are, Mulder."

"He has no one else to protect him, Scully!"

"Maybe you were right before. What you said." Her 
voice was becoming flat, the sound seeming to die away 
almost before the words left her mouth. The quietness 
of her voice sent a chill through me. "Maybe he's 
already been taken by the super soldiers, or maybe 
he's dead. And if that's true, then God forgive me for 
what I've done." Her eyes fixed on mine. "But if they 
haven't come for him yet, then I don't think they ever 
will. And trying to find him or take him away from the 
only home he remembers is only going to hurt him."

I knew that everything she was saying was probably 
true. But I didn't really care. I'm a selfish man 
sometimes. Not exactly a newsflash to either of us. 

"He's five, Scully. I don't even remember being five. 
He'll forget these people, whoever they are!" It may 
not have been my most compelling rationalization, but 
it worked for me. "I need to see him, Scully. I never 
even had a chance to say goodbye."

She just shook her head back and forth, slowly and 
sadly. "No, Mulder."

I rose quickly from where I was kneeling and let her 
hands fall from my grip. 

"He's mine too, and I would never have given him away. 
No matter what!" I was seething. "I refuse to accept 
that we have to live the rest of our lives without 
him!" 

"Do you hear yourself, Mulder? This is not about you 
and what you need. This is about what's best for..." Her 
voice caught on William's name as she fought back more 
tears. She raised her right arm and pointed her index 
finger at me, though even in this threatening pose, 
she looked like she might be afraid of me. Like the 
time she'd become inexplicably paranoid and held a gun 
on me at her mother's home because she thought I had 
betrayed her. Ferocious and terrified at the same 
time. "I am not... NOT going to let you turn him into 
another quest where you have to find what you're 
looking for no matter who gets hurt along the way!"  

At that moment, I actually thought I felt something 
sharp slice directly into my heart.

* * *

No matter who gets hurt along the way. It probably 
hurt Scully to say those words almost as much as it 
hurt me to hear them. 

There are so many things we think and don't say. 
Things that sit in the very back of our minds like 
nuclear missiles we could fire at any time. We have 
them there, these pre-formed words that we've 
considered often through the years, because someone 
did something to hurt us. 

They usually stay buried in our dark places because 
we're afraid of what would happen if we brought them 
into the light. Maybe we're not absolutely sure that 
someone meant to cause us as much pain as they did. Or 
maybe we hold them responsible but can't stand the 
thought of losing them if we ever shared our worst 
thoughts. Because we know that the damage can never be 
undone once a missile finds its target. So most of us, 
most of the time, walk through our lives hanging onto 
words we know we should never say to the people we 
love.  

I knew I carried them. In a certain corner of my mind, 
in the place where I kept everything I was too 
terrified to look at too closely, I hated Scully a 
little for giving up my son. 

I didn't even want to think of him as mine when I 
first learned she was expecting a child. I was 
literally back from the dead; re-born into a world 
that seemed to have moved on without me. No one was 
certain whether or not I was the father because I 
always referred to "Scully's baby" and "her child." Of 
course I knew he was mine. She didn't have to tell me 
for me to know it, and I didn't have to ask.

But as Scully and I found each other again, in our 
typically slow and careful way, I couldn't deny the 
connection I felt to the child she was carrying. On 
the first night I shared her bed again after my 
release from the hospital, my hand drifted to rest on 
her stomach and was met with a kick, as though he knew 
I was there. And when he was born and I held him in my 
arms for the first time, I was overwhelmed by all of 
the feelings that I imagine every new father feels. 
Mine, I thought. I'll never let anything happen to 
him, I swore. He'll grow up happy and secure and 
strong on my watch. 

I shouldn't have left him. Shouldn't have left her. 
Even though I was convinced it was necessary to keep 
them safe. 

In my rational moments, I understood that I had no 
right to be angry when I finally made my way back to 
her and found that William was gone. In giving him 
away, she was only acting on the same instincts that 
made me put so much distance between myself and the 
two of them. But the things we think and don't say 
aren't usually born from our rational thoughts. A part 
of me could not get past the fact that she gave him 
away and I never had the chance to stop her. 

On that day in May, Scully reminded me that I wasn't 
the only one leaving things unspoken. I already hated 
myself for dragging her along on my journey when it 
had cost her nearly everything and everyone that she'd 
loved. But I suppose I also wanted to believe that she 
didn't really hold me responsible for the things that 
happened to her. When she told me that she wouldn't 
let me turn William into my next Pyrrhic mission, I 
realized that it was always folly to think that she 
didn't hate me just a little too. For the cancer. For 
her murdered sister. For the ruined FBI career. For 
the years she thought she would never have children. 
For the months she spent without me and the months she 
thought I was dead. 

All of the hard truths had finally come into the 
light. The ones we'd always feared would destroy us. 

But knowing that I hated her a little? Knowing that 
she hated me a little? That's not what did it. She and 
I already knew each other's darkest secrets like they 
were our own. What we felt for each other wasn't some 
starry-eyed infatuation that faded at the first sign 
of bad times. We were imperfect people who knew each 
other's every flaw and failing long before we finally 
figured out that we were meant to be more than 
friends. 

No, it wasn't the truth that made her walk away. It 
was the lie. Trust was what bound us together all 
those years. And trust is what I'd broken.

* * *

I leaned over, my head halfway to the floor and my 
hands bracing on my thighs as though I'd had the wind 
knocked out of me. It wasn't for effect. After what 
Scully had said, I was finding it hard to take the 
next breath. 

"Mulder... that didn't come out... I didn't mean..." 

I pushed myself back up to face her. "Yeah. You did. 
It's alright. I always knew."

The room was almost fully covered in shadow now. The 
sun was gradually sinking behind the mountains just as 
it did every evening, and yet I couldn't help but feel 
that something else was slipping away with the light 
on that day. Time. My time with her. 

"I don't know what to say, Scully. I wish I could make 
everything right. Take away all the bad things that 
happened. Not for my sake, but for yours."

"You know I don't blame you for the things that 
happened, Mulder." Scully's voice softened 
considerably. "I really don't. You could never stop, 
never give up. I told you that's what made me follow 
you. Why I'd do it all over again." 

She closed the short distance between us and stood 
with her face only inches from mine. She was close 
enough now that I could see the tears flooding down 
her face.

"But you promised you'd let William go. I believed you 
when you gave me your word. And now, knowing that you 
broke that promise years ago... it makes me feel like a 
fool, Mulder."

"Scully, you know me. You know me." I struggled to 
find the right words. "You must have known that I 
couldn't not try to find him."

She was silent for a moment, her eyes locked with 
mine. "Yes, I suppose I did. I suppose I knew. That's 
what makes this so much harder."

She closed her eyes and turned to walk away. I found 
that I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't think. 
It was as though time had slowed down and kept me 
frozen exactly where I was standing, knowing what was 
happening and knowing that I couldn't stop it.

* * *

Scully knew that she was the only thing left in my 
life I was still afraid to lose. As much as she might 
love me, I loved her more. Needed her more. We both 
knew that if I'd been the one to find her corpse in 
the woods and stand with a flag next to her coffin, I 
would have put a gun in my mouth soon after. I 
couldn't have gone on without her the way she was 
forced to go on without me. 

That's why she had threatened to leave if I went after 
William. She must have known that nothing less than 
the thought of losing her would have any chance at all 
of stopping me. 

It wasn't that I didn't believe she would go. It 
wasn't that I was choosing him over her. It was 
hubris. Arrogance. Believing that I was right and that 
I'd be able to prove that to her when I brought him 
home. 

Men who tilt at windmills will always tilt at 
windmills. And it will always be their undoing in the 
end. 

* * *
Scully stood in front of the old oak bureau where she 
kept most of her things, slowly and methodically 
moving pieces of jewelry and clothing into a suitcase 
that lay open on our bed a few inches away. She had 
not bothered to turn on either of the small table 
lamps in the room. I guess her eyes adjusted well to 
darkness.

The floorboards at the threshold creaked as I crossed 
them. It was an old house and everything in it seemed 
to creak or groan as though the whole structure could 
fall apart if you took one wrong step. 

She heard the noise and glanced briefly over her 
shoulder. The look I saw fleetingly on her face was 
enough to stop me in my tracks just inside the 
doorway.

"Please don't do this, Scully." 

Was that my voice? I sounded... what was the word? 
Distraught? Desperate? Hysterical?

"Please forgive me. I'm... I am begging you to forgive 
me."

She didn't turn to look at me. She just kept filling 
the suitcase. 

"Tell me what I can do. What I can say. I'll do 
anything. Please don't... please don't leave me. I won't 
make it without you. I don't even want to try." God, I 
sounded pathetic.

She slammed the top drawer shut. The echo of wood 
against wood filled the silence for a few seconds 
before she wheeled around.

"Dammit, Mulder! I told you what you could do! I told 
you that I would stay with you through all of this and 
never regret a thing, even if we have to keep running 
for the rest of our lives. All I asked was that you 
honor one request. And you couldn't do it! And you 
sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I 
begged you not to do. What does that say about you, 
Mulder? What does it say about us?"

"You asked me to choose between you and our son, 
Scully. Call it what you want but that's what you 
wanted me to do. And I tried, I really did. But I 
thought if I could just find him, maybe I could change 
your mind."

"God, I can't do this anymore." She ran her fingers 
through the auburn hair that she had allowed to grow 
long until it fell lightly around her shoulders. "I 
know you're sorry. You're sorry that you got caught, 
you're sorry that I'm upset, you're sorry that I'm 
packing my bags, but you're not really sorry that you 
did what you did. You think I was wrong to ask you not 
to search for William, and that somehow justifies your 
lying to me. Well, I'm sorry too, Mulder. I'm sorry 
that you've put me in a position where I don't have 
any choice but to walk away."

"That's bullshit, Scully. You don't have to go 
anywhere. We can fix this!"

"No, Mulder! We can't. Know why? Because even if your 
word to me doesn't mean anything, I made you a 
promise. I told you what I'd do if you interfered with 
William's new life." 

She turned back to open the drawer where she kept her 
lingerie and started tossing things into the suitcase 
carelessly. I realized I probably had one more shot at 
getting through to her. I walked cautiously around the 
bed to where she was standing until I was only a few 
inches away from her. Close enough to touch.

"He's in Wyoming."

Her hands stilled and braced along the edges of the 
drawer she had been diligently clearing out. I heard 
her draw a short, quick breath - much like the kind 
she practiced when she was preparing for William's 
birth. Carefully, I reached for her rather slight 
waist... the one she'd worked so hard to make trim and 
taut again after carrying a child for nine months. I 
moved forward to close the few inches between us so 
that her back lay just against the outline of my 
chest. Bringing her near to me while leaving her the 
opportunity to push me away if that's what she wanted. 
To my surprise, she allowed me to hold her like that, 
and I even thought I felt her settling back against my 
chest and thighs in the same comfortable way she 
always did. I found myself leaning down to catch the 
scent of her hair and lowering my voice to a whisper.

"He was adopted by a couple living in Wyoming. People 
who owned a farm or a small ranch."

Scully took in one or two more quick breaths. I could 
feel her shaking almost imperceptibly where I held 
her, and I knew she was trying to calm herself and 
slow a heart that was probably beating faster than it 
should. When she finally spoke again, her voice had 
the quality of someone whose mind was somewhere far 
away.

"How do you know?"

"It's a long story," I whispered. "But it's good 
information. There are less than half a million people 
in the state and most of them are concentrated in a 
few cities. I think I can find him."

"And then what are you going to do?" The question was 
matter-of-fact rather than argumentative. She was 
genuinely interested in knowing what I planned to do 
if I found that little boy who ran through my 
unconscious mind every night. But of course I hadn't 
ironed out that part of my plan yet. I'd been too 
focused for too long on simply locating William to 
decide what I would do if I actually found him.

"Well... I'm not sure. I guess I'll figure that out once 
I know where he is."

"You don't even know what you're going to do when you 
find him." She laughed softly as she said it, a laugh 
filled with fatigue and resignation. It was a laugh 
I'd heard so many times over the years and, for a 
moment, it gave me hope that she could forgive me this 
time as she had so many times before. That was the 
laugh she let slip when she was frustrated, amused, 
charmed, and disappointed by me and how well she knew 
me.

She reached for my hands holding her at the place 
where her hips met her waist and she moved them 
forward until they surrounded her. This time there was 
no question that she was settling firmly against me.

"Scully, I only want what's best for him." I lowered 
my head to whisper the words in her ear. "And I never 
meant to hurt you." 

"I believe you," she sighed. "Maybe this is all meant 
to be."

"What... signs along the way?"

"Perhaps. Maybe I needed to see things for the way 
they really are. So I could see what's best for both 
of us."

I didn't understand what she meant. But before I had 
the chance to consider it or ask her what she was 
trying to say, she twisted herself around to face me. 
It was such a graceful motion that my fingers never 
even lost contact with her. I studied her eyes as if I 
could read the thoughts that lay behind them. As if I 
didn't already know that part of Scully would always 
be hidden from my view... like a mystery that wasn't 
meant to be solved. 

And then, with a suddenness and force that startled 
me, she came alive in my arms. With one hand grasping 
the back of my neck and the other sliding upward 
through my hair, she pulled my head toward hers and 
pressed her lips against mine.  She could kiss me like 
that every day for the next century and I'd never get 
tired of it or start to feel like it was routine. 
Every kiss from her still surprised me. Still caused a 
jolt to run through my body like it did the very first 
time. 

In the beginning, I was always the one who initiated 
any kiss. I'd lean toward her and she'd sort of 
acquiesce and let me follow through on the action. I 
noticed that she didn't even move to meet me halfway, 
though it was always clear that she was kissing me 
back. 

Then, not too long after we started seeing a whole lot 
more of each other outside of the office, we were 
walking to the car after a late movie she'd dragged me 
to see. The Crazy Homicidal Mr. Ripley or whatever it 
was.  We were laughing about something and she dropped 
her car keys on the asphalt, which was still wet from 
the rain that must have fallen while we were in the 
theater. I leaned down to pick them up for her, and 
seeing that they were a bit dirty from having been on 
the damp ground, I wiped them against my jacket pocket 
before handing them back to her. As she took them from 
me, she gave me this gentle little smile that always 
made my heart skip. And then she kissed me. That Mr. 
Ripley movie instantly became my favorite movie of all 
time next to Plan Nine from Outer Space.

On that unseasonably cold night in Denver, though, she 
wasn't gentle. Her mouth and her body moved with a 
similar sense of urgency as she pulled at my lower lip 
with her teeth and her hands slipped under my sweater 
to roam freely over my stomach and chest.  I broke 
away from her kiss.

"Scully, I want to talk about this. I want to 
explain..."

"Shhhhhhh."  She was nipping at my ear, even as she 
spoke. "I don't want to talk," she whispered.

Her fingers slid across my pectorals and then down, 
slowly, until I heard her fumbling with my belt. She 
was pulling at the buckle... yanking at the leather...
sliding the zipper down far enough to where she could 
push her hand through the opening. When I felt her 
hand grasping me, stroking me... I was lost, just as I 
always was. Even after the years we'd been together, 
the idea of Scully touching me that way still amazed 
me. The idea that she wanted me at all amazed me. For 
all the porn I'd watched during my time alone, you'd 
think that nothing real would turn me on anymore. That 
nothing real would be erotic enough. But what I felt 
for Scully had always been so powerful that it often 
took all my concentration to hold back my release in 
the first seconds after I felt her hand or her mouth 
on me.

She used her body to push me down on the bed as her 
right hand pushed my sweater up and away from my body. 
Taking the hint, I pulled it off and tossed it to the 
floor. She ripped at the buttons of the blouse she 
wore and I found the zipper at the back of her skirt, 
quickly working it off her. 

"Mulder..." I had always loved the way she said my name. 
Even when she said it in anger, it made me feel 
strangely safe.

The rest of our clothes were gone so quickly it was as 
though we'd never had them at all. Skin against skin. 
Scully's body always seemed to fit perfectly against 
my own. Like we were two halves of a form that had 
once been perfectly whole.

"Scully..." I choked out her name one more time. "I'm 
sorry." I reached for her head and turned it toward me 
so that I could see her eyes. Eyes that were dark with 
sadness and desire.

"I know, Mulder," she whispered. "I'm sorry too." She 
tried to smile as she said it, but the smile faded 
even as it was born. And then she took hold of me and 
guided herself to where I throbbed, waiting to be 
taken inside her.  As I felt myself enter her, I 
marveled at the way it always felt as though she was 
entering me. And then the sensation of her sliding up... 
and down... in... and out... silenced any further words I 
might have wanted to say.

* * *

I woke the next morning at first light. Just like 
every other morning, I instinctively rolled over to 
fold my body around hers and tuck my hand beneath the 
heft of her breasts where I could feel her heart 
beating. 

But there was no one there.

I don't know why I was so shocked. Perhaps it was 
because, at first, I couldn't recall the last time 
she'd made love to me with that kind of hunger. Hours 
of hunger seemingly reaching out for me. Consuming me. 
I wasn't sure that we'd ever had sex that was quite so 
intense. And then I remembered. 

The night before I'd left for Oregon with Skinner six 
years earlier, we'd gone at it in my bedroom at the 
old apartment like two people who had just discovered 
sex and were never going to have it again for the rest 
of their lives. I remember lying awake afterward and 
trying to process it as I watched her sleep. It was as 
though she's been trying to bind me to her, and I 
decided that, subconsciously, she was hoping to 
convince me not to go. 

Later, as I was pinned down on the alien ship like 
some kind of frog waiting to be dissected in a high 
school biology class, I tried to remember every touch 
and sound from that last night. Tried to distract 
myself from the pain by remembering how her mouth felt 
on my skin, and the way she'd moved above me as her 
thighs tightened around my hips, and the way it felt 
to hold her in my arms while her breathing was still 
fast and heavy and she had not yet drifted off to 
sleep. And the more I relived those moments, the more 
I came to understand that she had loved me with such 
desperation and undisguised need because she was 
afraid I would never come back. 

She once told me that I didn't seem to listen when she 
most needed me to hear her. I guess she was right. On 
that night in May 2006, I thought our pounding and 
thrusting against one another felt like an affirmation 
that we were mated until one of us went six feet 
underground and stayed there... and that even death 
itself might not be strong enough to tear us apart. I 
thought she was giving an outlet to her anger and then 
letting it go.
 
But I hadn't understood why she'd never closed her 
eyes, even for a few seconds... or why she'd seemed to 
follow my every move and touch... or why she'd boldly 
watched the changing expressions on my face when she 
had always been shy about the rather frenzied way I 
responded to her.  I didn't consider that she might be 
trying to burn those hours into her memory. To sear me 
into her skin and her mind because she thought it 
might be the last time.

No, the whole of what she had been trying to tell me 
with her body didn't become clear until I read the 
note she left on the table next to our front door. I 
found it just next to where I'd left the satchel and 
camera bag filled with the collected evidence of my 
efforts to find William:

MULDER,
 
I LOVE YOU. I'M YOURS. BUT I CAN'T BE WITH YOU RIGHT 
NOW. 

SKINNER WILL KNOW HOW TO REACH ME IN AN EMERGENCY. 
SHORT OF THAT, PLEASE DON'T TRY TO FIND ME. LET ME GO, 
AND MAYBE I'LL FIND MY WAY BACK TO YOU. 

SCULLY

I felt my legs giving way beneath me and I braced 
myself against the door.  She said she was sorry, I 
thought with an overwhelming sense of confusion and 
desperation. But not sorry about the things she'd said 
when she'd found out that I'd been searching for 
William. Sorry because she couldn't stay with a man 
she couldn't trust. 

I needed ten stitches for my hand after I slammed it 
through the glass in the front door. 

* * *

I emailed Skinner a few times right after she left, 
asking him if Scully was okay and if she needed 
anything.  He would reply with a message that she was 
"alright" and he was making sure she had what she 
needed.  He surprised me once by asking what had 
happened between us.  I assumed that she had told him, 
but then I often forgot what a private person Scully 
was. How difficult it was for her to open up to other 
people about certain things.

I told Skinner that I'd fucked up and left it at that. 
He emailed back to say he assumed that I'd fucked up 
and, therefore, I hadn't really answered his question. 
That one almost made me smile. So I told him that I'd 
gone looking for someone she'd asked me not to look 
for, and I knew that he'd understand what I meant. His 
reply moved me, both because of what he said and 
because he must have felt badly enough for me to 
depart from his usual discretion and break a 
confidence:

I'D PROBABLY HAVE DONE THE SAME. DON'T GIVE UP ON HER. 
SHE MISSES YOU.

Man... next to Scully, that guy is probably the best 
friend I ever had.  I'm not ashamed to admit I printed 
that email and carried it around with me in my wallet. 

A couple of weeks later, I emailed Skinner to tell him 
I wouldn't ask about her anymore because I knew he'd 
tell me if there was something I could do. And I 
begged him for one small favor:

I DON'T MEAN TO PUT YOU IN A DIFFICULT POSITION. BUT 
IF YOU'LL PASS ONE MESSAGE TO HER, I WON'T ASK AGAIN.  
PLEASE TELL HER THE ONLY REASON I'M NOT BANGING ON HER 
DOOR RIGHT NOW IS THAT SHE ASKED ME NOT TO. TELL HER 
I'LL ALWAYS BE WAITING FOR HER.  ALWAYS.

After a few days, Skinner sent a one word reply: 

DONE.

And we didn't speak of it again. 

Not until early October, when I sent him a message 
marked "urgent" from a public terminal at a county 
library in Casper, Wyoming. As always, I avoided names 
and relied on Skinner and Scully to read between lines 
that were designed to be meaningless to anyone who 
might intercept the communication:

FOUND WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR.  NOT IN THE PLACE OR 
CONDITION WE HAD HOPED.  NEED TO SEE HER AS SOON AS 
POSSIBLE.  I'LL BE IN THE TOWN WHERE WE SAW MR. AND 
MRS. SMITH, OUT IN FRONT OF THE COURT WHERE SHE 
THOUGHT I SPENT TOO MUCH TIME. 11:30 P.M. ON OCTOBER 
18.  I'LL UNDERSTAND IF SHE CAN'T STAY BUT SHE NEEDS 
TO KNOW WHAT I'VE LEARNED. REGRETS ONLY.

I clicked on the "send" button, hoping that I wasn't 
the only one who would know what the hell I was 
talking about.

* * *

October 18, 2006
11:30 p.m.

I've been sitting on a planter in front of the 
Downtown Seattle YMCA for nearly an hour. Alone. 
There's not a lot of foot traffic here at this time of 
night, but each of the few people who've passed by has 
given me the same odd look. The look that says, why is 
that weird-looking guy sitting outside the Y by 
himself on a Wednesday night? If I had someone with 
me, I bet no one would have looked at us twice.  But 
with no one else there, I suddenly seem strange.  I 
guess that's what started me thinking about what it 
really means to be alone. 

I check my watch again for the hundredth time. I'm 
more and more afraid that Scully didn't have the 
correct decoder ring for my super secret clever 
message. I chose Seattle because I liked it here and I 
was even more pissed off than usual when we had to 
leave. I had hoped that she would remember seeing that 
movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Seattle 
because we'd joked for nearly two hours afterwards 
during dinner at The Crab Pot on Pier 57 about how the 
plot was clearly inspired by our lives and how we 
should consider coming out of hiding to sue for the 
royalties.  I remember saying that the only difference 
was we'd never been hired to kill each other, and she 
laughed and said there were a few times when she'd 
thought about killing me for free.  I also hoped that 
she would remember complaining about how much time I 
spent at the Y playing pick-up basketball and 
recognize what kind of "court" I was referring to.  

Then, just as I've pretty much convinced myself that 
I'm an asshole who can't craft a decent coded message, 
she steps out of a shadow and through the narrow swath 
of light cast by the street lamp. And I hear part of 
that old Stones song playing in my head.

YOU KNOW I CAN'T LET YOU SLIDE THROUGH MY HANDS 
WILD HORSES COULDN'T DRAG ME AWAY 
WILD, WILD HORSES, COULDN'T DRAG ME AWAY 

Scully. I feel like I might cry. I want to grab her in 
my arms and twirl her around like we're shooting the 
happy ending of a movie about ourselves, but the look 
on her face stops that thought in its tracks.  She 
seems guarded. Wary. Her arms are crossed and she 
holds herself a couple of feet away from where I've 
stood to greet her.  But even in poor light, I can see 
an array of emotions playing across her eyes and among 
them I find what looks like joy. Joy which she is 
otherwise trying fairly hard to conceal from me.

"Hi," I mumble as I manage a lopsided grin. 

"Hi." Scully immediately looks down at her feet. 
Because I don't think I'll get through this if I can't 
adopt at least a mildly positive attitude, I decide 
it's because she's afraid she's going to smile back at 
me.

"I appreciate your coming on short notice," I start. 
"I didn't know if you'd understand my email but I was 
hoping you'd understand that it was important."

"I take it you didn't stop looking for William."  She 
was still staring down at the ground, nervously 
tapping her fingers against her arm. 

"Well... no."  Was I supposed to stop? Was I supposed 
to stop because not looking might bring her back? "I 
figured if looking for him made you leave me, then I 
might as well find him so I had something to show for 
losing you."

"Mulder..." She lets out a sigh of frustration. "You 
know why I left."

"Yeah," I say softly. "I do know. You left because you 
didn't think you could trust me anymore."

Scully raises her head so that I can see the 
frustration on her face as well as hear it in her 
voice.
 
"I've always trusted you. I trust you now. Even when 
you hid things from me, like when you neglected to 
tell me that you'd found my ova in some government 
lab, it never made me stop trusting you. Because I 
know that you always think you have my best interest 
at heart even when we don't agree about what that is. 
I mean, to be honest, if I ever stopped trusting you, 
I'm not sure I could make much sense out of my life 
since I met you."

I can't think of a response to that. It's true that 
everything I do that involves her, everything I've 
ever done, is in the name of what I think is best for 
her. Even if she didn't know about it, or objected to 
it, or flat out made me promise not to do it as she 
did with William. It's amazingly arrogant, I know. But 
I've always thought that love like I feel for her is 
inherently arrogant. Isn't it arrogant to think that 
you're better for someone than anyone else on the 
planet could be? To think that you're meant to be with 
a particular person and that she's meant to be with 
you? That you actually found your one in five billion? 
The whole thing is arrogance and I wouldn't change it 
for anything in the world.

"Mulder, I left because I asked you for a promise and 
you gave it to me. The most important promise I've 
ever asked you to make. And you broke that promise.  
The fact that you broke it with the best of intentions 
doesn't change anything."

"Like I said, you don't trust me."

"Honestly, Mulder! What did I just say a minute ago? 
This isn't about trust. I trust you on a level that 
has nothing to do with promises or... or oaths... or 
any other words. This is about you understanding that 
you need to be honest with me. It's about you honoring 
my wishes when I ask you for something and I flag it 
for you as really, really, really important to me. 
It's about not keeping secrets from me because you 
think it's in my best interest! In short, it's about 
respect." Scully looks rather exhausted after saying 
all that.

"Oh. I see."

Scully throws her hands up beside her. "God, Mulder, I 
don't know if you do. And that's the whole problem."

"Well, I'm starting to see. That's why it's good that 
we're talking about it, right? I mean, I'm learning 
that I've had it wrong for the last five months and 
maybe now I can start understanding, right?" That tone 
of pathetic desperation has crept into my voice again. 
I guess I've never been good at playing hard to get.

"Well, I didn't come here to talk about it. I'm still 
not sure I'm ready to talk about it. I came because 
your email indicated that something's wrong with 
William, whom I guess you've found even though I asked 
you to leave him alone and let him have a quiet life 
with parents who aren't fugitives."

Back to reality. 

"That's just it, Scully. He doesn't have any parents."

A rare expression of uncertainty crosses Scully's 
beautiful face and her eyebrows raise with alarm.

"What do you mean he doesn't have any parents?"

I sit back down on the planter and lean toward her. I 
run my fingers through my hair once or twice, and 
finally place a hand next to me, asking her to join 
me. Somewhat to my surprise, she does. 

"I wasn't going to bother him, Scully. I just wanted 
to know where he was and that he was with people who 
were treating him right. That's all."

She nods a little stiffly, as if to acknowledge my 
very small effort toward respecting her wishes.

"And one day, while I was up in Casper looking at 
birth certificates and trying to bribe some guy to let 
me see a few adoption records, I was just driving by a 
playground and this little guy runs right in front of 
my car chasing a basketball. I nearly hit him."

Scully now looks absolutely horrified. Not only am I 
searching for William, I almost ran him over.

"He looked at me and he smiled and I swear to God, it 
was like I was looking at you. If you were a five-
year-old boy."

Scully lets out an amused huff, seemingly in spite of 
herself.

"So I started looking for a place to park, just so 
that I could see him again. From a distance. That's 
when I saw the sign in front of the building next to 
the playground.  Department of Family Services, Kroner 
Group Home."

"What?" Scully's voice barely registers as a whisper. 
"I don't understand."

I can't seem to stop myself from reaching out to take 
her hand in mine. I squeeze her fingers and hold them 
tightly in my own. Again I'm pleasantly surprised that 
she does not pull away.

"The couple who adopted him were killed in an accident 
on a rural road when he was around two years old."

Scully's hand squeezes mine with such force that it 
almost hurts me. The mask of composure she's been 
wearing rapidly dissolves into a trembling visage and 
she looks as though she's struggling not to cry out.

"From what I've been able to gather, he was in the car 
when it happened but he survived without much more 
than a scratch. There are a couple of newspaper 
articles that describe it as miraculous. There was no 
extended family and so he was placed with family 
services."

"No one took him in? Not even a foster family?" The 
tears Scully has been trying valiantly to hold in 
begin to slip away from the edges of her eyes.

"I spoke with someone at DFS about him. He was placed 
with several foster families over the past three years 
but, apparently, he can be difficult. They told me 
he's very bright but very independent. Stubborn. Won't 
do what he's told." I can't help laughing softly. 
Scully's eyes meet mine and I see the barest hint of a 
smile at the corners of her mouth.

"I don't think I even need to comment on that, 
Mulder."

"Yup," I say, almost playfully. "He's mine alright." 

My shoulders square and my chest juts out a bit as I 
experience a wave of pride passing through me. But my 
shoulders fall again as I think of my son growing up 
alone in a place where everyone thinks he's difficult, 
and disobedient, and more trouble than he's worth. No 
toys to call his own. No one to read him a bedtime 
story before he falls asleep at night. No one to love 
him. 

And before I even realize it's coming, I'm doubled 
over, wracked with anguish, my entire body heaving 
from the sobs I can't seem to control. All I can see 
in my mind is that little boy smiling at me through 
the dashboard window, like he doesn't even know how 
many people he's lost in his short life. Still too 
young to feel the sadness that follows him. The memory 
of him smiling at me like that makes me feel terribly 
small.

I feel Scully's arms surrounding me, grasping at my 
shoulders in order to pull me close to her body. Like 
she's trying to shelter me. As she does, the quiet 
sobs that are wrenching through her seem to join with 
mine in a unison of grief. 

We remain like that for some time, locked together. We 
are trying to comfort one another. And we do. Scully 
has long been my only comfort and I am suddenly 
overwhelmed by the realization of how much I have 
missed this. Comfort. Shelter. Love. All the things I 
lost on that cold morning in May.

At last, our breathing slows again and we experience 
the odd sensation of calm that follows the worst kind 
of crying, when the body releases endorphins to 
relieve its stress. I feel Scully's grip begin to 
loosen and her body slowly beginning to pull away from 
mine.  A perfectly natural thing for her to do, but at 
the first hint of her withdrawing, I shift and pull 
her roughly into my arms. 

"I love you, Scully," I say with a broken voice and a 
broken heart. "Sometimes I don't think anyone has ever 
loved anyone else like I love you."

A few seconds pass in silence until I feel Scully 
press her lips against my temple, just beside my ear, 
for a long moment.  The way she had kissed me so many 
times before. "You'd be wrong, Mulder," she whispers 
in a voice that sounds both steady and fierce.  "I 
know at least one other person who loves someone like 
that."

My heart suddenly feels a few sizes bigger than it had 
been a moment before. I tighten my hold on her in 
response and then slowly release her. I let her go 
because I finally believe that she'll come back. As if 
to prove me right, Scully presses her forehead to 
mine. 

"What do we do now?" she sighs.

"Well," I begin with a matter-of-fact tone to my 
voice. "I've given some thought to that." I pull back 
from her so that I can see her eyes as I speak and 
gauge her reaction to what I'm suggesting.

"We could find out if your brother Bill and his wife 
would be willing to take him. They have a stable home 
and he'd have a couple of siblings. And he could grow 
up knowing something about you and your family." The 
last statement causes Scully to tear up again.

"Of course, if the kid's as much like me as I'm afraid 
he is, and knowing how Bill feels about me..."

"You foresee problems."

"Yes," I admit. "I mean, it's miles better than 
growing up in a foster home or an orphanage but I 
can't say it's my first choice for him."

Scully nods. "Go on."

"The other possibility is... I don't know if Skinner 
ever said anything to you, but he told me in an email 
that Doggett and Reyes have been doing the nasty for 
awhile now." Scully rolls her eyes. "That's not 
exactly what he said, but you get what I mean. She 
left the FBI. They're living together now, I guess."

"Mmmmmmm," Scully smiles. "I saw that coming a mile 
away."

"Must be something in the water down there in the 
basement at HQ." 

"They were good friends to us," Scully says, serious 
for a moment. "I'm happy for them." 

"Yeah, he turned out alright, I guess. And she's a 
little kooky for my taste, but you know, Godspeed to 
both of them." Admitting that Doggett wasn't such a 
bad guy after all still causes me to feel a sharp 
shooting pain in my side. "Anyway, I know he lost his 
son, and I know this would be a huge thing for them to 
take on, but I figure they already know William and 
they know us well enough to tell him something about 
his parents." 

Scully is quiet. I can see her lower lip trembling. 
"Or?" she asks hesitantly.

I remain silent. I need it to be Scully who asks the 
question. Scully who puts our thoughts into words. 
Scully who acknowledges the possibility that William 
could come to us. As hard as it is to watch her 
waiting for me to speak, and as much as I know she 
wants me to take responsibility for this, I can't do 
it. 

She's the one who feared that he could never be happy 
or safe with us. She's the one who needed to imagine 
him living a life that didn't require constantly 
moving from one place to the next, adopting new names 
and new identities, and fearing that a nearly 
unstoppable killer could be waiting for you behind 
every seemingly friendly face you see. 

I don't want any of that for him anymore than she 
does. But he's my son. And he belongs with us. Up 
until last May, Scully and I managed to eke out a 
little bit of happiness together in an otherwise hard 
life. And I've learned that the right kind of 
happiness, even when it's fleeting, can make up for 
some of the worst things you can imagine. That's the 
kind of happiness she brings me, and I want him to be 
a part of it. 

Scully is watching me, cautiously. Studying me. As 
though she's searching for words she doesn't really 
want to say.
 
"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?" she asks 
with a hint of annoyance.

"Ask what?" I respond innocently.

"Should he be with us." Her tone turns the question 
into a kind of statement.

I think for a moment about what to say.

"I'm a selfish man, Scully. I'd want him with us under 
pretty much any circumstances. Because he's ours and 
that's how it's supposed to be. But I don't know if I 
can tell you anything to make you feel less afraid for 
him. It would probably be confusing and destabilizing 
for him to move around with us all the time. Maybe 
we'd have to change his name like we've been changing 
our own. He'd probably sense how scared we are a lot 
of the time and that would scare him too.  It would 
never be easy."

She turns her head away, staring off into the 
distance. I imagine she's remembering all of the 
things that happened to us over the years - that still 
happen to us - and doubting whether it's any kind of 
world for a child to share. 

"I am afraid for him, Mulder. And I'm afraid that we 
could never give him enough to make up for all of it. 
And I'm afraid that he'll end up hating us for that."

I gently brush the back of my hand against her cheek.

"Awww, Scully... he's going to hate us sometime no 
matter what. That's normal."

"You know what I mean. This is different."

"Maybe," I acknowledge. "But no matter what he ends up 
thinking of us, I'm pretty sure he'll know we love 
him." 

I hesitate for a moment. 

"And really, it's not that different from you. I don't 
think I could ever give you enough to make up for what 
I've put you through. Everything that's been taken 
from you. If you'd never met me, if you hadn't stayed 
with me, then you wouldn't have lost what you've lost.  
But I think you stayed as long as you did because you 
know I'd do anything for you."

Scully turns back toward me and looks into my eyes.

"I told you once that I followed you because I knew 
you'd never stop looking for the truth. But I stayed 
because I realized that I belonged with you. I'm not 
even sure I can explain how I knew that. I just did. 
When I was with you, it was like being home."

A bitter laugh, filled with longing and regret, slips 
away from me. "Was..." 

Scully gives me a look full of wonder as to whether 
I'll always be hopelessly dense. "Was. Is." She tilts 
her head a bit and fixes her eyes on mine with such 
intensity that I couldn't look away if I tried. 
"Always."

I smile. "Always." I say it carefully, as though there 
is something fragile in the word. She gives me a 
fleeting smile in return before she turns serious once 
again.

"He could have a good life with Bill. Be happy with 
John and Monica. He could be normal."

"That might be true." I concede. "But no matter how 
much they love him, they could never love him as much 
as we will." 

Scully suddenly stands and walks a few feet away. I 
see her bring her hands to cover her face and I hear 
that her breathing has become ragged. 

"Scully?"

The sound of my voice seems to bring her back to the 
moment and she looks at me like she did when she told 
me we couldn't get him back again. Like she's lost.

"I don't know what to do, Mulder! I never wanted to 
make this choice again!"

I rise and walk over to her. "Okay..." I say gently. 
"What does your heart tell you?"

"My heart? My heart tells me what it's told me from 
the beginning. I want my son with me. But that's what 
I want, Mulder. It's not necessarily what's right."

She winces.

"Just like my heart told me not to leave you. But I 
knew I had to do it. I knew it was the right thing. 
And now... now I know that if I tell you he'd be 
better off away from us, you won't be able to live 
with that. Won't be able to live with me."

"Scully, whatever you think, I came here so that we 
could make a decision about how to handle this. 
Together. I didn't come here to force you to make one 
choice over another. Why do you think I didn't just 
take him myself?"

"And what if I tell you I think he should go live 
another life? Without us?"

Now I am the one who winces and, almost involuntarily, 
I look away to hide my disappointment.

"Then, to be honest, I'd think you were wrong. But if 
that's what you really want... if you really believe 
he'll be happier and that it'll be easier for him to 
grow up that way... then, for once, I won't try to 
convince you otherwise."

Scully looks genuinely surprised and perhaps just a 
little skeptical.

"But you won't be able to forgive me," she says with 
regret in her voice

I shake my head. "I want William with me just like you 
do. But this time - here together - I can accept it if 
you tell me that's not what's best for him. And I can 
live with it, knowing he's with people we trust. And 
every time they send us a picture of him at his first 
baseball game, or dressed up for his first dance, or 
getting behind the wheel of his first car, I will die 
a little... but I'll see that he's happy and he's safe 
and I'll think about the day when it's safe for all of 
us to see each other again." I bring both of my hands 
to her face and press my fingers against its edges, 
almost a little too forcefully.

"But I don't think you get it, Scully. I don't just 
want you. I need you. I want to do what's best for you 
and send you away forever and tell you to go live your 
life and send me some happy pictures, because that's 
what I should want for the woman I love. What I should 
have done years ago. But I can't. I could never leave 
you. Never let you go. Never again."

My fingers are wet with her tears. I see love in her 
eyes, and sadness, and longing.  And fear. She has 
always been a little afraid of this thing that 
connects us to each other. Afraid of its power and its 
hold on her. Afraid, I think, that I might swallow her 
whole into my madness and obsessions until there was 
nothing left of Dana Katherine Scully. 

"Mulder... I... it scares me when you say that."

"I know it scares you. It scares the hell out of me 
most of the time. But I need you to understand how 
deep that need goes. And I need you to know that I'll 
agree to whatever choice you make. Because whatever 
you choose, I'll love you. And we'll be alright." I 
pull her head to where it rests against my shoulder, 
cradled in my arms.

"I want him so bad," she cries. "We've missed so much 
already. All the things we can't get back..."

"I know," I reply softly.

"I don't think I can let him go again, Mulder.  I'm 
almost sure it's not the right choice, but I don't 
think I have the strength to do the right thing this 
time."

"Maybe it's not the right choice," I say. "But he'll 
never know, Scully. All he'll know is that his parents 
came to find him so that he could be with them. And 
he'll know that he's not alone anymore."

I feel Scully nodding against my shoulder.

"You must be tired," I say finally. "Why don't we get 
a hotel room somewhere and get some rest."

Scully looks up at me, a bit sheepishly. "We don't 
need a room, Mulder. I've been here in Seattle. I have 
a place near where we lived before." She laughs in the 
ragged way people do when they're exhausted and tired 
of crying. "I was pretty amused that you picked this 
as a rendezvous."

I smile. "Yeah, we did like it here, didn't we? Well, 
let me take you home then."

Scully reaches for my hand and I feel her fingers 
closing protectively around mine.

"I'm already home."

* * *

February 26, 2007

Skinner and Doggett arranged to get us the paperwork 
we needed to present ourselves as suitable candidates 
to adopt a child, and made sure the background checks 
on two people who don't actually exist came up clear. 
It helps to have friends in high places. The process 
took a little longer than I had hoped, but it gave us 
a chance to get more settled in Seattle and prepare a 
room for a boy nearly six years old.  

I'd met with William several times before today, but 
when Scully came with me to do the interview with DFS, 
William had been on a special field trip with some of 
the other kids to a ranch near Cody. The government 
workers who ran the group home were so pleased to have 
a couple with a clean criminal record and good 
references interested in a child they couldn't seem to 
place anywhere for more than a few weeks, they didn't 
even seem concerned that William had only met the 
prospective father. 

After finalizing the adoption papers this morning, 
we're waiting for them to bring William out to the 
room where we've been cooling our heels for nearly an 
hour. Scully is surprisingly nervous about finally 
seeing him, getting up every few minutes to pace the 
room and endlessly fixing her hair. My own nerves come 
from the fact that we are so exposed right now, here 
together, and I keep a constant eye on the glass door 
for any Billy Miles or Agent Crane or other sign of 
trouble.

"Do I look alright?" Scully asks, and I turn my head 
away from the door for a second. 

"I don't know... what look were you going for?"

She scowls at me. 

"I'm kidding. You look hot."

"I'm not really going for hot, Mulder."

"Well, too bad for you then," I say as I turn back 
toward the door. That's when he comes into view. 

He's grown about an inch since I last saw him. He's 
wearing a blue sweatshirt that seems a little big on 
him, well-worn jeans, and standard-issue sneakers for 
the kindergarten set. Over his shoulders he carries a 
backpack that looks heavy enough to topple him, but he 
bears the weight well, holding himself up straight and 
tall the way that Scully does. In his left hand he 
drags a winter jacket that looks old enough to have 
been in style when I was a kid. A young woman in her 
late twenties holds his right hand as she gently pulls 
him into the room with us.

"William," she says as she gestures toward me, "you 
remember Mr. Byers."

"Hey, man," I say as I reach out my hand to him. He 
smiles a little shyly as he grabs it and I see that a 
couple of his front teeth are missing. Visions of 
dentist bills dance in my head.

"Hey," he replies.

"William, what have I told you about 'hey'?" the young 
woman asks.

"Hey is for horses and hi is for people," he answers 
while rolling his eyes dramatically. "He said it 
first." I like this kid so much.

"Well, I'd like you to be polite to your new parents." 
She looks at me and then cocks her head in Scully's 
direction as if to tell me I should take over from 
here. I turn and see that Scully is doing her best to 
keep it together but has already lost the battle with 
several tears that run in faint lines down her face.

"William, c'mere. I'd like you to meet someone." I 
hold out my hand toward him again and sweep it forward 
in a friendly gesture toward Scully before bringing it 
back to take his little fingers in mine. It suddenly 
seems very far from where we are to where she's 
standing as I contemplate this moment that I never 
imagined would actually happen.

Before I have a chance to consider how to introduce 
him to Scully when all I want is to tell him our real 
names, he pulls his hand out of mine and extends it to 
her.

"I'm William. Nice to meet you." He says it 
thoughtfully - even kindly - and I look at his face 
and wonder if it's possible that he's seen her crying 
and wants to make her feel better. He must take after 
me that way.

Scully kneels down to his eye level and shakes his 
hand solemnly. "It's nice to meet you too, William." 

He grins. "You remind me of somebody."

"Do I?" Scully's voice is very soft.

"Yup," he replies assuredly.
 
"Who's that?"

"Somebody. I don't know." 

Scully looks as though she's about to lose what 
composure she has left and so I jump back into the 
conversation to let her collect herself again. 

"Well, you remind me of somebody too, buddy," I tell 
him as I place my hand on his shoulder. 

"Yeah, who?" he asks with interest as he gazes up at 
me.

"I'll tell you later, okay? We should probably get 
going if we're going to make our plane. Have you ever 
been on a plane, William?"

"No," he says seriously. "I've never been anywhere." 

"Well, you're going to go lots of places with us, 
buddy." 

"When am I coming back?"

Scully looks pained for a moment, but the look fades 
gradually into a careful smile.

"Well, William, we were hoping that you'd like to stay 
with us from now on." She rubs the side of his arm. 
Soothingly. Like a mother does. "Do you think that 
would be okay?"

William looks at her, then at me. He squints at us as 
though he's weighing the offer, and again, I see a 
flash of something so familiar in his eyes. And I 
realize he looks skeptical but also like he wants to 
trust us just a little bit. It reminds me of when I 
first met Scully.

"Yeah, I guess that'd be okay," he finally offers.

Scully's smile broadens until it seems to have taken 
over most of her face. "I'm glad. Thank you."

"Welcome," he says lightly as he bounds off to hug the 
young woman who brought him in. "Bye, Ms. Skinner."

Scully and I exchange looks. Skinner? What a weird 
world.

"Bye, William. You take care of yourself, alright? And 
you be nice to these people. Best behavior."

More eye rolling from the little troublemaker. Man, 
it's weird to see a little kid doing the things you 
always do and realize how annoying you must actually 
be.

"Yup," he agrees and bounds off again to open the 
door. "Are you guys ready?" 

He looks at Scully and me, and I'm stuck by the fact 
that he's not sorry for himself, not sad or bitter 
because he hasn't grown up with a family the way kids 
are supposed to. Just ready for an adventure. And I 
suddenly have hope that he might be just the right kid 
to share this strange life that Scully and I have. But 
then, of course he would be, I think.

I help Scully to her feet and wrap my arm around her 
as we walk to the door that William is politely 
holding for us. As we pass through, he reaches out for 
her hand and stares up at me. 

"I can show her the way out," he informs me. 

"Oh, sure. You got this," I respond with a serious 
voice that is no doubt betrayed by the amusement in my 
eyes. Scully laughs and I hear a lightness in the lilt 
of her voice that I don't think I've heard in years. 
"I'll just follow you two, then. Maybe I could carry 
your backpack for you."

"That's okay. I can do it," he says confidently. Yeah, 
he's going to be a challenge alright. And no one is 
going to have any trouble believing that he's ours. 

Williams leads Scully down the hallway ahead of us, 
and she looks over her shoulder at me with an 
apologetic shrug and a warm smile. And as I watch him 
happily dragging her along, as she follows with her 
hand securely holding his, I am reminded of us when we 
were so much younger. Reminded of myself, fresh-faced 
and barely thirty, dragging her along in my quest for 
the truth and reminded of her following because she 
knew I couldn't do it alone.  Before we lost so many 
people we loved... before abductions and 
experiments... before cancer... before death, and 
resurrections, and separations, and running endlessly 
so we could live to fight another day. When life was 
just possibilities and the excitement of discovering 
something new and the thrill of finding someone who 
didn't mind sharing it all with you.  

I remember how it felt to realize that I didn't have 
to be alone anymore. How it feels when someone finds 
you. And as I watch her walking with our son, I see 
that she has given that gift again. Scully stops 
William just before they come to the door that leads 
outside, and she reaches back for me. 

"Coming, Mulder?" 

"Wild horses, Scully."

I close the distance between us and take her hand. 
Lean my head toward hers until our lips meet in a kiss 
that is brief and yet seemingly without end. Our 
little boy giggles and shoots me another eye roll as 
he pulls us forward with a single-mindedness that I 
recognize instinctively. And everything old is new 
again. Like I've found it for the first time.

END