*************************************************************************
This author's e-mail address has changed to: alasdair.mclean@ntlworld.com
*************************************************************************

From mcleana@btinternet.com Wed Nov 27 04:35:29 1996
Written by Alasdair T. McLean using characters created by Chris 
Carter and Ten Thirteen productions. No copyright infringement or  
offence is intended.  
        If you enjoy this tell me..
        For that matter, if you don't enjoy it tell me as well ... But, 
please, tell me what it was you didn't like, eh?
        This is sometime in the future, and has nothing to do with the 
current timeline of stories I'm running.  It was written to balance the 
scales after all those stories in which Mulder asks Scully to marry him


X - Files
Proposal.
By
Alasdair T. McLean
<mcleana@btinternet.com>

11:21am.
28th February 2000AD.
The F.B.I. Academy, Quantico.


        Fox Mulder looked at the door in front of him.  Focusing on the 
name on the door:  Special Agent Dana Scully.  He shook his head as his 
photographic memory remembered that moment three years previously 
when the then Assistant Director Skinner had told him that the X-Files 
were being shut down.  Again, this time for good.  Only this time,
instead 
of the wiretap duties he had found so onerous before he was offered the 
job of Skinner's assistant - which meant he still had access to the X-
Files..
        And Scully..
        He knocked on the door, smiling when he heard her voice float 
through the wooden door, "Nobody here but the F.B.I's most unwanted."  
His grin widened by a fraction, those were his first words to her all
those 
years ago.
        God, he thought to himself as he looked at her, I've missed her.
        She looked up from the slides she was preparing for a class
later 
in the day, a half-smile on her face.  "How was London?"
        "Boring," he sat down across from her, his eyes drinking in the 
sight of her.  Even after three years of not being partnered to her he
had 
never managed to get up the courage to tell her how he felt about her.  
How right at this moment, after not seeing her for two weeks, all he 
wanted to do was go over to her, take her into his arms and tell her
that he 
loved her.  After three years he still had not told her how he did not,
had 
almost always never thought of her as merely his best friend, or
surrogate 
sister.  "Detective Chief Inspector Green sends her regards."
        Scully laughed, but there seemed to be a slight edge of tension
in 
her voice, "And how is Pheobe?"
        "Fine, I guess," Mulder smiled, "I never actually talked to
her."
        "Then how.?" Dana started, and then nodded understanding 
when Mulder held up a cassette tape, "Aaah."
        Mulder smiled again.  He seemed to do that a lot when he was 
around her. "Ten to one you can't dance to it," he said.
        "Hm,"  Dana stood, and walked past him to the small radio 
cassette that stood on one of the book-shelves on the far wall, flanked
by 
framed photographs.  Family mostly.  And next to the old radio cassette 
was one of them both, standing side by side in their basement office in
the 
J. Edgar Hoover building, "I think I can do something about that."
        She pressed the play button on the tape player and the room 
filled with a soft, haunting melody that Mulder recognised instantly as
one 
of her favourites:  'In a lifetime' by Clannad.  Turning to him she
said, her 
voice soft and uncertain, "Fox.."
        Mulder's smile took the sting out of the glare he levelled at
her 
for using his first name.  And after a moment when he noticed the slight 
pleading in her blue eyes, nodded.
        "Dance with me, Fox," she whispered.
        Nodding, once more he let her pull him to his feet and into a 
warm embrace.  He couldn't remember anything in his life having felt so 
right.  She moved with him gracefully as they held each other.  Laying
her 
cheek against his chest she listened to the beat of his heart, and
smiled.
        Looking down at her he smiled and gently kissed the top of her 
head.
        And then the song ended and the next tune started.
        Dana moved against him, turning so that she could look up into 
his eyes.  
        And what she saw there silenced any nervousness she felt about 
what she was about to do.
        "Fox," she whispered softly, "Fox, I .. would you marry me?" 
        Mulder stared at her, at the fiery haired woman who had come so 
very quickly to capture his heart. There was only one possible answer to 
that question.
        "Yes."

The end, or more properly:  the beginning.
    
-- 

'Hey, marshmallows are a universal invariant.' :- Sarah Johnson.

Alasdair T. McLean

e-mail	:	mcleana@btinternet.com
url	:	http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~mcleana