TITLE: Triebe (1/1)
AUTHOR: FabulousMonster
EMAIL ADDRESS: fabulousmonster@my-deja.com
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters. They are the 
property of Ten-Thirteen, Chris Carter and Co. and FOX.
SPOILER WARNING: Everything up to and including Season 8's 
Per Manum, with emphasis on all things, En Ami, Fight the 
Future. Brief mentions of Oubliette, The Field Where I 
Died, Mind's Eye.
CLASSIFICATION: MSR, A
SUMMARY: A person can't deny their destiny.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is my version of a Per Manum-type of 
story. I am breaking my cardinal rule of staying within 
the story lines/context set out by Ten Thirteen. While I 
enjoyed Per Manum, I have a problem with ova remaining 
viable after sitting in Mulder's refrigerator along side 
his Popsicles for four years. And I desperately miss the 
Consortium. 

Please see additional Author's Notes at the end.

All thanks to my betas Duke, KatyBlue, and Keleka
who provide me with straightforward and insightful 
comments, and keep me honest. Thanks also to my 
CrystalShipmates--I couldn't ask for a better support 
group for my X-Files addiction.

Feedback is always appreciated...hey, I live for it! 


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According to Sigmund Freud, the nervous system of an 
individual at birth is little more than that of any other 
animal, an "it" or "id." The nervous system, as "id," 
translates the individual's needs into instincts or drives 
called, in German, Triebe. 



Triebe


In the end, you discover that you can't deny yourself any 
longer.

It's not a sudden revelation. It sneaks up on you, like 
catching your reflection inadvertently in the dark glass 
of the FBI Building. You first think the image distorted, 
not fitting the vision you've held for yourself for years. 
But slowly, inexorably, you realize that who you were and 
who you are becoming, are no longer in synch. 

As a scientist, you lean towards 'nurture' in the nurture 
versus nature camp. You take comfort in believing that you 
can predict the actions of individuals by their life 
experiences rather than the chemical interactions that 
make up their biology. People control their destiny; they 
are not prisoners to an abstract biological fate. It 
complements the tenets of self-control that have been your 
hallmarks. After all, you are sure that it is these life 
experiences, learned at a very early age, that have given 
you the strength and fortitude to deal with the 
machinations of your Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole world. 

You remember fly-fishing with your Dad and learning to 
cast in the face of his growing frustration. You hear his 
bellow from across the stream: "Goddamn it, Starbuck, 
you're better coordinated than that. Concentrate!" You 
snap the rod back towards yourself, whipping the line 
around and embedding the hook in the fleshy part of your 
right hand between thumb and forefinger. 

But you don't cry, even when he has to twist and tug the 
hook to remove it. Instead, you feel a flush of warmth as 
he calls you his little SEAL and says you'd be a hell of a 
fullback on his beloved Midshipmen football team. You 
don't really know what a fullback is, but it must be good. 
Even today, you find yourself reveling in his positive 
reinforcement of stoicism to your pain. 

Moreover, because you are your Dad's little SEAL, you 
never cry when he leaves and doesn't return for months. 
Bundled against the cold and huddled with your family on 
the dock, you hold your salute to him until he 
acknowledges it from the deck of his ship as he weighs 
anchor. 

Your family moves five times in eight years during your 
adolescence. You have friends at each base and school, but 
you learn to keep a part of yourself at arm's length. It 
makes the inevitable parting easier. By the third move, 
you have it down to a science: you can be packed and 
waiting patiently while Melissa blubbers over girlfriends 
or the boyfriend du jour. By the fourth move, you even 
beat Bill to the car. 

It becomes a mathematical equation in your mind. A 
familial system that rewards the denial of pain, plus your 
own perverse pride in never letting your guard down, 
equals strength, duty, integrity, and selflessness. Duane 
Barry, CGB Spender, and Donny Pfaster never stand a 
chance. You take on all 'comers and beat them, and are 
back to work and your travel-all-over-the-country caseload 
before the bandages are removed. You ignore the emotional 
scars that run parallel to your physical injuries--there 
is something strangely comforting in denial as a form of 
therapy. Your Dad was right: you would have made one hell 
of a fullback.

So when your value system is turned on its ear, and you 
realize that what you held as strength may actually be 
weakness, what do you do? What do you do when you hold  
your partner's mother's heart in your hand? What do you do 
when he gives up the quest for his sister, and you are 
left floundering, alone and without the Holy Grail that 
has defined your existence for seven years? For awhile, 
you desperately grasp at the handholds of science, 
rationality, and childhood stoicism that you think have 
saved you before. You wrap yourself in a dark cloak of 
skepticism, cut your hair too short, and make acerbic 
comments about the FBI having nothing to hide. A flinty 
resolve defines you. You think you are in control.

But, as you pat yourself on the back and tell yourself 
that you are fine, fine, never better, a small voice 
inside you begs to differ. Conveniently drowned out by the 
volume of your life for so many years, it begins to 
whisper incessantly. 

Is That All There Is? 

And when you can't answer the question--or maybe you are 
afraid to answer it--you feel yourself begin to implode 
molecule by molecule. 

You are terrified at first. It's like being awake while 
surgery is performed on you. That is, until one night when 
you are at your partner's apartment and he has slipped off 
to bed, leaving you to his beloved leather couch. When you 
awake several hours later, you creep into his bathroom 
intent only on freshening up before you steal away. 
Standing naked before the bathroom mirror, the door 
purposefully closed, you think again of the blond woman in 
the baseball cap. Whether she symbolizes your partner, or 
your quest for the Truth, or your spiritual journey 
suddenly becomes immaterial. Gone is your need to program, 
categorize, or easily reference. The surgery was a 
success, Doctor: only the gangrenous parts of your psyche 
were excised. A flood of emotions--happiness, pleasure, 
love--washes over you, and while your partner sleeps 
unaware in the next room, you hold your hand over your 
mouth and cry and laugh. Then you catch your reflection in 
the mirror, and laugh and cry some more. You are struck by 
the irony that emotions long-denied are making you feel 
stronger, more confident, and more certain of your 
decisions than you have in awhile. You aren't where you 
should be at this time of your life--but you're getting 
closer. 

And as you begin to acknowledge that you have an emotional 
life--even gain some sort of truce with it--the most 
elemental of desires becomes overpowering. In your 
unfolding world of irony, 'nature' can no longer be 
denied. You have heard the need described as the ticking 
of a clock, but in your New World of emotional discovery, 
such a description is too subtle. Instead, you are 
Odysseus--only this time, you are willing to answer the 
Siren song or crash against the rocks in trying. 

You will procreate. You will become pregnant. You will be 
a mother.

The only question is how.


X X X

You seek out the Gunmen one evening, laptop in tow. Find 
Cobra's colleagues--find your solution. The Gunmen are 
reluctant to call on their underground network of hackers. 
They remind you that they were unsuccessful the first 
time. You can see their unease, and their unspoken 
hesitation to do something without your partner's 
participation. Even stronger is their fear that they may 
be facilitating your death.

You are quietly moved, but you call on their loyalty and 
assure them that you will be fine. They don't believe you 
for a moment, but they reluctantly agree to assist. 

Three weeks later, the Gunmen's investigation leads you to 
a nondescript office building just outside of Arlington. 
You try to squash the unease you feel at its similarity to 
CGB Spender's phantom headquarters. You half expect him to 
walk around the corner, cigarette in hand--but of course, 
he doesn't.

You take the elevator to the third floor, and enter after 
being buzzed in through a glass partition. With the 
exception of the suite number, there is no indication of a 
company name. A lone receptionist staffs a reception area; 
there is no chair for a visitor. Apparently, they are not 
commonplace. You notice immediately that several security 
cameras track your every move. You are left with the 
feeling that the office could survive a nuclear attack. 

You identify yourself and wait while the receptionist 
calls into the interior office. Almost immediately, an 
electronic door snicks open, and you walk through it to an 
adjoining room. 

The room contains a desk, two chairs, and a desk lamp. 
There are no pictures or knick-knacks. The furniture is 
well appointed. Everything is beige. You take the seat 
across from the desk. Hearing a soft sound behind you, you 
turn to see a woman in a white, lab coat clip purposefully 
towards the desk. She is impeccably groomed, a mixture of 
frosted hair, Anne Klein glasses, and Chanel No. 5. She 
barely acknowledges you as she consults a file folder she 
brought in with her. You catch a brief glimpse and notice 
that it contains a list of names. She runs a perfectly 
French-manicured nail down the list and pauses briefly at 
a name. Closing the folder, she regards you closely for 
the first time. 

Time stops.

"I believe we can help you," she says simply.

"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the 
Fly." And you realize that there is no turning back.


X X X

The treatments begin immediately. In deference to your 
medical background, Dr. French Manicure provides you with 
data and technical information on the procedures being 
performed on you. The medical knowledge is impressive, 
even groundbreaking, but within the realm of human 
science--you think. Staff you encounter are well trained 
and professional. Everyone moves with hushed efficiency. 
Everything appears above board, just taken to a new level. 

You are terrified.

A thousand times, you consider stopping the treatments. A 
thousand times, you consider alerting your partner to your 
activities.

A thousand times, your need to be a mother overwhelms your 
sense of caution. Somewhere in your unconscious mind, 
somewhere in your awakening emotional life, somewhere in 
your spiritual rebirth, you have accepted a new reality: 
This Is Meant To Be. And because It Is Meant To Be, you 
have left your destiny to Providence, the Fates, a flip of 
the coin. Heads you win--tails you win. 

If you weren't so sure you were doing the right thing, 
you'd check yourself into the nearest mental facility. 

Still, when you get your period after four years of 
absence, you are caught off-guard, and have to dash to the 
store for Tampax. 

Dr. French Manicure is pleased. Everything is right on 
schedule. "We're ready to move to the next phase," she 
announces. You know what the 'next phase' means.

You have avoided the 'next phase' for two weeks, debating 
your approach, the timing, and the alignment of the planets. 
In a brief moment of madness, you even consider contacting 
Daniel, but in the end, you know there can only be one 
choice.


X X X

You are sitting in the Denver International Airport, 
waiting for your partner to check you in. You watch 
through the windows as the snow swirls hypnotically in the 
growing twilight.

"Our flight's been delayed." You break out of your reverie 
at your partner's announcement. He sits down heavily 
beside you, loosening his tie in the process.

You are tired. Tired of delayed flights and airports; of 
chasing after the Next Big Thing; of the treatments; of 
trying to decide how to talk to your partner.

"I should have brought my skis," he continues, seemingly 
unaware that you have not responded.

This statement surprises you because you didn't realize 
that your partner owned a pair of skis--that he even 
skied. And you think, 'Shouldn't I know that a potential 
father for my child, skies? How can I ask him something 
like this when I don't even know the most basic 
information about him?' 

You feel a sudden wave of panic.

"I didn't know you skied." You try to keep the accusatory 
tone out of your voice.

Your notice that your partner's eyes are drifting closed, 
but snap open at your question. "Hmm? Who said I skied?" 
He regards the surprise on your face, and smiles 
sheepishly. "Just a figure of speech, I guess. It's really 
snowing out there. We could be here for awhile."

And you are left to wonder how you can ask this man to be 
the father of your child when his thought patterns, his 
views of life are so different from your own. You would 
never say that you skied and then call it a 'figure of 
speech.' You would never run out to Denver because you 
received a clandestine email alerting you to a possible 
Yeti sighting. Strike that--you did, although you justify 
your actions as you've done countless times before: `Just 
looking out for my partner.' You are left-brain; he is 
right. You have a sudden flash to your child twenty years 
from now on an analyst's couch: "Mommy and Daddy confused 
me..."

"Are you alright?" You must have let a sliver of unrest 
slip through your cool exterior. You can hear the concern 
in your partner's voice.

"I just didn't realize you skied...didn't ski." You shake 
your head in frustration. It's like a bad Abbott and 
Costello script. "I thought I would know something like 
that...you surprised me for a moment, that's all."

Your partner regards you with amusement, and you silently 
curse your ancestry that is revealed by the flush of red 
creeping up your neck. He settles back into the plastic 
airport seat and closes his eyes again. "I'll be sure to 
alert you in the future to my athletic endeavors," he 
teases sleepily. 

As he drifts off, you hear all the arguments in your head 
again about why this is a bad idea, even a dangerous one. 
You will be asking him to throw caution to the wind, to 
step off the curb without looking both ways, to sleep with 
the enemy--but mostly, to tie his life to yours inexorably 
without commitment or reciprocity. 

Not for the first time, you think yourself selfish.

Your partner stirs slightly beside you, a small frown 
creasing his features in sleep. And you realize that 
despite the illogic of the situation, despite the danger, 
you won't be asking him to change. You won't be asking him 
to be someone he's not. In fact, you'll be asking him to 
be the person you've come to rely on for the last seven 
years in all his maddeningly wonderful glory: brave, 
impetuous, zealous, foolhardy, sense, no sense, self-
centered, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead. 

'Please be that person for me today,' you think, and you 
wake him from his slumber and ask him to be the father of 
your child. 

He is quiet while you speak. You search his face for any 
clues, but aside from the mental note you see him make--
'Kick Gunmen's asses for helping her and not telling me'--
he is an iceman, his features glacial. 'You have learned 
well from me,' you think.

When you finish, you wait for him to say something, but he 
is too busy looking at you--really looking at you--to 
respond. You see him search your face, looking for any 
clue as to who this woman is before him and dammit, what 
happened to his partner? 

"Are you out of your mind?" he finally asks quietly, his 
eyes boring into yours. The timber of his voice arrests 
you--you've heard it only one other time. You flashback to 
the both of you in his hallway, leaving each other and 
then coming together again in the span of two minutes. Two 
years later, the intensity of that moment still leaves you 
breathless.

And while you should be insulted by the question, take 
umbrage, and storm away, you find yourself actually 
amused. Inadvertently, he has hit the nail on the head: 
yes, you are out of your mind. You are crazy-go-nuts, 
Ally-McBeal-dancing-baby mad. Besides, who needs a mind 
when biology is running the show? 

You smile at him through your tears. 

And he is taken aback at your reaction because you know he 
expected you to coolly defend your position--or smack him 
in the mouth. Smiling at his insolence wasn't an option.

You see his brow furrow, and you fear that he thinks you 
are making fun of him, of his concern, so you reach out 
and touch him gently on the arm. You try to make him 
understand, searching for the eloquence that will convince 
him of your intentions, that there is really method to 
your madness. But all you can come up with is: "You're 
right, Mulder, I have lost my mind." Your words sound 
delightfully absurd to your ears, and you smile again. 

And you look at him--really look at him--and you try to 
convince him with your eyes that this is not something to 
be feared, that it is a Good Thing--hell, that maybe even 
It Is Meant to Be. 'Please understand--please be that 
person for me today,' you send to him on whatever unspoken 
connection the two of you share.

"I need to stretch my legs. I'll be back in awhile."

You watch him walk away, and wonder if you've just 
succeeded in doing what the Consortium, the Grays, and the 
FBI have tried to do for seven years--drive a permanent 
wedge between the two of you.

You gaze out the window at the dying light and the snow 
swirling pink and gray and blue, and you nod off and dream 
of cold and Yetis wrapped in baby blankets and skiing.

A light touch awakes you. "I thought you'd be thirsty," he 
says softly, offering you a frosted bottle. 

Sometime in the second year of your partnership, an 
unwritten rule develops. At least once during each case, 
the two of you try a new food or beverage indigenous to 
that part of the country. He is still apologizing for the 
calf fries in Fort Worth.

You haven't done anything for Denver yet. You examine the 
contents of the bottle--Rocky Mountain Limeade--and a wave 
of relief washes over you. 

Whatever his decision, the two of you will be okay.

He sits beside you as you sip your drink and he talks 
about the little things that define your lives together: 
the next case, the need to do laundry, that he forgot to 
cancel his newspaper again, and--oh, by the way--he would 
be proud to be the father of your child. 

And you are thinking that you forgot to cancel your paper 
as well when it dawns on you what he has just said. You 
turn to look at him and he is smiling at you--really 
smiling at you. And the expression in his eyes... For the 
second time in the last hour, you are left breathless.

You are discombobulated at his announcement. True, you 
experience an intense rush of joy, but it is quickly 
tempered by a flash of disbelief, even--dare you admit it 
to yourself?--anger. 

How can he possibly make such a life-altering decision in 
the span of a half-hour, when you have agonized about it 
for months? You have to experience a spiritual pilgrimage 
with a Buddhist practitioner, a lesbian crop circle 
expert, and a woman in a baseball cap even to acknowledge 
your need. Your partner takes a stroll through an airport 
terminal and comes back committed to being a father.

You shake your head incredulously. "Mulder, I didn't 
expect a decision...how can you possibly make such a 
decision so quickly?" You wonder why you want to 
simultaneously hug and throttle him.

He gazes out the window, and his voice comes to you, warm 
and honey-dipped. "Folie a deux, Scully...a madness shared 
by two."

He takes your hand in his, and then turns his attention 
back to the gently falling snow to provide you with a 
modicum of privacy while you cry softly at what he has 
given you.


X X X

The 'next phase' is not working. 

Dr. French Manicure is not pleased. Your partner sits 
beside you as she shares the latest test results. He has 
been present for all the procedures, projecting a 'hurt-
her-and-I'll-kill-you' male possessiveness to any of the 
varied personnel you have encountered. He has fidgeted 
uncomfortably beside you, alternately holding your hand in 
his sweating one and then releasing it. In fact, he's been 
holding your hand a lot lately--a symptom of How Things 
Are Changing Between You. You feel a paradox of emotions: 
you are charmed by his protectiveness--and suffocated by 
it. 

He asks the doctor some questions, eyes narrowing with 
suspicion as she tries to clarify some of the points. But 
you don't really listen to her answers. Only a few words--  
ovarian enlargement, intraperitoneal fluid accumulation, 
electrolyte disturbance, intravascular volume depletion-- 
filter through the fog in your brain.

In the car afterwards, you look out the window as your 
partner holds your limp hand in his and prattles on about 
how he read in the New England Journal of Medicine that 
something like this is treatable, and that you both need 
to patient. But you saw the doctor's body language and 
heard her tone of voice--you know the truth. A tenant of 
your Medical Ethics class in medical school comes to mind: 
"Sometimes you have to tell your patient there is no hope 
without taking hope away."

He chatters on, and you can sense his nervousness at your 
unresponsiveness, but you don't care anymore. You are 
dying inside, and like any wounded animal, all you want to 
do is crawl away and hide from the world. 

But, he seems unaware of your distress because he insists 
on accompanying you to your apartment. And you give him 
the 'Sure, fine, whatever' look, even though you are 
anything but. 

You busy yourself about the apartment, hanging up coats, 
picking up papers, and generally moving from room to room 
in an attempt to escape his dissertation on in vitro 
procedures, the Consortium, and--did he just say something 
about miracles? Instead of escaping, however, you find 
that he follows you, and so now you are hurt and cornered 
and you want to scream at him to shut up, just shut up, 
but you don't. 

Instead, you flash-freeze him in mid-sentence with your 
voice. "There aren't going to be any miracles, Mulder. 
I've seen the test results; I've spoken with the doctor."

A bone-numbing chill begins to creep through you. This 
must be what it is like when hope dies. "I knew this was 
experimental going in. I knew what to expect." Hypothermia 
sets in. You are drowning. "You don't have to placate me, 
Mulder. I'm not one of your 'lost girls.'"

It becomes very quiet in your apartment. "What do you mean 
by that?" he finally asks, hoarsely.

"It means I'm not Lucy Householder, or Melissa Ephesian, 
or Marty Glen." Then, because drowning victims sometimes 
pull their rescuers under with them: "I'm not your mother. 
Or your sister. I don't expect you to save me."

He advances towards you then and his presence fills the 
room, vast and overwhelming. You are struck suddenly by 
the difference in your sizes--he could crush you with his 
bare hands if he were so inclined. You greet his approach 
with a defiantly raised chin and dry eyes. The tears that 
had threatened to spill earlier are gone--you have become 
the fullback your Dad espoused. Your chinstrap is buckled; 
your shoulder pads are square to the goal. 

Bring it on.

He stops a foot in front of you, and you notice that his 
fists are clenched tight at his sides, the knuckles white, 
the skin taut. There is an electric current in the room, 
sparking randomly off the walls and crackling between you. 
The fine hairs on your arms and the back of your neck are 
erect.

"Is that what you think this is...what we've been doing for 
these past two months? That I look at this as some sort of 
`errand of mercy?'" His voice is strangled. His eyes... You 
glance downward to avoid his eyes.

Normally, you would soften at such an emotional display, 
but today you are dead inside. You hear your response as 
if from a distance, flat and angry. 

"All I know Mulder, is that you've always felt responsible 
for my abduction, my cancer..." He opens his mouth to 
protest, but you cut him off. "My injuries, my sterility. 
What better way of atonement?"

Your words hang in the air between you, coagulating into 
an almost tangible mass of pain and anger and grief. The 
late afternoon sun diffuses through the shears in your 
window, casting the apartment in grainy, gold light. 
Elongated shadows fall across his face, making him a 
statue before you, hard, flint-edged, and oh-so cold. He 
finally speaks, and you discover that you don't have the 
market cornered on cruelty.

"Well, I guess that's it. You're right, Scully, I'm trying 
to make up for the past. Of course...why would you would 
think my involvement would be precipitated by anything 
else?" He moves to gather his coat from your coat rack. 
"Fox Mulder's 'lost girls.'" His bitter laugh ricochets in 
the apartment, hurting your ears. "My mother once told me 
not to bring home strays." He looks at you pointedly. "I 
should have listened to her. Maybe my life would have been 
easier...happier..." 

You hear a singsong voice in your head: `You only hurt the 
ones you love.' Hurt, yes. But impale? Mutilate? How can 
two people who spend their lives talking about everything 
and anything, regress into recriminations and acrimony 
when it matters most?  

You'd ask him, but the vision of the sucking chest wound 
you left when you ripped out his heart, and the deep gash 
he caused when he tore at your throat stop you from 
speaking.

He pushes past you to get his coat, and as you stumble out 
of his way to give him access, the two of you 
inadvertently bump, your left shoulder colliding with his 
torso. Rather than continue to move forward, you both 
freeze at the contact. 

And you can't help but think that smaller nuclear 
explosions have been caused by such incidental collisions 
of matter and antimatter.
 
Slowly, your partner leans into you and you to him, 
neither one of you looking at the other. You close your 
eyes, exhausted. The pressure in the room abruptly 
deflates. You feel his left arm move across your body to 
pull you against him in a rough embrace. Rather than 
struggle, you allow him to fold you into his arms, burying 
your face in his chest while his chin comes to rest on the 
top of your head.

You begin to cry then, and they are not the gentle tears 
of a Harlequin Romance heroine, but great wracking sobs 
that hurt your throat and chest, and drench his T-shirt. 
 
You cry seven years of tears that were never properly shed 
for your Dad, Melissa, Penny Northern, Cassandra Spender, 
Teena Mulder, and Samantha. 

Emily.

You cry for your partner and his impossible struggle and 
the cruelty of your words earlier.

You cry for children that will never be.

You cry for yourself--the girl you were and the woman you 
are. Pain long denied is released.

And your partner can do nothing except hold you tighter so 
you don't collapse to the floor. You feel his hand move to 
capture the back of your head and he kisses the top of 
your head, your forehead, your cheeks, and--in a second 
incident of accidental contact in so many minutes--your 
mouth. You both start at the contact, but as you pull back 
slightly to look up at him, mindful now that your eyes are 
raw-red and your nose is running, he follows you, and 
suddenly he is kissing you again. You can taste your tears 
on his lips, and then you are kissing him back, gripping 
and twisting his T-shirt in your hands.

This is no New Year's Eve kiss, or gentle peck, or awkward 
embrace of the past two months. This is raw, feral. This 
is heartache and joy, and rage and serenity, and pain and 
pleasure. This is tearing apart and coming together. 

You begin to move towards your bedroom, trying to 
negotiate around furniture as you continue to cling 
desperately to each other. Foreheads bump together; bodies 
collide against the wall. You wind up in a tangle in your 
comforter. Fingers fumble with buttons, zippers, hooks. 
"Take off your shoes, Mulder," you say, trying to stifle a 
laugh as your partner's pants refuse to cooperate over his 
shoes. In the cool darkness of your bedroom, you see his 
answering flash of teeth as he smiles. 

Time moves in a blur after that, but you remember two 
occurrences. You are sitting in his lap, arched against 
him when he enters you. It is too early, but the pain 
makes you feel alive again. He captures your face in his 
hands, and you grasp his in yours. 

He tells you that he wants to be the father of your 
child--and not out of a sense of obligation, or as an 
`errand of mercy.' 

You tell him you believe.

And neither one of you says a word.

Later, you are moving together, an ungainly knot of elbows 
and "Excuse me's" and "Is this okay?" as you try to find a 
rhythm that will give pleasure to the other. This process 
of discovery is like your seven years together: slow and 
sometimes rocky, with dead-ends countered by light-at-the-
end-of-the-tunnel flashes of progress. 

"Thanks for waiting," you say in unison, and smile against 
each other's mouth. And you both know you are not thanking 
the other because you suddenly find--gasp! that spot, Dear 
God, that spot!--but for this next phase in the journey 
that is your lives together.

Afterwards, you lie together and he rests his head against 
your chest, your hand weaving absently through his sweaty 
hair. His breathing becomes increasingly regular as he 
drifts off to sleep. You kiss him gently and close your 
eyes.

"Don't give up on the treatments, Scully," he says 
drowsily, his voice partially muffled. You glance down at 
him. "Don't give up, Scully. We've come too far." 

You smile tremulously as sleep claims him, embrace his 
head tightly against your chest, and kiss him deeply on 
the top of his head.

You aren't sure if he hears your answer, but it doesn't 
matter.

"Of course, Mulder, of course," you whisper huskily.

Because in the end, you can't deny him anything.

And you can't deny yourself any longer.


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AUTHOR'S NOTES: 

Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole refers to Alice's Adventures in 
Wonderland.

SEALs are the elite fighting force of the Navy. 

The nickname for Navy sports teams is the Midshipmen.

A fullback is an offensive position in American/Canadian 
football. He usually lines up behind the quarterback and 
acts as a blocker for the running back.

In Greek mythology, Odysseus had to sail past the Sirens, 
whose sweet singing lured sailors to their doom against 
the rocks. To ensure safe passage, he stopped up the ears 
of his crew with wax, and lashed himself to the mast, so 
he did not steer his ship into the rocks. 

"Will you walk into my parlor?"/Said the spider to the 
fly/ is from the Tale of the Spider and the Fly.

The parallel drawn to the bad Abbott and Costello script 
refers to the double-speak and play on words of their 
classic, "Who's on First?" routine.

Left brain thinkers are logical, systematic, and rational. 
Right brain thinkers are intuitive, creative, and 
impulsive.

Calf fries are fried bull testicles. Mmm, mmm, good!

Ovarian enlargement, intraperitoneal fluid accumulation, 
electrolyte disturbance, and intravascular volume 
depletion are symptoms of Ovarian Hyperstimulation 
Syndrome. It is a complication of ovarian induction 
therapy. It is treatable if caught in time.

You may have noticed that Mulder and Scully didn't have a 
Harlequin Romance-type of coupling. Nothing comes easy to 
our intrepid duo--why should love be any different?

If you would like to read some more of my X-Files fanfic, 
please check out Fran58's excellent site: 
http://www.fran58.net/authorspgs/fabmon/fabmon.htm

Thanks for reading!