Special Agent Fox Mulder bent further over the file on his desk, magnifying glass in hand, he tried to find something in the images of the scene that may have been overlooked. His basement office was quiet and the lanky, brown-haired man was working alone. The phone rang.

He reached for it, sitting back and tugging on his bottom lip as he lifted the receiver to his ear.

"Mulder," he announced, in a distinctive drawl.

"Mulder, it's me," Dana Scully stated, addressing him with the familiarity they'd established as partners. Dana's red hair was tied back, she wore glasses behind a lab visor and shifted her weight on her small feet as though she had been standing for a long time. She was calling from the morgue. Dressed in appropriate green scrubs, the medical doctor come FBI agent was mid-autopsy. "I'm afraid I haven't been able to find anything on Dara Angelou's body to indicate that anything outside of the initial report might have occurred here. If you have a theory now would be the time to share it, because I'm afraid I'm going to miss the evidence you seem to think is here if you don't give me some indication as to what it is I'm looking for." She didn't attempt to hide her frustration.

On their last case, Dana had been forced to rewrite her whole report after the realities of the case came to light in such a way that made it obvious Mulder had suspected the truth all along. If he'd simply told her from the beginning, she wouldn't have filled half a notebook with pointless, good-for-nothing notes as she had probably just spent the day doing.

"You know everything I know, Scully," Fox mumbled, tapping his magnifying glass against his thigh before leaning back over the photographs.

"Yes, other than what you are thinking," she replied, staring into Angelou's gut for some clue as to what that might be. "If I don't find anything to add to the coroner's report after examining what's left of the pulmonary system, I see no reason why I shouldn't release the remains to the victim's family. The opportunity for further investigation will have to rely on other avenues."

"I understand," he replied, refusing the bait. He was only half-listening, most of his attention returned to the documents laid out before him. "Hey Scully, how does your background in physics inform your understanding of one person being in two places at once?"

"Hold on a minute, Mulder. Am I to presume that you asked me to perform this whole autopsy on a whim? I understand the investigative value of asking me to begin my interpretation without bias, but if there is a reason you've asked me to do this, now would be the time to say so! And I'll hasten to add that it had better be a damn good one, I had plans tonight that didn't include forty minutes of scrubbing eau de fomaldahide out of my hair," she was aware that she was on the edge of whining now, annoyed at the prospect that Mulder might have asked her to give up her evening with no real hope of making progress with the case.

He blew out a breath and tried to force himself out of his single track of thought long enough to bring his partner up to speed. "What if Angelou was at Wozniak's last night, and at the tracks as well?"

"Wozniak's is miles away, the time of death and the condition of the body are consistent with the injuries from a train collision and the location where it was found supports that," Dana clarified, glad that he was at least beginning to voice his thoughts but aware that she mustn't give him and inch even out of gratitude. Give Mulder an inch, he'll take a parsec.

Fox wanted to have faith in the process that always seemed to work between them, but recently he was becoming exhausted at the prospect of constantly laying out his thoughts to have them eviscerated by Scully's surgical skepticism.

"But the surveillance pulled from Wozniak's apartment complex shows a person of Angelou's exact height and description entering Wozniak's residence at a time coinciding with the account he gave regarding the movements of his late night visitor," he reasoned.

"Are you still staring at those surveillance photos?" She asked, like she could sense it.

He winced. "What's with the third degree? Are you with the Feds or something?" He asked.

She laughed softly and he felt a smile spread across his face. Scully meant the world to him, but he had become so accustomed to isolation before she became his partner that opening up to another person was still exhausting. He'd worked alone for a long time. It was hard enough trying to be part of a team professionally, but trying to be a three-dimensional person worth her time on a personal level was an even greater strain. Yet, when she laughed it made him feel like he had a beating human heart.

"Were you hoping I would find something on Angelou's body to support your quantum theory? Some forensic indication of Angelou's visit to Wozniak's that was supposedly occurring in the same moment that Angelou ran onto the tracks? A popcorn kernel that could only have come from Wozniak's microwave?"

"Why, did you find one?"

"Mulder," she warned, playful now.

"I'm wondering if maybe there isn't two of them, if maybe there's a way to figure which one we have. Or if there is one if this one is the one. Or part of the one," he was loosening up now. This was working, Goddamn she was worth the effort it took Fox to work with her. He knew that, but he was grateful that she didn't let him forget it. It could never be like this with anyone else, he knew that. He needed her.

"Blood, DNA, fingerprints, dental records. Whoever you are looking at on that footage, Mulder. This is Angelou. If you are convinced it's Angelou in the footage, it's probably more likely that there's an error in the tapes timeline than there is in the space time continuum," she insisted.

"Plans?" He found himself asking, as though her previous statement had really only settled on him now.

"What?" She asked, playing dumb, she knew full well what he was referring to but she couldn't bear to broach this with Mulder.

"You said you had plans tonight, that you had to cancel. What's was the big to-do for, Scully? You off on a date?" He kept his tone light, held his breath waiting for a reply. Cursed himself for caring, cursed himself for feeling this way about her when he knew he already asked so much, took so much. That his heart would take the liberty of wanting love from her as well was beyond selfish, but he did. He wanted every inch of her.

"Very funny, Mulder," Dana said, hoping that didn't count as deceit. She tried to move on quickly, ashamed when she knew she shouldn't be. She didn't owe Mulder anything. "Why don't you set about trying to figure out who our lookalike is and where they might be, and I will… do you the kindness of taking disarticulated tissue samples from each of these organs to confirm that there aren't any parts of Angelou missing before I clock-out."

"You're the boss, G-woman."

X

Dana styled her hair in an up-do once her nails had dried and slipped into the pale gold dress she'd worn to William's wedding. The only strappy heels she had were silver but they'd have to do. It didn't take her long to dress up, but it was just so rare that she had an excuse. She'd just about managed to scrub the smell of iodine and bleach out of her hair, or she at least hoped so. A dash of vanilla essence would have to serve as perfume.

She sat down with a glass of wine and tried to relax. She hadn't seen Daniel Waterson since she'd moved to DC, and she was already regretting agreeing to go with him that night. She'd left him, left everything for a reason. He represented a time in her life when she had looked outwards to learn about herself. It had meant breaking the habit of a lifetime to decide who she was for herself. There was a knock on her apartment door and she checked her lipstick in the mirror over the mantel before going to answer.

"Dana," Daniel Waterson said in greeting, openly awed at the sight of her. He looked just as she remembered him, gentle and poised. Dressed impeccably with an expression which was effortlessly dignified. His grey hair was cut practically short and he was clean shaven. He held a bouquet of peach blossoms aloft and she accepted them a little stiffly, there fingers brushed and he reached out to grip hers for an additional moment. The dignity which seemed to render him steady dissolved when her skin touched his and it was intoxicating. To think he had once been her lecturer, with a daughter her age, a wife. He may still be married, she didn't want to know. It was only for an evening.

She wished he didn't affect her the way he did, just as much as she wished she didn't compare his ease to Mulder's reserve. The way Daniel reached out and held her cheek, kissing the corner of her mouth, even her neck. Not pulling away.

"I've missed you," he said right against her skin with the easy familiarity of a lover.

Mulder would never, he wouldn't be so presumptuous. Her partner gave Dana room enough to think, to take up as much space as she needed, which during the course of their work together she'd learned was quite a bit. And yet she liked the way Daniel crowded her, made her feel desired. It was so simple, she could just bend with it, trust someone else's judgement for a change.

She stiffened. Put her hands on Daniel's chest and took a step back. No. She would trust her own judgement. She must.

"These are lovely," she said. She backed up, placing them on the table without bothering to find and fill a vase for them. Instead she picked up her purse and moved toward the door in a sweeping movement. "Let's go."

In the car Daniel had hired to ferry them to the gala, he placed a hand on her thigh and she let him, not without conflict.

"I'm glad you decided to come, Dana. It would feel wrong to attend without you. With all the research you did to advance the practical groundwork for the departments theory, it's only right you should be by my side, representing the team. Particularly since the conference is being held on your front doorstep," he said, his eyes filled with a familiar tenderness. She couldn't help but gaze, enjoy the heady familiarity. "You seem distracted," he added.

"I'm fine," she replied automatically.

He gave her a knowing smile and removed his hand from his leg. "They were discussing you in the chem laboratory last week, going over some old notes of yours. We're lucky you were generous enough to leave such a contribution."

"I don't want to talk about the old days, Daniel. I can't, I… It's like a past life and I still…" I feel guilty .

"How do you like your new job then? Your new life? Is it what you'd hoped?" She sat there, lips painted such a deep shade of red they appeared black in the dark of the evening, the red of her hair flickering in highlights by passing street lamps. The cream of her skin and the gold of her dress, she looked to Daniel like a living flame. The thin straps of the dress delicately held the fabric aloft, tantalisingly flimsy.

"It's not so new anymore. I don't want to talk about me. Can't we just…" Dana heaved a sigh. Christ, was she becoming like Mulder? Struggling to have an ordinary human interaction. Even just for a night. "I'm sorry," she said eventually, reaching out to Daniel before withdrawing as abruptly. "Can we just pretend nothing has changed for tonight? Just one night."

"Dana Scully pretend . This I've got to see."

When they arrived at the John F. Kennedy centre where the American Thoracic Society were holding their scientific achievement awards, Dana took Daniel's hand and began to talk about a paper she'd recently read on the medulla oblongata's relationship to the hippocampus in adolescents with dysphasia, easily slipping back in time to the days where being watched by Daniel made her light up and him in turn. She was bright and happy, flickering in the hearth. Bathed in the soft yellow light of the venue. She was radiant, lighting up the room.

He immediately returned the full whack of his attention to her, guarding nothing as though they were searing hot at the forgotten peak of their long-doused love affair. Showing her everything she suspected had survived in her absence, but not the pain that had come between them when she left. He kindly concealed his bitterness, probably in the hopes that she might return to his hotel room. She had said she'd give this the night, and she'd been purposely vague so as to not close off the option. She still hadn't totally rejected the possibility of sleeping with Daniel. She was brimming with conflict and nostalgia.

It went on like that as they stood together to accept the reward on behalf of the cardiology research department at the University of Maryland for a pulmonary stent Dana had spent a portion of her masters testing in countless silicon aortic replicas. Pictures flashed and she felt for a moment as though she'd stepped out of the Hoover building and into an alternate reality where she'd stayed the course her younger self had intended for her.

Of course she had defied her parents, her family and even Daniel when she moved to DC to join the FBI, but she had defied herself first. Turned her back on what she herself had given years of her life to build.

"The Great Dame wouldn't like that," Daniel mumbled, as several young cardiologists took up residence in box seats two tiers over the stage after accepting an award for promising contribution by a team of undergraduates. Once the applause died out the ceremony came to a close and the guests began to file out to the reception.

"Daniel, your dog does not have vertigo. Honestly, if I have to hear you blame that poor dachshund for your fear of heights once more I'm going to run an experiment to leave my preliminary findings beyond repute!" Dana admonished, accepting a glass of champagne from a waitress passing with a tray. They'd already shared a bottle at their seat and she was pleasantly flushed.

"What exactly would this heinous scientific inquiry involve," he asked in mock concern, also reaching for a glass and clinking it off of hers.

"Sky diving I should think," Dana replied, grinning. "Or hang gliding."

"You wouldn't get a sausage dog on a hang glider," Daniel scoffed.

"Not with that attitude," she said, quirking an eyebrow. They sipped the champagne.

"Have you always been this obstinate?" He asked, rather hotly as he watched her mouth. "The champagne matches your dress. You look delectable."

She placed her champagne flute on a passing waiters tray without taking her eyes off of Daniel. He took a step toward her. She backed up, eventually settling into one of the red curtained niches along the side of the room. He followed her. Dana wouldn't cross these lines of her own accord, but Daniel had become adept at supplying the right encouragement. When he settled his hand on the curve where her shoulder met her slender throat, she nodded almost imperceptibly. She was his for the first moment in such a long time.

He bent and kissed her. She pushed up onto her toes, falling against his chest as he tilted her ever so slightly. His hand was on supple bareskin, running his thumb back and forth between her slight shoulder blades.

She felt different than he remembered, so lithe now. She could probably drop a man twice her size. His hand shifted lower to the concave curve at the small of her back, and he began to think rather seriously about that hotel room.

And then there was a trill from Dana's clutch and she pulled back. She cleared her throat, pushing a stray red hair back behind a pin over her ear.

"Hold that thought," she mumbled as she seemed to step right back into present day, finding herself years away from the man who still stood a mere inch out of reach. She had her cellphone in her hand.

"Dana," Daniel could feel it too, the distance.

"Scully," she said into the phone, looking in his eyes as she said it as if she were introducing herself. Her new self. The weaponised version of his student come lover, as likely to end a life now as she was to save one. Capable of things he wasn't quite prepared to envision.

" Scully, it's me. " A man's voice was just about audible on the line and Daniel watched Dana carefully to see her reaction. She was difficult to read, but her eyes always gave it away.

"Mulder, I told you I had plans," she feigned exasperation. Glanced apologetically at Daniel as though he were a stranger trying to take her order.

"Find me at the bar," he mouthed, and she nodded absently.

Of course, she did. Dana had decent manners, she had every kind of decency. It's why she'd left him, unable to face what she had done to his family with her integrity intact.

"It's work," she said, as distracted as she'd been when he'd first arrived. "Thank you, Daniel, for a wonderful night. If you are in DC again… Well, call ahead! Maybe I can get some time off, show you some sights." She kissed his cheek.

He paused, reached out and pulled her to steal a final kiss from her perfect mouth. She allowed it, even smiled a little shyly as she pulled back.

"I live just down the road," he mumbled, unable to stop the words. He could sense the stricken expression which transformed his face.

A look of deep confusion spread across her fine features. Daniel's shock at his own words caused her doubt to evaporate. " When? " She asked, snapping into a dreadful awareness. She already comprehended the how and the why.

"Oh, Dana," he replied, ashamed.

She saw it then, he wasn't trying to hide the anguish anymore. He let her have it, but she didn't let it in.

"I have to go," she whispered, and as she pulled away she felt her face grow hot. Tears threatened her eyes. He reached for her and she scoffed, shaking her head. She pointed at Daniel, taking in his miserable expression. "Don't follow me," she said, frustrated that he'd had the arrogance to chase her this far. To undermine her fresh start.

She hoped this explicit declaration would be enough to secure some peace.

X

Fox heard her familiar knock on the door of his apartment and stood quickly to answer. He was still dressed for the office, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his tie tossed with the others in a heap by the bathroom sink.

There'd been a break in the case, Wozniak's prints were found at the surveillance outpost, indicating the possibility of tampering with the original footage. The footage of Angelou may have been legitimate but the timing had more than likely been augmented. He'd have to owe Scully a coke on this one.

He approached the door, feeling lighter with each step. Having someone in his life who would vouch for him, who took him seriously, it made Mulder feel ten years younger. Scully was so obviously sensible and good that simply having her approval made strangers and superiors give him the time of day for the first time since he left the VCU. Scully's attention made him care about things he hadn't given a second thought in years, like his future, or happiness, or any simple pleasure.

Scully things seemed attainable; long baths and full nights of sleep and home cooking. Things that he'd relegated to the sidelines as being exclusively for good, decent people, who hadn't made mistakes that tore apart their own family.

Fox was learning to abandon his Scully's admiration and square meals are only for good boys who don't stand by while their baby sister gets abducted mentality.

He opened the door, and Aphrodite stepped passed him with a cursory greeting, leaving the scent of vanilla in her wake. He swallowed, noticing how dry his mouth was. Colleagues .

An unwanted feeling rose up in Fox, and he couldn't look at her right away. She took a seat on the couch in his peripheral vision.

"There was a break in the case," he spoke automatically, feeling completely ridiculous for all of his musings about her before she'd arrived. "Emerging evidence indicated you were right, of course. They've got Wozniak's prints on the camera," he explained. Fucking hell, she'd actually been doing something… with someone in that . And she'd left to come here.

"I hate to say it, but I'm surprised. I'm getting used to conceding to your extreme possibilities, Mulder," she replied, reaching for his bottle of beer by the sofa and taking the last mouthful.

He looked at her, he knew his expression hid nothing but she was used to that. She smiled softly back at him. He had never seen her like this, completely owning her beauty with as much mastery as she owned her professional persona. He felt a pang of tenderness and a painful separateness. This wasn't for him. Co-workers .

"I'm an idiot, Scully. I'm sorry. This could've waited. I forget sometimes..." Forgot that if it was ever more than just work for her, it was because she let it be. His single mindedness was his, and he foolishly convinced himself it was theirs. He felt guilty, and inadequate, and glad to see her. He was stuck with himself, but Scully had a choice. If he was in her position he'd be out that door.

"Please don't apologise," she said, as though the idea bored her. She lifted the beer pointedly and gave it a little shake. Her movements unintentionally confirming that she was wearing no bra under that strappy marvel. "We've both been drinking, so we can't run over to Wozniak's and start asking questions tonight."

Realising she was right, Fox tried to excuse inviting her just to give her an update. "I'm so used to calling late. I know you mentioned plans but I didn't think you were actually doing anything important," he began.

She shook her head slightly, and arched a red eyebrow. "Aliens? Sure. Government conspiracies? Why not? ESP? I like those odds. Scully has plans? Now this confounds belief! Sound about right, Mulder?" She asked, folding her bare arms in a graceful movement he was unable to ignore. He bit the inside of his cheek, scanning through repulsive crime scene photos in his head.

"When you put it in those terms, I'd posit that some wishful thinking may have been at play," he defended, sheepish. Her skin was everywhere .

They watched each other across the room for a few beats of Dana's heart. It was as though Mulder had forgotten that he had asked her over with almost no urgency. He was so worried that he had deceived her even in the slightest to get her there. It was a far cry from Daniel's brazen manipulation.

"This is why I don't want you to apologise, you're bad at it. So, let's drop the cross examination of my mythical personal life, and accept the extreme possibility that since I've come of my own free will, I'm right where I want to be," she said, breaking the silence, but not the tension.

"Thank you for giving up your evening, Scully, again,"Mulder said, and it was said so earnestly, and so convincingly, she thought he meant much more by it.

Ally.

In fact, Fox was trying to broach the little sacrifices she'd made for their work without putting her on the spot, without making her uncomfortable or like she had to explain herself any more.

Dana loved him for it.

"The prints are enough to bring Wozniak back in," Scully stated, uncrossing her arms just as temptingly, "but I'd like more if we're going to request a warrant. If you want, we can try and build evidence to support a decent line of questioning and put him on the spot."

She was all business and her familiar attitude settled his uneasiness at the unfamiliar sight of her narrow, freckled shoulders. Fox was aware that this offer was a sign of gratitude from Scully, although he wasn't sure what he'd done to please her he was elated to have done so. Friends, surely.

"Sure thing, Rita Hayworth. I'll grab the file. You want a beer?" Fox asked, floating higher still on the small smile she gave him in answer. Partner.

He went to get the drinks and Dana settled back on the couch, still a little giddy from the champagne and relieved to find Mulder just as she'd left him after her bizarre night. She couldn't help but compare him to Daniel, who had pushed her into pleasant corners, but pushed her nonetheless. Then to discover the nature of Daniel's ongoing desire for her, that it rendered what he knew she desired for herself so secondary. The knowledge made her want to throw a tantrum, to assert herself in her new life which was supposed to be devoid of his influence.

She felt as though her whole path was being undermined and it was driving her spare.

"Mulder?" She called, missing his presence in the room as an anchor to the life she chose when she left the past behind. She could hear it in her voice, the need.

He stepped into the room with the case files under his arm, two beers in one hand, a bowl of chips in the other, and a packet of sunflower seeds held between his teeth. "Mmm?" Mulder asked, as he placed the items on the table in front of her. He pulled the packet from his mouth and tore it open easily.

Fox stopped what he was doing when he met her blue eyes.

Dana imagined standing up and walking out of Mulder's apartment with no explanation. Instinctively, she knew that no matter how many times she chose to be by his side, Mulder was always prepared for her to choose something else. She was in total possession of herself with him. Then, Dana imagined arriving at her apartment in an hour or so, and finding Daniel waiting for her still holding the award they'd accepted together. Daniel, who believed their desire for each other gave him some right to a place in her life, even over her desire to live without him. The desire that had won out in her own heart and led her here. To Mulder's couch.

To his frozen form and sea green eyes.

"Will you marry me, Mulder?" Dana asked, somehow unsurprised at her own absurd sincerity. Maybe she was tipsier than she thought.

Fiancé.

Scully couldn't know the effect this had on Fox, who expected to collapse from the effort of willing her silly offer into something real. Something which a moment ago he hardly knew he wanted suddenly stole away his whole lonely future. The change that overcame his feelings at her words was profound, an unspoken hunger ripped forth and made him unrecognisable to himself.

The desperate, selfish impulse to attempt to seize something which wasn't even really being offered to him passed in a dazzling flash that he had to blink out of sight. Scully.

"Rough night?" Fox asked, seeing passed his own blinding desire, he managed to locate Scully.

Scully's nodded and her delicate chin wobbled, A small, tearful laugh escaped her claret red lips. "I should go," she mumbled. Her champagne skirt shimmering around her thighs as she stood abruptly. Scully.

He swallowed against a plea for her to stay. Fox knew that she had come because she wanted to be near him, and that in leaving she would find her way closer to herself. It had been like that since the start, Scully valued her space as much as he depended on his own.

Fox had been on a similar journey to Scully, he had been pulled in every direction but the one he wanted for himself. He knew how it felt to turn your back on what other people wanted and go your own way and Scully was the one person in his life who respected that. They were his choices, and that was enough for her. He was committed to returning the favour.

What she wanted for herself, he wouldn't get in the way of that.

"I finished that beer a while ago, I'm probably good to drive if you need a ride home?" He offered.

Scully stood before him, coming a little closer than usual, a red curl had escaped her updo and rested on her cheek.

"No thanks," Dana replied, her voice soft, she was trying to stoke desire in Mulder. Challenging him to try and limit her options. "I'll catch a cab on the road."

The part of Fox's brain which so often fixated on where the lines of Scully's body met her outfit and however it might fit her, began to undermine the dress altogether. Rather, he felt a pull below his belt at the smooth extent of her skin as it slipped out of sight under the dress, and suddenly the rise and fall of her chest was taking him somewhere with no dress at all.

"I'll get the door then," Fox said like he did it all the time. He accepted that he would have to let this rare flirtatious moment pass to preserve the mutual respect which was so hard won between them.

He opened the door for her and she turned to him when she reached the threshold. Scully paused there, glowing and alive and perhaps tempting him on purpose. Daring him.

Fox allowed himself to drink her in, dimly aware that once the door was closed he could return to this moment alone in his mind and make good use of it.

She backed out, still facing him in the corridor. "Goodnight," she whispered, her eyes boring into his.

"Jesus, Scully," he breathed, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck. He cleared his throat, breaking eye contact to focus on the floor between them. "Goodnight."

With that, he closed the door in a clean movement, expecting the click of the latch and glancing up at the dull pat that prevented it. Scully's small, strong hand gripped the door, preventing it from meeting with the jam. Fox marvelled for a moment at her neatly painted fingernails before she pushed the door open like she must've intended to even as she'd watched him close it.

Dana felt so exposed to Mulder when she re-entered his apartment. She closed the door by pressing her back to it. He leaned with his shoulder against the door and gazed down at her. She didn't know how to verbalise what she'd been trying to say with what she had been doing, so she just continued to look at him. Eyes brimming with heat and conflict.

He nodded. "I understand, Scully. I know," Fox told her, because he believed he did. Something was different.

"I want…" Dana faltered. Establishing herself independently of her family, friends, and lovers since she'd moved to DC had been a hell of a process, and while grieving her father she thought she had learnt who she was under no authority but her own. She'd kept here distance from Mulder, afraid to lose herself in him when she was just finding her feet. But standing in his apartment in her best dress, she felt completely upright, felt as though she stood separate from him and like he allowed her to. "I want to believe you. I..." she blew out a shaky breath. She wanted a whole lot more than that. "I'm not good at this."

"What happened tonight?" He asked, he felt the silk of her skin under his fingers before he realised he'd reached out to brush the stray curl from her cheek. He tucked it behind her ear and withdrew.

"I spent the evening with someone from med school, and it was like the FBI never happened. Like none of it was real, a part of me could hear everyone's announcement 'Dana's seen sense at last.' And extreme possibilities were so far away, but so was my own agency." Scully shrugged, considering her next words. "From the moment we met, you never once tried to control me. Never made me doubt my identity even when you were second guessing every belief I held sacred. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that."

"Hence the proposal?" He asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively. She hid her face in her hands in faux embarrassment. "Not that I'm complaining."

When she returned her eyes to his, she took his breath away. He was touching her again, tracing her cheek bone with the tips of his fingers.

Dana pressed her face into his warm palm. "I wouldn't be me without you. And that's not to say that you've given me my identity, I mean that you helped me find it. Find out who I am, who I actually am."

"Wow, Scully, I mean. Ditto," he muttered absently. He was completely in her thrawl, so utterly hers. He survived on his own faith, but he thrived on her belief in him.

"People have wanted me to belong to them, but only one person has simply wanted me to just be me even as I walked out the door." She smiled at him then, this wonderful adoring smile. Her blue eyes sparkled. "I'm yours. I am. I am because you want me to be who I am, Mulder, not because you want me to be yours. I do, I believe that, I recognise that feeling in you because I feel it myself when I look at you."

He wiped hastily at a rogue tear and laughed. A pause followed where she watched him, gauged his reaction. Prepared to add further revelations to a revelatory evening. He read her intention in disbelief. "Shit—"

Scully kissed him full on the mouth before he could finish being overwhelmed, and it felt like every synapse in his brain fired at once. A choir of angels, a supernova, a high dive. A ridiculous man's existence justified in a golden woman's rapture. He clung to her dress so desperately it was a little embarrassing. The straps slipped from her shoulders, and the dress was just about held in place by the swell of her breasts. He turned into the kiss, pressing her into the door, answering the pressure of her tongue against his lips with a groan.

The kiss tasted of beer and champagne and lipstick. Scully tugged Fox's shirt free of his slacks in rapid movements, not breaking their kiss even for air. He felt the heat he'd kept at bay since she'd arrived dressed as a romantic heroine surge forth when her hot little hand slid under his clothes and ran over his stomach. She explored his skin without hesitation as though it were familiar, her fingers greedily trailed over his waist, his ribs, his shoulders, down to the curve of his back. She groped his ass over his slacks, drawing his erection against the welcome pressure of her hip, he quickly lost himself to the sensation with a sob, overcome. Hopelessly hard from their PG encounter, he began to grind against Scully with gusto. He rucked up her skirt with his left hand, slotting his thigh between her legs to feel the heat of her vulva against his slacks. He kept his hand on her hip under the shimmering fabric, pressing her down onto him and shuddering with the thrill of her gasp. He could feel the strap of her underwear under his thumb and it was making him crazy.

Soon, they were frotting in earnest, panting and sighing against eachothers mouths. Sweating like they were on the verge of breaking a shared fever. Fox eagerly palmed Scully's breast with his right hand, and she arched her back to meet his touch. Their shared vigour caused the fabric of the dress to slip still lower, allowing him to reverently run his thumb back and forth over her exposed nipple.

A rim of pale red was smeared around both of their mouths, and twin dark stains had appeared on Mulder's slacks, at his crotch and on his thigh where Scully worked against him.

He loved her, he loved her so much and now she was going to make him come in his pants.

Dana was radiating bliss, accepting completely the direction she was headed, and everything that came with it. She was going to stay with the FBI, she was going to go all the way, and she wasn't going alone. She felt complete clarity with Mulder pressing her against the door she'd locked behind her. She was right where she wanted to be and prepared to throw away the key.

"Scully—" Mulder moaned hoarsely against her lips. "You're going to make me come in my pants like a fucking adolescent."

"Jesus Christ, Mulder," Dana whined, reaching between them to unfasten his belt with surgical precision.

In a moment's time, she had his cock in her hand and he was rasping and pleading against her ear. "Oh my God, Scully, what the fuck… ah, what the fuck."

The delicious friction of his thigh between her legs was suddenly absent, and in the next moment Dana felt him fumbling with her knickers before he was reaching up inside her, leaving electric bolts in his wake.

"Oh…" Dana whimpered. Her knees buckled and Mulder grunted as his hand on her wet vulva suddenly supported her weight. The pressure on her clitoris as she ground down on Mulder's palm, coupled with his fingers hooked against her anterior vaginal wall made her toes curl in her silver sandals. Carefully, Mulder reached behind her with his left hand, and pulled her against him so that she wouldn't melt right onto the floor.

Mulder was rolling his hard, silky dick against the grip of her hand as she pumped him. The pleasure of it was pulling the filthiest sounds from deep in his chest, and Dana was overwhelmed to hear such amorous groaning in her partner's familiar voice. She mused briefly that the sounds must be audible in the corridor, but she was well passed caring.

Fox licked Scully's neck, tasting vanilla and sweat and finger fucking her with abandon. He should be taking his time with her, he should have her on the bed, his head between her thighs, but she was already so close. Fox could tell and he couldn't bear to stop until she came on his hand. He lifted his head and they watched each other with unchecked desire.

She could hardly remember being so aroused, and she began to shake with the strain of approaching orgasm. Her hand came away from his cock to cling to him and he clenched his teeth against the loss of sensation.

"I want you to say my name when you come, Scully," Mulder demanded, and her eyes fluttered as he removed his fingers from her to focus on her swollen clit. She nodded.

"More," she mumbled, she'd been quiet enough as she moved against him, but he was holding on to every syllable. Moving his fingers furiously against her, he felt heat surge onto his hand as she came in a flurry of fluttering muscles and gushing fluid. "Oh, Mulder," she cried softly, and she watched him as he worked her through her orgasm. Several streams of liquid soaking his hand, her underwear, and spraying onto the carpet in a sight that made his own orgasm tingle in his balls.

Dana had never had an orgasm quite like it. The sensation was long, low and lasting. It made her want to hold her breath and pant at once. To stay rigidly still, and to thrash about. Was she still coming? Mulder was watching her with a fixed expression that made her clit fucking burn as he pressed with blunt circles.

"Let me down," Dana murmured. Mulder glanced down at her body partially obscured by creased gold fabric, he took in her flushed exposed breasts and her dripping thighs still wrapped around his hand with evident lust.

"Can you stand?" He asked. She kissed him.

Dana shook her head, and slid down his front. "I don't need to," she mumbled against his damp shirt on the way to her knees.

"Scully," Mulder whispered, his voice sounding at once like a warning and a prayer.

"Nice," she whispered against the head of his hard-on.

He would come any second and her complimenting his genitals wasn't going to buy him anytime.

" Scully, " Fox repeats, bracing himself against the door over her head as Dana fucking Scully herself sucked his cock into the perfect pout of her small lipstick stained mouth. His left hand rested on her shoulder, and she placed her own on top of it, lacing their fingers.

His hand was still wet with the evidence of her orgasm, and the site of her rumpled hair, tits out, cheeks hollowed around his penis. "Oh my God," he groaned, still fully dressed and two seconds away from coming down her throat. She moaned around him, and he felt pleasure lurch forward low in his belly. "Jesus, Scully I'm coming, fuck," he grunted, sobbing when she didn't relent. Squeezing her hand in his, he came hard and helpless into the heat of the same mouth he would've traded his car just to kiss. Had he died? Was he still on earth?

"Will you marry me, Scully?" Fox asked, dropping to his knees in front of her. He took his Persephone's face in his hands and kissed her petal lips in a daze.

"Probably," Dana replied, tugging him down to lie on the floor with her.