THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER!!! Damn, I'm so sorry about how long it took to get this out. Don't even get me started on all the parental blocks that my mother put up on the home computer making it nearly impossible to even access this story (not to mention nearly EVERYTHING I READ) what does that say about me, do you think? Must be a smut-junkie. Hmm. Never knew that... O.O

So here you go. Last chapter. Once again: apologies and this isn't my story.

The room was dark when she woke again, silent. She looked around and realized that she was alone. The door to Mulder's room was open a crack and shadowed light filtered onto the carpet of her room. Carefully she sat up in bed, prepared for the pain that thankfully never came. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Putting weight on her feet, she stood up. A little unsteady at first, she quickly gained her balance. She walked toward the light in Mulder's room.

She could see him through the crack in the door. He was stretched out on the bed, files spread out all around him, glasses perched on his nose. He looked deeply engrossed in the particular file he held on his lap. Though Scully pushed lightly on the door, a loud creak announced her presence. Mulder looked up from the file and smiled when he saw her.

"Finding us everything interesting?" She asked, looking from his eyes down to the file he held in his hand.

"A couple of ritual masses in New England, dancing naked under the full moon -- it's that time of year," he shrugged.

"Naked under a haunted moon," she corrected.

"Haunted moon," he nodded, smiling. "Do you need anything?" He asked, setting the file on the bedside table and placing his glasses on top of the file.

"I just woke up and you weren't there," she explained.

"I didn't want the light to wake you. How are you feeling?"

"Better, but I still feel like I could sleep for a month," she admitted.

"I was about ready to turn the light off myself." Mulder yawned.

"Oh, all right. I'll see you in the morning." Scully said turning to go back to her room.

"Goodnight." Mulder called to her, turning off the bedside light.

The darkness of the two rooms engulfed her. Scully hesitated and then stepped back into Mulder's room.

"Mulder?"

"Yes," he answered, curious.

"Nevermind...Goodnight."

Scully walked back to her bed, damning herself as she climbed under the blankets and sank back into the pillow. She knew all she had to do was ask him, yet she couldn't. The memory of all the nights she suffered alone visited her as if they were ghosts of the past. It was her turn, her move, and after everything they had just been through, she couldn't understand what was stopping her.

Mulder stared through the darkness at the door she had just exited.

An inner battle was raging between his heart and his head. His gut won again and he threw the blankets off the bed and stood up. He had followed her out into that hallway, he could damn well follow her now. He found himself hoping the outcome this time would be more satisfying.

He quietly walked from his room into hers. Striding across the floor, he climbed into bed next to her.

"I thought I would sleep better over here," he explained, hoping he read her hesitation correctly.

"I think we'll both sleep better," she whispered, thanking him.

Scully lay perfectly still in the dark. The dark. Darkness covers a multitude of sins -- she said that to Mulder once. In horror movies, darkness summons the creatures of the night. In literature, it sometimes represents evil. Tonight, the darkness was giving her the courage she needed.

Mulder heard her hand sliding over the sheets. He reached out and took it.

"Mulder, I have a confession to make," she admitted solemnly, her voice filling the room.

"You're a really big fan of the ice capades and you've just been afraid to tell me?" He quipped.

Scully was silent, unsure of whether or not to continue. His hand

squeezed hers in a silent apology.

"What's your confession?" He asked her softly.

"When OPR transferred me to Salt Lake City, and I resigned...do you know why I did that?"

"You were tired of the red-tape bullshit?"

"That's what I told Skinner. That's what I told you. I think when I said it even I believed that was the reason. I've had time to think about it since then."

"Why did you quit, Scully?"

"When I was re-assigned, I quit because I couldn't leave you. If I quit the bureau, I could stay in DC and I would be near you."

Mulder rewarded her courage by bringing her hand to his lips, kissing the back softly.

She wasn't done.

"That day in the hallway, you told me that I made you a whole person. I can do that Mulder, because I wasn't a whole person until I met you. We make each other whole." Her voice was strong and steady. "I think that's why it's taken me so long to tell you. I fought against the idea that I needed you. I didn't want to need you. I didn't want to need anyone. I can't fight it anymore. I do need you, Mulder. You told me that you loved me. I wasn't strong enough to tell you then, but I am now. I love you too."

Mulder rolled onto his side, facing her. Scully reached out with her hand and stroked his face. Tears sprang to her eyes when she found his cheek wet with emotion.

"When I was strapped to the table, when Rupert played that video tape of you holding me," Scully's voice began to break and Mulder's lips pressed against the inside of her palm. "I knew that was what I wanted. I knew that if I died that would be what I missed. I don't want to miss anything anymore, Mulder."

The tears were flowing freely from her eyes when Mulder pulled her into his arms. He tenderly stroked her forehead and her cheeks with the softness of his lips.

He held her tightly while she gave into the sorrow that had built up over the last three days. She let go of the pain Rupert had caused her, finally feeling strong enough to face the hurt.

Mulder urged her to cry, to sob until she couldn't anymore. He whispered words of truth - words of love- softly into her ear.

Gradually her sobs turned to gasps and finally to hiccups, until she was able to breath normally again. Mulder rolled onto his back, still cradling Scully in his arms. She rested her head on his chest as he rhythmically ran his hand up and down her back, soothing her into sleep.

"You sleep," he quietly whispered, rubbing her back.

"I do love you," she pledged softly.

"And I love you," he breathed.

Soon her breathing slowed to a deep even rhythm. He still held her, his heart swelling with her words. Insecurity creeped into his joy, only to be pushed firmly away. She believed in him. She had stood by him for five years. She loved him.

Peacefully, Mulder fell asleep holding Scully in his arms, knowing that she loved him.

- - -

Fox Mulder was dreaming. But unlike the usual images that haunted his sleep, this dream he wanted to cling to -- until it became a reality. The feminine smile was enticing, teasing, familiar. The woman moved close, then backed away. She appeared again as if in a fog, near once more, her hair of flame curling around his fingers. Sliding his hand from her hair and letting it drift down the length of her, he stopped when he felt silken skin beneath his fingertips.

Then he heard a feminine moan of pleasure. It lasted only a moment. Hovering between sleep and wakefulness, Mulder pulled himself far enough away from the dreamy haze to know where he was, and who was beside him. Again, he glided his hand down the smoothness that he recognized had been Scully's thigh, and with lazy pleasure, ran his fingers up it again. And again, she sighed with the sound of desire.

"Scully?" He murmured.

Scully didn't want to answer and end the fantasy she'd been drifting under. Until this moment, she'd been able to keep her eyes closed. Needs she had ignored, fantasies that she had never admitted to, desire that she had never allowed bombarded her, promising to shatter her senses.

Deep inside her, a curl of something dangerous began to unwind. A white-hot thread of awareness began to uncoil in the pit of her stomach.

Scully opened her eyes and looked up into the windows of the soul that seemed intent on devouring her.

"Mulder," she began, her voice breathless with need. "I think..."

"Shh..." Mulder's fingers gently, provocatively, stroked her lips. "Don't think."

Her heartbeat staggered, stopped, then started again. This time for all the right reasons. She held her breath as he bent his head toward hers. Finally. A kiss. His mouth on hers. No interruptions. Finally.

The moment his lips met hers, she knew. This wasn't just a kiss. This was an invasion.

His mouth came down on hers with a raw hunger she had never experienced before. Brilliant light exploded within her in a sunburst of color and sensation. He did not seek to slowly seduce -- there was nothing leisurely about his kiss. His lips took and consumed hers, ravaged them. He did not seek a subtle entry to her mouth. Instead, his tongue plunged between her lips and teeth and demanded the sweetness he knew he would find there.

Their lips met again and again, open-mouthed, in hungry, wet kisses. Kisses that melded their lips and their bodies. Kisses that brought the searing heat from their lips to burn deep into the heart of their unleashed passion and spread throughout the rest of their bodies.

His lips trailed from hers to touch her earlobes and her cheeks, to rest against her pulse and travel onward along the length of her collarbone.

The things he did with his tongue...

Unwilling to relinquish his lips to the rest of her body quite yet she guided him back to her mouth. She returned his kiss, eager for it, met the fever of his pace, gasped and sought him again and again when he broke away to circle her lips erotically, slowly, with the rim of his tongue.

She shivered slightly, for when his mouth did not touch her, she was cold.

She shivered in his arms and he knew the coolness of the air had nothing to do with the chills wracking her. He felt it too. The sense of rightness. The sense of belonging. For the first time in a long, lonely life, he felt loved. He would make sure that she too felt loved.

Her touch sent daggers of heat slicing through him, illuminating he dark corners of his soul like the light from a thousand suns.

Reaching for her, he enfolded her in his arms, pulling her tightly to him. Her tender flesh molded to his. He realized how well she fit in the circle of his arms. She made him whole. She had always made him whole. As if she had been made for him. He knew that just as certainly he had been made for her.

His breath came harsh and fast. Anticipation threatened to strangle him.

Life was precious and rare. It could be snatched away at a moment's notice, snuffed out in a heartbeat. She wanted to feel she was alive, and Mulder sensed that as well, and gave her access to his body. He held nothing back.

Time and reality fell away. His kisses became deeper, more demanding. He used his hands and his mouth to give her what she wanted; what she needed. Heat. Passion. Life. Continuity. Love.

She opened her mouth to him and took his breath as her own.

Her breathing shallow and fast, Scully snaked her hand beneath his t-shirt and stroked her palm down his chest and watched his eyes fill with want.

He looked at her, hunger etched into his features, but hints of hesitation still in his eyes. Apparently he was waiting, giving her the opportunity to change her mind if she wanted to. She felt him pull away, put a little physical distance between them.

"How do you feel?"

Scully reached out her hand and cupped his face. His eyes had become speckled with doubt. She sighed. Only Mulder. Only her Mulder could let his own self-doubt overshadow the inevitability of this moment.

"Like I'll explode if you stop touching me. Touch me, Mulder," she urged softly.

She watched the emotion in his eyes shift and change, darkening with the passion they had been denied for years.

Mulder wrapped his arms around her waist and held on as if it meant the difference between living and dying.

His lips took hers. His tongue darted in and out of her mouth, making breathing impossible and stirring her senses so that she didn't even mind.

She felt his kiss and his need down to her soul.

At last, they were willing to explore the magic that happened between them whenever they were close. Her body burned with desire. Her flesh tingled from his caresses and a damp, aching heat settled between her thighs.

A hunger rose up between them that demanded to be fed. Gasping for breath in between long, deliberate kisses, they stripped each other of their clothing.

His body throbbed and ached to become a part of her. Everything within him screamed at him to take her. He knew that she too felt the almost overpowering desire to become one. He had never known such need. His groin tightened. His lungs shuddered, barely able to draw enough breath. He hungered for her. Deep in his soul, he recognized that they had been waiting for this woman his entire life.

In one dark corner of her mind, she realized that she was spinning out of control, but she didn't care. She wanted to be closer to him. To feel his lean, muscled form pressed to her.

He grabbed her again and pulled her tight against him. Flesh to flesh, heat to heat, the fire already raging between them burst into an inferno of passion.

She had thought that his kiss could sooth the ache within her and help extinguish the blaze that had been burning in her for so very long. Now it seared a trail so hot that it denied her all thought. All she knew was longing. Her soul was on fire, her body was on fire. She wanted to touch him, to run her fingers over the breadth of his shoulders, to press her lips against his chest. Most of all, she wanted to appease the longing inside her. She wanted the emptiness to be filled.

Hungrily he feasted upon her body. The brush of his fingers and the warmth of his tongue raged over the mounds of her breasts, explored contours of creamy skin, and set fire to the pebble-like peaks of rouge and crimson that tautened instantly at his touch.

Hungrily she tasted him in turn, pressing her lips to his shoulders, his throat, and softly, wetly, drew patterns down the muscles of his chest.

Her insides twisted, jumbled into a quivering mass of need as he teased his mouth slowly down her body. Down past her breasts, trailing over her stomach and stopping between her thighs. Scully's fingers curled into the cotton blanket beneath her. Mouth dry, breath coming in short, jagged gasps, she watched, entranced, as Mulder bent his head and took her with his mouth.

At the first touch of his tongue, Scully gasped aloud and jerked in his arms. He didn't stop. His breath brushed against her skin, his lips danced over the soft, delicate folds of her center as his tongue moved in strong strokes across the heart of her sex.

Twisting and writhing in his strong grasp, there was no escape, even if she wanted one. She whispered his name brokenly, hardly daring to draw a breath.

His mouth tormented and delighted her. His hands invaded and adored. She drifted helplessly, reaching for the peace she knew waited for her at the end of this exquisite agony. And though she wanted -- needed -- the climax hurtling toward her, she didn't want his ministrations to end.

Forcing herself to look at him, Scully stared through lust-glazed eyes at the man caressing her so intimately. Clearly sensing her gaze on him, Mulder lifted his head, abandoning her briefly, as if to let her see the full measure of love shining in his eyes.

Her heart filled with him and beat strongly against her chest. She drew a long, shaky breath. He dipped his head once more and when his mouth covered her, the night splintered around her. Her world rocked, tipped on its side and threatened to send her crashing over the edge. But she was held, safe in the arms of the man she had loved for years.

Before the last ribbon of satisfaction unwound inside of her, Mulder returned to her mouth. Her lips parted for him and her tongue met his stroke for stroke. In a wild, desperate joining, their mouths mated, breath mingling, tongues exploring, caressing movements meant to sooth yet at the same time enflame.

Pulling away, Scully, with Mulder's help, rolled him onto his back and straddled his waist. The look in her eyes brought a smile of anticipation to his lips. It was Scully's turn to play.

He felt her fingers upon his naked flesh and marveled at the touch, shuddering as the hot fires of desire snaked through him.

In the days to come, he would remember this night, remember it with aching poignancy, and he would tremble anew, thinking of all that he held in his arms. For in all the years when they had watched each other and waited, he had never imagined this.

She had said that she loved him. And in that, he had never known a feeling more exquisite, never known a power so great. She was sensual, intelligent, elegant, and beautiful. In his life, he had never seen himself as worthy the love she gave him.

She stroked his chest, her fingers playing down his ribs. She nibbled against his lower lip, then rose to meet him in a wild and sweet open-mouthed kiss that drove almost all his demons from him.

And still she loved and teased and taunted him with tender kisses upon his skin, exotic, erotic, decadent kisses. Moving lower and lower against him, she touched the pulsing fullness of his sex with her mouth.

Lightly at first, with kisses that were so soft that they tormented him nearly to hell -- or was it heaven. He reached out to her, unable to bear the bursting sensation, when suddenly she closed her lips hard around him, and in all his life he had never felt so searing an explosion of pure want.

The wanting within his eyes touched her as no aphrodisiac could.

Mulder sat up in bed, his arms grasping for her, his mouth needing her. She met him, leaned against him and felt his body, hard and eager.

Desperately, hungrily, his tongue moved in and out of her mouth, touching, tasting. He held her mouth with his as if trying to claim her for his own. She met his urgency with a wild, overwhelming passion that threatened to leave her puddled on the bed. When he finally tore his mouth from hers, Scully moaned at the loss.

There were words at last, words that touched her flesh in hot whispers. They told her that she was beautiful. They told her that she belonged to him. Words of love...and words of raw hunger.

"Now Mulder," she pleaded in an agonized whisper. "Hurry. I have to feel you inside me, Mulder. I need..." Her voice faded into silence. How could she possibly explain what she needed when she hardly understood it herself? This was more than desire. More than lust. Something within her was clamoring to be a part of him. To feel him slide his body into hers. She had never known such want.

Suddenly he was atop her, his arms around her. His eyes upon her, he held himself above her. Mulder gently pushed his body into hers. With deep, long, hard strokes, he claimed her; driving her into a mad rush toward an orgasm even more fulfilling than the last. A cry welled up within her, touched her lips, but never escaped her.

Scully's fingers dug into his shoulders. Her head tipped back. She wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her feet at the ankles, pulling him harder, more closely to her. Each thrust stroked something deep within her, something she hadn't even known existed.

She buried her face against his throat, pulling tighter and tighter against him. Arching. Twisting. Feeling him with all her length, inside and out. He was moving much too slow, torturously slow, pressing her back and watching her eyes as he moved against her, seeming to burn inside her until he touched her womb, her heart, her very soul.

She hungered, she wanted, she ached. The sweetness, the ecstasy filled her until she thought she would die with it, that she must explode.

And then, he was nearly still, rigid, taut. He teased her so slowly, then with startling speed he filled all of her again. He withdrew and filled her once again, hard.

Again, she almost cried out. But his lips were there, and he kissed her, his tongue ravishing her mouth to steal sound away. While the pulsing shaft of his body moved as hard and hot as molten steel deep into her, one long, slow stroke -- sinking -- staying there.

He held perfectly still, buried deep inside her, fighting for control. An explosive climax was only a breath away and he would be damned if he would give into the pleasure before she was ready to take that leap with him.

In the space of a few heartbeats, he was able to move within her again. And then there was nothing but the overpowering, driving urge to brand her as his. To fill her so deeply, so completely, that even when they weren't together, he would still be a part of her, as she was a part of him.

Mulder looked down into her blue eyes and saw the stunned wonder he knew was written on his own features. He pressed his mouth to hers and their bodies raced toward completion. He swallowed her cries when they were at last swept over the edge of passion and fell tumbling into peace as he poured all that he was into her waiting warmth.

Mulder groaned again as he pulled her into the circle of his arms. He lowered his mouth to hers like a dying man seeking salvation. No point in denying the truth to himself. He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her.

Hours blurred together. The rest of the night passed in a flurry of lovemaking that only seemed to feed the fires burning between them. Every time Mulder thought he was exhausted and beyond experiencing any more, Scully showed him differently.

Exhaustion claimed them just before sunrise. Scully curled up next to Mulder and rested her head on his chest. Before the steady rhythm of his heartbeat could lull her into sleep, she heard him whisper her name.

"Dana?"

"Yes," she answered sleepily.

"Promise me something?"

"If I can," she answered honestly.

"Promise me that the next time there's a haunted moon," he kissed the top of her head. "You and I will lock ourselves inside and spend the night like this."

"I promise."

Mulder heard the smile in her voice and he wrapped his arms more tightly around her. As the sun rose outside, the lovers fell asleep in each other's arms. Safe. Together they were complete. They were whole.

The end