11:30 am Monday, October 27, 1998. 

Scully looks at her partner's desk. Mulder has put the file down, and is
staring off into the distance, watching people go by. His face is still
frozen, the way it is when he's experiencing any strong emotion in
public. She had thought it was a combination of sadness and guilt about
the fate of the Crumps, but the eyes ... they're a clear green, with
gray-rimmed pupils, the eyes she's only ever seen before as a prelude to
... the evenings they had before the cancer, before he tried to swallow
her whole, before she clawed herself out of Fox Mulder's
all-encompassing maw. Who does he want to inhale today, she wonders. She
hunts the hunter, tracking his eyes' movement as they watch someone walk
past his desk, past her desk, a little further and stops. 

"Agent Sadoul!" roars Skinner. She turns and looks. One desk behind her
stands Walter Sergei Skinner at his biggest, butchest, AD best. Scully
isn't really listening to what he's saying to poor Sadoul, but the body
language is delicious. Skinner leans forward, the glasses are off and
swung about wildly like a weapon. He has stopped shouting, his voice is
the softest and most menacing of growls. Sadoul is hunched over his
station, pawing frantically through a desk that has apparently been kept
clean by the time honored method of sweeping everything into the drawers
each night just before going home. She stifles the impulse to tell
Sadoul, "The subordinate male presents the neck, belly, or buttocks in
order to survive an encounter with a dominant male. Males who do not are
quickly removed from the gene pool." Then the synthesizing part of her
brain catches up with the analyzing part of her brain, and she stands up
swiftly, faces Mulder. "Oh my god, oh my god." 

"Agent Scully, are you OK?" "Scully, are you OK?" Two voices blend, the
low and the lower creating a beautiful harmony without the need for the
higher registers. Sadoul merely hunches further away from the towering
bald man. 

"I'm. Fine. Sir." She feels her eyes widen with each choked note in her
answering trill. Had she ever really known Mulder before this moment? 

About Skinner, she knew. It was an open ... secret would have been too
strong a word. No one actually believed it, so it couldn't be a secret.
But the ... collective supposition was rekindled every time Skinner
started riding some particular male agent's ass a little harder than the
others. No one was really bothered by his ... connections with certain
agents, since being Skinner's current favorite was a privilege
apparently paid for in blood. And Mulder had been protected by all of
the Mrs. Spooky rumors. (Which were no more than the truth, she thinks
to herself with a quieter internal voice, back then.) 

She backs away from her desk. Her eyes never leave Mulder's face, and
she keeps walking backward, towards the hallway, towards the water
fountain, towards the bathroom, towards away from here, as fast as she
can. Which isn't very fast, she feels like her feet are stuck in
molasses and the Mulder she knew has died of unknown causes before her
eyes. She is desperately hoping that she won't run into someone, but she
can't seem to put her back to Mulder's stare. She finally arrives at the
doorway, Mulder blinks, and she is free to turn and flee. 

** 

Mulder stands before the door of the ladies' room, right arm
half-raised. His left hand is toying with his tie, a horrific affair of
red, orange, and yellow diagonal stripes. It looks out of place in the
background of white dress shirt and black suit. 

He hears a clack-clack approaching and backs up from the door. One of
the translators, with an Indian name he can never remember, appears. She
is wearing a dress which reminds him of an African dashiki, bright
purple and yellow. "Is Agent Scully in there?" 

"Agent Scully?" she repeats, in the nasal Bronx accent he always finds
so disconcerting. 

He shakes his head. Skinner's unexpected appearance, everything between
him and Scully, and now this woman he always finds disturbing. The
shocks are building up today, but to what? "Agent Scully. Thin woman
about yea tall, short red hair, wearing a dark red skirt suit. Or it
might be green." 

"Oh, her. Yes, she's in there. I'm not sure if she's laughing or crying.
She was standing in front of the mirror, running her fingers through her
hair. She kept muttering something about God. You can go in there; it's
empty except for her." Then she narrows her rich brown eyes, 20 shades
darker than her skin, and purses her cinnamon-tinted lips. "It's red,
almost magenta." 

"Thanks." She walks off into the hallowed halls of the Hoover Building,
and he walks forward, pushes into the previously unexplored depths of
the women's restroom. Scully is facing the mirrors. She is pulling her
left hand away from her face to contemplate it further, and for an
instant, he sees the green (gray? red?), blood-like drops on her white,
white skin. But the glamour breaks before he can ask about hybrids or
cancer or regrets and embarrass himself. "I hate the way you are in
red." Almost before. 

She whirls around, is reaching for her gun. "Mulder, you can't be in
here. You can't follow me - you can't *keep* following me to the ends of
the earth." She turns back to the mirror, turns the tap on. "And anyway,
I don't want to be rescued today. You and Kersh and immense piles of
manure." A bitter, muffled sound. He can't tell if it's laugh, sigh, or
snort. "I should have taken a day off, made it a long weekend. Well,
I'll rectify that error starting now." She takes her cellphone out of
her pocket, presses ten buttons in a half familiar pattern. "Agent
Scully, sir. I'm taking the rest of the day off as sick leave, and I'd
like to use vacation time for the next two days." Mulder points at
himself, then the door, and shrugs. Scully shakes her head vigorously
and points straight down with her free hand. "Sir, I find that the death
of the man in our last case has affected me more than expected. I also
need a chance to remove myself from Agent Mulder's personal orbit, to be
frank, Sir. " 

The tap-tap of her shoes brings Mulder's attention down to her little
feet. Her cute little left foot. He feels his face shift, mouth
shrinking, nostrils flaring just a touch; he can't tell if the new
expression is happy or sad. The things that foot used to do to him are
well-worth remembering, but the knowledge that it won't do those things
anymore makes his chest hurt. He asks himself if he should be insulted
that his partner uses him to wheedle vacation days from Kersh. Perhaps
he should treat it impersonally? 

"Thank you, Sir." She puts the phone back in her pocket and walks toward
the door, keeping her eyes straight ahead. She touches her hand to the
door, and pauses before pushing it. "Wednesday. Seven. Dinner at Café
Atlantico." She walks out. 

** 

7:17, October 29. Café Atlantico 

Scully sits at a table on the second level of the restaurant. She has
just moved there from the bar, the theatergoers have begun emptying out.
From this seat, she can peer over the railing and almost see the maitre
d'. The restaurant is only about four blocks up from the Hoover
building, but traffic this time of day is intimidating, even for a field
agent who has faced the Flukeman and lived. She isn't annoyed yet, but
if he hasn't arrived in five minutes, she's going to call and make sure
he remembers. 

The two days off have done her a lot of good. She feels relaxed and
comfortable, and the bright décor of Café Atlantico helps with that. The
music is light and tropical, there are plants everywhere, and she has
the most delightful lime fizzy drink sitting in front of her. The
turquoise shirt she wears perfectly reflect her mood: a placid sea of
contentment with little lime and lemon colored squiggles of excitement
shot through. She picks up one of the appetizers she's ordered,
something cold, with salsa. 

"She's right over there," says one of the waiters, pointing with his
chin, rather than the tray full of drinks in his arms. He's an
absolutely gorgeous dark-skinned black man with an intriguing Spanish
accent, and unfortunately, from Scully's point of view, he will not be
their server tonight. She gives a brilliant smile when she sees Mulder
step around him, and takes a bite. 

"Good evening, Fox. Siddown." 

He sits and blinks repeatedly at her. Finally settles on a quiet, "Good
evening, partner." He looks less distraught, she thinks. But she also
notes that his posture is relaxed while his eyes are intense and focused
on her. Experience has taught her that in this profiler mode, anything
she says or does can and will be remembered for later use. "What are you
drinking?" 

"It's something the bartender came up with by accident a few months ago.
Crushed ice, lime, Sprite, and mint. No alcohol. You want one?" 

"Hmmm. No, I think I'll get half a bottle of red." 

"That's a lot for one man to drink by himself." 

"Oh, that's right. You don't like red, do you?" This is said very
deliberately. She recognizes the petty jibe, but ignores it. She started
it, after all. 

A waiter takes their order. She's getting a steak and a salad of wilted
greens. He's going for an appetizer sampler. The waiter disappears,
returns with Mulder's wine and water for Scully. Then they are finally
left alone. 

"Do you have any idea why we're here, Mulder?" 

"The desserts?" 

"Skinner." He pulls back. "Are you fucking him now, or do you just want
to?" 

He effects a casual pose. "You're not jealous, are you, Scully, that
I've brought my 'noose of affection' around someone else's neck?" His
voice is flat, dry, and brittle. And the words she flung at him almost
two years ago, when she was scared and first suspecting she was dying,
have finally been thrown back. 

She feels like she's about to float off over the railing and out through
a window. The blow she didn't know she'd been waiting for had been
struck, and it's not a gut wound. She smiles fiercely. "Not jealous,
Mulder. We're too close; the sex between us bordered on the incestuous
then and now ..." She grimaces. Sitting surrounded by strangers usually
keeps the claustrophobia at bay, but this discussion is pressing in on
her boundaries. And they haven't really gotten started yet, she thinks. 

"Oh, I don't know, Scully. I always thought we'd go blind, our relations
being the functional equivalent of masturbation; we certainly had no
worries about inbreeding." He hisses as if struck; her jaw drops open.
He leans forward and grabs her left hand in both of his. "I'm sorry. I
didn't come here to hurt you, and you didn't come here to hurt me. 'We
can discuss things without attacking each other. We can support one
another without codependency. We will get through our problems and save
the world with our friendship intact'." Her words again, from the
discussion about the kiss they didn't have. He sighs. "There's nothing
between me and Skinner, except in my head." 

"When did it start? Were we ... ? Was I ... ?" Her hand flutters up
helplessly. She is surprised at this motion on her part; it is not like
her. But if there is a graceful way to try to find out how jealous one
has a right to be, she doesn't know it. 

"There was a point at which I was tempted to ... exchange my integrity
for your life." 

"Yes, I know. Last October, when you got the chip." They had been
through for months at that point, but the cancer had revived their
friendship, for a while. 

"No. Before that. Right after you were diagnosed, I went to Skinner, and
asked him to put me in contact with Cancer Man. He wouldn't let me make
a deal, told me to find another way. In April, I discovered that he'd
done it himself, except the price turned too high; he nearly destroyed
his career. It was then that a rather abstract admiration of his finer
qualities turned to something somewhat more personal." 

"Five," she says. In their abbreviated speech code, this is a request
for time to think. She doesn't know what she thinks of this. The end of
their romantic relationship, or the beginning of the end, had been the
previous December. And they had never been truly exclusive. They had
each had the occasional outside date, and there had been Mulder's brief
flare of adoration for that Bambi person. "Did you and Krycek ever ...
?" 

He starts, not having expected her to say something nearly this soon.
Then he blushes and looks away. She can't recall ever seeing such a
thing before. "A sympathy fuck. After our first case together. He was
upset, said he'd never shot someone before." 

"That's all?" 

"Yes." 

"Why didn't you tell me, Mulder?" 

He looks at her. The expression is completely neutral. She wonders if he
is weighing his answer or judging her, wondering if she can handle the
truth. "I didn't trust you. Not with that. And after, when I was certain
that your loyalties would outweigh any prejudices, the fact that he was
Krycek was an insurmountable obstacle. All I really wanted to do at that
point was tear the truth from him, anyway; its relevance had faded into
immateriality." 

"It hurts." 

He nods. 

She sighs. "I'll have forgiven you tomorrow, I think." 

He nibbles thoughtfully at his lower lip. The waiter comes and serves
them dinner. 

November 8, 1999 12:02 a.m. 

I'm drinking too much, thinks Skinner. He looks dispassionately at the
clear liquid passing out of his body into the toilet bowl. It feels like
he's pissing a gallon, and he thinks he may have drunk that much over
the course of the evening. 

He returns to his living room, and looks at his coffee table. Three
emptied liter bottles of spring water sit accusingly, evidence that he
is worried and distracted. He sometimes thinks that he drinks the water
as a purification rituatl. Other times he believes that Vietnam left him
with the idea that water was home base, a space of 'not on patrol.'
Sharon thought it was a reaction to his father's occasional abuse of
vodka. He wonders what Mulder would think of his instinctual water
seeking. Thoughts of Mulder lead naturally to thoughts of his current
problem, Scully. 

He settles on the couch, picks up the scrap of paper on which he had
attempted to scribble out the parameters of his problem. The paper read:

Odd behavior - constantly around my office, intense observation at
meetings, 

November 15, 1999 6:54 p.m. 

"You know he wants you, don't you?" she says. "What are you talking
about, Scully?" They are in a restaurant in Georgia. They have solved a
case, or rather, they have filed a report which will lead to the
conviction of a local farmer for illegally reselling large quantities of
cow dung. It lacks the satisfaction of saving a small town from the
terror of some large, unidentified animal. They have a complete
knowledge of the facts, were able to ascertain all of the details beyond
a reasonable doubt. They are both uneasy with this sort of success. He
pokes his fork in his sweet potato pie, and wonders if she would shoot
him if he asked someone to melt marshmallows on top of it. "Skinner." He
looks up, tilts his head to one side. His attention is completely
focused on her.