Rating: PG Classification: MSR, V Rating: PG Spoilers: None Feedback: Sure. Archive: Anywhere, as long as my name and addy stay attached. Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. No money changed hands, and no characters were hurt in the creation of this fanfic. Aboard Delta Flight 100 Inbound to Atlanta Six years. It's been six years. I turn the number over and over in my mind, looking at it, wondering about it. How the hell have I managed to be without her for six long, lonely years? Six years, nineteen...count `em...nineteen separate partners. All of them attempted to replace her. None of them succeeded. Not even close. Not by a long shot. "Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign in preperation for our final descent into Atlanta. Please return..." Sixteen minutes, I think, looking at my watch. Sixteen minutes and I'll see a woman I haven't seen in six years, a woman I think about every single day of my life. Not a waking hour passes that I don't think about her, about her face, her smile, her laugh, her eyes. What the hell am I going to say to her? "Hi, Scully. Long time no see." Sounds a bit...dry, don't you think? <><> Six years. Six years since I've seen his face. The phone call was unexpected. Hi, how have you been, going to be in the area on a case, not a case actually, _testifying_ for a case, going to be in town for four days, figure I'd say hi, old home week, memory lane, yadda, yadda, yadda. As the impact of his words hit home, his voice had dissolved into something that sounded like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon. "Wah, wah, waaaaah, wah." "So," he'd finished. "What say you meet me at the airport and we grab dinner?" Dinner. With Mulder. After six years. Jesus H. Christ. <><> It's a routine now. Stand up, lever the overhead open, dig for the carry-on, swing it down, close to the hip, start up the isle, pushing businessmen and little old ladies out of the way. I hate flying. I always did. My studied indifference was for her benefit, because as much as I did hate flying, I knew she hated it more. The flight attendants are at the jetway, smiling plastically and mumbling "buh-bye" over and over again, the almost-too-good-looking captain standing in the cockpit door, hands on trim hips, smiling a movie-star's smile at me, his eyes vacant, already thinking about the Vodka gimlet he's going to pound down at the airport bar in ten minutes. This goes by me in a blur, and then I'm trudging up the jetway, wondering what all these years of flying has done to my hearing. Shouldn't they give the frequent fliers, the frequent ones like me, the same hearing protection they give the ground crews? I imagine what I'd look like wearing a big set of those headphones and crack a smile. I look up and - <><> There he is. He's a little heavier, some grey streaked in his hair, right at the temples, right where I knew it would be - Right where I love it on a man. His eyes find mine and - <><> Magic. Same as always. I curse myself while digging deep for a smile. This wasn't a mistake, exactly. More like torture. The moment I see her I know that the old magic never died, at least not for me. Six years, and my feelings for her haven't dimmed one single iota. "Scully," I say, and quickly glance at her left hand. No ring. "Mulder," she replies, catching my glance and smiling secretly. I'm sure she's glad I checked. Flattered, I hope. <><> Shocked. Shocked I am, that he checked. Doesn't he think that I would have called him? Told him? Invited him to attend a wedding that I've given up on ever happening? "Mulder," I say. "It's...great to see you." No, not great. Torture. Evil, painful torture. I can still remember the last day, standing in our office, an empty copier-paper box filled with my belongings, my momentos. A rolled up "I Want To Believe" poster poking out of one end. The same poster that's above my bed now. Back then, I wanted to believe in him, in us, in happiness. I'd actually done it. I'd told him. I'd told him what I felt when I looked at him, when he touched me, when he smiled at me. When I heard his voice on the other end of the phone. I'd told him that I loved him. That I was in love with him. Three days before that last day, I'd told him. He hadn't answered. He'd looked at me like I was insane and then quietly excused himself. He hadn't called that night. He'd called in sick the next day. And the day after. I went to Skinner on the second day and asked for the transfer. He offered up Atlanta, the bank robbery squad. My old hunting ground, Skinner had said. You'll fit in there. Make a name for yourself. Resurrect your career. The transfer had happened in four hours. I went to pack, and found Mulder behind his desk. He watched me pack silently. I'd told him goodbye. He didn't answer. I didn't hear from him for six months after that, until a tenative email appeared in my box, asking for an opinion about some forensics tests that another pathologist had done. Hating myself, knowing it was the wrong thing to do... I ignored him. And the email. Six more came over the next six weeks, all sounding even-handed, calm. Please help me, he'd asked. I need your help. Your help, Scully. Only you. Finally, tired after a long stakeout one cold Friday night, I'd answered him, telling him what to look for and where to find it. The next day another email, thanking me. Then nothing. For two years, not a single note, card, email or phone call. And then, out of the blue, another email. Help, please. After that, we converesed electronically every few weeks. Until last Thursday. The call. Against every single instinct, I'd agreed to meet him. Torture. <><> I wondered if she cared why I was here. The case was a lie. I wasn't expected to testify. I was here on my dime, not the Bureau's. She'd know if she checked the dockets. There was no case. I'd lied to get here. I promised myself that I'd stop lying once I saw her. "So," I said, "Enterprise is delivering the car in the morning. Can I catch a ride to the hotel?" An eyebrow arched. "They're letting us stay at better places," I said, my voice sounding odd, even to my own ears. She nodded and turned, asking with her eyes if I had any more baggage. I didn't. All I needed was in the carryon. <><> We rode over in silence. I was sure he was going to say something, but he remained quiet, looking out the window at the scenery. "So, how's work?" he finally asked. "Fine," I said, because I didn't know what _else_ to say. He checked in and then asked me to dinner. I nodded and asked when. "Right now," he answered. "I just have to shower and change." Biting my lip I told him I'd wait in the car. "Don't be silly," he said, his eyes suddenly wary, as if afraid I was going to bolt. "Come on upstairs. I have a suite. You can drink a room-service glass of wine while I change." <><> God, please accept. All my plans hinge on this. Please accept. "...Okay," she said, her eyes narrowing. She suspects, I think. "The Bureau got you a suite?" she asks after a second. We're standing in front of the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. "I upgraded," I say, thinking quickly. "Hotels...I can use some of my frequent flier miles to upgrade the hotel rooms." She nods, accepting this. I hope. <><> The door closes behind us. He's already moving towards the bedroom. "Make yourself at home," he chirps. "Order anything you want." The bedroom door closes and I look around. I don't care what he told me; the Bureau isn't paying for this. So why is he here? For me. The answer is obvious. And the truth of the matter is, I don't know what the hell I'm going to say when he asks. But I know I have to let him at least try. <><> Out of the shower, drying myself, I reherase what I'm going to say. It has to be perfect the first time. She has to hear the honesty in my voice. She has to know. She has a right. She has the right to say yes, to say no, to tell me to go fuck myself. But she has the right to know. <><> He comes out with the carryon in his hand. I'm sitting on the couch, drinking the glass of wine I'd ordered. An iced-tea waits for him. He takes a sip, then another, and then drains it. I imagine his mouth is dry right now. He sits next to me. Reaches into the bag. Pulls out what I've known was inside since I saw his face at the airport. Small black velvet box. And oddly, the receipt. "When you came to pack your stuff," he says quietly, "I was going to give you this and ask you to be my wife." He hands me the box and the receipt. I look at the receipt. Dated six years ago. Thirty-four hundred dollars, charged to his Visa. "Why now?" I ask. He smiles. "I made the last payment on it two months ago." Typical Mulder. I open the box. It's gorgeous. Perfect, like he was once in my eyes. Diamonds, my scientific mind responds, are the result of heat and pressure. Lots of pressure and lots of heat. Two things I'm intimately familiar with when it comes to this man. "I've been...celibate," he says, as if it would matter to me. It does. I nod, happy at this, but afraid to show it. I've been celibate, too. I'm almost forty years old, and I haven't had sex in... I don't want to remember. I haven't wanted anyone to touch me since him. Convinced that no one would want to anyway. If he didn't want to touch me, why would anyone else? But he did want to touch me. Forever. He wanted to marry me, and I walked out on him. But... But... He could have said something. He did what he always does; he misunderstood what I meant, what I was trying to say, what I was trying to show him. He took it upon himself to assume what the ultimate truth was, and in the process... Wasted six years. Of both our lives. I hand him the box back and stand, moving towards the door. "Nice to see you, Mulder," I say. "I'll take a rain check on dinner." As my hand settles on the knob, I feel him behind me, close, his breath in my hair, his hands on my shoulders. "Wait," he whispers. I close my eyes as he presses his lips against my neck. Right above my scar. I turn in his arms, wanting to kick him, hit him, punch him. I kiss him back, a test kiss, to see if it's still there, if the magic I saw in his eyes in the airport will take form and shape and substance. "There's no case," I whisper against his mouth. "I checked." "Guilty as charged," he whispers back. "You're not off the hook," I warn him, sliding my hands under his shirt, pushing him back, back towards the bedroom, towards the bed. "I know," he says. "I'm not moving back to DC," I say, playing my final trump. He stops in the bedroom door, smiles, and moves past me to the carryon. I don't know what he's going for this time. He comes back with an envelope. I look at it. Addressed to the Director. Walter S. Skinner, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I open it, knowing now what's in it, too afraid to believe it might be true. It is. His resignation. Effective one week from today. "Eighteen years," I whisper. "You're two years away from your pension." "Skinner... pulled some strings. If I retire, he's agreed to fudge the paperwork so I get my pension." "What will you do?" "Teach. Lecture. Write. Garden. Shop. Knit. I don't care-- as long as it's with you." I drop it on the floor and push him into the bed. "This might be quick," he says. "It's been a while-" He doesn't finish the sentance. My mouth is against his. Magic. <><> FINI Feedback is always appreciated. --- XFBandit (Edward "Red" Burke) XFBandit@aol.com What a cat do on it's day off?