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Category: MSR, V, Challenge/post "All Things"
Rating: PG
Spoilers: All Things
Archiving: OK, but PLEASE let me know first.
Disclaimer: All rights to characters, previous episodes, the X-files in general, etc., etc. all belong to CC, GA, DD, Tenthirteen productions, and Fox. No profit is made here.
Summary: This is a reflection vignette of Scully's thoughts after the events in "All Things"
Author's Notes: I have never done a post-ep right after the episode had aired, but I felt a need to in this case, because I was confused by the events in this episode, especially the first scene. This is my take on how to make sense of what happened.

I stood in the square of warm light from the bathroom and waited for my eyesight to adjust to the surrounding dark of the bedroom beyond. There he was: gently sleeping in the sea of tousled sheets, alone, and not even I would disturb him in his serenity.

I tried to think of the last time I had seen a half-naked man bathed in moonlight, sprawled across his bed like this. My hand subconsciously lifted to the small of my back, to the branded reminder of a hasty decision, but a decision nonetheless that had ultimately brought me to this point in my life.

I glanced back toward the mirror in the bathroom. After so much reflection of my past, one last confirmation of a part of my timeline was well worth the visit. I removed my jacket, gently placed it on the foot of his bed and quietly skulked back into the bathroom. Hesitantly, I lifted up my sweater-blouse and unzipped the petite black skirt to reveal the marking of my sexual rebellion. I didn't feel the experience had liberated me as much as I had hoped. It didn't quench the thirst I had sought for so long since my affair with Daniel. Only one man would be able to do that: the very man this image on my skin was meant to rebel against.

I threw on the faucet and splashed freezing water over my hands and face to cool the upwelling of need that burned in me. I wasn't sure, after what I had told him, if Mulder realized that my whole life has led me to him.

As I finished putting myself back together, I finally felt the whirlwind subside. The subtle breeze dragging through the last chapter of my life had dwindled, and allowed the book to lay open, waiting for me to turn the next page when I was ready.

A part of my life I had swept over and forgotten had been neatly tucked between those pages, never to be read again. I guess I had to revise the story before I could venture onto the the next chapter of Dana Katherine Scully. I didn't want to turn back. I had to keep moving forward, for my sake, but also for Daniel's. Or had I really been running for ten years?

"I don't know what I'd be missing," was what Mulder said yesterday. I had ended it with Daniel because I didn't want to know what I was missing. I didn't want to be the happy housewife, or even the small-town practitioner. I wanted the fast-paced world, passion for my work. I wanted to go and do something that would change the world, not tear apart the one Daniel had built for his family and was willing to trash for the love of a woman who didn't want him completely. I didn't want him completely.

As I exited the bathroom again, and studied the long, silvery, blue-lit form of my partner nestled in the sheets, I realized I didn't have him, nor did I want him completely either. I had been told to slow down. Mulder wasn't ready to do that, and I was not going to repeat what Daniel had done to me.

I love Mulder, but I'm not going to hold him back, or lust after him just because my biological clock is ticking. He had been kind not to take advantage of me in my vulnerable state. Perhaps I won't know him as soon as I would like, in the way that I would like, tangled in those sheets beside him. Not yet.

I pulled my jacket on in the pale slits of moonlight, and carefully slipped each button into place one by one. The two red dots on the alarm clock blinked in rhythm with Mulder's breathing. On the end table before the clock were Mulder's wallet, badge, and a small pad he kept in his pocket to take notes on a case.

I tiptoed over to the table, picked it up and began to flip through the pages. Crop patterns, as I had expected.

Before I reached the blank pages about halfway through the book, I saw a familiar pattern: circular with a large star in the center. The beat of my heart quickened at the recognition of the marking, but I contained my surprise with a couple of deep slow breaths. Soon my pulse had returned to a steady pace, along with the alarm clock dots, along with Mulder's breathing, along with the dripping water from Mulder's bathroom faucet.

I quietly, carefully, tore out the page with my pattern, and gently placed the pad back onto the end table. Inside my jacket pocket I had my own pad. I was sure Mulder wouldn't miss one page from his messy notes. I was the organized one, after all. I took out my book, and slipped the page in between the leaflets.

As I walked toward the doorway to leave Mulder to his happy slumber, I thought again about how I had lived my life to lead up to this very moment. I stopped in the doorway of the bedroom, staring in the direction of his front door. Yes, that was the way out. I could walk through that door and pick up exactly where I had left off.

The bubbles of the fish tank blurped to the surface irregularly in the hollow, empty living room. I looked back into the dark quiet of Mulder's sanctuary and heard the heavy restful rhythm of his breathing, still perfectly in time with the seconds of the blinking clock.

I opened my notepad. I unclipped the pen from the cover. I wrote a two letter word on the back of the page with the drawing of my crop pattern. I placed it on the empty pillow next to Mulder's dream-filled head.

I left.

I don't know if I missed anything in that chapter of my life where everything was an adventure, everything still had to be conquered, found out, achieved, explored. But I was going to make sure that Mulder knew exactly what he'd be missing if I let him keep on running.

"me."