***

                 "I was going to wait two months before trying to
                 contact you, but as the two months drew nearer and
                 nearer to a close, I found myself remembering. I
                 remembered our first meeting, our cases. But most of
                 all I remembered you. And suddenly I wanted to meet
                 with you, to see if you were still the way I
                 remembered. But I was nervous. It had been so long. 
                 Lilly had told me I had been in that place for three
                 years, deep within a coma, and I had spent another
                 year in that place. There was a year and a half
                 before that which I couldn't account for. That's five
                 and a half years when I hadn't seen you. I didn't
                 know how much you had changed- I couldn't even be sure
                 you'd welcome me with open arms."

                 "Oh, Mulder, of course I would have. If you only
                 knew..." Dana replied, moving from her chair to sit
                 next to him on the couch and giving him a hug.

                 "If only..." he repeated with a sad smile on his face.
                 "I waited six months before I could bring myself to
                 try and find you. I took a job in Atlanta, near where
                 the institution I had awoken into was located, in
                 which I bagged groceries. Lilly had given me enough
                 cash to survive two months without having to work, but
                 I needed more. So I took a job at the A&P- a
                 humiliating and degrading job where I had to put up
                 with people or be fired- for six months. Then I
                 decided enough was enough and looked at the address
                 Lilly had given me for the first time.

                 "I traveled to D.C. and knocked on your apartment door
                 only to be greeted by an unfamiliar face. At first I
                 thought maybe this was someone I didn't remember, but
                 it became apparent that I didn't know them before. I
                 went, surreptiously, to the FBI, looking for records
                 about you. It was difficult, and nobody would give me
                 information. I would have gone to Skinner, but he was
                 retired by the time I thought about it. Besides, I
                 didn't know if he still had the Cancerman breathing
                 down his neck and if he did, it was one risk I
                 couldn't take."

                 "So how did you find me?"

                 Mulder grinned. "I tried to remember your favourite
                 places. You weren't in D.C., that much was clear. So
                 I wandered around for a while. I looked at your old
                 apartment, your mother's house, anywhere I could think
                 of."

                 "Did you go by your old apartment?"

                 "I didn't. Should I have?"

                 "I don't know. I just didn't know if you knew I kept
                 your apartment."

                 "You did?" Mulder was in awe. "You've been paying
                 the rent on my apartment _and_ had enough money to
                 buy this place?" Dana nodded. "Wow. What have you
                 been doing to support yourself?"

                 She smiled. "I'll tell you later. For now, continue
                 with your story."

                 "Oh. Well, ok. Um, eventually I remembered that your
                 brother lived in San Diego and decided it was worth
                 the shot. I hopped onto the next train and came here.
                 After that, it wasn't too hard to find you. 
                 Approaching you was a little more difficult. I
                 couldn't get past my insecurities. Would you still
                 want to see me? Would I fit in the life you've made? 
                 Would you even recognize me? And I knew things
                 wouldn't be the same as they had been before- seven
                 years is a long time- but I had hoped. And I
                 wondered. And finally I couldn't take the not-knowing
                 anymore. I had to take a chance. If you accepted me,
                 then great. If not... well, I would deal with that as
                 it came."

                 "Oh, Mulder..." she sighed, hugging him again. "I
                 never told you, but I loved you. And I never stopped.
                 Every day without you... it was hell."

                 They smiled and he drew her closer to him, embracing
                 her like he'd imagined he would, during the months
                 where his memories had created within him a nostalgia
                 for all the times he had held her.

                 The sound of little footsteps running down the stairs
                 broke their moment. They glanced towards the stairs,
                 where a little freckled face peeked out at them. When
                 she realized she had been discovered, Libby giggled
                 and ran down to her mother's arms.

                 Maggie followed behind, close on her heels. "I'm
                 sorry, Dana, I couldn't keep her away anymore. Come
                 along, Libby. Let's go play- "

                 Dana cut her off. "No, Mom. It's okay. Libby, I'd
                 like you to meet someone." Her daughter's gaze
                 flicked towards Mulder. "Honey, this is Mulder, an
                 old friend of mine. Mulder, this is my daughter,
                 Libby."

                 Mulder's face paled slightly in shock. "Daughter?" he
                 mouthed questioningly. Dana nodded. His lips curved
                 upwards with the arrival of a very large grin.

                 The little girl turned to Mulder. "Pleased to meet
                 you," she said, extending her hand. Mulder shook it.

                 "The pleasure is all mine, madamoiselle," he replied,
                 lowering his lips to her hand and kissing it lightly. 
                 She giggled in response.

                 Dana smiled, watching their exchange with amusement. 
                 Taking hold of her daughter by the waist and tickling
                 her slightly, she said, "Libby, honey, go upstairs
                 with Grandma and play a little more, ok? Mulder and I
                 have to talk a little more. I'll call you down for
                 dinner in a little while."

                 Libby nodded and took Maggie's extended hand. 
                 Together they headed back up the stairs. At the
                 bottom, Libby broke away from her grandmother and ran
                 back to her mother. "Is Mulder going to stay for
                 dinner?" she asked.

                 Dana smiled. "I don't know. Now go upstairs." She
                 watched her daughter run back up, eager to play with
                 her action figures.

                 "Your daughter?" Mulder was grinning madly, a look in
                 his eyes that said to Dana, an expert reader at his
                 looks, that he was genuinely happy for her, even if he
                 was a little curious about the father. "I thought you
                 coudn't have children. You know, the... " He
                 gestured with his hands to his lower abdomen. "The
                 egg thing."

                 Dana nodded. "That's what I thought too. But Libby's
                 living proof that sometimes miracles do happen."

                 "A miracle... " he parroted. "She looks like you."

                 "I hope that's a good thing," Dana replied with a
                 smile. "She's got her father's brains, though."

                 "I hope that's a good thing," Mulder responded
                 jokingly.

                 A secret smile graced her lips. "It is."

                 "How old is she?"

                 "She just turned six a few months ago."

                 "Is her father at work now?"

                 Dana shook her head and smiled sadly, thinking of all
                 the difficult years. "No. She doesn't really know
                 her father. He hasn't been around in many years." 

                 Mulder nodded and mouthed "Oh." "It must've been
                 hard."

                 "It was," she said, nodding. "But I had my mother to
                 help out." Very softly, almost so Mulder couldn't
                 hear her, she added, "I've been lucky. My mother
                 helped me with everything. She even helped me
                 understand it. She accepted it before I did..."

                 ***

                 It had shaken the very core of her being. It wasn't
                 as if she had tried for it- she had accepted the fact
                 that she couldn't have children long ago. And even if
                 she could, she wouldn't have expected it- it had been
                 a long time since she had been intimate in quite that
                 way with anyone. 

                 But, despite all the questions that arrived with this
                 new discovery, she wouldn't ask why. She did want
                 children. Hadn't it only been two and a half years
                 that she had tried to adopt Emily? 

                 Somewhere, hidden deep behind all her day to day
                 concerns and latent fears, there had always been the
                 hope that perhaps the doctors were wrong- that one
                 day, when the time was right for her to have children,
                 she would be able to. Maybe even with Mulder, if he
                 managed to stay alive and not get himself killed (one
                 of her day to day concerns, as well as one of her
                 latent fears).

                 Mulder.

                 A jolt of emotion shivered through her at the thought
                 of him. Out there, somewhere. Alone. Undergoing
                 those same horrible tests she was subjected to all
                 those years ago. Just to imagine what he must be
                 going through, she shuddered. And to think that maybe
                 if she had just gone with him, maybe he would be here,
                 now, helping her through this, instead of... that.

                 A knock at the door came. Her heart soared- maybe it
                 was Mulder. Maybe he had returned to her, like she
                 had to him. She ran to the door as fast as she can
                 and threw it open, without looking through the
                 peephole. She tried to hide her disappointment upon
                 seeing who it was. Of course she loved her mother,
                 but she had hoped.... was it going to be like this
                 everytime the phone rang or there was a knock at the
                 door?

                 "Dana?" Margaret Scully asked, immediately growing
                 concerned for her daughter. Dana Scully stood,
                 shoulders slightly hunched, before her, a hybrid look
                 of pain and disappointment and some other conflicting
                 emotion (Joy?, Maggie wondered silently) on her face. 
                 "Is everything all right?"

                 To answer her question, Dana threw herself at her
                 mother, who, not expecting this sudden outburst of
                 emotions, returned the embrace. "Oh, Mom," Dana
                 whispered into her ear. "There's so much and I
                 just... I don't know how I'll get through it all."

                 "Why don't I make us some tea and you tell me what's
                 wrong?" Maggie offered.

                 Dana pulled away and studied her mother. After a few
                 moments, she nodded imperceptively and began to wipe
                 the tears away from her face. Maggie smiled and led
                 her daughter to the couch.

                 After the tea had been brewed and they had sat in
                 comfortable silence for a few minutes, lost in their
                 own thoughts, Dana began. She didn't tell her mother
                 the details of the case, only that it brought them
                 right back to where it had begun, seven years ago. In
                 Oregon. She explained how, after searching the woods
                 and not finding anything, they had decided to return
                 to DC. She told her mother of the unexpected visit of
                 a few informants, and of his decision to return back
                 to the woods. Of her decision to stay behind, partly
                 on his request and partly because she still, after
                 seven years, didn't trust those woods- they had, after
                 all, been the place of her first paranormal experience
                 (if she didn't count her first meeting with him). Oh
                 no, she didn't let him go alone, she explained. She
                 had let her boss try and chase him for the time being,
                 while she stayed behind and tried to figure out why
                 those people had disappeared. True, they all had been
                 abductees, but they also had something else in common-
                 a specific brain trauma of which he had also suffered
                 from earlier that year. And then she told her mother
                 of getting dizzy and collapsing in Skinner's office in
                 front of the Lone Gunmen after figuring all this out. 
                 Waking up in the hospital and hearing from first the
                 Lone Gunmen that he had disappeared from Oregon, then
                 hearing Skinner try to explain it to both her and
                 himself. And finally she got to the part of telling
                 him the big surprise.

                 "What surprise?" Maggie asked.

                 Dana took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant, Mom."

                 "I see," said Maggie, not missing a beat. "And how
                 did Mr. Skinner take this news?"

                 "He was surprised, at first, but he seemed very happy
                 for me. But what I'm more interested in is how my
                 mother is taking it."

                 Maggie stopped for a moment and thought. "It is a big
                 surprise. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for you,
                 but... well, how? I thought you couldn't..."

                 "So did I. But apparently the doctors were wrong."

                 "What are you going to do now?" Maggie asked, hoping
                 she would reply something rational. Dana, as a child,
                 had always been rational, but these past few years she
                 had seemed to get less and less so. Maybe it was
                 Mulder's influence. If so, she would get more and
                 more rational again as a result of his disappearance,
                 wouldn't she?

                 "I don't know. Skinner wanted to know the same thing.
                 He said he could always reassign me to Quantico and
                 that is one option, but..."

                 Then again, maybe not.

                 "... I can't give up on Mulder. He didn't give up on
                 me when I disappeared. I have to keep searching. And
                 most importantly, I have to keep the X-Files open. He
                 would want that." The tears in her eyes shone,
                 threatening to spill over her bottom eyelashes and
                 onto her lightly freckled cheeks. Maggie couldn't
                 stand to see her baby girl cry. She reached over and
                 pulled her into an embrace.

                 "Dana, you and that baby are more important than some
                 files. You know that."

                 She blinked back the tears threatening to fall down
                 her face, but silently wept inside. It wasn't about
                 'some files'. It was about the X-Files. It was about
                 Mulder. And that made everything so much harder. "I
                 know, Mom. I know."

                 ***