The lights were off, but she could see the outline of Mulder's body sitting on the bed, back propped up against the wall. She had heard people who were colorblind often had superior night vision, but she was surprised at just how sharply she could see everything in the shadows. She speculated briefly whether that partly explained the dim lighting in his apartment. 

"Be careful."

The warning was unnecessary. She had already seen the shattered pieces of the bedside lamp. She avoided the debris and lowered herself to sit on the end of the bed. 

"Maybe..."

He was off the bed and on his feet on the other side of the room before she finished the sentence. She watched her body start an agitated pacing back and forth and wryly considered the reasons she would try not to pace in the future. It looked far more impressive with a six foot frame, than five. Even doing a funky chicken impression with flying coat tails and flapping arms, Mulder had given off energy the way a skunk gave off scent. 

Dana Scully's body just looked like it badly needed to go to the bathroom.

"Mulder..."

"Don't. Don't you dare tell me to close my eyes and think of England." 

She could not stop her reflexive snort. Not bloody likely.

She moved further up the bed and took over his former position with her back to the wall. Crossing her legs, she rested her elbow on her knee and cupped her chin with her hand. She watched as he built up a full head of steam and waited for him to blow. Ten, nine, eight...At four he spun around to face her, hands on his hips. She frowned. Must be the shorter legs, she thought as he glared at her.

"You had three wishes, Scully. Three." 

"So?"

"So how the hell could you just throw them away? You could have asked for anything." 

That last came out in a hurt whisper she was hard pressed to understand. How the hell would she know why she had destroyed the amulet? She had no more memory of it than Mulder did. Except ...

...she did know why. 

Had she not considered it back when Mulder had unrolled Jenn, and late that night she had poured herself a hot bath and cold wine and dared to wonder, what if...?

"Like what?" 

He stilled, and his hands dropped to his sides. Shock. Disbelief.

Pain.

Her anger stirred. She might not have the memories, but she knew why she had made the choice. "Don't look at me like that." 

"Like what?"

"Like I just shot Tinkerbell."

"You'd have to believe in her first. Wouldn't you? But you can't do that, can you? You won't even try." His mouth worked, as if he were fighting the next words. They won. Cold and angry, they burst forth.

"Just like you didn't try in Illinois."

Both agents froze. 

In the darkness, she could hear her own breathing, harsh and loud, and she watched as he swallowed sharply.

"Folie a deux, Scully? I read the reports. Both of them."

When she failed to respond, bitterness crept over the defiance, sweeping in like the edge of winter. 

"I would have been better off if you had hated me."

She did not look at him. She could not. Trust had always been the issue. It had been something she had always been able to see in his eyes until then. Worse, she had deserved the dawning mistrust. The disappointment. 

God, she had deserved it. 

He tried to smile, after a moment. "This is the point where you're supposed to say, 'It was a mistake; you know I care, Mulder'".

She sat there, shoulders hunched and could not move. She was supposed to shoot down his theories because of the facts. Instead, she had neglected to even try to gather them. Bad enough, but she had not told him that. She had told him she found nothing significant and done nothing to explain that her conclusions were based solely opinion. Not science. Not forensic evidence. She had lied to him, even if only by omission. She saw him swallow tightly. 

He jerked his head around, avoiding her eyes and stared toward the curtained window. "How about 'I'm sorry I held your hand while you were strapped down like some animal and acted like I gave a damn.'"

"You left me." Her voice was barely audible and she surprised herself with the words. She had not meant to speak them. Not ever.

If he heard her, he ignored her. His voice cracked and came out in a pained whisper. "You let them tie me down like I belonged there." 

No.

Her head was shaking but he kept pushing.

"I trusted you."

The scream wailed in the back of her mind. A banshee cry that wanted to throw itself at his feet and beg forgiveness. To explain. To make everything go away. The betrayal in his eyes, though, pushed the last button. Rage, well simmered, exploded. She was not even aware that it was moving her forward until his shoulders slammed up hard against the far wall. Wide, startled eyes almost stopped her. Most of her was appalled as she watched her hands fisted in the fabric of her favorite blue jacket. But part of her, the part that had kept her from apologizing was finally out of the box and out of control.

"You. Left. Me."

You’re saying "I" a lot. I heard "we." 

Tremors shivered across her shoulders and she was only vaguely surprised she was holding him up, nearly off the floor. It did not matter. Nothing mattered but the white-hot fury spiraling out of her control. 

I'm Monster-Boy, right?

"Six years, Mulder." Her voice was a hiss "My sister. The cancer. My daughter. All the children I'll never have. Believe. That's what you said. Trust me, you said." The seams at his shoulder stretched and fabric protested as her grip tightened. "Who the FUCK gave you the right to change your mind?"

She let him go.

Pain and anger seethed between them, but at least it was real. She had earned every bruise, every scrape, and every scar. She had earned that pain. She had believed in him, believed in the fight, even when it had cost them everything. And then he changed his mind. No aliens. No truth. No goal in sight. 

Where the hell did that leave her?

She knew deep inside, that she had been trying to make him chose. Maybe she had even been trying to force the choice. She had been so tired. So damned tired. Just when she had reached the point where she had been willing to believe. To admit that maybe he was right about the aliens. To throw everything away. The last of normal. The last of everything. Then he changed his fucking mind. Now he wanted to know about wishes? He wanted to know why she would make the choice she did?

Careless. So godamm careless.

Every had consequences.

"If I want to wake my dead, Mulder, I'd have to wake all of them." 

She had made so many choices in rage, for revenge. Survived so many times, managed to get up one more time, solely because she would be damned if she would let them win. So many choices that could be unmade with a careless wish. A choice that was no choice, should not hurt so much to make. 

"I want my sister back." Her chest tightened, four years of grief and guilt and pain clawing at her throat. "The price is too high." 

She had held the power of the gods, and had obviously not dared to use it. 

"I can't trade all the lives we've saved."

Consequences. Every action had consequences.

"I can't trade you."

Rainbows cut you, if you catch them.

"Don't fucking tell me that I don't believe. I have every day of the rest of my life to believe."

Eyes clashed across a space that was too small and yet neither would be the first to back down. Then Mulder's shoulders slumped and he dropped his gaze to her collarbone. In the gesture, she found recognition and acknowlegment of her hurt and frustration. He might not completely agree or understand, but he had heard enough that he would ponder it and examine it for meaning. The conversation was not over, just delayed for consideration. 

With the heat of his anger fading, she found her own tension bleeding away and an uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment over her manhandling her partner began to set in. Before she could step away, or try to figure out how to apologize, he raised his head. 

Her burgeoning discomfort was pushed aside by confusion as a strange expression of loss drifted across his face. His eyes went distant for a moment and she wondered where exactly he had gone. His body language was involuntarily reflecting his inner thoughts, and whatever conclusion he was coming to was not a happy one. 

Mulder searched her face, but whatever he had been looking for, he did not find it. "You really could do this, couldn't you?" His voice was quiet.

She would have assumed it was simply a passionate dislike for the situation they had been placed in, but there was something about the way he was looking at her that told her it was far more complicated than anything that should have been obvious in this situation. It was not blame or frustration or even simple loss. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he had come to a conclusion. Somewhere in there, something intrinsic to her image of him, some light she had not even realized had been present and turned on, had just gone out. 

She took her time and framed her answer carefully, her mind racing as she tried to figure out what he was really asking. She could not lie to him. Whatever she did next, she could not lie. Was he worried that she would see this as rape? Did he see it as rape? Was the real question not that she could do this, but that she could ask him to do this? She let her bewilderment show, but if anything, that only deepened the sense of finality in his eyes. What did he want her to say?

Could she do this?

This was Mulder, her partner. If she could trust anyone in this twisted mindfuck of a situation it was him. Could she do this? He was the only reason she could consider doing this. Considering all the possibilities over the years, it was three steps ahead of drunken stupor and light years away from a frenzied coupling in the last twenty minutes before a bomb ended it all. She almost sighed.

Most people considering extreme possibilities started with handcuffs. 

The answer was easy.

"Yes."