He believed her.

A male jogger cast Mulder a sidelong look and picked up the pace as he past the bench where the agent was sitting. Mulder ignored him and tossed another pebble into the duck pond. He misjudged the force needed and winced as one of the mallards squawked in pain and outrage as he clipped it. A passing mother gave him a horrified look and yanked her child out of reach even as the boy stared at Mulder reproachfully. Mulder heard the kid ask if the bad lady had killed the duck as the mother pulled him beyond the range of the crazy person on the bench.

Scully was going to kill him. Two days in her body and she now had a duel reputation as a lecherous ass-grabber and duck mangler. Still she would probably take that in stride the way she did everything else. Calmly, with a hint of impatience.

He brooded over that fact, none of his conclusions any happier than the moment he had stared at her as she shattered every furtive dream he had ever had about the two of them, and believed her. The startled look on her face as he had quietly walked to the door had twisted the knife just a bit further. Except that she had not betrayed him, had she? He had done it to himself. Seeing possibilities that the last two days had shown had probably never existed.

This time, the rock missed the duck.

He was reaching for another handful of stones when the grass ahead of him blinked. He blinked back, then flinched backwards as the colors twisted, molding a human shape out of sunlight. Mulder glanced around frantically to see if anyone else had witnessed the transformation. The park was eerily empty of traffic and Mulder turned back to study the demon warily. Green eyes studied him for a long, silent moment.

"I meant to hurt you." Gadrien stated suddenly, apparently coming to a decision.

Was there a way to answer that statement? Mulder debated the other's motives, then gave it up and told the demon the truth.

"You succeeded."

He was surprised when the demon failed to look pleased. If anything, the green eyes darkened with something that Mulder might have called regret if he could have trusted that the thing in front of him had anything approaching human emotions. 

"I was mad at you."

Mulder blinked again. Mad? What the hell had he ever done to the demon? He didn't even know...oh. "You're not related to Wayne are you?"

A brief frown crossed Gadrien's features. "I took what you took from me."

The demon suddenly glared at him, an all too human rage and frustration burning in his eyes. A male anger that Mulder's body might be too female to understand, but that his soul comprehended perfectly. 

It was the logic that escaped him.

"I don't understand." The words were said carefully.

Gadrien pulled his lips back from his teeth,” I took your illusions, human." The demon brooded on something only he could see, then looked at the stunned agent. "She wants me to fix this."

Mulder just looked at him. Pain flared as he finally understood that the demon understood nothing at all.

"You can't." Mulder felt his control waver as the truth of what Gadrien had done to him slammed into him. "You took reality, not illusion. You took my last chance." 

He saw immediately that the demon did not understand. Panic swelled in the demon's eyes and Mulder felt an unwilling flare of pity. He was a fool, he thought suddenly. His impulse to fix things was going to get him killed one of these days. Something else that Scully probably held against him. Mulder's actions had taken something from the demon and it had lashed back in pain and anger.  

A brief look of contempt crossed the demon's face." Only a human would confuse illusion with reality."

"Then maybe you're more human than you look." Mulder snapped back before he could rethink the reaction.

Gadrien vanished, taking the last of Mulder's illusions with him. They still had a problem and Scully needed her partner to help her fix it. The fact that it would break his heart meant nothing at all.

Not a damn thing.

Jenn was waiting for him at the door of the motel.

The face she presented was coldly arrogant, but he had seen the miserable expression before she hid it. He sighed to himself. Now that the decision was made, he just wanted to get it over with. Instead, he came to a halt in front of her. She searched his face briefly, then her expression fell.

"He didn't do anything, did he?"

For a curious moment, her tone and expression balanced on the cusp of instincts, the ones he used when profiling. Then all the pieces suddenly exploded and reassembled themselves into a completely different pattern. Her body shifted protectively and as a wary look crept into her eyes he could only imagine which Scully look of anger he was wearing.

"This wasn't about us at all, was it?"

Real fear crept into her expression and Mulder told himself to tone it down. Despite Gadrien's contempt for humans, Mulder suspected he would relish the opportunity to flex overprotective instincts where Jenn was concerned.

"What the hell did you think you could accomplish. No...let me guess. It has something to do with Gadrien." 

Jenn flinched as she met his accusative stare, “He was very angry with you. It's not good to have a demon that angry with you."

"And you weren't worried about Gadrien at all, huh?"

The ex-djinn's mouth dropped, then tightened when he just looked at her,” Not even demons can stand in the way of destiny. The Universe would have been extremely...pissed."

Great. A domestic dispute. 

Jenn started to say something else, then looked away. " Gadrien doesn't...like humans very much."

No shit.

"So where does that leave you?"

Lost dreams and broken promises were an ugly look on everyone. 

Much as he wished he could take pleasure in her pain, he could not. That fact was the only thing that separated him from the monsters he hunted. 

"Even now, if I could wave my hand and give her to you, you would not take it."

Mulder felt a sudden longing to do just that. To throw himself at her feet and promise her anything. Everything. But what could she give him. At least his illusions had been of his own making.

"It wouldn't be real."

"It would feel real."

Mulder shook his head.

Jenn smiled sadly. "She would have made similar choices. Good ones. Honorable ones. I...wanted him to see that."

"So what happened?"

Jenn brooded silently for a moment, then looked up. Regret and something that looked like respect twisted in her eyes. "I misjudged the depth of her pain and her strength of will."

"Always a mistake...underestimating her resolve." The bitterness was unintentional.

Jenn hesitated, then looked at him soberly, "It is not her resolve that should concern you." She paused, then picked her next words extremely carefully, as if walking an inner precipice only she could see. “She destroyed rather than risk asking for something she wanted too much."

Mulder studied her expression carefully, then asked quietly," What would have happened had Melissa lived?"

Jenn shifted uneasily,” Alternate futures are not always...easy. Decisions ripple in all directions. Gadrien is much better at reading the wakes than I am."

"Take an educated guess."

"Sometimes it is your partner who died. If she had hesitated getting into the car. If she had gone back into the apartment. One time, they both die. In some times, they both live. "

Mulder was silent for a moment. It was one thing to contemplate the unchangeable past and regret the outcome. It was another have actual proof that he could have changed that past. He had had three wishes. Three chances to take away some of her pain.

"There are no lives where you and she live together."

Huh?

His head snapped up and Jenn flexed her hand in an unusual twisting motion.” This was a pivot point for Destiny. Either you lived, or she did. There are no other options."

What had Scully said? That she could not trade the lives that the two of them had saved over the years. Dear God. 

...and he had walked away from her. 

He ignored the rest of Jenn's words as he turned blindly toward the door.  

"Mulder!" 

He contemplated the hand closed around his shoulder and considered ignoring it. Still, he had ignored opportunity once before and look what happened. He turned his head.

"Be very careful about the choices you make", she said softly,” and how you make them."

He considered her words and found nothing in them he could use. He wondered if all demons and djinns were cryptic on purpose or if there were things they just were not allowed to say.

"I made my choice a long time ago." He said finally.

From the stricken look on her face, that was not the right answer. 

Unfortunately, it would have to do. 

For some reason, he expected to find her in the dark. Instead, he found her seated on the sofa and surrounded by at least twenty sheets of yellow legal paper. Each was filled with line after line of precise script inked with black felt tip. Mulder studied her expression carefully. He was not quite sure what reaction he had expected. Anger. Embarrassment. Horrified humiliation.

Anything except a casual glance as the door clicked shut and a perfectly normal return to what she was doing.

"Don't you want to know why?" he asked quietly.

"I don't need to know your reasons in order to respect your choice."

He tried. He really tried not to read accusation into her polite reply. Unfortunately the memory of her surprise as he turned away from her earlier kept merging with the surprise on her face when he had bolted in Florida. That was twice now he had said no. He supposed he had not actually said the words in Florida, but both of them had known where that particular exercise in communication had been going. At least in Florida he had been saving them from a well-documented euphoria she would soon regret. He was simply being a good partner. The only part of him he had thought for the longest time he had to offer. 

The only part she wanted.

In an effort to distract himself from his thoughts he grabbed for the nearest sheets of paper. His name snagged his attention and he discovered his logical partner had spent the last several hours writing out a blueprint to the life that was Scully. Absently he noted birthdays, names of college friends still in the DC area, preferred brands of toothpaste, shampoo, and...holy shit.

"Condoms?"

She flushed a truly appalling shade of something that had to be red.

"I assumed after the shock wore off you would probably get curious." she said evenly.

He resisted the temptation to squirm. Shit. What the hell was she doing to him? And he had thought male anatomy inconvenient and uncomfortable. He glared at her. Just how curious was she planning on getting with his body anyway? No...scratch that. 

"Jesus, Scully. Just who are you planning to get curious with?"

She flushed even darker. "Who said I was planning to get curious with anybody? I'm just considering all possibilities."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

He gritted his teeth,” How many possibilities?"

"Like I have a Rolodex? Good god, Mulder, a nun has more possibilities than me. Sociopaths not excepting. I just wanted to make sure you didn't feel like you had to ...to...pass up on any opportunities that might arise. I trust you. "

He collapsed into the chair across from her and stared, literally speechless. He was living a Monty Python movie. Or a bad episode of Candid Camera. Was she really
advocating he take her body out for a test drive? Hell...was the permission supposed to be reciprocal?

"Scully...are you curious?" he tested the waters cautiously.

She flushed again.” I’m human, Mulder. Of course I'm curious. I just..." her voice drifted off on a note of regret. She stared at her hands for a long moment, then sighed.

"What?"

She glanced at him briefly, then smiled ruefully,” It’s always been about the exploration of the unknown. That moment of exhilaration when you take a blind leap into the dark and trust there's something out there to find. That instant when you find it." 

He stared at her nonplussed as her voice roughened. She met his gaze for a long moment and he had the sensation he was missing something. Finally she shook her head as if to clear it of unwanted thoughts and gathered up the rest of her papers. His eyes followed her as she crossed to the connecting door and paused. When she glanced back he had the uncomfortable feeling she was waiting for him to say something. Unfortunately, he did not have a clue what she wanted to hear. She smiled again, this time there was no missing the tinge of sadness to the edges.

"Unfortunately, it's damn lonely exploring alone."

When had sex ceased to be an exploration?

Diana? Phoebe?

Sex with Phoebe had been an exploration all right. Sort of like a cross between Survivor and Fear Factor. Memories of his time with Diana flickered past. They had never managed lazy week-ends together. No time, either of them. But there had been a few lazy evenings when the paperwork was completed that stood out. Laughter and the complete confidence that the person sharing his bed knew and accepted him completely. There had been nothing like it since, he realized.

In some cases, he had simply not been interested enough. Then there had been the underlying fear. The fear that if he let them get too close it would all fall to hell when they left. Diana had simply left, and astute profiler that he was, he had thought she was happy. That, in retrospect, was the deepest wound she had left behind. Nothing obvious. Nothing that affected his work. Just the final bone deep understanding that whatever he had to offer was not enough. Not in the real world, anyway. Not as long as he still had something to find.

No wonder Galahad was celibate and single.

There had been the women who would have gone home with Spooky Mulder, and the ones who would have followed his badge and a smile. There had been the one or two he had taken home only to discover that the only thing to be found in their eyes was physical release. The lack of knowledge, the emptiness in it had nauseated him. He saw too much of that daily; he did not want it lying next to him. It just became easier to avoid the situation entirely. Prostitutes were absolutely out of the question. Ethics and his job be damned. Just the thought of seeing himself through a victim's eyes...

So Marty was born. 

It was clean. It was safe. It was a relief and the best of bad choices.

It took the edge off.

It hurt.

Everyday, the hunger grew a tiny bit stronger. By the time Scully had been assigned to him, the loneliness and need to reach out to another person was killing him. Even as he feared her agenda, he was helpless against his own weakness. He needed her too badly. He needed the fact that everything she knew about him rested in her eyes and still she stayed. Every time he touched her, no matter how fleeting, was an incremental connection to a world he from which he had felt increasingly alienated. His acceptance of the impossible had become so complete, there were days he truly feared he had finally gone crazy. Because he sure as hell did not share the same reality as the people around him.

He needed her.

He had never stopped to consider whether he loved her.

It was never an issue. He needed her as his partner. The more they did together, the closer they came to the truth, the more he needed her. It had been stifling at times. There had been times he had hated her as much as he feared her. Feared what she could take away from him. Then one day he looked up and discovered that he had rejoined the world around him. Or somehow, it had caught up with him. He knew the face of the enemy now, and that made all the difference. He was no longer on a quest with an ending. He was caught up in a war for human survival.

Ironically, that was when the fight itself ceased to be enough. He could no longer look at his life, at the passing years and ask himself if it was worth it. There was no longer an answer to that question. There was no longer an end to the sacrifice. This war would take his life, one way or another. Tomorrow. Next week. Thirty years from now. What he did in the meantime was up to him.

What he needed was no longer enough.

But maybe it was time to make the most of what he had, instead of pining over what he wanted.

The smell of Chicken Alfredo assaulted him as he knocked softly and edged open the connecting door. The microwave beeped and the movies sitting on the night side table mocked him with their pretense of normality and false promises. Worse, the casual familiarity of it, along with unstated assumption that nothing had changed for her made his own anger and disappointment seem frustratingly inappropriate and out-of-place. He was the one who wanted to change the rules.  

He was the one resenting his partner for being exactly who he had once asked her to be.  
 
The sound of the bathroom door opening caught him off guard and he swung around to see her towel-drying her hair. He shifted on his feet as - movies and food aside -a shaft of pure uncertainty as to his welcome shot through him. He searched for something innocuous and partner like.

"So...Scully. Ya wanna explore an x-file with me?" the words blurted out completely uncensored.

Shock, then uncertainty tinged with a healthy dose of burgeoning anger surged across her face until she took in his horrified expression. Two other emotions flickered too swiftly to read and then her shoulders dropped and her eyes closed briefly.

"Jesus, Mulder."

Miserably he wondered if he could try that again.

"You look like you're going to be sick." her voice was concerned, no doubt for the carpets.

"You probably won't believe me, but I used to be better at this." he muttered, feeling his face burn.

"Consider me swept off my feet." she said dryly,” Would you like to sit down first?"

Sit down. Have a glass of water. He could almost predict the next words out of her mouth. Let Dr. Scully slap a band-aid on that minor cardiac problem. See, it's Elmo. Isn't that cute? Take two Tylenol and call when sanity has returned. He sighed as he sank onto the bed and dropped his head into his hands.

Fuck.

When neither sympathy nor demands for explanations issued forth, he raised his head to find her watching him from where she still stood across the room.

"I'm sorry, Scully."

She did not ask him for what. Instead, she dragged a hand through her wet hair and threw the towel at a nearby chair. His attention shifted to the fact that she was wearing a pair of jeans that clung to thighs still damp from the shower. Jeans...and nothing else. Without conscious volition, his eyes catalogued several scars he could see and mentally charted several that were no longer easily visible. It was odd, seeing his own body in three dimensions. A separate person instead of simply a reflection in the mirror. At the very least she should have looked like any other male agent he knew reasonably well. She did not.

She looked like Scully.

She walked the same. She talked the same. Used the same inflections, the same expressive eyebrow, and the same little purse to her mouth when she was thinking. Except for the part of his brain that concerned itself with how she smelled, how she was just the right size to fit under his arm, and how her ass looked in those pants of hers with the black strappy heels she started wearing last month, neither his conscious nor subconscious had any problem accepting that this was his partner. 

The startled look on his face must have been a doozy. Running a second hand through her hair to smooth the spikes, she approached cautiously. Demeanor careful and apologetic, she lowered herself gingerly to the bed beside him. With a random gesture that almost seemed without thought, she picked up his hand with her right and smoothed her left over the palm. He watched silently as she examined his fingers, working each knuckle gently, then straightening the finger to lie neatly next to the others. There was no mistaking the sadness in her expression. Or the hint of frustration. Or the guilt.

"You're so you." he said slowly.

 Both of her.

Most people led fractured lives. Silvered pieces of self evolving to meet a multitude of roles. Some reflections further from the center than others. Small pieces. Large pieces. Pieces that almost seem to reflect an entirely complete image. Every single piece part of a complete whole, sharing the soul and will of the core personality. Work, home , and family. 

Somewhere along the line Scully had fragmented instead.

An artificial schizophrenia maintained by an iron resolve. Every piece of her that threatened what she was to him; to the work...these pieces had been packed away. Mothballed for the day when it would be safe to haul them out again. He had seen it happen. Hell, he had been part of the reason it happened. All the naive trust and friendly humour of that frighteningly young agent lost to the shadows. All the hopes and dreams of the woman bent to the will of an agent who now wore black, not simply because it matched her mood, but because everything matched easily and the color hid blood best. 

Every now and then he caught the woman watching him. Every now and then he coaxed her out of hiding just long enough for her to realize what he had done. Thought- quick, the walls would come crashing into place and she would study him with a cool assessing gaze that always found him wanting. Then she would vanish, back into the depths of blue eyes that never seemed aware of what they had revealed.

There was no trace of the woman now.

He looked again. 

Experimentally he leaned in closer. The mattress sagged enough that as his weight shifted, he was pressed into her side more than was strictly friendly. Her shoulder shifted minutely, the result molding his body more comfortably to hers, and bringing his head against the side of her neck. Turning his head reflexively into her hair he was brought up short when his nose met the flesh beneath her ear instead. For a split second, he was simply confused. Then, he felt her head tip to bring her cheek against his head and an unexpected surge of rage shot through him. Rage and frustrated anger with Gadrien, with Jenn, and even Scully. Especially her he realized, because she now possessed something he had treasured, and did not begin to understand the value of what he had lost.

Small things. How she looked. How she felt. How she smelled. Tiny pleasures added to his day and rounding out the person and treasure that was Scully. If the loss of those mental expectations had ripped a layer of sexual awareness from their daily interaction, the true impact of that loss on what he was considering was what had driven his rage with Gadrien.

True arousal began and ended with the expectations of the mind.

A small sigh escaped his lips. Immediately the hand holding his own tightened spasmodically and he started to yank his head up so he could look at her when he registered the fact that the body resting against his own was shivering. He froze. A quick disbelieving glance downward confirmed his suspicion. What in the hell...? Before he could consult his better judgment, his curiosity overrode his impulse control. Tilting his head slightly he exhaled softly, barely breathing against the skin of her throat as he touched her lightly with just the tip of his tongue.

The salty taste of his own skin filtered through her senses was at once familiar and strange. Before he could analyze the effect, she shuddered and the back of his hand was brushing against a hard lump with an apparent mind of its own. He blinked. Jesus. He had always thought his body easy to please, but this was ridiculous. Thoughtlessly he pressed down on the bulge, vaguely embarrassed by its presence. He was only reminded that it wasn't precisely private property when Scully gasped.

Shock snatched his hand back and there was no time to apologize before she twisted toward him violently. Half expecting a serious left hook he was unprepared for the strength in the arm snaking around his waist. He had one second to register warm skin against his midriff and the look in her eyes before the room spun as she heaved his body backwards. His shoulders and hips hit the mattress at the same time and he watched bemused as she scrambled up and over his body awkwardly. Her borrowed legs were long enough to straddle his thighs with daylight to spare. Not feeling particularly trapped, he forgot to watch where her hands were going until she gripped each wrist firmly and pinned them to the bed next to his head. 

"Mulder, are you TRYING to seduce me or did the gerbil in your brain just overdose?"

The exasperation in her voice was hardly flattering. 

He smiled weakly,"Oops?"

She was not amused.

Since he was very clearly talking to the partner instead of the woman, emotional appeals were definitely out. Instead, he let some of his own frustration show as he took aim at the scientist.

"It was an experiment, all right? Sort of."

"Experiment." her voice could have given Wile E. Coyote lessons in flat.

"Eidetic memory, remember? Your body may be heterosexual, but my brain is trained to respond to the female of the species."

She held herself motionless as she thought that one through. When she released his hands he was unprepared for the disappointment that blind-sided him. That was what he wanted after all. Except what he really wanted was to take back the knowledge that she could do this with no regrets for what their first time could have been. That the only part of her sharing his bed would be the partner. That she would walk away tomorrow as if nothing had happened...

...and there was no part of him that could.

Her weight shifted, but instead of rolling to the side, he felt long legs straighten and he almost flinched at the unfamiliar feeling as her lower body pinned his to the bed. He opened his mouth to ask just what she thought she was doing when her right arm hooked under his left knee and pulled upward. His question changed to a curious look as she shifted and brought her upper left thigh into firm contact with his groin. The pressure was uncomfortably intimate, but nothing to write home about. He shifted his weight onto his elbows and looked at his partner.

"What are you doing?"

Her feral smile had teeth,” Experimenting."

He looked down to the juncture of his thighs and the jean-covered leg planted there. "I think you missed." He observed.

Far from being annoyed, her evil smile widened. Belatedly he wondered if sarcasm had been wise. 

She lowered her head to his ear and the curve of her spine held her chest away from his as it pushed her lower body more firmly into his. Her lips grazed the outer shell of his ear and he shivered involuntarily as her lower lip followed the curve of his ear to the lobe. Her breath kissed the flesh beneath and as the warmth trickled down his neck he heard her whisper,” Associating." and then her lips were blazing a path of liquid fire down his neck to his collarbone.

His back arched involuntarily and his eyes shot open as the weight shift bent fabric just enough to increase the friction between his legs. The resulting irritation had him trying to squirm as an army of ants tried to turn the skin down there inside out. Shit, it itched. Or...he shifted again as the heat of her leg soaked through her jeans and added to his misery.  He placed one hand on her shoulder, not quite certain what he planned to do, when his other hand slipped. His grip pulled her down with him as he fell and she inadvertently forced his knee almost to his shoulder.

"Shit!"

She started to grin as his entire body bucked, increasing the contact as his pelvis tilted and ground something against something electric. His mouth gaped , then he hissed as she tilted her hips and thrust against him, pinching that something under the seam of his jeans. Her clit, he thought muzzily as she thrust again. His clit. Shit. Their clit. He was willing to share. His bones had mutated into rubber bands and every thrust was stretching them tighter. His toes curled painfully and he thrust up against her in frustration.

"Conditioning." she managed to gasp out.

Fuck. Who gave a damn.

Desperate to get even closer he clenched his hands over her butt and pulled upward. She groaned and he absently noted a slight frown of confusion furrow across her forehead even as she increased the pace and force of her thrusts. Jeans, he thought. They had to remove their jeans. He drew his hand over her hip searching for the button-fly only to notice her eyes were glazing and her thrusts were taking on a frantic almost uncoordinated cadence.

No. Nononono. Shit. 

"Scully..."

Damn.

"Scully!"

She was not...shit. Her eyes abruptly rolled back in her head and her body shuddered in spastic reaction before collapsing on top of him.