The ASAC at the local office was an old friend of Scully's, and she had gone to dinner with him. Mulder was invited, too, but he had declined. The day had been tiring and had worn him down. His head ached; he thought he might have a fever. And he didn't want to cramp her style.

That old adage about if you love her, you'll let her go didn't just hit close to home. It damn near knocked it off its foundation.

The field office had surprised them by putting them up at a cozy bed and breakfast rather than a cold, impersonal motel. As he lay there, Mulder supposed he should be grateful for his soft bed, clean sheets, and plump pillows, but he longed for the indifference a motel would have provided him.

The proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Agerson, a charming older couple, had mistaken them for lovers. A twosome. Husband and wife. Mrs. Agerson didn't understand why they needed two rooms, and she didn't understand when Scully left for her date.

Mulder understood, but he didn't want to. He thought he could do this, could cope with her seeing other men. After all, he only wanted her happiness, didn't he?

He slammed his fist hard on the mattress. Was it wrong for him to want a little of that happiness for himself, too? Was he being selfish?

A soft knock sounded on his door. Again. "I'll eat at breakfast, Mrs. Agerson. I'm just not hungry right now. All right?" She'd been kind enough to bring him some supper, and while it looked delicious, he'd had no appetite. He'd left it on the braided rug outside his door.

Sighing as the knob turned and the door opened, he shifted onto his side, facing the wall. Mrs. Agerson was a loving, nurturing, considerate hostess, but she was beginning to get on his nerves.

"Mulder?"

He rolled onto his back. "How was dinner?"

"Okay."

Glancing at the clock, he gazed at her in confusion. "You're back early." His heart was turning somersaults.

Then his paranoia kicked in. He performed a quick appraisal of her appearance: she looked a little distracted. "Is everything all right?"

Walking over slowly, she sat on the edge of his bed. Her hand gravitated toward his forehead but she didn't touch him. "Everything's fine." She was staring at him as if he were a newly-discovered genus of bacteria.

He was growing apprehensive under her unwavering scrutiny. "Scully, did I do something to ruin your date?"

This was it. She was going to tell him that he'd done or said or thought something that had prevented her from enjoying her dinner. And any dinners yet to come. His last memory of them together would be her sitting beside him, looking stunningly beautiful in her green suit, and him lying in bed wearing nothing but his shorts.

"Scully, whatever I--"

"You didn't do anything, Mulder."

He could have fainted with relief. But was she still going to leave him? Was just his presence reason enough? "What happened?" he whispered.

"Nothing."

She rested a hand on his bare chest, and he stiffened. Was this her way of breaking it to him gently? If so, then it wasn't working. Surely she could feel his heart pounding beneath her palm.

One of her fingers began tracing along his collarbone. "Andrew was charming, and witty, and--really, just about everything a girl could ask for."

Mulder was sure he didn't want to hear this. She'd come to tell him goodbye then. She and Andrew Perkins were running off together and--what? She wanted to give him a little something to remember her by? He mentally shook his head. No. Not Scully's style.

Then what in hell was she doing?

"Scully, you're killing me here," he rasped.

Her hand stilled, and she removed it to her lap. "Sorry."

He swallowed and nodded, already missing her warmth.

"You asked about my date. I was telling you."

He nodded.

"Andrew had everything I've ever looked for in a man. But as the evening wore on, I realized something." She looked at him, and his breath caught at what he imagined he saw in her eyes. "As charming and as witty and as attentive as he was... he wasn't you."

He stopped breathing. "What... are you saying?" He was too afraid to reach the conclusion on his own.

"That I was wrong." She leaned over and kissed him very gently on the lips. "That I love you, Mulder. In the way you want me to."

He started to cry. It was the damned cold; it was screwing with his emotions. Making him into a 'sensitive male.' God, how he hated that term. Just another word for 'wimp.'

But Scully was reaching for him. Hugging him. Telling him that, "It's all right, it'll be all right."

He latched onto her and didn't want to ever let go. "Say it, Scully. Please say it again."

She released her hold on him and cradled his face in her hands. "I love you, too, Mulder."

He smiled at her through watery eyes--and then he sneezed. Six times.

Scully recoiled from him, getting to her feet and moving swiftly away. He watched her go, and would have worried about her whereabouts, but each sneeze was a nail hammering into his head. He groaned and fell back onto the pillows. The only thought he could manage was that Scully must be kicking herself for being foolish enough to fall in love with a loser like him.

He felt her before she touched him. "Mulder, here." Several tissues were pressed into his hands.

"Thanks," he gasped, quickly putting them to use.

"When was the last time you took a cold capsule?"

"Um... I didn't. I wanted to wait and take the green stuff so I could sleep."

"Do you want to sleep now?"

God, did his body ever want to. "No," he answered softly.

"I think you do," she said, smiling, patting his head lovingly.

"I don't want you to leave."

She toed off her shoes and lay down beside him, on top of the covers. "I'm not leaving," she said gently.

Looking over at her trying to get comfortable in her stiff suit, he suddenly felt supremely selfish. "I won't mind if you want to leave to get into your pajamas."

She shrugged out of her jacket, then pulled off her pantyhose. She began unbuttoning her blouse. "I don't think I'll be needing pajamas."

He stilled her hand as it reached for the last button. "As much as I want this, Scully, and please know that it's killing me to say this, but... I really feel like crap."

She took his hand and brought it up to her mouth, then laughed lightly. "I wasn't offering, Mulder."

He felt his face heat up. "Oh."

She kissed his knuckles, one at a time. "It's not because I don't want to."

He gazed into her eyes then and saw so much love that he was tempted to look behind him for the real recipient. She couldn't possibly love him that much.

Could she? She reached for him then, and fingered his damp hair gently. "How's your head?"

His eyes closed and he leaned into her touch. "It hurts."

Her hands massaged his temples. "I'll bet." She kissed the middle of his forehead. "Do you want to take the green stuff now?"

He shook his head. "I want you to hold me. I want you to hold me and make me feel better so I can love you properly."

She wriggled beneath him until his head rested on her chest."I want to make you feel better, too, Mulder, because I love you and don't like seeing you suffer. You don't have to love me properly, just so long as you love me."

"I do," he whispered. "I love you so much..."

"It hurts," she finished softly. "I know."

"I'm sorry."

She hugged him tenderly. "I know that, too." She rubbed her hand across his back, and he shivered, not certain if he was cold or if it was just the touch of the woman who loved him.

"I'll make you a deal, Mulder," she said, pulling the blanket over his back. "Green stuff tonight, wild sex tomorrow."

"Deal," he whispered.

Sliding out from under him, she retrieved the bottle from the table and filled the medicine cup with green liquid. "Bottoms up, G-man." She handed him the cup and he drank the vile elixir as quickly as he could. He took the offered glass of water gratefully, downing the entire thing.

"God, that stuff is awful. If it didn't work so well, I'd never touch it."

She climbed into bed beside him. "Looks like Mrs. Agerson was right to question those two rooms," she said, smiling.

He yawned, already feeling the effects of the codeine; his arms flopped around her gracelessly. "I can't believe this is finally happening and I'm going to be dead to the world in two minutes."

She pressed her cheek to his; her breath was warm on his ear. "You think of it as 'dead to the world.' I think of it as a sneak preview."

He was fighting to stay awake. "Don't damage anything I might need."

"Not a chance. What you need, I need."

He smiled, then his eyes widened with sudden realization. "Scully."

"Hmm?"

"You love me." He hugged her as tightly as he could.

"And you love me." She gave him a peck on the cheek.

"That's a given. But... Oh, Jesus, Scully." He knew what it felt like when she didn't love him, and he didn't ever want to feel that again. He tried to pull her inside him so that she'd have to stay with him forever.

"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, and a burst of agony jolted through him. "No, no," she said quickly, rubbing his back. "I'm sorry for hurting you, for what I put you through. I'm here, and I'll always be here."

"Promise?" God, he sounded pathetic, but he didn't care. All he wanted was for her to love him and to tell him that she'd never leave him. He'd be strong tomorrow.

"I promise."

That was all he could ask for. A promise that she would stay with him forever. He couldn't make her promise to love him forever because that was something he couldn't control--nor could she. But even if she stopped loving him, she wouldn't leave him. She promised.

A promise he knew he'd never hold her to.

Scully knew the second he fell asleep. His arms didn't loosen, but his breathing lost that desperation, that anguish she knew he still felt.

He thought she didn't understand. Didn't know how it felt when the one person you loved didn't feel the same.

He was wrong. She knew. And knew with a certainty that had shaken her when she'd realized just what she was doing to him.

It had often been speculated by the Powers That Be that she and Mulder were too close. That though the bond between partners was tight, theirs was fused. Unbroken. With not even a hair dividing where he left off and she began.

She'd always scoffed at these conjectures.

As she'd sat in the restaurant that evening, however, she knew that 'they' were right. She 'felt' him. It was something she'd never admit, to him and especially to herself, but he'd been there. Inside her. His heart was breaking, and the pain she'd felt had been nearly unbearable. She didn't know how he'd managed to keep something so terrible from her. How did he function when her every word, her every look plunged the dagger in ever deeper?

She looked at him then, and she smiled. But she'd felt more than his torment. Beneath all the hurt, and the grief, and the hopelessness, there was the love.

There was the love.

The End

The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness. - Norman Cousins

Comments appreciated! jolassi555@cs.com