Email: gwyhn99@yahoo.com
Date: 30 May 2001
Archive: ummm… rather not, thanks.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Classification: Vignette, Romance, some Angst
Keywords: Mulder/Scully, Scully POV
Spoilers: season 8 flashback ep called Per Manum. It’s set at the end of season 7 though.
Summary: Scully looks back on 7 years with Mulder. Warning: contains spoilers for the season 8 flashback episode Per Manum!!

Disclaimer: Not mine, never have been, never will be. Just playing. Will return unharmed. No use in suing me, I’m broke.

Author’s note: this just came to me, in a very crowded uni commissary, over lunch, with the Gladiator soundtrack playing on my cd-player. I was taking a break from studying for my exam that afternoon and scribbled this down in about 20 minutes. Made some additions while typing it up, but that’s it. Thanks heaps to Little Miss and Garnet for beta-ing this for me :-)

Please be nice and don’t flame me for this one, okay? Ta.

I have to dedicate this to Gillian Anderson. So people always look amazing when you watch a compilation of their best scenes, but any actor who can make me cry is just amazing. By god, that woman can emote!
Okay, I’ll stop before I get lost in a total gushing session ;-)

On with the ‘story’, which is prolly shorter than this intro stuff!!

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Basking

Mulder has become my shadow, my rock, the only truth in my life. I’m not sure when this change in our relationship truly started, but I do know that it has taken on a decidedly more physical nature after the failed IVF treatment. For some reason, that took away the physical barriers we’d kept in place for so long.

No, we’re not sleeping together. Nothing as drastic as that. We’ve just become… more physical.

Mulder has always been there, right behind me, watching my back, but after the IVF debacle, he’s been one step closer behind me, if that were possible. I can feel his presence more strongly than ever before.

And it scares me.

It scares me when he pulls me into his arms. It scares me when he holds me close to comfort me… or himself… Yes, he hugs me to comfort himself. To make sure I’m still there. To make sure he hasn’t lost me.

It scares me when he looks into my eyes to see if I’m really all right. The intensity of this man scares me. Because it stokes a fire deep within me. A fire that is so intense and all-consuming that I’m afraid it’ll swallow me whole.

And now we’re back in Oregon, where it all started. Where our bond was forged. I can’t help but be in awe of the difference between then and now. The difference in each of us and between us.

Back then, Mulder took the first step towards giving me his full trust. I did the same.

Since then, we’ve slayed some of Mulder's demons, and we’ve stumbled upon new ones, for both of us. We’ve fine-tuned our play where he comes up with his "out-there theories" and I counter them with my "rational scientific explanations".

I’ve seen things that even Mulder has trouble believing, yet I‘ve always stayed his sounding board, like he has always been mine.

We’ve been to hell and back for each other. My hell was Antarctica, and Martha’s Vineyard, his not knowing where I was taken, what was done to me, and whether I’d even survive the repercussions.

We’ve both lost our innocence, but we’ve always found strength in each other, both mentally and physically.

Like now. I am pulling on his physical strength, and he offers it to me freely and willingly. I will always, always be grateful to him for that. I don’t know where I’d be without him.

I’ve been feeling ill these past few days. Very ill. Not unlike the cancer or the chemotherapy. I fear that despite all the signs and assurances to the contrary, the cancer may be back. So I lean on Mulder, trying to keep the demons away for as long as possible. Until I will finally have to give in, and let him take me to a hospital. Until then, I will bask in the warmth his arms provide me, and enjoy every second of innocence we can share.

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