I guess the first time I posted this I really confused everyone 
about Mulder's age, so, perfectionist that I am (although it isn't 
always obvious :-), I'm posting this revised version.

This story stands by itself -- that is, you don't have to be familiar 
with any opera or any of my other work to read it. It's sort of a 
Mulder-Scully romance, but not really; it's more of a bonding 
story, I guess. No need for non-relationshippers to panic. Also, 
there are no spoilers.

Please send comments to AM79898@ltu.edu

Disclaimer: The characters of Dana Scully, Melissa Scully, and 
Fox Mulder do not belong to me. They belong to Chris Carter 
and Ten Thirteen Productions. This story itself does belong to 
me, so it is Copyright (C) 1996 by Ann-Marie MacFarlane. All 
rights reserved. 

It's very short. Here it is:
===========================


Pre-existing Connection
by Ann-Marie MacFarlane

July 12, 1979
shopping mall,
Bethesda, MD
4:25 PM

	Melissa and her younger sister giggled happily as they 
walked through the shopping mall. They had spent almost  a 
whole day there, after Dana had begged her mother to let her 
tag along with her seventeen-year old sister who had a driver's 
license. Her mother had finally agreed but told them both to 
stay together at all times. Dana had been thrilled, but, now, after 
five hours of looking at clothes and make-up, she was starting 
to get a little tired. Her feet ached and she just wanted to sit 
down for five minutes. She had never really been one to 
complain, but she had to ask her sister, "Melissa, how much 
longer were you planning on us being here?"
	"I know; I'm getting tired too. I just want to look in here 
for some books on philosophy and then we can go, okay?" she 
said in her usual cheerful yet mysterious tone of voice. 
	 Dana thought tiredly. She 
knew what her sister was talking about. More mystical 
nonsense. She didn't understand how her sister would want to 
retaliate against her parents' somewhat hard-to-grasp, albeit 
structured, religion of Catholicism by swimming in the even 
murkier waters of secularized spiritualism. 
	Dana followed her sister into the bookstore and 
watched her go over to the "religion/mythology" shelves. She 
let out a bit of an exasperated sigh, then looked around the 
bookstore for the literature section, particularly the Shakespeare 
shelf. Although she was only fifteen, she already had a 
substantial understanding of Shakespeare. She had studied  
_Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ in high school and loved both plays. 
Every chance she could get, she liked to just open a 
Shakespeare play to any page and read a passage at random. 
	Right now, she walked past a couple shelves in the 
store and finally saw the "literature" sign and an arrow pointing 
to the right. When she found the shelf, however, she noticed a 
young man, probably about 27, she estimated, although she was 
never very good at estimating other people's ages. The dark-
haired man was standing there reading a paperback copy of 
_Hamlet_, looking like he had tears in his eyes. There was 
something about his face or his posture that made her 
sympathize with him and want to ask if he was alright. Of 
course, she could not do that. The young man looked up from 
his book to see if he was expected to get out of the way. Dana 
blushed uncontrollably and turned around to look at the 
opposite shelf. She picked up a book of Keats' poetry and 
opened it, trying to look occupied. 
        Fox continued to look at the girl who now had her back 
to him. He looked at her waist-length fiery red hair and the 
ivory white skin of her hands. He estimated her to be eighteen, 
about one year younger than himself. He watched her put the 
Keats book back and heard her sigh slightly. The girl walked 
closer to him, looking at the shelf he was leaning on. 
	"Excuse me," the girl whispered shyly. Fox backed 
away and nearly stumbled back into the shelf behind him. The 
redhead smiled very slightly, looking at the shelf in front of her
and not at him.
	She looked nothing like his sister, except that her hair 
was about the same length. Fox continued to study her over the 
book in his hands. He had never seen a woman so beautiful, 
either in America or England. He noticed her height for the first 
time and thought with discomfort that she might have been 
younger than he thought.  he thought,  Also, there was such an air of maturity 
about her. She was probably a focused university student 
majoring in literature, he speculated. He noticed her pick up a 
copy of _Macbeth_. She looked at him when she had the 
feeling he was watching her. He smiled, and she reutrned the 
smile, but still barely met his eyes.
	This was getting too difficult. Fox really wanted to talk 
to this woman who shared an interest in Shakespeare. He 
finally pulled himself together when he saw her intently reading 
_Macbeth_.
	"Have you read it before?" he asked.
	Dana felt mildly shocked that he was talking to her, but 
knew she had to reply in order to be polite. "What? _Macbeth_? 
Yeah, I read it last year," she replied and tried to put her eyes 
back on the page she had been reading. She could not. Once 
she had made eye contact with him, she couldn't look away. 
	"What do you think of it?" Fox asked.
	"I like it, but I like _Hamlet_ better," she said.
	"Oh... why?" he asked after considering her answer for 
a moment.
	She thought for a minute.  Fox thought to himself. 
	Dana replied: "I don't like this idea that anyone can 
commit a crime if they're in a certain situation. _Macbeth_ 
seems to say that everyone is good and evil at the same time, 
but Hamlet is more concerned with doing the right thing," she 
said, proudly putting her morals on display.
	The young man thought for a moment. As Dana 
watched him, her estimation of his age started to go down a bit. 
She noticed how young and healthy his face looked, realizing 
that his eyes and the pain they held were probably responsible 
for adding years to his appearance. 
	Fox spoke again. "I like that. I never thought about it 
that way," he said. 
	Dana was finally able to pry her eyes off of his and 
looked back at the book she was holding, thinking the 
conversation was over.
	"Listen," Fox said nervously, "Would you be interested 
in talking some more about this, maybe over coffee or 
something?"
	Dana's mind almost went blank because of the shock. 
She thought her face must have turned beet-red. This was the 
first time a guy had asked her out, and he was probably more 
than five years older than her. Besides, she didn't drink coffee. 
There was only one response she could give him, even though 
she knew it would probably cause him a great deal of 
embarrassment and discomfort.
	"I'm fifteen," she told him, looking directly into his 
eyes, almost right through them. She put her book neatly back 
on the shelf and walked away calmly, not looking at him again.
	She reached the exit of the store and found that Melissa 
was paying for a book at the counter. Melissa then walked over 
to her in time to hear her say, "Come on, Missy, let's go."
	Melissa was worried about her for a minute because of 
the expression on her face. However, Dana was able to 
compose herself and Melissa said nothing more about it.


August 2, 1996
Dana Scully's apartment,
Annapolis, MD.
6:11 PM

	Mulder sat next to Scully on her couch. It was a Friday 
night and they were looking through Scully's old photo albums 
while waiting for the pizza to arrive, both of them exhausted 
and relieved that the week was finally over. 
	Scully was telling him some story about Melissa and
how it related to the picture in the album when Mulder turned 
the page. There was a picture of a girl, probably in her late 
teens, with very long fiery hair, ivory-white skin, and a look of 
intense intelligence in her blue eyes.
	Mulder's thoughts raced as he stared at the photograph. 
He was transported back to the summer of 1979, when he had 
come back from Oxford for the summer to visit his aunt in 
Maryland. He wasn't quite sure why the picture reminded him 
of that, and he tried desperately to see the connection.
	"Mulder, what is it? Are you alright?" she asked with 
concern. She was very worried that some photograph or her 
story had reminded him of his sister.
	"Yeah, I was just... thinking."
	She shifted her body slightly and looked at his face. 
"What are you thinking about?" she asked and lightly touched 
the back of her fingers to his cheek.
	"This was you?" he asked and pointed to the picture in 
the album.
	"Yes. Doesn't it look like me?" she replied.
	Suddenly it became very clear to him. Scully's 
insistence on the clear-cut nature of good and evil. Her logical, 
black and white view of life. Her skeptical nature that always 
made him look at things differently, constantly making him say, 
"I never thought of it that way." She was just like that girl he 
had met in the bookstore, who had shocked him so much when 
she told him her age.
	"You were about fifteen here?" he guessed.
	"Yeah."
	"Scully, have you ever read _Macbeth_?"
	"Yes," she replied. She had no idea what he was getting 
at or why he had changed the subject. 
	"Don't you think it tries to say that every good person is 
capable of murder if they were in a certain situation?"
	Scully thought of something. She remembered being in 
a bookstore when she was fifteen and telling an older guy 
exactly the same thing. She remembered the overwhelming 
feeling she had to ask him if he was alright. She remembered 
his tortured hazel eyes and tousled brown hair.
	"Oh my God," she said quietly and looked into 
Mulder's eyes, which still had the same pained tinge in them.
	"That was you," Mulder whispered back to her. 
	They looked at each other for a long moment, recalling 
the feelings they had in the bookstore so many years ago. Scully 
remembered that he had asked her out for coffee, and she 
remembered how wonderful and regretful she had felt for 
weeks after.  
	Finally, Mulder broke the silence. "You were always 
beautiful," he whispered.
	Scully looked away and blushed like a fifteen-year-old 
girl. Mulder smiled.
	"Maybe we could go get some coffee sometime," he 
said. 
	"But Mulder," she said, looking into his eyes, almost 
through his eyes just as she had done so many years ago. Only 
this time, she was smiling. "I'm only 32."

=======================================
(The End.)  

Could you people please respond and tell me that you read 
this?! My e-mail address, in case you have forgotten, is still 
AM79898@ltu.edu


Ann-Marie 
***************
Remember, you're unique..... just like everybody else.
 	         		-anonymous internet person
***************

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