Mulder lay on his side next to Scully on the sleeping bags, not touching her. He was doing plenty of looking, though. A single table lamp illuminated the room, and their bare bodies. Scully lay perfectly still, content to let him look his fill, as she was doing with him.

His beautiful body told the story of their years together. The scar on his left shoulder--the long trip to New Mexico, her desperate drive, her attempt to keep him healthy after she'd shot him. Another bullet wound in his thigh, from their first year together, from that man who claimed to be channeling her father. A jagged yet faded scratch on his right shoulder, from the beast woman in New Jersey. And a much more recent scar on his upper chest and arm, where the mothman had attacked him in the Florida woods.

Earlier, she had taken her sweet time dropping lingering kisses on every scar, each one evidence of the vision and courage that placed him above other men.

He finally touched her. Grasping her wrist, he lifted her arm into the air so he could peruse her side. Then he gently set her arm back down. Taking her shoulder, he rolled her to her stomach and leaned over her back, his fingers trailing slowly over her skin.

A delicious thrill danced through her at his touch, and his studied interest in her body. To think for so long she had questioned whether she could measure up to the tall, busty women he usually dated--like Diana Fowley. In the past few hours, his thorough, intense worship of her body had disavowed her of that notion. So what was he up to now? "Um, Mulder, what are you doing?"

"Looking."

"I gathered that. You've seen me naked before."

He chuckled. "Not like this."

She could concede that. But why was he taking so long? He'd already covered every inch of her with kisses. Their second time together, they'd taken much more time, relishing every touch, every reaction. And it had been followed by a third, which had only started out as touches and love play, and progressed once again to an amazingly satisfactory conclusion. If Mulder kept this up, it would happen yet again.

He was silent for an awfully long time, but she could still feel his eyes on her. She propped her head on her hand and looked over her shoulder at him. "Mulder?"

"Uh, Scully... I thought--" He kept his gaze averted from her, and Scully detected an uncomfortable tension in the air.

"What?" she said somewhat sharply. Surely he realized he could say anything to her now.

"You said... I thought..." His penetrating gaze clashed with hers. "Where's your tattoo?"

A chill swept through Scully and she tore her gaze from his. She felt as if she were standing at the mouth of a dark cave with only a hint of light on the other side. Only by navigating carefully could she make it through--if she dared to enter at all. Suddenly she felt like a hypocrite. She had just been thinking how Mulder needed to be open with her, and here she was, longing to avoid a disturbing subject which revolved around him.

The silence stretched out painfully thin. She could hear Mulder leaning over her, breathing slightly unevenly, waiting. "I had it removed," she finally said.

A rush of air left his lungs. Relief, perhaps? "You did?"

"It looked too much like the logo of a television show."

He chuckled, but her attempt to lighten the mood didn't last more than a minute. He was still waiting.

She sucked in a breath. "After my remission. I felt as if I'd ended a dark phase of my life, and I didn't want to be reminded of it anymore."

"I see."

She knew he didn't. How could he? She had never told him what had really been going through her head when she'd met Ed Jerse. She rolled onto her side to see him better. "Mulder, I...I didn't mean to hurt you." She bit her lip and considered her words, tried not to get lost in his intense, dark-eyed gaze. "No, that's not true. I did mean to hurt you," she confessed, knowing she was hurting him even now, feeling she had to do it, to get past this. "I was lashing out. I was so frustrated. I felt you had become the center of my life, but you were...taking me for granted. You never saw all of me."

To her relief, Mulder didn't contradict her. Silently, he lay back down propped his head on his hand, his eyes intent on hers.

"I was afraid I was losing myself in you, but there was a whole side of me you had no interest in...knowing."

He lifted his hand and brushed it along her hip. "This."

She nodded once. "When you scoffed at the idea I might have a date, I felt it like a slap in the face."

Mulder flinched. "I didn't want you to have one, Scully, to be close to any other men. I thought of you as mine even then."

"Yours, but you weren't interested in claiming all of me. Anyway, I thought I was being so rebellious, so independent, going out with--him." It made her sick now to even think of the man who had tried to murder her. And he had been a terrible lover. "But when we..." She dropped her gaze and scratched at the green cloth of the sleeping bag. "I was imagining I was with you, Mulder."

"Oh, God." He sounded almost in pain.

Scully forced her gaze to meet his again, only to find he'd rolled onto his back, one arm tucked under his head. Was he repulsed? Should she have kept her mouth shut? Why had she even brought this up? What an idiot she was! Things had been going fine until now.

Before she could chastise herself further, he burst out with, "Scully, I did the same thing."

Scully stared at him, a queer blend of anger and pleasure twisting inside her. Was this what he was feeling? This fury over a betrayal, only to discover you had never left the thoughts of the one you loved? She didn't want to know more--yet she did. She forced the question from between suddenly dry lips. "When?"

"When you were gone. I thought you were never coming back. She was as screwed up as me, as lost and alone. I needed--I craved companionship, something to fill the void after you'd been taken, something to make me forget for just a little while." He turned his head to face her, lifted his hand to stroke the hair from her cheek. "I felt like I was dying, Scully. And so I slept with her, pretending it was you. I used her. My only consolation is she was using me, too."

Hearing him confess his motives put her mind at rest. Unlike her own "transgression," his had happened so long ago, so early in this long path they had traveled together. And still he saw it as a betrayal. From the very beginning, they knew they belonged only to each other. "It doesn't matter, Mulder. Not anymore."

He twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. "Neither does your tattoo." They both knew he was talking about Ed Jerse, but neither wanted to mention his name. "I deserved it. It made me wake up, realize how damned lucky I am to have you."

She smiled down at him, recalling the tender way he had embraced her in the Allentown hospital. He had shown his devotion then, and so many times after.

Mulder's voice grew slightly hoarse. "Until then, Scully, I tried to...to deny you, to put you in another category. I even made one up."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed heavily and again rolled away from her, his eyes on the ceiling. "I underwent hypnosis again, in a more controlled atmosphere than...at the Ephesian camp." A self-deprecating chuckle left his throat. "It seems sometimes you're right, and hypnosis isn't always reliable."

His soulmate... The disturbed Melissa Ephesian. Scully shivered, recalling the intense, emotional experience when Mulder relived his past lives--and his determined belief that the strange Melissa was his soulmate through numerous lives. He had seen Scully in his past, too, as his father, and his sergeant. Only weeks later had she realized the problems with his recollections. Another person he'd seen, the Cigarette-Smoking Man, couldn't possibly have been a Nazi officer back then. During World War II, that man was already living. Apparently Mulder realized the discrepancy, too, and sought the truth on his own later.

He continued, his low-key voice almost hypnotic in the silence. The shadows surrounding their pool of light seemed even darker as he pulled her back with him to that confusing time.

"When Melissa said I was there, too, in the past with her, as her lover... I latched onto the idea with both hands. I saw it as a way out, a way to convince myself that I didn't really long for you. I was determined that you would never be...my lover. I was afraid that would hurt you, *this* would hurt you. So I tried to suppress my own feelings for you as anything other than a friend." He sucked in a deep breath, his chest shuddering. "Still, I wanted you with me, so I put you there, always by my side. I made you into a friend I can't live without." His eyes finally turned to meet hers, and he tenderly clasped her hand where it rested on the sleeping bag. "But now... Now I know who my true soulmate is."

Scully found herself drowning in his gaze. She feared her heart would burst, she felt so filled with love for this man. *Her soulmate.* "Mulder..." She traced his sensuous lips with her fingertips. "You should never be afraid of hurting me. You've saved me so many times, expanded the boundaries of my very existence. I never would have seen what was really out there if not for you."

"The oval, you mean."

She smiled, recalling her sketch on his kitchen table. "Exactly. A paradigm shift to the thousandth magnitude. Don't feel bad about Melissa Ephesian, Mulder. I wasn't ready then. Not until after my remission. Then..." she smiled. "I was so happy to be alive, and with you. That's when I decided to open the door to the possibilities, by seeing if you might take me up on an invitation. When we were in Florida--"

He arched his eyebrow. "No way."

She smiled. "Way."

"You were coming on to me? With the wine and cheese?"

"You ran out."

He looked rueful, and a bit embarrassed. "You scared me, Scully. I didn't know what you were up to. All the times I'd tossed innuendos your way, and they fell flat. You'd never...done anything like that before."

"And here I thought you found the mothman more appealing than me."

He chuckled. "You had to hit me over the head, Scully. Being subtle wasn't going to cut it. We'd been only partners for so long, it was hard for me to believe you might want something more."

She chewed her lip briefly, silently acknowledging the truth of his statement. "Okay, since we're playing true confessions, I'll tell you another one."

Instantly he turned wary. "What?"

"When I tried to quit the Bureau, before Antarctica, I was praying you would talk me out of it." When he had come to her apartment that night, reeking of liquor, she had been insulted that he'd had to get tanked before telling her what was in his heart--only to learn he had come to take her on another adventure. But he'd made it up to her later, when she tried to walk out for good.

Her voice lowered intimately, her gaze meeting his in rich understanding. She knew they were both recalling that amazing moment in his hallway when he'd finally revealed his heart to her. A lump formed in her throat. "And then--" Her voice cracked. "You gave me so much more than I ever dreamed of."

"Come here," Mulder growled. He slid his hand behind her neck, sending tingles down her spine. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled her toward him. Scully thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he pressed her against his chest, arranging her body atop his, cradling her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. Tears sprang to her eyes.

She lifted her head and gazed down at him, tracing the contours of his beautiful face, seeing an echo of her tears in his eyes. Suddenly, words were no longer necessary. The understanding between them was finally complete. Their lips met in a tender, exploring kiss. Time seemed to stand still, and nothing mattered anymore but once again expressing their needs and feelings in the way they had denied themselves for so long.