I squeeze Mulder's hand as he snuggles me closer to
his warm, hard body. He's so big. Sometimes the sheer
size of him almost overwhelms me - the length of his
legs, the breadth of his chest, the bulging muscles in his biceps.

I shouldn't be here, of course. The one thing I made
Mulder promise when we became lovers a couple of
months ago was that we wouldn't let our personal life
interfere with our professional partnership. That
meant a continuation of separate rooms when we were on business trips. But I was feeling so bad and knowing that he was only on the other side of the wall was a temptation too powerful to resist.

I roll over so that we are face to face and whisper,
"Make love to me, Mulder."

"Scully, honey, you're not feeling good," he murmurs,
brushing the hair away from my face. "We can just
sleep together like this. I don't want you to ever
think you have to provide me with sex in order to have the comfort of my presence."

I smile softly into his concerned hazel eyes. "I never have. I never would. But tonight I just. . .I NEED you, Mulder!"

He nods slowly, then stands up. I shiver, both from
being deprived of his warmth and in anticipation.
Mulder strips off his own clothes in a series of
quick, careless gestures, then returns to the bed and
slowly removes mine. He lifts the covers and scoots in beside me, drawing me back into his arms. It's the
same position we were in a few minutes earlier, but
now we are skin-to-skin.

Mulder glides his hand down my face and neck to my
breasts. He fondles them gently and I feel the
familiar rush of wetness between my legs. I'm
constantly amazed at how quickly and thoroughly I
respond to his touch. Heck, it doesn't even have to be his TOUCH; there are times when he's brought me to the brink of orgasm simply with the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes.

I roll onto my back and bring his mouth down to mine
for a deep, intoxicating kiss. Kissing Mulder is pure
paradise.  As a tomboyish, bookish adolescent I used
to occasionally sneak a peek at my sister's romance
novels and dream of the day a man would kiss me like
that. When I finally began dating, as a senior in high school and then in college, I was disappointed.
Kissing was pleasant enough, but nothing like the way
it was portrayed in books. I figured the books were
just wrong. A few months ago, I realized that the
books had been right; it was the men who'd been wrong. When Mulder is the one I'm kissing, the books don't hold a candle to real life!

When we come up for air, I smile into his eyes and
wiggle beneath him. "Please, Mulder. Now." I open my
legs and wrap them around his hips. He nods and uses
one hand to guide himself into me while the other is
supporting his weight above my body.

I gasp with pleasure and begin to convulse around him. Years ago, in medical school, I'd read that a small percentage of women can climax simply from
penetration. Until recently, it never occurred to me
that I might be one of them. But this happens with a
frequency that's become a private joke between us.

"You know, Scully, it's supposed to be *MEN* who have
this problem," Mulder whispers with a smug smile on
his face.

"It's not my fault you're good," I reply.

"Actually, Scully, it *IS* your fault." he answers.
"Seven years of sexual fantasies provide a lot of
incentive!"

I smile up at him. Actually, coming so quickly has its advantages. Now I can watch Mulder without being
distracted by my own desires. He's so gorgeous! I've
always thought so, under any circumstances, but
flushed with passion he's simply unbelievable.

"I love you," I murmur.

"I love you, too, Scully," he replies.

Mulder keeps up a slow, steady pace. He doesn't alter
his rhythm until the very moment his climax hits, when he gives a couple of quick, hard thrusts and moans out my name. Then he kisses me and reaches over to turn off the light. He spoons me up against him again and, within moments, we are asleep.

The next evening, on the flight home, I begin to feel
bad again. I push up the arm rest between us and
cuddle against Mulder. He strokes my hair gently and
whispers, "Scully, will you do something for me when
we get home?"

"Of course, Mulder," I murmur.

"I want us to get married."

I look up at him, confused. Haven't we already had
this discussion? Mulder asked me to marry him the
morning after we consummated our relationship and I
agreed. He even gave me an engagement ring that had
belonged to his grandmother, which I wear in our off
hours. Mulder was all for us running off to a Justice
of the Peace that very afternoon, but I wanted a
Catholic ceremony and he didn't really mind that
alternative. We began a series of pre-marital
counseling sessions with Father McKay during the two
weeks Mulder was convalescing from the tobacco bug
virus he'd been infected with in North Carolina.

With the exception of Skinner, we've told all the
major people in our lives. We both told my mother, who was ecstatic. Mulder told the Lone Gunmen who were, by turns,  thrilled (Byers), bemused (Langley) and bittersweetly congratulatory (Frohike). I told my
brothers, who were happy (Charles) and furious (Bill
Junior).  We've tentatively planned a small ceremony
for sometime later this summer; whenever Bill, Tara,
Matthew and Charles can all be on the East Coast at
the same time.

"Mulder, I already said yes."

"I don't want to wait any longer, Scully. Let's do it
tomorrow. Please?"

I sense his urgency and nod slowly.

The next morning, we drive to the county courthouse in Maryland and obtain the marriage license, then to a jewelry store to select rings. We go by the church to speak with Father McKay. At first he demurs, pointing out that our six-week engagement falls short of the suggested time for marriage preparation, but when I remind him of the circumstances under which he first met Mulder - during my fight with cancer - he agrees to perform the ceremony later that afternoon. So we round up my mother and the guys.

Mom and I had actually selected a dress last week.
It's not a traditional wedding dress, in any sense,
but it's a beautiful cream-colored silk that does look well on me. Mom is dressed in a pastel blue that makes her look years younger and Mulder looks yummy in a gray suit. Byers is dressed appropriately, but then he always looks like he's going to a wedding anyway. Frohike is wearing a nice shirt and sports coat that I've seen him in once or twice before. The surprise is Langley - not only has he pulled his hair back into a neat ponytail and worn a polo shirt instead of his usual fringe rock band T-shirt - he, of all people, is the only one attending the ceremony who thought to provide flowers and hands me a bouquet he picked up on his way over.

The ceremony is brief but beautiful. Afterwards, Mom
has us and the guys over for dinner. She's even baked
a wedding cake; it's just one of her regular
delicicious layer cakes, but she iced it in white and
put the bride and groom figures that had topped her
and Dad's wedding cake on it.

"I guess maybe this isn't exactly the wedding you
always dreamed about for Dana, is it?" Mulder asks as
we eat the cake.

"Fox, too many people make the mistake of
concentrating on the wedding instead of the marriage," my mother replies. "I can't deny that I would have preferred for her brothers to be here. But I couldn't ask for a better man for my daughter. No one could ever love her more. That's what's important."

On our drive home, I feel the now-familiar dizziness
begin.

"You feeling bad again, Scully?" Mulder asks tenderly.

"A little," I admit.

When we reach my apartment building, Mulder opens the
door for me, then swoops me up in his arms.

"Mulder, I can walk."

"You're not feeling well, Scully. Besides, it's
traditional for the groom to carry the bride over the
threshold."

I open my mouth to object, then shut it and smile at
him instead. The fact is, I like it when he holds me.

Once we make it to my apartment and into the bedroom,
Mulder places me gently on the bed and lies beside me, a mixture of desire and concern warring in the depths of his eyes.

"Mulder, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Scully."

"Now that we're married, am I allowed to call you
Fox?"

He chuckles. "If you want. It will probably take a
while for me to get used to it, though."

I smile. "Well, maybe I'll call you that sometimes,
just because I can. But I think I'll mostly stick to
Mulder. Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"Will you use your mouth on me? All over me? You know
how much I like that."

He doesn't answer verbally. Instead his eyes darken
and he covers his mouth with mine. In an amazing feat
of dexterity, Mulder manages to remove both my clothes and his own while continuing to kiss my face, neck and ears. Then he begins to move his mouth lower. He licks and sucks at both my breasts, drawing each nipple in turn into his mouth and flicking them rapidly with his tongue. He moves down, kissing my ribs and belly. When he's almost to where I'm aching for him to be, he scoots to end of the bed and begins to suckle my toes.

"Mulder!"
 
"Mmm?"

"That's not where I want you mouth at the moment!"

He gives a wicked grin as he begins to kiss his way
back up my calves and thighs. "Well, gee Scully. you
said you wanted my mouth all over you. I'm just trying to do a thorough job."

The only answer I can give is a whimper. He finally
reaches the juncture of my legs and begins peppering
kisses in my curls. When he slides his tongue into me
I moan and claw at the sheets. After a few minutes of
this sweet torture, I finally summon enough willpower
to whisper, "Stop, Mulder."

"Why?"

"I want a turn. And I want us to try to come together
tonight."

He nods and lays down on his back. I start licking and nibbling my way down his neck, chest and belly.
Mulder's low growls of pleasure tell me how much he's
enjoying this. When I reach his arousal, I stop and
just gaze at it for a moment. Mulder at full mast is a damned impressive sight.

I don't have the same interest in my husband's feet
that he has in mine, so I just move as far as his
knees before I begin kissing my way back up his legs.
I lick softly at his erection, like I did the ice
cream cone I teased him with last spring. Then I begin to suck, relaxing my throat muscles as much as I can, in order to pleasure more of him. When I taste the first drops of his impending orgasm, I let him slip out of my mouth and kiss his lips again.

"How did you want to. . .?" Mulder inquires.

"Let's try on our sides, face to face," I suggest.

I slide one leg over his hips and guide him inside my
body. It isn't the easiest position in the world,
because neither of us has much leverage. But the very
fact that it's slightly awkward means that we have a
bit more control. Mulder grasps my bottom with one
hand and moves gently within me. I wiggle in response.

As our orgasms approach, we begin to pant in unison
and stare deeply into each other's eyes. Finally they
hit, both at the same time. Feeling Mulder convulse
within me, as I convulse around him is wondrous. We
fall asleep like that, still joined.


The next morning, I wake up feeling even worse than I
did in Oregon. We're already a day overdue in
reporting back to headquarters, so I send Mulder in
without me. I promise to call him if I get to feeling
any worse; otherwise,  I will join him later and we
will tell Skinner together of our marriage. We both
know this will most likely mean the end of our
professional partnership, but as my husband said a few days ago, it has to end sometime.

I'm soon feeling reasonably well, so I dress and go to our office. Skinner is already there. So are Marnita and Krycek.

"I can't risk losing you," Mulder says, looking deeply into my eyes.

I nod slowly and embrace him. "I won't let you go
alone," I whisper. We kiss tenderly, then I remove my
cross necklace and place it around his neck. "Take
Skinner with you. And take this."

"Scully?"

"Yeah, Mulder?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Mulder. Of all the titles I can lay
claim to - being a doctor, being an F.B.I. agent -
begin your wife is the best."

We kiss once more, then rejoin the others.

The next evening, I lie in a hospital bed dealing with the most complex mixture of feelings I've ever
experienced in my life. I'm going to have a baby! This thought fill me with wonder. But my beloved Mulder - my husband, the father of my child, my partner in every sense of the word - is missing. He was abducted without even knowing he's going to become a father.

After telling Skinner I was pregnant, he replied that
Mulder had told him of our marriage on the flight to
Oregon. Mom was going to call the boys and tell them
yesterday, so now it's official. Everybody knows.
Well, not Marnita and Krycek, but they're hardly
friends of ours.

The door opens and my mother walks in.

"Dana, dear, how are you?" she asks.

"I'm okay, Mom."

"I expect the truth, young lady. Your boss called to
inform me that my son-in-law was missing and my
daughter was in the hospital. As much as you care for
Fox, you're not the type to collapse due to stress.
What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's *WRONG*, Mom," I assure her. "It's just
that. . .I'm going to have a baby!"

"Dana, darling that's wonderful! But I thought. . .you told me when Matthew was born that you couldn't. . ."

"That's what the doctors had told me, Mom. Apparently
they were mistaken."

Mom kisses me gently and squeezes my hand.

Late the next evening, I hear a pounding on my door.
My heart jumps in an irrational hope that it is
Mulder. I realize that's unlikely. He'd phone first
and, anyway, he has a key and so wouldn't need to
knock.

I check the peephole and see an unexpected sight. My
brothers. Both of them. I swing the door open and say, "Bill? Charles? What are you two doing here?"

"We're here in response to a series of increasingly
irrational phone calls from Mom," Bill answers as he
bends to kiss my cheek. Charles does the same, pulling me close with an arm around my shoulders as we walk to the couch and sit down. Bill remains standing.

"First, you called us last month to say you were
engaged to your partner," Charles says.

"Then we got a phone call from Mom a couple of days
ago, saying you and Mulder had gone ahead and gotten
married," Bill says.

"Next, Mom calls to say he's disappeared," Charles
chimes in. "Abducted by aliens or something out in
Oregon."

"Finally, Mom's calls this morning to announce that
you're pregnant!" Bill finishes.

"It's all true," I reply. "We went out to Oregon to
investigate a crash involving a Navy jet and an
unidentified aircraft. While we were out there, I
began feeling. . .bad."

"Is that why you moved up the wedding?" Bill asks, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Because you found out you were pregnant?"

I shake my head. "No. Mulder doesn't even know about
the baby; I didn't find out myself until yesterday.
I'd been told, at the time I was diagnosed with
cancer, that I'd never be able to have children, so
it's a complete surprise. I'm overjoyed but I'm
absolutely flabbergasted, too. We moved up the wedding because. . .well, it's hard to say, really. Mulder seemed to have some sort of. . .premonition, I guess you'd call it, that it might be important." I'm still not sure why my brothers are here.

"We brought you a wedding present," Charles says
calmly. "It's not exactly crystal or china but, under
the circumstances, we thought you'd prefer it."

Bill reaches into the attaché case he's carrying and
pulls out a dark object which he places on my coffee
table. It takes me a moment to realize what it is. The black box from a plane's control panel. Then it hits me. This is from the plane that crashed in Oregon!

"How?" I stammer, staring at my brothers.

"We *ARE* Naval officers," Bill reminds me.

"We have friends, people who owe us a favors," Charles says with a shrug.

"But. . .why? Charles, you've never even met Mulder!
And Bill, you can't stand him!"

I'm overwhelmed by the risks my brothers have run on
my behalf. I'm not naive. There's no way in hell they
were authorized to turn this box over to the F.B.I.
and they're running the very real risk of court
martial.

"Dana, do you remember what Dad used to say to us
whenever we failed to stand up for each other?" Bill
asks.

I remember. It was the number one sin in the Scully
family. Because we moved frequently, it took time for
us to make friends on each new base. So we had to
depend on our siblings to look out for us, help us
deal with bullies, things like that. Not doing so
could get us in deep trouble with our father.

"Of course. He said a family was like a squadron. You
didn't have to like the other members of your
squadron, but you owed them your loyalty. Always," I
answer.

"We don't have to like Mulder," Bill said. "He's your
husband, the father of your baby. He's part of our
family now. We have an obligation to look out for
him."

I gather both my brothers into an awkward embrace,
smiling at them through my tears.

The next night, after I've turned the box over to the
Lone Gunmen for analysis, I lay in bed trying to
sleep. I'm cold. I'm tired. I WANT MULDER!!

Then, suddenly, he is there. Not physically, but in my mind.

"It's me, Scully," he says and I feel his thoughts,
his emotions flowing into my consciousness.

"Where are you?" I ask.

"I don't know. There's no way to tell."

"Are you okay?"

A shadow flits across his mind, hinting at something
painful. "I'll survive. And I'll return to you. Just
like I returned from Alaska and a burning boxcar and
the brink of insanity. I'll always return to you,
Scully. I love you. You're the other half of my own
soul."

"I love you, too, Mulder."

"You seem. . .happier than I thought you would be,
Scully. I can sense you're worried about me, lonely
for me, but beneath that you're joyful."

"Mulder, I've got a surprise for you." I don't
consciously form the thought of our baby, but it
somehow gets transmitted anyway and he responds with a starburst of sensation, flooding my mind with his
excitement and pleasure.

"Oh, God, Scully! I didn't think it was possible to
miss you more than I already do, but this makes me
want to come home even more."

"I'm thrilled about the baby, of course, Mulder. But
I'm incomplete without you."

"Scully, I've got to go now. It's time for more tests. I love you."

I fall asleep to the echoing refrain of his last
words.