Alternating first-person POVs.

As she tells me about Fowley's death, I struggle to
feel some sort of strong emotion. My only feeling
regarding Diana is a sort of vague, impersonal sorrow. I may be the G-man least-likely to be voted a bureau team player, but the death of another agent always saddens me. I feel the same emotions now that I felt when Jerry Lamatta died years ago. Jerry had once been my partner, just as Diana had once been, as Scully so delicately put it, my friend. But Scully has redefined words like "partner" and "friend" for me.  They no longer have any meaning except in regard to her.

Actually, my strongest feeling at the moment is
empathy for what I know Scully must be feeling. The
mixture of guilt and relief she's dealing with isn't
easy to handle. I know. It's the same volatile
emotional mix I experienced when Agent Pendrell died.
I can concede that Scully at least had some semi-valid reasons for the distrust and dislike she felt for Fowley. Pendrell never did a thing to harm me in any way; my feelings in regard to him were nothing more than simple jealousy. He and Scully shared the same scientific background and I was always worried that she'd someday decide it would be more fun to stay in the laboratory with a man who clearly adored her than dash around the country hunting aliens and mutants with a man who was too obsessed to make his feelings clear.

Drawing her closer, I try to comfort her. I explain
part of my dream to her. Not the part with Fowley;
that would only cause Scully pain. But the part about
how, even in my dreamworld, she was the one who kept
me honest and made me whole.

Framing her face with my hands, looking deeply into
her tearful blue eyes, I say softly, "You were my
constant; my touchstone."

I gaze into his eyes. This is a man whose holy grail
has always been the truth. And I'm the woman who's
spent six years denying it to him. Not anymore.

"And you are mine," I whisper. Everything I am to
him, he is to me. We are, quite simply the other half
of each other's souls.

I kiss his forehead and then run my fingers gently
across his sensitive lower lip. I want, badly, to kiss him on the mouth. But not now. Not yet. The time is almost right; I can sense that. But he needs time to recover both physically and from Fowley's death. So I smile once more at him and turn to leave.

I close the door gently. As I walk down the hall, I'm
reminded of the time last summer when we stood in each other's arms in this very spot. We're making extremely slow, but undeniably steady, progress. This time we both got to express our feelings. A small smile tugs my lips up. We did better in the doorway than we did in the hallway. Maybe next time we can actually be all the way in his apartment with the door closed. Who knows what kind of progress we could make then?

I bring my fingers up and gently rub the spot where
Scully kissed me. I may be the only man in America
with a hickey on his forehead. Oh, well. At least the
hat will cover it. She touched my lips, too. It was
all I could do not to drag her up to my mouth for a
real kiss. About the only thing that stopped me was
the embarrassing possibility that I might be starting
something I don't have the physical stamina to finish.

As I stand there, the feeling and scent of Scully
still lingering on my body, I get another vision. I
know, somehow, that this one will be the last.

We are on the beach again, the little boy and I.
We're rebuidling the sand castle spaceship and
grinning at each other. Finally, for the first time,
he addresses me by name.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, son?"

"Who's your best friend?"

"Mommy."

He's quiet for a moment, pondering that, the way
children often do. Then he says, "I didn't know you
could get married to your best friend."

"Sometimes you can, son," I tell him. "But only if
you're very, very lucky."