TITLE: Among Momentary Days
AUTHOR: Innisfree
E-MAIL: katclar73@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION:  SRA
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully, one night in North 
Carolina, sitting on a porch, after three years on the 
run. Anyone who doesn't feel like NC-17 is, for the 
most part, safe as long as they stay on the porch. 
You'll know what I mean.
RATING: NC-17 (language, intercourse)
SPOILERS: Through "The Truth" and specific spoilers 
for "William" and Season 6
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Series
ARCHIVE: Yes -- just e-mail me.
DISCLAIMERS: They're not mine, I'm not making any 
money, and there is no intent to infringe any lawful 
copyrights or trademarks.
_____________________________________________

Moments. That's what life really boils down to. You 
know you're always going to remember certain events. 
The state championship swim meet where you took first 
place. Your high school graduation. Your first day at 
college. The day you got into medical school. The day 
your father died. 

But you never really know, as you're living them, 
which everyday moments you will still recall so 
clearly years later that you imagine you could 
transport yourself back through time and be right 
there again for just a few seconds. Feel how the muggy 
air of a late June evening felt on your skin. Smell 
the odor of stale cigarettes and spilled beer that 
permeated a friend's apartment and mixed with the 
sweet scent of lilacs drifting through an open window. 
Hear the voices of people you haven't seen in years 
from pieces of conversations about absolutely nothing. 
Taste the vodka in penne cream sauce that was a little 
too strong. 

And you can't help but wonder why you remember that 
moment out of so many others that were exactly like 
it. Why you remember one random night at that dive bar 
on Chapel Street you and your roommates frequented 
nearly every weekend for the better part of a year. 
Why you have such a vivid recollection of walking to a 
certain class on a certain day where you remember 
hearing a certain lecture. Because it's not as though 
you consciously chose to remember that particular 
moment and discard others that were equally 
commonplace and ordinary at that time. No. It's as 
though your brain conducted a lottery for memories, 
and certain snapshots of your life won the right to 
hang around in your head forever. And oddly enough, 
those are often the memories that make you happiest or 
saddest when they pop into your head. Memories about 
nothing in particular. Just memories of a life. 

There are so many moments like that when I think about 
my years with Mulder. Considering how much time we 
spent together at the office and away from it, it's 
not odd that so many of my everyday recollections from 
the past fifteen years should involve him. What 
surprises me is that I'm able to recall so many 
moments with him so vividly. The number of places and 
times I can return to in my mind from the years that 
I've known him seem to eclipse all of the flashpoint 
memories from the rest of my life put together. I have 
to think that those moments with him must have been 
more special to me than I even realized at the time 
they were happening.

That night in North Carolina in August 2005 could 
easily have become one of those random moments I 
recall when I'm old and the days grow quiet. Except 
that this night was too special to surrender to the 
vagaries of memory. Not special because it was 
remarkable in a certain way, or because something 
earth-shattering was said or discovered, or because it 
marked some sort of milestone in my relationship with 
Mulder. It was special, I suppose, because nothing 
really special happened. We were together, and I was 
happy, and the world seemed content to leave us in 
peace for a night. And that's a moment I want to 
remember even when all the other moments have slipped 
away.

* * *

Walking home from the clinic on this evening in early 
August, I decide that my gracious agreement to let 
Mulder have the use of the car today was probably as 
stupid as it was noble. The humidity here in 
Wilmington, combined with the oppressive summer heat, 
makes me want to remove every article of clothing I'm 
wearing right here and right now, public decency be 
damned. The only thing stopping me is the vague sense 
that my silk blend t-shirt and linen pants have 
actually melded with my skin and might not be 
separable anymore. My hair is just a few more blocks 
away from being sopping wet, and I find myself wiping 
the sweat from my brow every twenty seconds as I 
trudge onward in the direction of dinner. And in the 
direction of Mulder.

You can imagine how irritated I am when I arrive at 
the ramshackle house we're currently occupying and 
find him sitting comfortably on the porch. Feet up, 
ice cold beer in hand, little white fan sending cool 
air across his bearded face. And he is bone dry.

"Jeez, Scully, what happened to you? Did you take a 
wrong turn at the beach and end up in the water or 
what?" He grins at me, a little too smugly for his own 
good.

"Very funny, Mulder," I mutter as I drag myself up the 
walk and then up the steps and use my last ounce of 
energy to collapse into a chair next to him.

"Hot enough for you?" he remarks as he turns his 
attention back to the New York Times on his lap. 

I glare at him. And glare at him some more. And 
finally, the lack of any response or comments coming 
from my direction causes him to lift his head and look 
at me again. His face loses the smugness when he takes 
in my decidedly un-amused expression, and he 
immediately gives me his "don't shoot me" smile.

"You know, Mulder, they took a poll once where they 
ranked the most annoying questions people ask on a 
regular basis. And do you know what the number two 
most annoying question was?"

"Um... any question about poll results?" He just loves 
to be clever.

"No. It was 'hot enough for you?' Second only to 'cold 
enough for you?'" 

"Just making conversation. Excuse me for living." He 
says it lightly and pushes my arm with his fist for 
extra effect. God knows I know he enjoys giving me a 
hard time and I can't help but smile at the way his 
eyes seem to dance when he's kidding me like this. So 
much for my annoyed face. Dammit. 

"Seriously, though, thanks for letting me have the car 
today. I got what I needed from those people down the 
coast."

"Yeah, you're welcome," I tell him with a grudging 
tone in my voice that isn't entirely for effect. I 
catch a glimpse of the ice-filled bucket next to him 
and the three or four long-necked Coronas poking out 
of it. "Are you planning on drinking all of that beer 
yourself or did you bring some to share with the 
class?" 

"Not for the class, but I'll share with you," he 
replies as he breaks a cap off of one wonderfully cold 
bottle and hands it over to me. "Just don't start 
expecting me to have dinner and a cold one ready for 
you every day you come home from work like some kind 
of house husband. That's not how I roll."

"Be still my heart," I say with feigned surprise. 
"Does that mean dinner is on the table inside?"

"'Fraid not. But I have here on the table... a phone. 
A phone which will enable me to call the pizza man, 
who will in turn arrive in about forty minutes with a 
pie of your choosing, which we can only hope will not 
cost thirty bucks like the pizzas you liked to order 
back in D.C."

"Wow. A man who'll spare me a beer he brought out here 
for himself and dial me a pizza. I'm really living the 
dream." 

"Scully, you wound me. Here I am out on the porch 
waiting for my girl to come home, missing the first 
airing of tonight's new Battlestar Galactica, clearly 
stocked up with more cold beers than I could drink by 
myself, and I don't think you appreciate it."

I know he's still joking with me and that it's only a 
mock mask of hurt he wears on his face, but I feel a 
little thrill when I realize that he actually did come 
out here so that he could greet me when I returned 
from the day. Not too many things would make him miss 
that Cylon show, as I call it. Silly as it might 
sound, the fact that I'm one of them causes me to turn 
serious for just a moment, and I stretch my hand out 
to where I can draw light circles on his forearm.

"I do appreciate it, Mulder."

"Well, alright then." He winks at me.

I take a long sip of my beer and think that my body 
might return to a normal temperature sometime in the 
not so distant future if I can get enough cool liquid 
flowing into it. This is nice, I think, as I rest my 
eyes for a bit. Sitting here on this porch at twilight 
with Mulder, kidding and laughing like we used to do a 
whole lot more frequently. Before we took off into 
this strange underground life three years ago and 
started spending too much of our time running, and 
worrying, and trying to figure out where we could go 
the next time someone got a little too close. Yes, I 
tell myself, drifting away for a moment. Again, like 
before.

* * *

It was hard. There's really no other way to say it, no 
spin or other polite phrasing that would be 
sufficiently clear. Under normal circumstances, it 
would be difficult enough to start sharing your space 
and your bed with someone on a daily basis after years 
of living and sleeping alone. To do that while you're 
afraid for your life and scurrying around from one 
lousy motel room to the next? All I can tell you is 
that, in the beginning, there was some yelling, there 
were some hurt feelings, and there was one incident 
with a hair dryer and a television set that Mulder 
would probably prefer to forget.

I wasn't sure I was going to make it during those 
first couple of months. It was exhausting to look over 
our shoulders everywhere we went. To never get a full 
night's rest because we couldn't shake the fear that 
some super soldier was going to burst through the door 
as soon as we allowed ourselves to sleep. To worry 
that every local cop or state trooper we passed might 
recognize Mulder and haul him into a holding cell. 

But I never thought about leaving. Never reconsidered 
my decision to go with him (as if I'd ever imagined it 
to be a "decision" in the first place anymore than I 
decide to keep breathing every day). I just thought 
that it was all horribly unfair. "Good is supposed to 
win in the end," I bellowed at God in prayers that 
Mulder never heard. Why doesn't that good end ever 
seem to come? 

It wasn't all bad, though, even at the start. I'd 
missed him terribly during the months he was away from 
me, before he had the bright idea of sneaking into 
Mount Weather and getting into a public death match 
with Knowle Rohrer. Even before that, we'd barely had 
the chance to become comfortable with one another 
again after he returned to me from the dead... barely 
had a chance to work through his anger over what had 
happened to him and how many things had changed while 
he was away... and he was gone, convinced that our 
newborn son and I were safer in his absence.

Our son. 

The phrase repeats in my head for what seems like an 
eternity, like an echo that never fades. Right after 
he was born, after Mulder left, I used to repeat those 
words to myself over and over again at night as I 
stood next to his bassinette. The whole idea of it was 
almost too unbelievable. Too powerful. Too intimate. 
We created an entirely new person. 

My child. Mulder's child. Together. Our son. 

Gone. 

For the longest time, we never spoke of him. I 
couldn't find the words and Mulder never raised the 
subject. I wondered if maybe he'd willed himself to 
forget. 

Then one day, when we'd been on the run for nearly a 
year and were on our third set of false identities, I 
came home from a late night shift and found Mulder 
passed out on the couch beside a half-empty bottle of 
whiskey. Next to the bottle there was a pad of paper 
on which he had written the words "Fox William Mulder" 
over and over across pages and pages, as if he were 
trying to remind himself who he really was. As the 
writing turned to scrawls on the sixth or seventh 
page, I saw that he had stopped repeating the words 
"Fox" and "Mulder" and continued writing only the word 
"William" across a few more sheets of paper, until the 
word was unrecognizable and disappeared into 
nothingness. It was like reading pain.

Not long after that, I broke the silence. As we were 
lying together in the darkness on a night just like 
any other, I turned my head toward his. 

"William..." My voice caught on the word. "Should be 
walking by now." 

Mulder was quiet and, for a moment, I thought he might 
have fallen asleep before I spoke or that he simply 
didn't want to discuss the child I gave away. But then 
he turned his head in perfect symmetry to mine and 
told me that, someday, years from now, William would 
find us again. 

"How can you be sure?" I whispered with a note of 
wonderment that comes with wanting to believe. 

"Because he's my son," Mulder answered. Sure of 
himself. Certain. Fierce. "And he'll be like me. He'll 
need to find what's been lost." 

"But how will we know him?" I asked.

I felt Mulder's fingers reaching for mine, folding 
them through and into one another. He hummed softly in 
a voice that was flat and off-key and beautiful. "Some 
enchanted evening... you may see a stranger... you may 
see a stranger... across a crowded room... and somehow 
you know..." The sound of his song faded at the end 
but never broke.

"Across a crowded room," I murmured as I drifted at 
the edges of a waking dream. 

"Again," Mulder promised.

Again, I thought, musing that the word had never 
sounded so hopeful. Someday.

* * *

"Earth to Scully. Scully, come in please." I feel a 
few drops of something cold hit my face and it snaps 
me back to the present, where Mulder is staring at me 
with a quizzical look on his face. "Where'd you go 
there?"

I feel cool little touches of liquid sliding down my 
cheek toward my mouth, and I flick my tongue out to 
taste one. 

"Mulder, did you just throw beer at me?"

"No, I did not throw beer at you. Honestly, Scully. I 
think you drooled on yourself or something." 

"Right. I drooled on my nose." 

"Hey, it happens."

I snort my disagreement and use a finger to delicately 
brush the remaining drops off my face. As I do, I'm 
hit with another spray of beer drops coming directly 
from my right. I turn like a flash to see Mulder 
looking at me innocently, too late to find any 
incriminating evidence of his actions. 

"What already?"

"Are you ever planning to grow up, Mulder?"

"Not really. I hear it's not all that, as the kids 
say."

"I think that's what the kids were saying about seven 
years ago."

Mulder laughs, but the laugh quickly slips away like a 
record that starts to play at the wrong speed. I 
glance over and see his thousand yard stare looking 
off into the distance. As if he's trying to see 
clearly through the darkness that has begun to fall, 
to focus on the unseen form of something far away that 
only casts its shadow now that the light is fading.

"Seven years ago. What were we doing seven years ago?"

"Let me think," I say. "August 1998. I guess we were 
on our way back from Antarctica around then."

"No, that was earlier. August was when Kersh put us on 
background checks. Good times."

"No, we didn't go to the bullpen until September."

"It was August, Scully. Trust me. Memory like a steel 
trap. Especially for key moments like being taken off 
the X-Files."

There's that word again. Moments. 

I sigh. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it was August. 
Sometimes it all seems so long ago that I'm afraid I'm 
starting to forget."

"Forget?" Mulder looks at me curiously.

"Yeah. Forget how things were. Before."

Mulder's face falls just enough for me to notice it, 
but only because I have been a dedicated student of 
his face for so many years. Anyone else wouldn't have 
caught the subtle shift in his mouth or the way his 
eyes narrowed.

"I won't let you forget," he says softly. The tone of 
his voice is that uniquely Mulderish blend of remorse 
mixed with hurt. Sorry that he's the reason we had to 
leave that life, hurt that I might not remember every 
moment of it as clearly as he does.

"I didn't say I was forgetting, Mulder," I tell him 
with a voice that sounds like I might be reassuring a 
child, as I return to drawing circles along the tender 
inside skin of his forearm. "Just that I'm afraid I 
might forget. And I don't want that. Maybe I'm afraid 
that if I don't remember all of it - even the bad 
things - I'll lose some really wonderful memory and I 
won't even know that it's gone."

"I could forget that whole time we spent in the 
bullpen with the rest of the FBI's fuck-up squad and 
I'd be just fine." That's Mulder. Age hasn't done much 
to mellow his defiant streak.

"I couldn't," I say thoughtfully. "There were good 
things I want to remember from that time too."

"Oh. Come. On. Scully! There's rose-colored glasses, 
and then there's just rewriting history."

"I'm serious, Mulder," I tell him with a hint of 
annoyance that has the desired effect of calming him 
down.

"Alright, okay. Give me one good thing that happened 
while we were trapped up there having fascinating 
conversations with the college roommates of future 
Assistant United States Attorneys."

I smile. "One good thing? I can give you more than 
that."

"Is that a fact?" Mulder is skeptical yet intrigued, 
the challenge in his voice unmistakable. "Well then, 
bring it, FBI woman."

"Alright, I will," I tell him quietly. I take a few 
beats in silence to consider my answer.

"Good things about the bullpen months. I finally got 
my own desk, right behind yours, where I could look up 
and see you surfing the internet for research on 
whatever weird occurrence was the buzz of the MIB chat 
room that week. But mostly, just see you. I was 
grateful that they hadn't split us up. That I could 
still watch over you every day and try to keep you 
from getting yourself into too much trouble. And to be 
honest, Mulder? It was nice to see you sitting still 
for a change. Or at least sitting still for longer 
periods of time. I slept a little better at night 
knowing that you were less likely to get yourself 
killed sitting at a desk every day." 

"I managed to get out of there more than a few times, 
you know," he tells me a bit defensively. "Like I'd 
let them put me out to pasture," he grumbles.

"I remember. You were never very good at staying in 
one place, were you? Which brings me to the next good 
thing. Getting the chance to pay you back for rescuing 
me in Antarctica by rescuing you in the Bermuda 
Triangle."

Mulder crinkles his brow, considering what I might 
mean by the concept of paying him back.

"Scully, it's not like you owed me or anything."

"No, but it felt good to remember that I could find 
you too when the odds were a million to one against 
it. Find you and bring you home. Not that I wanted to 
have to do it all the time, mind you. And you probably 
should have left me a note to tell me where you were 
going."

"Ehhhh," Mulder scoffs. "You would have had kittens if 
I'd told you what I was doing." He raises his voice 
several octaves in a poor imitation of mine that he 
knows will make me cringe. "'Mulder, Kersh will not be 
pleased if he finds out. Mulder, if you keep causing 
trouble we'll never get back to the X-Files. Mulder, 
you're supposed to actually write down what people are 
telling you when you call to do background checks and 
not just pretend your pen is moving.' Blah, blah, 
blah." His eyes twinkle as he ribs me and I think I 
see a smile somewhere underneath the new beard he 
loves so much.

"Well, luckily, and despite all your best efforts to 
drown yourself, your trip on the Queen Anne had a 
happy ending. Which brings me to good thing number 
three." 

I pause, letting him wait for my next words and 
knowing that any added mystery will make this 
conversation all the more enthralling for him. Yeah, I 
know my partner. 

"You lying in a hospital bed telling me I saved the 
world and that you loved me."

I can see Mulder swallow hard and am pleased to see 
him lower his eyes. He's a little bit embarrassed, I 
think, but it's more than that. The memory of that 
moment calls up some kind of powerful feeling that 
looks like it might have wrapped itself around his 
chest and pulled tight.

"You thought I was high or something," he says in a 
low voice. "You said, 'Oh, brother,' and turned around 
and walked away. I felt kind of stupid that I'd said 
that."

"Hmmmmm," I breathe, just before I lean absently 
across his lap. Not at all accidentally, I allow my 
breasts to press against the tops of his thighs for a 
moment as I reach for another beer from the ice 
bucket. Pulling back, beer in hand, my eyes meet 
Mulder's and I know immediately that he's onto me. The 
thought that I might be teasing him like this when 
it's still only 7:30 seems to delight him, if his eyes 
are any indication. I pop the top off my second Corona 
and take a nice, long, slow, cool drink from a very 
long-necked bottle indeed. From the corner of my eye, 
I see Mulder trying delicately to shift his legs into 
a position more comfortable than the one he's in after 
watching my lips moving at the edge of that bottle for 
a moment. God, I really am cruel sometimes.

"I didn't think you were high, Mulder," I tell him in 
a voice that seems mysteriously to have dropped into a 
lower register. Completely unintentional on my part. 
No, really.

"I was pretty sure you were serious. But I knew if I 
blew it off like that, you'd think I thought you were 
drunk or out of it and we wouldn't have to talk about 
it." 

Mulder's eyes meet mine again and he pushes his chair 
closer, the aluminum legs scraping against the 
decades-old wood on our porch. He allows his own legs 
to spread out comfortably to the sides as his torso 
pushes forward in what must be the all-time favorite 
position of men who find themselves in a seat. This 
time he's the one doing the leaning, his distressingly 
handsome face just a little bit closer to mine now, 
and his beer still clasped tightly between his two 
hands. Maybe a little more tightly than before.

"How come you didn't want to talk about it?"

"I don't know," I say lightly. "Not the right moment, 
I guess."

"Hmpppph," he mutters dismissively. He considers me 
for a second. I realize that he's profiling me. 
Curses, foiled again. You can take the boy out of 
VICAP but you can't take VICAP out of the boy. "You 
were scared, weren't you?" 

"I was not scared, Mulder."

"Ohhhhhh, yeah," he drawls. "You were scared. Scared 
of poor little drugged out Mulder. Busted." 

I chuckle nervously, a little uncomfortable with the 
memory of that feeling from seven years ago. The 
feeling that everything was about to change and I 
wasn't entirely prepared for it. The feeling that, 
once again, Mulder was driving us somewhere I wasn't 
sure I wanted to go. Driving us to where there might 
be monsters.

"Maybe you're right," I admit with the faint note of 
distaste that usually accompanies any such 
acknowledgement on my part. "Maybe I was scared that 
you'd actually say it. That you were ready to say it. 
Maybe I was scared that things might start to change 
and we might lose what we already had. Probably scared 
of you and the way you used to look at me sometimes. 
The way you still look at me."

Mulder looks at me with genuine disbelief and concern.

"I scared you? Why would you be scared of me?" 

Oh, Mulder, I think. He filters so many of his 
qualities and flaws through an unnecessarily negative 
light, but this may be the one true thing about 
himself that he doesn't want to see. I feel a swell of 
affection for him that comes from knowing he is so 
oblivious to his own intensity. To the way his 
singular focus shines like a blinding light on the 
subjects and the people he chooses to fix it upon. To 
the way he could appear to teeter on the edge of what 
looked a lot like madness. 

I can't be completely truthful with him here. It would 
wound him. Confuse him. I'm not sure I could make him 
understand... the fact that his light could be 
blinding never made me love his light any less. I 
don't think I could explain that his scaring me didn't 
make him intrinsically scary. Rather, it simply 
highlighted how afraid I was of losing the outline of 
myself in all that bright light. Afraid of 
disappearing. And afraid of loving someone who could 
himself be lost so easily when he insisted on stalking 
danger around every corner. 

So I offer him an answer that is honest, but slightly 
edited for the content that might trigger Mulder's 
rather strong guilt reflex.

"It was like poker." 

For the past few months, Mulder has been teaching me 
to play. He told me that my instincts - honed over 
nearly a decade of investigating the paranormal - 
combined with the methodical mind of a scientist, 
would make me a natural. So far, I've proven to be 
more method and less instinct and apparently that 
translates to a lot of gloating by Mulder at the end 
of our games.

"It was like you and I had this enormous pile of 
chips, and you wanted to go all in, and I thought our 
hand was strong but I wasn't sure if it was strong 
enough, and I looked at all of those chips and thought 
we could have even more but we could lose everything, 
and I wasn't ready to lose everything. And I thought 
maybe we should wait a little while until we were 
absolutely sure we had a hand that nothing could 
beat."

Mulder shakes his head, a smile pulling at the corners 
of his mouth.

"See, that's exactly why you never win when we play. 
You can bluff with the best of them but you never want 
to go all in unless you're absolutely sure you can't 
lose. Poker isn't a game for people who want to play 
it safe. I guess, uh, love isn't either."

"You may have a point," I admit, irritated by his 
judgment of my poker skills but at peace with his 
implied judgment of my romantic instincts. He's not 
wrong on that count. He will, however, be very sorry 
the next time we play poker, I promise myself. "But 
look at the results. I waited until I was sure, and we 
won a pretty great pot. Sometimes safe really is 
safer." 

His face is too close to resist much longer, and my 
hand seems to lift of its own accord so that I can 
brush the backs of my fingers along the edge of his 
jaw. 

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure we had to play it quite as 
safe as we did to get what we got," Mulder mutters. 
"We could have won that game and cashed in the chips 
and painted the town a lot earlier and I wouldn't have 
had another year's worth of calluses on my right 
hand."

"Oh, Mulder, really..." A flush of mortification 
colors my cheeks and I know he can see it. Call me 
Catholic if you like, but I generally prefer to keep 
sex and related discussion of it behind a bedroom 
door. I'm not a prude by any means, as Mulder could 
attest, but I'm never going to be at ease when the 
conversation turns to Mulder's... formerly singular 
sex life.

"I'm just saying. We gave new meaning to the concept 
of taking it slow." 

Something that looks like regret seems to flash across 
Mulder's eyes, but it is quickly replaced by a 
devilish glint when he remembers that he has a 
potential opening to make me squirm just a little 
more. I hear his chair sliding a few centimeters 
closer without ever seeing the actual movement. Like 
magic.

"That's how it was, you know." His voice sounds like a 
tide rolling onto the beach. When it's dark and all of 
the children, and surfers, and sun worshippers have 
gone home and there's nothing but a vast, deep ocean 
touching all that sand. "We were slow, you and I, so 
that's how I liked to do it. When I was alone at 
night. At my place. Sometimes in a room right next to 
yours. I'd think about you and I'd really take my 
time. Think it through. Make it last. Really, really, 
slow... just like I wanted it to be when you were 
finally ready to be there me." 

God, is it actually getting warmer again? I thought 
things were supposed to cool off when the sun went 
down, even in Wilmington. Even in August. Wow. I am 
burning up. I lift the bottle of Corona, slick with 
the condensation that forms when ice runs up against 
the hot night air, and I press it against my temple 
for a little relief. 

"We never ordered our pizza," I manage to mumble 
through a mouth that is suddenly and - improbably in a 
climate with eighty percent humidity or more - 
terribly dry.

"Oh, no," Mulder tells me with a steady voice that 
doesn't sound dry at all. "No deflecting. Tell me you 
didn't know that I was having thoughts like that about 
my partner. Tell me you didn't wonder where all the 
porn tapes that weren't mine had disappeared to. Back 
in 1998." I feel Mulder's hands on my knees, pressing 
into my skin through the fabric as he slides them up 
my thighs at a pace that snails would find to be too 
slow. "Tell me you didn't know how much I wanted you. 
How much I loved you."

I shudder. I am almost annoyed with myself that he can 
still reduce me to a shaky mess like this. Can still 
slip inside my mind and mix up all the words in there 
that usually fit together so well when I speak. It is 
completely unnerving to be reminded again and again 
that the person you can't live without... can't live 
without you either. Completely unnerving to see your 
own desire mirrored back to you and then magnified.

"I wondered. I thought I knew. But I wasn't sure."

Mulder's hands still against my legs and, despite my 
vague sense that he can't possibly move his chair any 
nearer, I hear the scraping sound again and he is even 
larger in my field of vision. So large that I realize 
the fading sunlight shining behind him would cast only 
his shadow. Mine would be lost inside Mulder's. 

He takes my left hand and pulls it forward, gently but 
firmly, until it rests at his groin where I can feel 
him straining against an otherwise loose pair of 
Levi's. I want to pull away. I know I should pull 
away. I can only imagine the show we're putting on for 
the neighbors if there's enough light left to get a 
good look onto our porch.

"You never looked over at me back then and saw 
something that looked like this? Never wondered if it 
was for you?" He speaks slowly. Almost cautiously. 
Aroused but uncertain. He wants to hear the answer and 
I truly don't think he knows what it will be.

I breathe out. Also slowly. Also cautiously. Keeping 
my hand just where I know it probably shouldn't be.

"I saw." My voice has dropped to a whisper. I can 
barely hear it over the thoughts that are roiling 
around in my head. "But we were always so different. 
You told me how you felt. You touched me without 
second-guessing yourself. I know you tried to be a 
gentleman and tried to keep me from seeing this then." 
I squeeze Mulder lightly through the thick denim, and 
I am rewarded with a quick gasp that thrills me even 
as I feel guilty for doing it. "But I also know you 
didn't think you were wrong to feel anything you were 
feeling." 

Now I do pull back from him and he sighs when my hand 
returns to rest in my own lap.

"And I was never that way. I didn't feel. I thought. 
And I thought maybe you'd just spent way too much time 
with me and that it was natural for you to look at me 
that way after long enough. I thought it wasn't quite 
real. Like a trick of the light."

Mulder's eyes are sad when they lock with mine.

"You really didn't believe," he says with disbelief 
all his own.

"Not right then," I admit. "Not standing next to that 
hospital bed. But you didn't let me finish my list. 
You were too busy trying to distract me." I brave a 
smile and get a hesitant one from Mulder in return.

"Okay," he offers, relaxing back into his chair and 
scratching his bearded idly. "Tell me when you did 
believe."

"It might surprise you."

"I love a surprise."

"I know you do," I tell him, almost wistfully. 
"Christmas 1998."

Mulder is puzzled. I can see him searching through all 
the holiday files in his mind and trying to recall 
what happened during the most wonderful time of that 
particular year. I know the moment he hits upon the 
correct memory.

"You finally believed I loved you when I shot you?! 
When you shot me?" He is incredulous. And wrong, of 
course. Although it wouldn't be entirely out of 
character for us to come to some great moment of 
understanding in that way, that's not what I mean.

"If you recall," I remind him for the all-important 
sake of accuracy, "I didn't actually shoot you and you 
didn't actually shoot me. And, in fact, neither of us 
were actually shot by anyone." I raise an eyebrow and 
he rolls his eyes at my never-ending attention to the 
importance of details. 

"But no, not that. It was the next morning. I was 
sitting at home after you dropped me off, trying to 
finish wrapping the presents for my family, and I kept 
thinking that I'd forgotten something at the house 
that was *allegedly* haunted by those doomed lovers. I 
was looking through my pockets, and my purse, and 
around the kitchen, trying to figure out what was 
missing. I was so irritated with myself that I 
couldn't remember. So I sat back down on the couch and 
it hit me. Just like that."

Mulder looks at me expectantly. "And? What hit you 
just like that?"

I reach for his hand, which hangs limply off the edge 
of his right leg, and I examine it. It's a hand that 
looks just as strong as it really is. Muscular and yet 
delicate. Like a finely drawn sketch you might imagine 
Da Vinci would have found inspiring. The hand he used 
when he had to hold his gun on someone, but also the 
one I felt at the small of my back whenever he found a 
plausible reason to put it there. Probably the hand he 
used to beat down Krycek so many times, but also the 
one in which he held mine as I lay dying of cancer. A 
hand that could threaten, or kill. Caress, or comfort. 
And more often than not over the past ten odd years, 
he was using that hand for me. To love me. To protect 
me. To show me that I was his touchstone. To hurt 
anyone who might try to hurt me or take me away from 
him. 

And although I immediately see the contrast created by 
my own soft, small hand against his - pale white 
porcelain skin against something much rougher and far 
more worn - I also see that they are the same. My hand 
loved him. Protected him. Fought for him. And wiped 
away all the tears I shed for him when he was hurt, or 
humiliated, or missing, or dying, or dead, or simply 
gone. My hand must have known what I felt for him long 
before I did.

"It was you," I breathe out as I squeeze his hand in 
mine. "I felt like something was missing, and I 
realized it was you. It was Christmas morning, and 
once again, we'd nearly died the night before. Just 
another bizarre adventure that I didn't think was 
supposed to be part of my 'real life.' But there I was 
on this morning that's supposed to be about family, 
and counting your blessings, and sharing the gifts 
that life brings us, and I was struck by how wrong it 
seemed to me that you weren't there. Like something 
incredibly important was not where it should be."

The sun has nearly set now and there are no lights on 
this weathered porch, a porch that no one but broke 
college kids or two people in hiding would find so 
charming. But even the few rays of daylight that 
remain now reflect brightly off his eyes, eyes that 
glisten with something that he wouldn't want me to 
see.

"So I found myself driving over to your apartment 
before dawn broke, and you said, 'Aren't you supposed 
to be opening up Christmas gifts with your family,' 
and I thought, well that's why I'm here. To open 
Christmas gifts. With my family."

Mulder lowers his head, but just before he does, I 
know that I see a stupid grin breaking on his face and 
I'm certain he's averting eyes that will be too hard 
to hide from me now, even in near darkness. We are 
silent for moments that stretch between us. Holding 
hands like a couple of kids sitting out past dark when 
they should be inside where it's light. Sharing the 
quiet together and shutting the rest of the world 
away.

"You know," he tells me in a voice that almost breaks, 
"that was the first Christmas morning in years that I 
wasn't alone."

"I know."

"Well, how come you didn't say anything? I mean, it's 
not like you told me you'd had this big revelation."

I sniff out a soft laugh. "I didn't. I know. Maybe 
it's like I told Sheila when we were in Kroner a 
couple of months later investigating Holman's weather. 
Sometimes a switch is flicked, and the person who was 
always just a friend becomes the only person you can 
ever imagine yourself with. But even once the switch 
is flicked, some lights are slower to come to a burn 
than others. I guess you were right. I'm a slow 
burner."

Mulder's eyes rise again, clearer than before.

"No. I think you're careful. You don't rush. It's just 
who you are."

Now I see something glistening again but I realize 
that it's my own vision becoming a little blurry. 
Something in my eyes.

"I guess it's fortunate for me that you're such a 
patient man."

Mulder snorts. "Please, Scully. I'm not patient at 
all. I was damn frustrated and completely terrified. I 
didn't know if I'd ever break through to where you 
were in there." He waves his hand toward the center of 
my chest. "But I'd found what I was looking for. Like 
that song that kept playing when we found Pfaster 
again. 'Don't look any further.'" 

"But you never pushed. Why?"

Mulder brings his other hand to rest on top of where I 
have been holding his, and he closes both hands 
tightly around my palm like a single fist made of ten 
fingers.

"Because I didn't want to scare you off. Make you go 
away. Scully, if nothing had ever changed, and you'd 
stayed with me, and all I had for the rest of my life 
to keep me warm at night was a nice tight hand, I 
would have been happier than I'd ever been before. You 
know that, right? I loved you and wanted you for so 
long that I don't even remember when it started. But 
you being there with me... next to me... all those 
years... that was the meat. What we have now? It's 
like the gravy that just makes the meat taste even 
better."

I can't help but laugh at the image his words call up 
in my mind, although I manage to keep my laugh 
appropriately demure.

"You know what, Scully?"

"What, Mulder?" I smile again. I smile a lot when I'm 
with him these days.

"We're here in fucking Wilmington, North Carolina, 
living in a shack that the rest of the neighborhood 
thinks is nothing but a blight on their property 
values. I don't have a job, and you slog off every day 
to a clinic where no one has any idea how many amazing 
things you've done in your life. And in a few months, 
we'll probably be gone again because fucking alien 
replicants want to stop us from stopping them. It's 
ridiculous that this is how our lives turned out. And 
it pisses me off. But this is still the best goddamn 
time of my life. Because you're here, and we're alive, 
and I wake up every morning and feel your arm touching 
mine. Even with everything that's happened to us, I 
feel like I won the fucking lottery."

I find myself smiling so widely that it nearly hurts, 
even as I fight back the inevitable tears that rise in 
me when what I'm feeling is too enormous to hide away 
inside.

Mulder gestures angrily at the house and the world 
around it. "I'm just sorry that this is all I can give 
you because you deserve so much more than this. I 
shouldn't be so happy knowing that this is your life, 
but I can't help myself."

"Oh, Mulder," I say with a voice that cracks in spite 
of my best efforts to keep it strong and steady. "Stop 
beating yourself up for once. Please. Our lives are a 
story. And that story would sound sad if we were to 
tell it as a series of events that brought us here to 
where we are right now. But I don't see it that way. I 
don't hear it like that. Our lives are moments like 
right now. We'll want to remember these moments long 
after the 'story' has ended because these are the 
moments we're here to live."

I believe this. Life isn't a fairy tale. It isn't 
supposed to be. It's supposed to be hard, although it 
is hard in different ways for everyone. We struggle 
because that's who we are. Always fighting for 
something better, and trying to learn something more, 
and trying to build onto the world that people have 
been building for thousands of years. But in between 
all the building and struggling and fighting are the 
moments that don't mean anything to the rest of the 
world. Don't mean anything to anyone except the people 
who are living them. 

Mulder and I have fought to save the world a hundred 
times or more. We fight now. But I think he sometimes 
forgets that we're fighting so that we can have a 
moment when we can sit on a porch at the end of a long 
day, waiting for a breeze to come in from the water. 
Holding hands. Tasting beer that someone brewed two 
thousand miles away in another country. Listening to 
the sounds of dogs barking in the distance, and a 
couple laughing down the street, and a motorcycle 
revving for a journey next door. Feeling warm air all 
around us that weighs on us but also makes us feel 
surrounded and safe. 

Even in near darkness, I see Mulder as clearly as I 
would in the brightest light of day. He drops from his 
chair to kneel between my legs, middle-aged bones 
creaking lightly as they hit an unforgiving floor. His 
hands let go of my hand and take hold of my face 
instead, easing me toward him until I feel his lips 
moving over mine. His kiss is deep and it is languid, 
and I feel him breathing into me, the taste of hops 
and lime mixing with the taste that is Mulder and the 
taste of a cigarette he must have snuck in before I 
came home.

"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine," he 
whispers, dark eyes shining into mine.

I know these words that tie him to his traditions and 
ancestors going back two thousand years, and in 
return, I give him a gift of words that bind me to my 
own.

"As the sun follows its course, mayst thou follow me. 
As light to the eye, as bread to the hungry, as joy to 
the heart, may thy presence be with me, 'til death 
comes to part us asunder." I say it in a whisper just 
as he did. Some moments are too private for the world 
to hear. Too private even for the birds and crickets 
that are the only beings within earshot.

I feel him smiling as he rests his forehead against my 
chin. 
 
"Irish?" he asks.

"Of course," I tell him.

"I guess that means you're stuck with me then."

"Either that, or we've cast some sort of spell."

"Ohhhh... I hope so," he says longingly. I feel his 
arm coming around me and realize he is lifting me to 
my feet, guiding me away from the porch and out of the 
sight of others. "You know, tradition dictates that 
all vows should be sealed." 

He walks with a purpose, pulling me with him as he 
strides through the front door and then through the 
living room, bumping into several pieces of furniture 
along the way and nearly wiping out on a pile of 
magazines he's left lying on the kitchen floor.

"Hey, who left those on the floor there?" he wonders 
with amusement. "I will kick that guy's ass."

"Mulder, where are we going?" I ask, trying to sound a 
little indignant, even though I know the answer and 
I'm probably in more of a rush to get there than he 
is.

"Oh, I think you know." He's not playing my game. Not 
this particular one anyway.

When we arrive at our chosen destination, he shuts the 
door behind us and presses me against it, almost as 
though the two motions were one. He knows that I like 
the door closed, even though the house is ours alone. 
I feel safer that way and, for some reason, freer. As 
his body forms itself to mine against yet another 
aging piece of wood, he draws my hand back down to 
where it was earlier in the evening. Where he most 
wants it to be. Even through fabric, I can feel that 
he is almost terrifyingly hot and hard. I can almost 
feel the blood pulsing where my fingers stroke him 
gently.

"Harder..." he tells me. "I want you to take it. Like 
it's yours. Because it's always for you." He grits the 
words out through clenched teeth and I take hold of 
him more firmly as he asks. I hold him as though this 
most intimate part of him belongs to me... because he 
does... and he thrusts against my hand so that I can 
feel the length of him and the warmth that radiates 
away from him and into my fingers.

"Yeah, Scully... God. I love how your hands feel on 
me." Mulder, hyper-verbal in every other aspect of his 
life, is no different when we're having sex and I find 
that somehow reassuring. Although I have never been 
able to match him with words when we're together like 
this, I sense that he understands it doesn't come 
naturally to me, and he seems perfectly content to 
speak for both of us. Again, not surprising.

"C'mere." He pulls away from me suddenly and 
practically lifts me from the door and onto the bed. 
He is not rough about it though. He lays me on the bed 
as gently as he can manage, his left hand cradling my 
head until he's sure it's safe against something soft. 
But as soon as he's certain that I've landed safely, 
he begins pulling desperately at my clothes.

"Mulder," I admonish. "You'll rip my favorite shirt. 
Here, let me do it."

A mildly chastened Mulder rocks back onto his knees so 
that he can watch me and avoid interfering. My eyes 
can't seem to keep from returning to his groin and the 
constant twitching I see there. It's awfully hard - 
ahem - not to be drawn to the center of the male 
anatomy. I am almost mesmerized by the power of 
something so different from my own body. Something 
that moves and grows that way... perfect, shocking 
visual evidence of desire. In so many ways that women 
don't always want to admit as we try to make our way 
through a man's world, most of us are strangely drawn 
to the sight of a man's erection. Like something 
primal is calling with a siren sound you can't ignore.

But I am, of course, aware of my own power as well. I 
do know that what I see in him when he's aroused is 
because of me, and knowing that makes me feel strong. 
Strong enough to be vulnerable, here in this place. I 
peel my shirt away as he fixes me in a gaze that is 
both possessive and devoted. I remove my bra, slowly, 
probably much too slowly for Mulder's taste. As I lean 
back on the bed and slide off first my linen pants and 
then my last remaining item of clothing, I think I 
might hear him panting.

"Jesus, Scully... come over here already."

In the time that it takes me to lift myself back up 
and over to where he is waiting for me, he has torn 
off his own shirt, jeans, and boxers. I am actually 
concerned that he might hurt himself one of these days 
trying to get out of a pair of jeans so quickly while 
he's so painfully aroused. 

I'm close enough to see his eyes again. Though the 
room is completely dark, just like the porch and the 
rest of the house, the light from a half-full moon 
peeks through the window and provides all the 
illumination I need. He looks so hungry for me at 
moments like this. Meat and gravy are an appropriate 
analogy indeed.

"There is nothing like you, Scully. You're like 
something from a dream."

Did I thank Mulder for being so patient earlier? Well, 
he was right. Patience really isn't his strongest 
virtue. I've barely been upright for a minute and he's 
pushing me back onto the bed and covering me with the 
length of a body that's strong and well-defined in all 
the right places. His mouth is everywhere all at once. 
On my lips, at my throat, on my breast, on the 
sensitive skin where my arm and chest meet. Jesus. I 
might feel as though he were devouring me - and I did 
feel that way the first time we made love - but I've 
come to understand that I'll still be here when we 
finish. He would never devour something he can't live 
without.

As Mulder moves down my body, licking, and tasting, 
and kissing nearly every inch along the way, I 
experience a brief moment of amusement. Mulder very 
much enjoys receiving oral sex from me, and he always 
seems to be surprised by how much I appear to enjoy it 
as well. Although I would never actually admit this to 
him, it might be my favorite way to make him come. I'm 
fairly sure there's some sort of power thing going on 
with that too, but I can't help enjoying the feel of 
having him in my mouth. The way that he tastes when I 
run my tongue along him. The way he moves and jerks 
involuntarily when I begin to suck that hardness until 
I can relieve him of it. The way he tries and tries to 
stop himself from thrusting into me but can never pull 
it off for long. And I admit that I love the way the 
act still seems to catch him off guard, like he can't 
believe I'd want to do this for him. Can't believe 
that he's watching his Scully loving him in this 
forbidden way.
 
I am amused because I rarely get the chance to do that 
for him - and for myself - unless I sneak up on him 
while he's doing something else and wrap my lips 
around him before he can think to take control of the 
situation. This is because Mulder's usual M.O. when we 
make love is to do just what he's doing now. He likes 
to use his mouth too. And when he's done with that, 
satisfied with having made me come several times using 
his tongue and lips and fingers, he wants to be inside 
me for as long as he can last there. I really never 
have an opening to do what I like to do most of the 
time. I know. All women should have my problems.

It was surprising to me in the beginning that a man 
like Mulder, who could be so incredibly selfish 
sometimes in so many ways, was like the ultimate 
unselfish partner in bed. Are you okay, Scully? Is 
this what you like, Scully? God, I love making you 
come, Scully. At first I thought he was afraid I might 
leave him if he didn't make sure I was having the best 
sex of my life. Then I thought it might be another 
kind of control for him, like it was really all about 
him because he was making it all about me. I gave 
myself headaches thinking about it, lying awake after 
he'd long since gone to sleep. And then I finally 
figured it out. He loves me. He wants to show me how 
much. He'd be horrified at the idea that he's getting 
more pleasure than I am because that might mean I'd 
forget that he'd do anything for me. Fall on his sword 
for me. Let his son go... for me. Die for me. 

That's what I meant when I told him the way he looks 
at me still scares me sometimes. I see what I am to 
him. I am everything. And being everything to someone 
can be more than a little scary if I really allow 
myself to consider what that means.

But I do still think that the most altruistic and 
generous man in the world must be a complete 
narcissist when he's in bed. It would only figure.

Mulder has found his treasure and I feel his tongue 
moving over me, first slowly like he has all the time 
in the world, and then more urgently as he finds 
himself caught up in the moment. He slides his tongue 
inside me, tasting me, and then quickly replaces it 
with two loving fingers before I can even feel a void. 
God, I don't know what the hell I was waiting for all 
those years. If I'd known... Jesus. Yes, Mulder, right 
there. Just there. Oh my God.

"Yeah, that's it, Scully." His words are muffled as 
his mouth rides me, but he knows how I like to be 
encouraged. "Tell me when you're close... yeah... tell 
me when you're there because I want to taste you." 

"Mulder... oh, please... Mulder..." I feel my orgasm 
start to crest and I grab a fistful of his hair, grown 
longer and thinner since he left the Bureau. I pull 
him against me and he groans with delight. I'm on a 
cliff and I'm falling, but it's not really a fall, 
it's more like thinking you're about to fall and then 
finding that you're already beneath the ocean, 
swimming through it quickly so that the water rushes 
across your skin for as long as you can keep kicking.

Mulder holds me in his mouth, firmly and carefully, 
until he's satisfied that I've come back to him. He 
kisses me tenderly and slides up my body again with 
the grace of a black cat walking on the edge of a very 
narrow wall. As he does, I feel the burning heat and 
dampness from the hardest part of him that drags along 
my inner thigh.

He doesn't ask if I'm ready for him. He knows that I 
am because he looks in my eyes and sees the need there 
that I'm no longer afraid of showing him. We always 
were able to say so many things to each other without 
using words. Nothing has changed.

He keeps his eyes locked with mine as I feel him enter 
me with a slow, deep thrust.

"Oh, fuck!" he groans as he pushes inside me, letting 
me take him in and amazed as he always is when he 
finds that I can take all of him. Yes, Mulder, I think 
with a smile. That's what we're doing. It's a good 
thing I grew up around so many sailors or I might be 
shocked by Mulder's fondness for some of the classic 
Anglo-Saxon words at moments like this. That word in 
particular is like a favorite refrain when he's... 
well, when he's fucking me. Did I say that?

"Scully... oh, fuck... I love being inside you." He's 
moving in me with long, hard thrusts. Careful never to 
let himself pull out completely where he might feel 
bereft by the loss of contact. "God, I want to stay 
inside you forever. So warm... feel you... all around 
me... holding me." The thrusts continue and he never 
breaks his gaze, holding my eyes like he's daring me 
to look away. The intensity is almost too much for me 
sometimes when we're doing this, when he won't let my 
eyes go. All that heat filling me up, and the way he 
looks at me... I sometimes feel an irrational fear, as 
I do right now, that I'll burn away. Right there, 
beneath him. Like Icarus flying too close to the sun. 

I do turn my head for a moment, feeling like I've been 
out for hours in the middle of the day in the hottest 
part of summer and I just need a moment in the shade 
to cool off. He won't have it. As his movements become 
more erratic... less controlled... he sees me turn 
away and gently pulls my face back toward him with the 
hand that isn't busy rubbing me just above where he's 
driving all that force into my core.

"Look... look at me, Scully... don't... look away... 
want to see you... love you... so much."

"I love you too, Mulder," I manage to gasp as I feel 
myself falling into water one more time. Beautiful, 
hard, fast currents of water surrounding me. The loopy 
grin he gives me when I speak almost breaks my heart. 
I don't say much when we're together like this. I say 
what's important.

"God, yes... Scully... Scully... Scully..." He was 
close before and the feel of me clenching around him 
pushes him over. And for a few seconds, I feel him 
next to me, somewhere in an ocean deep below the 
surface, moving together in a strong current as we 
look up toward light that filters through dark waters. 
Then I am at the surface, alone for a few long 
moments, waiting until he is there too, with me, 
smiling at me, holding my hand.

* * *

My life has been made of moments. I see that now when 
I catch the faint scent of something when I don't 
expect it, some aroma I haven't experienced in years, 
and I am back in another time and another place at 
just the speed of light. Faster than I could ever try 
to consciously remember something, I am there. 
Amazing.

Maybe someday all of the theoretical physicists and 
practical physicists will figure out how to put theory 
into motion and find a way to travel through time. But 
until then, we will have to rely on the flashes of 
sense and memory that take us back through our own 
lives for a moment that lasts only as long as it takes 
to realize you're there. We can't stay. We can only 
glimpse and try to remember all of it. Try to build 
the past again from just one moment.

We did not stay in Wilmington forever, just as we knew 
we wouldn't. Someone else sits on that porch now and 
watches the Southern sun sink through the thick summer 
air. Just as someone sat there once before us. And 
someone before them. 

But whenever times have been hard since then... 
whenever we thought we might not live to take the next 
breath... whenever my mother's birthday came and went 
without my hearing her voice or having the chance to 
wish her "many more" ... whenever I stumbled upon 
Mulder crying over a child who was growing up 
somewhere far away from the two people who loved him 
most in the world... I have tried to remember a night 
in North Carolina in August 2005. I replay it in my 
head from time to time like it's the only song I know, 
and I try to remember all of the words, and all of the 
sounds, and everything about the way I felt. I want it 
to be clear in my mind so it can stay there. So that 
no matter what happens to me and to Mulder from now 
on, I can always go back to one enchanted evening. And 
it will be enough, more than enough, for a lifetime.

_____________________________________________

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be - and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

Ranier Maria Rilke
"The Sonnets to Orpheus, Second Part, Sonnet XIII"

END


Author's Notes: What can I tell you? I just want those 
kids to have some happy moments now and again. I want 
it so much that I gave them my first NC-17 fic. Hope 
you enjoyed it.