Title: U-Turn.

Author: January.

Feedback: Praise me. Flame me. Email me. Now.

Archive: Yes, everywhere with my headers.

Rated: PG-13.

Timeline: Five months after Requiem.

Guidelines: Angst, UST. Scully pov.

Disclaimer: FM, DS and WS are CC's, Fox's and 1013's.

I own none of them and I make no money of this. Sniff.

Dedication: Time and time again, this is to you,

Numidia Reem, wherever you may be now.

Gratitude: To Michelle Kiefer, my friend who's always

been there, my beta who saved my life endless times

and one of my favorite, favorite Fanfic authors.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

U-Turn.

By January.

The highway in front of us is endless, extending like an arrow and swirling like a snake. It's about twelve noon and the sun is as cold as a piece of stone, the sky, the color of dishwater, the trees, the color of sand.

The wind outside the rented car is freezing, and the heater inside is suffocating. I swallow hard and repress a cough, and then I unbutton my shirt's collar.

Doggett, my *assigned* partner, senses my irritation and uses the set of buttons on his side to lower my window for me. In less than a second, the wind stings my eyes, and I close the window, preferring the heat to the frigid air.

We are returning to the airport after investigating a double murder case. Turned out to be a straightforward crime, not an X file. I'll report that to Skinner later today.

In two hours of driving, Doggett and I didn't exchange three full sentences between us. Finally, momentarily dismissing his awareness to the road, Doggett glances at me a couple of times and I get the feel he's about to start the conversation I've been dreading since we started working on this case four days ago.

"You should have listened to Skinner, you know."

I swallow hard and try to play it innocent. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. You didn't accept this case from VCU because you really thought it was an X-file; you knew it wasn't as soon as you read the file. You accepted it because it would take you straight to Bellefleur."

"But you read the…"

"You wanted an excuse to come up here again, to look for Agent Mulder. And now that you didn't find what you came looking for, you are… I mean, look at you."

I close my eyes, clench my teeth, breathe hard and try not to scream.

"Scully, this is too personal to you. You can't do it objectively. You'll only end up hurting your…"

Just who the hell does he think he is? "Doggett…" I glare at him. Don't you dare trespass into my personal territory.

Doggett glances at me one last time, shakes his head in silent disapproval then makes me a favor and drops it.

Fifteen minutes later, he breaks the silence again. "There is a coffee shop in eight miles, would you consider a quick lunch?"

I really, really don't want to, and I'm looking for a suitable word to say it other than plain "No."

"Hey, you didn't allow me time for breakfast this morning, remember?"

I give up and nod my head in agreement, then close my eyes and rest my head to the back of my seat. I think of Mulder, and all the coffee shops we stopped at on the run. And I fall asleep dreaming about Mulder.

I come to when Doggett takes a right turn and then stops the car. We get out of the car and head to the diner. He opens the door for me and I step inside. The small diner is bland, tasteless, like every other diner on the A90 road. I take a seat in the nearest booth and Doggett takes the seat opposite mine, then starts reading the small paper menu, aloud.

"Hmm. Club sandwich, chicken breast sandwich, smoked turkey sandwich, hamburger, cheese burger. What would you like to have? And don't you ask for just salad cause I won't hear it. You have to have real food in you to stay alive."

I look at him. I know I should be grateful to have such a caring partner, but somehow, I'm not.

"Good afternoon, folks. Are you ready to order?"

I hear the waiter's voice and my blood turns into sand and then I'm drowning in my own cold sweat. How many times have I slept with this voice vibrating in my ears? How many times have I waken by it? How many times have I craved it? How much do I miss it? I want to look up to see the face, but I can't. I'm afraid. I'm afraid to be disappointed and to loose the hope I've been living on for the past five months; to find him, to see him, to meet him, and to finally touch him.

Instead, I look at Doggett, pleading with him to assure me that it's really him, my Mulder, the father of my unborn child, only to find him searching madly at my face with a thousand question demanding to be answered right now.

I see Doggett's chest rise and fall; he is breathing like a wild, injured animal. I see his mouth moving, but I don't hear any sound. He's trying to make me hear him, asking me the same question over and over again, but nothing is registering in my head.

I only come to when he reaches over the table, shakes me and screams at me: "Will you look at him? Just look at him. Is it him?"

I think I have to comply so I turn my head to my left. I see a white apron with streams of coffee spills. No, it's not him. I see hands chapped with constant contact with dish soap. No, it's not him. I see a skinny torso, covered with a t-shirt, with happy red and yellow prints on it. No, it's not him. I see shoulders slumped with humble surrender, with a nametag bearing a different name. No, it's not him.

And then I look into his eyes and I drown in two deep, deep oceans of hazel and honey and melted caramel.

Yes, it's him.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

Amnesia used to be an illness, a topic, a mere something we studied at med school. Something we were clinically detached from. Now, it's a hell I'm living moment by moment. Mulder started living this hell three months before I did. The flight back to DC was as quiet as a graveyard. And so is the journey to Mulder's apartment building. Mulder and I sit at the back seat, while Doggett drives the roads through the city. He keeps glancing at Mulder and me through the rearview mirror but doesn't say anything. He already told Mulder the official story, about him being an FBI agent whose been missing for five months.

I glance a secret look at Mulder. These are the hands that used to touch me. These are the lips that used to smile to me, and these are the arms that used to hold me. I smile a little to the memory, but my smile dies when Mulder looks back at me, with eyes as blank as a white sheet of paper.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

Doggett stops the car in front of Mulder's apartment building.

"Would you like to see your apartment?" I encourage him.

Without looking at me, he opens the door and gets out of the car. Before I follow him into the building I whisper to Doggett: "Call Skinner. Ask him to meet me here in an hour."

I turn towards the building and look ahead to see Mulder waiting for me in the entrance. I walk up to him and call the elevator. As we wait for it, I think I should smile to him encouragingly, but I can't. Both of us are too worried for polite smiles or small talk. Instead, I ask if he's ready, and he just nods his head.

When the elevator arrives, I make a point of entering first, letting him be the one closest to the elevator's buttons, in hope that his hand would automatically press button number four. It breaks my heart and my hope to hear him ask:

"What floor?"

I breathe deeply, thinking this is only the beginning of the hard journey still ahead. "Fourth floor. Apartment forty two."

With every step Mulder and I take towards his apartment, my blood pressure rises, my body temperature falls and my breathing quickens. I take out my key-chain from my purse, unlock the door and allow Mulder to take a few steps inside. He takes a couple of minutes to sweep the apartment with his eyes, then steps inside the living room, but doesn't touch a thing.

Without looking at me, he asks:

"This is my apartment?"

In my heart I feel hope, so I smile. "Yes. I've been keeping it up for you. You know, feeding the fish and stuff."

"How long did I live here?"

"About ten years."

He remains silent for a few seconds before he lifts his head and look directly at me. "So why isn't any of this coming back to me?"

His words turn into a huge ball of lead that forms in my chest and then sinks to my belly. "Because you have…"

"Amnesia," he cuts me off, nodding his head. "I know." He takes a few steps towards the aquarium and the faint blue light illuminates his face with a faint blue color. I want to cry when I see the fish rise up to the surface of the water. "But shouldn't it at least seem a little familiar?"

"Maybe if you give it time, it will."

"With time, everything will."

He is right. I can't argue with him on that, so I try something else. "Why don't I show you some photos? Is that ok with you?" I say that and don't wait for an answer. I remember I once came in here unannounced and found Mulder leafing through his family album. I think he keeps it in his desk drawer. I search for it almost frantically, get it and then hand it to Mulder. He takes it, sits on the couch and I allow myself to sit beside him.

He leafs through the album, staring at each photo,honestly trying to remember, to associate a name to the face. I watch him anxiously and every photo passes without reflecting recognition in Mulder's eyes, squeezes around the hope inside me.

"I don't recognize any of these faces. They are all strangers to me."

I feel the dying hope inside me turn into panic. I take the album from his hands and search for his favorite picture of him and Samantha, playing around a tree. I wet my lips and clear my throat before I can even open my mouth:

"Do you know who this little girl is?"

He stare at the photo for a second or two, then shakes his head:

"No. I'm sorry."

"This is your sister, Samantha Mulder. And this is you."

He keeps staring at the photo with the same old clinical detachment that I become to hate. Nothing is moving in the room except his chest in a slow rise and fall. Again, I leaf through the album and pull up some recent pictures of him.

"These are pictures of you and me. We were investigating cases that got followed by the media, and they photographed us. This picture was taken about two years ago, in Nevada. We were investigating a series of deaths caused by ultra-sonic vibrations. And this one was taken in San Francisco. We were investigating a child's disappearance. Her name was Amber Lynn LaPier. Do you remember that case? It was very special to you." A move of the shoulder is all I get from him. "And this photo here…" I suddenly change my mind and lift my eyes up to him. I look into his eyes and they greet me with a blank gaze. "Mulder, does any of this here mean anything to you? Am I making sense here at all? Are you coming to realize that this is who you really are? That you are Fox Mulder?"

Mulder looks at me as though he was carved out of ice. To remember the times, not so long ago, that we spent on this very couch, to remember the love and warmth and passion, and then to meet his ice-cold eyes, it kills me from the inside more times than one.

He breathes, rubs his eyes with two fingers and then asks me:

"I… I don't think I completely understood what you said happened to me. Who, you said, abducted me?"

To hear him ask questions and seek answers revives my hope. "It was an agency interested in testing certain kinds of chemicals on the human body. They've been working on human test subjects for a long time now."

"So why didn't you report them to the police?"

"The police and the government already knows about it. This agency works with the DoD."

"What's the DoD?"

Mulder, the DoD was your enemy. Your nemesis. You fought the DoD with all your might. You killed a man and took his identity and risked your life to enter the DoD. And now you are asking me what's the DoD? The knock on the door interrupts me, saves me. Mulder's eyes shoot towards the door and I try and reassure him.

"That's probably AD Skinner, our previous superior."

As I walk towards the door, I ask: "Who is it?"

"Skinner."

I open the door and meet Skinner's eyes and somehow, feel a little relieved that I'm finally being recognized again. "Doggett called. Is it true?"

Through the past five months that Mulder disappeared, Skinner had been a friend. A good friend. A protective friend, if you will. Even if I only talk to him once a week, when Doggett and I brief him about the cases we work on, I know he's taking good care of me. He included my name in the annual salary raise, dropped my name from the weekend shifts and, twice, drove me to my apartment when I wasn't able to drive my car.

"Agent Scully?"

I lift my eyes up to him and remember his question; is it really him? I close my eyes because I don't want to cry. Actually, no, Sir. It's not really him. Skinner places his hand between my shoulders for a second, just enough to guide me to the living room, to where Mulder is.

"Come on, Agent Scully. Let's get you seated."

We enter the room and Skinner smiles a genuine smile when he sees Mulder. "It's really good to see you again, agent."

"Wish I could say the same."

"You just might."

Mulder smiles a tight smile and then looks at me, waiting for a reply to his unanswered question. "You were telling me about the DoD?"

"Yeah. The DoD stands for Department of Defense."

Mulder's eyes narrow in disbelief. "And… by that you mean our government's Department of Defense."

"Yes."

"And for what good reason?"

What should I tell him? Where should I begin? Will he believe me? "Mulder, you don't have to ask all these questions. Not right now. You're not ready for..."

"Just answer the question, please."

His words come to me like a slap to the face. I look at Skinner and he's looking away, wanting me to go through the process myself. He knows both Mulder and I need to. So swallow hard and continue. "In your line of work, you once went to Russia and were subjected to medical tests there. You were injected with an unidentifiable substance, and the DoD wanted to make their own tests on this substance in your blood."

"They could have asked for a sample of my blood and I would have happily given it to them."

"No, you don't understand. They wanted to see how it effected the human body, and how the contaminated human body responded to some medical tests."

I see the look he always saw in my eyes, only a thousand times worse. "I don't believe that."

"It's the truth, Agent Mulder."

Skinner says, finally helping me out. Mulder gives him a cold look, which he completely ignores: "I brought with me some of your personal items; your badge, your passport, your drivers license. They all have your photo on them. Would you like to have a look at them?"

Mulder takes a casual look at all the papers and credentials, then shakes his head. "I'm sorry. All this is gibberish to me."

"After all you've seen?"

"What have I seen? Some photos? Photos don't make us who we are. A passport and a work ID? It could have my thumb print on it and it wouldn't make a difference to me. I'm not this person you are talking about."

I feel panic rush through my system. I think fast and talk even faster: "Then look at what you are wearing; a gray T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Would you like me to show you how many gray T-shirts and jeans are inside this wardrobe? This is your personal liking, and these things make us who we are."

"It's a coincidence."

I feel that panic in my chest turn into fire: "Yeah, right. And it's a coincidence that those sneakers here are exactly your size and those eyeglasses here are compatible with your eyesight."

Mulder gives me a look that makes my boiling blood turn into ice. "Listen, ah…" He drops his gaze to my credential on my shoulder, to read my name. "…Special Agent Dana Scully. You can call the parents, this sister, the rest of the family, and they can all swear to me that I am this Fox Mulder you are talking about, but that won't transform me into him just because they say so. I'm Fred. I wait on tables in the morning and wash dishes in the afternoons and sleep all night long. Why would I give up this life for one I don't even understand?"

Skinner cuts him off: "Do you remember your childhood as Fred?"

"I only have memory of the three months after I woke up in hospital, after the auto accident. But at least I have those memories and at least I came to accept my life as Fred. I don't want this new, complicated life you are offering me."

Skinner asks: "So you don't have birth certificate as Fred?"

"No, but as I said, papers don't make us who we are, we choose our own lives and I choose to go back to being Fred."

If there is one hope left, it's going to be me. "Forget about credentials, Mulder. Just look at me. *Look* at me. It's me for God's sake, it's Scully."

"But I don't…"

I cut him off screaming at him: "Yes, you do. Do you know how many times you risked your life to save mine?" I feel my voice break as I continue: "Mulder, please. Do you have any idea how I spent the last five months without you?" As much as my words mean to me, they don't to Mulder. It's like they go completely over his head.

He shakes his shoulders, as if he didn't hear me, and turn to get his jacket: "I'm sorry, but I have to go."

"For God's sakes, Mulder, don't do this to her. She's having your child."

Mulder turns around and looks at me for a long, long moment, and for a second there, I think he is finally recognizing me, and I dare smile to him. The next instant, he turns around, repeats his last sentence and walks to the door. He disappears through it without looking back.

To have Mulder back, to see him, to touch him and then to loose him again is something I just can't bear. There are things that can't happen twice.

I feel Skinner's hands on my shoulders and hear his voice come to me from a million miles away, urging me to lie on the couch.

I feel him place a pillow underneath my feet to maintain my blood pressure. I feel him touch my forehead and then leave my side for only one second, to come back with his hands cold and wet and he sweeps them across my face to bring my rising temperature down.

I look at his face and it's carved out of dark, warm wood, with a single tear threatening, but don't dare fall. And for once, I try to comfort him, for all the times he's been trying to comfort me.

"It's ok, Sir," I say. "At least I know he's safe."

"Go to sleep, agent Scully. Try not to think."

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

An hour later, I awake by Skinner's hushed voice speaking on the phone, sitting at Mulder's desk. "I know it's your job to report it, but if you do, you'll scare him away by having the whole bureau hunting him down like a criminal. See my point? That's why I'm asking you not to file what happened today to AD Kersh. Yes, I take full responsibility. You have my word on that. Thank you Agent Doggett."

Skinner places the phone back on the cradle. I struggle to find my voice: "Sir?"

He turns to face me. "Agent Scully, how are you feeling now?"

"Did Mulder come back?"

Skinner breathes heavily: "Dana, for your child's sake, try not to think about Mulder now, ok?"

"He didn't call back?"

Skinner's "no" hits me like a brick wall and I breakdown and fall apart and cry, hearing Skinner's voice trying to hush me.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

Skinner, again, drives me back to my apartment. The journey is quiet and uneventful. He only makes one stop to buy a couple of sandwiches. When we arrive, he walks me to my apartment, takes my keys, opens the door for me but doesn't step inside. He hands me one of the sandwiches and tells me that it's an order that I eat it. "Will you be alright, Agent Scully?"

I nod my head.

"Would you like me to call your mother?"

"I'll call her later."

Skinner nods and then turns his back to leave.

"Sir?" Skinner twirls around and faces me. "I ah… I want to thank you, for everything that you did, and still do, for me."

Skinner takes a couple of steps towards me. "I want you to take care of yourself. You won't do yourself, or Mulder, or your baby any good if you let go."

"Yes, sir."

"Scully, Mulder *will* come back. He just needs some time to readjust."

My voice break: "But how much time?"

"As long as he may need. Scully, you have to give him the chance to want to come to you. You can't hurry him up when he isn't ready. You owe him that much."

I breathe deeply. "Yes, sir. I know."

Skinner nods his head, then smiles a little: "So, how's the little tyke?"

"He's good. Last week my gynecologist told me that it's going to be a little boy."

"Is that what you wanted?"

"I'd guess it's what Mulder would have wanted. I ah… I wanted a little… girl." I'm not sure Skinner knows why I wanted a little girl.

"Well, looks like Mulder is getting what he wanted."

For the first time today, I smile. Really smile. "Yeah, looks like it."

"You are going to make one fine family, Scully."

"Yes, sir. Yes we are. I just… can't wait…"

"I tell you what. If Mulder didn't come back by the weekend, come by my office on Monday and we'll think of something, ok?"

"Ok."

"You are not going to wait long."

"I hope not."

Skinner gives me a reassuring smile, and then leaves. I close the door, look into my empty apartment and feel that I want to run away. The events of today seems like a dream to me; finding Mulder warm and breathing, then meeting his cold, angry gaze, and then having to let go of him yet one more time is just too much, too much for me to bear.

I go lie on my couch, take out Mulder's picture from my purse and then take a long look at his beautiful face. I think of him, how much I miss him.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM

I awake at the knock on the door. What time is it? 3:30? The only person who'd come to my apartment at this time is… I look through the peephole and then open the door.

Mulder.

For the last five months I only thought of this moment, dreamed of it. Running to him, holding him and touching him. And the moment I see him, all my wanting and longing and waiting descend upon me to paralyze me.

Time stays still for eternity, until he takes one step closer to me, to hold me, but Mulder, don't, you'll crush me. He lifts one hand to touch me, but Mulder, don't, you'll break me. He parts his lips to tell me, but Mulder, don't…

"God, Scully."

To hear his voice say my name so soft, to drown in his eyes like the old times, to breathe his scent puts me on high and makes me dizzy.

He lifts his hands to hold mine, then touch my face, then wipe my tears, and then to hold me to him so tight, it takes me all my energy to lift up my arms to hold him back.

We hold each other for lifetimes that had passed us by and lifetimes yet to come. We both laugh a little, then we cry.

Mulder's tears trickle on me as he takes my head between his hands and looks into my eyes.

He only has to whispers to me: "I actually forgot how beautiful you are," and I'm already undone.

MSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSM