~*~*~*~*~*~

The Second Side of the Triangle 
Fox Mulder

~*~*~*~*~*~


How in hell did I manage to live 35 years without ever before
making a woman fall in love with me?

Okay, so it's a rhetorical question, or maybe just a stupid
one. Women don't fall in love with me because I don't fall in
love with them. Or, as I put it when I finally broke the news to
my mother, I'm not exactly straight.

By that time, telling her was almost redundant. She already
knew; as she put it, in inimitable Teena Mulder fashion, "It
doesn't make me dislike you any more."

Thanks for your support, Mom. 

I figured it out for myself a long time ago, while I was still
in grade school, actually. I never acted on it until college,
which some people find strange, but I don't. People who think
gay men inevitably start screwing in their early teens are just
perpetuating the stereotype of gays as promiscuous fucking
machines. 

Which, perhaps, for a while, I was -- or bordering on it, anyway.

My first time was in the shrubbery of the Master's Garden, one
of the great landmarks of Balliol, my college at Oxford; to this
day, the scent of jasmine and rue and witch hazel blossoms will
bring the memory of that night back to me with perfect clarity.
His name was James, and he was two years older than I. He'd been
watching me for a while, and I him; I was wondering if he was
gay, and he was wondering if I was interested.

The answer, in both cases, was yes.

There wasn't much to it, beyond the simple physical fact of
sexual activity. Before too much time had passed, I had learned
a lot about what I liked, and what James liked, and as it turned
out, we were a good match, sexually. Emotionally, however, there
was nothing there. When he went home after his second year, I
didn't write to him or call, and he made no attempt to stay in
touch with me, either.

James never came back to Balliol. I heard later that he'd
married -- disastrously -- at his father's insistence, as though
marriage could change the way his brain functioned at its most
basic level.

Stupid. His father might just as well have tried to make him
into a cow by feeding him grass. 

Fortunately for me, my mother paid little attention to my love
life, or what she initially perceived as the absence of my love
life. My father was so drunk the few times I saw him during my
college years that I could have told him I was fucking pink
elephants, and he would have simply grunted and taken another
drink.

What I was fucking -- or being fucked by, depending on the mood I
was in -- was a series of beautiful, milky skinned English boys,
some from the university, some from the town, a few -- when I had
the means to travel -- in London. And there were a lot of them:
once I got over that initial shock of actually having and
enjoying gay sex, I went after it with the same intensity with
which I've always pursued anything I wanted.

And they were beautiful -- pale, perfect English complexions,
slender and gray-eyed, most of them. I spent hours getting to
know the feel of their bodies, the hard planes, the taut muscles
-- I reveled in them. I couldn't get enough.

Those were footloose days, free and easy, filled with a sense
of freedom that I've never had before or since. AIDS was a minor
rumble back in the States -- and hell, I was young enough and
foolish enough to think that it would stay in the States where
it was. I would have laughed if anyone suggested a condom -- I
mean, who the hell did they think was going to get pregnant?

We were all very young, and very foolish.

My first encounter with genuine homophobia came from a doctor
in the town who treated me for one of those embarrassing gay
ailments -- rectal gonorrhea. I mean, there's really only one
way to get it, and that fact wasn't lost on this guy. His
distaste for me was plain; he refused to be alone with me in the
examining room. He clearly didn't want to touch me even to
examine me, and he made his nurse give me the penicillin shot.

All the while, he gave me a running lecture about how God
didn't intend for men to engage in anal intercourse. Still, in
the midst of his lecture he managed to spit out a few terse
words about prevention, and that was good of him, I suppose,
because I had had enough. I made up my mind that I would never
go to a doctor with this kind of thing again. 

My anger may have saved my life, because after that, I began to
rethink the whole free-love concept. For the first time, maybe
the only time in my life, I did something smart: I decided to be
careful. I found out what those little latex circles in the foil
packets were for, and I made damn sure anybody who wanted me
knew we were going to be using them.

Thank God for that. I managed to learn my lesson just before
HIV began showing up in the UK. I'd been pretty lucky, but
luck's never been one of my best friends, and I've never pushed
it again.

A few years after James, while I was finishing up my doctoral
thesis and wondering what the hell I was going to do with the
rest of my life, I met up with Phoebe Green, who was an
undergraduate student at St. Anne's College. Just about any gay
or bisexual man at Oxford was going to meet Phoebe eventually;
for some reason, it took me a little longer than some.

Phoebe, as I would later relate, was fire. A damn dangerous
fire -- a mindfucker from hell on steroids, a vicious enemy if
you crossed her, and she was almost impossible not to cross.
Phoebe, you see, was born with a yen for "straightening out" gay
men, a yen that both baffled and disgusted me. 

She'd had a few successes along the way, I guess, enough to
keep her going, anyway; some bisexual boys and one or two gay
boys who wanted to try one more time for the blue ribbon of
sexuality, the socially acceptable, biblically approved,
heterosexual fuck. 

I don't think any one of them ever changed one iota as a result
of fucking Phoebe, but as I've said, even if it were possible
for a leopard to change his spots, she wasn't a good
advertisement for female companionship.

I figured she saw these seductions as proof of her
overwhelmingly powerful sexuality. I saw it as more of an
insult, that men who basically liked men could find her face and
form attractive. I wondered if she knew the contempt in which
the Oxford gay community held her.

Probably not. Phoebe wasn't a deep thinker.

It all came to a head just a couple of months before I finished
my studies. She'd gotten me alone in my room at Holywell Manor,
and she was running her fingernails over my chest in what she
must have imagined was a seductive manner. She obviously wasn't
in the mood to be avoided. I decided to just give her a quick
fuck and send her on her way. I hadn't done it with a woman
before, but I was reasonably sure I could. 

So I kissed her; I even felt her up a little. Not one damn thing
happened; not for me, anyway. She didn't interest me. It was a
waste of time for both of us.

Like a fool, I told her that. There really wasn't any other
option for me. Pure, 100 percent homosexual orientation is rare,
according to Kinsey, but if it exists, I've got it. I had
absolutely no desire for her or for any other woman I'd ever met.

I found out quickly that Phoebe was apt to take any kind of
revenge she could if you turned her down. That I managed to get
away from her and back to the States without too much damage to
my reputation was a feat. What she did to my soul -- well, that
was another matter.
 
And no, I don't want to get into it, thank you.

It was a shock when I got home to be approached by a recruiter
for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Apparently, my thesis,
"Neuropathological effects of repeated pain stressors and the
implications for development of the criminal antisocial
personality," had gotten their attention. I was reasonably
certain that a word or two in the right place from my career-
diplomat father had brought the thesis to their attention in the
first place, but what the hell. They wanted me to come aboard as
a profiler in training, and so I did.

Profiler. Jesus, what a concept. Profiling was still new, still
fringe, and maybe that's why I went for it.

It may have been the smartest thing I ever did; it may have
been the biggest mistake I ever made. Damned if I know. I do
know I was pretty good at it, and I know my first boss, Reggie
Purdue, liked me a lot. We got along well, despite a few --
missteps, let's say -- in my early career.

Bill Patterson, the profiler par excellence, was another matter.

Bill was a good profiler; hell, he was _the_ profiler, and he
had my number in no time flat. He didn't much like it, either;
Bill was the poster boy for institutional homophobia. He
respected my skills, but he hated my sexuality, and he made my
life hell because of it.

All the easy acceptance I'd had at Balliol, all the free and
open expression of my sexuality, died forever while I was in
BSU. Bill was all the lesson I ever needed in the virtues of
staying deep inside the closet, at least if I wanted to go on
working with the FBI. Bill wasn't the only department head who
didn't like working with queers.

And I did want to stay. I really did. I liked the work. It was
challenging and interesting, if often depressing, and I still do
like it. No matter what anyone's done to try to make me quit, I
haven't. 

And I won't. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

I'd thought about quitting, sure; Bill watched me every minute,
tried to trip me up or push me into making some huge mistake,
and I was getting pretty damn tired of it. I seriously
contemplated either handing in my badge or just forcing them to
fire me by beating the living shit out of Bill. That would have
been pretty satisfying, considering that he had me pegged as a
limp-wristed fairy.

Between Bill and the memories of Samantha that were bubbling to
the surface, I was getting just a little crazy back then. The
only outlet I had for my insanity -- other than wild, anonymous
sex when I could get it -- was my friendship with Diana Fowley.
I met Diana right after graduating from the Academy when she was
a law student at George Washington University. She was ambitious
even then. 

I, on the other hand, was rapidly emerging as Behavioral
Science's fair-haired boy, one destined for great things at the
FBI. Maybe that was the attraction; I don't know. All I know is
that at some point, she began to want more from me than I could
give. It wasn't sex. She tried to persuade me that she was in
love with me, but I knew better. She was in love with my career
path.

Between Diana's ambtions and Bill's fag jokes, I'd just about
decided that the Bureau would have to go on without me when I
happened across the X Files. Here were files that nobody wanted,
crimes with no solutions, questions with no answers, events that
defied explanation -- just like my sister's disappearance. Here,
at last, was some hope of discovering what had happened to
Samantha all those years ago. 

The X Files were the cases nobody wanted; nobody, that is,
except me and Diana. We managed to reach a comfort level in
working on them. She went along with almost anything I wanted to
investigate, and nothing seemed too far-fetched for her to
believe.

I finally had some autonomy at work. I had a partner who
believed in my quest, and -- not least on my list of advantages -
- I had carte blanche to travel out of town, which meant I could
date again. 

Some of the sense of freedom I'd had in England came back to
me. If I had to be discreet in Washington, I at least had an
opportunity to be myself in the field. I was cautious, of
course, in case anyone from the Bureau was watching me, but at
that time, I believed that Diana had my back, so I didn't worry
too much. I began to feel like a real adult human being again,
not a closet queen lurking in the shadows.

That freedom wasn't meant to last for long. Diana left for a
legat assignment in Berlin, and it was not a happy parting. Once
again, it seemed, I was dealing with a woman who just couldn't
accept what I was telling her plainly and up front: I'm not your
boy.

And then came March 1993 and I got -- most unwillingly --another
partner. Tough, skeptical, and with an intellect so sharp it was
astounding. She was more than ready to take on me and my Oxford
education. Dana Scully was the epitome of a woman raised in a by-
the-book military family, so she had to be straight as an arrow,
down the line, damn the queers and full speed ahead, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. But then, Scully's made a career out of
confounding people's expectations of her.

I told her at our first meeting what I thought; hell, it was
practically the first thing I said. She said she was looking
forward to working with me.

"Really," I said, "I was under the impression that you were
sent to spy on me."

She thought I was talking about the X files. Maybe I was, but
what I was really convinced of was that she was there to out me,
to destroy whatever credibility I still had with the brass and
my fellow agents.

So I'm stupid. Bite me. Scully was the best thing that ever
happened to me.

~*~*~*~*~

I remember the first time I let the closet door creak open with
her. It was while we were on a short field assignment to Carson
City, Nevada, maybe a month or two after she made the biggest
mistake of her life by accepting the assignment to be my partner.

We were eating dinner together, and our waiter stopped by to
see how we were doing. She smiled up at him, just a trifle
flirtatiously, and I had to smile, too, because it was plain as
day to me that I was the one he was interested in. He'd been
pinging my gaydar since we walked in the place, and it didn't
take him long to start scoping me out, either.

And that was okay with me. He had that blond, blue-eyed, All-
American surfer look that I don't normally go for, and he was
about 10 years too young for my taste, but my choices were
limited. With Scully around, there wasn't any good way to meet
anyone else, and he was right there, sending loud and clear "how
about it?" messages.

I sent back my own signal: Sounds good to me, kid.

While he was serving our dessert, I asked him as casually as I
could if his job didn't demand long hours. He said no, not
really; he wasn't working late tonight, just until about 11.

At 10:45 that night I made some lame-sounding excuse to Scully
about how I was going running or something, and I left.

It was okay, I guess; I really can't remember. 

What I do remember is that after that, the enigmatic Dr. Scully
seemed to have all the information she needed about her new
partner. 

I should have expected that, because I already knew she was a
good agent. What I never expected was that she would accept it
as matter-of-factly as she did.

She says she doesn't remember that waiter; in fact, she says
now that she can't remember any one moment when she realized I
was gay. She says, airily, that she's sure she always knew it.

Bullshit, Scully, I tell her, and she laughs. 

I love to make her laugh; she's so pretty when she laughs.

And yes, thank you, I do know what a pretty woman is. I'm gay,
not blind.

Anyway, I like women; I like them a lot, as a matter of fact,
and I can make friends with them just fine without having any
need or desire to fuck them. Possibly as a result, I have had a
lot of female friends. Straight men could take a hint, if you
ask me. 

And Scully -- well, Scully is really, really pretty. Her laugh
is pretty, and her eyes are pretty, and her smile is pretty. 
She is my partner and my best friend, the best friend I have
ever had, and I love her dearly. I began to care for her almost
immediately after I met her.

Loving her, though, may be the cruelest thing I have ever done
in my life.

~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time we'd been partners six months, we'd worked out a
pattern that suited me perfectly. I guess it suited her, too; if
it didn't, she never said anything. When we were in the field, I
dated. When we were in the District, for the most part, I didn't. 

Just like before; only now, when we were in town, I went to her
apartment most nights and we spent the evening tying up loose
ends, or sometimes just chatting while we worked over the
endless federal paperwork.

I soon discovered that I really liked being with her. I hadn't
been very close to anyone since Samantha was taken, and it was
good to have a friend like Scully. It was good not to be alone
with my thoughts, which could turn really dark in an instant and
stay that way for days. Fighting a largely losing battle against
a global conspiracy will do that to you.

Scully was the antidote to so much of that darkness.

Damn, it was good to be with her. I could talk to her about
anything, from UFOs to safe-sex practices, and never feel that
she discounted or condemned me at all. She was an absolutely
brilliant agent, and her thinking was as clear and unmuddled as
it's possible for human thought to be. She was a good
counterpoint to my sometimes too-great leaps of logic; she kept
me grounded in reality, forced me to think before acting.

If I was back to being closeted, the closet at least had an
escape hatch now, a place where there was no pretending or
covering up, and that place was wherever Scully happened to be.
That was good.

What wasn't maybe quite so good was that I knew, even if she
didn't, that I was using her as a beard, a cover-up for my
sexual orientation. Ugly thing to say, but it was true. Everyone
at the Bureau seemed to have leapt to the same, erroneous
conclusion: that we were lovers.

Hell, even Bill Patterson seemed to think so, or at least to
consider the possibility. I'll never forget what he said when he
met Scully: "Strange company you keep."

He said it in reference to her being a scientist and working
with Spooky Mulder on the X Files, but I knew him well enough to
know that he was also asking a question: What's a pretty woman
like you doing hanging out with a queer?

Still, her presence in my life actually seemed to have made
Bill doubt his earlier conclusions, just a little. That was okay
with me. If anyone wanted to think Scully and I were doing the
wild thing, I didn't try to disabuse them of that notion.

Okay, so I was being false to myself. Nothing new there. You
find me a gay man who hasn't, at some time or another, been
forced to live a lie. But I was also being unkind to her, and
that was harder to rationalize. I knew that as long as she was
believed to be my lover, there wouldn't be any overtures toward
her from any other man.

And I admit it -- that was the way I wanted it. I didn't want
anyone getting close to her who might -- shit, almost certainly
would -- be less open-minded and accepting of me than she was.

I didn't want to share her with anyone else, okay?

Still, as I said, she never seemed to mind it. Unlike Diana and
Phoebe, she seemed to have both eyes open where my sexual
orientation and my future with the Bureau were concerned.

And that was good, because I needed her desperately, needed all
she had to give and then some. She cared for me and doctored my
wounds, emotional and physical; she calmed me and loved me and
accepted me without reservation. When I was with her and I
wanted to go out at night, I didn't have to wear running gear
and then change on the way to the bar. When I talked to her
about someone I knew, or someone I'd dated, I didn't have to
constantly remind myself to change pronouns.

She bumped into my dates all the time, and it never seemed to
throw her by a millimeter. She even smiled at me when she saw me
kissing another man once or twice.

"Mulder, you old dog," her smile seemed to say. 

Do you know how rare that kind of acceptance is from a straight
co-worker? Does "virtually non-existent" mean anything to you?

And when she was abducted -- when the conspirators took her
away and nearly killed her with their tests and their medical
rape of her body -- I knew I couldn't go on without her. She was
simply the most important person who'd ever come into my life.
She had taken the place of Samantha, of my mother, even of the
faith I'd lost as a child. 

When she came back to me, I thought I had everything I could
ever want. I felt whole again; I regained the will to go on. It
was all so perfect: Scully took care of my heart, and for my
body there were those beautiful, golden boys I met in every town
we visited.

I don't think I ever gave much thought to Scully's sex life,
except maybe for that one time, the Jack Willis case. Finding
out that she'd dated Willis for a whole year surprised and
intrigued me; I couldn't imagine Scully having sex, or even
wanting it.

If anyone's writing a term paper on the Madonna/whore complex
and wants to know whether gay men are subject to it, I'm willing
to be interviewed, because I sure as shit put Scully on that
sexless Madonna pedestal. It wasn't that I thought she was
asexual; I knew she wasn't. I just didn't _want_ her to be
interested in sex, because that meant she might be interested in
a man, a straight man, a man who wasn't me.

Yeah, I'm a selfish bastard. You're not telling me anything I
haven't already told myself.

But believe me when I say that I honestly didn't know I had no
reason to fear that Scully would fall in love. I didn't know
that she was too loyal and too loving even to look at anyone
else. I didn't know that she wouldn't tell me how she felt
because she didn't want to run the risk of losing me.

I didn't know that she wasn't going to fall in love because she
was already in love -- with me.

I swear, I didn't see it. 

I may be a behavioral profiler, but in this case I was just an
ignorant prick, so goddamned stupid and selfish and emotionally
blind that I wound up hurting her. God, I hurt her so badly. I
just couldn't see what she had come to feel about me, any more
than I could see that the real threat to our partnership wasn't
that she might meet a man and fall in love.

It was that I would.

And as it turned out, I did.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Scully called one Sunday morning to ask a favor. Her car was in
the shop and she was supposed to go to Mass with her mother that
morning, for a cousin's First Communion. Would I drive her to
Baltimore?

Sure I would. I told her to take her time and that I'd find a
way to amuse myself in Baltimore until she got ready to go home.
She told me that wasn't necessary, that she was sure her mother
would give her a ride home.

I insisted on waiting. Maggie Scully is one of my favorite
people; if she knows I'm gay, she hasn't let it bother her, and
she's one of the few Scullys who seems to understand why Dana
Scully keeps me around. I didn't want Maggie driving around D.C.
by herself; she doesn't really know the city well. There are
places in the District that even I'm not comfortable going to,
and I always carry my weapon.

So I took Scully to St. Ignatius Church, parked my car, grabbed
the basketball I keep in the trunk and started practicing three-
point shots in the schoolyard. It wasn't long before a few guys
from the neighborhood stopped by -- some of whom I'd met on
previous visits to Baltimore -- and we had a pick-up game going.

There was a guy there I hadn't met before, and he immediately
caught my eye. I don't know if I thought he was gay. He didn't
especially register on my gaydar. I just knew he was tall, dark-
haired and fair-skinned and damned attractive. He was wearing
athletic shorts and a tank top, but no wedding ring. Since he
was about my age, that was an encouraging sign.

The game was pretty intense, so I didn't get to talk to him
until I went up to try to block a basket and got bumped by
another player. I came down hard on my left ankle, twisting it a
little. My leg went out from under me and I fell. No serious
injury, except to my pride, but I forgot about that quickly when
Mr. Good-Looking came over and asked if I was all right.

I told him I was.

"Why don't you let me take a look at that ankle?" he said,
crouching down next to me. "I'm a doctor; a bone doctor, as a
matter of fact."

His name, he said, was Daniel Reilly. As I would soon learn, he
worked at Bethesda Naval Hospital. 

He was in the Navy.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. He's Irish, he's a doctor,
he's in the Navy, even the names are pretty close: Dana Scully,
Daniel Reilly. Sort of a male version of Scully, right? 

Like I said earlier, bite me.

Daniel was a consummate professional as he examined my ankle.
Once he knew it was okay, however, he did let his hands linger
on my leg just a shade longer than a doctor typically would.

He risked one little upward glance at me then, and I can only
assume he saw what he was hoping to see: I liked what he was
doing. You bet your sweet ass I liked it. Not only did I like
it, I was wishing we had a little privacy so he could start
moving those hands a bit further north.

To make a long story shorter, I sat out the rest of the game,
and Daniel sat with me. We were sending out signals so strong
that I'm surprised the other guys didn't stop what they were
doing and just stare. Daniel didn't touch me after he let go of
my ankle, but he might as well have. My attraction to him was
growing by the minute.

After a while, he asked if I wanted to go get coffee or
something.

Oh, yeah. Did I ever.

~*~*~*~*~*~

We left the schoolyard in my car and headed for the City Cafe.
Daniel said he lived just around the corner and he came here a
lot; he said it was a "comfortable place" to be.

Translation: It was safe, because it was right in the heart of
Baltimore's gay district. The absolute rule in the community is
that you never reveal anyone else's sexual orientation outside
the community. 

Daniel was safe here. He could relax and share a cup of coffee
with me and not have to worry about it.

It didn't take me long to see that Daniel was smart, witty, well-
bred, fun to be with, and possessed of an understanding,
compassionate air that you don't often see in men, gay or
straight. It's part of what makes him a good doctor, and a lot of
what eventually made me fall for him. 

As we talked and talked, Daniel told me a little about himself.
His family hailed from Fall River, Massachusetts (home of Lizzie
Borden, a paranoid spree killer, my profiler's mind filled in).
He attended Duke University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but
medical school was at Harvard, where he simultaneously earned
his M.D. and a master's degree in public health.

Cambridge and Fall River: That explained the trace of New
England that graced his speech. I actually found myself getting
a little nostalgic as I listened to him talk.

I was also impressed as hell. I couldn't begin to imagine the
kind of drive and determination and raw intellect that it took
him to earn that dual degree from Harvard. The word
"overachiever" came to mind; after I got to know him better, I
found out just how right I was.

But at that first meeting, I couldn't figure out why the hell I
even cared where he was born or went to school or what he did
for a living, or why I felt so compelled to question him about
it. In all probability, Daniel was going to be just another
trick, another someone whose body I would enjoy passionately for
one night and then never see again.

But for some strange reason, I found myself wanting to impress
him right back. 

"I got my bachelor's and my doctorate in psychology," I said,
"Balliol College, Oxford."

"Really," he said, seeming a bit surprised. "So it's Dr.
Mulder, is it?" 

"No," I said, firmly. "Never, ever, under any circumstances is
it Dr. Mulder. That's an academic title, and I'm not an academic."

"You're not a clinical psychologist, either, or you'd want to
be called 'doctor,'" Daniel said. "So what are you?"

"Uh, well, actually," I said, feeling unexpectedly hesitant,
"I'm an FBI agent."

"You're kidding." he said. 

It seemed I'd finally impressed him. Go figure.

"Not in the least," I said. "I've been with the Bureau since
graduation."

I still don't understand why I did it, but I reached into the
pocket of my running jacket, pulled out my credentials, flipped
the leather case open and showed them to him. 

He gave a low whistle. 

"I would never have guessed it," he said, shaking his head.
"FBI. So are you actually armed at this moment?"

"Now and always," I said. "It's a job requirement. Although
just now, my weapon's in my gym bag."

"I'll be damned," Daniel said. "So what do you do in the FBI,
Agent Mulder?"

Oh, great. 

What I actually do in the FBI is not a topic for casual
conversation, and I didn't really feel like explaining it to a
guy I'd just met, even if he did seem intelligent and open-
minded. Almost nobody's that open-minded; not when it comes to
the extreme possibilities of the X Files. Scully sure as hell
isn't, and he, like her, was a physician, a scientist. No reason
to think he'd react any differently.

So I fudged.

"A little of this, a little of that," I said. "A few things I
can't talk about ... you know?"

"Of course," he said, immediately. "I understand. It's
classified."

"Right, classified," I said, silently thanking the fates for the
military mind. "But that's not all of it. Once in a while, I
still do a bit of regular old criminal investigation."

"That's fascinating," he said. "Anything notorious?"

I shook my head. "Not even close," I lied. "But I help out the
Behavioral Sciences Unit once in a while ... I used to be
assigned there."

"Behavioral Sciences?" he said. "Isn't that the department that
does profiling?"

Damn. He really was smart. Most people don't know what BSU is,
let alone what it does.

"I'm impressed," I said. "Yes, BSU's job is profiling. I was --
still am, I guess -- a criminal personality profiler. I just
don't do it full-time anymore."

"Well," he said, sitting back in his chair and regarding me
carefully. "You are a whole series of surprises, Fox Mulder. So
how come an intelligent, attractive secret agent like yourself
is sitting here at the City Cafe with me on a Sunday afternoon
instead of being at home with his boyfriend?"

Ah. There it was. The Move. Coffee hour was over; time to get
to the real purpose of this meeting: Sex.

"Because I don't have a boyfriend," I said. "I have a job."
That was my standard answer, meant to indicate that yes, I was
available, but only for one night.

It didn't seem to bother Daniel, though. He just nodded and
signaled to the waitress for a refill.

"Fair enough," he said, as she poured more coffee into his cup.
"I find myself spending a few months at sea from time to time,
so I think I can relate."

"And what about that, Dr. Reilly?" I said. "Anyone waiting at
home for you while you're at sea?"

He got very quiet then; I thought I saw a flicker of pain in
his eyes, but it was gone so fast I couldn't be sure. He shook
his head. 

"No," he said, in a very low tone. "No, there's no one. It's
.... too much of a risk, you know?"

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. "I forgot. How long have
you been in the Navy, anyway?"

"Fifteen years next month," he said. "Not counting ROTC, which
I don't."

"So for 15 years, you've been alone?" I said. "That sucks big
time, my friend."

"Actually," he said, a bit too slowly, "I haven't been alone
all that time. I used to be married."

Married. Well, that was interesting, but not especially
surprising. I know a lot of gay men and lesbians who have been
or are married. It's not the norm, but it's not exactly rare,
either. I don't think I'd ever really paid much attention to the
dynamics of that kind of relationship, though; I guess that's
why I had no idea what a can of worms I was about to open up.

"How long were you married?" I asked him.

"Twelve years," he said. "We got married right after I was
commissioned, just before I started med school."

"That's a long time," I said. "I mean, under the circumstances."

"Yeah," he said. "I guess. Twelve years ... " He stopped there
and looked away from me then, and I knew there was something he
wasn't saying, something that he was hoping I'd ask him to say.
I've been a cop too long not to recognize that expression.

That was okay with me. If he needed an opening, I'd give it to
him. It's not like it was going to cost me anything.

"What?" I said. "Twelve years and ... what?"

Daniel took a deep breath, and then looked me in the eye.
"Twelve years, and I was unfaithful to her for seven," he said.
"For most of our married life, in other words."

"I see," I said. "And I'm sorry. I'm sure that's not what you
set out to do."

"No," he said. "No, not at all." He fell silent. 

"You don't have to talk about this, you know," I said after a
moment. "It's none of my business."

"I know I don't have to," he said, and then he smiled ... just
a hint of a smile, and a rather sad one, but God, did it light
up his face. "It's just that for the first time in a long time,
I have the feeling that I _can_ talk about it. Or am I wrong?"

"No," I said. "You're not wrong. Tell me about her, if you want
to. What's her name?" 

"Jill," he said, softly. "Jill Marie McDonnell Reilly. At
least, I think it is. I think she kept my name."

"You don't know?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I haven't spoken to her in two years," he
said. There was a serious catch in his voice. Clearly, this was
a pretty emotional topic for him, still. "Not for lack of
trying, you understand," he went on. "She just doesn't want to
speak to me. I can't say I blame her."

"Are you sure you want to talk about it?" I asked, as gently as
I could. 

"Yeah," he said. "If you don't mind."

"You may fire when ready, Reilly," I said. "Talk to me."

And he did.

At first, he said, it was once in a while, maybe once or twice
a year. He fought the urge as long as he could, but eventually,
the need to be with another man became overwhelming. One night,
he invented an emergency at the hospital, drove to another city
45 minutes away, went to a bar and picked up the first guy he
saw. A quick trick in the alley and he was back on the road to
home, where he spent the next six months browbeating himself and
swearing it would never happen again.

But of course, it did. And then it was another six months of
repentance and desperate bargaining with God, with his own
conscience, with the priest to whom he confessed and the
psychiatrist he consulted.

None of it helped. Time went by, and he began to need more ...
much more, in spite of having a wife at home who loved him
dearly and wanted him desperately.

Shortly before Daniel and Jill celebrated their 10th wedding
anniversary, Daniel found someone: a fellow physician, whom he
began seeing on the side. They spent as much time together as
they could, while all the time, Jill was waiting at home for
him, lonely, bewildered and utterly unaware of what the man she
loved was doing to her.

He, for his part, was going through his days like a robot,
driven to distraction by such guilt and self-loathing that he
was seriously considering suicide. He couldn't see any other way
out. He hated himself for what he was, for what he was doing and
for the extreme risks to which he was exposing himself and his
wife, but he couldn't bring himself to risk losing all he had,
either.

It all came to a head, he said, when he came home from the
Persian Gulf. 

"You were in the Gulf War?" I said. "Doing what?"

"Flight surgeon on an aircraft carrier," he said. "After the
ground war was over, I worked as a surgeon in a Kuwait field
hospital."

I waited, but Daniel seemed unwilling to continue talking about
the war and I didn't press him. Scully and I don't like to talk
to outsiders about our own private little war against the
Consortium. I can relate.

"So you came home and ... what?" I said, trying to get him
talking again. 

"I gave it one more try with Jill," Daniel said. "I tried. God,
how I tried. It was ... I don't know. I tried, but I wasn't
faithful. I just didn't have it in me anymore. Right after our
12th anniversary, I told her the truth and I asked her for a
divorce."

"How did she take it?" I asked him.

He didn't answer right away, just looked down at his coffee
cup. Then he raised his eyes to mine.

"It almost killed her," he said. 

And for a long time, he didn't say anything more. 

The divorce was bitter, but she kept his secret; meaning, of
course, that no matter how he hurt her, she still loves him. It
wasn't hard to see that he still cares one hell of a lot for
her, too. 

That is so fucking sad, for both of them. 

I was touched that he shared it with me, but I'll admit it --
a part of me was congratulating myself for having avoided that
trap. Unlike Daniel, I've never tried to change. Women have
always been part of my life, but in the living room, never in
the bedroom. I was rather proud of the fact that I never misled
any of them the way Daniel had misled Jill.

I understood Daniel's feelings, though, and I didn't then and
don't now condemn him for marrying, or for trying to live
straight. It sucks big-time, having to deny who and what you are
and -- for him as well as for me -- living in the constant fear
of being outed and seeing your career destroyed because of it.
Who the hell would choose to live that way, given a choice? 
Society's got to change, because we can't. 

I think I could have stayed in that cafe the rest of the day if
my cell phone hadn't rung. It was Scully; she was ready to go
home. I had forgotten all about her.

When I told him about Scully, he didn't seem to have any
trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of a female partner,
not even one so close to me that I would ferry her to her
mother's house on our day off. Why should he? He knew I didn't
go that way, so it wasn't going to interfere with anything he and
I had in mind. 

I stood to leave, and Daniel stood too; he reached for my hand
to shake it, but I was already past that point, and I knew he
was, too. I didn't want him to be in any doubt about what I was
thinking and feeling where he was concerned. I took his hand,
but in my left hand, not my right, then I leaned over and kissed
him, lightly, just letting my lips brush over his. 

"I'd like to see you again," I said.

"I'd like that too," he said, and he squeezed my hand just for
a second. He had the message. He gave me his phone number. I
promised to call.

Which I did, the minute I got home.

We talked for hours. It was blowing my mind, to use a phrase
from my youth. I'd never connected with a man like this before.
I hadn't even considered the possibility. 

We laughed like drunks; I told him things I'd never told anyone
except Scully, and I talked to him about things I had never
thought to tell Scully, things about my life and my experiences
in the bar scene, the dating scene, circuit parties, the whole
world of gay culture that she could accept without reservation
but could never really understand because she wasn't part of it.

If you think it's strange that I was comparing Daniel to Scully
instead of to other men I'd dated, you're right. If I'd had any
sense, I'd have seen the trouble coming; unfortunately, all I
could see was a man who appealed to me not only physically but
mentally and emotionally, as well.

The strangest thing of all, I guess, was realizing that not
once during the entire day had I thought about just finding a
quiet place where we could get naked. I mean, I wanted to;
Jesus, did I want to. That just wasn't _all_ I was thinking
about. The really exciting part about Daniel wasn't that he made
me hot, because lots of men have done that. What was exciting
and new was this growing emotional connection.

We talked on the phone every night that week. On Saturday
morning, I called and asked him to come to my place for dinner.
He accepted. I told him to bring a toothbrush and a change of
clothes. He showed up with an overnight bag and a garment bag.
My own preparations included stashing two brand-new, unopened
boxes of condoms and a bottle of Astroglide in my bedside drawer.

We both knew he was going to be staying for a while.

We had dinner, he liked it, we sat on my couch and I put my
arms around him and kissed him and it was the best, the very
best kiss ever. 

It wasn't a romantic kiss, mind you. There really wasn't much
need for romance at that moment, because we'd been romancing
each other over the phone all week. This was more of an "I'm
gonna fuck you until you can't walk" kiss, which happened to be
just what I was looking for. Daniel was making sure I knew what
he wanted and I was more than happy to oblige.

That kiss lasted maybe thirty seconds, after which I grabbed
Daniel by the belt loops of his jeans, pulled him into the
bedroom and dragged him down onto the bed just as fast as I
could get him there. I think I tore his shirt, I was in such a
hurry to get it off him. 

My God, he was beautiful -- muscular and lean, with just the
right amount of dark hair on his chest, and hung exactly right.
Not monstrously large, not embarrassingly small, but just the
right size and shape for my mouth and my hands and all the other
places I wanted him to be. 

But there was a lot more to Daniel than just physical beauty.
Daniel taught me things about making love, about myself and my
ability to relate, to participate, that I'd never imagined could
be. We did almost everything you can think of before that night
was over, and it was a whole new world to me. Before, it was
always a matter of finding someone who was in the mood to do to
me what I wanted to have done to me at that particular moment
and then finding someplace where we could get it done as quickly
and efficiently as possible. Now, it was a matter of finding out
how this man and I could work our desires out between us, with
real give and take, as equals -- as lovers. 

There was a lot to work out. He didn't leave my apartment until
Monday morning.

I'll never forget that morning. I had just walked out of the
kitchen, where I'd been cleaning up after the ritual post-coital
omelet breakfast, and there in the living room stood Daniel,
getting ready for work.

Or, to be more specific, putting on his uniform.

Now, I've lived and worked around military men for years; hell,
I've tricked with quite a few of them, and I've always managed
to remain unimpressed by the proverbial "man in uniform."
Somehow, though, the sight of this particular uniformed man was
making it hard for me to breathe.

He was wearing that dark navy blue uniform that officers wear,
but he hadn't buttoned the jacket yet. Buttoned or not, it was
impressive; there were three rows of ribbons and two gold pins
on the left breast and two and a half rows of gold braid on the
sleeves. Even I, with my near-total lack of knowledge about
things military, could see that he'd had one hell of a career
already.

Everything he was wearing was pressed and shined and arranged
just so, and fit him like it had been tailor-made; which, as I
was to learn later, it had. Turns out that little expense is one
of the drawbacks of being an officer. It was money well spent.

My God, he looked good ... better than I could ever have
imagined, and we'd spent the better part of the previous 36
hours together, most of it totally nude. 

"Jesus Christ," I said, weakly.

At the sound of my voice, Daniel turned around, and looked at
me with a smile that made me weak in the knees -- yet another
thing that had never happened to me before.

"Go ahead and say it, Fox," he said, with a resigned air. "I
hear it all the time."

"What?" I said, as I slipped my arms beneath the open jacket
and pulled him close, loving the way he felt under the crisp
fabric of his immaculately pressed shirt. "You hear all the time
that you look like hell in the morning, sailor?"

"Bastard," he said softly, and then he kissed me. "You go get
into _your_ uniform, G-man," he said. "Then we'll see who looks
like hell in the morning." 

He kissed me again, more slowly; first on my mouth, and then,
more gently, on my nose, my cheeks and my forehead. I felt a
sudden, totally unfamiliar sense of peace flood through me;
without thinking, I relaxed into his arms and laid my head on
his shoulder, letting him hold me with a tenderness I had never
before allowed from another man.

And that's when I realized what was going on here: I had fallen
head over heels in love with Daniel Reilly.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Scully and Daniel finally met several weeks later, they
really hit it off. You wouldn't believe how much it meant to me
to see Scully standing with her arms around Daniel at the end of
our first lunch together; it was as though the God I no longer
believed in had decided to come back to life and bless me.

I loved both of them, they both loved me and -- it seemed --
they were going to be friends, too.

Damn, I was happy.

With Scully now in on the secret, Daniel and I began to spend
more and more evenings together. I guess there were a few times
when he was on call that I went by Scully's place for the
evening, but more often I hit the road for Baltimore so I could
spend the evening or the night with Daniel when he got off duty.

Scully seemed okay with it, though; she was as happy for me as
you could expect any friend to be, and she clearly liked Daniel.
He liked her, too; given how much they had in common, it'd be
unnatural if they didn't get along.

Right, and if I'm so fucking smart, why ain't I rich?

If I had been thinking more clearly, I might have understood
what was happening to Scully, what a solitary, lonely existence
I had forced her into. Our fellow agents still thought we were
together, but that was true only at work. She was alone almost
every night, and her loyalty to me, her protectiveness of me,
kept her from trying to meet anyone else because it might blow
my cover if she did.

So she stayed home. She stayed alone. She kept my secret, and
she paid for her loyalty with a virtually silent existence. And
she was busy as hell with after-hours work, too, taking up the
slack, tending to all the details and paperwork that I couldn't
drag myself away from Daniel long enough to attend to. 

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I seldom even called her anymore;
when I did, it was quick and businesslike and then I was off the
phone.

Being the selfish prick that I am, I was able to ignore almost
completely how sad she was becoming, what this was doing to her.
I wasn't paying attention; I was too wrapped up in my new lover.
Daniel and I couldn't be together as often as we wanted to be,
so when we were together, we made love for hours. When we
weren't together, we talked on the phone for hours. 

And we talked about everything; except, of course, my job. I
never talked to Daniel about work; I didn't want all that shit
to come between us, and I guess I was a little afraid he'd think
I was nuts for chasing down aliens and flukemen and liver-eating
mutants.

Basically, though, I thought everyone was happy and life was
just great.

Too bad no one else in our little triangle thought so.

It all came to a head one night when Scully called me in tears.

I didn't blame her. It was the kind of night that could make a
stone cry. She was alone, following a day of almost surreal
violence and death, the day I'd killed Robert Patrick Modell.

Okay, he wasn't dead then, but he was going to be, and it was
largely because I'd shot him in cold blood.

But the bastard had it coming. He was an evil little man,
suddenly blessed with the power to control other people's minds,
and what did he do with it? He used it to kill people. 

He tried to use it to make me kill Scully.

I can still feel that asshole inside my head sometimes, that
whispering little voice telling me to put the gun to my head and
pull the trigger; telling me to point the gun at Scully and pull
the trigger. Well, I pointed it at her, all right, but I didn't
shoot her. No matter how firm a grip this bastard had on my
mind, it wasn't firm enough to make me do that. 

But it wasn't because he faltered, or because I strengthened my
resolve; it was that single tear trickling down Scully's face,
and the memory of how lovingly she'd looked at me before I came
inside the hospital to face Modell down.

I've killed before, when it was necessary, and I never wasted
too much time regretting it, either. I guess that qualifies me
as a cold- blooded killer.

But not where she's concerned. I could no more kill Scully than
I could pull off my arm, stick it in a flowerpot and make it
sprout daisies.

"Scully, run!" I'd said, and she did. She pulled the fire
alarm, and Modell was distracted, and I had my moment: I stood
over Modell and with the greatest of pleasure, I put a bullet
right into his head, just like I'd told him I would. It felt so
fucking good when that gun went off and I saw the blood start
pumping from the top of that motherfucker's skull. I was only
sorry there weren't more bullets in the gun; I kept pulling the
trigger, hoping, but there weren't.

Scully kept that a secret from the investigating teams. She
never told them I'd threatened Modell, or that I'd shot him when
he was essentially helpless. She protected me and loved me, just
as she always had. She reassured me, holding my hand as I stood
watching Modell because I wanted to be there when he flat-lined.

And then she called me that night, sobbing, begging me to come
to her.

I didn't have to think twice. I told her I'd be right there.

But I had forgotten about Daniel. He was putting on his jacket
and picking up his keys; we were supposed to be going out for
dinner, which was a very rare treat for us. 

Well, that was unfortunate, but he'd just have to understand:
Scully was going to come first that night.

"Daniel," I said as I hung up the phone, "I think I'm going to
have to take a rain check on dinner. I have to go see Scully.
She's having a bad time over ... recent events."

"You're kidding," he said. "You're breaking our date when we're
on our way out the door?"

"I have to," I said, picking up my jacket. "I'll call you
later, okay?"

"What the hell is all this about?" Daniel demanded. "I don't get
this. What happened that's turned everything upside down, that's
got you canceling a date that I had to bust my ass to set up?" 

That was the first time I had ever seen Daniel get angry; hell,
he wasn't just angry, he was furious. He had gone to quite a bit
of trouble to get the evening off, just because he thought I
needed him. 

Not that I'd told him the truth about Modell; it would never
have occurred to me to do that. He knew a little bit about what
had happened; it had been on live television, he could hardly
have missed it. He knew Scully and I had been involved in it,
too; we'd been on camera. 

But what I'd done, what I'd almost done? No. That, I would
never tell him.

"Whatever happened today, it's none of your business," I said,
rather coldly. "That's between me and my partner."

He got very quiet then. 

"I thought I was your partner," he said, in a low voice. Then
he put down his keys, took off his jacket and walked down the
hall to the bedroom. I heard the door close.

That hurt, because he was right, and I knew it. He was my
partner; but so was Scully, and tonight, she needed me more than
he did.

I almost went after him and tried to bring him back, but the
thought of Scully sitting in her apartment all by herself,
crying because of what I'd put her through, was too much for me. 

Besides, I was still angry. I mean, God damn it, he ought to
trust me; I knew what had made her cry like that, if Daniel
didn't, and I knew this wasn't just some ploy for my attention. 

Hell, it had never occurred to me that Scully might consider
any such ploy; she was just too honest, her integrity too firm,
for anything like that, and she was way too emotionally reserved
to play-act. For her to cry that way, for her to beg me to come
over, was proof positive that she was seriously upset.

When I got there, she flung herself into my arms the way a
drowning woman might clutch at a life preserver. She was way
beyond being upset; she was devastated, and I knew I was the
cause of it. 

All in that one moment, I realized just what I had done to her.
It wasn't just that I had aimed the gun at her; it was that I
had abandoned her so completely since Daniel came along, left
her to deal with the emotional consequences of the job all by
herself for so long, that she had no emotional reserves left to
deal with that final betrayal.

I was a dick, and I knew it.

I sat her down on her couch, and I held her, and I told her
that no matter what had happened, with Modell or anyone else, I
still loved her. 

And it was true, as true as anything has ever been.

It seemed to calm her down. She relaxed into my arms, and her
crying slowed down, and I went to the kitchen and made her some
hot tea with rum and sat down beside her and waited while she
drank it.

She sensed something was wrong with me, though, and I found
myself telling her about the argument between Daniel and me. 

I could see that it made her feel like shit, and my heart went
out to her all the more. She'd asked for so little from me
lately, and here she was feeling guilty for wanting few minutes
of my time so I could reassure her that I didn't really want to
kill her when I pointed the gun at her head.

She started crying again, and I held her, and when she stopped,
I kissed her.

Now, I've kissed women before; I just hadn't ever kissed
Scully. I hadn't really thought about it one way or the other;
it just hadn't occurred to me, any more than it would occur to
most people to kiss a co-worker, even though she was my best
friend. 

Tonight, she needed massive doses of reassurance and
comforting, and a kiss seemed like a pretty good way to do it. 

I never had any problem about kissing women. Shit, I'd even
kissed Phoebe once or twice when she was in the States, and I
thought I knew what it was like; nice, and kind of friendly, and
just a little bit intimate.

I knew exactly jack shit, as I was about to find out. 

There were some intense emotions going into that kiss, more
intense than I'd ever felt for any woman before, much more. I
mean, this was Scully, after all. There was all the love in the
world in that kiss, and it seriously rocked my brain, in a
pleasant, loving sort of way. It felt great -- just not at all
passionate, not for me, anyway.

Scully -- my sweet, long-suffering Scully -- had another
response altogether. 

When I kissed her, she moaned. 

Unbelievably, she was aroused, really aroused, by one little
kiss from me. That was easy to see; redheads can't hide that
flushed face you get when you're really turned on. 

And anyway, there was that moan, and that shocked the ever-
living shit out of me. 

I jumped back and stared at her. I knew I was really hurting her
feelings, but I was just too goddamned shocked to do anything
else. How could I turn Scully on? I'm gay, for Christ's sake; gay
men don't turn women on, do they?

I mean, she couldn't actually _want_ me to kiss her, could she?

Apparently, she could.

Scully took one look at my expression and burst into tears, and
it was worse than anything I've ever heard, from her or any other
woman. She was terrified; worse, she was in despair. It was no
longer a question of Modell, or of my relationship with Daniel,
or anything else: It was that she loved me and she thought she
had disgusted me. She thought I was going to reject her
altogether.

No way, Scully; no fucking way, I mean, that is just not going
to happen. Not ever.

I didn't know what I was going to do tomorrow or the next day;
shit, I didn't know what I was going to do in fifteen minutes,
but I knew what I was going to do right then. I put my arms
around her and I lay down on the couch with her on top of me,
and I held her until she stopped crying.

It was a strange feeling; I'd never held a woman like that
before and I really wasn't sure how to feel about it. Everything
was different from what I was used to: She was small, she was
soft, she weighed next to nothing, and her movements were slow
and graceful, her touch gentle and almost hesitant.

As an expression of her feelings for me -- and mine for her --
it was wonderful, holding her like that. Physically, though, it
wasn't arousing; it was just plain strange. 

Not to her, though; when she finally stopped crying, I could
tell that holding her like this was only making matters worse.
She was getting even more turned on: I could tell by the way she
touched my neck, by the way her tiny little body nestled against
mine, by the languor of her breathing.

It was disturbing, as though I'd found Samantha and her first
words to me were, "Let's fuck." Not quite that bad, I guess, but
along those emotional lines.

I tried to forget about that, and just hold her to comfort her.
I thought about how much she meant to me as a friend and a
partner, and not about how alien to me it was to touch a woman
this way. I told myself that no matter how it affected me, I
owed her a few moments of being able to touch me, to feel for me
what I could never feel for her.

God, I would give anything in the world to make her happy. But
this, ultimately, wasn't something I could do.

I had to stop. I couldn't let her continue to hope that this
was going to go anywhere; I couldn't stand to go on feeling this
vague disquiet about touching her. I got her up, helped her into
her pajamas and put her to bed.

She kept apologizing for having fallen in love with me. All
that did was make me feel like a first-class jerk, knowing how
much it had hurt her that I had left her alone, knowing that I
hadn't given a moment's thought to how much she wanted to be
with me, or to just how isolated I had forced her to become.

I hadn't considered this -- her being in love with me -- even
the remotest of possibilities, because I was gay.

But, as I told her, I had forgotten that she wasn't. 

We talked for a few minutes, and then I headed out to the couch
to sleep. 

She stopped me; she asked me to sleep in her bed.

For just a split second, I thought about it. 

I wondered whether I could bring myself to touch her, to do
something to satisfy her, because I loved her so damn much and
it was fucking killing me to have to hurt her. I knew it would
mean a lot to her, and I knew, just from kissing her, that she
would respond to me and pretty damn fast, too.

But I knew I couldn't. Even if I thought it was a good idea --
which I really didn't -- I was pretty sure my facial expressions
would at best have revealed a polite curiosity ... and maybe,
just maybe, an anger that would never go away if -- because of
her -- I was unfaithful to the only man I had ever really loved. 

I might have tried to forget it, to forgive her and myself, to
make sure that Daniel never found out, but it would have changed
things, and not for the better. It would have poisoned the love
I had for her, and for him.

I couldn't do that to either of them. Or to myself, for that
matter.

I declined, and she accepted it, but sadly. The loving look
never left her eyes, never even wavered.

The irony of it wasn't lost on me, and it was as cruel as irony
can ever be. Just as I was learning, for the first time in my
whole life, to connect love and sex, I was forcing her to learn
to separate them. 

I just didn't know how to do anything else. No matter how much
I love her, she's a woman -- a pretty woman, a very beautiful
woman, but that means nothing to me sexually.

For her sake, I could almost wish that things were different.
But they aren't, and they never will be.

She is too patient with me, too good for me; what I was asking
from her was simply unreasonable, and selfish, and I had no
right to ask it. Yet with that loving look, she was telling me
that she was going to continue putting up with it.

I couldn't do that, either. She deserves better. I couldn't
give her all she wanted, but it wouldn't kill me to give her
what little I could. I might have to give up the "100-percent
pure gay" self-image of which I was so proud, but that wouldn't
kill me, either.

I'd just have to live with 99 and 44/100ths.

I kissed her again, because I love her and because I knew she
would like it, and I tried to make it be the kind of kiss I knew
she wanted.

Apparently, it was. I felt her body moving in that slow, erotic
way again, but this time, I ignored it. I loved her, and if she
could deal with my being gay, then I was just going to have to
learn to deal with her being straight. 

Then I went out and slept on the couch.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Daniel came by the next morning, and I don't know what he and
Scully said to each other while I was showering, but whatever it
was, it healed that breach rather nicely. He and I went to his
place and spent the rest of the day in bed, making love and
talking about what had happened.

For the first time, I told him what Scully and I had really
been through the day before. I told Daniel more than I would
ever have told anyone except Scully, although I knew I would
never tell him all of it. 

I cried, too, because I had been so frightened, and because I
felt so bad about having hurt her, and him. I cried in a way I
could never have cried in front of her, and Daniel understood,
and he comforted me. 

But he never told me what Scully had said to him, and I didn't
ask.

That night, just before we fell asleep, he rolled over and
kissed me, and ran his hands through my hair in a way he'd never
done before. He was looking at me so intently that it almost
frightened me.

"What is it, Daniel?" I said.

He smiled, and it was the saddest smile I've ever seen. He
kissed me again. 

"It's nothing, really," he whispered. "It's just that ... you
really are beautiful. So very beautiful. I don't ever want to
forget that."

And he kissed me again, and that was all. We went to sleep in
each other's arms, and I didn't dream at all that night.

After that, I tried to be more affectionate with Scully, and it
seemed to make her a little happier. I tried to be more open
with Daniel, and that made him happier.

But I knew I wasn't really making either of them as happy as
they deserved. I had divided my soul between them, and they were
both gracious enough and loving enough to take their share and
even to seem grateful for it.

The damage was done, though, and there was no turning back the
clock.

Before long, Scully began going out at night when we were in
the field. 

At first, I didn't notice; I was still so wrapped up in Daniel.
Anyway, like I said -- I never thought of Scully wanting sex,
let alone seeking it out with strangers. I still wasn't used to
the idea that she wanted me, let alone anyone else.

But eventually, I got smart, and I figured out what was going
on. It scared the shit out of me, too, and that was when I
finally understood why Scully had always worried so much about
me when I used to date. There are bad germs and worse people out
there, and you're never more vulnerable than when you're naked
in bed.

Scully is a good agent, and a damn good shot, but she is also
very small and female, and so very vulnerable; her training
doesn't guarantee that one of these strange men won't hurt her
or make her pregnant or infect her with something that can't be
cured.

One night, while she was showering, I sneaked into her room and
looked through her little evening bag. I was somewhat reassured
to find condoms and a .22, but only somewhat. 

So I started a new pattern. I would talk to Daniel, but only
until I heard Scully coming back to our hotel with another of
her dates, and then I would tell him goodnight and hang up. I
would go and take up my position next to the connecting door, my
weapon in my hand, ready to fire if any of them ever even
sounded like he was going to hurt her.

I told her on that dreadful night after Modell that she wasn't
a one-night stand, and she wasn't, not then, but I have made
her into one -- physically, not emotionally. I'm the one who
made her vulnerable to this. I'm the one who has to make sure
she doesn't suffer for it any more than she already has.

She doesn't know that I stand guard over her. I don't think
she's even really sure that I know about the men, or if I do,
that I've noticed how much they all look like me. 

Yeah, I've noticed. 

And every one of those men is another charge laid against my
soul, another entry on the list of reasons why Fox Mulder is a
selfish, worthless, heartless bastard.

I should let her go. I should let her find a man who can really
love her, body and soul, the way she deserves to be loved.

But I never will, and I know it.

I am trying hard to pay for my sins against her, even as I go
on committing them. I am always there for her now, as she has
always been there for me, even though she doesn't know what I'm
doing.

And as I sit, I talk to whatever man she's with; not aloud,
just in my head. I hold whole conversations as I wait to hear
the sounds that mean their lovemaking is over and he is leaving.

You be good to her, I tell him. If she wants you to be me, then
you be me for tonight and don't fuck up her fantasy. You make
her happy, you touch her any way she likes, you make her come as
many times as she wants and you don't even think about hurting
her.

And then you get the fuck out of her life, because you're
nothing, you're less than nothing -- you're only a mindless body,
a short-term surrogate for the man she loves, the man she really
wants, whether you know it or not. You can have her body, but
that's all you get. You'll never have her heart, because that's
mine. 

And I'm going to keep it if it kills us both.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~