Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Path of Least Resistance
The basement office felt smaller than usual.
Mulder stood at the filing cabinet, not actually looking for anything, just standing there with his hand on the cold metal drawer because it gave him something to do while Scully's silence filled every corner of the room.
She was at the desk. His desk, technically, though it had become theirs over the years—her laptop open, her files spread across the surface, her presence claiming the space the way she'd claimed so much of his life without ever asking permission.
"The autopsy results don't support your theory." Her voice was measured. Professional. The voice she used when she was trying not to fight with him. "The tissue samples showed no abnormal cellular structure. No evidence of genetic manipulation."
"The tissue samples were compromised." He kept his eyes on the filing cabinet. Row after row of cases they'd worked together. Six years of impossible things she'd witnessed and still refused to believe. "You saw how long they sat in that county morgue. The degradation—"
"—wouldn't account for the complete absence of the markers you're suggesting." She wasn't looking at him either. He could tell by the steady sound of her typing. "Mulder, I know you want this to be something, but the evidence simply isn't there."
Something hot flared in his chest.
I know you want this to be something.
There it was. That tone. That particular inflection she'd perfected over six years—the one that said she was humoring him, tolerating him, waiting for him to come to his senses like a parent with an imaginative child.
He turned around.
She was beautiful in the harsh fluorescent light, hair tucked behind her ear, brow furrowed in concentration as her fingers moved across the keyboard. The small gold cross at her throat caught the light when she breathed.
Beautiful. And completely immovable.
"What would it take?" The words came out harder than he intended. "What evidence, exactly, would satisfy you? Because I've been wondering for six years, Scully. I've been trying to figure out what piece of proof would finally be enough."
Her fingers stopped. She looked up, and her eyes—God, those eyes that saw through every defense he'd ever built—pinned him where he stood.
"This isn't about proof." Her voice had lost its professional smoothness. "This is about rigorous methodology. About not jumping to conclusions that the evidence doesn't support."
"And it never will, will it?" He laughed, but it came out wrong. Bitter. "The evidence will never support anything that doesn't fit inside your neat little boxes. Anything that challenges your worldview gets filed away under 'insufficient data.'"
She stood up. Five feet three inches of righteous certainty rising from behind the desk.
"That's unfair."
"Is it?"
"Yes." Her jaw tightened. He could see the muscle flex beneath the pale skin of her cheek. "I've stood beside you through cases that defied every scientific principle I was trained to believe. I've watched things I still can't explain. I've nearly died—actually died, Mulder—because I chose to follow you into the darkness. And you're going to stand there and accuse me of closed-mindedness because I won't rubber-stamp your theory based on compromised tissue samples?"
The words hit him like a fist to the sternum.
She was right. She was always right, and that was the problem—she was right about his evidence being thin, right about his reasoning being emotional rather than logical, right about all of it. And still he needed her to just once, just once, look at what he was showing her and say: I believe you.
Not the evidence. Him.
"I'm going to get some air." He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Mulder—"
But he was already out the door, already down the hall, already jabbing the elevator button with more force than necessary while his heart hammered against his ribs.
× × ×
The bar was three blocks from the Hoover Building, the kind of place agents went when they didn't want to run into other agents. Dark wood, darker lighting, a bartender who didn't ask questions.
Mulder was on his third bourbon when the thought crept in.
Diana wouldn't have questioned him.
The thought felt disloyal. Felt like betrayal, which was absurd—he had nothing to betray. He and Scully weren't together. They weren't anything except partners, colleagues, whatever word you used for the person who'd become so fundamental to your existence that you couldn't remember what your life looked like before her.
But Diana.
Diana had believed him. Diana had looked at his theories about colonization, about the conspiracy, about Samantha, and she'd said yes. Not "where's your proof" or "the evidence doesn't support this" or "Mulder, you need to consider alternative explanations." Just yes. I believe you. I'm with you.
He took another drink. The bourbon burned going down, but it was a good burn. Clarifying.
Things with Diana had been easy.
He'd forgotten that, somehow. Forgotten what it felt like to be with someone who didn't make him work for every inch of ground. Someone who looked at him and saw a man with a mission rather than a problem to be managed. Someone who wanted to be close to him without all the complicated dance of boundaries and professionalism and whatever the hell else kept him and Scully circling each other like binary stars—close enough to feel the pull, never close enough to touch.
His phone buzzed.
For a moment, his chest seized—Scully, calling to apologize, or to fight more, or just to hear his voice the way she sometimes did when they'd parted badly.
But the name on the screen wasn't Scully's.
Diana Fowley.
He stared at it. Let it ring twice. Three times.
Then he answered.
"Fox." Her voice was warm. It was always warm, like honey poured into his ear. "I heard through the grapevine that you had a rough day. Anything I can do?"
He closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his lids, he could see Scully's face—the way she'd looked at him in the basement, the hurt beneath her anger, the exhaustion of fighting the same fight they'd been fighting for six years.
"Yeah," he heard himself say. "Yeah, there might be."
× × ×
Diana's apartment was exactly as he remembered it.
Clean lines. Warm lighting. None of the chaos of his place, none of the careful neutrality of Scully's. Just comfort. Softness. A woman who knew what she wanted and arranged her life accordingly.
She'd poured him a drink without asking what he wanted, because she already knew. She'd kicked off her heels and curled up on the couch with her feet tucked beneath her, watching him with those dark eyes that had always made him feel seen.
"Tell me," she said.
So he did.
The case. The fight. Six years of banging his head against the wall of Scully's skepticism. He talked until the bourbon was gone and his throat was raw, and Diana listened. Just listened, her body angled toward him, her attention absolute.
When he finally fell silent, she reached over and took his empty glass. Set it on the coffee table. Then she shifted closer—close enough that he could smell her perfume, something dark and floral that triggered memories he'd tried to bury.
"Fox." Her hand found his knee. "You don't have to prove yourself to anyone. You know what you've seen. You know the truth. Why do you keep letting her make you doubt yourself?"
The question landed somewhere deep in his chest.
"I don't—"
"You do." Diana's thumb traced a small circle on his knee. "I've watched you, these past few months. Watched how you second-guess yourself around her. How you soften your theories, hedge your conclusions, try to present everything in terms she'll accept." Her voice dropped. "That's not you. That's not the man I fell in love with."
Fell in love with. Past tense. Or was it?
Her eyes held his, and there was nothing complicated in them. No skepticism, no doubt, no careful professional distance. Just want. Simple and undisguised.
"Diana—"
"I never stopped." Her hand slid higher on his thigh. "I left because I had to, not because I wanted to. And I came back because—" She laughed softly. "Because apparently I'm not as good at staying away from you as I thought I was."
He should leave. He knew he should leave. Scully's face flashed through his mind—the way she'd looked at him in the basement, the hurt she'd tried to hide, the years of partnership and trust and whatever fragile thing had been building between them.
But Scully wasn't here. Scully was probably in her apartment right now, writing up the report that would once again dismiss his theories as unsupported by evidence. Scully was doing what she always did—holding him at arm's length while somehow managing to be the center of his entire universe.
Diana was here. Diana was warm and willing and uncomplicated.
Diana was easy.
"We shouldn't." The words came out without conviction.
"Probably not." Diana's smile curved like an invitation. "But since when do either of us do what we should?"
She leaned forward. Pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. Soft. Testing.
He didn't pull away.
× × ×
The kiss deepened before he made a conscious decision to let it. One moment her lips were barely brushing his, and the next her tongue was sliding against his and her hand was fisted in his shirt and she was pulling him toward her with an urgency that left no room for thought.
This was what he needed. The simplicity of it. No analysis, no debate, no careful navigation of unspoken boundaries. Just two bodies and the heat between them.
Diana climbed into his lap, her skirt riding up her thighs as she straddled him. Her hands cupped his face, tilting his head back so she could kiss him deeper, her tongue demanding, her hips grinding down against the hardness she'd already found.
"God, I've missed you." She breathed it against his mouth, her fingers working at his tie. "Missed this. Missed how you taste."
He groaned. His hands found her waist, slid up her sides, felt the warmth of her skin through the thin silk of her blouse. So easy. So goddamn easy—no layers of subtext, no years of careful restraint, just pure physical want.
She stripped off his tie. Yanked his shirt from his pants. Her hands spread across his chest, nails raking lightly through the hair there, and he arched into the touch like a man starving for contact.
When had anyone touched him like this? Touched him at all?
Scully touched him—small moments, a hand on his arm, her fingers adjusting his tie. But those touches were rationed. Careful. As if she was afraid of what might happen if she let herself want more.
Diana wasn't afraid of anything.
She pulled back long enough to unbutton her blouse, revealing a black lace bra that barely contained her breasts. Heavy, full—he'd forgotten how different her body was from—
No. He wasn't going to think about that. Wasn't going to compare.
"Like what you see?" Diana's voice was teasing, confident. She knew exactly what she looked like. Knew exactly what she was offering.
Instead of answering, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the swell of her breast, just above the lace. Her skin was warm, tasted faintly of salt and that dark perfume. She gasped, her fingers threading through his hair, pressing his face closer.
"Bedroom," she whispered. "Now."
He let her lead him.
× × ×
They barely made it through the door before she was pushing him down onto the bed and climbing on top of him again. Her skirt was gone—when had that happened?—and she was working at his belt with practiced hands, her movements quick and sure.
"Diana—" He tried to slow things down, tried to find some footing in the rush of sensation. "Maybe we should—"
"Should what?" She freed him from his pants, her hand wrapping around his cock with a grip that made rational thought difficult. "Talk about it? Analyze it?" She stroked him slowly, her thumb sliding through the wetness already gathering at the tip. "That's what she would want, isn't it? To pick it apart. Examine it from every angle. Make sure it's supported by evidence."
Her voice turned the last word into something contemptuous. Something small.
He should have defended Scully. Should have stopped this, gotten dressed, gone home to his empty apartment and his complicated feelings and his impossible, unrequited whatever-it-was.
Instead, he pulled Diana down and kissed her hard.
She made a sound of triumph against his mouth. Reached between them to shove her underwear aside. And then—with no preamble, no hesitation—she sank down onto him in one smooth motion.
"Fuck—" The word tore out of him. She was hot and wet and tight, her body taking him in like it had been waiting for exactly this.
"Yes." Diana braced her hands on his chest and started to move. "This. This is what you need."
She rode him with an intensity that bordered on aggression, her hips snapping down against his, her head thrown back and her breasts bouncing with each thrust. There was nothing tender about it. Nothing careful or tentative. Just raw, uncomplicated fucking.
He gripped her hips hard enough to bruise. Thrust up to meet her, matching her rhythm, losing himself in the wet slap of their bodies and the sounds she was making—loud, unashamed, nothing like the quiet restraint he'd imagined from—
Stop.
He closed his eyes. Focused on sensation. The heat of her around him. The drag of her body as she moved. The pressure building at the base of his spine.
"That's it." Diana's voice was breathless, commanding. "Let go. Stop thinking. Just feel."
He could do that. He could stop thinking, stop analyzing, stop trying to navigate the impossible maze of his feelings for his partner. He could just be here, in this moment, with a woman who wanted him without complication.
Diana leaned down, her breasts pressing against his chest, and bit his earlobe. "Come inside me. I want to feel you come."
The words undid something in him. He flipped them over, drove into her with a force that made her cry out, and chased his release with single-minded focus. Diana's nails raked down his back. Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper. She was saying his name—Fox, Fox, yes—and it was wrong, that wasn't the voice he wanted to hear, but he was too far gone to stop now.
When he came, it was with a groan that felt ripped from somewhere deep in his chest. Diana followed moments later, her body clenching around him, her back arching off the bed.
Then—silence.
He collapsed beside her, breathing hard. Staring at the ceiling of her bedroom while his heart rate slowly returned to normal.
Easy. It had been so easy.
Diana curled against his side, her hand resting on his chest. "You can stay. If you want."
He thought about his apartment. The empty rooms. The fish tank with the fish Scully had given him for his birthday. The couch where he'd spent too many nights staring at the ceiling and thinking about a woman who might never let him close enough to find out what they could be.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
Diana smiled against his shoulder. "This is what you need, Fox. Someone who believes in you. Someone who doesn't make you fight for every moment of acceptance."
He didn't answer. Just lay there in the darkness of her bedroom, his body satisfied and his mind finally, blissfully quiet.
And tried not to think about the woman across town who was probably still awake, replaying their argument, wondering why he always had to push.
Tried not to think about the guilt that was already beginning to seep through the cracks in his carefully constructed justifications.
Tried not to notice that even now, even here, even in the aftermath of uncomplicated sex with a woman who asked nothing of him but his presence—the first word that rose to his lips was Scully.