~~~~
                There is an inherent mystery to human connections.  We experience
           so many in our lifetimes, yet remember so few.  Some are swift and
           fleeting, leaving us with only vague recollections of a passing feeling.
           Many pass quickly and are soon forgotten.  Others make indelible marks
           on our soul, changing who we are forever.

                Growth is a combination of these indelible impressions.  Each life
           we touch, each life that touches us, alters us in a different way.
           Sometimes a piece of our soul is given away, or stolen, in the exchange.
           Sometimes we become thieves, raiding the souls of those we encounter.
           Through each exchange, an irreparable alteration occurs as we journey
           forward towards our completion.

                Life can be viewed as the accumulation of personal bonds.  The
           love-hate-fear-trust that we garner from those that pass us on our
           pilgrimage creates the person that we become.  In essence, we are never
           really complete.  We are always waiting.  Watching.  Unknowingly
           expecting the arrival of some new influence in our lives.  We move with
           the passing tides, alternately raised by the waves to soaring heights,
           or plunged to the darkest depths.

                We are a work in progress.

                Most of us.

                Rare are the few souls who find their completion in one source.
           They are the blessed few whose souls are not made up of scattered parts,
           but of one other intrinsic piece. They can find their salvation in one
           life altering instant; their worlds turned upside-down in the span of a
           heartbeat.

                This privilege, this gift so sparingly given, comes with its price.
           They that find this bond do so with the sacrifice of understanding.
           Those around them can never see or comprehend their discovery.  The eyes
           of their acquaintances will be forever cast towards them in awe,
           distrust, or jealousy.  Because it is only in the presence of these
           privileged few that the rest see what they lack - what they can never
           have.

                The pivotal moment had come for Dana Scully in disguise.  How could
           she have known she was one of the gifted souls?  She had never felt an
           absence, as if she was only partially complete.  There had been no lack
           of love in her life.  She was confident, strong, and self-assured, with
           no hint of the discovery to come.  No hint of what was missing.

                When given her assignment, it had unsettled her.  There had been a
           growing seed of anticipation deep in her belly from the moment the sound
           of his name first reached her consciousness.  It was planted the day she
           received her orders.

                They were such deceptively simple orders.  He was a rouge.  A loose
           cannon.  A danger to himself and those around him.  She was to go in and
           report what she saw.  The simple facts were enough to damn him beyond
           redemption.

                The truth would prove to be less simple.

                In the space of time between her first journey down that long dark
           hall, and the moment she looked into his eyes for the first time, her
           world stopped as it began anew.  She had found something she never knew
           existed, but which she had always needed to survive.  Her life up to
           that point had been in preparation for that moment, all her actions and
           decisions had moved her to that point.  She found herself as she found
           him.

                They were two hearts beating in tandem, though oblivious to the
           first tenuous rhythms.  Therein lay the power that so frightened those
           they opposed.  They were two halves of the same whole brought together
           with the power to change the world.  So strong individually, their gifts
           were magnified a thousand fold when together.

                She had known that from the first moment, had felt the tides rise,
           the electricity coursing through the air of that tiny basement office.
           Destiny had been fulfilled, but she had dismissed it, buried it in
           the back of her mind, refusing to accept its consequences.  Her refusal
           did little to stem the rising flood.

                With passing time, she had come to accept the side effects.
           Speaking without words.  They could convey more with a glance than could
           be contained within the pages of a thousand books.  The peace she felt
           only when they were together placed her above pain and sacrifice.  All
           other concerns were secondary when faced with the singularity of their
           connection.

                Though many had tried to turn these gifts against them, none had
           ever succeeded.  Time and again they found their way back to each other.
           Over seemingly insurmountable odds, they triumphed.  Even death could not
           sever their bond.  She had realized that fact years ago when the force
           of his will alone had dragged her back from the edge of death.

                She had felt his spirit hovering near during the time after her
           abduction, beckoning her to his side.  Later she had felt it again when
           asked to believe in his death, even though her soul had known otherwise.
           She had dismissed the meaning out of fear and ignorance, able to
           recognize the symptoms, but not to see the larger plan.

                Until tonight.

                A one in a million twist of fate was what they were.  She was only
           now able to see that with full clarity.  The dull clarity of the dead,
           she realized mournfully.  As she neared the end of her physical life,
           she discovered the key to her immortal soul.

                Staring out into the dark of night, moonbeams playing shadow games
           across the floor, she had made the discovery.  It had surfaced in her
           mind, imperceptibly floating within reach from the depths where it had
           always been.  It was not a shock to think these things.  The naturalness
           of it brought an instant serenity.

                Aware now of their purpose, she padded slowly across the carpeted
           floor of her hotel room.  The windows she had opened onto the night let
           through a gust of warm summer air, lifting a copper halo around her
           head.  The shadow games of the moonbeams ceased as they came to light on
           the shape of her face.  Blue eyes reflected the glow of the moon and
           held within their spheres the knowledge of eternity.

                Cold brass met with warm flesh as she reached out to turn the knob.
           A creak, and then a groan, as her door swung open onto the darkened
           porch outside.  She was a ghost of time, replaying an ancient role as
           tiny feet carried her closer to his door.

                She could feel the pulse now, throbbing through her body.  The
           current was drawing her closer toward inexorable consequence.  Now
           facing the cool black surface of his hotel door, she sighed in
           anticipation.  It was almost over.

                Mulder heard her light rap through a sleep-clogged mind, but
           responded in an instant.  Standing against the curtain of night, she
           spoke of powerful purpose.  The full moon shone at her back, heightening
           the delicacy of the simple cotton gown she wore.  He stared, studying
           the softness of her hair, the warmth in her eyes, searching for the
           unspoken message hidden there.

                Tonight it was no longer hidden.  The barriers were gone.  Sometime
           during the space of a few hours they had crumbled, and she had been the
           first to see it happen.

                Watching his silent acknowledgement of her discovery, she found the
           last piece of her spirit.  Between them there could be no death.  No
           cancer hovered near waiting to take this from them.  They were a
           beginning that had no end, and presently they were perched on the
           precipice.

                It was only a single step forward, and then a first tentative
           touch, but it spoke of forever.  Her hand coming to rest on his chest,
           his to clasp her face.  The brush of a kiss so long in creation, so new
           in experience, and so ancient in feeling.  No hesitation.  No
           awkwardness.  They needed no words.

                They both knew.

                There would be no more demons to cast out.  Evil and fear had no
           hold over them.  There would be no more hiding.

                Their time had come.

                Somewhere in the night a bird began to sing, lifting his call to
           the heavens, signaling the coming of the dawn.  A new day was rising.
           The first day of forever.
~~~~
           END