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'ANY OTHER NAME'
By: stellar_dust

Mulder woke suddenly in the middle of the night, only one thought on his mind.

He'd underestimated her. How could he?

He climbed out of bed and paced to the window, staring out at the driving rain. All those months -

Don't kid yourself, Mulder. It's been a year.

All this past year, he'd had only the photo in his pocket, the occasional news report, and his memories of her. And of their son.

The contact he'd actually had with her, the news he'd heard - "I am physically shaking right now," her ill-fated call to bring him home on the train... /giving up William/ - she had seemed needy, desperate, frightened: fragile. The Scully he knew didn't write like that, didn't do those things.

But he'd decided that maybe the Dana he didn't know - would.

And he'd let that color his perceptions, his thoughts; she'd ceased to be Scully and become Dana, his ivory princess, mother of his child, delicate and frail and beautiful, desperately in need of his protection from all the evils of the cruel world.

He mentally kicked himself. Twice, hard. He couldn't know what she'd gone through without him, to choose as she had. Hell, he'd had his share of low points - the lowest - more than his share of lonely, quiet desperation without her.

Last night, without even realizing it, he'd found his Scully again.

God, he needed her.

Mulder kicked himself again and let the curtain drop.

I am the needy one in this relationship, he reminded himself, as he crawled back into bed and wrapped his body desperately around his only constant in a vast, unstable universe.

DISCLAIMER: These characters only belong to each other.