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'THOUGHTS ON LOVE'
By: Xenith

I really don't understand why you want to interview me. I mean, there's nothing that interesting in my history. Oh well, all right, Tara said you needed this for your research project and I did promise to cooperate. Well, what can I say...?

I've always managed to fall for the wrong man. It wasn't intentional, you know. I always had a good, objective reason for choosing the man I was with. Or at least, I convinced myself that it was objective until reality proved me wrong.

My first love in high school threw up on my prom dress after too many beers. At that instant I was aware of two things: first, that I had demeaned myself by fawning over the captain of the football team just because he was willing to date "Dana the Brain". Second, I realized that I was the only person capable of guarding my dignity by making good choices in my men.

It's too bad I didn't follow my own advice. Daniel was a kind man, older that I was, of course. But then, I was looking for an older man who knew his own mind. Daniel did. He wanted to divorce his wife, abandon his family and marry his student. Me. I thought about it and I was honestly tempted. Oh, I loved him, and I loved the stature he had in the community, but I knew that breaking up a family was wrong, wrong, wrong. And, in my heart of hearts, I also knew what his colleagues were saying about Daniel wanting a younger trophy wife. All my training, my grades, my brain meant nothing. To Daniel's contemporaries I was the bimbo he'd taken up with, the student he'd seduced. And I would not allow myself to be considered so.

I did it again when I met Jack at the FBI Academy in Quantico. He was my teacher but not that much older than I was. It was, I thought, more age appropriate. Still, the whispers followed us. I had become the bimbo again and all my excellent work for the Bureau was ignored. I was just the leggy redhead at Daniel's side. I broke it off with Daniel and determined to follow my own ambitions, further my own career and be known as myself, Agent Dana Scully. The, well....embarrassing part of being in love for me is the way in which a thoughtful, intellectual, pragmatic woman can turn into a puddle of drooling sentiment. I appeared to be very susceptible to this form of idiocy, subsuming myself into the life of whatever man I was in love with at the time, constantly supportive and always there when needed. But I wasn't ever going to find myself in a like situation, ever again. I was determined. I was committed.

I was assigned to Fox Mulder.

First, let me be clear that I respect Mulder as an investigator and as a human being. He is one of the best educated and brightest men I have ever known. And he also fell in love with me the first year that we worked together.

Oh, I knew. You can't share a tiny basement office with a single desk and half a dozen seedy stakeouts without guessing it. I'd wake up in the front seat of the Taurus to find him watching me sleep. Of course, as soon as he noticed that I was awake he'd cover the look on his face with a rude smirk and a comment about how I drool when I sleep. But whenever we traveled, he quietly opened doors for me and insisted on carrying heavy bags. In the most rattle-trap fleabag motel, he made sure that I got the best room.

After the first year, I loved him but I didn't let him know that. When he was shot in the femoral artery I was ready to kill the man responsible with my bare hands. I'd never known rage like that before; its force surprised me. Then I had to consider, really think about the consequences of loving Fox Mulder and decide what to do about it.

You have to understand Mulder. He worries about the people he loves, obsessively and feels guilty when he can't prevent harm from coming to them. He believes that his parents stopped loving him when Samantha was kidnapped. Samantha herself was taken from him. When I was abducted he almost worked himself to death, or so Skinner tells me. How could I tell him I loved him and make him even more obsessed with my safety? If he spent all his time trying to keep me safe, who would watch his back out there? No, I have to be his friend and colleague first and not his lover. He needs a friend more.

And so I find myself subsuming my ambitions in favor of my partner's obsession with The Truth. Have I lost myself in taking up his cause? I hope not; I don't think so. I believe in his quest and I suppose everyone has to find out for themselves just what their lives are about. My life is about truth, not just his truth but my own. When his reasoning is faulty, I will insist that he be logical. After he gets over his temper, he usually thanks me.

I am necessary to him; I know that. But he doesn't know that he is necessary to me as well. Sure, I grimace at the newest set of slides depicting vivisected cows in some Iowa farmer's field, but each day is interesting and full of challenge. And I do love him. I want to tell him but I shouldn't, it will only make it worse for him. He'll have that much more to lose and worry over. But I'll stay here and watch over him, make sure the mutants don't get him or nurse him when they do. I'm not going anywhere, I told him once, and I meant it. Because I love him.

You aren't going to let him read this transcript, right?

Disclaimer: They aren't mine and I'll put 'em back when I'm done with 'em.