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 just stayed at home, thinking he might call or come by when he got off work, and he often did.

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 loneliness 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.

She kept my secret, and she paid for her loyalty by being forced into a virtually silent existence, alone night after night in her hotel room, or her apartment. 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 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 beginning to seem at times. I was too wrapped up in my new lover. We couldn't be together often, 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; well, almost. 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 anyone 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 l argely 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, sobbing, that night.

When I told Daniel I was going over there, he was furious. He had gone to some trouble, taken some risks, to get the evening off, and we were supposed to be going out for dinner.

Not that I'd told him anything about Modell; it would never have occurred to me to do that. Somehow he just knew I'd had a rotten day (talk about understatement) and he was trying to cheer me up a little.

I told him I was going to have to take a rain check on dinner because I had to go see about Scully.

He demanded to know what she had said, what had happened that day, and I got pissed and wouldn't tell him. He had no business intruding into this, I told him; it was between me and my partner.

He got very quiet then. "I thought I was your partner," he said, so low I could scarcely hear him. Then he turned and walked away.

That hurt, because he was right, and I knew it.

I almost went after him, 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 how alone I had left 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 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 me and Daniel.

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.

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 or their 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, 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.

That shocked the ever-living shit out of me. I was staring at her; I knew it, and I knew I was really hurting her feelings, but I was just too god-damned 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.

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, and that I was rejecting 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 or since, 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 aversion toward 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; at worst, maybe, just a hint of revulsion.

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 from him. 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 pitiful 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 didn't guarantee that one of these strange men wouldn't hurt her or make her pregnant or infect her with something that couldn'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. The condoms would help keep her safe from pregnancy or disease, but the gun couldn't help her if she was attacked while she was in bed with one of her lovers.

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 love-making 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.