SUMMARY: It's strange to be here but not be who I was to you once. I'm not your Girl Friday anymore.

RATING: R

SPOILERS: Through The Beginning

DISCLAIMER: Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Proceed at your own risk. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. For recreational purposes only. Driver does not carry cash. And, as always, thank you for choosing Aloysia Airlines for your direct flight from canon to fanfic.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story is set not long after The Beginning. I have always been frustrated by what - to me - feels like completely wasted potential with Fowley. Part of it, I think, was the (mis)casting of Mimi Rogers. I think Linda Fiorentino or Jill Hennessy could have brought a lot more to the character. They're more how I see her in my head.

I think Diana is a sympathetic figure and I am often annoyed by the hatred of her character for seemingly no other reason that the fact that she isn't Scully. I think it cheapens the relationship Mulder and Scully have when characters like Fowley and Whitney serve only to promote cattiness. I don't much like Diana, but I do feel for her. This story was inspired by Regina Spektor's Samson. Author's notes continued at the end.

Many thanks to leucocrystal and scarletbaldy for being such amazing (and fast!) betas. It's been a while since I was in an XF-fic headspace and they were immeasurably helpful.


***

She came awake slowly, without the shrill of an alarm clock or the ringing of a phone to jolt her into the day. Her vision blurred, then cleared as she rubbed her eyes and sat up against the wall to look around.

Fox had his face crushed into his pillow, his back bare to the waist. The sunlight through the blinds left golden stripes across it. His breathing was steady and untroubled, and she thought of Endymion, whose lover had wished for him eternal sleep and borne him fifty dreaming daughters.

Diana wasn't sure how many daughters Fox had. Fifty was a high estimate, though not impossible depending on the durability of recent batches. Pity about Emily, but there had been no help for it. Diana believed in her cause, believed that it was better for some to be sacrificed than for all to perish. She was not one to walk away from Omelas.

She leaned forward and patted the blankets until she felt his discarded t-shirt. She turned it right-side out before pulling it over her head, combing her fingers quickly through her hair. Her movements stirred him and he rolled onto his back, sloe-eyed and drowsy as he blinked and yawned.

"Hello," she said, wanting to pull him on top of her and shut out the sun. He always looked good enough to eat in the morning, his skin the color of gingerbread and smelling of sex and cotton.

He sat up and kissed her. "That's my shirt," he observed.

Diana arched her eyebrow and wondered if the expression made him feel guilty. "I'll try not to sully it."

"I didn't mean to offend."

She scratched her elbow. "You didn't. But really Fox, you could at least keep something suitable tucked into a drawer if we're going to make a habit of this. I feel like a college student in your things."

"Why do you still call me Fox?" he asked.

She eyed him up lazily and didn't comment on the obvious change of subject. "For a man with a degree in psychology, you're remarkably obtuse at times."

"And for a woman who speaks nine languages, you're a remarkably poor conversationalist at times." His hair was sticking up the way it always did when he'd just awoken, and made her feel nostalgic.

"Watashi no hobākurafuto wa unagi de ippai desu." she said. "Che cosa faresti se ti baciassi?"

"Ich bin ein Berliner."

Diana smiled. "Those earnest Irish Catholics and their bad German. Does Agent Scully speak German in bed?" She wasn't so sure they were sleeping together, but the temptation to needle him about it was irresistible.

He rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't know. Why do you care, anyway?"

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and probed the floor with her bare foot, looking for her underwear. "I don't. I just want to know how honest you're willing to be. It's part of my job description." She found the underwear half under the bed and rose to make a show of putting them on.

"Sorry to disappoint, but you haven't waltzed into the middle of an affair. Why don't you ask Scully what she does in bed? Then you can report back."

Diana cocked her head thoughtfully. "She doesn't trust me."

"Well, she trusts me. And I intend to keep it that way."

"Your wife trusted you."

Enough time had passed that he didn't wince, but he looked disappointed in her for the cheap shot. Actually, she was disappointed in herself for it, but old habits died hard and bitter one-liners had been their primary form of communication near the end. Fox's shorts were on the floor, and she bent to retrieve them, tossing them at his head as she walked to the dresser.

He glared, but he stood and pulled them on without feigning modesty. "Would you like some coffee?" he queried. "The blood of a blond virgin?"

"Oh, is Langly coming by?" Diana peered in the mirror and squinted, examining her jaw line. Not too bad at all. She worked hard to keep herself fit and the benefits were myriad. It may be time to cut the hair though, she thought. It had begun to feel conspicuously youthful.

Behind her, Fox headed to the bathroom, his shorts slouchy around his narrow hips. She considered embarrassing him by following after, but decided against it. The toilet flushed, the water ran for a moment, and Fox emerged with a cheap purple toothbrush in his hand.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her.

She accepted it and opened the plastic package. "Do you buy these in bulk?"

He sighed. "I'm not who you want me to be," he told her. "Does that ruin the thrill for you?"

Diana reached out to touch his face, her fingers barely skimming his stubble, and then pulled back. "That's never been the thrill," she told him. It was the most honest thing she'd said to anyone in a long time, and it left her anxious. She walked past him to the bathroom, where she took in the evidence of his recent presence. Toilet seat up, towel damp, sink not quite rinsed of the white foam of spent toothpaste and saliva. She imagined him doing small domestic things. Buying shampoo and soap. Scrubbing the grout.

She brushed her teeth and thought of Dana Scully. Diana felt a brief stab of pity for the woman, with her tigress hair and kitten claws. She didn't know how to play these games, no matter how high her opinion of herself. Fox should have been more of a gentleman than to let his partner think she knew what she was doing. She spat into the sink and rinsed it clean. She dried her mouth on his bathrobe, then padded through his empty bedroom to the kitchen.

Fox was filling the coffee pot. "There's no milk," he told her. "Not liquid, anyway."

"Your problem," she said to him, crossing her arms, "is that you have an incurable weakness for women."

He emptied eight scoops of grounds into the filter. "Maybe you should cultivate a similar flaw. It would give us something interesting to talk about."

"I'm serious," she insisted, listening to the coffee pot gurgle and clunk. "I'm not just talking about sex. Your mother, Samantha…it's why you got married and why it was annulled eight months later. It's why we're here right now. Are you afraid of shattering the weaker sex? Is that what makes you give in? I suspect you may be a closet chauvinist." She didn't suspect any such thing, but his quiet deference did unsettle her at times.

"I have the psych degree, remember? We've already had that conversation today."

She slid against him, and put her hands on his ass. "Well, it's not like you're using it," she murmured into his ear. "I just wanted to play with it until you need it again." She wound her right hand around the front of his boxers and slipped her fingers under his waistband.

"This isn't your style, Diana," he sighed. "We know each other too well for this."

She inched her hand lower. "What were you thinking about in that room with Gibson?"

This seemed to pique his interest, because he turned to face her. "Why don't you ask him?"

"I'd have to know where he is, wouldn't I?" She pulled her hand away and lightly flicked his nose.

"It would certainly make things easier, wouldn't it?" He tapped his lip and assumed an elaborately puzzled countenance. "If only you knew someone who could solve such a mystery. Some kind of shadow-government type, perhaps…"

She pressed the length of her body to his, pushing him back against the counter. "Don't presume, Fox. I'm not who you want me to be either."

"Do you sleep with him? You, Marita...it's all very refined, I imagine."

"I don't know what you mean," she replied. "And Miss Covarrubias moves in the highest circles of government. She certainly doesn't -"

"You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

"Don't be vulgar," she said, but only because he expected her to. "I might just as well ask if you were sleeping with Senator Matheson." She put her hands on his flat belly and nipped at his throat.

He pushed her back. "What's a little blow job between friends? I'll get you some coffee, some breakfast if you want it, then you can take a shower and head out. I've got work to catch up on." He picked up the coffee pot and filled two mugs to the brim. He held one out to her, an offering of something she couldn't quite interpret.

She took the coffee as she had taken the toothbrush, accepting the small pieces of his life that he carefully doled out. "Do you love her?"

"I'll assume you mean Scully." He took a swallow of coffee. "I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to hurt you, either, believe it or not. To both those ends, we need to stop this."

"She loves you."

Fox shrugged wearily and set his mug down. "Go take a shower."

"Get in with me," she said, trailing her fingers lightly over his chest, hoping he wouldn't hear the actual longing in her voice. "For old times' sake. Then I'll leave you to the good doctor."

"Jealousy looks nice on you, Diana," he said. "It's alluring. I'm touched."

She pressed her bare thigh between his legs and he twitched obligingly against it. "What if I said I loved you?"

He smiled, and he looked like he meant it. "I think you used to," he told her kindly. "I think there was a time."

"But you don't now?"

He smoothed her hair from her face. "You don't know me anymore."

She looked up at him, the same strange, changeable eyes and untidy haystack of hair. She remembered the feel of his lip between her teeth, and the way he'd rasped her name against her ear. "You're driven by the same passions as you were back then," she said. "What don't I know?"

The question seemed to give him pause. "I've seen too much," Fox said at length. "The drive is the same, yes, but the idealism is gone. It's too big for me. You could have let us have access to that crime scene, Diana." He sounded hollow.

There was a pang in her stomach, the sick feeling of seeing a road killed deer. She took his hand in her own and pulled him back to the doorway. "Take a shower with me," she said. "And I'll go."

Something softened in his face, and he followed her through the living room and quietly stripped at the foot of his bed. He sat down and looked at her.

Diana pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the floor, wriggling back out of her underwear. She went to the bathroom and turned the shower on, the water a notch below hot, and got in. She stepped back when she heard Fox enter the bathroom, making room for him under the spray.

He ducked his head below the nozzle as he climbed in, soaking his head, and squirted a blob of pearly 2-in-1 shampoo into his palm. She leaned against the tile, languid in the steam, and watched him wash his hair. He rinsed himself, then poured more shampoo into his hand.

"Turn around," he said.

She did, closing her eyes as he worked the lather into her scalp, detangling the strands as he went. His hands were large and gentle on her shoulders, and goosebumps rose along her arms when he leaned forward and said, "All set" against her ear.

She faced him again, bowing her head to let the water run down over her, and noticed a wedge-shaped patch of irregular skin that started at his left toes and ran nearly to his ankle. "What happened to your foot?"

He glanced down. "Oh. That was the worst patch of frostbite from my summer vacation. The doctor thinks it'll be back to normal before long. Nothing serious." He took a bar of soap from the ledge and began to scrub his stomach.

Diana, in a sudden flash, saw herself cold and blue in a glass prison below the ice and knew with terrible certainty that he would not have come for her. That she'd be there still, suspended in time, until she was convenient enough to be defrosted like a TV dinner. She felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her.

"Did you get to go skiing, at least?" she asked, trying to distract herself from this unsettling epiphany. "All that snow…"

Fox laughed a little. "It was more like a luge." He held up the soap. "Get your back?"

"I've got it. Thank you though." She took the bar from his hand, washing herself quickly and not meeting his eye. She ducked past him to rinse and then stepped out of the shower, ignoring the confused look on his face.

She wrapped herself in towel, examining and rejecting his hairdryer before entering the bedroom. It seemed a long time ago that she had woken up under those tumbled sheets. Behind her, she heard the shower shut off and the rustling sound of the shower curtain. She quickly dried her hair as much as possible with the wet towel, and wished she had an extra pair of underwear.

"Diana?" he said, coming from the bathroom with a towel at his waist. "Everything all right?"

She gave him an appraising look as she slipped her bra on. "You would have left me there."

"What?"

"Your summer vacation," she clarified, hooking the band. "It was rather bold of you to go, all things considered. I imagine the expense was considerable, not that you've ever cared much about that when there's heroism involved. Not that you've ever had to, of course, which makes it easier."

He looked faintly annoyed, then closed his eyes and leaned in the doorway.

"The issue here, Fox, isn't that I don't know you anymore. It's that I know you perfectly well."

He gave her a hard look. "Is this why you're leaving? Because I went to Antarctica to get Scully? Because you think I'm sleeping with her? Diana, you have to reali -"

She shook her head. "This isn't about Scully. And I'm hardly one to moralize. The place she has in your life is appropriate. I'm just coming to understand it's the place I've vacated, and it's strange to be here but not be who I was to you once. I'm not your Girl Friday anymore."

His expression was one of mild surprise. "I didn't know you ever were."

She collected her fine silk blouse from the floor, then slipped it on. It felt like the roses he used to buy her, back when he was young and tried to impress her with flowers. Back when she was young and was impressed by them. "There was a time," she said, smiling.

He smiled back. "I've never known quite what to make of you."

"As I prefer it." She winked.

Fox walked fully into the bedroom then, and rummaged through his drawers for clothing. She busied herself with dressing the rest of the way, the lining of her skirt sticking as she tugged it on. She found a rubber band in a small box on his night table, and used it to tie back her hair.

"So," he said, buttoning his jeans. "Did you want anything to eat?"

Did he want her to stay? She decided he was being polite. "No thank you. It's time I got going." She slipped her shoes on and they clicked across the hardwood in a crisp, businesslike way.

He followed her out to the door, pausing by the couch to grab her briefcase. "Here you go, Miss Daisy," he said, handing it to her.

She shrugged it onto her shoulder, enjoying the familiar, responsible weight of it. She held out her hand, and he laughed a little when he shook it.

"A pleasure as always," he said.

"As always." She pulled her hand back from him then, turning to open the door.

He caught her wrist when she stepped across the threshold. "Do you ever wonder," he began, sounding hesitant, "if things had been different…"

Always. "Never."

He graciously let the lie pass. "Take care, Diana," he said, letting go.

"You too," she said, without looking back. "You too."

She walked out and tugged the door closed. She ambled slowly down the hall, listening to the creak of familiar floorboards, running her hand along the same old chair rail. It couldn't have lasted forever, she knew, and had ended as well as she'd hoped.

Diana reached the elevator and pushed the down button. She closed her eyes and drew several deep breaths as she waited for it to arrive, forcing herself to shed the morning and preceding night like a second skin. She had to be on a five o'clock flight to Tunisia. There were promises to keep.

The metal doors clanked open and she walked in, hoping he'd remember his fingers at her wrist - the question he'd asked - when he found out she'd betrayed him.

***

The End

***

Author's Notes continued: Diana says "My hovercraft is full of eels" (Japanese) and "What would you do if I kissed you?" (Italian). Mulder's German reply quotes President Kennedy on a trip to Berlin. He (sort of) said "I am a donut" instead of "I am a Berliner." It's roughly the equivalent of a person saying "I am a danish" instead of "I am Danish." Mulder's flip little remark about horticulture is courtesy of Dorothy Parker. I rather suspect Marita engaged in some heavy seduction in Tunguska.

I don't know if I think Mulder was ever married, but canon supports it and I find the notion intriguing. I opted for the marriage having been annulled, as this doesn't conflict with Mulder's FBI profile listing him as unmarried rather than divorced.