It would be nice to be able to assign a number to my life - to say 'this is the equation of Fox William Mulder, and the answer is forty- two.' To look back and be able to add up to more than a suitcase full of dirty, crumpled clothes, a shabby motel room, and a hefty bar tab tonight. I wasn't clock-watching, but it clearly took much more time to create my daughter than it did to end my marriage. Seven years to lead up to that moment and six to lead up to this evening. Two A.M. Morning. Six years to lead to this morning. My wrist moves like a cobra striking. There's a hiss, then a satisfying 'thwap' sound as the sleek metal tip of the dart penetrates the corkboard. That's not true. My marriage has been ending for months; I just finally came home, checked in, and got the memo to pack. I had become that awkward variable you can't do anything with except divide it into both sides of the equation and make it go away. Thwap! Skinner warned me. He told me it was a choice - that no marriage was strong enough to survive me being on the road two-hundred and fifty days a year as ASAC of the X-files while Scully was still in D.C. I called home every night. I made it to every PTA, every kindergarten play, every dance recital. Every birthday and every anniversary. Sometimes I even managed to schedule a long enough layover to make love to my wife. I didn't tell Skinner any of that, though. I told Skinner to mind his own Goddamn business and that he'd better be more concerned with his own crumbling marriage than mine. Scully and I had braved mutants, clones, aliens, and the ever-present 'Them,' not to mention the monsters that drove Volvos and ate at TGI Fridays when they weren't killing little kids. She wanted the truth as much as I, and that meant we couldn't both be home reading bedtime stories. And she had to know how much my heart sank every time I kissed my family night-night and caught the next Delta redeye flight to nightmare land. Gotta be there by morning – the monsters get up early. I like the way a middle-aged Mary Kay wannabe dodges before she gets a dart directly between her overly made-up eyes. It makes me feel powerful; like I have some control and my life isn't just something to amuse the Gods. <"Christ, Scully - all we ever do is fight! I'm so sick of this shit! I'm sick of it!"> <"Then get out. Just get the hell out, Mulder!"> Thwap! Bullseye. Go me. Mary Kay makes the mistake of touching my left sleeve, her fingernails a gaudy purple against the starched whiteness. "You havin' a bad night, sweetie?" Don't Thwap! Fucking Thwap! Touch Thwap! ME! My, my - telepathy works after all. Mary Kay unclenches her talons and wanders off to find another excuse not to go home alone tonight. I'm probably supposed to watch her undulate. Sorry, sweetheart, you don't even compare. There are primes and there are remainders, and at the end of this night, you'll still be a remainder. My prime is home sleeping in my bed. Alone. Her choice, not mine. <"What is it, Mulder?"> Six years ago, Scully had opened her eyes from her hasty bed on the couch, peering at my face in the dim light and wiping sleep away with warm fingers. <"I want..."> I remember repeating that over and over like it was eloquent as I weighed her head in my hands, kneeling on the floor so I was between her and my front door. <"Stay."> Make a choice, Scully. Stay with me. I had felt my mouth on hers, so careful. Tentative; still asking, still trying to help her to understand what I couldn't put into words. <"Stay."> Her lips had opened under mine and her eyes had closed. And we created a miracle. Seven years to lead up to that moment and only six to forget why it ever happened. I shake it off like a wet dog and pull my phallic symbols out of the dartboard, walking back to renew my assault on the cork Mother Goddess. A legal separation, it's called. The attorneys will do their little dance, offering expensive pens for me to sign on the line indicating I understand Scully that doesn't want me in her life anymore. The linen paper will be creamy smooth, like the skin of a woman's back, making the words look so clean and efficient. Just initial here, Mr. Mulder - follow visitation schedule B and use this formula to pay child support and remember to return the key to the front door because you don't live at your house anymore. It's not personal at all, Mr. Mulder. Please, let the receptionist show you the way out of your life. Thwap! Christ, I hate it when Walter Skinner is right. **** Something's tied around my ankles and I kick madly, fighting, desperate to get free. I bolt upright, gasping for air, reassuring myself that I'm able to move and that gravity is in full force. Once my legs are untangled from the threadbare covers, I concentrate on slowing my breathing, trying to figure out what triggered this latest trip down repressed memory lane. I'm on the floor between the bed and the wall, hiding, most likely. The sheets, the blanket, the bedspread, and both pillows are on top of me, shielding me from 'Them' as I cower. Like Alien beam-me- up-Scotty-tractor-beams don't penetrate percale. Like they can't take me again anytime they damn well please and torture me for sport. Headlights. I was so drunk I forgot to close the drapes and someone just pulled into the parking space directly in front of my motel room. Breathe, Mulder. Just headlights. I wonder how many nights Scully awoke like this: alone, sweaty- cold, and afraid in the suffocating darkness. Knowing something was wrong but not able to place that wrongness in any context. She's never told me. Six years of marriage and Scully still has never told me – not that I was with her for very many of those nights.