“He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky.These rocks, he thought, are waiting for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn; waiting for the shape my hands will give them.”

“He whispered against my mouth. “Wait for me, Aura.”

“Sometimes, he thought, all you could do was wait.”

“Mulder looked down at his partner. 'Please get better,' he said. 'I'm going to need all the help I can get.' He might have been crazy, but he thought he saw her head give a tiny nod. He'd have to wait and see.”

“If she answered, he could not hear it, and he certainly couldn't see her, so he went. First he crawled the rocks one by one, one by one, till his hands touched shore and the nursing sound of the sea was behind him. He felt around, crawled off and then stood up. Breathing heavily with his mouth open he took a few tentative steps. The pebbles made him stumble and so did the roots of trees. He threw out his hands to guide and steady his going. By and by he walked steadier, now steadier. The mist lifted and the trees stepped back a bit as if to make the way easier for a certain kind of man. Then he ran. Lickety-split. Lickety-split. Looking neither to the left nor to the right. Lickety-split. Lickety-split. Lickety-lickety-lickety-split.”

“I knew you were behind the tapestry,” he said. “I also knew the railing was about to give way. I was waiting for you, waiting for your fall.”Waiting all my life for you, he added silently, waiting all my life for you to fall in love with me.”