Hello, fellow shippers, and hello to any noromos who wandered in by mistake. You're welcome too. Wipe your feet.

My name is Paula Renfrew. I'm 36, I'm a court reporter in Des Moines, and I type for a living, so this page may run a little long. I started watching The X-Files in the fall of 1994 because my sister wouldn't stop talking about it, and I've watched every Friday and then every Sunday night since. My husband calls Sunday at nine "the sacred hour." He's learned not to call me during it.

WHY THE NAME?
If you saw the movie last summer, you know. The hallway outside Mulder's apartment. Scully has just told him she's leaving the FBI. They're closer than they've ever been, and just as it's finally, FINALLY about to happen, a bee stings her on the neck. A BEE. I shouted in the theater. The man in front of me turned around. I didn't care. Every shipper in America lost their minds that night, and the bee became our mascot.

WHY I'M A SHIPPER
It isn't about kissing. Well, it's a little about kissing. But mostly it's this:

• She's the only person he trusts, and he's the only person who never once treats her as less than the smartest one in the room.
• Every time one of them is taken, sick or lost, the other one tears the world apart to get them back. Count how many times. I have. It's a lot.
• They argue constantly and respect each other completely. That's a marriage, if you ask me, and I've been married eleven years.
• The show is at its best in the quiet minutes after a case, when they just talk.

A WORD TO THE NOROMOS
I understand your side. You think romance would ruin the show, that it's about the X-Files and not about them, and that the tension is better than any payoff. That's fair. We can disagree politely. But I'd ask you to watch the last scene of Triangle again and tell me with a straight face there's nothing there.

THE EPISODE FILE
My favorite shipper episodes, a couple from each season, one through six, with how much each one made me yell at the television. Open the episode file >>

WAITING FOR SEASON SEVEN
The last we saw, Mulder was in the hospital and Scully was on a beach in Africa. Season seven starts in November and I will be in my chair at nine sharp. People keep saying seven may be the last season. I refuse to think about that until I have to. All I ask, Mr. Carter, is no more bees.