Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 13 ***** "...which must be a real strain on him...I think he always felt comfortable being the crazy one..." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, August 7, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland July 2000 "Where are you?!" Scully demanded, her voice hoarse from misuse. She pulled the drawers from the dresser and dropped the contents in a heap on the floor. There had to be some sort of transmitter, some kind of speakers. There had to be... "Dana, listen." "NO!" She pressed her hands over her ears, and squeezed her eyes shut, tears finally rising in her frustration and distress. "I won't," she cried. "I won't!" Her face was hot, flush from exertion. "Dana, you must prepare." "SHUT UP!" "You must prepare." It was her brother's voice that haunted her, that refused to let her rest. "Charlie's dead!" Her voice scratched through her raw throat. She felt hot and cold at one. "Who the hell are you?" "Must prepare," the voice said. It was to her left and right at the same time; all around her, and inside her head. "Stop saying that!" "Saying what? Scully?" Mulder stood in the doorway, arms full of splintered fire wood. "Who are you talking...Jesus, Scully, are you OK?" She hadn't noticed he came in. She turned her back to him and quickly wiped her face with the backs of her hands. "Prepare..." The man whispered. "There!" She whirled around to Mulder. "Did you hear that?" "Hear what?" He dropped his load, slammed the door and threw the latch. "That voice. Why can't you ever hear it?" He winced. "Still your brother?" he asked. "Mulder, I'm not making this up." "Obviously." He went to her, stooped down to her eye level and smoothed his hands down her arms. "Sit and breathe for a moment." He tried to coaxed her to the bed. "No!" She pulled out of his grasp. "This whole place is bugged. It's gotta be. And I'm going to find them. Those bastards think they can mess with me. I'll wring their necks with my bare hands!" "Bugged?" "The joke's over, boys," Scully yelled at any receivers that might have been listening. "I'm on to your little scheme! And Langley, this has your fingerprints all over it. I swear, when I get my hands on you -" Mulder placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Scully." "No!" She flinched away from him. "I'm not going easy on him. Langley's gone too far this time!" "Dana," he said quietly, his gaze intense. "Langley's dead." "Oh." Right. She looked down at the piles of clothes on the floor, the spilled water and the remains of her lunch where it had landed flat against the wall, the bed stripped bare of blankets and sheets as if seeing them for the first time. And, out of no where a cramp seized her middle. Scully cried out as she doubled over the heavy ball of her stomach. "Oh, God." Her knees gave way to the shooting pain, and Mulder caught her before she crumpled to the ground. When the stabbing receded just as instantly as it hit, Scully found herself on her side on the bare mattress. Mulder had wrapped her in blankets and was screaming over his shoulder at the closed door for help. "No, no." Scully reached out and brought his attention back to her. "I'm OK now. The pain is gone." She made some tentative motions just to be sure, and then tried to sit up. "Don't, Scully. Lay down." He brushed the hair back from her forehead. "I don't know what to do, Scully. What do I do?" His eyes were wide, his face pale and panicked. "God, I wish Renee was here." She pulled his hand down to her abdomen so he could feel the little one moving within her. "I think it's OK." His face softened when he felt the light kick, and he bent down to press his cheek against her belly. "It's not OK, Scully. You nearly passed out," he began, but she cut him off. "Mulder, I'm fine now." "You're not fine, Scully. You're not. You're as far from fine as I've ever known you to be." He got one of the case-less pillows from the floor and slipped it under her lifted head. Then he kissed her temple. "Scully...Dana." He closed his eyes for a moment as if gathering strength. When he met her gaze, his face was stony, impossible to read. "You're having auditory hallucinations. And acting erratically. You're showing signs of paranoia and aggression -" "Aggression? Towards who? You?" "If you were younger I might think it was schizophrenia." "What?!" Scully struggled to sit up. "You can't be serious." "I'm not sure that's the answer, though -" She cut him off again. "And they're not hallucinations, Mulder. I do hear him. I hear his voice. It's real." He swallowed. "I know you think you do." "I do! I hear him. I swear." "Hey, I believe you," he said gently. "You don't. Don't lie to placate me. You never used to do that." Mulder sighed. He sat back on his heels. "I want to believe you. I'm trying. But this voice, you can't even remember what it says." "Charlie said I have to prepare." Her admission caught him off guard. He leaned forward, his elbows against the mattress. She could tell he wanted to give her every benefit of the doubt, and it gave her a spark of hope. "Prepare for what?" "I don't know. He's been saying it all week, and it's driving me crazy...bad expression." "But you know it isn't your brother, don't you? Charlie is dead." And just that quickly, the small spark of hope fizzled. "Are you saying now you don't believe in ghosts?" "Are you saying you do?" he countered. "Why is it an X-File when it happens to you, or someone else, but it's insanity when it happens to me?" "Because," he said slowly, deliberately. "I know the difference." "Mulder, I'm not crazy." He didn't say anything, but he picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. When he closed his eyes again, a tear broke free from his lashes and fell to the blanket. He honestly thought she'd lost her mind. And there was no chip to heal her this time. ***** Mid-July 2000 "Scully? What are you doing?" She looked from the sudsy scouring brush in her right hand, to the bowl of soapy water, to her looming husband. He wore a fresh pair of jeans, a clean shirt and pull-over, and raked a towel over his wet head. "Interpretive dance." She went back to the monotonous rhythm of scrubbing the floorboards. For eight days he shadowed her every move, leaving her only for the handful of minutes he spent in the bathroom. Dag brought in all the supplies they needed, but never stayed for more than a minute or two. Her mother visited nearly every day, but never broached more than light conversation, and even that felt forced. Scully wasn't sure what Mulder had said to them, but it was clear by the way they looked at her as if she might foam at the mouth at any moment that he said something. It was strange, suddenly seeing the world through the lens Mulder had worn for so many years, especially now that he was looking at her through the other side. And, of course, that was the most difficult part. That Mulder, for the first time, was on the outside peering in. "So you need some help?" he asked. "No." She wasn't crazy. She knew this. She heard what she heard. Charlie was trying to reach her. Period. "Would you like some help?" She turned to see Mulder squatting beside her. He smelled good, like fresh soap, and his eyes were bright. He gave her a little smile. A wonderful, genuine smile. "Do you know how to scrub a floor?" she asked. "Do I know how to scrub a floor?" he repeated with a chuckle. "I am the guy who taught Mr. Clean all he knows." He took up the scrub brush from her hand and admired it as if it were a precious gem. "Ah, yes. I knew one of these once upon a time." "That must've been long before your last apartment." She gave him a smirk, and he rewarded her with a humored snort. "I'll get some cloths from the bathroom." When he rose, she watched him walk into the next room. Almost normal. He was somehow able to make it almost normal. Almost. Scully looked down at her hands, red and wrinkled from the water, and then to her belly. It was so good of him to try for normal when it was so painfully obvious that they would never know normal again. ***** The snow continued to fall. Large, wet flakes that twirled in the wind and landed on the covered ground with a faint crunch. She stood in front of the window and watched the never changing scene play out before her. White on grey. Frozen. Mulder emerged from the bathroom. "Scully? What are you doing?" Her eyes and throat burned from the cold. "It never changes." The snow burned where it pin-pricked her face. He pulled her back from the window, closed it and yanked the black out curtains shut. Then, he whirled around and grabbed two blankets from their unmade bed, draped them around her shivering shoulders and eased her to sit on the far side of the bed next to the fireplace. "Your lips are blue, Scully," he said as he knelt before her, brushed the ice from her tangled hair. How long were you standing there?" "It's still snowing," she told him. "It's June. There's no summer." "Scully, your feet." He pulled them into his lap and began to vigorously rub first the left, then the right. His hands were like fire, and she flinched from his touch. "They're like blocks of ice. Christ, Scully, what were you trying to do?" He didn't understand. She couldn't delude herself into thinking they were stuck in a particularly bad winter any longer. The Colonists had done something to their planet, something permanent and devastating. The sun was gone, and all that was left was cold and lifeless and useless. Charlie was right. Mulder wasn't going to be able to save them this time. Even though she knew he wanted to so badly. This time it was all up to her. Mulder wrapped her feet in the blanket again, and then jumped up to quickly hang the water kettle to heat over the fire. He looked in several of the tins on the small square table turned kitchen counter. "Where's the damn tea?" They were out. He slammed the empty container on the table. His face went red, and the vein in his forehead bulged. "Damn it, Scully! I can't be with you every minute of the day!" "No, you can't." "What were you thinking, Scully? It'll take the rest of the day for the hearth to heat this place up again. Why would you stand in front of an open window?" She didn't know what to say to get him to stop yelling. So, she shrugged. "Did you see something out there?" he continued to badger. "Did something upset you?" His worn jeans were creased at the bends in his legs, his sweater was too large for his thin, wiry frame. And there was something different about his familiar beauty that Scully couldn't quite place. "What?" He threw his hands in the air. "Are you not speaking now?" "Mulder?" "Scully?" "Who cut your hair?" It was shorter, not quite as shapeless. He ran a self-conscious hand over his head. "Your mother. Three days ago. Right here in this room. You watched the whole thing, Scully, and then she trimmed your hair, too." Scully reached up and felt the blunt cut of her hair at her shoulders. Of course. She remembered. She turned back to the closed window, and the snow that scoured the frozen glass. "The snow never stops. Ever. Dag cleared out the drift from the side of the house, just like he does every four days because the snow never stops." "Scully, tell me, why did you open the window?" "You never stop, either, Mulder." "What does that mean?" "I can't live like this anymore," she told him. "Is that..." He moved closer to her, his face carrying obvious distress. "Is that why you opened the window? Were you trying to hurt yourself? The baby?" She was shocked by his accusation. Hurt. Disappointed. "You know me better than that." "I used to," he admitted, "but not anymore. This is all new to me, Scully. I'm trying to understand, to figure you out -" "No, you're not," she snapped. "How can you say that?" "Because you won't even consider the possibility that my brother is reaching out to me." "I want to help you, Scully." "You can't. Even Charlie said so." Mulder closed his mouth and stared at her for a moment, his eyes narrow, his face unreadable. The kettle on the fire began to squeal, and Mulder grabbed its cloth-covered handle and poured the boiling water into a mug. "I'll have Dag bring some more tea," he muttered, more to himself than her. When he handed it to her he added, "try to drink the whole thing. It'll warm you up." "Mulder, you can't think that I would ever do anything to hurt our child." "Not intentionally, no. But I'm not sure you're in total control of your actions anymore." And, for the first time, Scully saw something resembling pity in his eyes. "That's it! I can't live like this anymore. I can't! I can't take this from you!" His eyes narrowed. "Take what from me? What does that mean?" "I want you to leave," she said. "Or I will." If she'd spouted fire from her mouth, Mulder couldn't have been more surprised. "You...what?" "I mean it, Mulder. I can't take your smothering. I'm not equipt for it, and especially now -" "Especially now you need me! I can't leave you! I won't." "Oh, Mulder. I always need you." "You're not thinking rationally," he said with a shake of his head. "And I can't handle your constant dismissals. I'm used to you not accepting what I say out of hand, but now you don't even listen. I've lost your trust. I've lost your respect." His mouth dropped open. "That's...that's not true." "Mulder, it is." "You can't believe that." "Oh, Mulder. I can." She was so tired. Too tired to try to convince him of something he wasn't ready to see, Scully curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her middle. She started to shiver. "Will you close the door?" "The door is closed." "Then why is it so cold?" "It's cold because you opened the window, Scully." He came around the bed, and she felt his weight sag the mattress below her. "Will you close the window, then? I can't get warm." He hugged her to him, rubbed his hands up and down her arm. His breath was hot on her cheek. "I'll take care of it, Scully. Don't worry." She reached up and took his warm hand in hers. "You're always warm. Stay with me while I take a nap." "Sleep." He kissed her ear. "I'm not going anywhere." ***** Late July 2000 It was such a shock when Scully looked down at the blood on the cloth. She had forgotten that blood could be so bright, so red. In the mirror above the sink she could see a small smear above her upper lip. The rest of her face was the color of ash. A sudden wave of dizziness swept over her, and Scully managed to seat herself on the toilet, while she clung to the sink basin to stay upright. Mulder was just in the next room. "He can't help you." Scully gasped, recoiled. Charlie sat in the tub, fully clothed in his Marine whites, legs crossed, and a solemn look on his round, ruddy face. Her heart hammered in her throat. "You know he can't," he said. Scully couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Charlie was dead. She saw him die. "Don't let his struggle distract you from what you need to do, Dana." Was he really a ghost? Oh, God. Mulder was right, she thought. She had completely lost her mind. "Don't be afraid," her brother continued. His usual, friendly smile lightened his face. "You're not alone in this. You have the strength you need to do what must be done." Scully shook her head. "You're not here. You're not real." She clenched her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. His fingers were warm as they brushed over the back of her hand. "You haven't been listening," he said gently. "It's imperative that you listen." "Am I crazy, Charlie?" "Dana, they're going to come in the first hour. You must be prepared." His intensity was so like the Charlie she remembered, his eyes were caring and honest. "To do what?" The smile slipped from his face. "To give them what they came for." "What did they come for?" Charlie's gaze dropped to her stomach. No. Not her baby! "But...they've been here longer than...why do they want...? No. NO!" She wouldn't give them her child. Never. "Scully?" The door flew open, and Mulder rushed to kneel in front of her. "Oh, God. Not again." He pulled a towel from the rack of the wall and began wiping the blood from her lip. "It's the only way, Dana," Charlie continued. Neither man seemed to notice the other. "In the first hour they will come." "Scully, calm down. It looks like it's stopped bleeding already. It's not so bad." "Mulder, they're going to take our baby!" She gripped his upper arms. "They're going to come and take our baby!" "Dana, he cannot help you." "Who?" Mulder asked. "No one's going to take the baby." "I won't let it happen! I won't! It's my baby!" "Scully, no one's going to take the baby. Everything's going to be OK." He shushed her and smoothed the hair at the back of her neck, and she became distracted by the compassion in his eyes, by his soothing touch. If she was truly insane he was her only link to reality now. "That's it," Mulder said. "Breathe. Everything's going to be OK." "Mulder, Charlie's in the tub." He slowly met her gaze. "You see him?" Scully nodded. Tears blurred her vision. "I felt him, Mulder. He touched my hand, and I felt him." He turned to look at the tub, and then back at Scully. "You see him right now?" "Dana," Charlie said, "If you fight, you cannot survive. Trust that you are strong enough not to fight. Prepare for the first hour." Scully turned back to her husband and his scrutinizing eyes. She nodded. "He's still talking." "OK," Mulder said on an exhale, and gave her a tiny nod. "Then let's go back to the other room where it's not quite so crowded." ***** End of chapter 13 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 14 ***** "I know Mulder loves me but I'm not sure that's such a blessing anymore. For him, or for me. Sometimes I feel like a dead appendage on someone who refused amputation." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, July 28, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland early August 2000 Mulder purposely pushed his foot into his worn, brown leather boot and began to lace it up. He glanced at her watching him, and asked, "Aren't you going to get dressed?" On her side, cheek pressed into the softness of the warm pillow, arms tucked at her chest, Scully watched as he finished with a double tied bow just above his ankle and pulled on the second boot. The fire, freshly stoked, left her face warm, and it was difficult to keep her eyes open. "I think not," she said over a yawn. With a heavy sigh Mulder's shoulders sagged, and he wearily shook his head. In the last week he'd given her more disapproving looks before breakfast than he had their entire partnership. She'd slid down the respect pole from partner to dependent to child. On mornings like this she was glad he couldn't stand to stay cooped up in the house with her, because his disapproval was becoming increasingly difficult to take. And Charlie was becoming harder to ignore. Her brother stood in the corner by the coat pegs, his arms crossed, and a scowl distorting his normally jovial face. His piercing Scully-blue eyes never seemed to blink as he stared into her, as if trying to will her to give in and acknowledge him. Charlie was every bit as stubborn in her imagination as he'd been in life. But he was just a figment of her diseased mind, and Mulder was right to insist she fight it. She had to at least try for him, and for their unborn child. Of course, it was easy for Mulder to demand she ignore her figment. How adamant would he be if it were his sister Samantha that haunted them, and only he could see and hear her? And how successful would he be? For Scully, it was torture to have her brother there, as clear and real as she herself was, and not be able to talk to him, to embrace him, to enjoy his presence even if she couldn't explain it to Mulder's satisfaction.. Scully loved her brother, and still felt the grief and guilt of his loss. More acutely so every time she caught his figure in the corner of her eye. And now, weeks after she first saw him, he never left. He haunted her days and nights. There, between the fireplace and the door, where he had tirelessly leaned for hours into the shadow, he stood as a constant reminder of everything she'd lost. And was continuing to lose. Mulder cleared his throat, irritated. "Are you saying you want to go to the party in your night gown, or that you're not going?" "What party?" "Scully," his tone was hard. "We talked about this. About how the kids have written a little play, about how your mother and a couple of the women put together some baby gifts. Remember? About how you were going to get dressed for the first time in weeks and comb your hair, and we were going to go to the main cabin to eat some chocolate cake and drink apple juice, listen to music, talk to other people - real people - and laugh a little because there's been too damn much crying. What's the point of surviving if every day's a fucking funeral?" He caught himself as his emotions reached a breaking point, and forced himself to take a deep breath. His jaw worked a couple of times as he redirected anger Scully knew was meant for her. "Please. Please get dressed and come with me." His face remained a schooled neutral, but his body language told her he didn't expect an affirmative response. It broke her heart to see him that way. She couldn't say no. "Of course I'll come," she told him. "I just forgot, is all." The half lie had him exhale in relief. She pushed herself up and off the bed and took a moment to steady herself on swollen feet. "NO!" Charlie's sudden outburst made her jump. "LISTEN TO ME!" he screamed. Scully recoiled. "What is it?" Mulder demanded, but Scully couldn't take her eyes off of Charlie. Her brother threw his arms into the air, rant continuing. "LISTEN TO ME, DANA! THEY'RE COMING! YOU HAVE TO BE READY!" He flew by the table and smashed the breakfast glasses and their contents to the ground. They shattered, splattering water over the wall and floor. Mulder stumbled off of the stool, mouth gaping. "YOU CAN'T FIGHT THEM! YOU CAN'T WIN!" Charlie continued. At the window he ripped the curtain from the rod, and the rod from the wall, and hurled all of it across the room to land in a heap at the bathroom door. "LISTEN! IT'S ALL ON YOU, DANA! ALL OF IT!" Terrified, Scully covered her ears and fought the tears. "No," she moaned. "I won't listen!" She refused to give in to the insanity, and crumpled awkwardly to the floor by the bed. "You're not real! Go away!" But he felt so real, and the fear that pumped through her veins told her to run. "LISTEN!" Charlie roared, but it was her father's voice that echoed in the room. Scully's heart pounded inside her chest, ears streamed down her cheeks, her nose began to run. "THERE IS REASON BEHIND MADNESS, PURPOSE BEHIND CRUELTY!" So close she could feel the stiff polyester of his crisp white pants against the back of her hand, Charlie pulled both pillows from behind Scully, and threw them in the fire. A great whoosh of ash and smoke billowed from the hearth as the initial smothering of the flames began to feed them. Feathers popped as they burned. "What the hell?!" Mulder rushed to Scully to pull her off the floor and away from the fire, and then turned his attention on trying to disburse the flames. "DANA!" Her father's words, her brother's furious eyes. "YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH! YOU CAN SURVIVE! BE PREPARED TO FIND THE TRUTH!" "Go away!" she whimpered. A searing pain shot through her middle and wrapped itself all the way to her spine. Scully cried out and staggered backwards in pain, clutching her belly. She wasn't sure if she was going to throw up or pass out. Mulder was beside her in an instant. He guided her to the bed, lifted her on to it. "Scully! What's happening?" He pushed the entire bed as far from the fire as it would go. The pillows were completely ablaze, and Mulder used the poker and his boots to push and kick the whole pile back as deeply inside the brick cavity as he could before rushing back to her. And when he did, he froze. Blood gushed from her nose like water from a faucet. She tried to staunch the flow with blankets, but choked and coughed and more blood splattered. She went hot and then cold, and the room began to dip around her, and Scully reached out her to husband, but he was already at the door screaming into the blizzard for help, and a biting wind ripped through the room, and the fire seemed to explode. "THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU!" Her last thought before losing consciousness was: Charlie was so very wrong. She wasn't strong enough... ***** Her face burned from the wind, and her body shook with every lurching step Mulder took. She came to in his arms, in the storm, the impossible weight of her stomach like a bowling ball pressing her down, stealing her breath, making her sick. It was impossible to move, so she groaned. "I know, baby," she felt him say, the grumbled of his voice vibrated from his throat to her cheek. "We're almost there." Another cramp rippled through her middle, starting just below her breasts and working its way down. She tensed, needing to curl around the pressure. "Scully?!" Mulder wavered in his panic. "It hurts," she breathed, but her voice was lost to the storm. It didn't matter, there was nothing he could do. Scully closed her eyes and concentrated on the on the pain as it slipped down into her pelvis, and then dissipated. They stepped into warmth, and suddenly there were a dozen people all talking at once, shouting for blankets and water and room to breathe. "Put her on the bed," her mother ordered. "What happened?" Dag demanded. "Is it time?" This from Frohike, who peered at her from across the room. When Mulder lowered her to the cold bed, she rolled to her side and closed her eyes. Blankets were heaped over her, and Mulder was saying something, but Scully couldn't hear him above the newest wave of pain to inch its way down the front of her belly. Not a sharp pain, not horribly unbearable pain, but a pressing, uncomfortable pain that clenched through muscles she hadn't used in months. When it finally sank down into her pelvis, she moaned in relief. "Oh, God! Is it the baby? Isn't it too soon? What do I do?" Mulder's frantic voice kept her from sliding into a doze. "Dag, find a doctor." "Where?" "I don't know. I don't care. Just find one!" Mulder continued bellowing orders, but Scully just curled into a tighter ball. She was so cold. "Dana?" Her mother's tender voice, and the dip of the mattress behind her came just as the next ripple of cramps fizzled away. "Dana, look at me." She managed to turn her head and open her eyes. Mulder was still somewhere behind her mother, shouting at Frohike who just stood staring. "Dana," Margaret said, "tell me what happened." She had a warm, wet cloth in one hand, and began wiping the caked blood from Scully's neck. The heat sent a shiver down Scully's spine. "Tell me what labor feels like," Scully asked. "Labor?" Margaret's eyes grew wide as saucers. "Dana, are you in labor?" "I-I don't know." She reached up and stopped her mother's ministrations and took up the washcloth. The drying blood that had had a chance to pool at her ear was beginning to itch, and she rubbed at it. "Well, you'll know," her mother assured her. "I know that's what they say, but it doesn't help me, Mom," she said through clenched teeth. Her mother straightened the blankets around her shoulders and pulled them up to her chin. "It's worse than any menstrual cramp you've ever had. And with Missy and Charlie there was this stabbing back pain." "Mom, I need you to check to see if there's any bleeding...or anything. Will you do that for me?" "Of course, baby." Scully turned her head while her mother lifted the layers of blankets. They needed a doctor. Or a mid-wife. Someone who knew more about this than Scully did. Someone who could take control of the situation so she wouldn't have to. For the hundredth time Scully regretted the things she'd said to Renee, and wished her there. "Ugh..." Scully winced as the pain began to build again. "We need to time these. Do you have a watch?" Margaret shook her head, but turned immediately to Mulder. "Fox!" she shouted. "Leave that poor man alone and tell me what time it is." "Frohike, do you have a watch?" Scully asked. She was surprised how weak her voice was. "Something with a second hand?" He nodded and pushed his sleeve up. "All digital." "Start timing now," Scully said on an exhale. Her mother disappeared with the wash rag as the waves worked their way down. She closed her eyes, furrowed her brow, tried to remember something about the handful of births she helped deliver in med school to alleviate some of the anxiety, but all she could think of were the tiny little hats and booties, the new fathers crying and laughing at the same time, and the mothers-to-be screaming. Her pain wasn't that bad. She wondered how long it would be before the pain would become unbearable. When her body finally relaxed and she was able to breathe, she whispered, "Time." "Uh...Forty-one seconds," Frohike read. Was that all?! Her eyes snapped open, and Mulder's panicked face was looking down at her. He knelt by the bed like a pilgrim before his goddess, afraid to touch her, unable to stop his fingers from combing through her hair. "Tell me what to do," he begged. She reached out and ran her fingers over his stubbled cheek. "Tell me you love me." "I love you," he said. "More than anything. More than life, itself. More than love. More than..." "The truth?" she supplied with a small smile. "You are my truth, Scully. I love you. I love you." Margaret returned with another cloth, and Mulder began cleaning away the rest of the evidence of her nose bleed, and studied her. "It was Charlie, wasn't it? The pillows? The glasses?" Scully nodded. "I'm not crazy, Mulder." She said it for herself as much as him. She'd gotten so used to the idea of being out of her mind that it actually seemed odd to think "You suddenly developing psychokinetic powers isn't any more unbelievable than you seeing the ghost of your dead brother." "Spirit," she corrected. "Ghosts aren't real." Mulder smirked at her distinction. "But why can you see him when I can't?" "I don't know. Maybe you weren't meant to see him. Or maybe you didn't want to." She met his gaze. "You're not convinced. You still think I'm nuts?" "No," he assured her with a lopsided grin. "Or at least, if you are nuts, at least now we can be nuts together." "Thanks - oh..." She cringed. "Frohike, time!" "It's been...uh...four minutes." "OK," she said on an exhale. Forty-five seconds. She could do that. Scully concentrated on her breathing, on trying not to waste any energy, on staying calm. "OK. Time." "Twenty seconds," Frohike announced. "Should I be boiling water or something?" Mulder asked with a shrug. "I don't think this is it," Scully told him, shaking her head. The room twisted a little, and she realized she was still lightheaded from her blood loss. "It could just be Braxton Hicks." "False labor?" Mulder seemed overly concerned. "It's very natural. I'm well into my third trimester. It's possible I could have these off and on for a couple of weeks." "God, I hope not." Scully gave him a weak smile. "Yeah. Me, too." "Listen." He leaned closer and ran his fingers through her hair. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you don't look so good, and you scared the hell out of me, and if this is something more... Scully, I don't know what to do." "Do you want to contact the Resistance? Where are they now?" "Some mountain in Tibet," he said distracted, as he glanced over his shoulder. The whole room was still, with Frohike standing near the bathroom door, and Scully's mother sitting at the table. Two of her friends were also standing across the room, and Scully guessed they had been there when they'd arrived at her mother's cabin and decided to stay for the show. They were sisters from Germany, though Scully couldn't remember their names. When he turned back to her Scully could see he was annoyed by the spectators. "Any more...false labor?" "Not yet," she said. "Why don't you try to get some rest, OK? I want to check on the cabin and make sure it's still in one piece. And maybe see if we can -" He was interrupted by the door slamming open and Dag spilled in accompanied by Alajo, the tall and thin LA costumer that Scully had met when he altered some clothes to fit around her stomach. He wore a green sweater over a yellow undershirt, and a fusca parka that was at least three sizes too small for his lean frame. "Where's the momma - oh, there you are. And such a vision of motherhood." He stripped off the coat and rolled up his sleeves and insinuated himself between Mulder and the bed, effectively knocking him out of the way. "And how far apart are the contractions, Dana?" "Uh..." "What the hell?!" Mulder eloquently demanded. "He birth the baby," Dag explained. "You're a midwife?" Scully asked, brows raised.. "Well, no. I breed champion Schnauzers. I've helped twenty seven bitches whelp more than a hundred pups," he said with pride. His brown eyes beamed over his ample nose. "And a birth is a birth." "She's not having puppies," Mulder said with disgust. "Get the hell out of here! Dag!" Dag jumped. "You say find doctor, but there is no doctor. I find him." His face was red and upset. " "Dag, it's fine," Scully assured him, though he didn't seem to believe her. His eyes continued to retreat back to the annoyance on Mulder's face. "And Alajo, thanks for rushing over here, but I don't think I'm in real labor." Alajo cocked his head and shrugged. "All right. You call me when you need me." He left without incident. Another cramp crawled through her middle, lasting only ten seconds, and coming more than seven minutes after the last. Scully wasn't really disappointed they would have to wait. They weren't quite ready for the baby to come. Exhausted, Scully burrowed deep into her mother's pillow and under the layers of blankets Mulder piled on top of her. She would have to spend some serious time getting Mulder ready for the big event. But more so, Scully needed to prepare herself. Maybe Charlie was right after all. Maybe his spirit had purpose in seeking her out. She felt more confident in that now than she ever did, and not just because Mulder now believed. There was a calmness deep inside her chest, a tiny place where she felt solid once again. As she began to drift, Scully focused on that feeling, clung to it life a life preserver. It wasn't much, but it was more than she'd had for a long time, and with that newfound inner peace came the first rays of true hope. ***** End of chapter 14 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 15 ***** "It's so strange to be celebrating something I'm not sure I believe in anymore. Especially when I look at my mother, her fingers sliding over the lines of text as she reads the verses I've heard my whole life...[whose] true meanings I'm just starting to comprehend." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, December 24, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland late August 2000 Scully dreamed. She knew it was a dream, even as she fled down the dark, winding corridors of the Hidden City, using both arms to support the massive weight of her pregnant belly. The soles of her feet slapped against the coarse rock floor, cold and unforgiving. They were coming. She could feel them, like a pressure behind her eyes and a taste like bile at the back of her throat. They were coming for her and her baby. Around the next corner she nearly tripped over Mulder. He crouched at a small campfire burning in the middle of the hall. With a look of annoyance he glanced up at her, the sharpened pole in his right hand was black and smoking. "Why are you running?" he asked. "Why do you always run?" "Mulder, they're coming," she told him, and glanced behind her at the empty tunnel. "We have to find someplace to hide!" "There's no place to hide, Scully. You know that." He shook his head and tested the tip of his make-shift spear with his finger. It came away with a bead of blood. He seemed satisfied. "Just stand behind me," he ordered, rising to his full height. "I'll protect you." "With a stick? Mulder, that's crazy!" "Quick, give me the baby, Scully." He looked at her expectantly, and held out a hand. "No, give*me* the baby!" Scully turned to see a shadowed figure running toward her, an arm raised, the gleam of a silver knife trained on her middle. Terror shot through her like bolt of electricity, and Scully grabbed Mulder's arm. "Stop him!" "Stop who?" He looked down at her, concern and pity in his eyes. "Scully, there's no one there." But the man was real, the knife was real, and Scully fled as fast as her legs would carry her farther down the shadowed tunnel. "Mulder, help me!" she screamed. "Help!" And suddenly he was there, in front of her, holding her head and her arm. "Scully, wake up," he said. The edge in his voice ripped through the fabric of the nightmare and she was able to pull herself awake. "It's just a dream," he cooed. He sat beside her on her mother's bed. Anxiety lined his face, pulled at the edges of his eyes and mouth. His hair was a mess, as if he'd been running his fingers through it. Her mother stood over his shoulder, equally concerned. But no knife, and no shadowed man was anywhere to be found. Relieved and exhausted, Scully flopped back on to the pillow. The air was cold against her moist face and neck. She closed her eyes for a moment and held her breath, trying to calm her racing heart. It was a new variation on the same dream she'd been having for months. Mulder was a new element to the familiar scenario, and a disturbing one. "You OK now?" Mulder smoothed the hair plastered to her sweaty cheeks. "It sounded bad." "I'm fine," she said, under her breath. As irrational as it was, even after waking Scully still carried the frustration her dream self had for him. She shoved the heels of her hands into her eyes to rub away the last lingering images of the knife. "Just give me a minute." "OK." She felt him leave her side just as the door slammed open. A blast of frigid sailed through the room until the door was shut hard against the storm. "They're on their way," Frohike reported, his words muffled. He was bundled from head to foot, a colorful scarf tied around his head left a tiny slip for his steamed-up glasses to peek through. He looked like a child dressed by an over-attentive mother to go out and play in the snow. "ETA: about seven hours, give or take. They're not sure about landing in the area. The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves." Scully watched her husband nod as he absorbed the information. "Is a doctor coming? Seven hours is a long flight, she could go into labor before we get there." "They said someone named...Boar." "Bohr?" Mulder corrected, clearly shocked to hear the name. "How the hell did he make it out?" Mulder shot a glance to Scully who propped herself up on an elbow. "Mulder, what's going on?" "We're going to Tibet," he told her, then turned back to his friend. "Frohike, I need you to help Mrs. Scully pack." To her mother he said: "Only take what you need. There won't be a lot of room on the Mirage. It seats four, and there's no storage. With a pilot and Bohr, and the three of us, I'll have to sit in the leg room -" "Mulder," Scully interrupted. "Why are we going to Tibet?" He turned to her, his gaze appraising. "Because I believe you. And I believe your brother -" "Fox?" Margaret asked, shocked. He shook his head at her disbelief. "Mom, you didn't see the things flying through the room. The curtain rod was nailed to the wall, someone had to have ripped it off." Her face was hard to read. "Are you saying my son is a ghost?" "A spirit," Mulder said. His eyes darted to Scully. "Who came to Dana with purpose." "This is insanity!" Her mother exclaimed. "You can't be serious." "They're coming, Mom," Scully told her with absolute certainty. "It's true. But I'm not going anywhere." Mulder blinked. "We're going to Tibet," he corrected. "I can't protect you here." "Mulder, think about it," she said with a sigh. "Look what happened to the Hidden City. You can't protect me anywhere. They've more power than we can imagine. Look out the window. That isn't another storm out there, that's the *same* storm that started when we were in the Netherlands last October. They did that, Mulder. We can't fight them and win." "Scully, I'm not going to argue this with you -" "Good!" she said on an exhale, and rolled on to her back. But her stomach was like a bowling ball, and she couldn't get comfortable. She tried on her side. "I don't want to fight." Mulder turned back to Frohike. "I'm going to pack our things. Come get me if anything happens -" "Mulder!" Her frustration turned to anger. "I told you I'm not going!" "Yes, you are!" Scully watched her mother shrink back a few steps, wearing the same expression Scully remembered from her childhood. Whenever her parents argued, her father inevitably pulled rank and began shouting orders, and her mother always conceded. Every single time. Scully would never have their marriage. "Listen to me, Mulder, because I'm only going to say this once more. *I* *am* *not* *going* *anywhere.* I appreciate your faith in my sanity, and I know that your actions stem from a place of love, but I will not be handled. It's not your decision where I give birth, it's mine." "Now hold on -" She held up a hand to stop his protest. "I'm not finished. In our relationship you have always set the boundaries. Always. You had the desk, the name plate on the office. But our marriage will not work that way. You do not get to make unilateral decisions that effect our whole family. We will discuss, and *we* will decide." "So, you're willing to discuss Tibet?" he asked, with more than a little sarcasm. "No. And I'll give you the same reason I would have if you'd bothered to ask me." "Bothered to ask? For crying out loud, Scully, you practically passed out! You were in no shape -" "Exactly, Mulder. I *am* in no shape to be in a plane for multiple hours. There are reasons why doctors warn women not to fly in their last trimester. And, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm still a little shocky from this morning. But beyond my physical distress, what do you think will happen if we go to Tibet? Do you think they won't come? Of course they will. Do you think we have a chance at blowing them off the face of the Earth? Hell, no. It will be the City all over again." "And if we stay here," Mulder countered. "What happens? They still come, but I have no way of keeping you safe." "I don't think you're meant to," Scully told him. "This time, Mulder, it's not about you." For a moment he just stood there, his chest rising and falling, his fists hanging at his side. She had hurt him, she knew, and that was never her intent. "Charlie told me that I was strong enough to do whatever it was that needed to be done. Alone. And I believe him. And I think, so do you." "Dana," her mother said, taking a step forward. "Stop for a moment. Think about this. It's crazy, Dana. Forgetting everything else for a moment, wouldn't you rather have your baby someplace where there are medical facilities? Where you can have people who know what they're doing help you deliver?" "Mom," Mulder started. Margaret cut him off. "No, Fox. Don't talk. Isn't it enough that you've got her believing in ghosts now? That you've taken my daughter - my beautiful, intelligent, Catholic daughter - and driven her out of her mind?" "She's not out of her mind," Mulder mumbled, though Scully wasn't entirely sure he meant to say it aloud. "Hey, now," Frohike spoke up, and the three of them turned to see him suddenly self-conscious by the door. Apparently they'd all forgotten he was even there, witnessing their family argument. "There's no reason to start pointing fingers. Mulder's not the bad guy -" Scully's moan cut him off. The minor contractions that had been quiet for a few hours bloomed hot and painful once again, sending waves of spasms through her back and down over her belly. Scully curled around it, drew her legs up as far as they would go. Just a couple of seconds she told herself. Less than a minute. It wasn't so bad, really. She'd known worse pain in her life. When the last of it melted away, Scully took a deep breath and opened her eyes to find Mulder once again kneeling beside the bed. "How are you doing?" he asked, nervous and anxious. "I'm OK," she told him. "Honestly, I'll let you know when we get to the bad part." He have her a weak smile. "I wish I could do this for you." "Yeah," she said on an exhale. "Me, too." He just sat there, watching her, his shoulders slumped, his shirt collar rumpled where it peaked out from under his heavy black wool sweater. There had been blood on his other sweater from her nosebleed. He must have changed while she slept. Scully reached a hand out to him, and he quickly took it up; kissed her knuckles. "I love you," she whispered, and he closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again she saw tears. "I always have, Mulder." He smiled again, despite the twin drops that lined his cheeks. "You're not going to Tibet are you?" he whispered back. "No." "Please," he asked pitifully. She shook her head. No. He leaned in close and laid a kiss on her thumb nail. "All right, then. I'll send you a post card when I get there." "What?!" "Kidding," he assured her with a little self-satisfied chuckle. "I'm kidding." He looked over his shoulder at the two spectators, and then turned back to Scully. "You know, your mother thinks I've corrupted you." He seemed more than a little pleased at the idea. "My mother's a smart lady," Scully told him. And then took a deep breath as another twinge in her back began to spread. "Frohike," she heard her husband call. "Find Logan and tell him to get in touch with Tibet. Maybe he can catch them before they leave." "Fox? Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Margaret asked. "Dana's going to need more help than we're prepared to give her." "It's her call," he said simply. "I won't force her to go against her will. I did that once, a long time ago, to save her life. I swore I'd never do it again. I made a promise that she trusts me to keep." "Damn straight," Scully bit out between clenched teeth. Two days handcuffed to the radiator in Mulder's bathroom had most certainly saved her life while costing the lives of a hundred others she would have tried to warn. It had been the first time he'd ever used his physical strength against her, and at that point the only reason she didn't walk out of his life forever was the fact that when Scully had a chance to cool down and objectively look at the situation, she had to admit that under the circumstances she might very well have done the same to him. "Thanks, Honey," he said. "So, if Scully wants to give birth here, in an unsterilized cabin without medically trained help and pain killing medication, then that's what Scully will have." "Mulder?" "Yes?" "Don't call me Honey." "You know, I've been thinking about pet names -" "Mulder, shut up." "Yes, Dear." ***** Back in their own cabin, Scully sat against the iron headboard. Two new pillows propped her up. It hadn't taken Mulder very long to tidy the place up, but they both feared the smell of scorched feathers would loom in the woodwork forever. With a contented grin, she looked down at her bare middle covered in an intricate design of new and old stretch marks. How could she possibly have another month before delivery? She wondered if they were wrong about the date of conception. For the hundredth time Mulder poked experimentally at her dark, protruding belly button. On his knees, in flannel pajama bottoms and thermal underwear, and a grey sweatshirt he slept in, he made another attempt, showing no signs of growing bored with his new game. "Nathan?" "Not Nathan," Scully said through a yawn. "What's wrong with Adam?" "Adam's nice. A little biblical, but nice," Mulder conceded. "But what if he turns out short and bald with a big nose and an unusual aptitude for catching mice?" "Bald?" Scully gave him a look of mock horror. "I'm just saying, what if he looks more like a Jethro or a Otis or a Bevis than an Adam." "Then he's going to need all the help we can give him - all the more reason to name him Adam," she said with a triumphant grin. "Or Jack. All worthy, manly international spies are named Jack." Scully smirked as she studied her husband. It was hard to tell if he was just being difficult to pass the time, or if he had some true objection to her name of choice. "What if it's a girl?" "Oh, that's easy: Eve." Scully rolled her eyes. "OK. You've made your point. You don't like Adam. So, find something nicer. And not Bevis." Mulder shifted, laying down beside her, and propped up on his left elbow he knocked on the side of her stomach. "Hey, in there. Listen, we're trying to come up with a good name for you, so if you could tell us what you're going to look like, it would make our jobs a lot easier." Scully snickered, and then caught herself when Mulder's eyes shot open in surprise. He froze, jaw hanging open. "What?" she asked, and a two fingers whipped to her nose. Their tips came away clean. He broke out in a wide smile that melted the days fatigue from his face. And in that instant he looked younger than he had in nearly a year. He shook his head. "I can't believe I made you laugh," he said, a goofy grin blossoming across his face. "I mean, it wasn't a full-belly ha-ha, but you *laughed.* God, I love it when you laugh." "You're funny," she told him. Had it really been that long? She tried to think back to the last time either of them had laughed about anything, and tears sprang to her eyes. "Hey, hey!" He quickly cuddled up beside her, pulled her closer, pressed her head to his chest. "Hey, now. Don't cry. I'm funny, remember?" "I'm not crying. I just...." She smoothed the warm flannel sleeve against his forearm. "I wonder how different all this would be if...you had been wrong, instead of so damn right." "Yeah. I wonder that, too, sometimes." "Would we have gotten married if their was no alien invasion?" She looked up at him, at his mind working out a new scenario to that particular facet of their story. "Would you ever have kissed me if we didn't?" He feigned indignity. "Are you implying I'm a prude?" "I think I'm implying that you might very well have never made a move on me." "If memory serves, Dana Scully, you weren't exactly throwing yourself at me, either." The wood popped, and Scully turned to see the newest log had finally given in to flames. The room was still chilly from the hours that day the fire had been allowed to burn out. "I'm sure it would've happened eventually," she said, thoughtful. "Although, maybe not this." She gave a pointed glance at her belly. "Oh, admit it, Scully. You've always been hot for my bod." She rolled her eyes at the playful leer he gave her. "I admit nothing." Mulder reached down to run his hand beneath hers on her stomach. The baby was still, but he didn't seem to mind. He caressed the side of her belly the way Scully often did, and pressed a small kiss to her temple. She leaned in to him, reveling in the feel of his body pressed against hers, the weight of their child within her, heat of the fire on her face, and the comfort of having a filling meal and a soft bed at the end of the day. "Scully... Tell me this: when was the first time you thought about sex with me. And be honest, I'll know if you're lying." "I don't know," she hedged. "When was the first time you thought about sex with me?" "Oh, come on. That's easy. I'm a guy, and you're a woman," he said offhandedly "I thought about fucking you the moment we shook hands." She chose to ignore his choice of vulgarity. "You mean, when we met? Are you kidding?" He didn't bother answering. "Now you tell me your first time." "I can't believe you thought about sleeping with me before you even knew me." "Really? Why? I'm sure most men who met you think about sleeping with you before you even open your mouth. You're hot, Scully. And then, when you do talk - smart is sexy." She glanced down at her stomach. She felt far from sexy. "The first time I thought about sleeping with you was the night I fell in love with you." "You remember exactly when that happened?" he asked, incredulous. "Of course. That moment changed my life. I knew then that I would do anything for you, that I would follow you anywhere, even to the end of the world. I was terrified, and inspired." Mulder shook his head, and she could almost feel him searching through a lifetime of remembrances, looking for that one particular match. "What night?" She sighed against the memory, still crisp all these years later. She could recall the smell of her wet hair, of the detergent that wafted off the motel bed spread. The chill in the room. The way his eyes seem to draw her in until he was the only thing she was conscious of; his voice, his mouth. "I know you must remember," she told him. "I was cold, and frightened, though I refused to admit either. You wrapped me in a blanket and I laid down on your motel bed. It was dangerous. I felt so vulnerable that night. That was one of the things that scared me." "You'd think I'd remember something like that." "The power was out because of the storm, and we talked by candle light. You sat on the floor at the foot of the bed so that I wouldn't feel threatened, and you told me for the first time about your sister. You were so beautiful, so passionate, so determined. You took my breath away. No one had ever done that before." "Are you talking about our first case? In Oregon?" She nodded. "That was the fateful night you stole my heart without even meaning to. That night even the air seemed charged. And there was a connection, or maybe it was just chemistry, but I felt it so strongly that I was sure you were going to make a move on me. But you never did." Mulder ruefully smiled. "That's not my style." "Then, after a couple of months of nothing, I thought you were gay," Scully added. "You WHAT?!" "Only for a week or two," she assured him. "Then Phoebe happened, and I realized the problem wasn't that I wasn't the right sex, I just wasn't your type. That was hard." "Intelligent women are my type. You definitely fit that bill." She flashed him a smile as a reward, and he returned it. "That's not what I thought then. It took a long time for me to work through that, you know. A couple of years to really find acceptance that our partnership - our friendship - as wonderful and fulfilling as it was, was the extent of it. I was really hooked on you, even if I refused to admit it." Mulder shook his head, eyes ablaze. "I really had no idea." "I know. That was intentional." She drew a lazy circle around his knee where the cotton of his pajamas strained. "When did you first realize you loved me?" "Uh...I'm not sure." He sounded disappointed. "It wasn't a realization, per se. It just gradually happened." "But when did you know for sure? When was there a conscious thought?" He swallowed, and his eyes fell to her hand, and he ran his fingers over the blue veins that lined her tendons. "Duane Barry. I knew when he took you that I had to find you...that I couldn't live without you in my life. That's when it clicked. But the feelings I had then, they weren't new. They just had a new name." "Really? That long ago?" "You find that surprising?" "Yes. I had no idea." She glanced back at him. And the edges of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. "I know. That was intentional." He leaned his head down and brushed his lips against hers. She pressed up and into the kiss, loving the contact as much as she loved the man. The tip of her tongue asked for entrance, and he responded. They explored each other's mouths, neither eager to escalate the pleasure of the kiss beyond this simple exchange of emotion. She loved him, and he her. They always had, it seemed. And even if Scully had never had the chance to meet her, she felt she had his sister to thank. She must have been a remarkable little girl to have such never-ending devotion from a brother. When Scully was taken, neither of her brothers even took shore leave to console their mother, let alone dedicate their lives to finding her. "Uh...Mulder? What about Sam?" Scully asked. "Boy or girl." He seemed surprised by her suggestion, but took a moment to play with her hair at her shoulder while he thought about it. "Let's not do that. Let's give our baby a chance to make its own history." "I like it when you say 'our baby.'" He smiled as he met her gaze, his expression calm and content. "So do I." He cupped her head, then, and kissed her again. This time his mouth was more demanding. Scully willingly gave as good as she got, and in no time was gasping for breath. She reached down and fumbled with his thermals, pushing the layers down past his hips, and then ran her fingers up through the crisp hair that climbed to his belly button. Mulder growled. "How are we going to do this?" he asked between deep kisses. Then he moved down her neck so she could answer. Except words seemed to have abandoned Scully the moment he began sucking on her throat. She began pulling his shirt over his head, wanting more skin to touch, needing more contact. When he pulled away to toss the remaining clothing aside, she whimpered at the loss. And this made him smile. "I didn't think you'd want to do this," he said, his voice rough and husky. "I always want to do this," she breathed. He yanked her pants down her legs, and then off on to the floor, and pushed her top above the swell of her breasts. Her nipples were hard, and tightened painfully in the cold air. She relished this kind of pain. Mulder crawled beside her, and kissed her again as he slowly snaked a hand from her face to her shoulders, to her sensitive breasts. His fingers only lingered there for a moment, before they continued down over her stomach, circled her belly button. Scully gasped in surprise at the erotic buzz he created there. Then, lower. With one hand he pushed her thighs open, and Scully's pulse immediately shot to her core. The air was like ice, and his touch was pure electricity dancing over her delicate skin. Goose bumps tightened the flesh on her legs and arms, but they both knew it had little to do with the temperature in the room. He found her hot and wet and ready, and took his time teasing her with two fingers and a thumb. Guttural moans clawed their way up her throat. She closed her eyes against the wonderful onslaught of his lips and hand. "Do I need to pull out?" he whispered against her mouth through ragged breaths. "No. No, don't..." She knew what she wanted to tell him, but the words were difficult to hold on to long enough to speak them. Her finger tips ran down his chest, and fondled his hard, flat nipple and then skimmed down his muscular side, to his hip bone...a little to the side, through the dense hair to... He was hot, and hard as stone. She ran her hand along the smooth underside. "Scu - Oh, God." His face jerked away, and Scully opened her eyes to see his clenched shut. "Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God." She liked seeing the desperation in his face, the need and lust, the straining vein at his temple trying to hold back the ocean, and so she reached lower and cupped with a not-so-gentle squeeze. His slippery hand shot to her wrist, and her name was on his lips. "Look at me," he pleaded. "Think about this. Do I need to pull out?" "I told you. No. There's an enzyme in semen - I can't remember now what it's called - that will help my cervix dilate when it's time." She pulled him back into a kiss. "Oh. Jesus. Say...enzyme again," he mumbled against her lips. "Enzyme," she breathed for him. He groaned into her mouth. "You are so hot." He pulled away from her and crawled between her legs, lifting first the right, and then the left, placing the flats of her feet against his chest. "Say semen," he demanded, his voice barely above a rumble. "Semen," she repeated. He inched closer, sitting on his heels, and grabbed himself, pushed his erection into place against her. "God, Scully. Say jazzercise." She giggled, and he thrust inside her, and suddenly all humor was lost on her. His thumb found her swollen knot and began a rhythm that his hips picked up. Slow and even, luxuriating in the sensations of their union, his pelvis worked, rocking into her. Scully watched him in the firelight; beautiful and erotic and spiritual all at once. Inside her, the weight of their child shifted. Mulder's tempo picked up, as did her breathing, and Scully felt a familiar tightening in the very core of her being. Her toes tingled. He slid his free hand down her leg and clutched at her ass. She clenched, pulling the pressure closer. The bed began its lamentable creak, and Scully reached above her head to hold the headboard still. Her breasts were full, her stomach was tight, and her body felt stretched to its limit. "Faster," she managed to eke out. He began to ram into her. His chest muscles strained, the veins in his neck roped. All at once Scully was over come by the sight of him, the feel of him, the sound of his climax, and she found her own crest, and rode it down as he bucked a last few purposeful strokes into her. Mulder waited together for their pulses to settle, for her body to quiet before he pulled free. It was over too soon, and Scully wondered if her whole life with him would be that way; a series of fleeting moments she that would pass before she could stop them. He snuggled up beside her with blankets and his heat, never minding the stickiness of their love making, and kissed her slowly, deeply. "We need to do that more often," he murmured as he settled next to her on the pillow. "Agreed." His hand came to rest on her belly, and his thumb skimmed the underside of her breast. "What about Little Ricky? I could take up lounge singing and you could get into all kinds of crazy hair- brained trouble." She closed her eyes, a smile on her face. "We'll talk about it in the morning." "Or Opie. He turned out pretty good. With that directing thing." "Say good night, Mulder." "Good night, Mulder." ***** End of chapter 15 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 16 ***** "Fly my gentle fantasy." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, November 5, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland October 3, 2000 The dim haze that constituted full daylight hadn't dawned when the knock woke them. She'd finally found a comfortable position somewhere between her side and back, tipped backward on top of Mulder who held her in his arms and curled protectively around her. Scully burrowed deeper under the covers, loathe to move. "Who is it?" His voice reverberated through his chest and into her back. The door flew open by way of a response, and several bundled-up people rushed in. Scully pulled the blankets over her head. The door slammed shut. Mulder was livid at the intrusion. "What the -?! Bohr! Frohike? Didn't you call them back -?" "He did, but we came anyway. I should've come a long time ago. Dana's pregnancy shouldn't have gone unmonitored." "I'm fine," she said from her tent. Mulder was sitting up, a protective arm over her as if the blankets were in danger of blowing away. It was more likely she would suffocate in the smell of their lovemaking. That thought made her smile. "Scully's fine, and we don't need you," Mulder insisted. "So get back on your plane, and go back to Tibet. "Because you're going to deliver her baby?" Bohr sounded amused at the thought. "I'm going to deliver *our* baby, yes." Mulder's voice was sharp and dangerous. At that point Scully wouldn't have been surprised if the two of them started circling and sniffing each other's asses. "No running water, no electricity. No trained doctors other than the mother-to-be. Are you seriously telling me I'm not needed? You can't possibly want your wife to give birth in a place like this. Without pain killers." "She made the choice, and I'm choosing to support her." "Uh...Mulder?" He hesitated before peeking under the blankets. "Huh?" "Does he really have pain killers?" "Marcaine and methylprednisolone," Bohr called to her, delighted at her interest. "He stays," Scully said with absolute finality. If the Braxton Hicks were this bad, there was no way she wanted to face full blown labor without an epidural. "But, Scully -" Mulder began. She cut him off, and peeked out over the top of the covers. "Frohike, help Dr, Bohr find a warm place to sleep tonight. He may be with us for a while." Frohike nodded, glaring at the man because Mulder did, and trying to size him up. "And we're back to Dr. Bohr again," the Brit said solemnly. His shoulders sagging just a little, but he wore the shavings of a grin on his face. He looked much older. His straight blond hair had been trimmed, and his wire-rimmed glasses had the ear piece taped on. It was probably just as hard to find an optometrist in Tibet as it was in their small mountain-side village. "Yes, we are," she said after a moment. "Thank you for coming all this way for me." "I did it for all of us," he told her. "But...you're welcome." And then he followed Frohike out into the night. ***** The next morning Scully waddled out of the bathroom, hands at either side of her lower back, towel over her wet head, and gown stretched over her stomach. She was huge, and uncomfortable, and restless. The remainder of the night had been a series of attempted tosses and turns until she couldn't lie still anymore, and decided to pace instead. At least that way Mulder was able to get a little sleep. Scully thought she might never sleep again. So, when she saw the rifle lying against the inside of her husband's thigh, she was just tired enough to not know how to respond. She stood and stared, and he glanced at her before turning back to wiping down the wood handle. "I got it from the hunting party. They asked me to join the hunt next week, and I told them I would. Someone's got to bring back another elk or we'll all be doomed to be vegetarians." "You got it because you think it's a firearm, and you want some way to protect your family," she corrected. "Yes, damn it!" he exploded. "I want to protect my family!" She couldn't tell if he was angry at her, or just in general. "If they're coming, then I need to be prepared. Forgive me if I don't cook up some pig-in-the-blankets and invite them in!" She crossed to him, and ran a hand through his spiky bed-head hair. He leaned against her stomach, and wrapped an arm around her. "You know that rifle isn't going to protect us, don't you? Not from a power that can obliterate an entire mountain." "Then what do we do, Scully? Run? Hide?" "No." She lifted his chin until she had his gaze, and she smiled for him. "Just breathe. Don't think about the future. Live for now. Enjoy this moment that we have-" "Scully, stop." He pushed her to arms length and shook his head. "You're scaring me even more. What do you know that you're not telling me?" "Nothing," she whispered, not trusting her voice. Tears had already begun to pool behind her lashes. There was nothing to tell beyond the fears that they both shared. And that Scully was beginning to think that the preparation that Charlie had spoken of was not so much to save their child, but to say good-bye to her soulmate. ***** October 14, 2000 The basinet was built with the hard wood of a fir tree toppled not far from the small village by the sheer weight of ice and snow. Dag must have spent weeks carving the branches and sanding them soft and smooth to create the delicate rails and rockers. It was exquisite in its rustic beauty. And folded inside were several blankets cut down to baby size, with little blue and green fish stitched on them in a crude but adorable way. "Baby's bed," Dag said, tentative and hopeful. He watched Scully's expression carefully, and seemed pleased by her surprise. "It's beautiful," Scully said on an exhale. She didn't know how to thank him properly. To be honest, Scully hadn't given any thought to where her newborn would sleep. And, from the look on his face, neither had Mulder. "This is amazing, Dag. Really." He ran his hand along the pale, unfinished wood and they watched it rock from side to side. It was hard to visualize a tiny person inside it. "We love it. Thank you." Scully nodded. "Thank you." "And see?" Dag gave the basinet a good, hard push. "It not drop the baby." The rocker feet were wider at the end, and had a small knob hammered through them that stopped the bed from toppling. "Safe for baby." "Look at that," Mulder mumbled, clearly captivated. Dag beamed, and his pale blue eyes followed Mulder as he bent down to give the bassinet several good rocks. Mulder gave a light chuckle, and something in Dag's expression shifted and took Scully by surprise. There was more there than simple friendship, something more that she recognized, and made her chest contract. And then, as Scully stood with her hands supporting her lower back, a huge gush swept through her and onto the wood floor. She gasped, as her center of gravity instantly changed, and reached out as the baby dropped heavily into her pelvis. Dag caught her arms and steadied her, his eyes bugging out of his face like a cartoon character. "Show time," Mulder said under his breath, quickly stepping in and taking her arms from Dag. He led her to the bed, but she didn't want to sit down. "I'm going to be sticky," she told him quietly. "Maybe we could clean up a little first?" "Right." He glanced over his shoulder. "Dag, would you find Dr. Bohr, please, and let him know that Scully's water just broke?" "Water broke?" Dag repeated. "Thanks," Mulder said on his way to the bathroom. He wet a towel, and then brought it back to Scully. "I have another gown in the drawer," she said. "And some new socks, please." Dag was rushing to put on his coat, and didn't bother to tie his scarf, but he froze in the open door. "Dag? What is it?" He turned back, a puzzled expression on his face. "No snow." Scully looked past him, and listened. The blizzard had stopped. Her heart rate instantly doubled. Mulder lifted the black-out curtain they used to stop the draft. "Scully, you're not going to believe this: it stopped snowing." The three of them were still, listened to the a quiet they hadn't heard since they left the City. "I guess this is it," Mulder said, a nervous excitement in his voice. The waiting was over. "How are you feeling?" "Good," she told him. And tired, and hungry, and a little chilled. And terrified. Don't forget terrified. ***** Scully's knuckles were white as she bore down at the foot of their iron-frame bed, the metal becoming support and an outlet for the pain. Never, never in her life had there been so much without relief, and with the knowledge that now her water had broken it was quickly going to become even worse. Her contractions were seven minutes apart and lasting upwards of a minute apiece. While they hit she leaned against the bed rail, clenching her teeth and tried to keep her vocals just below a full-blown scream. The screaming upset Mulder to the verge of panic and Scully didn't want to have to send him away. She needed him close. Between contractions she rocked her weight from foot to foot, trying to help the baby down into her pelvis. "Mulder, find something to tie my hair back," she commanded. She was cool but her face felt like it was burning up. "Like what? he asked, glancing around the cabin. "Anything!" she snapped. She watched as he ruffled through their clothes drawers, and then disappeared into the bathroom. "Do we have any dental floss?" "Have you used any since we got here?" she muttered under her breath. "Forget it, Mulder," she called out, with a roll of her eyes. She tried to focus on taking deep breaths, on the baby moving inside her. There had been a significant drop in the amount of kicking from her little passenger in the previous few weeks - something she knew was normal considering the lack of space it had to move around in there. Now there seemed to be ample room for it to punch at her liver and kidneys. Mulder's icy fingers on her neck startled her. She glanced back to see him smiling at her over her shoulder, but he gently turned her head away from him and began pulling her hair back in a pony tail. "You found floss?" "Shoelace," he told her. "Or bootlace. It's not pretty, but it'll do the job. She felt one of his fingers briefly trace the scar at the base of her neck. He inhaled, and then kissed her shoulder. "How you holding up?" "How long have we been doing this?" "About five hours," he said. Frohike had lent him his watch. "Then OK," she decided. "First time labors often last twelve hours. It could be a really long day." "I don't have anywhere else to be," he said lightly. "You take all the time you need." "Another one's coming," she warned, and then leaned forward against the bed for the onslaught. Mulder stood beside her and reminded her to breathe, and when the contraction finally passed he looked at the time, and then jotted it down in her journal on the table. ***** October 15, 2000 Pain, pain, pain, pain. It was all she could think about, the pressure and the pain. There were voices around her, angry and frantic, but Scully couldn't think beyond the unbearable pain. She was freezing and drenched in sweat. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. Her head might explode. She heard her name through cotton ears, but another contraction started building, and she took a deep breath and began to bare down. She couldn't tell if it was doing any good. The pain was consuming; it clouded the world, made it thick. A hand on her arm. "No! Don't touch me!" She couldn't handle the added sensation. Everything was pain. She was being ripped in half. "Scully, Bohr wants to give you something to ease the pain," "Yes, yes," she gasped. "It will slow the contractions for a while." "Yes," she pleaded. "Yes." Another hand on her arm, and she screamed. The pain was too much, more than she could handle. She began to shake. Or, had she been shaking all along? "Try to breathe, Scully. Slow, regular breaths." Breathe, breathe, she said in her head. The word was meaningless. "It should feel hot in your veins. Relax into the heat." It was Mulder talking to her, whispering. He was close. She cried. The hot shooting through her system made her shiver even more. They heaped blankets of top of her. Another contraction. So much pain. "She's been pushing for four hours." "The baby's too big. Or, her pelvis is too small." "Cesarian." "Impossible. I don't have the tools or the medication. It might save the baby, but she'd bleed to death." "She's been at this for more than twenty hours. She's exhausted." "She'll be able to rest for a little while, but I'm worried about stressing the baby." "You have to get it out!" "Get it out," Scully echoed. "Please. Get it out of me." Then, everything went quiet and cold, and Scully found some peace in unconsciousness. "Where is Mulder?" Scully opened her eyes to find her mother sitting by her bedside. "I sent him to get us something to eat. He was upset. He needed a moment to himself." Scully ran a hand over the hard mound of her belly. "How long was I out?" "About two hours. Longer than Dr. Bohr expected. He'll be back in half an hour to check on you." "You look tired, Mom." She smiled. "I'm OK." "Mom. I need you to promise me, that if something happens to me, or the baby, that you'll -" "Nothing's going to happen, Dana. It's just taking a little longer that usual, that's all." "Mom, please. I need to know that Mulder's going to be all right. Please promise me that you'll look after him...take care of him. Help him." "Fox will be fine, Dana. And so will you and the baby." "I lost him, Mom. When we were in the Hidden City. He left because he thought I needed something and I thought he...We lost contact with his plane, and we thought he was dead. I thought..." A sob erupted from her chest. "Oh, Mom. I thought I would never see him again." "He's here, Dana," her mother said to calm her. "He's fine." "Promise me he won't be alone. Take care of him. Tell him how much I love him." The tears were hot on her face. She stifled another sob as a major contraction took over already aching muscles. She didn't have the energy. Didn't have the strength. But it came anyway, and she knew the next one would be worse. ***** October 16, 2000 Mulder sat against the headboard, pillow behind him, and Scully leaned back into him. Her head fell against his left shoulder, her fingers dug into his knees. He held her thighs up and back while she pushed because she simply couldn't do it anymore. And he was warm. And he told her how much he loved her until she told him to shut up. The pain was too much, and she wasn't making any headway. It didn't matter if the Colonists came for her, she wasn't going to survive the birth. "Cut it out," she told Bohr. Then, gasped in a couple of breaths before the next onslaught began. Bohr sat on the bed as well, between her legs. "Come on, my dear. The baby is positioned. One big push to get it on its way -" "CUT IT OUT!" It didn't matter if she made it or not. What mattered was her child. "Cesarian. Now!" "Scully," Mulder began, but he didn't get any farther. The next contraction came hard and fast, they were on top of each other, and Scully screamed at the pain, at the injustice, and the grief of knowing she wouldn't get to see her baby learn to walk, or talk, or laugh. She screamed because her heart was so full, and it was breaking like the rest of her, ripping, splitting in two. "Dana." She didn't have to open her eyes to know Charlie was standing by the bed. "You're strong enough," he said. "I'm not!" she cried, angry at him for promising her the impossible. "They're almost here, Dana." She shook her head. She couldn't care about the aliens. There was only so much energy left inside her, and it was all for the baby. "You have to get him out of the cabin. He'll fight them if he's here." The rifle was propped by the door. She knew it was loaded. Another contraction hit, and she cried out. "Tell him, Dana. They'll kill him if you don't." "No," she whimpered, as she bore down. "Dana. It's all up to you now. He can't help you." "I can't do it," she whispered. "Tell him now, Dana! Make him leave! Save him, Dana! THEY'RE ALMOST HERE!" "You can do it," Mulder coaxed in her ear. "NO!" she screamed. "NO!" Scully collapsed against her husband. So much pain. So very much pain. "Scully?" He was terrified. So was she. "My mother," she breathed. "Get my mother." "Scully?" "Now!" "I don't want to leave you-" "NOW! Bohr helped him slip out from under her. "Hurry," she urged. "Mulder, please hurry." He didn't even stop to grab his coat. The next contraction was the strongest yet, and if it was possible, even more painful. She screamed, but her voice broke, and all that came out was air. "You can do this," Charlie told her. "You're strong enough." Scully reached down for Bohr's hands and dug her heels into the bed in front of his knees, and she pushed with everything she had left. There was a snap of bone, a pop, and an enormous gush. She fell back on to the mattress, her head just missing the pillow. She could breathe again, but the pressure in her head expanded tenfold. A weight was laid across her chest. Her hands automatically went around it. Wet and warm. Tiny. She looked down at a little head, and hair, and an arm with a little hand, and fingernails. Real fingernails on real fingers. Four of them, plus a tiny, perfect thumb. She was able to raise her head to kiss her child's crown before the room flashed white, and then disappeared all together. She never even saw the aliens coming. ***** end of chapter 16 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 17 ***** "I look at Renee and see everything that I am not. I know Mulder confides in her, I know he trusts her and it's good that he has a friend in this godforsaken world. Other than me. But part of me remembers a time when he said he trusted only me, and wants that back. And the other part of me says, 'Exactly. Don't you see? Renee would never want that.'" -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, February 10, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland November 5, 2000 Bright. Bright. Too bright. Even with her eyes squeezed shut. Tiny body curled over her chest. Cold. Aches all over. Just snatches of sensation, everything else was hazy and intangible. The smell of old ashes. A sigh. Then a gasp. "Scul..." Mulder's voice, somewhere close, low and desperate. She cracked her eyes just enough to see his figure shadowed against the blinding yellow light from the window, and then him collapse to the floor with a heavy thud. She tried to reach out for him, to help him but she couldn't move, couldn't keep her eyes open. Too bright. Scully tried to call out, but nothing escaped her lips but air. The baby made a sound. Then, it was quiet in the cabin, and she was so very tired. "Dana?" Her mother's voice, close to tears. "Dana, can you hear me?" "Baby," she tried to say, but her voice was gone. She couldn't remember why. The baby was cold. Cover the baby. Suddenly, there was the weight of cold blankets, of hands moving her arms, her legs. A door slammed open. Foot steps everywhere. People talking at once. "Is the baby...?" It was Bohr. "They're here! And alive...Good, Lord! The umbilical cord is still intact! It's impossible! How can this be?" "Is she real? Scully?" Mulder was closer, and she felt the bed dip beside her. "Come on, baby, talk to me." "Dana, can you hear us?" her mother asked again. Scully forced her eyes open again. Mulder was on her left. His eyes were swollen and red, his hair ragged. The beginnings of a beard covered his face. With a heavy, limp hand she reached out to touch his cheek, and his hand came up to cover hers. She lowered his fingers to their child's head, and he slowly ran his palm over the fine, wet hair. His hand shook as he touched their baby for the first time, and Scully knew she would never forget the awe in his eyes. "How?" he asked, shocked and reverent. "Strong enough," she mouthed, and offered a faint smile. Charlie had been right all along. He leaned in and kissed her temple, a sob escaped his wet lips. She closed her eyes, exhausted and aching. "Eighteen days, Scully. You were gone. Just gone. And the storm and the baby. All gone." He kissed her cheek as he mumbled, his tears left wet kisses wherever his words touched her. "I thought I lost you forever." Scully shook her head, and moved her lips. Mulder leaned down to catch her breath against his ear. When she said the words, he looked into her eyes, searching, frightened. "What did she say, Fox?" her mother asked. He swallowed, his eyes lifting to his mother-in-law, and then back down to Scully. "She said she saw God." There was something in his expression that she couldn't quite read. A hand slipped under hers on the baby's back, and Scully looked up to see Bohr gently shifting her newborn. "I'm going to tie off the cord, Dana." She swallowed and nodded. "You have a beautiful daughter," he told her as he worked. "Daughter?" Mulder's voice cracked. "Daughter. A little girl. Scully, we have a daughter." He kissed her again, but she couldn't respond. Her body relaxed into exhaustion while her mind wound tight around the little girl curled across her breast. "Dana, I'm going to take her for a couple of minutes to do a quick evaluation. I'll bring her right back." She felt the warmth and weight lifted from her body. For the first time in ten months, Scully was alone in her body, and the sensation scared her. She reached out and clutched at Mulder's arm. "Stay with her," she told him, voiceless and imploring. "Don't let her out of your sight." He left her side, and the bed, presumably to follow their baby girl. Scully couldn't open her eyes to check. Mulder would protect her. On her right, her mother took her hand. "Is there something I can get you?" Eyes still closed, Scully shook her head no. Cold wafted over her legs as the blanket was pulled off. "Dana,, dear? Are you still with us?" Why did people insist on demanding responses from her? She needed to sleep. Reluctantly, she managed to nod. "There's a significant amount of blood. I want to get the placenta delivered as soon as possible. Give me a couple of quick pushes." She tried to do as Bohr asked, but the muscles wouldn't respond. She'd been pushed to her limit. Her head was swimming, and starting to sink. "We could try breast feeding. That may stimulate the uterus to expel the placenta on its own," Bohr suggested. "May?" Mulder asked. "Let's try it and find out, shall we? Dana? Can you sit up for us?" Bohr's continued badgering made her want to cry. Wouldn't they just leave her alone? Couldn't they see she was worn out? "No." She didn't have to have a voice for them hear her finality. "Go away." "Dana, honey," her mother cajoled. "We'll help you." "Go away," she mouthed. "Won't the bleeding stop on its own?" Mulder asked. "Not until the placenta is delivered. I'm concerned that her pelvis might be fractured. From the shape and size of the baby's head it's easy to diagnose cephalopelvic disproportion, and I've never heard of a case where the baby was expelled naturally with this condition. It's quite astonishing, actually." "But...the baby's OK. You said so yourself." Mulder sounded scared. He was somewhere behind her mother. Scully cracked her eyes open just enough to see him standing, pensive, their bundled child cradled in his arms. "She looks fine," Bohr assured him. "She has strong vitals, and seems to be intact neurologically. I'm more worried about Dana. Once we get her placenta out I can begin to treat any other injuries she might have." Scully watched as her husband passed the baby to her mother, and then knelt beside the bed. "Hey," he whispered to her. "I know your tired, but I need you to do this. I'll help." How could he possibly help? She wanted to laugh, or cry, or scream. But with him looking at her so earnestly, so intently, Scully knew she had no choice but to do as she asked.. Slowly she closed her eyes and gave him a nod. He helped her sit up, and then, instead of adjusting the pillows behind her, Mulder slipped in, to become a warm chair back. His bent legs were the perfect height for arm rests. She leaned her head back against his shoulder while he unbuttoned the first four buttons of her gown. "How do we do this...?" He eased the flap of her gown open, and her mother laid the baby down at her breast. Scully opened her eyes and saw her daughter's face for the first time. Two swollen eyes, a tiny perfect nose, pink baby doll lips, round cheeks, a cone head that would round out in a day or so. Long light lashes. A clef in her chin like her father, and his long, thin legs. She was beautiful. And completely uninterested in the offered nipple. The baby was as tired as Scully was. "Is there something we're supposed to do?" Mulder asked. "If the baby isn't interested..." Bohr cleared his throat, and his cheeks flushed red. "We may need to resort to other forms of nipple stimulation." "What do you mean *we*?" Mulder's tone was sharp. "You," Bohr quickly amended. "Of course, I meant you." Scully closed her eyes to their petty childishness, and let her head lull against her husband's neck. Her arms were propped up by his knees, so there was no fear of dropping the baby as she let sleep slip over her. She registered Mulder's voice as it vibrated through her, but the words were lost. She felt her gown tugged closed, and then his warm hand slipping inside, cupping and massaging her swollen breast. Scully allowed his tender ministrations ease her to sleep; she surrendered willingly to him. The baby's rhythmic cries jerked Scully back to consciousness with a pounding heart and gasps for air. Mulder's reassuring presence behind her on the bed helped to calm her. She glanced up at him when she realized they were alone in the room, and the blankets over her legs had been returned. She didn't remember delivering the afterbirth, but she knew she must have. "It's been a couple of hours. I think our little girl is finally hungry." Scully glanced down at her disgruntled daughter. Her hair had lightened as it dried, to a soft brown or dark blond - it was hard to tell by firelight. Mulder helped her loosen the swaddling around the baby and open her gown again. Then they lifted their child's head, his hand supporting hers. Immediately the newborn began suckling, and Scully gasped at the intensity of the sensation. "Does it hurt?" Mulder asked, concerned. She shook her head no. Even if she could talk, there were no words to describe it. Physical crashed with emotional as Scully watched her daughter draw nourishment. Her wide eyes fluttered contentedly, her tiny fists opened and closed. This wasn't some abstract idea of having a child with Mulder. They actually created a whole other person, someone with feelings, with needs. The enormity of what they'd done finally hit her. And tears began to stream down her cheeks. She was too drained to stop them. "Hey," Mulder said quietly. "Is it that bad?" She looked up at him, this wonderful man she loved and cherished, the father of her child, and smiled through the tears. If it was possible, she loved him more now than every before. She stretched up and kissed him, and her breast popped out of the baby's mouth. It took a minute of fussing to get her to latch on again. "You know, she doesn't look like an Adam to me," Mulder whispered playfully into Scully's ear. "But I know you're attached to that name." He ran a light finger over their daughter's round cheek. "I'd like to make a couple suggestions, though, on the off chance that you don't want her to hate us when she hits puberty." Scully gave a humored snort. "Instead of Adam, I was thinking of Luke or Paul." Scully tied not to smile at his attempts of humor at her expense. "OK, OK. We'll call her Adam. But don't blame me when the therapy bills get out of control." "Jane?" Scully mouthed to him. "Are you serious? You want to name that beautiful little girl Jane? Why not name her Dull and get it over with." Scully rolled her eyes. Jane was a perfectly good name. And non- Biblical, something Mulder seemed interested in. "What about Alexandra? Or Elizabeth?" he suggested. "Something fit for a queen?" They were such big names for such a small baby. Although, not too small, her body reminded her. She probably got her oversized head from her father. She'd have to remember to mention that when she got her voice back. Scully yawned, and watched as her daughter happily suckled away, a line of moisture gathered between her little rosy lips and Scully's darkened aureole. It was unreal to think that she as the sole source of sustenance for the little person in her arms, and at the same time it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Mulder spoke quietly: "Scully, I want you to think about this before you respond. You asked me once if I had been wrong about the Colonists would we still be here. I know now with complete certainty that the answer is yes. Because looking at her, holding you both..." His voice cracked, and all three of them gently shook as he gave into the tears. "I want to name her Destiny." Leave it to Mulder to want to name their daughter after something she didn't even believe in. And yet, as Scully looked down at the baby cradled against her, she knew it had to be real because she was holding Destiny in her arms. Her Destiny. With a tender touch, Scully laced her fingers through his, and he pressed his face into her hair. It took him a couple of deep breaths to collect himself, and when he did, Scully looked up at him, tears in her own eyes, and smiled. And maybe, she thought, Jane as a middle name. ***** Feedings seemed to be every two hours like clockwork, and Scully was beyond the magic of breast feeding after the third time her daughter woke her wailing. She ached all over, and her hips were killing her, and she was so tired that it was difficult to hold the baby's head up to her breast. After the third feeding, Scully decided a trip to the restroom was necessary, and promptly collapsed against a helpful Mulder not even two steps away from the bed. The pain was excruciating, like jagged glass rammed through her pelvis. She lost control of her bladder, and nearly blacked out, and spent the next fifteen minutes apologizing to her husband who assured her that there was nothing to apologize for as he cleaned both her and the floor. Bohr was forced from his bed at Mulder's insistence, and examined Scully again. The bleeding was now at a normal postpartum flow, and he was certain that the excessive pain and discomfort was from a inconsequential fracture in her pelvis that would most certainly heal in a matter of weeks. He considered it superficial, but then, he couldn't feel it, Scully silently fumed. They all agreed that she would hold off on the pain killers at least until Scully's milk came in - Scully less readily than the men. But she knew that her pain and discomfort were short term issues, and that her daughter was to come first. But as the days stretched in a week, it was difficult to imagine that her body would ever recover, even if her voice had begun its crude attempt at a come back. She still looked pregnant, though her belly wasn't nearly as distended as it had been before she gave birth. Her breasts, on the other hand, were so swollen she thought they might explode. The discomfort and frustration of trying to nurse a sleepy baby combined with her ever-present fatigue left her in tears. "Hey, now." Mulder emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his waist. Water dribbled down his shoulders and chest from his wayward wet hair, left messy after a rough towel dry. "What's wrong?" he asked, and took a seat beside her on the bed. "She won't eat," Scully managed to croak out. She knew she was over-reacting, but couldn't help the onslaught of emotion. "You've been feeding her for twenty minutes. She's probably full." He smiled as he took the baby from her, and rocked her a few times against himself. "Why don't we let her sleep in her own bed for the rest of the night, and let you try to get some sleep." "She'll just be up again in a couple of hours anyway," Scully excused and reached for her daughter. "Give her to me." Mulder didn't surrender her. "Come on, Scully. She's out like a light." He turned and placed her in the wooden basinet and moved it between the bed and the fireplace so Scully could see the baby sleep. "But, Mulder, I need her to fed. I can't rest like this." She coughed as her voice caught in her throat. "Sorry, Sport. She's catching her Zs." He carefully covered the newborn and tucked the blanket around her. "Look at her sleep. She's amazing." Scully looked down at her exposed breast and a new set of tears flooded her vision. If only she had a breast pump. Or a mastectomy. There was no way she'd ever fit back into a bra again. Ever. "Scully? Is it really that bad?" "I don't know why we come equipt with two if most births result in a single child. There's more lactation than she can possibly ingest." "Ooo, Scully. I love it when you speak doctor to me," Mulder said with a playful leer. She rolled her eyes, and closed the flap of her gown. "Never mind." "Now, wait," Mulder said by way of apology. He brushed her hand away and pushed the flannel aside. His eyes were full of her breast. "You're so beautiful," he muttered, and ran a single finger over the underside of her nipple. It tightened at the brief contact. "Mulder, cut it out." "This is just temporary, right? Things are going to go back...down to normal?" "Well...in size, yes. But my breasts will never be what they were." "And they are uncomfortable this size?" "They're full." She sighed heavily and rolled her head back against the pillow propping it up. "Do we really have to talk about this?" Her raspy voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. He leaned in and lifted her head to kiss. And that sweet, gentle kiss quickly opened into something deeper. His tongue searched hers out, parted her lips with a plunging thrust. A thumb brushed a tear from her cheek and then he reached back and cupped her head to him. Scully melted into his kiss, and for a moment forgot to breathe. When she came up for air, her sanity fell back into place, and she knew that they weren't going to go where he was leading for a number of weeks. "Mulder," she said with a heavy gravel, "We can't." "If this makes you uncomfortable, you can tell me to stop. But I want to help," he whispered, seductive. Scully found herself mesmerized by the movement of his lower lip hovering so close to her own. "Let me help, Scully." He kissed her mouth again, and then trailed to her chin. His lips left a line of moist caresses down the side of her neck where he stopped to nibble for a handful of heartbeats. Scully didn't understand how this was going to help, but she couldn't quite bring herself to make him stop yet. Mulder had an effect on her than no other man could compare. Her body responded to him, even as tired and sore as it was. She hated the control he had over her, and worshiped it. Mulder kissed a line across her collar bone, and then down on to the fleshy side of her breast. Each successive kiss took him closer and closer to the sensitive tip of her tight nipple. When he finally brushed his lips over it she gasped, and discovered she'd been holding her breath. With his quick glance up to ask permission to continue Scully finally understood what he intended. Her eyes grew wide, her heart raced, her face flushed Should she let him? Would she stop him? Something in the back of her mind mumbled something about hygiene and keeping the nipple sterile for the baby, but Scully wasn't listening because his hot mouth closed over her breast, and Mulder began to suck. Her hands shot to his head, her fingers wove through his wet hair, her nails tracked his scalp as his tongue toyed with her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move except to say, "Harder." His eyes fluttered shut, and his mouth opened wider, and he took more of her breast in his mouth as his work intensified. Scully watched his throat bob as he swallowed. The flood of emotions that followed ranged from arousal to relief; from gratitude to something that could only be described as love. Tears again sprang to her eyes, pooling behind the dam of her lashes, filling her vision the way Mulder filled her heart. She looked down at her sleeping child, one fist raised to her open mouth. The pull Scully felt for her was unlike anything she had ever known. Mulder seemed deliriously happy when he held their daughter, and talked to her, like he'd finally found that ever- illusive truth he'd spent his life searching for. This is how she had always imagined he'd be if he were to find his sister. Maybe in Destiny he found something better. No matter what he did Mulder would never be able to erase the mistakes of his father, but to this precious little girl he could be the father he should've had. "Is this what it's like when she's feeding?" he asked, a crooked grin on his face. "Not even close," Scully whispered, and pulled his head up for a kiss. "Thank you," she added. "That thanks is all mine," he assured her with a twinkle in his eye. "And we're only half done." ***** End of chapter 17 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 18 ***** "Logan is a complicated man. And in him I see what I could so easily have become; bitter, angry, withered, alone. But to understand someone doesn't necessarily mean to like them. Is it even possible to like someone you pity?" -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, May 7, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland November 18, 2000 "I told you I don't want to talk about it." Scully, on her back on the wood floor, brought her knees as far up to her heavy chest as she could, and then inhaled as she eased her bent legs back down. Twenty-seven; a new postpartum record. "Eighteen days, Scully." "For you, not me." She pulled her legs back up into a crunch. The burning in her stomach was a luxury now that the pain in her pelvis was waning. Slowly, her body was returning to some semblance of normal, all except her breasts which had ballooned beyond anything Scully could have anticipated, much to Mulder's continued delight. "For everyone on Earth, Scully. Eighteen days. You were gone. Dessy was gone." "Stop saying that." She returned her shaky legs back to the floor again. "And please don't call her Dessy." Mulder sighed. "I can't. I can't stop thinking about it, Scully. What happened? You said you saw God." "Or something god-like," Scully quickly corrected. "It was over so fast -" "Eighteen days." Scully relaxed into the floor with a sigh. "Mulder you understand that what you're saying is physiologically impossible, don't you? I can't have given birth on the sixteenth of October and still have the umbilical cord attached on November 5th. My body couldn't have survived that long without delivering the placenta. Neither could Destiny." Mulder nodded, serious and fascinated. "And yet..." Scully released her legs back down and took a deep breath. "And yet," she conceded. It was hard to challenge him beyond the statement of scientific fact because that whole stretch of time was becoming increasingly cloudy in her memory. "Happy anniversary, by the way." "Huh?" "October 16th. Our wedding anniversary. How quickly they forget." A slow smile of recognition dawned across his face. "It's been a year." The sun was warm through the window, and the skies above were clear and blue. The snow seemed endless on the landscape, but the days were much warmer, and surely the snow would soon be gone. Outside, Scully heard the laughter of children running and playing. "They say that if a marriage survives its first year, there's a fifty- fifty chance it'll make it," she casually mentioned. "You saw God, Scully." Mulder wasn't about to let her get side- tracked. "What did He say? "You don't even believe in God," she said. "And what makes you think He was a man?" "Tell me what you experienced while you were gone for eighteen days." Scully closed her eyes. The baby fussed a little and Mulder cooed to her until she settled back down. Scully heard the bassinet rock gently. "I know why they were here," Scully said, unsure she wanted to voice what she hadn't had a chance to process yet. She knew this was a topic she and Mulder would debate for the rest of their lives, and it felt like she was jumping in the lake head first without really knowing how deep it was. Or what monsters might be living below the surface. "The Colonists? You mean, besides their blood thirsty desire to Colonize?" "They're not colonists. They never intended to colonize our planet. That's what our governments told us." She peeked at him when he didn't respond, and found that she still had his complete and undivided attention. He lifted his eyebrows, unsure, and Scully tried to reason it out for him. "If they were colonists, where are their colonies? Why would they create a world so completely inhospitable to life?" The bed creaked as Mulder slipped off of it and sat beside her on the floor. He folded his legs and leaned forward. "Why were they here, Scully?" "To save us." And she began to explain. ***** November 24, 2000 The door stood open to the mild warmth of the day, or Mulder would've slammed it open as he entered. He wore his heavy boots and the jeans and long sleeved black shirt he'd left in that morning - all covered with blood. "My God, Mulder!" Scully launched off the bed in her rush to get to him, in her hurry ignoring the sharp twinge in her hips. "Are you OK? What the hell happened?" "Damn it, Scully! We're becoming vegetarians!" He smacked his hunting rifle down on the table top, and it knocked her mother's worn Bible to the floor. Mulder seemed angry, not hurt. Scully scooped the Bible up quickly. "Please lower your voice," she instructed, and laid the book down safely on the bed next to sleeping infant, who was walled in with pillows. "I'd like to keep the baby on her schedule." He glanced guiltily at their child and then relaxed when he saw she hadn't stirred. "It's hot in here," he griped, and glared at the window. "You don't need to keep feeding the fire. It's warm out." "It will get cold when the sun goes down, and the heat is good for Destiny." "I thought your mother was going to take her today." "I know. She didn't." Scully had yet to have the baby out of her sight. She accepted the scrutinizing glare Mulder threw at her as penance for getting her mother's hopes up at spending a whole day alone with her new grand daughter. "I'm just not ready yet." "You know she'd be fine, don't you?" "I know." "OK." He didn't press the issue, but instead pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it through the bathroom door. That entire room was apparently his new clothes hamper. "So, explain to me why we're becoming vegetarians when you have an aversion to most things green. And why you're covered in blood." "That thing is a piece of junk," he said, pointing to the rifle with a jerk of his jaw. "It's impossible to hit anything smaller than a Buick with it." He sat heavily on one of the low stools and kicked his boots off, and then stripped out of his jeans. "Isn't that the rifle that all the guys in the hunting party use?" "What are you saying? That I'm a lousy shot?!" He balled up the bloody jeans and tossed them into the bathroom, too. "Easy, Tiger," Scully said, raising her hands in surrender. "I'm on your side, remember?" Mulder shook his head. "I missed two easy kills, Scully. Clear shots while that damned elk just stood there looking at me." He jumped up from the stool and grabbed the water jug from the hearth, then strode purposefully into the bathroom. "Logan didn't miss." He poured half a basin and then began to scrub his hands and arms. "So, you missed? So what?" "You either kill them, or butcher them. And I didn't kill him." With a sigh, Mulder braced himself against the sink.. "I don't know how you did it, Scully. Cutting into a body like that. With all the blood, and the smell, and ...sawing through bone." "Why didn't you come and get me?" Scully asked, and leaned against the door frame. "And please don't tell me it's because you're the man. I'm not going to play gender roles with you." His reflection in the mirror glanced at her, annoyed. "So I'm supposed to come crying to you? That's the kind of husband you want?" "I don't want a *kind* of a husband, Mulder. I want you. And you aren't comfortable around blood and gore -" "I should've kill it," he snapped. "And maybe next time you will. Mulder, everyone has off days -" "No! I missed on purpose," he said bitterly. He began to scrub again. "I couldn't kill it. Not even to feed my family. For fuck's sake, Scully, I killed Krycek! I murdered him!" There were tears in his eyes, and his face turned red with anger and frustration. "I'm a murderer, and I couldn't shoot a fucking elk!" "Mulder," she reached out to him, but he brushed her hand away. Still in his socks Mulder pushed past her and fled out the door, apparently oblivious to his state of undress. Or maybe not. Maybe he just needed to get away from her that badly. Scully took her time collecting his dirty clothes and dumping them in the tub, and then pulled clean jeans and a shirt from his drawer. Then, she bundled the baby in her blanket and went to her mother's cabin. The door was wide open. "Hello," Scully called inside. "Mom?" "Around back, Dana," her mother yelled. Scully followed the shoveled pathway past the covered stack of fire wood to the clearing behind the cabin. Her mother had a few blankets spread out over the ice, and was sitting in the sun mending clothes. "Hello, Dear," she greeted with a smile. "Come for a visit?" "Can you watch the baby for me?" "Of...course." The request surprised her mother; she'd already made the attempt to babysit her grand daughter once that day. "Is everything all right? You look upset." "I'm OK. Something's up with Mulder. I need to talk with him." Margaret reached up and took her sleeping grandchild. "We'll be fine. Don't worry about us." She smiled down at the sleeping baby. "Take care of your husband." Scully nodded as she held his clothes closer to her body. When she turned to go, her mother stopped her. "Dana," she said. "Some things happened when you were...gone. It was almost three weeks and Fox..." The seriousness of her mother's expression made her chest tighten. Scully knew from first-hand experience how painful it was to think a soul-mate was gone, and Mulder hadn't said a word about what he went through during those eighteen days. "What happened?" she asked, afraid of what she might hear. "The first day he ran around like a mad man. He tried to kill that poor doctor, but Dag and that other man managed to pull him off before he did any serious damage. When he broke loose we didn't know where he was for a while. Frohike found him half out of his mind, running around, one boot untied and flopping, covering himself with snow. He said he was too cold, and the snow was warm. "Dana, he was lost without you. And the baby. He blamed himself for not being there. I mean, we were all grieving. I was beside myself. But Fox... "You asked me to take care of him, but you have no idea how impossible that was. If you had been gone two or three more days, I don't think there was anything any of us could've done." Scully swallowed. "What are you saying?" Her mother looked down at the baby, and gave her a tiny smile. When she lifted her gaze back to Scully there was something unsettling in her eyes. "I found him down by the cliffs. Staring at the frozen lake." The lake that used to be the village, and the 1000 foot vertical drop. "Did he say...?" Scully swallowed the rest of the sentence. "No. He didn't have to." "But you don't know that he was going to jump, Mom." "Dana. I don't think you understand. He was so far gone...I...at that point...I'm not sure that I would've stopped him." Scully couldn't reconcile what her mother was telling her with what she knew of both people. Mulder had an innate sense of self preservation that managed to keep him alive even when he seemed to be self-destructing. And her mother was Catholic - how bad would he have to be to allow her to accept suicide as a possible solution? "I have to find him," she said, as she turned and hurried back down the path. He hadn't returned to their cabin, and Scully scanned the nearby woods. Where would he go if he were upset? The cliffs came to mind, but she told herself it was because her mother had just mentioned them. Scully had never been to the cliffs. She knew they were down the path past the rec room, and that the way would be shoveled because that's where the depot dumped its garbage. The sun was bright, and the reflection off the snow made it difficult to see. There were many people out and about in the depot, carrying and hauling, children running around. It seemed strange that there was all this life, and entire village, that Scully had managed to shield herself from. When the man sweeping the snow from his front step saw her, he froze and stared. The children suddenly became silent and pointed, giggling. Most of them she'd never seen before, and she dismissed their unsettling gawking as simply seeing a new face. Or maybe finally catching a glimpse at the crazy lady who refused to come out of her cabin. She hurried past them, and down the narrow road, more worried about her husband than the reactions of the villagers. Trees hugged the cleared path, and Scully saw her first two birds in more than a year chirping noisily from branches far above her head. The sun didn't filter through the snow-covered vegetation, and the way seemed to get darker as she walked. When she rounded the curve, the path widened into a clearing where the snow was smooth and undisturbed, save for one well- trampled track that lead both to where the mountain ended abruptly, and the wide valley began, as well as to a set of stumps set up on their ends and topped with a wooden plank to make a bench. The snow had been brushed off of it, and Mulder sat at one end, elbows on knees, head in his hands. Scully was surprised to see Dag beside him, watching her husband, saying something that she couldn't quite here. Mulder shook his head, and the muscles in his bare back shifted. He'd gotten very thin over the last year, maybe thirty pounds lighter than she'd ever known him. Dag said something else, to which Mulder didn't seem to respond. The larger man shifted closer, and one arm came up behind him, hesitating before lowering on to Mulder's bare shoulders. Scully's stomach twinged as Dag eased Mulder's head against his shoulder, and began to lightly run a hand over his hair. The motion was intimate, loving. Scully's jaw dropped when Dag looked down at Mulder's crown and pressed a kiss on top of his head. Mulder felt it, because he pulled away from his friend and stumbled a couple of steps away from the bench. Dag was instantly on his feet, too, obviously trying to cover what he had unintentionally let slip. They stood on opposite sides of the bench in a shocked stale-mate as Scully approached, Dag wide-eyed and fearful, and Mulder suddenly self-conscious about his partial nudity. They both saw her at the same time, and turned away from each other. Scully handed her husband the clothes she'd brought him. "Where's the baby?" Mulder asked, trying to cover the tension. "With Mom." Scully watched as the color in Dag's face drained away. He looked as if he might be sick. "You OK?" she asked him. He nodded, but avoided eye contact, and then turned to leave. They watched him go, and disappear behind a snow-crusted evergreen. When Mulder finished pulling on his shirt, he began up the path as well, but Scully stopped him. "It's quiet here," she said. "And you and I haven't truly been alone together - just you and me - for a long time." His voice was tight, his words clipped. "I don't want to talk," he told her as he stood in profile against he forest backdrop, the depot marked behind him only by the columns of smoke that rose to the sky. "I think we should. A little." Scully looked out over the white span of valley, and the clear blue late afternoon sky. "Mom told me a little of what happened while I was gone." His glance was guarded, and he quickly turned back to the neutral white trees and shook his head. "No. I can't....I can't talk about it, Scully." "And I can't not. You scared me when you ran off like that, Mulder. You're not a murderer. Whether Krycek was armed or not, he was still the evil bastard he'd always been, working with his own agenda, and not to be trusted. You did what you had to do with the knowledge you had and the circumstances you were in. You and I both know the kind of psychology it takes to create a true killer. We've faced them head on more times than I'd care to count. You're a good man, Mulder. A good father." Her words let the air out of his chest, and he slouched forward, eyes closed, arms hanging limply. "Scully, please." She sighed, feeling worse for having pushed. "OK," she said under her breath. He wasn't ready to hear the words yet. He needed more time to process. She would just have to give him time. "OK." She headed back up the path. Her mother probably wouldn't be ready to give up her grand daughter yet, but Scully felt uneasy being without her. She should've just brought her. "Scully, wait." He reached out as she passed him, and tugged her arm, pulled her close and into an easy embrace. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said into her hair. "There's just so much...I feel so much that...it scares me a little, too." She tightened her arms around his middle and laid her cheek against his chest. "It may take a little while, but we're going to be OK, Mulder. Everything is going to be OK." "Promise?" he asked in a small, uncertain voice. "Promise." She looked unto his face, and saw the barest trace of a smile. On tip toes, she reached up to kiss him. His lips were cold and dry, but opened easily to the light sweep of her tongue. He moaned at the contact, and his mouth came alive. Scully gasped when he grabbed her ass and roughly pulled her to him, surprised by the thrill that shot deep inside her and created a sexual ache. Mulder's body responded, too, and he pressed himself against her abdomen as he repeatedly thrust his tongue inside her mouth to duel with hers. Over and over again their mouths and tongues met, and the more he kissed her, the more she craved. She couldn't get close enough to him, couldn't reach enough of his flesh. Her hands worked their way under his shirt, but she needed more. A moment of sanity reminded her that they would have to wait for more. He grunted his displeasure when she pulled away from him, her chest heaving. "Not here," she managed to get out. "Here and now." He practically growled. He dove at her, his mouth and hands attacking, claiming her as his. And she love it, love him, kissed him with everything she was worth. She'd never known him so urgent, so demanding. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. It was erotic. "Someone will see us," she managed to get out. He unfastened her jeans and roughly pushed them down her thighs. "Let them watch," he growled, and his hands slipped inside her panties to squeeze her ass, pull her against him. The ache between her legs magnified. It was all she could do to clutch his biceps as he pulled their clothing away and steered them back to the bench. His erection was hard and red, hot in her hand. He pulled her down on to his lap, one of her legs still caught in her jeans, and she pressed the entire length of him against her abdomen, stroking as he groaned his encouragement. Her hips gave a twinge of protest, as they always did when she sat straight up, but the pain in her swollen core was louder, and all she could listen to. It had been too long since they last made love, and he seemed to need her even more than she needed him. Mulder was impossible to deny. Especially when he sucked on that magic spot on her neck, just above her pulse, while this thumb found her other magic spot and began to stroke her with a rhythm of its own. Scully's eyes rolled back and fluttered closed. It was amazing how he knew how to touch her. Their first year of marriage hadn't produced abundant opportunities for love making, and yet, right from the start, his mouth and hands and body were able to rapidly send her into varying degrees of ecstasy. He pulled back, and Scully opened her eyes to see him staring at her, a hungry intensity on his face. His body practically vibrated with his desire. "I don't want to hurt you," he said through clenched teeth, his voice restrained and tight. "Then don't," she said simply and leaned in to claim his mouth for another deep, wet kiss. "Be gentle." His pupils dilated, even in the direct reddish light of the setting sun, and wicked smile spread across his face. "You are so hot." Scully laughed. "You're about to find me a whole lot hotter," she told him in her best seductive voice, half-embarrassed that she had the nerve to say it, and half-shocked at the effect it had on her husband. His face crumbled in pain, and he looked down at her hand working him, and the drops of fluid that trickled out under her thumb. "God, Scully. If you don't climb aboard the horse, I'm going to lose the reigns." She giggled again at his choice of metaphor, or maybe at the wonderful way she felt. When she lowered herself on top of him, though, and he sank all the way inside, she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Too soon, she screamed in her head. Too soon, too soon. His head bowed, and his forehead dropped into the crook of her neck. "So good," he whispered. "So good." He reached down to their joining and began to stroke her again, his fingers slick and wonderful exactly where she needed them to be. Her body warred with the pain and the pleasure, with the need to find a climax, and the knowledge that she should stop him and tell him to wait. "Faster," she said instead. "Make me hum." As his hand worked, she leaned away from him, her palms curling over his knees, throwing some of her weight off her pelvis. When she rocked, a hot tingle formed in her belly, and it swirled to join the throbbing pleasure Mulder fingered. He let her do the moving, let her set the pace, watched her through lidded eyes. She forgot that it had been a while for him, too, and that he hadn't suffered from any physical set-backs that might've alleviated the sexual impulse on his part. And how beautiful he was when he looked at her with lust in his eyes. He was aroused by her, by her arousal of him. One of his hands rested on her bare hip, helped to guide her back down each time, so that she could rise up, and sink home again. And again. And again. And then a little faster. Her arms shook under the strain. Her chest heaved. The pleasure soared through her. There was no pain anymore, just building and pressure, and a crest that was within reach. "Close?" she gasped. He nodded, not able to answer. Scully closed her eyes and her climax came, hard and fast, and with a small cry of sudden pain. She'd leaned forward on to him without realizing it, her face in the crook of his neck, and it shifted her weight back over her pelvis, and drove him even farther inside her convulsing body. It took him longer, but it was hard for Scully to care. She floated down from her orgasm slowly, relishing in their union, in her ability to drape herself over him once again, and the way he breathed her name into her ear like a mantra as he gently pumped up into her. It was too bad that they weren't back in the privacy of their home, in bed, so they could lay in their post-coital bliss. Suddenly self- conscious, Scully opened her eyes and scanned the clearing and wasn't completely shocked to find Dag standing beside one of the evergreens that lined the path back to the depot. He was still as he watched Mulder bucking below her finally find his release. "Scully, Scully, Scully," Mulder whimpered through clenched teeth, as the last of his thrusts melted into spasms. He reached up and pulled her face down for a deep, languid kiss. When Scully came back up for air, their audience had disappeared. ***** End of chapter 18 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Chapter 19 ***** "...to protect one at the cost of so many. A year ago I would've said it was horrible, barbaric, alien; but, now that I see the world through a mother's eyes, I find it very human." -Dana Katherine Scully journal entry, December 31, 2000 Rorschach, Switzerland December 24, 2000 "Don't you think you should tell her?" Mulder sat by the open window, his daughter balanced on one arm, her head cradled in the palm of his hand while her arms and legs sporadically flailed. Every time he spoke she stilled a little, seemingly mesmerized by him. Scully knew the feeling. His sharp hazel eyes, full lower lip, and dazzling wit had her transfixed right from the beginning. Mulder was dinner and a movie all rolled into one. But she turned back to the blouse she held in her hands. There was no way in hell that it was going to fit without some sort of minimizing bra. And that wasn't a possibility. It was so strange that something she'd spent a good twenty years of her life envying in other women had become the bane of her daily existence. With a roll of her eyes she opted for the sweater, even though the day was warm and balmy. And, anyway, once the sun went down she'd be happy for the extra thickness. "Scully, she's going to notice sooner or later that Dessy isn't baptized. You really should talk to her about it. You've had a life-changing experience. She'll understand. She wants to be a part of our lives." "She won't understand." The topic was getting old, and giving her indigestion. Scully pushed a fist into her stomach to stifle the hint of nausea. "My mother will most definitely not understand." "But why not? You said yourself that your faith is stronger now than it ever was, that you feel more grounded because of it. Isn't that what every mother wants?" "As someone raised Catholic, I can honestly tell you, no it isn't. She doesn't want me happy and healthy, she wants to save my mortal soul." The sweater buttoned down the front, and gave a little where she needed it to, and it matched the green skirt she got from Alejo. He managed to make her three nursing bras, and promised something a little less utilitarian when she didn't need them anymore. It was truly amazing what that man could do with needle and thread. "Scully, you know that's not true. She wants you healthy, too. And besides, God is God -" "No, Mulder. God is not God. My mother's God is a literal translation from the Bible as set down from the Heavenly Father in Rome. That is the God she worships. That is the God she expects us to celebrate tonight. And I will not ruin that for her by explaining that not only is her only surviving grandchild the missing link for the next stage in human evolution, but she will also be raised a heathen because I have a faint memory that grows more and more obscure everyday of something that might or might not have been God, who explained human history and the purpose for all life on Earth!" Mulder didn't move a muscle, but waited and watched. He was concerned, but also a little wistful; always an annoying combination when directed at her. Scully took a deep breath to calm herself, and then shook her head. "Never mind. I don't want to talk about this now. This is supposed to be a happy night." "Yes, it is," he said slowly. From the corner of her eye, Scully watched him gently lay their daughter in her bassinet while she neatly folded the blouse back up for the day she could wear it again. He came up behind her, and wrapped his arms around her, breathed in her hair. "I think you're sad because Christmas has always been an important part of your heritage," he told her. "And this isn't going to be like all the other Christmases you've celebrated in your life. Because even though your spiritual beliefs are stronger than ever, they've shifted from the Christian doctrine you've been comfortable with and you don't know how you're going to be honest with your mother and honest with yourself, and keep some semblance of a Christmas tradition alive for your daughter to inherit." She couldn't help a faint chuckle. Leave it to Mulder to come up with an answer that scared her more than the question ever could. "Actually, I was wondering how I was going to fake my way through the evening, but I like your assessment better." She knew he was smiling over her shoulder. "You'd never make it, Scully. You're a lousy liar." He kissed her cheek, her temple. "But you're oh, so good in bed." He reached lower on her body, and her stomach felt like it dropped out from under her. Scully broke out of his embrace. "Cut it out!" He was constantly touching her, wanting more, and they hadn't even talked about birth control yet. "What?" he asked with a light chuckle. "I'm just trying to help you relax." "You think I'm tense because I need sex? Like eight hours is too much time between fucks?" His face dropped. "Where did *that* come from?" Bile burned at the back of her throat, and she felt the heat of a blush run up her neck and into her face. "You touch me too much. We've had more sex in the last four weeks than we did our entire first year of marriage." "That's a bad thing?" "I think I'm pregnant." She watched Mulder's confusion fuse into shock. "Again," she weakly added. His shock evaporated in the span of a breath, and a bright smile bloomed across his face. He rushed too her laughing, grabbed her around the waist and lifted her as he whirled her around. "That's wonderful! Another baby!" Her stomach rebelled, and she swallowed down the late lunch that threatened to come up. With a grunt she pulled away from him, needing space and air away from him. She should've known he'd be overjoyed at the prospects of becoming a father again. It made her sick that she didn't share the sentiment. The door and window in their small cabin were open, and the fireplace was dark for the second day in a row. The weather was simply too warm for it. Scully felt like she was suffocating. Tears threatened, but she held them at bay. "I've got to get some air," she mumbled as she headed for the door. The sun was bright, as it always seemed to be now, and the trees were alive with birds and bugs. There was a cool breeze that lifted her hair from her shoulders and pressed her skirt against her legs as she walked into the wooded area next to their home. The ground was uneven, icy and slick. Snow melted during the warm days and then froze again every night. Small creeks formed everywhere as the run-off from the trees made its way down the mountainside. Scully stepped over one and headed for the felled trunk, still frozen and wet, protected from the day by dense shade. It was one of the places Mulder liked to sit when he woke from a nightmare, a common occurrence now. While the sun was up he was able to suppress his demons, juggle fatherhood and the various jobs he'd collected from the village, and he put on a valiant show of normality. At night, when the stars blanketed the sky and the Milky Way seemed to glow, he was like a child afraid of the bogey monster, only the monster was himself. There were mornings when he didn't crawl back into bed until the sky lightened and the sun threatened to rise. "It's a good spot." Scully turned to see her husband picking his way through the fallen branches and clumps of ice, their daughter over his shoulder. He held her against himself like it was the most natural thing in the world. "The Washington Monument always had too many people walking around. This place is better." He leaned against the fallen tree beside her and shifted the baby to his far shoulder. Her little socked feet kicked while she tried to stuff her whole fist in her mouth. "And," he added, "all the fresh air you could possibly want." She didn't blame him for trying, really. There were dozens of nights that she shadowed him out to that very spot and tried to get him to open up to her. She loved him, and she wanted him to stop hurting. She knew he wanted the same. "Scully?" His voice was soft and quiet, and he looked back at their cabin through the copse. "Aren't you happy with Dessy?" She didn't like what he was implying. "You know I love her. Doesn't that go without saying?" "No, it doesn't," he said simply. "But that's not what I asked. I asked if you were happy with her." And a long time ago he asked a similar question, and her answer was just as complicated now as it was then. "I think there's something wrong with me," she said after a moment. "I see you with her, and there's this bond, this...intangible thing connecting you to her. You talk to her, you sing to her, and half the time I expect her to join in on the chorus." "I love her," he said with a little shrug, as if his fathering instincts were no big deal. "I love her too, Mulder. And I carried her inside me for almost ten months. I'd do anything for her, but I don't feel that bond." "What do you feel?" "Anxiety. Is she safe? Is she dry? Is she hungry? Is she too warm, too cold, too big, too happy? Do you notice that she never really cries? I mean a full-blown wail? Is that normal?" "She's happy, Scully. You and I are brilliant parents," he said with a smile. "So she's the most content baby in the history of the world. Is that really something to worry about?" He held her out with both hands for Scully to see, and Destiny squirmed, her large blue eyes tracked a branch overhead that moved in the breeze. "She's perfect, Scully. Ten fingers and ten toes. She's the best thing we've ever done together. And she's ours. Yours and mine. The bond is there, you're just not allowing yourself to enjoy it yet." Scully collected the baby in her arms and pulled her close. Her hair had that soft baby smell mixed with the soap they washed her with that morning. "You can't tell me that you don't feel maternal, Scully. I see it in your smile when you look at her. You didn't even know you were smiling, did you?" Scully glanced at him, and then back down at their daughter. Her little fingers opened and closed reflexively on the neckline of Scully's sweater. "Mulder, I can't go through that again." "Of course you can," he said confidently. "You'll be great." "No, I won't. I barely survived the first one. And I'm not just talking about the birth. My pregnancy was far from typical. I'm in my mid-thirties, Mulder. My body needs time to recuperate. I'm not a vending machine. I can't just pop them out one after another." "Wait a minute. Are you saying that another pregnancy could be dangerous?" "Yes. Very. Especially considering the difficulties I had with my first pregnancy and birth." He swallowed while he considered her news. "Are you...sure you're pregnant again?" "Seventy-five percent." Mulder cleared his throat and stared out past their cabin, a deep frown lowering his brow. "There's a significant margin of doubt there." "Not significant enough," Scully muttered under her breath. "Look, Scully, you have every reason to be scared. I wasn't there for you through a large chunk of your pregnancy, and Dessy's birth was traumatic for me so I can only imagine what it must've been like for you. But what if I said that this time will be different. You won't have to do any of it alone." "Isn't one perfect child enough? Do we really need another so soon?" "But if you're already..." He shook his head against the argument he was about to make. He leaned against the fallen log beside her, tears pooling in his eyes. He blinked them quickly away and inhaled sharply. His jaw clenched. "Logan told me about a place in South America," he said. "A new city that's being built. The first wave of occupants is scheduled to take residence in July. He said that eventually it will be big enough to hold everyone left, and that it will have running water and electricity and central heat and wall-to-wall carpeting and telephones and computers. And a state-of-the-art hospital with the best doctors and the best equipment to do what ever you need done. It will be like it was before the aliens came." "Oh, Mulder. It will never be like it was before." "Not exactly, no. But it'll have all the modern amenities. All the pain killers you could ever want." "Giving birth isn't the only risk involved, Mulder. It's just the most obvious." They were quiet for a moment while they watched a pair of brown birds chasing each other through the low, newly blooming branches of a nearby tree. The world was slowly coming back to life around them. "How long have you suspected you were pregnant?" "A couple of days." "I can't believe you waited this long to tell me." His eyes dropped to his boots. "You really don't want another one, do you? I mean, we never talked about how many - or if any at all. It's just that now that Dessy is here, I can't imagine living my whole life without her in it. I can't wait for her to start walking and talking and exploring the world. I can't wait to share everything I know with her. And I can't help but wonder..." He didn't finish. He didn't need to. The baby's eyes began to flutter closed, and she gave a cute little yawn as her grip on Scully's top relaxed. Scully couldn't help but kiss her daughter's forehead. "Mulder, please stop calling her Dessy. Soon she'll start answering to it." He kicked a clump of snow and it splattered angrily against a nearby tree truck. "Maybe we should be sure you're pregnant before we talk about this. I can contact Tibet the day after tomorrow and ask them to send someone with the next shipment of supplies." Minutes before he was as happy as she'd ever seen him. Guilt swelled through her, bringing a lump to the back of her throat. "How many do you want?" she asked, hoping to keep him from throwing up too many emotional barriers between them on Christmas. "Two? Three?" His eyes met hers, and he searched her with scrutiny. "You said it could be dangerous for you. I don't want to risk losing you, Scully. We need you." "Now who's evading the question?" she lightly teased. "Just tell me, hypothetically, how many children do you want to raise?" "I...don't know. I'm already up from how many I always thought I'd have. I'd probably want to stop before fourteen or thirteen. We'd need nine for a baseball team." "What?!" Mulder gave a hint of a grin. "Relax, Scully. There isn't a number for me. One is enough, if that's all we can do." Scully snorted. "Well, it's a little late for that thought, my friend." "But...you said it was dangerous for you. You said you couldn't go through it again," he said, cautious and hopeful. "And you said you'd be there the whole time, and that there would be medical facilities in my future." "There will be!" Once again overjoyed and laughing, he threw his arms around her and the baby. Destiny startled and began to cry. "And there goes your abnormally happy baby theory, Scully. Another X-File solved." "Take her," Scully urged, offering up the baby. She always settled down right away when her father held her. "No," he said, still smiling. "You're doing fine." "But, Mulder, she's crying." "Then make her feel safe. Tell her it's going to be OK. You always seem to like it when I tell you that." Destiny's face was a dark, angry red, and her eyes were squeeze shut against the force of her wail. Scully pulled her tight against her chest and began to sway from side to side, hoping the movement would calm her daughter before her breasts responded with a weeping of their own. "Talk to her, Scully. She likes to listen." "She can't understand me," she snapped, frustrated at the lack of results she was getting. "Just take her, Mulder." "Talk to her," he urged again. Scully inhaled. "Come on, Destiny, stop crying." The baby continued to scream. "You're safe. Your daddy and I are here, and everything's going to be OK. Mulder, I feel silly talking to myself." "Then talk to her. She's not a vegetable, you know. She does respond, even if it's not verbal yet." "But she's just a baby. She's one big nervous reflex. She can't distinguish speech yet. Use your magical bond thingy to make her stop crying." "Magical bond thingy? Did those words really come out of your mouth, Scully?" "Shut up." "Just talk to her. Trust me on this." Scully closed her eyes and kissed her child's head. The baby tensed for every shriek she uttered. "OK, OK. Hey, now, Destiny. You can stop crying now because all this will be better soon. In a couple of months you're going to be able to roll over and sit up on your own, and then you'll start crawling. And once you can walk, the whole world will be at your fingertips." Her wide little watery eyes stared up at Scully, unsure. She made a few more unsettled sounds. "That's right," Scully continued. "And once you're on your feet you'll learn some words and be able to let us in on what's going on in that beautiful head of yours. I know you're going to be smart. You'll get that from your father. I hope you'll also have his curiosity and wonder. I already see his intensity in your gaze. Make sure you don't let it control you. "There's a whole new world that we're creating for you, Destiny. Find your truth in it. Find it in yourself. Truth is subjective, and that's its beauty. That's something your father was never quite able to grasp." Scully glanced at her husband, his eyes full of their quiet little girl. "You are loved, Dessy. Never forget that. Love created you, love nourished you and protected you. It's the most valuable gift your father and I can give you, and we give it unconditionally and eternally...and I never understood what that meant until I held you in my arms." Tears came, but Scully smiled through them. Another child. Was there really that much love in the world? It was impossible to fathom the depth of emotions she carried for her daughter multiplied by two. It scared her. "Look how she responds to you, Scully. Look..." Mulder's voice wavered with emotion. Scully laughed; nervous and happy and vulnerable all at once. Mulder joined in. "But the one thing you should always remember, little one," Scully whispered to her daughter. "Dessy was all your father's doing." ***** End of chapter 19 ***** Journal 2000 by MD1016 Gossamer: TAR Rated: NC-17, MSR Summary: The struggle continues. ***** Epilogue ***** "I watch my daughter draw tiny breaths as she sleeps across her father's chest, rising and falling with his regular inhales and exhales. They are a picture I am trying to burn into my retinas so that even in my old age, when little Dessy is out in the world with a family of her own, I will be able to close my eyes and see them as they are now. Mulder is the father to her that I always longed for; generous with his love and praise, adoring, proud not for what she might do but because of what she is. "She is his daughter. "I spoke to my mother this afternoon. I tried to explain a little of what I experienced during those eighteen days, how my child is different and special, how I came away with a knowledge that has reshaped my whole belief structure. She said I was crazy, said Mulder had corrupted me and brainwashed me into forgetting who I am, and she said...worse things. Things I don't want to be remembered because I know that there's a bitter truth in some of her words. She is still my mother, and when I'm sixty-six I'll continue to crave her loving words and adoration just as I did when I was a child. I hate this power she has over me. She does not understand. "My love for Mulder, and the experiences I have had because of my relationship with him have changed me. They've allowed me to look beyond the knowledge that came with my degrees, and Catholicism that was instilled in me from the moment of my christening when I was nine months old. I fought it and him for a long time because I defined myself by both practices, science and religion, and I found comfort in them. Now I understand that I don't have to give up one to have the other. I have them all. And I am better for them. "My science is intact - although much broader than I ever dreamed possible. Man began on this planet 250,000 years ago, as a creature we call Neanderthal, a primitive beast with the capacity to evolve. But he did not evolve fast enough. 225,000 years of evolution produced little more than simple hand tools and sheltering in caves. No written language - barely any language at all. A group of males and females were altered, and the resulting children became modern man. Or, what we so egotistically called ourselves. "Then Neanderthal man was...removed. And now, 25,000 years later, history repeats. "I know there is a god. I have seen Him, felt His voice through me - I know He exists. He is the artist behiind our journey through the universe, and the reason we are, and will continue to be here through the daughters my daughter will bear. It will take many generations for the Earth to recover from the devastation the aliens have wreaked, but one day my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand daughter will be born into a world where aliens are a little more than a myth, and her planet is once again healthy and thriving. Modern man will slowly disappear from the picture. My daughter will be our legacy. "The aliens are much like the wardens of a nature preserve, reducing the numbers to protect the herd, and reconstructing the habitat after the herd has devoured the land barren. "To protect one at the cost of so many. A year ago I would've said it was a horrible, barbaric, alien practice; but, now that I see the world through a mother's eyes, I find it very human. There is nothing I wouldn't do to protect my daughter. My children. "Children, plural. I'm warming to the idea. "Tomorrow begins the first day of the 21st century. We've no snow or rain since Dessy's arrival. Each day grows warmer - today was unbearably hot. Steam rises from the frozen mountain side through most of the day, creating a humidity that can be suffocating. The nights are the reverse, freezing and clear, and going between the extremes has caused a flu outbreak in our depot. It's avoided our house so far, thank God. "I'm not the only one who is concerned about the weather. Logan suggested that the entire planet was thrown on to a different axis that now places Switzerland in the southern hemisphere. But there are a lot of theories being bandied about, and none of them answer all our questions adequately. It's driving Mulder nuts. He always has to know, and this truth seems as illusive as all the others we've chased after. Now, though, he's less manic, and at the end of the day he's able to put his quest for answers aside and doze by the fire with our baby in his arms. "She's a miracle in so many, many ways." ***** End of Journal 2000 ***** AUTHOR'S NOTE: There are many people who deserve a word or two of thanks, especially those who wrote with encouragement and corrections , and who stuck with this story through to the end. Thanks also to Inya who donated time, effort and bandwidth to the cause. And, of course, Bonetree who inspired and supported. Thanks for playing.