The Measure of My Days

by Marguerite1

A beginning, a middle, and another beginning.

The Measure of My Days

Classification: Post-ep for "Requiem"
Summary: Skinner prepares himself for a sacrifice.

Note: "Requiem" did not have a date stamp so I'm splitting the difference
between it and the premiere and saying that the events happened in early July.

***
Lord, make me to know mine end,
And the measure of my days, what it is;
Let me know how short-lived I am.

Psalm 39:5
***

***
Georgetown Memorial Hospital
Service Entrance
February 21, 2001
2:15 a.m.
***

I woke with the sickening feeling that my cheek was on the greasy pavement.
Slowly I got up from the puddle of slush Mulder's right hook delivered me
into, and looked around for him. Gone. Damn it all to hell.

It happened so fast. I'd stepped outside to get some air when my cell phone
rang. "Merchandise is on its way to you. You're the return receipt. Be at the
service entrance in five minutes."

Click.

Minutes later I watched as he was half-tossed out of a nondescript blue
minivan with mud conveniently obscuring whatever had been rigged up for
license plates. I swear I caught a glimpse of Alex Krycek's prosthetic hand
with tooth marks in it. Mulder looked like something out of a bad prison
movie: disheveled, thin, his clothes torn and ragged, but he still had
Scully's cross around his neck. It was bent and had clearly seen better days -
but so had he.

He looked right past me with haunted eyes. "Where is she?" he asked. As he
walked up to me I could see bruising and broken blood vessels. "What room?"

"She's in 724. Mulder, she's had..."

He held his hand up, his bruised hand with fingernails bitten to the quick. "I
should've known - she was tired, she was fainting."

How the hell had he figured it out? I held on to his arms and tried to get my
mouth open to tell him that he had a daughter, but before I could say one word
his fist was shoving my lips against my teeth.

"...before she dies..." was all I heard before my head connected with the hard
concrete, and the last thing I saw were his feet as he ran into the hospital
at full tilt. I realized that he must have believed that her cancer had
returned in his absence. He must be scared out of his mind, I thought as night
swallowed me.

***
Seven months earlier
***

"I'm pregnant."

My heart's too heavy to beat this fast, I thought. I could scarcely bear to
look at her face as she smiled even with tears pouring from her eyes. I
couldn't handle it.

I didn't really sit so much sit as collapse. "You're pregnant?" I asked,
aggravated by parroting a statement that should have been simple enough to
comprehend.

My next question, the one I thought I was asking myself silently, escaped from
my mouth in that fraction of a second when the human brain cannot quite make
its filters work. "How?"

Scully's half-amused, half-shy smile was a relief. "I'm assuming in the usual
way, sir."

"I'm sorry. It's just...I don't...Mulder told me..." I winced at bringing up
the name of the missing man but Scully smiled again, the full bloom of a pale
rose.

"Mulder and I both thought that. It never occurred to us that this could
happen." Her eyes misted over and she took a few seconds before continuing.
"We were so careful not to let anyone know, to be discreet. But we weren't
careful about..." As if freshly aware of the intimacy of the discussion, she
lowered her gaze. "We didn't know," she finished in a whisper.

I had a sudden and inescapable vision of Dana Scully, unclothed and
uninhibited, wrapped around the carelessly lean body of her partner.

God. It was true.

I checked to make sure my mouth wasn't hanging open, then took off my glasses
and wiped them on my handkerchief, stalling, hoping that something intelligent
would formulate in my sleep-deprived brain. No such luck. I was replaying the
image that had haunted my every waking moment, of looking up to see that
Mulder was gone and then seeing the sky light up with impossible brilliance.
Spaceship. I saw a spaceship.

Scully was staring at me with her head cocked to one side, the way she did
when she was trying to intuit what someone was thinking. I begged God not to
let her peek into my thoughts, which were now ricocheting between the
spaceship and Scully making love with Mulder.

"Why couldn't I have been assigned to mail fraud?" I asked aloud, and she
rewarded me with a full blown smile.

"I'm sorry. About everything, all these years." She seemed to realize that she
was stroking her abdomen and she removed her hand and offered it to me. I
clutched it, surprised at its warmth in this cold room.

"I only looked away for a moment, Scully."

"That's all it takes for Mulder to disappear. I learned that the hard way. He
can be like a two-year-old in a grocery store." She fixed her lovely, solemn
eyes on me. "I don't blame you. I know you did everything you could."

I felt a boulder forming in my throat. "I've already got people pulling favors
out of hats."

She nodded. "His friends - our friends, that is - have started their own
investigation. His disappearance is related to the brain activity that he had
last year. I think...I hope...that they'll study him and then return him the
way they always do with the others." I realized that she had loosened the grip
on my hand and, reluctantly, I let go.

"When do you get out of here?"

"I don't really have to wait for the other lab results. I just needed a few
hours to collect my thoughts. This is all so sudden."

"Scully, I don't mean to pry, but how far...when...?"

"As near as they can tell, I'm at about six weeks. I'm going to be able to
work for a long time and I need you to find me a place where I can do that
without..." Her voice trailed off. "I haven't even told my mother yet. The
other agents...the security guys..."

"We'll keep this a secret as long as we can," I promised.

Scully nodded and sighed, turning her head away, but not before I saw another
tear trickle down her cheek. "You're the first person I've told. Can you tell
the Gunmen when they come by? I'm just not up to it."

Like I was?

"Sure," I said, trying to convince us both that it would be no big deal. But
while she showered I had to meet with the three men out in the hallway and try
to explain the inexplicable.

"There are new forms of chemotherapy available that are more aggressive with
this form of cancer," Byers was saying before I even had a chance to open my
mouth.

"I doubt that chemotherapy will help her much." At that, the short guy,
Frohike, looked as if I'd just shot his dog. I tried to make amends quickly.

"No, no. It's not cancer at all. It's...she's..." Go for it, I told myself.
Just spit it out. "She's pregnant."

They looked at each other. Three mouths open, three pairs of eyes wide, three
faces full of doubt and suspicion.

"You're kidding," Langly said in a choked voice. I couldn't tell if he was
about to laugh or cry. "Man, where'd you hear that?"

"She told me herself. She's every bit as surprised as we are."

"My God." Frohike sagged into one of the blue plastic chairs. "Oh, my God."

"Is...Mulder...?" Byers inquired, his face beet red.

"Evidently."

"Whoa. Man, this is big."

"Langly, shut up," Frohike bellowed. "We don't know who's listening."

"I'm listening," I said in my best don't-try-anything voice. "And I think
someone here had better start talking."

"Frohike, Langly - what are you not telling us?" Byers' expression was stern
even though his eyes were fearful, and I realized with a start that the three
of them did not seem to divulge all their secrets to one another.

Langly sank into the chair beside Frohike. I felt like a junior high school
principal as I looked down at them. "Now, gentlemen."

"When Mulder brought that chip for Scully out of the DOD facility, it was in a
vial full of deionized water," Langly said, his voice turning upward at the
end of each phrase in a bizarre singsong. "And it took us a while to figure
out that there was anything even in the water, but Mulder found out and he got
the chip to take to Scully."

"What he didn't know was that there was a second chip," Frohike continued. "We
decided to study it, just in case someone tried something rotten with the one
she had inserted."

"And we found ways to make it better, less...invasive but still effective
against the cancer that the treatments cause in the women who were tested."
Langly drew a breath. "We also discovered that we could undo a few things that
were done - like harvesting ova. It's not really possible to take ALL of them
from a woman's ovaries; there have to be some left. It was just a matter of
turning them on, so to speak."

"When Mulder found out what those bastards had done to Scully he was beside
himself. And lately it was really, really eating him. So Langly and me, we
worked out a way to use the technology in the chip we had to control - sort of
by remote - what the chip inside Scully was doing."

"You hacked her chip?" Byers shouted.

"Uh, yeah." Langly bit his lip. "Man, you gotta believe me - we had no idea
she and Mulder were, you know, doing the horizontal mambo."

Byers sighed, his arms folded, his expression as angry as I'd ever seen it.
"You were, I assume, planning to ask her permission?"

"We didn't even know for sure it'd work. I just figured she'd get an exam
somewhere along the way and the doctor would find that she was ovulating
again." Frohike looked at us with guilt and horror stamped all over his face.
"God. Oh, my God. I swear to you that I had no idea that this could happen."

I don't know what made me look back over my left shoulder, but there was
Scully in her rumpled suit, a look of utter horror in her eyes. "You? You
three did...this?"

I stepped aside and let Langly and Frohike see that she had joined us. Both
men looked down at the floor in utter misery. "Byers didn't know anything
about it," Frohike said as if anxious to exonerate at least one of them. "We
didn't mean any harm - we just wanted to give back what was taken from you."

Her whole body quivered and I moved to stand beside her, to catch her if she
should fall. But this was Dana Scully, and it would take more than this to
drop her. Her backbone straightened and her swaying stopped as suddenly as it
began. "I don't want to have this conversation out here," she said, motioning
toward her room.

We all filed in, five stunned people whose hearts were breaking and whose
minds were in a fog. Scully stood at the foot of the bed and stared grimly at
Langly and Frohike.

"When I was abducted, things were done to my body without my knowledge and
consent. I tried to take gain control over myself by having the chip removed,
only to come close to losing my life. Technology that I never chose may - or
may not - have contributed to putting my cancer into remission. Now I find
that even my friends are controlling me."

"Scully, we just..."

"No, Frohike. Shut up and listen." She took a deep breath. "Some day, when I'm
more at peace with what's happened to me and to Mulder, I'll be able to
appreciate the fact that you thought you were doing me a favor. But until that
day...I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to
know you exist. Is that clear?"

There was a deadly silence in the room. Scully's face was flushed and
indignant fire danced in her eyes. Suddenly she took hold of my arm with thin,
strong fingers and looked up into my face.

"It's real, isn't it?" she whispered, all the color draining from her cheeks.
"I never really believed it until just now."

"Sit down, Scully," Byers prompted, pulling up the visitor's chair from next
to the bed. She obeyed blindly, her breath coming so fast that I feared that
she would hyperventilate. "I need to go home. I want to call my mom. Please,
someone take me home."

I grabbed my car keys and gave a dark scowl to the two miscreants and their
partner. Frohike jumped in front of the door, barring the exit.

"Scully, please. I swear, I never dreamed you'd find out this way. Please."

She looked at him with firm compassion. Tough love. Whatever you call it, it
made her smile softly at him and press her palm to his stubbled cheek.

"I know, Frohike. And someday I'll be grateful. I promise." She held out her
other hand to Langly, who took it tentatively. "But not before I kick your
asses into next week."

***

Over the next two weeks, Scully spent every waking moment directing her
formidable energy toward finding Mulder.

I went down to the basement at every opportunity and usually found her sitting
tailor-fashion on the floor, sifting through files with one hand and punching
numbers into her cell phone with the other. Today, as on so many other
occasions, she waved me in, still talking into the phone while she scrawled
notes in the margins of a report from a CETI facility in Puerto Rico.

"I realize that. I can't make it tonight because I need to meet with some
people. Not this time. No, I really mean it, but thank you for your concern.
I'll call you tomorrow. No, not tonight, tomorrow. Bye."

"Your mom?" I asked as she turned the phone off and gave it an impatient shove
into the briefcase that sat open next to her.

"I wish. No, it's the guys."

I had to resist the temptation to laugh out loud. Several times a day at least
one of them would call me from a blocked line and leave a cryptic question
about Scully's health or a remark carefully worded to avoid using the word
"extraterrestrial." The calls bypassed my assistant and came directly to me,
often interrupting a conversation with Scully herself. True to her word, she
had given the guilty parties a tongue-lashing worthy of her seafaring
ancestry. Then, true to her mother's breeding, she softened her tone and said
that she needed four weeks to pull herself together and then she would be back
in touch with them.

"They do have your best interests at heart," I muttered in their defense.
Scully glared at me. As I dropped my gaze I noticed that one of her hands was
smoothing the front of her skirt, which still lay flat against her.

"With perhaps one noteworthy exception."

Her angry expression melted and she chuckled low in her throat.

"I'm trying to get past that. It's just so hard, especially with him gone."

A wistful, dark tone had been creeping into her professional voice, and it
tore my guts out to hear it. Gone, gone, gone, rang the bells in the back of
my brain and looking at Scully's pale, determined face just made the pealing
louder. "I know I promised not to do this, Scully, but are you feeling all
right?"

Her resigned smile dampened the bells somewhat. "A little queasy once in a
while, but otherwise I'm fine." She got to her feet and walked over to
Mulder's chair, smoothing the leather for a moment before sitting down and
motioning me to take the seat opposite. "I'm going to be moving in with my
mother for a while." I must have looked concerned, because she quickly added,
"I feel fine - well, relatively. But I've been thinking about what happens
when I can't keep this a secret anymore."

Shit. I had been afraid of something like that. "I'd like to be able to tell
you that I can offer you protection, but we both know that isn't one hundred
percent effective. What concerns me is your mother. If you're not safe in your
own home, what makes you think hers will be any more of a refuge?"

Scully nodded in slow motion, her lips pursed as she considered my words. "I'd
thought of that. But I just don't know what a better solution would be. All I
know is that once I start showing, I'll have to get out of here."

"Perhaps I could get you to a safe house. In fact, I'd be willing to go with
you." I'd follow you to the ends of the earth, I thought as I hunched over the
desk, tinkering with loose paper clips. "I know that after the disaster with
Mulder you're less than convinced of my abilities..."

"No!" She cut me off with a sharp cry. She leaned forward so quickly that she
was a blur of scarlet hair and blue suit, and before I could take another
breath she was holding my hand in both of hers. "Please don't think that I
blame you in any way for Mulder's disappearance. How could I expect you to
stop something like that?" She looked at my hand, at the IV scars from the
time I'd been attacked by Alex Krycek's nanocytes. "You've saved us more times
than I can count. You've kept the X Files alive when even Mulder gave up
hope." She patted my hand and looked up at me with laughter in her eyes.
"Besides, you know how to keep a secret."

***

The secret came out in a way that would've been funny if Mulder had only been
there to see it.

My assistant flung open the door to my office without so much as an apology
for her brusqueness. "Sir, Agent Scully is being held downstairs at the front
security point."

I didn't even bother to pick up my jacket, choosing instead to set off for the
elevator and get downstairs as fast as I could. Sure enough, Scully was
standing by the metal detector, pale but too agitated to look contrite. An
angry guard was facing her, pointing down to his shoes.

Shoes that were covered in vomit.

"What happened here?" I growled at the two other guards.

"This woman tried to rush past our checkpoint without putting her belongings
on the belt to be x-rayed. When we stopped her, she became belligerent. And
then she..." The young man gestured at his co-worker.

Scully stared at him as if he were insane. "I was having a medical emergency.
I tried to explain to these people that I work here, but..."

"Where's your I.D., Agent Scully?" I asked. "Why come in this way?"

"I was in a hurry. I forgot it." She wavered unsteadily on her feet again and
the guard with the dirty shoes leapt back as if the floor were electrified.
Scully wiped perspiration off her forehead with her wrist and then took off
her jacket, and I saw for the first time the distinct rounding of her abdomen.
Evidently the people surrounding us did as well, for an excited murmur went
through the crowd like a verbal version of the wave.

I stepped forward. "I think this was just an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Toss those shoes and I'll pay for a new pair. But let this go."

One of the other guards looked down at Scully in sympathy, then went over and
clapped his colleague on the shoulder. "He's right, Doug. I remember when Rose
was pregnant - this used to happen all the time."

I glared at him and at the assembled agents and clerical staff. The vestibule
became silent, but dozens of gazes were fixed on Scully, some of them full of
compassion but most displaying a highly unprofessional level of morbid glee.

Scully gave me a wan smile, turned on her heel, and walked out of the FBI
building.

***

After that debacle I didn't see Scully for almost two weeks, although we spoke
on the phone every day. She assured me that she was feeling fine, just
slightly tired, and that even though she spent her days and nights researching
UFO activity, her mother was there to help her deal with day-to-day living.

I'd spent every waking moment - about 20 hours every day - turning over rocks
both earthly and extraterrestrial in hopes of finding the tiniest clue about
Mulder. There was no sign of him anywhere.

I felt as if I had his face burned into my retinas so that even when my eyes
were closed he was there, begging for help to get back to Scully. On those
rare occasions when my guilty imagination let me think about something other
than Mulder's abduction, I found myself wondering what it had been like for
him to hold her smooth, compact body against him and know that her every
thought, every prayer, was saved just for him. That particular train of
thought sent me to the shower an embarrassing number of times.

I'd just emerged from one such ablution, my knees still wobbly and my head
cobwebby with shame, to find Alex Krycek sitting on my sofa.

In his one remaining hand was a bottle of my best bourbon, which he lifted in
a mocking toast before putting the opening to his lips and taking a good, long
swallow. In one corner of my brain I wondered if he had heard me cry out
Scully's name. Every other brain cell was screaming at me for not having my
weapon handy.

"So, Uncle Walter, how's the search for the missing daddy going?"

"Why don't you tell me, Krycek?" I wrapped the sash of my bathrobe tightly
around my waist and took a seat opposite him. "You're the one who arranged for
that little trip, aren't you? You sold him out because his mind runs in the
same patterns as those other people, the ones who were abducted."

"You're finally getting it," Krycek sneered. "I'd sell any of you to any of
the others just to see the looks on your faces when you figured it out. But I
have to warn you that my employer doesn't want Mulder to be found until the
tests are completed. In the interest of seeing that happen, I need to be
assured of your cooperation." He reached into his jacket and I tensed,
expecting a gun. What he pulled out terrified me more than any weapon ever
made: the hand-held computer.

"You don't want to do this. If you kill me, you'll have Scully on your ass and
it won't be pretty."

"What's she gonna do - vomit on my shoes like she did that poor schmuck at the
Hoover? Yeah, I know about that."

He leaned forward, his pale eyes full of sick, venomous menace. "I might just
be interested in the Scully-Mulder sprog if its DNA is as tweaked as we
suspect it might be. And you might just give it to me."

"I might just kick you in the balls."

It happened then, the horrible thickening of my blood, the congealing in the
veins just behind my ears and over my heart. I probably screamed - I don't
remember what happened until the pain suddenly stopped. Stopped dead, I
thought insanely as Krycek stepped over my body without so much as a backward
glance.

"That's just a little taste. I'll see you in February."

I lay on the floor, waiting for the last of the choking sensation to go away.
It seemed obvious that I was going to need help in a big way from someone who
had a good working knowledge of computers and nanotechnology, or who had
connections enough to get the information I needed.

I got up and went to visit the Lone Gunmen.

***

The last person I expected to see in that strange little den was Dana Scully.
Actually, the very last person I expected was Margaret Scully, but both women
were there and it looked as if Scully were unpacking for an extended visit.
Her hosts were nowhere to be seen.

She was fuller in the face than when I had seen her last, and she seemed
uncomfortable in the oversized sweatshirt that was only scarcely big enough to
hide her condition. "I'm going to need a lab and what I have to do can't be
done at Quantico," she said by way of explanation. "The guys have gone out to
get me some equipment for DNA analysis."

Her mother offered me a cup of coffee in a plastic mug with a really ugly
photo of Nixon on it. I was completely stunned at how normal she made the
action seem - but then I realized that in the past few months she'd had to
come to terms with her daughter being an unwed mother-to-be with the father
not only in absentia but also, literally, out of this world. So how hard could
making a cup of coffee in the offices of the Lone Gunmen be?

I nodded gratefully and blew away a cloud of steam. "Were you planning to tell
me about this?" I asked.

"You won't believe me, sir, but I'd planned to call you today."

"Hmm." I took a sip of the coffee, which was strong enough make my eyes water.
Scully gasped as I slid my lids shut.

"Sir, where did those hematomas come from!" she cried, reaching up to touch my
face. "What happened?"

"Alex Krycek happened," I said tersely, looking above Scully's head into her
mother's concerned face. "He left me with a little reminder that I'm not
always my own man. I came here to see if your friends could help me."

"I want a blood sample," Scully said. "Mom, would you open that box, the one
with the blue squares on it? The bag you and Dad gave me for my med school
graduation is in there."

"Scully, don't be..."

"Where better to take a look at this stuff than here? These guys may be over
the edge of paranoia, but they have the most advanced technology I've ever
seen." She smiled her thanks at her mother, then motioned for me to roll up my
sleeve. The rubber strap went around my arm, pinching the hairs, and a few
seconds later Scully was poking my inner elbow with a latex-clad finger.

"Hold still. You've got rolling veins, sir."

"Sorry."

She looked up at me and I was surprised to see the merriment in her eyes.
"It's not a character flaw," she said in a dry delivery that reminded me of
Mulder. "There, I think this one'll give."

I winced as the needle pierced my skin and vein, watching as smoky red blood
filled Scully's vial. To my surprise she took a second vial and filled that as
well.

"I don't know how many more times I'll get to do this right after you've had
an attack, so I'd better get all I need while I have the chance."

"Hopefully never." In the back of my mind I was thinking that if Krycek came
back in February, she'd be too busy to help me. The thought gave me no
comfort.

Before I had a chance to become too morose, the sound of half a dozen locks
opening heralded the arrival of the Lone Gunmen. "Well, well, well, it's the
Assistant Director," said Frohike. He stood in front of me even though in a
belligerent stance. "What brings you to our humble abode?"

"He's had a run-in with Krycek," Scully said as she pressed a cotton ball to
the little hole and pushed my hand up so that my forearm created enough
pressure to staunch the bleeding.

Langly winced. "Man, I'm sorry. Did she get a sample to look at?"

"Yes, I did, although I have another test to run before I start on finding out
what triggers these things."

"Dana had an ultrasound and is scheduled for amniocentesis later this week,"
Mrs. Scully said in a soft but concerned tone. "We all want to know if
it's..."

Scully bit her lip. "I've contacted an old friend from med school, Brandon
Taylor. He's an ob/gyn now and I know I can trust him with the details. There
aren't too many doctors you can ask to perform an amnio with the team in clean
suits."

In case of toxic green blood, I thought. Dear God, not that.

"I still say you should consider a home birth," Langly put in. "I've been
doing research and stuff, and it's the way to go these days. The woman who
owns the coffee shop around the corner? Her daughter's a doula and from what
they've said, you really ought to have the baby at home."

"Home? HERE?" Scully wrinkled her nose and looked around.

"Well, maybe at your apartment or your mom's house. You don't need doctors
standing around getting paid to tell you what to do when your own body knows
best."

Scully took a few seconds before responding in an icy tone. "I am a doctor,
Langly. Some of my best friends are doctors. Don't malign my profession, and
don't you dare try and tell me what's best for my body or my baby. I think you
and Frohike have tampered with that quite enough. I'm still in remission from
cancer. Also, even if we have good test results there's no guarantee that the
baby won't have a serious medical condition, given what Mulder and I have been
through. I will not take any needless chances just to prove what a 'woman' I
am."

"But the baby could easily be taken from the hospital."

"Not this hospital. Brandon will set aside an area that can be monitored by
people we both trust. My baby will be safer there than anywhere - even here."

Langly looked annoyed, but Scully's words seemed to shut him up for the time
being. Byers acted as peacemaker. "Scully, if Dr. Taylor is the one you trust,
then, we'll back you one hundred percent. Right?"

Langly shoved his glasses up on his nose and turned away, but Frohike nodded
his agreement. Mrs. Scully picked up her purse and rummaged through it until
she came up with a set of car keys. "Dana, would you like me to go with you?"

"Thanks, Mom, I'd like that." To my astonishment she turned to me. "I'd like
you there, too, sir."

My tongue felt like lead. No, no, no, screamed the voices in my head.

"Of course. I'd be glad to."

***

Brandon Taylor looked like the poster child for Obstetricians You Can Trust:
tall, slender, dark-haired, with a soothing smile. He shook hands with Mrs.
Scully and me before settling on a small rolling stool and inching himself up
to Scully.

"Everything looks great on the ultrasound. All body parts present and
accounted for, everything looks normal." His eyes glinted behind his glasses.
"So - you want to know?"

Scully smiled shyly at him. "Sure."

"Okay then, Dana - it's a girl."

Mrs. Scully's eyes teared up and I have to confess that I felt a little misty
as well. Dr. Taylor continued. "We're going to look in there again and make
sure of where to put the needle, but all systems look good. We found enough
level three biohazard suits for me and my nurse, plus your friends. You'll
have to go without, of course, but we have a good mask for you just in case."
He shook his head.

"I know this all seems weird, Brandon. But you have to trust me on this."

"Dana, you got me through a couple of rotations when I thought I'd drop from
fatigue. If you want me to wear a Bozo the Clown suit when I deliver this
girl, then so be it."

"Don't tempt me."

"You nut." He stood up and gave her a small hug. "Mrs. Scully, Mr. Skinner,
would you come with me and get suited up? Dana, you know the drill."

We left her to change by herself while we got the cumbersome suits on. Mrs.
Scully's face was an eerie golden-green from the tinting on the visor and I
was sure I looked equally surreal. By the time we got back to the exam room,
the nurse was smearing Scully's stomach with a clear gel and discussing the
dismal lack of maternity wear for women who weren't the frilly type.

Dr. Taylor ran the scanner over Scully as the nurse pointed out the tiny
baby's arms and legs and feet. Even her little toes were discernible once I
knew where to look. Mrs. Scully's gloved hand rested on her daughter's
forehead as the place for the needle was marked with what looked like a soda
straw.

"Okay, here goes. Make this nice and simple by staying completely still." He
worked the needle into place and inserted it expertly. "Bingo," he murmured. A
clear, yellowish fluid filled the vial. No trace of green. Scully exchanged a
relieved look with me and only a minute later it was all over.

"I'd be willing to send this to any lab you want, Dana," said Dr. Taylor as he
handed the sample to the nurse to be corked and labeled. "But somehow I know
you'd rather do this yourself."

"Yeah, I would." She pulled herself upright with a grimace.

"No heavy lifting for a couple of days, and let me know if you have anything
more serious than minor cramping. And Dana, please take care of yourself."

"We'll be sure she does," I heard myself saying.

Mrs. Scully scrabbled at the suit to get her head free of the helmet, then
leaned over to kiss Scully. "I'm so relieved, sweetheart."

"Me too, Mom." She pulled the sheet up over herself as if suddenly aware that
I had seen something so intimate, and her face went crimson. "I'm sorry I
dragged you into this, sir. But if it'd been toxic, someone would have had to
explain a lot of things and I don't think I could have done it myself."

"It's no problem. I'll go get the car." I was glad to leave them together,
mother, child, and grandchild, a family of which I was no part, which had one
member missing because I had looked away for just a moment.

I wondered what I would do on some cold, rainy February morning when Alex
Krycek came to demand Scully's child in exchange for my own miserable life.
When I saw Scully waiting at the curb, rubbing her belly and talking
animatedly with her mother, I knew.

I may have stepped away from them in the past out of fear, protected my own
interests over theirs, but a ferocious change had taken place in me. No way
was that bastard taking this child. Or if he did, then it would be over my
very, very dead body.

***

Scully holed herself up in the Gunmen's lab for two weeks, working on every
DNA test known to man and a couple that she probably dreamt up herself. They
told me that she slept in the lab, did research in the lab, and even ate there
once Frohike threatened to disable her laptop if she didn't have three solid
meals a day. Finally the call came to go over and talk to her.

Her feet and ankles were swollen and her eyes were bloodshot, but her face
glowed as she held up a manila file folder. "I ran a test on my blood, the
amniotic fluid, and DNA gathered from a sample of Mulder's hair." She took a
deep breath, her face breaking into a huge smile. "The baby's ours, not that I
ever really doubted that. But there's more - not even a trace of unusual DNA,
even after the vaccines we've both received and the exposure to black oil.
She's normal."

The Gunmen's faces were more joyful than I'd ever seen before, and I knew I
was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I enfolded her in my arms, holding tightly
to her as she broke down in a combination of relief and exhaustion. The Gunmen
backed away to give Scully some privacy. Her fingers clutched the front of my
shirt. There was a faint trace of chemicals on her skin but beneath that I
caught a little of her own scent, warm and rich, and in that instant I envied
Mulder more than I had in all the years I'd known him.

"It's all right," I told her, realizing how worthless the words were at a time
like this, but I couldn't stop myself. "It's all right."

"I know." She held tightly to me, still burying her face in my shirt. "I'm
sorry. I was afraid I'd do this - that's why I didn't ask Mom to be here."

"Do you want me to call her and tell her that everything's okay?"

She started to laugh, a harsh, brittle sound. "Everything's okay? I'm pregnant
with Mulder's baby and he's off God knows where and I may never see him again.
I'm terrified of what will happen to this baby once she's born. I have no
job."

"I put you on indefinite medical leave, Scully." I held her at arm's length so
I could look into her eyes. "You're not going to like this, but here goes. I
managed to convince Human Resources to give you this leave because I..." This
was harder than I'd imagined. "I told them that your cancer had returned. That
you were vomiting from chemotherapy and that you'd gained weight because of
the medication."

Scully gaped at me. "They bought that story?"

"It's more likely than you and Mulder having a baby together, don't you
think?" We exchanged grim, pained smiles. "You have a history of cancer, and
while everyone in the Bureau probably suspects that you and Mulder
were...involved at some point, there's no proof." I was bold enough to cup her
cheek in my hand. "You've called me a liar more than once, Scully. I just hope
that this time you understand why I've done it."

She melted into me, her arms clutching me as tightly as they could given the
bulk between us. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered over and over
again. I knew that only overwork and hormones put her in my embrace, but it
was a welcome sensation to feel her there, alive and on fire with purpose.

"I know." I wanted beyond reason to kiss the top of her head, but that was a
joy I was not to know. My mouth remembered perfectly the fit of her lips
against mine the day I found Mulder in the Sargasso Sea. That recollection
would have to suffice for the rest of my life. As much as I wanted to keep her
with me, she was Mulder's, and my duty was to find him and return him to her.

***

I heard from Krycek a few days after Scully's announcement. He sounded bored
on the telephone. "I don't have any interest in a child that has nothing to
advance the rebellion against the Project," he said in a lazy sing-song. "So
you and Agent Scully may relax in that regard."

"That's kind of you, Krycek," I said in my nastiest tone.

"Cut the sarcasm and listen. The tests are going to be completed soon and when
they are, they're going to release Mulder to me. I don't especially have any
use for him and I'd just as soon he end up dead as alive, except that for some
reason the rebel aliens don't want him killed just yet. So here's the deal. I
turn him over to you and you turn yourself over to me. Without you watching
their backs, Mulder and Scully won't have a prayer of pursuing their agenda."

"You mean go to work for you? Forget it."

"You don't have to lift a finger, Skinner." He paused to chuckle. "All you
have to do is die. We mostly kept you around to amuse old Spender, but now
that he's smoking in hell we don't have much use for you. Here's the deal: I
drop Mulder off wherever you are. He goes free. You go to meet your maker." I
felt a tiny humming in my veins, the first sign that the nanocytes were
activating. "That's not even half of level one I'm using right now. You know
what number ten can do to you."

The sensation, just this side of pain, stopped as suddenly as it had begun. "I
remember. And I agree to your terms."

"Then you'll get him back after Scully has her baby. I'll let you see he's
alive, then I'll hit the button. If you're a good boy, Skinner, I'll make it
fast." Before I could say another word the line went dead.

As I would do in just a few months.

***

I was alone in my office when the call came that Scully was on her way to the
hospital. All hell was breaking loose by the time I got to the
labor/delivery/recovery suite that had been set aside for her. Frohike was
arguing with a nurse as he tried to get his hands on Scully's chart, Langly
was arguing with Dr. Taylor about the "unnecessary risks" of analgesics in
labor, Scully was arguing with her mother that it was far too early to have
come to the hospital, and Byers was standing in the corner trying not to vomit
when Scully stopped arguing long enough to let out a moan of pain.

My presence was obviously needed. I collared Frohike and pushed him out in the
hall, gave Byers the box of Altoids I kept in my pocket, asked Mrs. Scully to
find out if I needed scrubs for myself, then took Scully's hand and squeezed
it. "So someone had to call in the FBI to get this situation under control?" I
asked, trying to keep my voice light.

She managed a weak grin. "Sorry. This is not the way I'd imagined it would
be." She looked down at our joined hands. "I never gave up hope that he'd be
here for this. I had dreams that he would just magically appear in the room
and all the pain in the world wouldn't matter." There was a long silence. "But
that's not going to happen, is it?"

"I'm afraid not." Or was I afraid that it would, since Mulder's appearance
would mean my end?

"He doesn't have to miss it," said Langly. He had been so quiet that we'd
forgotten he was in the room, but there he was, pulling up to his eye the
largest, most gadget-intensive video camera I'd ever seen. "We'll tape the
whole thing and he can see it when he gets home."

"Do not point that thing at me," Scully growled.

"It's for Mulder!"

"Langly, I mean it!" She gripped my hand tighter and beads of perspiration
began to stand out on her upper lip.

He brought the camera to the edge of the exam table, pointing it between
Scully's knees. She snapped them shut and he moved up to show her the
viewfinder. "Look - it'll have a great exposure even under a drape..."

He didn't have time to finish the sentence, because Scully's hands went up
over the lens of the camera and shoved it backwards. Hard.

The next sound we heard was Langly's scream. At that, everyone came running
back to the room, and for an instant all I could think of was the old Marx
Brothers movie where too many people try to get into the cabin of an ocean
liner. "Dana?" asked Mrs. Scully fearfully as the other Gunmen rallied around
their compatriot.

"I'm okay, Mom," she said, looking over to where Langly's camera lay in a pile
of cracked metal and plastic. "Langly?"

He looked up at her with blood pouring from his nose, which was very much
askew. "You brog my node!" he shouted.

"Get him down to trauma," said Dr. Taylor with a weary sigh. "Everyone but the
mother and grandmother, out. Now."

I spent several hours in the waiting area drinking stale coffee, pondering the
absurd notion that my last few moments on earth would be spent needing to take
a leak. The Gunmen took Langly home and said they'd wait for news. Around
midnight Mrs. Scully came out and smiled at me.

"How's she doing?" I asked.

"It's not going to be too much longer. There's a hot spot in her epidural and
Dana's letting the anesthesiologist know, in no uncertain terms, what she
thinks about his credentials. And his ancestry." She nodded her thanks when I
handed her a cup of coffee. "That's my girl, though."

"It's a good sign. We need all the good signs we can get."

"Mr. Skinner, I want to ask you something." She looked at me over the rim of
her cup. "Tell me honestly - do you believe in your heart that Fox is alive?"

My heart felt like lead as I pronounced my own death sentence. "Mrs. Scully, I
know that Mulder is alive and well and on his way home. I swear it."

She squeezed my forearm with her free hand. "That's all I needed to know. God
bless you." And with that, she went back to the daughter who needed her while
I waited for news of Mulder.

***

I must have fallen asleep, because it seemed like only moments passed before
Mrs. Scully came out again, smiling through tears. "Mr. Skinner? We've got a
beautiful baby girl - and Dana would like to see you."

Sure enough, I heard the unmistakable squalling of a newborn baby as I opened
the door to Scully's private room. She was propped up in a nest of pillows,
her wet hair pulled back with a thick headband, her fingers delicately
examining the whorls of her daughter's ear. "I did it," Scully whispered,
never taking her eyes from the pink bundle in her arms.

"She's gorgeous." I should have brought flowers, I should have had something
to give her at that moment, but I had nothing tangible to offer. Nothing but
the promise that she would get her heart's desire and I wouldn't be there to
see it. "You look good."

That brought her gaze to me and I could see broken blood vessels in her eyes
and a little spot of blood on her upper lip. "It's not what you think - just a
little nosebleed. Normal." She looked back down at her daughter and caressed
her face. "Everything's normal."

"I'm glad." I was telling the truth. I was glad that something had gone right
for her at last.

"What are you going to tell the people at the Bureau when I show up with no
cancer but with papers requesting maternity leave?"

I won't be there to do anything, I thought, but to her I said, "I'm sure we
can make up something plausible." Because I would never have another chance, I
leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Get some sleep, Scully."

"I will. Thank you." She sank into the white pillows and I saw that the little
girl's tufts of hair were bright red. I stroked the downy fuzz, gave Scully a
final smile, and went back to the waiting room. The waiting room.

***

Dr. Taylor and Mrs. Scully tiptoed out of Scully's room a little while later,
announcing that they were going home until morning. "I'll be out of here in a
few minutes," I said, trying not to sound ironic. I waited for them to leave,
then peered into Scully's window for a moment and watched the quiet rise and
fall of her breathing. A nurse placed the baby in a bassinet at the side of
Scully's bed before leaving the room. She smiled at me.

"Family?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice. "Take care of them," I whispered to God by
way of the nurse, then went outside to turn on my cell phone.

I breathed in the crisp night air. Snow had fallen and left white flakes over
everything, making it all look new. Clean. Hopeful. The trilling of my phone
seemed out of place in this still, silent world. "Skinner," I said.

"Merchandise is on its way to you. You're the return receipt. Be at the
service entrance in five minutes."

I was there in two, breathless from running in the cold, from hope mixed with
terror. Then the van appeared and Mulder was standing right in front of me.

He misunderstood, he panicked, and he decked me. It was that fast.

***

The first pricking in my blood began as soon as my eyes were open. I saw
Krycek in the parked van across the street. "He's heard some Bureau gossip,"
he called over as conversationally as if he were telling me who won the
Redskins game.

"Damn you, Krycek. Just do it."

When he grinned at me he looked like Death personified. He had the computer
jammed into his artificial hand and he pointed the stylus at it with his
right. Pain washed over me. "Bastard - you lied - said you were going to make
it quick," I grunted through gritted teeth.

Beyond the aching red in my eyes I could see him jabbing at the computer, a
puzzled, angry frown on his face. It took a few seconds to realize what was
annoying him.

My veins were going back to normal. In fact, I felt better with each passing
second.

The click of a gun's safety broke the stillness. "Get the hell out of here,
Krycek," said Frohike as he pointed a very mean-looking weapon directly
between his target's eyes. God knows where he'd been hiding. Langly stood
around the corner from him, training the business end of an Uzi directly at
the driver's side window of the van. How he could aim it with his eyes swollen
halfway shut was something I didn't want to think about. I was a little
surprised at how comfortable they appeared as they handled such destructive
hardware.

Evidently Krycek was as well, for he scowled and muttered something in Russian
before taking off into the night in a squeal of tires on ice. I shook my hands
to get the numbness out of them and turned around to see Byers holding onto a
palm pilot and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"Alien computer chips aren't the only things we can hack into," he said
mildly. His companions came over, putting their weapons at their sides. "We
found the nanotechnology to be intact in that blood sample Scully gave us.
Barring a way to get into Krycek's compter - since we didn't know exactly what
it was - we decided to hack directly into the source. A hand-held antidote, as
it were."

"You could've told me," I said in a low whisper.

"Didn't want to get your hopes up," Frohike responded. He nodded toward the
building as Langly stowed their guns in an unmarked laundry truck. "Everything
turn out okay?"

"Scully's resting. Baby's just fine." I had to put my head down for a moment
to get some blood circulating back to it.

Mulder...

"Mulder!"

"What?" they all asked in unison.

"He's inside. He thinks she's dying of cancer, he doesn't know..."

"We've got to get up there." The four of us took off, Langly somewhat behind
due to his hampered breathing, and we found Mulder half-passed-out in the
stairwell.

"Mulder? Can you hear me?"

He opened his eyes and nodded. "Get me to her," he croaked. "Please..."

There was no chance to explain, because by the time we got him to his feet, he
was unconscious. The adrenaline rush from my brush with death gave me the
strength to throw him over my shoulder and take the stairs two at a time. We
tried talking to him on the way up, telling him that it wasn't at all what he
thought, but he was out cold. The best we could do was to sneak him into
Scully's room, put him into the bed beside her, and stand guard outside.

I tried to wait a discreet distance down the hall, but I lacked that kind of
strength. While the Gunmen went in search of coffee brewed in a recent decade,
I stood at the window and watched. And, God forgive me, I opened her door just
enough so I could listen.

It wasn't long before Mulder came to and immediately reached for Scully. His
back was partially turned to me but I saw that he dabbed at a trace of blood
below her nose and, to my horror, he began to sob harshly. "I'm sorry,
Scully," he rasped, pressing his lips to her pale cheek.

She opened her eyes, brilliant blue even in the diffused light of the
monitors, and gasped. "You're not a dream," she murmured. "Mulder...Oh, my
God, oh, my God..."

Their reunion was interrupted by a shriek from the side of the bed. Mulder sat
up, blinking in confusion as Scully turned on the bedside lamp and motioned to
the crib. "Look, Mulder. She's ours."

Mulder put his hand awkwardly over Scully's abdomen, looking into her eyes.
"Ours? You?"

"And you." She leaned over to pick up the baby but evidently thought better of
it as she grimaced in pain. When she looked up at Mulder she must have seen my
face in the window because she smiled and beckoned to me.

To me.

I moved carefully to the holiest of holies, picking up the gift that had been
given them and presenting her to her father. Mulder took in the red hair, the
blue-green eyes still too new to focus. "How?"

"It's a long story, Mulder," Scully said, "and one that even you might not
believe. But it's true. This is your daughter."

"My daughter." He kissed the plump little cheek and looked up at Scully with a
worshipful expression. "Does she have a name?"

I'd forgotten to ask that, myself.

Scully nodded. "Her name is Ruth. I was thinking of you when she was born, of
everything we've been through together." She touched the baby with one hand
and put the other on Mulder's cheek as she recited, "Whither thou goest, I
will go."

"Scully..." He pressed her back down on the bed and lowered his face into her
hair. "Scully..."

She was soon asleep in his arms, a smile curving her lips. Mulder continued to
hold her, breathing lightly as he, too, succumbed to the exhaustion of his
ordeal. I took their daughter and held her for a moment before putting her
back into her crib. I shut off the light and returned to the window, where the
Gunmen waited with me for the new day.

It had been a long journey.

***

End

Thank you to Barbara D. and Shari for wonderful beta services, and to jordan
for reading even though she firmly believes that Mulder and Scully have never
had sex.

Feedback would make my day: marguerite@operamail.com.
Return to post-eps.