Scully was being to show. Mulder loved it. He couldn't keep his hands off of her. Her carrying his child made her all the more attractive to him. He'd had his lungs cleared by the doctors and thrown away the cigarettes. He was able to get back to his family and he had taken full advantage of it, spending nearly every evening and morning with them. He would go back to his place only a few times a week to feed his fish and pick up new clothing and his mail then head straight back over.
After dropping Emily off at day care, Mulder headed back to Scully's place to pick her up. She had been hit with a bout of morning sickness that incapacitated her that morning. They were going to drop Emily off together before heading off to Scully's appointment but life likes to throw us a few curve balls every now and then. As Mulder entered back into the apartment, he found Scully putting the finishing touches together. She was intentionally wearing her clothing looser and just passing by, one would only assume she'd eaten all of Emily's Halloween candy and refused to go to the gym for a month. His phone rang startling himself and Scully. "Mulder." He said picking it up. "We'll get out there as soon as we can." He said after a few moments of listening to the person on the other line. Scully looked at him. "Aliens like to dig up graves now." He said placing a kiss on her forehead.
"You can go right away if you want Mulder. You'd don't have to be there if you don't want to." Mulder placed his lips on her to shut her up.
"Today's the big day though. I want to see our child for the first time with you Plus, I'll know when to shove the pills they claim they will be giving you for your morning sickness down your throat." He said cracking a grin. His face did become serious. "I've got to make a few travel plans and you will have to call your mom for Emily. We'll only be gone a couple of days this time." Mulder walked to the laptop and booted it up while Scully went into Emily's room with her cell phone.
An hour later, Scully was sitting back on the exam table, stomach exposed having the cold gel rubbed over it while watching the screen. Mulder was there next to her, eyes glued. "There" her doctor said snapping a picture. Scully looked up at Mulder. "I'll give you two a moment, then you can get going. I'll have it printed for you at the front desk, unless you'd like me to tell you the sex." Scully shook her head. "No. I want to be surprised again." The doctor walked out of the room and Mulder took Scully's hand in his as she went back and forth from looking up at Mulder to the image in front of her. Mulder looked down at her, while pushing Scully's hair out of her face. Scully stopped to focus on Mulder. Both of them had tears in their eyes. Pure happiness, only to be disrupted by work. Mulder bent down and kissed Scully slowly and passionately. Twelve weeks. Who would have thought everything would be like this in twelve weeks? As Mulder kissed Scully, Scully's hand traveled to behind his neck. They pulled apart, knowing they had to be off and running. They needed to fill Scully's script and drop Emily's stuff at her mom's before getting to the airport for their flight.
Scully followed Mulder out into the cemetery umbrella covering her head. She was not ready for what she was about to see. A little girl's grave had been desecrated. Mulder was talking to a local field agent. "This isn't aliens." He told the local.
"How do you know?" The local was mad. He'd actually done research and for this guy to come in and act like it wasn't plausibly.
"I've seen this before. When I worked violent crimes." Mulder steered Scully back to the car. Scully was not handling this well. He probably should have prepared her for what it was they were going to be seeing. In the car Scully finally asked how he was able to be so calm about the matter. "I'd prepared myself before coming, knowing this was probably what we'd find. I'm sorry. I should have prepped you." Scully stared. "Then why did we come here?" Mulder flashed two football tickets in front of Scully, knowing Scully was a fan as was her entire family. Before her father passed away, Scully had told Mulder that everyone, all the cousins and kids and her parents and aunts and uncles would have a huge football game on Thanksgiving instead of watching it on TV.
Unfortunately, football was not to be in the plan. Mulder and Scully were called back into the local field office. "More graves." The agent from the cemetery told Mulder.
"You need to put something out." He was fighting with the local agent. He finally had gotten through to him and went out to talk to Scully. He regretted dragging her out here to deal with this now it was going to be prolonged. "Scully," he said attentively. "I've got to cancel our flight out for tomorrow. It looks like we do have work to do here."
The two sat down to start building a profile, believing that this guy desecrating the graves would escalate into killing. If the theory and the patterns with death fetishes held true, time was running out for them. It wouldn't be long until he killed.
Unfortunately, Mulder proved himself right again. In the freezing cold they were called out to a crime scene. It seemed to be they were always calling them out to scenes just as they were in bed together. The scene was icy and cold, fitting for someone with a death fetish. The blood from the body was still pooling on the sheet, the red growing. Mulder went to look but Scully couldn't bring herself to do it. She would deal with it in the morgue, not here on the street.
In the morgue, Scully still shook as she walked to the body on the slab in front of her. Her skin had been ripped of her face. She took several deep breaths, forcing the bile back down. No this wasn't morning sickness; this was disgust with what humans could do to one another. Scully rushed through her examination, trying to keep it down to what would need to be done, nothing extra. Once that was finished she bolted to the locker, getting sick and fighting back tears. Once she managed to calm down she headed back to the hotel room to boot up her laptop to complete the written report. Words detached her from the case that she could manage.
All the while Mulder was down at the local PD running line-ups by the woman who had IDed the young body in Scully's morgue. Mulder was still doing his own investigation when the local field agent contacted him with the potential subject. He called Scully and together they went down to come face to face with Donnie. However, Donnie was in the next cell, not being questioned by the agents.
Donnie had always had a fixation with red. He didn't know what he loved about it exactly but when he saw Scully, he was taken. Red lips. Red hair. Scully felt his eyes pierce down into. It unnerved her. She shook the feeling and walked away, Mulder following her. "I think I'd be of better use if I go back to Washington with the body." Mulder looked down at Scully. He knew she was barely holding it together and he never figured this case would have panned out. He nodded. She needed to get out of this environment. Donnie approached the man in the cell next to him. "What were they asking you?" The man approached the bars to face Donnie. "Were they FBI agents?" He nodded. "What were they're names? The younger ones."
"Fox Mulder and Dana Scully."
"Ok Donnie, you're free to go. She's dropped the charges."
Scully was down at the FBI's lab in Minneapolis. She was greeted by one of the techs. "I've got good news for you. We've got a print." Scully called Mulder after running it through the system. In less than an hour Mulder with a task force was kicking down the door of Donnie's home. Although Donnie wasn't there, Mulder's stomach went in on it's self when he saw the funeral home Donnie had set up around his bed and the fingers of his victims in the freezer mixed in with his peas. "Put an APB out on him."
Scully had to run over some evidence to Mulder before taking off for DC. She didn't think anything of the lights following her. Someone must be going the same way. The car behind her put it's brights on and rammed her car hard. Everything went black.
Mulder paced up and down in the office. Her flight was at 8:00 and it was 6:30. She should have already been there and left. He was worried. What could have happened to her? That was when a secretary stuck her head in the door. "Um, we've found agent Scully's car." Mulder's legs almost went out from under him. He somehow managed to steady himself as he grabbed his coat and took off at top speeds to the crime scene. Seeing her car hit the way it was, he felt bile creep up in his throat. He pushed it back down. He had to find Scully. He had to find her before it was too late for her.
Back at the office, Mulder bounced ideas off the local agents. He had to find her. Time was running out. That was when one of the local's agents became a smart ass out of exhaustion. "I would think it'd be his mom cuz he's so pissed off at her according to your profile." The light bulb clicked for Mulder. "Find out where his mother lives. Now!" Mulder had been ready to punch the smart ass agent but at that point he could have kissed him. He couldn't make the connection himself until someone had said it.
Donnie had finished drawing the bath for his red head. He picked up the knife and walked to the closet he had stashed her in. Blood was running down the side of her head. She could also taste it in her mouth, that sick metallic taste it leaves behind. He had tied her hands up and she was placing them over her stomach, trying desperately to protect the life that was there. She tried to yell at him to not touch her as he came closer, feeling her skin and her hair, the knife still in his hand. Her demands would not be heard, she had been gagged. Donnie picked her up and dragged her into the bathroom that was lit with candles and bubbles from the tub. He slammed her down on the hard tile floor to check the temperature once again. Scully slowly stood up and Donnie stood and approached her. Scully used all the energy she could muster and swung at him sending him into the bath tub and took off. She was stuck though. She couldn't find her way out.
Desperately pulling at every door handle she came across, all locked. She found one that wasn't. A closet. She noticed it had random things in it for keeping the house up such as oil for squeaking doors and wasp spray. She bolted in, hearing Donnie taunt her, the predator looking for his prey. When he came to that door he opened it slowly. It was now or never. Scully lunged spraying whatever she had grabbed into his eyes and ran past him. Even though his eyes were burning, he was not about to give up. He thrust himself at her taking her down the stairs, himself too. At he bottom Scully noticed her gun lying on the rug. She grabbed at it and tried to aim but Donnie smacked it away. Donnie suddenly got off Scully. She couldn't figure out why until Mulder stood over her shaking form. He helped her to sit up, yelling for a paramedic.
Scully had been kept in the hospital for a number of days, mostly to monitor her pregnancy. She had taken a beating and she would bounce back from that. Mulder rarely left her side as she slid in and out of consciousness due to the amount of drugs they had Scully on. He left only to call Mrs. Scully and Emily. He told Emily mommy was fine but needed to rest and couldn't come to the phone. On the second evening Mrs. Scully asked why her daughter would be hospitalized for so long. Mulder's voice cracked. "We're pregnant." He'd told her. He was sure if her brother Bill ever saw Mulder, he'd be killed.
Scully would come to only for a matter of minutes for the first few days. Mulder wanted her to know Emily was fine and that she was ok and safe. He couldn't seem to get anything out of anyone about their baby. He wasn't considered immediate family. When Scully came to on the fourth day after being weaned off several of the drugs they had kept her on to run the tests on the fetus, she turned to look at Mulder. He was holding her hand while he himself was stretched out in the chair next to him, head dropped forward, eyes closed. He stirred when he felt her eyes on him. "Hey" He said leaning into her. "Hi." She said. She felt stiff but she could move. She took her free hand and felt her forehead trying to get at an itch. She felt the stitches there instead of the itch. Mulder sat there staring at her. "Is the baby ok?" He asked. This had been gnawing at him these past four days. Scully nodded down at the end of the bed. "Get me my file." He stood and grabbed it up. Scully struggled to sit up but managed to push herself on her elbow to a semi sitting position. She read her file and the test results and exhaled. "We've got a fighter Mulder." She said smiling. He placed his hand over her stomach that was poking out and gave it a little squeeze. In a couple of days they'd be back home. He knew he needed a plan to keep her off the x-files, but for now, he just sat to be just be with Scully.