When Scully woke up a few mornings later, it was to abdominal pain. It was hard not to groan as she got out of bed, but she managed not to wake Mulder as she headed into the bathroom. Flicking on the light above the mirror revealed an unexpectedly pronounced pallor to her skin considering she was fairly certain she wasn't going to throw up.
Thinking back to what she'd learned while on an OB rotation, she decided that her belly pain wasn't related to contractions. That was one thing to be grateful for considering that the baby was weeks too early to be viable. The possibilities about what was causing the pain worried her, though.
Peeking back in at the sleeping man, she decided that she couldn't share her worried with him. He hadn't taken back all but declaring he'd commit suicide if something happened to her or their baby, so it didn't seem wise to tell him anything until she knew what there was to tell.
Mulder woke up less than an hour later, and the first thing he said to her was, "Are you feeling all right? You're awfully pale."
Frowning slightly, she shook her head. "I think I'm coming down with something."
As she feared, the next words out of his mouth were, "Obviously you're not going to work today. Do you need me to stay home with you?"
"I'll be fine. I'm just going to take it easy."
He gave her an uncertain look. "If you're sure..."
"Am I sure I don't need you to stay home and watch me watch bad daytime TV?" she asked, hoping that her voice sounded natural. "Positive." Not that she actually intended to stay home on the couch. She was fairly hopeful that she'd be able to get an emercency appointment with her OB - with luck the doctor would simply tell her she was worried for no reason.
For a moment she thought he was going to argue with her, but he just gave her a wan smile. "Okay. You're not a child, and I know you'll call me if you need me."
"Thank you," she replied, trying not to let her relief show overly much, trying to resist the urge to tell him that being in the office was probably the best thing for him because it would keep his mind off of his sister.
He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. This sent a wistful pang through her - some things hadn't changed even though so much else had. "Love you."
"Love you too." And for a moment she did, for him, not for who he reminded her so much of.
Twenty minutes after he left, she got on the phone and called the OB's office. She didn't know if she should be relieved or worried when the nurse the receptionist consulted told her to come in immediately. Scully promised that she would, and headed to the bathroom so she could get ready to leave.
The moment she saw the blood, she realized that her condition was a lot more serious than she thought some back and abdominal pain indicated. "This can't be happening," she muttered to herself as she stood and pulled her pants back up. "I can't have come all this way and have nothing to show for it." A voice in the back of her mind asked if Mulder was nothing, but she told it to be quiet. He'd made it clear enough that losing the baby would mean losing him too.
Throwing open the vanity doors, she began pawing through things, hoping that her counterpart hadn't thrown everything out the moment she had a positive pregnancy test in hand. Fortunately it only took a minute to locate a forlorn looking half empty bag of pads and put one on her panties.
It's not hopeless, she reminded herself as she frantically pulled on clothes and her coat. Most abruptions, if that was what was happening, were partial. A baby could survive that with prompt medical care that kept the mother from going into labor.
Scully hesitated for a moment, staring at the notepad on the fridge, and ultimately decided not to leave Mulder a note. If things worked out, she'd call him from the hospital. And if they didn't, she'd probably be in the hospital even longer - a twenty week baby had no chance at all, but she'd still need medical attention herself.
Keys jingling in hand, she slammed the door behind her and practically ran to her car, hoping desperately that the OB could fix what was wrong.
But later on, a few miles from the house, contractions wracked her, and she felt the pad soak through. There shouldn't have been that much blood. And when was the last time she felt the baby move, she found herself wondering. Driving with one hand for a moment she prodded at her belly, hoping to feel a protesting kick in return. There was none.
Thinking back as clearly as panic would let her, she realized that she hadn't felt any moment since the night before. What if the baby was already gone? The stark image of coming home and discovering Mulder in a pool of blood with his weapon next to his limp hand chilled her. If she lost the baby, she'd lose everything that made being where ever she was remotely bearable.
Unrelenting contractions made sweat break out on her forehead and driving difficult. Even if the abruption was partial, she was probably going to have the baby, and soon. Then, even if she was alive at birth, she'd die within moments because her lungs weren't functional yet. It'd be like watching her drown on dry land and nothing anyone could do would save her. Not when the earliest viable babies were a couple of weeks further along in development than this little girl they hadn't even discussed names for yet.
Taking a deep breath, Scully made a U-turn and began driving in another direction. There was only one chance to keep everything from falling apart. She just hoped she could get there before it was entirely too late, and if she couldn't, that she wouldn't end up in a wreck that would hurt anyone but herself.
By the time she pulled into Teena Mulder's driveway, her pants were saturated with blood and she was in such pain she could barely manage to stumble to the house. If things didn't work out the way she thought she was insane to hope they would, there was a very good chance she'd be alone when she had the baby. A fresh burst of agony made her wonder if she'd end up on the six o'clock news, a sad story about a woman giving birth to a stillborn too-early baby alone in her dead mother-in-law's home because there hadn't been time to call anyone for help.
This has to work. It has to. She forced herself not to give into the instinct to double over in pain. She didn't have time for that, in the most literal sense. Instead she took out the keys she could barely maneuver and opened the front door.
She almost panicked when she flicked the light switch and nothing happened. In the back of her mind she'd known that the power was going to be turned off, but she hadn't realized that it would be so soon. What if Mulder had someone clean out the basement without mentioning it too?
Using the tiny flashlight attached to her key ring, she cautiously made her way to the kitchen because the doors to the stairs were there. A sudden knifing cramp in her back made her double over with a groan just before she reached the door. More sweat broke out on her forehead, and she wiped it away before reaching for the doorknob. Please please work.
The stairs felt steeper than they usually did, and she felt her balance wobble twice on her way down, so she tried to force herself to go slower, but the frantic feelings crowding other thoughts out in her brain fought back, insisting that haste was necessary.
"Either the book is here or it's not," she muttered to herself in the dimly lit hush. "Am I worried that someone is going to dash in and steal it before I reach the bottom of the stairs?" This calmed her and she made it to the bottom without falling.
For one horrible moment she didn't see the book where she'd left it and nearly cried. But she finally spied it on top of a Rubbermaid container that presumably contained some of Teena's no longer needed possessions. She nearly slapped her forehead when she realized that the book had been displaced because the basement was a lot less empty than the other one.
Her fingers shook and she was almost overcome with nausea, but she managed to flip the book's pages until she landed on the spell for retrieving the irrevocably lost. For a moment she paused, wondering what would happen when she said the words. Would she return to the lonely existence she'd been living in the wake of Mulder's disappearance? Or would she return to that night back in the seventies?
She slowly shook her head. It didn't matter. Either way, it was better to be somewhere else. Here she would soon be left with nothing. Trying to steady her hands, she began to read the words in a voice that somehow didn't shake too.
When the wave of dizziness that signaled that the spell was in motion overtook her, she welcomed it.
The air left Scully's lungs with a squeak when her body slammed into the frosty ground. Sitting up, she ran her hands along her ribs and down her limbs, but found nothing worse than bruises. A muffled groan escaped her as she clamored to her feet. The lack of insidious labor pangs or a distended belly confirmed that she hadn't returned to her original present, but when in the past had she gone?
She scanned the area, wishing that it wasn't so dark out. It had been dark the last time she'd said the spell too, but that time she'd ended up closer to the house. The fact that she hadn't ended up in the same place disturbed her a little in a way she had difficulty quantifying. After a couple of minutes she got brave enough to walk closer to the house so she could get a better look at it.
It was only as her eyes lighted on a newspaper on the stoop that she realized that her location wasn't the only thing that had changed this time - the date on the paper was the day of Samantha's abduction.
As soon as she realized this, she began to feel panicky. The house was still and dark. What if she was too late? What if the reason the house was so quiet because Samantha had already been taken away? There was no reason to assume that a paper would have been looked after if one of the children had been abducted; for all she knew it could have been sitting there for days.
And if Samantha had already been spirited away, what of Fox? Mulder had never really told her what he'd done in the immediate wake of his sister's disappearance: had he gone screaming into the night, or had he curled up into himself, shaking until his parents came home and discovered that their daughter was gone?
The thought of a twelve-year-old being all alone on the worst night of his life got her moving. She had nearly made up her mind to break a window after discovering that the door was locked, when the sound of voices had her diving away from the yellow pool of light under the porch light.
She almost melted in relief when she spotted two familiar figures deep in conversation as they headed towards the house. Fox held a paper bag in one hand and a pizza box in the other. Pizza and soda," Fox was saying, "They must feel super guilty for going out without us."
"You mean they feel bad for sticking me with you as my babysitter," Samantha told the boy.
"Just for that I'm going to watch what I want on TV tonight," her brother retorted.
"Fox! That's not fair! "Samantha whined.
His response was to stick his tongue out at her.
As Scully watched them, she wondered detachedly if she should interfere again, or if she should just let events unfold the way they had the first time. If she did nothing, it seemed like she'd be able to reclaim the life she'd left behind. But would she be able to live with herself if she simply allowed the dark-haired little girl being teased by her brother to be victimized all over again?