Mulder Residence, Arnold, Saturday Afternoon, Mid June

'Ready,' Bill Scully looked on the apparition before him. His youngest daughter would always be beautiful. Today she exuded peace and confidence.

'Yes,' the word, delivered with an angelic smile, bespoke her comfort.

'You look radiant,' Bill didn't want to give her into another mans keeping. In a few minutes, that's exactly what he'd do.

'I look sixteen weeks pregnant with triplets,' Scully laughed to take the edge from her tone. The empire line dress, falling from her bust, made her look like some Jane Austin heroine in pale cream to suit her Irish colouring. It hid a multitude of sins, specifically her ever expanding belly. 'It's going to take you and Mom to get me down the stairs, let alone the isle and I still have at least another eighteen weeks of this.'

'Dana, are you having second thoughts,' Maggie asked looking over her daughters head to her husband with concern.

'No, Mom,' unable to stop the chuckle, Dana placed a hand over her mothers, forcing the older woman to look at her child. 'I want to do this more than anything in the world,' the commitment shone with in her blue orbs.

'Well let's get this show on the road,' Bill offered his arm.

They slowly made their way from the master bedroom, down the staircase and out through the open French doors onto the patio. After much debate, Dana and Mulder decided to use their home to host their wedding. Golden sand, defining one boundary of the five acres of their property, met the blue waters of Chesapeake Bay. A small jetty extended into the inlet separating Arnold from Annapolis in the distance. Green lawn sloped down to the small private beach. Dana and her parents had to cross the large patio before descending several step to the path leading to the crowd of more than one hundred well wishers gathered on the sand.

Parting easily as the bridal party reached the end of the lawn, Dana's expression softened. Since yesterday morning, Mulder's cousins had spirited him away, saying it would be bad luck for the bride to see her groom before the official service. He looked even taller and more distinguished than she remembered in a dark suit and, for once, appropriate tie. At that moment she realised just how much she loved and cherished this man.

Be still my beating heart, she quoted the poetry silently, attempting to regulate her breathing. He must have felt her presence, because his head turned, his gaze capturing hers. In that instant, they made their vows to each other. The rest of the ceremony would be window dressing for the friends and family surrounding them.

Neither would recall the next half hour. They were too lost in each other. The civil servant conducted the ceremony, stoping before the official announcement. At this point Father McCue added a blessing followed by Rabbi Goldsmith's sanctification. Finally, the marriage celebrant announced them Husband and Wife.

Careful of his new wife's protruding belly and the new life nestled within, Mulder wrapped one hand around her waist to rest in the middle of her back and pulled Dana close to him. The other hand snaked behind her neck, tilting her head to just the right angle. As his lips descended, he mouthed I love you, before softly applying their signature kiss.

Somewhat disappointed at the far to brief contact, Dana pulled him closer. Her tongue darted out and he instantly opened to her. Deepening the kiss, lingering for several seconds to taste him, she finally pulled away. Neither satisfied, they would wait, letting the tension build, until they could be alone together.

While the official documents were signed, the guests began to wonder to the Marquee set up to one side of the lawn. Teena Mulder quietly made her way to the back of the gathered crowd. Anger shone in her blue eyes. How dare he come today of all days, she fumed as she faced the bastard who sired her son and took him to a secluded corner of the garden.

'He knows,' she said in a terse whisper, attempting to avoid making a scene.

'Yes,' he rubbed at the nicotine replacement patch on his neck, 'I'm aware of that.'

'Everything,' Teena warned softly.

'I see,' the deep, gravely voice and brown eyes displayed no emotion.

'No, you don't,' making her wrath known, Teena ensured they hadn't attracted undue attention. 'You never did. You see power and position and what is to be controlled. Leave my son alone.'

'He's my son, also,' he stated matter of fact.

'He carries your genes, but that doesn't make him your son,' Teena denied.

'Just because his conception occurred in a test tube….' the man glared, only to be cut off.

'There is a merciful god,' Teena spat the words at him, 'I couldn't stand the site of you even then. Time has deepened my opinion. Now please leave. I want to enjoy my son's wedding.'

Dropping his gaze to the ground, the man turned. 'Please offer Mr and Mrs Mulder my congratulations on the impending birth of their children. I'll be keeping a close eye,' he tormented and walked away. Teena closed her eyes, happy he'd left. Fox and Dana didn't need this today, or ever.

Georgetown, Thursday, Two weeks later.

'He came to the wedding you know,' Teena said as she replaced her fork on the table, ignoring the salad.

They'd left Mulder at the hospital this morning for his final round of surgery. Teena had offered to come down to Washington and keep her daughter-in-law company. So far they'd taken in several exclusive baby boutiques where Teena had purchased three car seats, three cradles and two prams, a twin and single. The sale assistant had talked Dana out of a triplet contraption as too difficult to steer and too heavy to get into the new SUV her husband had brought her as a wedding present.

Now they sat in a small café eating lunch. Dana expected a call within the next hour to say her husband's surgery had ended. Mulder's doctor would allow her to sit with him in recovery. She'd stay in a small hotel for the next two or three nights before taking him home to recover.

'Yes,' Dana answered. She didn't need to ask whom Teena spoke of. Bill Mulder had been incensed by the intrusion after finally deciding to attend their wedding. Father and Son engaged in an argument over his presence when they thought themselves alone. Strangely it cleared the air and hinted that some kind of relationship might be salvaged when Mulder insisted that he only had one father, and that Bill was that father. Simply listening, Dana gave all her attention to the older woman sitting across the table and her memories of the Cigarette smoking man.

'I never slept with him,' she confessed. It could barely be called a whisper. The faraway expression left her seeing the events of the past so clearly. Teena had never spoken of this to anyone. 'We never had an affair. I know Fox thinks I did and blames me.'

'Then how?' Embarrassed, Dana knew she shouldn't ask but fell impelled to discover the truth. Teena Mulder never talked about anything she didn't want to. That she spoke so openly, gave Dana the idea she needed to confide the truth in someone.

'Very early reproductive technology. We were the real pioneers or guinea pigs, take your pick,' Teena stated easily, now on a safer topic. Pausing, her voice once again dropping in pitch, she continued in a sad tone, 'Bill only agreed because…..because we lost every child we ever conceived. You might not believe it, but I loved him once, in the beginning, like you love Fox. But I became desperate to be a mother any way possible. It worked the first time and they hailed this new technique a miracle. Then nothing. Not one of the other women had success so they changed their methods and used us as experiments. Samantha took several attempts. They made me try again being the only woman to successfully carry a child to term. I didn't want to know why I'd been so lucky. I found myself grateful I never conceived again. Two healthy children, I never wanted more than that.'

They sat in silence for several minutes while Teena lost herself in memories. 'He knows about your pregnancy,' typical of her son's rapid changes in mood, Dana could see were her husband inherited the maddening trait. 'He's still involved with the project and he's made it his business to find out about you, your children and Fox.'

'Why are you telling me this?' Dana asked, confusion written on her face.

'You're a doctor,' she explained, 'You need to know. You're my only child's spouse, a woman and pregnant. You understand in a way Fox never could.'

'I think you underestimate your son,' pursing her lips, Dana gave her Mother-in-law a glare. This woman should know her son better. She thought Teena and Fox had finally started to mend their stretched relationship. 'You need to tell him.'

'I need you to tell Fox. I can't. We don't have that kind of bond,' the confession tore at her shredded heart.

'You never will,' Dana softened her expression, 'if you refuse to open up to him and be vulnerable. Trust me, I've had to learn the same lesson and it's been your son who taught me.'

Two days later, driving home from the hospital, Dana found the opening she needed to speak about the odd visitor at their wedding and Teena's confession.

'Mulder,' approaching the topic calmly, she continued with one eye on her husband's reactions, 'tell me about the time before Samantha's disappearance.'

Looking confused, Mulder wondered where his wife was going with this. By some unspoken dictate, they rarely talked about Samantha's abduction and the time which followed. Recently, however, he'd learnt to humour the sometimes hormonal creature sitting beside him.

'Where you happy, your family?' she asked, the question important on so many levels.

Shrugging his shoulders, Mulder answered easily, 'we could have been Middle America's pin up family. Mom, Dad, two kids, one boy, one girl, nice house in the Vineyard and a summer house by the lake. Friends and family always around for the holidays. Just like your family still is. Why?'

'We'll be a family soon. I wanted to know what you experienced before your family disintegrated,' she confessed.

'Believe me, Dana,' Mulder examined her expression, realising she had more to say, 'we'll make it. We have the Scully's as a role model and your sibling turned out well, except, maybe, Bill's over protectiveness.'

That brought a smile to both of them, before Dana once again turned serious. 'What if your mother never had an affair,' she threw at him, carefully watching for his reaction.

'Dana,' he made the sound remorseful. She knew he wanted to believe. 'I held proof in my hand. William Mulder and I do not share any genetics,' Mulder stated sadly, 'even if we did, I'm not convinced our family would have done any better. Besides, if Mom didn't have an affair, how would Samantha and I have come into this world?'

'IVF, Mulder,' Dana's expression asked him to trust and believe.

'In 1961,' he commented with incredulity.

'German Scientists tinkered with Mendellien genetics in the 1930's in the name of breeding the ultimate Aryan race. Watson and Crick discovered DNA in 1946. Your dad stated those same scientists entered post war America to continue the work they started. Wouldn't IVF be the ultimate cumulation of all that research?' she theorised.

'The first IVF baby hit the headline in 1973,' Mulder shot her down with an inpatient look, 'I turned twelve.'

'The first commercial IVF baby, Mulder,' Dana spoke softly but with determination he rarely heard. 'By then you know the government had been secretly carrying out eugenics for twenty years at least. Why don't you talk to your Mother about the events surrounding your conception, you might be surprised.'

'She spoke to you,' intrigued and confused, Mulder turned in his seat to seek her body language and gage Dana's reactions.

Eye's flicking from the road to her frankly disbelieving husband, she said in a firm voice, 'Yes.'

'She told you this,' he couldn't help it, he had to ask, 'my mother, the woman who keeps her emotions to herself better than you do?'

'Yes,' she answered simply realising how difficult it would be to accept his mother confession as true.

'Why didn't she tell me?' the betrayal laced his tone and expression.

'Maybe she afraid,' Dana offered.

'Of what?' Mulder spat.

'You, your reaction, the safely of your children, what you might do with the information,' softening her voice in an attempt to stay completely neutral, she gave her conclusion. 'If your mom won't open a dialogue, maybe you need too.'