20

SPECTRUM

During and After X-files Episode: Deadalive, Three Words.

Scully tells me the news that I'm healed from the disease that was killing me. Somehow I knew it I'm still putting things together in my mind. Scully's safety and well-being is the only thing I'm worried about. There is a part of me that wants to believe the baby is ours and normal. She seems convinced, but I can't relax if I'm wrong Scully could die, get killed while they harvest the fetus or die of a broken heart. I have flashes of my abduction, the drilling the pain I do my best not to think of them. I have work to do.

I come back home is just like I left it but there is something different there. Everything is different. I feel like a stranger in my house. Scully is so eager to get me back to where I was. But can I? After all it happened I feel changed. I still can see the faces of the aliens impassive to my pain. And I feel like them now insensible. I wish it away but it won't happen this fast, it never does. There is also this pressing sensation that a lot more happened before I came back but I can't know what is it. My memory fails or my brain is saving me from the worst memories, I'm not sure. I mumble some congratulations about an answered prayer and as soon as the words leave my mouth I can see that I hurt her. I need to remember that she is convinced everything is okay. Is me that needs proof now. I try to apologize and she as usual is understanding. But the hurt I caused is still behind her eyes.

She practically moves in my apartment helps me with food and check I'm okay. The first night I'm there I wake up screaming.

"It's okay Mulder...you are home, you are safe." She is sitting next to me. Her hand on my forehead.

"Scully?"

"Yes. They are not here. You are home."

"Thanks" I want to ask her to lay down next to me but I can't. I'm still afraid of the truth she is carrying inside her. I hold her hand and I slip back to sleep. I wake up in the morning to find her still asleep in the chair. She seems uncomfortable. I carry her on bed carefully not to wake her up. Her belly brushes me and I feel a movement. A primal impulse pulls me towards it, wants me to care.

"There is a baby inside her." My brain screams. But I still doubt, my paranoia pushes it away. I check the computer. Try to read the news of the last months see what has changed. I read the paranormal boards and the alien abduction groups. Nothing different still the same people, the same fears no one has advanced my work in my absence. I feel discouraged I thought when I left someone else will take over. Not for this months at least. The board that posts scans of the lone gunmen newspaper shows that my friends tried to help. The first three months they put my picture, my last whereabouts and even a reward for information. I wonder how many scammers called them? They did an obituary. I can't read it. It has stamp that reads. NEVERMIND. I think is supposed to be funny. I can't tell, my emotions are dulled out, I'm only paranoia and my love and worry for Scully. They then talk about my miraculous return in the last number. They seem happy and eager to have me back to fight the good fight. I smile to myself. Someone else did missed me.

"Mulder...Are you okay?" I hear Scully say.

"Yes, I just slept enough I was trying to get acquainted with this brand new world." I say pointing at the screen. She smiles slightly, her eyes still hurting.

"I told them to wait a few days to see you. I wanted to make sure you will be up to it." She seems cautious, like she is afraid of me. I hate the distance between us. Last time we were together we were so close and so happy. I want that back.

"I think I can handle that in a few days. Will call them soon." I want her to see me as she saw me before I left with light and love. I ask her to talk to me, tell me how things had changed. My paranoia starts to over think again when she talks about her new partner. The man was assigned by Kersh right after I was abducted, he could be a plant. Trying to destroy my work from within. Scully doesn't think so. I want to believe her but I can't, not yet. I find strange so many efforts were spent locating me. I thought they will be happy to get rid of me.

"Mulder the people on top might dislike you, but you still impressed a lot of agents with your work...Although Skinner thinks that they are just afraid what you can divulge if you were to fall in the wrong hands..."

I heard that before I do have a photographic memory after all and I did worked in many prominent cases. It makes some sense they made sure I was dead, if anything to know I was finally out of the way.

The days pass right fast I can feel more pieces coming together. Skinner visits he seem to notice the tension between us. The last time the three of us were together he could tell things were great. Will I ever be the man she met again? The man she needs? The father for her child if this baby is meant to be?

I feel strong enough to go to work. There was a man who got killed with Doggett in tow. I distrust him even more. I already was assigned a partner that seemed straightforward and I ended up losing my father, my freedom and almost everything to him. I was going to be more cautious this time. Especially since Scully was there with him.

Scully helps me to bend the rules once she feels I might be onto something. I'm happy to see things slowly back to normal. I call the gunmen and they help me decode the computer but, Scully told them something about the baby and they don't want to help me break in. I can't believe she is doing this telling everyone. Is she that sure? I don't listen I have work to do. As soon as she leaves I talk to my friends.

"Why are you siding with her? You know this is important?" Frohike talks first.

"Mulder you are like a brother to us you know that. But you weren't here when you were taken, when we thought you die." He is almost in tears.

"It was hard for us, but you should had seen Scully...She tried to be strong but you could she was suffering..."

"Never saw a woman that broken especially not someone like Scully and in the end she didn't even made it about her..."

"What do you mean?" Langly was going to say something when Frohike holds his shoulder and shakes his head. They start to gather their stuff. Byers is the last to speak.

"You two need to talk..." They leave and Scully comes back. Reluctantly she gives me new information to enter the computer given to her by her new partner. I don't trust the guy but I can't risk not getting what we need. And I don't have time to waste, history has shown they are very good at destroying the evidence. I wish I could stay long enough to try to comfort Scully to make her feel better about this but I can't. The stakes are high, if this group was willing to break into the White House it must had been a life and death situation. I'm the only one that knows this, the only one that cares.

I kiss her forehead before I jump out of the car.

"I'll come back...I always do, don't I? I'm such a pest that not even death wants me." I said winking. She smiles faintly, the hurt on her eyes still there.

Turns out that it was a trap and her new partner comes to save me. I'm not sure how I feel about him, but I think he might not be so bad. Scully thanks him and I nod towards him acknowledging the gesture. I get to her apartment to get the laptop see if there is any clue or if it was all a trap. She needs to run some errands before the store closes. Nothing is useful all of it is encrypted and no way to find out. I really want to go home. The anger bubbling up inside me. I was set up, but for what reason? I have only being back for a few weeks. In any case that can wait. There was also many things I needed to research about Scully's pregnancy, but I will need to use other methods since the office seems to be occupied. I don't trust Doggett enough to let him know my suspicious and even if I did he is more skeptic than Scully was. A huge assessment coming from her.

I decide to stay until she comes back I need to ask Scully for some of her tests so I can start my research. The moment she opens the door she can see something on my face.

"Mulder what's wrong?" I try to be calm.

"Nothing. I'm just a bit worried about you...about the baby. I heard you had a difficult pregnancy. How is everything going?" She smiles again I guess she is happy I'm talking about it at all.

"Yeah it has been rough but this little one is a fighter just like mom, just like D...you" She omits the word Dad. I never felt more like a jerk in my life. She knows I'm unsure.

"I kind of starving now so I want to eat something, but I have copies of my records if you want to see them." I nod, that makes thing easier to see what could be missing. She brings a box and produces four or five thick folders.

"Here are all the tests. Now I need to cook something before I faint." She goes to the kitchen, lets me review them alone. Blood tests, amniotic fluid, sonograms. All normal I memorize the name of the clinic to see what I can find about them. There are also a few papers about the chances of women to conceive naturally after menopause. Even though hormonally Scully never when through it this is the closest to anovulatory periods she could study. Rare, but not impossible. Dr Parenti's report about the possibility that the treatments to prepare her uterus might allowed to release some viable eggs that weren't extracted...Unlikely but the only scientific explanation. I shook my head this is the sort of conclusion that will be right in a normal world. But in this planet of conspirators and lies there other less scientific, but more likely explanations. I find something I never imagine I would see. A report from the office Dr Heitz Werber. Scully submitted herself to a detailed regression to look at ten days. The approximate date of conception. The report for each day is strange though it's only the summary: No evidence of repressed or stolen memories or time loss. Signed by the doctor. She places a glass of ice tea next to me and sits down with her own glass and the biggest plate of food I had seen her eating.

"You went through a regression?" She frowns.

"Well yes. We know this people can tamper with human fluids and tissue and of course memories. I covered all the physical evidence but I needed to probe my memories. I thought if anyone could find anything abnormal would be him and you always trusted him... I mean isn't what you had done?"

The weight of her words crushes me. Whatever pieces of me left floating, rush back towards me. I let all the memories of our time together shower me and I embrace all the emotions that come with it. The pain, the loss, the longing for that child. I hug her thigh next to me her belly rubbing against my stomach. I feel the baby move against me and I don't shy away.

"I'm such an idiot. I should had know that you wouldn't be so sure if you wouldn't had tried everything." She holds me back.

"Mulder is okay, is okay. I know what is like. To feel so different after returning. I've been there remember?" She said, her eyes full of compassion.

"The weeks and months after an abduction are always the hardest..." I kiss her lips not minding the food she still has on her mouth. I just want to feel her like I did before I left. My whole self finally ready to embrace her again. To embrace her miracle, our miracle.

"You are going to have our baby" I whisper on her ear. I recall the feeling of happiness I lost so long ago. I kiss her lips again slowly and then deeper I never needed her as much as I do now. She kisses me back for a moment but when my arms surround her she stops.

"Mulder...Mulder stop." She pulls back her mouth from me. But still holds me.

"I'm having a high-risk pregnancy and the doctor told me not to...well you know..."

"Is okay I just want to kiss you...I haven't in such a long time.." She smiles and kisses me back. My lips drinking from her soft lips. I thought I would never do that again. I'm almost shaking. We are together again and she is having what she wanted the most. I gave it to her somehow, there was mercy for us.

"Well you just want to kiss me, but my body is not registering the just kissing part...," she said, her quick breathing reminding me of all those nights and days we spent together. I slow down the kissing to a stop.

"Not even born and junior is already ruining our sex life." She giggles.

"Mulder!" She frowns and slaps me slightly. Her eyes are light again. The hurt disappeared. We were going to be fine. I smile as I see her walk to the kitchen and bringing a bag.

"You can entertain your mouth with that for the moment." She winks. It was a bag of sunflower seeds. I blow a kiss to her and start eating them.

She eats voraciously. She is usually never with this appetite. I like this, seeing her feeding herself with such hunger. I stare at her, she notices.

"I'm eating like a pig aren't I?"

"You look beautiful, tempting. Pregnancy becomes you." She smiles. The salad dressing is dribbling slowly from her chin. I cleaned it with my napkin. My body responds with arousal. I try to distract myself. It was time to wait again for a few months for Scully and the baby's sake. Harder to do now that I know what I was missing. But easier because is for our baby. Our baby, our baby I can barely believe it myself. I try to focus on the baby. I check some sonograms and remembered the hypnotherapist report.

"This report is very brief though, they are usually are more detailed." I mention. She groans.

"That is just the summary. The detailed report is on his office. Hopefully to never see the light of day." Her face turns darker. I frown. She bites her lips mortified.

"...It turns out that my subconscious seems to have no filter and is very detailed...The doctor's assistant told me that if I ever retire from the FBI I have a promising career as a erotica writer." Her face is almost inside the plate. I can't help but laugh loudly. She grunts embarrassed.

"Damn! Why I always have to die during the fun parts?"

"Mulder, shut up!" She finish eating and I help her clean up. I tell her to sit and rest while I do my share of help. I spent more time than I should peering at her, sitting in the couch reading, her hand on her belly. She looks perfect, so perfect I'm sad I missed so much of it, but glad I came back on time to see some of it at least. I sit down to talk. She tells me a lot about the last months. I try to cheer her on the sad parts. His partner seems to have saved her life in a few occasions. I still don't like the guy but I'm glad he was there keeping her safe when I couldn't.

She talks about some superstitions and her mom's plans; she wants to throw her a baby shower.

"I'm sorry you can't come. But Skinner's assistant is attending if you so much bring the ice she will have an advantage on the pool."

"Pool?"

"They have a pool about who is my baby's father." Her smile fades. I knew she was not happy with people meddling on her private life, especially this time.

"I'm sorry..."

"Well I was expecting as much. There is always one going in the Hoover building." She smiles a bit now.

"Skinner is number one...I guess they watched the movie." I cringe remembering that train wreck.

"Oh...Who else is?"

"Well of course you. A very close second place I believe." I can't help but laugh, Skinner might find Scully attractive like any sensible man within two meters of her does. But he always respected their professional relationship too much to say or try anything. Although, I suspect he guessed that our closeness might mean something else. Probably before neither of us did.

"Second place to Skinner...Man that hurts!"

"Danny, is in a distant third...I had never even see him in person. How did they even added him?" She rolls her eyes.

"So any man anywhere near you could be a candidate?"

"Sort of...Fourth and fifth is IV and ONS and last place is One of the three funny looking guys that visited her once or twice." That is too much and I laugh. She grunts.

"Has anyone dare to ask you?"

"They wouldn't want me to shoot them."

"But, your mom knows, right?"

"She has hinted and I haven't deny it, but I haven't told her either. The fewer people know the easier to keep the secret."

"Bill?"

"He will had dug you out of that grave himself, just to kill you again," she said laughing so hard that the echo runs around the room.

"Do you want me to bet against me? To throw then off?"

"Oh Mulder that is just evil..." She considers it a second "...but better not push our luck. These are all investigators after all. You betting might make them more eager to look further than the water cooler talk. Thank you for offering, though."

"My pleasure."

"But you can come to Lamaze classes if you are interested. According to the pamphlet friends can be birthing coaches and the classes are first come and first serve so no one will know we were even there." I gladly accept happy that we get to do something together in preparation for our child.

I keep her company until she falls asleep in my arms. I should had trusted her judgment, not only as a scientist but as a mother to be. She should know if there was something wrong. Why it was so hard to admit that a miracle could happen? Maybe because I don't think God will want to help me? But he will help her even if he has to use my crackpot self for it. And God did responded I will have to make peace with that idea. That maybe there is a God and that maybe he even does loves me.