Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Sweet Dreams (Marilyn Manson) Vol 3. Week.22 on scifi_muses on LiveJournal
Setting: Season Five Episode: Emily

"His name is Matthew." Even subdued Bill was obviously proud and overwhelmed with the tiny person held tightly in his large arms. Scully couldn't help but smile at her older brother, at the awe that suffused him as he gently rocked his son. Bill was a tall man, large and commanding, but with the newborn tucked into the crook of his arm he seemed to melt almost, totally enraptured with the sleeping infant who yawned and nuzzled into the soft blankets he was wrapped in.

Scully's heart warmed and ached as she watched thrilled at the joy that Matthew brought to his mother and father and saddened by the fact that somewhere in the hospital beyond the lobby his little cousin was dying. Emily wouldn't be able to ever get to know the little boy who was brought into the world not so differently from her. By contrast where Matthew had been part of a long process for her brother and sister-in-law, a labor of love between them, Emily had been anything but. Matthew was brought into the world with happiness and expectation. Emily had been brought in with cold efficiency and necessity, and just as coldly and cruelly she was leaving it.

"You didn't have to stop by here," Scully had already protested the visit, knowing how eager Bill and Tara's friends were to see the new baby. Her sister-in-law had already gone home to get ready for the onslaught of guests and visitors, but had acquiesced with much hesitation to be parted from her baby for long enough that Bill could introduce him to his aunt sitting at Emily's bedside.

"Tara wanted me to." Bill carefully folded himself into one of the hospitals vinyl seats, holding Matthew as if he were carrying a precious Ming vase. "She wanted me to check in with you, make sure you were okay…and Emily."

Scully winced but smiled gratefully as she settled beside her older brother, perched carefully on the edge so she could get a better vantage point of her nephew. "He has Tara's smile. But the chin is all Scully."

"Yeah, well he's certainly got the Scully lungs on him," Bill chuckled, glancing carefully sideways at her. "You could hold him if you wanted."

Something inside of Scully quelled at that. "Oh, Bill, no…"

"What, you're a doctor, you won't drop him."

"No, it's not that," she began to protest, thinking of her daughter upstairs, but Bill ignored her, leaning over to promptly force her to take his child unless she wanted the infant to tumble to the floor. Matthew shifted grumpily during the exchange, tiny face scrunching fitfully before relaxing as Scully settled him against herself, his tiny head and neck propped up on her upper arm. He felt soft and warm, with the sweet scent of powder and baby.

Scully wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

"He's hungry like a horse, I hope that doesn't last forever." Bill beamed down at his progeny proudly, reaching up one long finger to stroke the downy head where the baby's tiny cap had come off. "You know, I thought I knew what love was, Dana, but I was wrong. I didn't know what it was till I held this little guy in my arms for the first time. In that moment…I knew I would die for him, kill anyone to protect him, do anything to make sure that he was safe."

Oh she understood. Scully understood all too well. Tears burned in her eyes as she tried to blink them back unwilling to weep all over her brand-new nephew. "He's so beautiful, Bill." Beautiful and perfect and the dream that she would never posses, the one thing that she would never have.

"Dana," Bill sighed, wrapping an arm around her suddenly quivering shoulders, cradling her and his son. "I'm so sorry about Emily, God…you don't even know. I would do anything to make this right for you, you know that."

"I know," she sniffled, pulling together her composer as Matthew sighed quietly in her arms. "I know you would, I know Mom would, Mulder is God knows where trying to make this right." She hadn't heard from her partner since the day before, and had been too preoccupied with Emily's rapidly declining health to try and track down him down.

"The truth is, Bill, that Emily, no matter how much I love her and want her…she wasn't meant for this." She blinked down at her nephew, reaching up to adjust the cap on his head. "Emily wasn't made to be raised by a family who loves her. She was born to be an experiment, to be tested on and used for research. They didn't care about her, it didn't matter if she had skinned knees or attended piano recitals. It didn't matter if she dreamed of being a cheerleader or an astronaut, because she was never going to grow up and be any of those things."

A lab rat, that was all her ova had gone into making, an experiment, an attempt to use the virus that she and Mulder had long been aware of in a child. For what purpose Scully didn't know. It seemed horrific, a nightmare to perform on anyone, let alone an innocent girl, but that didn't seem to matter. Much like Scully herself, Emily was created to fulfill an agenda, someone else's purpose. Her humanity seemed to be secondary. The fact that she was a real little girl had no bearing. Was this why Roberta Sim had wanted to stop the treatment? Had she sickened of the disdain that Calderon and the other scientists held for her adopted daughter? Had she just wanted to give Emily the one thing that no one else cared to give her, a normal life?

"What's the prognosis," Bill asked gently.

"She's slipped into a coma a couple of hours ago." She sounded so clinical now, so detached. It was the only way she could cope with this. "The virus has infected her system and is shutting down everything as it goes. She'll likely enter into septic shock before long and after that…"

After that would be the inevitable.

"Dana," Bill sighed, planting a soft kiss on the top of her head, the comfort of a big brother to his younger sister. "I'm so sorry…after all of this…"

"I know," she murmured, reaching up to brush angrily at the tears that brimmed at the corner of her eyes. She couldn't cry now, not yet. There would be a time for tears later. "But I think I'm at peace with this, Bill. Emily was never supposed to exist. Not like this. No one is supposed to exist like this."

They sat together in silence the two siblings. They were quiet in mutual comfort as between them Matthew snored softly in infant oblivion. At least he was there, sweet and new, a ray of bright hope in the dark clouds of suffering and loss that surrounded Scully's family these last few years. Matthew was certainly a gift from God.

"Do you plan on staying here then?" Bill pulled away finally, glancing at the time on the clock on the far wall. Tara would be eager to see her son soon, and Scully would have to get back up to her vigil at Emily's bedside.

"Till we reach an end, yes," Scully replied solemnly. Death didn't frighten her, not as a doctor, but watching the soulful little girl she had come to love fade before her eyes, that hurt Scully more than she ever imagined she ever could hurt.

"Alright," he rose, reaching for his slumbering son carefully. Scully gave up the tiny bundle regretfully, watching fondly as Bill ever so gently placed the infant in the carrier he had come in with. Matthew hardly stirred. Being born was hard enough business.

"If you need anything, let us know. I'll be right over no matter what is going on." Bill straightened, gathering the few things he had brought into the lobby with him. "And call us, Dana. Please…you'll need your family."

"I know," she acknowledged. She would, eventually. But for now, she needed to be with her daughter, to let Emily know that even in these final moments she was not alone.