Title: Without You Part 12

All other disclaimers in part one.

Author's Note: Thanks for all of the feedback and I'm sorry to leave you all hanging. You guys are awesome with your reviews...keep them coming:)

Anyways, enjoy!

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May 20, 2002

Roswell County Medical Office

10:13 a.m.

The smell of death is around us as we walk through the door of the county medical office. Our demeanor has completely shifted. I am no longer living on hope, but rather questioning the life that seems to be so horribly possessed by such bad luck.

Mulder walks next to me, his head down in defeat. He's been through so many deaths and near deaths that I'm surprised he isn't numb to the world of the lost. I can tell he already blames himself. Blames himself that it isn't William in medical office, but rather himself.

Doggett stands a little taller trying to shield us from the coming pain. It's too late for that. But he knows what we are going to go through and in a way he's going to go through it again as well. John watched as I lost Mulder and William and was returned that hope that they might both still be alive. How can fate be so cruel? How is that possible?

A tall, broad shouldered doctor approaches us. His eyes are somber and he too has seen enough death in his life to leave him numb to the world of the living.

"I'm Doctor Al West, you must be--"

"Agent John Doggett, FBI. And these are my colleagues Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," John says taking charge right away.

The silence is almost too much.

Standing there looking at one another is too hard to bare. I lower my head and will myself to keep my composure. Looking down at my 5 month pregnant belly I start to wonder if this too will be their fate?

I pray to God that I won't have to go through this again. Losing another child. I already lost Emily and as far as everyone else is concerned William is gone.

"We've come to I.D. the body," John finally says.

I look up at Doctor West with tears in my eyes. I can't hold myself back any longer. I don't want to I.D. the body of my son. He's only fifteen months old. He should be walking by now, babbling his first words and lighting up my life, not lying on a cold slab of metal waiting for his parents to I.D. his body.

I start to realize that I'll never watch him as he walks out the front door on his first day of school. I'll never get the chance to help him with his homework, reward him when he makes the honor roll, ground him when he breaks our window while hitting a home run in his mind after playing a street game with the neighbors.

We'll never get to watch him as he goes off to his first awkward day of middle school and meets the 'love of his life'. Our son will never go off to his senior prom, or walk up on stage to accept his diploma or as he leaves us once and for all as an 'adult' going off to college.

But our situation is too dismal to even look for that single ray of hope. I want William back. I want our son back to love and to raise and to experience everything that we'll never experience.

"Scully?" Mulder urges pulling toward a door marked 'MORGUE'

I start to shake uncontrollably. Mulder stops and stares at me long and hard.

"Maybe it's not him," I whisper hoping.

Mulder leans in and takes me in his arms. We stand like this for a long time. Somehow, someway I feel my strength returning. Of all the things that I have ever wanted to prove anyone wrong on this would be the biggest of them all.

"Scully, are you sure you're okay?" Mulder questions holding onto my arm, steadying me.

I nod.

We slowly walk into the morgue. Having worked around these conditions for most of my professional career I have still never gotten used to the smell of death. The seeping decay that has started on the refrigerated corpses.

Dr. West stops in front of a drawer and pulls it out slowly. A blue blanket lays over a tiny body. One that would be that of a one-year old.

"Are you ready?" Dr. West inquires looking to both Mulder and I.

Mulder turns to me for my approval and after a long, hesitated moment I nod.

Slowly Dr. West lowers the blue blanket.

Blond hair tops the child's head and he looks too peaceful in death, like he died during his sleep without any pain. In a world where most one year olds don't die that way it would be a great lie to tell this child's parents: 'he died peacefully, without any pain.'

Mulder and I continue to stare at the peaceful face of this child. Purple bruises surround his neck and up and down his arms.

Small wounds methodically surround the child's bellybutton and the back of his neck.

Scars from implants.

"Well?" Dr. West finally whispers into the cold of the morgue.

I study the child's face again and then look to Mulder.

Mulder doesn't give any indication. He just continues to stare. I know that look. He feels as though he has failed--failed me and his son.

I stare at him a minute longer catching his attention.

I shake my head.

"It's not him," I whisper.

"Scully, I think that it is," Mulder responds painfully.

I shake my head, again.

"Mulder, look here on this child," I tell him pointing to a region just below his left nipple on his stomach. The skin is clear and creamy, nothing.

"What is it Agent Scully?" Doggett asks.

"William had a birth mark right here," I inform him circling the place on his belly.

"Then its a clone--" Mulder responds.

I start to shiver uncontrollably, realizing that William is still out there-- not dead.

Mulder takes me into his arms and holds me close.

"There's hope," he whispers into my ear.

Ring.

Ring.

Doggett quickly pulls his phone out of his coat.

"Doggett," he says gruffly into the phone.

He listens intently looking over at us and then back away. It involves us. The hushed tone tells it all.

Doggett hangs up the phone turning back to us.

"That was Agent Reyes."

"What did she want?" Mulder asks intently.

"I know this is hard to believe, but William just turned up at the X-Files office."

"Is it really him?" I ask, looking the clone of William laying on the cold slab of metal.

"I asked her to look for a birth mark of a--"

"--Circular object that almost looked like a UFO," I tell him.

Doggett nods his head, but still looks away.

"There's something more," Mulder says.

"What is it, John?" I ask.

"William didn't come alone."