Title: Chapter 7- X-Rays and a Hospital Room
Author: Gillian Leigh
Disclaimer: See an earlier installment...
Mulder paced up and down the halls, feeling as though he would be sick again. The first thing his wife had done when she got in the room with Will was to check the back of his neck for a bump like the one Emily had had. When she'd discovered it, he'd run from the room and thrown up.
He couldn't let this happen to her again. Not with a second child who would live to see its fourth birthday. There had to be a way to fix this, to make Will better. Another question that plagued him as he paced aimlessly through the hallways, was what if their other children were affected? What if they had the same thing that killed their sister and would most likely kill their brother too? The Gunmen, having received Scully's frantic call, approached Mulder with caution.
"Mulder?" Frohike said, gently. Mulder lifted his head, and the trio could see that he had been crying.
"What should we do?" Byers asked.
"Pray," Mulder said, his response surprising all of them. He took a deep breath and said, "Dana needs DNA tests run on the boys' blood."
"Even the twins?"
"Yes. We need to know if all of them are affected. The baby as well," he said, massaging his temples. The three looked at him strangely, and he added, "Dana thinks that Will has what Emily died from, and any abnormality should show up in blood test and DNA test results." The three men embraced their weary friend, and he led them down the hall to Will's room, where Maggie sat beside his bed, and Skinner sat beside her, rubbing her back.
"How is he?" Mulder asked. "Has there been any change?" Maggie shook her head tearfully. Mulder nodded, not about to mince words.
"Where's Dana?"
"Off talking to one of the doctors. This is killing her, Fox," Maggie said, and cringed at her choice of words.
"It's killing me too, Mom, more than you'll ever know. If he doesn't make it through this, I'll never be able to live with myself," Mulder said, his voice breaking. Maggie rose from her chair, and hugged him, choking back a sob.
"It's not fair. First Emily, and the two of you thinking you couldn't have children, and now to have Will sick like this..." Maggie said.
"I'm just praying that Dana and The Gunmen figure out what's causing this and what we can do to stop it." He paused. "Mom, where are Wes and Charlie? Dana needs them here to do testing on them."
"Monica Reyes is babysitting them at my house." Mulder nodded and left the room, but not before laying a gentle kiss on Will's perspiration covered forehead. The Gunmen followed Mulder, but hung back slightly, not knowing what to do or say. They froze when they heard the sound of a doctor talking, and Scully responded in her 'clinical voice' before bursting into tears. Mulder sprinted around the corner and caught his wife as she looked ready to fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. The doctor stood back in shock, and Mulder looked up at the menagerie of x-rays that were posted, half of which belonged to Will, the other half had been Emily's. His heart sank when he saw that they were identical.
"Fox, I'm so sorry," she muttered, crying into his chest.
"Why? Dana, this isn't your fault," Mulder argued, trying to comfort her. He pulled her into his lap on the cold tile floor, and looked at the doctor, who excused himself.
"It has to be. This happened to Emily and William, and I'm the only common link between the two of them, Fox. You weren't Emily's father, but I was her mother. There's no way you could have caused this," she said, trying to calm the kicking of their fourth child, whose fate was suddenly so uncertain.
"But sweetheart, Emily didn't grow in your womb, she developed elsewhere. You don't know how they could have manipulated your ova while they were outside your body."
"Well, somehow I got them back, didn't I? How else would we have been able to have Will? They could have manipulated them before putting them back in me. Who knows what's wrong with them?" she said, her tears subsiding momentarily.
"How long do we have to find a cure?"
"A week, two at most, before....we lose him," she said, barely able to choke out the words.
"We'll find a cure, Dana."
"We've got no choice."
"When are they doing the blood tests on the three of them?"
"This afternoon. They're doing a sonogram first, and then they'll test the baby too," she replied. "Help me up?" She extended her hand, and Mulder helped her rise to her feet, not even wanting to know what this was doing for her stress level and her pregnancy.
"What do we do after they draw the blood?"
"We wait," she responded, turning to the panel of x-rays.
"And how soon until we have a possible cure?"
"That I don't know..." she said, sighing as she tightened her grip on his hands.
