Title: Chapter 9- Results and Revelations
Author: Gillian Leigh
Summary: The results are in....
-X-
He was on his feet in an instant, knowing the worst was to come.
"They all have it?" he asked, though it was more to the tune of statement rather than question.
"The twins have it, Fox..." She paused, looking ready to cry again. "But the baby doesn't. She's *perfect*." She smiled, and he wrapped his arms around her. He was glad their daughter would be safe, but he was not ready to lose 3/4 of his children.
"Have you figured out how to cure it?" he asked, kissing the top of her head.
"No, but I'm working on it. I've got the Gunmen running every hunch I can come up with, and I've got their blood samples under every available microscope. We're going to beat this. I can feel it," she said, stepping over to the bed and kissing Will's forehead.
"Mommy and Daddy are going to save you, Will. I promise," Scully said, stroking his forehead. She kissed Mulder again before heading back to the lab.
Scully's vision blurred as she looked through the microscope. She was exhausted, but it wasn't quitting time yet. She wasn't going to stop until she found a cure. She was going to save her sons; there was no other possibility.
"Scully," Byers said from across the room. She looked up at him as he approached.
"Yes?"
"I got specific orders from Mulder on my last visit to the vending machine. He wants you to eat this." Scully smiled and fought back a laugh when Byers handed her two bananas, an apple, and a salad, with a bottle of water.
"That man..." she cut herself short, when just thinking of Mulder gave her an idea.
"That's it!" she said, setting down her food before running from the lab. Mulder was on his way back from the cafeteria with a cup of coffee when he saw his heavily pregnant wife sprinting down the hallway toward him, with the tails of her lab coat flying straight out behind her.
"What is it?"
"It's you... It's us. I can't believe I didn't think of this before..." she said, taking his hand and pulling him down the hallway.
"Didn't think of what, Dana?"
"Obviously what the kids have has to be genetic, right?"
"Right."
"So then either one, or both of us would have to carry the gene."
"Yeah..."
"And because the baby doesn't have it, my guess is that it is sex-linked or recessive." Mulder looked at her, getting slightly confused.
"If its in their blood, it should be in our blood," she said, quietly, leading him through the door. He finally understood.
"I need to take a sample from you, and then one from myself," she said, seating him on a stool. Byers, Langly, and Frohike looked at her questioningly.
"It's genetic. She needs a blood sample," he said, as a frenzied Scully pulled on gloves and grabbed a syringe out of a supply closet.
"Are you allowed to use that stuff, Scully?" Frohike questioned. Scully glared at him.
"I wouldn't piss her off, Frohike, I think she's got enough stuff in that closet to kill the three of us and make it look like an accident," Langly said, intently studying the computer screen.
"Yeah, she may be pregnant, but she could still kick your asses," Mulder added. Scully grinned at him. He winced as she took the sample, but he got over it, and then she got a fresh syringe and a pair of gloves and took her own. Mulder cringed.
"How in the hell do you do that to yourself?" he asked. Langly looked up and rolled his eyes.
"She cuts up dead people for a living, and you're amazed that she can draw her own blood? Please," he said, shaking his head.
"I used to cut up dead people for a living. Now I'm a doctor, but I'm on maternity leave. I work strictly on the living," she said, bandaging her arm. "But now, I need to run some tests so we can figure out how to save our sons." Her comment brought their attention back to the somber matter at hand.
"Fox, please go keep an eye on Will, and try to get some rest. It could be another twenty four hours before we have an inclination as to how to *begin* solving this problem." He nodded, and left without another word, leaving his wife to her microscopes and biochemistry.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Scully was eating her dinner and fighting a losing battle with her eyelids. She laid her head down on the table next to her microscope, and resolved to take a short nap. The Gunmen were also slumbering peacefully in their chairs, and Frohike's soft snoring lulled her to sleep.
Scully awoke to the feeling of being carried, and when the images in front of her sleepy eyes stopped swimming, she saw that it was her husband who carried her.
"Fox? What're you doing? I need to get back to work," she mumbled sleepily.
"You need to sleep," he said, kissing her forehead.
"No," she said, growing more coherent. "I need to find a cure, Fox. Our son is going to *die* without a cure," she said, tears threatening to fall. He relented and put her down.
"Dana, you should really get some sleep," he said, his fingers tracing soft circles on her back.
"I'll sleep soon, Fox," she said, pressing her hands to her lower back. She was already regretting sleeping hunched over at the table in the lab. "What time is it?"
"Just after three in the afternoon," Mulder replied.
"Damn it. I slept for four hours. I need to get back to the lab, and figure this out," she said, lingering a moment in his embrace before walking away. He knew as well as she did, that she made herself detached and impersonal, as did he, so that their emotions didn't get in the way until the last possible moment. Hopefully by then this would be solved.
Three hours later, Scully had a revelation, and in an instant, a resolution. She gasped, and the burst into tears. Byers, the only one in the lab with her at the time, rushed to her side.
"What is it?"
"I've found the answer," she said. "Look through that microscope." While he did, she pulled something up on the laptop.
"I-I don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing," Byers responded honestly.
"That doesn't matter. Byers, the gene that causes this virus, the take-over of the body, is sex-linked and recessive. Mulder carries it on his Y chromosome, and I carry it on one of my X's. That's why the boys have it, and our daughter doesn't. They had to have inherited the infected X and the infected Y to get the disease. The baby isn't even a carrier, which means that she got my uninfected X. Her stem cells could be used to eradicate the virus from her brothers."
"Bone marrow transplant," Byers said, finally understanding.
"When I placed a drop of the baby's blood on the slide with Will's blood, the antibodies started fighting his disease, and killed it off."
"But how are you going to get the stem cells in time?" he asked.
"That's what I need to talk to Dr. Beecher about...inducing labor," she said, wrapping her arms around Byers. "I have to go save my boys."
Author's Notes: Sorry this one took a while... my computer hates my guts, and has a habit of freezing whenever I try to upload anything. I'm not a doctor or nurse.. so everything may not be totally accurate, or totally realistic, but hey, this *is* the X-Files...we can go out on limbs now and then, and I have a right to use my artistic license. :op Hope you like it. (More to come) Feedback Appreciated -twistedmoonbeam8@hotmail.com
