Delectation 5/6
"When did he wake up?" Walter Skinner asked the nurse in charge of Mulder. She glanced back into the room, a bed had been put in the room for Scully, naturally she had pushed the two beds together so she could be closer to her partner while they slept. Currently the two partners were both sleeping, hands clasped across the small gap between their beds.
"A few hours ago, she called us once he had gone back to sleep," the nurse shot a knowing glance into the hospital room and smiled, her dark eyes twinkling. "She refused to leave him, insisted that if we wouldn't let her stay in the same bed we could at least let her stay in the room."
Skinner smiled faintly, relieved that the staff had indulged Scully in her request. He knew that she was very distressed right now, and when she was like this only Mulder could reach her.
"How are they doing?" he asked softly.
"He appears fine, we still can't figure out exactly how he woke up or why he was in a coma in the first place, but these things happen. She... she hides it well, but she is still very upset," the nurse bit her lip, she had taken care of Scully when she had first come in. She knew about the miscarriage.
Skinner nodded in understanding. "You'll call me if anything changes?" The nurse nodded her assent and headed down the hall.
Skinner stared in at his two best agents for a long moment, then turned and walked down the hall.
Inside the room, Fox Mulder stirred and opened his eyes. His partner was the first thing he saw, lying on another bed across from him, clutching his hand in a tight grip.
He smiled a bit at the sight. She was so beautiful, even now. A sharp pain in his heart reminded him of the darkness looming over their happiness. That child, that baby that had grown within her for only a few short months, it had already been so cherished. So loved, so wanted.
Just another thing taken away from the two of them, but they couldn't blame this on any shadowy figures or government conspiracies.
Well, they could if they really tried... but they had stopped placing blame, or at least they said they had stopped.
The pain in his heart as he gazed at the woman he loved grew, not so long ago they had lain in a tight embrace in a bed in a motel room in Oregon and he had told her that she needed to do more with her life, she needed to go have a life while she could.
Not so shortly after that she had discovered that she was pregnant. Her own joy at the discovery had been dampened by the fact that he was gone.
Now he had returned, and the baby had been taken from her.
Mulder blew out a breath of frustration, they could never be completely happy could they? Something always came along to wreck it for them.
He leaned across the space between their beds to kiss her gently on the forehead, "We'll get another chance, Scully, I promise..." he stroked her face lovingly, pushing aside the crimson strands that were scattered about her pallid skin. He noticed faint rays of light slanting in through the window. Dawn was approaching.
Golden - red streaks of light streamed through, warming his heart a bit as they lit Scully's delicate features with a radiance he had seen only a few times before. The aurora of the early morning inflamed her already red hair, making her locks appear as a crimson halo about her face, a stark contrast with her pale face and white sheets. He wondered when the last time she had slept was, slept and been rested anyway, years of insomnia had defined that for him.
But for the moment, her face was peaceful, the lines of concern and worry had been eased away as she slept, comforted by his nearness and the knowledge that he was all right.
He wondered how long this peace would last, how long would it be until she woke up and saw him, and remembered?
He would not have been surprised to learn that Scully had been sitting at his side just a few mornings earlier, studying him in the early dawn, worrying about him. The roles had been reversed yet again. Mulder frowned suddenly as a thought occured to him, frantically he felt at his neck, to his relief the necklace was still there. A dark flash of something occured to him, grasping this necklace as he jumped over the edge of an abyss...something about a portal...and a choice...
The details were sketchy at best...but he remembered seeing her there, in that portal. That was how he had gotten out...
"Fox?" A soft, familiar voice from the doorway interrupted his musings. He looked up, his gaze drawn from the younger Scully woman to the older one in the doorway.
"Mrs. Scully," his voice was low, the older woman noted, husky from unshed tears. He was being strong for her daughter, she observed with a sad amusement, he had just woken from a coma, and here he was trying to remain strong for Dana. The golden glint at his neck made her draw in a breath, Dana never gave away her necklace willingly, Mrs. Scully knew that. The last time she had seen her daughter, she had wondered where the cross had gone. Now it all clicked into place.
"Mrs. Scully, I'm sorry..." he choked on his words and she frowned, entering the room.
"For what, Fox?" She asked, sitting down in a chair next to his bed. Mulder shook his head, "She should have called you earlier. You must not have heard, she..." he gazed down at Dana tenderly and swallowed hard. "She lost the baby..."
Tears pricked at Mrs. Scully's eyes, so that explained it. That explained why Dana had sounded so upset on the phone when she had called a little while ago. She nodded slowly, cursing silently. Why did her daughter have to go through so much? She had never done anything wrong, it wasn't fair.
"I see," Margaret whispered. Mulder nodded, his dark hair falling across his eyes in an adorably boyish tendency. Mrs. Scully took his hand, "How are you?" she asked quietly.
Mulder's eyes threatened to fill with tears, he was grateful the Scully women had always liked him. His own mother was gone, and no one but Scully would have been able to see how upset he was, but Scully's mother seemed to have picked up on it.
"It's not fair," he whispered. "This child was a miracle, she was barren for so long and we were only together once," Margaret's eyebrow rose at this, she could have sworn her daughter and Fox Mulder had been involved for years. This was new.
"Scully wanted children so much, and when I heard she was pregnant... I was so happy, she could have had a normal life for once... we could have..." Margaret's other eyebrow rose, hadn't he been in a coma up until she had lost the baby? How could he have known....
"And now," he shook his head, it was futile to try to explain how it felt to lose a child to Mrs. Scully, she had lost Melissa, and had nearly lost Dana.
"I understand, it's the most aching, acute pain one could ever experience," Margaret said softly, as if she had read his thoughts. "Losing a child is never easy, but you two can survive, you're strong, you have each other."
Mulder nodded slowly, the pain was all too fresh and abrupt. He turned his eyes back to Scully, caressing her face with such love. Mrs. Scully watched this man who loved her daughter stroke her face in with a lover's touch. They were always good together, she could barely believe that they had only recently become lovers before his abduction.
"She needs you, Fox, now more than ever, and you need her, take good care of each other." Mulder heeded her words silently. His gaze on Dana was intent and concerned. Margaret stood up and rested a comforting hand on his shoulder for a moment, "I'm going to talk to the doctors, see when I can get the two of you out of here," there was a note of intrigue in her voice as well as a small smile. She knew how much the two of them hated hospitals. And staying here longer would just remind Scully more of what she had lost.
Mulder shot her a grateful look and smiled back, "Thanks," he said softly as Mrs. Scully winked and headed out the door, leaving the two of them alone again.
The spreading daylight broadened across the two of them and Scully stirred for the first time. There was a familiar churning in her stomach that she could not ignore. She opened her eyes and stirred restlessly under Mulder's prying gaze.
"Mulder," she said between gasps. "I don't feel so well..." his eyes widened and he grabbed the bedpan, just in time for her to vomit into it.
When she was done, she leaned back, pale and frightened. Sweat beaded on her brow and Mulder eyed her with concern. She covered her face with her hands and allowed the imminent chills to tremble through her body.
"Why is this happening to me?" She asked him through chattering teeth, her blue eyed gaze swinging to meet his concerned hazel eyes. "Mulder, I'm scared..."
Mulder bit his lip and pulled her close across the two beds, "I know Scully, but it's going to be fine, I won't let anything happen to you," he fumbled at his neck and pulled off her cross, sliding it around her neck and clasping it. The cross settled into the hollow of her throat as it had never been gone and she managed a small smile through her waves of trepidation. "Look at that," he murmurred, rubbing her back and whispering in a soothing tone. "It always finds it's way back to you..." the moment was not lost on Scully as their eyes locked and the two spoke so much without opening their mouths again. The cross was another constant on this fickle line they walked together. Whatever was going on scared Scully more than Mulder had seen before. She couldn't stop shivering in his arms...
As if she could read his mind, which she probably could he supposed, her quakes subsided and relaxed into his arms.
Mulder held her for a long time, the fading image of three colored strands, inextricably woven together and held onto for dear life, fresh in the back of his mind....
~ ~ ~ ~
The next few days passed with agonizing slowness for the two agents. They were both released from the hospital the next day due to some string pulling by Skinner.
Now the two of them stood outside the door of Scully's apartment, hesitant as to where they should go from there.
Mulder grasped her hand firmly and brought her hands to his mouth, caressing her skin lightly with his lips. "I suppose I should get back to my apartment," he managed to crack a smile. "See if my fish managed to survive without me for two months..." he trailed off, not moving to where he was rooted by her door. He didn't want to go, he didn't want to leave her now, not ever.
Scully raised shimmering blue eyes to meet his hazel ones, not a fleck of green could be seen. There was a calm emptiness there that frightened her. A kind of hollow despair that she had only seen in him a few times before.
When he had arrived at the hospital, afraid that he would find her dead so soon after she had discovered the cancer. This quiet desperation had been in his eyes then, replaced only by hope when she had told him she was coming back to work, coming back to him.
And again, in a basement office, the two of them had stood amidst the blackened ruins of their work. Mulder's eyes had been so empty then, his entire expression so void of any emotion, even to her. He had retreated into himself and wouldn't let anyone in, he had refused to feel it, to accept the fact that the blackened wreckage around them was what he had spent many years of his life on. She had pulled the emotion out of him then, had cautiously pulled him to her and embraced him, offering as much comfort as she could.
And then when he had discovered his mother dead, without telling him her final message, the rarefaction had again taken shape. It had only gone away to be replaced with another sort of peace, an uneasy acceptance of his sister's fate.
And now, as he weighed the implications of their child's death, she could feel him slowly retreating from her, quietly withdrawing to get away from the pain. She knew that if she let him walk away, he would carry that maddening emptiness inside him until finally he snapped.
She wouldn't let him do it, not this time.
Mulder was again amazed at the strength he could see in his partner. Oblivious to her speculations, he could tell that all she wanted to do was throw herself in his arms and cry. But she wouldn't let herself, she held onto those walls that surrounded her heart for dear life, determined that without them she would collapse into his arms and stay there forever.
So that is why he was expecting her to release his hand, let him walk away, however much she wanted him to stay.
So he was surprised when she grasped his other hand and leaned her head against his chest with one quiet, simple request. "Don't leave me Mulder, please?"
The concealed emotion in her voice made him want to weep. She would let him go if he wanted to go, but they both knew he would stay.
He moved his hands from hers to around her waist, pulling her close to him. She lifted her head and he leaned his brow down to hers, skin meeting skin. Their position suddenly struck him as familiar, and he remembered suddenly a day in a similiar hallway outside of his apartment, virtually in the same spot, where they had stood like this. A day over two years ago, where they had come so close...
Slowly he reached behind her and opened her door, "I'll stay forever if you need me to, Scully, don't doubt that."
She nodded mutely and followed him inside. He could see the strain of the past few days, more likely the past few months he had been gone. Hell, the strain of years of being his partner was evident in the weariness of her small frame.
Of all the pain she had endured, this topped it all. She had already lost one daughter she had never even known existed until it was too late. Now she had lost their child, a real flesh and blood child, created out of love.
The guilt and the grief tore at her heart, she followed Mulder numbly to her bedroom. "You have to sleep Scully, are you listening to me?" he frowned and caught her by the shoulder. "Scully, look at me." She forced her eyes up to meet his. Those swirling hazel depths she had lost herself in time and again. The pain and grief she saw there mirrored her own eyes, as well a deep fear and concern for her.
"I'm fi--"
"Fine?" he asked, cutting her off. "Scully you are not fine, we both know it. Now come on, you are going to sleep, when was the last time you really slept?" She smiled distantly at his worrying, he sounded like her.
"Two months ago," she replied honestly to the question he hadn't really expected an answer for. He glanced at her, furrowing his eyebrows. "In Oregon, in a little motel room," she could see the realization appear in his deep hazel eyes. He nodded slightly and smiled, "Well then I will stay with you," he whispered. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to her bedroom door.
And stopped short at the sight of her guest bedroom door standing slightly ajar. Mulder followed her gaze and felt his heart stop beating for a moment. Scully tensed visibly under his hand and she stood, rooted to the spot.
Slowly she extended a hand and pushed the door open, Mulder stood by, wanting to make her look away, to make the pain stop. But he knew he had to let her come to peace with it.
Inside was sparsely, but lovingly decorated with baby furniture. The guest bed that Mulder himself had occupied more than once, was pushed to one corner. A cradle stood in the center of the room, an old wooden thing, the deep mahogany gleamed in the dim light. Mulder glanced around the room in a sort of awe, it was decorated in hues of blue, soft pink and lavender. That was his Scully, he thought with a small smile. Always prepared, whether or not it would have been a boy or a girl, she was prepared for both. He watched her cross over to the cradle, running her hand along it lovingly.
"My grandfather built this cradle with his own two hands," Scully said softly, almost to herself. For my mother when she was a baby," she smiled slightly. "After mom had Bill, the cradle was brought out again for him. Then Charlie and Melissa," she bit her lip at the memory of her dead sister. Mulder felt his heart constrict in pain. "And me," she continued.
"When Charlie had his kids, he got the cradle, Bill got it not long after that. I think they used to bet which one of us girls would get the cradle next, but then after Missy died...and I thought I couldn't have children...it was assumed the cradle would remain in Bill's attic until grandkids rolled around," she smiled ruefully and glanced at him. "You should have seen the look on his face when I told him to dust it off and give it to me."
Mulder smiled softly, venturing into what would have been his child's bedroom, their child. "I wasn't aware you had many family heirlooms, Scully."
"A few," she commented. "This is one of them. Mom came out about a month ago, all smiles when I told her I was pregnant. She helped decorate a bit, but not too much. She told me she wanted me to save the rest of the decorating for when 'Fox' came home," Scully's shoulders shook with invisible sobs.
Mulder felt a fresh stab of pain in his heart. This was too much too soon. He had known Scully was pregnant, had heard it directly from her. But somehow, coming home to the bedroom for the child that would never inhabit it, made the pain all the more real. He approached her from behind, resting his hands lightly on the familiar spot in the small of her back. He could feel her relax instinctively at his touch, but her head remained bowed.
"I was looking forward to it all you know, I didn't even mind the morning sickness, it just reminded me of this little miracle. I had never really thought about children until I discovered I couldn't have any. Somehow the loss of something I had never had was too large, overwhelming." She lifted her head and he could see the grief glimmer in her eyes in the faint light that managed to peek in through lavender shades.
"I was looking forward to it all when I discovered I was pregnant. I was looking forward to taking turns with you in waking up in the middle of the night to soothe her back to sleep," Mulder raised an eyebrow, not at the natural assumption that he would be with her, that was obvious, but at the fact she seemed so certain it was a girl, even though there was no way she could have known.
"I was looking forward to her first words, first steps, first day at school. I wanted it all, and now...she's gone..." the last words had wavered from her grim confidence with a small gasp. Mulder could see that she had really wanted all those little things. He knew, he had wanted them too.
"I know, Scully, I wanted all that too, and more." He wondered if his own voice was as steady as hers had been. "There is nothing I wouldn't give up to have our baby back. And I'm not going to tell you to move on, I won't," Scully smiled briefly, grateful that he knew her so well. That was one of the things she feared the most.
"But with time, the pain of losing someone dulls a bit. And their memory remains, along with the knowledge of their brief existence, and of how much you loved them." Mulder's voice dropped to a low whisper and Scully knew that he wasn't just talking about their baby anymore. She turned to face him, seeing that his eyes had dropped to the ground as he fought for composure. The grim fact that Mulder had not yet cried for their loss struck her. He was trying to be strong for her, again. She smiled a wavering smile at the knowledge, she gripped the small crucifix he had returned to her between her forefinger and her thumb.
"I know Mulder, Samantha knows too...wherever she is, she knows that you loved her. And our child knows too, she has to."
Mulder bit his lip, this woman knew him too well. He had always wanted children, and the psychologist part of him acknowledged that the reason for this may have been that he had always wanted the perfect family to make up for his own shattered home life. He had wanted a daughter to make up for the sister he had lost so long ago.
He met her eyes hesitantly, and Scully could see the red that rimmed his eyes, proving the unshed tears that gleamed there. She knew that her own eyes probably looked the same, but it didn't matter anymore, not now, not with Mulder.
Scully's old Irish temper flared suddenly, this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that the two of them were crying over a child that should be growing inside her, instead of waiting, for the body to push the defunct fetus out of her system. It wasn't fair that the two of them couldn't even have this small measure of happiness. It wasn't fair!
"It's not fair," Scully hissed suddenly. Mulder drew back, alarmed by the fire in her eyes. "This isn't fair! Can't we ever be just the tiniest bit happy? Do we ever get what we want? Is it too much to ask?" She was pissed now, she turned suddenly and swung her fist against the cradle with a resounding crack, causing the wood on one side to splinter and crack slightly from the force of her blow.
"It's not fair," she shouted at the cradle. "We don't deserve this!" she lifted her eyes to the heavens in fury. "Dammit!" she turned on him, who was watching her calmly, with the smallest touch of fear gracing his hazel eyes.
"It's not fair," she protested weakly, wondering how many times she was going to repeat this. "Why would God take away two of my babies before I ever got the chance to know them?" Mulder's walls crumbled at her desperate plea and he caught her still clenched fist in his large, comforting hand.
"You told me yourself once that God works in mysterious ways, Scully. I guess we'll never know." He could see her jaw muscles clench and relax in defeat. She met his eyes briefly, wordlessly, and then crumbled against him, collapsing into his waiting arms.
He carried her out of the small room, a room that the two of them would probably not enter for a very long time, and into her own bedroom.
"You need to sleep Scully, please?" He could sense her oncoming protests that she knew would do no good against him. Gently, he set her down on the bed and opened her drawer, withdrawing her favorite pair of silk pajamas. Thinking back over the times Mulder had been in her bedroom, she was surprised that he knew where her clothes were. But an eidetic memory could do that for some people.
"Jacket off, Scully," he instructed gently. She obeyed, shrugging out of her leather jacket and dropping into to the floor. There was a soft thump of something hard hitting the floor and Mulder glanced down to see what it was.
Lying just next to the jacket, was a small plastic looking tube. He frowned slightly and leaned down to pick it up. Scully was too busy shrugging out of her tank top to notice. Mulder gripped the tube gently and his forehead wrinkled in thought as he glanced down at the clear tube. Something about it looked familiar for some reason. Vague memories of an empty ally outside a bar and a limo, along with slightly fuzzy memories of Antarctica and a naked Scully, covered in green goo...
He could feel the blood rise in his cheeks at the memory, combined with the fact that Scully was now sitting next to him on her bed, with no shirt on.
"What is it, Mulder?" She asked softly as she retrieved her pajama top from where he had dropped it and pulled it on. He turned to her with a small frown. He flipped on the lamp and held the tube up to the light. A slightly goldish liquid shone through, only a few small drops left.
He turned his gaze to her, raising one eyebrow in a gesture that she recognized as one he had picked up from her. "Something you want to tell me, Scully?" he was obviously confused as to how she had gotten this serum that looked so much like the vaccine he had used to cure her two years ago in Antartica. She understood that, and suddenly realized that there was a lot she needed to tell him.
"I went to see Krycek and Marita Covarrubias, I demanded answers," she saw Mulder's other eyebrow raise to join it's companion on his forehead. "Scully you could have been killed," she waved him off. "I know, I know, but I had to do it Mulder," she met his eyes, seeking penance. "Like the way you had to leave a hospital with a concussion and a gunshot wound to the head to save me," she saw his cheeks color slightly at the memory. "I couldn't sit around and wait for you to wake up. I had to get out there and try to help."
He nodded in understanding, "Scully, I think this is definite proof that you have been spending too much time around me. It's my job to make impulsive decisions that could kill me without a second thought, remember?"
He could see her smile, even with the darkness that hovered at the edges of her smile. "Well, it was kind of hard for you to do, being in a coma and all. So I decided to take the job for a day or two." He smiled for a moment at their familiar banter. It was as if nothing had ever changed, as if he hadn't been missing for two months, been in a coma for three days, and as if the two of them hadn't just lost a child.
This was obviously not lost on Scully, he could see her eyes darkening also.
"So did you get answers from Ratboy?" He asked lightly, the tube he held in his hand proof of his question. Scully nodded darkly, "He told me 'they' had updated their abduction technique in the past several years. I was abducted as a test subject. You were abducted for a whole other reason." She spotted Mulder's frown and shook her head slightly, auburn strands of hair falling across her face with the movement.
"He told me you were too important for mindless experiments..." Scully's words struck a chord somewhere deep inside Mulder's eidetic memory. He glanced up sharply and she stopped.
'Mulder is important, too important to waste to these mindless experiments ... hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell... a sonogram... heart stopped... my fault... my fault... how am I going to tell him?... Come back to me... I need you... '
All the memories that he had been assaulted with as he had struggled free of the darkness. He knew that some of the memories had not been his, rather they had been Scully's, though until now he had not really considered it.
He knew, somehow, what Scully knew, she had just confirmed his suspicions. He shook his head, not sure of how to tell her yet and let her continue. "It's nothing Scully, go on."
She gave him an unsure glance, but continued nonetheless. "They told me that..." she trailed off and met his dark hazel eyes. "Cancerman is dead."
Mulder frowned and leaned forward on the bed next to her. "Are they sure this time?"
Scully nodded, "I think they actually saw the body and buried it. He was dying anyway, it was only a matter of time."
Mulder nodded, the sense of relief he felt at the fact that his mortal enemy was dead was small, compared to all he had taken away from the two of them over the years. "He won Scully," as much as he hated the words coming out of his mouth, he knew they had to be true. He had never gotten anything from Cancerman but lies and pain.
Scully looked at him with a measure of guarded surprise, "It would appear so, it seems that he has gotten away with all he's done over the years. And in a sense, he has won. But through the years, in little ways, and in the end, overall, we have won. They can't touch us now, we're stronger together, and they know it."
Mulder regarded her with a blithe astonishment at her candid view of their struggle. His fingers closed over the tube and he realized that she was right. They had won, in little ways, they had won their lives, and the ability to keep searching. To keep going. And at the moment, despite all they had lost, that was all that was important.
His other hand found hers and his fingers curled around her own as he regarded the serum in silence. "So what else did Krycek tell you about this vaccine?"
Scully shook her head, "Not much, Marita told me that she didn't know much about how it worked. Only that it triggered the regenerative cells and tissue inside the body. I realized then that's how I got pregnant," her eyes darkened and her hand instinctively strayed to her stomach.
"My ovaries had been rebuilding themselves since you injected me with that other vaccine. It didn't just attack the virus, it attacked all that had gone wrong with my body, including my womb." Scully's voice held steady, detached, as if she was talking about someone else, a patient or the cold facts off a case. But Mulder could see how shaken she was.
"And here I thought all this time that all those years of celibacy had made me the most fertile son of a bitch alive," Mulder said dryly. Scully smiled faintly, "For awhile, so did I."
He regarded the serum for a moment, then turned it over to her. "You saved a few drops," he commented softly. She turned the tube over in her hand and nodded, "I wasn't sure whether or not it could hurt you in a large amount, plus I wanted to save some in case the guys needed some more to analyze it..." her excuses that had seemed so solid a few days ago, sounded flimsy to her now. Mulder nodded, though she could practically hear the gears in his head grinding.
"Got a syringe, Scully?" He asked softly. She turned to regard him with a slight confusion, her brow furrowed. "What are you thinking, Mulder?"
He shook his head slightly. "I'm thinking that we should use the rest of this serum on you."
She stared at him for a long moment, letting his words sink in. Then she realized. He was afraid that the other vaccine would wear off, that somehow she would be left barren again. She wanted to tell him that it was scientifically impossible, but the entire concept of how she had been healed in the first place wasn't entirely scientifically possible.
"Mulder there's no need..." he shook his head and cut her off with a finger to her lips. "Get me the syringe, Scully," his tone left no room for arguement, and she figured it wouldn't hurt to indulge him a bit. She stood, slowly, changing into her silk pajama pants on her way to her bathroom. She retrieved a small needle and came back out.
Mulder was staring at the serum with a sort of fascination. "This has to be much more powerful than the one I used on you Scully. It healed me within the space of a few hours. And the first vaccine had to be delivered within ninety-six hours, this one was delievered after several months and I was fine. What does it mean?" He frowned at the few drops of liquid left in the container, as if glaring at it would get him the answers.
"Marita told me virtually the same thing Mulder. If we saved that, we could find out," she informed him helpfully. He turned to her and considered her words for a long moment. "No, the guys are probably figuring it out as we speak. These last few drops are for you."
Scully shook her head slightly at his stubborness and handed him the needle. She realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that under other circumstances she would have insisted that the vaccine be taken to the lab to be studied, but something inside her was urging her to do this.
She handed Mulder the syringe. He pulled at the ampoule of the tube and sucked the last drops out of the small container with the syringe. The memory of doing the same thing several years ago under the ice of Antartica popped into mind once again.
At least this time Scully was conscious beforehand.
And dressed.
In retrospect, Mulder wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
He leaned towards her, pushing her shirt aside gently, feeling her breath hitch and he pushed aside the golden chain of her necklace, smoothing her skin under his fingertips. "It's okay, Scully, I've done this before." Slowly, he eased the remaining serum into her system, emptying the syringe. He glanced up at her to see her eyes drooping slightly. "Alright," he whispered softly. "Time to sleep," he pulled back the covers of her bed with one hand and eased her between the sheets with the other.
Slowly, he switched off the light and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Night, Scully..." he moved away, prepared for a night on her couch, when she caught him with one hand.
"You said you would stay with me forever," she murmured sleepily, eyes now closed. He smiled and tilted his head, "I did, didn't I?"
"Yes," she replied, pulling him into the bed with her. "And I'm holding you to that, Fox Mulder. Now get in this bed and keep me warm."
He chuckled half heartedly and did as she asked, shrugging off the excessive clothes, leaving him in a t-shirt and boxers. "Better?" He asked.
Scully nodded, snuggling up against him in the darkness. "Much...Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you mean it when you said we could have more kids?" He wondered suddenly if she was aware of the things she was asking him. Didn't she know that he wanted this as much as she did?
"With all my heart Scully, there is nothing I want more than to just be with you, and to have a family..." his heart shook with the thought of it all. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. "That is perfect to me, that is the life I have dreamed of for so long..." he trailed off noticing that her breathing had become more regular, her face had eased of it's lines and there was a peace there that he had only seen a few times before.
He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her, "I love you, Scully." he whispered, feeliing the need to say the words even if she could no longer hear him.
Then he drifted with her into the realm of sleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
When she awoke the next morning, the first thing that registered in Scully's mind was the only thing worth knowing. That Mulder was safe, he was alive, and he was sleeping, curled up next to her. She smiled and let herself drift in his arms, not wanting to remember the other things that had happened to them in the previous few days. Not wanting to relive the pain of it all.
But it was brought up all too suddenly by a sudden churning of her stomach. Her eyes flew open in surprise and she bolted out of bed. She barely made it to the bathroom before she vomited what little she had eaten the day before.
She flushed the toilet and leaned her fevered head against the cold porcelain of the bathtub, leaning against it for support, clasping her crucifix tightly in her palm, feeling it indent her flesh, the pain a welcome distraction from her body's confusing messages. She struggled to her feet as Mulder made his way to the doorway. He leaned against it, watching her silently as she splashed her face with cold water and brushed the taste out of her mouth.
When she turned to face him, she saw only fear, and a bit of confusion taking form in his eyes. She could tell that something was ticking away in his head, but she couldn't figure out what. She brushed back the wisps of hair that bestrew her face and breathed deeply, fighting the waves of naseua.
"You still have that doctor's appointment today?" He asked, his voice was low and she could tell that he was trying to hide emotion from it, covering his concern and something else, another emotion she could not place, with his usual monotone.
"Yeah, at ten," Scully confirmed. Mulder nodded, "What time is it now?"
Scully glanced at the clock behind him then met his eyes again, "It's nine."
Mulder nodded, trying to keep his voice even, "Well we should probably get dressed, we don't want to be late."
Scully frowned, she hadn't recalled inviting him, not that it mattered anymore. She wasn't going to let him out of her sight right now, and she had the feeling that he wasn't going to let her go anytime soon. She nodded slightly, following him out of the bathroom. "Alright," she agreed simply, obviously surprising him with her flippant regard as to whether or not he came.
"Get dressed G-man and let's get going."
~ ~ ~ ~
Scully had always hated hospitals. There should probably be some flawed logic with that, she supposed, being a doctor and all. She had always disliked them, too cold, too stark and bare. After joining the X-Files and Mulder, she had grown to loathe them with a passion, there was no secret as to why. She had recieved some of the worse news in her life within hospital walls. Glancing at Mulder, she knew he shared her hatred of the formal buildings.
She could never stop the onslaught of memories that assaulted her every time she approached a hospital. This time was no different.
'It looks like a computer chip....that's what it looks like... It happened just a few hours ago, Melissa went into surgery and the, the damage was worse than they thought. And she just slipped away.... I have cancer, it's a tumor, a mass between my temporal lobe, it's treatable, but inoperable. Terminal....Emily, she died.... The baby's heart stopped...'
Looking back, it was a bit ironic. Many of the most important moments of her life had also occured in hospitals...
'I had the strength of your beliefs....As long as I can continue to work, I will. I will continue, with you.... My cancer has gone into remission, they have no idea how it happened....Scully? I love you... Well, the world didn't end.... I'm pregnant....'
As Scully neared the hospital in contemplative silence, she could only wonder which list today would end up on.
Mulder glanced over at his partner, studying her shadowed features quietly. There was a darkness in her eyes that he could not identify. Those bright blue eyes were usually so clear, hopeful. But the hope appeared gone now. Silently Mulder vowed to himself that he would do anything he could to get that hope back into her eyes.
Scully seemed deep in her own contemplation, unaware of his scrutiny. Her head reclined on the seat, auburn hair spread out against the dark fabric of the seat. She was pale, Mulder noted with a frown. And she was thin, thinner than a pregnant woman should be... he caught himself at that thought. Scully wasn't pregnant anymore, despite what he hoped.
Slowing to a stop in front of the hospital, Scully didn't move. Mulder bit his lip and reached out with one hand to stroke her cheek gently. She warmed under his touch, turning her eyes to meet his. "What is it?"
Mulder nodded towards behind her, "We're here."
"Oh," Scully sat up and glanced out the window. "Okay," without another word she opened the car door and slipped out. Mulder stared after her for a long moment, then followed in silence.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Overall, Ms. Scully, you seem perfectly healthy, regardless of what has happened to you." The doctor glanced down at the chart he held in his hands and then up at Scully. His expression softened slightly and he pulled up a chair in front of her. "We would like to run an ultrasound..." he trailed off as Scully nodded in understanding. They needed to see why her body had not yet gotten rid of the child. Mulder squeezed her shoulder in comfort and she leaned her head back against his arm, grateful that he was there.
"A nurse will be in shortly to do the ultrasound, just try to relax, all right?" Scully nodded at the young doctor silently as he left the room.
"You okay?" Mulder's voice was soft behind her and she reached up to grip his hand resting on her shoulder. She considered his words for a long moment, fighting the urge to tell him that she was fine. Instead she shook her head slightly and whispered, "No."
Mulder eased down on the bed next to her, sliding his arm around to rest his hand on the small of her back. She smiled faintly at the familiar gesture that always brought her comfort. She leaned her head against his shoulder, breathing in his spicy clean scent from the shower he had taken earlier. He hugged her close to his side and she allowed herself to relax against him.
"Mulder," her voice was soft, a caress against his skin. "I love you, you know that, right?" she wasn't sure why she felt the need to say it, but she relished the words, enjoyed just being able to say them after so many years of hiding her feelings.
He smiled gently, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, "I know."
She turned her eyes to meet his and opened her mouth again to say something -- and was interrupted by the nurse, wheeling in sonogram equipment.
The nurse shot a knowing glance towards the cozy couple on the bed and smiled at Scully. "Mrs...?" She glanced down at her chart. "Scully?"
"No, it's just Ms." Scully corrected her, feeling Mulder's blush.
"For now," Mulder added. Scully glanced at him with surprise and he glanced back at her with an even expression. Before she could comment, the nurse moved on.
"Alright Ms. Scully, I need you to lie back on the bed and lift up your shirt." Scully couldn't hide a grin as she glanced at her partner. "Where have I heard that before?" she muttered under her breath. Mulder chuckled softly, grateful that she could still make jokes. Scully leaned back, Mulder's hand again on her arm, and lifted her dark blue blouse, revealing her stomach.
Mulder grimaced at the small scar evident there, an obtrusive reminder of their years together, and all that she had gone through. Scully caught his glance and crinkled her nose. "See something you like, Mulder?"
He glanced back up at her, sheepish at getting caught. "No," he admitted. Scully frowned and glanced down, slender fingers tracing the scar. "It's okay, Mulder," she caught his gaze with hers and Mulder for a moment saw the innocent young agent that had walked through the door of his basement office all those years ago. And he could see the strong woman, fighting through her grief, as she had done too many times before.
Mulder caught her fingers with one hand as he slid back into the chair. "I just, forget sometimes..." he trailed off and Scully nodded. "I know, it's all right."
They finished setting up the equipment and smiled gently at the two of them as a young, female doctor breezed through the doorway. She smiled at them also and pulled something off a shelf. "How are you feeling today Ms. Scully?"
Scully smiled a bit, "It's Doctor Scully actually," she informed the other doctor. Mulder glanced at her, wondering why she hadn't told the nurse that. "And not so good," Scully ran a hand through her hair and watched as the doctor spread a cold gel on her stomach with a small shiver.
"Mm- hmm," the doctor nodded. "And you were in a car accident a few days ago?"
Scully winced slightly and nodded, "Yes. I was pregnant at the time..." she trailed off as the doctor's sharp green eyes met hers. "Was?" Scully nodded grimly and the doctor lowered her head in understanding. "I see," she lowered the transducer to Scully's abdomen and rubbed it over her stomach gently. A fuzzy image appeared on the screen behind her and Scully glanced up to it.
There was nothing but darkness for a long moment, then something appeared on the screen. A small mass, steady and beating.
Scully's jaw dropped and the doctor's eyes widened. "This can't be," the doctor murmurred. She glanced back up at Scully and raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure that your doctor told you the baby's heart stopped?" Scully was staring at the screen in slack jawed amazement, leaving Mulder utterly confused, his suspicions suddenly raised.
Slowly, Scully shook her head, "The doctor told a friend of mine who related the news to me...Is it possible that he was wrong about the baby's heart stopping?"
"Possible," the doctor confirmed. "But not likely."
"Excuse me," Mulder interrupted. "But would the two of you like to share with the class?" Scully pulled her gaze from the monitor to an obviously confused Mulder.
"Mulder...the baby is alive."
For a long moment, the two just stared into each others eyes, neither moved, didn't dare to breathe. It all clicked for Mulder, he had hoped that there had been some mistake, after seeing her morning sickness and mood swings, but he hadn't dared to believe. But it was true, their child was alive.
Finally the doctor nodded in understanding, "Have you still had morning sickness these past few days?" Scully nodded slowly, still trying to take it all in. "Yes, I thought it was odd, but I never considered..."
The doctor smiled, "Well there is no mistake this time, that is one steady heartbeat," she froze the image on the screen and smiled. "Congragulations, Dana, you're still pregnant."
Scully stared after the doctor in wonder as she left the room to fill out her chart. Mulder was transfixed, enraptured by the tiny image of a heartbeat on the screen. With trembling fingers, he reached out and touched the small heartbeat. Scully followed his gesture and their fingers overlapped on the screen, reaching out to touch the essence of their child.
"She's still alive Scully, our baby isn't dead after all."
Scully frowned suddenly, "But how?"
Mulder gazed at her for a long moment, then looked back to the screen, pulling both of their hands away. His jaw muscle clenched and he furrowed his eyebrows in a habit Scully had seen many times before. Like he was trying to process information and figure it out.
"There are so many probable answers...the doctors could have made a simple mistake after all. Or maybe the serum..." he trailed off and met her rapidly widening eyes again. "You told me that the vaccine I gave you last year had slowly rebuilt your ovaries, is it possible that it rebuilt our child?"
Scully wrinkled her forehead in a skeptical expression he had seen before. "Mulder..."
"No, think about it Scully. What if the vaccine is still working inside you, what if it caught our child after it's heart stopped and somehow brought her back to life? Maybe it triggered the regenerative tissues that were still growing and when I gave you the vaccine last night that helped in some way. I don't know medicine like you do, but it's possible, isn't it?" his eyes searched hers for an answer and she couldn't help but chuckle. For Fox Mulder, old habits seemed to die hard. As much as a believer as he was, he still couldn't stop and believe in miracles. And he still searched for answers.
"Maybe it's just a miracle Mulder," she caught his own skeptical look, yes Fox Mulder has a skeptical look believe it or not, and continued. "Maybe you did something when you were in that other place, maybe by refusing to let go of our child's essence, you saved her."
Mulder scratched his jaw idly, "I don't know..." he said softly, meeting her eyes. "I guess we'll never know," Scully continued for him. "I guess we should just accept our miracle with dignity and thank God for giving us back our baby."
Mulder smiled gently and glanced back down at her stomach. "I think that's a good idea," he whispered. He stared at her stomach with almost reverent joy and grinned broadly. "There's really a baby in there," he stated. Scully grinned back, her first real smile in two months. "Yes there is."
Mulder grinned and leaned his head against her stomach, as if he could feel the child, or hear it. "My baby," he noted with a measure of pride in his voice. Scully let out a throaty chuckle, "Our baby, Mulder," she ran her fingers lightly through his hair and felt tears of joy fill her eyes. "She's ours."
~ ~ ~ ~
end part five
