The problem with being on the run, Scully thought, was that she had too
much time on her hands that could be spent brooding over her problems. Some
days she had hours to herself while Mulder occupied himself with doing
research on library computers. She never asked him what exactly he was
looking into, because she didn't know if she really wanted to find out.
One of those days she found herself brooding about the Shadow man's insinuation that he knew about the lonely night she first invited Mulder into her bed. That night had started out being one of the worst in her life; it was the night that Donnie Pfaster came back into her life and tried to finish what he had started years before. After she shot him she was so shaken by the fact that she was capable of committing such an act, that she found herself reaching out to Mulder for any comfort she could get. They didn't talk about it for months, pretending it didn't happen, and it humiliated her to the extreme that someone somehow knew about that first instance of intimacy.
The other thing that she found herself unable to forgive the dead man for was that it was talking to him that lead her to learn something a few weeks later that, even all these months later, she was still at odds with. She sighed and remembered the day she found out that her miracle might not have been as much of miracle as everyone had thought.
*
Scully sat on the examining table and gave the doctor, a mild looking middle-aged man with dark hair, an apprehensive look. The doctor gave her a smile and tried to jolly her out of her skittish mood. "Come now, Ms. Scully, you're a doctor yourself and you have a child. Surely you know that ultrasounds don't hurt."
Scully tried to return his smile and failed miserably. "I'm just worried about what you'll find, is all."
"Well, let's take a look."
A few minutes later, he pointed at the screen, which was angled for her to see. "Everything looks normal to me."
"What do you mean, normal?" Scully asked, startled.
"Your ovaries look healthy, as do your eggs- are you ok? You've suddenly gone quite pale." He said, breaking off his explanation.
"I...I..I was told that besides the eggs I had put storage to conceive my son that I had none." Scully said, studying the monitor.
"I can't imagine why you were told that, Ms. Scully. While you do have significantly less than I'd expect in a healthy woman your age, you do have enough that it's definitely detectable, and should have been able to conceive a child through natural means. Still could, I expect." He added, giving her a questioning look. "To tell you that you had no eggs..." He trailed off shaking his head.
"That's, um, good to know." Scully said faintly. "I guess my other doctor was wrong."
The doctor's face looked angry. "Criminally so, I should say. It's reprehensible to tell a woman that she's infertile when she is not. Besides preying on the woman's emotions, causing heartache, that sort of thing can lead to unplanned pregnancies..."
Scully looked away, in shock. It shouldn't come as a shock to me that I was deceived, she thought, since I know I was during my pregnancy. I would have never suspected that it went that far back though. What possible gain could anyone have had from me thinking I was barren? Her thoughts returned to the present when she realized that the doctor had said her name at least twice.
"Sorry about that, I guess I got caught up in my thoughts for a few moments." Scully said, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks.
"It's understandable. Do you need the receptionist to call someone for you? After this sort of shock-"
"No, that's ok." Scully said quickly. "A friend of mine is actually waiting for me."
"Well, ok then. I hope, after the surprise wears off, this will end up being happy news." The doctor said, still looking concern.
"I'm sure it will. Thanks. For everything." Scully said as he left the room so she could get dressed.
Agent Reyes stared at her intently as she walked out into the waiting room. "You found out something unexpected." She stated, no hint of question in her voice
. Scully marveled at the other woman's ability to read people. "That," Scully said as she put on her coat, "is an understatement."
*
The elephant in the room, she thought, was that she couldn't bring herself to tell Mulder that she could maybe someday have another baby. She hadn't told him because she was afraid that she might look into his eyes and see the question that haunted her sleep: would she have been able to give William up if she hadn't known it was possible she could have another child?
**
Standing at the window of a rare boarding house, the man peered across the street with high power binoculars. The building that had his undivided attention was an elementary school. It was first thing in the morning, and students were trickling into the building. One child in particular caught his attention.
A small girl with short sandy blond hair, who was wearing shorts and a matching Scooby Doo T-shirt, was giggling as she walked through the door of the school with two other girls in her third grade class. All three were excited that the school year was nearly over, and they chattered on, oblivious to the attention that the girl was attracting. Eventually the bell rang, and the girls rushed to the door of their classroom, the plastic lunch boxes they were clutching knocked against their sides.
Back in the room of the boarding house, the man sighed in frustration, and put down the binoculars. With one hand he massaged the back of his neck, paying no attention as his fingers ran over a knob under his skin.
**
"Billy! Billy, where are you?" A sing-song voice called out from around the corner. Thirteen-month-old William Mulder's chubby face broke out into a four-toothed grin as he looked around and realized that his adopted father was playing their favorite game. The man would sneak out of the room while the baby's head was turned, then call for him from the next room, waiting to be discovered. William took a few wobbly steps in the direction of the doorway before plopping down on his diapered bottom, then dropping to his hands and knees. Though he had been walking for a couple of months, crawling was still his fastest mode of transporting himself, so he used it whenever he was impatient to get some where.
William rocked himself back onto his bottom when he finally reached the man. The man laughed and called him a clever boy. William held out his arms to be picked up, and soon found himself soaring as he was quickly lifted off the floor.
The man carried him to the window and pointed at the woman in the garden. William felt safe in the man's arms and was beginning to get used to see his, or the woman's faces when he woke up. But his head turned every time he spotted someone with red hair, and his face would fall when he realized it wasn't his mother.
**
Mulder thrashed in his sleep, a low moan coming from deep in this throat. Scully, lying peacefully beside him, didn't wake to notice that he was in the throws of a nightmare. Moaning again, Mulder drew his knees up to his chest, and dreamed.
He was twelve years old, and it was happening all over again. The worst moment of his life was playing itself out again right before his stunned eyes. As always, he felt paralyzed, just as he did that night, and unable to lift a finger to help Samantha. Some sinister force was carrying her away, ripping her out of his life. All he could do was scream "No!" and fight against the force that kept him motionless.
Her horrified eyes were locked on his, and she screamed "Mulder help me! Help me!"
And as she was drawn away, and he still couldn't move a muscle, his eyes filled and he whispered "I can't." Then, before his blurry eyes, Samantha got smaller and smaller, until she was finally morphed into a very small child with frightened tears rolling down fat cheeks. The tiny toddler reached out imploringly with chubby hands, sobbing out a single word. "Da...Da..." Grief-stricken, Mulder finds that he still can't move.
Mulder wakes up with a panicked gasp, covered in sweat. As soon as his heart stops pounding, he flings himself onto his back, staring at ceiling. Anguish welled up in his chest as he realized that he's never heard William say his name because he hasn't seen his son since the boy was two days old.
**
Danny put down the controler to his playstation two so he could mute the TV. He listened hard for a moment, then realized that he was right- there was a buzzing sound coming from his computer. He got up off the floor and nearly tripped over one of the stacks of books from his latest project, which littered his floor. He sat down at the desk, and impatiently flicked the screensaver away. When he saw that what he'd been worried about was true, he swore under his breath and smoothed his fair hair back with one hand in an unconscious gesture of annoyance.
He grabbed his cell phone and quickly punched in numbers, willing the person on the other end to answer quickly.
"Mulder." The answering voice said, making Danny sigh a breathe of relief- he wasn't going to have to make up an excuse for Scully.
"Mulder, it's Danny. That thing you asked me to keep an eye on? It happened just a couple of minutes ago. I called you as soon as possible."
"Thanks." Mulder said, hanging up on him. Danny sighed and wish that he hadn't needed to make the call at all.
**
Scully was looking at Mulder when he hung up the phone. "Well?" she asked him expectantly.
Mulder thought about blurting out that he'd asked Danny to figure out a way to find out if someone else ever broke into William's adoption records, and, like the genius he was, Danny had devised a program to do just that. And Danny just called to let him know that it had happened. Mulder decided against that. "How would you like to take a little trip to North Dakota?" he asked instead, his tone as light as possible.
**
The SUV's wheels rolled over miles of empty roads before dawn. Mulder glances over at Scully who is sleeping in the passenger seat. It had been his hope that he could some how come up with a convincing lie about what he wanted to do in North Dakota, perhaps convey a strong urge to see the Bad Lands, but he realized before he even finished the thought that there would be no lying to her, no protecting her from the awful possibilities that ran screaming through his mind even when his eyes were open.
She had given him a long look, then evenly asked "Why would we go to North Dakota? Why, a mere five weeks after we barely escaped the country with our lives, would we turn around and head right back into that sort of danger? Don't be cute and try to tell me you want a vacation. "
Mulder looked back into her frightened, angry eyes, and told her the truth. "William is in danger."
"No, Mulder, he'd be in danger if he was with us. His whole life would be flight from one devil after another. He's safe with his anonymous family, and thought it kills me to have him out there without us, they'll give him a normal, safe childhood that we can't. Maybe it's too much to expect from you, or from anyone for that matter, but can't you try to accept that?" She asked, a pleading note in her voice and tears in her eyes.
"Dana." He said, getting her attention instantly, because even after knowing each other for ten years he seldom used her first name, even in moments of intimacy; the rarity of using it when back to the cold reception he received from attempting that form of address after her father's death. "Dana, I know where he is. I know the family's name..."
"How?" She asked him, her face stunned.
"I tried to do what you just asked, to accept that he would be safer with strangers, but I worried. When I worry I obsess, you know that. Every time I tried to tell myself that he'd be fine, I kept wondering what it would do to you if another one of your children died in the care of strangers." Mulder paused for a fraction of a second when he saw the hurt that 'your children' put on her face, but then rushed on. "So I asked Danny to see if it was possible to break into sealed adoption records, and he did. "
"But that doesn't mean-"
"I also asked him, once he was able to get into the records, if there was a way to determine if someone else ever did it. He just called to say that the program he installed just informed him that someone had. So we need to get to North Dakota before it's too late."
"What are we going to say to his new parents when we get there? 'Sorry, we changed our minds because there are aliens looking for William, and we think he'll be safer with us'?" Scully asked in frustration.
"I don't know, Scully. I just hope we get there in time to be able to say anything to them at all." Mulder told her grimly.
Now, several hours and two false sets of identification later, they were on their way to their son, and his new family, hoping to be able to get there before danger did.
**
The van headed west down the interstate, and the driver didn't have anyone to complain to about how long a trip it was. Not that he would have complained anyway. The desire to complain about anything, anything at all, fled him soon after he first became involved with the project five years ago.
When he went over a bump in the road he glanced over at the empty passenger seat, and saw that neither the high power binoculars nor his cell phone had fallen to the floor. While he considered himself well nigh indestructible, the pieces of technology were more fragile than he would have wished. The cell phone, he considered with another sidelong glance, was the more vital of the two.
Eighteen hours earlier it was what informed him that the boy had just become his top priority, and that his surveillance project was to be put on hiatus until further notice. He accepted his orders without question, and did not even feel annoyed that he was being yanked from the project that he had been consumed by for several months. A normal man might have been unhappy with the sudden change of plans, but it had been five years since the last time anyone had considered him a normal man.
**
One of those days she found herself brooding about the Shadow man's insinuation that he knew about the lonely night she first invited Mulder into her bed. That night had started out being one of the worst in her life; it was the night that Donnie Pfaster came back into her life and tried to finish what he had started years before. After she shot him she was so shaken by the fact that she was capable of committing such an act, that she found herself reaching out to Mulder for any comfort she could get. They didn't talk about it for months, pretending it didn't happen, and it humiliated her to the extreme that someone somehow knew about that first instance of intimacy.
The other thing that she found herself unable to forgive the dead man for was that it was talking to him that lead her to learn something a few weeks later that, even all these months later, she was still at odds with. She sighed and remembered the day she found out that her miracle might not have been as much of miracle as everyone had thought.
*
Scully sat on the examining table and gave the doctor, a mild looking middle-aged man with dark hair, an apprehensive look. The doctor gave her a smile and tried to jolly her out of her skittish mood. "Come now, Ms. Scully, you're a doctor yourself and you have a child. Surely you know that ultrasounds don't hurt."
Scully tried to return his smile and failed miserably. "I'm just worried about what you'll find, is all."
"Well, let's take a look."
A few minutes later, he pointed at the screen, which was angled for her to see. "Everything looks normal to me."
"What do you mean, normal?" Scully asked, startled.
"Your ovaries look healthy, as do your eggs- are you ok? You've suddenly gone quite pale." He said, breaking off his explanation.
"I...I..I was told that besides the eggs I had put storage to conceive my son that I had none." Scully said, studying the monitor.
"I can't imagine why you were told that, Ms. Scully. While you do have significantly less than I'd expect in a healthy woman your age, you do have enough that it's definitely detectable, and should have been able to conceive a child through natural means. Still could, I expect." He added, giving her a questioning look. "To tell you that you had no eggs..." He trailed off shaking his head.
"That's, um, good to know." Scully said faintly. "I guess my other doctor was wrong."
The doctor's face looked angry. "Criminally so, I should say. It's reprehensible to tell a woman that she's infertile when she is not. Besides preying on the woman's emotions, causing heartache, that sort of thing can lead to unplanned pregnancies..."
Scully looked away, in shock. It shouldn't come as a shock to me that I was deceived, she thought, since I know I was during my pregnancy. I would have never suspected that it went that far back though. What possible gain could anyone have had from me thinking I was barren? Her thoughts returned to the present when she realized that the doctor had said her name at least twice.
"Sorry about that, I guess I got caught up in my thoughts for a few moments." Scully said, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks.
"It's understandable. Do you need the receptionist to call someone for you? After this sort of shock-"
"No, that's ok." Scully said quickly. "A friend of mine is actually waiting for me."
"Well, ok then. I hope, after the surprise wears off, this will end up being happy news." The doctor said, still looking concern.
"I'm sure it will. Thanks. For everything." Scully said as he left the room so she could get dressed.
Agent Reyes stared at her intently as she walked out into the waiting room. "You found out something unexpected." She stated, no hint of question in her voice
. Scully marveled at the other woman's ability to read people. "That," Scully said as she put on her coat, "is an understatement."
*
The elephant in the room, she thought, was that she couldn't bring herself to tell Mulder that she could maybe someday have another baby. She hadn't told him because she was afraid that she might look into his eyes and see the question that haunted her sleep: would she have been able to give William up if she hadn't known it was possible she could have another child?
**
Standing at the window of a rare boarding house, the man peered across the street with high power binoculars. The building that had his undivided attention was an elementary school. It was first thing in the morning, and students were trickling into the building. One child in particular caught his attention.
A small girl with short sandy blond hair, who was wearing shorts and a matching Scooby Doo T-shirt, was giggling as she walked through the door of the school with two other girls in her third grade class. All three were excited that the school year was nearly over, and they chattered on, oblivious to the attention that the girl was attracting. Eventually the bell rang, and the girls rushed to the door of their classroom, the plastic lunch boxes they were clutching knocked against their sides.
Back in the room of the boarding house, the man sighed in frustration, and put down the binoculars. With one hand he massaged the back of his neck, paying no attention as his fingers ran over a knob under his skin.
**
"Billy! Billy, where are you?" A sing-song voice called out from around the corner. Thirteen-month-old William Mulder's chubby face broke out into a four-toothed grin as he looked around and realized that his adopted father was playing their favorite game. The man would sneak out of the room while the baby's head was turned, then call for him from the next room, waiting to be discovered. William took a few wobbly steps in the direction of the doorway before plopping down on his diapered bottom, then dropping to his hands and knees. Though he had been walking for a couple of months, crawling was still his fastest mode of transporting himself, so he used it whenever he was impatient to get some where.
William rocked himself back onto his bottom when he finally reached the man. The man laughed and called him a clever boy. William held out his arms to be picked up, and soon found himself soaring as he was quickly lifted off the floor.
The man carried him to the window and pointed at the woman in the garden. William felt safe in the man's arms and was beginning to get used to see his, or the woman's faces when he woke up. But his head turned every time he spotted someone with red hair, and his face would fall when he realized it wasn't his mother.
**
Mulder thrashed in his sleep, a low moan coming from deep in this throat. Scully, lying peacefully beside him, didn't wake to notice that he was in the throws of a nightmare. Moaning again, Mulder drew his knees up to his chest, and dreamed.
He was twelve years old, and it was happening all over again. The worst moment of his life was playing itself out again right before his stunned eyes. As always, he felt paralyzed, just as he did that night, and unable to lift a finger to help Samantha. Some sinister force was carrying her away, ripping her out of his life. All he could do was scream "No!" and fight against the force that kept him motionless.
Her horrified eyes were locked on his, and she screamed "Mulder help me! Help me!"
And as she was drawn away, and he still couldn't move a muscle, his eyes filled and he whispered "I can't." Then, before his blurry eyes, Samantha got smaller and smaller, until she was finally morphed into a very small child with frightened tears rolling down fat cheeks. The tiny toddler reached out imploringly with chubby hands, sobbing out a single word. "Da...Da..." Grief-stricken, Mulder finds that he still can't move.
Mulder wakes up with a panicked gasp, covered in sweat. As soon as his heart stops pounding, he flings himself onto his back, staring at ceiling. Anguish welled up in his chest as he realized that he's never heard William say his name because he hasn't seen his son since the boy was two days old.
**
Danny put down the controler to his playstation two so he could mute the TV. He listened hard for a moment, then realized that he was right- there was a buzzing sound coming from his computer. He got up off the floor and nearly tripped over one of the stacks of books from his latest project, which littered his floor. He sat down at the desk, and impatiently flicked the screensaver away. When he saw that what he'd been worried about was true, he swore under his breath and smoothed his fair hair back with one hand in an unconscious gesture of annoyance.
He grabbed his cell phone and quickly punched in numbers, willing the person on the other end to answer quickly.
"Mulder." The answering voice said, making Danny sigh a breathe of relief- he wasn't going to have to make up an excuse for Scully.
"Mulder, it's Danny. That thing you asked me to keep an eye on? It happened just a couple of minutes ago. I called you as soon as possible."
"Thanks." Mulder said, hanging up on him. Danny sighed and wish that he hadn't needed to make the call at all.
**
Scully was looking at Mulder when he hung up the phone. "Well?" she asked him expectantly.
Mulder thought about blurting out that he'd asked Danny to figure out a way to find out if someone else ever broke into William's adoption records, and, like the genius he was, Danny had devised a program to do just that. And Danny just called to let him know that it had happened. Mulder decided against that. "How would you like to take a little trip to North Dakota?" he asked instead, his tone as light as possible.
**
The SUV's wheels rolled over miles of empty roads before dawn. Mulder glances over at Scully who is sleeping in the passenger seat. It had been his hope that he could some how come up with a convincing lie about what he wanted to do in North Dakota, perhaps convey a strong urge to see the Bad Lands, but he realized before he even finished the thought that there would be no lying to her, no protecting her from the awful possibilities that ran screaming through his mind even when his eyes were open.
She had given him a long look, then evenly asked "Why would we go to North Dakota? Why, a mere five weeks after we barely escaped the country with our lives, would we turn around and head right back into that sort of danger? Don't be cute and try to tell me you want a vacation. "
Mulder looked back into her frightened, angry eyes, and told her the truth. "William is in danger."
"No, Mulder, he'd be in danger if he was with us. His whole life would be flight from one devil after another. He's safe with his anonymous family, and thought it kills me to have him out there without us, they'll give him a normal, safe childhood that we can't. Maybe it's too much to expect from you, or from anyone for that matter, but can't you try to accept that?" She asked, a pleading note in her voice and tears in her eyes.
"Dana." He said, getting her attention instantly, because even after knowing each other for ten years he seldom used her first name, even in moments of intimacy; the rarity of using it when back to the cold reception he received from attempting that form of address after her father's death. "Dana, I know where he is. I know the family's name..."
"How?" She asked him, her face stunned.
"I tried to do what you just asked, to accept that he would be safer with strangers, but I worried. When I worry I obsess, you know that. Every time I tried to tell myself that he'd be fine, I kept wondering what it would do to you if another one of your children died in the care of strangers." Mulder paused for a fraction of a second when he saw the hurt that 'your children' put on her face, but then rushed on. "So I asked Danny to see if it was possible to break into sealed adoption records, and he did. "
"But that doesn't mean-"
"I also asked him, once he was able to get into the records, if there was a way to determine if someone else ever did it. He just called to say that the program he installed just informed him that someone had. So we need to get to North Dakota before it's too late."
"What are we going to say to his new parents when we get there? 'Sorry, we changed our minds because there are aliens looking for William, and we think he'll be safer with us'?" Scully asked in frustration.
"I don't know, Scully. I just hope we get there in time to be able to say anything to them at all." Mulder told her grimly.
Now, several hours and two false sets of identification later, they were on their way to their son, and his new family, hoping to be able to get there before danger did.
**
The van headed west down the interstate, and the driver didn't have anyone to complain to about how long a trip it was. Not that he would have complained anyway. The desire to complain about anything, anything at all, fled him soon after he first became involved with the project five years ago.
When he went over a bump in the road he glanced over at the empty passenger seat, and saw that neither the high power binoculars nor his cell phone had fallen to the floor. While he considered himself well nigh indestructible, the pieces of technology were more fragile than he would have wished. The cell phone, he considered with another sidelong glance, was the more vital of the two.
Eighteen hours earlier it was what informed him that the boy had just become his top priority, and that his surveillance project was to be put on hiatus until further notice. He accepted his orders without question, and did not even feel annoyed that he was being yanked from the project that he had been consumed by for several months. A normal man might have been unhappy with the sudden change of plans, but it had been five years since the last time anyone had considered him a normal man.
**
