Title: What He Knew
Author: Gillian Leigh
Disclaimer: Please see an earlier installment.
Author's Notes: This is the last full chapter. Only the epilogue is left, and I've already got it written, so send me some feedback and I'll post it tomorrow!!! :o)
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Northeast Georgetown Hospital
April 2
8:39 p.m.
He didn't know why he'd said yes. Dr. Rosenthal asked him if he wanted to be the one to give the news to his wife, and he had agreed. He had to be the one to tell her that their babies were dead. Their son and daughter were both dead.
Sitting beside her bed, he buried his head in his hands. He raised his head and looked at his wife, lying in her hospital bed while her body recovered from the trauma inflicted upon it. She looked so small and helpless, especially without the pregnant belly he'd grown used to seeing her with these past months. He wiped away the tears that were sliding down his cheeks, and rose from the chair. He needed to take a walk to try and clear his head.
Lost in his thoughts, Mulder wandered the hospital aimlessly. He was an emotional train-wreck, and had been since arriving at the hospital and finding out that they'd take his wife in for emergency surgery.
He and Maggie had taken turns pacing the floor of the hallway. When he had arrived, it had been 2:00, nearly twenty five minutes into her surgery, and when the doctor came out of the OR, a grim expression on her face, the two had stopped dead in their tracks, hoping for good news.
"Is Dana alright?" Mulder had asked frantically, as his mother-in-law took his hand.
"Yes, Dana's fine," Dr. Rosenthal had responded, trying to sound calm. The grim line her mouth made prompted Mulder to continue in his line of questioning.
"And what about the babies?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mulder... there was nothing we could do for them..." At that moment, Mulder had collapsed into the hard plastic hospital chair, and Maggie, sitting down beside him, and put her arms around him. Fighting back tears, he continued to listen as Dr. Rosenthal gave the clinical reasons for the twins' deaths. "Dana suffered what is called a placental abruption. The placenta separates from the uterine wall, cutting off the oxygen supply to the babies and flooding her womb with blood. She was unconscious when she arrived at the hospital. By the time we got her into surgery it was too late to save the babies. They'd gone too long without oxygen." The doctor paused, and Mulder's head slumped onto his mother-in-law's shoulder. With a moment as sad as this, even the doctor couldn't keep her clinical sense of detachment, and had to wipe away a tear. "I'm sorry," she had barely managed before walking away.
And so they two had remained, Maggie Scully, and Fox Mulder, comforting one another in the hospital hallway--both parents of lost children.
He found himself standing in front of the nursery. The babies were all beautiful, wrapped in their pink or blue blankets. Closing his eyes, Mulder tried to imagine what it would've been like to come down here and see his two babies in their side-by-side bassinets, with their names on them. Nora Mulder, Adam Mulder.
"Which one's yours?" Startled, Mulder turned to his right, and found a man standing beside him, about his height, with sandy hair.
"None of them are mine..." he replied. The man smiled, apparently oblivious to his somber demeanor.
"Sorry about that. You just had that 'new dad' look about you," he replied, extending his hand. "Carl Waters."
"Fox Mulder," he replied.
"That one's mine," he said, pointing to a baby girl on the end of the first row; the name on her bassinet said only "Girl, Waters". "She's our fourth; our first girl." Mulder nodded, pretending to be interested.
"Congratulations," he said, and turned, walking away. Turning the corner, he came to the elevator, and stood for a moment, unsure of where to go next. When the elevator doors opened, Dr. Rosenthal stepped out.
"Mr. Mulder? Are you alright?" she questioned, resting a hand on his arm.
"No," he replied. Even he was surprised at his honesty.
"Are you sure you don't want me to tell Dana?" she asked, her voice low, as they walked down the hall. He shook his head.
"That would be easier... but I still think I should do it. It's going to be hard enough, but we'll make it through." He sighed. Dr. Rosenthal nodded, and they paused outside Dana's hospital room.
"And you're sure that you don't...want to see them?" she queried. Mulder almost asked 'who', but his stomach lurched when he remembered. He didn't know how he could've forgotten, even for a moment. Perhaps because he wanted to believe it never happened.
"No. I want to wait until Dana knows... then maybe we will..." Dr. Rosenthal nodded again.
"Just let me know." With that, she turned and walked away, disappearing into the Staff Lounge.
When Mulder closed the door in Scully's hospital room, the sound of the 'click' made her open her eyes.
"Mulder?" she queried softly. Instinctively, her hands moved to her abdomen, and she found it flat. Her eyes widened in panic, and the monitors she was hooked up to registered her increased heart rate and breathing. "The babies? What happened? Where are Nora and Adam?!"
Dread filled Mulder's stomach, mimicking the sensation of swallowing dozens of ice cubes. He walked over and sat beside her bed, taking her hand in his.
"Mulder? Tell me where the twins are. Tell me!" she pleaded.
"Dana... sweetheart, you need to calm down," he began softly. She yanked her hand back, and looked at him, still wildly panicked.
"Don't tell me to calm down, Fox. I'll calm down when you tell me where our children are!" she exclaimed loudly.
"This isn't something I want to have to yell. I-I don't even know if I'll be able to say it..." he said. Hearing his words, she practically froze, and looked him right in the eye. Just as he'd asked, she calmed down.
"Oh no..." she said, remembering her baby shower. The pain had been so unbearable. Something was wrong; she'd known it then. Before he even started to speak, she knew what he was going to say, and her tears fell, hot and angry. "Oh no..." she whispered. Mulder readied himself for the task at hand, and took a deep breath.
"Yesterday, when you were in all of that pain, you had what is called a placental abruption, where the placenta separates from the uterine wall. Dr. Rosenthal said that it flooded your womb with blood and cut off the twins oxygen supply. By the time they got you into surgery to do a C-section... it was...." he paused, fighting back a sob, "...too late. They were already gone..." She squeezed her eyes shut, and freed a few more tears in the process. Covering her face in her hands, she let out a wail that made Mulder cry again.
"No!" she sobbed. "Not my babies. It's not fair!" After a moment, she threw her arms around Mulder's neck, and hung onto him, crying and muttering incoherently into his shoulder. He held onto her, and let his own tears fall. "Why?" she asked, lifting her head off of his shoulder and looking into his eyes. "Why?"
"I don't know," he said, stroking her hair. "I just don't know..."
Standing outside the door, Dr. Rosenthal crossed her arms. She didn't even have to hear it all to know what was being said. The two of them had been torn apart by this, and these wounds would take too long to heal. She turned and walked away, remaining decidedly indifferent. Walking down the hall she turned and entered her personal office, using her key. Even though it was dark outside, the shades were drawn over the windows, and only her small desk lamp lit the room. Closing the door behind her and re-locking it.
"Paranoid, Josie? You're more like your brother than you know..." Josephine gasped and dropped her keys. Startled, she turned to face the man seated at her desk.
"You scared me," she stated simply, placing a hand over her heart.
"It wasn't my intent," he said. "I was just waiting for you to finish your shift. We need to discuss what happens next." CGB Spender rose slowly out of her chair and walked over to the window, drawing back the curtains so he could see out.
"No. You should leave them closed," she insisted, practically running to the window. Her father turned and looked at her peculiarly.
"Why does it matter? Everyone in this hospital works for me, Josie. The only people we have to hide our intentions from are the patients," he replied, calmly. He pulled a cigarette from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and lit it. Josephine still looked uneasy. She crossed her arms and walked toward the back of her office.
"I'm just worried. I'm afraid that they'll find out... that somehow they'll find out what we're doing before we're finished, and...." she trailed off, waving her hand in the air. "I don't want everything we're working for to go up in smoke."
"I know you're concerned," Spender began, "but my men are thorough. You've witnessed that. Your brother Fox and his darling wife Dana won't ever find out the truth about Nora and Adam, just like they've never found out the truth about Emily, or Samantha. Everything they think they know has been smoke and mirrors."
"So you think that they'll believe my explanation of the twins' deaths fully?" she questioned, walking toward him again.
"I'm not saying that they won't question what happened. Fox has questioned his sister's disappearance for years, and Dana certainly questioned Emily's death, especially when she found that her casket was filled with sandbags the day of her funeral... but they won't ever find out the truth. The fact that Dana was unconscious, and that Fox was not in the operating room with her is a great help. Neither was able to see anything that would give them evidence of foul play. They'll never suspect that their twins are still alive." Putting out his cigarette, he turned and walked toward the back of the office, and toward the two incubators that stood there, side by side. Each was lit by a soft white light, and the two babies slumbered peacefully. He noticed that Nora had tried to move to the left side of her incubator, and Adam had tried to move to the right side of his, like they wanted to be close together.
A moment later, Josephine joined him, and the two stood side by side studying the sleeping babies. "They're so important," she said, gesturing toward the twins. "Do you think that they'll ever know just how important they are to us? To the world?"
"Not for a very long time," he said.
"Is this right?" she questioned, having a momentary attack of conscience. "I mean... we're taking these babies from their parents... tearing apart their family. Is it worth it?" Spender studied his daughter in the dim light from inside the office.
"Don't worry, Josie," he said, turning his attention to his grandchildren again. "I've got big plans for Nora and Adam Mulder."