A/N: A little MSR angsty chapter for ya. You know I love the MSR junkies. If you've posted a review, I think you're awesome. If you've been reading and you haven't posted a review, please do! I do this for fun, but its nice to know other people have fun with me having fun. erm, yeah. I totally understand the frustration of staying with a work in progress and I appreciate everyone's patience... ;)


I woke with sunlight spilling over my bedroom and stretched like a lazy cat, enjoying the warmth that its rays provided. I hadn't been in bed long enough for the demands that pregnancy normally placed on my bladder in the mornings to be uncomfortable and was relishing the rare opportunity to languish in bed. I took the time to reacquaint myself with my body. It was something that I had read about in a novel, when I had had time for such indulgences. The changes of my body reminded me of those passages and I finally understood what the author meant.
I flipped the covers off and lay flat on my back, eyes closed, listening for the beat of my heart. I followed the flow of blood as it moved through my heart, to my lungs, and back through the meaty chambers. I lifted my hands to my neck and felt the pulse of my carotids, slow, steady, strong. My hands moved lightly down, barely touching my skin, over clavicle, full breasts, smooth rib cage, and finally the soft roundness of my growing uterus. Even laying down, the swell rose well above my hip bones and upward to my naval. I tried to remember how it had felt the day before but, events and a near sleepless night clouded my memories. Surely it didn't changed from day to day.
My mind was drifting and dozing again and I lazily moved my hands back up to my breasts, remembering the few hours of contentment I had with a lover in my bed. My eyes snapped open, my fuzzy mental processes jerked into awareness that I had had company when I crawled into bed in the wee hours of the morning. I was alone now and everything around me was quiet. I wondered if he had left without telling me.
Swinging my legs over the bed, I stood too quickly and the floor seemed to sway beneath me. Whether from tiredness or the dizzying realization of my bed being once again empty, I had to sit and try again. Balance restored, I crept barefoot out to the main room. Mulder was sitting at my desk, contents of the manila envelope still spread out, computer screen on with my latest field entry displayed. I didn't mind him reading it, he would have eventually anyway, but I wasn't ready to draw any conclusions nor was I ready to share it with him. He wasn't ready either.
He sat back in the chair, head in hands. I went to him and put a hand to his shoulder and found that he was shaking. A peer around to his face told me he was shaking with tears and I lowered myself, balanced on the balls of my feet to his eye level, hand on his heaving chest.
"Mulder what," I began, but he stopped my words, pulling up and crushing me to him. He buried his face in my hair and holding on to me for dear life, wept like I had never seen him do before.
I stroked his hair, his back, his shoulders and murmured calming words in his ear.
"Shhh. Mulder, its okay. Everything is alright. Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong, please." At first he only shook harder and I felt his hot tears on my neck and his breath, coming hard, made my hair flutter. I asked again, "What is it, Mulder?" And the question brought forth an almighty anger. Mulder released me from the grip of his arms and I stood to avoid being shoved off his lap. He brought a fist down on the desk with enough force to shake the hardwood.
"Its my fault!" he yelled. "What is it for? What in the hell have I done with my life if I couldn't protect these people?! What is the point of finding the truth if I couldn't help anyone, save anyone, keep anyone safe?!" He whirled from the desk and ran shaking hands through his too long chestnut hair. Hands clasped atop his head, he walked in circles, breathing like a steam engine. "Why have I wasted my life if I couldn't protect my family, those women or even you, Scully? What does ANY of it MATTER?! Look!" He gestured to my computer screen with an outstretched hand and I could see the tension in every muscle of his arm. "Its my fault, Scully, I did this to you and I can't do a goddamn thing to fix it. This fucking truth is worthless. I couldn't help you, I couldn't help my sister. All its done is cause pain. The truth is not worth shit!"
Not being able to listen to his anguished, self loathing questions for another instant, I stopped him with a tight grasp on his elbow. "Stop, Mulder. You can't say that," I said, trying to sound calm and failing. My voice was higher and louder than a calm tone allowed for. "The truth is everything. We're close to something here, I know we are. Without the truth, we've been wasting our time, not because of it." He gave me a look that made my heart thump loudly in chest. So much for that slow, steady pulse earlier, I thought. his eyes were still burning with infuriation. I stepped closer to him, close enough that our clothing brushed one another, looked him full in the face and said, "without the truth, we have nothing."
Mulder put his hands to my shoulders and slid them down my arms, catching hold of both my hands. He knelt before me, wrapped his arms around my waste. With his cheek pressed to the swell of our child he whispered, "I don't want the truth, I only want you."
As touched as I was by the sentiment, and I was, it also caused me great concern. I took his face in my hands, looked him straight in the eyes and told him the absolute truth.
"Mulder, you have never, ever, in your life wanted anything more than the truth about what happened to your sister and to deliver the truth about our government's lies and conspiracies to the American people. Its a noble, albeit dangerous, quest and its your whole life."
He still looked as tortured as he had during his explosion renouncing his quest. I was fighting back tears, but his were still flowing. "No, Scully," he replied and rested a big hand on my abdomen. "This should be my life."
I sighed, almost at a loss, but had one more convincing fact for him. I rested my smaller hand over his and reminded him, "if it weren't for the truth, Mulder, we wouldn't have this."
I like to think that this agreed with me and took its first opportunity to lend some support. The fluttering, tapping sensation caught me off guard, but I knew, instinctively what it was. I took in a sharp breath in surprise and held Mulder's hand over my belly more firmly.
"Did you feel that?" I asked excitedly. Mulder looked up at me, his expression softening considerably.
"Feel what? No, what is it?" I shushed Mulder and waited, hardly daring to breath to see if it would happen again. I didn't want to miss it. I was already feeling as if I had imagined it. I waited for what seemed like an eternity but the tapping I was almost sure I had felt didn't return.
Mulder still on his knees and obviously bewildered got my attention. "Hello? Scully, what?" I shook my head, but he deserved a better answer.
"The... it..." I floundered, not a little bewildered myself. I blinked at him several time and got it together. "I swear its too early, but I think I felt movement."
Mulder shifted his gaze from my face to where our hands rested. A smile took over his features and I breathed a sigh relief as his posture relaxed and the angst of the last few minutes ebbed from the room. Mulder stood, but still me by the waist. "When does it usually happen?"
"It varies," I replied. "But, for first pregnancies, usually not until 18 weeks." I smoothed down the front of my cotton shirt and moved a few paces away from where Mulder seemed to be doing an impression of a statue. I wished for the thousandth time that I had kept better track of my cycle.
"And you are how many weeks? I thought people kept track of that stuff in months. Why do you look worried? Isn't it good if the kid is a early bloomer? Tell me if its not, because I'm on the verge of feeling like proud papa with a strong kicker over here."
I laughed at incongruity of Mulder and proud papa and gave him a similar explanation to the one I had given Skinner just the day before. I ended with,"How are you so comfortable with this already? You nearly jumped out of your skin when I asked you to help me have a baby a year ago."
Mulder thought for a minute and dragged me to a seat on the couch beside him. "I don't know really," he began. "I think, in a corner of my mind, I maybe already knew, but didn't know that I knew. I was surprised, don't get me wrong. But, I wasn't overly shocked. Maybe," Mulder paused to turn toward me. "Maybe, I'm more ready like this, I mean not remembering things that have happened, than I would be if I did remember everything. I'm still trying to understand all of that," he indicated the contents of my desk with a nod. "It doesn't feel like my life's work, the most important thing to me. But, you and us and our kid I have no doubt how important that is."
His statement floored me. The feelings that we had for each other were never a source of conversation, feelings weren't something we talked about. I certainly had never imagined a time when Mulder would consider his work secondary to anything. He had told me that night in Oregon to go home, to forget about it. But he had never considered doing so himself. He thought the personal cost was too high for me, but for the man with no personal life, there was no cost.
"I'm giving it up, Scully. You should too. No more chasing shadows, no more conspiracies and especially no more lead hunting in the middle of the night. It has to end sometime."
Had I not known of Mulder's psychological condition, I may have laughed or hit him. I told myself that it would pass. He would regain what he had lost in the abduction ordeal. The only ones who had ever asked him to give up his life's work were dead or now on his side. There was no way to explain to him that it was far from over and there was no way to walk away. We were both inextricably tangled in the web weaved by his father, the Syndicate, and his own indefatigable quest to discover lies and uncover the truth.
"I can't, Mulder, its... Its become my life and I don't see a way out. I've looked. I've tried, I've been on the brink of giving up. But, its just not possible. And you'll see that. Soon, you'll remember why its the most important thing in your life." I heard Dr. Cenetta's words echoing in my memory. He's afraid of who he was, afraid that he wasn't a good man. He may not want to remember.
My cell phone rang from its charging spot on my desk. I let out a sigh and answered as I unplugged it.
"Scully."
"Yeah, Agency Scully, this is John Doggett. I'm sorry to interrupt your Saturday, but..."
I sighed again,"what is it, Agent Doggett?"
"I got a call from a hospital in a town in Western Pennsylvania. They have a John Doe matching the description of one of our abductees."
I closed my eyes, knowing that a trip was in my future. But, rather than taking Mulder for a weekend of childhood haunts and seafood, it would be spent wrapped up in what Mulder was trying to convince me to quit.
"Who's description does he match?" I asked tentatively.
"Its a Ray Hoese, a deputy from that town in Oregon. I'm heading up pretty soon. Gonna book a flight Dulles to Pittsburgh. Can I get you a ticket too?"
I paused, thinking that I needed to go, but couldn't leave Mulder to his own devices for long. God knew what he would do. I should have known better than to treat him like I normally would. I had ignored my own warnings to myself, to his detriment, for my own selfish wants. I turned away from where Mulder sat on the couch.
"No, Agent Doggett, I'll make travel arrangements for myself and Agent Mulder."
Maybe if he were to see, first hand, what we were looking for, what we were trying to prove, it would trigger something. Perhaps a taste of his work, in the field, would be even more effective than a trip to Rhode Island.
I faced Mulder after I hung the phone. His face was pleading with an edge of irritability.
"Don't go," he said. "Just take the weekend and tell the FBI to screw off. We can do this, together." I had to close my eyes again to shut out the look on his handsome face. It was tempting. Pretending to have a normal was always tempting.
"No," I replied, "we're both going."