"Fox," a gentle voice woke Mulder. "Are you awake?"
"I am now," he murmured, trying to move. To his surprise, he found himself restrained and he immediately started to struggle, fully alert in an instant.
"Where am I?" he looked around, stopping at Maggie's face. She touched his arm in an effort to calm him down.
"You've been sedated," she said warmly. "You need to relax, or they won't let you go."
Mulder sighed, realizing she was right. He lay back down obediently, more out of respect for the motherly figure than out of willingness to co-operate with… them.
"What did I do?" he asked resignedly.
"You became very upset when we'd been told Dana had a little girl. You must have really wanted a boy."
It came back to him now. Scully, the blood, the doctor… The missing baby boy… Oh, Mulder knew what was being done to the missing boys! He wasn't going to let that happen. But the security came and he was quickly outnumbered. Defeated. Restrained. He begged them not to touch him. He threatened them. Cursed them. Yelled at them. Only made a fool of himself and ended up tied to the bed under Mrs. Scully's concerned gaze.
"You have to let me go," he pleaded to her. "I need to find him. He's your grandson!"
"Dana had a girl, Fox," Maggie said firmly, tired of his nonsense. "I have a granddaughter who is safe and sound. You could see her if you'd just behave."
"Dana," Mulder closed his eyes. "How is she?"
"She's weak, but the doctors think she's out of the woods. Thank god."
"I…" Mulder tried to get up again, despite his better judgment. "I need to see her."
"Not like this," Maggie shook her head. "I'm going to call Mr. Skinner now. He wanted to talk to you."
"No, not Skinner!" Mulder objected, but Scully's mom was determined. She left the room and after a few minutes a big, bald, angry man replaced her. He tossed a file at Mulder's chest, not wasting any time.
"The baby is Scully's," he said, while untying one of Mulder's hands to enable him to browse through the evidence. "I ordered the emergency DNA test. It's all in there," he nodded towards the file that Mulder was already examining. "It's a girl, Mulder. I don't know where you got the idea that-"
"Scully told me she was having a boy," Mulder explained.
"Ultrasound isn't a hundred percent accurate. Mistakes happen. It's not a reason to tear down the whole hospital, Mulder! Do you have any idea what strings I had to pull to prevent them from pressing charges?"
"I'm sorry," Mulder said, not looking at him. He was busy untying the rest of his limbs and Skinner let him.
"What is going on with you, Mulder?" Skinner's voice became just a tad softer.
"I said I'm sorry," Mulder handed him back the file. "Thank you for… this."
He tried to get up but he was too dizzy, so he didn't object when Skinner pushed him back down.
"You were gone for three months," Skinner informed him, as if he didn't already know that.
"You always force me to go on vacations," Mulder shrugged, looking away from him.
"This wasn't a vacation," Skinner was insistent. "Where have you been? What happened on your last case?"
"We didn't find anything."
"That's what your reports said. I'm asking you off the record… As a friend."
Mulder looked at him, not knowing what to say. He felt embarrassed by this man's observance. A part of him wanted to deny everything, but there was another part of him that wanted it all in the open, out of the shadow, to be burned and transformed in the sun and light, setting him free…
If he could ever become free.
He must've stayed quiet for too long, because Skinner eventually gave up and turned to leave. Already holding the doorknob, he stopped and glanced at his agent once more.
"Mulder," he asked for attention. "I've seen her. Congratulations."
Mulder nodded, relived that Skinner dropped the previous subject, but annoyed with his new implication.
"Did you test that, too?" he ironically gestured towards the file.
"No," Skinner said simply. "I didn't have to."
Mulder wondered if Scully had said something to their boss. He didn't think she would, but hell, he was gone for so long and everything was different now. She could have been sleeping with Skinner, as far as he knew!
Still, it was more likely Skinner just assumed, like pretty much the rest of the FBI, that Mulder has been doing the naked pretzel with his partner. It wasn't rare for the opposite sex partners (and some of the same sex) to take their intimacy to another level, but it wasn't a norm either. Mulder wasn't against it, he secretly enjoyed those rumors. It somehow made him worthier in their eyes and it fed some of his fantasies. Scully and he occasionally joked about it. It made them closer. They shared a secret that they didn't have a secret.
"Fox," Maggie returned to his room. "Forgive me for my bluntness, but I need to ask you… Are you the father?"
Straight to the point. She caught him off guard and Mulder had no idea what to say. There were no words for what he was to Scully's baby.
"I am not judging," she explained. "Either of you. But I need to know."
Mulder sighed. It wasn't his place to talk about Scully's business behind her back, but he respected her mother too much to lie to her, or leave her hanging. Besides, Scully often used him to bring bad news to her mother when she didn't have it in her to make a call herself, the worst of all examples being when she was dying from cancer. It was a miracle Mrs. Scully didn't hate him, after all the bad news he'd given her through the years.
"It's not what you think," he finally said, forcing himself to look at her. "She needed a donor and she didn't have much time… Her ova, that I found, turned out to be viable after all, but not for long. It was her last chance."
It was Maggie's turn to be speechless. She sat on his bed, absorbing the news.
"Well," she finally said. "It's certainly not what I've expected."
"I never touched her," Mulder said sheepishly.
Maggie gave him a warm smile and a quick pat on the hand. "If you ever do, you have my blessing."
She stood up, ready to leave, but Mulder grabbed her by the hand, needing her to stay. He didn't know why, just as he didn't know what he was going to tell her.
"Not just her," came out of his mouth, to his complete mortification. "Any woman. Ever."
Maggie sat back down, giving him her full attention. She didn't say anything, she just listened.
Mulder closed his eyes in embarrassment and wanted to disappear. But he also wanted to be heard, to be seen... To be saved.
"I…" he started and the tears appeared through still closed eyes. He thought he would never get the courage to open them again. He thought he would never stop crying.
"It's ok," Maggie said quietly. She took his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. Then she took a paper handkerchief from her purse and stuffed it in his hand. He automatically used it to wipe his nose, and then he started to sob.
"What happened, Fox?" Maggie's hand was now on his shoulder. "Did someone hurt you?"
Mulder nodded and reflexively embraced her. There was something about the old woman that made him feel safe and his guard melted like a wax on the sun.
Maggie let him cry on her shoulder, while she gently rubbed his back. As far as she was concerned, being a father of her granddaughter made him her son-in-law. A son, for short.
"I didn't…" Mulder started to explain in between sobs. "I didn't remember. I was… so young. I… The pictures… On our last case… We found… I didn't… remember…"
"But now you do?" Maggie gently assumed.
"Not… enough. B… but… too much. It's too much…" Mulder continued to sob miserably, for what felt like the eternity. Maggie held him through the entire ordeal, saying just the right amount of comforting words here and there.
Finally, he calmed a little and separated from her. He looked her in the eyes with all the guilt in the world. For what, Maggie wondered. For taking advantage of her compassion? How damaged was that poor man?
She clutched her hands on her knees and looked at the floor, through the floor, through space and time. A long time ago, probably at the same time when this young man next to her was going through his torment…
"I was having twins," she said, raising her gaze to the sterile hospital wall and beyond, through the wall and through the locked and shattered pieces of her heart. "Before Dana was born. Another boy and another girl, just like I always wanted. Bill and Melissa were so little… and so excited."
A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked at her hands as if she was surprised to find them there. The pain was sharp. Whenever she thought about the twins, it felt like it all occurred yesterday. That's why she never talked about them.
"What happened?" Fox asked her and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to go back there, to relive that day. For his sake.
"They came too early," she sniffed. "The girl tried to cry but her lungs were too weak. The boy never made a sound. I never held them… I never named them… A month later, I was already pregnant again, but I didn't realize it for months… And when I finally did, I thought it was a phantom pregnancy. Even when my doctor confirmed it, I didn't accept it. I didn't allow myself to hope. I was sure I was going to lose her too."
She took another handkerchief and carefully wiped the tears. Then she straightened up and gave Mulder a weak, but sincere smile.
"Dana was the only one of my children that I didn't breast feed. I was a wreck. I was still mourning my twins and I couldn't connect with her. A part of me was sure she was going to die, and I guess a part of me blamed her for taking their place. I mean, she was conceived before the twins should have been born… I blamed my husband too, for making me pregnant, even though it was me who was looking for comfort in his arms. He took a leave from work to care for me and the children. It made him bond with Dana more than with any other child, since I was so closed off to her. They became inseparable, while I kept sinking…"
She stopped talking and the heavy silence filled the room.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Scully," Mulder said quietly.
"Please," she chuckled. "Call me Maggie."
"Maggie," Mulder accepted with a smile.
"It wasn't until Charlie was born that I finally found peace. I felt like I got part of my twins back. I had two boys and two girls again, just like I've always wanted. But then he got sick and most of my prayers and energy went to him. I was fighting for his life, like I never fought for Dana's. I was always prepared to lose her. That's why it didn't surprise me when she joined the FBI, or when she got cancer. That's why I was so quick to pull the plug when she was in a coma, to buy a headstone when she was missing… But Dana has always been a fighter. She had her daddy to believe in her when I couldn't. When he was gone, she had you. You brought her back when none of us could…"
"You can't blame yourself, Maggie," Mulder tried to assure her. "Dana loves you very much."
"I know," Maggie nodded. "I love her too, with all my heart. But she doesn't come to me when she is in trouble. She goes to you. You are her rock, Fox, and I know that she is yours, too. I've seen you with her, and I've seen you without her. You should be by her side, but Mr. Skinner told me you've been gone for months and nobody knew how to find you."
"I was too ashamed," Mulder admitted. "And she was pregnant. I couldn't drag her into my… darkness."
"Darkness is just absence of light. Fox, Dana was in labor for 37 hours. She was weak, the baby was weak, and in my head, I was burying her again… But that baby was born only minutes after you showed up. You are her light, son. Let her be yours."
She squeezed his hand once more and stood up to leave, wrapped in a heavy cloth of her sorrow, leaving him with his own.
At the door she turned to him once more, and instead of goodbye simply said: "You do have my blessing."