From: rahrahli@hotmail.com
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 14:22:01 -0000
Subject: xfc: One Fish Two Fish
Source: xfc

Title: One Fish Two Fish
Author: Rah 
E-mail: rah@twinparadox.org 
Summary: Scully on maternity leave.
Classification: angst, pregnancy, holidays, dead fish.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: nothing specific (everything up to ep 8x7)
Archive: Anywhere, just let me know.
Feedback: I'd appreciate it.
Disclaimer: the characters all belongs to someone else, yada 
yada yada -- we all know the drill. 
Notes: at the end


One Fish Two Fish


His fish started to die sometime around Halloween. They died 
off slowly -- mostly one at a time -- although there had been one 
day when she'd come in to find that two of them had gone 
belly-up together. A suicide pact. Standing in the grey twilight of 
his dusty living room, it had been easy to imagine the aquatic 
desolation that might have driven them over the edge (or, in this 
case, to the surface). Even the lethargic bobbing of the little UFO 
toy was depressing; rising to the top only to slink to the bottom 
again. 

His fish had never had names while they were alive (none that 
she had ever known, anyway, a minor realization that caused her 
no insignificant pang), but some maudlin part of her came to 
think of these two in death, as Romeo and Juliet.

She had scooped them out with her bare hand, taking them into 
the bathroom where she had interred them, like the others, with 
a solemn one-flush salute. This was already the third time she'd 
done this. Now, only two fish remained. These two -- whom she 
dubbed Bert and Ernie, for no particular reason -- fish that had 
been so anxious and lively when she had first started coming 
every day, now watched her suspiciously through the milky water, 
as though debating whether to fire her, or to keep her on (for 
sentimental reasons). 

She thought about coming every day again (she had started 
skipping days after about a month, and now rarely made it over 
more than three days in a week), but somewhere along the line, 
it had become just as hard to be there as it had once been to 
stay away. In the beginning, any excuse would have done (as if 
she even *needed* an excuse); the fish had been a handy 
pretext. Something to tell other people: *she was only there to 
feed the fish.*

And to stand in his kitchen, watching as his last trip to the market 
slowly spoiled in the refrigerator.

And to sit on his couch and touch each button on his remote 
control, slowly, again and again.

And to lie in his bed (which for the first week or two, still smelled 
of him --) and cry.

And to cry...

Every day she had gone, spent hours wandering the same four 
rooms, listening to the thunk and creak of her footsteps on the 
hardwood floors, the tick of the clock in the kitchen. Then, in the 
fifth week or so, she had missed a day. She had been out of 
town on a case, or busy at the office -- she couldn't remember 
anymore why she had missed going -- but she didn't realized 
that she had forgotten until the following evening. Leaving her 
dinner half-defrosted in the microwave, she had sped to 
Alexandria, eyes burning, her stomach reeling with guilt. How 
could she have forgotten? How could she have let herself 
become distracted from her duty? 

Images of the crimson tide that might await her flashed before 
her eyes in gruesome technicolor, and in her haste to get to his 
apartment she nearly wrapped the car around a lamppost.

Of course, the fish had survived (*initially*... little did she know 
what was to come). Watching their fat orange and white bodies 
shimmy to the surface for their flakes, her common sense had 
returned, and she was able to reflect on the astonishing 
resilience of goldfish, and on how many traffic violations she had 
committed getting there. 

After that, the imperative had lessened. Her visits to the 
apartment fell off gradually: every other day, then every third. On 
the day she arrived to find the star-crossed lovers bobbing on the 
surface, she hadn't been there for more than four days. Bert and 
Ernie had stared at her as the little UFO sifted to the top, 
bumping Romeo in the head (or maybe it was Juliet, who could 
tell?).

And so she had performed her third toilet-bowl funeral, standing 
over the empty bowl for several minutes after the flush, watching 
the water trickle back in to fill it up. Noticing the sinister black
line 
of mildew ringing the beige porcelain, she realized for the first 
time how clean he had always kept things. 

She had never given him credit for that. 

Making a mental note to come back the next day with cleaning 
products, she let the lid gently down and left the bathroom. She 
had made it all the way back to the living room before the sight of 
the half-empty can of Tetra-flakes had caused her to break down. 
She sat on his coffee table, weeping painful, hitching sobs.

The jar had been almost new when he left.

<>

Coincidentally, around the same time that she had taken on her 
role as aquarium-undertaker, she found that she could no longer 
fit into her clothes. Each morning she would pick a skirt from the 
back of her closet -- pants sometimes -- but always something 
old, something she hadn't worn in years, not since she'd been 
sick and lost all that weight. Halfway through October, even the 
old skirts didn't fit anymore. For awhile, safety pins and boxy 
suit-jackets did the trick. By Thanksgiving she was a house.

Doggett was the first person at work to call her out. 

"Agent Scully," he had said one morning in early November, 
looking at her from under a brow deeply furrowed with concern 
and suspicion. "Is there, ah..." He paused. "Is there something 
you think you oughta tell me?"

They were sitting in the Assistant Director's office, their 
Monday-morning briefing nearly over. Skinner had just made 
what was supposed to have been an off-hand comment about 
whether or not she was going to be taking any "personal" time. 
He hadn't actually *drawn* air-quotes around the word 
"personal," but he might as well have for all the emphasis he 
had given it. She sighed inwardly.

*Damn him.*

But it wasn't Skinner's fault. She had known it would come to 
this, that there would be a day when she's have to stop 
pretending that everything was normal, that she was *fine*. She 
had just always figured that there was time. That she'd have 
more time. 

But, while she had gone through the various shades of denial, 
time had marched on, and now she was showing -- there was 
no denying it. This morning, no longer able to conform to the trim 
silhouette her tailored suits demanded, and tired of safety-pins 
popping open against her tender stomach, she had opted for the 
more forgiving stretch of a pair of rayon palazzo-pants. They were 
definitely comfortable (they looked and felt like pajamas) but she 
knew that they only heightened the effect. Anyone who looked at 
her -- anyone who knew her -- would know.

With Doggett, though, it wasn't just his knowing (she was fairly 
sure that he already knew -- had probably known for some time). 
No, with Doggett, it was more than his noticing the fifteen 
pounds she had gained in the last seven weeks, or adding up all 
the afternoons away from the office, the over-night hospital stays. 
With Doggett, this was The Big Secret. This was the thing she 
had been holding out on, the withheld trust that had preserved 
the space between them -- the distance that kept them from 
gelling. 

It wasn't about him knowing. It was about her telling him.

"Agent Scully?"

Doggett was waiting for confirmation, giving her his look -- the 
intense, wide-eyed stare that never failed to tweak her nerves a 
bit. She thought of Bert and Ernie, and their lidless, accusatory 
gaze. 

She glanced at Skinner, hoping he might have something further 
to say -- some *save* that would divert everyone's attention from 
the obvious -- but the AD was busy isolating and removing a 
speck of dust from his desk-calendar. Doggett leaned toward 
her, eyebrows arched in anticipation. 

"Agent Scully?" he asked again. "As your partner, I think I have --"

"Yes," she sighed, dodging eye contact. She put a hand to her 
forehead. *A right to know?* Is that what he had been about to 
say? "Agent Doggett --" 

"Yes?"

She withdrew slightly, hearing the frustration in his voice, and 
she felt an unwelcome knot of guilt twist somewhere in her. Poor 
Doggett. He hadn't signed up for this. Maybe she should have 
told him before, when it might have made a difference. For 
months now they had been walking around, wearing their 
partnership like a rented suit, self-conscious of the impractical 
formality and ill-fit, itchy to get out of it and back to the faded
pair 
of blue jeans that felt good no matter what. They hadn't been 
doing the job as well as she knew they could, and it wasn't 
Doggett's fault. If she had told him, maybe things would have 
been better, easier. They might have worked more efficiently 
together. Maybe she had owed him that. Maybe she had been 
monumentally unfair. 

Not that it mattered at this point, she thought. She probably 
couldn't fit into her old blue jeans now anyway.

She sighed again, and licked her lips before she spoke. "I'll be 
taking a leave of absence after the Thanksgiving holiday."

"Maternity leave," he said, his tone accusatory. She met his stare 
this time, jaw clenched.

"That's right," she said, masking her trepidation with stiff bravado 
as she watched for his reaction. She wouldn't admit that she 
cared what he thought, but she also couldn't ignore the sinking 
feeling she got when he narrowed his eyes at her -- another, 
equally disquieting version of The Look.

Whatever he was thinking, he didn't say it, and she realized that 
she didn't know him well enough to guess what was going on 
behind his icy stare. Well, she told herself, that was no one's 
fault but her own. That was the way she had wanted it.

Right? 

Doggett let an impatient breath out through his nose and looked 
away. "Right," he said. He looked down at the dossier in his lap, 
flipped it closed, and stood up. "I'll be in forensics most of the 
day," he said. "I have my pager if you need me."

And he left, leaving an awkward silence behind.

Skinner pursed his lips and avoided her eyes. "I'm sure that HR 
has some special paperwork you'll have to fill --" 

"I've already taken care of it," she lied, thinking of the request 
form she hadn't picked up, the letter she had yet to get from her 
OB-GYN, the insurance papers she kept forgetting to submit.  

She had taken care of it. Kind of like she had taken care of the 
fish.

<>

It was past one thirty in the afternoon on the Saturday after 
Thanksgiving, but she was still in bed when the phone rang. She 
was going to let the machine pick up, and hadn't even opened 
her eyes, burrowing deep into the bedding. Then, a plaintive note 
in the fourth ring had changed her mind, and she reached one 
hand out of her Wamsutta cocoon, and pulled the receiver back 
in. It was her mother.

Nordstrom's, it seemed, was having a sale, and did she feel like 
heading out to Tysons Corner to do some Christmas shopping? 

She didn't feel like it. In fact, she could think of few things she
felt 
like *less* than heading to Tysons Corner, where she would be 
assaulted with commercial-scale holiday decorations and the 
never-ending medley of suped-up Christmas carols that were 
piped into every corner of the mall. 

"I don't know," she said, rolling onto her back. "I was kind of 
planning to do most of my shopping online this year. You can get 
anything online now."

"Oh Dana," her mother said with a dismissive laugh. There was 
a short pause, and then, "Are you still in bed?"

As a kid, sleeping late wasn't something she and her siblings 
had necessarily been *forbidden*, but it certainly had not been 
much tolerated. Staying in bed when the day had begun, 
snoozing while the world was awake, sunshiny and waiting to be 
enjoyed, had offended her father's sense of discipline and 
purpose. His sense of *Carpe Diem!* On school mornings, the 
Scully children were up with their beds made by 6:30, dressed 
and brushed and heading to the bus-stop by 7:15. On Saturdays 
they weren't expected at breakfast until nine, but that standing 
appointment was inflexible. If you were at home, and not stricken 
by debilitating illness, you were seated at the kitchen table at 
oh-nine-hundred -- or you had Captain Scully to deal with.

Luckily, she had never had any problem getting up; she -- like 
her father -- was a morning person. Even if she hadn't been, the 
shouting matches that had gone on between Ahab and Bill (who, 
as a teenager, would probably have slept from Friday night 
straight through till mass on Sunday morning) would have 
convinced her of the efficacy of rising with the sun. 

She thought about lying to her mother, but knew that the rustle of 
her sheets had probably already given her away. "Yes," she said.

"Are you all right?" her mother asked. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, mom. I'm fine."

"Then why are you still in bed?"

Because her bed was nice, she thought. She loved her bed. It 
was lovely and warm from the sixteen or so hours she had just 
spent there, and it smelled kind of good. Not *fresh* (it had been 
awhile since she'd changed the sheets), but musky, kind of 
buttery. It was a comforting smell.

"Oh--!"

"What is it?" Her mother's voice held a tinge of panic. "Dana? Are 
you sure you're --"

"It's nothing, mom" she said, with an involuntary smile. She 
rubbed a spot high up on the right side of her stomach and felt 
another sharp nudge from within. "The baby just kicked," she told 
her mother. "Twice."

"Are you sure that's all?"

"Yeah. It's just the baby kicking."

"Awwww," her mother crooned. A long silence followed. "So," her 
mother said finally, "do you want me to pick you up?"

She could hear the ulterior motive in her mother's voice. 
"Christmas shopping" was a cover for *baby* shopping. She had 
spent the previous Saturday following her mother through 
infants-&-toddlers sections, into boutiques with names like "Yo 
Mama" and "From Here to Maternity." Her mother had favored 
shops specializing in sprigged flannel granny dresses or (for a 
change of pace) shapeless stretchy outfits of crayola-colored 
lycra. 

"I would never wear that," she had said when her mother held up 
a black-and-white striped tunic-top and black adjustable-waist 
leggings. "I would look like a mime in that. Like a mime 
smuggling a basketball."

"Well at least try it on," her mother had said. "I mean, you should 
at least *try* it. You might like it."

"Mom, I don't want to buy a whole bunch of new clothes I'll have 
no use for in a matter of weeks." 

Her mother had turned to her with flat impatience, sweeping a 
critical eye over her current outfit. "What?" she had asked. "Are 
you just going to wear those awful palazzo pants for the next two 
months?"

She might have (she liked those "awful" pants), but the 
waistband had finally given out on her, snapping loose during 
Thanksgiving dinner. She sighed into the phone. "Okay," she 
said. "But Mom?"

"What is it?"

"No mimes."

Her mother paused. "All right," she said. "Okay."

<>

Her doctor told her she shouldn't drive anymore. It was not quite 
three weeks into her maternity leave. Staying complaisantly at 
home -- *nesting* her mother called it, as though she was some 
kind of lycra-wrapped pigeon -- had lost its charm in the first 
several hours, and her car had become the only thing between 
her and the violent impulse (never acted on, but dearly 
considered) to *throw* anything that she happened to look at for 
too long. Throw it hard. Against the wall.

So she had gone for rides instead. Her Incredible Expanding 
Stomach had made it difficult; to fit comfortably behind the 
steering wheel, she had to push the seat back, which, in turn, 
made it harder to reach the gas and the brake. Things had 
gotten better after a friendly gas-station attendant showed her 
how to tilt her steering wheel up. She had tried to tip him, but he 
had waved her money aside with a good-natured smile.

"Oh, no problem," he said. "Just wanted to make sure your feet 
could reach the pedals."

She stared at him. "What?"

"It's no problem, ma'am. Have a nice day." 

She had put her money away and turned the car toward 
Alexandria, depressed. At the apartment, her spirits had lifted 
somewhat as Bert and Ernie (who had forgiven her former 
neglect) greeted her with enthusiasm. She had decided she 
would visit them every day again. This would be her refuge, she 
had thought fondly. Whenever she got tired of her own 
apartment, bored of her own company, she would just drive over 
here, and she and Bert and Ernie (and the UFO toy) could pal 
around. Hang out. Watch movies. She could even make popcorn. 

She looked around the apartment. She didn't think she would 
feel the urge to throw anything here. 

It was the very next day that her doctor told her she shouldn't 
drive anymore. She stared at him blankly.

"Am I allowed to drive home?" she asked.

The doctor, a balding man of about her own age and height, 
looked down at her chart, avoiding eye contact. "I would advise 
against that," he said, making a notation. "Everything looks good 
right now -- great, in fact -- but this late in the trimester, and
with 
your risk-factors --"

"How am I supposed to get home?" 

The doctor looked at her over the top of his glasses. "Is there 
someone you can call?"

AD Skinner picked her up outside the doctor's office. He 
regarded her anxiously as he helped her into his mammoth 
SUV, no doubt surprised at how big she had gotten since he'd 
last seen her. Her winter coat hung open despite the 
mid-December chill, too small to button over her stomach. She 
gave him a tight smile.

"I'm sorry to have to call you," she said. "I tried my mother
first..."

"Don't worry about it," he said. His brows knitted as he looked at 
her. "How is everything? Have you been all right?"

She let her breath out through pursed lips, blowing her hair away 
from her face. She needed to get it cut -- when had it gotten so 
long? "I'm fine, sir," she said. "I'm great. I'm not allowed to drive 
anymore."

She put her hand to her mouth and began to cry.

The Assistant Director sat in the driver's seat for a moment, not 
moving, before he reached across her for her seatbelt. He had to 
stretch it nearly to its limit to fit it around her, fastening it
with a 
resolute click. He gave her hand a quick squeeze and started the 
car.

She looked up, sniffling. "Can you take me to Alexandria, sir?" 
she asked. "Just for a moment? I'm sorry --"

"Alexandria?" he asked, glancing at her. "What's in --"

He stopped abruptly, breathed deeply, impatiently. 

"Please," she said, scrubbing the back of her hand against her 
eyes. "I'll only be a few minutes -- I just have to feed the
goldfish."

"The goldfish --?" he repeated. He glanced at her. "Have you 
been going over there every day to feed his *fish*?"

She didn't know the right answer to that. Was her self-appointed 
fish-maintenance a good thing or a bad thing? She didn't want to 
have to confess the tragic deaths of more than sixty percent of 
the original tank population. "Not every day," she said.

Skinner sighed. "All right," he said. "Let's go feed the fish."

<>

The goldfish wiggled to the top as her shadow fell over the tank. 
Skinner waited in the doorway, glancing at his watch. 

"Didn't there use to be more fish in there?" he asked. 

She shook some flakes over the water, noticing how light the can 
felt. It was nearly empty. The fish shimmied after the food, 
gup-gupping along the surface.

"Yeah," she said. "A couple of them didn't make it. Bert and Ernie 
here are the only survivors."

"Bert and Ernie?"

She set the flakes back on the shelf and closed the lid on the 
tank. She wondered when she'd be able to get back here to feed 
them again, now that she couldn't drive.

"My car is still over at my doctor's," she said, as a reminder to 
herself.

"I'll take care of it," Skinner said. She looked up, about to
protest, 
but the look on the AD's face was final. She nodded and let him 
lead her out of the apartment and drive her home.

<>

She spent the rest of the day watching television. This wasn't 
easy, considering it had been years since she had paid for cable 
service, and relied solely on an ancient set of rabbit-ears that 
she had discovered in her building's laundry/recycling room. 
Having to readjust the antenna every time she changed the 
channel had the effect of making the remote control redundant, 
and after an hour or two of heaving herself up from the couch 
every fifteen minutes, she gave up and decided she would just 
watch whichever channel happened to come in clearest without 
further adjustment.

It was Channel 23, a UHF station with programming consisting 
entirely of Mexican soap operas and variety programs. She 
couldn't understand a word anyone was saying (she had taken 
French in high school; fat lot of good *that* had done her) -- but 
the picture came in clear as a bell!

She was watching a dubbed version of "It's A Wonderful Life" 
when the phone rang. The voice on the other end echoed 
strangely. 

She turned the sound down on the television as George Bailey 
ran through the snowy streets of his beloved Bedford Falls. 
*!Hola, Bedford Falls! Hee-haw y Feliz Navidad!*

"Agent Doggett?" she asked. 

"Yeah, hi -- listen, the AD Skinner and I brought your car back 
over --"

"Where are you?" 

"In front of your building," he said. "Can you buzz us in? We've got 
something to bring up."

She pulled herself off of the couch and walked over to her front 
window. Her car was parked on the street right in front of the 
building, and she could see Skinner's truck double-parked 
nearby, hazards flashing. 

On the television, George was still running down Main Street. 
*!Feliz Navidad, cinema! !Feliz Navidad, emporium! !Feliz 
Navidad, tu viejo Prestamista maravilloso!*

"Agent Scully?"

*!Feliz Navidad, Senor Potter!*

"Come on up."

She pressed zero to buzz them in, wondering what they might be 
bringing up for her. She looked out at her car again; it seemed to 
be in one piece. 

It took them a long time to get to her floor, and she had opened 
her door and was waiting in the hallway when they rounded the 
corner. Doggett came first, his overcoat bulging with something 
held protectively beneath; Skinner followed, carrying an emptied 
twenty-gallon fish-tank and its assorted accouterment. A little 
UFO bobber lay on the damp gravel at the bottom.

She took two steps forward. "Where are the fish?" she asked, 
eyes wide. "What happened to the fish?"

Doggett smiled and pulled a large zip-lock filled with water from 
under his coat. Bert and Ernie floated grumpily inside, giving 
each other The Look. 

She let out her breath. "Oh thank God," she said, and invited 
them into her apartment with a tilt of her head.

"We thought it might be easier for you to look after these guys if 
you didn't have to hike all the way to Alexandria to do it," Doggett 
said.

"It was Agent Doggett's idea to bring the whole tank over here," 
Skinner told her. He set everything down on her dining-room 
table. "I thought that one of us could just go over there --"

"But I told him you'd probably wanna keep taking care of these 
two yourself," Doggett broke in, catching her eye. "I mean, you 
can always take 'em back to Mulder's once everything's back to 
normal again, right?"

She blinked several times as Doggett inclined his head toward 
her, watching her in a gentle, knowing way. 

"Thank you," she said, glancing at both of them with glittering 
eyes. "I'm glad you brought them over. Thank you."

"I'll just get it set up for you," Skinner said. His face looked 
flushed as he walked into the kitchen. A long pause followed in 
which the only sound came from the television, where Harry 
Bailey was toasting his brother:

*!A mi hermano, George, el hombre mas rico de la aldea!*

She looked up at Doggett, saw him eyeing her figure. Their eyes 
met.

"Wow, Agent Scully," he said, his eyebrows raised. "You got 
*big*."

She laughed, ducking her head and moving her hand 
self-consciously to cover her belly. "It's the black-and-white 
stripes," she said, plucking at her shirt. "Exaggerates the effect."

Doggett smiled. "I'll say." He held out the bag of fish. "Well, here 
you go. I'm sure they'll perk up a little once they're back in their 
bowl."

She took the bag from him. On TV, George Bailey was reading 
the inscription in Clarence's book.

*...recuerde, ningun hombre es un incidente si el tiene 
amigos...*

Doggett put out his hand and touched her cheek. "Merry 
Christmas, Agent Scully," he said. "I'm gonna go in there and 
make sure he isn't making a mess of your kitchen."

She held onto the bag as he left, lifting it up near her face to 
watch the goldfish swimming. They shimmied against the 
plastic. 

"Feliz Navidad Ernie," she said. A tear splashed over her eyelid 
and rolled along the side of her nose. "Feliz Navidad Bert. 
Hee-haw and Feliz Navidad."


The End.

<>

Notes: I had no idea I was going to end up with so much 
Spanish in this -- I don't even know if there has ever been a 
Spanish version of "It's A Wonderful Life" -- and I apologize 
(especially to any Spanish speakers, which I am obviously *not* 
-- I *did* take Spanish in high school, fat lot of good it did me). 
The only line that's really important to know is the quote from 
Clarence's letter, which, as fans of the movie will remember, 
read (in it's entirety):

"Dear George,
No man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings. 
Love, Clarence"

This is a very late (or very *very* early) X-mas present for my 
friend, Shannon, who came up with the title and worked a terrific 
beta for me. Hee-haw and Feliz Navidad, Shann.

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