From: Nikoleaw@aol.com
Date: 30 Dec 1998 20:48:02 -0800
Subject: One Glimpse of His Eyes (1/3)

TITLE:	One Glimpse of His Eyes
AUTHOR:	nikki - 12/30/98
DISCLAIMER: (Sung to the tune of "Adeste Fidelis"/"Oh Come Oh Ye
		Faithful--just play around with the inflections and speed
		with which you say the words and it'll work.  Really.)  
		Oh come oh ye X-Philes/Read my new creation/It has
		Scully and Mulder in quite a mess/Sadly I don't own
		them/They belong to 1013 and Chris Carter/I mean them no
		permanent harm/I'm not making any money from this/I'm
		just having a little bit of fun/And I hope that you do too.
SPOILERS:  	Beyond The Sea, Blood, Duane Barry, Anasazi, 	
		Herrenvolk, Demons, Redux II, Emily, The Red And The
		Black, The End, How The Ghosts Stole Christmas
KEYWORDS:	Scully, Mulder, Margaret Scully, Bill Scully,
		Charles Scully, Skinner, The Lone Gunmen, character
		death, character birth, angst, ust (but you gotta really look
		for it)
OTHER:	The entire story is based upon a rumor of Duchovny's
		imminent departure from the show and how that absence
		will be handled.
SUMMARY:	Death, birth, angst, the Lone Gunmen and a tacky giant
		bear.  After a second abduction, Scully is left pregnant and
		alone.  Or is she?
RATING:	PG-13
THANKS:	Gerry, Suzi, Traci...I just can't thank you enough.
ARCHIVE:	You betcha.  But if you're not Gossamer, Xemplary, 	
	Ephemeral or MTA, I'd love it if you'd let me know where 	
	this is going.
FEEDBACK:	Constructive comments are always greatly appreciated. 
		This is my first attempt at writing in first person, and a bit
		longer than most things I do, so I'd like to know what you
		think.  nikoleaw@aol.com Or visit me at 		
		http://members.aol.com/nikoleaw2/index.html

St. Clara's Hospital, New York City
July 2000

Consciousness returned slowly, giving me ample time to hear and
recognize the muted beeps and hisses of the equipment that surrounded me. 
I was in the hospital, again, and for a brief moment I was grateful that my
return to alertness was more gradual than it had been the last time.  Then I
vaguely remembered that the last time I had woken up in a hospital, months
of misery had followed.   I quickly pushed that memory away before it
could fully form, choosing instead to focus on determining what my newest
nightmare might turn out to be.

I hadn't opened my eyes, or made any movement that might alert anyone to
my newly awakened state, yet my mother somehow sensed it, and leaned
over and grasped my hand tightly as she called my name.

I was still hazy, still not sure why I was in the hospital, or why my mother
was there.  I worked on ungluing my eyelids and rasped out a question.
"Mom?"

"Oh Dana."  The relief in her voice was thick enough to cocoon myself in.  

"Dana?  How do you feel?"

I'd opened my eyes and was trying to blink away the blurred edges when I
shifted in an attempt to sit up.  The pain that rocketed through my lower
body stole my breath away and brought back a rush of memories that I
would have been just as happy to forget.

My mother saw the grimace that I could not hide and gently held me down
with her hands.  "Don't try to move yet.  I'll call the doctor in and he can
help you get more comfortable."

The pain had focused into one single thought in my mind and the one word
that I managed to pant out around the pain sounded frantic even to my own
ears.  "The baby?"

My mother tightened her grip on my hand and brought her other hand over
to begin a calming, stroking motion over our intertwined fingers.  "The
baby is fine Dana.  Just fine."  She paused to let those words sink in and
then she went on.  "They had to do an emergency Cesarean, and they were
a little worried about the lungs not being fully developed, but everything
was fine.  You were close enough to the due date that there were no
problems at all.  The baby is perfectly healthy.  Would you like to see? 
They thought that having the baby here in the room with you might help
you wake up faster.  That you might sense that you had an important
reason to wake up."

Somewhere in the back of my still-muddled mind, I noted that even in the
midst of what had to be one of the most anxiety-laden times of her life, my
mother had taken special care to abide by my wishes.  She had not once
referred to the sex of the baby.  Despite the multitude of tests that I had
undergone throughout my pregnancy, I had been adamant that I didn't want
to know the baby's gender.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  I *needed* it to be
a mystery that my research could solve.

Suddenly my mother was carefully holding an overwrapped bundle right
above my chest.  I fumbled around and found the bed controls and bit my
bottom lip through the pain while the bed raised my head high enough so that I
could see what I was looking at.  I carefully reached out and removed the
cap and saw a bald head.  No soft baby fuzz growing there.  Just soft,
sweet smelling skin on a head that, having been spared the great squeeze
through a tiny birth canal, was perfectly formed.  I took a tiny hand in mine
and counted four perfect fingers and an even more perfect thumb and felt
slightly more assured.  I started tugging at the swaddling blankets, and
bless her, my mother remained silent and didn't try to spare me the joy of
discovery.  

A boy.  I'd had a boy.  And while my baby boy had remained asleep
throughout most of my inspection, it seemed that my blithe exposure of his
"dignity" was just too much for him to bear and he opened his eyes and
looked right at me.  Tears came to my eyes and I wanted to look away, but
all I could do was stare back at him.  When I finally managed to look up at
my mother, I saw a beatific smile on her face.  It was as if she felt blessed
that she had been allowed to share this moment with me, my first sight of
the child that I wasn't supposed to be able to have.  I didn't have the heart,
the strength or the words to tell her that all I could feel was the weight of
unbearable memories crushing down upon me.

======
Eight months earlier
Baltimore Medical Center
November 1999

Consciousness slammed into me like I'd run full speed into a brick wall.  I
opened my eyes and was assaulted by the sights and smells of a hospital.  

My mother was the first one to realize that I was awake and her sharp
intake of breath quickly alerted the others.

She grabbed my hand and cried out "Dana" and then her eyes and her voice
filled with tears and she was unable to say anything else.  My brother
crossed the room in an instant and suddenly he was towering over me. 
"God, Dana.  Oh, Dana."  He smiled down at me and I began to panic. 
What in the hell had happened?  Why was I here?  Why was my family
here?  The last two times Bill had come to see me in the hospital, I had
been dying.  Had the cancer come back?  Had it destroyed part of my brain
and that was why I couldn't remember how I'd come to rest yet again in a
hospital bed?  My eyes scanned the room and landed on Mulder.  He was
standing back, at the foot of the bed.  With tears in his eyes.

He moved a few steps closer and reached past my mom for a cup.  He
removed an ice chip and held it to my lips.  I opened my mouth and
accepted it gratefully.  Bill however, was not so pleased by this action.

"What in the hell are you doing?  We need to wait until the doctor comes
in."

I swallowed and hoarsely spoke out.  "Bill, it's ok.  It's just an ice chip.
For
my lips and throat."

"But when someone comes out of a coma, I've heard that they're not
supposed to be given anything to eat or drink..."  He suddenly fell silent as
both my mother and Mulder looked at him horrified.  He stood up a little
straighter and stubbornly replied, "Well, she would have found out soon
enough anyway.  You can't just keep all of this from her forever."

Coma?  I'd been in a coma?

I rolled the ice around my tongue for a moment then stuck it in my cheek
so that I could speak again.  "How long?"

No one answered.  Finally Mulder spoke.  "Two weeks."

I swallowed and asked the million dollar question.  "What happened?"

Bill reached over and grabbed the call button for the nurse and began to
stab at it.  Then he looked at Mulder and said, "What happened is that your
goddamned job and this idiot partner of yours managed to once again
nearly get you killed!"

My mother sniffled and said nothing.

Mulder looked at me with anguished eyes and softly asked, "What's the last
thing you remember?"

I closed my eyes for a moment and let myself enjoy the sensation of the
cold ice rolling around in my mouth while I thought about my last memory. 
I opened my eyes and said, "I remember being at home.  I was zipping the
lining out of my coat because Kersh was sending us on a case in Southern
California and I didn't want to be too hot.  Then, then you came over, and,
and...that's it."

Mulder managed to look worse than he had a few moments before, while
Bill and my mother both seemed to fill with some unnamable emotion. 
Mulder hung his head for a few seconds and then looked back up at me. 
"Scully, that...that never happened.  At least not the way you remember it." 

Bill interrupted, "You're the reason that she's here!  The reason that she's
in
this situation and you have the nerve now to try and deny it!  To try and act
like there's something wrong with her memory!"  Bill looked like he was
ready to hit Mulder, but Mulder ignored him and concentrated solely on
me.

"We did get assigned a case in California, but we never got there.  I never
came by your house that night.  At least not while you were there.  Your
mom called me around 2 in the morning.  She'd had...she'd been very
worried about you.  She'd been trying to call you all night and when she
couldn't reach you, she went over there, and when she saw what had
happened, she called me...."

At that moment, my blood felt as cold as the ice that had been so soothing
to my parched and swollen tongue just a few seconds earlier.  I had been
here before.  And this was worse, much worse than a return of my cancer.

I looked at Mulder and I knew.  I didn't trust my voice to carry my next
words.  And Mulder knew that, and saved me the effort.

It was as if I could see him gathering all of his strength around him as he
quietly looked at me and sadly whispered, "Three months.  Just like
before."

A rush of nausea overwhelmed me.  Mulder nearly knocked Bill over
rushing for the emesis basin, but he was too late.  Thankfully, I didn't have
much in my stomach to empty, but I was humiliated and scared and tired
and angry nonetheless.

At that moment, a nurse came in.  "Why Miss Scully!  We are so happy to
see you awake and alert!"  She saw Mulder still standing there with the
empty emesis basin in his hands and smiled brightly.  "I'll just get you
cleaned up and then I'll just take your temperature and your blood pressure,
monitor a few reflexes and then we'll wait for your doctor to come and give
you the full once over."  She made shooing motions at everyone and then
soothed them with assurances that they would all be allowed back in as
soon as she was through.  I thought I heard Mulder murmur something
about calling my doctor, and then I just closed my eyes and let the nurse do
her job.

When I woke up again, it was to a husky voice proclaiming, "You told me
she was awake and alert!"

I could hear the fear in his voice as Mulder replied, "She was!  I left and
called you, and then I went for a walk so that her family could have some
time alone with her."  

I opened my eyes and I could see the relief flood into Mulder.  He came
over to my side and took my hand.  I barely registered that he did it
naturally and unselfconsciously, just as his gestures of warmth and
closeness had been when I was dying from the cancer.  He was introducing
the doctor to me, and most of my attention was focused on trying not to
laugh.  The doctor looked like Velma from the "Scooby Doo" cartoon. 
This couldn't be right.  I decided that they must have given me some drugs
while everyone was away, and I was curious what they gave me that made
me hallucinate.  

"I'm sorry doctor.  I didn't catch your name.  And could you tell me what
medications I'm currently on?"

The doctor smiled at me then walked up, took my hand and shook it.  "Dr.
Dana Scully, I'm Dr. Lilian Adams.  And judging from the size of your
medical file and the number of doctors you've seen, I'm sure the pleasure of
meeting is more mine than yours.  As for medications, you shouldn't be on
any.  I left strict instructions that you were to be given nothing other than
nutritional supplements and according to your chart, they've followed those
instructions.  And since I know that the guards outside were hand-picked
by Mulder, I doubt anyone managed to sneak in and slip you a mickey
while no one was looking."

Oh.  Then that meant that either my doctor was lying to me, or she really
did look like a cartoon character.  Oh my.

"So tell me, how are you feeling?"

I was feeling a lot of things that I didn't have names for, and a lot of other
things that I didn't particularly want to share with either Mulder or a
complete stranger, so I settled on describing the one sensation that was
most irritating at the moment.

"Nauseous."

Dr. Adams nodded.  "That's to be expected.  Your stomach's empty and
that usually makes it worse."  She reached into her pocket and pulled out
three packets of saltines.  "Here, munch on these.  When I'm done with the
exam, I'll see about getting the kitchen to send you something light and
bland and we'll see how well you keep it down."

I eyed the saltines gratefully, remembering what a godsend they'd been
during my weeks of chemotherapy.

"I understand that you've already been through this once with Mulder and
your family, and I'm sure you'll have to go through it several more times
with detectives and such, but it would be very helpful to me if you could
tell me what you last remember before waking up here."

I liberated a saltine and munched on it thoughtfully while I repeated my
brief story to her.  When I was done, she nodded and then asked Mulder to
leave the room while she conducted her exam.

Try as I might, I couldn't help the tears that started to flow when she set up
the small portable stirrups for me.  I was overwhelmed by memories of
Emily, of the violation that had occurred to my body and my soul the last
time that I had been taken.  I was terrified that it had happened again.  

I don't know if she thought it would reassure me, or just keep my mind
otherwise occupied, but she told me a bit about herself as she poked and
prodded and jabbed and palpated.

When she was done, I knew that she was a long-time friend of Frohike's. 
That she had served as a nurse in a MASH unit during the Vietnam War. 
She'd come home in the early 70's and gone to medical school because she
knew that soldiers were coming home with diseases that most doctors
weren't prepared to treat.  Diseases that the government had insisted did not
exist.  She'd started a small free clinic for vets in New York.  Many vets
had balked at the idea of being treated by a woman, and others respected
that she had served her government, done her time In Country, come back
alive and unafraid to admit that her government had done wrong, was still
doing wrong by those men and women who had served it.  She told me that
Frohike had personally asked her to take on my case.  That she'd met and
talked with Mulder and Skinner and that Skinner had quietly and forcefully
pulled whatever strings were needed to allow her to come to D.C. and
handle my case.  She wasn't sure but she thought he'd also somehow
finagled a way for the Bureau to pay her fees, and Mulder was paying her
airfare for her to commute to and from New York to D.C. so that she could
continue to work at her clinic.  She said that what she'd seen in Vietnam
had convinced her that there were a lot of things that didn't have human
explanations, and that the government was capable of unspeakable acts
done in the name of national security.  She also indicated that she had more
than a slight interest in Skinner, but that he had been nothing more than
unfailingly polite to her.  What a pity.

She gave me a few minutes to let my tears dry up, then handed me a cool
cloth to wipe my face.  

"Can I ask Mulder to come back in now?"

I nodded and she went to the door and beckoned towards him.

Mulder sat down at my side and looked as though he'd rather be anywhere
else in the world than there with me.

Dr. Adams sat on the edge of the bed and angled herself so that she could
look at both Mulder and me as she spoke.

"Ordinarily, I speak to my patients alone unless they specifically request
that there be someone else present.  In this case, I want to talk to both of
you because what I have to say involves both of you.

Dana, as you know, you were missing for a period of three months.  Two
weeks ago, in response to a "request for an alert" that Mulder had placed
with virtually every emergency room in the country, he got a call when you
turned up here.  When you turned up, all kinds of tests were done to try
and determine why you were comatose and what kind of trauma your body
had suffered.  No answers were found.  But what was found was totally
unexpected and prompted Mulder to call Mel and ask him to find a
trustworthy doctor who could run some tests for him.  I ran the tests, and
when the results came back, Mulder asked me to be your doctor.  I'm not
an OB-GYN, but I keep up with several fields, and I agreed to take on your
case as a specialist in unusual neurological diseases, arguing that your
continued comatose state was most likely the result of some sort of neuro
trauma.  I have an OB who's a fairly good friend and I asked him to come
check you out and make sure nothing was wrong.  Talk about some
unhappy hospital officials!  Anyway, the reason for the nausea you're
experiencing is, that you're pregnant.  As I'm sure you know, pinpointing a
conception date is difficult enough in normal circumstances, even more so
when the mother is unable to tell us when she last engaged in sexual
intercourse.  The size of the fetus indicates that your pregnancy is
somewhere within weeks 8 through 10.  Which means that it most certainly
occurred while you were gone.  That's why any memories whatsoever that
you may have of that time are vitally important."  

I didn't know that I was capable of such fury.  In retrospect, I think the
magnitude of my fury was compounded by the fact that of all of the
emotions that were swirling through me at that moment, fury was the only
one I would allow myself to feel.  And that fury was directed at Mulder. 
Once again, my deepest, most private sense of womanhood had been
violated, and once again, Mulder had known of it before I did.  The
injustice of it all made me shake, and those saltines that had seemed so
heavenly a few minutes earlier were threatening to make a second, less
attractive appearance.  I couldn't think rationally and I didn't want to.  The
only thought that I grab hold of in the malestrom of my mind was, "Again. 
It's happened again.  And this time they're going to make sure that I know
I've had this child before they come and take it away."

All I wanted was to be left alone.  So, in a voice that was deadly calm and
quiet, I told them both to get out.  Mulder's eyes held an apology that I
didn't want to hear, and I watched as they changed to reflect his acceptance
of my dismissal.  He turned to leave, then turned back to me.  

"Scully, I...I'll be back later this afternoon.  I got a call from an
informant. 
They may have information about why you were taken and why this was
done to you."

I answered his words with as icy a glare as I could muster and I was
relieved when he followed Dr. Adams out the door.

Later that evening, Dr. Adams returned.  It seemed that there was more to
the horror story, and she wasn't going to leave me alone until I'd heard the
whole wretched tale.  This time, I wasn't so much amused as annoyed by
her close resemblance to the cartoon Velma, and I used that annoyance to
ground me through her little chat.

"You know, if everyone had someone who cared about them half as much
as Mulder cares about you, the world would be a very different place."

I closed my eyes and hoped that if I ignored her long enough, she would
get the hint and go away.  I was terrified and angry beyond reason at
Mulder.  I didn't want anyone to give me a reason not to be.  

"He fought your entire family over bringing me onto your case.  When he
first brought me here, to take blood and fluids for the test, your mother and
both your brothers were here."

"Charlie?"  My mother had spent most of the afternoon with me and had
never once mentioned that Charlie had been here.

"Um hmm.  You think there's tension in the air when Mulder and Bill are in
the room together, you should have seen him with Charlie!  Even I was
relieved when his ship got called back out to sea.  Anyway, when he first
brought me here, everyone was there.  And Mulder introduces me and
explains that I'm going to take some blood and run some tests.  Mind you, I
come in and start setting up a little bio-bubble around you and I've got this
clunky hazmat suit with me.  Margaret starts asking what all of that is for
and Mulder tries to explain that there may be some risk of an unknown
toxin being released when I start taking fluids.  Charlie and Bill are
screaming that that's just nonsense, that all kinds of other tests have been
done on you and no one was worried about anything like that.  But he's just
trying to explain that none of the other tests were invasive, that they were
sonograms and physical exams but that I was going to be retrieving
amniotic fluid.  Which pushed Bill over the edge.  He starts screaming at
Margaret that Mulder thinks you're carrying an alien baby that was
magically implanted in you while you were missing and that he's crazy and
a danger to everyone.  Margaret is trying to be somewhat reasonable, but
it's clear that she was pretty fed up with Mulder by then.  He decided that
the best thing to do was to leave.  Just leave me in there with them and
hope for the best.  Thankfully, I'm pretty damned good at saying, "I'm just
following orders."  Which is exactly what I said, and went right on about
my business.  The only thing I stopped for was when Margaret asked me to
take a look at the scar above your navel and give an estimate as to how
fresh it was.  Other than that, I got my samples, broke down the biounit and
got the hell out.  

I divvied up the samples and sent them off to two labs that I use a lot, gave
the rest to Mulder for testing in the FBI lab and then went back to New
York, figured I'd come back when the results were in."

End Part 1

From: Nikoleaw@aol.com
Subject: One Glimpse of His Eyes (2/3)

                            ________________	

It wasn't until months later that I learned that Dr. Adams had skipped over
some very significant events in her narrative.  Late in my sixth month of
pregnancy, my mother had brought me home after a shopping spree.  We'd
come in and I'd automatically hit the button on my answering machine to
hear my messages.  One of my messages was from my OB-GYN,
reminding me that I needed to come in the next day for tests.  My mother
looked away and then said, "I remember the first tests after you came back. 
The ones that Fox had ordered."  

It was the first time she'd spoken his name in my presence in four months. 
She turned away from me and continued speaking.

"We were all shocked when the hospital doctors said that you were
pregnant.  They were asking all these questions that we couldn't answer and
at first, we all kept insisting that the test results were wrong.  That you
couldn't possibly be pregnant and that they needed to redo the tests.  Fox
was screaming about lawsuits and physically threatening doctors and
finally I made him go home and sleep.  Then, the forth morning that you
were in the hospital, Fox and I were sitting in your room when the orderlies
came to turn you.  Somehow he saw your stomach and saw a small scar on
your stomach, just above your navel.  He asked me if I knew about it.  I
looked at it and said no, and pointed out that it looked fairly new.  When I
said that, he nearly threw up right there.  He left the hospital and didn't
come back until the next day.  He just marched into your room with a
doctor in tow and started setting up this little, 'area' around you.  The boys
were yelling at him, I was yelling at him, and Dr. Adams just worked
quietly through it all.  At the end, I remember telling him that it was his
love for you that had caused us all to be there, watching you die yet again,
in another hospital bed, and I told him to leave you and our family alone.  It
was eerie.  He looked around at me and the boys, as if he was memorizing
who we were and then he just blanked us out.  He asked Dr. Adams if she
had everything she needed and then he left."

                                           _________________	

Somehow I think that Dr. Adams did the right thing that night by leaving
out that part of the story.  Especially considering what was left that she had
yet to tell me.

"I got the results back faster than normal because I'd promised heaven and
earth to those labs.  So when they came, I hopped on a plane and met with
Mulder again.  I don't know what in the hell he'd promised to the Bureau
labs, but he managed to get the results from them later that day."  Even
though my eyes were still closed, I could feel her stare directly at me as she
said, "The results were not at all what he'd expected."

Try as I might to wish her away, I had to admit that curiosity was getting
the better of me by now.  This was after all, something growing within my
body that we were talking about.  And considering that Mulder is the
master at expecting the unexpected, if the results took him by surprise, then
it must have been far worse than even I had imagined.  All day, while I'd
lain in the comforting presence of my mother, I'd battled with images of
Gibson and his gruesomely stitched scalp; of Emily and of her empty
coffin.  I knew that I could not bear to suffer another loss like that.

"I'd deliberately waited until I'd gotten the results back from both of the
labs
before I'd even called him, so that I could be sure of whatever results I got.
The results that he'd gotten from the Bureau matched all of mine, except of
course, for the tests that he'd had done that I didn't."  She stopped then,
knowing that she had me hooked.

Finally I opened my eyes and asked her.  "And what did the results tell
you?  What am I carrying in my womb?  No wait, let me guess.  You
found protein strands that could not be identified.  Peptide bonds that do
not occur in nature and must, therefore, by definition, be classified as
extraterrestrial."

"No.  That's what Mulder was expecting.  What I found was a perfectly
normal, healthy developing fetus. What the Bureau labs found was the
source of the fetus' genetic material.  You see, you guys have that nifty
DNA database that I don't have access to.  Well, I could've gotten access to
it if I'd wanted to, but that would've raised a whole new stink that I didn't
want to deal with, and honestly, from everything Mulder had told me
beforehand, I didn't think it would be necessary.  But what they found was
that the fetus' genetic material was a perfect match for yours, and for
Mulder's."

I've only fainted twice before in my life.  Once, early in med school, before
I'd mastered the art of scientific interest and clinical detachment, and then,
many years later, when I encountered ghosts who were nothing more than
figments of my overtired body and overstimulated imagination.  As I came
to, on this, my third ever faint, I consoled myself with the excuse that I was
pregnant and that blood was busily rushing from my brain to my uterus to
help support the growing life there.  Anything but admit that what Dr.
Adams had just told me was the most unexpected and unwelcome news I
could have ever hoped to hear.

I was carrying Mulder's baby.  I was carrying the child of a man that as far
I could recall, I'd never had sex with.  Hell, I'd never even told him how I
felt about him, although I was certain that he already knew.  I knew that if
he were here, he'd have a theory.  Something involving his sperm being
extracted without his knowledge and most likely an in-vitro fertilization
with my egg before re-implantation in my body.  I doubted if he would
have an answer for the question that I was most interested in: not how, but
*why* had this happened?  For the first time since I'd learned that I was
pregnant, I felt my stomach, to see if I could feel any sign of the life
growing within me.  I could not.  But I did feel a small lump above my
navel, which when I checked, revealed a small scar, over what felt like a
solid piece of something just under my skin--nearly identical to the one in
the nape of my neck.  It had truly happened again, only this time, it was
much, much worse.

I never got to sleep that night, which is probably why I remained so calm
during the horror that came the next day.  If I had been well rested and
alert, I would have known that I should have been devastated.  As it was, I
was too tired to feel more than an icy numbness.

My mother and Bill were bringing me up to date on family news when Dr.
Adams and Skinner came in.  Dr. Adams' eyes were red and swollen and
the muscle behind Skinner's jaw was twitching non-stop.  My mother and
Bill nodded at Skinner and he didn't acknowledge them as he sat on the
edge of the bed and took my hand.

"Agent Scully, there's been...a murder."

Bill stepped over.  "What the hell is wrong with you people?  Can't you see
she's in the hospital?  If you want to visit her, fine, but leave work outside
the door.  There's nothing she can do from in here, and she needs to rest..."

Skinner's head jerked up quickly.  He looked at Bill with a mixture of
anger and exasperation and in a menacing growl cut him off.  "I'm well
aware of where we are and what condition Agent Scully is currently in. 
But this is something that she needs to know, and she needs to know it
now."

Turning back towards me, Skinner was once again that rarely seen man of
compassion.  "Agent Scully, early this morning, Agent Mulder's body was
found.  He was in the basement, in the X-Files office.  It was done
execution style.  Clean and painless.  The switchboard put a call through to
him at around 6 o'clock last night, so we know it happened after that, but
the coroner said that he didn't think his body had been there for much more
than 12 hours, which would put the killing between 6 and 9."

My mother gasped then threw her hand over her mouth as she closed her
eyes in a grimace of pain.  Bill was blessedly silent.  I blinked a few times
as the news settled in, then I smoothly and without conscious thought slid
into my law enforcement agent role.

"What do you mean by execution style?  How confident is the coroner on
that time of death?  Was there any trail of blood or other indications that he
was killed there or that he might have left the office, been killed elsewhere
and then brought back?  Has his mother been notified yet?  I wouldn't
recommend notifying her until it is 100% confirmed that the body found is
in fact, Mulder's.  When is the autopsy scheduled and can it be postponed
for a few days?"

"Dana!  What the hell are you asking about?!"  Bill was nearly apoplectic.

I ignored him and continued to look at Skinner.  "I'd like to perform the
autopsy."

My mother's hand shot out towards mine and she stumbled in her haste to
get to me.  "My God, Dana, no!"

Skinner's jaw twitched so fast that a distant part of my mind puzzled over
how he could open his mouth at all, as he shook his head.  "That's against
Bureau procedure, Agent Scully.  You know that.  And even if it wasn't..."

I stared at him a few moments longer and then looked away.  My partner,
my friend, the father of my unborn child was dead, and I felt...nothing, save
for a professional interest in determining that he was in fact dead and if so,
in locating the killer.  Mulder had been dead too many times before for me
to take it at face value now.

"Sir, there are certain...distinguishing characteristics that another ME
wouldn't know to look for.  Items that don't appear on any of his medical
records.  If I were allowed even to assist in the autopsy then I could..."

"No.  Agent Scully, while you and Agent Mulder were undoubtedly two of
the finest agents that I have ever seen, there are other perfectly competent
professionals within the Bureau.  One of them will perform the autopsy
tomorrow morning.  And yes, the Director himself went to see Mrs. Mulder
this morning.  Apparently they knew one another casually from Mulder's
father's days in the State Department."

As Skinner stood to leave, he reached over for the hand that my mother
hadn't taken hostage.  "Bureau support resources will be available to you at
any time should you choose to utilize them.  And I understand that Agent
Mulder had already taken steps to ensure that you and your child will be
taken care of."  He lowered his gaze as he added, "I'm very sorry for your
loss."

Later that afternoon, after I'd convinced my mother that I was safe enough
with Frohike, Byers and Langly for her to spend 20 minutes getting some
food, I sent a memo to Skinner.  In it, I detailed known "distinguishing
characteristics", such as a faint scar on his chest from when he'd been
clawed by the "Beast Woman" in New Jersey, a healed bullet scar on his
left thigh from when he'd been shot during the Bogg's case, and others that I
knew weren't in his personnel file.  A nicely puckered scar on his right
shoulder right under the collarbone where I'd shot him to keep him from
killing Alex Krycek.  Some sort of calcification in his skull right at his
hairline from when he'd had holes drilled in his head in a misguided attempt
to retrieve lost memories.

Two days later, as I was slowly dressing myself in preparation for my
discharge, an envelope arrived via courier for me.  My mind was still
dwelling on the conversation that I had just had with the doctor, regarding
the possibility of terminating the pregnancy.  I understood that the hospital
was simply making sure that I was aware of all of my options, however,
the conversation had deeply disturbed me.  While I believed in a woman's
right to choose, my personal religious convictions, as well as my
knowledge that this was most likely my only chance to have a baby had
fairly well determined my choice already.  However, even in the face of
that knowledge, I couldn't let go of the fact that it was after all, an event
that had occurred without my awareness or consent.  I had in essence, been
raped, and the child that I produced would forever remind me of the part of
myself that was ashamed that I had been once again, helpless in the face of
my attackers.  And, there was a small part of me, that I wasn't yet ready to
acknowledge, that understood that the life that was growing inside of me
was symbolic of the relationship that I had shared with Mulder.  

I sat down on my bed and withdrew the contents of the envelope while still
musing over the doctor's words to me.  While Dr. Adams had accepted the
idea of a mystery impregnation without question, the hospital doctors, as
well as my family, were still more inclined to believe that Mulder had
raped me--explaining why my last coherent memory was of him coming to
my apartment--and then, in an attempt to cover his actions, had somehow
staged another abduction for me. As a result, I had gotten a brief lecture
from the doctor about the resentment towards the child that was often
suffered by mothers who delivered babies that had been conceived against
their wills.  While my hand withdrew a series of photographs and notes,
from the ME's examination, it took a few seconds for my mind to register
what I was seeing.  Photos and notes that confirmed the existence of each
and every scar and anomaly that I knew of, and of others that I hadn't
known of.  Injuries both internal and external from Mulder's younger days,
confirmed by earlier medical records--the tell-tale remnants of a dislocated
shoulder from his high school baseball days; a slightly misshapen toe from
his time on the basketball team; an unnoticeable lump of extra bone growth
on his shin from his short-lived days of playing rugby at Oxford; a healed
bullet wound in his upper right arm from an early case gone bad.  

At that moment it all sunk in.  I had been returned from yet another
unexplained three month disappearance to learn that I was carrying a baby
fathered by a man whom I was fairly certain I'd never slept with, who was
now dead and whom my last spoken words to, had been words of anger. 
Mulder had last seen me knowing that I was angry at him, had died
believing that I had not forgiven him.  

I suddenly had a clearer understanding of how his memories of Samantha's
abduction had determined his quest.  As a young boy, his desire to find her
had most likely stemmed from a childish desire to "make things right", to
erase his parents' displeasure by proving that while he might have "lost" his
sister, he was in fact responsible enough to find her again.  But as a man,
Mulder's search for Samantha became something that he had to do for
himself.  He needed to prove to himself that he could locate and punish the
perpetrators, he needed to have the opportunity to tell her that while he'd
been angry at her during those last few moments, he loved her, and his
anger would pass, as it always had before.  I felt energized and driven.  I
had no doubt that Mulder's death and my disappearance were related.  I too
had perpetrators to locate, multiple grievous wrongs to be avenged.  And
when I was done, Mulder would know that I had forgiven him, as I always
had before.

==================
St. Clara's Hospital
July 2000

I blinked at the tears and just as quickly as they had come, they were gone. 
I motioned to my mother to return the baby to his crib, but she was deeply
involved in her fantasy of me as the perfect mother and leaned over me and
asked if I wanted to try and feed him.

I had just woken up, each breath I took was leading me to discover a new
ache or pain in some other part of my stomach, and I had just looked into
my newborns' eyes and seen not the bright blue that I'd come to expect
from newborns, but the golden green eyes of my ex-partner.  I did not want
to feed my child.  I just wanted to close my eyes and pretend that the last 6
months had never happened.  Instead, I looked nervously at my mother and
mumbled, "Could you get the nurse?  I, I'm not sure what to do."

She smiled at me and shifted the baby so as to allow him better access to
my tender breast.  "I breast fed three of the four of you.  I can show you
anything that you don't figure out on your own.  Besides, this is your first
time and you've just woken up.  I wouldn't be surprised if your milk isn't
flowing yet anyway.  This will just be a practice run.  Then we can get the
bottle and you can feed him that way until you're ready."

I looked away, embarrassed beyond measure.  While my mother and I had
reached an uneasy truce during the long months of my pregnancy, I was
still not as comfortable around her as I had been before the pregnancy.  She
still harbored too much carefully hidden resentment towards Mulder,
towards who'd I become after I'd met Mulder, for me to ever truly feel
perfectly comfortable with her again.  I understood that this was a joyous
occasion for her, and I didn't want to ruin it, but I was tired and sore and
depressed and angry, not to mention perplexed as to why I was even in the
hospital, and quite frankly, learning the finer points of breast-feeding from
my mother was not high on my list of things that I wanted to do.  I quietly
asked her again if she would let the nurse know that I was awake.

She seemed to sense my reluctance, and, gracious woman that she could
be, seemed to choose to interpret it as fear and post-partum depression. 
She rang the bell, and as she placed my son back in his crib, she turned to
me and asked the question that I was hoping she wouldn't ask.

"Dana, why were you in a New York alleyway at 1 o'clock in the
morning?"

Frohike saved me from having to answer that question.  He could barely
open the door to my room for having his arms so full of flowers.  Three
dozen pink roses.  And behind him was Byers with a teddy bear large
enough to serve as a bed for me.  Frohike placed the roses on my bedside
table and then placed a careful kiss on my forehead.  He smiled and bowed
politely at my mother as he greeted her with, "Margaret, you're looking
lovely as always."  My mother beamed at him and answered, "It's always
nice to see you, Mr. Frohike."  I tried not to giggle as I thought about the
first time my mother had met Frohike, five months ago, and after he'd left
had looked at me questioningly and asked, "Is Frohike his first or last
name?"  I'd had to think about it for a minute, and realizing that I honestly
didn't know, I decided that it had to be his last name.

However, thoughts of Frohike's unusual name aside, my eyes were still
riveted to the stuffed monstrosity that he and Byers had lugged into my
room.  "What on earth?"

Byers nodded at me and my mother then pointed at the bear.  "It's a gift."

Frohike chimed in, "From all of us."

And Byers finished the thought, "For the baby."

My eyebrow lurched upwards as my mother smiled again and said, "It's
lovely."

Byers explained that because they'd bought it a few weeks previously,
when the baby's sex had still been unknown, the bear was sporting a gender
neutral yellow bow tie.  

Meanwhile, Frohike had walked over to the crib and was peering intently
into it.  "So?"  He finally asked me impatiently.

During the months after Mulder's death, I had kept in close contact with the
Lone Gunmen.  They'd been reluctant to help me at first--they'd known I
was pregnant and they were fearful of giving me any information that might
me lead me into a dangerous situation.  But they quickly realized that I was
going to follow up on my leads and get information with or without their
help.  They decided that helping me afforded me more protection than not
helping me did.  And during that time, Frohike and I became good friends. 
Frohike had voluntarily decided to bring me dinner at least one night each
week, and to rub my back and feet while he was there.  As he had
explained, he'd been 16 when his mother had been pregnant with his
youngest sister, and he'd never forgotten how appreciative she'd been of
backrubs and footrubs during the later months of her pregnancy.  As a
result of spending so much time with them, and most especially with
Frohike, we had fallen into our own set of odd unspoken speech patterns.

"It's a boy."  I replied wearily.  

"Name?"

"Haven't really thought about it."

I guess the baby favored him with a glance then, because Frohike called
over to Byers, "Hey Byers, come check this out."  Turning to me, he asked,
"I thought all babies had blue eyes?"

I let out a small yawn as I answered, "Most Caucasian babies do, but not
all of them."  And leave it to me and Mulder to produce an infant who
would fall outside of the statistical norm.

End Part 2


From: Nikoleaw@aol.com
Subject: One Glimpse of His Eyes (3/3)

The nurse entered the room then.  She took one look at Frohike and the
giant bear and said, "I'm going to have to ask you all to leave now.  The
doctor will be in shortly to examine the patient, and she's been through
quite an ordeal, she needs her rest."

While I was mildly disturbed that the nurse was talking about me as though
I wasn't there, I was grateful for the sentiment.  Between the exhaustion and
the pain, I was getting grouchy and I wanted a few moments to myself to
think before I once again became an interesting specimen for the doctors to
observe.

Byers patted my arm then turned to leave.  My mother fussed over the baby
for a few seconds more before kissing my cheek and following the nurse's
waving arm out the door.  Frohike was failing miserably in his attempt to
relocate the giant bear into an unobtrusive corner.  He turned to the nurse
and nodded deferentially at her.  "Just a moment ma'am.  I'd just like to get
this out of everyone's way."

The nurse was suckered by the little gnome's charm and actually closed the
door and left me alone with him.  He promptly turned on me and asked,
"What in the hell were you doing?  Two weeks before your due date and
you were tromping around the streets of New York at 1 o'clock in the
morning!  No warning, no calls.  Suddenly, we notice your name pop up
on the admissions list in a New York hospital.  Then your mother calls and
says they had to take you in for emergency surgery.  What was so urgent
that you couldn't call us?  One of us would've come with you."

I closed my eyes.  I was still trying to put all of the pieces together in my
own mind and everyone's endless chatter and my own maudlin memories of
past months weren't helping.  "I know Frohike.  I know.  I got a call.  I
needed to get here right away.  There just wasn't time."  For the umpteenth
time in just a few months, I knew how Mulder must have felt as he tried to
justify his solo escapades.

"Who was the call from?  What was so important?"

"It was from...an informant.  Someone who's given me some useful
information over the last few months....someone who used to be one of
Mulder's informants."

Just as I uttered those last words, Skinner entered the room.  I opened my
eyes in greeting and wondered where the nurse had gone.  I was hoping
that it was time for another one of her sweeps of the room.

"Agent Scully.  I'm glad to see that you're awake now.  And I hope that I
haven't missed your explanation for why you were in New York in the
middle of the night."

Frohike answered for me.  "She got a call from one of Mulder's old
informants."

"It was *my* informant Frohike.  She had information for me.  She just
happens to be one of Mulder's old informants."

Skinner briefly checked on the baby and then turned to look at me.  "This
informant wouldn't be named Marita Covarrubias, would she?"

I was too tired to hide my surprise.  

Skinner rotated his lower jaw and then went on.  "I had the opportunity to
utilize Ms. Covarrubias's 'services' a few years ago.  I found her knowledge
to be lacking.  I don't think that you should consider her as an ally Agent
Scully."

"She's given me information, in the past, on leads about Mulder as well as
on other cases that have proven to be helpful.  I had no reason to doubt her
this time."

Skinner gave me a mild glare.  "Agent Scully, when I fought for you to
retain control of the X-Files after Agent Mulder's death, I did so in the
belief that you would continue the work that the two of you had been
doing.  That you would seek out and bring to justice these nameless,
faceless men who play with people's lives with impunity.  I've sat quietly
by and watched you spend the last half year turning in reports on
unimportant cases dealing with charlatans and parlor magicians that any
green agent could have solved.  I kept my own counsel because I assumed
that you were trying to keep a low profile to protect your unborn child and
to ensure that nothing you did could be used to justify any of the Bureau's
attempts to close the books on Agent Mulder's murder.  And now I hear
that you've been working with his, questionable, informants, pursuing your
own avenues of investigations, endangering your own life as well as that of
your child..."

I gritted my teeth and let only a small portion of my growing anger seep
through.  "Sir, while I appreciate your concern, I am a trained field agent. 
And I've been around long enough to know how this story ends.  I refuse to
sit back and let Mulder's death become another statistic in a long list of
unsolved crimes."  My eyes bored into his as I went on.  "Agent Mulder
died for the X-Files.  For me.  For some piece of knowledge that he had
that someone didn't want him to share.  And that knowledge related to me. 
To my abductions and the chips in my neck and stomach.  To the child that
we never should have been able to have.  I owe it not only to him, but more
importantly, to myself, to find out who that someone was and what that
piece of information meant."  This was as close as I felt that I could come
to telling them that I had become convinced that Mulder had been killed
because he had found out the reason behind my abduction and
impregnation.  That I needed to avenge his murder in order to reclaim my
soul.

"Agent Scully, I understand that.  I sympathize with that, and I'm willing to
help you in whatever way I can.  But as you yourself just pointed out,
Agent Mulder died for the X-Files.  I'm not willing to lose another agent to
them."

"Sir, that's a risk that I'm willing to take."

"And apparently one that Ms. Covarrubias is more than willing to help you
take."

His words jarred another memory loose in my mind.  Slowly I said, "No... 
She didn't shoot at me.  In fact...I don't think I was the target at all.  The
bullets came from behind her.  I think they were shooting at her.  She
knocked me down and tried to cover me."  

"But I don't think she wanted me to get hurt.  She was trying to protect the
baby and neither of us realized until it was too late that the shock of being
thrown to the ground, coupled with her weight around my stomach had
done more damage than good.  She stayed on me even after she'd been shot
in the leg.  She only left after she was sure the shooting was over.  By then,
I knew something was wrong with the baby.  I couldn't move because of
this massive cramp in my stomach, and I could feel what I thought was
blood running down my legs.  She called 911 right before she left."  I don't
know why, but I decided not to tell them that despite the blood that was
pumping out of her leg, she sat and held my hand until we could hear the
ambulance sirens in the distance.

Skinner nodded.  "Well, at least that explains the mysterious female who
placed the 911 call as well as the presence of blood at the scene that wasn't
yours.  It is interesting that none of the databases came up with an identity
match on that blood though.  Did you see how she got away?  Did she get
in a car?"

I shook my head.  "She limped off.  If she had a car, it was a few blocks
away because I didn't hear any sounds of an engine starting up."

Frohike looked at Skinner and said, "I don't suppose it would do much
good to check the hospitals for a woman with a bullet wound to the leg?"

Skinner scowled.  "No.  These people take care of their own."

I looked at him intently.  "She's not who or what you think she is.  She's not
on their side.  Not after what they did to her."

Skinner looked at me like a wayward child as he asked, "And what did she
tell you they did to her?"

"It's not what she told me.  It's what she let me discover for myself.  The
first time she came to me with information.  She let me draw blood from
her and test it.  Her blood contained the same DNA residue that was found
in Gibson Praise's blood, and in my blood, after I got back from Antarctica. 
They used her as a human guinea pig.  That's why she was helping me."

Frohike muttered, "Holy Toledo" and Skinner just stared at me blankly for
a few seconds before asking, "Well what information did she have for you
that was so important?"

I closed my eyes in defeat as I quietly said, "I don't know.  The shooting
started before we could say much to one another."

"Well what did she say to you when she called you and asked for a
meeting?  It must have been something big to get you to go to New York in
the middle of the night with less than two weeks left to your pregnancy."

I willed my voice not to hitch as I said, "She said she had information that
related to the abrupt ending of the Branford case."    

Neither man needed to be reminded that the Branford case was the one that
Mulder and I never investigated, because I had been abducted the night
before we were supposed to leave.  Knowing that, I decided not to tell
them that she'd also said that she had come across some clues as to what it
was that Mulder was going to tell me about my abductions had he not been
killed before he got back to my hospital room.

"When she met me in the alleyway, she said something about once telling
Mulder that not everything dies.  Then she reached in her pocket and..."  I
gasped as I suddenly realized that I still had the lead she'd given me.  "My
jacket!!  I need my jacket!!"

Frohike was at my side in seconds.  "Calm down.  What about your
jacket?"

"I need it.  There's a piece of paper, in my pocket."  

Skinner went to the room's little closet and pulled out my blood stained
jacket.  He held it out in front of him as he brought it over to me.

I shrugged off his apparent concern, even managing a smile as I said, "I
wasn't going to need one this big in a few weeks anyway."  But my
momentary happiness was quickly diminished as I realized that the slip of
paper I clearly remembered Marita handing me was no longer in my
pocket.

Frohike, ever pragmatic, asked, "Were you able to look at it at all before
you put it in your pocket?  Do you have any memory as to what was on the
paper?"

I was near tears as I angrily answered, "It was pitch black out Frohike!  She
held out her hand like she wanted to shake my hand and slipped the paper
into my palm.  I glanced at it and put it in my pocket and tried to listen to
what she was saying to me."

"When you glanced at it, what did you see?"

"Nothing!  That's what I'm trying to tell you!"

Skinner tried another angle.  "What did the paper feel like?  Did it feel like
it was a post-it note that had been folded stuck, or a sheet of notebook
paper, or good stationery?"

I gritted my teeth and ground out, "It felt like a piece of paper."  Then I
stopped.  That was wrong.  It didn't feel like a piece of paper.  "No.  It
felt
like, like an index card.  Only shiny.  You know, it had that almost slippery
feel to it, and it was stiff."  Leave it to Skinner to use one of the oldest
interrogation techniques on me--approach the question from multiple angles
until something shakes loose--I realized that it hadn't been quite as dark out
as I'd thought it had been, and that I'd seen and comprehended more in
those few short seconds before the shooting than I thought I had.  I, of all
people, should have known that the human memory often worked in the
most unusual ways.  "It was shaped oddly.  It was like a square or a
rectangle with something like a little point at the end."

The nurse chose that moment to reappear.  She looked disapprovingly at
Frohike as she said, "I thought you were just going to take a few seconds to
readjust the bear.  I really have to ask both of you to leave now.  The
patient needs her rest."

Frohike stroked the top of my head and gave me a small bow as he backed
away.  "I'll come back and visit later.  After you've had some more sleep." 
I smiled wanly at him.

Skinner nodded at me and said, "I'm glad you're feeling better."  There
were things that I needed to talk to him about, but I just wasn't feeling up
to
it.  

They were almost out the door before I remembered one detail about the
card Marita had given me.  I called out as loudly as I could without
disturbing any abdominal skin or muscles.  "It was a plant card.  My
grandmother used to have them.  They come with plants.  They tell you
how to take care of the plants.  One side has a picture of the plant and its
scientific name and the other side has the instructions on how to care for the
plant.  She must have written her information on the side with the
instructions, because when I glanced at it, it was folded with the picture
side facing out.  It was a poinsettia."

Skinner ignored the nurse who was trying to push him fully through the
door so that she could close it.  "Are you sure?"

"Yes.  Because while she was still talking and just as I heard the first
bullet,
I remember thinking that it was odd that she would have a card for a
poinsettia in the middle of July."

The nurse would tolerate no more of our disobedient behavior and she
closed the door firmly in Skinner's face.  At last, I had the solitude I'd
wanted so desperately.  Yet, now, alone for less than 30 seconds, I found
that having nothing other than my own thoughts to focus on was less than
enjoyable.  My conversation with Skinner and Frohike had cleared up my
memories as to how I'd wound up in the hospital once again, and I found
my mind wandering over in the direction of the newborn child in my room.

I couldn't yet think of him as *my* son.  Even though I'd carried him within
me for 8 months, I could remember only 6 of those months, and my
energies had been focused elsewhere during that time.  Unlike the other
expectant mothers that I encountered at my regular doctor's appointments,
my mind wasn't filled with thoughts of buying strollers and diapers, bottles
and toys.  I wanted to know who had taken my most personal longings and
so cruelly perverted them.  I wanted to find killers, of people and dreams,
and bring them to justice.  I had wanted so many things, most of which, I
feared I could never have.  Now I had a child to care for.  And I found that
I was both terrified and furious about it.  One glimpse of his eyes and I had
known that I would forever see not only Mulder, but myself, and most
importantly *us*, within our son.  I was terrified that I might never be able
to forgive my child for being a living reminder of all that lay unfinished
between Mulder and I, and I was furious at those who had made me feel
this way.  I was also furious because after six months of doggedly
following covert leads I was no closer to finding any responsible parties. 
And I knew needed to find his killer to put both our souls at ease, that only
then, would I be able to even begin to accept this baby as the miracle that
he was.  There had been mornings that I had woken up certain that he'd
been speaking to me in my dreams, urging me on.  It was unlike anything
I'd experienced with the death of my father, or Melissa or even Emily.  And
despite the absence of any evidence aside from the feelings these dreams
left me with, I was now convinced that my abductions and Mulder's death
were closely intertwined.  That was why I had taken the risk of meeting
Marita this last time.  It was time to move on with my life, and she was my
best hope, even if she didn't know it.  

==========

"Do you think maybe she dropped the card when the shooting started?  If
we went back and searched for it..."

Skinner cut him off.  "No.  I think she put the card in her pocket and
someone at some point removed it.  Even if she did drop it in the alley, it's
been cleaned up by now.  Whoever did this knew exactly what they were
looking for."

Frohike nodded sadly as he and Skinner walked over to where Byers was
patiently waiting for Frohike to emerge from Scully's room.  Frohike
looked at the two men and then asked. "Hey, did you guys notice
how...uninterested Agent Scully seemed in the baby?"

Byers nodded.  "I've read that that's not unusual for women who've had
their children born via surgical procedure rather than through traditional
childbirth.  They don't get to experience the climax of the pregnancy and
they don't have that sense of accomplishment when it's over that leads to
successful bonding."

Frohike shook his head.  "No.  It seemed like it was more than that. 
Almost like she wished she hadn't gone ahead with it....I wonder if once
she saw the baby, she started worrying that maybe she hadn't done the right
thing.  Maybe she's worried that she won't be able to handle a baby and a
job by herself after all.  And I mean, he does look a hell of lot like Mulder,
with those eyes and all.  Everytime she looks at him, she must see the ghost
of Mulder."

Byers nodded but said, "Perhaps.  But Agent Scully is a very capable
woman.  And everyone handles emotions differently.  Remember, everyone
was worried about her at Mulder's funeral too, but she was fine."

Frohike looked at him skeptically.  "Yeah.  Fine.  As long as you ignore
the fact that for two months afterwards, she threw up everytime someone
mentioned Mulder's name and she nearly bit my head off for calling her
'Scully'."  

Byers nodded thoughtfully, and chose not to remind Frohike that some
unfortunate women did suffer from nausea for more than just the first
trimester of pregnancy.  

Skinner didn't respond although he too had been the recipient of a polite but
stern request from her that she be addressed as Dana, Dr. Scully or Agent
Scully, but never just plain Scully.  Frohike nudged him and asked, "What
do you think?" just as Langly approached the trio.

"I assume from the presence of you gentlemen out here in the lobby that
you've already managed to get yourselves kicked out of Agent Scully's
room?"

Frohike shrugged.  "Nah.  The nurse wanted everyone out so that she could
get some rest before the doctor came to examine her."

Skinner acknowledged the younger man's arrival with a sharp nod of the
head and then turned back to Frohike.  "I think that I agree with Agent
Scully that I would like to know why someone had an instruction card for a
poinsettia in the middle of July."

Langly looked at him in confusion.  "An instruction card?  All you need to
do is wait until most of the red leaves fall off and it looks like it's dead,
then you stick it in a dark closet for ten months.  Water it every now and
then.  Shortly before Halloween, you start putting it in the light for a few
hours every day.  By Thanksgiving, it should be all red again.  At least,
that's how my mom always did it."

Frohike's eyes widened.  "Holy friggin' cow!"  He looked at the three men
before him.  "I think the lead Agent Scully got was the card itself.  I think
they were trying to tell her that Mulder's not dead."

Skinner shook his head energetically.  "Impossible.  The autopsy was
performed by a trusted medical examiner.  The body was personally
identified not only by me but by his mother.  And Agent Scully had an
opportunity to look at the autopsy photos and notes.  Which featured
enough little known data about scars and such on Mulder's body that she
was fully satisfied that the man we found was in fact, Agent Mulder.  

But I think you might be onto something when you said that the card itself
is important."  He turned to Langly, "You said you have to hide the plant in
a dark closet until shortly before Halloween?"

Langly nodded and Skinner continued.  "What if the card was a warning to
Agent Scully.  That she needed to go into hiding until after she'd had the
baby.  It's July now.  Halloween is still three months away.  Or maybe that
both she and the baby need to go into hiding until then?  Or maybe that
something big is going to happen around Christmastime?"

Frohike huffed in exasperation.  "There're a million things that the card
could've meant.  Or Agent Scully could be right and maybe there was
something else important written on the other side.  Since we don't know, I
think the best thing we can do is get Agent Scully out of this hospital and
out of town as fast as we can.  Get her set up someplace outside of D.C.
for a few months.  Let her bond with the baby while we try and figure this
out."

Skinner nodded.  "I doubt she'll be willing to go far, but do what you can. 
In the meantime, I'm going to try and find Ms. Covarrubias.  I have a
feeling that she may know a whole lot more than anyone suspects and that
she may be more important to all of this than any of us thought."

The End

AUTHOR'S NOTES:	No, there's no sequel planned.  Open endings are all
I know how to do.  Resolutions just don't seem to come my way.  But if it
makes you feel better, know that when I wrote it, I wrote it with the belief
that yes, Mulder is still alive.  I don't know how, or why, but the
Consortium faked his death--they need him alive, but away from Scully,
and they need the baby she's just had.  Again, I don't know why.  Sorry.  Is
Marita important?  Who knows.  She's just the messenger for now.  Will
Scully bond with her new son?  Not for quite a while--everyone will be
worried about them before she begins to show interest in him.  And his
name is Dylan.  Thanks for reading and don't forget, sending feedback
leads to better orgasms.  nikoleaw@aol.com