From: attalanta@aol.com
Date: 1 Nov 2003 10:31:39 -0800
Subject: [all-xf] NEW: Song of Experience (17/?) by Christy
Source: atxc

Title: Song of Experience (17/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *

Offices of Mary Speake, MD
Washington, DC


Mulder pushed through the door to the doctor's office in an angry
haze.  "Where's Dr. Speake?" he demanded as the receptionist craned
her neck to see who  was disturbing the peaceful pregnancy-pastel of
her waiting room.

"I need to see Dr. Speake."

"Mr. Mulder, correct?" the receptionist said.

"Yes. I need--"

"I know what you need," the receptionist told him a little snappily.
"I'm the  person you spoke to on the phone. I'll let the doctor know
you're here."

"Thank you," he said meekly, suddenly embarrassed as he glanced around
the  waiting room, taking in shocked patients in various stages of
pregnancy and a  handful of well-mannered men with overprotective,
disapproving looks. Mulder  slinked down into one of the plush chairs,
riveting his gaze on an out-of-date  issue of Working Mother
magazine.

Mulder paged through the magazine, not paying attention to its
contents until  he saw a young red-headed boy in a photograph that
accompanied the article.  The child made him think of Will, whose
spring vacation had ended and whom  Mulder had had to force back to
school that morning. And Mulder had almost given  in to Will's
persistent arguments; as much as he knew that it was doing Will 
absolutely no good to sit around the house all day with his father,
Mulder  couldn't help but worry about his son when he dropped him off
at school that  morning. Of course Will needed to get back to his old
routine, not dwell on his  mother's disappearance...

But was Will safe? Mulder had wondered as he stood outside his son's
bedroom  door that morning, one hand on the doorknob. Was someone
going to come for  him, too? If they had taken Scully from Quantico,
kidnapping a seven year old  from an unsecured school would provide
little challenge.

Then again, if someone -- or several someones -- really wanted his
son,  Mulder knew that, as an unarmed, forty-something ex-federal
agent, he could offer  little resistance. Still, it had been difficult
to watch Will join the crowd of  children trailing into the school.
Mulder had squinted at the overstuffed  bulk of Will's backpack before
realizing that, along with his lunch and  schoolwork, it contained his
stuffed dog, Pup.

"Mr. Mulder?" the receptionist called.

Mulder rose and followed her into the office, accompanied by the
pissed-off  stares of the other waiting-room occupants.

The receptionist showed him to a small office at the end of the hall,
where  Dr. Speake was standing behind her desk, sorting through the
contents of a file  cabinet.

"Mr. Mulder," she said when she turned to greet him. "Have a seat."

Mulder nearly told her that he'd rather stand, but then figured that
he  needed to get on this woman's good side if he was going to get her
cooperation, so  he offered her a stiff smile and sat down.

"Now," Dr. Speake said, taking her own seat, "Why don't you tell me
why it  was so important that you see me today."

"I need to know the results of my wife's amniocentesis."

Dr. Speake sighed. "My receptionist told me that she explained our
office's  disclosure policies to you on the phone."

Mulder nodded. On Saturday afternoon he and Will arrived home from the
grocery store to a blinking light on the answering machine, notice
from Dr. Speake's  office that they'd received the results of Scully's
amnio and that she should  call the office on Monday. On the phone
this morning the receptionist had  told him about the office's policy
for third-party notification: there was to be  no notification, not
even to the baby's father, without written permission  from the
patient. A necessary precaution, the receptionist had apologized,
after  a rather nasty lawsuit several years back. Of course, most
patients don't  bother with such a form, the receptionist explained,
electing instead to bring  their partners with them to learn the news
firsthand.

"But your receptionist didn't give me a chance to explain," Mulder
told the  doctor. "My wife is missing. She's gone. You know her
history, Dr. Speake. If  this has anything to do--"

"Gone?" the doctor asked. "Gone where?"

"I don't know," he said. "The FBI is trying to find her, but... She 
disappeared from her office a week ago." A week, he repeated mentally;
they were  counting in weeks now, not in days. Scully had been gone
for a week. Mulder  swallowed hard.

"I need to see the results of that test," he insisted. "And not just
to know  if the baby's okay. If there's something wrong, something...
different about  the pregnancy, I need to know that. If it could help
us find her..."

Dr. Speake was quiet for a minute then, staring at the manila folder
lying  atop the stack of papers on her desk. "What do you mean?" she
asked finally.

"You know Dana's history," Mulder explained. "You were her doctor for
part of  her pregnancy with our son. Surely you remember the scare she
had with that  woman who switched her medication."

"I remember that those were vitamins, Mr. Mulder," Dr. Speake stated.
"Nothing to worry about."

He raged inside just remembering that time, standing outside the exam
room,  waiting, he was certain, for Scully's bad news. "There was
*everything* to  worry about," he seethed. "If someone had switched
your medication, even to  vitamins, would you accept it without
explanation?"

Dr. Speake sighed, and Mulder watched her trace her fingernail down
the edge  of the folder. She looked up at him, squinting, evaluating.
"I suppose you  could get a search warrant," she said, "if there is
indeed an official  investigation into Dana's disappearance."

Shit, Mulder thought. He hoped it wouldn't come to that. This was his
wife  and his child, damnit; he didn't want to learn their fate from
the mouth of  Agent Doggett, who would likely be serving the warrant.
Or worse yet, he thought,  from Agent Bradley's smug, ass-kissing
mouth.

"I could," he said nonetheless, hoping the doctor wouldn't call his
bluff.

Dr. Speake nodded. "Officially, Mulder, I can't give you any
information  without Dana's signature on that third-party consent
form."

Mulder opened his mouth to object, but Dr. Speake beat him to it. "But
unofficially," she added. "Unofficially, if I happen to leave a file
on my desk and  have to leave the room to attend to a patient... Well,
I suppose that's a  different story, now isn't it?"

She rose from her chair, flicking the top file toward the center of
her desk.  The doctor winked at him, then left her office, shutting
the door behind her.

Mulder scrambled for the file, knocking down one of the picture frames
on the  doctor's desk in his hurry. He checked the side tab for
Scully's name, then  flipped it open. He scanned the top page.


Patient's Name: Scully, Dana K
Physician: Mary Speake, MD
Sample: Amnion
Reason for Referral: Maternal age > 35 years
Projected Due Date: August 14, 2009
Fetal Chromosomal Analysis: 46,XX
Note: Fetus appears to exhibit no genetic abnormalities; see attached
karyotype.


Mulder sighed with relief as he leaned back in his chair, the folder
clutched  to his chest. He didn't need Scully's medical background --
or the attached  image of the baby's chromosomes -- to understand that
his daughter was healthy.

* * * * *

St. Joseph's Church
Georgetown


"Mulder? Fox Mulder, is that you?"

Both Mulder and Will turned back toward the church doors, the wind
whirling  around them. Mulder pulled his jacket tight around his
middle, then checked to  make sure Will was all zipped up. He scanned
the crowd and finally spotted a  familiar figure hurrying toward
them.

"Mulder," Jerry said as he reached them. "You go to mass here? I
didn't even  know you were Catholic."

"I'm not Catholic," Mulder told his co-worker, the same answer he'd
given  Will when he'd asked could Mulder please take him to church
that afternoon. But  Will had insisted and, like so many things
recently, Mulder had had a difficult  time refusing his son. Plus,
although he'd never been to church with Scully,  somehow sitting in
the back pew of St. Joseph's made him feel closer to her. 
"My wife--"

"Yeah," Jerry said, offering him a sympathetic smile. "I heard about
your  wife. Dave told us -- well, he said you wouldn't be in the
office for a while.  How's the investigation going? Anything turn
up?"

Mulder narrowed his eyes at the man. Jerry Sanders seemed like a good
investigator, a man Mulder could trust. But he was taking no chances
these days.  Despite the fact that Mulder knew that both Doggett and
Skinner had given him a  talking-to, Agent Bradley's careless
accusations still echoed in Mulder's ears.

"Slow," Mulder said truthfully. In fact, they'd uncovered nothing new
since  Skinner discovered Scully's necklace.

"How are you doing?"

"We're fine," Mulder told him, and it was then that Jerry noticed Will
standing beside Mulder, holding tightly onto his father's hand, as he
had throughout  the mass. Will had let go of him just three times,
once to shake hands near  the end of the service, again to slip his
jacket back on, and the final time to  dip his hand into the cup of
holy water on the way out.

"Your son, Mulder?" Jerry asked.

He nodded. "This is Will."

"Hello, Will."

"Hi," he said, looking Jerry up and down with a critical eye. Jerry
offered  the boy his hand and Will shook it tentatively. Then the
three of them made  their way slowly through the parking lot. "I'm
Jerry, Will. I work with your  dad."

Solemn, Will nodded as his hand slipped from Jerry's grasp, fingers
trailing  slowly behind. They paused at Mulder's car, and Will went
around to the  passenger's side. Mulder unlocked the door and Will
climbed in, pressing his face  against the glass to watch the other
parishioners strolling through the parking  lot. Mulder turned back to
Jerry.

Jerry stared into the car at Will and jiggled his keys anxiously. "Let
me  know if you need anything, Mulder," he said finally. "An extra
pair of eyes to  poke around for you, an understanding ear to bend."
He nodded at Will. "Even a  babysitter. My niece is great with kids;
she watches her unruly younger  brothers after school, and she takes
care of Frieda when I'm out of town."

Mulder chuckled, knowing that Jerry loved Frieda, his spoiled little
cocker  spaniel, with all the passion of a dedicated parent. The guy
kept a picture of  the dog on his desk at work, for pity's sake.
"Thanks, Jerry."

"Really, Mulder," he insisted. "Ten to one we won't hear from you
until  you're back in the office, but I want you to know that I'm
there if you need  anything."

Mulder looked over at Will, who was watching them through the
half-fogged-up  car window. "Yeah," he said.

Jerry clasped Mulder on the shoulder. "Really, man, give me a call.
I'm not a  half-bad listener, and I've got a little experience in this
particular  field."

"Huh?" And what field was that? Mulder wondered. The field of 
alien/government abductions of pregnant FBI agents?

Jerry dug his hands in his pockets and concentrated on a lone
dandelion  pushing valiantly through a crack in the asphalt,
persisting despite the cold  spring wind whipping across the church
parking lot.

"I thought you knew." He shrugged. "It happened a couple years back.
My, uh,  my fiance disappeared a week before we were supposed to get
married.  Carjacking. The guy knocked her unconscious, took her
brand-new Miata -- it was a  wedding present from her parents -- and
left her there to die.

"She came through it okay, physically. But we-- we never made it down
the  aisle. Stuff like that, it changes you, ya know? Both of you."

Mulder nodded; he knew. God, he knew. He wondered if every one of
Dave's  recruits had a sob story to tell, a missing child or spouse or
sibling. Samantha's  smiling face came to mind, and Mulder wondered
whether he was the only one  whose story didn't have a happy ending.

"I'm sorry," Mulder said, and Jerry nodded, then patted Mulder's
shoulder  before heading off to his own car.

Mulder got in the car and buckled his seatbelt. He glanced over to
check  Will's belt, which still hung from the side of the door.
"Seatbelt, Will," Mulder  reminded his son. But Will just stared out
his window, the blank look on his  face reflected back in the glass.
"Will?"

Will jumped at Mulder's touch on his arm. "Seatbelt," he repeated, and
the  boy promptly buckled up.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?" Mulder said, slipping his key into the ignition.

"That man out there?"

"What about him?"

"He feels sorry for us," Will said.

* * * * *

Will frowned at the reflection in the mirror. Then he opened his
mouth,  carefully probing his loose tooth with his tongue. Still a
stubborn bit of sinew  anchored it to his gums, but now he could twist
it a full 180 degrees around.  Will did that now, pressing the smooth
backside of his tooth against the inside  of his lip.

After slipping his toothbrush into its holder, Will played with his
loose  tooth for another minute, then flopped back onto the toilet
seat, dejected. He  was the only kid in his second grade class who had
yet to lose a tooth. Joy had  lost three so far, two on the bottom and
one on top, and she had still another  that was loose. Just keep
poking at it, Joy had advised during recess the  previous week. It'll
fall out eventually.

But Will wasn't so sure. It had been loose for weeks, since even
before his  mom had disappeared. She'd told him just to stop playing
with it and pull it  out already. She'd even hinted at a special
pillow bought just for the occasion,  with a pocket for the tooth, to
be replaced with money from the tooth fairy  while Will slept.

Will knew there was no tooth fairy; he wasn't a baby. No tooth fairy,
no  Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny. He didn't admit these things to his
mom and dad, of  course, but he knew. His parents liked to pretend
that he was still a child in  that way, that he still believed in such
things, still had a little kid's  view of the world, all safe and good
and ripe with happy endings.

Will wondered whether he'd ever truly believed those things.

With a sigh, he stood and went back over to the mirror, opening his
mouth as  he again tongued his tooth. He pressed up against the
bathroom counter, his  face close to the mirror. Will gave one final
push at his tooth and felt  something pop. He gasped and pulled back
from the mirror in time to see his tooth  drop out of his mouth and
clamber into the sink. Will smacked his palm against  the wet
porcelain, trapping the tooth away from the drain.

"Dad!" he called, gathering the small white tooth in his fist. The
bathroom  door banged open as he ran into the hall. "Dad!"

His dad was upstairs in a flash, taking the steps two at a time and
sucking  in a deep breath as he nearly collided with Will in the hall.
"What's wrong?"  he demanded. "What is it?"

Will offered his dad a proud grin and his right fist, which his dad
peeled  open to reveal a milky white tooth and a speck of bright red
blood.

His dad sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Don't scare me like
that,"  he scolded even as his fingers encircled Will's wrist and
gently drew his hand  closer. "Let's see." He tipped Will's chin up
with his index finger.

Will obliged, stretching his mouth open all the way and noticing for
the  first time the taste of blood, ripe and metallic, on his tongue.

"Well, it's bleeding," his dad said, guiding Will into the bathroom,
where he  pulled a couple squares of toilet paper off the roll and
knelt down in front  of Will. Tenderly he pressed the tissue against
his son's gums. Will whimpered  and pulled back at the contact.

"Sorry," his dad said as he mopped up the blood. He tossed the tissue
into  the trash and filled a cup with water. "Swish, don't drink," he
advised. After  passing his dad the tiny tooth, Will obeyed, repeating
the action until the  taste of blood disappeared. He filled up the cup
and drank it down, then turned  to his dad, who was staring at the
small tooth cradled in his hand. Will  pressed up next to him and
looked at the tooth, dried blood where the root would be.

"What do I do with it?" Will asked. 

"I used to put mine under my pillow," his dad said.

"Mom told me she had a special pillow," Will told him. "Do you
know...?"

His dad shook his head. "She never showed me."

They stood there together, staring at the tooth. Though his dad had
said  nothing, Will could feel the righteous anger radiating off him.

"It's okay," Will said. "I can put it under my pillow. The Tooth
Fairy'll  know where it is." Will held out his hand, palm up, and
waited until his dad  dropped the tooth onto it.

"I'll look for it," his dad promised. "Maybe in her dresser..." And
then he  disappeared into their bedroom. Will followed, stomach
churning, though whether  from unease or the blood he had swallowed,
he did not know.

He stood in the doorway and watched as his dad slid open the first of
his  mom's dresser drawers. The smell of her, perfume and soap and
something else,  filtered through the room, and his dad's intake of
breath was so sharp that Will  could hear it from across the room.
Will watched as his dad sorted through the  contents of the drawer,
then went on to the next and then the next. Each  drawer he opened was
like a slap in the face, like a violation of his mom's 
privacy.

Her privacy had always been important to her; even as a child Will had
always  known that and, from the look on his face as he sifted through
her things, so  had his dad. It had not taken Will long to learn that
there were things  better left unasked about; even though his mom had
never denied answers to any of  his questions, Will could not bear the
pain he knew would result from certain  inquiries.

"It's okay," Will assured his dad. "I'll just put it under my pillow.
I have  lots of other teeth; I'll use the special pillow next time."

His dad turned to him, dejected among the few pieces of Will's mom's
wardrobe  that had slipped to the carpet at his feet. "I'm sorry,
Will," he said. "I'm  sorry."

"It's okay," Will repeated. He bent and picked up a black, faded
t-shirt,  worn soft from overwashing, and held it out to his dad even
though what he really  wanted to do was slide it over his head and
close his eyes and pretend that  it was his mom's arms and not her
shirt that was surrounding him.

"Next time," his dad agreed as he took the shirt from Will. "Mom'll
know  where it is."

* * * * *

End Part 17. Continued in Part 18.

Title: Song of Experience (18/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown


"Free as a bird,
It's the next best thing to be
Free as a bird.
Home, home and dry,
Like a homing bird I fly,
As a bird on wings.
Whatever happened to
The life that we once knew?
Can we really live without each other?"

 
Mulder closed the door to the study, only half-succeeding in drowning
out the  music coming from his son's bedroom. Will and Joy had
discovered Scully's CD  collection, and for the last two and a half
hours it had been all Beatles, all  the time: Let It Be. Here Comes
the Sun. I Am the Walrus. And, the last time  he'd stopped in to check
on them, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

Mulder hadn't been back in since.

He sighed and stared at the inside of the door, willing himself not to
hear  the music, not to remember...

They'd been driving home from dinner on their last day together in
North  Carolina, the radio playing through an all-Beatles hour in an
attempt to thread  some variety into the other stations, which were
broadcasting nothing but  Christmas music. Scully had found the
station several days earlier, after they'd  suffered through yet
another warbly version of Silent Night.

"What's your favorite?" Scully had asked him, turning to face him, the
back  of her head resting against the side window, her hair bright
against the dusky  twilight.

"My favorite?"

She had nodded toward the car radio. "Favorite Beatles song."

A slow grin had slipped onto his face. "Guess."

Her own smile grew and she studied him, eyes twinkling as she worked
her way  up and down his body as if seeing him for the first time.
"Nothing from the  early years," she said finally. "Something
post-rag-tops and matching suits,  something later and more
rebellious..."

She gave him a wicked grin. "Fool on the Hill?"

"Ha, ha."

"Okay... Revolution?"

"'You say you want a revolution? Well, you know; We all want to change
the  world'?" He shook his head.

Scully had shrugged. "What, then?"

"Norwegian Wood."

She crooked an eyebrow at him. "Really?"

"'I once had a girl. Or should I say, she once had me,'" He reached
across  the front seat and set his hand atop hers.

The smile on her face had been so beautiful, so open and unencumbered.
And  they had had an amazing last night there together, walking on the
beach, shoes  dangling from their entwined hands as the cool surf
lapped at their bare  ankles. They had found a soft spot in the sand,
used Mulder's jacket as a blanket,  and made love under the stars, the
pounding waves rumbling in counterpoint.

Now Mulder wished he had taken in every detail from that day, bottled
it up  safely in his supposed photographic memory for later. But he
had never dreamed  he would need it.

Suddenly Mulder realized that the house was quiet. No blaring music,
no  off-key voices singing the wrong lyrics, nothing.

"Hey, Will," Mulder called as he walked down the hall. He pushed on
the  half-open door to his son's room. "Will? Joy?"

They were sitting on Will's bed. Their legs were crossed beneath them,
their  hands were clasped, and tears were streaming down Will's
cheeks.

"Will?"

Will's eyes flew open and he blinked at his father, bringing one hand
up to  wipe at his tears. "Mom," he choked out. "Mommy..."

"Will, what's going on?"

But Will just cried. Mulder turned to Joy, setting his hand on the
girl's  shoulder. "What is it? What happened, Joy?"

Her eyes were wide and scared, shiny behind her glasses, and it was
then that  Mulder realized that she, too, was crying. "Joy?"

"We, um, we were trying -- well, we were practicing. I was trying to
focus on  something, on some faraway feelings, and Will was helping
me. And he said,  'Why don't we focus on my mom?' So we did..."

"You what?"

"But it wasn't working," Joy explained. "So Will said, maybe we could
focus  on his sister instead. Maybe we could feel her.

"And we did."

"I don't understand," Mulder told her. "What did you feel?"

"Mommy's hurt," Will said. "Like she's sleeping, but there are tubes
and  machines. And-- and, she's tied to the table. A hospital table."

Mulder's voice was barely above a whisper. "Like an operating room?"

Will nodded.

"Did you see anything else?" Mulder prompted as Will crawled onto his
lap and  huddled against Mulder's chest.

Will nodded. "There was an address. On the door to the building.
Inside it  looked like a hospital but the outside was like a
warehouse. Joy saw it, too. It  was 6168 Glendale."

"That's all? No city or zip code?"

"No," Will said as he buried his face against his father. "I'm sorry,
Dad."

"No," Mulder insisted as he stroked Will's back. "No, don't be sorry.
God,  Will..." He turned to Joy, who was watching their interaction
with curiosity.  "Joy, I need you to go downstairs, into the kitchen,
and bring me the phone  book. It's right next to the phone."

"Okay," Joy said, then ran off.

"Sshh. It's going to be okay. We'll find Mom now," he told Will. "I'll
find  her. I promise."

Will nodded and sniffled.

Then Joy was back, and she dropped the heavy phone book onto the bed
beside  Mulder. With one hand still on Will, he flipped through the
book until he found  the street and zip code listings. Of course, he
thought as he sifted through  the pages, 6168 Glendale might not even
be in DC; whoever had taken Scully  could have moved her anywhere by
now. But if they hadn't...

Mulder's heart caught in his throat when he found the listing:
Glendale  Avenue, addresses 4000-6999, had a zip code Mulder
recognized: downtown DC. He  paged over to the map then, tearing it as
he spread it over the bed and traced  down to find the street.

"Will, come on." Mulder extracted his son from his side. He thought
fast,  remembering their neighbors, the Gordons, an older couple whom
Scully had used as  emergency babysitters over the years. "I'm going
to this address, and you and  Joy are going next door to stay with the
Gordons."

Mulder braced himself for an argument, but Will just nodded as he went
over  to his closet for his sneakers and slowly, as if in a trance,
laced them.  Mulder shepherded the kids downstairs, pausing to grab
his keys and cell phone.

"I have my cell phone, Will, so if you feel anything else, you call
me, okay?  As soon as you feel it, even if you're not sure. You, too,
Joy." He leveled  the girl with a serious gaze.

"Okay," they echoed as Mulder reached up to knock on their neighbors'
door,  praying that someone was home.

When Mrs. Gordon answered the door, Mulder mumbled a hasty explanation
about  a family emergency that he would explain later if she could
just...

"Of course," the older woman told him, and Mulder bent down to give
Will a  fierce hug before he and Joy slipped past Mrs. Gordon and into
the house.

"If you need to, you can call Dana's mother and she'll come and get
them,"  Mulder told her. "Will knows the number. I'm not sure when--"

"We'll be fine, Mulder," Mrs. Gordon assured him.

So Mulder thanked her and, keys in hand, dashed back to his own
garage. But  instead of heading for the car, he went back into the
house, his mind racing.  He should've told them to call Joy's mother
and let her know where they were. I  should've reminded Will to call
me if he feels anything else, Mulder thought  as he took the stairs
two at a time. In the study, he went to the desk and  searched the top
drawer. Finally he found the key, then dashed over to the closet 
and pulled the door open, reaching blindly for the lockbox he knew was
shoved  in the back corner.

I should've told Will that I love him, Mulder thought as he worked the
lock  and slipped Scully's gun into the waistband of his jeans.

* * * * *

6168 Glendale
Washington, DC

If what Will saw was anything like the scene that lay before him now,
Mulder  figured they were in for years of therapy bills.

It was indeed a warehouse, old and rundown like the rest of the
neighborhood,  inconspicuous except for the shiny new key-card scanner
mounted near the side  door. Mulder squinted at the tiny plastic box,
at the bright pink "P" printed  where a company name might have been.
The symbol should have meant something  to him, Mulder knew. It rang a
vague sort of bell, and he figured that he must  have seen it
somewhere in the mountains of files and field reports he'd waded 
through since Scully's disappearance.

Mulder was stepping away from the door in search of a less-secured
entrance  when he noticed that, while the door was shut, the lock had
already been  busted. He gave an experimental push on the door, and it
swung open in invitation.  One hand clutching the unfamiliar weight of
Scully's Sig, Mulder entered the  warehouse.

The building consisted of a single large room painted in sterile,
shiny  white. A metal table sat in the center of the room, a small
mound draped in a white  sheet lying atop the table. Heart in his
throat, Mulder ran to the table and  yanked off the sheet.

His first thought was that she looked different. Scully was nude, pale
and  goosefleshed on the cold metal table. It wasn't just the dramatic
rise of her  belly that was new but the look on her face, peaceful and
serene. Too peaceful.

Mulder jammed the gun into the waistband of his jeans and fumbled for
Scully's wrist, feeling desperately for a pulse. But his fingers
encountered only the  thin plastic band anchoring her wrist to the
table. Mulder grabbed a scalpel  from the metal cart at the foot of
Scully's bed and snapped her binds. His  fingers trembled as they
traveled up to her neck, searching for her jugular with 
the back of his hand.

The pulse there was strong and sure, and Mulder exhaled a breath he
hadn't  realized he'd been holding. She was alive. Whatever had
happened to her,  whatever they'd done, once again she had survived.
He sent a silent prayer up to  Scully's and Will's God, not yet ready
to claim Him as his own.

Then Mulder noticed the IV that fed the inside of Scully's right elbow
and,  without a second thought, yanked the line out. Blood ran from
the wound,  wetting her arm and his hand, and dripping onto the floor.
Mulder grabbed at the  sheet that had covered her, which he'd dropped
on the floor. He twisted it around  Scully's elbow, staunching the
flow of blood.

Bending over her, one arm under her shoulders, Mulder held Scully's
upper  body against his. Her body was heavy, limp. Dead weight, his
mind supplied, and  Mulder had to feel for her pulse again to reassure
himself. He ran his hand  over the back of her neck, searching for the
slim scar, then turned her upper  body off the table far enough for
him to trace the familiar circle tattooed on  her back.

"Scully," he wailed into her ear, his mouth pressing into her hair and
tasting it, dirt and oil and violation thick on his tongue. "Oh,
Scully."

Mulder trailed a shaking hand down Scully's cheek and over her arm,
coming to  rest on her belly. He pressed desperately against it,
feeling for signs of  life. Give me one kick, he begged his daughter.
Just one tiny ripple. But he  felt nothing.

He had not felt the baby kick before Scully had disappeared, though
she  claimed to have felt a flutter more than once. Then, as now, he
had pressed his  hand against her, seeking his daughter but finding
nothing. Should a baby be  moving by now? Mulder could not remember
and his ignorance only escalated the  jittery feeling in his gut.

A wail of sirens jolted Mulder out of his reverie, and he rearranged
the  bloody sheet to cover Scully's torso. He shielded his own body
over the sheet,  feeling her slow, faint heartbeat against his own
chest.

Lights flashed blue and red against the whitewashed walls, and a dozen
footsteps clomped on the cement floor. Somewhere, brakes squealed and
guns cocked,  but the only sound that mattered to Mulder was the
shallow expiration of air  issuing from Scully's mouth and into his
ear.

"FBI," someone called. "FBI! Freeze!"

"I'm her husband," Mulder yelled desperately.

The next voice was softer but no less insistent. "Step away from the
body,  sir."

"She's not a body; she's my wife," Mulder called out. "She's--" A hand
on  Mulder's shoulder caused him to whirl around, only to see John
Doggett's strained  face.

"We've got her," Doggett said. "She's safe. Let the paramedics do
their job,  Mulder." 

For the first time Mulder noticed the EMTs at his side with a
stretcher and  their plastic medic boxes. They glanced uncertainly
between Mulder and Scully  and Doggett, and Mulder allowed Doggett to
guide him back, away from the table.

"I told you to stay put," Doggett barked as both men watched the
medics  assess Scully. Mulder pulled his arm from the agent's grip,
ignoring the order,  just as he had when Doggett had first issued it
during Mulder's phone call on the  drive over to the warehouse.

Mulder stepped around Doggett, but it was no use. Scully had
disappeared in  the huddle of busy EMTs. Only her bare white feet were
visible at the end of  the table, her toenails still the same shade of
pale pink she'd painted them on  Easter morning.

"Mulder, there's blood on your hands." From somewhere Doggett produced
a  clean towel, which he handed to Mulder. Eyes still on Scully,
Mulder barely  bothered to wipe at his hands. The blood was already
drying, and he succeeded only  in smearing it up his arms and across
the towel.

"She's pregnant," he announced unnecessarily as the paramedics removed
the  sheet Mulder had placed over her, baring Scully's nude form.
"She's pregnant."

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC

"Dana Scully?" the doctor called as he stepped into the ER waiting
room. "Is  someone here for Dana Scully?"

"Here," Mulder called out, slipping away from Will to stand.

"Ms. Scully's family?" the young doctor asked as he stopped in front
of the  bank of chairs where Mulder, Maggie, and Will sat.

"Yes," Mulder said, shaking the doctor's offered hand. "What happened
to  Scuh-- to my wife?"

The doctor eyed Mulder's hands, dried blood still caked under his
fingernails  and in the folds of his knuckles. Quickly Mulder shoved
his hands in the  pockets of his jeans, though this did nothing to
hide the dark brown smears on the  sleeves of his shirt.

The doctor looked over at Will and Maggie, then back at Mulder. "If I
could  talk to you alone first, sir?"

Mulder looked back at Maggie, who nodded. "Go on," she urged. "I'll
stay with  Will." Mulder nodded back at her and followed the doctor
through a door and  into a smaller waiting room. He took one of the
chairs scattered around the  tiny table and waited while the doctor
closed the door and joined him.

"Mr. Scully--"

"It's Mulder," he corrected.

"Mr. Mulder. I'm John Hamilton, and I'm one of the ER docs treating
your  wife. First, let me tell you that she's not critical."

Mulder fought a sigh of relief. This was good news, but he wasn't
going to  believe anything he hadn't see with his own two eyes. "Is
she awake? Can I see  her?"

"She's still unconscious. But we expect her to wake soon," the doctor
said.  "It's the drugs, Mr. Mulder. She's been given something, so--"

"Drugs?" Mulder repeated as his stomach dropped to his feet. "She's 
pregnant," he informed the doctor, though at this point in Scully's
pregnancy, the man  didn't need four years of med school or Mulder's
fumbling hints to determine  this. "Is the baby--?"

Dr. Hamilton nodded. "Yes, we're aware of her pregnancy," he said.
"How far  along is she?"

"Five months," Mulder told him. "Five months and a half months."

"Any complications?"

"No," Mulder said. "Nothing. She's been fine."

The doctor nodded. "Is this her first pregnancy?"

Mulder shook his head. "Second."

"Any complications with the first?"

"Uh, yeah," Mulder said, scrubbing a hand through his ragged hair.
"Last time  she had a, uh, an abruption. Where the placenta pulls away
from the uterus?"

"Mm hm," Dr. Hamilton said, pausing to make a note on a pad of paper
he  produced from the pocket of his white coat. "Any health
problems?"

Mulder shook his head.

"Okay, and who--?"

"No, she had cancer," Mulder corrected, wondering if this mattered.

It must have, because the doctor's head jerked up. He pinned Mulder
with a  concerned gaze. "Cancer? When?"

"Uh, ten... no, twelve," he calculated. "Twelve years ago. In '97."

"That was before her other pregnancy?"

Mulder nodded.

"And do you know what kind of cancer?"

"It was a nasopharyngeal tumor," he said, his hand going automatically
to the  bridge of his nose as the image of a long-ago x-ray flashed in
his mind. "She  had radiation and chemo."

"She's been in remission since then?" the doctor asked.

Mulder nodded.

"I'll need the name of her doctors," Dr. Hamilton said. "Her OB and
her  oncologist, and anyone else she sees."

"I'm not sure about her oncologist, but her obstetrician is Mary
Speake."

"Yes," the doctor said. "I know Dr. Speake; I'm sure she'll want to
take a  look at your wife as well. When was Dana's last check-up, do
you know?"

"Uh, it's been a few weeks," Mulder said, thinking back. His mind was
fuzzy  with missing sleep and stress, though, and he couldn't remember
the exact date.  "She missed an appointment yesterday."

"Mm," the doctor said, eyebrows raised as he scribbled something else
down.  Then he set the pad on the table and looked up at Mulder. "I
have an awkward  question for you, Mr. Mulder," he said, "but I have
to ask."

Mulder nodded.

"Have you had intercourse with your wife in the past 72 hours?"

"What?" Mulder asked. "She's been missing for--"

"Specifically," Dr. Hamilton continued, "have you had intercourse
using a  condom?"

"But she's pregnant. Why would..." Then Mulder's heart rose up in his
throat  as understanding sunk in. "What are you trying to say?"

"Mr. Mulder, on our physical exam of your wife, we noticed vaginal
latex  irritations. We assumed that she'd just had an exam, but if you
say--"

"No," Mulder told him, feeling pulse pound between his eyes. "No, she
hasn't.  Does that mean... Have you--?"

The doctor laid a gentle hand on Mulder's where it rested on the
table.  "There's no indication that she's been assaulted," he assured
him, and Mulder  relaxed against the back of the chair.

"What there is evidence of, however, is that someone's performed
several...  medical procedures on your wife."

His disgust returned. "Medical procedures?"

Dr. Hamilton nodded. "She appears to have had an amniocentesis in the
past 24  to 36 hours, as well as the internal examination and an
ultrasound; we found  a spot of the dried ultrasound gel near her hip
and, as I mentioned, the  remnants of lubricant from an internal exam.
We took samples of both and handed  them over to the FBI agent who
brought her in. John Doggett, I believe his name  was."

Mulder nodded. He doubted they'd find anything from a couple of spots
of  medical gel, but it was procedure. Doggett was faithful to
procedure, unlike  Mulder, who'd already been scolded for screwing up
the agent's crime scene by  letting emotion override training when
he'd found his wife unconscious and strapped  to a hospital gurney.

"Despite that," Dr. Hamilton continued, "Dana is in fairly good shape.
 She  does have a broken wrist. But it's a clean break, probably
caused in part by a  vitamin deficiency. That isn't uncommon in
pregnant women, especially if  they're malnourished, which is probably
the case with Dana, considering all she's  been through. Nothing to
worry about, though; it should heal well."

"And the baby?"

"The baby is stable," the doctor said. "The fetal heart rate is just a
bit  low, but so is your wife's, so we're not overly concerned about
that just yet.  We believe it's a side effect of the drugs."

"The drugs," Mulder repeated. "What will the drugs do to the baby?"

The doctor sighed. "Of course, it's never recommended to give a
pregnant  woman drugs -- any drugs -- unless it's absolutely
necessary. However, everything  that's shown up on her tox screen so
far -- sedatives, mostly -- are safe for  a fetus. All of them are in
the formulary for treating a pregnant patient."

Mulder nodded, relieved.

"The only thing we're concerned about right now, Mr. Mulder, is the
level of  your wife's amniotic fluid," the doctor explained. "As I
said, the baby's  condition is stable, but whoever performed the
amniocentesis removed a rather  significant amount of fluid."

"What does that mean?" Mulder asked.

"Technically, the baby is suffering from something called
oligohydramnios:  not enough amniotic fluid. This could have long-term
complications, but we  expect the level will build back up when we get
Dana properly hydrated again."

"And if it doesn't?" he pressed.

"Let's not borrow trouble," Dr. Hamilton suggested. "Unless Dr. Speake
has  mentioned problems with low levels of amniotic fluid--" Mulder
shook his head.  "--then given the proper nutrients, your wife
shouldn't have any trouble  replenishing what was lost with the
amnio." 

"That's what we know, Mr. Mulder," Dr. Hamilton said. "But what we
can't  figure out is why."

Why, Mulder thought. There was no why; there was never a why. Not one
that  they could hope to understand, at least. If they were lucky they
would one day  discover a who or a what, but there was never a why.

"Can I see her?" Mulder asked.

The doctor nodded. "She's been moved to Intensive Care, but I can take
you  there."

"My son..."

"One visitor at a time," Dr. Hamilton told him. "And the hospital
doesn't  allow children under the age of 13 in the ICU. Your son can
see her when she's  more stable. Not so many machines around to
frighten him there, either."

Mulder nodded, though he doubted that anything Will saw in this
hospital  would frighten him more than what he had already seen and
felt when he found his  mother. Another way he had failed to protect
his family, Mulder thought. He  sighed, rubbing at his tired eyes as
he followed the doctor to the elevator.

Up in the ICU, Dr. Hamilton led him over to the corner cubicle, which
was  nearly filled by a large bed and the very small, very pale woman
lying in it.  Beeping monitors were wedged in the corner of the
glass-walled cubicle, their  sounds joining the steady electronic
chirp of the ICU.

Mulder grasped the doorframe as his knees threatened to buckle. Back
in the  warehouse he had acted on instinct: cutting her binds, tearing
out her IV...  doing what he knew was necessary for Scully to be safe.
He hadn't allowed  himself the luxury of really seeing his wife's
condition, the pallor of her skin,  the shallowness of her breathing,
the new rise of her belly.

"Scully," he cried.

"We've got both her and the baby on monitors," Dr. Hamilton explained
as he  bent over to check the read-out from one of the beeping
machines. "It looks  like their heart rates -- both your wife's and
the baby's -- are climbing. So  that's good news."

Mulder just nodded dumbly as he stared at Scully, at the purple bruise
in the  crook of her right elbow. His fingers danced lightly over the
skin there,  tracing the raw bruise he had given her. Then he reached
out and took her hand,  surprised at the clamminess of her skin as he
threaded his fingers through h ers. But the beat of her radial pulse
against his wrist was strong, and for that  Mulder was grateful.

"One more thing, Mr. Mulder," the doctor said as he paused on his way
out of  the cubicle. He fished into his pocket and pulled out
something small and gold  and shiny. "We had to remove her ring to put
the cast on." Dr. Hamilton held  out the band to Mulder, and the row
of inset diamonds sparkled in the harsh  fluorescent lighting of the
bulb mounted over Scully's bed.

Slowly, as if he were moving through water, Mulder reached out for the
ring.  The doctor dropped it into his hand before leaving the cubicle.
Mulder closed  his fist around the band, which was warm from being in
Dr. Hamilton's pocket;  warmer, in fact, than Scully's hand. Mulder
dropped his head down to the bed,  resting it beside his wife's, and
his shoulders shook as he wept.

* * * * *

End Part 18. Continued in Part 19.

Title: Song of Experience  (19/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown

Mulder toed open the front door of their house, then quickly hopped
inside,  fitting his foot between the heavy wooden door and the wall
to muffle the  slamming sound. He juggled the heavy weight of his son
as he maneuvered around  Phoenix, who was pushing against his legs and
whining. Mulder kicked the door  closed behind him, briefly balancing
Will in one arm as he locked the door.

The deadbolt slammed into place and echoed through the house, and
Mulder  craned his neck to check on his son. Thankfully, Will was
still asleep, as he had  been since the ICU nurse graciously informed
Mulder that visiting hours were  over, and he'd have to come back in
the morning.

"Just a minute, boy," Mulder whispered at the anxious puppy, who was
doing a  familiar dance that told Mulder that he had exactly one
minute to get the dog  outside before he had yet another mess on his
hands.

So Mulder deposited Will on the sofa, jogged to the back door, and let
the  eager dog out into the dark night. Will was still asleep when
Mulder returned,  and he stared at the boy for a long minute while he
debated just letting his  son sleep on the couch. Then Will squirmed,
trying to get comfortable on the  sofa, and Mulder sighed.

He scooped his son back into his arms and went upstairs. Will was
still  sleeping when they reached his bedroom, so Mulder set him on
the bed and carefully  undressed the boy, untying tennis shoes,
slipping off jeans and socks, and  leaving him in his t-shirt and
underwear. He could go without pajamas for one  night, Mulder decided
as he pulled the comforter up to Will's chin.

Mulder stood there for a moment, watched his son's chest rise and fall
slowly, watched his eyes twitch behind his lids as he slipped into a
deeper sleep.  Then Mulder reached out for Will, set his hand on his 
shoulder, then up to his  hair. Finally he bent down and kissed him
goodnight, lingering for a minute  against Will's warm forehead.

By the time Mulder got downstairs, Phoenix was whining at the back
door, so  Mulder filled the dog's food and water dishes before letting
him inside. "Okay,  boy," Mulder whispered into the darkness of the
kitchen as the snuffly sounds  of a feeding dog filled the air. "We're
home. You're okay."

Phoenix finished and turned to face Mulder, tail wagging, surmising
that it  was time to play. Mulder just shook his head. "Sorry, boy,
bedtime," he told  the dog. He patted his thigh, figuring it wouldn't
hurt to let the dog sleep in  the bed with him; it certainly wouldn't
be the first time he had broken one of  Scully's house rules in the
past few weeks. "Come on," he told the dog, who  eagerly followed him
out of the kitchen.

But the phone rang before Mulder could reach the stairs, and he
quickly  grabbed for it, not wanting to wake Will. "Hello?"

"Mulder? It's Patti Gillen--"

Patti, Mulder's sleepy brain repeated. For the first time in hours he
remembered Joy and hoped that either Maggie or Mrs. Gordon had gotten
her home.  "Patti--"

"I've been calling you all night," Patti blundered on, and Mulder
squinted at  the blinking red light of the answering machine. "I want
to know what's going  on with my daughter."

"Patti--"

"I get a phone call from Anne Gordon, whoever the hell that is,
telling me  that she's watching your son and my daughter at her house.
Now, I want to know  what's going on, and why my daughter wasn't where
she was supposed to be when I  came to pick her up this afternoon."

"I'm sorry, Patti." Mulder plopped onto the couch with a sigh, his
head  dropping against the back of the cushion. Phoenix settled beside
him, resting his  head on Mulder's shoes. "I had to leave the kids,
and Mrs. Gordon's our  neighbor; they were in good hands, I promise."

"Yes. I spoke with her when I picked Joy up." Patti's voice had
calmed, but  only slightly. "She said Dana's mother had brought Will
to the hospital, that  they'd found Dana."

"Yes."

"I hope she's all right."

"She... We're still waiting," Mulder answered finally.

"Well, I'm glad she's back," Patti said, though she sounded anything
but, her  voice still snappy with anger. "Now I wanna know what the
hell's going on  with my daughter."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I haven't been able to get a word out of her since I
picked  her up this afternoon. Nothing. Now, what happened?"

Mulder sighed, glancing around the pitch-black living room. "Can you
come  over here?" he said finally.

"What?"

"Can you come here? I can explain everything to you, but I'd rather
not do it  on the phone."

A long pause, then, "Fine," Patti snapped. "I'll be right there."

Mulder figured he should get up and check on Will, but his weariness
kept him  rooted to the soft couch cushion, his feet weighted down by
Phoenix's heavy  head. Instead, he found his eyelids drifting shut as
he slouched down on the  sofa. The next thing he was aware of was a
loud knock on the door, and Mulder  jumped up, hurdling over the dog
and hoping that Patti would not go for the  doorbell next.

She was standing in the doorframe, her body buzzing like a live wire,
her  eyes drilling into him. "Okay, I'm here." She stepped into the
foyer, and Mulder  had to grab at the door to keep it from slamming
behind her. "Talk."

He glanced behind her, through the front window at the darkened
windows of  Patti's car. "Where's Joy?"

"She was sleeping," Patti explained. "A friend's watching her. Now
what the  hell happened?"

Mulder motioned toward the couch and, as Patti sat down, he took the
chair  across from her. "Will and Joy were... practicing."

Patti's eyes narrowed. "Practicing? Practicing what?"

"They were working on Joy's range," he explained. "They were focusing
on  Scully, trying to tap into her feelings; they were trying to find
her."

The set of Patti's jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

Mulder dropped his voice. "And they did find her. A warehouse
downtown; they  saw the address on the building. I sent them next door
and went to get her."

Patti was shaking her head, a disbelieving look on her face. "You're
telling  me..." She paused and choked out a half-laugh, half-sob.
"You're telling me  that Joy and Will used their ESP--"

"It's not ESP."

"Fine. Used whatever the hell kind of special *powers* they have...
Used them  to find Dana?"

Mulder nodded.

"Bullshit," Patti spat. "That's bullshit. I don't care what kind of 
far-fetched ideas you want to put in your son's head, Mulder, but I
ask you to leave my  daughter out of it. I know the kind of crap you
believe, and I've put up with  it because her friendship with Will has
meant so much to Joy. But if you  continue to fill her head with this
kind of science fiction--"

"Ask her," Mulder insisted. "Give her some time to process everything,
then  ask her yourself."

"I don't need to ask her; I've heard her story, Mulder, about how she
and  Will both can feel other people's feelings. I've heard all about
it," she hissed.

"She's gonna need someone to talk to, Patti," Mulder advised. "I
wouldn't  trust a therapist with something this sensitive, but if you
want, I could talk  with--"

"Like hell you could. I don't want you feeding into this crazy fantasy
of  hers; you've done enough already. Maybe you think I'm a fool,
Mulder, believing  the same kind of crap that my husband believed.

"But he's gone now, and where are all his predictions, hm?
Supersoldiers?  Aliens? Thinking that Joy was some kind of... project
or experiment. Some kind of  freak.

"She's just a little girl," Patti insisted. "A very troubled little
girl who  would be much better off if her father hadn't gotten himself
killed over some  paranoid delusion.

"And you're not helping by feeding into these fantasies of hers. You
or your  son." Patti stood then, grabbing her purse and jamming it
onto her shoulder.  "I gotta go."

"Patti, wait." Mulder rushed toward the door.

Patti whirled around to face him, one hand on the doorknob. "What?"

"Don't punish Joy because you're angry with me," he begged. "Will and
Joy  need each other now more than before. Patti, please."

She sighed, her shoulders relaxing for the first time since she'd
stepped  into the house. Patti closed her eyes for a long moment, and
when she opened them  and began to speak, her voice was soft. "I'm not
heartless, Mulder," she  said, but her face was devoid of expression.
"I know how close Joy and Will are,  and I want my daughter to be
happy."

Patti swung the door open and stepped outside, then turned to face
Mulder  once more. "I'm not going to keep Joy and Will from being
friends. All I'm asking  is that you respect my wishes concerning my
daughter. Keep her out of all  this, and everything will be fine."

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC


Any day now.

It had become the doctors' refrain when Mulder arrived at the hospital
each  morning after dropping his very dissatisfied son off at school.
'Any day now.'  They must have learned that in medical school, Mulder
thought, somewhere  between 'Turn your head and cough' and 'This won't
hurt a bit.' Maybe that was  where Scully had perfected her own
refrain of 'I'm fine,' which Mulder never  thought he'd be longing to
hear.

She's fine, the baby's fine, they insisted. Any day now.

One hand on Scully's, Mulder sipped from the cup of coffee one of the
nurses  had brought him. They all knew him now. They had gawked at the
crazy, bloody  man who'd come in with that poor pregnant kidnapping
victim, but now they knew  him only as the man they had to pry away
from his wife's side each night when  visiting hours ended. Only the
doctors knew that this was not the first time  he'd sat at Scully's
bedside, and Mulder hoped it would stay that way; he and 
Will had had enough pity for a lifetime.

There was a knock on the window outside Scully's cubicle then, and
Mulder  turned, expecting Maggie, who typically joined his vigil
sometime before lunch.  But standing behind the smudged glass
partition was John Doggett.

Mulder groaned and turned back to Scully. "Damn, Scully, I don't know
how you  could stand working with this guy for so long," he grumbled
as he leaned to  press a gentle kiss on her hand before joining
Doggett in the hall of the ICU.

"How is she?" Doggett peered past Mulder and into the cubicle.

"Same."

Doggett nodded. "And Will?"

"He's doing okay," Mulder said. In truth, Will was frustrated at not
being  allowed in to see his mother. When they move her out of the
ICU, Mulder had  promised his son, repeating the words of the ER doc
that first night. But the  truth was that Mulder had seen a child not
much older than Will in the ICU the  other day.

Probably Mulder could ask Scully's doctors to bend the rules, but so
far he  had resisted. There was so little he could protect his son
from: losing his  mother; seeing her in the warehouse, bound and
unconscious; not knowing whether  she or the baby would be okay. At
least he could protect Will from this, from  Scully hooked to monitors
and looking small and fragile and as pale as the last  days before her
cancer went into remission.

"You have a minute, Mulder?" Doggett asked, and Mulder checked his
watch. He  nodded. He didn't want to leave Scully alone during
visiting hours, but Maggie  would be there soon.

"Coffee?" Mulder offered, but Doggett declined.

"I've only got a few minutes before I have to get back to the office.
This  shouldn't take long.

"Mulder, I have a few questions about the phone call."

The phone call. It was the lie he'd told the agents and paramedics and
hospital staff that night when they'd asked how he'd found Scully. An
anonymous  phone call that had tipped him off to the address of the
warehouse. He'd left the  details vague.

Mulder nodded absently, his thumb worrying his wedding band around his
finger. Any day now, he thought. He had known this was coming, the day
Doggett asked  for more than a casual explanation of how Mulder had
found Scully. The day  Doggett wanted it for the record.

"Can we go over the phone call again? What did the caller say?"

Mulder sighed. "He said that he knew where Scully was. He gave me the
address  of the warehouse. He didn't say it was a warehouse, just said
I could find  her there. That's it; there's nothing else to tell,
Agent Doggett."

Doggett nodded, eyes narrowing as he worked this through. Mulder
simply  waited: he had told Doggett that much twice before. He didn't
know what the man was  fixated on, but it made Mulder nervous. He
didn't want to lie to him, but he  couldn't tell Doggett the whole
truth either. So he had settled on some  half-assed story that Doggett
could see through without even trying.

"What about the informant?" Doggett asked. "What did his voice sound
like?  Young or old?"

"Young."

"How young?"

"Hard to tell," Mulder said. "He didn't say much."

"Did he have an accent? A lisp? Anything to distinguish him?"

"No." Except, Mulder thought, that his voice caught when he said
'Mom.'

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Okay," Doggett said. "What about his syntax? Any unusual words,
unorthodox  phrases, anything like that?"

"No."

"Background noises?"

"No."

"So the phone just rang, you picked it up, he told you that he knew
where  Dana was. You asked where, and he gave you the address.
Anything else you can  remember, Mulder? Anything?"

"Look, Doggett," Mulder pronounced carefully. He was seething now,
burning  with frustration in keeping this secret, worried about Scully
and the baby,  worried about Will, who had spoken little more about
what he'd seen than he had  that night. "I wish I could offer you
something else that would help."

A pause, then Doggett continued. "Mulder, I'm gonna come clean with
you now,  and I'd appreciate if you'd do the same. When you called me
on your way over  to that warehouse, I sent Agent Klein over to your
house, in case it was some  kinda trap and you were being watched. You
know, get you out of the house, get  in there and get something they
needed. It all seemed too convenient."

Mulder swallowed hard.

"And the interesting thing is, Agent Klein got the idea to *67 your
phone.  Just in case the caller was careless and wasn't at a phone
booth."

Damn it all to hell, Mulder thought, but he remained silent. 

"And imagine Agent Klein's surprise when she gets an answering machine
with  some kid's voice. So Klein had the call traced and did a check
on the number.  Turns out the last person to phone your house was
calling from the residence of  one Patricia Gillen. Now, knowing you
and Dana have a son, Agent Klein got to  wondering whether maybe this
last call was for him. Maybe it wasn't our  kidnappers after all."

Mulder nodded. The last call had come earlier that afternoon from Joy,
asking  if Will wanted to play. Mulder ran scenarios through his head,
trying to  imagine what Doggett might make of this inconsistency.

"Dana's address book was right on the kitchen counter, next to the
phone, so  Klein looked under Gillen and, lo and behold, there she
was. Patti and Joy  Gillen. And, when she told me the name, I
remembered Will talking about a new  friend from school named Joy.

"So why don't you tell me what's goin' on, Mulder? The truth this
time."

The truth, Mulder thought. Yeah, right. "That call came after..." But
his  story sounded hollow and he knew Doggett would be able to see
through his lie.

Doggett nodded. "You sure about that? I mean, if I were to check with
your  phone company, get a record of incoming calls, I'd find a
connection to some  unknown number right before that call, correct?

"Or maybe the call came on your cell phone," Doggett suggested. "We
could get  those records, too, Mulder. Why don't you gimme a break
here and help me  out?"

Mulder clenched his jaw and looked past Doggett, over at the blinking
red  call light outside one of the patients' curtained off rooms. "I
can't," he said  tightly.

Doggett reached out to touch Mulder's arm, bringing the other man's
attention  back to him. "Look, Mulder, I'm only tryin' to help. You
know we can get  those phone records: impeding the progress of an
investigation... That alone would  likely cost you your job, not to
mention if you're trying to hide  something..."

Mulder said nothing.

"Cut me some slack here," Doggett said. "We're just trying to help
you. You  and Dana. All I wanna to do is find out who took her. You've
gotta trust me on  this."

"I can't help you," Mulder insisted through clenched teeth.

"Fine." Doggett glared at Mulder, hands on his hips.

"Look," Mulder hissed, stepping close to Doggett. "Don't you think I
want to  know who did this to Scully... who did this to my *daughter*?
But I can't help  you, Agent Doggett. I can't."

"You won't," Doggett insisted. "I'll be damned if I know why, but you
don't  want to help. In fact, you're goin' out of your way to hinder
this  investigation."

"I can't." Mulder shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The
image  that came to his mind was of Will several months back, crying
hysterically after  a lonely day at school after being teased for
being 'weird'; Will apologizing  for reading his thoughts on the first
afternoon they had ever spent alone  together; Will calmly announcing
that he was going to have a sister...

"I am trying to protect my family," Mulder told Doggett, his voice
tight and  low, before he spun on his head and stalked down the hall
toward Scully's bed.

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown

"I wanna go with you to see Mom tomorrow."

Mulder looked up from his desk to see Will standing in the kitchen
doorway.  He was dressed in his pajamas with Phoenix beside him, the
dog's tiny white  teeth latched onto the hem of Will's t-shirt. Will
batted at Phoenix's nose and  the dog released, then looked up at his
boy with large, teary, sad-puppy eyes  they found impossible to
ignore. Will's hand found the dog's floppy ears, and  Phoenix leaned
in for petting.

"Not tomorrow," Mulder muttered, shuffling the papers on the table,
searching  for a stamp. He squinted his eyes shut for a minute, trying
to ward off the  headache that had been coming on steadily since
dinner, despite the four Advils  he'd taken. "Another time."

"I wanna go."

Mulder slipped his glasses off and set them on the teetering stack of
bills  on the table. He pushed the papers away, cursing the neglect
that had grown  them to such insurmountable heights. Scully usually
paid the bills, or at least  organized them by due date and left them
on his desk when she was too busy. He  didn't mind writing the checks
and addressing the envelopes, but Mulder hated  keeping track of these
things; too much like a field report without the fun of 
being in the field.

Mulder looked up at his son. "I know you want to see her," he said.
"Not  tomorrow, though, Will. She's still in Intensive Care."

"But you said they might move her tomorrow."

"Might." Mulder scrubbed at his brow with the heel of his hand.
"Another day.  I promise."

"It's not fair," Will protested.

"No," he agreed. "It certainly is not fair. I'm sorry."

Will pursed his lips, arms crossed over his chest. "She's my mom and I
want  to see her. *You* get to see her."

Mulder tensed. Please don't do this now, he thought at his son, but
the  little boy didn't seem to be in a very perceptive mood, Mulder
observed as Will  tightened his hold on his upper arms. The dog pushed
his nose at Will's thigh for  the loss of contact.

"I know that you miss her, Will, and that you love her, but you're
still not  coming with me."

Will stomped his foot. "I helped find her. It's not fair that you can
see her  and I can't," he shouted. "You're just being mean."

Mulder had no response for that condemnation, so he decided to ignore
it.  "Look, Will, I'll talk to Mom's doctors tomorrow and maybe you
can come to the  hospital later in the week. Okay?"

But Will was not to be pacified. He narrowed his eyes at Mulder, his
jaw  clenched impossibly tight. "I hate you," he shouted before he ran
upstairs.

Mulder watched his son stomp up the stairs, waiting for the obligatory
door  slam before he let his head thunk atop the pile of bills.

Fox Mulder, this is your life, he thought in the over-cheery voice of
a game  show announcer. You have a stack of bills that you are,
despite an overpriced  Oxford education, unable to comprehend; a
part-time job you haven't been to in  weeks; a wife and unborn child
who were kidnapped and drugged into  unconsciousness; and a son who
hates you. Would you like to move onto the bonus round?

Mulder pushed the bills into a pile that he dropped in the half-filled
junk  drawer, then shut off the downstairs lights and checked the
locks. He followed  his son upstairs, suppressing his own urge to
stomp. 

He paused at Will's closed bedroom door, one hand stopping inches from
the  heavy wood before he changed his mind. Maybe he just needed some
time by  himself. Instead, Mulder turned and bypassed the big empty
bed in the master bedroom  for his old standby, the couch in the
darkened study. He dropped onto it  without changing his clothes or
setting the alarm clock, grabbing the blanket from  over the back.

And then, since Mulder couldn't think of a valid reason not to, he
wept  softly as, on the other side of the wall, his son did the same.

* * * * *

End Part 19. Continued in Part 20.

Title: Song of Experience (20/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *


When Will awoke the next morning the house was quiet, the
near-omnipresent  drone of old movies and CNN absent for once.
Wondering if his dad was still  asleep, he wandered into his parents'
bedroom. But the bed was empty and looked  like it hadn't been slept
in. Fear started to gnaw at Will but softened a little 
when he noticed the pillow and blanket shoved in the corner of the
couch in  the study.

But his dad wasn't there either, so Will went downstairs, ears perked
for a  sound, any sound. Finally he wandered into the kitchen, where
his grandma sat  at the counter, mixing something in a big bowl.

"Good morning, honey," she said when she turned to see him standing in
the  doorway trying to mat down his sleep-spikey hair.

"What're you doing here?" Will squinted at the clutter of baking
ingredients  on the counter.

"Making breakfast," she said, not really answering his question.

"Where's my dad?"

"He got a call from one of your mom's doctors and went to meet him at
the  hospital." She dragged one of the tall stools over to the
counter. "She's fine --  nothing to worry about -- her doctor just
wanted to talk with your dad." She  patted the blue cushion on the
stool, and Will climbed up.

"How do raspberry muffins and scrambled eggs sound to you?" she asked
as she  sorted through the contents of one of the cupboards, finally
pulling out a  shiny set of unused muffin tins.

"Okay." But his mind was still caught on his dad's absence. Was
everything  really okay, or was his grandma trying to protect him?
Will wasn't so sure  anymore. He couldn't really tell that anyone was
lying to him, but it did feel like  everyone was in on a secret except
for him. Will just couldn't pin down what  the secret was or who was
keeping it. Or why.

"Here." His grandma pushed the tins toward him. "Why don't you put the
papers  in for me."

Will took the stack of cupcake papers and fit them into the tins, 
concentrating on arranging them so that each color was touching each
other color,  grateful to occupy his mind with the mundane task. When
he finished he watched his  grandma drip batter into each paper, then
slide the tin into the oven.

After gathering the dirty bowls and spoons in the sink, his grandma
pulled  the other tall stool over to where Will sat and climbed up
onto it. "Will, what  would you think about coming to stay with me for
a little while?" she asked.

"What?"

"Just for a few days," she assured him. "Your dad's going to need to
be at  the hospital a lot." She paused to run a sponge over the
counter. "We'll have  fun together, just like over Christmas. You can
even bring Phoenix this time.  He'll love it, with the whole backyard
to run around in."

"Stay with you?"

"Not long, just for a little while," she promised. "It'll be easier
for your  dad knowing that you're with me instead of having to worry
about who's taking  care of you."

"Leave my dad?"

"You'll see him all the time, Will. He can come for dinner, even spend
the  night if he wants. And when your mom gets better, you can go with
him to see her  at the hospital."

Will stared at her, not knowing what to think. Was this because of
what he'd  said to his dad last night? Of course he didn't mean it; he
loved his dad, and  he had felt sick all last night when he replayed
in his mind the mean things  he'd said to him.

"Your dad thinks it's a good idea," she offered.

Will knew that his grandma was hurt because he wasn't excited about
staying  with her, but he just couldn't work up any enthusiasm. Maybe
this had all been  his dad's idea. Maybe he thought that Will really
*did* hate him, and now he  didn't want to live with Will anymore.
Maybe he didn't love him anymore, and  when the new baby was born, his
dad would keep her and take care of her and love  her, and forget all
about Will over at his grandma's.

"He does?"

She nodded and patted his hand. "It'll be fun. Just the two of us.
What do  you say, Will?"

He chewed his lip, watching the seconds tick by on the kitchen timer
she'd  set for the muffins. "But my dad'll be lonely staying here all
by himself," he  said finally.

His grandma smiled. "I'm sure he'll be fine. He lived by himself for a
long  time before you came along, Will. Plus, he'll be spending lots
of time at the  hospital with your mom. Don't worry about him."

"Okay," Will said softly.

"Why don't you go upstairs and get cleaned up," his grandma suggested.
"Breakfast will be ready by the time you're finished, and then I can
help you pack  up some things."

Will nodded and went upstairs. Numbly he went through the motions of 
showering and changing his clothes, and then went downstairs. He ate
some eggs and a  muffin without tasting anything, and studiously
avoided his grandma's concerned  gaze. Then she followed him upstairs,
and together they got suitcases out of  the hall closet, his mom's old
luggage from when she'd traveled all the time  for work. Together they
packed Will's things, more things, he knew, than were  necessary for a
short stay.

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC


As much as Mulder had hated Intensive Care, with its crowded cubicles
and  limited visiting hours, he would not have asked about moving
Scully upstairs had  he known where she was headed.

The maternity floor had been Dr. Speake's idea, suggested in a
whisper, as  though she had known what it would do to Mulder to watch
laboring women wheeled  past Scully's room, nervous fathers-to-be
trailing behind, video cameras in  hand. As if she knew it would rip
out his heart every time he heard those final,  excruciating pushes
encroaching in from the next-door room, followed by lusty 
cries and tearful declarations of love.

It was necessary, Dr. Speake had said apologetically. Though
unconscious,  Scully was not in immediate danger: her heart rate and
respirations were regular,  and the neurological testing they'd done
showed that she had not suffered  brain damage. Instead, Dr. Speake
had used the unknown effects of the drugs on  the baby to justify
Scully's continued hospitalization. Hence the maternity 
floor.

The doctors were pleased with the egress of drugs from her system,
Doggett  was only mildly irritated at the lack of progress with his
investigation, and  Maggie was more cheerful than she had cause to be.
She had even suggested taking  Will for a few days to give the boy
something to think about besides his  injured mother and sister. And,
according to Maggie's reports, Will was doing as  well as could be
expected.

It was Mulder who was losing it.

"She's going to be fine, Fox."

Mulder looked toward the door, even though there was only one person
still  alive who called him 'Fox.'

"Hi, Maggie."

She smiled and joined him at Scully's bed, her hand reaching around
her  daughter's cast to cover her fingers. "She's going to get better.
I can feel it."

Mulder said nothing, just closed his eyes and concentrated on the warm
weight  of Scully's hand in his.

"I know you don't believe me," Maggie started.

"I want to believe," he said softly.

"Then do. She came back to us before, and she'll do it again. She has
so much  more to come back to this time."

Mulder moved his other hand over the soft curve of Scully's belly and
was  rewarded by a gentle fluttering kick. It was not the first time
he'd felt the  baby kick; that had come in the ICU, in the presence of
an amused Dr. Speake.  She'd explained that it was likely the drugs
had kept him from feeling anything  in the warehouse. A good sign,
she'd said with a smile.

"She's moving a lot more now," Mulder said softly. "Have you felt
it?"

He heard Maggie gasp and looked up to see her staring at him
wide-eyed. "Dana  moved?" she asked, her breath catching. Then she
looked down at his hand and  her shoulders slumped.

"No. The baby."

Maggie nodded, her hand joining his on her daughter's abdomen. "She's
very  active. You're going to have your hands full."

His hands, Mulder thought. Not their hands.

But Mulder said nothing, and he could feel Maggie's eyes on him. "Dana
will  be okay, Fox."

"Will she? Because, frankly, Maggie, when I think about what it will
mean if  she isn't, it scares the hell out of me. Taking care of an
eight year old and  a newborn? I can barely handle Will on my own."

"You do just fine with Will; you're a good father, Fox."

Maybe, he thought. Or maybe Will was better off with Maggie, better
off with  a dad who came over for Sunday dinner and didn't stay long
enough to screw him  up. All Mulder knew for sure was that he loved
Will and that it was hard, so  much harder without Scully to keep
everything together for Will. And for him.

"At least Will tells me when I'm screwing up," Mulder said. "He tells
me how  to make his lunch, and where Scully keeps her medical records,
and why the  plastic cups can't go on the bottom rack of the
dishwasher.

"But I don't know how to take care of a baby." He stared at his 
mother-in-law's hands pressing on the small, fluttering lump that was
becoming his child.  "I don't even know how to feed a baby or how to
change a diaper. When I left  eight years ago, Scully was still
nursing Will; I'd changed exactly three  diapers, and only one without
her help."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Fox," she told him. "And, besides, Will
is  most certainly not easy."

He smiled then, and it actually reached his eyes for the first time in
weeks.  "No," he agreed, "I guess he isn't.

"I just don't know what to do," he admitted. "I don't know how Scully
did it  all alone for so long."

"She wasn't alone." Maggie's hand moved across the bed and settled on
his.  "And you wouldn't be, either."

* * * * *


"Ready?"

Mulder gave Scully's hair one last brush and smiled up at the nurse,
Heather,  who was standing in the doorway. She gave him a reassuring
smile. "She looks  beautiful."

Mulder nodded absently as he returned the brush to the table beside
Scully's  bed. She was beautiful, he agreed, but this body that lay in
the bed was only  a shadow of his wife, like a sister or maybe a
cousin; the resemblance was  uncanny, but no one would mistake the
two.

Her face looked different, her makeup replaced by the added weight of
pregnancy. Her hair was longer than Mulder had ever seen it and,
though one of the  hospital staff had offered to cut it, Mulder
couldn't bring himself to allow  her. When the monitors were off, the
only sign of life was the gentle rolling of  the baby, but Mulder
refused to think of her as a living incubator.

"Your son's here," Heather told him. "I thought you might want to talk
to him  before he comes in, give him an idea of what to expect; he's
in the waiting  room with Dana's mother."

"Thank you." That was a good idea. There weren't many machines or
tubes that  might frighten Will, but Mulder imagined that he was
probably anxious anyway.

As was Mulder. He hadn't seen his son since their argument over Will
coming  to see Scully. Dr. Speake had called Mulder early the next
morning and he had  in turn called Maggie to come to watch Will. He
had tried to get to Maggie's  for dinner since then, but Mulder had
fallen asleep at the hospital both times  and arrived at Maggie's to a
sleeping son and a rewarmed dinner with only his  mother-in-law for
company.

"I could help you talk with him," Heather offered. "If you want."

"No, I'll do it." Mulder gave Scully's hand a squeeze and stood,
pushing his  chair away from the bed.

"How old?" Heather asked.

"He'll be eight in May," Mulder told her, borrowing what had become
Will's  standard response since he had decided that he had been seven
for too long.

"He's adorable." Heather gave him a big smile. "I can see Dana a
little in  his coloring, but he looks just like his daddy."

"Thank you," Mulder mumbled as he stepped into the hall and headed for
the  waiting room. Maggie and Will were sitting by the door, Will's
feet kicking back  and forth against the chair leg. When Will looked
up at him, his eyes were  wide and scared.

"Dad," he cried, jumping from his seat and running over to his father.
Mulder  held his son as he buried his head against his father's arm.
"I'm sorry. I  don't really hate you, Dad. I don't."

"I know," Mulder assured him. "I know you don't, Will." Will sniffled
and  Mulder hoped that he wasn't crying already; he hadn't even seen
Scully yet. "It's  okay. I know.

"Let's go see Mom, okay?" Mulder guided Will out of the waiting room,
turning  back to nod at Maggie, who smiled at him. Will reached up and
took his  father's hand and Mulder squeezed it, noticing that Will was
clutching Pup tightly  in his other fist.

"Wait." Mulder stopped them outside Scully's room. "Will, I need to--
Your  mom's hooked up to some machines. There's a heart monitor on her
and one for the  baby." Will nodded nervously. "And there's a cast on
her wrist, and an IV in  her arm for them to feed her. Okay?"

"Yeah," Will said bravely, but his grip on Mulder's hand as he pushed
the  door open betrayed his son's fear.

"You can talk to her," Mulder told him as they stepped toward the bed.
"The  doctors aren't sure if she can hear us, but I talk to her all
the time."

"Okay," Will said. Mulder stood beside him at the bed, and Will was
quiet as  he stared down at his mother, then, after a long look,
glanced back up at  Mulder. "It looks like she's sleeping."

Mulder nodded and brushed his hand through Scully's hair, and Will
reached  out, too, then hesitated.

"Go ahead. It's okay to touch her."

Will brushed his hand against Scully's so carefully. Mulder stepped
around  him and toward the end of the bed. He pulled Scully's blankets
down to  mid-thigh, watching Will's reaction.

"The baby got big," he said, awed.

Mulder nodded, then took Will's hand and guided it to Scully's belly,
sandwiching it between his hand and the hard bulge. "Come on,
sweetheart. Move for  your brother."

They waited for a minute until Mulder felt a gentle rolling motion
against  his fingertips. He pressed Will's palm against the soft
cotton of Scully's  hospital gown. "Feel that?"

Will nodded, turning to look up at Mulder with awe. "That's my sister?
It  feels like butterflies."

Mulder chuckled. "Yup, that's her. She moves a lot now."

"Do you... Do you think it hurts Mom when she does that?"

"No," Mulder told him. "I'm sure it doesn't. She used to love to feel
you  kick."

"She did?" he asked, and Mulder nodded. "Did you feel me, too?"

"I did." Not nearly enough times, Mulder thought, but I did. Already
he'd  felt his daughter move more than he had Will.

They stood there for several more minutes, Will's small, warm hand
pressed  under Mulder's, both of them awed by the gentle movements
beneath Scully's  hospital gown. He could feel her cool skin on his
fingertips, and finally Mulder  pulled away from Will to adjust the
blankets around Scully's legs. Then he  collapsed into the seat beside
the bed.

Will stood there for another minute, then stepped up next to Scully's
head.  "Can I talk to her by myself?" He looked over at Mulder shyly.
"Just for a  little while?"

"Sure," Mulder told him. "I'll be right outside the door."

Will nodded, and Mulder stepped toward the hall, the squeak of the
soles of  his sneakers in time with the slow beep of Scully's heart
monitor. He shut the  door behind him but left it open a crack. He
didn't want to hear Will's words  to his mother, but Mulder craved the
constant thrum of Scully's heartbeat,  outpaced by the quick staccato
of his daughter's.

After a minute Mulder heard a strange choking sound, and he pushed the
door  open. He reached Scully's bedside in three long strides. "What
is it, Will?  What's wrong?"

Will just shook his head, tears streaming down his face to rest on his
upper  lip. "I want--" He hiccupped. "I want my mom."

"I know, Will," Mulder said, sitting on the padded chair and holding
his arm  out to his son. Will sniffled and climbed onto Mulder's lap,
sitting sideways  on his father's thigh and pressing his face against
Mulder's shoulder. "I know  you do."

* * * * *

Mulder waited until Will was sleeping soundly before trying to stand.
Will  was getting too heavy for this, he thought as he shifted his
arms around his  son. Either that or Mulder was getting too old. He
bent carefully to kiss  Scully's forehead, noticing that Will had
tucked his stuffed dog near her left hand,  his worn nose resting
against the gentle swell of the baby. 

"He must be tired," Maggie said with a sad smile when he met her in
the  waiting room. "To fall asleep so quickly like that."

"I think he's worn out." Mulder sighed as he plopped himself onto the
chair  beside his mother-in-law. "He cried himself to sleep."

Maggie shook her head, patting Will's arm gently. "Poor thing. Was it
seeing  Dana?"

Mulder nodded. "He wants his mom, and I can't say that I blame him; I
want  her, too."

"I'd like to see Dana first, but if you carry him to my car after
that, I can  take him home and put him to bed," she told him. "Then
you can stay with  Dana."

Mulder considered this, their pattern of the last several days: Will
staying  at Maggie's while Mulder slept at the hospital with Scully;
Maggie staying  with Will during the day after he put up a big enough
fight for her to give in  and allow him to stay home from school for
"just one more day."

"No," he decided. "Will and I are going home tonight."

"Fox, are you sure?"

He nodded. "Will needs -- hell, we both need some semblance of our
normal  life back. We're going home tonight, and tomorrow I'm taking
him to school."

"Well, I wish you luck, then." She gave him a knowing smile.

Mulder chuckled, shifting Will so that he could stand. "You should
stay with  Dana tonight, if you want."

"Maybe I will." She smiled. "I do have an overnight bag in my trunk."

So Mulder walked Maggie out to the parking garage, where he helped her
haul  her overnight bag out of her trunk and she helped him settle
Will into the back  seat of his car. With a hug of thanks, he drove
her back down to the hospital  entranceway, and each went their
separate way, a parent to the aid of their  child.

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown

Will was still sleeping as Mulder navigated the dark streets of
Georgetown,  his snores about as interesting as the commentary on NPR,
which Mulder had the  radio tuned to so that he wouldn't give in to
his own exhaustion and fall  asleep. Mulder tuned out the radio and
the snores, and was almost surprised to  find himself praying.

He had been praying, more or less, ever since Will's prodding that
first  night. It wasn't as though he expected some white-bearded man
in a robe to choose  his dinky little demand in some magic lottery of
prayers. In fact, when he  thought about it, Mulder found that he
wasn't really praying to someone as much  as he was putting form to
his thoughts. And Mulder found that his prayers, if  that's what they
were, actually made him feel better. Closer.

Closer to Scully, because he knew she had done this same thing for him
when  he was missing, and because he wondered whether she was doing it
right now,  wherever her mind was, sending up silent prayers for her
safety, for the safety  of their unborn child. And closer to Will,
whom Mulder knew was doing the very  same thing.

At first he hadn't known what to say, so he had simply echoed Will's
plea:  Please bring Scully home, then Please let Scully be okay.
Lately, though, he'd  gotten more articulate, thinking about how much
he loved her, how much he and  Will both needed her, how badly he
wanted them to start anew with this baby.  How thankful he'd been to
find her alive in that warehouse, and how desperately  he needed for
her to come back to him fully.

That night Mulder added a new variation to his prayer. Along with the
'please' s and 'help's, he wove in a generous 'thank you.' Thanking
Scully for being a  survivor, thanking Will for locating her, thanking
Maggie for being there for  them all.

Finally Mulder pulled into their driveway, parking his car beside
Scully's  dusty Accord. After unbuckling Will, he carried his sleeping
son into the house  and gently laid the boy on his bed. Will didn't
wake until Mulder began  peeling off his son's clothes and replacing
them with pajamas.

Will blinked at him sleepily. "Are you staying at Grandma's, too?"

"No, Will, we're home," Mulder told him.

"Home?"

Yeah, Mulder thought, that place we used to live, all three of us
happy here  together for a few months before it all went to hell.
Remember that? "Yes.  Home. Your bedroom."

Will squinted by the light of the lamp on his bedstand. "Oh," he said.
"Is  Grandma here?"

"No, she's staying with your mom tonight."

"You're not going back to the hospital?"

"No, Will. I'm staying here with you. We're both sleeping at home
tonight, in  our own beds."

"How come you aren't staying with Mom?"

"Listen, buddy." Mulder squatted beside Will's bed and paused to
replace a  wayward stuffed animal next to his son's pillow. "Tomorrow
morning, I'm going to  drive you to school, and then I'm going to stop
in to see John and Monica,  and maybe check in at work for a little
while. Then we can go see Mom after  school. Together."

"You're not going to see Mom tomorrow?" Will's question was punctuated
with a  yawn.

"I am," Mulder told him. "With you."

"How come?" 

Mulder studied his son's sleepy expression. Will yawned again, showing
off  the gap where his tooth used to be.

"Will, I don't know when Mom's going to wake up," he admitted. "But we
can't  just put everything on pause while she's in the hospital. We're
going to go  back to school and work tomorrow, and then when Mom does
wake up and come home,  she's going to be so proud that we we've been
doing okay on our own."

Will nodded and Mulder leaned down to press a kiss on his son's
forehead.  With a sleepy smile Will slipped his pajamas on, then
scooted down in his bed. He  held out his arms for a good-night hug,
and Mulder obliged, holding on an  extra beat after Will had let go.

Outside Will's bedroom the house was dark and quiet, and Mulder's
steps  echoed as he went down the hall to his own bedroom. In the
light of the bedside  lamp, Mulder studied his expression in the
mirror, the dark circles under his  eyes and new gray hairs along his
hairline.

He couldn't help but feel that Scully was going to wake up and not
recognize  them, her haggard, sleep-deprived, failure-as-a-father
husband and her  depressed, neglected, truant son. Hell, he thought,
she wasn't even going to  recognize her own body, never mind the two
of them.

* * * * *

End Part 20. Continued in Part 21.

Title: Song of Experience (21/?)
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com)

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC


Life never went as planned.

This was not news to Fox Mulder; he had understood this as a
twelve-year-old boy watching his sister disappear and
waiting his life away for her to return and fix their
family. He had understood this as a burnt-out profiler with
a string of failed relationships, and he understood it again
when the partner he'd just finished breaking in disappeared
into the cold Virginia night.

Mulder could tick off a half-dozen other instances where the
few plans he had made for his life had been thwarted:
Scully's failed in vitro attempt, her unexpected pregnancy,
the threats to their safety after Will's birth. So many
times Mulder had thought that he finally had his life
figured out, that he was finally safe and knew where his
future was taking him.

Now this. Mulder stared down at the hospital bed, at the
outline of his wife, pale and tiny except for the bulge of
her abdomen, like an oasis in the desert. It was a
bittersweet reality that the baby was healthy and thriving
as her mother lay unconscious and weak. Mulder brushed the
back of his hand against Scully's belly, lingering there
when he felt the gentle answering movement within. He stared
at Scully's placid face, the lax set of her facial muscles
and the slight part of her lips. She looked as though she
were sleeping, he thought, or as though she were dead.

Mulder looked up slowly at the soft snick of the door
closing, taking a second to compose himself. "Good morning,"
Dr. Speake said, and Mulder nodded in response.

"I'm glad you're here, Mulder." The doctor came to stand
beside him at Scully's bedside, brushing her hand over her
patient's. "There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

Mulder nodded for her to continue but, after a long look at
Scully, Dr. Speake shook her head. "Why don't we go down the
hall," she suggested. "There's more privacy there." At
Mulder's confused look, she elaborated, "No nurses
interrupting for morning vitals."

Mulder acquiesced and followed Dr. Speake into the small
lounge down the hall, studiously avoiding eye contact with
anyone. That was a lesson he had learned the very first day
of Scully's residence on the maternity floor. He had needed
just one look at the small huddles of happy, excited faces
of expectant family members to discover that.

"Have a seat, Mulder." Dr. Speake sunk into a battered
armchair and set her clipboard and coffee cup on the table
beside her.

"What is it?" Mulder asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Dana's fine," the doctor assured him. "There's been no
change in her condition, or in the baby's.

"And I'm afraid that's exactly the problem," she continued.
"Dana's health insurance has good prenatal benefits, which,
quite frankly, I've been exploiting to allow her to stay
here."

The doctor paused, and Mulder filled the silence with the
apparently obligatory "Thank you."

Dr. Speake shook her head. "As I said, Dana's coverage is
good, but, unfortunately, it does have its limits... Mulder,
we need to talk about where Dana is going to go when she
leaves the hospital."

"Leaves?"

"Yes. She's healthy and the baby's healthy. There's no
medical reason that Dana needs to remain hospitalized, and
it isn't going to take long for her insurance carrier to
realize that."

"No medical reason? What about the fact that she's
unconscious?" Mulder was incredulous. "Or doesn't that count
for anything?"

Despite the apparent lack of effect on her brain by anything
that had been done or given to her while she was missing,
Scully had still not awoken. Wasn't that enough to keep her
hospitalized? It certainly had been in '94, he remembered,
imagines of heart monitors and a disconnected respirator
flashing through his mind.

"Unfortunately, no," Dr. Speake told him. "She's stable and
the medical intervention she's currently receiving is
minimal. From the hospital's point of view, she's taking up
a bed that could be filled by someone sicker, someone who
does require our care."

To hell with the hospital's point of view, Mulder thought.
But he took a long minute of silence, staring past the
doctor's head at the painting on the wall behind her. It was
a cheap print, the kind that reminded him of crappy motels,
adjoining rooms, and a collection of vending machine snacks
piled between them as he and Scully poured over case files.

"Mulder?"

His attention flashed back to the doctor, who stared at him
over the rim of her coffee cup, an expectant expression on
her face.

"What?" he barked back.

Dr. Speake narrowed her eyes at him but did not comment on
his snappish response. When she spoke her voice was gentle.
"We need to talk about where we go from here. Where Dana
goes."

His answer was immediate. "She goes home."

The doctor's expression was dissatisfied but unsurprised.
"Mulder--"

"She's coming home," he insisted.

"Just hear me out before you make any decisions, Mulder.
Dana may not require the services of a 'round-the-clock
nursing staff, but she does need constant care. She'll need-
-"

"I'll do it."

"You'll empty her Foley; change and clean her catheter; keep
up her IVs? You'll bathe her and turn her to keep her from
getting pressure sores? You'll--"

"Yes. I will."

The doctor sighed. "I don't think you realize what an
enormous responsibility this is," she insisted. "This is a
twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job, Mulder, and
not one you can do alone."

"I'll do it," he told her. "And Dana's mother--"

"With all due respect, Mulder, I've met Mrs. Scully. She
obviously cares very much about her daughter, but I doubt
she has the physical strength required for this kind of
care. Maybe she could help some now, while Dana's still
small, but as the baby grows, I'm afraid Mrs. Scully's role
will become limited."

"Then I'll do it."

"Mulder, I know your employer is very understanding and that
he's given you a leave of absence during this ordeal. But
eventually you'll have to go back to work. You'll need to
hire a home health aide, a hefty expense that may not be
covered by Dana's insurance.

"And you have your son to worry about," the doctor
continued, "and soon an infant daughter, too."

"I'll do it," Mulder insisted. "I can take care of her."

"I know you love your wife, Mulder; no one is questioning
that. I just want you to try and look at this objectively.
In a few short months, you'll have two children to care for.
I know your mother-in-law is very involved in her grandson's
life, but her role in Dana's care will be limited, at best.
You can't care for Dana and two children on your own." Dr.
Speake's voice softened, and she found Mulder's hand with
her own.

"Mulder, I want you to consider a long-term care facility
for Dana."

Mulder snatched his hand out from under the doctor's. "No."
His voice was slightly breathless. "No. I'll take her home.
I'll get help. But I won't send her away somewhere...
Somewhere like *that,*" he said as he caught a glimpse of
the shiny brochures Dr. Speake had placed on the table. What
looked like a gussied-up hospital room stared back at him
from the top brochure, an overly smiling nurse with her arm
around an elderly woman in a hospital gown. There was
something vacant in the older woman's eyes, something
missing. Mulder shuddered.

"Just think about it." Dr. Speake pushed the brochures
toward him, then rose and collected her clipboard and coffee
mug. "You still have some time before you need to make any
decisions. Talk it over with Dana's mother, and think about
what Dana would want for her children. We can talk more
later."

Mulder had to sandwich his lip between his teeth to keep
from speaking as he watched the doctor walk out the door.
Finally, when the lock clicked shut behind her, he exhaled
loudly, knocking the brochures off the table with one angry
swipe of his arm.

* * * * *


Will skipped alongside his grandma as they walked down the
hall toward his mom's hospital room. He was in a great mood;
he had spent the previous afternoon at Joy's, working on a
new board game. Will had made his first game by himself over
a year ago, but he and Joy had played it a million times
already, and now they were making a new one together.

More than anything, though, Will was glad to see Joy again.
They were still in the same class at school, but ever since
that afternoon when they'd found Will's mom, they hadn't
seen each other away from school. At first Will thought
maybe Joy was scared; even though he'd been helping her with
her powers for weeks by that time, they'd never done
anything that frightening before.

But it had been her mom, not Joy, who hadn't wanted Joy
playing at his house. This had both comforted and worried
Will; he'd been happy that Joy wasn't avoiding him, but Mrs.
Gillen's panic at his and Joy's abilities was the kind of
thing Will had always feared. Over the years he had imagined
all sorts of scary things that might happen were anyone to
discover what he could do - being taken, screaming, from
his mom in the middle of the night; being locked up in lab
somewhere and poked and prodded and tortured. And now Will
added a new nightmare: being forced to flee with his dad,
leaving behind his mom and sister and the only friend he'd
ever had.

Two days later, though, Joy had come to school with good
news: her mom had said it was okay for them to play
together, as long as they played at Joy's house. And that
had worked out for all of them, for Will's dad and grandma
because they were spending lots of time at the hospital, and
for Will and Joy, who didn't care where they were, as long
as they got to be together.

Joy understood him in a way that no one ever had before. Not
even his dad, who'd had Will's same abilities a long time
ago. Joy was different: she was like him, born with this
power, not made crazy by it. Joy knew what it was like, all
of it: the intrusive thoughts, the friendless recesses and
gym classes, feeling like there's no one in the whole entire
world that can truly understand you.

"And we're going to share the game," Will told his grandma.
They turned the corner and nearly collided with a scrub-clad
nurse who was jogging to catch the elevator. "Joy'll have it
one week and I'll have it the next. Joy's mom said that was
called joint custody."

His grandma laughed, then paused to secure her coffee cup in
the drink holder. They'd brought their lunch upstairs from
the cafeteria so that they could eat in his mom's room. She
wasn't eating anything - she still got fed through her IV,
which Will had gotten to watch the nurse change the night
before - but it was still nice to eat together, like a real
family again.

"So you've retired Quest?" his grandma asked, referring to
Will's previous foray into game invention.

He shrugged. "It was a baby game," Will told her. "The game
me and Joy are making now is gonna be *much* harder."

"Joy and I," his grandma corrected absently.

Will just shrugged. "Maybe I'll teach Quest to my sister.
When she's old enough, I mean."

His grandma rewarded him with a big smile. "I think that
sounds like a wonderful idea."

They turned the corner and entered his mom's room, and Will
jumped when he saw that she was not alone. An old man in a
long white coat was bent over her, one hand on her cheek. In
his other hand was a clipboard, but his gaze was focused on
Will's mom's face.

"Can I help you?"

The man turned at the stern tone of Will's grandma's voice.
Except for the slight red cast of his face, the man reminded
Will of Severus Snape, the mean Hogwarts professor in the
Harry Potter books, the one who'd gone to school with
Harry's father and had always hated Harry.

"Hello." The man's voice was smooth as he smiled first at
Will's grandma, then down at Will. "You must be Dana's
family."

"And you are?" Will's grandma prompted. The man was wearing
a hospital photo ID on the clip around his neck, but it was
turned backwards, so Will could see neither the man's name
nor his picture.

"Dr. Daniels." The man offered his hand, which Will's
grandmother shook after only a short pause. "I saw Dana when
she was in the ER."

"Dana was treated by a Dr. Hamilton in the ER," Will's
grandma said.

The man gave a sidelong glance at the door, then returned
his gaze to Will and his grandma. "Yes," he said. "You're
quite right. Of course. I, er, I consulted with Dr.
Hamilton. When Dana first arrived, that is. I'm glad to see
that she's doing so well."

Will's grandma gave the man a skeptical look, and Will's
stomach felt jittery. There was something about this man
that just wasn't right, something that Will didn't trust. He
was lying; Will knew that, but he couldn't tell what the
truth was, or even what the man was lying about. He just had
a bad feeling about him.

"Well, then." The man crossed his arms, pressing the
clipboard to his chest. "I'd better get going." He nodded at
the tray Will's grandma was still carrying. "Leave you to
your lunch." The man brushed past them on his way into the
hall.

"I'll let Dana's doctors know you stopped by," Will's
grandma called after him. Finally she set their lunch tray
on the table at the foot of his mom's bed. She pulled two
chairs up to the table, but Will remained rooted in place,
staring out into the hall after Dr. Daniels. Wrong, wrong,
wrong, his gut told him.

"Will?" His grandma stepped into his line of vision, and
Will jerked his head up to look at her. "What is it?"

Will just shook his head. He didn't know anything, not
really. And it always upset his grandma when Will talked
with her about what he could do; he didn't want to scare
her. So what if he had a funny feeling about this doctor? He
hadn't been hurting Will's mom or anything; she was safe
there in the hospital. And he did have an ID badge around
his neck, even if Will hadn't gotten a look at the name on
the front. Besides, Will couldn't even tell what the man had
been lying about...

"Nothing," Will said. But he could feel his cheeks growing
pink with his fib, just like they always did.

His grandma narrowed her eyes at him and took his chin in
her hand. "William Scully Mulder, now I know you're lying to
me."

"It's nothing, Grandma," he insisted, pulling away. "I'm
fine."

But this seemed to upset his grandma even further. "Tell
me."

Will rolled his lips and glanced again into the hall. "That
man..."

"What about him?"

"He was lying."

"Lying? About what?"

Will just shrugged.

"How you know that?" his grandma asked.

Will raised his eyebrows at her. "I just knew," he said
meaningfully, and finally his grandma nodded. Will watched
her wage an internal battle, uncertain as to whether she
should believe him. She looked over at the hospital bed,
staring at Will's mom for a very long time, just watching.
Then her gaze traveled back toward Will before she stopped
and jerked her head back to the foot of his mom's bed.

"Her chart," his grandma whispered.

Will's eyes scanned the foot of his mom's bed, where her
chart usually hung. But it was not there. He looked at his
grandma with wide eyes.

"Her chart. It's gone."

* * * * *


That day Mulder had returned to Scully's room to a scene
straight out of one of his nightmares. A half-dozen scrub-
clad members of the hospital staff swarmed in the hall of
the Maternity Ward, and two hospital security guards framed
her doorway, the beer bellies that hung over their belts
surely striking fear into the hearts of any would-be
assailant.

Christ, Mulder thought; I can't even go to the bathroom
without all hell breaking loose...

"What happened?" Mulder had shouted, pushing through the
crowd. "What's going on?"

"Do you have ID, sir?" the mustached guard had asked.

"ID? She's my wife!"

"Who's your wife, sir?" The guard checked a clipboard.

"Dana Scully. Now will you tell me what's going on here?"

"I'm gonna need to see--"

"He's fine, Stu," a familiar voice said, and Mulder watched
Dr. Speake emerge from the sea of hospital staff. "He's the
husband. Let him through."

"What happened?" Mulder demanded as the doctor ushered him
into Scully's room. He saw Will and Maggie sitting in the
corner, huddled together near Scully's bed - her occupied
bed, Mulder realized, allowing himself to relax.

Will saw him, too, and ran over. "Dad!" He collided with his
father's legs, burying his face in Mulder's side.

"You okay, buddy?" Mulder wrapped his arms around his son
and looked over at Maggie, who was watching them from across
the room. But Mulder couldn't decipher the look on his
mother-in-law's face.

"I'm okay," Will assured him, but he still clung to Mulder's
legs.

Mulder hauled Will up onto his hip, even though both of them
were getting too old for that. He turned to face Dr. Speake.
"What happened here?"

"There was a minor incident," she explained. "It was
nothing, really."

"Nothing? You call hospital security for nothing?"

Then she went on to explain the situation as she understood
it: Will and Maggie returning from the cafeteria to find a
strange man leaning over Scully's bed, a Dr. Daniels who'd
claimed to have treated Scully in the ER. Maggie realizing
that Scully's chart was missing, only to be discovered by a
staff member in the stairwell, apparently intact.

And there was no Daniels among the hospital staff, doctor or
otherwise.

"There's nothing to worry about, Mulder," Dr. Speake had
assured him, followed by the Nurse Manager, the Head of
Hospital Security, and, finally, Agent Doggett, whom Mulder
had called after Will had shared his own suspicions with his
dad, whispered between the two after Will pulled his father
into the washroom.

So when Mulder heard a commotion in the hall the next day,
he was out of his seat like a shot, pausing only to shoot
Will a warning look and think sternly, <Stay there> at his
son.

When he opened the door, however, he saw Agent Alan Kim
arguing with a younger man and woman. Doggett had assigned
an agent to twenty-four-hour guard of Scully's door after
Mulder explained the situation to him, and the position was
currently occupied by Kim, a rookie agent that looked like a
twelve year old playing dress-up in his father's suit.

"Everything okay, Agent Kim?"

The agent sighed. "These two are insisting that they need to
see Agent Scully. I've told them that no one is allowed--"

"No," the young woman said rather forcefully. She turned to
Mulder, waving an identification card in his face. "Look,
we're students of Dr. Scully's; we're in her lab section. We
were supposed to meet her the other week and she never
showed. And Administration wouldn't tell us anything. They
just said we would have a substitute instructor
indefinitely, and--"

"It's okay," Mulder told the agent. He opened the door and
let the two students in.

"We didn't know there would be guards," the boy said in a
slightly awed tone. "We're sorry."

"We just heard that something had happened to her at
Quantico," the girl chimed in, "and that she was in the
hospital. One of the other students has a brother who works
in the ER here, and he was talking about this FBI agent who
was admitted. He said that Dr. Scully..." The girl paused to
take a breath. "Are you an agent, too?" She looked
critically at Mulder's jeans and t-shirt.

"No." And not for a long, long time, Mulder thought almost
wistfully. "I'm Dr. Scully's husband." He nodded at Will,
who was hunched over Scully's arm, drawing on her cast and
apparently oblivious to their visitors. "That's our son,
Will."

"I'm Erin, and that's James." The young woman offered Mulder
her hand.

"We didn't mean to intrude," James said.

"We only-- Well, Dr. Scully wasn't just our lab instructor,"
Erin explained. "James and I, she's been helping us with our
forensics. We were having a hard time and she's been
reviewing with us after class. And we were worried. We heard
that something had happened at the Academy, and, well, is
she-- is Dr. Scully going to be okay?"

Mulder motioned the students toward the two empty chairs
near Scully's bed and against the window, while he sat on
the foot of her bed. "Something did happen at Quantico,"
Mulder confirmed. "She was... taken. Abducted. The other day
we got a phone tip." Mulder glanced at Will out of the
corner of his eye to see that his son had paused in his
drawing, his pencil poised above Scully's cast.

"We got her back." Mulder set his hand on Scully's foot,
beneath her thin blanket.

"Is she going to be okay?" James asked.

"We're still waiting for her to wake up," Mulder told them.
"But her doctors are hopeful. Just a broken wrist,
otherwise."

The three of them glanced over at Will.

"What're you drawing there?" James asked the boy as he
scooted his chair toward Will.

"Butterflies." Will said glanced among the adults. "For my
sister."

"You have a sister?" Erin's eyes did a quick scan of the
room. "How old is she?"

Will looked over at his father then, and Mulder reassured
him mentally. <It's okay,> he thought at Will. <It's not
really a secret anymore.>

"She's about three months away from being born," Mulder
said, still watching the anxious look on Will's face. <You
didn't do anything wrong,> he assured his son. <It's okay.>

"Oh, God," Erin exclaimed. "Really? She's *pregnant*? That's
horrible. That someone would do such a thing..."

"Is everything okay?" James asked.

Mulder nodded. "So far, so good."

There was a long, awkward silence then, and Mulder was
reminded of the similar response they'd received when they'd
informed Doggett's team of Scully's pregnancy, so different
from Maggie's joy at their news. Mulder wondered whether
this was the kind of reception Scully had gotten when she
was expecting Will, more uncertainty than congratulations.
Had their growing child had been her only source of comfort
as she tracked down blind leads in her search for him, as it
was now with him? Some mornings the only things that got
Mulder out of bed were Will and this baby and the
indignation that they couldn't lose everything just as soon
as they had regained it again.

"I bet your mom's gonna love that," Erin said then, breaking
the silence.

Mulder chuckled. "Yeah, let's hope this paint wipes off
fiberglass like the guy in the art store said, or else Mom's
gonna be pretty ticked at both of us, huh, buddy?"

"You have paints, too?" James asked Will, who promptly
turned his mother's arm to expose the colorful flock of
butterflies that he had painted on her cast the previous
day.

"Wow," Erin said. She leaned over the bed to get a better
look. "That's beautiful. You're a talented artist, Will."

Will gave her a shy smile and went back to his fiberglass
canvas. He consulted the thick book of butterflies that sat
open on the bed next to Scully's hip. Maggie had brought the
book to the hospital several days ago, charmed at her
grandson's nickname for the baby.

"Well, we didn't mean to interrupt," Erin said then. "We
should really get going." She stood and pulled a small
square of paper out of her purse. "Could you give us a call
when Dr. Scully wakes up? I wanted to thank her for her
help, tell her how the exam went."

Mulder nodded and she handed him the paper. "Thanks. It was
nice meeting you."

"You, too," Mulder called as the door closed behind Erin and
James. He settled back in his chair, still staring at the
door. Scully had been in the hospital for weeks, and, as far
as Mulder knew, Erin and James had been the first visitors
she'd had that were not either connected by either blood or
investigation.

Mulder watched Will work on Scully's cast, the tip of his
tongue poking between the new gap in his teeth, a tiny pink
worm that flicked up and down as Will glanced between his
butterfly book and his mother's cast.

Without asking, Mulder knew that Will wanted Joy to visit.
But all Mulder had seen of Joy since what he had come to
call That Night was her head in the window when Mulder
picked Will up from his friend's house. And, while he
understood Will's wanting Joy to see Scully, to replace the
nightmare scene that must still exist in her head with a
peaceful hospital bed and kicking baby sister, Mulder could
not do it. Even without Patti's insistence that Joy and Will
play only at Joy's home for now, Mulder didn't feel right
about subjecting the girl to this scene.

I barely feel right subjecting Will to it, Mulder thought as
he watched his son's small hand anchoring Scully's arm as he
colored a bright yellow spot on the wing of a small black
butterfly.

* * * * *

End Part 21. Continued in Part 22.

Title: Song of Experience (22/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown


Will was lying on his bed, reading the new Encyclopedia Brown book his
grandma had brought him, when something landed on his head.

"Huh?" Will muttered as he put the book aside and uncovered his face.
The  flying fabric was a shirt, his favorite t-shirt, which his dad
had just washed  with the laundry that morning. Will looked up to see
his dad standing in the  doorway, dressed in a sweatshirt and warm-up
pants. And he was smiling.

"Come on," his dad said. "Get dressed."

"Where are we going?" Will fingered the shirt, still warm from the
dryer.

"Just get dressed," his dad urged. "Sneakers and something you can get
dirty."

Still Will just stared as his dad took Will's old sneakers from his
closet  and set them on the chair near Will's bed. He did the same
with a sweatshirt and  sweatpants, then set a baseball hat atop the
pile.

Since his mom had disappeared, the only places Will ever really went
were the  hospital, his grandma's, Joy's, and school. His dad had gone
to work just  three times, and Will knew he hadn't been there very
long the last time because  he'd been waiting for Will in the car when
he got out of school, already  halfway through the newspaper crossword
puzzle. They had gone grocery shopping a  couple times and, upon
Will's urging, had gone to church twice, but that was all. 
Nowhere interesting and nothing fun.

"We need to get outta here for a little while," his dad explained.
"Change  clothes and meet me downstairs."

So Will acquiesced, shucking the clothes he was wearing for those his
dad had  picked out. He jammed the baseball cap on his head, then went
downstairs to  find his dad filling two water bottles from the tap.

His dad didn't explain any more, so Will just followed him to the car,
trying  to guess their destination as they cruised through the streets
of their  neighborhood. Finally they pulled into a familiar parking
lot, and Will was  surprised when the car rolled to a stop.

"Batting cages?" he asked.

"That's right." Will followed his dad around to the back of the car,
where he  removed Will's bat and another, larger one from the trunk.
They rented  batting helmets and his dad got change for the pitching
machine, and then they went  to find an empty cage.

Will watched as his dad fed quarters into the machine, programmed the
speed,  then took his place at home plate. He adjusted his grip on the
bat, his hands  tight around the wooden handle, and waited for the
pitch. It came hard and  fast, and he swung through it, almost
spinning himself in a circle.

His dad didn't say anything, just exhaled long and deep, then stepped
back  into the batter's box. This time when he swung he made contact,
a crisp crack of  wood on leather, and Will watched the ball soar in a
perfect arc until it hit  the mesh net at the other end of the batting
cage. His dad took another  half-dozen swings, hitting most of the
pitches into the netting.

Will watched closely, admiring the fluid stroke of his dad's swing.
He'd  never played baseball with his dad except on the computer.
Basketball, yes,  several times before winter arrived full force, but
not baseball. Will had known  from their discussion at the start of
spring training that his dad was a fan, and  he remembered that his
dad had played baseball as a kid, too. But now Will  smiled with the
realization that, even after all these months, he was still 
learning new things about his dad.

His dad stepped out of the batter's box. "Your turn."

Will nodded and stepped in, waiting while his dad fed more quarters
into the  slot for the pitching machine. He waited, squeezing the
barrel of the bat as  he stared down the machine, pretending it was a
real pitcher. Finally the ball  came, but Will's swing was late, and
the ball skimmed off the side of his  aluminum bat.

So Will got back into position and waited for the next pitch, but this
time  he was early, again fouling off the ball, which dribbled away to
the side of  the cage.

The third pitch Will hit, his stroke feeling as long and sure as his
dad's  had been, the hollow thud of the ball against the metal barrel
of the bat sweet  and satisfying. Then there was the next pitch, and
the next, and Will felt  better than he had in a long, long time,
concentrating on just trying to smack  the ball as far as he could.

Will's arms were sore when the balls ran out and he was forced to
stop, his  back and shoulders aching as he reached up to take off his
batting helmet. His  dad leaned against the back of the batting cage,
his hands still gripped tight  around his own bat.

"That felt good," Will said.

His dad nodded and took his place in the batter's box, and Will
watched as he  went through another round of balls, this time
rocketing each one into the  top of the net. When his dad was
finished, he dropped the bat and slowly rolled  his shoulders. His
head hung low as he pulled off his batting gloves, but Will 
could see that his cheeks were shiny and wet. Sweat, Will thought, or
maybe  tears.

* * * * *

1978 West Harbor Road
Bethesda, Maryland


The sun was shining and birds chirping as Will stared out the open
window of  John Doggett's car. John had picked him up from Joy's house
that afternoon,  because his grandma had a meeting of her church group
and his dad surprised him  that morning by announcing that he was
going to work.

Will supposed he should be cheered by these signs of spring,
persistently  pushing through the long winter. Last year the warm
breeze had made him think  about t-ball season starting and school
letting out. And this summer he should  have so much more to look
forward to, taking his puppy to obedience training,  his dad in the
stands at his games, a new baby sister.

But instead Will just felt tired. He hadn't slept well for almost a
week, and  last night he'd been kept up by a heated telephone
conversation between his  dad and John. Will hadn't heard John's end
of the call, but from his dad's side  it was clear that John was angry
with him, disappointed even. And it hadn't  taken Will long to realize
why: somehow John knew that Will's dad had lied to  him about how he'd
found Will's mom.

And it was all his fault. Will had pondered this as he turned in bed
the  previous night, kicking at his sheets with frustration. It was
his fault that John  was angry at his dad, that he no longer trusted
him, even that John suspected  him of doing something bad. It hadn't
taken Will long to decide what he had  to do.

"John?" Will said softly as the car pulled into the driveway.

John turned to face him, pausing to unsnap his seatbelt. "Yeah?"

Will paused for a second, knowing that this was the last chance he had
to  back out. It would be so easy for him to chicken out; he could
always try again  another time. But he also knew that this was
something he had to do; his dad  needed him. And with that thought,
Will knew he could be brave.

"Do you know who Gibson Praise is?"

John's eyes betrayed his surprise at the name, but he said nothing,
just  nodded.

"You know what he could do?"

"Yeah. That kid who could read minds. How do *you* know what he could
do?"

Will took a deep breath, his toes curled up tight inside his sneakers
and his  stomach similarly tied in a knot. "I know because I can do
it, too," he  whispered.

John just stared at him. "Come again?"

"I can do it, too. Well, not exactly like that," he corrected. "It's
not  reading minds; it's more like really knowing someone's
feelings."

John sighed. "Will, I know you're a very perceptive little boy. And
very  intelligent." His voice had a condescending tone that Will had
never heard from  John before, and Will thought that maybe telling
John wasn't such a good idea  after all.

"It's true," Will insisted. "I know what you're feeling now."

"What am I feeling?"

"You don't believe me. You're worried and confused."

John shook his head. "Listen, Will, it doesn't take a psychic to
know--"

"I'm not psychic," he insisted stubbornly, knowing that he sounded
like a  disobedient child. "I just... feel things sometimes."

"Sometimes? Like now?"

Will nodded, realizing what he needed to do. It was obvious to anyone
what  John was thinking now, so Will had to think back and remember a
time when he'd  felt John's feelings. A time when he'd felt feelings
that no one would have  guessed but that John would have remembered,
feelings that...

"Do you remember when we went to the Orioles' Opening Day last year?
My mom  came with us? Remember?"

"Yeah," John said. "I remember."

"During the seventh-inning stretch, I went with my mom to get
something to  drink."

John nodded almost imperceptibly.

"After we left, the man sitting next to us told you that you had a
nice  family. He said that he wished his wife and kids would come to
games with him. And  you didn't correct him."

John's face paled. "How the hell could you have heard that?"

"I didn't hear it," Will told him. "I didn't have to; you thought
about it  for the rest of the night. You felt bad because you didn't
tell the man that we  weren't really your family, and you thought that
my mom would be mad if she  knew.

"And," Will added as an afterthought, "you felt lonely because you
didn't  think you'd ever have your own family again. You were missing
Luke."

John just stared at him then, his breath heavy in the quiet car. Will
waited,  still afraid that he'd made the wrong decision, especially
about mentioning  Luke. John rarely talked about his son, and most of
what Will knew about Luke  Doggett was from his mom, who really didn't
know much either. Luke was like a  secret that they all knew -- Will
and his mom, John and Monica -- but no one  talked about for fear of
hurting the others.

What if John decided that he was a freak? What if he wanted to take
him to a  lab and have Will studied? What if he decided that Will was
an X-File? Will  didn't know if his mom and dad could protect him if
John did that, especially  with his mom in the hospital and his dad so
worried about her.

His dad...

Will thought of his dad, the shadows under his eyes and the tired
slump of  his shoulders. The sad way his dad looked at his mom in the
hospital bed, the  pain on his face when he reached out to touch the
baby growing inside her.  You're doing the right thing, Will reminded
himself. He had to help his dad.

"Why are you telling me this?" John's voice was tight with fear. "This
is  something you should talk to your father about, Will."

"He already knows," Will said. "And I'm not supposed to tell anyone,
but I  had to. To help my dad." John's expression was confused, and
Will continued.

"You think my dad is doing something bad because he won't tell you how
he  found my mom. You think he's trying to protect a bad guy. But it's
me he's  protecting." 

"What?"

"We, I, uh," he stuttered, realizing that he probably couldn't tell
John the  entire truth after all. He couldn't tell him about Joy; John
didn't even know  Joy, and it wasn't fair for Will to spill her secret
for her.

"I was trying to feel for her. It wasn't my first try, but I was
getting  closer; I was starting to feel her."

"Your mom?"

"No," Will said, "my sister. I tried my mom first -- I thought she'd
be  easier, but she wasn't. So I tried with my sister, and it worked.
I could feel  her."

John nodded. "So you told your dad where she was," he said. "That's
why he  couldn't tell me. Protecting his family..."

Will waited and watched the confusion on John's face work through and
eventually clear a little. He stared at Will like he had never seen
him before, and  Will tightened his grip on the door handle, wishing
he were inside the house  where it was safe instead of sitting there
with John, trying to figure out the  man's jumbled-up feelings.

He could tell that John didn't want to believe him -- he kept trying
to  convince himself that Will was just a kid making up stories -- but
then he reminded  himself that Will didn't lie often, and that he
certainly wouldn't lie about  something this important. Then John got
scared again and stopped believing,  and then he wondered how Will
could have known about what had happened at the  ballpark if he wasn't
telling the truth, and John started to believe what Will 
was saying. The seesaw of John's emotions was giving Will a
stomachache.

"Who else knows about this?" John asked finally.

"My mom and dad," Will told him. "And my grandma. That's all." He told
himself that it wasn't a lie leaving Joy out of his answer. And Joy's
mom, who  didn't really believe them anyway.

John sighed. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you for telling me this,
Will. That  was a very grown-up decision for you to make on your
own."

Will said nothing, just waited, still afraid. So now John believed
him; but  what was he going to do about it?

John sensed his apprehension, and he put a hand on the boy's arm. "I
won't  tell anyone else, Will," he assured him. "But I'm going to have
to talk to your  dad about this. So if there's anything else you need
to tell me..."

Will shook his head. "Then my dad isn't in trouble? You aren't mad at
him  anymore?"

John set his hand on Will's shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze.
"I'm not  mad at him, Will, and he's not in trouble. You don't need to
worry about that  anymore."

* * * * *

FBI Headquarters
Washington, DC


The basement office was the same in every way that didn't matter.

Mulder's old "I Want to Believe" poster still hung behind the desk,
bright  and un-sun-bleached. Familiar metal file cabinets still stood
beneath the small,  useless window, and in fact seemed to have
multiplied to occupy the entire  back wall. Even the feeling of the
room was unchanged, the cold, dark weight of  mustiness and mystery
that Mulder had once thought as necessary as oxygen.

Still a woman and a man inhabited this insular realm, armed with
service  weapons and flashlights, seeking answers and justice and The
Truth with not one  but two capital Ts.

But it was not right. The woman had dark hair and an extra couple of
inches,  and the man had a New York accent and an annoying affinity
for NASCAR; and  right now, to Mulder, it was the small things that
made all the difference.

This kingdom was Fox Mulder's no more, and so he stood in the doorway,
watching the not-so-new Prince and Princess of the Paranormal huddle
together over a  desk, arguing in hushed tones. Their arms brushed
against each other as they  reached across the desk, and Agent Reyes's
lips approached her partner's ear  when she spoke. 

Mulder squinted at them, trying to make them into who he needed them
to be,  but there was a hole in him the size of a small redheaded
woman and an even  smaller not-yet-daughter that reminded him that the
old adage was true after all:  you can't go home again.

After a minute Doggett chuffed loudly at his partner's argument and
threw his  hands in the air. "You can't prove that theory, Monica, and
you..." A look of  panic flashed across his face when he spotted their
visitor. "Mulder."

Reyes's head snapped up, and she stepped away from her partner, eyes
darting  guiltily toward the door. "Hi, Mulder."

"Agent Doggett. Agent Reyes." Mulder stepped into the office.

"Somethin' wrong, Mulder?" Doggett asked. "Is it Dana?"

"No," Mulder assured them. "No news." Hands stuffed in the pockets of
his  jeans, Mulder approached Doggett, dropping his voice and giving
the agent a  pointed look before glancing back toward the door. "If
you have a minute, Agent  Doggett...?"

Doggett glanced between Mulder and his partner, whose full attention
was now  on the two men evading her gaze. "Yeah. Yeah, sure, I got
some time," Doggett  said. He grabbed his coat on this way to the
door. "Can you finish up here,  Monica? I'll be right back."

"Wait a minute, *partner,*" she said, coming around the desk, hands on
her  hips. "Aren't you forgetting something... or someone?"

"I just need to talk to Agent Doggett. Alone," Mulder clarified.
"Sorry."

Monica clenched her jaw. "If this is about Dana's case..."

"No," Mulder assured her. "It's personal."

Monica stepped back behind the desk, but by the set of her jaw and the
flash  of her eyes, Mulder knew that she was not happy about it.
"Fine," she said.  "Fine. I'll just be here. Working."

After shooting an apologetic look at his partner, Doggett followed
Mulder out  of the office. Mulder suppressed a smile. Had he and
Scully been that  transparent? They'd always thought that no one had
known about their relationship  until Scully's pregnancy, but if they
had looked at each other like Doggett and  Reyes had just been
doing... Gazing, Mulder thought, feeling a spark of  recognition
somewhere in his Swiss-cheese memory.

"Mulder," Doggett started as soon as they stepped into the empty
elevator.

Mulder held up one hand. "Not here," he said.

So Doggett followed him to the parking garage, then to Scully's
Accord.  Mulder had driven her car back from Quantico after Doggett's
team had searched it  fruitlessly for clues, but since then it hadn't
left the garage. Mulder  supposed he should drive it -- probably it
was not good for a car to sit idle for too  long -- but until today he
could not even bring himself to acknowledge its  presence in the
garage.

But Mulder hadn't had time lately to take his car to the Gunmen's to
get it  checked for bugs, and the even layer of dust on Scully's car
proved that it  hadn't been disturbed since its return. So the choice
was Scully's car or find  some other safe place to talk, and Mulder
had almost gone with the latter when  he climbed into the Accord,
adjusted the seat, and discovered that the  vehicle's interior still
smelled just like her.

"Where are we goin', Mulder?" Doggett asked when they pulled out of
the  parking garage.

"Nowhere," Mulder told him. "But we need to talk and we couldn't do it
in  your office."

"About Will."

"Yeah," Mulder said. "About Will." There was a long silence then as
Mulder  stopped at a red light. He stared straight out the windshield,
waiting for  Doggett to make the first move. Although Will had given
his father a detailed  description of the conversation he'd had with
Doggett, Mulder was reluctant to  introduce any specific facts, just
in case there was something Will had not shared  with the agent.

Mulder glanced over at Doggett, who was shifting uncomfortably in his
seat.  He reached down behind him and pulled something out from the
cushion.  Chuckling, Doggett held up a plastic Lego person that Will
had been searching for for  weeks. Mulder smiled as Doggett dropped
the toy into the front console.

"I'm sure you have questions," Mulder offered.

"Hell, yeah... How did it happen, Mulder? And why?"

Mulder shook his head. "I wish I could answer that, Agent Doggett."

"Yeah, well, I can't say I'm surprised by that," Doggett admitted.
"But he is  like that Gibson Praise kid, right?"

"It's different than with Gibson," Mulder said. "Will's abilities
are... less  focused, less developed maybe. We're not sure."

"When did it start?" Doggett asked. "I remember that Dana was worried
about  Will when he was a baby. Does that have somethin' to do with
it?"

"I don't know," Mulder admitted. "Will was two the first time it
happened."  His voice was soft as he relayed the story to Doggett, a
secondhand memory that  he had never voluntarily revisited. Of all the
stories Scully had told him  about Will -- first words, first steps,
first day of school -- this was Mulder's  least favorite first. It had
saddened him to hear this story from her, how  frightened and alone he
knew she must have been, even though she had been  reluctant to admit
as much. How badly Mulder wished he could have been there with 
her. Their own private X-File, he thought.

Doggett's questions continued as Mulder drove in a wide circle around
the  Hoover building, and there were so many questions that Mulder
started to get a  bad feeling in his gut. As it stood, his trust of
John Doggett was tenuous.  Despite Doggett's current relationship with
Agent Reyes, Mulder knew that the man  still held feelings for Scully,
feelings so deep that perhaps even he himself  believed that they were
gone. But, his own initial insecurities  notwithstanding, Mulder had
always felt he could trust Doggett with his son's safety if that 
ever became necessary. He had always been good to Will, and Mulder
tried to  give that relationship a wide berth.

But now Mulder was beginning to worry whether Will's secret was truly
safe  with John Doggett. He worked on the X-Files, after all, and
Mulder knew all too  well the investigative zeal attached to that
office. Even, or perhaps  especially, when personal matters were at
stake.

"Mulder... Mulder?" Doggett's question snapped Mulder's attention back
to his  passenger.

"Yeah?"

"Will's okay, right?"

Mulder glanced over at Doggett. "What do you mean?"

"I read the X-File on yours and Dana's experience with the pieces of
that  ship. Will isn't... affected like that, is he?"

"No," Mulder assured Doggett. "No, he's healthy. Normal in every other
way we  can tell."

"Good," Doggett said. "That's good."

A pause, then Doggett continued, "I promised Will I'd keep his secret,
Mulder, and I'll promise you the same. I've closed the inquiry into
the 'phone call'  that led you to find Dana. You don't have to worry
about that anymore."

"Thank you." Mulder wanted to take Doggett at his word, to trust the
man.  Certainly he could tell that Doggett was concerned for Will's
well-being, but  still Mulder had one worry.

"And Agent Reyes?" he asked.

A pause, then, "What about her?"

"Does she know?"

Doggett shook his head. "I'm a man of my word. I said I wouldn't tell
anyone,  and I haven't."

Mulder let this sit a minute, still feeling his way around the
subject.  "Because I would understand -- and I think Scully would, too
-- if Agent Reyes were  to know."

"She doesn't," Doggett said tightly.

"I know that kind of secret can be difficult to keep," Mulder
continued.  "Between partners, I mean."

"Just what are you implying, Mulder?" Doggett asked. Mulder gave the
man a  knowing look but just shrugged.

"Because if you're makin' an assumption based on what you saw back in
the  office just now," Doggett started.

Mulder shook his head. "Let's just say that sometimes Will... stumbles
upon  things," he explained.

"Oh." Mulder was almost pleased to see the shade of red that had come
over  the agent's face. "Oh, shit." He scrubbed his hand over his
forehead. "Who  knows?"

"Just Will and Scully and me," Mulder assured him. "And I think all
three of  us understand the importance of keeping this secret. You
don't have anything  to worry about either, Agent Doggett."

Doggett sighed and turned in his seat to face the window. There was a
long  pause, and Mulder could imagine the thoughts running through the
other man's  mind; certainly they had taken up residence in his own so
many years ago.

"You know why Will told me, don't you, Mulder?" Doggett said finally.

Mulder nodded. Will had explained that, how he knew John was
suspicious of  how Mulder had managed to find Scully. At first Mulder
had been angry with his  son; he wished the boy would have come to him
and explained the feelings he was  picking up from Doggett rather than
make such a big decision on his own. But  after talking with Will,
Mulder came to the realization that his son was  growing up; still he
was young, but his was a life that forced a certain maturity. 
It had been a sad realization for Mulder, something like a failure.

"I don't know what Will told you," Doggett continued, "but your son
was  trying to protect you, Mulder. He knew I was suspicious, and he
loves you so much  that he's willing to do anything to save you."

"I know," Mulder said softly.

"I hope you do," Doggett answered, his voice tight. "I hope you do."

* * * * *

End Part 22. Continued in Part 23.

Title: Song of Experience (23/?) 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC


"'And then Prince Charming bent and kissed her on the lips. Sleeping
Beauty  slowly opened her eyes, and the spell was broken. And they
lived happily ever  after. The end.'

"Okay, Dad, now you kiss her."

"What?"

"Now you have to kiss her. Like Prince Charming in the story."

"Will, do you know how hard your mom would laugh if she were to hear
you  comparing me to Prince Charming?"

"Dad, you have to try. You at least have to try."

A sigh, then, "Will..."

"Please? You made me try those weird whatever-they're-calleds at
Grandma's  house."

A murmured "Capers" was followed by, "Okay. Okay, fine."

Then Scully felt warmth on her forehead, and she struggled to open her
eyes.  I'm here, she thought. I can hear you. She tried to move, to
open her mouth to  speak, but she felt as though she were wrapped in a
tight cocoon, her body  heavy and somehow detached from her brain.

"No, not like that! You have to kiss her on her lips." Pages rustled,
then,  "Look at the picture. Prince Charming didn't kiss her
*forehead.*"

"Will..."

"Da-aad, come on. Please?"

Then another warm pressure, this time on her lips, and Scully
struggled to  move against it, to part her lips, tilt her head, even
to bite. Something,  anything, to let them know that she was there.
But there was no response from  Mulder or Will, and she knew that she
hadn't moved.

"It didn't work."

Will's voice was disappointed, distraught, and Scully wondered what
had  happened. Where she was and how long she'd been this way. It felt
like forever; she  could barely remember how to move her limbs, how to
command her eyes to open,  and when she tried to move she knew that
nothing had happened.

"Will, that story's a fairy tale. You knew as well as I did that it
wasn't  going to wake her up."

* * * * *

717 Locust Street
Georgetown


In his experience, a ringing phone at 2:39 AM meant only one thing:
bad news.  Mulder wanted not to answer it, wanted to let the incessant
ringing continue  until whoever it was gave up and left a message, a
message he could deal with  in the morning when he was a little less
exhausted. Deal with or delete,  Mulder thought as he covered his head
with his pillow.

So it was against his better two-AM judgment that Mulder fumbled for
the  cordless phone that he'd left on the bedstand, finally finding it
and holding it  up to his ear. He jumped when it emitted another
shrill ring, then finally  found the TALK button with his thumb.

"'Lo?"

"Fox Mulder?" The voice on the other end of the line was soft but 
official-sounding. The perfect tone, he imagined, for whoever made
those horrific calls  to summon family members to the hospital at 2:39
AM.

"Yes." Mulder pushed himself to sit up against the headboard. "Can I
help  you?"

"This is Eileen at GWU Hospital. I'm calling because--"

"What happened?" he demanded, an adrenaline-fueled wakefulness taking
over,  surging through his veins. "My wife-- Has something happened to
my wife?"

"She's fine, Mr. Mulder. That's why I'm calling," the voice explained.
"She's  awake."

He had to remember to breath. "What?"

"She's awake," the voice repeated. "Your wife has regained
consciousness. I  know the hour's late, but there's a note in her
chart that you want to be  called as soon--"

"Yes," he insisted. "Yes. Thank you."

Mulder dropped the phone onto the bed without ending the call and had
to hunt  for it in the sea of sheets to quiet the buzzing dial tone
when the woman on  the other end hung up. The light, he realized,
reaching over to turn on the  lamp on Scully's side of the bed. He
fumbled with the tie of his pajama pants as  he headed over to the
closet for a shirt and a pair of jeans. His fingers  tripped over the
buttonholes as he walked barefoot into the hallway.

"Will," Mulder shouted as he went back into the bedroom for his shoes.
His  voice rumbled through the late-night quiet of the house, and
downstairs he could  hear the dog waking, his claws clicking on the
kitchen floor.

"Will, up and at 'em," Mulder called as he rapped on his son's bedroom
door.  "We're going to the hospital; Mom's awake!"

* * * * *

George Washington University Hospital
Washington, DC

Mulder's heart thudded in his chest as he pushed open the door of
Scully's  room. Will was clutching his hand, which was now tingling
for lack of blood, and  the two of them stumbled into the darkness of
the room, momentarily blinded  after the bright light of the hallway.

He blinked at the bed, letting his eyes adjust until he could finally
make  out Scully's shape. She was in a different position,
half-sitting instead of  propped up on her side, but other than that,
she looked just as she had when he'd  left her that afternoon: eyes
closed peacefully, hands clasped together on  her lap.

"Scully?" he called softly.

Then she turned to him, and Mulder smiled with relief as he caught
sight of  her familiar blue eyes shining in the dark.

"Mommy!" Will dropped Mulder's hand and flew across the room to his
mother's  bed, nearly throwing himself into her arms.

"Careful," Mulder warned. He watched them from the door, Will half on
Scully's bed and Scully leaning over to hold him. Both had their eyes
closed and  their hands tightly clutching the other's clothing.
Finally Scully looked back  toward the doorway, toward Mulder, a
beatific smile on her face.

"Hey," she said softly, holding her free hand out to him.

"Hey." He crossed the room, arm stretching toward her. When he reached
her  bedside, Mulder weaved their fingers together, then brought his
face down to  hers. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, then to
her cheek, then finally met  her lips. She returned his kiss, and it
felt so good; so very, very good. He  had been kissing her
unresponsive form for too long. Now, finally, she was  kissing him
back.

"Thank you," he whispered, whether to her or to someone else, he
didn't know.

Finally the three of them pulled apart, and Scully smiled as she
glanced  between them. "What'd I miss?" she asked as Will crawled up
on her bed. Slowly  Scully scooted over to make room, and Will curled
up next to her, his head  resting on her lap, a blissful smile on his
face.

"Jesus, Scully..." Mulder pulled her back into his arms. "I thought--
I was  afraid that--" He turned to look into her eyes, his heart
squeezing in his  chest when he saw tears there. "Are you okay? We're
not hurting you?"

She shook her head. "It feels good," she assured him. "I'm sore, but
just to  feel *anything* again..." At the questioning look on his
face, she smiled. "I  could-- I've been able to hear you, you and
Will, for a few days. Just your  voices, really; I couldn't see
anything. It was slow, like a curtain was being  pulled back. First
hearing you, and then I could feel you. And feel..."

Scully trailed one hand down to her belly, which was probably
significantly  larger than she remembered it. She caressed the new
breadth of it. "The nurse  said the baby is okay?"

His hand joined hers and squeezed gently. "She's perfect."

"She?"

He nodded, his smile matching Scully's. "I saw the results of the
amnio you  had with Dr. Speake. A healthy little girl; Will was right.
And Dr. Speake says  everything is completely normal."

"She's a fighter."

"Like her mom," Mulder agreed, then let his eyes drift over to Will,
still  sleeping with his head on his mother's lap. "We make strong
babies, Scully."

She smiled and her gaze followed his. "Has he been okay? Have *you*?"

Mulder nodded, but he couldn't lie to her. "He had -- we both had -- a
rough  time," he admitted. "But we're okay." Now that you're okay, he
thought.

"You should take him home." Scully ran the back of her hand over
Will's soft  cheek. "Put him to bed."

Mulder shook his head and stroked his thumb over her fingers. "There's
no way  in hell I'm leaving you now."

"Mulder, I'm fine," she insisted. "I had the nurse call my mom after
she  phoned you. She should be here soon. And Will should be sleeping
in his own bed."  She studied Mulder's thoughtful expression, trying
to anticipate his  obligatory argument. "Really. Go."

He looked over at his son, who was moving in his sleep, trying to get
comfortable. "Okay," he agreed as Will mumbled something
unintelligible. "When your  mom gets here we'll leave." She nodded
then and smiled at him wearily. "You  tired?"

"I feel like I haven't slept in weeks, which is strange because that's
all  I've been doing."

Mulder smiled and leaned forward to press another kiss to her
forehead, not  trusting himself with her lips. He knew that if he
started there he'd never  want to stop, wouldn't be able to get enough
of her, despite the fact that they  were in the hospital and Will was
curled up in bed beside his mother.

"What happened?" Scully asked in a small voice after she checked to
make sure  Will was still asleep. "What did they do to me, Mulder?"

He tightened his grip on her hand. "What do you remember?"

"Very little," she said. "My computer crashed, so I went down to Tech
Support. I tried to call, but their line was busy.

"I stepped out of the elevator, and..." She paused to take a deep
breath  before continuing. "Someone was there. A man. He grabbed me
and pulled me to the  side. Into a janitor's closet, I think. He had a
gun..."

The hand holding his went to her belly then, and she led their joined
hands  in a slow circle around their growing child. "He pressed the
barrel to my  abdomen, and he said... He said, 'One word and I'll pull
the trigger. And you and I  both know that you're not going to risk a
gunshot here, don't we?'"

Mulder sucked in a breath, his body tightening as if(threatened, evef
as he  felt the warmth of Scully's body against his hand. He waited
for the surge of  protectiveness to end, but it only grew, filled him
with its intensity.

"Then there was another man," Scully continued. "He had gauze soaked
in  something sweet-smelling and he pressed it to my mouth.

"That's all I remember," she said. "Until a few days later. At least I
think  it was a few days. I was someplace bright, lots of lights and I
could hear  machines -- medical equipment, I think -- beeping. There
was a man standing over  me, but he wasn't one of the two that took
me. This one was wearing a surgical  mask and scrubs. He said, 'Shit,
she's awake,' and then I saw him inject  something into my IV... And
the next thing I remember is here, in the hospital.

"What happened, Mulder?"

He sighed, relishing the tight grip of her hand on his, of the way she
was  pressing their joined hands into her belly. He stared down at the
bright  butterflies filling her cast, then lowered the rail on the
side of her bed. Scully  shot him a questioning look, but Mulder
simply perched himself on the edge of  her mattress, as close as he
could get to her with their son also taking up a  generous portion of
the hospital bed. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper.

"Will found you." He raised his gaze to meet Scully's. "He and Joy.
They  found the baby, actually. They--"

She slipped her hand from his and pressed her fingers to his lips. "I
understand," she said with a sad smile. Mulder nodded; he didn't want
to say any  more, either, not in a hospital where anyone could be
listening in or watching  them... He took her hand in his again.

"I went there. Called Doggett and they brought you here--"

"Thank you," she said softly, but Mulder just shook his head. There
was no  reason for her to thank him, not when it had taken their
seven-year-old son to  find her.

He cleared his throat. "The doctor who saw you in the ER said you'd
been..."  He paused, trying not to choke on the word. "Examined. He
said you'd had an  internal exam and another amnio, and that they --
whoever did the test -- they'd  taken out lots of fluid."

The expression on her face was nearly painful, and Mulder reached over
to  caress her cheek. "It's all okay now," he assured her. "He said
it's all been  replenished; you're okay and the baby's okay."

Scully nodded, exhaling heavily as she fell back against her pillow. 
Carefully Mulder laid back beside her. There was more to discuss, he
knew; they had to  go over her limited memories for a possible
description of the men who had  taken her, and he had to inform her of
the situation with Doggett. But right  then Mulder wanted nothing more
than to just hold her, to be able to reach out  and touch Will, touch
the growing bulge of the baby, to assure himself that it 
was all real, and to know that she was feeling as much as he was; he
was not  dreaming.

"I almost forgot," Mulder said, running his finger along the inside of
his  shirt collar, finally locating the gold chain around his neck. He
found the  clasp and undid it, then slid the object off the necklace.

"What...?"

He held out his hand to her, showing her the wedding ring the doctors
had had  to remove in the ER. The ring he had been wearing around his
neck ever since,  hanging from the longest gold chain he'd found in
her small jewelry box. He'd  bought a new chain for her cross and
replaced the necklace around her neck  soon after they'd found her,
but her ring he'd worn himself, needing to keep some  piece of her
near him.

Together they looked at her ring finger and the cast on her left hand.
Scully  offered him her right hand. He smiled, then slid the ring on
before bringing  her hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckle.

"I do," Mulder whispered.

* * * * *

End Part 23. Continued in Part 24.