From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:21:39 GMT Subject: NEW: Unspoken 1/13 Disclaimer: These characters belong to Chris Carter, 10-13 and Fox, not me, and they are used without permission. No infringement is intended. This story may also resemble several other stories of its sort; this resemblence is in no way intentional; in fact, I tried desperately to avoid it. My thanks go out to the Mysterious and Suspicious people who read this story in its earliest form and took the time to comment and make suggestions, especially Lioness, who had some very definite ideas about the ending. As always, all comments or thoughts are warmly embraced; please email me at eponine119@att.net Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net April 15, 1996 I. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully held hands as they strolled along the length of the park, near the reflecting pool of the Washington monument. The warm sun shone brightly, and the air smelled sweet. The trees were just beginning to get their leaves. It looked like spring had finally arrived. Mulder looked down at their threaded fingers, still feeling faint surprise that his partner had reached over and impulsively grabbed his hand. He smiled down at the top of her red head, affection and another warmer feeling flowing through him. He was having a harder and harder time thinking of her as just his partner. They swung their arms between them like carefree children. An older man was sitting on a park bench, feeding squirrels from his hand. Tourist kids gathered to watch in wonder, their happy shouts and giggles not disturbing the tame animals in the least. Mulder and Scully paused for a moment to look, then walked on. Lovers stopped in the middle of pathway in front of them to kiss and they stepped around without speaking. Mulder looked down at Scully again, the contented smile on her face nearly as broad as his own. With her hair tucked back behind her ears and dressed in jeans and a shirt that hung almost to her knees, she looked young. And happy. Mulder considered the faces of the people passing and wondered how they appeared to the strangers. Did they look like lovers? They weren't. And he wasn't sure how he felt about that anymore. The sun retreated behind a cloud. Mulder heard the rustle of leaves and felt a cool wind across the back of his neck. The breeze lifted a strand of Scully's hair, twirling it in front of her face. She broke the contact of their hands to put it more firmly behind her ear. Maybe winter wasn't completely gone, Mulder thought. They continued walking, slower, as he allowed Scully to set the pace. She seemed winded; he watched her breathe through parted lips as he wondered if he should take her hand again. The indecision plagued him too long and the moment of opportunity passed. It would seem awkward and too obvious, he thought, if he tried to hold her hand now. Scully moved to walk closer to him, her shoulders almost brushing his arm as she used him as a shield from the sudden cold wind. Mulder wished he was wearing a jacket so he could drape it ever so casually around her shoulders. He considered suggesting that they turn back. It didn't look like the sun was going to come back out. He felt her steps falter and put his hand on her arm to steady her. Instead of mumbling thanks or ignoring it and continuing on as he expected her to do, Scully's eyes met his for a second and he could see something dark there, clouding the blue. Something was wrong. She wasn't quite focused and she blinked. He put his other hand on her arm to hold her until the dizziness passed but her eyes slid closed and she collapsed silently into his arms. He held her up against his body, safe from falling, as he patted her face and tried to rouse her. Her eyes didn't open, and that was when he noticed the coldness of her skin, the light sheen of sweat. He could feel the shallowness of her breathing. Her weight in his arms was slight, almost insubstantial and he began to feel afraid. Supporting Scully with one arm around her back, he used his other hand to dial the emergency number on his cellular phone. He tried desperately to remember first aid, but his mind was horrifically blank. All he could think was, something's wrong with Scully. Bending his knees, he put Scully's limp body over his shoulder to get her to the nearest bench, where he lay her head across his legs. He pressed his fingers into the side of her neck, but in his clumsy ignorance, he couldn't find her pulse. Giving up, he stroked her face, seeking a connection to her in his quiet terror, seeking to bring her back to him. Her eyes fluttered open. "Scully," Mulder said immediately, wanting her to smile and sit up and tell him that everything was all right. She wet her lips and spoke in a weak voice. "I think I'm in shock," she said. "The ambulance is on the way. Hold on." Mulder squeezed her hand in his, listening for the sirens. This couldn't be happening, he thought. "Hold on." "It hurts," she said, exerting weak pressure back on his hand. "Here." Her eyes burned into his and she placed his hand on her belly, writhing slightly in pain when he touched her. Her eyes slipped closed again and Mulder felt panic eating away at him because there was nothing he could do. The approaching ambulance sirens shattered the quiet enclosure of the park, their screams almost too loud, hurting Mulder's ears. He felt the wind blowing cold, drying the tears on his face as he continued to stroke Scully's hair. How could she be unconscious when she was all right not five minutes ago? he asked himself angrily, but there were no answers. A man pulled Scully out of his arms, taking her away and Mulder physically fought against him, trying to stop him and keep her safe until his head cleared and suddenly he realized what he was doing, heard the man shouting at him, saw that the man was a paramedic. Mulder's shoulders drooped, his entire body feeling heavy as he followed their movements with his eyes. The other medics set to work on Scully, their hands seeming rough in their haste as Mulder watched. They moved with the quickness of ants, it seemed to him, accomplishing several tasks all at once. He didn't know what they were doing to her. "She was fine a minute ago," Mulder heard himself saying, his voice echoing oddly in his ears, but no one was listening to him. They had more important things to attend to. Straps held Scully's body immobile on a wooden stretcher board. He thought of all the times he'd been hurt; how had she been able to stand by and watch? he wondered. On the fringes of his vision, Mulder could see a small crowd gathering to watch the excitement, mostly teenagers who were whispering to each other. He heard the laughter of children coming from another part of the park. He wanted to scream at all of them to get away, that this was not entertainment! But he remained silent. The far-off sounds faded and he realized the head medic, the one who he'd fought with, was asking him questions. Mulder turned to him and tried to focus on what the man was saying, but he didn't know the answers to any of the questions and he felt so damned helpless. Had she had a fever? Was she menstruating? When did she last eat? How the hell did he know? Mulder followed them back to the ambulance and insisted on riding in the back with her. A look from the head medic was all it took to make it clear that he wasn't welcome, but Mulder climbed in anyway. "Stay out of the way," the medic told him. Mulder's eyes never wavered from Scully's face as he waited for her to open her crystal blue eyes and look at him and say 'I'm all right'. The short ride to the hospital seemed to take all afternoon, as the paramedics continued to administer treatment to Scully. Mulder hoped she couldn't feel them poking and prodding at her from all directions. They broke into a run as they skated the stretcher into the emergency room and Mulder raced after them. A nurse in bright pink scrubs blocked Mulder's path, and his feet slid on the highly polished floor as he came to a stop. She put a sheaf of papers and forms into his hands and pointed him toward the nearest plastic couch. He looked desperately to the double set of doors through which they had taken Scully, but he also knew there would be no arguing with the nurse. He sank down obediently on the couch, his mind numb and his eyes burning. The forms he had to complete seemed so futile and useless, page after blank page asking the same questions, more questions that he didn't know the answers to. After every other line that he completed with the nurse's stubby pencil, he looked up and checked the doors, scanned the room, but no one came to tell him anything. The minutes ticked by slowly but accumulated quickly. Half an hour passed. He finished the forms and waited. Forty five minutes. With leaden fingers, Mulder dialed the number he'd retrieved from his wallet. He couldn't put it off any longer. Actually, he shouldn't have put it off this long and he added guilt to the list of emotions. His mouth was dry; what could he say? The words were ringing in his ears: I didn't protect her. But Margaret Scully did not answer her phone and Mulder could not bear to leave a message on her answering machine telling her that her daughter was suddenly, inexplicably in the emergency room, so he didn't have to speak. He didn't have to find the words. He was relieved. A doctor emerged from the double doors, and came to stand before him. Don't look at his clothes, Mulder told himself, that blood is not hers. He had to believe that, had to believe that she would be all right. Mulder got to his feet and waited, barely breathing. The doctor looked grim. The news wasn't good, Mulder thought, but he couldn't bring himself to ask, so he waited some more. The doctor didn't seem to know where to begin. "I'm Doctor Jones," he said at last, not meeting Mulder's eyes. "Miss Scully fainted from shock as a result of blood loss," he began slowly, simply, speaking to Mulder as though he were a child. "She was bleeding internally." Had time shifted out of sync or was the man speaking incredibly slowly? Mulder's fists clenched; he wanted to throttle the man and force the words from him. But he waited as the man drawled on. "Apparently she had an ectopic pregnancy and it..." The words burned into Mulder's brain one syllable at a time. He gasped for air, feeling the ground whirl beneath his feet as though the wind had been knocked out of him, the same dizzy feeling as when he fell out of that tree when he was ten...Scully was pregnant? He stared at the man, waiting for him to realize his mistake, to smile and say that this was all a sick joke. But he didn't. Mulder's emotions were tied in knots and he didn't know how to react. He was only her partner, he shouldn't care that she was seeing someone and not telling him. But he did care. Too much, it seemed. The doctor had stopped speaking and was watching the confusion play across Mulder's face. "I know it's a shock," he said, almost sympathetically. Mulder bit back a bitter, hysterical laugh as he realized the doctor had mistakenly assumed that he was the father. "But there is more." Mulder forced himself to focus on the doctor instead of the crazy thoughts zooming through his mind. How could there be more? Wasn't that enough? "There's an...irregularity...in her blood. No one in our lab has seen anything like it. We've called in a specialist, but...do you know if her family -" the doctor amended himself humbly - "Have her blood relatives been reached? The preliminary analysis suggests it may be a genetic agent, and she needs a transfusion." He finished as though he was very, very sorry to bother Mulder with all this. "I tried...no answer." Mulder stammered. He had no idea where Scully's brothers Bill and, uh, whatshisname, lived. Maybe Skinner would know if he couldn't get a hold of Scully's mom, he thought idly. The doctor watched as Mulder tried to call Mrs. Scully on his cellular phone again. There was still no answer and Mulder wanted to throw the phone across the room in his anger and fear. The doctor's mouth was set when Mulder looked at him again, without speaking, and Mulder realized for the first time that Scully might die. Cold fear washed over him. She couldn't. He had to do something. He had to protect her, keep her safe. "Test me." Mulder said and the doctor's eyebrows shot up owlishly in surprise. "We work together, maybe it was something she was exposed to something through her work, and then I might..." Mulder began. The doctor stared. "We have the same blood type." "That's convenient," said the doctor and led Mulder back to an examining room. End part one. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 2/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:22:24 GMT Disclaimed in part one Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net The room was dark and full of smoke and the ashtray full of butts. He tried to keep his hand from shaking visibly as he lit another cigarette and waited for the report. The operative, Marks, did not hesitate before speaking. The man liked that. "It's gone sour," Marks said frankly. "The procedure went wrong, it didn't implant correctly. The doctors have discovered the factor in her blood, but they don't know what it is. She lost a lot of blood before the problem was detected; she needs a transfusion to stabilize her condition. With the factor in her blood, that will be impossible without compromising the security of the entire project. I say we cut our losses. " "Damn it, do not tell me what to do," the man's voice was whispery-high as he pounded the table with his fist, asserting his authority through violence, setting the ice cubes in his drink clanking against each other. "We cannot afford to lose her at this stage. Steps must be taken to preserve her life. She is vital to our operation." He burned himself trying to light his cigarette too quickly. "It can't be done without compromising -" Marks repeated himself. There was that word that the man hated: Can't. "This will be done!" He rose to his feet and exhaled smoke into Marks' overzealous face. "And quickly. We have people in position at the hospital who can retrieve the evidence and cover our tracks. It won't be as easy getting the blood to her, but you will do whatever is necessary." He ordered. The operative didn't move, just stared at him with eyes almost as steely and flat as the man's own. "If she's so vital to the operation, maybe you should have left her alone." Marks spat the words, turned and left before the man could remove the cigarette from his lips and respond. He sank back into his chair and let a long swallow of alcohol burn down his throat before he lit the next cigarette and held it between his thumb and forefinger, calming himself. He was not doing the wrong thing by trying to save her life. She was involved in too many of his complex plans for the future, not just keeping Mulder in line or even Project 26, and it was too late to change the plans now. The beauty of it was, she didn't know about any of them; didn't believe that the things he had done had actually occurred because they didn't fit into the realm of reasonable science. It had to stay that way. He looked down at the file in his lap, labeled DKS 5-26, turning to the back pages where he'd scribbled notes in his own hand. He would salvage the operation. Without sacrificing the life of Dana Scully, and without making her seem too vital. His associates did not yet need to know of the plans he'd made. Mulder was back in the waiting room, watching the nurses stand around and chat as though it were just another ordinary day. He noticed a few other white-faced, haggard people sitting in the room with him and he knew they were also waiting for news about a loved one. It hurt too much for him to look at them. He toyed with the Band Aid covering the puncture wound in his arm where the doctors had drawn his blood a short time ago. It seemed useless to sit there and hope that his blood would be compatible, so he went back through their cases in his mind, searching for one where Scully could have been exposed to a biological agent that could have altered the makeup of her blood. The scratches from the mysterious killer kitty cats? Blood from Kevin Kryder's so-called miraculous stigmata? A pinprick during any one of a hundred autopsies? There were too many cases, too many instances. Cataloguing their cases in his head did not distract him from the real question that haunted Mulder. Who had fertilized the egg that threatened Scully's life? Who was the father of her child? Just thinking the words caused him almost more pain than he could bear. Why hadn't she said anything to him? And the one that he absolutely refused to consider: why couldn't it have been him? Images flooded his mind, too quick and too painful for him to block. Scully, and a man, in the darkness. A nameless, faceless man. He didn't know she was seeing someone. Why hadn't she said anything? Mulder couldn't make his imagination stop, it was as though he was there in the room with them, feeling the heat, the stifling desire, hearing the whisper of skin against soft skin, her throaty moans. For a second, it was almost a memory, as though he had been the one in that darkened room making love to her. Tension turned his body to iron as he fought to stop the film playing in his mind. Why had she been holding his hand in the park, he wondered, if she was seeing someone else? He prided himself on his quick wit, his ability to understand and see through the pretenses to the heart of human nature. But he didn't have any answers. Where the hell was the doctor? He looked at the doors again, shifting on the bench. How long did it take for them to look at his blood under a microscope and see whether he had the thing or he didn't? He should have heard something by now, he thought impatiently. Mulder pulled out his phone, desperate to turn his attention elsewhere, and dialed Mrs. Scully's number again. No answer. Damn. He had to tell her; she had to come down and have her own blood tested. Dr. Jones had warned Mulder that he was nearly certain that the additive was a genetic agent and not chemical, so unless he was Scully's brother, his blood would do her no good. They were checking anyway, just in case they were wrong, but it would be better if he could contact her mother and get her actual brothers down here. Mulder saw the doctor approaching from across the corridor and got to his feet, restraining himself from running over the man to get the answers faster. At that exact moment, the phone in his hand rang. "Mulder," he answered it. "Fox, you've got to come home." "Mom?" The tone of her voice set his heart racing again. He hadn't heard from his mother in months, and now this, today? Something had to be wrong. Not her too, he thought, not her. He couldn't lose everyone he needed and loved within the space of twenty four hours, he thought, then edited the thoughts. He had to stay positive. He wasn't going to lose anyone. "What is it, what's wrong?" he asked his mother. There was a long pause. It had to be bad if she didn't know how to tell him. "There's a woman here. She says... Fox, she has your father's eyes. Your eyes. Not like the other one." His mother's voice was surprisingly calm. "I think it's her. I think it's really Samantha, come back to us after all this time." "What are you saying?" the man hissed, menacing but ultimately controlled, though he was crushing the unlit cigarette between his fingers. "You delivered Samantha Mulder to her mother without first determining whether her blood was compatible with Dana Scully's? She was removed from Project 26 almost a year ago to start the new protocols. The factor would have disappeared from her blood by now anyway." "I didn't know Factor 26 was genetic-" Marks argued. "It is your job to know." the man said coldly. It looked as though he was going to have to terminate Marks for his foul ups. It was a shame, because up until this point Marks had been a loyal if not incredibly intelligent operative. On any one of a hundred lesser matters, the man would let him off. But Marks would not be forgiven for the number of projects he threatened by releasing Samantha Mulder. The waves from that action would take a great deal of work to contain. "Blood from unit SM 1-4-26-27-89 would kill her. You know that now before it's too late. No harm has been done." Marks sounded very sure of himself. "Scully's life still hangs in the balance," the man reminded him. "And the Mulders will have to be taken care of." He did not express his anger at the release of the woman. If Marks realized the depth of his mistake, he would be expecting the hit. And the man didn't want Marks to be difficult to kill. "Sir, I will -" "No," the man said forcefully. "You will get Samantha Mulder - the SM 1- 4-26-27-89 unit - back before she is discovered and causes any problems, and before she misses the next installment for Project 89. I want her back under my care in one hour. One hour." The man dismissed Marks and sipped his drink, contemplating. It looked like the saying was true: if you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself. He rose to get to work. The doctor reached Mulder as he was holding the cellular phone away from his ear, trying to assimilate what his mother had just told him. Samantha was back? After so many years? Even though he had been fooled and suffered disappointment before, he wanted to believe it was really her this time. That she was finally safe, that he could stop looking. He had to go to her. His heart had been wrenched in the other direction. But he couldn't leave Scully. "You don't have it," Dr. Jones told him. Mulder's eyes snapped up to the doctor's face. "The agent isn't present in your blood. It seems to be completely genetic after all. Have you reached her family?" he eyed Mulder's phone. Mulder shook his head. "Time is of the essence," he said and began to walk away. Life sparked back into Mulder. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "We're doing all we can. We don't know how long she can survive with reduced blood volume. We're losing her." Dr. Jones replied honestly, without breaking his steady stride away from Mulder. A moment later he disappeared back through the double doors. "Fox?" his mother's voice came through the phone and Mulder placed it next to his ear again, dazed. "What is it? What's wrong?" she asked. "My partner is dying." Mulder said and his voice sounded curiously flat even to his own ears. "Oh well, you're all right though, aren't you?" his mother asked, concerned for his health first, not fully realizing the impact of what was going on. "No, Mom." he caught himself as his voice broke. "I'm not." He knew that in thirty seconds, he was going to be sobbing hysterically. He had to stop and regain control, even though his world had gone hopelessly crazy. Scully would not cry if I was hurt, he thought, telling himself he had to imitate her strength. He could imagine the look she would give him if she knew he was crying over her like a fool instead of doing the things that needed to be done. There was another long pause and Mulder was able to collect himself. "We'll come to you," his mother said. "We can catch a flight and be there in an hour or so." If Scully's condition was as dire as the doctor suggested, he wondered if it would matter in an hour. "Thanks, Mom," he managed to say in his normal voice. "You love her, don't you, Fox," his mother said quietly, not even a question and he choked. Quickly he hung up and buried his face so that the curious nurses and the families waiting for news of the other patients wouldn't see him cry. There was a knife in his heart because he knew that he did love her. It was a long time before he realized his mother had meant Samantha and not Scully. End part two. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 3/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:23:11 GMT Disclaimed in part one. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net "She's on a plane to DC," the man informed Marks over the phone. "Get then when they arrive the airport. Return the woman to the labs and turn Mrs. Mulder over to me." "I can't do that, sir." "No?" demanded the man, his stomach burning. "Why not? Where are you? " "Halfway to Martha's Vineyard to retrieve her." Damn! he really was going to have to get involved in this himself. "Did you at least retrieve the fetal tissue from the hospital before you left DC?" "Dr. Jones had it, so I -" The man broke the connection on his weak operative's excuses. He would have to count on Jones's loyalty to keep the projects from being exposed. And he would have to apprehend Samantha Mulder, unit SM 1-4-26-27-89, and return her to the labs before the Project 89 could be compromised. A few well placed phone calls would ease those matters. But first, he thought with a grim little smirk, he had a small accident to arrange in Boston to deal with Marks. The operative had caused more problems that he had been able to solve. Next, the man decided, he would find a way to save Dana Scully's life. He hadn't wanted to go to the children, but now it looked like accessing the products of Project 26 was his only choice. This was turning out to be quite a day. Mulder could not sit and wait any longer. He could not leave Scully's life in the hands of doctors who appeared to be doing nothing to help her. He crossed the waiting room and slipped through the double doors into the ER. No one stopped him. He easily found the curtained-off cubicle where Scully lay in bed, her skin lightly tinged with blue, a monitor counting off her heartbeats. An IV was dripping something into her arm - fluid, plasma, he didn't know. It had not been that long since he'd seen her up and walking around, active and radiant, he thought. So much had changed. He skimmed her chart but the words meant little to him - hypovolemic shock, Factor 26... Apparently it was the blood she'd lost into her pelvic cavity as a result of the pregnancy that kept her condition critical. Everything had been stabilized save for her blood volume. But those were not the answers he sought. He had the feeling Dr. Jones was hiding something from him, that the man knew more than he was telling. Mulder thought that if he could find out more about this weird thing in her blood, perhaps he would be in a better position to help save her life. He let himself look down at her tenderly for only a second. Mulder did not think hopeful thoughts. He did not say goodbye. He didn't even dare to touch her as he said he loved her and left the cubicle. The ER was too busy for anyone to notice him as he slipped through the mobs of rapidly moving doctors and made his way down the stairs, searching for labs. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for other than wanting to get his hands on her odd blood sample. He had to find it. The basement area was less busy than the ER and he dodged behind doors to avoid being seen in a restricted area. Two scientists in white lab coats passed him, conferring with Dr. Jones. His eyes followed them; they were headed back up to the ER. They had to be discussing Scully's case. That would mean her samples would be in the lab they'd left, just waiting for him to come and snatch them. Mulder started up the hallway, determined, and didn't notice the guard standing by the lab door until it was too late; the guard had already spotted him. "Hey!" the security guard yelled, "What're you doing?" Mulder didn't answer, quickly assessing his options. The security man had a gun; Mulder remembered suddenly that he'd left his gun at home. Mulder was fifty feet closer to the stairwell than the guard. "Freeze!" The guard was clumsy with his gun, Mulder noticed, that was dangerous. He ran for the stairwell and lost precious seconds fumbling with the lock, trying to halt the guard for good. He couldn't get it to work. He gave up and ran, taking the steps three at a time. He emerged onto the second floor just as he heard the guard lumbering up behind him. Nurses and orderlies bustled about the hall. Mulder looked around frantically for an escape route and saw that there were other well, civilian people wandering about the hallway. Visiting hours, he thought. He wouldn't stand out here as much as he did when the halls were only filled with doctors. He easily slipped into the room of an elderly man who was asleep. Mulder watched carefully as the downstairs guard walked purposefully down the hall, losing Mulder's trail, then went back again to the stairwell. Mulder wondered why the security guard had a gun in the first place. He wasn't sure, but he thought that the only hospital guards that had guns were the ones who kept watch over the addictive drugs. Whatever they were analyzing in that lab was valuable enough to keep secret. Could it be the sample of Scully's blood? he wondered. Something very strange was going on here, and he didn't like it. Convinced the guard had given up trying to find him, Mulder emerged from the room and tried to blend into the group waiting for the elevator. He wasn't sure what his next plan of action would be, so he thought he might check in with Dr. Jones again and try to get some answers out of him. He checked his watch, keenly aware of the passing time when the elevator didn't come right away. His mother and Sam might have already arrived. Scully might be dead. He couldn't think that. If he stopped and thought about it, he would be powerless to help her. The elevator dinged as the doors slid smoothly open. The mass began to board. Mulder followed on the far edge of the group, reasoning out his next move, but when he heard a cellular phone ring in the hallway behind him, he couldn't help turning his head to look in that direction. He stopped moving. The elevator doors slid closed in front of Mulder's face. He stood and stared, stunned, at the man with the phone. He recognized him instantly; he'd seen him often, lurking in Skinner's office, chain-smoking and menacingly silent. Cold. Evil. Why the hell was he here? Mulder watched him. The man was patting the head of a small girl who was giving blood. Mulder couldn't tear his eyes away as the man put away his phone and actually smiled down at the girl. Something familiar about her, Mulder thought, but his eyes didn't linger on her small face. Could she be the foul man's young daughter? Mulder wanted to gag at the thought of such vermin reproducing. Wait. Something was wrong with this scenario. Mulder looked at the child again. She was no more than ten years old, likely much younger. Children didn't give blood, they were too small or young or something, weren't they? he thought. The presence of the smoking man gave him the idea that this had something to do with Scully, and the strange additive in her blood. Mulder tried to tell himself he was wrong; that the smoking man would be perfectly happy to see Scully die; but he couldn't shake the notion. Cautiously he approached the door to the room. The smoking man, who wasn't smoking at the moment, spotted him. He left the girl's room to meet Mulder out in the hallway. "What do you know about Scully?" Mulder demanded. The man smirked mysteriously. "Answer me!" Mulder felt the rage burning and bubbling up inside him. He wanted to smash the man's smug face with his fist. "Agent Mulder, I would think you would be more concerned about your mother. And your sister," he added maliciously. Mulder felt as though the floor had dropped out from under his feet. He stared at the man. "What about them?" "They should be here by now, shouldn't they? A trip from Boston doesn't take this long. Unless they've disappeared." It was a threat. Mulder couldn't imagine what the man might know about his sister's disappearance and her return, but he was going to find out. He slammed the man's bony body into the opposite wall of the hallway, satisfied at the sick dull thud of the impact. His skin was inhumanly cold, almost reptilian beneath Mulder's hands. "What did you do to them? And what have you done to Scully?" he demanded. The man's cellular phone began to ring again. A child was crying somewhere, the thin wails haunting the hallway. The man shoved Mulder away and answered the phone. Mulder was surprised at the importance of the phone call and listened. "I'm handling it," the man said fiercely into his phone. "There will be no exchange." Mulder grabbed the phone, his heart racing. The conversation had something to do with him, he thought, something to do with either Scully or his sister. "Who the hell is this?" he demanded. "Mr. Mulder?" he recognized the cool liquid tones as belonging to the man he knew only as Mr. X. "There's someone here you may wish to speak to." X said. "Fox?" Mulder's chest contracted and ached as he heard his mother's voice. Mr. X has my mother and sister. Quick. Think. "What do you want for them?" Mulder demanded. "Stay out of this, Mulder." the smoking man warned "Well?" Mulder directed his question at the phone. Though Mr. X had not been entirely reasonable in the past, Mulder thought, he would be an improvement over dealing with the smoking man. "Just see to your partner, Mulder. Stay out of things that don't concern you." X sneered mockingly in his ear and the line went dead. Mulder felt as though his last line to hope had been severed. "Who's the girl?" Mulder turned and asked the smoking man, hurling the cellular phone against the wall, to try to satisfy his anger and threaten the man. The phone broke into several pieces. "Who is she?" "No one." the man replied disinterestedly. His reply raised Mulder's suspicions. He whirled around to check on her and saw that the girl was gone from the room where doctors had been drawing her blood. Along with the bag they'd filled with her blood. Blood. That had to be the connection. Could the child somehow have the same strange additive in her blood as Scully? Mulder's thoughts were racing,. How was that possible when the doctors believed it was a genetic agent? Mulder turned away from the doorway to interrogate the smoking man further, but he was gone as surely as though he had disappeared in a puff of his own smoke. There was no trace of him anywhere, as though he had never actually been standing there. That left Mulder searching for an option. The child had to be the link between Scully, the smoking man, and Mr. X who was holding his mother and sister hostage. The child couldn't have left the hospital. She would be too weak after giving blood. Mulder knew he had to find her. End part three. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 4/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:24:13 GMT Disclaimed in part one. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net The man met Dr. Jones in the washing-up room just off the OR. The doctor looked at the man with mild interest as he soaped his hands carefully at the big metal sink. "She's lucky to have you on her side," Jones commented casually, his eyes fixed on the sterile green tiles in front of him. The man half shrugged as he lit a cigarette and enjoyed the first forbidden breath of smoke. "Her time was running out without the additional blood." "I want you to clear Factor 26 from her blood. It should have been done long ago." the man ordered. "I can't do that until her condition stabilizes." the doctor informed him, shutting off the hot water tap. "Besides, now that she's no longer carrying, the factor will disintegrate to trace amounts in a matter of months." "Her condition will stabilize quickly enough once she receives the blood from the girl. Remove the Factor 26 immediately. We have other ways to track her. I don't want this to happen again." The man dropped the cigarette on the clean floor and crushed it with the worn heel of his shoe. Jones watched him, and the man silently challenged the doctor to say something to him about it. The doctor said nothing, turning quickly and exiting into the OR. The man paused a second to think. Marks had been taken care of in Boston. Things were going as planned. Now he had only to deal with the matter of the Mulders. But he had been handling them since 1973, they would be no trouble. Mulder helped himself to a white lab smock from the supply closet he had found unlocked. That had been an unforeseen stroke of good luck. It still didn't look entirely professional with his black turtleneck and jeans, but at least he looked a little bit more like a doctor. If he had his glasses, he thought, he might blend in completely. He started up the stairs to the psychiatric ward - it was the most secure floor of the hospital, making it the best place to hide a patient. He was certain the bastard would be hiding the little girl up there. The nurse didn't look at him twice as she buzzed him through the locked double set of doors onto the ward. Apparently the lab coat disguise was working. The antiseptic smell was strong here and it went straight to Mulder's stomach. He tried not to show his reaction as he ambled slowly down the hall, peeking in the chickenwire reinforced windows cut into the doors. He scanned the faces of the suffering humanity restrained within the tiny locked cells. He found the little girl in the last room, predictably the one farthest from the nurses' hub. Mulder slipped into the room and dragged a chair in front of the door. It would keep unwanted visitors out for an extra second or two and he knew he needed all the time he could buy. He walked over to the bed. She was awake, barely, and her wide blue eyes seemed afraid. Mulder couldn't interrogate her; she wouldn't know anything, so he didn't know what to say. He sank down to his knees next to the bed and smoothed her dark blond hair. Her eyes tracked his motions. "Are you OK?" he asked. "'m tired," she mumbled sleepily. Her eyes were alert on him, but her eyelids were heavy. They kept dipping closed. "Cold," she added. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, Mulder observed as he continued to stoke her hair lightly, rhythmically, reassuringly. He didn't think she was going to make it and wondered why no one was overseeing her care. He knew why, though, deep in his heart. That nicotine stained lizard couldn't be bothered, not even with an innocent child who was terrified and hurting and alone. Mulder's thoughts flashed to his sister, and his mother, now Mr. X's pawns. All because of him. All of this was his fault. He had to wonder why they didn't just come after him directly. But he couldn't think of that now, just as he couldn't think of Scully. He had to focus on the task at hand, and that was finding out as much about this child as he could. The smoking man needed her blood for something. "What's your name?" he asked. She mumbled something automatically without bothering to open her eyes. Mulder couldn't make it out, but it sounded more like a serial number than a name, though he thought he heard "Anna" in there somewhere. He filed it away in his brain to decipher later, not willing to spare the time to puzzle out the disturbing details. "I'm the oldest," she said with faint pride, her voice gaining strength as she opened her eyes and looked at him again. "I'm the oldest, too," he managed a tight smile for her. "You look like my brother," she said, holding her hand out at his face, but it faltered weakly and didn't make it. He figured that was a coincidence, but a lucky one since it got her talking more. "I miss him. He's alone now, in the Nursery." "The nursery?" Mulder asked. Didn't she have parents? Where were the people who loved her? Had she been stolen with evil intent, like...he jolted as the thoughts connected in his brain, like the completion of an electric circuit. Had the cigarette man been the one who had taken his sister? If he had, why would he return her now? he thought. Damn it, there were no answers, only more questions. "So heavy here," the child said crankily. "And so bright, no stars." Mulder rose to his feet in transfixed alarm. The child had to be delirious, because it sounded like she was used to being in space. He noticed that she was not attached to any machines or monitors, so no one would know that she was in medical danger. Her eyes were burning dark with fever. "My parents are from here," she said, singsong, childish and high. "Pretty earth, pretty blue and green earth, no stars here. I saw my mommy once, I think, she was with me. The man said I'd get to see her again but she wouldn't know me, and that's why I went with him..." She had no idea what she was saying, Mulder decided, running out into the hall. She was a very sick little girl. He grabbed the arm of a nurse and she glared at him as pill cups spilled from the metal tray in her hands. "The girl at the end of the hall needs assistance." "There is no one in that room." she informed him. "Yes," he insisted. "A child. She was brought up here by mistake, she needs care." The nurse stared after him as he ran down the hall before she could question him further, barely pausing to be buzzed off the ward. Mulder sprinted down the stairs, needing the exercise to circulate his blood, relieve the tension, give him an excuse for the adrenaline pumping through his system. The kid's strange words had startled him. He tried not to consider what it meant as he flung open the stairwell door and stepped into the basement corridor. He had other things to think about now. The labs were dark and locked. No one was around. It was his chance to see what they had been guarding. Mulder quickly located the lab that had been under guard earlier and let out a savage yell as he kicked the door in, springing the lock and sending it swinging. The small violence satisfied a dark place deep in his soul and he relaxed a little as he flipped on the light. The lab was clean. "Damn it," he said, checking around. The microscopes were turned off and the slides rinsed clear. Nothing. Something instinctual was telling him that a sample of Scully's blood and whatever else they had been guarding down here in analysis would afford him some of the answers he so desperately sought. Maybe there was a safe? He surveyed the room again. He heard footsteps in the hall and quickly doused the light, not anxious to be discovered. He slipped behind the open door and recognized Dr. Jones as he stepped into the lab, turning back to face the hallway as though there was someone else with him. Mulder's jaw tensed convulsively as he smelled the lingering odor of cigarette smoke. He moved to act, knowing what was going to come next, but he was too late. There was an insignificant muffled pop, the sound of a gun with a silencer. The doctor fell heavily to the floor, a red flower of blood blossoming over his heart. The door was pulled shut, slammed and locked from the outside. Mulder didn't try the door and he made no move to assist the doctor. He knew the man was dead. Instead he bent to examine the spilled contents of the biohazard depository can the doctor had toppled when he fell. There was a wad of bloody paper towels and a broken glass microscope slide. The only other item was a gooey red blob. Mulder gagged strongly as he recognized it without thinking too deeply about it. He yanked out one of the lab drawers, too hard, and it fell to the floor with a loud crash, its contents scattering across the floor. Mulder's knees were weak as he bent to retrieve two medium size zippered plastic bags from the mess he'd made on the floor. In one of the bags, he placed the paper towels even though he was fairly sure they were only stained with the analyst's blood from the broken slide and would be of no use to him. In the other he put the tiny...thing. He couldn't think of it as what it really was, a fetus, or he would be unable to do the rest of the things he had to do. One blow to the doorknob with the metal biohazard can was enough to break the lock and Mulder headed for the ICU. He had to try to assemble all of the things he knew, all the loose facts in his head into a puzzle that would hopefully be a recognizable picture once completed. He had to see Scully, he had to make sure she was all right. Safe. It was his responsibility. End part four. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW; Unspoken 5/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:24:49 GMT Disclaimed in part one. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net "The little girl is mine," asserted the man who called himself Mr. X. No one could trace him; no one knew for whom he worked or what he ultimately wanted. But the man on the other end of the line knew that he was dangerous, and of unknown loyalty, and that was enough. Mr. X could blow all of the man's projects sky-high and they both knew it. "You have nothing I want," the man bluffed. "I have Samantha Mulder, the cornerstone of your Project 89 protocols. Without her, your experimentation cannot progress." "What do you know about Project 89?" he demanded, shaking a cigarette out of the package with one hand. He received no answer, as expected. "Your hostages first. Then you'll get the child." "As we speak, the women are being released to your people." Mr. X informed him. "I'll have to check that." "I get the girl at the hospital. One hour." "Of course," the man said and rang off, finally able to use both hands and light his cigarette. He quickly verified the safe delivery of the two women and made arrangements to have Mrs. Mulder returned to her home in Martha's Vineyard. He'd handled her before; she would be no problem. And Samantha Mulder would disappear again, returned to the labs and the test protocols before the integrity of Project 89 was compromised. That only left the little girl to take care of. He now knew he had done the right thing those ten years ago, combining the DNA of a young, bright college student with that of his old friend Bill's genius son. Odd that they would end up together. But they were good specimens, easy to obtain and monitor once he'd recruited them both into the FBI, and their genes combined spectacularly. It was a damn shame he would have to lose the child. After years of failed attempts, she had been their breakthrough, the first product of Project 26 to survive. For now, though, they had to maintain a nonexistent profile and keep collecting specimens. Keep producing, and keep those kids safe in the Nursery. Because the man knew what was coming, what changes would be shaping the world in the years yet to come. One day very soon, the children and their DNA would be very, very important. It was still a shame about the girl. Ah well, he thought. They could always make more. Scully's color had improved and her skin was warmer. Somehow the doctors had found her some genetically compatible blood, and now she was all right. Mulder smiled only for a second. Physically she would pull through. His stomach turned over as he looked down at her beautiful face because he knew the emotional impact would be much harder for her to accept. He wished there was some way he didn't have to tell her. She had, of course, read the same stories he had, of abducted women being implanted with alien fetuses, being used as incubators until the fetuses could be removed by the aliens. He knew she didn't believe such stories and only believed she had been abducted because she could not argue with three missing months. This would be equally difficult for her to deny. He started searching for the words to tell her. He could imagine the stubborn, angry look on her face as she would refuse her emotions access. He'd unfortunately seen it before. Why her? he had to wonder. Was it because she was his partner? Because she could not believe? It was sadistic and cruel and he vowed he would kill that cigarette man if he was ever presented with half an opportunity, no matter what his degree of involvement in this. Because the man had hurt Scully, and Mulder had to consider the possibility that the smoking man and not aliens was behind this. The murder of the doctor convinced Mulder of the smoking man's involvement. He wondered again where the little girl fit in, and his thoughts reeled back to her lying helpless and small in the bed on the psych ward. He hoped she was all right. He wondered about the brother she had mentioned. Where he might be, how worried he must feel about his sister. His cellular phone rang, jolting him from his thoughts. He looked at it and remembered his mother and sister in the hands of Mr. X. Why would X want them? he had to wonder. "Mulder," he answered the phone. "Fox?" his mother sounded terrified. He was relieved to hear her voice. "Mom, what is it? Are you all right? Where are you? How's -?" "I'm at home. The paramedics just left." "Paramedics? Mom, why are you -" She was supposed to be here in DC. With Samantha. Why wasn't she mentioning Sam? he thought frantically. "They couldn't find anything wrong with me, you needn't worry, Fox. I had a seizure of some sort. The last few hours are just...gone." She said, a little breathless through the phone. Mulder's stomach contracted as though he'd been punched. He didn't know what to say. He'd spoken to her, he knew that she'd seen his sister, or, at least, a woman claiming to be his sister. But she no longer remembered these things. They'd wiped her memory. As they had wiped his, three years ago. And Samantha was gone again, or Mr. X had kept her. It was too much. His eyes burned hot. "You're sure you're all right?" "Of course I am," she said, matter of fact, sounding exactly as she had throughout his childhood. "Good. I'll...talk to you later, Mom," he said and hung up, pocketing the phone, shaking his head. He would have to keep on searching. Scully shifted restlessly in her sleep and he focused his attention on her. She was coming around. A light rain was beginning to fall as the shadowy man rounded the corner to the rear of the hospital. His plans had worked well. The girl would be useful to him...her very existence was strong evidence against the consortium. Perhaps he could even secretly slip her testimonial to Mulder when he was ready to break open the conspiracy. But years would likely pass before then. It was ironic, thought Mr. X, that Mulder and Scully would meet and be paired as partners years after their secret biological pairing led to the first successful experiment. Useful, too. One day he would make them aware of their interest in the consortium's affairs and he knew then they would be easily manipulated into doing anything he asked. X almost tripped in the darkness and looked down. The expression on his face did not change as he realized he'd been tricked. He didn't bother to lift the girl's dead form from the pavement, just stood for a moment and watched as the rain, falling heavier now, rinsed the puddles of valuable blood from the neat hole in her forehead. He turned and walked away, instantly able to put the wide staring blue eyes from his mind. The little boy stared out into the dark void. He wasn't supposed to be up here. He knew it was forbidden for him to look out the window at the stars, but he did not care. He had violated most of their regulations about where he could and could not go, gathering useful information about how things in the Nursery worked. But now he was remembering. They had been sitting quietly, even though they both had known what was coming and had been powerless to stop it. His greyish eyes had been fixed on her, memorizing her. His sister's eyes had been huge and round and blue and brimming with tears that she had bravely and stubbornly refused to release. He had ruffled her blond hair that was already darkening, but would never become as dark as his own. She looked like the picture of their mother he had seen once, in another forbidden area. "I love you," he said, and he had not been sure he could keep himself from crying as the door had opened. She had clung to him, trying to hold him to her larger body, trying to protect her little brother. He remembered wondering how he was going to survive without her. The men had come in, as the children had known they would. But after they had pulled the children apart, it wasn't him that they had taken. It was her. She'd smiled and waved at him bravely from the door, and had told him that she was going to get to see their mother. He had the idea that she was lying to make him feel better. She was gone. She wouldn't be coming back. He knew it and he would spend the rest of his life searching for the answers that would tell him where she had really gone, and why. End of this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW; Unspoken 6/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:25:24 GMT Disclaimed in part one. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net "What happened?" Scully's voice was thick with drugs as she looked up at her partner trustingly. "You're going to be all right." he told her, his heart ready to burst with caring because she was going to be all right. "You're in the hospital." "I remember the park." She said, going back over it in her mind, to try to figure it out. "I was holding your hand?" She looked at him to ask if that was correct or something she'd dreamed He nodded. "And, umm... everything faded to black." She didn't try to sit up; the sickness and pain in her abdomen were too tangibly intense to try. "You were bleeding internally." Mulder said and her eyes went wide. He searched for the words. There were none to tell her something so terrible, so unbelievable. "There was something unusual in your blood, they had some trouble." To his surprise, she nodded wearily as though it was not something she couldn't have predicted. She knew that she had been taken and experimented upon. "Why-" she stopped and swallowed hard and he could see she was afraid of the question's answer. "Why was I bleeding?" Dangerous ground, Mulder thought, actually hoping she would accept this as easily as she had the news about her strange blood. That pregnancy was something that was possible, that his ideas about alien implantation were wrong. He was aware of the irony that this was so different from his initial reaction. He could see his silence adding to her worry. He had to speak. "Mulder." she said. "You were pregnant." He forced the words out. "It was ectopic and -" She wasn't reacting. "That's not possible," she said in a blank voice, her eyes wild on his. "I know," he said quietly, accepting it. He opened his mouth to try to tell her, but she wasn't through speaking. Denying. She didn't seem to hear his words. "Mulder, it can't be. I haven't - not since - I haven't!" The force of the truth came crashing down on her and he could see the tears glistening in her eyes as her face twisted to fight them. "This has to be a mistake," she whispered desperately, knowing it was not so. "I'm sorry," he said, wanting to scoop her up and hold her in his arms until everything was better, but he couldn't. He couldn't move. "It's true." he said, "I took...it...from their analysis lab downstairs. You can - we can have it analyzed later. The smoking man was here. He has something to do with this. He murdered your doctor." The look on her face was killing him and she shook with the effort of not crying. He didn't mention the little girl or the Samantha; those were for him to deal with. He couldn't burden her with those when she already had so much to accept. He didn't want to have to continue, but he forced himself. "Have you ever heard accounts of women who are abducted and find themselves pregnant? Who later under hypnosis recall being implanted with alien fetuses, which are later removed?" It was as though he hadn't spoken. She ignored his words. "I don't want anyone to know about this," she ordered him fiercely. "No one. Not my mother, not Skinner, no one." "Scully -" "No one!" she ordered again. He had to look away to nod his agreement to her wishes and when his eyes returned to his face, she wouldn't look at him. A doctor walked in. He gave Mulder a curious look, but didn't say anything to him. Scully looked sharply at Mulder, who had just told her that her doctor was dead. "You're awake," said the young doctor, "Good. You just had a little mishap, nothing major, we're going to keep you overnight for observation." he said calmly, checking her pulse. He gave Mulder another long, gauging look and then left. "The coverup continues." Mulder said dryly, feeling chilled and angry. "Hand me my chart," Scully said and he did. She skimmed it quickly, her face a mask. "Nothing," she said. "There's not a word about any of it." she said and put her head down, facing away from him. Mulder gently pulled the chart from her hands and tossed it to the end of the bed. Tears were rolling down her face, though she wasn't making a sound, he knew it. He climbed into the narrow bed next to her and carefully put his arms around her, holding her lightly against him. She went willingly into his arms, but wasn't crying after all. The tears would come later, and he would have to be there to hold her then, since no one else knew. That would be no problem. He would always be there for her, because, quite simply, he loved her. And he thought that she knew it, though neither of them spoke of it, just as they didn't speak of finding the truth or exacting revenge on those who caused them pain. Like the conspiracy, it was all unspoken. But very real. All eyes in the dim room were on him. "Just a slight delay," the man explained, a little twitchy. "No trouble. The transfusion from the little girl saved her life. She will continue to be one of our best producers. We will simply switch her from 26, from direct to artificial insemination. Project 27. It will be easier that way, less chance of Mulder discovering his own experiences." He explained. His consorts seemed satisfied with that, and he sank down into his seat, lighting his cigarette. "Everything is under control." End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW; Unspoken 7/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:25:59 GMT Disclaimer: All these character belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox; no infringement is intended. Also, any resemblence to any other story written on this subject is purely unintentional. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net II. Six weeks later At the sound of Scully's surprised gasp, Mulder turned and looked at her, worried a little. The doctors said she'd made a full recovery, and she claimed she felt fine but he wasn't so sure. She was still pale and every so often when he looked over at her, he thought she looked tired and vulnerable. He thought sometimes that it might be too soon for her to be back at work. "What is it?" he asked when she didn't say anything. She was analyzing the tissue he'd stolen from the hospital lab, tissue that had come from her own body. She'd refused to wait, insisting she was ready to handle this and didn't want to let any more time pass. She had acted like she didn't want him hanging around the lab while she worked, but he didn't want to leave her alone to face whatever she might turn up. He moved in closer to her. "It's human, " she told him, clicked off the microscope light and looked up at him. "Are you sure?" "Of course I'm sure!" she informed him, raising her voice to make her point, She turned to him and he could see the distrust in her eyes. "Have you been lying to me, Mulder?" she asked frankly. "No!" he cried. "Of course not, why would I -" He searched her eyes, trying to understand her reaction, his heart sinking. He had never imagined that her need to deny this would turn her against him. "To control me. To bind me to you," she said, looking at him as though she didn't know what to believe. "Dana," he said softly, trying to let her know that he was right there with her on this. "I'm just as puzzled about this as you are." She gave him another long, careful look before she nodded. "If it's human, can we get gene typing done on it?" he asked, keeping his voice gentle, watching her eyes to make sure he didn't go too far. He wanted the truth, but he'd learned he wasn't willing to sacrifice her to get it. "Find out who. ." he trailed off as she turned away from him, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. "Hey," he touched her arm lightly. "Are you OK?" he asked, wishing just once she'd open up to him. She nodded, but didn't look too sure about her answer. She let out a tiny sigh and released her arms, forcing herself to relax. "I asked a friend to run the tests as soon as I got out of the hospital." she told him, crossing the room to retrieve a long brown envelope from underneath her overcoat. "This came today." The envelope was still sealed. "You didn't open it?" Mulder looked at her. She shook her head, looking down at it. "Part of me doesn't want to know, Mulder," she admitted, fingering the flap of the envelope. Her tone was unemotional as she tried to explain it to him. "That thing was inside me and I don't know how it got there. This," she shook the envelope, "is not going to tell me how it got there." "But it will tell you something," Mulder said. It was hard for him to accept what he was hearing. Scully was too afraid to keep looking for the truth? Even when it was this important, when it concerned her body and her well-being? He couldn't believe that. He was dying to know what the gene testing had turned up. Scully knew that Mulder didn't understand, and she didn't have the words to explain it to him. How could she make him understand what it was like to be a woman, and to have to accept this kind of violation without proof or understanding, and with no recourse to justice? "It's scary, Mulder," she said. "Isn't it worse not knowing?" he asked back. She didn't answer. A moment passed and then she slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope and broke the seal. She pulled out the papers and the diagrams and looked them over. Mulder watched her face change, her eyes growing wide and her jaw dropping It took all his control to keep from ripping the pages out of her hands. to see what they said. "Scully?" he said. She didn't look at him. His heart started to race as her wonder turned into a frown, "What is it?" She looked at him then, something dark and accusing in her eyes. "According to this, Mulder, this was going to be our child." She shoved the report at him with such force that he stumbled backwards. She grabbed her overcoat and her purse from the table and raced out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Mulder stared after her, then down at the documents in his hand. His ears were ringing. This wasn't possible, he thought, stunned, as he skimmed over the words. It took him a moment to decipher the scientific jargon. He stared at the empty room, after Scully, wondering why she had reacted the way that she had. What was she feeling? he wondered. Nevermind that, he thought, sinking down into the chair in front of the microscope. He didn't even know what he was feeling. His child? It wasn't possible. He put his head down, trying to think, trying to sort out what the facts had to be, and what it meant to him. Somehow someone had...or he and Scully had... From the depths of his mind, a memory came up into his brain. The situation he'd imagined when Dr. Jones first told him Scully had been pregnant - the vivid images he hadn't been able to block, of a faceless man with Scully, and the odd feeling for just a second that the man was him. It was a fantasy, Mulder told himself, a perfectly normal thing to have imagined. It doesn't mean that was real. Except now, glancing back down at the report, he wasn't so sure. Scully ran out of the building and down the street, terrified and furious. She couldn't get away from Mulder fast enough. It was dark and cold and a light rain was starting to fall, but she couldn't be bothered to slow down long enough to pull on her coat. A taxi pulled up next to her and stopped, assuming she needed a ride, but she didn't stop running, taking the opportunity to cross the street in front of it, barely looking where she was going. She just kept running. Scully couldn't breathe. She had to stop running, but she didn't want to. There was a huge stitch in her side and she pressed her hand to it, but her pace dropped to a rapid walk. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, she had had a serious injury and she wasn't back to full health yet. Panting, she looked up and around and realized where she was.. The park, near the reflecting pool, almost to the Lincoln memorial. The park where she and Mulder had been holding hands the day she collapsed. It seemed like three lifetimes ago, and it also seemed like yesterday. She had been the one to reach over and grab his hand, she had been the one grinning like an idiot because she was so ecstatically happy to just be by his side. She had decided that day to stop fighting her feelings and embrace the fact that she was in love with him. And then she'd collapsed and almost bled to death from a tubal pregnancy when she hadn't had sex in more than a year and a half. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. Sex that she could remember, anyway. And Mulder had been there for her, absolutely supportive of her, offering up insane theories. and evidence about a cover-up, a conspiracy, and the involvement of the cigarette smoking man. She'd played right into his hands, she thought, not wanting anyone to know what had happened, gullibly accepting everything he told her. A doctor had been shot to death in the hospital. It had never occurred to her that Mulder had shot him to corroborate his story. She wondered how he would have made the genetic testing come out differently. It didn't matter. She knew the truth now. Obviously Mulder had had sex with her, forced himself on her, and for some reason she didn't remember it. She wanted to throw up, considering the possibilities. Had she been asleep? Drugged? She'd trusted him, damn it. How could he have done such a horrible thing to her, and then gone on and acted and lied and pretended to care about her? Tears were rolling down her face and she couldn't stop them. She bit her lip and blinked, trying to be strong, telling herself that she would get through this, just as she'd gotten through every other horrible thing that had happened to her since she'd started working on the X Files with Mulder. But those things had all been different. She thought again of how completely she'd trusted him. But that wasn't why she was crying. She loved him. Mulder was still staring, trying to come up with some sort of an explanation for this, logical or otherwise. His mind was blank. He and Scully...Scully and he...why would anyone do something like this? He tried to imagine all of the things involved and couldn't, shaking his head, wanting to give up. He looked at the door. Scully hadn't come back. He'd been expecting her to reappear, having collected herself and thought things through. He wished she'd come through the doors with one of those perfectly rational explanations she was so good with. It occurred to him that he should go after her, but he didn't move. He looked down at the report again, wondering what would have happened if the embryo had implanted itself properly. Would she have carried the baby to term? Despite its incredulous impossibility, he tried to imagine what a child of theirs would be like. His eyes and her flaming red hair? Her lips and his nose? He shuddered at the thought of passing on his least favorite feature. A round, pale face, he thought, light brown hair, her wide blue eyes... Dear God. His heart almost stopped. He'd just described the little girl from the hospital, the one who had given the blood that he believed had saved Dana's life. The blood. Dr. Jones telling him it was a genetic agent in her blood, that he needed a biological relative to donate for her transfusion.. The little girl's face again. This wasn't the first experiment, he thought, jumping up from the chair. It was insane, but he couldn't ignore the way the pieces fit. Another detail came into his brain. The little girl's weak hand rising from the bed, aimed at his face. "You look like my brother," she said. He had a daughter. He and Scully had a daughter. And a son. He had to find her and tell her. End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 8/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:26:39 GMT Disclaimed in parts one and seven. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net Scully hung up the phone before her mother could answer it, thinking the better of the call. What could she say to explain why she was upset? Her mother wouldn't believe such a thing of Mulder. Scully closed her eyes against the pain, imagining her mother looking at her as though she'd lost her mind. It sounded insane, but it was the only rational explanation. What was she going to do? she asked herself and felt herself starting to shake again as hysteria threatened to descend and claim her. She fought it, running hot water into the bathtub, relaxing as the steam began to warm her. She was freezing from being out in the rain and she wanted to scrub herself clean, scrape away all the places where Mulder had ever touched her that now felt dirty and violated. She refused to let the tears come as she slipped out of her clothes and looked impartially at her pale body in the mirror. She turned sideways, looking at her flat stomach, imagining it rounded out and huge with a baby,. Mulder's baby. Before today the thought would have amused her, maybe even made her smile. Now she could only think what bad luck it had been for him, getting caught like this. She quickly got into the bathtub but the thoughts didn't subside. It hadn't occurred to her that it had happened more than once until now. How many times had he used her without her knowledge? She felt sick. How long would it have continued? She reached for her gun and touched it, taking comfort in the fact that it was close at hand. It was over, that was certain. Scully thought that if Mulder was standing in front of her at that moment, she would shoot him. For lying to her and making her care about him. She patted the gun again. He would deserve it. Mulder leaned on Scully's doorbell, but she didn't come to the door. He was worried about her because she'd been so upset when she ran out of the lab. He'd expected to find her down in their office, but then Tim the night guard said he'd seen her leaving the building. She had to be home. Mulder pressed the bell again and realized that he didn't hear it making a sound. He knocked and called Scully's name, somewhat softly so as not to disturb the neighbors.. She still didn't answer. He was becoming genuinely worried about her. What if she'd done something foolish? It wasn't like her, but he had never seen her so upset. It took him a second to locate the key she'd given him for use in an emergency and put it into the lock. Scully heard the key scrape in the lock and jumped up, scrambling out of the bathtub and into her terrycloth robe, sending a huge wave of water crashing to the floor. Her heart was pounding and thumping loudly in her ears as she heard the door open slowly. "Scully?" It was him. An impressive string of curses went through her head and for a moment, she panicked. She had given him the key to her apartment, she'd helped him to do this thing to her. She started to shake again and reached over and picked up the gun, pulling it out of its holster, clicking off the safety. "Scully, are you here?" he called again. The sound of his voice, dripping with false concern for her, made her remember the nights she'd spent dreaming about him and she felt sick and betrayed. A large part of her yearned to see his blood spattered on her wall. She started moving out of the bathroom, very slowly, her knees threatening to give way beneath her. She had never been so terrified in her entire life. "Scully?" Mulder called again, and stopped, staring. She was dripping wet, wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair hanging down into her eyes and she was holding a gun on him. This had to be a mistake. "What is it?" he asked, smiling a wary grin at her. She didn't answer and she didn't lower the gun. "Why're you aiming that at me?" "Get out," she ordered, her voice low and hard. Her eyes were dark and haunted. She did not look like the Scully that he knew. She looked wild, unpredictable. Dangerous. "Scully, I know something else, something I didn't mention when you were in the hospital because I didn't want to burden you with it," he said, his eyes fixed on her gun, pointed right at his head. "I know, Mulder," she said and he looked at her, surprised. How could she know? he wondered. She took another step toward him, her aim never wavering. "I know how you used me and thought you could get away with it. " "What are you talking about?' Mulder asked carefully, forcing himself to consider the possibility that this had driven her completely over the edge into insanity. She looked like she was really going to shoot him, he realized. "I'm talking about you using your key to get in to my apartment," she began slowly, every word carefully weighted. "I knocked," Mulder said, studying her. He had to be prepared; he had to know when she was going to pull the trigger before she even knew herself. "If this is about the key -" "This is about me trusting you," she said. "I trusted you with my key because I trusted you with my feelings and my life. And you used that against me, Mulder." She shivered at his name passing through her lips and for a moment her hands holding the gun trembled. Mulder didn't miss seeing the tremor that went through her. "What are you talking about, Scully?" he asked again, using her name this time to try to reach her. "I'm talking about you using that key and coming into my apartment and drugging me so I wouldn't remember and raping me." There were those tears again, she thought, but it's fine - I'm fine - as long as they don't affect what I have to do. Mulder was gaping at her. She laughed bitterly. "You're surprised I figured it out?" she demanded. "That I saw through all your lies and stories you told me at the hospital to try to cover your tracks?" Mulder was still staring at her. For a second she believed that he had no idea what she was talking about. Her anger was starting to diffuse, dissolve and she fought to get it back. It was being weak that let him do this to you, she told herself. "That's why you came here now, isn't it?" she demanded. "So you could drug me into forgetting and then fuck me again?" Mulder didn't know what it was that clued him in, the jagged tightness of her tone, the fact that she was trying to hold her breath while she spoke, or the minuscule spasm that shook her arm, but he knew she was about to pull the trigger and he jumped her. He forced her arms up over her head so that when the gun did go off, it fired into the wall. He twisted her hand and pulled the gun out of it, putting the safety back on and sliding it out of her reach. He pinned her to the floor and sat on her as she kicked and clawed and screamed and cried. He held her and waited patiently, bewildered at her reaction and hurt that she would think he was such low, dirty scum that he could have hurt her. The fight went out of her and she looked up at him with terrified blue eyes. She was trying to form words, but couldn't get them out. Mulder moved off of her, wondering how the hell he was going to fix this, and she rolled onto her side on the carpet, curling up protectively and sobbing. Mulder watched her, wanting to hold her and comfort her, but he didn't dare. Not when she believed he'd been raping her. The thought, and knowing that she believed him capable of such a thing, made him sick. He didn't want her to be afraid of him. He wanted to shout that he hadn't done anything. Her noisy sobs stopped and she lay there unmoving on her side, watching him, her breath still coming in panicked gaspy hiccups. The hurt on his face made her wonder for only a second if she could have been wrong. Mulder looked at her, staring deeply into her face as though he wasn't sure she was in there and she stared back, unblinking. "Can you hear me, Scully?" he asked, not sure if she was still hysterical or if she'd put herself into catatonia. "I did not do this to you. I did not do anything to you." he said, his voice too loud as though he were addressing a stupid child. He yanked the key to her apartment off of his keyring and slapped it down on the floor in front of her eyes, furious. "When you're ready to listen to the truth, you know where to find me." he informed her. She watched him as he stormed angrily out of the apartment. She put her hand out and picked up the key, closing it tightly in the palm of her hand. Then she stared at the door Mulder had slammed behind him when he left. If he had come here to hurt me, wouldn't he have done it? she wondered, Angry as he was, if he was a rapist, wouldn't he have hurt me again? Tears started to burn her eyes as she considered that she might have been wrong. She had thought it was more comfortable to believe a stranger had done this to her, but now when she considered it again, she knew that she was wrong. Damning her memory for not being able to access events in her own life, she lay on the floor and cried until there were no more tears and she fell asleep. End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 9/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:27:19 GMT Disclaimed in parts 1 & 7 Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net Mulder was careful not to think about Scully as he returned to his apartment, used his masking tape to place an X on the window, and flipped on his computer. It doesn't matter what she thinks, he told himself, blocking out the hurt and anger that she would believe he was capable of such horrible and disgusting things. He was going to find the truth. He could do it without her. After all, he thought bitterly, I've been alone all my life. He'd thought he had a friend in Dana. Now he guessed he was wrong. All he got from the computer were dead ends. There was no record of a place called 'The Nursery', which the girl had mentioned in her delirium. Parentless sister and brother were too hard to trace when he didn't have their birthdates or any other information about them. The hospital, of course, had no records of her admittance. Mulder stared at the light blue screen, racking his brains. The only lead he had was the cigarette smoking man, who had been with the child in the hospital. But that bastard had been suspiciously absent from his life since that day, not even turning up to their weekly meetings with Skinner. Mulder wondered briefly if Skinner would know how to contact the man, but doubted it. He was sure if he asked his boss, the AD would reply, "I don't know who you mean, Agent Mulder." So he was at a dead end. He looked at the X taped to the window, but he knew Mr. X would not respond to his call. X had proven himself on the wrong side when he'd kidnapped Samantha again. A light went on in Mulder's head. He did have a lead, he realized. He had his own memory. Just because he couldn't recall anything having happened, it didn't mean the memories weren't too painful to deal with. If they'd been repressed, they were still in there somewhere. His first thought was to call Scully. Surely she wouldn't question her own memory, he thought, but didn't pick up the phone. She could come to him when she was ready for the truth, he thought again stubbornly, refusing to consider what would happen if she was never ready. Then he looked at the clock. It was the middle of the night; where would he find a hypnotherapist at this hour? Because he was not going to wait one minute longer than he had to. He went to the bookshelf and grabbed the Yellow Pages, but then his eye caught on another book. An old psychology textbook. He dropped the yellow pages and opened the book, skipping to the section on autohypnosis. Scully told herself she was going to be strong as she knocked on the door to Mulder's apartment early the next morning. She wasn't going to break down. She wasn't even going to think about him. She would give him back the key to his apartment, the small box of things he'd lent to her, and politely inform him that she did not think she wished to work with him any longer. Then she would turn and leave and get started rebuilding her life. She was determined that was exactly how things were going to go. Mulder yanked open the door and looked at her, wild-eyed with excitement. He took her hand and pulled her into the apartment before she even had a moment to think. She dropped the box she was holding and by the time she had retrieved it, Mulder had locked the door. She looked at him sharply, but didn't feel that he was a threat to her. "Let me hypnotize you," he said, his eyes burning into hers. "I don't think so." Scully said. The script, she reminded herself, stick to the script. "I just came by to give you back your -" He interrupted. "There's something you need to know, Scully," he said, "And I want you to listen to this before you make up your mind." She eased the box off her hip and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms, waiting for him to finish this feeble attempt. "We have a daughter and a son," he said. "Nice try," she said, turning and reaching for the lock on the door to let herself out. He's completely lost his mind, she thought. "Scully, the additive in your blood was genetic, you saw that yourself." He said, holding his hand on the door to keep her from opening it, so she had to listen to him. "And yet the doctors were able to give you a transfusion - how is that possible if no one contacted your family?" He had a point. She turned around, showing her willingness to at least listen to what he had to say. "You're going to tell me, aren't you?" she asked pointedly and he could see that she still didn't trust him. "In the hospital, I saw the cigarette smoking man- the man from Skinner's office - with a little girl. She was giving blood." Scully opened her mouth to interrupt, but Mulder didn't give her the chance. "I found her later where he'd hidden her up in the psych ward. She looked like you, Scully," he said, praying she would listen to him and believe. "She said the man had told her she would get to see her mother, but her mother wouldn't recognize her. And she said that she had a little brother." "That's not all that convincing, Mulder," she informed him. "Not until you listen to this tape." He pressed the plastic cassette into her hand. "I don't suppose you'll let me listen to this at home and get back to you?" she asked ironically. Her distrust hurt him. He had thought maybe she had seen reason and stopped being afraid of him. Now it looked like he had been wrong. "I've got a cassette player right here." He said, giving her his most convincing look. After a long moment, she sighed and handed the tape back to him. He bounded into the living room and popped in into the stereo, allowing himself to be glad that she was at least willing to listen to him. She sat down on the couch and he moved to join her, until she shot him a stricken look. He changed his mind and went to stand over by the window. She still didn't trust him near her. And that hurt more than he cared to admit. His voice from the tape filled the living room. "That's you!" she cried. "You made this tape last night." "I hypnotized myself," he admitted. "I didn't want to wait. I didn't get very far, but I did come up with something." She looked doubtful, but she didn't leave and he took that as a good sign. "A bright light," he was saying on the tape, in a voice that sounded sleepy to Scully, Of course, she thought skeptically, he was up the entire night making the tape. "And them I'm floating, very far and very fast, in the bright light. Then everything is dark. And I'm not alone. There's a flat surface and they have...they have taken my clothes away," Mulder said on the tape. Scully rolled her eyes. "There's a woman here, it's dark and I can't.........they want me to, but I don't want to. She doesn't want to either, she's scared. She says they've done this to us before. They might....taken me before too, but...I don't remember it now. " Mulder walked over and shut off the tape. "That's it?" she asked. He nodded. "Phone rang and brought me out of it," he said. "Wrong number. I wasn't able to put myself under deep enough to remember much anyway." "Sounds like you didn't remember anything," she said and the pause was the place where she would have usually used his name, but she couldn't bring herself to say it today. They weren't friends any more. She didn't trust him. She had to keep reminding herself. "That's why I want to hypnotize you," Mulder told her. "No!" she cried, jumping off the couch and heading for the door. "Scully -" "No! That's enough!" she cried, clawing at the lock with her nails, in too much of a panicked hurry to get away to be able to get it open. "It's not like you would think," Mulder told her in a soft voice. He had to get through to her. "If you feel unsafe or threatened in any way, you can come out of it. And you'll remember everything that happened. It's not like making people think they're chickens, Scully, nothing can happen that you don't want to happen." Did he have to be so damn convincing? she thought angrily, finding it difficult to argue with the sincerity she saw in his brown eyes. No man is that good an actor, she thought, and took her hands off the door. Giving in. If something terrible happens to you, it will all be your own fault, she informed herself, but she couldn't forget that for three years she'd trusted this man with her life. She couldn't forget all of the days they had spent together, all of the little things he couldn't have faked. "All right." she agreed. He pulled a chair up next to the couch where she sat down stiffly, remembering her one half-session with Dr. Mark Pomerantz, who Melissa had sent her to see. She forced herself to relax and calm down and breathe deeply before Mulder even told her to. "What do you see?" Mulder asked her after leading her back into her memory. He was anxious; she was the first person he'd hypnotized since college and then he'd only been fooling around. This was important. "It's dark," she said slowly, "I can't...I think there's someone with me. A man. Some men. Two men," she clarified. "One of them tells us he's going to leave us alone, and that then the two of us are going to...have sex. I say I don't want to, but he says...I don't have a choice. I feel like...I don't feel I can resist it. His power's...too strong, over me. It's as though I have no will." "It's all right," Mulder said soothingly. "If you're uncomfortable, you can wake up. Do you want to wake up?" She shook her head slightly, as though it had become very heavy. "He, um, he leaves, and the other man is with me. It's dark and it's too warm, and he doesn't...he doesn't want to do this any more than I do, but we have to do what the man said. So we do." There was a very long pause and Mulder watched Scully shift around uncomfortably on the couch. A slight frown creased her face. "I think I want to wake up now," she said. "You can wake up any time you want to," Mulder assured her, though he had wanted to know what came next. "All you have to do is open your eyes. " She opened her eyes and let out a huge breath. Then she looked at him, a heavy blush staining her cheeks. "Oh my God, Mulder," she said. "It was...that couldn't have been real." "You tell me," he said, "If you were making it up, you'd know." She looked as though she didn't know how to react. "It was you, Mulder. " she said. "We were someplace really strange, and we were..." Her face turned a brighter red and she had to look away, "Do you remember what year you said it was, when I asked you?" Mulder asked, holding his breath. She nodded, but was silent for a long time, trying to figure out a way for this to logically make sense. There was no way. She knew what she had felt, what she had remembered, was real. "1980," she said. "Tell me it's impossible." Mulder told her. "Tell me some reasonable theory you have that will make this all be a lie." "I think I believe it, Mulder." she said, her voice uncertain as she searched his eyes, trying to convince herself that she had no reason not to trust this man. That whatever had been happening, he had not been the cause of it. He had not hurt her; he had been just as much a victim himself. She relaxed slightly as she began to believe it. "I-" she began, trying to explain why she now thought this insane story was possible. "This is embarrassing," she told him, "And I'm only telling you because I think it's relevant." He nodded, waiting, seeing that she was believing it and that she was scared and fascinated all at the same time. "In the - memory, dream, whatever it was -" she said, and stopped again, too embarrassed to continue. "Memory." Mulder supplied, trying desperately to play the role of the impartial shrink. "Memory, right," she said, nervous. "It was my first time, and it hurt. And I knew that it hurt." She met his eyes for a moment and then looked away quickly, down at her hands in her lap. "But my first time, Mulder, it didn't hurt. It was like I wasn't even...a virgin. And that was after 1980," she said, and met his eyes. He nodded encouragingly. "I think I have to believe this, Mulder, it makes too much sense, it explains too many things." "What kinds of things?" he asked gently, his heart pounding. He couldn't think about this now, he couldn't think about what these things she was telling him truly meant. "Things my doctor told me that I told her couldn't be possible. I had some gynecological problems around that time, quite a few problems actually," Scully admitted to him. "And this... but Mulder, this isn't possible." "Are you at least willing to help me look?" Mulder asked. She nodded and blinked, thinking that they had been staring into each others' eyes for way too long. "What, I don't get to hear some embarrassing story from your sexual past?" she asked, trying to lighten things up. He didn't let her, the look in his eyes turning dark and intense as he touched her arm. "You were there," he said and she shivered. The tiny movement broke the mood and he moved away from her. "I'm gonna go get cleaned up," he said, needing to put some distance between them to gain perspective. It was too close in the room; with them and their memories it was almost as though they were inside each others' heads. "And then we'll get some answers." "Where are we going to get those?" Scully asked. "Who else?" he asked. "The cigarette smoking man from Skinner's office. " He disappeared into the bedroom and Scully got up from the couch and paced around his living room, trying to make sense of the crazy things going on in her mind. She knew that people who claimed to have been abducted were usually taken regularly, from the time that they were children. It didn't make sense within the realm of the lore for her to have only been taken the one time that she knew of, when she had been missing for three months. Absently she began peeling at the tape on Mulder's window. But she still didn't want to believe in alien abduction, or that government scientists were taking people and making them have sex - it sounded so crazy. At the moment, though, it was the only thing she could believe. It was the only explanation she had for the memory. And it was a memory, she thought, certainn, not a dream or a made up story or a fantasy out of her head. It had really happened. Scarier than trying to figure out what it meant was trying to decide how it would affect the rest of her life. How she felt about it. How it made her feel about Mulder. Mulder emerged from the other room, clean shaven, washed and in fresh clothes. They left his apartment together without saying a word. End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 10/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:27:57 GMT Disclaimed in parts one and seven Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net He'd misbehaved and he knew it. He also knew that this time he was going to be punished for it. He refused to look meekly down at the floor of the director's office as the others would have done. As he had been taught. He no longer had any respect for his elders. Not since they'd taken his sister from him. He still thought about her. Less now than before, but he still thought of her every day, wondering about her, remembering her, asking himself if she would approve of the strength and open rebellion he'd displayed since she'd been taken. The man walked around behind him without speaking. The boy knew that the move was supposed to unnerve him, to make him submit. He stood there without moving, not letting the cold staring eyes on his back make any impression on him. He's going to do something bad to me, he thought, and wondered what that could possibly be. No one had ever been disciplined in the Nursery - no one had ever needed to be. They were a submissive lot, he thought dismissively, forgetting that before she'd been taken, he had gone along as one of them, maybe even a little shier and quieter than most. The man completed the circle around him slowly and looked into his eyes. Then the boy knew. He was going to be leaving the Nursery. He was going to become one of the ones who disappeared. "Why, Agent Mulder, I don't know who you mean," A.D. Skinner said smoothly, lying of course, about the smoking man. As the two men looked at each other, sizing the matter up, they both knew it. Mulder opened his mouth, ready to try to force the answers out of his boss. After all, this was going exactly as he'd expected. "Damn it!" Scully's shout surprised them both and the men turned to look at her. "Don't hide him from me. He doesn't deserve it, and we all know that. Whatever he's holding over you can't be worse than what he has done to me." Her voice dropped, became more rational, her desperation coming through. "He is the only one who can answer my questions." "He's gone." Skinner said. "Gone?" demanded Mulder, his eyebrows rising. "Gone where?" "Just...gone." Skinner told them, and this time his meaning was clear. Gone, as in, gone without a trace. Scully abruptly turned and left the room. Both men jumped, tensions high, as the door slammed behind her. "What are you waiting for?" Skinner asked Mulder. "Go after her." Mulder did as he was told. He found Scully pacing angrily in the hallway, waiting for him. "We have to find him. We can find anyone." She informed him, her eyes full of manufactured hope and determination,. Mulder shook his head. "We don't even know his name." He reminded her gently. "You're giving up?" she demanded. "No, just being realistic." His tone was slightly edgy as he defended himself. "Why?" Scully asked, intentionally hurtful. "You've never been realistic before." Before she could see the reaction in his eyes, she quickly walked away, heading for their basement office. After a moment, Mulder followed her, trying to remind himself that she had been through a lot, that this wasn't easy for her. He was trying to be understanding and give her the space she seemed to need. He just wished she would realize this was hard for him, too, but he didn't know how that would happen. He couldn't say anything to her about the way he was feeling. She wouldn't want to listen; she was too wrapped up in her own grieving and he had to accept that. The light in their office was off when Mulder arrived down in the basement. Scully had jumped into an elevator just as the doors were closing, effectively separating herself from him. Mulder wondering if she'd run away again. His fingers sought the lightswitch as he went inside, but the lights did not come on. "I have something for you, Mr. Mulder." Mulder's stomach clenched as he instantly recognized the voice of Mr. X. He pulled his gun, knowing it was next to useless in the inky dark office. Especially when he didn't know if X was holding Scully as some kind of hostage. "Where's my sister?" Mulder 's voice was hard. He closed his eyes to try to sense where X was standing in the dark room. "I don't have her." "I don't believe you." Mulder turned his body to try to follow the direction of the voice, but he knew X was probably walking around him in circles, even though he couldn't hear the sound of shoes on the tile floor. "But I know where you will find someone else you seek." Mulder's heart staring pumping, hard. X knew where to find the cigarette smoking man. "What's in it for you?" "He broke a promise." X replied, cryptic as ever. "Where is he?" Mulder asked, following the voice with his drawn gun, getting a little unsteady on his feet from changing the direction of the circle he was moving in, his eyes still closed. There was no response. Mulder heard the sound of the door and turned toward it, thinking that someone had come in rather than gone out. Where was X? he asked himself, but there was no answer. He realized that the lights had gone on and he opened his eyes. Scully was giving him a cool, detachedly curious look. Mulder tried not to feel embarrassed as he turned and looked around, but as he'd expected, Mr. X was not in the room. Mulder had to wonder if he ever had been, if he hadn't imagined the whole encounter. "What are you doing?" Scully asked after a moment. Mulder didn't answer, still looking around, thinking, trying to figure out where X had gone if he hadn't slipped out past Scully. "You looked like an ass." He turned and looked at her, unamused. "And you're a bitch," he informed her, grasping her arm with more force than was necessary. "Let's go." She yanked her arm away. "Where?" "There," he said smugly, shoving the photograph he'd found on his desk into her hands, setting her reeling as he released her arm and striding out of the room confidently. X had left him a clue after all, but Mulder knew he had to be careful. His contact could not be trusted; especially not when his motives couldn't be determined. Mulder knew that Scully was coming with him. "What is this?" she asked, trailing behind him as he maintained a steady, fast pace down the hallway. "What does it look like, Scully. It's a mountain." Mulder couldn't believe he'd called her a bitch. He regretted the words instantly, and wished he could take them back, but what amazed him was that she had not had any sort of a reaction at all. She is really remote, he thought, trying to figure out why he felt such anger towards her suddenly. Maybe because she refused to react to any of this, maybe because she believed she had to hide her feelings and be strong. He wanted to shake her until she agreed to feel again and start paying attention to the world around her. Start paying attention to him. "I know that, Mulder." She said, her tone sarcastic. "It's Mount Rushmore." The boy stood in the crowd, feeling alone, but not afraid. He was free, at last. This was to be his punishment but escape had been simple. Still, he couldn't bring himself to smile. The masses of people moving around him weren't what was bothering him. And he didn't even feel the cold wind whipping harshly around his thin body. No, what bothered him was his sister. He had been so certain that this is where she was, and yet now that he was here, he was equally certain that she was not here. That she was not anywhere. She isn't dead, he told himself, I have to keep looking. No matter what else happens, I've got to find her. He looked up and it was as though he noticed the crowd around him for the first time. Maybe she was here and he just didn't sense it. The boy started to move through the hoardes of people, searching, listening carefully to the silences, calling up hope from that place he'd buried deep within himself. Even though deeper down where he hid the things he refused to accept, he knew he'd never see his sister again. Mulder wanted to hold Scully's hand in the airport so he wouldn't lose her, but he knew that he couldn't do that. She was staring off into the distance distractedly when he looked down at her, thinking how small and weary she looked. And he vowed to protect her no matter what, no matter how much she tried to make him hate her with her coldness. He knew she was unaware that he was on to her. He wasn't even sure she was doing it consciously. But every time he looked at her, she scowled. Every time he spoke to her, she snapped back some quick and hurtful comment. She wanted for him to not like her so he would leave her alone. Mulder knew how many times he'd used that exact tactic in his own life to shut people out. It had worked on all of them, except her. And because of that, he understood that she wanted to hide because she didn't like herself, because she was scared and confused and uncertain. But he wasn't going to let her shut him out forever. "Come on, Scully," he said, lifting her suitcase from the conveyor belt. She looked up at him quickly, ashamed to have been caught daydreaming. Then she scowled at him and grabbed her suitcase out of his hand and trudged off down the terminal with it. Mulder let her go, keeping her in sight. He wished she would talk to him. Trust him again. It started to rain just as they crossed the threshold out of the airport, and the last cab pulled away from the curb. Thunder crashed loudly overhead as Mulder looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. Nothing like a good storm to clear the air, he thought, looking at the stubborn expression on Scully's face as she stood there letting the rain pour down her face. He'd never known her to be caught without her umbrella, not since their first case together, and he watched the tracks of the water on her cheeks, like so many tears she had yet to shed. He wasn't sure she would come back to herself when this was all over, when they finally had the truth. And it made his heart cold to think someone with as much capacity to love as Dana Scully could be destroyed by men with too much power asserting their scientific superiority. A cab pulled up and Scully climbed in. Mulder joined her in the back seat and soon they were racing away from the airport, speeding through the rain until they finally passed out of the storm altogether. The taxi driver had to comment on it. "You may think you missed the storm, but it'll be back. Worse than before. That's how it always is." "I know." Mulder said, and his eyes were burning on Scully's wet, pale face. She turned and looked at him then, her eyes flashing blue fire that he found reassuring. "Where do we look?" she asked. "Where would you be if you were him?" "Hanging from the end of Lincoln's nose?" Mulder couldn't help asking with the tiniest of smirks, thinking of how many times he'd seen Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint end up on that train, married, at the end of "North by Northwest." If Scully understood his reference, she didn't acknowledge it. "Wait for us at the hotel," she instructed the cab driver. "We'll be going straight to the monument after we check in." The driver met Mulder's eyes questioningly in the cockeyed rearview mirror, but Mulder didn't give him any kind of a response. He would let Scully call the shots. He understood that it was control she was seeking because she felt as though she'd lost control over her own life. His life had been out of control for so long he didn't care any more. He knew that in the long run, it wasn't going to be enough. End of this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 11/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:28:26 GMT Disclaimed in parts one and seven. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net "Have you seen this man?" Scully demanded, as she had of so many other gift store clerks that she'd lost count. The man didn't even bother to glance at their sketch of the cigarette smoking man before he shook his head slightly. "How much is this?" Mulder asked and she looked up to see him brandishing a huge plastic bank molded in the shape of Mt. Rushmore and painted a garish fluorescent green. She glared at him. How could he be interested in gifts at a time like this? "Twenty five dollars," the clerk told him, still sounding uninterested, but he at least looked at Mulder. "I'll take it," Mulder said, handing the clerk a fifty dollar bill. "Keep the change." "Yeah, I saw this guy," the young shop clerk said directly to Mulder. "He was in here a couple of days ago. He had a picture of a kid. Said it was his son, but I didn't believe him." "What did the boy look like?" Scully asked in her brisk professional tone. The clerk glanced at her, but his eyes went back to Mulder. "He looked like you." Mulder dropped the plastic bank. Scully watched it slip out of his fingers, bounce twice, and roll crazily across the floor of the gift shop, settling in a puddle made from a leak in the roof over in one corner. She turned and started for the door, not looking back. After a moment, Mulder followed her. "I think we should go back to the hotel," he said in that careful tone he'd been using when she addressed her lately. The one that made her want to scream because she knew it was because he thought she was fragile. That it meant he was trying to protect her. Before she could argue, he continued, "It's five-fifteen now and everything here closed at five. There's no point in continuing tonight." "You're the one who thinks he's our son," Scully accused, trying to make him feel as bad as she did while at the same time trying to manipulate him into continuing the search tonight. The evening loomed ahead of her, lonely and endless, as she considered sitting in her hotel room without so much as a field report to write. "We're going. Now." Mulder ordered and for a second, she thought about arguing with him. But then she saw the look he was giving her - the one that made her feel like a disobedient child. She resented the fact that he treated her like a helpless little kid who needed to be protected, but she knew it was useless to argue with him. It would not change the way he thought of her, and she was certain he saw her as a weak, fragile woman now that he knew all of the things she'd been subjected to. She was certain he thought she'd brought it upon herself, that she had somehow deserved what had happened to her. So she kept her mouth closed, glaring, and followed him back to the hotel. Lightning flashed bright overhead and the rain began to pour down in torrents, soaking both of them instantly. Scully thought she would never be warm again, and when she got into her nice, impersonal hotel room, she turned the heater up as far as it would go and wrapped herself up in the blankets on the bed, her shivers not just from the cold. Thunder boomed loudly enough to rattle the windows. Scully thought about how much she'd disliked thunderstorms when she was a little girl, until her father had explained to her that there was nothing to fear, that there was a scientific explanation for the noises and the lights. Then the electricity went off. For a long moment, Scully lay where she was, rolled up in the bedcovers, telling herself that it was all right, that the lights would come back on in a second. But as the seconds passed and became a minute, she began to feel afraid, and at the same time feel guilt for that fear. She was not a child; she was not afraid of the dark. But suddenly the darkness seemed to have form and shape around her. All she could think about was the man's voice, echoing through her head and her will to resist dissolving. It had happened in darkness just like this. Her breath became strained as she was powerless to stop the things she'd remembered from filling her head, the absolute helplessness she'd felt, her inability to stop the things being done to her that she didn't want to happen. The pain that ripped through her, both physical and emotional, as the sanctity of her body was violated. Scully was terrified, suddenly, certain that if she remained where she was, alone, in the dark, it would happen again. That slowly her will and her control over her mind and her body would slip away and she would be held powerless. She sprang to her feet and ran through the darkness to the door, letting herself out and feeling her way to the next door down the hall. She pounded on the door without pausing to think about what she was doing. The door swung open and light stung her eyes. She blinked and her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim glow of the candles. "I was just going to see if you'd found the cand-" Mulder began, and then he looked at her. "What is it?" he asked softly when he saw how dark and wide her eyes were with terror. Scully opened her mouth, but she couldn't force herself to say the words, to admit that she was afraid. Instead, she flung herself against him, burrowing her head against his chest blindly so that he had no choice but to put his arms around her. Pull away, she told herself, but she couldn't. Mulder's arms were inexplicably the one place where she felt safe. She opened her mouth again to apologize or try to explain, but a noisy sob came out instead. "Sssh, it's OK, you're safe here now," Mulder murmured to her, holding her tight. Thank God, he thought, she was going to be all right. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you," he promised in a whisper that Scully desperately wanted to believe. It made her sob harder, realizing that she didn't feel like she could protect herself any more. He held her for a long time, until her crying stopped, until she was warm from the heat of his body. Scully felt as though she'd come back to herself after a long time away, and knew she should go back to her room, get some sleep, and in the morning try to deny that any of this had ever happened. But she didn't pull away, just moved to look up at him. Mulder was looking down at her, and their eyes met. "I want you," Scully said, surprising even herself. She felt Mulder's breath stop, saw the glimmer of light in his eyes catch fire. Despite that, he dropped his arms from around her. "No," he said, his voice still incredibly soft, "What you want is reassurance that you're in control of your sexuality." Scully wanted to punch him. She also felt the tears threatening her again and her teeth clamped down on her lip hard to keep it from trembling, the pain to keep herself aware. "I know because I feel the same way that you do, Scully," Mulder continued in that impossibly soft, silky voice. "Everything that we've been through, we've been through together. Everything that you're feeling, I'm feeling too." he assured her. "It's psychologically valid, and it's going to take a long time to heal." "I don't want to hear about psychology!" Scully screamed at him. "I want to know it's never going to happen again. I want to forget about it, I want to be all right again." "We can't change what's happened," Mulder said, reserved, being extremely careful. "We can choose what happens in the future," Scully argued. "Exactly." Mulder said softly. "When we make love, I want it to be because we both want it. Not because we are trying to change the past." Scully shook her head. He was scaring her by knowing exactly what she was feeling and not saying, not admitting even to herself. Having him know her thoughts terrified her. She turned and silently left his room, throwing herself into her cold bed alone, feeling safe and scared at the same time. She was almost asleep when she realized he hadn't said "If." He'd said "When." *When* they made love. Of their own free will. It didn't make things all right, but it gave her a funny warm feeling inside to think that he loved her as much as she loved him. "When," she murmured as she slipped into sleep. End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW; Unspoken 12/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:29:01 GMT Disclaimed in one and seven. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net The next morning, Scully wasn't glaring at him. She wasn't smiling, either, but Mulder had to consider it an improvement. She looked as though she'd gotten some sleep, as well, and he was glad. The only trouble was, he couldn't think of anything to say to her. Nothing. His mind was blank. "Think we'll find him?" he asked lamely, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. She nodded without looking at him. Well, Mulder thought, that settles that. "Let's walk," he suggested, and they moved away from the taxi stand in front of the hotel, starting down the street. "I've never been here before." he continued, still looking for something to say. "Have you?" he asked when it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything if he didn't ask her directly. She shook her head, a small careful movement, her hair waving around her face. "I always wanted to see it," he finished. Still nothing. He looked at her, trying to figure out what he should do. The only thing that he could think of was to give her a big hug, and he didn't think she'd appreciate it. His mind reeled back to the night before, holding her in his arms and never wanting to let her go, comforting each other and finally being open and accepting their feelings. But at the same time, he'd been cursed by the drive to do the right thing. He looked at her for a long time, but in the end he didn't touch her because he didn't want to feel the chill when she pulled away, as he was certain she would do. They entered the visitors' center for the monument still silent. Scully surveyed the room and then looked at Mulder, finding that he was staring at her. Again. She looked away quickly without actually meeting his eyes, not wanting to see the pity for her that she would surely find there. She'd gotten a good night's sleep, for once, but it left her tired and dragging this morning, and sad. Mulder patted her arm absently and she looked at him, but he was already moving away. She watched him as he approached one of the people who worked there, and then averted her eyes and surveyed the room again. Early-bird tourists, some of them even daring to wear shorts up in the mountains this early into spring, all of them carrying cameras or video recorders. She wandered over to a display set up in one corner covering the building of the monument, looking at the pictures and dragging her fingers over the letters. What a weird idea, she thought, big faces carved in stone. But it had the power to bring tears to her eyes and make her want to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Amazing. Willfully pulling herself out of the pit of her feelings, she turned and looked for Mulder. She didn't see him and wondered where he could have gone. Probably into one of the other rooms, she thought, moving away from the display and crossing into the next room of the visitor's center. He wasn't there. No one was. The room was big and cold and there was something forbidding about it that gave her chills. Don't be silly, she told herself, striding into the room and walking around the displays., figuring Mulder would find her in a moment, enjoying the quiet and calm. Then she heard the sound of the heavy wooden door to the room close. She turned and looked and her mouth fell open in surprise. It was a moment before she recovered and drew her gun. The concierge told him that she thought she'd seen the man earlier that morning. Mulder turned to motion to Scully that she should follow him, but she wasn't standing over by the displays where he'd left her. She probably needs this time to herself, Mulder thought, not worrying about her. He returned his attention to the woman standing in front of him. "He was showing a picture of a young boy that he said he was trying to find. His son, he said," the woman explained. "Did he leave a picture with you?" Mulder asked. "No," she said. "But not five minutes after he walked away, I saw the boy in the photograph." "The boy's here?" Mulder asked, excited. "He's right over there," the woman said, pointing over at the map of the United States mounted on one wall. "Thanks," Mulder said as he was walking away, his vision zeroed in on one target. He spotted the boy instantly, too thin and looking slightly strange in baggy, brand new jeans and a sweatshirt. He looked out of place and lost as he stared up at the enormous map of the country. Mulder ambled up next to the boy and found himself suddenly unable to speak. This was his son; he knew it; he could feel it somehow. How much did the boy know? He remembered the girl in the hospital talking about her mother. What was he supposed to say? he wondered. Mulder just stood there, looking at the map, bewildered. The map was so big. For some reason, he'd thought he'd be able to find his sister quickly and easily. But looking at the big colored squares on the paper in front of him, he thought there had to be thousands, maybe millions of people who lived in this place. How was he supposed to find her, when they were just two people among so many? His stomach burned with hunger. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten something. Since before he'd slipped away from the man who was in charge, the man who he was certain had orders to kill him. This could take a long time, he thought, looking unhappily at the map again, and he had no idea where to even start. All he knew was that he had to find her. He looked up at the man who'd come to stand next to him. He could feel the man's eyes on him, but he hadn't said anything. For a moment the boy thought he should run, that maybe this man was working with the other man. But then he looked up and recognized the man's face. One night a long time ago, the boy had snuck out of his bed in the middle of the night. He'd seen where the secrets were kept and he'd known from watching that they would be unattended. Standing on a chair, he'd found the folder that had his name on it and opened it. There had been a picture in the file. It had been more than he could have ever hoped for, a copy of a copy of a printout of a scanned computer photograph, black and white, not very large. The man in the photograph was tall, thin, half turned away from the camera, squinting at something in the distance. The man looked like he did - the nose, the lips, the eyes, even the hair. The boy had known it was how he would look when he got to be older. The boy had been interested, but not looked at the man for very long. He had instead chosen to spend the majority of his stolen time studying the woman in the photograph, trying to imagine what it would be like if they could all live together as a family. She was not very tall, soft- looking, with a smile on her face. Even in the grainy picture, the boy had seen that her eyes were like his sister's, as she looked at the man. The boy looked up at the man now, carefully, comparing him to the image he had stored in his memory of the photograph of his parents. The concept was foggy and strange in his mind. He was almost sure that this man was the man. His father. They were staring at each other and the boy decided to take a chance. He knew the names of the people in the photograph. So he said it, to see what the man's reaction would be. "Fox Mulder?" said the boy. The man's eyes changed, warm confusion filling them. "Yes," he said in a rough voice. "I am." Scully's hand tightened around the cold metal of her gun, its weight in her hand not reassuring. The man standing over by the door didn't seem to care that he was being held at gunpoint as he looked at her with cold eyes for a long moment before he lit a cigarette. The smoke from it burned her mouth and throat, but she didn't cough. Her jaw tightened and for a moment all she could think of was punishing him, shooting him for all of the things he had done to her. But she couldn't. "I want some answers," she said, her voice firm. "Listen to me," he said quickly, an order, urgency underlying his tone. "The boy is here. I brought him to assure his safety. There are those who would like to see him dead. He's yours if you want him." Scully couldn't believe that this horrible man was offering her a human being, a child. "In exchange for what?" she demanded, raising her gun to the level of his head. For a long moment he didn't speak, just looked at her, sizing her up. It made her uncomfortable to be scrutinized in such a fashion. "It was a shame to lose the girl," he said finally, "But the boy has real potential. To kill him now would be against everything I have sworn to do to protect this country. Do you understand me?" Scully didn't answer; she wasn't sure that she did. "All I want from you is to your promise to care for the boy. To keep him from those who would cause him harm. His extraordinary, you will find. In exchange for that, you have my word that you will be left alone. You will be safe." He paused for almost a minute, letting the words sink in. Scully's thoughts were racing. Was the girl that this man spoke of the same one Mulder had mentioned from the hospital, the one who had donated the blood that saved her life? The cigarette man saying that he had sworn to protect the country? None of it made any sense, except that he was saying she would be safe, if she could believe him. And she wasn't convinced that she could. "Do we have a deal?" he asked. If she said yes, it would mean no one would take her again. She would not lose any more days; she would not be kidnapped and forced into doing things she did not want to do, things she would not remember later. If she said yes, she would be safe again. "Yes," she said, breathless. The man smirked at her. "I thought you'd see it my way," he said and she recoiled, filled with instant dread. Had she just made a deal with the devil? "Until we meet again," he said, opened the door and instantly disappeared into the crowd. Scully stared after him, feeling cold inside. She put her gun away and sagged against the cold stone wall, convinced she had done the wrong thing. Her head snapped up when she heard her name. Her eyes focused on Mulder striding across the room to her. "He was here," she said, "He said there was a boy, someone we had to look after. In exchange, we wouldn't be experimented on any more." She looked up into his eyes, knowing he would tell her she'd sold her soul to the devil. Mulder surprised her. "Good," he said, a grin breaking across his face. "I'd like you to meet William," he said and for the first time she saw that a boy was standing next to him. A boy that looked incredibly like him. She looked back at Mulder quickly. "Our son," he added and she closed her eyes against the wave of emotion that broke over her. Mulder was still grinning at her when she opened her eyes and she managed to smile. Things were going to be all right. She had to believe that. She looked at the boy again. "Hi, William," she said. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Dana Scully." It barely registered in her brain that she was introducing herself to her son. "Hi," he said a little shyly, looking at her with a shy, awed smile that was bright enough to break her heart. End this part. =========================================================================== From: eponine119@att.net (eponine119 ) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Unspoken 13/13 Date: 25 Apr 1996 04:29:37 GMT Disclaimed in one and seven. Unspoken by eponine119 eponine119@att.net One month later. Mulder was worried about Scully. He kept missing the Frisbee that William was tossing at him because he was too busy watching her. She was sitting alone, her head resting on her bent knees. Her eyes were turned in their direction, but she wasn't watching them play. The orange plastic disk whizzed past his head again. "Let's take five," he called to William and the boy ran to eagerly retrieve the Frisbee. Mulder walked over to where Dana was sitting by their picnic basket. "Not having fun?" he asked her, dropping down to the grass next to her. She looked over at him as though she was coming back from a place very far away. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her look that way. "What's wrong?" he asked, his fingers playing along the line of her cheek. She shook her head and turned her face away. "Scully. Dana. You agreed to talk to me, remember? When it started to be too much?" Mulder said gently. He knew that she had not adapted well to having William in their lives. She hadn't argued when Mulder suggested that the boy live with him, and he saw the way she acted with William. The boy idolized her, loving her unconditionally with an intensity like Mulder had never seen. And she smiled and said the proper things, but her heart didn't seem to be behind them. She bought the fried chicken and came on their picnics, but it was as though only her body was there and not her spirit. She jumped every time their child called her "Mommy." Mulder knew how hard it was for her to express her feelings, but it was almost like she was afraid of the boy. Mulder tried again. "I know it's hard, having this responsibility so suddenly, and that it isn't what you planned or wanted -" She turned to him, amazed at what she was hearing. "I love William, Mulder. I'd die before I let anyone hurt him," she said simply and for a moment Mulder glimpsed the strong, protective side of her. "It isn't that," she said, looking away. "What is it then?" Mulder said, his heart aching. If it wasn't William, it was him. They'd spent a lot of time together outside of work, caring for William, trying to make sure he felt safe and knew that he had two parents who would always be there for him, no matter what. Mulder loved her and she knew it. He'd even said the words to her. It hadn't hurt that she hadn't said them back, he had been sure that she loved him too. He'd even been looking at rings lately, practicing proposals in the shower before he went to work. He wanted to marry her. But now, with that look on her face, he was sure she wanted out. That she blamed him and she hated him for all of this. "Dana?" "It's happened again." she said, not meeting his eyes, her voice hard and her shoulders stiff. "What has?" Mulder asked, terror ripping at his heart. "Scully, look at me." She did and her eyes were wet, glimmering with tears she refused to shed. She took a deep breath, but couldn't speak. When the words finally came out, they were tiny, inaudible. "I'm pregnant." "Oh my God," Mulder gasped loudly, feeling as though he'd just been hit by a bus. Scully's fingers were twisting pieces of grass together and she looked down at them. "I'm pregnant," she said again, stronger this time. "I saw the doctor, she said it was all right, that it would be healthy." "How - how far -?" he managed to say. "Eight weeks." She said and her face twisted with the effort of keeping the tears back. "He promised, Mulder, and I believed him. He said we would be safe if we took care of William." "Eight weeks ago was before we found William," Mulder reminded her, but he was furious. Eight weeks ago, she'd barely been out of the hospital recovering from what they'd done to her the last time. "Mulder, I don't want them to take this baby away from me. You've heard the things William has said about the Nursery. I don't want that to happen to my child. He's sure we're going to find Anna, I know we will, and then...and then..." she hiccuped and sniffled, holding back the tears. "They're not going to get away with this," she vowed. "Scully, they never let you stay pregnant this long before, did they?" he asked softly, stroking her arm reassuringly. "I think he was telling the truth, Scully. I think they're going to leave you alone." She nodded, not convinced. "What am I going to do, Mulder?" she asked. "I've been all around this in my head, over and over, and I just...I can't believe that we...that they made us...that I'm going to have your baby. What am I supposed to do?" "Marry me," he said and when he heard her soft gasp, he could have kicked himself for blurting it out that way. "You're not serious," she said, wide-eyed, "You're only saying that because...in a few days when you've thought about it, you'll change your mind." "Scully," he said, and could say no more. But his tone said it all. He loved her and he wanted her to be with him. "I love you." "No,." she said, "You don't." She could feel the tears burning in her eyes again because she wanted to believe that he loved her, that he wasn't just trying to do the right thing. He was terrific and patient with their son, and she knew he would be the perfect father to their baby, but she didn't want him to feel forced or trapped and resent her. Because she knew how Mulder could be. "It's true, Scully." He said and she jumped. He took a deep breath, knowing he had to say the words even though he didn't want to believe them. "It's all right if you don't want to marry me. I know that you don't love me, or even trust me, and that you probably blame me for-" She couldn't stand the hurt look on his face. She reached over and took his hand in hers. "I don't blame you. But if you were just asking because you thought you should out of some stupid sense of chivalry..." She met his eyes, waiting for his response. His whole face lightened and he grinned crazily at her. "You mean it?" he asked and he looked about as old as William. "You'll marry me?" She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and he grabbed her to him in the tightest hug of her life. She enjoyed it for a moment, convincing herself that this was right. This was how things were supposed to be. Then she pulled away, laughing crazily. "I can't believe any of this is real," she said. "We're getting married and having a baby and we've never even kissed." "We could fix that," Mulder murmured, leaning in close to her. Her hand on his chest stopped him. "Mulder, look." She said. He looked at her and saw she was looking at something far off in the distance. William. Standing alone, watching them with loneliness and longing on his face. Scully scrambled to her feet and ran over to him, pulling her son into her arms for the first time. He looked at her, shocked, as though he wasn't sure if he should believe it because it was too good to be true and she knew then that she'd hurt him already. "William," she said, and stopped, not knowing what she was supposed to say next. "Mulder and I are getting married." "Because of me?" he asked, frowning. Sometimes she forgot that he was just a little boy, that he needed to be reassured. "Because we love you, honey," she said, and decided it sounded fake. She didn't know how to explain it; she didn't even know why she and Mulder had decided to get married. Things were happening too fast. "We're going to be a family." That sounded a little better, but her son was still looking at her like he didn't believe her. She wondered if she should tell him the rest. "I'm going to be having a baby, " she said. His eyes went very wide. "Are you going to stop looking for my sister? " "Of course not," Scully said, horrified. Mulder came over then, and tackled their son, tickling him mercilessly. "Your mom tell you the news?" he asked. "Is it really true?" he asked Mulder. "Would we lie to you?" Mulder asked easily and his son laughed. Scully watched how easy things were between them with envy. She'd been too afraid she'd wake up one day and he'd be gone to allow herself to get too close. But she'd been missing a lot. "It'll be perfect," William said after he thought about it for a moment. "It will be," Mulder agreed, looking at Scully and she blushed at the heat of his gaze. But she smiled at him and he pulled her down onto the grass with them and the two of them started tickling her until she screamed for mercy. Mulder pinned her down and looked deep into her eyes with an unspoken promise to take care of her. His head dipped down and he touched her lips with his for one brief second, a soft, warm hint of things to come. And for the first time, Scully believed things would be all right. She believed that they would be safe. The man watched the three forms wrestling from a park bench a short ways away. He could hear their laughter, the sounds of any happy family in the Fall, having their weekly picnic in the park. He watched the man kiss his wife, tousling her red hair and placing a light hand against her enormous pregnant belly as the boy went off to throw the orange plastic Frisbee to the Labrador puppy at his feet. The Mulders didn't know it, but they figured highly in his plans for the future. He lit a cigarette and a small smug smirk of satisfaction stole across his face. He checked the date on his watch. Right on schedule, he thought, and exactly as planned. THE END. That was the end, folks, so now it's your turn. What you do is email me and tell me what you thought of my story: what worked or didn't, how the characters and the plot were, whatever strikes your fancy. And then I'll be very very happy. OK??? Seriously, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts, eponine119 eponine119@att.net