From village6@icanect.net Sun Feb 23 14:48:42 1997

COPYRIGHT: The characters and plot basis belong to some guy named
Chris Carter who has a lot of lawyers at his command, while all I got
is my twin brother Phil to represent me (in short, I'm doomed...).
Most of the story is fiction, except for the bit about the dog...

SUMMARY: Following "Memento Mori", Scully must come to terms with a
childless future, which is something Mulder considers as well...
Kelsy Rating: Sorry, Kelsy, I can never figure out that rating system.
I guess this is either a short story or vignette...

A Voice in Rama
by. Paul Wartenberg

In Rama was there a voice heard,
Lamentation and weeping,
And great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
And would not be comforted,
For they were no more.
--Matthew 2:18

Scully's Apartment
6:03 p.m.

     She rolled the small vial between her thumb and fingers, taking
time to consider what it meant to her.  The label that once stated her
name and medical status had become smudged from the perspiration of
the vial glass as it warmed up from its chilled state.  Having spent
hours in Mulder's pocket and then in her hands, its contents were
certainly as despoiled as the label's ink.
     When Scully learned of her cancer, she knew at that point she
could no longer deny her abduction and the many scars it had left upon
her.  Learning further that whomever kidnapped and abused her had
taken something precious merely added another scar.  But this scar
went deeper than the rest.
     She never knew it had happened.  Her body had continued to follow
through the menstruation process, and her body chemicals indicated no
change.  Her check-ups revealed nothing, no sign of being sterile.
And yet...
     Scully sighed, letting the vial roll from her hand gently onto
the dinner table.  Mulder had asked if she wanted to study its
contents and determine the hows and whats ofhow her ova were removed
and/or altered, but by then the once-frozen ingredients were
surely ruined.
     Why did this bother me, Scully thought.  Surely I had considered
having a family at some point, but considering my career and lack of a
social...
     The phone suddenly rang, startling her since she wasn't expecting
Mulder to call her tonight.  She cautiously picked up the phone.
"Scully."
     "Yeah, I know," a gruff voice echoed over the receiver.  "You
doing anything right now?"
     She sighed.  "Bill, I was wondering when we were going to
talk..."
     "I need to ask a favor, Dana," her elder brother interrupted.  "I
want to bring Three over to your place to stay the night."
     "What?"
     "Cyn's family got a crisis and we have to drive up for a day.  I
didn't want to take li'l Bill with us so I was hoping..."
     "Uh, yeah, I suppose," Scully whispered.  "You're going to have
to give me some time to clean up..."
     "Perfect.  Be there in thirty."

     William Scully the Third, or Three for short, bounded through the
doorway waving a thin green plastic stick in the air.  "Yaa-hooo!" he
shouted as he stormed past his aunt.
     Scully arched an eyebrow.  "Where's Babe?  Usually he's got that
pig with him..."
     "Forget Babe."  Older brother William Scully Junior leaned in
through the door to give his sister a hug.  Slightly shorter than
Mulder but as bulky as his father, Bill Jr. was capable of giving her
a bear hug that could lift her off the ground.  "We took him to see
the new version of Star Wars, so..."
     "Oh, no," Scully groaned.  "He's Luke now, isn't he?"
     "Wedge, Biggs," the little boy shouted as he ran down the short
hallway to Scully's bedroom.  "We're going for the exhaust port!..."
     "Bill," Scully shook her head, "I should tell you..."
     "Shh," he put a finger to his lips.  "Mom told me but I hadn't
really told him yet.  I didn't want to upset him..."
     Scully tilted her head slightly.
     "...but I hope he could see you a few more times
before...well..."
     "I'm going to fight this," she answered sternly.  "I'm going to
be fine..."
     "Danny," he whispered an old nickname, placing a hand on her
shoulder.  "I know you're a doctor, and I know you're going to fight
this, but this is cancer we're talking about..."
     "I'm going to be okay," Scully whispered back.
     "Can you handle Three?"
     She smiled and nodded.  "If anything happens, I'll be sure to
call Mom, or 911, whichever comes first..."
     Bill handed over a list of phone numbers in case Scully had to
call him for emergency, and they talked a few more seconds before he
hugged her good-bye.  She closed the door as he left and then turned
to face her bedroom.
     "Three?  Where did you get to?..."
     Silence.
     "Okay.  Luke?  Luuu-ke?"
     The bedroom door swung open, and the boy stumbled to the doorway
with an emptied trash can covering his head.
     Scully nodded, recognizing the scene.  "Aren't you a little short
to be a Stormtrooper?"
     "Oh, the uniform," Three's voice was muffled.  He promptly lifted
the trash can and tossed it aside.  "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to
rescue you..."

Two hours later

     The entire apartment had turned into a war zone.  Even though
Scully had tried to feed her nephew (using the cantina scene, sitting
some of her old dolls around the table and calling them "aliens") and
to clean him up from the subsequent re-enactment of the
lightsaber scene in said cantina (using his hot dog and half a bottle
of ketchup to represent that severed arm), she had tried and failed to
figure out how to calm him down.
     There was a sudden knock at the door.  "Oh, my, Darth Vader and
his Stormtroopers are boarding the ship!"  Three suddenly shouted out,
diving under the table.
     Speaking of Vader, Scully sighed to herself, if that is
CancerMan, I might actually be grateful for the distraction he'll
provide...
     She peeked through the spyhole.  "Oh, not now," she muttered as
she opened the door.
     "Scully, we need to talk," Mulder stated flatly as he stormed
into the room.  "I wanted...what the?..."
     He stared about at the mess.  "Scully, either your maid's been
sick or our friend with the Morleys made a house call..."
     "I wish," Scully growled, whistling her breath through the hair
dangling across her eyes.  "Actually, I've got my nephew over..."
     "Oh?"  Mulder turned toward the table just as Three crawled his
way out to face this new arrival.
     Three glanced him over, taking Mulder into consideration.  "Are
you old Ben Kenobi?"
     Mulder glanced back, noting the green stick and the use of a
familiar name.  "I take it you're Luke Skywalker, right?"
     The boy nodded.
     "Nuts," Mulder leaned in to whisper in Scully's ear.  "I always
wanted to be Luke..."
     He turned and nodded to the child.  "I'm Han Solo, captain of the
Millennium Falcon.  My first mate Chewbacca tells me you're looking
for passage to Alderaan..."

     Mulder's timely arrival helped out a lot.  He was able to recite
the entire movie along with Three, giving Scully some time to clean up
the mess, although their re-enactment of the trash compactor scene in
the bathroom did little to help.
     They finally succeeded in tiring out the child some time past 11
p.m., with Three gently resting on the guest bed, curled up with his
saber in his arms.
     "Thank God that's finally over," Scully whispered as she closed
the door to the bedroom.
     "Whatever you say, your Worshipfulness," Mulder grinned, staying
in character.
     Scully shot him an evil look, and then grabbed him by the shirt
collar.  "Listen, I don't know who you are or where you came from, but
from now on you do as I tell you, okay?"
     Mulder put a finger to his lips.  "Shh.  If we stay in character
he might hear us.  Truce?"
     "Truce.  Although I wasn't acting about your taking orders from
now on,"  Scully grinned.  "You can still call me Worshipfulness,
though."
     "I gotta warn you, remember what happened between Han and
Leia..."
     "...You would bring that up, you Nerf Herder..."
     They stumbled to the kitchen and settled in opposite chairs.
"You feeling okay, Scully?"
     "Mulder..."
     He raised his hands in protest.  "You've been handling the kid
all night.  I've only been here for maybe half that time.  You'd be
more burned out than I am."
     "Yeah," she sighed.  "He is a handful."
     "I guess that's a perfect example of an uber-Scully," Mulder
smirked, then suddenly frowned, regret quickly reflecting in his eyes.
"Oh, God, I shouldn't have said that..."
     "That's okay," she whispered.  "I've been thinking about that all
day..."
     Mulder kept his glance toward the table.
     Scully spotted the vial on the table and rolled it toward her
with one finger.  "To be honest I should have expected something like
this, the possibility those bastards did more to me than put an
implant in my neck and cancer in my head."
     "Did you..." he spoke up hesitantly.  "I mean, since you had no
sign of problems before, after all just because the other women may
have been infertile doesn't mean..."
     "Mulder," she whispered, shaking her head.  "Don't worry."
     "I have to.  It's my...responsibility."
     "Well, I rarely considered it my responsibility to care about
this," Scully nodded toward the vial.
     Mulder waited for an explanation.
     "I admit, when I was younger I thought about the need to have a
family," she started.  "Mom kinda explained the birds and bees as best
she could, so of course Missy explained it better in terms I could
grasp."
     "You mean sex."
     "More than that.  I did think what sex would be like, but I
recognized more the possibility of having kids of my own.  And in a
way it scared me."
     "You looked at your own mother and thought..."
     "...I think the most accurate thought was `My God, she squeezed
out all these brats and for what?'  I mean, Bill was the epitome of
teenage life..."
     "...Getting drunk and wreaking cars..."
     "...Two cars and five houses, actually..."
     Mulder winced.
     "He was absolutely reckless.  Missy was no better, each of her
boyfriends were candidates for the Ten Most Wanted list.  Either dad
threw her out or she threw herself out every Saturday night.  And my
little brother...Charlie was still the baby of the family but he had
that knack of destroying everybody else's toys or privacy or worse..."
     "And you?"
     Scully smirked.  "I tried to be fair about it.  I knew I wasn't
perfect either, that I was getting rebellious for reasons of my own.
At that point in my youth I guess I hated the idea of raising a
family..."
     "You probably reconsidered at some point."
     "Hmm."  Scully thought back.  "Some of those guys I dated in high
school, I don'tthink I went with them for their paternal instincts.
Even college guys didn't measure up too well...but then I..."
     Mulder nodded.  "Willis, right?"
     Scully's eyes did mist over some, her expression one of regret.
"Poor Jack.  Sometimes I..."
     She let the vial roll across the table as she rested her head
between her arms.  "Our relationship came completely out of the blue,
sometimes I can't even remember when it really started.  But there
were times when I thought it was perfect, that he was perfect.  
     "He was utterly professional, mature, willful, strong..." she
chuckled as she locked eyes with Mulder.  "He would have taught you a
thing or two about fighting in alleyways..."
     "Wouldn't you know it?" he smirked in reply.  "My trainer kept
dropping his gun, too..."
     "But amazingly enough, the thing that attracted me to Willis was
that he was great with kids."  Scully glanced away for a second.  "I
think I told you that he was in a Big Brother program with needy
kids..."
     Mulder nodded.
     "I went on some of his visits, and I saw that he was caring,
thoughtful, generous, firm when he had to be, but always fair...there
was a time I thought he could have been a better father than my
own..."
     "I'm not measuring up too well, am I?"
     "Mulder..."
     "I don't remember if you ever told me why you two broke up.  I
think you said it was for professional reasons, but..."  Mulder
shrugged.  "You don't have to...I guess I shouldn't have asked..."
     "No, that's okay."  She sighed.  "It was for professional
reasons, but...to be honest, I would have married him, and he knew
that.  But he told me he thought I had a great future in the Bureau,
and that an interoffice romance could have meant some damage
to any professional reputation I would have."
     "Speaking as someone without a professional reputation..."
     "Oh, you have a reputation, Mulder, just not one that gets you
invited to all the fun parties..."
     "Scully..."
     "Anyway, Jack asked me what I would do if I ever married, if I
would have remained in my career or if I would have become a
housewife."
     "And?"
     She sighed again.  "I would have given up the Bureau.  At the
time I felt the relationship was more important than my career."
     "So he broke up with you."
     "It wasn't that severe.  He told me I would have regretted
leaving my career, and encouraged me to work harder at my job.  Just
like that, the romance ended..."
     Scully leaned back into her chair.  "We still saw each other, and
the relationship drifted into a kind of friendship.  We kept tabs on
each other after he transferred to Robberies and I got the training
assignment before I was sent to the X-Files."
     "And after that..."
     "After that," she nodded to herself.  "I focused on my career."
     "No regrets?"
     "There's always regret," she smiled.  "But by then Three was
born.  Bill and his wife were eager to raise a family, and in some
respects any responsibility I had to carry on the Scully bloodline no
longer mattered.  I may not have kept up with Missy or Charlie,
but I figured they would settle down and raise their own families as
well.  If only..."
     Mulder didn't say anything.
     Scully finally finished her thought.  "But now Missy is gone.
Now I'm fighting for every minute of my life.  Now it seems like my
life won't carry on through another's.  Now, regret is the only thing
I have left."
     There was an uncomfortable silence across that table for too long
a time.  Mulder finally whispered, "I remember this dog..."
     Scully, noting that Three was sleeping down the hall, struggled
to keep from laughing too loudly.
     "No, seriously."  Mulder shrugged.  "When I was younger there was
this dog that wandered about my neighborhood.  Nobody knew who owned
it, but everyone knew why he was there.  It was because he watched
over the little children."
     "What?"
     "The dog would sit in the lawn where these children would play,
and he would simply watch them.  If they played with a ball, sometimes
he'd join in.  He wouldn't answer to any of the adults, but if a child
called him he'd bounce right over there."
     Scully glanced at him, wondering where this story would go.
     "You see, he loved children, and protected them as best he could.
Even that day he lost one of his front legs..."
     "His leg?"
     Mulder nodded.  "Some idiot was driving drunk and came right down
on some kids playing on the sidewalk.  The dog jumped right between
the car and this little girl, her name was Bess, and, well..."
     "Oh, God."
     "Bess never got a scratch.  The poor dog almost died especially
since his owners turned up and refused to pay the vet, but Bess's
father for everything.  He also took the dog in, named him...well,
named him Luke..."
     Scully scowled at him.
     "...and this was before Star Wars came out, trust me."  Mulder
grinned.  "Luke's a good Biblical name."
     "But Luke lost his leg."
     "He never changed.  He still watched over those children."
     "Why did you bring him up?"  Scully asked.
     "I think to make a point about what we can be," Mulder replied.
"We may not have children of our own, but look at what we do for a
living.  We protect others, we do what we can to keep the monsters at
bay.  Look at you, Scully.  In the Bureau, your primary skills are in
autopsies, but you've healed others, saved lives that were on the edge
of death."
     "I've certainly bandaged you up on more than one occasion," she
smirked.
     "And consider Willis," he added, leaning closer to her.  "He
never had a family of his own, but he took time to be some boy's
mentor, to be a father figure for someone who needed it."
     He took her hand in his.  "Even if it turns out you can have
children of your own, you're still doing what you can to protect the
children of others.  That still means a lot, especially in this day
and age."
     Scully simply smiled in reply, squeezing his hand.
     "And you're right.  You are going to beat this thing.  You are
going to get healed and you will be able to squeeze out those
uber-Scullys when the time comes..."
     "Is that a proposition, Mulder?" she arched one eyebrow
sarcastically.
     "Just don't name the firstborn `Spooky', promise?"
     "Promise."
     They both grinned, letting go of each other as the leaned back in
their respective chairs.  "Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Mulder."
     "I wasn't trying.  I was speaking the truth."
     "What about you, Mulder?  Ever thinking of being a Big Brother?"
     "I'm not too keen on the name," he shrugged, lowering his head a
little.  "And considering I have a lousy record as a babysitter..."
     "Mulder..."  Scully smiled, but then a door banged wide open as a
small figure wearing a black floppy hat strolled from the bedroom.
"Oh, no..."
     Three grinned as only a little boy could.  "When last we met, I
was but a learner.  Now I am the master!..."
     "Uh-oh.  He's turned into Vader," Scully whispered.
     "You should not have come back, old man," the tyke snarled as he
swung his plastic lightsaber against Mulder's leg.
     "Ow," Mulder griped, leaping from his seat.  "He still thinks I'm
Obi-Wan...giveme that, ow!  Stop hitting me...oof!  No, don't poke me
th...aag!"
     Scully glanced up to her God and shook her head.  "Just when I
thought having kids might be good, you just had to bring this up,
didn't you?"  As Mulder jumped over the sofa in a desperate attempt to
avoid getting skewered by a young master of the Dark
Side, Scully lowered her head into her arms, resting herself on the
table and praying that if she ever had her own children that they
would be saner than this...

Well, There's No Better Place To End A Story, So...