From: Anjou <anjou@rocketmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:45:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: A Winter's Tale by Anjou
Source: direct

Author:  Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)

Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008

Rating:  R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers 

Classification:  Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU

Archive: Archival with permission only, please. Text will be available 
at Gossamer, my website No Other ... (http://the-cave-
online.com/anjou/index.html) maintained by the generous dtg, and my fic 
journal (http://anjoufic.livejournal.com/)

Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no 
Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.


Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other 
elements are mine. 

Author's Note: This was the first idea for an X-Files story that I ever 
had, and one that I believed had been lost forever. Years ago, the 
laptop where I had written the outline and some scenes was destroyed. 
However, early last summer I found a printed copy of what I'd written, 
misfiled with another story. The idea of the story began to work on my 
imagination, until I finally committed the time to writing it out. And 
so, here we are.

A Winter's Tale was originally posted as a serialized story over 25 
days, beginning on December 22, 2007 and ending on January 15, 2008. 
Minor edits to the text have been throughout the body of the story; 
this is the final version. 

As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.

Summary: It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and 
transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very 
ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have 
already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-
buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell 
many tales, if it so chose. 

This is but one.   

~*~

  Her first sight of the office park that was supposed to hold Hannah's 
salvation did not seem promising. She knew that any place would seem 
ominous to her in the winter dark, but the anonymous tree-lined roads 
that led them deeper and deeper into a maze of squat pseudo-industrial 
buildings looked nothing like a place where a desperately ill child 
could get competent medical assistance. In the driver's seat, Mulder 
fidgeted as he followed Frohike's directions. She could hear an 
occasional word from the phone as Mulder questioned whether or not this 
was the right place. It was far larger than she'd expected. They'd 
already passed a UPS facility, and several office supply businesses of 
one sort or another -- companies for machines, paper, even furniture. 
They'd passed a medical records company a while back, but Frohike had 
insisted that it wasn't the right place. She sighed and tried to relax, 
looking back at a dozing Hannah, and smoothing down her last passable 
skirt nervously. 

  She'd slept lightly for the scant time after Hannah's bath, and had 
risen from her uneasy rest when she felt Mulder get up from the bed and 
pad into the bathroom. Hannah'd slept between them for those few hours, 
the sounds of her breathing devolving into wheezing and weak coughs 
that threatened to become more overpowering the longer she went 
untreated.

  By the time Mulder had exited the bathroom in a swirl of humid air, 
she'd salvaged an outfit from her one remaining skirt and the new 
sweater set she'd purchased days before. She'd showered and dressed 
swiftly, and they'd left the room just after six o'clock to set out for 
this bleak destination, only rousing Hannah enough to dress her warmly. 
Mulder had carried Hannah out to the car, and tucked her tenderly into 
her carseat while Scully stood on the threshold of their room and 
watched, filled with anxiety. The dark morning seemed foreboding to 
her, despite the bright light of the winter constellations against the 
clear, pre-dawn sky. She was a winter's child herself, but that fact 
gave her daughters no inoculation. Emily had died just as winter began. 
What chance did Hannah have when winter held the world in such a harsh 
and unforgiving grip?

  The car fishtailed as Mulder turned yet another corner and he swore, 
letting go of the wheel so the car would straighten itself out. In the 
confusion, she almost missed the anonymous structure that had suddenly 
appeared on their right. She just made out the word Prometheus on a 
sign mostly buried in a snowbank and sucked in her breath.  

  "Mul-" He cut her off before she finished. 

  "Got it, Frohike," he said. He braked sharply to turn into the mostly 
deserted parking lot. A few white panel vans sat in neatly plowed 
spaces, their roofs capped with snow. On the other side of the lot, 
near the blank eye of the front door, the lumps of what looked to be 
sedan cars were visible under the snow. A Bobcat stood next to the cars 
silently, snow still in the bucket to be moved elsewhere. 

  "Think we're expected, Scully?" Mulder asked. He dropped the now 
silent phone into an empty cupholder, and pulled out his gun as he 
maneuvered their rental into a parking space not directly in line of 
the front door. She had taken hers out as soon as he'd turned the 
corner into the parking lot. "What's the plan, Mulder?" she asked. 

  He put the car in park, but didn't cut the engine. "Get behind the 
wheel, Scully, would you?"

  He lifted up and stepped over while she slid underneath him, as he 
moved to the passenger side. She rammed the seat closer to the wheel, 
using her left hand.  

  "I'm going to ring the bell," he said grimly, trying desperately to 
keep his knees from being wedged against the dashboard as he waited for 
her to hastily adjust the mirrors. "Shoot anyone who approaches the 
car." He turned around and looked at Hannah, dozing in her carseat, and 
then turned back to her with a smile. "Try not to shoot me, though, 
OK?" 

  "Mulder," she said, protesting faintly. 

  "I really didn't enjoy it the last time," he continued. The long 
fingers of his left hand circled her wrist loosely for a second, and 
then he opened the car door and stepped out into the cold air. She took 
the safety off her gun and watched him go, scanning the parking lot and 
building roofline for signs of life. There were no windows cut into the 
blank facade of Prometheus Strategies Inc, just a small one in the door 
that Mulder was walking toward. The left front of the building was 
dominated by a loading dock, the three large doors pulled closed 
against the weather. It looked like they'd been unused in a while, as 
the snow had drifted across the empty expanse of the dock ledge and 
piled against the grated doors. 

  Hannah coughed in the back seat, and Scully startled at the sound, 
turning her head to ensure that Hannah was OK and that there was no one 
behind them.

  When she turned back, Mulder was at the door, leaning on the bell 
without letting up. She put the car into drive, but kept her foot 
planted on the brake, leaving her left hand on the wheel. Mulder had 
his ear pressed to the door, listening, and she tensed as she saw him 
move away from it and flatten himself against the building. As the door 
opened, he ducked and came up low. She forced herself to look around 
her and Hannah, although she wanted to back the car up and over to see 
what was going on. She could see Mulder's mouth moving, but the tension 
in his stance did not ease as he waited for a response. As the seconds 
ticked by, she scanned the mirrors and all visible sightlines, feeling 
exposed and vulnerable and utterly incapable of keeping all three of 
them safe. 

  When Mulder shifted his posture, she swung her gun up and out toward 
him. He took a step backward into the parking lot and the door swung 
open all the way to reveal a slender young man with auburn hair. He was 
wearing a lab coat and looked curiously over to where she sat in the 
car. Despite the time that had passed since their last encounter with 
him, his youthful appearance was unchanged. As she looked on in 
surprise, the young man stepped out onto the snow-covered asphalt and 
walked directly over to her car, Mulder trailing behind with his gun. 

He stopped and bent over to peer in the passenger window at her, his 
expression not changing at the sight of her own drawn gun. Instead, he 
looked right past the weapon to her face, and she realized with a start 
that she, and not Hannah, was the object of his curiousity.

  "Agent Scully," Kurt Crawford said in a mild voice, "welcome to 
Prometheus. Please come inside."

  She sucked in a gasp of surprise, hating the tremble of the weapon in 
her grasp. She swung it at the sound of someone trying to open the 
locked back door, but saw Mulder, gun nowhere in evidence, trying to 
get to Hannah. "Scully," he said to her through the window, "open up." 

  She stared at him for a long moment through the glass that separated 
them and wondered how many unimagined questions would be answered on 
this journey. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to know the answers.

  "Scully," Mulder pled, watching her through the glass. "Get the 
files." 

  "Agent Scully," Crawford said a beat later, repeating himself, 
"please come inside." 

~*~

  The reception area of Prometheus was small, clean and looked utterly 
unused. It looked like a set rather than an actual workplace, with its 
neat guest chairs and coffee table complete with carefully fanned 
magazines. Behind the empty reception desk, a door stood open and she 
followed Kurt Crawford and Mulder through it, starting when it closed 
behind her. She turned, only to come face-to-face with Kurt Crawford, 
again. 

  "Agent Scully!" the young man said, in a tone of subdued surprise, 
even though his face was still relatively affectless. She heard a 
ripple of voices repeat her name in exactly the same tone and turned 
back to see that Mulder and the first Kurt Crawford were farther down 
the long hall than she. In the intervening space, she could see several 
more Kurt Crawfords at the doors of rooms that opened off the halls. 
All of them were staring at her with identical expressions of 
curiousity. 

  "Scully," Mulder's voice urged her to him, and she grasped for it 
like a lifeline, hurrying down the hall after murmuring something that 
might have sounded like hello and excuse me. A ripple of sound, a 
whispering of Mulder's name, followed her as she moved down the 

corridor.

  "There are a number of us here," the first Kurt Crawford said to her. 

  "I see," Scully said, although she did not understand at all.

  "We have a lot of work to accomplish," he continued in his matter of 
fact voice.

  As they continued down the hall, she saw the green water filled tanks 
in one room and shivered. Most of the rooms they passed seemed to be 
fully operational labs, although their passage in the corridor drew the 
identical occupants away from their benches and hoods to peer at them. 

  At the end of the corridor, they came to yet another door. "This is 
our infirmary," Kurt said. A clone could be seen through a window, 
turning on monitors and readying a bed. "Please put her on the bed, 
Agent Mulder."


  "Hannah," Mulder said shortly as he moved through the door. "Her name 
is Hannah."

  Kurt nodded, "Yes, so you said. For H in the series." He turned to 
Scully, "Do you have the data?"

  Scully stared at him for longer than was polite, looking at his 
features and trying to comprehend their alien familiarity. 

  "Scully?" Mulder asked, "did you leave the bag in the car?" 

  She nodded, and tore her eyes away from the clone's imperturbable 
gaze to Mulder's troubled one. "I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, "I just 
..."


  He nodded, and held out his hands for the keys. "I'll go get it," he 
said, "you tell him what's been happening."

  Before she could open her mouth to protest further, he was moving 
back the way they'd come, and she was left alone with a pair of the 
Crawford clones. 

  "Could you please describe the presenting symptoms?" The clone at 
Hannah's bedside asked her. 

  Scully tore her eyes away from the first clone to find herself 
regarding the second. He had put a pulse oxygen monitor on Hannah's 
finger and was checking her vital signs. Hannah had a digital 
thermometer in her mouth, and was lying atop the bedclothes, still 
wearing her boots, overcoat, hat and one mitten. Although she had 
submitted to the clone's ministrations easily enough, she looked 
faintly terrified of the whole situation. Scully shook herself out of 
her reverie, and sat next to Hannah on the bed. She took the 
thermometer out of Hannah's mouth and handed it back to the clone for 
the moment, then removed Hannah's hat and mittens, and held her hand as 
she spoke. 

  "Agent Mulder found Hannah approximately six days ago ..." she began, 
only to be interrupted by the first clone, who was now holding a clip 
board and a pen. 

  "Yes, we know," he said implacably, "but we don't know when or how 
she began to decompensate."

  Scully closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts. "More than 
60 hours ago, Hannah began to exhibit signs of illness, primarily 
fever, rapid pulse and listlessness. Her fever has ranged from a high 
of 104.5 to a low of 99.4, but it has not dropped below 101 at any time 
for the last 24 hours. In the past 24 hours, she has developed a deep 
cough. Her temperature spiked to 104.5 approximately eight hours ago, 
despite the fact that she has been receiving a weight appropriate dose 
of ibuprofen for the past 48 hours."

  Mulder burst into the room with the discs just as she finished.

  "Mulder!" Hannah said. She sounded relieved, and Scully tamped down 
the momentary pang of jealousy that flared. 

  "Hi pumpkin," he said warmly. "How're you feeling?"

  "OK," she croaked, and then began coughing. Scully adjusted the head 
of the bed to a higher position and asked one of the clones to get her 
some water.

  "Is your throat sore, Hannah?" Scully asked. 

  "I guess so," she said. "It hurts."

  "How about your chest?" Scully asked her. "Does that hurt?" 
  
  "When I cough," Hannah answered wheezily. 

  Scully gave her some water to sip, and continued to divest Hannah of 
her outerwear. 

  When she was under the covers in her nightgown, the clone gave her 
back the thermometer. "Put this under your tongue, Pumpkin," he said to 
Hannah in his nearly affectless voice. 

  Scully could feel her eyebrows rising in surprise at the clone's 
attempt at bedside manner. Behind her, she could hear a strangled 
rumble from Mulder as he choked back a laugh and tried to speak at the 
same time. 

  It was Hannah, however, who said to the clone gravely, "You should 
call me Hannah," with particular emphasis on the first word. Her tone 
was polite, but brooked no argument. 

  The clone, seemingly not in the least offended, nodded and reminded 
her to place the thermometer under her tongue. Mulder stood behind him 
and watched the numbers on the screen as they rose. 

  "103.5," he said to Scully before the clone could. "It was 104.5 
early this morning."

  "So Agent Scully reported," the first clone said. "I think that our 
best course of action would be to take some blood and other samples and 
see if there is any bacterial growth. Until then, however, I'd suggest 
that we rehydrate and begin a course of a broad-spectrum antibiotic 
such as amoxicillin or cephalosporin. What is your opinion, Agent 
Scully?"

  "I concur," she said. "Hannah's fever has been elevated for too long, 
and she does have some inflammation of the lymph glands under her jaw. 
However, I'm concerned that amoxicillin might be too much of an 
allergen risk."


  The first clone nodded to his counterpart, who exited the room. "Was 
there any indication of allergy in these records, Agent Scully?"

  "None that I can decipher, but it can't hurt to be safe," she 
answered. "There were codes and abbreviations with which I'm not 
familiar. Perhaps you could decode some of them?"

  "Perhaps," he answered smoothly. "Let me take a preliminary look at 
the records. In light of the lack of information, I agree that it is 
advisable to try cephalosporin first."

  Scully nodded her agreement.

  "Would you be comfortable taking the swabs and the blood samples?" 

  "Yes," she answered immediately. Although in truth it had been years 
since she'd done either, she wasn't about to let one of the clones test 
Hannah. 

  "I'll be in the lab across the hall looking at this data," the first 
clone answered. "You can bring the samples there when you're ready." He 
left the room, and Scully stood and took off her own overcoat, looking 
for the sink to wash her hands. She could hear the low rumble of 
Mulder's voice as he talked to Hannah, asking her how she felt and if 
she wanted to watch some TV. She tucked her rings carefully into the 
waistband of her skirt before she washed, and then gloved, her hands.

  The clone who seemed to work at the infirmary had returned in the 
meantime, and was hanging an IV bag for rehydration, as well as the 
smaller bag of cephalosporin. Scully returned to Hannah's bedside and 
asked Hannah if she understood what Scully was going to do. 

  "You're going to stick me with that needle," Hannah said matter of 
factly, "and then tape it down so the stuff in the bag runs into me."

  "So you've had IVs before?" Scully asked.

  "Yes," Hannah said. "How long will it hurt me?" Her tone was stoic; 
Mulder was visibly startled and sat down on the bed, watching her 

closely. 

  "I'll try my best not to hurt you when I put the needle in, Hannah," 
Scully answered. Her already shaky confidence in this whole procedure 
was undermined by this evidence of Hannah's negative past experiences. 
"Do you have any numbing agent?" She asked the infirmary clone. 

  His brow drew down in concentration. "I believe there is some 
lidocaine gel in the formulary."

  "Please go get it," Scully said firmly. She turned back to Hannah. 
"I'm going to numb your skin so the needle won't hurt when it goes in," 
she said to her.

  Hannah looked very puzzled. "The needle doesn't bother me when it 
goes in," she said. "The stuff that goes inside me hurts."

  Scully regarded her with a dawning dread. "Did it look like this?" 
She pulled the rehydrating solution off the IV pole.

  "No," Hannah said, looking at the bag. "Not the stuff that hurt. It 
was black." 

  Mulder looked like he might be sick, and she knew how he felt. She 
had a sharp, physical memory of the feel of the black oil writhing in 
her veins, corrupting her. She struggled to keep her expression neutral 
as she addressed Hannah. "I will never put anything inside of you to 
hurt you, Hannah," she promised. "Never. This medicine will make you 
feel better, not worse."

  "OK," Hannah said. She seemed pleased, but puzzled, which made Scully 
feel even more sad. It was clear that she had no expectation of being 
cared for in this kind of setting, and Scully found herself at a loss 
for words to explain it any clearer. She appealed to Mulder silently to 
help her, their eyes locking across Hannah's bed. 

  "Hannah, doctors are supposed to help people," Mulder said quietly, 
"not hurt them. The people that had you before were not good doctors."

  Hannah contemplated this explanation while Scully accepted the 
numbing agent from the clone and smoothed it on Hannah's arm. She 
quietly instructed the clone to heat a blanket in the microwave while 
she watched Hannah.

  "So that's why Heather and Hilary and Hope went away?" she asked. 
"Because the bad doctors didn't help them?"

  Scully could not help fisting her hands in their gloves, and only 
hoped that her nails would not pierce them where they pressed into her 
palms. 

  Mulder was stricken by Hannah's words, but his mild expression did 
not change as he smoothed Hannah's hair from her face. "Yes," he said 
succinctly. He swallowed several times. "Were they very sick?"

  "They cried a lot," Hannah said matter of factly. "It made my head 
hurt worse, so I would try to go back to sleep. I don't really remember 
it. I woke up and they were gone. I think Hope left first."

  "Did you see her leave, honey?" Scully asked, wrapping Hannah's arm 
in the blanket. 

  Mulder shifted position so that he was sitting next to Hannah with 
his back to her pillows. He wrapped his arms around the child. 

  "No," Hannah said, watching what Scully was doing intently. "When I 
woke up, she was gone. And then I hurt some more, and then Hilary was 
gone."

  "You were very sick," Scully whispered, still holding the warm 
blanket around Hannah's arm. She had never quite understood the 
murderous impulse as viscerally as she did at this moment.

  "I thought you said I was sick now," Hannah said, confused. "It 
doesn't feel the same at all."   

  Scully reached up and touched Hannah's face, "I'm glad," she said. 

"Hannah, I want you to listen to me. I won't let anybody hurt you ever 
again."

  "Oh," Hannah said. She looked at Scully with an expression of wonder. 
"You won't?" 

  "No," Scully said firmly, choking back her tears. Mulder was resting 
his head on Hannah's smaller one and she could see his chest heave as 
he tried to repress his own emotions.  He was smiling at her, despite 
his trembling chin, as she caressed Hannah's cheek and shook her head, 
looking directly into Hannah's wide eyes. "Never."

  "Oh!" Hannah said. She reached up and took hold of Scully's hand, 
hugging her arm to her chest. "OK," she said brightly.  

~*~

  When Hannah was settled in her bed watching cartoons with Mulder, 
Scully washed her hands again and returned her rings to their place. 
She smoothed her hair in the mirror and was not surprised to find 
Mulder regarding her with an expression so full of emotion that she'd 
need a year just to catalogue all the shades of it. What was clear was 
how very proud he was of her. She turned, and leant against the sink, 
gazing back at him. He pressed a kiss to Hannah's head and she nodded, 
picking up the tray that held blood and sputum to be cultured.

  "I'll be back," she said to them both. 

  Hannah was glassy-eyed and mesmerized by the TV, but Mulder nodded. 
"We'll be here," he said. 

  She crossed the now quiet hallway without encountering any more of 
the Kurt Crawford clones, hesitating slightly as she crossed the 
threshold of the lab. What was it that they were working on here? She 
had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure if they were reflective of 
anything other than her own hope. At the far end of the long lab space, 
she could see several clones working silently. She moved into the room. 

  "Agent Scully?" 

  She turned and found the Kurt Crawford that had escorted them into 

the complex rising from a desk. She was grateful that although they 
were wearing lab coats, they were not wearing identical outfits. This 
Kurt Crawford appeared to be reading the disks that she and Mulder had 
brought. "Mr. Crawford," she answered.

  "Please just call me Kurt," he said. 

  She nodded. "Do I address all of you as Kurt?" 

  "Yes," he said succinctly. "I'm sure it's very confusing to you, but 
we all know ourselves as Kurt." 

  "All right," she answered. "May I ask what you've learned from the 
data that Agent Mulder and I brought you?"

  "Certainly," Kurt answered, "if you'll just accompany me to this hood 
so I can get these cultures growing, I'll be happy to answer your 
questions."

  The curiousity overcame Scully at that point. "What exactly is it 
that you do here at Prometheus?"

  "We look for answers," Kurt said. "Ways to help the humans."

  "Hence the name," Scully said. 


  "Yes."

  "Are you trying to create a vaccine?" 

  "Yes." 

  "So you need to make more alien-human hybrids to help you do that."

  "No," Kurt said. "We don't make more. We just recreate ourselves." 

  "I'm not sure I understand the distinction," Scully said.

  "There once was a Kurt Crawford," he answered. "Our original self."

  "And he was taken," she answered, thinking of Samantha ... and herself.

  "He was given," Kurt answered. "as many others were given, by the 
senior members of the project. It was 1973; he was 10 years of age."
 
  Scully could not school her expression fast enough to mask her 
distaste. 

  "You have met his maternal grandfather, I believe," Kurt continued, 
as if he had not seen. "He was an older gentleman, a British national."

  Scully stared at Kurt for a long moment, seeing his features 
reassemble themselves in light of this news. "Yes," she said, "I met 
him at Agent Mulder's father's funeral, and ..." she hesitated, not sure 
how much more she should reveal.

  "And later, he gave Agent Mulder a version of the vaccine to give to 
you. We worked on that vaccine."

  "Thank you," Scully answered.

  "There were many of us involved in the necessary work," the clone 
said mildly.

  "Nonetheless," Scully countered, "we're having this conversation 
because of that work."

  "Without Agent Mulder finding you and administering the vaccine, this 
conversation would not be taking place," the clone rejoined.

  "And as I've already thanked him for his effort, it's only 
appropriate that I thank you for yours," Scully volleyed back, and then 
changed the subject. "Have you refined the vaccine since then?"

  "We are trying to create a preventative vaccine," Kurt offered. "The 
vaccine you received is little more than a fail-safe we have used to 
protect collaborative humans in the very early stages of infection."

  She considered this statement. "You do not use it to protect 
yourselves?" 

  "We are expendable," the clone answered. "We occupy short lifespans 
and are easily re-created. Since we document what we've done 
meticulously, the learning curve for our new selves is relatively 
short."

  "I'm sorry," Scully said, "but that seems completely barbaric to me."

  "It is our choice," the clone answered. "In any case, the failsafe 
vaccine is ineffective for our altered physiology, and we have deemed 
it an inefficient use of our resources to spend time trying to protect 
ourselves. Besides, our short lifespan ensures that we would not be the 
target of colonization efforts, as it would have a negative effect on 
the health of the colonizing parasite."

  Scully blanched at the notion of parasites but ignored it for the 
time being to return to a previous statement for her next question. 
"You say that you have made these choices freely, yet when Mulder met 
some of your predecessors, they were working for Dr. Scanlon."

  "Yes," the clone answered, "although things were not perhaps exactly 
as they seemed." He closed the hood and removed the samples to another 
bench to grow. 
  
  She remained silent, hoping that the clone would continue.

  "We have had to participate in experiments sanctioned by the main 
project in order to reproduce ourselves in great enough numbers so that 
we may do the work that we deem important. It has allowed us to gain 
access to necessary materials, knowledge and funding." He paused. "We 
do not trust other clones to participate in what we're trying to do, 
hence the necessity for secrecy. Our brothers are now a vast network. 
We collaborate, but we have sabotaged as well. We do what is necessary 
for the greater good of humanity." The clone spoke earnestly, but still 
without a pronounced affect.

  Scully crossed her arms across her torso and rocked back and forth 
before she asked her next question. "Did you participate in the 
experiments that created Hannah?"

  "No," he answered succinctly, then explained further when he saw that 
she wanted more information. "Dr. Scanlon has not allowed us near his 
projects since Agent Mulder first met some of us in Allentown. In his 
view, we are a corrupted line. Our original self's grandfather was able 
to convince the overseers of the project that the Kurt Crawford Agent 
Mulder met had been seduced by his ideas. Our work on the vaccine was 
too valuable to be abandoned, so we were not terminated as a line."


  "What about the project that produced Emily?"

  "Work that our forebears did on refining cloning methodologies was 
used in the formulation of the Emily line," the clone said, "but we 
were not directly involved."

  "The Emily line?" Scully asked.

  "The child that you met was not the only one," the clone said. "The 
typical presentation is groups of four. Mutations slip in when larger 
batches are created using the same materials."

  "So Emily was a clone?" Scully felt quite nauseated by this 
conversation, but she wanted to continue it.

  "Yes. She was essentially your clone." 

  "Essentially?"

  "She was produced through a somatic cell nuclear transfer. Egg fusion 
was used but the nucleus of one of your ova was altered with alien 
material. However, it caused irrevocable damage to the genome, 
specifically the lymphatic system."

  "And the purpose of this alteration was an attempt to make resistant 
alien human hybrids?"

  "That has been the general purpose of the reproductive experiments 
for the past fifteen years."


  Scully caught his distinction. "And what were the other purposes?" 

  The clone looked around the room where other Kurt Crawfords were 
working. "There was also the need to create a workforce."

  'Drones,' Scully thought sadly. She was just opening her mouth to ask 
another question, when an alarm on the clone's watchband sounded, and 
was echoed elsewhere in the room. She looked down the end of the long 
room to see that most of the clones that had been there earlier were 
now gone.

  "Agent Scully, we have a status meeting at this time," he said. "I 
can bring you data on what we know occurred as part of the reproductive 
experiments so far. As I said, we've not been involved in any way in 
the project of which the child in question is the result. Data on that 
project needs to be gleaned from the disk."

  He began moving her toward the door. "You're free to look around the 
facility. I believe that breakfast has been brought into the child's 
room."

  She stopped him in the corridor with a hand on his arm, looking over 
her shoulder to make sure that they were alone. "Just one more 
question, Kurt," she said firmly. "What happened to the original Kurt 
Crawford, the boy who was given to the project?"

  For the first time, the clone seemed surprised at her question. "He 
did not survive the experimental process," he said simply, and almost 
as if he thought it a very silly question. "We have documentation of 
the process he underwent. It was more than twenty-five years ago -- the 
methodology was far more crude. The idea of parthenogenetic 
experimentation was in its infancy, as it were."

  "I see," Scully said, forcing an air of calmness that she most 
certainly did not feel. "What about the other children who were given 
to the project?"

  Kurt regarded her with drawn down brows. "I'm not sure what your 

question is."

  "Did any of the other children that were given to the project 
survive?" she asked quietly. 

  "No," Kurt answered. "None of those given survived in their original 
form. I'm afraid that any others you have met were clones like myself, 
although some may have not realized it."

  "I see," Scully said, in a whisper. God help her, she needed 
clarification. "So, Samantha Mulder?" She could not finish the 
question, but stared at the clone hoping he would answer her ellipsis 
nonetheless.

  "Her original self expired in 1975," Kurt answered. "I can have that 
data brought to you as well."


  Scully nodded. "Not today," she said in a ragged voice. "And please 
do not give that data to Agent Mulder."

  "As you wish," the clone answered. "I really must go."

  Scully nodded and watched blindly as the clone hurried down the hall. 
All these years, all this time, all the death and the suffering ... this 
was the outcome she had always feared would come to pass, but being 
right about it gave her no satisfaction at all. 

  She had never had to look someone in the eye and break their heart 
before, not even a previous lover. In their work, it was usually Mulder 
who broke the bad news to the parents whose child had died; it had only 
been her responsibility once or twice, and it wasn't quite the same 
thing. She'd never loved any of those people, past lovers included, the 
way she loved Mulder.

  She'd ached for the pain of bereft parents in a different way in the 
year since Emily, but this ... she'd bleed for Mulder. For the first 
time, she felt the tiniest spark of empathy for Mulder's decision not 
to tell her about her ova because the desire to protect him from such 
sorrow was so overwhelming. But she knew it was not a secret that she 
could keep for long. Not now. 

  She turned and walked quietly to the door of Hannah's room, and then 
had to stop to hide the smile behind her hand, even as a tear spilled 
over her lower lid. Mulder and Hannah were both asleep on Hannah's bed, 
the television blaring uselessly above them, their breakfast trays 
untouched. She wiped away her tears and walked into Hannah's room. She 
found the spare blanket that she'd used to warm Hannah's arm and 
covered Mulder with it, then walked around the bed to look at her 
daughter's beautiful face. She thought again of the men who'd created 
this project -- of the sacrifices they had made of their children, both 
the given and the left behind, their wives, her own life. She pondered 
the enormity of what they had done and wondered how these things could 
ever have resembled choices worth making, how they had become 
reasonable decisions.  

  She sat down next to the bed and covered Hannah's hand with her own, 
feeling the warmth of her, the life in her. However she had come to be, 
this was her child. She could never give her up to a life of terror and 
pain. She would die first. She laid her head down upon Hannah's lap. 
She would kill them both first. 

  But before she did, she would take as many as possible of those who 
would force her to make such a horrendous decision with her, to Hell.

~*~   

  Dana Scully rotated her neck gingerly as she sat in the chair next to 
Hannah's bed. She'd fallen asleep with her head in Hannah's lap, and 
only awoken hours later when Mulder tried to move her so that Hannah 
could use the bathroom. Her neck had been bothering her ever since, and 
the data that she was reading did nothing to ease her discomfort, or 
improve her dark mood. 

  As promised, the records of the how of Emily's creation had been 
provided for her. Mulder had pointed them out to her when she sat up, 
but firmly insisted that she eat some lunch before she dove into them. 
His concern for her led her to believe that he knew exactly what was in 
the files, although much of the documentation was highly technical. 
After her late lunch, Mulder had gone off to explore the facility while 
Hannah dozed again in the high hospital bed. She would have been more 
concerned about Hannah's continued sleepiness if not for the fact that 
her temperature had dropped as well, an apparent good response to the 
administration of the antibiotics. Her oxygen saturation was still 
slightly lower at 96% than what Scully would like, but the rails of 
Hannah's coughing had not seemed to deepen, either. Scully hoped that 
the administration of the cephalosporin had come at the appropriate 
time, and that maybe the grip of Hannah's infection had been broken.

  She stood and placed the files on the bedside tray table and then 
stretched, working the kinks out from her head down to her toes. She'd 
have given anything to take her shoes off and really stretch, but she 
wasn't trusting her bare feet on the floors of any kind of medical 
facility. She was moving her head from side to side when she heard a 
calm voice ask, "Agent Scully?"

  "Kurt," she said, opening her eyes in surprise. It was far too soon 
for any kind of results from Hannah's tests. "Is everything all right?"

  "I believe so," he answered evenly. "I've had a chance to go through 
more of the data that you brought, and ..."


  "Let's step outside," she ushered the clone away from Hannah's 
bedside. "I'd like Hannah to have some uninterrupted rest."

  The clone glanced up at the wall clock. "I believe that she'll be 
served dinner with the first group in thirty-five minutes."

  "I'd like her to rest as much as possible, nonetheless," Scully 
countered, and then gave into her curiousity. "Who cooks for you?"

  "We do," Kurt answered, and once again Scully got the feeling he was 
amused by her question. "We rotate responsibility for feeding 
ourselves. Food supplies are ordered via the internet and delivered to 
the building. It's relatively easy for us to avoid outside contact." 

  She nodded, thinking how sad and isolated their lives seemed to her. 
"Thank you for taking care of us."

  "We couldn't do anything other than that," the clone said easily.

  She tilted her head to one side, considering her next question. 
"Because Agent Mulder and I are part of this project?" 

  The clone blinked. "I suppose one could view it from that 
perspective," he said, "but we've always considered that we are on the 
same side as you and Agent Mulder. That consideration obligates us." 

  Scully wondered who exactly had instilled this sense of duty and 
ethics within these clones. How much, really, was due to influence and 
how much to the nature of the original Kurt Crawford who'd never been 
allowed to become the man standing in front of her? If the clone 
noticed anything odd about her continued silence, he did not say so, 
just stood there quietly while she pondered. 

  "Scully?" Mulder's voice as he walked up the hallway was wary.

  "Is everything all right?" she asked for the second time in a few 
minutes.

  "That was going to be my question," he asked her. She looked at 
Mulder as he stood in the hallway watching her with a searching gaze. 
He'd removed his suitcoat, and rolled up his sleeves, as if this were 
any other workday, exploring in this warehouse of oddities. He seemed 
tense and discomposed, and she wondered fleetingly if he'd asked the 
clones about his sister.  

  "I'm fine," she answered, and hurried to continue on with her 
thoughts when Mulder's hazel eyes had darkened at her use of the 
phrase. "I'm trying to comprehend some things, Mulder."

  He observed her for a few seconds, hands on his hips, examining her 
face for any hint of a lie. "OK," he said. His shoulders relaxed 
fractionally. "How's the pumpkin?" he asked with real concern.

  "Dozey," Scully said, "but she's not coughing as much, and her fever 
keeps going down, bit by bit."

  Mulder sighed in relief. "I'll go sit with her, then." His statement 
was more of a question directed at her, but she nodded.

  "I'll be a while," she added.

  She and Kurt moved away from the center of the hallway to the lab 
doorway opposite the infirmary as Mulder turned into Hannah's room, 
giving her one last searching gaze over his shoulder. 

  "What did you learn about Hannah?" Scully asked the clone.

  "As I suspected, she is one of the 'H' series of experiments that 
used your ova."

  Scully nodded, but felt no surprise at his confirmation. Instead, she 
asked the question to which she dreaded to hear the answer.  "Which 
would mean that there are series of experiments of which I've been 
unaware," she said evenly. "A through D, F & G ..." she paused. "Are 
there other series currently being conducted?"

  "The A through D series were unsuccessful," Kurt said. "They were 
part of an earlier attempt to clone individuals who might prove 
disruptive to the Project's general mission. Those clone lines were 
susceptible to the same kind of problems that befell the original Dolly 
project, however."

  Scully's eyebrows were at her hairline. "They were trying to clone 
me?" she asked incredulously. Her hand unconsciously went to the back 
of her neck, "To replace me," she said. 

  "Yes," Kurt said, "and the cloning process employed the same rapid 
aging technology that had been utilized successfully in the 
amplification of our original self, as well as others. However, the 

older the original self ..."

  "The more rapidly the clone degraded," Scully mused. "This is 
incredible science that you're talking about."

  "Not to those of us involved in this project," he answered. "However, 
the limitations of that kind of parthenogenetic reproduction were not 
yet evident to those running those experiments." 

  "So, Emily?" she asked, beginning to think she knew the answer.

  "When they realized that replacement was not going to be an option, 
they reverted to using your genetic material in the same way that other 
female abductees' ova were being used." Kurt paused. "Dr. Scanlon was 
in charge of the projects from E onward."

  Scully nodded. "And how far into the alphabet has he gone?"

  Kurt looked puzzled by her question. "H," he said. 

  She didn't even attempt to hide her surprise. "Why did he stop at H?"

  Kurt really did seem confused by her question. 

  "Kurt?" she prompted.

  "I'm very sorry, Agent Scully, but I assumed that you knew more of 
this information. To the best of our knowledge, no planned project 
using your ova has gone forward since you discovered the E line in San 
Diego. In fact, initial work on planned experiments I through L was 
discarded."

  "Because I found out?" Scully could not imagine that the answer was 
so simple.

  "No," the clone said slowly, "because of Agent Mulder." 

  "What?" For a moment, she was filled with a burning rage. If there 
was more that Fox Mulder had kept from her she would ... but then she 
remembered her own discovery about Samantha earlier in the day, and the 
rage was replaced with fear. "Why?"

  "When Agent Mulder went to Dr. Calderon to demand answers, he was 
extremely forceful."

  She was sure that her mouth was hanging open. "Forceful?"

  "Extremely," the clone said, with no sense of irony. "He not only 
physically assaulted Dr. Calderon, but he destroyed his office. Later, 
he destroyed experiments associated with your ova at another facility."

  "Fox Mulder?" She said to the clone. Of course, she knew that he had 
a temper, and a highly honed sense of protectiveness, but she had never 
seen him use raw physical force as a weapon --- he was far more likely 

to wield his intellect than his fists.

  "Yes," Kurt said implacably, "and when Dr. Calderon ended up dead, 
many labs affiliated with the project refused to have anything to do 
with your ova."

  She was reduced to stuttering again.

  "In fact, most labs destroyed your ova."

  "Most," she said, hoarsely. 

  "Yes," he said, "and then, of course, his recent physical assault on 
Dr. Scanlon at the now defunct Norfolk facility just cemented the 
opinion that using your ova was far too dangerous. Project researchers 
believe that if they're using your ova, Agent Mulder will find out and 
come after them."

  "I see," she said faintly. "He did tell me that he'd recently seen 
Dr. Scanlon."

  "Well, when he saw him, he beat him quite severely," the clone said. 
"It took a number of project security guards and a taser to get him off 
Dr. Scanlon."

  "A number of security guards?" she repeated. She was still not sure 
that they were talking about the same man. It was unfathomable. Perhaps 
a shapeshifter had impersonated him -- but that would not explain his 
bruised hands from last week. She shook her head in wonder. She knew 
that Mulder was capable of a certain level of violence, that like all 
agents he had been trained to react and to fight, but this ... she had 
never imagined that Mulder would behave in such a way.

  "And a taser," the clone said. "The rumor is that all of your ova 
have been destroyed."

  "All of them?" she asked. "Are you sure?"

  "We're trying to find out definitively, but the rumor is that they 
were all destroyed, over Dr. Scanlon's strenuous objections."

  She opened her dry mouth. "So Dr. Scanlon isn't afraid of Mulder?"

  "I have no way of knowing that," Kurt said thoughtfully. 
"Historically, Dr. Scanlon has argued that your responsiveness to the 
vaccine when you were exposed to the black oil during your first 
abduction made your genetic material valuable for immunological 
experimentation. However, since the other scientists on the project do 
not like to be beaten, it appears his argument has been nullified."

  "I was exposed to the black oil when I was abducted in 1994?"

  "Actually, both times you were abducted," the clone said succinctly.

  She turned and walked around the hallway with her hand on her aching 
head, thinking furiously. "I was not expected to survive," she posited, 
but the clone did not respond, until another thought occurred to her. 
"The virus is why my DNA was branched," she said.

  "Yes," the clone answered. "You're one of the few abductees who've 
been infected with more than one variant of the virus and responded to 
the treatments in both cases."

  "Which variants?" 

  "Like Agent Mulder, you were infected with the Tunguska variant and 
received the so-called Russian vaccine. The variant that you received 
from the Africanized honeybee was a sub-variant that's been altered for 

ease of delivery."

  "And you have a vaccine for that variant?" she asked, dizzily.


  "As I said earlier, not as a reliable preventative, no," the clone 
answered. "When we have tried to vaccinate prophylactically, the 
subject would invariably become infected and resistant to further 
intervention. We have theories about why this is occurring, and 
actually, would be very grateful if you'd give us your perspective."

  "I ..." she held up her hand, "forgive me, but I'm very far behind you 
on this learning curve. Are you telling me that Mulder and I are both 
immune to the black oil virus?"

  "Most likely, in your case," the clone answered. "Agent Mulder is a 
different order of magnitude as far as immunity is concerned. He alone 
has resisted every variant that he's been infected with. He has even 
survived infection when no treatment was offered."

  She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I thought Mulder was only 
infected in Russia."

  "Agent Mulder was first infected in childhood."


  She remembered a changed file folder label in the bowels of a coal 
mine in Virginia. "I'd like to see those records, please." She took a 
deep breath and turned to see the clone moving into the lab. "Kurt, not 
at this moment. I'd like to go back to our previous conversation."

  "Of course," the clone said. 

  "Emily was created using some variant of somatic cell nuclear 
transfer, correct?" 
 
 The clone nodded. "Yes. Although both ova were yours, the nucleus of 
one ovum was altered with alien DNA."

  She continued, "With the failure of the earlier cloning attempts, why 
persist in using an almost parthenogenetic process? My cell line was 
obviously older, and there were males abducted by the project, both 
children and adult. Why not use a more conventional reproductive 

methodology to start the process of fertilized cell division?" 

   "The aliens reproduce asexually, which is what they were trying to 
replicate."

  "The aliens reproduce asexually," Scully murmured aloud. "Oh my God. 
So, the original experimenters thought that they could alter our genome 
to reproduce asexually?"

  "Not exactly," the clone said serenely, "the hypothesis was that 
creation of a successfully resistant human/alien hybrid would probably 
require cloning to mimic the asexual reproductive process of the 
aliens. Ultimately, they hoped this hybrid line of humans would breed, 
creating a resistant population via sexual reproduction."

  She started to interrupt the clone, but he anticipated her question. 
"Yes, most of the cloned lines were functionally sterile, which was 
problematic, but negligible considering the high rate of mortality, 
short lifespans and general instability of the recombination. In 
addition, there were too many offshoot experiments that came out of 
those experiments, which severely undercut the focus necessary for 
perfecting the cloning process."

 
  "Such as?"

  "The notion of creating adult replicants such as the A through D 
series that utilized your ova is one example. That scheme itself was 
born from the founders' desire to replicate resistant versions of 
themselves that could survive colonization. They were, after all, more 
than middle-aged in most cases."

  She nodded, but did not comment. The selfishness of the men that Kurt 
referred to as the founders was no longer surprising, even though it 
was still staggering in its scope.

  "However the plan changed over time, the notion of creating a 

resistant human using alien DNA and regrafting that into a population 
has always been the stated goal."

  "But not the general population," Scully said angrily, thinking of 

Operation Paperclip. "This was genetic engineering designed for the 
chosen few, specifically the families of the collaborators. The rest of 
the human population would fall to the bees, right? And if any of the 
collaborators became infected, they could be restored via your 
vaccine."

  The clone nodded. "Yes."

  "Have they created a resistant alien/human hybrid?" 

  "Not as such," Kurt said. "We are an example of a more successful 
line, but as I said, our lifespans are short." 

  "And Hannah?" 

  "She could be described as a kind of hybrid," the clone said slowly, 
"but that is not entirely accurate. She is far more human than anything 
else."

  "What does that mean?!" Scully was at the end of her rope now, on 
information overload.

  "As you know, the E line was not successful..." 

  Scully drew in a long breath through her nose, and stifled the urge 
to scream. She could see that her emotional responses were making the 
clone nervous. He was blinking quite rapidly, and his words had become 
more rushed.

  "The decision was made to alter the hybridization process to more 
closely mimic human reproduction," he said. 

  "In what way?" she demanded.

  "The F and G lines were created using genetic material from two 
different abductees," he answered, "one of which had been altered with 
alien DNA."

  Scully had a momentary flash of Penny Northern's kind face and her 
russet curls, and felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach. She closed 
her eyes. All she could see were little girls like Hannah with bags of 
poison attached to their arms. 


  "The distinction between the two lines was the amount of alien DNA in 
the reproductive equation."

  She looked askance at the clone.

  "Their immune systems are not that robust," he answered her. 
"Probably as a result of their parasitic form of reproduction, and the 
manner in which it uses the virus as a primary means of doing so. Their 
species does not mutate new viruses the way we do, the way this world 
does, which makes them vulnerable. We have data on that as well, if 
you'd care to see it." 

  She nodded wearily. "Not today, Kurt. Please continue."


  "The F and G lines also failed. My understanding is that Dr. Scanlon 
created the H series using a different set of standards. That was the 
rumor at the time, but as he no longer trusted any of us, that 
information could not be verified. It's only upon a preliminary viewing 
of the data you procured that any understanding in this matter has been 
confirmed."

  "Go on," she said. "What do you mean by standards?"

  "The H series is not a line of clones," Kurt said. "They were, more 
accurately, siblings, although not full siblings. The amount of alien 
genetic material in each iteration in the line is different, although 
the parental genetic material remained the same."

  "I understood that from the data I was able to decipher," Scully 
said.

  "The decision was made to create the H series using more traditional 
human biological mechanisms, but to focus on the immunological systems 
by utilizing two immune genetic donors."

  "Are you saying that the all of the abductees weren't infected with 
the black oil?" 

  "There is always a control group," the clone answered. 

  "Oh my God," Scully answered, "but if they infected those children 
without giving them full immunity --- why would they do that?" She saw 
the answer in the clone's eyes, and let out a breath. "To see what 
would happen. To see where the line was."  She closed her eyes in 
thought. "But Hannah's other mother is also immune, that's what you're 
saying? I don't understand then. Why didn't her siblings survive the 
experiments?"

  "Oh," the clone said, "I'm afraid I didn't explain that clearly. 
Hannah was not created by egg fusion, but by an altered sperm being 
injected into an ovum."

  There was silence in the corridor for a full ten seconds, and when 
the question came, it was not her voice that spoke it. Mulder's voice, 
low and lethally angry, cut across the hallway like a whip crack as she 
turned her head in surprise. "Whose sperm was it?"

  She turned back in time to see Kurt blink, as if the answer was 
obvious. "It was yours, Agent Mulder," he answered simply.

~*~

  Mulder made a noise that she'd only heard once, when a suspect's 

punch had caught him in the solar plexus. She stepped away from Kurt 
toward Mulder who was staring at the clone in open-mouthed shock. 
Through the fog of her own surprise, she registered the anomaly of his 
appearance. Finally, here was a situation that Mulder, the man who 
regularly believed six impossible things before breakfast, had never 
considered. As she watched, still stunned herself, Mulder's expression 
transformed from disbelief to seething rage. In all the years that she 
had known him, she had never seen him look so angry.

  "When?" Mulder gritted out through bared teeth. "How was my sperm 
acquired?"

  Scully could see that Kurt was literally afraid of Mulder, 
remembering his earlier words about Dr. Calderon and the opinion of 
scientists involved in the project. "Mulder," she said to him in a low 
voice, stepping in front of him and putting her hand on his forearm. 

  His hands were planted on his hips, and he shifted sideways at her 
touch, almost as if he was going to shake her off, but then thought 
better of it. He was steadfastly staring at the clone.

  "Mulder," she said to him in a sharper tone, holding his arm firmly. 
"Ellen's Airbase, for one." His head swiveled to hers, but he stared at 
her blindly. "Think about it, Mulder," she said, "Alaska, Tunguska --
there's been plenty of opportunity."

  "Scully," he said suddenly, as if seeing her for the first time. 
"Hannah ..." his voice was choked, and he couldn't continue.

  "I know, Mulder," she said softly, her own eyes filling with tears. 

  "So Scanlon made her to be a hostage?" Mulder demanded of Kurt. 

  Scully bit her lip, trying to find the words to remind him that 
Hannah had not always been alone in that hospital room in Albany, but 
Kurt spoke first. 

  "As I indicated to Agent Scully earlier, I believe the motivation 
would be replication of your immunological system." 

  "Scully?" Mulder's look was accusatory. 

  "A few minutes ago, Kurt told me that you've been infected with the 
black oil virus multiple times."

  Mulder was shaking his head in denial before the words had finished 
leaving her mouth. "That's not true," he said.

  "It's extremely well-documented," the clone said. "From your earliest 
tests until the most recent ones."

  "What are you talking about?" Mulder demanded. "What early tests?"

  "You were first infected in 1967," the clone answered. "You were 
hospitalized and given a small dose of the black oil, and then given 
what they thought was a vaccine at the time."

  "That did not happen," Mulder said in a certain tone. "I'd remember 
that."

  "Mulder," Scully soothed. "Do you remember being in the hospital when 
you were six?"

  "I was five," he snapped. "It was in June. We drove to Boston, and I 

had my tonsils out." 

  "They may have also taken your tonsils out," Kurt said, "but you were 
most certainly infected with the black oil. You were the only child to 
survive the treatment. They thought they were on the right track with 
the vaccine for years because you survived. Later they realized that 

you were simply resistant."

  Mulder gaped at him. "What are you talking about?"

  "When no one else survived the experimentation, your pediatrician was 
replaced with a project-approved doctor in 1971." Scully felt Mulder 
start. "You were injected with small doses of the vaccine, which also 
proved to have no effect on you. I told Agent Scully earlier that 
virtually no one who has received the vaccine as a preventative has 
survived. You are the exception." 

  "This has got to be a lie," Mulder insisted. "My parents ..." 

  She could see the thoughts cascading through his mind, but couldn't 
even guess at where he was going with them. From her perspective, his 
parents had never protected either of their children from harm. She 
couldn't believe that he was defending them more than reflexively.

  "Your parents consented to the first test without truly understanding 
what it entailed," the clone answered. "None of the parents did. It was 
a test of their loyalty to the project."

  "But if I was resistant," Mulder said, his voice rising, "then why 
take Samantha? Why not take me and test me?"

  "They did test you, Agent Mulder," the clone said. "You must have 
noticed that your pediatrician drew blood when you went for your 
frequent check-ups."

  "I was anemic," Mulder whispered, "that was why I had to go so often. 
I had to take those ... " Mulder stopped and stared at the clone. "Those 
weren't iron pills that we kept in the freezer, were they?"

  "No," the clone said levelly. "They were not. And no matter how many 
times or ways they tried to infect you, you shed the virus. They took 
your blood to figure out how and why. It was your blood that led to the 
vaccine that you administered to Agent Scully in the Antarctic."

  Mulder was shaking his head 'no'. "This doesn't make any sense!" he 
yelled. "If this is true, then why take Samantha? Why take any of them? 
Why not just take me?"

  "That was proposed," the clone answered, "but they didn't make you 
resistant."

  "I don't understand," Mulder said, but Scully believed that she was 
starting to.

  "Mulder," Scully said, "there is always a minority that is immune to 
a virus." 

  He stared at her, clearly not comprehending. 

  "Why didn't the Black Death kill everyone who was exposed to it?" she 
asked. "Some people, a few people, were infected and survived. That's 
you. They infected you when you were a child, and somehow you survived 
it. The problem is that they don't know how your body fought off the 
original infection; they thought you had responded to their vaccine. 
They were trying to formulate a process for making a resistant human, 
but your body fought off the infection and became resistant without 

them having done anything. They didn't know how you made the antibodies 
to the virus, just that you did."

  Mulder was still shaking his head 'no', but he was listening to her. 
He raised the arm that she wasn't holding onto and raked it through his 
hair, then broke away from her hold and began to stalk back and forth 
in the hallway. Occasionally, he would stop and stare at Kurt, then 
turn and look at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. 

  After a few minutes of this, she finally broke the silence. "Mulder?"

  "So, this is why they never killed me, isn't it?" he addressed the 
question to Kurt. "All these years, I could never understand why they 
didn't just shoot me in the head and dump my body someplace where it 
would never be found. It's not like they haven't made people 
disappear." He was as still now as he'd been frantic before, but the 
air around him was coiled with tension. "That's it, right? If all of 
their plans failed, and colonization started, I'd still be alive. I 
won't be changed, and I'd still be able to fight the aliens."

  "That is the argument that's been forwarded, yes," the clone said. 
"My understanding is that your continued existence has been a subject 
of much discussion for years, with many dissenting opinions."

  "Such as?" he demanded.

  "Some project directors felt that you should be killed, that the risk 
of letting you discover what was going on was too high. Some felt that 
you should be captured for study."

  Mulder nodded. "I assume that whoever took my sperm at Ellen's was in 
that latter category." 

  "Yes," the clone answered. "I understand that you were released only 
because your disappearance would have been difficult to cover up. You 
had been very visible at the base."

  "And where does Dr. Scanlon fit into this?" 

  "When he heard that another division of the project had gotten some 
of your genetic material, he was determined to have it."

  "And he obviously did!" Mulder shouted. "How many other children do I 
have?"

  Kurt shrank backwards at Mulder's raised voice, and Scully stepped 
between them. In the long corridor that ran back toward the front door, 
she could see a dizzying number of clones, all of them looking 
fearfully back at her. 

  "Mulder!" she said sharply. "Kurt told me that he has never 
participated in the creation of any clone other than himself."

  "And you believed him?" he asked incredulously, his voice cracking in 
strain.

  "You're scaring him," she said firmly and then held up her hands when 
it seemed he would keep speaking. "I know how you feel," she reminded 
him. "I know." 

  Mulder sagged at her words. 

  "He didn't do this to us," she added softly.

  "Scully ..." he said in a low murmur that only she could hear, his eyes 
closing in pain. Her throat constricted at the agony in his voice. She 
reached out to touch his face, but for the first time that she could 
recall, he withdrew from her. "I can't," he said to her, opening his 
eyes and pulling away. "I just can't." He turned away from her, only to 
face the door to Hannah's room. 

  "Mulder," she said, in surprise.

  "I can't," he said again, and then as she watched in disbelief, he 
began to walk rapidly down the long hall that led outside, while the 
clones who had been watching in the doorways ducked out of his way.

  "Mulder!" She couldn't believe that he was doing this to her. He 
broke into a run as she called his name, and then disappeared through 
the doorway that led to the reception room and the winter's twilight 
beyond. 

 "Mulder ..." she exhaled his name in a sigh of disappointment, but he 
was already gone. She closed her eyes, her body heavy with exhaustion 
and sorrow. 

  "Scully?" It wasn't Mulder calling her name. She could hear the fear 
in Hannah's voice, and she felt an ache that this would be the first 
time that Hannah had ever called for her. She felt the weight of all 
that had happened bearing down on her, but Hannah called for her again. 

  She squared her shoulders, opened her eyes, and walked into their 
daughter's room.

~*~

  Two hours later, she was still waiting for Mulder to return. Hannah 
had fallen asleep only after being reassured repeatedly that Mulder 
would come back, that he would never leave her. No matter how angry 
Scully was at him for leaving them, she didn't hesitate to make the 
promise. She knew that it was true. He would come back. The problem was 
that she didn't have the luxury of waiting for him. If he didn't come 
back right away, she would have to force the issue, as hypocritical as 
that would seem to him. Last winter, when she'd finally made him tell 

her everything he knew about her ova, she had rewarded his honesty by 
fleeing. When he'd told her of his dealings with the Kurt Crawfords in 
the lab in Allentown, and what she now realized was a carefully edited 
version of his dealings with Dr. Calderon, he'd tried to make her 
confront the possibility that there were other children like Emily in 
the world. 

  She'd gotten up from his couch and walked out of his apartment. She 
hadn't answered her phone for three days and she hadn't gone home, 
either. She'd driven toward the sea after driving aimlessly for hours, 
staying at an anonymous motel on the Maryland coast, paying cash for 
her room. She'd gone for long walks and thought about nothing at all, 
barely eating and not sleeping because when she did, her dreams were 
hideous, full of images of her distended belly and green-blooded, toxic 
children. When she'd finally returned to work on a Wednesday, hollow-
eyed and gaunt with exhaustion, she'd ignored the fact that he looked 
little better than she, or that his face was awash with guilt and 
sorrow. Instead, she'd made it very clear to him that she did not 
intend to discuss the subject any further. Ever. She knew that she'd 
frightened him very badly by leaving. He had never brought it up again.

  They were masters of avoidance, the both of them, a matched set. That 
was going to have to end, because it wasn't just about them anymore. 
She shifted carefully off Hannah's hospital bed, then double-checked 
the silent cellphone on the bedside table to make sure that she hadn't 
missed a call. Mulder's suit and over coat were still slung over the 
visitor chair, as if he'd be back any minute. She'd pointed that out to 
Hannah while calming her for the first of many times, before she 
excused herself to the hall to get Frohike to put a trace on Mulder's 
cellphone, which she hoped was still in the car with him.

  Frohike had only grudgingly agreed to do so after she insisted. He 
didn't understand why she wouldn't just call Mulder and 'kick his punk 
ass', but she had refused to explain what was going on. It was too 
personal, and she wouldn't discuss it with Frohike before she did so 
with Mulder. Her explanation that Mulder had received some upsetting 
news was met with sarcastic commentary about Diana Fowley and Mulder's 
relative level of maturity, which made her smile sadly. Frohike was 
nothing if not loyal to her, but she knew that at least half of his 
anger at Mulder stemmed from his disappointment in a man for whom he 
had a certain level of hero worship. 

  She wondered how the Gunman would feel when they learned everything 
that had been revealed to them today. Mulder was even more 
extraordinary than Frohike had ever imagined, and for no other reason 
than some random combination of his parent's genes. It was as oddly 
fitting as it was horrendous to contemplate, the idea that Mulder would 
remain one of the last few humans on this vast planet should the 
invasion he'd always foreseen actually occur. It was beyond crazy; it 
was science fiction, a genre she'd never had an ounce of fondness for, 
much less a desire to live out.

  She walked around the room restlessly. This insanity was her life 
now, and everything that had been done to her, everything that she had 
withstood, probably guaranteed that if Mulder were the last man 
standing, she'd be right there by his side. And Hannah ... Kurt was 
concerned that her immune system was not as mature as it needed to be 
to combat terrestrial illnesses because of her alien genomic material, 
but he was working on an avenue of gene therapy that would require 
Mulder's cooperation. If that worked, then Hannah would be with them. 
Provided that they could protect her. If Kurt could create a viable 
therapy in the first place. If Mulder came back. If, if, if ... she 
stared at the silent phone in her hands, willing it to ring, wanting to 
throttle Mulder and hug him at the same time.

  She looked at Hannah, sleeping in the hospital bed, arms wrapped 
around her tiger. Mulder had stuffed it into his overcoat pocket before 
they left the motel this morning, knowing that Hannah would need it to 
comfort herself. She felt a smile blooming on her lips at the proof 

that Mulder had already been a good father to Hannah, simply when he 
was being himself. He was a good man, possibly the best she'd ever 
known, despite the sorrow and the irritation that life with him 
guaranteed her. 

  Looking at Hannah, she wondered how it was that she had never seen 
what was now so obvious. Hannah's full mouth was opened slightly as she 
breathed deeply and evenly, occasional wheezes escaping her. Scully 
could see Mulder's reflection in Hannah's long limbs, the shape of her 
face, the tangle of long lashes that surrounded her unusually dark blue 
eyes. His genetic heritage had underwritten her own to create this 
child; their families had recombined in her, Hannah's wild mane a 
contribution from both of her lost aunts. 

  Melissa would have loved Hannah, she thought with a pang. There was a 
kind of whimsy about them both that even as a girl Dana Scully had not 
had. Melissa and Hannah would have whispered secrets to each other; 
Melissa would have spoiled her with gifts and told her fairy tales, 
filling her head with lyrical nonsense. But then again, Mulder would do 
that anyway ... wouldn't he? 

~*~


  The Kurt with whom she'd spent the most time was dubious about her 
following Mulder back to the motel, but from Frohike's tracking, that 
appeared to be his most likely destination. In her heart of hearts, she 
didn't truly believe that he was packing up to leave her and Hannah. He 
was probably going to get a warm coat -- or more likely, to plan his 
vengeance on Dr. Scanlon, but she wasn't about to stand by and wait for 
the next phone call. Those days were over, a promise she'd made to a 
sleeping Hannah when she kissed her goodbye, after impressing upon the 
infirmary Kurt the necessity of calling her if Hannah awoke before she 
and Mulder returned. 

  She walked across the paved blacktop toward their motel room in her 
sturdy new boots, leaving the worried clone at the entrance to the 
parking lot. The night was clear and cold, with dizzying swirls of 
stars scattered across the sky. The moon was just a sliver, barely 
visible above the western horizon, its dim reflective light no 
competition for the brilliance of the late winter constellations. She 
recognized the planet Jupiter, shining hard and bright above the 
thumbnail moon. A sailor's daughter still, she knew the patterns of the 
universe in their seasons, could rely upon them to light her way in 
case she needed to navigate unfamiliar waters. Today was the first day 
of the lunar month, a day appropriate for starting new patterns of 
behaviour, Melissa had always told her. Winter, despite the piles of 
snow visible all around her, was ending in just a couple of days. It 
was St. Patrick's Day, and St. Joseph's Day was just around the corner.

  She wasn't superstitious, but even she could not ignore such a 
confluence of positive signs. She would take all the help she could 
get, supernatural or otherwise, to get her through these next few 
minutes. A hand on the hood of their rental car assured her that Mulder 
hadn't been back in the room long. As she drew closer to the door of 
their motel room, she was startled to hear the sounds of a struggle 
coming from inside. She thought grimly of the chip in her neck, and 
drew her gun, sure that they'd been discovered. She peered in at the 
windows, but could see nothing through the tightly drawn curtains. 
Inside, the sounds of crashing and breaking wood continued. She tested 
the doorknob. To her surprise, it gave easily. She didn't hesitate, 
coming in low with her gun drawn, forgoing announcing her presence. 
Just this one time, she wanted to have the element of surprise on her 
side. 

  It took her a few seconds to register what she was seeing before 
Mulder wheeled on her, drawing his own gun. He was alone in their room, 
chest heaving and red-faced with fury. The splintered door of the 
closet swung drunkenly on its hinges; the bureau gaped like a jack o' 
lantern where drawers were missing. Empty, they lay smashed on the 
floor in front of her, looking as if they had been stomped on.

  Mulder stared at her, and for the first time ever, she saw the madman 
in him that all of the naysayers at the FBI had warned her about. He 
was feral and furious, and not at all happy to see her. He tossed his 
gun on the bed they'd slept in the night before, and said, "Go away, 
Scully," before he turned and administered a savage kick to the closet 
door.

  "No," she said, her voice still faint with shock. She stepped into 
the room and closed and locked the door, while he kicked and pulled at 
the closet door, trying his level best to break it.

  "Go away," he ordered, not turning around.

  "No," she said again, holstering her gun. "You come back to the 
clinic with me. Hannah is terrified that you've left her."

  His head swiveled at her words and for an instant, she saw pure 
hatred.

  "That," he said, in a rough voice he'd never before used on her, "was 
a really cheap shot."

  "It's the truth," she countered. "I had to reassure her over and over 
again that you'd be coming back. She heard you yelling, you know. It 
frightened her." She continued on ruthlessly. "She has adored you from 
the minute you found her, Mulder. You are the first person that has 
ever loved her, the only father she's ever known."

  Mulder closed his eyes in real pain at her words, "Scully."

  "You are her father, Mulder," she said firmly, knowing that she was 
being brutal, but not caring to pull her punches. She barely stopped 
herself from adding, 'Act like it.' 

  He wheeled around from the closet door and faced her, towering in his 
rage. "You think I don't KNOW THAT!" he bellowed at her. "I loved her 
from the instant I saw her!" His eyes were wild with grief and loss. "I 
loved her because she was yours, and now ..." he trailed off, and she 
felt her own tears welling up. 

  "I know how you feel, Mulder," she reminded him, taking a step toward 
him.

  "Do you?" he challenged her. "Do you really, Scully?"

  That did sting, and the tears that she'd been damming up for days 
began to fall in earnest now. "How could you say something like that," 
she spat out, choking on her tears, "to me. Of course, I know how you 
feel."

  Mulder was shaking his head 'no' at her insistently, and although he 
looked stricken at her tears, he wasn't backing down. "No, you don't," 
he said.

  "Mulder!" She was puzzled and angered by his recalcitrance. She took 
another step toward him, but he flinched away from her, striding across 
the room to the window, and turning his back to her.

  "You don't, Scully!" 

  "Oh, really?" she said, "because your feelings are so precious 
somehow?" Her tone was blisteringly caustic. "Because I don't know what 
it's like to be raped? To have all my choices taken from me?"

  She heard Mulder's painful exhalation from across the room an instant 
before he kicked the wall hard enough to make the windows rattle. When 
he spoke again, it was clear that he was fighting for control. 

  "You don't understand, Scully," he said, but his tone was flat with 
sorrow.

  "Then tell me!" she shouted at him. "Tell me!"

  Mulder was silent for a while, his whole body still. His arms were 
wrapped around himself protectively, hands over his elbows. He did not 
turn to face her. "They would have let the whole world die," he said 
quietly, "and given me a front row seat to watch it -- left me all 
alone to fight it, after they have done their level best to strip me of 
every weapon I've ever tried to raise against them."

  She felt her blood freeze at the desolate, blank tone of his voice.

  "You don't understand, Scully, that it's never enough with these 
people," he continued, "they ruin everything," he said with 
emphasis. "And I never understood why, but now I see it. They hate me 
for being the one thing that they can't be, so they have ruined 
everything in my life."

  "Mulder," she said to him softly, walking around the bed to get 
closer to him, but he drew further away. "No, Mulder."

  "They took Sam," he said, "they destroyed my family. Not that it was 
worth much, as it turns out, but they ruined it anyway." His voice was 
remote, as if he were circling the Earth from a great distance. "I was 
a suspect in Sam's disappearance, you know," he said conversationally. 
"And Martha's Vineyard is a small place. I was an outcast for the rest 
of the time that I spent there, pretty much. So, no home," he laughed, 
but it was more like a sob, short and bitter, "nothing to go back to, 
nothing to depend upon."


  His voice was ragged with tears and getting softer. "Until ... well. I 
had this idea," he was whispering now, "I had this dream. When I found 
out what they'd done to you, I knew it wouldn't come true, but I still 
... I dreamt about it anyway."

  It was hard to understand him through his tears, so she got as close 
to him as she possibly could without touching him. 

  "But they couldn't even leave me that," he said wonderingly. "Because 
they have to ruin everything. So they took it, and they perverted it," 
he said in a tone of disgust. "They corrupted it, and they ruined it."

  She drew in a breath, realizing to what he was alluding. "No, 
Mulder," she said to him. She put her hand on his back, and when he 
tried to pull away from her, she blocked him into the corner, knowing 
that this time he wouldn't force his way by her. 

  He was shaking his head, "You're wrong, Scully. Because they can't 
even leave me my dreams -- they'll find a way to ruin them anyway."

  "No, Mulder," she insisted, pulling at his elbow so that she could 

get in between him and the wall. If she could just get him to look at 
her ... but his voice, affectless yet somehow full of pain, continued on 
in an insistent drone.

  "That's why you should get away from me, Scully, because it'll just 
keep happening if you stay, they'll just keep ruining everything."


  "No, Mulder," she said desperately. She wedged her shoulder in 
between him and the wall, but kept her other arm wrapped around him 
tightly so that he couldn't get away from her. "That's not true," she 
was crying now, openly. "They can't ruin this."

  "They ruin everything, Scully," he insisted.
 
  She grabbed hold of his head and turned his face toward her, seeing 
the exhaustion in his eyes. They were dark with sorrow and pain, the 
rage that had been driving him for hours extinguished like a candle 
that had been blown out. 

  "No," she repeated. "They can't ruin this." It was an impossible 
situation, in an impossible world, and she needed him to be there with 
her, fighting by her side. Hannah needed him. "They can't ruin us."

  "Scully," he said, and a ghost of a smile touched his lips before it 
twisted down into a grimace. "They already have."

  "No." She thought of the past month, of the silence and remove that 
had existed between them, of her own fears that what he said was coming 
true, and the determination grew in her. She rose on her toes and 
pressed her mouth to his, feeling him go stock-still in her grip. She 
used his surprise as leverage, and pushed more of herself between him 
and the wall, pressing against him as fully as possible. She tipped up 
again and ran her hands into his hair, pulling him down to her.

  She kissed his full lips tenderly, tasting both of their tears. She 
breathed against his mouth, "They can't have this, Mulder." His eyes 
were closed, so she kissed their lids, willing him to hear her, to open 
his eyes and see the truth. Her fingers traced the ridges in his hard 
head, the cage of bone that encompassed the mind she loved so well, 
trying to impress her will upon him. "I won't let them take this."

  She was halfway to his mouth again when she heard his gasp, and felt 
him push her back against the wall. She looped her arms around his neck 
and readied herself for a struggle. She was not letting go.
    
  Mulder's eyes were open and he was staring at her as if he'd never 
before seen her. 

  "Are you listening to me now, Mulder?" she asked him quietly, not 
flinching from his penetrating gaze. She spoke clearly, her own tears 
in abeyance for the moment. "I won't let them take this, and I won't 
let you give it to them. They can't have it," she enunciated clearly. 
"They can't have us."

  "Scully ..." his name for her was exhaled in a tone that was half 
question, half wonder. He was searching her eyes. 

  There was something in his expression that reminded her of being in 
his hallway the summer before. Then, his yearning for her had been 

clear, but there had been something of defeat in his posture, in the 
very air about him, even as he moved in to kiss her. Or maybe she was 
the one who was different. Months ago, she'd barely been able to admit 
to herself that she wanted him to kiss her, much less believe that was 
what he wanted. 

  It was all different now. She returned his regard steadily, letting 
him see the truth in her eyes. She watched his surprise transform into 
hope and then darken into hunger the instant before he bent his head to 
catch her parted lips with his own. The arms that he'd used to hold her 
away from him wrapped around her as he pressed himself against her.

  "Scully ..." he whispered in a husky groan as she slid an arm down to 
his lower back, pulling his hips closer to hers. 

  His kisses were urgent now, grasping for more as they clung to each 
other. 

  She couldn't keep the smile from her lips at the feel of him, hard 
and ready for her, and their kiss broke as they both gasped for air. He 
took the opportunity to trail kisses over her jaw line and down her 
neck. She moaned and tilted her head, running her hands over his 
shoulders and up through the hair on the back of his head. After all 
this time, all the longing ... he really did love her. 

  "Scully," he said to her again, sounding dazed. 

  She planted a hand behind her to push herself away from the wall and 
guide them toward the bed, when the pounding in her ears was echoed by 
a pounding on the front door. 

  Mulder and she both started at the sound. She pulled her gun, 
relieved to have it no longer digging in her back; Mulder bent over, 
reaching for his ankle holster. 

  "I have the key," a woman's voice said sternly. "If the door doesn't 
open in twenty seconds, I'm going to use it."

  Mulder closed his eyes. "Manager," he said. 

  Scully nodded, wiping around her mouth to get at whatever lipstick 
remained. "I imagine she has her shotgun," she said. 

  "Yeah," he said, starting to move toward the door.

  "Mulder," she said, stepping in front of him. She glanced pointedly 
downward, then pushed him to sit on the bed, handing him her gun. "I'll 
go."

  She straightened her clothes and hair hastily as she moved, grabbing 
Mulder's gun from the other bed and tossing it to him before she 
stopped behind the door, gathering herself. She glanced over at Mulder. 
He'd put the guns on the far side of him so they'd be out of sight, and 
sat with his elbows braced on his knees. He nodded at her, his face 
flushed from passion, his eyes still sparkling.

  "I'm coming in!" the voice announced from the other side of the door. 

  Scully opened it and came face to face with the irate owner of the 
motel.  The woman's shotgun was out and pointed toward the open door, 
but she lowered it when she saw Scully, using it to lever the door open 
further so that she could peer into the room. She made a noise of 
disgust when she saw the closet and the bureau, her mouth a thin line 
of anger. Her frank gaze turned to Scully; it was clear that she 
disapproved of what she saw. "I thought better of you," she said to 
Scully. "You looked like an intelligent woman from what little I saw of 
you. If you need help getting away from him, it's here now."

  Scully shook her head, dismayed to realize what the motel owner 
thought. "It's really not that kind of situation," she said. "I'm very 
sorry about the damage, but we'll pay for it."

  "Oh, he'll pay for it all right," the woman said, "but what in the 
hell are you doing? You've got a little girl to protect, and instead 
you're putting her in danger by being with him."

  Scully felt the sting of tears, but she spoke firmly and reflexively. 
"He would never hurt our daughter."


  Behind her, she heard Mulder choke back something that sounded 
suspiciously like a sob. 

  The woman peered into the room, stepping further into the doorway so 
that she could see Mulder, who now sat with his head in his hands. 

  "Where is your little girl?" she said suspiciously.

  Scully stepped in between her and Mulder again, wanting to shield him 
from scrutiny. "Our daughter's in the clinic," she said quietly, and 
then hastened to continue when the woman's gun began to rise. "We came 
here because she's been so sick," she said, "and today they told us ..." 
she drifted off, her thoughts scattering. She'd never been a very 
nimble liar and she couldn't think of what to tell the woman that was 
believable. Behind her, the sound of Mulder crying became audible, and 
she stumbled, repeating her last words and then covering her mouth in 
distress at his pain. Her own tears began falling thick and fast. 


  The motel owner stared at her, and then at Mulder. Her stony 
expression changed as she regarded him, and she turned to look at 

Scully with true sympathy. "I'm very sorry," she said. 

  Scully nodded, barely able to speak, realizing what the woman had 
inferred and just how close it had come to being true with Hannah, as 
it had been with her sisters. "My husband is just very upset right 

now," she choked out. "We'll pay for the damage. I'm sorry."

  The woman returned the shotgun to rest across her body, cradling it 
in the crook of an elbow. She pointed at Scully's cross, and then said, 
"If you believe, then don't give up. I will pray for your little girl." 
She paused. "And I trust that I won't have to be coming back here."

  Scully nodded and closed the door, resting her head against the cool 
metal for a moment. She wondered exactly what it was that she believed 
in anymore, here in the incomprehensible world in which she now lived. 
Mulder's choked sobs brought her back to herself and she stepped over 
to the bed and around him, picking up their guns and putting them on 
the nightstand. She turned back, intending to sit down next to him, 
when he surprised her by reaching out and drawing her into the space 
between his legs, laying his head against her abdomen and encircling 
her with his arms. He had quieted for the moment, but she could sense 
that his tears hadn't been as cathartic as she'd hoped. It was just a 
momentary calm. Her hands sifted through his hair while she waited, 
feeling Mulder breathe against her. 

  After a while, he let out a long breath, then looked up at her. 
"Samantha's dead, isn't she, Scully?"

  She could not possibly have kept the shock from her expression, and 
knew that he could see the truth in her eyes. His own closed in pain 
and he turned his face back into her stomach. She bent to gather him 
more securely in her arms, but he was wrapped tightly around her, and 
the pose was awkward. 

  "I'm sorry," she said over and over, "Kurt just told me. I don't know 
how, Mulder. I swear I didn't know until today."

  Her only answer was his weeping, and it was the raw sound of his 
heartbreak that finally got to her. She wrapped her arms around his 
head and let go of all the tears she had held in forever. 

*~*

  When she began to calm down, she found Mulder watching her with 
something like his usual intent expression, but with the addition of 
the assessment that she'd become too used to seeing over the course of 
the past month. She closed her eyes against whatever insight he was 
having. She was drained, and his grasp on her was probably the only 
thing keeping her upright. She was slumped against him, knees pressed 
along the edge of the bed, his legs still bracketing hers, his arms 
wrapped around her. He shifted so she was sitting on his right leg, 
then leant over and plucked tissue from the nightstand, handing some of 
it to her. She expected him to attend to his own tears, but when he 
began to dry off her face, she returned the favor, wiping his wet 
cheeks and nose. 

  "Blow," he said to her, and she made a face at him instead, wresting 
the tissues from his hand. She blew her own nose, and tried to calm 
herself. She was still shaking, the aftershocks of so much emotion 
jangling her nerves. 


  He discarded their used tissues with his usual aplomb, sinking them 
into the basket in a high, arcing shot before turning back to her. He 
drew her against his chest, drawing patterns on her hip with his thumb. 
His other hand smoothed her hair, tucking it behind her ear. He 
regarded her with a tender expression, while her breath hitched in and 
out. He leant down and kissed her brow, while his hand drifted down to 
her left hand. His long fingers lightly traced the rings on her finger 
as he regarded her. "I liked to hear you call me that," he said.

  "What?" she whispered back.   

  He looked at her, his face and hair damp from both of their tears, 
his reddened eyes pinning her with their intense stare. His arm held 
her firmly in place as she leant against him, exhausted. "Your 
husband," he said. 

  She swallowed hard at his statement, but didn't break his gaze. 

  "Could you see me as your husband?" he asked. His voice was serious 
and soft.

  "You are my partner, Mulder," she said, but he didn't answer her, 
just continued to look her in the eye. 

  The silence spun out in the room, but she could still hear the echo 
of her own voice naming him as such. She knew that no matter what she 
said, he could already see the answer in her eyes. What he wanted was 
to hear her say it, for her to be as honest with him now as she'd been 
earlier. She took a deep breath, and never breaking his gaze, gave him 
the only possible answer, the truth. "Yes."

  Mulder's chest heaved under her ribs; a light came into his eyes that 
she'd never before seen. His lips curved into something not quite a 
smile, and settled there. The hand that had been tracing her rings, 
rose to trace her face, her neck, her shoulder, her side. He laid her 
back on the bed, hovering above her as his hand continued down over her 
hip and leg until he reached her boot. He drew the zipper down, 
watching her the whole time. She was poised, waiting for his kiss, but 
instead he continued to watch her, gazing into her eyes as first one, 
then the other boot was discarded. He hooked his arm around her knees 
and pulled her legs up onto the bed, and settled himself over her. 

  He was still regarding her with that intent gaze, tracing her 
hairline with his fingers. She felt like she could see right into his 
soul, and was aware that he was looking into hers. Part of her had been 
afraid that his desire for her was tied to the losses he had suffered, 
that she was all he had to cling to. But the things he'd said earlier, 
the way he was looking at her now ... 

  He kissed her once, sure and sweet, and drew back, his hand slipping 
down to unknot his tie, and then unbutton his shirt. He drew his 
clothes off one by one, only stopping to kiss her. There was nothing 
hurried about his movements. He was measured in the way he revealed his 
warm skin to her, his eyes a steady burn as they returned to hers over 
and over. It was almost like he was assuring her and himself that this 
was no dream, that the connection between the two of them was real, 
that this was really happening. 

  She needed no such reassurance, overwhelmed as she was by the 
physicality of him, bared and alive under her hands. She was unable to 
stop herself from touching him, kissing him as he began to surely 
divest her of her clothing. 

  It was easier and more intense than anything she'd ever experienced. 
He pinned her to the bed with his eyes as they moved against each 
other, learning, adapting to each other. He was whispering something, 
but she wasn't sure that she comprehended it, lost as she was in the 

sensation, in the finality of it all. 

  She understood why it was that he wouldn't close his eyes for long, 
why he kept returning to their intimate gaze. In all their years 
together, this was the only way that she had not known him, and she was 
hungry for the experience. Watching the naked love in his eyes, feeling 
it resonate through her very bones, she felt a kind of ecstasy 
unassociated with her body's rising tenor. She could never have felt 
this way with anyone other than Mulder, would never have allowed 
herself to be known in this way with any other.    


  In the aftermath, when their breathing had returned to its normal 
pace, he kissed her over and over, until they were both smiling too 
much to continue. He moved them under the covers as they clung to each 
other, shivering this time from the cold they had not before noticed. 
She reached over him to retrieve yet more tissue to wipe away their 
mutual tears. It was the first time in forever that she had cried 
because of happiness, and they laughed at the same time. She knew 
without asking that they had shared the same thought.

  Mulder lay in her arms, head against her breast, listening to her 
heartbeat. Somehow, it didn't surprise her that he wasn't sleepy. She 
felt far too alive to sleep just now. Instead, she explored the wide 
expanse of his shoulders and his back. She'd always secretly loved that 
part of his body, and now she committed it to sense memory, allowing 
her fingers to drift up to the nape of his neck and back down across 
the warm skin that sheltered him, muscle and bone. 

  Mulder's eyes were closed, and he hummed against her in satisfaction. 
They rested there together in the quiet for a long time, not speaking. 
She had always wondered if it would be awkward, the aftermath of their 
inevitable lovemaking, had imagined several different scenarios. She'd 
never considered this ease as one of the possibilities.

  Mulder shifted up out of her arms to lay alongside her. He propped 
his head on his hand, then began to trace her features with an elegant 

finger, dropping his head to kiss her after running his fingers over 
her lips. The new light in his eyes had not waned, and she said a 
silent prayer that it never would. He drew back and watched her again, 
his generous mouth still curved with happiness. "I love you, you know," 
he said to her.

  She smiled to hear him say it, despite the fact that she had no 
doubts about his feelings for her. She nodded in affirmation, leaning 
up to kiss him. "I love you too, Mulder," she said.

  This time around, Mulder's Cheshire cat grin was full of teeth. She 
could feel herself smiling back at him, and watched his smile grow even 
wider. They were impossible and absurd, and she was happier than she'd 
ever been, despite everything that had happened to bring them to this 
moment. Mulder leant forward and kissed the tip of her nose, and then 
the mole above her lip. 

  "I've always wanted to kiss you there," he announced. 

  She eyebrowed him in what she hoped was an evocative fashion.

  "I suppose it's only fair to warn you that's just one out of many 
places," he said. 

  "I'll consider myself warned, then," she said in a mock serious tone.

  He was stroking her collarbones, tracing the bones in her shoulder. 
"Was Hannah really upset?" he asked suddenly. 


  "Yes," she answered, "but she was sleeping when I left."

  He sighed. "We should go back soon," he said regretfully.

  She nodded, but made no move to break away from him. 

  "We have a daughter, Scully," he said wonderingly. He shook his head, 
"I never really thought any of this would happen." 


  She watched him speaking, letting him share his thoughts with her. 

  "It's what I always wanted," he said finally. He'd been quiet for 
long minutes, but his hands had not been idle, as he continued mapping 
her flesh. 

  "A family, Mulder?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "A family with you," he said. "My whole life, I've 
been trying to get back the family that I lost. Samantha ..." he said 
quietly, and she watched him carefully, afraid that they'd lose the 
equilibrium they'd so recently gained. "Since my goal was to get back 
what I lost, the idea of having a family of my own wasn't something I 
really considered." He had been watching his hand sliding across the 
skin of her breast as he spoke, but now he looked her in the eye. 
"Until I met you." 

  She felt her skin flush at his words. 

  "Not right away," he said apologetically. "Not for a long time, if 
I'm truthful about it. It wasn't until you were sick that I realized, 
that I actually became conscious of how I felt about you. When I was 
faced with losing you -- that was when I understood myself."

  "But, Mulder," she began, "you knew that I couldn't have children."

  He shrugged. "I figured that we'd find a way around it. Besides," he 
said, sliding his hand up to cradle her chin in it, "having you would 
have been enough family for me."

  "All that time," she said to him, and she knew her voice was faintly 
accusatory.

  "I never said I was brave," Mulder said. "It was easier to indulge 
the dream, to believe that someday would just ... come. I never 
considered that it wouldn't happen, until recently." 

  She regarded him soberly. The wound from their recent estrangement 
was just barely scarred. "We have to talk to each other, Mulder," she 
said. "We can't keep secrets from each other, not anymore. No more 
secret investigations for either of us."

  He was nodding as he listened to her. "I know." He lay his head down 
on his bicep, and she turned on her side, facing him.

  He took a deep breath in, and played with the cross at her neck. 
"What do we tell Hannah?" 

  "You mean, how do we tell her that we're her parents?"

  "Should we tell her?" he asked.

  "Why wouldn't we tell her?" she was confused by the very idea.


  "If she's just got a matter of months ..." Mulder swallowed very hard 
and looked on the verge of tears. "It seems cruel to me."


  "Mulder!" she propped herself up on an elbow and stared at him. "What 
makes you think that Hannah's going to die?"

  His expression was wary as he addressed her. "The Kurts that I spoke 
to at the lab said that their average lifespan is five years." 

  She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. "That has 
nothing to do with Hannah, Mulder," she said. "The Kurts are the clones 
of a teenaged boy whose genome was altered in ways that I can't even 
begin to comprehend."

  Mulder stared at her. "But the alien DNA ..." he said, "they said that 
the recombination of human DNA with it was unstable."

  "You saved her life by taking her away from Scanlon," she said 
firmly. "But before that you saved her life because she had enough of 
your DNA to withstand their 'treatment'," she spat the word out, 
repulsed at the notion.

  Mulder looked stunned. "But the other girls ..."

  "They died because they couldn't withstand the repeated exposure to 
the black oil," she said. "It's ironic, but it is probably the alien 
DNA that killed them. Kurt believes that Hannah's immune system is 
immature because of her alien DNA, not because of us."

  "Are you saying that she's going to survive this?" He seemed afraid 
to hope.

  Scully nodded. "Kurt does have concerns about Hannah's immune system, 
but he has an idea of how to fix that. Hannah needs your blood, 
Mulder," she said. "We need to graft some of your super-immunity into 
her."

  Mulder looked astonished. "Are you sure about this, Scully? Are you 
sure she's going to live?"

  "I'm not positive, Mulder, but the Kurt who has reviewed Hannah's 
records seemed confident to me. He's offered to show me the data, but 
from what he explained of the processes that were utilized to create 
the clones, it's vastly different from the IVF-like process that they 
used to create Hannah," she answered him. "She is not a clone, and 
she's not susceptible to the same sort of aging problems that the Kurts 
are."

  "And Samantha was," he said, "Right?"

  She nodded sadly. "Kurt offered to share the data with me on 
Samantha, but I haven't seen it."

  "The original Kurt Crawford is dead though, isn't he?" Mulder's voice 
was quiet, but sure.

  "He told me that none of the original selves of those that were 
'given'," she grimaced in distaste as she placed emphasis on the word 
that Kurt had used, "survived the process."

  Mulder startled at her words, "Cassandra Spender?" 


  Scully could feel her brow draw down as she thought about that, "I 
don't know the answer to that question, Mulder," she said slowly. "Kurt 
is very literal, and I asked him if any of the children had survived 
the hybridization process, and he said that none had survived in their 
original form. He said that any that we had met were clones, but that 
some of them may not known they were clones."  

  Mulder reached his hand out to play with her cross again. He was 
nodding. "I met one of those Samanthas," he said quietly.

  "Mulder?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

  "When you were sick," he said, and paused. He looked at her, and she 

saw the pain in his eyes. "When you were dying," he said hoarsely, 
"Cancerman offered me a deal to save you. He used Samantha to bait the 
hook."

  "What happened?" she whispered.

  "I met her at a diner," he said. "She looked just like the other 
adult Samanthas we'd met, but she was dressed like a suburban mom. She 
was very ill-at-ease with me," he paused. "She told me that she thought 

our mother was dead and that Cancerman was her father," he said 
bitterly, "And that she didn't remember any other family, and she 
wasn't interested in getting to know me."

  "Oh, Mulder," she reached out and put her hand on his face. 

  "She said that she had a family of her own, children to consider. She 
practically ran out of the diner to get away from me, back to the car 
where he sat waiting, smoking. She let him wipe away her tears."

  She hadn't thought it was possible for her heart to break more than 
it already had, but this life seemed to determine to prove her wrong. 
She wrapped her arms around Mulder and pulled him close. He accepted 
her comfort for a few minutes before he broke away. 

  "It pretty much destroyed me at the time," he said, brushing the hair 
from her brow, "especially with you so sick. I really thought that I 
was going to lose the both of you at the same time."

  "I'm right here," she reminded him. She felt his hand slip around to 
the back of her neck. His thumb ran over her scar.

  He bent to kiss her, then pressed their foreheads together. "You'll 
never know how grateful I am for that, Scully," he said. "Truly." He 
was quiet for another minute. "The more I thought about the woman in 
the diner, the less it seemed plausible to me that she was really 
Samantha," he said. "But the idea that he would raise one of the clones 
as his own, just to use as a blind at some future point ..." He shook his 
head. "That seemed insane, even to me. But now ... seeing all those Kurts 
today, knowing that they're the clones of someone else's lost child, a 
child that no one ever mentioned once ... how could Samantha have 
survived?"

  "I'm so sorry," she reiterated, feeling that her words were totally 
inadequate. 

  Mulder accepted her condolences wordlessly, but his eyes let her know 
that he understood. She wasn't sure that was true. 

  "I have never wanted to kill another person," she said to him, 
choosing her words carefully, "never understood the impulse that would 
drive someone to feel that they had the right to make that decision. 
But I understand it now. Those men, Mulder, they deserved what they got 
at El Rico. They deserved to die," she said fiercely. "Not because of 

what they've done to me and you, but because of what they did to their 
own children, to our children. The only sorrow I feel is for their 
family members."

  Mulder nodded at her words. 

  "I think of Jeffrey Spender now, and I feel horribly sad for him," 
she continued. "If Cancerman really was his father ..." she drifted off, 
watching Mulder. "What chance did he have at a good life? He believed 
that his mother was crazy, but the truth is that his father allowed his 
colleagues to torture her, all so they could save their own skins."

  "I wonder about how the whole hybrid program started," Mulder said. 
"Was it all a ruse all along, an idea that the aliens planted to keep 
the Consortium members diverted?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know."

  "And what does it mean that they're all dead now? I can't believe 
that bodes well for us. It feels like a double-cross," he mused. "And 
if anyone deserved to be double-crossed, it was Ol' Smoky. There is 
irony there, I guess." 

  "But he still managed to escape though, didn't he?" She was aware how 
bitter her voice was, but didn't attempt to rein in her tone.

  Mulder looked guilty. "I've had more than one opportunity to kill 
him," he said, "and I didn't take them. I'd like to believe that's out 
of my desire to expose their deeds on the world stage -- because if we 
stopped them without public exposure, they'd just re-start their 
projects elsewhere, but ... the whole truth is that he's toyed with me 
over the years." His tone had turned scathing. "He'd dangle Samantha 
over my head, and I'd jump, time after time after time. I should have 
known that she was dead a long time ago. I just didn't want to believe 
it." He paused. "Not anymore. It's time to stop doing what they expect 
us to do." 

  "What are you thinking, Mulder?" she asked him. 

  "I don't exactly have a plan yet," he said, "but I do know that I'm 
damned tired of being their pawn." 

  She nodded in response. "What were you looking for, Mulder?"

  He looked confused by her question, "When?"

  "When you found Hannah," she said quietly.

  His expression cleared. "I ..." he tilted his head back and stared at 
her, his expressive eyes green and bronze in the lamplight. "When you 
said that this was personal -- I knew that, Scully. I've known that for 
a long time, but I guess I understood you in a different way than I had 
before," he said. "I found myself thinking about everything that's 
happened to you," he paused. "And I decided it was time to find Dr. 
Scanlon. I thought that I could get some justice for you, for all the 
women they robbed and murdered." 

  She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but for once, didn't try to 
hide them. 

  "And I thought, if I found him, I'd find another store of your ova," 
he continued softly. "I wanted to give your choices back to you."

  She closed the small distance between them, pouring all of the love 
that she felt for him into her kiss. 

~*~ 

  Their lovemaking that second time was ardent enough that she stumbled 
over a pillow on the floor by the bathroom door when she went to wash 
up later. It had somehow traveled from their bed over the empty one, to 
lie in wait and trip her. 

  She turned from the door, the laughter bubbling in her throat and 
couldn't help but survey the room with her investigator's eye. If she 
were trying to reconstruct the last couple of hours, she could 
certainly make the case that this had been a crime scene, with the 
marked disarray of the bed and the damage done to the furnishings. 

  But the other clues, the pile of clothing intermingled on the floor, 
the askew lampshade on the nightstand, and of course, the body in the 
bed, told another story. Mulder lay on his stomach, barely covered by 
the bedclothes she'd left behind when she fashioned herself a toga out 
of a desire for warmth, if not modesty. His arms were under the one 
pillow that they'd found on the floor, and he regarded her sleepily, 
one eye peering at her from under the overhang of his tousled hair. The 
bruising and burn mark from the taser was still faintly visible on the 
skin over his ribcage, but even that jarring sight was a testament of 
his love for her and didn't detract from his overall beauty. 

  "Why don't you come recreate the scene of the crime from over here?" 
he asked. His tone was honeyed, despite the gritty quality of his 
sleepy voice. "The view is equally good."

  "Not from my perspective," she answered archly, as he rolled and 
stretched languidly, propping himself up on an elbow. "My view is 
unparalleled." Her tone was rich with innuendo.


  "Scully," he huffed in surprise.

  She was secretly pleased to see a blush stain his skin. She'd always 
suspected that he was not as shameless as he pretended to be. Happily, 
he was shameless enough in just the right ways. 

  "We need to get back to the clinic," she said, and he sighed, but 
nodded his head. She knew that he wanted to stretch their idyll here to 
its limits, but it was after two in the morning, and reality, in the 
form of a worried four-year-old, beckoned. "Are you coming?" she asked, 
turning into the bathroom as she dropped her toga on the hapless 
pillow. 

  She only half heard his predictable response as she turned on the 
water in the shower.

~*~

  They were lucky that Hannah was still asleep when they got back to 
Prometheus, although from the worried expression on her face when they 
crept into the room, Scully was sure that hadn't always been the case. 
She read Hannah's chart carefully, pleased to see that her vital signs 
had stabilized further as her temperature had continued to decrease. It 
was still elevated at slightly more than 100, but Hannah had not yet 
been on the antibiotics for 24 hours. However, the fact that it 
remained elevated raised a red flag for Scully. It could be that 
Hannah's infection was more resistant than she had anticipated. 
Conversely, she wasn't actually sure what Hannah's true body 
temperature was when she wasn't sick, and with the alteration of her 
genome, she couldn't assume that 98.6 was the suitable standard. She 
looked up at the clock to check the time. Hannah was voiding 
appropriately, so rehydration therapy had been discontinued. Her next 
batch of antibiotics would be hung in a few hours, and the line in her 
hand had been capped off for the moment. She made a note to check 
Hannah's hand to ensure that the needle was situated correctly before 
the next infusion was begun. 

  When she finished with her notation, she found Mulder sitting next to 
Hannah staring intently at their daughter. She felt a thrill of 
recognition at his expression as he sat, right arm braced on the other 
side of Hannah's small sleeping form, searching for the familiar in 
her. She moved from the end of the bed to the other side, looking from 
his beloved and well-known profile to the newly beloved and less known 
countenance of their daughter. She was making her own comparisons 
between the two of them, when she realized that Mulder's intent regard 
was slowly but surely waking Hannah. Like father, like daughter -- she 
could feel herself smiling, and didn't attempt to stop Mulder. It was 
probably better for Hannah to be reassured than to stay asleep right 
now.

  "Scully?" Mulder's whisper cut through her reverie. He looked 
pointedly at the chart dangling from her hands before his eyes returned 
to hers.

  "Oh," she began to answer, "she's ..."

  "Mulder?" Hannah's worried voice cut through hers, and Mulder's head 
snapped toward the child.


  "Hi -" before his mouth had finished forming the word, Hannah had 
popped up out of the covers, flung her arms around his neck and burst 
into tears. "Oh, pumpkin," Mulder said sorrowfully, and Scully could 
see how sorry he was. "I'm right here, sweetheart," he said. "I'm so 
sorry that I worried you." 


  He rubbed her back as Hannah started to calm, then her body became 
rigid and she looked around frantically. She relaxed when she saw 
Scully. "You both left me!" she accused, and Scully dropped the chart 
on the night table and sat down on the bed next to Mulder, her left hip 
bumping against his right in the middle of the bed as they faced 
Hannah. 

  "I'm sorry, Hannah," Scully said. She leant toward Hannah, intending 
to kiss her forehead, but Hannah surprised her by wrapping her arms 
around Scully's neck to pull her closer, although she did not retreat 
from Mulder's lap. 

  "I was scared," Hannah hiccupped. "I don't like being alone." 

  Scully's eyes filled with tears as she fought back the images of 
Hannah alone and sick while her sisters were dying around her in that 
room in Albany. 

  Mulder put his right arm around Scully and tugged her closer so that 
the both of them were sheltering Hannah. She pulled her legs up onto 
the bed.

  "I know, Hannah," he soothed. "We promise it won't happen again."

  Hannah backed away from Mulder enough to look from one to the other 
of them suspiciously. She was rubbing the fabric of her nightgown 
worriedly between her fingers, a gesture that Scully hadn't seen her 
make in days. It caused an unexpected pang. "You promise?" she said 
querulously. Her eyes were large in her pale oval face, framed by her 
unruly, sleep-mussed hair. 

  "We promise," Scully said firmly.

  "OK," Hannah said, after a minute. She curled up against Mulder with 
a contented sigh, but put a hand on Scully's leg as if to hold her 
there, watching her with one bright eye.

  Mulder kissed Hannah's head, wrapping his left arm around her tight. 

  "Where'd you go?" she asked Scully softly.

  "Back to the motel," Scully said. "I met Mulder there, and we got our 
things."

  "Oh," Hannah said. "Are we going somewhere else?"

  "Not until you're all better," Scully said easily. "So your -- Mulder 
and I thought we should get our things so that we'd have them here with 
us." She was surprised at how easily calling Mulder 'your father' had 
almost slipped right out of her mouth. Luckily, Hannah hadn't noticed, 
but Mulder certainly had. He was grinning at her. 

  He nodded at her, encouraging her, but she wasn't sure how to explain 
that they were her parents to Hannah. In truth, she wasn't that sure of 
how much Hannah understood about parents and families. Everything 
Hannah knew about family life she'd learned from television, not from 
any real experience. And she wasn't sure if it was a blessing or an 
additional sorrow that Hannah didn't seem to realize that the other 
girls in her room in Albany had been her sisters.  

  She took a deep breath in. "Hannah, do you remember that Mulder told 

you we were going to try and find your family -- to find out who your 
mom and dad are?" Someday, she knew, they would have to explain to 
Hannah just how it was that she hadn't been with them for the first 
years of her life, but today was not that day.

  "Yes," Hannah said, but her lower lip began to stick out. She pulled 
her hand off of Scully, and turned her head, burying her face in 
Mulder's chest.

  "What's the matter?" Mulder asked, looking down at her.

  "I don't want to go away from you," she said. Her voice was muffled 
because she was speaking into Mulder's torso, but the petulant tone was 
clear. 

  Scully felt the tension that had gripped her at having this 
conversation just ebb away as Mulder jostled Hannah and kissed her 
head, trying unsuccessfully to get her to look up. Hannah just burrowed 
in deeper. 

  "You don't have to go anywhere, Hannah," Scully said surely, and 
Hannah became completely still in Mulder's arms. "I promise you. You 
belong with us, Mulder and me. We are your family." 

  Hannah's head popped away from Mulder's chest. One hand raised up to 
push the mass of curls that had flopped over her brow away so that she 
could look at them both. Her brow was drawn down in concentration as 
she looked from Mulder to Scully. "You're my mom?" she whispered. 

  Scully nodded, aware that she was smiling through the tears that were 
falling. "Yes," she said, "and Mulder really is your Daddy." 

  Hannah launched herself at Scully, and Scully gasped as Hannah threw 
her arms around her neck. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how 
very much she had wanted Hannah to do that. Her arms wrapped around her 
child fully for the first time and she closed her eyes and just held 
her. When she opened them, Mulder was regarding her with a heartfelt 
expression of love, tears streaming down his cheeks and over his wide 
smile. 

  "Hey!" he complained after a minute. "Don't Daddies get any hugs 
around here?"

  Hannah giggled; Scully could feel the vibration against her neck, the 
rise and fall of Hannah's small body against her breast. It was an 
exquisite sensation. She bent her head and kissed Hannah on the cheek. 
"Do you think we should hug him, Hannah?" she teased.

  "I already hugged him," Hannah said, speaking into Scully's neck. 

  Mulder pouted, and Scully could not help but laugh. His expression 
had a totally different resonance for her now. 

  "That was before I was your Daddy," Mulder said in a whiny tone. 

  Hannah giggled again, and Scully eyebrowed him. "Technically, Mulder 
..." she began, but he interrupted. 

  "So, that's it, then," he said. "No more hugs for Mulder?"

  Hannah turned around out of Scully's arms, and looked at him sternly. 
"Daddy," she corrected. Then, she held out her arms.

  Mulder looked like he might burst into tears, as he bent over to hug 
Hannah, leaving her in Scully's lap. 


  When he broke away from Hannah, he pointed at Scully and asked 
gently, "And who's that?"

  "That's my mom," Hannah said in a satisfied and proud tone. She 
leaned back against Scully, who couldn't help but wrap her arms around 
her. 

  "Yes, she is," Mulder said, smiling through his tears, before he 

engulfed them all in a hug.   

~*~

  After breakfast, a new bag of cephalosporin was brought in by the 
infirmary Kurt. The clones in general seemed wary of Mulder, although 
the infirmary Kurt had relaxed enough to get within striking distance 
of Mulder when bringing in the new medication. After Mulder and Hannah 
settled down to watch some Sesame Street, Scully went in search 
of the Kurt with whom she'd spent much of the previous day. 

  Scully wondered how on Earth she was going to distinguish one clone 
from the other politely, but she was saved the embarrassment when she 
was approached by a clone shortly after she crossed the threshold of 
the large lab across from the infirmary space. 

  "Agent Scully," the clone said, "I take it that you were able to 
resolve matters with Agent Mulder?"

  "Yes," she answered. "Agent Mulder still has a number of questions, 
as do I." She noted that the clone's expression held a hint of worry 
behind its usual imperturbable façade. "Agent Mulder understands that 
you are not personally responsible for his gametes being stolen. 
Notwithstanding that fact, however, it remains a very upsetting issue 
for the both of us."

  "I do see that," the clone said. "I cannot say that I truly 
comprehend it, but I do recognize that." He paused. "What did you wish 
to speak to me about? As yet, I don't have any answers for you on the 
bacteria colonies from the child's samples, but expect to within the 
next few hours. In my opinion, she is responding well to the 
treatment."

  "Yes, she is," Scully answered. "And I thank you for looking after 
her last night in Agent Mulder's and my absence. We'll be remaining in 
the infirmary with Hannah until her situation is resolved, if that's 
all right with you." 

  The clone nodded. "Of course," he said. 

  "I did want to discuss your ideas about strengthening Hannah's immune 
system," she said. "It appeared to me from Agent Mulder's description 
that the facility she was discovered in was maintained as a sterile 

environment. I wondered if you have any knowledge of that."

  "I wouldn't characterize it as sterile," the clone said, "but it was 
certainly restricted. My understanding is that the children were in an 
environment that limited their exposure to microbes, probably for the 
purpose of getting the most pure response to the virus. The staff took 
precautions to not expose the children to any elements outside the 
room. In fact, until Agent Mulder removed this last child from the 
facility, it's doubtful that any of the children had ever been in an 
unrestricted environment." He paused. "Her relative health given the 
limitations that she was raised under is actually a testament to how 
robust her innate immune system is."

 "Are you saying that you don't think Hannah is going to require gene 
therapy to boost her immune system as we discussed yesterday?" Scully 
asked, surprised. 

  "That is unknown at this time. It would be my recommendation that the 
child be given the standard immunizations that she should have received 
up until this point. It would be preferable that the process be done in 
a controlled environment such as this, once she has truly recovered 
from this current infection. Her response to the introduction of those 
new elements into her system will give us a more accurate picture of 
how well her immune system is functioning."

  "You seem to have made a large shift in your opinion since yesterday 
evening," Scully said. "Does this have anything to do with Agent 
Mulder's display of anger?"

  The clone blinked once, then again. Scully had the impression that he 
was insulted by her question, but he answered her. "Agent Mulder told 
some of my brothers that he took Hannah into a mall after he found 
her."

  She nodded.

  "A mall," the clone said firmly, "with hundreds of people and 
millions of microbes to which she'd never before been exposed. The fact 
that she isn't deathly ill, considering the circumstances of her early 
life, makes the case for her immune resilience."

  Scully shook her head in thought. "I hadn't actually considered it 
from that perspective," she said. "I'd assumed that she'd gotten ill 
from that exposure, of course, but never considered that she actually 
withstood more contagion than she was exposed to. She may be more like 
her father than I'd suspected," she mused.

  Off Kurt's questioning look, she continued. "Agent Mulder and I have 
worked in close quarters for a number of years," she said. "And over 
that time, I've observed that his susceptibility to illness is 
strikingly low. For example, our offices were changed from a small 
space in which just the two of us worked, to a large room where more 
than fifty agents worked. During the weeks following the move, I spent 
much time fighting illness. Agent Mulder did not show any signs of 
illness." 

  "Intriguing," the clone said. "Do you know if either of his parents 
showed this same capacity?"

   Scully shrugged. "I have no idea," she paused. "I could ask Agent 
Mulder, but can't see how that would aid you."

  "I admit that the question is purely one of curiousity, considering 
how it is that the colonizing virus replicates," the clone paused. 
"Agent Mulder's resistance to that virus is unprecedented, as you know, 
but we had not considered that his microbial resistance in general 
might be high." 

  Scully nodded. "I see. You realize, of course, that immunity is 
considered to be an acquired human trait."

  "I concede that is the general understanding, but if humans can 
inherit predispositions toward certain immune syndromes from mutated 

genetic material they inherit from their parents, the reverse postulate 
should also be entertained," the clone said. "In fact, it may go a long 
way toward explaining the function of this so-called natural immunity 
which you brought up yesterday. There must be a genetic explanation for 
such an ability."


  "You think this might be a fruitful research avenue as far as your 
vaccine work is concerned?" Scully asked. She had to admit that she was 
intrigued by the notion.

  "I cannot foresee its ultimate worth," the clone said, "but it 
certainly appears to be worth investigating."

  Scully nodded, thinking. "I believe that I may speak for Agent Mulder 
in this case. If we can assist you by giving you genetic samples for 
you to study, we're willing to do so."

  "That offer is appreciated," the clone said, "and I accept it. Did 
you have any other matters you wished to discuss?" 

   "Yes," Scully answered. "I have concerns about how Hannah was 
created. You have referred to the recombination of human and alien DNA 
as being unstable a number of times; your brothers made mention of that 
to Agent Mulder as well. I want to understand what implications that 
will have for Hannah in the long-term," she said. "In addition, I'm  
concerned that if we stay here for the length of time that it will take 
to inoculate Hannah successfully, we'll be putting your operation at 
significant risk."


  "The first answer is more complex, and one I'm not sure that we can 
answer easily without doing a more in-depth analysis of how exactly the 
child's genome was altered," the clone said. "That will require some 
time and more information than has been found so far in the records 
Agent Mulder procured. As to the second part of your statement, I'm not 
sure I understand how you and Agent Mulder would be putting this 
operation at-risk," the clone said. 

  "I have an implant," Scully said levelly. "Agent Mulder and I are not 
aware of the breadth of what it can do, but I do know that if we 
continue to stay out of sight, the chances of me being called via it 
will rise."

  "I'm sorry, Agent Scully," the clone said, "I should have mentioned 
this yesterday. We broadcast a dampening signal around this building. 
Your implant cannot be activated within a radius of 4 square miles." 

  "What implications does that have for my health?" she asked. 

  "None in the short term," the clone answered. "The implant is 
essentially a micro-transmitter and receiver that can only be removed 
by a tool that transmits an appropriate signal. Removal of the implant 
without that device provoked the broadcast of a malevolent electronic 
impulse that began the process of cancer replication in your 
nasopharyngeal cavity. When an implant was resituated and began 
receiving electronic impulses from their systems, it halted and 
reversed the process."

  "But they won't be able to locate me," she said. "Won't that make 
them suspicious?"

  "Perhaps," the clone answered, "but there are many sites that are 
dampened. It will take time for them to figure out which of the many 
sites you're at."

  "I admit that I don't know how the implant works, but I can't imagine 
that scenario to be likely," she argued. "If word gets out that Mulder 
and I are missing, I'd assumed that they'd be able to work backward 
from the last place my signature was recorded at. Logically, the 
nearest dampened site would be the first place to search."

  The clone seemed to be giving her answer serious thought. "We can 
transmit our data, disassemble necessary laboratory equipment and move 
within a twelve-hour period. We've had to do so before. Do you know if 
your absence has raised such an alarm?"

  She looked at her watch. "Agent Mulder should be checking in with 
some of our allies to see if the trail they planted to cover our 
absence has worked. We expect to know that answer in a few hours."

  The clone nodded. "I'll tell my colleagues to prepare, just in case." 
She stepped aside to give him room to pass her, but the clone didn't 
move. "There is one other thing that you should consider, Agent 
Scully." 

  She nodded, encouraging the clone to continue.

  "We have the removal tool here. If you desire it, we can safely 
remove their implant and free you from their machinations."

~*~

  Scully followed the sound of Mulder's raised voice through the 
hallway that led to the loading zone of the warehouse, not surprised to 
find him in the relatively unused area. Hannah had told her that "Daddy 
got a call from a man he told me to call 'creepy Uncle Melvin', and had 
to go away because he was scaring the Doctor Kurt," before she 
continued on with her coloring. 

  Mulder was gesturing largely across the room, still unaware of her 
presence. "That's not even a question, Frohike."

  He paused. 

  "I'm telling you that I know it, and that should be good enough," he 
said heatedly. "10 years, Melvin." 

  He paced as he listened. "Yeah, well the point is that I want to know 
who did this -- I need to know who did this to us. Every single one of 
them, and you can start with Jonathan Buckley, M.D., the quack that had 
me ingesting the black oil."

  "l-e-y," he paused. "I have no idea. Wait, I remember that his 
diploma said that he graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School," he 
rubbed his forehead, "1956. And don't forget Dr. Scanlon. All the 
information I've got on him is in the file. You have the back-up for 
that, except for the update on my home computer." He made a face. 
"Whatever, Langly. And then there's that ratfucker CGB Spender. I know 

he walked away from the flambe at El Rico. I need to find the hole he 
slithered into. I owe him. I figure we'll be even in about twenty-five 
years."

  He paced, walking in tight circles. "Last, I don't have any of the 
information with me that I took from the day after," he paused, and 
then continued. "Where was Diana Fowley in the fall of 1994?" 
 
  He sighed. "Could you just look it up, Frohike?"

  "I'm not sure Scully would appreciate me telling you," he said. The 
hand he'd been gesturing with braced itself against his hip. "Scully 
does not keep secrets from me!" he said indignantly, and she found 

herself hiding a smile at his blatant lie. The thing was, he seemed 
convinced that he was telling the truth.

  "Eventually, we tell each other everything," he insisted.

  "Yes, we do, Frohike," he said through gritted teeth and paused. 
"That is none of your business." He made an exasperated noise and then 
listened for a few seconds before saying, "Because Scully thinks that 
she was there in the train car, that's why," in a dark tone.

  "Guys?" Mulder pulled the phone away from his ear to see if the call 
had been dropped. "Cheap piece of ..." he muttered, "Guys? Oh, you are 
there." He listened. "Of course, I believe her!" he yelled. "She would 
never say something like that if it wasn't true!"

  He listened again, "Because I want to know where she was, Frohike. I 
want to know what her assignment," he spat the word out, "was." There 
was another, longer pause, and then Mulder said, "I promise you -- I 
swear on Samantha's grave -- if she did this to us, if she 
participated in any way in what they did to Scully then she will be 
first up against the fucking wall!" His voice had been rising steadily 
in volume and anger as he spoke. "First!" 

  She had been walking toward him, but his outburst stunned her into 
immobility. She stopped and leant against an empty desk as Mulder's 
words swirled around in her head. Scully couldn't believe that he 
actually meant that he'd kill her, but the tone of his voice told her 
exactly how furious he was at Diana Fowley. In a sick way, his words, 
crude as they were, were a declaration of love for her more powerful 
than any promise of forever.

  He paused again, "Thank you, Byers. Listen, I have to go back, 
Hannah's still freaked out because of last night and I don't want to 
leave her alone for too long."

  Mulder hung up without saying goodbye, only to turn around and come 
face-to-face with her. All forward momentum on his part ceased, and he 
ran a hand through his hair, hard. The tips of his ears turned red. 
"Scully," he said, in an embarrassed tone, "How long have you been 
there?"

  "Long enough," she answered him thoughtfully. She held out a hand to 
him, and he crossed the distance between them a bit warily, and took 
her hand. She motioned for his other hand, and he dropped the phone 
into the pocket of his shirt before he gave it to her. 

  She tugged on his hands until she pulled him into the space between 
her legs. She regarded his hands, running her thumb over his friend's 
wedding ring, remembering how painful it had been to her to see Diana 
Fowley holding his hand months ago. "First up against the wall, 
Mulder?" 

  "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," he said sheepishly. He was 
definitely blushing. "When the revolution comes." 

  "Are we going to lead that revolution, Mulder?" She kissed his hand 
and smiled up at him, watching the slow smile break over his face as 
her words sunk in. She opened her hands and pressed her palms against 
him while he mirrored her movements. She linked their fingers together, 
pushing Mulder's hands towards him until he resisted her.

  He was nodding before he spoke, "About time, don't you think?" He 
pressed back against her and they balanced somewhere in the middle, 
meeting for a kiss. After a few minutes, he drew back from her with a 
questioning expression on his face. "What's up, Scully?" he asked.

  His intuition was really quite striking -- she had to admit it. 

  "I have some things to tell you," she began, and immediately, his 
brow creased in worry. She raised their still linked hands and ran a 
finger over the lines, smoothing them away. "No," she said, "for once, 
Mulder, it's not anything bad."
  
~*~ 

  She was curled on her side trying to focus on Possession when 
Mulder came out of the bathroom wearing his pajama bottoms and a t-
shirt. He grinned at the sight. 

  "Finally!" he said, carefully climbing up onto their makeshift double 
bed. She'd taught him an old resident's trick -- they pushed two of the 
empty beds in the infirmary together and locked their brakes in place 
before they lay the mattresses across the bed frames to cover the seam 

between the two beds. With extra pillows to cover the top of the bed 
where there was a gap, they'd made a passably comfortable Queen-sized 
bed, although she had her doubts that Mulder would keep to his own side 
of it. Hannah slept on her own in the bed next to them, her tiger 
tucked up under her chin. 


  She raised her eyebrows in response to his comment, looking at him 
over her shoulder as he curled up against her back. "After everything 
that's happened in the last twenty-four hours, it's me reading this 
book that provokes that outburst?" She made a disbelieving noise, and 
returned to her reading. 

  He kissed the back of her neck very gently. "Scully, I'm surprised at 
you. Are you trying to provoke an unseemly display in front of a minor? 
Our minor, I'd like to add."

  "I don't think that hat with the light would fit over her hair, 
Mulder," she said, putting her finger in the book to mark her page. She 
could hear him wincing behind her.

  "Scully, we really have got to work on your sense of humor," he 
deadpanned. "Maybe I can buy you one for your birthday?" 

  "Last month," she noted dryly. 

  "Who says we need to be pedestrian and give and receive presents on 
the actual day?" Mulder said archly. "What about the element of 
surprise?"


  She huffed a laugh and then regretted it, feeling an ache deep in her 
belly.

  "You OK?" he asked tenderly. "Need another icepack?"

  She moved the nearly melted one off her abdomen and handed it to him, 
turning gingerly over onto her back so that she could see him. "I'm not 
even sure that it's doing anything other than easing my mind," she 
said. "There's no way that ice on my skin could help inflammation in my 
ovaries."

  Mulder smiled at her. "Mind over matter, Scully."

  She harrumphed.

  "Do you want another?" She laid a cold hand against his chest and he 
shivered, but didn't shy away from her. "Just keep that hand north of 
the border, I beg of you." He began rubbing her cold hand in both of 
his desperately. 

  She laughed this time, and immediately moaned, causing Mulder to 
grimace. 

  "What does it feel like?" he asked. 

  She thought it over for a bit. "It feels really weird," she finally 
said. "It's not exactly painful, but it's very strange to be aware of a 
part of your body that you knew was there, but have never really felt 
before."

  He nodded. "You never had mittelschmerz before?"
 

 "Not that I recall," Scully said wryly. "Besides, that's only supposed 
to be affect one ovary at a time." She paused. "Exactly how much 
reading have you done on this subject, Mulder?" He was a dangerous man 
with a search engine.

  "On ova regeneration, or on mittelschmerz?" he asked. 

  She thumped him with her still cold hand, and he laughed, capturing 
it.

  "You're going to have to write an article for me to read on the 
first," he said, "and I had a girlfriend at Oxford who had 
mittelschmerz." 

  "Phoebe?" she asked. There was no longer any need for her to hide her 
distaste.

  "Phoebe was a pain in a different part of the anatomy," Mulder 
answered, raising her hand to kiss it, while she smiled at him. "Now, 
really, how do you feel about all of this?" 

  "Sore," she answered.

  Mulder made a face at her and waited.

  "I'm glad, Mulder," she said. "On one level, I can't believe that 
they could regenerate my ova with the implant, but if the implant could 
cause healthy cells to become cancerous and then spontaneously remit, 
then it's not that unbelievable, relatively speaking." She made a face, 
listening to what she was saying aloud. "I guess."


  Mulder waited for her to continue. 

  "I'm still not sure that I believe it, despite the discomfort," she 
said. "I'm going to have to confirm it with my own doctor." She gripped 
his hand. "I think maybe I'm afraid to count on it too much. If I could 
have a baby," she began, "should I?" They'd both been keeping their 
voices low, so as not to disturb Hannah, but her tone had taken on a 
note of urgency. "I worry that we won't be able to keep Hannah safe," 
she whispered. "How could we keep another child safe? How do we know 
that Scanlon won't to try to take Hannah, or any other child we might 
have?"

  Mulder's eyes were hard at her words. "I will kill him where he 
stands," he said. 

  "Mulder," she said.

  "I'm serious," he said.

  "I know you are," she answered him. "But you can't help keep her safe 
if you're in jail! We need to figure out how we're going to protect 
her," she said. Behind her, Hannah coughed and Scully's head jerked in 
the direction of the sound. Her hand flew out of Mulder's grasp and 
went to the back of her neck as Mulder winced. 

  He got out of the bed carefully and padded over to peer at Hannah, 
who had roused a bit. 

  Scully had rolled onto her back, still holding onto her neck. Mulder 
gave Hannah a sip of water through a straw and waited for a second, 
making sure she was settled before he returned to his side of their 
bed. "She didn't really wake up," he whispered. "Do you need an ice 
pack for your neck while I'm up?" 

  She started to shake her head, but thought better of it. "It's fine," 
she said, and then rolled her eyes at Mulder's expression. "Really, 
Mulder. I've had much worse. It's a tiny burn." She had turned back on 
her side to face him.
 
  "The laser that came out of that ... thing," Mulder said, getting back 

under the covers and sliding over next to her, "was one of the stranger 
things I've seen."

  She agreed with him. "It was so cold -- it didn't hurt at all while it 
was happening, but now I feel it when I turn my head too fast." She 
changed the subject. "What did Byers say?"

  "He wasn't back yet," Mulder answered, "but Frohike said he'd called 
in to say that Skinner had showed up at the meeting and that he'd 
agreed to verify the paper trail if asked. So far, no one has been 
looking for us."

  "Where does the 302 say we are?" she asked. 

  "In California," Mulder answered, "following up on leads related to 
the El Rico massacre. Langly and Frohike moved your car from the mall 
parking lot to BWI, and the plane manifest shows that you flew out of 
there on Sunday evening."

  "With you?"

  "No," Mulder answered. "I flew out of there on Saturday morning."

  "So if Scanlon is looking for Hannah," she said, "he'll look there 
first?"

  "If the reproductive experiments are in as much trouble as the Kurts 
think they are, Scanlon has bigger problems than losing Hannah," Mulder 
said. "Besides, it sounds like the whole program is in disarray with 
factions fighting for supremacy since the burnings."

  "We can't just trust that she'll be safe, Mulder," she insisted.

  "I have no intention of doing so," he said heatedly. 

  She pressed her hand against his chest in apology. 

  He calmed down and continued on in a softer voice. "I have an idea," 
he said. "But it's going to require a lot of coordination, and a little 
time."

  "Tell me," she said. 

  Mulder drew in a long breath through his nose and covered her hand 
with his. "We're going to have to lie," he said. 

  "Fine," she answered. 

  Mulder looked at her skeptically.

  "Mulder," she said, "she's our daughter. I'll do what's necessary." 


  He looked faintly surprised. 

  "I asked nicely with Emily," she said, "and look where that got me. 
If she'd lived," she fought off the wave of bitterness, "they wouldn't 

have awarded her to me. What's your plan?" She was ready to poke holes 
in it.

  "We could do this a couple of ways," Mulder said. "But basically, the 
first thing we need to do is to raise our profile and Hannah's to make 
it so that any further action against any of us would be a disaster for 
whatever factions remain active."

  Scully was surprised to hear him set the tone for this discussion in 
that way. In general, Mulder preferred to keep a low profile. Back in 
the days when Patterson had been trying to groom him as his second-in-
command, Mulder had resisted being paraded in front of the press -- it 
had been one of their first and most persistent disagreements. "Go on," 
she encouraged him. 

  Mulder took a long breath in. "We could say that you were pregnant 
when you were kidnapped, and that they kept you just long enough for 
the baby to be viable. We make the case that Hannah was kept as 
leverage by the people who were burned at El Rico. We charge Strugholm 
and a few of the others that are dead with conspiracy and kidnapping, 
of both you and Hannah," he was watching her carefully. "And we charge 
Spender and Scanlon specifically with attempted murder charges against 
you, both for when you were kidnapped in 1994 and almost killed, and 
for Scanlon's treatment of your cancer."

  She blinked at his audacity. "They would both die in jail," she said 
slowly. 

  "They'll probably die before they get to trial, Scully," he said. "If 
we can even find them in the first place. But we get their names, and 
most importantly, their faces on the Ten Most Wanted. There's bound to 
be publicity about the case, making it so they can't take Hannah 
without giving credence to the whole kidnapping story."

  She had to admit that she was impressed with the idea, even though 
there were a tremendous number of moving parts to it. She started to 
ask him a question, when Mulder held up his hand. 

  "But Scully, if we do it this way, then people are going to feel 
validated in every rotten thing they've ever said about us and about 
our relationship. The Bureau may even try to go after us for 
fraternization. We could be destroying both our careers."

  "I don't care about that," she said. "Really, Mulder. How else are we 
going to explain Hannah's sudden appearance?"

  "We could say that your ova were stolen when you were kidnapped and 
that she was created ..."

  "No," she said firmly. 

  "Scully, your reputation ..." he began.

  "No," she said. "Your first idea was the better one, even if it's 
sketchy, and you know it. Why are you balking?" 

  He shook his head in frustration. "The idea that some of those 
bastards we work with will talk about you, the way I know they'll talk 
about you, makes me crazy. Saying that we've been in a relationship all 
these years just validates all the sexist bullshit that they spout 
about male-female partnerships."


  "Mulder," she said affectionately. "I really think you're kidding 
yourself by believing that they don't talk about me, about us, that way 
already. Just because they'll believe that they're justified doesn't 
make any difference to me. I would never have lasted as long as I have 
at the Bureau if I didn't have a thick skin."

  Mulder looked distinctly grumpy. "Well," he said, "Frohike had an 
idea: he said that he can make it look like we've been secretly married 
since 1994. We're already going to have to alter your hospital records 
to make it look like you had given birth before you were returned. He 
insists that he can make it look legit."

  She laughed out loud, sore gut be damned. "Mulder! And you think 
that would cause less gossip!?" She was touched, but not truly 
surprised, by Frohike's chivalrous impulses toward her.

  He looked even more grumpy at her laughing at him. 

  "That would become the whole story, Mulder, and would make it more 
scintillating -- we need the focus to remain on the crimes that took 
place," she said. "Besides, how would we explain that to my mother?"

  Mulder looked distinctly uncomfortable at her words.

  "Is that what this is all about?" she asked him incredulously. 
"You're afraid that my mother will be angry because I was pregnant 
without being married?" She narrowed her eyes and really looked at him. 
"Or angry with you for making me pregnant?"

  Mulder had the good sense to look chagrinned at her words. "Scully -- 
I know that she's going to have an opinion about it."

  "Oh, she definitely will," Scully said, "and I'll make it clear to 
her that her opinion is duly noted, and then continue on with my life." 
Mulder looked dubious at her words. "Mulder, trust me -- she's more 
likely to be angry that she didn't know that I was pregnant, or that I 
had a kidnapped daughter, than she is about me being pregnant without 
being married!" 

  "Well, that's another issue," Mulder said. "How are you going to 
explain this to your mother?"

  "I'll tell her that we didn't know there was a baby, because it was 
so early in the pregnancy. I could tell her that until Emily was found 
that the possibility of our child being alive had never occurred to me 
and that we began actively looking for her. The problem will be in how 
to explain who Emily was," she mused. "I've already told my mother that 
because of what they did to me when I was kidnapped that I couldn't 
have children."

  She heard Mulder hesitating, and she looked up at him. "I will not 
disavow Emily, Mulder," she said firmly. "I know that the easiest thing 
would be to say that Emily's appearance was a blind, meant to hide 
Hannah -- that we were getting too close because of ongoing 
investigations and that they panicked and tried to fool us, but I won't 
do that." 

  Mulder leaned forward and kissed her forehead, and then her cheek. "I 
didn't think you would," he said, running his fingers through her hair. 
"What if we said that Emily and Hannah were twins?" he asked. She 
started at the suggestion. "Who is going to challenge us or correct the 
information we put out?" he asked. "The consortium? You can tell your 
mother that I've been suspicious since Emily was found, and that I 
never stopped investigating, but that I didn't tell you about it, 
because I didn't want to get your hopes up."

  She stared at him. "You'd do that?"

  Mulder looked confused. "Scully, I would have been looking all this 
year if you hadn't put down the edict against it."

  "No," she said quietly, "you'd really claim Emily?" Mulder actually 
looked a little hurt at her words, so she squeezed his hand and 
whispered, "Thank you," before she kissed him. 

  Mulder relaxed against her, gathering her into his arms carefully. 
"Don't thank me, Scully," he said when they broke apart. "I should have 
said something at the time."

  She placed her fingers against his lips. "You're saying it now," she 
countered. "It still counts, as far as I'm concerned." She lay there 
thinking for a moment, her head on Mulder's shoulder, her hand 
smoothing over the cotton of his t-shirt. "The problem with that is 
that we don't run to twins in my family, Mulder," she said. 

  "Not even Irish twins?" Mulder teased. 

  She poked him, but she was smiling. 

  "Actually, I had twin uncles," he said. 

  "Had?" Scully asked.

  "My father's older brothers," he said. "One of them died before I was 
born -- WWII," he explained. "The other one died shortly after I 
finished Oxford."   
  
  "Dare I ask what their names were?" Scully asked, looking up at 
Mulder. 

  His expression was pained. "Forbes," he said finally. "And Brooks."

  "Brooks?" Scully asked. 

  Mulder covered his face with his right hand. "It's a last name, 
Scully," he said. "In this case, one of my paternal grandmother's 
family names."

  "Not that Forbes is much better," she muttered.

  "Oh, Forbes-y was all right," Mulder said, clenching his jaw and 
affecting an upper-class accent. "Never quite right after losing his 
brother in the war, you know, but still a good man."

  "Your relatives would be horrified that you've chosen to breed with 
the help, Mulder," she said. 

  "Fuck 'em," Mulder answered. 

  'No, thanks,' Scully thought, but kept her mouth shut. "Going back to 
the plan," she said, "the big problem I see is that my kidnapper was 
Duane Barry." 

  "No," Mulder answered, "he was the one who took you, but he delivered 
you to unknown others -- which reminds me -- don't let me forget to put 
Krycek on the Ten Most Wanted," he sounded gleeful at the prospect. 
"The actual file on the conspiracy surrounding your kidnapping has 
never been closed, and the contents relating to your medical condition 
when you appeared at the hospital were classified as 'need-to-know'."

  She startled at this information. "But I read ..."

  "You 'needed to know'," Mulder said sarcastically. "I'm sure that 
Cancerman pressured Skinner, or probably Blevins, to classify it 
because they knew that exposure to the virus was what had branched your 
DNA, but it'll work in our favor now. They'll never be able to prove 
that what we're saying isn't true without revealing how they know."

  "But the original information, the paper files --" she said.

  "Frohike says he can take care of that," Mulder said.

  She raised her eyebrows at him. 

  "I told him not to tell me how," Mulder said. "I suggest you don't 
ask, either."

  "Plausible deniability?" 

  "It works for them," Mulder answered.

  "What if the Bureau balks?" she asked.

  "I'm expecting them to," Mulder said. "I can't believe that Blevins 
was the only one in league with Cancerman, not to mention the fact that 
we're implicating two ex-FBI agents in your kidnapping and the 
subsequent kidnapping of our two children." 

  She felt herself flush at the easy manner in which Mulder had adopted   

Emily, but he continued on. "The Director's Office isn't going to be 
too happy about the scandal this whole situation is going to cause, and 
if we went to them first, they'd definitely try to squelch the whole 
thing," he said. "That's why we're not going to them first."

  "Who are we going to?" she asked, puzzled. 

  "Matheson," Mulder answered. "His position on the Intelligence 
Committee gives him the clout we need. My plan is to get him to contact 
the Director just before we get back and make it clear that the story 
here is how the FBI has uncovered the long-term results of a corruption 
scandal that has already implicated a Section Chief. The only thing I 
can't figure out is how to work Jeffrey Spender's disappearance into 
this."

  She was surprised to hear him say as much, and knew that her 
expression reflected that.

  "I keep thinking about what you said about him, about what kind of a 
chance he had because of who his father was. I think I understand him 
more than I did before." Mulder paused. "Besides, I owe him that much 
for his support. And I figure there has to be some way to make it look 
like Baby Spender set us on the trail to find Hannah. That way, I can 
put out an APB on Diana as a person of interest with regard to his 
disappearance and Hannah's discovery."

  "Mulder --" 

  "She's still alive," Mulder said surely, "and there are a lot of 
questions that she needs to answer." His voice was hard, but level.

  She decided not to press the issue any further, since she knew that 
Fowley's betrayal was still a sore subject with Mulder. "Still, the 
question remains -- what are we implying that the conspirators were 
doing?" Scully asked. 
  
  "As far as what the press gets told, we emphasize the corruption 
angle, implying that Hannah was kept as a hostage to ensure that if we 
got too close, we could be stopped. I'm sure that when the press digs, 
they'll find out more about what it is that we do, and they'll have 
more questions, which is fine by me. Especially since I'm going to have 
Samantha declared dead." 

  She looked up at him in surprise. "Do you think your mother will let 
you do that?" she asked.

  "I'm not asking for permission," Mulder said tightly. "If what the 

Kurts say is true, then both my parents have lied to me, not just my 
father."

  "Mulder," Scully said, "you don't know if that's true. You don't know 
what your mother knows."

  "And she will never tell me," Mulder said darkly. "I've been thinking 
about my parent's arguments, the way they escalated in the months 
before Samantha was taken," he paused. "I think about her taking me to 
the doctor's office, and how on edge she always was. That was when she 
started taking pills. She's always known a lot more than she's ever 
been willing to tell me. They were both a part of this."

  Scully wrapped her arm around him, thinking. She couldn't imagine 
what kind of forces would have compelled Mulder's mother to capitulate 
to the Consortium, how she could have stood over Mulder every day for 
months, watching while he took his 'iron pill'. She and her mother had 
always had markedly different opinions on a number of things, but she 
had never once questioned the fact that her mother would never do 
anything to physically harm her. She knew, deep in her bones, that her 
mother would do exactly the opposite, that she would do anything to 
ensure her children would not be harmed. As Scully herself knew that 
she would do anything for Hannah. "I'll never understand these people, 
Mulder," she said, her voice was harsh with sorrow. 

  "My parents?" Mulder asked.

  "All of them," she said. "Kurt's parents and grandparents, Spender. 
Strughold. How they could choose between their children, deciding which 
one would die so the others could live? What kind of a person can make 
that choice?"

  "Sophie's Choice," Mulder said.  

  "And she lost both her children," Scully said. She couldn't help but 

think of the children she'd never known, Hannah's sisters, Emily's 
clones, the nameless girls from the F and G series, all taken from her, 
and sacrificed on the altar of a vast and failed medical experiment.   

  Mulder wrapped both of his arms around her. "That will not happen to 
us, Scully. We're going to keep Hannah safe."

  She closed her eyes and said a prayer that he was right. 

  When she spoke again, after silence had claimed the room except for 
Hannah's snuffles, he startled at her voice. "Are you sure that Senator 
Matheson will help us, Mulder?"

  She could feel him nodding above her. 

  "Lindsay will make sure of it," he answered her. "Frohike's setting 
up a clean call tomorrow so that I can let her know what's going on. 
She'll help us, Scully." He had begun playing with the rings on her 
left hand as he spoke. He bent and kissed her forehead, and then lifted 
her chin so he could see her. "You never asked me about your rings," he 
said.

  "I just assumed they were Lindsay's," she said, wondering at the 
expression on his face.

  "No, Scully," he said. "They're your rings."

  "My rings?" she echoed.

  "Yes," he said quietly. "When you were sick ..." she sucked in a 
breath, "I bought them then. I thought that if I had them, they would 
be a hedge against a future without you."

  She stared at him, thinking how his friend Dean's ring had provided 
no such protection. 

  He shrugged, "I know it was stupid, but I bought them anyway."

  A thought occurred to her, "Were these what you came back to DC to 
get?"

  He nodded. "When I found Hannah, I knew that she was yours. I thought 
that I could prove to you that I was committed to this, to you." He 
shook his head, ruefully "but then when you got to us, nothing went 
like I had pictured it. It just ... didn't." 

  She held her hand up and stared at her rings. 

  "I should have given them to you a different way," he whispered. "I 
should have asked you when you got better."

  She propped herself up on his chest and looked down at him. "I 
thought you asked me yesterday," she said softly. 

  He shook his head at her. "There should have been candles," he said. 
"A nice dinner, first." She smiled at his wistful sentiments. "And what 
are we going to tell Hannah when she asks about how I asked you?"

  She smiled at him, then took her rings off and handed them back to 
him. "Ask me now," she said.


  "Let me just get up -- " 

  She shook her head, pressing him back against the bed. "No," she 
said. 

  He looked up at her, his mouth twitching to hold back a smile. 

  "What?" she asked.

  "It's just interesting that you're on top for this conversation," he 
said. 

  "Just think of it as a post-modern twist on being down on one knee, 

Mulder," she said, smiling down at him. "Quit stalling."

  "I think I'm nervous," he confessed. "Is that stupid? Because you 
already said yes, didn't you, Scully?" His eyes were searching hers, 
his fingers rubbing the empty space where her rings had resided for the 
past few days. "Scully?"

  She smiled enigmatically. 

  Mulder closed his eyes and blew out a breath. When he opened them, he 
looked her right in the eye. "Dana Katherine Scully," he said, "I love 
you more than anything else in this world. Please say that you'll marry 
me and be my family." He lifted her hand and kissed her ring finger. 

  She smiled down at him. "Yes," she said succinctly.

  "Yes," he said, but there was a question in his tone.

  "Yes," she said. 

  "That's all I get?" he complained.

  She rolled her eyes. "You know that I love you, Mulder. You've been 
my family for a long time now. I'll be proud to stand up in front of 
the whole world and declare that you and I and Hannah are a family." 
She leant forward gingerly, careful not to strain her abdomen and 
Mulder leant up to meet her kiss. "Yes," she whispered against his 
mouth. 


  When she pulled back, Mulder was smiling at her through the tears in 
his eyes. He kissed her rings, one by one. "I knew they were lucky," he 
said triumphantly. 

  She laughed at him, then winced at the twinge in her belly. 

  Mulder shifted in the bed so that she could lay on her side. He 
picked up her ring finger, and then looked at her before he began to 
slide the wedding band onto her finger. 

  "Oh," she said, "Mulder, you need to hold onto that one for the 
wedding."

  "Right," he muttered. He jammed the ring onto his pinkie finger after 
staring at it for a second. "It looks better on you," he said 
critically. He slid the engagement ring onto her finger and looked at 
it for a few seconds, before he bent his head and kissed her hand 
again. "Now, we're official," he said, holding onto her hand.

  "Kiss me, Mulder," she said and he smiled before he applied himself 
to the task thoroughly, kissing her like she was everything in the 
world that he'd ever wanted. When they broke apart regretfully, 
recognizing their fundamental lack of privacy in their current 
circumstances, she was breathless and flushed and Mulder was no better. 
"Rain check," she said, fighting to control her respiration. 

  "Oh, yeah," Mulder said, rolling away from her. 

  They lay there side by side, chests heaving, staring at each other. 

 "Scully," Mulder said conversationally. "Where'd you put that ice 
pack?"

  She laughed and rolled onto her side, away from him. "G'night, 
Mulder," she said.

  "It could be better," he muttered, then curled up behind her, 
tenderly kissing her neck once more. "Good night, Scully."

~*~ 

May 9, 1999

  In the end, it was four weeks from the day that Mulder ditched her to 
when they finally returned to the Hoover Building.

  Their time away hadn't just been about refining their plans, however. 
An additional complication had manifested itself in the form of the 
nanites that Assistant Director Skinner bore in his bloodstream. Ten 
days after their disappearance, Skinner suffered another, more brazen 
attack and was hospitalized and in critical condition for three days. 
When the Gunmen were able to arrange for one of their allies to get to 
him, he was adamant that he be left alone and not be told any 
information regarding Mulder and Scully's whereabouts. The nurse 
supervisor who'd made contact with Skinner had had a sister who died of 
nasopharyngeal cancer after frequent disappearances in their youth. She 
arranged for a blood sample of Skinner's to be diverted into the 
Gunmen's hands for further study. She also reported that during one of 
his worst attacks that the Assistant Director had been muttering 
something that sounded like a Slavic swear, a word that ended in 
'check'. This information was dutifully reported to Mulder and Scully, 
and redoubled Mulder's determination to get Krycek's name and face on 
the Ten Most Wanted.

  When Skinner's attack had occurred, he'd been on his way to a 
rendezvous with Mulder and Scully. As far as the FBI knew, he had been 
en route to California for a face-to-face progress report. In reality, 

he would have been meeting Mulder at the airport in Chicago to hand 
over a small case full of pediatric vaccines, procured by the Gunmen, 
before continuing on to California for his 'meeting'. This time, 
however, his seizure in the main lobby of the Hoover was witnessed by a 
number of Agents and other Bureau personnel. Skinner had always had a 
reputation as a tough but fair Assistant Director. He worked hard, and 
he expected excellence from his teams, but he was perceived as a 

straight shooter and a boss whose ambition did not outweigh his talent. 
The Agents who had seen him fall, his veins bulging and skin ominously 
and unusually darkened, knew that the official line that Skinner had 
had an angina attack didn't add up. 

  The fact that he was on his way to meet the equally absent and always 
mysterious Agents Mulder and Scully only added fuel to the fire; a 
murmuring in the building about biological attacks and dirty tricks 
began, and no matter how the official statement to the rank and file 
was phrased to counter such impressions, the rumors did not stop. Of 
course, it didn't help matters that such communications were coming 
through Assistant Director Kersh, who had never commanded the level of 
respect that Skinner had among the rank and file. When Skinner had been 
in charge of the X-Files, it was noted, Mulder and Scully had taken 

their share of lumps. In the brief period when Kersh had been in 
charge, however, both of the newly-assigned Agents had gone missing in 
a matter of months. The puddle of Agent Spender's blood had not been 
forgotten. In a building full of trained, elite hunters, hard questions 
began to be asked, if only covertly. 

  Of course, Scully had her own questions. Mostly, they were about the 
accuracy of Frohike's sources within the Hoover Building, although she 
had to allow that she'd witnessed Agents being far from discreet. Their 
time in the bullpen had been highly informative in that regard -- she'd 
been shocked to see that Agents would routinely leave sensitive 
information in full view on their desks during their breaks or even 
overnight. They thought nothing of having candid discussions about 
cases, not to mention office gossip, in the full hearing of anyone who 
happened to be in the area, Agents or not. The news of the rumors might 
have been exaggerated, but there was probably a kernel of truth in it. 
At the very least, she knew that Kersh was generally loathed by the 
Agents in the bullpen, who considered him more loyal to those in power, 
and fueled by his own ambition to rise to their level, than to the 
ethos that was supposed to rule the Bureau. 

  With Skinner incapacitated, Frohike had brought the vaccines himself 
when he'd arrived for a brief visit the day after the aborted meeting. 
Scully had her suspicions that Frohike had come to check up on her, 
which she kept to herself. Frohike had still seemed angry with Mulder 
when he first arrived, but had changed his behavior abruptly when he 

saw the effect his attitude was having on Hannah. Hannah's attachment 
to Mulder was both sincere and obvious, and Mulder never made any 
effort to discourage that affection, and every effort to encourage it 
between Hannah and Scully. Hannah's confusion and upset at Frohike's 
manner, in concert with Mulder's tender solicitude toward both Hannah 
and herself, had gone a long way toward breaking the tension between 
the two long-time comrades-in-arms. 

  In truth, it was probably Hannah herself who changed Frohike's 
opinion. It had taken Hannah less than 48 hours to make a conquest of 
her 'Uncle Fro'. Scully knew that she was biased, but Hannah was a 
charming and loving child -- the neglect in her early life almost 
ensured that she would be responsive to those who showed her affection. 
Happily, she'd also proven to have her own powers of discernment about 
people. Scully was constantly amazed at Hannah's ability to distinguish 
individuals amongst the clones that surrounded them at Prometheus. With 
the addition of Frohike to the mix, Hannah's happiness at making a new 
friend was contagious, and Frohike was helpless to resist. 

  The afternoon he left them to return to DC, she'd found Frohike in 
the warehouse playing hopscotch with Hannah, on a court that Mulder had 
painted for Hannah on the floor. Mulder was sitting at a nearby desk in 
front of her laptop, on the phone with his feet up, a bemused and 
slightly smug expression on his face. Before he left, Frohike had 
solemnly promised her that the Gunmen would do whatever was necessary 
to ensure that Hannah was safe. Scully had kissed Frohike on the cheek 
after he said it, touched at the value of his promise, and the both of 
them got a little misty-eyed. Frohike had broken away with a gruff, "I 
got to get on the road," accepted a hug from Hannah, and flinched away 
from Mulder, who had puckered up for his own kiss goodbye. He walked 
out the door of Prometheus disparaging Mulder's ancestry under his 
breath. 

  Frohike's visit had also brought about an unforeseen alliance. He was 
fascinated with the clones in general, but had actually bonded with a 
number of them over discussing Skinner's nanite problem. Several of the 
Kurts were intrigued by the possible implications of the nanite 
technology, and much data had changed hands between the Gunmen's lair 
in Takoma Park and the Prometheus installations in Minnesota and 
elsewhere, as they posited methodologies for freeing Skinner. The 
Crawfords had a basic knowledge of the technology that had gone into 
the creation of the nanites, and their work in creating the dampening 
field around their own facilities had led to long discussions about 
high-altitude satellites, and radio waves and their roles in the 
implants, among other topics. A germ of an idea to aid Skinner began to 
take shape: until the nanites could be safely removed, a dampening 
device would be created to ensure that he would be free of the 
predation of whoever had implanted them in the first place. It was a 
stop-gap measure that showed great promise, although Frohike also 
seemed to be onboard with Mulder's idea of finding Krycek and beating 
the answers out of him, unfeasible as that seemed to be. 

  The alliance between the clones and the elder Gunmen found common 
ground elsewhere. Since Mulder had first met the Crawfords in 
Allentown, they had eschewed any more public contact with MUFON or its 
membership out of fear of exposure. In so doing, however, they had also 
cut themselves off from the abductee community, losing both access to 
information and a pool of vaccinated humans. The Gunmen's ties within 
the abductee community however, gave them access to both with the 
promise of anonymity so that they could continue their work on the 
creation of a viable vaccine. It was ironic, but the failure of the 
alien/human hybridization program had proven what Mulder's father had 
argued all along: the only way that the human species would survive 
colonization was for immunity to be established via a working vaccine, 
or perhaps with gene therapy, if some of the clones' new avenues of 
research proved fruitful. Still, Scully could not help but mourn the 
fact that the theory had been proven only after the deaths of hundreds 
of abductees, and the sacrifice of an unknown number of children 
created to suffer unspeakable experimentation. 

  The Crawfords' new working relationship with the Gunmen meant that 
when Mulder, Scully and Hannah finally left the Prometheus warehouse 
behind that first full week of April, their car was the first in a 
loose southerly bound caravan, all taking different routes. Prometheus 
had set up operations in an office park near the Gunmen in Takoma Park, 
and Scully suspected Mulder had used some of his inheritance to ensure 
that their research went forward. 

  The day that they left the office park that had been their home for 
three weeks was clear and bright, and Scully felt a bit like 
Persephone, arising from the wintery gloom of the windowless warehouse 
into the spring. Of course, it had been hard to reconcile the vistas 
that first greeted them with the idea of spring. The sun shone 
brilliantly on the fields of white snow on the by-ways that led them to 
the highway. Scully had seen a robin on a split rail fence near one of 
the larger snowfields and excitedly pointed out the harbinger of spring 
to Hannah, while Mulder smiled at them both. Everywhere they drove, the 
snow was melting, even the hard mounds of salt-rimed and blackened snow 
that was piled along each roadside and corner. 

  Hannah hadn't truly understood her mother's enthusiasm at the sight 
of the robin -- her excitement stemmed from the fact that they were 
going somewhere else -- she'd long since grown bored with the confining 
environment of the warehouse. She'd only been out in the real world for 
a tiny fraction of her life, but she was her grandfather's daughter, 
and couldn't resist the lure of exploration. Scully couldn't wait to 
take her out on the sea in the summer -- she had visions of herself 
teaching her daughter to sail, to always reach for the horizon.

  When they'd finally entered the DC limits, after two days of travel 
and innumerable games of I Spy, they'd gone directly to the Gunmen's to 
pick up Mulder's car, as well as appropriate work attire for them both. 
This also gave Langly and Byers an opportunity to meet Hannah. Langly 

deemed Hannah 'cool', but in Byers' wistfully soft smile as he spoke 
with Hannah, Scully saw a longing that didn't surprise her. She'd often 
wondered where the woman was that had given John Byers her ring to 
wear. She very much doubted that he had a family that he'd left behind, 
but it was clear that at some point, he'd had a hope of one. She knew 

that she and Mulder had received a miracle in the form of their 
daughter's life, and felt sorrow that her gentlemanly friend had so 
little hope of receiving a similar boon. 

  They'd left the Gunmen and driven into the District just after lunch 
on a Friday. As they'd moved further and further south, the snow pack 
had receded and they'd been rewarded with the sight of nature softly 
retaking the barren earth, decorating it with greenery and delicate 
flowers. Scully had harbored a secret hope that their return would be 
in time to at least see some of the celebration of sakura, the 
Cherry Blossom season in the District. Her dream had been realized when 
she cajoled Mulder into driving by the basin to find the trees just 
past their bloom but still glorious. Hannah had been wide-eyed at the 
sight, and they'd slowly driven along with the windows rolled down, 
letting the soft spring breezes awash with the scent of the flowers  
envelope them. Despite being nervous about being out in public with 
Hannah without a battalion of armed guards, Mulder couldn't resist 
Hannah's desire to see the blossoms up close. The image of Hannah, 
dancing in delight around her father while he broke off a flower for 
her as the cherry blossom petals rained down around them, was one that 
she would always treasure. 

  Their time under the blossoms had been sadly abbreviated as they had 
appointments to keep at the Hoover Building. They had a private meeting 
scheduled with her mother before the press conference. Scully knew that 
her absence during Easter, and her silence during most of the previous 
month, meant that her mother would be quietly frantic with worry. She 

also knew that her mother would forgive her when she understood all 
that had occurred. Hannah's safety was paramount, and Scully couldn't 
trust that communication between her and her mother wouldn't be 
compromised, jeopardizing it. In addition, they'd needed every 
available hour of the day to not only put Mulder's plan into effect, 
but also to ensure that Hannah had some basic inoculations in her 
system before she was once more exposed to the wider world. Standard 
pediatric guidelines for uninoculated children of Hannah's age 
recommended giving her a vast number of shots at the same time, but 
Scully had been unwilling to do that, and Mulder had agreed with her 
decision. They'd been cautious, and so far Hannah had not had an 
adverse reaction to any of the shots that she'd had, other than a 
slight fever. 

  Still, she could not help but regret the expression of pain and shock 
on her mother's face when she had seen Hannah for the first time. Their 

arrival on the floor where Skinner's office was located after such a 
long absence and with a child caused a buzz of activity. Of course, the 
presence of Senator Matheson in Skinner's office, and the rumors about 
the impending press conference, had caused enough discussion that her 
mother heard their names and opened the door to the conference room 

where she'd been waiting. She had immediately recognized Hannah for who 
she truly was, and her surprised expression of recognition had given 
credence to the stories that began circulating the building once the 
press conference was underway.

  Once past her initial shock, however, Margaret Scully had accepted 
her new granddaughter right away. As Scully watched the two of them 
interacting now, she found it hard to remember the frank and angry 
conversations that she and her mother had had about her intransigence 
over clarifying her relationship with Hannah's father through the 
years. Her repeated mantra of "It's complicated, Mom," had been met 
with exasperation that had begun to fade as this day had gotten closer. 
She knew that her mother would never understand her true relationship 
with Mulder, and that she could never explain how exactly Hannah had 
come to be, but was pleased that her mother had finally begun to accept 
the answers that she'd been given. Just yesterday, Scully had overheard 

her mother sharply telling her brother Bill that it was entirely 
appropriate that there were things that Dana only shared with Mulder, 
just as there were things that he only shared with his own wife, and 
that he should mind his own business.

  She smiled at the memory, and checked her lipstick one last time in 
the mirror. 

  "You look beautiful," Hannah said to her worshipfully, and Scully 
smiled at her daughter. Hannah was dressed in a white dress that had a 
pale blue overlay, complementing the blue-toned white of Scully's own 
dress. In the month since they'd been back, Hannah's curls had been 
tamed with a more flattering haircut, and were now crowned with a 
circlet fashioned from the same flowers that Scully would carry. 

  "So do you, pumpkin," Scully answered. "How's Daddy look?"

  "He's beautiful, too," Hannah said seriously.   

  "Oh, Hannah!" Margaret Scully exclaimed, pausing from where she'd 
been fussing with the back of Scully's hair to hide a smile, as her 
daughter laughed aloud. "Men aren't really beautiful," she explained, 
"but your dad does look very handsome." 

  Hannah looked dubious at this pronouncement. "I don't know about 
handsome," she said skeptically, "my Daddy is beautiful."

  "I agree," Scully answered, putting an end to her mother's protests. 
"Are we ready to go?" she asked her mother, looking at her in the 
mirror. At her mother's teary nod, Scully adjusted one of her mother's 
pearl and diamond earrings so that it sat correctly on her ear. Then 
she straightened the bow on the basket of flower petals before she 
handed it to Hannah.

  "Now, that's a pretty picture," Frohike said from the doorway. 


  Scully smiled. She'd seen Frohike push the door open, but her mother 
started, not having had heard him. 

  "Hannah, just move a little bit closer to your mom," Frohike said, 
"And Mrs. Scully, please take one step forward." They did as he 
suggested, and then smiled at his urging. Scully's smile was a little 
larger than the others, due to her own happiness as much as to her 
amusement over the situation. Frohike certainly was taking his role as 
wedding photographer quite seriously. 

  "Agent Scully," Byers said from the doorway, "we were just coming to 
tell you that we're all ready for you downstairs."

  "Thank you," she said to Byers. Both he and Frohike were dressed in 
suits that complemented Mulder's own -- even Langly had consented to 
wear a suit for this one occasion. "We'll be right down." 

  "Thanks again for letting us commandeer Mother's Day, Mom," Scully 
said as she stood up, carefully smoothing her dress. She bent to 
straighten out Hannah's bow, which had gotten crushed when she'd 
pressed up against her mother to watch her wedding preparations.

  "Don't thank me, Dana," her mother answered, "this day is as 
important to you now as it is to me." She fussed a bit more with 
Scully's hair, and Scully could see her biting her tongue. Scully knew 
that her mother would have preferred it if she'd consented to wear a 
veil, but she wasn't interested in wearing that, or a tiara, or even a 
crown of flowers like Hannah's. Aside from the fact that such an item 
wouldn't complement the sophisticated sleeveless sheath that she was 
wearing, it simply wasn't her. She was going to walk down the aisle to 
Mulder exactly as she was, albeit wearing a beautiful dress and 
carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers, with Hannah and her mother as 
her attendants. Her brother Charles, home from wherever it was his 
latest secret assignment had taken him, was her official witness. He 
took great pride in referring to himself as the Maid of Honor, although 
he'd laughed aloud at Langly's calling him the 'Dude of Honor'. 

  Charles had offered to walk down the aisle with her mother and Hannah 
as an attendant to the bride should, but there was only so far she was 
willing to stretch convention. Instead, Charles would simply join her 
and Mulder at the altar from his seat, along with Lindsay Matheson, who 
was serving as Mulder's Best Man. She knew that it was just this kind 
of break from tradition that had her older brother Bill seething, but 
mostly he was angry that she'd not even entertained the notion of him 
walking her down the aisle to 'give her away' for more than ten seconds 
before she'd firmly rebuffed him. In truth, that was more consideration 
than the idea deserved: she and Mulder were committing themselves to 
each other, and no one else was involved in that process. She would 
give herself, binding her life to her partner, as he was giving himself 

to her.

  She came out of the bedroom at the top of the stairs of their new 
house in Alexandria, ignoring the Agent with the earpiece who reported 
her movement to their colleagues downstairs and outside. She was 
slightly exasperated with the amount of security that they had been 
talked into accepting for what she wanted to be a private event, but 
there was not much she could do beyond laying down certain ground rules 
and trying to be gracious in her acceptance. Skinner had been adamant 
about the security plan, and although she knew that he was acting out 
of real concern for her and for Hannah, she also suspected that he was 
reacting to all that had happened to him in the past few months. Even 
with the dampening device that the clones and the Gunmen had made for 
him clipped to his belt, she knew that Skinner would never be easy 
until he was rid of the nanites. For that, she could not blame him -- 
the feeling of relief she had at the absence of her implant had not 
waned in the weeks since it had been removed. 

  Besides, Skinner wasn't the only one who wanted the tight security on 
their family. The press conference with Senator Matheson and Director 
Freeh about her own kidnapping and Hannah's birth and long confinement 
away from them had provoked a staunch groundswell of support within the 
ranks of their coworkers. It was true that law enforcement officials 
tended to react negatively whenever one of their own was hurt or 
killed, but this went beyond that. The idea that she had been 
kidnapped, violated, and had her children kidnapped had been met with 
anger. Nor had the intimation that Emily's illness and subsequent death 
was somehow related to her kidnapping gone unnoticed. There had been a 
list of volunteers for their security detail, from a number of branches 
of federal law enforcement, before the press conference had finished 
airing. 

  Likewise, where there had been plenty of Agents who had disparaged 
Mulder in the past, there was a new and unexpected sympathy, and not 
just for him as a bereaved father to the twin that had been found, only 
to be lost. The idea of Samantha Mulder, the sister who had been 
kidnapped and never returned, suddenly became real to many of their 
colleagues. That Mulder had had a sister who was kidnapped was unusual 
enough, but to have his partner kidnapped, and their children stolen 
from them and hidden by unknown conspirators? It was unthinkable. While 
both Mulder and Scully were officially on parental leave, they had been 
in the building on enough occasions in the past month that Hannah's 
charm had worked its usual magic, while the idea of her dead twin 
slowly but surely began to inflame their colleagues. Perhaps, the 
thinking went, there always had been something to the wild theories 
that Mulder had spouted.

  It had been extremely strange to hear her history being re-written, 
but she was powerless to stop it. Where once their colleagues had been 
determined to disparage, now it seemed they were equally determined to 
praise. After all, Mulder had been one of the best profilers in the 
history of the Bureau, and Scully was no investigative slouch. The 
painstaking pathological work that she had done for many of her 
colleagues was suddenly remembered, and Scully found herself in the odd 

position of being thanked for having done her job, on cases that had 
sometimes been closed years before. On one of her solo trips to the 
Hoover, Scully had overheard Mulder's loudest detractor in the bullpen 
opining that the real reason Mulder hadn't pulled his weight on 
background checks was because he'd been desperately, actively searching 
for Hannah to keep her from her sister's fate. Furthermore, he believed 
that Mulder and Scully's reassignment had been designed to keep them 
from discovering the truth about Hannah, and that Diana Fowley had more 
than likely been in on it from the beginning. The whispering that had 
begun with Skinner's collapse in the lobby got ever louder, and 
speculation on what part Assistant Director Kersh had played in their 
colleagues' suffering became a frequent topic of discussion. Agent 
Spender, the rumors said, must have discovered something that had led 
to his ominous disappearance.

  Mulder had had his own firsthand experience with the bullpen's 
newfound solidarity with them when he'd stopped in to file paperwork 
declaring their new insurance status as a family. He'd forgotten one 
form, and commandeered an empty desk to fill it out while Hannah had 
chatted with a few of the nearby Agents. With Mulder seemingly 
distracted, their colleagues had formed a loose protective phalanx 
around their child. When Mulder had heard a meaningful quiet come over 
the bullpen, he'd told Scully in a still amazed tone, he'd been 
astonished to note that there were agents covering all of the access 
points to the area, most of them with their hands on the butt of their 
guns. The hush heralded the arrival of Assistant Director Kersh, who 
came sweeping into the bullpen seemingly ignorant of the high level of 
animosity directed toward him by the rank and file. He came over to 
Mulder and Hannah with more than his usual false bonhomie, speaking 
loudly and extending a hand to Hannah, who immediately drew away from 
him and moved back toward her father. One of the larger bullpen Agents 
stepped between Hannah and the AD saying, "Miss Mulder's been told not 
to allow strangers to approach her," in a firm tone. 

  Kersh's blustering remark that Hannah was certainly more safe here at 
the Hoover Building than she was in her own home was met with an 
ominous and chilly silence. It also did nothing to move the Agent 
blocking the way. Only when Hannah was situated in his arms, and after 
Mulder had asked, did Agent Bailey begrudgingly stand aside. Mulder was 
further surprised to find that he was flanked by several Agents, all of 
them radiating incredible levels of hostility toward Kersh. Hannah, 
probably reacting to the not-so-subtle posturing of the 'nice men at 
Mommy and Daddy's office', had said 'hello' to Kersh, and then hidden 
her face in Mulder's neck for the rest of the conversation. Hannah's 
reticence toward Kersh only served to fuel the rumors about his 
potential involvement. 

  Shortly after that incident, Skinner had informed them that he'd been 
approached by a Senior Agent who wanted to know why there was no Task 
Force investigating the crimes against Mulder and Scully. The SA had 
insinuated that he'd heard that the lack of a Task Force could be laid 
at Kersh's feet, and he questioned whether Kersh should have a role in 
the investigation, considering his well-known antipathy to both the 
Agents involved. He also told Skinner that there was a rumor going 
around that Kersh was trying to cut the security force watching Mulder, 
Scully and Hannah, and warned him that if it proved true, that he was 
not alone in being prepared to expose it, and Kersh, to the tender 
mercies of the press. Skinner's mordant wit and professional mien 
defied the description of gleeful, but that had been the impression 
Scully had been left with as he detailed the sharp turn Kersh's fortune 
had taken. For his part, Kersh was doing all he could to counter his 
negative image with the brass, but it had been irrevocably tainted --
first, by his inability to find Agent Spender or to account for the 
whereabouts of Agent Fowley, and now by the rumors questioning his 

possible involvement in the crimes perpetuated against them. Skinner 
knew very well that a man suspected of culpability in a case with such 
a magnitude of harm would never rise to a leadership position beyond 
the one he now occupied. For all intents and purposes, Assistant 
Director Alvin D. Kersh's career at the FBI was over. Scully had to 
agree with their AD about one point -- even if it hadn't been their 
original intention, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. 

  Their notoriety didn't just extend to the FBI. The sensational nature 
of the crimes against them had guaranteed that there was extensive 
media coverage of the press conference and many subsequent interview 
requests. Assistant Director Jana Cassidy had tried to get them to 
accede to a number of these, arguing that both she and Mulder, whom she 
characterized as photogenic, would be good for the FBI's recruitment 
efforts. Considering everything that they'd been through, and the 
reasons that they'd become notorious, Scully wasn't sure AD Cassidy's 
reasoning was sound, but kept her opinion to herself, promising only to 
discuss it with Mulder. In the end, she and Mulder had kept their 
exposure minimal, consenting only to an appearance on America's Most 
Wanted with John Walsh, a man who understood the loss of a child 
and was more than happy to broadcast the faces and names of those they 
sought to bring to justice. 

  They'd moved into their new house the day after the broadcast had 
aired and the Chief of Police for Alexandria had been one of their 
first visitors. He came to welcome them to the neighborhood and to 
assure them that the Alexandria PD would be paying particular attention 
to the Scully-Mulder household. As a housewarming gift, he'd brought a 
map enumerating all the law enforcement officials in their immediate 
vicinity, including contact numbers. They'd accepted his information 
graciously, although they were already aware of most of it -- the 
numbers of law enforcement officers in the general vicinity had been 
one of the deciding factors in their buying a home in this particular 
neighborhood. 

  The large scale publicity had also allowed them to get a waiver from 
the Archdiocese to hold their wedding at home, in a location more 
private than a church. Father McCue was waiting for them under the 
flower-bedecked tent that stretched from the back deck to the back 
fence in an attempt to keep the photographers at bay. One of the more 
unsettling outcomes of John Walsh's publicizing Hannah's kidnapping and 
recovery on America's Most Wanted had been the fact that Mulder 
and Scully had become prime fodder for America's insatiable appetite 
for celebrated crime stories. In fact, their security team was mostly 
occupied with keeping tabloid reporters away from them. There were only 
so many concessions they were willing to make to keep Hannah safe, 
however, and loss of privacy on their wedding day wasn't one of them. 

  She stood near the back door of their kitchen, looking out across 
their deck to where Mulder stood, at the end of the aisle directly 
opposite her, talking to one of the Agents on security detail. From the 
look of him, not to mention the hand gesturing, he was talking about 
sports. Her eyes skimmed over his lean form and surveyed the backyard 
with an assessing eye. The flowers really had come out well, if she did 
think so herself, and Mulder's idea for laying out the backyard to 
accommodate the wedding had turned out to be quite striking. When she'd 
rejected the idea of walking down the aisle to meet him while he'd 
waited for her, Mulder had drawn up his notion of a wedding floor plan, 
announcing "X marks the spot!" 

  Father McCue stood in the center of the X awaiting them. Mulder and 
she would meet in the middle, and be joined by Lindsay and Charles 
coming in from either side of the X. They would marry, after receiving 
a brief blessing. Although Mulder had been very congenial about the 
whole Catholic aspect of the ceremony, he would not agree to the 
inclusion of a Mass, much to her mother's chagrin. Secretly, she was 
glad of his recalcitrance, because it had allowed her more latitude in 
the planning. She had wanted this day to be intimate and about them, 
and despite the number of Agents that were inside and outside the house 
to provide security, it was. It was a gloriously beautiful afternoon, 
with blue skies, white clouds and abundant sunshine. They had been 
provident in choosing this weekend, as it had turned out to be one of 
the rare spring weekends where the weather was warm and pleasant, with 
no hint of the oppressive DC summer to come. 

  The number of guests was small, and slanted toward the Scully side of 
their soon-to-be merged family, not that Mulder seemed to mind. He had 
finally consented to invite his mother, but only after much debate. 
Mulder loved his mother, despite her many faults, and the fact that he 
was tremendously angry with her. Still the image of Mrs. Mulder 
sitting, dignified and subdued, next to Senator Matheson and his wife, 
was a sad one. Lindsay and her daughter were seated in the row behind 
them, and Scully was pleased to note that Lindsay and her daughter 
seemed to be engaged in a friendly conversation with John Byers, as 
Langly fidgeted next to them, uncomfortable in his suit. If anyone 
could understand heartbreak and loss, it was Lindsay Matheson, whom 
she'd liked the instant she met her. Perhaps she and John might hit it 
off -- but that was for another day. Her thoughts drifted as she caught 
sight of Frohike prowling the tent, taking candids of the guests. She 
would have liked to have the Kurt with whom she'd spent the most time 
in Minnesota present for the wedding, but he'd demurred the invitation, 
and she'd understood. Skinner was conducting one last sweep of the 
Agents in the backyard before he went to take his seat. 

  On her side of the tent, her brother Bill looked as miserable as her 
old friend Ellen looked happy. Charles caught her eye from across the 
distance and smiled. They spoke so rarely, and saw each other even less 
often, but the bond of understanding that existed between them was as 
strong as ever. Charlie knew what she had here, and she was more 
grateful for his quiet support than she could express. She smiled at 
him instead, radiating all of the happiness that she felt at seeing the 
jumble of family, friends and colleagues who'd been a part of their 
lives all together to celebrate this day with Mulder and her. 

  Across the backyard, Mulder turned away from the conversation he'd 
been having and toward her. His heartfelt smile at seeing her clearly 
expressed his appreciation, but just in case she was in doubt of his 
sentiments, he pressed his hand over his heart and made a subtle motion 
like he might swoon at the sight of her. She shook her head at him, but 
unlike the old days, made no move to check her smile. The diamonds in 
the wedding ring that Mulder would soon give her sparkled in the 
filtered light as he gestured. He'd taken her ring off to have it 
cleaned, but other than that, had worn it on his little finger while it 
awaited the transfer to her hand. She pressed her finger against her 
left thumb, running it over the ring that she'd bought for him. The 
band was both white and yellow gold, forged together in an unbreaking 
circle. It reminded her of the two of them, with their differing 
temperaments. She'd seen it and immediately known that it was the one 

for Mulder, and he'd agreed. 

  Behind her, the Agent murmured that 'all systems were go' and she 
rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face. The strains of "The 
Wedding March" began and her mother turned to look at her one last time 
before she stepped across the deck and began her trip down the aisle. 

  "Be happy, Dana," her mother said to her, kissing her cheek. 

  Her smile grew even wider. "I am, Mom," she assured her. "I am."

  Hannah was nervous after her grandmother left her to walk down the 
aisle, but Scully was calm, bending down to kiss her after they walked 
down the deck stairs together. "Are you all ready?" she asked Hannah. 
"All you have to do is walk down the aisle to Grandma, but if you want 
to throw some flower petals on your way, that would be very nice."

  "OK," Hannah said solemnly, her eyes wide. "I can do it."

  "I know you can, pumpkin," Scully said. "3, 2, 1 ... off you go."

  She stood at the end of her aisle and watched their daughter walking, 
intently focused on strewing her petals. When she got to the center of 
the X, she bypassed her grandmother in favor of walking toward her 
father, strewing petals in his path before she hurried back to her 
grandmother, swinging her empty basket. 

  She could hear Mulder's soft laugh from clear across the tent, above 
the murmur of the crowd chuckling at Hannah. She looked away from their 
daughter to find him regarding her with a wry but apologetic smile on 
his face.

 She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Why not?" and Mulder laughed 
again.

  They stood there smiling at each other one minute longer, Mulder as 
beautiful as Hannah'd said he was in his dark green suit. As their 
gazes caught and held, she knew that he was thinking about the miracle 
of this moment, as was she. She took a deep breath in and savored it, 
and saw him doing the same. The small crowd stilled, while the music 
wound around them. 


  Suddenly, Hannah's voice rose above it in a loud whisper. "Aren't we 
starting now?" 


  Scully could hear her mother shushing Hannah as she fought the bubble 
of happiness that threatened to send her into gales of laughter. She 
could see Mulder's eyes twinkling with restrained mirth at her from 
across the tent. 

  He nodded at her, and as one, they both took one step toward each 
other and then another, knowing that they would meet in the middle, 
forever. 

~*~

The End

End Notes:

Well. Nearly nine years after I had the original idea, and almost 
65,000 words later, A Winter's Tale is finished. I'm elated, and 
exhausted. This has been a labor of love, but there were times when it 
was really hard to get through as much as a paragraph of new text. In a 
story of this length and scope, that's a lot of days sitting staring at 
the ticking cursor as it taunted me. 

Thanks to JigZone, Super Mah Jong and Santa Balls 2 for helping me 
"think" my way through the rough passages. Also, thanks to Portishead, 
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Placebo, Beth Orton, Joe Jackson, 
Mighty Mouse and the Vince Guaraldi Trio for providing the soundtrack 
for my writing.  


Thanks as always to my sister Suzanne, who is patient when I am not, 
and who challenges me to be a better writer. 

As always, you can direct your comments to Anjou@rocketmail.com, but I 
will state for the record that I have no plans for a sequel, at least 
at this moment. 

Give me another nine years, though -- who knows what will happen!

You can find the rest of my stories at No Others ... Love Stories for 
Mulder & Scully at http://the-cave-online.com/anjou/index.html, a site 
maintained by the generous dtg. Newer stories, outtakes and fragments 
are also available at my fiction journal 
http://anjoufic.livejournal.com/.

Thanks for reading.