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Subject: A Few Days in December (1/1)
From: emass@primenet.com
Date: 30 Dec 1997 00:32:01 -0700

"A Few Days in December"
By Esther M. Massimini
emass@primenet.com

Archivists Please Note: Do NOT forward to a.t.x.c. I've
     already done this. Otherwise, archive anywhere.

Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Emily Sim, Roberta 
     Sim, Margaret Scully, Melvin Frohike, Bill Scully, Tara
     Scully, Matthew Scully, Detective Kresge and any other
     tangentially mentioned characters created by Chris Carter 
     remain his copyrighted property and the property of 1013 
     Productions and of Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century
     Fox, Inc. All Rights Reserved, and no  infringement is 
     intended.

Summary: What happened between the time Scully decided to
     let Emily go, and Emily's funeral. Told from Scully's
     perspective, with an epilogue by Mulder.

Caution: Involves death with dignity.

Original Posting: December 30, 1997
Classification: MSR
Feedback: emass@primenet.com
Rating: PG for mature subject matter.
Timeline: This takes place over a few days in December, 1997.
Spoilers: Through US5, especially "Christmas Carol" and "Emily."


For a few days in December, I unexpectedly became a mother. I, 
Dana Katherine Scully, a single woman, who had never had a 
long-term relationship, was someone's mother.

I can't recall getting pregnant. I don't remember giving birth. 
During my cancer treatment, I was told, after months of tests, that 
I was infertile as a result of my abduction. I had no reason to 
disbelieve this - the evidence of what my sister abductees in 
Allentown had experienced was certain testimony to my fate.

Christmas Day 1997 was the single best day of my life. It was 
the day I found out Emily was mine, flesh of my flesh, my 
daughter. For a few days in December, I discovered something 
about myself: that had I ever been able to experience pregnancy, 
I'd have been a woman literally in love with her positive urine 
test.

I'm positive: positive that something so wonderful will never 
happen to me. I will never experience a wonderful, full-of-wonder 
pregnancy as Tara did. I became a mother without benefit of the 
love of a man, a man who would have definitely been chosen in 
part for his potential as not only a mate, but also a father. A man 
who not only passed genetic muster, but the muster of his 
potential for loving.

I became a mother without benefit of the support of my family 
and coworkers. When she found out about Emily, first potentially 
as Melissa's child, but then positively as mine, my mother did not 
burst into tears, saying, "I had almost given up hope!" We were 
robbed of that moment: when a mother finds out that her own 
daughter is embarking on that same journey of mothering. My 
boss: stern Marine if ever there were one, would have been 
entirely sweet and thrilled, at least to my face. Mulder, my 
partner and friend, and so much more, would have shared each 
month, bringing me UFO-themed toys and books of baby names. 
And my friends would have gathered 'round and formed a circle 
of friendship and love. Ellen would have been especially thrilled.
She'd probably have showered me with advice, and baby showers.
I would have had baby showers. One with my friends, one in San
Diego, and who knows what Mulder and the Lone Gunmen would 
have done...

So, Christmas Day 1997 was a wondrous day for me. I rejoiced in 
a dream long since given up, a nightmare of infertility and 
abduction finally over. It was happiness on top of happiness on top 
of happiness, not in the least bit marred by the circumstances of her 
discovery. December 26, I went by myself to the mall and to kids' 
stores, braving the crowds, fantasizing about getting a larger 
apartment, setting up a gorgeous little girl's room.

My baby was born without me. Adopted by Roberta Sim. Loved
by Roberta Sim. Born to which woman, though? Emily should have 
been born like the baby of my fantasies... surrounded in a circle by 
a loving father and friends... gathered around me in the circle and 
helping me through labor... hard and grunting and 
pleading-for-an-epidural labor. Instead, Emily's birth was more 
horrific than any scene on ER, worse than Mulder's worst 
nightmares. There was no shouting; just years-long silence as 
the Project pulled Emily out into a world she never should have 
been part of.

But the mysteries of this world have a way of arranging 
themselves logically. I eventually did get Emily... for a few days 
in December. 

I remember when they told me she was getting worse. The 
room was silent. Her heartbeat had stopped momentarily. Then 
a doctor said, very quietly, "We have a heartbeat." Mulder, by 
Emily's side, never said a word, a bad sign, and the room 
became silent again. I began panicking in my mind, thinking, 
"Why doesn't she cry? Why isn't Emily crying? She should be 
crying, she's in pain..." even knowing how stoic my little girl 
had been throughout the tests she'd been subjected to. Then 
the doctor in me took over, shushing my mind: "They're 
working on her, she's coming around."

The room was silent once more. Mulder's hand lay flat against 
my back. I waited, then turned and stoically walked to the 
ladies' room, and waited for a very long time, and finally there 
was a cry... the most piteous cry of agony; a cry of despair as I 
moaned her name, "Emily!"

Later, I went back. She was in a coma. I lay down beside her, 
not daring to hold her, stunned and disbelieving that all of this, 
any of this, was happening. I sent Mulder out of the room, secure 
in the knowledge that he'd be waiting outside, that he'd be there for 
me should I need him. I touched her, my Emily. Her skin was soft. 
My Emily with the soft skin and silken hair, would I have named 
her Emily? My Emily, who didn't know that she was doomed from 
the start.

In the middle of the night, a nurse came into the room and woke 
me up. The doctors wanted to take another MRI... No, no, I 
wanted to shout, I'm her mother... even as they wheeled her 
away... aware that to them, I had absolutely no right to her.

***

Mulder stayed outside, keeping vigil with me, separate yet 
together. He let me experience the nightmare as I requested, 
let the nightmare unfold for the next few hours. Emotionally, 
he never left my side. Later, I discovered that when I'd fallen 
asleep, he came in to watch over both of us.

Emily continued deteriorating. Oh God, she never called me 
Mommy. Mommy was Roberta, I was just a pretty lady with 
red hair, desperate to take her away from the only life she'd 
ever known. Desperate to take her 3000 miles away.

During this time, Emily still had many tests, in spite of my 
protests and in spite of Mulder getting quite... physical a few 
times. But each time they brought her back to me and I held 
this agonized little girl, my child in all ways. I can hardly 
remember any of it except for the agony. I remember Emily's 
agony, I remember my agony, and I remember Mulder's 
agony. I remember her smell. I rubbed her tummy, held her 
hands. Even in her pain, she seemed to relax as I touched her.

Emily began having seizures in the afternoon, and no matter 
how much medicine they gave her, she kept on having them. 
These were not awful looking, TV movie-of-the-week 
seizures, but subtle twitches of her face and eyes. Up to this 
time I still thought it was possible that maybe she'd get better, 
maybe the growths would reverse themselves, that maybe 
everything was going to be okay. "Mommy, I'm fine" kept 
reverberating through my mind. But I knew, I knew it was 
time to let her go.

Later that night, I told Mulder Emily'd had enough. I'd come 
up with a plan, but I needed his help. I explained that I wanted 
to give Emily a big dose of Phenobarbital, a dose so big that it 
would stop her seizures and end her pain, but also make her 
stop breathing. Mulder was confused, why did I need his help? 
I told him that once she stopped breathing, the hospital would 
surely put her on a respirator, and she would likely lie 
vegetative for an indeterminate period. I needed him, we, Emily 
and I, needed Mulder to make sure the respirator would NOT 
happen.

He agreed to help us. Mulder looked awkward and scared. He 
said, "Scully, I want you to think this over, to be careful we're 
doing the right thing. We want to be sure..." 

He said it in the same tone of voice he'd used earlier, when he'd 
asked if I would save her if there were a way. So much despair, so 
much gentleness in his voice.

"I'm sure," I answered, and in his eyes, I saw that the trust we 
shared carried over in understanding and acceptance.

"Call Mom, and a priest," I requested. "I want Emily baptized."

Mulder looked at me and said, "But why? Why now?" And then 
I suddenly realized what he was thinking and Mulder said, "You 
think Emily is dying."

I nodded and he got tears in his eyes. "You don't have to do this..." 
he continued, and I remembered a time when I'd said those very 
same words... when Modell had forced him to attempt suicide.

Yet, I felt exactly as if Modell had placed the gun against my 
head and pulled the trigger. I imagined my brain hurtling 
backwards out the window behind me.

I implored him, quietly, once more, "Call someone, anyone, a 
priest, a minister, a rabbi...I don't care..." 

Mulder left quickly, and in a few minutes, the hospital's on-call 
chaplain came in. She sat down and held my hands and said, "I 
am Reverend Owens, the hospital chaplain." We talked about 
faith, and agreed that we'd call for a Catholic priest to baptize 
my little girl. She also comforted me, reminding me that in case 
of necessity, any person could baptize, provided she poured water 
on Emily's head while saying: "I baptize you in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

Reverend Owens continued, "Dana, I'm going to stay with you 
until the Catholic priest comes. Is there anyone else I should call?"

She looked at Mulder, who stayed silently at my side. He 
shook his head, explaining he had already called Mom. Mom, 
still, to this day, describes what it was like to be told her 
granddaughter was dying; she remembers what it was like to 
drive down the freeway surrounded by ocean and stars and 
sadness.

We - Mulder, Mom, the chaplain, and I - encircled Emily for a 
while, as nurses and doctors worked on her. The precautions 
needed due to her cyst and the nature of her illness made the 
scene more antiseptic and surreal than it should have been.

Emily was now clearly dying. Some time after midnight, the 
priest arrived. Mulder went to bring him to Emily's room. I 
looked out into the hallway, and saw them walking down the 
hall. Mulder was so quiet, walking in a kind of procession. I
knew why he was so quiet - he'd had to pass women in labor, 
women nursing, babies crying, sick children moaning. 

We gathered for the ceremony. I asked where Bill was, and 
Mom mumbled something incoherent. I didn't know, but Tara
had finally gone into labor. We enveloped Emily. I knelt by 
her bedside, whispering and crooning, and the priest stood 
above us, and Emily was baptized. I saw a virtual crowd with 
its noses pressed up against the glass, looking in: nurses from 
around the hospital, janitors, housekeepers, and the hospital 
operator, ambulance attendants. It was as if they knew how 
sacred the moment was. I don't know why they all came but 
they came and Emily's beauty and my grief were thus shared.

Mulder, Mom, Emily's doctor, and I all were inside her room, 
dazed and pale. I could not meet Mulder's eyes. Instead, I 
stared out the window into a night of stars and sadness. I 
looked at the night for the longest time, trying to make sense 
of a universe where solar systems explode and children die. 
A world where an eight year old girl is taken from her family, 
destroying her brother's soul. A world where children are 
conceived without their mothers' consent or knowledge.

The priest handed me a white cloth, the white garment of 
baptism. He lit the candle, and turned to me and asked, 
"What do you ask of God's Church?" 

I could not answer. I wanted to scream, "Justice!"

Mom responded for me, in a choked whisper, "Faith."

I don't remember much of anything else, except for Mom's 
hand over mine, tracing the Sign of the Cross on Emily's head.

It was right around two in the morning.

I had perhaps a small vestige of hope, tiny, tiny, once Emily 
was baptized. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Around 6:00 a.m. 
I was reeling, tipping over as if drunk, from fatigue, so I lay 
down on the floor next to her bed. I'd rested for a half-hour or 
so when Mulder knocked on the door. I was so stiff and sore, it 
took me over a minute to sit up; he waited and then crouched 
down beside me and took both my hands. Again, I felt entirely 
alone. 

Mulder said, "Scully, I've made arrangements..." and I knew 
then that I could give Emily the shot, that she wouldn't be on a 
respirator. Mulder would take care of things.

Yet again, there was the sense of a gun blast. 

I stayed with Emily all day. 

Mulder had somehow arranged to get a rocking chair put into 
Emily's room. I sat there, thinking of how she had touched me, 
this precious being, this sweet young messenger of light, this 
angel. A beautiful, pure little girl who left every one of us 
mute, unable to speak, awestruck with the love and sadness of it 
all. A life never meant to be.

So I held her and rocked her. There were moments in that room 
that were magical. I kissed her and covered her with my love.

I suddenly decided there was no hurry. Frohike discovered that 
the Sims had no extended family, and had left no provisions for 
Emily's guardianship. So I decided, since she was really mine, 
that I would write her funeral program and select the music. I 
called Bill and asked him to record a tape, and was answered 
with his heartbroken voice that dared not feel happiness at the 
wailing of his newborn baby. I asked Mom and Mulder to pick 
out a casket, an unbearable horror about which Mulder and 
Mom are unable to speak to this day. I love them both just for 
doing this. Mom helped find some Bible passages, and Mulder 
fielded the phones, dealt with the details, dealt with the 
Bureau. Mulder was my mainstay, he let me talk; he let me 
write, he helped me do absolutely anything I needed to.

A new day dawned. With Detective Kresge's help, Mulder 
and I picked a time when we would declare Emily officially 
dead. I was determined to make it happen the way I wanted it 
to happen. Everything else about Emily had been stolen from 
me, and given to others. I hope it happened the way Emily 
would have wanted it, and more importantly, the way Roberta 
Sim might have wanted it to happen. I know in my heart that 
Roberta Sim is my kindred spirit, that she would have wanted 
this for Emily. Roberta died for this, after all...

The time came. I asked Mulder to leave. Lovingly, I removed 
all of Emily's tubes. I sat in our rocking chair, holding her in 
our little private world. I played music. At noon, I injected 
Emily with the Phenobarbital. I tried to pack a babyhood of 
missed lullabies into those few moments.

Her heart beat and beat and beat.

I kept feeling for a pulse, listening to her chest, and still her 
heart kept beating, it beat and beat and beat. I reached for a 
stethoscope and listened that way; still her heart kept beating. 
The music played and I rocked Emily. Every few minutes I 
listened to her heart. It kept beating and beating and beating.

After about half an hour, I held her up to the sky and said she 
could go, that I understood, that it was okay. Her heart kept 
beating. I rocked her and the music played and I talked about 
how much I loved her and how I would take good care of her 
memory forever and how I loved her and loved her and loved 
her. I rocked her and rocked her and rocked her and when I 
listened again; her heart was a little slower but still completely 
regular and real. We rocked some more. The music on the 
cassette tape was done; the room was silent. I held her up 
again to the ceiling. I offered her to the sky, to the stars. 
Mulder thinks that's where she came from, so that is where I 
want her soul to ascend. I held her hard to my chest and then 
I held her on my lap and I listened with the stethoscope and 
her heart went beat/beat/beat/beat/beat/stop.

And that was the end of Emily's life. I sat with her for five 
or so minutes and then I carried her to the bed. I got out her
funeral clothes, covered her up, and left the room. I only had 
her for a few days in December.

I walked out into the hall. Mulder was there, looking at a 
picture... of him and Sam as children. I saw him place it in 
his pocket, as he awkwardly stood. As soon as I got to him, I 
closed my eyes, enveloped myself in his arms.

We held Emily's funeral the day after her death. There were 
just a few people there: my family, Detective Kresge, and 
Mulder. The service was so excruciatingly painful I thought 
I would vanish, ascending with Emily to the stars. Mulder 
walked out; he could not bear my grief. Bill later told me he 
spent most of the funeral throwing up in the men's room.

After my family left, I silently waited... for my destiny. 
Mulder returned, still clutching the flowers he had held 
when we first arrived at the funeral. We stood alone, a 
macabre perversion of a wedding scene, the couple in 
front of the altar. I looked up at Christ crucified, feeling 
not like a mother with a child, but as the very embodiment 
of loneliness. Barren and bereft, I turned to open her coffin 
and reassure myself she really had existed. I wanted to check 
and reassure myself that I was not alone as ever, that she was 
concrete evidence of my continuance in the universe.

She - her body - was gone. Again, I thought I would implode. 
Mulder turned to me, with a look of grief beyond all grief on
his face. If I did not love him before, I loved him then.

But I refused to bow to them - the men who would bring a life 
into this world whose only destiny was to die. I would not 
bow to their pressure. I refused to treat Emily as if she had not 
existed. Bill had picked out a cemetery plot for Emily. It was in 
a children's cemetery. Mulder held me and talked about the 
spirits of the children singing and dancing at night. He 
reminded me that her spirit was what was important, not her 
body.

Mulder and I walked out into the California sunshine. At the 
gravesite, Mulder carried Emily's tiny casket. There were no 
more words said there. Just like her conception, I have no real 
memory of Emily's burial. I remember Mulder brokenly 
agreeing to watch the casket lowered. I remember Mulder's 
flowers. I remember turning away, clutching my cross. I 
remember Mulder walking side-by-side with me as we left 
the grave.

I have vivid memories of how I met Emily, but almost none 
about those few days in December, until after I returned to 
Washington. I did not go back to the Bureau for a few 
weeks. How Mulder managed to convince them to grant me 
paid leave, I will never know. I visited the cemetery every 
morning, and sometimes I sat by Emily's grave for long 
periods. I visited Roberta Sim's grave in a different 
cemetery, feeling guilty that Emily and her mother were 
not together. I wrote a letter to Roberta, and I know she 
understands.

At Bill's house, I remember the silence; no one seemed to 
know what to say. The silence, even though there was a 
new baby, Matthew, in Bill and Tara's home. It was as if 
they were all saying, "We don't know what to say." And 
me replying, "I'm fine, really, I'm fine."

I remember I couldn't be alone anywhere, except at the 
cemetery. I remember sitting at all kinds of places: family 
dinners, and restaurants, and movie theaters and Matthew's 
christening, with all kinds of life bubbling around me 
everywhere, while I sat still, stunned.

And then I went back to work, an utterly excruciating 
experience. In spite of what I know was Mulder's complete 
discretion, somehow it seemed that everyone at the Bureau 
either knew, or much worse, didn't know, about Emily. 
Working, particularly working in the same place where my 
experiences had led to Emily's conception, was unspeakably 
terrible. So, sometimes I would just walk out. Mulder 
understood; he'd lived a life of a different sort of grief for 
years. I would walk downtown, or to the Mall, and there 
things would be worse still: strollers, families, babies, 
toddlers, three year olds...pregnant women, they were like 
incoming missiles: pain and shrapnel around every corner. It 
was like that for months. And months.

I flew back to San Diego whenever I could. I stayed with 
Bill and Tara and Matthew. I tried to get a job there, but 
mostly just went back to see Emily. I decorated her grave 
with toys, marking the milestones she was missing.

Mostly I just cried. Oh not, in public, but inside me, 
internally bleeding tears. My soul cried everywhere, in every 
conceivable position and place. My soul cried in staff 
meetings. My soul cried at my computer. My soul cried with 
Mulder. My soul cried with Mom. My soul cried in my car, on 
the phone, on every holiday and on every monthly anniversary 
of Emily's death. My soul cried when it snowed and my soul 
cried when it was sunny and beautiful because that was 
California weather.

Once, and only once, did I actually show tears in public. Well, 
not in public exactly... with Mulder. He reached across and 
wiped the tears off my cheeks, which made me cry more.

Life became about nothing but survival. I couldn't go out, 
except to work, and I couldn't socialize. All I did was work 
and try to figure out how to live through another month, 
another day, and another quarter of an hour. I saw Karen 
Kossoff a lot, and I worked.

It helped to sit and think of the Allentown women. It helped 
to work on the X-Files, to think about Mulder and my quest 
for the truth, and about Samantha. In a way I am the lucky 
one.  Unlike Betsy Hagopian, unlike Penny Northern, I did
get to be a mother, if only for a few days in December.

Now, I think a lot about Emily's adoptive mother, the only 
mother she ever called Mommy. I remember the pain etched 
on Roberta's face when her body was discovered. I think of 
what a gift she'd truly given me: caring for and loving my 
daughter for me, though she did not know it. Safekeeping 
her, and stopping the tests. which lead to my discovery of 
Emily. She gave her life for Emily, for us. And, I remember 
Detective Kresge, and the turnaround in his beliefs. I 
remember how he stood with tears in his eyes while I 
identified Emily at the coroner's office.

I remember all that Mulder did for me. How he... he loved 
me. How he loved me enough to testify in the adoption 
hearing. How he loved me enough to overcome his fear for 
my safety. How he loved me enough to conceal the horror of 
Lombard from me. I remember walking into Emily's room 
and finding his big strong male presence, standing in the 
room alone with Emily... sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and not 
realizing I saw his grief. I remember that all we could do in 
the face of so much anguish was touch each other.

I think a lot about his hands; his shoulders and arms extended 
to me. I think a lot about his kindness. I think a lot about love: 
how it indeed has its own energy, its own sense, its own power, 
and how it can be felt and touched and heard, just like a pulse, 
just like time. Time like a heartbeat. Except it doesn't end; 
instead it streams, ripples, and runs its own current. I think I 
am ready now for that current to envelop us: Mulder and me.

I think a lot about my family. They all reacted in different 
ways, and were deeply moved by Emily. Mom already had 
healthy, living happy grandchildren, but Emily's brief 
encounter with us affected her. Tara was affected as well - 
survivor's guilt, in a way. Tara, Mom later confided, ended up 
seeing a therapist after having a very bad year. My brother Bill 
refuses to go to the gravesite and still storms out of the room 
when I talk about Emily. Bill and Charlie are pretty much 
incapable of visiting the graveyard; it's too painful for them.

I once told Mulder that I thought that what could be imagined 
can be achieved. That you must dare to dream, but that there's 
no substitute for perseverance and hard work...and team work; 
because no one gets there alone. I now know that Mulder and I
have a path to follow, that our journey together, to love, is just 
unfolding. I need not be alone anymore, and I can not get there, 
anywhere, alone.  I need him.

I never was able to find a job in San Diego. I know that Tara 
sometimes tends to Emily's grave; Mulder and I go whenever 
we're near San Diego on a case. God Bless Mulder... it seems 
that there have been quite a few X-Files out there recently...

Bill chose a beautiful site, lots of trees and birds - and the 
nearby ocean breeze. It turns out that Mulder is right: I do feel 
the spirits of the children there, the children who rise above 
their graves to play at night. I like to picture that they have 
encircled Emily and that they teach her to play with the toys I 
leave for her. I like to picture that the cemetery at night
becomes full of their light and their laughter. I like to picture 
that she, too, knows about love. I like to picture that she knows 
she has two mommies, her mom and the pretty lady with the 
red hair who loved her for a few days in December.

Emily's tombstone reads:
"Emily Sim
Beloved daughter,
1994-1997"

Above her name it says, "I feel you close." and below her name 
it reads: "She was a miracle that was never meant to be."

******

Personal Journal of Fox W. Mulder

Well I went. It's been a while since those few days in December. 
I'm surprised by how lovely Emily's grave is (now that's a 
contradictory term -lovely grave). I got lost but I think it was 
mostly because I was overwhelmed when I drove in. I can't 
remember much from the funeral, so it's understandable that 
I'd lose my way.

I felt you so close, Scully, so close, so near to me. Maybe 
that's why I went into the office; they pointed me in the right 
direction. Wouldn't want to disappoint you.

It was sunny and very warm today. All the flowers were 
beautiful; the gulls were hovering in from the bay, and gave 
the place a bit of life among all the quiet. I brought a dozen 
baby yellow roses and a little note from me. I want Emily to
know that her mom and I carry her in our hearts. I wiped 
away the grass and straightened the toy collection. I played 
with some of the toys. I made my Mr. Potato-Head face,
said hello, thought of Samantha, and cried.

A caretaker came up and asked if Emily was my child and 
I said "No, I love her mommy who lives on the East Coast 
and I promised I would visit." I said she died a few days 
after Christmas, that she'd been lost but then found, and I 
cried some more.

I walked around a bit and each grave marker I read produced 
another tear and another thought of Samantha. I am moved 
beyond words having visited Emily even knowing she is not 
there.

Scully, you are so very much in my thoughts. Emily touched
us all, not just for a few days in December, but for always. 
You told me that when you were fighting the cancer, you 
realized the struggle was to give it meaning; to make sense 
of it. I'm searching for the sense of this, of what happened 
to you and Emily, Scully... searching for the meaning of a 
few days in December.