Title:  Beyond Conception 
Author:  Alelou

Feedback:  Alelou123@aol.com

Archive:  Ephemeral, Gossamer & Spooky okay, 
others please just let me know

Category:  Scully Angst, MSR

Rating:  PG-13?  Implied sex, nothing explicit.

Disclaimer:  Mulder, Scully, and the various other 
Scullys belong to CC, 1013 and Fox.  "The Runaway 
Bunny" was written by Margaret Wise Brown and 
published by Harper Collins.  Annette Corbierre is 
mine, but seeing as how I'm borrowing all THIS 
stuff without permission I'd say she's fair game!

Summary:  Sometimes life gives you something you 
just aren't ready for.  

Notes:  Thanks to Ambress and MystPhile for beta, 
and especially to MystPhile for patient beta work 
in the face of tremendous technical angst with AOL.
Because of said issues, I'll post this slowly at 
first to make sure you can actually read it!  Give 
the wonderful Beaker a day or two and then the whole
thing can be found at: 
http://members.xoom.com/Alelou123/




She is sitting on a bed tucked in the corner of a dark, 
cluttered room next to a sweating Emily.  There are 
cleaning supplies jammed in around the edges of the 
mattress, and Scully wonders why anyone would put stuff 
like this in a child's bed.  And yet, she doesn't see 
much point in clearing them off or making a fuss.

Emily turns her head to her, and asks, "Is it going to 
hurt?"

"No, sweetie, it won't hurt," she says, smoothing the 
girl's baby-fine hair back from her hot, wet forehead.

The little girl looks at her, perhaps trying to assess 
her truthfulness.  "Are the other children going to make 
fun of me?"

"No, sweetie, they won't make fun of you.  They don't 
let the other children watch something like that."  

She turns to Mulder, who is hovering behind them, and he 
agrees.  "No, no children."  

Emily looks at them both, plainly still anxious, but 
increasingly sleepy.  "I'm scared," she says.

"It's okay, sweetheart.  Would you like a story?"

The little girl nods.  "The Runaway Bunny."

"The Runaway Bunny?"  Scully's heart sinks; she doesn't 
remember it, and has no idea where to find it.  This 
strange dark room is not hers; she has no idea if there 
are any children's books in it.

Emily nods solemnly.  "My mommy read it to me."  

Mulder, surprisingly, suddenly chimes in:  

    Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run 
    away.  So he said to his mother, "I am running 
    away."  
    
    "If you run away," said his mother, "I will run 
    after you.  For you are my little bunny."

The little bunny turns himself into a fish in a trout 
stream, and the mother bunny turns herself into a 
fisherman to catch him.  He turns himself into a rock on 
a high mountain, and she turns into a mountain climber.  
When the little bunny has turned into a crocus in a hidden 
garden, they realize that Emily has fallen asleep.

"What kind of world is it that sentences a little child 
to death?" Scully asks Mulder, hissing.  She can't 
fathom that this beautiful child had just heard her last 
bedtime story.

"Scully, you know she was never meant to be," Mulder 
says calmly and gently.  "It's for the best."

xxx

Scully woke.  Daylight was streaming into the room, and 
she felt a powerful sense of relief at escaping her 
dream.   It was unusual for her to wake up with a vivid 
memory of her nightmares, but this was a morning dream, 
on a Saturday when she'd had no particular reason to get 
up early.  And dreaming about Emily was not all that odd 
for her, but this one had been unusually disturbing: 
Comforting the child so that she could sleep the night 
before her execution.  And they both did it so matter-
of-factly, as if nothing could be done about it.

She lay in bed, reflecting.  It was perhaps not so 
different than what she *had* done, really.  True, she 
hadn't delivered her over to an executioner, just 
watched her succumb to an impossible blood chemistry.   
And what kind of future had she faced as one of their 
sickly lab rats?  

Still, perhaps she'd had a future of some kind, until 
Scully "rescued" her.   Not for the first time, Scully 
wondered why those phone calls had come to her.  If that 
was really Missy, phoning from beyond the grave, what 
was she hoping to accomplish?  Another Scully soul in 
heaven before her time ... someone to play with?  
Keeping her pure child's soul safe from temptation?  Or 
was heaven also lining up against alien conspiracies?  
(And if so, couldn't heaven do a better job against 
them?)  

It was beyond any sense Scully understood, and usually 
she just let it be.  In recent years she had developed 
an ability to live with ambiguity and paradox that would 
have stunned and dismayed her younger self.  It was 
really a practical matter of survival: it allowed her to 
work on the X Files without forsaking everything she'd 
ever learned, and it enabled her to take much-needed 
solace in her faith in a world where Christianity often 
seemed absurd.  Thus, she actually accepted and believed 
far more than her partner had ever imagined -- as long 
as she didn't have to take it out in the light of day 
and think about it too much.

She reviewed the disturbing dream again.  Mulder had 
said something like that, that Emily wasn't meant to be, 
hadn't he?  Keeping his emotional distance and trying to 
get her to keep hers.  He seemed to get more involved 
later, but by then she had resented it.  But hell, even 
she had maintained a fair amount of distance.  How well 
can you get to know a child in less than 24 hours?  
She'd never read Emily a single story.

What was that story?  And how come Mulder knew it so 
well?  It was hard to imagine Teena Mulder reading any 
stories to her son, though she also liked to think that 
the Mulder household hadn't been so very awful until 
Samantha was taken.  But why did Scully's subconscious 
have him knowing it?  Maybe because he tended to know 
all sorts of arcane things?  And how, if she didn't know 
it, did her dreaming mind know it?  Perhaps she'd read 
it and forgotten it?

Too much to grapple with on a sunny Saturday morning.  
She got up and headed for the bathroom.

xxx

The phone rang on her second cup.  "Scully," she said, 
thinking it would be Mulder.

"Dana?"

"Oh!  Hi, Mom.  How are you?"

"Bill just called.  Tara's in labor."  Maggie's voice 
was a curious combination of controlled excitement and 
tentativeness.

"That's great," Scully said.  "Not running late this 
time."

"I'm heading out there this afternoon.  I reserved a 
seat for you if you want to join me.  But I'll 
understand if you can't."

Scully hesitated.  She'd known this was coming, and 
she'd cleared her schedule for it.  But somehow, now 
when it came right down to it, she was desperate for an 
excuse to stay home.

But she also knew Tara could use the help.  Aunt Dana 
was always good with nephews and hadn't had nearly 
enough time with Matthew yet.  And she had no good and 
truthful excuse to stay away.

"No, mom, I'll go."  Scully took down the flight 
arrangements 

xxx

"Mulder."  He sounded half asleep.

"Mulder, it's me."

"Everything all right?"  He sounded alert now.  It 
occurred to her that she almost never called him unless 
there was a problem.  Which, technically, there was.

"Yeah, everything's fine.  But Tara just went into 
labor."  She'd already told Mulder that Bill and Tara 
were expecting their second child, that they already 
knew it was a girl.  "A week early this time."

"Oh."  There was a pause.  "So --"

"So I guess I'm on my way out there with Mom.  There's 
nothing urgent to keep me here, right?"  She already 
knew there wasn't.

"Not unless you'd like something urgent to keep you 
here."

Good old Mulder.  "No ... I really ought to go."

"I imagine something really urgent might come up in just 
a day or two," he said helpfully.  "I'll call you and 
you can decide if you need to get back here."

She breathed a quick sigh.  "Thanks, Mulder."

"You call me if anything happens, Scully."  There was a 
darkness in his tone born of not-so-recent experience.

"I will.  I promise."

"I'll miss you."

She didn't say anything for a moment, surprised that he 
had just said something like that.  "I'll miss you, 
too," she said, finally, in an unnaturally high, almost 
strangled voice.

"Well, bye," he said, sounding amused, and hung up.

She stared at the headset before replacing it.  Mulder 
never said "bye."  And he'd certainly never said "I'll 
miss you" to her before.  She sighed and spoke to the 
only plant that had survived the last three years in her 
apartment.  "I sure hope that was really him."

xxx
  
Mrs. Scully was already on the plane when Scully rushed 
in at the last minute, quickly despairing of finding a 
place for her carry-on luggage.  The stewardess looked 
annoyed and took it back up to first class.

"Traffic," she explained to her mom, who also looked 
annoyed.

"I didn't think you were going to make it," Maggie said.  
She knew her daughter was never late for anything --
at least, never when she was without her partner.
And it was Saturday, not exactly a big traffic day.

"Well, I would have just gotten the next flight," Scully 
said, defensively.

"I guess you've got plenty of frequent-flyer miles 
anyway," her mom said, clearly unimpressed.

Scully sighed and sat down.  It didn't work like that, 
but she wasn't going to get into it.

"You know, you didn't have to come if you didn't want 
to," her mother continued.  She didn't add anything 
about still not having to, because the plane was already 
moving.

Scully had had enough.  "I'm sure I never would have 
heard a single comment about it."

"I didn't pressure you to come!" her mother hissed.  
"Tell me one thing I said to pressure you to come."

Scully couldn't say anything to that.  

Her mother sighed.  "Dana, don't you think I might 
understand that you wouldn't want to?  I just don't 
enjoy the feeling that somehow I'm dragging you 
somewhere you don't want to be."

"Mom, I want to see the baby.  I want to see Matthew.  I 
want to help Tara.  I don't happen to care if I see Bill 
again for another twenty years, but I'll put up with 
him."

"He's your brother, Dana."

"Yeah, I know," Scully said.  "He thinks that gives him 
the right to be insufferable about things he doesn't 
understand, unfortunately."

"You're talking about Fox, aren't you?"

"Or my job, or Emily, or medicine, or science, or just 
about any other topic of conversation."

"He just wants what's best for you, Dana."

Scully sighed.  They hadn't even gotten there yet and 
she already wanted to go home.    


End Part 1

Katherine Melissa Scully made her first appearance on 
the planet shortly before her grandmother and aunt 
landed, and was therefore suitably clean and sleepy and 
swaddled in pink when they arrived at the hospital.

Tara was glowing, having had a relatively fast and easy 
delivery.  Bill was glowing, happy to have a little girl 
who would adore him.  Maggie was glowing, full of pride, 
thrilled to have a grandaughter, her eyes tearing up 
over the name and the tiny little fingers.  Little Katy 
was glowing with her mother's hormones and beautiful in 
that odd little alien way that all newborns are, making 
Scully suddenly think of those genes humans appeared to 
have in common with grays.

Scully was not glowing, but she smiled and cooed and did 
her utmost not to dampen the festivities, before making 
her excuses to go pick up Matthew from the neighbors and 
get him settled into bed.  Maggie joined her, realizing 
better than Scully that a three-year-old who hadn't seen 
his aunt in over a year might not react with total joy.

Matthew was indeed shy with her at first, but soon 
warmed up and delightedly showed her all his backyard 
toys in the waning light of the evening while Maggie 
baked chicken nuggets.  They had a quick dinner and put 
him to bed with a story about Thomas the Tank Engine.

"Exhausted?" Maggie asked, as Scully quickly gathered 
sheets to make up the sofa.

"God, yes.  It's midnight our time, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm tired too.  Good night, sweetheart."  Dana was 
uncomfortably conscious that in some unspoken way she 
was letting her mother down, but her mother was also 
backing off easily these days.  No fishing tackle for 
Maggie; if Dana wanted to be a fish in a trout stream 
she could swim as far as she wanted.

Scully stretched out on the sofa, thankful to be alone 
at last.  Without thinking, she dug out her cell phone 
and hit Mulder's speed dial.  

He answered the first ring.  "I sure hope this is 
Scully."

She smiled.  "Katherine Melissa Scully, born 3:44 pm 
Pacific Time.  7 pounds 2 ounces, 19 inches long, tiny 
bit of hair that everyone claims is red."

"But you're not buying it without a thorough analysis."

"At least a few more hairs from which to draw a 
statistically reliable sample." 

"Blue eyes?"

"All newborns have blue eyes."

"Really?"

She suddenly doubted herself.  "Actually, I'm not sure.  
Have to look it up."

"So how ya doing?"  His question was studiously 
nonchalant.

"I'm fine."  

There was a slight pause.  Well, she was, she thought 
defensively.

"Need something urgent to come up yet?" he asked.

"No, but I'll keep you posted."  She yawned.

"How's Tara?"

"She's great," Scully says, momentarily nonplussed, 
until she remembered that Mulder actually knew Tara.  
"Very easy labor.  Want to hear about Bill?"

"Not unless it's something I can use to embarrass him 
someday."

"Sorry, nothing like that."  She yawned again.

"Go to sleep, Scully."

"Yeah," she agreed.  "You, too."

"I'm really glad you called," he said in a rush, then 
hung up before she good say goodnight.

Scully blinked, putting the phone away slowly and 
feeling that somehow she was being slow on the uptake.  
Then she curled over on her side and was asleep in 
seconds.

xxx

The next day passed in a whirl of Matthew.  They took 
him to the hospital so he could visit his mommy and look 
through the window at his little sister, then Scully 
kept him entertained with a trip to the zoo while Maggie 
stayed at the hospital.  

By the end of the day Scully was wondering why anybody 
thought they could handle two children when one was so 
exhausting, and desperately wanted to just sack out on 
the couch and go to sleep.  Maggie, however, showed up 
and persuaded her to take some items Tara wanted to the 
hospital.

Tara was breastfeeding Katy when Scully arrived.  She 
didn't seem embarrassed about it, so Scully relaxed and 
perched in the side chair.

"I hope this goes a lot easier this time," Tara said.  
"I almost gave up on breastfeeding with Matthew.  I 
thought I might end up being the first-ever recipient of 
nipple transplants." 

"She looks like she's latching on just fine," Scully 
said, recalling an obscure piece of her medical training 
and wondering if she really had a clue what she was 
talking about.  "Where's Bill?"

"Ran to the base for awhile.  He's going to sleep at 
home tonight, then come get us in the morning."

"How are you feeling?"

"Happy.  Tired.  Couldn't sleep much last night.  After 
all those delays last time I was such a nutcase.  So 
this time was such a breeze.  Plus I knew to ask for the 
epidural right away this time!"  Tara laughed.

Scully smiled, thinking that Tara was sweet not to have 
alluded to all the additional stress of what had been 
going on with Emily while she was going into labor.  Her 
brother had found himself a nicer wife than he deserved.  
A lovely wife who was also speaking a language Scully 
would never understand.

"I think she's nodding off," Tara said, lifting the baby 
up and supporting her while rubbing her back gently.  
Her engorged breast hung there in the air and Scully 
found herself carefully ignoring it while Tara 
concentrated on the delicate maneuver of burping a 
sleepy newborn.

Mission accomplished, Tara covered up and turned to her 
sister-in-law.  "Hold her while I find something to 
eat?"

And so Scully settled into her chair with a sleeping 
Katy in her arms, while Tara went hunting for snacks.  
She felt incredibly stiff and tense for awhile and 
reflected that it was amazing how heavy seven pounds of 
infant could feel.  Then she began to relax as Katy 
slumbered on.  She sniffed her burden and recognized the 
smells of hospital linens, A and D ointment, a faint 
whiff of baby urine, and something sweet that might be 
essence of baby, might be mother's milk.  Then she 
catalogued Katy's little bumps and scratches, the 
product of her delivery and her own infant fingernails.  

"Sunshine cup?  Jello?" Tara asked, coming back with an 
armful of crackers and hospital desserts. 

"No, thanks.  I think I've had enough hospital jello to 
last me a lifetime."

Tara eyed her curiously.  "So I've heard."

A slight silence ensued, but Tara filled it with 
ravenous eating.  Scully thought about how best to say 
goodnight.

"It's funny how life changes," Tara said, swallowing 
food quickly.  "Five years ago I'm not sure I would have 
believed this day would ever come."

"Because it took so long?" Scully asked, mentally replaying
what she knew of her brother's marriage.  Bill and Tara had 
been 
together for over 10 years now.  "I know you were having
trouble."

In Scully's arms, Katy suddenly grimaced and twisted 
and turned a vivid red, her little mouth opening wide.  
Scully eagerly handed her back to Tara, who brushed away 
cracker crumbs and tried the breast again, with success.

"We ended up doing in vitro, you know.  Matthew and Katy 
are actually from the same batch of embryos."

Scully nodded politely, wishing she didn't have to hear this.

Tara cooed at her daughter.  "So you're very special, 
aren't you, Katy, love?  And I'm *so* grateful there's 
only one of you."  She looked over at Scully.  "The 
first time, we wouldn't have minded twins, or even 
triplets.  This time we were praying hard for just one, 
please.  Much better idea of what we were getting into."

Scully smiled, recalling her day with Matthew.  "I can 
imagine."

Tara's voice suddenly got very low.  "Dana, have you 
ever thought about using IVF or something like that?"

Was the room emptying of oxygen?  Scully took a deep 
breath.  "Tara -- I'm not even married."

"But if you were -- it could solve --"

"I don't have any eggs left," Scully said roughly.  
"None worth counting, anyway.  So it wouldn't work for 
me."

"People donate eggs, you know, Dana.  Even embryos."  
Tara swallowed.  When Scully didn't say anything, she 
added, "I only brought it up, because, you know, we have 
these embryos left, and we're not planning to use them."

Scully looked at Tara in shock.  She was speechless.  
"Does Bill know about this?" she asked at last.

"We've talked about it a lot.  We both just feel so bad 
for you, Dana.  We know what it feels like, better than 
most."

"But -- Tara -- these are *your* children.  Yours and 
Bill's."

"Genetically ours, I know, but they're just little 
clumps of cells right now," Tara said.  "Not anything to 
speak of yet.  And we don't want a huge family.  Two is 
all we need."  She looked contentedly at her daughter 
for a moment.  "It's just a possibility, Dana.  They're 
not the top grade ones anyway.  I don't even know if 
it would work for you.  We have six left from the 
original seventeen, and we planned to donate them to 
somebody who needed them.  But we wanted to give you the 
option, just in case.  I mean, it would be a chance to 
have child who has some of your family's genetic 
heritage."

Scully just sat there, intensely uncomfortable.

"They're paid up in storage through June," Tara added.  
"So it's not a big rush."

"Tara--" Scully struggled for something to say.  "It's 
just so much more complicated than I can ever explain."

"It's okay, Dana.  No rush, as I said.  We're just 
letting you know."

"And Bill's willing to do this without any conditions?" 
Scully asked, disbelieving.

"Well, one," Tara admitted.  "We want to be the 
godparents."

Scully felt her eyes fill with tears.

Tara pretended not to notice.  "Mind you, I can't 
guarantee that Bill won't feel entitled to give you 
unsolicited advice about every aspect of your life and 
theirs.  But then he already does that -- with 
everybody."

Scully laughed shakily.  God, she had that one right.  
"It's a very, very kind offer, Tara.  I'm really 
touched.  I don't see how I can possibly accept, but I 
really appreciate it."

"Just think about it," Tara urged her.  "Hey, I think 
this kid has passed out again."

"Looks that way," Scully agreed, as Tara gently detached 
her sleeping newborn and held her up to her nose to 
sniff whether a diaper change was in order.  It looked 
strangely primitive, even animalistic, and Scully felt a 
powerful pang of envy. 

She rose to go.  "Do you need anything?"

"No, we're all set," Tara said.  "Think I'll get some 
sleep while I can.  There won't be much of that for the 
next few months.  Oh, and Dana?"

"Yes?"

"We didn't tell your mom about this.  The offer, I 
mean."

Scully nodded gratefully and made her escape.

End of Part 2

Tara and Katy came home the next day, although Katy had 
turned up with high bilirubin levels and therefore spent 
all her sleeping time swathed in a light-emitting 
blanket that helped her infant liver do its job.  Tara 
and Bill were unfazed, having gone through the same 
routine with Matthew.  

Bill and Tara cooed over their newborn, held the 
suddenly needy Matthew when they could, slept, and 
entertained the guests who dropped by with frilly little 
dresses and casseroles.  Scully slept through most of 
it, but rolled over at comings and goings during the 
night often enough to realize that the first week home 
with a baby was a strange existence out of normal time, 
an abandonment of the boundaries between night and day.  

Maggie quietly cooked and did laundry and made life 
easier for her daughter-in-law.  Scully played with 
Matthew, who sorely needed her attention, and hoped it 
was not too obvious that she left most of her niece's 
fairly rare waking hours to others.

Neither Bill nor Tara mentioned their offer again, 
though Bill gave Scully a few significant looks.  
Scully, for her part, was longing to escape back to her 
life but found herself strangely reluctant to call 
Mulder and check in.

After three days without contact, he finally called her.  
"Having fun?" he asked.

"I now know more about Thomas the Tank Engine and his 
friends than I had ever thought possible," was Scully's 
dry reply.

"Who?"

"Never mind," she said.  "Hey, you'd get a kick out of 
Katy right now.  She's wrapped in this buzzing high-tech 
blanket, glows in the dark, very alien looking."

There was silence on the other end.

"It helps her liver break down bilirubin," she offered.

"Is she okay?"  He sounded worried.

"Oh yeah, she's fine.  A lot of babies have this."

"Oh.  So, when you coming home, G-woman?"

"I don't know.  Got anything interesting?" Scully asked.

"I've got a woman in Connecticut who claims that aliens 
have replaced her husband with a doppelganger.  Curious 
thing is, the guys work for the social security 
administration."

"What does he say?"

"She didn't want me to tip him off that she knows."

"Mmmm," Scully said.  "Have you checked her medical 
records?"

"She didn't sign the release.  I thought maybe you'd 
want to assess her state of mind yourself," Mulder said, 
enticingly.

"Well, that sounds like a plan," Scully said, not 
bothering with her traditional protest that this tip was 
obviously nothing more than the ravings of a madwoman.  
"Let me see what I can do for a flight."

xxx

Nobody made more than a token fuss about her leaving.  
Tara gave her a warm hug and thanked her for coming, and 
Maggie told her to please be careful and have a nice 
flight.  

Bill drove her to the airport.  They hadn't really had a 
private conversation yet, so Scully wasn't too surprised 
when he cleared his throat and broached the topic.  
"Tara told you about the embryos."

"Yeah,"  Scully said.  "And I told her I didn't see how 
I could do it, Bill.  But I really appreciate the offer."

"We know how it feels, Dana.  Years of wondering if we 
would ever become parents."

Even at the risk of getting into an argument, Scully 
couldn't resist satisfying her curiosity.  "Bill, I know 
you don't approve of the way I live my life.  Why would 
you want to watch a child who's genetically yours be 
brought up by someone like me?"

"You're my sister," Bill said, tightly.  "And I trust 
you to do the right thing for your child.  Any child, 
for that matter.  You and Mulder, both."

Scully gave him a confused glance.

"I know I haven't exactly been in your partner's fan 
club, but I guess I realized after what happened with 
Emily that he's an inescapable fact of your life.  Maybe 
not even a totally bad one."

Good Lord, that was a shift.  Of course, he didn't quite 
get it.  "Bill, we're not together in the way that you 
appear to think we are."

"Uh huh," Bill said, with obvious skepticism.  Then he 
continued, more seriously, "I have to admit, Dana, I 
can't help hoping that having this opportunity might 
help you to take a different path.  One that might make 
you happier.  Might even save your life, based on what 
I've seen.  Maybe both your lives."

Scully chewed on that in silence while Bill negotiated 
the airport's busy lanes.  When he pulled up to her 
terminal she turned to him and asked, very seriously, 
"Bill, if you knew that what Mulder and I were doing 
might be directly related to Matthew and Katy's future, 
would you still want us to walk away from it?"

There was an awkward silence.  Then Bill gave her a sad 
and earnest look.  "Dana, isn't it possible that you're 
overestimating your importance in the vast scheme of 
things?"

She looked back at him, unflinching.  "It's entirely 
possible.  But I've also seen too much to just walk away 
and hope for the best."

Bill smiled grimly, as if she'd just confirmed his worst 
fears for his sister's hold on sanity.  "Just think 
about it, that's all we ask," he said.  He leaned 
forward and kissed her on the cheek.  "Thanks for
coming.  And have a good flight."

"Thanks, Bill, " Scully said, getting out of the car.  
"For everything."

Bill just nodded and drove off.  

xxx

Early the next morning, a very tired Scully found 
herself in the passenger seat of Mulder's car heading 
north on I-95.  A light drizzle was falling in the 
predawn and was expected to switch over to sleet later 
in the day in Washington and to snow further north.

"Mulder, why didn't we just fly?"

"Travel allowance is shot for the month?"

"Is it?"

"Ah, Scully, you know with all the flight delays they're 
threatening tonight, we're just as well off driving."

"Right.  Much safer," Scully said in her flattest tone.

"And we can enjoy each other's company better without 
all those intrusive airline attendants," Mulder said.

"Oh, well, that explains it then," Scully agreed, with a 
small smile and a yawn.

"Plus this way you get a larger seat to sleep in," 
Mulder added, clearly aware that she was going to drop 
off any minute.

"Mmmmm," she agreed, and was soon sound asleep.

xxx

She is trying to squeeze onto a very crowded elevator at 
the Hoover building, and people are staring at her.  She 
isn't sure why, until she looks down and realizes that 
she is tremendously pregnant.  She is stunned, and feels 
herself flush with embarrassment.

Then she has maneuvered herself into Mulder's office, 
and is asking him, "How the hell did this happen?"

"Bill got you pregnant, remember?"

She is perplexed for a moment, then realizes, oh yeah, 
those embryos.  But she doesn't remember agreeing to 
anything.  "No."

"You're due in a week," he says, matter-of-factly.  "You 
should be home right now."

"Why didn't I know about this?"

"Come on, Scully, I know you like to ignore things right 
in front of your face, but this is ridiculous."

Suddenly she feels an unmistakeable tightening across 
her belly and she gasps.  "I think I'm having a 
contraction."

"I'll call Bill," Mulder says.

"Bill?  What about you?"

"What about me?"  He looks puzzled.

"Aren't you ...?"

He starts dialing the phone and looks at her with 
obvious confusion.  "Scully, this is something you 
worked out with Bill.  I don't want anything to do with 
it, you know that."

She stares at him, aghast.

"By the way," he adds, "I think your water just broke."

She looks down at a spreading puddle at her feet."

"Tell you what," he says, putting the phone down.  "I'll 
get you some paper towels, okay?" and he leaves, closing 
the door behind him.

xxx

Scully woke with a start to the sound of the car door 
closing.  She looked around, orienting herself.  Gas 
station.  Grey wintry day.  Could be anywhere between 
Washington and Connecticut.  And she needed to pee.

When she returned to the car, Mulder handed her a coffee 
and a bagel.  "Morning, sunshine," he drawled.  "Though 
technically I believe we're getting into the afternoon hours,
here."

"And where is here?" she asked.

"Southington.  Nearly there.  You've been sleeping like 
the dead.  I have to admit, there were times I was 
almost wishing for an intrusive airline attendant to talk 
to."

"Sorry," she said.  "Jetlagged, I guess."

He gave her a small smile to show she was forgiven and 
headed the car back to the interstate.

She sat and sipped and recalled her dream and thought, 
no, that will never happen.  Not any part of it.

xxx

"Mrs. Corbierre, what makes you think your husband is an 
alien imposter?"

Mulder and Scully were both perched on the edge of a 
brown neocolonial sofa in Annette Corbierre's deeply-
shagged family room, while their interview subject 
rocked herself gently in an upholstered rocker studded 
with doilies.

"He has changed in some very subtle but important ways," 
Annette Corbierre said, plump fingers lacing and 
unlacing nervously.

Mulder opened his mouth, but Scully quickly leaped in 
before he could lead the woman into even greater fancies 
than she could come up with on their own.  "How so?" she 
asked.

Mrs. Corbierre bit her lip.  "Agent Scully, are you 
married?"

Scully couldn't help glancing at Mulder.  "No."

"Well, then you might not understand."

"Not understand what?" Scully asked as patiently as she 
could.

Mrs. Corbierre looked like she wanted to cry.  "Anton 
went to work two Fridays ago, just the same as always.  
But he didn't come home until Saturday morning.  The 
first time he's ever done that.  I was frantic, calling 
hospitals, trying to get the police to look for him.  He 
finally showed up Saturday and he said, as if it were 
nothing at all, 'I had things to do.'  All cool and 
distant like it was no big deal.  And since then he's 
remained just like that -- polite and distant, not 
involved with me, not involved with the kids, just going 
through the motions."

"Does he seem to remember your names, basic information, 
things that happened before then?" 

She sniffled.  "Yes, but it's as if it's just ... well, 
information.  Data.  Not attached to any feeling or 
anything.  He could be a robot for all the emotion he 
shows.  Or worse.  He seems to take us all as if, well, 
we smell bad or something."  She looked beseechingly at 
Scully.  "Can you imagine how that feels?"

"Terrible, I'm sure," Scully agreed.  "But Mrs. 
Corbierre, what is it specifically that makes you think 
aliens have anything to do with the change in your 
husband's behavior?"

"Well, who else has the ability to replace a man with a 
complete duplicate like that?  I mean, it just stands to 
reason, doesn't it?"

Scully licked her lips and turned to her partner, whose 
face had turned carefully impassive.  She was suddenly 
struck by an expected revelation:  He'd known this.  
He'd known that Annette Corbierre was just a sad, 
confused woman who didn't know how to cope with her 
husband's midlife crisis.  And he'd still dragged them 
both up here through an incipient nor'easter.  She 
peered at him, puzzled and somewhat offended.

Mulder appeared to sense that he was losing credibility.  
"Your husband works for the social security office in 
Hartford, yes?"

Annette looked confused.  "Yes."

"He has access to the records of thousands of people?" 
he continued.

"Actually, he just works in their maintenance 
department," she said.  "You know, changes light bulbs, 
plows snow, keeps the building running and all."

Mulder had the grace to look embarrassed.  Scully 
sighed.  "Mrs. Corbierre," she said, gently.  "As you 
know, Agent Mulder and I do have experience in this 
area.  I'm very happy to tell you that your husband 
really doesn't demonstrate any of the telltale signs of 
--" she couldn't help wincing slightly -- "alien 
replacement.  I think perhaps you should talk to him and 
see if something is bothering him.  Maybe you just need 
to work through some issues as a couple."

Mrs. Corbierre looked stricken.  "Oh my God.  You think 
he's having an affair, don't you?"

Scully looked helplessly at Mulder.

"That's not what we think at all," he said, in his most 
soothing voice.  "Tell me, did your husband recently 
experience a significant loss, or perhaps a birthday or 
some other event?"

Annette sniffed disconsolately.  "He turned 53 last 
month.  I don't see what that has to do with anything, 
though."

"Is Mr. Corbierre's father still alive?" Mulder asked.

That earned him a puzzled look.  "Oh no, he died years 
ago, just after we got married."

"How old was his father when he died?"

"Um... oh."  Annette looked surprised.  "Fifty-three.  
Everyone thought, what a pity, just fifty-three and dead 
so suddenly."  Realization dawned.  "Oh ... I see."

Mulder nodded.  "Mrs. Corbierre, I suspect your husband 
could use all the love and support you could possibly 
give him right now."

"Oh," she said, a note of hope finally creeping into her 
voice.  She smiled shyly.  "Not an alien, then," she 
said.

"No," Mulder said.  "And I think it's safe to say that's 
always a good thing."

xxx

In the car, Scully just sat and looked at him and 
waited.

He was obviously trying to ignore her and pulled into 
traffic nonchalantly.  The wipers thwacked back and 
forth, sweeping pebbles of frozen rain off the 
windshield.

"You knew this was completley bogus before we ever came 
up here," she finally accused him.

"I admit I had suspicions," Mulder said.  "So did you, 
I'm sure, but you didn't argue about checking it out 
anyway."

"So really this was all just an elaborate ruse to give 
me an excuse to leave California?"

"It was entirely up to you to come or not," he said 
mildly.  

"You know, Mr. Corbierre probably *is* having an 
affair," she said, relevant to nothing in particular.

"Well, maybe if she suddenly begins to shower him with 
love and affection, their marriage will be saved and she 
need never be the wiser," he said, in a suddenly bleak tone.

Ever alert to a Mulder mood heading south, Scully roused 
herself.  No doubt he'd thought he was doing her a 
favor, and was disappointed to find that she seemed 
completely lacking in gratitude.  Or, it might have 
occurred to him that he couldn't exactly look forward to 
anyone showering *him* with love and affection any time 
in the near future.

Find something nice to say, she thought.  "That was 
clever of you, to figure out what the problem was so 
quickly." 

"Actually, I'd already checked out his father's death 
certificate," Mulder said, but he looked gratified 
nonetheless.  "I told you I had my suspicions."

"So, Mulder, where are we going?" she asked.

"Back to I84."

Despite her resolution to behave more cheerfully, she 
couldn't help a note of outrage.  "We're driving all the 
way back to D.C. tonight, in this?"

"No," he said patiently.  "We're stopping at an Inn in 
Southbury and having a very nice dinner and then staying 
overnight in two lovely rooms."  After a moment, he 
looked over at her.  "If that's okay with you."

She nodded, feeling out of her depth.  "It sounds very 
nice," she said, faintly.

"Good," he said, grimly, focusing on the increasingly 
difficult driving.

"And that's why we didn't fly?" Scully asked.

He didn't answer.  She sat back and watched the road.  
The wipers thwacked back and forth.  The frozen rain had 
turned to a wet, heavy snow which swirled crazily in the 
wind.  There were fewer cars on the road now, and Scully 
had the odd apprehension that they would be on this road 
forever.

End of Part 3

But they weren't, of course.  The Inn was set back on a 
quiet road, now exceedingly scenic with all the trees 
coated in four or five inches of heavy snow.  The car 
fishtailed gently on the last turn up the driveway.

"I'll check us in," he said, and disappeared.

Scully sat there and felt as if her entire life had 
become a passive exercise in going along with other 
people's plans.  Her mom wanted her to go help Tara with 
a baby, so she went.  Mulder suddenly took it into his 
head to plan an expedition, and here she was.  The 
consortium wanted her ova, and by God they had them all.  
The FBI wanted her services, and thanks to who she was 
and Mulder was and the bad guys were, she was pretty 
much stuck with that.  She felt a tide of peevishness 
rise up in her and at the same time felt ashamed, 
because here was Mulder stepping up and doing something 
nice for her and she just couldn't appreciate it 
properly.  

He came back and motioned her in, took the luggage into 
the lobby, gave her a key, then took off to park the 
car.  "See you at the room," he called.  "Dinner's 
casual here, if you want to change."

The room was lovely.  Quilt on the bed, fat chocolate 
chip cookie on the quilt, a partially fogged window 
overlooking a snow-covered landscape, and all the 
amenities she never expected from their usual lodgings: 
a coffee maker, an iron, a refrigerator, extra pillows 
and blankets.  Flowers on the table.

Flowers on the table?

It was a nice big vase of mixed flowers.  And there was 
no card, which was almost a relief.  Mulder was, after 
all, a man who couldn't give her flowers even in the 
hospital without claiming he'd stolen them from some guy 
on crutches.  And yet, here they were.

Feeling her pulse suddenly beating faster with a strange 
sort of excitement, she decided to change into jeans and 
a sweater and do her best not to seem rattled.

He knocked on the door about twenty minutes later, newly 
shaved, dressed casually, and smelling of cologne.

"Wow, nice flowers," he said, looking impressed.

"Yes, beautiful," she said.  "I'm thinking maybe they 
stole them from some guy on crutches."

"Could be," he said.  "Let's go, I'm starving."

So she followed him to the dining room, which was cozy 
and firelit and altogether not their usual fare.  She 
found herself sitting there, heart pounding, licking her 
dry lips repeatedly, and scanning the menu without 
actually reading any of it.  In short, she was 
experiencing all the full blazing terror of a first 
date.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said.

"You really hate this, don't you?" 

"No, I like it," she said, but she didn't sound too 
convincing.

He looked deflated.  "Scully, this doesn't have to be 
anything different than any other meal or motel we've 
ever shared.   I just thought it would be nice, for a 
change, to try to show you a good time, you know?  Give 
you something nice to come home to."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"Ah hell," he said.  

"Mulder, I cry when people are nice to me," she said, 
trying to explain.

He looked appraisingly at her.  "I guess I haven't been 
nice to you very often, then."

She blew her nose.  "You've had your moments."

He smiled briefly.  She tried to relax -- it was just 
Mulder, after all -- and was able to read enough of the 
menu to order dinner a few moments later.

After the waiter left, an awkward silence fell.  She 
sipped the excellent wine, chewed on a roll, and looked 
around the room, umcomfortably conscious that he was 
studying her.

"So, Scully, other than shock that your partner is being 
unexpectedly nice, is there anything else bothering 
you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you seem bothered?"

She looked at him and he looked back.  This is where she 
would normally crack a minor witticism or find some 
other way to say she was fine, thank you, and that would 
be the end of it.  But Mulder had broken out of his 
usual pattern today.  Maybe she should reciprocate.

"I guess life sometimes has a way of offering you things 
you just aren't prepared for," she said, by way of 
introduction.

He looked chagrined.  "I kind of overdid it with the 
flowers, huh?"

"The flowers?" she asked, confused.  "No, the flowers 
are lovely.  It's Tara and Bill.  They offered me 
something I just wasn't ready to even think about."

He waited.

She sighed.  She was fairly sure this was the end of any 
pleasant fantasy either of them might have had about 
sharing a romantic evening together.  "Matthew and Katy 
were conceived using in vitro fertilization," she 
explained.  "In the process, a number of embryos were 
created.  And now that they have their family, Bill and 
Tara offered me the ones they haven't used yet."

Mulder's mouth dropped open.  

She took another sip of wine and shrugged.  "So you can 
see why I might be a little preoccupied."

"Well, yeah," he said.  He took a gulp of his beer.  "Do 
you want to do it?"

She shook her head no automatically.  "It's like I said.  
Sometimes life offers you something you're just not 
ready for."

"You could get ready for it if you wanted to," he 
pointed out.

"What, you think I should seriously consider taking them 
up on this?" she asked, disbelieving.

"I don't think this is about what I think," he said carefully.

Oh.  

She knew he was trying to be respectful of her personal 
choice, but it still felt like he'd cast her away.  She 
sipped her wine carefully, trying not to betray her 
sense of desolation.

He looked miserably at her.  "That wasn't the right 
answer, was it?"

"It was if it's what you really think," she said in a 
low voice.

Mulder bowed his head.  "Scully," he said, "You just 
told me you have an opportunity you thought you'd never 
have.  I admit, it doesn't fit in with any hopes I had 
for this evening, or this year, or maybe even this 
decade, but who am I to tell you one way or another?"

"I guess you're the closest thing I've got to someone 
whose opinion I'd want to have on the matter," she said 
bleakly.  "Which maybe is a sad commentary on the state 
of my life, but there you have it."

He winced, and looked around the nearly empty 
restaurant.  Snow was still falling heavily and 
collecting in all the crevices of the window frames.  
"Well, this is really fun."

She gave him a sad smile of commiseration.

The food arrived and they both pecked at it 
halfheartedly.

"You know, your brother has made it very clear that he 
thinks I'm one sorry son of a bitch," Mulder said.  
"Those were his exact words, in fact.  So let's say you 
go ahead and have this child, and let's say it's a 
little boy.  I'm thinking as soon as he can talk the 
first thing he'll say to me is --" Mulder imitated a 
high-pitched little kid voice -- "'you sorry son of a 
bitch.'  And then he'll grow up to look exactly like 
Bill.  So I'm not completely unbiased in this matter."

Scully lifted an eyebrow.  

"But that would probably never happen anyway," he 
continued, "because they probably told you this 
arrangement was contingent on you leaving the X Files 
and never consorting with your crazy partner again, 
right?"

"Actually," she said, "the only string attached was that 
they wanted to be godparents.  And I was somewhat 
surprised to find that Bill assumes we're together."

It was Mulder's turn to lift an eyebrow.   "You sure your 
*brother* hasn't been replaced by an alien imposter?"

"Well, it wasn't a total personality change," she said.  
"I think the way he put it was something like he'd 
decided you were 'not a totally bad thing.'  But that's 
definitely an improvement.  You must have impressed him 
...."  She trailed off, instinctively shying away from 
any direct mention of Emily.

"God knows how I managed that," Mulder said in a voice
ripe with self-disgust.

"Mulder," she said, reaching out and grabbing his hand.  
"Even a certified asshole like my brother could see that 
you tried your best to be there for me."

He ducked his head for a moment.  Then he looked up, his 
face determined.  "Because I love you, Scully," he said, 
simply, as if in explanation.

She stared back at him, speechless.

When she didn't say anything, he laughed shakily.  
"Another one of those things life is throwing at you 
lately that you're not ready for?"

"No," she said, quickly rousing herself.  "No, Mulder.  
I think I've been ready for this one for awhile."

He looked cautious.  "Really?"  

She nodded, fighting tears and failing miserably.  God, 
what a couple they were!  She was quite sure normal 
people could go out to for dinner and announce their 
love for each other without sobbing uncontrollably.

Mulder was kneeling on the floor next to her chair and 
wrapping her his arms before she'd quite realized 
what was happening.  "Oh, Scully.  I'm sorry it took 
me so long," he muttered.

"S'okay," she said, sniffing.  Then she laughed weakly.

"What?" he asked.

"Here we are, Mulder," she said, in a high-pitched, 
almost hysterical voice somewhere between crying and 
laughing, "in a really nice restaurant in a beautiful 
inn on a snowy New England evening.  So, in the midst of 
all this romantic ambiance, I tell you about my 
brother's leftover embryos; then you tell me you love me 
and I thank you for it by completely losing it.  I mean, 
no wonder it took you six years to work up your courage.  
As it is I half expect some alien to arrive at our table 
any minute."

"Well, then, maybe we should think about getting out of 
the dining room," he murmured.

She took a shuddering breath.  "Okay," she said in a small 
voice.

So they left, only peripherally aware of the staff, who 
were observing these high-strung guests with trepidation 
and giving them plenty of room.

When they got to the door of her room, he didn't follow 
her in.  She turned around, taken aback that he was 
hanging in the doorway.

"I think you've had kind of a rough day," he said, as if 
in explanation.  "We don't have to rush anything, you 
know."

"I thought the day was finally looking up," she countered,
disappointed.

"Really?"  He couldn't help perking up, she noticed.

She walked further into the room to admire her flowers.  
Unfortunately, that also gave her a glimpse at her make-
up strewn face and puffy red nose.  Christ, she looked 
like an X File.  "Um, do you mind if I go wash my face?  
I'd like to lose the Tammy Faye look."

He looked relieved and said, "Sure.  I'll be right back."

When she came out of the bathroom he was sitting on the 
end of her bed, flipping channels on the TV and reeking 
of mouthwash.

She sat down next to him and he looked at her with what 
she recognized as subdued panic.  "Okay, Mulder," she 
said.  "Teeth brushed, face washed, anything else we 
should check for here?  Bees?  Listening devices?  
Sexually transmitted diseases?"

"Already looked, room's clean.  And I'm clean, unless 
you count unknown alien viruses," he offered.

"Same here, I guess," she said.  

Well, this was romantic.  Apparently they had passed the 
point of being spontaneously carried away on a wave of 
passion, quite possibly by a matter of years.  She sat 
on the end of the bed next to him and thought, how do we 
do this?  Should I just jump his bones?  Was there 
anything that might help this extremely tense man 
sitting next to her relax and enjoy the evening?

She grabbed his hand.  "You do know I love you, don't 
you?" she asked, finally raising her eyes to his.

And that was all it took.  Lips met and parted, tongues 
greeted each other, hands caressed, arms enfolded, breaths were sighed, and 
two souls long parted came together at last.

xxx

Water is rushing around her, bubbling and gurgling, and 
she is swimming effortlessly.  She realizes with some 
surprise that she is completely naked, and that even 
though the stream is cold she is completely comfortable.  
The need to breathe doesn't appear to be an issue, and 
she ducks in and out of the water and watches her breath 
form little puffs of vapor in the cold air.

She is bobbing and swimming happily when she realizes 
that her mom is on the farther shore, with Bill and Tara 
and Melissa and her Dad and Emily and Charlie and all of 
Charlie's family, too.  The living and the dead don't 
seem to find it remarkable that they're hanging out 
there together, so she doesn't think much about it.

"Dana!  Dana!" they are all yelling -- all except Emily, 
who is just watching.  

"Dana Katherine, come back!" 

She knows they want her to swim back to shore.  She 
knows they expect her to.  But she can't leave this 
beautiful cold stream, where she is swimming so 
effortlessly, and trade it in for a heavy climb on to 
the rocks.  She'd explain it to them if she could, but 
she can't.  So she waves.

Her brother, she notices, has pulled out his fishing 
tackle.  He casts toward her with a hook, and on the 
hook is a carrot.

A carrot?  Get real, Bill, she thinks, and swims further 
downstream.  

Then she realizes that someone is in the water with her, 
and she is delighted to find that Emily has joined her.  
Emily darts around her, swimming just as effortlessly, 
smiling and playing.  Scully is delighted, but all too 
soon she realizes that Emily has swum much further 
along, and is waving goodbye.

She wants to yell at her to return, but she has no voice 
to yell with.  Bubbles come out of her mouth and rise to 
the surface and break.  Emily smiles and waves and darts 
away.  Scully swims as hard as she can after her, but 
she can't catch up.  She supposes she is crying into the 
stream, but her tears wash away immediately in the cold 
rushing water.  Finally, she finds herself bobbing 
around in a dark, deep pool in a quiet stretch of the 
water, and she wonders if she should have swum away from 
her family like that, for now it appears that she is all 
alone.

Then she realizes that Mulder is sitting on the shore, 
not far from her, watching intently.

Will he try to catch me with a carrot, she wonders.  
Will he tell me we're due in Skinner's office in an 
hour?  She kicks her heels out of the water and 
splashes, showing off, showering him with water.

And then he's in the water with her, as naked as she is, 
darting and playing and splashing.  He captures her and 
surrounds her and closes his mouth tenderly on her 
throat in some ancient fishy way of mating, and they 
move as one, ecstatic with the heady completion of it.

xxxx

She woke to the sound of water dripping from the eaves, 
the trees, from every icy surface now melting in the 
bright sun.  Mulder, she discovered, had his arms 
wrapped around her from behind and was slowly, 
maddeningly kissing her ears, her jaw, her neck.

"Mmmmm?" she asked.

"Morning," he said huskily.  "You were dreaming.  I 
saw your eyes moving."

"I was a fish in a stream," she said dreamily.  "And you 
were there.  You were a fish, too."

"Is that a good thing?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," she said, as he began to kiss her again.  
"You swam with me."

He grunted and continued trailing kisses down her 
clavicle.

"I'm so surprised, Mulder," she said.  "I always hoped, 
someday, that we might take some comfort in each other 
along the way.  But to feel like this, I never expected 
it."

"Feel like what?" he asked, pulling her back toward him 
and continuing his kisses along her collarbone and down 
to her breasts while his other hand explored further 
regions.

"Like God is smiling on us.  Like what is missing can be 
found, like what is broken can be repaired," she said, 
then hissed as his explorations paid off.  "Oh, my God."

He smiled against her belly.  "I know you want to worship
me for my superlative skills in bed, but please don't call me 
God."

"Uhhh," was all she could reply.

"Though I am feeling rather Godlike at the moment," he 
confessed.  "Like I could do anything.  Like together we can
do anything.  In fact, the only thing beyond conception to me 
right now," he said, "is that we will ever be apart."

She sighed in pleasure.

"In fact, if you'll allow me, I'd like to demonstrate exactly
how very, very together we can be."

And so he did.

####

END OF PART FOUR

Later, they ate breakfast in the nearly deserted 
restaurant, checked the rapidly improving road 
conditions, and decided they'd give it another hour 
before trying to head back to D.C.  

The Inn was connected to a little tourist mall and they 
wandered through, the only customers in sight, holding hands
and checking out the antiques and gifts.  One of the little 
shops was a bookstore, and while Mulder got absorbed in 
one of the latest UFO books, Scully found herself 
wandering into the children's section.

"Can I help you find something?" the clerk asked.  

She was a friendly looking older woman.  Scully appraised
her for a moment before asking, "Do you know a book called 
'The Runaway Bunny'?"

"Of course," the woman replied.  "The classic by 
Margaret Wise Brown.  Every young child should have it, 
if you ask me.  Well, that and 'Goodnight Moon'."  She 
pulled out the book and handed it to Scully.  "I might 
also have it in hardcover around here somewhere if you 
want," she said.

"No, that's okay," Scully said, and the woman tactfully 
retreated.  Scully looked at the book intently, but it 
didn't seem familiar until she opened it and started 
reading.

Mulder came and looked over her shoulder.  "Is this 
where you got the dream about being a fish?" he asked.

"You know this book?" Scully asked.

"Sure, I used to read it to Samantha when she was 
little.  She loved it."

Another child who was taken away, Scully thought, 
another mother who couldn't do a thing about it.  And a 
brother who'd tried for years, transformed himself into 
all manner of things, but still couldn't find her.

"You okay?" Mulder asked.

"We tell these stories to children so they won't be 
afraid," she said.  "But when I think of all the lost 
children --"

"Like Emily?"

"Emily," she agreed, and continued, "Samantha, and all 
the children who are murdered, all the children who are 
missing and never found, all the children who get sick 
and die..."

He waited.  

She sighed.  "I guess, I just wish it were really this 
easy to keep it from happening.  But it's not."

"Yet most children do survive," he reminded her gently.

"I know," she said.  "I know."

"Scully," Mulder said.  "God knows I wish we could do 
this the old-fashioned way.  But there's a whole world 
of children out there who need a mother who will protect 
them as fiercely as you do.  However you want to do 
that, we'll do it.  As my favorite G-woman trying to 
keep the whole world safe, or as an adoptive mother 
driving a minivan, or even if you really want to have 
those little uber-Bill-and-Tara's, we'll do it."

She stared at him, amazed.  He didn't flinch.  Then she 
smiled brilliantly.  "I'm sorry, but what have you done 
with Fox Mulder?" she asked lightly, taking the book up 
to the counter.

"All right, so I was lying about the mini van.  Cut me a 
break, Scully."

"I'd like to buy this for my niece," she told the clerk.  

After she paid, they wandered out onto the front walk 
and squinted into the brilliant sunshine reflecting off 
a foot of new snow.  "So you actually think you're ready 
for fatherhood, Mulder?"

"No, but I have faith that you'll get my ass whipped 
into shape for it quick enough."

"You know, I'm beginning to think that anything is 
possible," she said.

"I've been telling you that for years," he replied 
smugly. 

She looked at him with all the gratitude she felt.  
"Don't expect me to ever say this again, Mulder, but I 
know you have.  And please, don't ever stop."

THE END

If you liked it, please let me know...

And if the site ever comes back up (I believe it
USUALLY is up), you can find my other fanfic at:
http://members.xoom.com/Alelou123/


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