Title: Via 
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com) 
Category: MSR,Mulder/Other (sorta ;) 
Rating: PG-13?

Summary: In a series of flashbacks Mulder and Scully examine their
past in order to move forward.

Spoilers: Never Again, all things, Per Manum, Essence/Existence.
Smaller spoilers for episodes as listed in Author's Note.

Feedback: Please!! This is my first X-Files fic, so I'm begging
you...

Archive: Gossamer and Ephemeral, okay. Otherwise, please ask.

Disclaimer: The characters of Mulder, Scully, Skinner, Margaret and
Bill Scully, and anyone else recognizable from the X-Files universe
belong to Chris Carter, 1013, Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and
company, and are not mine (though a girl can dream ;) The story,
however, is mine.

Author's Note: Minor Spoilers (Mentions) For: Pilot, Little Green
Men, Duane Berry/One Breath, End Game, Anasazi, The Blessing Way,
Quagmire, Small Potatoes, Gethsemane/Redux, Detour, Christmas
Carol/Emily, The End, Milagro, En Ami, and the rest of season eight.

For the purposes of this story -- and in order to explain Mulder's
pissy reaction to Scully disappearing with the Smoking Man in En Ami
-- I have placed En Ami after all things in chronology.

* * * * *

"Before the gates of excellence the high gods have placed sweat;
long is the road thereto and rough and steep at first; but when the
heights are reached, then there is ease, though grievously hard in
the winning." -- Hesiod

"People believe what they want. But there is also this: People want
to believe. And somewhere in between wanting to believe and
believing what we want, there is the story we call the truth." --
_Sister_, by A. Manette Ansay

* * * * *

Voice-Over

I have lived my life on the border of belief and fact, attempting to
reconcile my faith in God with my faith in science. Mandated by my
religion to believe before I can see, and challenged by my science
to see before believing.

I have experienced a mysterious return and recovery from an
unexplained disappearance. I have had an implant of unknown function
removed from beneath my skin, only to replace it, to accept its
intrusion into my body as a cure for a cancer whose genesis I cannot
comprehend.

I have held in my hands my own ova, which could not restore my
fertility; I have held in my arms a man who somehow did; and I have
held in my body a child -- my child -- whose existence I cannot
begin to explain.

I have straddled that space between science and science fiction. It
is science that made me a doctor, but it is something else that made
me a mother.

* * * * *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

Dana Scully stepped into the back vestibule of the church, giving
her eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. Her sandals flapped
softly against the thickly carpeted aisle as she stepped into the
church proper. She slipped into the last pew and set the baby
carrier onto the bench next to her. After checking to be sure that
William was still asleep, Scully lowered the padded kneeler and fell
to her knees, hanging her clasped hands over into the empty pew in
front of her.

Scully had wanted to come to mass ever since William had been born.
No, more than *wanted* to come... she had felt a longing, a need to
be there. But it had taken her some time to get her newborn son on
any kind of sleep schedule that was conducive to their attendance.
Scully supposed she could have left William with someone and gone to
mass alone. Both her mother and Mulder would have been more than
eager. But her need extended to her son; she had to bring William
with her.

Soft organ music meandered through the air and, afraid at the sudden
noise, Scully checked to make sure her son was still sleeping. But
he was unfazed by the soft, lilting music. In fact, he even seemed
to fall into a deeper slumber, his fisted hands relaxing softly and
his mouth falling open.

It was an early Wednesday morning service, so the church wasn't even
half-filled when the organ music began in earnest, filling the
high-ceilinged church. Scully gazed around the church, hungrily
taking in every candle, every statue, every painting. She hadn't
been a regular churchgoer in a while -- both her hectic work
schedule and her wavering faith had seen to that -- and it had been
an especially long time since she had last been to mass; the events
of the past few months had ensured that. She had done plenty of
introspection and plenty of praying, but none of it had been in the
house of her God.

Scully reoriented herself in the church, refreshing her memory of
what had previously been her semi- regular place of worship. Her eyes
glanced over, then returned to, a large, ornate painting of Madonna
and child. In typical medieval style, Mary's head was encircled by
an orange-yellow halo, her eyes downcast, either in modesty or
concern for the child that sat unnaturally upright on her lap, as if
he were simply a tiny adult. The baby Jesus's eyes were large and
flecked with gold, staring seriously out of the painting, gazing at
Scully.

Scully felt a chill run through her and pulled her thin cotton
cardigan tight around her body. But she held the gaze of the painted
Jesus, almost as though he were seeing into her soul. A sudden surge
of Sunday School guilt rushed over her, a single woman with a baby,
a sinner in the eyes of an angry God.

Scully let her gaze shift back to Mary's face, experiencing a
strange and unexpected feeling of sorority with this woman who had
also carried and borne a child in strange circumstances. Obviously
she was no virgin mother. But despite all that, and for the first
time in her life, Scully couldn't help feeling a strange sort of
kinship with the woman in the painting.

She wondered about the first weeks Mary had had with her son. Was
her relationship like Scully's with William? Was it like the
relationship every woman had with her firstborn child? Like her
mother's with Bill, and Mrs. Mulder's with her son?

Did they all feel the same wonder, the same unbelieving amazement
that this child -- this living, breathing, thinking *person* -- had
been nourished by their own bodies, had once been a part of them?
Had they, like her, awoken in the middle of the night simply to
gaze at their son, imagining his future, dreaming a life for him?
And did they also sit with their baby's father, wordlessly watching
a miracle as he slept?

* * * * *

Scully glanced down at William, who was incredibly still asleep in
his infant seat. It was Mulder who had first called William a
miracle and he was correct: a healthy child born of a barren mother
who had given up all hope of conceiving. After a seemingly failed
attempt at in vitro fertilization, Scully had tried to come to terms
with the reality that she would never have a child of her own.

Her mother had once suggested she look into adoption, but Scully
knew that, as a single woman in a dangerous, time-consuming career,
she had little chance in the adoption market. Any doubt in her mind
to that fact had been quelled by her attempted adoption of Emily. If
she was unable to adopt a sick little girl that was, technically and
biologically, her daughter, what hope would she have for an
unrelated infant?

And then there was her illness; though her cancer had gone into
remission -- seemingly disappeared -- no adoption agency would wager
a child's future on the chance that it would not return.

In her desperation after the in vitro attempt, she had even
considered -- briefly -- investigating an egg donor. She could still
carry a child -- there was nothing wrong with her uterus -- and
Mulder could still be her donor.

But she would need to find an egg donor, and of whom could she ask
that sacrifice? Though it had agreed, at one point she had feared
that she was risking her relationship with Mulder by asking him, and
she had no such deep friendship with any women. The only person she
would ever have considered asking -- her sister, Melissa -- was
dead.

But then it had happened; beyond all odds, she had conceived a
child. As a medical doctor, Scully knew that there could be a short
time lag between the in vitro procedure and a positive result on a
pregnancy test. But she also knew that there had been too much time
between the procedure and the discovery that she was pregnant. No,
it had not been the in vitro.

All she could conclude was that William was Mulder's child,
conceived in the un-complicated, un-scientific way. It was almost
difficult for Scully to remember when it was that she and her
partner had consummated their relationship... Almost. For someone
looking at their relationship from the outside, that might seem
unbelievable, perhaps ridiculous; a woman remembered these things,
after all.

But for years, nearly as soon as she was assigned to the X-Files,
Scully's relationship with Mulder had been intimate, complicated.
They had shared so much, both personally and professionally, that
sharing a bed had simply seemed like the next logical step, an
extension of their relationship. They had shared everything else...
why not this?

And they hadn't bothered with birth control. There was little point,
since they knew Scully was infertile. And besides, they had first
taken their relationship to this new level after Mulder told Scully
about her recovered ova, after their attempt at in vitro
fertilization, after she believed she had exhausted all
possibilities. Scully wondered now if they would have used birth
control even if they had known that she was no longer infertile. She
had, after all, been dreaming of her own child for years. And she
had thought that empty dreams were all she would ever have.

Early in her pregnancy, sometime between buying bags of sunflower
seeds in bulk and searching for her missing partner, Scully had
tried to figure out the dates -- when had William been conceived?
But she wasn't sure; despite her scientific training, she had never
kept track of such things, not allowing her rational mind any
further control of her emotional life.

So she tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder how this
miracle child had come into being. She could not allow herself to
believe that her child, the life she could feel moving and breathing
beneath her own skin, was not her own. That this child could be
alien in origin, or in any way belong to someone like Cancer Man;
Scully had refused to believe this all along, despite the
experiences of some of her fellow abductees. She couldn't allow the
possibility to enter her being, to control her, because she knew
that it, along with Mulder's disappearance, would be too much to
bear.

Mulder had said never to give up on a miracle. She hadn't given up,
and her patience had been rewarded; she had been blessed with a
child of her own. But was this miracle hers alone, or did Mulder
also have a part in its creation? Had his desire too been
fulfilled?

* * * * *

Fox Mulder's Apartment 
Alexandria, Virginia 
April 9, 2000

Subconsciously, he supposed he wanted her to wake up. After covering
Scully with a blanket, Mulder had gone into his bedroom to get her a
pillow, then sat back down on the couch beside her. Then he'd gone
into the bathroom, washed his face and brushed his teeth, and sat
back down beside her. He watched the steady rise and fall of her
chest, the soft, intermittent movement of her lips and eyebrows.

She must have had a stressful few days to fall asleep so quickly, so
deeply, while they were talking. Perhaps it was the act of clearing
the air between them, getting everything off her chest.

Mulder only wished that the air between them were clear, that there
was nothing on his chest. He clenched his hands, feeling his guilt
shoot through his veins, tense his body.

He didn't know how long he had been watching her, but it wasn't
until he sat back down after getting a glass of water that she said,
"Mulder?"

Her voice was thick with interrupted sleep, and she blinked at him
in the semi-darkness, illuminated only by the blue light of his fish
tank, which caused the pale skin of her face the red of her hair to
take on a mysterious glow.

"It's okay, Scully, go back to sleep," he said, handing her the
pillow he'd set on his lap.

She blinked at him, glanced around the room, reorienting herself.
"What time is it?" she croaked.

"One-thirty," Mulder said, glancing at his watch then not
maintaining his gaze on his wrist, on his fingernails, anywhere but
Scully's gaze.

Scully groaned, then closed her eyes. Then a pause. "Mulder, what
are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep," he said.

She said nothing but sat up, tucking her legs beneath her. Scully
stretched her arms briefly over her head. She raised her eyebrows,
an invitation for him to talk.

But Mulder said nothing, the guilt weighing on him. As she'd told
him what had happened to her while he was in England, he had been
enthralled, riveted to her story. He had always been amazed at the
contradiction that was Scully, a scientific mind intertwined with a
Catholic heart. And the adventure she had experienced during the
mere hours he was away, in a Buddhist temple no less, just added to
that enigma.

But after she had finished, after she drifted off to sleep, Mulder
had allowed his own feelings to take over, the deep and penetrating
guilt to which he was no stranger. She had been so honest with him,
so completely open, admitting to an affair with a married man --
her superior, no less, and not for the first time -- confiding in
him that she had considered spending the rest of her life with him.
She had dragged out a painful piece of her past, had shared it with
him without hesitation. She had trusted him completely.

What would she think when she found out about his own dark past,
about the secret he had kept from her for the duration of their
seven-year friendship? She would kick his ass. She *should* kick his
ass.

"I've never told you," Mulder began in a voice that was low,
penitent, "but I was married once."

That had Scully fully awake and alert, her eyes wide. "You *what*?"

"I was married. For about two years."

"When?"

"Over ten years ago," he said, then watched her reaction play across
her face, which was still cast in the soft blue light bubbling from
his fish tank. The light caught her eyes, making them glow and flash
in the darkness.

Mulder wondered what it was about the dark that made talking so
conducive, that beckoned him to open up, to unveil the most intimate
-- and most painful -- parts of his life. He remembered another
time, another conversation in the dark, when they were in that hotel
room in Oregon, investigating their first case together. Then again,
when they were marooned on that small bump of an island in
Heuvelman's Lake while hunting for what, frustratingly, turned out
to be an alligator. And again, when they were stranded in the
forest on their way to that damned teamwork seminar, laying together
in the dark after he had been injured. The tone of those three
conversations had been so different, but in each case the darkness
had broken down some barrier, allowing them to open up.

"There... You didn't... You didn't have children?" It wasn't as much
a question as a fear vocalized.

Mulder felt, more than heard, his partner's slight intake of breath,
her holding it. He shook his head, then realized that Scully
probably couldn't see him. Although she was lit by the pale glow of
his fish tank, he was sitting outside the small circle of that
light, was in the dark and must look even darker from where she was
sitting.

"She was pregnant. Once," he said. "But it didn't... it didn't take.
She had a miscarriage."

They sat in silence for several minutes then, and Mulder watched
Scully's face, her eyes desperately searching the darkness for his.
Finally she found him, the dim glimmer of his eyes. "What happened?"

In his psychology training Mulder had heard it said that only two
people know what goes on inside a marriage. Only the husband and
wife were privy to that intimate knowledge: not their parents, not
their friends, not even the children who are born of their union.

Too, Mulder knew he did not understand the anatomy of his parents'
marriage, though he had spent an unhealthy portion of his life
trying. He had been a product of their love as well as their anger,
their bitterness, perhaps even their hatred; but he couldn't begin
to understand the life they had shared.

But when it came to his own marriage, Mulder was equally clueless.
He was one of those two people yet he himself didn't know what had
happened.

"Lynn was everything I thought I should want," he said.

* * * * *

Tall and dark and exotic, she was a year younger than him and a
graduate student at Georgetown when they met. She was in her final
year of a PhD program in criminal psychology, and their meeting had
been arranged by her graduate advisor and Reggie Purdue, his ASAC,
who themselves had been in college together.

She was, in many ways, his opposite. She was outgoing and friendly.
Carefree. She came from a large family that met faithfully for
Sunday dinners, dinners to which Mulder was soon invited. Her
parents were expressive and loving, quick to accept him as part of 
the family. Lynn was the youngest of six, and consequently had
several nieces and nephews who were passed from arm to arm during
the weekly gatherings.

And Mulder fell into step with her, with the glow of her seemingly
charmed life. It felt good to be loved, taken care of, maybe even
admired; Lynn had been thrilled, almost honored, to meet him, and
seemed to relish her role as his rescuer, as savior from his own
family demons.

She had even charmed Mulder's parents. His mother had fallen in love
with Lynn upon their first meeting, much as Mulder himself had. As
for Mulder's father, he had been less enthusiastic than his ex-wife
and son, but he eventually warmed to the young woman, once even
remarking to Mulder that she reminded him of Samantha, even
resembled the missing girl who would now be a woman. He had taken
even dug up an old picture album of Fox and Samantha as children to
prove his case to his son.

Remarkably, his relationship with Lynn improved Mulder's
relationship with his parents. The three of them had been distant,
if not estranged, since the elder Mulders' divorce when Fox was in
high school. He had gone away to college, to England, had run as far
as he could. But then he had come back to the States, like a dog who
returned, tail tucked between his legs, to the master who beat him.

In a way, he had gone back to follow in the footsteps of his father,
who'd recently retired from the State Department. Mulder had felt an
overpowering pull to return to the States, to begin courses at the
Academy after he was recruited. That decision, like so many others,
had been in part a reaction, a counterpoint, to his father's
retirement. The relationship between Mulder and his father had never
been easy, but that didn't mean that Mulder had given up hope,
especially in pleasing the man.

Things with his mother were different, but certainly no easier. Ever
since Samantha's abduction he had felt the burden of his parents'
expectations weighing down on him, suffocating him. Mulder felt the
responsibility, the devotion and guilt, of two children. He knew
that, whatever he did, it would never be enough for them.

But Lynn brought a new dimension to their family, a hint of a prayer
for a normal life. It was all too easy for the parents Mulder to
step back in time, to rewrite history and pretend that Lynn *was*
Samantha.

Life moved swiftly and easily, efficiently, when he was with Lynn.
Their relationship quickly became serious, certainly the most
intense he had ever experienced. Before Lynn he had had only two
relationships, the first with Phoebe while he was at Oxford and the
second with Diana Fowley when he was at the Academy. But both
relationships had quickly run their courses, after considerable
emotional turmoil on Mulder's part, though obviously less on the
women's.

But this time was different. Mulder didn't feel as though he was the
only person devoted to the relationship; for the first time his love
was being returned, magnified. For the first time his heart wasn't
the only one on the line.

Things were so easy, so charmed, with Lynn that Mulder soon found
himself proposing, and, before he could catch his breath, they were
married in a large wedding, prominently featuring Lynn's numerous
family and friends. They bought a small house in Arlington, and
Lynn finished her graduate work, then found a position as a
psychology professor at a nearby college.

Life was uncomplicated. Comfortable. But Mulder couldn't help but
feel that he was out of place, an unworthy man mistakenly placed in
a perfect life. The feeling crept up on him when he least expected
it, often when he spent time with Lynn's siblings and their
spouses. Mulder couldn't help but feel out of place, watching the
easy way they played against each other, rerunning old family jokes,
reminding each other of their childhood, which reminded Mulder more
of the Brady Bunch than real life. Even Lynn's siblings-in-law were
insiders, several of them having grown up in the same town as Lynn's
family.

Then Lynn began to press Mulder on the issue of children. Before
they were married they had spoken of having a family, but had
decided to give themselves some time to just be married first. And
now -- despite the way they were coasting through life -- Mulder
felt unease at the prospect of parenthood.

There was, of course, his relationship with his own father. It was
difficult to define, this mysterious mix of love, admiration, and
resentment. When Mulder was a child his father had been distant,
always busy working and unavailable -- both physically and
emotionally -- for Mulder and Samantha, as well as his mother.

One day when Mulder was very young, his father had taken him to
work. Mulder couldn't remember the reason, whether his father had
been forced into the position because of the unavailability of a
babysitter, or whether he had suggested the idea to his
overenthusiastic young son -- but the memory of the experience was
clear in his mind. He had been awed at his father's secret life, the
traveling and long hours that too often took him away from his
family.

So this had been where his father disappeared to all those time, he
remembered thinking in awe: his office, larger than his study at
their home in Chilmark; the long, smooth desktop little-boy Fox
longed to sprawl across; the soft leather couch near the window
where little-boy Fox had, indeed, curled up and fallen asleep.

Little-boy Fox had walked proudly through the halls of the State
Department with his father, feeling a puff of self-importance every
time someone greeted Bill Mulder. Fox had sat on the leather sofa,
reading a Hardy Boys mystery, while his father made phone calls,
arranged meetings, and read through piles of thick, typed pages. Fox
could barely believe that this was the same grumpy man who sat at
the head of their dinner table, who retreated into his study to
nurse a glass of Scotch, who lectured Fox if the boy made too much
noise while he was on the phone. This wasn't a man who was a
stranger to his wife and children; this was a man whom people liked,
whom people respected.

But time and maturity had eroded that picture of Bill Mulder; had,
in fact, eroded Bill Mulder himself, from a man that enjoyed an
occasional cocktail into an alcoholic; from a man whose work kept
him inaccessible during the week and grumpy on the weekends, into a
man who used his job to maintain a careful distance from his
family.

And what irked Mulder above all else was that, damnit, he still
loved the man, despite his revised view of his father as a puppet of
men with less than honorable intentions, as a small yet willing cog
in the largest of wheels. But, try as he might, Mulder couldn't
force himself to hate the man. Especially back then, when he had
been ignorant of his father's most heinous crimes.

What scared Mulder most about his father was that he could see an
aspect of the elder man in himself. Both were dedicated to their
work, work that could and did consume the lives of many greater men.
Bill Mulder had not set the best example for his son, and Mulder
couldn't imagine himself doing a better job than his own father had.
Bill Mulder was all he knew of fatherhood; who could blame Mulder
for not embracing the job with both arms open?

Apparently Lynn. She had begun suggesting that he was working too
much, that the atrocities he saw through his work in the Violent
Crimes division were unhealthy; were, in fact, beginning to
overwhelm him. She laughed him off when he urged her to carry mace 
when she went into DC alone at night. You're so paranoid, Fox, she'd
said with a carefree wave of her hand before walking, empty-handed,
out the door.

Complaining that he had become hardened and troubled, that he was no
longer the man she'd married, she suggested he request a transfer
out of Violent Crimes, perhaps consider quitting the FBI altogether.
More than once she had mentioned an upcoming opening in the psych
department where she taught, but Mulder had as difficult a time
imagining himself relegated to the classroom as he did imaging
himself decorating a nursery.

Mulder worried that he wouldn't be able to protect an innocent
child. He had been the one there with Samantha, left in charge by
their parents, when she was abducted. And he'd been frozen, unable
to do anything to help her, unable to save her -- and the rest of
the family -- the pain that was to come. Yes, he had been young
then, but could he really do a better job now?

What if whoever -- or whatever -- had taken Samantha came back? He
may have a badge and a gun now, but was that really enough? Could he
bring an innocent child into this clumsy, messed-up world? With the
kinds of heinous criminals he investigated daily, could he raise a
child in safety? And even if he managed to guard the child's
physical well being, what kind of emotional turmoil would his child
be subject to, with him as a father?

It all became moot when Lynn got pregnant. They hadn't been trying
to conceive -- at least he hadn't -- but it had happened
nonetheless. Lynn was ecstatic, but it didn't take long for her to
notice that Mulder was less than thrilled. She reassured him that he
would come around in time, would soon be as eager as she was in
anticipating the major changes that were about to transform their
carefree existence.

But weeks turned into months, and Mulder remained ambivalent about
the pregnancy. He played the good husband, going to doctor's
appointments and canvassing department stores for the perfect
bassinet, but his heart just wasn't in it.

They shared the news with Lynn's parents at dinner one night. Lynn
had cooked and Mulder had managed to get home on time for a change.
Lynn and her parents had spent the evening discussing baby names,
episiotomies, and preschools. Mulder watched the three of them slip
into this baby heaven, not noticing that they had left him back in
reality. But Mulder was glad for Lynn, who had not had anyone to
share this with since Mulder had been so busy at work and so
unresponsive at home.

They hadn't yet told Mulder's parents -- hadn't been able to get the
two of them together for long enough without things erupting into an
argument -- when Lynn began to experience premature contractions. At
only four months, she was, of course, far too early in her
pregnancy to deliver a viable baby. She had been rushed to the
hospital straight from the abnormal psychology class she was
teaching. Mulder had been in the field on a case when he'd received
a call from the hospital telling him that Lynn had lost the baby.

It was a girl. Lynn had asked the doctor to know and of course she
had told Mulder.

Mulder thought he would be relieved by Lynn's miscarriage,
alleviated of a responsibility he knew he wasn't ready for. But
instead what he felt was a deepdown despair that he had only
experienced once before. He felt helpless and clumsy. Cursed. And,
of course, he felt guilty.

Intellectually, Mulder knew it wasn't his fault. After all, just
wishing it couldn't make a baby disappear. It was no one's fault,
Lynn's OBGYN had assured them with a sympathetic glance at Lynn, who
sat stoically but with red-rimmed eyes. These things happened, the 
doctor said. They could try again in a few months.

The doctor left them alone and Mulder hung his head, ran his fingers
through his hair. Blindly, he reached onto the hospital bed in
search of Lynn's hand. Not finding it, he looked up to see both her
hands in her lap, clenched so tightly that her knuckles were
stretched white.

"Lynn," Mulder began, pulling his chair up against her bed. But Lynn
turned away from him, faced the bleak white walls and the tiny
double-pained window whose view was covered by tightly closed white
blinds. She curled her knees to her chest and pulled the sheet
tight around her body.

Lynn crossed her arms over her chest, resting her hands on her
shoulders as if she were giving herself a hug. Her paper hospital
gown gapped in the back, revealing beneath her right shoulder blade
a small dark mole Mulder had never before seen.

* * * * *

March 14, 2001 
Washington, DC

Scully drove slowly to work that morning, taking time to appreciate
the bustling streets of her Georgetown neighborhood, streets whose
busyness normally annoyed her, frustrated her as they choked her car
in a bottleneck of traffic.

But that morning she drove slowly, deliberately, in no particular
rush but with no particular reluctance either. She stopped at a
streetlight and gazed across the horizon to see fingers of sun
poking through the fissures in the clouds, filtering through the
early morning fog.

She was in no rush that morning because she didn't have any pressing
cases, and because Agent Doggett was out of town, helping an old
Bureau friend with a particularly troubling case. He'd assured her
it wasn't an X-File -- cheating her out of the feelings of
displacement that had begun to creep up on her ever since Doggett
learned of her pregnancy -- and that she didn't need the added
stress of the travel.

He was surprised at her lack of objection. He had probably expected
her to remind him that they worked together, as partners, and that
she didn't want his concern for her pregnancy to be used as
justification to ease her workload. She had already begun noticing 
his observant stares when she came in late or left early for an
appointment with her obstetrician. Of course he never said anything,
at least nothing other than an infrequent, though loaded, inquiry
into her well-being.

But she had no desire to follow him this time: Agent Doggett was
headed to Philadelphia.

Philadelphia had never been Scully's favorite city. She had been ten
years old when her father had been stationed near Philadelphia, and
nothing had gone right there. There had been a mix-up with their
housing arrangements, and all four Scully children had been forced
to share a single bedroom for several weeks, until her father
shipped out and she and Melissa joined her mother in her bedroom.

Then her father had gotten hurt aboard his ship and had to be sent
back; even Margaret Scully at her most peacekeeping was no match for
an injured man and his four already-perturbed children. They had
arrived just weeks before the end of the school year, and Scully
had been accidentally placed in the wrong classroom, the wrong grade
even. Because the classes in the fourth grade, where she belonged,
were already filled, the school district could not transfer her out
of the third grade, which, she was not surprised to discover, was
not more enjoyable the second time around.

And then there was her most recent visit to the city, when she had
gone there sans Mulder to investigate a handful of Russians whom
Mulder believed possessed some classified knowledge of
extraterrestrials.

Admittedly the trip had come at a bad time. She and Mulder had
recently met with a clearly bogus source, and Mulder's forced
vacation had resulted in her solo voyage to the City of Brotherly
Love. And her personal life had been at a standstill while friends
and family members fell in love, married, had children, and
basically lived.

When she met Ed Jerse in the grungy tattoo parlor where she'd
followed one of their suspects, Scully had wondered whether her
Philadelphia bad luck was turning. The man was striking, with
intense, smoldering eyes, and he seemed to be attracted to her as
well.

And then there was his tattoo: Never Again. The sentiment fit
perfectly the doubts and frustration she had been experiencing in
her own life. She had told Mulder that she felt stuck, moving two
steps forward and one step back, getting nowhere, and it was
definitely true in a professional capacity.

But what of her personal life? There she felt empty. She had long
expressed desire for a normal life, though she had begun to suspect
that she wouldn't recognize a normal life if it kicked her in the
ass. But she had begun to suspect that perhaps it wasn't her work
that was keeping her from marriage, a white picket fence, and
two-point-four children; it was her. She just didn't have it in her.

Try as she might, she couldn't break out of the prison of her own
head. She was sick of playing the good girl, of simultaneously
trying to keep Mulder in line and bring some semblance of
credibility, of scientific inquiry, to their work. She was tired of
Scully, who wore her blouses buttoned all the way up, her skirts
cut below the knee, and her heels high in a vain effort to appear
powerful and in charge, when what she really felt was quite the
opposite.

She had heard the whisperings that shot through the office: Scully,
the Ice Queen. Scully, the Cold Fish. Scully, the Lesbian.

She was sick of being that Scully, of being a physician and an agent
before she was a woman, before she was even a person. It had felt so
good to be with Ed Jerse, to just sit in that grungy bar and have
nothing but this man in front of her, no conspirators, no secrets,
no invisible lines that she and Mulder had unconsciously set for
each other: to have normal- person problems.

So she had asked to see his tattoo again, to remind herself how it
felt to flirt, to simply be a woman on a date, to be someone she had
not been in what seemed like forever. She longed to break out, to
break free from the walls she had built around herself. She felt a
tightness in her chest, a throbbing desire.

But it was not desire for the man sitting in front of her; it was
desire for herself. She wanted to scream and shout, to swim naked in
broad daylight, to ride a motorcycle with the wind whipping through
her hair. She longed to feel life burning through her like a fire,
razing the dust and tarnish that had settled in her veins.

Of course, she could have settled for an act of safe domestic
rebellion. She could have eaten ice cream and chocolate bars for
dinner, or bought a tight red dress and gone out dancing, only to
return to an empty apartment. Probably just squeezing the middle of
a new tube of toothpaste would have squelched some of her pent-up
frustration.

But instead she went to a seedy bar with a beautiful but disturbed
man who turned to be a killer. And she'd gotten a tattoo in a place
she couldn't see without a mirror.

Stupid, Dana, she'd told herself the next day, when she learned just
what she had allowed that tattooist to inject into her body, when
she learned what she had allowed Ed Jerse to inject into her life.

Stupid, Dana. She repeated it like a prayer, like a curse. Dana. She
wanted to savor the feel of her own first name on her tongue, the
sound of it in her own ears. Dana. Day Nuh.

Later, after the dust from her trip to Philadelphia had settled on
their partnership, after more important things like her cancer
threatened to pull them apart, Mulder had asked her who she would
be, if she could be anybody. She told him she would be herself, and
she wasn't joking. She had already been someone new in
Philadelphia; she had been sick of being herself and, instead, in a
city where no one knew her name or occupation, she had tried on
someone else.

She had wanted to slip inside the skin of a stranger, to step out of
the endless forward-and-back waltz that was her life. She had wanted
to be someone else, anyone else, since Scully was obviously not
cutting it. She had wanted to be daring, to shock someone, to see
the surprise in their eyes and feel the fog of their confusion when
Dana Scully did the thing they least expected.

She had wanted, she supposed, to pick a fight with Mulder.

It was true what she'd told Mulder, that it wasn't all about him,
but it wasn't *not* about him either. He was part of it, part of the
dissatisfaction she had with her life. But it -- whatever it was --
was all about her.

Loneliness is a choice. That was something her mother had told her
once when she'd cried after her father announced that they were
moving to another anonymous town, another claustrophobic Navy base.
She would be forced to attend her third new school that year,
attempt to make her classmates into friends.

Her whole life she'd believed what her mother had said, that
loneliness is a choice; once she'd even said it.

But then why was it that she had chosen it?

* * * * *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

"A reading from the Gospel according to Mark," the priest said.

"Glory to you, Lord," the congregation responded, dipping their
heads while they quickly traced crosses on their foreheads, their
lips, and their breastbones.

"One of the crowd [said to Jesus], 'Teacher, I brought You my son,
possessed with a spirit which makes him mute. Whenever it seizes
him, it dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mouth and
grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it
out, and they could not.'

"And [Jesus] answered them and said, 'O unbelieving generation, how
long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring
him to Me!'

"...When [the boy] saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a
convulsion and, falling to the ground, he began rolling about and
foaming at the mouth. And [Jesus] asked his father, 'How long has
this been happening to him?'

"[The father] said, 'From childhood. And it has often thrown him
both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can
do anything, take pity on us and help us!'

"And Jesus said to him, 'All things are possible to him who
believes.'

"Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, 'I do
believe; help my unbelief...'

"Then the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said,
'He is dead!' But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he
got up.

"The Word of the Lord."

"Thanks be to God," the congregation responded.

* * * * *

Fox & Lynn Mulder's House 
Arlington, Virginia 
March 12, 1989

"Fox," Lynn called out.

Mulder pushed his glasses up on his nose, then mentally pushed away
his wife's voice. He refocused on the pile of papers spread across
the dining room table.

"Fox," Lynn called again; this time Mulder could tell that she had
come downstairs looking for him. He sifted through a file folder,
searching for a photograph he was sure he'd just seen.

"Fox," Lynn said, and this time Mulder located her voice right
behind him. But he didn't turn around, just murmured softly to
signal that he'd heard her.

"Fox."

Finally he did turn to face her, still holding a sheaf of papers,
and saw that she was standing in the doorway, holding two cups of
coffee. She offered one to him, but he shook his head, glanced down
at his papers.

"You eat breakfast already?" she asked, sipping from the other cup,
which, he now noticed, was actually a travel mug.

Again he shook his head, reached back on the table in search of his
highlighter.

"Fox," she said with a sigh. After a pause she continued. "Fox,
there are bagels in the breadbox, eggs in the fridge, and fruit in
the bowl on the table. I would make you something, but..."

Finally it registered with Mulder that Lynn was dressed up and
wearing a jacket. "You're going to church," he stated.

She nodded. "You can come with me, if you like," she offered,
knowing before he responded what his answer would be, the same
answer he had given her last week and the week before, and even the
day before, when she was leaving for synagogue.

Lately she had been very religious; not very particular, but very
religious. She, who had previously had about as much interest in
organized religion as he did, has been going to services at least
three times a week since her miscarriage.

"Fine," Lynn said. "But don't forget dinner at my parents' house at
two o'clock. It's Dad's birthday and everyone's going to be there."

"Mm hmm," Mulder said, flipping idly through his stack of papers. He
heard the tap of her toes against the tile floor, as if she was
ticking off time, trying to decide whether to say something else to
him.

"So I'm leaving," she said, perhaps hoping that, beyond all odds, he
would change his mind about joining her.

"What church this time?" Mulder asked

"St. Matthew's."

St. Matthew's was the Episcopal church across town, and it had
quickly become one of Lynn's favorites. Mulder didn't know for sure
why she went, but he guessed that she was looking for answers.

* * * * *

The house was dark when Lynn returned, save a single desk lamp
across from Mulder on the dining room table. The remainder of the
tabletop was papered in printouts, file folders, and digitally
enlarged photographs. Perched on the seat of the chair next to
Mulder was a plate piled high with sunflower seed shells. An empty
family-sized bag peeked out from one corner of the table, half
covered by a rubberbanded throng of index cards.

When he heard the door shut Mulder tensed, freezing his fingers from
their perch beneath the nosepieces of his glasses. Suddenly he
realized several things: the time; the darkness; where he should
have been; the fact that he hadn't eaten lunch or dinner; that he
had to go to the bathroom; the fact that Lynn was standing behind
him; that she would be angry or hurt, or both. He braced himself for
the onslaught.

But Lynn simply hung her jacket in the hall closet and went
upstairs.

Mulder sat there for a minute, not sure whether to wait for her to
return or to follow her upstairs. He chose the latter and, careful
not to disturb his haphazard filing system, got up and went
upstairs.

She had left the bedroom door open, so Mulder walked in to see her
undressing, unbuttoning her blouse and tossing it in the hamper. She
slipped off her skirt, then walked over to the closet and clipped it
to a hanger. She grabbed the robe hanging on a hook in the closet,
then turned.

Seeing Mulder, she jumped, startled, holding the robe in front of
her like a shield. "You scared me."

"I'm sorry," Mulder said, and for more than just surprising her.

But Lynn said nothing, just turned away and slipped on her robe.

"The time got away from me," he began, sitting on the bed.

"I know," Lynn said, lining up her shoes in the closet.

"I *am* sorry."

"I know." She slid off her watch, removed her earrings, then her
wedding band.

"Lynn, wait," Mulder said, grabbing her hand before she went into
the bathroom. He had expected her to pull her arm away, to fight
back, but she simply turned to face him.

"What, Fox?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I was caught up in work and lost track of
the time. I meant to come, I did. I'll call your parents in the
morning to apologize. I just..."

"You were just busy working," Lynn said matter-of- factly. "I know."

"Would you quit saying that?" Mulder's voice rose.

"I'm sorry," Lynn said, making a move to the bathroom, but Mulder
rose, stepped in her way.

"Lynn--"

"What, Fox? Now? You want to talk now?"

He looked down, ashamed as he remembered the countless times Lynn
had approached him that month, that week even, wanting to talk about
the miscarriage and the subsequent unraveling of their marriage.

"Fine," she said. "We both know this isn't working."

Mulder said nothing, just stared at his feet while Lynn spoke,
letting her words wash over him, knowing what she was saying without
having to listen. Snippets of her speech stuck out at him: "more
important... I don't know you anymore... tired of living like
this... don't want the same things... won't let me in..."

She spoke and he listened, but he never really heard her. If anyone
had told him this was what it would be like, that this was how he
would feel when his wife told him that their marriage was over, he
would've laughed. He would have told them how it would go, how he
would argue with her, assure her that everything would be okay,
maybe promise to go to therapy, even though he doubted two
psychologists could trust another to rebuild the marriage they had
allowed to fall into ruin. He could even envision himself crying,
begging, pleading with her not to throw everything away. But he
would not have envisioned this.

She stopped talking and Mulder realized that she was expecting him
to respond. "You said you were never going to get divorced," was all
he could think of to say, remembering something she'd told him while
they were dating.

"That was a long time ago," she said softly. "Things are different
now. Clearly we don't want the same things out of life anymore... if
we ever did." She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

Mulder didn't believe her, but he didn't stop her from walking away
either. Deep down maybe he had always known that his marriage
wouldn't last.

It was all a façade; he was playing husband, an imposter in a normal
life. His marriage had been an experiment in domesticity, in
normality. And it had failed; he had failed. He had been exposed as
the emotional fraud he had always known he was: immature, selfish,
closed off. A failed marriage, an aborted attempt at parenthood: it
was what he'd always known he deserved, the legacy of his childhood.

His life with Lynn had been too good, too normal, to last. He had
always known that he didn't belong in the happy world of husbands
and wives, of white picket fences and carpools, of dogs and minivans
and swing sets. That just wasn't him, and it never could be; he was
weekends at the office, late-night B movies, sunflower seeds and a
beer for dinner.

He didn't belong. And Lynn deserved better.

* * * * *

FBI Building 
Washington, DC 
March 26, 2001

"And you're still working with Agent Doggett?" Dr. Kosseff asked,
looking placidly at Scully from the opposite end of the couch.
Scully cringed slightly at the word: Partner. Doggett had been
assigned to find Mulder, and find him he had. Found his body, Scully
thought sickly, still testing out the sound of those words, still
not accustomed to thinking of Mulder in the past tense.

"Yes," Scully said.

"And how is that working out, Dana?"

Scully shrugged. "I suppose I'm still getting used to him," she said
with a gentle caress of her growing belly. "He's very different from
Mulder."

"How is that?"

Scully thought for a minute. "On the surface, I suppose they seem
similar. Both are reserved, closed off; both are still dealing with
a personal tragedies: the loss of Doggett's child and Mulder's
sister; both were on the FBI fast track before the X-Files."

"But you don't think they're similar?"

Scully considered the question, examining the face of the Bureau
therapist she had been seeing recently. She had visited with Dr.
Kosseff both during her bout with cancer and when Mulder had first
disappeared. Now that she and Doggett had found Mulder's body, she
had been sentenced to another round with Dr. Kosseff; it was
standard Bureau protocol anytime an agent's partner was killed... at
least someone still recognized Mulder as her partner, Scully thought
ruefully.

Scully had read once that when a woman chooses a therapist, she
often picks a woman of the approximate same age as her mother.
Scully had hadn't given the idea much thought until her second
meeting with Dr. Kosseff. Though Scully hadn't had a large pool of 
doctors to choose from -- having to pick a therapist on the Bureau's
payroll -- she had followed the pattern. Not only was Dr. Kosseff
around the same age as Margaret Scully, but she even resembled the
woman, her short hair dark and slightly wavy, her eyes large and
inquisitive, her tone sympathetic yet probing.

"Dana?"

"Sorry," Scully said. "No, they're nothing alike."

She felt fairly comfortable sharing her feelings with Dr. Kosseff,
but for some reason Scully could not completely trust the woman.
Perhaps it was because she was employed by the Bureau. Though Scully
didn't think the therapist would break doctor-patient confidence
and reveal anything to her superiors, she still could not bring
herself to be completely open with the woman. Old habits died hard.
And Scully felt guilty about her lack of trust, knowing she would
get more from her sessions if she could completely let go.

"Do you think Agent Doggett is like you, then?"

Scully was taken aback. "Like me?"

"You told me you were skeptical when you were assigned to the
X-Files, that you didn't subscribe to the same theories as Agent
Mulder."

"No," Scully said. "Agent Doggett is not like me either."

And I still am skeptical, Scully thought stubbornly. Of course I
still am. Because what would it mean if I'm not? she wondered. She
would have become Mulder -- replaced Mulder -- leaving Doggett to
slip into her role. And that would mean that Mulder was truly gone.

"It's hard," she said in a strangled voice. "It's hard being the
believer. The reactions of the local law enforcement, the mistrust,
the ridicule, the poorly masked amusement."

Even from her partner; Agent Doggett's reaction hit so much deeper
than that of some podunk police officer whom she'd never see again.
She had to go to work every day with Agent Doggett, wondering if he
thought her crazy, if he trusted her investigative skills at all;
or if he thought she had gone soft after years working with Spooky
Mulder, after getting pregnant, after losing her partner.

Was it that difficult for Mulder? Had she been that way to him,
mocking, taunting? No, she told herself; she had trusted Mulder like
she had trusted no other. Sure, she had teased him and challenged
his theories, but their banter had been mutual; Mulder had always
given so much better than he got. But with Doggett it was different;
he was different. Certainly he was not Mulder.

Maybe, she thought, it had been easier for Mulder, being the
believer, the kook. After all, it was her scientific bent that made
people uncomfortable around her, a woman who was also a scientist, a
physician, and an FBI agent. People assumed that women were more in
touch with their spiritual and emotional side anyway. Women's
intuition: it was an old stereotype. And it was crap, she thought.

Or had it been harder for Mulder as a man, playing against type?
Scully squeezed her eyes shut against the thoughts, trying to stop
them from filling her, controlling her. It seemed that nothing was
hers anymore. The X-Files she shared with Doggett; her body she
shared with her baby; her mind she shared with Mulder. Though he had
been missing for months, though they had buried him beneath the cold
February dirt, she couldn't clear him from her mind. Echoes of
things he'd said to her, of his theories and his jokes,
reverberated through her brain. In a way it was comforting, but
sometimes, she admitted, she just wanted to rest.

"I heard the baby's heartbeat yesterday," Scully said, almost as an
offering.

"Was it the first time?"

"No," Scully said, remembering the moment in her obstetrician's
office. Her check-up had been completely normal, the doctor had
said. The baby was healthy. She had allowed those words to fill her
head as the baby's staticky heartbeat echoed through the exam room:
Heal-thy. Heal-thy. Nor-mal. Nor-mal. The pulsing rhythm flowed over
her like an undertow, beat against her body like the tide. She
wanted to capture the sound, hold it in her own heart like a
lullaby, like a promise.

"I've heard it before," Scully said. "Several times. But this time
the doctor did an ultrasound, too."

"The first ultrasound?"

"No," Scully said, then paused.

"No?"

"No. But yesterday, well, I guess I looked at the wrong time."

"And you know your baby's gender."

"Yes," Scully said, then concentrated intensely on the opposite
wall; the framed, gold-sealed diplomas of the Bureau psychologist; a
painting of a calm wave lapping at the beach; the heavy mahogany
door. Closed.

"Go on."

"I'm ashamed to admit it, but it scares me. It's not that I don't
want the baby to be a boy; before that ultrasound, I didn't think it
mattered."

"But it does."

"I don't know. It makes it more difficult, I suppose. I think I
would know what to tell a girl, how to raise her. But with a boy...
It's worrying me. Will I know what to teach him? I don't mean the
usual gender stereotypes like playing sports and catching bugs. I
was a tomboy growing up; I can handle that stuff. I'm worried about
the real boy stuff: toilet training, the sex talk, shaving." The
things that can only be taught by another man, by a father, Scully
thought.

"So you're worried about not having a man around."

Scully bit back an angry reply. She was tired of defending the role
of single mother. She had had an extended phone conversation with
Bill that week. He was upset that she hadn't called him in person to
tell him that she was pregnant, instead allowing him to find out
second-hand from their mother. He couldn't understand her decision,
which of course didn't surprise her. Like their father, Bill had
also failed to understand -- failed even to try to understand --
her decision to leave medicine for the FBI.

But now it wasn't her position as a single mother that she felt so
defensive about. She was still adjusting to the idea that Mulder was
dead. Not only would her son not have a father, but he would not
have Mulder as his father. Of course, when she had asked Mulder to
be her donor for the in vitro procedure, she had been asking him a
favor as a friend. She was not trying to refashion their
relationship into domestic bliss, to pour Mulder into the mold of
father and hope that he gelled into something presentable,
permanent, and paternal.

All she knew was that he was her best friend, the person with whom
she had shared more of her life than anyone else. He was not
perfect, but he was the best man she knew. Who else could be the
father of her baby if not the man she had shared her life with for
the past seven years?

She had never fooled herself into thinking that she and Mulder would
set up house, that they would make one happy family. She didn't
presume to permutate their relationship into what it was not. No.

But, she admitted, she had imagined Mulder in her life, in their
child's life, in whatever capacity he was most comfortable. She
didn't necessarily imagine him as Dad, but she did imagine him
there.

And now, she knew, he would only be there in the person of their
son. She imagined Mulder as a little boy, then tried to imagine
herself as his mother. Would their son resemble his father? Would he
have his thick dark hair, his intense hazel eyes, his long legs?
Would he have Mulder's quick mind? Would he jump to the same hunches
that had made Scully both crazy and awed for the duration of their
partnership? Would he have his bone-deep loneliness?

Scully prayed to God for the strength to give her son the safe and
loving childhood Mulder had never had. Could she do it herself? She
had not known Mulder's father and had not been well acquainted with
his mother, but Scully imagined that, once and long ago, they had
been in love, beginning a life together, dreaming of happiness for
their children.

They had had the same hopes for Mulder as she now had for their son.
How could she alone give her son something they, together, were not
able to give theirs?

* * * * *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

The cantor for the early-morning mass was a young woman, tall and
thin. Scully wondered if she was a student, home from school on her
summer break. Scully tried to remember being that age, being home
from college, from medical school or even Quantico; home as a
visitor for the first time, confused by her place in the life she
had once taken for granted.

Music began for the cantor's next song. After a quick check on
William, Scully glanced up at the list of hymns posted on the edge
of the altar, then froze when she recognized the first chords of the
hymn. She closed her hymnal and her eyes, waiting for the young
woman's voice to join the soft chords of the organ in the Ave Maria.

Scully remembered the first time she had heard the hymn. It had been
midnight mass one Christmas, when she was about twelve years old.
Her mother had decided that they were all old enough to join her for
midnight mass, which Margaret Scully had always attended even
though she had to do Santa's work when she got back, even though the
Scully children would certainly awaken very early the next morning
and gather around the tree in anticipation, complaining about having
to eat breakfast before opening gifts.

That night the cantor, accompanied by a harp, had sung the Ave Maria
during the communion procession. After going up for communion,
Scully knelt obediently in the pew, her head hung down in an
imitation of prayer -- for what twelve year old could pray for that
long, as the entire congregation slowly went up to communion?

Scully couldn't even understand the words, the lilting Latin phrases
a mystery to her. It wasn't until she studied Latin in high school
that she realized the meaning behind the song, the prayer offered up
to the Virgin Mother.

Words notwithstanding, she had fallen in love with the Ave Maria the
minute she heard it. Scully remembered the depth of sorrow in the
sweet voice of the canter as it filled the candlelit church.

She hadn't even realized that she was sobbing until her sister poked
her in the side. Melissa's expression quizzical, she asked in a
whisper if Dana was okay. Scully had nodded, unable to speak, held
in a suspended animation until the song ended. Even now she didn't
know whether the song had lasted too long or ended too soon.

There were some things, Scully thought, that just got inside you,
struck a chord with you somewhere deep down and refused to let you
go. At other times in her life she had had that experience with
music, remembering, as a teenager, lying on her bed and playing a
Three Dog Night album over and over, enraging Melissa with the
repetition, with the comforting predictability of it all.

From time to time she had had similar experiences with books,
reading the same novel three or four times in a single month,
sometimes twice in a single week; or with a movie, begging Melissa
to go with her to see "Norma Rae" so many times that the ticket
taker knew them by name.

Or with people.

Scully realized now, as the Ave Maria filled the chapel, as hot
tears streamed down her cheeks and the rhythm of her heart fell into
step with the pacing of the hymn, that she felt that way about
Mulder. Somehow he was inside her, rushing into her with every
breath she took, with every beat of her heart.

* * * * *

Quonochontaug, Rhode Island 
July 30, 1967

Mulder remembered the day, the hour almost, that his father had
fallen from grace in his eyes. It was an early summer morning, and
Mulder and his father were headed to the market in town to pick up
some groceries. It was Mrs. Mulder's birthday, and her husband and
young son planned to surprising her with breakfast in bed.

Mulder remembered the secretive excitement he'd felt when his father
woke him, reminding him to be quiet so he didn't spoil the surprise.
It was the first time Mulder could recall that he had been able to
keep a secret, so young was he, and so intent on surprising his
mother.

So he and his father walked down to the local market, little-boy Fox
holding the hem of his father's shirt as they wandered through the
bright open-aired market, picking peaches, squeezing melons,
shuffling ears of corn into the large straw basket Bill Mulder
carried.

Little-boy Fox had amused himself by counting the groceries in their
basket: four peaches, one for each of them; three plums, because
Samantha wouldn't eat them; a bag of sunflower seeds for his father;
two handfuls of green beans; a dozen eggs.

Then they walked slowly through the bakery section, his father
selecting confections and placing them in a white paper sack: a
chocolate cake for after dinner; three blueberry bagels, his
mother's favorite, and three plain bagels. Then Fox's father let him
choose a bagel for himself. After serious deliberation, Fox chose
onion.

Mr. Mulder chuckled when his son finally picked his onion bagel out
of the bin and dropped it in their white bakery sack. "You're not
going to like onion, Fox," he said, smiling down at his son.

"Yes, I will," his son replied, jutting out his stubborn little
chin. Fox waited for his father to remove the bagel from the bag, to
tell him to choose another kind because Mr. Mulder probably
suspected that he would probably end up eating the onion bagel
himself after his son took one unsatisfactory bite. But Bill Mulder
said nothing, just wrapped the onion bagel separately and replaced
it in the white bakery bag.

"Onion's a strong taste, Fox," his father said. "If I don't wrap it
separate, all the bagels'll taste like onion."

His hand still clutching his dad's shirt, Fox skipped along to the
checkout counter, his eyes wide as saucers at the display of
homemade caramel apples. But then his attention was caught by
something else.

The girl working at the checkout, a ponytailed teenager who had
looked so grown-up to Fox, absently rang up their purchases: four
peaches, three plums, a dozen eggs, sunflower seeds, a pound of
green beans, the cake, a half-dozen bagels.

Little-boy Fox, who had been about to ask his father for a caramel
apple, stopped. He knew how much a dozen was; his mother had counted
it out for him when they bought twelve ears of corn from this same
market the previous week. She had explained that some stores gave
thirteen instead. A baker's dozen, she had called it, explaining
that this market did not. Just twelve, little-boy Fox remembered her
saying.

Fox re-added the bagels in his head: three blueberry, three plain,
one onion. Seven. And a dozen was twelve, so half a dozen was six.
He waited for his father to correct the cashier: Seven bagels, not
six. But his father said nothing. Fox gazed up at him, still
waiting. Seven bagels.

Still Bill Mulder said nothing, just slipped his wallet from the
back pocket of his shorts and counted out several bills. He paid the
cashier and received his change, then dropped the coins into his
pocket. Mr. Mulder accepted the small white bakery bag that held
the bagels, plus the larger bag containing the rest of their
purchases. He handed the bakery bag to his son, and they left the
store.

Fox was quiet on the way home, poking at the bagels through the bag,
wondering if maybe his father had removed the onion bagel when he
wasn't looking. Fox felt like stomping his feet in anger; of course
his father had removed it -- that was why he hadn't made Fox switch
it himself, replace it with a flavor he knew the boy would like.

But when they got home, after carefully closing the screen door of
the back porch so not to wake Mrs. Mulder, after tiptoeing into the
kitchen and beginning breakfast, Fox dumped the contents of the
white bakery bag onto the table. His onion bagel was still there.

"Remember, the onion one's yours," his father said before squatting
down to hunt through the cupboard for a frying pan to scramble the
eggs.

* * * * *

Fox Mulder's Apartment 
Alexandria, Virginia 
February 14, 2000

Fox Mulder was cleaning his apartment. It was a monumental day, to
be sure, since he wasn't exactly the neatest person.

After dusting the apartment from floor to ceiling and cleaning his
bathroom, Mulder moved on to his kitchen, which was definitely in
the worst shape of any room. He made a beeline for the sink and
grimaced when he saw what it contained: his breakfast dishes from
that morning and the morning before and the morning before that.

Mulder plugged the sink drain and turned on the hot water. He
squatted down to hunt for a bottle of dishwashing detergent, which
he was sure was down there somewhere. He sifted through rusted-out 
canisters of cleanser, a pile of mildewed dishtowels, and a plastic
box of file folders labeled 1991. So that was where he had stashed
those missing papers.

Mulder rose, turned off the water, and then sat back down with a
thud. He pulled the box of files over to him and cracked open the
dusty lid, only to be interrupted by a knock on his door. He stood
again, whipped off his sweater to reveal a gray t-shirt, then
walked slowly to the door, a thick file folder in his hand.

He opened the door. "Hey, Scully," he said. "I was just cleaning
up." Mulder turned and headed back towards the kitchen, leaving
Scully to follow.

"You? Cleaning? Have I happened upon a once-in-a- lifetime event?"
she joked.

"Must be an X-File," Mulder said with a grin.

"Must be," Scully said, but her teasing was less than enthusiastic.
Mulder turned to look at her, really look for the first time since
he had answered the door. She looked different somehow, tense and
worried.

"Something wrong, Scully?" Mulder asked, dropping onto his couch.
Scully sat down next to him.

"I had a doctor's appointment today," she began.

His heart froze, shot icy waves through his veins. Was her cancer
back? Was that why she looked so tense, so afraid? Mulder looked up
at her, his eyes wide with fright. "Scully?" he managed to choke
out.

"No," she corrected. "I'm fine. It's not my cancer." She laid her
hand on his, which was clenching his knee. Mulder exhaled and he
could almost hear the force of his relieved breath rattle against
the windows with the winter wind. He looked up at her, confused,
uncertain why she still looked so worried.

"Then what?" he asked.

"Last week I took them to a doctor, a specialist..."

She didn't need to tell him what it was she had taken to the doctor,
but if he didn't know what they were talking about, if he had just
dropped into their conversation, into their lives, he might think
that she was talking about children.

Mulder felt a ping of hurt that she hadn't told him that she was
going to see a specialist to look at her recovered ova. But then he
quickly squashed that hurt, reminding himself that he had no right
to any such feelings; no right, of course, since they were her
eggs, her one chance for a future. It was her life, after all... but
then why was she here? Why had she come -- seemingly directly -- to
his apartment after her appointment?

"A specialist," he echoed.

"Dr. Parenti," she confirmed. The smartass portion of Mulder's brain
wanted to tease out a joke in the fact that a fertility doctor would
be named Parenti, to lighten the mood. After all, he had had the
eggs examined himself; he knew what was coming. Nevertheless...

"And," he prompted her.

"And he told me that some of them might be viable."

"Scully, that's wonderful," he said, smiling and putting a hand atop
hers, which still rested on his other hand, on his knee. She smiled,
but it was still tense, forced. "Is there something else?" he asked.

This time it was her turn to sigh, and she appeared to take a moment
to collect herself before continuing. "Dr. Parenti said I could
start immediately," she said, looking down at her lap, bouncing her
knee in an uncharacteristically jittery fashion. "He said we could
start as soon as I found a donor. He suggested looking into an
anonymous donor, unless I had someone else in mind... I told him I
did."

Finally she looked up at him, blue eyes pale and hopeful. The
enormity of her words hit Mulder, pushed him back, hard, into the
couch. For a minute he felt nothing except shock, then he became
aware of a faint shaking. He tried to still himself before realizing
that it was not he who was shaking but Scully, whose hand was still
on his knee. She tried to withdraw it, but he didn't let go.

"Me," he asked, half fearful, half hopeful, and thoroughly
overwhelmed.

"I know it's a lot to ask," she said hurriedly. "I'll understand if
you say no. But when the doctor started talking about a donor, I
knew there was only one person. You're... And it would be completely
up to you, whether you want to be involved in the child's life or
not, and to what degree. It would be whatever you're comfortable
with," she assured him, "whatever you want," she said, looking and
sounding suddenly like a child herself.

"Whatever I want," he repeated, considering the weight of that
offer, the weight of her request. He looked at her again, as if for
the first time, mentally peeling back the years from her face,
de-aging her into a teenager, a child, a baby; melding her features
with his own, trying to imagine their lives linked inextricably and
forever -- officially -- through a child; their partnership a
threesome. Mulder surged with potential energy, imaging a child that
was half him and half Scully.

Scully wants to have my child, he thought. Of course, it wouldn't
just be *his* child; it would be *theirs,* and that was what boggled
his mind the most.

"I should go," Scully said, pulling her hand away and standing.
"Take some time to think about it, then let me know," she said,
making her way to the door, to her escape.

Mulder knew he should stop her, should mark this very momentous
occasion with something; he should at least walk her to the door.
But suddenly he found that he was unable to move, so he simply
watched as she walked out the door.

Yes. The answer was yes, had always been yes. Yes ever since he had
known Scully. Yes even before he told her about Samantha's
disappearance so late at night in that Oregon hotel room.

But he couldn't say yes yet. Even though his mind was reeling and
his head hadn't stopped spinning, Mulder knew he couldn't tell her
yet. He wanted nothing more than to say yes, to ease her fear, to
make her happy.

But if he had immediately blurted out his answer, she would think
the decision was rash, that he hadn't thought it through. She would
wonder if he had made his decision out of some misguided notion like
guilt or obligation, when really he had made it out of love. * * *
* *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

"For those loved ones who have gone before us in death, including
Janice Simon and Harold Edelman, who died earlier this week; we pray
to the Lord."

"Lord, hear our prayer," Scully recited with the other members of
the small congregation. The lector continued with his list of
intentions, but Scully's mind had moved elsewhere. She shed her
jacket, then picked up William, who had started to fuss, and patted
him on the back.

Scully thought of all the loved ones who had gone before William,
all of the family her son would never know: two grandfathers, a
grandmother, two aunts. So many times Scully had felt cheated when
thinking of her father's, and especially her sister's, untimely
deaths.

William's birth, his very existence, was another part of her life
that they could not share. She held her son close, wondering about
the children Melissa would never have. She wished she could share
this with her sister, that she could hand William to Melissa, and
that they could gaze at him, dreaming about his future and pointing
out the traits they shared with him, and those that were Mulder's.

And her father. William would never meet either of his grandfathers,
both of whom had had so impacted the lives of his parents. Scully
ached at the thought that her father would never know of his
grandson, would never see the life she'd made for herself. She
wondered if he would have disapproved of the choices she had made.

Before he died she thought she had known his opinion of her decision
to abandon medicine for the FBI, but several times since her
father's death her mother had assured her that her father *had* been
proud of her, that he had simply been surprised and scared for her,
and that he had had difficulty apologizing for his initial reaction.
Was she also mistaken in imaging that he would disapprove of her
choice of a partner and a life?

Yet she felt somehow that Melissa and her father were there with
her, that they could see her and her son. She could almost feel them
inside her, part of her, inhaling with each new breath, flowing with
each beat of her heart.

Her mind whirled as she imagined who William would grow to be.
Certainly he would have an unusual childhood with her and Mulder as
parents. Try as they might to be conventional, Scully knew it
wouldn't be long before Mulder, whether through the Bureau or the
Gunmen or some other way, uncovered a new plot, a missing clue,
another informant. Would their search be fair to William?

Half-jokingly, Scully had already imagined them toting William along
on their quest. Yet deep down she knew that things between them had
changed forever, that their working relationship could never resume
in exactly the same way, even if Mulder somehow managed to get
himself rehired and reassigned to the X-Files.

William was not Queequeg, the little Pomeranian who had sat so
obediently in the backseat, yipping intermittently as they drove
down to hunt for a sea monster in a lake in Georgia. Besides, Scully
thought sadly, look at how that had turned out.

Scully thought back to her own childhood. She had spent years
traveling from city to city, naval base to naval base. Many people
would consider that unconventional, perhaps even detrimental to a
child's sense of security and confidence. But, looking back, she
had enjoyed her childhood; unusual as it was, she had always felt
loved and accepted, and wasn't that the most important thing? She
would consider herself - - and William -- lucky if she could give him
the kind of upbringing she had had.

Scully wondered about Mulder's childhood, his parents' divorce.
Obviously that had had a great effect on how he lived his life, on
whom he chose to share himself with. What kind of dreams did he have
for William? Did Mulder even think about those things? Or was he
still caught up in Now, in getting accustomed to a life that had
changed so thoroughly in so little time? Was he ready for what it
meant to be a father to William; to have her in his life in this new
role, as a new kind of partner?

Scully had been looking for something, some sign that would show her
that Mulder was ready for this new life, but she had yet to see it.
Every couple, she knew, had a story about how they had met. Her own
parents' story was so familiar, how her schoolgirl mother had fallen
in love with her older brother's best friend yet been afraid to
reveal her feelings for fear of becoming the butt of a joke shared
by her brother and his friends.

But what they didn't tell you, the story no couple shared, was how
they moved from that meeting to togetherness? Did they wake up one
morning and decide to become a couple? Did they fall into step like
they had known each other forever, never giving a second thought to
their togetherness? Or was it a struggle, a mystery that even they
did not understand?

* * * * *

Fox Mulder's Apartment 
Alexandria, Virginia 
March 26, 1989

Mulder slipped back into his old life almost seamlessly. Lynn had
told him to take whatever he wanted from the house, but as he packed
his clothes and other personal belongings he realized that he
wanted very little. He did take his desk and some other furnishings
from the room he had made into an office, plus a dark green leather
couch that Lynn had always hated, had in fact tried to give to
Goodwill once. He arranged the furniture in his newly rented
apartment, then tried not to notice the empty space in the bedroom.

At Oxford Mulder and his friends used to joke about becoming adults.
During their darkest moments -- when they felt the pressures of
thesis research and overdue electric bills and the health insurance
they couldn't afford -- they had reassured themselves that they were
still kids. You weren't an adult unless you couldn't fit yourself
and your worldly possessions in your car and drive away. It wasn't
until you were tied down to a life that looked crazy on a good day
that you were really and truly an adult.

And now Mulder found that he was back to square one, back to "still
kids." As he unpacked what remained of his life, he was reminded
again of his failure, his inability to grow up and grow old like the
rest of the population, to fall in love and get married, to have
children and raise them, safe and secure, surrounded by love and
laughter instead of loneliness.

His life became simple, streamlined. He woke up early after a
restless sleep, went in to work, then returned home, where he was
greeted by a darkened and empty apartment. No one was there to
complain when he worked late, when he brought his work home, when he
fell asleep at his desk at the Bureau and didn't come home at all.
He forgot to eat dinner, wore the same pair of underwear for days on
end, fell asleep to the soporific din of the television.

It was almost as if Lynn, their marriage, and their proto-child had
never existed. Except for his wedding ring, which, for some reason,
he had difficulty removing. Eventually he did, but there remained on
his finger a pale crease where the ring used to be, a taunting
reminder of his failure as a normal man.

For so long he had been only "Mulder": psychologist, special agent,
colleague. Somewhere between Samantha's abduction and his parents'
divorce, he had lost "Fox," the son and friend. Mulder had liked the
way Lynn had made him feel, the way she made him enjoy being Fox
again. He had forgotten what it was like, belonging to a family,
celebrating traditions and sharing oft-told jokes. But in
resurrecting Fox, Lynn had buried Mulder.

Now he realized that maybe he had gone about it the wrong way.
Maybe, instead of stuffing Mulder into the same box that had so
thoroughly contained Fox, he should have tried to bring both sides
of himself into the light. Maybe he shouldn't have shied away from
the pain of Fox's life. Maybe he needed to confront it in order to
uncover any kind of truth.

* * * * *

Dana Scully's Apartment 
Georgetown 
April 29, 2001

Scully awoke when she heard a knock at the door. She reached blindly
for her robe, which she'd laid beside her on her bed, before she
remembered that her mother was in her kitchen, cooking their dinner.
She could answer the door. Scully snuggled back under her comforter
and closed her eyes, but the voices outside her bedroom kept her
from returning to sleep.

"Bill," Scully heard her mother exclaim, and Scully groaned and
covered her head with her quilt.

"Hi, Mom."

"How are you? How's Matthew?"

"He's fine, Mom, and so's Tara," he said. "Here, I've got pictures."

Scully listened while her mother exclaimed over photographs of her
grandson, who was growing into a boy, no longer the baby Dana had
rocked to sleep on her last visit. How many years ago had that been,
Scully wondered. Then there was a long pause and Scully stiffened.

"What's wrong, Bill?" Mrs. Scully asked.

"Nothing, Mom."

"You can't fool me," his mother reprimanded.

"Is she here?" Bill responded.

"Dana's napping."

"How is she feeling?"

"A little tired today, but she'll be fine," Mrs. Scully told him.

"Fine," Bill scoffed. "Mom, be honest. Aren't you worried about
her?"

"Worried?" Mrs. Scully asked. "Why would I be worried? She's safe;
she's not in danger; she's not sick; she's sleeping in her own
bedroom. This may be the first time I *haven't been worried about
her since she joined the FBI."

"I'm not talking about that," Bill said. "I'm talking about this
baby."

"I think it's wonderful," Mrs. Scully said.

"Wonderful?! Mom, she isn't married. She's--"

"Happy," Mrs. Scully said. "I can't deny that I wish she'd done
things in a different order. But she's happy, Bill, happier than
I've seen her in a long time. She wanted this so badly; don't you
ruin it for her."

"But Mom--"

"I don't know how it happened," her mother continued, "but I think
it's a miracle. You have no idea how difficult it was for her after
her abduction, finding out she could never have a child of her own."

"Her abduction," Bill mocked. "You really believe that abduction
nonsense?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe."

"And what about the father?" Bill asked. "Has she said anything to
you about just who that might be?"

"She's not saying," Mrs. Scully said.

"Fox Mulder," Bill spat out angrily. "It has to be."

But Mrs. Scully didn't respond.

"And just where is *Special Agent* Mulder?" Bill asked.

"On an assignment in the Gulf of Mexico," Mrs. Scully said. "On an
oil rig, I think."

"So Agent Mulder -- who is, of course, responsible for this mess --
is on an oil rig?"

"It's his job, Bill. It's *their* job; I'm sure Dana would be there,
too, if she could."

"And whose fault is it that she can't?" he snapped.

"I would think," Margaret Scully pronounced, "that you of all people
would know how difficult it is to be sent away for your job when you
would rather be somewhere else... Or need I remind you of your
absence during Dana's disappearance?"

There was a long pause and Scully turned in bed. She felt an old
anger rise in her chest, quick and hot. She didn't need Bill getting
all angry and protective; she was a grown woman with no tolerance
for an interfering older brother, especially one who didn't
remember her birthday half the time, who was almost completely
absent from her life save the rare crisis when their mother called
on him to be the man of the family.

Bill had always been good at playing the big brother, teasing and
ridiculing her himself, yet making a point of defending her honor
from anyone else who dared bother her. It was an old story, and
frankly she was tired of it.

Scully had half a mind to get out of bed right then and call Bill
off, but a well-placed kick to her abdomen pulled her out of her
anger. She snaked an arm around her belly and settled deeper into
bed, closing her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mom, but he should damn well be here. He disappears for
months without a word and then turns up dead. And now he's somehow
alive again -- which is itself crazy -- and who knows how long he'll
stick around this time," Bill said.

"Bill, that's not fair," Mrs. Scully said. "You never gave Fox a
chance. You barely know him; he's a good man."

"I know enough. Dana follows him blindly, without regard to common
sense or even her own welfare. His single-minded selfishness has
cost her -- and the rest of us -- so much already..."

"Bill, Dana may be your little sister, but she's also a grown woman,
a doctor, and an FBI agent. She's not a child, and she's *not* in
any danger."

"Maybe not physically," Bill said, then a pause. "Does he plan on
marrying her at least?"

"Bill, I told you I don't know. And I'd ask you not to mention it to
her."

"And why the hell not?" Bill asked.

"Bill," Mrs. Scully said with a disappointed sigh.

"Mom," Bill retorted sharply. "And what about this baby, this bah--"

Scully held her breath while Bill paused, mentally daring him to
speak the word, to call her baby a bastard. She rubbed her hand over
her abdomen, wishing she knew where her son's ears were.

"This baby," Bill continued. "Raising it alone, without a father?"

"Bill," Mrs. Scully said. "Just because Dana and Fox aren't married
doesn't mean that the baby won't have a father. That is, assuming
that Fox even is the father. He's a good man, Bill, loyal and
passionate. And he loves Dana, of that I *am* sure.

"Listen to me, Bill," Mrs. Scully continued, her voice low and even,
yet measured, on the edge of her patience. "You cannot love your
sister and hate her partner at the same time. And certainly if Fox
is the baby's father, you can't hate him and love your niece or
nephew."

Their voices hushed and Scully buried herself further in her bed,
silently begging her brother to be quiet, to leave, to do anything
so that she wouldn't have to listen to his ranting about Mulder.

* * * * * 

Until Scully had asked him to be her donor, Mulder hadn't imagined
himself as a father in years, not since Lynn's miscarriage. Of
course, she had only really asked him to help her out on the
donation end of things, and even then only in the sterile, clinical
sense of the word; she hadn't asked for a father for her child,
either the full-time or the weekend variety. Sure, she had given him
the opportunity to be involved, but he wondered whether she had done
that more as a concession than an invitation.

Nonetheless, Scully's request had gotten him thinking. He began to
toss the idea of fatherhood around in his head, and in his heart.
And not just fatherhood in the abstract: fatherhood to Scully's
motherhood, to Scully's baby.

Though he was approaching forty, Mulder had never before considered
himself ready for children, ready for what he knew would be the most
immense responsibility of his life. When fatherhood was mentioned
in his presence -- usually by an aging aunt or joking cousin -- he
brushed it aside as Not For Me, the same as he did with marriage,
with retirement from the FBI, with giving up on his quest for truth.
Not for me, he'd think. Not part of my life.

But after Scully's request, it took all his strength to banish the
thought from his mind. Of course it was a big decision, but he
continued to toy with the idea even after he'd agreed to help
Scully, even after he'd contributed his half of the genetic mix.

He'd told Scully that she was the only one he trusted. It was the
truth, in more ways than he'd wanted to admit then. In fact, he
trusted her more than he trusted himself, had trusted her so many
times with his life, with his heart.

It wasn't until Scully had seen it in him that he'd started to see
it in himself, the inkling that he might be a good father. He
certainly hadn't had the best role model in Bill Mulder, a man he
had admired and feared and loved and mourned.

But, despite their presence in different areas of the same
professional circle, Mulder hadn't become his father. By the time he
was Mulder's age, his father had been married with children and was
far on a path of self-destruction and isolation.

But while he could be a workaholic, Mulder wasn't an alcoholic,
wasn't involved too deeply in a conspiracy he may or may not have
fully understood. And Mulder had the benefit of his father's
mistakes; he had seen where the elder man had gone wrong, putting
his allegiance to colleagues ahead of his allegiance to his wife
and children.

Mulder knew he would do it differently.

* * * * *

Fox Mulder's Apartment 
Alexandria, Virginia 
April 9, 2000

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" Scully asked when Mulder
finished his narrative.

Mulder shrugged, then looked down.

"It's because of the infertility, isn't it?"

He nodded. "It didn't come up in the beginning and then, once we got
closer, once you learned..."

"That I'm barren," she supplied.

"That," he said. "Once we found out, it seemed too cruel, that I had
a chance at something you had been denied. Something I didn't even
want."

Scully shook her head. "It wasn't something I wanted ten years ago
either," she admitted. "So why are you telling me now?" she asked
after a pause.

"The way you opened up to me... After everything you told me... I
just couldn't justify keeping it secret any longer," he said.

"It wasn't..." She stumbled on her words, then recovered, pushing an
errant lock of hair behind her ear. "It wasn't because of the in
vitro, because I asked you..."

"No," Mulder assured her, touching her shoulder. "Scully, no. I told
you then that I was flattered -- honored -- at your request. I
didn't lie to you then, and I won't lie to you now."

"But..." Scully supplied.

"But nothing," Mulder said. "I wasn't ready to be a father ten years
ago. But now..."

"Now?"

"Now is different," he told her. "We didn't have a chance to talk
about it before the procedure--"

"Mulder, it didn't work. We don't have to--"

"We do," Mulder said, intensifying the pressure of his hand on her
arm. "You have to know. We didn't discuss the role I would play in
his or her life, but I do--" He paused. "--I would have wanted a
role." He said these last words slowly, drawing them out as he
caught her gaze. Scully allowed the corners of her mouth to turn
into a slow, sad smile.

Mulder slid over on the couch, to sit so that, still beneath the
Navajo print blanket, his hip was inches from Scully's. He reached
out and took her chin in his hand, then allowed his face to drift
toward hers. Her eyes were bright and hopeful, until she closed
them, and Mulder kissed her. As their mouths opened and their
tongues began a tender exploration, Mulder scooted over until his
and Scully's thighs were pressed insistently against each other.

Mulder felt Scully's hands on his neck, moving up through his hair.
She ran a thumb just beneath his hairline and Mulder tried to
suppress a shiver. His hands found her waist, and he ran his thumbs
beneath her shirt, along her waistband. Their kisses intensified,
and Mulder's hands wandered up, tracing Scully's ribs.

His fingers found her back, caressing the hollow of her spine, the
small knobs of vertebrae. His hands moved back down, traced the
waistband of her skirt. Then he stopped as his fingers came into
contact with something other than skin.

Scully froze, her back stiffening, her lips still on Mulder's.
Mulder gently traced a square of what felt like cotton gauze, which
was taped to Scully's lower back. He slid off the couch and onto the
floor, fell to his knees beside Scully. She looked down at him,
then tore her gaze from his, looking away as if in shame. But she
didn't protest either, and she turned slightly to face the wall,
giving Mulder a clear view of her back.

So he pushed up the fabric of her shirt, running one hand over the
gauze and holding her shirt up with the other. He ran his thumb
gently over the cotton square, then pulled back when Scully's hand
closed over his. She pried his fingers from her shirt, then pulled
the hem up, lifted it over her head, and dropped it on the floor
beside the couch, giving him unrestricted access to her back.

Mulder gazed at her for a long moment, her pale skin glowing in the
soft blue light, the silky dark satin of her bra contrasting the
thick whiteness of the gauze. He flashed back to another time, so
long ago, when she had also exposed her back to him, had implored
him to investigate something she could not see for herself. And her
reaction, how she had bared herself to him -- both physically and
emotionally -- as she sunk needily into his arms after he identified
the marks on her back; it had set the tone for their relationship:
An innate trust. An unending partnership. An overtone of attraction.

She had been afraid that night in Oregon; Mulder had felt her fear
hanging in the air like a fog. He wondered now whether she was again
afraid. Her hand on Mulder's knee was enough to bring him back to
the present, which, he immediately realized, was infinitely more
promising than that time in the Oregon hotel room.

It was indeed a square of gauze. Mulder was confused. He racked his
admittedly cloudy brain, trying to remember if Scully had been hurt
at work recently, but he could come up with nothing, at least
nothing that would warrant a piece of gauze on her back.

Mulder peeled back a corner of the surgical tape and removed the
patch to reveal a slightly faded tattoo amidst a circle of pinkened
skin. Careful not to further irritate the delicate skin of her back,
Mulder traced the circular shape, which he recognized as an
oroborus. He had, of course, seen it before, in the evidence
photographs taken by a detective while Scully was a patient at the
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia.

Of course Mulder had known of the tattoo Scully had gotten when
she'd gone alone to Philadelphia, when he'd sent her to
Philadelphia. He cringed at the memory, at the way he, still angry
at his forced vacation, had forced the assignment on her,
instructing her to track down a lead that even he had suspected was
a dead end.

And he'd been so cruel to her, rebuffing her possible overture to
conversation, her disheartened complaint that her life was going
nowhere. He had hurt her -- perhaps, subconsciously, he had been
*trying* to hurt her -- by saying that the X-Files were his life but
just her work.

He should have known better, damnit, but he hadn't been thinking --
he had been so frustrated and angry that the case he had tried so
hard to get reopened was not really an X-File, was not even very
interesting. Maybe that was why he had left the case for her when
he was gone; he didn't want to miss out on any real X- Files, didn't
want her working on them alone.

It had been cruel to suggest that her devotion to the X-Files was
any less than his, not after she had sacrificed nights and weekends
-- her life -- to join his quest. Not after her own abduction, not
after the discovery of an implant in her neck.

He had tried to repent, calling her from Graceland to share the
experience with her, trying to draw her a little deeper into his
personal life. But he'd gotten so angry when she told him that she
had handed off the case to the Philadelphia bureau. When she said
that she wouldn't be following the lead further, that she was busy,
he'd made a crack about her having a date, of course expecting her
to laugh him off, expecting to inject a bit of levity into their
snappish conversation.

But she'd called his bluff. At the time he didn't know whether she
had truly had a date or whether she'd lied, trying to hurt him as
much as he'd been hurting her.

Then she'd returned and he'd learned of her affair, which was
emotional if not also sexual, with a man who'd almost killed her.
And had he been sympathetic, patient? Of course not: he'd been his
usual sarcastic, self-centered sonofabitch. He told himself that he
couldn't help it; that what she had done was a betrayal of both him
and their work; that she had dropped the investigation in order to
get laid, that she had shed their cerebral relationship for a
physical one.

"I was getting it removed," she whispered.

"Why?"

Scully was quiet. "It's a reminder of a bad time," she said. "A
frustrating time. And then of my cancer."

Again he traced the circle, then bent down and pressed his lips to
the skin at its center. Scully's back arched at his touch, and she
tossed her head over her shoulder to watch him. He moved up her
spine, planting gentle kisses on the tiny wells between her
vertebrae. When he got to her neck he pushed aside her hair and
necklace, then touched his lips to the small pink scar.

 * * * * *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

"Our Father, who art in Heaven," the priest chanted, and was quickly
joined in the Lord's Prayer by the remainder of the small
congregation. Habitually, Scully held out her hands, palms up,
remembering how, when she was a child, her family had always held
hands during the Our Father.

She imagined them standing there with her now, her sister Melissa's
slim fingers pressing the cold metal of her mood ring into Scully's
knuckle; her father's hand, strong and warm, dwarfing her own; her
brother Bill's fingers weaved through hers, squeezing with a sharp
pressure that increased as the prayer progressed, crushing her
knuckles.

With a start, Scully realized that she needn't stand empty-handed
any longer. She reached out, stroked her index finger across
William's hand, causing his tiny fist to uncurl. Scully pressed her
finger into William's palm and he gently closed his fingers around 
hers. Scully closed her eyes.

"Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven," Scully intoned, her
voice immediately disappearing into the cavernous depths of the
church. She let the collective voice of the congregation swallow
her, sweep her away.

Suddenly she felt a gentle pressure in her right hand, the palm she
held open and empty. Her eyes flew open and she stared at the person
now standing beside her.

Mulder? she mouthed silently, interrupting her prayer. He gave her a
sideways glance, then a slow smile. When the prayer ended and Scully
dropped his hand, Mulder shrugged off his jacket and reclaimed her
hand.

* * * * *

Democrat Hot Springs, Georgia 
May 20, 2001

"We have a son," Scully had said when Mulder stepped into the old
house where she'd just given birth to William.

She hadn't thought before she'd spoken, half out of her mind with
pain and fear, the other half consumed by a love she had almost not
believed herself capable of.

Immediately she'd regretted her words. She had tried not to put any
pressure on Mulder since his return. He hadn't confided in her about
his feelings -- not much, at least -- but she had sensed his
confusion, his uncertainty. And she had tried to give him time to
get used to everything. After all, she remembered returning after
her own abduction; it had been difficult enough for her, and she
hadn't been faced with impending parenthood.

So they had spoken little of the baby, despite the circus that had
surrounded her pregnancy and his birth. They had been so focused on
Mulder's return, and then on keeping her and the baby safe, that the
opportunity to talk hadn't presented itself. Or, rather, they hadn't
presented it. Scully knew she could have initiated the conversation
-- she could have forced Mulder to confront the truth -- but her
own uncertainty and fear had prevented it.

It didn't help matters that Scully felt guilty for leaving the
X-Files. It wasn't just, as she had tried to explain to Mulder, that
she didn't want to leave Doggett alone, without a partner to discuss
ideas with or watch his back. She also felt as though her leaving
betrayed Mulder. She had carried his cross -- competently though not
always proudly -- while he was missing. And after he had returned --
but not to the X-Files -- she had maintained his quest for the
truth.

But then, when her maternity leave started, Scully felt as though
the X-Files -- at least the part of the X-Files that had been
Mulder's, and, yes, hers -- had died. And she had stood by and
watched as it sputtered its last breath. She had abandoned Mulder's
search for the truth, and she couldn't help but wonder whether
Mulder was angry with her for it. Or disappointed in her.

Of course, he had assured her that she had more than paid her dues.
But, still, for Scully, it wasn't about dues or even obligation; it
was about desire. Her desire, and Mulder's, for the truth, and her
desire, her selfish desire, to have a child. She had gone AWOL from
their cause... Would he ever forgive her?

Of course their relationship had been strained, so much so that
Scully had felt the need to thank Mulder for agreeing to be her
Lamaze coach, when instead she should have been kidding him about
his obligation to her, to their child.

And then his role as a coach had ended up being limited to a handful
of classes. He had been gypped out of William's birth. Or had he
been spared the ordeal, Scully had wondered as she lay on the stone-
hard bed in the middle of rural Georgia, her only comfort Agent
Reyes and a stranger who turned out to be an alien herself.

But her doubts about Mulder's feelings about the baby were erased
when he stepped into that house, when she finally confirmed --
verbally, for the first time -- that William was Mulder's son.
Mulder's face had relaxed into a grin that seemed at once relieved,
exuberant, and inevitable.

Still, she had held her breath in anticipation as he crossed the
room in three great strides, falling to his knees at her side. His
eyes grew large and shone green in the dark of the room. His mouth
opened and closed, then opened again as he reached out a tentative
finger and caressed William's cheek, still wet with her amniotic
fluid.

"Our son," he had whispered, letting his other hand move around the
bundle that was their baby, to find Scully's fingers and to hold on.

* * * * *

Sending Scully away had been the hardest thing he'd ever done,
followed closely by having to tell his father that he'd lost his
sister, or the woman they had thought was his sister. Again.

But this was worse, Scully's late-night flight from DC with Agent
Reyes, a woman Mulder of course did not trust. And Mulder hadn't
even known where they were going. That was the worst part. Not only
was he sending Scully away, but he didn't even know where; he
couldn't go after her. As he stood on the roof with Skinner,
watching Scully and Reyes drive off into the dark DC night, he felt
a clench in his stomach, a tightness that didn't abate until he saw
Scully again. Until he saw William.

In the eight years that they had worked together, Mulder had never
doubted that Scully could take care of herself. Strike that, he
thought. There was one time, weeks before he had been abducted, when
Scully had fed him the lame excuse of a family emergency -- as if
he couldn't check that out with her mother -- and had instead gone
off with that Cigarette-Smoking Bastard.

That time, that one time, he had questioned whether she could take
care of herself. Not because she wasn't a strong, competent woman
who carried a gun and was more than capable of defending herself --
and, more times than he wanted to remember, him -- but because she
was with *him.* Mulder knew from experience that no one could be
well enough prepared for an encounter with CGB Spender.

Mulder realized, thinking back, that Scully's disappearance with
Spender was the first time after they had become lovers that he
thought that either of them were in serious danger. So he had
panicked; he admitted it. He told himself that it was because
Scully had lied to him, but he knew, too, that it was the alpha male
in him rising to the surface. His partner -- his lover -- had gone
off with another man, with the devil himself. How could he just sit
by and wait for her to return?

Of course she had been okay. Cancer Man wouldn't be that
transparent, that obvious. He wouldn't come for her himself,
wouldn't let Scully's landlord get such a good look at him. No, a
long-range, well-placed bullet was more his style. Or even something
subtler, Mulder thought, remembering the drug-laced water supply of
his apartment building that had almost led to Mulder's own undoing.

But this time things were different. Not only was he not there to
back her up, not only did he not even know where the hell she'd
gone, but she was pregnant. She still had her gun -- he'd made sure
to touch her back, feel for the weapon she'd carried in a shoulder 
holster since before he had returned from the dead -- but that was
all she had to defend herself. She couldn't run, could barely fight
back.

And, God, if she went into labor. She would be completely
defenseless. Reyes was with her, but Mulder didn't know her. Doggett
had vouched for her character, but that didn't mean much to Mulder,
who didn't entirely trust Doggett either and didn't know whether to
be thankful that Reyes was with her or worry that Reyes wasn't
trustworthy. The latter sentiment had definitely been winning when
the helicopter landed and Mulder jumped out, sprinted past the
retreating cars, only to see Reyes emerge from an old, battered
house.

At that moment he was sure that she'd been in on it, helping the
Conspirators, and had allowed Billy Miles or one of his compatriots
to smuggle away Scully's child when she was at her most vulnerable.
Or, Mulder's stomach had tumbled to his toes, had they taken Scully
as well?

Nothing had prepared Mulder for what he'd seen when he entered that
house: spent and sweaty, Scully lay sprawled out on the bed, her wet
hair pushed back, her face red with exhaustion. Mulder couldn't help
but be transported to another time, so many months ago, when Scully
had looked similar after they had finally exhausted each other after
a night of lovemaking.

He didn't take a breath as he flew to his partner's side, dropped to
his knees beside her, damning himself for not having been there with
her. Sure, intellectually he knew that he couldn't have gone with
her. Someone had to stay behind, take care of Krycek and Roher. He
wasn't the obvious choice, but, after his own abduction, he was
afraid they could somehow track him. Had they put something inside
him, something akin to Scully's neck implant, something that would
alert them to his location? Was that how they had ultimately found
Scully, he wondered.

Mulder had no evidence to indicate an implant, no beeping metal
detector, no strange spot on the multitude of x-rays he had had
while at the hospital. But who knew what kind of technology had been
developed, what kind of undetectable implants had been engineered in
the years between Scully's abduction and his own?

And, at first, he didn't even let Doggett tell him where Reyes had
taken Scully. After all, They -- whoever They were who were after
Scully, They who had taken him -- They knew of his relationship with
Scully. Of course he would be the obvious choice if they needed to
get information out of someone.

At one point Mulder wished he had thought to tell Reyes not to go
wherever Doggett had recommended, just to take off for parts
unknown. But, besides not completely trusting Reyes, Mulder was
afraid of Scully disappearing without any of them knowing where she
was, without him knowing where to begin looking if she didn't
return.

Maybe he should have asked Skinner to go with her. Skinner was the
only person, other than Scully, whom Mulder had felt he could trust.
And he knew that Scully trusted Skinner; even though she had had her
misgivings about him in the past, their relationship had been
cemented by the months he had been away. Of course, she may not have
been completely comfortable with him delivering her child, but
Mulder knew she would have agreed to it. But he hadn't thought of
Skinner at the time, and had been kicking himself over it as Scully
and Reyes drove off.

But those concerns vanished from his mind when Mulder entered the
house where Scully had given birth to their son. Their son. He
repeated it again, still barely able to believe it. But he'd had no
doubts when Scully had told him that night.

"We have a son."

Of course he'd known it all along; he'd been afraid to admit it,
even to himself. And naturally he and Scully hadn't talked about it.
She'd carried on valiantly, stoically, by herself; asking him to be
her Lamaze coach like it was a favor he was doing her, instead of
his responsibility, his pleasure.

As he knelt beside her bed that night, after she'd finally
acknowledged that her child was also his, he knew he didn't want to
be relegated into that hazy land of biological father, a man with a
child's school picture on his desk but no child's arms wrapped
around his legs when he got home at night. Mulder wanted to be more
than father-by-default, more than a weekend dad. He wanted to be
Daddy, if only Mommy would let him.

Mommy. He wanted Scully for more than that, wanted more from their
relationship than partners, than co- parents even. He knew the moment
he saw her lying there in bed in that house in Georgia that, even if
he didn't already know and love everything about her, seeing her
there after giving birth to their son would be reason enough.

What happened next would remain hazy in Mulder's memory. He had
tried to speak -- tried to tell Scully everything he had just
realized, tried to tell her that the self-indulgent haze he'd been
in ever since returning from the dead had vanished -- but the words
wouldn't come. Instead his mouth had popped open and closed, open
and closed, like the fish in his tank back home in DC, which seemed
to be a world away.

He did remember touching his son's cheek, his nose, his fingers.
Then touching Scully's fingers, holding onto them like a lifeline.

* * * * *

Fox Mulder's Apartment 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

Mulder dropped a stack of shirts into his suitcase, then snapped the
clasps shut. He shoved the suitcase near his bedroom door, piling
two stuffed duffel bags atop it. After taking a box from the shelf
closet, he flipped off the lid and shuffled through the photographs
inside. He considered them carefully; should he pack them too? He
glanced around his half- empty bedroom, wondering whether he had
packed too much. Would he have room for everything? Did he really
need those pictures?

Most of them he had memorized anyway. There was his father, his
mother, Samantha; pictures of the four of them in Quonochontaug on
the Fourth of July, at Samantha's eighth birthday party, celebrating
Hanukkah with his father's family and Christmas with his mother's;
almost every happy memory he had as a part of the Family Mulder.

You should leave the pictures behind, Mulder told himself. Leave
them there and never look back. Your membership in the Family Mulder
is way past due; it's been a lonely club anyway, Mulder thought.
Especially since his mother's death over a year ago.

But it was tough, just leaving them all behind. They had been such
an important part of his life, especially Samantha. Mulder fingered
a picture of his sister as a newborn, cradled awkwardly in the arms
of her less than enthusiastic four-year-old brother.

A picture of Mulder's father dropped from the middle of the stack
and onto his lap. Mulder set the other pictures aside and
concentrated on his father. Bill Mulder sat on the back deck of a
sailboat, his arms outstretched and his feet crossed at the ankles.
He was squinting into the sun and smiling at the camera. Mulder
flipped the photograph over and saw, from his mother's elegant
cursive script, that in the photograph his father was just about the
same age as Mulder now.

Mulder studied the picture closely, wondering what his father would
think of him now, of his career and his fledgling personal life.
Would he be proud of his son, of how hard he had fought and how
desperately he had searched for The Truth, for Samantha? Or would he
be disappointed that Mulder hadn't uncovered The Truth, that he
hadn't set right what, inadvertently or not, Bill Mulder had made
wrong?

Would he be pleased with his grandson? Mulder tried to imagine his
father holding William, but the image would not come. He could
imagine his mother delighting in her only grandchild, but not his
father. Strange. Or would his father be disappointed that his
grandson had been born to unmarried parents? And what would he
think of Scully, whom he had never met?

Mulder set the pile of photographs back in the box, all except for
the one of his father. He gave another long look at his
forty-year-old father, whom he looked nothing like, whom he had
never looked anything like. He could see a certain physical
resemblance between himself and his mother, but not his father.
Never his father. Mulder tucked the photograph into the side pocket
of one of his duffel bags.

Again Mulder's thoughts returned to William. He didn't want William
to have the same questions he had had. He could already see the
future: William at age ten, red- haired and freckled, sitting with
Scully, building a plastic model of a spaceship or doing math
homework. He would turn to her, his brow would crinkle in that
familiar way, and he would ask her, "Who is my father?"

The vision never went further -- Mulder never imagined Scully's
response -- but it did not need to. Mulder got the point. Not only
had he shared just a small fraction of his life with Samantha, but
perhaps only half of his genes. Or perhaps not. He would never
know.

Either way, Mulder had been cheated out of a life with his sister.
There was nothing he could do about that; he knew that now. But he
would not let life cheat him out of his son, and he certainly
wouldn't let life cheat his son out of a father.

* * * * *

St. John's Church 
Alexandria, Virginia 
June 10, 2001

Why is it, Scully wondered as kicked up the kneeler of her pew and
pushed back into her seat, that during the most trying times in her
life she had turned away from religion; turned away, even, from her
family? She had not been to church in months, not since before she 
discovered she was pregnant, before Mulder disappeared. And it had
been the same way during her cancer, and when her sister was killed,
and after her own abduction, even during her decision to leave
medicine for the FBI.

She turned the thought carefully in her mind as she handed William
to Mulder and rose to go up to Communion. In comparison to the
crowds that gathered on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings, the
church was empty. But only the priest was giving Communion, so the
line was long, and especially slow moving because of the number of
elderly men and, mostly, women in attendance.

Scully reached the end of her pew and joined the line, still
considering why it was that she had chosen to distance herself from
her religion at the very times that would cause most semi-lapsed
Catholics to run back with open arms. All she knew was that going to
church during those times had made her feel empty -- small and
unworthy -- in a building packed with couples and children and
families. And love.

In a way, she felt that she was being tested: was she strong enough?
Was she good enough? Was she deserving?

And perhaps she had been testing her family, either testing her
ability to go on without them or their ability to go on without her;
she didn't know which. Scully had told Bill that her cancer
diagnosis had been personal, that that was why she hadn't wanted her
mother to share her news with him. She knew, however, that keeping
it a secret would hurt him and, in a way, she had almost wanted it
to. He had been absent from her life for so long, and now suddenly
he wanted back in.

Bill, whom she saw so infrequently during ordinary times, had
assumed an overbearing presence when he discovered she was sick. Her
mother urged her to be patient, reminding her that Bill had not been
close with Melissa for years before her death. Perhaps he saw the
illness of his only remaining sister as a second chance.

Fine. Scully had tolerated it when all Bill's interference was
restricted to castigating her about the undue worry she was causing
their mother by continuing to work so assiduously. But that excuse 
wore thin as Bill stepped further and further into her life, past
the boundaries that had been set by their years of distance. She
knew he had had some confrontation with Mulder, and Scully could
only guess at the words that had been exchanged between them.

And then there was Mulder. For some reason she had told only Mulder
of her illness, even delaying telling her mother. She had known,
even then, that she could count on Mulder, that he would be there
for her without smothering her, that he would not allow her
sickness to get in the way of their relationship, would not allow
her death sentence to define their relationship in the way that Bill
had.

Mulder hadn't resorted to handling her with kid gloves, to pitying
her and coddling her in a way he would never have done if she had
been well. Somehow she had known that he would not fall into a
premature chasm of grief and guilt. Yes, he had been concerned - -
that was to be expected -- but he hadn't tried to convince her to
stop work, to give in to the weakness and the nosebleeds. He hadn't
stepped into the easy role of grieved partner, as Bill had grieved
brother.

And Mulder wasn't the one who had urged her to turn to her religion
for strength, for Scully knew the kind of strength her religion,
along with Father McCue and her brother, were offering her: the
strength to give in, to give up on everyone and everything she had
ever loved.

She did not want to accept the strength to die with the "dignity"
that Bill spoke of with such reverence, such misplaced familiarity.
She had lived her life with her own kind of strength: externally
quiet, yes, but inside she had lived kicking and screaming, and she
wasn't going to die lying down, praying for mercy.

Scully heard a muffled cry: a baby's cry. She glanced over her
shoulder to see Mulder shifting William in his arms, trying to make
him comfortable. He rubbed his hand gently over the baby's back,
and, in the early morning light of the church, William's hair
glowed bright and pale, like a halo. William settled into his
father's arms and Mulder's hand stilled, nearly covering William's
tiny back. Reassured, Scully turned back around.

From her mother's account, Mulder had been a comfort to her when
Scully was missing. At first they had kept in contact to discuss
Mulder's investigation into her disappearance. Margaret had wanted
to know the details of the Duane Berry case, to try to understand
why her daughter had been targeted. Mulder had done his best to
explain, to share what little he was certain of.

Then their relationship had drifted from the formal and functional
to the supportive, with Margaret inviting Mulder to periodic dinners
at her home. Scully sensed that her mother had somehow known that
Mulder needed something -- someone -- to occupy those dark hours
that he would have otherwise spent in guilt-ridden self-torture.

Scully had faith in Mulder. After all they had gone through since
his return, she now believed wholly that he was back for good,
emotionally as well as physically. And her belief had only been
strengthened by the feel of his fingers slipping into hers during
the Our Father.

Scully stepped up to the altar, imagining the cleansing desiccation
of the Communion wafer on her tongue. She could almost taste the
bitter warmth of the wine, tipping out of the soft gold chalice,
filling her mouth with a thick metallic tinge like blood. Realizing
that wine was not being offered at this mass, she swept her tongue
around her mouth, realizing that it *was* blood that she tasted. She
sucked on the inside of her cheek in an attempt to stop the
bleeding.

Scully gazed up at the life-sized Christ hanging on the cross above
the altar. She could see the round dark circles of the nails driven
through His palms. The dark red of blood tracing their
circumferences.

More blood, too much blood.

She remembered Teresa Nemen's sudden bloody nose during their first
case; Deep Throat's blood pouring onto the pavement after he was
shot; Bill Mulder's blood on his son's shirt, on his son's hands, as
Mulder stumbled into her apartment; Mulder's blood pouring from his
shoulder, forced from his body by a bullet from her own gun;
Melissa's blood in a pool on the floor of her apartment.

And her own blood.

Her own blood had been shed so many times during her years on the
X-Files: Drops of blood collecting on her pillow, on her blouse, on
a washcloth; hallmarks of the sneaky tenacity of her illness. The
blood she had continued to shed, month after barren month, reminding
her of the truth of her infertility. And the blood- laced amniotic
fluid still covering William as his tiny, squirming body was laid on
her sweat-soaked chest.

She gazed up at the priest, who held a small circle of host, white
and almost transparent, up to her.

"The body of Christ," he said.

"Amen."

* * * * *

The procession marched slowly past them, exiting into the vestibule
behind them. Scully turned to Mulder, eyes wide.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"What, a man can't come see his family?"

Her eyes narrowed at his choice of words. "In church?"

He shrugged. Despite his relentless faith in alien abductions and
government conspirators, Mulder was one of the least conventionally
religious people she knew. Certainly a church -- a Catholic church,
no less -- was the last place she expected to see him, unless, of
course, there had been a snake attack or a bombed-out crypt or a
bogus stigmatic...

"I thought you got your fill of religion with those three a.m.
Father Dowling reruns you watch when you're up with William."

He laughed and then, together, wordlessly, they repacked William's
diaper bag. The only sounds in the church were the soft footsteps of
the other parishioners: the tight staccato of high heels, the soft
squeak of rubber soles, the steady scrape of the treads of a
wheelchair. William's soft cooing echoed through the cavernous
church.

Mulder stuffed a bottle into a side pocket and thought of the
luggage packed into his trunk, thought of unpacking their contents
into the drawers he and Scully had cleared out the previous night.
He thought of his belongings mixing with hers, with the baby gear
that now had the run of her apartment. He wondered how long it would
take before his stuff and hers became inextricable,
indistinguishable.

Mulder watched Scully cover William with a blanket, watched her
fingers smoothing his hair, tucking the soft fabric securely around
his tiny body. Her lips were upturned in a reassuring smile and her
face shone bright in the kaleidoscope of light streaming through
the stained glass window. Mulder was surprised to feel tears forming
in his eyes, his heartbeat pounding from his sternum to his skull.

His stomach clenched as his vision shifted, and a life passed before
his eyes. He saw William saying his first words, taking his first
steps, climbing onto a school bus. He saw a little red-haired boy
swinging an oversized baseball bat, driving a car, dangling gangly 
legs as he swung from the rim of a basketball hoop. He watched as
the boy moved boxes and suitcases into a crowded college dormitory,
flipped the tassel hanging from his mortarboard, kissed a beautiful
young bride.

He watched the boy grow and nurture a career, a child, a life of his
own. He saw the boy's child move away from home, saw the boy soothe
a crying grandchild, saw the boy's wife grow old and die. Finally,
he watched the boy who was no longer a boy as he, too, died.

Mulder's eyes were open, and he saw it all. In front of him stood a
life, whole and complete, as if it were already written out in some
mysterious and unseeable book. Could it be his? Was he deserving?

He had changed from his days with Lynn, that much Mulder knew with a
tight certainty. He was an adult now, his eyes open to a world of
treachery, of secret. And of love. But had he grown up, or just
grown old?

"I want to believe," he said finally in a whisper, answering her
unasked question.

THE END