TITLE:  Ersatz Promises
AUTHORS:  Susanne Barringer and Suzanne Schramm
EMAIL:  sbarringer@usa.net; sister_suze@yahoo.com
ARCHIVE:  Please drop us a line.  
CATEGORY:  XA
KEYWORDS:  Mytharc
SPOILERS:  Up to Emily
RATING:  R for heavy angst and adult subject matter
SUMMARY:  Ersatz - an artificial and usually inferior substitute 
or imitation.
DISCLAIMER:  These characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and 
Fox. No infringement intended.

Thank you to Kris P. and Sue P. (no relation) for beta reading, 
not just the final copy but many of the chapters when this was a 
WIP.  Your enthusiasm was much appreciated.

**CONTENT WARNING:  Please note that this story contains subject 
matter that some people may find disturbing.  We can't elaborate 
without giving away plot points.  Please read responsibly.  :)

NOTE: This story occurs sometime during the sixth season. This is 
NOT a Post-Requiem story.  We started this well over a year 
before that episode aired. Similarities are purely coincidental 
and really pissed us off (Yeah, thanks Chris Carter for ruining 
our version of babyfic!).  More authors' notes at end.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ersatz Promises
by Susanne Barringer and Suzanne Schramm


CHAPTER 1


Mulder is missing, at least officially.  Once again, he's run off 
to chase a shallow lead in an unknown direction, leaving me to 
follow the evidence.  I have no idea where he's gone, but for 
once in our partnership, I do know why - exactly why - and I know 
what he is looking for.  As if to remind me, the child inside me 
moves suddenly, fluttering in my womb.  I try not to weep with 
the pleasure of it.  I cannot allow myself to love it, at least 
not until we find out what it is.


*****


"I'm pregnant."

Mulder's face doesn't change, not even the slightest bit.  The 
shock is so great it seems to have almost no effect on him.  Only 
his eyes show his reaction, clouding over in concern and doubt.

"Scully," his voice catches on my name.  He is not as stoic as he 
appears.  "You can't... I mean, I thought you weren't able to..."

"I'm not."  I relieve him of his discomfort.  I wonder if he 
thinks I've suddenly become delusional.  I wouldn't blame him.  
This is the craziest thing I've ever said to him.  "All those 
tests showed that this isn't possible, but I'm pregnant just the 
same."

I watch his face carefully, how his lips move to form a word but 
then stop.  He is weighing what he should say, wondering what 
question to ask.  I toss the sonogram onto the coffee table and 
Mulder unlatches his eyes from mine to glance down at it.  His 
gaze meets mine again in question, so I raise my eyebrows in 
consent.

Mulder reaches for the picture and his hand trembles.  He raises 
the sonogram and examines it carefully.  I watch as he runs his 
finger like a caress over the barely perceptible gray shadow that 
is the fetus.  I wonder if he's conscious of doing that. 

"This is your baby?"  He looks at me in a way that breaks my 
heart - half enthusiastic wonder, half total confusion.

"Trust me, I didn't believe it myself until I saw the sonogram.  
I insisted on one because I was so sure the blood test had to be 
wrong.  I'm pregnant, Mulder.  It's growing inside me as we stand 
here."

Mulder tears his gaze away from the sonogram and I see the 
amazement glistening in his eyes.  "Scully," he whispers in soft 
awe.  My throat aches, holding back an unexpected sob.  God, why 
does he have to be quietly hopeful?  It's going to be so much 
worse when he has to give up that tiny glimmer of happiness.

His attention moves from my face to my stomach, studying it, 
although I haven't yet started to show.  His eyes linger a long 
time, dwelling over the place that holds this tiny being whose 
reason for existence, at least for now, is a total mystery.

Mulder drops the sonogram on the table and steps forward to reach 
out and place his hand on my belly.  It is a light, gentle touch, 
one filled with amazement and reverence.  I shiver, wishing that 
this bittersweet moment could last longer. 

"They took your ova," he finally says, his voice sounding loud 
after the softness of his gaze and touch.  "But they didn't get 
all of them."  He sounds sure of this theory, more sure than I 
ever could have been.  I wait for the other half of the equation 
to sink in.  It only takes a few seconds before I see its weight 
settle across his face.  He snatches his hand away from where it 
has been hovering in front of me.

"Scully, how did...? I mean, who...? I, I didn't realize you 
were..."  Pain is written all over Mulder's face, the betrayal, 
the fear of secrets being kept.

"I'm not," I answer, knowing exactly what he is wondering.  It is 
a natural question, after all, at least under normal 
circumstances.  "I'm not involved with anyone."

Mulder closes his eyes.  In relief?  In confusion?  Does he 
realize how much worse the truth is?  

"Mulder, I haven't been intimate with anyone in a long time.  
Years."  He opens his eyes and looks at me.  A frown buries its 
way into his brow.  "This baby has no father, Mulder.  I don't 
even know how it got there."

There is a long excruciating moment of stillness.  Then, Mulder 
reels back from me, a gasp catching in his throat as the 
implication hits him.  His fists clench and unclench.  I watch as 
the understanding and anger build up inside of him, stretching 
from the center of him out to his limbs.  I have felt that, too.  
I have felt the indescribable rage and horror.

"Are you saying they did this to you?  They did it to you again?"  
He turns away from me and kicks the coffee table.  The sonogram 
flutters to the floor, staring up at me, teasing me with the 
promise of what it isn't.  Mulder stands with his back to me, his 
harsh breathing loud in the silence of my apartment.

"Yes," I whisper, stooping over to pick up the sonogram.  My 
fingers brush over it, but I find I can't bring myself to lift 
it.  I kneel instead, now too exhausted to rise.  "I think so, 
Mulder.  I think they did this to me.  I don't know how else to 
explain it."

Mulder lets out a muted groan of agony and sinks to his knees, 
his back still turned to me.  My head bows and the sonogram blurs 
through a veil of tears.   I close my eyes, opening them again 
when I hear Mulder moving towards me.  He reaches for the 
sonogram, tracing over the fetus again in a gesture that looks 
almost like farewell.  Then he takes my hand and squeezes it and 
I understand that a promise has just been made.

I look up and he gives me a watery smile.  For just a moment, I 
honestly believe that everything is going to be okay.

***

Mulder's grief at what has happened to me, at the possibility of 
what my baby is, touches me deeply.  He is mourning for me and 
for the child which is a part of me, although not necessarily my 
own.  As for me, my reaction was less explosive, less wrenching, 
at least at the moment I found out.  After all, I was sitting in 
a cold examining room when the truth was handed to me by a doctor 
who told me with a smile, not realizing the nightmare that his 
words would set into motion.

I didn't believe him, of course.  Not even after I went to the 
lab and watched them draw the blood a second time and test it 
right in front of me.  It was so unreal, like some sort of 
hallucinatory image from long ago, from back when I thought its 
reality was possible.  Dr. Zuckerman probably thought I was crazy 
when I insisted on an ultrasound that very day.  I wanted to see 
it.  I wanted to see what it was because there was no possible 
explanation for how it could be there except for the one I didn't 
want to face.

It was too early to tell if the fetus was normal or not.  Whether 
that was a relief or a concern I don't remember.  I was so numb, 
so out of it, trying to wrap my mind around the reality of the 
child growing inside me while attempting to concoct all the 
possible explanations for its existence.

Of course, I had to keep it all to myself.  I couldn't tell poor 
Dr. Zuckerman that the reason I was so shocked was not because of 
my own infertility, which is what he presumed, but because I 
hadn't had sex in years.  There was no biological way for me to 
be pregnant, even if they hadn't taken away my only hope.  It was 
then that the reality began to sink in.  They had done this to 
me.  The horror stayed locked inside while Dr. Zuckerman gave me 
the obligatory lecture about eating well, avoiding alcohol, and 
taking vitamins, before referring me to an obstetrician.  He 
would never understand or believe.  No one would.  No one except 
for Mulder.

And yet it took two days before I could tell Mulder.  I needed 
the time to work through the implications in my mind before I 
could explore them with him.  In the end, though, he was the only 
one I could tell, the only one who could help me. 


*****


In all our years together I have never been as aware of Scully's 
femininity as I have the past couple of weeks.  Don't get me 
wrong, I knew she was a woman.  Her physical attributes have 
certainly not gone unappreciated.  But we were partners, and, 
more importantly, we were friends.  I've never treated her any 
differently just because she was a she.  She was simply Scully, 
and Scully to me encompasses more than the word "simply" implies.

Now I look at her with new eyes.  I can see the sweet promise in 
the curves of her hips and breasts.  Her pregnancy isn't showing 
yet, but I seem to detect a new fullness beneath the loose 
clothes she's starting to wear.  This is still her secret, but 
one with which she has entrusted me.

According to the ultrasound she is eleven weeks pregnant.  She 
hasn't had any missing time to explain how this happened, so 
we're focusing on the two days she spent in the hospital at the 
insistence of her oncologist.  Not to mention the insistence of 
her partner.  Hell, I was the one who took her to the hospital in 
the first place.

It was right after we returned from a long dry tour through the 
Southwest.  Scully had seemed tired even before we left D.C., but 
after six days on the road she was looking pale and drawn in a 
way she hadn't since the cancer.  Instead of taking her home, I 
directed the cab to the Georgetown Medical Center. 

"Something's wrong," I told her when she leaned forward to 
redirect the cab driver.  Scully looked at me, her exhausted eyes 
reflecting the same fear I was feeling.

"I'm just tired," she whispered.

"Have you had any headaches, dizziness, nausea?"

She leaned back and shook her head.  "No. I'm just tired."

"Then I know a place you can get some rest."

"Don't kid yourself, Mulder."  Scully sagged against the window, 
her shoulders slumped in resignation.  "They wake you up every 
hour in the hospital to check your blood pressure.  You should 
know that."

By the time we reached the hospital she was practically 
catatonic, a condition that didn't improve for a couple of tense 
and frightening days.  Scully says she has only a few hazy 
memories of her hospitalization.  She remembers me stopping by, 
the nurses checking on her, and Dr. Zuckerman reassuring her that 
it wasn't a recurrence of the cancer - only the flu compounded by 
exhaustion.

Figuring out when the pregnancy most likely occurred was easy.  
Getting a look at her medical chart has become a Herculean task.  
She requested it as soon as we'd started to put together the 
timeline, but it was misfiled and no one could locate it.  After 
nearly a week she received a call stating that her chart had been 
tracked down.  It had been sent out for microfilming, and no 
amount of cajoling or threatening could get the chart back 
sooner.  A week later an envelope arrived, but it contained only 
an exhaustive record of the treatments she was given before her 
cancer went into remission, not her most recent admission.  
Another visit to the hospital and she was given an apologetic 
shrug and told that they would look into it.

Only this morning was her chart finally liberated, although it 
took some maneuvering from the Gunmen to get what we needed.  Now 
she frowns as she sifts through the chart.

"Mulder."  She taps a pink sheet labeled 'Care Plan Enacted.'  
"According to this I was seen by Dr. Zuckerman and a second 
doctor - Dr. Jeffrey Wright.  There's a mention made of both 
doctors filing case notes, yet only Dr. Zuckerman's are here in 
the chart."

She flips through the papers in front and behind the care plan.  
Lab reports on green paper, Dr. Zuckerman's notes on a blue 
sheet, a discharge summary on white, but nothing for Dr. Wright.  
Scully begins fanning the papers at the top of the chart where a 
two-pronged bracket holds them in place.  "Something's been 
removed."  She picks at the top edge with her fingernail, pulling 
loose a thin strip of blue paper with 'Patien' printed at the 
torn edge.

"Dr. Wright, I presume?"

Scully makes no reply, her eyes wide as she stares at the small 
strip of paper that had held an explanation for the 
unexplainable.


*****

End 1/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 2


We've been driving all day without getting anywhere.  It shows in 
the set of Scully's shoulders as she looks up at the glass and 
steel building that holds yet another Dr. Wright.

Our visit to Dr. Zuckerman's office was fruitless since he 
conveniently took off to visit the mosques of India, even if it 
is the rainy season.  There is no physician named Jeffrey Wright 
on staff at Georgetown Medical.  Not one of the nurses who cared 
for Scully during her last visit remembers a Dr. Wright, nor can 
anyone identify the handwriting on the patient care plan that 
named Dr. Wright.  A check on the Internet turned up 58 Jeffrey 
Wright, M.D.'s on the Eastern Seaboard, but only three of them 
were within driving distance of D.C.  Neither of the first two 
has ever treated a Dana Scully.

"You up for this?"  I know I shouldn't ask, but I can't help it.  
I don't want to be treating Scully any differently, yet I find 
myself hovering nonetheless.

"Let's go," she tells me, reaching to open the car door.

My phone rings and Scully pauses, sitting back expectantly while 
I answer.

"Mulder."  I look over at Scully, hating the dark circles that 
have started to appear beneath her eyes.

"We just got a big hit on Scully," Frohike tells me, decidedly 
unhappy at the announcement.

My stomach does an icy plunge.  "A hit?"

"After you asked us to get Scully's medical records, we thought 
we'd get you what the Lombard Clinic had.  They changed all the 
passwords after you broke into the place, so it's taken us a few 
days to get in."

"And?"

"And we found a file, created three months ago, with the same 
patient code they assigned Scully two years ago.  We don't know 
yet what's in it; we're still working on that.  There are other 
files in the same directory, all of them appear to be named with 
similar hexadecimal codes."

I look away from Scully and watch the keys swinging in the 
ignition instead.  "Keep trying, we'll be there in a couple of 
hours."

"Mulder?" Frohike asks quickly, before I can disconnect.

"Yes?"

"It's not, I mean, well, it's not the cancer again, is it?"

I sense Scully shifting closer, waiting for me to give her a 
clue.  I close my eyes.  "No."  I hang up before he can ask 
another question.

"Be where in a couple of hours?" Scully asks.

"The boys hacked into the Lombard mainframe again." 

Scully's eyes widen; she's made the same connection I have.  She 
reaches for her seatbelt instead of the door.  There's no sense 
now in visiting the wrong Wright.


*****


After days of going nowhere, we might finally have a lead of some 
kind.  It's hard to know whether to be relieved or terrified.

"A big hit on Scully."  That's what Frohike told Mulder.  That 
doesn't bode well.  A big hit only sounds good when you're 
talking about baseball.

It was all I could do not to lose it in the office of the first 
Dr. Wright we visited today.  Mulder was so determined that we 
would find answers that I couldn't let him know how difficult it 
was for me.  There was a pregnant woman in the waiting room.  I 
tried hard not to resent her - her belly rounded with life, her 
face glowing with the promise of the future. 

I'm well aware the odds are against this being a normal healthy 
baby.  Why would they bother?  What would they have to gain?  
Still, I hold onto hope, even though I understand that this baby 
is not mine, not really, no matter how much I want it to be.  A 
child is growing inside me, a joyous occasion under any other 
circumstance.  It is a dream I didn't know I had until I lost it.  
Once upon a time I believed in miracles.  It is so hard to keep 
that faith now when the new life inside me is a fraud, one 
manufactured by a group of people who have absolutely no 
humanity.  I struggle to stay detached, trying not love the child 
inside me or to think of it as mine.

I will never again have a chance to carry a child, so I revel in 
each movement, each ripple, and try to remember it.  I'm well 
aware that it is too soon for me to be able to feel such things - 
further terrifying proof that this may not be the child I long 
for.  If this turns out to be nothing more than a sick 
experiment, at least I will have felt life growing inside me.  I 
cannot hate them for that.  I cannot hate them for returning to 
me, if only temporarily, the opportunity they took away.  My 
emotions ebb and flow like the movement inside of me until, in 
the end, I do not know what to feel at all.  My only constant is 
the tension of not knowing.  It pounds away at me, exacerbated by 
the nausea and exhaustion. 

I lean back in the seat and my hand falls onto my belly reminding 
me once again, as if I needed it, of what it is I'm fighting for.  
This baby, this life.  Is there any chance at all that this isn't 
some cruel game?  They have taken me twice now, used my body 
twice.  How can I believe there are any miracles left?

Mulder struggles, too.  I'm achingly aware of the way he watches 
me constantly, how he takes my arm on stairs and curbs so I don't 
trip, how he asks me a dozen times a day if I need anything.  I 
am granted this rare glimpse of Mulder as a father, of his 
possessiveness over my pregnant self, of the way he already loves 
this baby, despite himself, even though it is not his, probably 
not even mine.  He, too, tries to cope with the ambivalence - 
hating what they did, but loving the product of it.  Hoping it 
will be worthy of love.  Hoping we will get the chance to love 
it.

***

When we arrive at the Gunmen's, they greet us quietly, but Mulder 
is a
whirlwind of energy and urgency.  "Tell me what you found."  He 
brushes right past Langly and Frohike to lean over Byers's 
shoulder for a better look at the computer screen.

"Here's the information we pulled last night."  Byers looks 
uneasy, his body hunching protectively over the keyboard.  "This 
is a genetic profile of Scully from after she was abducted."  He 
points at the screen.  "And here's what we found at Lombard."

Mulder shakes his head, making a helpless gesture with his hands.  
A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach reminds me that if 
we're talking genetics, the news is already more serious than I 
hoped.

Byers continues, giving me a brief uncomfortable glance.  
"Remember the branched DNA we found after the abduction?  It was 
latent then, because we assumed they'd finished their 
experiments."  Byers gives me another sideways look.  "But here, 
see, it's been reactivated."

Mulder sighs and rubs his eyes.  "So what does that mean?"

"We don't know exactly," Langly cuts in, taking over the 
explanation.  "When you were returned..."  At least he directs 
his comments to me and doesn't act like I'm not in the room.  "We 
figured it was just waste.  We don't know why it's suddenly 
reactivated.  But there's something else going on, here, with the 
P53 gene."  He nudges Byers aside and strikes a few keys on the 
keyboard.  A genetic map comes up on the monitor.

"That bastard Scanlon was supposedly performing gene therapy on 
P53 when you had cancer.  Here's a sample from when you were 
being treated."  He gestures at the screen and then taps a couple 
of keys.  "Here it is now.  See how this area has regenerated 
itself?  There's something major going on; we just don't know 
what."

Mulder looks at me for the first time since we entered the room.  
I see my shattered hopes echoed in his eyes.

Frohike steps up.  "The other thing we noticed is here."  Another 
couple of keystrokes, another graph comes up.  "It's about what 
you might expect, given the reactivated DNA, and pretty much 
matches up with what we had after your abduction.  Except 
this..."  Frohike points to a spike on the left side of the 
graph.  "Your estrogen and progesterone are markedly elevated; 
it's almost like, uh, never mind."  Frohike trails off, flashing 
an apologetic look in my direction.

"How does all this compare with the information you have from 
when Scully was abducted?" Mulder asks, changing the subject for 
me.  I'm happy to let him ask the questions right now.  I can't 
seem to piece all this together in my mind.  It feels like I'm 
watching a discussion about somebody else, some hapless character 
from a bad science fiction movie.

Langly presses a few more keys to bring up side-by-side windows.  
"Basically, you're way more screwed up now than when you were in 
the coma."

Frohike pokes Langly in the ribs.  "Sorry, Scully," Langly says 
with a sheepish grin.

Byers steps toward me and I can't stand the look of sympathy on 
his face.  "Are you going to tell us what's going on?"

I look at Mulder and silently beg him not to tell.  I don't think 
I could cope with anyone else knowing about this right now.

He understands.  "We don't know," he answers.  "Scully was in the 
hospital a couple months ago with the flu.  We think they did 
something to her."

Frohike flexes his hands.  "Oh, they did something, all right."

Something inside me snaps, and suddenly I realize that sitting 
around listening to all this mumbo-jumbo isn't going to get us 
the answers we need.

"We have to find Dr. Wright."

The three Gunmen turn to look at me in surprise at my sudden 
participation in the conversation.

"He's the key to this.  Help me find him."  All of a sudden my 
voice sounds desperate and pained.  Byers looks at me sadly.  
Damn it all. I swallow the rising lump in my throat.  I can't 
lose it, not here.

Frohike taps a few keys.  "Maybe this will help.  Your file was 
forwarded to the Lombard Clinic from an office in Doylestown, 
Pennsylvania.  Let me just check... Yes, there's a Dr. Jeffrey 
Wright on staff at the Bucks County Medical Center.  He could be 
the one you're looking for, except he's an OB/GYN."

I feel the blood rush out of my face and have to reach out for 
the table to keep from losing my balance.  If there was any doubt 
about the circumstances of this pregnancy and when it occurred, 
they've just been put to rest.  An OB/GYN treated me while I was 
in the hospital with the flu?

Mulder sees my reaction and reaches out to help steady me.  
"Scully?" 

"I'm fine."  I push his hand off my elbow and don't fail to see 
the hurt look on his face.  "How long will it take to go through 
the rest of the records you downloaded from Lombard?"

The Gunmen's attention is shifted from my sudden lightheadedness 
back to their computer.  "A day, maybe," replies Frohike.

"Get me a list of anyone else whose profile has changed in a way 
similar to mine.  Then cross-reference them and see if any have 
been hospitalized recently."

Frohike nods.  "Of course.  We'll get right on it.  Do you 
want...?"

I don't give him time to finish.  "Call me when you get the list.  
We're going to Doylestown to find Dr. Wright."


*****


I have to hurry to catch up with Scully after she leaves the 
Gunmen's office.  I manage to take hold of her arm just as she 
reaches the car.  "We're not going anywhere tonight.  I want you 
to go home and rest."  She looks like she's about to argue with 
me, so I give her arm a gentle squeeze.  "Please, Scully.  Just 
rest.  We'll start out first thing in the morning."

She bows her head for a moment, considering, then pulls her arm 
free.  "Fine.  Take me home.  We'll go early tomorrow."

Neither of us speaks as I drive her home.  Part of me is grateful 
that we have a direction to go in.  The rest of me is frightened, 
deeply afraid for Scully and for the child she carries.  Her 
silence tells me that she is feeling the same way.

What would happen if I missed her exit?  What if we just kept 
driving into the night - away from D.C., away from Doylestown, 
away from the FBI and from all the ties that keep us here?  What 
if it were possible to take her somewhere they could never find 
us and let Scully start again?

I turn off at her exit, knowing Scully would never choose the 
easy road if it meant deceit.  Her head tilts back against the 
seat as she watches the outside world glide by.  I wonder if 
she's considering not going home.  Ask me, Scully, I think.  Ask 
me.

At her apartment, she gets out of the car with a short "Tomorrow" 
in my direction.  I wait as she climbs the stairs and enters the 
building.  A light comes on in her apartment and I watch her 
windows, tracking her progress from living room to bedroom.

It definitely stands to reason that Dr. Wright has some 
connection with the Lombard Clinic.  Why else would he be 
forwarding records to them?  I don't believe for a moment that 
we'll find him in Doylestown tomorrow.  I don't think Scully 
believes it either.  There was no point in rushing there tonight.  
Dr.  Wright is long gone.  No doubt the key players all scattered 
when we requested her medical chart.

Scully's curtains part and she waves me away.  I return the wave 
and she disappears, the curtain falling back into place.  I reach 
for my cell phone and dial.

"Yo."  It's Langly.

"You said those records were forwarded to Lombard?  Find out 
where else they were sent and then call me.  I don't care what 
time it is."

I hang up the phone and Scully's living room lights go out.  
After about ten minutes her bedroom light does, too.  I pull away 
from the curb.

As much as I'd like to believe that the child Scully carries is 
hers, that it will always be hers, I don't.  I can't.  Not when I 
wonder where it came from and why.

This child is not a free miracle.  No matter what the cost, I 
won't have Scully paying for it.

*****

End 2/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 3


I've been lying on my couch for hours in a dreamless stupor.  I'm 
so exhausted I can't even fall asleep.  My mind has chased itself 
in ever shrinking circles until all I can do is wonder if 
thinking about not thinking is really thinking.  The phone rings, 
and I spring into action like one of Pavlov's dogs.

"Yeah?"  My voice sounds scratchy and far away, even to my own 
ears.

"Get down here."  Langly disconnects, leaving me with the dial 
tone.

I don't move, instead staring numbly at the phone until a 
recording comes on asking me to please hang up and try my call 
again.  If only it were that easy.

I hang up the phone, and my apartment returns to silence.  I 
close my eyes, wishing I had been able to sleep.  I wonder if 
Scully's asleep.  I hope that she is.

Heaving a sigh, I stand up and grab my jacket, along with the 
overnight bag I packed earlier.  For the briefest moment, my 
fingers linger on the door knob as I leave, knowing that the next 
person to come through this door will be Scully.  I've ditched 
her many times, for many reasons, but I never imagined leaving 
her for this one.

This time, I know she'll understand perfectly where I've gone and 
why.  There's no need to leave a note because there's no 
explanation I can offer her.

Yet.

***

People who think I'm an insomniac should hang out with the Lone 
Gunmen.  On any given night, at least one of them is awake, 
vigilantly watching out for the interests of an American public 
who could not care less what their Commander-in-Chief is up to, 
so long as he doesn't raise their taxes.  Apathy plays a large 
role in the Consortium's bid for power.  At least that's what 
Frohike says.

Tonight they're all awake, and an expectant hush falls over them 
after Byers ushers me in.

"We checked the send path on those files.  You were right, he 
didn't just forward them to the Lombard Clinic.  They also went 
to HealthQuest, a research firm in Missouri.  HealthQuest is a 
subsidiary of Transgen Pharmaceuticals."

I suck in a breath at that name, and Byers gives me an apologetic 
shake of his head.  "Dr. Calderon at Transgen, the man who 
treated Emily Sim, disappeared from the face of the earth in 
December 1997.  He was replaced by this man, Dr. Kevin Wilder."

A picture comes up on the computer's monitor.  I look at his face 
and shake my head.  He doesn't look familiar.  In fact, he 
doesn't even look sinister.

"You may not recognize him," Langly says.  "But Scully would.  
Mulder, that's Dr. Scanlon."

My blood runs cold as I stare at the face of the man who hastened 
the deaths of Penny Northern and the other Allentown abductees 
under the guise of helping them.  Rage flares up in me, and I 
grip the edge of the table hard.  "Is he still working there?"

"He is."  The glint off Frohike's glasses hides his eyes, but I 
hear my same anger in his voice.  "He isn't scheduled for any 
vacation either."

"Keep digging," I tell them as I leave.  "Get those other names 
to Scully and tell her I'll be in touch."


*****


The phone rings at 6:15 a.m., not that it matters since sleep has 
been a rare commodity recently.  There are too many things to 
think about, too many things I have to force myself not to think 
about.  Most of all, there are too many nightmares I don't want 
to face.

"Hello?" I try to sound alert, even though I know the raggedness 
of my voice reveals my exhaustion.

"Agent Scully?  I hope I didn't wake you but I figured you'd be 
getting an early start for Doylestown."

"No, I was awake.  What did you find?"  I know Frohike wouldn't 
call me so early if there wasn't something important.  I've quit 
hoping for good news, yet I don't seem to have the energy to 
brace myself for the bad.

"We've gone through most of the database we pulled from Lombard.  
Langly's working on the rest right now, but I figured I'd update 
you on what we found."

There's silence, so I suspect he's waiting to make sure I'm 
ready.  "What?" I ask.

"Well, we found eight other people in the Lombard records that 
have branched DNA similar to yours, all of them women.  We've 
started digging to see what we can find on them, but I wanted to 
let you know that at least three of them live in Doylestown, and 
their records were all forwarded from the same clinic as yours."

I pull a pen and notebook from the nightstand, a stash I started 
keeping shortly after Mulder and I became partners and I figured 
out that 2 a.m. calls were the norm, not the exception.

Frohike gives me the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the 
three women from Doylestown.  Now we'll have another direction to 
try while we're there.  I have a feeling Dr. Wright isn't likely 
to be waiting around to talk to us.

"There's something else you should know," Frohike adds when he's 
done with the list.  He clears his throat before continuing.  
"Two of the other women?  They live in, um," he hesitates and 
clears his throat again.  I know the answer a split second before 
he says it.  "Allentown."

The constantly hovering nausea makes a leap for my throat.  The 
name conjures up nightmares and panic, even after all this time.  
The pieces are falling into place, and every one of them shatters 
another little part of the promise I carry.

I swallow hard to regain my composure.  There isn't time for 
this.  "Find out everything you can about the women, anything.  
We'll be on the road."

"Wait, one more thing!"  I hear Frohike's voice as I'm about to 
hang up.

"What?"  Really, I'm not sure I can handle one more thing.

"It's about Mulder.  He, um, he left a few hours ago to follow 
another lead."

"Where did he go?"

"Um, I'm not sure exactly.  He found some information on a 
possible colleague of Dr. Wright."

Frohike sounds apologetic and I wonder if he thinks I'm going to 
be angry.  Normally, I probably would, but there are too many 
leads in too many different directions - Lombard, Doylestown, and 
now Allentown - and we're essentially on a deadline.

"He said to tell you to go on to Doylestown and he'll call you as 
soon as he can.  He didn't call because he wanted you to get some 
sleep."

I'm sure that last part was Frohike editorializing rather than 
something Mulder said.  He knew I would understand this time.

"Thanks, Frohike.  Call me the minute you find anything else."

"Will do.  Dana, is everything...?"  The question dies.  "We'll 
call you soon."  Then he hangs up before I can decide whether I 
would have answered honestly or not.

No, everything becomes less and less okay by the hour.

***

I lean against my car in the parking lot of the Bucks County 
Medical Center and look up at the thunderclouds racing in.  
Nothing.  Mulder and I are a week into this investigation and we 
haven't found a goddammed thing.  Jeffrey Wright wasn't here, 
hadn't been here in a couple of weeks, in fact.  The receptionist 
could only tell me he took a sudden leave of absence and they 
hadn't heard from him, but if I needed an appointment, one of his 
associates would be happy to see me.

I don't know what else I expected.  Did I really think they would 
leave a nice neat trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow?

I close my eyes and think back to when I was in the hospital, 
when this must have happened.  I try to remember something, but 
the whole thing is a blur.  I slept through most of it.  Mulder 
insisted I go to the emergency room when he saw how ill I was 
getting, and I knew he was right.  I was so sick I could barely 
function, not to mention totally terrified that the cancer was 
returning.  When I got the news that it wasn't the cancer after 
all, Mulder had looked at me with a broad grin of relief.  We 
thought everything was going to be okay.

Instead, we've ended up smack in the middle of the worst of all 
possible nightmares.  Did they make me sick in the first place, 
or did they simply take advantage of my hospital stay?  Has Dr. 
Wright been experimenting on his own patients without their 
knowledge, or is he just a pawn in another game?

I open my eyes and see a pregnant woman entering the clinic, her 
husband with her.  Both of them are smiling and laughing.  And 
then it dawns on me.  I wouldn't have known.

If I had a husband or a boyfriend, I wouldn't have known.  The 
news that I was pregnant would have been a shock, sure, and 
despite initial confusion about how my fertility had been 
suddenly restored, I wouldn't have thought to look into it very 
deeply.  My lover and I (and I naturally amend my hypothetical 
scenario to substitute Mulder into the equation) would have 
simply considered it a blessing, and the child would have been 
born with God only knows what kind of dangers
hanging over its head.

If I wasn't celibate, I wouldn't be standing here trying to 
figure out what the hell my baby is.  I bet that's what they 
intended.  They assumed I would never know, like that woman and 
her husband, like all the women to whom they may have done this.  
I'm not the only one.  I'm just the only one who knows.  That's 
why my chart and Wright and all the other leads have suddenly 
disappeared.  Somebody screwed up.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the list of names Frohike 
gave me.  I dial the first number on the list and punch the send 
key.

"Hello?"

"Hi.  May I speak with Elizabeth Oliver, please?"

There is an uncomfortable silence from the man at the other end.  
"Who's calling?"

I think for a moment about what to say and decide to be 
straightforward, sort of.  "My name is Dana Scully.  I'm calling 
to find out if she's a patient of Dr. Jeffrey Wright and wondered 
if I might ask her a few questions."

Another long silence, then a sigh.  "My wife is dead," says the 
voice bluntly.  "She died two months ago."

I suddenly feel unsteady on my feet.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't know.  
I'm sorry."  I hang up, too surprised to ask the questions I 
should.

Dazed, I dial the name of the next name on the list.  A woman 
answers. 

"Mrs. Kiernan?"

"Yes?"

I'm relieved that I finally have someone to talk to.  "My name is 
Dana Scully.  I was calling to find out if you've ever been a 
patient of Dr. Jeffrey Wright?"

There is a long silence like the last one, and my stomach sinks.

"Oh, I'm afraid you have the wrong Mrs. Kiernan.  You must mean 
my daughter-in-law, Leslie Kiernan?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry.  I thought this was her number."

"It is.  Was."  The woman's voice breaks.  "I'm afraid she passed 
away a couple of weeks ago."

"Did she have any children?" I blurt out.  My head is pounding 
too loudly to think straight.

Mrs. Kiernan pauses before giving a strained "No."  Then, "Who 
did you say you were again?"

I manage to apologize before I hang up on the elder Mrs. Kiernan.  
In desperation, I dial the third number, the last one who lives 
in Doylestown.

There is no answer, and for some reason that makes me feel 
better.  Maybe there is hope.  Maybe there is someone left who 
can start answering at least a few of the million questions I 
have.

I realize a couple of people in the parking lot are looking at 
me.  I must appear insane, pacing back and forth while making one 
phone call after another.  I unlock the car and climb in, then 
dial the Gunmen.

"Frohike, what do you have on those women?"

"Scully?  Where are you?"

"I'm at Wright's clinic."

"Did you find him?"  His tone of voice suggests he wasn't 
expecting me to find him either.

"No.  He's on a leave of absence, apparently."

"How convenient."  I hear a bit of anger underlying Frohike's 
words.  As weird as the Gunmen can be sometimes, I know they care 
about me and are anxious to know what's going on.  I don't have 
the strength to tell them.  Somehow it seems easier to deal with 
all this if I don't have to put it into words.  So far, I've only 
told Mulder.  I doubt that will change, since it's looking more 
and more like a baby shower isn't in my future.

"So, have you found anything on the women?" I ask again, to get 
us back to the subject at hand.

"Yes, but I'm afraid it's bad news."

"They're all dead."  I say it, although deep down I'm hoping 
there's some other bad news that isn't so bad.  Maybe I should 
have suspected it.  What if these women are all abductees and 
went through the same things the MUFON women did, including 
Penny?  Anger begins building inside me.  I can't believe this is 
still going on, after all this time.  I thought the men behind 
the whole thing had stopped, not relocated.

"How did you know?" Frohike asks.

"I called a couple of the women on the list you gave me.  Have 
you found out what they died from?"

"Well, we've pulled most of the death certificates, still working 
on the rest, but so far it's mostly eclampsia and stroke."

"Eclampsia?"  Oh my God, I was right.  I'm not the only one.  
"They were pregnant?  All of them?"

"Yup, the ones we've found so far died before they carried to 
term, it looks like, because we haven't found any birth records.  
The most recent one, Marie Turner, died just last week.  She 
lived in Doylestown; it's one of the addresses I gave you if you 
want to check it out."

Last week?  That's the closest thing to a lead I've had yet.  
Last week means there's still time to find out what happened.  I 
look at the list of names and addresses; Turner was the last one 
I called where no one answered.

"I'll call you later."  I hang up before Frohike can add another 
devastating bit of information to the growing list.

***

I know there are professional implications in what I'm about to 
do, but I have to get some answers.  I've avoided using my Bureau 
credentials up until now because I don't want anyone to know 
what's going on, not that they would believe it anyway.  Skinner 
wasn't happy when I called him to request personal leave and then 
had to tell him Mulder would be out for a couple days as well.  
The last thing we need is word getting back to the Bureau that 
we're "investigating"
something not on the books.

I don't know how else to approach this, however, so I'm willing 
to put my career on the line to find out what the hell happened 
to me.  I sit on the hard motel bed, and my hands tremble as I 
dial the phone.  This time, a man answers on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Turner?"

"Yes?"  His voice sounds concerned, almost as if he was waiting 
for someone to call.

"My name is Special Agent Dana Scully, I'm with the F.B.I.  I'm 
sorry to bother you, and I realize this is probably difficult, 
but I'd like to meet with you to talk about your wife's death."  
Nothing I say is technically a lie, only the sum of the parts.

"What's this about?" he asks after a long pause.

"I'm investigating some similarities between your wife's death 
and those of other patients of Dr. Jeffrey Wright.  I'd just like 
to ask you a few questions, today if possible."

I feel a twinge of guilt about pushing him, but I have to get as 
much information as I can.  I don't know what other opportunities 
I'll have.  Since Marie Turner is the most recent death, it's my 
best chance to get accurate information.

There is another long silence, then a sigh.  "Can you meet me at 
the hospital?  I'm on my way there now."

"That's fine.  Where can I find you?"

"Doylestown Hospital, sixth floor.  I'll be in the NICU visiting 
my daughter."

My stomach rolls over.  Neonatal Intensive Care?  The baby is 
alive?

"I'll see you there," I manage to get out before the nausea rises 
up from my womb and hits me with force.


*****

End 3/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 4


I nearly called Scully several times before the flight left for 
St. Louis.  I stopped myself each time because it was early and I 
didn't want to wake her.  I knew the Gunmen would tell her I had 
left when they contacted her later.  Mostly I just wanted to hear 
her voice.  By the time I reached Columbia, Missouri, it was past 
eleven o'clock Washington time.  I called, but got only her voice 
mail.  With no news to give her, I hung up instead.

Now, sitting in the parking lot of HealthQuest, the need to hear 
her voice returns.  I dial her cell phone and get her voice mail 
again.  My fingers drum on the wheel, hating this waiting game.  
Usually stake-outs are less tedious since I have Scully along to 
break up the boredom.  I know I shouldn't worry about her.  She 
can take care of herself.  Hell, I wouldn't be alive if she 
wasn't around to take care of me, but I still feel cold dread in 
the pit of my stomach.  Why isn't she answering her cell?  She 
could be on a plane or in a hospital, but both of those 
possibilities present a terrifying
picture.  Is she hurt?  Leaving in a hurry?

I try her again, the fear gnawing at me when she doesn't answer.

"Where are you, Scully?" I ask the steering wheel.  I check my 
watch, it's nearly 7:30 p.m.  There was a steady exit of people 
over two hours ago, but Scanlon/Wilder wasn't one of them.  
Perhaps I missed him.  Maybe he didn't come in to work today.  I 
bounce my leg for a minute or so before deciding it's time to 
check out the building.  I could get lucky and the bastard is 
working late.

The front entrance is still open.  Far off down the cold marble 
corridor there is a janitor buffing the floor.  A directory by 
the elevator tells me that Dr. Kevin Wilder has an office on the 
fourth floor.  Inside the elevator, the button for the fourth 
floor won't light when I push it.  In fact, none of the buttons 
work.  There is a keyhole at the top of the panel and I realize 
that, minus a passkey, I'm not going anywhere.

I try the door for the stairs.  It, too, is locked.  A keypad at 
the side of the door waits for a code from me.  I give the door 
one more tug, just for good measure.

"Hey!"  The janitor has noticed me now.  "The building is closed, 
you'll have to come back tomorrow."

I nod at him and duck out the door.


*****


It isn't hard to find Mr. Turner.  As soon as I turn the corner 
of the hospital corridor I see him, dressed in a green hospital 
gown and peering listlessly through the window at his child.

"Mr. Turner?"  He slowly turns to look at me, his face a blank.

"I'm Agent Scully.  We spoke on the phone."  I reach out to shake 
his hand, but he doesn't seem to notice.  His attention turns 
back toward the NICU.

I step up next to him.  "Which one is your daughter?" I ask, not 
sure I really want to know.

He points straight ahead, his finger pushing against the glass.  
"That's Rebecca Leigh," he says softly.  "The one in the center 
incubator."

I follow the line of his finger to see the baby, the tiniest one 
in the room, hardly bigger than my hand.  She is surrounded by 
wires and monitors, every function controlled by machines.

"What's her prognosis?" I ask, fighting back the sudden wave of 
hopelessness that has enveloped me.

He simply shakes his head in the negative, then presses his palm 
flat against the window.  "I haven't even been able to hold her," 
he says, his voice trembling.  "My wife was only 27 weeks along 
when she..."  He clears his throat.  "Rebecca's lungs aren't 
developed and she's got some blood defect they can't even 
explain.  She's already had three transfusions, but it hasn't 
done any good.  The doctors say it's a miracle she's lived this 
long.  Some miracle, huh?"  He shrugs his shoulders, strokes the 
glass with his fingers, then turns to face me.  I have trouble 
meeting his eyes.

"What did you want to see me about, Agent Scully?"

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about your wife.  I know 
this is difficult, but it's important that I find out exactly 
what happened.  Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"

He nods grimly.  "I'd rather stay here, if it's all the same to 
you.  I don't like to leave her."  He leans his head toward the 
NICU.

"Of course."  He seems dazed, and I'm hoping that he won't think 
too much and wonder why the F.B.I. is investigating a medical 
matter.  "Can you tell me what happened to your wife?"

He looks at me with a flat expression again.  "I woke up and she 
was having a seizure.  I called an ambulance.  She had a massive 
stroke on the way to the hospital, but they managed to keep her 
alive long enough to save the baby."  His recitation is rote, as 
if he's told the story a hundred times already.

"I'm sorry.  Was she having any problems with her pregnancy, or 
had she had any seizures before?"

"I answered all this at the E.R."  He sighs with frustration.

"I know, and I'm sorry.  It would just be helpful to get the 
story straight from you."

He gives me a pained look before continuing.  "I had a feeling 
something was wrong with the pregnancy.  She was so tired and so 
sick all the time.  It didn't seem normal.  She kept trying to 
reassure me it was just morning sickness, but it didn't seem 
right.  She'd never had any seizures or anything, though, before 
that night."

He steps away from me and goes to sit on a bench at the end of 
the corridor.  I follow and sit next to him.

"Mr. Turner, this might sound strange, but was your wife ever 
abducted?"  I suddenly wish desperately that Mulder was here to 
handle this part of the questioning.  It's hardly my area of 
expertise.  Just how does one ask such a thing, anyway?

His head snaps up to look at me.  "Abducted?"

I can't bring myself to follow up in Mulder fashion, so I go my 
own route.  "Was there ever a period of time when she 
disappeared, or she couldn't remember a big chunk of time?"

He looks at me like I'm crazy and now I know how Mulder feels.  
Then he surprises me.  "How did you know that?"

"Like I said, I'm looking into some similar cases..."

"How did you know that?"  He jumps to his feet and I see the 
panic rising.  "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

I rise to try and calm him.  "Like I said, I'm with the F.B.I."  
I reach into my jacket pocket to pull out my badge.  "It's okay.  
There are others like her."

His eyes are wide.  "What do you mean, others like her?"

"Other women who have been taken, who can't explain where they 
were for days or months.  I'm trying to find out the connection."

He shakes his head in disbelief.  "She never told anyone.  It 
took her years to even tell me about it.  It was before I met 
her, when she was nineteen.  She said she was kidnapped, but she 
didn't remember any of it.  All she knows is that she was gone 
for two months, and when she came back she felt different."  He 
looks past me at the blank walls of the corridor.  "She used to 
do a lot of reading about UFOs and alien abductions.  I think 
that's what she thought happened, but she would never admit it."  
His tears come then, flowing steadily over his cheeks.

I reach out and touch his arm.  "I'm sorry to bring it up, but I 
do think there's some kind of connection between that and your 
wife's death, and maybe her pregnancy."

"She was artificially inseminated," he says, as if that explains 
everything.

"Excuse me?"

"We tried for four years to get pregnant and couldn't, so she was 
artificially inseminated."

The wall in front of me blurs, and I close my eyes to keep from 
getting dizzy.  "Dr. Wright performed the procedure?"

"Yes."


*****


I'm about to give up as the phone rings for the sixth time, but 
Scully picks up.

"Scully."  Her voice is clear, even from this far away.

"Hey Scully, it's me.  Where are you?"

"Doylestown, Mulder.  Where are you?"  Her voice loses some of 
its clarity, becoming strained.  I close my eyes, feeling a flash 
of unease.  Is something wrong?

"Columbia, Missouri."

There is a moment of silence and then she clears her throat.  
"For how long?"

"I'm not sure.  The Gunmen found where your records were sent; 
now I'm working on a way to get inside."

Silence again.  Cold sweat starts at the base of my neck.

"Scully?  What did you find in Doylestown?"

"They were all pregnant, Mulder.  All the other names in that 
directory?  They've all died from complications of pregnancy."

God, God, God.  I take a couple of deep breaths, feeling the 
floor sway beneath me.  "How?"  I sit on the edge of the bed.  
"How far along were they?"

"Six or seven months."  Her voice fades, and then she seems to 
reassert herself.  "One of them delivered a premature girl - 
she's on a ventilator and she has a rare blood group 
incompatibility that isn't responding to treatment.  They've 
transfused her several times, but..."  Her voice trails off and I 
wince.

"I talked with her husband," she starts again.  "I asked him if 
his wife had ever reported missing time or talked about being an 
abductee."

I sit up straighter, both proud and amazed that Scully would go 
that far out on a limb.

"She had, Mulder.  Marie Turner wasn't a member of MUFON, but the 
other six women all were.  All of them were treated for 
infertility at the Doylestown Clinic by Dr. Wright."

I look at the threadbare carpet on the motel room floor.  "Are 
you staying on in Doylestown?"

"For now."  She sounds far away again.

I nod, even though I know she can't see me.  "I don't know how 
long I'm going to be here.  Hopefully only another day or so.  Do 
you want me to meet up with you there, Scully?"

"Call me first, just in case."

"Hey, Scully?"  I'm holding the phone so tightly my fingers are 
starting to ache.  "If you need anything, call me first, okay?"

"Okay."  It's barely above a whisper, but I think maybe she 
smiles.


*****

End 4/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 5


I struggle to come to consciousness as I hear the phone ringing.  
My sleep is deep, so deep even the fuzzy nausea and my pounding 
head don't keep me awake.  These days, I either can't sleep at 
all, or I can't wake up.

The trilling continues.  Thinking it's Mulder, whose voice I 
desperately want to hear, I grope for my cell phone in the gray 
dawn.

"Mulder?"  I immediately curl up into a ball to fight the 
churning nausea that rises from my abdomen.  My body feels heavy 
and immovable.  I need help.  I need Mulder.

There is a silence at the other end, then a quiet "Agent Scully?"

I don't recognize the voice, and the thick haze suddenly 
surrounding my head isn't helping.

"Yes?"

"This is Jacob Turner.  We talked yesterday?"  I fight through 
the dizziness that threatens to overwhelm me, finally getting my 
bearings and remembering I'm in Doylestown.  This is more than 
morning sickness.  This feels like death.

"Yes, Mr. Turner.  Is everything okay?"  I sit up and put my head 
between my knees to keep from passing out, my grip tight on the 
phone as if it's a lifeline.  I already know, whether 
instinctively or by the tone of his voice, what he's called to 
tell me.

"Rebecca, my daughter, died last night."  His voice is suddenly 
clear and strong, as if he's steeled himself.  The latest wave of 
nausea finally passes, and I am able to sit up.  I lean against 
the headboard for support.  This infant's death was expected.  I 
saw her chart yesterday - it was only a matter of time.  I had 
told him to call me when it happened, hoping maybe I could talk 
him into letting me perform an autopsy.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Turner."  I'm not sure what else to say.  The man 
has lost everything.

"Something's going on, Agent Scully."  He clears his throat 
loudly before continuing.  "I went to sign the forms to release 
her to the funeral home, but someone had forged my signature."

Suddenly, I understand.  "She's gone?"  My heart is racing, 
pushing away the last bit of fuzziness in my mind.  I should have 
stayed at the hospital.  I should have known they'd come for the 
evidence.

"Yes.  She was released to the Carter-McKnight Funeral Home in 
Philadelphia.  I don't understand how this could happen.  How 
could this happen?"  His voice is calm, despite the anguish he 
must be feeling.

How could any of it happen?  How could I be sitting here, 
carrying a child I don't know anything about, talking to a man 
who has had his child taken by people he has never even met.  
There is nothing explainable about this.

I tell Mr. Turner to call the police and that I will meet him at 
the hospital in an hour.

It takes less than ten minutes to confirm my suspicions.  The 
Carter-McKnight Funeral Home doesn't exist.  Not in Philadelphia.  
Not anywhere.


*****


Unable to sleep, I get an early start, arriving at HealthQuest's 
parking lot just before 6:00 a.m.  I'm still blowing on my coffee 
when Kevin Scanlon himself comes out of the building and gets 
into a car.  I sit up fast, scalding myself in the process.

He drives out of Columbia, heading into an expensive residential 
area.  I have to hang back further and further.  I nearly miss it 
when he makes a left turn.  I make the same turn in time to see a 
large iron gate closing.  I park the car, walking along an 
imposing brick wall, too high for me to see over and with no 
convenient footholds to pull myself up.  I peer through the gate, 
but the driveway disappears into some trees and I can't even tell 
what kind of house is inside.

I follow the wall until it joins up with the fence from another 
lot.  This one is a little lower, and I'm able to climb it to 
breach Scanlon's.  I land in a corner covered with creeping 
myrtle.  I creep with it, able now to see what kind of house 
destroying lives can buy you.  If Scanlon is living here alone, 
it's the worst kind of extravagance.

That thick wall around the outside must have him lulled into a 
false sense of security - the patio door is unlocked.  Inside, 
the house is surprisingly spare.  The walls are bare.  Only a 
couple of rooms are furnished, and even that is minimal, but 
expensive-looking.  Maybe he moves so often it isn't worth 
decorating.  There are a table and two chairs in the dining room.  
The floors are tile or wood, and I'm forced to walk slowly and 
lightly, not wanting to advertise my presence. 

"What are you doing here?"

I whirl around, startled that someone could come up behind me 
undetected.  It's Scanlon.  His face, which was angry, turns 
pale.  This man, whom I've never met, recognizes me.  He's right 
to be afraid.

I skip the formalities and pull my gun on him.  "Tell me what you 
did to her."

"Did to who?"  He looks behind me nervously, as if he expects I 
didn't come alone.  "Who are you?"

"Dana Katherine Scully.  You might know her better as 2317-616."

He shakes his head.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  If 
you're here for money, take anything you want.  You can have my 
watch, it's a Rolex.  Just please don't hurt me."

"I don't want your goddamned money.  I want answers.  I want to 
know why, you son of a bitch."

Scanlon raises his hands, still shaking his head.  "I don't know 
what you're talking about!"

"Bullshit!"  I come up close on him, shoving him backwards.  "You 
have about ten seconds to come clean with me."  I push the gun 
against the center of his chest and he stays pinned to the wall.

"Come clean about what?"  His gaze darts frantically around the 
room, and I wonder if there's someone else in the house.  "I 
don't know what you're talking about."

"Two," I count, raising the gun to point directly between his 
eyes.  "Three."  A bead of sweat starts at his hairline and he 
blinks.

"Four.  Five."

His eyes close and he takes a deep breath.

"Six.  Seven.  Eight."

I slide the safety off, the sound louder than normal here in 
early morning suburbia.

"Wait," he mutters.

"Nine."

"Agent Mulder.  Wait."  His eyes open.

"Funny, I don't remember telling you my name."

He shakes his head.  "That's who you are, aren't you?  I've heard 
about you."

"Then you know I'm not exactly stable."

Scanlon frowns.  Yeah, he's heard that, too.  "Take your gun off 
me."

"No deal."  I push him back when he tries to take a step away 
from the wall.  "First you tell me what I want to know."

He keeps his eyes down as if his explanations have dropped to 
floor.  "Your partner is part of a very small group of women.  
You know about the Allentown donors?"

"My partner is the only one from that small group still alive."  
I press the gun against his cheek and his skin turns even paler 
at the point of contact.

"Please, Agent Mulder, let me explain.  Please?"

"I'm listening."

"The women, the other donors, there were others besides the 
Allentown group.  We've been questioning, well, wondering, how 
they would react to a pregnancy."

"So this is her baby?"

"No."  Scanlon flinches; maybe he anticipates my urge to hit him.

"Then whose is it?"

"We," Scanlon hesitates.  "We've done this project in stages.  
The first phase involved cloning human subjects, using alien DNA 
and their own for hybridization."

My God.  Samantha.  Samantha and Kurt.  Phase one.

"Go on," I tell him, my heart squeezing tight in my chest.

"In phase two we began experimenting, using the DNA of the 
hybrids with that collected from women, such as your partner.  
Emily Sim was a result of those studies.  She, and all the other 
children created, failed to thrive."

Failed to thrive.  I can feel the tic in my jaw start.  Scully 
had asked "Who would create a life whose only hope is to die?"  
I'm looking at him now, Scully.

"So we began looking into ways to slow the growth of the hybrids 
created in the first phase.  They mature too rapidly, going from 
infant to adult in a matter of just a few years.  By grafting in 
some of the DNA from the donors, we believe we have corrected 
this problem.  But we needed test subjects.  Unlike the clones 
which are grown in tanks until they reach maturation, these 
children could be created in the lab but had to be gestated in 
the normal fashion.  We've been taking the eggs from women who 
come to our clinics for in-vitro fertilization and combining them 
with the hybrids, then implanting the fetus in the normal way."  
Scanlon pauses and licks his lips.

"Keep going."

"We ran into problems right away; in most cases the mother's body 
would reject the fetus.  This happens 75 percent of the time in a 
normal in-vitro procedure, but the curve was slightly higher with 
our project, close to a 90 percent rejection rate.  We 
experimented with many different 'fixes' before coming to realize 
that if the mother was given a dose of the serum in which we grow 
the hybrids the rate dropped to only 50 percent."

"Is Scully being given the serum?"

"No," Scanlon shakes his head.  "All the abductee subjects 
already carry the antibody contained in the serum, just in a 
dormant fashion.  It seemed more feasible to use them, rather 
than having a non-abductee mother come in every few weeks for 
'treatment.'  The first two test subjects were doing well at 
twenty weeks, so we continued with the others, including your 
partner."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

Scanlon sighs and tries to move away from the wall.  I push him 
back.  "But what?"

"Complications arose around twenty-four weeks.  As near as we can 
tell, there is some kind of chemical change that occurs in the 
both the fetus and the mother."

"And?"

"A baby, at its most basic, is a parasite in the mother's body.  
In the body of an abductee, the baby begins to lay siege to the 
mother's cardiovascular system, in essence grafting itself to 
her.  If her body has not rejected the baby by now, it will turn 
on her when her immune system is exhausted."

"She will die?"  I can't believe this.  How will I ever tell 
Scully?  "Why can't you give her the serum now, won't that 
reverse it?"

"No, we've already tried that.  The serum is meant to nourish the 
baby, not the mother.  In a mother so depleted the serum only 
accelerates the process."

"Son of a bitch!"  The rage I've kept in check during his 
explanation boils to the surface and I shove him to the wall 
again, this time holding him there by his throat.  I want to kill 
him, to make him feel one-tenth of the pain and anguish that 
Scully will.  "How could you do this to her?"

Scanlon gasps and wheezes, his hands pulling at mine.  His face 
starts to turn purple and I release him, pushing him to the side 
so that he stumbles and hits the floor.

"I saw her name on the list of donors."  Scanlon coughs, his 
shoulders shaking.  "I heard how attached she was to Emily, how 
much the child meant to her.  I was trying to make amends.  I was 
trying to give her back the chance to be a mother."

"So she's carrying a hybrid, a Kurt that's going to kill her if 
she carries the baby to term, assuming her body doesn't reject it 
before then?"  I pull him off of the floor and he weaves as he 
tries to stand in front of me.

"No.  She was so attached to Emily, I gave her a girl."  Scanlon 
rises unsteadily, bracing himself against the wall with one hand.

A girl.  Another Emily.  Even though I know Scully can't carry 
this baby to term, part of me wants to buy her something pink.

"Emily," I murmur.

"No."  Scanlon shakes his head sadly.  "A Samantha."


*****

End 5/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 6


I'm less than halfway back to D.C. and feel like if I close my 
eyes, I could sleep for a year.  I should pull the car over, but 
I'm anxious to get home.  The exhaustion is one of totality; 
every limb of my body aches for rest.  I need to be back in my 
own apartment, my own bed.

I fled Doylestown as soon as it became apparent that the 
investigation into the theft of Rebecca Turner's body was going 
nowhere.  Mr. Turner was distraught, the cops had no leads, and 
it was all I could do to keep down the dry toast I'd had for 
breakfast.  As I expected, the people who'd taken her body left 
no fingerprints, no evidence, no nothing.  They came and took her 
just like they took Emily, denying Mr. Turner the chance to bury 
his own child.  It is as if she never existed, except in the 
memory of her poor father who will probably never comprehend the 
real crime that has been committed.

Meanwhile, I must wonder what will happen to me and this child 
I'm carrying.  Is it destined to have never existed?  I won't 
allow that to happen.  I want to talk to Mulder, but I alternate 
between dread about what he's found and anticipation that he will 
have better news than I do.  I know there should be no hope left.  
Logically, I know the questions that matter most have already 
been answered.  Still, I refuse to let go entirely until that is 
the only choice I have left.

It is time to do what I do best.  I need the evidence of test 
results and medical facts.  Despite all I've seen, the love I try 
not to feel for this child overwhelms what I have witnessed.  In 
some ways, this is the hardest thing I've ever been asked to 
believe.  I have to go toward what I can trust.  Science.

I've been avoiding the thought of tests.  After all, there's no 
way I could go to an OB/GYN and simply request an amniocentesis.  
God only knows how I'd explain whatever they find.  I have to run 
the tests myself, starting with a full blood workup and a DNA 
profile.  There's only one place I can go for help.

***

It takes forever for all the locks to slide back.  When the door 
finally opens, it is Byers who greets me.

"Agent Scully?"  He sounds surprised.  "It's Agent Scully!" he 
turns to yell inside.  Within a few seconds, both Langly and 
Frohike emerge from their lair.  The three of them stand there 
looking at me like I've got some sort of horn growing out of my 
head.  They're paranoid as hell and they're hiding something.

"Well, are you going to invite me in, or do we have to have this 
conversation out here where anyone could be watching?"  Furtive 
eyes shift past me and scan furiously.  The three of them 
practically trip over each other in their hurry to get out of my 
way.

Before I've stepped over the threshold, I've already decided that 
this isn't the time for polite conversation.  I cut to the chase.  
"Look, I need your help, and I need you to be discrete, no matter 
what I ask.  No questions.  Can you do that?"

"Sure, whatever you want," says Langly while he uncomfortably 
shifts from foot to foot.  It's amazing these men can keep a 
secret about anything.  Maybe they've heard from Mulder.  I 
haven't been able to get in touch with him since I found out 
about Rebecca's death.  His cell phone has been out of service.  
Over the years, I've conditioned myself not to worry about that, 
but this time I can't help myself.  This "case" is sinister, and 
it's personal.

"Agent Scully, you should sit down."  Frohike suddenly steps 
forward to pull up a chair for me, then grabs my elbow as I move 
toward it, helping me to sit.  The sudden gentlemanliness 
confuses me.  With a swoop of his arm, he sends a pile of 
newspapers flying off a wooden crate, which he then pulls in 
front of me.  "Here, put your feet up."

"Can we get you a glass of water?" Byers asks, looking at me with 
what could only be construed as sympathy.

"Or milk?" chimes in Frohike.

Oh God, they know.  No wonder they've been acting weirder than 
usual.  The three of them stand in front of me, scrutinizing me 
carefully as if I'm about to give birth right here and now.  I 
have no doubt that if I did, it would end up the lead story in 
their next issue.

"Yes, a glass of milk would be nice," I say, flashing my best 
smile at Frohike, who swallows hard with my overture.  I want to 
get Byers alone.  He's definitely the weak cog in this machinery 
of paranoid secrets, and it looks like he's sweating bullets at 
the moment.

"And a pillow?  For my back?" I direct toward Langly.  For a 
bunch of paranoiacs, they sure are easily manipulated.  Langly 
and Frohike run off to do my bidding, leaving me, as I'd hoped, 
with Byers, who is fiddling with his tie.

I jump up, getting right in his face.  "Okay, Byers.  Spill it. 
What's going on?  What have you heard from Mulder?  You 
understand that I deserve to know what's going on, right?  
There's a lot at stake here, more than just me and Mulder."  I 
wave down in the direction of my belly.  Byers follows my hand, 
stares at me a moment, takes a deep breath, then gives me the 
party line.

"I don't know."  I can see the struggle on his face. 

"Byers!"

He breaks easy.  "We found a link between Dr. Wright and Dr. 
Scanlon.  Mulder went after Scanlon."

"What?"  The name feels like a slap across the face, the tamped-
down nausea getting the best of me once again.  Scanlon?  The one 
who killed Penny Northern?  He's in on this?

As the news sinks in, Frohike returns.  He bears a large glass of 
milk balanced on a clipboard.  "Byers!  What the hell are you 
doing?  She needs to be sitting."  Frohike sets down the 
makeshift tray and comes over to me, gently taking my arm and 
guiding me to the chair again.  Langly arrives with the requested 
pillow, gingerly placing it behind me as I begin to sit.

"Agent Scully?  Are you okay?"  Frohike looks panicked.  "Sit 
down.  You don't look so good.  Byers, what the hell did you do 
to her?"  He slaps Byers on the arm.

By the time I've hit the chair again, the shock has worn off and 
the anger is setting in.  "Can I get you a cold washcloth or 
something?" Frohike's face looms before me, the concern etched 
across his features.  "Do you need a doctor?"

I feel like I'm going to vomit, which I'm pretty sure would send 
poor Frohike into a fit of panic.  I swallow down the rising 
disgust.  I can't believe it's Scanlon.

Time to take action.  "Frohike, cut the crap.  Where's Mulder?  
What has he found?"

Frohike picks up a newspaper from the floor and begins fanning 
me.  "We don't know where he is exactly.  I'm sure he'll call you 
as soon as he can."

I reach out and stop Frohike's fanning because it's making me 
feel seasick.  "What has he told you?"

"Nothing," the three of them chime together.

"We found out where Scanlon disappeared to," Byers adds without 
prompting, and the other two glare at him.  "Mulder went after 
him, but we haven't heard from him since he left."

I nod and take a deep breath to try to calm the thoughts racing 
through my head.  So much for the optimism I'd felt about what 
Mulder might find.  His news will be no better than my own, 
perhaps worse.  If Scanlon is involved, there can't be much left 
to hope for.

I take a moment to pull together my thoughts, while the Gunmen 
watch me carefully for signs of impending childbirth.

"Okay, I need your help," I finally say, and they simultaneously 
look relieved.  "I need a lab or a doctor who will run some blood 
tests confidentially, with the results released only to you or to 
me.  Can you help me with that?"

Frohike nods furiously while Langly speaks.  "Uh, yeah, we can 
probably pull that together.  Not until morning, though."

"That's fine."  I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like 
to get a good night's sleep.

***

When I arrive home, my answering machine light is blinking loudly 
in the darkness, echoing the pounding in my head.  I can barely 
find the energy to kick off my shoes and remove my coat before I 
hit play.

"Scully, it's me.  I, uh, I was hoping you'd be back by now... 
I'm just checking in.  I'll, uh, I'll try and call again later."

There's a pause and I can hear his breathing on the other end.  
"Hey, Scully?"  His voice falls off into silence.  He sounds as 
exhausted and drained as I am.  "Take care of yourself, okay?"

The electronic voice tells me I missed Mulder's call by fifteen 
minutes.  I'm too tired to wonder about his words, too tired to 
worry.  I just want to sleep.

I stumble to the bedroom and fall into bed without changing my 
clothes.  The throbbing in my head is so painful, it beats 
against my closed eyelids.  I try to concentrate instead on the 
rippling in my womb and wonder how much longer I will get to feel 
this life inside of me.

I'm startled by the phone ringing, and I flinch in pain at the 
sudden noise.  I snatch up the receiver immediately, though I 
know it won't be Mulder.

It's Langly.  "Agent Scully?  I think we've gotten your ... 
request taken care of.  We have a friend who's a doctor.  Well, 
he's not technically a doctor anymore."  I make a mental note to 
never ask what the hell he did to lose his license.  "Anyway, he 
works in a lab here in D.C.  He can run some tests for you on the 
side.  We've worked with him before.  He's entirely trustworthy."

The pounding between my temples subsides a little.  At last, 
something I can analyze and dissect.  "Great, when?"

"Well, if you can meet us here tomorrow, we can make the 
arrangements.  Afternoon sometime?"

"No, in the morning," I reply.  "I can't wait any longer."

That is the one thing of which I've suddenly become sure.  I 
can't wait any longer.  I need to know what this thing is, and I 
need to know now.  If it's going to kill me, I at least want to 
know what it is.  And if there's anything I can do to save it.


*****

End 6/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 7


"A Samantha."

The words don't register at first.  I blink and take a couple of 
steps back  while I try to understand what just happened.  
Scanlon shrugs, spreading his hands in a "what's a guy to do?" 
gesture.

Then comprehension sinks in and my whole body feels ice cold.  My 
arm has become too heavy to keep the gun trained on him, and it 
drops to my side.  I shake my head in disbelief, unwilling to 
accept anything this man might say as the truth.  He's just 
trying to rattle you, I tell myself.

Scanlon sags against the wall, apparently as drained as I am by 
our little tete-a-tete.  The gun drops from my numb fingers, 
clattering loudly on the bare wooden floor.  For a split second, 
our eyes meet. 

Scanlon dives for the gun.  The movement sets the rage building 
inside me into motion.  I tackle him, finding a small measure of 
satisfaction in the grunt he makes when he hits the floor.  The 
gun slips from his grasp, spinning crazily out of reach.

We struggle, grappling and straining across the cold surface of 
the floor.  Scanlon is slightly taller and heavier than I am, but 
he isn't nearly as motivated.  His elbow delivers a sharp blow 
beneath my chin, leaving my ears ringing and the taste of blood 
in my mouth.  I reciprocate with a solid punch across his left 
cheek that makes my knuckles scream.

We both lunge for the gun, but it slides out of reach again.  I 
squirm away from Scanlon, stretching until the gun just brushes 
the tip of my fingers.  I flex my fingers, willing the gun 
closer.

Scanlon flips me, but doesn't break my grip on the gun.  I shove 
it under his chin and he tries to move backwards, but doesn't get 
far because I've got a handful of his shirtfront.

"You're going to help her."  I wobble to my feet, pulling him 
with me.  "I don't care how, or what you have to do, but you're 
going to fix this."

Scanlon shakes his head.  "I already told you, there's nothing we 
can do."

"Try again!"  I chuck him under the chin with the gun.  "If you 
can't fix it, then you're of no use to me.  Do you know what I 
mean?"

That's no idle threat.  I've never meant anything more in my 
life.  Scanlon's eyes turn into glittering little marbles when he 
realizes this.

"Maybe," he licks his lip and tries to turn his head away from 
the gun.  "Maybe there's something else we can try."

***

We get a few second glances in Healthquest's lobby, but no one 
asks why we look bruised and rumpled.  The fourth floor is 
deserted, and I remember that his was the only name on the 
marquee for this floor.  

Scanlon stops in front of a door and punches a code into the 
keypad on the wall.  The door opens to an dark and empty 
laboratory.  "A few years ago there were nearly a hundred people 
working in this lab."  He shakes his head sadly, as if its 
current disuse is the greater crime.

He flips a switch and the overhead lights blink and hum to life.  
Our footsteps echo eerily as we walk through the deserted lab.  
Scanlon stops in front of a cabinet and pulls a key ring from his 
pocket.  He sorts through the keys, trying a couple of them 
before finding the right one.  

Inside the cabinet are several narrow metal boxes.  Scanlon takes 
one from the top shelf and opens it, extracting a clear vial 
filled with greenish fluid.  He hands the vial to me.

"What's this?" I ask.

"The vaccine that was developed in anticipation of the alien 
invasion."

"How will this save Scully and the baby?"

Scanlon looks disconcerted.  "You can't save them both."

I hold the vial up to the light, discerning nothing miraculous.  
"This will save Scully?"

Scanlon doesn't answer, of course.  This isn't a cure - it's 
speculation.  But it's the only chance Scully has left.

***

Back at my hotel room, I take the vial out and set it carefully 
on the nightstand.  The fluid inside is the same eerie green 
color of Emily's salvation and ultimate demise.  Scully rejected 
the ability to prolong Emily's life, but I wonder if she would 
change her mind now, after having carried the child within her.

How could they do this?  The collected grief of over twenty years 
has become too heavy a burden tonight.  The vial turns hazy, 
replicating itself like so many Samanthas through the filter of 
my tears.  I think of my sister, abducted and used as a lab rat.  
Was that truly her last year, pleading with me to stay out of her 
life?  Or was she a clone, too?  Is Sam even still alive?  Or 
does she survive only as a tissue sample to provide DNA?  

What about the vacuous and mute Samanthas that I found in Canada?  
Are they still tending bees somewhere?  Or have they outlived 
their usefulness?  A sob catches in my throat as I remember how 
desperately I wanted to bring one home for my mother.  Even with 
the knowledge that she should have been an adult, not still a 
child, I wanted to believe that it was Sam.  I wanted to be able 
to start over.  I wanted to make up for all the lost years.

Hot tears slide over my cheeks as I breathe in anguished gulps.  
Now there is another generation of Sams, and there doesn't seem 
to be a damn thing I can do to save them either.  In fact, by 
this time tomorrow I will have given Scully the means to destroy 
one of them.  I will plead with Scully to do it.

The irony of my quest is heartbreaking.  I've sought my sister, 
finding her again and again in various forms.  With the possible 
exception of the Sam the Cigarette Smoking Bastard dangled in 
front of me, none of them were really her.  They were just carbon 
copies that were missing the soul of the original.

Tonight I would trade my soul to change it all.  If only my 
father had given them me, instead of Sam.  None of this would 
have happened to her.  

None of this would have happened to Scully.  

That thought is enough to destroy me.  I lie on the bed, 
whispering Scully's name while my heart breaks at the decision 
that must be made.  

/"You can't save them both."/

***

"What happened to you?"  Scully takes my hand, turning it over 
for a closer look at my bruised knuckles.

"Let's just say I have a propensity for finding bastards."  I 
slip my fingers from hers and touch her cheek, tilting her face 
up.  The circles beneath her eyes are darker than before.  Worry 
lines are etched into the corners of her mouth and extend from 
her eyes - how long have those been there?   "How are you doing?"

Her eyes close, her head resting heavily against my palm for a 
moment.  "Tired."

That she would admit it frightens me even more than her physical 
appearance.

"I have nothing, Mulder.  Dead ends, dead mothers, dead babies.  
I hope you found something."

I take the vial from my pocket and hold it up between us.  
Scully's eyes widen slightly and then look back at me, 
questioning.  I gesture to the sofa and we both sit down.  I set 
the vaccine down on the coffee table and take her hand, giving 
her fingers a small squeeze.

We both stare at the vial, innocent looking, yet carrying the 
weight of tragic finality.  How do I tell her?  What do I tell 
her?  Those questions have haunted me since last night.  I still 
have no answer, no good starting point.  I take a deep breath and 
begin.

"I found Dr. Scanlon, Scully."

She winces.  I'm not sure if it's from the memory of the time she 
spent embracing death in Allentown or fear of what I'm about to 
say that pains her.  Maybe both.

"They were running a fertility clinic in Doylestown.  They were 
experimenting with the hybrids."

"It's not mine," she murmurs, still watching the vial blithely 
resting on her coffee table.

"No," I can barely choke out the word.  I can't look at her, or 
the vaccine, so I close my eyes and wish this part were over, 
that this god-awful moment in our lives had passed. 

"It's killing you, Scully.  This baby, this hybrid, she's half 
alien."

Scully crosses her arms, hiding her abdomen from the truth for 
just a few moments more.  I keep going, powerless to stop now 
that I've started.

"They chose you because they believed that abductees might have a 
better chance of carrying a hybrid fetus.  It turns out that the 
opposite was true.  Scanlon admitted that non-abductees have been 
used with success.  But the fetuses depleted the abductee 
mothers."

Scully bites her lip, her mind already understanding the 
conclusion I can't bring myself to tell her.  "This pregnancy is 
doing the same thing to me that it did to those women in 
Doylestown."

I nod, not trusting my voice.  Scully leans forward, closer to 
the vial, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

"And this?"  She almost picks it up, but at the last second she 
draws her hand back.

"It's a variant of the vaccine I gave you in Antarctica.  Since a 
hybrid is half-alien, it should be lethal to..."  My voice trails 
off, unable to say the words out loud.

"And that's it?  I just inject this?  What makes you believe that 
Scanlon is telling the truth?"

She's right, why should we trust Scanlon?  What if he's trying to 
get rid of all the evidence, Scully included?  I shake my head 
slowly.  There's no way I can honestly answer that.

"You said 'she.'"  Her features are pinched with grief.  I know 
she's thinking of Emily, of opportunities lost forever.

"It seemed wrong to say 'it,'" I lie.  I can't tell her the 
truth.  "The baby in Doylestown was a girl.  I just started 
thinking of this one as a girl, too."

Scully picks up the vial, tilting it a little as if to discern 
its secrets.  "If the Turner's baby had been born later, if her 
lungs had developed just a little more, she might still be 
alive."

"You don't know that."

"No.  But I don't know that it's already too late to save this 
baby."

I wince and reach out to touch her knee, wanting a connection 
with her so that she understands just how important this is to 
me.  "You have to save yourself."  

"Why?"

That single word shreds what is left of my soul.  Why do this, 
Scully?  Because I need you.  Because I can't lose you.  Because 
I will never be able to find the men responsible for this without 
you.

"So you can save the others," I rasp out past the fear rising 
inside me.  "It's not just you, there are others out there.  But 
you and I, we know now.  We can stop them from doing this to 
others."

Scully sets the vial down and clasps her hands in her lap.

"I can't do this alone.  I need you, Scully.  If you die because 
of this..."  The enormity of her decision and her sense of 
justice frighten me.  What if she decides that thirty-some-odd 
years are enough for her and that she cannot cheat this child of 
a slim chance at life?

She bows her head.  "I need some time here, Mulder."

My stomach twists into a knot.  I stand up, wishing desperately 
that I could take this moment away from her.  I wish that this 
had never happened, that I could fly around the world like 
Superman and turn back time for her to the day she walked in my 
office and started down a dark and dangerous path.  Instead, I 
walk away.

I glance behind me before I shut the door.  She is still sitting 
on the couch, her shoulders hunched over as if they hold the 
weight of the world.


*****

End 7/8

~~~~~~~~~~~~


CHAPTER 8


I lean hard against the heavy weight of the oak door, and it 
opens under my push.  Stepping out of the cold and into the warm 
alcove, I shake off the snow that has fallen onto my shoulders 
and hair.  I enter the sanctuary and stop just inside the door, 
allowing myself to absorb the magnificence.  Although I have been 
inside this church many times over the years, it looks different 
to me at night.  The stained-glass windows are lit from the 
inside only, and the candlelight throws shadows across the high 
vaulted ceiling.  I always find churches peaceful, but at night 
that peacefulness takes on a new intensity as the darkness is 
shut outside and the light is welcomed within.

I am alone in the sanctuary except for a woman sitting in a pew 
near the front.  By the hunched curve of her back, I suspect she 
is an older woman, though it is impossible to tell with the scarf 
she wears over her head.  I'm not sure if she is deep in thought 
or deep in sleep, but I decide to choose a pew on the opposite 
side so that I do not disturb her. 

Once seated, I close my eyes for a moment to allow all the 
feelings to settle over me.  Although I have felt on the verge of 
tears for the last few weeks, I have not cried since I told 
Mulder the news.  I wait now, thinking the tears will come in 
this haven from the outside world, but they do not.  I cannot 
seem to find the release I need.

I open my eyes and study my surroundings, feeling the constant 
pounding that has been haunting me all evening begin to wane.  
The vial Mulder gave me waits in my pocket, beckoning me with 
harsh reality inside this sanctuary.  

I think back to Mulder tonight, as he had to break the news to 
me.  It was nearly unbearable to put him in the position of 
bringing this choice to me.  I could see in his eyes how much he 
didn't want to tell me, how much he didn't want to make me decide 
between myself and the child.  

I try to weigh the options objectively.  Even if I can live long 
enough to carry this baby close to term, which seems unlikely 
given the early deaths of the other women, could it survive a 
premature birth?  And if it did, what about the blood abnormality 
I saw in the Turner baby?  Would there be medical abnormalities 
following it through childhood and maybe even into adulthood?

Then, even if there weren't the medical concerns, what kind of 
life will the child have?  Surely the men who created it will 
come back to claim their prize.  Will Mulder be able to protect 
it?  Can I ask him to give up everything to save a child that 
isn't even technically mine?  

Should the child be born, only to be seized and used as a medical 
experiment?   Like Emily?  Or Gibson?  Gibson's words come back 
to haunt me.  "I'm a very special lab rat."

There's one thing I haven't told Mulder, one thing that weighs on 
my conscience.  The initial blood test results that I got back 
from the Gunmen's doctor friend - they were not at all what I 
expected.  They were almost normal.  I tried not to allow that to 
raise my hopes.  The other tests, the ones that will paint a more 
accurate picture of what is going on in my body, will take time.  
But when I saw those blood results, for one brief moment, my 
heart soared.  Could it be possible?  Could the condition be 
reversing itself?

Maybe with more time I could figure it out.  I could find a 
treatment for the blood abnormality, I could find a way to 
protect the child.  It's a fatal deadline - at most I have only a 
few months left - and then Mulder is left to shoulder the burden.

This child sucks up my own life, yet it has in many ways renewed 
my life.  Carrying it, feeling it move, loving it.  In some ways 
it is the most joy I have ever felt, the most alive I have ever 
been.  I'm not sure I can give that up, even at the price of my 
life. 

The thought brings the tears kicking at the back of my throat 
again, but they still refuse to fall.  I sigh heavily and then 
reach forward to pull out a Bible from the rack in front of me.  
I hold the book on my lap, just staring at the words embossed in 
gold on the front cover.  Holy Bible.  I long for the days when 
my faith was stronger than my doubt, when this book could bring 
me comfort for almost anything I had to face.  Now, I'm not sure 
where I can find the strength.  As much as I may wish for it, I 
cannot find it here.  I'm not sure it's even possible for me to 
find it at all.  Where do I look when what I'm experiencing goes 
beyond the realm of science and beyond the extremes of faith?  
There is nothing in either of those places, science or religion, 
that can explain this, that can help me understand what is 
happening. 

What kind of suffering awaits this child, half human, half 
something I can neither know nor understand?  Am I to make the 
decision to save the child by killing it?  The paradox is a 
bitter one, the benefits of life and death reversed, confused, 
indistinguishable from each other.  There is no way to know what 
is right.

I am, however, not alone in this decision.  For better or worse, 
Mulder has a stake in it too.  He sat beside me, trying to help 
me weigh the options, although I am well aware that he supports 
only the one, the one that will guarantee my own life and, at the 
same time, make inevitable the death of my child which he, also, 
has come to love.  "You have to save yourself," he told me, his 
hand tracing light circles on my leg as if trying to draw a 
picture for me of what is necessary.

Why?  It is a question I have been asking myself for weeks now, 
months, years in fact.  Why?  Why me?

Although I feel calmed from my sojourn in the church, my blood 
not racing, my emotions under control for the moment, I don't 
feel any more sure of my decision than I did when I entered.  
Sleepiness is blurring my mind, and I know I should go home and 
try to get some rest.  I replace the still unopened Bible in the 
rack and stand to leave.  As I walk down the pew, I notice that 
the old woman has also gotten up and is walking up the aisle 
toward me.  We reach the end of my pew at the same moment.   

"When are you due?" she asks, her voice sounding as old as she 
looks.  Surprised, I look her in the face.  Her eyes, set deep 
within her chiseled face, are dark in color but bright with life, 
despite her age.

"What?"

"Your baby.  When is she due?"  Confused, I look down at my 
stomach, then back up at her.  I'm not showing yet.  How could 
she know?  

Not sure what to say, and flustered by the whole exchange, I 
answer with the first thing that pops into my head.  "I'm not 
sure."  

The woman nods slightly, then reaches out a hand.  I notice her 
fingers are cramped with arthritis, contracted into grotesque 
shapes.  She stops just short of my belly.  "May I?" she asks, 
not breaking my gaze.  I nod, oddly unsure if I have a choice in 
the matter.

She presses her hand flat against my stomach, closing her eyes at 
the same time.  It is only a matter of seconds before I see her 
brow crease and a sharp grimace pass over her face.  Shocked by 
the change in her visage, I step back and the contact between us 
is lost.

She opens her eyes again and I see sorrow reflected in them, the 
previous brightness dimmed by a shadowy gloom.  "Sometimes, we 
have to find the strength to let them go," she says in a tone 
that is remarkably soothing.  I can do nothing but stare at her.  
"Sometimes, that is the best way to love them."

And then she is gone, halfway up the aisle before I have even 
taken a breath.  While I'm trying to unravel the intent of her 
words, she reaches the door of the church and exits into the 
cold.  She leaves me standing in the middle of the church alone, 
tears streaming down my face in the first flood of relief I have 
felt in what seems like forever.

***

As I walk home from the church, the snow falls faster.  The old 
woman's words sink into me, calming the ceaseless flurries of my 
thoughts.  The world outside me is a mass of whiteness and gray 
shadow, lit by a full moon which cannot reach the darkness 
lingering in the corners.  My decision lurks in my mind the same 
way, just a murky shadow wrapped in a blanket of numb ice and 
darkness.  All the snowy words of the past few weeks gather in 
tall drifts pressed against my soul.  I finger the vial in my 
pocket, its green color an aberration in this gray world.  A 
single splash of vibrant color, like the future in an otherwise 
miserable present.  The decision made, I walk with purpose, the 
wind and cold at last destroying all lingering doubt.



X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X 



*EPILOGUE*


I roll down the window to let in some fresh air.  The monotony of 
the highway is making me drowsy.  Scully doesn't stir.  I look 
over to check on her again.  Her head is angled awkwardly against 
the passenger-side window, but I don't want to risk waking her by 
trying to right it.  She's only been asleep for a couple of 
hours, probably the longest sustained sleep she's had in days. 

We shouldn't be here.  It's only been three weeks since the 
"procedure" - neither of us has ever used one of the other, more 
accurate, terms for what happened - and she's still weak.  

I glance at her again, reassuring myself that she's still with 
me.  I had thought that she would call me when she had made her 
decision.  I had thought that she wouldn't want to be alone.

I was wrong.

I waited by the phone for her to call.  All that night and into 
the next morning I waited.  She never called.  

By mid-morning I was growing worried, so I tried her phone.  No 
answer.  I had watched her the night before, distantly witnessing 
her late night sojourn to the church and back.  Once she was 
safely home, I went to my apartment and started waiting.  The 
fact that she wasn't answering shouldn't have been alarming; she 
might have gone to the church again.  Or to the store.  Or 
anywhere.  

I knew, though.  I knew what I would find inside her apartment.  
I pictured it all the way over.  Scully, in a pool of blood, 
barely hanging on to life.  What I found was almost as 
devastating.  

She didn't answer when I knocked, didn't call out when I said her 
name.  Her apartment was neat, and just as I had left it the 
night before.  I went down the hallway to her room and pushed the 
half-closed door open.  The bed had been stripped, all its 
blankets were in a heap on the floor.  In the center of her 
mattress there was a dark stain.  It wasn't very large, but my 
heart stopped anyway.

"Scully?"

Turning towards her bathroom, I saw a bedsheet trailed across the 
floor.  Inside the door, curled up in front of the toilet, was 
Scully.  A stained sheet covered her.  Towels, some of them 
soiled, were strewn all over the floor.  The tub was filled with 
silent pink water.

"Scully?" 

Her skin felt cold when I touched her.  I crouched next to her, 
uncertain whether I should move her or not.

"Mulder?"  Her eyes half-opened, then closed again when they 
found me.  "I let her go.  I had to."  

I pulled her into my arms, cradling her there awkwardly.  "You 
should have called me."

And now, three weeks later, she's still reliving that night.  She 
doesn't talk about it, and I'm not sure if she's reticent because 
it's her personal pain or because she's trying to spare me.  She 
tries to hide it from me, but I see the grief etched around the 
corners of her eyes.  What she has lost she can never get back, 
and there are no promises I can make to even begin to compensate. 

She has become too thin, too pale, too gaunt.  I worry that she 
might not ever fully recover physically from what's been done to 
her.  Still, there wasn't a thing I could do to stop her from 
coming on this trip.  As soon as the Gunmen called to report that 
they'd found an unusually high number of deaths of pregnant women 
from a clinic in Wyoming, Scully packed her bags and insisted we 
go look into it. 

"This is what you said you needed me for," she argued when I told 
her it could wait.  I didn't have an answer for that.  I know 
that she needs this, something to put her back up against, 
something to do to make sure it wasn't all in vain.  We know they 
are out there, other women carrying other Samanthas - ersatz 
promises that should never have been made. 

I traded Scanlon his freedom for Scully's cure, and it has cost 
me, though I would pay that price again a thousand times over.  
The lab where he took me was stripped of all evidence that it was 
ever used for anything other than pharmaceutical experiments.  
What Scanlon told me, however, hints that this was bigger than 
Scully, that it was bigger than the women in Doylestown and 
Allentown.  

Now we have a lead again - just the smallest of leads, but maybe 
a beginning.


*****

THE END


**********


EP Stats: 
 
Idea proposed by Susanne:  e-mail dated January 12, 1999, 23:16 
Original posting deadline set for EP:  Before 1999 spring mytharc 
Next posting deadline:  Before 6th season finale 
Next posting deadline:  Before 7th season premiere 
Next posting deadline:  Before 7th season finale 
Thoughts when Scully announced pregnancy in 7th season finale: 
SHIT! 
Next posting deadline:  Before 8th season premiere 
Absolute, final, must get our butts in gear deadline:  Before 8th 
season finale 
Last line finally agreed upon:  May 16, 2001, 23:23 
 
Time elapsed:  2 years, 5 months, 4 days and 7 minutes 
 
Why did it take so long? 
 
Bedtime stories read to Sue's son:  251 
Bedtime stories read to Susanne's niece:  24 
Required road trips for Sue's job:  33 
Term papers graded by Susanne:  3000 
Number of times Sue moved:  2 
Hours spent fixing Sue's new house:  284 
Hours spent working on Susanne's dissertation:  73 
Vacations taken by Sue:  8 
Vacations taken by Susanne:  7 
Vacations taken by Sue & Susanne together where they brought EP 
to work on it:  3 
Total vacation time spent working on EP:  15 minutes (generous 
estimate) 
Stories posted 1/99 – 5/1 by Sue:  13 
Stories posted 1/99 – 5/1 by Susanne:  25 
Hours spent discussing EP on IM:  763 (approximately) 
Average interval when we'd say "we should really work on EP": 
Once a week 
Average interval when we'd actually work on EP:  Once a month 
Number of words in EP:  17,652 
Average amount of time spent on each word:  23 hours 
(approximately) 
 
Hey, we have lives!  When you look at it this way, a word a day 
isn't too bad.  :)


Please direct any comments on our inherent laziness to:
sbarringer@usa.net; sister_suze@yahoo.com