BonnieGayle
e-mail: [email protected]
web site: http://members.tripod.com/xtrordinaryxfiles/index.html
The Weight of Two: 1/1
Rating: G
Classification: Post ep, Scully POV, Angst, UST
Summary: A short post-ep for Requiem. Scully deals with the mystery of being newly pregnant.
Spoilers: Requiem and Emily.
Disclaimer: (Most people try to have fun with this, but personally I just skip it when I'm looking at other sites, so...) The X-Files and everything else related to it belong to Chris Carter, Fox, 1013, David, Gillian, various others, and the BIG BAD WOLVES...um lawyers! I don't own them, I just borrow them for a while, but I'll try to return them in better shape then I got 'em:>) But if I did own them, not only would I be richer than I deserve to be, this UST mumbo-jumbo would be a bad memory!
Feedback: Yes please. I'll beg if necessary:)
The Weight of Two
Once I told Skinner I was...pregnant...he kept me in the hospital another 3 days. Running every test twice, and keeping me monitored 24 hours a day. The results of those many useless tests were nothing more than obvious. No, I'm not barren anymore. Yes, I'm pregnant. One month pregnant to be exact.
What they couldn't tell me was the one thing I wanted to know most of all: the father of the baby.
"Not until after the baby's born can they run a DNA test, and even then...." Skinner trailed off. Even he seemed shocked that the only thing Mulder and I had been doing together for the last seven years was being celibate. At least, I could vouch for me. The rest I could only hope for.
But all I want to do now is go back to my apartment. Once I'm home, I'll finally be able to process it all, and figure out my life now that it's changed...very changed. For my own sanity I need to figure out a plan. I've always been a planner. I've always felt lost if I didn't know what I was going to do next week, next month. And this has left me with no idea what the next *minute* will hold.
Once Skinner finally lets me leave the hospital, I sign the release papers under the eye of an uninterested nurse. Skinner was careful to keep all of this very silent. To the hospital staff, I am just another single mother. I wasn't just impregnated without my knowledge.
Each step out of here, I feel a weight being slowly lifted off my shoulders. I'm carrying the weight of two bodies, I remind myself with a shiver.
When I get home, I go straight to bed, even though it's only 3 in the afternoon. Home isn't as comforting as I thought it would be.
My dreams are full of Mulder: he's being tested on in the blinding white place, half-memories of my abduction with Mulder in my place. My last dream before I wake up, is of me in the white place with him. The only thing that stands out in the sterile white is the bright blue of something bundled up in Mulder's arms. I walk over to him slowly, each step taking years to pass. I want to know what he holds in his arms, but my eyes can't leave his face. He's looking at me with a blinding smile. Once I finally reach him, he hands me the bundle. I look down, painfully tearing my eyes away from his. It's a boy with deep mysterious green eyes and bright red hair. The baby in my arms stares into my face, and the expression on his face is one of Mulder's. My head whips up to Mulder questioningly.
"It's a baby boy," I say, not comprehending. Is this a joke? Is he making fun of the fact that I can't have children?
"It's our son," he whispers joyfully. "It's our son." And his smile widens to encompass the baby in my arms and me, until it swallows us whole, and I'm left in the dark.
When I wake up, I find my pillow drenched with tears and sweat. I run to the bathroom, and dry heave into the toilet. As I pull myself upright afterwards on shaking legs, I remember something from my childhood. It was one of our too seldom mother-daughter days. We had just finished our tea, and Casablanca was rewinding. None of us wanted the pleasant bubble of the moment to end.
"Motherhood has got to be one of the best things in the world, but moments like this make it even better." She stared into her empty tea mug and laughed. "Oh, but pregnancy has got to be the worst." She leaned toward us conspiratorially, and dropped her voice to a stage whisper, "you girls have inherited the curse of horrible morning sickness from me!" Missy and I giggled and blushed. Still embarrassed by the thought of pregnancy, and all it entailed. "You'll see. One day you'll see what I'm talking about, and you won't laugh then," she murmured.
"You're right," I mutter as I head to the kitchen for a glass of water.
"About what?" says a male voice from the living room. It's not Mulder, I know, but I still can hope.
Krycek. "How did you get in here?" I gasp in outrage.
"Scully. Scully! So many questions--so many *big* questions to ask me, and you choose to ask how I got into your apartment? A pin, to answer your question. Even Nancy Drew knows that."
He stands and walks over to me. Once he's in front of me, he hands me a bouquet of flowers he has apparently had hidden behind his back.
Insane, never ending laughter wells up in my chest, and it takes force to hold it down inside.
"Mulder may be gone," I say quietly, bitterly, "but never, in a million life times, would I even think for a second--"
He cuts me off. "Only a million? You're mistaken, Scully. I haven't come here to try to fill the space in your bed. I have come to congratulate the expectant mother."
He looks at me smugly, but I am unimpressed. "So you got the information somehow? Rats can, easily enough."
His smug expression remains in place. "And to receive my thanksss," he hisses.
Suddenly the world swims around me. I make my way to the couch and collapse onto it. Once I've taken a few deep breaths, I turn to him.
"How?"
"Ah! Now we reach the big questions!" He comes and sits on my coffee table. "Well, I didn't do it alone. I had some help from Marita. Even though my well-founded connections were lost thanks to the...never mind. I took care of him....Marita still has hers."
"Connections?" I prod after a pause.
"Connections with the aliens. Marita talked to them, in a way that I don't even understand...yet, and one month ago they abducted you again during the night. They returned what they had taken during your first abduction, and they impregnated you."
My head jerks up, and Krycek's smile widens.
"Oh. I forgot you didn't believe in all that."
I barely hear his sarcastic criticism because my mind is swimming with too many questions.
"Why?"
"One life for another. Mulder unavoidably had to be taken, so I gave you something to replace him."
I'm stunned by his backward logic. I search his eyes for something comforting, but find only a machine that has had the human compassion forced out of him. His eyes are black, and so emotionless that it feels like I'm staring at a turned off computer screen.
"I want Mulder. I don't want a baby. I want him back." My voice is so full of conviction that it's shaking.
He looks at me deeply, and when he speaks again, his voice is lowered with quasi-compassion. "You love him, don't you?" He doesn't give me a chance to answer. He shakes his head violently. "No. I do not make mistakes. Mulder had to go. I had no choice. I have no sorrow. You will be happy with the baby."
He stands, and places the flowers on the coffee table, and heads quickly for the door.
When he reaches the hallway, though, he turns and puts his hands on his hips. "You know, I simplified this a great deal. It was not an easy task to accomplish. You really should be more grateful than you are acting."
I stand and walk toward him. "I have just one more question."
"I don't have any more answers to give you, but you can ask anyway."
"Who is the father."
He looks at me with a laugh. "I won't tell you what you can find out in 9 months."
He turns for the door.
"KRYCEK!" I yell.
He turns again. "I told you. I have no more answers."
"You don't have to tell me who the father is, but I have to know that this is not another Emily. Because if it is, so help me God, I *will* terminate it."
"I don't know what Emily is," he concedes grudgingly.
I feel better with the knowledge that this man doesn't know everything about me. "Emily was half-alien."
"Ah. No. The father is very much human. Do not worry. I have a heart," he says, and then laughs.
And then he is gone.
I cannot stand to be in the apartment anymore. I try going to Mulder's apartment, but I take one step inside, and it's too much. I run out, and keep running--and end up at the mall. Shopping helps soothe the soul, and I decide that it's never too early to buy maternity clothing.
In the department store, I wander through the rows of maternity clothing, and wonder whether I should buy maternity suits. Wonder whether I'm going to continue doing the X-Files without Mulder. I realize I have no clue what I'm going to do once my sabbatical's over--when I notice that I've wandered into the baby clothes section. I walk around looking at the tiny clothing hung on racks like I'm on a foreign planet. Suddenly, I see a little blue onesie, and am drawn to it. I pick it up, and look at it with tears in my eyes. 'It's our son.' Mulder's whisper from my dream comes back to me, and I walk towards the checkout with the onesie in my hand.
That night, I dream that I'm holding the same baby from the dream the night before. I'm walking through the desert, and I can't take my eyes off his face, he's so beautiful. I could be walking in circles for all I know and care. Suddenly I realize that he's saying something quietly. I lower my ear down to his little mouth so I can hear his voice.
"Scully, it's me. Scully, it's me," he repeats over and over in Mulder's voice.
I wake up slowly, and when I do, it's with a smile and no tears. I spend the rest of the night rubbing my stomach where our son lies in wait, and planning.
Note: Believe it or not, I really did write that they had a red haired boy over the summer. Imagine my amazement when it ended up that I was right. Don't ask me how I did it...it's an X-File:)