From: marguerite@spamfreeswbell.net
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 05:37:49 -0500
Subject: NEW: "Always Through the Changing" (1/2) by Marguerite
Source: atxc

Title: Always Through the Changing 
Author: Marguerite <Marguerite@operamail.com>
Rating: PG-13 (language, adult themes) 
Classification: Post-Ep (duh) 
Spoilers: Per Manum, TINH, Deadalive, slight
for Ascension, Redux II, Invocation 
Summary: Post-Traumatic stress from four points of view.


Disclaimer: Fox and CC own the show, doo dah, doo dah. 
Suing me would really blow, oh de doo dah day.

With profound thanks to Barbara D. and Revely, who know how
to make silk purses out of sow's ears.

***

"What day is it?"

Under ordinary circumstances, the question would not have
been enough to startle her awake, but coming from that
voice, the one she thought would exist only on a pathetic
collection of phone messages that Langly had compiled on a
CD for her, it was enough to make her gasp aloud.

Her eyelids flew open and she looked at his face. It was
less gray than it had been when she had fallen into an
exhausted slumber on his chest. His eyes were open and
alert, but a worried furrow ran along either side of his
nose.

"I'm sorry. I must've dozed off." She swiped at her hair and
rested the point of her chin on his forearm so she could
feel his breath on her face.

Mulder's hand moved. It was dry and still cool to the touch,
but his fingers felt like an angel's blessing when they
traced a trembling path where her tears had dried. "So,
Scully, what day is it?"

There was no light coming through the window, so she assumed
it was still night. "It's uh, Saturday."

He seemed content with that answer, not asking which
Saturday, or which month or season, for which Scully was
profoundly grateful. Mulder's fingers continued his journey
down her face, finally hooking around the gold chain at her
throat. "Wanna fool around?" he rasped, and Scully found
that her tears were not even close to spent. "Hey," Mulder
whispered as the drops landed on his arm, "do I look that
bad?"

"God, no. Mulder. No, no." She finally had the opportunity
to lean over and kiss the living flesh of his lips, so
unlike the cold, hard ones she had touched before she drew
back to let the morgue attendants prepare his body. But now
he was warm, it wasn't a dream, and she wouldn't wake up
screaming or weeping as she had done for the last few
months. He was alive, and for the first time since his
disappearance she felt joy in every cell of her skin.

His cheeks were warmer than his hands and she lingered there
for a moment, kissing each scar. Mulder coughed, then Scully
heard the single word: "Water."

God knows when he last had a drink, she thought, rising
without considering the extra weight she bore at the front
of her body. Slightly overbalanced, she put a steadying hand
on the IV pole as she picked up the cup.

Mulder's eyes were huge, with an odd shimmer, but he said
nothing as he took the offered sip of water. He kept the
cool liquid in his mouth for a moment as if savoring a fine
wine. When he swallowed, it was the only sound in the room.

This was not how Scully had wanted him to find out. She
hoped he could see the love and hope shining in her face,
but Mulder's expression was unreadable as he spoke without
taking his gaze from her abdomen.

"Whoa, Scully. You been eating all my jello?"

It was too much, and she began to laugh and cry all at once,
guiding his hand to where the baby joined in the celebration
with its own little dance. Mulder stroked the roundness as
if it were a kitten, biting his lip as if biting back his
own emotions.

"So. I must've been gone a long time." His voice was thin
and reedy. "You tried again?"

"No." She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hands on
either side of his face, noting with joy that his color
improved with her touch. "When the IVF didn't take, I
decided not to try again. At least, I didn't try THAT
again...but sometimes, Mulder, doctors can be wrong." She
felt another tear begin to form in the corner of one eye.
"You told me never to give up on a miracle."

He turned his head and kissed her palm. "I'm glad you got
your miracle. And I hope he's a good guy, or I'm gonna have
to kick his ass."

"He, who?" She pursed her lips for an instant, then gasped
as she realized what he was saying. "Oh, Mulder! I'm
sorry...I meant..." She felt the prickling of a full,
scarlet blush across her face. "All the science in the world
can't replace the real thing, Mulder." When she saw no
inkling of comprehension on his face, she added: "And we had
the real thing, on more than one occasion."

"We...I...we..." His eyes widened and his mouth turned up in
a huge grin. "God."

"I'd like to think He had a hand in it, yes."

"When? How?"

Scully sent up a quick prayer of thanks that Mulder was as
happy about this as she was. "Sometime last spring, but it's
hard to say when. Maybe when you came back from England. But
that's why I was so sick when we were in Oregon right before
you...were taken."

Mulder stared at her, obviously doing some mental
mathematics. "So I've been gone..."

"About five months. I'm due in two." She fussed with the
bedcovers, not meeting his eyes.

"Scully, there's something else. A lot of things, actually,
that I need to know."

"I know you do, Mulder, I'm just not sure you're ready for
all of this at once." She wrapped her fingers around his
hand. "Let's take this one step at a time, okay?"

"Okay." He tugged at her, bringing her head back down to his
chest. Scully sighed when she felt his fingers playing in
her hair. "Hit me with one thing, just one. Let's see how I
do."

She grimaced. "Well, this is tough, and I don't really know
how to tell you."

"Something happened to Skinner? The guys?"

"No. No, they're okay. But this is something even you can't
imagine." She paused for effect, digging her nails into her
palm to keep her expression level. "George Bush is the
President of the United States.."

He stared at her for an instant, then started to laugh.
"Dammit, Scully..." It turned into a cough, which he played
to the hilt as Scully helped him take another sip of water.

"I'd say you took the news rather well," she said, watching
in relief as Mulder managed to put the cup down without her
assistance. "So you've had one piece of good news and one
piece of bad news, and now I think you should really get
some rest."

"You too." His smile melted. "You look so tired, Scully."

She leaned over and kissed his forehead, running her fingers
over his temples as if to reassure herself that a pulse
really beat there. "I'm fine, now, Mulder."

He looked as if he wanted to react to the word "now" but
already his breathing was deepening, his body growing
relaxed. Scully sat down in the chair and put her head down
on his chest again, letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

There was pale sunlight filtering through the blinds when
she felt strong hands on her shoulders, kneading gently.
With a moan of exhausted bliss, Scully raised her head and
found herself looking into Skinner's dark, compassionate
eyes.

"How long have you been here?" she whispered.

"About ten minutes. I looked in on you a couple of times
during the night." He shook his head, a tender smile
softening the hard planes of his handsome face. "It's not
every day that a man gets to look at a miracle."

"I know." Still clinging to Mulder's hand, Scully rearranged
herself so that she was sitting up and facing Skinner. "Oh.
I saw Agent Doggett earlier."

"I ran into him. He was...embarrassed. He asked me to
apologize for intruding."

She looked around, peeking through the window into the
corridor. "Is he still here? I'd like to thank him."

"I sent him home. And that's where I'm about to send you, by
the way."

"Sir, no. I can't leave him."

She remembered the last time she had said that, when he all
but had to peel her off of Mulder's fallen body when the
ambulance drove into the field.

"Dana, you have to get some real rest. I promise you that no
harm will come to him."

"You've made that promise before." She was aghast at her
harshness, even more so when she saw the stricken expression
on Skinner's face. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know where that
came from."

"I pulled the plug on him, Scully. I don't blame you for
being wary of my offers of good will."

She bit back the nagging questions. Plug-pulling was not
even at the top of the list of why she might be wary of him.
Scully was aware of the fact that Skinner's world was full
of shadows which he kept hidden from her, and right now she
was too tired to demand to be let in. "What you did - it
turned out that you did the right thing, sir, even if it was
for the wrong reason. A lot of good things come out of wrong
reasons." She slipped her free hand into his. "Doggett
wouldn't have opened the grave. He'd never have made an
intuitive leap like that." Her throat constricted and she
felt burning in her eyes. "You gave him back to me. I'll
never forget what you've done."

He stepped forward as if to wrap his arms around her, then
backed away with the same hesitant smile he had given her
all those years ago when she lay in a hospital bed of her
own, freshly granted another miracle. Instead he mouthed
"I'll be right back" and stepped out into the hallway.

Scully drank in the sight of Mulder in peaceful sleep, his
mouth slightly parted, his face beautiful even with the
dreadful scars that pocked his flesh. It was the kind of
sleep that some would call "the sleep of the dead" without
giving the term a second thought. Fools, fools.

So rapt was she that she was not fully aware of Skinner and
an orderly rolling an extra hospital bed into the room. She
heard Skinner's voice saying, "They need to be touching" and
the squeak of seldom-used wheels. Before she could process
the sounds she was being helped to her feet.

The mattress felt like heaven as she let Skinner hoist her
up. Her shoes clattered to the floor. Groaning, she settled
on her side and smiled as the orderly helped her put a
pillow between her knees. "Thanks," she muttered, feeling
delicious sleep swirling around her. Her fingers scrabbled
across the mattress. Skinner took her hand and guided it
between the bars, then placed it in Mulder's relaxed grip.

"There he is, Scully," he whispered into her ear. "Sleep
tight."

The orderly headed for the door. "I'll go get her a
blanket."

Skinner gave a silent nod of thanks. It was not that he
feared waking Scully, because he could tell that she was
deeply asleep, but because he could not trust his voice.

Three months ago, he had been one of Mulder's pallbearers.
Two days ago, he had given the order to exhume the casket.
Today, the sun was rising on the living, breathing man who
had rested inside it.

What was the word Doggett had used? Insanity.

He was on the brink of it, himself. How easy it was to
forget about the black substance in his bloodstream when he
had been busy keeping Scully's heart from collapsing under
the unbearable double burden she bore. She had come to him
at odd times during the day, sometimes to show him an old
file and spill out the details of what had really happened
on that case. Sometimes she had come to beg him to send
Doggett to Siberia, anywhere, to get him off her ass about
needing more sleep or better vitamins.

She'd also appeared in the dead of night, more than once.
After the first time, when she'd stood trembling on the
threshold, her face haggard and white, he'd known what to
do. On those occasions, he'd make her some herbal tea - he
hated the stuff, had never kept any in the house until
Scully's nocturnal visits made him realize that he had
nothing to offer her that would be safe for the baby - and
wrap her in whatever was handy to ward off the chill.
Sometimes it was an old blanket or his discarded overcoat.

Sometimes it was his arms.

He hated himself.

He had hated himself ever since that spring night in Oregon,
when he'd looked away just long enough to break Scully's
heart. He'd hated himself for being ten minutes too late for
Jeremiah Smith to save Mulder's life. He'd hated himself for
every time he'd leaned closer to Scully so that he could
smell her hair as she wept. He'd hated himself for every
nocturnal wandering his hands made along his body and for
how he cried her name every time.

Now he was able to hate himself, truly revile every fiber of
his being, because he had buried this man alive. No matter
that Scully had tearfully pronounced him dead on the scene,
no matter that two coroners and a handful of morticians had
worked on him without noticing. Skinner had been in charge,
so it was his responsibility.

He looked down at Scully. She was sleeping peacefully for
the first time in months, after an ordeal that would have
flattened a lesser mortal. He'd had to give a hurried
explanation for his removal of Mulder from life support - a
Readers' Digest Condensed version, leaving out Alex Krycek.
She had forgiven him even before the medical team realized
that it was Skinner's desperate action that accidentally
saved Mulder's life. But for the rest of his days, Walter
Skinner would have to live with the fact that he had borne a
living man to his grave, resurrected him, and then tried to
kill him.

And that he had coveted the woman left behind.

Oh, there would be things to say to Mulder. He couldn't
imagine how to say a single one of them.

The orderly returned with a light blanket, putting it over
Scully's slumbering form. She stirred in her sleep and the
motion woke Mulder, who opened his eyes with a heavy sigh.
"Where's Scully...?"

"Ssh, it's okay, Mr. Mulder. We're just covering up your
pregnant chad, here."

"My what?" His eyes were dilated in the soft light and his
whole face was screwed up in an attitude of incomprehension.
"Pregnant chad?"

The orderly looked at him and grinned. "Pregnant chad? The
election?" When Mulder's only reaction was a puzzled shrug,
the orderly shook his head as he took his leave. "Man. What
planet you been on?"

"That's a good question," Mulder muttered. "I wish I knew
the answer."

"You have to give yourself some time, Mulder."

The man in the bed turned his head, his gleaming eyes
checking for Scully before he spared Skinner a glance. "I'd
say I've given myself about five months, give or take a few
million years."

There was no accusation in the flat tone. Skinner wished
there had been something there, some anger or
disappointment, but Mulder was obviously still working out
the details of his ordeal in his own mind. He was simply too
busy to assess blame.

Skinner followed Mulder's gaze, both men watching Scully as
she slept peacefully. Like a baby, Skinner thought, trying
not to imagine just how that baby came to be.

"She's okay?" Mulder asked softly.

"Yeah, she's good, she's fine. There was an episode early on
that gave us a scare, but it's under control." He came
closer to the bed, sitting in the chair and leaning close to
Mulder so that their voices would not waken Scully. "You
probably know better than anyone what she went through when
you were taken. She's tough, Mulder, and she tried really
hard to hold it together. Still...no matter how much I
looked after her, no matter how much we all tried to do for
her, these last three months were just hell."

Mulder pursed his lips as if he'd tasted salt in a
chocolate. Skinner winced as he saw a fissure on Mulder's
lower lip open up, a well of purple blood shining like oil.
"Wait...I thought I was gone for five."

Shit. She hadn't told him yet. Skinner tried to backtrack.
"I mean, once she had exhausted all her avenues...she
was..."

"You're lying, Walter," Mulder drawled. His voice was
insouciant, as always, but there was pure panic in his
gray-rimmed eyes. "What made these last three months so much
worse?"

He could hear himself swallowing. "Mulder, we found you
three months ago, in a field in Montana where a lot of other
abductees turned up."

"I've been in a coma? Is that what you're trying to tell
me?"

"I'm not sure what the hell I'm trying to tell you, Mulder.
When we found you, you had been dead for at least two days."
Skinner found it hard to look his subordinate in the eye,
but he forced himself. He owed him that much. Owed him more.


"Dead."

"Yeah."

The men stared at one another. Mulder's veins stood out at
his temples and he clenched his hands so tightly that Scully
moaned softly. He released her hand and folded his together
on his chest.

"Maybe that's why this position is so comfortable," he said
as if discussing a new pair of shoes.

"Mulder, it's no joke. She picked out your best suit and
made sure your hair was combed just the way you liked it,
then she and I stood there while two morticians put you in a
casket and apologized that they wouldn't be able to make you
look good enough for a viewing."

Mulder put his hands on his face, feeling the circular scars
on his cheeks, then stared at the holes running through both
wrists. "Mirror," he said in a voice tight with fear.

"I don't have one."

"I need...I need to see."

Skinner felt his sanity raveling away like ancient fabric,
like a shroud. He fumbled around in the room for a moment,
finally finding a metallic bowl with a flat bottom. He held
it up so that Mulder could see his reflection.

"Jesus. That's enough." Mulder pushed the bowl away, his
pale face shadowed with a sickly green tint.

"The scars will heal," Skinner promised him.

"The ones here?" Mulder pointed to his face, then to his
heart. "Or here?" He looked at Skinner with fear shining
like fireworks behind his black pupils. "When did YOUR scars
heal?"

Just thinking about it brought the stench of jungle steam
back into his nostrils. He'd been in a body bag, ready to be
tagged and returned to his home. It was a miracle had he
been spared Mulder's fate, locked in a casket with a heart
still beating.

"Your case is different. You've got something anchoring you
to this world." He lifted his chin in Scully's direction.
"Part of you is there. You owe it to yourself to come back
to the living. To make yourself whole again."

Mulder's head turned as if it were too heavy a burden for
his neck. Skinner could see a tear welling up, then being
blinked back, as Mulder looked at Scully's pale, thin face.

"Tell me she didn't do the autopsy."

Skinner let out a shaking breath. "She wanted to. I told her
not to. In fact, I told her to leave you in peace."

"Don't corpses," and here Mulder's voice shook, "have to be
embalmed?"

"I don't think you need to know..."

"Fuck what you think. Sir." Mulder never took his eyes off
Scully. "What the hell happened to my body?"

"You'd been dead for days. She said your blood was
too...well, it wasn't an option."

"I guess I should be glad she didn't have me cremated."
Mulder finally moved, this time lying on his side facing
Skinner. Behind him, Scully frowned in her sleep, her
fingers restlessly stroking the warm place where their
conjoined hands had been.

"Mulder, don't make this worse."

"Worse." He spat out the word. "Yeah, it could be worse. I
could remember it."

Skinner felt a sour taste in the back of his mouth. "Take
some time, Mulder. Think. Talk to Scully." He paused,
looking down at his shoes. "Talk to me, if you need to. But
for God's sake, don't make a compost heap out of all that's
happened to you."

"Shit rises," Mulder whispered. His hands went slack and his
eyes closed like the lid to his casket.

"That went well," Skinner mumbled to himself, reaching into
his pocket for a handkerchief. It was the one he'd handed
Scully at Mulder's funeral; he kept it with him as a sick
sort of souvenir. He wiped his glasses on it. When he
replaced them on his nose, he looked up just far enough to
see Doggett's profile in the window.

Doggett's eyebrows raised as if asking permission to enter,
but Skinner shook his head. He got up from the chair and
touched Mulder's cool hand.

Alive. God, alive. Doggett wondered what the living flesh
felt like as he watched Skinner take one last longing look
at Scully before joining him outside.

They watched for a while, guardian angels in overcoats, one
bruised from the outside and the other from within. Finally
Skinner sat down in the bank of plastic chairs near Mulder's
room. He arched his back and stretched his arms high, then
leaned forward.

"Hell of a day," said Doggett as he walked up to Skinner.

"You could say that." Skinner shifted by way of invitation
and Doggett took the seat next to him. "After you left I got
in touch with John Byers and asked him to tell Scully's
mother."

Doggett's eyes widened. "You think that's wise? I mean, he's
the least cracked of the lot, but still."

"You want to make the call yourself? Hello, Mrs. Scully -
the man we buried three months ago, well, he's alive and
your daughter's in his room crying her eyes out because when
I tried to kill him it ended up saving his life?"

"Good point." Doggett turned his cool-eyed gaze to the
ceiling. "That's not what you were trying to do, you know.
Kill him."

"I was trying to make a choice for him, the one I knew he'd
make himself if he were...compos mentis." Skinner shuddered.
"I had them dig him up so that he could live, and then I had
to disconnect his life support to save Scully's baby."

"Just your average executive decisions, sir."

Skinner barked a laugh. It was dry and hollow, like an empty
grave. He shook his head, looking, yet not looking, at his
folded hands. "I'd have paid real money to have seen the
look on Kersh's face when he found out that Mulder was
alive."

"I got to see the aftermath. It wasn't pretty." Doggett put
his elbow on his thigh, the Thinker's Stance, his chin on
his fist. "In case you're wonderin', the job offer was
rescinded. I'm not sure what's worse - three in a bed or
three in a basement."

"I'm sorry, John. It's not going to be easy for you."

Doggett grimaced. His heart felt full, heavy, and there was
a lump in his throat that had been there from the moment he
had seen Scully lying with her head on Mulder's chest. What
had been in his eyes? he wondered. He knew what he'd seen in
hers.

Pity.

What he saw now in Skinner's eyes was something he really,
really didn't want to think about. It had been there a
couple of times before, when Skinner was looking after
Scully. It was a white-hot pain kept in check by the iron
force of a good man's will. The worst was the night they'd
found Mulder. While Scully had been doing her courageous
best to rein in her howling grief as she gave instructions
to the coroner's assistant, Skinner had just stood there,
looking for all the world as if he would gladly trade places
with the dead man if it would just take away Scully's pain.

The guy's screwed either way, Doggett had thought early on,
and his opinion hadn't changed. Poor Skinner. King David
looking at Bathsheba and wishing he could take back time,
undo what had happened. But what happened to Mulder wasn't
Skinner's fault. Anyone would've thought the guy was dead.
His skin had been hard and blue, and he was as cold as the
ground he lay on. His rigor was so bad that Scully couldn't
even hold his hand for fear of cracking the bones. That was
dead. Really dead.

(part two follows immediately)


(disclaimers, etc., in part 1)


The amazing thing about Mulder's death was that Scully
survived it. That miracle baby in there must have been the
trick, because without it she'd have withered away like
drought-stricken wheat, denied the water and sunlight that
the hope of finding Mulder had given her. Doggett had tried
to hover without seeming as if he hovered - or at least he
hoped he had. As far as he knew, he'd only screwed up once.

He'd seen the childbirth books on her desk - Mulder's desk,
whoever's desk - and in a moment of madness had offered to
be her coach.

"What?" Scully had asked, her eyes wide.

"I mean, I've had some experience. In the force, that is,
and I had a lot of paramedic buddies say I wasn't half bad."
He hadn't mentioned Luke, how Cindy swore to everyone that
she'd never have survived the seventeen hours of labor
without John at her side. Scully didn't need another story
with an unhappy ending.

She had looked at him with actual tenderness, and he could
have sworn that he saw her teeth when she smiled. "I can't
tell you," she had said, her fingers playing with the
photograph of Samantha Mulder, "how grateful I am for your
offer." The words were carefully measured, like
nitroglycerin she didn't want to spill. "I've made...other
arrangements. But thank you."

"Hey, that's okay, really." His skin had turned a mottled
red and his ears, particularly, had burned. "No big deal."

But he'd still felt rejected, although he could think of a
million reasons why sharing that moment with him was not
something Scully would ever have had in mind. And if he'd
felt rejected that day, he should've saved it up as being
preferable to the way he felt the moment he realized that he
was a third wheel on the X Files, and a square one at that.

Before he'd ever met Fox Mulder in, as the saying went, the
flesh.

He realized that he hadn't said a word to Skinner in over
ten minutes. That was something he actually enjoyed about
his erstwhile boss. They didn't need to fill the empty air
with idle words. On several occasions they'd nursed cups of
coffee into the wee hours without exchanging more than a few
perfunctory sentences.

Doggett stood up and looked into Mulder's room again. Scully
had not moved. Mulder had turned in his sleep so that he was
facing her, curled into a fetal ball, a mirror image
connected to her by their clasped hands. He felt the slow
burn of blood rising to the surface of his skin and made a
brusque turn away from the image.

Not that it helped - he'd carry that picture in his brain
forever.

"It's a bond I can't explain," Skinner said, looking up at
Doggett with that sad look on his face. "You'll never see
more than that - maybe the way she looks at him, or how he
moves in closer and closer as he talks to her. It's like
you've seen them making love, and it stays with you."

"I oughta be happy for her. I am happy for her. She got her
miracle." He left the doorway and walked back toward
Skinner, keeping his hands in his pockets for warmth and to
hide their slight tremor. "I missed out on mine."

There was silence, an eternal heartbeat.

"Your son."

"Yeah. When we were investigating, I figured with me on my
feet twenty-four/seven and my wife on her knees about that
much, we had our bases covered. But Luke..." He shook his
head.

Skinner's voice was soothing, almost the same tone he'd used
with Scully when she was at her wits' end. "Sometimes our
prayers aren't answered, Agent Doggett."

"No, sir. God always answers our prayers." He shrugged.
"Sometimes, He just says 'no' and we don't know why."

"That's true. I don't know why we got Mulder back. I don't
know why your son had to die. Or my wife, for that matter,
or my platoon back in 'Nam. And to tell the truth, I don't
even know why I'm still alive."

"I think we're here for some purpose, sir. Maybe it's
because of her." He tilted his head in the direction of
Mulder's room. "It all seems to be revolving around her,
even though she's as much a mystery to me today as she was
the first time I laid eyes on her. But I think maybe we were
brought together to protect her."

"She's worth protecting, John. Just don't let her know
you're doing it, or she'll kick your ass into next week."
Skinner rose, indicating the lavatory down the hall, and
left Doggett standing in the hallway alone.

Doggett leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He'd
seen the photographs of a baby-faced young woman and read of
her her incredible academic achievements. He'd read the
report of her abduction and the long series of notes about
her various medical conditions. How she'd let death kiss her
cheek but still escaped its clutches. But nothing could
prepare him for the magnificent beauty of her grief. It was
so overwhelming that his own anguish, which he had thought
was dormant, had risen to the surface and given him an
ineluctable need to keep her from harm.

He reflected that he'd been keeping her safe for Mulder,
only to have Mulder turn up dead, and that he had spent the
last three months keeping her safe for the memory of an
enigma. And it was an enigma that no one would ever explain
to him, locked somewhere in the fabulous mind of Fox Mulder.

And Dana Scully kept the key in her heart.

Doggett couldn't imagine what it would be like to be the
object of that kind of devotion. Sure, Cindy had loved him
and they'd adored their son, but...

"Agent Doggett?"

He almost twisted his ankle as he turned in the direction of
that soft voice, the gentle pressure of a hand on his arm.
"Hey! I thought you were asleep."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." Scully ran a hand
through her disheveled hair, then gave Doggett's arm a
reassuring pat. She was tiny in her stocking feet.

"I think we're all a little jumpy, given what's gone on in
the last day or so." He peered down at her, careful not to
let himself be swallowed up by the vast ocean of her eyes.
"How's he doing?"

"He's sleeping. His color looks better." She grimaced. "I
don't know how it could have been much worse."

Doggett had nothing to say to that. The sight of Mulder in
his coffin, what he had looked like after three months, was
going to be haunting his sleep for the rest of his life. At
least Mulder had been cleaned up a little before Scully had
to look at him in the harsh light of the ICU.

"Is A.D. Skinner still here?" Scully asked.

"Yeah, he's just...down the hall." Seeing Scully's lips
purse in a little frown, he offered his own services.
"Somethin' I can do to help?"

"I don't know...it just occurred to me. We're going to have
to get his social security number back, reopen his bank
account, get him declared undead, or legally alive, or
whatever you do in a case like this." She was silent for a
beat, her body turning toward the door to Mulder's room.
"Not that there's ever been a case like this."

"That's for damn sure." They both leaned against the wall.
"Where will you guys go when he gets out of here? Your
apartment's probably half full of baby stuff. If you need a
place to stay, you can use my house and I'll camp with some
friends."

"That's very kind of you, but I guess he'll go back to his
own apartment."

"His apartment?" Doggett was confused. "You kept his
apartment, even after...?"

"It went condo, and he'd paid a year's upkeep fees on it in
advance," Skinner said as he strode up to them. He took
Scully's chin in his hand. "You need to get back in bed."

"I wanted to talk to you, sir, about getting paperwork
started to..."

He cut her off, smiling. "I've got my assistant on it. She's
confused, but she's on it."

"Good. Good." She yawned, then put her fingertips over her
mouth as if mortified at being caught doing something so
human. "Sorry."

"Bed. Now." Skinner met her eyes, grinning at her, and she
grimaced over her shoulder at Doggett as she went back into
Mulder's room. They watched her climb back into bed. She
turned toward them, making a flapping motion with her hand
to indicate that she wanted to be unobserved, and they
backed away.

Doggett raised an eyebrow at Skinner. "Went condo? He paid a
year in advance?"

The fact that Skinner could not look him in the eye, but was
instead scrutinizing with untoward interest an unoccupied
gurney, spoke volumes.

"You got a problem with that, Agent?"

"I think it was a nice gesture on his part to make sure that
she wouldn't have to go through his things if something
happened to him. Wouldn't have to put herself through that
pain."

"Exactly."

"'Cause Mulder was that kind of guy, you know. Thoughtful.
Worried about other people's needs."

"Agent Doggett..."

"Sir, forgive me for saying this, but you can't bullshit me.
And I bet you didn't bullshit her, either."

Skinner's shoulders slumped. "I took her over to his place
with some boxes, a few days after the funeral. She just
stood there, looking so lost. I couldn't do that to her." He
blinked rapidly as if wanting to erase the memory. "So I
went to the manager's apartment and wrote a check, and got
him to come up and tell her the story."

"And she was distraught enough to buy it?"

"Maybe. Or too polite to let me know she was on to me. But
it gave her some peace, Agent Doggett, and if a check could
keep her from suffering for even one minute, then it was
well worth it."

Doggett swallowed down the impulse to say something, like
how honored he was to work for such a man. Instead he looked
at his watch and said, "I gotta get back before they change
the locks on the basement door. Anything you need me to take
care of?"

"No. But thanks for looking in on them. I'm just going to
stay for a while. Make sure they're not disturbed."

"Okay. I'll check back on the way home."

As he walked toward the elevator Doggett saw his reflection
in the windows. Dappled light from within and without
spotted the dark fabric of his overcoat and he realized,
with a burst of ironic self-awareness, that he looked
exactly like a tattered gypsy moth. When he got downstairs,
he decided to take one last look at the flame that had kept
him hovering for the last two day, counting floors and
windows until he found Mulder's room.

He frowned, shading his eyes from the sunlight. Someone was
standing at the window. Not Scully. It took him a few
seconds for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, then he
made out the gaunt face and unruly dark hair of Fox Mulder.

Mulder wondered who the man was, the slim, fair-haired guy
who seemed so intent on the view into his hospital room. A
synapse fired in his brain and he realized that there were
probably guards taking turns outside his room, and this was
just one of the men assigned to make sure nothing weird
happened.

Nothing weird. I crack myself up, he thought.

Mulder had pulled himself out of bed, clinging to the IV
pole, desperate to see the outside world again. His limbs
were heavy, nearly useless, and every step was something he
had to do on the conscious level of his brain. Now he was
leaning against the windowsill, slightly out of breath from
the effort, and watching the world he thought he'd left
behind.

Cars did a stately minuet around the parking lot. Pigeons
fought for the scraps of food by a trash can, the
grease-stained bag tossed just shy of making a basket. The
sky was a lead gray and fog obscured the horizon. Not much
to look at. Not compared to what lay in the bed next to his,
anyway.

His gaze was pure focus, intense enough to wake her from her
much-needed rest. He wondered, as he watched her stir, if
she had broken the surface of consciousness like this every
day, smiling from some sweet dream, then fighting back tears
as reality choked off her hope. When she looked up at him,
blinking, he saw thousands of emotions playing across her
face.

"Oh, my God. I didn't dream it," she whispered. Hauling
herself upright, she made her way to his side, holding his
hand as she guided him down into a chair. "How do you feel?

There it was, the unsettling, unexpected anger that had been
simmering in him since he woke up. "I guess you could say
that I was dead tired."

He had to steel himself against the agony radiating from her
every pore. She breathed quickly through her open mouth and
took her hand away from Mulder's as if it were burning her.

"You remember," she murmured. "Oh." Her hands fluttered
ineffectually in the air for a moment before lighting on her
abdomen.

"Skinner was in here earlier and he let it slip. I think he
thought you'd have told me."

"I was going to talk to you today, when you were rested."

"Yeah, well I figure I've rested in peace for long enough.
Now I'm looking for some answers."

Her confusion was palpable as she leaned against the
windowsill. He could almost hear her thinking before she
began to speak.

"I don't blame you. I remember when I woke up and couldn't
seem to dredge up anything after the moment Duane Barry
knocked me out. It'll come back in flashes, Mulder, in bits
and pieces, and it might be hard to sort out what really
happened and what was your worst nightmare."

He looked away from her, unable to bear her burdens on top
of his own. "My own worst nightmare changed over the years,
Scully. Abduction, cancer, near-death experiences. Every
time I told myself: 'Okay, she got through that, it can't
get any worse.' Obviously I was wrong."

Scully looked down at her folded hands. "I used to think
that my worst nightmare was losing you. Last night I thought
I'd lived through it."

"But now you're not so sure."

Her eyes filled with tears. Mulder wondered when this had
started, the waterworks bubbling to the surface when just a
few years before he'd been so proud of his stoic Scully.
Maybe it was just a slow tearing away of her defenses that
left her like this.

Maybe it was hormones. He stared at her abdomen, not
bothering to cover up the frankness of his gaze, and with
the hand that ached to cup Scully's face he instead put two
fingers at the broadest point of the protuberance. "When did
you find out?" he asked softly.

"When you and Skinner were in Oregon, I had another episode
of lightheadedness. The Gunmen got me to the hospital, and
during the routine blood work the doctors found out that I
was pregnant. I didn't believe them." She covered his
fingers with hers. "I made them do three different tests,
and they were all the same. I was just getting used to the
idea when Skinner came in and told me that you
were...gone..."

He hated the tears, hated the sobs. They made him feel
guilty, and when he felt guilty he became small and petty
because that helped him deflect the blame. Then he realized
that he was being small and petty, and from there he just
decided the hell with it and stood up so he could wrap his
arms around her, holding her head to his chest and stroking
her pretty hair, the soft hair he'd dreamt about on those
rare occasions when the Greys had let him sleep.

"Scully," he choked, and the second time he spoke her name
it was a whimper. "Scully."

"Skinner took me home. He felt so bad, Mulder, he blamed
himself and wouldn't let anyone forgive him. Finally I made
him go home and I tried to call the guys, but they already
knew and were on their way." She smiled into his hospital
gown. "They brought me stargazer lilies and a stuffed
rabbit."

Mulder laughed, an unaccustomed sound that made his throat
constrict. "That would've been Byers with the flowers and
Frohike with the toy, right? What did Langley bring?"

"Your voice." She stood back a step and smoothed his hair
away from his forehead. "On a CD, from your voice mail and
their machines. He manipulated the last cut so that it
said...it said..."

"Ssh, ssh, it's okay," he crooned into her ear as he leaned
over to brush his lips across her temple. "So the Three
Stooges became the Three Wise Men, huh?"

She hiccuped a laugh. "They were good to me, Mulder."

"Do they know I'm back yet?"

"I'm going to call them later today. I didn't want them
running over here last night. I needed you to myself for a
while. I'm still...processing."

"I'm processing, too. That I was taken and experimented on
and left for dead and that I'm back." He swallowed and began
to cough. Scully brought him some water, helping him lift
the cup to his lips with his shaking hands. "Thanks. Guess
it's like being in the morgue and getting measured."

She stared at him, the cup tilting in her hand until some of
the water dripped on the floor.

He grinned at her. "You know, Scully. A coffin fit."

"Mulder. Jesus." She set the cup down on the window ledge
and balled her hands into fists on her hips.

"There are those who might draw a parallel," Mulder drawled.
He felt his emotions plummeting again and he busied himself
with looking out the window at an orderly who was wheeling a
woman toward a car. "What happens after the baby's born?"

"I'm not sure. I had planned on going back to work, maybe at
Quantico. But now...I don't want to make any plans just
yet."

It had been another answer he had sought, but he decided not
to correct her. He actually found himself not caring at all
about the baby except as an abstract concept. What he wanted
to know, what every awakened nerve and cell in his body
needed to know, was what his role would be in her life once
he was no longer the center of it.

And he couldn't imagine not being the center.

Too fast, it was all happening too fast. He wobbled on his
feet. Scully helped him back to bed, her own graceless
half-waddle not really enough to support him but more
comforting than the cold metal of an IV pole.

She perched on the edge of the bed and held his hand. "I
prayed so hard that I'd find you, Mulder, and when we found
you and we had to bury you, I prayed that we'd be together
again someday. I thought I'd see you in Heaven."

"This isn't Heaven - this is Iowa," Mulder murmured. He
turned his head on the pillow, facing away from her, and
feigned sleep. After a few moments he felt her fingers
loosen from around his and heard her get up and close the
bathroom door. Once he was sure he was alone, he used the
back of his hand to wipe away the wetness that threatened to
spill down his face.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make himself
remember anything beyond that last flash of searing anguish.
There was nothing, no memory, no light. It was a void that
he had fallen into, and he would gladly endure the torture
of a million more probes just to keep that from Scully, to
keep from telling her that there would be no reunion in the
Great Beyond. No comforting voices from the past. No
starlight. Just oblivion.

The anger welled up in him again. Post-traumatic stress. He
hadn't practiced psychology in a long, long time, but he
could still self-diagnose with the best of them. There would
be bitter moments. Brittle ones. Anger and guilt, his old
friends, in a combustible mix with the newer emotion of
jealousy. Self-loathing over being jealous of the unborn
child Scully had longed for would make for a very, very
short fuse.

He twisted around in the bed, his lanky, thin body feeling
every lump in the mattress. The monitor on his finger felt
tight. Constrictive. His chest ached with the need to draw
in a full breath, but he couldn't breathe. He tried to move
but someone, something, pounded a bolt through his wrists
and secured him to the examination chair. Mulder watched the
blood pouring from his flesh, as he screamed in mortal
agony.

"Mulder, ssh, ssh. You're okay, I've got you, you're okay."

"Scully!" he cried as he had a thousand times on the ship,
but this time she was really there, her cool hand on his
forehead, her soft lips pressed to his cheek.

"You had a nightmare. It's okay. I'm here."

"Flashback," he gasped, his hand to his chest. He looked at
the livid marks on his wrists. "What the hell did they do to
me, Scully? My hands, my face, this scar on my chest - what
happened?"

Scully shook her head. "I can give you a catalogue of your
injuries, Mulder. I'm not sure we'll ever really know why
they were inflicted. But I promise you that I'll have the
best specialists check out every inch of your body to make
certain that you're all right."

"That's my body. What about my mind, Scully? What if I'm
crazy?"

"You're not crazy, Mulder," she answered, bringing herself
to her feet and leaning over the bed. "At least, no more so
than usual."

"I come back from the dead and all I get is abuse," he
groused.

"I'll get that put on a t-shirt."

Mulder shivered and Scully pulled the blankets up over him.
He tried to still the movements, to let her think that he'd
only been cold, but he still trembled. He clutched her hand
for several long minutes until the spasms subsided, then he
released his grip and folded his hands lightly across his
chest.

"Are you okay?" Scully asked, as she checked the monitors
for some doctor-signal that he wouldn't understand.

"Fine. I just don't want to go to school today, Mom."

"I'll send a note to the principal." She smiled down at him.
"Speaking of principal, you should be informed that Kersh is
now the Deputy Director who oversees our department."

"That's not funny."

"That's not a joke."

Kersh. Good God.

"Then I guess he must've been in the basement just now,"
Mulder said. At Scully's raised eyebrow he added, "That's
why I had the shakes. Someone was walking over my grave."

She started to hug him but he turned over so that she
couldn't see the unbidden, irrational anger that threatened
to spill out of him again. "Tired..." he muttered into the
pillow. He could sense the stiffness of her posture as she
brushed her fingers along his shoulder.

There were no words exchanged as he heard her pick up her
shoes, groaning a little at the effort, and walk out the
door. He knew he shouldn't give in to the angry impulses,
that she wasn't the cause of his pain. He imagined her grief
as she chose his casket and his clothes and laid him to what
she thought would be his eternal rest. He imagined her on
her knees before her priest, begging for the repose of his
soul so that they could be together again someday. And he
knew that but for the pregnancy, she would gladly have lain
beside him. The pain of realization made him angry, then
guilty, then angry again, and finally he began to sink into
an exhausted depression.

He didn't deserve this. But neither did she. He'd make it up
to her.

He'd bring her stargazer lilies.

Or just himself.

Her stargazer.

*** 
End 
***


Always through the changing 
Of sun and shadow, time and space, 
I will walk beside my love 
In a green and quiet place. 
Proof against the forms of fear, 
No distress shall alter me. 
I will walk beside my dear, 
Clad in love's bright heraldry.


from "The Ballad of Baby Doe" 
Douglas Moore, composer 
John Latouche, librettist 
1956