TITLE: Surreal Thing

AUTHOR: Invisivellum

EMAIL: invisivellum@hotmail.com

ARCHIVE: Yes, freely

CATEGORY: V

KEYWORDS: MSR, Mulder POV

RATING: R for language and adult situations

SPOILERS: Requiem. Actually, the entire series, up to and including
Season 7

SUMMARY: Mulder returns.

DISCLAIMER: The characters depicted in this work of fiction do not
belong to me. They are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions
and Fox, or some combination thereof.

FEEDBACK: Gratefully accepted and acknowledged.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I just couldn't settle on a name for the baby (and
believe me, I thought about it). If you like, you can find-and-replace
your favorite name over the generic "X."  More notes at the end.

**

Surreal Thing
by Invisivellum

To be honest, the first thing I noticed about Scully were her breasts.

Let me amend that.  Technically, I suppose the first thing I was aware
of was her  voice in my ear, low and soft, calling my name.

"Mulder?" I felt warm lips graze my forehead and smelled the scent of
her hair. "Good morning."

I cracked open one eye, but couldn't move or speak.  Though I could see
her, and feel her hand slowly stroking my arm, I thought it might be
another dream. I had so many dreams of her.  In this one, Scully had
evidently undergone breast enhancement surgery.

The next thing I remember is another soft kiss and her voice saying,
"Good morning" again.

**

She wasn't there the next time I opened my eyes, though I heard her
voice echoing down the hallway from some other room, mingled with the
deeper tones of Skinner and someone else, maybe Frohike.  Late afternoon
sunlight streamed through a wide, uncurtained window across from where I
lay.  The light dazzled and exhausted me and I closed my eyes -- for
just a moment, to rest.  Just before sleep overtook me, I thought I
heard a baby crying.

**

When I was able to open my eyes again, the light was gone from the
window, replaced by the soft yellow glow of a dimmed lamp positioned
somewhere behind me in the room. She was there, sitting beside me on the
edge of the wide bed and all I could see were these plump, beautiful
breasts, peeking out of the top of a snug sweater.  She was leaning
towards me and, I swear, I could see cleavage for miles.  I thought to
myself, That can't be Scully, and went back to sleep.

**

Not that Scully doesn't have beautiful breasts. There's a shirt she
wears sometimes, a black one, cut low and square across the top.  On
several occasions, while spouting a theory or arguing a point with her,
I have stopped in mid-discourse and abandoned the topic, my words
trailing off as I closed my eyes and walked away.  Maybe she chalks it
up to my latent attention-deficit disorder.  The truth is, I just can't
think straight when she wears that shirt.

When I opened my eyes the third time, struggling to regain true
consciousness, she was still there, still in that sweater, and she was
smiling down at me.  I saw my own hand, forefinger extended, reach out
and gently prod the tops of those breasts.  I heard the smile in her
voice when she said, "I see you're feeling better." I blinked, stared up
at her and thought to myself, God, I hope this is real.

**
It seemed real enough when, sometime later, I found myself taking sips
of water from a plastic cup.  I foolishly attempted to breathe and drink
at the same time, sending me into a coughing fit and spraying Scully
with drops of recycled water.  Momentarily revived, I tried to speak.
That brought on another round of violent coughing spasms and my vision
faded.

"Slow down, Mulder," I heard her say.

No, wait, I thought, I have to ask you a question.

**

She has told me, since, that I was in and out of consciousness for the
better part of three days after my return.  In some ways it seems as
though I lay in that state for years.  The memories I have of those
first few days are choppy, fragmented, weird and hazy.

But I remember the first time I saw the baby.

Scully wasn't in the room this time when I awoke.  Lying on my left
side, facing the bare, dark window, I tried to muster the strength to
turn over on to my back.  It seemed the only movement I could produce
was a feeble plucking of my fingers at the comforter draped over me.
The room itself, or what I could see of it, was not familiar at all.  It
was not a hospital room; I was sure of that.  I puzzled over it, for a
moment, giving up further attempts to make my body move.

My eyelids fluttered shut and I knew I wouldn't stay awake long enough
to see Scully  again, so I tried to call out for her.  I must have made
some sound, even if it wasn't exactly what I was aiming for, because the
shadows in the room jumped and suddenly the broad-shouldered silhouette
of Walter Skinner was looming over me. His expression was grim, as grim
as it always is, and I thought to myself, Now what have I done?

The relentless pull of sleep was dragging at my eyelids when Scully
appeared at Skinner's side.  Propped on one hip was a baby, eight or
nine months old.  I squinted, but I couldn't make any sense of that at
all, and my world went dark.

**

I stopped struggling so hard to stay conscious.  It must have been
sometime on the third day when I woke up and saw Scully on the bed
beside me, leaning over the chubby baby and making little noises.  She
was smiling down at him, nodding her head and carrying on a one-sided
conversation as she efficiently cleaned and diapered him.  Above the
waving fists, I saw the silky shine of reddish-blond hair, and the
short, straight nose.  It hit me, then, that the baby was hers.

Scully's baby? Grief crashed over me, disappointment so powerful I
thought I would stop breathing. Because I thought to myself, Now I know
this isn't real. Scully can't have a baby.  This is just another fucking
dream.

* *
I don't remember much.  There are flashes of intense pain.  Inhumanly
quick movements.  White light, of course, glaring down from above.
Invasions of various bodily orifices.  The usual.

I remember -- or I think I do -- that I kept the pain at bay with
memories of Scully. And, I'll be honest, fantasies of her, too.  The
agony of realizing that these latest visions of her with a baby were
merely figments of my imagination sent me spiraling deeper into
unconsciousness, where I kept my favorite recollections.

I remember the first time I ever saw her in her bra and panties.  Hell,
how long had I known her then?  Two days?  Three?  Although I didn't
think so at the time, in my memories of her then she was just a  kid.
Long hair and glasses, smooth-faced, so sincere.

I remember the first time, in my bed. Waking up to the sight of her
removing her  jacket, while she fixed me with a look of calm
determination. Watching her lick her lips to the sound of a zipper
coming undone, I remember thinking to myself, Thank you, Sandman, for
sending such a fine, fine dream.

Once I realized it wasn't a dream, I remember trying -- somewhat feebly,
I'll admit -- to slow her down, to give her time to think.

"What would happen," I said, trying to sound reasonable and calm.  "if
we didn't go through with this?"

"Hm," she said, thoughtfully, letting her panties slip to the floor.
"Then I suppose Langley would owe Frohike a lot of money."

I remember Scully laughing, not unkindly, at my fears in the darkness of
my room, shaking her head and shrugging out of her blouse.  Talking to
me about choices, and paths, and peace.

I remember the moment I first touched her, really touched her.  My hands
were shaking and I didn't know where to start.  She was so calm.  How
could she be so calm?  I felt like a tornado on speed, my blood pumping
so fast and so hard.  I saw spots before my eyes, I swear.  Little white
spots danced in my vision when she guided my hands to her breasts, and I
felt their soft, heavy weight in my palms for the first time.

**

These are the memories I trotted out when the pain was too much to bear,
when I had spent hours screaming like a wounded rabbit, when I was
exhausted but couldn't sleep.  Lying on the floor, naked, listening to
the sounds of others who were experiencing the torment I'd just been
through, I would clamp my arms over my ears and think of Scully.  This
is all I can remember about my time away. I didn't learn anything
useful.  Except maybe what it is to have a longing for home so strong it
makes you cry.

**

I remember how that first evening progressed. Every aching, sweet moment
of it is preserved in my mind for all time.  At the critical point, with
Scully astride my lap, her thighs locked around my hips and her mouth on
my ear, I was overwhelmed. As the head of my cock touched home, I
remember saying, "I can't, I can't..."

And I remember -- very distinctly -- the sparkle in her eyes and the
quirk of her lips as she tilted her hips and pushed slowly, inexorably
downward, saying dryly, "The empirical evidence at....ah....at
hand...seems to indicate that you certainly can." We shared a trembling
laugh at that, a tender kiss, a deeper kiss, and my eyes rolled back in
my head with sheer pleasure.  Even a top-of-the-line memory wipe can't
erase that.

What I was trying to tell her, what I couldn't quite manage to say out
loud, was that it had been too long, and I'd had too many years of
fantasies very near to this scenario, to hope for any show of endurance.
 I was trying to say, "I can't not come to orgasm immediately, Scully.
Don't get your hopes up."

I remember the sound of my own voice, over and over, saying, "Oh, God.
Oh, God." Even to my own ears, it sounded like I really meant it.  Maybe
I did.

In fact, I think I was praying.  Praying to something.  Praying that
this was not a mistake.  That she would not wake up and regret it. That
it wouldn't change things between us forever.

In the gray light of pre-dawn, when she slipped out of my bed and
prepared to leave, I was afraid to open my eyes.  I could hear her
moving around in the bathroom, running the water.  I stayed, like the
coward I am, motionless on the bed until I sensed her standing over me.
 Cracking open one eye, I silently took in the fact that she was nude,
gazing at me, and idly brushing one finger over a rapidly-hardening
nipple.  Both of my eyes popped open at that point. She flashed me an
impish, un- Scully-like grin, and crawled back into the bed with me.
Half an hour later, I fell into a sated slumber and didn't even hear her
leave.

It's all like a dream now.  A distant, unreal dream that could not
possibly be true.  These things don't happen to me.  I don't get what I
 want.

**

That's why I knew that I was only dreaming, when I saw her there on the
bed, with
a baby.  A wish I would have made, if I hadn't been sure it would
backfire horribly, was for Scully to regain her fertility.  The desire
to give her back all that she has lost has overtaken the need to keep
her near me.

That's how I know that I really do love her.  I'm not the least selfish
person in the world, but in the months before my abduction I came to the
realization that I finally loved Scully enough. . .

.. . . to let her go.

**

The baby woke me up.  I sat up abruptly, forgetting I wasn't at home, in
my own apartment.  The strange, heavy lethargy that weighed me down for
so many days was rapidly dissipating.  As I sat up in the bed and
scrubbed my face with my hands, I could hear the baby crying down the
hall.  From there I could see a faint blue light, from a television
screen or a computer monitor.  I saw shadows moving and knew that Scully
was there, just a few yards away.

I gazed around the small bedroom.  Frohike was asleep in an old blue
velour club chair by the door, mouth hanging open, softly snoring.  A
lamp in the corner gave off a dim yellow glow through a dusty ivory
paper shade.  The pink roses on the comforter clashed with the boyish
vertical stripes of the ancient wallpaper.  I rubbed my eyes, still
feeling a bit like a dreamer, but much more alert than before.

I decided to stand up.

**

After Scully and Frohike finished putting me back in the bed, when I was
holding her slender body tightly in my arms and gasping over her
shoulder like a stranded fish, I saw Langley at the end of the hallway,
awkwardly accepting the baby from Byers'  hands. As Byers came down the
hall towards us, I craned my neck to see past him. I wanted to see the
baby again.  I was afraid to ask for the details, but somehow I knew it
was Scully's child.

Once I was truly awake (a condition precipitated by my tumble from the
high bed), I rejected the dream-borne idea that Scully had become
magically fertile in my absence.  I realized with a jolt that this child
must be like Emily.  Questions crowded my mind.

I was wondering how she'd found this child, and how long it would live.

**

In my fantasies, Scully is much more demonstrative than I know her to
be.  I  imagined over and over what it would be like to see her again.
She would throw her arms around me, squeeze the life out of me, kiss me
repeatedly.  We would laugh and cry, and kiss and kiss.

The reality was closer to the fantasies than I ever hoped.  When she
wrapped her arms around my neck and I heard her husky voice in my ear
saying, "Mulder, thank God, thank God," I squeezed my eyes shut and bit
the inside of my cheek, trying to assure myself that this time I was
actually awake and back among humans.

My ass hurt where I'd hit the floor, and I'd gouged a chunk out of my
elbow on the metal bed frame, but it felt like heaven.  I couldn't
believe it was over, and I was home.  Scully was real, and being
uncharacteristically affectionate in the company of others.

Frohike and Byers hovered at the foot of the bed for a moment, but I
suppose they decided that their hugs and kisses could wait.  They
disappeared down the hall when it became apparent that Scully and I
would be a while.

I know I must have hurt her, but I couldn't get her close enough, my
weakened arms couldn't hold her tight enough to suit me. I wanted to
lock my arms around her and throw away the key.

When she kissed me, laughing, and her tears trickled between our lips,
the taste was sweeter than anything I've ever known.

**

"I saw a baby," I said, when I could pull myself far enough away from
her to look at her face. It came out sounding like a question.  Scully
hesitated a beat, then nodded and licked her lips.  Suddenly nervous,
she shifted in my arms.

"Where did you find him?"

She looked a little shocked.  At the time, I thought she was impressed
with my deductive skills, or my powers of observation, or the fact that
I was thinking clearly at all, after everything I'd been through.

It seemed evident to me that the baby was somehow genetically related to
her.  Even the few glimpses I'd had thus far told me that much and,
knowing what I know, it didn't surprise me that there might be others
out there, waiting for us to find them.
"I didn't. . ." When she paused, weighing her words carefully, I felt
the first chill creep up my spine.

She withdrew from my arms, and took my hands in hers. "I didn't find
him, Mulder."

There was a long silence while several unlikely scenarios played through
my mind.  All of them seemed more plausible than what she said next.

"I conceived him." Her words were stated carefully, her voice soft.  Her
blue eyes held mine, drilling the words home as gently as she could. "I
carried him, and I gave birth to him."

While my mouth worked soundlessly, trying to form a coherent reply, she
was pulling away from me, holding up a hand, saying, Wait, wait.

**

When she brought the baby into the room, I wanted to preempt her.

Just give it to me straight, Scully, I wanted to say.  Don't soft soap
it.  I wanted to know how, when, whose...

Mostly how.

I, of all people,  knew that she was completely, irrevocably barren.
Incapable of natural conception.  I couldn't work it out in my
confusion, and it all started to feel like a dream again.

The red hair, the nose.  He looked like a Scully.  As she seated herself
cross-legged on the bed in front of me, with the baby in her lap, I
wondered how much time had elapsed.  I studied Scully carefully, noting
the absence of a wedding ring, and the changes in her appearance.  Her
hair was a little bit longer and looked fuller, thicker.
Years? Had I been gone for years?

Then I remembered Scully telling me -- sometime in the minutes after I'd
attempted to escape the bed, when we were both babbling -- that I'd been
gone for fifteen months.  Fifteen months.  I was trying to do the math,
trying to figure out what month it was when she spoke.

"This is X," she said quietly, looking from him to me.  Her luminous
blue eyes were bright. "He's...," her voice broke and she pressed her
lips together, gathering her thoughts.

"You gave birth to this child." I re-stated it, just for the record, and
met her eyes.  She gave me a short nod and shifted him in her lap.

Before she could begin an explanation, fear spurred me hard in the ribs
and forced me to speak.  I was afraid to know how, or with whom.  I
babbled for a minute, staving off the explanation; I don't even know
what I said.  Something about genetics, and boy, you're out of
commission for a while and miss all the good stuff.

Scully gave me a long, assessing look.  I pressed on, trying to stay in
control, feeling everything tilt underneath me. "Scully, you can't — you
couldn't —" my voice trailed off on a high note. I cleared my throat and
tried again.

"How, Scully?" Images came unbidden to my mind, of Scully and some
nameless, faceless, Other. "How did you get pregnant?"

I wanted to be happy for her.  Hell, I was happy for her.  I was
overjoyed for her, on one level.  On another level, I could feel
something under my breastbone crack and break.  I was happy she had
achieved this thing I would have given her if I could, and filled with
soul-searing sorrow that she had done it without me. I doubted then,
everything I thought was true between us.

"In the usual way." She replied to my question softly and, I thought,
evasively.  Her eyes were cast down at the top of his head.  She licked
her lips and drew a deep, slow breath. "With some help, I believe, from
someone with the right science."

The baby was hopping in her lap, waving his fists up and down, reaching
for me.  Tentatively, I stretched out a finger.  He took hold of it
firmly and tried to draw it into his mouth.

I studied him carefully, letting Scully's words settle down like rain
upon me.  I knew that, if I stayed silent for a moment, she would
explain. I chewed on my lower lip and focused on the baby.  He was still
trying with all his might to drag my hand closer to his open mouth.

I looked at his eyes.

I blinked, put my finger under his chin and tilted his face up so I
could have a better look. He raised fine reddish brows at me and clamped
his mouth down on the knuckle of my thumb. Something about his eyes...

I think I stopped breathing.  The room was utterly silent, as if we had
all been plunged under water.  I stared at X intently, noting his
complexion, his mouth.  Long-fingered hands, long feet encased in little
white socks.

His nose, definitely Scully's. His hair, sort of like Bill's on a good
day.

But his eyes... His eyes were all mine.

I blinked rapidly and noticed, winking at me from the sleeve of his
white t-shirt, an emblem.  Dark blue, bright orange.  A little
basketball, with the stylized logo of the New York Nicks.

**
"Scully?" I don't know how I spoke, because there was no air in my
lungs.

She waited, looking at me steadily.  I saw a tear trickle down her
cheek, linger at her jaw, and drop like dew on X's downy head.

"Scully?" I said again, desperation and hope mingled in my strangled
voice.

"Mulder, I don't know where to start," she said, running one of her
hands carefully
over the front of his body, smoothing the soft cotton of his shirt
against his belly.

He looked up and rolled his head, craning his neck to see her face. She
placed a kiss upon his brow and looked up at me.

Then she told me.  How, on the day of my abduction,  she fainted.  How
she found herself in the backseat of a car, with Langley on one side of
her and Frohike on the other.  How Byers, at the wheel, refused to turn
the car around.  She was going to the hospital, they told her.  Too
tired to fight about it, and a little concerned herself, she acquiesced.

She told me about the hospital.  How she requested certain tests, and
was denied because of her "condition."  The confusion that followed.
The pregnancy test.  The
second one.  And the third. How she trembled as she stared at the
results.  How she ordered a reluctant Byers to go to the store and fetch
one of every pregnancy test on the shelf and bring them back to her.

How Skinner reacted, with confusion at first, followed by hard questions
that she  refused to answer.  Ultimately, she told me, Skinner came
around, and was supportive and helpful.

Somewhere in her narrative, though at the time it hardly registered, she
told me the X-Files Division was closed, or at least temporarily
suspended.  By the time the auditors and accountants cleared the decks,
she was nearly five months along, and without a partner.  She preferred
to spend her time with Frohike, anyway.  And, of course, with Byers,
Langley, and sometimes Skinner, trying to find me.  Quantico was glad to
have her, so she was able to pay the bills and continue the search.
Skinner declined to reopen the division without us.

In her seventh month, she realized she was being followed.  She found a
listening device in her bedside lamp, near the phone.  Another under the
coffee table.  She realized they didn't care if she knew.  On yet
another trip to Bellefleur, her motel room was broken into and
vandalized.  Her laptop, and all the papers she had with her, were
taken.

Skinner, although he was no longer in a position to give her orders,
demanded she stop the search. In an angry confrontation, he reminded her
that the baby she carried was, in essence, a Mulder, and therefore a
target.  His arguments knocked some sense into her and she accepted the
Gunmen's offer of sanctuary.

"Like something out of a science fiction novel," she snorted, bouncing
the baby gently on her knee. "Decoys and subterfuge, hi-tech security
devices, hideouts, safe
houses. You should have been there."

Yes, Scully, I should have been there.

She stopped, lowered her head and took a deep breath.

"Scully." My voice was hoarse.

I cleared my throat to try again, and then said to myself,  Fuck it. I
put my hand around the back of her head and drew her to me. We were
always better at non- verbal communication anyway.

X had a good portion of my crumpled t-shirt crammed in his mouth when we
finally
parted. It was a welcome distraction, and the few seconds we spent
divesting him of his treat were enough for me to catch my breath and
start thinking.

As she lifted him up to reposition him, my arms went out of their own
accord.   She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then wordlessly
handed him to me.

There was so much to ask, so much I didn't know.  When was he born?
Where?  Was it a difficult pregnancy?  Was your mother with you at the
delivery? You weren't alone, were you? Sorrow overcame me, for just a
moment. What have I missed?

Some Scullyish part of my brain piped up and reminded me that I was
becoming emotionally invested very quickly, without first checking my
facts.  She still hadn't spelled it out for me, and I guess I was
waiting for it.  I wanted her to tell me I was the father of her child.
I looked from X to Scully, but couldn't make myself ask the question.

"He's almost nine months old," she told me as I settled him more
comfortably in my lap.  He was heavier than he looked.  He gazed up at
me curiously and put his fist in his mouth.  I just stared at him,
uncomprehending, really. Tears blurred my vision and I realized I was
silently shaking my head from side to side, hope at war with disbelief.
I fingered the logo on the short sleeve of his t-shirt.

"He's mine." I tried to say it definitively, but it came out in a
whisper.

When she didn't reply, every cell in my body froze.  I couldn't look at
her.  Suddenly sick with the knowledge that I had jumped to a very wrong
conclusion, I was paralyzed.  Doubt assailed me as I wondered what other
man with hazel eyes (and a high tolerance for being second guessed) had
taken my place.

I finally managed to glance at her, prepared to see regret in her eyes,
maybe even pity.  Instead, she was smiling softly, her eyes fixed on X
as he tried valiantly to get a good grasp on the corner of the
comforter.

Where his short arms failed, he tried to compensate by stretching his
body over my supporting arm.  His mouth was wide open, drool dangling
from his lower lip.  Frustrated with his lack of progress, he uttered a
string of nonsensical vocalizations, and tried to launch himself out of
my arms. I switched my grip and dragged the comforter to where he could
get his mouth on it.

"Scully?" I guess this time the doubt sounded in my voice, because she
snapped her attention back to me, and her eyes lost their soft focus.

"Mulder!" I think she started to laugh, but she stopped herself and
reached a hand out to my face. "Oh, Mulder.  Of course he is."

**
End, Surreal Thing, 1/2

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