Title:    Mother And Child With Child
Author:   S. Littlejohn
          [email protected]
          [email protected]
          [email protected]
Rating:   PG
Category: M(lite)S/MS/Vignette
Spoilers: Requiem
Summary:  Scully finds succor in the
          ties that bind.
Disclaimer: All the X-Files characters
and references are property of C. Carter,
10-13 Productions and FOX.
No infringement.



* * * *
Mother And Child With Child



"Mulder, where did they take you?"

She strained to hear his gravely,
garbled answer, but identical to
the previous time, the swirling
mists separating them continued to
drown out his words, making them
indistinct.  Her tongue sprang
into action, and she called at the
top of her lungs, fulminated by
passion.

"Mulder!  Mulder, I can't hear you!
Please, speak--"

The inaudible Mulder thrust his hand
out to her, waiting for her to take
it, imploring for her to, and when
she endeavored, his hand dissolved
between her fingers, leaving her to
claw at the nothingness.  Mulder
was nowhere to be seen now, as
though the disappearance of his hand
had triggered a chain reaction, and
his entire being had followed suit.

The dappled darkness of the cavernous
vacuum shrouded her, in conjunction
with his loss, and her needing
to know what had happened to her
partner, and more pertinently, how
was she going to get him back, after
losing him yet again?

The desperation and hopelessness,
eating away at her psyche, was a
vacuum unto itself.  No peregrination
undertaken thus far had been
successful; she was without him, and
each time she lost him made losing
him the next all the more difficult.

How could he be gone again when she'd
just gotten him back?  How unfair;
the unmitigating injustice of it all!
She whirled around, thinking she'd
heard him call her name.  Angering,
and blaming herself for not being
quick enough, seizing his hand when
he'd offered.

"Mulder--MULDER!  Where are you?"
WHERE?"

The resounding silence forced her
hand, and a violent shift in position.
She was on the verge of falling off
into the bottomless unknown.  An
unknown without Mulder.  If only she
were afforded opportunity again of
clasping that hand of reassurance.

She'd claim it in a heartbeat, and
never surrender it, ever.

"MULDER!  Come back--MULDER!"

Scurrying footfalls raced nearer.
Determined feet that knew the way
instinctively hurried on.  The door
of her room was open a hairsbreadth,
and the diminutive form sheathed in
a terrycloth robe, and smelling of
fresh hyacinth, widened the gap
and entered the moonlit bedchamber.

It was as though muffled susserations
were the first to acknowledge her
silhouetted presence.

"Dana?  Dana, honey, it's Mom.
Sweetie, are you all right?"

"Mom?"

Margaret Scully wisked to the night
table and lit the small Lupercrin
lamp; the one she'd purchased to
otherwise spruce up her daughter's
sacrosanct room.  Soft, luminous
light bathed the room in translucent
calm, as though the watts were
vested with the power to vanquish
all nocturnal foes with the mere
turn of a simple switch.

"Is that you, Mom?"

"Yes, darling."

Scully had curtailed her
impassioned thrashing just in time
to prevent herself from falling
off the bed.  Her mother slid unto
the giving mattress and into her
daughter's hip to serve as a buttress.
Scully, still looking dazed, and
sounding vague, murmured, "Mom?"

"Yes, Sweetie, it's me.  It's Mom."
Mrs. Scully's dulcent tone cradled
her daughter, and doeskin fingertips
caressed the distraught child's
moist, furrowed brow, then embarked
upon their sacred mission of chasing
off the remnants of duress making
her face look weary.  "I'm here,
Dana.  It's all right now.
Everything's all right."

Scully blinked in dreamy reverie,
a look of anguish threatened, but
it fled away with the flaring of
her nostrils, not in definace, but
in persuasion.

"No, no.  NO, Mom--everything's *not*
all right," she insisted with the
sharpest of edges.  "I lost him again.
Mulder disappeared before my very eyes,
and there was nothing I could do to
prevent it."

"But, you'll find him again, Sweetie."
Margaret Scully's cajolery was not
blithe, as though it was just
something easy to say.  Her mother
felt things she couldn't.  Things
that were as elemental as night
glimmering into day.

As though anticipating her mother's
next question, Scully said, "It was
the same dream, Mom.  He returns,
but once his hand captures mine, he
vanishes, into thin air, as though
his atoms are compelled by a force
from without to disassociate."

Scully sat up from her slouch, and
leaned against the hand-hewn
headboard, drawing her pale knees
up into her chest, hugging them
tight, nearly cutting off blood flow.
Maggie, with an indulgent smile,
scooted fingers up a knee, and was
transported back in time to when her
younger freckled daughter's vivid
imagination could ignite her
subconscious on a routine basis,
following a crisis, as easily as Dana
had concocted all manner of mud pies
in mid-April.

"It was only a dream, Dana."

Scully cocked her head to the left,
gazing at her mother wistfully upon
her bent knees.  "But, as usual, it
felt all too real."

"As dreams do."

"*My* dreams."

"Yes, Dana, yours."

"The Mulder of my dream even smells
like Mulder, Mom.  He sounds exactly
like him.  His eyebrows know what
to do to drive me crazy."

"And what's that, dear?"

"He shimmies them up and down,"
Scully said, almost forgetting her
dejection, until the image of the
face owning those eyebrows sharpened
in her mind.  "Mulder . . ."

Tentatively, "Would you like some
warm milk?  Won't take but a minute?"

Scully wrinkled her nose.  "I know I
should say, 'yes' on account of the
baby, but I think I'll pass for the
moment."

Her mother displaced her daughter
from the headboard.  She supported
her back against it, and coaxed her
child to come into her supplicatory
arms.  "Well, you had your minimum
daily of cow juice for one day,
anyway."  She squeezed Scully tight,
and pressed a ticklish kiss into
her neck.

"Thanks, Mom," Scully whispered,
relaxing into the warmth and
strength of her mother's comforting
embrace.  "Thanks for everything
I needed coming home for.  I'd felt
so confused before I got here.  I'm
so glad I did.  I had to see you;
let you know . . . about all of it."

"Dana," Margaret said patiently,
rubbing her left hand along her
daughter's back, "I've thought over
what you've decided to do, and I
think you're doing the right thing.
Letting Mulder's associates . . .
What did you call them, honey?  The
Lone Rangers?"

"The Lone Gunmen, Mom."

"Well, I got the 'lone' part right.
Yes.  Them.  It's best the less I
know about their setting you up with
a new identity, and overseeing your
going into seclusion, the better."

"The idea's grown on you then.  Why
the change of heart?"

"Yes, and it's an idea worth acting
on."  Her mother weighed her words
intractably before speaking her mind.
"Dana, whether you're an active
participant searching for Fox, or
not, the most important--the most
relevant thing for me is your safety,
hon.  If you, and Mister Skinner,
believe you run the risk of being
abducted by the same indivduals
responsible for Fox's disappearance,
then I trust your combined instincts.
You *are* doing the right thing,
taking these preventative measures,
just in case; to ward off anyone's
attempt to take you again."

Scully had left any extraterrestrial
flavorings, implicated or otherwise,
couching Mulder's disappearance out
of her explanation.  Her mother had
grown up on 'Nancy Drew,' and Winnie
the Pooh, not 'Brave New World' and
'Alien.'  She'd told her he'd gone
missing under 'suspicious
circumstances,' job-related of
course, and had left it at that.

'Again.'  The word echoed through
the hollow corridors of tattered
memory.  "I'd never want to put you
through that nightmare again, Mom."

Margaret Scully felt a sudden onset
of unbiddened tears blurr her vision.
"You never did, Dana.  How could
you have?  Something so beyond your
control?  Time and unforeseen
circumstances befall us all.  We do
what we can, and make the best."
Brightening, she continued, "You
need to be safe, Dana; I need you
to be.  I want to hold your baby,
my grandchild, in my arms; cherish
the miracle, spoil her or him
almost completely rotten.  Not
wonder where on earth you two are.
Savor your smile in its chubby
little face.  Hear Fox's impulsivity
in its laughter.  Get engrossed in
the magic of his eyes, mirrored in
the glow of his child's."

"Oh, Mom."

"I'm sorry, dear, I know.  I know."

Following an airy sniffle and
arching an eyebrow then, she poked,
"Chubby?"

"As your cherubic face was when
you were a baby.  And where do you
think 'cheeks' comes from, when
you were eight months or so?"

"I used to think it was the other
cheeks that nickname was for."

"Not quite."  Margaret smiled,
hearing Scully make that critical
sounding 'humprh' with her vocal
cords.  "Playing it smart and safe
for the time being, removing you
from circulation, at least until
you bring to term, or for as long
as your Mister Skinner and Fox's
Lonemen deem best, has got my vote."
Her mother's arms tightened around
her again; the beautiful child she'd
almost lost, and would brook no
chance of losing a second time, if
she had a say.  "I think it's what
Fox would want you to do, don't you,
Dana?  I know it's what I want you to
do, though I'll miss you terribly."

Scully sighed, thinking the myriad
disconnected thoughts Mulder and
she had thought together, aloud,
that night they'd snuggled in
that saggy bed out in Orgeon, that
last time sharing a bed.

Their thoughts of concern and quiet
hope had gravitated around an
uncertain future.  The free-for-all
of a discussion that had barely
focused on the X-Files as a collective
embodiment of pursuit, but rather
what her increasingly frequent bouts
with nausea and dizziness, and
overall tiredness to the bone could
mean.

Mulder had insisted she'd get blood
work done.  It had been put off
until the admitting doctor had
ordered it be done.  And her secret
had substantiation.

If only I'd gone with him that
second time, she lamented in lonely
retrospect, her mind reconstructing
the scene of Mulder's abduction as
told to her by Skinner.  That night
had been the dawn of a new day for
the A.D.; now, a believer himself
at this stage.

Had Mulder had an inkling, by some
preforced idea, of what was going to
happen?  Maybe I wouldn't have been
able to prevent his being taken, she
told herself, but by the same token,
maybe we'd be together . . . but he
didn't want me overtaxing myself.

What would he call the way I feel
now?

Maggie squeezed her side, noting a
disturbing feel of bone being too
easily felt through the light
cotton gown.  Since when had her
daughter grown this lean?  Not
since her illness, Maggie recalled.

"You wish more than anything you
were with him now."  Following
another reassuring hug, Mrs. Scully
smiled when she felt her daughter's
nod assert itself upon her arm.

"Wherever he is -- oh, Mom, I just
hope he *is*.  I wish I knew that
he is beyond all reasonable doubt."

"He *is*, Dana.  He is.  Don't
believe otherwise; not even for a
single moment longer than he'd want
you to think it.  He's coming back,
hon.  Coming back for you both.
He's Fox.  The drivenest man we'll
ever know."

"It's so hard, Mom.  This is the
hardest it's ever been, and he's only
been gone less than two weeks."

Her mother began stroking her freshly
washed hair the way she used to,
those formative times, steeped in
upheaval, when her adventure-prone,
undaunted daughter would come to her,
seeking her counsel; expecting her to
unravel the mysteries of an eight year
old's paradoxical life.

"He'll be found, Sweetie, and he'll
be well; his friends will find him,
and we'll pray for his return.  When
he does; when you're reunited, your
lives will converge as they were meant
to, and you'll nuture this new life
within you, together."

"You sound so sure."

"That comes with the territory, Dana.
Being someone's mother.  It's a life's
work."

"I'm so glad you're mine, Mom."

"I'm glad I am too."

"Mom, even though it's hard to make
sense out of Mulder's abduction just
by the way you say he'll be back makes
me want to believe he will be, more
than anything anyone's said to me.
I need him, Mom.  I love him so
much.  He's my touchstone."

With a tenderness borne of a lifetime
of ancient wisdom, and hoary care,
Margaret Scully kissed her daughter's
fragrant scalp which was rife with
the essence of orange blossom.  Her
lips lingered on the tousled strands
which possessed a fieriness, as
though her flaxen filaments were
smoldering.

"Then, that's all you need believe,
my love," she breathed over and over
until her tired, thought-provoked,
tempest-in-REM-sleep tossed daughter
closed her eyes to continue the dogged
search.

* * * *

End