TITLE: Almost Home (1/?)
AUTHOR: Shoshana
EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Gossamer, Spookys site, Xemplary,
etc.
SPOILER WARNING: Seventh season episodes through Requiem.
RATING: NC-17 (Most of the story is rated R, NC-17 parts will be
clearly marked)
CONTENT STATEMENT: MSR
CLASSIFICATION: SRA
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully Romance
SUMMARY: Post ep for Requiem. Mulder comes back... but he's
missing something.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me.
NOTE: Thanks to my great beta readers Char, Keleka, Lisa, Paulette,
and Teresa.

Almost Home (1/?)
By Shoshana

February 19th, 2001
Monday
A little after nine p.m.

She didn't have time to grab her weapon before he threw open the
bedroom door and flipped on the light. She sat up quickly,
immobilized first by fear, then by outright joy. She opened her
mouth to speak, but was duly interrupted by the intruder.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he barked at her.
Unbelievably, his handgun was trained on her, aimed right for her
head.

Scully was lost for words, flabbergasted by his noisy entrance and
inexplicable demands. She clutched at the bedcovers, frightened not
only for herself, but also for the child within her.

"Mulder?" Her heart was racing, her stomach was tied in a huge knot
of disbelief.

"You know me?" he asked, his voice crackling with fear and
disorientation.

"I'm Scully, Mulder. Your partner," she said, as firmly as she
could. She was finding it difficult to breathe as she choked back
tears.

He finally lowered the gun, partially because of her visible
sincerity, partially because he'd just noticed her rotund belly, the
belly of a very pregnant woman.

He looked at her suspiciously, then walked backward a few steps and
dropped down in the only chair his small bedroom had ever had. He
dropped the gun on the floor, then combed one hand through his hair
fretfully.

"Partner, as in...?" he asked, clearly confused by her use of the
term.

"FBI partner, Mulder," she retorted, exasperation seeping into her
tone of voice. "We are FBI partners."

Perplexed by her statement, he furrowed his brow and stated the
obvious, "But you're in my bed."

"Yes. I've been your 'partner' for almost eight years, your best
friend for pretty much all that time, and-- "

"My wife?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"We're not married," she said sadly, looking down at her twisting
hands, avoiding his gaze. She then lifted her eyes, calling upon
inner strength to assert, "But this is your child. It was conceived
last August."

He looked at her with complete bewilderment. He didn't recognize
this woman and he couldn't imagine having a child with *anyone* at
this time of his life.

She'd been trying to stay calm the last few minutes, anxiously
hoping he'd snap out of it. Wanting him to remember who she was, what
they were to one another. Her whole body ached to welcome him into
her arms.

"You've been gone for five months, Mulder. You were abducted from
Bellefleur, Oregon. I don't know how you've found your way back, but
I've been looking for you every day since you disappeared. I never
gave up hope... "

The tears began to flow now, and she gave up the fight to keep them
back. She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed some Kleenex,
embarrassed by her breakdown, surprised it hadn't happened sooner
with all the hormones surging through her body.

"Please don't cry," he appealed sympathetically. He leaned forward
in the chair, wringing his hands involuntarily, as though the slight
movement would help him through this crisis. His eyes were much
warmer now, compassion replacing the mistrust he'd exhibited just
moments ago.

"You really don't remember, do you, Mulder?" she sobbed, both hands
covering her face in despair.

She wanted him to come over to the bed and make it right, tell her
it was some elaborate prank, tell her he really knew who she was, and
he knew how much he loved her.

"No, I don't," he replied gravely.

His words stopped her cold, and she regretted her momentary loss of
control. She sat up as straight as she could against the headboard,
wiping her eyes, trying to regain her composure.
 
"What *do* you know? " she asked. "How did you get here?" She
lowered her hands and made nervous circles against her thighs, an
idle gesture to calm her emotions.

"I woke up in the woods in Oregon. I know that now because I had to
hitchhike to Portland from there. But the last place I remember
being in before that was New Jersey, on the Appalachian trail, with a
backpack and a pair of binoculars. It was nighttime and I was
chasing some UFO sightings."

"That sounds typical," she sniffed, a small smile spreading across
her face in spite of her misery.

He smiled back, briefly, but beautiful to her nonetheless. "I guess
you must know me," he rejoined, his eyes meeting hers.

"You're my partner," she said wistfully.

A whole host of connotations lingered in her plainspoken words;
neither could ignore them, nor spare comment on them now. They sat
in uneasy silence for several minutes, contemplating the mess in
which they were embroiled. Hazel eyes held blue ones, silently
seeking answers to questions he hardly knew how to ask.

Finally, he forced himself to relax his twisting hands, placing one
on each knee, then resumed his story. "Anyway, I assumed I'd been
abducted. I didn't have any other explanation for flying from New
Jersey to Oregon without some kind of 'earthly transportation.'"

She laughed at that, smiling fondly at him when his eyes begged her
for clarification.

"On one of our first cases," she explained, "you said something like
that at the end of it. It still makes me smile."

"Did you say your name is Scully?" he asked earnestly.

She grimaced, still stinging from the notion he was suffering from
what she *hoped* was temporary amnesia.

"That's what you call me," she confirmed. "But we've almost always
called each other by our last names. Ever since you asked me to,
during our first year together."

"What's your first name?"

"Dana," she replied softly, her hands moving to her belly, seeking
to reconnect with the one thing they still seemed to have in common.

"Dana", he repeated, testing her name on his lips. "May I call you
that?" he asked cautiously.

"If you want. You did sometimes," she replied shyly.

Mulder caught himself before he asked her the next logical question,
fearful of making an ass of himself. Of course he had called her
Dana at some time in their relationship; as a term of endearment, or
during pillow talk.

He studied her closely instead. She was beautiful, radiantly
healthy in her pregnancy. Her skin was translucent, her hair thick
and loose and tumbling to her shoulders in silky red waves, and her
eyes were the bluest he'd ever seen. He was a lucky man to have
her-- if he could only remember her. And he had yet to address the
worst aspect of his amnesia.

"Scully," he began slowly, deciding it was the only safe form of
address for now, "there's another thing. I haven't just lost the
last few months of my memory. I've lost eight years."

She nodded, thoroughly miserable and not bothering to hide it. "I
know," she answered in a very small voice. "I assumed as much."

He took a deep breath and continued in a rush, averting his eyes
from her pain. "I looked at the newspapers at the airport and
thought I'd got sucked into some kind of time portal or something.
It was January 1993 when I was in New Jersey. And I do remember a
rumor around Hoover before I left on my trip; something about a
partner for me..."

"I was assigned to you in March. To debunk your work."

He chuckled at that, then asked, "Well, did you?"

She nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, then
said quite seriously, "I tried to be as objective as possible. I
didn't have an agenda. And you opened my eyes to corruption inside
the halls of government. We still approached all our cases from our
own perspective, but we learned to work together. We had a very high
solve rate. We've always been proud of that. And we discovered a
lot of things that still need to be addressed, even now."

An uncomfortable silence enveloped the darkened room as Scully
retreated into her memories. Mulder squirmed in his chair as he
considered how to phrase his next question to her.

"Why did you get pregnant, Scully?" he asked quietly.

A look of pain crossed her features and he wanted to retract his
question, but she answered before he could.

"We didn't think I could have children." She glanced down at her
hands and worried her palm with one thumb. "It's a very long story.
One I can't tell you right now." She lifted both hands to her head,
massaging her temples as she closed her eyes, squinting, as if in
pain. "There's so much to tell you. I don't know where to start."

She suddenly jumped, as if startled, and reached for the great mound
of her stomach. "Ouch!" she gasped, rubbing her belly ruefully where
the stray heel had caught her. She smiled, unable to suppress her
joy at her condition and the healthy movement of the child within
her. It wasn't the first time he'd moved so aggressively; she prayed
it was a sign of vigorous good health. She looked back up at Mulder
and beamed with pride.

Mulder hung back shyly, afraid to approach her without permission.
"Is it the baby?" he asked, a note of wonder in his voice.

She gave a little nod, then extended her hand in invitation. "Yes.
Would you like to feel him?"

"Do you want me to?" he asked, still unsure of himself.

It was clearly his child. He had no reason to disbelieve her. But
until he regained his memory, or became more comfortable with this
bizarre situation, he felt as timid as a first-grader with a crush on
the teacher.

"Of course," she answered. "Come here."

She motioned him to the side of the bed, indicating he should sit
next to her. He got up from the chair and staggered a couple steps.
He'd been on a plane most of the evening and his legs had never
really recovered from being twisted like sardines in a can.

Gingerly, he sat beside her, maintaining a respectful distance
between them. She smiled at his diffidence, then reached over and
pulled his hand over to the curve of her belly.

"Just let your hand rest here for a few minutes. He'll kick again,"
she told him.

"It's a boy?" His voice cracked on the word 'boy,' and he averted
his eyes, staring down at his other free hand.

"Yes. This baby has had every medical test possible. DNA,
amniocentesis, you name it, he's had it. We were worried-- "

She covered her mouth with one hand and closed her eyes, trying to
decide just how much to reveal at the moment. If he remembered
nothing of the last eight years... he wouldn't have to feel guilty
about what had happened to her for at least a little while longer.
Somehow, that was better than the alternative, allowing him to brood
over injustices done to her body because of their work on the
X-Files.

"Did you think there was a problem with birth defects?" he asked
softly.

"I, I thought there might be... anomalies." She turned away from
him for a few moments, searching for the right words. "I wasn't
sure," she said finally, trying to be as honest as possible without
shedding too much light for now. "I'd been told that I was barren."
 

Mulder's hand rested on her stomach as she spoke, wishing he could
feel something for this woman, but she remained a stranger. A
lovely, brave stranger who clearly had strong feelings for him. He
tried to imagine what he'd felt for her after their first meeting in
1993. He'd probably been in love with her at first sight, knowing
him. He wanted to ask about that, propriety be damned.

"If we were partners for seven years, when did we..."

He couldn't finish his sentence. He knew he was chronologically
close to forty years old and he couldn't bring himself to ask her
when they'd become intimate. It was much too personal a question to
ask someone you'd only just met. And *essentially* he'd just met
her, just begun to fall in love with her all over again.

He knew it wouldn't be so hard to do so. He'd always wanted to be
loved; always wanted a family for that matter. If he could only get
a small percentage of his memory back, he hoped it would be all about
his hopes and dreams for her.

She blushed at his query, mentally filling in the missing last
words. She'd never told him how responsible she'd felt for deferring
their relationship. After he was abducted, she'd spent many
fruitless hours condemning herself for making him wait so long. It'd
been evident for years how he felt about her. She'd been frightened
of the consequences, reluctant to change the status quo. If she'd
known he'd be taken from her so soon after their first tryst...

"Only recently. Last April, in fact. We had some issues to
resolve," she said, trying to avoid going into detail.

She didn't want to get into a discussion about this until later,
much, much later. There were larger problems to tackle first, like
getting Mulder well again. She'd studied amnesiac patients in
medical school; it had always interested her. She was optimistic
about his recovery; she had to be. She needed the father of her
child with all his faculties intact. She needed the Mulder who loved
and cherished her.

He was Mulder, of course. But not Mulder, too. He didn't have the
benefit of all the years they'd spent together, on the job, on the
road, at home. He probably didn't have feelings for her, didn't love
her, in his present state of mind. He was attentive as she spoke,
warming to her every minute they spent together. But something was
missing, and she yearned for his love more than ever.

He smiled timidly and said, "Don't all couples? Have issues, I
mean?"

She smiled wryly, looking up at him through her lashes. "Yeah, but
we have a few more than most, Mulder. It's not everybody who has to
contend with a global conspiracy to collaborate with aliens and
colonize the planet."

"You're kidding? Aren't you?" he asked, after absorbing the initial
shock of her pronouncement.

She chuckled softly and replied, "No, I'm afraid not. We have more
than our share of challenges, Mulder." Then softer, very seriously,
she said, "That's why we need to get you well again. The baby's very
important. It's all I've had my mind on, other than your
disappearance, these last few months. But we really need to see why
you can't remember, see if we can do anything about it with hypnosis
or other therapies. It's one thing to bring you up to speed on the
problems in our lives; it's another to protect you from dangers you
might not even be aware of."

"Like what?" he queried, tilting his head to one side to express his
confusion.

"You wouldn't know a bad guy from a good guy, would you? You can't
go back to active duty if you don't know all the players, all the
situations we've encountered. I guess it might be possible. You
have such a good memory; you could memorize names, faces. But, if
anyone were to find out about your memory loss, they might try to
manipulate you."

"So you want to keep it a secret?" He paused to think, sweeping his
unruly hair off his forehead with his free hand. "I'm game, if you
are. It would be difficult, but not impossible. We'd have to be
careful about getting treatment. And there'd be situations when
we're not together, when I'd have to play it by ear. I could
probably wing it if I didn't remember someone, play act a little.
But I'm sure someone will suspect something eventually."

"We'll just have to have some faith then. That's all it takes
sometimes, Mulder. It's sustained us before," she said, pointedly
staring into his concerned hazel eyes. Eyes she'd missed so much;
she was thrilled to get them back, even with great obstacles looming
on the horizon.

"Oh!" he cried, feeling the baby kick beneath his palm. He smiled
joyously, and reached over for Scully's hand, ignoring the fact he
couldn't remember conceiving this child with her. He knew
instinctively this was his child and he wanted to share this moment
with her.

She squeezed his hand gently, just enough to affirm her feelings,
not so much to scare him off. He was gentle and sweet, just like the
Mulder she'd fallen in love with over the course of so many years.
He wasn't running away from this situation; he was leaping right into
it, with the strong resolve she'd witnessed so many times before.

She loved him so much. She hoped and prayed he'd get his memories
back. And if he didn't, if it was an impossibility, she begged God
to let him love her with half the passion he'd offered her before.

They had this tiny child to shepherd through the world. She knew
they would do just about anything to protect him, to shield him from
harm. She knew Mulder. And this man was still Mulder, no matter how
many memories had been stolen from him.

She'd seen the happiness in his eyes, the delight on his face, when
he felt the baby move a fraction of an inch. Presently, his thumb
stroked the knuckles of her hand distractedly, unaware of its affect
on every nerve ending in her body. Or maybe he did know, in some
subconscious way. Maybe he could sense how much she loved him,
returning her love in some discreet, small way.

"He's beautiful, Scully," he mused, rescuing her from own meandering
thoughts.

"He is, isn't he?" she smiled back.

He gazed at her, chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully. She
returned his attention, scrutinizing his face for any clues to his
next move. His hand never left hers, thumb now drawing tiny circles
on her palm.

He swallowed hard once, then twice. He felt so much more for this
woman than he had five minutes ago. He felt closer to her than
anyone he'd ever known in his sometimes miserable life.

He must know her on some molecular level, some way that had nothing
to do with conscious experience. He knew he could love her, knew she
already loved him. He wanted to tell her he'd never leave her again,
never make her worry for five solid months whether or not he was a
dead man.

"His mom is beautiful, too." The words fell from his lips even as
he thought them, and he felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He
didn't mean to put her on the spot. What if she felt too awkward in
this situation to receive a compliment from him?

His eyes dropped to their joined hands, hands which were
communicating better than words would ever suffice. She squeezed his
hand firmly, then slowly brought it to her lips. Her kisses were
tenderly given; his whole body craved her as she touched his knuckles
with her soft lips.

"Thank you," she replied. She lowered their hands to her stomach,
fingers still entwined.

"Scully..." he said, tentatively.

"Yes," she whispered.

"The baby needs a name," he asserted.

"We'll name him. We have time," she responded.

He bit his lower lip contemplatively, considering how to broach this
subject. There was no other way; he would have to be direct.

"A last name," he clarified.

"Oh," she said, her lips remaining in the shape of that single
letter of the alphabet.

She appeared to be shocked by his proposal, and he gnawed on his lip
all the more, turning his face to hide his chagrin. His hand fell
from the top of her stomach and he wished he were dead.

Her hand left his, disentwining their fingers. He was about to bolt
from the bed, when she caught his face between two strong hands and
held him fast. Her thumbs stroked his jawline, then his cheeks.
They settled over his abused lips, chapped from the elements, numb
from his old habit of chewing at them.

She leaned closer to him, her belly a challenge, but no impediment
to her mission. He was paralyzed by her touch, a frozen man, waiting
for the spring thaw. She touched her lips to his softly, savoring
what had been denied her so long.

He responded with care, pressing his mouth to hers cautiously,
tasting her like a gourmet. He didn't dare go any further. He was
terrified he'd already gone too far. She made it clear it wasn't his
decision to make when she slipped her tongue between his teeth,
stroking gently against his own.

His arms reached around her back, pulling her close. She cooed as
he stroked her back and neck, then caressed her lavender scented
hair. Her smell, her touch, were so essential to him. It was as
though his subconscious mind recognized her, and was trying to
persuade his intellect to follow through on its impulses.

She ended the kiss, leaning back against the headboard with a sigh.
She scooted six inches to her right, then urged him next to her,
pulling his arm until he slipped beside her on the bed. She grabbed
his left hand, placing it back on her stomach, then covered it with
her own.

She turned her head and whispered in his ear, "Nothing can keep us
apart. Nothing."

He wrapped his right arm around her, pressing his lips to her cheek.
He pulled her into the space between his thighs, supporting her
weight with care. She leaned heavily against his chest, and he
placed both his hands on the curve of her belly. The pads of his
fingers smoothed up and down its contours, caressing the baby,
caressing her.

"Everything will be okay," she said softly.

He kissed her hair, then whispered back, "I know."

fin

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