From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 09:35:35 1996 Birthright Series: The dislaimer to you, the reader. If there is one element to fanfic that is the most difficult, imposing, and ultimately, important, it is the issue of character reality'. It is important to a great many, including myself, that characters we know act within their own personalities, not doing anything that seems to be directly in contrast to the character as we know it. But this is a problem constantly plaguing many writers of MSR. I know that for myself, I strive to be as realistic as possible in what is, in X-Files reality, a situation where we are given *very little* to go on. Let's face it, kids, we all know how Mulder and Scully conduct an investigation... we're given examples of that every week. But never have we seen how Mulder and Scully conduct themselves in a relationship, let alone with each other. Who knows whether Mulder is a wicked-hot stud or a bit more on the nervous side? Who's to say whether Scully is very tender, a tigress, or kind of shy? People often act very different when in a relationship. I know that I myself have a different persona for work, friends, and in relationships, with a certain amount of crossover in between. Yet the way I behave with my co-workers, even the ones I have outside friendships with, vastly differs from my love relationships. Romance brings out the best, the worst, and the most vulnerable in many people, and you are often surprised by both yourself and your partner. But as far as Mulder and Scully go, only Chris Carter can show us the answers. And because he hasn't (yet, oh please god let it be *yet*), we can only guess and do the best we can with what we have. So what it all comes down to, folks, is a bit of leeway. Some mercy. Unless a character acts waaaaaayyyyy out of line, give us the benefit of the doubt. To quote Fox Mulder: Go with it.' That's enough for the lectures today. On with the show! Lisa PS And as to the safe sex debate... there is a reason why Mulder and Scully do not practice safe sex the first time around. Without it there would be no Birthright series. From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 12:45:16 1996 Birthright: Part 2, Of Darkness and Blind Eyes' Well, here's the second installment. The first section of this was written way the heck back in May, and posted. Then I got distracted with that mysterious thing they call life, and I never finished it. But I've finished it now! So here is the whole damn thing, including the updated first part, in all of it's strange glory. And it's about damn time. In the first draft, I included an X-File in this story. About halfway through, I began to regret that decision, as I found the investigation parts to be more difficult to write. I don't know if the X-File element to this story is plausible, so please don't hold it up to intense scrutiny, because I doubt it will pass. But here's the important part: Whether or not I continue to add an X-Files element to the rest of the installments of the Birthright series depends a great deal on *your opinions*. I have been mulling it over, and am sitting on the fence. Your input would be greatly appreciated as to whether I can write a decent X-File (not as good as our gods down at 1013, but better than okay). Anyway, onto our FAVORITE part of fanfic, the DISCLAIMER! Dear Chris: Because I am currently unemployed as a writer and entertaining fantasies of being one of your staff members (BTW I've never heard of an *unwanted* neck rub), I am spending an inordinate amount of time borrowing from the genius that is 1013 to hone my skills. I suppose I could just use my own characters and premises, but then, who would read it? So I've borrowed them, they're all yours, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Truly, it is of no use to sue me as you cannot get blood from a stone and I have no reputation to uphold. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Lisa PS You know, if all these MSR stories bug you, you could always just write it into the plot so we Shippers can quit trying to create our own version of the ultimate reality. We know you can do it. Take the plunge. PPS The Field Where I Died' was a nasty trick. ______________________________________________________________- RATING: MSR, X, some A, some NC-17(which shall always be clearly marked, for the faint of heart *and* the perverts). WARNING: Angst factor rises a notch in this installment. Still, nobody dies, so keep your hats on. Last part is the most angsty. SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully are trying to deal with their experience in Louisiana while attempting to solve a case that includes a town where all children born in 1988 are either deaf, blind or retarded, and the only healthy child has suddenly become vegetative. Waterdown Elementary July 26 A white cane arced from side to side, measuring the width of the corridor, unecessarily, because she knew the dimensions of the building by heart. She was returning from lunch with her mother, and it was obvious from her voice that her mother was upset, though she tried to hide it from Ivy's perceptive ears. In vain, of course. Reading people's voices was a talent that half the Grade Fours in Waterdown possessed. The other half could read people's lips. Some of the Grade Fours, though, had to go to a special school in Madison for retards. At least, that's what Jesse Michaels had said. Ivy slipped into her classroom, late. Half the heads turned to stare at her with milky eyes. The rest didn't take any notice of her and continued with their silent math lesson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The cell phone rang as Scully pulled into the parking lot. "Scully." It was a statement, a sigh from tired lips. She hung up the phone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FBI Headquarters July 26 Her fingers flew across the laptop, hitting the keys, but not registering the content of the words. She was tired, hungry. "Good morning, Scully." Mulder's voice rang with forced cheerfulness. She didn't even look up. "You're late." "But for good reason." Mulder opened a large paper bag. A warm, buttery scent drifted towards her, and she ventured a look upwards. He was unloading white styrofoam take-out boxes. "Remind me," he said, peeking into one of the boxes. "Do you prefer blueberry or buttermilk?" "Neither." She went back to the laptop. "I think blueberry." He shoved the container at her, and she intercepted it. "I don't do breakfast." "What am I going to do with all this food?" Mulder was struggling to remain cheery. "Eat it, throw it out, I don't care." Mulder clenched his hands and counted to ten. Well, five. "At least drink the juice." He stabbed a straw through the foil top of the plastic juice cup and put it in front of her. "I don't want your juice!" Scully batted the juice away violently, only managing to spill the sticky liquid across herself and across the laptop. She sprung up. "Shit. Shit! Look what you made me do!" She grabbed a napkin and wiped ineffectually at the keyboard, but feeling her throat clench, turned and ran from the room. Mulder silently cleaned up the mess, disposing of the uneaten breakfasts and mopping up the spilled orange juice. He put all his concentration into cleaning up the mess he helped create, prying the each key off the keyboard to clean them seperately. He knew it would never work, though. It was busted. Flopping down in his chair, he briefly considered following her. That would only make things worse. She'd probably pull her gun and shoot him again. He only wanted to talk about what had happened in the car. One minute, they're in Louisiana, in love, accepting and anticipating their destiny, their children, and then somewhere around Atlanta she shut off. The smile left her eyes and she stopped joining in his excited talk. She told him that it was all a hallucination. That Will and Samantha and his sister were only visions brought on by something she hadn't yet figured out. When Mulder pointed out the evidence of Will and Sam's presence, showed her the note written in their daughter's loopy hand, she simply clammed up and refused to speak. And she hadn't spoken of it since. Mulder had tried almost constantly to broach the subject with her, but was immediately cut off. Soon he realized that his efforts were doing more harm than good, and so he tried to prevent himself from antagonizing her further. At this point, that seemed to be the most healthy option for her- and for their kids. But Scully denied vehemently that she was pregnant, and there was no way Mulder could know for sure. He felt abandoned and cold, an outsider in his own life. He just prayed that she would let him see Will and Samantha when they were born. If they were born. If they even existed. Mulder inwardly chastised himself for doubting the words of his sister, and laid another layer to the guilt that filled his mind. He wouldn't let the subject go with Scully. There was his health to consider as well. -------------- Scully leaned her cheek against the cool metal of the bathroom stall and wiped angrily at her eyes with a gritty brown paper towel. The door to the bathroom opened and she saw a pair of red Converse sneakers enter. The knocking was soft. "Scully?" "Go away, Mulder." "Are you OK?" "I'm fine. Go away." "Let me in," he tried to open the door to the stall but found it locked. "Open the door, please?" "Leave me alone, OK?" "Sorry. Can't do that." Mulder's head popped under the wall of the adjacent stall. He squirmed into Scully's stall and sat against the door. She sat on the toilet seat, fully clothed. "Security will kill you for being in here." Scully turned her face away from him. "I don't care." He reached out to touch her, but pulled his hand back. "We have to talk, Scully." "There's nothing to talk about." "There could be." "What do you mean, Mulder?" She watched him from behind the curtain of her hair. He took a deep breath. "Are you pregnant?" "No," she answered quickly. "But my sister said-" "She said nothing, Mulder! It was a hallucination! It didn't happen!" Scully looked at him head on, eyes blazing. "What happened in the bedroom that night, with you and me, did that happen? Tell me, Scully, was that real?" His voice was growing angry with weeks of frustration. She didn't answer, just glared at him, shaking with fury. "Perhaps it didn't happen. Just another hallucination, right? I can still feel you, Scully. I can still hear your breath. I can still smell you all over me, and tell me, is that a hallucination, too?" "I hate you, Mulder." "I bet you do. Because I'm making you face a part of yourself you wish you could just ignore. Dana Scully, so professional and logical and bloody scientific, heaven forbid you have any human emotion." Scully was crying furious tears, fury at him for being right and fury at him seeing it effect her. "Deny everything, right? That's my line, but you take it to heart. Deny it all. Deny you held your daughter and cried while your son disappeared. Hell, deny we even went to Louisiana at all! Deny we made love in that room, Dana. I want to hear it from your mouth." She stared at him, shaking. "Can't deny it, can you? You know, I don't seem to recall employing any method of birth control in the heat of the moment. So, regardless of what your opinion about these so-called hallucinations, you can't just wish this one away. There is a chance you are pregnant with my children, and I refuse to be shut out." "I am not pregnant, Mulder." "How do you know?" He stared at her for a few moments. "Did you get your..." Scully cut him off. "Yes." Mulder felt his heart plummet. He tapped his fingers once, twice against the tiled floor. Literally feeling the coldness wash over him, he stood and opened the stall door. "Sorry for bothering you." And with that, he left. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waterdown Ivy hopped the fence with ease, a walkie-talkie clenched between her teeth. She could hear Casey poking around in the shed and walked towards him. "Sorry I took so long. My mom got mad at me cause I was on the walkie-talkie instead of practicing piano." "I'm glad we don't have a piano," Casey's straight hair flashed blond in the bright sunlight. "So, what did you want to show me?" Ivy stopped just short of where Casey stood and tightened her ponytail. "Here. Look at this." Casey placed something into Ivy's hand. She began to examine the strange object with her fingers. They were glasses, but different. One lens was missing, and the other was thick and bubbled, warping away from the frames in angry blisters. The left arm was gone, and the right one was only half there, the thinning around the edges indicating to her hands that the frames had been partially melted. Ivy felt a rush of fear that held her transfixed. "Weird, huh?" Casey reached to take the glasses back, but Ivy snatched her hand away. "Throw em out, Case." "No way! These things are funny! I'm gonna put them on to crack up the guys at recess!" But Ivy was too quick for him. She hurled the glasses on top of the shed and ran from Casey's backyard, scaling the fence quickly and disappearing inside. Casey tried paging her on the walkie-talkie, but Ivy had turned hers off. Sighing, he stood on top of the wooden box his dad used to store sand for the winter. Even on the tips of his toes he couldn't see over the roof of the shed. He raised an arm and let his fingers scrabble blindly over the weather-beaten aluminum until his hand closed on the broken glasses. Pulling them down, he settled on top of the sand box, his back against the shed and his feet dangling a foot off the ground. He grinned at the sight of the twisted lens and wondered what the world would look like through them. Casey put them on, tilting back his head to balance them across his nose. Casey's mother found him there two hours later, still gazing upwards with the tattered glasses balanced on his nose. He did not respond when his mother called. He didn't look towards her as she marched across the lawn, less than pleased with her son's 'trick'. She took the glasses from his face. "Where did you get these dirty things, anyway? Really, Casey, the junk you dig up..." She tossed the glasses over her shoulder and they landed with a soft thud on the grass. "Come on, Casey, it's dinner time," She reached for his hand. No response. "Funny joke, Case. Ha ha. Now let's get a move on, cold spaghetti ain't my cup of tea." He didn't move. He stared forward, lips parted slightly, his face completely blank. Seized in a wave of panic, she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook hard. "Casey... Casey..." Beryl Ropery stepped through the gate connecting the two yards. "Claire... is everything OK?" "Casey! CASEY!!!" The panicked woman crumpled to the ground at her son's feet. Hearing her mother calming Casey's mom, Ivy slid her bedroom window closed.. Maybe it was a good idea not to say anything right now. She moved slowly into the front room and sat at the piano, slowly beginning to play her latest acquisition, Wagner's Die Walkure'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One week later Scully gnawed on her thumbnail and watched the scenery whiz by. Fields, fields, some more fields, maybe a cow or two. Wisconsin. Thrilling. "Remember the last time we were in Wisconsin? Maybe this area is particularly vulnerable to celestial influences," Mulder said excitedly. "Maybe." "But the place is also a UFO hotspot." "Could be." "You listening to me, Scully?" "Wha- yeah, yeah I am." Scully turned from the window. "I said the place is a UFO hotspot." "Mulder, I don't see the point in aliens flying down from wherever to blind, deafen or brain damage a group of kids." "We don't know their agenda, Scully. They're unpredictable. But for some reason they chose to either blind, deafen or brain damage every child born in 1988." "These kids were born that way. And nobody has any traumatic memories that could be interpreted as an abduction episode. The answer lies in the environment: tainted water, landfill pollution, living under electric poles, something. You can't blame every strange phenomenon on aliens, Mulder." "And not everything has a logical explanation, Scully. Believe it or not, there are forces that do not bow down to your almighty science." Scully bit into a dry soda cracker, feeling it soak up some of the sickness in her roiling stomach. "Not everything is as complicated as you like to make it, Mulder." "Explain to me how every kid born in 1988 ended up either blind, deaf or brain damaged. In this town alone. Why these kids? Why only the ones born in 1988?" "Not every kid, Mulder. Casey Burgher..." "So what is it that makes Casey Burgher special..." Mulder got that far-away, involved gaze in his eye. "I think the fact that he's suddenly entered a vegetative state after three years in Waterdown makes him special enough. The answer to our question lies in what it is that caused Casey to become comatose." "Lack of nightlife?" Mulder smiled at his own joke. She rolled down the window a few inches and inhaled deeply. "How have you been, Scully?" "Fine." "That's good to hear." "Thanks." Mulder waited a few seconds, tapping his fingers idly on the steering wheel. "Do you ever think about them, Scully?" "Don't start, Mulder." "I think about them all the time. I've never felt such powerful... emotion...as I did that night." Scully turned to him, startled. "What?" "I'm talking about the twins. What did you think I was talking about, Scully?" She turned away, embarrassed. Mulder couldn't resist teasing her. "Ohhhh. You were thinking about *that*. You think about that a lot, Scully?" She smiled wryly. "Not much there to think about." Mulder clasped his hand over his heart in mock agony. "You wound me, you heartless woman. Just stab me through the heart, why don't you?" Scully graced his performance with a cynical smirk. Mulder reached out a hand and touched her cheek. "I miss that." The smile slowly dropped from her face. "I think about that night with you constantly," he said, almost whispering. Scully turned away from him, causing his hand to drop. Her stomach wound into a tight coil and she felt her gorge rise. "Mulder, pull over," she said urgently. He pulled over immediately, the car bouncing on the pebbly shoulder of the road. Scully leapt out before the car had come to a full stop and ran up the small embankment. Kneeling and bracing her hands against the long yellow grass, she heaved and shook. Mulder watched her back lurching from inside the car. The rational part of his mind told him that Scully had simply eaten something bad, but the irrational part of his mind, (the dominant one, he was sorry to admit), felt it was the thought of him, and their intimacy, that drove her to sickness. He knew she felt it was a mistake, that it shouldn't have happened, but he didn't know that it traumatized her to the point of being physically ill when confronted with the thought. Just another person he had fucked up, just like everyone else he had ever come into contact with. Perhaps it was just as well she wasn't pregnant, after all. Scully wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, brushed the dirt off the knees of her pants and returned to the car. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, and her cheeks were red and hot. "You OK, Scully?" "Yeah. I haven't been feeling good all day. Probably just a 24-hour bug, that's all." "You want to go back to DC? I can take care of this alone." "I am not an invalid, Mulder. You don't have to take care of me." That came out a more sharply than she had intended. He clenched his jaw and drove faster, in a hurry to get into Waterdown and begin the investigation, to get his mind off the events of the past eight weeks. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Move along to part 2...*if you dare*....Bwahahahahaha From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 13:00:41 1996 The small blonde woman opened the door widely, without fear. "Can I help you?" She said to the couple on her porch. "Yes...I'm Special Agent Mulder and this is Special Agent Scully-" They flipped their ID in tandem. "FBI." The woman swung open the door and stepped back. "I was expecting you. Come in." Scully waited for Mulder to enter. He didn't, holding the door open for her. She didn't budge. "Go ahead," she said, inclining her head towards the interior of the house. "After you, my dear," he replied in a voice laced with sarcasm. Glaring at him, she stepped across the threshold towards Mrs.Burgher, who stood impatiently just down the hall. Mulder followed behind her, smiling to himself. The house was pink. Pink everywhere, varying shades, but everything pink. Scully couldn't help but stare- the house looked like had been dipped in a huge vat of Pepto-Bismol. Mrs. Burgher sat down on a dusty rose loveseat, Mulder and Scully sitting next to her on a light pink Italian leather couch. Mulder ran a hand over the fine couch, mumbling softly, "What a shame...a damn shame." "Mrs. Burgher-" "You can call me Claire. I don't like to hear *his* name if I can avoid it." "Fine. Claire." Scully glanced at Mulder. " When did Casey first exhibit signs of illness?" "Just over a week ago... a week last Tuesday. He was out playing in the yard, and when I called him in for dinner, he didn't come. Casey is a very good boy, he *always* comes for dinner, and so I go out into the yard to fetch him, and there he is, sitting up against the shed, just staring off into space." Claire Burgher began to choke up. She took a pink Kleenex from a nearby box and dabbed at her eyes. "Of course I rush him straight to his pediatrician-" "Dr. Livesay." "Yes. And he says he couldn't see anything external, but Casey should go up to the hospital for X-Rays-" "Why didn't you take him straight to the hospital, Mrs. Burgher...Claire?" Mulder caught a glance of a young boy's school photo hanging from the dining room wall. The blonde boy grinned widely, without the aesthetic benefit of his two front teeth. "The hospital is all the way in Madison, and I was so worried, I-" "What did the hospital find, Mrs. Burgher?" "Nothing. No broken bones, no diseases, no tumors, nothing. They ran him through every test imaginable, and all came back perfectly normal. So they sent him home. But my son is still acting like a...zombie." "The doctors at Madison didn't even venture a guess at the situation?" Scully was feeling ill again, but this time it was hunger pangs rippling through her belly. "One young kid, just an intern, I think... he said it looked like post-traumatic stress syndrome to him. Well, I just asked him what he was implying and told him to kindly leave my son's room." "Had your son been under any particular stress around the time of his... accident?" "No. He's an eight year old boy, not a war veteran." Scully stood up, her thighs painfully unsticking themselves from the leather couch. "May we go up and see Casey, Claire?" "Alone," Mulder added, assuming his most authoritative stance. "Well, I suppose since you're FBI and all... go on up. It's on your right, at the end of the hall. But don't be poking and prodding him... and for heaven's sake, don't open up a window. He could catch a chill." Scully bit her tongue and began to mount the stairs, Mulder close behind her. They paused in the upper hallway, Scully leaning back against the wall and allowing herself a brief moment of relaxation. "She's definitely a different case." Mulder stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked towards the closed bedroom door. "Mmmm. I wonder if there were any minimal head injuries-" "I'd guess Claire Burgher has sustained a number of head injuries." Scully gave him a look'. "You know what I meant." "Head injuries too minimal to be picked up by three sets of CAT scans?" Mulder opened the bedroom door and stepped in. The walls were decorated with a nautical theme, schooners and compasses and anchors dancing across a white-capped ocean. Poorly constructed models of boats dangled from the ceiling on fish-wire, and a captain's hat was the centerpiece on his dresser. Even the bed was shaped like a small tugboat. And tucked into the center of the tugboat was Casey Burgher. He looked no different than any other 8 year old boy. There was no pallor, no black circles, no signs of sickness. His skin was slightly flushed, mostly, Scully assumed, because of the heaps of blankets packed tightly around him. Straight blond hair framed his face, cut into the infamous bowl-cut' that all young children are forced to endure. Bright blue eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, which had a poster of the Australian Worlds Cup team. "You like boats, Casey?" Mulder asked casually, but watching the child like a hawk. No movement from the child. No acknowledgement that he had even heard. Scully sat down on the edge of the bed and began a clinical workover on the boy, while Mulder prowled the room. Pulling the shades on the window, he looked into the backyard, taking in the old shed, the sandbox, and a BMX racer tossed on the ground next to a fish tank that was half-filled with grass. Leaning a bit further back, Mulder saw into the yard next door. A skinny red-haired girl sat in a lawnchair, gazing ahead, her hands rapidly skimming over a book held in her lap. The girl next door was blind. Apparently this girl was the last person to see Casey before he changed. Mulder decided her home would be the next stop. Scully regretfully pulled the piles of blankets back over Casey. "There's nothing on him, not even a bruise. His senses test out, though- he is not organically blind or deaf- it just appears he can't..or won't... see or hear. Whether this choice is conscious or not, I don't know." "That's what we're going to find out. I say we go talk to the kid next door...Casey's friend, Ivy Ropery." "Is she the blind girl?" "Yeah." Scully followed Mulder to the bedroom door, and looked back at Casey, hot underneath the blankets. She shook her head. "I should tell Mrs. Burgher-" "You know she won't listen to you, you're only a doctor." Mulder placed a hand against the small of her back. "Besides, it's Claire." And Scully bestowed upon him the first smile he had seen in what felt like forever. Immediately buoyed, Mulder felt the knots in his stomach loosen a little. Mulder stuffed his hands in his trenchcoat pockets and walked down the Burgher's black asphalt driveway. "The girl's name is Ivy Ropery. I want to talk to her." "I think it's more important to talk to the pediatrician, Mulder. There may have been some symptoms the children all share. And perhaps he can shed some light on what happened to Casey Burgher." They stopped on the sidewalk between the two houses, hedged in by forsythia shrubs. "Well, why don't you head down and see the good doctor and I'll talk to Ivy Ropery. We'll meet up afterwards." "Sure." Scully took a few steps towards the car before being stopped by Mulder's hand on her shoulder. "You sure you're OK?" His eyes were dark with concern. "I'm fine, Mulder." "-because back on the highway you weren't feeling so hot, and I just thought-" "Really, I'm fine." She reached up and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Really. Please don't worry about me." He smiled crookedly and shrugged. "You know I can't help it." "I know. And I appreciate your concern, but-" "It's not needed." He finished the sentence for her. "Right." "OK, then." He withdrew from her and took on a more businesslike stance. "I'm going to the Ropery's now. Have fun with the doctor. Maybe ask him to take a look at-" "Mulder..." "Told you I can't help it." With a smile, he turned and started towards the Ropery house. Shaking her head, Scully slid into the car, adjusting the seat and rearview, catching a glance at herself in the process . She briefly entertained the thought of stopping at a pharmacy and buying an anti-nauseant, but then wrote it off as she knew of no pharmacy in Waterdown, and more importantly, she wanted to call it a day and rest as soon as possible. Dr. Livesay's office was the lower level of a large brick house that also housed a g.p., a dentist, and a speech therapy clinic. The people in the waiting room stared at her as she entered, recognizing an outsider and being intensely curious and xenophobic simultaneously. The secretary was a harried-looking woman who appeared to be in her mid-fifties. "Can I help you?" The woman didn't look up from the insurance forms she was filling out. "Yes, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully with the FBI." She flipped her badge for the benefit of the woman, who did not even raise her eyes. "I have to speak with Dr. Livesay." "Please have a seat, Ms. Scully, Dr. Livesay will see you in turn." "Excuse me, ma'am? I'm with the FBI, and we're conducting an investigation-" "I understand that, dear." Only then did the woman lift her head. "But the doctor has work to do, as well. Please take a seat." Muttering under her breath, Scully sat down in the furthest possible corner from the rest of the patients. Picking up a year-old copy of Good Housekeeping', she idly flipped the pages, looking at ads for mascara and photo layouts of the celebrity kitchen of the month. Soon, a vaguely uncomfortable feeling began to sink into her, and, looking up, she noticed the local women stealing glances at her and whispering. Putting the magazine down, Scully abandoned all pretext of manners and stared back sullenly, untl the women grew embarrassed and looked away. Her mood was none too good today, and these gossips were doing nothing to help it. A chubby girl of about three struggled into the chair next to her. She had one pigtail up, one down, and an orange stain on her upper lip that strongly hinted at spaghetti for lunch. The girl placed a grubby hand on Scully's thigh and looked up at her earnestly. "I'm thick." "You're what?" Dana smiled down at the small, serious face. "I'm *thick*," the girl replied emphatically, her face crumpling up to look like a troll's. The sneeze exploded from the girl, unhampered by a polite hand to shield it. Scully felt a light mist settle across her right hand. "Oh, I see. You're sick," she said in a voice that strained for cheerfulness. "Yeth," Lisped the child as Scully slowly wiped her hand against the tweed side of the waiting-room chair. "Deanna, you get over here and stop bugging that nice lady." A hugely pregnant woman waddled towards them. She looked very frazzled and very, very tired. "My brother or thithter ith in my Mom'th tummy," Deanna informed her. "I'm sorry about her," the woman said as she scooted her daughter away. "It's only a cold, but with this-" she patted her swollen belly, "I don't want to take any chances." "It's no problem." The woman sat beside her, mute for a few moments. "You waiting for your kid?" Scully turned to her, startled. "Pardon me?" "You waiting for your kid to finish with the doctor?" "Oh... no. I don't have any children." A knowing smile spread across the older woman's face. "So you're expecting, then?" "No," she answered, a bit too sharply. The overt nosiness was beginning to fray her nerves. "I'm with the FBI," she said loudly enough for all in the waiting room to hear. Almost instantly, a low thrumming began as the busybodies began to spin the gossip wheel. "Excuse me, then. I didn't know." The woman pulled herself upright and set off after little Deanna, who was busy crawling underneath the chairs. Scully sat there for almost a half an hour, bored and impatient, watching the steady stream of pregnant women and small children entering and exiting the office. Soon, the waiting room became crowded, and a young woman took the seat beside her. In her arms she held a newborn baby, lightly wrapped in a yellow blanket. The baby slept, his mouth slightly open and his breath coming in quick puffs. "He's beautiful," she said to the child's mother. "Thank you," the woman replied, before returning to fuss over her son. Watching the scene, Scully felt a curious warmth, darkened with a tinge of regret. What if she was pregnant? What if she wasn't? The tiny spotting of blood she had seen over the past two months had been proof positive to her irrational mind that no pregnancy existed. But her dominant, reality-based side knew better. The answer would be easy enough to divine, she had reasoned, and had made several trips to the hemo lab with the intention of drawing her own blood and running the test. But each time she had turned back before the decisive moment, afraid, she supposed, of the answer. Either way. . She was frightened of how much her world would change if she tested positive. But the truth was, her world *had* changed, in a few short hours, one humid night in Louisiana. And regardless of whether she was pregnant or not, the time had come to confront these changes. She promised herself that she would talk to Mulder tonight. "Dana Scully." The secretary's voice broke into her reverie. Gathering up her coat, Scully allowed herself to be led into the examination room. A few moments later, a tall, thin man, who appeared to be in his seventies, entered. "Good afternoon, Ms...." He glanced at his clipboard. "Scully. What can I do for you today?" "Yes, I'm with the FBI-" "So you're not here about a medical probem." "Um...no. We're conducting an investigation-" "You'll have to be quick, Ms. Scully, I have many legitimately ill patients waiting to see me. It *is* cold season." She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself. If this day got any worse... "We're conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the births in Waterdown in 1988, as well as looking into the cause of Casey Burgher's... illness." "Casey Burgher is a mystery to me. Nothing is wrong with the boy, physically. As you probably already know, I saw him soon after the change, and there was no evidence of any physical trauma." "Do you have Casey's Burgher's file available?" "Doris will give it to you on your way out. I will want it back tomorrow, you understand?" "Yes." Scully was angry at how easily this man was cowing her. "And about the 1988 births?" "Well, I'm afraid I can't offer much information as to the actual births of the children. I spent a year away on sabbatical, and my practice was looked after by Ephraim Kline, a former local. He works in Madison, now." "Do you have his address?" "Doris can give it to you." "Can you tell me, is there anything about the children affected that you can tell me that may help me in any way possible? For instance, do they all share one symptom in common? Are the afflictions similar in origin? Is there-" "All cases are different, Agent Scully." "I understand, Dr. Livesay, I'm a medical doctor." "Then you must know that to try to lump together a group of patients is very difficult, considering the extenuating circumstances surrounding each case. The severity of the deafness ranges from partial hearing loss to profound deafness . Some of the blind children can be helped with large-print books and powerful glasses, but the majority have no sight whatsoever. We have developmentally challenged children, and those who are so profoundly retarded they are almost vegetative. Causes range from perforation of the retina to debilitating glaucoma to an underveloped cerbellum. All causes are congenital in origin." "Is there any one thing that all these women were exposed to during their pregnancies?" "As I stated before, Ms. Scully, I wouldn't know. I was in Finland. I suggest that speaking to Ephraim Kline may be more fruitful." He placed the clipboard down on the counter. "Now, if you don't mind, Ms. Scully, I have a great number of patients to see before five, and I'm running late as it is. Please feel free to ask Doris for anything you need." He stood and opened the door for her. "Have a nice day, now." Simmering with anger, Scully collected the documents from Doris and left Dr. Livesay's office. _____________________________________________________________________________ Ivy Ropery stepped out of the backyard just as Mulder reached the top of the driveway. "You're here about Casey, right?" The girl tucked her book under her arm and moved toward the house. "Right. How did you know?" "Heard you introducing yourself to *Claire*," Ivy raised her eyebrows sarcastically. "So you're in the FBI, huh? Wow." "Yeah... yeah, I'm with the FBI. And I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. About Casey." Ivy's hand was on the knob of the front door. "I wouldn't mind talking to you, mister, but my mom's stepped out for a few minutes, and I'm not really supposed to be talking to strangers." "Your mom's a smart woman. I'll just go wait down by my car for her to come back, then." Mulder glanced at the girl, who seemed to be staring right through him. "Oh, and Ivy? Just a little hint. Never tell strangers that you're home alone." A small smile flickered across her face. "She did tell me that... but I forgot." Ivy took a few hesitant steps towrd him. "Say, Mister...uh..." "Mulder." "Mr. Mulder. I don't think my mom would get toooo mad if we just sat on the front lawn and talked..." Something about the girl's demeanour led Mulder to believe there was something she wanted to get off her chest. "Sure." Mulder took off his trenchcoat and sat on it. He patted the spot on the grass beside him. When Ivy took a few cautious steps, Mulder flushed with embarrassment, thankful she could not see him. "I'm over here." The girl moved toward him with more confidence. "About five steps forward, and three to your left." "It's all right, I can just follow your voice." Ivy settled beside him, knobby knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them. Her legs were long and spindly, very pale and dotted with tiny beige freckles. "It was those glasses, y'know," Ivy said. "Pardon?" Mulder turned to stare at her, squinting against the light. "I think it was the glasses that made Casey, you know, get sick." Ivy sighed heavily. "I probably sound completely bonkers." "No, Ivy, I don't think you sound crazy at all. Please. Go on." "When I touched those glasses- when Casey showed them to me that day- I got this funny feeling. Kind of fuzzy, you know? Like the electric fence up at Mr. Biarje's farm, when you get near it, you get this fuzzy kind of feeling. That's what it felt like when I touched the glasses." "Tell me about the glasses, Ivy. Where did you see them? What do they look like?" She smiled and flipped a red braid over her shoulder. "I wouldn't know what they looked like, Mr.Mulder. In case you haven't noticed, I'm blind." "But certainly not mute." Ivy laughed. "My mom says that all the time. She says sometimes she wishes I was born without a tongue, too. I talk alot." Her expression became more serious. "Casey found them in his backyard, near the shed. When I touched them and got that funny feeling, I told him to throw them away. But he wanted to keep them to goof off with at recess and make all the boys laugh. I got mad at him and went home. Next time I saw him he was sick." "Was there anything else special about the glasses that you noticed, Ivy?" Mulder glanced over his shoulder towards the yard of the Burgher house. He was eager to poke around for these glasses. "The glass part, the part where you look through, it wasn't smooth like most glasses. It was bumpy, thicker insome places than in others." She screwed up her face in thought. "It felt like... like, last summer I left one of my records out on the deck all day, and when I found it at night, it felt like the glasses. All bumpy and bubbly. My mom said it melted." "Do you think these glasses were melted?" "I dunno. But Casey and his mom don't wear glasses, so maybe somebody chucked them over the fence and then they got caught in the sun and melted." Mulder knew that was impossible. The lenses of even the thinnest pair of glasses were too thick to melt in the sun. "It's definitely a thought. I'll have to look into that." The two sat in silence for a few moments. "Mr. Mulder, do you like Wagner?" Not expected that sort of question from a nine-year old, Mulder's response was slow in coming. "Uh...sure I like Wagner. Don't know much about him, but-" Their conversation was interrupted by a compact car pulling up in the driveway. A short, dark woman quickly parked the car and leaped out, her face concerned. "Who are you?" She shouted, edging around the front of the car. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI." He held out his ID. "It's OK, Mom, he's here about Casey." Ivy stood up next to Mulder. "I spoke to Claire Burgher earlier, she said that you were expecting us..?" "Well, I wasn't expecting you to arrive this early." She began to relax, and approached him, tugging Ivy against her. "We're the FBI, ma'am. We try not to waste any time getting these things solved." "I... I don't know how I can help you." " I just want to ask some questions about the day Casey got sick," he paused and spoke in a lower voice. "Also about the Burgher family and about Ivy's birth." "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but that's impossible today. Perhaps if you came by tomorrow..." "Mrs. Ropery, I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation-" "I understand that, Mr. Mulder. But you can't expect everyone just to drop everything because you happen by." "As a matter of fact, Mrs. Ropery, I do." He clenched his jaw and attempted to control his rising anger. "As I said, I am sorry Mr. Mulder. I would like very much to speak with you tomorrow. But today I have an appointment with my lawyer." Ivy dropped her mother's hand and backed away a few paces. "I don't have to go with you, Mom, do I?" "I told you, Ivy, a million times, and I reminded you again this morning. Now go on and clean up." "But I don't want to choose!" "You don't have to choose, Ivy! You're just going to talk to the lawyer and the judge. They'll decide for you." "Will Daddy be there?" "Yes." The girl burst into loud sobs and ran inside. Mulder shifted uncomfortably, having witnessed a private scene far too close to home for his taste. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Ropery... I didn't know..." Beryl looked towards the house where Ivy disappeared. "I know, Mr.Mulder... but with everything that's going on... Casey, and this custody battle... we're all under a good deal of stress. I want to speak with you, though. To help in any way I can. It's just today isn't very good. Maybe tomorrow...? Ivy will be in school, and things will have calmed down a little, I hope." "That's no problem, Mrs. Ropery. I'll come back tomorrow in the late morning. Is that good for you?" The small woman smiled tightly. "I'm looking forward to it, Mr. Mulder." Mulder turned back as he reached the sidewalk. Beryl stood on the threshold, watching him go. "Just a question, Mrs. Ropery... do you know of any motels or inns around here?" Beryl laughed, a short, choppy sound. "Good luck, Mr. Mulder. The closest is in Madison, and that's a way's away. Your best bet is to camp up on the lake." "Camp?" "Yeah... I have some gear you can borrow if you like." Mulder trudged back up the driveway. "I guess I don't really have a choice, now, do I?" "In Waterdown, Agent Mulder, choice isn't much of a factor." ---------------------------------------- Movin' right along..... From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 13:08:27 1996 Beware....scenes of graphic nature ahead ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Scully sat with her knees drawn up, shivering slightly. When Mulder had called her on the cell phone and said they were camping , she had had to be convinced it wasn't some kind of malicious practical joke. But no, Mulder had given her directions to the campground, and when she had arrived, found a note stating that he was going into town to pick up a few provisions. Scully thought longingly of her bed back home. She wanted nothing more than to just curl up... She was under the impression the investigation would be a single-day thing. Unfortunately, due to Beryl Ropery, it was going to stretch into two days. So Scully put off visiting Ephraim Kline in Madison, hoping to occupy herself the following day. Besides, the malaise she had felt all day wasn't helpeing her concentration much, and she hoped that after a good night's sleep... Scully sighed. She tossed a few thin branches on the fire and poked at the embers with the end of of one stick. It had been years since she had built and tended a campfire. Actually, it had been over two decades. The last time she had been camping was one of those quality-time family trips that always seemed to serve no purpose but to drive everyone further apart. Bill Jr. had been caught in the woods drinking neat scotch, which had been expensive stuff pilfered from the family liquor cabinet. Missy had fallen in lust with a tanned golden boy camping down the river, her constant mooning culminating in a midnight rendezvous that was rudely broken up by a livid Bill Sr. threatening death to the young man and telling Missy that she was never too old for a good spanking. Charlie screamed with nightmares about werewolves that kept everyone up all night, and Dana herself spent 24 hours retching courtesy of some bad mayonnaise. Needless to say, it was the last Scully family camping trip. She wondered if she would ever take her kids camping. Experience hellish quality time far from the comforts of civilization. No, she supposed she wouldn't. Mulder was notoriously unpredictable in the wild, and the still-painful memory of Queequeg only served to confirm her doubts. Mulder was not to be trusted with the children. The children. Scully knew she was pregnant- it was obvious and undeniable, even for her. All her beloved scientific proof pointed towards this inevitable truth, including the little blue tip on the home-pregnancy kit. She felt like an ashamed teenager, buying it outside of town, hiding it in a brown paper bag, and performing the test in a washroom stall at McDonalds. For long minutes she sat in the stall, stubbornly refusing to stare at the test resting on the back of the toilet, working its chemical magic. She cleaned out her purse and perused the graffiti on the walls. The reply was scrawled underneath in red pen The saga continued with . The debate continued down the wall and across to the door. Scully sighed and looked at her watch. Only seven minutes of the recommended ten had passed. She relented and stole a glance at the test. The tip was already a brilliant blue. She stared until the ten minutes were up, and then three more minutes for good measure. If anything, it grew even more bright. So. She was pregnant. Scully numbly disposed of the test and left the bathroom. She bought herself a Big Mac and large fries, tearing into the burger ravenously. To hell with it,' she thought, Now I'm eating for three.' Three. Scully poked at the fire harder than necessary, exposing the smouldering red coals at the center. Why was she so certain it was twins? , a mocking inner voice answered. It defied all her beliefs, but Scully simply knew that the twins were growing inside her right now, probably smug and pleased with having successfully accomplished their mission. She flushed at the memory of it, the humid Louisiana night, the soft, soft bed and the hardness of Mulder's chest, sweat-slicked and sliding against hers, the two of them unknowingly creating life as they hoarsely cried out each other's names. Mulder. The father of her children. A man whose single-mindedness drove him to the brink of death and madness. A man who brushed off her grief over a dead pet. A man who had death dogging him at every step, and anyone close to him was vulnerable. Their families had slowly depeleted out from under them, and they had had far too many close calls themselves. And now she was bringing two more potential victims into the world. It's destiny,' the older Samantha had said. But did destiny include two physically and psychologically intact children with two *live* parents? Scully pressed her hand against her belly, feeling the tiny hardness there. the hardness seemed to say. . Different, but not necessarily bad. Scully was angry at her own ambivalence. It was doing her no good to waste time playing mental guessing games. Everything had changed in a few seconds. It was new and strange, frightening and exciting. Go with it, Scully', Mulder had once said. She smiled slightly and tossed another branch on the fire. "Hey, are you trying to start a forest fire or something?" Mulder stepped into the clearing, holding a few plastic grocery bags. Scully looked up, startled. "What?" "Are you trying to alert Smokey the Bear?" She continued to stare at him, puzzled. "You sure the fire is big enough, Scully? Planning to keep it burning through Christmas?" He sat down on a faded blue blanket spread on the opposite side of the fire. "I'll let you criticize my fire when you learn to make one yourself." "You can't blame me- my parents didn't let me go to Boy Scouts." Scully snickered. "I'd have loved to see that." The image of Mulder paying homage to the Great Beaver or whatever it was struck her as being one of the most disturbingly absurd scenes she had ever pictured, especially since it was a grown Mulder, and not a boy, dressed in that Hitler Jugend-like uniform. "Hey, I may not have gone to Boy Scouts, but at least I remembered food." Mulder started pulling objects from the grocery bags, holding them up to her. "Bread-" "Whole wheat or white?" "White. I wouldn't be caught dead eating whole wheat. It's Wonderbread or starvation." Scully rolled her eyes. "Peanut butter... milk-" "Skim or 2%?" "2%. Are you on a diet or something?" "No," Scully said, a bit too emphatically. "Do I look fat?" "Did I say you look fat? No, you don't." Mulder placed a cereal box on the ground. Scully squinted through the glow to see a yellow box featuring a cartoon man with eyebrows on his hat. "Cap'n Crunch." Mulder smiled like a child. "With Crunchberries. It makes yummy milk." "Mmmm...just what I've always looked for in milk. Artificial fruit flavour." Scully wondered if the other grocery bags contained anything edible. "Orange juice, beer... want a beer?" Mulder asked, tearing a can from the plastic and holding out to her. "No thanks. But juice sounds good." "Obviously you were a Girl Scout." Mulder passed her the orange juice and popped open a beer for himself. He took a long sip and reached for the final bag. "Now for the piece de resistance." He opened the bag. "Graham crackers. Chocolate. And marshmallows." Scully's attention was piqued. Chocolate. Yesssss. Chocolate sounded very good. She reached for the thick bar, only to have it yanked out of her reach. "Gimme," she whined, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to stuff her mouth full of the sweet, dark confection. "Easy, killer, you're gonna rip my arm off. We can't waste the chocolate. We need them for s'mores." "S'mores?" "Don't tell me you've never had a s'more? What kind of deprived life do you lead, Scully?" "Not much of one, as you never fail to point out. But it's the pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me." "Touche." Mulder jammed a marshmallow on a stick and held it over the fire. "S'mores are one of the greatest delicacies known to humankind." With his free hand Mulder tore open the graham cracker box and broke off a square, then did the same with the chocolate bar, making sure to place the rest of the chocolate well out of Scully's reach. He placed the piece of chocolate on top of the graham cracker and turned his attention to the marshmallow. "Um, Mulder... there's something I think we should talk about." "Not now, Scully, you're about to taste something that will blow your mind." Secretly relieved at the excuse to put off the inevitable, Scully sat back and watched Mulder pull the golden-brown marshmallow off the stick and place it on top of the cracker and chocolate. "The secret is to wait for a few seconds, and then eat it. OK. Open up." Mulder scooted closer to her and held out the gooey mess. Scully leaned in and took a bite, her teeth scraping against his index finger. She chewed slowly, a smile spreading across her face. The toasted marshmallow, semi-melted chocolate and sugary cracker combined tasted decadent. "More," she mumbled through a full mouth. Mulder grinned and popped the other half of the s'more into his mouth and began the procedure all over again. As he passed Scully her fifth s'more, Mulder became serious. "Listen, Scully. I just want to say... well, I'm just glad we're not fighting anymore. You know, it's just not good, for our work, for-" Scully was nodding vehemently while chewing. "You're not really caring at the moment, are you?" She shook her head and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyeing the remaining ingredients hungrily. "What kind of monster have I created?" Mulder said as he pierced another marshmallow. "A hungry one." "I'll say. I'm afraid of what you'll do when we run out." "Then I'll eat you." Mulder smirked. "Is that a promise?" Scully raised an eyebrow and stared at him a little longer than necessary, a tiny smile playing at her lips. Mulder attempted to turn his attention towards the toasting marshmallow, but found the growing hardness in his jeans commanding quite a bit more of his attention than he wished. Glancing up surreptitiously, he saw that she was still watching him. The firelight cast her in hues of shadow and light, softening and defining, making her appear slightly surreal and incredibly attractive. His erection commanded his full attention now; he shifted to relieve some of the pressure and in the process the marshmallow fell off the stick and into the fire. "Shit," he said as the marshmallow twisted into a black curl and disappeared. He looked up at Scully. "Sorry." "I don't want to wait for you to make another one." "What choice do you have? I can't magically procure a s'more." Scully hesitated. A most heinous thought had entered her mind... "There are options..." Scully leaned forward on her knees, her eyes glued on his. Her tongue snaked out and flicked across his upper lip. "Mmmm. Chocolate." Lips sucked at the corner of his mouth, nipping lightly before withdrawing. "You should really be more neat with your food," she whispered, lifting his hand to her face. Mulder's only response was a heavy expulsion of breath as a warm mouth surrounded his index finger, the tongue licking and sucking, teeth scraping along the length, tugging on the loose skin of his knuckle. Her hands gently massaged his palm as she increased suction until his finger pressed against her upper palate. He looked down at her head bobbing rhythmically over his hand and felt a jolt of desire that travelled from his finger down to his painfully engorged penis. He marvelled that simply the feel of her hands and mouth on his right index finger could have such an immediate effect on him. He longed to undo his pants and guide that hot, teasing mouth to his aching cock, and the thought forced a low moan from deep in his throat. Scully gently pushed his finger from her mouth and looked up at him, smiling. "Who says leftovers can't be good?" She grinned wickedly and began to sit back, but Mulder caught her by the back of the head and leaned in, kissing her roughly, wetly, thrusting in his tongue, sucking in the whole of her mouth into his as a hand twisted in her red hair. He released her and neither moved, breathing heavily into each other's mouths. "Tease," Mulder breathed. "And what are you gonna do about it, Agent Mulder?" "You issuing a challenge, Agent Scully?" She maintained eye contact, still smirking. He pushed her back to the ground and leaned over her. Noticing the bulge in his pants, Scully's smile widened. "You think that's funny, Scully? Don't worry...you'll get yours soon enough." "We'll see about that, won't we?" "Are you doubting me, Scully?" "Me? Doubt you? Never." "That's it. You're finished." Mulder reached down and began to undo the buttons on her shirt, carefully avoiding any contact with her skin. When the shirt hung loosely across her abdomen, he pushed it back from her shoulders. Scully flushed with embarassment when she remembered she was wearing a plain white cotton bra, completely practical and childlike, complete with a little pink bow and everything. She wanted to sink through the ground and disappear. "Sit up," Mulder commanded, tactfully choosing not to comment on his partner's choice of lingerie. He pulled the shirt off her arms and after a few seconds' struggle, disposed of the virginal brassiere. "Throw it far, far away where I can never find it, OK?" Her voice betrayed her embarassment. "It's not that bad," came a voice in her ear. And then Mulder's back was to her, deliberately untying her sneakers, tossing them aside, and then tugging her socks off. Purposely avoiding looking at her exposed chest, he worked the button and zipper of her pants, and when he felt her hips lift, closed his eyes and pushed off her jeans and underwear in one long tug. He stood and backed up a few paces, and only then did he allow himself to look at her. She lay on the ground, red hair fanned around her head. The flickering firelight cast shadows across her body, its whiteness starkly contrasting against the dark ground. Her face was a mixture of anticipation and trepidation as she watched him, attempting to gauge his reaction to her nakedness. His eyes wandered down to her breasts, the nipples beginning to pucker in the light breeze. Across her belly to the mound of curly auburn hair between her legs, then past it to her soft thighs to her toes, which were twitching nervously. He knelt next to her, cupping her jaw and turning her face to look into his. "You are beautiful." He mouthed each word deliberately, staring into her eyes. Scully laughed, a short, frightened sound, and turned her head away to look into the blackness of the forest. But the gentle, insistent hand pulled her back to face him, and this time both hands held her in place so that she was unable to turn away. "You are beautiful." Mulder's voice was thick with emotion and desire, and . Scully tried to push the thought from her mind, but it stuck stubbornly, making her fill simultaneously with terror and relief. "You are beautiful," he repeated. "Say it." She averted her eyes in pleased embarrassment. "Say it." "I'm beautiful," she said in a small voice. "Again." She turned and faced him fully, letting the mask fall away, permanently. She had made her decision. "I'm beautiful." This time her voice was stronger. "You are." He dropped a kiss on each eyelid and laid his rough cheek against her smooth, damp one. He rested that way for a few long minutes, until her breathing became more even and restive. Mulder felt as if he had come home. Safer and happier than he had been in 25 years, he had found joy, fulfillment and... love? ...love in the arms of his partner. The first time they had made love had been feverish, powered by the exploding passion of years of pent-up tension, with a little help from Samantha and Will, of course. < They are gone. Let them go and live your life for the beautiful woman in your arms>. Mulder felt a twinge of pain but let himself be soothed by Scully's rhythmic breathing and her fingers gently running through his hair. He pulled back slightly and they kissed, a long, slow, soft kiss that spoke of words as of yet unsaid, but tacitly known and understood. Mulder trailed a hand down her side, around the swell of her breast, through the dip of her waist to her hip where it rested pensively. "You OK?" Scully looked up at him, her eyes betraying her anxiety. "I'm fine." Suddenly an idea hit him. "I'm better than fine. Just a sec." He dropped a quick kiss on her lips and moved towards the campfire. Scully heard paper crinkling and then saw Mulder leaning over the fire, holding the large, semi-wrapped chocolate bar just above the flame. After a few moments, he moved to her side, cupping the melting chocolate in his hands. Scully couldn't suppress a smile at the cliche of it all. "You're not really going to-" The words were cut off by a gasp. Melted chocolate was being drawn in a circle around her left breast. Then her right. Mulder crouched over her, his face a mask of concentration as he drew a line down the center of her chest to her navel, where he purposefully placed a small piece of chocolate. Scully smiled. "Hey Picasso, you having fun?" Mulder looked up at her, nodded solemnly and anointed each nipple with a drop of chocolate. Then he was smearing a line of chocolate across her upper lip and covering it with his own, kissing off the sweetness. Her response to his kisses shocked even her. Immediately and passionately aroused, she moaned against his mouth, pulling him closer and tugging impatiently at his T-shirt. He briefly leaned back to pull it off over his head, and the moment it came off, Scully roughly pulled him back down, kissing him open-mouthed. His tongue was delicately napped in chocolate, and she sucked it into her mouth hungrily. Mulder groaned deep in his throat. Where was the shy girl he had seen a few minutes ago? Gone. It must be the woods. He decided to bring her camping more often. Scully ran her hands over the stiff lump in his pants, squeezing and massaging, reveling in his sharp intake of breath as he rolled back on his heels and struggled with his pants, catching his underwear in the zipper in his haste. "Shit," he mumbled, fiddling with the zipper, trying to work his briefs out of captivity. . Scully propped herself up on an elbow. "Need help?" "No..." To add insult to injury, his erection was quickly fading in embarassment. "You look like you need help. Let me." Scully reached forward, grabbed the denim waist of his jeans, and gave a mighty yank. With a loud rrrriiippp, denim and cotton were seperated, although the underwear were scarred beyond recognition. Immediately a soft hand was caressing his flaccid penis, feeling it grow longer and harder under it's gentle ministrations. He leaned forward and licked the circles of chocolate around her breasts, gradually swirling inward to the nipples which had grown pinker and tighter. Mulder focussed all his attention on completely cleaning the sensitive tips of all the sweetness, sucking long after the chocolate had dissipated, enjoying the throaty moans issuing from his partner's mouth, her back arching up to him and her hand pressing down on his head every time he lifted it from her breasts. She squirmed under him; a surreptitious glance downward revealed she was twisting her hips and rubbing her thighs together in an auto-erotic trance. Mulder pulled away from her body before she had a chance to go over the edge without him. He deliberately pulled her thighs apart and grinned up at her. "In a hurry, Scully? D'you have something better to do?" She shook her head languorously, smiling. "Then don't do my job for me." "I didn't know this was *work*, Agent Mulder." "Trying to keep from ravishing you right now is a great deal of work, I'll have you know." A small chuckle. "That was ridiculously cheesy, Mulder." "You love it." "Mmmm-hmmm. Whatever you say." She leaned forward to take him into her mouth. This was just what had started the whole thing; the fantasy of Scully's mouth working the same magic on his cock as she had on his finger. But the sensation was too intense, her fingers scratching at the sensitive area behind his balls combined with the teasing, teasing suction was driving him dangerously close to the edge. He pulled her mouth up from him and kissed her, tasting the slippery salt of his impending orgasm on her lips. Pressing her gently down, Mulder extracted the piece of warm chocolate he had stored in her navel. Placing the candy on his tongue, he buried his face in her damp curls, massaging the sensitive nub with the flat of his tongue, melted chocolate combining with her copious juices. He spread her pink folds and gave one long lick, savouring the flavour before returning to flick her swollen bud with the tip of his tongue. Scully was writhing beneath him now, her head rolling from side to side, hands clutching at the thick grass, wantonly thrusting her hips at his face, moaning and sighing and crying out to God. He felt her muscles begin to stiffen in anticipation and he pulled back. Releasing a small whine of frustration, she rolled onto her belly, a hand snaking beneath her hips to pleasure herself. Mulder caught the hand and pulled it away, shocked that unshakable, highly civilized Scully was becoming almost bestial in her quest for release. She reeked of want and need and primitive sex, the scent hanging heavy in the air around them, making Mulder dizzy and heady. "Mulder...Fox...please..." Her voice was thick with desire. "I need...I need..." She rose on her hands and knees, her hips rocking back and forth deliciously, offering herself to him. "Please." He pressed his chest to her back and leaned over her, gently nipped her earlobe and whispered raggedly, "Please what? What do you want? Tell me." She turned her head to the side to look at him, a damp strand of hair caught in the side of her mouth. Sweat beaded her upper lip. She caught his eye and the words fell from her mouth, barely audible: "Fuck me." And then he was inside her, holding her hips against him as he thrust in and out, trying to control the jagged rhythm as she squirmed back to take more of him inside, moaning and gasping with each hard thrust. Mulder knew he was fighting a losing battle against his own self-control, that this was sex in its most simple, primitive form, purely instinctual, with no regard for sensual play and cloying eroticism. And so he gave into it, grunting as he buried himself to the hilt in her, mildly surprised at the animalian sounds emerging from within him. He felt his orgasm building and thrusted harder and faster, until he lost himself and was hurtling through pleasure, again throwing himself against Scully's back, teeth biting into the soft flesh of her shoulder. She arched her back and screamed, her face twisted in ecstasy as her own orgasm overtook her, squeezing him tight, milking him of every drop of hot fluid. Her knees were weak and beginning to wobble; still breathing raggedly, she let her knees go out from under her and laid flat on her belly. Mulder rested his head between her shoulderblades, trying to catch his breath. Idly he licked at a line of sweat that ran down her spine, getting a shiver from her in response. Winding a finger in her damp hair, Mulder said the only thing he could think of. "Hey." "Hey yourself." Scully rolled over onto her back, his tumescent penis slipping out of her with a soft sucking sound. Her eyes were closed, and every time she tried to open them, they soon fluttered back closed. A smile played on her lips and she stretched languorously against the ground. Mulder drank in the sight. Gone was the self-consciousness and anxiety she had displayed earlier. "That was..." He felt his stomach tighten as she opened her eyes, full and dark and trusting. "That was...amazing." "Mmmm." Scully sighed and curled on her side, facing him. "I'm dirty." Mulder smiled widely. "I'll say." She swatted him lightly. "I'm covered in grass and dirt and..." "Chocolate." "Yes, can't forget the chocolate." "You better not." "Don't worry, Mulder, I never will." "Well," Mulder slowly sat up. "How about a dip in the lake? Ever been skinny dipping?" Scully pulled herself into a standing position. "More times than you know." She began to walk towards the lake, naked and illuminated in moonlight. She took his breath away. He jogged a few steps and caught up with her. "Who'd you go skinny dipping with? I want names." "Why?" "Why? So I can kill them." "Very mature, Fox." "It's part of my charm, Dana." "Is that what you call it?" She walked down the crooked dock purposefully and stood at the edge. Holding out her hand, she gestured for him to come closer. Mulder approached her and caught her hand. "We'll jump in together," she said. "It looks really cold." "It'll feel great once we're in." "You trying to get me to take the plunge', Scully?" He squeezed her hand. Scully raised an eyebrow and returned the squeeze. -------------------------------------------- So what happens next? Move on to Part 4 and ease that hungry curiosity that *I know* is eating you alive. From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 13:25:19 1996 They stood on the edge of the dock, staring down at the black water. Further out, a strip of moonlight illuminated the lake, its rippling calmness beckoning them. "You ready?" Scully's voice was barely a whisper. "Any time you are." "OK. On my count. One- two- three!" They both remained on the dock, staring at the water a few feet below them. Scully's toes curled around the edge of the dock. They laughed at their own trepidation. "It does look cold." "It really does. But it's not every day two FBI agents get to go skinny dipping in a Wisconsin lake after incredible sex. So let's embrace it." Scully still looked as if she was considering backing out. "It's now or never, Dana." She took a deep breath. "On my count- for real this time." Mulder squeezed her hand tightly. "One- two- three!" And then they were engulfed by the water, sinking as one to the sandy bottom, their ankles tickled by tendrils of kelp. Pushing against the lake floor, they rocketed to the surface, breaking water and splashing down powerfully. "Sweet Mary mother of Christ it's cold!" Mulder hugged Scully to him. "Stay close." "I'm just as cold as you are." Nevertheless, she wrapped her arms around his waist and moved closer, moving a hand around to pinch his butt. "Feel free to continue doing that, just don't move your hand to the other side, OK?" "Why, Mulder?" Scully feigned innocence. "Feeling small?" "Non-existent." "I can try to fix that...." "No offense, but I don't think the hand of God could fix this." "Well, warm up then." Scully pushed away from his chest and swam a few feet. "Race you to that patch with the moonlight." "What does the winner get?" "Win and you'll find out." With that, Scully started forward in a smooth front crawl. Mulder watched her for a few seconds, her whiteness cutting through black water, the rounded cheeks of her ass peeking out of the water. Breathing deeply, he dove underwater and swam forward, his belly skimming the sandy floor. He could see her moving above him, strongly gliding forward. As he passed under her, he lifted an arm and trailed his fingers along her underside, causing her to stop abruptly, startled. Mulder swam on, surfacing just inside the moonlight. "I won!" He shouted to Scully, who swam towards him in a casual breaststroke. "Interference. Didn't count." "How was I to know this wasn't touch swimming?" She dipped underwater and surfaced next to him, sliding tantalizingly against his chest as she emerged. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. To an outsider, it may have been unclear where one ended and the other began, they were a tangle of arms and legs and hair, feet twining around thighs and lips breathing the hot air expelled from the other's mouth. Arms around his neck, she leaned back to shake the water from her hair. The water glistened on her body, it seemd to glow in the moonlight, the sheen defining her, from the soft curve of her shoulders to the sharp points of her nipples. He felt overwhelmed by feeling, his breath catching in his throat as he watched the woman in his arms. The sensation was so intense that he felt tears rising, and he pressed his face in the hollow of her neck. "I love you," he breathed into the damp flesh. Scully wasn't sure what it was he said. She knew what it sounded like, but it was a bit muffled, and it could have been anything. The tension was palpable. "So, Mulder. What does the winner want as a prize? Your wish is my command." She tried to smile gamely, but it came off as tight and controlled. Fox looked up at her, his hair standing in wet spikes, his eyes wide and damp. He looked like a frightened little boy. He lifted an arm from the water and gently pulled her head down so it was level with his. Resting his forehead against hers, he took a deep breath and let the carefully constructed walls crumble to dust . "Don't leave me." "Mul-" His hand touched her lips and silenced her. "I want it to always be like this. I want to be with you forever, I want to sleep next to you every night, I want you to be the mother of my children-" Scully gently pulled his hand from her lips. She stared at him for a few long moments, and then looked away. "Mulder, we have to talk." His heart sank. All he felt was a dull ache in his chest. That and a need to curl up and die. Scully turned and began to swim towards shore. Mulder followed behind, slowly, biting back tears and inwardly chastising himself for ever having dared wish that someone like Scully couuld ever want someone like him. He felt an inner cold wash over him, and when he pulled himself out of the water, his expression was stony. Scully sat on the edge of the dock, hunched over, her toes skimming the water. Mulder lay on his back, staring up at the stars, wishing that he could somehow be up there, away from all this, looking down on others' agony as opposed to feeling the sharp pain of his own. "Well?" His voice came out harsher than he had intended. "Well what?" She flicked some water into the air with the tip of her toe. "You want to talk, Scully? Talk." "It's about...what you said back there." An arm gestured weakly towards the water. "Forget it. Forget I said anything, OK? "Why?" She tilted her head and looked at him, her brows drawn together in confusion. "Why? Why? I can't believe you actually have to ask." "Why are you so upset?" "Because I handed you my heart and you stamped on it." His voice was rising. "One minute you're begging me to fuck you, and the next minute it's Mulder, we have to talk.'" "Firstly, I hardly begged. Secondly, Mulder, you're reading this wrong. It's not about my not wanting you, it's just-" "Our careers. I know, Scully, I've played it out in my mind a million times. What'll Skinner think? We could lose our jobs. Our enemies could use it against us. All the huge what-ifs and I thought that maybe, just maybe, we might be able to get past it." "I think we can-" "Just put it all in the past. Fine, Scully, if that's what you want." Her hand smashed down on the dock inches from his face. "Shut up, will you, and let me talk! For once listen to me instead of your own insecure, pseudo-strong, egotistical fears. There are more people in the world than just you, Fox Mulder, and not everyone conforms to your paranoiac fantasies of persecution." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "I don't want to leave you. It's just...something you said out there...well, we need to talk about it, Mulder." "What?" The question was small and full of trepidation. "You said you wanted me to be the mother of your children-" "I was caught up in the moment, Scully. People say stupid things." She turned away from him and stared into the water, wishing she hadn't started the conversation, wishing she could just let him go on in ignorance. But it was she that had instigated this, and she felt compelled to finish. "I didn't think it was such a stupid thing to say, Mulder." "Come on, look at the two of us. You said yourself I'm paranoid, insecure and egotistical. What kind of father would I make?" "I don't know." "I'll tell you, then. Shitty. As badly as I may want it one day, I think I would make a thoroughly shitty father." "I don't agree." "Yeah? Tell me why." "Well, I mean... remember Will and Samantha? They seemed to hold you in pretty high regard." His reply was heavy with bitterness. "Yeah, but they never existed, right, Scully? A hallucination. They're dead." "No they're not." "I...we saw it, Scully. They disappeared, just like my sister, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. What a great father, eh?" "You tried." "I failed. And now they're dead." "No they're not." "What makes you so sure, Scully?" An idea crossed his mind, and he sat up quickly on his elbows. "You didn't see them, did you?" His voice was rapid with excitement. "No, I didn't." Mulder flopped back down, folding his arms across his chest. "Then how do you know they're alive?" "Because I'm pregnant." Her words hit him hard, and it took a few moments for the gravity of the statement to sink in. "You're sure?" A pause, and then a nod. "But you said you weren't-" "I wasn't sure and I didn't want to say anything..." "And now you know?" More nodding. "It happened... you...we... in Louisiana. That's where it happened, right?" "The only other chance I had to get pregnant was tonight, Mulder. Now I know I'm a good doctor, but no one is that good." Her attempt at humour was strained. He breathed in deeply, once, twice. Sammy and Will had done it. They had orchestrated their own conception and now they were alive, inside of Scully, waiting to be born and raised and in a few short months there would be diapers to change and bottles to prepare and thank god he never slept, he could wake up with the kids and Dana could get some sleep... He felt a slow smile spreading across his face. Little fingers, little feet. His mind was flying in nine thousand directions at once, trying to swallow this new revelation, and it was a while before he noticed that Scully was still sitting silently, her back to him, waiting. Mulder sat up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned towards him, head down, afraid to look at his expression. She was trying to keep herself in check, but her fingers, white and holding on to the dock for dear life, betrayed her anxiety. Lifting her chin in his fingers, Mulder met her unsure gaze. He watched as her eyes searched his face, and, seeing the expression there, she smiled a tiny, trembling smile, then pitched herself into his arms, crying. He held her and stroked her hair, rocking her like a small child. "Hey...hey. What are you crying for?" The reply was muffled in his shoulder. "I'm just... happy. Happy that you're happy." "Are *you* happy?" He pulled back from her a bit. Her face, tear-streaked and beautiful, broke into the sweetest smile he had ever seen. "I'm happy, Fox. I'm happier than I've ever been. And more scared." "Me too, Dana. Me too." She snuffled and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "When you said you wanted me to be the mother of your children, you didn't expect me to come through so quickly, did you?" "I most certainly did not." He kissed her eyelids, tasting the salty tears there. "But it's the best prize I've ever won in my whole life, Dana, and I swear I will do everything in my power not to screw it up." "I have faith in you, Mulder. Your kids have faith in you. Now all you need is a little faith in yourself." ******* She woke in his arms. Her head cradled in the hollow beneath his collarbone, one leg tossed over his and one hand resting against the side of his throat, feeling the pulse beating warmly, steadily, beneath her fingers. She raised her head furtively to steal a look at him. He looked... well, he looked like a normal person finally getting some sleep after a long period of deprivation. Which he was. Scully hadn't known the extent to which their arguing over the incidents in Louisiana had preyed on him. He had been consumed with it, he had said in the dark tent last night, his fingers drawing nonsensical swirling patterns across her abdomen. He had felt as if he had finally reached peace, that everything was finally coming together, and then the carpet had been yanked out from under him. I did that to you,' she had whispered, turning her head away from him in guilt. It's over now,' he had said, stroking the side of her face. Let's move on.' And he had made love to her again, slowly this time, agonizingly slowly, running his hands and lips and tongue across every inch of her, learning her, memorizing the sensitive spots and the reactions he drew from her. Their joining was gentle, and they had rocked together in the darkness of the tent, unhurried, knowing that there would be many more opportunities, that neither of them was going anywhere. Their partnership was complete now; they were partners at work, they were lovers, and they were preparing to become parents together. Scully softly kissed the mole on his left cheek and made a mental note to investigate him as thoroughly as he did her. Mulder shifted and his grip on her tightened. "Good morning," she nuzzled into his neck. "Mmmmm..." Still half asleep, his hands began to roam over her hungrily, moist lips seeking out her own. She let herself enjoy his sleepy seduction for a few minutes before gently pushing him away. "Gotta go to work, Loverboy." She extracted herself from his grip, and, wrapped in a blanket, unzipped the tent-flap. "I've forgotten how cold it can get in the morning." "Then come back to bed." His hands tugged at the blanket. "The sooner we get through with this case, the sooner we can get home." She dropped a kiss on his big toe. "You have ugly feet," she said cheerfully. "Let's hope the kids inherit your tiny feet, then." She smiled wryly at him over her shoulder, then pulled the sleeping bag off him roughly. "We have work to do, Agent Mulder, and I can't have you lazing around in bed all day. What would Skinner think?" "Oh thanks alot, Scully. Here I am with a raging morning-erection, and you have to bring Skinner into it." "It's a surefire way to kill your libido." Mulder squared and hunched his shoulders, staring at her and speaking in a deep voice. "Now when I was in Nam, we'd all go down to the local whorehouse on a Friday night-" "Oh God!" Scully slipped through the flap and out into the morning. Mulder followed close behind. "And the madam, this old Mama-San, she says Waw-ter, I haf some-ting fo you'." Scully quickly pulled on her clothes, and, laughing, tossed him his own. "And boy did she ever! In the back room, where old Thulan used to be, this American girl! Little redhead, just about your size, Agent Scully..." Scully was laughing hard now, as Mulder stood in the center of the clearing like a great orator, clad in only dress socks and a button down shirt, his hard-on poking through the space between the two bottom buttons. Suddenly a wave of nausea overtook her, and she rocked a bit unsteadily. "Hey Scully, you OK?" Mulder stopped his monologue. She nodded, then changed her mind and shook her head, dashing for the nearest bushes. Mulder stroked her head as she knelt and vomited, shivering and sweating. He pulled her against him as the dry heaves subsided. "I know my impression of Skinner wasn't that great, but come on, even I didn't think it warranted *that* kind of reaction." She smiled weakly. " I don't want to be pregnant anymore. I'm sick of feeling sick." "It'll pass." "Yeah. In six months. Boy, will it ever pass. With a big bang." "Maybe when you talk to Kline today you can ask him to write you up an anti-nauseant or something." "I can write one up myself, Mulder." Scully stood, brushing the dead leaves from the knees of her pants, frowning at the slight grass stains. "He's a specialist. Maybe there's something new that you haven't heard of." "I doubt it." "Maybe you're usual anti-nauseants are contraindicated to pregnancy. I wouldn't want-" "Anything to hurt the babies." She finished the sentence for him. "I understand. I'll ask Dr. Kline about it. I promise." She rose on tiptoe and kissed him. "Now let's get a move-on, slowpoke!" Scully slapped his butt and took pleasure in the sharp sound. "And put some pants on, would you?" ---------------------------------- Mulder drove away from the campsite, leaving Scully behind to settle the bill with a park worker. As he drove, he tried to re-enact a daily routine- on the way to work, he'd run through the case at hand, reviewing facts, forming theories, and anticipating the day's events. Yet today, he was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything. The mystery of Casey Burgher gnawed at him, but with the reveltions of last night, his mind was flying in a million different directions: Making love to Dana Scully, hearing her sweet moans and cries as he moved inside her, mouth wet, open, altrnately breathing his name and god's. Hips urging him deeper, her nails raking across his back, sending him hurtling over the edge, blind to everything but the intense pleasure of being buried to the hilt inside her, tight and hot. And then waking, tangled around her, pressed together, the tent heavy with the intoxicating scent of clean sweat and heady sex. Mulder stopped on the rural road as a schoolbus picked up another load of children for the local elementary school. The kids jostled and pushed, some kneeling backwards on the seat, chatting to a friend sitting behind them. A chubby boy lolled against a window, asleep, drooling. The boy in the back seat stuck out his tongue and flipped Mulder the bird, much to the delight of his buddies. A little girl with blonde pigtails waved shyly. Mulder waved back just as the girl was yanked back by one of her pigtails. Once again, the bully's pals cheered. Driving off, Mulder decided her would most likely murder anyone who even so much as touched his daughter's pigtails. Especially insolent little farts who always claimed the back seat of the bus as their exclusive territory. He wanted to protect his kids from the cruelty he had endured at the hands of bullies- hell, he wanted to protect them from the whole world . Besides, Scully wouldn't let him shelter them. She would let them make mistakes, try to bandage the wounds, and then set them off again to learn and make more mistakes and grow strong. If Mulder had his way, he wouldn't let them out of the house until college, if then. In the tent last night, while eating heaping bowlfuls of Cap'n Crunch, Scully had calculated her due date. Around Valentine's Day, give or take.' Mulder rolled his eyes. What a curse, being born on Valentine's.' Not nearly as bad as Christmas. Besides, if it's twins, they're bound to arrive earlier.' They smiled at eachother. As if there were any question. Of course it was twins, they both knew it as surely as they knew what happened in Louisiana was a wrinkle in time even Scully could no longer deny. The thought of his unborn children made Mulder feel dizzy, disoriented. It all still felt unreal to him, as if it were a dream he was watching from behind the flimsy gauze of consciousness. But it was the new Mulder-reality, and it was better than he had ever hoped for- because Dana wanted it, too. He thought of the pain Claire Burgher must be feeling- her only child vegetative, and with no reasonable explanation as to why. What few leads he had Mulder would follow up on today, but he held out no great hope for closing this case. ------------------------------- 10:30 Beryl Ropery's kitchen Mulder sat across the table from Beryl, who was in much better spirits, having won sole custody of Ivy in family court yesterday. They sipped coffee and Beryl nibbled at a slice of pound cake. "Of course we're all a little shaken... but once we all adjust, I really do believe it's for the best." Mulder hoped his children were never forced to make that choice. "So, Dr. Livesay was on sabbatical the year Ivy and the other children were born. Did you travel to Madison for all your prenatal care?" "No... Ephraim Kline took over his practice for the year. It was Effie who delivered Ivy." "Effie?" "He's a local boy. We grew up together, next door neighbors, as a matter of fact. Same grade in school, our birthdays were only a week apart, too." "Which side?" "Pardon?" "Kline... which side did he live on?" "The Klines lived in Claire Burgher's house." "Do you have any pictures of him?" "Yeah. Just a sec." Beryl rose and walked into the livingroom, selecting a leatherbound book from a high shelf. Class of 1978' was embossed on the cover. "What was... Effie... like, growing up?" "Quiet. Bookish. Kept to himself, mostly." "Any trouble in school?" "He got teased alot. He was an easy target for bullies." "How so?" Beryl hesitated, and began to speak, somewhat guiltily. "Well, you see, his parents were odd... they spoke with accents... the Klines were the only Jewish family in Waterdown." "So he got picked on for being Jewish?" "Not only that. He looked...unusual." "An ugly Jewish kid?" The words came out more harsh than Mulder had intended. Beryl stared into her lap. "I guess so, yeah." After a few moments she stood up and began to clear the coffee mugs from the table. "But eventually it was like he asked for it. He turned really mean, about halfway through high school." "Anything in particular set off that stage?" "Yes." Beryl turned her back to him, arms crossed, staring out the window. "A bunch of us, we made this really big deal about electing him our sophomore class president. We offered to head his campaign, take him to all the parties, help him with his appearance..." "And?" "And we did all that. But on election day, we had a video presentation planned to go with Effie's speech... but what was on the tape was not what Effie was expecting. Turns out Jeff Taylor had been taping him in the boy's locker room, on the sly. And one day Rick filmed Effie... well... playing with himself." Mulder stopped breathing. "That's what they played in front of the school." "Oh my god...." Mulder felt residual shame, nauseated and not even beginning to comprehend the hell Ephraim Kline must have dwelt in. "That's when he turned mean." "I don't doubt it, Mrs. Ropery." "We were kids, Agent Mulder. Kids are cruel." Beryl sat down. "When he came back to Waterdown, to take over for Dr. Livesay... I swear it wasn't the same person. So charming, funny... Suave. Maybe a bit too slick for my taste." Mulder took a deep breath and started along a less volatile path. "Mrs. Ropery.... were you aware of any, well, family disturbances over at the Kline house?" "What do you mean?" " Did you ever hear fights? Maybe Mr. Kline drank a little too much-" Beryl laughed out loud. "If you're suggesting that Isaac Kline was a tyrant, you couldn't be further from the truth. The Klines were the quietest, most shy couple I've ever met. In the seventeen years they lived next door to me, I doubt I exchanged more than fifty words with them." "Where are the Klines now?" "They died... in 1978. Car crash." Mulder reached for the yearbook. "May I?" Beryl pushed it towards him. "Go ahead." She sat, gnawing uncomfortably on her thumbnail, her eyes flickering restlessly. In the graduates section, Mulder quickly located a photo of Ephraim Kline. He instantly saw why he was marked out as the class outsider. Kids loved nothing more than somebody who was different, and Ephraim Kline definitely had a different appearance. Gaunt and thin, his face was heavily acne-scarred. Lank hair had been greased back without finesse, making it look as if his hair had simply gone without washing for a few months. His left eye was lazy, and only half the iris protruded from below the eyelid. He wore huge, thick, black-rimmed glasses. The grad statement beside the picture said: TWELFTH NIGHT... V, i, 380. Mulder picked up his cell phone. ------------------------------------------ Madison, Wisconsin Scully's cell phone rang just as she started in on her second Egg McMuffin of the morning. "Scully," she mumbled, mouth full. "It's me. You eating?" She chewed quickly and swallowed, leaving a dry lump of Egg McMuffin in her throat. "No. I'm not eating." She washed down the nasty lump with a gulp of orange juice. "How are things?" "Yeah... I need you to stop by a library or bookstore and pick me up a copy of Twelfth Night'. That's by Shakespeare." "I may have majored in Physics, Mulder, but I'm not a complete fool." She cradled the phone between her chin and shoulder as she made a tight left turn. "Sorry to have underestimated you. Just pick me up a copy, OK?" "Sir, yes, SIR!" She barked. "Is it important?" "I don't know. We'll see. I'm going over to the Burgher's house right now. Give me a call when you're finished speaking with Kline."" The phone clicked as Mulder hung up. So, much for her Mulder-as-a-hopeless-romantic fantasies. Wasn't going to happen. Here she was, after a night of the most incredible sex either of them had ever experienced, hell, *she was pregnant with his children*, and he was still hanging the phone up on her. She supposed old habits died hard. At least there was no fear of Mulder losing his professional demeanour in light of their sudden change in relationship. Ephraim Kline's practice was located on the sixth floor of an ultra-modern high-rise. Inside, it was decorated in white ceramic and chrome. The only things to indicate that this was the office of an obstetrician were the parenting magazines littering the glass coffee table and the small collection of children's toys scattered in a far corner. The waiting room was empty. Scully approached the secretary. "Hi, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI." The young secretary looked up, surprised. "Get out. Lessee..." She took Scully's ID and looked closely at it. "Whaddaya know? That's cool, I mean, really wild, you know?" "Yeah... it is... really wild." She tucked her badge back into her breast pocket. "I'd like to see Dr. Kline as soon as possible." "OK." The secretary looked down at her desk. "Is September first good for you? Say, four-thirty?" "Um, no... this isn't for an appointment, it's FBI business." "Oh, so you're not expecting?" "Actually, I am..." Scully faltered. "But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to ask him a few questions. And I'd like to see him as soon as possible." "Is he in trouble?" Scully tried to control her frustration, and spoke tightly, through her teeth. "No, he is *not* in trouble. But I *do* need to talk to him. It's *important*." "OK, OK." The secretary rolled her eyes. "Come back at one." "At one? It's only eleven." "Dr. Kline doesn't come in until one on Wednesdays." "Do I need to stress, yet again, how important this is?" "No you don't. But I'm not a genie. I can't make Dr. Kline appear on your command. The best you can do is wait around until he shows up. And if he shows up early, you can probably catch him." "Does he usually show up early?" "Yeah, and the Pope's a Hare Krishna." Scully sighed and wondered if medical secretaries were, as a unit, complete assholes. "Fine. Please tell him when you see him to hold all appointments until he's spoken to me. I'll be back before one." "Sure thing." The secretary called as Scully swept out the door. "You betcha," she mumbled angrily and punched the down' button on the elevator. ---------------------------------------------- Mulder stood on the storage box and looked at the roof of the Burgher's shed. Ivy had said Casey had found the glasses up here, but other than a collection of damp leaves floating in stagnant water and one chewed-up tennis ball, there was nothing to be found. Claire Burgher watched him from the patio doors, her arms crossed across her pink angora-clad breasts. Casey sat on the couch behind her, wrapped in blankets, staring into space. Claire wasn't too impressed with Mulder's suggestion that they try to recreate the last moments before Casey took ill, and had flat-out refused when he had suggested they bring the boy out into the yard. So they compromised. Casey would stay inside, and Mulder could play his games, as long as it wouldn't hurt the child. He sighed and rolled up his sleeves. It was turning into quite the warm summer day, and there was nothing he wanted more than to get out of the sun and get out of this suit and just...relax. With Scully. Or without. Just as long as he could get out of the suit. He turned to look into the adjoining yard, and that's when he was blinded. Wincing, he recoiled out of the path of the glare. When he regained vision, Mulder looked to the source of the light and saw a pair of glasses, warped and broken, lying in the ruins of a tomato patch. -------------------------- Whoo-hooo! Bet you're just writhing in agony now, eh? So am I... I wrote this in a marathon session and haven't slept in over 24 hours! From l_loise@alcor.concordia.ca Sat Nov 02 13:38:14 1996 Whoopsie! Forgot to mention the NC-17 bit in the previous section, 4/5. Forgive me, o fainthearted ones... oh, and the disclaimer in part one applies to all the parts, 'k? One often becomes forgetful when one is going through a disturbingly insomniac phase. ------------------ Madison Public Library Scully tucked the copy of Twelfth Night' under her arm and glanced at her watch. 11:26. More than an hour to kill. Seemingly without direction, Scully moved through the rows of books in the non-fiction section of the Madison Public Library until she stood in front of a large section labelled, in a curlicued font, Prenatal and Baby Care'. Selecting a pile of books at a ferocious rate, she found her way to a remote corner of the library and settled down to immerse herself in the only kind of literature she had ever seen pregnant women reading. ---------------- 11:26 Mulder entered the Burgher's lving room, holding the glasses in a handkerchief. "Are these the glasses Casey was wearing when you found him in the yard that day?" Claire sneered at the glasses in distaste. "Those dirty things? Yes. Heaven only knows where he finds this stuff.' "Any idea who they belong to?" "No. They look like those joke glasses, you know, the ones that come with the nose attached." "Except these are real, Mrs. Burgher. See?" Mulder held them up and flicked at the bubbled surface of the lenses. "Ivy Ropery said he found them on top of the shed." "Maybe he did. For all's I know, they coulda been up there for a hundred years. I don't see the point in cleaning the top of the shed, if you know what I mean. But I never seen em before." Mulder paused a few moments, wondering how to correctly word his request. "Mrs. Burgher... Claire..." He smiled up at her. She smiled back revealing some very poor bridgework. "Claire, I'd like to put these glasses on Casey." "Nope." The answer was short and final. "I think it may help-" "Dressin' my son up like some kind of fool is going to *help*?! If this is the best you can do, *Agent* Mulder, I think I'm ready for the Academy. Hell, I think my goddam *canary* is ready to be the next J.Edward Hoover!" "J. *Edgar* Hoover," Mulder said quietly. "What?" "Nothing... nothing at all." He clasped his hands between his knees and tried to begin again, his voice restrained with forced patience. "Claire. This is a well-known procedure that psychologists use to help trigger buried memories in patients. They try to re-create the atmosphere where trauma occurred. It has a statistically significant succcess rate, and proves to be very helpful in many difficult cases. Like your son's." "You're telling me that putting those things on my Casey's face could wake him up?" Claire's tone had softened a bit. "Maybe." Mulder held out the glasses to her. "It couldn't hurt to try, could it?" "No. I s'pose not." Claire took the glasses from him, eyeing them critically. "Can I clean them up first?" "I'd rather you didn't." She hesitated a few moments, then leaned towards her son, placing the glasses atop his small nose and placing the arms gently over the tops of his ears. She moved back to sit beside Mulder. They both watched Casey expectantly. He *did* look laughable, a tiny blonde Buddha swathed in a duvet printed with the ominous grinning face of The Mask', a pair of broken Groucho-Marx glasses balancing precariously on his face. There was no sound, no movement from him. "It's not working," Claire whispered loudly. "Just a minute more, OK, and you can take them off." After about thirty of seconds with no change, Mulder felt his last reserve of hope fade to dust. There was nothing more he could do. As far as he was concerned, this case was closed. "There's people smoking here," a small voice said from within the blankets. ------------------- 12:18 Scully was flipping through a thick tome, a medical journal on prenatal development. The book was full of large, glossy pictures of the developing fetus at every stage, detailing and outlining the myriad of complex changes occurring in it and the mother. The twins were about two and a half inches long now; they had all their major internal organs, steady heartbeats, and were beginning to develop fingers, toes and ears. The fetus in the picture looked human. The most grotesque human she had ever seen, but human nevertheless. Scully smiled and flipped forward a bit. The title of the final section was: Birth Defects and Congenital Abnormalities. A million alarm bells went off in her mind and her tiny inner voice became a booming foghorn entreating her not to look in this section. But morbid curiosity won out, and, with a small realm, Dana entered the realm of her worst nightmares. Pictures of profoundly deformed fetuses. A fetus with no limbs. One with no face. Babies born with their insides outside, brains and hearts and lungs protruding. One boy, painfully twisted, his back split open and his spine a mangled S' of malformed bone. Scully felt the fear and sickness rise in her as she looked at the pictures and read the captions underneath. One of the captions read:'Often such deformities are the result of genetic defieciencies in one or both parents.'. The sentence conjured up thoughts of her abduction, and the fact that she knew nothing of what had happened to her during that time, only that she remembered doctors, and she remembered pain. The word mutant' thrummed through her mind as she pushed away the book and hurried to meet Dr. Kline her veins coursing with fear. This, she decided, would have to be more than a professional consultation. -------------------------------- "Casey!" Claire moved to go to her son, but Mulder caught her with one arm and held her back. "Let him finish speaking," he said, and Claire Burgher slowly returned to a sitting position. "There's people smoking in here, and... eewwww....gross.... there's this boy and girl *kissing*..." "Casey, where are you?" "A party, I think. A big kid's party. I feel kind of sick. Like I'm gonna barf." "Look around you Casey, what do you see?" "Lots of big kids. Dancing, smoking. I'm standing beside a table that has chips on it. And one bowl of cheezies. There's lots of booze. Everybody has booze." "Do you, Casey?" The boy looked down, as if to check. His eyes widened. "Mommy please don't be mad at me." Claire winced. "I'm not, honey. Now please answer the nice man's questions." "My hand has a bottle of beer in it. Cept it doesn't look like my hand. It's big. And it has black hairs." "Do you know what your name is?" "Sure. Casey Burgher," the boy answered simply. "Do you know the name of the person who's holding the bottle of beer? The person with the big hands?" "No. But I'm stuck in him..." A look of panic flashed across Casey's face. "Don't worry, Casey, don't worry. You won't be stuck there much longer." Mulder glanced at Claire, who was twisting her hands nervously. "Casey, I want you to look around. Look hard. And tell me what you see." ------------------------ Fear for her unborn children had taken precedence over the case at hand. Scully explained that she wanted to ask him a few questions about the year he spent in Waterdown, but then plunged into her fears about her unborn child, saying she had had a very risky experience' in her past and was frightened as to the effect it could have on the fetus. Dr. Kline had tried, in a very patient, friendly, doctor-to-doctor way to quell her anxiety, but to no avail. Dana Scully, as per always, needed proof. And she would not believe otherwise until she got it. Kline pulled at his beard thoughtfully and regarded the woman sitting in the chair opposite him. She was so tightly wound she looked like she would come undone. She wanted anything, anything at all, to prove to her that her child was OK. "There is one thing I can do, Ms. Scully." "What?" "It's a newer procedure, and usually only utilized for women with a history of birth defects, but in your case, I'll make an exception." "What is it?" "It's called chorionic villi sampling. I take a thin needle and pass it through your cervix. I then take a small sample of the chorion villus, the membrane around the fetus that eventually becomes the placenta. This can be analyzed in a lab and can detect all of the defects amniocentesis could." "I'll do it." Dana Scully was already moving towards the examination table, pulling off her jacket. He held up a hand to stop her. She noticed the hand was abnormally large. And hairy. "That won't be necessary. Just the lower half of your clothing, please. Lie back on the table and pull the sheet up." Kline rummaged through a large cupboard. He pulled out a long, wrapped syringe and continued to sift through the contents. When his hand closed around what he was looking for he palmed the small item "You do realize, Ms. Scully, that like any other procedure, there are certain risks involved-" She cut him off. "I understand." Dr. Kline dropped the small vial into his jacket pocket. "Just giving the standard warning I give all my special clients, Agent Scully." ---------------------- Casey's blonde head pivoted slowly from side to side, examining his invisible surroundings. "There's a sign on the wall-" "What does it say?" "I'm not so good at reading...." "Try Casey, you gotta concentrate real hard and try for me. OK? Then you won't be stuck anymore." Mulder forgave himself this small lie. "It says... Epp...Epp...huh...ray..mm. Epp...huh..raim---" "Ephraim," Mulder prompted. "Ephraim K..K..Kl..ine...Kline. Ephraim Kline..for.. class...pres...pres-uh..." "President?" "Yeah." "Ephraim Kline for Class President," Mulder said to himself, recalling his conversation with Beryl Ropery. "What in the hell does this mean?" Claire Burgher hissed. "I'm not sure yet, but if you just let me talk to him for a few more minutes-" "I'm not feeling so good. Everything's spinning... think I'm gonna be sick..." Casey slumped forward, his chin resting on his thin chest, the glasses still on his face. "Take those goddam things off my son right now, Agent Mulder, or I swear to god you will be sued so badly you won't even own the shirt on your back!" Claire Burgher yelled. There was a knock at the door. ------------------------------------ Scully was on her back on the examination table, her hands folded protectively over her lower abdomen. She had always wondered why pregnant women, even the ones that didn't show, always assumed this posture. She still didn't know, but it comforted her to touch, to be close to them, to protect them the only way she could right now. Dr. Kline entered the room and pulled up a stool to the bottom of the examination table. Automatically, Dana raised her heels into the stirrups, feeling the same wave of embarassment she felt at this point in every gynecological exmaination she had ever had. Kline swung around the lamp until it was shining directly between her legs. She flushed . As the gloved fingers began a cursory examination of her external genitalia, she hoped...no, she *prayed*, that whatever chocolate Mulder had used on her last night had washed off during her dip in the lake. "So, you like Waterdown?" She couldn't bear it when a gynecologist made small talk with her, as if his cold, greasy fingers weren't poking her like a cantaloupe in the produce section. "Yes, Waterdown is a very nice place. Nice people. Actually, Beryl Ropery lent us her camping equipment last night. Do you know her?" "Beryl Ropery? Yes.... I know her very well..." "That's nice. Because she's a nice woman." "I didn't know you were a friend of Beryl's. In that case, I'm going to have to give you the V.I.P. treatment." Kline grinned up at her as his right hand surreptitiously removed the vial from his pocket. He reached for the syringe and began to remove the sterile wrapper. "OK, Dr. Scully, I'm going to need you to relax..." __________________ And Casey threw back his head and screamed, a wail of such intensity and anguish that both Mulder and Claire were paralyzed and struck dumb. Beryl Ropery opened the front door and came running into the living room, skidding to a halt when she saw the figure on the couch, his face red and twisted. Again he wailed, and then the words came pouring from his mouth in a broken stream. "I..... I... was sleeping in the back seat.... passed out... they were driving me home.... Rick and Cynthia, Jeff and Beryl-" Beryl Ropery gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. "...and then there's these lights.... blue and red... flashing.... and fire... the car is pointed the wrong way... somebody is pulling me out... oh god my leg hurts... hurts... the car is pointing the wrong way but the other is burning... carry me past it.... hothothothot.... the police are talking to Jeff and Beryl... Rick is being driven away... oh GOD my leg, it's BLEEDING, everything is spinning, and the blue and red lights and the fire and I can hear Beryl crying...." Silent sobs rocked Beryl Ropery as she watched her daughter's friend twist on the couch. "I'm on the stretcher and in the ambulance. They put another person... they stink... like smoke... I turn to look at the person, and.... OH GOD....DADDY!! MOMMYDADDYMOMMYDADDYDADDYDADDYDADDYDADDY.... He smells like the time Mom burnt the pork roast... he smells like burnt meat and he's trying to talk but he can't because *his throat is burned shut*..." Mulder felt his gorge rising. He swiftly leaned forward and took the glasses from Casey's face. The child slumped back on the couch, breathing heavily. After a few breathless moments, he opened his eyes. "Mum? What's wrong?" Claire went and picked him up with shaking hands. "Nothing, babe. Nothing's wrong. Why don't you and me go upstairs for a sec, OK?" Casting a glance over her shoulder at Mulder and Beryl, she mounted the stairs, her son in her arms. "Mum, why is Mrs. Ropery crying? Is she sad? Mum... I'm sooo tired...." Mulder struggled to control his breathing. He turned to Beryl Ropery. "His parents? He was in the car that killed his parents?" Beryl was crying hard, her voice hitching and slurring. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Agent Mulder, it's just that... it's so hard, even now, to think about that night...." "It's hard for you? *It's hard for you*? Imagine what it must be like for Ephraim Kline. He was passed out in the car that hit and killed his parents! He laid in the ambulance beside his dying father! And then what did he have?" Beryl looked up at him, her face tear-streaked. "His friends?" she said hesitantly. "What friends! Jesus Christ, Mrs. Ropery, what friends! What kind of friends kill his parents-" "It was an accident-" "Fine. It was an accident. But after that accident, did you and the rest of Ephraim's *friends* show him any support, any sympathy or regret or caring? No. You went ahead with your little prank on election day and made his life *completely* unbearable." Mulder leaped up and began to pace, trying to calm his temper. "Don't tell me kids are cruel' because that, *that* is just sick," he spat, stopping in front of the bookshelf. His eyes came to rest on an old, thick book. The Complete Works of Shakespeare'. He picked it up and ruffled through the pages. "You know, I don't blame Ephraim Kline for turning into a mean person." His finger traced the margins of Act V, scene one of Twelfth Night'. "If I were him, I would hate every last one of you." Mulder's finger stopped at line 380. Malvolio: I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you! Mulder slammed the volume shut and rushed to dial his cell phone, his fingers slipping over the keypad in his haste. "Come on, Scully, *come on*..." ------------------- Her cell phone rang just as the needle was being introduced into her. Scully jumped, and the needle pierced her vaginal wall, causing her to let out small gasp. "Just lay back, Dr. Scully. We're almost done. You can get the phone afterwards." One large hand pushed her back down by applying a steady, but strong pressure on her lower abdomen. Somehow, Scully felt more invaded by that action than the intensely more intimate one's he was performing below. The phone continued to ring, and with each ring, the anxiety curling through her grew, making her feel sick, uneasy, threatened. A new needle was being slowly pushed inside her. "I should really get the phone..." she ventured, moving her knees together. This time Kline was not so solicitous. He roughly shoved her knees open and held them that way with one arm. "You will *not* answer the phone until I am finished here!" Dana recoiled in shock from the sudden change, from his overtly threatening words and actions. Lifting one foot from the stirrup, she kicked out at his breastbone, knocking him off the stool and onto the floor. Leaping from the examination table, she grabbed for both her phone and her gun. With the gun trained on the prostrate Kline, she hit the talk' button. "Scully." "It's me. Where are you?" "Kline's office, and-" "Get out of there, *now*, Scully, he's the one who did it, he's the one who hurt all those babies-" "I know, Mulder." She felt the fear of what could have been winding through her, up through her throat and emerging as a cracked voice. "I know," she whispered, gazing at Ephraim Kline. "Are you OK?" "Yes. We're fine. Please come." "I'm on my way." Scully hung up and called the police, without ever taking her gun from Kline. She then laid the phone down, grabbed the sheet from the examination table with her free hand, and covered her naked lower half, feeling horribly invaded and very protective. "Turn over onto your stomach." Her voice came out dry, raspy. Kline rolled over, and now it was Scully's turn to manhandle him as she roughly pulled his arms back and handcuffed him. "You can wait here." She turned, and, discarding the sheet, began to dress herself, deliberately, an unsettling calm came over her. And she began to talk. "I hope they throw away the key, you son of a bitch. I will personally see to it that you rot in jail for the rest of your natural born life." She adjusted her jacket and crouched down next to him, shoving the butt of her gun into the soft flesh under his chin. "If anybody ever, *ever*, hurts my children the way you tried to, I swear to god I will kill that person in cold blood, I'd kill them without even thinking twice, I'd kill them with my bare hands and I wouldn't regret it for a second." She gave him one final shove before rising. On the pull-out tray at the end of the examination table lay the vial that Kline had hidden from her. The label adhered to it identified it as the rubella virus. Beside it lay the needle that had been inside her, partially filled with the yellowish fluid, a tiny drop of blood glistening at it's tip. It was then that it all came flooding back to her and she lost her grip on the coolness she had just a moment ago had. Her knees felt weak, and her shoulders began to heave with the onslaught of tears. She blindly pushed her way from the examination room as the police pushed their way in. Finding a washroom, she locked herself in and vomited for what seemed like hours. Then, sweating and shaking, she curled up against the wall, arms wrapped around her belly, and let the tears take her. That was where Mulder had found her forty minutes later, when he had arrived to see the police escorting Ephraim Kline to his new dwelling at the state prison. He had held her with a grip that spoke of his own fear and relief until the sobs subsided and he felt her gently extricating herself from his arms. He smoothed her hair away from her face. "We're going to have to come back here, you know, to tesify against him." She nodded. "I don't care, as long as he gets put away." -------------------------- He had been assured that with the testimony of Dana Scully and over 20 women from Waterdown, Dr. Ephraim Kline *would* be spending a great length of time in the care of the state's prison system. He admitted his guilt. He readily admitted that, for revenge, he had injected the rubella virus into his pregnant patients in 1988. When this didn't cause miscarriage, it caused various degrees of brain damage, hearing loss, and blindness among his tiny victims. All of this as revenge for the atrocious acts committed unto him, he declared, by the citizens of Waterdown. Why, then, had he attempted to tamper with the pregnancy of Dana Scully? For old time's sake', had been Kline's blithe reply. Mulder felt torn. Hadn't Kline endured the kind of suffering that could cause somebody to dissociate and to seek revenge on his assailants? Mulder himself had often entertained the fantasy of punishing childhood transgressors in a variety of creative ways. The difference was, he had never acted upon them, nor would he ever. But Ephraim Kline had, avenging himself on these people the best, and most painful way any person could: through their children. Scully slept against his side, the armrest pushed up and out of the way so as not to disturb the fluidity of their connection. One hand held his, the other resting gently over her belly. A highly sensitive blood test had shown that the rubella virus was not present in her system, and thusly could not effect her or the children she carried. To his surprise, she had asked at the hospital to undergo the chorionic villi sampling procedure again, and she did, this time with Mulder standing behind the physician, marking her every move, doggedly paranoid to the point where even Scully asked him to relax. And absolutely no abnormalities were detected. And yes, she was carrying twins. Once her mind had been set at ease, Scully was in a very big hurry to return to Washington, to tell her mother about her pregnancy and mainly, she said, just to be home. As they boarded the plane, Mulder teased her, saying that her sudden urge to be at home was simply a manifestation of the nesting instinct that all expectant female animals underwent. Scully had only smiled enigmatically, taking her seat, squirming until she found a comfortable position, which, much to Mulder's pleasure, was curled against him. She spoke softly, forcing Mulder to incline his head to hear her over the rumble of the plane's engine. "You know, with lots of animals, it's the father who stays in the den with the young while the mother goes out and hunts." And with that, she fell asleep. Mulder dropped a kiss on her temple and rested his chin against the top of her head. Looking past her and out the window, he saw the clouds forming an otherworldly topography of rolling hills and statuesque mountains, solid and soft simultaneously. Scully shifted slightly in her sleep, burrowing closer to him. He squeezed her hand slightly and continued to watch the clouds. And knew he was getting a tiny glimpse of heaven. THE END ...now I did all that work for *you*(ok, for me too), so the least you can do is tell me what you thought :). Stay tuned for the third installment in the Birthright series, 'Thursday's Child'... where Scully may actually have to act upon her threats.