TITLE: Bittersweet
AUTHOR: Jess
EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@mindspring.com
DISCLAIMER: Oh, c'mon. Like I'd have come up with that, that... thing, you
know?
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Requiem. Big time.
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNING: Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, hey! (Russian dancing
optional)
CLASSIFICATION: Vignette
SUMMARY: Scully tells her mother.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I, for one, liked this episode, once I'd thought about it
and gotten over the initial shock. I'm not saying I want to read six months
(or, God forbid, many years) of Minivanfic, but for now... I'm at peace with
it. Then I'm goin' back to IndeterminateSeasonBeforeTheyDidYouKnowWhatfic.

This isn't babyfic, don't worry. It's... yearning fic.

Oh, and I don't remember what Maggie's house looks like. Forgive any
assumptions.

Visit my site for all my fiction, lovingly archived by Galia:
http://galias.webprovider.com/Jess/jess.htm
Then visit Galia's site for more great fiction!
http://galias.webprovider.com/visions.html


Feed me, I'm making a scrapbook of baby's first email moments...

Bittersweet

It's been five months since my child was conceived. Until now, I have not
truly faced the ramifications of what is about to happen. Until I find
myself here, lying on the examination table in my obstetrician's office,
gel-slicked belly swelling slightly under the cool pink sheet with yellow
ducks and green farmhouses scattered across it. Until I receive the first
picture of my baby. The nurse hands me the print-out of the ultrasound and
there it is: a series of wavy electric-green lines that could, if you look
with hopeful eyes, form the sweet curve of a child's back.

Just beside me on the padded bench is an envelope containing the results of
the genetic testing I asked for. Inside is spelled out for Skinner and every
wary doubter what I have known from the first moment: this child belongs to
Mulder, and to myself. It is not alien, nor is it in any way ill. That does
not make it any less of a miracle, simply because it was conceived in the
conventional manner.

The obstetrician smiles as I examine the ultrasound once again. "Do you want
to know the sex?" she asks and I shake my head.

"I just wanted to know that the baby was healthy," I say and she nods.

"Looks like you're going to have a healthy baby trout," she says with a
laugh. "He or she is kicking up a storm in there."

This strikes me as funny, as small, wonderful things do these days, and I
resolve to nickname my as-yet unnamed baby "Trout", at least until it's born
and I can assign a more gender-appropriate, traditional name to him or her.

I have told this woman and her staff the truth, at least to some extent,
about where Mulder is. My partner, I have explained, is in law enforcement
and is being held somewhere against his will. I have every reason to believe
he will be returned alive, I tell them and they look at me with something
that approaches both pity and confusion. This is better than the reaction I
had from that first doctor, when I explained that my partner was "out of
town on business". I will not have anyone thinking that Mulder is somehow
absent from my side by choice. I understand that this stems from my will not
to allow myself to think it. So for once in this long spell of subterfuge
and obfuscation, I tell the truth as I understand it and take the pity in
stride. The obstetrician hands me my chart and lets me review it briefly,
then says: "All done, Doctor Scully. You can go ahead and get dressed. I'll
write you out another prescription for neo-natal vitamins, this time without
iron."

When she has gone, I dress slowly, savoring the restriction of my waistband
around my stomach. Tomorrow, I will go shopping for maternity clothes for
the first time. I was waiting, not just for my belly, but for something
else. I was waiting until I had the nerve to ask my mother to come along.

I pack the picture of the ultrasound into my purse, pick up my vitamins at
the pharmacy, and drive to my mother's house. She is expecting me for lunch,
something we do with increasing regularity these days. How astonishing it
was to discover that I no longer had any other friends. Certainly, the
Gunmen have been very sweet, bringing over little rubber duckies and a
miniature computer that will no doubt be completely obsolete by the time my
child is able to use it. You may wonder that they know, yet I haven't told
my mother. Well, when you're rushed to the hospital by three people who care
deeply for you, it seems only right to reassure them once you're out.
Besides, now they devote all their time to finding Mulder, so I don't have
to.

Because I can't. It struck me last month, once I had exhausted every channel
available to me. Krycek knows no more than I do, and it is so late in the
game that he doesn't even bother to pretend he might know. The Smoking Man
is dead, no longer holding any cards to pull out of his deck at the last
moment, no longer able to grant reprieve on a whim. No one knows where the
ship that has taken Mulder has gone, but it is almost certainly not
somewhere I can follow. There is only one thing I can do, and that is to
wait. So I pray, and I believe, and I let the Gunmen scan the skies like
Galelio. In the end, we are all heretics.

The strange thing is, I have the X-Files back. Skinner's testimony made a
sudden sense to the bureaucrats. Of course, they said, smacking their
collective foreheads, aliens! Now we get it! Oh, the terrible, typical irony
of this. Mulder is finally getting the respect he has long deserved, but
can't be here to enjoy it. I have a budget that would rival the national
debt, and two assistants, both hand-picked by me. Both women. It's easier
not to invite comparison that way. I go about my job with a certain
joylessness that both annoys and confuses those who have come to work under
me. Agent Scully, they had heard, believes in aliens. I do, but I no longer
believe in my ability to fight them. So we wait, and investigate instead the
standard demon possessions, headless zombies and slimy mutants that made up
so much of my case diet with Mulder, and that meant so little to us both.

I park in front of my family home and admire it for the comfort my parents
built there. The cherry trees have dropped the last of their blossoms in
pale pink circles against the green grass of the late spring lawn. The sun
is shining steadily now, warm for this time of year, and robins flit from
tree to tree, tawny flashes against the clear blue sky. There are two
ceramic blue-and-white pots at the head of the stairs, filled with drooping
purple pansies and wilting petunias. The banister is starting to peel again,
the paint coming up in rough white flakes beneath my fingers. My mother is
waiting near the door, I think, because she answers it immediately upon
hearing my knock.

"Any news?" she asks, as she always does.

I shake my head and follow her inside. The house smells old, like mothballs
and oatmeal and Murphy's Oil Soap. My mother smells like cinnamon. There are
new lines around her eyes.

"Tea?" she asks and I accept. It is something with peach, to match my
vitamin-enhanced complexion. "So," she says slowly, "how are you doing?"

"I'm fine," I tell her. "Everything is the same as it was last week." This
is true, of course, though it won't be true for her in just a moment. She
nods and sets down her mug, untouched.

"Much as I enjoy this extra time," she says ruefully, "I will be glad to
have him back." Inherent in this statement is her wish to have the whole me
back, as well.

"Me too," I say and we both sip at the scalding tea. "I have some other news
for you. Something I should really have told you months ago."

I see in her face that she thinks she knows what I'm going to say: that
Mulder and I were lovers. Is this where I should start, I wonder for a
moment? Then I decide that the end makes a better beginning.

"I'm pregnant," I say and the color drains from her face like ink from an
old letter. She closes her eyes and when she opens them, they are clear and
dark.

"When?" she asks, and I'm not sure what date she's asking for, so I guess.

"Five months ago," I say. Her eyes widen. "I wanted to tell you," I explain,
"but I had to be sure."

To be sure. Sure that it was not a mistake, sure that I could carry the
child to term, sure that it was my own and Mulder's, sure that it was not
genetically altered, sure that he wasn't going to come back right away and
help me make the announcement. To be sure, sure, sure. I am sure of nothing.
She understands this. I reach into my purse and hand her the ultrasound. She
stares at with astonished eyes, tracing the liquid contours with a
fingertip.

"Oh, Dana," she says at last. "Oh, Sweetheart."

She hasn't used endearments since the cancer. This is just as monumental, I
suppose, in a mildly better way.

"Does Fox know?" she asks, as always in the present tense.

I shake my head and she looks startled. "It's his," I assure her. "He was
taken just before I found out."

"And you've been carrying this secret around by yourself for four-odd
months?" she says, handing the ultrasound back to me, as gently as if it
were a sleeping child.

"No," I admit. "Skinner knew from necessity, and the Gunmen for the same
reason. But I couldn't bear to make it so real, not until I knew. I couldn't
tell you only to have to take it back later."

She is still for a moment, clearly offended, then she seems to shake it off,
to file the emotion away somewhere behind the joy, where it belongs. "I'm so
happy for you and Fox," she says at last. "When did you two...?"

I smile at her modesty. My mother knows every sailor's curse, has witnessed
every possible bodily function over the years of raising her four children,
but she has retained a certain dignity, by necessity. I like to believe that
I have learned this from her.

"Five months ago," I admit and she gives a reluctant bark of laughter, then
covers her mouth with her hand. I laugh with her. This is a time for joy,
after all, despite the sadness.

She reaches out and covers my hand with hers. My father's wedding ring,
resized, rests around her middle finger. Her own rings, bright and polished
by years of use, clink against the purely decorative jewelry on my own hand.
"This must be terribly hard for you," she says. "And I know how miraculous
it is. But you must miss him even more now."

I nod, reluctant to talk over the emotions rising in my throat. My mother
clicks her tongue, the noise she made to comfort us as children, before we
understood words.

"I will tell you something about the time before you were born," she says,
rising and taking our cooling glasses of tea over to the sink. She pours the
liquid out and rinses the two cups for a moment, before setting them onto
the drainboard. It has become obvious we will not finish them. "You were
conceived during one of your father's leaves. He was called back to sea
before I realized I was pregnant, so I had to write to him with the news. He
was delighted, as he always was, to hear that we would have another child,
but disappointed because his ship wouldn't be coming back to port until
after you were born. I was terribly disappointed, of course, knowing that I
wouldn't have him there to turn to the way I had with your brother and
sister. For four months, I battled it out on my own, taking care of Missy
and Bill and myself as if we were a little army of three. One day, I thought
I felt a contraction. I was only five months pregnant, and I was terrified.
After the doctor examined me and told me it was probably just something I'd
eaten, I went home in a fit of embarrassed misery and curled into a ball on
the sofa, refusing to go out. Missy, who was just a little child, really,
called your grandmother."

"On her own?" I ask, surprised.

"Probably psychically," my mother says, smiling. I return the smile. "I have
no idea how she did it, but there my mother was the next day, bags packed
for as long as necessary. She camped out in that house and didn't leave
until you were nearly three months old and your father returned from the
sea. That is why you were named after her, but Missy wasn't. I hadn't
realized how badly she was needed until then."

For a long moment, we are both quiet. Then she says: "Dana, whatever you
need, I will give it to you. Even if everything goes to hell, I'll be here.
I never want you to doubt that again."

I begin to cry. Not sobs, just slow, fat tears that tumble down my cheeks as
if they are turning over and over, end on end.

"I miss Mulder," I confess, saying his name aloud for the first time in
days. "It kills me to think that he might die and never know how happy he's
made me. Before he was taken, he told me that he thought the personal cost
of our work was too high, that I had lost too much. He went to that ship to
bring back the proof that everything we had worked for was not in vain. He
went to that get that ship for me, so that the cost I had paid would be more
than just a barter for lies and half-truths."

"I know," she says, though I have never told her any of this. I don't tell
her what Mulder said about me not being able to have children. I don't
describe his heartache, because it is mine alone. The old clock on the
living room mantle chimes two and we both glance up. Lunch had been
forgotten. "Let's go out to an early dinner," my mother says. "Let's go
celebrate."

I nod and she takes this as an affirmation. I will be all right, as long as
she is here.

"Let me just go upstairs and change," she says, then pauses at the bottom of
the stairs. "Do you know the sex yet? Is it a little Fox Junior?" There is a
twinkle in her eye. We both know there is no way he would let me name our
child Fox.

I shrug and she nods, heading up the stairs. I don't tell her what I do
know. I have been dreaming about this child for months, dreams of my
dark-haired, blue-eyed daughter. Dreams of a daughter who looks oddly like
my own mother, and at the same time like her father, an amalgamation of
those I love the most. Somewhere I have read that a mother's dreams are
about eighty percent correct. I only know that I am as sure of this as I hav
e ever been of anything.

I am reminded of a story I once read about the boxer, George Forman, who has
named all his sons "George". When the reporter asked him why he would name
every boy the same, he responded that he had never known his own father, and
wanted to make sure his sons never lived a day with that same doubt.

There is no feminine form of Fox that wouldn't make our daughter sound like
one of Mulder's porn heroines. What will I name this child? My mother
returns a moment later, not changed a bit except that she has obviously had
a good momentary sob and then washed away most of the evidence. She smiles
tenderly at me, and cradles my cheek with her hand just long enough to bring
renewed tears to both our eyes, but not long enough to coax them to fall.
She is already a grandmother, several times, but I know this child will be
special. Every conception is miraculous, an amazing coincidence of genetics,
fate and faith. But not every child represents the payment of a debt, and
even when they do, not every parent is lucky enough to recognize it. In so
many ways, I am blessed.

"I'm ready," she says firmly. "And so are you."

I think that perhaps I will name this child "Margaret." It may not remind
her of her father, but it will connect her to her history. It will tie her
to this long and tenacious line of brave Scully women. It will comfort her
when she feels most alone. I take my mother's arm, and we leave together.