Title: "The View from the Veranda" Author: Heather Horn Rating: PG Category: MSR Original Post Date: 07/27/00 - Revised 03/27/02 Summary: Conclusions are drawn from child's play. Spoilers: "Requiem" Distribution: Anywhere and everywhere. Please keep my name attached and tell me where you are putting it. Thank you! Feedback: Please send any comments - kisses and flames are both greatly appreciated - to heathabear@hotmail.com. Thanks a billion! Disclaimer: "The X-Files" is copyright Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and The FOX Network. No money is being made from this. No copyright infringement is intended. Acknowledgements: Thanks, Marie, for all of your hard work, kind words, and input - you're the best beta-reader a writer could ever ask for. 'Til all the seas gang dry, my dear And the rocks melt with the sun And I will love thee still, my dear While the sands of life shall run -"Red, Red Rose" by R. Clausen "The View from the Veranda" (1/1) By Heather Horn "I'm pregnant." I blinked behind my wire-rimmed glasses, taken aback. I swallowed sourly, clenching my jaw as I tried to let it all sink in. "Is it - is it. . . " I could not finish the sentence, but I didn't have to. She bit her lip and nodded quickly, glancing up at me for a reaction, then quickly back down to her hands. It was a gratuitous question, albeit it contained necessity. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to absorb everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. My old buddy, Krycek, was back. Mulder had been abducted. I had seen a UFO. Scully was no longer barren. Scully was with child. . . Mulder's child. I had been their supervisor for a very long time, so long that I can hardly remember a time when I was not screaming at Mulder for his off-the-chart expenses for seemingly pointless investigations or nagging Scully for a plausible explanation. I watched them in the way that a father watches from the veranda as his children play Hide and Seek in the yard while the sun sets behind them. Sometimes I would join in the adventure, whether it was voluntary or because they each grabbed an arm and pulled me up from my porch swing until I could no longer refuse. From the sights I have seen, one might say that they were friends, best friends with the highest respect for one another. This is entirely true, yet I have perpetually had the slightest sense that this unbreakable bond might have a deeper meaning. Their relationship has always had a special something, something that has made me wonder if I was crazy, or if others saw it too - Mrs. Scully, or the Gunmen, or that Cigarette-Smoking bastard that people like to call a "man". At first I felt bad about profiling my most dedicated agents, but there were enthralling signs along the way, subtle but present. Not even a minute after Mulder awoke in the hospital with a gunshot wound to his head, he was bounding out the door against medical advice on a search for his other half. He has climbed mountains, literally, for this woman. He has trespassed, beaten, and arguably killed for Scully. He would do anything to get to her; anyone and anything in his way could consider itself road kill. Then there is Scully, whom I partially expected to catfight Diana Fowley at the hospital last year. The lengths that she has gone to for Mulder are beyond extraordinary. She has applied her science time and time again to save his believer behind, sacrificed her heart more times than you could count on both hands and feet just to make his beat again. She dug through the depths of Africa, helped to conceal his "death"; she even kissed me once! The things she has done to pull through for that man never cease to astound me. She always has, she always will. Mulder will be fine, wherever he may be, for Scully is his gaurdian angel, and he is hers. I wiped the stern look from my face, releasing much of the tension in the room. Placing my hand on her shoulder, I gave her a crooked half-smile, which was more of a smile than anyone could ever expect from me. "Congratulations, Agent Scully." THE END (1/1) Thank you for taking the time to read "The View from the Veranda". I hope you enjoyed it! Please send any comments - kisses and flames are both greatly appreciated - to heathabear@hotmail.com. Thanks a billion! You can find all of my fan fiction at my website, Mulder + Scully = True Love http://mstruelove.tripod.com "True love is friendship set on fire."