By Christine Leigh
leighchristine@hotmail.com
 

RATING: PG
CATEGORY: V, A
SPOILERS: "Requiem"

SUMMARY: Post-"Within/Without."  Scully brings her
mother up to speed on recent events in her life.

DISCLAIMER: All characters are the products of Chris
Carter. They also belong to Ten-Thirteen Productions
and the Fox Network. No copyright infringement
intended.
 

Impossible Things
By Christine Leigh

June 2000

Maggie Scully turned out the lamp beside her bed.
The book she was reading was holding her interest
only at the so-so level, and she'd decided that she
would rather dream herself to sleep.  She had been
doing that for about five minutes when the phone
rang.  It was a quarter past ten on Saturday night,
not a time she usually received calls, and she said a
fast prayer before picking up.

"Hello."

"Mom, hello."

"Dana.  Hi.  Is everything all right?"  There was no
point in not getting right to the point.  Too many
calls over too few years conveying less than
desirable news had caused Maggie to become queen of
the wary.

"Mom, I'm sorry if I woke you.  Were you asleep?"

"No.  I put my book down just a few minutes ago.
What's going on sweetheart?"  Dana had left her a
message a couple of weeks back, but every time Maggie
had tried to return the call there had been no
answer.

"Mom, there are some things I need to tell you.  I
don't mean to sound mysterious, and I know this must
seem very out-of-the-blue, but are you busy tomorrow
afternoon?"

Maggie's heart rate had increased at least threefold,
but she tried to remain sounding calm.

"No.  Why don't you come over for lunch?  And you
know you're always welcome to go with me to church."
It had been several weeks since they'd gone together.
What, dear God, she thought, could this be about?
She could hear her daughter's steady breathing as the
offer was being pondered.

"I think I might like to do that."

"Good.  Dana, please tell me you're all right."

"I'm all right, Mom.  I just need to talk to you."

*Need.*  Maggie could probably count on her fingers
the number of times she'd heard this word from Dana
beyond the age of fifteen, and now she'd heard it
twice in one conversation.

"Well then, do you want to come here first, and we'll
go together in my car?"

"It might be better if I meet you there."

"Okay.  I'll wait outside for you on the steps."

"Thank you, Mom."

"Love you, sweetheart."

"I love you too, Mom.  See you tomorrow."

They hung up.

Maggie lay in the dark and waited for her heart to
stop pounding.  She should probably get up and get a
glass of water, but she really didn't feel like
moving.  She looked across the room.  It was a
gorgeous night and she had a window open, and through
it poured a beam of moonlight.  She stared at it and
willed her mind to think of anything else.  Tara had
called today.  She'd held the receiver for Matthew
and let him talk to his grandmother.  Maggie was so
proud of how well he was able to communicate for a
two-year-and-a half-year-old.  Tara was really
missing Bill, Jr.  They didn't speak of it -- there
was no need to do so.  Both women knew that it didn't
really help the situation any to talk about it.
Better to focus on looking forward to his next leave.
Always, the next leave -- only now she wasn't
thinking about Tara.  Oh, better not to go there,
Maggie thought, but she couldn't help herself once
she'd started, and her heart slowed some as she
allowed her mind to wander back.  Back through years
of many conversations with young children and lonely
nights.  Then she remembered another night.  One that
had been made for love, and that while already
special, in the end turned out to be even more so.

Like tonight, it had been June.  She and Bill had
finally stolen some time alone together and had gone
swimming in the ocean on that moonlit night.  He'd
been back three days, but they'd had no time to
themselves until finally, the only sitter Maggie
trusted had become available on Saturday night.  So,
Bill, Jr. and Melissa were safe in bed back at the
house while their parents swam and then sat on the
beach eating a picnic dinner and enjoying good wine,
and necking like a couple of teenagers.  It was a
favorite spot of theirs and they had it to themselves
that night.  Bill would have taken things further,
but Maggie had said that perhaps they'd better leave
those scenes to the movies.  She remembered how
wonderful it felt, though, to have her man back in
her arms, and the feel of the saltwater foaming all
around them.  When they returned home, Bill quickly
paid the sitter.  Cathy lived very near by, something
Maggie had always taken for granted, but for which
she was now quite grateful.  Bill walked her home and
was back in a matter of minutes.  They conceived
their third child that night.

Please, God, Maggie prayed, as she finally started to
drift to sleep.  Please let her be all right.

*****

Sunday Morning
10:30 a.m.

They met just in time to go inside the church before
Mass started, so did not talk.  Maggie was able to
steal glances during the service, though, and could
see that Dana was quite pale.  She also noticed that
Dana knelt with her head bowed in prayer for the
duration following Communion, not sitting down until
Father had.  After Mass ended, and as they were
standing to exit the pew, Maggie wondered about Fox.
It now occurred to her that she hadn't thought to ask
Dana about him last night.  She knew he'd had a tough
time after his mother's death, but the few occasions
since then that she'd spoken to him on the phone when
he'd answered at the office, he'd been as he always
was, very kind and polite.  Surely, though,  if Fox
were ill or had been injured, Dana would have told
her.  Too, if that were so, Dana would be with him,
so it couldn't be.  No, it must be something else.

"Dana, I'd like to light a candle."

Scully nodded in assent and the two of them headed to
the alcove off one of the side aisles where a statue
of St. Jude was located.  Maggie started to reach
inside her purse, but her daughter beat her to it and
put a donation  into the candle box.  Scully could
see the question in her mother's eyes, but suddenly
lighting a candle seemed a comforting thing to do.
The familiar was becoming necessary in ways other
than the one which she no longer could touch
tangibly.  She placed a hand on her mother's arm and
for a moment they just looked at each other, their
hearts so full that neither wanted to speak.  Each
took a match.  Maggie lighted one candle and Scully
two.

*Whom are you lighting these for Dana?  Please, God,
don't let it be the cancer.*

Then they knelt and prayed -- for their loves and for
their lives, for a recognizable world.  For
impossible things.

Outside they parted and went to their individual
cars.  Maggie sensed that even had Dana been with her
on the drive home that it would have been a quiet
ride.

*****

"Do you want coffee or tea?"

"Actually, orange juice sounds good.  Mom, you don't
have to wait on me.  I'll get it."  Scully started to
get up from the couch.
 
"Stay put.  I have to throw some greens in a bowl
anyway."

"All right."

"There are some new pictures from Jeana there on the
table.  The house is coming along on schedule so far.
Charles has a beard."  Maggie tossed these tidbits
out, trying to keep things light as she went to the
kitchen.

Scully picked the envelope up and removed the
photographs.  Sure enough, the first one showed
Charlie sporting his new look.  With the beard he
resembled Byers, she thought.  She looked at  it for
a few seconds and then returned it and the rest of
the photos to the envelope, and placed it back on the
table.  She needed to stay focused on the matter at
hand.

For the thousandth time since yesterday, she wondered
where she would start.  She was tired and numb.  She
knew that she would cycle back into being unable to
speak Mulder's name without crying, but was now
grateful for the numbness, not to mention the lack of
morning sickness.  She'd not had that yet today.  She
needed to get this out, wanted to.  Her mother
deserved to know the situation.  She kicked her shoes
off and swung her legs up onto the couch, and grabbed
one of the big pillows and hugged it to her.  This
was something she'd done many times as a child, often
falling into a wonderful dream world until something,
or more often someone, came to break up her reverie.
She had no dreams today.

"Here we go."  Maggie placed a tray with a glass of
orange juice and a glass of iced tea on the coffee
table.  She picked up her tea and drank. Dana left
her juice on the tray, Maggie noticed.  Dana had
endured so much in recent years and she was strong,
but looking at her sitting there hugging that pillow
made her seem so vulnerable, and Maggie wanted to
hold her tight as she had when she was a little girl.

Scully looked at her mother and decided, finally.
The beginning -- she would start there.  She had an
odd flashback to her freshman year in college. This
was the only time in her life she'd ever watched soap
operas and all around her any given afternoon, there
would be fellow students relaying all the details to
other students who had missed that day's episode.
Perhaps, Scully thought, if I pretend that I'm doing
that, I'll get through this.  She was desperate to do
this without falling apart.  She knew her mother was
waiting.

"Mom, I'm sorry that I haven't spent much time with
you lately.  I've . . . No.  We've been so busy."

"There's no need to apologize, Dana.  You know that.
I'm well aware of how intensive your work is."

Scully nodded.  But she didn't know how else to start
this.

"Mom, you see, the thing is that this time it wasn't
just the work."

Well, now.  Maggie tried not to react with too much
surprise.

"Oh?"

"Mom, I know you know that in addition to being
partners that Mulder and I have been close friends.
Best friends, really."

Maggie's heart leapt.  Well, if that is what this was
all about, then why was Dana so pale?  Maggie was
well aware that her daughter and Fox Mulder loved
each other, for better or worse.  And while Maggie
was quite fond of Fox, there still were times when it
seemed for worse.  She didn't like feeling that way,
but couldn't help it.  It wasn't that she didn't want
them together.  She wanted them together and safe.
She bore no ill will toward Fox over Melissa's death,
but the same could not be said of everyone in the
Scully family.  In the end none of that mattered,
though.  Fox was the man for Dana, and her daughter
had every right to the kind of happiness that she
herself had once known.

"Sweetheart, I do know.  I also know that Fox would
give his life for you, and you yours for his.  I
don't like to think about that aspect of your
friendship, but it's always been a comfort knowing
it."

"We're more than friends, Mom.  We love each other.
That is, we're in love.  We've been together since
April."  Scully let a breath out after saying this.
She'd never said aloud to anyone besides Mulder that
she loved him.

Maggie bowed her head, and smiled.

"Sweetheart, I'm happy for you.  For both of you.
Come here."  Maggie set her tea down and opened her
arms.  Scully removed the pillow from her lap and
entered her mother's embrace.  Oh, how she'd
envisioned this moment in the past.  Telling her
mother that she and Mulder had finally taken that
next step was going to be a glorious revelation.
Only now, the glory had a shadow.  For just a few
seconds, though, she let her mother hold her as
though all were right and well.  When they let go,
she stayed sitting next to Maggie.

"Where is Fox today?  Do you think he'd like to join
us?"

Scully took a deep breath and then picked up her
glass of juice and sipped.  It went down well, and
she put the glass back on the tray.

"Mom, there's more to tell.  I started at the
beginning because I couldn't think of any other way
to do this."

More.  That could be good or bad, Maggie supposed.
She waited, as Dana took another sip of her juice.
Something had shifted.  It was nothing Maggie could
pinpoint, but Dana seemed very far away as she
continued to speak.

"A few weeks ago Mulder and I went to Oregon on a
case.  It was actually a follow-up to the very first
case we were on together seven years ago.  Back then
there had been a series of prior disappearances of
several high school students that couldn't be
explained in any conventional way, and we were called
in when another one had just occurred.  It was never
said officially, but I do believe now as Mulder did
then, that those boys and girls were abducted.
Arguably by what would be called aliens."  Scully
paused.  There was no other way -- she just had to
say it.  "We received a call a few weeks back from
Billy Miles, a young man who had been taken and
returned seven years ago.  He was calling to say that
it was happening again, so Mulder and I went to
investigate.  It felt so strange to be there again.
Aside from the faces being older, nothing much had
changed.  And of course, there we were, so far from
where I would have ever thought we'd one day be."

Maggie reached for her daughter's hand and squeezed
it.  Unpredictability was about the only consistency
there was in this life.  Dana continued with her
story.

"There had also been a crash of an unidentified craft
in the woods there, where the abductions had
occurred.  The sheriff would not acknowledge this,
but there were witnesses.  And then Billy, who is his
son, disappeared.  Presumably, he was taken again.
And there were others.  There was nothing more to be
done at this point, or so we thought, and we returned
home."

"That wasn't the end of it, though.  Two days later
information was given to us that indicated that there
actually was something -- the craft that had crashed
it was believed, in those woods, and that it was
rebuilding itself.  I know how this must sound, Mom."

Maggie shook her head.  "Go on."

"Mulder wanted to go back to Oregon immediately, but
insisted that I stay here.  He pointed out that
former abductees -- Billy, and Teresa, another woman
who had been taken before, were among those being
taken now, and that I'm a former abductee.  I
couldn't refute that, and know I'd feel the same if
our positions had been reversed.  I didn't want him
to go, but there was no way to stop him."  She took a
breath.  "At least then."  Scully had lost count of
how many times she had played the sequence of events
back in her head.  If only she'd known what she knew
a day later before he'd left.

"I'm very grateful to Assistant Director Skinner.  I
asked him to go with Mulder, and he agreed to do
that.  After they left, I started to read through the
medical records of the abductees and discovered that
there was a connection between them and Mulder.  Mom,
last fall Mulder was ill.  I won't go into the
details now, but he experienced a form of anomalous
brain activity called electro-encephalitic trauma.
The records I was reading through indicated that
Billy, Teresa, and the other abductees had all
experienced the same thing."

Maggie felt a foreboding, but tried to shake it off.
It couldn't be.  Fox was home, surely.

"Also, I experienced dizzy spells while we were in
Oregon, and had thought I had a touch of flu or
something.  I was somewhat better when we returned,
but still didn't feel 100 percent so called my doctor
for an appointment.  However, when I was reading the
information in the records that connected Mulder to
the abductees, I fainted."

Maggie took her daughter's hand again.  She didn't
let go.

"Luckily, I wasn't alone, and the episode didn't last
long.  However, when I contacted my doctor she did
want to run some tests immediately, and I entered the
hospital for a couple of days."

Now Maggie was turning pale.

"Mom, there is no bad news about my health.  Just the
opposite, actually."  Scully knew she needed to
clarify this as soon as possible, and having done so,
felt that she could stop for a moment.  Breathing
normally had become a lofty goal, it seemed, in
recent days.  This was a surreal situation.  She
turned to face her mother.

"I'm pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Yes, Mom.  It's true. I'm going to have a baby."
Then, very softly she said what she had not yet said
to anyone.

"I'm going to have Mulder's baby."  The numbness had
gone, but in the split second before the dam broke,
Scully smiled at her mother.

"Oh, my darling.  I'm so happy for you."  Maggie was
confounded, but thrilled to tears.  She tried to hold
them back, but they came.  She put her arms around
her daughter and they held onto each other so tight
in this precious moment that neither had thought she
would ever experience.  There were so many questions
running through Maggie's mind, but none that she
could ask.  Dana was pregnant and that was cause for
joy.  And what was this?  Not joy.  No, not at all.
Dana was sobbing, harder than Maggie had ever seen
her cry.  And shaking.  Then Maggie remembered the
foreboding she'd felt a few minutes ago, and the
realization hit her.  Fox was not at home or anywhere
else that he could answer a phone call inviting him
to dinner.

It was several minutes later when Scully's sobs
subsided enough for her to move, and when she did she
laid down, her head in her mother's lap.  Maggie
proceeded to stroke her daughter's hair, while
listening to her breathing become more steady.  Dana
would survive this time, of that she had no doubt.
The cruelty of the situation was something very
difficult for Maggie to fathom, though.  For her,
survival always came down to faith, and Maggie could
only hope and pray that this would be true of Dana,
also.  She knew Dana's faith had been renewed during
her bout with cancer.  Would it be enough, though,
this time to see her through?

"Mom, there is something else."

"I thought there might be."

"Mulder is . . ."  Scully couldn't say the words.

"I'm sorry that I'll have to wait to congratulate
him, sweetheart.  He'll make a wonderful father."

"I have to find him, Mom."

"I have faith that you will.  You have to take care
of yourself, though."  She knew that if there were no
pregnancy that Dana would be in Oregon this minute,
and she understood that.  But there was, and Maggie
was going to make it her mission to see that Fox
returned home to a healthy Dana.  Strength would be
needed all around.  Then she recalled something from
long ago.

"Dana, do you remember what you said to Fox when he
came to see you the morning after you awoke from your
coma?"

"That I had the strength of his beliefs?"

"Yes.  I hadn't known him very long at that point,
obviously, but I could feel the goodness in him when
you said that, and then when he handed you back your
cross.  I knew at that moment that whatever was to
come after, that this man would stop at nothing to
protect you, and I could understand your pulling
strength from him."

"I always have, Mom.  Always."  Involuntarily,
Scully's hand went to her throat.  Maggie noticed
that her necklace was missing.

"And you will continue to do so.  As will he, from
you.  I believe that."

"I love him so, Mom.  I need him."

"I know, sweetheart.  I know."
 

- end  -
 

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