by Amperage
by Amperage@aol.com
 

Disclaimer:  The X-files, Skinner, Mulder, and Scully are all the
property of Chris Carter and 10-13 productions.  I have used them
without permission.

~~~

Lost Child
by Amperage

     He was sitting in the dark, staring at nothing.  Staring and
he did not notice when she opened the door.  Scully flipped on the
lights, watched him flinch.  Wondered how long he had been sitting
here.  How long it had been since he had seen any light.

     "Hey."  She smiled, hanging up her trench.  "Is something
wrong?"

     Stupid question.

     Mulder looked up from his brooding, concentrated on her face
as though realizing for the first time who she was.  What she was.
"Do you think anything was ever done to me. . .genetically, I
mean?"

     It was not a question Scully had been prepared to hear, to
answer.  "I. . .I. . .honestly, I don't know," she finally
stammered.  "Why is it important?"

     Mulder shrugged, said nothing.

     There were only two possibilities that sprang to mind
immediately.  "You haven't been sick, have you?"  She would have
known that.  Should have anyway.

     Mulder smiled, shook his head. Bent over a blank legal pad as
though it were important.

     "What's her name?"  She didn't bother to ask if he'd gotten
anyone pregnant.  He wouldn't be startled enough to give her a
straight answer.

     "Kathy.  Kathy Lower.  She's an accountant.  She works in the
financial department at Hopkins University,"  Mulder answered, not
bothering to deny anything.

     Scully swallowed.  "How far along is she?"

     "Twenty one weeks.  She waited until she was too far along for
anyone to do an abortion to tell me."  He tried to smile, but it
didn't get very far.  "It wasn't a serious relationships.  A
month's worth of dates and I cut it off before it could get
serious.  And now. . .she called last. . ."  Mulder trailed.  "I
don't know what to do.  Do you think they did anything to me?"

     Scully wanted to hold him, the way she would a child.  It was
the wrong response and she smothered it.  "I don't know.  Has she
had good prenatal care?"

     "I would imagine.  She's got free health coverage as long as
she uses one of the best hospitals in the world."

     "If something was wrong they would know."

     Mulder nodded, looked up.  "I have to go talk to her today.
She doesn't understand anything."

     "No."  She wouldn't.  How could she.

     "What are you going to tell her?"

     "I. . .I don't know. . ."Mulder stared at her.  "I'm so scared
and I honestly don't know."

     "I'll go with you."

     "No.  No."  Mulder shook his head.  "I've got to do this
alone."

     "No you don't."

     "Yes.  I do,"  Mulder replied, swallowing.  "I've got a
meeting with her at ten.  Can you handle things?"

     "Of course."

     He nodded.  "I'll be back when it's over."
 
 
 
 
 

     She was sitting in her cramped office, staring at a computer
screen, when the secretary showed Mulder in.  Her stomach was full
and round and though she was not yet huge, there was obviously a
child waiting its time to be born.She was still beautiful and
exquisite and more than anyone could dream of.  She did not smile
when she saw Mulder.  But her expression was not severe either.

     "Are you still in shock?" she asked.

     "I can't believe you didn't call me before this."

     "You said you never wanted children.  I thought it might be
safer."

     "You should have called me.  There are issues here that you
don't understand.  Has anyone been following you?"

     Kathy frowned.  "What the hell are you doing?  Trying to scare
me?"

     Mulder shook his head.  Stared at the round bulge of belly
under her expensive suit.  He put his face in his hands.  "I've
thought this over and thought this over.  Here's the number for my
lawyers."  He handed over the small cream business card. "They'll
set everything up.  Child support, whatever.  I don't want my name
on his birth certificate."

     Kathy stared at Mulder.  "Give this time.  You're in shock."

     "No."  Mulder shook his head.  "No, I'm not.  I know what I'm
doing.  No contact."

     "You're not a selfish bastard.  I know things didn't. . ."

     "Things didn't work out between us because I don't want anyone
in my life!"  The words came out in a shout. "Things didn't work
out because I don't anyone else in my life that they can use
against me.  Look, I'm trying to protect you.  You're lucky.
Somehow they missed knowing about you.  Missed knowing about this
baby.  They probably know *now* though, but on the off chance they
don't I don't want any contact.  You don't understand.  This is
dangerous.  I have made enemies.  Powerful enemies."  Mulder
stopped, watching the fear grow in Kathy's round blue eyes.  "I
don't want children.  I don't want offspring.  I don't want a
child.  I'll pay the fucking child support because it's mine and I
own up to my responsibilities.  But I don't want contact with it,
and I never want to deal with it.  You can just. . .you can just
call my lawyers and work out the money.  I don't care as long as
you're reasonable.  Take it from my paycheck every month."  He
stared at Kathy.  Awkward and unhappy and his words lacked all the
intensity he'd meant to put into them.  But they were said and the
look on Kathy's face was devastated.

     "You fucking, fucking bastard," she yelped, wounded.  Mulder
got up, turned to the door, opened it.

     The coffee mug missed his head by an inch.   Ceramic shattered
on the door frame into thin, white-edged shards, and hot coffee
fell onto his suit, drenching and staining the grey material.
 
     "HOW DARE YOU!  THIS IS YOUR BABY!  YOU BASTARD!"  Mulder
glanced back at Kathy, trying to imitate a glower.  Kathy sank into
her desk chair, burying her face in her hands.  Mulder continued
out the door.
 
 
 
 
 

     He didn't come back to work.  Scully didn't ask, didn't think.
She just locked the door to their office and drove to his
apartment.  Brain racing as she drove, carefully maneuvering
daytime traffic.

     Mulder was worried about possible genetic problems.  For
Scully, it wasn't just a possibility.  She knew, she most certainly
knew, that *something* had been done to her.  What she did not know
was how this might affect her progeny.  She understood Mulder's
terror, echoed it the way a harp string will echo when it hears its
sister note.  And as far as Scully knew she was quite fertile.
There were the BC pills and she insisted on condoms, but her body
seemed, at least, to be as fertile as it ever was.  Genetic
problems.  Problems testing wouldn't catch.  Missy had been a high
payment to her work.  And here was another.  Every step she took
led her further into the darkness and now, now there was no way
back and there never could be.
 

    Mulder was curled up on his couch, his fingers curled around
the remote, face drawn and expressionless, watching a porn film
that had probably been in the VCR when he got home.

     "What happened?" Scully asked softly, ignoring the soft moans
and musak, the intertwined bodies.

     "She called me a bastard.  Oh God, Scully.  She doesn't know
and nothing I can tell her will let her know.  What do you think
they'll do to her?"

     Mulder sat up.  Moaned.  "I have a headache."

     Scully sighed, went to the kitchen for bottled water and some
aspirin.  Smothered her own fears again.  She had to be Scully for
him.  Strong, logical Scully.

     "She wants half my paycheck."

     "Can she get it?"

     "No.  My lawyers said that the courts will probably take three
or four hundred a month.  My salary, her salary.  The kid's not
going to be living in poverty, after all."

     "Do you want me to go in and talk to her?"

     "No.  She was right.  I was a complete bastard."  Mulder took
the pills, swallowed the water.  "She won't want to listen to you."
He grimaced.  "Another generation of Mulders.  Too bad my dad's
already dead.  Little Spookster."

     "Stop it."  Scully took the remote, flicked off the tv.  "Stop
this.  I know you're scared, and for good reason, but stop
wallowing in this. . .this bed of self-pity.   She should have
called and told you when she found out.  She shouldn't have waited.
No, she didn't know what the consequences of her actions were, but
she made her own decisions."

     "I let her tell me she was on the pill.  We showed each other
our HIV negative tests.  I should have worn a condom.  It doesn't
matter. . ."

     "Mulder, stop it."  Scully forced herself to be cold.  "Just
stop it."

     "If it weren't normal, they would have caught it, wouldn't
they?" Mulder asked, pleadingly.

     The answer was no.  Scully couldn't say it.  She sat down
beside her partner on the couch.  "She's got the best medical care
in the world. If they suspected anything, they would have
investigated it."  Not a lie.  Just a half-truth.

     Mulder closed his eyes, undeceived.  "What if they did
something to me?  My name was on the file first."

     "And that probably has nothing to do with your genetic
material, other than the fact that you were the son of your
father."  Scully put one hand over his, squeezed.  "This isn't
doing you any good.  Get dressed."

     "Where are we going?"

     "I don't know.  Do you want to go anywhere?"

     "I want to exercise.  I want to swim until I can't think
anymore because my arms and legs are so tired."

     "Then we'll go down and you can swim.  I'll do the stairmaster
upstairs.  Come on."
 
 

     "Kathy Lower?"  Scully smiled, nervously.

     The woman looked up from her lunch.  Healthy, homemade
lasagna.  She was in the late stages of pregnancy. The twenty
second week, after all.  Made it into the home stretch now.  "Yes."
She smiled, tensely.  It was obvious that she was unhappy.

     "Hi.  I'm sorry to come during lunch."

     "No.  It's okay.  I had plans to eat with a couple of friends,
but they got tied up.  Spring registration."  Kathy smiled.
"Please, have a seat.  What can I do for you?"

     Scully took a chair, watched Kathy Lower move heavily,
competently.

     "I'm Dana Scully. . .you don't know me.  I'm Fox Mulder's
partner."

     Kathy's smile became brittle and her eyes grew tired behind
the glasses.  "Oh," she said softly.  "I see."

     "No.  I don't think you do.  I'm not fucking him.  I never
have."  Scully didn't know why it was so important to get that
out of the way.  But it was.  It was very important.  "Mulder acted
like a bastard.  I know he did.  I know he hurt you.  Mulder didn't
know what he. . .He's terrified of this."

     "Aren't we all?" Kathy muttered sarcastically.

     "No.  You don't. . .Mulder's father worked for. . .for the
state department." This was so terribly, horribly awkward, but she
had to try, for the sake of this woman and her baby, Scully had to
try, even if it wasn't what Mulder wanted her to do.  Because if it
were Scully in this position, she imagined she would want to
know.  ". . .You've heard of all the radiation experiments done on
children in the fifties. . ."

     Kathy's eyes narrowed.  "So?"

     Scully swallowed.  "We have reason to believe. . .that. .
.there may have been genetic experimentation in the sixties and in
the early seventies."  She did not finish, did not elaborate.  "We
have reason to believe that some of the experimentation is
ongoing," she said when the first words had had a chance to sink
in.  "And that. . .the. . .Mulder family may have been part of it."

     Kathy swallowed, putting her fork down.  She stared at her
lasagna.  Just stared at it.  "You're trying to scare me. You're
telling me lies."

     "No ma'am.  I wish I were.  Mulder's terrified and for good
reason.  We don't. . ."

     "I'm going to the University Hospital. I'm seeing a very good
obstetrician.  There's nothing wrong with me or my baby."  Kathy
lifted her eyes.  "If that bastard thinks he can scare me out of
child support and his familial obligations, he's got another
fucking thing coming.  I swear, he's going to do what's right by
this baby.  He's going to do what he's supposed to."  There was
something decisive in her eyes and in her body now.  Something
offensive and territorial.  "You go back to your *partner* and you
tell him nice try but he's fucking going to take care of this baby.
I don't care how many fucking courts I have to drag him through."
     Scully tried to think of the right comment, the strong, right
comment.  Nothing came to mind.  "Ms. Lower, I came here without
Mulder's knowledge.  He doesn't know.  He's worried sick that. . ."

     "He's worried sick that he'll have to take *any*
responsibility in his life," Kathy replied with a sharp little
snap to her words.  "He's worried sick that he'll have to clean up
that little porn collection of his.  That he'll have less money to
spend on Armani suits."

     "No.  It's not that."  Scully shook her head.

     "Look.  Nice try, but it's *not* working."

     "I'm a medical doctor, Ms. Lower.  Mulder's sister was
kidnapped when they were children, possibly because of these
experiments.   It's a very real. . ."

     Kathy Lower cut her off then, she was having none of Scully's
calm, rational explanations now.  "Look.  You just get out and tell
Mulder I'll talk to him when he wants to talk face to face,
honestly.  When he wants to admit to his responsibility and grow
the hell up."
 
 
 
 
 

     "Agent Mulder, are you listening to me?"  Skinner's voice was
sharp.

     Mulder considered Skinner a moment.  "Yes sir," he replied,
in a slow and careful voice.  "You were saying that we didn't file
the proper documents with the sheriff's office in Orin County.
I'll make sure it never happens again, sir."

     "Do you want to talk about what's got you so preoccupied?"

     "No."  Mulder pulled it together then.  Sat alert, the
perfect, perky little G-man.  Skinner sighed and took off his
glasses.

     "What's going on, Agent Mulder?"

     "Nothing is going on.  Everything is fine."

     "That's not what I'm seeing," Skinner replied, wondering why
he'd ever taken this job in the first place.  Wondering what he had
ever done to deserve Spooky Mulder in his fiefdom.  "Do you want
to talk about it?"

     "No sir."

     "Is it a matter for the Bureau?"

     A slight pause, a hesitation, then, "No sir.  It is not."

     "Could it develop into a matter for the Bureau?"

     Mulder did not answer this one.

     "Agent Mulder that was a direct question.  You will answer."
The marines taught you that voice.

     Mulder stared at Skinner.  "It might develop into a matter for
the Bureau, but it is not at this time.  Right now it's a
confidential matter."

     "I see."  Skinner glanced at Mulder askew.  "Do you need leave
time to deal with it?"

     "No sir.  No sir."  Mulder shook his head.

     "Well, can you tell me what part of it might develop into a
Bureau matter?  I'm getting tired of receiving phone calls
informing me that you're hypothermic in Alaska or running from the
army in Puerto Rico or that you're holed up in the Virginia Mining
country."

     Mulder stared straight ahead.  "I got a girl pregnant and it's
too late for an abortion, sir."

     Skinner stared at Mulder.  Contemplated this, the
ramifications.  He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, took
several deep breaths.  "I take it congratulations aren't in order."

     "No sir."

     "Who is she?"

     "She's an accountant."

     "With the Bureau?"  The alarm in Skinner's voice was
immediate.

     "No sir.  Hopkins University.  I just found out."

     "What are you going to do?"

     "I don't know."  Mulder swallowed.  "She won't listen.  She
doesn't understand."

     "I don't know that she could.  What are you worried will
happen?  That the baby will be kidnapped?"

     "Yes sir.  Or that my genes are screwed up."

     Skinner opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.  "I'm
sorry, Agent Mulder. Truly.  I am sorry."
 

     "Yes, sir."  Mulder stared at the Assistant Director.  "They
take everything.  Everything I ever have they take.  They'll take
this too.  One way or another, and that woman won't ever
understand."

     Skinner swallowed.  There were no words to be said.  No words
because polite sympathetic words are written and staged out in our
brains, drilled into us until they are almost automatic.
Politeness is rehearsed.  Society does not prepare its
participants on how to console a man because a casual lover is
having his baby and now that man is afraid the government will
kidnap it or that he has been experimented on and the baby will be
monstrous.  What words should be prepared for such contingencies?

     Mulder got up and left before he was dismissed and Skinner
didn't even notice.
 
 
 

     "Dana?"  The voice was soft and rushed and feminine.

     "Yes."  Scully blinked and yawned and tried to ID the speaker.

     "Dana it's me.  Anda.  Listen.  They just brought Kathy Lower
in."  The phone clicked as Anda Bridges, an RN on Hopkin's
Gynecological Ward, went back to her duties, was unable to speak in
private any longer.  Scully was left, sitting up in her bed,
staring at a receiver and a clock and the patterns of light on her
floor, feeling a nameless dread rise up through her gut, from the
viscera in her intestines and uterus, up into her stomach and her
lungs and her heart and her throat, and it was suddenly hard to
breathe.  Her fingers trembled and her throat felt hot and hard and
sore as she dialed Mulder's number.
 
 
 
 

     Kathy's mother and her sister and two friends were
outside in the waiting room.  The friends stared at Mulder in
dawning recognition.  "You bastard!  You complete bastard, you son
of a bitch!" one shrieked.  Scully kept on walking, towards a
young man in a white coat and blue scrubs, holding up her
credentials and talking the patterned, competent speech of an FBI
agent.  The woman came up to Mulder.  Stared at him.  Mulder
stopped and stood, hands loose at his side, staring darkly.

     "This is the baby's father, the son of a bitch!  How could you
do this to her?  How the hell could you be such a complete,
heartless bastard!" the woman sobbed.  Her hand was up and it fell
squarely across Mulder face, pushing his head back and to the side,
jolting him backwards against a wall with the force.  When her hand
came away, his face was already reddening and bleeding.  An orderly
was coming up to them.

     The woman was still raging and the sister was trying to calm
her.  Mulder just stood, staring.  The mother stayed in her chair,
crying, lost in her own world.  Just like his mother had done after
Samantha was gone.

     "YOU FUCKING FUCKING SONOFABITCH."  The woman was louder now.
Hysterical.  An arm tugged at his, and the other friend and a nurse
were there, tugging at the friend, trying to make her stop.  The
arm tugger was a little nurse. She pulled him by main force down
the hall.  Into a niche in the wall.

     "Are you all right?" she asked.

     Mulder started to answer, and tasted the blood in his mouth.
Felt the bruise on his face.  Closed his eyes.

     "Sir.  Talk to me.  I'm overworked.  I really don't have time
for this.  If you aren't all right, I'll get an orderly to take you
down to. . ."

     "I'm okay.  I'm all right," Mulder reassured her weakly,
slumping against the wall.  "Just leave me alone."  The woman left
and Mulder heard other voices and then the voice of the woman grew
more distant, muted.  He stayed where he was, eyes closed. Nothing
to look at.  It was happening exactly as he had known.

     He heard Scully speaking and a woman's voice answering.  He
was so tired.  So tired and this was how it was fated to happen.
This was his weird.  His place on Fortuna's wheel. No choices here.

This was simply what was assigned to his lot.  And all his fighting
and his raging and his desire and need to know meant nothing. It
had never meant anything.

     A long time, a time when he could close his eyes and feel
tears on his face.  And demand answers of a ghost who had loved him
and had offered him up to nameless men who had chosen his sister
instead.  A time to wish he had never been born.

     "According to hospital records, Kathy lost her baby at ten
o'clock."  Scully's voice, soft and low and careful.  Mulder opened
his eyes and said nothing.

     "She had an ultrasound done two days ago.  After our
visits, she decided to go ahead and do an ultrasound.  The
ultrasound showed. . .deformities. . .massive deformities."

     Mulder swallowed.
     "An amniocentesis was preformed yesterday and that may have
been what caused this. . ."  Scully swallowed.  "The results of the
amniocentesis were inconclusive.  But the ultrasound was very
clear."
 

     "My sperm makes monsters."

     "No.  We don't know that.  The hospital has to keep fetal
tissue. Kathy's mother has given her permission, since Kathy is
still sedated, and I'm going to look at the fetal tissue down in
the lab."

     "I make monsters."  Mulder's voice was cold and soft and came
from some quiet, desolate place that was beyond despair.

     Scully's fingers were probing and it hurt.  "Come on, I know
some people at the hospital.  Let's get you some ice and I bet we
can let you sit in the nurse's lounge while I look at the fetal
tissue."

     "She was right to hit me.  I wish she'd hit me twice."

     "No.  She wasn't right.  Come on."

     Mulder followed her bleakly.
 
 
 
 

     The little room behind the nurse's station was empty right
now.  Scully came back in with a blue chemical pack.

     "It's my fault that Kathy lost her baby."

     "We don't know that."  Scully got a washcloth down and wet it
with hot water from the bottled water dispenser.

     "It's my fault.  It was my sperm."  Mulder resisted her hands,
turning his face.  "She just slapped me."

     "With a ring on.  She cut your cheek open."

     Mulder was aware, as the washcloth scraped against his face,
that Scully was right about the ring.  He hadn't known that before.

     "Cut it in two places.  And you've got a big bruise on your
cheek."  Scully sighed. "I've got to go down to the labs.  Okay?"

     Mulder nodded tiredly, took the chemical pack.  "I'm so sick
of this.  I am so fucking sick of this.  I wish they would just
kill me.  Just shoot me.  Get rid of me."

     "No, you don't."  Scully had to leave, but she put her hand on
his head, to comfort him.

     Mulder dropped the pack as soon as she was gone.  Sat staring
at his feet, trying to think. Not sure what to think or say or do.

     "Dr. Scully asked if I would give you something."  The voice
was soft.  Mulder looked up at tired face.  At a lab coat
embroidered with a doctor's name in red silk.  At a small ID tag
that read "Dr. MacMillian."  The man had a pill in a cup. He sat it
down on the table beside Mulder, got a cup of water.  "Come on.
Keep Dana happy," MacMillian told him.

     A little pink pill.  Four milligrams of Valium.

     "No thanks.  I'm all right."

     "Dana can be a bitch if she's not happy.  Come on.  It won't
put you to sleep or make you woozy."

     "I don't need it," Mulder said sharply, more sharply than he
meant.  "Leave me alone.  Fucking leave me alone!  I don't need
any fucking pills."

     MacMillian was staring at Mulder now, with apprehension.
"Calm down, Agent Mulder.  Calm down.  You don't have to take the
pills."

     Mulder realized suddenly that he was standing, standing with
his hands clenched.  He unclenched his hands.  "I'm sorry," he
muttered, deflating suddenly.  "I'm terribly sorry.  I didn't mean
to yell."

     "That's okay," MacMillian replied, in the tones of one who is
comforting the violently insane.

     Mulder swallowed, staring at the man who was still terrified
of him.  He sat down in his chair again.  "I'm sorry," he
muttered, closing his eyes.  Ignoring the Valium.  "I'm sorry."  He
swallowed, fighting back the soreness and the harshness in his
throat, the quiet waiting of tears to engulf and consume him.  Put
a hand to his eyes and rubbed.  Bit back the tears.  But he could
not open his eyes.  He took the water, swallowed it clumsily.
Crushed the paper cup in his hands.  Tried not to think about why
he was going to cry.

     "What do you mean?" Scully replied, amazed at how many
different ways there were to get the runaround.  It all boiled down
to one simple, basic, pertinent fact.  The lab had never gotten
*any* fetal matter from Katherine Lower.  None.  Nothing.  Kathy
Lower's fetus had never made it down to this lab.
     "There's a record here."  The tech pointed at the monochrome
amber screen in front of him.  "But we never got the sample and
the record here has been re-issued.  If you hadn't made such a big
deal we wouldn't have noticed."

     Scully swallowed. Stared at the screen again.  It was all
quite simple.  The doctors had shown her an ultrasound and an
inconclusive amniocentesis.  Until the discovery that this infant
belonged to Fox Mulder the pregnancy had been remarkable only in
it's unvarying insistence on normalcy.  Until that point nothing
odd, nothing unusual.  Until it became known that Fox Mulder was
the father.

     And now the fetus was gone.  Scully felt her stomach grow
tight and her body shiver.  She was cold and she was terrified and
that baby was twenty three weeks old.  That baby was quite viable.
That baby's remains weren't in this hospital.
 
 
 
 

     She had the ultrasound photos in her hand when she came back
in.  Mulder was still sitting there and there was a little pill in
a cup beside him. Scully got some more water.  "Take the Valium,"
she ordered tiredly.  Mulder shook his head.

     "Take the fucking Valium or I won't tell you what I've found."

     Mulder opened his eyes.  He was tired of fighting.  Tired of
losing.  Tired of never winning.  Tired of knowing that everything
of value to him would disappear.  They always won.  His eyes held
despair.  He did not reach for the cup.  Scully turned on her heel.

     "Where are you going?"  His voice startled her.

     "For a needle and some suspension Valium," Scully replied
evenly.

     Mulder stared at her.  Gauging her seriousness. Normally he
would have fought her tooth and nail.  Normally he would have
cared.  It was so fucking hard to care.  "They killed my father.
They tried to kill me.  Tried to kill you.  They killed your
sister.  They killed Deep Throat.  They have my sister."  It was a
dull litany he recited as he put the pill to his tongue and then
took the Valium.

     He was woozy and tired and Scully told him word for word what
she had found.  Mulder buried his face in his hands for a long
moment, absorbing her words.  Absorbing the pain and the loss and
the outright despair.  She did not expect the reaction, when he
finally did react.  Not with the way he had been sleepwalking
lately, not with the drugs and the lateness of the hour.  He threw
back his head.  And he howled his anger and his grief and his pain.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO. YOU SONS OF BITCHES.  YOU ASSHOLES.  YOU BASTARDS."

     It was not eloquent and it would never take the place of
Hamlet's soliloquy.  But for sheer emotion and for sheer intensity,
it satisfied the need in Mulder's heart immensely.
 
 

     He woke in Scully's bed.  Sleepy and tired.  Sunlight was
streaming in and for a moment he thought he was alone.  But then he
heard her in the living room and wandered in.

     "These weren't from Kathy's ultrasound," Scully said, bent
over her coffee table.  "They aren't Kathy's."

     Mulder sat down in an end chair.  "I want to be DNA tested."

     Scully looked up.  "Your child was probably perfectly normal.
No one suspected anything weird until Kathy contacted you that it
was your child.  It was a normal, healthy pregnancy until Kathy
called you.  This isn't Kathy's ultrasound. Somehow they
substituted things.  I don't know how.  But this baby isn't twenty
two weeks.  I don't think this baby is twenty two weeks.  It could
be.  I mean, it could, but I don't think it is. I think it's more
like nineteen weeks, maybe twenty."

     "I want to be DNA tested," Mulder repeated.  "Do you know who
could do it?"

     Scully swallowed.  "Do you want some coffee?" She asked,
getting up.

     Mulder stared at her.  "Answer my question."

     She got up and went into the kitchen.

     Mulder followed her.

     "DNA testing only looks for certain diseases and certain
abnormalities.  The human Genome project is only ten percent done.
You don't carry Tay-Sachs or Sickle-cell and you're not gay."

     "What does that mean?" Mulder asked, frowning, watching her
set his coffee down before him on the kitchen table, not bothering
to sit yet.

     "I mean something you already know, and when you're thinking
more clearly you'll see it too.  DNA testing won't catch anything
that could feasibly be wrong with your genes, because any
experimentation by Operation Paperclip or other. . .covert
operations, wouldn't be on any part of the genes that we currently
understand.  But it doesn't matter.  Your baby was probably
perfectly normal."

     "And it's probably still alive.  It would have been viable."

     Scully sighed, swallowed.  There was no way around this.
Mulder wasn't stupid, just foggy.  "Yes.  It would have still been
viable."
     Mulder was staring at her coffee pot.  Staring and breathing
deeply.  "It's probably still alive somewhere.  Still alive and
they're probably using it. . ."  Mulder swallowed.  "They have
Sam's DNA.  And we know they use viable fetuses.  We know that
they. . ."

     "Mulder stop it.  Don't make yourself sick," Scully said
sharply.

     "How the hell can I not be angry?"  Mulder demanded.  "There's
a fetus out there that's half mine.  It was taken, ripped from
its mother's womb because it was mine.  My baby.  My child.  And
I don't even. . .I don't even know what they're. . ."  He stopped,
stopped yelling.  Stopped yelling and just stared.  Closed his
eyes.  Took a deep breath.  "They've got it.  And they'll do
whatever they damn well please with it," he said in soft,
shuddering voice.  He closed his eyes, held the chair back in
trembling hands.

     The absolute finality of the situation overtook him, the
exhaustion and the contempt of Kathy and Kathy's friends.  The
thought of what could now be considered a child overtaken by the
same forces that had taken Samantha.  Had taken Scully.  The
trembling passed up his hands and into his body; he didn't know how
much longer he could stand, but he could not move.

     Scully's hands were gentle and led him to a chair.  "Come
on."  She had another Valium and he didn't want to take it, he
jerked his face away from the pill.

     Her sigh as she simply set the pill down on her table
expressed her sympathy, her fatigue.  Mulder stared at his partner.

   "What are you thinking about?"  Scully asked, gently, putting
the coffee in front of him.

     "About how awful. . .I. . .I. . .I wish I could stop, but I
can't.  It's like an amusement park ride.  I can scream and scream
and scream, but I can't get off."

     "It wouldn't make any difference now anyway.  This might have
happened if you had gone another direction.  Never opened the X-
Files."
 
    "I wouldn't have known," Mulder replied.

     "No," Scully agreed, pouring sugar and creamer into the
coffee cup.  She knew he drank his black, but this thick, syrupy
concoction would help him out more than his usual bitter drink.
"Come on."  She put a hand to the cup.  He drank it, finally, eyes
staring somewhere else.

     "What are you going to tell Kathy and her mother?  They'll
call, you know."
     Scully contemplated this.  "I'll tell them that the baby died
due to abnormalities, that it wouldn't have lived anyway."

     "Tell them it was my fault, my genes," Mulder said without
emotion.

     Scully nodded.  Easier that way.  If Kathy was fairly sure it
was not her genes.

    "I want to. . ."  Mulder closed his eyes, summoned his
presence of mind.  "I want to get a vasectomy.  I don't. . .I
don't want to deal with. . .with this.  Not again."  He drew a
shuddering breath.

     Scully swallowed.  Did not say anything.  Speak and she would
be forced to acknowledge and admit.

     "Please.  I . . ."  He floundered.  He was very close to tears
and not able to continue.

     "You can freeze some sperm, so that if you're ever in a
position to have a baby, you can. . ." she began quickly, mind
spinning.  Not wanting to think, to admit, to say yes to him was to
know.

     "No.  Please."  Mulder broke through her spun glass words,
shattering the train of thought.

     Scully swallowed, let an entire world of dreams and hopes slip
through her fingers where they fell like water at her feet.  "All
right.  I know someone," she said quietly.  Closed her eyes.
Condemned her own body to never know the feeling of a child growing
and kicking inside.  Condemned herself to be forever without a
daughter or a son.  Because as surely as Mulder could not afford
the risk, neither could she.  "I'll call him, and whenever you feel
like it, he'll do it.  You only need a few days off work for
a vasectomy."

     They sat a moment, Mulder drinking his coffee, Scully staring
at the rejected Valium. "Finish your coffee and we'll go do
something.  Exercise some more, review old case files before
Skinner rakes the skin from our flesh for not keeping the
unsolvable at least current."  Scully smiled, brought up her best
face.  Mulder nodded, closed his eyes. Put the mug to his lips
and finished drinking the sweet, hot brew.

     Scully's mind wandered back to that infant.  Nothing they
could do now.  Nothing.  She could imagine it.  Imagine it much
better than Mulder, because she had autopsied women pregnant around
twenty weeks.  It would be alive in one of the tanks she had seen.
She could see it studied and watched and changed.  Imagine the
small size, about as big as her hand. Somewhere, someplace,
Mulder's child was alive, though he would never know that child.
And that was one more thing taken from him.
     She heard the scrunch of an alien embryo under her running
shoe again and shuddered.  Wondered whose child that had been.
 

end.