TITLE: Syadiloh 1: Chanukah
AUTHOR: MustangSally, Rivka T
CLASSIFICATION: MSM w/C  (Mulder Scully married with Children)- Holiday
story
CONTENT WARNING: Over-indulgence in sweets may cause dyspepsia.
SUMMARY: We came, we saw, we fried.
SPOILER WARNING: A potato fell on the floor, we don't advocate eating
that one.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere holiday stories are found.
THE DISCLAIMER:  I made this!
 

It's a well-known, but rarely documented fact that potato latkes are not
genuine unless they contain some of the skin and blood of the poor
schmuck who got the thankless task of grating the potatoes.  That would
be me, Fox Mulder, not a graduate of the Cordon Bleu.
 

"FUCK!"  I swore and watched part of my knuckle fall on top of the grated
potato.
 

I picked the skin out of the bowl and dropped it into the garbage
disposal.  Somehow it looked so much easier when they did it on the
cooking network.  The men in their crisp chef's aprons managed to look
macho and competent as if cooking was a vindication of their manhood
rather than a lessening of it.  Tough guys do cook.  I guess I'm not a
tough guy and I would be hard-pressed to find anyone to say that I was.
But I can cook, and more importantly, I know my limits.  There was no way
that I was going to try de-boning an entire turkey or do anything that
required special tools or "clarifying," whatever that was.  I couldn't
even write an intelligible incident report.  As things stood I was
working from a recipe that I had called Mom to get -- Aunt Sofia's
recipe, since Mom had never bothered with keeping to the traditions.  Her
idea of a traditional holiday dinner was the olives from her martinis.  I
remember one year we had Thanksgiving catered.
 

Eight potatoes, one medium onion, two eggs, one and a half teaspoons of
salt, a quarter teaspoon pepper, and a half a cup of flour.  All I had to
do was grate the potatoes, squeeze out excess liquid, mix in other
ingredients, and then I was going to try to fry small spoonfuls until
golden brown.  Then I was going to drain what should be latkes and serve
hot with applesauce and sour cream.  There was a chicken in the oven,
asparagus in the steamer, applesauce warming on the stovetop, mixed salad
in the fridge, and more ice cream for dessert than I wanted to think
about.  That was the plan anyway.
 

"You okay?"  Scully called from the living room.
 

"I'm fine, Scully."
 

I looked at my watch; Laura Broder and her paramour Andy Maxwell were
coming for dinner and would be there in about ten minutes.  Laura had
been our attorney when Scully's brother Bill had tried to get custody of
the Mooselet, Maxwell had been Bill's attorney, and other than a shitty
taste in clients, Maxwell wasn't all that bad.

"Mul-der."
 
I turned around at the drawling tone of annoyance, and slippery potato
peels fell around me like confetti.  The Mooselet smirked at me from the
doorway, two feet of trouble wearing purple sneakers.  Somehow she had
managed to ape Scully's tone exactly.

"Daddy."  I corrected her,

She skittered over and grabbed at my pant leg, lifting her arms in the
universal gesture of toddlers.

"Up now," she ordered

"Daddy is cooking," I picked her up and settled the sturdy and muscular
weight of her on my hipbone, "Daddy is trying to cook, something special
for Chanukah tonight."

"Monica?"

"No Moose, Chanukah, " I explained, "Chanukah is the Festival of Lights
where you light candles, Monica just blows them out."

"Birthday?"
 
"No, that's Christmas, next week.  Your Mom gets to handle that one."

I handed the Mooselet a peeled potato and put her on the floor, and she
promptly took it out into the living room.

This was my solo flight at preparing dinner for guests since Warwick and
Ingveld had taken a few weeks off.  God knows they'd earned it, and took
off for Germany to visit her family until the New Year.  Scully was in
pre-baby mode and under house arrest by her doctor's orders and my
beseeching.  The only problem was that I was working from home, with
Julie Groff's blessing, until T-Day (Twin Day), and we were getting on
each other's nerves and I swear she was trying to kill me by knocking me
down a flight of stairs with her belly.  She was huge.  Her stomach stood
almost a yard straight out, and I figured that the twins had to be
standing on her spine with their heads poking at the underside of her
belly-button (which had popped out a month earlier, but I'll spare you
the gory details).  I think she was the only other human-made object,
aside from the Great Wall of China, that could be seen unaided from outer
space.

"What have you got there?"  I heard Scully ask the Moose.

"'Tato."

"Where'd you get that?"

"Daddy."

"Daddy gave you the potato?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's been skinned.  This is very serious, I wonder who skinned it, and
why . . . "

I grinned to myself as Scully and Miranda began investigating the
skinning of the potato with the thorough and intelligent way that Scully
approached everything, and the Mooselet followed along the breadcrumb
trail of logic that Scully scattered in front of her.  I could have stood
there like a gape-mouthed idiot listening to the women in the living
room, but I had a dinner to finish making, or destroying depending on how
you looked at it.  I checked on the chicken and went back to grating the
rest of the potatoes while voices rose and fell in the living room.  This
was going to be the only holiday that we were ever going to have as a
simple threesome.  Next year there would be five at the table, and only
two old enough to drive.

Throughout the pregnancy, Scully had stubbornly refused to give up her
medical miracle status.  Not only was she pregnant, when she had before
been sterile, she was pregnant with a vengeance on a two for one special.
 Once the morning sickness had cleared up at the end of the first
trimester, the twins had started growing as though she had been drinking
Miracle Gro rather than bottled water.  At the end of six months she'd
been banned from work by her OB-GYN who didn't have Scully's titanium
nerves.  I didn't have Scully's nerves; I'd refused to let her drive
after that point since hormones and road rage don't make for a pleasant
combination.  She'd been working from home and marshalling her
considerable powers of organization to keep the X-Files running smoothly
with Zippy doing a solo act while Scully reviewed all the case files and
took care of getting ready for a double-barreled shotgun of joy.  Now we
had a nursery equipped for two thanks to on-line shopping and the UPS
guys were fighting over who got to drive her to the hospital.

Well, the Mooselet had pretty much come UPS.  It had been my arrival in a
UPS truck with Scully hiding in the back which had precipitated the Kurt
Crawford clone running my sister Samantha's eugenics project to panic and
deliver all the babies in the breeding program prematurely with ugly,
messy caesarian sections.  Miranda had been the only one who had lived,
probably because Scully had willed it so.  It was hard to believe that
the screaming red thing that I had taken from Montana around this time
last year was now a reasonably sentient, if vertically challenged,
individual.  I gave up counting the words in her vocabulary at two
hundred, and she wasn't using only baby words like "cat," "Scully," and
"Daddy," she was parroting back anything she heard, more or less in
context and seemed to understand most of it.  This meant that Scully and
I were being Very selective with our speech lately.  I wondered if my
brother Emerson's son Samuel was doing the same thing -- which meant that
Sammy was learning to curse Bill Gates in English and American Sign
Language.

"Can I do anything?"  Scully called.

"No, no, I'm fine."  I looked into Warwick's wok which hissed evilly at
me, "Just sit there and gestate."

"But I'm bored," Scully said as she lumbered into the kitchen.

Almost nine months of gestation had turned my petite passionflower into
an upended Volkswagen beetle.  She was almost as deep as she was tall,
hardly looking pregnant from the rear.  Dressed in a pair of black
leggings and a deep red tunic, she looked like a cranberry that had grown
legs.  I valued my life too much to point that out.  It was actually
charming to see her so encumbered and pregnant in such an extravagant
fashion.  But that's my Scully, never doing anything by halves.  Easing
herself onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table where we'd had
athletic sex less than six months ago -- hard to imagine these days --
she began picking at the pickle and olive tray I'd made for appetizers.
 
"Hungry?"

"Always," she groaned, "I just keep imagining all the complications
associated with low birth weight and suddenly I'm hungry."  If the babies
didn't come soon I was very much afraid that the Earth might tilt a few
degrees further on its axis, and that plays merry hell with weather
patterns.

The latkes were ready to go into the fryer right before dinner, so I
started cleaning up the potato peelings and other debris.  The Mooselet
ran into the kitchen with a now very fuzzy and dirty potato which she
handed over to me as though it were made of precious metal.  I
ceremoniously put the potato on the counter while the Moose attached
herself to my leg with kid-Velcro.

"I love watching you cook, it does me a world of good to see men working
in the kitchen.  I don't think my father knew where the kitchen was other
than the place where the beer was kept."

"My Dad saw it as the source of all ice cubes for his Scotch, " I smirked
at her and wiped down the countertop, "I think seeing me with my hand
inside a chicken would appall him more than anything else I've done."

"Anything?"  She asked with a silky little smile.

"Almost anything."

Cool pink lips tasted of black olives and she tipped her head up to kiss
me, her fingers ruffled my hair.

The doorbell buzzed.

"Shit," I muttered, they were early.

"Shit!" the Mooselet echoed.

"I'll get it!"  Scully said and grunted as she hoisted herself up, "You
can deal with the appropriateness of certain vocabulary with the short
human."

And she ditched me, there with a chicken in the oven, a potato on the
counter and a kid clinging to my leg cursing merrily away.

"Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  " the Mooselet sang.

I knew right then it was going to be a long night.

***

"Oh my God!"  Maxwell the attorney blurted when I opened the door.

"And your point is what?"  I asked.

He turned Santa Claus red and spluttered something unintelligible,
staring at my stomach.  Was he expecting the answer to the great
questions of life, the universe, and everything to appear in flashing
gold lights like the Goodyear Blimp's billboard and move across my
stomach?  As a matter of fact, I was slightly smaller than the Goodyear
Blimp and didn't have a corporate sponsor -- yet.

Laura hugged me over the hard protrusion of my stomach and looked down at
the view like an acrophobe at the top of the Empire State Building.
 
"It's so big, how can you stand it?" she said.

"I just count the days," I said and sighed.

A woman my height was not built to carry multiple fetuses.  It was that
simple.

"I knew you were going to be big, but I didn't realize how big," Maxwell
said and reached out a thin hand to my stomach.

The upper twin, the girl, lashed out with a black belt kick and the
entire wall of my abdomen jumped, and Maxwell snatched his hand away as
if burnt while both Laura and I glared at him.  What is it about pregnant
women which makes people willing to paw us like exhibits at a petting
zoo?  Put a hand on my ass and I'm allowed to knock you down *and* sue
you, put a hand on my stomach and I'm supposed to smile while you tell me
for the zillionth time that the kid is as big as I am.  Wow!  What a
revelation!  But pregnant women aren't supposed to be sarcastic and I'd
found even my snappiest comebacks were misunderstood.  Expectant mothers
are supposed to be happy, perky, and bright.  That's why all the
maternity clothes have nauseating buttons, bows, and smiley ducklings on
them, and it's damn hard to wear even a shoulder holster when you're
packing twins.  At home Miranda would toddle up and pat me, proclaiming
"Babies!" with a charming ignorance of the way her world was about to
turn inside out.  I let her get away with it because she hadn't reached
the age of reason and because she was going to be so jealous when the
kids finally escaped that she deserved indulgence.

"Maybe you ought to help Mulder in the kitchen."  Laura suggested.

"I'll do that," he agreed, nodding his head like a puppet before bolting
for the safety of the kitchen, carrying a bakery box of what I presumed
was dessert with him.

"Let's sit down," Laura suggested and I waddled over to the sofa and
lowered myself into the cushions by hanging onto the arm of the sofa for
support all the while, Laura looking at me as though I had been dragged
out of a car wreck.

"Oh God, it's not that bad," I told her, "It's just awkward more than
anything else.  You forget that this happened over a nine-month period
and I didn't just wake up this big last week."

Smiling, she flicked her hair back over the shoulder of her cream
sweater.  She looked so slim and young and sharp sitting there in her
skinny black velvet jeans and trendy chunky shoes.  I missed my waist
with a pang so real that the babies in my stomach roiled and kicked as
though they were caught in a rough tide.

"You look so good," she blurted, "I mean your skin, and you look happy
and relaxed and -- content.  I mean during the trial you were, like,
wired, you know?"

"It's hormones, Laura.  I'll be small and mean again in a few months.  As
soon as I get back to work, anyway."

"How's that going, anyway?  How can you cope without work?"

"Zippy is playing merry hell with *my* X Files.  We have female
informants hanging from the rafters.  Zippy gets their phone numbers and
little else."

"You could have worked longer, just around the DC area, anyway."
 
"Law enforcement and pregnancy worked fine in Fargo, but not but in real
life.  The last witness I interviewed spent more time staring at my
stomach and asking me questions about intimate gynecological issues than
answering any of my questions.  Zippy had finally had to take over the
interrogation for me."  I shrugged and rearranged the cream napkins on
the coffee table, "I felt big and stupid.  And people touch my stomach
like I'm a Buddha and rubbing my belly brings good luck."

Laura nodded, her smooth young face registering her understanding the
importance of being taken seriously.  It was hard to be female,
respected, and pregnant.

"On the other hand, if the worst thing that happens from me from here on
out is being patronized because I'm pregnant, I think things are going
well."

*****
 

From: mustangsally78@juno.com (MustangSally Seventy-Eight)
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 09:15:59 -0500
Subject: Syadiloh 1: Chanukah  2/2   MustangSally, Rivka T
 
 

Mulder's mother had helpfully provided a menorah in the shape of a Tree
of Life, silver and gold and actually quite beautiful.  I think she was
making up for the irreligion of Mulder's youth.  Fortunately we had Laura
to free us from the embarrassing fact that the only Hebrew we knew was
"Netanyahu."  The candles also came with a transliteration of the prayers
-- a convenience of modern living.  I had carefully counted out the
multicolored candles so that we could have a matching set every night.
If I'd let Mulder pick we would have ended up with purple next to yellow
eight nights in a row.

Laura moved the menorah from the dining room table where I'd set it up to
a front window and raised the shade.  The security wiring framed the
scene, technological ivy for those more paranoid than well-established.
Miranda reached out a hand to pull the heavy metal down onto her head,
but I pulled her back.

"You have to leave it in the window," Laura explained, bending down
double to reach Miranda's eye level.  "That's so everyone else can see us
celebrating."

Miranda favored Laura with a dubious look, as if to say What do we care
what other people think?  But she watched with awe as Laura made fire
appear merely by rubbing small pieces of paper together.  I resolved to
find a better place to find the matches.  "Baruch ata Adonai," Laura
sang, and even the Mooselet began to sense the presence of something
greater.  She watched with all the concentration she'd devoted to
learning to walk as Laura lit the first candle and then used it to light
the second.  "Eloheinu melech' ha'olam.  Asher kid'shanu ba'mitzvotav,
vitzivanu, l'hadlik ner, shel Hanukah."  When her voice stilled, I felt
the entire house fall silent.

This is it, I realized.  The warmth of tradition, the safety of
friendship, the ability to give your children the best of what you had
and make it better.  This is what I expected my entire life, and I almost
missed it when it happened to me.  I knew that the world was no less
dangerous just because we'd lit a candle in the window, but at the same
time I had the feeling that wherever the candlelight flickered we could
be safe and whole.  My faith was not in the mountain, or in the thunder,
but in the still small voice I heard inside me, telling me that I could
survive all the evils of the world as long as I could remember this
moment and know why I fought.

"So," Maxwell said, softly but with a definitely teasing tone, "If you
had been in Jerusalem at the time would eight days of light from one
day's worth of oil have qualified as an X File?"

"Actually," Mulder said, "there are several documented instances of
inexplicably extended power supply in the files, and I'm not just talking
Energizer Bunny here....."

I closed my eyes and let the candles burn as everyone around me kept
moving.  And that was good, too, but I wanted to press the moment in my
mind, a flower for my mental scrapbook, to look at when things got crazy
again.  I felt Mulder's hand on my shoulder and turned.  His face shone
like the moon and I wondered what he saw in my eyes.  "Hey," he said,
"we're going to sit down and read the Hanukah story.  Wanna come?"

I held out my hand and let him guide me back to the beautifully imperfect
world I called home.

***

I watched with my hand on Scully's shoulder like something out of a
Hallmark card while Laura read the story out of the picture book that she
had brought.  The Mooselet looked up at her with rapt attention, like a
love-struck judge, and Maxwell looked at her with pretty much the same
expression of drooling adoration, no doubt seeing his little legal
sproglet perched on Laura's knee sometime in the near future.  Maybe
Maxwell and I were going to have to talk.

"Long, long ago, over two thousand, one hundred and fifty six years ago
to be exact, the Land of Israel was part of the Greek empire.  The Syrian
Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes wanted everyone in his empire to look and
act and think like the Greeks -- and most of the people did.  "

"Geeks. "

Scully's shoulder twitched under my hand but her expression didn't waver
in the flickering candlelight.

"They worshipped Greek gods and ate and dressed just like the Greeks.
There were even some Jews who wanted to be like the Greeks.  They were
called mityavnim from the Hebrew word Yavan -- Greece.  But many other
Jews insisted on keeping the Torah, just as they had always done," Laura
said and looked down at the Mooselet to see if she was listening.

"Aliens?"
 
Maxwell lost his expression of adoration and snickered audibly.  Laura,
who was used to noise from the peanut gallery in court, continued without
hesitation.

"Antiochus wanted all of the Jews to be like the mityavnim.  He decreed
that the Jews in the Land of Israel could no longer keep the mitzvot --
laws -- in the Torah.  There would be no more sacrifices in the Temple,
no more Shabbat, no more circumcision for Jewish boys, and no more Rosh
Chodesh -- celebration of the new Hebrew month.  Instead, Antiochus'
soldiers put a statue of the Greek idol Zeus into the Temple in Jerusalem
and sent idols to all the cities in Israel.  They ordered the Jews to
sacrifice pigs and eat their meat and other forbidden foods.  Many Jews
ran away and hid, but many others were afraid.  They did whatever the
Greeks told them to do."

 "Pigs."

"Mattityahu was an old priest from the famous priestly family of the
Hasmoneans.  He and his five brave and righteous sons lived in the town
of Modiin.  One day, the Greeks set up an idol right in the center of
Modiin!  When one of the mityavnim tried to sacrifice to the idol,
Mattityahu took a sword and killed the man on the spot!  He cried: "mi
lashem eilai!" -- "Whoever is for God, come after me!"  And they did.
Thousands of Jews came to Modiin to fight the Greeks.  Mattityahu
appointed his son Judah commander of the Jewish army."

"Matthew?"

"Not your cousin, sweetie," Scully corrected.

"Judah was called the Maccabee - the Hammer - because he pounded away at
the enemy.  Maccabee is also the abbreviation of the Hebrew words: mi
chamocha ba'eilim hashem -- "Who among the powerful is like you, God!"
They lit their lamps with the only oil that they had.  There was only
enough oil to burn for one night.  But there was a miracle from God and
the oil in the lamps burned for eight days and eight nights, it was then
that they knew that God was on their side."

Miranda nodded and stuffed her fingers in her mouth, the standard sign
that she was concentrating on what was being said.  I supposed that it
was simply an oral fixation because she hadn't been breast-fed, and I
wanted her to transfer her affection for oral gratification to chewing
gum or sunflower seeds before she got old enough to start thinking about
smoking.

 "Judah's faithful soldiers hid in caves or lay in ambush.  They attacked
the Greeks from the rear, or in the middle of the night, and they ran
away before they could be caught.  Even though the Jewish army was
smaller, weaker and poorer than the mighty Greek army, they were
victorious: they had God on their side!  Then, to the great surprise of
the Greeks, the Jews succeeded in chasing them out of Jerusalem!"

"Juice."

"So the important thing is that you can defeat mightier forces if you
have the power of righteousness on your side," Scully added.

If only things were that simple.

*****

At the end of the candle-lighting we all convened in the living room to
introduce Miranda to the intricacies of playing with the dreidel.  Laura
and Mulder went through a couple of rounds with the gold foil-covered
chocolate coins, which only served to remind me that we hadn't eaten
dinner yet and I swear that I could smell the cheap chocolate through the
covering.  Chanukah gelt has to be the worst chocolate in the world,
waxier than old records and twice as tasteless, but I wanted it anyway.
I'd already eaten the first package Mulder had brought home and I was now
lusting after the replacements.  Miranda watched the dreidel spin,
watched Mulder and Laura take some, all, or none of the coins in a pile
on the table with her green eyes bright as dollar bills under fluorescent
lights.  She touched the coins, examined the dreidel when Mulder handed
it to her, and when she had made up her mind about the usefulness of the
game, found it lacking, and took off with all the coins on the table.

Maxwell snickered.

"She's done her job and now she's taking her fee.  The kid is going to be
a lawyer."

"Over my dead body," Mulder said with an amused smile.

"So, Dana," Maxwell asked, leaning forward on the sofa, "why didn't Laura
have you testify that you were pregnant?  She knows that old coot would
never have broken up a viable family unit."

I shot Laura a significant look.  "You didn't tell him?"

"I'm not allowed to, Dana.  Normal people have rules."  I decided to
ignore the thinly veiled criticism because she was doing such a good job
peeling off the gelt wrappers for Miranda.

 "We didn't tell Laura about the pregnancy.  There were ... a lot of
factors at work."  Mulder's hand rubbed at the small of my back where the
pain had applied for permanent residence and begun studying for its
citizenship test.

Maxwell snorted.  "Clients.  Can't live with 'em, can't rat 'em out to
the cops."

Deep in the caverns of my abdomen, the kids began kicking in protest and
being squashed while I sat hunched over the table for too long.  I was
ready to kick Mulder if he continued to put off dinner.

 "Mulder, I need dinner or I am going to wrestle the Small One to the
floor and steal her chocolate."

"Stealing from a child?  That's low even for you, Scully."  Mulder said
and gave me an indulgent smirk, but he knew that it was unwise to get
between a pregnant woman and food.

The candles flickered in the window, their flames dancing in the ebb and
flow of our conversation.
 

*****

Crispy Cream doughnuts aren't exactly traditional Chanukah doughnuts but
the sight of the greasy box made me happy enough almost to break into
tears.  While the oil in the wok sizzled, I let Maxwell take the food out
to the table and started dropping potato mix into the wok where the water
in the potatoes snarled as it hit the hot oil.  Patty by patty, the
potatoes browned and I dropped them into a nest of paper towels to drain
the grease while I heard the adults talking in the dining room, and the
chirp and burble of the Moose as she gave her own opinion from her high
chair.  From the kitchen doorway I could see a slice of the table, the
back of Scully and part of the high chair where the Moose ruled above the
shower curtain spread out on the floor to protect the carpet.  I watched
Scully slip bits of chicken onto the tray of the chair and knew that each
bite had a fifty-fifty chance of making it to the Moose's mouth as
opposed to the plastic below.  The Mooselet was in a stage where she
refused to be fed with a spoon and hadn't quite mastered utensils
herself, so we had to reach a happy medium where she was allowed to stuff
her own face with things that weren't too messy.  She really enjoyed
using her tiny teeth on anything these days, people included.  Maxwell
poured wine and even Scully had a double-tablespoon in her glass, small
danger of fetal alcohol syndrome this late in the pregnancy with this
amount of wine.  The doctor had approved it on the grounds that the wine
would actually make the babies sleepy and give Scully a slightly quieter
night than she would have had otherwise.

"What's that smell?"  Laura asked.

I looked into the wok, the potatoes weren't burning, but I was smelling
something that smelled like burning hair.

I looked and there wasn't hair on the stovetop, I ran my hand over my
hair and didn't feel any flame, but --- a crash from the living room.

The fire alarm went off in a piercing high-tech squeal.

With a howl, with a screech, and a shriek, a flaming streak zipped from
the living room, through the kitchen and into the dining room Mach 2 and
onto the dining room table like a asteroid crashing into New York City in
a high-budget summer blockbuster.  Catzilla leapt onto the middle of the
dining table, landing next to the chicken, tail flaming like a torch.  He
yowled an unearthly yowl and set the Moose to screaming.  The worst
firefight with a suspect hadn't set my adrenaline off like this, and my
brain clicked off and slipped into DEFCON three.  I dunked the dishtowel
in the dishpan and set off in a dead run from the kitchen.  I barely
registered Scully scooping the Moose up and backing out of the hot zone,
Maxwell grabbed Laura and pulled her away from the table, the wine bottle
in his hands.  I dropped the wet rag on Catzilla and snatched him off the
table, fire, claws, and teeth biting into my chest as I muffled the fire
between the wet cloth and my shirt.

He howled, I yelled, and the Mooselet shrieked like a fire engine.

There was some more crashing and banging from the living room as the
lawyers stamped out the conflagration of the drapes where the menorah had
landed, Maxwell alternately slapping at the flames and pouring what had
been some very nice Beaujolais nouveau on the fire.  Catzilla, in
four-wheel drive mode, kicked and squirmed in my arms like a baby who
didn't want to go to bed.  Nails and teeth dug into me and I knew my
shirt was ruined.

Give the Arlington Fire Department credit, they were there just as Laura,
and Maxwell had gotten the flaming drapes under control.  Scully,
encumbered by the Mooselet, lumbered to the door when she heard the
sirens and opened the door before the firemen broke it down.  In full
gear, the men trooped into the house and made a quick assessment of the
situation, and at least they didn't laugh.

>From where she was cradled against Scully's lumpy torso, the Moose began
practicing her word of the day.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!" she screamed.
 

Some blurry time passed during which it was noticed that the fire alarm
was tied into the security system which had summoned the fire department,
the firemen stomped around, the lawyers yammered, and the Moose continued
to curse until Scully started feeding her olives.

At least the cat hadn't burned for eight days and nights, and he was
undamaged other than a hairless tail and a serious attitude problem.  I
locked him in the laundry room with his naked tail covered with burn
ointment, which he promptly began to lick off the reddened and blistered
skin.  It was just a temporary measure for the rest of the night.  I shut
the door behind the last of the firemen.  They had let me go with a
warning about leaving candles unattended with a toddler and a cat in the
house, and had stomped out again.  In the dinning room, Laura and Maxwell
were eating the pizza they had called for, and I found Scully eating a
cold chicken leg while Miranda sat under the table, rolling olives around
like they were marbles.

My legs were shaking so I sat down and poured myself a glass from the
remaining wine bottle.  Even though the windows in the living room were
open, the house still smelled like burnt carpet and fabric.

"Martha Stewart must be enjoying a newfound sense of job security."  I
said.

"I always hated those drapes," Scully said from around a mouthful of
chicken.

"So what are you going to do for Christmas, blow up the house?"  Maxwell
asked.

*****

I got to put Miranda to bed while Mulder cleaned up the debris.  Bedtime
was the time where I got Miranda to myself so we could bond.  The thought
of Mulder being the expert on child care was nothing short of hysterical,
but he had mastered the psychology of the normal child as well as he had
mastered the psychology of the pathological serial killer.  To add insult
to injury, Mulder was already talking about setting aside special Scully
time just for her so that she wouldn't feel completely abandoned when I
was no longer available for her 24-7.  If Mulder wasn't careful I was
going to start confusing him with my copy of T. Berry Brazelton.  Better
yet, I was going to start beating him with my copy of T. Berry.

I stuffed a sleepy Miranda into her footed pajamas and supervised the
brushing of her teeth, which she did standing on a stepstool in front of
the washbasin.  But like her father, Miranda was enchanted with the image
in the mirror and spent more time babbling at the toddler in the mirror
than she did brushing her teeth with her Rugrats toothbrush.  I had to
hurry her up and into her youth bed, having decided two months earlier
that she was too big for a crib and would only sleep in a youth bed with
the sides up.  Unlike Mulder, Miranda slept like an inanimate object once
you got her into bed.  Also unlike Mulder, she was very hard to get into
bed.  We turned on the night-light, inspected the closet and under the
bed for the "boogers."  "Boogers" were indescribable creatures which may
or may not have been related to the traumatic sights she had seen in her
short life, or could have been simple childlike fears of the dark.  But
it was always better to err on the side of caution and make sure that
there weren't any "boogers."  Finally, I pulled back the sheets and she
slid into bed, the sight of the white bottoms of her footed pajamas made
my throat tighten.  That and the fact that she smelled like baby lotion,
toothpaste, and clean baby skin.  So sweet, moderately innocent and a
sponge for everything that the world was offered for her to learn.
Hopefully it wasn't going to be about the real-life "boogers" out there
and if she did come up against "boogers," I wanted her to have the tools
to deal with them.

We'd start the shooting lessons when she was old enough.  For the time
being, checking under the bed and in the closet was just fine with me.

"Story?" she asked, getting a stranglehold around the next of her
pig-shaped pillow pal.

"You tell me a story.  What did Laura tell you about tonight?"

"Channika."

"So, what is Chanukah about?"  I asked as I tucked the covers around her.

"Juice, Matthew, Geeks, an' Aliens."

"The kid's all right," Mulder remarked from the doorway.

"Shit?" she asked.

"Nice people don't use that word." I reminded her and the look that she
shot Mulder in the doorway which indicated that she had always believed
that Mulder was something other than nice.

"Good night sweetheart," Mulder said and leaned over to kiss her.

"Night," she echoed and burrowed into the covers.

"You know," Mulder whispered as we pulled the door shut behind us, "Going
to your mother's for Christmas is getting more appealing by the minute.
I just hope she has good homeowner's insurance."
 

--
 

TITLE: Syadiloh 2 : Some Assembly Required
AUTHOR: MustangSally, Rivka T
CLASSIFICATION: SRH, MSR
CONTENT WARNING: Over-indulgence in sweets may cause dyspepsia.
SUMMARY: Christmas story.
SPOILER WARNING: Fruitcake don't spoil.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Let it flow freely as eggnog.
THE DISCLAIMER:  I made this!

++++++

Murder in the Holy Land.

Growling, the giant mutant cat crushed the stable underfoot, knocking
aside Joseph and the three Wise Men, before crushing baby Jesus between
its enormous white fangs and making off with the savior at a dead run.
The scattered wreckage of the crche spread out across the plain of
Bethlehem in an untidy mess of sheep bodies, a couple of camels, and a
de-winged angel. I crawled across the floor and reached for one sheep,
its leg hanging loosely from the body.  Another casualty.

Damn.

"Mulder!" came the voice of my beloved, something between a basketball
ref and a longshoreman, "the cat's stolen Jesus again!"

There was something decidedly perverse in Catzilla's make-up.  No sooner
had he burnt all the fur off of his tail on the Chanukah candles than he
had to start looting the Christmas decorations.  It hadn't been so bad
when he had been stealing elves and Santa Clauses, but even I found the
sight of the fat black cat with a bare naked opossum tail and an overbite
toting the baby Jesus in his mouth disturbing.  Blended families, pagan
cat.  Feh.

Well the house was about as polytheistic as the United Nations, since no
one was willing to invoke the wrath of any God/Goddess these days; we
were catering to any religion that walked, slithered, or luminesced
through the door.  Since I hadn't put the menorah away, we could serve a
worshiper of Yahweh, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, Apple (that was
the framed picture of Steve Jobs), Vishnu, and a really mean loa from my
last voodoo case.

We should be jam-packed with good karma for the upcoming year. God
(whoever) knows we needed it.  Provided that I could rescue Jesus from
the cat.  I tracked the kleptomaniac feline down to the bedroom where he
was playing paw hockey with the small savior underneath the bed where my
own personal fertility goddess was holding court.  Scully was propped up
against the headboard of what had been our bed with her glasses resting
on her nose and her laptop resting next to the geological formation which
had once been her stomach.  She wasn't allowed to lie on her back
anymore, something about a large vein she couldn't compress, and she
blamed me for that too.

She gave me a dirty look and gestured at the floor.

"Your damn cat won't leave it alone."

When Catzilla was good, he was her cat, when he was bad, he was mine.
Typical. He'd been mine since Chanukah and wasn't likely to become anyone
else's until after Memorial Day.

"Maybe the Blessed diapers are packed with catnip or something," I
reached under the bed and grabbed the baby Jesus, which made Catzilla lay
into me with claws and teeth.  It didn't break the skin but hurt
nonetheless.

"Burnt-butt, naked rat-tailed psychopath!"

Catzilla hissed and swatted at me.

"Maybe we should just forget the crche this year," Scully said looking
over her glasses, "next year might be better."

"Yah, much better, three kids under the age of three and you want to put
a crche on the floor.  Better take our chances with the cat," I stuffed
the baby Jesus into the pocket of my shirt and hitched my ass up onto the
side of the bed that we'd shared before Scully needed more mattress real
estate.

I put my hand on her stomach and one of the twins kicked back at me with
World Cup gusto.

"The natives are restless," she said with a grimace.

"They're doing a countdown," I said and rubbed at her stomach for a
moment, getting kicked again for my pains.

"Three more weeks," she warned the unquiet sea of her body, "three more
weeks and we'll spring you."

"Think you can hold out until then?"  I asked.

Putting the computer aside, she rolled towards me with a seraphic smile
on her face.

"Only the thought of watching you have your vasectomy keeps me going."

How a mouth that vicious could be that sweet never failed to amaze me.
But I kissed her back over the ridge of her belly.  Yes, Virginia, there
is sex during pregnancy, all it takes is some creativity and a
willingness to admit that a woman who resembled the Venus of Willendorf
was a sexual object.  Even though she was now built like a killer whale,
Scully was still hot as a pistol fired into the ballistics tank.  Her
lips slithered against mine, but her forehead was warm when she leaned
into me.

"Where's Miranda?" she asked and her eyes flamed with mischief.

I stood up and looked around the room.

"You lost the baby?"  I asked in the most terror-stricken voice that I
could muster.

"I don't know.  It was your turn to watch her." she accused and her eyes
flicked over to the dark drapes flowing almost to the floor.  Drapes that
had a tiny pair of feet in purple sneakers protruding from underneath.

"We lost the Mooselet?"  I asked.  "Did she run away?  Is she hiding?
Did she turn into a cat and hide under the bed?"  I looked underneath the
bed and saw dust-bunnies, Catzilla, and a tie that I hadn't known that I
had lost.

The feet underneath the drapes jittered impatiently.

I stalked back to the rear of the bedroom and peered into the bathroom,
"Is she in the bathroom?"

Nothing in the bathroom, nothing under the bed, nothing in the closet,
and I was walking around the room, working my way over to the window.
This was the Mooselet's favorite game -- avoiding bedtime.  I just hoped
that it was simple childlike mischief rather than the beginning stages of
insomnia.  I looked over my shoulder and saw that the sneakers were now
bouncing up and down with anticipation and the drape was giving off a
high-pitched toddler giggle.

"Miranable Cannibal where are you?"  I called.

It was too much for her and she bolted from behind the drapes making a
mad dash for the bed.  She flung herself onto the bed and climbed up next
to Scully and buried her head in Scully's shoulder, laughing as though
she had been mainlining nitrous.  Scully's hand moved over the Mooselet's
back, her rings flashing in the light from the bedside table, the
Mooselet's shoulders continuing to shake as she was giggling.  Over the
top of the Mooselet's head, Scully smiled at me, her face smoothing into
the strangely beatific smile she'd been sporting lately.  She looked
sweet, saintly, and glowed as though there was a halogen bulb behind her
face.  She shone like she was radioactive.  Maybe the babies were giving
off more rads than they should have been.  Blue eyes reached up to my
face, followed by a pair of green eyes.  It was disgusting; I was
helplessly in love with a little woman and a slightly larger one.
Drowning in a sea of domesticity.  Stick a fork in me, I was done.

I got up on the bed, on the other side of Scully and put my arm around
her shoulders where I could reach Miranda and rub her hot little head.

"We don't want to go to bed."  Scully remarked, and Miranda giggled
again, popping her head up to look at me with new corn green eyes.

"No bed," she agreed and began playing with Scully's hair.

"You have to go to bed or Santa won't come."

Childlike greed brightened her eyes.

"Santa?" she asked.

Santa was a convenient fiction to explain the fact that Scully and I now
had an attic that looked like FAO Schwartz had exploded.  There was a
Furby, some American Girl Dolls, a Tickle Me Elmo, the entire Teletubby
video collection, a half-dozen Beanie Babies, as well as some less
conspicuous consumer goods.  Between Chanukah and Christmas, Miranda was
making out like a bandit.  The assorted mothers-in-law had been banned
from buying toys and were only allowed to give clothes this year; even
then they were limited to the amount of clothes that they were allowed to
buy.  Scully's mother was thrilled to have a granddaughter to buy frilly
dresses for and my mother was just so glad to have a grandchild, period,
that she'd been very indulgent at Chanukah and saw no reason to stop the
flow of child-bribery just because of a difference in theology.

It was actually embarrassing; not quite as embarrassing as Miranda's
birthday when she'd been knee-deep in gifts and decided that the thing
that she liked the most was the box that her new rocking horse had come
in.  She spent her entire birthday party in the box, refusing to come out
to play with her cousins Samuel and Matthew.  Matthew had actually gotten
bitten for trying to get into the box with her, and Bill was still
blaming me, although stubbornness was an established Scully family trait,
running true to breed in the women.

I was surprised that Scully had encouraged the Santa myth at all, due to
the fact that it was a myth and Scully isn't noted for her flights of
fantasy (but give her a can of squeeze cheese and a camcorder and that's
another story).  I think her primary interest in the Santa myth was as a
blackmail device when the Mooselet got older.  The squeeze cheese and the
camcorder is my blackmail insurance that she won't sling me out on my ass
when she becomes Director of the FBI.  Long-term plotting runs in the
family no less than stubbornness.

"Little girls who stay up too late end up on Santa's naughty list."
Scully cautioned.

Frowning, the Mooselet processed this, and I could just about see the
little hourglass turning over and over in her eyes.  A true child of the
nineties, she was web-enabled, multi-tasked, and quick processing, and
was increasing her vocabulary geometrically.

"Bed.  Now," she agreed.

"Kiss your mom good-night,"  I instructed.

The Mooselet did so; giving Scully a smacking sucker-mouth of a kiss on
the cheek.  I knew from personal experience this was not unlike being
licked by a puppy with better breath.  For good measure, the Mooselet
patted Scully's stomach.

"Bed Scul-lee.  Bed bay-bees," she sang and then turned to give me an
impatient look.

I let her lead me to the bathroom for her evening ablutions.  Scully
snickered in the background.  Giving a year and a half old Mooselet a
bath was not unlike diving into the tank with dolphins.  Actually I might
have stayed dryer in Sea World.

****

Beached mammal, I flopped off the bed and listened to the giggling coming
from the bathroom down the hall.  Chortling and splashing, and my bladder
twitched in sympathetic response at the sound of water.  Not again, I
swore that I'd peed not ten minutes earlier.  One of the instructions
which had been drilled into me at twin birth class was that water was
your babies' friend.  Dehydration was the enemy.  More water made more
amniotic fluid, which helped my kidneys process the toxins formed by
three humans instead of one, and worked like high-grade motor oil in all
the internal systems.  I was drinking over a gallon of water a day, as
prescribed, and the water consumption combined with the fact that the
twins seemed to enjoy playing soccer with my bladder was making my life a
living hell.  I felt like a water balloon three molecules of rubber away
from popping.   I was so big that if I had decided to wear silver lame,
there would have been a rash of UFO sightings in our neighborhood in
Arlington.

I made my way downstairs, just in time to catch a glimpse of a
stark-naked Miranda running at top speed into her bedroom, shedding
towel, pajamas, slippers, and bathrobe behind her while Mulder squawked
in frustration in the bathroom.  I was loath to break my momentum and it
was Mulder's problem anyway so I didn't pause my waddle.  Miranda's
shrieks of amusement followed me down the steps to the living room.

Christmas this year was very different.  Mulder averred that my
hormone-driven nesting instincts had taken over, but I think that was
wishful thinking.  The truth is that when you spend your days confined to
your bedroom, you have plenty of time to become the Martha Stewart of
wrapping presents.  I had curled the multicolored ribbons with the edge
of a scissors; I had tied keepsake Christmas ornaments as extra
decorations on the presents for my family members.  They were going to
feel well-loved and inferior, damnit.  Many of Miranda's presents were
still upstairs, waiting for us -- me -- to assemble them, but we had the
presents for Bill's family and my mother under the tree.  Of course we
were just going to pack them in the SUV and take them over to Mom's
tomorrow morning, but I had an image to create.  Especially since we
didn't have any drapes, thanks to the Hanukah fire.  If the neighbors
were going to see into our house, I wanted it to look like a Norman
Rockwell painting, aside from the scorch marks.

That's me -- compulsive-obsessive hyper-achiever.  For example, I was not
just pregnant, I was hugely overstuffed multiple-birth pregnant, I was on
maternity leave and still dialing into the FBI server for my mail every
few hours and bribing Zippy to fax me case files so I had something to do
other than make Christmas ornaments.  I had written and sent out a
Christmas letter to end all Christmas letters, and had even been able to
tell some of the truth of what had happened over the past year.  Okay,
I'd gotten married, gotten pregnant with twins, and had a
fifteen-month-old daughter who was genetically mine but I hadn't given
birth to, and that was pretty much in reverse order of the actual event
flow.  What I couldn't write about was that I was afraid that the twins
were trying to tunnel out of me through my spine, that the twins would be
born dead, mutated, hideously malformed, and full of alien DNA no matter
what all the prenatal testing and ultrasound pictures said.  That was
what I couldn't put into the letter and why I had strung popcorn and
cranberries, made clothespin angels, rolled glass balls in metallic
confetti, and glued sequins on fabric-covered balls.  If I didn't give
birth soon I was going to start knitting.
 
Three weeks to go.

While I was adjusting the ornaments to get a more even effect, the
Christmas tree shuddered for a moment, and then it howled.  I looked into
the evil green eyes of the cat from hell.

"Down,"  I ordered.
 
Catzilla leapt from the tree, making it shake like a house on the San
Andreas Fault, and sped off into the kitchen, naked tail flying behind
him.  Suddenly tired, I eased myself down onto the sofa and reached for
the television remote.  It wasn't the only bad habit I had picked up from
Mulder in all these months, but it was the only one I was willing to
admit to.  PBS was showing some kind of a Christmas Music program from
the National Cathedral, with all the candles, singing, gilt, and guilt I
remembered from Midnight Masses of my childhood. Oddly enough, I seemed
to remember that this spcial had been filmed back in the fall so, like so
many things, it was artificial.  Come to think of it,  this was going to
be the first year that I hadn't gone to Midnight Mass with my mother.
Even last year, cradling the hot, senseless weight that Miranda had been
at that age and being terrified that I would somehow hurt her, I had
gone.  I had gone that terrible Christmas that Emily had been born into
my consciousness and then died before I had adjusted to the idea of her.

Come to think of it, Dad had died just after Christmas, so I'd been
having shitty holidays for awhile.

"That is a seriously long puss you're wearing there," Mulder said and
slid onto the sofa next to me.
 
"As opposed to a burnt, bare-assed puss with sociopathic tendencies?"

"That's my cat you're talking about," he teased and leaned up against me.

"Did she go to sleep?" I asked.

"Not yet," his eyes lost focus as he stared into the blinking lights of
the tree, "you know, this six in the morning thing at your mother's
really sucks.  We don't do it next year, with three kids.  She can come
over here, but I am not hauling all our shit over to her house and make
any kids wait to open presents.  It's cruel."

"All right.  But you have to tell her."

"Endanger my life."

"You better go upstairs and get Miranda's presents.  I don't want to be
up all night with this."

"I can think of better ways to be up all night," he said with a cheesy
leer and gave me a seductive kiss.

"Mmmmmm, me too, but--"

"I'm there.  I am with the presents."

The wrapping went better than expected.  Mulder managed to carry
everything down from the attic without tumbling down the stairs himself
or dropping anything.  We set up an assembly line of tools, paper, and
bows.  I put together the tricycle, Mulder slung paper around it, then I
tidied the edges and put the ribbon on.  Meanwhile, he was putting
batteries in all the battery-operated toys.  Children need more batteries
than sex therapists do; Mulder had planned ahead with a big plastic bag
full of all shapes and sizes.  There was a muffled squawk as the Furby
tried to make friends and then fell silent.  I didn't want to know what
he'd threatened it with.

My back felt like the bridge on the river Kwai by the time we were
finished, but the presents were indubitably done.  Mulder sensed my agony
despite my well-maintained poker face and had me lie on the couch --
tossing the pillows to the floor so that I could fit -- where he gave me
a backrub.

"I'm going to be so glad when this is over," I sighed as his hands worked
me over like a farmer tilling over-fertile soil.

"Tell me that again after a few weeks of midnight feedings," and I could
hear the smirk in his voice.

"And I'll have to go on a diet ..."

"But I think Roly-Poly Scully has a certain charm to it."  His hands were
sweeping further from the small of my back on each pass, moving up to my
shoulder blades and around my hips and even teasing the sides of my
breasts, "More to love GopherGirl."

"Before I forget," I mumbled, sleepy with contentment, "you've got to get
your present from under the tree."

"Can't I open it tomorrow?"

"Not in front of my mother."

That got him excited enough to abandon me and go rooting around like a
truffle-hunting pig until he found it, buried among the less personal
presents.  "What *is* this?" he asked in a delighted little-boy voice.

It wasn't a present for a boy.

Sneaky me, I had strong-armed Zippy into buying Mulder's Christmas
present for me -- the proprietors of adult video stores tend to get a tad
nervous when heavily pregnant women enter and look around.  I'd used silk
scarves instead of jolly round Santa paper to wrap the videos, with a
bundle of tiny tubes of flavored lube instead of a bow.  Zippy had picked
out "Buffy the Vampire Layer" and "There's Something About Mary's Tits,"
which would mortify Mulder even if he never found out that Zippy was
involved in the purchase.  The anticipation of Mulder's embarrassment was
a present to myself; the tapes were for the weeks or months after birth
when I wouldn't want to fulfill my conjugal duties.  On the other hand it
could be years -- maybe I should have gotten him a membership card for
the nearest adult video store.  Maybe I should have gotten a hooker and
put her on retainer.

I turned over like a sunbathing walrus so that I could watch his
reaction.

"Ooo, Scully," he said as he determined that the bow was not, in fact, a
bow.  He fumbled with the silk scarves for a minute, then turned
Santa-suit red when he saw the tapes.

"I figured with 'Alien Probe' gone from your life you needed to start a
new collection."

He knelt by the sofa, present in hand, and began nibbling on my neck.
"I'd rather try out the scarves."

"Mulder, I'd look like a balloon in the Macy's parade."  I couldn't help
but gasp as he munched his way from my collarbone to the top of my ear.

"Stop arguing and come to bed."  I should have resented it, but he
delivered the line in such perfect phone-sex fashion I don't think I
could be faulted for sighing and letting him pull me to my swollen feet.

He undressed me with what I was beginning to hope was reverence,
smoothing his stubbled cheeks across the globe of my belly, mapping me
like Amerigo Vespucci with his hands and his mouth.  His cold fingertips
against my breasts made me groan.

"Shh," he warned as his mouth moved to warm what he'd chilled.  I let him
ease me down to the bed, where he rolled me onto my side.  His hands slid
over me like skiers over rough terrain, pausing to view the sights.  I
was tired enough to let him do all the work, only kissing whatever body
part came close enough as he moved around me.

Before I expanded, I'd thought that we had explored every sexual position
that didn't involve elaborate props, yoga, or antigravity.  I was wrong.
The bigger I got, the more creative we had to be, but Mulder's mind works
on incredible tangents and he'd come up with some inventive solutions.
This time he had me lying on my side, my back to him and my knees drawn
up as if I were sitting.  When he entered me, he was able to put his
hands around my breasts and bite into the back of my neck like I was
Christmas dinner.

I tried to make low appreciative sounds that wouldn't drown out any noise
from the baby monitor.  My breasts were so sensitive these days, with
hormones working their magic better than any plastic surgeon ever could.
"You're so beautiful," he crooned and I melted faster than Frosty the
Snowman in hot summer sun.  If he'd known that the frothiest of sweet
nothings would work on me he'd have been bedding me the night the lights
went out in Oregon.  I guess they wouldn't have worked back then.
Somehow it was different now that we were together and had a family, or
maybe I'd mellowed with age.

"You're thinking again," he chided in my ear and then licked it like a
candy cane.  I growled and reached back and grabbed at the hard plane of
his hip, feeling the tiger-smoothness of his skin where it covered the
bone.  His hands squeezed me more vigorously; it would have been painful
if I hadn't been so turned on.  My thighs squeezed him, desperate for
more direct stimulation.  Mulder pulled his upper body away from mine and
I don't know how he did it and I don't care, but he worked his hand
around my belly and stroked my clit.  I groaned like a torpedoed ship and
came, feeling the babies swing dance with excitement from the rush in my
own blood.

He pulled me close again, his wet hand sliding over my nipples as he
increased the pace of his thrusts.  I twined my legs over the outsides of
his and drew him even more tightly to me.  With a shudder, he came into
me, his semen arriving on-scene far too late to make a difference.  "I
love you," I whispered into my pillow and behind me he froze like a
suspect cornered by the LAPD.  His hand stilled on my breast and I was
suddenly chilly, so I moved away, disconnecting us, and tugged at the
covers he'd pushed back so that we could make love.

Lying in the darkness, I could hear his breath and the counterpoint heavy
breathing through the baby monitor, like the sound of waves in a very
rough sea.  And I the ship, overladen with cargo, on yet another
adventure, so far from my maiden voyage but so at home in the sea.

"Likewise, I'm sure."  Mulder's voice was thick as molasses for
gingerbread.  I wanted someday to be sure enough of myself to tell him in
the grocery store, in parking lots, wherever the thought hit me.  For now
it was enough to say it in darkness, looking at the dim improbable shapes
of our bedroom furniture.

I turned over to kiss him goodnight.  He was already half-asleep, his
middle-aged self worn out by the wrapping and the subsequent unwrapping.
I smiled into his cheek and let myself drift into uncharted ocean.

****

From: mustangsally78@juno.com (MustangSally Seventy-Eight)
Subject: Syadiloh 2 : Some Assembly Required 2/3 - MustangSally, Rivka T
 

'Twas the morning of Christmas and all through the house not a creature
was stirring not even a --

I was awakened by screaming -- screaming tends to wake even me, bloated
and full of babies, jolt upright on an adrenaline rush.  I grabbed for my
gun, remembering too late that it was locked in a strongbox on the top
shelf of the closet.  My heart was hammering like Billy Joel on the
ivories, which was sending the kids into their own too-much-fertility
dance, and I tried to at least see who was going to kill or be killed in
our bedroom.

But the screaming was not coming from a human throat.  Catzilla was
standing proudly at the foot of the bed with something in his mouth, his
eyes gleaming with the thrill of the hunt and his naked, stubbly tail
lashing from side to side in triumph.  With a wet "ptoooh" he spat
something onto my legs.  Something with wings.  My first thought was that
he had somehow gotten outside (strictly forbidden) and caught one of the
birds that Mulder had been enticing into the front yard with elaborate
allegedly squirrel-proof feeders.  But no, it wasn't a bird that the cat
from Hell had caught.

I nudged Mulder in the back with my elbow.

"Mulder, wake up."

"Grrsth?" he mumbled.

"Your damn cat has caught an angel."

"X-File.  Your department," he said slightly more distinctly and pulled
the covers over his head.

I had to go to the bathroom anyway, so I pinned the cat with a level-two
glare and he turned and ran out of the room, slipping on the hardwood
floor and then bouncing off the hallway wall because he couldn't slow
himself down enough to turn.  It was nice that *someone* in the house
retained some respect for me.

Sighing, I took the saliva-coated angel and went to go return it to the
tree.  Then I started getting ready for Christmas at Mother's.

Bathing and grooming myself took twice as long these days, given that I
had approximately twice as much surface area to cover.  When I was
willing to have sex, I'd usually enlist Mulder in the endeavor, because
he could reach all the parts currently beyond my grasp.  There was no
time for that this morning, so I managed.  Festively dressed and coifed,
I trundled out to the bed and slapped Mulder on his comely buttocks,
which had de-sheeted themselves during the night.

"Get up, Mulder.  We have to be at my mother's in an hour."
He groaned.  "The operative word here is *your* mother."

"You can torment Bill," I promised.

Mulder pushed himself off of the bed and headed towards the bathroom,
scratching himself grumpily.

I went to get Miranda ready.  She was perversely perky, sensing that
major goodies were in the offing.  It was a genuine struggle to get her
into her overalls embroidered with little snowmen and getting her hair
into a ponytail nearly reduced both of us to tears.  Finally, Mulder
appeared in a Yuppieish sweater and khakis and managed to charm her into
the rest of her clothes the way he usually charmed me out of mine.

When we got to my mother's house, Mom enlisted the help of all the clan
to unload the car and bring the loot inside.  I introduced Miranda to my
brother Charlie and Juanna, his wife.

"She's got the eyes of a sharpshooter," Charlie told me.

"She'll need good aim in this family," I responded and kissed my brother
over the landmass of my stomach.

Juanna picked up Miranda and began taking her around to meet the various
members of her brood, who should have been wearing name tags since no one
could ever tell them apart.  The boys were impressed with the size of my
stomach and the biggest of the bunch, who I thought was named David,
wanted to know where my gun was.  It was still a little strange to be
called "Aunt Dana" by short people capable of forming complete sentences.
 Raul, Miranda, and Matthew were close enough in age to be plunked down
together and play.  I watched Miranda look at her boy cousins like a
queen surrounded by peasants.  She was clutching her new Teletubby as
though the boys were seeking its removal.

While I was sitting on the couch in the living room with a glass of water
balanced on my stomach, Mom came over and sat next to me.

"I wasn't sure that you would come," she said in her soft voice, "I
wouldn't blame you if you didn't, after what happened . . . "

I know what Mom wanted was for me to throw my arms around her, stomach
and all, and tell her that all was forgiven, that I was going to be her
darling baby daughter again and dive right back into the soupy mass of
the family.  I couldn't do that, I wasn't that person anymore.  At the
same time, all my energy had been given over to trying to grow the babies
inside me, keep Miranda growing up healthy and strong, and Mulder -- who
had vanished like a suspect with a warrant for his arrest -- on something
like an even keel.  I had my own family to try to manage now.

"We all make mistakes," I said.

BoyTwin, on the bottom, kicked me in the intestines for emphasis.  Even
in the darkness of the womb, the little ones knew that something good was
going on in the outside world, and were protesting that they were missing
out.  Mom watched my stomach jiggle like Jell-O in an off road vehicle
and her eyes widened.

"They're an active pair, aren't they?"

"It's like having the Rockettes doing a kick-line on my bladder," I said
and winced as the familiar urge hit me yet again.

"Melissa was like that," Mom said and for once she didn't have tears in
her eyes, "she started trying to tunnel out at six months.  You know what
Missy was like, always impatient to go after new experiences."

"I just want to experience not having to make a bathroom trip every ten
minutes," I complained and hoisted myself out of the couch.

****

Something with the consistency of a bowling ball slammed into my left
leg.  I looked down at the chubby, sullen face of Matthew Scully.

"Hey Sport, Merry Christmas," I said in the heartiest voice I could
manage.

"You're a Jew, you don't have Christmas," he accused.

Nice kid.  I wondered how far I could drop-kick him.

"Well I guess I can take back your present then."

"Matt!" Bill bellowed from somewhere inside the house, "don't be a pest."

"You killed Jesus," Matthew added a moment later.

"Er," I said which was the nicest thing I could say at the time, but I
was saved by a red-faced Tara arriving.  Since she had clearly heard the
entire conversation, she grabbed Matthew by the arm and hauled him off my
leg.

"Matthew, that is no way to talk to your Uncle Fox on Christmas.  We'll
discuss this later -- with your father.  Now go play with your cousin
Miranda."

At a dead run, Matthew stumped off on his fat little legs.  Tara dithered
for a moment before presenting me with a sweet-smelling cheek to kiss.
 
"Merry Christmas, Fox."

"Merry Christmas, Tara."

I found Bill holding court in the TV room, with the sports news on with
no sound and a beer in his hand, a little too early for my taste. He
looked up when I entered and we nodded our greetings with the utmost
civility.  I piled the presents we had brought under the tree, wondering
if dealing with a soused Bill was any better than having a theological
conversation with an almost two-year-old.  The kid in question was
running a Tonka dump truck around on the carpet and managing to slam it
into all the furniture en route while screaming "rum-rum" noises at the
top of his shrill voice.  Frank Sinatra was wishing every one a Merry
little Christmas on the stereo. From the kitchen, I could hear women
laughing and the murmur of female conversation.

"Nice of you to dress up," Bill observed.

Well, my sweater probably cost more than his suit, but it wasn't a good
time to point that out.

"Scully gave it to me, Miranda's still in the messy stage. The pattern
hides the stains."

"Good thing Dad's gone, it would have killed him.  You never did meet the
Captain did you?"

"No."

"He was a good man."

Maudlin drunk, great, that was only moderately better than belligerent.
With any luck dickless would pass out in the turkey.  I loitered near the
tree, looking at the decorations, my eye catching on the ones marked
"Mom", "Dad", "Melissa," "Charlie", "Bill", and "Dana."  Why the hell
were they still hanging Melissa's ornament?  The glittery script on the
red silk ball was like a festive tombstone.  I was surprised that there
wasn't a birth and death date on there as well.  And people think I'm
ghoulish.

Scully rescued me then, a waddling angel with a coffee cup in one hand.
Giving me the coffee, she put her free arm around my waist and leaned
heavily against me, the weight of her body burdened down by the twins
grounding me in the sea of hostility flowing from her brother.

"Goddamn, Dana, you look like you're going to explode."

"The doctor told us that the twins are almost seven pounds each now, "
she told her brother, "and if I don't have them by January 12th, I have a
c-section scheduled."

"Seven pounds?  Mattie was nearly ten."

Yeah, well, it's not a reflection on the size of your dick, Bill.  Scully
frowned and her grip on me tightened as if she'd read my mind.

"Twins are generally smaller," she said in her knowing-scientist voice.
Bill smirked up at her uneasily and I could see that she'd grown up
practicing it on him.  Smart-aleck little sisters are a pain; pity Bill
wasn't sharp enough to keep up with her.  I sipped coffee, wishing that
it had been spiked.

"Besides, they're fraternal twins.  Two separate oocytes, two separate
spermatozoa, separate placenta, separate umbilical cords, in  effect, two
pregnancies at the same time," she smiled a smug little smile, "And all
without fertility treatment."

It was a well-known but unspoken fact that Matthew's conception had been
slowed up by Bill's own "lazy sperm".  The loud-mouthed butterball was
almost as unnatural a creation as the Mooselet, but at least Matthew
hadn't been part of a plan for the New World order other than the one
that existed in Bill's mind.

"Can we open the presents now?" the biggest of Charlie's tribe asked.

I helped Scully settle into a chair and perched on the arm to watch the
festival of naked avarice begin.  The kids all made for the tree in a mad
rush and Maggie crouched down to dole out presents according to the names
on the tags for the ones who couldn't read yet.  Warm against me, Scully
watched in amusement as the squealing kids tore into the wrapping paper
with greedy delight.  She actually looked relaxed and happy which was a
better present than anything available at retail prices.  With that
uncanny way she has of reading my thoughts, she looked up at me with her
eyes as blue as any glimmering glass decoration on the tree.

"Thank you," she said with her lips only.

Embarrassed, I looked away to see the Moose whap Matthew over the head
with her Teletubby.
 

From: mustangsally78@juno.com (MustangSally Seventy-Eight)
Subject: Syadiloh 2 : Some Assembly Required 3/3 - MustangSally, Rivka T
 

Watching children open presents is fun, even for a confirmed funless
person like me.  A child has so little experience that each new present
is an enormous part of her consciousness as she's opening it, even if
she's going to forget it in a few seconds.  There are no expectations,
only surprises.

Miranda liked the boxes that held the sweater sets from Mom, and she
loved the big plastic dump truck that Charlie gave her.  She even
appeared to enjoy the large stuffed giraffe from Bill and Tara.

Adults have less fun because we always have to evaluate whether we spent
the right amount of money.  Overspending a little is okay, preferable
really, but overspending a lot is an insult to both sides.  We'd gotten
Matthew a stack of classic children's books, and he immediately began to
paw through Beatrix Potter.  Maybe he'd come out all right in the end.
There was always hope.  Charlie's kids liked the FBI sweatshirts we'd
gotten them and promptly broke out in a finger-pointing gunfight in the
hallway, and since they were all wearing FBI shirts, it looked like
inter-departments politics had taken an ugly turn.  Mom, Juanna, and Tara
liked the gift baskets from Bath and Body Works we had given them, and
Mulder had to feign enthusiasm over a series of ties and CD gift
certificates.

Mulder, bless his twisty little head, gave me a gift certificate for the
best gunsmith in the metro area where I would have a custom-grip Smith
and Wesson 1076 made when I went back to work.  It really was the
sweetest gift, even though it appalled Mom.  She did, however, approve of
the chunky amber and gold necklace and earring set which came complete
with bugs in the amber.  The general consensus was the digital camera I
gave him was a good thing, but they were operating under the assumption
that it was only going to be used for baby pictures and other innocent
pursuits.  I knew better.  The camera would sit on the bedside table
primed and ready to go under the pretense that should the Mothership
decided to land in Arlington, Mulder would have the first pictures.
Right.  The check is in the mail, the computer is down, and I did not
have sex with that woman.  My only concern was making sure that the only
pictures with nudity uploaded to the Internet from our house were going
to be of Catzilla's hairless tail.

Dinner was served at five and we all trooped into the dining room, kids
to the folding card table in the corner, with the high chair crew
assigned to their mothers.  I was exempt from serving and cleaning up
because of my enceinte condition and Mulder wasn't allowed in the kitchen
because he drops things.  So we traded chairs so he got Miranda feeding
duty and proceeded to feed her chunks of bread and butter to keep her
happy until the turkey arrived.  And arrive it did, the size of a small
dog, golden brown and crisp as parchment.  I don't know what Mom does to
keep her turkey crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside, but it
may be grounds for an X-File.  Charlie opened the wine bottles and went
around the table like a hippie waiter, filling glasses here and there.  I
got a mouthful of Chardonnay in my glass and another whole glass of
sparkling grape juice like the rest of the children.  Mom assumed the
head of the table and held out her glass for a toast.

"In years past I would look around this table and see the faces which
were missing, people who were gone.  Now I realize that I look around
this table and see all the new faces, new spouses, new children, and I
see the future rather than the past.  "

The future began making like Riverdance inside me.
 
"Bill?"

My brother muttered his way through grace like a second-grader saying the
Pledge of Allegiance and Mom shot him a dirty look.  With a
long-suffering air, he passed the carving knife and fork down the table
to me and I waddled over to where the turkey sat in front of Mom, who was
wearing her "my daughter, the doctor" face when I cut into the turkey.
Mulder grinned.  I knew he was thinking that I was the most experienced
at cutting up something dead regardless of whether or not it had been
properly basted.

"Do you remember the first Christmas Dana was home from medical school?"
Charlie asked, "Dad went to carve the turkey and she narrated every body
part he was removing."

"Know-it-all brat," Bill said in an indulgent voice.

"That's when Missy became a vegetarian."  Mom added.

A little ripple of laughter washed around the table, and it was probably
the first time that we had been able to talk about Dad and Missy without
the weight of their absence crushing us underneath.  Miranda laughed
along with everyone else and banged her fists on the tray of the high
chair for emphasis; Mulder bribed her into silence with some mashed
potatoes.

"The deceased is a Turkey hen, weighing approximately twenty-five pounds
after cooking.  Cause of death appears to be a massive amount of walnut
and sage stuffing forced into the body cavity.  The deceased has been
decapitated and denuded of all feathers."

A groan went around the table and I had to stop, but Mulder smirked at me
with appreciation.  It was nice to have at least one person at the table
appreciate my sense of humor which I will admit, is an acquired taste.

Plates were filled and conversation dimmed underneath the sounds of
eating.  A fight broke out over a drumstick at the kid's table and
Charlie had to restore order.  Lulled by the food and the mouthful of
wine, the twins gradually settled down and either went to sleep or
continued plotting world domination.  Tara made inroads into the bottle
of Chardonnay and her normally pale face went red with increased blood
flow to her epidermal capillaries from the alcohol.  In addition to this
she didn't seem to be eating as much as pushing her food around on her
plate with her fork.  While all this was going on she and Bill were
having a conversation in strained hisses down at their end of the table.
Matthew, reacting to his parents' stress, began to rub candied yams in
his hair, which at least went with the color, and drop food on the floor.
 Fortunately, Miranda neatly picked up at her food with her delicate pink
fingers and conveyed it elegantly to her mouth.  Mulder looked bemused
and began stealing my stuffing.

"Do you see what insanity I've been sparing you from for all these
years?" I asked him.

"This is wholesome and American.  Remember I grew up with Tina and Bill
doing 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' every major holiday."

The hissing from Bill and Tara reached a crescendo.  Tara stood up and
slammed her fist down on the table.

"I want you to stop seeing her or I'm leaving you!"

"Don't do me any favors," Bill growled into the wall of silence that
formed around the table.

With a little screech, Tara bolted from the table, Bill took off after
her and Matthew broke into abject howling.  Miranda, catching the spirit
of the moment decided to start practicing her new vocabulary in a
guttural voice that made her sound like the little girl in The Exorcist.

"Shit shit shit shit shit," she chanted.

 At the head of the table, Mom went pale green.

"I really appreciate all the trouble you've gone through to make me feel
like one of the family," Mulder said in an innocent voice and refused to
look repentant when I kicked him under the table.

"Can you pass the cranberry sauce?" Charlie asked.

Through the chaos, Mel Torme, the velvet fog crooned:

So I'm offering this simple phrase
to kids from one to ninety-two
Although it's been said many times, many ways
Merry Christmas to you
 

--
 

From: RivkaT@aol.com
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 13:43:55 EST
Subject: New: Syadiloh 3: Y2K by MustangSally & RivkaT 1/2
 

TITLE: Syadiloh 3 : Y2K

AUTHOR: MustangSally, Rivka T
MustangSally78@juno.com; RivkaT@aol.com

CLASSIFICATION: SRH/ Holiday story
CONTENT WARNING: Over-indulgence in sweets may cause dyspepsia.
Sex, however, settles the stomach.  We hear it's good for cramps, too.
SUMMARY:  On the eve of the millenium, Mulder and Scully are otherwise
occupied.
SPOILER WARNING: SUVs don't have spoilers.  It's not that kind of car.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT:  As you wish.
THE DISCLAIMER:  I made this!

Quick note for the anal-retentive: Like sands through the hourglass, so are
the days of our lives.  To keep the time line straight, you have to realize
that
the Iolokus Universe is actually a year ahead of the real one.  Ergo, this
takes place over the 1999-2000 New Year's Eve.

***********

The last day of the old year I woke up with the sniffles, no small surprise
since all of Charlie's kids had been all over me like flies on a corpse and
everyone knows what germ-bags children are. So I snuffled around the
house all day, and blowing my nose only bought me about a half an hour of
peace.  While the Moose was taking a snooze, I went into the master bath to
empty my snout and was ambushed by the most gorgeous creature in  the
world, lounging on the bed.

The modern obsession with thinness has made it almost impossible for the
average American woman to believe it, but pregnancy is the sexiest damn
thing in the world.  Think about it: you look at a woman, round and soft and
snackable, her breasts plumping up in anticipation of feeding a hungry little
invader, and you think, "I made this."

Of course you only think this, you do not say it, because you do not want to
be reminded (as if she would let you forget) that she's doing most of the
work.  You get bigger tits to suckle, she throws up, and she gets backaches
and swollen feet.  Sometimes it's good to be a man.

When my GopherGirl was first pregnant, things were a little tense and our
sex life was rabid as usual; it was always our way of working off tension.
Then, during the second trimester, Scully was insatiable.  She claimed it was
just hormonal.  But so is puberty, and only a teenaged boy could have kept
up with Scully -- let's put it this way, I was a revolver and she was a
machine gun.  We had sex so often that I think my tongue muscles could
have won a weightlifting competition.  By the holidays, things had slowed
down somewhat, which was a mercy.  She was still gorgeous, but she was
no longer the succubus who left me feeling each night like a tapped-out oil
well.

Scully was wearing one of her tent-like nightshirts.  She'd taken to staying
in nightclothes most of the day, because she claimed that the sailor collars
and other design flaws in most maternity wear made her nauseous, and as
God was her witness she was never going to throw up again. Without the
belly, the shirt would have reached her knees, but as it was it barely grazed
the tops of her thighs.  She was concentrating intently on her computer
screen, her face blank and bluish in the light of electrons dancing.

"Hey," I kissed her forehead.  "Is that what you're wearing to the party
tonight? 'Cause I like it, but I'm not sure Zippy will be able to control
himself."

She grimaced.  "Tell me again why this is a good idea?"

"Because you've spent the past two weeks bemoaning the fact that the
average age of the people you spend your time with is fifteen --"

"And that's not *mental* age, either," she interjected as I took her reading
glasses off and set them on the side table.  But she closed the laptop and put
it next to the glasses as I sat down next to her.

"How are you feeling?"  I breathed onto her ear and was delighted by the
resultant shiver that went through her entire enlarged body.

"I'm fine, Mulder."  Her tone was bored but her eyes were already dilating.
She turned into my body and ran her hand up and down my side.  "I see you
haven't gotten dressed for the party yet either."  Her hot silky voice wrapped
itself around my cock and she chuckled as I pushed the nightshirt up, raising
her arms obediently so that I could remove it.

Necking with a heavily pregnant woman is an interesting experience; I
leaned over her, bracing my left hand against the bed, as I felt her swollen
breasts with my right.  Her belly operated almost like the Holy Spirit at a
Catholic high school dance, keeping us apart from the chest down.  But we
were well versed in avoiding all manner of divine and human obstacles, and
I wrestled her despised maternity underwear off as our mouths gave me a
delicious preview of the act to come.

She tasted like orange juice and vitamin pills.  I have learned that her mouth
never tastes exactly the same way twice, and I plan to spend the rest of my
life making sure, like a child examining every snowflake to make sure it
differs from the others.

I stood to strip off my clothes and she looked up at me, smiling wetly and
licking her lips.  "How do you want to do this?" she asked.

"It's still the holiday season," I suggested, "why don't you come sit on
Santa's lap and tell him what you didn't get for Christmas."  When I sat
down, my cock bobbing in my lap with all the ridiculousness of the naked
human male, she pushed herself to her feet and shuffled so that she could
lower herself down, facing away from me.  A crane and harness would have
been helpful, albeit distracting, but she managed to straddle my legs and
find the blind head of my cock seeking its overcrowded home.

She sank down, gasping as I bit the juncture between her neck and shoulder.
I couldn't get very deep inside her in this position, but that was probably a
blessing for her.  She moaned again when I put one hand underneath her
belly, supporting her and flicking two fingers over her clit, and used the
other to massage her breasts again.  They were so sensitive now I had to
remember not to squeeze too tightly, but I must have been doing something
right because she was squirming against me.  I wanted to see her face but it
was impossible so instead I pushed her hair away from her ear with my nose
and nuzzled.

"Have you been a good girl?"

Scully pulsed her legs up and down in tiny movements that felt like
earthquakes where she surrounded me.  "Mmm," she purred, "I thought I
had a whole year to work up to being good again."  Her arms reached back
and grabbed my hips, holding us together as she ground against my hand.

"You're earning credit with Santa very quickly here."  Her stretched and
swollen skin was like satin, rich and whisper-soft against my fingers.  I was
overpowered by her, devastated by the smallest of her sighs and the tiniest
shift of her muscles around me.

"Santa -- ah -- Santa is Jewish?"  She was rocking against me more quickly
now, finding the rhythm that suited her best.  She was hot caramel around
my cock and whipped cream where I licked at the nape of her neck.

"Who else would willingly work Christmas Eve?"

"You have a point," she said in her most businesslike tone and then
shuddered as she came.  I brought my hands around to her stomach to hold
her against me and I felt a firm kick under the palm of my right hand.  I let
go in near-terror and Scully chuckled in between her panting breaths.

I thought it was freaky.  "Why do they do that?" I asked, proud that my
voice didn't shake, as I moved my hands down to her hips and began to
draw crop circles on her upper thighs with my palms.  My hips were pulsing
up into her, trying not to hurt her or dislodge her as I sought more of her
heat.

"They're reacting to my heartrate."  Her voice was husky as she stroked the
insides of my thighs, relying on me to keep us from falling off the bed.

I grunted and sped up my mini-thrusts.  "So the audience is applauding?"
Once again I was struck by the realization that we had made these new lives,
combining ourselves inextricably.  We weren't just two people anymore.
We were 'Us'.  And Scully was everywhere around me, her scent on my
fingers and soaking deep in my pores, her heat warming my blood, her
heartbeat sustaining all four of us.

I came so hard that I thought I'd had a heart attack.

Hey, it's not an unreasonable fear for a man my age.  When my vision
cleared, we were lying spooned on the bed.  I smiled at the thought Scully
was for the moment not her usual demitasse size but more of a heaping
tablespoon. I kissed her mussed hair and drowned in happiness.

"Mulder," Scully said finally, "we should get ready to go.  Wear the blue
and green tie with the horses, all right?"

Married life is true bliss.  Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

****

Miranda and I had matching green velvet outfits.  Hers was a pair of
overalls, because bad things tended to happen to ruffles and lace in
Miranda's vicinity.  With a clean white shirt on underneath, she was
frighteningly adorable.  I had a simple dress that made me look like a
Christmas ornament but was mercifully free from slogans or flowers.  My
hair, which I had given up getting cut for months, was now brushing my
shoulders and had developed a mind of its own, bunching into sloppy curls
and refusing to be tamed.  I supposed that it was a side-effect from the
hormone changes, but at least having fuller hair kept me from looking like
my head was far too small compared to  the bowling ball of my belly.  I was
starting to wonder if I was ever going to look human again.

Mulder came up behind me as I examined my silhouette in the full-length
mirror in the closet.  "Still pregnant, I see," he commented.

"No, Mulder, look -- they've dropped -- they're getting ready."  Suddenly
there was a space between my breasts and my abdomen that hadn't been
there a few hours before.

His eyes widened.  "Now?"

"No, I was expecting it for a little while -- it can happen weeks before
birth."  It was strange; my center of gravity had shifted downwards again
and I felt like my body had been rearranged like a Rubik's cube.

Mulder snuffled.  Then he coughed.  Then he sneezed.  I would have
suspected a ploy for my sympathy but it was too blatant.  I turned and put
my hand to his throat, checking for swollen glands and then felt for a fever.
Yes, the Mulder luck was at it again.  You could have used his forehead to
cook eggs.  He was sick, physically sick, and we were all going to be
miserable by the time the illness worked its way through the family.  Just
what I needed, then again, Fate had been using me as her punching bag for
longer than I wanted to think about.

I sighed.  "You'd better take something for that.  It looks like this is our
last
chance to have fun for a while."

Mulder sniffled and turned to go into the bathroom.  I heard banging noises
as he raided the cabinets, but I knew how Mulder usually dealt with
sickness and I wasn't going to brave the lion's den unless he was in actual
danger of bleeding out on the floor.

When he came back, his lips were red and sticky with syrup, but he was
coherent enough to drive us over to Zippy's for the party.

***

I kept Miranda in my arms as we worked our way through the crowd,
protecting my belly from over-friendly touches.  Zippy was glad-handing all
and sundry, only deigning to give me a quick kiss on the cheek and Miranda
a friendly tickle before he returned to hitting on the more available and non-
jail bait ladies at the party.

Mulder was fading fast.  I saw him stagger over to the table that held the
drinks and he even smiled at two agents I knew for a fact he hated more
than the Utah Jazz.  I was beginning to wonder if this had been a good idea.
He'd need to get the drugs out of his system before he could drive us back
home.  He wouldn't let me have the keys and I wasn't quite as adept at
avoiding notice as I'd been pre-pregnancy, so I couldn't pick his pockets.

Meanwhile, I worked my way over to the sofa and smiled sweetly at the
man sitting there hitting on the nice young woman next to him.  "Excuse
me," I said, and he had to get up or look like a total asshole in front of
her.  I
took his vacated seat with relief, and was not too surprised when his friend
took the opportunity to join him over by the Christmas tree where the
mistletoe was.

But I couldn't escape interaction for long.  Mulder's assistant Diane sat
down next to me.  Miranda was bouncing on my lap, eager to run out among
the forest of adult legs, but it reminded me too much of the old video game
'Frogger' to let my little tadpole go play.  "Who's this?" she cooed in a
Southern accent as thick as hominy.

"Miranda, this is Diane, she works with your Daddy," I informed her, and
Miranda looked Diane over with great seriousness.  Fortunately for my
peace of mind, Diane was a very married woman (three times at last count,
according to Mulder) with a no-nonsense manner and a large, hulking
husband named Bo who I think was standing behind the couch, watching us.

"Hell-o," Miranda sang.  "Cookie?"  She'd obviously seen the trays of food
arrayed on the sides of the room.

"I'll take her to get a plate, why don't you just relax?"   I nodded
gratefully at
Diane, who took Miranda from my lap.  The Mooselet looked at me for
confirmation before she smiled at Diane like a vote-hunting politician.

It was good that Miranda was gone; I already needed a bathroom trip.
Typical, no sooner did I sit down than I realized that I had to get up.  The
twins weren't born yet and already they were plotting against me.  I searched
the room for Mulder, finally identifying him by the slight hesitation in his
step and the unruly halo of his hair.  He was holding a glass of champagne,
half-gone, and I realized that we were going to end up in a cab.  I could only
hope the cab driver's English wouldn't be good enough to understand when
Miranda asked to speed up.

I fought my way out of Zippy's sofa and walked over to where three smiling
VCS types were talking to Mulder.  He was listening to them discuss the
various plans they'd made to survive the Y2K problem.  "Nobody's flying
tonight, that's for sure," one said.

"Or having surgery.  Very bad time to go to the hospital when all the
equipment goes on the fritz," another agreed.

"So, Spook, you think this is another government plot, planned decades in
advance?"

"I think the eve of the millenium is far too blatant for the global
conspiracy," Mulder said carefully, so carefully that one might have
mistaken him for a sober man.  "They're going to make their move when no
one's looking.  Too many people are out tonight with their shotguns and
their stockpiles.  I think everything's going to work perfectly.  No doomsday
scenario.  That's how they'll get our guard down. And you can tell Frank
Black I said he was full of shit."

"You did remember to get cash from the ATM?" I put my hand on his arm
and the VCS agents smiled at me the way that they smiled at all the spouses.
It annoyed me but there was little I could do about it as I'd left my gun back
in the closet at home.

Mulder turned and looked down at me, surprised that I would hang on to
him.  "You okay?"  he asked with the black eyes of the seriously stoned.

"Laurel and Hardy are bladder-dancing again," I explained and rubbed at my
lower back, "and I was trying to make it through an hour without getting
up."

Mulder bent so that he could whisper in my ear.  "Laurel and Hardy?  I
thought we'd settled on Donny and Marie."

"Sonny and Cher."

"Bill and Hillary."  It figured that he'd jump to Democrats.  Tina was still
pushing for something biblical, like Miriam and Aaron, and I would name
my kids LaDwayne and Khrystelle before I'd go along with one of her
suggestions.  Eventually we were going to have to name them, I knew this,
although Mulder suggested that Girl and Boy weren't that bad and being
nameless might help keep them out of government records.  I wasn't being
very helpful because I couldn't stand wading through lists of names; I
figured that I was doing my maternal duty just by shooting down Mulder's
flights of fancy.  Sebastian and Viola, my ass.  These kids had enough
against them without giving them names that practically invited plots and
confused identities and struggles to survive.  Not to mention severe
playground teasing.

I smiled and released him to go in search of a bathroom.

Five minutes later, still sitting on the toilet, I had an epiphany.  Where
else,
after all, do modern humans have their epiphanies?  Two hundred years ago
I'm sure most of life's important ideas were had in outhouses or over
chamberpots.  This realization was directly related to the primary activity,
though -- those weren't bladder pains.

Those were contractions.

I looked at my watch.  Waited five minutes.

Another wave of sharp pains.

Oh shit.

I sacrificed one of Zippy's hand-towels and jammed it in my mammoth
underpants just in time.  I was halfway back to the living room when my
water broke like a cheap condom.  Feeling icky and wet, I waddled over to
where Skinner, the biggest, baddest wallflower I'd ever seen, was watching
the crowd with a look of dyspeptic cynicism.  I think he was having a good
time.  If not, no great loss.

"Are you sober, sir?"

Skinner's face rippled through several varieties of unhappiness.  "Why do I
hesitate to answer that question, Agent Scully?"

"I need someone to drive me to the hospital."  I would have done it myself, I
swear, but the Ford was such a monster that I couldn't crank the seat far
enough forward to reach the pedals without crushing my overburdened
stomach.

"And your husband?"  He made it sound like a dirty word.

"Robitussin and alcohol.  I wouldn't trust him to drive anyway."

Skinner nodded in understanding.  "I'll get my coat.  You collect Mulder."

End 1/2
 
 
 
 

Syadiloh 3: Y2K by MustangSally & RivkaT
 

Syadiloh 3: Y2K
2/2
RivkaT & MustangSally
RivkaT@aol.com & MustangSally78@juno.com

Three glasses of champagne was probably not the bestest of ideas I'd ever
had.  But you can blame it on the drugs.  I did.  With my head stuffy from
sickness and the combined heat of fifty sweaty bodies in a smallish living
room, I was wobbling like King Kong right before he fell off of the tower.
Everyone was very friendly, and I was developing theories about it: A, they
were sucking up now that I had some actual responsibility in the Bureau.  B,
a man with a hugely pregnant wife is a sympathetic character.  C, I was too
looped to make my standard witty remarks, since they'd just seem witty to
me but in actuality be quite moronic, and so I wasn't alienating as many
people as usual.  I was just incoherent enough that the theories seemed
clever at the time, which is why I wisely kept them to myself and smiled
with the wisdom of old Ben Kenobi.

I saw people moving apart as if pushed aside by an invisible force.  But it
wasn't invisible, just short.  Scully maneuvered herself over to where I was
sitting like a tugboat navigating a crowded harbor.  I smiled.  Her face was
serious, which meant ... absolutely nothing.  Her serious face had been
employed for everything from planned seductions to gunpoint
interrogations.  I once saw her sing a lullaby wearing that expression.
 
My smile got wider as she leaned over, bracing herself on the sofa back so
as not to overbalance, and brushed her lips across the top of my ear.
"Mulder," she whispered in her sultriest autopsy voice, "have you ever
encountered the theory that the prostaglandins in semen can stimulate
uterine contractions, hastening the onset of labor?"

"No, I never -- what?"  Heads turned to see who had just sucked down a
lungful of helium in order to squeak like that.

We trooped out to the Ford.  For some reason, my AA followed us outside.
She was cooing at Miranda.

Skinner got the car started while I fumbled with the keys for the passenger
side.  Behind the car, Zippy was panting like a steam locomotive as he
hoisted Scully into the back compartment where she could lie down and ruin
the upholstery with ease.  I put Miranda into her car seat and she
immediately began the "you're not driving!" sob cycle, so I knew that she
was all right.  I was surprised when Diane clambered in and plunked herself
into the passenger seat, twisting herself around so that she could see Scully.
From my position next to Miranda, all I could see in the rear-view mirror
was a scythe of Scully's emerald-green belly.

"Why don't you go back to the party?"  I suggested weakly as Skinner put
the car in reverse and peeled out of the driveway, nearly decapitating
several of Zippy's nicer bushes.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm the only one of you all that has given birth
before," Diane said.  She sounded like the repressive mother figure in every
Tennessee Williams play.  "Besides, you can't slow down now."

She was right; Skinner was driving like he was trying to prove that an SUV
really could do the Indy 500.  Miranda was cooing at him with adoration.

The car jerked as he hit the gas so that we could make the last tenth of a
second of a yellow light.  On my side, two cars on the cross street had
actually started to move before we flashed by.  "Ah, sir?"  I heard the music
of car horns rapidly dopplering away behind us.  "Sir?"  Skinner's mouth
twitched as if he'd been cattle-prodded.  "Skinner?"

"What, Mulder?  I'm a little busy right now," he swung us into a three-
quarter turn that made the headlights of the oncoming traffic dance in my
vision like the aftereffects of a blow to the head.

"D'you -- d'oh!"  I lost my never-too-stable balance and slammed into the
side door as we turned again.  Was he trying to find the hospital by process
of elimination?  "D'you think you could *slow the fuck down*, sir?"

"Fuck down!" Miranda sang out and chuckled.  If I hadn't been grabbing the
armrest in terror I would have buried my face in my hands.

"Your wife is about to give birth!"  Skinner did outrage well.

"The average labor for a first-time mother lasts well over twelve hours,"
Scully informed us from the back.  "I have to concur with Mulder in this
instance, sir."

I saw the speedometer needle begin to waver and slide to the left and
breathed a sigh of relief.  I didn't want to get maudlin and remind him that
everything I cared about in the world was riding in this car, but I would
have.   Or at least I would have told him that it was a new car and we hadn't
made all the payments.

"You oughta get in the back," Diane advised.  "Keep her from rolling
around."

The drugs must have addled me even more than I'd thought because it
sounded like a great idea and I hurdled over the seat to join Scully.  Diane
pulled out her cellphone and dialed 911.

Next to me, Scully suddenly grabbed my hand hard enough to make me
worry about my fingerbones.  I looked down at her and in the flashing lights
from the street lamps flickered across her frozen face.

"God, it hurts," she hissed.

"Is it possible that you are in labor?" I asked and the glittering lights from
the houses decorated for the holidays pulsed in the sides of my peripheral
vision, making me feel vaguely sick.

"It's not possible," she hissed in the same tight voice.

"Was there any bleeding?  You must have popped your plug if your water
broke," Diane offered from the back seat where she was cooing in her dental
drill tone to the Mooselet.

"I didn't notice anythi--" her voice sliced off in mid-word as Scully's body
suddenly went into a arched-back spasm as tight as that of anyone I'd ever
seen shot.

"You're goin' for sure." Diane said, shaking her head.  "Yeah, I got a woman
in labor," she said into the phone.  "We're on the -- well, we *were* on
Richmond Avenue, I'm not too sure where we are now, we crossed Ellis a
few blocks back.  Yes, they do intersect, don't you go tellin' me they don't
because we were just there, mister."

"Are you sure that it's safe for you to be having labor right now?" Skinner
inquired as we skidded around a corner on what felt like two wheels.

"I don't think it's my decision at this point," she gasped and gripped my
hand even tighter.

"Working on the assumption that Agent Scully is actually giving birth right
now and is not adhering to the normal rule, which surprises me not at all,
what is the next course of action?"

My brain stuttered for a moment, trying to remember what they had been
talking about at birthing class.  To tell you the truth, I had hardly paid
attention.  I was far more interested in the sheer absurdity of twenty upper
middle-class couples lying on the floor in the classroom with pillows piled
around them trying to assume a calm and relaxed attitude while a creature
not much smaller than a football helmet was trying to escape through a
tunnel only about as wide as my Johnson.  All the while the woman teaching
the course jingled her silver jewelry and cooed about deep breaths and
cleansing breaths.  I needed a couple of cleansing breaths right about then to
clear the cobwebs of cold medicine and champagne out of my already thick
brainpan.

Scully answered Skinner herself, since she had never been able to let me
offer an opinion on her behalf.

She roared like some animal out on the veldt.

Skinner slammed on the brakes and we all jerked around like Boggle cubes,
which thrilled Miranda whose laughter added to my general feeling that my
brain was about to implode.  Scully took the opportunity to reassert
command.  "Just keep driving, sir.  I've got everything else --ungh -- under
control."  She grimaced and it went straight to my heart.  I mean, there's a
reason that women give birth in hospitals and not in the back of an SUV.  If
it were safe, Madonna would probably have done it.  "It's okay," she told
me, softly enough that the others probably couldn't hear.  "Twins are smaller
and so twin births are generally less severe.  I'll be fine."

"Aren't you the cutest little punkin?"  Diane asked Miranda, her voice
twanging like an out-of-tune guitar.

"Agent Mulder," Skinner said, his voice strained to the breaking point,
"your assistant's accent was charming four lights ago."

"Don't look at me," I said.  "I'm trying to remember if there's a good place
to
dump a body between here and the hospital."

"I heard that," Diane snapped.  "No, not you," she told the cellphone.  "She's
goin' fast now, she's got twins -- do we need to cut the first one's cord
before
the second comes out?"

"Go ahead and push if you need to," I said miserably.

"Mulder!  I can't push now, it's important to relax now in order to avoid
tearing!"  I could have lived without the image.  Well, at least I was
providing the useful service of keeping her annoyance focused elsewhere.

Diane looked back at us.  "They've just got to slide right out there if she's
ready."

Ready or not ...

Scully gasped like a woman transfixed by a sign from God.  I could hear her
teeth grinding together as she struggled to make her muscles obey her will.
I wanted to tell her that I loved her but I thought that it wasn't quite the
right
time.  And then I looked down, and there was a baby coming out of her!
Not an entire baby, not yet, but a round wet head like a rubber ball.

"The baby's head is out now," Diane informed the 911 operator breathlessly.
Then she held the handset away from her and looked at it as if it had farted.
"He put me on hold!"

Skinner pulled over to the side and parked.  He twisted around and
conferred with Diane in hushed tones.  I was watching a miracle.

"You have to catch the baby," Scully warned and I felt as light as a balloon,
like I was only drifting by, but I put my hands out to catch it, feeling the
hot
wet of Scully's body.  The head was first, the eyes closed and the face red
with blood and outrage.  Shoulders, small and white in comparison to the
oversized head, and then a torso.

It looked like an X File.  A really juicy one, with slides.  Its -- his --
head
was huge and red and hairless, his body was covered with a creamy white
goo, and he was wrinkled like a golden raisin.  He opened her mouth and
wailed at me, his eyes still shut against this large unfamiliar world.  He had
good lungs.

"Welcome to Earth," I said.

He screamed again.

I assume that he meant "take me to your leader," and held him up so he
could see Scully.

I realized that I had been spending *way* too much time with Disney
movies when I could only define the moment by thinking that I was feeling
kinship with Simba's father in The Lion King.  Maybe it was the emotions
of the moment or maybe it was the cough medicine and champagne mix, but
I wanted to sing  with joy. And what did I want to sing?  "The Circle of
Life," of course.  And if that wasn't embarrassing, I don't know what was.
Instead, I bundled the complaining infant up against my chest, for once not
worrying about my shirt and tie.

****

Distantly, over the baby's wails, I could hear shouting and cheering.  I'd
like
to think that it was for me, but on the other hand I didn't want anyone else
to
see me this way.  It was the New Year, the final year of the Millenium and
the din was intense, even in my somewhat distracted condition.

"Do you realize," Mulder breathed in my ear, his voice bright with
excitement, "we're going to have twins who were born one millenium
apart?"

I breathed in and out.  "Technically, Mulder, that's not --"

"Here comes the other one!" he cried, just so Skinner and Diane wouldn't
think that it had all been a big mistake and there was only one kid, plus a
whole lot of blubber, in there.

It hurt less the second time.  That, or the shock was setting in.  Giving
birth
is probably not quite as painful as getting shot.  It is, however, not nearly
as
pleasant as the standard process by which children are conceived.  The baby
girl came quietly, and I nearly panicked before Mulder confirmed that she
was breathing. As if to bypass Mulder altogether, she began to squeal like a
cat in a bathtub full of water.  The twins complained in chorus.  Mulder had
one in each hand and I hoped he didn't take it in mind to start juggling.  A
Mulder drunk and on cough medicine was a dangerous man.

I passed a few blood clots and the placentae then, about which the less said
the better, and finally Mulder gave the babies back to me.  I wanted to start
nursing right then, to get the antibody-rich colustrum in them immediately
before the doctors started stealing them away and sealing them behind glass
in the name of safety.  I tugged my dress up further -- it wasn't as if
Skinner
and Diane hadn't seen me in an intimate context already -- and pushed my
bra out of the way.  Mulder was staring at me like one of his aliens.

The first tugs against my nipples were so intense that my pain began to fade,
replaced by the awe that Mulder wore so much better than I did.

The car began to move again as Mulder covered me with his coat, the
babies' cantaloupe-soft heads peeking out from underneath the expensive
wool, and I breathed in the hot, organic air around me.  We stared down at
them, amazed, as their natural sucking reflexes started to work.  They were
Mulder's, for sure, unwilling to take time away from my breasts even for the
standard amount of crying.

We couldn't have been driving for five minutes when the car stopped again,
blocking the emergency doors to the hospital, and Skinner leapt out to call
for assistance.  I heard the metallic creak of a gurney approaching and I
smiled up at Mulder.  "Cordelia and Bram," I said.

"Perfect," he replied, which might have been the most surprising event of
the night, and then the hospital personnel descended on me like MIBs with a
fallen angel.  They even had tiny hats for the babies' heads to keep them
from feeling the chill January midnight.

As I was hustled away from the SUV in a gurney with the twins in their
charming knit hats bundled up against me, I saw Mulder, coatless and pale
standing next to the vehicle with a well-wrapped Miranda in his arms.  She
gawped at me as if I'd grown another head or two.

"Bay-bees?" she asked.

"Say 'hi' to your brother and sister, Moose."

"Shit," she said.

****

Even though the hospital computers had seized up from the advent of the
Millenium, there were forms to fill out and questions to be answered, which
I did, in a shocky daze.  The Moose sat on the counter and accepted the
adoration of the ER's night staff.  It was an hour before the powers that be
let the Moose and me in to see Scully and the babies.  During the interval,
the silent Bo, Diane's husband, collected her and Skinner to go back to the
party to get their cars.  There were hugs and backslapping.  Diane planted a
deep red kiss on my cheek, which I had to wipe off as soon as she left.  I
think Skinner might have hugged me, but I'm not willing to defame either of
our characters by stating it as a fact.

Scully was propped up in a hospital bed, looking better than she usually did
under that circumstance. Tired, she looked tired and her hair was in an
impressive state of messiness.  The twins were diapered and stuffed side by
side like pink cocktail hot dogs in white pastry wrapping in a hospital
bassinet by her bedside.  I don't know who she had to kill to get that
arranged, but I know I felt slightly sorry for whatever nurse had been
assigned to her.  Leaning over the side of the bassinet, she was poking at
their wiggling pink limbs and looking down at them with a frown of great
concentration.

Since I know my place in the Universe, I held out a cup of coffee I had
stolen from the nurses' lounge.  Without looking up from the babies, Scully
held out her hand for the cup and sipped at it while she watched the pair of
babies wiggle and whine.  I sat on the edge of the bed and plunked the
Moose down where she could look down into the bassinet as well.

"Bram," Scully said, pointing at the baby with the powder blue knit hat.
"Cordelia," she pointed at the baby in the pink knit hat.  We were going to
have to do something about those rigid gender roles.  Orange and green,
maybe.

"Bay-bees," the Mooselet agreed and looked up at Scully to make sure it
was all right.

Scully smiled at both the Moose and myself and her smile was brighter than
the ball dropping in Times Square.

"They are both over seven and a half pounds each, Bram is twenty inches
long and Cordelia is nineteen.  Which means that I was basically all baby so
you can't make any fat chick jokes."

"Scully, I'd think you were the sexiest thing in the world if you were built
like an anteater."

I got the eyebrow for that one, but she continued on without pausing, "There
aren't any green polyps or vesicles on either of them, they have the right
number of finger and toes, and when you call your mother don't bother
scheduling a Bris."

I nodded, as we'd already discussed that and decided that it was best to have
the baby boy -- Bram -- circumcised while he was still disoriented and
before he knew what he was missing.

"I'm exercising my postpartum prerogative to be antisocial.  Will you call
my mother?"

I don't know whether it was the residual drugs in my system or just the fact
that this call from the hospital was good news, but I agreed without protest
and went to find a pay phone.  Maggie's voice was bleary from being woken
from a deep REM cycle.

"Dana just gave birth," I told her.  "If you want to meet the twins I suggest
you get over here while she's still sedated."

"How are the babies?" she asked, grandma to the core.

"Loud."

"How are you?"

"Fine right now, ask me again in sixteen years."

TH' END

IT'S OVER  GO HOME

Notes:

MS:  Okay, look, after all that's happened since the Iolokus stories began,
we've
been getting a lot of feedback indicating that our idea of a happy ending
didn't conform to the cultural norm.  So, here we have excessive restoration
of the domestic ideal  babies are born and there is much rejoicing.  Order is
restored and the world spins again on greased grooves.  Time goes on and
our little group lives on, no more and no less happy than any other suburban
family.

RT:  Yah, what she said.  This little ditty is our present to you for making
it
all the way to the end with us.