Vows

By Gwinne
gwinne@yahoo.com


Date: 27 May 2001
ARCHIVE: Xemplary, Gossamer, Spookys ok; otherwise ask
KEYWORDS: MSR; Angst
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: post-ep for "Existence"
DISCLAIMER: Thanks for eight great years and the opportunity to
make these characters into my own.  Still, I take no credit for
their creation.


VOWS

"She needs to get to the hospital."

Despite the seriousness of her statement, there was little
threat in Agent Reyes' voice, at least to Mulder.  But the
moment he crossed the threshold and saw his partner, he
panicked.

He knew birth was messy.  That much he'd gleaned from the few
prepared childbirth classes he and Scully actually made it to.  
And he knew birth was painful; he was sure he'd never forget the
sounds of laboring women on the videos, so raw, so primal.  
Still, he wasn't prepared to see Scully propped up in an old
brass bed, hair stuck to her face in sweaty clumps, tears
running into the open neck of her shirt.  She clutched the baby,
wrapped in a blood-streaked towel, to her chest.  He couldn't
hear the child over Scully's sobs.  Oh God.

"Scully?"  He walked toward her slowly, cataloguing the bloody
towels piled at the foot of the bed and the butcher knife that
Reyes must have used to cut the cord.

She looked up at him then, mouth pulled down in that anguished
way he hadn't seen since Donnie Pfaster first attacked her.  Her
face was blotchy from the exertion of the birth and her breath
hitched.  Even in the most intimate moments of their
relationship, flushed and relaxed in orgasm, she had never
seemed so vulnerable.  "Scully," he started again, "is it, is
everything--"

Sudden movement caught his attention, the baby's hand flailing
in open air.  She's nursing, Mulder realized, that's why it's
not making any noise.

She nodded slightly and looked back down at the infant.  Mulder
sat on the bed, bracketed between Scully's bent knees and the
headboard, running his index finger lightly over the baby's
scalp.  Despite the layer of vernix and gore that covered its
body, there was no question of who this child's mother was.  
Strawberry blond fuzz curled under Mulder's hand as he palmed
the baby's pointed head.  And above the mouth, wet with
colostrum, sat a nose that could have only come from him.  For
the first time since Lizzy Gill set this nightmare in motion,
Mulder felt his jaw clench and stay released.

Pressed against him, Scully shivered and gasped, her thighs
quivering from exhaustion.  When he reached up, tracing her
cheekbone with his knuckles, she shut her eyes.  He wondered if
she would ever look at him the same way again.

"It's a boy," Agent Reyes said as she washed her hands.  He
hadn't even heard her come in.  "They're okay.  But I think we
should get them to a hospital.  I've never done this before,"
she paused, glancing quickly in the direction of Scully's legs,
"but I don't think she should be bleeding this much."  A hint of
urgency surfaced above the practiced calm of Reyes' tone.  
Scully would know, he told himself, she'd say something if we
should be concerned.

"Mulder," Scully finally said, her voice low and worn from what
Mulder could only imagine as hours of screaming.  In that single
word, his own name, he heard her every fear and the beginnings
of relief.  

He rested his forehead against hers until they were almost nose
to nose, the baby mewing softly between them.  "It will be
okay," he said.  "I promise."

* * *

"I want to go home, Mulder."  It was the first full sentence
she'd uttered to him since they admitted her to the ER.  Before
he could answer, her gaze drifted lower, to the small boy asleep
in her arms.

"You just gave birth, Scully."

"Plenty of women give birth without ever setting foot in a
hospital.  I'll be fine, Mulder, you heard the doctor."  Her
voice still crackled from overuse, but at least she was talking
to him again.

"Yeah, he said he was amazed everything went as smoothly as it
did, given the abruption and all."

Seconds after they arrived at the hospital, mother and son had
been separated for the second time that day.  While the
pediatrician poked and prodded, giving the baby a near-perfect
"9" on the Apgar scale, the head of obstetrics palpated Scully's
abdomen, delivered the placenta, and stitched up what he
described as "an amazingly minor laceration for an unattended
birth."  Even now, with Scully cleaned up and resting, Mulder's
heart still raced.  He wasn't ready.  In the week's adrenaline
rush to protect her, he'd lost sight of what this moment meant
for him.  For them.  She'd never said it.  In all these weeks,
with him shuttling from apartment to apartment, accompanying her
to birthing classes, and assembling a bassinet in the corner of
her room, she'd never actually said that she wanted him to be
this baby's father.

"I'm so tired, Mulder," Scully said, her voice wavering with the
now-familiar onset of tears.  He'd seen her cry more in the few
months since his return than he had in the seven years prior.  
The baby fussed a little and Scully cupped his tiny fist inside
her own.  "Let's go home."

When he'd agreed to be her birth partner, he'd agreed to do
things her way.  Part of him knew that it was all a fantasy--the
quiet labor, the water birth in a homey suite--and that the real
thing would be dangerous and out of her control.  Aliens had
witnessed the birth of this child; the man who came to kill
Scully and take her son had stood and watched as she screamed
and pushed and cried.

If she wanted to go home, they would go home.  "Let me make some
calls.  I'll get us a plane."

* * *

Mulder wasn't sure what to expect as he opened the door to her
apartment.  It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he'd left
Scully and her unnamed son in the care of proud Grandma Maggie,
already in the kitchen slicing carrots and onions for chicken
soup.

"You need some time alone," he'd explained, watching Scully
settle herself carefully on the couch.  How ordinary it all
seemed, a mother preparing to feed her child, after the surreal
spectacle of his birth.  He sat on the edge of the coffee table,
tapping her gently on the knee.

Her hand froze on the top button of her pajamas.  "But you're--"

"I need to check in with Skinner.  There was a situation," he
paused slightly to let her heft the full weight of the word,
"down at the bureau.  Besides, aren't I supposed to pass out
cigars or something?"  He shrugged, pressing his hands against
his thighs.  They suddenly seemed huge, almost the length of the
baby's torso.  
 
She forced a smile, and something in his stomach turned.  Mulder
thought of the baby, how only yesterday he shifted and kicked in
the warmth of his mother's womb.  It hadn't seemed real until
now.  

And, for a man who had yet to hold his son, it was all too real,
the baby's lusty cry and the milky smell of his mother's skin.  
His throat constricted.  As Mulder stood and moved toward the
door, he paused at her side.  He squeezed her shoulder, running
his thumb back and forth over the silken material at her
collarbone.  He needed to reassure himself as much as her.  
"And when I come back, Scully, that kid better have a name."

Now, closing the door and pocketing his key, Mulder took in
lingering aroma of garlic and spices from Maggie's cooking.  The
apartment was quiet, quieter than he expected.  No
overprotective grandmother giving orders to the anxious new
mother, no baby crying for a diaper change.  Only the balloons
floating in the corner of the room and the padded carrier on the
kitchen table indicated that a new baby lived here.  He'd
wrapped it in Flintstones paper for her to open at the shower,
"for when we get out of the car" written on the card.

He certainly wasn't expecting to see the guys, stammering in
embarrassment at being caught in Scully's bedroom.  Somehow,
though, it all made sense, this odd group of five he considered
family.  This is it, Mulder thought as the Gunmen headed for the
front door, it all begins now.  He unclenched his fists and
walked toward her, seated on the edge of her impeccably made bed
with the baby in the crook of her arm.  It didn't seem possible
that she was the same person who, less than two days ago, lay
sobbing on a bed of sweat and slime.  In her pale satin pajamas
and robe, she looked almost ethereal.

What did he say to her, the woman whose child he'd agreed to
father, the woman he'd left to give birth in the company of an
untrained midwife and a roomful of aliens while he chased the
bad guys around D.C.?  It should have been him, not Reyes, who
helped her bring this child into the world.  She could have bled
to death, he thought, not for the first time, remembering the
obstetrician's dour-faced warning.  And he wouldn't have even
been there to hold her.

"How's everybody doing?" he finally said, asking the standard
question that would earn the standard reply.

"We're doing just fine."  As she stood and walked toward him,
only the slightest waver of discomfort in her step, he knew that
for once she was telling the truth.

* * *

"So what do we do now?" Mulder asked, when their kiss finally
broke.

"I need to lie down," Scully said.  She leaned heavily against
his chest, right over her son's restless feet.   

"Everything okay?"

"I'm just achy.  And tired."  Her words were punctuated by
William's coo.  She exhaled deeply, pulling away.  "I haven't
been this tired since Antarctica."

Mulder shifted the baby more firmly into his right arm, reaching
up to stroke her face with his other hand.  "Why don't you take
a nap for a bit and Willie and I will get acquainted."  

Her eyebrow raised, objecting as quickly as she did to his
theories about vampires and exsanguinated cows.  She crossed her
arms tightly over her chest, as if she'd forgotten what she did
with them before William's birth.

"Will?  Billy?  Bill?"  Scully made a show of clearing her
throat and moved back toward the bed.  "Okay, then, 'William' it
is.  Does he have a middle name?"

She paused, pressing her hand into the mattress.  "I thought I'd
leave that up to his father, if that's okay with you."  

"Seriously?"  He looked up from the baby, almost asleep in the
cradle of his arms.  No wonder she didn't want to let go of him.  
Scully nodded, shrugging out of her bathrobe and laying it over
the footboard.

"I suppose 'Elvis' is out of the question?"  As he spoke, he
walked the baby back to the bassinet, rocking William slightly
in his arms.  So much for getting acquainted.

"Why don't we stick with names that won't get him beaten up on
the playground."  Scully piled throw pillows on the floor, and
Mulder wanted to ask if this was always her nightly routine, if
he and the baby had changed it.

"Sure.  Okay.  Say goodnight to Mommy, William."  The newborn's
eyes fluttered and shut, and Mulder placed the boy in his bed.  
He wound the mobile, a gift from Skinner, and 'Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star' filled the room.  Across from him, Scully pulled
back the comforter and climbed into bed.

The evening before the baby shower, Mulder had shown up at her
door with a box of bedding instead of the usual pizza.  As he
tightened bolts and smoothed sheets lined with clouds, Scully
told him about that awful night before they found him dead in
the woods.  She told him how, at the funeral, Skinner had said
he was sure Mulder was watching over them from the stars,
protecting them.  "He's been so good to me, Mulder.  I think
this is his way of saying he's sorry.  And saying he believes."

I'm here now, he'd wanted to say, but it seemed too simple.  
"I'd like to believe, too, Scully, that this baby will be born
into starlight.  That whoever or whatever is up there will watch
over him, keep him safe."

Tonight, listening to the soft sucking sounds William made in
his sleep, Mulder vowed to protect him from someplace much
closer than the stars.  He closed his eyes, feeling the baby's
steady heartbeat beneath his palm, then spooned up behind Scully
on the bed.

"Seriously, Mulder, how did you find us?"

He settled his hand against the gentle swell of her belly.  For
a moment, he expected to feel the welcome nighttime movements of
their son.  She stiffened a bit at his touch, and he didn't know
whether he had hurt her, or if she missed the sensation as well.

"The pilot had a map, Scully.  But there really was a light.  
It's from an observatory on Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain
in Georgia."

"It does make a better story, you know, for when he grows up."

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful scientist and a geeky
prince."

"Spooky.  And why do you get to be a prince?"  She reached back
and stroked his hip.

"Shhh.  Let me finish.  One day the beautiful scientist came to
rescue the prince from the evil dungeon."

"You love that basement."

"Scully!"  He pulled her back more tightly against the curve of
his body and kissed the exposed skin where shoulder met neck.  
"Long story short:  the prince fell madly in love with the
beautiful scientist but it took him eight long years and a
miraculous conception to get up the courage to tell her."

"That's no way to end a story, Mulder.  What happens to them?  
Do they live happily ever after?"  Beneath Scully's questions,
Mulder heard the baby fussing again.

"I hope so," he said, getting up for what would inevitably be
the first of many times that night.  "Hey, buddy, what's the
problem?"  William's face reddened and scrunched before he began
to wail.  Mulder bent his knees, bouncing the little boy as he
walked back toward Scully, on the other side of the bed.

"Let me take him, Mulder.  He needs to eat."  He envied how
quickly she had learned to identify what he needed from the
sound of his cry.  After she unbuttoned her pajama top with
well-practiced fingers, Mulder set the child squirming in her
arms.  He watched, transfixed, as the boy latched on to his
mother's nipple, covering the entire aureole with his small
mouth.

"Wow."  He sat facing her, hip to hip.

"Wow?"

"I just never pictured this.  Somehow, I always envisioned you
as the plastic bottle type of mom.  But this, I mean, wow,
Scully, it's amazing."  He skimmed his finger over the baby's
cheek and the alabaster skin of his mother's breast.  He rested
his forehead against hers, just as he had in those first moments
after William's birth.  "I'm so sorry, Scully."

"For what?"  Mulder felt, as well as saw, the movement as she
bit the inside of her cheek.

"For everything that happened.  For everything that could have
happened.  To you.  To him.  I'm sorry I wasn't there."

She swallowed audibly.  "Next time."  In those two soft words,
Mulder heard the strength of her vow.  It had taken eight years,
two abductions, a bout with cancer, and his own ill-timed death,
but they were finally ready to be a family.

"I'll be there from the first dizzy spell to the last push."  He
kissed her then, sure that this moment was as close to a wedding
ceremony as they'd ever get.  "I promise."


THE END


Note:  Thank you to alanna, for her geographical insight and
sharp sense of character, and for pushing me to answer the tough
questions; to BoneTree, for her keen awareness of image and
diction, for helping me see how these characters move; and, as
always, to Scullyfic, birthplace of good ideas.

feedback is like iced tea on a hot summer day; share a virtual
drink with me at gwinne@yahoo.com