Summary: After Mulder disappears in Bellefleur, Scully and Skinner join forces to find him. They discover startling evidence in a lab in Reston, Connecticut, leading them to answers they never expected. Finally everything is revealed: Mulder's whereabouts, the fate of Scully's baby and the purpose of the Faceless Rebels.

Author's notes at the end.

"We will find him. I have to. Sir, there's something else I need to tell you. Something that I need for you to keep to yourself. I'm having a hard time explaining it. Or believing it. But...uh...I'm pregnant."

-- Scully to Skinner in "Requiem"

St John's Church
Alexandria, VA
Sunday, July 2, 2000

"...while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two...," the Priest's voice draped and dangled, hung in the air. His pitch neither rose nor fell; his tone hovered, drifting horizontally or in slow spirals, never descending to the pews or the floor. Deaf to Father McCue's weightless tenor, Scully sat rigid, her vexed fingers struggling for equanimity, her eyes fixed upward, combing the array of painted stars scattered across the deep blue bowl of St. John's vaulted ceiling. "...they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body..."

Where was Mulder? Lost in the stars?

These abductees are not just being systematically taken, Scully. They're not coming back. Mulder's words scraped through Scully's memory, his phantom timbre slowly shattering her. So different from his real voice: pliable, soothing. Comforting like a favorite blanket.

Was he suffering now? How would she find him?

"...the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified..."

The ceiling's decorative stars coalesced when Scully's vision blurred with a ripple of tears that threatened to spill over her lower lashes. She watched the false heaven swim and churn overhead, not blinking, not wanting to lose her importunate ache for Mulder in a sudden spatter across her cheeks; she worried that her need for him would evaporate with the drying tracks of her tears.

As a doctor, she knew all too well the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It was this last that frightened her. No matter she must hold onto her hurt to hold onto him, persistently keeping the essence of him, of them, inside her heart by jailing their spirits together with the leash of her own anguish. She had no desire to resolve her torment if doing so meant setting complacency into motion. Ending her search. Losing him forever. She wanted him back with her. Safe.

She couldn't forfeit his life. The tiny child growing within her womb would need his father.

Mulder had vanished without the knowledge she carried his baby. And it was the lack of his awareness that stabbed her now. He had gone away feeling the burden of her childlessness; he believed she would forever be denied the choice of procreation.

Looking at you today, holding that baby, knowing everything that's been taken away from you, a chance for motherhood and your health and that baby...

They had thought her barren. Yet somehow she had conceived. A miracle, this child. And healthy -- she had made certain. More diligent than most mothers-to-be, she insisted on a complete genetic workup. After Emily, paternity could not be taken for granted; the stakes were too high, too disastrous. But the PCR showed the baby was fine. Normal. Mulder's.

Would he ever return? See his son? Or was he already dead?

Scully, you have to understand. They're taking abductees. You're an abductee. I'm not going to risk losing you.

Instead, he risked himself.

"Dana? Honey?" Maggie murmured, fingers fluttering across her daughter's sleeve, softly, trying not to intrude. "The service is over, sweetie."

"I'd like to stay awhile longer, Mom."

"Want me to sit with you?"

"No. Thanks. I'll see you back at the house. For dinner," Scully reassured, bringing a short-lived smile to her mother's worried expression. Maggie squeezed her daughter's arm and before leaving, kissed her in the very spot Mulder's lips had last brushed her skin. She felt herself once more spooned in the warmth of his body while he wrapped himself protectively around her need.

For all the wrong reasons, it's the personal costs that are too high, Scully. There's so much more you need to do with your life. There's so much more than this.

There's so much less, too, she thought now, the heat of his remembered embrace deserting her like a noonday sun lost behind a thunder cloud.

When the church emptied, leaving her alone, she rose on unsteady legs, her wobbling knees no longer able to predictably hold her the way they had only a few weeks ago. She inhaled the jumbled aroma of the vanished congregation, hoping to fortify herself with the lingering perfume of their collective faith. With a brush of her palms, she straightened her skirt -- an illusory effort to gain control over the uncontrollable events of her life. Her heels clacked a forlorn path to the Crucifix.

Mechanically she crossed herself, conserving her conscious efforts for Mulder. She poured herself into a prayer for his safe return.

FBI Headquarters 11:15 AM

Keys rattling, Scully unlocked their basement office door after the third try. My office, she corrected herself. She set her purse down on her desk and powered up her computer, stabbing the on switch with an unfeeling finger. Her life seemed to jitter and shake lately like the reel of an old movie threaded too loosely through an ancient projector. She couldn't hold still the frames of her existence.

Breathing in the familiar surroundings, she no longer found comfort in them. The first few days after Mulder disappeared, Scully had escaped to their office, finding sanctuary there. The room was a shrine to their life together and for a time, she felt nearer to Mulder while closed inside, surrounded by the bits and pieces of their shared memories. But now the newspaper clippings, the photos, his books and mementos haunted her. They were nothing but a reminder of his absence. Blisters on her worn soul.

She lowered herself into his chair, barely able to suck in enough air to keep her heart beating. It had taken her four weeks to sit in his chair, hopeful that by leaving it vacant, its emptiness would prompt his return. In the end her practicality had won out; it was easier to search his files while seated at his desk. And she had gone through them all -- every file he had ever collected that contained information about alien abductees. Even her own. Pouring over the details of the Bellefleur accounts in particular, she painstakingly hunted for clues that would lead her to Mulder. She came away with nothing. Nothing.

Swiveling his chair to face the bulletin board, she stared at a photo he had tacked there -- a picture of them together, dressed in matching FBI jackets, squinting into the morning sun, hair flailed by the wind. Their arms pressed elbow to shoulder, he leaned over her, telling her something; she couldn't recall exactly what. Gazing at the picture, she could almost hear the ruffle of his voice flustering inside her ear, feel the scorch of his arm beneath his sleeve, and smell the warm caramel hue of sunrise sliding like a sigh over the unshaved skin of his face. She missed him with an ache that hollowed her, permitting her abrasive loneliness to echo endlessly through her emptiness. Like a yell for help across a vast chasm. Or down a bottomless hole. For the second time today her eyes flooded and this time she let her tears fall unchecked. An unstoppable moan welled up in her chest, a convulsive cry that ground from her throat, keened from her lungs and bounced against the cement rafters so violently she expected the Hoover Building to crack and crumble down on top of her. She almost wished it would bury her in this unfathomable tomb of dying hope.

Uncoiling from the chair, Scully launched herself at Mulder's 'I Want To Believe' poster. She yanked it from the wall with an impulsive rip that split her heart as surely as it tore the paper in her hands. It took only a moment to rent his lifelong mantra in two. Damn him. Damn him! The sound of tearing paper fizzled inside her ears, freezing her, stalling her with immediate regret.

"Ooooh...Mulder..." She sank to the floor, clutching the poster's two halves. She squeezed her eyes shut and gulped back the next hitching sob, still afraid to completely release her grief and risk losing the memory of him with it. "Mulder, where are you?" she begged for his unlikely answer.

When a pencil dropped from the tiled ceiling, slipping from one of several dozen holes to chatter and spin across the floor, Scully flinched and held her breath. The pencil whirled, slower and slower, until it finally came to rest, its still-sharp tip pointing at her. She blinked and smiled through her tears.

"Mulder?"

Arching an eyebrow and sniffling wetly, Scully grabbed the pencil from the floor and waggled it at the scarred ceiling. After years of hurling pencils skyward, Mulder had perforated the ceiling with a rash of circular wounds. "A sign from the great beyond? That is so you, Mulder." She swiped at her teary cheeks and heaved herself from the floor. Laying the torn poster on his desk, she carefully fitted the fissured halves back together, lining up the type and rejoining the UFO floating above the leafy horizon. She pulled an arms-length of tape from its dispenser and mended the tear. The repair left a visible scar, a chiding reminder of her recent outrage. "Sorry," she apologized before pinning the poster back into its rightful place on the wall. She stood for a moment with her palm stroking the patch, as if her smoothing touch could somehow heal the damaged paper the way a surgeon invisibly sutures a wound. "Sorry," she repeated, feeling the weight of her transgression.

Reluctantly she abandoned the poster to return to her computer, check her email. She found the first message was tagged urgent. She clicked it open.

From: Senator@whitter.senate.gov To: D_Scully@FBI.gov Subject: URGENT

Contact Senator Susan Whitter re. whereabouts of missing agent.

Scully immediately picked up the phone.

Russell Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 3:17 PM

"Senator Susan Whitter?" Scully asked when the door swung inward to reveal a trim, dark-haired woman in her late forties. The woman was dressed in crisp business attire despite the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon.

"Come in, Agent Scully." Whitter sidestepped, allowing Scully to enter. Impatience lined the Senator's face. She quickly locked the door behind them before leading Scully into the rear office. "Have a seat," she ordered while rummaging through her in-basket. She withdrew a standard interoffice envelope. "Have you ever read 'The Purloined Letter,' Agent Scully? Edgar Allen Poe taught us it's sometimes best to hide things in plain sight." She waggled the envelope.

"What's this about, Senator? Your message..."

Senator Whitter held a finger up to her lips, shushing Scully.

"Do you know who I am, Agent Scully?"

"Yes...you're Senator Susan Whitter."

"I'm Senator Matheson's replacement," Whitter added and waited to see if the name meant anything to Scully.

"Oh. He...he supported my partner's wo..."

"For the most part. It isn't an accident I'm here in his place, you know." Noting Scully's shock, Whitter continued, "I hope I haven't burst any nave assumptions that the American people actually elect their representatives at the voting booth. Some decisions are far too important to leave to the masses. Here, take a look at these." Whitter handed Scully the envelope.

Scully lifted the flap and withdrew several 5 x 7 photographs. The pictures, obviously taken undercover and from a great distance, were all candid shots of children on a playground. Despite the blur, the images widened Scully's eyes.

"Where is this place?" The photos took Scully's breath away. Although the children were a variety of ages, some fair-haired and some dark, all of them, every last one, looked enough like Emily to be her brothers and sisters.

"The location is a childcare facility called 'The Peek-A-Boo Center' in Reston, Connecticut. I think someone is attempting to hide these children in plain sight."

"What do you mean?"

"You tell me. I suspect you already know more about this than I do."

Scully needed to sit. Lowering herself into a chair, she counted at least nine different children in the photos.

"Agent Scully, take the photos. Find what you're looking for. And under no circumstances return to this office. I can't help you any more than I've done today."

"But, please...you said in your message you have information regarding the whereabouts of my..."

"The only thing I have is that envelope of photographs," Whitter nodded at the pictures. "You're the one playing Hide and Seek, Agent Scully. While you conduct your investigation, consider the words of Poe: to conceal something, one might want to resort to the 'sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.'" Whitter smiled for the first time. Hooking Scully's elbow, she guided the baffled agent from her chair to the hall outside the office. "You must go now, Agent Scully. I put myself in jeopardy each minute you're here. Don't come back," Whitter dismissed her.

Stunned, Scully slipped the photos into their envelope and hurried from the building.

Walter Skinner's apartment
Crystal City, VA 4:10 PM

"Agent Scully, is something the matter?" Clad in denim and a cotton T-shirt that had been starched and bleached to a whiteness so bright and smooth it hurt the eyes, Skinner loomed in his doorway, filling the frame and blocking Scully's view into his apartment. She found herself avoiding the informality of his faded jeans and the glare of his T-shirt by blinking at his bare feet instead. Staring at his toes, she realized she rarely saw him away from the office and never relaxing at home on a Sunday afternoon.

"Sorry to bother you, sir," she brushed past him, handing him Senator Whitter's envelope. "I knew you'd want to see this."

"What is it?" he shook out the photos.

"A clue, sir."

"I'm not following." Frowning at the laughing faces of the photographed preschoolers, he gestured at his livingroom, inviting Scully in. "Whose children are these?"

"I think...they're mine."

Skinner's eyes fluttered from the pictures to her face, gauging her expression for a hint of sarcasm or dishonesty. He knew without looking, however, she possessed the propensity for neither; as always, she was serious. And he couldn't make heads or tails of her seemingly impossible claim.

"What are you talking about?" Concern creased his brow, tightened his lips.

"I believe those children are the brothers and sisters of my daughter Emily." She sat on the sofa and peered up at him. "I believe the men who created Emily have been creating other children like her. These are her siblings. Genetically they are my sons and daughters."

"Where did you get the pictures?" he thrust the photos at her, not in anger but in confusion.

"Senator Matheson's successor."

"Senator...?" Skinner's bafflement increased. "Where are the children now?"

"Reston, Connecticut. At a childcare facility. We should have no trouble locating them."

"We?" he'd caught her inclusive pronoun.

"Yes, sir. I was hoping you'd come with me." Noting the souring pinch of his face, she played her ace. "I've been led to believe this might take me to Mulder."

She knew a millstone of culpability hung around Skinner's neck over the loss of Mulder in Bellefleur. He couldn't assuage his guilt simply by accepting responsibility for an agent gone missing while on his watch. Mulder was more than a subordinate under Skinner's command; he was a friend. Skinner's purpose in Oregon was to watch the younger agent's back. But he'd messed up. Failed. And now Mulder was MIA. As an agent or a friend, Skinner could not walk away.

"Let's go," he said.

The Peek-A-Boo Childcare Center
Reston, CT
The Next Day 7:10 AM

"Bite?" Skinner asked, holding a sugary donut under Scully's nose while dangling an empty coffee cup out the car's open window. He kept his eyes on The Peek-A-Boo Childcare Center across the street. Scully turned away from his proffered sweet, her stomach roiling. With her first trimester behind her, she had hoped the nausea of morning sickness would subside. But food so early in the day still turned her stomach and she fought the urge to gag.

"No, sir, thank you," she managed to say without throwing up.

"You sure?" he continued to hold the donut close to her face. The cloying smell plugged the back of her throat like thick syrup. He realized her discomfort too late. She bolted from the car and vomited at the side of the road.

"You okay?" he came around the car, offering her his handkerchief. She nodded, embarrassment reddening her face as she wiped her lips.

"I'm going to blow our cover if I keep blowing my cookies," she joked without smiling.

"It's my fault. I'm sorry...I shouldn't have..," he really didn't know what to say; he had no experience with pregnant women or morning sickness. "Are you...?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine, really." She slid carefully back into the passenger seat. He gave her a doubtful squint before returning to the driver's side of the car.

"Nine o'clock," he warned, settling once more into his place behind the steering wheel.

Across the street a minivan parked in front of the childcare center. Six youngsters poured out with Teddy bears and baby dolls in tow. Scully watched them twirl and skip and shriek with laughter. Eyes and smiles so like Emily, the sight of them tugged her and it was all she could do to stay in her seat, not run to them, gather them into her arms, sprinkle their baby-soft hair with a rain of kisses. She wanted to smell them. Count their fingers and toes. Run her finger along the heated creases of their necks until they dissolved into a fit of giggles from her tickling touch. They were her children and she longed to steal them away. But she knew they would not lead her to Mulder. If anyone could do that, it was the van's driver.

The fifty-something man in workpants and short sleeves stepped from the vehicle and released three more children too young to climb out of their own car seats.

"That's Dr. Calderon! Or a man who looks like Calderon," Scully told Skinner. She knew the men involved in the hybrid genetics program were often clones and this man might be a replica of the original San Diego geneticist. She also knew the faceless alien rebels could shape-shift, appearing to be whomever they wanted to be. Clone or Rebel, it was impossible to know for certain who was who...until it was too late.

"Calderon?" Skinner asked, not familiar with the name.

"He was Emily's doctor in California. He worked for Transgen Pharmaceuticals. Experimental drug trials. I was told Emily was being treated for some kind of an autoimmune hemolytic anemia. Her treatment was experimental. Mulder later discovered she was part of an alien/human hybridization project."

Such outlandish possibilities failed to ruffle Skinner's calm. After all, he'd been reading Fox Mulder's reports for years. The only thing that niggled here was Scully's personal connection to the X-File at hand. If she was the mother of these purported human/alien hybrids, their human DNA was hers. But what of the alien half? He shuddered to think she might carry such a monster in her womb now.

She saw him glance at her belly, revulsion darkening his features for only an instant before he gained control again.

"This baby is fine, sir. I know with certainty that, uh...Mulder is the father," she disclosed.

Skinner wasn't sure how she could know anything with certainty, given the bizarre circumstances.

"I see." He nodded, hoping she was right and the child would not be born with green blood running like acid through its veins. Then again, Mulder's genetic contribution wasn't likely to be without its impurities either. If the missing agent's reports were anywhere near accurate, Mulder carried a bit of the alien race in him, too. He'd been exposed to the Black Oil and the Consortium's experimental vaccine. The encephalitic trauma Mulder had endured last year still remained a mystery. And why exactly did the aliens want Mulder? Why had they taken him in Bellefleur?

"You...uh, you'd probably guessed about Mulder and me already," Scully interrupted Skinner's disturbing thoughts.

"No. No, you were both...you were very discrete. Really."

"Well...it's not like we..." Scully reddened, uncomfortable discussing her private life with the AD.

"Agent Scully, you don't owe me any explanations."

"I know, sir. I just...he's on the move!" Scully focused on Calderon across the street. Children delivered inside, the doctor had returned to the van. He pulled away from the curb and headed south. Skinner twisted the key in the ignition and followed.

Reston was a small town and traffic was light. Actually, it was almost nonexistent. Skinner had to hang back several blocks to remain inconspicuous.

"Have you noticed the people in this town are a bit...odd?" Skinner asked as he made a turn, tailing the van down a tree- lined street and noting the emotionless stare of a woman gathering her newspaper from her front walk.

"It's a small town. They probably know everyone who lives here and are just curious about a strange car driving down their streets."

"I think it's more than that," Skinner shook his head. A car drove by them in the opposite direction; the driver openly watched Skinner and Scully as they passed. "I feel like we're being observed. Like they know we're here."

"They?"

Skinner shrugged. "It's just a gut feeling, Agent Scully. I've been on both sides of a stakeout enough times to smell the surveillance."

"He's turning left," Scully pointed. "Slow down; he's stopping in front of the next building."

"Reston Family Health Care?" Skinner read the sign. He slowed, watching Calderon exit the van and head toward a low-slung medical facility. Skinner waited only a moment before snugging the rental car inconspicuously behind another vehicle. "I don't suppose we'll be lucky enough to find Mulder in Examining Room One," Skinner said, peering through the windshield at the medical building.

Unknown Location

Cold. The air is cold. Almost frosty.

Mulder shivers. Naked. Lying on an icy table. Somewhere. The ship?

They are close. They. They? They open his mouth; he can't fight them. He can't move at all. Fear vibrates him more than the cold. They swab the inside of his cheek. He tastes copper. His own blood?

Don't make me bleed. A needle plunges into his thigh.

Scully. Help me.

Reston Family Health
Care Reston, CT 7:32 AM

The knob turned easily beneath Skinner's palm; the front door was unlocked. Cautiously he ducked inside and Scully covered his back. The cold air inside the facility smelled faintly of bleach...and something else. Urine? Blood? Both? No one sat in the waiting room; no receptionist watched the front counter. Only the quiet hum of the centralized air conditioning proved to Skinner he hadn't suddenly fallen deaf.

Scully rounded the counter and pulled a record at random from the line of patients' files stored alphabetically along the back wall. The file folder was empty, the forms blank. She checked another. Also blank. Paging through the appointment book on the front desk, she found no entries at all in the calendar.

"Guess they'll be able to fit us in."

She abandoned the appointment book to follow Skinner down a corridor. The carpet beneath their feet was brand new; the walls freshly painted. Not a smudge marked the light switches; not a spec of lint littered the floor.

"Maybe this is a new practice, not opened for business yet," Skinner suggested.

"Then why does it smell like a research lab?" Scully wrinkled her nose. "It's making my stomach do flip flops." Her sensitive digestive tract rolled with queasy unease.

Skinner stuck his head into the first examining room. The table lay empty but waiting, a fresh sheet of paper pulled along its length. Swabs and tongue depressors and latex gloves neatly filled the amply stocked shelves beside the corner sink. The sink's bowl glistened with the polish of never-used stainless steel.

"Nobody's home." He moved on to inspect the next room.

They found six identical exam rooms, all unoccupied.

"Let's try the lab," Scully suggested, opening another door. She moved quickly past the microscopes, the X-ray equipment, the centrifuges. All standard issue. Pushing through to the next room, Scully gasped. Beyond the threshold lay a crowded array of equipment she couldn't begin to identify. And although now vacant, the lab had recently been occupied. Several computer monitors flickered at stations around the room, a pot of coffee brewed in a back corner, handwritten notes lay scattered across the long counter. Skinner drew his gun.

"What are those?" Skinner gestured toward a row of steel cylinders, his attention caught by a quiet, rhythmic beep pulsing from each of the fat silver tubes.

"Cryogenic tanks maybe."

A tag hung from each tank, identifying the contents with a series of numbers and initials. Plucking at one tag, Scully flipped it over to read the back.

"S-sir?"

"What is it, Agent Scully? What does it say?"

"It...it has my name on it." She checked another tag. "So does this one. And this one." She moved down the line. Six small tanks. Six labels with her name neatly inscribed on the back.

"What's in them?" Skinner asked.

"Maybe they're empty," she said hopefully.

"Open one."

Scully took a deep breath, trying to steady the surge in her stomach. The lack of biohazard suits, protective facemasks, or even warning labels intimated the cylinders' contents weren't lethal. Hoping they were in no danger, she unscrewed the cap of the nearest container and peeked inside.

"What is it?" Skinner hissed.

Scully shook her head. Inside the cylinder was a second container made of glass or clear plastic, filled with a murky green liquid. She eased the inner core out of its steel sheath and held the transparent jar up to the light. The air huffed from her lungs when she recognized the small organic mass bobbing in the emerald water. A fetus. Six weeks old, she guessed. And labeled with her name. Gooseflesh dotted her arms, standing all her hairs on end. A flux of sour bile seared the back of her throat as the contents of her stomach churned.

"Is that what I think it is?" Skinner asked, relieving her of the container before she dropped it. He set it carefully on the counter where the green liquid stilled and the tiny baby ceased its bobbering. Appalled, they continued to stare at it.

The fetus abruptly stretched, twitching its minute arms before curling in on itself.

"Oooo," Scully moaned, reaching the sink in time to vomit violently into the bowl.

It's a baby! My baby! Emily! Her mind screamed. There are more! More! Her retching continued, despite her now empty stomach. Skinner gripped her shoulders, steadying her, murmuring something, steering her to a chair. Shaky, dizzy, she collapsed when the backs of her legs hit the seat.

"Scully..." Skinner breathed into her ear, concern softening his voice, sounding for a just moment like Mulder, startling her.

"I...I'm okay, sir." Shivering violently, she clenched her jaws to stop the explosive chattering of her teeth. Skinner tried to soothe her, rubbing his palms over her shoulders. "I'm fine," she insisted despite her shaking.

"We need to keep looking."

"I know," she said but didn't rise from the chair.

"You check the next room," he suggested gently. "I'll finish up here." He helped her to her feet and she edged away from the steel cylinders. Not looking back, she entered the adjoining lab.

A row of microscopes provided a destination and she focused on the familiar equipment. Part of her everyday life as a scientist. Safe. Peering into the eyepiece of the first scope, she found there was nothing on the slide. Her lurching stomach began to settle. She shuffled through the tray of slides and chose one at random, sliding it into place below the lens. Again she peered into the scope. A turn of the knobs brought the slide into focus.

Human sperm. Labeled with an eleven-digit alphanumeric string.

She frowned. Could there be a cross-reference somewhere? On the computer maybe? Something was familiar about the label.

She selected another slide. A different alphanumeric string. Four letters, seven digits.

The handwritten notes scattered between the microscopes contained long lists of more eleven-digit strings. Specific genetic data followed the alphanumeric sequences. No names, just DNA classifications. One entry was circled and underlined three times. SSWT 780011 2.

Scully tapped the letters and numbers into the nearest computer. A dialog box appeared on the screen, prompting her for a code. A password? Or maybe the query required the DNA sequence that corresponded with the string. She typed in the parallel series of letters. The cursor blinked. She was granted access.

SSWT 780011 2 Mulder, Fox William

L strand: 1 gatcacaggt ctatcaccct attaaccact cacgggagct ctccatgcat ttggtatttt 61 cgtctggggg gtatgcacgc gatagcattg cgagacgctg gagccggagc accctatgtc 121 gcagtatctg tctttgattc ctgcctcatc ctattattta tcgcacctac gttcaatatt 181 acaggcgaac atacttacta aagtgtgtta attaattaat gcttgtagga cataataata 241 acaattgaat gtctgcacag ccactttcca cacagacatc ataacaaaaa atttccacca 301 aaccccccct cccccgcttc tggccacagc acttaaacac atctctgcca aaccccaaaa 361 acaaagaacc ctaacaccag cctaaccaga tttcaaattt tatcttttgg cggtatgcac

The data ran on, page after page, mapping Mulder's DNA strand, his entire mitochondrial genome. Several function locations were marked. His red/green color blindness. His right- handedness. A few others. Scully stopped scrolling when she came to a large group of color-coded sections with added side notations. Something about brain function. The words 'insertions,' 'rearrangements,' and 'mutations' sent chills up Scully's spine. What was going on here? Where the hell had this data come from? Who was gathering it? Why?

Unknown Location

His mouth is dry. Thirsty. So thirsty.

Can I get a drink in here? Someone? Anyone?

No. No, no, no. Not another needle. Please.

I'd rather have a beer.

Sharp pain. In the hip. They lean over him. They. They stick him again on the other side. A tube slides under his skin; it raises a welt and a rash of goosebumps as it travels upward, upward. Something swabs his fingertip and the smell of rubbing alcohol invades his sinuses just before a sharp jab punctures his index finger. He jerks from the tiny attack but can't move. His wrists and ankles are restrained. He can only move his eyes.

I see you, you goddamn sons-of-bitches.

The crawling tube, the tube inching along under his skin stalls painfully at his groin. He tries to think about something else. Anything else. Anything but here. This place. Them. He thinks of Scully. He thinks of the night, after her epiphany, after her realization that all things happen for a reason. What's the reason for this, Scully? He thinks of her in his arms, in his bed. He thinks of her stretched out beneath him. She's the only thing that can block them, them, them from his mind.

The tube is unstuck and once more begins its travel beneath his skin.

Reston Family Health Care
Reston, CT

The alphanumeric identifier nagged at Scully -- where had she seen something like it before? Four letters. Seven digits. She ran her finger across it again and again. Shipping containers! The sequence was a standard ID for shipping containers, like the one where Esther Nairn lived before the Artificial Intelligence blew her oversized crate to smithereens using a DOD satellite with a weapons platform.

Scully yanked her cell phone from her pocket and punched in Frohike's number.

She yelled to Skinner while she waited for her call to ring through. When he poked his head in the room, she waved him forward.

"Lone Gunman," Frohike's voice croaked through the earpiece.

"Frohike, it's me...Scully."

"Agent Scully! How's the little mother-to-be?"

"Still puking every morning and very curious to find an address."

"I can't help with the stomach problem, but I'm pretty good at locating people."

"Not a person. A shipping container. The number is SSWT 780011 2. Can you find it for me?"

"No problema. Call you right back."

Waiting, Scully jiggled the phone impatiently in her palm and glanced at Skinner. "Sir, I don't know who's running this lab, but they have genetic information on hundreds, thousands of men here. Including Mulder." She pointed to the computer monitor.

"What are they using the information for?"

"I don't know. But each man is linked to an alphanumeric address. A shipping container."

"Shipping container? I don't understand."

"Neither do I, but I think we should check out SSWT 780011 2. That's the container in Mulder's file."

"Scully, it's not very likely he's there. I saw...I saw the ship at Bellefleur."

"I understand that, sir. But something is in that shipping crate. Something that might tell us why Mulder was taken, even if it doesn't show us where. Did...did you find anything else in...in...?" Scully glared at the adjoining lab.

"Some vials."

"Vials?"

"Containing human ova."

"Mine?"

"No. But I found this. I think you should take a look." He held out a piece of paper filled with data and typed notations.

"What...?" The document hung limply between them. The upper left corner was labeled with several Navajo symbols similar to the ones she had seen in Africa on the alien craft. She didn't recognize the meaning of this particular string but its presence on the document indicated an unmistakable connection to the mysterious alien ship. Before she could study Skinner's proffered page, her cell phone rang.

"Frohike?" she asked, impatient to find out what he had learned.

"You won't believe this, mi batata encinta, but you're practically sitting on top of that storage container of yours."

"What are you talking about...and don't call me that."

"Sorry. SSWT 780011 2 can't be more than a mile away from you in what must be a pretty good-sized storage yard. The weird thing is, trains pass there daily, but they don't stop...yet there are at least a thousand or more storage containers sitting in that yard. Something is going nowhere fast."

"Thanks, Fro..."

The percussive crack of a pistol spiked through the room, cutting short her call; Scully and Skinner dropped to the floor, ducking behind the nearest desk and drawing their own weapons. Blood trickled from Skinner's temple and he swiped at his eye, clearing his vision. A near miss or maybe a near hit, he thought. He motioned for Scully to stay put. He planned to move to the next desk, see if he could locate the shooter.

"Cover me," he mouthed.

When she raised her gun and fired a round at the door, he hunched low and crab-crawled to the next computer station. He glimpsed the shooter at the threshold. It was Calderon or whoever the hell the guy actually was. Skinner rose and aimed, firing a shot into the man's shoulder. The man disappeared behind the doorframe without so much as a whimper. Skinner was sure he'd hit Calderon and sprinted after him. Scully was only a step behind.

They jogged through the labs. Both the room with the fetus and the unused outermost lab were deserted. Skinner cautiously approached the hall door, every muscle alert, ready to duck or give chase. He leaned into the hall and back, just enough to get a view down the corridor. With a shake of his head he let Scully know Calderon wasn't there. She fell into place behind him. In tandem, they stepped into the hall, back to back, weapons aimed in opposite directions. The hall was empty; Calderon had disappeared.

On the floor at their feet, a rough, black stain scorched the floor. Scully had seen similar marks before, most recently in Bellefleur. She knew the pitting was caused by a corrosive biohazard, arguably of extraterrestrial origin. Alien blood.

Splitting up, Scully searched the front of the building while Skinner canvassed the back. They met up with each other outside where Calderon's empty van remained parked on the street.

"Shit," Skinner hissed. "He must still be inside."

"It doesn't matter. We don't need him. We've seen enough to figure out where we're going next, sir."

"About that," he squinted at her. "Don't you think this was just a bit too easy? These people haven't gone to very much trouble to hide what they're doing here."

"I think they're hiding everything...in plain sight, sir." She remembered Senator Whitter's parting words. The shrill ring of her cell phone caused them both to jump. She put the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Dana, it's Mom."

"Mom, what's the matter?"

"A man came to see you, sweetie. A Dr. Calderon."

"He's there? At your house?" Incredulous, Scully shot a panicky glance at Skinner. They were hundreds of miles from her mother's Maryland home. To be in two places at the same time, Calderon must certainly be a clone or a shape-shifting Rebel.

"He's gone now, but he said he's coming back, and Dana, he's bringing a little girl with him. I saw her picture. She...she looks like Emily."

"Mom, get out of there right now. Under no circumstances allow Calderon to get close to you..."

"But Dana, the girl..."

"Mom, listen to me. The girl isn't Emily and Calderon is extremely dangerous. I want you to go to FBI Headquarters right now and stay there. I'll call ahead. I'll arrange for an agent to meet you, stay with you. Now go. Don't waste any time."

"Dana, there's someone at the door..."

"Mom? Mom! Don't...Mom? Shit!" Scully yelled at the phone.

"What's happened?" Skinner waited, hands on hips.

"I've got to go...I've got to go to Mom's. Calderon's there."

"No. If he's there, he's after you, not your mother. I'll phone Headquarters, send someone over to her place." He stooped to look directly into her pinpoint pupils, bright with fear. "If Calderon's with her, we're already too late. We can't get to her in time."

"But, sir..."

"I don't think he wants her! Agent Scully, think about it. The lab in there..," he jutted his chin at the medical building, "it contains your records, Mulder's records. Genetic records. They have your ova stored in vials. Your offspring in steel tubes. Your mother's not their target. They're after you, Agent Scully. They want the baby you carry. Yours and Mulder's baby. Don't you see? That baby has all the genetic material they've spent months, years, researching."

His words collapsed her. Dropping her head to his chest, her brain sizzled with this obvious truth. Instinctively, she hid her unborn baby behind the palm of her hand.

"Why?" she whispered against the white of his shirt.

He shrugged even as he drew her to him, his embrace stiff, unpracticed. "I don't know. We need to locate that storage container. Maybe it'll tell us something. I'll call Headquarters, get an agent to your mother's and then we'll go."

Unknown Location

Scully? Sculllleeee! Please.

They move around him. Purposeful. But frenzied. Jostling him. Hurting. A hum of noise threatens to deafen him with its persistence.

He can see them. Mouthless. Grayish-white, sounding like starched fabric when they circle him or pace the room. Enormous plastic looking eyes constantly stare down at him.

Rubbery fingers sputter coldly across his skin with every ill- willed caress. Taking. Always taking something away. A bit of flesh here, a drop of spit there. Sweat. Blood. Urine. He refuses to consider what else.

He is unable to move. And metal gleams everywhere. Tubes grow in and out of his skin. Pinching. Tugging. Stinging. His mouth is so dry he waits as long as possible between swallows, trying to avoid the sandy scrape of his tongue against the scour of his closing throat.

Another needle harpoons his flank, adding one more puncture to his potholed flesh. The injection brings temporary respite, stilling the ceaseless hum in his ears for a moment, blurring the fast-motion pace of all the hovering beings. Them. Their drug sinks him into Scully's arms and a sigh of relief rasps from his collapsing lungs.

Storage Yard
Reston, Connecticut 8:41 AM

A breathy flutter of wings drew Scully's eyes upward to where a crow preened on the roof of a massive storage container. The container was as big as a boxcar. The numerical identifier SSWT 780011 2 marked its side. Tucked in one row of dozens just like it, each row a hundred or more units long, the container was practically lost despite its enormous size. The crow strutted along the hard metal roof as if guiding Scully and Skinner to the single door at the far end; its beak sliced the air as its head waggled, trying to keep the two agents in view.

Scully yanked the handle and wrenched open the door. The interior stared blackly back at her, impossible to penetrate in the bright morning sun. She aimed her flashlight inside, slicing the gloom with its narrow beam.

"Hello?" She stepped inside, the sound of her voice ringing round and round the metal walls like a finger tracing the rim of a lead crystal flute. The beam of her light swept the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The box was empty.

"There's nothing here," Skinner announced. Although he stood no more than a foot or two behind her, his circling echo made him nearly impossible to locate.

"No. There has to be something." She paced the length of the container, jogging her light back and forth, combing for the smallest clue: a footprint in the dust, a drop of blood, a tiny fiber of hair, anything.

"He's not here, Agent Scully. We're wasting our time. We'd do better to return to the lab."

She didn't want to leave; she felt certain if she left now her hope would stay behind, closed forever in this empty cargo container. And without her hope, her heart would feel more hollow than the chilly, black interior in which she stood. Moving away from Skinner and his damnable doubt, she paced the box once more, more slowly, more methodically, knowing that Skinner's patience was wearing thin and her opportunity was evaporating.

She bent and peered into the circle of her flashlight.

"He was here, sir."

"How do you know?"

"This." She held aloft her tiny cross, plucked from the delicate gold puddle of chain coiled on the floor. The metal gleamed in the beam of her light. "I gave it to him before he left for Bellefleur."

FBI Headquarters
Later that Evening

"Mom!" Relief surged through Scully at the sight of her mother sitting behind Mulder's desk. Maggie rose to meet her daughter halfway across the room and the two women embraced, both blinking back tears.

"I'm fine, baby," Maggie kissed Scully's cheek, "Thanks to Agent Davis. He took good care of me after Mr. Skinner's call."

"Glad to help, Mrs. Scully," Davis nodded, taking his leave now that Scully and Skinner had arrived.

Maggie caught the gleam of Scully's long-absent cross dangling around her daughter's neck.

"You found Fox?"

"No. No, we didn't." Scully covered the cross with her fingertip. "Just a dead end. Are you okay, Mom? Did Calderon hurt you?"

"No, sweetie. But he left something for you." Maggie dug into her pocket and removed a small envelope. The outside of the envelope was blank -- no return address, no destination. She handed it to Scully.

Inside Scully found a page torn from a book, the paper onionskin thin, and a photograph. The photo was of a grinning 3-year-old -- a dark-haired boy with Emily's eyes and smile. The scrap of paper contained a passage from the Bible. Luke 12.

'But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would have been awake and would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.'

"What is that supposed to mean?" Skinner asked tightly.

"He didn't explain," Maggie said. "He simply said 'give this to your daughter.'"

"Mom, you said on the phone Calderon planned to return...with a child."

"I didn't wait around. You sounded so worried, I came straight here."

"But the door...you left me on the phone to answer the door."

"Oh, that wasn't Calderon. That was just the paperboy collecting his delivery check. I left the house after paying him."

"Mom! I was scared to death."

"I'm sorry, honey, I didn't th..."

Scully's phone rang, interrupting her mother's apology. Snagging the receiver, Scully barked her name into the mouthpiece.

"Agent Scully? This is Agent Peterson calling from the Connecticut Field Office. We intercepted a train about an hour ago. Eighteen people from Bellefleur, Oregon, were in storage containers on that train. Including your partner."

Northeast Georgetown Medical Center
Washington, DC
8:16 PM

The antiseptic smell of hospitals always struck Scully like a homecoming since so much of her adult life had been spent walking through their corridors, either as a doctor, a patient, or a worried loved one. To Scully, the unique odors of medicine and bleach and bodily fluids coalesced into a soup of human healing. The aroma was continually hopeful. The scent of hanging on, never giving up. Sucking it into her lungs, she hurried from the elevator, pushing past orderlies and parked equipment in search of the room that held Mulder.

Room 712. 712. She repeated the number again and again like a mantra, despite the fact that there wasn't the slightest chance she would forget it. Not if she lived forever. She hoped to be telling her son, Mulder's son, about room 712 every year on this date from this day on, describing to him how she rushed across the threshold to be reunited with his father. The thought brought tears that momentarily blinded her as she counted room numbers. 708. 710. 712. This was it. 712.

She stopped outside the door. How would he look? What had they done to him? Would he be changed?

She surged through the door and saw him stretched flat under a brilliant white sheet, his chest rising and falling as evenly as a child's seesaw. Hands limp at his sides. Shadowed eyes closed, so sunken and tired his soft lashes all but disappeared into the reddened crease of his lids. Stepping closer, she could see the tracks his captors had left in the wake of their slow attack on his flesh. He was spotted with needle punctures; purple-yellow bruises painted his skin like some strange jungle camouflage. He was thinner; ropey tendons corrugated his arms and branched like tree limbs into his fingers. Blood caked a recent split on his dried, cracked lower lip.

She brushed her index finger lightly across the jutting bone of his wrist.

"Mulder? Mulder, it's me," she murmured, leaning close to his ear. She smiled when she discovered he smelled like the hospital: hanging on, never giving up.

He stirred. Licked his dry lips.

"Scully?" he squinted, the room's fluorescent light too bright for his dream-filled eyes. "Is that really you?"

The scuff of his voice unraveled her, sending a tear spiraling down her cheek. She slid her fingers into his palm so he could feel for himself that she was real, not just a momentary illusion.

"It's me," she assured him.

"You're here. How did you get here?"

"I drove, Mulder," she pressed a soft smile onto his brow.

He seemed confused; his bleary eyes tried to follow her face as she moved in and out of his focus.

"Drove...?" his voice petered out.

"You're in Georgetown Medical." Gentle. Patient.

"But the ship..."

"There is no ship." Tender. Soothing.

"Yes," he fretted, twisting beneath the sheet, trying to sit up. "I saw it. I was there. I..," he insisted.

"Shhhh." She bowed over him, wrapped his head in her arms, inviting him to bury his face in her neck. He inhaled an uneasy breath. Trying to return her embrace, the most he could manage was to rest his arms heavily on top of her hips. She felt his Adam's apple glide against her collarbone just before his chest heaved and an uneven sigh stuttered from his lungs. The sound vibrated her heart, causing the muscles of her chest to contract with an exquisite ache that began at her vocal chords and melted downward to sate her occupied womb.

"Sorry about the ditch, Scully," he murmured into her neck. "Old habits die hard."

"I thought I'd never see you again," her words spilled over his hair.

"Ditto," he croaked, making her smile.

She pulled away, suddenly restless to look at him; the doctor in her wanted to examine him, assess the damage, plot a course for his treatment and recovery.

"What...what have they done to you?" she sniffled, tucking away her lover's emotions and replacing them with her professional concern. She skimmed her palms over his neck, his arms, his chest, exploring him. Gently guiding him upright, she prodded him forward so she could inspect his back.

"Used me for a pin cushion, I think," he coughed.

His back was peppered with puncture wounds. A nasty group of circular scabs oozed just above his tailbone. She eased him back onto the bed. The effort of sitting up paled and exhausted him.

"You've lost weight," she announced.

"You haven't," he frowned at her stomach. "That bee pollen diet not workin' for you, Scully?"

"No, Mulder, it's...I have something to tell you." She smiled shyly and her unexpected expression enchanted him, causing him to mirror her smile with a tentative one of his own.

"What? What is it?"

"I...Mulder, I'm pregnant."

For a moment he just stared at her, thinking he had misunderstood.

"But...but how?" His question skated across parched lips, his smile fading.

"The usual way, Mulder." She stroked his cheek.

"But I thought...you couldn't..."

"So did I."

He turned his head to face the window, hiding from her eyes.

"Mulder?"

He didn't answer. She watched his fingers flutter at his hips. His jaw twitched, a nervous muscle jogged angrily along his cheek.

"Mulder, what's the matter?" She felt her heart disintegrate.

"Scully, you can't believe this was some sort of divine miracle." He was remembering Emily and the men who created her. He was wondering if this pregnancy was engineered, planned by a stranger, long ago, for reasons they could only guess.

"Why not, Mulder?"

"After what was done to you when you were abducted six years ago? Scully, your ova were harvested through a high amplification radiation procedure that caused superovulation. Yours and Penny Northern's and Betsy Hagopian's and the other women."

"Mulder, I know what happened to me. But it's entirely possible the men who kidnapped me, who took my ova, didn't get them all. Listen Mulder; women are born with 450 to 500 eggs - all they'll ever use throughout their reproductive lives. If even one was left behind, I could become pregnant."

"You have one egg and we make love one time and I impregnate you? I wouldn't want to play those odds in Vegas."

"Mulder, we know virtually nothing about the supraovulation process my abductors used. It may have been less than thorough. I may have been left with several or many eggs."

"But what about Scanlon's treatment for your cancer? Kurt Crawford said the procedure would make you sterile, even if the harvesting hadn't already left you barren."

"I stopped my treatment prematurely when you sent Byers to Holy Cross to warn me, remember? I may not have suffered the full effects. This is our baby, Mulder, and it was conceived the conventional way," she insisted.

"Scully, I know you want to believe that and you don't want to hear this, but isn't it more likely the baby is the product of in vitro fertilization?"

"When would the fetus have been implanted?" she challenged.

"During you little getaway with CBG? You told me you were unconscious for several hours. That he undressed you and put you in bed."

Her irritation flared, reddening her cheeks.

"That was weeks before the conception of this baby. Mulder, I've had everything imaginable test done. This baby is fine. He's normal. He's yours."

Mulder said nothing for a moment. Chewing the inside of his lower lip he quietly tried to accept the truth of her revelation.

"He?"

"Yes. He. You're going to have a son."

Comprehension shuddered through his chest.

"Scully, don't go home tonight. Stay with you mother. I don't want you to be alone." He couldn't release his fear.

"Mulder..."

"Please? Promise me," he demanded, fingers plucking at her sleeve, begging her to give him this.

"Actually, I'd already planned to stay with her. She had a visit from Calderon."

"Calderon! Jesus Christ, he wants you, Scully. Or the baby. Or both. You're not safe." He grasped her wrist, squeezing his insistent dread into her with the solid grip of his hand.

"I have to admit, Skinner agrees with you. But I'll be careful. I promise." She patted his clenched fingers. "Oh," she released him, pulling free to unclasp the delicate chain hanging around her neck. "You lost this." Dangling from her fingers, the tiny cross glittered as she fastened it once more around his neck, just as she had done before he disappeared in Bellefleur.

"Didn't lose it, Scully. Left it for you." The chain undulated as he spoke, riding the tide of his voice. He hooked his index finger around hers and brought it to his lips. "You were right; you didn't let me go alone."

"You were never alone, Mulder. And thanks to you..." she bent and kissed his nose, "Neither was I."

He laughed for the first time in weeks, inadvertently reopening the wound on his lop-sided grin.

"Oh, you're bleeding." Scully grabbed a tissue from the bed tray and swabbed gently at his mouth.

"Seriously, Scully," he cupped his hand around hers, stilling her fussing fingers. "You saved me. Without the memories of you...of us..." his voice dropped to a whisper, "I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too, Mulder," her voice wavered, watery with remembered loneliness. She distracted herself from her recent grief by resuming her ministrations.

"I can't believe..." his eyes lowered; he focused on her stomach.

"You can't believe I missed you?"

"No, I can't believe you're pregnant. That's...wonderful, Scully. Really."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He threaded his arm around her waist, drew her toward him and laid his ear against her belly. "I can hear him, Scully."

"No you can't."

"I can. He's singing."

"Oh really? What's he singing, Mulder?"

"The theme song to Shaft. 'Who's the black dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks...'"

"Stop that," Scully chuckled.

"Shhh. Quiet, Scully. I can't hear. 'Shaft! Shaft!'"

Margaret Scully Residence
5:16 AM

"What's wrong?" Scully asks again while a nurse mops her brow.

"Your baby is in some distress, Dana," a masked doctor says. He sits between her knees. She feels his fingers prod the mouth of her womb. "We had to induce labor."

"But it's too soon! The baby will die!" Another contraction curls through her, doubling her in half. "Where is Mulder? Who are you?"

"Your baby will be fine. Don't worry. It'll all be over soon."

Scully hugs her spasming belly, still far too flat to be giving birth. Her due date is months away.

"Here he comes," the doctor announces.

Scully feels a pull.

"Almost," the doctor urges.

A tug, a drawing out.

"There now! You have a son, Dana. A beautiful boy!" The doctor holds up the baby. Tiny. Miniscule. Only inches long in the doctor's gloved hand; the umbilical cord dwarfs the undersized baby. At the sight of her son squirming helplessly in the doctor's latexed palm, a spiral of fear skewers her.

She watches the doctor place the tiny infant in an incubator. An assistant dressed in scrubs wheels the baby from the room.

"No! Don't take him! Bring him back!"

"We can best care for your son in the neonatal unit, Dana. I know you're concerned but everything will be fine." He stands, strips off his gloves, walks from the room.

"Please," Scully begs the nurse. "Don't take my baby. Please!"

"Shhhh," the nurse gently hushes her. "There's no need to worry; your son will get excellent care. We want only the best for him. He's very important to us, to everybody. Here, take these." The nurse pulls a strand of beads from her pocket, a Rosary. Mother-of-pearl beads dot the length of chain. "I find they help when I'm upset." She drapes the Rosary across Scully's empty hand.

"No," Scully protests, her fingers already worrying the beads. "No. Bring him back. I want my baby!"

I want my baby. Bring him back! Scully thrashed, trapped in twisted sheets drenched by her imagined fears. With a gasp, she sat upright, clinging to the bed for a sense of balance she didn't feel. Eyes wide, she peered into the dark. She recognized her mother's guestroom.

A bad dream. A nightmare. She'd had a nightmare. She wasn't in the hospital after all, but was at her mother's house. Across the room, the old familiar bureau from her childhood came into focus as her eyes adjusted to the low light. Family photos leaned on the dresser's top, no more than black rectangles tilting back toward the mirror. She ran her fingers over the nubby bedspread, feeling the swirling designs that were so hard to straighten when making the bed. Beside her on the nightstand, she recognized her Bible. And the empty glass of orange juice she'd sipped before turning out the lights.

Folded into the Bible, a strand of Rosary beads marked a passage. With a shaky hand, Scully turned on the light beside the bed. The lamp's glow aimed a bright circle downward, illuminating the mother-of-pearl between Mary's haloed head and the dangling Crucifix. Scully felt herself sinking into the gray and silver waves that rippled across the pearl beads. The Rosary wasn't hers, but she recognized it from her nightmare. Afraid to touch the strand, she opened the Bible and let the beads slide out onto the nightstand. Like a tidal stream, they flowed around her empty juice glass, scuffing along the polished surface of the table in a lustrous eddy.

Pulling her eyes from the hypnotic gleam of the Rosary, she glanced at the passage the beads marked in the Bible.

John 3:16.

'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

Northeast Georgetown Medical Center
Washington, DC
9:39 AM

"Hey Scully! I've been picking out names. Whaddaya think of George Arthur Arthur Elvis Mulder?" Mulder slouched against the windowsill, eager to change out of his hospital gown and sign himself out of Georgetown Medical. He stiffened at the sight of Scully's teary eyes and reddened nose. "Okay, Scully, we can go with your choice."

"Mulder...there is no baby."

"What? What are you talking about?" His face drained of color and he reached for her.

"I just came from my doctor. The baby is gone, Mulder. They've taken him."

"They? Who's 'they'?"

"Calderon, CBG Spender, Alien Invaders, Faceless Rebels...what does it matter? Our baby is gone."

"It matters, Scully! It matters a lot! We have to know...so we can get him back."

"Mulder, I don't know who took him. They came last night...in a dream, a nightmare. They put him in an incubator and took him."

"What did they look like?"

"Like doctors and nurses. They could have been anyone."

"Shape shifters. The Rebels would want him."

"Why, Mulder?"

"Because he carries genetic material they can use."

"For what?"

"They need a biological weapon -- a living being -- who can defeat the Alien Invaders, who is stronger than alien/human hybrids the Invaders developed. Something that can survive the Virus. Scully, you've been exposed. I've been exposed. Our baby is immune.

"So what? Why steal our child and not the original vaccine?"

"Because the Rebels need more than an antidote to the Virus. They need a being with the ability to preconsciously anticipate and subvert the Invaders' plans. Gibson Praise had that ability. That's why the Invaders kidnapped him."

"Gibson's ability came from them, Mulder! His genetic material is theirs. We proved that. Why would they need to steal what they already have?"

"Maybe they've lost the genes and the abilities those genes carry. We're talking about tens of thousands of years of evolution. Maybe their purpose for returning to Earth was to harvest what they'd lost."

"I still don't understand...I don't understand what this has to do with our son."

"Scully," he stooped to look directly into her eyes, "I carry the same remnant DNA as Gibson. We all do, you said so yourself. But there's something about me, something in my genetic make-up that allows me to experience Gibson's ability. Exposure to the alien artifact last year somehow 'turned on' my latent DNA, causing brain activity that resulted in hearing other people's thoughts, anticipating unasked questions, even remote-viewing. These abilities are powerful weapons if they can be controlled."

"Your records..."

"What?"

"Your genetic records in the Reston lab. There were notations on them. Markers highlighting specific brain anomalies."

"See Scully? I carry those traits in my genes. And I think that fact has been known for a very long time. Haven't you ever asked yourself why I've been allowed to live this long? The Consortium could have killed me a hundred times over. Should have killed me. But here I am. Foolishly left to fall into the hands of the Faceless Rebels and become their personal guinea pig. Scully, our son carries the same genes I do, passed on through me. I think the Rebels plan to use our baby, use him as a weapon to defeat the Invaders and their Hybrids."

Dropping her head to his chest, Scully surrendered to his theory with a furious hiss.

"It makes sense in an insane way," she conceded. "But what's my contribution? Why take my genetic material...my ova, Emily, our son?" her fingers dug at the fabric of his hospital gown, grasping at him even as she clutched for answers.

He rested his cheek against the crown of her head. Lowered his voice.

"Scully, you've been an unwilling participant in the hybridization program for years. There exists a considerable amount of data describing your genetic make-up. That's bound to be valuable to the Rebels. Or perhaps there's something else about you that interests them...something related to your experience in Antarctica. Or the chip in your neck. Or...or none of these things. Hell, maybe they just like red hair."

"Why not simply kidnap me then, Mulder, the way they took you?"

"You're tagged, Scully. That chip in your neck is a goddamn homing device. The Rebels can't risk taking you and tipping their hand to the Alien Invaders. Me...they can drag me anywhere and hardly anyone notices. How many sorry-to-hear- your-partner's-in-outer-space sympathy cards have you received, Scully?"

"Mulder...you were never in outer space."

"What are you talking about? Of course I was. I saw the ship, Scully. I was there."

"Not according to the physical evidence. Your test results indicate you've never left Earth's gravitational pull. Weightlessness, if you'd experienced it, would have shown up in your screen."

"Scully, I saw the ship. I was taken on board by the Bounty Hunter. He brought me to a room where they tied me to a bed and performed hundreds of goddamn tests..," he thrust out his arms, displaying his recent scars.

"You were kept in a storage container in Reston, Connecticut. You and the other abductees from Bellefleur."

"No. No." He stubbornly wagged his head, lips pressed together.

"That's where I found this," she touched the cross at his neck.

"Then they put it there for you to find."

Stretching her arms around his waist, she sunk into him, her strength for argument gone. She didn't want to fight him.

"The lab in Reston is gone, Mulder. Burned. And the children at the childcare center where Skinner and I saw Emily's brothers and sisters, they're gone, too. The Center's been cleared out. Every shred of hard evidence has been eliminated. We have no proof and no leads. I don't know why I should be surprised; we've been circling this same barn for eight years."

"Our son is alive, Scully."

"Even if he is, they may not be able to keep him alive for long. He's...he's so small."

"They won't let him die; he's too valuable."

"I hate to think what they'll do to him," she stroked Mulder's wounded arms.

"We'll find him, Scully. We will, I promise. You have to believe it. You have to have faith."

"I do, Mulder. Do you?"

St John's Church
Alexandria, VA
Two Weeks Later

Mulder watched her from the pew, her back curved in supplication as she knelt at the foot of the cross. Head bowed, her hair draped over her face like a curtain, hiding her eyes from his intrusion. Her lips moved in silent prayer. He knew she asked God to keep their child safe; she wasn't so selfish as to beg for their son's return.

I'll beg, Scully. I can be selfish.

Rather than risk triggering his own unstoppable tears, he turned away from Scully's heartfelt prayer. Tipping his head back, he filled his view with the stars painted on the vaulted ceiling, hoping to distract himself from her intensity. Even so, her earnestness pursued him; her belief in God's miracles touched him the way a tentative caress amends a lifetime of solitude.

Come on, God, you have the power to bring the dead back to life. Re vivus facere. I've seen your work first hand. Surely you can return a missing child?

High above the Crucifix, despite the deep curve of the dome's concave surface, the stars looked flat. Not like real stars at all.

He tried to calculate how long it would take to look behind every real star.

Finished with her prayer, Scully slid into the pew beside Mulder and slipped her hand into his twitching palm.

"His conception was a miracle," she murmured, staring at Christ on the Cross. Mulder knew she referred to their son, not God's. "I believe in God's miracles, Mulder."

"Do we get more than one?"

"I don't think God limits His miracles. Our son will be returned."

"Maybe we're supposed to find him ourselves, not wait for him to be delivered."

"I don't intend to stop looking, Mulder. This..." she gestured at the alter, "is just the first stop."

He nodded and sat for a moment without speaking, softly tracing the hills of her hand.

"I want to find him for you." The rasp of his voice brought tears to her eyes.

"I know." She squeezed his fingers. "But have you considered...this may be part of God's Plan?"

"To steal our baby?"

"Yes."

"But why? Why would God want to do that, give us a son only to take him away?"

Scully's eyes fixed on the Crucifix, on Christ's face.

"I don't think we can know, Mulder. I'm not sure we're meant to know. But that doesn't mean He doesn't have His reasons."

"I can't accept that, Scully. I'm not convinced God is playing a role in this at all. We've seen too much to believe God's hand is in every pie. There are plenty of men out there -- human men -- who act the part of God everyday, but that doesn't make them holy."

"Aren't they subject to God's Plan, too?" she suggested.

"How can you say that? How can you think that? Men like CBG? Part of God's Plan?"

"Mulder, I've seen too much to think God doesn't have a Plan. When I was in Africa, I discovered an alien craft inscribed with the writings of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, every religious text ever written predating the dawn of man."

"Were they written by the hand of God, Scully, or the hand of our own alien progenitors?"

"Perhaps that's one and the same," she suggested.

Her words surprised him. After weighing the evidence, she was seriously considering the possibility that God was in fact a race of EBEs.

"All God's children?" he asked.

"Something like that."

Reaching into his pocket, he removed a folded piece of paper. "Skinner gave me this. He said he found it in the Reston lab." Mulder reluctantly handed the document to Scully. "You're not going to like what you read," he warned her.

Unfolding the sheet she recognized the Navajo symbols marking the upper left corner. She scanned the document.

Scully, Dana K Biocom #237811002 STATUS: Active 4.9.00 Flare protocol- Lupron Follistim, Gonal-F, Repronex Conception: Y (46 hours post) Gestation: Harvest: Ref. Tape #43622 Mulder, Fox W

"Your pregnancy was a result of hormone manipulation, the 'flare protocol,'" he pointed out.

"So I see. But the egg was my own at least; not an implanted fetus."

"Thank God."

"Funny you should say that."

"You don't mean funny ha, ha, do you, Scully?"

"No. If the aliens are God, that still makes the conception of our son a miracle."

"Did you notice my name is on that paper, too?"

"I noticed."

"Doesn't the mention of the tape make you queasy? I can't quite picture God needing a surveillance camera."

"They began the flare protocol the night we..." Scully flushed, rereading the document and noticing the date.

"Smile, Scully, you're on Candid Camera. What exactly is flare protocol, by the way?"

"It's a procedure used to assist fertilization. Administering GnRH-agonist and FSH product hormones jump-starts egg production in the ovaries. It's sometimes given to women with reduced ovarian reserve, women near menopause who want to become pregnant but have very few eggs left."

"We already knew the chip in your neck controlled certain aspects of your physiology, Scully. It keeps your cancer in remission. Maybe it was designed to release hormones as well. Our Peeping Toms could have activated the chip when they saw us doing the deed. I think it's clear your pregnancy was engineered, planned out long ago, maybe before we were even born. We're being used for someone else's purpose."

Squinting at the Crucifix, Scully ignored the paper in her lap.

"Part of a Plan."

"Don't go there, Scully."

"Why not? Is it really so far fetched to accept aliens as God and our son as a part of their Plan?"

"I'd have to call it an 'agenda.' And I can barely believe you're entertaining this notion. You've come a long way in eight years."

"Africa changed me, Mulder."

"If the aliens are God, and not just god-like, then what does that make our son? Your assumption infers our son's genes are analogous to the blood and body of Christ. That's a bit egotistical, don't you think?"

"Don't worry. I'm not so arrogant as to overstate my role. After triple checking the PRC, I have no delusions of immaculate conception."

"That's a relief. I'm glad you admit your child is mine and not the Son of God. You had me worried for a minute."

"No, not the Son of God, Mulder. But maybe the Grandson." She was serious and her eyes searched his, wholeheartedly expecting to uncover the truth of the universe in the liquid black of his pupils.

"Don't put that burden on me, Scully. I don't look very good in a crown of thorns."

Breathing a deep sigh, she stood and straightened her skirt. "Come on, Mulder," she tugged at him, drawing him up from the pew, "We've got work to do."

"Transform loaves and fishes into feasts?"

"No. Just one tiny baby to find."

He tilted his face up at star-painted ceiling. "A needle in a haystack, I'm afraid."

"You giving up?"

Hooking her hand, he wove his fingers between hers and walked her toward the door.

"Never, Scully. Never."

THE END

'As you do to me, as you do to Mulder, you do to the World.'

- CSM to Krychek before being pushed down the stairs in "Requiem"

Authors notes: RE VIVUS FACERE was originally intended to bridge the X-Files Season 7 with the Virtual Season 8 Project. Before RVF was even started, the VS8 Production Crew chose not to go with a bridge episode. This story was calling to me, however, so I decided to write it anyway. Since I don't usually do angst or mytharc, this was a new experience. By the way, in case you're wondering, RE VIVUS FACERE is Latin for "to make alive again" - the opposite of Requiem, of course.

Feedback, good or bad, is welcome on this or any of my stories. Send comments to nejake@tds.net. I'm not a professional writer so any pearls of wisdom you could pass my way would be most helpful and appreciated. Thanks!

--Jake

My other fanfic (look on Gossamer, Ephemeral, Spooky's or email me for a copy):

• The Boogeyman
• Madjahando
• Deep Freeze
• Split Second
• Greetings from Maine
• The Coiled Serpent
• Devil's Roar
• Acquitted (NC-17)
• SHII Encore (NC-17)
• Impulse
• Dominion
• Annelid
• White Light
• Mirror, Mirror
• Snowman (coming soon on Virtual Season 8)