Title: Wrapped in the Wind
Author: RocketMan
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the X-Files belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended.
Spoilers: Emily mytharc, The End and Beginnings, and just to be safe. US7--is that what we're in already? ESPECIALLY The KISS!!!!!

Summary: This is a Romance with Mulder and Scully and a little baby girl. Much like The Emilys, if you liked those.

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Wrapped in the Wind

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"A wind has wrapped them in its wings"
--Hosea 4:19

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Part One

=-=-=-=

I can sit in front of this mirror and notice all the details of my body without feeling ashamed or frightened or regretful. I have the same body, but a different soul, and that makes all the changes real to me.

My legs and stomach and arms are probably thinner than they were before, but that is from running around and not eating right: I will be healthy again before long.

I can see the edging of a scar on my belly, but it is thin and was stitched up nicely, after both the first and second bullets. One from the man who was supposed to be my partner at the time, and one to save my partner and all the rest. It is amazing to me that I am here, looking at my scars and the life I have now, comparing them and not even recognizing all the worries I had before.

The baby sits on the floor beside me and she gazes at me with adoration before waving her hand again: our reflection fascinates her intensely and she discovers it with the same focus that Mulder has always discovered things. Her hair is dark and thick, curling up on the ends to lighten out; her eyes are still baby blue and Mulder is convinced they will never change. Maybe not.

We both just finished a bath, finding relaxation in bubbles and buoyancy in the hot water. The baby likes the bubbles just as much as I do, which is ironic and comforting all the same. I pull her into my lap and watch us sitting naked before the mirror. Our bodies are smooth and pink with warmth; we gaze at our reflection.

Mulder had promised to hang the mirror over my dresser, but since he had never had the time to get around to it, I left it on the floor. I like being able to see if my shoes match as I leave the room, but there is a mirror in the bathroom if I want to see my face. I would rather not catch a glimpse of myself as I have to leave for work. My face is already set into coldness by the time we move out of the bedroom.

I sometimes feel that threat hanging over me, the threat Mulder and I faced for years before safety seemed to be within our grasp. I'm not sure why now is any different from then, but no one has come after us, and we're still here.

We're still here. That is what is most amazing. Not only have we cheated certain death, or maybe just certain bereavement, but we are still here.

Together, still working, still partners, still with this little family.

I don't understand how it could have all worked out, but it has. It has and we're here.

Only God could have given this to me. Only God. There's no way I stumbled into this all by myself. Especially considering how I reacted when I first saw Mulder with the baby, considering the things he said that I thought I could never forgive.

=-=-=-=

Sitting at home, I felt exhausted and worn out, not just physically, but spiritually and mentally as well. My couch was lumped in the wrong spots and I got a crick in my neck before I could manage the energy to move to my bedroom.

The room was dark and cool, like comforting arms reaching out to embrace me. Something about my home, my room, kept me renewed. It was thin with a soft comforter and a wide window that I usually kept cracked. The breezes meandered through during the summer and the stiff chill of winter seeped inside to take the dryness out of the room in the long days of February.

My heater was on low because I'd been away on a case, so I notched it up carefully, keeping it right on seventy to ease the room into warmth without making it heavy and oppressive. I slipped out of my shoes and hose, kicking them into a corner and ignoring the messiness for a moment. I had to wriggle around in my skirt before it would slide down and then I felt a lot more free.

I padded softly into the bathroom off the hall in just underwear and my white dress shirt. The water ran cold for a long time before it got hot and it gave me a chance to take off my earrings and necklace and watch, and then slip out of the rest of my clothes.

The bathtub filled up with bubbles and steam and hot water and I watched it for a time, hypnotized, before turning and placing a towel on the floor beside the tub. I washed my face free of make-up, especially the mascara, and then stepped into the water.

My flesh crawled as the heat of the water fought against the chill of the air and the lukewarm nature of my body, and then I slipped deeper into the bath. It took a moment before I got the nerve to lean back against the cold porcelain and rest my tensed back, but once I was settled, it warmed quickly.

I loved the musky smell of the bubbles as the popped and fizzed down against my movements. I could even detect the lavender perfume of my lotion and soap as it dissolved from my body and into the water. It intoxicated me and soon I could close my eyes and feel far far away.

I drifted on bubbles and dreams, watching the darkness behind my lids change into rainbows and fireworks of black, then into clouds of night and dragons of splotched yellow. I rode a dragon to the edge of my vision and back again, and then slipped my chin into the water.

My muscles were unwinding and unknotting, the sinew like ropes on ships as the sail was let back down, the tautness and alertness dissolving. I could feel every bubble against my skin, see every dream I would have that night, feel the beginnings of sleep tiptoeing around me.

The ringing of the phone didn't even faze me. I just sighed and slipped further into the tub, ignoring the insistency of it. The portable in my living room was shrilling in concert with the phone in my bedroom and I imagined that it was a great piece of music, unsure of which one it could be. It was a bit too high-pitched for Bach or Mozart or Handel. It fell off and I was left to peace.

And then my cellular rang from the pile of clothes in the floor. I didn't remember leaving my jacket in there when I got home, but I must have slipped it off when I went to the bathroom. Four cups of coffee before heading home will do that.

I sighed and eased out of the tub, realizing that it was probably Mulder and probably one of his emergencies. Not that I was sick of Mulder, just that I was sick of his emergencies. He called frequently with awful excuses that he didn't even try to make fly, and I would humor him and talk to him, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Scully." I answered, trying to avoid dripping on my clothes. The towel was large and thick, but it didn't keep me warm.

"Scully. Oh good. Good."

"Mulder?"

"I just. . .I had an odd phone call a few minutes ago and I was worried.

. ."

I frowned, letting the towel drop so that I could get back in the bathtub. He wasn't calling me about a case; he wasn't coming over.

The water encased me like a heavy warm blanket and I sighed.

"Scully?"

"Who called?"

"I. . .CancerMan."

"What did he want?" I asked, wondering if he was making this one up too.

"He told me to meet him tomorrow. He said 'there's someone here you ought to see'."

"Mulder. . .are you being serious?"

"I know I seem to be calling for random reasons, lately, but this is real. There'll be a cab waiting for me outside the Bureau."

"Just you?"

There was a terse silence before he continued. "Yes. He told me specifically to be alone."

"Mulder, I don't like this at all."

"Well. . .if it's Samantha again. . .I want to see her, Scully."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "I know," I said softly and tried not to let the tears into my voice. Sometimes his need made me crumble. "But I don't want you walking into a trap."

"I haven't really thought about it. I called right after he hung up. I thought he might be talking about you."

"Me?"

"If he had you. . ."

"No. I'm here."

There was another long silence and I buried myself in water until it was up to my chin and my neck was propped at an angle to keep the phone out of my bath.

"We could have agents follow you."

I could hear him sigh on the other end. "He said to be alone. I'm more inclined to believe that he won't hurt me, Scully. He sounded almost desperate."

"Desperate men do desperate things."

"Yes, but this is sudden. Nothing's going on, there's no case, nothing.

In fact, we've been pretty well clear of conspiracies since New Year's."

I could feel my blush start deep in my body and work to my cheeks at the mention of New Year's. Seven years for a kiss and I was still blushing just thinking about it. It wasn't really that hot or passionate or arousing, but it had been sweet and it had been Mulder.

"I want you to call me as soon as you get in the cab, then."

I knew he would be smiling even though I couldn't see him. I rolled onto my side in the tub, at a better angle for my neck and traced the cracks between the tiles.

"What are you doing, Scully?"

I smiled. He was moving on, determined in our established plan. But I wasn't through talking yet.

"You'll call me in the cab, then? And when you get to wherever you're going, if you can."

"I'll call."

"And when he leaves."

"And when he leaves," Mulder echoed.

"Good."

"So what are you doing, Scully? I'm hearing all these strange sounds."

His words held a hint of teasing and I shifted in the tub again, making the water break around my legs.

"You mean that sound?"

"Yeah."

"I'm taking a bath."

He paused, his breath inhaling sharply. "Oh."

"Breathe, Mulder."

He chuckled on the other end and it broke the oddly formed ice between us. The warmth of his laugh was different from the water, lighter but thicker, feeling good in the same way a gentle breeze feels during the summer.

I could fall asleep with that echoing in my mind and warming me through and through.

"Are you on your cell phone?" I asked, jolted from my reverie by a clicking sound.

"Yeah. And you'll be happy to know that I'm driving down your street right now."

"What!"

I jerked up in the bath, wincing when water sloshed over the side and onto my towel. I could feel the half panic half frustration tightening my muscles and arms again.

"Relax. I called first, but you didn't answer your home phone. So I jumped in my car and then dialed your cell phone."

"Mulder. . ."

"You don't have to get out, Scully. I can let myself in."

I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure what I should be saying. He was coming over and I was naked in the bathtub. That really wasn't too good, especially since the kiss, but I didn't know how to say that to him.

He was equally silent and I wondered if he knew exactly what I was thinking and was coming anyway, just because he wanted to know what would happen.

"I'm outside," he breathed and he seemed to be waiting for me to pronounce judgment.

I sighed. "You might as well come in. I'll be out."

He clicked off his phone and I laid there for a brief moment, closing my eyes. I didn't want this to be happening now, not until I could analyze everything I felt, anything Mulder might feel. I could always refuse to let him touch me, refuse to play along with him, but I was afraid that would hurt us more than anything.

It wasn't like I didn't love him. He's Mulder, my partner. But the degree of that love, the extent, the capacity to forgive in this love was not so as great as it ought to be. I didn't want to be without him, but I didn't want to necessarily be with him. Not tonight. I had really just pushed everything away and pretended it was nothing. I should have known it wouldn't work for long.

I heard the door open and I pulled myself from the tub, wrapping a different, longer, towel around my body and drying off. I heard him tap on the door and I smiled.

"You can come in, Mulder."

"I can?"

I rolled my eyes and unplugged the drain, letting the water chug out as Mulder carefully slipped inside my bathroom. When I turned around he was leaning against the doorjamb, a look on his face that I'm sure he didn't mean to show.

I walked up to him and pushed past his chest, tapping his breastbone with a finger.

"Let me get dressed."

He nodded and looked as if he wanted to follow me but then moved to the living room. I sighed in relief and closed my bedroom door, my shoulders drooping. Quickly I grabbed plaid pajama pants from the bed and a light blue Care Bears T-shirt that matched a stripe in the pants. The shirt was ragged and from my college days, but it still fit, which showed less of my exercising and more of the effects of the cancer. I still had suits in the back of my closet that were too big. I wasn't complaining at all, but sometimes when I saw each of my ribs in the mirror I got worried.

And it had been awhile since the cancer.

My hair was damp on the ends and curling up, but I ignored the unprofessionalism of it and reminded myself that Mulder had just seen me in no makeup and a towel, and had seen me in worse. I walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen first, grabbing two mugs and green tea from the fridge. I poured out enough for us and then stuck the mugs in the microwave.

"Scully?"

"Yeah," I answered, moving to the living room.

He opened his arms to me and I stood there for a moment, confused, then sat down next to him, letting him hug me tightly. His clothes smelled like sleep and I closed my eyes to remember the scent.

"You smell good," he said and I smiled.

"Bubble bath."

"Cute shirt," he mumbled, tugging on my sleeve.

I smiled and wondered if I should be letting myself get so entangled in him.

He rubbed my shoulders and back, then let me back up to get the tea. I tried not to look back at him as I moved into the kitchen, but I couldn't help the shake in my hands as I took the mugs from the microwave. They were both too hot but I carried them carefully back to the living room, feeling the burn in my thumbs like a bite.

"Thanks," he said as I handed him the mug. "Is there a window open?"

"Yeah, too cold?"

"No. It feels good. I was just making sure."

The unsaid words behind his asking were there and I could touch them; he was worried about me but knew I hated it when he fussed. The thing was, he hated it when I fussed over him too, but I never backed off and I never hid my meaning behind innocent questions. Fussing was a doctor's privilege and it gave me an excuse to touch him.

We sipped the tea and sat in silence, remembering the conversations and the memories, but not letting ourselves give in. By the way he somewhat glanced in my direction every other minute, I knew he wanted to say something, but I was afraid of letting him.

"Scully," he started.

I turned to look at him with pleading in my eyes. Don't do this now, please don't. For your sake as well as mine.

He seemed to sense it and stopped, closing his mouth. His face changed though and I wondered if I had ruined things, if I had regressed us years with my quiet desperation. His fingers traced the rim of the cup and then he set it on the coffee table and stood up.

"Thanks for the tea, but I should let you sleep."

I watched in bewilderment as he stepped by me, his face a mask of regret and disappointment and resignation. I scrambled to my feet, flustered and just a touch angered.

"You don't have to go," I said.

He turned back and shook his head. "It's late. I have to actually be at work early tomorrow."

He was joking but rather lamely, since I knew he was always early to work. He was trying to reassure me that this was not my fault, but I knew better. I set my tea down and moved to the door with him, trying to find something to say that would fix the hurt in his eyes.

At the last moment I snatched his hand. "Thanks for worrying about me."

He smiled in genuine relief and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. I moved into it, closing my eyes to the smell and the touch.

When he stepped back I smiled.

I watched his car leave from my bedroom window, in the dark with the street lights and the cold wind of winter caressing my skin. Instead of Mulder. I sighed and moved to the bed, then under the sheets. The first chill of it made me stiffen, but then heat began to move from my body to the bed and I was warm again.

I know I dreamed of Mulder.

=-=-=-=

I met him in the parking garage and squeezed his hand tightly when he smiled at me. I wanted to tell him to just forget about it, but he would regret not going for the rest of his life; I just hoped he wouldn't regret *going* for the rest of however long his life would be.

"I'll be fine, Scully."

I frowned again. "Are you sure I couldn't follow behind? If he's not going to hurt you anyway, why should my presence hurt?"

"I need to show him that I'm investing as much trust into this as he is."

"Mulder. Trust?"

"I have to, Scully."

We were at the elevators and I wanted to take him with me and run, but that was equally as foolish as any of the other plans I'd thought of this morning while driving into work. I watched him wink at me and step onto the elevator, holding it open for me. I didn't want to think that this might be the last I saw him.

When the car opened into the lobby, we walked out smoothly in tandem, then stood in the open area before the metal detectors. I was watching him anxiously, and I'm sure he wasn't feeling too confident with that kind of look on my face, so I forced myself to look out for the cab.

"There it is," he said.

I nodded as the yellow cab pulled up to the Hoover building. The sign was off and the windows were tinted so we couldn't see inside.

"Let me come with you!" I said suddenly, glancing back at him.

He shook his head. "One of us has to be here just in case."

"Don't say that, Mulder."

He shrugged and moved for the door. I wished we were in someplace more private because I wanted to have him kiss me again. As it was, I just let him walk away, knowing that I ought to at least remind him to call me.

I didn't though and he was inside the cab before I could memorize his walk from the building to the sidewalk. At once it pulled away and I moved on through the metal detectors, trying to make it to our office before he called.

I was still waiting in line with a crowd of people for the elevators when my cell phone trilled at me. It was in my hands and I didn't realize I had been nervously toying with it until I thumbed it on.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah. I'm okay, Scully."

I held my breath, waiting for our code. I moved out of the crowd of people in case I had to go running after him and managed to find a secluded corner.

"Where are you?" he asked.

Our code. I breathed in relief and slumped against the wall. "Thank you," I whispered, before answering. "Right outside the elevators."

"Oh. Well. I don't know where we're going yet. The driver won't tell me."

"Where are *you*?"

"Around the Lincoln Memorial. We've actually circled it twice, which makes me think that's where I'm to meet with CancerMan."

"So the driver is supposed to wait for a signal or something?"

"I'm guessing so."

I opened my eyes again and moved forward, fighting through the new crowd by the elevators to get on the lift ahead of them.

"I have to let you go, Mulder. The elevator is here."

"All right. I'll call when we stop."

I clicked him off and settled the phone in my pocket, smiling to myself.

My fingers were picking excitedly against the hem of my coat and I saw the amusement and annoyance on the faces of the people around me. My face sobered immediately and I held myself stiffly in the car, wishing I could be enough myself to not care what they thought about my relief and nervousness.

As soon as I unlocked the office my phone rang again. I was surprised to hear from him so quickly but I answered it and dropped the keys on my desk.

"Mulder?"

"Agent Mulder and I are having a nice brunch, Agent Scully."

I sucked in my breath painfully over the lump in my throat, clutching the chair to keep myself standing upright. CancerMan's voice had lost none of its gravel, but had gained a slick oil spill sound to it that made me sick.

"Let me speak to him."

"Agent Mulder says to ask you where you are."

I blinked and stumbled against the chair, dropping to sit in it without noticing where I was. The chair was too large and dwarfed my legs and I realized I was behind Mulder's desk.

"What?"

"Where are you?"

"I. . .Oh."

"I am assuming this takes care of any little codes or playing at secret spy, Agent Scully, so I'll let you go."

The phone went dead and I pulled it away from ear slowly, numb with confusion and frustration. Mulder had given him the code, which could mean he was either really all right, or being tortured, which was not something I even wanted to think about.

Not five minutes ago he was around Lincoln Memorial, and now they were eating brunch, so I didn't think he could be in all that much trouble.

For some reason, he hadn't wanted Mulder to talk to me.

I decided to wait there for him to call me again, to reassure me he was truly all right. My head dropped to his desk and I cradled the phone in my cold, numbed hands. I prayed I was doing the right thing.

=-=-=

"Scully!"

I felt a chill shudder through me at his hissed words.

"You know that steak place across from the Memorial?"

"Steak. . .which--"

"Lincoln. You know the one. With the flags from all the countries--"

"Right. Yeah."

"Come down here."

"Mulder? What's going on?"

"He stepped into the back to make a phone call. Get down here, Scully."

"What's going *on*?"

"You'd never believe it."

=-=-=

The 'steak place' Mulder mentioned was called Small World and it boasted the flags of 176 different countries, which wasn't all of them, but was really close. I parked behind the building in a lot that cost eight dollars an hour and hurried to the front door, trying to see inside.

Mulder was at the back when I came inside, so I ignored the hostess and stepped through the entryway to the tiled floor, glancing down at the blue water and brown continents in mosaic across the dining area.

When I reached Mulder he stepped a bit to the right and I saw the carrier. More specifically, the baby in the carrier.

"Mulder?"

"He's been gone fifteen minutes now, Scully. I searched the bathroom and the phone booths and even the kitchen. He's gone."

"He left you with this?" I said, indicating the sleeping infant in the grey carrier. Its fingers were in tight fists but it seemed healthy enough.

"Yeah. This is who I was supposed to meet."

"Who *is* it?"

Mulder hushed my almost panicked words with a hand to my shoulder, pushing me into a chair around the table with his strength. I sagged down, staring at the baby and then at Mulder.

"He said that she was one of the projects, Scully. The baby was a last resort that he tried to stop from happening, but he couldn't."

"A project? Is she sick?" I felt fear constricting my stomach before I realized what I had even asked. It seemed that this would be a day for an Emily haunting. They grew fewer and farther apart, but she was there today, with her dying eyes staring into my soul.

"I don't know. I don't think so. All he said was that she belongs to us."

My breath stopped and I looked up to Mulder, fingers trembling. "Belongs to us?"

"I asked him if that meant she was. . .was ours, but he said no."

I could breathe again, but the breath was stilted and not as easy or relieved as I'd expected. Maybe some part of me had wanted this baby to be mine, even as most of me rebelled against even getting involved.

"But she belongs to us?"

"Maybe he was being cryptic, knowing he'd leave her here with me."

"What's her name?" I asked, glancing over at the baby again.

"I don't know. He never said."

"But she's a project of last resort. Evidently, someone he can't control thought it was necessary to work on their last resort."

"So he handed her off to me, us," Mulder said, frowning.

"Is she like Gibson?" I asked softly, reaching out to stroke the little girl's clenched fist. She relaxed in the seat and I shook my head to keep from getting too attached.

"I don't know, Scully. I don't know anything."

I glanced up at him and he was frustrated with me for some reason, but I couldn't figure out why he was being so tense. He sighed and reached for the baby, touching her hand where I had just placed my own.

"We should take her to Child Services," I said.

Mulder glanced up at me with a hint of surprise, but mainly disagreement.

"We need to keep her with us. He gave her to us for a reason, Scully."

"No, Mulder," I said, already getting weary of him. "We're taking her to the people that can help her best. We're not taking care of her."

"Scully. She's in danger--she needs us. We can't protect her if she's with Child Services."

"Mulder this is a baby we're talking about, a person. We cannot just decide on a whim to keep her. It's illegal, not to mention just wrong.

I'm not going to do that to her."

He shook his head as if to clear my words, his eyes closed. He sat very still for a moment, a deep anger in him that I hadn't seen since his plea to me before the bee sting.

"Scully. If he's giving her to us and then running, then someone is going to want her back. Someone will take her back to that lab, back to being that test, that project. We have to keep her safe for a while."

I wanted to shake him for his stupidity and his stubbornness. Couldn't he see how awful this was for me? how familiar? This was a baby, not a toy, not a piece of evidence. It was better for her to be placed under constant care rather than our meager two person insanity.

"Scully, you of all people should understand."

That broke it, that was the last of it.

"Mulder. Emily is no different from this; don't even start to tell me what I did for her was wrong."

He shut up and looked at me, but I was carefully not looking at him, instead studying the wood grain decorating the lacquered table. I felt very close to either walking out on him or hitting him, but I had the awful feeling I was going to cry instead.

I had placed Emily in that van myself, strapped her in her carseat and said good-bye as Child Services took her away. At that moment, she had been maybe Melissa's, but later she was mine and I still had not tried to 'liberate' her from the home. Even when I knew she was in trouble.

"Do you want to be running to this baby's bedside early in the morning only to find that she too is dying?"

I gasped at his words and jerked my head up, the tears very close now and threatening. I wanted to hate him, I wanted to erase the memory of Mulder cradling Emily as she sweated and shivered. He had profaned my memory; he had made me feel that all-encompassing guilt again. It had taken long enough to get rid of in the beginning.

"Don't ever talk about Emily again," I said and stood up from the table.

I grabbed the carrier and began walking for the door. "She's going to Child Services."

I left Mulder sitting at the table.

=-=-=

I was leery of the phone for a few days, expecting to hear Melissa's voice when I answered, just as I had that Christmas two years ago. <Go to her> But no one called except my mother. I hadn't expected Mulder to call. I had hurt him and he had hurt me.

At three o'clock on the Monday after Mulder had been dumped with the baby, Child Services called to say that the baby was sick. Since we weren't allowed to test her blood for the virus, I had asked them to call and let me know if she got sick, but I hadn't really felt it would.

It threw me for a long moment and I sat clutching the phone in the office, staring at the files in front of me. The baby was sick. Sick.

Fever. I trembled inside and thanked the woman for telling me, then carefully replaced the receiver.

I closed my eyes, cradling my head in my hands. I heard Mulder look up from his work, and I could feel his eyes on me, but I said nothing. How was I to explain this to him? I didn't want to even begin. It hurt to think that maybe I was causing this little girl's sickness too, but I still didn't know how to do it differently.

"Scully?"

"I have to go," I said and stood up hastily, gathering my coat and briefcase and keys. He was watching me carefully and I had the feeling that he knew, had tapped the lines or listened in and knew, but I shook my head and moved for the door.

His hand on my arm stopped me and I glanced up to see his dark, intense eyes.

"You'd better tell me," he said carefully.

His gaze was so very probing, so hurtful, that I couldn't look away and I couldn't lie. His fingers on my arm were tight and pinching, but I just glanced down and mumbled out the truth.

"She's sick. It's my fault."

I wrenched from his grip to flee, but he caught me again before I could make it out the door. His fingers were not as tight and he ignored my stare of coldness to pull me into his arms.

"It's not your fault, Scully. It's not. I didn't mean it about Emily."

I wiggled away and shook my head, wiping the tears with the back of my hands.

"I've got to go."

"I'm coming with you," he said.

=-=-=

Part Two

=-=-=

I held her while the pediatrician examined her ears and throat and eyes and stomach. She was alert but slow to respond, and her eyes immediately watered with tears at all the poking and prodding. Mulder hung back from it, not feeling comfortable enough to sit down.

Once we'd arrived at the children's home, I had offered to take the baby to a doctor I knew, saying that I wanted to pay for it myself. The lady in charge had called a few people and then she'd been signed out to me as Baby Jane. No one knew her name; I felt awful that she did not have one yet.

In my head, I called her the Baby, but I knew that wouldn't work for long. If she was adopted, they would name her, and I wasn't supposed to be getting attached here either.

The doctor smiled at me and rubbed one of the instruments on his jacket to warm it up before sticking it in her ear. The baby rubbed her head against me, trying to squirm away from the thing in her ear, but I held her carefully and managed to let the doctor look.

We were sitting up on the exam table, the baby in my lap so the doctor could see her, and I kept looking over and catching Mulder's stare. It was warm and intense, but I still felt awful enough to look away whenever he happened to glance into my eyes.

"All right. If you'll lay her down here, I can check her belly."

I laid the baby on the paper sheet, hearing it crunch as I moved. The baby's head swiveled to see all around her, and I held onto one of her hands, letting her fingers curl around my thumb. The doctor moved his competent hands over the baby, checking for lumps or irregularities while I held my breath.

Then he looked up at me and winked, his face split into a grandfatherly grin that made me feel a bit more relieved.

"Don't worry, Mom. It looks like an ear infection. You can put her clothes back on."

I startled at his words and glanced to Mulder, but he only shrugged and smiled at me. The doctor wrote a few things on his chart and then left.

"What did you write on the forms, Mulder?"

I gathered the baby back into my arms and held her to keep her warm while Mulder picked up her clothes from the chair and headed towards us.

"I wanted to make sure that no one could trace her or us. I'm paying in cash, so they won't care when it turns out that I fudged a little bit."

He had made us into a family. I shook my head and sighed, moving my hands so Mulder could help clothe her again.

"What did you call her?"

"What?"

"The baby. You had to put a name."

He looked embarrassed and pulled the pants up the girl's legs while I held her. I carefully tugged her thick shirt over her head and fished around in the sleeves for her hands. The baby smiled and bucked in my arms, but I managed to keep her from falling.

"Get her socks. What did you name her?" I asked again, holding my hand out for her socks.

Mulder handed them over and I waited while I wrestled with her feet. She liked to wiggle around and curl her toes, which made it hard to dress her.

"I named her Emma."

I frowned and looked at him. "Emma?"

"Well. I started to write Emily, and then I thought maybe that might not be a smart idea."

I glanced back down at the baby and pulled on her other sock, thinking to myself as I did.

"Emma."

He nodded and I took her shoes from his grasp, then readjusted the baby sideways on my lap so I could reach her feet better. Mulder moved and placed a hand on the little girl's back so that I could have both hands free. It took a while to get her shoes on, but she was calmer and I tied them quickly.

"I like it," I said finally and looked at Mulder.

He smiled. I tried to remember what name had been called as we'd waited, but now that I thought about it, I hadn't heard anything. Mulder had just suddenly jumped up and said, 'that's us' and I had followed.

Emma was all dressed and I stood her on my knees so Mulder could put her coat on. I wondered where such things had been bought for her. This was the only outfit I'd seen her in, but I assumed the children's home had more donated clothes for her. I couldn't imagine CancerMan buying a baby's coat.

I settled Emma back into my lap and realized I was calling her Emma now and thinking about her like she was mine, like she belonged to me. I shivered and handed the baby to Mulder so I could get down off the exam table.

When I glanced back at him he was holding her awkwardly, both hands around her waist and her body tucked close to his rather oddly. Her feet kicked and she kept tilting her head back to see him.

I laughed and reached out to help Mulder, but he pulled back.

"No. I'm going to figure this out," he said. "I don't need help."

I watched as he carefully juggled his hands and the baby until it seemed to fit. He was holding her like a newborn, pressed against his chest and one hand on her head, but I smiled and shrugged.

"Good enough."

His arm was tucked under Emma's bottom and he sat down on the chair confidently, a smile in his eyes. I came to sit next to them and watched the baby's eyes drift close.

"Can't we keep her, Scully?"

I sighed and looked back at him. "Mulder."

He sighed in response and I didn't need to say any more. He rubbed Emma's back and leaned into the chair, his shoulders slumped. The baby was beginning to drool on his shoulder and he looked over at me, grinning.

"She reminds me of you," he said and moved his hand to wipe it away.

Emma stirred but did not open her eyes.

I narrowed mine and poked Mulder in the side. "I do not drool."

"Not always. Just sometimes."

I shook my head and leaned back to watch Emma sleep, knowing that I ought to distance myself from a baby that would never really belong to me, but I couldn't help it. I was tired of removing myself from everything, tired of feeling so separate from reality and people and the world.

"How long will it take?"

"Who knows?" I said. "Children's doctor's offices are notoriously slow."

"Hours?"

"Maybe."

"Great." He rolled his eyes and began to stroke Emma's back again, his palm so large against her small baby back. She was probably six months old, and I wished that somehow, we could get her. I could get her. Not because I was feeling sentimental, but because she needed a real home and I didn't know how long she'd have to be a ward of the state.

"Scully, I have to tell you something."

"Yeah?" I asked, feeling the edge to my voice but not being able to tamp down on the sudden anxiety that tightened in my chest.

"I applied to adopt her."

"Mulder."

"I just couldn't let her stay in that children's home forever. . .I know I don't have much of chance--"

"Mulder you don't have a chance at all. Your admittance to the psychiatric hospital is public record. That will be the first thing they find when they go looking. And not once Mulder, but twice."

He paused, glancing over to me, seeing the absolute sorrow on my face.

He sighed and shook his head.

"I figured it was a long shot. If you couldn't get Emily. . .I don't have a chance."

I bit my lip and shook my head, closing my eyes in remembrance. I hadn't told Mulder this, or anyone really, but I had promised all kinds of things in order to keep Emily. I'd promised to scale back on work, to leave work, to even get married and be stable. At the time, I'd been desperate for Emily and I had promised things. Even to marry Mulder and adopt Emily together, as desperate and foreign as it had sounded.

I thought about my saying that, and I wondered if that had changed.

Foreign and desperate was changing to maybe and hopefully. Not so much that Mulder and I would get married, but that we would even get to that point.

I smiled as I thought and Mulder caught my smile and tapped his finger against my lips.

"What are you smiling about?"

"Emily," I said, as simply as I could without embarrassing myself or him.

"Good stuff?"

"Yeah. Don't sound so surprised."

He grinned back at me and Emma shifted on his shoulder and hunkered down again.

"This is kind of nice, Scully. A little moment of normalcy for us, huh?"

I glanced to Emma and then back to Mulder's little wistful smile and slightly pained eyes.

"Yeah. Just a moment."

=-=-=

"Scully, remember when I told you that I had applied to adopt Emma, or to at least gain foster care of her?"

Scully felt her burst of joy flare and tighten as reality set in. "Yes."

"I forgot the most important part."

"What part?"

"I sort of put your name down too."

"Wh-You did what?"

I felt my breath coming in tight uncontrolled spurts and I couldn't seem to think.

"I thought we'd have a better chance going in together, so I wrote that we were applying for joint custody--"

"Mulder."

"Well, they want to interview us."

"Mulder, what have you done?"

"Are you not going to do this with me?"

"Mulder. You're putting me on the spot."

I could hear him sigh. "I didn't think I'd even get a chance, Scully."

He wasn't doing this to me. Not at all. I wasn't going to get dragged into this, not now, not after everything.

"Please, Scully. Just the interview. I've still been committed twice, right?"

I had to laugh despite the anxious fear bubbling through me. He chuckled on the other end and it was a warm embrace that wrapped around me like a scarf and coat and mittens, thick and insulating.

"All right, Mulder. When's the interview?"

I could feel his over-joy through the lines. It held a sweet taste that left a bitter coating on my tongue. We were sinking deeper into the mire.

=-=-=

The winter chill outside would have been debilitating enough, but the wind was like a blade, slicing through my coat and gloves and clothes even, carving my skin with the frozen bleeding of pain and stiffness. I slogged through the wind, carefully placing my feet to avoid the patches of ice that seemed to coat the sidewalks and roads. I could lean into the harshness of the wind and it would hold me up. I wondered if I fell, would the wind pick me up?

I wouldn't ever tell Mulder this, but sometimes I thought the wind whispered things to me, told me how to go or where to go. There was always a draft whenever someone died; there was always a breeze floating around my room in the summer.

What would this wind be telling me? Leave, run, don't get trapped in this. Don't go where the wind can't follow.

As I walked up the steps to Mulder's apartment building, I could see his excited face peering at me from the living room window. He waved and I smiled and waved back, shaking my head. Maybe the wind was telling me, if you fall, if both of you fall, I'm still here to pick you up.

=-=-=

"There are some notable hospital visits. . .those are really what worry me, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully."

I was feeling anxious and nervous, just as I had with the woman who met me about Emily. And I wasn't even really applying this time, Mulder was.

We were sitting on the couch while the woman in the chair across from us told us things we should have known.

Mulder took my hand and it relaxed me somewhat, but I couldn't help wonder if he was playacting or being real. I glanced over at him and saw that he was nodding tensely. He didn't look cool enough to be putting on a front.

"There are two instances of admittance that are of a. . .psychiatric nature."

"In the first," I said, jumping in to keep Mulder from talking. "Agent Mulder was part of a tense hostage situation; he was admitted because of his theories about the reasons behind the incident. They turned out to be mostly correct when I came and found some. . .one attacking him."

The woman nodded thoughtfully, and her pen scratched at the paper. I was glad to have answered that one, mainly because I didn't trust Mulder to tell the truth in the best possible way. What had Emily Dickinson written before--tell the truth but tell it slant?

"Well, yes. That was really my next concern. You two have had quite a lot of these incidents. Agent Mulder has been kidnapped, shot, infected with something that I can't begin to understand in the Arctic, while Agent Scully has similar stories of shootings and infections and she was even abducted for three months, and then later to Antarctica. Despite the odd occurrence of polar trips twice in one lifetime, it concerns me as to your safety, and ultimately the safety of this child."

I glanced to Mulder with a tight grimace of regret. Not for the things I had done and experienced, but that this would be the thing to hinder us.

The work we strove to keep despite all else, the cases and answers that meant so much to us. Was Mulder going to leave the X-Files for a baby that had been left with him? Did he see that this was nuts?

"When it's just us, Ms. Carson, me and Scully, we know the risks we can take. The fact that we're still here, alive and sane after the things we've gone through should tell you something. I won't disagree that this is dangerous. But so is being a policeman, and I know plenty who have kids. So is being a virologist, and I'm sure they have kids too. There are even FBI agents we know who have kids. No one ever told them that they couldn't, that they weren't safe enough."

Ms. Carson glanced to me, and I'm sure she could see the surprise and pride on my face. I squeezed Mulder's hand and the smile I had didn't fade as he glanced over at me.

"Well, I realize you feel strongly, Agent Mulder. And I know that together, you have a better chance. But this is what our office does. We evaluate, we judge, we have to make these hard decisions. We can't let children be placed with bad parents; there are already enough of those."

I stopped smiling, feeling the sting of that in my soul. Bad parents. We wouldn't be bad parents, I know it. But even the word, parents, made me shiver.

Mulder was nodding again. "I know you must do your job, but so do we.

Do you have a family?"

Ms. Carson hesitated, then nodded. "Two boys."

"Work takes you away from them?"

"Yes. As it does anyone who works."

"We work. I'm not denying that it would take us away from her. And I'm not going to make empty promises to you about our safety. But Scully's mother would be happy to take care of her if anything comes up, and for that matter, I'm sure my mother wouldn't mind when the baby's older.

Plus, Scully has two brothers who have kids of their own. This baby wouldn't be left without a family."

The woman glanced to her papers, shuffling them around. "I'm not trying to be hard, Agents. I'm trying to be fair. This is the most difficult part of the job, deciding. I know how hard it is to have kids and a job, and I know that it can be done, even with jobs like yours. . .my husband is police officer. We have weapons in our house, as I'm sure you must.

He's been shot before. He's usually working undercover. It doesn't mean that he's an unfit parent, and it doesn't mean that you're unfit parents."

Carson took a deep breath and placed her papers in a briefcase, her teeth chewing on her bottom lip.

"But if I had to judge my husband, if I had to give over a baby to him, I honestly don't know what would be the decision. It isn't my decision to make, but usually, the panel takes my advice into consideration."

"And what's your advice?" I asked, feeling coils wind tightly inside of me.

She looked at me for the first time since the beginning of the interview, when she'd asked the most personal questions and had me answer them in front of Mulder, just as I'd done with Emily but more privately. I didn't like the regret in her eyes.

"It'd be different if you'd had. . .I'd recommend a stay."

"A stay? What's that?"

"A wait. If no one else comes looking for a baby girl, then you would get her. It's sort of like being second on the list."

I sat back, letting Mulder walk her to the door, my eyes closed against the look in her eyes, against the look in Mulder's. I'd known this would happen, I had warned Mulder not to expect anything. It was a long shot.

And yet I was crumbling inside. I didn't know if it was because we wouldn't get Emma or if it was because I'd been rejected twice to be a mother. As if someone could put a qualitative price on something like that. If I had a child, I would change. It happens. I know it does.

Unfit.

"I'm sorry Scully."

He came and sat next to me, but I didn't want to feel him beside me anymore. I stood up, opening my eyes to see where I had laid my coat.

Shrugging it on took more effort than I had so I draped it over my arm and fought through a haze to get to his door. I wasn't going to cry.

Until Mulder's arms went around me and he pulled me so tight against him that I couldn't move. And then I cried, softly and silently, the tears coasting down my cheeks as if I had just turned them on.

"I'm so sorry. If I had known, if I had even thought for a moment--"

"It's not your fault, Mulder."

"But it is, Scully. I owe you so much. . .you've stayed with me even though you could have had all that. . .normalcy. You ought to be a mother, Scully. You ought to."

Please stop Mulder. But I couldn't say it, not even when he was being so warm, because on some level, his words made me feel better, knowing that he thought I should be a mother.

"You don't owe me anything, Mulder."

He shook his head and held me tighter, letting me bury my nose and eyes in the crook where his arm joined to his chest. His hand came to smooth my hair and I wished that something besides pain would bring us together for once.

I pulled away, eyes dry again although my cheeks were wet. He cradled my face and stroked away the tears, shaking his head at me.

"I should go. My mom is expecting me for lunch."

"Have you told her about the baby?"

Maybe it was the way he said that, but my blood began to rush through my veins and clamor through my heart. It cut and it touched gently, but I just wrestled with my coat.

"Yeah, some. She wanted to take me out after this interview."

He took my coat and pulled it on me, up my arms and over my shoulders, managing a simple task I could not seem to complete. He tugged on my lapels and then leaned down to press his lips into mine. This whole time, I had not once thought about this being a kissing moment.

It was light and sweet and ended as abruptly as it appeared. His lips parted hesitantly, unsure of the smile, but I squeezed his fingers and smiled gently back. I should encourage such things.

"Go eat with your Mom, Scully."

He pushed me out the door and winked, then watched as I walked down to the elevators. When I turned around in the lift, he was waving and closing his door. I shook my head as the doors closed with a clang and the lift jerked to a start.

So we didn't get Emma. Or rather, we were waiting to get her, with the chances being nil that no other couple would coming looking for a baby girl.

I sighed and closed my eyes as the doors opened. A draft whirled around me as soon as they did and I felt the chill in the air even though I was still in Mulder's apartment building. Wind again, always encircling me like a whirlwind, a funnel to sweep me away.

Maybe it would.

=-=-=

I went home with my mother and let her baby me all night, making my favorite dinner and even adding rolls just for me. She sat down in the couch and let me lay down with my head in her lap and close my eyes while she smoothed her fingers over my forehead.

She traced the lines of my forehead and nose, and then circled her finger around my ear and to my cheek. It felt good to have my mother's touch and I wondered whether I would ever have a daughter who would want my comfort. Right now I felt too incomplete, too childish to have a daughter.

It scared me too. It scared me because I knew that my life would change if I ever did have children, my life and Mulder's. At this point, I couldn't see having a family with anyone but Mulder, even though I didn't expect to ever have a family with Mulder. It was inconceivable that there would be someone I could love enough to devote that kind of time and energy to. Mulder was currently the only one who came close.

And it was just as inconceivable that Mulder and I would reach that place.

I had to smile at that and Mom squeezed my shoulder, smiling back.

"Feeling better?"

"I guess so. Enough to wonder what Mulder's doing."

"You should invite him over. I bet he needs mothering more than you do."

I thought about that one for a long moment, remembering his mother. He didn't like to impose upon her, or bother her, but I, on the other hand, had no trouble asking things of my mother.

"I should," I said and reached for the phone.

=-=-=

Mulder came at eight o'clock with a goofy smile on his face and a box. I wondered first what the smile was for, second why he was late, and then lastly, in a sort of half-thought, why he was holding that box like it contained proof of alien life.

My mother greeted him and took his coat, then led him into the kitchen to grab the leftovers. Mulder heaped his plate high, smiling at me and at Mom and then sitting down to eat.

Was he grinning like that because I had invited him over? If so, it took pathetically little to make him content.

I thought about that for a moment, then sighed with the truth it. The times when I had reached out to Mulder where the times he seemed most unlike himself, more easy and open; less of the perpetually sad martyr clung to him.

I nudged his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, silently asking him what was up.

He held up a finger for me to wait, then finished eating, cleaning his plate and even four rolls. My mother was sitting on the other side of him and she watched with a smile at his appetite. My mother liked cooking for men who liked eating.

"Guess what, Mrs. Scully?" he said, and I had this strange feeling that something had happened.

"What's that Fox?"

"You're going to have another grandchild."

My mouth dropped open as Mulder turned to me with that goofy smile again. I felt shell shocked, disbelieving, and I wanted to shake the truth out of him, but I knew he was already telling the truth.

"When did that happen? How did it happen?"

"Scully, am I going to have to explain the birds and bees to you again?"

I blushed at that, ferociously too. I should have been looking for that one.

My mother laughed of course, and hugged us both.

"Ms. Carson called and said that on the way back, she had decided to just go ahead and support us a hundred percent. And when she presented the case, it seems that someone had already gone to a lot of trouble to sway votes, because we would have gotten her without her support."

"What?" I said, still shocked, still afraid, still *overjoyed*.

"They'd been told that Emma was supposed to go to us. That she belonged to us."

My eyebrows rose and I halfway stood at the table, feeling wrong for having gotten Emma like this. With *his* help.

"Scully-"

"I just. . ."

I sat back down and folded my hands over my lap, feeling rattled and nervous.

"We can go get her tonight."

"Tonight?"

He nodded and I realized that the box was in his hands again, held tightly in his nervousness. He looked over at my Mom and I looked over at her too. She was nodding at him and I had this feeling that they'd planned something and not involved me.

Or maybe it was about me.

Mulder took my hand and led me out of the kitchen, my mother busying herself with the dishes. He glanced around the living room then shook his head and opened the front door. I could feel the cold from the winter night seeping through the storm door.

He pushed it open and tugged me outside after him, despite the thin sweater I had on and my socked feet. Mulder's eyes traveled to the stars and I glanced up too, wondering what exactly was going on. Was he going to tell me that I could see Emma only on weekends or something? I hadn't thought about the arrangements before, but I hadn't thought we had a chance back then.

I saw movement from the corner of my eye and I turned back to him, only to see that he was on one knee in the grass, tugging on my hand.

Confused, I thought he was looking for something.

And then the box was in his hands and he was opening it and I couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe to save my life.

"Marry me, Scully. Not because of Emma, not because we're stuck together, but because I love you and you make me a better, whole person."

It was all jumbled and fast because he was trying to get everything out before I could say no. I didn't want to say no.

I dropped down to his level, amused that he was shorter than me for once, and kissed his lips.

"Was that a yes?" he whispered.

"Yes. yes," I whispered and closed my eyes to his hug, the arms that wrapped so tight around me, the kisses in my hair and neck and eyes and nose. I was clutching his shirt and feeling the wind whip around us, warm even though the air and night was cold.

He pulled back enough to slip the thin rose-gold band on my finger, its softness and color matching my skin like the swirls of color in a peach.

He kissed me again and I pushed back into his arms, feeling a bit of the chill when held away from him.

"Did my mother know about this?" I asked, nosing his shirt.

"Well. . .about three months ago I asked her if it was okay if were together."

"Mulder, three months ago. . .we weren't together until about a minute ago."

"Yeah," he laughed and shook his head. "But I felt that your mom ought to know that I was thinking along those lines. And I sort of hoped that if she knew something, she'd tell me. Like if you hated the idea, she'd let me down easy."

I laughed and shook my head. "I'm cold. Let's go inside and get our coats."

"Then we'll go get our baby," he said and I couldn't help but shiver.

=-=-=

Part Three

=-=-=

April 1, 2000

=-=-=

Mulder held Emma while I filled out all the forms, writing names and dates and history in the blanks where each was required. I penned her name and felt a little quiver of anticipation thrill through me. We had to think of a birthday for her and a middle name and it took a while.

I realized that today was April the first and Mulder had asked me to marry him on April Fool's day. It somehow seemed cosmically fitting and I had to smile. Not once had I thought it might be a joke, and I was glad it was not.

"I know," Mulder said suddenly. "Since she was left to us in early March, how about that as her middle name?"

Emma March. It didn't sound as bad as I first thought, and Mulder looked hopefully at me, his arms full of baby. I nodded and penciled it in, just a bit worried that we were deciding and would have to decide everything for this little girl. We just picked out her name. She could hate us for it later.

"The doctors think she's about eight months old." I said.

He nodded. "So, counting backward, that would be. . .August?"

I counted under my breath and frowned. "Uh, yeah. August."

"August 3, 1999," he said and I glanced up at him.

"Why the third?"

"Because it was March 3rd when--"

"Oh. That's good. Since she didn't exist to us before the third, that can be her birth date."

Mulder nodded happily and I finished writing it all out, then left the little room to find the social worker. I gave the sheets to her and she said she would call us back in when everything was in order. I walked back down the halls, looking in at the children either sleeping or playing in the children's home. Most were older kids in this section and I wondered if they would ever be adopted.

The little receiving room where Mulder and Emma were in was at the end of a long hall filled with rooms, three of which had open doors. I glanced inside one and saw three little boys building a fort out of large cardboard blocks painted to look like bricks. I remembered my brothers having those same blocks as kids.

One looked up at me and the hope that flittered across his face made me want to take him home, but I knew that wouldn't happen, and it wasn't practical. Of course, we'd said that about Emma too. . . I shook myself out of the mood and went back to Mulder and Emma, sitting next to them on the low black couch. Emma was in the crook of Mulder's arm, almost too big to be cradled like that, but enjoying it anyway. I watched him play with her and thought that he would be a better father than I would be a mother.

=-=-=

April (late) 2000

=-=-=

The cathedral was grand with arches and paintings and statues. All the saints were there: Paul and Peter and Matthew with his collecting bowl.

Madonna stood in one of the alcoves with her baby Jesus and I felt an awful lot like her. Chosen to be a mother to a baby, married after it all.

Mulder was nervous and I knew he would be, but my mother wouldn't let me go see him and Tara kept saying it was bad luck. So I figured that Mulder and I didn't need anymore bad luck. Mom reported that Mulder had cracked open a window to get fresh air. I wanted to laugh but didn't, feeling sorry for him.

Mom kept Emma away from my dress because the girl liked to grab for things, but I blew kisses at her to keep her happy. The dress was white with a fitted bodice and a skirt that accentuated my small hips and gave me curves I didn't know I had. Usually I filled out my work suits rather nicely, but this was beyond. I was glad for it because I thought Mulder deserved to see me in something more, something elegant.

Lace adorned the sleeves in an old-fashioned manner that somehow didn't contrast with the modern look of it, and the lace was the same pattern in my veil and it fell across the skirt. I almost felt embarrassed, getting all dressed up like this and making such a big deal about it.

My mother loved it though and I felt happy for her joy. I just wanted to marry Mulder.

April 26. . .it seemed so wrong to be this formal, almost as if Mulder and I were married already and this was like we wanted to play at dress-up. It didn't really make sense, but as I held on to Mulder's hand, it was okay.

By the time Mulder and I were standing in the reception line, nervously done with all the ceremony and vows and pictures and cake, I was ready to kick off my heeled shoes and sleep for ages. But the music started and my mother was looking at me expectantly and I realized that my father wasn't here to dance with me.

Mulder took my hand and led us out into midst of a sea of people, nervous but determined, and then eased me into his body to begin the dance. We moved together like eddies in the sea, back and forth, giving and taking, and I knew that this was Mulder's own little tribute to my father. And I loved him more for it.

I saw my mother with Emma and wished we were all at home, whichever home that was, with hot chocolate and a fire. In my dream, Emma would be still on my lap, leaning against me, but I knew that in reality, she was a squirmer and would be begging to get down.

I watched Mulder's face as he caught sight of Emma and when the dance ended and people could fill up the spaces, he was pulling me towards her, a grin in his eyes. The crowd was watching us in bewilderment, but Mulder picked Emma up and cradled her between us, a soft heat against me.

She was still, which was a miracle, and we didn't drop her while we danced, which was still more a miracle. My mother said to me later that everyone was talking about how sweet we looked, but if I had known they were talking about us, I would have been embarrassed. Not because of the love, but because I'd never been so public about it before.

I could feel a soft breeze along my neck as we danced together, and even as the crowd moved around us, the coolness of it wafted at my ankles and my hands and my face like a balm. Someone must have left the windows open to combat the body heat and heating system. It felt good and I could have fallen asleep.

It seemed that the breeze followed me wherever we danced.

=-=-=

July 2000

=-=-=

The grey day washed away with the rain, allowing the sun to linger over everything for the last hours it was in the sky. Mulder was outside my apartment door, banging the numbers back into their places. I thought he was a curse on door numbers. Mine never had this problem before.

Emma watched the birds making nests on our ledge with those dark eyes of a child. She tottered on two good legs with her arms stretched for the window pane, but she never reached out for the last grip that would ensure her safety. She liked taking those risks, liked even more the pleasure of making it somewhere on her own. No doubt she would be walking at an early age.

She was really our girl.

I glanced over at the kitchen to sigh at the dinner dishes still left to do, then sipped at the milk in my glass before I stood again. Emma spotted me coming toward her in the window and glanced back with a grin.

She knew I was coming for bath time and her stubby hands banged against the window in delight.

I grabbed her up quickly and tapped on the front door. Mulder opened it quickly and glanced at me, his cheeks and chin rough with stubble. I wished he would shave, but I had to admit that the rugged look was good on him. He leaned down to kiss Emma and she squealed, clapping her hands against his cheeks.

I smiled with the sudden knowledge. Mulder hadn't shaved because Emma loved the scratchiness; why hadn't he just told me that? I kissed the hollow of his throat, the one place I could reach without standing on my tiptoes, then moved for the bathroom.

"Emma, girl. Bath time."

She wiggled in my arms as I undressed her, watching the water thunder into the tub like a Niagara waterfall in baby-size. On my lap like she was, Emma could see right over and into the water, but if she were on the ground she couldn't see. It was the only way I could keep her still at all.

"Mum-ma..." she said and bounced in my arms. I had given up on trying to get her to say Momma. She liked the way the 'mum' sound popped from her mouth. She also liked to scream Daddeee....all the way across the parking lot or in the Hoover building when we took her in to the daycare.

"Water," I told her and splashed some on her cheeks. She blinked and applauded me, then rocked forward again. I slipped her diaper off and tossed it in the trash can, then carefully set her on a towel on the floor.

She pouted, but waited while I undressed, biding her time by playing with the buttons on my shirt or the zipper on my jeans. When I was unclothed, she held up her arms and I gathered her to me, then stepped into the tub.

Because of the sloping porcelain and the cracks and the high water, I took a bath with Emma usually, balancing her on my knees to wash her, then cupping my hands and wetting her hair. She didn't like the shampoo and twisted in my lap, and no matter how many times I told her to stay still, she turned her head at the last moment to get the soapy water in her eyes.

I remembered the day Mulder and I had been filling the tub for her first bath ever with us. She was so tiny, and really still is, but I just assumed we could bathe her the same way my parents did us when we were little. But the high walls of my club-foot tub were too much for my short arms, and Mulder had ended up trying to hold her still while I tried to reach in and wash her clean. Needless to say, this method was much easier.

Emma patted my stomach and I smiled at her, sticking my tongue out. The scar across my belly was pretty much healed, only a little tender. I watched Emma's mouth opened and she tried to mimic me, so I thought better of the tongue and wrinkled my nose to make her giggle.

"What do you want to play today?" I asked her and she bounced in my lap again.

"We can be princesses sent to the royal tub to wash up for the prince.

You like that Emma-girl?"

She looked at me funny, her nose wrinkling, and I laughed, which made her laugh.

"Okay, you don't like that one. How about we're hiding in a lake to keep the. . .the bees from finding us, just like Winnie the Pooh."

"Pooh! Pooh!" she yelled and splashed water into my eyes.

"All right, Pooh," I said and cradled her against my propped up legs while I rubbed my stinging eyes. "We'll hide from the bees."

"Bzzz...."

I grinned at her, surprised. "That's right. Bees buzz...."

"Bzzz..."

"Now, we have to get the soap and lather it up and make us all clean so that the bees don't know it's us."

Emma twisted in my lap and shook her head back and forth, well-versed in this night time ritual. She knew shampoo came after the soap, and she knew that bedtime came last of all. Emma was going through a 'no-bed'

phase, as she put it.

"Watch, Emma-jean. It's fun." I said, and squirted the soap between my fingers. It seemed that I used my imagination more this kid than I ever had *as* a kid. She needed constant distraction from the reality of the bath, and I had to provide those distractions.

I lathered my arms and chest and stomach, then reached and tickled her with the soap, lathering her up as well. She was slippery like this, and I had to hold onto her more carefully because she had a tendency to wriggle.

"There, all soaped up."

"And don't you two look good!"

My head and Emma's swiveled to see Mulder standing in the doorway, winking at me with her. I felt a blush heat my face and turned to Emma with a frown.

"He needs to learn how to knock, right Emma-girl?"

"Knock!" she said and nodded her head, hard so that she slithered off my legs and into the water. I grabbed her quick and settled her back onto my lap.

"Emma agrees with me," I said and glanced back to Mulder. Married more than three months and I was still blushing and he was still loving to surprise me. He came in and sat on the toilet, looking down at us in our soapy skin and warm bath. My shoulders had goosebumps and he smoothed a finger down the bone.

I shivered and Emma grinned like the Daddy's girl she was, then held out her hands to him.

"Oh no, girl. You're all wet."

Her pout seemed to say, "but you love me anyway," and Mulder had a hard time shaking his head no. I smiled and he leaned over to kiss me, his fingers threading through my pony tail and stroking the wet ends of my hair.

"I fixed your door numbers."

The way he said it made me frown, and I realized that this was still just my apartment, and Mulder's was still his apartment. Three months of sharing had not changed anything really, only now he could kiss me without asking and I could wear his T-shirts.

"Thank you."

He nodded and grabbed a towel to dry his hands, watching me in the tub with Emma. I wished he would feel more relaxed here, and I wished I felt more relaxed when we were all together at his place, but that was the cost of only three months married but seven years partnered.

We'd had a rough time with the X-Files at first, especially during some hectic cases in June, where I had gotten the second scar on my stomach and Mulder had a new scar on his thigh. But that was the official part and we still weren't all clear on the personal part.

Mulder suddenly shook his head and kneeled down on the floor beside the tub, resting his chin on the ledge to look in my eyes. He looked like a lost puppy and I reached out to run a sudsy finger down his cheek, smiling softly and wondering if he was regretting anything.

"Have you shampooed her hair?" he asked and I shook my head.

"I'll do it. You hold her."

I wanted to warn him that he'd get all wet, that his jeans would be soaked and his shoes ruined, but I saw that, in his eyes, he was tired of caring about things like that. It made me feel alive to see it, made me grateful he was giving in. Giving in? No, maybe just letting go. I wanted us to live together, in a proper house, with baths we shared and diapers and laughs. I wanted to know that I wouldn't have to pack everything and live at Mulder's place for a month when I saw that he was getting tired and frustrated with living at my place.

I sat up and faced Emma towards me so that she would be calmer when Mulder washed her hair. Her small hands covered mine and she watched as her father squeezed the Johnson's baby shampoo into his hand. The fascination on her face made me hurt, and I realized we hadn't been a real family for all these three months. We were a slipshod, pieced together family with no real home and no real way of being comfortable with each other.

"Things have to change," Mulder said, his hands thick with lather and baby hair. I was holding a hand over Emma's forehead to keep the suds out when he said this.

"Yes."

"It shouldn't be a surprise to you when I come in and see you naked."

I blushed again, despite the truth of his statement, and my blush proved his words all the more. He sighed and rinsed his hands in the water, looking down at Emma's soapy head and dark eyes.

He laughed at the sight and Emma wrinkled her nose, then slapped at the water. I grinned when Mulder jerked back, soaked and too late to save his shoes. When he pushed back to the edge of the tub he tapped Emma's nose and made a face at her. He rinsed her hair carefully, making sure all the soap was gone and then beamed.

"There are some other things that need to change," he said. I was amazed at how calm he could be, how funny with Emma while holding a very serious conversation with me. My concentration wasn't that good and Emma slipped and splashed down into the water again, soaking Mulder once more.

"Oops," I said and picked her back up, shaking my head at her laugh.

He grinned slyly and flicked water at me, making me gasp just like Emma did.

"From now on, I should be in the bath to supervise all water play," he said, mocking the seriousness of before. "And you, Emma-girl, ought to be no less surprised when I wash your hair and manage to not get any soap in your eyes. It can be done."

Emma laughed, almost as if she didn't believe it, then reached out and pulled Mulder's lips with her fingers, working at them until she tapped against his teeth. I smiled and thought about us, about Emma and me and Mulder all together for a change. Really being together.

"And we should get an apartment for all of us," I said.

Mulder looked over at me, surprised, which let Emma grab a fistful of his hair and pull him nearly into the bathtub. I quickly disentangled Emma's grip from Mulder's poor head and shook my head at her, saying no.

Mulder rubbed his sore head and frowned.

"I sort of thought you wanted to keep both places."

I gaped at him, then closed my mouth to consider my answer. "No. Do you want to keep both places?"

He saw the underlying fear in my heart and words and eyes and he shook his head softly. "I was letting you have. . .an out. Just in case."

I sighed. "Mulder, you know me better than that. I have what I want, except, for some reason, we end up shuttling back and forth between your place and mine. We need an 'our' place."

His lips quirked at me and I recognized that this was one of the more meaningful smiles than what I usually got from him. Almost as if he was discovering a new thing and didn't know whether or not he should feel smiles or gratitude.

I leaned over and pressed my lips into the underside of his jaw, then against his cheek even with its stubble, and then on to his lips, running my tongue on his mouth to open it. He responded with intensity and swept me away in the flood of his excitement, letting me ride the waves and drown in his undertow.

When we drew apart, Emma was watching us, completely still and completely calm.

"That's the first time you've kissed me," he said, stroking my cheek.

I turned surprised eyes on him and shook my head. "No. I've kissed you lots of times. I kissed you in the hall before Emma's bath-"

"No. That was an acknowledgment. This was a fire, a real emotion. I haven't felt that from you without my starting it, Scully. That's why I thought you wanted to keep both apartments."

I felt the tears in my eyes and didn't even try to blink them away.

Sometimes I forgot just how much Mulder needed affirmation, needed to know that it was equal between us--that I wanted to be here as much as he did. In partnership and now in marriage. He might have been right too, but I had never been a tactile person, had never been the type of woman who touched and initiated and got close. Mulder was that person, and my normal behavior didn't seem as real to him as true proof of my love.

"You may start it Mulder, but it doesn't mean it's not there, always, right below the surface. And it is there. You'll just have to teach me to let it bubble up from time to time."

He leaned forward and put his forehead to mine, caressing the strands of my hair that were dark and wet on my neck. Emma reached up and tugged on Mulder's elbow, causing him to slip and we bumped heads and all seemed to be well again.

"Hey, Emma-girl. Let's rinse you off and dry you off and cart you off!"

Mulder said.

"Cart her off?"

"To bed."

I grinned and held Emma up to the blue towel in Mulder's hands, watching as he rubbed her dry, being gentle on her head and bundling her warmly in the huge linen. I stepped out and grabbed my own towel, wrapping it around myself. Mulder handed me Emma and I cradled her close to me as she shivered, and we all trooped into the living room to put on her pajamas.

When she was tucked into the crib and smelling of baby powder and soap, Mulder and I leaned into each other's arms and closed our eyes, just feeling the goodness of life, the rich blessing of our little girl.

=-=-=-=

August

=-=-=-=

Sitting now, before this mirror in our bigger apartment with the broken air conditioner, I watch the baby smile and wave her hands, her smile like sunlight and joy. She wriggles in my arms and I hold her up, letting her little legs work against my thighs as she tries to stand.

I look at the mirror again, then stand up, the baby tucked into my hip.

I walk through to the bathroom, and then to the closet, which is connected off the bathroom. My jeans are in the dirty clothes hamper, but I fish them out and smile as the baby laughs at me. A soft black cotton shirt calls to me and I pull it off the hanger.

Coming back into the bedroom, I lay the baby in the middle of the bed, dropping my clothes beside her. She grabs for my shirt but I hand her the jeans and she sticks them in her mouth.

I guess they weren't that dirty.

I turn to the dresser, one ear out for the baby, and pull out bra and underwear, deciding against socks. It's too hot outside now. The bra feels tight, and the underwear loose, but I can't really do much about that. I've worn all the others and I don't feel like doing laundry again.

I turn to the baby and tickle her toes as she chews on my jeans. When she grins I grab them and hand her a teething ring, laughing at the bewildered look on her face.

"Mommy tricked you, didn't she?"

I glance over my shoulder to see Mulder standing there, watching me appreciatively in just my underwear and bra. He comes inside, shutting the door with his heel, and circles his arms around me as I straighten up.

"Mommy didn't trick her. . ." I say, smiling as he watches the baby over my shoulder. "Mommy was trying to get dressed."

"Well, looks like I interrupted just in time."

I mock roll my eyes at him and slip away, pulling on my jeans and shirt in record time.

"Watch her," I say and run back into the closet for my sandals and a bit of makeup and mascara. It helps keep the sun from baking me when we're outside all day.

When I come back into the bedroom Mulder is glancing at the clock and then his watch, absently tugging on the teething ring.

"I have to check on the chicken," he says and runs out. I let him, knowing that his chicken on the grill is worth the time away.

Looking back to the baby I smile and pick her up, cuddling her into my arms. She smells like soft skin and baby and my scented lotion that dissolves into the bathwater with the bubbles. She likes the bubbles best.

I move to the bathroom again, rooting around in the closet dresser for her summer clothes. We ought to move her things out of our bedroom, but we just moved and I am tired of moving. The baby clutches me as I pull out a sundress. It has a teddy bear on the straps where buttons would go, and it Velcros and snaps around the diaper. It's easy to put on and comfortable.

Laying the baby back on the bed, I smooth lotion onto her belly, not a lot but a little bit for the coolness of it. I know she doesn't feel very well in the heat, especially teething, but there's no way to fix the air conditioner until next week.

"Hey, sweet, let's get your dress on, okay?"

She gurgles at me and I make quick work of the task, loving how still she is, how complacent and happy without having to move. It's a wonderful change. And she's now in the sundress in under five minutes.

I know that if Mulder turns the sprinkler on to cool us off, she'll be okay sitting in the spray. The sundress isn't that important.

Pulling her up but her hands and then swinging her into my arms, I make her laugh, her eyes bright and blue like the sky. Grabbing the teething ring and sticking it in her mouth, I smile at her.

"Come on Amaris, let's go find your sister and your daddy."

I shut the bedroom door behind me, trying to keep in the breeze and cool off our room. In the tiny living room I can feel the wind through the screens, light and soft, a touch of love from God. Amaris snuggles into my arms and her teething ring drops.

Emma darts from the back bedroom and grabs it for me, her grin like a sunny day and her hair getting lighter from being outside so much. She has golden skin and freckles across her nose which always peels no matter how much sunblock I apply. She takes my hand and pulls me ahead, her three-year-old enthusiasm making me laugh.

I see Mulder at the door to the back porch waving us on with his barbecue brush. No doubt he's splattering it everywhere, but I don't have it in me to be mad at him.

We get outside and I see that my mother is already here, and my brother Charlie with his kids. Bill and Tara even flew down from California, but are thankfully staying with my Mom. Emma sees the balloons and cake and presents and jumps up and down.

"It's my birthday!" she yells and darts for the table.

Mulder kisses my cheek and tickles Amaris so that she shies in my arms like a spooked horse. She is so different from Emma as a baby. I hand her off to my mom and watch Emma bounce in her chair.

It's amazing to me how things can change.

I feel a breeze run through us all, and the gentleness of it eases the heat and my heart. Things change, but the wind is constant, steadying, reassuring, pressuring. It reminds me of God's promises of both destruction and joy, ruin and comfort.

Mulder and I have had both in our lives, but this wind wraps us all around in the wings of love and faith and truth. I hope that we impart this to our girls over everything, this mighty wind of love.

Title: Wrapped in the Wind II. Whirlwind
Author: RocketMan
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. Emma's mine, thanks.

Notes: Unfortunately, I was halfway through this and realized that there is already a book out called Whirlwind, by Charles Grant. Huh. This isn't the same. I make a tiny reference to the book so that it will not go completely unrecognized. Also this is set in June, 2000, making Mulder and Scully married about two months. That means Emma is ten months old. And it also means that this story happens right in the middle of the first one, so hopefully it will clear up some little hints I dropped in the first story.

=-=-=-=-=

Wrapped in the Wind
Whirlwind

=-=-=-=

"For they sow the wind
and they reap the whirlwind"
--Hosea 8:7 =-=-=

June 2000

=-=-=

"This is going to be bad," I told him, glancing from my desk to his.

Mulder ran a hand through his hair and then skimmed his eyes over the file folders that had collected ever since the beginning of this whole thing. We had three cases in Oregon alone, and we had to start clearing some of them before our work performance started to suffer. Someone would notice. The X-Files would be gone forever.

"Mulder?"

"I know, Scully!"

I closed my mouth and watched his eyes flicker across all the cases, all the many cases that had been collecting dust as we had gotten every single piece of paperwork done as we possibly could in the last two months. There was nothing left to do. Nothing but the cases themselves.

He glanced up at me with a weary smile and I immediately forgave him for snapping. Just like that.

"I think Oregon is desperately needing some help," he said and shuffled out the three folders from all the others.

"We should have spread all these out over the past few months, Mulder.

Now we'll be gone for weeks. . ."

If my words sounded bleak, it was because I felt bleak. This was going to be very bad, leaving Emma with my mom. She was moving into a clingy stage and she would sob her heart out when we left. It was going to tear *my* heart out.

"We'll just hope from case to case to case in Oregon. Then come on home, take a break-"

"Then head out again?"

He nodded and I sighed.

"Scully?"

My name on his tongue sounded forlorn and fearful and when I looked up at him, he wasn't looking at me. In fact, he was looking everywhere but me.

"If you. . .if you don't want to do this anymore-"

"Mulder."

"Let me finish, please. If you don't want to do this anymore, then-"

"Mulder. I want to do this. You don't have to finish, because my place is here."

His face rose to my probing eyes and he smiled softly, shaking his head.

I got up from my desk and came around to his side, leaning against his desk. He stroked his thumb along my thigh and sighed.

"How long have you been worrying about this?" I asked, because I knew that he probably had thought of my leaving for a long time now.

"Since we got married."

"Mulder. . ."

"I can't help it, Scully. You. . .you just light up around Emma. . .how can the X-Files compete?"

"I don't know, Mulder. But they do. This is important to me, will always be important to me. And maybe you haven't noticed, but I feel pretty good when I'm around you too."

He shot me a little look of both incredulity and amusement, as if this was something he should have thought of but didn't really believe in, even now. His fingers curled around mine and squeezed tightly and I leaned forward to kiss his forehead. After everything, I still liked to press my lips there. It was like a seal of faith, a promise.

"Okay, so Oregon it is. I say we take the freshest case and start there--it will be the one we have the best chance of getting evidence from."

I nodded and moved from his desk, all-business again. Sitting down at my own place, I called up the case file from my computer, scanning the details as my stomach churned. For the first time in a long time, I was nervous about a case, about leaving for a case.

But Emma would be okay. Hopefully it wouldn't be more than, at most, a week for each case. That would be three weeks without her. Three weeks.

We really should have spread these out more.

=-=-=

I watched Mulder's fingers fumble with her tiny snaps as I packed carryons for us both. My sleek black suitcase on wheels, small enough to fit in any overhead compartment, was nearly full while Mulder's bag was rather small. I couldn't figure out what it was he would usually take, no matter how much I thought back to former cases.

I had packed his bag many times before heading back home from a case, but I couldn't remember more than his electric razor and bathroom things and clothes. That was it. That was all I was bringing anyway.

"Is this it, Mulder?" I asked and glanced up at him.

When his eyes met mine we laughed. I was frustrated about packing for him and he was frustrated about getting Emma dressed.

"Why don't we switch?" he said.

I nodded and we moved around the bed, meeting in the middle for a brief touch of fingers, then heading for the opposite side. I snapped together Emma's pants in record time and looked over to see that Mulder was zipping up his suitcase. We smiled and I carried the baby into the living room, looking for her socks.

My living room was a mess. Some of Mulder's things had gotten moved in, and Emma's toys and clothes and books were strewn all over the carpet, on the couch, even on the window sills. I wondered which home we'd come back to after these cases, mine or his? Emma had stuff at his place too, but it didn't look as messy.

"Look at this mess, Emma-jean."

She laughed at me and wriggled around in my arms until I let her down.

She inched her way to a book and dumped it open in front of her, knocking her head in the process, but not seeming to care. Emma had more bumps and bruises and scratches than Mulder did on our cases. No matter how many soft surfaces we placed around her, Emma managed to find the sharp corner to knock against.

"Are you planning on helping me find your missing socks, Emmy?"

She swiveled her head to see me and grinned again, then shook the book in her hands, making it pinch her leg. Her grin crumbled and her chin wrinkled and I sat down next to her.

"Emma. . .honey what did you do that for?"

She looked back at the book and made noises at it, then looked back to me. I smoothed my finger over her little leg and winked at her.

"You're not hurt, Em. Stop being melodramatic. You fool your daddy all the time, you know."

She ducked her head as if ashamed and I laughed, making her look back to me with those dark eyes and grin again.

"So. Socks, remember?"

I stood up, leaving her to the book and searched through the rubble of my living room for the folded socks that used to be lined up on the couch. I had done laundry only three days ago--where could they be?

"Scully?"

"Yeah?" I called back, rifling through the mess of blankets on the floor in front of the television. Mulder and Emma liked to camp out there all day, watching television and communing or something.

"Where's the case folder?"

"In the front pocket of my carryon."

"Oh."

I smiled to myself and triumphantly held up the socks, grinning like an idiot, but still feeling rather good. It was crazy how life had changed.

I was happy about avoiding minor catastrophes within our little family, rather than the pride I once felt about shooting perfectly on the range or discovering important evidence.

"Come on, Emma, let's get you ready."

=-=-=

I watched my mother tickle Emma and change her diaper, realizing that I did it in the same way she did, and wondering when I had picked it up.

She looked back at me and winked and I smiled, but I felt rather sick.

"Don't worry, Dana. Emma knows me. We'll be fine."

I slumped down into the kitchen table, watching my mother with my daughter. It was a strange feeling, but good, proper. My mom was in love with Emma.

"How can I be so willing to leave her?" I blurted out, biting my lip when my mother looked back at me.

"Honey, this was something I never understood. I was the one who stayed at home, remember? You've got your father in you. That spirit for adventure. If you tried to smother it, you'd only hurt yourself and ruin your family."

My father. I had nearly forgotten how similar our jobs were in that respect. My mother must be used to being left with the kids, left to worry and wait. She may not like it much, but it was something she did wonderfully, with her calm and her joy in simple things. The simple things gave me joy, but the complex things gave me a thrill.

"I don't know. I feel awful that I'm leaving her, but I'm also so excited to be back."

My words sounded like a mixture of feelings, both sorrow and excitement, regret and a dizzying kind of anticipation.

"This isn't going to hurt anybody, Dana. As long as you come back alive, we'll all be okay."

I smiled tensely and moved in to kiss my mother's cheek.

"Thank you so much."

She patted Emma's leg and snapped her pants back on, then gathered her up and settled my girl on her hip. I smiled at them both and leaned in to kiss Emma. She smelled of my mom already, but with the baby smell over it all, skin and softness. I blew in her ear and made her giggle, which eased my heart and allowed me to move away.

Mulder found us in the kitchen and reached out for Emma, who opened her arms immediately to him.

I watched them together and willed myself not to cry, reminding myself that we would be back, we were not leaving forever. Mulder's forehead was balanced against Emma's and she was patting his cheek. It looked sweet and I glanced back to my mother, who was laughing at the picture they made. I was going to have to buy a camera.

"Bye, bye Emma," Mulder said and kissed her fingers, then her cheeks.

Emma wrinkled her nose at him and said, "Daddee."

He smiled hugely and looked to me, as if to say, 'this is my little girl.'

I reached out for her and she went smoothly into my arms again, like she was meant to be there. She seemed to catch on to the current of sorrow in me because she hunched in my arms and leaned her head against my chest.

"Emma," I said into her hair. "Emma, momma's gotta go."

She wriggled around and jerked her head up, knocking into my chin. She did that a lot, enough to where I should have been ready for it. Her eyes were dark and questioning and I couldn't say anything more; I kissed her bye and gave her to my mother.

Mulder took my hand and we left the kitchen as my mom called good-bye to us. The door swung closed and I could already hear a pitiful cry from the kitchen. I wanted so badly to turn around and run back, but I also wanted to get in the car and run.

When the front door shut behind us, the sounds of Emma were gone too.

Mulder looked to me and sighed. I shrugged and we moved to the car, neither one of us sure about how we should feel.

Freedom mixed with guilt.

=-=-=

Garibaldi, Oregon, had a child killer. Monster under the bed had never been this gruesome. I scanned the girl's ankles again with the special light, looking for prints, fibers, fluids, anything to have evidence against the newest monster.

With three dead four-year olds in the ground already, and this fourth about to be too, I was feeling light-headed and dizzy. I had autopsied the other three girls yesterday, trying to cram it all in so the families could finally bury them. And then the girl I was working on now had been found this morning by her younger sister.

Mulder had theorized that for a week, the man had hidden in the victim's house, eating what food wouldn't be missed, then hiding under the girl's bed at night. Two of the girls had told their parents they had monsters under their beds, but how many parents believed four year olds?

I made a little promise to myself that I would always listen to Emma.

Always, no matter how much like Mulder her fears or complaints or stories were, I would listen and take them seriously.

Having that little moment, I sighed to myself and carefully worked the victim's legs so that I could see better. The light reminded me of black light, and the strange things glowed purple against the girl's skin. I found two prints and felt an inner rejoicing.

I stepped back for a moment, studying the prints, studying the angles and the girl, thinking about her house and her room and her bed. Mulder must be right, the prints were angled and the girl had a high bed. She must have woken during the night, maybe wanting a glass of water, and he had reached out and a little bit up--

He must have a good upper body strength, but his fingerprints were thin, so it was a ropy, lean kind of strength. Like Mulder, I thought, but shivered that thought away.

My phone rang and I grabbed for it, somehow frightened at disturbing the rest of this little girl before me.

"Scully."

"Hey, it's me. Have you got any evidence from this one?"

"Yeah, two prints."

"Oh good. He's moving. We've followed him a ways and I think he's getting ready to spend a week at another girl's house. I'd rather get him now than wait for the solid proof of him in the house."

I sighed. "There's two on this one, and some hair on the first. That would be the only physical evidence we have Mulder. He must have been in a hurry on this girl; he didn't clean up as well."

Mulder's silence was comforting, but I knew he was thinking about our chances of getting a conviction with so little physical evidence. What if the hair turned out to not belong to this guy? Hair could be anyone's. . .

"I suppose we should wait. We'll call the family he picks and get them out."

"Call me." I said. "I want to be there."

"Are you almost finished?"

"No. But I can get the medical examiner here to finish. There won't be anything new in this girl's body, I'm sure of it."

"All right. I'll call."

The phone clicked and I thumbed it off, throwing my gloves in the biohazard trash can before slipping the cellular back into my coat pocket. I grabbed more gloves and looked back to the little girl on the table, glowing in the phosphorescent light.

I began to photograph and collect the prints, hardly daring to breathe lest they disappear.

=-=-=

I'd never been so tense in my life. Maybe because there just seemed to be so much riding on this last moment. The little girl trapped inside, the Houston family waiting outside with fear on their faces, my own life, Mulder's, Emma's, my mom. Our family.

When Mulder and the FBI had called the family, they had muttered something about prank callers and hung up. The father had answered the second time and yelled at them for not taking phone privileges seriously enough and for making light of important government bodies, like the FBI.

So Mulder and the others had shown up at his doorstep, which had tipped off the man inside, and while they had gotten the four year old girl out safely, the killer was holding the baby hostage. A baby boy who had been laying down for his afternoon nap.

We could hear him crying through the special "eyes and ears" the techs had sneaked through on the snake line. The family outside was in tears, and I nearly was too. But this was my job, and I could feel my walls shoring me up.

Mulder and the Special Agent in Charge, Minder, were coordinating a plan of attack. Hostage negotiation had been met with a chilling silence, and Mulder was convinced that Max Branci would not talk. Max had been in his world far too long to start coming out now. Mulder was looking to pin a total of thirteen murders on this forty-three-year-old man. I couldn't believe he'd been around that long, killing without remorse.

I listened as Minder outlined the idea, pointing out the special positions, the rooms of the house, the things to look out for. The Houstons had shown us the little obstacles in their house, like the hamper that was in the middle of the downstairs hall, and the baby gates at the entrances to the kitchen. Their home was real to me, and it made the entire thing that much more awful.

They could be us.

Two men interrogated the family, looking for things they had not already said, little clues that would give us the edge or surprise over this guy. The father was shaking his head in bewilderment, and the mother was clutching her daughter tightly. They looked like they'd never seen guns and police officers before.

Snipers from Hostage Rescue Team were in the upstairs and downstairs rooms of their neighbors' houses, facing the Houston's home, and even on the roof of the soon-to-be besieged house. Five HRT agents were belly-crawling into position as we spoke, and were reporting all clears as they checked the second floor windows.

Mulder and I and three others were waiting outside the back kitchen windows while an HRT member quietly scraped away the lock and raised the windows. The cool breeze from the Houstons' air conditioner felt relaxing and out of place as it washed over us. I could smell their home, the cheese and deli turkey from their lunch, the laundry soap as the washer ran even now, and the telltale baby and little girl smells. These were familiar things, though slightly different from ours, and I had to close my eyes and blank out everything before I felt ready.

We were given the go ahead and Mulder and I slithered through the windows about two feet apart that we had been assigned to. The kitchen was clear, but I kept expecting Max Branci to walk in and shoot us both.

I knew, realistically, that Branci only had a knife, but still, the thought was there.

Mulder and I got to our feet and waved the HRT members inside. Since the FBI was in charge of this operation, we had to be the first ones in, and the first in the lead. There was a team on our right as well, and they waited for everyone to get inside before starting forward. I stepped ahead of Mulder, letting him cover me over my head, as we always did, and we started for the entryway on the left.

The agents who'd had the two windows about five feet down from us were already heading for the right side of the kitchen, stepping carefully over the baby gate and into the living room, one at a time. The baby gate was a dangerous thing, keeping us from moving quickly through the doorways, leaving us exposed. There was nothing to do about it.

I leaned against the doorjamb, feeling my heart pound, then swung out carefully, using a trick I learned with Emma. I could lean over far enough to see around the corner, but not even touch the baby gate.

I pulled back and shook my head, indicating to Mulder that no one was there. I repeated the move to check the opposite side of the entryway, and then we stepped over.

The entry led to the side door, where the garage attached to the side of the house. The area was dark without the sun pouring through the tall window on the left, and it held still air that seemed oppressive and heavy. The floor was cold marble lookalike, with stairs that swept upwards and turned into a balcony.

When I saw the balcony, I knew we were trapped. I knew it and I pushed backwards, crashing into the baby-gate even as the HRT members behind Mulder and I stumbled and kept us blocked. They weren't supposed to come in after us so fast, but they must have been anxious andExplosions sounded in my ears and I realized we were being shot at. The wood on the doorjamb blasted apart and into my cheek and I felt a body behind me stiffen with impact, then crumple.

I fired at the balcony, seeing Branci there, the gun held between his hands in perfect firing stance. Even as I pushed backwards, urging the men behind me to move, I was shooting back, hearing the rounds leave the chamber of my weapon and silently counting.

I was out of bullets. I was trapped. Even as I knew this, I felt Mulder behind me, taking up where I had left off, pushing me back.

I kicked the baby gate out of the way and stumbled over a fallen man, managing to right myself only when the countertop caught my elbow with a sickening crack. A sharp, agonizing pain shot through my arm and I caught my breath, blinking to clear the fuzziness. Bullets discharged far off, meeting lamps with a crash, couches with a thump, bodies with a sound somewhere in between.

I grabbed Mulder's belt and pulled him back, knowing it was suicide for him to just stand in the doorway like that. I cursed whoever hadn't known about the balcony, and dropped to the floor to help staunch the downed man's wounds. His head was nicked and bleeding the floor slick, and people were tripping as they shot around to the right side and into the living room. Where had Branci gotten the gun?

I couldn't tell from here, but it looked like the balcony opened up onto the living room too, and Branci was picking them off now. Mulder touched my head as he slid around to the other side, letting me know he was leaving.

The man on the floor had blood-shot eyes and his hand was a mangled puffy thing of flesh and bone chips and blood. An HRT medic was wrapping thick white gauze around the man's head and I grabbed some to wrap his destroyed hand. The smell of blood intruded upon the scents of the home and it was something I wished to never smell again. Home and blood.

I heard shouts of 'agent down' from the living room and I couldn't understand why so many people were being shot. Branci had high ground, yes, but he couldn't possibly have that much ammunition--?

A man came slithering through the partly broken window and over to my side, his jacket front bloodied now.

"The snipers have no visual on Branci, plus, Mr. Houston just remembered his gun collection."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "His what?"

The man looked as angry and shocked as I did, as if the Houstons themselves had betrayed us. We had gone into their home like we had because of the limited capacity of Branci's weapon of choice, the knife.

"He has an AK-47, among other specialties. I wanted to personally throttle him."

I closed my eyes and said a prayer, then turned back to the young agent before me.

"Get a sniper in here, set him up at the left side, where the entryway is. Branci can't cover two sides, and when he moves just a little bit, he exposes his back to us."

The agent nodded and slithered back through the window. I wondered when it was that I had been put in charge. Mulder--

Mulder. Mulder was in charge after Minder, and Minder had come in on the right side. Where were they both? How come I was the one making the decisions?

My blood chilled and I left the HRT medic to the man on the kitchen floor. Glancing down, I realized that it wasn't only his blood coating the linoleum, but several people's. Emergency medics were already pushing stretchers out through the windows and across the backyard to the waiting ambulances.

"Hey, there's a guy over here-" I yelled to the paramedic, pointing towards the man I'd just left. The ambulance driver came running over to help them and the paramedic turned to nod in my direction.

"We know. He can hold on for a few seconds. These guys can't."

I stepped back, feeling my heart pound and then turned for the agent again. His eyes were open still, and roving around, and the medic was talking to him calmly. I patted the guy's waist, looking for his weapon and extra clips; my own was empty.

The bleeding man's eyes met mine and I felt awful, but I smiled softly at him and held up his gun.

"I need to borrow this."

His hand raised and he choked on his voice before sounds came out.

"Shoot the bastard for me."

I nodded and scrambled from his side and to the doorway, stepping carefully over the bloodied floor to keep my balance. I had to consciously forget about Mulder in order to keep moving, knowing that there was nothing I could do except cover him.

As I stepped to the doorway, I had to keep wiping blood from my neck and readjusting my arm. Whenever I squeezed off a shot, pain lanced through me. My elbow was probably cracked in a few places and it stung every time the gun kicked back, but I couldn't *not* shoot. There were two agents in the living room who were leaning underneath where the balcony jutted out, both cradling wounds. I could see Mulder hiding behind a bookcase across the room, blood on his leg but it didn't appear to be his. He would randomly pop out and sweep bullets across the balcony.

Branci had the added protection of the walled balcony, which opened out along the living room but about chest high. He could look down, but we could not get to him when he ducked. On the entryway side, where he had first caught us, it only opened out for about a foot and then descended with the stairs. Branci was keeping his back against the wall, so a shot from the entryway was impossible.

Unless someone climbed the stairs.

I felt my heart hammer and I darted back into the kitchen, searching for the sniper I had asked for. But there was no one with a high-powered scope anywhere, not in the entryway, not in the kitchen, not in the living room. Bullets rained to the right entrance of the kitchen, catching a knot of agents and piercing two of them. Most were winded as the Kevlar caught the impact, but I saw blood.

This had to stop. I collected more clips and rested against the doorjamb, waiting for that lull from the balcony as Branci either changed guns or reloaded.

After another minute, there was a pause and I spun to the living room, the clips in my hands.

"Mulder!"

His head darted in my direction even as I tossed him the ammunition. I quirked my lips as he caught the two clips, then scuttled back into the kitchen again. My weapon was shaking in my hands and I noticed that the medic was tending to the agent who'd been caught in that last spray of bullets.

The man I'd raided for his gun was gone and I had a clear view into the entryway now. I heard someone call for more ammunition and I felt relieved I had given the two clips to Mulder. He wasn't the best shot, but I felt better knowing he was covered.

Out of every agent with us besides the snipers, I knew I had probably the best score in range shooting. I couldn't help liking to shoot; it was empowering to know I could stop someone who was bigger and stronger than I.

My weapon was slick with the man's blood and I wiped it on my jacket, cleaning the grip and barrel. My hand was sweating but my grasp was good and I stepped to the left side kitchen entrance, licking my lips.

Branci was nowhere to be seen. A sniper wouldn't get a shot from here. I was positive this was the best chance we had. Despite the determination, I crossed myself and kissed the cross at my throat.

The first step creaked, but it was a sound only I heard, what with the yelling in the living room and the shots firing like a shooting gallery.

I crouched on the steps, fighting off panic and holding on to my determination. The carpet smelled like plastic and blood and clean feet.

Part of the smell was because my hands and gun and jacket were stained with drying blood, and because the entire house was filled with the smell of hurt.

I wondered where the baby was. Did Branci have it there with him, or was he in a room somewhere? I probably should have checked with someone to see if they could still hear the baby crying.

Slithering up the steps, taking one inch at a time and trying to keep down, I prayed over and over in my head for God to protect me, protect Mulder. It was a comforting mantra and I found a little strength in it.

I was more than halfway up the stairs, gun held tightly before me, when I saw Branci.

He was crouched not four feet from me, quickly reloading a weapon. I couldn't tell what model, but it looked big and powerful. I crept further up, wondering if this was a good position to be in, but not having a clear shot. I wanted to incapacitate him, not just wound him.

A piece of hair caught in my eyelashes and I swiped a cold hand across my face to displace it. My jacket crinkled alarmingly and I froze, my heart beat positively thrashing inside me--fast and wild and frightened.

Branci stiffened, straightened up. His arms were hairy; his mouth was tight and sweat ridged his upper lip. I could taste his hate like thick water.

I tucked in close and eased the safety off my weapon, sweating in the heat of summer and the flash of fear racing through my veins like poison. His body turned quick like a cat and his gun whipped around, pointed at my head.

His eyes narrowed, his teeth flashed with his snarl.

I froze.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Two

=-=-=-=

There was a bitter taste in my mouth, a ring around my tongue that was like chlorine and salt and badly burnt toast. I wondered if I had drowned in the pool, but this didn't seem right either. Did I have a pool?

I couldn't open my eyes, but that didn't seem all that important. I could hear sounds like echoes in a tin can and my ears felt like they were plugged with cotton. Tin can noises and cotton ears didn't exactly go together either, but I was too far away to notice.

As I got closer, I realized that the air was thin, too thin, and it was hard to breathe right. My chest went up and down but I wasn't controlling any of it. Panic startled to curl around my brain.

I could hear my heart beating in my chest and throat. The rush of blood through my body was loud, like elephants thundering across a savanna, trampling everything in their wake. The dust did not clear and settle, but swirled dangerously in the air and choked my lungs. It was getting harder to breathe. Hard and I was straining in the bed to just breathe, gripping the edges because the breath wouldn't come like I needed it and my heart was pounding, *pounding* please--

"Scully. Scully, stop, relax. You have to relax."

My eyes flickered open and blinked, resting on . . .on Mulder. His face was tight and tense, but I couldn't understand why he wouldn't help me.

My face was covered with something tight and my nostrils flared to simply breathe, eyes panicked and crying for him to help me"You're on a ventilator, Scully. Just calm down and let it do all the work. Please, Scully, trust me."

His fingers were clenched around mine and I shook my head, blinking to rid myself of the image, confused and bewildered and not understanding why he would be suffocating me like this, not Mulder, please=-=-=

Darkness swirled. I hadn't been aware that it was black, really, until it started to lift. What had all this vastness been before it was black?

Had I been staring into this nothing all this time before it separated and congealed and lifted?

I blinked and Mulder was watching me intently. His hands came to caress my face and I sighed at the feel of it, gentle and warm and strong.

"Hey," he answered and I let my lids fall to wet my eyes. They were dry and hot and scratchy. I licked my lips and found him staring at me again.

"Hey," I replied finally, trying to smile at him. "Is he dead?"

As the words left my mouth I remembered what had happened. The gun, the flash, feeling my weapon recoil in my hands and getting kicked back down the stairs.

"Your shot hit him in the chest. He survived."

"Darn," I said and gave Mulder a coughing laugh. He stilled me with a palm to my chest and shook his head.

"He shot you, Scully. You need to lie still."

"Hmm. . ."

"The baby is okay too. He was hidden in the bathroom closet, but we found him. The parents kept apologizing for not remembering the gun collection."

I let out a little growl and licked my lips again. "Where. . ."

"--Were you shot? In the stomach. . .it shredded scar tissue and skin, but not much else."

I glanced to my belly, seeing the thick white gauze plastered over stitches, I was sure, and probably a mean looking bruise. I remembered what it looked like from before.

"Again?" I said and shook my head.

"The doctors had you on a ventilator, do you remember?"

I wrinkled my eyebrows and shook my head. "Not. . .no."

He smiled and shrugged at my questioning eyes. "Well, you woke at one point, and I wondered. . ."

I sighed and ran a finger down his arm, then played with the cuffs of his dress shirt. His button was loose and probably needed to be sewn on tighter, but I wasn't very good at sewing in the first place.

"I'm glad you're okay, Scully."

I glanced up, amused with the understatement, and tapped his chin with my finger.

"Come here," I said and waited until he leaned in close. His lips felt harsh and chapped against my mouth, but it was good and reassuring, letting him know I was alive and he too.

"Thanks," he said and winked at me.

"Where are we?"

"Still Oregon, Scull. Sorry."

I shrugged and bit my lip. "What about the other two cases we have to work?"

"I've been in touch with the police at Wamic--they're willing to wait.

However, the mayor at Estacada wants get help from VCS. Their case is getting stale, so I agreed that it would be a good idea."

"As soon as I can leave, we'll head out to Wamic--"

"No. Scully. I'm not letting you go with me. You're going home."

I stared at him for a moment, disbelieving. He wanted me to stay at home while he went on ahead? He was nuts, crazy, being stupidly overprotective again. There was no way on earth I'd let him go on his own.

"Mulder--"

"Scully, don't start. Skinner is sending up an extra."

I gaped at him, feeling the urge to cry but fending it off rather nicely. It had to be the pain killers making me dopey, because this usually would not make me feel ready to cry. He was getting someone to take my place. It still felt cruddy.

"Mulder. No. I *will not* let you do this. Even if I have to stay in bed in a motel room in Wamic, I'm coming with you."

"Scully. You need to rest after this. Your stitches could tear, you could start bleeding internally,--"

"Mulder, listen to me. I'm a doctor, I know that. I'm also not that stupid. But this is my place, Mulder. My job. You can't keep me from going, and you can't suddenly make my decisions for me. My place is at your side, Mulder, and I'm going to be there."

He was watching intently, his eyes like burning coals, flames in his fingers when he touched my hand. I wanted to fall asleep again, so tired from talking, but I couldn't lose this one. I couldn't go home without him.

"Scully," he said softly, and his voice was graveled with sleeplessness. "This isn't an attempt to get you away from me. Believe me, I want you right here with me. But too many things could go wrong if you stay. I need you to go home, to be safe. Otherwise I'd be constantly worried about you."

"Mulder, I may be your wife, but I'm your partner first. I belong here.

I'm staying here."

His eyes got dark and he turned his head from mine, his fingers slacking in my grip. I felt an icy panic wash over me like a cold river and my heart shuddered.

"That's funny," he said softly, still turned from me. "Because I'm your husband first, and your partner last."

He rose and stepped for the door, his shoulders hunched and his clothes rumpled. I felt the tears cascade down my face but I didn't call out for him. He had to understand me, he just had to. I couldn't go home, I couldn't.

He meant too much to me to let him go alone.

=-=-=

"No. NO! Mulder, please. . ."

He leaned down and kissed my cheek, but I couldn't feel his lips for all the tears on my face. I wanted to throttle him; I wanted to beg him; I wanted to kiss him.

"Mulder, you can't. You can't."

The chains were wrapped around my legs tightly, like cords of steel, pressing into my flesh. The handcuffs were too tight, biting into my wrists and causing them to bleed, and the links between them were heavy and dragged me down.

The wheelchair was brought in and there were spikes in the seat, like tiny needles all jutting up. I turned in horror back to Mulder but he smiled tightly and shook his head at me.

"You have to be punished for fighting with me, Scully."

I felt terror clutch my heart and I thrashed on the bed, hearing the stitches rip and burn, bleeding me dry until I couldn't move at all, until I was like a vegetable, parched and pale.

"Mulder," I mumbled, my dry eyes looking to his. He was just standing there, shaking his head at me, sighing.

Two orderlies picked me up and deposited me in the chair, tightened Velcro straps around my arms and legs, then turned me to face the door.

I knew Mulder would die if I left, but he thought he was teaching me a lesson. I knew the truth, didn't he see it? Couldn't he understand he was only killing himself?

"No, Mulder, please," I sobbed, straining for him but only moving centimeters.

He waved good-bye like a stupid cartoon and grinned goofily at me. I wept, knowing he would die, knowing that after that, I would die too.

=-=-=

"Shh. . .Shh, Scully. It's okay, It's all right."

I blinked and felt the tears on my face, Mulder holding me tightly. His arm was around my stomach, but high up, right under my breasts to keep from aggravating my bandage. I was crushed against his chest, my cheek to his shoulder.

Had he freed me? Had he changed his mind and undone my restraints?

"Please don't send me away, Mulder. I couldn't bear for you to send me away. You'll die, don't you see? You'll die and it will be all my fault."

"Scully, hush. It's just a dream, it's all a dream. I'm not sending you away."

I managed to struggle from the nightmare and found myself cradled by him, wrapped in his arms and his love like a blanket of forever.

"I'm not going to send you away, Scully. It's okay, please don't cry."

His hands stroked the tears on my cheeks and I caught a disoriented glance of his face to see the tears in his own eyes, the humiliation stamped into his lips, the shame.

"A dream."

He nodded and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I would never, Scully. I would never. . ."

I wondered how much of my dream he knew about. It was slightly embarrassing, but he was holding me tightly and keeping away the ridiculousness of it all.

"I'm okay," I said and gulped down the egg in my throat at the look in his eyes.

"I heard the way you. . .you were begging me, Scully. I'd never never, please don't think I'd ever hurt you like that."

"You're going to make me go home," I pointed out, indignant.

"Not anymore. No. You ought to, but I won't make you."

I managed to relax at his words, the tremendous relief like a yoke lifted from my shoulders. I gave him a watery smile and pushed forward to kiss his lips, despite the flinch in my stomach and the sting afterwards.

"Jeez, Scully. You've got to rest, all the time. Understand? You'll be in the motel room, in the bed. No getting up."

I nodded happily, but I knew I could convince him to let me autopsy or go with him to the interviews when I felt stronger. It felt good to know he wouldn't be alone. But I felt bad about our fight earlier.

"I didn't mean it, Mulder."

He frowned and his brow wrinkled and his fingers smoothed a line down my neck.

"Didn't mean what?"

"About. . .what comes first. My family comes first, Mulder. Don't doubt that ever."

He nodded and sighed. "But I understood what you meant. If our family comes first, how is it that we're out here in Oregon? Risking our lives."

"Because it's not fair to either of us, to Emma, for us to be less than we are."

Mulder stared at me for a moment, then gave a sort of laugh, like I continued to amaze him. I gave him a small smile back, reaching up to curl my fingers around his neck.

"Go to sleep, Scully. I'll be right here."

=-=-=

We'd spent a total week in Garibaldi, Oregon, not seeing much of its rocky coast, before heading to Wamic for our second case. We flew from Garibaldi to Portland, and then to a city called The Dalles. From there we had to rent a car and drive. On the drive down, which was about thirty miles, I winced at every bump in the road, trying to keep my muscles relaxed, but also trying to brace myself. I kept my face turned away from Mulder, trying to not let him see the pain, but when we got to the motel he turned to me and shook his head.

I felt ashamed of hiding from him, and ashamed of pushing for myself to go, but once I got into bed and slept for five hours, I felt better.

When I woke, Mulder had gone for dinner and I began to wonder about my wound.

How had Branci shot me in the stomach? I hadn't even thought about that, but the angle was right, because the bullet had merely nicked my belly, shredding the scar tissue where a previous bullet had done much more damage.

I must have moved, thinking he would shoot for my head, and fired at the same time. No one else had been up there with us, so I couldn't check that against fact, but it seemed the most likely.

I'd been very lucky. Branci could have aimed just a tad bit higher and blown my brains out. As it was, my new scar started just above my original scar and nicked across my left hipbone, where some reconstruction had to be done to the bone. It ached like crazy, but I hadn't let Mulder know that.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember where I'd been on the stairs, how my body had been. I was crouched down, still on my toes, and Branci had turned--

Oh. That moment of panic and then I had sprung up, firing and twisting at the same time, slammed into the right side of stairs, against the wall there, and collapsed. That was why my stomach was nicked. My stomach was where my head had been. If I hadn't moved, I'd have a bullet in the brain.

I shivered, thinking about how very stupid it had been to climb those stairs, how idiotic to not wait for the sniper, yet how determined I'd been to stop the dying. Everyone was falling, I couldn't let Mulder join those.

I sighed and glanced up to see the doorknob turning. A shudder vibrated the walls as Mulder opened the door and stepped through. He had Chinese boxes in his hand and a soft smile on his face. I smiled back and beckoned him forward.

"Tell me about the case while we eat," I said.

Mulder sat down on the side of the bed, regarding me carefully, then handed over my favorite foods.

"All right."

=-=-=

The wind flared suddenly around us and I glanced to Mulder. He was squinting his eyes against the dust and I shielded my forehead to see him.

Wamic was hot and dry from being on the wrong side of the mountains. No sea breezes here, no soft ocean, no cooling rains. It was dirty and sandy and stretching into a craggy forever. The bodies of a father and son lay pulverized at our feet.

Sand was caught in their blood, turning it into a hardened clump, almost like cement. Their faces were bloated with the June heat and stank under the sun. Mulder had a hand to his nose to halfway block the smell, and I was trying to call up thoughts of baby and powder and softness to combat the stench.

"I don't understand what's happening here," I told him and tried to relax my muscles. If I tensed suddenly, my stomach flared in pain. I needed to rest, but I hadn't been able to.

"I'm not sure I do either."

I felt afraid at that, but I tried not to show it.

Matthew and Will Kent were the first humans dead here that Mulder and I had seen, but there had been others. Their pictures were in the case file, the horribly beaten bodies and the broken, mangled bones. It was like they'd been smashed completely, obliterated. An old woman, from the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, had been the first to die so horribly.

"It's almost like they've been dashed against the mountain itself," I said and glanced to the looming shadow before us. Mount Hood was to the northwest of Wamic, and roughly thirty miles away, seeming to tower over everything, desert on the east and shore on the west.

Mulder glanced to Mount Hood and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. I shook my head and tried to stay as still as possible. I hoped he wasn't going to take me seriously.

"I think it's time we visited the Warm Springs Indians."

I looked up at him, wincing but hiding it. The Indian Reservation was south of us, and fairly large, but it was so dry and dusty, I felt ashamed that the government had ever placed them there.

"Why?" I asked, glancing south as I worried my bottom lip with the sudden spurt of pain.

"Because this isn't natural."

I looked once to the mangled bodies and sighed, immediately regretting the movement.

"What's your theory, Mulder?"

"Wind."

"Wind?"

"A mean, vengeful whirlwind. We've seen it before, Scully."

I licked my lips and remembered even bringing those deaths to Mulder's attention. The flayed flesh and bloodless corpses. This was different though, and I told him that.

"So, are you telling me then, that you believed in that blood wind, Scully?"

I tried to find a way around it but there had been things. . .there had been frightening things and those people. . .

"Maybe I do. But this isn't California."

"Yes, but there are some things that are universal, Scully."

I pressed my lips together and shrugged tightly, trying not to use much movement. Mulder looked over at me and narrowed his eyes.

"I think you should go back. I'll talk to them and we can compare theories, Scully."

I started to protest, of course, but he shook his head and teased me.

"You need the time to come up with something scientific, since this is outside the realm of possibility."

I shook my head slowly and curled my fingers into fists, realizing that he was right. I wasn't even supposed to be up yet, the bandages were tight and I was afraid I had pulled the stitches.

"Okay. I'll see you. . .?"

"Don't expect me before four. It's already one o'clock."

I wondered vaguely what he would do with three hours on a reservation, but nodded and walked carefully for the rental car. Mulder had ridden with the sheriff earlier that morning, leaving me the car. It was somewhat difficult to drive because pressing the pedals somehow took the strength of my stomach muscles, don't ask me how.

As I drove away, I clutched the steering wheel and hunched over, trying to dissipate the pain. I was going to be sorry for getting out of bed.

=-=-=

When the Wasco County Sheriff was revealed behind the motel door, I knew something had gone awfully wrong.

"Where's Mulder?" I asked.

"Agent Scully--"

I backed up, letting him come inside, but my heart pounded and my mouth went dry. It was six o'clock and I had been trying to call Mulder's cellular since three thirty.

"What happened to Mulder?"

Sheriff Duniway rubbed his hands together then proceeded to explain, as best he could, the events.

"Well, we went to the Warm Springs Reservation and one of the sheriffs met us. A man named Danny Wimica, whose family has been very powerful on the reservation. He's about twenty-three, a good kid really, but he didn't know anything about what Agent Mulder proposed. I didn't believe it either. . .wind?"

I didn't say anything, still straining inside to know what had happened.

"Where is Mulder?" I asked again, feeling frustrated and frightened.

"He's stuck there."

"Stuck. Where?"

"On the reservation."

My face must have paled because he held out his hands and shook his head. "No, no. He's not in trouble, Agent Scully. Oh, jeez, I'm sorry.

He's trying to get some more information from one of the older men. Sh-"

"He's still there? He's. . .nothing's happened to him?"

"Oh no. I didn't realize you thought he was hurt. No. He's stayed to get some more details. Wimica thought there might be some old legend about Chief Joseph, but really, that doesn't seem that important to me. . ."

"He's down there now?"

"Yeah."

I nodded, but I didn't feel much better. There was still a sickening coal of fear burning in me about Mulder.

"What about Chief Joseph?"

"Well, you know he was the leader of the Nez Perce Indians, who traveled from southern Oregon to try to make it to Canada in uh. . .1877, I think. They were stopped at the Canadian border, but along the way, a lot of them died, fighting US troops or simply exhausted-"

"Yes, I remember from history class. What does Chief Joseph have to do with the Warm Springs Indians?"

"Well, he headed up this way and there's this myth that a hundred of the Nez Perce stopped running and tried to surrender, right where the Warm Springs Reservation is located."

"What happened to them?"

"The US troops slaughtered them." Sheriff Duniway shook his head and sighed, leaning against the wall beside the door. "That was a bad time, a greedy and mean time. I don't know why they ever thought it was okay to kill people like that--"

He stopped and I realized that the Oregon people were sensitive to their history, sensitive to their environment and the forests and parks and mountains surrounding them. It would make sense that Sheriff Duniway would be grieved that a people who lived in harmony with nature were brutally murdered by his own government.

In some ways, it grieved me too.

"They had a curse," Duniway continued. "The breath of their bodies would leave them and be empowered by their spirits to take revenge."

I gaped at him, remembering what Mulder had said about the wind, and my own comments about the bodies looking like they'd been dashed against Mount Hood.

"I was looking at the family records of that boy and his father. They were faintly related to John Jacob Astor. . .he founded Astoria in the early 1800's as a trading post. I read that and I got to thinking, so I looked and saw that his grandnephew was in the regiment that would have been in this area when the band of Nez Perce tried to surrender. Of course, this is all a legend, the stories about the innocent Nez Perce have never been confirmed."

I nodded. "So Matthew Kent and his son, Will, were distant relatives of a man who might have been involved in a myth about killing a band of supposedly surrendering Indians?"

Duniway had the decency to look faintly ashamed, but I found the story very much a Mulder theory, and wondered how much of this Mulder had set into motion in the sheriff's head.

"I know it sounds nuts."

"And what about the other two victims? One of them was a Warm Springs Indian. You can't tell me an old woman has anything to do with an old vengeance."

Duniway shrugged at me as if to say, 'what can I do' and fumbled with his sleeve cuff, glancing around the motel for courage or strength or maybe patience with me.

"Well, Agent Mulder wanted me to come tell you he'd be gone, but I got caught up in the history. But as an interesting little fact. . ."

"Yes?"

"Astor had a son, William, who doubled the family fortune but died in a mysterious illness. He had two sons himself, one called John Jacob, who died in the sinking of the Titanic."

My mouth dropped and I could see the fascination in this, see how Mulder could get caught up in conspiracies, especially when everything was so neatly packaged together.

"But weren't the Astors a New York family?"

Duniway nodded. "Yeah, they never actually lived in Oregon. But some of the family came out here, some of them moved to England. It's all speculation, and the ways in which most of the male members of the Astor family have died are rather strange, rather tragic in most occurrences, but. . ."

"It's not proof of anything."

He nodded again and I wondered what Mulder was hoping to learn from the elderly members of the Warm Springs Tribe.

=-=-=

He crawled into bed with me at nearly two am and I felt his silence like a veil over my eyes. His hand touched my shoulder and smoothed down my arm in a sensual caress. It almost felt like a sorrowful good-bye.

But when I turned to look at him there was only empty air and a cold spot on the bed.

My breath hitched in panic and I rolled over to turn on the light, moving too quickly and causing my stomach to twinge painfully. The sheriff had left at seven thirty and I had ordered pizza, hoping Mulder might want the cold leftovers when he got in. But I had fallen asleep around midnight, and now I'd been awakened.

By his spirit.

I shivered and pulled a sweatshirt over my head carefully, trying not to stretch much. The light was soft and illuminated the emptiness of our motel room with a gentle touch, but I felt devoid of him and almost frightened.

Why had he come to me like that? Maybe it was a dream.

Even as I told myself this, I knew it hadn't been. He was reaching for me--I'd felt this before, at a time when I thought him dead in a boxcar.

He needed me. He'd been here, touched me, and he was calling for me.

I stood and moved slowly to my carryon, searching for my weapon and holster. They slid roughly around my arms, stretching the skin on my abdomen tightly, but I merely squeezed my eyes and fought through it.

This was why I had fought to stay with him. This was why. Somehow, I had known.

I reached down for my shoes and pushed tears of pain from my eyes.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Three

=-=-=-=

It wasn't particularly flat along the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, and being the sprawling base of Mount Hood tended to create a rocky landscape. The roads were paved to a certain point, and then dirt and gravel took over, making my entire body ache.

I went faster than I should have, but when the dust got so thick that I couldn't see two feet ahead of me, I slowed down, creeping into the darkness and fog of dirt that choked out the headlights.

My stomach was throbbing, and I knew that couldn't be a good thing right now, so I forced myself to relax and slump in the seat somewhat. I took the rest of the dirt road slowly enough to keep the flares of pain down.

When the car pulled onto a main street of the reservation, I saw the sheriff's well-built office standing to one side. There were about seven homes in this section, the northernmost corner of the reservation, and I figured that more people lived farther south.

I was trying to remember what kind of Indians these were, but there were so many different tribes and nations and cultures, so many peoples we killed or removed or betrayed. They could be Shoshone; the Shoshone had traveled all along Northwest for a time. Of course, they could be anything. They probably just thought of themselves as Warm Springs Indians. I wondered how much of their culture was left in tact.

When the car crawled to a stop, the door of the office opened and two bright eyes gleamed at me from the darkness, curious but harmless. I pulled myself out of the rental and stepped to the office, my FBI badge in one hand and my gun tucked safely at my back. If I closed my eyes, it nearly felt like Mulder's gentle pressure guiding me.

"Sheriff Wimica?" I said and the man stepped down to meet me.

"Yes?"

"I'm Agent Scully. . .Agent Mulder met with you earlier."

He gave nothing away, his dark face was stone hard and flinted with sun and wind. His hands were jammed into deep jean pockets and his eyes had the look of a man who had seen too much. A look Mulder and I probably had. How old was he? 23 or 26?

"Mulder is my partner. . .I need to know where he's gone."

"What do you mean? He went to talk to the Old Man."

I was growing rapidly frustrated with Sheriff Wimica's stilted end of the conversation. He was offering nothing new and I was giving everything.

"He never came back. He's in trouble, and I have to know where it is he went."

Wimica looked me over and then pointed to a house that stood like a beacon on the edge of the settlement. It was painted in a bright yellow that stood out even in this darkness. The moon painted sickly white light over it like a tomb and I shivered despite the need for professionalism.

"He went to talk to the Old Man. He's there. He'll be awake. I don't know where he went after that . . .but tell me, how do you know he's in trouble?"

I looked straight in his eyes, ready for his laughter. "He came to me,"

I said simply and set my jaw.

His eyes might have danced with amusement, but he did not show anything more. He respected that in me, I guessed, because he merely nodded for the Old Man's house and turned to leave.

"Wait, what's his name?"

"Henry Wumaran. . .his wife died in this thing you are investigating."

I paused, glancing once more to the Old Man's house, trying to understand why Mulder would question this grieving widower. The man couldn't have much information about Mulder's wind theory, could he?

I glanced to the sheriff's office once then turned and made my way to Henry Wumaran's home, clutching my badge still and feeling the warm press of my weapon at my back. I wished it were Mulder instead.

=-=-=

He was patting my hand and staring into space, his thin body hiding a kind of natural grace and strength which revealed itself when he had pulled me into his house and sat me down on a kitchen chair.

His place smelled like warmth and cooking, but I was reminded that it was early in the morning and I didn't have much time. Instead of commenting on the trivial things, I got straight to the point of my visit. But he had figured as much already.

When his eyes returned from their far off place, he looked straight at me with a sigh and grasped my hand.

"You are in much pain, woman. Why do you do this?"

A ripple of fear and surprise slipped through me and I was conscious again of my stomach, of the pulling even as I sat very still.

"I have to find Agent Mulder. Please, what did you say to him? Do you know where he might have gone?"

"Yes. But there is a story-"

"No, I need to know now. I don't have time for stories."

"In order to hear the end, you must hear the beginning, little one. You remind me of my granddaughter."

I gave an exasperated sigh and leaned forward to impress upon him the absolute importance of my finding Mulder, but he pinched my lips shut with his quick hand, chuckling at my look of surprise.

"You hush. Listen. Your partner respected the story. You must respect the story. It will bring you the end."

I leaned back, pursing my lips and crossing my arms, but realizing that I could not rush him.

"Good. I suppose you know of Chief Seattle? He had a famous speech. . .How Can You Buy or Sell the Sky? Very good. . .so true. The land is all, the land is tied to us in small invisible threads that know no boundaries. It is wrong to claim land as one's own, even though many natives all over this country do it, going to court for their land. Just as it is with the sky. . .it is linked to us immensely."

My hands tightened under the kitchen table and I had to forcibly restrain myself, biting into my bottom lip to keep from pulling my gun and making the man tell me what I had to know.

"When the Nez Perce made their doomed escape to the Canadian border, there were some who decided that it would be easier to just rest, to stop and surrender and make a new life. Many were tired of the fighting."

Henry traced a design onto the plastic tablecloth that covered their small kitchen table. His voice was trembling a bit and his hands were shaking as they moved in delicate patterns.

"Most of this little group were slaughtered. A few ran, escaping into the lava caves near here where they could be protected. Children died that day, and I guess the sky and the land just could not take it any longer. No more killing their people, no more death of the spirit."

He looked like he could feel the pain of the land, the sky, the forgotten people, even Chief Seattle when he made his plea. It made me feel guilty for being white, it made me sick to be working and living and being in the habit that I always was.

"My family is Nez Perce, of the original group that stayed behind to surrender. Every generation, the boy of the family goes on a journey to find a bride, a Nez Perce bride, to keep the line strong and untainted.

I thought it was silly and backwards, and I was in love with a girl here. Rose. My dead wife."

His heavy pause echoed in the room.

"There were stories that the line had to be maintained, kept alive and strong to keep the dead in check. I didn't believe it. My family had buried those dead ones in the lava caves and I had forgotten their lesson. I did not care. . .it was a story."

He stood suddenly and grabbed a picture frame from the china cabinet behind us, then handed it to me with a small smile. A woman smiled brightly from the picture with two little girls in her arms.

"My daughters. No sons. . .I did not even want sons after those two girls. My girls."

I smiled up at him, thinking of Emma and me and Mulder.

"My girls have moved to Portland, both of them. I was sad at first, but now I am very glad. I hope they have enough concrete and steel around them to keep them from the sky's revenge. The sky killed my Rose, killed the others. . .I have not kept the spirits of the dead in check."

"What do you mean, the sky? If you're their descendant, why would they kill your wife?"

"She is not Nez Perce, not one of us. That is why. I should have married my own, to keep the spirits settled, to show them that they continue on.

But after me, it is all dead, all the Nez Perce here in this area, where the last ones were slaughtered. So now they seek their revenge for their death."

I sat back in the chair, cradling the photo of Henry's wife in my hands, handling it carefully, watching the smile lighting on her face, the beauty of the two little girls. It was such a long time ago, to me and to the other people my age. But to Henry, this was only a blink away, and he had to be hurting greatly. Enough to conjure a myth?

I didn't think so. He truly thought his wife had died because he had married her, plain and simple. I knew that Mulder would have found a common spirit in this man, perhaps he had even felt Henry's twisted logic made a certain kind of sense. But I could see the family, and I could see my own, and I wondered if I would blink and it would be thirty years later and one of us dead.

"And Mulder went to the lava caves where they're buried?" I asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. "I will take you. If he is not back, there is something very wrong happening."

=-=-=

When we stepped out of my car, the wind was cold and fierce along my skin, picking my hair up and scattering it. Henry looked determined but also fearful and I crept ahead of him towards the entrance to the caves.

My flashlight was powerful and illuminated everything, which made me feel better. Henry's was weak and needed batteries, but he kept it on anyway.

We had to crawl on our hands and knees to get inside, and with every breath and every movement forward, I felt that my gut was going to rip open and spill to the rocky floor. Every so often, Henry would put a cool hand to my ankle and we would pause, but I think he did it more for my benefit than his own.

When the passage stretched out and opened up, I saw a huge cavern, with branching tunnels on every side, like a maze without a center, the huge expanse one confusing cosmic joke.

"Come this way," Henry said and led us to a tunnel on the far side.

"This is where they were buried."

"How could Mulder have gotten there?" I asked, feeling panicked. There had to be at least twenty other passages, and he could have wandered down any one of them. I shined my flashlight against them all, looking for signs of him.

"One of the boys took him out here. I did not think I could make the journey. The boy came back hours ago. . ."

I felt an intense sense of doom descend on me and I couldn't even breathe, so great was the pressure. Mulder had been left here. . . "The boy must have gotten frightened. . .but the way back to the top is well marked."

He turned and pointed to the blue chalk lines on the tunnel we had just come from and I felt even worse than before.

I watched Henry shake his head and I wordlessly followed him down the tunnel. Henry had to stoop over to walk, but my head was about a centimeter below the roof, sometimes I could feel my hair catch on protrusions. We walked for ages, it seemed, until my chest and belly burned with the exertion. It was like a fire had been lit inside me and it licked its way up with every step.

"You need to stop," Henry said suddenly and pushed me to the wall, indicating that I should sit.

"We don't have time to stop," I replied, struggling to my feet.

"How is an old man and a hurt little woman going to help a big man, eh?

If you do not feel good enough to walk, you could not possibly drag an unconscious man out of here."

I froze, feeling sick and cold and hot all at the same time. I wanted to retch, but that would be agony, and I needed to just collapse. If I stopped now, if I began to think about how impossible this was, I would give up and die in this cave with Mulder.

"I'd find a way," I said fiercely.

He glanced around at the bare rock walls, the lack of tools or rope or anything to help me in this regard, then he smiled. "I have no doubt of that. . ."

"Let's go," I said and pushed away from the wall carefully.

Henry took my arm and we began walking again.

=-=-=

"Run, little one!"

I was frozen, watching the wall of wind rushing for us. Chunks of rock swirled in its dark interior and it snapped with electricity, charged and hungry. I couldn't move, stuck where I was with the sight of this living wind.

I felt a shove and Henry was yelling for me to run.

"I can't leave you here. . ."

"You run now! Do as I say. It wants the one who spilled the bloodlines.

It does not even know you. Go find your partner!"

I turned back to the raging wind, remembering the instant we had seen it, coming for us fast and thick and howling, and the noise that had been at the back of our hearing ever since we had walked into these lava caves. A hiss, a whirl of pain and anger that seethed in the darkness.

It had come from behind us and now it approached.

I felt another shove and Henry's help propelled me forward, enough to break the spell the wind held over my scientific, unbelieving mind. I stepped and twisted to the right, dodging the wind that already was being sucked into the maelstrom's rage.

I began to run, feeling the absolute horror of the thing behind me, but not knowing really where I should be going. How could Mulder have lived through that horrible, raging wind?

I ran headlong into a rock wall and crashed to the ground, bleeding and dizzy. My breath ached in my body and everything was very dark for a long moment. My flashlight had to still work, I thought, panicked. It had to work. . .

Sight returned after a second and I scrambled to my feet, pushing pain from my mind with a force I didn't know I had. The wall in front of me was just a turn in the passage, but it shone strangely in the beam of my flashlight, looking like there was more emptiness behind it.

I backed away warily and wondered how many of these invisible walls I would run into before I found Mulder. I peered at it carefully, hoping I could detect something that would give me a clue to how to avoid them from now on. The rock looked melted from the lava that had once rushed through here, and it sparkled strangely in the light.

I realized there was some kind of reflecting agent embedded in the rock, making my flashlight look as if it went farther than it did. But the crystal faces had to be very smooth and pointed at exactly the right angles to do that. . .

I wondered how natural this was, thought maybe it was a clever trap designed by. . .

who?

No one could do this perfectly, not with lava rock, not at all.

Computers could, maybe, in a simulation, but this was nature, and that wind back there. . .

This place was possessed. I was sure of it. I didn't care about facts anymore, I only wanted to find Mulder and get out. It was starting to remind me more and more of the haunted house we'd visited on Christmas Eve. Frighteningly unreal, with no hope in the reality of things since all was not real, all was an illusion.

I moved forward again, fighting back panic. I could still hear the sound of the wind behind me, harsh and furious.

=-=-=

I wiped sweat from my forehead and sucked in another tight, hot breath.

My hands were sticky with the blood that trickled steadily down my forehead. I had run into two more lava walls before recognizing them when they came up. I could spot them now, but I was bruised and bloody from the times before.

The air in the cave was hot and stuffy, thick with carbon and hydrogen but not with oxygen. I wondered if the wind was sucking up all the air back there, and figured it was as good a theory as any. All my lungs knew was that they were not letting me run any longer; every breath was a knife shredding the thin tissue of my bronchial passages. Sometimes it was awful to know how many ways a human could die.

I leaned wearily against the rock wall for a second to catch my breath and my balance, but moved forward soon after, keeping one hand on the wall.

My flashlight was small comfort now, because it did not illuminate the one thing I wanted to see most in the world: Mulder. Even if it was only to die at his side.

I was being morbid. I shook myself awake and stumbled forward again, the sound of the wind pushing me forward where the hope of Mulder could not pull me.

God, please. If it's just to die with him, please. . . I closed my eyes, still moving forward, avoiding rough spots with just a touch, wishing with all my might, praying with the leftover energy I had. . .

A flash made me stop short and I opened my eyes, confused. There was another light, strobing from the side of the passage and into my eyes.

It was bright and white and strong, just like my flashlight.

I turned to my left and found an entrance, leading to a huge open cavern littered with burial markers, the place of the dead. I stepped inside and found the flashlight on the floor beside a towering statue, or maybe it was a totem, or something.

It was Mulder's flashlight, though, I knew for sure. I ran forward, ignoring the limp and the stitches pulling and the scar bleeding and everything. I turned the corner, hope flaring tightly, and found emptiness.

Stunned with the disbelief of not finding him, I dropped to my knees, gathering the flashlight in one hand. I turned, bewildered, and saw the lump just behind me, across the row, shadowed by a raised kind of burial mound.

Positioned the way it was, the flashlight would have shone directly on the still figure. My hands shook, afraid to hope and be so bitterly disappointed, but I stepped forward, then crouched beside the small thing.

Mulder. Curled in on his side so that he seemed so much smaller than himself.

I touched his cheek, afraid to hurt him, but needing to feel something of him. He stirred and groaned, his eyes flickering. I felt such an amazing surge of relief that it shattered my will and had me burying my face into his neck with the tears spilling over.

"Mulder, Mulder."

A hand reached my cheek and I kissed his fingers, so relieved, so relieved, shutting my eyes to the fear and panic of the past few hours.

"Can't move, Scully."

I pulled back, wiping my face clear of tears, feeling ridiculous for falling apart, especially since we were both hurt. His hand tightened around mine and I wiped his cheek free of my tears before skimming my hands down his body, looking for broken bones or blood.

I got to his waist and he winced, making me pause. I rested the flashlight near his stomach and carefully slid my fingers around the waistband of his jeans. He went rigid when I got to his hip and I prayed it wasn't broken, but had to admit it was probably cracked. I pulled down the waistband and saw a nasty bruise, large and covering most of his hipbone.

"What happened Mulder?" I whispered, squeezing my eyes for a moment.

"The wind. . .I got down here, was looking around the tombs. . .it just blasted into me. Threw me against the wall. . .oh. . ."

He groaned and his eyes rolled back; panic snaked through me again and I patted his cheeks to wake him.

"Mulder, tell me where it hurts. . ."

His eyes blinked again, then focused on me. His fingers worked around emptiness, and he took in a deep breath, then choked on the heat and oxygen-starved air.

"My leg. . ."

I moved down to his legs, shining the flashlight along his jeans, looking for tears or blood. A nasty piece of rock was embedded in his upper thigh, like a spike through his muscle, no longer bleeding but festering with infection already. I pressed my hand to the skin around it, felt the heat of a fever and tried to push the panic down. It didn't seem wise to take it out.

"Mulder, I have to get you out of here. My phone doesn't work down here, I'm sure yours doesn't either."

I had tried the phone after running from the wind, feeling ashamed of running but realizing it was the only practical thing.

"Go, Scully."

I looked up to meet his intense eyes, frowning. "Mulder, I'm not leaving you here."

"Go back out, call for help. They can come in and get me. I don't want you in here. . ."

I shook my head, recognizing his concern but wanting him to know I wasn't leaving. Surely he knew that by now?

"If the wind comes back, both of us will be in trouble. . ."

I took his hand and shook my head. "Henry came with me. . .he distracted it."

I couldn't think of a better way to explain, and I hadn't seen the outcome either. I had a feeling that Henry was holding his own, especially since I had not heard the wind behind me in a long time.

"Scully, please, I don't want you dying down here."

Horror curled through me at the pitiful hopelessness in his words. I squeezed his hand tighter and bent down to kiss him.

"I'm not going to die. Neither are you. We'll get you out of here and then you're going to a hospital."

He reached up and dipped his fingers in the blood still coating my hairline like sweat, his face a mask of pain and regret. He sighed and brought his fingers down to touch my lips so that I tasted the blood and the sweat and his own fear.

"We're going to get out of here," I said fiercely and pulled him to a sitting position, flinching when a shot of pain rippled through me.

I paused, catching my breath in the stale air, and he leaned against me heavily. I felt his fingers reach for my stomach and I knew I couldn't hide it from him.

"Scully!"

I ignored the shock, the fear that coursed through him and pushed him to lean against the burial mound, then helped him to stand.

"Scully, you're bleeding a lot," he whispered tightly, furious with me.

"Well, so are you," I shot back and tried to forget the pain I saw in his face, the pain I felt in mine.

I had felt it soak through my shirt about thirty minutes before. I had already had that panic attack, afraid I'd bleed to death before I got to Mulder. I was with Mulder now; somehow I could make it.

"Scully, dammit. Don't do this! Get out of here."

"I'm not leaving you now. It'll bleed whether or not you're here, Mulder. And if I'm going to die, which isn't likely, I'll do it right here."

He reached out and grasped my neck with his cold hand, shaking his head.

I didn't know what to expect, but I was surprised when he leaned down and kissed me hard, his lips crashing into mine and pulling the breath from me.

He didn't say anything when he moved away, merely slung his arm around me and limped on one leg, shuffling towards the mouth of the burial cavern. I could still see the blue chalk marks in the swinging beam from my flashlight as it moved wildly with my hand.

=-=-=

We heard the roar at the same time, like a muted dragon in a cave far away from ours, but getting closer and closer. I had known, rationally, that the wind was between us and the exit to the cave, but I had tried not to think about it too much.

Mulder gripped my shoulder tightly and we moved forward again, taking the steps slowly one at a time. His leg was hot with infection and it was throbbing too, I could feel the pulse going through him with every heartbeat. I was ignoring everything from my chest to my knees, concentrating on placing my feet in the right spot and on holding on to Mulder.

I'm sure my stomach was slick with my blood, but it had curiously detached in my head. I could probably feel it if I wanted to, but I didn't try, telling myself it was a defense mechanism. I was dissociating from my pain; I should be grateful.

Occasionally Mulder would touch me, bringing his hand away stained with the blood, but I only felt that on a far away place, and he did not look at me when he checked how bad it was getting. I had a feeling he didn't want to think about it either.

When we got to a hospital, we were going to be a mess.

The roar of wind slammed into my ears again and I felt the breeze whisper across my cheek.

Mulder stopped and pushed himself into the wall, leaning against it heavily. Already, I could see the wall of wind heading towards us, thick and ferocious. Even without the wind, I was beginning to have doubts that we could make it out. He was pale and tight lipped and I was so weak, I wasn't holding him up anymore.

"Crouch down," he whispered between shocks of pain.

He held his arms out to me and I went into them easily, letting us both sink to the floor, hoping that our smaller size would let the wind pass right over us.

"Maybe it'll be okay out here," he whispered. "We're not in the burial cave any longer. . ."

But I knew he was afraid and I had to admit that I was too. I gasped for breath in the thin air, trying to breathe as it got even thinner, the wind heading straight for us.

It began to howl around us, my hair thrashing wildly, slapping into my cheeks and eyes and into Mulder's face. He pressed his hand to my head to keep it down and I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face into his chest.

It was like having a storm at my back, only this one was angry and ferocious and wanted to kill us. I could feel it pulling at me, wrenching me from Mulder, but I hung on to him, my arms tightly around him. I knew I was hurting his bruised hips, but I couldn't help it.

And then I was pulled free. I opened my eyes and caught the panic on his face.

=-=-=-=-=

Whirlwind--Part Four

=-=-=-=

There was an odd silence in the midst of the wind, like a peaceful eye of a hurricane, and I closed my eyes to enjoy it before I would be dashed to the walls, crumpled like a doll.

"Little one, open your eyes."

I was on my back in the wind, still and unmoved, feeling it whip around me and hold me in its grip. I opened my eyes and twisted to see the ground.

Henry was in the middle of the wind, smiling.

"What?"

"It has made peace. I control the wind now, Little one. You are too tired to walk any longer. You bleed slowly, but still, it is enough to be dangerous."

I glanced around in blind panic and then felt Mulder's hand closing around mine. We were in the midst of this wind, held buoyant by its pressure and I couldn't wrap my mind around the reality of it. Surely this wasn't possible, not in physics or nature?

"Relax, Scully."

I squeezed Mulder's hand tightly and we were pushed closer together as the wind began to move. We tilted a bit so that we could see ahead of us instead of the rock ceiling, but I was so rigid I couldn't feel anything but sharp pain.

And then Mulder's arms were wrapping around me, tight and secure, his hand pushing my head to his chest.

"Close your eyes and pretend it isn't happening," he whispered and I closed my eyes quickly.

Without my sight, wrapped in Mulder, I could imagine that we were outside, laying on the side of a hill with the soft breeze of summer teasing us. I felt my muscles relaxing slowly, my brain letting go of the impossibilities, and I tentatively opened my eyes.

"This is amazing," I whispered.

Mulder chuckled softly in my ear and I knew that he was still hurting by the strangled gasp of air after the laugh. "Good for you, Scully."

I knew he was proud that I'd gotten over that and his grip loosened. I realized I was probably making his broken hip worse, and the piece of rock jammed into his thigh had to be killing him.

I moved away slowly, still touching him but no longer needing to be wrapped in him. Mulder's hand stayed tightly in mine and I realized that was more for his comfort than mine. Below us, Henry was walking steadily in the front of the whirlwind, his hands calmly held out to touch a rock or a wall for balance. I didn't know how he'd managed to communicate with whatever controlled this wind, but I was immensely relieved he was okay.

I put my free hand to my stomach and carefully explored the reopened wound, trying to see how bad it was. The blood was already thick and clotting, but I had probably torn more of it than was stitched before.

It wasn't a good thing, but I wasn't going to die. It hurt like crazy too.

It was strange to feel every part of my body held up by something intangible, the wind like feather pillows that were alternately cold or warm depending upon which current of air was holding me up. I closed my eyes and could detect a pattern to the howling, a soft rhythm that relaxed me.

=-=-=

I opened my eyes to a crowd of people, all talking softly and watching me. I closed my eyes again, wanting to sleep and escape all the eyes but a hand pressed to my neck, cool and comforting, and I heard a voice in my ear.

"No you don't, Scully. Open those eyes back up. I've been waiting for you."

I smiled softly at Mulder's voice and struggled to raise my lids. When I did, he was the only one in my sight and I smiled broader, feeling loved.

"Hey there, sleepy."

"Who's here?" I asked.

He glanced around and then back to me. "Henry, Sheriff Duniway, the boy who took me to the lava caves in the first place, oh, and best of all, your mom and Emma."

I flashed awake at that and sucked in a deep breath. "Emma?"

"Yeah. When I called, your mom wanted to come up here to see you. I figured it was only right."

I smiled again and closed my eyes for a moment.

"I'll let you sleep," he whispered, but I shook my head.

"Wait. . .what happened?"

"Henry called 911 and they took us here, Warm Springs Hospital. It's on the reservation so they let me bend some of the rules."

"What about your leg?" I asked, opening my eyes again.

"Just some stitches," he said, but I knew he was grossly understating it. "My hip was just bruised, not broken. It sure felt broken to me, though."

I wanted to laugh but was wary of my stomach. It felt numb at the moment, so I gave in to another small smile.

"You're all stitched up again," he said to me and patted my hip.

"Mm, nothing too bad?"

"Nope. Some infection, but you've got an IV full of stuff."

I closed my eyes again and sighed. "Maybe I will sleep."

"Yeah, you do that. I'll be here when you wake up."

=-=-=

I was having a good dream with Mulder and some kind of pool or something wet, it was all over me, cooling my skin from the sun. Mulder was kissing me--

My eyes opened and Mulder was kissing me.

"Taking advantage of me while I'm sleeping?"

He pulled back with a grin, winking at me. "You looked like you were having too much fun."

"I feel good," I said, and realized that the painkillers had to be phenomenal.

"Yeah, I do too. The stuff they use here, wow. It must be natural. . ."

He leaned over and brushed his lips against mine, threading his fingers through my hair. I knew it was probably dirty and nasty looking, and I could feel how ripe I was, but Mulder didn't seem to care.

"Emma's waiting to see you," he said.

I pushed against the bed to sit higher up, realizing that the bed had been raised while I was asleep. Maybe Mulder knew I would want it like that.

"Where is she?"

"In the hall with your Mom. Everyone has either left or is out eating. I figured that if I could wake you up now, you'd have a bit more privacy."

I smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "Let me see Emma."

He nodded and moved for the door while I waited. Whatever was in my system worked great, because not only was my stomach completely numb, but I was also feeling rather disconnected from myself.

My mom walked in with Emma in her arms, both of them smiling at me, and I felt a kind of solid acceptance click into place, as if I had been missing something but didn't know it until now. I held out my arms and Emma leaned forward to me as my mother relinquished her. She cuddled into me and I sighed softly.

"Hey Emma, how've you been?"

She glanced up at me and bounced in my arms, causing a fissure of feeling to crack the shell of drugs surrounding me. I settled her next to me on the bed with a little regret, but Mulder just nodded and reached out to tickle Emma.

She was too bouncy, too active to sit in my lap right now.

I wrapped an arm around her and curled my hand over her leg, trying to see if she had gotten any bigger while we were gone. I couldn't really tell, but I thought she might have. It had only been two weeks, but she seemed different somehow.

"Mumma, Daddee."

I grinned, relieved that she still said Momma in that funny way. If that had changed, I might have cried. She patted my leg and wriggled around to lean against me.

"Hey, Emma. Did you have a fun time?"

She glanced up at me and scooted forward on her hands and knees, crawling over my legs quickly to sit on my other side, closer to Mulder.

She was fast.

"She can stand better now," my mom said, knowing that I was looking for changes.

"Really? Hey, Emma, you can stand up stronger?"

She clapped and smiled at me and I noticed something very obvious.

"She's got a tooth!"

Mulder peered over the bed railing to see, pushing her lips open with his finger. Emma smiled, then began to gnaw on his finger with her gums and one bottom tooth. I laughed and looked to my mom.

"It came as soon as you two left. She was crying and I let her suck on ice cubes."

I pouted at Emma and curled a finger around her hand. "Poor baby. Daddy forgot to send you with a teething ring."

Mulder poked me and I glanced up at him, smiling.

"I think Mommy forgot that one," he muttered and wiped his finger on his shirt.

I grinned, not able to help it, and offered my thumb to Emma, letting her chew on the thick pad to relieve the tenderness.

"Maybe we can get some oral gel," Mulder said, frowning.

"Or ice cubes," I said and glanced back to him in time to receive a kiss on my mouth.

My mom was watching us with smiling eyes and I shifted to ease Emma into a better position. Already ten months old and I couldn't believe it.

"Hey, Em, you're growing up too fast," I whispered and kissed the top of her head.

=-=-=

My mom and Mulder talked on the drive from Warm Springs Reservation to The Dalles while I tried to talk with Emma. She wasn't so verbal this trip, and I realized that we were both tired.

Somehow, my Mom had found a carseat for rent in The Dalles, and Emma liked falling asleep in the car. So I stopped teasing her and closed my own eyes, ready to let sleep claim me also. I had a package of tea leaves in one pocket, given to me by Henry for the pain, and some pills the hospital had supplied in my other pocket. Already, I could feel a tenseness start in my muscles and I knew I would have to take something before our flight.

I woke when I felt Mulder's hand across my cheek. My eyes opened and he grinned at me, then unstrapped my seatbelt.

"We're here, Scully."

I slid to a sitting position, my neck tied in knots, and stretched as carefully as I could, taking care not to move my stomach. I let Mulder help me from the car and saw that my mom was pulling Emma from her carseat, who was sleepy and rubbing her eyes.

"Do have any change?" I asked Mulder, glancing past him to see the Coke machine.

He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a dollar.

"Here."

"Do you want something?"

"I'll just steal a sip from you," he said and turned to take Emma from my mother.

I stepped quickly over the parking lot of the Budget Rent-a-Car building, noticing the bright orange trim and white grainy adobe walls.

Adobe was more southwestern, but I guessed no one had ever told the architect that before. Or maybe he had ignored the advice.

The Coke machine had Diet and Dr. Pepper besides the regular stuff. I was tempted to get straight Coke but I knew Mulder didn't like it, so I got Dr. Pepper. It was his dollar anyway.

They were all inside the adobe rental agency when I stepped around the side of the building, so I opened the door and winced a bit, biting back the little thread of pain that lanced from my gut to my chest.

Mulder hurried over and held the door open, grabbing the Dr. Pepper from my hands. He twisted the cap off and handed it back to me as we walked inside. It felt cool and crisp going down my throat and I put two pills on my tongue and swallowed them. Mulder watched me with interest, then took a sip himself, smiling when he tasted it.

My mom was signing the papers with Emma in her hands and I motioned for Mulder to catch her. After rescuing my mom he handed her to me and I placed her gently on my right hip, away from any damage she could do.

Emma wriggled once but remained still and I thanked her silently.

She reached for the bottle and I held it to her lips, wondering if I'd ever let her have soda before. She drank it eagerly and I pulled the bottle back, watching her. She puckered her lips and clapped her hands.

"Good, good, Mumma."

I smiled and wrinkled my nose at her. "Where have you had soda before?"

"Daddee."

My eyebrow rose and I glanced to Mulder, wondering if she were really answering me or just talking. Emma wasn't very talkative, just active, moving all the time. So this had to be more than just coincidence.

"Remind me to talk to him later."

She reached for the bottle again and I sighed and pressed it to her lips, helping her drink. She clasped her hands around it and tried to tug it from my grasp, to drink on her own. I refused and pulled it away.

"No, Em. Momma's got to help you with this one."

She pouted and turned her head into my shoulder, so I sipped it myself and felt the coolness of it slide down my throat. The air conditioning in the rental place felt good too, and I realized the medicine was taking hold, doping up my blood.

It was a funny thought but I kept the laughter from bubbling through my lips, knowing it was the drugs. Mulder and my Mom came over to where I was standing and announced that the shuttle for the airport left in ten minutes.

We all trooped over to the benches where we were supposed to wait, Mulder taking Emma from me as we walked. I was glad because she was heavy and digging into my side, plus my arms felt too shaky to hold her.

I was afraid I'd drop her.

When we sat down I curled into my Mom's side and closed my eyes, feeling strange and disconnected but recognizing the feeling from the hospital.

I fell asleep like that, my Mom stroking my hair and kissing my forehead. It felt good. I felt like a little kid, like Emma's age again.

=-=-=

When the plane took off it set something aflame inside my head and I felt like I was burning and being shot through the sky like a star, falling and rising at the same time. It was as if all my fears of flying--and falling--were sharper and clearer and more frightening than ever before. Mulder must have noticed and he wrapped his arms around me tightly; I must have cried a little bit.

Then I fell asleep and had strange dreams about my stomach splitting open and Mulder reaching his hands down inside me to pull out a baby and we were so happy, but I was bleeding everywhere and it wouldn't stop. He put the baby in my arms and held his hands over the big hole in my belly, but it just bled and bled until I couldn't hold it anymore.

I must have died because then Mulder was waking me up and I blinked and we were in the plane still. I glanced to my stomach and it was in place and everything, still where it was supposed to be. Emma was next to us in my mom's lap, chewing on a teething ring Mulder had bought her in The Dalles and I guessed it helped keep her ears popping too.

"You okay?" Mulder said, frowning at me.

I nodded. "These drugs are making me just a little nuts."

Mulder grinned and shook his head. "Come here, you can sleep some more."

He pulled me to his chest and I leaned against him gratefully, wondering if my dreams were supposed to mean something or if they were kind of like hallucinations. It made me feel better to smell him, so I put my nose against his shirt and inhaled softly.

He dropped his chin to my head and kissed me tenderly. It felt so right, so amazing and I realized we had only been married for two months and a scattering of days. It felt like forever.

"Love you, Scully."

But I was halfway asleep and all I could do was smile and let my eyes fall shut.

=-=-=

I was on a dirt road, naked and cold, but feeling trapped despite the long stretches of nothing on either side of me. I was trying to find a hospital, but it was a long walk and people kept jumping up in my way and leading me in the wrong direction.

I was trying to get to the hospital because I had a long slit down my chest, like an autopsy incision, from clavicle to pelvis, and I had to hold my skin together on either side like holding a robe closed.

Otherwise my guts and lungs and heart would spill to the ground and that wouldn't be good.

I was wondering if they would put a zipper in my skin so that they could unzip me at any time and peer in at my organs. I could even unzip it myself and teach Emma the organs and their functions when she got older.

Yes, see, nose, eyes, ears, heart, lungs.

When I woke this time, I was holding my shirt front just as I had been holding my skin together. Strange.

Emma was patting my back to get my attention and I pulled gently from Mulder, who was asleep too, and turned to see Emma.

"Mum, Mum, Mum," she said and held her hands to me.

I picked her up out of my Mom's grip, noticing that she too had fallen asleep. I hoped she didn't wake up and notice. She'd be so horrified.

Emma was a good kid and I didn't expect the few minutes she'd been awake while we were asleep had done any harm.

My Mom's hold on her was pretty tight anyway.

"Hey, Emma-jean," I whispered. "We have to be very quiet for daddy and your grandma."

She glanced over at Mulder and poked his ribs, too fast for my grabbing hand. I tucked her arms to her sides and shook my head no, then settled her further back on my lap, closer to my knees. She leaned her head back and stared at the seat in front of us upside down. I tickled her and she shrieked.

"Hush," I admonished her and couldn't help grinning anyway. She pushed at my hands and I held her tightly as she bounced, upside down looking, in my arms.

Her hands reached out and touched the back of the seat, but I pulled her up again to get the blood back down into her body. She looked at me, sort of dizzy and drunk seeming, her eyes shining with the redness in her skin.

I laughed and kissed her. "You looked silly like that," I said.

She had to be bored out of her mind, but I couldn't think of any good games to play with her that were quiet and wouldn't disturb anyone. We ended up with peek-a-boo, which had to be the most redundant, boring thing in the world, but she loved it. I draped my jacket over her head and pretended to search for her, calling her name softly.

She lifted her arms and pushed it away, giggling at me and saying 'here I am' with her smiles. And then we played the game all over again. I switched it up and hid myself under the jacket, but she didn't like that so much and peeked up under there to poke me.

When I took it off, she was pouting, and looked like she might cry, so I started the same game all over again, getting worn out with pretending.

Mulder was much better at this than me.

But the smile and her giggling kept me going.

=-=-=

"Home," I said with relish and dropped my bag in the floor.

Mulder pushed me forward and lugged his carryon and Emma inside too, dumping the baby in my arms and his luggage to the floor next to mine.

He looked a bit cranky so I moved out of his way and shut the door behind him. We had dropped my mom off at her house, and I had given her a check for the two weeks. She tried to refuse the money but I wouldn't take it back. She had helped us immensely.

I moved into the kitchen and put water on to boil, hoping to calm us both with hot tea and maybe a good movie on television. We could unpack tomorrow, even though it would probably annoy me to no end all night, those bags on the floor.

I heard him flush the toilet and smiled to myself, jiggling Emma to keep her from kicking my stomach. I headed back to the living room and looked around for some clean pajamas for her. The messiness was driving me crazy. I found a white T-shirt with the words "I'm an alien baby"

written in sparkly green across the front. I couldn't remember where Mulder had gotten it, but I thought it was cute and decided she could wear it to bed.

I let Emma play with the shirt and looked for clean diapers and baby wipes, trying to remember where I'd last put them. Oh, on the mantel. I grabbed those too and laid Emma on the floor, hoping the carpet would come out unscathed.

"Here," Mulder said and I jumped at his voice. He was holding out her sweatpants.

"Thanks," I said and unsnapped Emma's corduroy pants. They tugged off and I worked at changing her diaper while Mulder flipped through the television channels. It wasn't too bad and I managed to save the carpet, so all in all, I was pretty happy.

Emma wasn't happy though and she pouted and cried, but I wasn't in a tolerant, baby-amusing mood. I pulled her shirt and socks and shoes off and then put on her sweatpants, wondering idly if she'd be too hot, then pulled on her T-shirt.

She cried and I hushed at her, but she was cranky from the trip. I was ready to just deposit her in the crib and let her cry herself to sleep, but Mulder stepped up and took her from me. Which was probably a good thing.

I threw the used diaper in the trash and took all the dirty clothes I could find to the hamper, which was overflowing too. Mulder hummed to Emma and was trying to rock her to sleep, which made me feel worse because I'd been so grumpy with her.

Feeling foul, I cleaned up the living room, straightening her books in a pile by the fireplace, shoving her clean clothes into her drawers, then throwing all her toys into the large basket by the television. The kettle screamed at me and I yanked it off the burner, then closed my eyes and tried to calm down.

We were all tired, all cranky, all needing sleep.

Calm again, I removed two mugs from the shelf and poured hot water into both, then dunked tea bags into them. I went back to the living room, letting the tea leaves dissolve, and sat down next to Mulder on my couch. We needed a new apartment, I thought sadly.

I wondered if Mulder ever wanted to go to his own place, to just take a break and sleep for twelve hours on his couch without interruptions or baby cries or my arm thrown over him. It was a hard thought and I watched him closely, noting weariness but not much else. It was probably unfair to ask him now.

I stood again and went into the kitchen for the tea, dunking the tea bags a few times and then carrying both mugs into the living room.

Mulder took his with a thanks and sipped it carefully. Emma was hunkered down against his chest, her eyes closed and her breathing even. I traced her spine with my fingertips and leaned into Mulder, resting against him with a sigh.

He moved his head and kissed my forehead, then sipped at the tea.

Did it matter if he wanted to leave sometimes? *I* wanted to leave sometimes. No matter how he thought, he didn't quit. That's what was important.

I leaned over and kissed Emma good-night.

Title: Wrapped in the Wind III. Changing Winds
Author: RocketMan
Disclaimer:; Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. Emma is mine, thanks.

Summary: Set in July/August 2000, Mulder and Scully discover the breadth and depth of love and marriage...and how much it takes to change.

=-=-=-=

Wrapped in the Wind
Changing Winds

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of a cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute. . .

Minute by minute they live.
--Yeats, "Easter 1916"

=-=-=-=

A soft breeze was stalking our bed, catlike, in the early morning heat. I could feel the sun like a heavy hand on the sheet and our bodies, but I ignored the warmth and closed my eyes again. I wanted to sleep in today.

Mulder stretched beside me and rolled so that his head nestled beneath my neck, his soft hair brushing my lips. I curled up around him and smiled to myself, hot now but somehow still comfortable.

I was glad I left the windows open last night. Our air conditioner worked only when it wanted to and that wasn't too often. We needed to fix up a lot of things in this place, but we were still unpacking as it was and I didn't feel like getting up the energy to start. Work had been hectic ever since we started taking cases again and then moving on top of that had left me drained.

Today was definitely a sleeping in kind of day.

"How about Niagra Falls," he muttered.

I snorted, causing his head to shake against my chest. "No way."

"Just a thought," he said and moved so that his arms were wrapped around me.

Every morning we played this game. One of us would suggest a place for our honeymoon, which we hadn't taken and might never get the opportunity to take, and the other one would agree or disagree. Usually, Mulder made the suggestions and spent all day trying to sell me on the idea.

"It's nice and cool there," he added.

"Well, if they could move it into our apartment, that might be nice. But once was get there, it would be too cold. I don't like being cold."

"It's more comfortable for you to be hot?" he asked, raising his head to look at me.

"Yes."

"But if you're cold you can just pile on more blankets or snuggle up," he said and shifted so that his entire body covered mine. He was grinning lecherously and I ignored it.

"Yes but if you're hot, you can go naked," I said, knowing it would appeal to him.

Mulder huffed and laid back down, moving off me so I could catch my breath again.

"No Niagra?"

"No. Not at all. Boring."

He growled into my shoulder and placed a gentle kiss to my neck, teasing my skin with his breath and eyelashes. I squirmed and blushed, still not used to this, to Mulder's playfulness.

He must have fetl me tense because he sighed and pulled back. "Jeez, Scully."

I closed my eyes and turned my back to him, sighing myself and trying to push out the sick feeling in my chest. One little reaction I couldn't control and it went sour.

He moved and pulled me against him, his head above mine on the pillow so that his chin was resting against the top of my head. His hand dropped against my breasts and his legs curled up so that I was entirely wrapped in him. It used to make me shiver, but I could deal with this better now.

"It takes time, Mulder."

He didn't answer and I knew that I'd done something to hurt him, but I just didn't know what, or how, or how to stop it. We'd only been married a little over three months, and a lot of that time was spent moving or on cases or being with Emma. We had precious little time to ourselves and it still made me jump when he touched me.

After lying in his grip for a moment, I realized that I had turned from him and he had reached out for me. I felt ashamed for shutting off from him, but it was like an instinct, a natural reaction that I couldn't shut down, especially when I felt attacked and vulnerable.

I loosened his grip and turned in his arms, my eyes still closed, and pushed against his chest. I knew, in my heart, that Mulder wouldn't hurt me, and even if he did by accident, I wouldn't lose him. I knew that. But my mind was telling me that human beings are irrational creatures, prone to mood swings and disappointments and failures, and sooner or later, Mulder was going to betray me. Somehow, someway.

It was a bitter, sad thought and I had to squeeze my eyes close to forget it.

"Scully?"

I opened my eyes and looked up at him, his lips brushing my nose.

"I don't understand," he said, and he seemed so pathetic that I wanted to cry. "If your family had been. . .more like mine, I might understand. But I see you with your Mom, I see you even with your brother and I saw you with Melissa. No fear, no uncertainty, none of this. . ."

His thumb traced my cheekbone as I sighed, then traced my lips with a gentle sorrow that made my heart break.

"I. . .I don't know how to explain it, Mulder. But you're the only one who touches me like this," I said.

His lips quirked and he ran his hand down my body, letting it rest at my hip.

"And it better stay that way," he added.

I gave him a small smile back and could feel myself blushing. His words had never before gotten to me so much, and maybe that was because I'd felt safe in the fact that Mulder was just too focused on the X-Files, on the truth, to ever follow up.

"But you," I continued, poking his chest. "You've always been so casual about invading my space. From the very first. You walk too close, you lean down so that we're nearly eye to eye, you touch me. You're very possessive. . ."

He tilted his head on the pillow, then slid down in the bed so that I could see his face better. He was interested, I could tell, and he was paying attention very carefully.

"I'm not like that. I just got used to it, I guess. I like it now. . .I just have to get used to this too. To letting myself show. . .how much. . ."

I stopped, not even sure I knew what I was saying anymore, nor how to explain whatever I did mean. I wanted him to understand, but understand what?

"For you, this is natural. . .just taking one step closer. For me, this is letting everything go and not only just standing still when you step closer, but meeting you halfway. I've never had to do that before."

I smiled crookedly at him, praying he would understand. He had to understand.

"I see," he said, but I couldn't tell if he really did or not. "I'll just keep stepping forward until one day, we don't have to step forward at all."

I quirked my lips at him and ran a finger down his cheek, still amazed that I could touch him like this and not risk everything, not be jeopardizing our career, our partnership.

"I've spent years keeping myself from reaching out, Mulder. And partly because, at the very beginning, you pushed me away. I don't mean that this is your fault, but just that it's not like I don't want to touch you, to feel you. . ."

"Old habits die hard?"

I nodded in relief and sighed. "Yes, that's it exactly."

"I think I understand, now," he said and I could feel the warmth of his arms through my T-shirt. Relief was spilling through me like water.

"How about Hawaii then? It's nice and warm."

I laughed and pushed on him, looking up into his eyes with teasing admonishment.

"I can never be serious around you," I said, even though that was magnificently not true. And we both knew it. While there were times we could crack jokes, we were hardly ever *not* serious.

=-=-=

"If you don't shut up, Mulder, I'mm going to make you take me to Hawaii."

His eyebrows danced at me and I wrinkled my nose at him, pulling Emma out of her high chair. She tried wriggling away as I washed her face, but I balanced her against my right arm and swiped her clean. The pouty look in her eyes only made me want to laugh, and she looked indignant when I did.

Mulder rinsed off the high chair tray, then wiped it down and placed it back in its grooves. I was surprised, but I guessed we were both learning to do new things. Only for Mulder, it was learning to clean up after himself and others. It was refreshing.

I pulled the bib off Emma and threw it on top of the dirty clothes pile, wrinkling my nose at her again. She liked that and tried to imitate me, but ended up with her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut. She looked adorable.

I tried to remember if she'd gotten a bath last night and thought maybe not. We had picked her up from my mother's last night after coming in from a case, and Mom usually gave her a bath in the morning after breakfast.

Well, we had all slept in a bit, so she'd get her bath after lunch today.

As I pulled her pajamas off I realized that I did not have to keep taking a bath with her, and probably hadn't needed to for awhile. She could sit up on her own and if I reached, I could wash her hair just fine. It made me just a bit sad and I filled the bathtub while Emma banged a rubber duck against the tiles.

Mulder came in and picked Emma up while I sat on the toilet, letting the water run over my fingers. It was warm but not hot, and I had grown used to the lukewarm water that was only a few inches high. I had gotten used to the smell of baby shampoo on my skin and even sometimes Mulder wandering in.

"Aren't you getting in?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No."

He looked shocked and glanced around the room, as if looking for whatever had made me suddenly decide to stop.

"Why?"

"Because she'll be a year old in a few days, and it's time."

"Oh."

He sat down in the floor with Emma in his lap, letting her crawl out to inspect the edge of the rug that lay in front of the sink. She played with the fringe and made the rubber duck peck at it with his bright orange beak. She had a bruise on her elbow and a scratch down her leg.

I shut off the water and sat watching her for a few moments, just thinking about how much she'd grown and just how different everything was.

Sometimes I wished to be alone, just for some quiet and calm, but usually, I found this family strange and appealing, with love and giving and joy.

Emma knocked her head against the cabinets under the sink but didn't seem to care. Mulder shrugged at me and smiled. I looked back and saw her pull up against the cabinets, holding on to the handles for support, her face in a tight mask of concentration.

At that moment, she didn't look like either of us. It was strange, because usually I forgot she was adopted and forgot she wasn't really ours. I could always find something in her that looked like Mulder, or even like me. But she didn't right then.

"Are we going to tell her she's adopted?" I asked suddenly.

Mulder glanced to me, then back to Emma, then to me again. He looked cautious.

"Uh. . .why?"

"I don't know. I just don't think about it, ever. But she deserves to know the truth and I don't want her to feel different and alienated when she's sixteen. . ."

Mulder smiled but I could tell he understood. "Yeah. To me, it's not important that we adopted her. She belongs to us. But she might feel awful if we just didn't tell her."

I sighed and drew my knees up to my chest, resting my chin there.

"We should tell her from the very beginning. Like. . .like my mom used to talk about us."

Mulder looked back at me, questioning.

"At bedtime, we always heard stories about our family. One was about my aunt, and how she caught her hair on fire--"

"Her hair?" Mulder looked at me incredulously.

"Yeah. Long story. That was a favorite. But, my mom also told us stories about the day we were born. Each one of us. I know Bill's story and Melissa's and mine and Charlie's. If we did that for Emma, it would be like a story. . ."

"You mean, instead of fairy tales, we tell her true stories?"

I smiled. "Well, since you love fairy tales, Mulder. . ."

He grabbed my ankles and tugged my feet back down, pulling me down into his arms. I tumbled from the toilet and landed in his lap, laughing.

"I think it's a great idea. It makes it special."

I smiled brightly, watching Emma shift from foot to foot, almost like she didn't know where to go next. She was still standing, her fingers curled around the handles of the cabinets like lifelines.

"Emma."

She looked over at me, then grinned.

"Good job, Emma."

Her hands released the doors and pressed flat against the wood. I pulled out of Mulder's arms, afraid she would stumble and fall against the cabinets, but she rocked backwards and sat down hard.

I looked at her and she looked at me and for a second I couldn't tell if she was going to cry or not.

And then she smiled, slowly and mischeviously, her eyes dancing. She looked like Mulder.

I laughed and pulled her up.

"Bath, Emma-jean."

Mulder stayed and played with her in the tub, making up stories between good and evil and making Emma's rubber duck the hero of it all. Emma couldn't have possibly understood, but Mulder and I were having fun.

=-=-=

=-=-=

=-=-=

"Should we wrap them?"

Mulder glanced over to me with confusion on his face as he held up the soft Elmo doll. He was trying very hard to participate in the whole birthday thing, but he wasn't sure how to go about a birthday for a one year old.

Frankly, I wasn't sure either.

"Sure," I said and shrugged. "Maybe she'll have fun ripping the paper off."

"If she's anything like you. . ." he muttered and I swatted his arm.

He huffed at me. "Jeez, Scully. You get violent when a guy really gets to know you."

"Exactly. Just watch it, mister."

But his eyes were laughing and mine were too and he grabbed my elbows and danced me closer to him, so that I stumbled into him and had to cling to his arms for balance.

I laughed as he made faces at me, and his eyes lit in triumph, his grin like a banner of his joy, and I had a hard time playing at being mad at him. Instead, I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed his chin, as high as I could get in bare feet.

He smiled and ducked down to let me kiss him right, and his lips were soft and waiting and expectant. For once he didn't take control and I could just explore the sensation of kissing Mulder and wanting to kiss Mulder.

When we parted, his eyes were just as soft as his mouth had been, and he looked like he wanted to cry or shout or maybe both.

"Thank you," he said and I felt ridiculously happy for making him that grateful and also shockingly guilty for making him grateful about something he had a right to anyway.

His fingers curled at my back and I leaned against his chest for a moment, listening to his heart beat and his blood rushing through his veins.

"I have to admit, Scully. . .I never imagined it could be this good."

That quieted me even more and I slipped my eyes shut to keep from thinking too much.

"Why not?"

"Because I know me. I just didn't realize the extent to which I could fall in love with you. . .or the extent to which you could fall in love with me."

I smiled at that, but still felt that stain of sorrow in me. That he could have dreamed at times, alone at night, and it never got this good. And this wasn't even that great right now, and I knew it could get better.

"You'd be surprised how lovable you can be Mulder."

I switched to humor because I didn't know how else to comfort, and it seemed I picked right, because he sort of laughed and pushed away from me, grabbing the Elmo aagain.

"Back to wrapping."

"Sure. Can you wrap, Mulder?"

He looked mock-offended and shook his head at me.

"Of all the nerve. I can wrap better than you can."

And with that, we had a little wrapping war while Emma napped.

=-=-=

We were sitting in the floor of my mother's living room, Mulder leaning against the couch and me leaning against Mulder. His arms were loosely around my waist and he had one leg curled in around my butt. It felt good to have him nearly wrapped around me, and my brother had only shot us two dirty looks.

Emma was in the middle of all the attention, smiling and looking gorgeous in her dark green corduroy jumper and pink T-shirt. My mother was trying to play with her before we brought out cake and presents, and Charles was trying to keep his youngest from eating the plant beside the couch.

The warmth of babies and love and parents was thick in my mother's house, with Bill and Tara and Matthew, then Charles and his wife, Carrie, and their three kids, one who was younger than Emma. Mulder and I were content to watch it all, content to hold and be held.

Emma glanced toward us and gave us one of those hesitant smiles, as if she wasn't sure what was going on but she thought she was enjoying it. She loved all the people, loved being the center of attention; her dark eyes sparkled at my mother and the kids gathered around her. Kids can smell presents coming from a mile away, I'm convinced.

My mom glanced over at me and I reluctantly got up and followed her into the kitchen, missing Mulder's arms for a moment.

"I'll get the cake, Dana, and you grab all the gifts."

I was impressed by the pile and even more impressed that my brothers had wanted to give Emma anything. She was only turning one, and she. . .well, I didn't expect them to want to be involved. Bill hated Mulder with a passion but Charlie couldn't have cared less about it.

Charlie was kind of out of it a lot. He lived in a thousand different places in a year and he never got news until it was almost obsolete. I felt bad for his kids, because I knew what moving around was like, but his whole family seemed to thrive on moving. It was nuts.

I grabbed the gifts, thankful that Mulder and I brought big plastic bags to haul everything inside. When we got to the living room, Emma was already wide-eyed and watching the cake. She saw me and her eyes lit up even more, her hands clapped and she scooted forward.

My Mom had lit the candles on the cake, which I don't think I would have done, but Emma just stared at the fire and didn't even move. Mulder was trying to get her to blow on them, but she looked incredibly confused and Charlie was laughing while Carrie poked him into silence.

I couldn't help smiling, but I didn't laugh, sure that might upset Emma.

She looked caught somewhere between crying and laughing and so I just watched, impressed with Mulder and his handling of her.

Finally, she stretched her neck and closed her eyes really tightly, like she was afraid to even move. I could see her breathe on the candles and Mulder quickly blew them out, applauding her.

Emma's eyes opened and she glanced in surprise to the extinguished candles, then up at me.

"Good job, Emma," I said and sat down next to her, clearing room from the kids hanging around. The presents were at her side and she slid a look towards them, then back at me.

My mom was laughing and asking who wanted birthday cake, so I waited to give Emma her gifts until she got back. It took about ten minutes to get everyone eating and then Mulder decided he'd have a piece, which he tried to share with me but I just don't like cake that much.

Instead, he fed a piece to Emma, who reached out for the rest of the cake and grabbed at it, getting frosting all squished between her fingers. I was already laughing when she reached for Mulder again, who was lying on the floor next to her, and smeared it in his hair and across his lips, then in her own hair, glancing at me as I nearly choked on tears.

Mulder glared at me for a moment, but he looked amused more, I guess, and then he reached out and grabbed me.

In that instant, my panic and laughter all mixed in one and I stared at him, everything in slow motion until he had his lips inches from mine.

Then it was a rush. His lips, the frosting pushing past my teeth and into my mouth, feeling the cake on my cheeks, Emma's hands reaching up to pat my forehead.

I pushed away and felt frosting all in my mouth and along my cheeks and near my hairline. Emma was grinning like I was her work of art and Mulder had a self-satisfied smirk on.

I glanced to my mom, at a loss for words, and she was laughing and everyone else was laughing.

Mulder stood up, grabbing Emma, and reached for my hand.

"I suppose we should clean up before she gets the carpet messy."

He pulled me up and we headed for the bathroom, leaving the living room filled with laughter and my mom trying to pass out ice cream to go with the cake. I sighed in relief, glad Emma had missed out on the ice cream.

As I used a washcloth to wipe at Emma's hands and face and hair, Mulder used his fingers to swipe frosting from my cheeks and lips. Emma constantly bucked and moved, twisting on the counter, nearly falling into the sink. I grew frustrated and snapped at Mulder to stop touching me, and it got very quiet in the little bathroom.

I sighed and scrubbed Emma's face, feeling Mulder beside me, dark and ominous and silent. I knew if I turned to look at him he would seem stoic, his face a mask of bland unimportance, but his eyes would be churning. I didn't want to apologize but I knew I had to.

"I'm sorry," I sighed and glanced only once back to him. I didn't like the look he was giving me and I hated seeing him so far away, as if I'd slapped him and he was blinking away tears.

Emma was cleaned up pretty quickly and I turned to Mulder, setting our daughter on the floor. I glanced around for trash or anything else on her level, but the floor was clean and I didn't even see a garbage can.

I focused on Mulder again and ran my thumb across his cheek, biting my lip because I had hurt him by snapping and wishing it didn't have to constantly be this reaffirmation of feelings that were definite to me but shaky for him.

He took my hands in his and shook his head. "I understand, Scully."

He leaned forward until my forehead was pressed against his chin, his lips kissing the top of my head and his hands pushing mine to rest against his chest.

"Do you, Mulder?"

He leaned back and his lips quirked at the sight of me trying to be serious with frosting all over my face. I smiled back at him and he took the washcloth from my fingers and ran it gently across my lips. I let him clean me up and then did the same for him, sure that he couldn't possibly understand.

Then he reached down and picked up Emma, who had resorted to chewing on her fingers for the last taste of frosting and sitting on my feet, which made it rather difficult to move. Mulder shifted her in his arms and tugged her jumper down, smoothing it and flicking off crumbs of cake.

"I do understand, Scully," he said and wouldn't look at me. "I understand that sometimes we're going to be short with each other. And I understand that doesn't mean we don't love each other anymore. I really do. But I can't stop myself from feeling this way when it happens."

I sighed and leaned my cheek against Emma's leg, running my hands around Mulder's waist. He held me tightly for a moment, as if he could crush me into his side and keep me there permanently. If I had anything to say about it, I'd stay right there, forever by his side.

"Let's get back to Emma's birthday party," I said and kissed his chest. It was funny how I couldn't even reach his chin without standing on my tiptoes a little bit.

We opened the door and walked back into the living room, a family.

Title: Wrapped in the Wind IV. Most Secret
Author: RocketMan
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Emma belongs to me, thanks.

Summary: "It wasn't like I didn't love him. He's Mulder, my partner. But the degree of that love, the extent, the capacity to forgive in this love was not so great as it ought to be." -- Wrapped in the Wind =-=-=-=

Wrapped in the Wind

Most Secret

=-=-=-=

I, too, await

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?
--WB Yeats, :The Secret Rose: =-=-=-=

Shooting stars were my favorite things about our nights. It would be so dark and so deep in the sky, with the blackness let up by just the small pinpricks of stars, the moon covered by the greyish clouds. We liked to lay on the patio out back of our first floor apartment and watch the stillness.

Shooting stars. Sometimes we saw four or five in an hour. Sometimes none at all. Emma liked to giggle at the flicker of the candle we lit to keep the flies and mosquitoes away. She liked to crane her head back, imitating us, and clap her hands at the sky, the pillows we dragged out here framing her face. I think a baby's laughter is the best kind of worship. God must adore the children.

That night, Emma was nearly asleep in the cradle made between our bodies, her lips pursed into a bow of dreams against my shoulder. Mulder was tracing the pattern of a satellite or UFO with his eyes and rubbing the top of my ear with his finger. It felt smooth and relaxing and I wanted to fall asleep, but something kept my eyes open.

"Hey, hey!" Mulder said suddenly, and I turned my head to see where he pointed.

A shooting star was bursting across the sky, bright and fast and fiery. I watched in amazement and sighed, smiling.

"Beautiful," Mulder whispered and I turned my head.

He was watching me intently, and I blushed, unused to his scrutiny.

"Emma's asleep," I said back, looking to the baby between us.

Mulder sighed and turned to the sky and I knew there was something I had missed, something he had wanted from me. Chewing my lip, I looked back at the stars, trying to understand just what had happened. I had pulled back from him, yes, but I was somewhat tired of Mulder trying to convince me that he loved me. I knew it, couldn't he be content in that knowledge?

It was late September and still warm; Emma's first birthday had come and gone; my family had adored her and Mulder both; things were settling down.

We had a case starting in a week, with some nutty sightings and abductions in Earl, North Carolina, but we weren't gone that much. It was just starting to be right with us, starting to work out.

Something seemed missing, or off, or unfigured out. I didn't understand it, but Mulder was different and I was different and we had Emma and the X-Files to work with. Maybe that was why he had sighed at me--searching for that lost something. For that shooting star to illuminate our night.

I reached over Emma and caressed my fingers down his arm, waiting for him to turn and look at me. When he did, his eyes were darker than the sky and I felt a shiver chill me. I didn't know what to say or how to say what I needed him to hear, so I just watched him and touched his arm and hoped he could read my eyes.

After a long moment of us just looking at each other, Mulder took my hand and squeezed it. We turned back to the sky and continued the gazing in silence, ignoring the chasm that had been built up between us--a dark sky of baby and work and silences.

=-=-=-=

"Brr," he shivered, clutching my waist. "Your toes are freezing."

I dragged my feet along his calves in response, feeling goose bumps rise on his skin. I smiled in the darkness and felt his arms come around me, large and dwarfing. He choked me on a hug and chuckled at his revenge. I twisted until my feet were away from him and his arms weren't suffocating me anymore.

"It looked like tonight was the last night for our stars," I said, changing the subject.

Mulder pulled me back into his arms and tucked my head and body so tightly against him that I knew I'd wake up hot and sweating in the middle of the night, no matter how nice it was now. Maybe though, I was too rational all the time. Maybe I should just be willing to enjoy the now and forget the future.

"Yeah. It was rather cold out there tonight even."

"I should have gotten Emma a blanket. She gets those ear infections so easily."

"I think she'll be okay, Scully."

He sounded so put out by me that I hunkered further into his embrace and pushed back against him, seeking that warmth he offered with his body but not his words. I didn't say anything to his remark, just wanting to sleep, to rest for once, but Mulder sighed into my hair and I knew it wasn't finished.

"I'm really frustrated with us, Scully," he said.

Mulder. . .can't you just shut up sometimes? Communication is great and all, but there are some things I just don't want to know.

"Scully?"

"What are you frustrated about, Mulder?" I asked, trying to keep the sigh from my voice.

"Sometimes I want to. . .there are just moments where I think you're trying to run away from me."

"Run away?"

I turned in his arms to look at him, remembering Emma's birthday and our kind-of fight. The way he had very nearly promised me he understood.

Perhaps he hadn't at all.

"Like tonight. When I said you were beautiful, you changed the subject."

Even now, Mulder saying I was beautiful brought something strange out in me. Beautiful was a word reserved for art, for peotry and emotion and awe, and I wasn't deserving of that, least of all from Mulder.

"Mulder, I'm not--"

"Oh yes you are, Scully. Yes you are. Do you realize what you're doing when you say I'm wrong? You invalidate my emotions, my own judgments and ideas on things. I say you're beautiful and I mean it, and I say that I love you, and don't you think that I mean that too?"

"I. . .I know you mean it," I said, biting on my lower lip. "It's just. . .not what I'm used to hearing from you, Mulder."

"Get used to it," he growled and turned over.

I felt cooler, not as trapped and not as suffocated, but I also felt abandoned. My own fault, my own odd detachment again. But I was being honest, and that seemed to get me in trouble. And why should it? Mulder was the one who wanted to quietly go on not saying all those things we knew we meant.

I socked his shoulder and pushed him onto his back, feeling angry.

"Don't you dare just roll over, Mulder. You started this stupid conversation, you finish it."

He glared at me. "I just did."

"Get used to it? That's your wonderful advice, Mulder? No wonder I'm running away from you."

I mumbled this last part, but I meant it and didn't know I was saying it until it came out. I jumped out of the bed and grabbed my robe, but felt too hot with anger to put it on. Mulder's grey T-shirt hung to the tops of my thighs and I went to the drawer to fish out socks.

"Where are you going now?" Mulder said, in that tired, 'I'm through with dealing with you' voice.

"Why do you care?" I shot back, arching my eyebrow at him as I yanked on thick white socks. They might have been Mulder's--at that point I didn't care. His insufferable attitude was getting on my nerves, and this honesty policy was ruining things.

I felt a tight hand on my upper arm and turned to see Mulder glaring at me.

"Maybe I care because I love you? But, oh, excuse me, you don't believe me. You've never beleived me."

Did he have to be so melodramatic?

"With stunts like this, how can I ever believe you?" I said, jerking away from him and reaching for my jeans, disregarding the underwear. I wasn't sure where I was going, but it would be away from here. I'd take Emma with me.

It was at that point I heard crying in the other room. Not loud, but she was probably awakened by our shouting. Because we'd been shouting for the last few minutes. Emma sounded afraid and I felt ashamed for breaking that one rule of Mulder's: no fighting where Emma could hear it. Mulder knew about the damage of parents' fights.

I slipped away from our room gratefully and felt, rather than saw, Mulder coming behind me, his anger and heat like a storm at my back. When I opened Emma's door, she hushed, standing upright in the crib with shiny tears tracked by moonlight. She held her arms out for me, pouting and shifting on her feet.

I grabbed her up, pulling her into my arms and snuggling her close.

"Hey Emma. Sorry, girl."

I kissed the top of her head and closed my eyes, smelling her and rocking her in my arms. She wiggled around to see Mulder behind me, then settled down, still sleepy and now content. I walked to the rocking chair and sat down, holding Emma to my chest like a newborn.

Mulder sat down on the floor in front of me so that I had to see him, had to meet his eyes. We looked at each other over Emma's long back and I sighed.

"Let's just forget it, Mudler."

I was tried of having to figure things out, tired of assuring both him and myself, tired of trying. But just looking in his eyes I knew he didn't want to drop this, that it was important to him. Emma was moving against me with the feel of my tension, so I purposefully closed my eyes and leaned my head back, trying to relax.

After a few moments, I heard Mulder leave and the muscles in my body relaxed completely. Emma was beginning to fall asleep again and I was quickly following her, her warmth healing me. I stroked her back with my hand, humming to her with some kind of melody but not much else. Mulder usually sang to her, not me.

When I opened my eyes to stand, Mulder was in the doorway, watching me with Emma. I sighed and lowered Emma back into her crib, pulling her baby blanket to her shoulders and smoothing down her pajamas. She shifted and sighed, but was asleep peaceefully.

Mulder's hands lighed on my shoulder and I leaned back against him, letting him know it was over and I was not angry anymore. He bent his head to rest his chin on my shoulder and we watched Emma sleeping, breathing in tandem.

"Scully. . ."

Okay, maybe it wasn't over.

"Why do you run from me?"

"Mulder--"

"If I could just have some sort of understanding, it would be easier to deal with Scully. Just something. . ."

"Mulder. I don't run from you. I deal with things differently. I like to stop and think about things."

He was shiting back, away from me again, and I frowned.

"So when I say, you're beautiful, you have to stop and think?"

"I have to remember."

"What? Remember what?"

I shrugged and licked my lips nervously. "That you really mean it. And that makes me nervous."

"Why? Why does it make you nervous?"

His voice held a desperate edge and I tugged him away from Emma's crib, back through the hallway to the living room, remembering my own promise: no fights in the bedroom. Althought we'd already broken that one once or twice before.

"Like you said, Mulder. I have to get used to it."

He didn't like that answer and I had to admit, it was a lame excuse for the mixed up feelings inside me. I didn't know how to begin telling him the range of things that went through me when he said things like that, at least, not without hurting him somewhat.

Mulder sat down heavily in the couch and I placed myself gingerly next to him, poised on the edge of the cushions as if waiting to run back into our room. He reached out and took my hand, smoothing his figners down my skin.

I relaxed and leaned back, touching his shoulder with mine.

"I don't think that's it, Scully."

I frowned.

"I think you're afraid of this, and that's okay. But if you don't tell me why, why you're afraid, this isn't going to work."

"What do you mean?" I whispered, turning to face him. My fear was a very tangible, vibrant thing.

"My parents' marriage failed because they never talked. My mom withdrew into herself and my father spoke with alcohol. We're not going to let that happen. So you're going to have to talk to me tonight."

"Tonight."

He nodded, trying to be semi-humorous to keep me from being totally on edge. I knew how that worked, and yet it still made me more comfortable.

"So maybe I am afraid," I admited and looked down at our joined hands.

"Of me?"

"Somewhat. And me. And all of this."

He noded. "I'll tell you a secret Scully."

I turned to see his face again.

"I'm a little afraid too."

I smiled softly at him, at the genuine mix of love and amusement in his eyes. It was refreshing to see and rejuvenating to feel.

I curled my feet under me and leaned against Mulder's shoulder, knowing that this was the extent to which I knew my feelings really, and that there was nothing more I could tell him. Even if I wanted to.

"I'm afraid that I'll wake up one morning and you'll be gone. You'll finally come to your senses and leave me, Scully. That's what I'm afraid of."

I startled at his words, confused and hurt and just a bit more frightened possibly by them. He was very serious now, and his eyes were dark with the questions. The thing was, I knew this was in Mulder, already knew that he had these inferiority problems and unrealistic fears. And I tried as much as I could to banish them--I guess my efforts hadn't been good enough.

"I know what I'm doing, Mulder. And I have all my senses, thank you very much." I leaned forward and kissed him gently. "And I still love you."

My lips were brushing against his cheek as I said this, letting Mulder reach down and cradle the back of my head in his palm. His thumb brushed the expanse of my cheek, his eyes gentled by awe and his lips reaching mine for a holy kiss.

And in that thoroughly demanding kiss, I knew what I was afraid of.

He pulled away and I sucked in a breath.

"Fair's fair," I whispered and closed my eyes for a moment. "I'm afraid I can never be all that you need me to be."

I kept my lids squeezed tightly shut, despite Mulder's soft sigh and the touch of his fingertips along my lashes. Sliding forward, I pushed my forehead into his chest, wanting the darkness of it for a moment longer. I felt a kiss on the top of my head, a brush of a hot palm to my back, the grip of his fingers through my hair.

"What can I say to that, Scully? How can I reassure you that just being you. . .that's all I could need."

"You tell me I'm beautiful, but I know I'm not, and I know that I'm not your type really, and I know that beauty fades. And you tell me that what we have is different and I know that it's just love, and love fails, and--"

He pressed his finger to my lips, but I shook him away, feeling it feeding now, the fear and worry and insecurity, even though I didn't want to feel it.

"You tell me these things and I know they're not true, that they'll fade, and I can't. . .I can't be those things you want to see in me. I'm not beautiful and I'm not perfect, and I'm not going to be able to express everything all the time, and I'm not very good at all of this--"

Mulder clamped his hand over my mouth and I stared up at him, nearly crying but refusing to give in to that. His grip relaxed and he leaned down and kissed me lightly, gently, his lips like invitations. Like light pink Valentines.

"Whatever you think, Scully, I love you. The you that tells me you're fine when I know you're not. The you that frowns more than smiles, that can't accept that I might be madly and completely in love with you, with all of this, no matter if you're good at it or not. And beleive me, you're good at it."

His eyebrows jumped and made me blush, ducking my head. But I leaned against him, pressing my lips to his throat and sighing almost. He wrapped his arms tight around me and I felt completely secure for the first time in years, in long long years.

Mulder laid down and I went with him, settling down into his arms and against the back of the couch. The smell of relief was like a tropical forest around us, thick and moist and hinting faintly of sex and primal things. I kissed his cheek and traced patterns aimlessly on his chest with one finger.

"Scully?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not afraid anymore."

I smiled and sighed. "Me neither."

I opened my eyes and could just see out the living room window, out to the stars still bright in the darkness of the cooling September night. They were far away and glittering, like a million diamonds celebrating the anniversaries of the ancient universe, the love between people and nature.

A shooting star chose to fall through the sky and I gasped, feeling Mulder's arms tighten around me.

"Did you see--" I started and he was already nodding against my hair.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

I turned and he was watching me again. And I smiled because I knew I'd always be beautiful to Mulder.

=-=-=-=

Title: Wrapped in the Wind V. Crying Stones
Author: RocketMan
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Poetry belongs to the late Ted Hughes, and Emma's mine, thanks.

Summary:: Early December 2000 in the Wrapped in the Wind universe. The mystery of Emma's conception is revealed.

=-=-=-=

Wrapped in the Wind
Crying Stones

=-=-=-=

Wind

...The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note

That any second would shatter it. Now deep

In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip

Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,

And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on, Seeing the windows tremble to come in,

Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

--Ted Hughes, :Wind:

=-=-=-=

It was a long day without Mulder and without much energy. Emma was sick with another ear infection and he had wanted to stay home with her, coddle her. I was secretly relieved to be away from the crying, the screaming, but I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and the day was too forever long. All I could think about was Emma rubbing her poor ears and that trembling look of pain and frustration on her face. Her lips would crinkle and her eyes would tear and Mulder and I would hold our breaths for that scream.

When I walked into the door that late afternoon, reports all filed and cases noted and help rendered to VCS or pathology, depending, I was met with silence.

I sighed in the luxury of it and shut the door softly behind me. The house was positively brimming with the quiet, overflowing full with the absolute peace. I closed my eyes as I dropped my briefcase to the floor and toed off my heeled shoes.

"Scully?"

I opened my eyes and moved for the living room of our new apartment, curling my toes on the hard wood floor. It was dark inside and the window shades were drawn tightly against the setting sun. I could see Mulder on the couch, Emma asleep on his shoulder and her body scrunched tightly to fit on his chest. She looked like she'd been squirming for attention, relief, some kind of pause from the ear ache. She looked miserable even in sleep.

I leaned over the back of the couch, that old green leather with its ratty armrests and smoothed cushions from nights of sitting, sleeping, even making love. His forehead was wrinkled and tense when I kissed it and he reached up to snag my collar, tugging.

"Scully. . .Emma's got a fever."

I reached around him and felt our daughter's forehead, using the back of my hand because my fingertips were cold. Emma's skin felt soft and malleable, but the heat underneath was high and burning. I let my fingers brush her back and came to sit down next to them.

"Did you take her temperature?" I asked him, frowning.

"Not yet. I just got her to sleep when I realized it. She didn't have a fever when you left this morning and I just didn't notice it until a few minutes ago."

"Well, I'll get a thermometer and we'll check it out. It's probably just the ear infection."

Mulder nodded and let his hand rest heavy on her back, like a protective gesture that held a futility I didn't want to explore.

=-=-=-=

"What is it now?" I whispered as he crawled into bed.

"Still hovering right under 100."

I sighed and felt Mulder move Emma between us in the darkness. The moon was clouded over and the stars were murky and lightless; the entire night seemed like an omen and I kept expecting to hear the hoot of an unfriendly owl. I was chilled with the feel of cool air drifting from the not so tightly sealed window at the foot of our bed.

Emma moved against me, seeking my warmth and love with her baby hands and her soft murmurs. She liked to sigh words into my cheek, almost as if she were repeating things said to her hours ago, trying to get them right.

"She didn't want to take a bath," Mulder said softly and I was startled at how close he was to me. I could feel his breath drift across my hair and skirt my forehead, and his hands moved to cradle Emma over my own.

"Yeah. She's afraid of the water now. . ."

"She used to love baths," Mulder replied, and I could almost see the frown on his face.

"It's normal. Just a phase. What did the doctor say when you called earlier?"

He was indulging me again, because I had asked him four or five times now, and always it was the same. Give her water in a bottle every few hours, as much as she would take, check on her fever, wait and see.

"If it breaks 100, we take her to the hospital. He's on-call tonight."

I nodded and felt Mulder stroke my fingers with his own, soft and smooth and gentle. I felt tired despite the sick baby girl between us and I wanted to fall asleep. Emma was dropping off beside me and her hot cheek felt unnaturally good against my cool arm and chilled fingers. Her T-shirt was soft with washing and her legs were pulled up into her body, making her bottom stick into the air.

"Did she walk anymore today?" I asked softly, trying to stay awake.

Mulder sighed. "No. I just held her all day long. It broke my heart.

She'd just look up at me and whimper and I couldn't do anything about it. She didn't even try to cry all that much."

I was surprised at how quiet she'd been all night, at how easily she dropped off, despite the pain in her ears. Maybe it was the antibiotics finally kicking in, clearing up the infection. But with her fever, I knew that wasn't the case and it frightened me.

It was amazing how quickly things got depressing when a baby was sick, when your own baby was sick. Her pitiful noises at night made me run to hold her and the screams when she just couldn't stand it anymore were so soul-splitting. Mulder acted like it was killing him, and I understood. Emma's ear infections had never been this bad before.

"Look how tired she is," Mulder said and stroked her cheek with a finger, his arm rubbing mine with the movement. It was drowsy and intoxicating and I laid there quietly, feeling him close and Emma so warm and knowing how good I had it. Just how wonderfully good.

I woke again when Emma cried and clutched her immediately closer, half asleep and half dreaming, Mulder at my elbow. He was pulling her from my arms and hushing her with his lips to her cheek, his words caressing her ear.

"Go back to sleep, Scully."

I shook my head and sat up with him, watching him rock Emma back and forth, looking so much bigger than my memories. She grew so fast, spurts and shots like she was racing to be a grown-up, and every time we came home, I expected her to be that small helpless baby we were told belonged to us.

Mulder leaned against the headboard and I leaned against him, letting his arm break free from Emma and wrap around me. I kissed Emma's head as she squirmed restlessly in Mulder's arms, but her movements were half-hearted and weak.

"She's sick, Mulder."

"I know."

"No. I mean, this has got to be more than an ear ache."

Mulder glanced up to me sharply and his arm tightened around me, almost a protective, unconscious gesture. I reached over and felt Emma's cheek, then her forehead, my alarm growing.

"Mulder, check her temperature again."

He knew by my cool voice that she was hotter than before, so he reached wordlessly for the thermometer. It was one of those ear detectors that worked better than the regular, glass ones. It had a digital read out and a neat grip and I had gotten it that very first night Emma had been sick with the ear ache.

Mulder passed Emma to me and I held her against my chest, soothing her with my hands. The cold pointed end went into her ear and she squirmed, crying out and blinking awake.

"No-no," she said pitifully.

"Yes, Emma-girl. It'll be over in a minute."

She whimpered and I could see the tears forming in her eyes, but instead of bucking and bouncing in my arms like usual, she simply laid there, too tired, too fevered to move. And that scared me the most.

Mulder and I watched the little black screen for agonizing seconds, waiting for the red numbers to blink into existence.

102.

We startled, jerking back, away, apart. The numbers were like brands of a death sentence, loud in their silence and condemning. Emma stirred in my arms again and she was crying, so softly and gently as if it took too much energy to move, to really sob.

"We've got to go," Mulder whispered and pushed up, away. He grabbed his jeans from the corner even as I struggle from the bed, Emma gripped in my arms.

"How did it shoot up so fast?" I flustered, handing my daughter to her father so that I could get on my own clothes.

The jeans and sweatshirt came over quick and I ignored the bra and the ache in my arms from Emma's heat and her absence. Mulder was juggling his keys in one hand and his daughter in the other, trying to soothe her with his soft voice.

I took Emma back and cradled her to me, her heat like a furnace and her fists clenched against the movement.

"No-no," she whimpered painfully and I kissed her head.

"We're going to make you feel better, Emma. I promise, baby."

"Hu. . .huh," she pouted against me and moved her nose into my collarbone. I grabbed her baby blanket from the end of the bed and wrapped it tight around her. The December night was cold and brisk with wind.

Mulder guided me ahead of him with a hand and opened the door for us, his worry and anxiety like a dark presence within my own.

=-=-=-=

I never knew the Children's Hospital was so far away, never knew that thirty minutes could seem like God's eternity dripping into us like water leaking from the taps. I sat in the back, touching Emma's cheek as she laid still in the carseat, her little body radiating heat. Mulder drove with his fingers tight on the wheel, white and clutching.

The road passed under us like a smooth river, and just as drab as the Potomac, dark and thick and flat. The white lines and the occasional sign only fixed the monotony and I had my eyes on the approaching blackness that I could feel coming.

Emily was too much in my mind these past few weeks, remembering the Christmas of her discovery and death, seeing her almost-namesake growing and Mulder and I still too cowardly to search out the truth about our daughter's existence.

I knew what I was afraid of. Emma becoming more and more like Emily.

Emma becoming a project, a thing not meant to be, a child of mine more than she already was. If she could be mine any more than she already was. And I was afraid she would end up *not* being mine, and I so wanted her to be mine. Mine and Mulder's. And she was, she was mine. Completely and without reservation--no matter what the biology of it was.

As I tried to take my mind from Emma's fever, from the pitiful look she was giving me, I realized that Mulder and I had never once expressed interest in discovering Emma's true biology. We had never wondered if she was ours or theirs or only mine. She was Emma and she needed us; she belonged to us. We loved her.

"Scully?"

At his voice I knew he was thinking like me, thinking about Emily and green blood and projects and death. About Emma's real parents, whether that was us or some unknowing abductee.

"Yeah." I said softly, not an answer, but an affirmation.

The darkness was creeping on us now, close and breathing down our necks, its suffocating presence tainting things already. I looked out the back window and watched things flash by faster than legal, but not caring. Not seeing.

"Scully, whatever we find here. . ."

But he stopped and I knew he couldn't bring himself to make me false promises. I was grateful he didn't try but I needed reassurance in something. The night was thick and thin at the same time, thick with fear and worry and thin with promise and understanding. I just wanted us to be left alone for once, for God to put his protection over us and not let go.

Just don't let go.

"I love you, Mulder," I blurted out, feeling my face flame even as I said it. Meaning it wholly.

His eyes snaked up to meet mine in the rear view mirror and they were sad and sparkling at the same time.

"I love you too," he said back and it was as if he wanted me to remember those words for all time.

All time.

=-=-=-=

Dr. Curtis had been in and out four times, each moment pausing to give us updates on tests or simply smile tightly. She was a good doctor and I trusted her, more so than our regular pediatrician, who was supposed to have been on-call, but wasn't.

Emma was on the fourth floor of Georgetown Children's Hospital, with her small body looking frail and tiny on the big, dwarfing bed. She had her own room; there was no other patient in the next bed. She had fluids dripping through an IV and antibiotics for her ear infection coursing through her veins. She had the worst, most pathetic whimper in her voice. She had me frightened.

Dr. Curtis had admitted her after taking her temperature and noting her foggy medical information. She knew Emma was adopted, knew that we knew very little about where she had come from. She was being precautious and I appreciated it. I felt better knowing Emma was being looked after, was so close to experts who could help her, but I also wanted to snatch her up and run away from there. I hated seeing her so still, so pained and listless in the bed.

We had given her two baths to break the fever, and it now hovered around 100, better than before but still not good. Babies were naturally warmer than adults, but not like this. Dr. Curtis was waiting to see if the medication did her any good overnight, and then they'd work from there.

I sat with Emma in the bed, stroking her forehead and cramped into the tight space between the rail and her body. I was trying not to make her any warmer than she already was, but she curled around me and clutched at my jeans with small, chubby fingers. She had already lost weight in the three days she'd had the ear infection and her knuckles showed.

But I reminded myself that Emma had always been thin, small, and her baby fat had never really gotten that rounded. The thought didn't make me feel much better.

Through the thick glass windows, I could see Mulder coming down the hall, his sneakers soft in the large room and his eyes flickering from bed to bed, maybe overwhelmed at all the sick, hospitalized kids. There were nine others on this hall with us and five empty beds, but it was enough to make me despair. Mulder had just finished filling out all those insurance forms as best he could, and was making his way back to us.

He pushed open the door and our eyes met in that parents' sorrow and sharp fear. When he got to Emma's bed, his face kind of crumpled and I held out my arms to him. With shaking steps he reached us, then buried his face into my neck, his worry too tight for tears. I held him and wanted to break down and cry, but I refused to let myself start doubting.

"Mum-ma?"

I looked over at Emma and pulled from Mulder to stroke her cheek and smooth away her damp hair. She reached up and batted at my hand, then gave me a soft soft smile, like she was trying to encourage me.

"It's okay, Emma. You're in the hospital but we're right here."

"No-no," she said and her chin wrinkled with unshed tears.

Mulder reached over and took both her hands, gentle fingers around the IV line.

"You've just got to stay here for a little bit, Emma. Not long. Just to get better."

"No-no," she said again and great big tears rolled down her cheeks.

Very carefully I pulled her up into my arms, cradling close and pushing away the lines and tubes, trying to keep from pulling anything. Mulder sat down on the bed, putting his palms on my thighs and stroking his fingers over Emma's shoulder and little leg. He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

She whimpered, but said nothing more and the tears stopped slipping down her cheeks. She pushed a thumb into her mouth and turned into my stomach, burrowing into me. I hummed a bit to her, but gave up on a lullaby, choosing instead to just breathe her in.

"Are we allowed to do this?" Mulder asked, whispering at me.

I smiled and shrugged. "Probably not."

"How come there aren't any other parents here?"

"It's one in the morning, Mulder," I said, shaking my head. "They probably have a motel room in town, or go home to sleep."

He glanced through the window, long and filling one wall, and his surprised eyes came back to me.

"They leave them here?"

I licked my lips and sighed. "Sometimes they're here for a long time. . ."

"That's so sad."

I glanced down to Emma and she was falling back asleep, her lips slack around her thumb and her arms loose. The bed shook and I looked up to see Mulder had stretched out on the bed, his head propped up on his palm, elbow pressing into the sheets. It made the mattress slant down into him and I shifted to keep from crushing Emma.

He pushed his head onto my knee and kissed Emma's little leg, then nuzzled my jeans until I put my hand to his hair.

"Hey, who's the sick child here?" I whispered, ruffling his sticking-up bangs.

"Don't knock me. I've been awake since one o'clock yesterday morning.

I'm exhausted."

I bit my lip and smoothed a finger down his nose, then press his lips.

"Yes. . .you're a good daddy."

Emma murmured against me, something about daddy and some nonsense baby talk that made Mulder smile up at me. It was almost a soft, wonderful moment, but for the IV in my baby's arm and the hospital smells. Mulder's mouth dipped and I could tell he was thinking about Emma's fever.

"She's not going to have to stay here long, right? It's just an ear infection."

I nodded, but didn't say anything, hoping my eyes wouldn't reveal my doubt.

But he saw it and he winced.

=-=-=-=

The other parents and siblings and relatives came in at six, usually, before the children were ever awake, and we noticed they left at midnight, ever-exhausted and ever-hopeful. They knew we were the new ones, knew with that certainty of no sleep and long fitful dreams that comes when a child is sick. The bed next to Emma in this room was still empty and I felt grateful--I didn't think I could handle coming inside to see two sick children. It was bad enough to walk down this small hallway and catch glimpses from the corner of my eyes.

When a child is in the hospital and you are helpless, it is hard to know what is the right thing to be doing, or what decisions to make. One mother told me that it was okay for us to leave, to rest, and then come back. I just stared at her, unbelieving.

I came to understand, in those three days when Dr. Curtis couldn't break the fever and the antibiotics weren't getting rid of the infection. Her ears no longer hurt; Emma let us know that, with a bright smile when we asked. But her immune system was weak and her movement listless.

She was not the happy, bouncy girl we knew, and she had no energy to speak even in her baby nonsense. She was cranky all morning and then complacent and far away in the afternoon.

"Da-da," she said, right into my ear and I straightened up.

She was awake and I hoped I hadn't fallen asleep.

"Daddy's getting some sleep, Emma."

"Peas. . ." she whispered and I sucked on my bottom lip, afraid I was going to cry in front of her.

"Oh, baby, you don't have to say please. But I'd have to leave to get Daddy."

She looked confused and her eyes strayed around, then landed back on me. Her hands moved under the white sheets and I reached out and freed them, letting her grab on to my fingers.

"I have to go get Daddy, Emma. I have to go."

She nodded and her head bounced a bit, more movement than I'd seen from her in three days.

"Da-da."

"I'll go get him."

I stood and disentangled my fingers from hers, kissing her forehead and stepping back. She just watched me, unafraid, and I was proud of her courage. She was stronger than I was.

I fairly ran from the room and straight past the nurses' station and into the little lobby/waiting room where Mulder was sacked out on the couch. The nurses had asked that we not use the bed next to Emma because it needed to remain cleaned. So I'd had four hours on that same couch only about thirty minutes ago, but I knew Mulder would want me to get him.

"Mulder," I whispered and brushed my fingers along his forehead.

He was jerked awake instantly and I could hear his heart pounding fiercely behind his chest.

"What's wrong?"

"No. Nothing. Emma woke up and she asked for you."

His surprise nearly knocked me flat, but he stood on shaky, weary legs and led the way back to Emma. I was distraught at the huge black rings under his eyes and the skin hanging from his cheeks like leather stretched too tight across bone. Being so preoccupied by Emma, I hadn't noticed the changes in Mulder.

As we walked back to Emma's room, I noticed two other couples standing outside their children's room, talking to a doctor. Each of them looked tired and worn-out, but not nearly as bad as Mulder and I. Maybe that mother had been right. Maybe we were only hurting ourselves more by sleeping in four hour shifts in the waiting room. We were denying ourselves of each other: I hadn't talked to Mulder in two days.

Emma was still awake though sluggish when Mulder sidled up to her bed. She held out her arms to be picked up, but he just bent over and hugged her tight, kissing her.

I winked at Emma and smoothed by fingers along her small arm.

"I brought Daddy for you, Emma."

"Mum-ma, Mum-ma," she said and I leaned over to kiss her too.

"Tanks."

"You're welcome," I said, smiling just a bit.

She began talking baby talk again, random strung together sounds that seemed to be another language, and which Mulder was convinced actually meant something. I knew it meant something, but only to her.

He kept telling me the birds on the window ledge cocked their heads when Emma talked, seemingly listening.

I wished we were at home, with those ugly pigeons on the window ledge and the glass smeared with baby handprints and Emma's liveliness all back again. I wanted to cradle her to me and soak the life back into her, the energy, and take her out of that place.

That was the good day. The only good day. I should have paid better attention to that day because it was a long time before that day would come again, a better day, a day with hope.

Emma smiled at us twice and begged hugs and conned us into getting her a popsicle before she fell asleep at six o'clock that evening, Mulder and I were so tired we both went to a motel next door to the hospital and rented a room.

We slept long and deep and almost peacefully.

=-=-=-=

=-=-=-=

I woke up in Mulder's arms, with the silence of his breath and body like a blanket around me. I wanted to fall back asleep, but I was haunted by Emma. Craning my neck, the clock spit back three am with its heavy click and slow grind of the hands. I'd been out for about seven or eight hours--more rest than I'd had in about three days.

The motel room was small and cheap, with a bed that sagged in the middle and made Mulder and I roll into each other. His right arm was slung around my neck, his fingers tangled in my hair. I was close, but not quite touching his chest, our bodies curved so that my left knee was between his legs and my calf touching his.

I reached out with a hand to touch the soft light brown hairs of his stomach, my fingertips just barely grazing, not wanting to wake him up.

The darkness was enough to make my eyesight just off, so that the room seemed alive with things: a shadow became a demon, the low dresser was a beast, the window a great all-knowing eye watching us.

I couldn't see the skin I touched, but the feel of it was enough to settle my jumping heart and the panicky taste in my mouth, like metal.

Mulder's hand flexed unconsciously along my neck, dizzying swirls of heat sizzling through me. I pushed forward gently, moving until my lips were pressed against his shoulder.

"Mm," he murmured and his fingers teased my skin.

"Mulder?" I whispered.

"'M awake."

"Did I wake you?" I said and kissed his shoulder again.

"Nope. Been awake for awhile, just enjoying it."

I smiled against his skin and stroked my fingers against his stomach.

"Mm, feels like you're enjoying it too," Mulder responded.

His hands moved from their lazy positions and pulled me so close to him I couldn't breathe. I pushed back a bit and wiggled around until I was eye level with him, watching him.

All we needed was a look, a soft glance, and we knew. He sighed.

I moved out of his arms and sat up, hearing him sit up behind me, then moved to my side. His thigh touched mine and he reached for his jeans. I struggled to not feel disappointed, to not feel soul-sick, but it was hard. Mulder and I needed some time alone, but we also couldn't bear to be here while Emma was in the hospital.

I sighed and pulled my jeans back on, shimmying out of the T-shirt I'd borrowed from Mulder to sleep in. He touched my belly as he slid past, making goose bumps flash across my skin. I snagged my bra and hooked it on, then moved after Mulder. Nearly bare from the waist up, the both of us, we jostled in the small space of bathroom to brush our teeth and wash our faces.

He touched the strap of my bra, amusement flickering in his eyes.

"You're pretty funny, Scully."

I shrugged out of his touch and bumped his hip to move him aside, leaning down to spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth. When I straightened up again, he pressed his lips to mine and smoothed his fingers down my stomach.

I pulled back for breath. "Why am I funny?"

"Going around like this every morning. I never imagined."

"What all did you imagine, Agent Mulder?"

He grinned and winked at me, then grabbed his electric razor. I stepped past him and grabbed my thin sweater from the back of the chair.

"Oh, don't do that, Scully. I like it. . ."

I pulled the sweater over my head and pushed my hands through the sleeves, straightening it out. Moving back to him, I poked his side and wrapped my arms around his stomach, my chin to his back.

"You're lagging behind, Mulder. I'm all ready to go."

He reached around and snagged my belt loop, tugging me out from behind him. He finished off his shaving and brushed his cheek against mine.

"Very nice," I said against his skin. "Let's go."

=-=-=-=

I felt a tense snake of dread coil around my belly; from the moment we stepped out of the red and blue painted elevator and into the hallway, the eyes of everyone turned to us in sympathy, watching. I knew something was very wrong. There were doctors and nurses shouting at the end of the hall, running in and out of one of the rooms, a flurry of activity that caused my heart to trip and fall.

Emma.

Mulder's hand came to squeeze my arm tightly and we jogged forward, nearly running, my eyes blurring with tears.

When we stepped into the room, a nurse broke away from the huddle around Emma's bed and tried to stop us, managing to tie Mulder up but letting me slip past her and to the commotion. I stopped dead still, watching the heart monitor and hearing the scream of the flatline. Flatline.

My fist pressed to my mouth, smothering a wail of desolation and shattering fear. I felt Mulder grabbing my arms and pulling me to him, even as I pushed forward, not knowing what I could possibly do but needing to touch her.

A doctor was screaming. The heart monitor was screaming. Somewhere in me, I was screaming.

"Get her out of here. Get them *out* of here."

We were backpedaled away, away, down that long hall, backed out the door and into the antipersonal waiting room. Mulder crushed me into him tightly, too tight to breathe, my shoulders up and down with sobs that wouldn't come out. I heard him keen into my hair and my knees gave out, dropping both of us to the plastic couch.

Please don't let her die. Please don't let her die.

=-=-=-=

"Mrs. Mulder?"

My head jerked up and a nurse was standing over me, her hands soft on my shoulder.

"How is she?" I said, pulling up and out of the numb catonic state I'd plunged myself into. Mulder wasn't in the waiting room anymore and I didn't know where'd gone.

"She's in ICU right now, Mrs. Mulder."

"What happened?"

"The doctors aren't sure, but they think she's got a bacterial infection. It caused shock and some severe breathing problems."

"What?"

I stand up, making moves to see her or find Mulder or something. I didn't know what I would do, but the nurse grabbed me and gently pushed me back into the couch.

"Do you know where Mr. Mulder is?" she asked.

I glanced around, feeling confused and disordered.

"No. . ."

"Right now, you can't see her except for a few minutes. The rules of the ICU ward forbid--"

"I'm a doctor," I said but wasn't able to hear her quite so very well.

"I know, Mrs. Scully. But you're also a mother. And I can't let you go in there right now. As soon as the doctor speaks to you, she'll let you in."

I nodded, but my eyes were staring at the door to the waiting room, wondering when Mulder had walked out.

"Mrs. Mulder?"

It still rattled me when they said that. I was Mrs. Mulder, sort of. . . but I wasn't. Yet, strange and unreal as it seemed, I was Mrs. Mulder.

"I'm okay."

She nodded and moved out, leaving me to my cotton swabbed world. I was numb, needing something, shying away from Emma's sickness. How had it all changed, how had she gotten so bad so quickly?

Pushing up, I moved out into the hallway, haunting the corridors with my fingers trailing the walls. Where was Mulder? I needed Mulder.

"Scully!'

Spinning around, I saw him jogging down the hall towards me, felt his arms embrace me deeply.

"She's in the ICU, Scully. They'll make her okay."

I was shaking and pressing my face full into him, trying to get away from the weight of fear and worry. It was like being in stasis, not knowing whether or not I could move and still live.

"Mulder. Mulder?"

"Let's go sit down somewhere," he said and pushed me to the waiting room. There was no one inside and we sat on the couch again.

"Mulder?"

"I'm right here, Scully."

I glanced up at him, worrying my lip in my teeth, fists squeezing tightly. How to ask this?

"Mulder, pray with me."

He startled and ran a hand down his face, shaking his head.

"Scully, I-"

"I'm not asking you, Mulder."

He stared at me and then stood up, shaking his head.

"Mulder. For Emma."

My voice cracked and I buried my head into shaking hands, pleading with him silently. After a moment, I felt his hands over mine, his kiss on my forehead.

"How do I start?"

I glanced up, shaking and feeling a sudden flare of hope.

"Dear God," I whispered.

He nodded and I could see the tears in his eyes as he kneeled before me, the panic almost overwhelming the love.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

He leaned in closer and our foreheads touched, resting, needing the contact. I could feel his breath puffing against my cheek and his lips so close.

"Dear God."

I gripped his hands and threaded my fingers through his, closing my eyes and putting my entire force of will, all of my faith, into his words.

"Dear God," he repeated and I could tell he was lost.

"Please. . .please don't take her," he said finally.

I kissed his tears and brushed my fingers along the inside of his wrists.

"Amen," I whispered.

=-=-=-=

ICU had a fifteen minute time limit, and there was no privacy. The nurses' station was right in the middle of a circle of beds, and another cluster further down the hall echoed its frightening austerity. Emma's bed was across from the door, and I wondered if Dr. Curtis had put her there so we could press our faces to the glass and just watch her. Watch without touching, seeing without feeling or hearing.

I didn't know whether to be grateful or feel wounded.

Emma's little body was pale and skinny against the bed, her baby fat had disappeared in those short three days of hospitalization, and her hair was limp and flat. She had a breathing tube running into her nose and IV antibiotics, erythromycin now dripping into her veins. Her ear ache and cold symptoms had been omens of something much worse than an ear infection, much more deadly and strange that a cold.

She had something called woolsorters' disease, otherwise known to soldiers and the Department of Defense as Anthrax. Anthrax in my baby girl. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't have if Dr. Curtis hadn't shown me the slide of her blood under the microscope and the bacterium crawling through.

Anthrax is not something common in the United States, not even common among the soldiers that go to other countries, but of course, they've been immunized. Anthrax is a gas, too, an agent in biological warfare that can kill.

Inhalation anthrax. Death after the onset of acute symptoms usually occurs in one to two days. My clinical side was rattling off the symptoms and side effects, but I was trembling all over, everywhere. I reminded myself that we had caught it early, and she'd been treated with penicillin since we had gone to the doctor's for her ear ache. Her shock and breathing problems had been the acute symptoms, but she had been treated for days. So she could fight it. We could fight it.

I just had to keep telling myself that. Emma was a strong, usually healthy girl. She was active and bright and happy and always smiling. I couldn't even begin to think she wouldn't make it.

I filled my time with thinking about how this had been done to her. How my little girl had gotten anthrax, inhalation anthrax no less. It always came back to one thing, one moment, one sick suspicion.

Mulder voiced it that fourth day, with my head lying on Emma's bed and her small hand in mine.

"It was them. They've poisoned her."

He was stroking her forehead, smoothing her hair and caressing her skin; his eyes were dark and fathomless, his face set.

"Yes," I said softly, knowing it to be the only real explanation. Little babies just did not get inhalation anthrax unless they'd been exposed to gas.

"Mr. and Mrs. Mulder? Fifteen minutes are up."

We didn't even protest this time, didn't struggle to stay, didn't make a fuss. We knew the drill, knew the tight rules and the importance of silence to those in the ICU. But we also knew something else, something that was driving us forward.

I kissed Emma's forehead and whispered my love. Mulder pressed his cheek to hers and I wanted to cry, but felt strangely far away. Too far away to cry.

Mulder took my hand as they shut the doors behind us, our gaze locked on Emma's small small body and pale pale face. The tightness in my heart and chest from the unshed tears clutched spasmodically, but I could not make a sound.

"I think it's time we look for the truth about Emma."

I glanced to Mulder and nodded, my head jerky with the sorrow, the worry, the absolute fear. I couldn't bear to sit around and do nothing, sit around waiting to see if she would die or live. We had two days, at the most, to search for Emma's truth, maybe a cure, and I was not going to spend those two days just hoping.

I was determined, but I also felt weak, insubstantial. Mulder gripped my shoulders tightly, just staring at me, his intensity like a heat, burning me. His arms wrapped me up in a swift move and I was clutching him to me, so needy, so hurting.

"It's going to be okay, Scully. I'll be back."

I pushed away from him, shaking my head. "No. No, Mulder. Together. We do this together. I can't stand sitting there--let alone with you."

He wanted to protest, I could see it, but he simply gave me a nod, swift and sure.

"We'll call my Mom; she'll sit with her."

I felt his hand reach for mine and squeeze it. I sighed and glanced once more to Emma's still and silent body. Her spirit was not there and I wondered where it had gone to, whether or not she hovered around, waiting for us.

Mulder sighed.

"Why now? After all this time, after the trouble of handing her over to us, why try to kill her now--when I love her so much?"

=-=-=-=

Our apartment was like a tomb, still and empty and littered with Emma's toys. Things she would not play with today or tomorrow, maybe forever.

It made me waver for an instant, made me question my loyalty, seeing all of her things as I passed through the rooms. What was I doing, going off with Mulder?

I wanted to think Emma needed me, but she was beyond my medical expertise. There were plenty of surgeons, doctors, nurses, orderlies, whomever, that were much more qualified than I. When was the last time I had a real patient, a real trouble, besides Mulder's broken fingers or gunshot wounds?

I knew nothing about anthrax, except for the lectures given to us every year by a Department of Defense member, and they included about thirty other weapons of biological warfare too. Anthrax is usually a thing of the past, with newer chemical weapons and better biological weapons being made and tested and used.

Mulder and I had never been vaccinated. Government workers weren't always required to be, and mostly the vaccine was for military personnel. I knew Bill was, and Charlie too. But I didn't know what it was that Charlie did. He's not allowed to tell us.

"Should we even be in here?" Mulder asked, hesitating as I stepped closer to Emma's room.

"If she was infected here, we'd be infected too," I pointed out.

"So how then? She's with us nearly all the time. . ." Mulder paused.

"Except at day care."

I froze and glanced back at him, feeling my throat tighten.

"Day care in the Hoover Building, Mulder. Daycare that only federal employees can use or gain access to."

He nodded. I felt sick.

"Finished packing, Scully?"

I blinked, snapping myself from the dusky, frightening thoughts, and shook my head.

"Not yet."

He looked at me, frowning again, and moved in closer. I realized then that Mulder and I frowned a lot without Emma, frowned too much.

When he got close enough to me, I shaped his mouth into a smile with my fingers, wanting to make him laugh, needing to feel the rumble in his chest. He only sighed and hugged me, dropping his face to my shoulder.

"We need to get going, Scully."

"Where? What do we do first?"

"There's something I need to tell you."

I felt my entire body freeze at his words, at the slivers of guilt breaking off from his heart and piercing mine.

"What?"

"The day after we signed for Emma, you got a letter."

"From whom? About what?"

"From Krycek. About Emma. . ."

I closed my eyes and would not look at him, trying instead to remind myself that Mulder was not my enemy, that Mulder had been trying to protect me, and Emma, and that this was the man I loved, flaws and all.

Right? I loved Mulder, I would continue to love him.

"Scully?"

"Why did you hide it from me, Mulder?"

"Because I didn't want to believe it. Because I was afraid you wouldn't want. . .wouldn't want Emma, and therefore, you wouldn't want me."

There was something about his words, some small clue, that should have prepared me for the awfulness of that letter, but I was still too hurt to see it. To hear the fear in his voice.

"Scully?"

"What does it say?"

"I should let you read it, first. I. . ."

But he stopped and simply led me to the couch, sitting me down in that possessive way he had most times. As if he wanted to dictate the settings of our encounters, the places we met for fights, and that would dictate a better end to them.

When he came back, I was waiting for him, my face steeled against the hurt of his betrayal, and somehow I had pushed all pain for Emma out of me. Or at least out of my conscious thinking.

"Scully, before you read it. . .remember that Krycek has lied to us before. And likes to lie to us. And. . .and that I love you. I love you and Emma and nothing can change that."

My eyebrows pulled together and I picked up on the fear that time, not just a 'I've done something I shouldn't have' fear, but a real, honest fear. Of me. Of what I would do because of this letter.

I reached out and took the letter in one hand, and his still-shaking fingers with my other, pulling him down to sit next to me.

"I know you do, Mulder. I love you and Emma too."

He nodded but didn't look all that relieved. I wanted to shake this out of him, this dread.

"Just remember that, Scully. Remember what you feel for Emma."

My eyebrow rose, the only indication of my sudden indignation, my anger.

"Nothing in this letter could make me not love Emma, Mulder. Or you.

Nothing."

He didn't look at me; the letter felt cold and hard and weighty in my hand right then. Mulder's fingers were hot and nervous in my other hand.

I opened the letter and began to read.

=-=-=-=

My Dear Agent Scully

I have long considered you a rather Shakespearean character in this little drama. As our roles have unfolded, mine, Mulder's, yours, I cannot help but admire the elements of comedy and tragedy that play out in your development. Like any great sidekick, you embody the best of loyalty, the noblest of desires, and yet the most passionate of anger, the most intense of desire, the most pathetic of fears. Your place was destined, preordained by some unfathomable Author that wrote the lines and rhymes of our lives, penning your triumphs and tragedies for all the world to see.

You are Falstaff and Hotspur to Mulder's Henry IV, you are Hamlet's precious Ophelia, or perhaps his ill-fated Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

You define what the main character is not, you provide a foil to the confused heart, a guide to the lost king. You present yourself unblemished before the audience but come away stained and tarnished by the Acts.

Like any great Shakespearean character, you will die. And in this road to death, you will discover truths that make your heart recoil, that sink your soul into hell, that dip your blood in ice. And yet you have found some semblance of love with your Hamlet; you have refused to throw yourself headlong into madness and palace pools.

Your truths are waiting though. You have found the flowers of change in your bouquet, and have sniffed at them disdainfully. Here is your story, dramatic and tragic and comedic as it is, all within the space of a letter:

Just as Hamlet was haunted by the unavenged ghost of his father, your Hamlet is haunted too. But by the ghosts of every dead or alive thing in his mad mad world. You have become his focus, his poor Yorrick, the hinge of his universe. What an honorable position, Agent Scully, that you give reason to an insane and melancholy man.

The faithful one, the innocent, you find yourself barren by a government project that the one person you want to have children with introduced to you. Ironic, yes? Shakespeare cannot compare to truth.

These Children are scattered about the world, given to families that will obey the Project's rules and live by their ordinances. They are the poor pitiful remnants of a faith and a truth that has never existed.

Your Emilys are scattered, and other abductees' Emilys are scattered as well. All these Emilys are tests, projects, insurances against stopping their ultimate plan.

Your Emma is not yours. Perhaps you knew that. Perhaps not. Emma is another woman's Emily, and while she never knew her own daughter, just as you did not, she is too late to know, too gone to understand. The Project keeps all the Children just in case, for the day when inevitable changes occur and they need a hold over you, over Mulder, over Diana Fowley.

Emma is not yours. Emma is Diana's.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Agent Scully. . . Regards,

Alex Krycek

=-=-=-=

=-=-=-=

Very carefully, I set the letter down on the coffee table, primly placing it on the corner so that the sides were framed by the edges of the table. It was so innocent looking, almost like a love letter that could have warmed my heart or made me smile. Instead. . . I tried not to think, that was the best way. I recognized that it was a letter, and it held clues within the script. It was from Krycek. It would save Emma.

"So where are we going?"

"Scully. . .Scully--"

I shook my head. "Where are we going?"

He reached for me but I stood and headed for the bedroom, closing my eyes just briefly, just a moment, then grabbed the suitcase in the floor and shoved the rest of my clothes into it. I heard Mulder walk to the door and watch me, but I continued to pack, waiting for him to tell me where we were going.

<don't think, don't think>

"The postmark is from San Diego, California. The stamp is the Naval Training Center, the one that's being turned over to the city."

I nodded, holding the information in my mind, trying to not think about the rest of that letter. Just the postmark.

"Bill has been talking a lot about it. In 1993, when Congress decided it would scale back operations, they were worried because he was slated to head over there."

"Well he's not there now, right?"

"No. He's not."

I didn't offer anything else, visions of Emily and disease and then Emma flashing through my mind. And then Emma led to the letter and I saw a flash of Diana Fowley's cold pale body in the morgue and the blood. The blood.

Emma.

I frowned ferociously to keep away any feeling whatsoever, whether a reaction to the letter or to my baby in the hospital, breathing with a tube. But my throat was tight and the tears were choking me so hard, so trapped that I had to sit down and close my eyes.

"Scully. We really need to talk."

"No. No we don't."

"Scully--"

"Mulder. If we start now, there's no place to stop. And Emma has two days."

I glanced up at him, jaw set and tears firmly pushed away. I knew there was probably a haze of emotion slithering over my eyes, but Mulder could ignore it if he wanted to. And he did.

"All right. We're going to San Diego."

=-=-=-=

There are two in the hallway. Two baby girls lying on the floor. The walls are beige and blue, the carpet grey and worn. The kind of carpet the Navy bases always had, cheap and durable. I can see them lying there, crying, crying, both sounding so sick and needy.

I have to pick them up, hold them. But I know that there's only one, only one baby girl I can touch and hold and have. If I pick the wrong one, I can't go to the other.

Which baby? The brown haired, the blonde? Both are beautiful, both are calling out, both need me.

I glance to my right, the child with healthy pink skin and a swatch of fine light hair, curling around her ears and falling into her eyes. Such long hair. How does a baby have such long hair? She is red faced and squalling, her fists moving and punching the air. Fiesty.

I bite my lip and glance to the other one, the baby so small and tight, her face pinched with tears, streaking her cheeks and making her eyes dark and luminous. Her hair is straight and thick, and she is a bit bigger than the blonde little girl.

Mulder stands behind her, just reaching out, not able to catch hold of her.

I turn and I see myself standing behind the blonde haired girl, hands reaching and face so twisted with hurt that I close my eyes, afraid.

Which is right? If I choose the dark haired child, do I get Mulder along with that? and do I lose my own child, my own baby girl?

I want both. I want both. I'm not choosing. I'm not.

"Scully?"

I glance down the hall again, seeing Mulder calling me and the frown of fear on his face.

I shake my head. I can't possibly choose.

The dream shifts, and I suddenly know this is a dream and not reality. A dream. It lets me rest just a bit and I glance around me. I'm not in the hall now, just two small altars and a large cathedral arching above us.

I see stained glass windows, one of Abraham offering his son Isaac on God's altar, and one of Jesus dying, bleeding.

I shiver and step to the altar on my right, then see that the blonde haired child lays there, quiet and serene seeming. But I can hear a baby crying far off and I turn my head to see. The other altar has the dark haired girl and as I watch, a spark of fire ignites, burns, engulfs the child.

"No!"

I push away, running to snatch her up, but my feet are stuck forever and I can't seem to move away, all I can see is the fire before me, all consuming. I can hear the scream of the baby, screaming, and my heart tears and burns and is no more.

"No, no, no. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to."

I reach for the blonde child, hoping to carry it away, but when I turn, she's gone. They're both gone. One in fire, one with my neglect.

Oh God, no.

=-=-=-=

"Scully, Scully!"

I jerked awake, finding my hands tightly around Mulder's arm, my face pushed so tightly into his suit jacket that I couldn't feel my nose.

"Scully?" he said softly.

I relaxed, pushing my hand across my cheeks to brush away any tears that might have fallen. His hands wrapped around mine, then he kissed my knuckles, sighing softly.

"Scully. . ."

"I'm okay, Mulder."

"Bad dream?"

I shivered. "Yes."

He stroked my hair and kissed me again, letting me slowly still my hammering heart and the blood rushing through my ears. I sighed and the airplane bucked enough to make me jump and latch on to Mulder again.

He grinned at me and brushed his fingers down my cheek.

"Stop it, Mulder."

He bent over and kissed me. "It's just a bit funny."

"So glad you find me amusing."

"I do."

I looked over and his eyes were watching me intently, that shift from amusement to sober reflection. I knew what he was thinking about, and I knew that he wanted very badly to talk, but I just couldn't.

"Scully."

"I know, Mulder. I just can't think right now."

"You. . .uh, you forgive me?"

I bit down on my lip and glanced up at him, shaking my head.

"I forgive you, Mulder. You thought you were protecting me. . .maybe even Emma. . .did you think that? Did you wonder if I would love her even then?"

Before my question was even finished, I could see the truth of it in his eyes.

"You did," I said softly and looked away.

He thought I wouldn't love Emma because she was. . .wasn't mine.

Would it have mattered? I didn't know, I didn't know if it even mattered now. Emma called *me* mother. Emma reached for me when she was tired, smiled at me, loved me. I loved her wholly, without regard. I would always love her. Regardless of her biology.

Still, Diana Fowley. . .a part of her lived on in my child.

Maybe that was my problem. That after the pain of it all, after my deep insecurities, of which I was still ashamed, I had to now. . .what? It almost felt as if Diana Fowley was getting back at me even after her death.

"I wondered. It wasn't the main reason, Scully. I was sort of afraid to admit that Emma wasn't ours."

"Ours?"

"Well. . ."

Mulder trailed off, looking at me from the corner of his vision, as if he wasn't sure I knew what was going on.

"Mulder. She's ours, no matter what. No matter who's she is biologically."

He tilted his head and looked at me thoughtfully, taking my hand.

"That's what I've always thought."

I squeezed his hand back and we just sat there for a moment, reaffirming the bond.

=-=-=-=

We were in the motel room, sitting side by side, when I realized I didn't want to do this. I just didn't want to do this.

It struck me as odd, as frightening almost, because I had thought I was running off to California to help my daughter, but I was really running away from her. Running from the pain and the potential sorrow. I didn't want to watch her waste away; I didn't want to have to see her in pain.

"Mulder?"

He glanced back at me, his face tight with concern or maybe just the realization that I had come to.

"What exactly are we hoping to find here?"

"Answers."

"To what question?" I asked and worried my bottom lip with my teeth.

He looked stunned, but he had no ready answer for me, no easy flow of importance.

"Is there something we could possibly find that would save Emma? Besides the medicine and prayers that we've already tried?"

He looked down at his hands, carefully avoiding me, and I knew there was more to all of this than the off chance that we'd find something that could help Emma.

"When Emily was sick, and I went to the nursing home. . .with all those elderly women that they were putting into so-called beauty sleep. . .do you remember that?"

I nodded, still silent. That was the place where Mulder thought they were impregnating older women to give birth to the Emilys of the world.

To the Children, as Krycek named them, the Emilys of every abducted woman.

"I found a lot of things, a lot of horrible things."

He was silent for a long time and I wondered what he wanted from me.

Acceptance? An okay to go on with his story? Maybe he was afraid I would hate him, or not forgive him.

"Mulder. Whatever you saw, whatever was there that you didn't tell me. . .it can't be worse."

He glanced up, giving me an ironic, self-abasing smile that cut me to the quick. It really couldn't be worse, could it?

"Maybe it is. I don't know. I told you about the. . .fetus I saw. The cold storage room and all. . ."

"Right."

"Uh, well, I found this vial, all these vials that matched up with. . .I forget now why I thought this would work, or why this was the thing Emily would need, but--"

"Emily would need?"

"I asked you, outside her room, I asked you what you would do if you could save her. And you echoed my words, that she wasn't meant to be."

I stared at him for a long moment, feeling my mouth drop, my entire soul sink down at his words.

"What are you telling me Mulder? That you had a cure for her? That. . .that you could have saved Emily?"

He looked liked he was going to sob, but he didn't, merely nodded softly.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I couldn't change her purpose, I couldn't protect her forever.

And you said she wasn't meant to be."

"But I didn't know that. . .that you could have made her better!"

"No, Scully. It wouldn't have made her better. It would have saved her life for awhile, and maybe your heart, but it wouldn't have changed anything. And you know that."

I blinked and looked away from him, needing the blessed blankness of the wall and the motel carpet. It demanded nothing from me, I could give it nothing. The soulless feel of my eyes would not alarm the bare walls, the ratty floor.

"Scully?"

I shook my head, fighting back tears. "I'd just. . .just like to be silent for a little bit, Mulder."

I could hear him nod, and I prayed that he wouldn't leave, that he would understand me totally and completely.

I relaxed when his arms shifted around my waist and snagged me; maybe he did understand, maybe I would be okay. I let myself lean back against him, breathing in his cologne and strength and apology.

But I still couldn't understand it all.

"I want to go home, Mulder."

"Why?"

"Because I'm just running away, that's all. Emma needs me. She needs us--"

"What if this isn't just anthrax, Scully? What if it's masking something else entirely? I can't sit by and do nothing--"

"Why wouldn't it be just anthrax, what else would it be?"

"Something they did. Maybe it's like a reaction to something, like with Emily not getting those shots. Or maybe if we go to this place and we find the answers, maybe that will give us some kind of edge over it. . .maybe it would protect her forever."

I sighed with the nobility of his answer, with the futility of it. What could be done?

"Just give it a day, Scully. Just a day. Then we'll go back."

"You think we can get something in a day?" I asked and looked up at him.

He was crying.

"Mulder. . ."

I turned in his arms and hugged him tightly, pushing his head to my shoulder, feeling ashamed of my careless words and cold body language. I did this too much, this kind of separation from him, this severing of ties between him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whispered and stroked my fingers through his hair.

"God, I don't want her to die."

I choked on a sob of my own and pushed my face into Mulder's shoulder.

His hands spread on my back and rubbed, up and down in a kind of incantation. Shivers waved through me and I felt my tears slip away from me, soft and slow and delicate.

Kissing my jawline, working his fingers through my shirt, Mulder pressed me back to the bed, heavy and warm and hard against my body.

"Love me, Scully, love me."

I nodded and took his face tenderly in my hands, lifting my head to kiss him.

=-=-=-=

"Hello?"

"How's she doing?" I said, twisting the cord in my hands.

"Still the same, Dana."

I sighed into the phone and heard my mother's faint laugh.

"It's good to know she's on your mind."

I froze.

"Emma asks for you and Fox every day, Dana."

"Mom, please."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back onto the headboard, trying to repress the guilt.

"Dana, you do not need to be searching San Diego for something you have right at home, right here."

"Mom, I. . ."

I couldn't find anything to say to that, couldn't even justify or rationalize our actions to myself. That first night, the only adults in the entire wing and hovering over Emma, we had condemned the parents who weren't at their child's bedside. Mulder and I had looked at their absence, even at that early in the morning, as a disgrace.

We were no better.

"Dana. As a doctor, you knew this was the wrong choice. As a mother, it should have been glaringly obvious. What are you doing in San Diego?"

"I might be able to save her," I whispered and closed my eyes.

I could hear my mother's silent rebuke even over the miles, and I wondered again why we were here, wasting time on fleeting chances.

I was running away, Mulder was running away, and it wasn't fair to Emma. She was the one suffering.

But the chance. . .the hope of saving her. . .

"Oh, baby. You have no place being in San Diego when Emma is here."

I blinked and the tears coursed down my cheeks, hot and straight and condemning.

"I know."

"Make Fox come back with you," she said then.

And I knew that she had somehow knocked sense into me, had pushed me past the abstracts and the conspiracies and back to the place where I was a mother and a woman and this thing I was doing, this thing was deplorable.

But the chance. . .the chance to find something to save her. To find that miracle Mulder had brought with him for Emily, to find an answer for all of this. Could we really hinge Emma's life on betting that her past wouldn't affect her future? Could I pretend that our history with the X-Files had no relevance to this child?

"I'll. . .I'll be coming back, Mom. Tell Emma I love her, that I'll be there soon."

"All right, Dana. I'll see you later."

"Love you, Mom."

"You're doing the right thing, Dana."

I hung up the phone and looked down the bed to Mulder's sleeping form, his breath coming slowly and evenly in and out. I wanted to apologize for my words, for my thoughts, but I knew my Mom was right. It was wrong for Emma to be in the hospital and me to be here.

Partner or mother. . .

I closed my eyes and hugged myself, trying to erase the chill from my bones and remember the warmth of Mulder's touch. If I woke him up, he would try to talk me out of it, would make me think of all the things we might lose here. Of how we might lose Emma.

I shook my head and pulled myself out of Mulder's slack embrace, pushing my feet into the threadbare carpet and standing up. My clothes were piled at the foot of the bed and I gathered them up, then tiptoed to the bathroom.

Once behind its false wooden door, I pulled my cellular from the pocket of my coat, then thumbed it on. Information gave me a connection to the airlines and I got a ticket for Dulles. For just myself, flying back alone to Emma.

The call ended, I sat down on the edge of the bathtub, breathing hard and shallow. Blinking back tears, I pushed my head into my hands and tried to shut down the thoughts, the feelings, the everything that wanted to spill out onto me.

First, a shower, softly as possible. Then I needed to write Mulder a note so he didn't chase after me. Mulder had to stay here, find out whatever he could, and I had to stay with Emma. Forget all those women's lib propaganda, the equality of the sexes, whatever else. My place was with my daughter--I could not be a part of this journey.

Mulder could take care of himself. How many times had he gone off on his own and made it back without me? Plenty. Plenty.

There were other times, my partner-self whispered condenscendingly to me. There were plenty of other times where he almost died. . . I closed my eyes and I prayed.

=-=-=-=

Mulder,

I had to leave. Emma is still the same, but I have to be there. She asked for us. She misses us. I can't *not* be there. Please understand.

You can carry on here, discover the answers.

There's not much to say, if you don't understand my reasons. I need for you to continue this, Emma needs for you to continue this search.

Something in San Diego can tell us all about her, about what happened, what *is* happening, but this is not my place. Some truths are not for me, some places I should not be. I need to help Emma in the ways I can, namely through science and love, and I have to be by her side to make those decisions that will come up. She deserves my presence, my love, and I won't step away from that.

But you. You have to help her in the ways you can, through your relentless pursuit of truth and answers and understanding. I don't doubt that there is something in San Diego that can save Emma, not one bit to I doubt that, and neither do I doubt you. That is why you need to remain here, to discover these important truths.

I know we have to talk about Diana at some point. I don't really want to, but maybe this will give me some time to decide what I think, what I feel, what will happen.

All I know is. . .I love you. I love Emma. Nothing changes.

Scully

Please, please, please stay safe!

=-=-=-=

I was only five minutes in the air when I began to cry again, the tears so swift and sudden I could do nothing but press my face into the chair and turn towards the window, feigning sleep. I didn't sob or weep or tremble, but the sorrow just leaked out of me, right on out.

My cheeks were still tearstained when the seatbelt sign chimed off, and I rubbed my face quickly, glad I had not put on any make-up after the shower. I knew my eyes would be raw and red for a while, but I didn't care. No one on this plane knew me, no one would ever see this weakness again.

I hated myself for leaving Emma, I hated myself for leaving Mulder. Did it mean I loved one more, that I would choose to leave Emma, or to leave Mulder? They were very different kinds of love, my contentment in them both were extreme and amazing and joyful. However, Mulder was an adult, and Emma a frightened baby. My frightened baby.

I could not give it a day, I could not give it even a second thought. I was made for this. Made for loving Emma and loving Mulder. I didn't understand how it had ever happened, or how it had come to be so all consuming a thing, but I knew it was the truth.

Sighing, I leaned against the side of the plane, trying very hard to ignore the jostles of turbulence, but not quite succeeding. The jolts reminded me of the jolt to my perfect life, and the shock that had come later, learning Emma was sick and learning Emma was Diana's.

And learning that Mulder was afraid my love for Emma would be affected by her genetics.

I had the sickening thought that maybe it would have been, maybe I would have closed myself off to it, had I known from the beginning, when Emma was still just a baby given to Mulder. I didn't like thinking this, but as long as I wasn't denying the truth, it was there.

I rubbed my eyes and tried not to think. Just to be completely free of everything. That was the only good thing about airplanes, how removed from the world you became once you were up there. Things could explode around you, but the plane was away from it.

Mulder and the truths disappeared, Emma faded, my own guilt washed down the drain of isolation and I closed my eyes, welcoming it.

I found a nightmared sleep instead.

=-=-=-=

=-=-=-=

<I am a crying stone come to whisper my secrets into your hands> The angel speaks to me in my dreams and I shiver with the words, trying to remember what stones are, what whispers and secrets mean.

<Even if man did not praise God, the very rocks would cry out, Holy is the Lord>

Please, please, stop whispering to me.

<The wind is high against you, declares the Lord, its current brings trouble and tears>

No. Please. Emma is going to be okay, you're going to make Emma better.

Promise me. Promise me.

<I cry out, Holy is the Lord, the wind is against you, Holy is the Lord> =-=-=-=

When I woke finally, pushing myself from the dreams, I felt the shiver of the wind and the secrets, and the angel that looked like a lion speaking to me. I wanted to call Mulder, but the plane was still high and flying and I was too confused to speak.

I worried my fingers together and thought about Emma and stones crying and I thought maybe they were weeping for my daughter. Mourning for my daughter, praising for my God.

I didn't want to think about weeping, or dying, or angels, so I tried to stare out the window and forget. The clouds were testimonies to angels, the darkness a witness to the despair building within me. I twisted in the seat to simply watch people, but the aisle was tight and filled with the crankiness of business men and high-finance women.

I sat for an hour staring into my hands, refusing to pray and refusing to think. I kept Emma's face out of my head and placed Mulder's there instead. Mulder would understand and yet be terribly confused. I could rely on his brand of misunderstanding, I could hold to that steadfast rock of a man.

God was shaking me up. I just wanted to be still.

=-=-=-=

"Scully?"

I breathed a sigh of regret/relief and listened to his frustration mount along the line. But my own frustration uncurled from my belly and struck my heart, deep and biting and poisonous.

"I'm stuck."

"Scully? Where are you?"

"I'm stuck in Chicago, Mulder," I said and his name came off like a wail.

"How are you stuck?"

"Snowed in. Everywhere. Like God's tears are frozen."

"God seems a bit cold to me about now, too."

I sniffed back despair and looked past the crowds milling at the airport, past the columns of ornamentation, past the steel and chrome and plaster. The windows were wide and bright with white snow, filling my view, filling the land, stopping me from reaching Emma.

"Oh, Scully."

"I just couldn't stay away Mulder. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I thought I was doing the right thing for Emma, for you. But I'm stuck here, not helping either one of you."

He didn't say anything, merely let the silence stretch, let me understand my own words.

"Why is God doing this to me, to us?" I whispered.

"God's just being himself, Scully. No better, no worse."

I shook my head, biting my lip to keep from crying. I didn't believe that.

"Don't hang up on me, Scully."

I let out a bitter laugh, knowing how well he knew me. How right he could be and yet how misguided.

"I won't."

"Maybe we could pray?" he asked.

Stunned, I just blindly watched the people ebb and flow around me, waiting for planes or the phone or loved ones.

"Right now?" I said, feeling flustered.

"Oh-Okay. Does that work, praying together but not being together?"

"We're together."

"All right. Then pray with me, Scully."

"I don't even think I know how to pray anymore."

There was a dark silence and we breathed together, just being. I wanted to take back my words, to reassure him that I knew, that I always knew, and that we would be okay, Emma would be okay--it would not snow.

"Why did you leave without telling me good-bye?" he asked.

"I don't know. I was afraid you'd convince me to stay."

"I wouldn't have argued with you, Scully. We'd already talked about it."

"That's why I left."

"That's why I wouldn't have stopped you."

I coiled the cord around my finger and leaned my forehead against the partition.

"I'm sorry--I seem to be messing everything up."

"No. You're not."

"What else is there for me to do, Mulder? I'm stuck here."

"It seems to me that if your God is as powerful and controlling as you seem to think he is, then prayer is the only way to change things."

I stopped, my breath hitching painfully, and stared at the black numbers of the phone, trying to comprehend the spirituality of my partner, husband, friend. Mulder.

"Pray for me, Mulder."

I said it before I thought and I didn't know whether I meant for him to pray because I couldn't, or if I really thought he was somehow more holy, more pure than I. Maybe I did think that. Mulder the saint.

"Dear God, if you really care. . .Make Scully understand. Put her where she belongs. Amen."

I laughed and felt better for it.

"Thank you Mulder."

"No problem. I was being honest."

"I suppose that's all He needs."

I heard Mulder sigh then, and knew he was in that motel room, probably waiting for it to get just a bit darker before he tried storming the Naval Training Center. I knew he would be coiled and tensed and ready, and I wished I were there, wished I were anywhere but in Chicago.

"You're an amazing woman, Scully. Some days I think there must be a living, breathing God if you could believe in him. Believe in him exclusively and without restraint. Even when things go wrong, you don't deny him, you blame him. That's amazing to me."

I smiled and felt his warmth through the conversation and the forgiveness of my betrayal, felt the arms of him wrapping me tight.

"Thanks, Mulder."

"Well, I have to leave now. Perhaps you should pray for me, too."

"Mulder. . .please don't take stupid risks."

"No problem. I'll just take the smart ones."

I groaned and heard him smack his lips into the phone.

"Kiss for luck?" he whispered.

"Kiss," I whispered back.

"A kiss for you too, Scully. Good night."

"Good night."

I hung up the phone and realized I had just spent four dollars in quarters and dimes trying to prolong that call. I was out of cash and hungry, but sated in a deep spiritual way. I pushed through the line and out of the people clustered around the phone booths, searching for a quiet spot.

I made it to some uncomfortable benches and sank down into one gratefully, closing my eyes.

Maybe I needed to pray.

=-=-=-=

I managed to wait in the long line at the ATM, my hands curling and uncurling, my frustration probably evident to every person there, in line with me. The airport was filled and more people seemed to be coming in as I stood there. I knew, intellectually, that no one else could possibly be flying in, but it just seemed. . . Sighing, I wadded the fifty dollars into my jeans pocket and shoved my card back into my wallet, excusing myself between the cramped people and shoving back out to the main concourse. There were lines everywhereto the airlines, to the Taco Bell and Wendys, to the ATM, and to the windows, where little children tugged on their parent's hand and pointed to the swirling snow.

I wished Emma were there with me, then decided no, I was glad she wasn't. She needed to be in the hospital. But if she were well, I would wish it.

I stood in line for the Wendys, needing a salad and some tea to make it through the solitude of snow. If I closed my eyes, standing here with people pressed around me, I could imagine that it was Mulder dwarfing me, his hands itching to claim my waist, but remaining aloof. Emma's little hand on my shoulder as I held her, the smell of her baby shampoo in my nose, the comfortable weight of her in my arms.

"Move up, lady!"

My eyes flew open and I slid the three feet that gaped between myself and the woman in front of me. I glanced back to apologize, but the eyes just stared at me, fuming somewhat. I decided to shut up and sighed and moved forward, closer than before.

The man behind me tapped my shoulder and I looked back.

"Are you okay?" he said and I blinked.

"What?"

"You looked like you were about to faint, ma'am."

He was about twenty-three and had thick dark blonde hair, curling up tightly. His face was lean and whiskered with blonde stubble. A backpack was slung over one shoulder and his clothes looked ratty but clean. He was watching me intently.

Calling me ma'am.

"Yeah, thanks. I'm just hungry and tired."

"Do you want to sit down? I can order for you and come find you?"

I smiled suddenly as his charity and shook my head. "Thanks, but I'll be okay."

"Are you sure?"

I should have been annoyed, but I enjoyed his attention, was glad for it even. I needed to be reassured in humanity again, after everything.

"Yeah. I appreciate your concern."

"S'okay. I'm Jared."

"Dana." I said, having to consciously remind myself that no one else in the real world called themselves by their last name.

"Hey, Dana. Nice to meet you. What brings you here, stuck in Chicago?"

I sighed. "Rather complicated. I'm trying to get home, from San Diego, to DC. What about you?"

"My friends and I just got back from a semester in Greece. We're stuck here too. We hope to make it back for Christmas, but maybe not."

"Christmas? But that's--"

"Only a week off."

I gaped, looking quickly at my watch and noting the day, for the first time in a week, recognizing what time of the year it was.

"Christmas. Oh no."

"Did you forget Christmas?"

I sighed and nodded, and I realized my face must have looked awful, must have had my shredded soul in my eyes.

"Hey, that's not so bad. We nearly forgot too."

"It's just that my daughter. . .she's in the hospital in DC. . .I didn't want her to be in there on Christmas."

"Oh," Jared said, with such heartfelt sorrow that I looked up at him, questioning.

"My sister had cancer, I understand. We spent three Christmases on the children's wing."

"Oh. Is she okay now?"

"Yeah. She's in heaven."

I bit down hard on my lip and slid forward in the line, feeling Jared behind me, almost herding me forward. Like Mulder did. I missed Mulder.

"I'm sorry," I said.

He nodded, and I realized there wasn't much more I could say to him. I didn't even know what to say to Mulder when he talked about Samantha, let alone could I think of something to say to a complete stranger who's sister had died.

"So why is your daughter in the hospital?"

"She's. . .sick. An infection. . .it makes it hard for her to breathe."

"Does she live with you?" Jared asked, pushing me forward again as we crept closer to the Wendys counter. His eyes were sad and his beautiful childlike innocence was crumbling. I wanted to hate myself for being the one to disillusion him, but I couldn't. Perhaps he had built it back after his sister's death and now I was crushing it again. . . "Oh, yes. We were trying to. . .to find some experimental treatment in San Diego. . .but I couldn't stay there. I had to come back."

He sighed. "And now you're stuck."

I nodded and turned around to place my order, feeling just a tad bit of relief to counter the overwhelming frustration. Emma was now fresh on my mind and I wanted to be with her more than ever, like a sharp digging pain for her.

=-=-=-=

"Mom?"

"Dana, where are you?"

"I'm stuck in Chicago--a snow and icestorm is keeping all the planes in."

"It's snowing here too."

I sighed and blinked back tears, chewing on my lip.

"How's Em?"

"Not very good, Dana." Her words were as soft and gentle as she could make them but they were like punches anyway, and I slumped into the side of the phone booth, pushing another ten cents into the box.

"What's going on?"

"She's on a respirator. She's doesn't wake anymore. I talk to her all day long, hoping she'll just open her eyes. . ."

"Oh God. . ."

"But she hasn't gotten worse, Dana. The doctors said they're surprised at how good she's holding up under all this stress. They said something about the lining of her lungs--"

"It's still intact?"

"Oh, yeah, that was it. Intact. They told me that the anthrax usually ate away the lining of the lungs or something like that, when it was very advanced, but they thought the antibiotics might be helping her."

"Oh good. Good. That's the important thing. Are you there with her now?"

"No, baby. They won't let me stay long in ICU. I'm on the phone in the nurses' station."

"Thank you so much, Momma."

"You just get back here as soon as you can."

"Okay."

"I love you, Dana. You remember all that you've got, okay? You still have your family."

"I know, Mom. I know. I love you too."

The phone clicked off before I could feed another dime and I sighed, letting the receiver drop into the cradle. I hung on the cord for a moment, then moved away, feeling heavy and out of place. The benches I'd staked out before were overrun with two families, so I moved past them, gathering my things and trying not to glare at them.

There was a small spot of floor next to the window, about thirty feet away, so I sat down there, leaning against the cool glass. The snow outside was thick but it had slowed to a handful of white coming down. I pressed my finger to the pane and breathed in its chill, gathering my coat around me.

Dear God please. Please.

I didn't know what else to pray.

=-=-=-=

My flight was called at ten that morning and I was wide awake. I wanted to be out of there. The ticket was crisp and new and it slit my thumb as it passed from my hand to the stewardess' open palm. I took the stub with a smile and lugged my carryon onto the ramp, sucking at the cut.

Jared was behind me in line and he winked, making me smile just a little bit and wave. The flight was to Memphis, where he would take one on to Little Rock and I would take another to National. Hopefully, by that time the snow in DC would be gone and I could fly there. Otherwise I'd be stuck in Memphis next. There were no flights to DC from Chicago because of that snowstorm--it had moved on.

The flight seemed quick and it also seemed agonizingly slow, but I fidgeted and looked out the window and ate the inflight meal, gagging on burritos that tasted like tissue paper and damp cardboard. The little cookies were good and filled with sugar, so I stocked up on those.

They didn't offer peanuts and I felt somehow cheated.

I tried calling Mulder in Memphis, looking out at a blank concrete vastness, filled with the occasional parking lot or car or bus, but nothing remarkable at all. The airport was nice but not large and I got a real, better-tasting lunch at McDonalds. If McDonalds could be considered real. Mulder wasn't at the motel and he didn't answer his cellular.

I tried not to be nervous and called the nurses' station again for my mother. She came and said Emma was the same and not to worry. I worried anyway, about my husband and my daughter. And it felt strange to feel myself calling Mulder my husband, strange that *our* daughter was even a word in my vocabulary.

The flight to National was even faster and I jumped into a taxi waiting outside and we were driving to Georgetown fast and furious. I leaned against the back of the seat and felt grateful to be home, felt grateful to be getting closer and closer to my Emma.

When I pulled my suitcase from the backseat and paid the taxi driver, he sped off, seeking a new fare. I dragged the carryon behind me and walked up the wheelchair entrance to the hospital's doors, feeling ridiculously exhausted. I wanted to sleep for a year.

I got on the elevator and prayed Emma would wake up for me, enough so she could see that was I there, that I had not abandoned her at all.

When I stepped out onto the ICU, I smelled the smoke and sleeplessness on my clothes against the crisp sterilization of the hospital. I wheeled my bag into the waiting room and pulled out new clothes, then went to the bathroom to change.

Just in case.

=-=-=-=

My mother was slumped over in a chair by Emma's bed and I wondered for a brief moment if Emma'd had a bad night, and my mother hadn't gotten any sleep. Mom's cheeks looked sunken and her hands old, and I covered them with my own, waking her softly.

"Dana!"

I hugged her tightly, almost afraid to look at Emma now that I was here.

"Hey, Mom. How's Emma?"

"Doing better, actually. Dr. Curtis came by at eight and checked in on her. She said that the antibiotics were kicking in and fighting it."

I looked over my shoulder and tears pushed from my eyes and dribbled down my cheeks.

"She's so small," I whispered and fell from my mother's arms and to Emma's bedside.

She was rail thin and shrunken seeming against the bed, her lips pale and her eyes rimmed with bruises from the bacteria in her blood. She was breathing loudly with the respirator, but they were good breath sounds, I knew. Her temperature was closer to normal and someone had washed her hair recently. She looked like a slightly twisted Sleeping Beauty.

I kissed her forehead and my tears dropped to her cheeks.

"Hey my baby girl. It's momma. I love you, honey. You're going to be okay. Momma's here."

I sat on the side of her bed and picked up her hand and kissed it softly, gently, trying not to hurt her at all. I ran my hand down her chest to her belly, as if I could heal her with a touch, and pressed my lips together to keep from sobbing.

She looked bad. She looked very bad. I wanted to curl into myself and hold her close to me and just cry.

I looked back and my mother was crying at the pain in my every movement.

"How could I have doubted?" she whispered and I knew she had doubted me.

That I'd come back.

I bit my lip and blinked tears.

"I don't know where Mulder is," I whispered and laid down alongside my baby girl.

=-=-=-=

=-=-=-=

She was no better after two days of silence and my company and I was afraid for her and for Mulder. Emma's breathing was still dependent on the ventilator, but it wasn't getting worse for her. Which was a small miracle in and of itself. I thanked God for it but felt bitter that He did not just heal her completely.

My mother went home that second day and got some sleep; it was rest she badly needed and deserved. She came back today and sat with Emma while I tried to call Mulder again. Once more, there was no service for his cellular phone and the motel manager said he had checked out the day after I had left. It made me suspicious but I didn't know what to think, really.

I was sitting on Emma's bed, reading 'If You Give A Mouse a Cookie'

to her and tickling her toes, trying anything for a reaction. She was breathing in and out and in and out with the machine, and it was loud.

But I heard my mother gasp.

I looked up and Mulder was striding down the hall, a split lip and a bruised eye, but otherwise okay. He was still in the black jeans and black T-shirt I'd left him in the night I had left, and he was grinning at me.

Behind him was a boy.

"Mulder?"

I stood and he jogged the last four feet to my side, wrapping me into a tight tight hug that crushed the breath from me and left the book dangling from my fingertips. I gave up and buried my face into his shoulder, breathing him in and letting the Mouse book drop to the floor.

I snaked my hands around his waist and pulled him even tighter against me.

"Where were you?"

"I found someone, Scully."

I peered from around Mulder to the teenaged boy standing behind him.

He was thin and lanky and had dark hair falling over his eyes. He looked about eighteen, maybe sixteen at the youngest and he had disturbingly familiar eyes.

I stepped out of Mulder and glanced at him, frowning.

"This is. . .Diana's son, Jeremy."

"Her son?"

I sneaked a quick glance back at Emma and then to my mother, my mind racing and fumbling in its haste to catch up.

"A lot has happened, Scully. But he's here to help."

"Help? How can he help?"

"He. . .like Jeremiah Smith, Scully. He's got that. . .power."

Jeremy stepped up at that moment and flashed me a soft smile, hesitant and frightened. His hands were clenched around a photograph and he held it out to me, a peace offering.

"My mom," he said and I looked at the picture.

Diana Fowley with a three-year-old boy, looking young and bright in her light blue tank top and jeans. The boy was squinting into the camera and holding up a toy, maybe a Matchbox car or something equally small. He had those eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said softly and looked up at Jeremy.

"She didn't come back after that day. I don't really remember her. But I remember my sister."

He stepped around me and to Emma's side, not touching her or even really getting that close. Mulder laid his hand on Jeremy's shoulder and squeezed softly.

"I knew all of them. She wasn't. . .she was special. I knew she was my sister; I think someone there told me on accident. I looked out for her.

And then about eight months ago, dad took her."

"Your father?" I said, my voice coming out rough and unequal. CancerMan had given us Emma.

"And hers," Mulder murmured in my ear.

I felt sick and sat down on the empty chair, my knees giving out. Emma was still breathing in and out, in and out, regular and right. The equipment looked like it was crowding her, especially with Mulder and Jeremy and my mother and I all clustered around.

"You're gonna have to take her off this stuff," Jeremy said.

"Off? No. Not a chance," I said, standing again.

"I can't. . .If I do it, she'll have to breathe on her own. Not with all this stuff. The IV's okay, but not this. . .tube down her throat."

"Mulder? What is he talking about?" I said, spinning around to face him.

"He can heal her, Scully."

CancerMan's daughter. My Emma. Jeremy's little sister. Diana's baby girl. Mulder. . .

I blinked my eyes and pushed back the tears, pressing my fists into my sockets to cause flashes of light to explode. I took in a deep breath and shook my head.

"What if he can't?"

"He can. I had much worse than a black eye, Scully."

I glanced back up at him, so afraid that the fear was tight and tasted like bitter metal in my mouth.

"What happened?"

"I questioned a few of the researchers about anthrax bacteria, how children could get it. They must have sent someone to follow me around.

I got beaten up pretty good and thrown out. I found Jeremy trying to run away for the ninth time."

"Nine? You've been trying to run away?" I asked him, turning back to face him.

He nodded. "Since I was six. But when they put J-uh, Emma, in with me, I couldn't do it. I tried taking her once, but--"

He shivered and his shoulder blades rose against the memory. I frowned and he licked his lips nervously. I was making him afraid but I didn't care.

"So when dad took her, I tried to leave. I wanted to find her first, in case she was on the grounds somewhere. But I kept getting caught.

And I found Mulder here first. I kept worrying that I really had left her back there, but this is. . .this is my sister. . .she's so big."

I chewed on my lip with all of that, trying to understand it in my head before I could let him even touch Emma.

"What did you almost call her?" I asked, needing to know.

"Uh," Jeremy muttered, glancing quickly to Mulder. "Uh, Jay. She didn't. . . we didn't have names really. I'm J1, and she's J4. My mother called me Jeremy when she wrote letters to me, and when she came that day, so that's what I called myself. And I couldn't stand calling her J4--so I call her Jay."

I smiled despite the chill in me and felt Mulder's hand grasp my waist.

I wanted to lean against him and shut my eyes to this, but it wasn't fair to Mulder, to Emma, to Jeremy.

"But I like Emma better," he said suddenly.

I sighed and gave him a real smile, reaching out for his hand. He snagged it and squeezed and in that rush my muscles unwound and my headache cleared and I felt more rested than I had in two weeks. Power, that's what I'd felt. Mulder's hand at my back was warm and gentle and I nodded at Jeremy.

"Okay. I suppose we should get Dr. Curtis in here. . .take her off the vent."

But I wasn't that sure. And I wasn't that convinced that this was actually happening. Maybe I would wake up and this would be a dream-nightmare and Mulder would still be missing and I would not know that Emma was CancerMan's and Diana's.

No, Jay was CancerMan's and Diana's. Emma was mine and Mulder's.

=-=-=-=

It took a lot of convincing, but when Jeremy suddenly reached out and touched Dr. Curtis' hand and she yelped; she was convinced beyond even my doubts. Dr. Curtis had carpal tunnel and Jeremy said it was gone for good now. Her wrist didn't even ache she said.

I still held my breath when the machine was turned off and the tube taken from her throat. I winced when she gagged on it, then squirmed in Mulder's tight grip as Jeremy sat down beside her and placed his hand on her chest. She'd made no purposeful movements and continued to stay perfectly still, not breathing. I wanted to shake Jeremy and make him hurry.

There was an agonizing moment and then Emma's little baby breath pushed out, then sucked in, thick and loud sounding, but still breathing.

I closed my eyes at the beautiful sound and wiped tears from my eyes.

Dr. Curtis hovered anxiously behind Jeremy, and Mulder and I stood off to the side. My mother was on my other side.

Jeremy was sweating now and his hand was spread wide across Emma's chest; he licked his lips and closed his eyes, concentrating. His own breath grew thick and labored; I pushed from Mulder and stepped forward, afraid for him.

Mulder snatched me back and kept one finger hooked in my belt loop the entire time. I didn't try to break away from him; hopefully he knew what was going on.

Suddenly Emma cried out and I surged forward--but got Mulder's arm wrapped around my waist instead. I writhed for a moment, but realized I couldn't interrupt whatever Jeremy was doing. Who knew--the power of it might divert to me or drain off him or something--I wasn't sure what was all in the science of it.

Emma's eyes opened, then fluttered shut again and I chewed a hole in my cheek trying to keep from moving or saying anything. Jeremy was trembling and Dr. Curtis had her hands out, ready to touch him or help Emma. I knew she was just as agonized as I was.

"There, there," Jeremy said suddenly, and it was not of comfort but words of release.

He slumped forward onto Emma just as her eyes opened.

I pushed from Mulder and pulled at Jeremy, my doctor's instincts taking over as Dr. Curtis began checking him. We looked at each other and Dr.

Curtis moved to take inventory of Emma, while I checked over Jeremy. I wanted to see Emma; Jeremy was breathing shallow and needed attention.

I laid him on the floor and pressed my fingers to his neck, searching for his pulse. It beat steady but slow and somewhat sluggish. I patted his cheek and listened to his breath; there wasn't much I could do for him. After a moment, his eyes opened and he looked around, gasping.

"Jeremy?"

"Wh-where. . .I'm not done. Not done. She's--"

"Hold on, Jeremy. I'm not going to let you do this," I said, shaking my head.

He pushed my hand away and tried to sit up, but collapsed into my arms coughing, his chest sounding thick and muted. Mulder came and helped me get him into a chair, struggling to keep him from lunging away from us.

"I have to finish it," he muttered.

"Maybe tomorrow, when you've got some rest," I said. "She's breathing well on her own. That's better than it has been, Jeremy."

"I don't have tomorrow," he said and shrugged us off. He sat down on the bed, then gave a sigh, heavy and burdened. I didn't want him to do this, not after his collapse, but the force of his will was great and Dr.

Curtis moved her hands away.

After a moment, he curled up next to Emma, who was breathing and breathing and sounding so beautifully alive. Her baby hands patted his cheeks and he sighed again, then stroked her forehead.

"Sleep, JJ."

Emma's eyes closed and I frowned, but let him stay there. Jeremy's eyes closed as well and his breath became slow and focused, like a concentrated effort to breathe.

"Just let me stay here tonight," he said and Dr. Curtis nodded.

Mulder helped my mother into a chair, who was shaken after everything, talking to her softly. I couldn't hear what they said, but my mother was nodding and patting Mulder's hand. He rose and came over to me, taking me up into his arms quickly.

"I need to talk to you, Scully."

"Why did he say he doesn't have tomorrow?" I asked into his embrace.

"Let's go talk, Scully."

Reluctant to leave either Jeremy or Emma, but needing to understand, I followed Mulder out to the waiting room.

=-=-=-=

He hugged me tightly, his arms pressing bruises into my back with the force of it. I kissed his jaw, standing on my tiptoes and reveled in the groan of his body as he dipped his head to mine. We stayed immovable for a long moment, breathing in the smell of each other, then parted, smiling.

I felt refreshed. Even hopeful.

Mulder pushed me to the couch where we'd prayed, so many long days before, and I sat down next to him, his hand on my knee. Feeling grateful he was even alive, I let him keep it there, even though I disliked the possessive feel of it. He kissed my neck and settled back into the plastic cushions.

"After you left, I woke up. Right as the taxi pulled away. I could feel it. Feel you gone--does that make sense?"

I nodded and bit my lip, choking back excuses and I'm sorrys. They were simply words and they would not make me forgiven.

"And I was jealous of you."

My mouth opened, shocked, and I turned to speak but he shook his head.

"I was jealous because you could leave. I wanted to be with Emma. I wanted to be here. But I knew that one of us had to search. . .had to find out why this was happening and a way to stop it."

"I-"

He pressed his finger to my lips and I stopped.

"Jeremy's 18, Scully. He'll leave after this. He doesn't want to ever go back. . .I can understand why. He didn't tell me, but I know he won't stick around."

"What happened out there?"

"I asked too many questions and they knew who I was, that I had Emma.

Was looking for something for her or about her. So they. . .I think they were going to kill me. Left me for dead in some kind of tunnel thing. I don't remember much. Jeremy stumbled on me, healed my hip."

"Your hip?"

"It was broken. Badly. There's a scar even. I wouldn't let Jeremy fix it because I was afraid he wouldn't have enough. . .leftover for Emma. He wanted to come with me when I told him about her."

I shook my head and pressed a kiss to the bloody lip, sighing against his mouth.

"When I saw Jeremy. . .I thought he was your son."

"What?" Mulder said, looking at me.

"The face, something about his stance and his mouth. I don't know. It's the same sort of thing that I see in Emma. That's why. . .why I was afraid Emma was yours and Diana's. But she's not. I'm not sure if it's worse this way or. . .or--"

"Scully. . .there's a reason why I look like Emma and Jeremy."

I could feel my blood freeze with his words and I clutched his hand in mine, breathing slowly. What else could there be worse than this?

"I searched for my sister for many years, until just a month before we got Emma. Somehow I had wonderful luck, or maybe a kind God, looking after me. I got you, this family. . .But that night, I found my sister, found her alive."

I gaped at him. "Your sister? Samantha?"

I could still see the far away glint in his eyes on that night, the burden of twenty odd years rising from his shoulders and scattering to the stars. The isolation of him from me on that February night still made me shiver.

He shook his head. "Not Samantha, Emma."

"Emma. But--"

I stopped, blinking.

"Oh," I whispered.

His jaw was working and he glanced away from me. "Jeremy's my half brother. Emma my half sister. I wondered, just for a moment, if I should have stopped searching, if I really should have just let it all go. I had a brother and sister out there that I didn't know about, but I still let them down. I gave up ever finding out the truth, Scully. I'm no better than my. . .my father."

I shook my head and closed my eyes to block tears, pressing into his side with my body. For a moment neither of us said anything, but I finally found my voice and cleared it shakily.

"Mulder. You. . .you are an amazingly honest and good man. Despite genetics, or childhood, or your parents--in spite of all those things.

And I love you."

I kissed him softly, wrapping my hands in his T-shirt and clutching him to me. He was stiff for a moment, then lowered his head so that I didn't have to crane my neck so much. His palms were hot and sweaty against my back and I sighed in the feel of him.

"And Emma?" he whispered.

I shook my head. "Emma is ours, Mulder. She belongs to us."

He licked his lips and smiled. "Yeah."

I caressed his cheeks with my fingertips, enjoying having him back, safe and with me again.

=-=-=-=

Jeremy was gone when we woke the next morning; he'd hadn't left a note or any kind of explanation, but there was a photograph on Emma's bed, one of him and her together, maybe a week before she was given to us.

Mulder kept it in his wallet and we sat down beside our little girl, holding her hand.

She opened her eyes at noon and we coddled her, Mulder and my mother and I, all of us holding her and talking to her and smiling. She wasn't as active as normal, but she managed to knock her head on the railing, so I knew she was getting well. She asked for the Mouse book and Mulder and I took turns reading it to her, over and over again until she fell asleep

at six. Dr. Curtis was telling us she would definitely be out before Christmas; I was glad.

We went to the hospital cafeteria smiling, holding hands, acting for the world like nothing was wrong at all. And maybe nothing was anymore. Like I loved Mulder, despite his genetics, I loved Emma. And nothing could make me not love her. Not a letter, not Jeremy's claim, not CancerMan.

After all, he had given her to us. She was ours.

We ate cold green beans and some kind of processed meat and milk. I made Mulder drink the milk even though he was dead tired and needed caffeine. He needed to be healthy more. For some reason, he hardly complained.

When we got back, Emma was awake again and crying for us, so we sat with her and stroked her cheek and played with her hair. She watched us for a long time, trying to be certain we would stay, then fell asleep again.

I laid down beside her, curling around my baby girl, and closed my eyes.

Mulder sat on a hard plastic chair beside us and our eyes met across Emma's body, holding very still. He reached out and laced his fingers through mine for a moment, smiling in that slow and lazy way that made my heart rush.

There were no words to say, no declaration that we didn't already know.

I felt in me that Mulder was staying, that Emma was growing, that I was becoming something different and better and perhaps, more holy. In a way.

I closed my eyes and when I dreamed, I picked up three stones and held them to my ear and listened.

<holy is the Lord, holy is the Lord>

But they were no longer crying, merely whispering.

=-=-=-=

end
adios
RM