Chapter Text
Title: 40 Weeks
Author: Malibu Sunset
Email: [email protected]
Categories: MSR, AU after Per Manum, Pregnancy Fic, Snippet Fic, Mulder POV.
Rating: R/NC-17 Tough call. Not for the kiddos, but not a smutfest either.
Summary: What if the IVF attempt in Per Manum had been successful? This is that story.
Disclaimer: I didn’t give birth to them, but I love them like they were my very own.
Five Weeks
He realizes when she says it that it wasn’t what he expected her to say. He’d done his research. Based on statistics alone, her chances had been somewhere between a snowball’s chance in Hell and don’t get your hopes up. And yet here she is smiling up at him.
While he says nothing.
The smile begins to dissolve a little and he knows he has exactly two seconds to convince her that he is simply dumbstruck and not regretful. “That’s-that’s really great. I’m, uh, wow.” He’s nodding too much. He’s not convincing her.
She moves back two steps and slips her jacket off, draping it across the arm of a chair. Her eyes sweep the floor, landing everywhere but on him. He desperately wants the smile back.
“It is great, right?”
“I think so,” she says, the implication being that she isn’t really sure what he thinks even though she had thought she did. “It’s early. A lot can happen.”
She walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door, retrieving one unopened bottle of Evian from a line-up of six more identical ones, all with labels facing out. He follows her and just stands there as she drinks. She doesn’t offer him one. It could be because it’s implied by now that he should help himself, or it could be something much less hospitable. He isn’t certain if, when, or how he fucked up. He just knows that he did.
“What do you mean?” he manages. “Like what? You beat the odds so far, right, so then that means-“
“It means that my risk of spontaneous abortion is at least as high as any pregnant woman at five weeks, probably higher. Twenty-five percent maybe.”
“Spontaneous abortion,” he repeats, the word thick like poison in his mouth.
“Miscarriage,” she clarifies with a why-don’t-you-know-this sigh.
He absorbs this while she drains her bottle of water, places it on the counter, and opens a second one. Is camel-like thirst a first trimester symptom, or is she trying to float away? He needs to read books. He has no idea what to do, but he could do that at least. “So then there’s still a seventy-five percent chance that everything will be fine.”
There’s a pink ring around her mouth from the water bottle. “Theoretically.” She stifles a belch with the back of her hand and he wonders for a split second if she’s going to be sick. When does that start? And is there anything he should be doing about it when or if it does?
He needs books.
Seven Weeks
“Did you tell your mom?”
She looks up from the expense report she’s working on that he is pretty sure has been sitting in his inbox for three weeks now. He was just getting to it. “Yes.” Head back down.
He likes Maggie. She’s strong, good, there for her daughter when she needs her. Maggie Scully is what you got when you won the parental lottery. “Does she know that I’m um, the uh, that I’m um… involved?”
Her head pops back up. She silently mouths the word ‘involved’ like it’s completely foreign. Her eyes circle the room for a contemplative moment. “Yes.”
Maggie Scully now knows he jerked off into a cup. How does he feel about that? And would he feel better or worse if she knew that he had not used one of the stiff, crinkly magazines the clinic had thoughtfully supplied him with, but had rather been thinking about her daughter grinding on his lap with her skirt pushed up around her waist and her blouse flapping open? Not better. Definitely not better. He has other fantasies, though. Ones that reflect much better on him. Ones that are a lot more ‘making love’ and a lot less ‘hurry up and come before someone notices the office door is locked but the light is on.’
“I can imagine your mom must be pretty excited, right?”
“She’s very happy for me, yes,” she replies, not looking up from the report, the furrow on her forehead growing deeper. “Mulder, you can’t expense bolt cutters.”
“We wouldn’t have gotten into the warehouse without them.”
“We didn’t have probable cause. Do you want to have to answer for that? Because so far it’s been overlooked, but if you go drawing attention-“
“I’ll pay for the bolt cutter. Give me the receipt.”
She hands over the smudgy, curled paper. It had been in his pants pocket when they’d gotten caught in the rain. Again.
“Are you taking folic acid?”
She places the pen down and stares back at him like he’d just asked her if she was shooting heroin.
He leans his forearms on the desktop, hands folded. “Because I’ve heard it’s a good idea in the first trimester, that’s all. So I wondered if you were.”
She mirrors his pose and her eyes drift slowly from his hairline to his jaw and then back up to his eyes. “Folic acid, iron, calcium, B12, progesterone injections, and two prescription prenatal vitamins that make me feel like I want to upchuck my oatmeal every morning. I’m off caffeine, alcohol, and have cut my intake of sugar and sodium. And yet, every time I go to the bathroom, I’m terrified I’ll be spotting. Every little twinge makes me wonder if-“ she stops speaking and looks away from him, biting down on her lip and shaking her head.
“I’m sorry, Scully. I shouldn’t have said that.” Just add that to the growing list of things I shouldn’t have said.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, picking up her pen again. She draws figure eights and triangles on the desk blotter until the paper is almost worn through and torn. “I wasn’t expecting to be this…I don’t know.”
“Is there something I can do?” Preferably where I don’t say anything, because that isn’t going so well.
She huffs out a breath and he gets one of those sad smiles, and he figures it’s the best he’s going to get today. “Buy me a burrito supreme on the way home.” She pushes the half-completed expense report haphazardly into a folder and pulls her purse from the desk drawer.
The burrito supreme was the really big one. The one where he could only eat one, unlike the regular one where he could eat about three. “The supreme?”
She points a thin finger. “Don’t even start. For the next thirty-three weeks I’ll eat whatever I damn well please.”
His smile follows her to the door. This should be pretty fun to watch actually.
Nine Weeks
Agent Nauss has an inky black letter D stamped on the back of his right hand. From across the conference room table it could look like anything really. Except that Mulder knows what it is because he’s worn the same stamp on his hand before, although not in months, maybe even a year. It stands for The Doll House and it’s a gentleman’s club, and not even one of the classier ones. Jeez Nauss, if you’re going to go clubbing, at least wash off the evidence before your 8 a.m. meeting with the A.D.
Agent Keeler passes him a file and Mulder takes a cursory glance through it, half listening to Skinner and half noticing that Scully is fidgeting like a mayfly next to him.
Like clockwork. Third morning in a row.
“Excuse me.” She pushes her chair back hastily, and Skinner’s verbal pace doesn’t miss a beat as eight pairs of eyes trail Scully out of the room.
Five minutes later she’s back, looking a bit flushed, but other than that, not a hair out of place. He floats her the visual ‘you okay?’ and she nods once, reaching for the file that skipped her on the first rotation.
“Agents Hundley and Atherton will be wired and on the inside. Nauss and Granger are covering the south side of the building,” instructs Skinner. “Mulder and Scully are taking the front two exits. Everyone else is in the surveillance van.”
“And in the event of hostages, Sir?” asks Keeler, pushing a pair of black, square rimmed glasses up his nose. He’s fresh. Maybe six months out of the academy and thinking he’s ready to conquer the world, one bad guy at a time.
Skinner blinks twice at him and then averts his eyes. “Cardinello has never taken live hostages. That we know of.”
A couple of throats are cleared. The last building Randolph Cardinello operated out of ended in thirty-two dead. No hostages.
“But we’ll have negotiators standing by, if needed,” adds Skinner because it’s not nice to scare off the newbies.
He can hear Scully taking measured and slow breaths through her mouth and the tips of her fingers are pressed white against the lip of the table. He can’t imagine how much it must suck to feel this badly every morning. And not just morning. The other day he had to pull the car over.
The second time Scully makes for the door, she doesn’t even bother with the ‘excuse me.’ Her eyes look a touch glassy and the back of her hand is pressed to her mouth. Agent Hundley scooches his chair forward to let her by, his eyes on her face just this once instead of her ass.
She still hasn’t returned by the time the meetings ends. The suits file out, off to sit at crappy metal desks. Off to drink watered down coffee and not think about the fact that in another twelve hours they’ll be risking life and limb on a salary that only affords them a mediocre rent and a non-designer wardrobe.
“Agent Mulder, a word?”
He hates that. Like it’s ever really a word. More like several hundred, strung together with disappointed sighs and head scratching.
“Of course.”
“Close the door.”
Great.
The Assistant Director sits and waits for Mulder to get comfortable in a squeaky leather chair.
“What is it, Sir?” Because my partner may be slouched on the bathroom floor tiles again and I thought I’d go and offer up some moral support and perhaps a ginger ale.
Skinner tips his head toward the door. “Is she alright?”
“You mean Scully.” Stellar answer right there.
Disappointed sigh number one. “Of course I mean Scully. When I met with her Monday, she had to get up and leave twice.”
He met with her Monday? Why was Skinner meeting with Scully without him?
Skinner removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. “She said it was the stomach flu.”
Mulder nods noncommittally before it dawns on him that shit, Skinner is worried that the cancer is back. No wonder the poor man looks like he swallowed a box full of thumb tacks. “She’s all right, Sir. It’s not the…she’s still in remission.”
Air leaves Skinner’s expanded chest like a deflating balloon and he slides his glasses back on. “Okay.” He nods emphatically and there’s unmitigated emotion in his eyes as they search the ceiling. “Okay, thank you.”
“Is that all, Sir?”
Skinner waves a hand and slides his chair back. “Tell Scully to go home.”
She’s at the sinks in the ladies room when he walks in. Her eyes are red and her complexion slightly pale. “You shouldn’t be in here, Mulder.”
“You shouldn’t be on the task force tonight.”
“I’ll be fine.” She pumps amber liquid soap into her cupped palm and turns the hot water on.
He tugs off a stretch of dry paper towels and holds it out for her. The bathroom door opens and heels click on the tiles, then stop short with a scuff. Agent O’Connell studies them both briefly before shaking her head and huffing out a chafed breath. “Jeez.” She pivots on her heels and walks back out, the pistons on the door hissing.
And they wonder how the rumors get started.
**
They sit tightly together on the tailgate of the surveillance van, both still in Kevlar. “How many?” She hisses as the paramedic dabs astringent to a gash above her left eyebrow.
“Four dead, including Cardinello,” he replies.
“Shit.”
“It’s better than thirty-two.”
“Cardinello would have testified.” She draws a deep breath and winces, Velcro ripping as she shrugs off the vest.
The paramedic raises his eyes to hers. “You should have those ribs X-rayed. You want to ride in with us?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll be fine. I’m just tired.”
“Suit yourself,” the paramedic says, raising a hand in surrender.
“Scully.”
She stands and pushes past him, stretching. There’s a small white bandage above her eye and her hair is a tangled mess. It’s after 2 a.m. He never should have let her do this. “Scully,” he repeats, with a bit more admonition and concern in his voice.
She meets his eyes and they exchange pleading looks. He dips his head closer to hers. “You should be checked out.” The asphalt is a sea of agents and swat team members, parting around them like the Red Sea.
No one is paying the least attention to them, but she still whispers. “I can’t have an X-ray, Mulder. I’ll see my doctor first thing in the morning. I just want to go home. Will you take me please?”
She’s asleep in the front seat of his car, her head pillowed against his wadded up jacket when he pulls up in front of her apartment. He carries her up the front steps, into and out of the elevator, down the hall and through the front door of her apartment without waking her.
When he pulls off her shoes, she curls like a shrimp on top of the duvet and yawns. “You can stay here if you want, Muller. S’late.” He stands next to the bed, staring down at her and tries to figure that out. Obviously she meant the couch. Obviously.
He drapes the extra blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed over her and then lies down, fully clothed, and watches her take deep, steady breaths.
In the morning, he goes with her to see her doctor. He isn’t sure what’s expected of him, but when she is called into the exam room, he stays seated and watches her walk away. There’s a woman across from him who sits with her hands folded on top of her stomach. She is perhaps the most pregnant person he has ever seen.
A couple sits down in the chairs next to him. The man places a handled infant carrier on the floor and rocks it back and forth gently with his foot. Nestled inside is a squirming pink blanket with ducks on it. Mulder shifts to get a better glance and sees a tiny head with black hair sucking on a red, mottled fist. Are they supposed to be that small?
More women in various stages of gestation cycle in and out as Mulder waits. And waits. He’s leafing through a pamphlet on the benefits of breastfeeding, purely for educational purposes, when he realizes she is standing over him. “Learn anything?” She’s almost smiling.
He clears his throat and stands, tucking the pamphlet under a stack of magazines with cherubim babies on them. “All set?”
They’re in the car again before anything else is said. “So.”
“So,” she echoes.
“Everything’s okay?”
She flips down the visor and reapplies her lipstick. “Everything is fine. We confirmed a heartbeat through transvaginal ultrasound.”
He drops the keys onto the floor mat and is pawing for them and staring at her at the same time. “What? You-you saw …it?”
She smiles patiently. “Yes. There isn’t much to see yet, but yes.”
He processes that for a moment, rotating his finger through the metal key ring. “The heartbeat…” he trails off, absently.
“I’m hungry. Can we get some breakfast before heading into the office? That pancake place on Jefferson and Third is good.”
He starts the car and drives.