Chapter 7

Still six months, three weeks, three days – babytime

How many times have you been here before, Dana?

I think I've lost count. To me this is just another waiting room, just 
another hospital stay to add to the long list.

One of this days he's not going to come home.

Please don't let that be today.

I got down to the hospital as fast as an almost seven-month pregnant woman 
could. I think I sped through at least two red lights.

Now I'm sitting the surgical waiting room, a room that's not foreign to me. 
It's just another four walls, just another nervous nail biting waiting 
period. Its just another stack of insurance forms to fill out.

Or is it?

Things are different now. I move my hand down to my stomach and absently rub 
it. Things are different.

My mother joined me about an hour ago. I don't know who called her, but I'm 
glad they did. He's been in surgery for almost four hours now.

That's a long time. But he's had longer.

I talked to the doctor. He's a mess, basically. Hit his head on the 
dashboard; he's lucky he missed the windshield. He doesn't has airbags in 
his car; something that I constantly argue with him about. We usually take 
my car because of it. But today we left at different times, in different 
cars.

I should have made him take my car.

His other injuries include internal bleeding, broken ribs, and a nice little 
pneumothorax caused by one of the ribs that basically decided to snap in 
half.

I'm calm, I'm surprisingly calm.

That is what is worrying me the most.

The police talked to me also. They had five eyewitnesses who saw a brown van 
tailgate Mulder for almost five minutes, before it suddenly pushed itself 
forward, causing Mulder to easily lose control.

The car had no license plates. And tinted windows. No one saw the driver.

Oh and the car was abandoned less then two miles from the hospital, wiped 
completely clean of any fingerprints.

And I'm calm.

Secretly, I'm thinking about how many people I could knockoff with my gun. I 
leave my hand on my stomach. One thing I don't want to do now is get myself 
so worked up that I send myself into labor.

Mulder would kill me if I had this baby without him.

I don't want to have this baby without him. I can just think of the crib at 
home he's worked so hard to put together. He finished it two days ago and 
yesterday it collapsed. I should have seen it coming.

Just like the table that collapsed in the _Joy Luck Club_. I remember high 
school English class. Didn't my English teacher say that in every story when 
something fell or collapsed that it foreshadowed a bad situation to come?

I never did like English. Science was definitely more my forte. That way
everything always had a definite answer, there was no "it could go either 
way" or "you have to read between the lines to see the true meaning." At 
least not in my schooling.


The X-Files and Mulder couldn't have proved me more wrong.

I think in the fifth hour of surgery I fell asleep because the next thing I 
knew someone was shaking my shoulder.

"Ms. Scully?" I sit up suddenly, cursing myself for falling asleep. I find a 
doctor dressed in green scrubs standing in front of me, a chart in hands.

"Mr. Mulder is out of surgery."

Out of surgery? I glance at the clock on the wall and discover I've only 
been asleep for about half an hour. I stop cursing myself.

"How is he?" I manage to mumble, my voice not completely with it yet.

The doctor gripped the chart in his hands, something I recognized as a 'I've 
got bad news to tell you' grip. A girl I went to medical school with used 
the tactic; I told her that it tips off the family members immediately. She 
still did it.

"I'll be honest with you, Ms. Scully, he's in bad shape. We managed to patch 
him up, but he's not out of the woods. The head injury is what we're most 
concerned with, so the next 24-48 hours will be critical."

"Can I see him?" It was my first impulse, besides wanting to go out and 
personally shoot the person responsible for this accident.

The doctor nodded. "He's been taken up to ICU. I'll let them know you're
coming."

After that, I kinda just walked up there as if on autopilot. I knew the way; 
I've walked these walls a lot more than I'd admit. Mulder tends to go 
between Washington General and Northwestern Georgetown. It mostly depends on 
which one is closer at the time of the incident.

The next hours are a blur. I sit mostly by his bedside, spending the maximum 
time that I'm allowed at his bedside. My mother forces me down the 
cafeteria, I call in sick for work. Only twenty-four hours go by, but it 
seems like a lifetime. Sit, get up, eat. I do eat, but not for myself, but 
for the baby. I figure I might as well have some common sense.

Mulder's a fighter and doesn't surprise me. After twenty-five hours he's 
awake. And then goes right back to sleep after groggily acknowledging me. 
Its three hours later when he awakes again wanting to know how long he's 
going to be laid up here that I know he's going to be okay.

And I can't be happier. Yet, it still bothers me.

If they wanted him dead, then why didn't they do the job completely then?


Seven months, four days -- babytime

"I've been here for eight days, Scully. I want to go home."

He's whining like a two year old. And I love it. He's really making a great 
recovery. Just this morning, I found him with a baby catalog in his lap and 
a credit card in his hand. How he got a hold of the catalog, I don't know, 
but I decided that he has to get out of here soon before my (correction, now 
'our') apartment is mistake for Toys 'R Us.

Now he's looking at me again, with that look he's been perfecting for the 
last six years. All I can do is smile and go to find his doctor to talk 
about release papers. He's beaming and talking about a nice comforter he 
found for the crib he built.

I still haven't had the heart to tell him the crib he spent so much time 
putting up collapsed. Yet, somehow, I know he won't mind putting it back up.

Either that or he gives in and pays the extra fifteen dollars for 
construction.


Seven months, 19 days

He's been home for a week and a half and things are going back to normal, 
well, what you can call normal for Mulder. He was disappointed to see the 
crib back in pieces, but putting it back to together is the least strenuous 
activity I find him happy with. He seems to have forgotten how he still has 
another week and a half of medical leave before he can even step foot in the 
FBI.

Maybe next I should buy a self-assembling high chair.

"Shit! Damn piece of-"

Then again, maybe not.

My mind has almost forgotten about the accident, but almost isn't enough in 
my book. The police found no leads; the case was going nowhere. Mulder was 
alive and almost as good as new, so I tried to concentrate on that. But I 
still can't get rid of the feeling I have in the pit of my stomach.

Neither can the baby. He or she kicks like crazy whenever I seem to think 
about it. I don't know what to make of that. Things have been too easy. I 
somehow doubt that "they" would just leave us alone. As my due date grows 
closer, I just get more worried. September 14 is circled on my calendar, but 
all I feel is dread about that day.

I curse myself for that feeling. A baby brings joy, but then you throw in 
the last six years of my life and . . . well, you don't exactly get the best 
feeling in the world. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Mulder taught me well.

"Scully?"

I turn and find him holding his hand, a look of pain on his face. I sigh and 
take his palm, and look at the nice three inch gash that it now has.

"I think we should have someone come and assemble the crib," he says weakly 
and all I can do is laugh.

"Ok, but first back to the ER. You're going to need stitches," I answer, 
picking up the car keys. He grimaces.

Yes, things are definitely getting back to normal in the Mulder world, at 
least.


Eight months

August 14th has arrived. The one month countdown has continued. My mother 
told me she started packing for the hospital at eight months, just in case. 
That was a good thing, too, because I was two and a half weeks early. I 
decided I wasn't going to be unpacked when this baby let me know it wanted 
out. Thus, at eight months, my bag was packed and by the door. Mulder just 
shook his head. I just smiled.

"Babies are like the government, Mulder. They arrive when they want, on 
their own schedule."

"Own schedule? Yeah, I guess even screwing the people has a schedule these 
days." From my position on the couch, I throw a pillow at him. He just ducks 
and goes back to the paperwork he has laid in front of him.

Mulder's gone back to work, though he has another week before he's totally 
cleared to go into the field again. He's just been catching up on paperwork, 
a hell of a lot of paperwork. Yes, we're still on background checks. And 
yes, Mulder's less than enthusiastic, just as before.

My maternity leave starts in about two weeks, though I can tell Mulder 
wishes I would talk off earlier. He's lucky I'm taking off two weeks 
_before_ the baby. If I really listened to what I wanted, I'd be working 
until I went into labor. But I know I need some time off, and I have swollen 
ankles to prove it.

I've been getting a lot of "You still here?" and "When is that baby due?" at 
work, so I really do need to get out of there. They are driving me nuts. 
Especially all the women who I never talk to who come up to me and give me 
advice that I don't want and I don't need. Why does everybody think that 
just because I'm pregnant I need every piece of child rearing advice I can 
get? Plus, no one ever agrees. I've gotten more contradictions than 
agreements. It's very confusing.

Mulder and I still can't agree on a name. He's still insistent about the 
name Elizabeth, and refuses to name a baby girl anything other than that. 
Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we had a boy.

I still want that girl, though.

The crib is up, thanks to my neighbor Nick upstairs who had just finishing 
assembling his niece's the week before. Mulder grumbled throughout the whole 
process, but it was basically because he was pissed he couldn't do it 
himself. He got over it quick, as soon as he discovered that Nick was a 
Knicks fan. And thankfully a married Knicks fan. I try to remind him that 
I'm eight months pregnant, why would I go shopping now, but he doesn't 
listen. That's jealousy for you. And for some reason that's kind of nice.

Life has become what I thought I'd hate. Somewhat normal hours, and a 
family. I had always wanted a family, but somehow I had pictured it 
differently. However, some things are meant to be.

Meant to be. That statement itself gives me a shiver. I keep thinking its 
just a charade. That 'they're' (why do I say that I always wonder) just 
waiting for Mulder's and my guard to go down. That out baby is going to be 
tested and ...

I have an overactive imagination.

Or maybe not. It seemed I'm more paranoid then Mulder these days. Though, I 
know when he thinks I'm not looking, he's e-mailing the 'guys' and putting 
them on the lookout. Yeah, this is a real storybook romance, all right. 
Perhaps I should start writing children's books while I'm at it.

During my last week at work, I got an interesting proposition offered to me 
by AD Kersh. I could say good-bye to background checks and field work until 
my maternity leave and for two months after it to go back to the autopsy 
game. At first, I considered it garbage and suspected something was behind 
it, but in the end, Mulder got me to take it. Said it would allow me more 
time with the baby for the first couple of months.

"You can always chase a fertilizer truck, Scully," he teased, and was in 
surprisingly good spirits. For some reason I think it's the fact that word 
got down that the X-Files solving percentage is down. Way down. At this 
rate, though, I'm afraid Mulder may resort to stealing them from the filing 
cabinets in the basement. If only it were basketball season...


8 months, 14 days

My heart's still pounding.

Today was not a good day.

It was my last day of work before my maternity leave started. My mother was 
taking me baby item shopping the next day, excited as could be over the fact 
the two week countdown was about to begin. However, she was going to drag me 
past the weeding displays I knew, but I wouldn't mind so much.

After today, I don't think I feel like shopping.

It was simple really. Some coworkers had (to my surprise) decided to give me 
a cake and a kind of baby shower. Turns out, since Mulder and I got 
involved, that I seemed a little 'brighter' to some people. I hadn't noticed 
a change. I still don't think there is one. The thought was nice and I was 
all set to leave, a bag of baby gifts ready to take with me, when I noticed 
a small white envelope next to the bag.

I had picked it up, thinking I'd neglected it before and it went with one of 
the gifts.  Curious, I had opened it, reading its contents. My demeanor 
changed immediately.

"No 'accident' is a mistake. It's only a warning. Watch your step." The 
sentence has ingrained itself in my memory. It could be prank, but the line, 
typed in its simplicity seemed like no prank to me. Mulder was the same, 
taking the paper and starting his own private investigation. I'm just off on 
my own, thinking of what it meant. I never saw anyone drop the note off.

What made it even worse was the same message was in an e-mail sent to my
mailbox, the returning address not existing. It was a warning. What was 
going on here? I had two weeks until my due and now this? Something was 
going to happen.

Mulder immediately asked for two weeks off, and was on the phone at least an 
hour tonight, before pulling me into the bedroom and telling me to pack.

"What is going on?" is my immediate reaction.

"Frohike got a hold of some security tapes from the Bureau. Someone likes 
us, Scully. Just enough to tell us to get the hell out of here. At least 
until you have that baby."

"What a minute, Mulder. I'm just as worried as you are, but where are we 
going to go?"

"The guys found us a place. Upstate New York. And someone who might be able 
to help us lose the trail." He's throwing clothes into a duffel bag and 
starts to open my drawers as well. For a moment he stops and meets my eye, 
before stepping toward me. "I love you, Scully. I'll explain everything on 
the way, I promise. Just trust me?"

I start going through my drawers.


End Chapter 7/10