I walk down the hospital corridor and quietly open the door to Scully's hospital room. "You awake?" I ask quietly.

She nods and motions me in. I cross quickly to her
bedside and look down at her. It's a reversal of our
roles from just a few weeks ago. The hospital staff
might as well just go ahead and reserve a room for us.

After she tells me that she and the baby are okay, I
reach out to touch her belly to reassure myself that
he - or she - is still moving. I've had such mixed
feelings about this pregnancy. Scully's told me,
step-by-step, everything she's gone through. Her
initial shock on learning that she was pregnant,
followed quickly by joy from her belief that a miracle had occurred and the baby had been conceived naturally during one of those wonderful nights, during the last few months before my abduction, when we'd made love. Followed, after a weird encounter with a woman whose pregnancy bore eerie similarities to her own, by a dawning dread that maybe this wasn't the normal result of two people expressing their love for each other, but the end product of some sort of hideous experiment. Followed by months of ambiguity and mood swings that left her joyful one moment and fearful the next. . .all without me to help her through it.

But now, as I feel the baby kick beneath my hand, I
realize it simply doesn't matter. We've talked about
having DNA testing done once the child is born to
determine whether or not I'm the father, but I now
know I don't have to wait for a lab to tell me whether or not this is my baby. I can make a choice - out of free will and love - to accept the child is my own.

I smile into Scully's eyes. I'm going to be a Daddy.