Per Manum
AS8X06
Originally written by: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Rewritten by: Kristel St. Johns


October 2000


The red-haired woman pants through her contraction, her
face contorting into a grimace of agony as a low moan
erupts into a primal scream. Her flushed cheeks puff as
she breathes. A distant voice--her obstetrician--is
encouraging her to push, PUSH. She clings to the hand of
the dark-haired man beside her who urges her on with
loving words. A final yell, and the agony is gone, replaced
with her doctor's voice crowing, "It's a girl!"

A slimy, begrimed infant is laid on the new mothers
stomach and she reaches out a tentative finger to touch a
quivering, tiny, blood-smeared fist as the baby's furious
cries fill the room. Tears of disbelief pour from her eyes as
beside her, her husband sobs and kisses her forehead
repeatedly.

"Look at her!" he whispers urgently. "She's beautiful! She's
perfect!"

The red-haired woman smiles through her tears as the
miniscule fist closes tightly around the tip of her prodding
finger. "Yes!" she whispers, her voice choked. "She is!"


* * * * *


The hospital room is dark, balloons and flowers looming
menacingly in the shadows. In her hospital bed, Kathleen
Haskell's eyes open and she looks at the bassinet across
the room. There is no sound; the baby is sleeping.

A block of harsh white light fills the room as the door
swings open and a nurse steps quietly inside. The new
mother sits up in alarm, using the control panel on the
guardrail of her bed to turn on the light.

"What are you--?"

"It's okay," the nurse murmurs reassuringly. She's tall, with
a round, wide face and brittle curly hair. "I just need to
take her down to the nursery for a moment to check her
vitals."

"Can't you do that here?"

"I didn't want to disturb your rest. Go back to sleep--I'll
have her back in no time."

The nurse lifts the baby from the bassinet and is halfway
out the door with her before Kath can ask, "But why do
you have to take her in the middle of the night?"

The nurse pauses for a moment, then continues out the
door.

"Hey!" Kath yells, turning to climb out of the bed. She
stands on wobbly legs, partially bent over against the pain
in her abdomen as her gown slips down her thighs. "Hey!
Come back! Bring her back!"

A moment later, another nurse runs to answer the call
button Mrs. Haskell presses frantically. She finds the new
mother hysterical, crying and screaming.

"MY BABY! They're taking my baby!!"

By then, the nurse who took the infant has entered the
elevator and is on her way to another floor. As she looks
down at the baby with an expressionless gaze, her face
changes; feminine features give way to masculine. The
rounded jaw becomes square and the forehead and cheeks
angular. The man stares at the infant a moment longer, his
face impassive, before the elevator opens and he walks
away.


* * * * *


November 27, 2000

Scully pauses in the final check of her appearance in the
full-length mirror to stand sideways, scrutinizing her
bodys profile as her hand slides down over her belly. In
her tight black knit top and black slacks, a small
protrusion is visible, though one would have to know
what to look for to detect it. But there are other signs. Her
face is rounder, softer. Her shirts strain tighter across her
breasts. Is there anything else that would betray her secret
to someone?

Sighing, she looks across the bedroom. On the cedar chest
at the foot of the bed, a large clothing box lies half-opened
amidst tatters of merry wrapping paper. The box is
emblazoned with the name "MOTHERHOOD," a popular
maternity clothier, and on top of the box lies an open
greeting card bearing the inscription, "It's a little early for
Christmas, but I thought you might need these sooner.
Happy Thanksgiving. Love, Mom." Next to the box is a
manila envelope and on top of the envelope is a black and
white ultrasound photo.

Her feet follow the path of her eyes and she stoops before
the cedar chest to pick up the photo. She looks at it
carefully, solemnly tracing gentle fingers over its surface.
After a moment, she sets it on the white bedspread and
picks up a dark green blazer. Putting on the jacket and
buttoning it up, the small bulge disappears. She gives her
reflection one last scrutiny, then turns and leaves the
bedroom.


* * * * *


She enters the X-Files office to find Agent Doggett seated
behind the desk she shared with Mulder for years. Across
from him is a man she doesn't recognize.

"I'm sorry, Agent Doggett. I didn't realize you had an
appointment," she apologizes, her voice frosty, turning to
leave.

"Actually, Agent Scully, we've been waiting for you. This
is Duffy Haskell, and it was actually you or Agent Mulder
he came here hoping to see." The two men rise and Duffy
Haskell reaches out to shake her hand. He's a young,
vaguely handsome man, thirty-something. Not terribly
tall, he is broad, a little out of shape. He's dressed in
business casual: slacks, button-down shirt without a tie,
and a sports coat.

"I'm sorry--you came to see me or my par--Agent Mulder?
Did you know him?"

"No," Haskell shakes his head in denial, taking his chair
across from Doggett again. "I got your names through
MUFON. My wife is a member."

"I see. Well, what can I help you with, Mr. Haskell?" Scully
asks cautiously as she leans against the table on the wall,
crossing her arms over her chest. She glances sideways at
Doggett, who appears to be intent upon Haskell.

"My wife, Kath--she's an abductee. They've been taking her
since she was a little girl. The aliens did these procedures
on her. Tests and whatnot. One procedure would give her
cancer while another one would cure her. Stuff like that.
Her whole life. Strange as it seems, you almost get used to
it, just like you almost get used to no one believing you.
But then, a couple of years ago, it stopped. She'd been
having the feeling she was going to be taken again--a
tingling in the back of her neck is how she described it--but
then one day in February of last year, it stopped, and she
hasn't been taken since. And then this year--this year she
became pregnant. We weren't supposed to be able to have
children. All the doctors said she was infertile as a result of
what had been done to her, but we went through some
new fertility treatments. It was a long shot, but it worked.
She gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago."

Scully's mouth works silently for a moment, her hand
creeping up to touch her own neck, then falling away
abruptly. "I see," she finally says softly. "I assume
something has happened now?"

"The baby--Agent Scully, they took our baby."

Scully's knuckles whiten, gripping the edge of the table
she leans against with brutal intensity. "How do you
know?"

"Kath saw it happen. They took our baby girl right out of
the hospital. Whoever did it was disguised as a nurse, said
she was taking the baby away to do some tests, and then
walked right out of the damned hospital with her!" Haskell
shouts, his eyes glistening with tears. "Here," he calms,
sniffling. "Security cameras in the main lobby got a shot of
him. Only this man isn't the nurse Kath saw take the baby.
That was a woman, so the police think he wasn't working
alone."

Scully takes the grainy printout of a video capture from
the man and looks at it closely, biting her lip as she does
so. The photo is unmistakably of the being she has come to
know as the alien bounty hunter. She stares at it longer
than she should, and hands it over hastily when Doggett
clears his throat, careful not to let him get a good look at
the trembling of her hands as she clasps them before her.

"Where is your wife now, Mr. Haskell?" she asks after
Agent Doggett gives the photo back to her.

"She just got home from the hospital. She had a
breakdown," Haskell replies grimly. "She sometimes has
to be kept sedated to avoid injuring herself. Somehow, she
survived what those bastards did to her for years, but
this--this was too much. This was the final straw."

Scully nods. "I'm going to have to get back to you on this,
Mr. Haskell. Do you--can you leave me your number or a
way to reach you?"

"Of course." Agent Doggett hands Haskell a pad of paper,
upon which the man writes. Haskell tears off the page and
offers it to Scully, who tucks it and the picture into the
inside pocket of her blazer.

"I--We'll be in touch," she promised.

"Thank you. Thank you very much," Duffy Haskell nods
and rises, leaving the office as Scully and Doggett watch
silently.

Scully turns a displeased grimace on Doggett. "Well, I'm
sure that was quite an interesting diversion for you."

"You don't find it interesting? Seems to me you would."

"By 'interesting' I assume you mean outrageous and
preposterous," Scully scoffs.

"Well, unless I'm mistaken you already knew that man's
story," Agent Doggett pauses for effect. "The abduction,
the tests, a bout with cancer, then a remission..."

"What exactly are you getting at?" Scully demands.

"That's your story, Agent Scully. Right down to a tee. Well,
except for the pregnancy part. It's all over there in the
files."

Scully mentally curses the time and effort that went into
rebuilding those files after the fire destroyed so many of
them. "I appreciate your thoroughness, Agent Doggett,"
Scully says coldly, "and your familiarity with the X-Files in
those cabinets, but my personal files are my personal files.
Okay?"

"Okay, sure. Just seems to me, with your preoccupation
with abduction cases recently, this one would be right up
your alley," Doggett replies disingenuously.

"You mean the alley that will give Deputy Director Kersh
the excuse he needs to fire me?" she asks with quiet anger.
"Sorry, but no thanks."

"Did something happen, Agent Scully?"

Scully gives him a disgusted look. "No," she answers after
a moment. "Nothing. I just don't think there's much here
that will interest you, Agent Doggett. In this case or in my
files."

She stalks out of the office and down the corridor to the
elevator before he can respond, punching the button and
crossing her arms over her chest until the doors slide open.
When they have closed behind her, she leans against the
back wall of the elevator and replays Haskell's words
through her mind

"We weren't supposed to be able to have children. All the
doctors said she was infertile...."

Sighing, Scully closes her eyes and remembers...


* * * * *


June 1997
George Washington University Medical Center


The elevator opens to reveal the cold, white hospital
corridor. Scully steps off the elevator, walking down the
hallway as though in slow motion, passing doors on her
left and right as she approaches one at the end of the
hallway, in the clearly marked Obstetrics and Gynecology
wing.

A receptionist greets her, and she introduces herself. "I'm
Dana Scully, and I have a ten o'clock appointment with Dr.
Parenti."

"If you'll just have a seat, I'll let him know you're here," the
receptionist replies pleasantly, and Scully sits in one of the
empty chairs, glancing at the pregnant women and the
mothers with their newborns. She picks up a magazine and
begins flipping idly through it, her attention drawn away
repeatedly to the other patients in the lobby, particularly
the children.

She looks back down at the magazine and is startled when
a drop of blood splashes onto one of the pages. Scully
looks up in alarm, the magazine tumbling from her lap as
she digs in her pocket for a tissue. Another patient gasps
in horror at the sight of the blood trickling down her upper
lip and Scully presses the tissue to her nose, just as a voice
calls from behind her, "Dana?"


* * * * *


She goes straight to Dr. Parenti's office after cleaning up in
the restroom, and the doctor greets her kindly. "How are
you feeling?"

"Fine--I'm fine. Some days I wouldn't even know I was
sick. Others--aren't so good," she replies with an effort at a
smile. It falls flat, and an awkward silence settles between
her and the doctor.

"Dana--I know this is a hard time for you," he says at last.
"Your oncologist, Dr. Zuckerman, has explained to me that
the inoperability of your cancer and its placement means
that your only chances, small as they are, are some pretty
radical and severe forms of radiation and chemotherapy.
Now, you came to me because you were aware that, even
if you survive the cancer, the treatments might have some
adverse effects, including the possibility of leaving you
sterile. This isn't the first time I've harvested ova from a
cancer patient so that she can still have a chance to
conceive after she's overcome her illness. I understand
your need to look to the future, your need to hold onto
something, some hope. But in your case--Dana, I don't
know how to tell you this...but going over these
preliminary tests, I'm afraid that it's not going to be
possible in your case."

Scully stares at him, her mouth opening wordlessly, her
brow wrinkling in consternation. Finally, she manages to
speak. "What?"

"I'm sorry, Dana. The ultrasound shows there's been
massive scarring and damage to your ovaries already. To
be frank, I've never seen damage quite this dramatic,
though I've heard of it, usually in cases where a woman
has been exposed to high doses of concentrated radiation.
I'd be able to tell more conclusively with an exploratory
laparoscopy, but at this point if I had to predict your
chances of producing a viable ovum, even with fertility
drugs, I'd have to say they're statistically nonexistent. I'm
sorry."

Nodding, stricken, she rises from her chair and leaves the
office without another word. Dr. Parenti calls out to her,
asking her if there's anything he can do, if she needs him to
call someone for her, but she ignores him, instead
plodding slowly out through the lobby toward the door by
which she entered. Her hand reaches for the doorknob...


* * * * *


Zeus Genetics
Germantown, Maryland
November 27, 2000

Scully steps through the door and lets it swing shut behind
her. She looks around the white on white on white lobby
with distaste. "Hello? Is anyone here?" she calls over the
counter at the receptionist's desk, and a harried woman,
heavily pregnant, hustles out of the back office to greet
her.

"Sorry," the woman gasps, waddling to a halt. "We're
understaffed today. How can I help you?"

"So understaffed they have the patients working the front
desk?" Scully asks with a hint of amusement, eyeing the
receptionists protruding belly.

The woman laughs cheerfully. "A patient and an
employee," she explains. "Did you have an appointment?"

"No!" Scully denies quickly. She finds her attention drawn
momentarily to the pendant hanging around the woman's
neck. Etched in silver, it's a human hand with an eye in the
palm. She recognizes it, but she's not sure from where.
"No. I'm just here hoping to talk to Dr. Zehnder about a
patient. I'm Special Agent Scully with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation," Scully pulls out her I.D. "I was given his
name by Duffy Haskell, who said Dr. Zehnder was
Kathleen Haskell's obstetrician."

"Yes, of course," the receptionist nods. "We heard about
what happened to Kath's baby. We're all praying she'll be
found soon. Let me call the doctor for you, Agent Scully."

Scully wanders away from the receptionist's desk, looking
about the white room with its white walls and white chairs
and white carpeting. It doesn't appear to be the kind of
place someone looking to create and raise a child would
go. Too cold. Too sterile. Too...

...A bright white light, reflecting off white walls, blinding
her. She's covered in a white sheet, her eyes wide with
alarm, while men in white surgical scrubs surround her.
The light glints off the stainless steel rod that descends to
her navel as her abdomen swells...

"Agent Scully?" A hand falls on her shoulder and Scully
jumps, spinning around to face the man who has come up
behind her.

"I'm Dr. Zehnder," he introduces himself, reaching out to
shake her hand. He's tall, with dark brown graying hair.
His face is round and kindly behind wire-framed glasses,
middle-aged and decidedly unthreatening. Scully accepts
the gesture, swiftly composing herself. "Would you like to
step into my office?"

"Of course, Dr. Zehnder. This should only take a moment."
She follows him out of the lobby, past several examination
rooms into a comfortable office. Decorated in earth tones, it
lacks the spotless sterility of the lobby. Scully feels herself
relax.

"Can I get you some water, Agent Scully? You looked a bit
pale there for a moment."

"No. No, thank you," Scully shakes her head, seating
herself in the chair the doctor indicates. "I've been asked to
look into the disappearance of Kathleen Haskell's baby
and I understand from her husband that you were her
obstetrician."

"Yes, Duffy called me, told me it was all right to share
confidential information with you if need be. Actually, I'm
a reproductive endocrinologist. I've been working with
Kathleen for a number of years," the doctor replies, sitting
behind his desk.

"Was she undergoing fertility treatments, then?"

"Yes. She had severe scarring and damage to her ovaries.
We were forced to use a laparoscopic procedure and laser
surgery to take care of the worst of the scarring in order to
enable her to ovulate. Most of the follicles were damaged
beyond hope, but there was still a chance we could get a
few ova from what was left with fertility drugs. It was a
long shot, but the procedure worked. Embryonic transfer
and implantation took place without incident."

"And as far as you could tell, the pregnancy was normal?"
Scully prompts.

"Yes. Kathleen was closely monitored the entire time, and
as far as the usual obstetrics tests were concerned, her
pregnancy was 100% healthy and normal the entire time."

"And you were there for the birth?"

"Um, no...Mrs. Haskell went into labor a couple weeks
early while I was out of town at a conference. My associate,
Dr. Bartell, attended the delivery."

"And there is no reason you can think of that anyone
would have any reason to kidnap the Haskells baby?"

"No. It's so sad, after everything they went through to have
the baby in the first place. You hear of this sort of thing all
the time--people who can't have children of their own steal
someone else's child, or taking infants to sell on the black
market. I suppose there's a dozen reasons anyone might
have had for doing it, but that doesn't make it any less
tragic for the Haskells."

"Do you have Mrs. Haskell's ultrasounds and test results?
I'm also a medical doctor, and I've dealt with people
exposed to high doses of radiation before. I'd like to take a
look at them and compare them to others I've seen."

"I don't have them available immediately, but I can have
our filing clerk pull them and courier them to you
tomorrow."

Scully's mouth tightens, and her first reaction is one born
of too much betrayal--paranoia. She doesn't trust that the
records will actually be the ones she's looking for if she
waits to receive them. But she cannot come up with any
logical reason why they would be changed, and she knows
how complicated the filing systems at medical clinics can
be.

"That will be fine," Scully murmurs. "Well, I think that's
everything. If you can think of anything, remember
anything that might relate to this case, here's my card.
Please don't hesitate to call me."

"Of course. Is there anything else you need?"

"No, thank you. I'll just--see myself out," she says softly,
walking quickly from the room. She hears the doctor
following her and pauses by a drinking fountain, pushing
her hair back as she bends over to drink. She can feel the
doctor pause behind her for a moment before returning to
his office and closing the door. She rises slowly, looking
around the empty hallway.

A sign on a nearby door proclaims it to be Dr. Bartell's
office. Stepping carefully and silently, she approaches the
door. It's cracked open slightly, and she can hear a male
voice from inside. "Everything's fine...right on
schedule...we'll be ready for delivery on time...I'll take care
of the arrangements..."

Cautiously, Scully peers around the doorframe and into
the office. A dark-haired man in a lab coat is pacing behind
a desk, holding a medical file in his hands and a phone
receiver between his ear and shoulder. Suddenly, he turns
in her direction, still looking down at the file. She gets a
look at his face and for an instant, the past and the present
collide.

"Dana? I'm Dr. Scanlon..."

"...You're going to feel like dying."

She gasps, jerking back away from the doorway in shock.
The face of the man she has just seen is undeniably that of
Dr. Kevin Scanlon, the oncologist who first treated her
when she was diagnosed with cancer four years ago. After
a moment, she turns and hurries down the hall and out the
door.


* * * * *


Kathleen Haskell frowns in her sleep, tossing her head
back and forth. On the table next to her side of the bed, an
open and half-empty bottle of pills stands beside a dark
lamp. There is a loud crash from somewhere in the house,
and her eyes fly open.

"Duffy?" she calls groggily into the darkened room.

A muffled thud comes from downstairs, and a muted
groan, and Kath sits up. "Duffy?!"

She rises from the bed, revealing a long flannel nightgown,
her body thin beneath it. Her eyes and cheeks are hollow,
her hair stringy and tangled. She sways drunkenly on her
feet, then shuffles slowly toward the door, calling out her
husband's name again. She creeps down the stairs,
clutching the handrail carefully.

When she reaches the bottom step, she turns to the kitchen,
bare feet slithering across the tile floor. A countertop, the
stove and the refrigerator line the wall to her right. To her
left, the sink rests in a tile-topped island. On the other side
of the island is the dining room table. Directly ahead of
her, a French door that leads to a patio dominates the wall
on the far side of the kitchen, and Kath can see it hangs
open, swinging on its hinges. Glass glitters over the floor
in the distant glow of the streetlights outside.

"Duffy!" she cries frantically, turning left past the island to
go around it, but she cannot avoid the glass in her bare
feet. There is a tinkling sound as her unprotected soles
crush several pieces, and she cries out in pain, limping as
she leaves small speckles of blood on the floor. She rounds
the island and passes the dining table, approaching the
threshold of the living room. As she nears the sofa, she
trips over something and crashes to the floor, her sharp cry
cut off abruptly with the shock of impact.

"Oh, my God, Duffy!" she whispers. It is her husband's feet
she has tripped over. He is lying sprawled on the floor at
the end of the couch, one hand on the glass-topped end
table where the telephone rests, as though he had been
trying to reach the phone when he collapsed. Kath rolls
him over and cries out again when she sees his eyes are
swollen shut, the skin discolored and angry reddish-
purple.

She is reaching for the phone when feet appear before her,
visible through the glass surface of the table. Whimpering,
she looks up for what seems like an eternity until her
husband's face comes into view, towering above her.

Her scream echoes through the silent neighborhood.


* * * * *


Outside F.B.I. Headquarters
November 27, 2000 10:00 P.M.


"I can get a warrant, have him brought in for questioning,"
Skinner offers, standing across the walkway from her. It's a
cold night, their breath frosts the air. The sky is winter
dark, clouds obscuring the starlight so that all that remains
for illumination is the glow of street lights across the lawns
and walkways.

"On what grounds? We never had proof that Dr. Scanlon
had anything to do with the deaths of Penny Northern or
the other women in Allentown. We don't even have
Mulder now to testify that it was Scanlon's name he saw at
the Lombard Research Facility," Scully paces on the paved
sidewalk. "Besides, if Kersh gets wind I'm following up on
another 'alien abduction' case, I'm liable to find myself out
of a job."

Skinner frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. "But you
don't think it's an accident that this man is the doctor who
delivered Kathleen Haskell's baby."

"I don't know what I think," she sighs, finally sitting on a
bench, rubbing her forehead tiredly.

"Scully, you can't personalize this too much. That woman--
she's not you," Skinner says softly. "Her baby isn't yours."

"No, but I could easily have been her, couldn't I?" Scully
lifts her eyes to his. "Agent Doggett pointed out the
similarities between Mrs. Haskell's history and my own,
and he was right. More right than he knows..."

"You still haven't told him?"

Scully shakes her head. "I can't. Not until I'm sure I can
trust him. Reporting me to the Deputy Director didn't
exactly help."

"You can't keep it a secret for much longer, Scully."

"I know," she whispers. "But if they decide to use this
against me, then what?"


* * * * *
Dana Scullys Apartment
November 27, 2000 11:30 PM

Scully sighs and settles onto her sofa, staring into the
fireplace, cradling a large mug of tea in her hands. She sits
frozen for a moment, taking a slow sip, as she gazes,
mesmerized, at the flickering flames...



* * * * *


January 1998

...A long-fingered, masculine hand intrudes into the
picture of the flames before her and sets two vials on the
coffee table. One vial is long and slender, filled with clear
pink fluid. The other is shorter and wider, filled with
something green and viscous. The only thing they have in
common is that they each bear her name.

"Those are the ova I found at the Lombard Research
Facility when you became ill, Scully," Mulder's saying
softly, so softly she can barely hear him with the pounding
of her heart in her ears. "I wanted to take them all, to get
them out of their hands, but there wasn't time. I couldn't
get them to a proper storage facility in time, either, so
they're not viable. I'm sorry."

Scully nods solemnly. She sits in her black suit with her
hands clasped in her lap, her mouth pressed in a grim line.
Her cross glitters at her throat. She is still thin from her
illness, haunted by the ordeal of watching the death of the
daughter she barely knew. "And that one?" She points to
the vial filled with greenish fluid.

" I found it last week at the nursing home in San Diego,
where I found Anna Fugazzi. Its an embryo. I think its
like Emily. Scully--"

With effort, she turns her eyes to look at him. His face is
earnest and sad as he says, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell
you sooner. You were sick and I didn't want to lay more
on you. I know--I know you've had a lot of choices taken
away from you. And if I could put those choices back in
your hands, I would. But this is all I can offer you. This is
all I've been able to find."

"It's enough," she says hollowly, picking up the two vials
with one hand and looking at them for a moment. "These
are mine. They cant have them. They can't touch them.
They can't use them."

She rises from the sofa slowly, feeling Mulder's dark eyes
intent upon her, and kneels in front of the fire. She stares
into the flames for a long moment, then pulls the screen
aside and tosses both vials into the fireplace. She looks
down at her hands where they rest on her thighs, the hands
which have just executed one of the few decisions she's
been allowed to make for herself in recent years.

She kneels there silently, watching the vials as they're
engulfed by the flames, disappearing and reappearing
with the motion of the fire. Presently, Mulder kneels
beside her and pulls her to him, pressing her face against
his chest. Her arms lock around his waist as she begins to
sob and he murmurs soft reassurances into her hair. She
turns her head and opens her wet eyes to look once more
into the flames...


* * * * *


...A loud knock startles her out of her reverie. Scully's hand
jerks, sloshing tea over the rim of the mug, and she quickly
sets her cup on the coffee table and rises from the couch.
She grabs her gun off the table behind the sofa and takes it
from its holster as she crosses to the door.

She doesn't know who she expected to see this late at
night, but she's quite certain it wasn't the pregnant
receptionist she encountered earlier that day at the Zeus
Genetics office.

"Agent Scully," the woman gasps, hunched over and
panting as though she has been running a great distance.
Her eyes are wide and afraid. "My name is Mary
Hendershot. My baby's in danger. I need your help."


* * * * *


November 28, 2000
The Haskell Residence

Agent Doggett is kneeling beside the body of the man on
the floor in the living room when Scully enters through the
front door. Scully pauses a minute to straighten her
shoulders before approaching him.

"Recognize this?" he asks, gesturing down at Duffy
Haskell. The man's eyes are discolored and swollen shut
and he's been dead for some hours.

"Yes, I do," Scully nods. "It's the retro-virus A.D. Skinner
was exposed to in Arizona a few months ago."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Kathleen Haskell is missing,
presumably taken by whoever did this."

"Undoubtedly taken," Scully corrects, turning from him to
proceed on to the kitchen, where a crime scene
photographer is taking snapshots of the broken and open
French door. She looks at Doggett, who has followed her.
"By the same party responsible for the kidnapping of her
baby."

"We got no proof of that," Doggett denies.

"Actually, we do. The picture Duffy Haskell gave us when
he first visited was the being I told you about, the alien
bounty hunter. The one whose blood transmits this
retrovirus."

"And you didn't see fit to inform me of this at the time?
Agent Scully, I can't do my job if you're holding back
information from me."

"Seems like we've had this conversation before, Agent
Doggett," Scully replies coldly. "I offered not to hold back
any information and you reported me to Deputy Director
Kersh in return. I can't share information with you if the
first thing you're going to do is relate it to someone who
would like nothing better than to see the X-Files shut
down and these sort of cases closed for good. Whether you
believe their stories or not, something has happened to
these people, and I can't help them if you're going to stand
in my way. I don't expect you to believe. But I do expect
you to work with me, and if you're not going to do that,
then I don't see what we have to discuss."

"Report? Look, I didn't--" Doggett breaks off, nearly
growling in frustration, running a hand over his close-
cropped hair. "Okay. So, assuming this is true," Doggett
finally continues. "That this alien has taken the Haskell
baby and now Mrs. Haskell, why?"

"I have a witness out in my car who claims she knows
what's going on here. Why Mrs. Haskell's baby was
taken...and why hers is next."

"You brought a witness to a crime scene?"

"She's under protective custody. A.D. Skinner is out in the
car with her now until we can take her statement and get
her to a safe place. She came to me last night. She says the
Haskells pregnancy was orchestrated, from conception to
delivery, by the same people who are responsible for Mrs.
Haskells abduction, and that of her baby."

Doggett frowns. "How exactly does one 'orchestrate' a
pregnancy?"

"That's what I'd like to know, Agent Doggett," Scully
answers with grim intensity. "As soon as possible."


* * * * *


Mary Hendershot plays with the pendant hanging around
her neck as she faces Doggett, Skinner, and Scully at the
table in the diner. She is surprisingly composed. The
occasional tear rolls down her face and her voice
sometimes hitches, but otherwise, she is calm. Scully
recognizes her brand of composure all too well; it's the
kind that comes from being hurt so badly and so often that
it takes an extreme disturbance to provoke any show of
distress.

The woman speaks slowly, with intelligence.

"It started on a MUFON website," she murmurs softly. "A
pharmaceutical company was sponsoring a study for a
new infertility treatment protocol. Most of us...we don't
have a lot of money. And some of us have a hard time
getting medical insurance. So it was a chance for those of
us who cant afford fertility treatments to have a child, to
have what they took away from us."

"Kath Haskell and I belonged to the same MUFON
chapter, and we went to the same clinic, with about a
dozen other women from the D.C. metro area," she
explains. "And that's how I got my job as a receptionist at
Zeus Genetics. Dr. Zehnder and Dr. Bartell were both so
wonderful and kind, so sympathetic to all these women
and what they were going through, and they seemed to
take such joy in helping them. I wanted to be a part of that,
and so when their receptionist quit I applied for the job.
But for the last month, since the abduction of Kath's baby,
things have been strange. Dr. Zehnder has been extremely
upset. He began canceling appointments with other
women who participated in the study, and he's been
hinting to me that I should get away, go someplace else
before my baby is born, but I have no place else to go. I
know he's afraid my baby might be taken, too, but I didn't
understand why until yesterday.

"After Agent Scully came to speak with Dr. Zehnder, a man
came. He and Dr. Zehnder argued, or I should say, Dr.
Zehnder argued. The man didn't say much of anything that
I could hear, but whatever he did say, it upset the doctor.
Dr. Bartell walked into the lab where they were arguing.
I'm not allowed back there, no one who hasn't scrubbed is
supposed to go in there, but I walked up to the door and
looked through the window just in time to see the visitor
shoot Dr. Bartell. Then he told Dr. Zehnder to clean up,
and that he would, quote, 'take care of the women.' I hid
behind a wall while the man left, and then Dr. Zehnder
left. I went into the lab to try to help Dr. Bartell, but he was
already dead. And then I looked around. The walls were
lined with shelves filled with jars. And in those jars were
fetuses. Like this."

Mary Hendershot reaches into her large purse and brings
out a specimen jar. Inside it, a small fetus floats in clear
yellowish fluid. But the fetus is deformed, its eyes too big,
too slanted. Though mostly human, the deformities are
clearly alien features.

"I think this is what they put inside Kath Haskell. What
they put inside me, and who knows how many other
women. I think this is why they took her baby, and why
they'll take mine when it's born," the woman concludes, a
tear slipping from her eye.

"That isn't what I think it is," Doggett says quickly and
adamantly.

"Not if you think you can explain what else it might be,"
Scully replies with a hint of sarcasm. Skinner gives her a
warning look.

"Duffy Haskell never mentioned any deformities in their
baby," Doggett declares.

"Perhaps there weren't any," she replies. "Perhaps
whatever this is, these were the failures, the ones that
didn't turn out right." She looks back at Mary Hendershot,
who now visibly trembles on the verge of hysterics. "When
are you due?"

"I'm at 39 weeks," she sniffles.

"We're going to take care of you, Mary," Scully declares.
"You and your baby, I promise."

Hendershot nods tearfully and Scully pats her hand in
sympathy. "I need you to go with Assistant Director
Skinner to the car. I'll be along in a moment."

Skinner leads the woman from the booth and out the doors
of the diner while Scully looks back at Doggett, who is
clearly fuming. "Anything else I should know?" he
demands.

"Yes," Scully answers, then pauses, drawing a deep breath.
"The man Ms. Hendershot referred to as Dr. Bartell has
another identity: Dr. Kevin Scanlon. He is--was--suspected
of abetting the deaths of the cancer patients in Allentown,
Pennsylvania around the time I had cancer. Agent Mulder
went into the Lombard Research Facility investigating
records of those same women seeking fertility treatments--
records on which my name was listed as well, despite my
never having sought any such treatment--and found that
Scanlon was on staff there. Whatever is going on here,
Agent Doggett, it goes deep. It goes right back to my own
abduction and the abductions of all these women. And that
goes right back to people within our own government--
within the Bureau. People like Section Chief Blevins, who
up until his death worked contrary to the interests of the
X-Files and the truth. Now, you can call me paranoid all
you like. You can scoff and refuse to believe, but
understand when I tell you that if anyone learns of what
Ms. Hendershot has told us, her life will be in grave
danger. What happened to Mrs. Haskell could easily
happen to her. No one can know about this."

"I may not believe in a lot of this stuff," Doggett answers,
"but I'm sure something has happened to these women--
that something happened to you. Whatevers in that jar--
that's not normal. Not right. It needs to stop."

"It's not just what's in the jar," Scully replies pensively. "It's
what's happened to these women--to all these people.
What's been happening all along. They've been violated,
used--dehumanized. They've had their most basic human
rights and choices systematically stripped from them to
serve an agenda that--whether it's of this world or not--is
almost certainly not concerned with the greater good."

"I understand you take this personally..."

"Yes," her voice is firm. "I do."

"Look, Agent Scully," Doggett says gravely. "I don't know
how to make you believe this, but I didn't report you to
Deputy Director Kersh. I don't know how he learned about
your investigation in Boston. You do what you have to do
to protect that woman and get to the bottom of this--no one
will hear about it from me."

Scully closes her eyes and sighs, nodding in resignation.
She doesn't know if he's telling the truth, but she has no
choice but to accept his words.

"What do you need from me?" he asks.

"I need you to get to Zeus Genetics and see what evidence
you can find--before it all disappears. The murder of a
respected reproductive endocrinologist should be a
perfectly legitimate investigation. A.D. Skinner will sign
off on the 302."

"You got it," they slide out of the booth in tandem, Scully
preceding Doggett out of the diner. Skinner stands beside
Scully's car, where Mary Hendershot occupies the
passenger seat. Drawing a deep breath, Scully approaches
Skinner as Doggett returns to his truck.

"Can you accompany Agent Doggett to the Zeus Genetics
clinic?" she requests. "I'll take care of our witness."

Skinner nods. "What about you?" he asks solicitously.

"I'm fine," she dismisses the inquiry.

Skinner studies her closely for a moment, then nods. "Call
me if you need anything."

She agrees with a stiff jerk of her head and gets into the
drivers seat. In her rearview mirror she can see Skinner,
and Doggett by the truck behind him, watching her drive
away.

"Where are we going?" Hendershot asks after a moment.

Scully hesitates before answering, then says decisively,
"To get a second opinion."


* * * * *


Zeus Genetics
Germantown, Maryland


Special Agent Gene Crane greets Skinner and Doggett as
they pull up to the building that houses the fertility clinic.

"I've got a crime scene team inside, but it looks like
someone went through here pretty thoroughly already.
We've found some traces of blood in the lab on the floor
and walls, which holds true with the theory that someone
was shot and killed in there, but everything else is gone.
There's no body. The shelves are empty, the cold-storage
equipment cleaned out."

"What about paperwork?" Doggett demands, leading the
way into the clinic. Crime scene analysts mill through the
offices and laboratories. "Patient records, that sort of
thing."

"There's not much left," Crane answers. "Whoever did this,
they did a good job on the place. The computers were all
trashed--we're going to take them back to the labs and see
if we can get anything off them."

"I'll do that," Skinner interrupts. "I'm heading back to the
Hoover building myself. I'll take them with me."

Crane opens his mouth on the verge of protesting, then
closes it again, nodding brusquely. "Yes, Sir," he answers,
and walks away, calling out, "Jenkins--I need those hard
drives gathered up for A.D. Skinner!"

"You're not staying to look around?" Doggett questions
once Crane is out of earshot.

"No--and neither are you," Skinner replies. "They're not
going to find anything here. Any evidence that was here,
it's gone. Those hard drives--if they are the original hard
drives--that's another story. But if there's anything left to be
found on them, we can't just leave them in the Bureau labs.
Theyll disappear, or they'll come up blank, or they'll be
replaced."

"Then what are you planning to do with them?"

"I plan to take them through unofficial channels," Skinner
answers, pulling out his cell-phone and hitting the speed-
dial. "Byers, it's Walter Skinner--turn off the tape."


* * * * *


George Washington University Medical Center


"Dana, I'm sorry I kept you waiting," Dr. Parenti smiles
warmly as Scully enters his office.

"I'm sorry to barge in without an appointment, Doctor, but
this is an emergency," Scully answers, sitting across the
desk from him and gesturing Hendershot into a chair
beside her. "I'm here in an official capacity as an F.B.I.
agent. This is Mary Hendershot. She's thirty-nine weeks
pregnant, and she's in my custody for her own protection.
We believe that someone may be after her baby, possibly
because of genetic abnormalities resulting from
experiments performed prior to embryonic transfer in the
course of fertility treatments she was undergoing."

Parenti hesitates, taken aback. "Excuse me--experiments?
What sort of experiments?"

"Whatever sort of experiments would produce this--" she
takes the jar containing the alien-like fetus out of the bag
she brought with her and sets it on Parenti's desk.

The doctor pauses perhaps an instant too long, blinking.
Scully looks at him sharply; whatever she is expecting--
shock, horror, disbelief--comes just a beat too late for her
comfort.

"Dear God..." he breathes at last. After a moment he shakes
himself. "What do you want me to do?"

Scully exchanges a glance with Mary Hendershot, who
folds her hands nervously across her belly. "We want you
to induce labor. There's a good chance that Ms.
Hendershot will need to go into protective custody or a
witness protection program to protect her and her baby.
That will be easier to do without having to worry if she's
going to go into labor and then providing conditions for
the safe birth of her baby. I also want to run a DNA
analysis and comparison between her baby and this fetus.
If our suspicions are correct, there will be similarities."

"Of course. I'll arrange for her to be admitted to maternity
at once," he agrees, reaching for his phone.

"Dr. Parenti--" Scully extends her hand, holding the phone
down. "You can't use her name."

Parenti pauses again, then nods stiffly. Scully sits back in
her chair with a frown of unease as Parenti lifts the phone
and begins to dial.


* * * * *


Scully sits by the hospital bed as a nurse withdraws a
syringe from Mary Hendershot's arm. Mary ventures a
nervous smile at Scully.

"How long should this take?" she asks softly.

"Probably somewhere between four to twelve hours if
there are no complications. We need to be cautious--
without any medical records of your history or your
pregnancy, we're operating blind here."

"I'm afraid, Agent Scully," the woman whispers. "All these
years, with the abductions and being sick and getting
better, all I could think of was the day when everything
would be normal again. And then it all stopped, and I
thought I could get on with my life, and what I wanted
more than anything else was a child and I couldn't have it--
and then all of a sudden, I could. I was so happy; I thought
this would be the start of a whole new life for me...but now
I'm scared. I'm scared of what may be growing inside me."

Scully smiles compassionately, reaching out to squeeze
the woman's hand. Her eyes are drawn once again to
Hendershot's pendant, the open hand with an eye in the
palm. She hears herself asking without intending to, "Your
necklace, what is it?"

"The Hand of Fatima," Mary replies, releasing Scully's
hand to touch the charm. "Kath Haskell gave it to me after
she found out she was pregnant. She said it brought
healing. I didn't have the heart to tell her it's actually an
Islamic talisman not for healing, but for protection from
harm in the first place. Muslims believe it wards off the
Evil Eye and ill-wishing. Either way, I figured it couldnt
hurt to have a little extra help...Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Scully shakes herself, pulling her eyes away
from the pendant. "I thought I might have seen it before."

A flash of memory causes her to blink, and for a moment,
she is staring not at the silver charm, but at a black and
white photograph in a sea of similar photographs, covered
in symbols...

"...a passage from the Koran..."

She remembers a ship in Africa, etched with hieroglyphs
and symbols and passages in Navajo. Was this talisman
among them?

Scully rises from her chair abruptly. "I need to check in
with Assistant Director Skinner," she says. "Try to rest
while you have a chance. I'll be back soon."

She opens the hospital room door and exits, letting it close
softly behind her. She gazes through the window for a
moment at the pregnant woman who has dutifully closed
her eyes, and then Scully turns away...


* * * * *


August, 2000


She closes the door and turns to face Mulder, who has
entered her apartment with a large box in his arms.

"Moving in?" she asks with a teasing smile.

He gives her a goofy grin and shrugs. She moves past him
to the couch as he sets the box on the coffee table before
her.

"How was the Vineyard?" she inquires.

"Fine," he replies dismissively. "I've almost got everything
packed up, thrown out or delivered to Goodwill. One
more weekend should do the trick. I just, um--brought by
some stuff I found in my mother's attic."

Scully stares at him a moment, touched by both the gesture
and the hesitation with which he makes it. He is offering to
share something deeply personal with her.

"May I?" she asks when he falters, gesturing toward the
box. He gives a short nod and she opens the cardboard
flaps at the top of the carton.

Lying on top of the other contents is a cloth doll. It's
slightly yellowed with age and smells of dust. She handles
it gently, knowing instinctively that despite its age and
disuse, this is an item that was once loved.

"It was Samantha's," Mulder explains after a moment.
"When I saw it this weekend, I thought about you. About
us. About everything we've lost, everything that's been
taken from us. My family. Your chance at one. Your sister.
Your health. And suddenly it was important to me for you
to have this. Because--because even with everything
they've taken, they havent taken everything."

He reaches and takes her hand, which rests on the doll in
her lap. She unfurls her fist and intertwines her fingers
with his so that their hands rest palm to palm. She finds
her eyes drawn to the sight of their joined hands.

"After everything that happened this year," he continues,
"after being operated on, and losing my mother, and
finding out what happened to Samantha...it seems like
maybe--maybe it's not too late to take back some of what
we've lost. Maybe we still have choices, options,
alternatives..."

"Yes, we do, Mulder," she says finally, clenching her
fingers a little more tightly around his. "We have choices,"
she assures him. "And we'll make them in our time."

Mulder looks at her searchingly for a moment, then nods.
There is a moment's pause and Mulder leans forward,
toward her. The phone rings suddenly, surprising them
both. Scully unlocks her fingers from Mulder's and reaches
for the cordless phone where it rests behind the sofa...


* * * * *


"Scully." She brings the cell phone to her ear in the hospital
corridor outside Mary Hendershot's room.

"Agent Scully, this is John Doggett."

"Agent Doggett. I was just about to call you to see what
you found at the clinic."

"Well, I got bad news on the front. The place had already
been cleaned up by the time we got there. No body, not
this Dr. Scanlon or anyone else. No little jars with fetuses
in them, either. All the paper files were gone and the
computers had all been wrecked, but I'm told that's
probably just for show."

"'Told?' By whom?"

"I'm in A.D. Skinner's office with some friends of yours.
They say to tell you it's a real shame when someone busts
up a computer with a perfectly clean, brand new hard
drive in it."

"Well, tell them we're fairly certain whoever's behind this
never read the hacker's code of conduct," Scully mutters,
grimacing.

"When they failed to pull anything off the drives, they
went online to see what they could find on this Dr.
Zehnder and his partner Dr. Bartell. Something tells me I
could haul them in right now for a dozen counts of
accessing classified data without authorization committed
in the last half hour alone..."

"Yeah, Officer Krupke? You and what army?" she hears
Frohike challenge belligerently in the background.

"Whoever these doctors were, they weren't working alone,"
Doggett continues, ignoring the interruption. "Zeus
Genetics is on record as being owned by two other doctors
as silent partners. One of them was a Dr. Lev. Name ring a
bell?"

"That's the doctor who prescribed the medication you
found in Mulder's apartment."

"Right. I'm starting to wonder what a fertility doctor is
doing prescribing drugs for a neurological condition
Agent Mulder was supposedly being treated for."

"Well, Agent Doggett, there's always my explanation,"
Scully points out.

"Suddenly, your explanation is the only one making any
sense around here. At any rate, these guys are turning up
nothing on Scanlon, Zehnder, or Bartell, and they already
got everything they could on Lev two months ago, so now
they're trying for the last partner, a Dr. Parenti--"

Scully inhales sharply, her fingers going numb where they
hold the phone. Agent Doggett's voice is droning on,
suddenly very faint and distant through the pounding of
the pulse in her ears. She's not sure how much time passes
as she stands there in the corridor, surrounded only by the
sound of her own harsh breathing and heartbeat. When
Doggett's voice reaches her again, he is calling out her
name in an urgent, worried tone.

"Agent Scully? Agent Scully!"

"Put A.D. Skinner on the line," she says woodenly, her
expression bleak.


* * * * *


Scully enters Mary Hendershot's room to find the woman
resting. She blinks awake, giving Scully an alarmed glance
before subsiding in relief. "Is everything all right, Agent
Scully?"

"Everything's fine, Mary," she replies, her tone comforting
and her head lowered to hide her expression. "Go back to
sleep."

She walks past the hospital bed into the adjoining lavatory
of the hospital room, gently shutting the door behind her.
When it is closed, she stares at the mirror above the sink,
her eyes wide and shocked, her face ghastly pale. Her
hands splay out across her abdomen, covering the as-yet
imperceptible swell. Her lips tremble and her face
contorts; she presses a balled-up fist to her mouth to stifle
the sobs welling up within her. She sinks to the floor,
pulling her knees protectively to her chest as she cries in
silent anguish.


* * * * *


She meets Skinner and Doggett in the corridor outside
Hendershot's room as they march purposefully down the
hall. She closes the door on a low moan from the woman.

"Parenti's gone," she tells them as they reach her. Only the
pallor of her face and the slight redness of her eyes betray
her earlier emotion. "He's not in his office and he hasn't
been back to check on Ms. Hendershot since I spoke with
you. She's gone into labor--we cant move her now. She'll
have to deliver here."

Skinner falls back, snapping orders into a radio he carries
with him. "I want a room by room search conducted. I want
the exits and stairwells covered. If Parenti's still in the
building, he doesn't get out."

"You wanna tell me how, out of every obstetrician in
Washington D.C., you brought our witness to this guy?"
Doggett demands.

"Dr. Parenti is my obstetrician," Scully answers carefully.
Doggett stares at her unbelievingly, comprehension slowly
taking hold, and Scully meets Skinner's eyes past his
shoulder. The Assistant Director nods his approval. "A.D.
Skinner is the only one I've told so far. It--it looks like I
may have more in common with these women than you
originally thought."

"I see," Doggett says slowly. An awkward moment passes
before he nods again. She is grateful when instead of
asking questions she's not comfortable answering, he
returns to the business at hand. "So what do we do now?"


* * * * *


"You did the right thing telling him," Skinner assures
Scully, bringing her a cup of hot cocoa after Doggett has
left to help with the search for Parenti.

She nods wordlessly, crossing her arms protectively over
her chest. She looks down the hallway at the door to
Hendershot's room, where two agents stand guard.
"There's a nurse practitioner midwife in with her now. It
should only be a couple of hours. She's dilating fairly
rapidly."

"Scully--"

"No matter how careful you are, you can't be careful
enough," she sighs. "When my oncologist referred me to
Parenti, I checked him out. I had the Gunmen check him
out. No government connections. Complete career history
available. How--how can you ever know who to trust?"

Skinner has no answer for her; he, too, is aware it's often
the most innocuous-seeming people who are the most
dangerous.

"When I first found out I was pregnant, it never occurred to
me that it might be anything other than luck, or a miracle--
whatever you want to call it," she states, her voice
quivering slightly. "After everything that had been done to
me, after the ways I had been violated and used, I thought
surely--*surely* there had to be an end to it. I thought there
was nothing left they could do to me. I never--" her voice
breaks and she draws a deep, shuddering breath, "never
thought there would ever be a day that I would consider
not having this baby."

"You don't know that it isn't a miracle yet," Skinner points
out urgently. "You dont fit the pattern of these other
women. You weren't seeking treatment for infertility."

"No. I wasn't. But we both know that might not matter. We
both know they can get to anyone." She takes a sip of her
cocoa, her movements mechanical. "What if it isn't just a
happy coincidence?" she asks at last, her voice muted.
"What then? Do I let them do this to me? Again? Where
does it end?"

Skinner has no answer for her and after a moment, she
turns away to return to the hospital room where Mary
Hendershot labors.


* * * * *


>From the Journal of Dana Scully
November 30, 2000

"We call it the miracle of life. Conception. Reproduction. A
union of perfect opposites, an act of love magically
transforming essence and emotion into physical being--an
act without which mankind would not exist and humanity
cease to exist."

...A smile on her face, Scully entertains a baby on her knee
one sunny summer afternoon in Oregon under Mulder's
enraptured gaze...

...Mary Hendershot, her face flushed and sweaty, folded
nearly in half, straining and crying out as Scully holds her
shoulders and encourages her...

"Or is this just nostalgia now? An act of biology
commandeered by modern science and technology?
Godlike, we extract, harvest, implant, inseminate..."

...A squalling infant, perfect and covered in gore, is laid in
Hendershot's arms as she smiles up at Scully, dazed.
Scully cannot help but smile back, her mouth trembling...

"But has our ingenuity rendered the miracle into a simple
trick, devoid of life's very magic and subject to abuse at a
whim? In the artifice of replicating life, how is it decided
who becomes the creator? Can humanity's act of greatest
love and hope be perverted into a supreme violation of a
person's physical and emotional self?"

...Scully, lying in a hospital gown on a bed, her eyes dark
and bloodshot from sleepless nights and aiding a stranger
through childbirth, watching cautiously as a long needle is
withdrawn from her abdomen. Under her unfaltering gaze,
a vial of clear fluid is presently laid into her waiting and
expectant hand...

"And what of the women and men who are left to bear and
care for these children that have resulted not of their love
and choice, but by the devices and designs of another for a
purpose they cannot fathom? Will their love ultimately
lead to their destruction?"

...In a laboratory, her red hair pulled back, wearing the
uniform of lab coat, goggles, and gloves, Scully carefully
and meticulously extracts a drop of the clear fluid from its
vial and transfers it into a beaker...

"How did this child I carry come to be? What set its heart
beating? Is it the product of our union? Is it the work of a
divine hand, or a construct of the hand of man? Is it an
answered prayer, or an invasion of the most intimate and
devastating kind, turning our own hope and desire for
continuation against us?"

...Her lips tremble and tears glisten on her lashes as she
looks at the DNA analysis in her hand and compares it to
another...

"And if it's not the miracle I once prayed for, what will I
do? How can I continue? And if I must think the
unthinkable, what will I ever tell you when you return?"


* * * * *


George Washington University Medical Center
November 30, 2000 9:37 PM


Outside Mary Hendershot's hospital room, Agent Gene
Crane stands guard at the door. He holds his cell phone to
his ear.

"The midwife has been in and out to check on her and the
baby a couple times today, and a few nurses, but so far, no
sign of anything out of the ordinary."

"Johnston will be there to relieve you at eleven," Doggett's
voice answers. "Call me if anything happens."

"Will do," Crane says decisively. He disconnects and folds
the phone up, tucking it in his pocket as he peers through
the doorway window for a second. Inside, Mary
Hendershot sits with her back to him in a chair, nursing
her baby.

His attention is drawn away as a nurse approaches the
door and mumbles for him to excuse her. He steps aside
and she enters the room, a tall woman with a homely,
almost masculine face.

He turns his back to the door as it closes and surveys the
hallway once more.


* * * * *


"I just have to take her down to the nursery to run some
tests," the nurse says reassuringly, holding out her arms
for Hendershot's baby.

"No," Hendershot shakes her head. "They told me--no one
is supposed to take the her from the room unless there's an
agent to accompany her."

"Of course there's an agent," the nurse says reasonably.
"He's right outside the door."

"Bring him in here, then. Let me make sure." Her eyes are
defiant, her posture protective as she clutches the infant
close to her chest. Shrugging nonchalantly, the nurse turns
away, toward the door. Mary relaxes, and in a split second,
the nurse whirls back to face her, grabbing her by the
throat and cutting off her air. Her feet kick futilely as she's
lifted from the floor and her baby begins to squall. Before
her eyes, the face of the nurse transforms into that of a man
with chiseled, square features.

"Give me the child," he intones, his voice deep and
accented. Hendershot is about to black out when suddenly
the hand around her throat drops her. She falls to the floor,
still clutching her screaming baby, gasping desperately for
air as the man who had assaulted her collapses and begins
to dissolve, his skin turning green and running like liquid
as his body caves in on itself.

Shocked and terrified, she looks up and sees first a hand
holding a thin, sharp silver device, almost like an ice-pick.
Her eyes travel up the arm holding the pick and she gives
a low whimper of fear, trying to push herself back and
away from him with her feet, scooting across the floor until
she backs into the wall.

...A figure with a receding hair-line purposefully pulling a
gun from his suit coat and shooting Dr. Bartell in the lab as
she watches through the window in the door...

Agent Crane holds out his other, empty hand to her. "You
have to get up if you want to save your baby," he says
bluntly.

Trembling and hiccoughing with fear and a bruised throat,
she hesitates briefly, then accepts his assistance.

"You need to go with him," the agent turns and nods to
someone standing behind him. "He'll protect you."

Hendershot looks at the second man warily, for he doesn't
look like an F.B.I. agent, but then she shuffles forward in
her slipper-clad feet to join him. She is alarmed when
Agent Crane pulls his weapon, but he turns it and presents
it butt-first to the other man. Crane turns his back to them
and a leather-clad arm flashes out and pistol-whips the
agent. He goes down abruptly beside the still-dissolving
form, the green puddle eating at the linoleum.


* * * * *


"She's gone," Skinner tells Scully as she hurries down the
hospital corridor. Behind him, Agent Doggett tends Agent
Crane, who holds an icepack to the back of his head. "The
baby, too."

Scully's shoulders slump in defeat, and she blinks against
the tears in her eyes. "How can we protect her--or anyone--
against the kind of beings we're dealing with?"

"It's possible they weren't taken," Skinner replies. "In her
room theres a large corrosion on the floor, apparently the
same stuff we've seen in Arizona and elsewhere. Whatever
these things are, one of them went down in there. Maybe
she escaped with her baby after the attack."

"How's Crane?"

"Fine, but he saw nothing. Someone got him from behind."

Scully nods, her mouth drawn into a tight line. "I had just
returned from the lab when I got your call," she says
finally. "I think I know why these women and their babies
are being taken. I ran a DNA analysis on Mary
Hendershot's baby, and compared it to the fetus in the jar.
There was no direct match."

"No match?" Skinner's eyes widen. "What about your--?"

"It will take a couple weeks to culture enough genetic
material from the amniocentesis specimen to know
anything for certain," she says unhappily, unwilling to
think too hard on the issue.

"Then what about Hendershot's baby? Why--?"

"The baby is definitely Ms. Hendershot's, of that I'm
certain. We don't have any data on the donor whose sperm
she used for the in vitro fertilization, so we can't be certain
of paternity. But though I am certain that the fetus we saw
in that specimen jar is not directly linked to her child, there
was one similarity between them," Scully draws a breath,
pausing before she explains. "A part of her child's DNA
matches samples we've seen elsewhere, a genetic
remnant--junk DNA that is normally inactive in all human
beings, but it is active in her child--and in the fetus."

"Where have you seen it before?"

"In a claw sample from a creature Mulder believed to be
an extraterrestrial biological entity. And in a virus I was
once infected with. And in one other child--a child who is
capable of fighting these creatures. Gibson Praise."

"You mean--"

"Mary Hendershot's baby is like Gibson Praise. And
Gibson Praise can combat these things. Which means that
wherever Mary Hendershot is, these beings aren't going to
stop looking for her or her child. That child isn't just an
evolutionary fluke, or an experiment--if I'm right, that
child is a weapon. Not against us--but against them."


* * * * *

TWO WEEKS LATER

Scully once again settles onto her sofa with a mug of tea.
Spread on the coffee table before her are an ultrasound
photo and transparencies with the DNA analysis she has
run. A plain white piece of paper tells the rest of the tale in
clear type:

YNH24/D2S44:
Mother - 1.56, 1.97
Child - 1.97, 1.65
Father - 1.65, 1.13

* * * * *

"There has to be an end, Scully."

She feels his lips on her cheek, and she holds Mulder's
hand in hers, pressing her lips against it. Tears tremble on
her eyelashes for a moment before she draws a deep
breath and wipes them away.

"No," she murmurs, rolling over to face him.

* * * * *

TBQ7/D10S28
Mother - 2.02, 2.05
Child - 2.05, 1.46
Father - 1.46, 2.37

* * * * *

"What?" His eyes are tender and concerned as they scan
her face. They lay practically nose to nose on the pillow.

"You said there's more I need to do with my life, that
there's more than this, but you're wrong."

"Scully--"

"I'm here because I want to be. Because I choose to be.
Because *this*," she takes his hand and interlocks her
fingers with his, pressing their palms together, "is all that
matters. What we make with our own hands and our own
choices."

* * * * *

PH30/D4S139
Mother - 9.97, 6.63
Child - 6.63, 4.32
Father - 4.32, 7.25

EFD52/D17S26
Mother - 1.39, 6.63
Child - 6.63, 5.70
Father - 5.70, 1.25

* * * * *

"I don't want you to lose anything more, Scully. I want you
to have all the things you've already lost."

* * * * *

A tear slips from Scully's eye. Mulder got his wish for her,
but until she finds him she won't be able to rejoice in that
fact.

* * * * *

"I will, Mulder," she says with understated confidence.
"But if we let them take this, too, then what have we won?
It took me so long to stop mourning what I had lost. But
there comes a time when you have to stop grieving for the
past and look to the future. When you have to stop
praying for a miracle and make one happen. We have that
choice. And I choose not to let them take any more away
from me."

* * * * *

LH1/D5S110
Mother - 9.30, 2.06
Child - 2.06, 5.75
Father - 5.75, 2.14

SLI1335/D1S339
Mother - 2.70, 2.18
Child - 2.18, 2.85
Father - 2.85, 3.41

PATERNITY INDEX: 100

* * * * *

Mulder stares at her searchingly for a moment, then
releases her hand to lay his palm against her face, rubbing
his thumb gently over her cheekbone. He slides forward
until their foreheads are pressed together, their noses
touching, and his lips a breath away from hers. "Never
give up on a miracle, Scully," he whispers.

"I haven't," she replies, lifting her hand to stroke his hair.

* * * * *

Scully's hand leaves the coarse brown hair of the doll that
somehow found its way into her lap and drifts downward
to cover her belly where her child rests.

"I won't," she whispers tremulously, and smiles.


THE END


