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
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