Blood of Abraham – Chapter Ten
by Mik
I didn't even reach for the envelope. I just scowled at her. "You think that's funny, Scully? Didn't I just tell you I'm ready to admit defeat and call in the authorities?" I know I was still shaking inside. "This is hardly the time for jokes."
"Mulder, do you think I'd be making jokes about something as serious as this?" Scully wasn't wounded. She wasn't even irritated. Just firm. "I'm serious." She pushed the envelope at me. "You'd better look at the results."
I pushed it back at her. "There's no way he could be related to me." I was just as firm. "It's a mistake."
Scully pulled a face on me. "That's a pretty narrow minded statement coming from Mr. Extreme Possibilities."
"Yeah... well..." I risked one look at the kid, who was making those horrible, ear grating sounds babies shift to for prolonged crying, before I snatched the brown nine by twelve packet from her hand. "There's a difference between not believing and not wanting to believe."
"Mulder," she said, her voice softening, and somehow remaining firm, "you'd better look."
With an exaggerated sigh, I tore the seal and withdrew a film that showed three series of side by side yet random black stripes, several marked with blue pencil. "I don't know what any of this means," I said impatiently. "What is it I'm looking at?"
Scully shifted closer to me, and pointed. "These are three separate strand tests, taken from three different places in his DNA configuration. These markers come in pairs; one matches the mother and most of the others match the father."
I looked at the annotations. "There are a lot of matches on the mother's side." I felt something clutch inside me. "So," I concluded, "Bram is related to me through Samantha, somehow." I looked at him and then at Scully. "Then she must still be alive." The realization leaked out of me like air from a balloon.
"No, Mulder," Scully said gently. "In an attempt to pull out your common DNA, we ran what is called a 'motherless test'; one where we presume we are matching father to child, without the mother's DNA. It's usually done in paternity cases where the mother is not cooperating or not available for testing." She paused to see if the significance of her words was sinking in. It wasn't. "Samantha didn't match the baby. You matched. You're Bram's father."
I never saw that train of thought coming. It knocked me over and left me flattened on the track, and yet I still managed to remain standing. "Impossible," I insisted but with a little less conviction.
Her eyes never left the film in my hands, but I could feel her focus on me with a sad little smile. "I have one word for you, Mulder. Emily."
"But that... we know how that happened. You were abducted. They stole your -"
"I know the theories, Mulder," she cut in tightly.
"Theories?" I spluttered. "It's no theory you can't have children. It's no theory that Emily's DNA proved she was related to you. It's no theory that -"
"And it's no theory that this baby is your son," she shot back.
"He can't be. Unlike you, no one abducted me and stole any part of my genetic material."
"Well, someone, at some time, certainly got some of your... genetic material."
Arguing hadn't worked. Reason hadn't worked. The only thing left was pure bloody mindedness. "No."
It wasn't working, either. "Look at the loci, Mulder." She shook the film impatiently. "This is your DNA we're looking at. You match more than ninety five percent of the pairings."
"But that's because Samantha and I -"
She sighed audibly. "Mulder, the only way you could score this high if Samantha was the child's mother is if you two were identical twins. And even then it would be remarkable. And you were obviously not identical twins. In fact, you didn't even have the same father. Bram is your son."
"It's not... it can't..." I felt my legs give out under me. "I never..."
"Mulder." Somehow she had me back at the edge of the bed and sat with me. "Think... could you have donated sperm once? Maybe a project in school? Is it possible that you -"
I shook my head. "No. Never."
"There must be some woman out there..." it was pretty obvious Scully didn't like the direction that suggestion was taking. She let it go off on its own.
I drew a deep breath. "No woman since..." I nearly said 'since I lost you'. Instead, I said, "No."
"When you were married, is it possible -"
I shook my head and bounced off the bed, shaking. "No. No way." Bram had stopped crying and was on his side, watching us, chewing on his fists. I tried to see something of Diana in him. All I saw was my sister, when she was a baby. "No." I looked at her. "Besides, you have Diana's DNA at your disposal. Did you try to match it?"
Scully shook her head. "But, I will. Anyone else you can think of with whom you had sexual contact? That woman from..." her little brow furrowed up, "Phoebe?"
"Scully, that was over ten years ago." I returned to the side of the bed. "What about someone else related to me?"
"It's a possibility," Scully allowed. "Do you have any identical twins running around that I don't know about?" She managed a smile. "An evil twin?"
"Don't I wish," I sighed. "I could blame so much on him."
"I don't think blame's a good word, in this case." Scully stood up and went to the crib. "He's a beautiful baby, Mulder. I would be proud to claim him."
Those words were worse than a train at full speed. They were a stake driven into my heart, inch by inch, syllable by syllable. I had taken away her chance to have a child of her own, as surely as if I had held the scalpel myself. It was cosmically unfair that she would be robbed of motherhood while I faced fatherhood with denial and fear. "I'll make you a good deal on him," I said, trying to laugh.
She glared over her shoulder at me. "Don't be so insensitive. Mulder, you've been given a great gift, even if we can't exactly explain how just yet."
"I know." The truth is, I did know. I just didn't know how.
She lifted the baby and cradled him tenderly. But her eyes were on me. It hurt. If I'd ever wanted to have a kid, it would have been with her, but there she was holding a child I couldn't explain, and looking at me with the oddest mixture of yearning and accusation. I couldn't take it. I got up and left the bedroom.
Out in the living room I paced, sifting through a million memories, looking for some explanation for how my DNA ended up in that kid without my knowledge and no explanation came to me, except... except... no. That was impossible.
I wasn't quite ready to analyze or even identify my feelings about being a father. I couldn't until I knew precisely how it had happened. Well, hell, I'd settle for a good guess, or even a rumor. But nothing presented itself. Phoebe and I had shared a horror of bringing progeny into the world and made every effort to make certain that wouldn't happen. Diana and I had toyed with the notion of children, but that toy got broken and tossed away very early on. After that there were few opportunities to play, and those opportunities were approached with the same sterile care and eager anticipation as a root canal. There was that woman in California, but even she, despite her blood sucking ways, was a 'no glove, no love' kinda' vampire. She wasn't afraid of AIDS, but baby vampires were another thing all together. The only other options involved possibilities too extreme even for me. I don't care what science fiction says, men don't get men pregnant.
"Mulder?"
I went back to the bedroom door. She had Bram on the bed and was searching around the floor.
"Yeah?"
"Where are the diapers? Babies can make terrible messes if they're left bare bottomed, like this."
"Believe me, I know," I said, casting a grim look toward the crib I'd just finished scrubbing. "But, oh! Don't put one on him, yet. He's getting some kind of rash and Skinner went to - Skinner. Damn."
She tore her eyes from the baby and looked up. "Mulder? What about Skinner?"
"He... he went to get something for the rash. He'll be back here any minute." Bringing supper, and quite possibly illusions about collecting a reward for same. I actually found myself trembling at the notion. Oh, surely not in front of Scully.
"He's been here?" Scully was frowning, but not at me. "All day?"
"Ummm, yeah." I was straining to hear the antiquated lift down the hall. "The gunmen were here, and I think he thought he had to protect Bram from them."
"He seems to be inordinately interested in this child." Her tone was disapproving. Possibly even jealous.
I'm not sure why, but I felt all at once I had to protect him from her disapproval... or her jealousy. "No, I think he's just enjoying the sight of me falling apart."
"What do you think he's going to say when he finds out Bram's your son?"
"We don't know he's my son."
"Mulder," she flung a hand at the envelope I'd dropped on the floor. "The evidence -"
"It's all preliminary. You have to rule out Phoebe first." I could hear a key in the lock.
"Phoebe might be his mother, but that won't eliminate you as his father," she answered, collecting Bram in her arms. "Mulder, you're going to have to face the fact that, regardless who his mother might be, you are his father."
"What's this?"
We both turned with a start. Skinner stood in the doorway, paper bags in both arms. "I... uh... we got the preliminary DNA results back," I admitted, feeling guilty and not knowing why, and hating it. I bent and picked up the envelope and put it on the bed.
"Yes?" Skinner prompted.
"There's a ninety five percent chance Mulder is Bram's father," Scully answered, coming to the door. Being a trained observer, she observed both the package from BabyMart and the bag of Chinese food. "Am I interrupting something?"
"Not at all," Skinner said blandly. "Plenty for three." He held out the smaller bag. "Rash ointment. Better get him gooped up and dressed before he makes a mess."
"Another mess, you mean," I muttered. So far Bram had made more messes than even he could know. I took the bag. "Come on, kid." I reached for him.
Scully pulled him out of my reach and held out her hand for the bag. "I'll do it," she said with the air of a woman who wanted to see it done proper and knew a mere man just couldn't do it that way. "Show me where you're hiding the diapers."
"I'll get this onto plates," Skinner said.
Scully went one way and Skinner went the other. So I stood there, wondering what the hell just happened.
"Mulder," Scully hissed.
"Right." I moved. "I think I kicked them under the bed." I got down on all fours and hunted.
"Mulder, be careful," Scully continued at that low pitch. "Assistant Director Skinner is gay."
I looked up. "Well, I knew that," I sneered, as if it had been part of my well of personal knowledge for years, and not something I'd just learned a few hours ago.
"And he's been attracted to you for quite a while," she added, smearing fishy smelling unguent over Bram's wriggling backside.
Now that I didn't know. "No."
She nodded. "So, be careful. He might try to use Bram to... to force you into something."
"Scully, please." I found the package and tossed a diaper on the bed. "This is Skinner we're talking about."
"I know who it is." She shoved the diaper under Bram. "Just be careful, please."
I stood, brushing dust from the knees of my jeans. "Scully, you surprise me. I always thought you trusted him implicitly."
"And you always told me trust no one," she answered. "So, I'm just saying, this is one time for you to take your own advice. Give me some pajamas. I'll get him ready for bed."
"Top drawer." I pointed to the bureau against the far wall. "Should he have a bottle?"
Scully nodded, her back to me.
"I'll go put one together," I offered. Actually, I just wanted out of that room. It had become the theatre of the absurd.
In the kitchen, I found act two of the farce. Skinner was rinsing wine glasses in the sink. "I opened a bottle of wine, I hope you don't mind," he told me. "I should have brought champagne, I guess."
I pulled the refrigerator door open. "Champagne? With Chinese?"
"Yes, to celebrate." He carried the glasses out to the table across the hallway.
I turned around and looked. He had cleared my dining table, and laid it out for dining... three plates and accoutrement. He'd even put candles in the middle, although I couldn't imagine where he'd found them. "What are we celebrating... oh. Right." I grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator and shut the door.
"I guess I should say congratulations," he said, returning for the bag of food.
I pulled the cap off the bottle and fumbled with the rubber nipple, trying to snap it into place. "Oh... I guess I should say thank you."
Skinner took them out of my hands impatiently, slipped the nipple over the top of the bottle expertly and handed it back to me. "How sure are you?"
I filled a small pan with water. "Scully says the test's pretty conclusive. I just don't know how it could be."
"You're a big boy, Mulder," he said dryly. "You know how babies are made."
"Yeah, I do. That's just the point." I reached for a match on the back of the stove. "But you've got to light a match to get a fire, and I've been keeping my matches at home for years."
He was rummaging through drawers for serving utensils, but looked up when Scully's cooing voice wafted to us from the other room. "She seems very taken with the baby, doesn't she?"
"Well, yeah, but she would, wouldn't she?" I lit the pilot light and blew out the match. "Women get gooey about babies."
"She might be a little gooier than normal, though, under the circumstances, don't you think?"
"What do you mean?" I set the bottle into the water and dropped the match in the sink.
He produced spoons. "Well...after all, now it's confirmed he is your son," he said quietly.
I wished people would stop saying that. "Yeah? And?"
Skinner straightened and gave me one of his familiar, 'Mulder you know exactly what I'm saying' expressions. "Mulder, you know how she feels about you. That baby provides the perfect excuse for her to move in and take over, doesn't it?" He took the spoons to the table.
I felt my mouth go dry and wondered once again, what the hell just happened here?
End Chapter Ten