"You're not going to drop her."
"I know that I'm not going to drop her, but—what if I
drop her?"
Alex chuckled. Mulder was more nervous about the
ceremony that they were going in to than anyone else—
Dana, Skinner, and little baby Melissa Elizabeth Skinner,
included. He put his hand on his lover's shoulder, in an
attempt to convey comfort and clarity. "Just keep in mind,
when you're standing up there, in front of all of those people,
before the altar of god—both of her parents are armed and
dangerous, and if you do drop her and aren't dead before
she hits the floor, you'll probably wish that you were."
Mulder glared at him. "Thanks a lot."
Alex grinned. "You're welcome." Under his breath he
added, "better you than me."
"I heard that!"
"Nothing wrong with your hearing," Alex grinned.
"Come on, or they'll start without us."
It wasn't completely unheard of for a child to have two
godfathers and no godmother, but the motley arrangement at
the front of the church did raise a few eyebrows—less,
certainly, than would have been raised if more of Dana
Scully's family had known that baby Missy's godfathers were
more than just friends—but what they didn't know certainly
wouldn't hurt them.
She and Walter had considered a few options after
Margaret Scully had convinced them to have Missy baptized
- a small concession, Dana realized, considering their
less-than-conventional wedding. And, although she wasn't
always comfortable with it, her faith was important to her,
and she'd give her child the foundation to make her own
decision when the time came. Until then, a baptism wasn't a
huge deal.
But the two women who would have served as the ideal
candidates for godmother were both gone, both of Missy's
namesakes struck down far too soon, before they even had
a chance to meet her, and neither she nor Walter could think
of anyone who could possibly take their place. Dana's
brother's wives were already aunts, Margaret Scully a
proud-to-bursting grandmother, and Walter wasn't close to
any of his family, so when the choice came, they asked Alex
to stand up with Fox in the ceremony. Seeing them together,
Mulder so nervously and gingerly holding the tiny charge as
the baptism was performed, Dana knew that they'd made the
right choice.
It had been a rough year, for all of them. The
pregnancy had gone with relative smoothness after the first
trimester, until a few unfortunate bouts of false labour. The
final, real thing had been 12 hours—not horribly,
unrealistically long, but hardly a walk in the park. They said
that you forgot the pain at the first sight of your child—which
wasn't true, of course, but Melissa Elizabeth was more
than worth all of the pain. There was no question that she
was the best thing that had ever happened to either of her
parents, and Dana knew that from the moment when she'd
awakened in her hospital room to the sight of her big, tough
husband melting at the sight of the tiny baby in his arms.
"What do you mean?" Dana looked at him, mystified.
"Well, she looks nothing like you," he grinned.
Dana wrinkled her nose at him. Missy was the spitting
image of her mother, even at her tender age. Margaret had
brought out baby pictures of both of her daughters for
everyone to coo over, and it was readily apparent that this
was one child who fit her genes perfectly—with her tiny tuft of
red hair and blue eyes, and clear, pale skin, Missy was a
Scully woman.
"Still," Mulder continued, "she did look more like
Skinner when I first saw her in the hospital."
Dana laughed. "You should tell him that. He's
convinced that it was an immaculate conception and he had
nothing to do with it."
"Hey, that sounds like an X-File," Mulder said, brightly.
"No way, Mulder," Dana said, in her don't-even-start
voice. "You are not turning my daughter into a case."
It made Mulder laugh. "Okay. I forgot to give her her
present," he said, pulling a slightly wrinkled, Mulder-wrapped
present out of his pocket and handing it to her.
"But I thought that the bunny china was from you,"
Dana protested, taking the package.
He shook his head. "That's for the three of you, from
me and Alex. This one is just for her, from me."
"Thanks, Mulder," she said, unwrapping the present. It
was covered in a couple of pages from a "Lone Gunman"
magazine. When she got the box open, she started to laugh.
In it was a little plastic toy cell phone.
"Just making sure she's prepared," Mulder said, with a
grin. "Another twenty years and she'll be ready for
Quantico."
"Oh, I hope not. I hope she gets a nice normal boring
job—"
"Like Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs?"
"Or test pilot."
"Hey, she could be an astronaut."
"Or a congresswoman." They both looked at each
other, looked at the baby, and shook their heads. "Nah."
"Whatever she wants to be, Scully, she's going to grow
up with one hell of a role model in her mom."
Dana looked at him with shining eyes. "You know,
Mulder, that might be the sweetest thing that's ever come out
of your mouth."
"I'd better shut up then, or Skinner will think I'm flirting
with you."
"Or Alex," Dana agreed.
Mulder looked around. "Speaking of which, I think he's
giving me the 'get me out of here right now before I'm forced
to kill one of these women and you'll get no sex other than at
conjugal visits' signal."
Dana looked up, spying Alex in the middle of a group of
older women, looking desperate. "Uh-oh," she said, looking
past him.
"What?"
"I think Walter's giving me the same signal."
They opened the door of the X-Files office at ten o'clock on
Monday, Mulder slightly ahead of Alex. "You didn't have a
thing to worry about, I told you," Alex was saying. "It was
fine."
"You were the one who was telling me that my life
was on the line if I screwed up."
"I was just trying to motivate you not to screw up."
"Right. And I'm just—" Mulder stopped in his tracks, as
the lights came up.
Alex bumped into the back of him. "What's—?"
They looked at each other.
"Don't tell me I forgot your birthday," Alex said, finally.
The office was filled—literally filled—from door to desk
and back again, with boxes, all marked 'private and
confidential'. There were at least thirty of them, all file-sized
and all, from the looks of it, full.
"Not unless I forgot it, too," Mulder said. He went to the
first box and pulled it open, retrieving a file. "I know that
Skinner thinks we're gung-ho, but I think this is overstating
things a little, don't you?"
Alex shook his head, managing to squeeze past Mulder
and opening another box on his own. "Old paperwork we
forgot to sign?"
Mulder was silent, reading.
Alex opened one of the files on his own, struck at first
by the black-and-white photograph that nearly slipped out on
to the floor. It was of a young girl in her mid-teens, with dark
braids and a bright smile. He closed his eyes, reflexively.
Not again.
"Apparently she had more luck after she left." Alex leaned
over the desk and handed Mulder a cup of coffee. They'd
been reading silently through most of the morning,
innocuous histories of seemingly unrelated girls and women
who had nothing more in common than a mysterious first few
years and an uncanny resemblance. The fact that they were
all clones of Samantha Mulder was almost an afterthought to
the story.
Mulder nodded. "There's sixteen girls here, with
complete background and family dossier."
"Somebody didn't clean up after himself. In the old
days, that would have meant a one-way ticket to a silo in the
middle of nowhere."
Mulder looked sharply up at him.
"I didn't have anything to do with this," Alex said.
"I know." Mulder put the folder down. "I can't believe
this."
"Just when you think you're out—"
"- they pull you right back in again," Mulder sighed.
"You don't have to go back."
Mulder looked at him.
"Okay, it had to be said. What do we do now?"
Mulder held up a card that had been taped to one of the
boxes. On it was a neatly lettered address for a hospital that
was just outside of Alexandria, specifying the oncology wing.
"We have a meeting with Forsten to pick up those blood test
results on the mutant-vampire case, we book our flight to
Pittsburgh for tomorrow morning, and then I go here. You
go home."
Alex shook his head. "Let me go with you, at least."
"No." He was tired, he just felt so tired all of a sudden.
He didn't want to go, but he had to. Alex didn't. "No,
please," he said, less sharply. "I just have to do this."
"Fine." Alex picked up his coat. "Why don't I make it
easy on you—I'll go and get the test results and book the
flight. You go there and I'll meet you at home tonight." He
walked out the door without another word.
Mulder just stared at the closed door. "God, I hope so,"
he said, and then stood up, slipping on his own coat and
heading for the door.
It wasn't difficult to find the hospital—it was only an hour's
drive outside of Washington, to his relief. He checked in at
the nurse's station and then went to her room, hoping that he
might find her alone.
He peered through the door before opening it, grateful
that there was no-one else in the room. She started talking
before he had a chance to say anything. "You'd better have
Tupperware in your hands, Mark, 'cause if I don't smell
chicken wings in thirty seconds I'm going to be very upset.
I'm starving."
Mulder couldn't think of anything to say, and the silence
stretched out over a few uncomfortable seconds.
"Mark?" Unseeing eyes turned towards the door.
"Who's there?"
"It's not Mark."
"I'd guessed that. You a doctor?"
"No," Mulder said, coming closer into the room. "Next
of kin."
She didn't speak at all for a moment. "Jesus."
"This isn't the second coming, if that's what you think,"
he answered her, ironically.
"Why did you come here?"
He shook his head. "You invited me. Why did you
send me those files?"
"I thought you wanted them."
"So did I. The last time I saw you, you told me to forget
about it."
"Did you?"
Mulder was silent.
"I didn't think so." She sighed. "I know what I think,
and if you're anything like me—"
"So what do I do now?"
"Forget it. Burn them. Bury them." She shook her
head. "I don't know. It's not my fight anymore." She
laughed humourlessly. "You know, I always told myself that
I'd stop, give myself some time, read the great novels that I
always meant to. Unfortunately, brain tumours are wickedly
personal things."
"How long?"
"I don't know. It may be out of my hands. Not long."
She closed her eyes. "I meant what I said the last time, you
know—if you spend your life chasing after ghosts, then they'll
have won. Hell, they might have won when they took her—
neither of us knows. But if I had it to do all over again—"
"You'd what?"
She smiled. "I'd probably do the same thing again. But
I'd never stop thinking that there might be something else."
She extended her hand. "Whatever you decide, I'd like to
wish you luck."
He took it. "I didn't bring any chicken wings, but is there
anything that you need? Anything I can do for you?"
She hesitated for only a moment. "I hate to ask this,
but—I'll never have the chance again. I'd like to hear about
her—not what I know, but what you remember. If it isn't too
difficult."
He shook his head. "No. It isn't."
Dana opened the door, wishing for a moment that she'd
taken Walter up on his suggestion that they hire a nanny, at
least for a while. But she'd taken the extended leave from
Quantico for a reason—to have some time to bond with her
daughter. Walter had taken three months off from the
Bureau, surprising her with it a week before Missy was born.
They'd had a week together, and then they were three.
Although, with Missy, sometimes it felt like five. How a
child could go through so much milk, so many diapers—the
two were related, but still—so much and so little sleep at the
same time—it was exhausting just to think about. And she
was loving every—or every other—minute of it.
"Uncle Alex," Dana said, surprised. "What brings you
here in the middle of the afternoon? You get ditched by your
partner again?"
He nodded. "I came to see the only person in the world
who would understand."
Dana smiled. "Here, take the baby for a minute. I've
got my mother on hold." She handed him a squirming
bundle of Missy and went to the phone in the den. Alex
followed her, a tender hold on the baby.
"You look comfortable like that," Dana said, after she'd
hung up the phone. Alex was sitting down in an easy chair,
the baby in his arms.
"I had a lot of cousins growing up."
"Are you sorry you won't have any of your own?"
"Not really—I like them when I have the option of giving
them back to their real parents." That said, he handed her
back to Dana, who put her down in a bassinet on the couch.
"She might just sleep. She's eaten, changed, and run
me ragged for a couple of hours."
"Spoken like someone who loves being run ragged."
"Well, it's not as though I haven't had any practice."
Dana turned shrewd eyes on her guest. "So, what's the
real reason that you came here?"
"Can't I visit my partner's 'ex' every once in a while
without being subjected to the third degree?"
"Nope."
Alex smiled. "I forgot to give Missy her present at the
baptism." He handed over a small wrapped box. "It may be
a little advanced for her, but you can save it until she's
older."
"But the bunny china—" Dana said, unwrapping the
package.
"Was for the three of you, from both of us. This is just
from me."
Dana grinned, opening the jewelry store box and lifting
out a delicate silver charm bracelet. "Oh, Alex, it's beauti-,"
she started, then stopped herself, peering closer at one of
the charms. "Are those handcuffs?" she asked, finally.
"I had a hard time finding them that small. They really
work, too." Alex smiled broadly. "Just making sure she's
experienced in law enforcement. You never know—"
"Believe me, I know." Dana chuckled. "Do you have
any idea how perfect you and Mulder are for each other?"
He shook his head. "I have to wonder, sometimes."
"He only ditches you because he loves you and he
doesn't want you to get hurt, you know."
"Is that why he ditched you all those times?"
She smiled. "I think so, in his own way."
"Do you ever regret not getting involved with him?"
"Are you kidding me?" Dana laughed. "We'd have
definitely killed each other. I shot him enough times when
we were just friends." She shook her head. "No, I have no
regrets. There was a time when I thought—" She trailed off,
a little faraway look in her eyes, before shaking it off. "But I
have everything that I never even knew that I wanted right
now, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. And he's in love
with you, and I definitely wouldn't have been happy to
share him."
"I'd rather have you as a friend than a rival, that's for
sure. You're a good shot."
She laughed out loud. "Damn straight. So you came
over here just to make sure that you really are in love with
him despite his annoying habits, his general distrust of
society at large, and the fact that he hogs all of the covers?"
He looked at her with shock.
"That last part was just a guess," she said, holding her
hands up.
Alex chuckled. "I guess so."
"Good. Feel free to do it anytime. It's good for me to
see adults who aren't related to me every once in a while."
She stood up. "You want some coffee? I think 'Sesame
Street' is on soon, and we never miss it."
"I'd love some."
"Great. Channel six."
Mulder opened the door with enormous relief, the
silvery-blue glow of the television in the living room visible
from the hallway. His coat dropped off his shoulders and
onto the floor, and he ignored it, walking down the short hall.
Alex was lying on the couch, the eerie silvery-blue tv-glow of
his upturned eyes glinting at Mulder. He opened his arms
and Mulder eased down beside him, burying his face into the
crook of Alex's neck.
"I didn't know if you'd be here when I came back."
"My boyfriend was busy tonight," Alex said, softly. "So I
waited here for you to come home, instead."
Mulder's laugh was shaky. He could feel himself on the
verge of losing all pretense of control, and his arms tightened
perceptibly around Alex.
"How is she?"
"Dying," Mulder said.
Warm lips caressed his ear. "I'm sorry."
"Don't ever apologize for anything, Alex," Mulder said,
"never."
Alex chuckled. "I'm going to remember you said that
forever, and remind you of it when we're ninety and you're
yelling at me because I left my wet towels on the bed."
"Good." Mulder started to laugh, almost hysterical. "Do
that. I want you to tell me that I'm a crotchety old crank
when I'm ninety, that you don't know how you've been able
to stand spending the last sixty years with me, that you could
have done much better—but I want you to be there to do it. I
can't lose you, Alex. I can lose just about anyone else in my
life, but not you. Never you."
"Hey," Alex said, turning his head and searching his
eyes. "I'm not going anywhere. You think after we've
survived being terrorized, being shot at, nearly being
abducted, being beat up, being fugitives, been blown up,
nearly being dismembered—that I'm going to let something
as stupid as a disagreement break us up?" He shook his
head. "No way. It's not an option. You are stuck with me,
Fox Mulder."
Mulder was silent, just holding on, feeling Alex's hands
running up and down his back, soothing him. Finally, when
his mind stopped whirling and he thought that he could
breathe normally again, he opened his eyes. Alex was
smiling at him. Mulder kissed him, and then said, "You know
what I'd like even more?"
Alex shook his head. "What?"
"Being stuck on you."
"That could be arranged," Alex said, softly. He carded
his fingers through Mulder's hair, and kissed him softly.
"Let's go to bed," he suggested.
"No," Mulder shook his head.
"No?"
"No." His hands moved down over Alex's shirt, tugging
it out of his jeans, moving his mouth down the soft, warm
skin of his abdomen.
Alex's next question was a little breathless, and Mulder
felt it as a slight tremor against his seeking lips. "Here?"
"Here," he affirmed. He tugged at the buttons on Alex's
jeans, pulling them apart. He'd felt the erection swelling
against his hip, and was pleased to find it full and weeping
for him. Alex arched up hard against him when he brushed
his lips against it. "What do you want from me, Alex?"
"Everything," Alex gasped. "I want everything."
"What do you need?"
"You. Just you."
Mulder took Alex's erection deep into his throat,
tonguing him on the way down, licking the sensitive
underside and just barely teasing it with his teeth. He could
hear the strangled cries that Alex was making only fuzzily,
but mostly he was paying attention to Alex's cock—that
beautiful, sensual instrument that drove him out of his mind
with lust. When it was wetted thoroughly, he released it,
sliding up and over Alex's body and kissing away his cries
for more.
"I want you," he said, staring into Alex's slightly glazed
eyes. "Make love to me?"
"I will do anything for you."
"Good." He pulled away his own tie, as Alex fumbled
with the buttons of his shirt, then slid his hands over his
lover's. Somehow, between those two pairs of eager hands,
they managed to get each other naked, without falling off the
couch.
They'd never made love there, had never gone beyond
kissing and cuddling, always reserving it as the place where
they were almost—but not quite—closest. They'd made love
in every room, in every position, in every place but this,
always holding back. But now, as they turned and Alex
raised himself over him, Mulder couldn't remember ever
seeing him look as gorgeous as he did in the silver light.
Sex and television. My two favourite things. The
thought almost made him laugh, except Alex was on him,
opening him and pushing in, and he lost all thoughts except
that of pleasure and capture and being held and being
owned—being Alex's. He pushed back, and they moved in
rhythm, hands that weren't his own wrapping around his own
cock and bringing him to the edge, to the summit, over the
precipice.
Just as he was lost, he heard it—a warm rush of breath
against the skin of his ear, as Alex kissed him and said, "I
love you," before he was flooded with heat.
"I know."
Nine
by Mona Ramsey
"What if I drop her?"
There were quite a few Scully relatives in Margaret Scully's
small house, there was food, there was much cooing over
the baby—who kept her temper for a good hour after being
brought home, then decided that enough was quite enough
and where the heck was mom anyway? She made her
feelings known quite loudly, and her daddy came to the
rescue, taking her gently away from a great-aunt and
delivering her to her mother, who fed her discreetly and then
sat on the couch with Missy sleeping quietly in her arms for
the rest of the afternoon.
"You'd never know she was your daughter," Mulder
said, sitting down on an arm of the couch during a lull in the
flow of relatives.
