Title: The Life I Could Have Had
Author: Estrellita, aka Erin Kaye Hashet
Rating: PG
Category: S, A
Keywords: Post-Requiem, Scully angst
Distribution: Anywhere at all! Especially at idealistshaven.com (I love your site!) It's already at Gossamer, though.
Feedback: EKHashet@hotmail.com
Spoilers: All the major events in Scully's life: Requiem, Beyond the Sea, Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath, Blessing Way/Paper Clip, all the episodes that deal with Scully's cancer, Christmas Carol/Emily, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, All Things
Summary: Post-Requiem, Scully sees her life if she had never joined the FBI
Disclaimer: I don't own Mulder and Scully; they belong to Chris Carter and 1013 and to the extremely talented actors who bring them to life
Author's notes: Thanks to my sister for reviewing the story for me, and to everyone whose fanfic I have read- you've inspired me to write my own!

*****

The Life I Could Have Had
by Estrellita, aka Erin Kaye Hashet

It was Dana Scully's first night home after being released from the hospital.

Outside, she heard rain splashing through the gutter, the spray of cars driving through puddles, and the wind gently blowing at the treetops, all comforting sounds. They were sounds that would normally lull her to sleep, but not tonight. Tonight she couldn't sleep at all.

The thoughts running through her head were too vivid for that hour of the night, and acting as a sort of caffeine, they wouldn't allow her brain to turn off.

Scully almost didn't know what to feel: joy that she, by some miracle, was finally pregnant, or grief that Mulder, her Mulder, had been taken away from her, and who knew when he'd be back. *If* he'd be back.

Scully rolled over in bed, her hands drifting to her pregnant stomach. With a sigh she lay her head on the pillow, and in an instant all her emotions burst. She clutched the blankets and just wept.

When she stopped crying she threw the blankets back and got up. In the kitchen she poured a glass of orange juice for herself and turned the light on. She sat down at the kitchen table and closed her eyes. *God, how did this all happen?* she wondered silently. She took another sip, then drummed her fingers on the kitchen table. Then she got up and took out her photo album from the shelf behind her.

There weren't very many pictures in it. Although she did have her own camera, the only occasions she really used it for were Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other family events.

The first picture that stared up at her from the page was of a smiling little girl. She was seven years old and dressed in a Catholic school uniform, her long red hair topped with blue bows for her second grade school picture.

*I look so happy,* she thought wistfully.

Abruptly a memory came to her. The second-grade assignment had been to write about "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up." She remembered what she'd written:

Dana Scully - Room 10
September 15, 1971

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

When I grow up I want to be a docter. I wi have an ofice. I wil have a stethaskop and a scale Pepull wil come to me to get beter. I wil help save pepull's lives.

She'd gotten the paper back with a big gold star, and her parents had been so proud. They'd hung it on the refrigerator in a construction paper frame.

*What if I'd written "I want to be an FBI agent?"* she wondered. What would they have done then?

She flipped a page, and immediately felt a pang. It was Christmas 1993- the last time she'd seen her father alive.

Her eyes welled up, and she traced her father's frame in the photo. Even now, close to seven years after his death, she still loved him and missed him with all her heart. Although she'd received assurances from her mother, the thought that perhaps she hadn't made her beloved father proud still made her uneasy.

She turned another page. Thanksgiving 1994-a time to be truly thankful, for that was only weeks after she'd been returned from her abduction and placed on life support.

Christmas 1995- a painful Christmas, for it was her first one without Melissa.

*Missy.* Fresh pain, always fraught with guilt, came to her whenever she thought about Melissa's death. *She died for me.*

Thanksgiving 1997- another time to be thankful, for she had won her battle with cancer that year.

Christmas 1997- a Christmas that would haunt her until the day she died. That was the day she found the daughter she didn't know she had. She'd known her three-year-old girl for only a few days before Emily's inevitable death, but in that short time, she had loved her with an unconditional, maternal love for the poor girl who had only been a lab rat to the people who had created her.

She had no pictures from Christmas 1998. The night before, she and Mulder had spent the night in a haunted house. She'd been so rattled by the experience that she'd forgotten to bring her camera to her mother's house.

She closed her eyes and began to cry again. *How did this happen? she wondered again. How did I end up alone, pregnant, and crying at my kitchen table?* She thought of what Mulder had said to her that night as he held her, keeping her warm in bed. "Maybe the personal price is too high."

*Maybe it is,* she thought. She remembered when she'd thought about what life would have been like if she'd married Daniel Waterston and become a doctor. "What I'd have missed," she'd said.

*But what would I have *gained*?* she wondered for the first time. *I've lost so much-what would I have now if I'd never joined the FBI?*

Scully wiped her eyes.

And in an instant she knew.

It was the oddest thing. She sat there knowing all the things that happened in the life she could have had, but still remembering all that had happened in her life at the FBI.

The photo album in front of her was thicker, filled with more pictures.

The pictures from the life she would have had.

She still had her second grade picture, but that was the only thing that remained the same.

The next picture was of her wedding day.

She hadn't married Daniel Waterston- she couldn't. She didn't want to be a homewrecker, and besides, she'd recognized that what she felt for him was more like flattery than love. So she left him behind.

She'd become a cardiologist and begun dating Craig Ryder, another doctor at the hospital. She had never loved him, either, but at the time she believed she did. He proposed to her; she accepted; they wed.

But she hated her job at the hospital. The idea of being a doctor had once held such passion for her, but now it only bored her. She was saving people's lives, but it held no thrill for her at all. She hated her job; she hated the people she worked with; she hated getting up every morning.

Scully looked at the pictures from Christmas 1993. She had been eight months pregnant with her first child then. In a quiet moment alone, she and her father had had a conversation, not realizing that it would be one of their last ones.

*"So how's everything going at work, Dana?" he asked.

She smiled thinly. "All right, I guess."

He looked surprised. "Just all right?"

"All right is good," she replied. "I'm a doctor, Dad. I'm saving lives."

"But do you enjoy it?" he pressed gently.

She looked at him. "I thought you wanted me to be a doctor, Dad. You always encouraged me."

"But I want you to be happy, Starbuck," he said, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "I don't want you to be in a profession that makes you unhappy."

She sighed. "Well, I'm married and pretty soon I'll have to support my baby. I don't think I'm really in the position to change careers right now."

He smiled sadly at her. "You're a good girl, Starbuck," he said softly. "You know I'll always be proud of you, Dana. I just want you to be happy."*

She blinked back tears, remembering. It was such an uncharacteristically emotional speech, coming from him. It was almost as if he'd known that it would be the last time she'd see him alive.

Scully turned a page and saw pictures of herself in the hospital after the birth of her first child, Billy. But the memory was forever tainted, for something else had also happened that day.

It had been snowing that January day, and the roads were icy. Melissa had been on the way to the hospital to see her new nephew when her car had spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. She'd been killed instantly, at age thirty-one.

Less than a month after her father's death she'd had to bury her sister, too. So instead of her last Christmas with Melissa,1994 was her first Christmas without Melissa.

By Christmas 1995, she had another child, Steve, born in March of that year. But she had also broken her leg in a fall a few weeks earlier, so that had been an especially stressful Christmas. She'd had to care for two small children while on crutches.

In the pictures from Thanksgiving 1997 she was pregnant with her third child. A month later she had a daughter, and the caption under that year's Christmas photos read, "Melissa's first Christmas."

But she remembered another thing. She and Craig had had a big fight that Christmas. It had continued into the next day.

*She'd just gotten Melissa to bed after she'd woken up crying. It was almost nine o' clock, and she had done it all herself- changed her diaper, rocked her gently, waited until she fell asleep. Craig had sat in front of the TV, watching some sitcom the whole time.

A bubble of anger, frustration, and 
resentment built up inside her as she marched downstairs to confront her husband. When she got to the living room, the bubble burst. "Oh, no, Craig, I don't need any help at all, but thanks so much for asking," she snapped at him with biting sarcasm.

Craig frowned at her. "What?"

"You- you," Seething, she groped desperately for the right words to express her fury. "You come home from work every day and plop yourself in front of the TV! Have you forgotten I have been taking care of a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and an infant all day? How could you possibly think that I couldn't use some help?"

Craig turned off the TV and stood up indignantly. "Excuse me, but I've been working hard all day. I've been saving lives, for Christ's sake! I think I deserve a break."

She couldn't believe her ears. "Excuse me?!" she cried, her voice rising. "You think maternity leave means I haven't been working hard? Do you have any idea what I've been dealing with all day? This is not the 1950's, buster. I will *not* let you be a male chauvinist!"

"Dana, shut up!" he shouted, suddenly angry.

"No, I won't shut up!" she screamed back.

A cruel look suddenly came over Craig's face. "Oh, yes, you will," he said in a low, menacing voice. He grabbed her left wrist and pinned her against the wall. She saw him draw his hand back.

Terrified, she broke free of his grasp. "Don't!" she gasped. Her hands bleakly fumbled for the nearest object, which happened to be a vase sitting on a table. She picked it up, spilling the water and roses onto the wood floor. "Don't you *dare* threaten me!" She was holding the vase like a weapon now.

"Dana, you put that vase down!" Craig warned her.

"No!" she screamed, fleeing the room. Craig tried to follow her, but on the way out slipped on the water. She smashed the vase on the floor, waking Melissa back up in the process. She grabbed her pocketbook from the hall closet and ran for the car.

She didn't know where she was going. She just knew she had to get away from Craig.*

Craig had never threatened her again, but it didn't matter. She could no longer trust him. She couldn't guarantee that he would never hurt her, or worse, hurt her children. So she filed for divorce, and was granted custody of their children.

She did have pictures from Christmas 1998. The whole family had gone to her mother's house for dinner. But, as she remembered, she'd been miserable the whole time.

It had seemed like she was the only one there who hadn't discovered her life's happiness. Bill and Tara's little baby, Matthew, was walking, and his parents were beaming with pride. She wondered if she'd react the same way when Melissa, who was barely a year old, began to walk.

Charles's wife Andrea was pregnant with their fourth child, and the two of them couldn't stop smiling. Her mother was on cloud nine, thrilled to finally have the whole family together in one place. And all the kids were just excited about Christmas.

No one asked how she was holding up after the divorce. They were all too happy about Christmas, and Bill was a bit miffed at her for divorcing Craig in the first place. He'd always liked Craig, and she could tell he did not buy the story about Craig threatening her.

Supposedly time healed all wounds, but it seemed as if the pain of divorce grew worse with each passing day. Every day it was hammered into her heart that she was alone now. There was no one there to love her. Even when she'd been married to Craig, there had 
been no one there to love her.

She had felt like a teardrop in the sea of happiness that Christmas, and she remembered wishing that if she could only be somewhere else, anywhere else-

Scully closed the photo album. There were more pictures, but she had no desire to look at them.

She sighed.

And suddenly-

In her mind she could see herself at this moment in time, in the life she could have had.

*She was seated at the kitchen table, flipping through a photo album and drinking orange juice.

Her kids were spending the night at her mother's house, and for that she was grateful. Billy was six now, Steve five, and Melissa two. She loved them, but they drove her up the wall sometimes. Billy was going through a "gimme" phase, and Melissa was having the terrible twos. And Steve- Steve looked so much like Craig that it scared her. She was terrified that her children would grow up and be like their father.

Of course they were too young to understand how hard it was for her, having to put them in day care, go to work, cook, clean, and take care of them, but it seemed like no one did. She hated her job more than ever now. She couldn't imagine why she had ever wanted to be a doctor. And just yesterday, she'd found that cute doctor she liked flirting with a young, blonde nurse.

She was stressed out, tired, and unhappy. None of her girl friends understood- they were all happily married and loved their jobs. Her mother was always sympathetic, but as good of a listener as she was, she had no idea what Scully was going through, either. She needed so badly someone to talk to, a friend to listen to her. Better yet, she needed what she'd never had- a good relationship. Someone to love her.

She looked at her second-grade school picture, a photo of a little girl who had no idea how her life would turn out. A girl so sure that dreams always came true.

She buried her head in her hands and began to cry. *How did this all happen?* she wondered. *How did I end up here?*

She closed her eyes.

And in an instant the spell was broken.

Scully flipped through the photo album. There were the same Thanksgiving and Christmas photos that had always been there.

Had it been a dream? No, she thought, it couldn't have been. It was too vivid to have been a dream. But if not- what on Earth had happened?

Scully yawned, and suddenly realized how tired she was. She went back to her room and pulled the blankets over her.

In both versions of her life, she had ended up in the same place- alone and crying at her kitchen table.

She thought about this before she fell asleep. *But in that life,* she thought, *I'm crying because I've never loved anyone. And I'm crying in this life because- because I have.*

She closed her eyes, and the sound of rain splashing through the gutter gently lulled her to sleep.

The End

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