Abandoned
Chapter 5: Epilogue
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all headers and disclaimers in Ch. 1
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6 months later
“Hey Scully, are you awake?”
Mmmmm,” she said. “Not really. Time’s it?” She felt warm, and safe. She felt an arm wrap around her waist and a large, warm hand begin to caress her stomach.
“Too late to go back to sleep, and too early to get up,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Better this morning,” she said. “Sometimes it doesn’t hit until later.”
Mulder kissed the back of her neck and let his hand drift a little higher, and then a little lower. “I bet I know something that would make you feel better.” He pulled her back against him. There was no mistaking his meaning.
Scully turned in his arms and gave him a hard kiss. “How do you think I got this way in the first place?”
“Are you implying I make you sick, Miz Scully?”
“On the contrary, Mister Mulder. You make me feel a little *too* good sometimes,” she said, and kissed him again.
“Maybe it’s just those pregnancy hormones I keep reading about,” he said, pulling her up tight against him.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma!” William’s cry came from the other room.
Mulder groaned his disappointment into Scully’s neck. “I’m never gonna get to find out, though, am I?”
Scully laughed. “Maybe you’ll get lucky later.”
“Promises, promises,” he muttered.
Scully slid out of bed and put on her robe. No dizziness or nausea so far. It had been lessening in the past week. She hoped she was past it. Mulder got so concerned. She tried to remember that he hadn’t been around for her first pregnancy, and he was probably overcompensating a little bit as a result. It was really rather sweet.
She went into William’s room, which was beginning to resemble a toy warehouse. William had a large surrogate family, and they all seemed determined to spoil him.
She was grateful for every single one of them, and for being here.
It was amazing, how quickly she’d gotten used to her new life. In the past six months, they’d become a family. It was something that she’d always hoped for, but never expected would happen.
She tried to dwell on the goodness of it, and not to think of the things that she couldn’t have. She still missed her mother, every day. She couldn’t even get word to her that she was okay. She prayed all the time that her mother was okay, and that someday they’d see each other again.
There were other difficulties, too. She was, for all intents and purposes, restricted to the compound for the foreseeable future. Mulder was, too, and she knew how restless it made him. It was a source of tension between them, sometimes. He wanted to be active, to be out there.
On the other hand, she could think of worse places to be. The property was extensive and well-landscaped. Their living quarters were comfortable and spacious. They had all the modern conveniences. And the biggest plus was, of course, being with Mulder.
She felt more secure here than any place she’d been for a long time, except for the brief time she’d spent at Georgine’s. She still didn’t quite understand how she ended up there just when she needed it, or how she’d gotten her courage back just by being there.
She’d told Mulder about Georgine. They’d spent long hours talking to each other about their experiences while they were apart.
“The guys could learn something about underground networks from Georgine and her compatriots,” Scully said. “Very low-tech, but it seems to work. Georgine told me in the ten years she’d been running that place, no one has ever come looking for a runaway wife or girl friend there. And a lot of the women end up doing okay on their own. That’s how she’s able to keep it running. She gets donations from women who spent time with her. Sometimes it’s only a couple of days, yet they remember. I wish you could meet her.”
“I wish I could, too, Scully,” Mulder said sincerely. “I’d like to thank her.”
“I wonder if we could send her an anonymous grant of some kind,” Scully mused. “I’m sure she could always use the money.”
“What about your Terry Randall account? Anything left of it?”
“I didn’t take the money out when we left Des Moines,” she said. “I was in kind of a hurry, and I didn’t think we’d need it.” She kissed Mulder gratefully. “I’ll talk to Byers about it. He’ll know how to get it to her in some roundabout way.”
She wished everything could be solved so easily. But at least, they were working on it.
She changed William’s diaper and took him out to the kitchen. Mulder was already there, warming a bottle. He looked so good, standing there in just his flannel PJ bottoms, pillow hair and all. “Hey Buddy,” he said. “Come and get it!”
William squirmed in Scully’s arms and she set him on his feet. He took a few staggering steps and fell on his well-padded behind. His look was comical; he never seemed to expect it. Scully leaned down and helped him back up; she held his hand as he took a few more steps toward the kitchen.
“What’s on the agenda for today, Scully?” Mulder asked as he got William in his high chair.
“More of the same, Mulder. I don’t expect a breakthrough any time soon, unfortunately.” With Langly’s help, they’d set up a screen saver program similar to the SETI@Home project, where all the screensavers on the premises, as well as those of MUFON members around the world, were helping analyze data that might be the key to destroying the super soldiers — or to finding a vaccine for the alien virus.
It was Scully’s job, along with some of the other scientists, to decide what to look for and to further analyze the data they got back from all of their resources. It was exacting, grueling work, and results would be a long time in coming. But Scully was pleased to be doing something, anything, in the fight.
“Scully –” Mulder came over to her and held her close. “You know, I’m going to have to make a little reconnaissance mission again some time soon.”
Scully nodded. Mulder hadn’t gone anywhere since she and William arrived, and she was grateful. But she understood his need, and at least for now, he was the only one who had the training and could go. But she didn’t want him to go without back up.
“I wish you’d wait until Skinner could be here, too.” They’d discussed this at length. Skinner’s plan had been to retire from the FBI and join them. So far, he hadn’t made contact, and they’d left it to him to do so. Mulder was getting restless.
“I want to go to DC, Scully,” he said. “I want to see Skinner in person, see if he’s still in the game. I think it’s worth the risk.”
“Wait just a little longer,” Scully urged. “Please.”
“I’m not going today, Scully, or even tomorrow,” Mulder said. “But I can’t put it off forever.”
“I know.” She laid her head on his chest. “I just can’t bear to think of the possibility of losing you.”
“Hey, Scully, you know I always turn up again. Like the bad penny,” he did his best to tease her out of her fears.”
“I’d want to go with you,” Scully said.
Mulder put her away from him for a moment and looked seriously at her. “Not a good idea right now, Scully, and you know it. And I know why you want to go. I know partly it’s to watch my back, and there’s no one I’d want more. But I know you want to see your mom, too, and it’s just not worth the risk.”
Scully hung her head. “I know, Mulder,” she whispered. “There are other things, too. Patti — the wife of the man who first approached me about the informant who was the super soldier — she has a child, too. One who might be in as much danger as William. And I’d like to get to her, and make sure she’s safe.” She thought of Patti frequently, and wondered what had become of her. If anyone needed someone like Georgine to help her, it was Patti and her baby. Maybe there was still a way.
“Scully, we can’t save everyone. You know that. We’re gonna try to be the saviors of the whole damn world, but we can’t do it in the open.”
“I was just going to say the same thing to you, Mulder,” she said softly. “You can’t go out there, and you can’t do it alone.”
Mulder looked at her a moment in mid-harangue, and then smiled ruefully. “Hoist by my own petard,” he said. “You win, Scully. For now, anyway.”
“At least until after the baby is born?” she asked hopefully. “At least until I can come with you?”
“We’ll see, Scully. We’ll see.” He took her back in his arms again. “See you at lunch time?”
“You see me at lunch time every day, Mulder. I don’t guess today will be any different.”
“Well, maybe we could pick up where we left off when Shorty here interrupted us.” Mulder said. He bent his head and kissed her deeply.
Scully returned the kiss with enthusiasm. “Maybe we could skip movie night tonight,” she whispered after a long pause.
“But it’s `Sneakers’! Practically required viewing!” Mulder said with mock seriousness.
“You just like to listen to Langly nit-pick the technical inaccuracies,” Scully said. “They’ve shown that movie at least twice since I’ve been here.”
“I think Langly is a Robert Redford wannabe,” Mulder said.
“I thought that was Frohike,” Scully said. “Or is he Cary Grant?”
“Don’t change the subject, Scully,” Mulder said. “I’m trying to seduce you.”
“Oh.” Scully looked down at the tiny bulge of her abdomen. “I thought you already had.”
Mulder smiled. “Get over here, Scully.”
She went, gladly.
William’s bottle dropped on the floor. Mulder and Scully jumped apart. William grinned at them.
“Kid, you’ve got a thing or two to learn about timing,” said Mulder. He picked him up out of the high chair and wrapped his arm around Scully.
“Just be glad he’s not yet old enough to say “eeewww” when the old folks smooch, Mulder,” replied Scully. She kissed William and laid her head on Mulder’s chest.
Maybe their world wasn’t perfect, but at least they were in it together. If she’d been offered perfect safety, but no Mulder, she knew what she’d choose. If he’d been given a similar choice, Scully knew what Mulder would choose, too.
There was never any doubt, really.
end.
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Author’s notes, references and acknowledgments:
This began as a post-ep for Trust_No1, and then things got out of hand. I credit Brandon Ray for the inspiration for this piece, as he posted a challenge to write how we’d like to see the show end.
This is a resolution, of sorts, leaving the door open for Mulder and Scully (and William) to continue the fight. But at least, they’ll be continuing it together. I hope that CC will come up with something similar. I don’t want things all tied up in a neat little package; I just want something that will leave the door open to more adventures in the future.
In case you were wondering at all about Georgine: in my description, I had in mind that she looked like Jeremiah Smith, a little. I hope people caught the similarities. As to whether she truly *is* like Jeremiah Smith, I’ll leave that open to conjecture.
I figured that William was about 6 months old when Scully left DC with him. I used an excellent site for some additional information about the developmental stages of babies: The National Network for Child Care. http://www.nncc.org
I used Mapquest.com for some info on directions and drive times between locations. Also, thanks to my mom, who did a little emergency atlas checking for me.
As for the reasons why Scully goes where she goes and the Gunmen settled where they did: I did the old stick-a-pin in the map method for Scully, to make it a random selection. For the Gunmen, because the largest source for hematite (an iron ore) used to be the Mesabi Range near Lake Superior and I wanted them to be somewhere near that locality. Their company was name for a form of magnetite, also an iron ore. I figured that part of the reason iron might destroy the super soldiers is the magnetic quality. Just a thought, perhaps worth exploring more. I owe the foregoing information to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, through Infoplease.com.
If you’d like to know more about SETI@home, go to: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu There are similar programs for cancer research and anthrax research. Information about those are available at NPR.org.
And, Phil Farrand’s “Nitpicker’s Guide for X-Philes,” which has long been one of my favorite resources for quick references to the first four seasons.
Any errors or omissions in the story are my own.
Thanks so much for reading.