Subject: The Sound of Windchimes, NC-17, 3/3
Date: 7 Sep 1994 14:29:02 -0500

The following is a story I wrote some time ago, which has
been sitting around while I mulled it over.  I no longer
have the time to mull, so I am posting it here since several
folks are already reading it and passing it around.  As always,
comments are welcome and highly desired.  Please do not reply
using "r".  My mailer never puts the correct address on my
posts, so reply to:

sfsfs@fail.com

Critiques, at whatever level you are comfortable with, are
always welcome.  Flames, too, if you think it deserves it.
Just remember I cannot yet access the newsgroup, and you will
waste your time posting messages to me to the newsgroup.

The following story is rated NC-17.  It contains graphic sex,
some violence, and characters copyrighted by Fox Television and
Ten Thirteen Productions.  These characters are most definitely
NOT used by permission.  All other elements of the story are
my fault entirely.

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Part 3 of 3

     
     They woke hungry and sore, to find a pile of hamburgers
on the floor.
     "God, I am sick of hamburgers," complained Mulder,
handing her one.  "Why wasn't I carrying a steak in my
pocket?"
     "A raw steak?"
     "Champagne," he answered.  "Coq au vin.  Pizza.  A bag
of dried apricots.  Potato salad.  Anything."
     "Shut up and eat," she said.  "You're killing me."
     "Well, at least we have dessert," he said innocently.
     "Mulder! You outrageous--"
     "You don't mean you ate all the lemon drops?"
     Probably it was the first food fight in outer space.
     
     Now Dana really lost track of time.  Sleeping and
waking were only the boundaries of a country she was
exploring with Fox Mulder.  He proved to be indefatigable,
practically inexhaustible.  Surely they were setting a
world's record for coitus, she thought.
     "You've made quite a study of this," she said at one
point when they had stopped to catch their breath.  "I
wonder who taught you."
     He grinned.  "Jealous, Dana?"
     "A little, maybe."
     "Don't be.  I investigate mysteries for a living," he
said, fondling her right breast.  He licked a circle around
it, observing that it seemed fuller, rounder than before.
"Woman is the greatest mystery of all.  I just did my
research."
     "You learned -- Oh, God, Fox -- you learned this in the
library?"
     "Sure," he switched to her other breast.  "Librarians
are experts at arcane research."
     "Oho," she said through clenched teeth.  "I -- unh --
suppose they taught you everything they knew?"
     "No, you are teaching me everything I know about Dana
Scully.  The rest is just instinct."
     She whimpered as his mouth moved lower.  "You have--Oh,
Lord--fine instincts, Fox."
     Then she couldn't talk any more.
     
     It was not possible to separate; if they were apart for
more than a few minutes, they found themselves gravitating
toward one another immediately.
     "It's partly because I'm afraid they'll take you away
again," admitted Mulder.  He brushed a lock of red hair off
her forehead and cupped her round cheek in his hand.  "God,
if they took one of us away, I would die.  I swear it."
     "Me, too," she said.  They clutched hands, sharing
their fear.
     But the aliens left them alone, delivering hamburgers
at regular intervals and continuing to supply water.  The
monotony began to wear on them but they passed the time.
They eventually resumed their chess games and language
lessons, but they sat side by side, touching constantly.
     One day -- or night, no one could tell -- Dana woke
nauseated.  She retched quietly against the wall, hoping not
to wake Mulder, but felt his hand on the back of her neck.
     "Dana?"
     "It's...all right," she smiled weakly.  "Something I
ate?"
     But Mulder was not smiling.  "I feel fine, and I had
the hamburger too."  He looked speculatively at the floor.
"Maybe their--replicator or whatever--is out of whack.
     "Could it be the water?  I mean, if they're recycling
our...our body wastes without a thorough knowledge of human
anatomy, they might be recycling pathogens right back into
our drinking water."
     She turned a little green.  "Thanks, Fox.  That makes
me feel a lot better."
     "Oh, God, I'm sorry, Dana.  I didn't mean to upset you.
I'm thinking out loud again."
     "It's okay.  You know, I actually feel hungry now."
She was surprised.
     "Okay, but I'll taste anything you eat first," he said
firmly.  She was too weak to argue.
     She ate the hamburger he had tested and was fine.  But
the next morning the same thing happened again.  And this
time a tiny suspicion grew in the back of her mind.
     "Fox, how long have we been here?"
     "I thought we agreed we weren't going to ask that
question," he said.
     "I know.  But it's important."
     He squinted at her.  That fine brain of hers was at
work again, he knew.  "What are you thinking, Scully?"
     She glared at him.  "Why do you always call me Scully
when you are 'on duty'?"
     He looked surprised.  "Do I?  I hadn't noticed.  Habit,
I guess.  When we first started working together, I tried to
put as much distance as possible into our relationship.  I
knew if I didn't I would make a laughingstock of myself."
     "Why?"
     He looked at her askance.  "You have to ask?  I have
already proved it three times in the last twenty four
hours?"
     "Oh.  Well, I mean, it's weird to have your...your
lover calling you by your last name."
     He smiled.  "I love it when you call me that."  His
hand came up to cup her head against his chest.
     She wriggled free, however.  "You've changed the
subject.  How long have we been here?"
     "God, let me think," he said, closing his eyes.
"Roughly, oh a couple of months, I guess.  Why?"
     "A couple of months?  Are you sure?"  She was aghast.
     "Well, yes.  Pretty sure.  I mean, we know how many
meals we get a day, and I've, well, I've been keeping track
of the days.  I used the chessboard as a calendar.  At least
of the days I was aware of."
     "How do you keep track of the days on a chessboard?"
     "There are sixty four squares on a chessboard.  I
started with the Black Queen's Rook and assigned a day to
each square.  I'm up to White's King's Pawn."
     "Oh, my God," she whispered, her face going white.
     His heart contracted when he saw her.  Understanding
and fear mirrored each other on her beautiful face.  "Dana,
what is it?  You've figured something out."
     "Fox, I--I have a calendar, too," she gulped.  She
looked up at him, blue eyes staring into brown.  "All women
have a calendar."
     Realization hit him and he blanched.  "My God.  I
forgot. And we've been--Oh, God.  And you haven't--"
     "--had a period since we arrived," she finished.  "Oh,
no."
     He reached out and gathered her into his arms, his lap
remembering the precise weight and feel of her.  "It can't
be, Dana," he whispered.  "Look at me, I should have a beard
to my knees by now.  We know alien abductions include time
distortions, it's one of the hallmarks.  This is just like
my beard not growing.  Your body is...frozen in time like
mine.  It's not what you think."
     But it was.
     The nausea grew worse, being a regular occurrence.
Dana found herself growing fatigued easily, and napped often
in Fox Mulder's arms.  He sat with her asleep in his arms
and cursed life, the universe, the aliens, and his own
potency.  What had he done to her?  Worse, was this why they
had been taken?  As breeding stock?  It was demeaning, it
was humiliating.  It meant the aliens did not even care
about his investigations, his curiosity, about the
individuals that were Dana Scully and Fox Mulder.  Any
random mixed pair would have done as well.
     Most humiliating of all, it explained his sudden surge
of libido, the arousal that had led to the rape.  It
dehumanized the act even more than it had been, and twisted
his heart.  Mulder's already deep anger was fueled even
hotter.
     Dana was too miserable to be humiliated.  As a doctor,
she was well acquainted with the theory of pregnancy, but as
a woman she had never experienced it.  As her strength was
sapped by nausea and restlessness, nameless fears swept
across her mind.
     Once Mulder woke to find her sobbing quietly beside
him.  He held her and patted her wordlessly, waiting for her
to calm.
     "What--what if it's not--human?" she gasped against
him.  "Maybe they--they did s-something to m-me--"
     He hugged her tightly.  "No.  It's not possible," he
cried against her desperately.  "No, don't think that.  God,
Dana, I'm sorry I did this to you, everything I do seems to
hurt you.  But I know, I know it's mine."
     And it was true.  The conviction soared through him,
lifting his heart, filling him with a strange and
unaccustomed pride in his own virility.  "It's mine, Dana,
mine and yours."  He placed a hand on her abdomen, warm
under his hand.  "Our child."
     She looked at him with wonder.  "You don't care?"
     "Don't care?  Of course I care.  If I could, I'd marry
you.  Right now, right here."
     "M-marry?"
     He kissed her, lingering on her lips.  "Yes.  I love
you.  I will love our child."
     But after she slept again, he stayed awake, worried
about the future.
     A thrill ran through him.  A baby!  His!  Awe and
wonder sang in him.  He'd never felt so powerful, so
curious, and so humble in his life.  He cradled the woman
and the child in her close to him.
     
     Dana's belly grew.  A soft, rounded firmness gave way
to a definite, mounded hump in her middle.  Eventually the
nausea ceased and her normal sleeping pattern returned.  But
with the return to normal sleep her mind cleared and she
began to worry, too.
     "Fox, we have to talk," she said one 'evening' after he
had made tender, careful love to her.  "I'm going to have a
baby, and there's no one to deliver it but you."
     "I know," he said, threading his fingers in hers.  "I
wondered if they would...would take you away.  I don't know
if I should try to stay with you or let them do it.  They
might...might have very advanced medical techniques.  If I--
If I fought them, even if I was successful I might be
exposing you and the baby to danger."
     "I want you there," she said with conviction.  "And we
can't rely on the aliens.  They know so little about us,"
she said.  "I'll just have to teach you everything I can.
Can you do it?"
     His mouth made a firm line.  "Yes.  Yes, I can.  I
will.  But I never wanted to pray so badly in my life."
     
     "Fox, what is the matter with you?" Dana struggled up
onto her elbows, glaring at her partner who was tossing and
turning beside her.
     He turned away from her.  "Nothing.  I can't sleep."
     "I know," she said with exasperation.  "Neither can I.
Neither can the baby, because of your wiggling."
     He inched away.  "I'll be still.  Go back to sleep."
     But something in the set of his shoulders, the way his
hips drew in, made her suspicious.  She peeked over his
shoulder.
     "Oh, my!" she said mildly. "Very nice indeed.  No
wonder you can't sleep."
     He flushed deeply.  "Well, I didn't want to b-bother
you,  with the baby and all."
     She smiled sleepily and reached her hand over his body.
"I can help with that."
     "No, really, it wouldn't be fair."
     She cocked an eyebrow, which she knew he adored.
"Fair?"
     "I mean, I can't--we can't--it's not fair to leave you-
-"
     Dana pulled him gently, and he followed, rolling over
to face her.  "Idiot," she said affectionately.  "There are
other ways, as you know very well."
     "But the baby--"
     "Will not be hurt in the least," she said, turning her
back to him and pressing herself backwards.
     "You don't have to do this," he said tightly.
     "That's right," she said with a voice like honey.  "I
don't have to.  I want to."
     He slid one hand down her buttocks to her thighs, slid
between them.  She was wet and ready for him.  With no
further protest, he eased his stiff cock into her, letting
his breath out in the relief of it, the warmth of her
enfolding him.  Gently, he moved against her, hands cupping
her breasts, stroking her huge belly, rocking him and her
and the child between them.
     
     "Fox!"
     Mulder shot out of sleep as though stung.  Dana was
hunched over, gasping.  He gasped, too, at the bloody puddle
at her feet.
     "My-my water broke!  It's the baby!"
     "Oh, God," he croaked, feeling his knees go weak.
     White-faced, she reached for him as another contraction
wrung her.  "Help me!"
     He took a deep breath, summoning all his strength.  If
he had ever needed all his wits about him in his life, he
thought, this was the time.
     He eased Dana down to a sitting position and brought
her water in his cupped hands.  She choked but swallowed
some; he bathed her face with the rest.
     "It's all right, baby," he murmured.  "I'm here.  I'll
be here the whole time.  We can do this.  You can do this.
You remember the exercises?"
     She nodded, frightened.  "I'm scared.  It--it hurts."
     He pulled her face against his chest.  "I know, baby.
It will hurt a lot.  But I'll be here.  I won't let anything
go wrong."
     He ran through the possibilities in his head, all the
horrors she had tried to prepare him for--breech birth,
twins, placenta previa, uterine rupture.  He prayed, hard,
to any god that would listen, not to take his heart from
him.
     
     Dana Scully screamed with the force of seven banshees.
She had been in labor for hours, breathing harshly through
each contraction, concentrating on Fox's face, his voice,
his hands soothing her, holding her, comforting her.  Sweat
poured off her, her hair was a matted mess, but the world
had shrunk to her and the vise that held her lower body in
its grip.  It was huge, a pain out of all proportion to
anything she had ever felt, a pain made larger by the fact
that it was utterly, completely out of her control.
Nothing, not the breathing exercises, not the walking, not
the restless re-positioning, helped.  The pain was raw and
wild and shocked through her every two minutes like a tidal
wave.
     Desperately, Fox Mulder bathed her face.  He watched
the woman he loved as his life struggling in a battle he
could not help.  He didn't care about the child, he only
wanted her to stop hurting.  It was going too fast, he
thought.  The child was coming too fast.  No, he thought a
moment later, it's too slow.  He wished it were over, he
prayed hopelessly for some relief for her.  The spasm
passed, leaving her wracked and limp.  He took the
opportunity to check her, carefully, sliding his hand into
her to check her dilation.
     She was as wide as his fist, a good ten centimeters, he
guessed.   Maybe it will be soon.  Please, let it be soon.
     It was.
     Dana arched her back and screeched like a fire engine,
then panted like a horse.  Her legs were thrown wide;
looking down, Fox Mulder saw the huge bulge of her move,
then saw the bulge between her thighs.
     "My God, it's coming!" he yelled.  "Dana, it's
crowning!"
     She didn't hear him, so he grabbed her hand and put it
on the bulge of her perineum just before it receded.  She
opened her eyes.  "F-Fox?"
     "Yes," he said exultantly.  "This is it!   Come on,
baby, sit up.  I'll hold you."
     As carefully as he could, he pulled her up.  She knelt
and locked her fingers around the back of his neck, slumping
against him, panting.
     "Breathe, baby," he said, stroking her back.  "Breathe
with me."
     She grunted something he didn't hear, and then he felt
her arms tighten.
     "Oh, God," she cried, and bit his shoulder till the
blood ran.
     He never felt it.  He felt the convulsion that ran
through her; under his hands, he felt her belly shift and
pull, felt the wrench that went through her.  He reached
lower and felt the bulge against his hand.
     "Push!"
     She pushed, making a noise he had never heard a human
being make.
     "Push!"
     He felt something warm and slippery against his hand,
for a moment.  It retreated.
     "Once more, baby," he murmured into her ear.  They were
slippery with sweat, but she clung to him.
     "I can't," she sobbed.  "Oh, God!"
     "You can!" he said strongly.  "One more push, Dana.
One more, I promise."
     The next contraction took her like a red tide.  She
rose up halfway to her feet with the force of it.  She threw
back her head and howled.  Against his hand, Fox Mulder felt
her flesh part, and suddenly his hands were full of his
daughter's slippery, squalling body.
     Dana slumped sideways to the floor as she felt the baby
leave her.  Dimly, she was aware of Fox calling her name,
but she could not respond. She felt him turning her over
gently, cradling her head against him with one hand.  Then
something warm and wiggly and heavy was placed on her chest
and she opened her eyes.
     The baby's head was soft and slightly lopsided, but her
eyelashes along the tiny cheek were Fox Mulder's.  The hair
was matted against the head, but to her eyes it looked like
it might possibly be the same fiery shade as her own.  And
the tiny, perfect hands clutched against the chin pulled at
her heart.  She looked up at Fox, tears streaming down his
face, washing his smile.
     "She's beautiful," he whispered.  "As beautiful as you
are."
     The tiny mouth moved at her breast, and she gently led
it to a nipple.  It fastened painfully on to her, but she
didn't move.  Fox Mulder's hand covered hers where it rested
on the baby's head.
     Fox looked down at Dana and his child with bottomless
wonder.  He had done this.  His body and hers, reaching
together for the pleasure that was between them, had brought
this life into being.  He felt a deep, deep peace descend on
him, a peace that was tied with blood and tears to these two
lives.
     And then he heard the chimes.
     It had been so many months since they had heard the
tinkling, mocking sounds that at first they didn't recognize
them.  But when he did, Fox's reaction was explosive.
     "No!" he screamed with every atom of his being, and
flung himself across the woman and her child.  But it was
already too late.
     
     Fox Mulder woke with the grate of gravel under his
face, the feel of cold rain on the back of his neck.
Carefully, he stood up and leaned against the car.  Had he
tripped?  His head ached unmercifully; he must have fallen
while he was getting out of the car.  His shoulder hurt like
hell.  He pulled the heavy topcoat aside and looked at it; a
bloody stain spread from his right shoulder.
     "What the hell?"  he exclaimed.  Had he been shot?
     "Scully!"
     He dashed around the car.  The passenger side door was
standing open, but at first he couldn't see his partner.
Then his eyes dropped and he saw her lying prostrate, face
upturned to the rain.  His heart nearly stopped when he saw
the pallor of her skin.
     "Scully?"
     He knelt beside her, taking her pulse.  He heard a car
pull up behind him but ignored it, feeling for the river of
life that beat in her throat.
     "Hey, Mulder, what's--Hey, Frank, get over here!
Mulder, is she dead?  What happened?"  Joe Sharp's big hands
were loosening Scully's blouse, his voice was sharp and
commanding.
     Mulder had found her pulse, but it was weak and
pounding.  "Get an ambulance," he rasped from a dry throat.
"I don't know what happened."
     "What do you mean...ah, hell.  Joe, call for a medical
evacuation stat.  And get Wallace."
     Then Mulder looked down, below Scully's skirt, and saw
the blood pooled under her knees.
     
     They took her to Mercy General and put her in intensive
care.  After an eternity, a young intern came out to where
Mulder leaned shaking and exhausted against a wall.
     "Are you Mr. Mulder?"
     He sprang upright from the wall.  "Yes. How...how is
she?"
     "She'll be all right, Mr. Mulder," he said slowly.
"But I don't understand why you waited so long.  She should
have been in recovery, were you taking her home so soon?"
     Bewildered, Mulder shook his head.  Behind him, Wallace
and Sharp stood up.
     "Doctor, what are you talking about?  Agent Scully was
on a stakeout," said Wallace's heavy voice.
     "A stakeout? In labor?"  Now the doctor sounded
bewildered.
     "Labor?"  Three shocked male voices rang out together.
     The doctor looked stern.  "Ms. Scully gave birth not
more than two hours ago.  I delivered the placenta myself
immediately after she arrived.  It appears to have been a
normal parturition, but I have to ask you gentlemen--where
is the child?"
     "Child?"  Mulder was staggered.
     Wallace protested.  "What kind of a hospital is this?
Doctor, you have her mixed up with someone else.  I saw Dana
Scully this morning, and she was fine.  Are you telling me
she's had a miscarriage?"
     "From the size and weight of the placenta and the size
of the uterus, I'd say she delivered a full term fetus.  She
has stretch marks."
     Their voices went on and on, echoing in Mulder's head,
but he didn't pay any attention.  Something nagged at him,
like an itch on his brain that he couldn't scratch.
Something about a tiny face with red hair and dark
eyelashes, and a sense of peace that was slipping, slipping
away.  And something, something about Dana that hurt to
think about.  But he couldn't remember.  And his head hurt.
     "Jesus."  Mulder's knees went out from under him and
his head ached terribly.
     "Doc, this is crazy," Wallace towered over the
beleaguered intern.  "Dana Scully was not visibly pregnant
at seven o'clock this morning when I saw her last. Is this
some kind of weird joke?"
     A passing orderly bumped his cart against the wall.  An
empty test tube fell off and smashed against the floor with
a faint tinkle.
     Mulder leaped to his feet and spun around, eyes wide
and hunted.
     "What the hell? Calm down, Mulder.  We'll get to the
bottom of this." A hand came down on his wounded shoulder
and he winced.
     "What's wrong with--Jesus, Mulder, you're bleeding!
Doc, take a look at him."
     Unresisting, Mulder let the doctor strip him of coat
and shirt.  "This man's been bitten," he said immediately.
"This looks like a human bite.  Have you been fighting?"
     Bewildered, Mulder shook his head.  "Fighting?"
     "You should have gotten this looked at right away,"
said the doctor sternly.  "Bites can become infected very
quickly.  You won't need stitches, but I'm going to put you
on antibiotics."
     Wallace stepped closer.  "A bite?  Mulder, what's going
on here?  Who bit you?"
     He shrugged and then winced. "I don't know."
     Wallace gave him a hard look.  "Bullshit, Mulder.
Nobody gets bitten in the shoulder without knowing it.  And
how the hell can Scully be--"
     He stopped for a long moment, then said with quiet
menace, "Did Dana bite you?  Did you attack her?"
     Mulder's jaw dropped, mirroring the shock in Sharp's
face.  "My God, Wallace!  Are you accusing me of --?"
     Wallace's look measured him.  "I don't know, Mulder.
All I know is that when Franklin and Sharp go to relieve you
they find you crouched over the bleeding body of Agent
Scully with no explanation for her condition--" He waved at
Mulder's bandaged shoulder.  "Or yours, for that matter.
And you say you don't know what happened."
     "I don't!  I'm as confused as you are!"
     Wallace stepped closer and lowered his voice.  "Look,
Mulder, I didn't want you on this stakeout to start with.
You're a nut case, and I think you've gone over the edge.
For all I know, you've sold out to Borger and--"
     "I haven't--"
     "Shut up, Mulder.  I've had enough of you.  So help me,
God, if you've done anything to Scully, I'll have your hide
for a dishrag!"
     The two men glowered at one another for a minute, then
Mulder passed a hand over his face and sat down.  "Go to
hell, Wallace," he said wearily.  "I never laid a hand on
her."
     At the back of his mind, a warning sounded, some echo
of anger and fear and shame that he couldn't quite place,
connected with Dana, but he ignored it.
     "When she wakes up, talk to her.  She'll clear me.  I
can't believe you think I could do something so--"
     Wallace made a disgusted sound and walked out, followed
by Sharp.  Mulder slowly put his shirt and tie back on and
sat down to wait.
     
     "Agent Mulder, you can see her now.  She's still
asleep, but the nurses have finished with her."
     Mulder shook himself and ran a hand through his unruly
hair.  His jaw itched and he wished he could shave, and then
stopped short at the unfamiliarity of the thought.  But why
should it be unfamiliar?  His head was beginning to hurt
again, but he ignored it and followed the nurse to the
recovery ward.
     Dana lay very still and pale.  It was true, he thought.
Her abdomen was distended under the green sheet.  His hands
shook as he picked up the chart at the end of her bed.  He
knew enough medical terminology to understand it:  Dana
Scully had given birth to a full term infant sometime in the
last twelve hours.
     "How?"  he whispered.  "I was with you all day, since
six o'clock this morning?"
     It was impossible.  But he remembered the pool of blood
under her when the paramedics raised her into the ambulance.
And somewhere in the back of his pounding head was a memory
of her screaming, crushing his hands, a brief glimpse of a
great, heaving belly.  Sweat broke out on him.
     "Mulder?"  It was almost a whisper.
     He stepped to the head of the bed.  Her hair was matted
and dark, but it still held a coppery glint to it.  He
resisted the urge smooth it away, but he picked up her hand.
     "I'm here," he said.  "You're in a hospital."
     "What happened?  I feel--ow!"
     "No, don't try to sit up."
     Her face went even whiter.  "What's wrong?  I feel--
Have I been...raped?"
     "No!" Mulder shook his head.  "Maybe I better call the
doctor--"
     "Mulder, what happened?"
     He looked down into her blue eyes and felt a sudden
rush of tenderness.  "I...they say...here, read this."  He
thrust the medical chart into her hands.
     She scanned it quickly and looked up at him in stunned
disbelief.  "Is this a joke?"
     He shrugged helplessly.  "I don't know."  He quickly
explained what he had found on waking up beside their car.
"Wallace seems to think I had something to do with it."
     Knowing he had never touched her, Mulder could not
account for the sudden feeling of shame when he said that.
He knew he hadn't hurt Dana, so why did he feel guilty?
Talk about free floating angst.
     "This says I had a baby, Mulder.  I can't have!  I'm
not pregnant, I mean I haven't even--"  She stopped,
confused.
     He blushed slightly.  "You don't have to tell me,
but...I mean, maybe it was a miscarriage or something."
     Dana flushed, which almost brought her pale face back
to a normal color.  "No, of course not.  In fact, I had my
annual pelvic two weeks ago.  My gynecologist can vouch for
me.  Mulder, for God's sake, I'd know if I was pregnant!"
     He felt distinctly uncomfortable discussing such
intimate matters with her, and dropped her hand.  "Well..."
he said inanely.
     "Mulder, I'm a doctor, for God's sake.  And I don't
believe in immaculate conceptions, so this is just some kind
of...of..." She trailed off and closed her eyes.  "I'm
tired.  This is a nightmare I'm going to wake up from."
     He patted her hand.  "Get some sleep.  I'll be here."
     "No, go home," she said.  "You were up all day while I
catnapped in the car.  Don't you have to be at the stakeout
tomorrow?"
     "I'll come in and sit with you," he said.  For some
reason, it was very important that he stay by her.
     The curtain rings on the privacy curtain jingled
suddenly as the nurse swept them back, carrying a
thermometer.  She started when she saw the two of them jump
as though they'd been shot.  Mulder's arm shot out to
protect Dana before he knew what he was doing.
     "Time for your temperature," said the nurse, looking
sideways at Mulder.
     He looked at his arm as though it belonged to someone
else, and then drew it back.  Why had he done that?  And why
was his heart pounding?
     And why was there a feeling of unshed tears at the back
of his throat?
     
     Three unsettling pieces of news greeted Mulder when he
got to the hospital next morning after a virtually sleepless
night.  Dana Scully's gynecologist, a man of thirty years'
experience, confirmed firmly and with no equivocation that
his patient had not been pregnant two weeks ago, and could
not possibly have been carrying a full or near full term
fetus.
     The bite marks on his shoulder fitted Dana's teeth.
     And the DNA match tests on the placenta the doctor had
recovered from Dana matched Mulder's blood type.
     The Bureau read him his rights, and for the next few
hours, they grilled Mulder unmercifully.  They only let up
when Dana Scully noisily protested that he had never laid a
hand on her.  They subjected him and Dana Scully to every
medical test known to the profession.  And after three
weeks, they had no answer.
     Mulder had not seen Dana since he said good-bye to her
in the hospital.  They had not allowed him to contact her in
the hospital, despite his loud demands.  Afterwards, her
telephone and front door went unanswered, and no one at the
Bureau would answer his questions.
     "Where is she?"  he asked Wallace.
     The big man looked levelly at him.  "She's gone away
for a few days."
     "Where?"
     "That's on a need-to-know basis only, Mulder.  And you
don't need to know."
     "The hell I don't!  I--"
     Wallace lunged out of his chair and leaned forward over
his desk, fists balled on the table top.  "Fox Mulder, get
out of my office and don't come back.  I don't know what you
did to Scully, or why she's protecting you, but something
fishy is going on here and I don't like it.  I don't like it
one bit.  You're off the Borger case.  Go back to your
damned UFOs and leave the rest of us to do some real work.
And stay the hell away from Dana Scully."
     Mulder sat very still.  "Is that what she wants?"
     Wallace sat down heavily and snorted.  "Yes.  She
doesn't want to see you.  Get lost."
     Mulder walked straight out of his office and out of the
building.  Across the street, he sat down on a park bench
and took a deep breath, trying to still the pain in his soul
and in his head.
     The park was in the middle of a craft fair.  Up and
down the sidewalk, people strolled hand in hand from one
vendor to another, admiring the gewgaws for sale in the warm
sunshine.  But for Mulder it was a cold day, indeed.
     A woman sat down on the other end of his bench,
maneuvering a stroller so that the cover shaded the sleeping
infant within.  Involuntarily, Mulder glanced over at it and
froze.
     That cheek, those tiny fists, the sleeping, rosy
mouth....An infinite sense of loss swept over him without
warning, and he was astonished to find himself suddenly
weeping.
     "Are you all right?"  the woman asked suspiciously.
"Should I call somebody?"
     "No, no." He rose quickly, wiping the back of his hand
across his eyes.  "Your baby just...reminded me
of...something.  Of someone.  I think."
     She looked at him with distrust as he walked away.
     What on earth was wrong with him?  he wondered.  One
look at a stranger's child and he was awash in tears.   His
head was aching fiercely--maybe he was developing a brain
tumor, he thought wildly.  His mood swings, especially when
he tried to think about Dana, were unexplainable. For the
first time in his life, Fox Mulder began to doubt his
sanity.  He was pulled by tides that came and went with no
explanation, ambushed by his emotions at the most unexpected
times.
     As if to prove the point, he rounded the corner of the
path to a new sales area.  Before him was a booth hung with
glass and wood and metal wind chimes.  Even as he
approached, a breeze swept them all into a musical jangle.
     His reaction was incendiary: before he could stop
himself he screamed and threw himself off the sidewalk,
rolling until he came to a stop against a tree, hunched and
shivering.  Several people came running over but, seeing the
overcoat and the shivering man, backed away shaking their
heads at yet another homeless nut case trashing up the park.
     Slowly, Mulder relaxed from the protective bundle he
had made of himself.  His heart, racing at ninety miles an
hour, slowed to something like normal.
     And he remembered.
     
     Dana Scully returned from her mother's house in
Baltimore somewhat calmer, determined to put this whole
bizarre incident behind her.  She had concluded that,
doctor's opinions to the contrary, she had possibly had an
undiagnosed case of endometriosis or even unterine polyps--
certainly not an unsuspected pregnancy!  She had no
explanation for, and refused to speculate about, the
puzzling DNA match.  Sheer incompetence, she told herself.
In any case, she was bound to ignore it and take up her life
again.
     But she kept taking the sleeping pills.  She had asked
for them because her nights were filled with dreams that
disturbed her:  dreams of a room that grew and shrank,
terrifying dreams of falling free through space, dreams of
pain and shame, and surprisingly vivid dreams of Fox Mulder.
     Mounting the steps to her townhouse, she saw something
in her entryway.  She unlocked the security gate and bent
down to pick it up.  It was a brown package, addressed to
her in Fox Mulder's handwriting.  A note was attached to the
outside.
     Upstairs, she read it:  Do you remember this?  FM
     It was a set of cheap glass wind chimes.  Perplexed,
she sat and stared at it in her lap for several seconds.
What was she supposed to remember?  She turned the card over
in her hand several times, but there was no more to the
message.  She shrugged and picked up the red hanging cord.
     And found herself huddled, drenched in sweat, in the
opposite corner of the room.  The sweet tinkle of the chimes
had sent her there in a blind terror, fleeing from the sound
as if her life depended on it.  Why?  she thought with deep
confusion.  What was going on?
     And then she remembered.
     
     Dana's phone rang hours later.  She slowly unbent,
stifling a groan at her tortured muscles stiff from hours
spent huddled on her couch, refusing to go near the wind
chimes sprawled on the floor of her living room.
     "Dana?"  Mulder's voice was soft and hesitant in her
ear.  "I didn't know when you'd get back."
     Her heart leaped at the sound of his voice.  "I...I
just got back."
     "Did...did you get my package?"
     "Yes."
     There was a long silence at both ends, while a million
unsaid questions went back and forth.
     "Would you like to talk about it?"  he finally asked.
     "Yes," she whispered.  She cleared her throat; it felt
tight.  "Yes, I would like that very much."
     
     He arrived only half an hour later, which meant he had
come from the office, not his apartment, she thought.  She
had spent the time fighting the impulse to call him back, to
tell him not to come.  She didn't understand.  Had she
hallucinated?  Had they really been abducted by aliens?  Had
she...had they...?
     When the doorbell rang, she jumped.  She nearly didn't
answer it, but finally took a deep breath and opened the
door.
     Mulder stood on the doorstep looking at her with new
eyes.  "Dana," he said softly.
     And then it all came back to her, the love, the
passion, the tenderness for him, and he saw it come back to
her.  He stepped forward and caught her in his arms as she
collapsed toward him, crying his name.
     He carried her into the living room and sat down in the
first chair that came to hand, gathering her into his lap
and holding her for a long time.  He remembered exactly the
weight and feel of her in his lap, the way her head fitted
under his chin, the smell of her hair.  It was as though he
had rediscovered something that he had forgotten, something
very important.
     "They did something to us," he said after a while.
"They tried to make us forget.  They nearly suceeded."
     "Oh, Fox!"  she said in a lost voice.  "The baby!  My
God, they took the baby!"
     He nodded, feeling the tears on his own face, the
immense grief and anger in him.  "I know.  That's probably
the only reason they took us."  For the life of him, he
couldn't imagine why the aliens had returned him and Scully,
instead of just killing them or keeping them to breed more
babies.  His anger was a white heat in him.
     Her arms went around his neck and he hugged her closer,
remembering their love, remembering their child.
     "I'm glad I have you back again," she said.  "I didn't
know I'd lost you, but when I remembered, oh, God, Fox.  I
love you."
     "I love you," he whispered fiercely.  "I will never
forget it again.  And I will remind you of it every day for
the rest of our lives."
     She nodded, sadness in her eyes.  "What do we do?  How
do we explain what happened?"
     His face was very serious.  "I've been thinking about
it.  I don't think we can ever convince Wallace or anyone
else in the Bureau about what happened.  We can try to open
an X-file on it, but I frankly don't think anyone would
believe it.  They'd probably have me up on charges.  They'd
love the excuse."
     "And what about....us?"
     He rubbed his chin along the top of her head.  "I said
it before, Dana.  I love you.  I want to marry you, if
you'll have me."
     "I feel like an old married lady anyway," she said.  "I
may as well make an honest man out of you."
     She turned her tear-streaked face up to him and he
kissed her, warm and deep.  It was a renewal, a promise, a
pledge for the future.
     Mulder looked down into her face solemnly.  "We'll get
her back," he murmured.  "If it takes us the rest of our
lives, we'll get our baby back."
     "Yes," she said, running her hand down the clean-shaven
chin, so unfamiliar and yet so well-known.
     "We'll get her back someday."
                              
                           THE END
     
     22,798 words
