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Date Posted: 20:35:03 04/10/01 Tue
Author: Islandgirl
Subject: Postep fanfic for "Three Words"

Title: "Explanations"
Author: Angela W. (aka Islandgirl)
Category: MSR
Rating: PG-13
Timespan/Spoilers: This is a postep piece for "Three Words". Everything up to that is fair game. Main spoilers are for "Per Manum", "Three Words" and "3".
Summary: Scully explains exactly how she got pregnant. Told in first person, Mulder POV.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. They are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions.
Archive: Feel free to archive anywhere.
Feedback: If it's nice or contains *constructive* criticism, feedback is valued.


"So, maybe you'll finally tell us what part you played in the upcoming blessed event?" those words Langley said earlier this evening keep echoing in my head. Gee, Langley old buddy, why didn't you simply drive a stake through my heart? The pain would have probably been easier to bear.

***

I remember focusing in on Scully in the hospital room, blinking, then focusing again. "You're pregnant," I'd said, stating the obvious.

"Yes," she'd nodded, practically beaming with happiness.
"How did that happen?" I asked. Because I distinctly remember her telling me that the IVF procedure didn't work. Anyway, that was over a year ago — at least, I thought it was; I wasn't sure how long I've been out — so if it had worked she would have already given birth.

Scully laughed then and said, "Geez, Mulder! You, of all people, should know how I got pregnant."

I nodded slowly. Yeah, of course. Another IVF procedure. This time — whether because the other guy provided a more potent donation or just through the luck of the draw — it obviously succeeded. Wonder if she asked Skinner to help her out this time around. Okay, no reason to get ridiculous! Since I wasn't available, I'm sure she just used an anonymous sperm bank donation.

***

The thing is, I know I should be happy for her, but I can't help feeling cheated. That should be my baby growing in her womb and it hurts like hell that it's not. When we attempted the IVF procedure, I happened to read some of the literature intended for infertile men whose wives were considering IVF or artificial insemination with sperm bank donations. Counseling is mandatory in those cases, because so often the husband — even if, in theory, he agreed with his wife's decision — comes to regard the baby as some kind of interloper; views his wife — despite the fact that everything was done medically — as having committed adultery.

That's how I feel. Complicating the issue is the fact that we weren't lovers when we attempted the IVF conception, but became lovers a few months later. I don't know where I stand now. Do we continue as lovers? Do we go back to being just friends? Does she want me to marry her, in order to provide a stable family life for the baby?

I also can't wondering help wondering if this is payback — either on a personal level or a cosmic one — for my own act of infidelity during *her* abduction. That's how I've always viewed my little interlude with Kirsten Killar - infidelity. Despite the fact that it all occurred years before Scully and I became lovers, I've always felt guilty about it. Should a miracle ever occur and Scully convert me to Catholicism, that would probably be the first sin I'd confess to the priest: "Bless me father, for I once cheated on the woman I love". I felt so bad about it, in fact, that from the moment Scully was returned to me until the night we became lovers nearly five years later, I lived a life of complete celibacy, my only sexual release coming from phone sex, dirty magazines, porn flicks. . .and fantasies of Scully.

So maybe Scully reasoned that if I could fuck vampires while she was being tortured by aliens, she could go to a fertility clinic and conceive a child while I was the one experiencing an extra-terrestrial brand of hospitality. Even as these words cross my mind, I realize how unfair I'm being to her. Scully may not even know about that night in Los Angeles all those years ago. If she does know, it either didn't bother her or she forgave me for it long ago. Everybody — Skinner, the Gunmen, hell even Agent Doggett — have told me how much Scully missed me, how much time and energy she devoted to searching for me.

In a weird way, in fact, attempting another IVF procedure was probably her way of dealing with the pain of my absence. Just as, in my own warped way, I was trying to drown *my* sorrow by having sex with a stranger.

Scully doesn't really seem to make any connection between sex for the purpose of making babies and sex for the purpose of expressing emotional closeness, the way the she and I shared during those last few months before I was abducted. I wonder if those will always stand out as the best few months of my life; if she'll be too busy with the baby, now, to ever want me in her bed again?

I'm well versed enough in Catholic beliefs to realize the irony of this situation. Scully, despite being pretty devout in most other areas, simply didn't seem fazed by the official church teaching against medically assisted conception. On the other hand I, agnostic though I am, want to run around screaming and quoting the Pope: damn it, there *should* be a link between the baby-creating and soul-uniting aspects of sex! You shouldn't have one without the other.

***

I've just about decided to try to get some sleep when I hear a knock on the door. I know who it is even before I hear the familiar, "Mulder, it's me," and see the doorknob turn as she inserts her key.

"Hey, Scully, what's up?"

"Mulder, I think we need to talk," she says seriously.

"Okay," I agree. We settle down next to each other on the couch.

"Mulder, I've been trying to be patient with you, I really have. I know you just recovered from a terrible ordeal and I'm nearly beside myself with happiness to have you back again. And I know you've been hit with a lot — both on the personal and professional levels — since you returned. But I just can't understand your attitude and it's hurting me."

"Look, Scully, I know I probably shouldn't have broken into that facility. I probably shouldn't have shoved Agent Doggett, either, it's just that,"

"I'm not talking about that," she interrupts me. "This is not about our jobs or the X-Files. This is about *us*!"

Her face softens but, at the same time, her eyes mist up as she takes my hand and lays it gently on her rounded belly. "About *this*, Mulder! The baby. You seemed so eager — well, if not exactly eager at least accepting — about having a baby when we discussed it over a year ago. I realize the circumstances are somewhat different than what they would have been if that procedure had suceeded, but I still thought you'd be happy about it."

"Scully, I am happy for you. Really I am. It's just. . ."

"See, that's what I mean. You keep saying you're happy for *me*! Before, you really sounded like you wanted it, too. You'd said you wanted to be involved, to be able to see the baby. . ."

"I do," I say, breathing a silent sigh of relief. Okay, she still wants me to be involved in her life on a personal level. I'll get to see the baby, probably Scully and I can continue to be lovers, maybe even — if I'm really lucky — I can eventually persuade her to marry me and let me adopt the baby. We can form a perfect little family unit — Mommy, Daddy and Baby. Hell, I feel an almost-uncontrollabe urge to go out and buy a minivan! "I'll be happy and. . .honored. . .to be your baby's father figure."

Suddenly, Scully's hitting me with a sofa pillow. Or maybe she's trying to smother me, I'm not sure which. All I know is, she seems really angry; this isn't play-fighting, like we used to do occasionally before my abduction. She's also screaming, "What do you mean father *FIGURE*??" Her emphasis on that last word gives me my first clue of the evening and starts a small flicker of hope burning in my heart.

"Scully, calm down," I say. Crap, she's really hurting me now, pounding the pillow with all her might into my ear. Scully's both a doctor and and F.B.I. agent, which means she knows a lot of good ways to hurt people without causing lasting damage. I could subdue her, of course, but I don't want to hurt her or the baby, so I just sit there and take it until she quits.

"Scully, I think we're both operating under some sort of major-league misunderstandings," I finally get out. "Can I a question — just one — without you starting to beat the shit out of me again?"

"Ask," she snaps, but I notice she doesn't make any promises about not whaling into me again.

"Is it my baby?"

This time, she doesn't hit me. I should be so lucky as to just get beat up. This time, she starts crying. Not dainty little tears sliding silently down her cheeks, like I've seen a few times before, but absolutely *bawling*! Between her sobs, she manages to get out, "Of course it's your baby, Mulder! What kind of girl do you think I am?" At any other time, the idea of my independent, mature Scully referring to herself as a "girl" would bring a smile to my face, but this is not the night to debate semantics.

"Scully, stop crying," I whisper gently, moving so that I'm kneeling in front of her. "I assumed that after I was abducted you made another IVF attempt, but that this time around you had to make use of an anonymous donation from a sperm bank. Are you saying that the clinic had some of my semen left from the time we tried before? That they were able to implant an embryo within you that contains both our DNA?"

Okay, this evening is getting weird — and for me to call something weird is really saying something! Now Scully is laughing. Again, it's not a dainty little chuckle, but a full-blown belly laugh that seems capable of sending her into premature labor. I find myself smiling, too, even if I don't quite understand the joke. "What is it?" I ask.

"Mulder," she finally says. Then she leans in and gives me a long, deep kiss. Then she draws back and laughs again, but not so uncontrollably as before. "Mulder, you poor thing," she says with a smile, touching my face gently with her fingertips. "No wonder you were acting like such a jerk! I guess I didn't exactly explain things in a coherent fashion, did I?"

"Scully, I'm still confused," I confess.

"Let me start at the beginning," she replies. "Do you know how long you've been gone?"

"Almost six months. Skinner and I went to Oregon in early October and this is the first week in April."

She nods, then says, "How far along do you think I am in my pregnancy?"

"About five months?" I suggest hesitantly. She actually looks bigger than that to me, but I'm not exactly an expert on pregnancy.

She shakes her head and smiles. "I'm seven months pregnant, Mulder. When we were in Oregon together — when we saw that baby and you talked about all I had 'lost' due to my association with you — I had already conceived. I just wasn't aware of it yet."

"Scully, why didn't you tell me you'd made another attempt at IVF?"

"I didn't, Mulder."

"I know you didn't. Why not?"

She smiles and shakes her head again. "It's not that I made an attempt at IVF without telling you, Mulder. I didn't make another attempt at medically assisted conception."

"Then how. . .?" I ask mystified, touching her stomach gently. It seems to me we're back where we started from. This conversation is going in circles.

"Mulder, you *DO* remember the, um, change in our relationship that had occurred about three months before your abduction, don't you?" she asks quietly.

"We'd become lovers," I reply. "But what does that have to do with you being pregnant?"

Scully doesn't answer, just holds my face in her hands and looks into my eyes, smiling, until the light bulb finally clicks on in my brain. "Y-you mean," I stammer, "we just. . .it just happened, naturally?"

"Mmmhmm," she purrs. Yeah, purrs. *THAT* sound certainly brings back happy memories. "We made a baby while we were making love, Mulder."

"But I thought you couldn't!" I say. "Scully, I sat there in the doctor's office with you and heard him *say* that an in vitro fertlizaton was your only chance for motherhood."

"I was there, too, Mulder," she points out dryly. "What can I say? The doctor made mistake. Whoever or whatever harvested my ova obviously missed a few. Believe me, when I first found out, I was just as astounded as you are, but I've had several months to adjust to the news."

I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I send up a silent prayer of thanksgiving before I remember that I don't believe in God. Or maybe I just changed my mind on that subject. "I'm going to be a Daddy?" I whisper, wanting to hear her say it.

"You're going to be a Daddy," she whispers back. Then asks, hesitantly, "You're not. . .upset, are you?"

"Upset?" I echo, confused. "Scully, I was upset when I thought the baby *wasn't* mine. Now that I know it is, I'm thrilled!"

"I thought maybe — since you were more of an, er, active participant in the conception than we had orginally planned — that you might feel more of an obligation than you would have the other way. Like that I'd expect you to marry me or something."

Uh-oh. Oh, the hell with it! It seems like dancing around issues always causes more problems for us than confronting them head on. "As a matter of fact, Scully, I *would* like us to get married," I say, placing my fingers gently on her lips before she can object. "Just think about it, okay? We don't have to, but I'd like us to. If you're not ready for marriage yet, let's at least consider living together. I know I'm a slob, and I promise I won't make extra work for you, but I want to be with you and the baby as much as possible."

"Mulder," she says, removing my fingers from her lips, "you just made two women very happy."

"*TWO* women?" I ask.

"Me," she says, kissing me quickly on the forehead, "and my mother."

Author's e-mail addy: tapw63@yahoo.com

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