"Meant to Be?"
AUTHOR: Jen
EMAIL: JenR13@aol.com
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Never Again, Emily, The End, The Ghosts That Stole Christmas.
This
story takes place in the 6th season, after The Ghosts That Stole
Christmas but
before any other episode of the season. Sort of an alternate universe.
CLASSIFICATION: SRA
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance, babyfic, Alternate Universe.
ARCHIVE: Go ahead and do it with my blessing. (If you like to archive
in-progress fics )
SUMMARY: A night in a motel on a case leads to an unexpected surprise.
Written
in Scully first-person POV.

DISCLAIMER: Mine? As if.

It happened. Yes, it happened. What might you ask is it? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the last two hours. The question I’ve been asking myself over and over again as I pace the worn, light blue carpet of yet another motel room.

Yes, a motel room. Of all places why did it happen in a motel room? I’ve never pictured "this" happening in a motel room. But exactly how did I picture it? Differently?

I did "it" with Mulder. There I said it. Not that it was so hard to say, it was just hard to believe. Not that I didn’t want it, I wanted it more than anything. Maybe I was a little out of practice, the closest I’ve gotten to getting laid was Ed Jerse. Getting laid? Is that what I just said? What I had this time was not "getting laid." At least that’s not how I would describe it. It was sex. Well, technially it was sex, but it was……more.

Six years we have been partners. Fox Mulder has gone through many women, at least I’ve heard. Yet he was a gentlemen with me. Never touched me. At first in the back of my mind I thought something was wrong with me. Of course I never got close enough for him to "touch" at first. Distant, that’s me. Dana Katherine Scully, distant exstrodianire.

He came into my room tonight. It was obvious neither one of us expected what would come. We’re on a case. Stupid background check assigned by Kersh. This check brought us to a small town in Ohio, checking up a tanker trunk driver. Nothing unusual was happening. It was a routine check really. Our first case after the night we had in the "house" on Christmas Eve. Though that night should have brought us closer, it did though not the way most people would expect it to do. I couldn’t sleep and ended up dragging my butt to Mulder’s door at an ungodly hour, his present tucked behind my back. And we did talk. But not really that much. I never did believe what happened that night and it still baffles me. Yes something baffles Dana Scully. It happens.

We were done with the check, and all ready to leave first thing in the morning. The flight was set for 9:32 a.m. On more night in the cheap motel and we would be out of here. Go back to playing solitare on the computer waiting for as Mulder would put it, "a real assignment" to come along. Then something happened.

It was simple really. We had gone back to the motel and I decided to talk a walk. Our case might have taken us to a small little town, but it was a small quaint little town and the sky was clear, and the weather was not that cold, for January. So I grabbed my coat and walked out.

A small town and a quiet walk. Lots of time to think. But I was tired of thinking, it was tiring. I walked past a small park filled with children.

Children. I should have walked right past it, I should have. Christmas had just passed and thoughts of Emily were still in my head. I should have just walked by, but I didn’t. I stopped and watched the children laughing and playing and I didn’t feel sad, I just felt empty. Barren. Lost.

As if enchanted I watched them. Watching as they pushed each other on the swings and slid down the long slide. Watched as they tied their shoelaces, watched as they called for their parents.

And I was fine. I really was. No tears, just enchantment. Until I saw her.

A little girl about four years old, right by me. She had gotten her coat caught on the fence. I reached over to help her and she looked at me. Her blond hair fell just short of her shoulder, her thick bangs covered her forehead. Her eyes seemed to look through the very face of my soul.

I freed her coat from the fence yet her eyes were still on me in an erie yet comforting fashion.

"Emily!" I heard a woman call. Her mother. I looked back at the girl. Her name was Emily. I felt tear threaten to make themselves known. In that split second it all comes back, Emily, last Christmas, everything. I quickly walk away from the crowd, not wanting them to see the tears in my face.

I practically ran back to the motel, not knowing why I feel like this. Why can’t I get past this? She’s dead.

I reached the motel, and made a dash for my room. I was going to lose it. This isn’t supposed to happen. What happened to my control? What happened to hiding my feelings?

I had almost reached the door when Mulder decided to walk out of his room at that same moment. He saw my face.

Mulder can be an idiot sometimes. He can run off and leave me. He can have no thoughts for my feelings, sometimes. Yet he can also be incredibly sweet. And caring. And tonight was one of those moments.

I’m not sure what happened next. Maybe it was because I was vunerable, maybe it was something else. I felt like it was one of those romance novels. I told him about the park and tried not to let him see me cry. I don’t why I didn’t want Mulder to see me cry, but I just didn’t. But the tears couldn’t hide themselves, they came out like a river.

Then everything happened so fast. Before I knew it, Mulder was in my room and we did "it." And neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other.

"Scully," Mulder had started, and I suddenly felt cold under the blankets. Not the kind of physical cold, but an empty cold. I had sex with Mulder. My partner. I looked at him, not knowing what to say and unsure what he would say. What could we say? We had just done something that neither of us knew what to say about.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want it. I just didn’t want it the way it happened I guess. The truth was I probably wanted it more than I knew. But both of us didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t respond. Mulder obviously took it for a bad sign. "I’m sorry," he muttered, "this was a mistake." He dashed out of the room to his own. I wanted to stop him to tell it wasn’t a mistake, but I didn’t. Maybe it was because I wasn’t sure if it _wasn’t_ a mistake.

That was two hours ago.

Now I’m in my motel room, alone. Mulder and I have not spoken to each other in that time. I’ve taken up pacing, it’s a good form of exercise. Better than that Ab Roller. My suitcase was packed and yet it was still only 7 p.m. at night. Any look toward the bed reminded me of Mulder. Of "it."

Would this change us? Of course it would, I told myself. The last thing I needed now was to ask myself stupid questions. Mulder is, well maybe was, my best friend. I cared for him deeply, he was, hell still is, my……life. Life. A simple word. He runs off and does crazy things. He has people after him and trouble follows him everywhere. Yet he is my life. How boring and mundune my life would be if I didn’t have him. Sure I could leave the FBI, and go for that "family way of life" but then I wouldn’t have him, my Mulder.

Did I just say my Mulder? I sat down on the bed, for the first time not feeling uncomfortable as I did, and thought that over. The pangs of jeasously I felt when Diana came along, how I felt she was taking _my Mulder_.

Is he really _my Mulder_? I shift positions on the bed, and listen to the silence that surrounds me. All of a sudden it seems to hit me. I had sex with Mulder.

Yes, I said that already, I know, but this time it really seemed to hit home. My partner, my best friend, and one action had changed it all for us.

I love Mulder, I do. I know, I’ve known that. And he loves me back. It’s an unspoken line of communication between us. But our love was one that never had to be expressed in words, it was just there. It had been there for awhile. But we never admitted it, we never made a move. We were partners, friends. We had each other and for now that was all we needed. But after tonight, who knows.

I evenually fell asleep that night, though I’m not sure when or how. I fell asleep listening to the sounds of Mulder pacing in the next room. And I was lost. I had no idea what to do or say.

My dreams were vivid that night, in bright brillant color. They seemed almost surreal. It was if my brain had decided to go on rewind; my dreams that night were all of moments past, cases and situations that Mulder and I could have found romance, but never did. Quiet moments where upspoken words were all that passed between us. Where feelings mattered and words just got in the way.

I woke with a start that morning, staring at the ditigal clock beside my bed. 6:48. I stared at the clock for awhile watching the numbers change from 6:48 to 6:49 to 6:50. At 6:51 I heard Mulder wake, thanks to the paper thin walls of this cheap motel.

As soon as I heard him, the urge to get away from the wall suddenly came. I quickly dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, turning on the shower so the water would drown out the sounds of the room next door.

For the next hour I stayed in the bathroom, telling myself I was just getting ready, but knowing that I really was avoiding going into my room to hear Mulder or going outside and having to face him.

But as I ran a brush through my newly dried hair, I knew I would have to face him. We would have to talk about this. Or would we? In the back of my mind I had a strange idea that maybe we could forget this and go back to the way we were. I kept convincing myself it could happen. It made me feel better to tell my heart a lie, but my mind knew. The sensible part of my mind knew.

It argued with me. Telling me things could never go back to the way they were. Then my heart seemed to join in. Do you want it to go back to the way it was? You can build on this.

Build on this? Was I fooling myself? I let Mulder leave my room last night thinking what we did was a mistake. I myself wasn’t sure if that thought wasn’t exactly false. And my heart tells me to build on this. You’ve been watching too many romance movies, Dana.

I finally step out of the bathroom and glance at the clock. 7:56. We have to get the airport if we want to make our flight. Then another sense of dread hits me. The drive to airport. The drive that was going to be twenty minutes at least.

Could two people who just slept with each other say nothing to each other on a car ride that would last twenty minutes at least?

Well, you will soon find out. I put the remaining things in my suitcase and just as I was closing it, I heard a knock at the door.

"Scully?" comes a tenative voice. Mulder. "We have to get going." His voice is uncertain and somewhat distant.

I pick up my suitcase and grab my coat. I open the door to find Mulder outside of it, his own bag in his hand, the other hand clutching car keys. Our eyes meet yet we say nothing. Nothing. Finally Mulder turns his eyes away from mine and begins to walk toward the car. I follow trying to concentrate on nothing else but the sound of our footsteps on the gravel. Sounds echo around me, the birds, the wind. My eyes continue to watch our feet as they walk.

It seems like a lifetime, though I know it’s only about 15 seconds, but we finally reach the car. Oh God, if I think 15 seconds is a lifetime, how will I deal with the hours to come?

We got into the car without a word. Mulder had thrown our bags into the trunk and started the car. We were on our way. And that’s how it stayed. For the next twenty minutes complete quiet. It was so quiet that when my purse fell off the seat it seemed to deafen us both. Our eyes caught at that moment, but we turned away. Went back to our code of silence.

The silence continued when we reached the airport. The only words we spoke were the necessary ones, like "you sure you have the tickets?" and "don’t forget to check your bag."

It seemed as if fate didn’t want us to talk either. The flight we had was packed. We didn’t sit together; in fact we were two rows away from each other. It was probably best, for now at least. I didn’t know what to say to him, and I was sure he didn’t know what to say to me.

I looked out my window staring at the blue sky. I frowned at its false appearance. Not everything’s sunshine. As the plane began to move I gripped my seat and turned to my right. Usually Mulder was there to grip my hand and distract me. This time he was two rows back physically. Emotionally he was a lot farther away. And as I gripped my armrest tighter I realized I might have lost the best friend I had in the whole world. And that scared me most of all.

End Chapter 1/? Chapter 2

5 weeks later

The flu. Of all the times I picked to get it, I got the flu. Between fighting achiness and nausa, I was ready to go home and do nothing but get into my bed. Mulder and I were no longer on the outs. We never discussed what happened out in Ohio, in fact for the first couple of weeks, we hardly spoke at all. Then slowly we made conversation, always avoiding the one subject we probably should have been talking about. Buried it in fact.

We went back to working cases and the thing I thought would never happen did. Strangely we seemed to go back to normal, well normal for us. As long as we never discussed that night, we were fine. We were ok. Okay, we weren't _okay_, but I was just grateful that we were talking. And a few short weeks Mulder hadn't drudged an x-file out of Spender's garbage, though I was sure he was close to doing it. To Mulder what we were doing was pointless, he missed his basement office without a view. As we slowly went back to way we had always been, he slowly grew more and more bored with his new assignments. Instead of during work he would sit at his computer and e-mail the Gunmen or cruise the internet and join in on their games. He was so happy when he reached the twelfth level of Doom™, and I just stared at him wondering why just over a month ago I risked ruining a friendship like this. A friendship that never grew tired or old. The thought made me laugh.

Today I came into work ready to hurl. I found Mulder, like the many others, working at his computer, except what he was doing, as usual, wasn't classified as "work." He turned his chair at my footsteps and smiled.

"Level 13, today, Scully. I can feel it. Langly's gonna owe me twenty bucks," he said as I draped my coat across the back of my chair. His expression changed as he looked at my face. "You look like hell, Scully."

So much for the use of subtley, Mulder. "Just a touch of the flu," I reply as I look through the papers already on my desk.

Mulder has now completely turned his chair around. "The flu, Scully? Shouldn't you be home in bed?" He has a look of concern on his face and I almost want to laugh. This seems like a role reversal of so many other times.

"I will, Mulder. I promise," I assure him. "I'm going to do some light paperwork, then I'm heading home, happy?"

Mulder nods and looks as if he wants to say something more but turns back to his desk. I sit at my own and look down at my work, but find my mind wandering, as it has been for the five weeks, and 1 day if I want to be exact. Yes, I'm exact. That's how long it's been since the incident. And Mulder and I are back to normal. We sleep together and then we go back to our "normal." Well, the Bureau was wrong. Spooky and the Ice Queen do not have a romantic relationship. We're friends, as we always have been. Good friends, the best in the world. Always there for me, we have an unspoken friendship "love." But somehow my daily speech didn't sound as convincing as it usually did. Did I want something more? Today I was too sick to think about it. Truth was I had no idea.

I was true to my word and left a message for Kersh saying I was heading home early due to illness. I hadn't even eaten anything this morning, except for coffee, which after a mad dash to the ladies room, I realized I couldn't keep down. I left for my car in a dash, leaving a worried Mulder back in the office, still sitting at his glaring computer screen.

The first thing I did when I got home was collapse on my bed, taking my shoes off. I didn't even bother to get changed. I fell asleep kicking myself for getting sick now. When I awoke next, it was dusk and there was a pounding at my door. I got up, feeling tired but better, even hungry, and stumbled toward the door.

"Who's there?" I mumbled sleepily, and unlatched the door. I opened the door to find Mulder, his key out, smiling sheepishly at me. He held take-out bags in the other hand.

"I got nervous when you didn't answer the phone, so I decided to come check on you and see if you were feeling better. I brought food." He held up the bags as proof. I found myself smiling at the simple caring gesture. He was worried about me. It seemed a caring, loving……wait a second, loving?

"If you are up to eating," he gestured toward my apartment, interrupting my thoughts and I realized he was still in the hallway. I let him in, and actually grew hungry as I smelled the scent of Chinese food as Mulder carried it into the ktichen. Chinese food and a night with Mulder. I realized how "normal" that sounded. That was us, and I hoped it would never change.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as I rumaged through my cabinets for some plates.

"Much better," I admitted, "Guess I just needed some sleep."

Mulder nodded and smiled and we sat to eat. I smiled and just enjoyed his companionship, though it was just friendship tonight. Friendship was the way I wanted it to be tonight. The idea of something more was pushed aside in my head, for the time being and I enjoyed this. The one night that reminded me why Mulder and I were such good friends. We knew how each other thought. And that made me smile.

Five days later

Damn this flu. It wasn't going away. I was sick as a dog in the morning and seemed to eat like a pig in the evening, only to have everything revisit me again in the morning. All I wanted to do was sleep. Mulder was worried about me I know, and I responded to his concerns by blowing up at him, in the hallway of the FBI. Yes, I definitely was not myself. Damn flu.

I had already called in sick twice, and enough was enough. I decided, like it or not, I needed to make an appointment with my doctor. Every time I make an appoiment with my doctor, I always dread it. Well, maybe 'dread' isn't the word. More like maybe the tinest bit of fear. Fear that it's coming back. The cancer. I try to tell myself it's gone, but I always have to add that 'for now' sentence after it. For me it would never be truly gone.

So I called into work, and told them I would be late. Mulder had stopped by last night and brought food with him again, so he would figure I was still sick and of course I still was. It was just the flu.

Then why am I stilling in the waiting room of my doctor's office ready to tear the magazine in my hands to shreads?

I'm overreacting, I know. But overreacting is all I have been doing lately. My emotions have been on an up and down cycle, like PMS decided to sneak up and attack me all month. I wish the PMS would go away and bring my 'friend' and then I could go back to work and devour chocolate with a legimate reason.

I'm a little late this month. Nothing major. Ever since the cancer, I haven't exactly been like an alarm clock, if you know what I mean. I'm a week late. No big deal, I've been later. And I know I'm not pregnant.

Pregnant. I repeat that word in my mind. The symptoms would add up, and I did have that night……..

Dana, you're nuts! It's the flu. You know you're infertile. I can't have children. Can't produce a family. Suddenly the memory of Emily seems all to fresh in my mind.

I put the magazine in my hand back on the table before it becomes tiny little paper pieces on the floor. Somewhere in the next five minutes the nurse calls my name and I get up and follow her into an exam room. I don't want to admit it, but I think my hands are shaking, ever so slightly. I sqeeze my hands into gentle fists to steady them. I'm in control, I have to be in control.

The nurse takes my temp and blood pressure, and gives me a gown to change into, along with my favorite part of the exam, a cup. I now understand why people would grimace at that when I did my internship. Rotating into many departments, the only similar thing was that everyone hated tests and hated beign sick. I could indentify with that, a little more than I'd like to.

The doctor comes in and we go through the usual exam. I wait for her to diagnosis the flu, but she steps out for a minute, to check something. The butterflies in my stomach come back full force.

She's only gone a second, and when she returns she asks a question that shocks the hell out of me.

"Dana, when was the date of your last period?"

I'm shocked. I weakly reply that it was…… I have to pause and think about it.

"It was six weeks ago," I reply in a voice that doesn't sound like the voice I'm used to hearing.

She nods, and tells me to brace myself. Then she tells me the words I thought I would never hear.

"You're pregnant."

I'm what!?

"What?" I reply, weakly, the room to want to close around me.

"You're pregnant, Dana. Of course, I'd like to do an ultrasound to be sure, and then I'll give you the name of-"

"I can't be," I say stubbornly, interrupting her. "I can't have children."

She lays down her chart and looks at me. "If I told you how many women I end up recommending to an OB who said they couldn't bear children, you'd be amazed." She paused. "I'll read your history, Dana. Most people call this a gift from God. I know I would."

I nod mutely as she continues.

"Like I said, I would like to do an ultrasound to be sure. Then I'll give you the name of an excellent OB, Dr. Rebecca Johnson. She works with high-risk pregnancies, and although yours pregnancy may not be high risk, the factor of your cancer could make it high risk."

I nod again. Things go by fast after that. Next thing I know I'm walking out of the office with an ultrasound picture in my purse and a business card in my hand. Then it hits me: I'm pregnant. With Mulder's baby. I have a black and white photo of our baby in my purse. The baby I'm carrying. The one thing in the world I thought I would never be able to have, God gave to me. Why?

"Don't question God, Dana. Only thank him," me mom used to tell me when I was a kid. So as I walked out into the parking lot of the doctor's office, I looked up toward the sky. I had no idea what to do, what to tell my family and most importantly, what would happen to Mulder and I. I had no idea what to do. But I looked up at the sky, and forced a smile upon my face.

"Thank you," I whispered into the faint sun. "Thank you for my gift."
End Chapter 2/?