Title: Timeline Author: Gwinne Archive: Gossamer, Xemplary, Spookys ok; otherwise, ask Keywords: MSR Spoilers: "Orison," "The Amazing Maleeni," "all things," "Hollywood A.D.," "Je Souhaite," "Tithonus," "One Son," "Agua Mala," "Arcadia," "Emily," "Memento Mori," "Sixth Extinction," "Pilot," "Requiem," "Per Manum," "This Is Not Happening," and more Timeline: set post-TINH; I'm also ignoring any and all references to Mulder's disappearance happening in May Disclaimer: Um, if they were mine, the timeline might make more sense about now. Still, for the rest of season eight, they belong to CC and the boys at 1013 TIMELINE A year ago Donnie Pfaster smashed her skull into a mirror. A year ago she wore a top hat and did magic tricks for Mulder. A year ago she spent the night in her partner's arms. Scully finds herself doing this often, marking time not forward, according to the red circle in May on her calendar, but backward, against whatever curious thing she and Mulder did a year ago, in that marvelous year of firsts. A year ago, after the paramedics checked her over; after Mulder slipped tennis shoes onto her splintered feet; after he wrapped her in an afghan and led her, like a sleepy, bleary-eyed child, into his car, he tucked her into his bed, changed into his own pajamas, and pulled her into his arms. Then he kissed her chastely on the lips. Neither of them spoke until morning. The baby kicks as if to remind her, here I am, and Scully pulls herself out of the bath slowly, careful not to lose her balance. It is moments like these when she misses Mulder most, quiet moments at night or early morning that they had just begun sharing when he was abducted, moments they'd make love warm and drowsy from a shared bath. If he were here, Mulder would wrap her in a towel of the softest Egyptian cotton and put his hand against the upper curve of her uterus where the baby taps her greeting in Morse code. "Do you remember," he would say, "what we were doing a year ago tonight?" "A year ago tonight?" She would pause, pretending to think. "Can't say that I do." "Let me," he would say, stopping to kiss her softly on the lips, "refresh your memory." She spends her evenings swathed in Mulder's clothes, flannel pajamas far too long and worn jerseys far too wide despite the new bulge of her belly. A year ago she woke to Mulder's erection pressed against her backside and couldn't resist the most obvious cliche. "You know, Mulder, it's really not safe to sleep with your gun." "Well, Scully." His hand slid from hip to breast. "You know of a safer place?" "We'll see about that, Mulder, we'll see." It was months of tender kisses in motel room doorways and trading notes on iced tea labels before she found herself in Mulder's bed again, drawn to his half-clothed body in the moonlight when she woke with crease marks on her face, that old blanket draped across her shoulders. She was touched and frustrated all at once that he'd left her there, and when she saw him she knew she was on the right path. She left her jacket on the foot of his bed and lay down next to him, still in her green sweater and slim black skirt. "Take off your clothes," Mulder said, voice gravelly with sleep and husky with desire. The memory is fresh enough that her cheeks flush, and she feels herself growing wet. If he were here, he'd have her clothes off by now, his hand between her thighs. With each pound she gains, her libido seems to swell. "Take off your clothes," Mulder said, and she did, sliding into bed beside him in nothing but black lycra underwear. She'd waited seven years for him to undo the clasp of her bra. She admits that readily now, that she'd fallen for him that night in her red robe. She can still feel his hand on her back, that spot he touched again and again through her clothes. * * * It's one of those days that every song on the radio reminds her of him. "I'm blue," Scully half sings to herself, "daba dee daba die," remembering how all of a sudden last spring Mulder had taken to listening to music in the office, silly pop tunes and eighties mixes from the guys. Days she'd walk into the office and he'd be swaying his hips to jazz or techno and everything in between, saying, "Dance with me, Scully." And one afternoon when she came back with lunch, they danced, really danced, because their report was done and it was a glorious spring day and she was wearing, just for him, that pale lavender suit. "Want me to change the station?" Doggett asks, and Scully knows she must seem ridiculous, hormone-crazed, her eyes brimming with tears. Do not, she tells herself, let him see you cry. "No, leave it." * * * A year ago a genie granted Mulder three wishes. A year ago they watched "Caddyshack" and "Plan Nine from Outer Space." A year ago they ate Ethiopian food and conceived a baby on his couch. No, not a year, just six months. It feels like a lifetime, though, and for one tiny person, it is. She looks again at the textbook diagram, notes the placement of the placenta, the size of the head in proportion to the body. In six months, it will be a year since the little girl was conceived, not the result of a frozen vial of Mulder's sperm but semen fresh from his body into hers. The math is making her ill. She thinks about the night the baby was conceived. No, she tells herself, conceptualized, the way she'd asked him, without pretense or preamble, to father her child. She'd gone straight from Parenti's office to Mulder's apartment, heart pounding with the best kind of adrenaline rush. Fists clenched in her pocket during the long walk down his hallway, she didn't know whether to kiss him for being sentimental enough to keep the eggs in his freezer or smack him for being cowardly enough not to tell her. The words were out of her mouth before he had time to shut the door. "I consulted a specialist. He said he can get me pregnant. I know it's crazy and I know the timing is awful, but after everything that's happened. . . ." She didn't finish, but they both knew she meant the gunshot wound and the fiery deaths of the Syndicate and delivering that baby during a Florida storm. "I just want to try." She paused for a beat, just long enough to catch her breath. "Will you help me, Mulder?" "Will I help you? Will I help you what, Scully? Give you one half of the necessary genetic material? Play Uncle Mulder to the Uber-Scully? We've already tried the cohabitation thing and look how well that worked out." He gave her a loopy smile and tried to soften the blow. "I don't know, Scully. I'm flattered. And part of me thinks I owe you that much and more. That day at the Gunmen's? You were right; your investment couldn't have been more personal." Melissa and Emily, her mind supplied, a price etched in the names of girls. "But another part of me," he began, then walked to the couch and sat down. "Another part of me knows that giving you a baby couldn't possibly replace what you've lost. And what kind of world would we be bringing this kid into?" She sat beside him and let him tuck her head beneath his chin. She remembers everything about that night, the feel of Mulder's blue sweater against her cheek, the smell of his aftershave and the unexpected offer of chamomile tea, Chet Baker on the stereo singing "It always happens to me." * * * They tried IVF for two cycles. After the first didn't take, Mulder said he'd do anything, look everywhere. They'd go back to San Diego, they'd track Dr. Calderon, they'd bring their children home. After the second attempt, he put her faith before his investigative work and said, like a character from the soap opera that their lives were quickly becoming, "Never give up on a miracle." Then Africa happened and Mulder's brain surgery. She wasn't surprised when neither of them mentioned the idea again. * * * She remembers making a timeline in her junior high history class, all colored pencil and girlish handwriting. She told Mulder once that time was the universal invariant but she knows now that time isn't linear but circular. Perhaps in ten years she'll tell her daughter, I met your father eight years before you were born. It was March 1993. I was wearing a red bathrobe when I fell in love and a white one when I realized what he meant to me. Silly, she thinks, chronicling time with bathrobes. Bathrobes or pop tunes or cases, what's the difference? Five months ago her partner kissed her good morning and refused to kiss her goodbye, standing in the hallway outside their office. Five months ago a doctor showed her the results of a blood test. Five months ago Mulder went missing. Another mark on the timeline. Just a day before she'd set up an appointment to see her doctor, still dizzy, inexplicably nauseous. How could she have been so stupid? What kind of woman having regularly scheduled nights of unprotected sex doesn't conclude she's pregnant when her period is late and the thought of food makes her want to throw up? If she'd even thought--no, if only she let herself believe--for a single moment, Mulder might be with her now, drawing circles on her belly and telling their unborn child a bedtime story. But she didn't and here she is, making timelines and wearing her partner's clothes. Math geek, he said, a year ago, and then he kissed her. * * * For two months she's known they are having a girl. After she collapsed in Montana, after she started cramping and Skinner accompanied her, again, to the emergency room, she decided she'd had enough surprises to last a lifetime. Skinner held her hand while the technician spread gel across her belly. When the sound of fetal heart tones filled the room, she said, "I hope she has her father's heart." "I'm so sorry, Scully. This shouldn't have happened." No, it shouldn't have happened, but it did, and in the two months since Mulder's funeral she's tried to think about the future, the red circle in May on her calendar. Still, she finds herself thinking of him often, organizing mental files so she'll be able to find them when their daughter asks. The baby isn't an alien or a violation but a girl, a human girl, a girl created from her and Mulder alone. She needs a crib, not a filing cabinet or a black leather couch, and Scully decides to go shopping tomorrow. When the time is right, she'll ask Skinner to paint stars on the ceiling. The baby is restless, turning like her father in the middle of the night. There's no question of where his soul resides. FIN * * * Acknowledgements: Thanks so much to Alanna for being my first ever beta reader (you rock!) and for moral support, Texan and otherwise; and thanks to Scullyfic, for community (I owe you smart gals an improv and a whole lot of eclairs ) feedback--now or belated--gleefully accepted at gwinne@yahoo.com