"Snapshots 16:Revelations" By Dawson E. Rambo Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and any other tangentially mentioned characters were created by Chris Carter, and remain the copyrighted property of him, TenThirteen Productions, and Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century Fox, Inc. All characters are used without permission, and no infringement is intended. Classification : MSR Rating : R (Dirty words, some references to past sexuality) Hi gang, it's me again. :) Here's the latest chapter in the saga. For those of you that sent me threatening email about ending 15 with such a cliffhanger, I worked as hard as I could to get this out as soon as possible. It answers several of the questions that were asked in previous parts, but leaves the 'big' one unanswered. We'll have to wait and see on that one. Archivsts : Sure, go fer it. Just remember to include my name, email address, and this text, unchanged. Feedback : Please. Lots 'o it. Good, bad, indifferent. Our Story Thus Far : Yeah, uh-right. Writing an OSTF intro for this sucker would be a story-size bit all by itself. See the end note for getting missing chapters. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Room 1013 Scully actually felt her heart stop. It lurched to a halt, and for a long moment she felt nothing but an empty ache in the center of her chest. And then slowly, seemingly without thinking about it, the ache turned to something else...something wonderful. Being with Mulder had made Scully so incredibly happy, so deliriously overjoyed...but this, this tacit admission by the naked man behind her that he had thought about it, was thinking about it, was considering actually... "Mulder...Oh my God..." "I take it that's a 'no'" Scully suddenly needed to see him, to be able to touch his face, to look into his eyes. She twisted in his grasp, moving so quickly that a small tidal wave ensued, splashing water over the lip of the tub and onto the floor. Neither of them noticed or cared. She slung an arm around his neck and hoisted herself up, settling back down into his lap, her legs around his waist, her wet, slippery breasts pressing against his chest, his arms around her waist. His smile was soft and gentle. "Crunch time, Scully," he whispered. She nodded, not trusting her voice to speak, instead leaning forward until their foreheads touched. They saw the kiss coming, and although they had already kissed a hundred, a thousand times, this was somehow new, somehow the signal of an entirely new chapter opening in their lives. It was a kiss of silent promises, of future expectations, a kiss filled with love and tenderness and deep, intimate caring. "Mulder..." "Scully, you don't have to say anything right now. We can make that decision later." Scully chuckled throatily. "You don't understand, Mulder. We have to make this decision now, because I want to take you back into the bedroom and make love with you for the rest of the night." Her words weren't intended to shock, but they had that effect on Mulder. He felt the same sudden ache in the center of his chest that Scully had, and if it were possible, it was somehow more powerful and intense. "Oh," was all he could manage. They kissed again, slower this time, losing themselves in it. "Mulder," she finally said, breaking the kiss, "we need to talk about this, and I mean really talk about it." "I agree," he said, leaning forward to nibble at her neck. She pushed him away, her hand in the middle of his chest. "I mean it, Mulder...we need to have one of 'those' discussions that men always hate. This is a genuine, bona-fide We Have To Talk situation." Mulder nodded, and sat back, casually draping his arms on the edge of the tub. He looked at her for a long moment. "I have a suggestion, Scully. And this is not about the main topic, but about how we're going to deal with these issues, together. Hear me out before you say anything." She nodded. "My parents...well, you know what kind of relationship they had. A typical one for the times. They rarely talked about things...they usually only talked around them. I don't want to be that way with you, Scully. So...I propose that when we have issues like this, the big, life-changing issues, that we do exactly what we're doing now. We get in a bubblebath, and we talk it out." Scully felt a smile tugging at her lips. "Mulder, how can we seriously discuss things if we're naked and wet and aroused?" "Well, I can't speak for the arousal part, but as far as being naked and wet...well, I think that it'll be easier to confront the issues like this. We can't hide, Scully. We have nowhere to go. All we have in this tub is you and me, our hearts and the truth. No distractions. No phones ringing, no pagers beeping, no laptops jacked into the net. Just you and me, our hearts and the truth." He looked at her expectantly. Scully grunted, thinking. She held out her hand. "Deal." Mulder shook it, and then this arms were around her, wrapping her up, pulling her towards him for another lengthy, soft kiss. They parted, both of them sighing deeply at the pleasure. "God...OK, Mulder. Now what? What about...babies?" He took a long moment to phrase his reply. "It's a complicate issues, Scully. I mean, that does go without saying, but what I meant was that my feelings about it are complicated. You know me -- I tend to ramble. My first reaction is that if we managed to get pregnant over the last few days, well, it's fate." "Fate?" Her eyes twinkled, and Mulder smiled at the memory. "OK. It must be love. Seriously, though -- if it has already happened, it was meant to, Scully. And the thought of you carrying our child fills me with so many different emotions that it's hard to sort through them all." "Try, Mulder. I need you to try." "I know, Scully. I'm trying." He pursed his lips, looking for the words. "Happiness. Joy. Expectations like you wouldn't believe. Sadness..." "Sadness? Why?" "Because of all the problems it will cause. Not between us. I don't think there's but two things in the world that could make me as happy as having a baby with you." She arched an eyebrow, silently begging the question. He blushed, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "Well, you can guess the first one. Finding Sam." Scully nodded, urging him to continue with her eyes. "And well...let's just say that the idea of jumping into the car with you and heading off for Vegas isn't exactly striking terror into my heart." Leave it to Mulder to talk about proposing marriage in such an obtuse and goofy way, she thought. "Well, what do you mean, then?" "Work, mostly. You'd have to come out of the field towards the end. Skinner will blow his top. He'll separate us. All that we've built over the last four years will go away." "Not necessarily," Scully said, her mind racing. "Huh?" "Skinner is the only one who knows. Pendrell, too, but I think they can both be controlled. You're right, I'll have to come out of the field after my sixth month...that's the rules. But if Skinner agrees to keep it quiet, there's nothing that says we have to be split up. We will just have to make...adjustments." Now it was Mulder's turn to frown. "What do you mean, 'adjustments'?" "Well...daycare. My mom can baby-sit if we have to go on the road, or I can cut down on my road trips. Most of what I contribute to our investigations can be done at Headquarters. If you need an autopsy done on a little green man-" "Grey." "Little grey man, then, I can catch a flight and be back the next day." She looked Mulder in the eye. "We can do this, Mulder." "Well, there's a few more issues than just that, Scully." "What?" "Marriage. I know that it's socially acceptable for single motherhood these days...at least, a lot more than it used to be. but I do want to...oh, God, don't laugh at me...I do want to do right by you." Scully felt herself struggling not to laugh. "You shouldn't have told me not to laugh," she gasped. She managed to get herself under control. "Mulder...we're both talking as if I'm already pregnant, and we don't know that to be true. This discussion was supposed to be about what we want to do about not getting pregnant!" "Is it?" His words were so stark, so naked in their intent and need that Scully swooned. She had been dancing around it, avoiding it, trying to deflect the conversation away from the true topic. Did she want to have a child with Mulder? Was she ready to have children at all? She struggled with the question, and then a blinding flash of insight detonated inside her, and she realized that her struggle wasn't focused on answering the question honestly, but trying to find a reason to say no. The logical, orderly part of her mind, the career-oriented Fuppie (FBI Yuppie) that she usually allowed to control her thoughts and actions was fighting a dying battle. Her heart had taken command of the situation. Her heart knew what she wanted. "No," she whispered. "It's not." Leaning in for a kiss again, Scully thought the problem out in a nanosecond. "We have three potential situations, Mulder. Three ways to look at this. We can actively take steps to prevent anything from happening, we can go on as we have and let nature take it's course, or we can..." She was finding it hard to finish the last choice. "...we can actively try to have a child." There. She'd said it. Mulder was silent, staring at her. His eyes spoke the volumes of the contents of his heart. "I think," he finally said, "that we should go with option two." Scully let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Why?" she asked. "I really need to know why, Mulder." "I could go on and on about how the stress of trying to have a child can have adverse affects on your body, about how the psychological stress can make it harder to conceive. On the other hand, I can talk about how using contraception can just totally kill the romance of a moment, as important and vital as it is. But the truth, Scully, is that it just feels...right. It just feels right to be with you the way we have been, and just...let nature take its' course." Scully smiled. It was the perfect answer, the answer she'd wanted to hear so incredibly badly. They moved, bodies pressed wetly together. "Take me to the bed, Mulder," Scully whispered just before kissing him. The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Room 1011 "Shit! Shit! Shit!" Starke muttered. He hadn't thought that the two agents would spend so much time together in the bathroom. The powerful omnidirectional microphone buried in the fiber optic cable wasn't picking up the bathroom conversation at all. All he could hear was muted mumbling. "What's the matter?" Jenny asked. "Nothing. Just give me a minute, OK?" His response was harsher than he'd intended, and he saw the hurt look cross her face. He felt the anger and annoyance flare inside him, and he struggled to keep it in check. His first thought was to throw her the hell out, but he needed her, and in a worse-case situation, she might get upset and decide to make waves. "I'm sorry," he said, trying for a contrite expression. she seemed to accept it, and she smiled back at him. "That's OK. I know your job is stressful." Lady, he thought, you have no idea. Something was caught the corner of his eye and he looked down at the small monitor to see a naked Dana Scully and Fox Mulder exiting the bathroom, holding hands, both glistening from the bath. "No we're talking," Starke muttered, shifting on his seat to get more comfortable. He hated this part of the job; having to see people at their most vulnerable left a vague distaste in his mouth. But it was necessary. It was vital. The program had to be kept open at all costs. The Pointe Hotel Room 1013 Mulder stopped walking, suddenly frowning. "Something's wrong," he muttered. Scully stopped walking and turned to face him. "What?" "Gimme a minute..." Mulder turned in place, looking carefully at every corner of the room. Room 1011 "Shit!" Starke said. To Jenny: "Get packed and get ready to move out." Room 1013 "Someone's been in here." Scully saw the look on Mulder's face and knew that he was telling the truth. She quickly stepped to the closet and found her bathrobe, grabbing Mulder's at the same time. Shrugging into hers, she brought Mulder his, and the pair stood in the center of the room, turning slowly, looking for some sign of the intrusion. "The computers," Mulder said suddenly. "Both laptops are gone." Scully felt her blood run cold. "Someone's onto us, Mulder." He nodded, moving quickly towards the phone. Lifting the receiver, he dialed the front desk. "Front desk." "This is Mr. Mulder in 1013. Do you have a stenographer on staff? Someone that can take a letter for me?" There was a pause, and then, "Well...the General Manager's secretary can take a letter for you, sir, but there will be an added-" "That's fine. Please send her up immediately." Fox hung up and turned to face Scully. "Get dressed." Without thinking, she moved to comply. It was only after she had donned a bra and panties that she realized what Mulder had just done. "Why-" she started to ask. "Because...I'm going to try and recall everything that I read, and the sooner I get it down on paper, the better the chances that I will remember all of it." Scully nodded thoughtfully. "Mulder...that photographic memory of yours sure comes in handy sometimes..." Room 1011 "...comes in handy sometimes," Starke heard. He couldn't believe his ears. "Shit!" Of all the...what were the goddamned chances that the single Federal Agent that had stumbled onto the program would not only have pieced it together at such a quick pace that no one in Washington had had enough time to take countermeasures, and then, when Starke steals the only evidence, giving his controllers enough time to start erasing computer records that the same damn Fed would have a photographic memory? Starke's mind started to race. He couldn't kill the two Feds next door. It was just impossible. Too much heat would come down. Way too much heat. Then he had an idea. "Jenny...do you have any kind of business-looking clothing? Anything that looks like a suit, something a secretary would wear?" She paused, realizing that her role in this operation wasn't quite over. "Yes," she said, feeling the excitement rise. "I do." "Get changed." Room 1011 Six minutes later Jenny stood in front of the mirror, making the last few preparations. Her severe-looking business suit had been in her suitcase on the off chance that she would have to deadhead to another city to work a flight. The airline wanted their employees to look business like, and allowed them to wear either business attire or their uniforms when traveling on company business. In Jenny's experience, if she wore her uniform when deadheading, someone always assumed she was assigned to the flight and wrote a letter of complaint to the airline about the flight attendant that did nothing but sit in a first-class seat for the entire flight. "Here's the plan. We go to the elevator and intercept the secretary. I'll flash my ID and explain part of the situation. You go in there, take down what he says-" "I don't know how to take steno-" Jenny started to say. "I know. It looks like scribbles. Just remember to never write faster than he can speak, and imagine you're writing in some foreign language. They'll never know the difference." Jenny nodded, still unsure of this new development. "Come on," Starke said, opening the door. "Time to go." They closed the door softly and quickly made their way to the elevator. They stood in front of the doors, waiting for something to happen. After a few minutes, the display above the doors came to life. They watched as the floor lights blinked on and off, one by one, until "10" lit up and the ding! announced the secretary's arrival. The doors slid open to reveal a man standing there, holding a small notepad in his hand. "Excuse me," he said with a smile, moving to go around Starke and Jenny. "Excuse , Mr..-?" Starke asked. "Hall," the man said. "Ben Hall." "Ben," Starke said, holding up his US Marshal Identification, "I'm Deputy US Marshal Walter Starke, and I know why you're here. The man and woman in room 1013 are under investigation by the US Marshal's Service and we can't allow you to go into that room." "But-" "This is Jenny. She's with the Marshal's service, and will be going in your place. Please give her the pad and pen, and come with me." Ben Hall thought about asking to make a call down to the front desk, but he saw the look in Starke's eyes and decided that the man was who he said he was, and agreed to go along with plan with a nod of his head. "What do you need me to do?" he asked. Room 1013 Two minutes later The knock came just as Mulder was buttoning his shirt. He answered the door to reveal a pretty young woman nervously standing there holding a stenographer's pad and a pen. "Mr. Mulder?" she asked. "Yes. Come in please." Jenny entered the room and saw Scully sitting on one of the beds. She had watched over Starke's shoulder as they had lain naked together on the bed, sated after making love, and she tried not to blush. Clothed, Scully was a formidable woman, and Jenny could feel Scully scrutinizing her. "I'm Dana Scully," Scully said. "Jenny. Jenny...Starke," Jenny said. She wondered what Walter would think of . "Jenny," Mulder started, "Please take a seat and get comfortable. I'm sure that you're not going to understand a lot of what I'm going to tell you, but please--- just write down exactly what I say. If you don't understand something, please just spell it out phonetically. I'll have someone at...somebody where I work actually type up what you're going to take down. Do you understand?" "Yes," Jenny said, moving to the chair by the small table. She sat and opened the pad, flipping to a blank page and waiting, looking at Mulder expectantly. "Shea McDowell," Mulder said. "Date of birth...January 20, 1960. NCIC Case file 1Z4949-R41-44. NCIC RTA is 02 30 65 19 40 11..." Room 1011 Starke grinned, holding the small monitor in his suddenly-sweaty hands. "Perfect," he muttered. "Just keep it up, Jenny...keep it up." Room 1013 Forty Minutes Later Dana was bored. Listening to Mulder recite case after case was beginning to get on her nerves. She realized how important this was to Mulder, and she wanted to support him in any way she could, but at that moment she was starting to wonder if it was all truly worth it. Standing from the bed, she walked over to where Jenny was seated and glanced over her shoulder. The page was filled with scribbles. She was about to return to the bed and she if she could distract herself by reading a book when something caught her eye. She leaned a little closer over Jenny's shoulder and noticed that on the third line of the page, in the middle of the line, there was a small smiley-face. Two lines down, on the right edge, was a small five- pointed star. Scully frowned, trying to make something out of the scribble. It didn't look like Pittman shorthand. In fact, it didn't look like anything except the scribblings of a child. Dana straightened up and moved away, her mind racing. She walked over to the dresser and made as if she were checking her makeup. She opened a small compact and watched Jenny in the reflection, angling the mirror over he right shoulder. Jenny wasn't paying attention to what Mulder was saying. Her writing wasn't timed to his words at all, Dana saw. Alarmed now, she started looking at the room more carefully, and in a moment, she found what she was looking for. In the far corner of the room, she saw several small white flakes in the carpet. The carpet was so light she almost missed them. Without looking up, Dana returned to the bed and sat, reaching over to the bedstand to get her book. Opening it, she propped it on her knees and started to read. She let her eyes slowly drift up, and she saw the tiny hole in the wall, about six inches below the ceiling. Fiber-optic surveillance camera. Gun. Where was her gun? Purse. Her gun was in her purse. She closed the book and moved to the purse, which was on the dresser. Room 1011 Starke had started moving the instant he saw Scully looking in the mirror, acting as if she were checking her makeup. Starke had known she wasn't wearing any makeup, and he knew that Jenny'd been made. He moved to Ben Hall, who was sitting in the chair by the small table, and squatted in front of him. "Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Hall. In exactly sixty seconds from when I tell you, you are going to lift that phone, dial the front desk, and report a fire in this room." "I will do no-" "Mr. Hall, if you don't do exactly what I tell you, I will shoot you where you sit." Starke reached to the small of his back and returned with a Colt Officer's .45, a cut-down version of the full-size Government model. To Ben Hall, the barrel of the weapon looked as big as the opening of a sewer pipe, the black, ugly period at the end of a very short sentence. "You're not a cop," Hall said. "No, Mr. Hall, I'm not. But what is going on here right now has implications that you could never fully grasp. That's not an insult, sir, it's just a fact. This entire matter has national security implications, and if you don't do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I tell you, I guarantee that you will not live to see another day, and that I will never be held accountable for your death. Do you believe me, sir?" "Yes, I do," Hall whispered. He believe that Starke would shoot him where he sat. Starke studied the man's face for a moment longer and then nodded, deciding. He started moving quickly then. He had the entire room packed in a matter of seconds. He was ready to go. There was nothing he could do for Jenny, and that was too bad. The poor girl was going to have a bad time of it. The FBI would probably keep her in an interrogation room for the next two or three days, making her go over the story again and again, out of order, looking for holes, looking for ways to trip her up. He looked at Hall. "Get ready, Mr. Hall." Room 1013 Scully reached into her purse and wrapped her hand around the comforting weight of the Walther PPK .380. She softly worked the thumb break open and slid the pistol out of its holster. Thumbing the safety off, Scully suddenly turned and leveled the pistol at Jenny. "Mulder, this woman is not who she says she is, and we're being watched!" Room 1011 "Now, Mr. Hall!" Ben Hall lifted the phone and dialed 0. In another life, Ben Hall had wanted to be an actor, like so many good-looking, blonde beach bum types in California. He had taken a few classes over the years, all the while waiting for a big break that had never come. He decided that he was going to give the best performance of his career. "Front-" "Ohmygod! There's a fire in my room! Room 1011. I'm trapped! I can't get out! Come quickly!" Hall hung up the phone and turned to see if Starke had appreciated his performance, but the man was gone. The door to the hallway stood open, swaying slightly. Room 1013 Mulder stepped quickly to the table, making sure to stay out of Scully's line of fire. Snatching the book from Jenny's trembling hands, Mulder flipped the pages, saw the gibberish she had written and threw the book across the room. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Mulder - next door..." "Right," he said, moving to get his own weapon. "Cover her. I'll-" His next words were drowned out by the sudden eruption of the fire alarm. A combination of bells and a loudly ringing klaxon, the sudden noise made both agents jump. "Stay here!" Mulder shouted above the noise. He opened the door and turned right, saw the open door to 1011 and stepped through quickly, his weapon leveled, eyes sweeping the room, left to right. He saw Ben Hall sitting by the table, his hands in plain sight. "Don't move! Federal Agent!" Fox screamed. "Don't shoot!" Hall wailed. "I don't have a gun!" "Who are you?" Mulder demanded, moving closer. "Ben Hall. I work at the hotel. I'm a secre...I'm an administrative assistant!" Mulder continued to sweep the room with his eyes. "Are you alone?" "Yes! He...left?" "Who left?" "A man. He told me he was a US Marshal." Mulder doubted that very highly. "Don't move until I come back!" The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Lobby As Starke made his way out of the hotel, he reached inside his jacket pocket and came back with a cellphone. He hit the one and only number that was on speed dial and waited to be connected. "Authenticate," the disembodied voice said. Starke said his real name, the name he had been born with, and then, "Domiciles." There was a pause, and then her voice came over the air, distant and tinny. "What is it?" "They made us. I have the computers, but the fucker has a photographic memory. Wipe me out of the hotel computers and the airline stuff. The Starke ID is blown; I'll need two more. I'm going to use a backup id for the next two days. I'll contact you." Starke disconnected the call and stepped into the San Diego twilight. "Taxi!" McLean, Virginia The woman hung the phone up and sat back to consider her options. The right thing to do, the prudent thing to do was to do exactly as her operative had demanded. Wipe the computers clean, erase all traces of his memory, and inform the Intelligence division of the US Marshals Service that there was no longer a Deputy US Marshal by the name of Walter P. Starke. The DIA would be no trouble at all; they made a habit of denying its' employees identities. She considered exercising the contingency plan she had put in place years ago. Most of what the woman had tried to accomplish with the program had already been completed. But as each op had been mounted successfully, her hunger had grown. Originally designed for a maximum sanction rate of 1 or 2 per month, the program had grown to the point where Starke was sanctioning a target once a week, sometimes two in the same city. The chance of discovery was always right around the corner, she knew. She had taken steps to minimize that risk as much as possible. RTA flags in the NCIC computers, Wuzzle, now dead, sitting abandoned in that anonymous wiring closet in the NSA. New identities, funds secreted away in numbered foreign accounts, untraceable passports obtained from the State Department's highly-secret Consular Operations division, all of the ID's classified at Six-Zero levels and above. Only the Secretary of State herself could get into those files, and she didn't even know they existed. SECSTATE was is in the dark. DIA was in the dark. Everyone was in the dark, except her. Even Starke didn't know about some of the contingency plans she had devised. With the push of a button, the woman could make Starke the single-most wanted man in the history of the United States. Computer records jury-rigged to make it appear that Starke had been acting on his own, doctored NCIC inquiries designed to make it look as if Starke had been pursuing a personal vendetta these years. Facts about his past would pop into the light, finally able to be seen by the all-knowing eyes of the electronic media. The woman was ready to vanish into the mist with a scant thirty seconds warning, never to be seen again, her work, her mission complete. There was still so much more to do... The woman reached down and opened a locked drawer in her desk, removing a thick blue file. The crest of the United States Marshals Service stood out on the cover. She opened it, and viewed the contents for the thousandth time. Page after page of names, two columns wide, old names on the left, new, government-sponsored names and addresses on the rights, odd notations here and there about the cases they had helped with, the criminals they'd put behind bar. Every name on the list a criminal themselves. One of the most closely-guarded databases in the world was at her fingertips: The list of people in the USMS Witness Security Program. She knew elements in organized crime that would pay fifty million, a hundred million dollars for that list. With a snap of her hand, the woman closed the folder, her decision made. The Pointe Hotel, San Diego Room 1013 Jenny and Ben were seated on the bed, their hands cuffed in front of them. "It's for our protection," Mulder had explained. "We have to straighten this out." Jenny and Ben nodded, each deeply regretting the fact that they had gotten mixed up in something they didn't understand. Mulder was on the phone, trying to reach Skinner. It was after hours in DC, and Skinner was not in his office. Trying Skinner's cellphone, Mulder hit pay dirt. "Skinner." "It's Mulder. Remember that matter we discussed?" Skinner was immediately on guard. "We're on an open line, Mulder." "I know...but it doesn't matter. We were compromised. Something is going on, sir. Both our computers were stolen, and our hotel room was under electronic surveillance. The goon masqueraded as a US Marshall and a DIA agent." Skinner's sharp intake of breath filled Mulder's ear. "Get out," he said. "I want you and Scully on the next plane to DC. Vacation's over, Mulder." "I have two accomplices...witnesses, I guess." "Turn them over to the local Field Office. Seventy-two hour hold. And get to the airport, Mulder." San Diego International Airport 2240 Hours While waiting to board, Scully had time to sit and think. The conversation in the bathtub was still on her mind. A child. Mulder's child. What if she was pregnant? The trip had been a vacation, a way for her and Mulder to grow closer still, a way to experience their relationship away from the stress and almost constant crises of Washington and the FBI. Only the stress and crises had found them, again. Was it fair to bring a child into her world? Into the world she shared with Mulder? Scully knew that no matter what else happened in her life, two things were true. The first was that she wanted to be with Mulder, every single day, for the rest of her life. She wanted to be by his side during all of this, wanted to find the truth just as desperately as he did. She wanted to accept the dangers and the stresses of this job, wanted to go all the places he did and see all the things he did. She wanted to accept the threats, the danger. And the second was that she did want to have a family, did want to experience motherhood. And for right now, Scully knew, those two objectives were completely canceling each other out. "Penny for your thoughts, Scully." She turned to face her partner...her lover. "I love you," she said simply. He smiled, and whispered, "I love you, too." "Mulder...I think I may be." He stared at her. "May be...?" "Pregnant." "How?" She gave him an exasperated look. "No, I mean, how do you know?" "I could say something cryptic like 'a woman just knows,' but the truth is...it would fit with the pattern of our lives. The way our luck runs, Mulder." He nodded. "How long until we can find out for sure?" "Two weeks, maybe three." He nodded, reaching down and taking her hands. "No matter what happens, Scully...we're in this together." "I know.." "But..." he added. "It's gonna be a long three weeks." ---------------------------------------------- END PART 16