Chapter Two - Visions and Confrontations 
 
Scully was on the phone with Skinner. Mulder amused himself by slowly 
waving a smiley face rattle before Will's face. 
 
"So both you and Agent Doggett are being called to testify?" 
 
Will's eyes were wide open with wonder. He tracked the brightly colored 
object as it passed over his field of vision. 
 
"Yes, just the fact that the tapes were wiped from that night is very 
suspicious." 
 
Mulder pressed his nose to his son's downy hair and inhaled his sweet 
milky scent. He felt a sense of utter contentment and peace. Here was 
something he hadn't even consciously realized he was looking for for a 
long time. It had taken Scully's desperate desire for a child to show him 
that he wanted to father her babies as badly as she wanted him to. He 
glanced over to where she stood, red head bent in concentration over the 
phone. 
 
He had read recently on the Internet that the smell of a baby triggers a 
biological reaction in the *father.* A hormone called seratonin, also 
known as the Mothering Hormone, is released in the man's bloodstream 
every time he smells his newborn. 
 
"And the phone record clearly shows a link to someone in the CDC?" 
 
He turned his head at that. A conspiracy stretching all the way into the 
offices of health and sanitation and all-in-the-name-of-a-cure? Mulder 
felt a familiar stirring, a pique of curiosity. He scooped William up and 
sauntered over to Scully. She was saying her goodbyes. 
 
"Yes, they're both fine. They dote on each other actually. I expect 
little Will's first words will be 'Mom, I have a theory.'" 
 
Skinner must have found that amusing because Scully paused and then 
chuckled a little. She hung up the phone and turned to Mulder, or rather, 
to the baby. 
 
"Come here sweetie," she cooed. Mulder never got tired of watching her 
smarm over him. There was a time when he was in despair thinking of all 
that she had lost working with him. "Time for your vitamins," Scully 
continued. She went into the kitchen to administer Will's vitamin drops. 
 
Watching her, Mulder felt a strange sense of vertigo. His vision doubled 
and Scully's body lengthened until it appeared his mother was standing 
before him.  
 
"Mom?" he called out questioningly. The woman turned to him and 
suddenly 
the baby in her arms had a swatch of dark hair. The dizziness grew worse 
and Mulder moved towards the couch, intending to sit down until it 
passed. He hadn't had an episode like this since waking from the dead. 
 
He took two steps and suddenly was immersed in a whole other world. 
Sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing all contributed to this vivid 
vision. 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~flashback one 
 
"Dad, this hurts. Why do we have to do this every month huh? The doctor 
check-ups aren't enough?" 
 
"Hush now Fox. This is for your own good. I just want you to stay 
healthy. And no, the doctor doesn't know about this." 
 
"Am I sick?" he asked in alarm. 
 
"No, no, son." His father hastened to reassure him. "I just want to make 
sure you *don't* get sick." He swabbed the boy's arm with alcohol with a 
practiced hand. The two vials he always poked him full of frightened Fox 
a little. One of them held a rather innocuous amber liquid, but the other 
one... 
 
Innocuous was a word he was quite proud of. He had just recently learned 
it in school. It was on the tip of his tongue to brag to his father about 
it when he felt the sting. The needle full of that *other* stuff was 
slowly pumping into him. He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't see 
the 
black liquid that seemed sometimes to move by itself in the vial. He 
didn't know where his father got them. He just knew that once a month his 
father came home with a secretive, furtive look and Fox knew he was in 
for a "treatment" in the basement. 
 
"Do you do this to Sammi too?" he asked tentatively.  
 
His father was silent for a long moment. He concentrated on swabbing the 
area again and filling the needle with the amber serum. "No," he said in 
a rough voice. "I did at first, but not anymore. She doesn't need it." 
 
"Then why do I?" the boy asked in a whiny voice, trying to see what 
information he could get. 
 
"Don't question me boy. Just do what your father says. Go play with your 
sister now." 
 
The boy bounded off, pain in his arm already forgotten. Normally he 
missed any angst his sire might suffer over what he was doing, but this 
time he glanced back. This time he saw the look of raw pain and loss 
sweep over the familiar features. Puzzled, Fox stopped for a second, than 
bounded off to obey the beloved man and play with his sister. 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
 
"Mulder? Mulder! Are you all right?" 
 
He opened his eyes to find Scully leaning over him, dabbing a damp 
washcloth over his face and looking extremely worried. He sat up slowly, 
testing his head to see if it had truly stopped spinning. 
 
"What happened!?" she demanded. 
 
"Scully...." he paused as the implications of what he had just 
experienced sank in. "I had some kind of a vision. About my father. 
Scully, he was treating me...or something...medical procedures..." 
 
Dana paced back and forth in front of her partner. She had heard him 
clearly, and acknowledged the importance of what he was saying. At the 
moment, however, she was still too frightened for him to deal with it 
just yet. She had been giving William his supplement when she noticed 
Mulder looking at her very strangely. She turned towards him and he 
croaked out a word. Then his face turned gray and pasty. He staggered 
away from her and she watched in horror as he collapsed to the floor. 
 
Which was worse, seeing him fall or being unable to revive him? She had 
shaken his twitching body harder and harder in a near panic. She had 
shouted his name louder and louder over his incoherent muttering. Her 
fright strengthened her resolve to confront him about something that had 
been on her mind for a long time. "Mulder, I want to ask you something." 
 
He nodded, fully expecting her to question him about his revelation 
concerning his father.  
 
"Why did you hide your illness from me?" 
 
------------------- 
 
The question blindsided him. He sat there with his mouth hanging open, 
struck dumb. The only other time she had rendered him speechless was the 
night they became lovers. She had spoken to him about her cancer and the 
love for him that she felt necessary to hide. 
 
"I could have helped you!" Scully cried in frustration. Will picked up on 
his mother's agitation and wailed. During the crisis of Mulder's collapse 
he had sensed the urgency and watched quietly, now he expressed his 
displeasure. His mother picked him up and calmed him, then sat down 
next 
to Mulder.  
 
"Other than the vision, this was a lot like what you experienced before 
your abduction. Wasn't it?" 
 
He could only nod. He knew she had read his doctor's reports. 
 
She continued. "You experienced headaches, tingling or numbness in your 
extremities, occasional blindness or deafness, extreme dizziness, and 
sometimes collapse." Her voice was rigid, which let him know just how 
upset she was. That tone meant she was fighting for control of her 
emotions. 
 
Fox winced as she reminded him of that dreadful time when he had lost 
hope and was sure he was going to die. He nodded again, miserably. 
 
"As my partner, not even as my lover, but as my partner, you should have 
told me. You put both of us at risk every time we were in the field."  
 
"Scully no-" he tried to say, but she cut him off. 
 
"YES, Mulder. I couldn't count on you to watch my back when you were 
that 
vulnerable. And I didn't even know!" 
 
What could he say? She was right. He swallowed. "I wanted to tell you. I 
started to so many times. I didn't want to put you through anything like 
what I felt during your cancer. Didn't want you to keep searching 
frantically for a cure, any cure, while my chances dwindled. I didn't 
want you to feel like there was nothing you could do while I deteriorated 
before your eyes." 
 
Tears slipped from beneath her lashes. "What if you had died?" Will made 
a distressed noise, almost as if he understood what his mama had said. 
"That's actually what stopped me from saying anything before. That, and 
it never seemed like a good time to bring it up."  
 
Scully handed the baby to Mulder. He kept squirming himself towards his 
father as if he wanted the man to hold him instead. "The best time would 
have been when you went to that oil platform without telling me. Still 
displaying your old behavior, as if you hadn't learned a thing. But you 
got fired and I didn't want to add to your possible mental upset. 
 
"You *did* die Mulder." She wiped away the tears that kept falling. "And 
I wanted to die too." 
 
He couldn't stand it anymore. He shifted Will to his left arm and pulled 
her closer with his right. Holding her as close as he could, they shared 
a few more tears over the horrors of the past year. "I have no excuse 
Scully. All I can do is apologize and try to change in the future," he 
whispered in her ear. 
 
Scully pulled back and cupped his face in her palms. She studied him 
lovingly a moment, then kissed him soundly and passionately. "You know 
what I think? I think I need to put this little guy to sleep and spend 
some time getting reconnected with this big guy." She nudged his thigh 
meaningfully and stood up. 
 
"Shall we retire, sir?" Dana inclined her head in a formal gesture. Fox 
stood up too and bowed gracefully, still holding Will like a football. 
"After you, my lady."