Date: Wed, 31 May 2000

Title: By Her Side: Until He's Found
Summary: Maggie finds out
Spoiler (as if there's anyone left who doesn't know) for Requiem
Category: MSR, SA, MaggieA
Sap Factor: I rate this a 2 on a scale of 10
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Yeah, I know. Number 9,999 post ep for Requiem. Have we had
enough yet? Obviously not. It was a good show, Chris. Remember how you
did it and do more next season. And David, don't be gone too long. We
miss you already.
Archive: yes
Comments: For Brandon, and for Leslie and for Susan, Laurie, Dawn, June,
Shirley, Kathy, Michelle and Ginny. And for Sally and Ten who were with us
in spirit :)

By Her Side: Until He's Found
By Vickie Moseley

I'm a mother, worry is part of my job description. From the moment Dana
approached us with the idea that she wanted to join the FBI, I worried. I
worried that she wouldn't find a place, that she would never be allowed to
fit in. I'd been a military wife for more than 30 years at that point and
I knew that sexism was and is alive and well and thriving within our
government.

Oh, I worried about the dangers, of course, but I'd come to accept a
certain amount of risk. I'd already sent one son off to the Navy, I
regularly dropped my husband off at a ship to not see or even sometimes
hear from him for months at a time. That was the easy part. But it was
still a worry.

And I worried that she wouldn't be happy. Dana, my thinker. Dana, the one
who was never quite satisfied with her looks, her height, her hair, her
life. I can't count the number of times I'd find her in her room, her door
shut, the lights out, just sitting on her bed. Never any tears, of course.
Not at all like Missy, who used to cry at the drop of a hat. No, Dana
kept it all inside, locked away. And when I would approach her, question
her, try to break through the walls, she would batten down the hatches and
Katie-bar-the-door. Only when she was good and ready would she come to me
with her problems. Sometimes, I think I was a last resort. Often, I think
I was the only one she ever turned to.

It's been almost 10 years since she first came home all excited with the
prospect of joining the FBI. "They want me because I'm a pathologist,
Daddy," I remember her saying to Bill, while tears were threatening to free
themselves from her lashes. Bill assumed they were just upping their quota
of females, something that the military does from time to time. He
definitely couldn't see any advancement available to her, any hope of
making a name for herself. Medicine, that was the better field for our
serious and scholarly daughter, he'd always contended. Even the outlandish
idea that she could have been a physicist appealed to him more than a life
as a 'civil servant'. He used to visibly cringe when he said the words.

I can remember so clearly how badly that hurt her. I can still hear the
little girl voice asking me underneath the failing shelter of an umbrella,
watching her father's ashes take flight in the wind across the Chesapeake
Bay "was he ever proud of me?" I have a hard time even now understanding
how she couldn't have known how very proud he was, how proud we both were
of her. We told her often enough, but I don't think she was always
listening.

Sometimes it's hard to listen. Sometimes what's being said isn't what
we're expecting to hear.

Her voice on the phone was tired, and I thought I could detect a hint of
tears. She was at Georgetown Medical Center, quick to assure me that
nothing was wrong, they were running a few tests and were releasing her.
Could I pick her up and drop her off at her apartment?

I stamped down the feelings of dread that sprang to my throat. The last
time I'd been called to a hospital out of the blue, she calmly told me she
had cancer. I could feel the chill of fear running through my veins. I
was so certain that was the reason she was calling, so very afraid.

She was dressed and sitting on the bed when I entered the room. "Mom," she
said with a smile and got up and hugged me like she hadn't seen me in
weeks. We just spent the last Sunday together and I couldn't quite
understand what was going on in her head. It was like she'd lived a
lifetime in our brief absence.

"Dana, what's the matter? Why are you in the hospital?" I didn't mean to
sound so harsh, so demanding. But given the fact that she has always kept
things from me, I could only imagine what horrors she was keeping from me
again.

She smiled again and chewed her lip. "It's nothing, Mom. I swear, I'm
perfectly healthy."

"Then why are you here, Dana? They don't hospitalize 'perfectly healthy'
young women!"

She almost laughed at me, holding it to a smirk. "Not with our insurance,
at least," she said and then a brief flash of something dark crossed her
face.

"Where is Fox?" I asked, looking around. It finally occurred to me that
she'd summoned me to take her home. That was almost always left to Fox.
Unless something had happened to him, too. Was he 'perfectly healthy' in
another room somewhere?

When I stopped my musings long enough to look up, I noticed that she hadn't
answered me. She was wiping her eye with the knuckle of her hand. A tear
fell on the silk of her blouse. My God, she was crying.

"Dana. Where is Fox?" This time I asked slowly, as I often did when the
children were small and I didn't want to scare them by screaming at the top
of my lungs.

"Mom," she said, and her face crumbled and she threw her arms around my
neck and hung on to me as if her very life depended on it. "He's gone,
Mom."

I couldn't make out the next words for the sobs wracking her frame in my
arms. I finally just let her cry, all the time trying to divine what was
going on. She pulled away after a time and wiped her eyes with the back of
her hand.

"He was abducted, Mom. Like I was. Taken from . . . us, from me."

"Dana, can you be sure?" I asked before I had a chance to weigh the words.
If Fox had run off, I wouldn't have been that surprised. The man had
experienced more than his share of troubles in the past few months.

She bristled at me. "Yes, Mother, I'm sure. AD Skinner was there. He saw
it, saw him being taken."

I needed to sit down and chose the end of the bed. "Then he saw the
kidnappers. He must have a description, a license plate." I shuddered to
think that I could come up with the protocol so easily. I've learned so
many things since Dana joined the Bureau.

She was shaking her head. "They didn't have a car, Mom," she said quietly.
"He was . . . abducted." She said the last word as if it had a different
meaning, somehow deeper and something I couldn't understand.

"Mom, I don't know how to explain this, but you have to believe me. Mulder
was taken . . . by a ship. By . . ." She stopped and swallowed and shook
her head as if fighting with herself over what words would come next.
"Mulder was taken by an alien craft."

I'm glad I had a chance to sit before I fell to the floor. I could see my
daughter waiting for me to respond to her statement. I'd known for several
years that Fox believed aliens abducted his sister. I'd always believed
that it was his way of blocking a traumatic childhood experience, his way
of dealing with such a tremendous loss. If Fox Mulder chose to think
aliens in spaceships took his sister from his family, but otherwise
appeared perfectly rational, who was I to argue with him? But this was
different. This was my daughter.

"Dana," I managed to get out.

"Mom, I know this is hard to believe, but it's true. AD Skinner was there,
he saw what happened. Mulder and several others were taken into the craft,
and it just . . . flew away. And now I have to find him."

I started to say something else, though for the life of me, I had no idea
what that would be, when a nurse in salmon colored scrubs knocked once and
entered.

"Here are you release papers, Dana. And this is a starter box of prenatal
vitamins. There's a prescription for a larger box in with the papers, but
Dr. Gilman wanted to make sure you tolerated these. Take them at
dinnertime, it's easier on your tummy. Oh, and you need to make an
appointment to see Dr. Gilman in four weeks. Wear something loose, they'll
want to take another sonogram just to determine due date."

"Thank you," Dana said, blushing bright red and glancing at me furtively.
I was somewhere back in the space craft with poor Fox.

"Is this your Mom?" the nurse barged ahead.

"Yes," Dana answered, not making any further advances to the impromptu
conversation.

"First grandchild?" the nurse asked me and for the second time in a
morning, I was happy to be sitting down. But I'm Maggie Scully, and I
recover well.

"No, no I have a grandson in San Diego," I said with a forced smile.

"Well, then, maybe this will be a girl," the nurse concluded. "If you have
any questions, Dana, Dr. Gilman's number is on the release form. Good luck
with the baby." She was out the door as if nothing had happened.

"Mom."

One word and I lost it. It was Allentown all over again. Being dragged to
a hospital in the middle of Pennsylvania to be told that my daughter was
dying of cancer. What else had she been hiding from me?

"How long have you known?" I demanded.

"I just found out this morning. Honestly, Mom, I had no idea."

"Is this why you have to find Fox? Does he know?"

"Mom, didn't you just hear me? I said I just found out. Mulder was . . .
Mulder was taken last night. He didn't even know I was in the hospital."

"Dana, you are a doctor. How could you not know that you were pregnant?" I
howled. I'd had this conversation once before, in a dingy kitchen, but it
was a dark haired girl standing defiantly in front of me. Thank God that
had been a false alarm, she'd only turned 16.

"Mom, I was told I was barren," Dana said in a growl and it brought me to
my senses.

I sat down again, suddenly very tired. "Fox is the father?"

"Of course he is," she spit out. "I haven't been with any one else, Mom.
And we've only been together since New Years."

A tiny voice inside of me giggled at her words. I'd noticed something
different in Dana since the start of the New Year. She had a bounce to her
step, she smiled more easily. She had a brief period of doldrums, but
nothing more than a couple of days. Then when I saw her the next weekend,
she was on cloud Nine again.

And before I could stop it, that tiny giggle grew and grew and I found
myself laughing out loud with joy. Dana stared at me a minute, I think she
expected me to change colors or grow a second head. At that point, nothing
would have surprised either of us.

I couldn't stand it. I stood up and took her in my arms. She resisted at
first, but then she melted on my shoulder.

"I'm so happy for you, Sweetheart," I murmured in her hair.

"I want to tell him so bad, Mom. I keep imagining the look on his face
when he hears the news. Just the other day, I held a baby in my arms. You
know what he did? He tried to send me home, ordered me home from the case.
He said our jobs had cost me too much. That it wasn't worth the cost. He
wants children, Mom. He wants to have children with me. I have to find
him." The tears skittered down her cheeks again and I could feel them
soaking my neck.

"Then we'll find him," I said firmly. I pushed her away, just enough so
she could see how much I meant what I was saying.

"I've done this once already, Dana. I'm a pro."

She let the smile steal the tears from her eyes.

I waited while she gathered her purse and was ready to leave. We had a lot
of work to do. I promised Fox, wherever he was, that I would stay by her
side, until he could be there himself. Just as he had done for me years
ago.

Together, we left the hospital, my daughter, my newest grandchild, and me.

The end.

Vickie

"I have to find him."

Scully, Requiem

"If Scully is really with child, who's the father?

This being the X Files, don't rule out aliens - or the possibility of Papa
Mulder. "There was a [recent] episode written and directed by Gillian that
began and ended in Mulder's bedroom," Carter teases. "That would certainly
bring up some questions for me."

Chris Carter in an interview in June 2, 2000 Entertainment Weekly

I rest my shipper case :)

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