Last Chapter. That is all I am saying.


Gravity Has Taken Better Men Than Me, How Can That Be?


That night when Mulder walked into the apartment it was cloaked in darkness. "Scully," he called out softly. Looking around he noticed light shining out from under the door of the bedroom. He approached the doorway quietly; he didn't hear any noises and realized she might have been sleeping. He didn't want to wake her, he just wanted to check and make sure she was okay. When he got to the doorway he heard her sniffling. Was she crying?

Scully had lain down with the intention of resting for a few minutes. She was completely exhausted, but once she had gotten into bed her mind began sifting through the last couple weeks. Initially, she had been focused on how excited she was to have Mulder back. Her thoughts had shifted to the possibility of losing him again. Then she began to think about the probability of losing him. Mulder was single minded, he always had been. If it wasn't an X-file he was blind to it. He had proven so with his actions in Idaho. Despite the reassurance she had given herself and him that he would be a wonderful father, she now doubted his ability to not put work first. Could she and a baby compete with his life crusade for the truth? Could she even ask him to give it up? If she did would he? Or would he try to have both and end up being taken from her anyway? As these thoughts ran through her mind she had burst into tears. She hugged the pillow to her chest and cried harder than she had in a long time. Then, she heard a noise at the door.

"Scully?" Mulder asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she replied, mostly out of habit.

"If you were fine you wouldn't be crying," he said matter-of-factly. "What's wrong?"

"Probably just hormones," Scully replied wiping the tears from her face.

"That book you have on pregnancy said that hormones could cause mood swings but that usually there was something behind the emotion in the first place," Mulder recited, glad he had read the book some. "Do you want to tell me why you are crying?"

Scully just shook her head. She didn't want to tell him; she felt guilty. Mulder didn't deserve her doubt, he had just been himself. She knew who he was before she got into this. She had always been able to trust him before. Why should now be any different?

"Come on Scully?" he pleaded. "Did I do something wrong?" She shook her head again. "Why won't you tell me?"

"You'll hate me for what I was thinking," she admitted.

"I could never hate you," Mulder said reassuringly. "Just tell me."

"I was just worried that you might…" Scully began but she couldn't finish her sentence. Suddenly her voice became wracked with sobs again and her entire body shook as she buried her head in her pillow.

Mulder sat down on the bed closer to her. He tried to figure out what thoughts might be running through her head. His first instinct was that she was worried he would be taken away again, but that didn't make any sense. Why would she have said he would hate her for what she had been thinking? She must have been thinking about something he would do. Something within his control, not forced upon them from a higher source. She must have been worried about something he would do to her, to her and the baby. He leaned forward brushing her hair from her face; it stuck to her cheek with tears. Then he thought back to their last conversation in Idaho.

"Scully," he whispered her last name in a way that made it sound more intimate than her first name, rather than less. "Do you think I am going to let you down? I know I am not the most stable person in the world but, I swear…" He stopped, thinking of just how to offer up this promise.

Scully interrupted his thoughts, "Mulder, I don't want you to think I don't trust you. I do with all my heart. I just worry that…"

"Scully you can say it, I promise I won't get mad," Mulder wondered if he really could make such a promise, but at this point he knew they had to work through whatever fear Scully was holding on to.

"I worry that we won't be enough for you," she finally spit the words out. "Your work, your life, has been a search for the truth. That search is too dangerous to bring a baby into. But, I can't ask you to give it up. Not when it is so important to you."

Mulder listened intently to the words now speeding out of Scully's mouth. Her fears were completely justified. They had been the same ones haunting him, since she told him she was pregnant. He had doubted if he could do this, really do it. Especially after Idaho, he had known he shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have gotten involved in the case. But he was like an addict. He couldn't help himself.

Then there had been this case in Jersey, looking at that baby, helpless and so dependent on someone, the baby with the father who couldn't give up his own needs to care for his son. Mulder wasn't going to be that man. He was going to make Scully and the baby priorities in his life. He loved his child and Scully. There was no greater truth. He just needed to figure out how to explain how he felt to Scully.

"Scully," he whispered, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Do you remember the night in the hotel in Oregon? When you weren't feeling well?" It occurred to him that she must have been feeling the first effects of the pregnancy that night. He had been so scared that her cancer had come back. It was a defining moment in his life, when he discovered that she meant more to him than anything else, more than any case, more than any justice, more than any truth.

"Yeah," Scully replied, in tear laced words. "What about it?"

"Do you remember what I told you, as we lay in the bed? About how there was more to life and there had to be an end sometime?"

"Yeah," Scully barely whispered the word that time.

"Maybe, this is that moment for both of us." Scully couldn't respond verbally, she simple nodded more tears streaming down her face. Mulder lay down on the bed behind her and wrapped his arms around her lying on hand on her stomach. He ran his hand over her belly and kissed her cheek. The he let out a laugh, a huge smile appearing on his face.

"What?" Scully asked turning her head to look at him.

"I felt the baby move," Mulder said with another big smile. He leaned up a bit and kissed her lips passionately.