Title: Ante Meridiam 

Author: Western Rose 

Archive: Ephemeral. Gossamer. Others please ask me first. 

Feedback: To WesternRose@aol.com 

Category: Scully Angst. Skinner/Scully Friendship. Doggett/Scully Friendship. 

Spoilers: Requiem and S8. 

Rating: PG-13 for some language that most 13 year-olds already know. 

Disclaimer: All characters appearing on the X-Files are the property of Chris 
Carter, 1013 Productions, FOX network and their affiliates. No copyright 
infringement is intended. No compensation is being received for this story. 

Note: Thanks to Sylvie for the fast and excellent beta! 

~~~~~~~~ 

I want my mother. 

Is that stupid or what? 

I'm thirty-none-of-your-business with a medical degree. I am a veteran FBI 
agent. I have faced a lot of gruesomely dead bodies, aliens, serial killers, 
vampires, ghosts, and Walter Skinner before his first cup of coffee. I have 
testified before both Congress and the Senate, stood my ground against the 
Director of the FBI, and faced three separate OPR panels. 

I still want my mother. 

No, not my mother. 

I want my Mommy. 

I'm alone, my partner is missing, and I'm pregnant. 

I'm scared. 

I can feel tears backing up in my eyes and my nose is stuffing up. I hate the 
quivery feeling in my lower lip and I'm not going to cry- I'm not going to 
fucking cry- I'm not going to cry- dammit! 

I told myself that I could handle it. 

My sister's death. My cancer. My family's censure. My colleagues' veiled 
contempt. The loss of my faith in God and Government. The death of my child 
and the bitter breaking of hope for another. 

My own abduction. 

His abduction. 

The surprise of finding out that one zygote had taken. 

The fear that it might not be his, or even human. 

I survived all of it. I am surviving all of it. I will survive all of it. 

Skinner coddled me a bit. I growled and bitched, but allowed it, bemused by 
such awkward tenderness from him. The entire J. Edgar Hoover Building thinks 
that Skinner has developed inexplicable cravings for Jalapeno-butter popcorn 
and White Russian Ice Cream. 

I am deeply grateful that he has hidden my growing secret so well. 

Even from my new "partner," John Doggett. 

I took over the X-Files. I chased after everything sent my way between 
searching for breaks in my own personal hunt. 

I tried to do as Mulder would have done! I did! 

But I am not him. I don't think like him. I can't. 

The admission was bitter. 

The first crack in my carefully crafted mask appeared. 

As hard as I tried to patch it over, stop it, or stall it, nothing worked. 

The dreams of Mulder are mixed with gauzy memories of my time in the white 
place. 
The cases that I investigated with Agent Doggett went nowhere, or ended with 
us at such loggerheads, I am surprised that he did not demand a transfer. 

Spreading cracks. Growing like kudzu. 

I did not trust him. He could have been a plant. Someone sent by Kersh or 
who-the-fuck-knows to ferret out my secrets. Our secrets. 

I locked him out. 

I lied to him in action and by omission. It hurt too much to think of letting 
him into the X-files, much less into my life. 

Skinner pestered and harangued me to tell Doggett everything. Full 
disclosure. I stalled and balked. 

The fissures in my spirit grew so fast that it seems I am living in a 
crackled glaze of fear and fury. 

That morning in the diner, with a terrified woman hiding in my car, I tasted 
the bitterness in Doggett's words. 

"What is it you want me to understand, Agent Scully? The secrets or the 
lies?" Ashes and dust and salt. 

As I pulled away, I looked in the rearview mirror to see Skinner and Doggett 
standing on the curb. Skinner radiating that "big dog" protectiveness, 
unhappy at my choice, but not denying my right to make it. 

Those big brown eyes are one hell of a weapon. 

Skinner and I argued damn near all night in that diner. He was right. We both 
knew it. 

After it went so terribly, awfully wrong and I woke up in the hospital, 
Doggett was there. Skinner was in the hallway, just out of my sight, but not 
my perception. One or the other of them was with me all night. 

I hate it when Skinner's right. He doesn't do the "I told you so" thing that 
Mulder did. He just takes off his glasses, looks at me and whammo! Instant 
first-class 'round-the-world guilt trip. 

I deserve it. 

Doggett is not much better. He's all approbation and gallant concern, making 
me feel like a "blue ribbon shit-heel" as Skinner so colorfully put it during 
one of our more vehement disagreements. 

I know that I could fall into their protection, I'd be safe and loved by 
either or both. I've spent enough nights on Skinner's sofa, surfing back and 
forth between Discovery and the Cartoon Channel to know that I'd never lack 
for anything. 

Doggett brings me forbidden treats, bitches me out if he thinks that I'm 
overdoing and talks to the baby about NASCAR. I now know the names of Dale 
Junior's pit crew, the octane ratio of the gasoline, and that no pregnant 
woman should ever, ever eat chili-cheese fries with jalapenos and wash them 
down with a cherry Slushee. 

But tonight, as I lie in my bed with the hospital wristband still on, I want 
my Mommy. 

I don't want strong arms, deep voices, and faces rough with beard stubble. I 
want that soft mom-hug that makes it all better. I want a smooth cheek and 
that rocking thing that moms do. I want to believe, even for a moment, that 
it will be as all right as she used to promise me. 

I fumble for the telephone in the dark, find it, and punch the glowing green 
buttons on the handset. 

Ring. 

Ring. 

Ring. 

Ring. 

"Hello?" 

"Mom?" My voice quavers and breaks. "Mom? It's D-Dana." 

~end~