Silence
Xenith


Email: xenitha@yahoo.com

Distribution:  Anywhere, just tell me first.

Spoilers:  Per Manum.

Rating:  G

Classification: VA, Scully POV

Keywords: Mulder/Scully Romance

Summary: How do you ask a man to father your child
when you've never really told him that you love him?

Disclaimer:  No, they aren't mine and I make no profit
from writing these stories. I'll give 'em back to CC
when I'm done.


Silence


How do you ask a man to father your child when you've
never really told him that you love him?

Oh, he knows.  A thousand different things have to
tell him that.  The lies I've brazened out for him,
the times I've put my career on the line for him, the
risks I've borne gladly for his sake.

And so I asked him if I could bear his child.

At first he looked tremendously flattered.  Then he
looked unbearably sad and I could tell why.  Because I
was asking him coldly and without passion for a
something he'd give his right arm to do, as long as my
love went with it.  He craves family so much.  He's
lonely.  He's always been lonely and isolated.  He
waited for me to tell him that I loved him and wanted
him to be more than just a sperm donor, that I wanted
him to be a father to our child (not my child, but
ours).  And I couldn't say it.  I couldn't let him in.
Instead I left him abruptly so that he could make his
decision without undue pressure or guilt from me. Who
am I kidding? I was afraid.  I knew what I really
wanted to say, but I couldn't say it.

I can't say the words.  I try to tell him but I can't
find the words.  I am eloquent in describing a hundred
and one exotic diseases.  I can testify before a court
about the condition of a corpse and the forensics
which led to that conclusion.  But I can't find the
words that will tell him how I feel about him.

He is so very intuitive; he guesses what I will say
before I say it.  He is perceptive.  He notices bad
moods in me before I notice them myself.  But the
habit of self-protection is so very strong that, try
as I might, I can't fight it.

I was surprised when he came here tonight and told me
that yes, he would father my child.  He was honored to
do so.  He can't know the joy I feel in knowing that
the child I hope to bear will have his eyes or his
mouth or,  God help me, his intelligence.  I want his
child, not just any man's, but his.  He looks at me
hopefully, asking that this child not come between us.
And as I hug him in tearful thanks, he waits for me
to say the words, finally.

Somehow I can never let him in, although he patiently
knocks and knocks and asks me to let him into the
center of my soul.

He just doesn't realize that he's already there and
always has been.