TITLE: Feathers Author: Bluesea@aol.com Distribution: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Spookys, anywhere SUMMARY: Thoughts, fears, hopes of a pregnant woman. Rating: PG 13--language Category: Post-ep, V, SA Spoilers: Anything up through Invocation, season eight Disclaimer: Property of 1013 Feedback: Welcome "Hope is the Thing with Feathers. . ." Emily Dickinson Childhood is too often enshrined in some sort of mythic haze. We speak of its unfettered joys, idealizing it to the point of total distortion. But the reality is that our society engages in a schizophrenic ritual of child worship or child abuse, sometimes both simultaneously. There are few subjects we are so confused about as how to treat our children. I've been thinking about this lately, now that I hope to have this child, hope like hell to bring it to term, to avoid the dangers that seem to have become more and more frequent in my work. Hope, hope, hope for its father to return. And for us to somehow work it all out and magically be transformed into whatever 'normal' might possibly be. But that's the haze speaking. I really should look at some of the realities, as many of our cases---most recently the Billy Underwood case---have forced me to do. As I already knew, *terrible* things can happen to the best-loved and most carefully watched children. One second's inattention, and the child can be gone. And although this particular case had much that was inexplicable--- impossible, in fact---it is unfortunately not at all rare. It is appallingly common for children to be kidnapped, abducted, or simply to disappear in the United States. And behind them, in the space they used to fill, lies a family torn apart by the heartbreak. FAR too many times through the years, we have gazed into the empty eyes of parents who have lost children. My own eyes, after Emily's death, were suspiciously vacant. But I think it was that first night in Oregon, at the motel, that I began to realize the effect of these incidents, the breakage to the family. Yet, as time passed, I began to conclude that Mulder's family was not as anomalous as we'd thought. Purported abduction is unusual, granted; but how much worse off is the average family. In a way, his family had some fairly typical problems: Unhappy marriage, household tensions, probable infidelity, secrets festering under the Ozzie and Harriet patina. Sibling rivalry, spats about what to watch on tv, name calling---it's all as American as apple pie. His situation just . . . exploded in his face, leaving him with a permanent load of guilt. And now, pregnant and dwelling on these matters, I wonder: Does anyone really, really escape childhood without that package of guilt --- small, large, concealed, worn on the sleeve, revealed at tedious length to one's shrink, harbored in the depth of one's heart? Do any of us make a clean getaway? Doubtful. My childhood was supposedly one of the good ones. Almost anyone would think so. Parents who loved each other and all their children, fierce family loyalty, instillation of moral values, adherence to codes of behavior. Love and discipline. And in some ways I'm about as fucked up as it is possible for a person to be. And so are my siblings. My "good," intact, no-abductees-in-sight family fucked us all up. Go figure, huh? No mother was ever more determined than mine to give her all to her family. She asked about our schoolwork every day, made sure we had the 'right' presents to take to the other kids' birthday parties, baked like Julia Child or Betty Crocker or whatever food icon is apposite to her time, cooked us nourishing, delicious meals every night, would have fainted at the idea of fast food, and was always there to listen to our problems. She dispensed hugs freely. She didn't play favorites, she gave every appearance of enjoying our presence, yet she had no hesitation in disciplining us, especially since Ahab wasn't around a lot of the time. And she didn't even have to go out and go to work, the way most mothers do now. Today, they get up by 6:30, haul their half-asleep kids away to daycare before school, pick them up, tired and crotchety, at daycare after the school day, and THEN go home and cook and clean and try to maintain a vestige of interest in their children's activities, help with their art projects, check their homework, drive them to soccer practice----all after an 11- or 12- hour day. These women must be ready to drop. So why did the Scullys turn out to be so fucked-up, we with our SuperMom waiting with brownies for us and our friends? Was it the constant moves? The fact that once we made friends, we knew we'd have to leave or they'd have to leave, so we better not get too attached? Or was it base life itself? Too much discipline for children who, let's face it, tend to be little savages when in their natural state. Maybe we should have been in a field, not on a base. We would have wound up ripping each other to shreds, Lord of the Flies style. Ah, the natural child. The child is father to the man. This accounts for my job, my world---full of evil and predation. As I found to be the case with Billy Underwood. A beautiful little boy, taken and held against his will. His tiny body buried in the woods, after who knows what sufferings. Due to evil---that horrible man, that drugged-out boy, his mother who valued sex over decency. These days I wonder why I want to bring a child into this? Especially now, on my own? Why do I stay awake at night, hoping that this will somehow all come right, when all my experience shows me that even in the best circumstances, with every advantage in the world, the kid is most likely to wind up a basketcase, if not a hostage to some gang of alien conspirators, in our case? What's the use? Don't go there. We're thinking good thoughts about children, the future of our race. Yes. Um-hmmm. Unfortunately, I'm haunted by the kids I've seen. Billy Underwood, who cared enough, it seems, to come back from the grave to save his then-unborn brother from the same predator. Emily, who will never leave my heart. The image of her bruised eyes, the searing pain of her last minutes, her last days. Suffer the little children to come onto me. NOT let the little children suffer. Then there was Samantha's diary, her journal of the horrors she went through. Is this any way to treat a child? Then I recall the horrid deaths inflicted by "Santa." What a grim, painful irony. Look what I've got for you, little girl. Stop. I'm making myself nauseous. Again. Suddenly, I feel like crying. I notice that I AM crying. I want a child, I want a family, I want a life. But I look at what happens to those who DO have families, who DO have lives, and I wonder what the hell I could have possibly been thinking. We worship children. We take our little gods and from the moment of birth, we surround them with royal robes---extensive, expensive wardrobes, thrones of various sizes, methods of transport, warm, soft, fluffy textures. We smile every time we see them---they must get so tired of our flashing teeth. We even drop to our knees, grovel on the floor to be on their level. They are our royalty. Our obeisance includes many tributes---enough to wipe out FAO Schwartz. God forbid they should lack anything their hearts desire. This way, we are assured of living with full-scale dictators by the time they're eight. Little Caesars, enthroned, demanding, temperamental. Or Cleopatras, floating on their barges, watching the world, which we do all in our power to hand to them, go by. We spoil them rotten. Guilt? If we work all day and can't give them ourselves, we feel we must give them every material object they see on tv? Hell, we even feel guilty for letting the tv take our place in entertaining them. But none of this applies to me. As kids, we did not have every toy in the world, we were taught to respect others, not demand things from them, and we were never permitted to be so undisciplined as to indulge in a tantrum. Yet, we're still a mess. Melissa left the nest the moment it was legal. She just spread out those wings and took off. Bill is a mean bastard. I've often thought that's just my childhood speaking, that when I grew up, I'd learn to appreciate his finer qualities. Shit, he HAS no finer qualities. He's a total jerk. Then there's Charlie, who's invisible. Like Melissa, he took off quick, made himself scarce, and had his own family almost before he had a chance to unzip his pants. I assume that constitutes a rejection of our family. And for that matter, even in this stressful time, I haven't seen a lot of Mom. She's so self-sufficient, she doesn't need us. A few weeks here and there in the role of the indulgent grandmother---a cameo, really---and she can go off to travel with friends, play killer bridge, be a friend of the church. She's got a life. I can never tell if she's happy, but then, I never could. That wasn't any of our business. Yet, as moms go, she was one of the best. So, now I ask myself how such a good mom could turn out this fucked-up family, all runaways in our own style. And I---with all my liabilities--- don't have nearly as good a shot as she did. First, this is the only kid I'll likely ever have. I'll never get to perfect my techniques on a whole string of kids. And I will almost certainly not have the stable family she had. She had certainties. This act was a sin. This act was a duty. This act was wrong and totally unacceptable. I, in contrast, will wonder if the guy in front of me is about to morph into a monster. How can I possibly provide stability for a child? I'm on a rocker. Always. Or is it a merry-go-round? Must be that; I'm dizzy. I don't even have her character. She is the strongest person in the world, under her pastel, fuzzy sweaters. I wear black business suits and kick-ass heels that conceal a mass of jello quivering like an earthquake zone. Maybe she managed to convince us we could never live up to her, so we all gave up trying, all of us fleeing to some extent. My subtle exit at least didn't LOOK like an escape. Missy had the balls to say, Fuck you, and hit the road. I disguised my getaway by going to med school. Good girl! I could have been an OB-GYN, ironic, huh? But oh, no, I became fascinated with the dead, the stories their bodies tell. And moved a step further on. Every step I've taken in the last ten years has moved me away from my family. As though I have tiptoed out of the family circle---the family, the profession, the church, the whole spectrum of expectation. Crawling on my belly under barbed wire, with their sniper fire burning the top of my curls, I am nearly disconnected now. Just when I sometimes want my mommy. Missy was not afraid of war. She wasn't on her belly, ever----she stood straight and tall and defiant. Ironic that she was killed by being mistaken for me, the sneaky rebel. I remember her wars with Bill. She had her beloved Barbie collection. She'd always beg me to come in and change their clothes and make up stories about Ken and the guys Barbie met. Barbie and her boobs. I'd bring Skipper in and try to let her join in the fun. Or once, I remember, I had the Charlie's Angels doll. Can't remember her name. Sabrina? The one played by Kate Jackson---sensible, rather plain, practical, strong. My role model. Controlled by Charlie, of course, one of his possessions. Yeah, some role model. The war, the war. Bill was into G. I. Joe. He had a ton of Joes and a fucking arsenal. When Missy was out, he made a sneak attack. Characteristic, come to think of it. His Joes came in and threw Barbie's wardrobe around, ripped her clothes. He painted black eyes and bruises on the Barbies, ripped at their upswept hairdos. Even pulled off a limb or two. "That bastard." I can still hear Melissa's cries echoing through that tiny horrible house. She nearly killed Bill. She had him flat on the floor, her hands clenched around his throat, perched on his belly so he couldn't move or breathe. If Mom hadn't come in, she might have finished him off, she was so mad. What a great kid she was. Wild and free and very Lord of the Flies. Of course I wouldn't actually want my little bundle to turn out exactly like her. I hope my baby isn't like any of us. Maybe Mulder can exert a counterbalance. One is badly needed for us Scullys. And how sick we are if I can say that with a straight face, having known the warm and charming Teena Mulder. Christ, this kid is doomed. Maybe it'll turn out to be an Ahab. God, I adored him, him and his exciting stories. That's probably really why I joined the FBI, not Daniel and his petty shenanigans. Ahab smelled like the sea, not the land. He was not earthbound. Neither is Mulder for that matter. I never thought of that before. Of course, that's where the resemblance ends. Ahab was a martinet. He managed to appear jolly and generous, full of interest and open-minded. Nothing could be further from the truth. He ruled with an iron hand concealed in a glove with a jolly little puppet face painted on it. Maybe he's what we all ran from----the face of authority, even when well concealed. Thou shall. Thou shall not. Thou are not living up to . . . whatever the hell it was at the moment. I'm a high achiever. I had to be. Nothing less was acceptable. Missy wasn't. She dared to disobey the family fiat. I was too timid not to get good grades and work my ass off. This was helped, of course, by the fact that I enjoy learning stuff. It's one of my great joys in life. I'd like to pass this on to the kid. Finally, I've come up with a positive characteristic. Both Mulder and I like to learn things, want to know, enjoy finding out, arguing both sides, pursuing the truth. This can't be all bad for the kid. I'm pitifully relieved to have thought of a good quality we could pass on to the child. Poor kids in this country. Overprivileged or underprivileged with almost no middle ground. Eating out of garbage cans or in soup kitchens or going without meals or gulping down the government's disgusting school meals. Or sitting enthroned announcing to all and sundry that they wouldn't dream of eating peas, causing Guilty!Mom to rush away to heat up some corn. How can I do it right? I have so many hopes, and when I look around me, they shrink and fade and fly off like a fizzed-out balloon. So many strikes against this kid, including all my rapidly rising feelings of inadequacy. What can *I* do with a kid when I couldn't mold myself into someone I could really like and respect until just within the last few years? And what if I have to do this alone? With the forces aligned against me? Ah, Christ. The love, all the love, doesn't seem adequate. Again, I think of Billy Underwood. There was mother-love in action. I LOVED that it made no difference to mom that Billy hadn't changed a bit in ten years. I think Mr. Underwood was totally freaked, but mother-love seemed adequate to compensate for just about anything: a kid who spooked the dog, his brother, and his father. A kid who seemed to be planning to stab his brother to death. A kid who could appear and reappear at will. Even a kid who hadn't aged in ten years was so much preferable to her than that sad collections of bones in the woods. A mother will take any living child, it seems. That's what I'm in for. Unconditional love, I hope, and unconditional acceptance. Of whatever happens. Or it's what I try to tell myself when the portraits of all the sad, sad children we've met don't crowd into my mind and convince me that there's not a chance of having a happy, well-adjusted child. They can be snatched, like Billy. And then, the parade begins: The blind girl whose mother was killed by that fat-sucking guy in her apartment building. The little Romanian boy, apparently possessed, whose grandmother we mistakenly suspected. The little Eves, evil and doomed. The fucked-up teenagers whose parents were Satanists. The fucked-up teenagers who had the power to speed so fast they couldn't be seen while they committed their crimes. The little boy in Chicago who was dying until he magically got the liver transplant he needed. The little girl kidnapped by the school photographer and saved only by the sacrifice of the waitress's life. The kids whose shrink was convinced she could tell the trees to kill. Gibson Praise, still in custody but so traumatized he won't talk, won't give us any of the information we need. And of course, Emily. There will always be Emily. And Samantha. So much suffering. So many needy, unhappy kids. I suddenly recall a bright spot. Kevin Kryder. I'll always hope when I think of him. He was the real thing, the good thing. Maybe the great thing. I wish he were here now. I wish he had the powers I suspect he'll have, maybe that he already does have. I'm as bad as Mulder, as he took pains to tell me. For me, it's not just lights in the sky. It's lights in the heart. Whenever I'm not exhausted now, I try to look into my heart. At my age and in my condition, I finally want to see what's really there, get to know myself, make the best possible self to pass on to the fetus whose heartbeat is so much faster than mine. Look back at the past, try to avoid the sins of the fathers. And the mothers. All the parents. And the problem is, ALL these parents probably began with hopes like mine. Few people actually say, Hmm, I think I shall be a lousy parent and make my kid's life hell. They all have good intentions, just as I do, just as my parents did, just as I'm sure Bill and Teena did. And it all gets fucked. What to do? This constantly preys on my mind. If this is my only chance, it's gotta be the best I can do. The best WE can do. I need Mulder to come back here. I'm so much better with him here. Sometimes, I turn to argue with him. It's such an automatic gesture. The pattern of my life. And he's not there. Either no one's there, or it's Doggett. Dogged Doggett. Not at all the same thing, although I will admit that he seemed deeply affected by this last case. Involved, somehow. Anyway, here I am, stuck without my . . . my counterpart, my other half, whatever you want to call it . . . worried about this freight which grows daily. Keep it safe. Even inside, it's a worry, the way I live. But it'll be a hundred times more frightening when it emerges. A life in my hands. My so weak, stubborn, incapable, inadequate hands. But willing. Wanting to try, to try harder than I've ever tried for anything in my whole life. Because regardless of what I've seen---the suffering sad children, the pitiless brutes, the hapless parents---I hope. For Mulder to return. For the child to . . . survive, thrive, live. Be freer and happier than I am. Take the opportunities life presents. Feel loved every minute of every day without being indulged and plied with toys and possessions. Know that whoever he or she is, it's fine with me. That he or she will have my unconditional love forever. I hope. END