What to Expect

*Author* Jamie Greco

jgreco217@aol.com

Rated: PG

Spoilers: Requiem  (Or the last episode, in case I've messed up the title 
again.)    

Disclaimer: No infringement is intended.

Summary:   Scully is visited by a number of the men in her life, none of whom 
are expected.

Author's notes: If you're supposed to be on my list and didn't get this story 
there, please contact me.  My most current list was lost in a computer snit 
and I need to hear from you if you've joined this summer.  Rabs, this means 
you!

Also please note, my web site has moved.   Please come visit my new home at:  
http://www.stas.net/fanfic/jamie 




Scully lowered herself into the steaming water of her bathtub with a 
prolonged sigh.  "Ahh, Mulder," she said as she closed her eyes.  "Mulder...I 
don't even know where to begin."

"It's always best to begin at the beginning," he replied with a small smile.

"Any other Wizard of Oz related advice?" she countered, never opening her 
eyes.

"Uhh," he drew out.  "Aside from the yellow brick road thing, which I guess 
is self-explanatory, I guess the only remaining advice would be watch out for 
the flying monkeys; they're a real bitch."

"Flying monkeys, Mulder?" she answered, raising an eyebrow in her trademark 
manner, hoping her factitious skepticism would make him laugh.    

She didn't get the chance to monitor his reaction though as her phone rang 
and her eyes flew open, dissipating her inner vision of Mulder.  

Hope made her heart beat faster.  She wiped the water from her hands, and 
picked up her cordless phone, always by her side when her cell phone was off, 
ever since the night Mulder had disappeared into the woods.

"Scully," she said urgently.

"Scully, it's us," Frohike announced.  "We're calling to check up on you, you 
know, in Mulder's absence."

"Not that we're insinuating that his absence is permanent or that we can, in 
any way, substitute for him even briefly or minutely," added Byers, the 
Gunman most closely resembling, but not to be mistaken for, the voice of 
reason.  "Please don't take anything that might sound like a discouraging 
word to heart."

"I believe we've had a conversation about calling me in unison and putting me 
on the speaker phone," Scully admonished half-heartedly, sinking into the tub 
as deeply as possible without electrocuting herself.

"Sorry, Scully," Frohike ventured.  "But we couldn't agree on who would call 
and we wanted to express our unity."

"As far as it pertains to our support of you," Langly continued over Frohike. 
 

"Not that we're trying to step on Mulder's toes or--"

"Invade his territory," Langly added, again finishing Frohike's assumed train 
of thought.  

"Will you two shut up!" Byers cut in.  "Agent Scully, we're not implying that 
you should be considered Mulder's...Mulder's..."

"Chickadee," Langly filled.  

"That is not what I wanted to say," Byers replied indignantly.

Scully sighed.  "Guys--" 

"I was going to say..." He paused, obviously at a loss for words where Mulder 
and Scully's relationship was concerned, a paradox that had eluded better men 
that he.  "I was simply trying to acknowledge--" 

"Okay, that's about-" Scully tried to continue, her free hand pressed against 
her budding headache.

"Why can't you just say what you mean?" Langly cut in. "Do you think Scully 
should be ashamed of--" 

"Guys!" Scully erupted.  "I appreciate the thought; I really do.  But I'm 
really very tired and I just got into a hot bath and I need some time 
alone...guys?" Scully became aware of the mountain of silence on the other 
end of the phone.  "Guys?"

"You're-you're in the tub?"

She sighed.  "Yes, I'm in the tub."

"Wow," someone whispered under his breath.      

"Look, I'm going to go--"

"Wow," someone repeated with the same sense of overblown awe.

"Agent Scully, please feel free to call on us for anything at all," Byers 
said primly, his voice cracking.

"Thank you," Scully answered.

"Even if you need someone to talk to, to keep you company," Frohike offered, 
his lasciviousness displayed as obviously as if he were panting with every 
word.

"Fine," Scully replied.

"Especially if you get news about Mulder," Langly added.

"When," Scully said flatly.

"What?"

"You said if I hear from Mulder.  You meant when."

"Yes.  Yes, of course," Byers replied.  "Agent Scully, we all fully expect to 
see Mulder very soon."

"We're keeping his subscription to The Lone Gunmen current," Langly offered.

"Gratis," Frohike added.

"We have a theory about where he is, by the way," Langly ventured.

"I'm really not in the mood right now," Scully replied.

"Well, then you go back to your bath." Silence ensued once more.

Scully sighed, rolling her eyes.  "Bye, guys," she offered, hanging up, 
leaving them to their decadent thoughts.  Closing her eyes, she laid her head 
back.  "Have I ever thanked you for bringing them into my life, Mulder?"

"I'm not sure what you've expressed could be put into the category of 
gratitude," her phantom partner replied.

"I suppose that's because I've never really known how to categorize how I 
feel about them."

"Face it, Scully, you knew Frohike was the one from the moment you first laid 
eyes on him."

"Yes, but one of what is the question I've never been able to answer."

"You should listen to their theory, Scully."

"Mulder."

"No, really.  They have been very close to the truth on a number of 
occasions."

"I don't care about the truth."

"What?"

"Mulder, if the truth doesn't include your exact whereabouts, I don't care 
what the truth is."

"Scully."

"No, Mulder, no.  The truth," she spat out like a curse.  "I can't believe 
you'd even bring up the word to me."  

"I know you've lost...a great deal, but, Scully--" he persisted gently.

She pressed her lips together, breathed deeply through her nose and thrust 
herself under the water, hurling herself away from the specter of Mulder, 
slowly letting her oxygen out in small bursts.  To her dismay, she still 
heard him.

"Scully?"

She let out a few more air bubbles.

"Scully?"

She hummed a little in the back of her throat.

"Scully!"

Anger pressed against her lungs stronger than her burgeoning need for oxygen. 
 With a mighty burst, she pulled herself from the water.  "Mulder, shut up!"

"But, Scully," he nodded at the bathroom door.  "Your doorbell is ringing."

"Look, Mulder, you are a figment of my imagination.  A product of my need to 
communicate with you or...or to keep my mind from ruminating about what you 
are going through; a hallucination I've conjured so as not to recall what I 
went through and applying that knowledge to what you are going through."

"What's your point?"

"My point, Mulder," she sputtered water from her lips and shook it out of her 
eyes.  "My point is that there is no possible way you could hear something in 
my world that I don't!  You are completely within--"

The doorbell rang, and she glared at him.

"Maybe you could finish telling me your very insightful theory later.  Now, I 
think you'd better throw on your bathrobe and answer your door."

"You're a major pain in the ass; do you know that?" she threw over her 
shoulder as she crawled from the tub, wrapped her robe around her dripping 
body and headed for the door. 

"So I've been told," he replied with a self-depreciating shrug.  "By very 
reliable sources."  

She nodded briskly at him as she marched from the room but glanced back to be 
sure he wasn't hurt by her words.  Rather than her partner, a crawling sense 
of eerie pin prickling on the back of her neck met her as she became aware of 
how immersed she had become in her fantasy.  For a moment she thought she 
smelled his cologne but shook off that thought, demanding her own return to 
reality.  She paused, pinching her nose at the very top, pressing her back 
against the wall and trying to regain some perspective.  "I'm going crazy," 
she murmured, her stomach clenching around the small hard center that had 
grown in size every day that Mulder had been gone.  Shaking her head hard and 
pulling her dripping hair from her eyes, she murmured,  "I knew he would 
drive me crazy someday, but I thought--"

The doorbell rang insistently, shaking her from her reverie, pressing her 
forward.  Standing on tiptoe, she peered through the peephole.



Walter Skinner felt a rush of reprieve as he hustled down the corridor of 
Scully's building.  All afternoon, previous to his arrival, his best judgment 
had argued with him and continued the harangue every step of the journey; but 
he had beaten it back with the desire to present himself to Scully as an 
assured ally, if not a friend.  But as he knocked on her door, his self-doubt 
eluded the beating he had given his common sense, and he decided to beat a 
hasty retreat.

He restrained himself from a full-blown run by asking himself what he really 
feared.  Scully's voice at the opposite end of the hallway prevented him from 
answering that question, perhaps provided the answer.  His hands tightened 
around the paper bag he held at chest level.

"Sir?" she called after him.

He turned slowly, almost reluctantly.  "I thought you weren't at home," he 
said rather sternly.

"I was...I was in the tub," she replied gesturing at her bathrobe.

He nodded grimly, scrambling to cover his inexplicable lack of 
self-confidence.  "I'll just let you go back to your bath."

"That's all right," she replied.  "Did you want to talk to me about 
something?  Is there some news?"

He glanced back longingly at the exit he had almost reached, his misgivings 
tangled about at his feet, threatening to trip him if he headed back toward 
her.

"Sir?" she repeated quizzically.

He sighed, having come to her apartment for a reason so foreign to their 
relationship that he simply didn't know how to behave. Now he felt as if he 
had been caught at something untoward or even ridiculous.  He pulled himself 
into a straighter posture and headed down the hall, stepping past her into 
her apartment, trying to prevent the paper bag from crackling.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked politely.

The thought of something to wrap his hand around, aside from the small 
package, which only lent to his discomfort, seemed like a lifeline.

"Thank you," he answered.

"Wine?"

"Please."

He sank into a chair and allowed himself to investigate with his eyes.  Her 
home didn't seem to fit her, in his opinion, if only by virtue of the fact 
that it was so homey and tastefully decorated.  Not that he doubted her 
taste, only he knew that the little touches and niceties that made a home 
didn't simply appear. They were sought out and carefully placed, and he just 
couldn't picture Scully shopping for pretty little things.  When had she ever 
found the time?  But maybe her home was set up before Mulder came into her 
life and set her world on a track from which she might never deviate.  He let 
himself wonder for a moment why she didn't hate her partner instead of the 
apparent opposite track she had taken.  Then again, he might just as well 
have ended despising the agent who had made his safe, clearly defined world a 
scattering of self-doubt and regret.  Yet what he felt was closer to 
paternal, which made his self-recrimination sharper and denser.  Once again 
he felt the weight of his own accusation.  Scully had expected him to keep 
Mulder safe if not sound.  He had been lost on Skinner's watch.   

"Here you are, sir," Scully said, handing him a wine glass.  "I hope white is 
all right."

Skinner nodded, still feeling the pressure in his chest that accompanied his 
remorse but knowing full well that he was expected to explain his presence at 
this point.  He sipped as he floundered for words.  "You're probably 
wondering why I'm here," he began, stating the obvious.

She tipped her head slightly, "I am a little curious."

"I have to admit to feeling a little silly."

"Silly, sir?"

"Fact is, Agent Scully--" He took another drink.  "I came to see how you're 
feeling," he said gruffly, as if he were stating an assignment.

She raised her eyebrows, a little bemused at his discomfort, but touched.  
"I'm fine, sir," she finally answered.

A prickle of annoyance went up the back of his neck.  Fine was her stock and 
trade answer.  Fine meant "mind your own business, I can manage." "Really, 
Scully," he insisted.  

She looked slightly over his head; and he almost turned to see what she was 
focused on, but she turned her eyes back on him.  "I'm...tired," she said 
with a small shrug.  "Mostly I'm very tired."

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" he asked, feeling as if he were tiptoeing 
on the line of her privacy, hoping not to teeter over.

"I'm...yes.  I'm not sleeping well," she lowered her eyes.

He nodded.  What else could he ask to draw her out?  He pondered as he drank 
his wine, fingering his package with the other hand.

"Any morning sickness?"

She stood up.  He had crossed the line, but he couldn't take it back now.  
Pausing at her window, she looked up at the night sky and he watched her face 
intently.  There was no sudden change, not even a brief muscular twitch or 
drop of the mouth.  But suddenly, without warning, she appeared fragile to 
him.  It was startling discovery, as if he were to discover suddenly that 
death wasn't permanent or that love didn't always crumble into pain.  He 
could have never explained what made him decide in this small moment but 
something about the pallor of her skin and set of her mouth or maybe the 
vacancy in her eyes made him think she might not get through Mulder's 
disappearance fully intact.   

He cleared his throat, but she didn't turn or in any way acknowledge him so 
he continued to study her.  She cocked her head and nodded as if she heard 
some unseen voice, and his own perception of stillness left him uneasy.

Quickly his mind inventoried the many times he had seen Scully at the height 
of despair or illness.  Even when she lay unconscious in her hospital bed, he 
remembered thinking, absolutely and without the slightest doubt, that she 
would recover. Even though he had said the words, "She's dying," to Mulder, 
he had said them more with a desire to wound him than from any strongly held 
belief in the expectation of her demise.


Now she seemed to stand on the lip of a great cliff, hovering over what might 
take her in and not release her, and he felt an overwhelming desire to grab 
her by the arm and yank her back.  Instead, he placed his glass down on the 
coaster and rose to his feet.

"Scully?" he said tentatively to no response. And then "Scully" with more 
initiative.

She startled slightly and then ducked her head.  "I'm sorry, sir."

"There's no reason to apologize," he told her as he took a small step toward 
her.

She glanced at him and he saw her desperation as clearly as if she had held 
out her arms, but he knew she couldn't do that and so he couldn't respond.  
"So you're having trouble sleeping?" he said casually, retreating to their 
previous and seemingly safer conversation.

She turned to him slightly and then turned back, as if she had changed her 
mind about something.  Placing her fingers against her lips, she said 
something he couldn't hear.

"Excuse me?" he said, drawing closer.            

"I can't sleep because--" Her voice was thin and broken.

"Because?"

She smiled slightly, almost apologetically, as if she were casting aspersions 
on her own untold story.  "Sometimes when Mulder was in trouble and I would 
find him, I'd hear him call my name as I got closer."  

"You...you think you hear Mulder?" he asked tentatively.

Shaking her head slightly, she answered, "No." She put her hand over her 
mouth as if she wanted to trap the words inside while still needing to rid 
herself of them.  "No, it's not like that. I just keep thinking about those 
times, and I can't sleep.  Because he didn't know I was coming.  He was just 
calling out for me, because he needed me."  

She paused, trying to regain some of her professional demeanor, Skinner 
supposed.  He couldn't decide whether to hope she was successful or not.  

She shook her head quickly, as if holding an inner argument.  "Do you see?  
He needed me and he knew, he expected--" Her voice trailed off.

"He doesn't blame you.  I'm sure he knows you're doing everything-"

"That's it though.  He expects me. He's waiting.  I know he's somewhere, and 
he expects me--" She took in a deep, sharp breath, almost a gasp and Skinner 
rushed to her side, thinking her pain was physical.  It wasn't until she 
looked into his face that he saw the course of tears on her cheeks and chin.  
"What if he's calling my name now?  What if he's expecting me and calling my 
name?" 

Her voice snagged on her words and tears completely filled her eyes as she 
watched Skinner hopefully, as if he might know differently.  He raised his 
hands to her shoulders and her head bowed slightly, and so he gathered her in 
and let her cry on what had been up until this moment an immaculately clean 
shirt.  But as she wept quietly, he could feel her desolation soak through 
his skin until it was palpable within him and he knew that he could, with 
little trouble, follow her through the gate of her pain, which she seemed to 
hold open for him.  But he stopped himself with the thought that he had no 
place in her sorrow, because her world still held hope.  Skinner knew he 
would never speak what he felt was the truth to the woman in his arms; Mulder 
was dead and he experienced his own agony over that silent demon and so he 
remained stoic, at least on the surface.    

He couldn't say how long he held her; time had abandoned its usual patterns 
since Mulder had disappeared.  If Skinner had been awakened in the middle of 
the night with a gun to his head and was ordered to provide the information 
of how long Mulder had been gone, he wouldn't have been able to say, not on 
pain of his death.  So time either slipped or slogged by as he simply held 
her and let his mind drift in and out like the tide.  

Eventually she slowly straightened and gathered her robe tightly around her, 
and he knew it was time to dismiss himself.  He fingered the paper bag at his 
side and toyed with carrying it out with him.  Finally, though, he felt he 
should give it to her. He picked it up and laid it on her lap.

"What's this?" she asked, her voice still soggy around the edges.

"Just a...I thought this might be helpful," he replied, his sense of 
discomfort clenching his throat and chest.

She looked at him as if she expected a clue; but he simply watched her, his 
discomfort being swallowed up by anticipation.

She opened the small bag and pulled out the book inside.  "What to Expect 
While You're Expecting," she read, cocking an eyebrow.

Skinner couldn't tell if she was amused or touched or puzzled.  The tilt of 
her head concealed his view; but when she looked up at him, her face was 
filled with warmth.  "Thank you," she said, her smile genuine, her words 
fully meant.  She looked back at the book and ran her fingers over the title. 
 "It will be good to know."  



"Better watch out for him, Scully.  He's making his big move."

"Shut up, Mulder," Scully slurred as she dug deeper into her bed.

"What did he want?" he asked, his voice tinged with suspicion. 

"He wanted...he didn't want anything."

He nodded but was clearly unconvinced.  "Did you talk about me?"

"Not everything is about you."

"I know that."

"We talked about you, okay?

"Now will you let me sleep?"

"Scully."

"I have to sleep, Mulder!" she demanded.

He was gone in the same manner in which he had arrived, unexplained, 
unfathomable.

"Mulder?" Scully said quietly, as if she might be overheard.  "Mulder?" she 
cried out, sitting up urgently in her bed, her voice bouncing from the empty 
chasms in her apartment to the emptier confines of her soul.

Slowly she lowered herself back onto her pillow.  "I need you, Mulder," she 
whispered as she stared at her ceiling, eyes wide and unblinking.



I hope you'll let me know if you liked it.
Jgreco217@aol.com