Title: Breathe for Two
Author: Syn

Category:  Story - Angst 
Rating:  R  (for adult subject matter) 
Spoilers:  For All Episodes up to US Season Five 
Archive:  Anywhere. 
Feedback:  Any kind is welcome.

Summary:  Another life intersects with Scully's.

BREATHE FOR TWO by syn synnerX@aol.com ~~~~~~~~

I know why people don't paint their walls red.  It's an ugly color when it dries;
flat, dark and miserably claustrophobic.  It's harsh on the eyes, and sends
warning signals tingling throughout your nerves, even when it comes from a
relatively benign can of Dutch Boy.

When it comes from the blood of human bodies, it's much worse.

Even after six years with the Bureau, countless autopsies and murder scenes, I'm
still not prepared for the slaughterhouse that greets me on this blue-sky
morning.  Six victims, two rooms. Immigrants from some sunny island, caught up in
the promise of the New World, the land of opportunity.  Coming here for something
better, they found only desolation, poverty and the lure of drugs.

Easy money for one of them, death for the rest.  A deal gone sour perhaps, or
even drug-inspired madness is what caused the mayhem I see.  Six bullet-ridden,
slashed bodies, each one arranged in a tableau more gruesome than the next.

There's Daddy in the bedroom, soiled undershirt soaked crimson.  Next comes a
teenager, cowering at the foot of the bed, hands still covering her ears,
probably to shut out the terrifying thunder of the guns.  In the tiny bathroom,
two pre-teens lay, one sitting staring at me from the bottom of the tub, like a
broken doll, the other slumped besides the toilet, his hand still clutching a
bright blue rubber ball.

An older female, maybe sixty, is face down on the dinner table, her hands still
folded neatly in front of her, an attempt at dignity in the face of death.  The
last victim, a young woman, is lying on the couch, her eyes wide, the horror
still imprinted on her face.  She's arranged curiously, I note, her body half on,
half off the lounger and her index finger is rigored into a point.

"Well, isn't this nice," says Mulder, the irony thickening his voice, as he
surveys the carnage with me.  "Christ."

I don't reply, but move in to take a closer look at the dead woman on the couch. 
I'm probably insane, but I'd swear there was something she was trying to say with
her last gesture, that finger that's pointing into the dark space below her.

Carefully, I crouch and examine her hand.  A simple gold band adorns her ring
finger, and her index finger stands out against the tight ball of her fist. 
Trying to avoid the smears of blood that surround me, I carefully kneel and turn
my flashlight on.

Mulder walks into the back room.  Still talking.  "We might want to tell the
coroner to bring two trucks for this.  What do you think, Scully?"

I peer through the dust and papers that litter the floor underneath the couch,
wondering exactly what it is that I might be looking for, when I see it.

The unmistakable outline of a baby.

An infant girl, less than six weeks old.  Nude; no blanket, no diaper, no
protection of any kind.  My hand trembles as I stretch for her, and I gently
touch the little hand, wrapping five perfect fingers within the huge, clumsy
grasp of my own.

The naked skin is still warm.

She lives.

Frantically, I pull her out from under the couch, yelling for help.  Mulder
rushes back into the room, his eyes widening with horror as he sees my discovery.
 I search for any signs of breathing, any sign of activity at all from the tiny
creature clasped in my shaking hands.

I find none.

Mulder is already dialing 911 as I begin CPR.  Infant CPR, with its tiny puffs
forced between baby lips, little nose pinched shut. Four fingers crossed, tapping
velvet skin, springing back from ribs not quite yet hard-as-bone.

One, two, three ... tap.  One, two, three ... breathe.

Come on, baby.  Come on.  Give this pathologist something to write home to Mom
about.

One, two, three ... tap.  One, two, three ... breathe.

Come on, baby. Show me how life is supposed to be, and that there's a point to
all of it.  Give me something, give me hope that I'm not here on Fate's whim,
that I have a purpose.  Show me that we both have a purpose, and that all this
toil is not in vain.

Breathe, little baby, breathe.  Breathe for us both.

I suddenly hear a squeaking mewl, much like a kitten's cry and my heart soars in
the most peculiar way.

She lives.

Mulder strips off his suit jacket and quickly tosses it to me.  I wrap her into
the silk folds of its lining, her body becoming all but lost in pinstripes and
long sleeves. I make sure her head can peek out from its top, and hold her
carefully.  She's wheezing, I note immediately, and quickly become impatient for
help to arrive.

I'm not the only one.  "Where the hell is that ambulance?" Mulder rants,
nervously glancing from me to the window. "Jesus."

I don't reply, and a moment later, I gratefully hear the sirens approach.  I rock
the infant slowly, carefully, making sure to watch each trembling breath she
takes, each squeaking wheeze that tells me that she's still alive.

"Jesus," Mulder repeats, but softly this time, gently pulling at the collar of
the impromptu bundling, leaning in to peer at the tiny face nestled there.  "That
was a good catch, Scully."

I wonder.  "I hope so," is all I reply.

He looks at me curiously, and then moves aside as the paramedics burst into the
room, the tools of their trade in hand.

~~~~~~~~~

The next evening, I find her in a special ward of the hospital, dedicated to the
abandoned and the sick.

There are no balloons to be seen in this room, no plush lambs or congratulatory
cards dangling from the incubators.  No signs proclaiming "It's A Girl!", no
nervous and delighted fathers beaming in through the windows.  It's a cold room,
sterile in every sense, the only life being the tired shuffle of the nurses and
the compulsive quaking and trembling of tiny limbs.

There's a rocking chair in the far corner, a place for the nurses to sit while
they feed their charges.  It's done quickly, professionally, without any of the
cooing and sweetness that naturally comes with such an activity.  You can't
afford to get attached in this line of work, I know, but I wonder how that is
possible.

The nurses let me in after I show them my badge, and I slip on the clumsy
visitor's gown, not bothering to tie it at the neck.  I search only for a moment
before I see her open crib, a clean, white diaper shining against her brown skin,
tubes surrounding and covering her, a sea of plastic serpents.

Her eyes are open, her left one more than her right.  I peer closely, wondering
if there are any signs of papilledema, but shake myself out of it.  She has her
own doctors here, you've done your job, Dana.  No need to get involved.

No need at all.

I take her small hand in my own once more, marveling at it's miniature
perfection, when a nurse enters, and gives me a kind smile.

"It's her feeding time.  Would you like to do it?" she asks casually.

I look up, startled.  Do I want to feed her?  At first I almost decline, but,
then, think better of it.  I gave her life with my very breath, a few moments
with a bottle wouldn't make that much of a difference.

"Yes," I reply, and I take the bottle.  I maneuver into the rocker, and she
carefully places the baby in my arms, unraveling tubes as she goes.

She smiles as she leaves.  "If you need help, just ring the red button next to
you and I'll come back."

I nod in reply, and put the bottle to tiny lips.  "Come on, baby.  Time for
dinner."

She looks at me soulfully, with huge brown eyes, not quite focused correctly.  I
wave the nipple under her nose, trying to tempt her with the smell, and I nearly
laugh at the unsavory grimace that crosses her face.

"Okay," I say.  "It doesn't smell that great.  But it tastes good.  I promise."

She perks up at the sound of my voice, and I rub the bottle to her lips.  Slowly,
she takes  it in and soon, we are in sync, her little mouth suckling, as I rock
in time to her intake. It's a shockingly natural motion, one with roots far more
instinctual than I'd believed possible.

The dull white liquid slowly disappears and I hear a familiar voice to my left.

"Scully?"

It's Mulder, looking somewhat nervous, abashed, in backwards scrubs that are far
too small for his lengthy frame.  "Scully, they're asking us for a name," he
says.  "It's traditional for the officers who find an abandoned infant to give
them some sort of ID."

I look up at him.  Surprised.  "Name?" I hadn't even thought of naming her.

I didn't dare.

Mulder shrugs, helplessly.  "I told them I'd ask you.  I really couldn't think of
anything.  It's for ID purposes only."

What to name her?  I look into her sleepy eyes, and at her brown cheeks, chubby
and soft, when it comes to me.

"Baby X,"  I murmur, rocking slowly, watching the contents of the bottle
disappear ounce by ounce.  "We can call her Baby X."

Mulder immediately seems grateful. Relieved.  "Yeah, that's fine, I guess.  Okay,
well, I'll be back at the hotel.  Just..."  he hesitates.

"Yes, Mulder?" I ask, glancing up at him.

His voice turns gentle.  "Just come back when you're done here, Scully.  Whenever
you're ready."

"Of course," I reply. Crisply.  "I'll be back after this bottle."

He nods and leaves the room, pulling off the annoying scrubs as he goes.  I
resume rocking and start to murmur to the tiny life in my arms, being very
careful not to let words I'll regret slip from my tongue.  She struggles, and
then drifts quietly into sleep, her mouth slipping away from the bottle.  I
continue to rock and babble nonsense for another moment, but, sensing something,
I look back up.  Toward the huge windows.

Only to see Mulder's sad eyes, peering at us through the glass.  His expression
is pensive and at that moment, something akin to shared pain passes between us.
Quickly, I avert my gaze and turn it back to the sleeping baby in my arms.

And, with a sigh, I slowly reach for the red button at my side.

~~~~~~~~~

She died while I was out on a case.

It took me over an hour to find out, with the nurses humming their way through
the charts. Baby Jane Doe, was it?  No?  Baby Sylvia, she was found in the
garbage outside of City Hall.  Is that her?  Or Baby Claudia, perhaps?  The
Bathroom Baby?

Baby X, I repeat, for the fifth time.  Baby X.  I found her under a couch, in a
bloody room, somewhere on the wrong side of Hell.  She had ten perfect fingers
and a head full of soft, dark hair.  I breathed my own life into her, and her
brown eyes opened and looked into mine, stealing a small piece of my soul.

"Baby X? Oh, we're sorry, Agent Scully.  We lost her three days ago."

"Oh, I see," I reply, seeing nothing at all.

The voice turns apologetic. "She didn't really have much of a chance, the poor
thing.  We lose so many of them, every day.  Again, I'm very sorry, Agent Scully.
 I know it's easy to get attach..."

I flip the phone shut without saying goodbye.

A week later, I find out that she's already been cremated and buried, in a
potter's field somewhere in south Virginia.  I buy a small bunch of flowers,
daises mostly, from a street vendor, and take the afternoon off.

The drive to Virginia isn't lonely, I have the radio blasting the entire way
there, and when that becomes annoying, I turn on Bach.  When he becomes too much,
I turn on Mozart, and let him take me down the tree-lined roads.

When I get there, there are no signs, no iron gates or well-manicured paths
leading to neatly kept graves.  There are no headstones or monuments, no tiny
white crosses or little plaster lambs to mark the children's graveyard.

There's nothing.  Nothing but a bulldozer and a long line of pasteboard coffins.
All I see are fresh mounds of dirt, dotting, what could be, for all intents and
purposes, a giant parking lot.

Suddenly, I feel very foolish, the flowers in my hand looking gaudy and
pointless.

I turn, red-faced, back to my car.  I back out of the field, and leave down the
same road I came.  There's no music on my loudspeakers now, there's no sound at
all except for the crackle of cellophane crunching beneath my fist.  I reach past
the plastic, and crush the flowers underneath, feeling their petals become wet
and soft between my fingers.

I roll down the window, and let the breeze in.  I take deep gulps of the country
air, but it doesn't seem to be enough.  Not enough for the tears that are
threatening to swallow me whole, not enough for my lungs which are suddenly
desperate and needful beyond their capacity.  No, there's not enough air, not
enough air in this entire world.  There can never be enough...

For a woman who is still breathing for two.

~~~~~~~~~~ THE END

Any comments are gratefully received at synnerX@aol.com