Chapter Text
I.
"Do you have children, Agent Reyes?"
This simple question hit her like a brick.
Monica hesitated and acted quickly to cover up any sign of being caught off guard. Don’t look away. Don’t shift in your seat. Keep it cool, Monica.
Jesus. It was a straightforward, common question. And yet, she had somehow not been asked it since she joined the X-Files. And now that it had come up, she was not sure how to answer.
The late middle-aged woman sitting across the table from her stared back with dark brown eyes. They looked especially tired in the fluorescence of the room, which illuminated the subject's frown lines and under-eye circles.
The inquiring eyes seemed to engulf Monica as the question echoed in her head.
Did she have children?
...Was William her child?
He wasn't. By blood, anyway. But by other definitions, he could be. Right?
A metallic taste arose in her mouth, and she wondered if she had been biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. Holy crap. Why was this question making her feel so uncomfortable?
"Yes," is the answer that she ultimately gave.
As soon as it left her mouth, she found herself biting her bottom lip again. Wait. Maybe she shouldn't have said that. She wasn't actually sure...
Dammit Monica, what does it matter right now? Focus on the case.
Monica realized that she had never really questioned it herself. The thought had just never come up. To her, William was… William. Silly Willy, who gave her hugs and laughs, who tested her patience and sometimes deprived her of sleep. Who she had, in the past, spilled actual blood to protect—multiple times.
Through all of it, she had never really felt the need to define who he was to her. Until now, in this cold and metallic interrogation room, a place hardly conducive to such introspection.
The subject across the table didn't seem to pick up on her inner turmoil—the other woman was preoccupied with proving her own point. She nodded at Monica's response without any change in her expression.
"How many children?" she proceeded.
"One," replied Monica, now feeling like a huge liar.
Just focus on the case. Deal with this later. You're the interrogator, not her. Don’t let her get to you.
The subject continued. "So you should understand, then. As a mother. We will do anything to protect our children. It's as simple as that."
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call murdering and mutilating three people 'simple,'" Monica retorted.
The woman shrugged in a manner much too casual for the context of this conversation. "You can call it whatever you want. But like I've said already, I'm not telling you where my son is."
Monica straightened her back in her seat, taking advantage of her height in an attempt to appear more intimidating. Her shadow stretched across the length of the interrogation table, almost meeting the end.
"If it were my son," she replied. "I would reason that it is safer for him to face the consequences in protective custody, than it is to be on the run from a group of conspiracy zealots wanting his head."
My son. The words echoed in her head, ringing like a bell. My son, son, son. An image of William running through a field of grass flashed into her mind’s eye, and she tried to shake it out without physically moving her head like she often tended to do.
Again, the other woman shrugged, now crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. "Okay. That's you. I'm me."
Monica suppressed a huff. She was getting nowhere with this interrogation, and her own distractions were certainly not helping.
As if on cue, John entered the interrogation room then, with a thin manila folder in his hands. Oh, thank God. Hopefully he had come bearing new information they could use as leverage.
Monica tried her best to suppress the images of William swirling in her mind, willing herself to focus on the task at hand.
Screaming. Everything was screaming. Outside, engines roared as vehicles rolled in, bringing with them more bodies. The warden was still screaming in agony on the porch, her face red and blistering. The large crowd that was making its way towards them was silent vocally, but their energies were screaming with fanaticism.
They had come for the baby.
Monica was screaming too, internally. They were surrounded. She had no idea who these people even were. She had never delivered a baby before. Had never defended a birth from an ambush.
Among the sea of cars and people streaming in, she saw a figure rise from the dead. His resurrection was all she needed to confirm it—that the three of them were doomed.
Her mind was clouded with shock, but she was still lucid enough to acknowledge the likelihood of that. The shotgun could knock maybe a few of the crowd out, but what good would it be if they could get right back up again?
She gawked at the mob as she tried to make sense of the situation. Tears welled in her eyes as she swallowed the reality of it. There was no use in fighting now. She knew she could not succeed.
A scream shot out from inside the house. “Agent Reyes!”
But she could succeed in delivering this baby. She was needed.
She wiped at her eyes and turned her back to the crowd, willing herself to focus on the delivery. As she walked back inside, she did her best to shake away the shock, the fear, the dread, the bitter acceptance of their fate. No matter what happened after, she had to make sure this baby was delivered.
The ancient springs of the daybed mattress screeched along with its occupant as she grimaced, bracing herself in distress.
“What’s happening?” Scully asked, her eyes wide. Her breath was already ragged from labor, and now panic was bubbling on top of this. “What—“
“It’s okay, Dana.” Monica knelt down beside the bed and tried her best to keep her voice steady, to keep any of the terror she was feeling from seeping through. It hurt to put on a face and try to lie to this woman in her most vulnerable hour. She saw tears in Agent Scully’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but form some more of her own.
“What, what—“
“It’s going to be okay.” Maybe if she said this enough, it would somehow manifest as the truth.
The actual truth could not hide long from Scully. A bloodied Billy Miles, risen from the dead, appeared in the doorway at the front lines of the crowd.
“No!” Scully screamed. Her horror was infectious. They had tried everything—escaped in the night, driven hundreds of miles, squirreled away in a rusty cabin in the middle of nowhere, and yet.
They began to flood into the room.
“It’s going to be okay,” she repeated, this time with more force. “It’s alright, Dana. Don’t look at them. Your baby is coming.”
I’m sorry, is what she really wanted to say. I’m so sorry, Dana.
Scully screamed again, clenching her fists into the mattress. Her face was red and contorted with pain, both physical and emotional. “This is my baby!”
Monica reminded herself that there was only one thing she could do now—deliver the baby.
“You’ve got to push, Dana.”
The space around them grew smaller and darker as the crowd crept in closer, casting ominous shadows across the bed.
“Please don’t let them take it!”
Monica wanted so badly to respond, They won’t. I won’t let them. But she wouldn’t make a promise she could not keep.
Instead, she lowered her head to look under the sheet that was draped over Agent Scully's legs. Her heart pounded as she saw something there that was not present just five minutes ago.
“Come on, Dana! Push!” Monica screamed. It was the only thing she could say now. She threw herself into it. She couldn’t get Scully away from this deranged mob, but she sure as hell could make her push.
Scully howled again as she tensed her body and did so. “Please don’t let this happen,” she cried.
“Dana, push!”
“It’s mine! Don’t take it!”
“Harder! Push, Dana!”
The daybed screeched as Scully tensed herself once again, whimpering, drenched in sweat.
“Keep breathing, Dana. Keep breathing.”
“Please don’t let them take it!” Her desperation and terror screamed out at Monica, begging her to do something, anything. She couldn’t let them take the baby. She couldn’t just give up like this. She had to do something…
“Push!”
Scully howled again, straining. Monica stared on in awe as the top of the head she had seen earlier expanded to reveal a face, then a neck, then a pair of shoulders. She felt the urge to reach in and pull the baby out then, but she knew Scully still had some work to do.
“Push!” she screamed. “Push. Push, Dana, push!”
The daybed linens wrinkled more as Scully clenched them tighter with her fists and tensed. Her screams were accompanied this time by the piercing cry of the baby. Monica at least knew that crying was a good sign. She watched as a pair of arms slipped into the world, and then a stomach, and legs, and…
She reached in and finally gripped the precious being, pulling him up and immediately drying him off with a towel from the stack she had prepared. With the scissors she had sterilized and the medical tape from the warden’s first aid kit, she freed him from his umbilical cord. As she gently rubbed his face dry, he continued to cry, grimacing and opening his toothless mouth.
She froze here. His little face was the most innocent thing she had ever seen, his energy the most pure thing she had ever felt. She had never sensed anything so clear and fragile in her life. It sent a shiver down her spine. They couldn’t take this baby. She would dive through the pools of hell before she would let them take him.
“Is he alright? Is he okay?” Scully was scrambling to pull herself upright to get to her child.
“He’s beautiful, Dana.” She took a new dry towel and wrapped the wriggling, fussing newborn in it. She handed him over to his mother, who burst into tears at the sight of him.
“My baby,” she said as she cradled him. “You’re here.”
Monica smiled both out of relief and joy as she watched the two. She could feel the bond forging between them—strong and infinite.
They kept their eyes on the child for some time, and then Monica began to realize that the union had gone on for much longer than she had anticipated. As in, they hadn’t been interrupted by outside forces. The dread she had shaken off earlier started to creep back in.
She glanced around the room and came eye-to-eye with the front lines of the crowd. They too seemed mesmerized. But they made no move towards the baby.
What were they waiting for? Adrenaline was still burning hot in her veins. She hadn’t thought she could succeed in defending Scully and her baby from the not-quite-human crowd. But now… she was feeling an absence of malevolence in the room. She searched the faces of the mob and saw no signs of ill intent, no desire. They all seemed to be in a similar state as she was—in awe.
She looked back at Scully, who was clutching her baby against her chest, staring at his face. He had calmed down now. His face was relaxed, albeit still red from crying. His eyes remained shut. Scully stared at them nevertheless. Monica could feel her curiosity. Was she wondering what color they were? Blue, like hers? Or green, like Mulder’s…
Monica snapped out of the trance that she had begun to fall into herself. She saw an opportunity.
“Dana,” she whispered, low enough that the nearby crowd hopefully could not hear. “Agent Scully.”
“Hmm?” Scully looked up for a second, and then back down at the baby.
“Agent Scully, I think we can go. They aren’t going to take him.” This time, she actually could say this and mean it.
“Okay,” replied Scully, but she made no effort to move. She seemed perfectly content there, lying across a decades-old bed, soaked with cord blood and placenta and other unsightly bodily fluids, miles away from civilization. The distress of labor and the threat of superhumans had peeled away from her. Like her baby, she seemed calm now.
“Agent Reyes,” she said, beckoning her closer.
Monica carefully sat down on the bed beside her and leaned in. “Yes?”
She expected Scully to whisper something to her about the mob. About how strange it was that they had not yet tried to take the baby. Perhaps she would ask her what vibrations she was feeling now, and Monica could share with Scully her cautiously optimistic thoughts.
But instead, she raised the swaddled newborn up closer to Monica, just as he opened his eyes for the first time and saw the world. Her brown eyes met his blue ones as Scully proudly presented him to her.
“Monica, I’d like you to meet William.”