Title: Happily Ever After: The Flu Author: XfileySR Category: MSR Series Rating: PG Summary: Matthew gets the flu, which in turn gets Scully sick, and a misunderstanding with Mrs. Scully turns up emotions. Disclaimer: Okay, so if you sue me, then I'm going to end up having to drop out of school, which means I won't get a job, which means that I'm going to end up breaking into a sinful lifestyle, which means that I'm going to never get to heaven, which in turn means that I'm never going to see any of my friends again!!! AHHHH!!! I mean, cause and effect...simple as that. Please don't sue me! Feedback: Thanks to all who have done feedback on the last parts, I appreciate it. Any more would be helpful!! By the way, this story is dedicated to my fabulous Iggy! You know who you are!! In the Series So Far: Happily Ever After: Never Give Up on a Miracle Happily Ever After: Prince Charming Happily Ever After: Mr. and Mrs. Spooky Happily Ever After: Babysitting SCULLY'S APARTMENT "Mommy!" "MOMMY!!" I vaguely hear someone screaming as I'm awoken from my slumber. "MOMMY!!!" Coming to realize that the screaming is coming from my 4 year old nephew, I'm startled awake. "What's going on?" Mulder asks sleepily from his side of the bed. "I don't know, let me go check on him." After a quick glance at the clock, I realize that it's nearly 4 in the morning, so he must have had a nightmare. I pad down the short hallway to my guest room, to find my nephew sitting up in bed screaming at the top of his lungs and crying. "MOMMY!!" I quickly get to his side, and hold him to me, noticing how hot his tiny body is against mine. "Matty, calm down, it's Auntie Dana, Okay?" His sobs and sniffles continue for a few more minutes until he finally looks up at me with watery green eyes. "What's wrong kiddo?" "My tummy hurts...and I...want my mommy!" With realization that Tara wasn't there, he starts to stiffen up in my arms. "Hey...what's going on in here?" Relaxing a bit, Matthew looks up to meet the eyes of Mulder, who is holding his arms out to take Matthew from me. "His stomach is upset, and he's running a bit of a fever. I think we should call Bill and Tara." "No Scully, he'll be fine until the morning, I'll stay up with him. We shouldn't wake Bill and Tara this early." Considering this, I nod, knowing that Mulder is right, and I glance at the little boy in Mulder's arms and realize that he is fast asleep. ***** Matthew woke up a few more times, getting sick twice in the process of waking up. By the time came for Bill and Tara to come and get him, his fever was down considerably, but his "tummy" as he puts it was still hurting. ****** "Okay, thanks for calling, mom. Mulder and I have been worried about Matthew all day" "No problem honey. Now you and Fox should get some good sleep tonight. You deserve it." "We were up with Matty all night" "I know you were...that's why the two of your are going to be so good together." "Why, because we can pull all nighters without shooting each other?" "No, because you'll be good parents..." "Mom..." "I know Dana...I know." "I'll talk to you later mom" "Love you sweetheart." With that, I hung up the phone, and trudged off to the living room, where I found a sleeping Mulder drooling on my couch. Gently rocking him awake, he smiles when my eyes meet his. "Come on G-man...to bed we go." "Why can't we stay here?" He asks, sleepily pulling me down to rest on top of him. I don't even allow myself the time to answer as I quickly fall asleep to sound of a heartbeat beneath my ear. ****** THE NEXT DAY I wake up feeling groggy, knowing that I need more sleep. It's then that I feel what woke me. A fierce churning in my stomach forces me to jerk awake and run down the hall to my bathroom, making it just in time. "Scully?" Mulder calls from the hallway. "I'm in here." I say softly between dizzy spells. He comes rushing in, and kneels by my side. "Are you okay, do you need anything, what's wrong?" "Mulder, calm down, I caught Matthew's bug, that's all. Don't worry!" "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure! I'm feeling feverish too... can you get me a cold rag?" He was up in an instant running around the apartment to get me what I asked. Back in an instant he came back to me and proceeded to wipe the sweat off my forehead, and sit with me. "What did I do?" "What do you mean?" "I mean...What did I do to deserve you?" "Oh...that? It's the alien implant. Secretly, I'm working with them, and it's implanted to make you fall deeply in love with me, and worship the very ground I walk on..." "Mulder...don't make me laugh!" I say giggling a bit while holding on to my aching stomach. "Okay...Okay...In all honesty...you were just you." "Oh Mulder... That's-" I'm cut off abruptly by the jolt in my stomach. ****** THREE WEEKS LATER GEORGETOWN MALL "Dana, are you okay?" "Huh?" "Are you okay?" my mother asks me with a confused expression on her face. "Yes, I'm fine... mom? Why are you asking?" "Cause you're holding on to your stomach. I thought you might feel sick." "Oh...no, I feel fine!" I say, passing the conversation off. After being sick for almost a week and a half with the flu, I'm not surprised that my hand goes to my stomach. I almost had to go to the hospital a couple of times because I couldn't keep anything down. Matthew got off easy with this one. Two days after coming to stay with Mulder and I he was on the phone asking me and Uncle Mulder to take him to the zoo again. A hand on my shoulder while we're riding up the mall escalator brings me back. "Are you sure you're okay. I know you were pretty sick there honey, but you've been a bit of a space cadet this trip." "I assure you that everything is perfectly okay. Now, let's hurry up so we can meet Mulder for lunch!" "All right then... Where were we meeting him again?" "That new seafood place a couple blocks from my apartment." "Seafood?" "You don't want seafood? We can go somewhere else." "I LOVE seafood, but I thought you hated it." "Since when?" "Well, since you were a little girl you've absolutely hated all seafood." "I guess not anymore then...I've been craving it for a week or two, so Mulder and I went to this place two nights ago. I've been dying to go back!" My mother meets my gaze with a perplexed look on her face, and then shakes her head with a slight grin. "All right then, let's go meet Fox!" ***** IGG'S SEAFOOD SHACK Sitting down for Lunch, we decide on splitting the Jumbo combo lunches. The waiter assured us that it had a little bit of everything, so we were satisfied to nibble on each other's plates. Later, at every glance Mulder and I shared, my mother simply smirked and then looked back to her plate. Finally, it bordered on annoying. "Mom, What?" "Nothing..." "Seriously, what's with the looks?" "You two thought that you could fool me...well it didn't work, so you might as well tell me now." A glance at Mulder showed a mirror expression of confusion and doubt. "Tell you what?" "I'm sorry to ruin your surprise, but I know, so just get on with it." "We have no idea what you're talking about..." Glancing again at each other, we both look to my mother for the answer to our confusion. "Dana, Fox, I know that you're pregnant." At that point, our waiter got a bit of a shower, because Mulder's water flew out of his mouth and across the table. "What!? Scully?" "No way...Mulder I'm NOT pregnant! Mom, where the hell did you get that from?" "You're not?" came the small voice of my mother across the table. "No, I'm not! Besides, I think that Mulder would be the first to know if I was" "Oh honey! I'm sorry! I just thought...the seafood, you getting sick, and the stomach thing from earlier. I just assumed that after all that, and then us going out to lunch that you were going to tell me." While I have to give the woman credit for noticing the little things, a pang in my heart wished that she was right. I know Mulder was thinking the same thing. ***** DANA SCULLY'S APARTMENT Sitting in bed tonight, I thought about what transpired today at lunch...wishing that what she said was true. I know that Mulder sensed my unease about the whole thing, so he has been keeping his distance all day. "Mulder?" "Yeah Scully?" "Are you upset?" "What would I possibly be upset about?" "Today at lunch when-" "Scully, I don't want to talk about that. I know you don't either..." "No...Mulder, I do want to talk about this. We've been steeping on eggshells around this whole thing...there's not much to talk about really...I can't have them, but I want them, and so do you...so...that's going to be a problem." "That's not going to be a problem at all Scully...when you say that I want them, you're forgetting one VERY important aspect of that...I want kids WITH you." I can feel the tears on my cheeks, but it's not sadness that put them there...I really don't know what this mix of emotions would qualify to be. "Mulder, I love you." "I know." With that he turns in bed putting his back towards me. "um...excuse me?" Groggily he answers back to me, "What? Scully, I'm trying to sleep!" With that reply, I begin assaulting my soon- to-be husband with the pillow that was at one point under his head. Hearing the hysterical belly laugh coming from him makes the hitting all the more lethal. "Scully, come on!! I was just joking around!!" "Fox" Whack! "Mulder!" Whack! "You are..." Whack! "The biggest..." Whack! "Jerk I know!" With the last declaration my arms gave up, and my prey soon assaulted me. "Dana Scully...I love you more than anything in the world...," he says with a grin plastered on his face. "I know." I reply shortly, turning onto my side, preparing myself for payback. One thing I learned with this is that Pillow Fights with your significant other lead to really really great make-up sex. Who knew all those years ago at slumber parties what us girls were preparing ourselves for. ***** 2.5 WEEKS LATER DR. WALSH'S OFFICE It came back again full force. The flu. I thought that I was completely over it, but someone at work decided that I needed to get sick, so he or she spread germs all over the place. Now a third of the Washington D.C. Bureau is sick. Not a good thing. Mulder, Bless his heart, hasn't gotten sick yet. Instead, all he's done is stay home with me, making sure I get all that I need when I need it. When he informed me that a bunch of the people in the Bureau had to go to the hospital because of the horrible bug, I got wise and made an appointment with my Doctor. Now all that I'm doing is sitting here waiting for blood tests and advice on how to get well as soon as possible. I think that Mulder's getting a bit bored watching me eat saltines and reading Medical Journals all day. "Dana!" "Hi Dr. Walsh!" I stand to shake her hand across the desk. "All right...well we've got the blood test back, and-" "Don't worry I already know about it." "Oh, okay...one less thing I have to worry about telling you! Now you know that you really have to take care of yourself with this Dana." "I know, I know...I'm drinking lots of fluids and getting lots of rest." "Well THIS is going to put a lot of added stress to your body. Are you taking all the necessary vitamins?" "As bad as this is...I don't like to take vitamins, so I've been skipping out on that part." "Okay, well, you need to start on those right away then, okay." Dr. Walsh began scribbling on a prescription pad, and made small talk as she did so, asking about plans for the wedding (which I haven't even begun to think about), how Mulder is doing, and little stuff like that. After a few minutes, she hands me a prescription and we both stand. Confused, I take the piece of paper from her hand. "You can't fight the flu with medicine Dr." "Oh, no, that's for your prenatal vitamins...you need to start on those right away Dana. As a doctor, you know that the baby needs the extra nourishment early on. You should have already been on them, but better late then never." I think that all the blood rushed to my head at that very moment, because I sat in the chair instantly with a clammy hand to my forehead. "Baby?" I say above a whisper. "Yes, Dana? Honey, are you okay?" Trying to gain composure, I sit for a few seconds, and then meet the eyes of my doctor. "I'm pregnant?" "Dana, you said you knew about the blood test." "I knew that it would show that I had the flu, not that I was having a baby...this is impossible." "Well, obviously it's not...Dana. You're 2 and a half months pregnant." "What?" "You obviously weren't looking for the signs with this one. Are you okay?" Finally, with a smile breaking and tears brimming, all I can say is, "yes."