Date sent:        Thu, 6 Nov 1997 13:02:55 -0500 (EST)
From:             AGillian21@aol.com
Subject:          "Baby" (1/1)

Title: Baby (1/1)
Author: Noelle Lundgren
Rating: R 
Classification: SA
Spoilers: None
Keywords: 
Summary: Scully is mistaken for an insane woman, and everything
would be all right except that she's learning the role a little too well...

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are not mine...
...*however* there are a bunch of charcters in this story who *are.* So
there. I beat you to them, Mr. Carter!

Note to the G-Units: Why yes, I have taken my medication...why?
Special Note to the Psych-Units: No, this was *not* written from
personal expierece.


"Baby"
by Noelle Lundgren

"Your heart would come undone
Just looking at me once
Hoping love will bring you back
If only you could see me now..."
--C. Dion

Scully turned around from the airport pay-phone when she heard her
name. A young man, probably younger than she was, was looking her
up and down very carefully. He was tan with fluffy blond hair, and
wide brown eyes. He was dressed in a dark suit and a beige trench-
coat. Probably some other FBI Agent, she thought. Someone who'd
recognized the "famous Mrs. Spooky."

"Well, Dana," he said, "you've sure managed to take care of yourself."

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon," he said very pleasantly. "I'll take you home."

"What?"

"Come now. There is no need to make a scene in the airport..." 

Scully heard the familiar click, and then felt the metal tighten around
her wrist. She stared down, mouth agape, at the cuff and the chain that
fastened her to the wrist of the young man.

She said the first thing that came to mind. "I don't know who the hell
you think you are, but--!"

He cut her off. "You poor little thing. You probably need some sleep,
Baby." His tone was still pleasant and calm. 

"You can't--!" Her sentence stopped when she felt a sharp sting shoot
through her arm and up her neck. Her face suddenly became numb. 
The sting flowed to her legs, and she felt her muscles relax. Suddenly,
she couldn't stand, and fell against the young man like a rag doll.

"There now," he said soothingly, removing the needle from her arm. 
"All better."

Scully opened her mouth to speak, but it felt like her throat had been
filled with cotton. She was drifting into a peaceful sleep, as she felt
two strong, muscular arms gently scoop her up. The man lifted her
with no trouble at all. Her head found his shoulder, her arm his neck. 
Her other arm, pulled by the handcuffs, rested limply across her chest.

The young man smiled down at the woman asleep in his arms. She
looked just the same as she always had, except that her face had a little
more color, and her hair had been given proper care. He turned to his
partner. "We got her," he said.

The other man nodded, and pulled out his two-way radio.

==========
Agent Mulder sat at his desk surrounded by his office's usual dirt and
clutter. He was looking at that day's newspaper. "Hey...Scully?"

His partner looked up from her laptop to meet his eyes. "Yes?" She
didn't sound at all interested. She figured he was probably going to
dish out a story about an alien abduction or a woman giving birth to a
baby with wings. 

Mulder cleared his throat. "Looks like they finally apprehended her."

Now she looked interested. Her eyes grew wide. "Really?"

"Yeah," he looked back at the paper, just missing the small smile that
was forming at the corners of her mouth. "Two weeks ago. At an
airport. Right here in Washington."

"Interesting..." she pondered looking back at her screen. She sounded
almost smug, but Mulder didn't pay it any attention. He was too busy
with the article in front of him.

Mulder drifted off. "It's really amazing that she looked exactly like..."
He looked up at his partner. "Scully, you don't think she was...some
sort of clone or something, do you?"

She looked up. "Clone?" She looked thoughtful. "No, probably not...
Just a coincidence." Her eyes twinkled.

"You know I hate coincidences," he said. Then he sighed. "I'm just
glad they finally caught her. It's probably better for her that they did."

His partner smiled a little, and then looked back at the report she was
typing up. I'm glad, too, Agent Mulder, she thought. But they're never
going to catch her. Never.

She smiled again, and continued typing. 

========== 
Scully sat on the hard, narrow bench in the large cafeteria. She was
sitting on the far end, away from most of the other patients. The room
was spotless, and white. There were no windows, just some overhead
lights that could come close to blinding you if looked straight at them. 
The room was huge, and the ceiling was very high. Twenty, twenty-
five feet, maybe. The only spots of any color other than white were the
black security cameras that had been placed in every corner, like evil
eyes, and the tiny green lights on the sides of the cameras.

Even the spoons that the patients were using to eat their lunches with
were white. All of the nurses wore white suits and shoes, with white
coats. Each of the patients was wearing a two-piece white uniform. 
The sleeves and pant-leg length varied, though. 

Upon her arrival, two weeks before, Scully had been stripped of her
clothes, bathed, sprayed with various disinfectant-type things, and then
given a white tank-top and a pair of white sweat pants that were much
to big for her. She felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable without
underwear in clothes that were so large. Shrugging internally, she
guessed that was part of the idea. If the patients felt vulnerable, they
were probably easier to control.

She had also been put in leg irons, and a straight-jacket, and she was
still wearing them.

"Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," the man assigned to her had
explained as he fastened her in. He wasn't nearly as big as the man
who'd picked her up at the airport. His hair was curly, brown, longer
than hers, and he wore it in a ponytail. He had two earrings in each ear,
and a smile that was big, toothy, white, and...fake. He acted like he
cared about her. She knew he didn't. He didn't give a fucking shit
about her. As far as he was concerned, she was just another patient. 
Just another nut-case.

And he called her "baby" a lot. 

Well, she pondered. That's how they treat me.

She'd found out his name after a while. It was Jake. Jake the Fake, she
thought.

Jake sat across from her in the cafeteria. Between them was a white
carton that looked a lot like the kind ice-cream comes in. But the
brown goo in the carton wasn't ice-cream. Not even close. It was
sludge, she'd decided after two weeks of eating it. That's what they did
with the patients when they died, she thought, letting her creative
imagination run wild. They had a big meat grinder in the back of the
place, and they just dumped all the bodies in there... She smiled at the
thought. It sounded like a good plot for a movie...

Her thoughts were interrupted when Jake lifted the spoon to her lips
once more. "C'mon, eat up, Baby," he said kindly. 

She pulled her head away. "I'm not hungry."

"Sorry about that, Dana. You need to finish it."

She glanced down at the half-full carton in front of her. There was no
way she was eating all that. "Why?" she hissed. 

They got into this conversation every day.

"Because," Jake said, thrusting the spoon into her mouth. "You need to
get all of your vitamins, and minerals...and protein... That's why you
don't feel well. You don't get enough protien."

There's protein in human flesh, she thought, swallowing. "What is it,
anyway? What we eat, I mean."

"Water, mostly." He gave her another spoonful. "And then the
nutrients are dissolved into it."

She swallowed again. "I don't belong here."

"I know, Baby. None of us do."

She sighed, realising that trying to explain herself would only get her in
trouble. Again. 

So she asked a question. It was actually something that she was
genuinely curious about. "Why am I always so far away from everyone
else?" Scully looked around. Most of the other patients were sitting
together at the long tables, talking at gesturing...and feeding
themselves. There were only a few others like her, with jackets and leg
irons, and attendants ready to take them away in wheelchairs when they
were done.

Despite his mock affection, there was one thing she liked about Jake;
he always did his best to give her and honest answer."You could hurt
someone if you got into a fight."

Her body jerked as she tried to stand. It didn't work, and she just fell
back on her rump. "What makes you think I'd fight?" she snapped,
almost screaming. Some of the other patients looked over at her,
puzzled or frightened looks on their faces. She instantly realized that
raising her voice was a bad idea.

Jake put his hand down on the table gently. "I know you wouldn't." 
His other hand moved his his back pocket. Scully knew what he was
reaching for.

She glared at him.

"Dana..." he started, as though her own name could soothe her.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said in a very low voice.

Jake smiled. "No you don't. I *know* you. You just want me to let
you out of that jacket for a little while."

She frowned, sticking her bottom lip out like a thick pink worm. She
looked like she was about to speak. And then she started to cry. "I'm
not supposed to be here..."

"Oh, Baby, I know," Jake said softly.

"No...no, you don't!"

Jake smiled. "I understand that you're scared..."

She shook her head violently. "No, you don't! I...I was..." She started
over. "This woman that you're looking for, she looks just like me! I
don't know, she's like...a clone or something! But she's the one that's
supposed to be here... I didn't do anything wrong. I'm a Special Agent
with the FBI! I work with Agent Fox Mulder! Call him up and ask
him!"

"Dana...shh..." Jake tried to soothe her. He stood and came around
behind her, taking her forehead in his hand, and pulling her head back,
holding it against his stomach. "Calm down," he said, this time more
like a warning. He took out a needle. "Dana, Baby, I really don't want
to do this...don't make me..."

She let out a long sob. "Nobody cares about what happens to me! I
want to die!"

"No you don't, Baby." Jake pulled her head to the side so that her ear
nearly touched her shoulder. The muscles in her neck streached
wearily. He stabbed the needle into the side of her neck, and injected a
bright lavender fluid. 

She whimpered.

"Shh..." he whispered, his hand on her cheek, holding her firmly against
his body, as her head shook with the sudden blast of medication. "It's
okay."

She blinked, and the room became fuzzy and gray. Why did it always
end up this way, whenever she tried to explain? Her eyes rolled back
into her head for a moment, as the medication began to take effect. Her
eyelids became heavy, and she tried to stay awake, but the idea of sleep
was so inviting.

==========
As much as she dreaded being in the cell, she loved being out of the
straight-jacket and leg irons. She could move around by herself
without the help of Jake and the wheelchair. 

The cell was white. Big surpise. Just like everything else in the
building. The walls, floor, and the ceiling were white. The walls were
high--at least ten feet--and near the top, there was one tiny window. 
The cell was actually quite large. It was probably meant for about four
people, Scully had decided.

There wasn't much in the room. Just a flat foam thing on the floor and
couple of blankets for sleeping with. There was a big mirror on one
wall. Actually, it was only a mirror on one side. On the other it was a
window in the main hallway, so that the nurses could keep an eye on
her. There was also a little thing above it that looked like a vent. It
was really just a device that allowed anyone in the hallway to hear or be
heard inside the cell.

After she became tired of sitting and thinking, standing and thinking,
lying down and thinking, she'd paced the room. She had pushed on the
walls. She had rolled on the floor. She'd asked for a pen and paper a
few days ago, but Jake had said that they couldn't give her a pen. 
Scully wondered what they thought she'd do with it. Probably stab
herself. That wasn't such a bad idea, she thought. They wouldn't give
her markers either. Finally, Jake had brought her some colored chalk,
and for two days she'd spent all the time in her cell drawing. Adding
colors to the wall and the floor became her most popular pastime. 

There was a tree, and a circle, and some swirly lines. And then there
was a man, and something that looked a little like a ship. On the wall
was a big green skeleton. Next to that was a giant eye. Then she'd
drawn a fish, and a baby, and a dog. Anything she could think of. 
Scully took a piece of black chalk over by the "mirror" and sat down on
the floor. Looking at her reflection, she drew a self portrait on the wall
next to the mirror. The black and white face with tangled curls around
it was very accurate, she decided. The hallow cheeks, big, sad eyes, the
troubled forehead, and the frowning mouth. She looked hideous. 

Later that evening she took a blue piece of chalk and added tears
running down the cheeks.

==========
Had she died and gone to hell? Is that what this was? 

Dana Scully lay on her foam mattress. It was early in the morning, she
could tell because of the angle of the sunlight coming into her room. 

She put her hands over her face and took a deep breath. She was trying
to sort out everything that had happened. Like, for example, what she
was doing in such an awful place. She'd realized right away that she'd
been mistaken for the woman who's case she and Mulder had been
working on. Yet another woman with strange markings on her body
who claimed to be an abductee, and had possibly been responsible for
the death of her newborn baby, thinking it was an alien. Boy, that
sounded like the thing she and Mulder were investigating all the time. 
What had disturbed Mulder most about the case, however, was the
woman's strong physical resemblance to Scully.

Strong? Fuck it, she could have been my twin, Scully thought, staring at
the ceiling. Actually, the fact that she looked so much like the woman
had disturbed her, too. She put a hand under her shirt, and moved her
fingers across each of her ribs, counting them. 

The woman, who's name was believed to be Dana Menley, had been
admitted to some sort of extra-special, very secret mental institution
when she was fifteen years old, and had then been released at age
twenty-nine. Of course, now that she might have killed her child, they
wanted her back.

Scully didn't know what to do. They thought she was a crazy woman. 
If she mentioned her job or her name or her partner she was given a
shot of something to knock her out for a couple hours. If she tried to
explain, they would just think it was the ravings of a mad woman.

When she sucked her breath in, Scully could get her fingers up under
the bottom rib. She moved her hands over her stomach, kneading the
flesh. Then she slipped her hands under the elastic of the sweat pants. 

In the two weeks she'd spent there, Scully had lost a lot of muscle. She
was usually much more active. Her arms and stomach especially had
taken on a doughy quality. She suddenly bent her knees and stood up. 
She moved her feet so that they were shoulder-length apart, and bent
down and grabbed her ankles, stretching. She came up, and bent
backwards, listening to the satisfying crunch.

She looked around the cell at the drawings on the wall and the floor. 
She'd realised that they weren't helping much in her mission to
convince the doctors and nurses that she was a sane woman who
worked for the FBI. The drawings took on a more sickly, satanic
appearence every day. Crushed cars, and anorexic-looking women. 
Birds with teeth. Men with extra arms and legs and fingers and eyes. 

Mulder would get a laugh out of this, Scully thought. Dana Scully in a
mental institution. Then she had another thought. Mulder. Mulder
would realize what was going on, come get her, and straighten this
whole thing out. 

Scully felt terribly helpless having thoughts like that, but this time what
could *she* do. Besides, she reminded herself, she could be
somewhere a lot worse... 

Like where? she asked herself. And then answered. Donnie Pfaster's
closet or Duane Barry's trunk...

But was that really worse?

==========
The elderly man stood outside of the second cell on the left, squinting
through the smoke from his own cigarette. He peered through the
window at the young woman on the other side of the glass. She was
sitting on the floor, her legs out in front of her, streaching. 

He wondered why he'd never realised before just how beautiful she
was. He corrected himself: he'd noticed before, it was just that
somehow, she was so much more beautiful now that she was a
prisioner. 

His prisioner.

He took another puff from his cigarette, unable to take his eyes off her. 
Even he had been impressed with the job his men had done with her
double. They really had managed to make her features so that they
were a flawless match. Her strong arms, her white skin--which made
her hair look so much redder than it was--and her big, wide-set blue
eyes. She really was a very lovely young lady.

And she really was the perfect way to go about this plan, the Cigarette-
Smoking Man thought. It was too risky trying to use his sister. That
hadn't worked. Of course, it was very rare that clones did. They took
so much time to prepare, and so much care once they got out into the
world. 

The Cigarette-Smoking Man smiled, continuing to watch the woman in
the cell. This plan was perfect. It couldn't fail. How easy it had been
to make the trade, too. Everything was just perfect.

Looking through the smoke made it look like the woman was sitting in
clouds. The Cigarette-Smoking Man's hand moved to his left pocket,
where he ran his fingers over the FBI badge contained within. It was
hers, of course. So was the gun sticking out of his right pocket.

He smiled once more, and turned down the hallway to leave. The nurse
in charge did not even look up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he
was there.

==========
Scully had the sudden feeling that she was being watched from the
outside, and she could smell smoke coming from somewhere, but
nothing registered in her brain. 

==========
Jake found her on the floor face down, doing one-handed push-ups. 
Sweat dripped off her hair-line. She looked tried, but very determined. 
She was counting out loud.

"...six-hundred seventy...six-hundred seventy-one...six-hundred seventy-
two..."

"Dana..."

"...six hundred seventy-three...What?...six-hundred seventy-four..."

"We're going to have breakfast, and then we're going for a walk," Jake
informed her.

She raised her head and looked up at him. "No," she replied bitterly. 
"*I* am going to have breakfast, because you've already eaten, and then
*you* are going for a walk, because I have to sit in a wheelchair."

"Yes, that's right," he said, a little stunned.

"So let's get it over with..." she said and stood up.

==========

Scully slammed her fists against the wall, yelling as loud as she could. 
She paced back and forth, falling against the walls in sort of push-ups. 
She placed her hands on the floor near the wall, and kicked her feet up
so she was in a handstand, letting the blood rush to her head. She did a
cartwheel. She braided her hair. She hit herself. 

Finally, Scully collapsed on the floor in a teary heap. She pulled
herself into a sitting position with her legs crossed. She raised her arms
to her face and tried to sink her teeth into the skin, tears streaming
down her face. When Scully found that she didn't have enough strength
to break the skin, she gave up, and picked up her chalk.

Instead of drawing, however, she began to write in big black letters. 
Random words and phrases finally gave way to one two-word sentence
that she kept repeating. "I'm fine" decorated the walls and the floor,
and the bed sheet. She wrote right over the drawings she'd already
done.

She was lying on her back in the middle of the floor when Jake came in
to get her. She was laughing hysterically, and her eyes were filled with
tears. "I want to die," she giggled.

Jake only smiled and took her hands, pulling her up. "C'mere, baby. 
We're going to get you a bath, and wash that pretty red hair..."

"I like it dirty," she laughed. She growled the word. "Dirty."

"Sorry, baby, it's not healthy."

She threw her arms around his neck. "Jake, dance with me?" she
pleaded.

"Nope, I can't."

"Please?"

He took her hand and turned her. She didn't move as he put her in her
jacket. "There," he said.

"Dip me."

"Not now," he told her, fastening her leg irons. "But I will dip you right
into the bath as soon as we get down the hallway." He got her
wheelchair, and sat her down. "There you go."

As he pushed her down the hallway, she said, "You know, I like that
shirt you're wearing. There's no color I like better for a shirt than
yellow."

Jake looked down at his blue shirt and just smiled at her.

The "bath" that she was going to take wasn't really a bath. It was more
like phone booth without a door. Water shot out of six different tubes. 
Three at her neck, and three at her waist. 

Jake had removed her leg irons and was working on her jacket when
she said, "How come I have to wear these just to go down the hall?" 
She answered herself before he could. "So I don't fall off the world and
get hurt..." She started to laugh. 

"Arms up," Jake told her.

She put her arms above her head. He grabbed her tank-top at her waist,
and pulled it up over her head. The sweat pants were so big that once
the string was untied, they came off by themselves. Jake flipped a
switch on the side of the "phone booth." 

"Under the water you go, missy," he said.

"That was my sister's nickname," she said around her giggles and her
tears. Lately it was difficult to tell whether she was laughing or crying. 

"Oh, really?" Jake got the scrubbing brush.

"Yep, but they shot her. They were really aiming for me, did you know
that?"

Jake smiled. He could listen to her stories all day. "Oh yes?"

"Yes," she said almost proudly. "That was then I worked for the FBI,"
she laughed. "I had the most beautiful man as my partner."

"I know," Jake said. This imaginary man was all she talked about
lately. 

"Mmm hmm," she giggled. "And you know what? I always wanted to
fuck him...."

"...but you didn't." How many times had he heard her tell this one?

"No I didn't. I never got the chance to... Do you think I should have
fucked him, Jake? I thought about it. I had dreams about fucking
him... He was a beautiful lover. And I had dreams about killing him,
too."

"That's not very nice, baby."

"Yes it is." She grinned, as he scrubbed her all over with the brush that
took a layer of skin off with all the dirt. "It felt very good to kill him. I
was happy..." She started to cry then.

"Oh, baby...is everything okay?"

"After salmon lay their eggs, they die," she said through her tears. "Isn't
that terribly sad?"

"You're not crying about salmon, are you, you silly girl?"

"Did I ever tell you about the cannibals?"

"Yes, Dana, many times."

"Oh. I did?"

"Yes," Jake told her. 

"Hey, Jake?"

"Yes?"

"I've lost my mind...wanna help me find it?" She started to laugh, tears
still streaming down her face. "Did I tell you about my little boy?"

"No." Jake scrubbed her back.

"Of course not, you silly man! I never had a son!" She paused. "I
didn't believe in aliens for a long time. And then I saw some."

"Oh yes?"

"And I went into a coma where they put sugar in my veins and honey in
my arteries..."

"You sure have a way with words, baby..." Jake muttered.

"I was a poet in my past life. And I had cats. Lots and lots of cats. 
And they had babies, so I had more cats. And then the birds came to
scare them away...and I had a fish, too, but it drowned."

==========
Red hair fell to her waist. Her eyes were clear and gray. Tears had
practically left scars on her face. There was a bruise on her forehead
where she'd slammed her head into the mirror. The mirror was cracked
now, but it was made so that it wouldn't shatter.

The glass hadn't, but she had shattered a long time ago. A little over
two years of living alone in the white room with nothing but her
drawings had cut into every last thread of her sanity. She sat crumpled
in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth
gently.

The nurse who sat out in the hallway for the hours when Dana was in
her cell couldn't help but feel sorry for the woman. When Dana had
first come back to the institution, she'd been so much better. She had
looked healthier and stronger. More...normal. Now, Dana had wasted
back to the confused, little-girl state of mind that she'd been in when
she'd arrived at age fifteen. 

The nurse's thinking about the patient was interrupted by the arrival of
a man and a woman. They were both dressed in suits and trench coats,
and both looked serious. A little too serious. "We're here to speak to
Mr. Jim Vincent," said the man. He was tall, with fluffy brown hair,
and sparkling eyes.

"And you would be...?" the nurse asked.

"Agents Mulder and Scully," he said. "We're with the FBI."

"Oh, of course. Go right on in," the nurse told them. "He's in the room
next to Miss Menley's. It's, um...One-fourteen."

The man was already half-way there.

"Thank you," the small, red-headed woman said to the nurse, and
followed her partner down the hall. He'd stopped in front of a window. 
The woman looked where her partner was looking. 

Sitting against the wall, facing them, was a woman in her thirties. She
had long, tangled red hair, and was dressed in a pair of white sweat
pants and a white tank-top. She had a look on her face that seemed to
convey that she despised every person in the world. 

Mulder couldn't help but stare at her. She was sick-looking, and still--
somehow--compelling. Not to mention that there was something
familliar about her. Mulder couldn't put his finger on it, but there was
something about her...

"Oh," his partner came up next to him. "It's Dana Menley. Remember
her, Mulder? That case a couple years ago..."

Inside the room, the woman's face changed it's expression. Her eyes
seemed to look less lost. Suddenly, she screamed out, "You can't trust
her! I don't care who you think she is, she isn't! She's not me!" She
started to cry. "She's not who you think she is...please...you have to let
me out!"

The nurse, overhearing the commotion, looked up at the two FBI
agents. "Don't let her scare you. She gets worse every day." Then she
called out louder, so that the patient could hear. "Dana, baby, stop that. 
We have guests."

"C'mon, Mulder. Let's get going."

The FBI Agents made their way down the hall, listening as the patient
screamed, "Fuck you both! Fuck you! I hope you both die horribly for
what you've done!" 

Mulder leaned over to his partner. "She's a real nut case, huh?"

His partner couldn't help but smile. "Yeah..."

==========
The End.