Foreboding
By Anna Otto
Email: annaotto1@aol.com

Sequel to Priorities 
You can find it at http://www.geocities.com/~annaotto - I do 
recommend that you read it first. Be not afraid! The water is 
waaarm...

Rating: NC-17
Classification: VA
Spoilers: Biogenesis
Archive: just ask!
Disclaimer: oh my, what I have done to someone else's characters now? 
Summary: Human vices. Is there no end to one man's nightmare? Sequel 
to Priorities.


Foreboding


Walter Skinner leans against his desk, stiff as a board in a 
starched white shirt, reprove clear behind his glass frames. I sense 
that he has just told me something of importance, something that I 
clearly had to pay attention to, but I've missed it all.

I berate myself inwardly. Why did I come here today? The appearances 
are everything, but in my line of work I can't make mistakes. I can't 
spend the night tossing and turning and still hope to have enough 
energy in the morning.

I remain silent, wondering what meaningless non-truth I could offer 
that would satisfy him, and his face grows menacing. The Assistant 
Director should work on his anger issues. As skilled as he is in 
placating lesser men, he clearly cannot keep his emotions in check 
around me. It's almost amusing at times.

"I can't do anything about this situation," he tells me bitterly. 
"But I must know - for myself - if I'm to blame for Fox Mulder's 
current condition."

It always comes back to that name, I think wearily. I'm starting to 
hate the man who possesses it with an entirely new fire. 

"And if you are?" I ask. "Would it change anything? Would it give you 
relief to know you're not to blame?"

For a fleeting moment, he looks anguished, and I'm somewhat ashamed of 
my words. Playing games is tiresome these days, especially when it 
comes to anything concerning a certain FBI agent.

He clenches his jaw, then meets my eyes. "Am I responsible."

"Neither of us are, Mr. Skinner," I answer. It is neither a truth nor 
a lie, and it falls easily off my tongue. He heaves a sigh of relief.

I can't bear to be around this man any longer. 

I need distance and time. Just a few days away, I tell myself. Then, 
I will remember my purpose, and I will be able to forget what brought 
me to this office.

"How is he?" I ask finally. At any other time, I would get the answer 
I needed without my opponent ever realizing that it was indeed the 
only piece of information I'd wanted. Today, I only have the strength 
to ask a direct question and hope for an answer that is just as 
direct.

Walter Skinner stares at me suspiciously. "He is more himself, from 
what I hear," he says reluctantly. "I don't know any details."

"Mulder wouldn't want to see you," I whisper to myself, but he hears 
my words and pales visibly.

I hate being unable to approach the hospital where he has been for the 
last couple of months. I'm afraid that he would sense me, sense the 
secrets that I carry, discern the disease that grows within me, eating 
me faster than cancer. I'm not used to getting my information from 
second-hand sources, but I must learn to become content with it.

"Good day, Mr. Skinner." Spent, I step outside his claustrophobic 
office, and make my way down the corridor. My next errand will not 
wait any longer, and I pull out the piece of paper that is burning my 
pocket, skimming over the memorized phrases once again, like a 
masochist.

"You will be able to research the enclosed sample, and learn what I 
already know," Diana's confident handwriting leaps off the page, and 
each word is a sharp knife slashing through me. "I know you must be 
concerned about my health, and I assure you that I'm doing well. Or 
should I imagine that you're more worried about the child? Strange how 
certain I am that it will be a boy. California climate is positive for 
both of us."

I light a cigarette. Positive is not a word that a mother-to-be should 
use when describing her condition. It sounds clinical and detached - 
and I want her to feel something, no matter how terrible it would be 
in retrospect.

Considering the plans we have for this child, any affection that Diana 
may harbor towards it is dangerous - even lethal. Her current state of 
mind should be a blessing for everyone concerned.

"Clearly, it is none of my business," she concludes the letter 
tentatively. "But I would like to know how the father is - after all, 
it is by his courtesy that we have this miracle. Take care, Diana."

The more I recognize her coldness, the more I'm fascinated with her. 
The clearer it becomes that this woman doesn't need me, the more I 
wish for her presence. I loved Teena because she was all the goodness 
that I was leaving behind. I want Diana because she is all the evil 
that I will never be.

She is a corrosive factor that burrows its way deep inside my flesh.

I dial a number on the cell phone and interrupt an effusive greeting. 
Lately, the fear behind the courtesy of my subordinates is all too 
easy to read, and I crave that fear even as I despise them for it. 
"Doug, I need you to run a paternity test, " I request and listen 
indifferently to his meaningless reply. "Top priority."

I hang up and walk downstairs to hail a cab.

* * *

I poison California air with the smoke from my cigarette, then crush 
it on the ground before it's burnt halfway. I can only afford to take 
a few days off work, and I shouldn't be spending them here. 

No one can ever know whose child she bears. No one should even realize 
that she is pregnant. Yet I feel that the reason for this enforced 
vacation is even deeper. Could it be that she shares my fear?

Does she suffer from insomnia?

"I want you to see a doctor. He would keep everything in strictest 
confidence."

"If it makes you feel safer," she nods.

It doesn't. Nothing possibly could, but this child is part of the job 
and as such must be taken care of. It's my turn to speak, but I can't 
summon the courage to verbalize one name that haunts me.

"He is better," I tell her sarcastically. "He would be touched that 
you were worried."

Diana's expression doesn't change. It's as if I hadn't spoken at all. 
Instead of replying, she takes my hand and massages it gently, circle 
after circle leaving invisible blisters on my skin. It's the answer I 
didn't want.

"Stop it," I say harshly. 

"Do you want me to?" she asks, never interrupting the motion.

I snatch my hand away and almost reach for another cigarette before I 
remember that the last one I've had lies extinguished on the ground. 
This is the second conversation in as many days that I don't want to 
engage in.

Her hand runs up my chest and opens one button, then another. The 
touch of her linen dress is cool against my skin, and I shiver even 
as I grow warmer. 

"Let's go inside," she whispers, and I allow her to lead me, 
relinquishing my control for today. I want to be silent. I want her 
mouth to be busy with something besides words.

Words are dangerous tonight.

Pregnancy makes her radiant, smoothing out the angled figure, filling 
in the curves. Her dress falls off her shoulders, and my suit follows 
in its tracks. We end up in a tangled heap on the bed, and the urgency 
in her eyes cannot be mistaken.

I grip her hands, pinning her down to the mattress, and push into her 
with all the grace of a caveman, loathing the vessel that I fill with 
each stroke. I needed this - I craved this for too many days. 

I beg for her to fight me, but she lies pliant and soft under my body, 
obeying my every move.

I can't watch her face, and my eyes travel down to her full breasts, 
already growing heavier, then to her slightly curving stomach. 

Inside this body, there grows a child of my enemy. And I'm suddenly 
certain that he can hear us. He can discern our thoughts and pry open 
the vaults of my mind that stood closed for years, exposing the wounds 
and warts that I strive to keep hidden.

I'm stripped naked. My skin is scorched under the freezing wind, and I 
try to cover myself uselessly. I hear the child's laughter and I know 
that it's his fault, all his doing, for an apple doesn't fall far from 
a tree.

I hate him. I hate the body that carries him. If I placed my hands on 
this uterus and pushed with extra strength, would he be destroyed? 
Would this small, unformed thing be crushed before it had a chance to 
develop?

I cry out in horror and roll off her, shaking. 

Diana grabs my shoulder in anger. "What are you doing?"

I wipe the beads of sweat off my forehead and point wordlessly to the 
bulge in her stomach. 

"Oh." There is underlying scorn in her whisper. "You don't have to be 
afraid. You won't hurt him - I'd think you knew..."

I laugh harshly. I'm not that uneducated in the matters of physiology. 
But to answer that I do want to hurt him, that I do want to seek a way 
to destroy the life that she carries, would be to overstep the 
boundaries between us, no matter how much I want to shock her. If this 
boy is ever born, I fear for him. I fear for myself. 

Is it too late to suggest an abortion? How typically male of me.

Diana turns away from me, clearly frustrated. "You're not coming back 
here."

Hormones, I think detachedly. Pregnant women are so predictable. Of 
course she wouldn't want me back here - not when I can't give her what 
she needs.

I lie awake until I hear her breathing grow calmer. She's finally 
asleep. I spotted some sharp knives in the kitchen earlier. If I 
sliced her body open right now, she would never make a sound. And no 
one would find the perpetrator who committed this hideous crime.

I can almost see the anger in the eyes of policemen who would discover 
her. Such a pity, the coroner would say. A beautiful woman who carried 
a child, now dead.

My scream is wordless, but my ears grow deaf upon hearing it. Am I 
going mad? 

Is this the fate of every man who comes in contact with her?

Unable to be beside Diana for a moment longer, I get out of bed and 
put on my clothes. Something falls out of my pants' pocket and I pray 
that it's a forgotten pack of cigarettes. Instead, it's a hand-written 
message from Doug. It's too early, much too early to know for sure. 
But she knew that she was pregnant. She told me the truth.

The paper shakes in my hand, and the words grow dim for a brief 
second. 

"Inconclusive," Doug's messy hand writes. 

But possible.

The End


You just got on the wrong train, and the brakes are broken. Write me 
and persuade me not to write a sequel. I just might listen.

Rachel, Danielle, Ashlea - thank you for beta-reading and for 
everything else <g> 

annaotto1@aol.com

Take Me To Your Leader

http://www.geocities.com/~annaotto