A Feynman Diagram
by suspect affiliations
no_romo@yahoo.com

“Nothing Important Happened Today,” indeed.

I.

It’s a straight drive down Wisconsin, quick and easy
and relatively traffic-free at this time of night. 
Chevy Chase to Georgetown.  I think they’ll tell me
that it’s too late and I remember how early our nights
were after James and Erica were born, but I don’t know
how much time there is.

I’m in Tenleytown now.

I feel flung back to Vietnam, a place without rules. 
How the hell did this so-called “intelligence
operative” crash in a fireball in the FBI garage – and
where the hell did his body go?  I haven’t known what
to make of Mr. Rohrer since he first showed up at my
office with Agent Crane.  I still don’t know what his
game is, despite John Doggett’s confidence in my
involvement.

R Street.

I have a reputation as an unfeeling man – anyone who’s
worked as hard as I have, I think, gets one.  Men
didn’t do much during pregnancy when my kids were
born, not like today, but I sat there and let Vanessa
crush my hand as she wailed and pushed.  The whole
experience made me grateful for my Y chromosome.

Agent Reyes’s report chilled me.  I sat at my desk and
stared at it for a good long while, and I thought,
God, if that were Vanessa and my child…

That report is why I’m here now, in my Lincoln, NPR at
low volume.  I didn’t feel any guilt after that
incident with Peyton Ritter – how was I to know the
kid would be such an ass – and I don’t feel any guilt
now.  But I know that if I don’t take this
opportunity, I will be feeling very, very guilty later
on.  At Mulder’s second funeral.

I put my right turn signal on and brake gently into
the curve.  I drive past a few narrow houses, pressed
against the street, searching for a parking space. 
Vanessa always complained about parking here, back
when I was in law school and living in a box-size
apartment a few blocks away; she agreed to marry me in
spite of all those things.  

I find a spot and think about falling in love in
Georgetown.  I have more in common with these two than
they’d ever guess.

II.

Strawberry-orange smoothie is puddling on the coffee
table, corrugating the flimsy Bistro Med menu with its
condensation.  I hear soft footsteps from the
bathroom.

“Your smoothie is leaking.”

“It’s not leaking, it’s beading.”  She settles in
against me, our legs entwining across the length of
the sofa.

“You’re not going to fix it?”  My hand automatically
finds its way to her shoulder, my thumb stroking her
neck.

“Mmm.”  She turns her head toward my chest and presses
a kiss against my T-shirt.  “I’m too tired.”  I can
feel her smile, the upturned corner of her mouth
against the fabric.  I can’t help but smile myself,
warm and well-fed, arms full of Scully and our son
asleep in his bassinet in front of the television.

“This is the best show I’ve ever watched,” I murmur
softly.  She smiles wider and pulls herself up against
me and I kiss her, spontaneously, for no real reason
other than that I’m completely in love with her.  She
opens her mouth to mine, and we take our time,
luxuriating, no pressure.  We’re still five weeks away
from being able to have sex; I look forward to that
event with not a little trepidation.

Her breasts are larger now, and my hands brush against
them as we pull apart.

“You taste like smoothie,” I tell her, and she smiles.
 We gaze at each other moonily for a moment before she
rests her head against my own.

“Was your mother happy?” I ask, tracing hieroglyphs on
her arms, watching William expand and contract, his
whole baby body breathing together.

“Mmm.  She was so excited, I didn’t have the heart to
tell her that your dad was a William, too.”

Mrs. Scully had called earlier this evening, not long
after the Gunmen made their exit.  It was a
conversation that I left entirely to mother and
daughter, taking the opportunity for some father-son
time.

I kiss the top of Scully’s head.  “With every other
dream she’s had to give up for this grandchild… let
her have this one.”

“Mulder, she just wants me to be happy.”  Her voice is
so calm and soft; I want to wrap myself completely in
it, forget the world.

“Are you?”  I ask because I’m pretty sure of the
answer.  I’ve never seen Scully smile so much as when
she’s looking at our son.

She takes my hand in her own, brings it to her mouth,
and brands it with her lips.  “Happier than I would’ve
ever thought possible,” she says, then laughs. 
“Although, my mother did put in a Catholic plug… she
said Dad would be so happy about William, but he’d be
happier still if I were married to William’s father.” 


I’m not opposed to the idea.  “We could get married.”

“Mmm.”  Scully sighs contentedly against me.  “Yeah,
we could.”

Neither of us says anything, too satisfied to sit and
stare at our son and breathe together.  A family. 
What I finally figured out I’d been looking for all
along.  

“We did a beautiful thing, Scully.”  My voice cracks.

“I think you’re right, Mulder,” she says over a yawn. 
I press my nose into her hair.

“I like hearing you say that,” I tell the top of her
head with a smile, and she grins in return.

There’s a soft knock at the door.

Scully and I look at each other questioningly, and I
push myself off the couch to check; my guess is
Skinner, or else the convention-defying Reyes,
oblivious to the late hour.

The one fishbowl face I do not expect is Kersh.

I whisper his name to Scully and she stands, suddenly
on guard, moving between William and the door,
intimidating in spite of her silk pajamas and rumpled
hair.

She nods at me, and I open the door.

III.

My knock is light; I know it’s late.  I hear them
shuffling inside and I can guess that they don’t trust
my motives in dropping by.

This will be a tough sell.

Mulder opens the door enough to stand in it.  “How did
you get this address, sir?” he demands.

“I have access to Bureau personnel records, Mr.
Mulder,” I explain to him in my most patient tone.

“And you just dropped by to see the new arrival?  He’s
asleep.”  Mulder crosses his arms over his chest, and
I see Scully standing behind him, hands on her hips,
eyeing me warily.

“Mr. Mulder, I have some information that I think
you’d like to hear.  Information that might save your
life.”  His glare is unrelenting.  “That might save
your son’s life.”

He blanches, just barely.  Scully steps forward and
opens the door more widely, resting a hand on Mulder’s
arm.  

“What is it,” she demands in a low, dangerous voice.

I stare at the two of them.  “This is sensitive
intelligence, agents.”  Mulder doesn’t acknowledge my
inappropriate address, but he and Scully turn and step
back into the apartment.  I close the door behind
myself and turn around to see Scully grabbing her
service weapon from her desk.

“Take a seat, Alvin,” Mulder offers with naked
hostility.  He sits on the couch; Scully hands him the
gun and picks up their sleeping son from his bassinet,
pressing him close to her as she takes her seat next
to Mulder.

I sit on a chair, facing the three of them across a
coffee table littered with the remains of a takeout
dinner.  They’re such a tenuous family, I think to
myself, and I am about to shatter that.

They are looking at me, expectant and determined, both
in pajamas; one holding a baby and the other, a Sig.

I flash back to Mulder’s funeral, to Scully’s stoicism
and grief, and I clear my throat.

“I don’t know who these men are,” I begin.  “Except
that their clearance is at the highest level, and
authorized by the Defense Intelligence Agency.  I
don’t know how the hell an FBI agent like Agent Crane
ends up with Defense clearance, but I follow orders. 
I think it’s a military habit.”  I pause, and I can
tell this opening has not impressed them.

“I’ve come to know a man by the name of Noel Rohrer.” 
I wait for their reactions; Mulder speaks first.

“Noel Rohrer is dead.”

“In an explosive crash at the FBI garage.  I didn’t
just hear the story from Agent Doggett, Mr. Mulder, I
watched the security tape.  Agent Crane died as well. 
Neither of their bodies has been recovered.”

Scully sucks in a breath; Mulder’s eyes narrow.  The
baby lets out a garbled noise that draws their
attention for a brief second, but he remains asleep,
Scully’s hand patting his back in a thoughtlessly
maternal gesture.

“What does this have to do with our son?” Scully asks,
defensive.

“If you’re asking for their reasoning, I don’t know
it.”  Mulder’s gun hand slides forward against his
flannel-clad leg.  “It all sounds like an X-File to
me.  Aliens and colonization.”  Mulder and Scully both
stiffen at the word.  “Noel Rohrer and Agent Crane’s
object was to prevent your son from being born.  They
were afraid of what he might be.”

“Our son,” Scully says, very slowly, “is perfectly
normal.”

“He wouldn’t be alive if he weren’t, Agent Scully. 
But that doesn’t mean they’re going to leave you
alone.”

“What do they want with him if he’s normal?” Mulder
demands.

“It’s not him they want now, Mr. Mulder.  It’s you.” 
I pause and Scully’s eyes widen as I let this sink in.
 Mulder looks at me in disbelief.

“What do you mean,” Scully asks, and her voice is
controlled like a nuclear reaction.

“Again, I don’t know all of their reasoning.  But they
decided that if your son was normal, then Mulder
remained, biologically, a threat.  One which was to be
eliminated in short order.”

“That’s not a very convincing argument, Mr. Kersh,”
Mulder says calmly, his fingers tracing the barrel of
Scully’s gun.

“I’m aware, Mr. Mulder.”

“Why are you telling us this?”  Scully’s voice is
steel despite her obvious new-mother exhaustion.  

I don’t hesitate.  “My father died when I was very
young.  I’d prefer that your son avoid such a future.”

“So this is out of the goodness of your heart?” 
Mulder’s sarcasm is cutting.

“I know you find it hard to believe, Mr. Mulder, but
my wife will tell you that I do have one.”

Mulder stares at me, and I can tell he is deciding
whether he should shoot me or believe me.  I was the
only black cadet in my class at the Air Force Academy.
 He is less intimidating to me than he’d like to be.

“What are we supposed to do,” Scully asks quietly, and
Mulder looks at her.  I realize from his reaction that
she believes me, or at least she’s afraid not to.

“I don’t know what else you can do except hide,” I
tell them honestly.  “I don’t have a solution for you.
 I can only tell you what I know.”

Mulder is working his jaw; his whole body is tense,
and a vein is bulging in his neck.

“Sir, if I find out you’re setting us up, I will kill
you.”  Scully’s voice is crisp and even from across
her son’s downy head.  

He doesn’t intimidate me, but she scares the hell out
of me.

“I hope then that I’m not, Agent Scully,” I reply,
because I can’t make any promises.

Mulder gets up and starts to pace a track behind the
couch; Scully closes her eyes, presses a kiss to her
son’s head, and says his father’s name.

“I can’t listen to this,” he spits, walking down the
hallway.  I hear a door slam.

Scully looks at me and stands, and I follow suit.

“Goodnight, sir,” she tells me firmly.  I nod and see
myself out, leaving her rooted to the floor and
cradling her son.

IV.

I hear Kersh leave and wait for Scully.  When it
starts to take longer than I expected, I begin to
worry; to wonder if I might’ve lost my sense of her
timing in the months that I was gone.  But then she
opens the door, slowly and deliberately, William in
her arms, and my breath catches.

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed; she stands in
front of me.  I duck my head against her gaze.

“I’m not going anywhere, Scully,” I say, and I can’t
keep the desperation out of my voice.

“Mulder.”  She chokes on my name, but still I can’t
meet her eyes; she lays William on the bed, next to me
but farther from the edge.  Our son.  I reach my hand
out and trace the contours of his tiny, delicate ear.

“Mulder,” she whispers.

Our miracle.

I look at Scully.

“What if he’s right?” she asks me.  Her words are
thick and she is blinking, so I stand and put my arm
on her shoulder, meaning to draw her to me.  She
resists, gazing up at me instead.

“Mulder, I buried you,” she says, quietly and with a
depth of sadness that I can’t stand to hear in her
voice.  “For three months you were dead.  I carried so
much grief, and I can’t – I can’t…” The tears come
now, and she wipes at her eyes.  I’m blinking myself,
but this is her pain.

She gathers herself.  “I can’t ever do that again,
Mulder.  I can’t.”  She starts to cry and I pull her
close to me, holding her as though I could impress a
part of her onto myself.

I’m crying now too, slow tears, and Scully is small
and shaking in my arms.  Maybe I’ll be back in five
weeks, I think to myself.

We stand there, holding each other desperately, until
William bleats with hunger.  Scully pulls away and
sits on the bed, picking him up and unbuttoning her
pajama top.  His mouth finds her nipple and begins to
work it, and even though I’ve seen it before, I think
it is the most amazing thing this world has ever
produced.

I kneel down in front of them and put my left hand
over William’s soft bald head, the pads of my fingers
lightly grazing Scully’s breast.  My right hand curls
over hers, which is gently clutching William’s tight
fist.

My family.

Scully looks up from our nursing son to smile at me, a
sad smile that is so full of love it makes me ache. 
The smile slowly fades, and she looks back down at
William, and I think: we can’t get married now.

Mrs. Scully will be disappointed.

V.

John Doggett is a good man and a determined
investigator.  If he weren’t, I’d be much more
nervous.

I hope that he and Agent Reyes figure out what Noel
Rohrer and Agent Crane were up to – whose authority
they were operating under – because I’d sure as hell
like to know.  In the meantime, I’m opening my own
channels of communication with these people.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to be used.

And I hope that Scully did her part, and got Mulder
out of DC.

I found out earlier today that Skinner’s office has
been searching airline manifests.  I’m pretty sure
that’s on Doggett’s request, and I’m pretty sure I
know the name they’re looking for.

In the last two days I’ve been doing some thinking.  I
called up my own kids, spent some time on the phone
with them in spite of our busy schedules.

If Mulder lives, I hope he does the same one day with
William.


END


And now, the dreaded and overlong Notes…

This is something of a prequel to the “Multiverse”
series, the notes of which indicate I wasn’t going to
write any more fanfic.  Oh well.  Somehow, I got
really interested in Kersh.  Plus, he was really fun
to write; having to imagine James Pickens Jr.
overenunciate every other word made his dialog
entertaining as hell to put to paper (try it as you
read!).  

The timeline: this story occurs in the evening of the
day of the final scene of “Existence”, except for part
V, which occurs on the first day of “NIHT”.  The final
scene of “Existence” is time/date-stamped to occur one
week after Scully gives birth, and “NIHT” is
time/date-stamped to start two days after that. 
Although some of the dialogue in the episode seems to
indicate that the episode occurs two days after Scully
gives birth, I’m going with the time/date-stamping,
because frankly it just makes more sense.

Reality intrudes: I know Georgetown’s law center is
downtown at its own campus, and thus it would not make
sense for Kersh to have an apartment in the
neighborhood of the main campus (especially since it’s
about a hundred times more expensive than the law
center neighborhood).  To make up for that inaccuracy,
I will say that Bistro Med really does exist, and they
were the only place in the area that delivered after
the blizzard last President’s Day.  

I’m not going to call this my last fanfic, especially
since I called my last story that same thing; I didn’t
anticipate getting so interested in Kersh.  Who knows,
maybe I’ll write a story about Reyes someday.  But the
chances are slim.

Feynman Diagrams: Method of the late, great Richard
Feynman to complete the marriage of quantum mechanics
with electromagnetism, giving rise to quantum
electrodynamics.  They’ve very simple pictures to look
at, but they hide a wealth of information and
mathematical complexity.