This story takes place immediately after
the last scene of Memento Mori, and attempts to answer the
question, "What the hell was Mulder doing with those
eggs????"
This is the only civilized explanation which comes even remotely
close to working for me.
Feel free to play with this story to your heart's content.
However, please do let me see it before you post addendums!
If I like what you write, I'll post it here and give you a
byline. I don't have time to collate story right now, so if
you're working on it, do please collate things before you send
them to me.
I'd rather work on a whole than have to glue it together right
now.
This is an idea that I had right around the time I started Facing
Janus. It got swept to the side by that major project.
Embryo:
"You know, don't you, that you may be holding her only
chance at fertility in your hands." Byers' soft words jolted
Mulder visably.
"She assumes that the treatments will make her
infertile..."
He looked down at the vial he'd taken from his pocket. When he'd
placed it there, the cold had been intense, numbing him. He
hadn't noticed when it faded. There was still a chill to the
vial, but it had warmed, the white substance inside now moved as
the vial moved.
"It's not frozen anymore. Do you think the eggs are still
viable?"
Langly sat down at one of the many computers scattered around the
room. His fingers flew over the keys as he queried search
engines, searching for information.
Mulder came around and looked at the screen.
"Cyropreservation of cow embryos?" he said
incredulously.
Langly laughed. "Veterenary medicine tends to be about five
to ten years ahead of what is available to the general human
population through fertility clinics. And I thought you'd
probably want to avoid fertility clinics, given their, uh,
questionable affiliations with the Consortium." He looked up
at Mulder through his thick glasses.
Mulder nodded vigorously.
He scrolled down to a phone number on the screen. "I think I
know someone who can help us."
~~~~
"Hey Angie! Langly here!"
"Yeah... I know it's been a while...You still doing the vet
stuff?"
"How'd I get your number? You know me Ang..."
"Wait.. hang on.. I've got a project I think you'll be
interested in."
"No, I'm not married."
"No, I'm not stalking you."
"Dinner? Sure.. but can you answer me a sort of hypothetical
question?"
<pause>
"Not hypothetical at all, actually... but very, very
strange.."
"If someone had frozen human ova, and they accidentally got
thawed, could they be refrozen?"
"Shit. Is there any way of preserving them?"
Langly gestured for a pen, and began taking notes.
"Okay, so here's the big question... Can you do that?"
"No, not hypothetically."
"Dinner will be *very* nice, I promise."
"We're on our way."
He scribbled out an address on the paper. Byers looked at it and
began throwing equipment back into the packs.
As he did so, Mulder held up the vial to the dim lightbulb
hanging from
the ceiling. The liquid was opaque, and water was condensing on
the
glass. <Please, let this work.>
~~~~
They go, and arrive at the lab within an hour, with the vial in a
thermos of ice water.
The friend takes the vial, and immediately puts it in a
centerfuge, then takes the core out of the centerfuge, and places
something from it in the middle of a medium in a petri dish. She
then places the dish under a microscope designed for the purpose,
and searches the disturbed surface in the middle of the dish
systematically. She finds that there are about a dozen eggs,
several of them visibly damaged (cell walls ruptured). They
appear to her to be about two days from maturation.
She explains the options.
~~~
"Okay, there seem to be about dozen eggs. I'm guessing that
a third to a half of them aren't viable. They're all about two
days from maturation. We can't refreeze them now, we'd lose the
whole batch. However, if they are fertilized, we can freeze the
resulting embryos easily." She stopped for a moment. "I
can handle it all here, except for one part. We'll need donor
human sperm, as all I have here comes from very highly regarded
bulls."
The Lone Gunmen turned in unison to Mulder, who paled visibly.
Frohike laughed at his expression, "I'd volunteer, Mulder,
but I don't think Agent Scully wants to bear my children."
"Come on Mulder, make the sacrifice!" Langly grinned at
him.
"But..." Mulder hesitated. "What if she doesn't
want..."
Byers stopped him. "Look at it this way, Mulder. If you and
she ever end up together, she won't mind a bit. If she ends up
with someone else, you tell her about the embryos, and say that
you used sperm from an anonymous donor. Even if she figures it
out, she'll understand. And if..." Byers voice dropped,
softening, "If she doesn't make it, it's a moot point."
~~~~
"Okay. Here's the plan. We have two days until the eggs
mature.
That'll be Thursday. I'll need the sperm Wednesday afternoon, and
I'll do the procedure the next morning as soon as the eggs have
matured." She turned to look at Mulder, a wry smile on her
face. "Mulder? We don't have the same... ah... *facilities*
as human fertility clinics, so you'll... have to bring your own
materials."
Frohike made a strangled choking sound, then gave up the attempt
and burst into a fit of giggling(laughter?). Byers and Langley
rolled their eyes in unison. Angie looked from one to the other,
confused.
"Mulder has a... rather extensive collection of such
materials," Langley said with a grin.
~~~~
Mulder provides the sample, while looking at a magazine, but does
not pay much attention to what's on the page in front of him.
Images of Scully flash through his head, and he forces himself to
remember not the pale, ill Scully he's just seen, but the Scully
he saw in the Pilot with her robe dropped...
Back in the lab, they all watch on the monitor as Mulder's sperm
is carefully injected into each of the 8 eggs which have made it
to maturity. Langly makes some snide comment about the motility
of Mulder's sperm, to be silenced by a look that could kill from
Mulder and a retort from Byers about the "dignity of the
moment."
Angie tells them that it's just a matter of time, letting them
get to the 8 cell stage, and then freezing the surviving embryos.
She tells them they can go, the LGM leave, Langly asking Angie to
come share a pizza with them. She walks out with them for a
minute, leaving Mulder still staring at the screen. Angie walks
back in to take care of things and lock up, sees him looking, and
asks him what he's thinking about, looking at his potential
future children.
He answers that he's just wondering how long it will be until
those eggs have a chance, if they will have a chance....
She tells him that she'll call him when they know how many have
fertilized, that in the meantime he needs to make arrangements
for storage.
~~~~~
Mulder leaves with the LGM, asking if they know where to find a
small cyropreservation unit. Frohike 'fesses up to the fact that
he has one already, which he got for the express purpose of
having his head frozen in the event of his death. Turns out to be
not terribly useful as he couldn't find anyone willing to chop
off his head and maintain the storage after his death, and also,
realizing that the available techniques for brain tissue
preservation would make the exercise simply a prolonged way of
making his dead brains turn to jello. <and they're not
already?> Being the packrat he is, he couldn't just throw the
unit away or sell it, but he'd be happy to donate it for such a
worthy cause.
Byers asks where Mulder wants to store the embryos, given the
fact that he can't even keep goldfish alive. They come up with
something, {I havent' yet} and start making calls. Their goal is
to find someone trustworthy, where deliveries of fresh liquid
nitrogen would not be noticed. They want as little attention as
possible to this.
~~~~
A couple of days later, they return to the university,
supercooler in tow, and Angie shows them the developing eggs. 4
have made it to the 8 cell stage. Another 2 have 4 cells each.
One has only two cells, and the last didn't divide at all. All in
all a very good result, much better than expected. (It would be
normal for 1 to be a 8 cell, 2 or 3 to have 4 cells, and for the
rest to be 2 cells or no development at all.) They decide to
freeze the six that have 4 cells or more. She uses her pipettes
to separate the eggs and prepare them for storage, inserting them
into a glycol and nutrient contaioing medium, and freezing them
too rapidly for ice crystals to form. Each goes into it's own
vial, and the vials are in a circular device which Angie then
lowers into a clamp inside a small "thermos" like
device, which in turn fits inside the cooler they've provided.
They take it to the pre-arranged long-term storage place.
Character notes:
Character:
Angie Haldess
Age: 30 ish, 'bout the same age as Langly.
Background: attended college with Langly, until he dropped out to
pursue his other interests, namely, hacking and gaming.
Currently a veterinary lab technician, working at a research
facility in Philadelphia.
Personality: She likes Langly, doesn't take him very seriously,
takes her work quite seriously, and has a playful sense of humor.
Very business like in general, and extremely competent. She's
really more Byer's type....
Appearance: Straight, longish medium brown hair, braided. No
makeup, doens't need it. Not "gorgeous", but beautiful
in that she isn't really aware of her looks at all, and wears her
face honestly. Light brown eyes.
***
Outline
Langly calls Angie Haldess, an old girlfriend, and after brief
banter, outlines the problem. Angie is now working at a lab which
specializes in high-tech animal husbandry.
Angie hears their dilemma, tells them to put the vial in a
cooler, with ice, but not in direct contact with the ice, and to
come immediately to her lab, which is located just outside
Philly. (about an hour drive from allentown).
Jenrose@jenrose.com