Rating: PG-13

Summary: Embryos and dinner.

Spoilers: Nah.
 

ALLY:

April 1, 2001

"You have some viable embryos."

I'm sitting at my desk at work; I've just gotten here, and already Dr. Shalad has called us to inform us. I'm almost in shock.

"We could implant them this afternoon. The sooner the better."

"All right. Let me see if my husband can come with me."

"That, of course, would be preferable, but if not, come by yourself. Oh, and by the way, you'll be here for a couple of hours, just like the last time."

"All right." I notice my hands aren't terribly steady right now.

At least I'm on school break, so I'll still have time to satisfy my employer...which will be all the more critical, as Dana is coming back to work in two weeks.

I call Langly. One of the benefits of his new boss, for me at least, is that he's not allowed to keep the phone on voice mail all day. So after three rings, he picks up.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself. We have, in Dr. Shalad's words, some viable embroyos."

"Cool!" I can hear pure pleasure in his voice. "So like when do you get shot up?"

Hmm...somehow, I think I'd have chosen a different description...

"This afternoon, right after lunch. You coming?"

"Shit. Can't. I'm getting hassled as is for taking so much time off. You gonna be okay?"

"I think so. If I'm not, believe me, you'll hear about it."

"That I'm sure of," he laughs. "Seriously, you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine." Whether I will be or not isn't relevant. I'll just be fine.

"Okay. Well, I'm crossing my fingers."

"You're not the only one."

"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if it happened this time?"

Somehow, I'm skeptical. Not just because of statistical odds, but because, it's April Fools Day.

How fitting.
 

MICHAEL:

I wake up. God, how long was I asleep? Looks like it's not morning anymore.

I look down, and I see a pair of bright blue eyes look up at me. They're smiling that sweet, mysterious smile women get when they're happy.

"Whatcha thinking about?" I ask her.

"Hmm...I don't know. Lunch?"

"Lunch works."

"But we have to get up if we're gonna get lunch."

"I know. Tough, isn't it?"

She's not kidding.

Nope, I think I'll just stay here forever.

"Feel like swimming?" She asks.

I've been swimming...all morning.

And it was incredible.

Swear to God, I love anything wet.

But nothing more than her.

"Sure, we can do that."

"Well, we can't lie in bed all day."

"Why not?"

"Because I heard your dad and Jo come back."

OH SHIT. I am doomed now.

"When?"

"They've been here a little while. I just didn't want to get up."

Yep, I'll go with that.

"So what do we do now?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"Look, they're gonna know. We might as well walk down together. But we should probably put some clothes on."

She giggles a little. Funny, she never giggles in Virginia.

But it's vacation.

I just hope that when we get back, she'll still want me this much.

God, why do we have to ever go home?

Fortunately, we got a few more days. We're not going home till Saturday.

I hope Dad starts enjoying this trip before it gets to be Saturday.
 

MELVIN, HAVING A BEER AND BEING UTTERLY RESIGNED TO HIS FATE AS THE FATHER OF A NON-VIRGIN:

I hear them coming down. No pretenses about it, at least. They're not pretending they haven't done the deed.

Even had they not come down together, hand in hand like they are right now, even had I not seen them asleep in the bed that once was Dee's and mine, I'd know.

They're glowing.

I'm half expecting them to announce to me that they've done it.

But instead, they sit down by me and just smile.

I look at my son's face, and I see my own. The same radiant light that wrapped me when Dee and I consummated.

Even the gestures are the same. He slips his arm over Kelly's shoulder, and she leans into him, the same way Dee fell into me after our first encounter.

The first time is always amazing. Generally, the sex is incredible, partially as a result of fantasies that have been playing at the mind for so long, and the simple pent-up physical demand.

But in a way, the first time is also something that has to be done, gotten out of the way, as a prelude to more complicated and wonderful things.

Like making love.
 

ALLY:

I'm really nervous, waiting here at Dr. Shalad's clinic, alone.

I really need Langly to be here with me, but if he were here, he might not have a job to go to.

Not a welcome prospect if your plan is to become parents.

True, we can afford financially for him to lose this job...mentally, it's another matter.

All I have to do is think about Dana and Mulder. They're certainly far from starving, but I think if Dana should murder him soon, no jury in the world will convict her.

I finally get called, handed the smock that never covers what you want it to, and get changed.

This is not the most dignified of procedures. Think gynecological exam, multiply by a factor of 20, and you have roughly the pleasure factor involved here.

Finally, Dr. Shalad bustles in, garbed up surgically as she was for the harvesting. She explains that this is going to feel very cold and might be uncomfortable. And I might have some cramping.

All of the above is such an understatement, one could almost claim it's an April Fools' trick.

Once again, I'm crying. It hurt badly enough that I find myself practicing the Lamaze breathing I haven't done since I had Miranda.

Well, it could be a useful skill again...
 

MICHAEL:

I'm expecting Dad to kick our butts, but he doesn't say anything. He looks kind of, well, wistful.

Maybe he's thinking about Dee.

I bet they did it in this house. He hasn't said, but I bet they did it here.

I wonder if they had their first time here.

I wonder about a lot of things about him.

What it was like when he worked at AT&T. When he got caught. When he got tried and sent to Club Fed, which is the only thing he ever calls it. When he and my mom split. When she cut him off from us. What he did in 'Nam.

I don't even know what he did there. I don't know what kind of position he even held. Where he was.

Never saw a picture of him in uniform. I wonder if any exist. Or if he kept them.

He's got pictures of Les and me, I bet he has every one he ever had. He's got pictures of Dee-I notice when I asked him about her, didn't take him long to find them. He's even got his wedding picture of him and Mom-he doesn't keep it out, but he's still got it.

I'm so lost in it all that I just about jump when I hear something go SNAP!

It's Jo, and she's taking pictures, and it looks like she just nailed Kelly and me real good. I don't really like people taking my picture, but I want to see what Kelly and me look like together, so we ham it up for her, we're goofing off. And we drag Dad into it. He doesn't want to do it, but we make him.

Jo's got one of those disposable cameras, she says she's gonna take it to one-hour photo tomorrow and then we'll look at the shots. She uses up the whole thing on us.

Kodak moments. We have 'em. Even us Frohikes.
 

Dad's turn to cook tonight, but he's tired, he's wimping out. Says he'll take us all out.

Kelly's eyes light up. She loves decent restaurants. And no matter how poor the Frohikes are, we always manage to eat good. Plus, he's been doing stuff for Miss Russell, and she pays good.

So he takes us to the fish market, and it's busy even on a weeknight in the off-season, so we sit in the bar for a while. I ask Kelly if she minds if I have a beer, I don't usually drink when I'm with her, but they have Sam Adams here. She says it's fine, she really only objects if I drink and drive.

I haven't done it with her...can't say I've never done it, though.

Dad orders a J&B neat, Jo gets a glass of white zinfandel, and Kelly asks for mineral water with limes in it. I watch her sucking on her lime wedges and I find myself getting hopelessly horny again. I've already had a pretty good demonstration of what she can do with her mouth.

Dad and Jo get oysters on the half-shell. Yuck. I'm sorry, I can't do cold fish. I tell Kelly this, she laughs, and Dad asks her if she wants to try one.

Kelly will try anything once. She does.

She makes the most horrible funny face. I think we feel the same way about cold fish.

It's a long wait for a table, but it's fun in the bar. Dad's in a lot better mood.

Good thing Jo's his bud. She seems like she can deal with him.

We get a table, and we order up buckets of crab legs, and we get cole slaw and cornbread and fries with it. Pretty soon we've got this monster pile of crab shells in the middle of the table. It's great, you can eat real sloppy here, everybody does. And everything's delicious.

And Dad actually talks to Kelly. Like she's got brains or something. He asks her about her plans, what school she's gonna transfer to for upper division, what kind of specialties she'd like to go into, how her research work is going. And he listens to her.

I think he's impressed.

I get sort of embarrassed when she starts talking about me to him, though. No, she didn't say anything about THAT! But still.

"Michael's so talented and intelligent," she takes my hand when she says this, it's a gesture that's intimate-and very possessive.

I love it. Even though I'm squirming.

Dad just nods. I mean, don't expect my dad to go off and say something like he agrees with her!

"And he's a GREAT teacher. I would have never made sense of calculus, and I'm already swimming pretty good, and he's the only reason I'm getting an A in my comp class."

I really need another crab leg. I don't have room for it in my stomach, but I need something to do here.

"I think he should think about teaching for a living," Kelly tells my dad, and she's got this little note in her voice like, yes, I've made up my mind for him.

I didn't realize this aspect of her before...hmm.

Dad doesn't say anything.

"He's done some wonderful writing," Jo agrees with her. "Your dad has shown me all your pieces."

Oh God. You're kidding. He not only keeps my pieces, but shows them off?!

Who knew?

"Melvin, admit it, your son is very smart and very talented," Jo's back to her matter-of-fact type voice.

Dad is on the spot here, and he mumbles something like, yeah, a talent for getting into trouble.

But I also see him smile that faint little smile he gets when he's pleased about something. Yeah, you just told him how great his kid was, and he's not gonna say anything, but I think he's real happy.

But he's not gonna tell me, not in front of the ladies. I mean, we're guys, for Chrissakes. We don't do that in public.

Kelly wants to know where Jo did her nursing training, and Jo did hers in her hometown, at Johns Hopkins, and that's where Kelly wants to go to med school, so she's like real interested in hearing all about it. She has lots of funny stories about how she would screw up certain stuff-she used to torture people trying to put in IV's, because it took her so long to get it right, and she says she still couldn't draw blood very well even after she did it for years. Her story about trying to get a Foley catheter into a 82-year-old dude for the first time, well, Dad and me, we're like, we're trying to eat here.

And they both laugh at us.

Kelly asks Dad where he went to school-he went to University of Maryland for undergrad, went to Rutgers to do his grad work when he came back from overseas. Never got his PhD, because he didn't finish his dissertation, but that's all he had left.

At least I knew this about him before she did. I don't know a whole lot more. I know he went to Catholic school for 12 years.

She asks Dad if he minds telling her how he financed his education-I mean, Dad is not from bucks. His dad died when he was eight, and his mom was a seamstress, so it's not like they had any money or anything.

"I was Army ROTC as an undergrad, and that paid my tuition. For my graduate degrees, I went on the GI Bill."

Kelly's musing over this. "Hmm. Do you think if I joined the military, they might pay for my schooling? I mean, I've got lots of years left, I don't have money-"

"NO." Dad and Jo say this together. "Beg, borrow, steal, whatever. Work three jobs. Give up sleeping. Make Michael give it to you. Ask Allison. But absolutely, positively, do NOT join the military." Dad is like super definite on this.

Kelly's about to ask him why, but I shoot her this look like, don't ask him that right now. Not here.

I'd like to know myself, but I want him to tell me, himself, in private. And he won't give any real info here if we've got the ladies around. I mean, I'm sure Jo knows. They talk about this stuff, I'm sure of it. But Dad's gonna lock down tight if she starts digging into his military background, and he's been so fun tonight, I don't wanna break the spell.

Jo helps me out on this. "Kelly, there are lots of grant and loan programs they never tell you about, and you have to do some digging, but they are out there. Believe me, if you're qualified for medical school, you'll go."

This makes Kelly look pretty happy. I know she worries about dollars a lot.

"And seriously, if all else fails, or even if it doesn't, ask Ally," Jo advises. "She'd probably be delighted to help you out. She's that way."

"She's pretty neat," Kelly agrees. "She's been real good to me. Although lately, she's getting all these hormones and stuff to get pregnant, and it's rough on her. I think she cries every single day."

"I'd cry, too, if I was married to her husband," Dad quips.

"Oh, he's nice, he just teases a lot. Sometimes I think he does it just to get a reaction," Kelly tells him.

"Oh, that he does," Dad assures her. "He's a royal pain in the ass."

"And you love him," Jo says to him.

Dad just groans. Yeah, he loves the dude. Byers too. They're like his sons also. And they're like older brothers to me.

Sometimes, like real older brothers, they drive me nuts. I'm glad they're not on this trip. I know if Langly was here, I'd get kidded up the ass about being with Kelly and what we were doing. I know what he's gonna ask me as soon as we get back. He's gonna look at me and grin and go, "Well?" And I know full on well what he means.

Haven't decided what I'll tell him. If I tell him anything. I'd sort of like to keep him guessing. Drive HIM nuts for a while.

Kelly looks down at her plate, she's sort of pushing her leftovers around like, I really wanna eat this stuff but I don't have any room left in me.

"You know, Dr. Shalad's clinic has one of the best IVF success rates in the country," she tells us proudly. I think she likes being matched up with a winner. "People come from all over to her clinic. We have people from Europe and Australia come."

"Very impressive," Dad says.

"But with Ally, well, I hate to tell her this, but we don't have much luck with women her age in getting them pregnant. I think she wants this baby so bad, and I don't know what she'll do if it doesn't happen." Kelly's thinking now. And being a grownup.

I think Dad's sort of impressed.

Jo's the one that speaks up. "Truthfully, I haven't talked to her that much about it. But it's my impression she wants this child because he wants it. I think she's very reluctant myself."

"She's been a mother. She knows the drill." That's Dad's input.

"I don't think it's that," Jo shakes her head. "I think she likes being a mother, very much. But I get the impression she has serious misgivings."

"He doesn't," I add.

"He's put all his eggs in this basket-pardon the metaphor," Dad looks over at Jo. "I think he needs a reality check here."

"Have you talked to him?" Jo asks.

Dad shakes his head no. "There is no talking to him right now."

Kelly looks up at Dad again. "I think this is why I'd rather do surgery." She laughs, but she's not really kidding. "Being in this kind of work, I think being with people who are so emotional all the time-I don't know how Dr. Shalad does it. I like learning the research, and it'll look great on my CV, but at least I know this isn't what I want to do."

"Then it's been valuable," Dad tells her. Then he looks over at me. "I hope that working at TMB has shown you a few things."

Oh, it has. But not the way you want it to, Dad.

"I think I'd rather see you do anything else but journalism," Dad tells me.

Having him put it in those terms, well, it comes off a bit harsh.

"I like doing it."

"Yes, but you don't always like what you see, do you?"

Well, he's right about that. But hey, it's important to do it. Get the real truth out there.

And while I think there are plenty of people too stupid to live-and a lot of them go to my school-I mostly think people want to think for themselves. They don't want to be led around like sheep.

But I don't want to argue with Dad tonight. It's been too great. So I'm gonna bite my tongue till it bleeds.

He can find out later I'm thinking about declaring it as my major.
 

Hanging on the porch, we get to see stars tonight. It's not as cold as it was the last couple nights.

Dad and Jo have the rockers, Kelly and me sit on the steps and we've got our arms around each other. Every now and then she flashes me this look, it's like, I love you and you're MINE.

I wonder how she'll be when we get back. She's always so independent at home.

But that's one of the things I like about her.

Course, I like this part of her, too. I don't feel so guilty then about feeling like I want her as all mine.

I want her to feel like I'm hers. Because I am. I'd like to quit worrying that she's gonna see me for all I am and decide, no fucking way.

I think that would kill me.

What amazes me is how much she admires me. I can't believe anybody could admire me, but she does. And it always surprises me. I always figured myself to be a mercy case. I figured that's why she talked to me in the first place. Probably felt sorry for me.

But amazingly, she doesn't see me like that.

She thinks I'm totally cool.

Maybe if she thinks it long enough, I'll start thinking I'm totally cool.

Nah.
 

MELVIN, FULL OF CRAB LEGS:

That was the best meal I've had in ages. I do so love crustaceans, but even more, the company was delightful.

I have to say I'm a little more impressed with my son's young lady.

I still worry about them. Their age difference is still a concern to me. I worry about how they will relate as the pressure increases, and it will. And now, I get to worry about contraceptive failure.

I hope the young lady is as conscientious about taking her pills as she is about studying. My son is not ready to be a father.

Ready or not, though, he has become a lover, and it's a strange sensation to realize this about your child.

One thing I will say for Kelly: she will do whatever needs to be done. She went into therapy because it needed doing. She studies when she'd rather be playing because it has to be done. And I suspect she will put up with my son's moods and volatility because if she wants to be with him, it's part of the job description. She seems to not be deterred by discomfort. I watch her in the water, struggling to learn to swim, and she will keep at it, even though she has to have become cold and tired long before she stops.

She is not the warmest person I have ever met, nor the most expressive, but perhaps this is good. And she is expressive with Michael. She seems to not be fearful of showing him how much she cares for him.

And she does care for him. I'm forced to admit that.

I think what is more terrifying for me is that she is, in spite of her youth, the stronger half of the pair.

I would like to have passed that strength and resolve to my son, but how do you do that when you don't have it in the first place?

My greatest fear is that I will be exposed to my son for the fraud I am. Pretending to be his father, strong and resolute, when in fact, I'm shaking in my boots most of the time.

Hell, I can't even stand to get my feet wet.

Maybe he already knows. He is a perceptive child.

No. Quit thinking of him as a child. He is not.

But he will always be my child.

He has no idea how much I need that.

I told you, I'm a coward. I truly am.

END OF PART 84