Title: Back to School
Author: Sarah Segretti
Rating: G
Summary: When maternity leave ends and real life begins.
Spoiler: Daemonicus
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing
Archive: Okay, but ask first
E-mail: mrsblome@aol.com
Author's note: Part of a scullyfic 155-word challenge. 

Back to School
By Sarah Segretti
December 2001

She hadn't expected the class to be so big.

The students stare down at her, waiting, and she feels dazed. Part of that, 
she knows, is  the interrupted sleep. William still wakes at 2 and 4:30 a.m. 
The rest is the disorientation of reeling between two worlds, one furnished 
with dainty cribs and ruffled quilts, the other with blood and death. 

Her son's round face appears in her mind, and she wants to smile. And then 
she thinks of the mobile that spins on its own, and her imagination threatens 
to whirl in unison with it.

She turns her back on the cadets, and writes her name on the blackboard. The 
action centers her a little; she easily deflects a snide comment about 
vampires. She does not mention the wooden stake and the threatened $40 
million lawsuit.

Her heart leaps at a movement at the top of the stairs. But she knows better, 
even as she briefly hopes.

She knows it's the wrong man.

-30-