By Falling In And In - 1/5
SUMMARY: Things go AU after DeadAlive, and Scully must answer the following question: "So what do you want to do? Do you want to live separately? Do you want a place together? A creampuff wedding gown and a Barbie Dream House in Reston?"
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Through DeadAlive
DISCLAIMER: Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Proceed at your own risk. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. For recreational purposes only. Driver does not carry cash. And, as always, thank you for choosing Aloysia Airlines for your direct flight from 1013 to fanfic.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Writing this story was a really interesting experience, because it deals with Mulder and Scully raising William together and I am not so much a fan of either AU or familyfic. But I did want to try my hand at writing one, and surprised myself by having a lot of fun with it. It was also a good chance to revisit the Charlie I wrote for Love's Austere And Lonely Offices. As mentioned in the summary, this pretty much goes AU from DeadAlive. I imagined Mulder having been in a coma for a week or so, then spending a few days at the hospital, then coming home.
CSM quotes Johnny Tremain without troubling himself to mention it.
Many, many thanks to Amanda for telling me I could do it, to Dasha for encouraging the first draft, and to Scarlet for kicking my ass on a fairly regular basis.
****
Most Like An Arch This Marriage
by John Ciardi
Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch - two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what's strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another's sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.
****
April 7th, 2001
Scully is in the kitchen rinsing lettuce when there is a knock at her door. She dries her hands before making her way to the entry, still not entirely used to the amount of space she now occupies. A glance through the peephole reveals Mulder, who looks uncomfortable. She opens the door. "Mulder, come in. I was just getting dinner together."
"Oh. Well, if it's a bad time I can go." He sounds nearly hopeful.
"Not at all."
"Uh, okay then." He walks in and pushes the door shut, seeming uncertain of himself.
"Have a seat. I just want to go check the oven." She disappears into the kitchen for a moment.
Mulder sits on the couch, looking around the room as though it is entirely unfamiliar to him. His right leg bounces like a jackhammer and he whistles a few bars of Freefalling before turning his attention to the rake in Scully's tabletop Zen garden. He traces four circles around a reddish rock, then lines the pebbles up by size.
When she returns to the living room, Scully settles on the loveseat and props her feet on the coffee table. "So," she says. "What's up?"
"You're pregnant," Mulder blurts out.
She looks amused. "I'd noticed that."
He coughs. "Yes, well. It's rather difficult to avoid noticing, isn't it? Because you look as though you have - snake-like - swallowed an object several times the size of your own head. So I am assuming there are things we should discuss."
"Discuss?"
Mulder gives her an exasperated look. "Scully? This isn't some meeting with Skinner you're bullshitting your way through, okay? I realize that this is hideously awkward, but let's pretend for a moment that our prior pattern of sexual congress wasn't interrupted for several months by my death."
"I didn't know in Bellefleur, if that's what you're wondering."
"I hoped not."
"I would have told you. And I wouldn't have been so careless with myself."
He draws a stick figure in the sand with the handle of the rake. "Okay. Scully, do you think it's related to what happened to you out there?"
"What, you think the next generation of Mulders wanted an early start on the alien abduction?"
Mulder laughs once and then repeats, "The next generation of Mulders" in an odd voice.
"Oh, come on. You can't have actually thought otherwise?" She is scoffing, but there is a note of uncertainty in her voice.
"No. But it's different to hear you say it. This has been the elephant in the room for almost a week now."
She gets to her feet, walks to the couch, then lowers herself next to Mulder. She pokes him in the ribs. "Elephant? I won't sit idly by as you call me names."
"Your girth is impressive."
"You can't really be single, can you?"
"I guess that's the next question, isn't it?" he says, looking down at his hands.
She smiles in a distant way. "You were dead until fifteen days ago. Maybe you should take it slow before you go trying to make an honest woman of me."
"Are you saying you don't want me around? Come to think of it, you have been acting peculiar."
"Peculiar? Mulder, how on earth is one supposed to act in such bizarre circumstances? I apologize for not talking about this sooner, but you were in a coma." She bites her lip and gazes at her rounded abdomen. "I don't want you to make promises that are too hard to keep. You…you have a habit of disappearing."
He bristles. "Well, excuse the hell out of me. I haven't been on a sightseeing tour of Europe, you realize. Perhaps at some point while they were slicing my chest open or drilling my teeth I was over Europe, but close only counts in horseshoes and grenades."
She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry. That's not what I meant."
Mulder sighs. "Look, I understand your concerns. I do. But I think maybe we've found all we're meant to find."
Scully eyes him warily. "Mulder, don't - "
"What else can I hope to discover? I have proof of both the existence of extraterrestrial life and the government's conspiracy to cover up that fact. My entire family is dead. Maybe this is another chance."
She turns to him and takes his hand. "Mulder, I can't be your savior."
"Some Catholic you are."
Scully chuckles as she leans against his arm. "I mean it. I want you here. I want you involved. But this isn't going to be a grand quest. It's going to be late nights and early mornings and tedious repetition. It's not a means to an end. It's a journey."
"I know."
Scully runs her forefinger over his knuckles. "Do you? There's not going to be any more dashing off to Oregon or Puerto Rico or God knows where. Can you live like that? Can you really let these things go?"
He is silent.
"Because if you can't," she continues, "I can accept that. I know who you are and I knew it when I asked you to help with the fertility treatments. I knew it when I started sleeping with you. But what I can't accept is the possibility that - however well-meaning you are at this moment - you're going to promise me that you'll stay and then leave again when something irresistible pops up."
Mulder exhales slowly, weighing what may be against what is. What he may find against what he has found already. "I can let it go."
Scully believes that he believes himself and is touched. "Well," she says. "Well, okay then."
He reaches out to stroke her hair. "So what do you want to do? Do you want to live separately? Do you want a place together? A creampuff wedding gown and a Barbie Dream House in Reston?"
She snorts. "Spare me. I don't know. I mean, I had planned to just stay here. It's near my mother, it's near work."
He looks puzzled. "Near work? I thought you were thinking about teaching at Quantico."
"I was, but it's an hour away and I don't want to deal with the commute."
"My will, Scully. You know there's no need for you to -"
"Well, you're not dead anymore," she says sharply. "I've already contacted your attorney about having the money transferred back to you."
He looks shocked. "What? Why? I don't want it. I didn't want it before and I don't want it now. You know as well as I do how my parents ended up with it. That was emergency money. It was Go-To-Antarctica money. We don't have to go back to work until we feel like it, if at all. The interest alone is -"
Scully does not want to discuss this further. She taps her forefinger against her thumbnail. "There's more to my not teaching at Quantico than just the commute. Rumor has it that a Supervisory Special Agent position at the DC Field Office is going to open up in August and that my name's on the short list. Actually, I heard my name is the short list."
Mulder whistles. "Day-um. Who've you been making friends with while I was away?"
She ducks her head, but is clearly pleased. "You're not upset, are you? I mean, that I won't be returning to the X-Files? This is just such a huge opportunity for me."
"I'd say you've served your time down there. Especially since I ended up corrupting you."
"Mmm. It turned out okay, as far as punishment assignments go."
"Gee, thanks." He slides a tentative hand over her belly. "Scully? How did this happen?"
Her eyebrow arches like a cat.
"I mean, I know how," he amends. "But I thought you …"
"Me too. Mulder, when I was in Africa I saw things that I still can't explain. That craft, the ship - whatever it was - it seemed to have…regenerative powers of some kind. And I touched it."
"And you think it may have somehow restored your ability to conceive?" He chooses his words carefully. One wrong step and Scully will retreat to the safety of her hallowed skepticism.
She shrugs. "I don't know what I'm saying. Maybe there's not an easy answer. I had a vision of some sort on that journey. Of a man. He said some truths are not for me to know."
"And you can accept that?"
"I'm pregnant, Mulder. What is there to accept or not accept? I have had ultrasounds and an amniocentesis and this child is perfectly normal in every way. You told me never to give up on a miracle. So yes, I suppose I can accept the rest on faith."
Neither one of them mentions the fact that their world is full of stones better left unturned. Emily-stones.
"Do you think it means anything with regard to your cancer? The chip in your neck?"
She runs a finger over the scar. "I'm certainly not going to chance finding out the hard way."
He nods. "I think that's for the best."
She squeezes his hand, then slips an arm behind his back. "I missed you. Sometimes I had these…experiences where I swear I could hear you."
"I had them too." He pulls her close and rests his cheek on top of her head. "Thank you for feeding my fish. They said to tell you hi."
She smiles against his shirt. "Why don't you bring them over here, Mulder? They could make themselves comfortable if they wanted to. I have a little drawer where I could keep their things."
"I'd miss them terribly."
"Well, you could come too. I have a little drawer where I could keep your things as well."
He takes her by the shoulders and sits back, holding her at arms' length. "Dana Scully. Are you asking me to shack up with you?"
She blushes. "It seems the next logical step on my wanton path, now that you've gone and ruined me."
He cups her face in his hands. "You've just made my landlord the happiest man in the world."
****
May 26th, 2001
"Is it possible for him to be absorbing any nutrition at all, Scully? Is it normal for babies to dirty diapers at such an alarming rate? I feel like the EPA is going to issue us a citation if this keeps up."
Scully yawns, watching Mulder snap William's rubbery pink legs back into his overalls. "Yes, it's perfectly normal. Put those little mitts back over his hands. He keeps clawing at his face. And he pinches me when he eats."
William, now six days old, squirms as his small fists are covered up. Mulder scoops the baby from the kitchen table and deposits him in the sleek black bouncer seat on the floor. "Look at the bears, William," he says. "Red, blue, yellow."
"His color vision won't be that developed for at least another week," Scully observes.
William burps as Mulder bounces the chair with his foot. "I have to tell you, the temptation to use this as a catapult is overwhelming at times. Where's that stupid musical dog?"
"The one that hasn't shut up for two days? Even when we took the batteries out?"
"Yes."
"Trash."
"Your mother is a very sensible woman," he informs his son. "Look, this says Baby Bjorn. That means bear, William. This is a multicultural chair you have. It's Swedish."
"He's a Flavenwilliam," says Scully.
"Does that mean we have to buy a Volvo?"
They are interrupted by a knock at the door. Mulder gets to his feet to answer the door. William drools at the bears, his eyes crossing now and again. Scully looks over the back of the couch as Walter Skinner enters, carrying a large wrapped box. "Congratulations," he says.
Mulder accepts the parcel and sets it on the end table. "Thanks. You didn't have to bring anything, though. We got the official Bureau snack basket. Scully ate all the pralines and yogurt-covered raisins and I think most of the dried fruit, but some of the little cookies are left. Or did you attack those too, Scully?"
"I didn't eat all of that," Scully says indignantly. "We've had company."
"She did," Mulder asserts. "Coffee?"
Skinner shrugs out of his coat and drapes it over the armrest. "Coffee would be good. Black." Mulder nods and heads to the kitchen. Skinner walks around to peer down at William, who has worked one mitt off. "Congratulations, Scully. How are you feeling? He's a pretty big guy."
"I eat all my veggies," says Mulder, returning with a mug of coffee, which he hands to Skinner.
"You're hilarious, really," says Scully. "I'm good, thank you. It was a fairly easy delivery, though he was eight pounds, six ounces at birth. He lost a little weight at the hospital, but he eats very well and is developing as he should. Excellent rooting reflex." She sticks her leg out to stroke the bottom of William's foot with her toe. His own tiny toes splay. "Proper Babinski sign. He's a textbook baby. I've run him through the full battery."
"She was a terror at the hospital," Mulder remarks as he sits down. "I thought they were going to put her under general anesthesia just to shut her up. You can sit, by the way."
Skinner perches at the edge of the loveseat, then reaches forward to touch William's hand. "Hey," he says, as William grabs his finger. "He has a good grip. You going to let him do some dry-firing and join the family business?"
"We're going to wait until he weans."
Skinner smiles, spinning the bears for William, whose eyes cross again.
"Do you want to hold him?" asks Scully, aware that sometimes people do not want to Hold The Baby and that such a question puts them in an awkward position. But something tells her that Skinner would like to.
"Sure." He sits back, watching Scully lift William out. He accepts the warm little body and cradles him comfortably. "My sister has four kids," he says, though whether the remark is designed to reassure himself, William's parents, or William is unclear. He touches the tip of the tiny nose.
"So tell me about the position at the DC Field Office," says Scully. "Still looking like August?"
"How many people will she get to boss around?" Mulder inquires. "That's what really matters to her."
Skinner smoothes his hand over William's downy head, petting him like a cat. "In all the years that I have known them, your parents have done nothing but raise exasperating questions. Scully, the position - which has not officially been posted and therefore cannot be officially discussed - will become available in mid-August. They are very keen to have a female Supervisory Special Agent and your forensic background is most desirable. I wish to remind you that three of the very few female SACs in the history of the FBI began their administrative careers as Supervisory Special Agents."
Scully chews her lip and tries - unsuccessfully - to appear nonchalant.
"Additionally," says Skinner, "I spoke with Burdena Pasenelli. She has asked me to send you her regards and let you know that she hopes you'll be available to join her for lunch when things settle down."
Mulder and Scully both gape at Skinner, who is looking down at the now-sleeping baby.
"Burdena Pasenelli?" Mulder says at length. "The former CFO of the Bureau?"
"You may want to keep the finance talk to a minimum," Skinner advises Scully. "The two of you hold a few records."
"Sir," says Scully. "I don't understand how -"
"You are not without allies, Scully. Let's leave it there, shall we?" He passes William to his mother before taking a sip of his steaming coffee. "If you'll be using a federal employee child care center, you need to go ahead and get all your paperwork in. You know what the red tape is like."
"I'm staying home with him," says Mulder. "For a while, anyway."
Skinner blinks in surprise. "Well, good for you. It will be interesting to see whether he's inherited your charming disregard for authority."
"If he has," says Scully, who is stroking her son's cheek, "we're sending him to a good boarding school."
"I have a manly diaper bag and a manly stroller," Mulder tells Skinner, gesturing to the black Xplory in the corner. "I'm prepared for anything."
Skinner shakes his head. "Good luck," he says to William.
William bats his hand in his sleep. The red bear spins slowly.
****
November 9, 2001
"Will, buddy, you need to work with me here." Mulder has been scraping the same spoonful of pureed apricots off of his son's chin for twenty minutes. "I know it's more effort than a liquid diet, but there's a whole world of culinary delights out there. You just have to practice and then we can upgrade to chili dogs and Tastykakes."
William grabs at the contents of the spoon, then smears them in his hair, gurgling happily.
Mulder sighs. "Let's call it a day, shall we? Your mother's due home shortly and you can be her problem for a while. How about a bath in the meantime?" He wipes the baby's hands, then removes the high-chair tray to unbuckle him. William holds his arms out and Mulder picks him. They head to the bathroom.
"You know what we need to do?" Mulder asks as he extracts William from his stained t-shirt. "We need to take a road trip. Shake things up a little. I hear it's fashionable for women to date younger men now, so you could do pretty well for yourself."
William squeals delightedly, kicking his feet like a frog as the water reaches his knees.
Mulder strips the rest of his son's clothes and his diaper off. He kneels down to secure him in the bath seat before turning on a stream of tepid water. "How about Graceland? You work hard on those apricots and you can score a nice fried peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich. We'll look into it when I get back."
William pats his stomach. "Ba," he says.
"Get back?" Scully asks, taking off her jacket as she walks into the bathroom. She crouches on the floor next to the tub to kiss her son. "Where are you going?" William reaches forward to grab a hank of her hair. He looks dejected when it is too short to reach his mouth. Scully begins to soap his head and his plump back.
"I didn't hear you come in," Mulder says. "The boy wonder was painting himself with fruit and needed a hose-down."
"Still no luck with the apricots? Maybe we should mix them with the kiwis. He liked the kiwis. William, did you give your daddy a hard time today?"
William sinks his new teeth into a rubber duck and shakes his head like a rat dog.
"Have you forgotten what the post-kiwi diapers were like?" Mulder asks her. "I didn't know they even had that many seeds. He can try sweet potatoes tomorrow, but tonight you'd better just make it milk. He's hungry and not feeling adventurous, plus he skipped his afternoon nap and can barely keep his eyes open."
"My pleasure. Hurry up and rinse him. I haven't pumped anything for some time." Scully gets to her feet, grimacing uncomfortably. "So, when you get back from where, Mulder?" she asks, unbuttoning her shirt.
"Tlaxcala," he replies, giving William a rinse with clear water. He then lifts him out and wraps him in a large green towel. William howls in protest as he is carried to his room.
"Tlaxcala?" Scully repeats, following them. "In Mexico?"
"That's the one," Mulder says, putting a clean diaper on the baby. "William, stop trying to bite your feet. It makes this hard." He dresses his son in robot-print pajamas, then passes him to Scully.
She sits in the glider, unhooking the front of her bra as she settles the baby across her lap. William latches on enthusiastically, and an expression of relief crosses her face. "Why are you going to Mexico? And when?"
"The flight leaves at midnight. Cab's picking me up at 9. You know what international flights are like these days. I already worked out the child-care details with your mom. I tried calling you a few times, Scully, but you didn't pick up. I shouldn't be gone more than a week, if that."
"Sorry. I was in meetings all day. But you only answered one of my questions," she tells him, trailing her fingers over the rosy baby skin.
Mulder picks at a spot of apricot on his sweater. "I got an e-mail from an archaeologist friend of mine this afternoon. He was at a dig site outside of Huamantla and heard about a group of archaeologists who disappeared from a site not far away."
"And this is of interest to you because…?
"I assume you are not entirely innocent of the concept of paleocontact," he says delicately.
"Aliens visiting ancient civilizations to bestow upon them advanced technologies? I am familiar with the notion. I watched Chariot of the Gods in college." She speaks in the arch tone that has accompanied hundreds of his slideshows.
"The Maya believed that their ancestors originated in the Pleiades. The Popul Vuh - the central text of the Maya - describes gods who 'returned to the stars' after their mortal lives had passed," Mulder tells her.
Scully chews her lower lip for a moment. "Mulder, you are doubtless aware that I have come to accept many of your beliefs about the existence of life beyond this terrestrial sphere. However, I do not accept the idea that aliens were dispensing sophisticated engineering knowledge to ancient cultures. It makes no sense and only the most dubious evidence exists to extend the idea any credibility whatsoever." She switches William to the other breast.
Mulder picks up a small musical giraffe and winds it up, listening to the tinny rendition of Brahms Lullaby. "The archaeologists in question found evidence that the Maya were using steel decades prior to the arrival of the Spanish."
"Really? Because they were using obsidian when the Spanish arrived to obliterate them. And besides, so what if they were, Mulder? We don't do this anymore. Let someone else ferret it out."
"As I said, all of archaeologists have disappeared without a trace, though residents of nearby villages report seeing bright lights low in the sky the night they disappeared. Their disappearance, coincidentally, is timed with the appearance of a magnetically reversed sunspot. The Maya believed such sunspot activity was related to the end of our current age."
Scully rolls her eyes. "Yes, December 21, 2012. I got that doomsday e-mail too, Mulder. The world ends at 11:11 Greenwich time. I'll put it on the calendar." William is still making vague attempts at sucking, though he has fallen asleep.
"Scully, there was a backwards sunspot the night I disappeared too."
"Mulder, we appear to be in the peak of our current solar cycle. There's going to be a huge amount of unusual solar activity."
"Not backwards sunspots. Those come at the end of a solar cycle. And solar cycles average eleven years. If a new one were beginning now, it would be due to end right around 2012."
She sighs and closes her bra, listening to quiet baby snores. "So you're going to go to Mexico in hopes of…what?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. But I want to know what happened to these scientists. Maybe I can learn what happened to me. And to you."
Scully gets up slowly, cradling her son, then crosses the room to lay him in the crib. She watches him for a moment. Then she walks to the door and turns out the light before stepping into the hall. Mulder follows her, pulling the nursery door quietly closed as he leaves the room.
"Mulder, you promised me this was over," she tells him. "What happened to letting it all go? You can't just do things like this anymore."
He stiffens. "I'm not asking your permission."
She laughs bitterly as she stalks to the bedroom. "No, of course you're not. I suppose I should just be grateful that I'm finding out ahead of time instead of by a note stuck to the refrigerator door. 'Scully - gone alien hunting. Pick up bread on your way home from work.' " She slips out of her silk blouse and tosses it to the bed.
"Don't be ridiculous. When's the last time you picked up groceries on your way home from work?"
"Don't give me that," she snaps, rummaging through the dresser for her FBI Academy sweatshirt. "This is what you wanted. You can go to work and we can hire a nanny if this is too much for you, Mulder, but I do plenty to pull my weight. It's not unreasonable that I don't want you flying off to some Mexican hellhole to chase flying saucers."
"This is a partnership," he reminds her, sitting down on the bed. "This is not the Kingdom of Scully where your desires reign supreme. You think it's important that I stay, I think it's important that I go. Someone's going to lose this one."
"William, probably," she says, as her trousers hit the floor. She pulls on a pair of yoga pants. "You have a child now, Mulder. You have to give things up. We both do."
"Oh, do we now?" he asks derisively. "What have you given up, Scully? The career you didn't want for the one you did? The basement for the limelight? I left over ten years of my life down there. Or have you forgotten that since we started playing house?"
"Playing house? Is that what this is to you? I told you that you were free to make whatever choice you wanted. I never pretended this was going to be anything other than what it is. I can't help it if you regret your decision now that you realize I was right." She walks past him to the kitchen, where she pours herself a bowl of cereal and then drowns it in skim milk.
He is close behind. "We agreed there was 'no more dashing off,' Scully. I didn't realize I was going to be under house arrest. I have planned a trip and I tried to give you as much notice as I could. I have made arrangements for William. The freezer is full of pureed produce. Your life won't be inconvenienced beyond your indignance over not getting to have it all your way."
She shakes her head. "You're unbelievable. You just don't get it, do you? This isn't about anyone getting their way. This is about you deliberately doing something that could put your life at risk. William has already attended one funeral for you, albeit in utero. I'd like to keep it the last for at least a few decades."
He sighs and rubs his neck. "I do get it. But this could be huge, Scully. I'm not chasing a blind lead here. This is something that could help explain everything that's happened to us since you were abducted. Including William."
She gives him a hard look. "There's nothing to explain about William."
He doesn't answer, just holds her stare.
"Fine," she says, scraping her uneaten, sodden cereal into the garbage disposal. "Go. You're going to anyway, so I might just as well pretend to agree. That way if you get killed, we won't have spent our last night fighting."
"I don't want you to pretend," he tells her, frustration making the words tight. "I want you to understand why it's so important."
"Well I can't," she replies. "I buried you less than a year ago. And to have you risk everything all over again because you're curious is just a slap in the face."
"You're damned right I'm curious," he says, suddenly angry with her. "I'm curious about why we've been test subjects for years. About why a woman who had all her ova taken was able to conceive a child. About why I was taken before. I'm curious about a whole lot of things and if you can stand here and tell me you're not, then I have to ask myself what happened to the woman I used to know."
"She grew the hell up," Scully informs him. "And she suggests you may want to consider doing the same."
"Yes, your denial is very mature. I'm sure if you just bury your head in the sand the way you always have, we can continue going blithely about our business as though William isn't being raised by a formerly sterile mother and a formerly dead father. Let's just sing Kumbayah and embrace our diversity."
She crosses her arms. "And that's such a repellant idea to you? You can't know everything, Mulder. You can't take on every crusade that comes along."
He shrugs, looking tired. "Scully, I just want to go down there and see if there's a connection. I'm not going to be careless."
"Were you being careless in Oregon?" There is a terrible sadness in her voice.
Mulder closes his eyes and has nothing left to promise her. "I have to finish packing." He goes out of the kitchen and returns to their bedroom.
She does not plead. She does not cry. She does not throw anything. She goes very still for a time and then makes herself a cup of tea.
****
Mulder comes back in half an hour later, a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He finds her at the table, peeling the contents of a box of clementines. He straddles a chair backwards, resting his forearms and chin across the top rung. "I don't like us being at odds."
"I don't like it either."
"But I'm still going to go."
Her nails sink mercilessly into another orange. "I know you are."
"And I'm going to come back."
"Sure. Until next time, right? Until the next big lead pops up and then everyone else be damned." A large section of peel drops to the table. Her fingers are fragrant with the bittersweet oils. "I don't know why I thought this would work. I don't know why I thought you could prioritize."
He reaches for her hand, gently prying the orange from it. "I am prioritizing. This is directly related to what happened to us. This is what I've done for as long as you've known me, Scully. I need to know what happened out there, for all our sakes."
"I'm touched."
"This isn't easy for me either."
Scully swallows hard before she looks at him. "Right."
"I'll call when I land, but I don't know how much contact I'll be able to make otherwise." A horn honks outside and Mulder checks his watch. "That's my ride. Scully, I want you to know that I -"
"Just go."
****
Maggie Scully arrives at their apartment at 6:45, where William has just finished nursing. Scully has made him a bowl of oatmeal and some of the sweet potatoes Mulder left in the freezer.
"Hello, Dana," her mother says too brightly. "How's my little man?"
"Starving, apparently. Thanks for helping, Mom. Sorry it's so early."
"That's okay," Maggie assures her, taking the bowl of orange mush. She begins feeding it to William, who grins toothily at her. "Mmm, good," she says encouragingly.
Scully pulls out her phone, scrolling through her agenda. "Well, it's greatly appreciated. I'll be in and out a bit today, but call if you need anything. Plenty of milk in the fridge and there are labeled baggies of baby food in the freezer. I should be home by seven at the absolute latest."
"That's fine. We're going to have a nice time. Say 'ah,' William."
Scully lifts the breast pump off the floor, setting it on the table. She unzips the case to pack a dozen empty bottles into the bag. "Great. Mulder should be back by next Friday at the outside. I'm sorry things can't be more definite."
Her mother makes a non-committal noise and offers William another spoonful of breakfast.
Scully, who ran two pairs of stockings this morning, asks her mother exactly what the noise is supposed to mean.
"It wasn't supposed to mean anything, Dana. It's none of my business." She hands William a pile of Goldfish crackers. He grasps one firmly between his chubby thumb and forefinger, then goes cross-eyed trying to watch himself eat it.
"What's none of your business?" Scully has no idea why she is picking this fight.
Maggie looks heavenward for the briefest of seconds, then turns to her daughter. "He disappears to Mexico for 'a week-ish' on a moment's notice? I thought you were both done with that sort of thing."
"He didn't disappear. I know where he is. He's entitled to some time away, Mom. Taking care of William day in and day out is exhausting for him."
"I know it is," her mother says. "I raised four children while your father was at sea for six months at a time."
Scully pulls her coat on too hard. "Well, I guess you're stronger than the both of us. Congratulations."
"For heaven's sake. It's not a contest, Dana."
"No, it's not," Scully says in a voice like broken glass. She leans down to kiss William's curly head and inhale his clean, soapy scent. "Goodbye, baby. I miss you."
"Mamamamama!" William babbles, then stuffs a cracker in her mouth.
Scully chews it, then kisses his fingers. She looks away before her mother can see her eyes fill up.
****
Scully and William wait just past the security checkpoint at Dulles. William is in his stroller, teething on the tail of a sock monkey. Scully is craning her neck anxiously around the throngs of people flowing through the concourse. She turns to the large screen on the wall to study Mulder's flight information for the thousandth time.
"Any minute now," she tells William. "Won't he be surprised?"
William gnaws on his toy.
The crowd of people thins out, and Scully checks her watch again. "Probably at the back of the plane," she speculates. "That's what happens when you buy your tickets at the eleventh hour. I learned that the hard way over the years."
A woman walks by her in a t-shirt emblazoned with the Mexican flag, then stops at the stroller. "Hello, handsome," she says to William. He bats his eyes and flirts shamelessly. "He's darling," the woman tells Scully.
"Thank you. Um, did you just get back from Mexico City?" Scully asks.
"Yes, I did. It's just beautiful."
"Were there many other people left on the plane?"
She squats down to chuck William under the chin. "No, just me and the stewardesses. I like to wait until everyone gets off and avoid the crush, you know?" She returns her attention to the baby. "You have the prettiest blue eyes, don't you? Yes you do! Aw, look at your monkey. I bet that's your buddy, huh?"
Scully feels like she has been kicked in the stomach. "Thanks. Right. Well, I guess we'll head home."
"Were you waiting for someone? They'll page people."
"I…no. No, I think I just got my dates mixed up." Scully smiles in a self-deprecating way.
The woman straightens back up. "Babies! So distracting." She waves at William and says, "Bye-bye!" before continuing her journey to wherever she calls home.
Scully wheels the stroller around, heading towards the walkway to the garage. She is so angry that there is no space to panic yet, though it will come in time. Because she has unwittingly trained herself to walk tall when she's hurting, her chin tilts slightly higher and her shoulders straighten. She weaves through the obstacle course of people, seeing none of them.
****
Scully spent two hours on the phone with the US embassy in Mexico City, then finally fell into an exhausted sleep. She comes half-awake when she feels his breath on her neck. "Mulder?" she says groggily, before she fully registers that it's an unexpected sensation.
"Hey," he says. "I debated whether or not to wake you. I haven't showered in two days, my luggage is rumored to be somewhere in southeast Asia, and I've brushed my teeth with a stick since my loaner toothbrush fell down a mineshaft."
She sits up in the bed, staring at him. "We went to the airport but you never came."
He looks crestfallen. "Scully, I'm sorry. Our Jeep got a flat on the way to catch the bus to Mexico City and I had to catch a later flight."
"I thought you weren't coming back."
"Scully -"
She takes his hand and traces the fan of his metacarpals as she speaks. "That's a problem, Mulder. It's a problem that I had cause to think it. We can't move forward if this old life is going to dog us every step of the way."
"I agree," he tells her, propping himself up against the headboard. "But for a different reason."
She looks up at this, puzzled.
"You risk your life when you leave here every day, Scully. And never have I given you any guilt about that. Not once. Because I know what it means to you to do what you do. I went to Mexico to try and find the missing pieces of what happened to us so that we can move forward with a clear understanding of what we're up against. I don't want the past to dog us either, but it will if we can't make sense of it and know what it means for the future. If you can't trust that - if you can't trust me - then this isn't ever going to work out."
Scully gazes at him for a minute that stretches on for eons. Then she slides over, tucking her head under his chin. "What did you find?"
He wraps his arms around her. "A lot of Mexican government officials with fully automatic weapons and an impressive grasp of English vulgarities."
"And?"
"And scorched trees and grass in a large circular area with a diameter of about 100 meters."
Scully plays with the buttons on the front of the faded blue shirt he's wearing. "The archaeologists?"
"Nothing. They were trying to say that the researchers were from a foreign team whose visas had expired and so they were sent back home, but that's so clearly bullshit it's laughable. Then they started shooting and we headed for the hills. Spent a few days hiding out and watching them sanitize the area. I got some pictures, but it doesn't amount to much."
"I'm sorry," she says. Genuinely.
"It's okay. Oh, hey, I got you a present." Mulder reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small jadeite figurine. "This is One-Hunahpu. He's sort of like the Mayan god of basketball. But he lost an important game and his head was turned into a calabash. It had the power to impregnate virgins."
She takes the small stone carving. It feels cool and heavy in her hand. "You went to Mexico and all I got was this lousy statue?"
"Well, I got you a t-shirt too. But it's probably somewhere in Cambodia right now."
"I like it," she says. "Thank you."
"Sneaking around a highly classified scene wasn't the same without you," he murmurs into her hair. "It's not as fun when you aren't around to be coaxed into lawlessness."
She laughs softly. "Working at the FBI isn't quite as thrilling without the constant threat of professional disgrace."
He strokes her jaw with his thumb. "Thinking of quitting?"
"No. You?"
"Not unless you're going to turn me over the CIA or something."
"No," she breathes. "No, I don't think that will be necessary."
"I thought if I wanted to stop caring, I could. I tried. But I think this is the only person I know how to be."
She tilts her face up to look at him in a silver slice of moonlight. Her hands, which kill and heal, tug his warm weight down over her.
****
February 7, 2002
"He's getting restless." The Morley has burned down nearly to the filter. "He needs a project. That trip to Tlaxcala was an unforeseen glitch."
"Doggett and Reyes have the X-Files now. Do you want him back at the FBI?"
He stubs out the last embers of the cigarette. "No. Something different. I want him occupied with an equally interesting but less personally consuming project."
"Very good, sir. And Scully?"
"Agent Scully now has the attentions of all the right people and can make her own way."
The silver lighter flares, and a haze of smoke settles about him like a mantle.
****
July 17th, 2002
"BIRD!" shouts William, reaching towards a fat, greasy-looking pigeon.
"No," says Mulder firmly. "They're plague vectors with wings. Have you not heard your mother's rant about psittacosis?"
"Bird," William repeats, holding his small pink hands out beseechingly. "Come. Yim."
"The bird will not come to William. The bird will only come if you have food and you dumped your Cheerios overboard when we turned onto M Street."
William, now reminded that he has been starved for several blocks, begins to wail. Mulder passes him a plastic key ring, which is promptly flung to the pavement. "Ohs! Dadadada! OHS!"
"We're having lunch with your grandmother. Hang in there for a few more minutes and you will be rewarded with pizza."
Mulder retrieves the toy, then trots briskly down the sidewalk. William screeches at an increasingly higher pitch until they stop in front of Pizzeria Paradiso. Maggie Scully stands outside, and her face lights up when she sees Mulder and the small passenger in his futuristic stroller.
"Nana!" squeals William, holding his arms out. "Up. Upupup."
Maggie unbuckles William, then scoops him out. He pats her face with sticky hands before cramming the fingers of his right hand into his mouth and humming quietly.
"Hello, Mulder."
"How are you, Maggie?"
They have come to an unspoken agreement that Fox and Mrs. Scully would be passive-aggressive.
"I'm good, thank you. I missed you all while I was away. Bill and Tara send their love."
Mulder refrains from further comment as he holds the door open. Maggie walks under his arm. He pulls the stroller in and lets the door close behind them while Maggie settles William into a highchair.
When the pseudo-goth waitress glides over, Mulder orders a pizza for himself and William to share. Maggie orders a salad with tuna and cannellini. William contents himself with banging his sippy cup against the tray as the grownups talk.
"I haven't heard from Dana since I got back," Maggie says, squeezing her lemon wedge into her water. She stirs in a packet of Splenda.
"She's out of town right now. Salt Lake City."
"Is she working on a case?"
No, thinks Mulder. We're looking into polygamy and she's off doing research. He avoids chit-chat at the best of times, and the layer of tension that enfolds these meetups makes it even more irritating than usual. "There's a group of anti-government separatists in southeastern Wyoming with possible ties to a group she's been investigating in Garrett County."
"Oh," says Maggie. "Yes, I remember that. They were in the news. The leader, Kyle Strauth, went to College Park the same time as Dana. Isn't that a funny coincidence?"
"Haha." The laugh sounds phony even to him, and Mulder is grateful when the food arrives a few minutes later. He cuts up a slice into bite-sized chunks for William, then sprinkles pepper flakes on a piece for himself.
Maggie twirls her fork through the garnish on her plate as she watches her grandson convey pizza to his mouth."Is it dangerous, what she's doing?" Her tone is artificially light.
Mulder feels a pang of remorse for the awkwardness that still exists between them. "She's not doing field work like before. She's managing teams of agents who will handle the investigative avenues." He hopes he sounds comforting.
"She's got a knack for that sort of thing. Organization, I mean."
"Yes, she has. Skinner thinks there's every chance of her being made an Assistant Special Agent in Charge within a year or two."
"That's good."
"It's very good. Maggie, she's going to be okay. She's happy and she's getting to do exactly what she always wanted. She's making a difference."
Maggie nods, then sips at her water. "You never stop worrying. But I guess you know that now."
He cuts up more pizza for William. "I do."
"You know, Bill never changed any of the kids' diapers. It wasn't some kind of overt chauvinism or anything. It just didn't occur to him. Men weren't expected to have that level of involvement with their children."
"Yeah, I think it was the same with my dad." Mulder pretends to eat William's pudgy, tomato-stained hand and is rewarded with delighted shrieks.
Maggie smiles. "We didn't breastfeed back then either. They told us formula was better. More scientific. They gave you a pill to dry the milk up and set you home with strict instructions to feed the baby on a firm schedule, no matter what. I followed the rules with Bill Jr. and Melissa, but by the time Dana was born, I just gave her a bottle when she seemed hungry. She was an easier baby for it. Charlie too." Maggie chews a forkful of tuna contemplatively.
"I'm sure William will grow up and laugh at the idea of tummy time because they'll have discovered some brilliant new approach by the time his kids come along."
Maggie takes a deep breath. "When they…found you, the plan was that I was going to watch William two days a week and Dana was going to hire a nanny for the other three. I was so excited to have a grandchild nearby! I offered to watch him all five days, but Dana was afraid it would be too much for me. And then, when you came back and she told me you'd be staying home with him, I was incredulous. Forgive me, but I never considered you the most responsible of people." She looks both embarrassed and relieved by this unburdening.
"You're in good company," he assures her. William, oblivious to the conversation at hand, gnaws happily on his father's discarded pizza crust.
She laughs nervously. "Well. Be that as it may, you've just…what I mean is that I'm incredibly impressed. I don't think he could be in better hands."
"Thank you," Mulder says. "Maggie, the School of Forensic Science at GW is working with the FBI and Interpol to create a detailed database to help profile violent serial offenders. I have been invited to help head up the project. It would be two days a week for now, and I can do the rest from home while he naps. If I accept, would you be willing to take care of William while I'm at work?"
She looks surprised, then elated. "When do you start?"
****
February 26, 2003
Skinner rests his fork on the edge of his plate. "Forget it, Scully. You know I can't. I'm not your direct supervisor anymore. You'll have to discuss it with SAC Robison."
Scully sighs, uncrossing her legs as she leans forward. "I was hoping to have an answer from you before I went to SAC Robison. It'll make a better case to present when I request the resources. Your approval on requiring that seminar for my team would go a long way, sir."
He had already decided to give in before they started eating. The discussion was merely a formality. "Look, I'll try and put in a good word for you, but I'm not making any promises."
Scully takes a drink of her ice water and tries not to look smug.
"You seem to be adapting well to the world of the desk-bound, Scully. How do you like admin?"
"I like it very much, actually. I think coming off of maternity leave made the whole transition much easier for me. It was a good buffer. And I've certainly come to empathize greatly with your position."
"You'd better be careful, Scully. What goes around comes around."
She laughs. "I can only hope you're mistaken. Though it is nice to draw on some of my own experiences to help prevent others from making some of the mistakes I did."
Skinner's expression turns serious. "Well, it's good to see you doing so well. Over the years I had my doubts about whether or not you'd live long enough to make it here. And I'm not talking about the cancer."
"Sir, I -
He plows ahead. "Finding Mulder dead was not a shock to me. Or if it was, I was only shocked not to have found one of you dead sooner. The risks you took were well beyond the call of duty and, quite frankly, I'm very glad to see you both finished with it."
Scully's face tightens. "Our work was outside the normal realm. On occasion, it necessitated extraordinary measures."
"I thought he was going to get you killed, Dana. I didn't want your name up next to Reggie Perdue's."
"If I had died, it wouldn't have been because he 'got' me killed. I always went with him of my own volition." Her voice is as cold and white as the weather.
"It wasn't my intention to offend you, but I -"
"Your concern is appreciated."
The silence stretches on a beat too long. It is broken by a muffled chirp from Scully's pocket. She withdraws her phone and glances down at it. "Excuse me," she says. "I need to answer this e-mail."
Skinner signals the waiter for the bill. Then he turns his attention back to Scully, whose brow is creased as she composes her reply. Skinner often forgets that she is beautiful and is always faintly surprised when he notices.
She wears her good looks like her sidearm - both inextricable facts of her existence. She will flirt if she has to and she will shoot if she has to, but it is her expressed preference to have to do neither. Scully oils her gun, runs long miles, and concedes to the necessity of flattering makeup and well-cut suits.
She hits send, then pockets her phone. "I never could decide if cell phones made civilization more or less efficient," she remarks.
They argue briefly when the check arrives. Scully wins, sending it back with a generous tip.
"So," Skinner says as he gets up. "Can I give you a lift? It's starting to snow."
Scully rises from the chair, and together they walk to the coat check. "Thank you, but Mulder's meeting me here. We're attending a lecture at the Air and Space Museum. His choice." She hands the claim ticket to the clerk and slips her coat on when it arrives.
Skinner has enough sense not to ask her what the lecture is on. "Enjoy. I'll let you know what I hear. If anything."
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."
"Well, don't thank me yet." Through the front window, he sees Mulder pull up to the curb.
Scully smiles briefly, then turns to head out into the biting wind. Skinner watches her from inside as she climbs into the waiting sedan. He wonders what they talk about after a decade in cars together. Mulder who is always searching, and Scully who never gives anything away.
****
Part 2
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Through DeadAlive
DISCLAIMER: Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Proceed at your own risk. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. For recreational purposes only. Driver does not carry cash. And, as always, thank you for choosing Aloysia Airlines for your direct flight from 1013 to fanfic.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Writing this story was a really interesting experience, because it deals with Mulder and Scully raising William together and I am not so much a fan of either AU or familyfic. But I did want to try my hand at writing one, and surprised myself by having a lot of fun with it. It was also a good chance to revisit the Charlie I wrote for Love's Austere And Lonely Offices. As mentioned in the summary, this pretty much goes AU from DeadAlive. I imagined Mulder having been in a coma for a week or so, then spending a few days at the hospital, then coming home.
CSM quotes Johnny Tremain without troubling himself to mention it.
Many, many thanks to Amanda for telling me I could do it, to Dasha for encouraging the first draft, and to Scarlet for kicking my ass on a fairly regular basis.
****
Most Like An Arch This Marriage
by John Ciardi
Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch - two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what's strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another's sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.
****
April 7th, 2001
Scully is in the kitchen rinsing lettuce when there is a knock at her door. She dries her hands before making her way to the entry, still not entirely used to the amount of space she now occupies. A glance through the peephole reveals Mulder, who looks uncomfortable. She opens the door. "Mulder, come in. I was just getting dinner together."
"Oh. Well, if it's a bad time I can go." He sounds nearly hopeful.
"Not at all."
"Uh, okay then." He walks in and pushes the door shut, seeming uncertain of himself.
"Have a seat. I just want to go check the oven." She disappears into the kitchen for a moment.
Mulder sits on the couch, looking around the room as though it is entirely unfamiliar to him. His right leg bounces like a jackhammer and he whistles a few bars of Freefalling before turning his attention to the rake in Scully's tabletop Zen garden. He traces four circles around a reddish rock, then lines the pebbles up by size.
When she returns to the living room, Scully settles on the loveseat and props her feet on the coffee table. "So," she says. "What's up?"
"You're pregnant," Mulder blurts out.
She looks amused. "I'd noticed that."
He coughs. "Yes, well. It's rather difficult to avoid noticing, isn't it? Because you look as though you have - snake-like - swallowed an object several times the size of your own head. So I am assuming there are things we should discuss."
"Discuss?"
Mulder gives her an exasperated look. "Scully? This isn't some meeting with Skinner you're bullshitting your way through, okay? I realize that this is hideously awkward, but let's pretend for a moment that our prior pattern of sexual congress wasn't interrupted for several months by my death."
"I didn't know in Bellefleur, if that's what you're wondering."
"I hoped not."
"I would have told you. And I wouldn't have been so careless with myself."
He draws a stick figure in the sand with the handle of the rake. "Okay. Scully, do you think it's related to what happened to you out there?"
"What, you think the next generation of Mulders wanted an early start on the alien abduction?"
Mulder laughs once and then repeats, "The next generation of Mulders" in an odd voice.
"Oh, come on. You can't have actually thought otherwise?" She is scoffing, but there is a note of uncertainty in her voice.
"No. But it's different to hear you say it. This has been the elephant in the room for almost a week now."
She gets to her feet, walks to the couch, then lowers herself next to Mulder. She pokes him in the ribs. "Elephant? I won't sit idly by as you call me names."
"Your girth is impressive."
"You can't really be single, can you?"
"I guess that's the next question, isn't it?" he says, looking down at his hands.
She smiles in a distant way. "You were dead until fifteen days ago. Maybe you should take it slow before you go trying to make an honest woman of me."
"Are you saying you don't want me around? Come to think of it, you have been acting peculiar."
"Peculiar? Mulder, how on earth is one supposed to act in such bizarre circumstances? I apologize for not talking about this sooner, but you were in a coma." She bites her lip and gazes at her rounded abdomen. "I don't want you to make promises that are too hard to keep. You…you have a habit of disappearing."
He bristles. "Well, excuse the hell out of me. I haven't been on a sightseeing tour of Europe, you realize. Perhaps at some point while they were slicing my chest open or drilling my teeth I was over Europe, but close only counts in horseshoes and grenades."
She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry. That's not what I meant."
Mulder sighs. "Look, I understand your concerns. I do. But I think maybe we've found all we're meant to find."
Scully eyes him warily. "Mulder, don't - "
"What else can I hope to discover? I have proof of both the existence of extraterrestrial life and the government's conspiracy to cover up that fact. My entire family is dead. Maybe this is another chance."
She turns to him and takes his hand. "Mulder, I can't be your savior."
"Some Catholic you are."
Scully chuckles as she leans against his arm. "I mean it. I want you here. I want you involved. But this isn't going to be a grand quest. It's going to be late nights and early mornings and tedious repetition. It's not a means to an end. It's a journey."
"I know."
Scully runs her forefinger over his knuckles. "Do you? There's not going to be any more dashing off to Oregon or Puerto Rico or God knows where. Can you live like that? Can you really let these things go?"
He is silent.
"Because if you can't," she continues, "I can accept that. I know who you are and I knew it when I asked you to help with the fertility treatments. I knew it when I started sleeping with you. But what I can't accept is the possibility that - however well-meaning you are at this moment - you're going to promise me that you'll stay and then leave again when something irresistible pops up."
Mulder exhales slowly, weighing what may be against what is. What he may find against what he has found already. "I can let it go."
Scully believes that he believes himself and is touched. "Well," she says. "Well, okay then."
He reaches out to stroke her hair. "So what do you want to do? Do you want to live separately? Do you want a place together? A creampuff wedding gown and a Barbie Dream House in Reston?"
She snorts. "Spare me. I don't know. I mean, I had planned to just stay here. It's near my mother, it's near work."
He looks puzzled. "Near work? I thought you were thinking about teaching at Quantico."
"I was, but it's an hour away and I don't want to deal with the commute."
"My will, Scully. You know there's no need for you to -"
"Well, you're not dead anymore," she says sharply. "I've already contacted your attorney about having the money transferred back to you."
He looks shocked. "What? Why? I don't want it. I didn't want it before and I don't want it now. You know as well as I do how my parents ended up with it. That was emergency money. It was Go-To-Antarctica money. We don't have to go back to work until we feel like it, if at all. The interest alone is -"
Scully does not want to discuss this further. She taps her forefinger against her thumbnail. "There's more to my not teaching at Quantico than just the commute. Rumor has it that a Supervisory Special Agent position at the DC Field Office is going to open up in August and that my name's on the short list. Actually, I heard my name is the short list."
Mulder whistles. "Day-um. Who've you been making friends with while I was away?"
She ducks her head, but is clearly pleased. "You're not upset, are you? I mean, that I won't be returning to the X-Files? This is just such a huge opportunity for me."
"I'd say you've served your time down there. Especially since I ended up corrupting you."
"Mmm. It turned out okay, as far as punishment assignments go."
"Gee, thanks." He slides a tentative hand over her belly. "Scully? How did this happen?"
Her eyebrow arches like a cat.
"I mean, I know how," he amends. "But I thought you …"
"Me too. Mulder, when I was in Africa I saw things that I still can't explain. That craft, the ship - whatever it was - it seemed to have…regenerative powers of some kind. And I touched it."
"And you think it may have somehow restored your ability to conceive?" He chooses his words carefully. One wrong step and Scully will retreat to the safety of her hallowed skepticism.
She shrugs. "I don't know what I'm saying. Maybe there's not an easy answer. I had a vision of some sort on that journey. Of a man. He said some truths are not for me to know."
"And you can accept that?"
"I'm pregnant, Mulder. What is there to accept or not accept? I have had ultrasounds and an amniocentesis and this child is perfectly normal in every way. You told me never to give up on a miracle. So yes, I suppose I can accept the rest on faith."
Neither one of them mentions the fact that their world is full of stones better left unturned. Emily-stones.
"Do you think it means anything with regard to your cancer? The chip in your neck?"
She runs a finger over the scar. "I'm certainly not going to chance finding out the hard way."
He nods. "I think that's for the best."
She squeezes his hand, then slips an arm behind his back. "I missed you. Sometimes I had these…experiences where I swear I could hear you."
"I had them too." He pulls her close and rests his cheek on top of her head. "Thank you for feeding my fish. They said to tell you hi."
She smiles against his shirt. "Why don't you bring them over here, Mulder? They could make themselves comfortable if they wanted to. I have a little drawer where I could keep their things."
"I'd miss them terribly."
"Well, you could come too. I have a little drawer where I could keep your things as well."
He takes her by the shoulders and sits back, holding her at arms' length. "Dana Scully. Are you asking me to shack up with you?"
She blushes. "It seems the next logical step on my wanton path, now that you've gone and ruined me."
He cups her face in his hands. "You've just made my landlord the happiest man in the world."
****
May 26th, 2001
"Is it possible for him to be absorbing any nutrition at all, Scully? Is it normal for babies to dirty diapers at such an alarming rate? I feel like the EPA is going to issue us a citation if this keeps up."
Scully yawns, watching Mulder snap William's rubbery pink legs back into his overalls. "Yes, it's perfectly normal. Put those little mitts back over his hands. He keeps clawing at his face. And he pinches me when he eats."
William, now six days old, squirms as his small fists are covered up. Mulder scoops the baby from the kitchen table and deposits him in the sleek black bouncer seat on the floor. "Look at the bears, William," he says. "Red, blue, yellow."
"His color vision won't be that developed for at least another week," Scully observes.
William burps as Mulder bounces the chair with his foot. "I have to tell you, the temptation to use this as a catapult is overwhelming at times. Where's that stupid musical dog?"
"The one that hasn't shut up for two days? Even when we took the batteries out?"
"Yes."
"Trash."
"Your mother is a very sensible woman," he informs his son. "Look, this says Baby Bjorn. That means bear, William. This is a multicultural chair you have. It's Swedish."
"He's a Flavenwilliam," says Scully.
"Does that mean we have to buy a Volvo?"
They are interrupted by a knock at the door. Mulder gets to his feet to answer the door. William drools at the bears, his eyes crossing now and again. Scully looks over the back of the couch as Walter Skinner enters, carrying a large wrapped box. "Congratulations," he says.
Mulder accepts the parcel and sets it on the end table. "Thanks. You didn't have to bring anything, though. We got the official Bureau snack basket. Scully ate all the pralines and yogurt-covered raisins and I think most of the dried fruit, but some of the little cookies are left. Or did you attack those too, Scully?"
"I didn't eat all of that," Scully says indignantly. "We've had company."
"She did," Mulder asserts. "Coffee?"
Skinner shrugs out of his coat and drapes it over the armrest. "Coffee would be good. Black." Mulder nods and heads to the kitchen. Skinner walks around to peer down at William, who has worked one mitt off. "Congratulations, Scully. How are you feeling? He's a pretty big guy."
"I eat all my veggies," says Mulder, returning with a mug of coffee, which he hands to Skinner.
"You're hilarious, really," says Scully. "I'm good, thank you. It was a fairly easy delivery, though he was eight pounds, six ounces at birth. He lost a little weight at the hospital, but he eats very well and is developing as he should. Excellent rooting reflex." She sticks her leg out to stroke the bottom of William's foot with her toe. His own tiny toes splay. "Proper Babinski sign. He's a textbook baby. I've run him through the full battery."
"She was a terror at the hospital," Mulder remarks as he sits down. "I thought they were going to put her under general anesthesia just to shut her up. You can sit, by the way."
Skinner perches at the edge of the loveseat, then reaches forward to touch William's hand. "Hey," he says, as William grabs his finger. "He has a good grip. You going to let him do some dry-firing and join the family business?"
"We're going to wait until he weans."
Skinner smiles, spinning the bears for William, whose eyes cross again.
"Do you want to hold him?" asks Scully, aware that sometimes people do not want to Hold The Baby and that such a question puts them in an awkward position. But something tells her that Skinner would like to.
"Sure." He sits back, watching Scully lift William out. He accepts the warm little body and cradles him comfortably. "My sister has four kids," he says, though whether the remark is designed to reassure himself, William's parents, or William is unclear. He touches the tip of the tiny nose.
"So tell me about the position at the DC Field Office," says Scully. "Still looking like August?"
"How many people will she get to boss around?" Mulder inquires. "That's what really matters to her."
Skinner smoothes his hand over William's downy head, petting him like a cat. "In all the years that I have known them, your parents have done nothing but raise exasperating questions. Scully, the position - which has not officially been posted and therefore cannot be officially discussed - will become available in mid-August. They are very keen to have a female Supervisory Special Agent and your forensic background is most desirable. I wish to remind you that three of the very few female SACs in the history of the FBI began their administrative careers as Supervisory Special Agents."
Scully chews her lip and tries - unsuccessfully - to appear nonchalant.
"Additionally," says Skinner, "I spoke with Burdena Pasenelli. She has asked me to send you her regards and let you know that she hopes you'll be available to join her for lunch when things settle down."
Mulder and Scully both gape at Skinner, who is looking down at the now-sleeping baby.
"Burdena Pasenelli?" Mulder says at length. "The former CFO of the Bureau?"
"You may want to keep the finance talk to a minimum," Skinner advises Scully. "The two of you hold a few records."
"Sir," says Scully. "I don't understand how -"
"You are not without allies, Scully. Let's leave it there, shall we?" He passes William to his mother before taking a sip of his steaming coffee. "If you'll be using a federal employee child care center, you need to go ahead and get all your paperwork in. You know what the red tape is like."
"I'm staying home with him," says Mulder. "For a while, anyway."
Skinner blinks in surprise. "Well, good for you. It will be interesting to see whether he's inherited your charming disregard for authority."
"If he has," says Scully, who is stroking her son's cheek, "we're sending him to a good boarding school."
"I have a manly diaper bag and a manly stroller," Mulder tells Skinner, gesturing to the black Xplory in the corner. "I'm prepared for anything."
Skinner shakes his head. "Good luck," he says to William.
William bats his hand in his sleep. The red bear spins slowly.
****
November 9, 2001
"Will, buddy, you need to work with me here." Mulder has been scraping the same spoonful of pureed apricots off of his son's chin for twenty minutes. "I know it's more effort than a liquid diet, but there's a whole world of culinary delights out there. You just have to practice and then we can upgrade to chili dogs and Tastykakes."
William grabs at the contents of the spoon, then smears them in his hair, gurgling happily.
Mulder sighs. "Let's call it a day, shall we? Your mother's due home shortly and you can be her problem for a while. How about a bath in the meantime?" He wipes the baby's hands, then removes the high-chair tray to unbuckle him. William holds his arms out and Mulder picks him. They head to the bathroom.
"You know what we need to do?" Mulder asks as he extracts William from his stained t-shirt. "We need to take a road trip. Shake things up a little. I hear it's fashionable for women to date younger men now, so you could do pretty well for yourself."
William squeals delightedly, kicking his feet like a frog as the water reaches his knees.
Mulder strips the rest of his son's clothes and his diaper off. He kneels down to secure him in the bath seat before turning on a stream of tepid water. "How about Graceland? You work hard on those apricots and you can score a nice fried peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich. We'll look into it when I get back."
William pats his stomach. "Ba," he says.
"Get back?" Scully asks, taking off her jacket as she walks into the bathroom. She crouches on the floor next to the tub to kiss her son. "Where are you going?" William reaches forward to grab a hank of her hair. He looks dejected when it is too short to reach his mouth. Scully begins to soap his head and his plump back.
"I didn't hear you come in," Mulder says. "The boy wonder was painting himself with fruit and needed a hose-down."
"Still no luck with the apricots? Maybe we should mix them with the kiwis. He liked the kiwis. William, did you give your daddy a hard time today?"
William sinks his new teeth into a rubber duck and shakes his head like a rat dog.
"Have you forgotten what the post-kiwi diapers were like?" Mulder asks her. "I didn't know they even had that many seeds. He can try sweet potatoes tomorrow, but tonight you'd better just make it milk. He's hungry and not feeling adventurous, plus he skipped his afternoon nap and can barely keep his eyes open."
"My pleasure. Hurry up and rinse him. I haven't pumped anything for some time." Scully gets to her feet, grimacing uncomfortably. "So, when you get back from where, Mulder?" she asks, unbuttoning her shirt.
"Tlaxcala," he replies, giving William a rinse with clear water. He then lifts him out and wraps him in a large green towel. William howls in protest as he is carried to his room.
"Tlaxcala?" Scully repeats, following them. "In Mexico?"
"That's the one," Mulder says, putting a clean diaper on the baby. "William, stop trying to bite your feet. It makes this hard." He dresses his son in robot-print pajamas, then passes him to Scully.
She sits in the glider, unhooking the front of her bra as she settles the baby across her lap. William latches on enthusiastically, and an expression of relief crosses her face. "Why are you going to Mexico? And when?"
"The flight leaves at midnight. Cab's picking me up at 9. You know what international flights are like these days. I already worked out the child-care details with your mom. I tried calling you a few times, Scully, but you didn't pick up. I shouldn't be gone more than a week, if that."
"Sorry. I was in meetings all day. But you only answered one of my questions," she tells him, trailing her fingers over the rosy baby skin.
Mulder picks at a spot of apricot on his sweater. "I got an e-mail from an archaeologist friend of mine this afternoon. He was at a dig site outside of Huamantla and heard about a group of archaeologists who disappeared from a site not far away."
"And this is of interest to you because…?
"I assume you are not entirely innocent of the concept of paleocontact," he says delicately.
"Aliens visiting ancient civilizations to bestow upon them advanced technologies? I am familiar with the notion. I watched Chariot of the Gods in college." She speaks in the arch tone that has accompanied hundreds of his slideshows.
"The Maya believed that their ancestors originated in the Pleiades. The Popul Vuh - the central text of the Maya - describes gods who 'returned to the stars' after their mortal lives had passed," Mulder tells her.
Scully chews her lower lip for a moment. "Mulder, you are doubtless aware that I have come to accept many of your beliefs about the existence of life beyond this terrestrial sphere. However, I do not accept the idea that aliens were dispensing sophisticated engineering knowledge to ancient cultures. It makes no sense and only the most dubious evidence exists to extend the idea any credibility whatsoever." She switches William to the other breast.
Mulder picks up a small musical giraffe and winds it up, listening to the tinny rendition of Brahms Lullaby. "The archaeologists in question found evidence that the Maya were using steel decades prior to the arrival of the Spanish."
"Really? Because they were using obsidian when the Spanish arrived to obliterate them. And besides, so what if they were, Mulder? We don't do this anymore. Let someone else ferret it out."
"As I said, all of archaeologists have disappeared without a trace, though residents of nearby villages report seeing bright lights low in the sky the night they disappeared. Their disappearance, coincidentally, is timed with the appearance of a magnetically reversed sunspot. The Maya believed such sunspot activity was related to the end of our current age."
Scully rolls her eyes. "Yes, December 21, 2012. I got that doomsday e-mail too, Mulder. The world ends at 11:11 Greenwich time. I'll put it on the calendar." William is still making vague attempts at sucking, though he has fallen asleep.
"Scully, there was a backwards sunspot the night I disappeared too."
"Mulder, we appear to be in the peak of our current solar cycle. There's going to be a huge amount of unusual solar activity."
"Not backwards sunspots. Those come at the end of a solar cycle. And solar cycles average eleven years. If a new one were beginning now, it would be due to end right around 2012."
She sighs and closes her bra, listening to quiet baby snores. "So you're going to go to Mexico in hopes of…what?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. But I want to know what happened to these scientists. Maybe I can learn what happened to me. And to you."
Scully gets up slowly, cradling her son, then crosses the room to lay him in the crib. She watches him for a moment. Then she walks to the door and turns out the light before stepping into the hall. Mulder follows her, pulling the nursery door quietly closed as he leaves the room.
"Mulder, you promised me this was over," she tells him. "What happened to letting it all go? You can't just do things like this anymore."
He stiffens. "I'm not asking your permission."
She laughs bitterly as she stalks to the bedroom. "No, of course you're not. I suppose I should just be grateful that I'm finding out ahead of time instead of by a note stuck to the refrigerator door. 'Scully - gone alien hunting. Pick up bread on your way home from work.' " She slips out of her silk blouse and tosses it to the bed.
"Don't be ridiculous. When's the last time you picked up groceries on your way home from work?"
"Don't give me that," she snaps, rummaging through the dresser for her FBI Academy sweatshirt. "This is what you wanted. You can go to work and we can hire a nanny if this is too much for you, Mulder, but I do plenty to pull my weight. It's not unreasonable that I don't want you flying off to some Mexican hellhole to chase flying saucers."
"This is a partnership," he reminds her, sitting down on the bed. "This is not the Kingdom of Scully where your desires reign supreme. You think it's important that I stay, I think it's important that I go. Someone's going to lose this one."
"William, probably," she says, as her trousers hit the floor. She pulls on a pair of yoga pants. "You have a child now, Mulder. You have to give things up. We both do."
"Oh, do we now?" he asks derisively. "What have you given up, Scully? The career you didn't want for the one you did? The basement for the limelight? I left over ten years of my life down there. Or have you forgotten that since we started playing house?"
"Playing house? Is that what this is to you? I told you that you were free to make whatever choice you wanted. I never pretended this was going to be anything other than what it is. I can't help it if you regret your decision now that you realize I was right." She walks past him to the kitchen, where she pours herself a bowl of cereal and then drowns it in skim milk.
He is close behind. "We agreed there was 'no more dashing off,' Scully. I didn't realize I was going to be under house arrest. I have planned a trip and I tried to give you as much notice as I could. I have made arrangements for William. The freezer is full of pureed produce. Your life won't be inconvenienced beyond your indignance over not getting to have it all your way."
She shakes her head. "You're unbelievable. You just don't get it, do you? This isn't about anyone getting their way. This is about you deliberately doing something that could put your life at risk. William has already attended one funeral for you, albeit in utero. I'd like to keep it the last for at least a few decades."
He sighs and rubs his neck. "I do get it. But this could be huge, Scully. I'm not chasing a blind lead here. This is something that could help explain everything that's happened to us since you were abducted. Including William."
She gives him a hard look. "There's nothing to explain about William."
He doesn't answer, just holds her stare.
"Fine," she says, scraping her uneaten, sodden cereal into the garbage disposal. "Go. You're going to anyway, so I might just as well pretend to agree. That way if you get killed, we won't have spent our last night fighting."
"I don't want you to pretend," he tells her, frustration making the words tight. "I want you to understand why it's so important."
"Well I can't," she replies. "I buried you less than a year ago. And to have you risk everything all over again because you're curious is just a slap in the face."
"You're damned right I'm curious," he says, suddenly angry with her. "I'm curious about why we've been test subjects for years. About why a woman who had all her ova taken was able to conceive a child. About why I was taken before. I'm curious about a whole lot of things and if you can stand here and tell me you're not, then I have to ask myself what happened to the woman I used to know."
"She grew the hell up," Scully informs him. "And she suggests you may want to consider doing the same."
"Yes, your denial is very mature. I'm sure if you just bury your head in the sand the way you always have, we can continue going blithely about our business as though William isn't being raised by a formerly sterile mother and a formerly dead father. Let's just sing Kumbayah and embrace our diversity."
She crosses her arms. "And that's such a repellant idea to you? You can't know everything, Mulder. You can't take on every crusade that comes along."
He shrugs, looking tired. "Scully, I just want to go down there and see if there's a connection. I'm not going to be careless."
"Were you being careless in Oregon?" There is a terrible sadness in her voice.
Mulder closes his eyes and has nothing left to promise her. "I have to finish packing." He goes out of the kitchen and returns to their bedroom.
She does not plead. She does not cry. She does not throw anything. She goes very still for a time and then makes herself a cup of tea.
****
Mulder comes back in half an hour later, a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He finds her at the table, peeling the contents of a box of clementines. He straddles a chair backwards, resting his forearms and chin across the top rung. "I don't like us being at odds."
"I don't like it either."
"But I'm still going to go."
Her nails sink mercilessly into another orange. "I know you are."
"And I'm going to come back."
"Sure. Until next time, right? Until the next big lead pops up and then everyone else be damned." A large section of peel drops to the table. Her fingers are fragrant with the bittersweet oils. "I don't know why I thought this would work. I don't know why I thought you could prioritize."
He reaches for her hand, gently prying the orange from it. "I am prioritizing. This is directly related to what happened to us. This is what I've done for as long as you've known me, Scully. I need to know what happened out there, for all our sakes."
"I'm touched."
"This isn't easy for me either."
Scully swallows hard before she looks at him. "Right."
"I'll call when I land, but I don't know how much contact I'll be able to make otherwise." A horn honks outside and Mulder checks his watch. "That's my ride. Scully, I want you to know that I -"
"Just go."
****
Maggie Scully arrives at their apartment at 6:45, where William has just finished nursing. Scully has made him a bowl of oatmeal and some of the sweet potatoes Mulder left in the freezer.
"Hello, Dana," her mother says too brightly. "How's my little man?"
"Starving, apparently. Thanks for helping, Mom. Sorry it's so early."
"That's okay," Maggie assures her, taking the bowl of orange mush. She begins feeding it to William, who grins toothily at her. "Mmm, good," she says encouragingly.
Scully pulls out her phone, scrolling through her agenda. "Well, it's greatly appreciated. I'll be in and out a bit today, but call if you need anything. Plenty of milk in the fridge and there are labeled baggies of baby food in the freezer. I should be home by seven at the absolute latest."
"That's fine. We're going to have a nice time. Say 'ah,' William."
Scully lifts the breast pump off the floor, setting it on the table. She unzips the case to pack a dozen empty bottles into the bag. "Great. Mulder should be back by next Friday at the outside. I'm sorry things can't be more definite."
Her mother makes a non-committal noise and offers William another spoonful of breakfast.
Scully, who ran two pairs of stockings this morning, asks her mother exactly what the noise is supposed to mean.
"It wasn't supposed to mean anything, Dana. It's none of my business." She hands William a pile of Goldfish crackers. He grasps one firmly between his chubby thumb and forefinger, then goes cross-eyed trying to watch himself eat it.
"What's none of your business?" Scully has no idea why she is picking this fight.
Maggie looks heavenward for the briefest of seconds, then turns to her daughter. "He disappears to Mexico for 'a week-ish' on a moment's notice? I thought you were both done with that sort of thing."
"He didn't disappear. I know where he is. He's entitled to some time away, Mom. Taking care of William day in and day out is exhausting for him."
"I know it is," her mother says. "I raised four children while your father was at sea for six months at a time."
Scully pulls her coat on too hard. "Well, I guess you're stronger than the both of us. Congratulations."
"For heaven's sake. It's not a contest, Dana."
"No, it's not," Scully says in a voice like broken glass. She leans down to kiss William's curly head and inhale his clean, soapy scent. "Goodbye, baby. I miss you."
"Mamamamama!" William babbles, then stuffs a cracker in her mouth.
Scully chews it, then kisses his fingers. She looks away before her mother can see her eyes fill up.
****
Scully and William wait just past the security checkpoint at Dulles. William is in his stroller, teething on the tail of a sock monkey. Scully is craning her neck anxiously around the throngs of people flowing through the concourse. She turns to the large screen on the wall to study Mulder's flight information for the thousandth time.
"Any minute now," she tells William. "Won't he be surprised?"
William gnaws on his toy.
The crowd of people thins out, and Scully checks her watch again. "Probably at the back of the plane," she speculates. "That's what happens when you buy your tickets at the eleventh hour. I learned that the hard way over the years."
A woman walks by her in a t-shirt emblazoned with the Mexican flag, then stops at the stroller. "Hello, handsome," she says to William. He bats his eyes and flirts shamelessly. "He's darling," the woman tells Scully.
"Thank you. Um, did you just get back from Mexico City?" Scully asks.
"Yes, I did. It's just beautiful."
"Were there many other people left on the plane?"
She squats down to chuck William under the chin. "No, just me and the stewardesses. I like to wait until everyone gets off and avoid the crush, you know?" She returns her attention to the baby. "You have the prettiest blue eyes, don't you? Yes you do! Aw, look at your monkey. I bet that's your buddy, huh?"
Scully feels like she has been kicked in the stomach. "Thanks. Right. Well, I guess we'll head home."
"Were you waiting for someone? They'll page people."
"I…no. No, I think I just got my dates mixed up." Scully smiles in a self-deprecating way.
The woman straightens back up. "Babies! So distracting." She waves at William and says, "Bye-bye!" before continuing her journey to wherever she calls home.
Scully wheels the stroller around, heading towards the walkway to the garage. She is so angry that there is no space to panic yet, though it will come in time. Because she has unwittingly trained herself to walk tall when she's hurting, her chin tilts slightly higher and her shoulders straighten. She weaves through the obstacle course of people, seeing none of them.
****
Scully spent two hours on the phone with the US embassy in Mexico City, then finally fell into an exhausted sleep. She comes half-awake when she feels his breath on her neck. "Mulder?" she says groggily, before she fully registers that it's an unexpected sensation.
"Hey," he says. "I debated whether or not to wake you. I haven't showered in two days, my luggage is rumored to be somewhere in southeast Asia, and I've brushed my teeth with a stick since my loaner toothbrush fell down a mineshaft."
She sits up in the bed, staring at him. "We went to the airport but you never came."
He looks crestfallen. "Scully, I'm sorry. Our Jeep got a flat on the way to catch the bus to Mexico City and I had to catch a later flight."
"I thought you weren't coming back."
"Scully -"
She takes his hand and traces the fan of his metacarpals as she speaks. "That's a problem, Mulder. It's a problem that I had cause to think it. We can't move forward if this old life is going to dog us every step of the way."
"I agree," he tells her, propping himself up against the headboard. "But for a different reason."
She looks up at this, puzzled.
"You risk your life when you leave here every day, Scully. And never have I given you any guilt about that. Not once. Because I know what it means to you to do what you do. I went to Mexico to try and find the missing pieces of what happened to us so that we can move forward with a clear understanding of what we're up against. I don't want the past to dog us either, but it will if we can't make sense of it and know what it means for the future. If you can't trust that - if you can't trust me - then this isn't ever going to work out."
Scully gazes at him for a minute that stretches on for eons. Then she slides over, tucking her head under his chin. "What did you find?"
He wraps his arms around her. "A lot of Mexican government officials with fully automatic weapons and an impressive grasp of English vulgarities."
"And?"
"And scorched trees and grass in a large circular area with a diameter of about 100 meters."
Scully plays with the buttons on the front of the faded blue shirt he's wearing. "The archaeologists?"
"Nothing. They were trying to say that the researchers were from a foreign team whose visas had expired and so they were sent back home, but that's so clearly bullshit it's laughable. Then they started shooting and we headed for the hills. Spent a few days hiding out and watching them sanitize the area. I got some pictures, but it doesn't amount to much."
"I'm sorry," she says. Genuinely.
"It's okay. Oh, hey, I got you a present." Mulder reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small jadeite figurine. "This is One-Hunahpu. He's sort of like the Mayan god of basketball. But he lost an important game and his head was turned into a calabash. It had the power to impregnate virgins."
She takes the small stone carving. It feels cool and heavy in her hand. "You went to Mexico and all I got was this lousy statue?"
"Well, I got you a t-shirt too. But it's probably somewhere in Cambodia right now."
"I like it," she says. "Thank you."
"Sneaking around a highly classified scene wasn't the same without you," he murmurs into her hair. "It's not as fun when you aren't around to be coaxed into lawlessness."
She laughs softly. "Working at the FBI isn't quite as thrilling without the constant threat of professional disgrace."
He strokes her jaw with his thumb. "Thinking of quitting?"
"No. You?"
"Not unless you're going to turn me over the CIA or something."
"No," she breathes. "No, I don't think that will be necessary."
"I thought if I wanted to stop caring, I could. I tried. But I think this is the only person I know how to be."
She tilts her face up to look at him in a silver slice of moonlight. Her hands, which kill and heal, tug his warm weight down over her.
****
February 7, 2002
"He's getting restless." The Morley has burned down nearly to the filter. "He needs a project. That trip to Tlaxcala was an unforeseen glitch."
"Doggett and Reyes have the X-Files now. Do you want him back at the FBI?"
He stubs out the last embers of the cigarette. "No. Something different. I want him occupied with an equally interesting but less personally consuming project."
"Very good, sir. And Scully?"
"Agent Scully now has the attentions of all the right people and can make her own way."
The silver lighter flares, and a haze of smoke settles about him like a mantle.
****
July 17th, 2002
"BIRD!" shouts William, reaching towards a fat, greasy-looking pigeon.
"No," says Mulder firmly. "They're plague vectors with wings. Have you not heard your mother's rant about psittacosis?"
"Bird," William repeats, holding his small pink hands out beseechingly. "Come. Yim."
"The bird will not come to William. The bird will only come if you have food and you dumped your Cheerios overboard when we turned onto M Street."
William, now reminded that he has been starved for several blocks, begins to wail. Mulder passes him a plastic key ring, which is promptly flung to the pavement. "Ohs! Dadadada! OHS!"
"We're having lunch with your grandmother. Hang in there for a few more minutes and you will be rewarded with pizza."
Mulder retrieves the toy, then trots briskly down the sidewalk. William screeches at an increasingly higher pitch until they stop in front of Pizzeria Paradiso. Maggie Scully stands outside, and her face lights up when she sees Mulder and the small passenger in his futuristic stroller.
"Nana!" squeals William, holding his arms out. "Up. Upupup."
Maggie unbuckles William, then scoops him out. He pats her face with sticky hands before cramming the fingers of his right hand into his mouth and humming quietly.
"Hello, Mulder."
"How are you, Maggie?"
They have come to an unspoken agreement that Fox and Mrs. Scully would be passive-aggressive.
"I'm good, thank you. I missed you all while I was away. Bill and Tara send their love."
Mulder refrains from further comment as he holds the door open. Maggie walks under his arm. He pulls the stroller in and lets the door close behind them while Maggie settles William into a highchair.
When the pseudo-goth waitress glides over, Mulder orders a pizza for himself and William to share. Maggie orders a salad with tuna and cannellini. William contents himself with banging his sippy cup against the tray as the grownups talk.
"I haven't heard from Dana since I got back," Maggie says, squeezing her lemon wedge into her water. She stirs in a packet of Splenda.
"She's out of town right now. Salt Lake City."
"Is she working on a case?"
No, thinks Mulder. We're looking into polygamy and she's off doing research. He avoids chit-chat at the best of times, and the layer of tension that enfolds these meetups makes it even more irritating than usual. "There's a group of anti-government separatists in southeastern Wyoming with possible ties to a group she's been investigating in Garrett County."
"Oh," says Maggie. "Yes, I remember that. They were in the news. The leader, Kyle Strauth, went to College Park the same time as Dana. Isn't that a funny coincidence?"
"Haha." The laugh sounds phony even to him, and Mulder is grateful when the food arrives a few minutes later. He cuts up a slice into bite-sized chunks for William, then sprinkles pepper flakes on a piece for himself.
Maggie twirls her fork through the garnish on her plate as she watches her grandson convey pizza to his mouth."Is it dangerous, what she's doing?" Her tone is artificially light.
Mulder feels a pang of remorse for the awkwardness that still exists between them. "She's not doing field work like before. She's managing teams of agents who will handle the investigative avenues." He hopes he sounds comforting.
"She's got a knack for that sort of thing. Organization, I mean."
"Yes, she has. Skinner thinks there's every chance of her being made an Assistant Special Agent in Charge within a year or two."
"That's good."
"It's very good. Maggie, she's going to be okay. She's happy and she's getting to do exactly what she always wanted. She's making a difference."
Maggie nods, then sips at her water. "You never stop worrying. But I guess you know that now."
He cuts up more pizza for William. "I do."
"You know, Bill never changed any of the kids' diapers. It wasn't some kind of overt chauvinism or anything. It just didn't occur to him. Men weren't expected to have that level of involvement with their children."
"Yeah, I think it was the same with my dad." Mulder pretends to eat William's pudgy, tomato-stained hand and is rewarded with delighted shrieks.
Maggie smiles. "We didn't breastfeed back then either. They told us formula was better. More scientific. They gave you a pill to dry the milk up and set you home with strict instructions to feed the baby on a firm schedule, no matter what. I followed the rules with Bill Jr. and Melissa, but by the time Dana was born, I just gave her a bottle when she seemed hungry. She was an easier baby for it. Charlie too." Maggie chews a forkful of tuna contemplatively.
"I'm sure William will grow up and laugh at the idea of tummy time because they'll have discovered some brilliant new approach by the time his kids come along."
Maggie takes a deep breath. "When they…found you, the plan was that I was going to watch William two days a week and Dana was going to hire a nanny for the other three. I was so excited to have a grandchild nearby! I offered to watch him all five days, but Dana was afraid it would be too much for me. And then, when you came back and she told me you'd be staying home with him, I was incredulous. Forgive me, but I never considered you the most responsible of people." She looks both embarrassed and relieved by this unburdening.
"You're in good company," he assures her. William, oblivious to the conversation at hand, gnaws happily on his father's discarded pizza crust.
She laughs nervously. "Well. Be that as it may, you've just…what I mean is that I'm incredibly impressed. I don't think he could be in better hands."
"Thank you," Mulder says. "Maggie, the School of Forensic Science at GW is working with the FBI and Interpol to create a detailed database to help profile violent serial offenders. I have been invited to help head up the project. It would be two days a week for now, and I can do the rest from home while he naps. If I accept, would you be willing to take care of William while I'm at work?"
She looks surprised, then elated. "When do you start?"
****
February 26, 2003
Skinner rests his fork on the edge of his plate. "Forget it, Scully. You know I can't. I'm not your direct supervisor anymore. You'll have to discuss it with SAC Robison."
Scully sighs, uncrossing her legs as she leans forward. "I was hoping to have an answer from you before I went to SAC Robison. It'll make a better case to present when I request the resources. Your approval on requiring that seminar for my team would go a long way, sir."
He had already decided to give in before they started eating. The discussion was merely a formality. "Look, I'll try and put in a good word for you, but I'm not making any promises."
Scully takes a drink of her ice water and tries not to look smug.
"You seem to be adapting well to the world of the desk-bound, Scully. How do you like admin?"
"I like it very much, actually. I think coming off of maternity leave made the whole transition much easier for me. It was a good buffer. And I've certainly come to empathize greatly with your position."
"You'd better be careful, Scully. What goes around comes around."
She laughs. "I can only hope you're mistaken. Though it is nice to draw on some of my own experiences to help prevent others from making some of the mistakes I did."
Skinner's expression turns serious. "Well, it's good to see you doing so well. Over the years I had my doubts about whether or not you'd live long enough to make it here. And I'm not talking about the cancer."
"Sir, I -
He plows ahead. "Finding Mulder dead was not a shock to me. Or if it was, I was only shocked not to have found one of you dead sooner. The risks you took were well beyond the call of duty and, quite frankly, I'm very glad to see you both finished with it."
Scully's face tightens. "Our work was outside the normal realm. On occasion, it necessitated extraordinary measures."
"I thought he was going to get you killed, Dana. I didn't want your name up next to Reggie Perdue's."
"If I had died, it wouldn't have been because he 'got' me killed. I always went with him of my own volition." Her voice is as cold and white as the weather.
"It wasn't my intention to offend you, but I -"
"Your concern is appreciated."
The silence stretches on a beat too long. It is broken by a muffled chirp from Scully's pocket. She withdraws her phone and glances down at it. "Excuse me," she says. "I need to answer this e-mail."
Skinner signals the waiter for the bill. Then he turns his attention back to Scully, whose brow is creased as she composes her reply. Skinner often forgets that she is beautiful and is always faintly surprised when he notices.
She wears her good looks like her sidearm - both inextricable facts of her existence. She will flirt if she has to and she will shoot if she has to, but it is her expressed preference to have to do neither. Scully oils her gun, runs long miles, and concedes to the necessity of flattering makeup and well-cut suits.
She hits send, then pockets her phone. "I never could decide if cell phones made civilization more or less efficient," she remarks.
They argue briefly when the check arrives. Scully wins, sending it back with a generous tip.
"So," Skinner says as he gets up. "Can I give you a lift? It's starting to snow."
Scully rises from the chair, and together they walk to the coat check. "Thank you, but Mulder's meeting me here. We're attending a lecture at the Air and Space Museum. His choice." She hands the claim ticket to the clerk and slips her coat on when it arrives.
Skinner has enough sense not to ask her what the lecture is on. "Enjoy. I'll let you know what I hear. If anything."
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."
"Well, don't thank me yet." Through the front window, he sees Mulder pull up to the curb.
Scully smiles briefly, then turns to head out into the biting wind. Skinner watches her from inside as she climbs into the waiting sedan. He wonders what they talk about after a decade in cars together. Mulder who is always searching, and Scully who never gives anything away.
****
Part 2