If William hadn't been William Scully, then they'd have had to give everything else up. It had seemed earth-shattering then, to drop the fig leaf keeping their relationship anything more than an open secret; now, it's just one more option in a sea of options, since no one at the Bureau's going to get on their case for fraternization.

He hasn't considered this with the same intensity as he has the Samantha question, though, and when he answers, it's with the slow words of a man thinking aloud. "I'm not sure how much it matters. Believe it or not, I'm not actually that attached to the name Mulder - it's just better than Fox."

This, wryly. How much does a surname mean in the twenty-first century? It might tell someone who your father is, or it might not. It might bind a family together, show who belongs to whom, but it's not like the two of them have matching surnames. What's he going to do, ask her to drop all her professional credentials and become Dr. Dana Mulder? "It could have both of them, I guess. Whatever Samantha Scully-Mulder. Mulder-Scully. Mulder y Scully, if we're willing to move to Spain."