open post.

[jowls]

Leave prompts, you'll get nonsense.

Comments

[rockitlike]

[ It's awful, and for reasons she can't totally comprehend, she's so touched by it she can't breathe for a moment. They're keeping it forever. ]

We can do a pregnancy shoot if you really want to. No live animals, no pyrotechnics.

[jowls]

Do you want a pregnancy shoot?

[rockitlike]

For myself? No. I think they're silly and usually a little tacky.

But... would it be good to have that? So she grows up seeing us right now, like this-- waiting to meet her?

[jowls]

That's the thing: I don't really want one, either. If we're going to go that far, we might as well go get glamour shots done and call it a day.

We take pictures sometimes already. We could print them off the cloud.

[rockitlike]

I think I like that better.

I just want her to know how wanted she is.

[jowls]

We're going to tell her every single day.

Do people still make scrapbooks? I haven't seen any on mommy blogs.

[rockitlike]

I have no idea. Maybe you can bring it back, you're a trend-setter.

[jowls]

Seems like a lot of work for a few pages festooned with stickers. Maybe we'll go old-school and get a photo album.

[rockitlike]

Old school has always been our style.

I wish it could have been like this for William.

[jowls]

I do, too.

[ Is he ordering a tasteful-looking faux leather photo album off Amazon right now? Maybe. They should have a baby book, too, right? They need one of those little books where they write down every first experience.

He's also trying to decide just how much is too much in a text message. Not that he's ever been in the mood to self-censor, but he knows how deeply the wound runs for Scully. Why twist the knife? ]

Even when he was with us, I was never really a father to him.
I wish we could have had more time.

[rockitlike]

[ It's a deep wound, and and old one that never healed well. Maybe that's why she's the one picking at it now-- it doesn't feel right, carrying on trying to ignore it.

Maybe it's the first time she's felt they're strong enough to face it like this. ]

You hardly had time to get used to the idea.
I've spent so long wondering if I could have done something differently.

[jowls]

So have I.

[ Have they ever talked about that, how long he spent trying to see other possibilities? All the Monday-morning quarterbacking he'd tried to do, all the ways he'd tried to play things out differently in his mind. ]

I should have found a way to stay with you. We should have gone on the lam together.
If I could go back and do it again, I would never have left you.

[rockitlike]

I'm the one who told you to go.

Maybe it's foolish to think like this. We did the best we could, and it wasn't enough. Maybe it was never going to be enough.

I want to believe he knows we miss him. Is that foolish?

[jowls]

It's not like I listened to you before that.

[ There's a long pause, his own endless rounds of typing and then stopping, then typing, then stopping. A dozen things he starts to say and then erases. ]

I think that you and he have a connection beyond sharing DNA. And if he can feel even a fraction of what you feel every day, then he must know you love him, and that you want him to come home.

[rockitlike]

[ Half a dozen times, she writes and deletes some variation on then why doesn't he come home. ]

God, I hope so. I really do.

[jowls]

I hope so, too.

[ Because he's scared. Because he's stubborn. Because - and Mulder's pretty sure he can never voice this one - they screwed things up so badly without knowing it that they'll never see it again.

He wants to believe it's some combination of the first two reasons. He's afraid it might be the last. ]

When he does, we'll be ready.

[rockitlike]

I know. We will be, and if we're lucky he'll know that. If it's safer for him to be somewhere else...

We know what that's like.

[ But she still hates not knowing, not being able to talk to him. Not having a chance to explain or apologize or-- mostly-- just to listen. ]

[jowls]

We do.

I guess we just have to believe.

[rockitlike]

You've always been good at that part.

And I've been practicing.

[jowls]

It's harder with this.

Feels like I've been practicing all my life for William. I just didn't know it.

[rockitlike]

It's harder having hope than dealing with loss, I think.

[jowls]

I think you're right.

We're not trying to figure out what happened. We're trying to figure out what happens next.

[rockitlike]

That's new for us.

[jowls]

Do you think that's how things fell apart before? Never looking forward, except when it seemed like the world was going to end.

[rockitlike]

It's probably an oversimplification- but it didn't help. I think in a way... Once we didn't have a crisis, we didn't know what to do next.

And I didn't think I could let myself want this.