How one decides the relative mintiness of a given packet of tea leaves, Mulder doesn't know, but it seems like something best left to an expert. So regular mint it is, and he'll continue to do little more than enjoy the scent while he downs a cup of coffee.
"Am I underdressed? I could run back up there and grab the feather boa." Instead he pulls off the hat and leans over to plunk it on her head, a souvenir she'd decided not to come with him to get. Neither of them meet the dress code now. And then he flops down next to her - not too hard, aware that he probably doesn't want her to spill hot tea all over herself - and slides an arm around her shoulders. "So how's the apple doing?"
The grape, the fig, the lime. As the baby's size changes, so does Mulder's reference point - based on a listicle he read at four AM a few days after he found out - and so it follows that his nickname for it does, too. He finds himself wanting to talk about it frequently, fascinated as he couldn't be last time, and yet superstitious as well; the word "baby" rarely crosses his lips. Given everything they've gone through, given the unusual circumstances of the moment - the words geriatric pregnancy were dropped at the first OBGYN appointment he attended, and they've stuck like a burr in his head ever since - maybe a little magical thinking isn't unwarranted.
She wrinkles her nose on principle but leaves the hat where he's set it. At least then she doesn't have to look at it perched the wrong way on his head, how do you do, fellow kids?-style. It's funny to feel a little nostalgic about the trip she didn't go on. Seeing Stonehenge might have been nice-- but the time spent apart had been necessary. Even then, she loved him; she'd needed the space not to be rid of him, but to examine his absence, to test her feelings in something closer to laboratory conditions.
For a moment she leans away, only to set her tea down, before shifting closer to lean in against him, head on his shoulder. Reflexively, she smooths her hand over her stomach, shooting him a little smile, an invitation to touch if he wants.
"Okay, I think. Quiet. Not big enough to swim laps yet."
Objectively she ought to be more worried than she is. Even without the particulars of her history, this should be classed as a high-risk pregnancy; but something-- maybe intuition, maybe faith, maybe just stubbornness-- makes her believe things will be all right for all three of them.
"Or swimming laps constantly," he suggests, his hand settling low on her belly, "and we just don't know it."
Sure, there's probably scientific reason to think otherwise, and if anyone could cite the realities of fetal development off the top of her head, it'd be Dana Scully. But Mulder's an avowed layman - emphasis on the lay, under the circumstances - and he's willing to allow for flights of fancy.
And maybe he likes the idea of a kid who already loves the water, even if it's just amniotic fluid at the moment. He still has both his parents' homes and the summer house, having lived off rental fees - minus a property management service's cut - for years after Scully left. Maybe they can reclaim one of them, fill the space with memories that aren't bitter and edged with the scent of Morleys. Teach the kid to swim, tell it the good stories from childhood, look for constellations and wonder which star Aunt Samantha's soul lives on in.
He's confided none of these ideas to Scully just yet. He's not sure when's going to be the right time to suggest any of it. It's enough to know that they can start out here, that there's space for three and backyard to spare. (That still seems vital to him, yard space. Whatever else is true, they're not going to hand the kid an iPad as soon as it's old enough to know what its hands are for. He'll be damned if he's one of those parents who goes to restaurants and props a cell phone in front of his kid.)
"What do we do now, Scully?" It's a question he hasn't dared ask before this moment, one that's been rattling around in his head for a while. Part of the problem is the question's breadth; he could clarify, try to nail down just what he means, but the reality is, he means everything. How do they rearrange their lives to fit in someone who's going to rely on them for everything?
Curled in against his side, she just hums at the thought. This is what she missed out on with William; basking in the warmth of companionship. It's not that she was wholly alone, exactly-- her mother was always near, Tara a phone call away to gossip about the peculiarities of pregnancy; and John had been surprisingly supportive, a closer friend than she could have anticipated when she'd first met him.
But, God, she'd missed Mulder terribly-- she'd wanted nothing more than this, to lay her cheek on his chest and tell him the minutiae of her days. To let him feel the baby kick, and to ask him to make her tea when her stomach was unsettled. The little things that are everything. They'd barely been together at all when she'd lost him-- and the knowledge that he'd disappeared, that he'd-- well. That he was gone without ever knowing-- it had been too much, a pain she guarded fiercely because she couldn't trust anyone to understand.
But here they are, their fingers brushing, their imaginations running on parallel wild streaks, imagining indistinct beaches and the scent of salt. Telling stories about Grandpa's ship and building clumsy sandcastles, watching gulls swoop and dive.
It's a nice daydream, and it's incredibly possible. She still can't believe it.
"Well," she starts, carefully because she's trying to puzzle out what, exactly, he's asking. "I'd like to work until I can't-- though I'll probably have to cut back on field work once I'm farther along." No more sliding down garbage chutes or running in heels through abandoned buildings.
"Dana Scully, desk jockey." Their work is the best - maybe the only - place to start, but thinking about what she'll be able to do only leads him to more questions. "I was looking it up the other night; you're not supposed to handle formaldehyde anymore. I think bone saws are still okay - just as long as you don't plan on preserving anything."
Which she probably knows, since she's done this once before, but it's kind of fascinating to him, all the things that pregnant women have to avoid. Deli meat and hair dye, cappuccinos and used cat litter. Soft-serve ice cream. Rare steak. He's gotten in the habit of searching on his phone every time he thinks of something else this might be a problem: oven cleaner pregnant women.
So he goes into the field while she files the paperwork - that's something. But it means missing weekends like this, and probably large chunks of the week as well. That's OB appointments skipped and Scully alone if something happens. At the risk of attaching himself to her like a remora, he doesn't like the idea of running around in California while she's out here, or even at the condo. Worse yet, even if Skinner wouldn't demand he take someone else with him, someone might - and the idea of having some bright-eyed kid tagging along with Old Spooky Mulder makes him want to yank his hair out.
Or they stay around the DMV, and they both do desk work. Hell, get some green new agents and run send them out on errands. But that means ceding control over everything but the administration of the X-files, and it leaves him with fresh-faced kids all over again. Doing Skinner's job, even on a smaller basis, sounds like hell.
And none of it addresses what happens when the kid's not theoretical anymore. What are they going to do, hire a nanny and hope for the best? It feels beside the point of having a kid in the first place - and it's the same problem of leaving a pregnant Scully alone while he gallivants around the country. If they were away and something happened...
He can barely forgive himself for William. Losing another kid might just kill him.
"You know, once you hit fifty-seven, if you've been at it for twenty years, you can retire," he says. It's irrelevant for her, of course - she still has a few years before she'd qualify. But he's fifty-seven as they speak, fifty-eight by the time the kid's actually here. And even with a few years-long breaks in there, Mulder's sure he's got the necessary time under his belt; the Bureau's had him since he was 23.
There's a question hiding behind the statement, but it doesn't actually need to be asked. Scully will know what he's putting out there - and why it's difficult to fathom it, let alone voice it.
"We'll have to subcontract the slicing and dicing," she agrees. A little sad-- she's always thought it was one of their strengths, not relying on outside coroners who could miss or conceal things-- but it might be nice not to be up to her elbows in viscera for a while. Maybe she could get a manicure and have it last more than a day.
The idea of leaving, though-- well, she'd worked through her first pregnancy, but the work had been urgent. Find him. And after-- after. She'd needed it to ground her, to carry on a legacy for both of them. For William, too.
And so she'd just taken it as a given, that they'd make it work-- even with a child in the mix. The alternative hadn't even occurred to her, and it takes her by surprise, now. Doubly so that he's the one suggesting it.
For that matter even without a full pension, she suspects they'd get by just fine. They could quit tomorrow.
"I hadn't thought about that," she admits, turning it over in her mind.
"I can't see another way." And now that he's said part of it, he has to try and explain the rest. The thought of saying it all is killing him, but he's been putting it off since just after she told him the news; everything he's been ruminating on has been waiting to bubble up, and now he's opened the floodgates. The intensity of it - his gesticulating, the quick pace of the words - is nothing new, but the urgency takes on a new cast when it's focused on the subject at hand. "We can't take a preschooler in the field with us, and we can't get anything done if we're spending every day in the basement. Maybe we hire out a nanny and let some stranger raise our kid? But I don't want to do that, and I don't think you do, either.
"You and I know the truth of what's out there. We've fought powerful men in the shadows of legitimate governments for decades now, and I have to believe we made a difference. The invasion never happened. But we didn't stop the men who wanted it." He takes a breath then, a needed one, and his hand finds hers, squeezing lightly. His words keep coming out, but with more effort now. "I don't think we can ever stop them, Scully. They're like roaches: One dies, more show up to take their place. We know the truth. We've seen credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, and we know what happened to my sister. I want more than that, I want the world to know just what's out there, but -
"But when it gets down to the real math, the stuff that matters - I've got three or four decades with the apple, best case scenario. And that's assuming I can make it to ninety. For all we know, I keel over when I'm seventy-five, and that's that." Sure, he's in good shape, probably better than Cancer Man was in his fifties, better than his actual father - but even if he's not shot to death like both of them, that doesn't mean he's guaranteed anything. "But no matter how long I have - I don't want it to think back after I'm gone and wonder why I wasn't around."
They lost Emily - and even if she was only Scully's, Mulder would have raised her as his own without hesitation. They had to let William go, and as things stand, Mulder struggles to believe that they'll ever see him again. This is their last chance, the one time they can do this right. If there's ever been a reason to let the X-files go permanently, to let them become a hobby at best, surely this is it.
Well that is-- reasonable. Well-thought-out, logical, but more strikingly backed by every ounce of his emotional investment. She squeezes his fingers in return, hoping the gesture is reassuring, leaving their hands tangled together; a loose guard over the heart of their conversation, dreaming quietly within her.
"Mulder--"
She almost tells him she doesn't plan to let him die, anytime soon or really ever-- but it's not the right spot for the joke. (Nor the right spot to remind themselves of what happened before William.) He isn't wrong about any of it, though-- she'd spent years frustrated by the fact that their work isn't really compatible with a life outside it, a family. Somehow she'd convinced herself they could make it work, because deep down, the stubborn part of her thinks they can do anything they have to. But the question is: do they have to?
"I guess-- I'm not sure either of us is suited to retirement." There's an edge of wry amusement to the admission. She's well aware of her own workaholic tendencies; as invested as she is in the idea of being a mother, that's not the same as only focusing on motherhood. But that doesn't have to mean what they're doing now.
And Mulder has always been an easy excuse to keep working. Idleness has never been good for him-- ask the ceiling panels in the basement ruined by his pencil-throwing. She remembers how restless he'd get between cases, or when he thought their assignment was beneath their expertise. It makes her nervous, too, remembering the aimlessness he felt in this very house-- but this is different. Maybe, this is different. It's his idea, for one thing, and more importantly-- he wouldn't be idle at all, not with a toddler to chase.
"Maybe we call it a break, and ease into it. I mean-- it's just--" She takes a breath, looks up at him as best she can from her position tucked beneath his arm. "I think it's the right idea. I do. I just wonder-- when they start school, are we going to feel like we're at loose ends again?"
She can make her plans, but only one of them is likely to live forever, and it's not the guy who thinks auto-erotic asphyxiation is hot. (He still halfway believes in Bruckman's prophecy, even though it feels less and less like it fits into the life they're leading. When Scully was gone, he refused to think about it, and now that she's here, he'd rather wheedle her into choking him, if he can.) Mortality has always been a few steps behind them, but it feels like fewer than it used to.
"So we reassess in five years." Scully looks up at him, and he looks down, and it's just what he thought: she'd understand, she'd know what to say. If he hadn't spent all that time obsessively going over the options, maybe it wouldn't be like this - but he's nothing if not thorough when it comes to the things he's focused on. "Or I write an unauthorized sequel to Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Or we could start a podcast about what we've learned - it worked for Whitley Strieber."
There are options, he suspects, beyond even those possibilities. Some of what's out there for new parents is patently insane, from people who refuse to vaccinate their kids - Scully'd have an aneurysm - to those private schools that promise Latin speakers by age seven. A thousand different ways they could spend the rest of their time with their newest project, if they decide they want to. "Or we skip school and tour every MLB stadium in the country. People do that, Scully, they just get in an old schoolbus and drive their kids around until they get bored of it. We could do anything."
They could not, in fact, do anything. But you throw the extreme possibilities into the light and let your partner disagree, and eventually, you end up with a good plan. It's bargaining, and storytelling, and trying to make her smile.
Five years. It shouldn't be monumental-- they've been together so much longer than that. But it's so definite, so concrete, in a way they've largely avoided talking about things. Not for lack of commitment, but maybe some strange superstition about the future. Believing she'll be with him for the rest of their lives-- easy. Picturing life six months from now? A little unnerving.
"We're not homeschooling on a bus." The disdain is palpable, not that she takes the suggestion too seriously. There are all those questions-- schools, daycares, arrangements of where they're going to live, how their days will look. Any minute now they'll have to start getting on waiting lists.
"You've been thinking about this a lot." It's an invitation, if he wants, to tell her what else he's been thinking about. It's not exactly a surprise-- see: Fox Mulder doesn't do anything by halves-- but it's the first time they've really tried to talk about the logistics. And... she has to admit, there's a lot to figure out; there are plans they can't avoid making, not forever.
Part of the problem is that before now, they never had five years to look forward to. A relationship conducted in the shadows, lives spent living under the radar of the most powerful government in the world, an alien invasion looming - they'd existed in a perpetual now, aware that their world could come crashing down on them at any moment. Even when they opened the X-files back up, when Scully started sleeping over, the future had been shapeless.
Give it the form of a child, and the future becomes shockingly concrete. What happens next almost doesn't matter, because it's already decided. Barring more tragedy, they're looking at sleepless nights and toilet training, followed by homework and summer camp and prom dates and college applications. There's a clear path forward, a certainty they've never lived with before.
"You have to carry it around all day," he answers, tapping her stomach. "I have to pick up the slack somewhere."
And while he has a lackadaisical approach to some aspects of his life - the dishes will get done eventually, the rug will be vacuumed at some point - the things that matter get his full attention. "There's a lot to think about, Scully, and it seems like there's more every day. Did you know people make their kids' bedrooms have a theme now? I have some ideas saved on Pinterest, but the main thing is, we should paint the ceiling black."
Read: He made an account on Pinterest solely for this purpose.
"Give me a few months, I'll make you rub my feet and listen to complaints about my back."
Her tone is light; the truth is she kind of can't wait. Not that she wants to terrorize him, but there's a certain excitement to not having to try to hide or downplay things this time; to have a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on, to share all the good and miserable and weird parts of this with someone who cares as much as she does.
And this-- the fact that he is saving things on Pinterest, he has a Pinterest-- is delightful. Isn't she supposed to be the one with a nesting instinct?
"I'm pretty sure themes aren't mandatory," she points out, poking the back of his hand. "But I'm open to it. What else are you getting up to online?"
"Torrenting anarchist manifestos and cruising pornography subreddits," he teases, poking the slight curve of her belly. "The usual stuff. But I can probably make time for foot rubs."
And a truly insane amount of research on the minutiae of pregnancy and childbirth. There's a fake Facebook profile out there of a woman named Samantha Luder, with a stock-photography photo to identify herself and a due date that happens to match Scully's; Mulder's been using it to lurk in groups for first-time mothers, having discovered that the social media market for new (well, new-with-an-asterisk) dads is comparatively lacking.
Hell, Scully'd probably get a kick out of it. Maybe he'll show her later. For now, he gives her a more serious answer, fishing his phone out of a pocket and opening the app in question. When he hands it over to her, everything's organized into little boards with names like DAD STUFF, NURSERY, TIPS, FUN FACTS and also, maybe inevitably, UFO MEMES. "Just trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing."
"Where would gonewild be without your thoughtful mentorship?" she says with a little laugh. "I didn't think I'd have to worry about parental controls on our wifi this early."
But she takes his phone, delighted at this trove of research. It's another little clue to how invested he is; he's not just falling down rabbit holes but making maps of them, saving the best and most intriguing leads, though she's willing to bet there are some absolutely awful old wives' tales mixed in that they'll eventually have a companionable argument about.
She leaves DAD STUFF untouched and dives into NURSERY, scrolling through the images that have caught his eye. They're all polished, staged, perfect and beautiful, and-- already touched as she is-- she feels her breath catch a little at the thought of working side by side, crafting a space to welcome their child. She might not be feeling many effects yet but now and then the overwhelming emotion creeps up on her; she backs out and switches over to FACTS, which seems a little less likely to make her cry.
This is less fraught if only because it's more familiar; half of it the same infographics that pop up when she's online, the expectant mother e-mail lists that have hardly changed in the years since she had William. But she still feels it, that swell of affection too intense to contain, and her hand wraps around his arm, squeezing maybe too hard.
"Have you..." She's not really ready for this one, but what are they doing if not jumping in head-first? "Thought at all about names?"
He'd like to think he's been able to spot some of the questionable stuff on his own, dismissing most of the is it a boy or a girl folk myths; as tempting as it is to put a ring on a chain and see which way it spins over her belly, it seems unlikely to get them anywhere compared to the creepy-looking 3-D imaging available these days. But if there's one thing he's learned while trawling through the endless resources for new parents, it's that he doesn't really know a goddamned thing about parenting.
The NURSERY photos are mostly variations on how do you make a room look like it's not a room. Murals of trees, silver stars dotting a ceiling in an accurate representation of the night sky, little stuffed animals dressed to sit around a campfire, play tents that run suspiciously close to cultural appropriation. He's hesitant to make demands, if only because all of William's things ran towards white and pastel, but his own inclinations are someplace else.
He's also hesitant to make demands when it comes to naming rights; he's at a strange place, diving in headfirst and still not quite sure how much input's allowed him when it comes to the things that actually matter. Scully won't argue over the results of a Google search like watermelon safe pregnancy, but when they move from the realm of fact to opinion, some part of him still feels like a stranger. It'll pass, probably, as they figure out the new rhythm of their lives together.
So there's a silent moment or two, Mulder looking at their hands, before he says, "If it's a girl, Samantha - as a middle name, not a first name. Otherwise? No idea."
Harmless divination, she'll give him the benefit of the doubt on. Which is to say she'll roll her eyes and argue statistics, but won't stop him if he's enjoying himself. The bigger issue is whether he really wants to know, more than she wants to not know.
"I like that," is the right place to start. If it's a girl-- and there's a part of her that hopes it is-- she'd have asked if he wanted to call her Sam, or if it would be too painful, but a middle name seems about right. I chose William so early, she can't say. Because I knew you'd have argued if I tried to call him Fox, but I needed to remember you. If he'd objected-- she would have taken it seriously, but maybe she should have tried harder to bring him into it, then. Things had been so strange-- there's no question she did a hundred things wrong, but maybe this time at least they can find new mistakes to make, and sort out some of the old ones.
"Does not knowing bother you? We could find out-- if you really wanted." It would make the name question easier to resolve, maybe. "I liked the idea of being surprised."
"Why bother? We're not going to cover the house in pink and blue." Mulder shrugs off the question of finding out the sex with a kind of disinterest he's discovered isn't matched by most of his mom-board acquaintances. Gender reveal parties have been another strange discovery of modern parenthood, and unlike thematic room decisions, he has absolutely no interest. Slyly, he adds, "Besides, you'll probably figure it out just looking at the ultrasound. You can tell me, if you know."
William had exactly the kind of plausible deniability necessary to make the Mulder of twenty years ago accept it; these days, if her heart was set on Fox, he'd be willing to consider. It'd probably be more trouble than it's worth, to have two Fox Mulders in one house, but it's not like he uses his given name where he doesn't have to.
But Samantha's still easy to talk about and painful to miss, and he'd actually worked this particular wrinkle out in therapy a week or two ago, because it's a question that's been nagging him since Scully mentioned. (Therapy, it turns out, is incredible. Sometimes it sucks - frequently, in Mulder's case - but most of the time, someone listens to what you say and gives a damn in a way that makes a difference. It took a long damned time to find someone who made it anything but agony, but at this point, he's hooked. Being able to talk about things, after a lifetime of secrets and subterfuge, has changed his life.) He wants to remember his sister, to know someone will remember her after he's gone, but not to put all the weight of his grief on a kid.
And then it occurs to him that they don't, necessarily, have the problem of two Fox Mulders living under one roof. Something something patriarchal assumptions, et cetera, et cetera. "Is this one a Scully or a Mulder, Scully? What's its last name?"
"I'm trying not to peek." It's harder than it should be. "I'd tell you if I did. But for now I'd be guessing."
She looks down at their hands, at the slight curve of her stomach. Hardly anything yet; that's the marvel of it, how swift and slow it is at once. There'll come a day soon when she starts to find nothing fits-- she'll have to go shopping.
And that question takes her by surprise again-- though for the opposite reason; it had been logistically self-evident with William that he'd be a Scully, but that... doesn't really apply this time around.
"Is that something you'd want? To give it your name?"
It makes a certain amount of sense. Bill and Tara are doing their part to repopulate the world with little Scullys already.
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."
It's hard to believe in retrospect that they tried so hard to hide things-- or maybe more aptly, that they ever imagined it could work. For so long they'd tried to stay apart so they wouldn't be a liability to one another-- but it's not as though their partnership was ever superficial. Her abduction had been proof of that.
He is, after all, the last Mulder. Even if he's not attached to the name, she's attached enough to him that she wouldn't mind it.
"It doesn't hyphenate very well," she muses. Of course she isn't going to change her name-- it would be terribly impractical, professionally, and after all he's spent decades calling her Scully. They can't both call each other Mulder.
"We'll pick a name for it first," he says, amused by the idea and - for the moment - uninvested in the details, "and then whoever's name sounds better wins. At worst, we flip a coin in the delivery room."
There's no doubt that he'll get obsessed with the matter of naming the kid at some point, but it's still too theoretical. They need more to go on than they have, right now - or he does, at least. The occasions he's attempted to search baby names have given him a weird mix of random syllables (Taylee? Oaklynn? Abcde?) and words straight out of the dictionary, or possibly off a stripper pole. Research will not, he suspects, help with this particular problem; they'll pick something they both like, and that'll be that. If theirs is a Jane in a sea of Ryleighs and Velvets, so be it.
There's another question at hand, the one behind what's the kid's last name?, and if they're already here, he might as well ask. At the moment, he feels like he could say anything without too much regret. "You ever think of getting married?"
Really she hasn't hit on anything that feels right, not yet. She's not inclined to suggest Melissa; in some strange way, Emily was tied to her; and it would be too much for a little girl's shoulders to carry two lost aunts. Samantha, though, feels suitable.
"I-- hmn. Not in a long time," she admits. That's an answer that might sting, and she squeezes his arm. By now, she hopes, her commitment shouldn't be in question; they are after all having their second child together. "After all our time on the road it felt superfluous."
"Mortimer Ambrose Scully." Their own little accountant - they can decorate his room with old tickertape and tax returns. But if they're giving the kid an embarrassing name, he's leaving Scully holding the bag on the surname front.
Her answer isn't a surprise, but the fact that it doesn't sting much is. Maybe it would have pained him at one point - but her suspicions are right.
"I always figured we were," he admits. Out loud, it sounds silly, but it's true; his devotion to her was unquestionable, even when he was a black hole of misery threatening to pull them both under. "In all the ways that counted, anyway. If we made it official, Uncle Sam's the only person it'd change things for."
Oh, that's a fantastically awful name. Definitely not on the real list, but a potential nickname for their apple for the rest of her pregnancy. In spite of the seriousness lurking at the edge of this conversation she laughs.
She'd be lying if she said she never thought about marrying him, but most of it was idle daydreaming-- young and impossibly naïve, in retrospect. The necessary secrecy of their relationship at first had made it impossible; and after, it's not like they ever had the time, the peace.
"It felt that way," she agrees. "And all those years-- well, everyone assumed." She'd gotten used to that. It was different, when they were fugitives-- under false names, they were married enough, then. They'd sold the illusion because it wasn't an illusion; just a question of formalities.
"And I still feel that way-- though I guess it might be logistically easier. Not exactly romantic, though."
"Yeah." It's bizarre to look back on those days as Anthony Blake and think, those were happy times, but they frequently were. Living in fear and paranoia, always glancing back over one shoulder, and yet - there they were, kissing each other openly, walking hand in hand along foreign beaches. For the first time in their life together, they'd been able to live as a couple. All it had cost them was every other part of their lives.
These days, he's not sure they need any more validation than they already get when they're out and about. People still assume they're together, especially now that it's obvious they are; add a stroller, and there'll be no question. Is it worthwhile to rush through the legal side of things just so the kid isn't technically a bastard?
"I don't think it'll make your brother any happier I knocked you up," he says, and it's one of those jokes with a little too much truth to it, "even if I make an honest woman of you this time."
Who else is even left who'd care? It's really just Bill and Tara and their kids. Skinner'll be happy for them, Charlie'll be impossible to reach, and there's not a Mulder or Kuipers alive that would know who he was, let alone give a damn.
After a few moments' thought, he asks, "What if we wait a couple years? Go to Vegas, get married by the King. We can bring the apple with us."
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"Am I underdressed? I could run back up there and grab the feather boa." Instead he pulls off the hat and leans over to plunk it on her head, a souvenir she'd decided not to come with him to get. Neither of them meet the dress code now. And then he flops down next to her - not too hard, aware that he probably doesn't want her to spill hot tea all over herself - and slides an arm around her shoulders. "So how's the apple doing?"
The grape, the fig, the lime. As the baby's size changes, so does Mulder's reference point - based on a listicle he read at four AM a few days after he found out - and so it follows that his nickname for it does, too. He finds himself wanting to talk about it frequently, fascinated as he couldn't be last time, and yet superstitious as well; the word "baby" rarely crosses his lips. Given everything they've gone through, given the unusual circumstances of the moment - the words geriatric pregnancy were dropped at the first OBGYN appointment he attended, and they've stuck like a burr in his head ever since - maybe a little magical thinking isn't unwarranted.
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For a moment she leans away, only to set her tea down, before shifting closer to lean in against him, head on his shoulder. Reflexively, she smooths her hand over her stomach, shooting him a little smile, an invitation to touch if he wants.
"Okay, I think. Quiet. Not big enough to swim laps yet."
Objectively she ought to be more worried than she is. Even without the particulars of her history, this should be classed as a high-risk pregnancy; but something-- maybe intuition, maybe faith, maybe just stubbornness-- makes her believe things will be all right for all three of them.
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Sure, there's probably scientific reason to think otherwise, and if anyone could cite the realities of fetal development off the top of her head, it'd be Dana Scully. But Mulder's an avowed layman - emphasis on the lay, under the circumstances - and he's willing to allow for flights of fancy.
And maybe he likes the idea of a kid who already loves the water, even if it's just amniotic fluid at the moment. He still has both his parents' homes and the summer house, having lived off rental fees - minus a property management service's cut - for years after Scully left. Maybe they can reclaim one of them, fill the space with memories that aren't bitter and edged with the scent of Morleys. Teach the kid to swim, tell it the good stories from childhood, look for constellations and wonder which star Aunt Samantha's soul lives on in.
He's confided none of these ideas to Scully just yet. He's not sure when's going to be the right time to suggest any of it. It's enough to know that they can start out here, that there's space for three and backyard to spare. (That still seems vital to him, yard space. Whatever else is true, they're not going to hand the kid an iPad as soon as it's old enough to know what its hands are for. He'll be damned if he's one of those parents who goes to restaurants and props a cell phone in front of his kid.)
"What do we do now, Scully?" It's a question he hasn't dared ask before this moment, one that's been rattling around in his head for a while. Part of the problem is the question's breadth; he could clarify, try to nail down just what he means, but the reality is, he means everything. How do they rearrange their lives to fit in someone who's going to rely on them for everything?
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But, God, she'd missed Mulder terribly-- she'd wanted nothing more than this, to lay her cheek on his chest and tell him the minutiae of her days. To let him feel the baby kick, and to ask him to make her tea when her stomach was unsettled. The little things that are everything. They'd barely been together at all when she'd lost him-- and the knowledge that he'd disappeared, that he'd-- well. That he was gone without ever knowing-- it had been too much, a pain she guarded fiercely because she couldn't trust anyone to understand.
But here they are, their fingers brushing, their imaginations running on parallel wild streaks, imagining indistinct beaches and the scent of salt. Telling stories about Grandpa's ship and building clumsy sandcastles, watching gulls swoop and dive.
It's a nice daydream, and it's incredibly possible. She still can't believe it.
"Well," she starts, carefully because she's trying to puzzle out what, exactly, he's asking. "I'd like to work until I can't-- though I'll probably have to cut back on field work once I'm farther along." No more sliding down garbage chutes or running in heels through abandoned buildings.
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Which she probably knows, since she's done this once before, but it's kind of fascinating to him, all the things that pregnant women have to avoid. Deli meat and hair dye, cappuccinos and used cat litter. Soft-serve ice cream. Rare steak. He's gotten in the habit of searching on his phone every time he thinks of something else this might be a problem: oven cleaner pregnant women.
So he goes into the field while she files the paperwork - that's something. But it means missing weekends like this, and probably large chunks of the week as well. That's OB appointments skipped and Scully alone if something happens. At the risk of attaching himself to her like a remora, he doesn't like the idea of running around in California while she's out here, or even at the condo. Worse yet, even if Skinner wouldn't demand he take someone else with him, someone might - and the idea of having some bright-eyed kid tagging along with Old Spooky Mulder makes him want to yank his hair out.
Or they stay around the DMV, and they both do desk work. Hell, get some green new agents and run send them out on errands. But that means ceding control over everything but the administration of the X-files, and it leaves him with fresh-faced kids all over again. Doing Skinner's job, even on a smaller basis, sounds like hell.
And none of it addresses what happens when the kid's not theoretical anymore. What are they going to do, hire a nanny and hope for the best? It feels beside the point of having a kid in the first place - and it's the same problem of leaving a pregnant Scully alone while he gallivants around the country. If they were away and something happened...
He can barely forgive himself for William. Losing another kid might just kill him.
"You know, once you hit fifty-seven, if you've been at it for twenty years, you can retire," he says. It's irrelevant for her, of course - she still has a few years before she'd qualify. But he's fifty-seven as they speak, fifty-eight by the time the kid's actually here. And even with a few years-long breaks in there, Mulder's sure he's got the necessary time under his belt; the Bureau's had him since he was 23.
There's a question hiding behind the statement, but it doesn't actually need to be asked. Scully will know what he's putting out there - and why it's difficult to fathom it, let alone voice it.
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The idea of leaving, though-- well, she'd worked through her first pregnancy, but the work had been urgent. Find him. And after-- after. She'd needed it to ground her, to carry on a legacy for both of them. For William, too.
And so she'd just taken it as a given, that they'd make it work-- even with a child in the mix. The alternative hadn't even occurred to her, and it takes her by surprise, now. Doubly so that he's the one suggesting it.
For that matter even without a full pension, she suspects they'd get by just fine. They could quit tomorrow.
"I hadn't thought about that," she admits, turning it over in her mind.
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"You and I know the truth of what's out there. We've fought powerful men in the shadows of legitimate governments for decades now, and I have to believe we made a difference. The invasion never happened. But we didn't stop the men who wanted it." He takes a breath then, a needed one, and his hand finds hers, squeezing lightly. His words keep coming out, but with more effort now. "I don't think we can ever stop them, Scully. They're like roaches: One dies, more show up to take their place. We know the truth. We've seen credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, and we know what happened to my sister. I want more than that, I want the world to know just what's out there, but -
"But when it gets down to the real math, the stuff that matters - I've got three or four decades with the apple, best case scenario. And that's assuming I can make it to ninety. For all we know, I keel over when I'm seventy-five, and that's that." Sure, he's in good shape, probably better than Cancer Man was in his fifties, better than his actual father - but even if he's not shot to death like both of them, that doesn't mean he's guaranteed anything. "But no matter how long I have - I don't want it to think back after I'm gone and wonder why I wasn't around."
They lost Emily - and even if she was only Scully's, Mulder would have raised her as his own without hesitation. They had to let William go, and as things stand, Mulder struggles to believe that they'll ever see him again. This is their last chance, the one time they can do this right. If there's ever been a reason to let the X-files go permanently, to let them become a hobby at best, surely this is it.
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"Mulder--"
She almost tells him she doesn't plan to let him die, anytime soon or really ever-- but it's not the right spot for the joke. (Nor the right spot to remind themselves of what happened before William.) He isn't wrong about any of it, though-- she'd spent years frustrated by the fact that their work isn't really compatible with a life outside it, a family. Somehow she'd convinced herself they could make it work, because deep down, the stubborn part of her thinks they can do anything they have to. But the question is: do they have to?
"I guess-- I'm not sure either of us is suited to retirement." There's an edge of wry amusement to the admission. She's well aware of her own workaholic tendencies; as invested as she is in the idea of being a mother, that's not the same as only focusing on motherhood. But that doesn't have to mean what they're doing now.
And Mulder has always been an easy excuse to keep working. Idleness has never been good for him-- ask the ceiling panels in the basement ruined by his pencil-throwing. She remembers how restless he'd get between cases, or when he thought their assignment was beneath their expertise. It makes her nervous, too, remembering the aimlessness he felt in this very house-- but this is different. Maybe, this is different. It's his idea, for one thing, and more importantly-- he wouldn't be idle at all, not with a toddler to chase.
"Maybe we call it a break, and ease into it. I mean-- it's just--" She takes a breath, looks up at him as best she can from her position tucked beneath his arm. "I think it's the right idea. I do. I just wonder-- when they start school, are we going to feel like we're at loose ends again?"
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"So we reassess in five years." Scully looks up at him, and he looks down, and it's just what he thought: she'd understand, she'd know what to say. If he hadn't spent all that time obsessively going over the options, maybe it wouldn't be like this - but he's nothing if not thorough when it comes to the things he's focused on. "Or I write an unauthorized sequel to Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Or we could start a podcast about what we've learned - it worked for Whitley Strieber."
There are options, he suspects, beyond even those possibilities. Some of what's out there for new parents is patently insane, from people who refuse to vaccinate their kids - Scully'd have an aneurysm - to those private schools that promise Latin speakers by age seven. A thousand different ways they could spend the rest of their time with their newest project, if they decide they want to. "Or we skip school and tour every MLB stadium in the country. People do that, Scully, they just get in an old schoolbus and drive their kids around until they get bored of it. We could do anything."
They could not, in fact, do anything. But you throw the extreme possibilities into the light and let your partner disagree, and eventually, you end up with a good plan. It's bargaining, and storytelling, and trying to make her smile.
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"We're not homeschooling on a bus." The disdain is palpable, not that she takes the suggestion too seriously. There are all those questions-- schools, daycares, arrangements of where they're going to live, how their days will look. Any minute now they'll have to start getting on waiting lists.
"You've been thinking about this a lot." It's an invitation, if he wants, to tell her what else he's been thinking about. It's not exactly a surprise-- see: Fox Mulder doesn't do anything by halves-- but it's the first time they've really tried to talk about the logistics. And... she has to admit, there's a lot to figure out; there are plans they can't avoid making, not forever.
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Give it the form of a child, and the future becomes shockingly concrete. What happens next almost doesn't matter, because it's already decided. Barring more tragedy, they're looking at sleepless nights and toilet training, followed by homework and summer camp and prom dates and college applications. There's a clear path forward, a certainty they've never lived with before.
"You have to carry it around all day," he answers, tapping her stomach. "I have to pick up the slack somewhere."
And while he has a lackadaisical approach to some aspects of his life - the dishes will get done eventually, the rug will be vacuumed at some point - the things that matter get his full attention. "There's a lot to think about, Scully, and it seems like there's more every day. Did you know people make their kids' bedrooms have a theme now? I have some ideas saved on Pinterest, but the main thing is, we should paint the ceiling black."
Read: He made an account on Pinterest solely for this purpose.
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Her tone is light; the truth is she kind of can't wait. Not that she wants to terrorize him, but there's a certain excitement to not having to try to hide or downplay things this time; to have a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on, to share all the good and miserable and weird parts of this with someone who cares as much as she does.
And this-- the fact that he is saving things on Pinterest, he has a Pinterest-- is delightful. Isn't she supposed to be the one with a nesting instinct?
"I'm pretty sure themes aren't mandatory," she points out, poking the back of his hand. "But I'm open to it. What else are you getting up to online?"
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And a truly insane amount of research on the minutiae of pregnancy and childbirth. There's a fake Facebook profile out there of a woman named Samantha Luder, with a stock-photography photo to identify herself and a due date that happens to match Scully's; Mulder's been using it to lurk in groups for first-time mothers, having discovered that the social media market for new (well, new-with-an-asterisk) dads is comparatively lacking.
Hell, Scully'd probably get a kick out of it. Maybe he'll show her later. For now, he gives her a more serious answer, fishing his phone out of a pocket and opening the app in question. When he hands it over to her, everything's organized into little boards with names like DAD STUFF, NURSERY, TIPS, FUN FACTS and also, maybe inevitably, UFO MEMES. "Just trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing."
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But she takes his phone, delighted at this trove of research. It's another little clue to how invested he is; he's not just falling down rabbit holes but making maps of them, saving the best and most intriguing leads, though she's willing to bet there are some absolutely awful old wives' tales mixed in that they'll eventually have a companionable argument about.
She leaves DAD STUFF untouched and dives into NURSERY, scrolling through the images that have caught his eye. They're all polished, staged, perfect and beautiful, and-- already touched as she is-- she feels her breath catch a little at the thought of working side by side, crafting a space to welcome their child. She might not be feeling many effects yet but now and then the overwhelming emotion creeps up on her; she backs out and switches over to FACTS, which seems a little less likely to make her cry.
This is less fraught if only because it's more familiar; half of it the same infographics that pop up when she's online, the expectant mother e-mail lists that have hardly changed in the years since she had William. But she still feels it, that swell of affection too intense to contain, and her hand wraps around his arm, squeezing maybe too hard.
"Have you..." She's not really ready for this one, but what are they doing if not jumping in head-first? "Thought at all about names?"
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The NURSERY photos are mostly variations on how do you make a room look like it's not a room. Murals of trees, silver stars dotting a ceiling in an accurate representation of the night sky, little stuffed animals dressed to sit around a campfire, play tents that run suspiciously close to cultural appropriation. He's hesitant to make demands, if only because all of William's things ran towards white and pastel, but his own inclinations are someplace else.
He's also hesitant to make demands when it comes to naming rights; he's at a strange place, diving in headfirst and still not quite sure how much input's allowed him when it comes to the things that actually matter. Scully won't argue over the results of a Google search like watermelon safe pregnancy, but when they move from the realm of fact to opinion, some part of him still feels like a stranger. It'll pass, probably, as they figure out the new rhythm of their lives together.
So there's a silent moment or two, Mulder looking at their hands, before he says, "If it's a girl, Samantha - as a middle name, not a first name. Otherwise? No idea."
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"I like that," is the right place to start. If it's a girl-- and there's a part of her that hopes it is-- she'd have asked if he wanted to call her Sam, or if it would be too painful, but a middle name seems about right. I chose William so early, she can't say. Because I knew you'd have argued if I tried to call him Fox, but I needed to remember you. If he'd objected-- she would have taken it seriously, but maybe she should have tried harder to bring him into it, then. Things had been so strange-- there's no question she did a hundred things wrong, but maybe this time at least they can find new mistakes to make, and sort out some of the old ones.
"Does not knowing bother you? We could find out-- if you really wanted." It would make the name question easier to resolve, maybe. "I liked the idea of being surprised."
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William had exactly the kind of plausible deniability necessary to make the Mulder of twenty years ago accept it; these days, if her heart was set on Fox, he'd be willing to consider. It'd probably be more trouble than it's worth, to have two Fox Mulders in one house, but it's not like he uses his given name where he doesn't have to.
But Samantha's still easy to talk about and painful to miss, and he'd actually worked this particular wrinkle out in therapy a week or two ago, because it's a question that's been nagging him since Scully mentioned. (Therapy, it turns out, is incredible. Sometimes it sucks - frequently, in Mulder's case - but most of the time, someone listens to what you say and gives a damn in a way that makes a difference. It took a long damned time to find someone who made it anything but agony, but at this point, he's hooked. Being able to talk about things, after a lifetime of secrets and subterfuge, has changed his life.) He wants to remember his sister, to know someone will remember her after he's gone, but not to put all the weight of his grief on a kid.
And then it occurs to him that they don't, necessarily, have the problem of two Fox Mulders living under one roof. Something something patriarchal assumptions, et cetera, et cetera. "Is this one a Scully or a Mulder, Scully? What's its last name?"
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She looks down at their hands, at the slight curve of her stomach. Hardly anything yet; that's the marvel of it, how swift and slow it is at once. There'll come a day soon when she starts to find nothing fits-- she'll have to go shopping.
And that question takes her by surprise again-- though for the opposite reason; it had been logistically self-evident with William that he'd be a Scully, but that... doesn't really apply this time around.
"Is that something you'd want? To give it your name?"
It makes a certain amount of sense. Bill and Tara are doing their part to repopulate the world with little Scullys already.
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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."
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He is, after all, the last Mulder. Even if he's not attached to the name, she's attached enough to him that she wouldn't mind it.
"It doesn't hyphenate very well," she muses. Of course she isn't going to change her name-- it would be terribly impractical, professionally, and after all he's spent decades calling her Scully. They can't both call each other Mulder.
"Either way it's going to confuse people."
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There's no doubt that he'll get obsessed with the matter of naming the kid at some point, but it's still too theoretical. They need more to go on than they have, right now - or he does, at least. The occasions he's attempted to search baby names have given him a weird mix of random syllables (Taylee? Oaklynn? Abcde?) and words straight out of the dictionary, or possibly off a stripper pole. Research will not, he suspects, help with this particular problem; they'll pick something they both like, and that'll be that. If theirs is a Jane in a sea of Ryleighs and Velvets, so be it.
There's another question at hand, the one behind what's the kid's last name?, and if they're already here, he might as well ask. At the moment, he feels like he could say anything without too much regret. "You ever think of getting married?"
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Really she hasn't hit on anything that feels right, not yet. She's not inclined to suggest Melissa; in some strange way, Emily was tied to her; and it would be too much for a little girl's shoulders to carry two lost aunts. Samantha, though, feels suitable.
"I-- hmn. Not in a long time," she admits. That's an answer that might sting, and she squeezes his arm. By now, she hopes, her commitment shouldn't be in question; they are after all having their second child together. "After all our time on the road it felt superfluous."
And he must know, now-- she isn't going anywhere.
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Her answer isn't a surprise, but the fact that it doesn't sting much is. Maybe it would have pained him at one point - but her suspicions are right.
"I always figured we were," he admits. Out loud, it sounds silly, but it's true; his devotion to her was unquestionable, even when he was a black hole of misery threatening to pull them both under. "In all the ways that counted, anyway. If we made it official, Uncle Sam's the only person it'd change things for."
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She'd be lying if she said she never thought about marrying him, but most of it was idle daydreaming-- young and impossibly naïve, in retrospect. The necessary secrecy of their relationship at first had made it impossible; and after, it's not like they ever had the time, the peace.
"It felt that way," she agrees. "And all those years-- well, everyone assumed." She'd gotten used to that. It was different, when they were fugitives-- under false names, they were married enough, then. They'd sold the illusion because it wasn't an illusion; just a question of formalities.
"And I still feel that way-- though I guess it might be logistically easier. Not exactly romantic, though."
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These days, he's not sure they need any more validation than they already get when they're out and about. People still assume they're together, especially now that it's obvious they are; add a stroller, and there'll be no question. Is it worthwhile to rush through the legal side of things just so the kid isn't technically a bastard?
"I don't think it'll make your brother any happier I knocked you up," he says, and it's one of those jokes with a little too much truth to it, "even if I make an honest woman of you this time."
Who else is even left who'd care? It's really just Bill and Tara and their kids. Skinner'll be happy for them, Charlie'll be impossible to reach, and there's not a Mulder or Kuipers alive that would know who he was, let alone give a damn.
After a few moments' thought, he asks, "What if we wait a couple years? Go to Vegas, get married by the King. We can bring the apple with us."
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