Begin – A Moment In the Sun: Part V

*~*~*~*

For most of America, 1954 unfolded as soft and promising as the 
skin of a graceful woman's back.  It was an optimistic time in an 
optimistic country: people knew their place, trusted their leaders, 
and still thought the last two words of the Star Spangled Banner 
were 'play ball'.  
 
For Mulder, however, by the second week it had gone bad, gotten 
worse, and then, just when things were starting to level out, 
descended unapologetically into abysmally shitty.  It was the 
classic story: man gets girl, man loses girl to some shadowy hush-
hush conspiracy, finds girl again, gets dumped, drunk, laid – don't 
tell Scully about that part - lost, found, loved, and then shot and 
left for dead.  Those people who said 'it always gets worse before 
it gets better' – they were right.  Those people were depressing and 
infuriating as hell, but, unfortunately, right.  

And those myopic souls who believed faith, truth, and love 
conquered all?  Well, they were right too, but they didn't have to 
be so damn smug about it.  At the end of the road less traveled by, 
the idealists waited, starry-eyed and adamantly maintaining they'd 
known all along how things would turn out.  Romance was simple 
when it was a spectator sport.  Those who played the game played 
with fire: love could warm a man's heart or consume his soul.
 
Or both, if he was lucky.

Happiness wasn't having what he wanted, it was wanting what he 
had, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel flickered back 
on when a man least expected it. 

1955

*~*~*~*

He lay motionless in the dark for several seconds, listening to his 
own steady heartbeat marking the passage of time and trying to 
figure out what awakened him; what was wrong.  Georgetown was 
still, complacent, comfortable in her gracious silence, and 
preferring to keep her secrets behind closed mahogany doors.  The 
crisp air of an early spring night stole in through the open window, 
though, licking its insistent tongue into the corners of his bedroom 
and teasing the dark hairs on his bare arms and legs.
 
Finally hearing a weak cough, and Mulder got up to check on 
Emily, stretching lazily as he pulled on his pajama bottoms.  
Barefooted, he padded across the hall to what Scully had dubbed 
'fairyland,' complete with a white canopy bed, pink unicorn 
wallpaper, and pony-sized rocking horse: another example of 
Mulder's inability to say 'no' to a child.

Emily was asleep, her head and shoulders cushioned in the valley 
between two pillows.  A vaporizer still hummed, breathing warm 
menthol mist into her lungs, while a miniature porcelain carousel 
twinkled on the nightstand, keeping away the monsters.  After 
checking her forehead, Mulder returned what remained of Kitty to 
her arms and pulled the quilt over her chest.  Before he was five 
feet from the bed, she'd pushed the covers off again, moving her 
mouth in silent admonition as she dreamt of innocent things.       
 
At the end of the hallway, a suspicious light glowed around Will's 
door.  He hadn't heard Will since midnight, but that might only 
mean the boy had mastered scaling the tree in the backyard and 
sneaking in and out through his bedroom window.  It was always 
suspicious when a member of the Mulder family made it home by 
curfew.

He stuck his head into the room and found his son lounging on the 
rug in his undershirt and blue jeans, a science fiction novel in one 
hand, a telephone in the other, and a steady stream of charming, 
practiced bullshit pouring out of his mouth.  Will was good: 
somewhere in the world, a fifteen-year-old girl's father should be 
very, very afraid.    

Mulder silently held up two fingers, reminding his son what time it 
was, then drew his index finger across his neck in an 'off with his 
head' gesture, indicating the wooing hour had come to an end.  
Will pantomimed his usual theatrics, then acquiesced and promised 
'Trixie' he'd look her up when he was in town again, as though he 
was a sailor with a girl in every port.

'Trixie?' Mulder mouthed incredulously.     

Grinning, Will put down his book long enough to outline a 
generous hourglass in the air, summarizing the girl's attributes.    

Mulder rolled his eyes, waved night-night, and closed the door, 
knowing his son wouldn't go to sleep.  Will had refined the sloth 
and decadence of spring break to an art, and he'd never waste a 
second by sleeping – that was what school was for.       
 
As he returned to bed, Scully shifted in her sleep, rolled away, and 
exposed a smooth thigh and shoulder as the white sheet draped her 
like a Roman goddess.  Mulder trailed a finger down each vertebra 
of her bare back, looking past her and out the open window at the 
vast night sky.  Just the stars: the same mysterious patterns that had 
been watching back since a time before memory.

"Beautiful," he whispered to her, tracing the outline of her hip and 
weighing the teardrop of her breast before his hand settled 
naturally into the curve of her waist. "Perfect."  

Appeased, he closed his eyes and moved closer to Scully, draping 
his arms and legs around her so his body surrounded hers.  He had 
her; she was safe.  Everyone was safe.  There was nothing out 
there – just his imagination getting the best of him.   

*~*~*~*

Mulder blinked at the clock and the clock blinked back like a 
Siamese cat.  Time was a universal invariant: he could squint at it 
all he wanted, but it would still be 6:00.  It wasn't just an ungodly 
hour; to a forty-year-old body functioning on three hours sleep, it 
was sadistic.
 
6:00

The other side of the bed was already empty for Will and Em's 
benefit, but he replaced his pillow with hers since his pillow just 
smelled like hair and hers smelled like a beautiful woman.  Mulder 
scratched his stubbly jaw and moistened his lips before he sighed 
contentedly, his body limp in sensual over-satiation, and closed his 
eyes. 

6:36

No, that couldn't be right.  He rubbed the sand from his eyes and 
looked again.  Big hand on the six, little hand on the…

6:36   

Blink.

6:37

"Dad!" Will shouted impatiently from downstairs in harmony with 
Scully's "Mulder!"

"All right," he muttered, groaning, rolling out of bed, and 
stumbling to the bathroom. "Coming."  

After he made an effort at washing any parts that might smell 
offensive or incriminating, Mulder leaned his forehead against the 
tile walls of the walk-in shower, savoring the warm water on his 
sore back.  The garbage truck squealed to a stop in the alley and he 
heard Will and Scully's indistinct voices in the kitchen below, 
punctuated occasionally by pots and pans and banging cabinets and 
the general sounds of morning.  Assured his universe was in order 
and running generally on schedule, Mulder turned the faucet and 
closed his eyes as the water pulsed down harder, punishing his skin 
and, like making love, drowning out everything outside his body 
for a few moments. 

There was a knock on the bathroom door, and Scully asked from 
the doorway if he was almost ready: Will had an eight o'clock 
flight back to New York.  Phoebe was celebrating her thirty-fifth 
birthday for the twelfth year in a row and Will's presence was 
cordially required.  Mulder had suppressed the urge to send his ex-
'child bride' a dozen white roses – all just slightly past their prime. 

"Almost," he called over the sound of the water, shifting so the 
harsh spray massaged the back of his shoulder instead of the top.  

"Are you sure?  He can call a taxicab.  Oh, come on - you're not 
even moving, Mulder.  You're never going to be ready in time; I'm 
calling a taxi.  Mulder…  Are you even listening to me, Mulder?"

"Um-hum."

"Mulder, are you all right?"

"Didn't get much sleep last night," he mumbled, aware she must 
be watching him through the glass shower door.  Pretending to 
ignore her gaze, he stayed still, leaning his forehead and forearms 
against the slick wall as though he was being frisked.  The force of 
the water stung his back deliciously and then flowed eagerly over 
his hips and legs until it reached the tiles on the floor and swirled 
away. "Enjoying the view?" he whispered suggestively. 

There was no answer, but he heard the shower door open, and out 
of the corner of his eye saw Scully's high heels just beyond the 
range of the water.    

"Are you okay?" she asked anxiously. "Mulder?  Answer me!  
Talk to me, Mulder!"

"Uh, honey?" he responded, finally turning his head to look at her. 
"I'm awake, right?"  He did have naughty-nurse fantasies, but this 
wasn't one of them.  He could tell: she was dressed, dry, and 
probably wearing underwear.

"You're awake.  Do you know where you are?  Did you get 
dizzy?"

He looked her up and down, then chuckled awkwardly. "I'm just 
trying to get my shoulder to stop aching," he answered. "I don't 
think it's life-threatening, but thank you for your concern.  There'll 
be a slight charge for the peepshow, though.  Please pay on your 
way out."   

"You didn't answer me," she said defensively, crossing her arms, 
her face flushing in embarrassment. "I was afraid something was 
wrong."

"I did answer you.  Anyway, I'm fine," he answered, trying to 
sound as casual as possible with a woman staring at his bare ass.  

She kept standing at the shower door appraising him like he was 
for sale by the pound, so he finally reached over and turned off the 
water, keeping his back to her.  He wrapped a towel around his 
waist, then hesitantly turned around, studying his wet toes and the 
puddles around his feet instead of looking at her. "My shoulder's 
sore and I'm tired.  Maybe I dozed off for a second, but that's all," 
he mumbled.       

She cleared her throat, ducking her head in a way he'd have found 
innocently charming if he'd been wearing more than a few square 
feet of terrycloth and a red badge of quasi-courage. "I'm sorry.  I 
just wanted to make sure you were okay.  I was thinking like a 
nurse: you could still have post-operative complications.  It's not 
likely, but…  I'm sorry; I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I'm not embarrassed," he lied. "I think we've seen plenty of each 
other.  But do I barge in when you're taking one of your all-
afternoon baths?"     

"Yes, you do barge in; all the time, in fact.  You're sure you're all 
right?  You said your shoulder was sore…"  

When she tried to touch his chest, he put his palms over the bullet 
wounds and surgical incisions and backed away like a shy bride 
protecting her breasts.  "Don't.  I'm fine." 

"Don't what?  Are you having chest pains?"

"No.  Leave me alone," he answered, surprised at how childlike he 
sounded.  

"Mulder, I'm a nurse, and they're just scars; they're not even bad 
scars," she insisted, running her fingers over his chest, trying to get 
him to move his hands. "The doctors did a good job.  Just let me 
see – something could be wrong."   

"Nothing is wrong."

"Then let me see."

"No." Shrugging away, Mulder dropped a second towel around his 
neck so it covered his chest. "Come on, honey; I'm fine.  I need to 
hurry or Will's going to miss his plane."

She didn't budge, caressing up and down his arms and finally 
kissing just above his heart.  In spite of the steamy room, he 
shivered and inhaled sharply as her lips explored his damp skin – 
nibbling, tasting, sucking, biting.  Instinctively, he reached for her, 
but she pushed his hands down.

"No, be still.  You touch me all the time, but you never let me 
touch you.  You don't let people touch you, Mulder.  You haven't 
for a long time.  You are beautiful," she murmured, trailing her 
mouth over the raised red lines, saying exactly what he needed to 
hear, but didn't want to be honest about. "Do you know that?"

"Yeah, right," he snorted and stepped back, but not so far back that 
he was out of her reach.  When she didn't follow, he tightened the 
towel around his waist and rubbed the other one briskly over his 
hair, drying like a man on a mission.
    
"You accept my scars and I accept yours.  That's the way it 
works," he heard through the terrycloth, followed by the sound of 
the doorknob turning as she started to leave.  

"Scully," he said quickly, dropping his hair towel and twisting the 
corner of his mouth into a half-smile.  She waited, and he waited, 
trying to figure out how to put it into words.  The gentle poetic 
phrases didn't come, so he finally said simply: "You better like 
them – you're eye level with them."

"Maybe last night, but I wasn't early this morning," she responded 
flippantly, and Mulder coughed in stunned disbelief.  "Get dressed; 
you're late.  It's not my fault you didn't get any sleep."

Unaccustomed to being verbally outmaneuvered, not to mention 
out-innuendo-ed by her, he started to say it certainly was her fault, 
but she was already gone by the time he regained the power of 
intelligent speech.

Recovering his poise, Mulder laughed at himself and picked up his 
toothbrush.  As he polished his pearly whites with his right hand, 
he alternately touched each finger of his left hand to his left thumb, 
checking his dexterity.  Everything seemed to have healed as well 
as it was going to: it was less graceful, perhaps, and a little painful, 
but all in all, a successful recovery, especially considering where 
he had started.  That was a good thing: he certainly had both hands 
full.

*~*~*~*  

"If you need money, I can help, Dana," Margaret Scully's voice 
said from the kitchen, startling Mulder as he dropped his jacket 
over the banister and set his wallet and keys on the fish tank.  A 
school of hungry mollies abandoned their plastic reef to gape at 
him like bug-eyed aliens, hoping for a tidbit.  "Your father left 
some," the woman continued, "And I could borrow-"

"It's not money," Scully interrupted. "It's not about money at all." 

"But who pays for all this: the nurses, the doctor bills, your tuition? 
You're not working.  He pays for it, doesn't he?  You live here and 
he pays for everything, including taking care of Emily: that's the 
deal."   

As he stood outside the kitchen door, Mulder's conscience nagged 
briefly about eavesdropping and was promptly overruled by his 
curiosity when Scully didn't answer her mother.  In his mind, she 
should have said immediately that there was no 'deal' – they loved 
each other and were getting married; they'd just gotten a bit ahead 
of themselves in the sleeping arrangements.      

"Don't do this to yourself.  What are you going to do when you get 
in trouble again?" Maggie demanded. "Is he going to walk away 
again?"

"That's not going to happen," Scully answered tensely, 
accompanied by the sound of a knife chopping something on the 
cutting board and water beginning to boil.   

"How naïve do you think I am, Dana?  He-"

"He' is named 'Mulder,' Mom.  Fox Mulder.  You're not even 
giving him a chance."

"I gave him a chance and I ended up watching my baby girl almost 
die from a botched abortion.  And don't tell me again that he had 
nothing to do with that.  And don't you dare tell me it wasn't his 
baby.  You're pretty, you're smart," Maggie pleaded, "You're 
barely twenty-eight years old.  Yes, he cares about you and about 
Emily, too; I've seen him with her.  Yes, he's exciting and it's 
normal to be a little star struck, but you're playing with fire, 
honey."

"You think I don't know that?" Scully said angrily, setting 
something down hard on the counter. "Is this where you tell me to 
marry a nice, steady boy who doesn't know – or care - who I really 
am, Mom?  I'd suffocate.  You raised me to believe I could do 
anything: that's why I went to college; that's why I joined the 
Army; why I kept Emily.  For so long it was just me and my 
daughter against the world, and we made it.  We survived.  And 
now, when I find someone who loves me for being strong, loves 
me for who I am…  I do love him, Mom – sometimes so much it 
scares me, but there are things; things that you don't know."
 
There was a long pause, then Maggie asked softly, "I'm sure there 
are.  I don't make your decisions, Dana, but if there's anything I 
can do to help, I will.  And any time you need a place to go, just 
call me.  I'm not going to judge you and I'm not going to ask any 
questions.  Just don't do anything hasty again." 
 
Not able to take any more, Mulder went back and closed the front 
door loudly, announcing his presence, before he put on his party 
face and pushed open the kitchen door. 

"Hi, honey.  Are you fixing dinner?  Hello, Mrs. Scully.  Good to 
see you again."

"Mr. Mulder," Maggie nodded, picking up a butcher knife and 
looking around like she was ready to chop something.   

"I ran into Mom at the grocery store and asked her to have dinner 
with us.  She hadn't seen Emily in a while," Scully said, forcing 
the same expression as Mulder.  She smiled, but her eyes didn't.    

"Sure; that would be fine," he answered automatically before he 
realized no one had asked him.  He pursed his lips, then caught his 
bottom one between his teeth in annoyance at himself. "What are 
we having?"

"It's just getting started, but how does lamb sound?"
 
"Not baaad," he answered, trying to ease the tension and failing. 
"Do you want help or do you just want me to stay out of the way?"

"We have everything under control – could you see if Sleeping 
Beauty is awake?"

Glad to have an excuse to escape Margaret Scully's steady, 
disapproving gaze, Mulder obediently trotted upstairs to Fairyland.  
In keeping with the story, when he kissed her forehead, Emily 
opened her eyes and raised her arms to be picked up.  She smelled 
like clean sheets and clean pajamas and alcohol swabs now, not 
like a little girl.  Not like the sun, but he buried his face in her neck 
for a moment anyway, inhaling deeply before he blew a big 
raspberry to make her squirm.    

The blood transfusions hadn't slowed her anemia as much as they 
had hoped, so the doctors had added injections of a cortisone 
cocktail – a new, experimental drug.  Scully, knowing the side 
effects of cortisone, hadn't liked that idea, and disliked it even 
more when the shots immediately made Emily sick; so sick she 
and Mulder had almost pulled Em from the hospital's study.  Then, 
suddenly, miraculously, Emily had gotten better and they were 
able to take her home.  She was still pale and lethargic, but her 
body wasn't attacking itself anymore, viewing its own cells as the 
enemy.  As long as the injections continued, Emily held on to some 
fragile, hospital-white version of a normal childhood.  Without 
them, according to the doctors, it would be a matter of weeks.
 
"Dana was telling me about her Christmas gift," Maggie said as he 
returned carrying Emily: a child made a good shield. "Am I to 
understand it's an engagement ring?"  

"It's a Christmas tradition," Scully supplied, her gaze warming 
several degrees as she looked at him holding her sleepy daughter. 
"Mulder gets me the same thing every year."

"I'm not very creative," he supplied, eyeing the turn-of-the-century 
filigree setting on Scully's finger and telegraphing back 'I love you 
- always,' in a silent language only thee two of them could hear.   

He'd had it resized for her the first time he proposed, and after a 
few false starts, it had been on her finger when she vanished.  
When she mysteriously reappeared three months later, she'd 
returned the ring within days of being discharged from the 
hospital.  There was no explanation, just a plain envelope left at 
The Plaza Hotel's front desk with 'Mr. Fox W. Mulder' written in 
her neat cursive.  Recognizing the writing and desperate for any 
contact with her, he'd ripped it open and found only the antique 
platinum engagement ring inside.  She could have sold it and put 
herself halfway through medical school, or kept it as a memento, 
or just thrown it in the gutter, but she hadn't.  She had politely 
returned it, and he could have sworn it was still warm from being 
on her hand all those months.  That had been when he'd started 
drinking again.  It made sin very convenient when he lived in a 
hotel with two bars in the lobby.         

Maggie moved to take her granddaughter but Em seemed content 
snuggled against his shoulder, so she stepped back, tightening her 
lips into a polite line. "Is there a wedding band that matches it?" 
she asked, dropping a broad-as-the-side-of-a-barn hint. "Or is there 
just an engagement ring?"

"I know Grandmother had a wedding ring," Mulder answered 
cautiously, shifting Emily. "But I couldn't find it.  It was just a 
plain silver band and there were thousands of those.  It was 
probably engraved, but I didn't know with what, and I don't read 
Hebrew, anyway.  I only found this one – I-I thought my mother 
might want it."

Margaret looked puzzled, so he swallowed, broke eye contact, set 
Emily on the kitchen counter, and explained. "My mother's mother 
– my grandmother was a Jew.  She was in Germany during WWII 
and when my infantry unit took Dachau, a concentration camp near 
Munich, she was there."

"She was wearing the ring when you found her?"

"No, the Nazis took the jewelry off the… off the prisoners; took 
their eyeglasses, clothing, shoes, even gold fillings.  There were 
piles of stuff; rooms of anything of value they could strip, sort and 
save.  I just kept looking until I found it.  I thought my mother 
might want it," he repeated stupidly.

The kitchen dimmed, and for a moment, he was back there again, 
stepping out of reality and into a surreal world of horrors.  In slow 
motion, he looked around the prison camp, trying to comprehend 
how one human could categorize, utilize, and dispose of another as 
thoughtlessly as one experimented on a lab rat.  

He could smell the decaying bodies in the wooden dormitories and 
the freshly tilled earth of the flowerbeds around the officers' 
quarters.  A thick layer of ash mysteriously dusted the roofs – a 
mystery solved when they discovered the gas chambers disguised 
as showers and then the adjoining crematorium.  There was a 
'medical clinic,' the contents and purpose of which caused their 
platoon medic to be sent home gnawing his thumbs and jabbering 
nonsense.  One brick building, they eventually realized, had been a 
brothel run for German officers and stocked with less-than-willing 
female prisoners.  Mulder had shuddered, thinking of his teenage 
blonde/blue/I'm-really-a-Jew cousin and praying she wasn't there.  

Then they opened the boxcars on the railroad tracks and the guard 
dogs had started barking crazily inside their chain-link pens, 
desperate to escape.  He could feel his dog tags digging into his 
neck, his heavy pack on his back, and his own worthless wedding 
band still on his finger.  He wasn't thirty years old yet, with a son 
he barely knew and a wife he'd been unfaithful to, but he'd still 
believed it was correctable, as though he'd become his own father 
through a Jungian clerical error.  
 
'Shoot to kill; save some time,' his sergeant commanded tersely. 
'There's nothing alive but Nazis, anyway.  The more Kraut 
bastards you shoot on sight, the fewer we have to execute later.'  
Behind him, Mulder heard Byers and a bunch of the other GI's 
being sick, but he was too deeply in shock to do anything but carry 
out orders.  He raised his rifle, looking through the sights, his 
finger trembling against the trigger.

"Oh," Maggie's voice said softly, and Mulder blinked, the Nazi 
death camp vanishing and his Georgetown kitchen reappearing, 
smelling of cinnamon and soap bubbles and family.  The sounds of 
bullets striking bone were only Emily's heels slowly drumming 
against the cabinet. "So you found her ring for her?  For your 
grandmother?" she asked, still sounding far away. 

He tried to answer, but the walls were already starting to close in. 

"Mom – no, she was dead.  He found her body," Scully interceded. 
"Mulder, are you all right?"

He shook his head 'no', trying to clear it, then made some excuse 
and bolted for the kitchen door.  Quickly deciding the foyer was 
still too confining, he jerked open the heavy front door, and was 
pacing the yard trying not to hyperventilate when Scully caught up 
with him.

"Deep breaths, Mulder," she reminded him, keeping her distance 
as he circled, needing to prowl, to patrol for any threat to his 
family. "Easy.  It wasn't real."

She was wrong – it was real.  This time, it was out there – he was 
certain of it.  Unformed, unnoticed, but omnipresent, waiting, and 
watching.  He could feel it.         

The neighbors' faces were beginning to appear discreetly between 
lace curtains by this time he paced out and stood in front of her, his 
hands on his hips. "Damn it!  That hasn't ha-happened in months!  
Your family already thinks I'm pond sludge and now your mother 
thinks I'm crazy pond sludge."   

"No, she had two sons and a husband in the Pacific during WWII – 
only Bill and my father came home alive.  She thinks you just had 
a flashback.  That's all.  My family still thinks you're regular old 
pond sludge."

There was an uncomfortable pause during which someone was 
supposed to laugh and no one did.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, following as she took his hand and led 
him to the long swing on the front porch.  He sat down heavily 
beside her, resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head.  
  
"Is he okay?" Maggie asked from the doorway.  "Mr. Mulder?"

"I'm sorry," Mulder repeated, not raising his face.  He felt Scully's 
hand gently rubbing his back and her mother's eyes staring a hole 
in the top of his head.  The things the Scully Clan must talk about 
over Sunday dinner…    

"It's all right.  Dana, Emily wants to know if she can come-" 
Emily was already past her and on Mulder's lap, her arms tight 
around his neck. "Out," Maggie finished awkwardly.

"Bad awake dream?" Emily asked, sounding worried. "Like 
Mommy?"

The swing tilted as Scully stood, then turned back and, to his 
surprise, leaned down and kissed him lightly on the lips in front of 
her mother.  

"Bad awake dream," Mulder mumbled back, pressing his hot, 
damp cheek against Emily's and holding her closer. "Better now."   

*~*~*~*

She was studying anatomy in bed again

That wasn't nearly as interesting as it sounded.  It didn't involve 
him.

Mulder opened his eyes, noting she was up to page 163; she had 
been on 151 when he dozed off.  The clock now read 11:37, and 
their bed had been transformed into a nest of notebook paper and 
textbooks.  Her hair was twisted into a loose knot on top of her 
head, a pen stuck behind one ear, and Scully had absconded with 
another of his shirts, making her look more like one of Will's 
bobbysoxer girlfriends than his.  Those smooth white legs sticking 
out from under his oversized T-shirt in combination with her big 
secret: a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses – his latent geek was 
aroused.

He started to roll over, then paused, feeling something weighing 
down his backside.

"Wait; my tea's on you," Scully said, reaching for the cup and 
saucer.

"I make a good table," he said lazily, accidentally sending a spiral 
notebook to the floor as he shifted his legs. "Make a good chair, 
too – wanna put away that book and come sit…"

She raised an annoyed eyebrow at him, and he left off the rest of 
that sentence.

"Try to sleep, Mulder.  I'm right here.  You need to try to relax."

His latent geek twitched with disappointment. "Are you going to 
study all night?"

"I'm just trying to catch up on what I missed while we were in 
New York with Em.  I'll go to sleep in a little bit."  

Willing to wait and hope, he folded his right arm under his head, 
getting comfortable.  Mulder watched her reading, pausing to 
underline or star the page occasionally, tuning out everything 
except empirical knowledge.  

"There was a friend of yours here today – he was looking for you," 
he said casually, and was disinterestedly 'um-hummed' as she 
perused the limbic system. "Will and I were halfway to the airport 
when he announced he'd forgotten his knapsack – the one with all 
his incomplete homework in it – so we had to turn around and 
come back.  You were already gone, but there was a man here 
going through my desk.  Mrs. Franklin said he went to school with 
you and was looking for some notes you promised him.  She was 
busy trying to get Emily to eat breakfast, so she just let him in and 
told him to start hunting.  When he didn't find them, he left – he 
said he'd try to find you on campus."

"Tom," Scully said, not sounding happy about his continued 
interruptions. "Nice looking Irish boy, overbearing and charming 
in a creepy, slimy kind of way?"

"Try 'Alex," he answered evenly. "Tall, dark hair, dark eyes; 
seemed to be channeling James Dean.  Looks nothing like a 
medical student and a lot like a pretty version of yours truly."

"I don't go to school with anyone named Alex." 

He paused a beat, waiting to see if she would say anything else.  
When she just stared at him, he continued cautiously, "Will 
seemed to think he – this Alex - was one of the men who shot me." 
 
Her head moved almost imperceptibly, as though she'd been 
slapped hard but didn't want anyone to know how badly it hurt. 

"Was he?"

"I don't remember.  Maybe."   

Forgetting to mark her place, she slammed the text and turned 
toward him. "My God.  And he was here?  Did you call the 
police?"

"I did, and it didn't seem high on their list of priorities, so I called 
Agent Dales at the FBI and his supervisor refused to let me speak 
to him.  So… I asked for Assistant Director Skinner, and had the 
Deputy Director explain that the Bureau wouldn't be granting me 
access to any more files.  I thought they were just dragging their 
feet getting me security clearance, but apparently telling them they 
were convicting innocent men pissed Hoover off: you know what a 
diplomat I am.  I'm not to have any further contact with Agent 
Dales, and I got the feeling Dales and Assistant Director Skinner 
got in trouble for letting me see those cases in the first place.  I 
took all the files back this afternoon – The Deputy Director wanted 
them immediately.  And he suggested I find another topic for my 
dissertation before someone questioned my loyalty to the 
American government."

"All this happened while I was at school today?"

"And Will missed his plane, so I had to call Phoebe, who was 
pissed off about not having a bartender for her party.  Apparently, 
our sixteen-year-old son makes a mean martini.  It's been a bad 
day, honey."

"It sounds like it," she said in disbelief, then started to add 
something else and didn't.    

"The police promised to keep an eye on the house and I had the 
locksmith come, so the spare set of keys this man got won't work 
anymore.  And I'll stay close in case he comes back – I'll hang 
around and annoy Mrs. Franklin and Emily."  

"What about your research?  What about the FBI?"

"It was just a whim; a stupid whim.  I'm surprised they even 
considered it.  No big deal."

"It's a big deal to you."

"Well, so is my family." He picked at the hem of his/her t-shirt, 
twisting the fabric around his finger, then asked, "Do you know 
him?  Not from school, but do you know him at all?" 

"Of course I don't.  If I did, I would have told the police." 
     
"So Emily's father being 'Alex Krycek' on her birth certificate and 
this man being 'Alex' – it's just a coincidence he tried to kill me?"

"How did you know that?" Scully asked in five carefully measured 
words. 

"Will and I went through some of your things – after you were 
gone.  I had Frohike try to track down the name, but it was a dead 
end; he said either you or the hospital just made it up.  And when 
he says it's a dead end, it's a dead end," he belabored, as though 
he'd just taken Frohike's word for it and not done everything in his 
power to attach an identity to that name on a piece of paper.  "So 
it's just a coincidence?"   

"Yes," she said slowly, sounding heartbreakingly uncertain. "No.  
No, I don't know him.  Yes, I hope it's just a coincidence."

"Scully…  Scully, wherever Emily came from and whoever her 
father was, I'm here now.  That's your decision and my decision.  
Whoever this Alex Krycek is and whatever he did to you… 
Whatever he did, it was wrong, and if he ever comes looking for 
you or Emily again I'll put a bullet between his eyes.  I owe him a 
few and I'm a better shot.  If that's not what you want, you'd better 
speak up now," he finished in a soft growl.
 
"That's what I want," she answered evenly.  

She held his gaze and his heart for a long time, then pushed her 
glasses higher on her nose and opened her anatomy text again, 
flipping rapidly, purposely in search of page 163 and almost 
ripping out pages 1 through 162 for being in the way.  As soon as 
she looked away, he exhaled any air remaining in his lungs, 
realizing that the conversation really had taken place out loud and 
not just in his head.   

His bitter threat stayed on his tongue like unsweetened chocolate.  
This wasn't supposed to be them.  Two kids, three cars, an ulcer, 
and alimony payments: Mr. Baseball falls for Miss All-American-
Brains-and-Beauty – the theme music was supposed to swell and 
the credits roll toward fade-to-black happily-ever-after.    
  
They had their brick house with their grocery list on the 
refrigerator door and their miniature roses in the window boxes.  
There were two televisions so Mulder never had to miss Alfred 
Hitchcock if Em and Will were glued to American Bandstand.  
Hell, there was even a can of Burma-Shave rusting on the sink 
beside the cavity-fighting protection of Crest.  They were the 
Cleavers, give or take some illegitimacy, a few secrets, a few 
flashbacks, near-death experiences, and a tendency for the males to 
snort when someone talked about being 'hard on the Beaver.'  

And they were coolly discussing murder.   
  
He'd have no problem killing that man in cold blood, and Scully 
would have no problem loving him if he did.  She also owed 
'Alex' a few.  Behind her serene expression lived something 
primal, like a lioness with hungry cubs; give both of them a gun 
and a clear shot at one of Them and Scully would probably be 
more likely than Mulder to pull the trigger.  And he'd still love her.  

Love was never having to ask for help burying the body.       

"I had this dog – this mutt," he finally said quietly after watching 
her turn several unread pages. "About a year after Samantha 
vanished, a neighbor gave me a mixed German Shepherd puppy to 
try to cheer me up.  I was about thirteen; almost fourteen.  
Anyway, I had it about a month before the dog got into a fight with 
a raccoon and got pretty chewed up.  The vet came, took one look 
at the sick raccoon weaving around our backyard, and told me to 
call my father – I guess he didn't want to tell me himself and Mom 
wasn't dealing with things too well that decade."

She put down her book and returned the pen to its shelf above her 
ear.  "The dog had rabies."

Mulder nodded, his head still cradled in the crook of his arm. "Dad 
came home and told me to wait inside the house: he didn't want 
me to see.  The house has windows, of course, and there's a 
genetic reason Will's so nosey.  I saw Dad take a deep breath, raise 
his pistol, and pull the trigger without flinching.  Then he wrapped 
the puppy in an old towel, got a shovel, and started digging a hole 
beside the carriage house to bury him – still wearing his suit and 
hat from the office.  It all seemed very businesslike, except when I 
went outside, I saw he was crying.  I told him I'd do it: I'd bury the 
dog, and he patted me on the shoulder, told me he was sorry, got in 
the car and went back to work.  It was the only time I ever saw him 
cry.  In fact, it was probably the last time in my life that he touched 
me.  He didn't cry over my sister, but he cried over that damn dog.  
That misbehaved, spoiled mutt that I didn't ask for in the first 
place.  I didn't understand then, but I do now – and now it's too 
late."                  

He took another deep, shaky breath and exhaled forcefully, pulling 
the scab off a quarter-century-old pain.  He met her eyes again and 
quickly put his casual, bulletproof persona back on. "You wanted 
to see my scars, honey," he quipped, shrugging and closing his 
eyes. "I guess it doesn't make a very good bedtime story.  Never 
mind.  Move along: nothing interesting to see here.  'Night."

The high mattress shifted and books cascaded over the edge like 
lemmings, thudding to the floor. "Take off your shirt," her inner id 
ordered huskily, as smooth white thighs straddled his hips.

"Leave on your glasses," his latent geek responded, gathering up 
the cotton edge and shucking it over his head in one fluid motion.  
The ink pen slipped from above her ear and jabbed him in the 
throat, and then was lost underneath the sheets with a pair of 
practical white panties and his pajama bottoms.  

*~*~*~*

"Toast?  I could have them send up some bread," Scully offered 
after rooting through the kitchen and finding only a half-empty jar 
of mustard, some stale crackers, and an orange with a suspicious 
brown spot on one side. "Or I could go to the grocery store.  Or 
Mulder could go…" 

They did this every month – she filled his icebox when she was in 
New York with Emily, and Mulder and his son spent the following 
weeks consuming every crumb, as though there weren't four 
gourmet restaurants downstairs.  He and Will could cook anything 
as long as the main ingredient was scrambled eggs, so opening the 
icebox and finding a corner of congealed lasagna with the noodles 
so old they'd started to get crispy…  It was love in absentia.   
 
Mulder leaned down and suggested to Emily, who was sitting 
beside him on the counter, "Cinnamon toast." 

"Cinnamo-" Em immediately repeated.

"You need to eat real food; cinnamon toast is dessert."

"It is?" Mulder asked in surprise, looking up from the stack of 
papers prepared by the hotel management 'for your review, Mr. 
Mulder' which actually meant 'sign here, stupid.' "Why is bread 
with butter and jelly on it food, but bread with butter, cinnamon, 
and sugar on it dessert?"

Scully stopped searching and, silently conveying the joy of an all-
afternoon flight with a squirming five-year-old on her lap, 
answered, "Because I'm the mommy and I say so, that's why."

Nonplussed, he raised his eyebrows and grinned at her 
mischievously, then went back to his stack, flipping to the vaguely 
interesting parts.  Among the messages left at the front desk was 
another cryptic one from Walter Skinner, which he stuck in his 
shirt pocket to consider later.  He wasn't sure he was speaking to 
Walter Skinner, although he could think of a few choice words he 
wouldn't mind sharing.

"You need to eat something, Emily, or you're going to be starving 
in a few hours," Scully tried again. "Oatmeal?  That would be easy 
on your stomach."

"Oatmeal cookie," Mulder whispered into the little girl's ear. 
"Oatmeal, flour, eggs, butter," he listed for Scully's approval. 
"Raisins – aren't those fruit?  An oatmeal cookie: crispy brown on 
the edges with gooey-wholesome-goodness in the center?"

Emily was salivating like a waif staring at Christmas displays in 
the FAO Schwarz toy store.  Mulder knew the look: on one of the 
first Saturdays he'd been allowed to have Will after The War, that 
look had lightened his wallet a couple-hundred bucks and his 
conscience not at all.  When The Plaza Hotel had turned out to be a 
pleasant place to live as well as a good investment, Mulder had 
eventually bought stock in FAO Schwarz as well in an effort to cut 
his expenses.  It was no wonder Will had a slightly distorted view 
of real life: his daddy owned a significant share of Manhattan's 
most elegant Grande Dame hotel and the mother-of-all toy stores 
across the street.  The boy had grown up believing 'no' was a four-
letter word.   

"Look, Em – Mulder wants a spanking," Scully said sweetly. 

He pretended to be uncertain for a second, then responded eagerly, 
"Okay," working his eyebrows again.

Three little lines crinkled down Emily's forehead.  A spanking was 
one of those vague possibilities immediately following Big 
Trouble, and she couldn't think up anything bad enough to do to 
merit one.  Grownups were weird.
 
Before Scully could finish sputtering, Mulder grabbed the top 
twenty pages of his stack, hopped down, and picked up Emily.  
"How 'bout we go downstairs and you can pick out anything you 
want?  Mommy doesn't really want to cook anyway and Mulder 
wants to talk to the manager."

"Mommy would appreciate it if Mulder would use the phrase 
'anything you want' a little less often with the kids.  And maybe 
buy some groceries every now and then."

"Would you believe Will had dinner with seventeen people last 
Saturday?  William Mulder – Oak Room, party of eighteen.  With 
a bar tab.  And he sent me the bill," he responded, changing the 
subject and waving the restaurant check like a white flag. "I can't 
think of seventeen people who'd even want to have dinner with 
me.  Do you want to go raid the kitchen, Em?"

Emily was agreeable.

"Scully?"

"I'm still trying to think up your seventeen people," she teased, 
smiling at him. "I'm up to five."

"Keep counting.  Saturday, June eighteenth?" he double-checked, 
kissing her flushed cheek as he left and giving her bottom a 
promising squeeze while Em was looking the other way.  Three 
weeks should give Emily enough time to recuperate from her 
dreaded hospital ordeal day-after-tomorrow and Will could 
probably clear his social calendar by then.

"Saturday, June eighteenth," Scully answered, handing him 
Emily's shoes to carry around. "Six o'clock."
 
"You're sure you don't want a big church wedding?"   

"With a puffy white dress?  Can we invite your ex-wife?  Maybe 
Father McCue to do the Mass in your mother's synagogue."

"I see your point," he agreed quickly. "One civil ceremony it is – I 
know all the best judges.  Fifty people for the reception?  I need to 
tell the chef."

"I think we can find fifty people who like us, but ask him not to 
serve any food that might be used as a weapon."  

*~*~*~*

The general manager was droning on and on, apologizing 
profusely and throwing in a superfluous French phrase every now 
and then because he was the general manager of an expensive hotel 
and he was supposed to be French, witty, obsequious, and 
androgynous.  The fact that he and Mulder both knew he was born 
and raised in New Jersey was beside the point.

When he finally went away, Mulder propped his elbow on the 
cool, slick bar, rested his cheek on his fist, and stared miserably at 
his own reflection in the wall-sized mirror.  This fatherhood thing 
– it should come with a warning label.     

Beside him, Emily continued holding court in the Palm Room, 
slathering her turkey drumstick with strawberry jam and gnawing 
it happily.  Being the pragmatic duo that they were, Mulder and 
Emily had eaten dessert first to make sure they had room for it: one 
chocolate torte and two spoons, and washed it down with Coca-
Cola.  Forty-five minutes later and now solely responsible for a 
five-year-old on a sugar binge, he was reconsidering that decision.     

"I am Emily; I am five," she informed several nearby patrons from 
her seat on – not at - the bar, swinging her feet happily.  Most of 
Manhattan's preeminent society smiled in amusement at the out-
of-place child and went back to their dinner, but the other part – 
the portion which would have paid someone to be born, reproduce, 
and die for them if that had been possible, flared their thin, 
aristocratic nostrils in horror.  Scully had battled her into a neat 
black pinafore and a white blouse that morning, but by evening the 
bow holding back her blond hair had shifted to the left, smears of 
breakfast and lunch were evident on her blouse, and her white knee 
socks slouched around her ankles.  He was still holding her shiny 
black shoes, which hadn't touched her feet that day. 

He sighed and let his elbow slide outward so his head was inches 
from the bar.  Last Sunday morning's room service bill lay trapped 
and wilting under his glass of ginger ale.  The ink was beginning to 
bleed purple, but he could still make out a late breakfast for two 
charged to him, which would have been fine if Mulder hadn't been 
in Georgetown last Sunday.  And, although sleepovers when 
Mulder wasn't there weren't allowed, it would have been a minor 
offense if 'Mister Will's guest' hadn't ordered a Mimosa.  Try as 
he might, Mulder couldn't see any of his son's hooligan friends 
ordering a champagne cocktail.  When Mulder had questioned the 
mistake, he'd been informed everything was in order – the waiter 
had checked the guest's ID and 'she' was of legal drinking age.          
 
And he'd thought his ulcer had gone away.   

"Mr. Mulder?" a man asked from behind him, and Mulder glanced 
up to see Walter Skinner's reflection looming in the mirror.

"What?" he mumbled dejectedly.

"The front desk said you were in here." The big man shifted 
uncomfortably, running his fingers over his bald head as though he 
still expected to find hair there. "I left messages for you."

"I got them; they were very nice," Mulder answered sarcastically. 
"Enigmatic, but decisive.  Don't worry: I read them, then ate them 
– wouldn't want to be a threat to national security."

Walter Skinner's reflection had the perplexed look of a man whose 
shorts were starting to creep up his backside and he wasn't sure 
what he could do about it. "I have a case I want you to look at."

"Me?" he scoffed. "I'm not allowed, remember? I'm too stupid to 
do anything but hit baseballs, remember?"  

"I don't make all the decisions at the Bureau, Mr. Mulder, and, as I 
told you last month, I think blocking your research was a bad idea; 
a bad idea that will almost certainly cost lives.  I don't care who 
you are or what you do for a living; if you can tell me who is 
perpetrating a crime, I'll listen," Skinner finished, holding out a 
manila file. "Thirty bombings in New York over the last sixteen 
years, all in public places: the library, movie theaters, department 
stores, Grand Central Station, office buildings.  The police receive 
warning letters a few days before each bomb so no lives have been 
lost, yet, but the bombings are becoming more frequent and there's 
less and less notice.  Sooner or later, we're not going to find one in 
time.  I'm off the FBI clock and I'm asking nicely – will you look 
at the case or not?"

"You're desperate enough to ask me?"

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
 
Mulder held out his hand for the file and Skinner took a seat on the 
barstool beside him.  "It's all in there – everything we have," he 
added.

"Okay.  Watch her," Mulder asked, nodding his head at Emily. 
"Don't let her go anywhere."

"I am Emily; I am five," she informed him, wiping her mouth with 
the back of her hand as she appraised her new victim.  

"I'm Walter; I'm more than five," Skinner responded uncertainly, 
his shorts creeping a little higher and making him grimace like 
he'd just accidentally snorted shampoo.  

"It's nice to see you again, Mr. Walter.  Do you live here?  I live 
here sometimes and then sometimes we live in George's Town 
with Mulder in a big red house with lots of good hidin' places.  I 
lived here when Mommy was away and we couldn't find my cat 
and then Mommy was sick when she came back and then she was 
better and then Mulder and I used to flash with flashlights in the 
window – that was when I didn't live here anymore - and then 
Mulder got shot and 'most died and Mommy and me live with him 
now so you can sleep in Mommy's bed if you come spend the 
night with us 'cause Mommy sleeps with Mulder but don't tell 
Grammy that 'cause it makes her mad but it's okay 'cause they're 
gettin' married in three weeks and I can come," Emily said in a 
single breath.

"Oh," Skinner answered, but Mulder didn't even look up. 

"And then Mulder will be my step-daddy, but he says I can call 
him whatever I want but Bub – his real name is Will - he calls him 
Daddy-O and Uncle Bill says Mulder's a S. O. D. 'cause Mommy 
got sick one time and then we lived with Grammy for a little bit.  I 
get sick sometimes too and then I get ice cream and chicken soup 
and sometimes Mommy cries and then I get better but I'll be sick 
again soon 'cause I hafta get more shots but we're going to Coney 
Island first and I can have all the hotdogs I can eat but Mulder 
always says 'one' when Mommy asks how many I've eaten and 
that's a lie but Mulder says it's not 'cause I did eat one right before 
I ate two more."

"Oh," again.

Emily paused to suck the last drops of her soda noisily through her 
straw, replenishing herself, and then continued at the same frantic 
pace, "My mommy is Mommy and Bub's mommy is Mrs. Mulder 
but Mommy will be Mrs. Mulder too, and that's confoos– confus- 
hard to 'member.  Mulder and Bub's mommy used to be married 
but I've never met her and Bub says I'm not missin' much but he 
says silly things sometimes.  Mommy says Mulder and Will are 
two peas in a pod and Bub's mommy can come to the wedding 
over her dead body but Mommy's teasing and she's not really 
gonna die so I won't meet her there either.  I think I'll just call him 
Mulder after that like I do now 'cause he looks like my daddy but 
he's not but most of the time he's pretty nice even though Bub says 
he's sku-whah-air," she finished, outlining a square in the air with 
her forefingers and nodding knowingly.    

Skinner's eyes were glazing like he'd spent hours watching a 
hamster run boogady-boogady-boogady on its little exercise wheel. 
If the FBI wanted to know secrets, there was no need to do a 
background check on Mulder – just ask a five-year-old.

"Mulder's Mommy is Mrs. Mulder too, but I've never met her 
either but Bub says she's Missus Have-a-sham but I don't know 
that word and Mulder said 'that wasn't nice to say, Will,' but Bub 
says Mrs. Mulder – that's Mulder's Mommy - smells like 
mothballs and I don't like mothballs.  And Mulder told Mommy 
'the moth's gonna miss those,' but I don't know what he means 
either and Will says my mommy has all the balls at our house 
anyway.  So Mommy is Mrs. Mulder and Bub's mommy is Mrs. 
Mulder and Mulder's mommy is Mrs. Mulder too, so if you come 
to Christmas and bring presents, don't write 'Mrs. Mulder' on 
them because that's confoos – cunfus – hard to tell, 'cept for 
Missus Have-a-sham but I don't think she'll come to Christmas 
'cause she didn't last time and neither did my Grammy 'cause of 
Mulder but my Grammy is Mrs. Scully, not Mrs. Mulder, so that 
would be all right."     

Skinner opened his lips for another 'oh,' but got no farther, 
producing a numb "uuh…" as his shorts began to hit home.

"What did you say, Em?" Mulder asked nonchalantly, glancing up 
from the file he'd been engrossed in. "Who do I look like?"
 
She shrugged, having finally run out of steam as suddenly as a 
wind-up hoppy toy.   

He closed the folder, laying it on the bar beside his glass. "No, 
really – did you say I looked like your real daddy?  Is that true or 
are you just pretending again?"

There was another shrug and a yucky face as she worried her 
tongue around her mouth.

"Do you mean the man who was in our house last month?  That 
man?  Is that your Daddy?  I thought you were in the kitchen with 
Mrs. Franklin.  Did he talk to you?  What did he say to you?"

"Mulder…" she said uncertainly.

"What, honey?" he said softly, completely forgetting about the FBI 
file. "What is it?  What did he say to you?"

"I'm gonna be sick."

"He said you'd be sick?"

In response, Emily burped, giving him fair warning.  

Oh joy: another glorious ray of sunshine to add to his evening.

"He's male – almost all bombers are male.  Bright, but self-
educated after high school," he dictated impatiently for Skinner, 
who refused to go away until he had some answers.  He followed 
Mulder as he carried Em through the lobby, dodging the well-
heeled, white-gloved masses.

"He's paranoid, and paranoia peaks at around thirty-five.  If he's 
been bombing for sixteen years, he's about fifty.  English isn't his 
first language – his letters to the police read like a pulp fiction 
novel.  He can speak English fairly well, but he built his 
vocabulary through books, not through conversation.  He's single 
and lives with a female relative who takes care of him: maybe an 
aunt or a sister.  He's not married and never has been, but he's not 
homosexual – it's just that no one can take Mommy's place."

"What else?"

Mulder leaned on the button impatiently, wondering what was 
happening on the fifteenth floor that all the elevators were up there.   
Reaching in this pocket, he pulled out half a roll of Tums, which 
he started popping into Emily as though she was a calcium-
operated slot machine. 

"He's reclusive, eccentric: he's the odd foreign man who lives with 
his sister and never speaks to anyone.  The neighborhood kids are 
afraid of him.  He's conservative, modest, precise, and meticulous.  
He couldn't make bombs for sixteen years and be careless.  He 
needs to pay them back for what they did to him – the people who 
made him weak and the public who didn't believe him.  He wants 
to be known; he wants credit for what he's done.  That's why he 
sends the letters to the police.  He wants to be someone important, 
because deep down he knows he's not."  
 
"I need facts, Mr. Mulder, not feelings.  Give me something I can 
tell my men.  Who do we look for?"

"A white man in his early 50's; a quiet European immigrant who 
learned English as a second language and who worked for what 
became Con Ed between the late 20's and early 30's.  His first two 
bombings were Con Ed office buildings and he calls it 'The 
Consolidated Edison' in his letters to the police.  No one's called it 
anything but 'Con Ed' in decades, just like no one writes letters 
about 'dastardly deeds' like he does.  He worked for one of the 
smaller utility companies that merged into Con Ed, so go through 
their old employee files.  He was injured – or thinks he was injured 
– on the job and Con Ed denied his disability claim.  He's paying 
them back, and when the public didn't react the way he wanted to 
his first few bombings, he started paying the public back for not 
believing him.  His frailties are real, though.  Maybe mild Polio, or 
seizures or TB, or something else that isn't obvious, but it's there.  
He's weak, and the bombs make him feel powerful.  And he's 
frustrated.  This is his way of saying 's-c-r-e-w New York' – the 
bombs are phallic to him," he added, hoping Emily didn't know 
what 'phallic' meant and didn't think to ask her mother. 

"He's mad at the power company and his mother, so he bombs 
innocent people who are just trying to catch trains and check out 
library books?"  Skinner said skeptically as the elevator finally 
chimed. "Why?"

"Because he's insane," Mulder answered, shifting Emily from his 
left to his right hip as his arm began to tire. 

"How can you predict all that from looking at the file for three 
minutes?"

"Most of that information was in the newspapers except for his 
letters to the police.  I can read the paper – the big words on the 
editorial page and everything.  Agent Dales hasn't contacted me in 
more than a month, if that's what you're asking.  I don't want him 
in any more trouble."

"So you put together a profile of the bomber just from the 
newspaper?  If you already had a description of this man, why 
didn't you tell someone?" 

"I tried; you called me a communist and refused to take my calls," 
Mulder responded, stepping into the elevator.  As he turned 
around, looking out at the crowded lobby, there was an old man 
standing a dozen feet behind Skinner, leaning against the back of a 
chair and savoring his cigarette.  He nodded and Mulder nodded 
back curtly: it was the same gentleman who'd rudely interrupted 
his first 'big grownup date' with Scully.  They weren't buddies.  

"Mulder," Emily whimpered.

"Just hold on - we're going to see Mommy right now, Em," he 
assured her. 

"I didn't call you a communist.  Like I said, I don't make all the 
decisions," Skinner said, tucking the file under his arm and 
loosening his tie. "And I don't agree with this one.  I get force fed 
a lot of bullshi- hockey in my job, and after a while, no matter 
what I tell myself, some of it just goes down the wrong way.  If 
you think of anything else about this case, or any other case, my 
home number is on the back."  He reached in his jacket pocket and 
pulled out a white business card. "I'd appreciate a call." 

He started to set Emily down, but she clung to him, eyeing the man 
in the lobby.  "Mulder," she whispered urgently. "We need to go 
now!"

"Mr. Skinner," the smoking man said casually, "You're a long way 
from home." 

Skinner tensed when he heard the man's voice, and a wall instantly 
descended behind his eyes, blocking out the warmth.  His posture 
changed from hesitantly friendly to rigid and contemptuous, like 
the proverbial little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
Without a wasted motion, the card disappeared back into his 
pocket as smoothly as a magician palms a coin.  

"I understand you're getting married, Mr. Mulder," the Assistant 
Director said with a sudden hollow politeness, and Mulder nodded 
in confusion.  Three seconds ago they were becoming fast, if 
formal, friends, and now they were strangers again. 
"Congratulations.  Dana and Emily Scully are very special." 

"Mr. Skinner," the older man repeated sharply, forcefully stubbing 
out one cigarette and beginning the process of seducing another.

"Thank you," Mulder mumbled as the doors closed, trying to 
figure out what he'd done wrong.  

Emily finally stopped trying to crawl inside his skin and let him 
put her down, which he did automatically.  The elevator chimed 
again, reaching the third floor, and he moved to the back to make 
room for the other guests.  There were more chimes and more 
bodies coming and going until they eventually reached the top 
floor and the elevator was empty except for Mulder, the operator, 
and Emily, who had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge behind him.

She burped again as he picked her up, then settled against his 
shoulder as he carried her down the hall, his body going through 
the motions but his mind breaking the speed limit exponentially.

"Did you get her to eat before she conked out?" Scully asked, 
wrapping the towel around her wet hair like a turban and following 
as he carried Emily to the couch.  The soft, mellow smell of hot tea 
drifted from the kitchen and mixed with the scent of sandalwood 
and bubbles from her bath.  Maybe it was the steam, but it always 
seemed cleaner and easier to breathe around Scully. "I made some 
Earl Grey – do you want a cup or will you just drink mine?"    

Mulder didn't answer, straightening and looking around the living 
room, trying to figure out what kept nagging at the back of his 
brain.  Things looked exactly like they always did, except not so 
lonely.  She'd unpacked and hung up their clothes, leaving out the 
swimsuits, towels, and Coppertone for Coney Island tomorrow.    
Her evening dress and his tuxedo waited beside the door for the 
maid to press – they had tickets for Faust tomorrow night and Will 
had agreed to watch Em, which would almost certainly end in 
disaster.  His son's dog-eared copy of "Brave New World" served 
as a coaster for an empty soda bottle on the end table; like Mulder, 
Will usually read and watched television at the same time.  Emily's 
one-eyed, no-eared Kitty occupied an uncomfortable, priceless 
Louis XIV chair no one ever sat in, and Scully's textbooks and 
overnight case were ready in the foyer - if Emily wasn't well 
enough to leave the hospital Tuesday night, Scully would send 
Mulder back to get them while she stayed with her daughter.  

There was nothing wrong; the only things out of place were things 
that made his world a home instead of a hotel room.  This was 
exactly what life was supposed to be.  Only a fool would look any 
further.  He should accept the cup of tea, strip off her white 
terrycloth robe, count his blessings, and forget the world outside 
for a few hours.  Like that day in Central Park, all the gilded 
picture lacked was 'Norman Rockwell' scrawled at the bottom, and 
it had the same surreal, too perfect atmosphere.  

"Mulder?"

"She ate some turkey.  And she drank some, uh…  Scully…"

"Hum?"   

"I'm, uh, I'm gonna go downstairs and take care of a few more 
things.  I was just bringing her up."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah – sure.  Go on to bed – I know you're tired."

"Wake me later?" she invited, leaning over to pull off Em's knee 
socks and revealing there was nothing under her robe except 
glistening white skin and the exotic scent of the lotion the maids 
left in the bathroom.

"Bet on it."

After the valet brought the car, Mulder circled the block while he 
tried to decide where he was going, and in Manhattan, circling the 
block could easily take an hour.  He did a few laps around Central 
Park, enjoying the cool night air, and drove past Phoebe's 
apartment to see if the light was on in Will's bedroom.  It was.   

Finally making up his mind, he hit the blinker, slid between two 
taxis, and made a left, and pointed the new Chrysler downtown.       

He walked through the rheumatic bowels of the parking building 
and around back to the freight elevator, which smelled of take-out 
food, pride, secrets, and at the core, loneliness.  There was a lobby 
entrance, of course, but Frohike never used it.  The freight elevator 
was private and more direct, if less pretty.  Frohike's public 
persona was as smooth and conscientious as he was paid to be – 
butter wouldn't melt in his mouth when the cameras were aimed at 
one of his priceless athletes. He was the silver-tongued devil a 
hundred talented young men called to bail them out, smooth things 
over, and be father, friend, and handler.  In private though, he and 
Mulder weren't so different.  They played the game, played it well, 
and then went home alone.               

Mulder pounded on the steel security door of the Chelsea loft until 
Frohike answered, wearing his pajamas, flack jacket, and, for some 
reason, his old olive green combat helmet. "I have office hours, 
Mulder," his press agent reminded him again, yawning. "What do 
you want?"

"I want my money's worth," Mulder answered, stepping inside the 
spartan apartment.

*~*~*~* 

While he waited, Mulder opened Frohike's phone book and 
thumbed through it.  Yes, Uncle Freaky was still doing it – reading 
the obituaries and crossing the dead people's names out of the 
phone book.  The living people Frohike didn't like had little stars 
beside them so he could find them faster when they died.  Phoebe 
merited two stars.  Speaking of paranoid men in their fifties…

"Does your sister still come by twice a week to clean?" Mulder 
called.

"Yeah – why?" Frohike answered, emerging from the bedroom in 
slacks and a short-sleeve shirt. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason.  How's your love life?"

"A gentleman never tells."

"Been feeling frustrated lately?" Mulder teased, lounging on the 
sofa.   

"Only in the last ten minutes."  Frohike poured himself a mug of 
the strong coffee Mulder had made and sank into a chair. "Okay – 
I'm awake.  What is it?  What's wrong?  Is it Will again?"

"It's always Will, but that's not why I'm here."  Mulder leaned 
forward, chewing the inside of his lip.  "I don't know…" he 
hedged, not sure how to put it into words.

"You woke me up at one in the morning to tell me you don't know 
what's wrong?"

"There was a man in our house last month looking for something – 
I told you about him.  Will says he's the man who shot me, Emily 
says he's her father, and Scully says she doesn't know him.  I think 
the kids are telling the truth, but I think Scully's telling the truth, 
too.  And then there was a man in the hotel lobby tonight; I've seen 
him before and he just gives me a weird feeling."

"So you woke me up at one in the morning because you have a 
case of the heebie-jeebies?  A quick shot of penicillin will cure 
that, but you'd better hope Dana doesn't find out."   

"You know what I mean.  Every time I tell Scully I have a weird 
feeling, she says it's probably just gas."

"You told me to drop it, Mulder."

"And I know you didn't.  I just need to know… what to believe."   

"Are you sure?"

"What do you mean am I sure?  Of course I'm sure.  It's my life; 
my family; my-" he started to say 'baby' and didn't.  "I want to 
know what's happening.  I need to know."   

Frohike paused a second, and then picked up his hat and keys, 
looking like a man with a destination. "Do you feel like going for a 
drive, Mulder?"

*~*~*~*          
 
"Wow," Mulder said in mock reverence, getting out of the 
passenger's side of Frohike's Ford truck.  "It's a baseball stadium, 
right?"

"The house that Babe Ruth built and you decorated," his driver 
quipped, killing the engine. "And I made five percent of both.  
You're a lot less trouble than Babe Ruth, by the way.  At least, you 
used to be."

"What the hell are we doin' here, Frohike?"

"We're playing baseball.  What else would we be doing here?  Can 
you still get in?"

"Unless they heard I was a communist and changed the locks."

"Who said you were a communist?"

"Never mind – yeah, I can get in."

*~*~*~*

Only a few of the floodlights were on, eerily illuminating the 
empty field and stands.  It echoed: the openness.  It gave a man 
room to think and it set him free to hold his head a little higher.     

While the Negro groundskeeper fiddled with the pitching machine, 
loading the balls, Mulder picked a bat off the rack and caressed the 
smooth, pale ash under his palms.  He could have been touching a 
woman's body – it was as familiar and sensual.  It was an old 
friend.  'Don't screw it up,' he used to tell himself, and then pick 
his bat, adjust his hat, shut out the world, and walk out on the field.  
He was twenty-four years old and scared shitless the first time he'd 
set foot on Yankee Field, and thirty-nine and a retiring legend 
when he stepped off.  In between those years, he'd chanted those 
words to himself and walked up to bat almost seven thousand 
times.     

"What's it like?" Frohike asked out of the blue, following Mulder 
to the plate.

He took a gentle practice swing, getting the feel again, then 
adjusted his grip and swung harder, the bat whistling as it sliced 
through the air.  

"To be born able to do that?  To do it effortlessly - what's it like?"

Staring out at the darkness, he finally answered thoughtfully, "I 
suppose if you don't have anything else, it's the best there is.  In 
1941, I got a base hit every game for fifty-six games in a row.  It 
set a record no one's broken yet.  The newspapers kept track of it 
on the front page – how long could Fox Mulder go before someone 
struck him out?"

"I remember that," Frohike said almost reverently.

"If there was ever a moment in the sun, that summer was it.  I was 
America's new golden boy, provided I didn't screw it up.  It should 
have been the best time of my life, and it was great; don't get me 
wrong.  But… if you'd ask me to name the best times in my life, 
I'd say every second with Will and every second with Scully.  You 
only get so many seconds, Frohike.  Sometimes I think I spent too 
many of mine standing right here - alone.  Sometimes I think that 
along the way there were choices, and I didn't always make the 
right ones."

"The Yankees are offering a hundred-grand if you come back for 
one more season, Mulder.  I wouldn't mind having five percent of 
that.  A hundred-thousand dollars to swing a bat occasionally and 
listen to fans cheer."   

"Tell them no."    

"I just thought I'd mention it."

"Ready, sirs?" the groundskeeper asked from the pitcher's mound 
sixty feet away, partially hidden by the darkness.       

"Ready," Mulder called back. "I don't know what I'm doing here, 
but I'm ready.  And I don't know what you're trying to prove – 
who cares if I can still hit a baseball?"

"Just do it," Frohike ordered.

"You're not going to make me run, are you?" 

"Hit the damn ball, Mulder."

Mulder shrugged and raised the bat, quickly and cleanly hitting ten 
of the two-dozen balls the machine launched at him and clipping 
another few.  That wasn't a bad average, given he hadn't played in 
two years.  He'd always hated that damn machine.   

He was standing at home plate staring out at the stands and 
remembering the simplicity of a hundred summer afternoons when 
Frohike told him to get ready again.  Like an automaton, he raised 
the bat, and when he looked, the machine had been rolled to the 
side and the old groundskeeper was holding the ball.

"Oh, come on, Frohike…  You've gotta be joking.  I can hit 
anything he can throw at-"  

Mulder swung quickly at a fastball that would have made any 
major league pitcher proud, making contact with a bone-jarring 
'crack.'  A heartbeat later the ball arched into the floodlights and 
vanished over the back fence.  Homerun number two hundred and 
seventy-four. "My God!  That had flames after it!"  

From the pitcher's mound, the quiet Negro man grinned at him, 
squaring his broad shoulders proudly.  Mulder snorted and pointed 
the bat at him as if to say, 'I'm ready for you now,' then dug in 
again.

A curveball followed, which he sent between second and third base 
and eventually heard thud dully as it hit the fence.  The next pitch 
blazed into the outside edge of the strike zone, met the sweet spot 
of his bat, and soared high into left field before it dropped out of 
the sky like a dying quail.  More curveballs, fastballs, and the 
exotic ones – sinkers, high heat, hanging curves, forkballs, 
knuckleballs - all effortlessly delivered with marksman-like 
precision and meteoric speed.

"Now you're just showing off," Mulder yelled at the pitcher's 
mound, beginning to hurt.  A few more fastballs and he stepped 
back, lowering the bat and shaking his head.

"Okay, Mulder?" Frohike asked.  

The groundskeeper nodded in satisfaction, grinned proudly, and 
headed back to the dark outfield to move the sprinklers and pick up 
any trash that had fallen from the stands during the game earlier 
that evening.     

"Okay.  Sore and humiliated, but okay.  Who is he?"

"Josh Exley - he was a Negro League legend.  By the time the 
Majors started letting Negroes play, he was past his prime."

"If that was past his prime, I'm glad I didn't step up to bat when he 
was at his best."  He rolled his shoulder, trying to ease the ache.  
"Okay, aside from embarrassing me, what was the point of that?"

"Simple math," Frohike responded, taking the bat.  He slid it back 
into the rack, then walked out on the baseball diamond again, 
sitting down on the neat grass with a series of painful cracks and 
grunts. "Out of twenty-four pitches from the pitching machine, you 
hit ten.  Out of twenty-four pitches from a human – tough pitches - 
you hit all twenty-four."

"But it's always like that.  It's part of being a good batter: you 
learn pitchers; you know their patterns and what they're likely to 
throw at you.  You read their body language."

"But you've never stepped up to bat with him on the mound 
before.  There's no past pitching record you can look at.  And you 
can't really see him in the dark to read his body language.  
Basically, there's no difference between the pitching machine and 
Exley, except you hit less than half the pitches from the machine 
and every pitch from the person.  How do you explain that?"

"I'm not sure," Mulder said, scratching his head as he sat down 
beside Frohike.  "Maybe I had to get warmed up.  Random chance, 
maybe?  Not enough trials to establish a reliable pattern?"

"You played for twelve seasons, total – that's a pretty reliable 
pattern."

"Tell me something, Frohike; something that isn't a riddle."

"What if you know on some primal level what the pitcher is going 
to throw, but you can't predict the machine?  I've been thinking 
about it, about what I asked you last year: how could you just pick 
up a bat and suddenly set the baseball world on fire?  Maybe it's 
because you have an edge the rest of the players don't.  You can 
read the pitcher's mind."

"Frohike," Mulder said, lying back on the cool grass and resting 
his head on his palms, "read this thought."

"Not on any conscious level, but just enough that you can 
anticipate things.  I've seen it a hundred times: you pick up the 
phone right before it rings and it's Dana calling you; you show up 
at my office as I'm leaving to go see you.  I think it's some form of 
a slight sixth sense."

"I did the Zeener cards at Oxford – those cards they use to test 
psychic ability.  They hold up a card and you're supposed to guess 
what's on it.  I was a test subject in one of my professor's 
experiments.  It took hours."

"And?"  

"And Phoebe showed up again and we got married and moved to 
New York and Will came and I never went back."

Mulder digested for a while, watching the stars shift across the 
broad night sky over the Bronx.  For a long time he'd believed 
Yankee Stadium was a little closer to Heaven than the rest of the 
world, and probably as close as a lanky, spooky misfit from Boston 
was likely to get.        

"If what you're saying is true – and I'm not saying it is – is this 
something I could pass on?  Like being color blind?  Will's color 
blind."
 
"Being color blind passes through the mother; that came from 
Phoebe.  But this, this gift, if it's hereditary, yes, you could pass it 
on.  It could be something you were bred to have, or just a genetic 
fluke, but either way, yes.  You'd need a woman with the right 
genetic makeup, just as you would to pass on a certain blood type 
or eye color.  And if you happened onto a woman like that – 
especially if her suitability as a breeder was already known - and 
she happened to conceive…" Frohike trailed off, giving that 
thought some time to sink in as well. 

"I'm not Emily's father.  Not even via your Petrie dish, turkey 
baster theory: I had the blood types checked and we don't match." 

"I know; I saw the bill for the paternity test.  You shouldn't 
frighten Langly and Byers like that.  No, she doesn't match you, 
but she doesn't match Alex Krycek either."

Mulder's head snapped toward Frohike.  "How do you know?  Did 
you finally track him down?"  

"No.  As far as I can tell, he's just a name on a piece of paper."  
Frohike hesitated like a man contemplating biting into an under-
ripe banana. "Mulder, that child's blood type doesn't match 
anyone's.  That's why she's dying: her body doesn't recognize 
some of her own cells as human.  That means she's not completely 
human: she's a human-hybrid."

"She's a little girl," Mulder insisted shakily. "Not an orchid.  What 
the hell are you talking about?"

"Her body's attacking itself – why?  What does the immune 
system attack?  Anything foreign; that's why we can't put one 
person's heart or lung into another person's body: we reject foreign 
tissue, just like Emily's immune system rejects her own red blood 
cells.  However she was created, someone tampered with her 
genetics and the result isn't… harmonious.  The two tissues can't 
quite co-exist.  Almost, but not quite.  If I was that person – or 
persons – I'd go back to the drawing board and try again with 
tissue from the same mother, but a more suitable father.  I'd 
probably have better success hybridizing that tissue because it 
would be a closer match.  I wouldn't need a living child; just 
tissue."

Mulder swallowed, turning those words over in his head as he tried 
to wrap his mind around them.  It was like trying to dig to the 
bottom of the beach: he could scoop as fast and hard as he liked, 
and there would only ever be more sand.   

"Dana was gone almost exactly three months, Mulder, and you 
said there was no way she could have been more than three months 
along.  I figured you knew what you were talking about, so I 
checked that out: until a fetus - an unborn baby - is three months 
old, it has no immune system.  If foreign tissue is injected into it, 
the fetus incorporates it and continues to develop and the result is 
something not quite human.  The Nazis figured that out, but they 
couldn't get a human-hybrid to come to term, to be born alive.  
What if their experiments never stopped?"

"We stopped them," Mulder said roughly, biting his lower lip and 
wishing he still smoked.  Now would be a good time to smoke and 
pace. "We wiped the sons-of-bitches off the planet.  I was there.  I 
wasn't lounging in the South Pacific with a Mai Tai in my left 
hand and myself in my right," he added pointedly.     

"You really think any government would just throw away decades 
of research attempting to create a super-soldier?  There are 
whispers that we didn't – that we brought the Nazi scientists to the 
US and put them to work in our labs, on our agendas, and now 
we've had ten years to perfect the science." 

Mulder sat up, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around his 
knees as though he were cold and staring at nothing, not even 
bothering to focus his eyes.   

"You said you wanted to know," Frohike said quietly. "I'm just 
guessing.  I could be completely wrong.  I just manage baseball 
players, Mulder.  This is way out of my league."

"I'd like to go back to Manhattan," Mulder murmured, getting up 
and brushing off his backside. "Could you drive me back?  
Please?" he asked hoarsely. "I want to check on them.  I need to. 
Right now."

"Sure," Frohike answered sympathetically. 

*~*~*~*

Fifth Avenue hadn't vanished.  The Plaza still stood.  As he walked 
through the deserted lobby, the uniformed concierge greeted him 
by name, congratulating him on his upcoming marriage.  When he 
pressed the button, the elevator came and delivered him to the right 
floor, although Mulder half-expected the doors to close on one 
universe and open to another.   

Scully had left a lamp on in the foyer, but otherwise the suite was 
dark and silent: she and Emily had been asleep for hours.  Mulder 
paused in front of the mirror, checking his reflection as though it 
might have changed.  It hadn't – not after Samantha disappeared, 
not after he'd been with Phoebe, not after he became a husband, a 
father, a Yankee, or a soldier.  On those days, life seemed to leap 
forward and he felt so different on the inside, he always expected 
the rest of the world to be able to tell.        

But it couldn't.  It was just the same hodge-podge mug of his 
mother and father's features staring back at him.  He could see his 
father's face in Will's, but then, in that fleeting millisecond, he had 
seen it in Alex Krycek's, too.

It was too late to think anymore.  The only things normal people 
did at this hour were sleep and make love.  To that end, he stripped 
off all his clothes, leaving a messy, grass-stained crumple beside 
the bed, and crawled under the covers with Scully, finding nothing 
between his skin and hers but heat.

"Hi," she murmured sleepily, scooting toward him. "Late." 

"Hi," he breathed back, skipping the 'fine-how-do-you-do's and 
settling her on her back, taking her breast greedily in his mouth. 
Half awake, she arched her body and shifted under him, wanting 
more.  He knew that feeling: to want more.

"Love you," he whispered when he switched breasts, trying to 
divide his attention evenly between the two.

"Yes," Scully mumbled back, possibly confirming that she 
believed he loved her, possibly encouraging him or agreeing, and 
possibly just not able to think of anything else.  

"Want you," he said, half as a request and half as blanket policy, 
and her legs went around his hips as his mouth finally made it up 
to hers.  They'd made love for the first time in this bed; they'd 
conceived a life in this bed, but there would never be another.  
Never.

"Yes," she answered the next time he gave her a chance to speak, 
panting softly.  There was no hesitation or resistance – it shouldn't 
have been called 'making love' so as much as 'making peace.'

"Need you," Mulder told her, even though needing was dropping 
his heart in a pencil sharpener and waiting for someone – Them – 
to turn the handle. 

"Now," she requested.

"Always."

*~*~*~*   

Mulder first thought he had the wrong apartment, but then 
compared his watch with the figure in the doorway.  At seven-
thirty a.m. on Memorial Day his ex-wife was wearing full makeup 
and party hair, but not a stitch underneath her long silk robe.  Yes, 
he had the right place, and this had all the makings of A Very Bad 
Idea. 

He was not noticing the nipple.

He was not noticing the nipple.

He wasn't a fish who snapped at anything shiny and ended up with 
a hook through his cheek - or a ring through his nose - for the rest 
of his life.  Lesson learned.  Someone should have taken a 
bullwhip to him when he decided to commit parenthood with this 
woman. 

He was getting married and Scully and Emily were in the car 
downstairs and he was just here on 'parent business' and he wasn't 
going to screw it up this time…

"Scully's waiting," he announced out of the blue.

…And he was not noticing the nipple.  God purposely put those on 
females so males would never get anything accomplished.  Men 
got brawn, but women got breasts - it was a plot against Darwin.  If 
any other lump of flesh was noticeable under fabric it was reason 
to see the dermatologist; call that lump a 'nipple' and the male 
fontal lobe developed a case of the hiccups.    
    
"Fox, come in," Phoebe repeated, holding open the door. "Will's in 
the shower.  Do you want coffee?" 

"I have a cup in the car.  The doorman said to come up.  Scully's 
waiting."   

"You said you wanted to talk.  Come in – sit down."

"I didn't mean we had to talk this morning.  I didn't mean to wake 
you.  I called to wake Will, not get you out of bed this early."   
 
"We can talk now.  Come in.  What about some orange juice?"

She turned away, making his life easier, and he followed the 
flowing ivory hem through the apartment.  He took the opportunity 
to see what his alimony and child support checks paid for – from 
the age of seven Phoebe had Will wait with the doorman 
downstairs when Mulder came to pick him on Saturdays.  In all 
these years Mulder had never been past the lobby.  The apartment 
was very nice and homey it that over-furnished brothel kind of 
way.   

"Did you want orange juice?" Phoebe repeated, picking up her 
own mug of coffee from the kitchen counter.  

"No, I'm fine.  Is Will almost ready?"

"He's in the shower."

"Oh," he mumbled, realizing he'd already been told that once.  

"I'm going to the market today so the cupboard is pretty bare, but I 
might have some bagels."

"I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble."

"It's no trouble," his ex-wife responded as a door whooshed open 
at the other end of the apartment. "William – do you want a 
bagel?"
 
"Uhhhh…  No, thank you," a confused voice answered.  A few 
seconds later, Will ambled into the kitchen in his blue jeans and an 
undershirt with a flaming eight ball embroidered on the front, 
finger-combing his wet hair and looking like he was certain he'd 
heard wrong.  He surveyed the scene, taking in his mother flitting 
around looking like Mae West-meets-June Cleaver, and his father, 
who looked like the dog next in line to see the vet.   

"I just wanted to talk to your mother," Mulder mumbled, slouching 
a little. "Is that what you're wearing to Coney Island?"

"No, this is what I'm wearing while you and Mom are fighting," he 
answered evasively.

"We're not fighting.  We're just talking."

"Hurry up; your father's waiting," Phoebe prompted, pouring a cup 
of coffee for Will. "I packed your swim trunks and a towel.  
They're in the bag by the front door."

Will blinked his eyes and shook his head slightly, certain he'd also 
stumbled into the wrong universe. "Are you okay, Mom?"

"Of course I'm okay, dear."

Will looked back at his father, who slouched a little lower against 
the counter and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. "We're 
adults – we can just talk."       

After a few more alternating glances at his parents, Will shrugged 
and turned back to his bedroom. "Great; now I'm gonna need to 
see my shrink twice a week," Mulder heard him mumble.

Mulder smiled, but Phoebe didn't seem amused and his grin faded. 
"We were planning on breakfast at Aiello's, Phoebe – we have a 
blueberry pancakes tradition we do…"

"What is it, Fox?" she prompted before her face disappeared 
behind her cup for a few seconds.  There was a drop of coffee 
about to drip from the rim as she lowered the mug and she caught 
it expertly with the tip of her tongue, then slowly licked her lips. 
"You said you wanted to talk."

"Oh.  Will.  I just don't think it's a good idea for him to be at The 
Plaza anymore when I'm not there, that's all.  We've talked about 
it and-"

"We?"      

"Scully and I.  We talked this morning.  And I wanted to talk with 
you, too," he hurried to add. "I wanted to see what you thought."

"Do you mean he's at the hotel when you're not?  He's there 
alone?  He's sixteen years old!"

Mulder's eyebrows raised and met at a perplexed angle. "Of course 
he's there alone when I'm in Georgetown.  The staff keeps tabs on 
him.  He lounges around, eats, sleeps, watches television, eats, 
talks on the phone, eats…  You know that.  You send him over 
there all the time.  Anyway-"        

"No, I did not know that," she said evenly. "I thought you were 
with him."

"Oh, of course you knew.  Know."      

She had been leaning against the counter, but stood quickly and 
called, "William!"

"Yes, Ma'am?" 

"Come in here right now!"

"Phoebe – I'm sure you knew I wasn't there," Mulder insisted, a 
little slow on the uptake in his sleep-deprived state. 

To his credit, Will appeared wearing a black satin shirt with 
glowing red flames on the shoulders and sleeves, which was a step 
up from the flaming eight ball. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"Why did you tell me your father was at The Plaza when he 
wasn't?  I had no idea you were over there alone."  

There was a stunned silence.  Will's gaze cut back and forth 
between his father's puzzled expression and the hungry, desperate 
gleam in his mother's eyes. Then, stubbing out an imaginary 
cigarette butt with the toe of his sneaker, he mumbled, "I thought I 
told you…" 
 
"You're calling me a liar?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"No, Ma'am," Will told the marble-tiled floor. "I just thought-"

"You lied to me and said your father was there when he wasn't.  I 
would never have let you be there alone.  How dare you lie-"

"Phoebe," Mulder interrupted, "I don't know what you're talking 
about and neither does he.  You've called me in Georgetown and 
told me Will was at The Plaza for the night.  There's no way you 
could think I was in New York when you were calling me in DC."

"Did you lie to me, William?" Phoebe asked sharply, crossing her 
arms.

The boy glanced at his father from underneath his eyelashes, then 
mumbled, "Yes, Ma'am," in a way that made his father's heart 
hurt.
 
Mulder pursed his lips, succeeding in blowing air instead of 
producing words.  "Okay," he said slowly. "I'm not arguing this.  
From now on, you're not to be at The Plaza alone, Will.  No 
exceptions.  If you do it again, I'm taking the car."

"Are you actually punishing him?  Fox Mulder, playboy-of-the-
decade, is acting like a parent?  It only took you sixteen years.  
What did you do, William?" Phoebe hissed at him. "What have 
you been doing over there?"

Will's cheekbones stood out as he clenched his teeth and his hands 
balled into fists in his blue jean pockets, so Mulder answered, "I'm 
betting he had dinner with a bunch of his friends and when the 
check came, everyone seemed to have misplaced their wallets.  So 
Will charged the check to me and he'll play busboy next weekend 
to pay me back, right Will?"

Will nodded, not looking up.

"Okay, then.  Go change your shirt," Mulder asked quietly. "Go 
put on something that won't blind people."  As soon as Will was 
out of the kitchen and settled in the living room to eavesdrop, he 
responded, "Please – let's not do this, Phoebe.  He's just being a 
teenage boy and he needs reined in a little.  I thought just for once, 
you and I might be able to handle something without lawyers and a 
judge."

"I'm handling it just fine.  I'm not the one who lets that boy run 
wild and then sweeps in every few months and expects to make it 
all better with a big check.  You think buying him a car without a 
backseat is going to keep him out of trouble?  It didn't work for us. 
You expect him to keep his pants buttoned just because you tell 
him to?"
   
"What do you want me to do?" 

"I want you to set a decent example instead of shacking up with 
that redheaded whore!"

Mulder exhaled through his nose, then answered slowly, "You can 
call her Dana.  You can call her Scully, if you want, and if you 
think she'll respond.  Or you can call her Mrs. Mulder.  But if you 
call her a whore again-"

"You married her?" 

"We're getting married in three weeks," he said as calm and 
quietly as Phoebe was shrill and dramatic. "We decided 
yesterday."    

"Is she knocked up again?"

When he didn't answer, steam seeped from her ears for a few 
seconds before she slammed her coffee mug on the counter and 
barked, "William!"

"No," Mulder barked back, "You're not doing this to him!  You're 
making him crazy!  Whatever insane scheme is cooking inside 
your head, you're not using him in it."

Will had been all of five feet away from the kitchen and appeared 
almost instantaneously. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"We're leaving, Will," Mulder ordered. "Let's go.  Phoebe, he's 
spending the day with us and then he's babysitting Emily tonight.  
We're hoping Em's well enough to go back to Georgetown 
tomorrow night, but if she's not, he can spend Tuesday night with 
us, too."

"I get no say in this?  You're the rich Yankee Oxford boy so you 
just tell me the way it's going to be and I get no choice?  I think 
that's how we got a baby, wasn't it?  You get drunk and I don't get 
a choice?"   

Ignoring her, Mulder took his son by the shoulder and steered him 
toward the front door, but Phoebe stepped in front of them.

"What did you do, William?  Your father's lying for you, just like 
you always lie for him.  Get some girl in trouble?  You two are 
exactly alike."

"I hope so," Will muttered under his breath and Phoebe slapped 
him hard across the face.

Mulder saw blood red, then sepia tones of pinkish-brown as he 
grabbed her and shoved her against the wall, screaming "How dare 
you – you insane bitch!" at her as she screamed back hysterically 
that she was sorry.  He held her there as she sobbed, hands around 
her upper arms, not hurting, but not letting her go, either.  It didn't 
matter how many times she pleaded that she hadn't meant it, any 
lingering tenderness he'd felt for her vanished.  Dim memories of 
passion cooled to hate and solidified into pity and distaste and 
eventually, to indifference.                        

"Dad," Will's frightened voice pleaded, "Dad, let her go.  She 
didn't mean it.  She's sorry.  Just let her go; you're scaring her."

"Good."

"Dad, she's crying.  It was an accident.  Don't hurt her, please."

Somehow, Mulder's hands let go and Phoebe fled tearfully to her 
bedroom and a door slammed and Mulder was standing beside the 
front door, one hand braced on the wall.  Will dragged his hand 
across his face, wiping away the blood from his nose, and 
swallowing more than was necessary.

"Has she done that before?" he finally managed to ask, tapping the 
plaster wall threateningly with his fist.

Will looked down, ashamed.  "She's having a bad morning.  She 
and Mitchell broke up last night."

Mulder started to ask who Mitchell was, then realized he didn't 
give a damn. "This place looks like a whorehouse burped," he 
muttered. "Go put on a decent shirt and we'll get the rest of your 
things later."

"I'm not coming back?"

"No."  There was a dull finality to it, as though a bank vault door 
had swung shut.  
 
It took his son a long time to change clothes, and he seemed to be 
having trouble with the buttons when he emerged in a sedate gray 
shirt with a darker gray collar.  It seemed familiar, and Mulder 
realized he had worn one identical to it yesterday; Scully must 
have hit a two-for-one-sale at Bloomingdale's.  

Neither spoke in the elevator, waiting to see if the doors opened to 
the correct universe.  In the lobby, Mulder said things like, "You 
should have told me," and "There's no excuse for her hitting you," 
and "I'm sorry," which Will answered with uncomfortable nods.

They were standing on the sidewalk doing nothing before Will 
hesitantly asked if they were walking to Coney Island.

"We double-parked; Scully's probably circling the block."

"I didn't know she could drive."

"Of course she can drive.  This is her car, actually; she picked it.  
A hundred and ten pounds of her behind the wheel of three 
hundred horsepower and a few tons of chrome and steel – it's 
kinda sexy," Mulder chattered nervously, watching the sleek black 
Chrysler round the corner and willing it to hurry.  

There was still no place to park, so he and Will waded between 
taxis as she waited for the light to change, choosing the back seat 
so they had some leg room during the long drive.  Scully watched 
them in the rearview mirror, her eyes hidden behind her black 
sunglasses.  Mulder's take-out coffee was fogging the windshield 
and she turned to hand it to him, his fingers briefly covering hers 
before she let go.  It was a beautiful morning and they'd left the 
top down, but Emily had the hood of her jacket up and Scully had 
tied a scarf around her head against the cool air.  Before she turned 
back, Mulder trailed two fingers down her jaw, one on her skin and 
one on the thin silk fabric, reassuring himself.

'She hit him?' Scully asked silently into the rearview mirror, and 
Mulder nodded.

Will slouched down, attempting to sink into the upholstery and 
answering Emily's excited chattering in glib monosyllables.

Scully opened the glove box and handed a paper napkin over the 
front seat. "Your nose is bleeding, Will.  Mulder, do you have a 
handkerchief?  Just pinch your nose and tilt your head back until 
the bleeding stops.  Help him, Mulder."

"I am.  I'm helping him."

An expert nose-bleeder, Emily turned around and knelt to watch 
them, but Scully made her sit back down as traffic moved again.   
 
*~*~*~*

They made it to Aiello's before all the blueberries for the blueberry 
pancakes were gone.  They'd been to Wax World and the Arcade 
and on the Cyclone and the Parachute Jump and the Carousel.  
They'd covered The Boardwalk, The Bowery, and Surf Avenue 
with Em sitting alternately on Mulder and Will's shoulders.  
They'd met a geek, a tattooed lady, a bearded lady, and a dog-
faced boy at the sideshow and Emily was completely convinced 
her mother had eaten a bug.  Nathan's hotdogs were a nickel each, 
meaning Mulder could give himself near-lethal heartburn for a 
quarter, and Will was soothing his morning trauma by consuming 
any food he could find served on a stick.  Scully said she was still 
full from her bug.    

"I sent Will to change so he could take her in, but he got lost.  I 
thought you weren't going to swim today," Mulder said as Scully 
returned from the bathhouse in a white, halter-top suit, her hand in 
Emily's.  A few straying husbands had been following her down 
the beach, but looked crushed when they saw Mulder.  Pretending 
he thought they were fans instead of competition, Mulder waved 
enthusiastically and the men waved back, now looking constipated. 

"Will's made a new friend; I just saw him with her near the 
Boardwalk.  He said to tell you they were studying."
 
"Studying what?  Full-body Braille?"  Mulder sighed resignedly, 
put down his book, and started to get up. "I'll go round up Don 
Juan and change into my trunks.  Try to stall the Indian Mermaid 
Girl for a few minutes."  

Emily eyed him from under the brim of her sun hat, a streak of 
zinc oxide painted down her nose and two stripes on each cheek.  
Like any woman with new clothes, she'd been 'practicing' wearing 
her new turquoise two-piece in the bathtub for a week, but the sun 
block war paint must have caused some disagreement between her 
and her mother.          

"No, I'll take her.  It's fine.  Read your book."   

"But I thought…"

"Mulder, it's fine," she insisted as Emily went for more water for 
moat of the elaborate sandcastle she and Mulder had been building, 
the idea of swimming already forgotten.  Apparently, all she'd 
wanted to do was wear the suit – there was no need to get it wet.     

At the urging of their fathers, two junior high-aged boys 
approached for autographs and to ask the usual questions about his 
shoulder while he signed their slips of paper. "No, I'm through 
playing," Mulder said for the fiftieth time that day, politely 
refusing to take off his shirt to let them see the scars.  Contrary to 
popular belief, his life wasn't a display case for their amusement, 
although, like everyone else, the kids didn't mean any offense and 
he didn't take any.  Living in a fishbowl came with the job, except 
he'd quit the job almost two years ago.
  
When the boys left, Mulder filled and turned over his bucket, 
completing the north tower of the inner castle wall, then looked up 
at Scully again, squinting into the sun. "You're late."

"Mulder…"

"Scully?"

Not wanting to share their conversation with the neighboring 
beach-going baseball fans, she knelt in the sand beside him and 
answered quietly, "No, one day is not 'late."

"Four days.  Uncle Arthur is late this month."

"Uncle Arthur?  How old are you?"

Mulder grinned, a nice orange glow warming his stomach. "Or 
Aunt Flo?  I got a million of them.  Are you decorated with red 
roses?  Flying the scarlet flag?   I can even euphemize in other 
languages: Opoe op bezoek hebben?  Kritische tagen?  Les Anglais 
ont débarqué?" 

She stared at him in disbelief and then shook her head. "You're 
incorrigible.  And weird.  Fine, four days.  It's still just a fluke."   

"You're late," he repeated, still grinning stupidly.  

"Mulder," she said seriously, "I told you; it won't happen.  No 
more babies.  There was too much uterine trauma.  The doctor said 
there was injury to my cervix and scarring of the endometrial 
lining and fallopian tubes."

"Which part's your endometrial?"

"The lining of the uterus.  I thought you studied this."

"I only memorized the parts I could reach with my tongue," he 
whispered into her ear, catching the fleshly lobe between his teeth 
for a millisecond.

She blushed like she was supposed to, laughed like she was 
supposed to, and then helped build the sandcastle as though 
another baby was a non-issue.  It wasn't, but Scully was doubled-
hulled and had more sealed compartments than the Titanic.  He 
was never going to pound his way in, but sometimes he could seep.  

"I didn't know you still thought about it," she said. "We have Will 
and Em – I thought you were happy."

"I am happy; very happy." He added another level to the castle 
walls before he spoke again. "If it would happen, though…  I don't 
want you in danger again, and I'm not sure I could protect you.  
I'm not even sure who I'd be protecting you from."

She glanced up quickly from her beach architecture, and his 
reflection in her sunglasses looked uncomfortable.  He was still 
using the cover story that hotel business had kept him busy until 
almost dawn, and she was still pretending she was buying it.

"If it would happen," he continued slowly, tamping down his new 
bucket of sand. "I'm not furthering some agenda.  If I can't keep 
you safe, I'd rather it didn't happen at all."

Emily returned lugging a plastic bucket of murky seawater, 
sloshing it over the sides and onto her canvas shoes.   

"It won't happen," Scully answered, emptying the bucket into 
moat and then heading to the shore for a refill.       

Will finally reappeared, bare-chested, carrying a soda, wearing his 
swim trunks, and looking like Trouble with a capital T waiting for 
a flat surface to happen on.  In Mulder's estimate, his son was still 
mostly all show and not much go, but it was getting to be a 
dangerous amount of show.             
 
"Mulder, can I bury you in the sand?" Emily asked, now bored 
with the sandcastle and reaching the four-in-the-afternoon, day-at-
the-beach stage where most of her energy was going toward 
fighting a nap. 

"Only if you do it head-first," Mulder agreed, watching Scully 
walk away. 

*~*~*~* 

End - A Moment In the Sun: Part V