Continued from To Disclosures or Crescendos (1 of 3) buckingham15@yahoo.com - x - "I was in Portland for a while," Mulder says. "Despite my track record there, I like the Pacific northwest." One of his hands spans William's head, barely moving, while the other swipes at some drool on the baby's chin. He looks relaxed, at ease with his son. She fights the urge to fidget, fights the urge to tell him that he's insane for setting foot in Oregon, for running the risk of being snatched up by that faithless sky again. But she doesn't want him to stop his storytelling, doesn't want to let go of his voice, working its pied-piper magic over her just as she remembers. It wasn't always that way, not back when they were both stubborn, hardheaded fools. She remembers one afternoon, back when they'd only known each other for a couple of months, when Mulder pulled out his obnoxious slide projector and delivered his treatise on psychic transference, as it pertained to some case in upstate New York. She'd worked several cases with him by that point, had had plenty of time to observe him, and the jury was in with a vengeance: Fox Mulder was an arrogant lunatic, so in love with the sound of his own voice that he could fill an entire afternoon with his own sounds, no input or suggestions from his partner whatsoever. It was expected that she sit in an uncomfortable, rickety chair, hands clasped in her lap like a good little girl, and listen to him explain the mysteries of the universe to her, like he was some sort of genius, a guru for all things paranormal. She smirked behind her hand as he clicked to a new slide, tried not to laugh out loud. "But it seems," Mulder went on, in that voice she always imagined belonged in a bedroom, some dark, private corner at least. "That Mr. Rosenthal has turned up dead. Letter opener jammed straight through his skull. Neat trick, huh Scully?" She huffed out an impatient sigh, and turned to look at him over her shoulder. He was leaning forward, foot resting on the bottom of the projector cart, arm resting on his knee. There was an eagerness in the way the corners of his mouth twitched, the way his eyes locked with hers, imploring. He didn't move, content to wait on her, and she got it then, the obviousness of it suddenly blinding. He wasn't desperate to hear his own far-fetched, whimsical insights; he wasn't looking to the fill the basement with his own flat, familiar echo. He wanted to share it all with someone. With her, specifically. All that time, he'd only been waiting for someone to listen, to give him the benefit of the doubt and honestly argue through to the end with him. She was immediately charmed, blushing in the icy glow of his slide show before she shot down his theory with all the grace she knew. His voice is what she's missed most of all, the sound of him thinking out loud. It is William's turned to be charmed, she thinks. His head rests against Mulder's shoulder, and he's gazing up at his father, with a small, secret smile, watching the lips move and words emerge. She could never explain this to him (*This* is how your father sounds, This is how he thinks...), so she is absurdly grateful that he can experience it firsthand. What this child is missing out on, she reminds herself. She's certain that Mulder loses something in her meager translation. "I was in San Diego for a few weeks too," Mulder says, watching her carefully. She can imagine it -- Mulder wandering the beach, pants rolled to his knees, dark cap and glasses for disguise, searching for the ghosts of her childhood, listening to the wind for a whisper of her adolescent laughter. Mulder visiting a small, empty grave, remembering all the ways a life can go wrong, afraid for her, for their son. "For a couple of days, I worried that I was gonna run into your brother, and have to explain a whole hell of a lot." He nods toward William, whose eyes are starting to droop shut. "But Bill would've been the least of my problems, huh?" She nods absently, just to keep the conversation flowing. The heater seems to be on full-force in the room, and the air is thick, crushing. She is warm, feeling wilted and sweaty, so she starts to unbutton her blouse. The pearl buttons are so small that her fingers start to slip, shake around them, but she finally manages to strip down to her camisole. Mulder watches, squints as if he doesn't know what she's doing. He looks away, and scratches at a loose thread in the fabric of the chair. "First place I went to was Chicago. Figured a big city was a pretty safe choice," he says, and it sounds like he needs to clear his throat. "Remember the Weems case from a couple years back? I thought about looking him up, seeing if he still had any of that good luck to pass around." It's odd to hear how he actually passed the past six months. It's odd to hear how he actually spent his time. She's wasted entire nights, curled up in bed with a cup of tea, imagining what Mulder was doing, where he was at that very moment, struggling, straining to feel him over the miles between them. She'd picture a map, one of those brightly colored, simply drawn charts she remembered from junior high text books, and tried to fix tiny black x's to mark all the places she guessed he'd been, a giant bold X where he might be then, all connected with a dotted line. It was like some twisted treasure map, and the shape of it always seemed to change -- a triangle, a star, an endless spiraled mess. She stands, playing with the chain around her neck. "There was this one night," she says. She turns her back to him for courage. "There was this one night when William had an ear infection. He was fussy and couldn't fall asleep, so I was up with him all night. Flipping through the channels, you know... ESPN was showing highlights from a hockey game. The Bruins, I think. They had gold and black uniforms." When she turns, he's watching her, stroking his thumb over William's cheek. He is interested, and nods his head slowly, encouraging her to go on. She wrings her hands, trying to find the beat inside her. "The camera panned across the stands for less than a second. Just this blur of faces, but I was certain I saw you, sitting there with a hot dog in your hand, screaming about some overtime goal like you didn't have a care in the world." She feels tears, but closes her eyes, breathes deeply and pushes the hair away from her face. "I wanted to believe it was you so badly," she whispers. "So badly." From his dark corner, Mulder smiles, and William latches onto the side of his neck, making fretting noises like a kitten. "I never made it up to Boston," Mulder says, wistfully, like he's apologizing. "And I'm not really much of a hockey fan." He shrugs, and she feels a thread of sweat slide down the back of her neck, dampen her hair. There is nothing left to say, she thinks. Their lives are not their own. Have never been. There is always someone in the shadows, watching, pulling the strings, calling the shots. They can only react. Duck and cover. He can't apologize for any of that, nor does she want him to. She folds her discarded blouse as neatly as possible, lays it on the dresser, just below a glaring mirror. "Scully, I have to tell you something," Mulder says, out of the darkness, sounding grave but unsure. He shifts William to his other shoulder, and rubs his back. She sits on the edge of the bed, just across from him. The bedspread is some slick, manmade fiber, and she feels like she might slip off the mattress, crumple at his feet. "If staying alive means I have to keep living like this, keep running like some criminal, missing you, missing William -- if that's what staying alive means, I'm not convinced it's worth it." She isn't surprised, but that's not any consolation. She remembers what it took to convince him in the first place, the lengths she had to go to in order to get him out the door. She played dirty, she thinks. Sent him on a guilt trip that would have made her mother proud. There wasn't any satisfaction in it, though. It wasn't as if being a single mother was what she wanted. But she would have done anything to protect him, to know he was safe. The idea of a world without Mulder, that didn't contain his spirit at all, made living without him seem like something she could handle. If she'd only known. If she'd only thought it through. "William's not any safer with me gone either," he adds, quietly. She knows he's trying to be careful, gentle with her, but she feels pushed to the edge. She nods, numb, and clings to the blanket beneath her. "What's the point of staying alive, Scully, if I'm not really living?" Mulder asks, and she knows it's not a rhetorical question. He wants her to honestly argue it out with him, play her usual devil's advocate role and defend the position. It's his life, she thinks. Their life. She doesn't know how to make him understand that if he doesn't already. But there's also the nauseous feeling that she's been wrong all along, that she's the one responsible for six months of misery. No, she thinks. Please no. She watches William play tug-a-war with Mulder's thumb, tiny fingers gripping hard. He starts to whine, though, and pushes Mulder's hand away, his chin crumpling like paper. He starts crying in earnest, tears and gunshot loud gasps, and Mulder is caught off-guard. He tries holding the baby more gently, bouncing him again. On autopilot, she manages to find the cooler from the car, just inside the bedroom's doorway where Mulder must have left it on the way in. "He just wants his bottle," she says to Mulder over her shoulder. "We're off schedule this morning." When she hands him a bottle, he looks confused, holding it like he doesn't know what to do with it. William knows the routine, though, and latches on without any prompting. Mulder smiles, looking decidedly amused. "He's going to want to nap soon too," Scully says absently. She yawns herself, covering her mouth in embarrassment. "You too?" Mulder asks gently. She nods, but with reluctance. "I drove all night. I didn't want to miss you." He closes his eyes, and nods too. The bottle slips free from William's mouth, bumps against Mulder's thigh. A small bead of milk drips to his knee, leaving a dark, uneven stain. She wipes at it with her fingers, but it's already soaked through. Mulder just shrugs, reaches to kiss William's nose. - x - Without the slightest hint of paranoia, he asked for a nonsmoking room, but somewhere in the chain of command, his request must have been overlooked. When he shifts his shoulders against the fabric of the arm chair, a wave of ancient cigarette smoke hits him, right behind the eyes. He winces, repulsed at the nails-on-chalkboard effect, and tries to recall the way William smelled when he held him in his arms, sweet like smashed fruit, clean like Ivory soap. Empty-handed, it's hard to conjure up. Near the shaded window, Scully soothes the baby into sleep against her shoulder, and the image is intensely familiar, though he's only witnessed it once or twice, months ago. He's imagined it a hundred times, tumbling into some lumpy motel bed, imagined Scully back at her apartment, pacing the hall with William, humming some sweet, mellow lullaby. He refuses to imagine her thinking about him as she rocks their son to sleep. He refuses to imagine her missing him. He can't bear the thought of her as anything less than joyful. Across the room, she is singing now. It sounds like it might be 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,' but her back is to him and she's purposely keeping her voice low, so he can't be certain. - x - Mulder sweet-talks her into taking a nap while William dozes in his car seat, propped up on the dresser. It seems like a sin to waste time with Mulder sleeping, but she's too tired to really argue. He has a way of making the little things -- whether or not she'll eat or sleep when he thinks she should -- seem so important, like she's letting him down if she doesn't follow his advice. She wonders what that means about them. "Just for a little while," he whispers, and pulls back the stiff sheets so she can climb underneath. She lies on her back, staring at the dark ceiling, while Mulder puts her shoes away, hangs up her blouse, checks to make that the 'Do Not Disturb' sign is on the outer door. She feels like she did when he was resurrected last year, that everything would be fine if she could only keep him under lock and key, know where he is at every minute, monitor his every move. She feels anxious when he's just across the room from her, terrified when he steps as far away as the hallway. She wants to hold him in the palm of her hand, tuck him away under her pillow, press him between the pages of a thick book and never let anything touch him. He slides into bed beside her, with some awkwardness, hesitance, and she curls up on her side in response. His body, warm against her back, jogs her memory better than any regression hypnosis session. She tries to count the times they've laid together like this, how many times she's dreamed alongside him, but her tally seems too low, a mistake, so she gives up. Mulder is quiet behind her, but not asleep, and she tries to channel his thoughts, like she has for the last six months. There are questions she wants to ask him, answers she wants to beg him for, but they never seem to make it as far as her mouth. For years, they were always throwing messages in a bottle at one another, a hit or miss proposition, and she doesn't think the direct approach will ever suit her. When she turns in his arms, facing him, his eyes are open, but his mouth is a tight, grim line. She reaches out with her fingertips, tracing his forehead and delicate eyelids, the bump of his nose and smooth, full stretch of his lips. He is barely breathing as her hands work, but when she finishes, stroking her thumbs along his jaw, he takes up the cause, rubbing his knuckles across her chin, tilting her head at the right angle, swooping in for a kiss, dry and undemanding at first, holding himself back, but then trying to reach the heart of her when he realizes that she's moving her mouth back against his. She wonders, panting hot and desperate against him, if he wishes he could crawl inside her, like she does with him. She breaks the connection only when the need for air makes it absolutely necessary. His wild, wild eyes afterward. She'd almost forgotten. "I don't think I can sleep," she whispers, from the curve of his neck. "I'm too tired." He laughs. "Is that all?" His thumb moves against a mole on her shoulder. "I can't do it anymore, Mulder. I can't do it anymore, either." "This wasn't my idea," he says. "You know that." She nods, miserable. "I don't know what I was thinking. I was so afraid of losing you again that I didn't consider all the possibilities. I didn't stop to think how vulnerable William and I would be." She wipes at her eyes with rough fingers. "I can't protect him on my own. And I don't trust anyone else. Not with the way things are." She feels him nod, his chin moving against the top of her head. Under her face, his sweater is already damp, but she covers her eyes to minimize the damage. "I've been so stupid," she whispers into her hands. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm so sorry." "Hey, hey," he says, lips pressed to her ear. "You think I blame you for any of this? Never, Scully. Not for a fucking second." He jerks his head up for a second. "Oops. Guess I should watch the language around Junior." There isn't even the smallest suggestion of humor in his voice, and his stiff body against her suggests deadly seriousness. She smiles in spite of herself, lifting herself up to see Mulder's face. "If it happens that when William grows up, our biggest problem is his use of profanities, I'm going to consider us extremely lucky." Mulder does his half-smile thing, one corner of his mouth quirked up at a maddening angle. "I guess you've got a point." His mouth is at her ear again, damp lips against her skin. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," he whispers fiercely. "I've got six months of frustration stored up, Scully. I could go on for hours." Her hands move up and down against his arms, trying to soothe him. She remembers the days when being around him was enough, when standing across a room from him and sharing a look was all she asked for. She hates that she's become so needy, that she's allowed their relationship to be tainted with greed. "Aren't you warm?" she whispers, tugging at the hem of his sweater. He lets her pull it over his head, and she rubs his biceps, her hands tucked under the sleeves of his t-shirt. It would be so much easier if they just shared the same skin. On the dresser, William sighs in a dream, and Mulder perks up, checking over his shoulder, watching the baby kick the air. "Can he lie down with us?" Mulder asks her, already throwing the blankets back so he can get up. She hates that he feels the need to ask permission to hold his own son, but she nods and watches as he carefully lifts William from the car seat and brings him back to bed. The baby doesn't even stir, and Mulder smiles with a touch of triumph when he's settled in bed with William secure against his chest. Scully strokes her finger against William's cheek, and still mostly sleep, he somehow manages to reach out a grab a fist full of her hair. Mulder smiles. "Yeah, I like the hair too, buddy," he whispers, gently freeing it from tiny, pinching fingers. He is patting William's bottom, and rocking his shoulders slightly, like he's done this all before. It's uncanny. She wants to ask him again. She wants to ask him what they're going to do, how they're going going to protect this, protect William. Mulder starts to hum, something indecipherable and rough, but she feels her heart contract. "Mulder?" she asks. "Hmm?" She watches Mulder, falling in love with their son, and falls again herself, for William, for Mulder, for the way they look through each other's eyes. She is angry all of sudden, gone from zero to sixty in less than thirty seconds, and in the face of so many months of paralyzing depression, it's almost empowering. She has to be willing to do what it takes. She has to be willing to fight. "Hey, Scully," Mulder says, and she feels him shift closer to her in bed. She lays her head on his shoulder. "Get comfortable. I'll sing you guys a lullaby." She closes her eyes, smiling, and listens to Mulder's toneless voice scratch out a song. "Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?" he sings. "We've got some work to do now..." - x - When he jerks awake, as stunned as if an alarm had sounded somewhere, he comes face to face with cool, unblinking eyes, watching him, waiting, it seems, for him to do something of interest. Next to him, Scully is buried beneath a swirl of blankets, but William is awake, staring up from his chest with strange patience. He wonders how long he's been the subject of his son's quiet surveillance, wonders what the kid finds so fascinating. "Was I snoring?" he asks the baby, who bats his eyelashes like he's trying to curry favor. "Drooling maybe?" Mulder wipes at his mouth, smiling, then cleans William's damp chin. Scully rolls to her side, mumbles something under her breath, but doesn't wake. Her cheeks are flushed with sleep, her lips parted around an unspoken word. Mulder is careful not to shake the mattress too much as he slides to the edge of the bed, keeping a tight grip on William, and carefully rolls out of bed. He's tempted to brush away the bright swatch of hair that's fallen across her eyes, but he holds back. It's always been difficult to walk away from her, he thinks. And it certainly hasn't gotten any easier with practice. "Come on, buddy," he whispers, kissing his son's forehead. He is almost surprised by how soft the skin there is. "It's time we had a little man-to-man chat. I wanna hear about this mobile trick you've been doing. You're driving your mom a little crazy, I think." The baby smiles, pats his father's cheek. Mulder doesn't bother to turn the light on in the other room, as they sit together on the dark sofa. He moves throw pillows out of the way, gets comfortable. "Maybe we could compare stories about your mom," he says, amused. "God knows I've got some good ones." William laughs, kicking him lightly in the stomach. "You know the important stuff, I'm sure. There isn't a single person on this earth like her. No one even comes close." He kisses William again, right on the ear. "That makes us pretty lucky, William. Lucky as hell actually." These days, alone on the road, constantly moving, Mulder finds himself thinking about his own father often. He tries to imagine his father's situation anew, with the experience of fatherhood under his belt to clarify the issue. He considers the choices that his father was faced with, the long dark nights he spent agonizing over what had to be done. Still, it's clear to him that his father was wrong, just as responsible as that chain-smoking bastard Spender for the way the Mulder family fell apart, but he understands him better now. He understands what desperation might push a man to do. He understands how the fate of a tiny life, resting delicately in his hands, like a snowflake or drop of rain, might have been too much for Bill Mulder. He can feel that sometimes himself. That's why he gives thanks every day for the ace up his sleeve, the trump card that his poor father never could have hoped for. Scully. He's got Scully, and that seems to make all the difference. William makes a move for one of the throw pillows, trying to lift it with minimal success. His fingers clutch at empty air, and he whimpers, searching desperately for the bright gold fringe around the edges. Mulder hauls it up for him, holds it so he can reach it. William gets his hands on it for less than a second, and is no longer interested, batting it away with his tiny hand. So much to learn, Mulder thinks. Still so much to learn. - x - She is groggy and fuzzy-headed, fresh from sleep, but it's still hard to excuse the tears that slip past her lashes when she finds Mulder and William, together, in the outer room of the suite. Mulder is stretched out across the sofa, a blue ghost in the light from the television, and William is seated on his chest, bouncing himself up and down, while Mulder whispers solemnly to him. The baby smiles, almost like he's wondering if Mulder's joking, then breaks into a full-out laugh when he realizes his father is a total head-case, in the best possible way of course. She remembers that feeling too well herself. "What's going on out here?" she asks, taking the step down into the outer room. Her voice sounds rough but small, and she feels teenage girl self-conscious, pushing her hair behind her ears, finger combing it uselessly. William reaches out a sticky hand toward her, and Mulder bends his head backward across the arm of the sofa so he can look at her, albeit upside-down. The arch of his neck drives her wild, colored like pale sky, looking terribly vulnerable. "Hey! Look who it is," her upside-down Mulder says, warmly. "Sleeping Beauty herself." She fusses with her hair again, wondering how worn and tired she looks. She doesn't want him to worry. "It's after four, Mulder. Why didn't you wake me?" "You needed the sleep." "But..." she starts to say, managing somehow to hold herself back. But we have this one day together, twenty-four fragile hours, and you left me sleep half of them away. How... why... ? Mulder lowers head, picking up on her mood. He lifts William, and sits upright, looking at her with slitted eyes. "Besides it gave William and I some time to get better acquainted. I even changed a diaper," he says. He lifts the hem of his t-shirt, smirking, and she realizes it's not the same one he was wearing earlier. "I'm sorry to report that it was not without incident." Missing him for all those months last year, she tried to imagine him as a father, doing the mundane, everyday things that simply had to be done: changing diapers, warming bottles, rocking the baby to sleep, sitting up all night during fevers and ear infections. She tried to imagine him when the baby was older, doling out punishments, setting curfews. It wasn't impossible to do, really. She'd seen him do so many crazy, out-there things over the years that there was virtually nothing she couldn't imagine him doing at least; she just didn't know if he'd want to, if he'd chose to live a life where he had to teach how to ties shoe laces and how the multiplication tables worked. She found herself wishing constantly that they'd had an actual discussion about this sort of thing when he had agreed to be her donor for the IVF. She couldn't believe how little they'd actually spoken about it. She watches him now, and sees plainly how much he is enjoying their son, getting to play dad. And it makes sense, when she considers it. For over twenty years, he tried to rebuild his family, chased after his sister in the hope that he could patch up the fractures and undo the heartache by bringing her home. Family, she thinks, has always meant everything to him. "We're watching 'Cops,'" Mulder says, nodding toward the television. "I was hoping it would be our stunning television debut so William could see us in action, but no such luck. Just some drunk woman who got locked inside a bank bathroom after closing and a couple of pot heads speeding." "I see," she says, smirking. "In other words, appropriate viewing for a child?" Mulder holds William up, dances him through the air. "Aww, come on, Mom!" She laughs quietly, and sits beside them on the sofa. William smiles at her, pats her shoulder, then starts sucking on a couple of his fingers. On the television, there is commercial for life insurance or allergy medicine or a car, with a little boy practicing soccer with his father, grass-stained knees and all. Mulder clears his throat, jutting his chin toward the television. "I guess that's what every kid wants, huh?" he says, thoughtful. "A dog and a sandbox, car pooling in the mini van, Little League with a father who takes his role as coach way too seriously..." She looks at him quickly, and seeing a hint of humor in his eyes, decides to indulge him. "Somehow, I just don't see you driving a mini van, Mulder," she says. "Not in any universe." He nods vigorously, grinning like a fool. "Oh, Scully, don't you see? By the time we get the mini van, I'll be firmly entrenched in my mid-life crisis, so I'll be tooling around town in my hot, little red sports car." He taps his fingers against her knee. "*You'll* be the one driving the old mini van, Scully." One eyebrow raises in amusement, but other than that she doesn't react. "We can get you a bumper sticker that says 'Pathologists do it right!'" She smiles, and rubs her knee against his. That image doesn't even come close to being the life she wants, the life that either of them want, but they should have the luxury of choice. They should have something more to give their son than mere safety. William, curled up again in Mulder's arms, looking about ready to fall asleep, should have everything they've been denying themselves for years. Now she feels like he's been sentenced to a life of fear and isolation, and he isn't even a year old yet. "Mulder," she whispers, sounding as unsure as she feels. He looks at her and seems to know exactly what she thinking. She listens to his frustrated sigh, and worries that she's making him feel guilty, that she's putting too many demands on him, asking him to solve all the world's problems when she's not offering up any solutions of her own. "Every minute," Mulder whispers back. "Every minute since I've been gone, I've done nothing but work on a way to get back. To make sure that all of us are safe. And I feel like I could be on the verge of something. Maybe." He reaches out and straightens the strap of her camisole. "But in the mean time, there might be some other options. Some extreme measures we could consider if you think--" "He has to be safe," she says, stroking the sole of William's foot. "At any cost." - x - He can still surprise himself, which at this stage of his life seems like nothing short of miraculous. All totaled, he probably only has seventy-five hours of active parenting on record, but still he's able to get William to sleep with minimal fuss -- some rocking, a bit of flat, tuneless humming, and the kid is dreaming away. Not bad, Mulder thinks. He wonders if Scully will be as impressed as he is. He watches William for a moment in his car seat, head lolling to one shoulder, eyelids fluttering, and he has one of those moments of wild disbelief that he remembers from when Scully was pregnant: this child cannot possibly be his. Yet the proof is there right before his eyes, and the doubts don't last for long. Scully starts the shower, and listening closely, he can tell when she steps under the spray. She hasn't closed the bathroom door, but he's not sure if it's the invitation he hopes it is, or just a habit she's gotten into with William around. Mulder decides to be brave, since playing it safe has never gotten him anywhere with Scully. He hangs in the bathroom doorway, arms braced against the jamb while he works up the courage to actually step inside. There is a thin steam already in the air, and he breathes in the bland scent of motel soap and lemony disinfectant. He watches Scully's shadow through the flimsy plastic curtain, and manages to drag himself to the toilet, closing the lid and sitting on it, close enough to Scully that he could reach through the plastic and help her soap up a couple of spots. "Mulder?" He's been absolutely quiet, and subtle too, he thought, like an careful Peeping Tom watching her from the bushes, but maybe she has the same uncanny sense of him that he has of her. He can just feel her when she's near, feel the pace and rhythm of her thoughts. "Yeah?" She starts washing again, silent. Just checking in, he thinks. The last two years have been brutal for her, he knows. It's difficult to be the one left behind; his life is one long lesson it that. He just doesn't know what to say to reassure her, what to say to give her back her faith. It's not like the past two years have exactly been a picnic for him either. He thinks about the frustration and desperation of the past few months, of the file folder that he'll give her tomorrow morning, the drastic solution that he has to offer her, and he hopes she'll understand. Continued in To Disclosures or Crescendos (3 of 3)