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Every woman in the Hoover Building fell in love with Agent Mulder and his posse by the end of the day. They offered candy, compliments, conversation that, in all seriousness, would never have taken place if it was just Mulder walking the halls. Everyone was able to identify them as Scully’s relatives without hesitation, amusing Mulder for awhile, until he began to think too hard, once again, about having small red-headed, prominently-nosed progeny with his diminutive partner.
Sometimes, his brain was a big, fat, giant pain in the ass.
Eventually, however, they were back in the basement, snacking on items from Scully’s not-so-secret stash of ‘Mulder is pissing me off and I need sugar’ supplements. Sam, first to finish his Twinkie, “Uncle Mudler, are we going to get to meet Walter?”
Geez, he had to stop referring to his boss as Walter at home, “do you want to? I mean, he’s just a really tall, bald guy who likes to yell at me and tell your aunt to keep me on a tighter leash.”
Sam grinned, “but he’s a director of the FBI. Of course we want to meet him. He’s like a God in this place, isn’t he?”
“More like cranky principal.”
“Even better. We all know how to deal with those.”
It didn’t take long to arrange with Skinner to come up there and soon, they were trooping to the elevator, Mulder fighting the sudden and irrepressible urge to tell them to tuck in shirts and tie shoe laces and whisper at them to behave and the most unnerving of them all, he really, really wanted to lick his palm and smush down the cowlick Toby was sporting on the crown of his head. He fought all the urges however, remembered how he despised when his mother did every damn one of those thing well into his teens. Feeling better than he wasn’t turning into his mother, he let Toby push the button and all at once, they were standing, as a unified pack, staring up at Walter Skinner, who looked at least 10 feet tall and more stern than any principal they’d ever met.
Sam wanted to be him when he grew up; Betsy wanted to hide behind Uncle Mudler; Toby just stared, slack-mouthed, wondering if he’d ever be that big.
Skinner scratched his head, looking at them all critically, “did Mulder take your fingerprints?”
Sam shook his head, “no, we couldn’t get them done. They were too busy downstairs.”
Skinner smiled, “luckily, I have a kit in my desk and I’m not busy at all.”
He was their new best friend.
Two hours later, after they’d been fingerprinted, learned how to dust the office for prints, gotten their own FBI wallet presented to them, current picture and all, then gleefully appeared on ‘wanted’ posters, they all settled on the couches for a small snack of Pay Day mini bars and bottles of water. Mulder pulled Skinner aside, “how did you set this up? Did Scully call you or something?”
“I have pull, Agent Mulder, don’t question it.”
Scully had to have called him that morning and asked him to clear a few hours. The shit that woman could get Walter Skinner to do was phenomenal at times.
Snacks done, they were all clumped together, thanking Skinner over and over again, asking if he’d like to come to dinner, asking how old they had to be to join the FBI, asking if their badges could get their parents out of speeding tickets.
Deciding herding cats might be easier, Mulder shook his head …
Then watched in terrifying confusion as the glass windows of his boss’s office exploded inward …
His five children forced to the ground through shockwave physics …
As the billowing cloud rising upward from the street drifted inside.