Work Text:
December 2001
Mulder is 1,700 miles from home on the first night of his son’s first Hanukkah. But his foot is heavy on the gas pedal and he’s quickly closing the distance. He didn’t contact Scully before deciding to return. She would argue and tell him it’s too dangerous, but she’s wrong. The danger is being so far apart. The only risk now is this temperamental jalopy, that he paid cash for in New Mexico, giving up the gun before he crosses the final state line and makes it home.
When he returned from the dead to a very pregnant Scully, his first instinct was to run. He couldn’t be a father. It seemed possible a year ago when they tried IVF but that was before he was taken, before he lost months of his memory and showed up deckled in scars from injuries he couldn’t remember suffering. She was flourishing with life and he still hadn’t shaken off the cold of the grave.
He was far too damaged to take care of a helpless infant, to be any sort of positive influence in an innocent child’s life. His own father wasn’t much of a role model and he feared he’d follow in Bill Mulder’s footsteps, putting his quest before his family. Scully didn’t agree. He gave her more than one opportunity to leave him and cut her losses. He hoped the strength of her nurture could overpower the dysfunction of his nature. But she didn’t leave. She ignored his wisecracks and his attempts at disinterest. He tried to push her away but she kept coming back. After hearing what she’d gone through when he was missing, then dead and buried, he understood that she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.
That fear evaporated when he saw his son for the first time. Red and screaming in Scully’s arms, her own face white and nearly lifeless, hair plastered to her cheeks with sweat. In that moment, it all became clear. He loved this child and would die to keep him safe. His fear was replaced by a primal urge to protect. He lifted up Scully, exhausted and bleeding and clinging to their son, and carried them to the helicopter without thinking. He only had one imperative now: To love his son.
He thought he was acting on that obligation when he left at Scully’s urging. But seven months later, he realizes he’s wrong. Fueled by bitter gas station coffee and instinctual need, he drives through the night, devouring the miles that separate him from them. Adrenaline and yearning render sleep unnecessary.
On the second night of his son’s first Hanukkah, he finally makes it home.
He knocks lightly on her door, then hears her soft, barefoot steps on the other side. The shadow of her feet darken the doorway and he knows she sees him through the peephole. He hears her stepping away from the door and sliding open the drawer to the small side table in her entryway. She’s retrieving her weapon, and he doesn’t blame her. Then, she unbolts the door and is standing in front of him.
She looks tired, gaunt with deep hollows around her eyes. She’s thinner than she was even before the baby and her skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent. He imagines he doesn’t look much better himself. The months apart weren’t kind to either of them.
“Is it really you?” she asks, taking a step back, her eyes wide with terror and hope.
He wants to reach out and hold her close to him, to feel the shape of her body and inhale her scent, but he doesn’t want to scare her.
“The one and only Fox Mulder.” He gives her a tentative smile. “We used to share an office, rarely agreed on anything, but managed to swap enough genetic material to create one perfect baby boy who I’ve missed desperately. Sound familiar?”
She doesn’t walk towards him as much as fall into him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head in his chest. “Mulder,” she whispers against the fabric of his wrinkled t-shirt.
He’s been awake for over 36 hours and he’s beyond unkempt. He’s long crossed the line between stubble and bearded and hasn’t showered in three days, but she doesn’t seem to mind as he presses a kiss to the crown of her head and pulls her in tighter. He feels her birdlike bones through her clothes.
She pulls back to look into his eyes. They’re both crying and smiling now as he leans in to kiss her. Her lips are slightly chapped, the way he knows they always get in winter, and he parts them with his own to deepen the kiss. She tastes like tea and tears and home. He wants to stay like this forever, but there’s someone else he needs to see.
“Where’s William?” he asks, his face still close to hers.
“Come,” she says, leading him by the hand. “I was just putting him down.”
He follows Scully into her spare bedroom that’s now been transformed into a nursery. When he left, William was still sleeping in the bassinet next to her bed and most of the nursery furniture was still unassembled. He hates thinking that she did this on her own. William lies in a blonde wood crib in the middle of the room. He’s gazing up at a mobile of floating moons and planets through heavy eyelids.
“Can I?” he asks, reaching down to pick up the baby.
Scully nods.
More than half a year has passed since he last held William and he’s shocked by how much he’s changed. The boy is heavier in Mulder’s arms. As he’s lifted up by unfamiliar hands he becomes more alert. He holds his head up on his own, reaches out to grab his father’s face, and smiles a big, gummy smile with a hint of pearly white teeth breaking through. He has a dusting of light hair and his mother’s bright blue eyes.
“He’s incredible,” he whispers to her.
“I know,” she says, wiping away tears.
He’s spent seven months imagining this moment and his only regret is that it took him so long to come back.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she says.
“You never would have let me,” he says, and she doesn’t argue.
“When are you leaving?” she asks.
“I’m not,” he says definitively.
“Mulder,” she sighs, the pain evident behind her eyes. “You can’t stay. You know that.”
“No, Scully, I don’t,” he says. “There’s been no credible threat or any evidence that my being here puts us in danger. It’s killing me to be so far away from both of you, and if you try to tell me you don’t feel the same way I know you’re lying.”
“It’s not that simple,” she says, bringing her hand to cup his elbow.
“It is,” he insists. “It’s exactly that simple. I love you, I love our son, and I need to be here with you. You know we have a better shot fighting off any threat together than we do apart. We’ve been a good team for nine years, Scully. Let’s not break up the squad just yet—especially when we’ve got this promising new rookie.”
She laughs softly but hot tears are running down her cheeks. He leans in to kiss them away, still holding William in between them.
“Unless I’m cramping your style here.” He smiles
“Never,” she says with a sharp exhale, catching her breath as she cries.
“Tell me everything about him.”
They make their way to her couch and William falls asleep in his arms as she tells him everything he’s missed. William sleeps through the night and can sit up on his own. He eats oatmeal, mashed up bananas, and applesauce, and she wants to try peanut butter next to make sure he’s not allergic. He isn’t crawling yet but can roll over on the floor and reach for toys. It’s all equally mundane and miraculous.
It’s been over an hour before he takes his eyes off her and the baby long enough to notice the menorah on her kitchen table. She has two candles lit, plus the taller one in the middle, the shamash.
“What’s that, Scully?” he asks, taking one hand off William’s warm back to point to the menorah. “You go and convert while I was gone?”
“It’s your heritage,” she says.
“Oh Scully, you didn’t have to do that,” He’s surprised by how choked up he feels. He hasn’t owned a menorah in his entire adult life.
“I was so scared he’d never get the chance to know you,” she says, “and I wanted something he could share with you.”
“And you went with a menorah instead of a scale model of the Starship Enterprise?”
It earns him a warm smile. “Maybe next year,” she says.
He watches the candles burning, translucent wax slowly seeping down their sides. For the first time in months, he feels like he’s in the right place at the right time. He’s done running. His family is here and he isn’t going anywhere.
He’s not scared of hurting his son. There’s so much good he can pass down to William—how to read a box score and see an entire game unfolding in a string of numbers, how to spot constellations twinkling in the night sky, how to make Scully laugh. It’s not a terrible heritage afterall.