#fanlet

Scully’s eyes well up in tears, and he panics. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Maybe it’s hormones. He is used to her pregnancy hormones last year, so maybe this is nursing hormones? Is there such a thing? He wasn’t there to make friends with these hormones last time...

Mulder brings his wife closer and softly nudges her to sit on his lap. “It’s happy news.” He coos. “Look, her name is Fernanda.”

He feels like a giant. A big, clumsy, dim-witted giant that makes his wife cry for nothing. “Scully, what’s wrong?”

“113 years, Mulder,” she sniffs. “She’s been all alone for all these years?”

She hides her face on his shoulder.

Mulder rocks her softly on his lap. “Oh, baby. Listen,” he whispers, “these tortoises floated... immigrated from South America to the Galápagos Islands over 2 or 3 million years ago, and they made friends, and created 14 different species... Isn’t that something?”

She’s stopped crying, which eases him a bit; he keeps reading the article with her on his lap, wishing he had another hand to smooth her back.

“And scientists say Fernanda is only 50 years old. Sweetie pie, she’s not the only one. She hasn’t...spent one hundred years in solitude...”

Scully has gathered her composure and is now embarrassed for crying earlier.

“I believe she has a mate. Someone to find food with her, watch the sunset with her, float on the water with her, have babies with her...live a hundred years after a hundred years with her...” He gives her a little kiss on her cheekbone. “Tell her all the news about the world that he thinks she’d be interested in... and feel like the biggest idiot in the world when she cries.”

“Of course you believe, Mulder.”

That earns him a smile from her, but she winces the next moment; Mulder becomes alarmed at the sight of her discomfort.

“My throat...” Scully gives him a weak smile, her voice whispery and hoarse. “I was worried...”

“You should stop talking, Scully.” He moves his head around in her lap. “I think from now on, I should do the talking for the both of us.”

She scoffs but gives him no arguments.

“Hey Scully,” he wants to see how far he could go. “The last time we caught ourselves in this position, you sang for me.”

She nods; perhaps her throat really is killing her.

“Since you can’t sing for me, why don’t I sing for you?”

Scully gives him a smirk and presses her nose into his bicep. Mulder feels delirious; ah, he must be more in love with her than he thought.

He pauses, getting ready to sing for her, to dwell in this moment of having her back and being in her arms a little more, being on ice like children in winter who have nothing better to do than to spend the whole day on a bank of snow. He thinks of all the times he’s sung for her, all the time he’s swayed with her, hummed with her, grooved in the car with her, trying to charm her any way he can. Scully makes him a poet so he can romance her, she makes him a singer so he can serenade her.

Her brilliant eyes tell him that she’s waiting for her song. He is so happy to see her again; they can try to take her away from him, but they will never win.

The cold temperature is making him delirious; his love for her is making him intoxicated.

“You know that it would be untrue,” he begins, with a silly grin. “You know that I would be a liar, na na na na na na na, Girl, we couldn’t get much higher...”

“Chorus,” she whispers soundlessly.

Mulder opens his mouth to accept the spoonful of ice cream she offers. He never understands why Scully likes these salty and sweet flavors; they remind him of those dreadful tofu rice dream drumsticks...

“That’s because... that’s the agreement.”

“What agreement?” She holds the spoon in her mouth and breaks off a piece of the waffle bowl.

“You took care of me for the first eight years,” he announces, “and I’ll take care of you for the next eighty years.”

She stuffs a piece of crunchy goodness in his mouth. “Did we make this agreement?” She says with uncertainty.

“Nope.” He grins while keeping his eyes on the road. “I made this agreement with a special someone.”

“Who?”

“When I was dead, we made this agreement. And he must’ve been on your side, too, because he said the eighty-year deal sounded fair. So, there I was, and here I am, and there I will be, pushing your wheelchair with my wheelchair when we’re, like, 115 years old.”

“115 years old...” She echoes his words. “That’s a long time.”

“Yep,” he agrees with a quick glance at her.

Teachers liked her because she had respected them and genuinely liked them. People like being liked; that’s something so simple, yet most people don’t seem to get it.

No, not that she pretends to like people; she just treats others like how she likes to be treated, with care and consideration.

“Don’t ever change, Dana,” her ninth-grade history teacher once told her. “Don’t you ever change.”

To her young mind it wasn’t even a compliment, but when Mulder says it to her, she realizes it is.

“Don’t ever change, Scully.” He says, out of the blue.

They are having breakfast: simple summer preserves on bread and coffee. Everything is ordinary and common. He uses one of his alien head mugs (how many of those did he get?) and her mug is sunflower yellow and the plates don’t match. He gets the end pieces but does not complain.

It is really the ultimate compliment. Don’t ever change. I like you so much this way and I approve of everything that’s you and I don’t want you to ever change. Stay the same, because what you’re doing is perfect. Don’t ever change.

But she has changed. She is no longer the newbie agent who would chase after her partner. She is no longer the naïve good girl that always wanted to play by the book. She has long stopped following the rules. She has made dubious choices and has her fill of regrets. She has changed; she is no longer the same Dana Scully.

But Mulder has just said, don’t ever change, Scully.

She glances down at her breakfast of bread and preserve. Everything about them is normal and ordinary and sane. Crazy Fox Mulder is the only thing in her life that will keep her sane.

Tell me I’m crazy, Scully...

In her mind, Mulder version 1.0 just challenged her. Her Mulder from across the square and spacious dining table is looking at her with the exact same eyes. Version 1.0 wasn’t hers; this one, however, is.

They are at a crossroads. The first crossroad since they got on this path. Mulder looks at the left, then the right, and chuckles.

“Scully?”

She has her nose buried in a map, a large sheet with straight lines printed on top. Hello, Texas.

She’s busy locating where they are, which is silly because they aren’t even sure where they want to go.

“Left or right, Scully?” Mulder asks again.

“Left.”

“I was thinking right.” Mulder replies.

With a step on the gas pedal, the car goes forward. No left, no right.

“Guys, we can Google Map it.” William says from the backseat, his shoulders smacked between the two seats in the front. “Can we just Google Map it, please? Or better yet, turn on the GPS?”

His father chuckles and his mother folds up the map, both clearly enjoying the ride into the unknown.

Kuiper doesn’t sleep all the time like he thought all babies do. Kuiper doesn’t cry like he had imagined an infant would all the time. Kuiper, in many ways, reminds him of a cat.

He abandons his algebra homework and moves closer to the bassinet. “Hi,” he whispers, “I’m your big brother.”

How lame. He doesn’t know what else to say.

The baby laughs, even though Mum says it’s just gas, he and Dad don’t think that’s why.

The baby thrusts her fist into her mouth and begins chewing it happily; her little chunky legs kick with vigor.

“Is that yummy?” William keeps his voice soft. He doesn’t want the baby monitor to pick up and transmit his idiotic gibberish to his parents.

Kuiper takes out her fist from her mouth and grabs his lips. William freezes, and begins chuckling.

“Nom nom nom,” he nibbles on the soft baby skin playfully, and his sister squeals in delight.

There is something powerful about looking at a human being that shares your origin. Growing up as a child of adoption, William had believed that blood is not thicker than water, but this baby is changing his belief so quickly, and she has done nothing at all.

His cell phone rings, which is actually the sound of bullfrogs croaking, and the baby giggles like there’s no tomorrow.

“You know, that’s me. I’m Bullfrog.” William imitates the sound. The baby laughs and grabs his lips again. “And I think you’re my cricket.”