Disclaimer: Not mine.

Spoilers: up through FTF

A/N: I wrote this story a long time ago, but due to a really bad review, I stopped. It took me this long to decide to fix the things the reviewer brought to light. Hopefully this take is better. I know I like it a lot better. Anyway, the idea has been swimming in my head since high school. I remember exactly where I was when I thought of it too. There is a similar story on Gossamer, but hopefully this one has enough difference to… well, make a difference. Anyway, here's to not giving up.

The phone rang early one Saturday morning, and Scully grumbled before reaching over and grabbing it. She hadn't slept well and had been sitting in bed reading for most of the morning, so if Mulder was calling about a case, she might just go ahead and quit the FBI right then and there.

"Scully," she answered cautiously.

"Hey Scully it's me."

"Hi me. What's up?"

"What are you doing today?"

"Mulder, if this is about a case, so help me…"

"It's not. This is… it's personal."

Her voice softened and she drew her knees up to her chest, immediately concerned.

"What's wrong?"

"Can you meet me somewhere?"

"I… sure."

"It's kind of a drive."

"Mulder, where are you?"

"Romney, West Virginia."

"What are you doing there?"

"It's a long story. There's a coffee shop right off the interstate. Meet me there at two?"

"Mulder, please. What's going on?"

"Just get here?"

She sighed, knowing she wasn't going to get any more out of him than that.

"I'll be there. You're buying."

"Deal. Thanks Scully."

They hung up and she sighed, climbing out of bed and leaving her glasses on the side table. She'd do anything for him; go anywhere, be anything, risk it all, but he had really bad timing sometimes. She went into the other room and found her road map, quickly finding Romney and estimating that it would take over two hours to get there. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she went into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee before heading to the bathroom. She let the shower run for a minute, steaming up the bathroom before she stepped in. The heat assaulted her skin and she sucked in a breath, reaching out to lower the temperature. She stood under the spray for several minutes, trying to recall any time that she had heard Mulder talk about family or friends in West Virginia. She came up blank. The gunmen might know something, especially if this had anything to do with his early years at the FBI. Other than that, she couldn't think of a single reason for him to be in West Virginia, much less for him to need her to come there. That fact scared her more than she wanted to admit.

She shampooed and conditioned her hair then stepped out of the shower and dried off. She looked tired in the steamy mirror, definitely in no position to offer support or help get his car out of impound or whatever it was that he needed her to do. Of course, she would do it anyway because he was her best friend and she loved him, despite all the recent crap they had been through. Even with all the confusion and fighting, through the tears and frustrations, the betrayals and feelings of worthlessness, he was still the one who held her heart and the one who filled her soul.

She walked slowly into her bedroom and pulled a pair of jeans out of the dresser, then went to the closet for a top. It was hot out, but breezy, so she decided on light layers. Dressing quickly, she went out to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, flipping through the paper as she drank it. She could hear birds chirping outside and she checked the clock, deciding she was going to have to hurry if she wanted to be on time. She went back to the bathroom and dried her hair, letting it fall in waves instead of straightening it. She found her shoes and pulled them on, grabbed her phone, wallet and her map, and headed out the door. Something inside her told her that when she returned, things were going to be very different.

Their coffee had long since stopped steaming, their red stirring straws sitting idle in the dark liquid. She regarded him across the table, noting the furrow of his brow, the look in his eyes, the quiet sighs that emitted from his mouth. He was stressed out, overwhelmed and quite possibly teetering on the edge of shock. She wasn't sure what to deal with first.

"Mulder," she started, reaching out and touching his hand. "Just start at the beginning."

"You're not going to like this story, Scully."

"That's okay. It's not going to make me not like you."

He sighed again and took a sip of his coffee, in an attempt to gain some balance.

"Scully, I used to be married," he blurted out finally, his eyes rising to meet hers.

"I know," she replied carefully, softly.

"How?"

"Your personnel file. I never said anything about it, but I've known for years."

"My personnel file doesn't have the name of my ex-wife on it though."

"Diana. I put two and two together."

He just looked at her for a moment.

"You didn't say anything."

"Neither did you. And it's your story to tell, Mulder."

"You knew and you still… you must really hate me."

"Never. Mulder, whatever the two of you had outside of profession, it never mattered to me."

"You might change your mind about that, Scully," he said as her hand tightened in his.

"Tell me."

"It changes things."

"That's okay."

"It's a big deal, Scully."

"Just tell me what's going on."

"Diana was recruited to go to Germany right after Christmas 1991. We'd hadn't been married long, it was kind of a rushed thing. Lost our heads, got crazy. We weren't ready to get married, and when the prospect of Germany came up, we both saw it as a way out. She had several months of stateside training before she would leave, but we both agreed to make a clean break. I'm sure you know that plans never go as we want them."

"Not when it's important, no."

"She was pregnant."

She felt her coffee trying to come back up as her vision started to blur. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. They couldn't have a child together. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It didn't even come close to reality, didn't even touch the coastline of her wildest dreams. Never would this make sense in her head, never would she be comfortable with it, never could she make it work in cohesion with what she knew.

"Diana threw propriety out the window and informed me that I didn't have to worry, the baby wasn't mine. I have to admit that that bit of information only confirmed the suspicions that I already had, but it still hurt. I couldn't just write her off though, and I kept tabs on her. I guess it was kind of self destructive to be taking care of my estranged wife who was pregnant with another man's child, but I'm a sucker for self destruction."

"Mulder."

"I still cared about her at the time. I was even there when the baby was born. A little girl named Kayla. And I remember looking at her and wanting her to be mine. And I knew that soon Diana was going to pack up and take Kayla to Germany, so I figured I'd break ties and move on. But Diana didn't take her. She left Kayla with her mom and never looked back. And I hated her for that, for leaving that little girl all alone. But there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn't my business."

"I'm sorry, Mulder."

"Diana's mother kept in touch, out of family obligation or something, I don't know. The divorce was final by then, but she called every once in a while. This guy, Peter, Kayla's father was a real scumbag, and by the time she was two he had gotten tired of making child support payments. He demanded a paternity test which came back negative. Which means that when I took one, it was positive."

She was still, letting the words play over and over in her head. Positive. Positive. Positive. Mulder was a father. He had a child.

He was watching her intently, trying to decipher her expression, but coming up empty.

"Scully, say something. What are you thinking?"

"I… I don't know," she muttered, blinking once. "I suppose I'm in a little bit of shock. I should have seen this coming when you started the story."

"There's more."

"Wait, not yet. Just let me process this a little."

She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose before looking up at him.

"You have a kid."

"Yes."

"You didn't tell me."

"I didn't mean to not tell you. But when I found out you were already going through so much, and it never really slowed down. I wanted to tell you and I almost did several times, but I just couldn't make myself say the words. Please don't be mad."

"I'm not mad, Mulder. I probably wouldn't have told me either. I'm not mad at all. I'm just… I don't know."

"Do you want me to tell you the rest now?"

"Yeah, I think so."

He took a deep breath and squeezed her hand, wishing he could either go forward or back in time, anything to avoid this.

"I wanted my daughter Scully. But I didn't want to pull her away from the only home she had ever known. And I was pretty much a stranger, so we decided to take things slow, and once she got older, we would think about her living with me part time. It wasn't that I wasn't stable enough or didn't love her enough. We just didn't know each other and I couldn't put her through that. Not to mention, the child of Fox Mulder and Diana Fowley, the people who rediscovered the X-Files… that's a pretty big bargaining chip. So the best option was to be her dad from a distance, at least for a while. But like I said, plans don't always work out. Scully, Diana's mother Mary… she died yesterday. She had a heart attack. Kayla, she doesn't have much else in the way of family. Mary's sister and me. That's it."

Her ears started to tingle and burn as she realized what he was saying. She felt faint as the implications sped through her mind, and she closed her eyes tightly.

"You're leaving."

"I don't know yet, Scully. I don't want to take her away from her home, but I don't know how I'll provide for her here. All I know for sure is that she is my responsibility now. One hundred percent. And I have no idea what to do."