Summary: X-Files/X-Men crossover. Post-"Existence." Their baby is just a little bit different…
Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own anyone…I'm just borrowing them and mixing them up a bit. : )
Author's Note: Yes, I know it's been a long time. I know. Far too long. And I know I left everyone hanging with the dramatic exit of Logan in the "Day in the Life" series. But I needed to get this one out of my system, and who knows? Maybe you'll like it better. Anyway, read and enjoy. And remember: Please review, 'cause I write for YOU. : )
My new motto: Jane. Inconsistent, but consistently good. g
X-IstenceBy Jane Westin
PROLOGUE: Our Son
They had wanted to create the perfect soldier—the ultimate killing machine. The alien genes would have rendered her child practically invincible, immune to even the smallest scrapes and bruises that were inevitable if you were a small boy living in suburban Virginia.
Would have. It hadn't, and that was the important part. The alien DNA hadn't manifested itself in the child. He was useless to their cause.
Scully cradled her sleeping infant son a little closer and sighed heavily. The world was a scary place, and it was made no less scary by the Big Bad Government. An obscenely liberal thought, she knew, especially from a federal agent, but what the hell. The nightmarish events of the past week didn't exactly follow FBI canon, so she saw no real problem with thoughts of a mildly mutinous manner. She couldn't say she was really pleased with anyone's actions lately, anyway, with the possible exception of Skinner, who'd done humanity a favor and rid the world of a certain evil (and unarguably effeminate) ex-agent. And, of course, Mulder, who'd heroically showed up ten minutes late.
As usual.
Still, she had to love the guy.
And she did, too. She'd realized it right after she finished screaming at him. Scully found his constant tardiness irksome, to say the least, but after the creepy (not to mention mortifying) experience of giving birth with a full audience of aliens, she was absolutely infuriated at the man. The least he could have done was show up so she could call him a heartless bastard and accuse him of putting her here in the first place.
But he hadn't, and when she'd calmed down, she'd realized that she never wanted to be apart from him again. And had probably felt that way for a long time. It was, of course, the birth of little William that had cinched it.
Now she just had to figure out a way to tell him—and hope that the feeling was mutual. She had a pretty good idea that he felt the same way about her, judging by the wild look of panic in his hazel eyes when he'd come barreling into the makeshift birthing room, but with Mulder, you could never be sure.
And she needed to be sure.
Knock knockity knock knock, knock knock.
Mulder? Already? Impossible. He'd said he'd be over at eight, and it was only seven-forty. Surely he wasn't going to get punctual now. Dear God, it was practically a moot point.
Sighing again, Scully shifted the baby, stood, and went to the door.
"I—" she began, but broke off abruptly when she saw who was standing on the stoop. Not Mulder—definitely not Mulder.
"Hi," Frohike said. He looked nervous, but then he always looked nervous when he talked to her. Side-effect of having an undying crush on her. Poor Frohike.
"We brought some presents for the baby." The words came out sounding rushed. Byers looked nervous too, but Scully suspected it was for different reasons than his lovestruck compadre. He struck her as the type who became extremely skittish around situations of an overly feminine nature, and visiting a mother and child in their home was about as feminine as you could get, if you discounted shopping and PMS.
Scully smiled at them, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible, and took a few steps back to allow them entry. Cautiously, as though crossing the threshold of some forbidden boudoir, the three Gunmen stepped inside Scully's home.
"Nice crib." Langly seemed considerably more relaxed than Frohike and especially Byers, who now looked as though he might drop the wrapped package in his hands and bolt like a spooked horse. Scully assumed he was talking about the house, not the baby's crib, but Langly tended toward strange observations. You just never knew.
"Thanks." Scully walked slowly back toward her bedroom, trying to get them to move out of the foyer. She felt weirdly like a tour guide. Come on, people, we're walking, we're walking…
She considered saying the words out loud, but thought better of it, though they might deal with bizarre comments from her better than they would handle a conversation about the baby. A sudden laugh bubbled up, and Frohike and Byers jumped. Langly, to his credit, didn't flinch: he just stared at her warily, as though having a baby had tainted her sanity.
There was a long silence.
"So, Scully," Byers began, making a titanic effort to speak, "what'd you name the—"
Baby, who chose that precise moment to open his blue eyes wide and let out an earsplitting wail.
If Byers and Frohike had been startled before, now they appeared to be frankly terrified. Byers looked as though he really might make a break for it.
"William," Scully said loudly over the infant's lusty cries. She bent over little William and made soothing noises, bouncing him a little in her arms. He'd eaten only fifteen minutes ago, he couldn't be hungry again already…the books she'd read on motherhood didn't account for half of what she'd experienced in these first twenty-four hours.
But apparently William was only startled by the presence of other people in the room; after a few minutes' worth of quality attention from his mother, he quieted again and contented himself with staring at the unexpected visitors. His eyes, startingly blue and wide despite the bright lights, roamed unfocusedly around his range of vision. He was going to be a bright kid. Scully just knew it.
Then, resignedly, she turned her attention back to the three men hovering nearby. Langly, who'd previously looked relatively at ease, was glancing nervously from Scully to William to Frohike to the door. And repeat. The other two bore a vague resemblance to deer in headlights.
"Oh, would you guys just chill!" Scully finally exclaimed, trying and failing to keep her voice low.
The Gunmen looked up, their terror momentarily forgotten. For a moment they just stared at her, all three looking comically shocked.
"Whoa." Langly broke the silence. "Dude. Scully just told us to chill."
Byers began to chuckle a little. It was a very controlled chuckle, Byers being Byers. But it seemed to relax the atmosphere: apparently Scully's little lapse into sixties lingo had broken the ice. At last they conceded to follow her partway into the bedroom and commenced what Scully would later refer to as the "Massive Cooing Frenzy." When she heard the door open a half hour later, she was immensely relieved—Frohike's fractured, toneless version of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was beginning to grate on her nerves. Especially after six encores.
Mulder appeared in the doorway to her bedroom, and the Gunmen, their nerves apparently still on edge, jumped. Simultaneously.
It was all Scully could do not to laugh.
They backed out of the room quickly, guilty expressions on all three faces. "Get some rest," Frohike muttered over his shoulder. To Mulder, he said, "We didn't hear you come in."
"We were just dropping off gifts—" Langly added, shooting an uncertain glance at Frohike.
"We just wanted to—" Byers broke off, looking worried, and Mulder finished his sentence for him.
"See it with your own eyes," he said. He was smiling.
"It's incredible, you know," Frohike cut in, eyes rounded. "Your arriving in time to save Scully—getting her to a hospital—"
"We still don't know how you did it," Byers added, raising neatly plucked eyebrows. "Speaking with Agent Doggett, he said they never reached you with specific coordinates—"
Three sets of eyes stared at Mulder, waiting for an explanation.
"There was a light," he said simply. "I followed it."
For a moment all three were struck dumb. As usual, it was Langly who broke the stunned silence.
"Guess we got our next headline," he said, and grinned.
Placing their gifts gently on a side-table, they turned to leave. Mulder caught one last bewildered glance from Frohike before the door closed behind them.
Then he turned to the bedroom.
He paused outside the door, drew a deep breath, and went in.
His heart nearly stopped at the sight of her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, red hair falling slightly over her face. She was smiling. She was beautiful.
And cradled in her arms…her son. Their son. His breath caught.
"How's everybody doing?" he murmured.
Sparkling eyes lifted to behold him, and her smile widened. She stood, swaying gently with the weight of the infant in her arms, and he marveled at how natural it seemed. He'd never pegged Scully for the mothering type, yet now he couldn't imagine her being anything else.
"We're fine," she replied, her voice sweetly tender. She walked to him, close enough for him to examine his son.
With infinite gentleness, Mulder pushed back the blanket.
He was beautiful.
Silently Scully held out the child, and Mulder took his son into his arms. His son…
He felt the hot prick of tears at the back of his eyelids and blinked rapidly.
"What're you going to call him?" he asked, and commended himself at the steadiness of his voice.
"William." Scully's reply was soft, the tenderness lingering in her tone. "After your father."
For a moment they were silent: Mulder marveling at the tiny person in his arms who was his flesh and blood, Scully smiling up at him, radiant.
"I don't know," he mused at last, looking down William. "He's got your coloring…and your eyes…"
Scully waited, gazing up at him expectantly.
"…but he looks suspiciously like Assistant Director Skinner." Mulder's eyes twinkled with humor, and they shared a quiet laugh. Intimate, Mulder thought. This was the most intimate he'd ever been with Scully, and they weren't even naked. You just never knew.
He had to smile a little wider at that thought. William cooed and waved a tiny fist in the air, as though agreeing.
Then Scully was shaking her head, her smile fading. She looked suddenly vulnerable, almost as though she was going to cry. "I don't understand, Mulder," she whispered, her voice unsteady. "They came to take him from us…Why they didn't…"
She let her voice trail off. He understood.
Mulder rocked the baby, who was watching his father with wide, intent eyes. "I don't quite understand it either," he replied softly, not taking his eyes off his son. "Except that maybe he isn't what they thought he was."
There was a short pause; Scully drew a shaky breath, distress evident on her face.
"But that doesn't make him any less of a miracle, though, does it?" Mulder's eyes lifted at last, meeting her worried gaze and immediately warming her all the way through. He was still smiling.
At last Scully let herself smile a little. "From the moment I became pregnant, I feared the truth," she confessed, the doctor-tone slipping into her voice. Detachment, her defense mechanism. Then it faded away. "About how…and why…" She suddenly looked very young, her blue eyes filling. "And I know you feared it too—"
"I think what we feared were the possibilities." Mulder's voice flowed over her, soothing, reassuring. "The truth—" he met her gaze head on—"we both know."
Scully felt her heart skip a beat. Mulder's gaze bored into hers, but she forced her voice to be steady, steady, steady.
"Which is what?" She could barely breathe, anticipating his response.
He just smiled that same gentle smile. Then, cradling their son closer, he leaned in and kissed her.
And words became wonderfully unnecessary.
***
Time, that old bald cheater, passed.
Fox and Dana were married in a small, private ceremony. She took his name. They both cried.
The child who shared their DNA reached one year of age and smeared chocolate cake on his face. His mother took pictures; his father videotaped because he didn't trust digital cameras. Neither of them heard the first whisper on the nightly news, which came in the form of a blurb about a missing boy and an orphanage mysteriously destroyed.
The child took his first steps into his father's arms. Later that night Dana received a fax from John Doggett about a new case, this one involving a small girl who apparently caused the hologram-like manifestation of every individual's worst fears. The whisper turned into a murmur, and Dana, who still worked for the Big Bad Government, learned what her employers had known for nearly two decades.
The child went to preschool. His mother had been right from the start; he proved to be a precocious child who could read simple books and speak in full sentences by the age of two and a half. Dana was afraid of the social pressures his intelligence would impose. Fox told her not to worry about it; he was a Mulder, after all, and he'd be just as charismatic as his father. Naturally.
Dana began to spend more time in the FBI labs, studying the DNA of numerous faceless individuals, meeting frequently with the geneticists on staff. Fox shopped online and bought as many books on this strange new subject as he could find.
The child got older and went into the first grade. One day he came home from school with a terrifically ugly picture of a flower, crayoned in brown. He told his parents it was from Brianna, and that Brianna was his girlfriend. Brianna was a little girl in his class. She had purple skin.
That year, a man was beaten to death in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was rumored that he could walk on water. No one thought he was Jesus.
The murmur got louder and crescendoed into a shout.
William graduated from the fifth grade. His parents took him out for ice cream. They went to his Wildcat games that summer, and no one asked about a little boy named Steven who'd been kicked off the team after the first game because he was ten times stronger than the coach.
Once, when William was walking with his mother toward the baseball diamond, he tripped over his shoelaces. No big surprise there; his shoelaces were never tied. He went palms-first into the gravel. He didn't cry because ten-year-old boys don't cry in public, especially not in front of the girl they adore; his mother nevertheless saw the blood on his palms.
But when he wiped his hands clean on the seat of his baseball pants, there were no wounds there at all.
Where had the blood come from? Where, where, where?
Where, indeed?
The question tormented Dana every night for almost two weeks. Finally she forgot about it. Whenever she found herself wondering why her little son so rarely got hurt, she pushed the thought aside. She never mentioned it to her husband, and it would surprise her later when she found out he'd noticed all along.
William turned eleven. He went to his first school dance with the purple-skinned girl he'd adored since they were four years old. She gave him a flower. This time it wasn't crayoned in brown on construction paper. His mother liked Brianna very much, but she still felt much better after she'd picked him up at ten o' clock.
The sixth grade took to William, who never wanted to be called anything other than his full name. He had more friends than he could count and he was the best pitcher on the sixth-grade baseball team. But he was still a little boy, and little boys cry when their girl gets hit because her skin is purple. Those big boys' moms, he says sadly, don't like Brianna cause she got different skin, and so they don't like her either.
And when William asked his own mother why, she didn't have an answer.
Then he turned twelve, and the shout became a scream.
***
The phone call came while Dana was still at work.
The woman on the other end of the line was polite, but Dana heard the anxiety in her voice the moment she spoke. "Mrs. Mulder?"
"Yes." Dana turned away from her computer and furrowed her brow. Rarely was she called Mrs. Mulder by anyone at work; who could this woman be?
"This is Melissa Randall, the nurse at Lincoln Middle School. I'm calling about your son."
Dana's heart skipped a beat. "Is he all right?"
A pause.
"We have…a situation here. Perhaps it'd be best if you came and got him."
"But he's all right, isn't he?" Dana fought to breathe. Oh God, William had never been seriously hurt before.
"He's fine." Again that hesitation. Uncertainty poured through the telephone receiver. "There was a fight between classes. He wasn't hurt, but—"
Dana didn't let the woman finish her sentence. "I'll be right there," she said, and raced for the door.
Minutes later, Dana's sedan screeched to a halt in front of Lincoln. She parked haphazardly in a handicapped spot and, clutching her jacket tighter around herself, hurried through the glass doors. She was halfway down the slick tiled hall when she realized with a start that she had no idea where the clinic was. Never in his life had William required the services of the school nurse.
Dana doubled back, scanned the school map posted by the front door, and took off at a near-sprint toward the nurse's office.
There was already a small congregation of faculty and parents in the clinic when Dana threw the door open. A small woman with cold eyes stepped forward and assessed Dana's disheveled hair and flushed cheeks. She pursed her lips as though biting back a sneer.
"You're Mrs. Mulder?"
"I am." Where is my son?
"William is in that last room on the right. I'd like a word with you when you've finished." The words were not so much a request as a command, and though Dana disliked the woman's tone, she thought it best not to cause a stir until she knew what, exactly, was going on here. She stepped into the small private room meant for very ill children awaiting their parents' arrival. The lights were off. "Will?"
"Here, Mom." Her son's voice, usually so boisterous and bright, was a shadow of itself. Dana pushed back the curtain and breathed an audible sigh of relief. William looked unhurt—perfectly healthy, as a matter of fact. Why was he here? What was going on?
"Hi, buddy." Dana sat down on the cot next to her sandy-haired champion, who was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, his hands tucked under his arms. "What's going on?"
She was startled to see tear-tracks on his freckled cheeks. William rarely cried; he was a naturally happy child who, even as an infant, smiled more often than not. As with any mother, it pained her immensely to see him upset.
"Honey, what's wrong?" Worry infused Dana's voice; she put an arm across the boy's slender shoulders. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
William didn't look at her. "They were teasin' Bri, Mom," he said, in a very tiny voice. "They were pullin' her hair and callin' her a mutie freak."
Rage swelled in Dana's throat. She loved Brianna as her own, and it infuriated her that so few people could see past the strange color of the little girl's skin. She struggled to keep her voice steady. "Who?"
"Kevin Kiesterman. Brad Renshaw. Trish Lamprey." His lip quivered. "They dumped all her stuff on the floor. She was crying, Mom. Bri never cries."
Dana remembered Kevin. Blond, blue-eyed, and freckle-faced, he was the star of his class and the darling of the teachers. He and William had been friends when they were in the third grade.
"I told 'em to leave her alone." William's voice caught. "I told 'em to leave her alone cause she's my friend and Kevin's all right when he's not around Trish. Then Kevin started talkin' like he was gonna hit me, and I said go ahead an' hit me if you're gonna. And he did an' I was gonna hit him back and then I—" William's chest hitched and he began to cry. "Somethin' happened, Mom, somethin' bad happened with my hands. I made him bleed. I didn't even think I touched him, an' I made him bleed."
Dana pulled her small son close, stroking his tousled hair and making comforting noises, but her heart was pounding with anxiety. What could possibly have happened to upset William so?
After a moment, William pulled away and swiped fiercely at his eyes. "I wanna go home," he mumbled.
Dana nodded. "In a minute. I need to speak with the nurse, all right?" Her voice was soft, soothing. "I'll be back."
William nodded into his knees, and Dana stood and went out to the waiting room.
"Mrs. Mulder." The short woman stepped forward as soon as she caught sight of Dana. Her tone, though slightly more civil, was no less icy. "My name is Karen Morrow. I am the assistant principal of Lincoln. I'd like to discuss the incident today."
"Of course." Dana swallowed her dislike for the woman and forced a smile. "Wh—"
Karen Morrow did not let her finish. "Shortly after lunch, there was a minor conflict involving Brianna Quimby, Brad Renshaw, Trisha Lamprey, and Kevin Kiesterman."
"I hardly think minor—"
Again Ms. Morrow continued speaking as though she had not heard. "I believe Mr. Kiesterman was the instigator of the incident. The latter three students were teasing Miss Quimby about her—" she cleared her throat—"affliction. At that point, your son decided to become involved. He made threatening remarks toward Mr. Kiesterman, who responded in kind. At that point, your son took a step toward Mr. Kiesterman, and—" Karen Morrow paused. "No one is precisely certain as to what happened at that point, but Mr. Kiesterman somehow sustained a substantial gash to his arm. He was taken to the hospital immediately, of course. William's belongings were searched, but no weapons were found."
"Then how—" Dana stumbled over her words. "How do you know it was his fault?"
Karen Morrow's lips tightened to the point of bloodlessness. "Several students, as well as one of the teachers involved, claim they saw—" she paused—"blades of some sort—knives, or something similar, in the vicinity of your son's hands." Her voice turned angry, accusing. "Because of this incident, William is suspended indefinitely from school. I highly recommend that he be transferred to a different environment, one where his—" another frigid pause—"condition will not affect other students."
Dana drew herself up. "Excuse me? His condition? He doesn't have a—"
Then Morrow's cold gaze locked with hers, and the words stilled on her lips. There was something in those stony eyes that should not have been there—that had no right to be there. Black dread coiled in Dana's stomach as she realized what Morrow was implying. But it couldn't be, she told herself silently. It couldn't. It wasn't possible.
Sickened, Dana recoiled. Without another word, she retrieved her son and hurried him out to the car.
***
Later that evening, while William slept and Dana drank martini after martini trying to comprehend the unthinkable, there was a soft knock at the front door. Mulder went to answer it.
Standing on the front porch was a red-haired woman: tall, attractive, solemn. At her side was an older man in a wheelchair. His bald head gleamed under the tepid yellow of the porch light.
"Good evening, Mr. Mulder," the man said, offering his hand. His words were crisp and impeccably formed, spoken with a slight English accent. "I'm Professor Charles Xavier."
***
Well? Is this a good way to return from my hiatus? Tell me what you think. And please…be kind, review. : )
Part II will be up as soon as it is finished.