Title: A Happy Family
Author: Singing Violin
Rating: K
Spoilers: Post-Existence. All of Season 8, Requiem, SUZ/Closure,One Breath, The End/The Beginning. No Season 9.
Keywords: Mulder/Scully. Williamfic.
Summary: An old friend resurfaces to help out an ailing family.
Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story belong to me.
Archiving: Already archived in Gossamer under a different author name (Pearl) but that name was taken here so I got another one. Feel free to post anywhere.

6 years after the events of "Existence"
Scully's home

The tension in the kitchen was almost palpable. Scully stood by the sink, dressed in an apron, cleaning dishes, while Mulder sulked in the doorway. They hadn't spoken a word to each other during dinner, but had alternately asked William about his first grade experience, carefully avoiding the topic of the bullies who were responsible for the bruises which had come home with the small boy.

The previous evening, after sending William off to bed, they had fought over what to do about the situation. Scully, having discovered her son's injuries on several occasions now while getting William ready for his bath or for bed, wanted to do a small undercover investigation, and then complain about the guilty parties directly to the authorities. "You never know what little rascal is going to grow up to be another Krycek if someone doesn't stop them while they're young," she'd said.

Mulder had argued that William should be allowed to take care of himself, that if he wanted help, he would need to ask for it. "Nothing is worse than having your mother, especially when she carries a gun, defend you at school. Will's smart, his parents are unusual, and we certainly haven't given him the impression that he's ordinary. So he'll be teased a little; learning to defend himself will be the most valuable lesson he'll ever learn."

Their argument had not ended peaceably. The ex-agent had quietly left, returning after a long run to sleep on the couch. As for Scully, she'd silently cried herself to sleep alone in their bed. The redhead had left early for work, not stopping to wake the sleeping form on the couch. Mulder awoke with William, took him to school, and then busied himself for the day, coming home just before dinner, so that he would not have to continue the conversation in front of his son.

Now, they avoided eye contact altogether, though they knew they must deal with the situation between them soon. William had been sent to his room to do his homework, extra math problems he was given to keep him occupied; the teachers had quickly realized that he was extraordinarily bright, but thought it best to keep him with children his own age, and allow him extra tutoring to challenge him outside of class.

Scully sensed Mulder regarding her from behind, and without turning around, uttered his name. Almost simultaneously, he uttered hers, and she turned to look at him. There were unshed tears in her eyes, which glittered as she gazed at him with utter trust underneath the inevitable pain.

It was Mulder who spoke first. "I don't think this is going to work."

"What, Mulder?"

"This..." He gestured around. "With you."

"Mulder, it's worked for six years. More, if you count, well..." She looked at the floor, remembering.

"Before, I was the most important man...the most important person in your life. Now you've got William..."

"He's your son too!"

"We never established that." It was true; Scully had neglected to run a paternity test because they were both afraid that it would reveal what they both feared. The blood typing hadn't eliminated Mulder as William's father, and they'd left it at that, with an unspoken agreement that Mulder would be William's father, biological or not.

Neither parent noticed the small form who had crept down the stairs and was peering at their conversation from around the corner, hiding in the shadows.

"Mulder..." Scully walked over to him and took his large hand in both of her smaller ones. "It doesn't matter whether my son is Jesus Christ incarnate. You will always be my everything. I hope you know that. Do you remember when you came back, right before he was born? Skinner told me later that he'd been offered a choice...your life, or that of my unborn child. That was why he took you off of life support, which, luckily for us, ended up saving you. But what Skinner doesn't know...what he'll never know...is that, if I'd been given the choice, as much as it would have hurt me to do so, I would have chosen you."

The boy heard no more, but silently slipped outside. Tears blurred his vision, but he kept running, not knowing where he was going, and not caring.

There were tears in Mulder's eyes too, as he took Scully into his arms and rested his chin upon her head. "I'm sorry, Scully...I'm sorry. Oh god, I didn't know."

She wrapped her arms around his muscular torso, taking comfort in the feel of him surrounding her, "I'm sorry too, Mulder. I didn't know you felt that way...I just want us to be a happy family. We deserve that much, after all we've been through."

Mulder almost imperceptibly nodded against Scully's hair. After a few moments, he kissed her forehead, and said, "I'm going to go upstairs and see if William needs help with his algebra."

"Algebra? He's already doing algebra, and you didn't tell me?"

Mulder winked. "What can I say? He likes the stuff; must take after his physics-major mother." At that, Scully graced her ex-partner with a warm smile.

"Go upstairs, Mulder. I'll join you when I finish the dishes."

"Okay." He smiled back at her, and then headed to the boy's room.

When the child wasn't where he was expected to be, the father looked around a bit, calling the child's name. Finding the homework open on the desk, and no little boy anywhere to be found, he became frightened, and resorted to his instinctual reaction to any menacing situation. "Scullleeeee!" he called.

Hearing his panicked yell, she raced up the stairs and found him unashamedly bearing his "panic face."

He put his hand on her shoulder, and his voice broke as he cried, "He's gone."

"Oh god...are you sure he's not hiding?"

"Pretty sure, Scully."

"William!" she called. After half an hour of seraching the house, they were both convinced that he was gone.

Feigning calm, Scully took a deep breath and said, "Okay, let's go."

"What if they took him?" asked Mulder, fearfully.

"Then there may be nothing we can do. Please, for me, let's assume he's on Earth, and close by. We don't know who took him...or if anyone took him at all."

"The old souls..."

"Stop, Mulder! I can't hear this right now. Let's just look for him. Please?" Tears ran down her cheeks unheeded and her eyes begged Mulder for mercy.

"Okay," he whispered.

One week later
Outside the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington D.C.

After enlisting the help of many old friends at the bureau, the boy was still nowhere to be found. Scully was beside herself and Mulder was desperately trying to find some semblance of calm for her sake. He held her sobbing form in his arms, and she clutched at his back.

"I don't understand, Mulder," she sobbed. "He's a six-year-old boy; if they were going to take him, why not before? Why now?"

"I don't know, Scully. I don't know." He felt her trembling against his chest. "Let's go home, Scully. It's time to stop looking."

"We have to find him."

"I know, and we will. But you need sleep, Scully. Let the other agents keep looking."

"What if he's dead, Mulder?"

"You found me dead, Scully, and now I'm alive again. Do you still believe...in miracles?" Her only answer was a half-sob, half-laugh, into his shoulder.

"Come on, Scully, I'm taking you away from here."

That day
A cabin in the woods of British Columbia

"William, you have to go home. I'll take you there, even though it's dangerous for me."

"I can't...my mother doesn't want me. She would have killed me."

"Well, she's thinking of killing herself, now, if they find you dead."

"Naw, she wouldn't do that."

"She would. You're very important to her."

"Not as important as my dad. I heard her saying that. Check, by the way."

"You're pretty good, William. But you've got to believe me; do you know what your parents have been through, both before and during your lifetime? You're causing them a lot of pain right now."

"How would you know?"

"I'm an old friend of theirs. Check and mate."

William's face fell. "I want to stay with you."

"All right, then. I'm going to Washington, D.C., so I guess you'll have to come with me."

Two nights later
Scully's home

Scully couldn't sleep. She didn't trust even her most trusted associates to find her son alive. Agent Doggett had told her stories of what it was like to find Luke dead, and she desperately hoped she would not have to go through the same experience.

Seeing Mulder sound asleep, she slipped out of bed and got into her car. She drove until her eyes drooped with fatigue, and then she pulled over and started walking. She didn't know where she was; she hardly cared. She would walk across the whole damn country if that's what it took.

4am

Mulder was startled out of sleep by what he realized after a few seconds was the ringing of Scully's phone. "Scully, you going to get that?" he asked, before realizing she wasn't in the bed next to him. He rolled over into the empty space and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" he answered sleepily.

"Is this Fox Mulder?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You are next of kin to Dana Scully?" He was suddenly fully alert.

"Where is she?" he whispered, praying silently that she was still alive.

"She's being helicoptered to Georgetown Memorial for urgent care."

"Oh god, I'll be right there."

7am
Georgetown Memorial Hospital

Mulder paced in the waiting room. Scully was still in surgery. The doctors were clearly hiding from him how bad it was, and after everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks, he couldn't stand the thought of losing her. He hadn't even been able to listen when they tried to tell him what had happened.

The doctor came out and told him that she was in Intensive Care, that he could see her but that she wasn't conscious. He all but barreled into the room, needing to see her alive, even if it was only barely.

Tubes protruded from her at all angles. Mulder was reminded of a similar scene, more than a decade ago. He took her hand and whispered, "Oh Scully, what have I done?"

Resting his head on her slowly rising and falling chest, he let his tears soak into her gown.

It seemed like an eternity before he heard the door open, and looked up to see a familiar-looking teenager, holding the hand of a young boy. Looking down, he recognized his William and ran to grab the younger boy. "Oh William, we were so worried about you," he said as he held the boy against his chest.

Without letting go of the child, he looked up at the young man who had brought him back. After a moment, he found recognition, and breathed, "Gibson? What are you doing here? Thank you for bringing him to me..."

Gibson smiled. "I owed you one, I think." He turned to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"Back home, I guess."

"Where's that?"

"Canada. I have a car."

"Gibson, please stay for a few days. You can stay with us."

The older boy nodded, knowing how important this was to Mulder, and strangely unafraid now about his own safety. "Okay."

"What's wrong with Mommy?" William piped up.

Mulder just shook his head sadly. Before he could say anything, William had escaped from his embrace and was climbing into the bed with his mother.

"William..." Mulder started, but was silenced by the shock of what he was witnessing.

William and Scully were in the bed, glowing with a brilliant light not unlike that which he'd walked towards the night he was taken. He stood transfixed, until a few seconds later, the light faded and Scully opened her eyes and embraced her son.

Mulder turned to Gibson and asked, "What just happened?"

"She'll be okay now."

"Did you know he could do that?"

Gibson nodded. "He's a very special boy. Reminds me of someone I once knew." He smiled.

The next day.
Scully's home.

"The doctors are saying it's a miracle, but I know what I saw, Scully."

"Mulder, you think you saw something, but how many days had it been since you'd slept or eaten anything nutritious? You could have been hallucinating."

"Gibson saw it too."

"I'm staying out of this," said the teenager, lifting up his hand.

Scully smiled. "And we have William back too."

The six-year-old walked up to his mother and asserted, "I'm going with Gibson to Canada. I don't want to stay here."

Scully reached out to her son, but he evaded her touch. "What? William, I'm your mother, what's going on?"

"I heard what you said about how you would have killed me to save Daddy."

"Oh, William," she cried, suddenly realizing what had transpired. "It's true, I would have chosen him over you, but that was before you were born, before I knew you. Both of you are so precious to me; I don't think I could bear losing either of you. I didn't mean that I wanted you gone! Do you realize how hard we looked for you?"

"I know; Gibson told me," said the boy quietly.

"I shouldn't have said what I did, but your father was going to leave us, because he didn't think I loved him anymore. I couldn't let that happen."

"So Scully, what you're saying is that you didn't mean what you said to me, and you'd say anything just to get me to stay?"

"No, Mulder! Please, I just want us to be a happy family." She sat down and put her head in her hands, crying. "Oh god, I screwed up."

Gibson leaned down and whispered something to William. Looking back at the older boy, the six-year-old slowly made his way over to his mother and climbed into her lap. "I forgive you, Mommy."

Sobbing, she rocked her son against her.

Mulder felt left out. He walked over and put his hand on Scully's head.

Gibson broke the silence. "I think my job here is done. I should go home."

Mulder asked, "Wait, what did you tell him?"

The young man only winked, and walked out the door.

One year later

After sending William to a special school for the gifted at which Gibson Praise had recently begun teaching, the young boy had never again returned home beat-up. Scully and Mulder had never discussed again what happened in that hotel room, nor William's paternity.

William once asked Mulder whether he'd really saved his mother's life.

"I don't know, kiddo, but even if you did, I'm still a few up on you for saving your mother's life."

"Let's hope we don't have to change that, Dad."

END