~*o*~
She was walking along the shore as she felt the sand moving between her bare toes. The sky was a perfect shade of blue as the sunshine glinted off the water. "Can you believe we're really here? And that our William has returned to our lives?" Mulder asked her as he walked beside her and held her hand in his.
She looked at him as the golden rays of sunshine shone in his eyes- eyes so much like their William's. "I can hardly believe it's real. I keep fearing that moment when I will wake up and it all ends," she replied.
"It's not going to end. Our little boy's back and our lives are complete," Mulder stated. "Scully, I have everything I ever wanted now."
Their eyes caught on the little boy sitting on the beach playing in the sand. He had dark hair like his daddy and his father's eyes. He was everything they had always dreamed he would be. The years without their little William had been hell for both of him... but now their little boy was back.
"Mommy! Daddy! Help me build a sand castle!" William called out as he looked up at them.
"Shall we?" Scully asked the man she loved.
"I'd love to," Mulder answered.
They started running across the beach, but the more they ran, the farther away they seemed to be from William. Suddenly a frown settled over the child's face as the waves became choppy and tears rolled from Scully's eyes. She looked at Mulder and he too looked traumatized. "We gotta get to him. We gotta get to William," she spoke in the saddest whimper.
"He'll always be our son," she heard Mulder say.
Suddenly she was in her bed, in her room, and the rain was pounding fiercely against the window panes. There was no sign of the beach... and no sign of William or Mulder.
"Ohhh God, it was a dream," she said in a broken sob.
Her chest hurt as her tears fell, bitter tears for the little boy she'd lost. "William," she cried sadly as she remembered his soft skin and his adorable smile. Her baby boy. She had to give him up, because she'd had no other choice.
She looked up as the door opened and Mulder strode in. He saw her tears as he drew her into his arms. "Ohhh Mulder," she whispered as she held him so close.
"I couldn't sleep," he told her. "I kept thinking of... of William."
"I dreamed of him, too," Scully told him. "How I miss our son."
"I miss him, too... but I will never blame you for the sacrifice you made. You did what you had to do," he told her. "You were protecting him."
As she cried, he gently kissed away her tears. "I just want to hold him again."
"You can hold me instead," he whispered. "I love you, Dana Scully."
THE END