She doesn't expect to find what she does.
It's like walking into a crime scene, clothes and shoes and jewelry strewn everywhere. Down the hall. On the dresser. Even on the back of the couch—
Wasn't Mulder supposed to be watching them?
She tells herself she can reprimand him later because all she hears now is the sound of giggling coming from down the hallway and a loud whisper of "shh I think Mommy's coming."
She shakes her head, allows a smile to creep across her face.
Mulder steps out of their bedroom, hair mussed, wearing the New York Knicks t-shirt she'd slept in the night before.
"Hey, uh, you can't come in yet," he says, grinning ear to ear.
She bends down, slips her heels off so she only comes up to his chest. Here is where she feels safe. Warm.
"Why not?" she asks, doctor voice still on.
"Because it isn't ready yet," he says.
This is the Mulder she loves, cryptic and mysterious and playful even when he's talking about their children.
"Hard day at the office?" he teases, and she laughs and sheds her coat and sheds her work persona she wears like a second skin. At work she is Dr. Scully, sometimes Dana, at work she is charts and lines and order and precision.
"Fox come oooon, Mommy hasn't seen it yet!"
At home she is Mom, and that name fits her better than any other title has.
Mulder chuckles and kisses her on the forehead, laughs as she stands on tiptoe to kiss him. He tucks a strand of that blazing orange hair behind her ear, takes her hand, and guides her into the bedroom.
William and Emily proudly stand in front of the bed, William on the dresser so he's taller than his sister. And Scully presses her hand to her mouth and laughs like she hasn't in awhile, because the FBI jackets her kids have on are swallowing them whole. Emily's holding a flashlight and a water pistol, William a drawing of aliens that he must have done—god it does look an awful lot like Mulder's Jersey Devil drawing—and trying his best to look serious.
"What do you think?" Mulder asks, nuzzling her neck. "This year's Halloween costume?"
Emily pouts. "Dad wouldn't let me dye my hair red."
Scully laughs, and sits on the floor with her children. "So what case are we solving today?" she asks, and barely contains a smile as Emily launches into a scientific description of a wombat and William smiles shyly up at his mother from beneath his lashes.
Of all the personas she wears, this is her favorite one.