The Next Day

An already stressful day of teaching classes and enduring a faculty meeting with Finn Hardy sitting across from her and irritating her by repeatedly trying to catch her eye got more stressful when she got a call from the kids' preschool/kindergarten informing her that a water pipe had burst. Not only were kids being sent home immediately, it was doubtful that the building would be habitable the next day, either.

The next day wasn't a problem because she could work from home considering she wasn't teaching, but that day was another story. Before she could panic and cancel her last class of the day, her neighbor, Kathy, called and offered to look after Tommy and Grace earlier than she usually did: Kathy had a child in Tommy's class and normally looked after them from the time the school closed and Scully got home in the evening.

Scully was grateful that Kathy was willing, but the whole thing just frustrated her. Things were supposed to be easier now that Grace had been accepted into preschool, which had required a hearing to get a dispensation given she wouldn't be three until October, instead of having one kid in daycare and the other in "school" but unforeseeable things would probably continue to crop up like this.

By the end of the day she'd had enough time to brood about it to have made herself irritable before she got home. She walked over to Kathy's, ready to complain about the school and their lack of foresight about repairs.

But the first words out of her mouth were "Thanks so much for watching them all afternoon" so she found that she wasn't in as much of a complaining mood as she'd thought.

Kathy smiled. "No problem. They kept Lizzie entertained, so it was no big deal."

Lizzie, Kathy's five-year-old daughter was the reason Scully had found Kathy as a babysitter - three days after Tommy and Grace moved in, Lizzie insisted that her mother bring her over to meet the new kids. Through that first meeting Scully learned that Kathy was a part-time bookkeeper who worked from home four hours a night, and enjoyed baby sitting in the afternoons.

"Still..." Scully said doubtfully. She'd pay Kathy for the extra time, but Kathy would still be working more than eight hours over the course of the day.

"Don't worry about it," Kathy told her. "I know it's not easy being a single mom."

But not from experience, Scully noted. Karen's husband Josh would be home in an hour and after dinner he'd be the one caring for Lizzie until bedtime so Kathy could work.

"Yeah..." she said slowly, wondering if Kathy would suggest she look for a boyfriend who liked kids, which coworkers frequently would.

Fortunately, Kathy didn't. This left Scully liking her a bit more than she already did.


Even though Kathy hadn't harped on Scully being a single mom, she still found her thoughts returning to the idea repeatedly over the course of the night. Things might have been easier if there was another adult in the house. It would be nice to have someone to come home to.

There were a lot of excuses she could, and did, give herself for not moving on like she probably should. Everyone else thought so, and most weren't shy about sharing their feelings. Even her family. Maybe especially her family: she and Bill had a huge fight the year before, culminating with her deflecting his suggestion that she was wasting valuable time by hissing at him that biological clocks didn't tick for women who were already certifiably barren.

Most of her internal excuses revolved around Tommy and Grace. She couldn't shake the feeling that potential suitors would be less accepting of children of half-ambiguous parentage, and get the wrong idea about her morals too.

But as she stirred a pot of pasta that night, she considered the fact that she could, possibly, know who their father was. Or rule Mulder out if he wasn't. Up until that point she hadn't been able to face the thought that he might not be. Even though they looked like her she still felt that he could be, and finding examples of redheaded children with a dark-haired parent helped her justify that. Reading up on the theory that red hair isn't recessive but instead co-dominant allowed her to continue to cling to that belief.

Testing would either confirm her belief or crumble it. Either way the children would no longer have Schrodinger's paternity.

Maybe that would be for the best, she told herself over dinner. A few hairs from their hair brushes, and it could be resolve, one way or the other. Wouldn't knowing the truth be worth it? Even if the answer wasn't what she needed it to be, was that really worse than the discomfort of the unknown?

Her head and her heart both offered their two cents on the matter. By the time she tucked Tommy and Grace in, she'd decided which to listen to.


Two Weeks Later

It had felt strange to Skinner to walk into the hospital. Somehow, even though he knew that Mulder had signed himself up for treatment, he still had the expectation that it would be like when he'd visited the involuntarily committed or justly imprisoned. But he hadn't been stopped and told to temporality surrender dangerous objects, and a warden with a ponderous set of keys hadn't unlocked a barred door after locating the correct key. Instead he'd gone to a perfectly ordinary reception desk and signed in. After a few minutes of looking through an issue of Newsweek he'd been gotten by a young man and brought to a conference room.

Mulder had already been in the room, along with a doctor and the site's administrator.

There were three things that had struck Skinner immediately when he saw Mulder. First, he looked alert but not on edge as he had four weeks earlier, and not out of it like the last time he'd been committed - so he probably wasn't on high doses of antipsychotics. Second, he wasn't wearing a hospital gown, but his own clothes instead. It did look like he'd put on a few pounds, which left him seeming healthier and less fragile. The third was he seemed genuinely happy to see him, which left him feeling less like he'd failed him.

All these observations happened in the first few seconds, before the older of the two strangers even got a chance to open his mouth and make introductions, "Mister Skinner, thank you for joining us today. I'm Conrad Mann, the center's director, and this is Patrick Hull, the doctor treating Fox."

"Glad to be here," Skinner told them, and he was. The fact that he'd been called in meant that Mulder was making a lot of progress, which is something he'd desperately wanted for him.

"It's important to have people involved in transition planning," Conrad went on, "because it generally leads to better outcomes."

Skinner glanced at Mulder, wondering what happened to patients that had no one in their corners. He knew that they weren't forced to stay, but he suspected that they were heavily encouraged to move into a halfway house for a time before they braved the world at large on their own. "Right..."

"I'm sure you have questions about how involved we hope you'll be in the process of getting Fox settled once he leaves here."

''I do," Skinner admitted. "I take it from the conversation we had on the phone that you'd rather he not return to my home...?"

Hull gave him an understanding look. "It's quite generous when someone makes that kind of offer, but we've studied a variety of post-hospitalization living situations and have come to conclude that people who immediately transition into living in their own space have the best outcomes."

Skinner thought about this. "Moving is stressful. I can see how fewer moves might be better," he said, but really, he knew so little about the treatment of PTSD that he'd have to take their word on what worked best.

"Exactly," Conrad agreed. "What we're hoping is that you might have the time to look at three apartments and offer Fox your honest opinions about them." The director handed him a small stack of papers which were each accompanied by black and white photos.

"Sure," he agreed, eyes immediately seeking out the addresses. Had they been widely scattered he probably wouldn't have been able to keep himself from deciding that the closest one was the best, but all three were less than five miles away from his own house so that probably wouldn't be an issue. "I'd be happy to check them out."

The director and the doctor both looked pleased. But Mulder was clearly concerned. "This is great and all, but will they really rent to someone like me?"

"Like you?" Conrad asked mildly.

"Nuts," Mulder blurted out, then signed when this was met with disapproving looks. "Recently released from this fine establishment."

"The bureau of mental health has established relationships with several apartment complexes. We aren't setting you up for disappointment, Fox."

"I'm not implying you are, but it seemed understandable if building managers were reluctant to rent to people who are known to have issues." Mulder paused. "I'm glad it's not an issue."

Skinner wished his poker face was as good as Mulder's. Or as good as it used to be: during the three weeks that Mulder had been at Dolby so far, Skinner had found himself mentally going over the first few days after Mulder had showed up, wondering what signs he had missed. One thing that occurred to him during these reflections was how often he had looked startled and even outright scared. Mulder had never been so easy to read before his abduction.

And he himself was surely easy to read too, given the look Hull was giving him. It came as little surprise when the psychiatrist said, "I sense you have questions." Skinner nodded and cleared his throat before looking at Mulder. "I'm glad you're doing better, and it's easy to see that you are, and I'm willing to help out any way that I can, but what sort of timeline are we thinking about?"

He couldn't tell if Hull was trying to spare Mulder's feelings or if he was honestly confused, but he said, "Fox is making excellent progress, but we feel he's at about the halfway point in the program, so you don't need to drop everything to go look at the apartments. We understand that you're a busy man..."

Skinner tuned out the rest of his sentence, instead biting back the impulse to say that he hadn't asked because he was busy. If Mulder was halfway through the program, did it mean he was halfway better? Somehow he didn't think so. From what he'd recently read about trauma, some people never got completely over it. He had hopes that Mulder would prove more resilient than those poor lost souls, but full recovery wasn't going to happen in three weeks. Hopefully something like manageability would.

"I can probably go at the end of the week," he said when he realized it was his turn to speak again. "Or early the next."

"Excellent." Hull's expression was decided approving.

"What else can I do?"

Conrad spoke up. "Besides living arrangements being finalized before exiting the center, we ask guests to consider applying to jobs or volunteer placements if they won't be returning to their current employment-"

Internally, Skinner cringed, waiting for someone to insist that he needed to demand that Mulder be returned to the FBI. As much as he thought it'd only be fair considering Mulder hadn't left intentionally, it wasn't really in his power to do that, and even if it had been, he would have reservations about Mulder's capacities just then. "-and I was hoping you could provide written references."

"Oh. Of course." Glancing at Mulder, he asked, "what were you thinking of...doing?"

Mulder nodded thoughtfully. "While I do have some hope of eventually returning to the FBI, I'm well aware that I'm currently too frail right now, and I don't just mean physically. Right now, while I concentrate on getting better, I want to be helpful to others. So I'm hoping to volunteer at an animal shelter."

Skinner blinked in surprise. That he was aware of, Mulder had never shown an interest in animals; he'd certainly not mourned the death of Scully's ghoulish little dog when he'd been eaten by a bigger predator. But maybe it was change that was appealing to him. "Well. That should be an interesting experience."

"Probably not too useful for my resume, though," Mulder said ruefully, reminding them both that the odds of him resuming his role as an FBI agent were not great.

"You'd be surprised how valuable volunteering can be to potential employers," Dr. Hull said supportively.

"Uh huh. Hopefully there won't be many crimes to investigate at the shelter, anyway." Mulder shot Skinner a wry look, wordlessly reminding him of case files he'd read the write ups to, ones that claimed that cats, dogs, and, on one memorable occasion, insects were responsible for crimes.

"God willing," Skinner murmured.

They continued to discuss how Skinner could help for another twenty minutes, then Conrad and Hull excused themselves, leaving him and Mulder to talk.

This time Mulder didn't attack him to pass a note inked in his own blood. Instead, he calmly looked at him and said, "I really appreciate your willingness to be part of this process."

"It's the least I can do," he insisted. Mulder just smiled wanly. "So...how are you, really?" He glanced at the door, which was shot. At least he didn't feel like any of Mulder's geek friends should've been snuck in to look for bugs. The mechanical kind, that was.

Rather than taking the opportunity to complain, Mulder just said, "I'm getting there. I've still got a ways to go, but I hope I seem like less of a wreck than I'd been when I left you to come here."

"You do seem better. Truly."

"Better living through chemistry," Mulder said wryly. "But I think therapy is helpful too. Between the two I've at least stopped having flashbacks."

Skinner nodded, but he wondered about the nightmares. Those he'd been aware of as they happened, unlike what he'd come to think of as 'the closet incident'. "Mulder...is there anything you need from me that you didn't want to mention in front of them?" he asked.

Mulder said nothing for a moment, then said, "When you look at the apartments, can you ask them about pets? Nothing big, but may be a cat."

The idea of Mulder being well enough to have a pet that depended on made Skinner start to choke up and he couldn't really figure out why. After all that'd be a sign that he was really getting better. But still, getting better was also proof of how bad he'd been when he'd first gotten back. He covered him mouth with a fist and coughed, hoping to mask it as clearing his throat. "Absolutely."

"Thanks," Mulder told him.

Skinner almost stood and said goodbye at that point but Mulder's expression stopped him. "I'm going to contact Scully. When I get out of here. I'm giving myself two weeks to move in and get settled...but I'm going to talk to her."

As much as he wanted to tell him that Scully would visit him at Dolby, he didn't. It wouldn't have been productive. "Good."

"I thought you'd approve," Mulder told him with a strange smile he didn't quite trust, or like.

"You'll have to let me know how it goes," Skinner said, desperately trying to shake his unease.

"I will."

"Great. I'll be in touch after I see the apartments."

"Thanks," Mulder said, sounding sincere now. Skinner waved and left, noticing that the young man who'd showed him the conference room was headed towards it now.

It was something of a relief to step outside the hospital. As the perfectly ordinary door swung closed behind him, Skinner tried to tell himself that he'd been too hard on Mulder. He wasn't completely better yet, so it was unfair to expect him to be normal. In the end he was more or less convinced that was all it was...but it was a hard sell, though.


Back in his room, Mulder closed his door and sighed. He hadn't lied to Skinner. The combination of therapy and medication were undoubtedly helping him. Noises didn't leave him feeling like he was going to jump out of his skin any more. He hadn't worried that They were near in weeks. And sleeping pills kept his nightmares at bay.

But...

Mulder crossed the room, stopping in front of the mirror. He lifted his shirt and stared at the long pinkish scar across his belly. It still was very visible, even though he was slowly gaining weight.

But he still knew something terrible he couldn't remember had happened to him.

The thing he hadn't told Skinner, and didn't intend to, was one of the reasons he wanted to tell Scully that he was back was because even though he wasn't sure if she'd want him back, she'd help him. That made her different from everyone else who had ever been in his life, and he hoped that their relationship wouldn't be reduced to victim and helper, but if it got him the answer to questions that plagued him, someday soon it might be worth the risk.


A/N: ::holds out plastic pumpkin:: feedback, please :)

Oh, as for those families Scully observed: my mom has red hair, my dad has dark brown, and little bro and I are both redheads too. I always wondered what would've happened If I had more siblings.