Vacation: Day Thirteen
That morning, Charlie Scully almost kicks his son in the head, which would've made him a hero to his wife and a criminal to the CPS. Brandon is whining about how boring everything is, and how boring everyone is, and why can't they go back home, when Charlie snaps.
"Come on," he growls, grabbing his son by the shirt collar, and marching him from the door of the cabin all the way to the beachside. His wife almost follows them, but decides not to, since a part of her seems to feel this is a father-son deal, especially since it is her normally-easygoing husband that snapped, and not her.
Brandon has started to whine again when they stepped out, but when his father continues to march him down the street, an already an embarrassing situation, he shuts up. So now here they are, on the beach at the water's edge, with only the morning joggers and sunbathers to keep them company. Brandon wants to ask what is going on, but the look in his father's eyes keeps him quiet.
Charlie looks at his son, then at the water. "Get in," he says, and then pushed his son into the lake before the boy has a chance to decide to listen to him.
His son flails and splashes around before finally standing. "What the heck?" he sputters, his clothes not thoroughly soaked, but wet enough with his socks and shoes on.
His father gives him a quick once-over, then throw him further into the lake. A quick grin follows as he sees his son splashing around, and he jumps in after him. His son starts swimming away as fast as he can, but his couch potato-body is no match for his still-doing-physical-labor dad's, and Charlie quickly catches up to his son.
"Am I going to have to drown that bad attitude, or are we good?" he asks as they tread water with no particular destination.
"We're good," Brandon grumbles, but a grudging smile comes to his face. "You're nuts, you know that?"
Charlie shrugs. "It beats me kicking your head into the wall, which was my first option. Sensei would've wanted me to choose a less violent option, though, so I decided to throw you into the lake."
Brandon pales a little. "Thanks for picking the less violent one." They continue to swim, but back towards the shore, since swimming fully clothed takes a lot more energy than with just swim trunks. "Hey, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Is it too late to sign up at the dojo for fall classes?" his son asks.
Charlie feels like his smile's gonna split his face in half. "I should've thrown you in months earlier," he says and grins.
"Da-aaad," Brandon groans.
"Just kidding." His dad smiles none-too-reassuringly. "Race you back to shore!"
They both swim as hard as they can, but surprisingly, it's practically a tie as to who reaches the shore with their feet first. And for the first time in a long time, they don't think of anything in particular except having as much fun as they possibly can at the beach, engaging in the sort of father-son rivalry that's survived since the Stone Age.
Luke and Gibson decide to tackle the hiking trails by themselves, while Adrianna and the girls go bicycling around the camp, and Sammy and the boys decide to hit the Mountain Sports Center under the supervision of Charlie and Brandon. The rest of the adults, for the most part, have resigned themselves to babysitting duty of the younger children, but mostly because they will be heading up to the north side of the lake later for some entertainment. In the meantime, they and the kids decide to hit the Ice Cream Parlor, followed by the Coffee & Confectionary spot, and then take a quick nap before their nighttime trip.
At least, that is the plan for the babysitting adults. "Why are the best laid plans of mice and men always screwed up by real life?" Mulder grumbles, as everyone seemed to be camped out in his cabin. Okay, it isn't really *their* cabin, per se, but they are sleeping in it, even if Brianna and Zoe don't want to sleep at the moment.
"I'm pretty sure that's not how the saying goes," Scully says archly, then sighs. "Probably because children under the age of four have their own agendas."
Tara yawns, then nods. Her husband tries to hold his yawn back, but fails then grimaces. She smiles briefly before absently patting Mark's back, currently resting on her shoulder. "Maybe we can take a nap while the kids watch over us."
"Now I know you're operating on less than three hours of sleep," Elaine notes, "that made even less sense than I do on ten publishing deadlines."
"Ten?" Scott looks at her in mild horror. "And I thought that I was pushing it."
"You are." His wife nudges him. "No talking about work while on vacation. I want to spend this time as carefree as possible," she says and looks at the room full of infants and toddlers, "well, something like that."
"Speaking of which, what exactly do you do?" Bill asks, pretty much ignoring his wife and Samantha's eye rolls.
Scott, however, does notice, but answers with a slight grin, "I'm just an executive assistant to a CEO."
"Okay," Bill says, satisfied with that reply, although now it seems that Tara's curiosity is piqued.
Then Marisa and Melody start wailing, joined by their other two siblings after a beat.
"Time to forget about work." Mulder grins wryly, as he joined his brother-in-law. "And get down to business, shall we?"
It doesn't take long for them to get various babies diapered and/or fed, but it takes the better part of the afternoon to take care of the toddlers, and the afternoon nap doesn't come soon enough.
Everyone is encouraged to come to the Shakespeare at the Lake performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" that night, although it isn't mandatory. Charlie drives his family to the northeast side of the lake, along with the Doggett siblings, and Scott comes too with his girls since he and Samantha have wanted the older kids to see "something with culture". Scully plans to check out "As You Like It" on another day, but figures she might as well humor Mulder when he says that the main characters in "Much Ado" remind him of them. Page goes with them, since she declared herself "old enough to watch Shakespeare", though none of her siblings share her desire and stay behind with their aunt Tara.
So they get their tickets, their dinner at Shakespeare's Kitchen, fill a good portion of the side gallery's cheap seats, and proceed to catch up with each other on events of the day before the performance starts. The cool breeze from the lake picks up, and the temperature drops enough that more than a few are thankful to have brought a sweater or hoodie with them.
Mulder notices the way the stage is set against the backdrop of the grand lake, which will help carry the acoustics toward the crowd, as well as the towering trees making everything seem a little more like a playhouse, and the slope of the facing hill is providing a natural amphitheatre for the stage. And then he thinks, I've been spending way too much time with Federman to be taking all this into account when the play hasn't even started yet.
The Doggett boys and Charlie and Elaine are comparing hiking notes when the lights come up onstage and one man, dressed in his Shakespearean best, waves around a piece of paper before spouting his first lines. Adrianna and her sisters started whispering and giggling about the actor playing Claudio, while Page does her level best to keep up with that conversation as well as the dialogue onstage. Gibson decides to take a nap rather than deal with the inner monologues of everyone around him, while Luke started taking notes on the costumes and sets for a turn-based, D&D-type game he is planning on sketching out. Brandon tries not to notice his parents getting lovey-dovey with each other, while Hannah only smiles and promised herself to call her parents as soon as she gets back to the cabin. Scott and Samantha are watching the immediate audience almost as much as they're watching what's onstage, although Scott's trying not to groan every time one of his daughters starts swooning over some actor.
As for Mulder and Scully, they roll their eyes at Claudio and Hero, but find themselves rooting for the quick-witted (and at times, quick-tempered) banter between Beatrice and Benedick. Every so often, Mulder shoots a look at his wife, or Scully raises an eyebrow at her husband, and their nonverbal comments are almost as eloquent as the verbal darts and arrows the onstage "non"-couple aim at each other. Scully pauses every now and then to quickly explain to Page what's going on, although she knows that her bright daughter would rather understand her cousins' gossip rather than what the actors are saying.
And when Act 3 wraps up, Page feels what might be her first ever headache coming on, Adrianna wants to wring Claudio's neck, Gibson wakes up from his nap, and Luke finds himself trying to explain what just happened to Hannah, even though he barely understands it himself. Ariel and Alyssa, however, think that Don John is a jerk that should be run over so that Claudio and Hero can get together, and they interrupt Luke's explanations with their own opinions.
Thoroughly bored, Brandon and Gibson find themselves chatting about their favorite videogames, and the pros and cons of handheld versus consoles. Brandon offers a bit of grudging admiration when he figures out that Gibson and his brother are going to be studying videogame development when they start college later in the month.
Scully escorts the girls when they feel it's time for a bathroom break, while Mulder goes off for a refill of their drinks. Scott and Charlie start to debate the finer points of that last scene but then think better of it and start debating the finer points of their favorite football teams instead. Elaine rolls her eyes at Samantha, who laughs and they resume sharing motherhood war stories from before the afternoon nap, which are usually much more bloodier and gorier than anything Shakespeare could dream up, and which give their respective husbands the chills.
It probably doesn't help that when the play resumes, and the wedding is disrupted by Claudio's accusations, Adrianna is glaring daggers at Don John, while Page's lower lip jutted out, aware of the injustice, but also aware that it is only a play. Mulder hugs his little girl and murmurs, "It's not over yet." She nods, and, now that her cousins are silenced by everyone else's babbling and shrieking onstage, she frowns in concentration to match the words with the actions. Her frown is startled into surprise when her female cousins gave a cheer at Benedick's oath to challenge Claudio to a fight, and to confusion when the goofy guys (as she'd privately termed them) admit to what seems to be the police the truth about Don John – and how the police don't believe the goofy guys. "Just like people don't always believe the Lone Gunmen," Mulder says in a low voice as the lights dim for the next act.
Even as the truth comes out, consequences dealt with and another lie is thrown into the mix, but somehow, in all the mess, something like a happy ending comes out of it. "Trust Shakespeare to take the worst of human nature and make the best of it," Scott comments, his words almost lost as they all stand up and applaud the end of the show with the rest of the audience.
Mulder murmurs to his wife, "Maybe Bill should watch this instead of 'As You Like It'. I don't know if he'd do well with cross-dressers."
"Shut up, Mulder," Scully nudged her husband, then looks over at their eldest daughter, who is wiped out from the day. Hannah also looks like she could use about forty or fifty winks, since she's yawning up a storm. "Let's go back."
He nods, and they all slowly herded their families through the crowd of other families and friends who'd come to enjoy the view and food, even as they picked up one sleepy child or another. An older child's voice makes him turn around, though. "Uncle Fox?"
"Yeah?" he says, shifting Page on his shoulder.
It is Ariel, looking a little embarrassed as she held her sister Alyssa's hand. "Can you tell Page sorry when she wakes up?"
"Why's that?"
"'Cause we cheated and read the play before the trip, back when you and Aunt Dana first brought it up," Alyssa says. "Page didn't, and I think she got lost."
Mulder smiles, "Wish we'd thought of that ourselves. Maybe we'll check it out when we get back home. I think they made a movie of it, too."
Ariel nods. "Yeah, we saw that, too. The Don John there was kinda dumb, but Claudio was way cute for an old guy."
And now I feel ancient, Mulder thinks, but nods. "See you back at the cabins."
The girls smile, and run to catch up with the rest of their family. Huh, Mulder thinks, Samantha's girls are sneakier than we thought. I'd better make sure Page learns the right things from them.
Vacation: Day Fourteen
By this point, it feels like they've finally gotten into the vacation spirit. Bill and Tara's mother's helper, a retired woman named Crystal, comes every afternoon to watch the quadruplets, so that frees them up to spend more time with Mattie outside the cabin. Their mornings are still hectic, however, as are their nights, since the quads have yet to fall into longer sleep patterns.
Mulder and Scully decide to bring them breakfast, and when the other families hear about that, they want to take turns doing the same. "Fine with me." Mulder smiles. "Less money out of my pocket." Scully swats him, but she can't argue about the budget.
Brandon declares a truce with his mom, since he and she are more alike than they want to be, at least, that is his dad's explanation. So he spends the morning with his dad at the sports center, while she stays back and read the latest novels by the Letourmaines, including one that Scully insisted she read, "Guarding Her Heart," finding it a little hard to believe that the parents of three of their fellow campers inspired the plot. In the afternoons, she goes bicycling with Charlie while Brandon plays his videogames, and at night, it is family time, when everyone is too wiped or has their mouths too full to yell at each other.
"Truces are awesome," Brandon mutters in between wolfing down slices of pizza. His parents can't agree more.
Adrianna and her sisters have taken Page and Hannah under their wing, which makes Luke despair that his little sister will turn into a girlie-girl. This causes Gibson to snort. "She already is, doofus." The girls spent their time together bicycling, sightseeing/gossiping about people they saw on their route, discussing beauty tips, and occasionally fishing...for compliments, that is.
Gibson has already dismissed them, although it is refreshing to see that their thoughts pretty much matched their actions. Luke, on the other hand, liked to see that his sister is getting along with the other kids, but also liked to see that some of those others happened to be rather cute teenage girls, even if they are kinda young.
Scott and Samantha are already used to their daughters being blonde beauty queens, but are more than happy to see Drew play and rough-house with his boy cousins. Occasionally, April joins them, too, but only when she isn't helping her parents watch over the little ones.
Speaking of the little ones, Brianna and Zoe are starting to be more rambunctious as time goes on. William isn't helping, either. In fact, Mulder has caught him being the instigator on this latest occasion. The three youngest of the Mulder kids have managed to uncushion every chair and strip several beds of their bedding as they build and demolish a fort made from the stolen goods.
"Gotcha," he grabs his baby boy as he's knocking off the last cushion, then sits on the floor and narrowed his eyes at his twin daughters, who looks up at him innocently from their semi-tent of cushions.
"Stop it," Mulder grumbles. "I was the one who started the innocent look." William, safe in his arms, laughs in a hiccuppy way, and his father pouts.
"Mulder, what are you up to?" Scully says,
"Why do you always blame me?" he asks. "You should know that it was his fault this time."
She gave him a look. "You are not pinning the blame on a little toddler, are you?"
He shrugs. "Well, it was a group collaboration. Your darling daughters," he says and shots a look at them, and they continue to look sweet, "followed their big brother's lead and knocked the cushions off the couches and tried to turn them into cushy building blocks."
She shakes her head, and he sighs. "It's nice to know your imagination hasn't rusted away," she notes, starting to put the cushions back where they belong. Mulder sighs and folds the nearest blanket he can reach.
"I'm not kidding, I saw them- Oh, never mind." Mulder continues to pout.
He doesn't see his wife smirking as her back is turned to him, nor does he see her wink at her baby girls. If they could, they'd probably wink back. Scully leaves the cushions around her daughters alone, remembering how she and her siblings long ago would make castles out of the fancy chairs and bunkers out of couches and cushions. "It's okay," she coos at her twin girls, "Daddy just needs some lunch and a quick jog."
He raises his eyebrows at her. "And what about you?"
She smiles briefly. "I'm not the one talking deliriously from an empty stomach, and I know you've been dying to run a few laps around the camp. It's okay, I want to spend time with my babies."
"Okay," he says, and goes to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich and gulp down some milk – from a cup, not the carton. Then he kisses William, Zoe, Brianna and his wife. "You sure you're gonna be okay?"
She rolls her eyes. "It's okay, Mulder." He smiles, then waved before heading out the door. She waves back, then grins at her children when the door closes. "So, who's going to be the big loud monster?"
A/N: This fic is now completely written. If you'd like to see the remainder chapters posted more frequently, and especially if you'd like to see more sequels, feedback feedback feedback!