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Her tea is cold by the time he finds her tucked in a back corner of what used to be their weekly lunch spot, a thin film of coagulated chamomile solids forming around the lip of the mug.

A hand at her back alerts her of his presence and he slides into the chair across the table before she can stand to greet him with a hug.

Her lips press into a thin line as she studies him, trying not to let her concern and disapproval show. The quick twitch of his lopsided smile tells her that she has failed miserably, and she lets her guard down a bit, smiling a little in return simply because it is good to see him.

"Did you sleep at all?"

Knowing he can't hide anything from his mother, Will shrugs.

"After my little midnight nap? Nah, not really."

He's painfully aware of the gnawing worry behind her careful composure, and as he holds her gaze, she knows she doesn't need to say anything, so instead she leans back, silent for a moment before letting the small smile creep back to her lips.

"Is that a hint of red I see in your beard, Will?"

He chuckles, scratching at the two-day stubble irritably.

"Yeah. Who knew? I really need to shave."

She laughs a little too before delicately pushing them into the realm of more challenging small talk.

"How's Tess?"

She tries not to ask this question often, but when she does, the guilt is almost overwhelming. He tries to push it from his mind, his eyes dropping from his mother's to the table.

Even since before Mulder died, she'd lost her chance at having a whole family little by little, one painful chip at a time. Unable to conceive a second child, even if she'd wanted to. Scarred by her loss to the point of being unable to forge new relationships. Estranged from her brothers, bereaved of her sister. When her mother had died, she'd had no one left but her son, and he'd been miserably absent, consumed by his work. But as William grew into a handsome, intelligent young man, he knew she'd clung to the hope that he'd give her the family she'd never known, that he'd live some semblance of normality which she could experience vicariously through him; his wife, his children.

Of course Scully had loved Tess instantly, clinging to the thought of her like a drowning sailor cast ashore beneath the brilliant glow of a lighthouse. They'd only met a handful of times, but it had been enough to temper her softly-formed image of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren into something desperate and unshakeable.

He can't blame her. Tess had been everything. Brilliant to the point he had to wonder about her genetics. Relentless in her enthusiasm for life. Raven-haired, with delicate wrists and a strange grace that fell in stark contrast to her quick temper, which had scared the shit out of him more times than he could count. She was a force of nature. And she was gone.

He wants to think that it had been mutual, but that would be a miserable lie. She would have followed him to the end of the world, then picked him up and kept on walking. But the future he'd chosen for himself was uncertain at best. So he'd cut her off, pushed her away, and buried all thoughts of her beneath his work. If he succeeded, it wouldn't matter anyway.

"Will?"

"She's good," he lies, dragging himself out of his reverie. "I see her around sometimes." Another lie.

Unable to look her in the eye, he flags down their server for a coffee and orders the first sandwich on the menu, knowing he probably won't eat it till later anyway. Like pretty much everything about William Scully, his sleeping and eating cycles are far from normal.

William sips his coffee, feeling his mother's eyes on him. The silence hangs thick between them as she waits for him to speak, and he knows the time for small talk is over. She wants to know what's going on. The thought makes him nervous. With Dana Scully, there is a very delicate line between just enough information and too much. She'll either leave suspicious that he withheld information and resolved to do her own investigating, or horrified at his ideas, convinced that he's going to get himself killed. Neither is really a good outcome, he thinks with a sigh, and he glances around to make sure nobody is sitting within earshot.

He knows he can't tell her how much he's already seen.

The first fractured glimpse into the past had been entirely an accident, eleven years prior, to the credit of Nathaniel Mills, now the leader of the project. Mills had worked in secrecy for several years until he was able to recreate the experience, at which point he immediately began to assemble a team of physicists and engineers. Will had been one of the second wave of scientists hired as the project advanced, the youngest person involved by over a decade.

Recruited halfway through grad school for his uncanny intelligence and aptitude for conceptualizing the scientifically inconceivable, William had been almost too distracted by pure awe to have self-serving thoughts about his position on the team. A little over a month into the job, however, a simple technical error had taken the world as he knew it inside the confines of his little lab, expanded it tenfold, and flipped the entire meticulously-organized thing on its end.

2020, the engineer at the monitor beside him should have typed. Her name was Judy, he remembers; at the time he'd still been familiarizing himself with all the team members. 2020; just a few years back, an easy peek into a past they already knew; a simple test of alignment.

But she'd slipped. 2000. An insignificant fumble of fingers across the keys, and suddenly there they were on the screen, two suits jumping out at him from the sea of lab coats.

His parents. Young. Smiling. Alive.

They'd been here, in this one of hundreds of labs at MIT. Consulting with some physicist or another about a case. The odds were astronomical. But to William the what, or why, or how didn't matter, because in that moment everything had changed.

He'd spent all night hunched over one of the monitors, following them through time in patches that he could access. The technology was still rusty, and the result was a fractured, grainy, and dimly-coloured silent film. An argument on the steps of the Hoover building; pizza delivery and a movie at apartment 42, 2630 Hegal Place, Alexandria; Mulder's face buried in his hands at his partner's beside, the third day in a week-long hospital vigil for some injury, or maybe her mysterious cancer; both of them crying on her couch after failed IVF.

He can't tell her all that he's seen, but he can try to make her understand.

William takes a deep breath.

"I know you used to work on some pretty unbelievable cases…..so hear me out before you call me crazy."

In the context of any other conversation, she'd have laughed at how Mulder - like this disclaimer sounds. But she only waits tensely for him to continue.

"Time...is malleable," William begins slowly, cautiously. "The events of the past are not set in stone. I've been working with a special research task force at MIT, and we've made some incredible discoveries."

Scully's stomach hardens into an anxious knot as she picks up on his excitement.

"I've been able to look back, Mom," he says softly. "I've been able to see him. See you both, in that year we were all together. And I want that. I want to have grown up with those parents."

Scully's hand is tight on the arm of her chair as his words sink in.

"You saw….the night he died?" Her voice is tight with emotion, bordering on anger. Will nods tensely; he'd drank the better part of a bottle of whiskey the night after that particular flashback.

William's eyes blaze. "We've already been phasing inanimate objects back and forth successfully for weeks. The project director is confident we'll be able to temporally displace animals and people by the end of the month."

She hears the hesitation in his voice.

"And?" She doesn't need to ask aloud, because the answer is written in the guilt on his face.

"...And I've volunteered to be among the first subjects."

Scully squeezes her eyes shut, and tears spill down her cheeks, burning familiar tracks across her skin. I have William; it had been her only comfort for years, and now that comfort seems distant.

He reaches across the table, pulls her hands into his, a sincere attempt at reassurance.

"I can save him, Mom," he says softly, earnestly. "I can stop that night at the motel from ever happening."

She squeezes his hands back, not meeting his eyes.

"No," she chokes, her breath frozen in her lungs. "Even if it's possible, you can't possibly know the consequences. And the risk...Will, if anything happened to you, I-"

He shushes her gently, shaking his head.

"It won't."

She pulls back, and William can see the panic begin to well in her chest. See her remembering some terror or anguish from so many years ago with his father. Remembering the crushing loss she had suffered, and fearing it again for her son.

She doesn't meet his eyes for a moment, and he gives her time to recompose herself. He knows she's thinking of his words on the phone last night: protest too much, and I'll shut you out.

After a minute, she manages a steady breath.

"Can I see some of your notes? I'd like to know….how this all works. So I can know what is happening to you, physically."

Will bites his lip. "Classified, Mom."

She gives him a look that, through some application of energy conversion which has yet to be invented, could probably kill.

"Ok," he concedes, knowing it's the best response he could have expected. "But I promise, I'll be in good hands."

Scully sips her cold tea, unable to speak any further yet.

Will takes his sandwich to go and leaves some money on the table.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Later, she stands in his little apartment, thoroughly overwhelmed and holding a small armful of notebooks and folders. Their conversations had not been as long or detailed as she would have liked, but Will has started getting restless, so she saves him the trouble of trying to politely kick her out by calling it a day.

As she stands awkwardly by the door, unsure how to say goodbye in a way that won't send her into a panic attack, she manages a smile.

Will smiles back, puzzled. His head tips to the side in a way that reminds her endearingly of Mulder.

"What?"

Scully chuckles softly, but he can hear the lingering nervousness.

"If I thought there was any chance of you falling for it, I'd try to lure you back to the house and lock you in the basement or something."

Her tone is lighthearted enough, but he can tell that she's perfectly serious. His answering smile is sad as he pulls her into a reassuring hug, and as she wraps her tiny, fragile frame around his, he wonders just when their dynamic changed; William now the caretaker, his mother the one needing comfort.

"Yeah, I know you would," he says wryly, pulling back to open the door for her. "Too bad there's no stupid in these genes, huh?"

She chuckles again, this time sounding more genuine.

"I'd tell you I'll call with updates, but you're probably going to be keeping pretty close tabs on me now," he muses.

"It would still be good to hear from you. Be safe, Will. Please."

"I will," he promises as he waves her off, finally shutting the door when she gets in her car.

He swallows hard as he leans back against the door, putting his face in his hands.

If I pull this off, I get to have a family, he thinks. A father.

For the first time throughout the entire emotionally trying day, he feels the pricking sting of tears behind his eyelids.

If I fail, I die. And it's going to kill my mother.

Literally. He knows her well enough to know that she won't survive the loss of her son; her only family and last meager source of happiness. He is, in every sense, her only reason for living. And it shouldn't be that way, damn it. The thought is enough to make him push off the door, wiping a hand across his eyes and shaking away his doubts.

Reaching for his keys, Will takes a deep breath. He doesn't have time to speculate on the possible outcomes.

He has to get to work.

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Well, I can't help it. Will is a new character for me, at least a little, so I have to write him a little more extensively than Mulder or Scully. I'm trying to hold to the minimal, semipoetic chapters I've given you so far but Will won't allow it. His arc needs a bit more explaining. I hope you guys can stick with me despite all that. More soon, but review with your thoughts please!