A/N: Just in case of any confusion I thought I'd clarify now. I kept Bill's wife's name the same as in the show. He name is Tara. I'm not sure if Charlie was ever mentioned to be married or not, I can't remember, but in this story he is, and her name is Michelle. They'll have two kids (Isabella and Peter) in this story. Bill and Tara will have one (Matthew).

XXXXX

[Dana Scully's Apartment

Georgetown, Washington DC

Tuesday, 7:23 PM]

"Dana, have you told anyone else about all of this?" Maggie inquired as she took a bit of the spaghetti that Mulder made them.

"Uh, no… actually… if by that you mean 'have I told Bill and Charlie'. I don't know what to tell them, to be honest, Mom." Scully answered sheepishly from across the table. "Hold on." She requested, getting up from the table. She came back a few scones later with a hair tie. They all watched with a smile as she tied Em's hair up into a ponytail so she wouldn't get it in the sauce. Scully's was going to be, and already is, a great mom. "Mom, when does Charlie get back from his deployment?" Scully's asked as she sat back down in her seat next to Em.

Maggie counted the months left on her fingers. "Mm.. not for another… Six months, I think. I'm pretty sure. The last news Michelle gave me was that she and the kids were fine and he was on a year long deployment, so there should be about six left of that." Charlie and his wife, Michelle, we're stationed in Pensacola, Florida until the he got back from his current deployment. Like his father and his older brother, Charlie had gone and joined the Navy as soon as he was old enough. "Oh! I forgot to tell you, didn't I?! Michelle did say that there was a good chance that Charlie was going to be stationed either at the Virginia Beach Base or the local base here in DC after he gets back."

"Really?! Wow, that's great. I haven't seen him in years. And it would be good to have him so close, especially so the kids can get to know each other and bond well. We all know Bill won't be ecstatic about visits, so I'd like Em and Jacob to at least be able to be close with some of their cousins.." Of asked, Scully would admit that she was worried about how Bill would view her new life. He was her brother, even if he was an asshat, too, and she loved him no matter what. But if he was going to be rude or unaccepting of Mulder and her family, then he was going to have to take a step back out of her life. Of course, she didn't want things to progress to that stage; but if he was going to be hostile towards them, she wasn't going to tolerate it.

"Scully, what's Charlie like?," Mulder asked as he bit his lip. Scully could hear and feel the Nero us ness and anxiety ebbing off of him in waves.

She chuckled at his worrying. "Mulder, you won't have to worry about Charlie. He's my little brother and he's not at all like Bill. When you meet him and he sees how happy you guys make me, he'll approve of you. I think you guys could be good friends, too. Charlie likes baseball and basketball almost as much as you do. And he's got a good, goofy sense of humor, as well.."

Maggie smiled at her future son-in-law. "Oh, I agree. You two will get along well."

The women watched as the tensioning his shoulders dissipated and a lopsided grin appeared conservatively on his face. "Okay. That's good."

XXXXX

Maggie and Ellen were both on their way out the door. Ellen needed to go back home to her kids and Maggie had an early morning church meeting in the morning. As Maggie said her goodbyes, Ellen went ahead and went home, already having said goodbye to everyone.

Maggie hugged Scully and asked her to, "Please, call your brother soon. Or at the very least, call Tara and tell her instead. Yeah that might be easier than calling Bill. I can call and see if we can get Michelle and the kids up here, since it's summer break and all.

"Okay, mom. I promise. I'll call them soon. And that sounds good, it would be good to see Michelle and the kids. They must be what?- like eight and five now?" Maggie nodded.

She hugged Em goodbye and kissed her forehead. "Goodbye, sweet girl," she said with a smile.

"Bye, bye, Gramma," she replied tiredly.

Moving to hug Fox, she whispered in his ear before pulling away to leave. "Now matter what Bill says or thinks, you're like a son to me, too. You're a part of this family. And we love you for it. We're better for having you with us." She kissed his cheek and walked out of the apartment before he had a chance to answer her.

He stood there in silent shock, not even knowing how to process what she'd just told them. The click of the door shutting brought him back out of his stupor.

Tears welled in his eyes and he looked over at Scully, who was looking right back at him, a curious expression on her face. It quickly turned to one of concern as soon as she saw the sadness wash over his features. "What? Mulder, what is it?"

He bent down and picked up Em, hugging her close as he closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling of being able to hold his child. One that he thought he'd never have after he found out that Scully was 'infertile' (or so they thought). Grabbing Scully's hand, he led them towards the couch. He laid down, placing Em on his chest, where she snuggled into his neck comfortably. He tugged on Scully's hand, wordlessly asking her to lay down as well.

Scully's complied, scooting her way in between the back of the couch and the side of Mulder's body. Rubbing a hand up and down over Em's back to soothe her, she asked him again. "Mulder?"

Mulder took ahold of Scully's freed hand again and told her what her mother said to him. "I've never had a real family before, Scully. But now I've got you and Em, and soon Jacob.. and now I know that I have Maggie, too… and hopefully your brothers and their families… and then all of the kids we'll have in the future… I- I just- I'm so happy… I've never felt this loved or felt like I'm actually apart of something good that's so, so much greater than just myself." He brought her hand up to meet his lips as a tear rolled down his cheek. "I love you guys. So much."

Scully wrapped her leg over both of his and pulled him and Em closer. "We love you too, Mulder. I don't know what I'd do without you..."

XXXXX

[Future Scully-Mulder Residence

Mclean, Virginia

Wednesday, 2:45 PM]

Collapsing on their newly placed couch, Mulder and Scully both took a deep breath. All of their new furniture was now successfully moved into the house, the Internet and utilities were all set up, and the last of the delivery trucks had just left. Maggie had graciously offered to take Em for the day while they got the majority of the house set up and moved in. Scully leaned her head backwards onto the back of the couch and started massaging her neck.

"I don't like moving. Let's not do this ever again," she whined.

Mulder snorted in laughter. "Scully, we're not moving again if we can help it. If there's more kids than bedrooms, then we can add on to the house or they can just bunk up in the ones that are already there.

Her head rolled to the side to look at him. "Mulder, this house has six bedrooms. We're already going to be taking up three as it is with our family right now.. and we haven't tried for or even discussed when we'd want to have more yet. I think we probably have a while before we need to worry about needing more than six bedrooms. Theres a lot of space here for us to grow into right now. For now, we have the master, Em can have the second closest bedroom to ours, Jacob will have the first, and we'll just have a lot of extra bedrooms." She laughed. Then a thought hit her. "Ooh, Mulder! With three extra bedrooms, we can just have Michelle and the kids stay with us. We already have all the furniture in there… All I'd need to do is put sheets on the beds, which is something I was going to do anyways." She got up excitedly and leaned down to hug him. "I think I should go call her now." She winced, ".. and then I'll call Tara… and hope that she answers and not Bill…"

Mulder groaned at her reminder of the brother who really disliked him. "Alright, then while you do that I'm going to go try and find a good pool company to tell me what the heck I'm gonna have to do to maintain it." He got up and kissed her chastely before striding into the office.

XXXXX

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Scully waited for Michelle to answer the phone as a she sat down at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

"Hello?," Michelle answered in her saccharine tone. Scully could hear the weariness in her voice, even through her overly sweet façade. Going for months on end as a 'single parent', waiting until your spouse could come home, could really have that effect on people.

"Hey, 'Shell. It's Dana…"

"Dana! I haven't heard from you in so long! What's up?"

"Oh… well…. a lot of stuff, actually. Mom and I were hoping that you and the kids could come for a visit?"

Michelle vividly the last time Dana called her to ask her that…. when they thought she wasn't going to live much longer… She was immediately alert and worried, her heart hammering against her chest, blood pounding in her ears, making it difficult to think, let alone hear.. "Dana?! What is it? Are you alright? Is Mom all right? Do we need to come up right now? Is it an emergency?" The words just came flying out of her mouth without a second thought.

It dawned on Scully why she was rushing all of her sentences, anxiety and grief lacing her tone. "Oh, God. No, I'm sorry, Shell. I didn't mean to worry you. Everything is good… really good. I have a few new things in my life and I was hoping you guys could come up for a visit?.. and I'd like it a lot if you guys could come stay with me. I, um, just moved.. so there's plenty of space for the three of you."

"Dana, of course we'll come up. Give me a few days to figure out plane tickets and I'll let you know when we're planning on coming to see you guys."

Scully sighed in relief. "Okay. I can't wait until you guys get here. I've really missed you all."

"We've all missed you, too, Dana. The kids have been asking to see their 'Auntie Day' for a few weeks now- I just hadn't quite gotten around to calling you or mom yet." *Crash!* "Okay, I gotta go… I think the kids just broke something." Michelle groaned. "It sounded expensive. Thanks for calling. I gotta say, you've really got me intrigued with your 'surprises'. I'll call you soon, okay?"

Scully chuckled."Okay, talk to you later, Shell."

"Bye." They both choruses at the same time.

Setting down her phone, Scully decided to go out and buy a bottle of wine before she called Bill's house.

XXXXX

It took two full glasses of wine before Scully could muster up the courage to make the call to San Diego. It was a good thing she had a high tolerance for wine, otherwise she'd probably be pretty tipsy right now. Instead, she had a nice easy buzz that was heating up her veins and making her less anxious.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hello?," a deep, masculine voice answered.

"Shit," Scully muttered in dissatisfaction. It was Bill.

"Excuse me? Who the hell is this?"

She hadn't realized that she had said that out loud. "Oh, sorry Bill. It's me, Dana." She covered her disappointment easily with a fake polite tone of voice.

"Dana? What's up?"

Scully could hear the confusion in his voice. She'd caught him off-guard.

"Oh, I.. was just calling to talk to Tara. Is she home right now?" Scully chickened out.

"No, she went out to lunch with a friend of hers.. What did you want to talk to her about?" He was curious. His little sister never calls him unless she absolutely has to.

"Oh, uh, I wanted to talk to her about it first.. if you don't mind…" Internally, she was screaming at herself. 'Why can't you tell him?! It would be so easy! All you have to do is say: 'Bill, I'm marrying Mulder. He's the love of my life. I don't care about your opinion or your approval. And by the way, we also have two kids. That's right, your new niece and nephew are both half Mulder.' ' Her subconscious was waging a war within her mind. But of course, she was too chicken to listen.

"Okay, Dana…" Bill was highly suspicious of his sisters motives for calling. "I'll have her call you later then…"

"Okay, bye!" Scully hung up quickly, without giving him a chance to reciprocate the statement or try and wiggle more information out of her. She groaned and went to go find Mulder.

XXXXX

"Mulder? What are you doing in the pool?," Scully inquired as she walked outside and saw him floating around in the water.. in his underwear…

"Hey, honey! It was hot out and after I got off the phone with the local pool service, I decided to give it a try while I was out here checking stuff."

"Mulder, but don't you want to at least empty it out first and then refill it before we use it? Who knows who or what's been in there.." Scully shuddered just thinking about it.

He looked around him, contemplating her valid point. "Alright, you're right." He swam over to the edge that she was standing on. "There's no ladder, would you help me out? I should probably go shower this water off."

She sighed, stepping closer to grab ahold of his outstretched hand. "Mulder, no. I have to deep clean the bathrooms before we use them."

Gripping his hand in her own, she went to pull back. He, however, also pulled forward, surprising her and knocking her off balance. She went flying into the water, landing on top of him. "MULDER!," she screamed as she hit the water, fully clothed.

He hauled her up from underneath the water. She sputtered for air. "I can't believe you did that! You jerk!" She was smiling through her words.

Mulder had his arms wrapped around her legs. His hands were resting comfortably on her ass. "I'm sorry, I had to. I've just never been swimming with you, Scully." He pulled out his best innocent charm.

She didn't buy it one bit. "Hmm, well we'll have to remedy that now… won't we?" Scully purred as she tugged his earlobe between her teeth.

"Mmmm, Scully.." he groaned.

'Bingo,' she mused. 'I've got him.' She dove out of his arms, laughing wildly, and started swimming as fast as she could towards the other end of the pool. Grabbing ahold of the edge, she glanced back quickly, only to see him closing in on her.

She hauled herself out of the pool quickly, silently thanking God for her small stature. She barely managed to get out in time before he reached the edge as well.

He grunted in frustration as he got out of the pool himself, watching as she tore away through the grass, towards the back edge of their property. Pooling all of his strength and stamina together, he sprinted after her. It took him about fifty yards or so before he finally caught up to her enough to make a grab for her hips.

Scully squealed in surprise as she felt his hands on her hips, pulling her backwards. She felt her back hit his chest as they both landed flat on the ground. She giggled giddily, wiggling her hips so that she could turn around. In doing so, she was now straddling his waist, with both of her hands framing the ground on the sides of his head. She tilted her head, almost close enough to kiss him, but not quite. "Aren't you going to say your sorry, Agent Mulder?," she asked him huskily, surprising even herself with how low and gravely her voice sounded. She leaned forward a little more.

He tried to capture her lips, but she pulled back too fast for him to succeed. "You tease!," he scolded her as he laughed. She went to readjust her footing and he stole the opportunity. He quickly squeezed her legs into his torso and rolled them over.

She yelped at the sudden movement; and then pouted we she realized that he was on top now, and she was stuck. However, she still had a trick up her sleeve.. Skimming her hands over his abs, chest, and shoulders, she scratched her nails down his back and didn't stop until her hands were palming his ass underneath his boxers. He moaned in response to her actions. They were both acutely aware of the heavy, sopping wet clothes that were between each other, preventing their skin from touching. She removed her hands from his ass and roughly yanked his face down towards hers. With their noses touching, she whispered, "Why don't you carry me back inside, Mulder? I promise to make it worth your while.." She licked his bottom nip and then tugged at it a few times before finally biting down- not enough to draw blood, but enough to hurt, in an erotic way.

Before she knew it, she was upright and being carried across the yard towards the house. "Well, someone's a little eager to christen the house, aren't we?"

All he answered her with was a light chuckle and a "Shut up, Scully."