Before Scully even opened her eyes, the twin sensations of cotton in her mouth and fire in her shoulder radiated through her. It took her a few minutes to adjust to the light that was filtering through the bedroom. When she was finally able to focus, she was shocked to see the clock blinking 12:30 PM. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept that long. Slowly, she got out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom, where she saw a prescription bottle in the sink. "Goddamn it, Mulder," she said to herself as she put the sleeping pills back in the medicine cabinet. The last time she had one was the night back in March when she had found out about everything he had been hiding from her.

But this time, it was her father who had been keeping secrets.

As Scully took a shower, she shuddered, remembering what had transpired the evening before. The thought of her father cutting a deal with the Consortium made her head spin. She increased the heat of the water, hoping the stinging sensation—and the accompanying pain—would release some of her stress. She didn't turn the water off until she was completely immersed in a cloud of steam.

She did her best to wrap a towel around herself one-handed, knowing that there would be no way she could dry her hair. She settled for some curl creme, which she clumsily applied with her right hand. Despite feeling terrible, she had mustered just enough energy to not want frizzy hair. She practically snorted as the thought crossed her mind; out of all of the crazy things that had happened over the past week, she somehow still gave a damn about her hair. Lost in her musings, she jumped when she saw Mulder appear behind her through the mirror.

"I heard the water going," he murmured, handing her a mug of coffee. "I wanted to make sure we talked before the kids climbed all over you."

"There's really nothing to say, Mulder," Scully started warily before he cut her off.

"Cut the bullshit, Scully," Mulder growled, causing Scully to spill her coffee. "I need to hear you say something about this. You can't pretend this is not happening."

"What do you want to hear, Mulder? That my father cut a deal with the devil?"

"That's a start," Mulder replied, his voice softening. "I know you are still processing this, but you can't retreat. We—you—need to start thinking about how much you want to know."

"We," Scully replied, answering his unspoken question and prompting a look of relief cross her partner's face. She felt taken aback by Mulder's reaction—had he really doubted that she didn't think that they were in this together? Or were their respective insecurities mixing their signals? She set the coffee down on her nightstand and sank back down on the bed.

"We," repeated Mulder, sitting next to her. "Your brother wants to find answers, and if we try to stop him, he'll…we at least need to be on the same page as him, even if we don't agree with what he wants to know. He'll need whatever protection we can provide."

"I just want to know that our kids are safe and won't be taken from us," Scully shared.

"I promise you, that won't happen," affirmed Mulder. "I just don't know what you're thinking, Scully. If we're in this together, we're going to have to talk about difficult things, and we're going to have to make decisions."

"But I don't know what I'm thinking," Scully protested. "And in my defense, you drugged me last night. Do I at least get a pass?"

Mulder sighed. He knew she had a point. When he had first realized that she had finally woken up, he had slipped upstairs before the kids figured it out, hoping to give her some breathing room. And instead, he had bombarded her, and most likely, had stressed her out even more than the boys would have.

"All I need is a day, Mulder," she softly explained. "I'm all out of sorts between the medication and the pain and I just want to spend time with you and the kids. I promise, we'll talk about this tomorrow, I just need to focus on everything else."

He nodded. "No, you're right," he finally agreed, lacing his left hand with her right. "But there is something that we need to discuss that can't wait."

XXXXX

Kyle was nervous as he sat in the living room, waiting for his father and Dana to dole out their punishment. Mulder had made it clear to him earlier in the day that they would be having a family meeting (a phrase that made him roll his eyes) when his brothers went down for their afternoon naps, and the wait had seemed to be an eternity. Charlie had taken him and Peter down to the beach that morning, but he wasn't able to quite enjoy himself, not knowing what to expect later that day. At lunch, his uncle had announced that he was taking the boat out fishing for the afternoon, and invited Kyle to join him and Peter. He found himself agreeing to go with them when he looked up and saw his father shaking his head. He had barely started to protest—he only started to say, "But Dad," and was met with a firm "no."

He had then stomped off, barricading himself in his bedroom, fruitlessly hoping that his father would forget all of it—the punishment, the attempt to go out on the boat, everything. But a half-hour later, he heard a loud knock on his door, and before he could respond, his father popped his head in, instructing him to wait in the living room. "Whatever," he muttered, throwing a baseball across the room. He made his way downstairs, noticing both Dana and his father in the nursery. He rolled his eyes and made his way downstairs, flopping down on the couch, flipping on the television. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it certainly wasn't long enough, when his father came into view, turning the set off himself.

Mulder cleared his throat before taking a seat on the ottoman that flanked the easy chair where Scully sat, both of them facing Kyle. "I get it, I'm in trouble," Kyle began when he realized that no one was speaking. "So I can't watch TV for a few days."

The eleven-year-old's eyes darted between his father and his stepmother, both of whom remained silent as he continued with his nervous chatter. "And I can't go to the beach for a day? Two days?"

"And how will that solve the problem?" Mulder asked, secretly impressed that Kyle had obviously been spending time thinking about his punishment. He wasn't sure what had been going on in his oldest son's head over the past couple of days.

"Because I'll learn my lesson and won't do it again."

Smooth, Mulder thought. "And what exactly won't you do again?"

"I'll do what I'm told, I won't talk back, and I won't say really mean things," rattled off Kyle.

"That's a start," Mulder agreed. "But I think we have a few other things going on here, buddy."

Kyle groaned. He hadn't actually been expecting a lecture—he was relying on his father's tendency to act the part of the unstrict parent to make their discussion as short as possible.

"Okay," Kyle sighed as dramatically as possible. "Dana, I shouldn't have said those things to you. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings."

"Better," Mulder murmured as Scully told Kyle that she accepted his apology. He had been hoping that Kyle would have shown at least some of the emotion that he had the afternoon before; however, while Kyle's delivery could use some work, anyone could see just by looking at him that he felt some sense of remorse. Lost in thought, it took him a moment to realize that Kyle was about to make his escape.

"We're not done," Mulder said. "Just listen. This part isn't really about your punishment. It's about us, as a family."

He hesitated before continuing, looking over at Scully for reassurance. Once he saw her begin to nod, he turned to face Kyle.

"We haven't done a great job over the past few weeks in setting some ground rules," Mulder continued. "We've been kind of tip-toeing around one another, and that's probably made everything more stressful. We haven't really had a routine for the past few days, and that hasn't really helped things. There's been some grown-up stuff going on, and so what I'm trying to say is, Scully and I talked, and we think it would be nice if we tried to have dinner together."

"But we do," Kyle protested.

"We do for about five minutes, and then we let you and Peter go off on your own," argued Mulder, who tried to check his annoyance.

"But Nathan and Will get loud and you just ignore us anyway."

Mulder could detect a faint whine in Kyle's voice that sounded much like that of his younger children, something he knew he shouldn't mention to Kyle, although the thought was quite tempting.

"So let's try 15 minutes for the rest of the week, okay?"

He was surprised that Scully had jumped right in, but pleasantly so. He reached behind her, rubbing circles on her lower back to convey his gratitude for joining in on their conversation. "I think that would work," Mulder agreed, keeping a close eye on Kyle's reaction to her suggestion.

"Whatever," Kyle muttered. "Can I go now?"

"Not yet," Mulder said. "There's one thing I that I want to make abundantly clear to you. The other day, Scully had every right to pull you out of camp early. We make decisions around here together, and I will always trust her judgment, especially when I can't physically be here for you and your brothers. So don't question anything she asks you to do. Ever."

"Yeah," Kyle shrugged, looking at the floor.

"Look at me," Mulder demanded. "I need to know that you understand."

"I get it," Kyle mumbled, looking up at his father.

"I hope so," Mulder relaxed, relieved that he had gotten through that conversation. He looked over at Scully for confirmation that they had said everything they had planned.

"Remember how we were playing games at night, after dinner? Scrabble and Boggle and Monopoly? I miss doing that," Scully continued, heartened by the fact that Kyle hadn't been outrightly hostile, at least not yet. "Maybe we should try to do something like that tonight?"

"I guess, but you guys are the ones who are always telling me to leave the room," Kyle exploded.

"You're absolutely right about that," Mulder answered, hanging his head. "And that's on us, not you. So all three of us will try, okay? I know it hasn't been easy for you, buddy, but we're doing our best. And we're going to try harder. And I think that you might want to take her up on that offer since you won't be able to watch TV or use any computer for the next three days."

Kyle winced. He thought he had almost made his father forget about his punishment. "Understood," he said.

"And as a gesture of good faith," continued Mulder. "Because we know that you missed out this week, why don't you see if a few kids from camp can come over on Saturday. But you're on dangerously thin ice, and we'll call it off if you so much as even think of disobeying either one of us or if you even try to get out of your seat at the dinner table before being excused."

"Really?" Kyle broke out into a grin. "Thanks, Dad."

"Thank Scully, it was her idea," Mulder said grudgenly. "She convinced me that you are mature enough to realize that this wouldn't be us rewarding you for your bad behavior."

"Thanks, Dana," Kyle said shyly.

After giving his son permission to escape the confines of the living room, Scully turned to Mulder. "How do you think that went?"

"I have no fucking idea," Mulder laughed. "I'm just glad that's over with."

"Not as much as he is," Scully bantered. "I think it was a little awkward for everyone."

"Baby steps," Mulder replied, unsure if he was trying to convince Scully or himself.

Scully's eyes glazed over, as though she had suddenly remembered something. "What's wrong?" Mulder asked her, concerned.

"It just hit me," Scully explained, sitting back in the armchair, ignoring the pain radiating from her shoulder. "We've really made a mess of things. How can we even contemplate investigating anything when we clearly can't even juggle a vacation, when neither of us are even working?"

Mulder hesitated, unsure if he wanted to push Scully to have the conversation she had begged to postpone just a few hours earlier. She had offered him a small window of opportunity, and he decided to take it before she shut him down. Before he could open his mouth, noise erupted over the baby monitor. "I'll get him," Mulder offered, knowing Scully wouldn't be able to do any lifting or diaper-changing with her injury. When he returned with Nathan a few moments later, the two-year-old quickly figured out that he had the undivided attention of both his parents, and the three settled down to play with his favorite animal-alphabet puzzle.

XXXXXX

Once Will woke up from his nap, they took the boys outside to play. As Mulder was herding the toddlers outside, Scully slipped upstairs to ask Kyle if he wanted to join them. To her surprise, he didn't reject the offer outright. "I'm almost finished with this chapter," he said, rolling back on the balls of his feet. "It's a summer reading book."

"We're not going anywhere," Scully told him as she moved away from his doorframe. "We'll see you outside."

"Oh, Dana?" Kyle asked nervously, his words crashing together. He was standing on tip-toes, favoring one leg, and then the other.

"Yup?" Scully responded, turning around so she could face him.

"I'm really sorry," he stumbled. For a split-second, Scully thought he was going to cry.

"I know you are," Scully replied kindly, walking back towards him, softly touching his shoulder. "I was just thinking that we haven't really spent a lot of time together. I should be back to driving next week. Maybe I can pick you up from camp one afternoon, and we can go do something on our own? A movie or the bookstore? Think about it."

"Mini-golf?" Kyle pleaded, a smile tugging on his face.

"Of course," Scully grinned back. Despite his tendency to act the champion of everything tacky, Mulder detested mini-golf, and had made his displeasure of the activity (he refused to call it a sport) well-known. "That would be fun."

She couldn't help but continue to smile as she made her way to the backyard, where Mulder was patiently rolling a soccer ball to Nathan. "Kick it," she could hear her partner call out. With a fierce look of concentration, Nathan followed through with his father's instructions, and promptly fell over, giggling as he pushed himself back up onto his feet.

"Me!" Will babbled, running fiercely towards the ball until he stopped completely right as he approached it, unsure of how to coordinate his next move. He looked over at his father, trying to mimic his stance, and lightly tapped the ball. As he looked back over at his parents, he accidentally pushed the ball several feet, much to his surprise.

"Don't overthink it, Will," Mulder called out. "Don't overanalyze it like your mom. Just follow your instincts, buddy."

"You're terrible," Scully chuckled, softly swatting Mulder's chest. Watching him try to coach two children under the age of three in the art of soccer was amusing enough. She knew he was tempted to get out the foam t-ball set, but since that attempt at sportsmanship had resulted in Nathan thumping everything in sight with the bat—including Will's head—he was relegated to an activity that did not require equipment that could mimic a light saber.

"Everything okay? You disappeared for a bit," Mulder asked, trying to downplay his concern.

"Talking to Kyle. He'll be out in a few minutes," Scully said quietly. "He apologized."

"Good," Mulder smiled, slipping his arm around her waist, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm proud of him."

"Me too. It's baby steps," Scully echoed. Maybe they were doing something right after all.

XXXXXX

Kyle kept his word, and joined everyone outside just as Charlie and Peter, slightly sunburnt and dripping from the water, returned from the dock. After running around with the kids for a few minutes, Scully grew tired, and slipped off to the hammock, which allowed her a perfect view of everyone playing. She was so engrossed in watching the kids chase each other around, she barely realized that Mulder was trying to climb in beside her. "Don't move," he murmured as he did his best to counter-balance her weight. The last thing he wanted was to make a sudden movement that would result in her tumbling to the ground.

"It's just physics, Mulder," she teased as he attempted to stretch the rope and fit his lanky body into the rather small space in which she was perched. "Let's do it this way." She got up from her seat, allowing him to lie down, and before she could step back into the hammock he had tipped her backwards, landing right on top of him.

"I like this way better, physicist," he agreed as they readjusted their positions. "It's no use arguing with the woman who rewrote Einstein."

Scully let out a contented sigh—it was nice to stretch out like this, with him, outside, in full view of the kids, the house, the water. The sun was just low enough that it filtered through the trees, the light practically sparkling off the kid's faces.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Mulder said softly into her ear.

She looked intent at the scene before her. Charlie must have begged off playing, now seated in an Adirondack chair with a beer at his side. It was finally happening. The boys, all four of them, playing with one another without any prompting from an adult. It looked like a slightly complicated game, with Kyle and Peter tossing the soccer ball to one another, while the toddlers chased after whoever had it in their possession. As soon as they saw it in the air, they headed in that direction. Although it was resulting in some tripping and tumbles, there were no tears, at least not yet. Scully even caught site of Kyle helping Nathan up, spinning him around a bit in the process, prompting giggles of delight from the two-year-old. After setting Nathan down, Kyle tripped over Will, who fell over flat on his back.

Scully could feel Mulder start to tense behind her, and as he drew a deep breath, she murmured, "Let them work it out."

Sure enough, Kyle helped up his youngest brother, who was a bit unsteady on his feet at first, but soon took his sibling's hand as they ran out a bit, to chase after the ball that Peter threw. "I think this is the first time that he's played with them without being asked," Mulder said in amazement.

"I'm not sure if we should tell him, but it sure looks like he's enjoying it too. They all are," Scully said. "Mulder, we owe it to them."

"Hmm?" asked Mulder. "I don't know what you mean."

"We owe it to these boys to figure out all of this…the truth, whatever it ends up being. It's not fair to them otherwise," she continued. "But how do we do that without sacrificing being present in their lives? What's the tipping point? I know us, Mulder, we never do anything halfway."

"We come up with a plan, Scully," Mulder assured her. "And we stick to it."

"Until we go off course."

"Can we agree that we should at least try?"

Scully bit her lip, frustrated. "But the cost, Mulder, it's not just a matter of us inconveniencing ourselves with a lost weekend or all-nighter anymore."

"We give up the legwork part," Mulder responded. "We only get information once it has been confirmed and re-confirmed twice over."

Scully tensed, wondering how long Mulder had spent preparing himself for this conversation. He had obviously been gearing up for a discussion, if not for an all-out fight. "You've been thinking about this," she finally said.

"It's been on my mind," Mulder agreed. "Especially since the night of the 3rd, when I flew out to New York."

"The night we fought," Scully murmured.

A cry pierced through the yard. Scully turned around to see that Nathan had once again fallen, but this time wasn't getting up. "To be continued," Mulder muttered.

"I'm surprised they lasted this long," Scully responded, wondering in what direction her conversation with Mulder was heading. She pushed those thoughts aside as she climbed out of the hammock and walked over to where the boys were playing.

"Nathan, what's going on, monkey?" Mulder asked, scooping Nathan up in his arms. He was streaked with dirt from head to toe, and Scully could see his skinned his knee pretty badly.

An equally filthy Will toddled over to his mother, wrapping his arms around her knee. "Up," he whined. "Up!"

"I can't really do that today, bullfrog," Scully said sadly, running her good hand through his hair, cursing her shoulder injury. "i'm sorry."

"Is he really hurt?" Kyle nervously asked, his tone quieter than usual.

"I think he's tired and hungry more than anything. You had a good run with these guys. They really kept up with you two. Did you have fun, Will?"

Will nodded, "Zoosh."

"Juice for everybody," Scully agreed. "Juice and bath and dinner. In that order."

XXXXX

Before she could get a good look at Nathan's wound, Scully had to get him cleaned up. Neither toddler enjoyed being scrubbed up and down in the tub on a good day, and Scully didn't want to irritate Nathan's scrapes with bubble bath. "Bubbs!" Will kept requesting, only moderately distracted by his boat and rubber ducky bath toys.

"I'm surprised there's any dirt left outside," Mulder whistled as he pulled both boys out of the tub. They settled Will into clean clothes and set him down with some toys as Mulder held Nathan so Scully could get a look at his knee. "It's going to sting but only for a few seconds," Scully warned her son as she put some bacitracin ointment over the scrapes.

"No!" Nathan cried out, kicking and clinging to his father.

"I'm sorry, baby," Scully apologized, putting a bandage over his cut. "It will feel better soon."

"No!" Nathan firmly repeated, turning away from his mother, and burying his face in Mulder's chest.

"Mommy is making sure it doesn't hurt even more," Mulder soothed the overtired toddler. "You're okay, little monster."

Nathan made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with this mother, turning away from her every time she even so much as looked at him. Both Mulder and her brother told her not to take it personally, but those sentiments failed to provide any comfort. Nathan remained glued to his father, sitting on his lap throughout dinner. If he hadn't made such a big production over eating together, Mulder would have tried to have gotten the two-year-old to bed early, and pushed off his own meal until after his son had fallen asleep.

Surprisingly, Kyle hadn't kept a close eye on the clock. Mulder surmised that his oldest son was more engaged in conversation than he usual, and when he did leave the table, it was to go back outside with Peter, so they could make s'mores over the dying embers of the grill. He glanced over at Scully and smiled. "We can't win them all over at the same time," he joked, looking down at Nathan in his arms. "Hey buddy, are you going to say good night to Mommy?"

"No bed," Nathan firmly responded, clutching Doggy with one hand, and his father's t-shirt in the other.

"You're not sleepy at all, monkey?"

"No," he shouted, prompting chuckles from both his parents. His stubbornness was always at its fiercest peak when he was sleepy, and his plump lower lip would quiver, a miniature version of his father.

"Are you going to stay up all night?" Mulder asked Nathan, who was fighting the urge to close his eyes.

"I love you, monkey," Scully said to Nathan, smoothing down his curly hair. She was waiting for him to flinch, and when he did not, she said to Mulder, "I guess I've been forgiven."

"He certainly made his feelings known about being patched up."

"Just like his daddy," Scully smiled.

"I've never kicked," Mulder defended himself, with mock innocence.

Scully raised her eyebrows.

"Because of that," Mulder corrected himself.

"That might be too much information," Charlie snorted from across the table.

Will banged his fist on his highchair tray. "Want out of jail, buddy?" Charlie asked him as he walked over to pick up his nephew.

"How'd you like your dinner, bullfrog?" Scully asked her youngest son.

"Up!" Will demanded, prompting Charlie to lift him up to Scully's lap.

"At least one of these guys isn't mad at me," said Scully, wiping off Will's face as best she could with one hand. She looked around the table—she barely remembered eating dinner the past couple of nights. Everything had been such a blur. But she could perfectly recall everything that had just transpired over their evening meal—the bad puns Mulder and Peter had exchanged, the exaggerated stories Charlie had told, the dog names Kyle was considering for their yet-to-be-adopted puppy, and the look of pride that had crossed her partner's face when he had looked at the clock and realized that despite the passage of the fifteen minute mark, everyone was still together at the table.

"Scully? Does that sound good to you?"

She snapped her head up, "What?"

"Do you want to play Pictionary?" Mulder repeated. "Or do you need to go to bed?"

"I'm up for a game," she quickly recovered with a smile.

XXXXXXX

"I don't think we should get our hopes up too much," Mulder said as he brushed his teeth. "Although tonight was a lot of fun."

"It was fun," Scully said as she took off her sling, gingerly rubbing her shoulder. "Who knew Kyle was such an artist?"

"I sure as hell didn't," Mulder admitted. "Should I have?"

"I didn't mean it like that," Scully groaned. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you didn't—"

"I know, I know," Mulder defensively interrupted as he sat down on the bed. "I just get confused. It's been four months and I still feel like the weekend, part-time dad."

"You did a good job talking to him today," said Scully.

"We talked to him," corrected Mulder.

"You did most of the talking," Scully said.

"But you were right next to me. That was the important thing. Letting him know that there are two of us," Mulder distractedly explained.

"Mulder, it's a work-in-progress," reminded Scully. "It's going to feel strange for a while. But it was a fun afternoon. He stayed for dinner."

"I guess," Mulder shrugged. "I just want this to work so badly that I'm overthinking it."

"What are you worried about? Talk to me," Scully asked, taking in the look of disappointment in his face.

"Are you up for finishing the conversation we started this afternoon?" he asked tentatively.

Scully nodded, completely unsure of what he was going to say next. "For the first time in twenty-five years, I know where my sister is," Mulder sighed. "I don't have the answers to the why and the how, but I know that she is safe, and I have a way to keep tabs on her. Granted, there is always the question of how much I should trust my source."

"And?"

"We're in a position where we can start to put the pieces together, Scully. All of a sudden, we have a plethora of information at our fingertips. It all connects—we have leads everywhere. It will take a long time do dig through everything, between school records and the photo album and whatever else might be in that hard drive downstairs."

"Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Scully asked, seriously.

"I don't know," Mulder sighed, his frustration obvious. "Do we really want to know? What good would it do?"

"It could protect the boys," Scully realized Mulder's dilemma. "Or it could mean absolutely nothing."

"Last night, I told Charlie everything about Samantha," Mulder confessed. "And he wants to help us figure out all of this. How my sister could connect to your father."

"We can't let him," Scully immediately protested. "We can't protect him."

"He's an adult, Scully. I laid it all out, and he is interested. He wants answers about your father," pointed out Mulder. "And I think it would be helpful for someone with fresh eyes to see all of this."

"It could be dangerous."

"It could be more dangerous for everyone if he doesn't do this," Mulder explained.

"I don't like this," Scully muttered. "But I know that the more I protest, the more determined he'll be to want to see this through. Just promise me, Mulder, that you and I stay on the same page with all of this."

"My motivation, Scully, in all of this, is for us and our kids. And I am going to do everything to keep us safe. I have some letting go to do—I know I can't just rush out of here at the drop of a hat, and that I can't pull all nighters researching bumps in the dark."

"You say that now, Mulder, but in a couple of months we go back home, back to DC," Scully reminded him.

"And then we go back to work, and I keep those political channels open," Mulder knelt down next to her. "Now that I—we have specific information, we'll be able to target our inquiries better."

Scully's face fell.

Fuck, Mulder thought. It was only he who would be able to go back to work. "Scully, this trial will blow over, and you'll be back at the Hoover building where you belong," he said, taking her hand. "Slicing and dicing everyone else to shame."

"I know," Scully bit her lip, trying to keep her emotions in check. It wasn't Mulder's fault. "It's fine, Mulder. I'm okay with all of this. I wouldn't want a case to be compromised because of something as ridiculous as my last name."

"It's not fair," Mulder told her.

"I'm over it, Mulder," Scully grumbled. "So what's next for the dynamic duo and kid brother?"

"Your medical records from the hospital stay in Bethesda," laid out Mulder.

"Those could be anywhere. Most people's medical records are destroyed after ten years, unless they have a chronic or recurrent condition. You didn't really think you could get those after making a couple of phone calls and flirting with a unit secretary?"

"It's worked in the past," Mulder joked. "At least the hospital still exists."

"Well I don't have them," Scully kidded.

"So you're okay with this?"

Scully nodded. "We need to tread carefully," she warned Mulder.

XXXXX

Mulder found it difficult to get to sleep, unsure of whether Scully was truly okay with them moving forward—with Charlie's assistance—in unraveling the whole mess they had stumbled upon. At some point, he had drifted off, only realizing he had done so when he felt someone tug his arm. "Daddy," Nathan whined.

"What's wrong, buddy?" Mulder asked, rubbing his eyes. He looked over; Scully had taken a vicodin pill, and was down for the count. "Are you okay? Does your knee hurt?"

"I wanna play," Nathan looked up at him with wet eyes. "Now."

"Nathan, it's three in the morning," protested Mulder. "Go back to bed."

"Not sleepy," the two-year-old insisted stubbornly.

"Come up here," Mulder offered.

"No bed."

Mulder quickly realized that he was no match for the cranky toddler. Not wanting to wake up everyone on the second floor, Mulder brought him downstairs, hoping that he would fall asleep after a few stories. When Nathan ran for his train set, Mulder knew he was outnumbered. He sent off a few emails to Byers and Langley, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up on the couch, with Nathan on the floor in full face-plant mode, clutching two of his trains.

"Midnight toy time?" Charlie chuckled as he handed Mulder a mug of coffee.

"Something like that," Mulder muttered.

"Noah did that for a bit," offered Charlie. "He would get up in the middle of the night and play, and we'd find him on the floor the next morning."

"How long did that phase last?" Mulder asked, scowling when Charlie only laughed in response. He picked up his son, placing him gently on the sofa with an afghan, hoping he wouldn't fall off the couch. Something told him that Nathan was going to follow in his footsteps as a frequent flyer in the emergency room.

"Did you talk to her?" Charlie asked, hopefully, as they settled in the den, where Charlie was working off both Mulder's desktop computer and his own personal laptop. The hard drive was perched on the desk, emanating a low noise.

"She's good," Mulder said. "She wants you to be careful."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "She's bossy," he murmured.

"She's worried," Mulder corrected his brother-in-law. "As she should be."

XXXXX

The call from the Gunmen came in late afternoon, just as Mulder was returning home from picking up Kyle at camp. "Muldy?" Langley asked. "Got a second?"

"Sure," Mulder replied. "What's up?"

"We're still working with Charlie on finding the medical records, but when we ran the dates, we, uh, realized something," Langley rushed, making the hair on Mulder's neck stand up.

"Remember when the Spender kid told you that Samantha sometimes went away for weeks at a time? What if those dates matched?" Byers interrupted. "We think you should talk to him."

Mulder sighed. "I really don't want to bring him into this," he protested, knowing that his friends were right. "But I guess I should talk to him. Let me think."

"What's wrong?" Scully asked, her concern growing as she witnessed the tense exchange Mulder was having on the phone.

"They want me to call Jeffrey Spender," Mulder said, chewing on the side of his mouth. "They want me to check out where Samantha might have been that Thanksgiving."

Scully drew a sharp breath. "That's a good idea, you have to admit that, Mulder," she reasoned.

"I wish I thought of it," he grumbled. "I'll call him. Do you mind if he comes up here?"

"No," Scully said. "But if he's anything like my brother, he'll end up moving in and will drink all of your whiskey."

"Doesn't Charlie have a home? And a wife for that matter?" Mulder asked lightly, joining Scully in the living room, where the boys were playing some game that seemingly involved all their toys.

"He does, but since her fifteen minutes of fame began, she's at her parent's house. I can't blame her—they were camped out in front of their house. That reminds me. Preston called while you are out—he's trying to get an injunction to stop the story from airing over the weekend," explained Scully. "The strategy being that he files an injunction, and they'll end up not being able to say where I am living, or anything else about us for that matter."

"The law works in mysterious ways," Mulder flippantly responded.

"You know, Mulder, you're going to end up having to talk to him at some point. It might as well be now," Scully pointed out, trying to be pragmatic and supportive at the same time. "You're just going to drive yourself, and the rest of us, crazy until you do it."

"What if the dates end up matching?" Mulder asked.

"Then at the very least, we'll know," Scully shrugged. "Beyond that, our feelings don't really matter."

"You're right on that count," Mulder snorted, sliding down on the floor, where Will immediately toddled over to him, waving a block in his face. He accepted his son's gift and immediately recoiled, realizing that it was slick with drool. "I know what side of the family you got that from, buddy."

"I'm right here, Mulder," Scully casually reminded him, resisting the urge to throw a stuffed animal in his direction.

"I'll call him tonight. Maybe he can come up this weekend. I doubt he has much of a social life," Mulder sighed, doubly annoyed when he saw the look of bemusement on his partner's face. "Okay, bad choice of words."

XXXXX

For the second night in a row, they sat down to a relatively quiet dinner, the only heated debate being the cause of dinosaurs' extinction. Peter proved to be quite passionate on the subject, and Kyle gushed about his favorite museum exhibit being the dinosaur hall at the Museum of Natural History. "Dad, can you take us?" Kyle asked.

"Sure, but I don't know when," Mulder responded, looking at Scully, who nodded in agreement. "That would be fun, a family trip to New York."

"Can we go soon?"

"Not this weekend, aren't you having your friends over on Saturday? Plus, we're going to have a visitor," Mulder explained.

"A fun visitor? Like Langley?" Kyle asked skeptically. "Or a boring one like Preston?"

"Your Uncle Jeff is coming for a couple of days," he responded. Although he couldn't stand Jeffrey Spender, Mulder knew that his son was close to him.

"That's awesome!" Kyle exclaimed. "Maybe he'll take us to the bumper cars on the Cape. That's what we did when he visited last summer."

"What?" Mulder asked, confused.

Scully worriedly looked at her partner.

"He stayed here with me and mom last year," Kyle explained. "After you had to go back to DC."

"Oh," Mulder said, hoping that his face didn't betray the surge of anger that rose through him. "I forgot."

Mulder pushed aside his plate and sat back on his chair, mindlessly picking Nathan off his seat and placing the squirming toddler on his lap, listening to him babble about farm animal sounds. "I'll bring these guys up to bed," he murmured a few minutes later, picking up both boys.

"Do you want help?" Scully asked, concerned about Mulder. His reaction to Kyle's news was not lost on her.

"I'm good," Mulder told her with a pursed smile. He took his time getting the boys into their pajamas, lingering over their bedtime story and then watching them fall asleep. He knew his feelings towards his younger half-brother were complicated, and that while some of his resentment was justified, his anger about the situation tended to be irrational. He missed out on so much of Kyle's time growing up, and he was jealous that many of the father-son rituals he wanted to participate in with his son instead involved Jeff Spender. The mature part of him was grateful that Kyle had somebody—a positive male influence, nonetheless—but the bigger part of him wasn't so giving. At least he wouldn't have to compete with anyone over the attention of Nathan and Will.

By the time Mulder made his way back down to the kitchen, the table was empty, and the boys were helping Charlie clean up. "Dana walked down to the water," Charlie told him. "You should go join her. Me and the boys are on clean up duty, then we're playing Monoply."

"Count me in," Mulder said as he slipped out the sliding glass door, and made his way down to the water.

"Everything okay?" he asked Scully as he approached her from behind, slipping his arms around her waist.

"I should be asking you that," Scully said, turning around.

Caught, Mulder thought. "Nothing gets by you."

"I'm the eye in FBI," she bantered. "It's okay, Mulder. I know how hard you've worked to accept your brother's place in Kyle's life, but it doesn't make it easy."

Mulder's face fell, and it wasn't until he heard his own sob that he realized the weight of the pain that he had been holding in. He buried his face in Scully's shoulder, practically picking her up. "I just wanted one place with my son," he sniffled a few moments later. "That sounds selfish, I know."

"It's not selfish, Mulder," Scully told him, wiping away his tears, cradling his face with her palms. "You love him, and you didn't have much time with him. But you are his father, no one can take that away from you. And you know what? Kyle adores you. Yes it hasn't been the easiest few weeks, but he loves you and you love him."

"On some levels, I realize how lucky Kyle was to have him in his life. It was like how my grandfather was there for me when I was his age," Mulder said quietly, as they sat down on the beach. "But it just hurts, because I wanted to be there and couldn't."

"But now you are both here," Scully reminded him.

XXXXXX

Mulder knew that his timing had never been all that good, but to have to face playing host to one of his least-favorite people immediately following a tiring afternoon spent chaperoning four incredibly loud pre-adolescent boys and two toddlers who tried to mimic everything they did, had to be one of the worst scheduling decisions of his life. By the time the adults had a chance to sit down together, it was pushing nine o'clock, and Mulder, for one, would have jumped at the chance to postpone their conversation until the next day. But if anything, it was his secret hope that if they wrapped up everything they needed to discuss right then and there, Spender would take the opportunity to leave the next day.

It annoyed Mulder to no end that Charlie was laughing right along with Spender, Scully having to talk him down as they loaded the dishwasher, wafts of their conversation on the porch filtering into the kitchen. "He's always like that Mulder, even with people he doesn't like," Scully reminded him.

"And that makes it all better," Mulder whined.

After bringing Spender up to speed, albeit selectively so, Mulder asked his brother whether he would be able to remember where his family spent Thanksgiving 1977.

"Of course," Spender responded immediately, wondering why the answer to that question warranted an eight-hour drive from DC instead of a phone call. "We were in DC."

"You're certain?" Mulder asked, sneaking a peak at Scully, who had stiffened in her seat.

"I remember because Sam needed to get her tonsils out," Spender shared. "She was in the hospital here because my Dad didn't trust the one where we lived. He wanted to make sure she got the best care possible. Is that good news? Bad news? You all look real worried."

"I don't know the answer to that question," Mulder murmured, his eyes not leaving those of Scully.