Thanksgiving Week – Monday
Airport

For Mulder, the trip to Wisconsin didn't feel entirely real until the four of them were standing in the airport, and about to go through security. Everything had changed since the last time he'd flown, and he didn't want to make a fool of himself by asking Scully why. At the back of his mind he was dimly aware that the heightened, and in his opinion bizarre, security measures were related to a disaster that had happened on US soil not very long after he'd been abducted. Thousands of people had died, so he supposed that it explained the need to show that the government was doing "something" to protect its travelers, but not having experienced the tragedy in even a limited fashion himself, he was too far removed from it to feel a connection that would inform an opinion about whether the measures were appropriate or overkill.

So, instead of discussing it at length with Scully, he stumbled through the security exercises as much as Tommy and Grace did, and neither of them had ever flown before. He felt dazed as he collected his laptop and carry-on from plastic buckets and wandered over to the side to put himself back together.

Tommy didn't like the process either, and looked as put out as Mulder felt. He frowned up at Scully while she gathered her own things and his and his sister's. "Now what happens, Mommy?"

Scully confidently pointed to the boarding area. "For now we're going to go sit with those people, and then we'll wait for someone to tell us that our flight is going to board."

The little boy nodded as if this made sense to him, but Grace looked confused. "Momma, why them people? Are they goin' to the same place as us?"

Scully opened her mouth, and then closed it again. After a moment of thought she said, "They're going on the same plane as us, and will go to the same airport. Once we get to the airport, they're going to go to different places."

For a moment Mulder wondered why she put it that way, but then he thought back to his child psychology classes. If Scully had simply told her yes, those people were going with them, there was a chance that Grace would assume that they were all going to visit Spencer with them because children her age were very concrete. This left him smiling to himself, and glad that he hadn't answered too many questions ambiguously before realizing this.

Then it occurred to him to imagine Spencer's horror if a whole planeful of people showed up at his house, and it got even harder not to laugh. This must have showed on his face because Scully gave him an odd look and he could only shrug helplessly.

"Is there only one stop?" Tommy wanted to know.

"Yes. There's only one stop," Scully told him. "That's one way that flying is different from taking a train or bus."

The idea of the plane making frequent stops almost made Mulder giggle, but he was able to contain himself. He was also glad that he picked a direct flight to Madison, rather than one of the flights with a layover. Scully never learned to love flying, but at least she wouldn't be completely baffled by a layover like he suspected both kids would be. Or like he and Samantha had been when they'd flown to seen their mother's parents at similar ages. For a second he stopped what he was doing when he realized that he'd never met his father's parents. His biological grandparents, that was.

"Hey," Scully said taking his hand and startling him. "Are you okay? You look a little sick to your stomach all of the sudden and we haven't even gotten on the plane yet."

He offered her a weak smile. "Sorry. I was wool-gathering and my thoughts turned to old Smokey for a second."

"Oh-" she started to say, but then she was interrupted when Grace sternly and very loudly declared, "Only you and prebent forest fires!"

Mulder couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. Maybe it was the child's delivery, or the mangled way the slogan came out, but something about it made him laugh helplessly.

In response Grace offered him an indignant scowl, and Scully's cheeks pinked up because half a dozen passengers had turned around when her daughter offered Mulder that sage advice.

He coughed and tried to swallow down any more laughter so he could ask "Does she even know what that means?"

"It's a bear, Mulder," Grace said matter-of-factly before Scully could reply. "He wears a funny hat."

"I know, sweetie, I know."

"Kind of?" Scully told him and it took a moment to remember what he'd asked her. "They still air those commercials, obviously."

"How about the one with the Indian crying over litter?" he asked, waiting to see if she'd take the bait and correct him for using the archaic term.

Perhaps she was too distracted by Grace pointing to where she wanted to sit. "I don't think so."

Mulder affected a sigh. "The times they are a'changing."

Scully reached for his hand gave it a squeeze.

Her being affectionate in public, Mulder considered as he let his own fingers wrap around hers, well, that was one change he could let himself enjoy.

After what felt like hours - but a glance at his watch said had only been 35 minutes - their group was finally called to board. Mulder stood and held out his hand to Tommy. The little boy gave him an uncertain look. Bending so he could look him in the eye, he gave a friendly smile and explained, "The seats are in rows of four across but there is aisle in the middle. Your mom and Grace will sit together, and you and I will sit together right across from them."

To his horror, Tommy looked like he was going to cry. "I can't sit with my mom?"

"I'm sorry," Mulder said gently. "Grace needs your mom to help if she has to use the bathroom, so we can't trade seats. We'll be able to see them the whole time, though."

Tommy nodded bravely. "There's a bathroom?" he asked, sounding less wobbly.

"There sure is. Most flights are too long to make people hold it."

"Okay," the boy said and then he took Mulder's hand.

It only took a few minutes to board the plane, and since they got on relatively early, there was adequate overhead space left for their carry-on luggage just above their seats; Mulder smiled wryly as he thought back to a different flight on the way back to Oxford that had had him opening almost half of the bins before he found a place to stow his gear.

"Which seat is mine?" Tommy asked shyly. Across the row Scully was already settling Grace into the aisle seat.

"Which do you want?"

The boy looked surprised he was being offered a choice. "The window!"

"Climb on in then," Mulder instructed. He glanced across the aisle, wondering if this would prompt Grace to have a fit, clamoring to swap seats with her mother. Fortunately, she didn't.

Mulder sat and then glanced at Tommy. The child picked up the ends of his seatbelt. Holding them out to Mulder, he said "I don't get it" and sounded as confused as he looked.

"They are kind of tricky," Mulder replied and reached over to snap it together for him.

"Thanks," Tommy said. He carefully observed when Mulder put his own seat belt on. It was clear that he was trying to figure out how it worked. He decided that he shouldn't be surprised if the little guy could manage it on his own during the flight home. "You've flown before, huh?" Tommy asked. "Grace and me didn't. Well, not that we remembered."

"Yup. I've flown a lot so I've had a lot of practice with these belts."

"When you and my mom worked together?"

"Sure. And before then I went to college in England so I had to fly then too."

"That's where The Teletubbies live."

Mulder blinked. "I did not know that."

Tommy grinned at him and then turned away to observe what was going on outside on the tarmac.

Mulder flashed Scully a smile when he noticed her looking his way. She smiled back before returning her attention to a picture book she had packed for Grace.

His own attention wandered after that, and he amused himself by observing the other passengers until the flight attendants announced that they would be going over the flight safety information. Scully caught his eye, then pulled out the card from the seat back pocket and looked from Grace to Tommy. It took him a few seconds to interpret her message, but eventually he realized that she wanted to model paying attention to the information.

He pulled his own card out figuring that it made sense to have the kids observe them not blowing the lecture off, even though both he and Scully could probably give the lecture themselves: they might have heard the information themselves a hundred times but it was new for the kids.

As the men and women in uniform began their spiel, he found himself hoping that Tommy wouldn't actually pay too close attention himself because some of the things they casually suggested could go wrong were quite scary. He didn't seem alarmed, though, so perhaps it went over his head, or maybe he just wasn't the anxious type. It bothered Mulder that he didn't know that about the boy, but he supposed it would come in time.

Once the flight attendants finished up, Tommy poked him in the arm. "Now what?"

"The pilot is waiting for the people in that tower-" Mulder pointed out the window at the distant structure and Tommy looked at it with a great deal of interest. "-to tell him that it's okay to go."

"Why does he have to wait?"

"Planes move fast and they need a lot of room to get going so the people in that tower need to know where everyone is and where they're going so no one runs into each other."

The little boy's eyes got wide. "That would be bad."

"Sure would," he agreed. The fact that two planes colliding would likely lead to fiery death didn't need to be said, at least not to a five-year-old. "Once the pilot gets the go ahead the plane will get ready to take off. At first it will drive along the ground like a car and then it'll suddenly start going up in the air. It might feel like we're tilted back a little to you while we fly."

Tommy tilted his head. "It goes faster in the air than driving?"

Mulder had to halt a smirk as he imagined the plane chugging down the highway and scaring the crap out of drivers. "Much faster."

"Is it scary?" Tommy asked.

"To some people," he admitted and Tommy looked even more nervous. It made him glad that he hadn't mentioned that Tommy's mother used to be one of those people. "Hey," he said. "If you get scared you can hold my hand, okay?"

Mulder's dad had held his hand when he was scared as a little boy too, so he hoped it would make Tommy feel better like it had him.

Tommy swallowed hard and whispered, "Okay."

"Good."

Scully hadn't been thrilled when Mulder explained the seating arrangements because she'd hoped to have both kids next to her the first time they flew. There just wasn't anything that could be done about the layout of the seats. And of course she'd also imagined that they'd be visiting family for their first flight, so all her imaging had gone right out the window.

Tommy seemed to be doing okay without her at his side, though. He'd grabbed Mulder's hand during the takeoff, and Mulder had said something to him that must have been reassuring because he relaxed a few minutes later. She made a mental note to ask Mulder what he'd said, and to let him know that she appreciated his effort to make the experience less scary for her son.

A small musing part of her brain found itself thankful that if only one of her children was biologically Mulder's, it was Grace. Tommy was much more of a roll-with-the-punches sort of kid than his sister and would undoubtedly react better when it came time to explain that Mulder was only parent by blood to one of them; she and Mulder had decided that they were too young to understand this yet, so both kids were still under the impression that his relationship to each of the was identical and that it was simply "mommy's boyfriend."

They were still trying to decide if they had to wait for Grace to be old enough to understand too before telling Tommy the truth. There seemed to be a wealth of advantages and disadvantages to both telling him soon and to waiting, so it was making logicing their way to a decision difficult.

She was glancing over at Tommy again, wondering what he and Mulder were talking about when Grace touched her cheek. The unexpected touch startled her and she gave her daughter an apologetic smile. "What's up, sweetie?"

"Mommy, is Tommy brave?"

"Why do you ask?" Scully inquired curiously.

Grace fluttered her hands, looking mildly exasperated to be forced to explain. Scully bit her inner cheek to keep from looking amused. "He didna cry," Grace explained. "I cried."

"Only for a few seconds," Scully reminded her. She'd actually expected a much worse reaction once they took off so she had been pleasantly surprised when Grace had taken less than a minute to pull herself together. "I think you were very brave considering you've haven't done this since you were a baby."

"Brave? Me too?" Grace looked stunned by her mother's proclamation.

"Yes! A lot more brave than I was the first time I flew."

"Nuh uh."

"Really. I tried to hide under my seat and your grandma was so embarrassed that her whole face turned red," Scully recalled.

Of course she wasn't much calmer a flier for many years and her mother got her revenge when she'd nearly died of embarrassment herself while on her first case with Mulder; he'd made a comment that heavily implied that he'd assumed that their first flight together had been hers at all, and had done his best to awkwardly reassure her that it would get better as she got more experience with flying.

Grace looked under her seat and then back up to Scully with undisguised skepticism. It became clear what she was thinking when she said doubtfully, "When you was little?" There was no way an adult could fit under the seat and this was something that was obvious to even a child who was barely three, apparently.

"I was four," Scully told her.

Grace slowly counted to five on her fingers. "Littler than Tommy?"

Scully smiled and gently folded the girl's pinky back down to her palm. "Just between you and Tommy in age."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Scully repeated, amused.

"Yup."

"Well, I'm glad you approve."

The mild sarcasm flew entirely over Grace's head and she just patted Scully's arm approvingly.

Scully sighed. Since they'd looked at all of Grace's picture books already she rummaged through the seatback pocket and pulled out a Skymall catalog.

"How about we look for a fun birthday present for Auntie Tara?"

Three quarters of the way through the flight Tommy looked up at Mulder and said "I have a question."

"What?" Mulder asked, expecting another question about flight.

"Are you going to marry my mom?"

This wasn't at all what he anticipated, so he just sat there stunned for a moment until he noticed how worried Tommy's expression looked. "Um. Tommy, you know how I've been sick?" he finally asked.

The little red-haired boy nodded. "Yup. Mommy said that you were in the hospital for a long time. Weeks."

"I was," he replied, feeling a mild bit of relief. At least the boy had some context for what he was about to explain, though he was sure that Scully hadn't shared any of the details of why he'd been hospitalized with the boy. And he thought too about how long several weeks must seem to someone who had only experienced a couple hundred of them all together.

But Tommy tilted his head to the side. "But you got better," Tommy said with a look that suggested that his presence on the plane rather than in a hospital bed made this self-evident.

"I did," Mulder said slowly. "I'm doing a lot better than when I first got home. But I'm not fully well yet. Your mom and I probably won't talk about getting married until I'm more completely healed." If that was possible, a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him. Maybe it wasn't, it insisted cruelly. He did his best to ignore it. "Understand?"

"Yeah. But Mulder, if you do marry my mom, will you be my dad?"

"I'd be your stepfather," he agreed.

But Tommy shook his head. "No. Would you be my dad?"

"Yeah, Tommy. If I marry your mom, I'll be your dad."

The rest of the flight passed without incident, and Grace did not cry when they landed. Instead she cheerfully asked if they could fly the next day too, and looked a bit disappointed that their next flight wouldn't be until the day after that.

Renting a car at the airport felt different to Mulder than it had the last time he'd flown (or at least the last time he'd flown in a plane – he tried carefully not to think of traveling the unfriendly skies with his alien abductors as "flying" because he didn't want a panic attack on a plane) but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was different. Maybe it was just that he himself was so different from the last time he'd flown. Regardless it seemed to take forever.

By the time he had the rental car's keys in hand and rejoined Scully, she'd already picked up the kids' car and booster seats from the luggage coral, and she looked more than ready to leave the airport. Both kids were sleepy and beginning to be a little whiny.

When he seemed surprised when Tommy became peevish after a simple request, Scully offered Mulder a wan smile. "I'd tell you that they're not normally like this when they're tired, but that'd be a lie."

"Do they need a nap?" he asked.

Too loudly, because Tommy gave them both an indignant look. "I'm too big for naps!"

Mulder put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up in surprise. "No one's too old for naps."

"But-"

"No one."

The little boy gave him an odd look, but stopped trying to make an argument that he realized that he couldn't win. Scully, for her part seemed amused by the exchange, which Mulder supposed was a good thing.

By the time they finally got to the hotel, both kids were sound asleep. Mulder picked up Tommy, and left Scully with the lighter child to deal with. He wished that he was stronger so he could carry both of them at once, but so far his progress towards getting back his physical strength was as steady and slow as regaining his peace of mind. He planned to speak to his doctor soon about the possibility of joining a gym, but hadn't gotten much out of the light weights that the doctor had already approved for home use. His only hesitation about joining a gym was that he didn't really want people to see how thin he was – but maybe he'd find one with odd hours so he could go there when there were few people. The ease of keeping odd hours was one luxury of being unemployed.

Scully snagged a luggage rack, and they quickly piled all the bags onto it, and she pushed it with the hand not supporting her sleeping daughter. A tiny resentful part of him, the part that was still having trouble coping with his diminished health, wondered if she would have pushed the rack or even wanted one if he was back to normal. The only way he was able to cut off this line of thinking was to make himself aware that he had no idea how she would act because he'd never travelled with her and kids before. For all he knew, she would have wanted to even if he'd never been abducted and they'd been together when she learned of the kids' existence.

It was slightly awkward to check in with Tommy draped over one shoulder but Mulder appreciated the wry look he got from the person behind the desk. It as much as said that the other man had been there before, and had been the weary traveler on the other side of the counter. There was something of comradery in it, as if Mulder had recently been welcomedly admitted to a club whose existence he hadn't been aware of before.

Once he rejoined Scully and Grace she led the way to the elevators, and he was left wondering if she had developed a better sense of direction in the years he was away, or if she'd taken the opportunity to ask directions while he was busy at the desk. Either way, she seemed to know exactly where to go.

The elevator was empty when the doors opened, and they piled in gratefully. Glancing at her, and the way that Grace's limp form mirrored her brother's, Mulder grinned at her. "This brings back memories. Of how we never ever traveled with kids in tow on any of our cases."

"What about Kevin?" Scully asked, surprising him a little.

He shrugged without thinking about it, and was grateful when his movement didn't accidentally dislodge Tommy. "Okay, you've got me there. He never conked out on us like this, though."

"Well, that's true," she conceded.

"This is kind of nice, though," Mulder offered. She gave him a questioning look, and this time he was able to keep from reflexively shrugging. "They're making this trip more interesting."

"I guess that's one word for it."

"Oh?"

"Slightly more complicated is another."

"That's definitely more than one word," he teased.

"Mulder," she sighed, sounding just like she had so many times before, back when they'd worked together on cases. But there was a spark of amusement lightening up her eyes.

When they found their room Scully managed to get the pass card to work on the first try, and he admired the fact that she didn't need to set Grace down to do it. He'd always hated them and longed for the old days of real keys because it was a lot more obvious which side of the key went up.

Inside the room there were two beds, and at first he stood just inside the doorway and watched to see what Scully wanted to do. They hadn't really discussed if she'd prefer that he and Tommy share one bed while she and Grace shared the other or-

"You can put him down next to Grace," Scully offered as soon as she stood back up after putting Grace on the bed deepest into the room. "He must be getting heavy."

"Yeah, kind of," he mumbled. He put Tommy down, but found himself wondering what they'd say to the kids later. One of them was bound to remark on him sharing a bed with Scully, weren't they?

They spent the next few minutes putting the contents of their luggage into the dresser drawers, and it seemed to take a lot less time than he figured it would. On the other hand, since they didn't need to make sure that they were business-presentable, they were probably a lot less careful than they had been with suits.

Once there was nothing left to do, Scully noticed that there was an ice bucket and realized that she was pretty thirsty. Neither she nor Grace had needed to use the toilet on the plane, but part of that had been because she'd turned down the flight attendant's offer of drinks. Now a cold drink would be nice, and they'd have to hit up the vending machine for something to offer the kids once they woke up too.

Think of this, she suggested, "We should look for something to drink and get some ice." They could stick whatever they found for the little ones in the ice, she reckoned. It was slightly too bad the room didn't come with a mini-fridge, but ice would probably do.

He frowned slightly, and it didn't surprise her when the next words out of his mouth were "The kids-"

"Are sleeping," she said firmly. She put the ice bucket into his hands. "We can see our door from the alcove with the ice and vending machines. If they woke up and tried to leave the room to find us, we'd know it."

Some of the tension drained from him. "Okay."

It hadn't occurred to her that there might be a line at the ice machine, but a young woman holding the hand of a small blond boy was trying to get ice into her bucket and keep a grip on him both. He was about eighteen months old, and Scully had less than fond memories of Grace doing exactly what he was right then – tugging hard to get away from a parental hold. She didn't know this little one, but she could bet that if his mother let go he'd make a mad dash down the hall.

As they waited patiently for their turn to fill up their ice bucket, Scully found herself idly studying the woman: she was obviously pregnant, but not enormously so, perhaps five or six months. That was when Tara had referred to her own growing belly as "cute" and "manageable" though those terms got retired well before Matthew had made his late entrance.

After a moment the woman looked slightly startled and dropped the little boy's hand to put her own to her belly instead. It was clear that she noticed that they'd seen her reaction because she blushed slightly and said "he's just begun kicking. It still takes me by surprise" to which they both nodded solemnly, like they had any idea what that felt like from the inside.

Looking askance at Mulder, Scully wondered if she was the only one who didn't. He caught her look and bent his head to say in her ear. "If the kids are still sleeping, there's something I want to talk to you about." He smiled at the mother, and it was slightly tense if still friendly. Scully noticed that his eyes lingered over the woman's abdomen, and that made her wonder if Charlie hadn't been so wrong after all when he used to tease her about being able to read her thoughts on her face.

The woman's son apparently decided that the adults were properly distracted and began to run off, just as Scully predicted. But what she hadn't anticipated was that Mulder would scoop him up long before he reached the end of the hallway. There was no yell of indignation to wake her own kids up like she figured would happen as soon as Mulder reached for him – instead the child seemed warily interested, as if he was trying to decide if Mulder was a friend of his mother's.

"Thanks so much," the woman said as Mulder set her little boy on his feet beside her a few seconds later. Scully thought she seemed tired, and wondered why she wasn't herself. It was getting late and they'd traveled most of the day.

"You're welcome." He bent slightly and addressed the tiny boy. "Be nice to your mom, huh?"

The toddler's response was to bury his face against his mother's leg.

Scully watched Mulder, wondering if he'd get nervous about whether he'd done the right thing considering the child's reaction. To her relief he didn't seem anxious. Instead he just wished the woman a good night and finally filled the ice bucket that Scully had three-quarters forgotten about.

Both of the kids were still sleeping when they returned to the room. Scully glanced at his face, wondering if this was a good or a bad thing: there was clearly something on his mind, and she was scared to find out what it was. He must have noticed her apprehension because he offered her a weak smile as he sat on their bed. He patted it, obviously wanting her to sit beside him.

Scully tried not to make her reluctance obvious as she sat beside him. As soon as she did, she looked up at him expectantly. "You look like you want to say something," she prompted after a few seconds when no words spilled readily from him.

"I don't remember feeling anything inside me," he said after a moment. "Not like that woman at the ice machine. And that's what gives me the most doubt. Makes me wonder if I'm losing my mind imagining I ever was in the same room with my crying baby." He paused, and looked at his hands for several long seconds. "I can accept that maybe I wasn't... gestating... very long."

"Mulder," she said softly when he looked down and said nothing more. Not for the first time she noticed how long his dark lashes were – she just wished that the observation didn't only happen when his eyes were downcast in misery.

He spared her from having to think of anything else to say to offer comfort or encouragement when he cleared his throat. "After all, you were abducted in August yourself, and Emily was born in November of that year. So it's possible that a hybrid infant growing in a human might have that sort of accelerated growth too. But wouldn't that make it more memorable if it was growing and crowding one's insides at a breathtaking speed? Why wouldn't I remember something like that?" His tone held all the anguish that he felt about the uncertainty, and this time he made no attempt to hide it from her. That was probably healthier than damming it all up, she reflected as she observed that his hands were shaking as badly as his voice now.

More than anything she wished that she could give him the answers he needed so badly, the ones that would finally make him whole again, but she couldn't. So she did the only thing she could, slowly wrap her arms around him, and admit, "I don't know."

At first she didn't realize that he was crying until a tear slid down her wrist. It took her longer than that to notice that there were tears in her own eyes too. "Maybe I've imagined everything," he said hoarsely.

"Maybe you have," she said, and she immediately felt bad when he stiffened. "Maybe your poor mind conjured it all up so there would feel like there was a point to it all. That there was some sort of consolation that could be found, and so it wouldn't have just been pain without any sense or purpose at all."

To her surprise, his reaction was to laugh. "A big-eyed kid with gray skin and spindly fingers isn't the sort of thing a person tends to imagine as a reward for suffering."

"Did it look like that? When you've dreamed of that day?"

"No." Mulder frowned. "The baby looked human. He – I don't know why I keep thinking of it as a boy since I have even less proof that it's a boy that it even exists – he looked like any baby does. But it was a dream, not a memory. I can't know that the dream wasn't just what I wanted it to look like."

She tilted her head to the side, lost for a moment in thought. Looking back up at him, she asked, "But you'd feel obligated to take care of it, even if it looked as monstrous as a gray, wouldn't you?"

"Of course!" he sputtered indigently.

"Maybe it's not a prize," she mused before he could get any more wound up, idly tapping a gentle pattern on his forearm as she spoke. "Maybe it's a symbol of the responsibility you feel for having been abducted. You can't tell me that you feel completely blameless. You've beat yourself up over having taken actions that allowed them to get you."

It wasn't quite a question, and both of them realized that. "So you think I made it up to punish myself?"

"Maybe," Scully said, and she watched his face fall as he let the self-doubt flow back in. "Or... or maybe he's real."

"Do you actually believe that?" Mulder asked softly.

She shrugged reflexively. "I believe there's a good enough possibility that he's real that all of this isn't a waste of time."

Mulder laughed shakily. "Considering I'm not completely convinced I'm not a lunatic myself, I guess that's as ringing an endorsement I could hope for from someone else."

Scully wished she could offer him more, but any more stringent a proclamation would just ring hollow. Hopefully what faith in him she could muster up would be enough to get them through.