A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my brother. We never did what William does in this chapter, but we did open a thing of baby powder and spray it all over our bedroom, made handprints all over the bathroom with baby oil, and there was also the time I covered him from head to toe in Oil of Olay. I tried to stop him, but he was out of control!

Mulder came home from his run on Saturday morning to find Scully, William and Ellie on the living room, on all fours. Ellie was rocking back and forth, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she tried to crawl. William was next to her, patting his hands on the ground, and Scully was in front of her, cheering her on.

"Come on baby, you can do it."

"Go Eh-yie! Crawl! Go baby go!"

Ellie scooted back and forth a little, lifted one hand, then put it down in frustration.

"Momma!" she wailed. William sat up and patted Ellie's back.

"You do it, Eh-yie. See?"

He crawled towards Scully then stood up.

"Go Eh-yie."

Mulder joined them and got down on the floor with Scully.

"Come on sweetie, you can crawl."

She looked up at the new voice and gave him a little grin before moving her right arm, and then hesitantly, her right knee slid across the carpet.

"You can do it, baby!" Mulder said, patting her left hand. She grunted and repeated the previous action, managing to move a few inches. She grinned a little and moved faster until she finally reached them. Mulder scooped her up and kissed her cheek while William jumped up and down.

"Again, Eh-yie. Race!"

Mulder put Ellie down and she started to crawl in the other direction, actually giving William a run for his money. Ellie had been trying to crawl for weeks, and now that she had done it, it didn't look like there was any stopping her.

"How was your run?" Scully asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"Good. I might be too tired to do yard work later."

"Mulder, you promised."

"I know."

"It's going to get cold soon."

"I know."

"We don't want our sprinklers freezing, and I don't want leaves in my snowballs later."

He bit back the laugh that was trying to get out from that last comment.

"Alright, alright. I suppose I'll use less energy doing all that than I would trying to make up excuses, huh?"

"I'm pretty relentless."

"Well, let's bundle the kids up then."

She smiled and stood up, grabbing Ellie and heading up the stairs.

"Where goin' daddy?" William asked.

"We're going to go outside, but we need to get your shoes and coat on so you stay warm. Okay?"

"Okay daddy."

He ran over to the basket by the door and pulled his shoes out, then delivered them to Mulder.

"Get the coat too?"

"Yeah, we'll get it in a minute."

He made sure William's shoes were on tightly, and put his coat on him, and met Scully coming down the stairs.

"Ready to brave the elements?"

"I think we are."

They headed outside, William trailing behind them. Scully settled Ellie in the baby swing and gave her a little push before following Mulder to the far end of the yard.

"Well, where do we start?"

"If you want to pull out all the weeds and dead plants, I'll rake the leaves."

"Alright. Will you keep an eye on William too?"

"I will if you will."

She rolled her eyes and pushed the wheelbarrow over to the flowerbed.

They worked for close to an hour, without much incident. Ellie fell asleep in the swing, so Scully took her inside, and William played happily in the sandbox.

They had gotten all the weeds pulled and the leaves raked, played in, and bagged up before noon. All that was left to do was get out the air compressor and blow out the sprinklers. Scully was cleaning the sand off of William so they could go inside when she heard a loud shout from Mulder.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone dragged the hose inside," he said, narrowing his eyes at William.

"Well, bring it back outside."

"I don't think you understand, Scully. He turned the hose on, and now you have a small creek running through your living room."

She stopped just short of hollering a profanity, scooped William up and went to check out the damage. Mulder's explanation of a small creek had been an understatement. It seemed that every inch of carpet was covered in water. Cold hose water, no less, which made the house absolutely frigid.

"William, why did you do this?"

He just shrugged his shoulders.

"Outside things do not come inside, ever. Got it?"

"Okay. Sorry momma."

She sighed, knowing that there was really nothing she could do about it now. The damage was done and they would just have to try and get the carpets to dry.

"What do you think we should do?"

She sighed.

"I have no idea. What do you do when your two year old floods your house?"

"I think we need to call someone."

She sighed again.

"How do we get into the house until then?"

"I guess we'll go through the garage. There might be some towels in the laundry room that we can put down until someone gets here."

"William, I don't know what to do with you."

"Oops?"

There was good news and bad news. The bad news was that there was so much water in the carpet that it and the padding under it were ruined. It would have taken more work and time than it was worth to fix it. So they were forced to have the carpet ripped out. The good news was that there was a solid oak floor underneath, which hadn't been touched by the water at all. It was in pristine condition and happened to blend in well with their furniture. They would have to get some throw rugs for the kids to play on, but in the end they preferred the hardwood over the carpet anyway.

Scully sighed as she flopped into bed that night, several hours later than she had planned. Her entire body ached, and she crossed her fingers, hoping the kids would stay in bed at least past seven in the morning. She wasn't sure she was ready to face anything but the inside of her eyelids. She felt Mulder flop down beside her and they turned and looked at each other.

"Kids are messy," she commented, brushing her hair out of her face.

"Says the woman who spent half her adult life up to her elbows in other people's entrails."

"Gross."

He chuckled and continued to stare at the ceiling.

"No offense honey, but I'm too tired to kiss you goodnight," she confessed.

"That's okay. I was thinking the same thing."

Her eyes were just sliding shut when she heard a cry from Ellie's room.

"Dear Lord, you have got to be kidding me right now."

Mulder chuckled.

"You wanted this, you know."

"Shut up," she grumbled, getting out of bed. "I might collapse from exhaustion and then what are you going to do?"

"Hire a nanny."

"Bite your tongue."

He chuckled and closed his eyes, glad that being the dad meant sleeping more at night. He'd receive the death glare in the morning for his uncompassionate ways, but for the moment, he was too tired to care. He'd make up for it in flowers later anyway.