Later

That night Mulder remembered his grandfather telling him about how had been put into a drawer as a baby because his great-grandparents had had no money to buy a crib. It hadn't been splendid, but the drawer had proved a serviceable enough bed. Grandpa Mulder had meant as a newborn, and it was clear that even if the baby could fit into a dresser drawer he was far too active to keep in one.

So that night, Mulder moved the mattress of the guest room bed onto the floor, and put the baby on it towards the wall. He figured that his own body should block the baby from getting very far if he proved to turn out to be adventurous at night.

What he didn't do, was consider buying a crib.

Not when he had no idea how long he'd need one.

Ever since the encounter in the airport Mulder found himself dwelling on the fact that the baby seemed to be large for his age. Once he'd seen him up on his hands and knees, his concerns took a darker turn. Was it possible that the baby was like Emily? This was something that couldn't keep himself from thinking about.

Scully had been abducted in August, and she found herself the mother of the child was born that same November. They never discussed the fact that Emily had apparently grown to full term in just a handful of months… much sooner than a fully human child would. It was unlikely that a totally human child could under any circumstances have developed at that pace, so he thought, and had always thought, that it must be her alien DNA that had sped up her gestation.

He and Scully had never discussed it, but when Scully had called him from California and told him that she'd discovered that she had a child, his initial reaction had been not to believe. It hadn't been her he'd doubted because she would never lie to him, but his concern had been that someone had lied to her. That someone was playing a cruel hoax on a woman who desperately wanted a child. Until he'd seen the DNA results for himself, he hadn't really believed, even though he'd already flown to her by that point.

Thinking of her DNA forced his thoughts back to the baby's development. Who knew how long aliens developed in their own mothers' wombs, or if in fact female aliens actually had wombs. He supposed that they must, but the thought of two aliens procreating was something that even he didn't have the stomach for thinking about for very long.

As Mulder lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his agitated brain kept circling back to one unpleasant thought: he'd seen an analysis of Emily's DNA. Her DNA had been relatively human. The girl hadn't been half human and half alien, though one might have thought that was how hybridization worked. Instead there had been alien DNA in some of her cells and not others. It was similar to a sometimes milder form of Down syndrome, often called mosaic Down syndrome, because only some cells were affected by trisomy, and others had the same number of chromosomes as everyone else's cells. Because of this there had been nothing alarming in her DNA profile, at least not to those who had done the tests, and there was nothing that had caused any sort of alarm. Even Mulder wasn't quite cynical enough to worry that the DNA test had possibly been intercepted by Consortium goons - after all, the goons would've removed any trace of alien DNA if they had a chance to.

Instead, they had just given Scully the results of the DNA test as if Emily had been a normal human girl. Other than a handful of abnormal cells, the scans he'd seen looked like every other set of DNA he'd seen…except for Scully's branched DNA after her abduction. Emily's had looked more human than hers. And that was what worried Mulder the most.

His child was half alien. You really couldn't get any more hybrid than that. And if Emily had developed so quickly in utero, what did that mean for his son? How long the baby had developed didn't really concerned Mulder, although perhaps it would explain why he had so few memories of gestating the baby. If it had been quick, if it had been really quick… maybe it was the timeframe and not just trauma that caused him to not remember much.

His biggest concern was not in fact with the baby's uterine development, but development now. If he was already large for his age, would that mean that he was going to have a rapid life? How long could a baby live if he was developing at approximately twice the rate of a normal child? Would that mean he would only live thirty or forty years? Or would the child be perhaps even less fortunate that that?

One other thing bothered him to think about Emily. What if the shots she'd been given had not just been keeping her vicious form of anemia in check? He couldn't help but wonder if there had been something in the monthly injection that had been keeping her rapid growth under control too.

The doctor who had treated Emily was gone. A frenetic search of the internet for hours the night before proved that there was no trace of him on the internet, so he might as well have stepped off the planet himself. If Calderon had kept the girl from aging faster out of the womb than she had within it, his child was doomed. There was no one left to help.

But what would he have done if Calderon was still reachable? Bundled the baby up against both winter chill and prying eyes, and frantically brought him to him, confessing his fears that the baby would someday shed his utterly human husk in favor of…something else, turning into a monster like Wilbur Whateley who'd grown to man-size by age ten, or that doomed half-alien girl from Species who'd grown much faster. As an angst-ridden adolescent the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood had brought him a macabre-tinged comfort, but now thinking of Lovecraft's tales sent a wave of nausea through him.

Even if the doctor who'd treated Emily was embroiled in the Consortium's dark deeds, he'd still very likely react to Mulder's concern the same way everyone in did Lavinia Whateley from Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror. Then again, Lavinia had probably been too afraid to show off too many the changes that time wrought in her rapidly-growing boy…

Even without the threat of unpleasant tentacles barely concealed by clothing, Mulder couldn't picture anyone being able to sooth his concerns... not after the way things had been left with Calderon.

Thinking about Emily's DNA led to thinking about her blood. Her green, noxious, blood. If he went into the kitchen and got a knife, perhaps that small one a person was supposed to use to par fruit with though he never had, and he made a tiny nick on the baby's finger, would his blood be red? Or green? The two colors most strongly associated with Christmas, Mulder observed, but instead of green signifying everlasting life it would spell death. The irony was not lost on him.

The baby beside him stretched in his sleep and made a small grunting sound before falling silent once more. This more than anything dragged Mulder out of his grim reverie. For however long he was with him, the baby was alive and needed his care.

Mulder held himself still for a moment, wondering if the boy would wake up, and then relaxed when he didn't. It would do neither of them any good for him to continue to agitate on the mystery of the boy's potential lifespan, so he told himself firmly that he must sleep. Eventually he did.

It would have been nice to wake slowly after a long, stressful day, but the sun had barely risen when Mulder was startled out of a sound sleep by a blow to his nose. Fearing another attack, his eyes popped open, and he was slightly startled to see that it had been a tiny fist that had smacked him awake.

"Hey, so you weren't a dream after all," he said through a yawn.

The fact that his words were slurred by the yawn didn't bother the baby, who was asleep again with his offending fist now resting on Mulder's shoulder. Sighing, Mulder put his head back down... at least until he noticed that his toes were brushing something furry.

Craning his head as much as he could without dislodging the baby, he was barely able to make out the curled up form of Dempsey at his feet. He had no idea when the cat had joined them in the room, but could make out the slightly open door in his peripheral line of sight.

"This could be a lot worse," he muttered out loud before closing his eyes again.

All of his resolve to keep his mind focused on the present fell away when Scully called that morning. Fortunately he had already made the baby a bottle when the phone rang, and the little guy had proven to be able to hold it himself. Mulder tried not to think about whether or not that was developmentally appropriate.

Scully sounded relatively cheerful considering how tired she must have still been after yesterday. "How did last night go?" she asked.

"Okay," Mulder said noncommittally. "Dempsey wasn't pleased when he first noticed the baby, but he acted better than I thought he would."

She paused for a moment, and he could imagine her wondering why he was so concerned about his cat's reaction to the baby. But honestly, it had been a worry. It wasn't as though the landlord would discover the baby and scratch them across the face leaving scars that would need plastic surgery, after all. And other than hers, who else's reactions did he need to concern himself with anyway?

"Where did you put him down to sleep?" Scully asked, being practical. Being a mother.

"We both slept in the guestroom last night. I took the mattress off the frame, and we slept that way. I figured it wasn't very far to fall if he happened to roll off."

"Well, that's true…" she murmured. He could tell by her tone that she didn't entirely approve.

"Did you want to shop for a crib today?"

"No!" he said, worried about how forceful that response sounded to his own ears. "Um, no thank you."

She didn't get it. He knew this because her very next question was, "Oh, would you like to borrow Grace's, then?" Her friendly, slightly concerned look suggested that her thoughts had turned to expense, perhaps concern that he'd spent too much on travel over the past few months to be able to readily afford to spend lavishly on the baby now that he'd finally procured him.

Mulder worried his lower lip in his teeth, agonized that he couldn't express his real concerns with her. She'd been more than tolerant already, but how could he tell her that he was terrified that his child would continue to grow an uncontrollable rate. What had Lavinia Whateley thought when she'd realized that her son wasn't growing the way a boy should? Lovecraft described her as keeping to herself until her untimely death, and little wonder. "No, thank you, he said after too long a pause had grown between them.

Okay," she said, sounding extremely uncertain.

Mulder was tempted to ask her if he could call her back later, but then, he would be obliged to call her back later. Casting about for something to say rather than end the conversation prematurely, Mulder asked, "did you have that phone number for your pediatrician?"

This it seemed like a safe thing to say, because he knew that Scully, Billy, and Theresa were right. He would have to bring the baby in for a checkup. He dreaded it, but the odds of the doctor being able to give him bad news were pretty slim. It wasn't as though the doctor would do a DNA test, and show him where tiny time bombs in the boy's genetic makeup meant that he would die young…

"Oh! You know, I do. Do you have a pen?" Scully said. She sounded relieved to change the subject too.

"Yup. Fire when ready," he teased. She recited the phone number and he wrote it down.

"I'm sure that Doctor Grover will give him a clean bill of health," she enthused.

"Doctor Grover?" Mulder asked. "I'm sure the kids love that."

"You would think so," Scully said. "So far neither of them seems to connect her to the Sesame Street muppet."

"Perhaps they are put in mind of our twenty-second president instead," he suggested.

"Mulder… They're both smart, don't get me wrong, but neither of them are that smart," she said dourly.

"For now. But just you wait, when I buy them a children's book about American presidents, they'll knock your socks off."

Just then, the baby began to fuss. It must of been obvious, because Scully said, "well, it sounds like I better let you go for now. Talk to you later."

"Love you, talk to you later."

Mulder turned and looked at his son, and noticed that the bottle was now empty. "That wasn't bad timing, kiddo. Keep it up."

If the baby knew what he was talking about, he didn't let on. Instead, he continued to cry until Mulder pick them up and patted him on the back to elicit a gigantic burp. For a second he wanted to believe that needing to be burped was evidence that the baby was merely really big for his age, but he remembered reading an article that said some babies needed to be burped all the way up until the age of eight months.

"I really don't know about you," Mulder murmured into the baby's soft brown hair.

Mulder was surprised when someone knocked on his door later that morning. When he opened the door and saw Frohike standing there, he frowned a little and asked, "Did Scully send you over?"

"Why would Scully have sent me?" Frohike asked blankly.

"Because of the baby."

"What baby?"

Mulder yawned and resisted banging his head against the door frame. "Why are you here, Melvin?"

''That's not important," Frohike said, waving off Mulder's question. "What baby? Did you knock the lovely Dana up?" he asked, glowering.

"What? No. I haven't knocked anyone up," Mulder said snippily.

It was irrational but it bothered him that Frohike still carried a torch for Scully. In a grumpier mood he might have pointed out that his short friend had never had a chance with her, so having his feathers ruffled at the thought of a child between them was ridiculous. Of course, if he really wanted to devastate Frohike he could discuss Grace's paternity.

"Oh." Frohike looked no less confused and no more satisfied by this. "Then what the hell baby are you talking about?"

Mulder opened the door wide enough for the short man to see into the apartment. "That baby," he said, pointing at the infant who was currently corralled by milk crates strategically placed around him.

"I'll be damned," Frohike muttered. "I figured you were going to show me your new kitten or something."

"Not a kitten."

"Where'd you find him?" Frohike gave him an expectant look which almost immediately wilted. "You did find him, didn't you? Tell me that this is a Silas Marner type story, Mulder, not one where you cheated on Dana."

"I didn't cheat on anybody," Mulder said, sounding annoyed. "I was abducted by aliens. Who the hell do you think I would have cheated on her with?"

"I guess it wasn't really social place, up there," Frohike said sheepishly.

"You got that right. I was basically locked up in what was the equivalent of solitary confinement. Although, instead of being locked away from the other prisoners, I was kept in a box and not fed very much by the aliens."

"Jesus, man."

"Yeah it was paradise," Mulder snarked.

Looking slightly braver, Frohike asked, "And where did the kid come from?"

"Do you remember me telling you about the first case that Scully and I ever investigated? Those catatonic kids in Oregon. Well, two of them were on the same ship as I was. And they somehow managed to rescue him when the ship crashed not too long ago. Billy contacted Scully looking for me, and the rest is history."

This did not satisfy Frohike's curiosity. Shaking his head he said, "No, man. Where did he come from?" in a way that made it obvious that he was more interested in the boy's origin story than his recent travel itinerary.

In response Mulder abruptly yanked up his shirt. The ridge of scar tissue across his side stood out in sharp relief against his otherwise smooth skin.

Frohike didn't say anything. His eyes were glued to the scar. "Out of you?" he asked after a hard swallow.

"Out of me," Mulder repeated grimly.

Frohike reacted with squeamish one of the few times Mulder had ever seen; he honestly wondered if he should hand him the waste basket next to his recliner. Frohike took a couple of deep breaths before asking, "And how did he get in there exactly," he asked, his eyes cutting to the baby on the floor.

"Frohike, your guess is as good as mine. I have no fucking idea what they did to me."

"I don't know man. Maybe it's for the best that you don't know the details. If it was me, I don't think I would want to know."

For a moment Mulder just stared at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to lash out and say that Frohike damn well would want to know what happened to him, but he didn't.

Maybe Frohike honestly wouldn't have wanted to know. They were probably millions of people who, in the same situation, would rather not know, ever. They would just be happy that the horrible experience was over. And be glad that they could resume what was left of their life.

It always startled him to think about how different other people were. Not just from himself but from each other in general. And it wasn't just people who didn't know each other, hadn't grown up together. There were siblings who had completely different tastes despite being raised in the exact same household by the exact same people at the exact same time. Twins even. The thought of twins made Mulder shudder, because he was certainly glad the unnamed baby was a singleton-

"Hey, you okay, man?" Frohike then asked. "You have this distant look on your face like you were thinking about something terrible..." he trailed off, giving him an uncertain look.

Mulder shook his head lightly. "I was just thinking about twins. And how glad I am that the baby wasn't."

To his surprise Frohike nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. If you only know where one of them was..."

That wasn't at all what he meant, but that was even worse. That was so incredibly much worse.

I have to believe he's the only one or I will go completely insane, Mulder calmly told himself. So very calmly. It was a fleeting thought, but he realized it was true. For the first time, and probably what would be the only time, he found himself minutely grateful that he'd been the one to carry the child. Had he only been a donor, who knew how many women could have been inseminated with his spawn.

"Mulder?" Frohike's voice was small, worried.

Mulder shook his head, as if to clear of cobwebs. "Sorry. I was just thinking about what it would have been like if women had carried him and other babies like him."

"You don't think they did?" Frohike asked.

"No," he said firmly enough to discontinue that line of thought.

"Right," Frohike muttered. "Why on earth would they do things the normal way when they could hurt people like you instead?"

Mulder smiled at them, but it was quite ghastly. "You can almost imagine them at this tall," Mulder said, holding his hand at not quite shoulder level, "tearing the wings off of intergalactic flies, can't you?"

His friend nodded. "I guess you should be glad that they didn't burn you with a magnifying glass."

"I guess."

After a moment or two Frohike looked up at him. "So, fatherhood. None of us saw that coming."

"I guess not," Mulder said. "At least not like this."

"Huh, no." Frohike looked chagrined. "At least not without having thrown you a bachelor party first."

"Right."

To his surprise, Frohike continued in this vein. "Maybe you'll still have one," he suggested.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I don't know, man. You've got a kid, Scully's got two kids. Why wouldn't you raise them together, instead of both doing the hard, single parent thing? You can get married, kill two birds with one stone."

To say that Frohike suggestion was surprising to him would be an understatement. The thought had of course crossed his mind, and he wouldn't be surprised if it'd also crossed Scully's, but to hear Frohike suggest it…

"Too soon?" Frohike asked.

This time Mulder smile was barely there. "I think so."

"Well, the kids are young. You have time to figure these things out."

"Yeah…" He suddenly remembered something that Billy and Theresa had suggested. "Speaking of figuring things out while they're young, do you have time to create a birth certificate for this guy?"

"We should," Frohike agreed. "What's his name, and who do we say is the mother?"

This through Mulder for a loop. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of these things as being pertinent pieces of information, but somehow he hadn't. "Um. I'm going to have to get back to you on that."

"About the mom, or the name?" Frohike asked.

Mulder squirmed uncomfortably. "Both."

"He doesn't have a name?" Frohike looked incredulous. On some level, he didn't blame him.

"Not yet."

Frohike opened his mouth, and then shut it for several seconds. When he spoke again, he looks sympathetic. "I guess you couldn't pronounce what they called him on the ship, huh?"

"Right."

By the time Frohike left, Mulder realized that he was going to have to find something to call the baby other than "the baby" or he would have trouble when he called to make an appointment for that pediatrician.

Glancing at the baby who was more than happy to play with cat toy that Mulder hadn't thought would be dangerous, he decided that the name he gave the baby didn't have to be his real name. He could think of it as a codename, to be changed later once he figured out if the kid would live long enough to ever respond to a name.