Setting: post S11 of The X-Files.

This is your last chance to turn back if you never made it that far. Or have never seen the show. Major spoilers ahead.

Here we have another one-shot born of another creative photo manipulation I saw on Twitter the other day. Mulder and Scully are at the dining table. He's seated in a chair. She stands behind him, watching him and smiling as he rests his head against her baby bump. A quiet moment.

This is a prequel to my other one-shot, Hope. But it can stand alone.

Disclaimer: I only own what I make up.

Femke, this one is also yours ;)

March sixth.

A day that Fox William Mulder would remember, even after all this time, in immense detail.

Why that particular March sixth?

He'd finally met Doctor Dana K. Scully.

After eons of hearing about her through 'borrowed' service records, and the FBI's reputable gossip chain. He respected her. Deeply.

And had he acted like a schoolboy fawning over the new girl?

Yes. He had. But Scully had liked it.

For all that… Mulder knew that that particular March sixth was burned into his other half's mind, too.

Scully had gone to bed on the fifth, expecting the next day to be routine.

And why wouldn't it be?

Her bills were paid. The fridge? Fully stocked. She'd even gotten together for dinner with her parents and two of her siblings that night. Everything was perfectly fine.

Surely the same could be said for the following day.

But alas… no.

Scully had overslept. Then her favorite suit had gotten dirty in her haste to make breakfast quicker than usual. The next one was very bland in color.

At least she'd avoided get ensnared in traffic gridlock on the way to work.

That day, she made it in by the skin of her teeth.

But before Scully could even get to her desk, one of the other agents flagged her down to say that Section Chief Blevins wanted to see her. Immediately.

So… With her most convincingly fake smile, Scully found herself knocking on Blevins' door.

"Come in." the man called.

Obeying, Scully opened the door and stepped forth. Into the office.

Blevins motioned for Scully to in the chair opposite his desk. Scully did.

Present in addition to Blevins was an older man. He was leaning against a filing cabinet. A quiet show of power. Scully immediately received the impression that this wasn't a man to cross. But the act sealing this man's presence? He was quietly smoking a Morley cigarette.

And when he saw Scully looking, he crossed the room to lean against a patch of wall behind Blevins' desk. Just who was this guy?

Also present was a third man. He just sat in a chair next to Blevins'. Completing the section chief's odd guard.

Blevins then said, "We see you've been with us for just over two years."

"Yes, sir." answered Scully.

"You went to medical school, but chose not to practice. How'd you come to work for the FBI?"

Scully answered as best she could—this meeting had blindsided her. "Well, sir, I was recruited out of medical school. Um… My parents still think it was an act of rebellion, but, uh… I saw the FBI as a place where I could distinguish myself."

It was the third man who asked the question that was permanently alter the course of Doctor Dana Katherine Scully's life. "Are you familiar with an agent called Fox Mulder?"

"Yes, I am."

Both seated men exchanged glances with each other.

But the third man spoke again. "How so?"

"By reputation: he's an Oxford-educated psychologist, who wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult that helped catch Monty Props in 1988. Generally thought of the best analyst in the Violent Crimes section." a small smile flickered across the agent's features as she recited the next factoid. "He had a nickname at the academy… 'Spooky' Mulder."

In an odd compulsion, Scully looked over to the cigarette-smoking man to offer him a smile.

But he did not react. Totally stone cold.

Blevins quickly regained control of the situation. "What I'll also tell you is that Agent Mulder has developed a consuming passion to an unassigned project outside the bureau mainstream. Are you familiar with the so-called 'X-Files'?"

"I believe they have to do with unexplained phenomena." Scully answered after a moment of thinking about it.

"More or less. The reason you're here, Agent Scully, is... we want you to assist Agent Mulder on these X-Files. You will write field reports on your activities, along with your observations on the validity of these reports."

The cigarette-smoking man chose that moment to put out his cigarette. But he still remained completely silent.

"Am I to understand," Scully said to Blevins in a search for clarification. "That you want me to debunk the X-Files project, sir?"

"Agent Scully," he responded. "We trust that you'll make the proper scientific analysis. You'll want to contact Agent Mulder shortly. We look forward to seeing your reports."

Dazed by the whirlwind of a meeting, Scully exited Blevins' office.

Calling Mulder also happened in a swift timeframe. But Scully would've done it unprompted. Common courtesy was important in any workplace.

When Scully disembarked the lift in the building's basement, she felt like she'd stepped into the deepest bowels of a gigantic fortress. And… She was quite certain she was underground. Or near to it.

And it didn't take her long to find Mulder's door.

Mostly because the rest of the doors led to storage. Or utilities. Kind of depressing.

All the same… Scully knocked politely on Mulder's door.

His reply was immediate. "Sorry—nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted!"

Scully opened the door.

Everywhere she looked about the room, she saw books, files, innumerable stacks of paper. Mountains of it.

But… Mixed in with all the… 'organized chaos' were different types of material to suggest that the king of this realm really did have a serious investment in the extra-terrestrial.

Namely a poster near his desk bearing the graphic of a flying saucer and the message, 'I WANT TO BELIEVE.'

It wouldn't be until many years later—after their encounter with Maurice and Lyda—that Scully would be moved enough to tell Mulder than she'd been completely fascinated from the start. But he'd figure it out on his own first.

Mulder looked up from slides he'd been investigating on a tabletop backlight.

Unlike Scully, Mulder's morning had been humdrum. At best. He was even dressed in his typical 'office drone' look.

But like Scully, Mulder was also feeling irritated. Why? His local LensCrafters had been all out of the frames he'd had his heart set on getting, the previous night.

And the rest of his choices were poor. So… He was delegated to overlarge frames.

He'd get a sharper set. Eventually.

Maybe.

If he didn't completely forget, thanks to work.

But then he saw Scully. Made eye contact with her.

And promptly felt as though he'd been struck by lightning.

In one word… The redhead was a stunner.

Little did he know (at the time) that she was feeling lightning-struck by him.

"Agent Mulder. I'm Dana Scully. I've been assigned to work with you."

She offered him her hand.

Mulder shook it. Just because he worked in the basement, that didn't mean he was totally without commonplace social graces.

But he still came off (unintentionally) as a touch snarky because he had been stewing about his glasses for awhile.

"Oh, isn't nice to suddenly be so highly regarded?" Mulder quipped. "So… Who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?"

But she didn't flinch. "Actually… I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you."

Mulder continued to be impressed. "Oh, really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me."

"If you have doubts about my qualifications or credentials, th…"

But Scully had now grown distracted.

Inexplicably, Mulder had extracted a paper seemingly at random from a stack of paper under his office telephone. The communication device was doubling as a paperweight.

But Mulder flourished the sheet as he said, "You're a medical teacher. You teach at the academy. You did your undergraduate degree in physics."

To her credit, Scully remained completely unabashed. It was her nature.

The last thing she'd expected when waking up that morning was for 'Spooky' Mulder to find her even remotely interesting. She certainly found this to be a quality of him.

But in a backhanded way at the moment… the other agent was initiating the beginnings of a friendship.

Mulder took off his eyewear so we could see the paper better. "'Einstein's Twin Paradox — A New Interpretation: Dana Scully, Senior Thesis.' Now that's a credential… Rewriting Einstein."

"Did you even bother to read it?" Scully challenged.

"I did." Mulder said with (embarrassingly) eager earnest. "I liked it."

Talk from there turned to what would become their first case together.

But… The universe already knew that these two would be together for the rest of their days. Through the thick and the thin. The better. The best. Absolutely everything.

For these two were soulmates. But had no idea.

Yet.

Soon after getting over the shock of her pregnancy, Scully began packing up her house in town. She had to.

It reminded her very much of a home her family had lived in on a naval base in Japan while Senior had been stationed there. She had loved it. But keeping the house in D.C. was just not feasible.

Not when Scully already spent so much time at Mile End with Mulder. This was their name for the place, as it was past the D.C. outskirts.

But after Scully did make Mile End her permanent address, she also happily became to be a co-owner of it. And the surrounding land.

Mulder knew Scully already had ambitious home-improvement plans for the spring and summer. But he was looking forward to every little bit. They would be spending the rest of their lives here.

Together. At peace.

For good now.

Dreams really did come true.

Mulder came back to reality when he heard a quiet giggling behind him. But it was music to his ears.

Turning about face, Mulder looked upon his companion. She hadn't been there a few moments ago.

In Mulder's opinion, Doctor Dana Katherine Scully—swollen with his child—looked breathtakingly beautiful.

However... She did not feel it just then. At nine months pregnant in her fifties, she only felt like a humpback whale. Swimming through molasses.

Mulder lovingly doted on her. Like a husband. He never said an ill word about it, living in the moment as much as she was.

Because neither had forgotten how devastatingly short their times with Emily and William had been.

In the present, they were choosing joy whenever they could.

So Mulder just looked at Scully with love.

Dressed in a nightgown and robe, Scully was happily cradling her burgeoning middle. And caught in a case of the giggles.

He told her, "Glad you're feeling better now, Red."

"So am I." she agreed.

Just that afternoon, Scully had spent a lot of time crying, upon returning from a baby-related check-up.

Big news had been learned.

Their daughter could have a heart defect. She would also more than likely need to have a nasal feeding tube put in place not long after she was born because things were a tad complicated. At least Doctor Colfax had been very patient while explaining it all. Sympathetic, too.

Mulder and Scully felt stunned. But they already knew they would do anything for their daughter. At all.

Meaning, they could still have their 'pseudo married' moments.

"What are you laughing about?" Mulder put a hand on top of Scully's.

"Oh." Scully laughed again. "I'm about to put a DVD on. Will you join me? Please?"

Mulder arched an eyebrow. "Dana? What are you leaving out?"

"My only stipulation is, absolutely no Baba Booey material." the doctor shuddered.

Mulder knew she was laying this rule down only because he'd recently found his Baba Booey tapes and DVDs from where Scully had hidden them away.

"Alright. But…?"

"Just as I finished thinking that, the baby kicked me twice. Agreeing."

Mulder harrumphed, "You and Lilith are ganging up on me."

Scully wrinkled the bridge of her nose as she felt the the baby move sharply. "Are you kidding me? Lilith? I'll admit that it has a nicer ring than Novah—with an h—but no. Strike three. You lose the bet, Fox. I win."

He protested, "How are you protesting Lilith?! It's really nice, though!"

Scully didn't miss a beat. "I am pretty sure Lilith is, at the very least, a mythological she-demon."

This prompted Mulder to sober up. "Oh."

Scully pointed to her middle. "Your very non-Lilith daughter just kicked me with both feet. And she's quite strong. I'm taking her actions as a solid no."

"Okay. We'll name her after we meet her—fair is fair."

But then Mulder sighed. A new dilemma.

"If my choice is off the table, then so is The Brady Bunch. Come on."

Scully arched an eyebrow. "Fox… Is this you saying you regret gifting me the boxed set of the whole series on DVD?"

He had done so the day before, claiming it to be an early Christmas present. (The holiday was yet twenty days out) All the same… Scully was very touched. She had only told him once, a very long time ago, that The Brady Bunch had been her favorite show as a kid.

Mulder scrabbled for a satisfactory answer. "No…?"

Scully kissed him. "Thank God. Because I really love the gift… Oh… There she goes…"

Bored, the baby had started kicking theatrically again.

Mulder quickly touched a hand to Scully's protruding middle. But felt nothing. Just as quickly, his daughter had stilled.

"Someone is playing favorites." he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, don't I know it." Scully tried not to look too sheepish. "Baby girl is already kicking me again."

"Now I think we really should put on some Baba Booey material. What do you think?"

But Scully playfully flipped Mulder off and laughed. "Didn't I just say five minutes ago, that even the baby doesn't want that?!"

Mulder smiled to himself. Getting her to laugh had worked.

"Okay, okay." he relented. "Any more ideas yet?"

Scully wound herself down. "What about The Invisible Man, Fox? It's been awhile since we out it on. And I know I just saw your copy of the original…"

Mulder's first response was kiss her.

Where he was a fan of low-budget pictures in black-and-white, Scully was a connoisseur of movies from Hollywood's golden age. Breakfast At Tiffany's was a favorite. Mulder would often catch Scully singing 'Moon River' to her bump. (Yet for some reason he had yet to understand, Scully had happily viewed Jaws countless times) For her to thoughtfully suggest one of his all-time favorite films just made him happy.

The man cleared his throat. "Yes to that, but I want to see what the kid thinks. She still pushing your buttons?"

"Not at much as you," admitted Scully. "But she's moving gently. Feel."

Scully guided Mulder to lay his head against her middle. She even rested a hand on the bulge's other side. For support.

But Scully kept her other hand on Mulder's head. Fingers woven throughout his dark locks.

The very first time she'd done this, ever, they'd finished a secret meeting in a parking lot. He'd been over his head in worry. And she'd been worried for him. With him. To perform an act so intimate, in spite of the brief time they'd known each other back then… It had felt right.

Now, short of lovemaking, extremely intimate touch was definitely Scully's most favorite way to express love to her soulmate. And he liked it as much as she did.

Vibrations from Mulder's voice across her middle caught Scully's attention. The baby was moving in response. As if amused by her father.

"Come on." Mulder was wheedling his daughter. "Cast your vote. Two kicks means yes. Come on, kid. You got this."

Both parents could only feel wide, broad movements. They were mesmerized.

But then—

The baby kicked.

Twice.

done