Summary: Scully continues to be assulted by her odd dreams.
Disclaimer: As you know, the characters Mulder and Scully are Chris
Carter's brain child, and all rights belong to him, Fox, 1013 etc. I'm
getting no money from this; it's all in fun.
Dana's Dreamland
Part II
"Dana, Dana" a voice called in the distance.
I responded to my name immediately and saw my sister Melissa standing in the distance, but she was a little girl.
"MISSY," I said in shock, receiving a second shock when my own unfamiliar voice came out like a chipmunk. My older sister, who's death still hung in my mind linked heavily with the guilt of knowing she took a bullet meant for me, stood before me as a young girl.
"Come on, Mom and Dad are waiting. Dad says we can't eat until the families at the table. And you know how Bill gets when he has to wait."
The little girl smiled at me and took my hand. It was only then I glanced at my own hand and I realized it was the hand of a child. As Melissa lead me toward our family setting at the picnic table, all other thoughts disappears as I slipped into the warm comfort of being a child again—the world was safe, my family was complete. The scene brought back a secure warmth from long ago, still sitting somewhere in my 'before Mulder' memories—which were often hard to recall. I loved Mulder, I really did, but we had become so entwined that I sometimes forgot where I ended and he began. Mulder wasn't just a friend from work, or my partner; he was a twenty four hour a day lifestyle.
But Mulder wasn't home. This sight was home. My two brothers, in their long forgotten youthful forms, picked at each other. My father, alive and active, reprimanded the boys. And my mother, a vibrant YOUNG woman, sat the food out at the table, called to us girls, and still managed to calmly talk the boys out of their argument.
"Come on Dana, join your family," Melissa said running off toward the picnic table.
With a speed I didn't know I had and excitement I hadn't felt in years, I ran toward the family setting. I could smell my mother's pies, feel the warm laughter that accompanied these meals as we shared memories. For the first time since I'd left home I felt like I belonged at a table with my family. Just as I reached it, all the people dissolved like an illusion or a mirage in the desert, leaving only the table. Adult Melissa materialized in front of me. I checked my hands to see if they were still small, but they weren't.
"Fill the table Dana."
"What?"
"Fill the table, you want it full. Don't sit here alone forever."
"I don't understand."
"Fill the table," Melissa said turning away.
She strolled slowly toward a house in the distance. I ran after her, but no matter how fast I ran—catching up with her slow stroll was impossible. The white light appeared—blinding me again. When it dimmed, I saw Melissa in the distance, holding Emily's hand.
"Fill the table Dana," Melissa repeated.
Then the figures dissolved.
"Scully," my partner's voice said as a gentle stroke to the cheek awoke me.
If there was one time Mulder was gentle, it was when he found little excuses like this to touch me. As childish as Mulder could be at times, he had never shaken me awake or yelled in my ear (though an early morning phone call came pretty close). There was always this gentle touch that ever so sweetly brought me from dreamland to the real world. I had learned many times over the years how gentle those hands could be, how they could sweep across you leaving tingling sensations in their path. His touch always warmed me from the inside out.
I learned about that touch the first time we met. Despite all my assertions that I DO NOT believe in extraterrestrial, despite my long list of rationalizations against the possibility, I had ran into his room like a mad woman upon finding a few bumps on my back that turned out to be no more than misquito bites. His touch had been in full effect that night, lightly tracing the area in question as he examined me, making my body gently tingle in ways it hadn't since that first disastrous bout of puppy love. I was so shaken, both by fear and him, I couldn't wait to hide behind that robe again. And then he began to touch me in little ways, placing his hand on my back for instance or on my shoulder. His arrogance didn't scare me, that touch did. I could compete with him on an intellectual level, could battle theories back and forth and every once in awhile come up with a colorful quip to counter his. But his touch, those gentle hands, I had nothing of equal hypnotizing value to hold over him.
I stretched as best I could. Sleeping in the car seat had given me a terrible cramp. My legs felt like dead weight. And why was I here? Ghost. Mulder had entertained me on the plane with the Romeo and Juliet like tale of kissing cousins Mindy and David Brown—without knowledge of this blood tie, had met and got involved in high school. By the time their fathers--feuding brother's found out, Mindy was already pregnant. Each brother blamed the other and got into a fight that resulted in them killing each other. When Mindy's gay brother turned up dead, she claimed an apparition of her father appeared. She claimed to have seen it again when, David, who had been living as her husband, 'appeared' to have committed suicide. Now a normal Agent would have attributed the brother's death to a hate crime (as the cops had done) and believed David Brown's suicide was exactly what it appeared to be. But not Mulder, he was ready to believe a story about ghost. Even though it was possibly the theory of a disturbed woman. A woman who had been found incompetent as a mother and had her children taken away.
I finally got the energy to push the car door open as some of the circulation returned to my legs. Mulder was standing there, chipper as ever. Did he have the energy of a five year old or what? What bewildered me more than the fact I never hung up on him when he called me at three in the morning, was that he was up and active at that time. Was he on some drug I didn't know about that kept him going like the energizer bunny?
"Glad I finally got you awake," Mulder said leaning on the car door.
Slipping out the car, I stretched my dead legs. I almost tumbled from that sleeping leg and Mulder caught me in his arms. I got onto my own feet as quickly as possible, not wanting to betray myself to my partner. Waking me up was one thing, but I wasn't going to take an extended vacation lying in his arms.
"You alright Scully,"
"I'm fine," I said knowing full well where that phrase always got me. "I've just been having these really powerful dreams."
"Scully!" he said with that damn boyish smile and teasing tone that implied enough to get his innuendo across.
Now I wanted to smack him. Mulder had this uncanny ability to drive me from one extreme to the other. I either wanted to kiss him, smack him, or both, but there was rarely any middle ground. No one else could get under my skin like Mulder. I could control myself with everyone else. And that was another one of those things I feared and loved about him all at once.
"You know I don't mean that," I replied.
"Sure Scully," he said carrying the sarcastic tone I had been trying to capture earlier on the phone
"Shut up, Mulder, " I said grabbing my cell phone from the car.
As we entered the mental hospital, my body was on autopilot, following behind Mulder as we went through our usual motions, show badges—ask questions. Make people think we're crazy—only Mulder could accomplish that with a single question. Sure, the woman's in a mental hospital, but she's still a credible witness. Yes, we believe she's really talking to ghost. Mulder was no fool; I'm not saying that, if the conversation warranted it, he could play his own skeptic.
Creative, Mulder was a creative investigator. Usually I loved watching him work, watching him solve his puzzles. And I was his playmate—we were in a constant competition, trying to find out who would win the game—though we had to work together to reach the end. Today, however, I couldn't have concentrated if I wanted to. In the beginning 'Mulder land' had been an interesting place, full of surprises, mystery and intrigue, now I swore if I saw another dead cow slide, I'd break Mulder's projector. Folklore come to life, vampires, alien probes, and conspiracy theories—it was all a bunch of been there, done that. Every once in awhile, the X-Files offered a surprise or two, but I didn't stay for the cases anymore, I stayed for him—maybe I always had. I knew if I ever quit the FBI or left the X-Files that he and I would always be friends. But it wouldn't be the same as being partners. As much as I wanted something else in my life, it felt good to be needed—depended upon. Rather it was just to talk or to chase after some wild case, he called me. I didn't want Mulder giving his 3 a.m. calls to anyone else. And then there were those moments, those unpredictable moments where we, while discussing a case in the hotel room or in a car, where a piece of ourselves would leak out and be revealed. And we never realized it, never forced it, it just happened.
"Scully," Mulder said when he was finished talking to Mindy's psychiatrist.
"Huh," I replied not realizing I had been staring into space the whole time.
"You sure you're awake?" he asked so seriously I couldn't think of a logical answer.
I wanted to say, "I'm fine", but I knew he never believed that.
"I'm okay Mulder," I finally replied—big difference from I'm fine. "Let's go."
He cast me a suspicious glance. I turned away from it and headed down the hall. I didn't have a viable explanation to give him. He let it go and a few minutes later we were in the white walled room of Mindy Brown.
I have to admit the woman looked spooked, all the color had been flushed from her face, making her as pale as a ghost. Her eyes were boaring into the wall in front of her, though they were without expression. It was obvious she wasn't with the rest of the world. If I didn't know better, I would have said she was a ghost.
"Mindy," Mulder said as he approached her. Despite his gentle tone, the girl nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Mr. Mulder, I'm sorry," Mindy said, her voice coming out in shivers—though it was far from cold.
"This is my partner Dana Scully."
"I'm glad you came, no one else will listen. He came last night, telling me losing my children would be my punishment. He's taunting me, he knows I can't get to them."
"What does he say to you exactly?"
"That his line must end, that that is his punishment for killing his brother," Mindy sighed before she continued, but her eyes still weren't registering emotion. "He says, he was disgraced enough by a gay son—my atrocity has doomed his line. He appears to me in the dream world only. They say it's just a manifestation of guilt, but Kayla's seen him too. She's only five, she doesn't understand guilt, all she knows is--. She was perfect, you know—I just knew she was going to have two heads or something, but she was perfect. Still, David and I, we decided to be safe—not have any more children. Than William Michael came along and that's when he came to end his line. Everything was fine as long as it was only Kayla, but William Michael changed things. I don't understand why." Mindy turned to Mulder, her eyes finally registering on us. "Your going to see my children today, aren't you?"
"Yes," Mulder answered.
"Tell them there mother loves them. And tell them I'm sorry; no leave
that part out. Just tell them I love them."
Mulder and I were back in the car before I spoke, I knew whatever I had to say would lead to the usual song and dance, but so be it.
"Mulder, that's woman is very disturbed—I hope your not taking her seriously. I mean there's a reason she's here."
"He was a boy."
"What?" I responded.
"His line wasn't in danger of being further disgraced by a female child. A woman becomes the burden of whatever family she marries."
"Didn't that go out with the idea that all women should be barefoot and pregnant?"
Mulder half smiled in response. "Despite my liberated point of view, some men still believe in the male line of succession."
"Sure, your real liberated Rob "make me a sandwich" Petrie," I shot
back at him with a smile.
I couldn't help thinking about Emily as I entered the children's service's building. It had the same cold walls that tried to disguise themselves as a place for children with their pastel clown pictures in various funny positions dancing along the walls. There were also finger paintings and stick drawings on bulletin boards and on walls, doing their part in the deception. This was a dumping ground for the children they didn't know what to do with and the walls knew it. No amount of pastels could hide that. It was a place I had hoped to rescue Emily from, but instead I had moved her from here into another cold place. That hospital. My best moment with Emily had been in neither place, but in that car when I gave her my necklace—the one my mother had passed onto me. I hadn't known she was mine then, but maybe somewhere deep down inside I did know she was a part of me. We had so little time together, yet my memories of her were as clear as if the whole tragedy had occurred yesterday.
We entered a playroom that served as a visiting area for parents and children. I heard the papers rustling behind me as the child's caseworker entered behind us.
"Miss Scully," a voice said from behind me in shock.
I spun around, wondering who could know me by name. I was surprised to find out who the voice belonged to, especially since it was Emily I had just been thinking about. It was Susan Chambliss, the one who had handled Emily's adoption case. We greeted each other like old friends, one wouldn't have believe the only memory between us was a tragic one.
"So you're here about the Brown children," Ms. Chambeliss began, "Such a tragic case. Kayla is such a delightful little girl, one wouldn't believe the things she's endured."
"So you're familiar with the children?"
"Yeah, they're my case. Well not really, it got handed to me about three days ago. Cynthia Warren left to have a baby. You know, I actually found a few homes for the baby brother--William, but no one wants the little girl. They think she's disturbed"
"Because she talks to Ghost?"
"Yes, Isn't that why you and your partner are here?"
"Well, even if the child isn't seeing ghost."
"She could have seen something," Susan sighed. "Well I was just going to get her and her brother. You two ca n just wait here."
Then Susan Chambeliss disappeared through the door and down the hall.
"Mommy's here," I heard a little voice say before I saw the child. I knew that voice, but I dare not say what was in my mind. It couldn't be, she couldn't be here. Yet, I turned to look anyway and she came running through the door with the biggest smile. It was Emily; her cubby cheeks as rosy as ever. But the face of Emily only appeared for only a second, it quickly dissolved into another little face and this one was frowning.
"You're not mommy," Kayla said looking at me with these wide blue eyes. Her short blond hair framing her face the same way Emily's had.
Susan Chambeliss came running in behind her, she was holding a ten-month-old baby boy.
"But Uncle Charley said Mommy would come today," Kayla frowned.
Susan kneeled down in front of the child. "I told you, your mommy can't take care of you right now."
Kayla's eyes fell to her red headed brother, then looked up at me again.
"The sign, you're the one," Kayla said, the smile returning as her eyes fell on me.
"Agents, this is Kayla and William Brown," Chambeliss introduced.
"William Michael Brown," Kayla corrected, ignored by the caseworker again.
Susan again turned to Kayla.
"These are Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. They would like to talk to you about your mommy? Would you like to talk to them?"
"If William Michael can stay with me," Kayla responded.
Susan nodded and put the baby in a near-by bouncer.
"I'll be right outside, okay?"
When Susan stepped out, Kayla's eyes fell on Mulder.
"Is your name really Fox?" Kayla asked Mulder.
"Yeah."
"How'd you get that name?"
"How'd you get the name Kayla?"
"I don't know. I know how my brother got his name. William was my daddy's daddy and Michael was my Mommy's daddy."
"Which one talks to you?"
"Uncle Charley talks to me, he told me Mommy was scared of Grandpa Michael, but that I don't have to be. He told me someone was coming to protect me and Michael. And now she's here."
"Who?"
"Her," Kayla said pointing to me.
I wish I could have seen my face at that moment, because I felt completely and totally dumfounded. I hadn't known this child five minutes and now she was declaring I was her savior.
"It's just like Uncle Charley said, you have to take me to my Mommy now."
"What?" I finally managed to say. The bright-eyed Kayla was sure of herself, I could tell that. But I still couldn't figure out why, there was no logical reason for her to suddenly decide some woman she hadn't known five minutes—had I said that already, was suppose to take her away.
"He said you'd remind me of my brother. And you do, cause of your red hair. And that you would wear the sign and you're wearing it around your neck. He called you the guardian of imocence."
"When do you talk to Uncle Charley?" Mulder interrupted.
"I hear him all the time. But I can only see him in my dreams. He keeps Grandpa Michael from taking me and William Michael when we're sleeping." Kayla turned to me. "Can I go see Mommy now."
It was clear now; this elaborate story was a way to get to her mother.
"Kayla, I'm sure Miss Susan has told you, you can't see your mommy right now."
"But you have to take us. Uncle Charley said you would lead us home."
I kneeled down to the five-year-old. She was getting increasingly upset and I knew she wasn't going to like what I had to tell her. Her blue eyes were no longer as bright as they had been when she entered; they were now dimming to a paler shade.
"Kayla sweetie," I began in the softest voice I could muster. "Your Mommy isn't at home."
"Yes she is," Kayla said with a tear rolling down her cheek. "Uncle Charley promised, he said once the guardian came—we would go home." That single tear was followed by another. Kayla broke her small hand from mine and wrapped both arms around my neck. She was holding on so tight I thought my face would turn blue from the pressure. "You're the only reason I wasn't scared, Uncle Charley kept promising you would come—you can't leave me here. Grandpa Michael's gonna get us one day, but I wasn't scared. Cause Uncle Charley promised you would come."
"I'm sorry Kayla, there's nothing I can do," I replied, prying the child from myself as gently as possible.
When I looked into her face, I nearly fainted, for I saw Emily again. "We need you," was her singular reply. I blinked and Kayla stood before me again.
Susan Chambeliss reentered the room to retrieve Kayla, which was difficult because she was gripping my jacket. When she finally was lose she started screaming. Susan was doing her best to hold the child. Only when she was out of the room did she stop screaming and start crying. All logic told me there was nothing I could do, but I felt guilty anyway.
"You okay Scully," Mulder asked as he placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Fine," I replied. How many times have I assured him of that today?
"Ma," a small voice said from behind me. I turned and looked at the curly headed baby boy. He raised his hands to me. "Ma." He said again.
Without thinking, I reached for the baby boy and picked him up. He smiled at me and reached for the crucifix around my next. He fiddled with it and looked up at me again.
"Ma?" he repeated. Though it seemed this was the only word he knew, this time it seemed like a question. Like he too knew of the "sign" Kayla mentioned, like it meant something to him to and he just couldn't express it. He lay down in my bosom, flushing me with a warm sensation that I hadn't felt in months, years. His small head was under my chin, his hair brushing my cheek. My heartbeat vibrating against his ear. The thing about babies is they have this smell, this sweet baby powder smell that makes you want to hold onto them forever. You know when they fell safe with you, because all they need is that feeling as a reason to cuddle close to you.
Susan Chambeliss reentered.
"I suppose this wasn't very productive, I'll take William now."
My arms were reluctant to turn the snuggling baby over to Ms. Chambeliss. I slowly released him from my hands to hers, but he too was reluctant to go. First his small hands tried to hold onto me, but were unsuccessful. Then his small voice released a pleading "Ma" before he to burst into tears.
"Maybe it's best they be separated," Susan replied. "Lord knows what went on in that house."
"Ma," William Michael cried again and reached for me before Susan turned out the door, coddling him as best she could.
I couldn't explain it in logical terms, but I began to cry. I wasn't bawling, there was just these uncontrollable teardrops forcing there way down my face. Maybe it was guilt or regret resurfacing because I knew I could never have a child. But neither of these explanations registered with the choking sensation in my throat. My heart was telling me to run out into the hall, snatch the baby from Chambeliss' arms and hold him until he was resting comfortably in my bosom again. But luckily my Brain kept my feet in place. However, I could feel Mulder's eyes looking at me.
"Scully?" he questioned.
I couldn't even manage another "I'm fine" or "I'm okay".
"I didn't know these kids would get to you like that."
"It's okay. It's just that picking up a baby always makes. . ."
I sighed. "Let's go Mulder."
Our next stop was the Brown household. Mindy must have been a good housekeep, because except for the office where David had hung himself, the house was pretty neat. This was an amazing accomplishment for a woman with two small children. I wondered if I would have been able to do the same with children so young. I'm not saying it was perfect, there was the stray toy here and there. In fact Mulder and I had nearly tripped on a pair of skates and a toy car upon entering. But that was perhaps what made it normal. So normal in fact, it seemed illogical that the father killed himself, the mother went crazy, and the children ended up belonging to the state.
As Mulder rattled around the living room, the photos on the mantel caught my attention. A naked baby Kayla, with a blanket draped around her was sitting on the mantel—she would kill her mother for that around age thirteen. A picture of William Michael at the hospital was beside it. Then there was a huge professional Family portrait; I was amazed at how beautiful Mindy had been when she had some color to her. No one would have guessed she and David were related. He was this tall lanky guy with a little boy's face.
"You sure these two were cousins?"
"Yeah, they're father's were half brothers. That's what the feud between them was about, 'a mother's love'. It seems she favored Michael over William. She had an affair and had William—he was illegitimate. But her heart was always with her husband, so she put the weight and blame of that decision on William."
"And three generations down it's still tearing the family apart," I said more to myself then him.
"I'm going look around in the office," Mulder announced.
As headed in the direction of the office, I went upstairs to look around. My first stop was the parent's room. I gave it the thorough look over, but it was as neat as the rest of the house. David had left his pants on the foot of the bed. That was about the only thing out of place. The statement taken from Mindy said he had just gotten up out of bed, gone into his downstairs office, and hung himself. Mindy found him. According to her, the kids had never seen the body. It wasn't long after that the neighbors slowly began to notice the families decent into madness. The next door neighbor had called Children's Services when Mindy had come banging on her door in the rain, with her children half dressed, claiming her dead father was after her. Less than a week later Kayla began to claim she had been talking to her dead Uncle, who died nearly a month before.
As I glanced over the night table, I heard the tinkling tune of "Rock a Bye Baby" filter through the baby monitor. I turned around again, toward the connecting door. Through it, I could see the Red and White walls of the nursery. I walked toward it. Inside the nursery, I was flushed with that mothering sensation of holding the baby yet again. William Michael's bed still looked brand new, there were cute little baby clothes hanging on hangers in his closet. My eyes fell on a little baseball outfit on the changing table. With a matching baseball cap. My fingers felt along the little blue lines of the cap, thinking of his little head resting under my chin and how each expression of the word "Ma" let me know what he was feeling. One word and he had said it so many ways. As I picked up the hat, a hand fell on mine. There was no reason to move, I knew his touch, it was Mulder.
"Scully, What are you doing?"
It was a question, but it sounded more like a statement. Like he already knew what, or at least who I was thinking about.
"Nothing, just inspecting the room," I answered moving away from him.
"Scully, I don't think there is anything here anyway. I'm finding no evidence of anything but a cut and dry suicide."
"I didn't know suicide was cut and dry
Mulder sighed. "I saw what happened when you held that baby."
"What?"
"You know, that look you women get when—"
"Excuse me? You women?"
"I didn't mean it like that Scully," Mulder rattled out, knowing he had just tripped over this own tongue. "I just meant, I was there when you lost Emily. And today you not only run into Susan Chambeliss, but a little girl who thinks you're her savior and a baby that called you Ma several times."
"All he could say was Ma. It had nothing to do with me. And if there is some fowl play going on here, we're the only ones who will investigate it."
I walked out the room before he could offer up anymore rationalizations.
It was only when I arrived downstairs that I realized William Michael's
hat was still in my hand. I didn't want to have to face Mulder with it
and have more debating on the subject, so I stuffed it into my pocket.
Mulder and I were silent on the way back to our hotel. I was glad, that hat was like a burning hot poker in my pocket. I probably would have confessed my theft if he spoke. However, once I was alone. I took it out and held it in my hands. Remembering the small child it belonged to, his sister. Their pleadings as they held onto me.
The door between our rooms was unlocked, but thankfully Mulder was gone.
He went to buy some sunflower seeds for his supply. He only has a few in
his pocket supply. I use to think those things grew in his pocket.
"Why don't you believe her?" a small voice said from the end of the bed.
"Your not real," I stated thinking I must have dozed off, because that was the only way Emily could be sitting on the end of the bed.
"She's not a child," a second voice said. This one belonged to Melissa. "We adults are always on the search for proof. Even her Mulder is seeking physical evidence for those intangible things he believes in. Only children have a faith that's completely blind. You keep telling yourself that this is a dream, maybe you're right. Maybe we are not what we seem to be. Maybe these forms are just a convenient way of getting this message to you."
"They're in trouble. You must go to them now," Emily added.
I jerked awake with that statement. As I thought, I had been asleep. But for the first time, I could remember the dream clearly. The kids were in trouble, I sensed it. I had to check on them. Maybe I was acting like a worried mother, despite the fact I wasn't there mother. Yet, I was filled with the sudden urge to know if they were okay. I didn't care what Mulder thought. Well that's a lie, but in this situation it was second to knowing the kids were okay.
I burst into Mulder's room. He was munching on his seeds and reading a police report. Confused at my sudden entrance, his eyes glanced up at me over the paper, as if to say 'what in the hell'. I didn't care.
"Mulder, do you have the number for Children's services?"
"Why?"
"I need to check on them, the Brown children."
"Why?"
"Just a hunch Mulder."
I knew by now I was appearing quite ecstatic for no reasons at all. These were not my children. But I had had an instinct similar to this with Kevin. I expected a snide remark from Mulder, something I wasn't in the mood for, but instead he uttered a surprising "Okay" and dialed the number. It was only then I realized I was twiddling my thumbs. Mulder registered his usual stoic expression as he conversed on the phone. There were times I could see through this, but not right now. Right now I couldn't see through glass.
"Scully," Mulder said as he looked up at me. "You must be psychic. They're gone."
"Gone, gone where."
"No one knows, " Mulder replied. "They just disappeared. Someone went to check on William Michael about a half-hour ago, he wasn't there. Then they discovered his sister was gone too. Along with a wagon they keep in the play area."
"Have they searched the whole building?"
"Yes and they've called the cops, though they haven't found any signs of anyone breaking in or out. Let alone a five year old strolling her baby brother in a little red wagon."
"Mulder"
"I know, lets go"
We were out of that hotel room and outside before we knew what was happening. The keys were in my pocket, so I slid them over the hood to Mulder. I was too upset to drive. However, just as I was slipping in the car—a glimmer of red attracted my attention. The traffic of the main roadway was flowing heavily, so I prayed it wasn't what I thought. Besides—how would a five-year-old get out her that quickly?
"Ma," I heard softly as all traffic stopped for a red light. And there was Kayla, walking the yellow line, wagon in tow. I panicked and ran to her, without even checking to see if the light was changing. Kayla seemed to be in a trance anyway, and if she was sleepwalking—I didn't want to startle her awake.
I cut straight in front of her path, gently grabbed her and called her name. Her eyes suddenly came alive as she blinked at me.
"Miss Dana? Uncle Charley was taking me home. How'd I get here?"
"Kayla, you're a long way from home."
As if some spell had been broken, the light turned green, cars noticed us, and suddenly began to honk their horns. The loud noise scared the baby boy lying in the wagon, who began to cry.
"It's okay, I'm here," I said lifting William Michael.
By the time I looked up, Mulder was standing over me. Horns were
still honking; Kayla was covering her ears to reduce the noise. Mulder
said nothing; he just silently picked up Kayla, grabbed the wagon handle
and walked out of the street. Coddling the scared baby, I followed.
I called children's services this time, convincing them the children should stay with us for the night. I was sitting on the end of Mulder's bed at the time. He kept gazing at me, still holding William Michael. I didn't like his look, this "I'm watching you hang yourself" expression. He hadn't said anything of the like, though he had already run out and bought me some pampers and milk to get through the night. For some reason, he didn't argue with me keeping the kids over night. Kayla was sitting on the floor laughing and watching cartoons.
"So Scully," he said when I hung up. "How did you know?"
"I told you, I've been having these dreams"
"Dreams, when Does Skeptical Scully act on dreams."
"Mulder, why is it every time I believe in something, you act like my personal feelings are clouding my judgement!"
"When have I done that?"
"Would you like me to compile a list, starting with a man named Boggs."
Kayla turned her attention from the TV to us. "Are you guys fighting?"
"No Kayla, Mulder and I just disagree sometimes."
"That's what Jessica's mommy and daddy said just before they got 'evorced. Then her Mommy moved her away and I never saw her again."
"Well Scully and I aren't married so—"
"Your not?"
"Come here Kayla," Mulder said taping the bed. She climbed up on the bed between us. Her brother had crawled off of me and now lay on the bed examining my keychain.
"Now Miss Kayla," Mulder began
Kayla giggled.
"What's so funny?" Mulder asked.
"No one ever called me Miss before," the child said giggling through the whole sentence. "Daddy called me Kay- Kay."
"Well, Would you like me to call you that?"
"No, Miss Kayla will be fine," she giggled yet again.
This exchange was getting too cute; I had to stifle my own giggles.
"Do you want to tell me how you got here?"
"I don't know," Kayla shrugged. "I was real upset, so they put me in bed. I guess I cried myself to sleep, because Uncle Charley came and I can only see him when I'm asleep. He had William Michael wrapped all up and bottle with him and everything. And he said we were going home."
"How did you get out?"
"He took us out the back door,"
"Wasn't anyone there?"
"No, I didn't even hear anybody. Which is weird, cause usually all I hear is people or kids." Kayla sighed. "I'm hungry."
"Didn't you eat dinner?" I asked.
"No, I was too upset. My stomach didn't want any food. They couldn't even make me eat."
"Mulder, there's a fast food place not to far away. I could take Kayla and William Michael—"
"I'll go with you," Mulder entered.
As we entered the fast food restaurant, Kayla began to run down a long list of foods that she would eat in a few days, let alone tonight. She was getting whatever kids meal was available. William Michael was nuzzling my neck, fully awake, exploring his new world with his eyes as bottle sucking sounds vibrated in my ear.
"What a beautiful baby," a woman said as she entered behind us. "How old is he?"
"10 months"
"Oh, you must be so proud. And look at that lovely little girl. It's always nice to see a good-looking family."
"Thank you," I replied, not willing to go into a long explanation of our involvement, hell it wasn't the first time Mulder and I were accused of being a couple. Still, I felt Mulder's glance before I ever looked at him. "What's the point of explaining Mulder?"
"Not feeding into your own delusion," Mulder said just before he departed to get a high chair.
We then filled a little booth. I put William Michael beside me. I didn't think Mulder wanted to deal with feeding a baby. Mulder got the food. William Michael had applesauce, but as soon as he saw my fries, he threw his bottle across the table and reached for my fries. The milk from the bottle squirted into Mulder's face and rolled into his food, causing me and Kayla to break into laughter. I placed a few fries in front of William Michael. He smiled and bopped in his chair. Kayla grabbed a napkin, stood in her seat, and her little hands tried to wipe Mulder's face clean.
"Thank you Miss Kayla."
"Your welcome Mr. Fox."
I tried to conceal my smile as my eyes involuntarily met Mulder's. A slight smile appeared on his face and for the moment we were happy with the scene before us.
Suddenly that picnic table scene from my dream flashed back into
my head. "Fill the table Dana." She couldn't have meant something as simple
as me giving the kids a meal. So what did it mean? And what would all this
mean tomorrow when I had to take the children back? I knew I was letting
William Michael get attached to me. Kayla was still expecting me to take
her home. It was easy for her to laugh and play with Mulder, expecting
that tomorrow she would go home and all would be right with the world.
Was I making a mistake?