OMG, Look, I UPDATED! Sorry about the delay – this chapter is nice and long so hopefully you don't all hate me too much!
More notes and explanations at the end.
10.
Mulder had been surprised to find the Gunmen, Skinner and Alice waiting for them at the court house.
"Your friends should be present for your wedding," Mrs. Scully had said firmly when Mulder had voiced his surprise. "And you, Dana, should be dressed properly."
Mulder had hidden a smile of amusement as Mrs. Scully and Alice dragged Scully away to the ladies' bathroom where they were going to get her ready for her wedding. Mulder turned to Skinner. "Thank you for coming, sir."
"Is Scully sure she knows what she's getting into?" Skinner asked dryly, grinning.
Lucy, dressed in a cute pink jumpsuit Mulder hadn't seen before, gurgled happily in his arms. He looked down at the baby, and smiled at her. "Scully knows all about changing diapers, sir."
"I wasn't talking about diapers, Mulder."
"I know, sir."
Jacob, who'd been hiding behind Mulder's legs, peeked his head around and stared up at Skinner. "You're big," he said bluntly.
"You'll be big too when you're grown up," Skinner responded evenly.
"You're bigger than my daddy."
"Different people get different big, Jacob," Mulder said gently.
"If my daddy was as big as him, he wouldn't have gotten hurt."
The air suddenly became tense, and Mulder ducked down to look at Jacob on eye level. "Why do you say that?" he asked gently. "Was the man who hurt your daddy bigger than him?"
Jacob nodded his head a tiny bit. "Big people are bullies."
"Not all of them," Mulder said gently. "Skinner isn't a bully."
Skinner, to Mulder's relief, couched down on his haunches. "Mulder's right, Jacob. I'm not a bully. It's not right to hurt people who are smaller than you are."
"Look at Frohike," Mulder continued, grinning. "He's very short, and Skinner isn't mean to him, is he?"
"No, I guess not," Jacob agreed hesitantly, his eyes flicking from adult to adult.
"We're all nice to Frohike," Mulder continued.
"So, Mulder, does this mean I get your video collection?" Frohike asked, appearing next to Skinner.
"Only if you ask nicely," Mulder said, grinning.
Two seconds later a large set of wooden doors opened, and a young couple holding hands walked out wearing large grins and hardly noticed the small group of people waiting in the foyer.
"Fox Mulder?" someone asked from inside the room.
"That's me," Mulder said stepping forward.
"If you and Dana Scully would like to come in, we can get started," the man said easily.
"Scully's just gone to the bathroom," Mulder said half-truthfully.
"That's okay," the man said cheerfully. "I'm David Weller, and I'll be conducting the ceremony for you today."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," Mulder said, sticking one hand out and carefully cradling Lucy with the other hand.
"And who is this delightful creature?" David Weller asked after shaking Mulder's hand. "Your daughter?"
"Hopefully in the future," Mulder admitted, smiling.
"Oh, yes," David realized, nodding his head. "You're that couple."
Mulder raised his eyebrows. "That couple?"
"The one from the FBI that has every fed building in the greater Washington area gossiping about you."
Mulder turned to Skinner. "Sir?"
"Water cooler has been very busy, Mulder," Skinner said blandly.
Mulder looked back at David, who met his gaze steadily. "I'm sincerely hoping, young man, that this isn't marriage of convenience and that you truly do love the young woman you're about to commit to today."
"I do," Mulder said quietly, his fingers tightening protectively around Lucy.
"Especially for the children," David continued steadily.
"Sir, I wouldn't marry Scully or tell someone I loved her if I didn't," Mulder said honestly.
David studied him for several more seconds, and then nodded his head. "All I can do is accept that you're telling the truth. You'll know in yourself if what the two of you are doing is wrong."
Maybe on one level it was wrong, Mulder supposed. After all, while he loved Scully the way you were supposed to when you married someone, she didn't love him that way. That she cared about him he had no doubt, and that she loved him in her own way he believed entirely too.
All he had to do was show her that he could be loved in a hearts and flowers kind of way as well as a best friend kind of way. The kind of love that inspired passion and tingling and the hot thump of blood through her body.
Maybe on one level it was wrong, but it was right too.
"Come on in then," David offered, waving into the office he'd just vacated. "It'll be a mite bit squashy for all of you – I didn't realize there were going to be quite so many guests, otherwise I'd have planned for a bigger room."
"It's okay," Mulder said, following David into the office, "they can handle it."
---
Mulder was nervous. Nervous in a hands clammy with sweat, throat as dry as sandpaper and heart attempting to beat the world record in the hundred meter sprint kind of way. Scully should have been ready by now, he thought in almost panic.
What if she changed her mind? What if she decided against marrying him now?
He should never ever have let Maggie Scully near Scully now, let alone convince Scully that wearing a dress for her wedding was a good idea. He should have grabbed Scully's hand while it was in grabbing range and dragged her to the alter. He should-
Lucy squawked indignantly in his arms, and Mulder realized that his nervousness was making him hold her a little too tightly. Loosening his hold a little, he smiled apologetically at the baby as she settled down in his arms again, her chubby little fists waving around the air happily. She stuffed one of her fists into her mouth and gummed it happily, completely ignorant of the drool now running down her chin and heading straight for her pink jumpsuit.
"Whoa," Mulder cautioned, whipping his handkerchief out of his pocket and gently dabbing at the dribble. "You don't want to mess yourself up, you know. You look real pretty in that suit, and drool just doesn't work as a fashion accessory these days."
"You'd prefer her to pierce her nose and dye her hair green for fashion?" a teasing voice asked from the doorway.
Mulder looked up to see Scully standing in entrance, a strangely shy smile on her lips. "She can drool as much as she wants," Mulder said promptly, wondering if he was allowed to drool too.
Scully looked beautiful. The dress wasn't a traditional white concoction of silk and satin and lace, but Mulder had always thought Scully wasn't suited to that sort of creation. Instead, she wore a plain cream shift that looked like it was made out of linen – far too cold really, for this time of year, but the indoor heating obviously made it bearable. Her hair had been styled, somehow pulled back to the give the illusion of length, and woven with tiny white little flowers that highlighted the redness of her lips and the fire of her hair.
"I take it that this is Dana?" David Weller enquired politely.
Mulder grinned broadly. "This is Dana," he agreed, holding his hand out to Scully.
She squeezed gracefully past the now tiny crowd in the little office, and came to stand beside him where she wrapped her fingers around his. She seemed shorter than usual, and he looked down with surprise to realize she was barefoot.
"Mom couldn't find shoes to go with the dress," she explained, catching his gaze and blushing slightly.
"You look beautiful though," Mulder said sincerely, smiling down at her. He thought that maybe he liked her this short once in a while; it reminded him just how small she was, and there was nothing like being reminded of her fragility to make him feel all manly and strong and have strange delusions of being a knight in shining armor on a white horse.
"Thank you," she said, blushing and looking at his tie to avoid his gaze.
"Okay," David said, "if the two of you are ready, how about we make a start?"
Mulder nodded eagerly, clutching Scully's fingers as tightly as she was clutching his. Jacob, who'd been standing next to Scully with the rings, held them up when asked by David. Mulder passed Lucy to Maggie before reaching for one of the rings.
"See?" Jacob said pointedly as Mulder took a ring from the box. "I told you I wouldn't lose them."
Mulder grinned at him. "Just as well, otherwise Dana and I would have a hard time getting married now."
And then Scully was sliding a pale gold ring onto his finger, and he was almost drowning in her eyes. Somewhere he heard David announce them married, and he remembered in some part of his memory that this was around the time he got to kiss his bride. So he kissed her. Properly.
Possibly a little too properly, he would think later, as he remembered the small pop when they broke apart and the way her blue eyes looked so much darker and wider and intense when he could finally focus on them. Her breathing had rasped in his ear, and he'd wanted to lean forward and kiss her again, but he became aware of their surroundings and witnesses, and had the good grace to blush just as brightly as Scully did.
Still, he thought, the taste and feel of her against him had been worth more than any embarrassment, and he was curious about the look in her eyes when they'd pulled apart. He really wanted to kiss her again. And again. And again.
Not to mention, he thought, grinning at her suddenly, they were married.
About damn time!
---
They all went out to dinner – a local, boisterous steak house that catered for children and grown men who acted like children, Mulder thought fondly as he watched Langly and Frohike trying to outdo each other with balloons and crayons purely for Jacob's sake.
Scully, the fine diner and connoisseur of salads, looked a little perturbed by the lack of meatless, healthy food on the menu, but Mulder figured that living with kids meant things like small, exclusive little cafés weren't really much of an option anymore. For that, he felt a little sorry, but Scully wasn't complaining and he knew her too well to think that she feel any sort of resentment to having her restaurant choice very limited.
"Hey, at least it's not McDonald's!" she told him when she caught him studying her.
He grinned at her and squeezed her hand where it was lying on the table next to him. "Next time we'll find somewhere that has something more in your tastes too," he promised, absently lifting her hand to his lips where he could brush a kiss across her small knuckles.
In public, just married, it was okay and acceptable for him to kiss and touch Scully constantly. He was happy about that - he needed to explain to everyone around them that Scully was now his and he was very happy with it. And, judging by the veiled grins and knowing looks, he knew they all believed that quite happily.
The thing was, that was the truth. He was ecstatic to be married to Scully. To have their names written down next to each other legally in a fancy, swirling script, listed below hundreds of other couples who'd also embarked on the journey of matrimony together.
A pity, he thought with a pang, that he had no way of telling Scully he wasn't pretending anymore. In fact, the only pretending he'd done was give her the impression that he loved her platonically, and that was only because she'd thrown his declaration of love right back into his face the one time he'd tried to tell her.
Granted, she did think he was on drugs at the time, and he had been too scared to try tell her again. He couldn't handle rejection twice, not from her.
"Mulder?" she asked quietly, her face close to his as she leaned toward him. "You okay?"
"Yeah," he said, smiling at her, enjoying the closeness. She was still dressed in her shift, and though she'd put her pumps back on for the walk to and from the car, he'd been aware of her kicking them off haphazardly under her chair seconds after she'd been seated, and now her bare feet were wriggling over the wooden floor. "Are your feet cold?"
She looked surprised, and then smiled sheepishly. "I don't like wearing shoes with no socks or stockings," she explained, "and the stockings didn't match the shift."
And an unmatched set of stockings was worse than cold feet, Mulder thought with resignation. "Put your feet up my trousers," he instructed.
She stared at him. "What!"
"Just near my calves, Scully, we're in a public place for crying out loud!" he told her, winking.
She blushed, much to his amusement, and then her gaze turned curious. "Why?" she asked.
"Why what?"
"Why should I put my feet up your trousers?"
Across the table from them, Frohike almost choked on his steak. Mulder glared at him, before turning back to Scully. "So they get warm. I don't want you to get sick, Scully."
She quirked an eyebrow, and raised a hand to his forehead.
"What?"
"You don't want me to get sick?" she asked pointedly, her hand still on his forehead. "Mulder, we just got married. That doesn't mean that suddenly I'm going to get sick."
"It might," Frohike said blandly, obviously eavesdropping on their conversation. "You never know what Mulder has."
Mulder glared at Frohike again. "Just put your feet up my trousers, Scully!" Mulder said in exasperation.
By now, the entire table was listening to their strange conversations. "Mulder, my feet are fine."
"They're cold," Mulder argued stubbornly.
"How would you know?"
"I can tell."
"You two certainly sound married," Alice quipped, grinning.
"Mulder, my feet are fine," Scully said calmly, but he could see the annoyance in her eyes. "They're not cold. If they were, I'd put my shoes back on. What you're suggesting is just silly. Now eat your dinner before it gets cold – we need to get going soon."
He would have liked to protest her treating him the way she would treat Jacob – telling him his dinner was getting cold – but then he caught sight of the little boy who was almost asleep at his plate, the large pile of chips and chicken bits hardly touched as they grew cold on his plate.
Knowing the battle with Scully was lost, Mulder turned his attention toward eating and finishing so they could get their children home.
Looking at them now, the three people that suddenly compromised a family he thought he'd never had, Mulder felt something warm and bright inside him. For a lifetime he'd wondered around with the black shadow of Samantha's loss. He'd turned her absence into a cause, a reason to keep living and going and striving, but ultimately that search had led nowhere but darkness and conspiracies and death.
The only good thing that had come out of it was Scully.
He was no closer to finding Samantha, and certainly no closer to solving anything or proving anything, but he had found Scully.
And Scully had found him a family.
Suddenly the purpose and direction he'd been looking for all his life became crystal clear in front of him. Scully and the children were his family. His. His to look after, to love, to protect and to cherish. The thought and the feeling of this strange, obvious realization left him feeling warm and content and, for the first time in a long, long time, at peace.
Even if he never saw another X File, he realized with a start, he would be content. Sure, he might get bored and itch sometimes for the excitement of the investigation and the adrenalin of the hunt, but this was real. This was lasting.
This, he realized as Jacob lost the battle against sleep and his head dropped to the table with a gentle thud, this was what he had been looking for.
Scully and the others had been right all along – there was more to life than the X Files, and he'd finally found it.
---
It was after ten by the time they got back to Maggie's house, and Mulder was privately wishing he could just blissfully pass out like Jacob did. However, he had two children to see to bed with Scully, and then a ride back to his apartment.
"If you two put the children down, I'll get the bed ready," Maggie said, unlocking the front door.
"What do you mean?" Scully asked, cuddling Lucy in her arms as she followed her mother inside. "Their beds are already set – I made them this morning."
"I meant your bed, Dana."
"Mine's fine too," Scully said uncertainly.
Mulder followed them in, holding Jacob's sleeping form close against him to keep him from the biting wind that was swooping around the house and tugging at Mulder's hair. It was going to be a cold year, and early snow was a distinct possibility with the wind as cold as it was.
"You're both going to sleep on that little single bed?" Maggie asked in surprise, turning around to look at them.
"What do you mean?" Scully asked.
Mulder's gut twisted dramatically inside him as he realized what Maggie was getting at.
"You're married now," Maggie said patiently. "It's your wedding night, for goodness sake, Dana!"
"Oh," Scully said weakly.
"I know this will sound strange, Mrs. Scully," Mulder said politely, "but I'm not staying tonight. I wasn't expecting the wedding to be today, and I didn't pack any clothes or toiletries or anything."
Maggie Scully met his gaze determinedly. "It's your wedding night, Fox. And call me Maggie at least – we've been over this several times already."
"Mom, we don't mind. Honestly," Scully said gently.
"If you want the world to believe you really are married and in love, you better start acting like it," Maggie snapped, staring at them. "I don't know what the truth is – sometimes I think I do and sometimes I think I don't. You better work out which truth you want to stick to, and commit to it. If Jacob finds the two of you sleeping apart, and tells the social workers, you can imagine the conclusions they'll draw about the state of your marriage."
Mulder's mouth felt dry as he looked at Maggie. He licked his lips and glanced across at Scully. "Mom, it's just not going to work out tonight," Scully said, determinedly not looking at him. "My bed is too small, and we're not taking your bed," she added before Maggie could continue.
Mulder agreed vehemently – it was one thing having to share a bed with Scully (not that he minded in the least) but another completely to share her mother's bed with her.
"How would it look if someone found out you didn't spend tonight together?" Maggie asked softly.
"I don't care how it looks," Mulder said suddenly. "I'm married to Scully, and it's a real marriage, Maggie. Scully's right though – it's just not feasible tonight."
Maggie scowled at him. "I'll take Jacob with me, if you don't mind, and then you can have his bed in the second spare room," she said finally. "You're staying here tonight, Fox. And before you say you don't have clothes or toiletries, I have two sons that stay here sometimes, and I'm sure I can find you something suitable."
Scully looked at him helplessly, and he shrugged.
"I'll take the couch then," Mulder said finally. "I'm happy on the couch," he added before she could protest.
"I'll take the couch," Scully argued, shaking her head. "I'm shorter than you are, Mulder, and that couch is a lot shorter than yours."
Mulder hesitated. "Scully-"
"Please, Mulder?" she said quietly. "This way everyone gets a good night's sleep, and we don't have to worry about how anything looks to anyone."
Mulder nodded reluctantly, and then followed the two women up the stairs.
What exactly did Maggie think about their marriage, he wondered thoughtfully. He wasn't sure whether she believed they really were in love, or whether she suspected it was a marriage of convenience. Whatever she thought though, Mulder wasn't going to ask her, and if she didn't say anything there was no reason to bring the subject up.
Mulder tucked Jacob into bed, pressing a kiss against his forehead and brushing the hair back from his face.
God he hoped this worked and they got the children. Not just for Scully, and not just for the children, but for him too. It surprised him, how much he wanted them now.
He paused in the doorway and watched the little boy sleeping as Scully finished tucking Lucy into her crib. She moved over to Jacob and smoothed his covers down, before giving him a gentle kiss too.
She came to stand beside him, and they watched the children together for a few minutes, before he heard her stifling a yawn and realized he felt incredibly tired himself.
"Good night, Scully," he said, flicking the children's light off.
"Night, Mulder," she said, smiling up at him.
He leant down and pressed a gentle kiss against her smooth cheek, breathing in the scent he recognized as uniquely hers. For a few seconds he stood like that, resting his face against hers and his hand on her waist, before he pulled back and smiled at her again. "You sure you don't want the bed?" he asked.
"I'll be fine," she said gently.
He watched as she pulled several blankets from the cupboard in the hall and then disappeared down the stairs. With a small sigh, he turned the hall light off and got himself ready for bed.
Not exactly how he imagined his wedding night, he thought ruefully as he climbed into the single bed and flicked off the lamp.
---
Mulder woke up with a start, tense without knowing exactly why. He frowned into the darkness, listening carefully. An insistent tapping from an old tree branch against the house made him feel tense and edgy, and he tried to ignore the scraping sound while focusing on other noises.
Wind howled around the house, and he imagined it would either rain soon, or snow. Cold, cold weather for this early in the year, he thought with resignation. A long hard winter was predicted, and by all signs, the predictions were correct.
There – a muffled thud. That must have been what woke him, he thought, sitting up and easing out of bed. The air was frigidly cold, and when he looked at the clock on his bedside table, he realized the power must have failed. Probably a line blown over by the wind, or knocked down by a falling tree. The lack of power meant no heating, and the house was cooling down fast.
Another thud from the hall, and Mulder forced himself to get up and head to the hall to see what was happening. The bedroom door creaked when he opened it, and as he peered into the dark hallway, everything fell silent.
"Who's there?" he whispered quietly, hoping against hope it wasn't a burglar and only Scully or her mother getting a midnight drink.
"Mulder?" Scully's whisper responded. "What are you doing up?"
"What are you doing up?" he returned, stepping into the hall.
"Lucy needed a feed," Scully explained. A second later he heard a small click which coincided with the appearance of a narrow beam of light from a flashlight Scully was holding in her hands. "Power failed a few hours ago," she explained when he looked at the flashlight, "I think a tree knocked some of the lines down."
He frowned. "A few hours ago?"
She nodded, her hair glinting in the dim light. "No power means no heating, and I got cold," she explained sheepishly.
Scully got cold easily since Antarctica, he remembered. "Why didn't you wake me?" he demanded quietly.
"Why should I?" she asked, frowning. "Not much you can do about it, Mulder."
"But you could have the bed," he argued.
"I doubt the bed is warmer than the couch," she said mildly. "Go back to bed, Mulder, the excitement of the night is over anyway."
He hadn't thought about late night feedings for Lucy, but apparently Scully had decided that was her job. "Do feed her every night?" Mulder asked curiously.
"Around 3am," Scully agreed, nodding. "It's almost 4 now, Mulder, and I want to get some more sleep," she added edgily.
"Take the bed," Mulder ordered. "It's got a comforter and you'll be warmer there."
She sighed. "You can't fit on the couch, Mulder. I barely fit on it."
"But I'm used to not having a bed," he returned. "Please, Scully, you'll be warmer," he enticed.
She looked almost convinced for a second, and then shook her head. "You won't be comfortable," she said finally. "Just go back to bed, Mulder. We can try and work out other arrangements at a sane hour, okay?"
"I'll help you with the blankets," Mulder relented, holding his hand out.
"Thanks."
The thud he'd heard before must have been a small box falling out of the cupboard when Scully pulled the last blanket out. Now that he was holding the blanket for her, she bent over to pick it up.
"Here," he said, leaning down to help lift it despite its light weight. "I'll help."
He heard her sigh of annoyance, but she kept quiet and let him help her maneuver it back into position. As they had the box back in place, his hand brushed hers, and he winced at the icy coldness of her skin.
"You're like an icicle!" he realized, reaching for her hand and holding in his.
"I've just been up, Mulder," she said, and he recognized the tone in her voice as meaning she was close to losing her temper. Scully liked her sleep, and she got cranky when she didn't get it.
Ignoring her protests, he wrapped his hand around hers firmly and tugged her into the bedroom. "Get in," he ordered, spreading the extra blanket carelessly over the bed.
"Mulder, we've been through this already. You won't fit on the couch."
"I'm not planning on using the couch," he told her bluntly. "Jesus, Scully, you'll freeze to death with no heating, and you're cold already. Just get in, I promise I won't do anything indecent."
Her eyes widened slightly in the dim glow from the flashlight, but he was relieved to see her climb into the narrow bed without a further complaint. She must have been really cold, he realized, to get into the bed with him.
He got in after her, trying not to flinch as her icy feet brushed against his and the coolness of her skin seemed to stick to him. Ignoring the cold, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him so that her back spooned against his chest.
The bed was really too narrow for them and spooning was really the only way they'd both fit. As it was, he was wary of rolling over the side or squashing Scully against the wall, but he figured this was better than dying of cold in the abnormally icy fall.
"Better?" he asked, feeling her relax against him.
"Yes," she murmured, wriggling until she was pressed tightly against him. "Thanks, Mulder."
With his face buried against her neck and his arm snugly around her waist, Mulder thought that maybe his wedding night wasn't as bad as he'd first believed it to be.
"Night Scully," he murmured as her body started to warm against his and sleep gently carried him away.
---
I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed this fic in the last couple of weeks, especially considering how long it's been since I updated!
Given that it's been so long since I updated, I hope this nice long chapter helps some of you forgive me for not updating regularly! I apologize for that – I personally hate it when author's don't update regularly and leave me hanging! I promise I haven't forgotten this fic, or grown tired of writing it, but life is very busy for me at the moment and I simply don't have the time to write now, that I normally have during the year.
I live & work in Australia with a scuba diving company that runs tours and courses. Summer time (which is now for the non-Aussies) is our busiest time. I work in a retail store during the week, teach evening courses after work, and dive or captain our boat on the weekends at our dive lodge which has no internet anyway. As you can see, I'm horribly busy (and loving every moment of it) but that really cuts into my writing time – any off time I DO get is usually spent sleeping or cleaning or catching up on my studies and other involvements.
I really hope you all keep reading this fic – I'm certainly enjoying writing it and I have a lot of ideas and plans for future chapters – it's just a matter of time and energy to actually sit and write!
Thanks for all the comments, reviews and wonderful encouragement. Please let me know what you think. I promise to try and update this more regularly because even though work's picking up, other commitments are settling down given it's the end of the year.
Cheers,
Silf
PS – I'm terribly sorry about the inevitable spelling and grammatical errors – normally I proof-read myself a few times before posting, but I figured I'd post this NOW so that it gets posted otherwise I have no idea when I'll get around to updating again! Please bear with me!