A/N: I was going to make this longer and include so much more, but then it'd be condensed. I've decided to let it flow. Especially because I'm not exactly sure that anyone's reading this? IF YOU ARE, THEN WHAT UP, FAM~?

Remember—you can contact me on Tumblr: "ianlevitt."

Indeed, Mulder had dropped in on the Petries at least every other weekday since their first meeting. Against her better judgement, Scully had allowed him to become properly acquainted with her and her son, the latter after many trials of motherly protection and reluctance.

Nothing either TJ or Mulder did came across as amiss to her. It was only right, considering that the boys had sworn one another to secrecy in the matter of Tad O'Malley, Shape-Shifting Alien and Convict—TJ to preserve his mother's sanity, and Mulder for another, less noble purpose that he hadn't found it appropriate to divulge, instead disguising his newfound reason for frequenting the Petrie home as an order of sorts from his higher-ups for their safety throughout the upcoming trial.

Ignorance and bliss and all things considered, Mulder was getting along with his new subjects just fine. He'd been certain of TJ's acceptance of him since the lego incident; as for Dana, things hadn't become clear to Mulder until today.

For the first time, she had granted him permission to take TJ away from the house without her supervision. What might be a small and virtually meaningless step for others, when Mulder's government clearance and the like were taken into account, was an entirely different ordeal for Dana Scully. She hadn't been away from TJ since Travers Lane had showed up on their doorstep. Mulder didn't blame her for the suffocation—she would more than likely be giving up her son very soon, possibly forever, and she wanted to be there for him while she could. Mulder would do the same thing for his children, if he had any. He was certain of it.

From the moment Scully had reprimanded him for promising to take TJ to "the Rec Center down the street" (which was in their housing complex), Mulder had known to tread lightly in any matters involving TJ. He hadn't planned on doing so much as thinking of taking TJ anywhere. In fact, the only reason why the topic had even cropped up in conversation that morning was because, when Mulder had arrived, Scully was a complete and utter mess.

Earlier, that morning

The front door of the Petrie home swung open before Mulder had even properly parked in the driveway. He exited his vehicle and strode up to the door. There, so low that Mulder had to look down to see him, was TJ O'Malley, struggling to keep his grip on the door handle on tiptoe. His tongue tucked between his teeth, he shot a strained and yet vibrant smile Mulder's way, one that Mulder returned with more amusement than excitement.

"Hi, Mulder!"

"Hey there, T." Mulder stepped inside the home and helped TJ shut the door behind him. "Where's your Mom?" She was usually the one to answer the door. If she was asleep, Mulder had no doubts that she would be livid to wake up and find that TJ had taken the liberty of greeting someone who could have very well been a stranger. Not that Mulder would dare jeopardize the kid.

"Mommy's upstairs." TJ rubbed his eyes and pointed in that direction as the words tumbled from his lips more quickly than he could pronounce them all correctly. "She's all sick. She says I gotta get a position."

Realization dawned upon Mulder, and he turned to face TJ with a sad smile tainting his features. "Deposition, buddy." He bent over until he was TJ's height and rested his palms on his thighs. "Listen, you go in the toy room and finish up our skyscraper. I'll go and check on your Mommy."

TJ nodded fervently and dashed off in the other direction.

OOO

There were three bedrooms upstairs.

The vacant bedroom was evidently the vacant bedroom because of its…well, vacancy; and TJ's bedroom was evidently TJ's bedroom because of the crayon and construction paper drawings of just about everything known to kidkind taped to the door.

Still, Scully's bedroom was the easiest to find because of the muffled crying behind the door. As he stood before it, Mulder hesitated. What if he was intruding? He really didn't want to upset her anymore than she already was. Then again, he thought, glancing down at his wristwatch, logic told him that she couldn't stay holed up in there all day. In fact, she could barely afford to stay in there for another hour. Besides, what if she was in trouble and he ignored her for the sake of something as flimsy as privacy?

Resolved, Mulder twisted the doorknob and let himself into her largely unfurnished bedroom.

Scully didn't react right away. She was sitting atop her bland bed and its bland sheets, sobbing into a bland pillow that was lacking its complementary bland pillowcase. Her back was bent against the headboard, and her knees were drawn up to her chest. She only glanced Mulder's way when he took a few cautious steps nearer to her.

Her eyes went wide, and she scrambled to sit upright and swipe the tears from her cheeks and eyes. "Mulder!" She still managed to sound surprised, even with all of her sniffling. "I didn't even—?" She ran her hand down her face. "I didn't even hear you knock." When she looked at him now, her eyes were red-rimmed, but, other than that, there was no indication that she'd been crying her heart out.

Mulder felt terrible. She seemed so vulnerable, so meek and small and everything that he knew she wasn't.

He didn't point that out to her, of course. "I didn't knock."

Scully groaned in apparent frustration. "Don't tell me TJ was running amok outside. I specifically told him to wait for me downstairs until his…until…" She stilled. "Mulder, what time is it?"

"It was 9 A.M. when I barged in here," he informed her, half-joking, half-concerned.

"Crap!" Scully clambered her way up from the bed and started rushing about the room. It was then that Mulder noted that she was wearing pajamas. "I mean, I asked TJ to give me time checks on every fifteen minute mark, but that's a bit ridiculous, isn't it? It's downright stupid." She dug into dressers and took out blouses and skirts and earrings as she spoke, mostly to herself.

"Scully," Mulder stated, calmly, as he watched her with growing worry, his brows kneaded.

"He can't even subtract two-digit numbers, and I'm asking him to tell me the time." She continued to chide herself.

"Scully," Mulder said again, this time a bit more forcefully.

"Isn't that just ridiculous? It was so irresponsible of me."

"Scully." He almost hollered it this time. That shook her out of her daze. She paused and shot him a curious look, blouses and pants tucked into her arms. In addition to complete and utter, she was now a literal mess. It was a pitiful sight to see.

"What is it, Mulder?"

Cautiously, Mulder stepped forward. He moved closer to her. And closer. And closer. She didn't offer much reaction, save for a slight flinch when he came within the bounds of her personal space. Mulder slowly extracted the clothing items from her arms. She clutched onto them, at first, but let go when she realized what he was doing. Unceremoniously, he tossed them onto the bed. When he looked back at her, she had averted her gaze to her socks.

Sheepish didn't suit her.

Gently, Mulder placed his hands on her shoulders, imploring her to meet his eyes. "Scully," he said, in a soft tone that didn't suit him very well, either.

Scully looked up at him. The bags marring the areas around her eyes caught his attention first. Then, her drooping eyelids. Then, her quivering lower lip.

She was tired, and not just in the literal sense.

It was with no forethought that Mulder blurted, "Let me take him." He almost regretted it. Almost. But she didn't get standoffish, like she usually did when he mentioned anything even remotely related to TJ leaving her.

She humored him, and that alone was enough to tell Mulder that this particular argument was going to, more likely than not, tip in his favor.

"Mulder, I couldn't—."

"Whatever it is, you're not," he interjected, reassuredly. "I offered, and you're in no state to take him down to the court reporter. The proceedings will just drive you even crazier, Scully."

She stood there for a while, considering everything. Mulder didn't even bother reminding her of their time restraints. Finally, she nodded her agreement.

With a sigh of relief, Mulder murmured, "Thank you." He stepped back to give her space.

She didn't say another thing to him, not until his feet were over the threshold. "Mulder?" She called out, tentatively.

He turned around to face her, his hand on the side of the door, prepared to push it closed as he left. "Yes?"

"Thank you." She offered him a mild upturn of her lips. It was the best she could do, under the circumstances; he understood, wholeheartedly.

He returned it, except his was livelier, more encouraging. "You're welcome, Scully." He made to leave once more. She called for him again.

"Mulder?"

"Yes, Scully?"

"Have him home by dinnertime." She placed her hands on her hips. A glimmer of amusement sparkled in her eyes, but it fizzled out just as soon as Mulder had spotted it.

Mulder grinned back at her, all the same. "Of course, Mrs. Petrie." He added the last bit in half-hearted jest. Then, he spun around on his heel and shut the door on his way out.

TJ was positive that he hadn't sat down for so long in his entire life—and he'd been around for a whole five years. When he interrupted the court reporter's and lawyers' questions, repeatedly, to ask Mulder just how much time had lapsed, he swore that time wasn't moving at all.

"55 minutes, TJ."

"An hour and five minutes, TJ."

"An hour and ten minutes, TJ."

That had been almost four hours ago now. Maybe an hour after that, they'd taken a break for lunch. Mulder had bought himself and TJ each two slices of pizza and juice boxes ("Because your Mommy will be very angry if I give you that soda you want so badly," he'd reasoned, although TJ suspected a more sinister and frankly less believable story behind it.).

TJ couldn't recall the time exactly. All he knew was that his stomach was grumbling again.

"Thaddeus, are you certain that you saw your father's close companion, Alex—?" It was the defense attorney talking to him. TJ didn't like her very much.

"Mulder," he mumbled, swiveling away from the woman to whisper discreetly, or so he thought, "How long have we been here?"

"Four hours, exactly." Mulder shot a scowl in the direction of the woman who had been drilling TJ for the past half an hour. He turned to the other adults and started going on about "Rule 30" and a "non-party." At this, the attorneys seated across from them at the table sighed in vexation.

TJ didn't pay any of them any mind. Exasperatedly, the boy flailed his arms and swiveled his chair around in a circle. "Four hours!" He exclaimed, in pure disbelief.

For their parts, the adults ignored him right back. Mulder and the court reporter, a nice woman who was pretty but too old, in his eyes, to be as pretty as his mother, were the only two who weren't doing as such out of malice.

"Tell me, are you his lawyer now, Agent Mulder?" The prosecuting attorney bit out.

Mulder rolled his eyes and glared at the other man. "No, but I know his rights. And I know that it's ridiculous to sit here with a 5-year old for four hours and ask him the same question over and over and over again, trying to catch him in a lie."

"We should've known, Harper," the defense attorney joked to her counterpart. "You get Spooky Mulder on the case and he's going to insist that there's aliens, somewhere." The attorneys shared a mocking laugh on Mulder's behalf.

Having caught a whiff of the conversation, TJ opened his mouth to protest, but was silenced by Mulder's firm hand on his arm. "Are we free to leave, then?"

"Rule 30 considered, yes, Mulder," was the prosecuting attorney's answer.

"Thank you." Mulder thanked the court reporter, more genuinely. He all but dragged TJ out of the office after that.

TJ waited until they were in the elevator, heading down to the lobby, to tug on Mulder's jacket sleeve. Mulder glanced down at him, an exhausted yet mostly frustrated look about him. The latter dissipated a bit when he regarded TJ, however.

"I did see aliens, you know," TJ confirmed, boldly, his chest puffed out. His hands on his sides were reminiscent to his mother's own.

"I know," Mulder said, ruffling the boy's hair.

And he did.

Mulder didn't even think about going inside of the Petrie house when he dropped TJ off, let alone staying for dinner.

No, he remained perched before the front door the entire time while Scully opened the door, collected her son, and exchanged "Thank you's" and "Anytime's" with him. He didn't ask about how she was feeling, but, if it was worth anything, he noticed that she looked a whole lot better. Besides, her feelings were none of his business. That morning had been an oddity. It wasn't his job to make sure that she wasn't emotionally stunted. Frankly, he'd forgotten what the boundaries of his job were.

He needed to go home and recalibrate for the weekend. His past month had been spent between the Hoover building and the Petrie house, more so the former than the latter, surprisingly, and he needed time to be alone, to be normal, to think. About Tad O'Malley, Shape-Shifting Alien and Convict, to be exact.

And maybe, for once, he need not think at all at some point during this short "break," if one were to classify it as that.

Clear-headed.

That was the only way he'd be able to help TJ and Scully—Richard and Laura, he reprimanded himself.

He drove off that evening with a promise to himself to not return until the next week began.

"How'd it go, sweetheart?" Scully found herself asking her son, as soon as she'd locked the door.

TJ only nodded. She figured he was sick of talking, after what he'd been through that day.

"There's pasta waiting for you in the living room," she told him, slowly, her face lighting up as his did. He tackled her in a bear hug and then scurried into the living room, shedding his sweater as it went. Rolling her eyes affectionately, Scully picked it up and put it away before she followed behind him.

As they were eating ice cream for dessert, Scully tried again. This time, she chose a different angle. "Did things go well with Mulder?" It wasn't a pointless question in itself. She realized now that, under the influence of emotional turmoil, she'd let her son go off without her. It was doubtful that it would happen again, so she wasn't asking for future reference; it was simply her duty to know how her son had been treated.

"We got pizza for lunch," divulged TJ, in his dairy haze. Normally, he wouldn't confess to his bad deeds so openly.

"Is that so?" Scully beamed down at him. His head was in her lap as he was on his back, his half-eaten bowl of dessert clutched tightly in his lap.

"Mhm. The 'torneys asking me about the aliens. Mulder was getting upset. He told me they were making fun of me."

Scully frowned, as she plucked the bowl from his hands and set it on the table beside her. She pulled up a blanket over both of them.

"Did Mulder do anything about it?"

"He tried. They said they'd kick him out, so he stopped." His eyes drooping, the boy yawned. "He got me out after 4 hours. It made the 'torneys mad. But he did it."

A knowing smile painted Scully's lips, then. "I'm glad."

TJ wouldn't say much more. They chatted aimlessly then, until he fell asleep.

Scully followed soon after.