Two Hours Later
Mulder Home

For once the house is quiet. Probably mostly due to the fact that Mulder has given Page and Sammy enough money to buy themselves and their younger siblings ice cream cones and instructions to hang out at the park until they are really sick of it. They both promised to be gone a while, probably because Mulder mentioned that they could come home early if they wanted to get a jump on organizing the laundry room and/or tidying up the potting shed out in the backyard. Both tasks need to be done, but their kids aren't eager to pitch in and help him do them.

"This is nice," Mulder remarks to his wife as she rocks Isaac in the rocking chair that has seen them both through years of baby-tending.

"Yup," Scully agrees. Then she runs a finger along the arm of the rocking chair. "I'm going to write a letter to this chair's manufacturer," she announces.

He offers her an uncertain smile. "You are? What are you going to tell them?"

"That this chair is wonderfully durable." She smiles down at the baby as he opens his mouth to yawn. "And it has really quiet runners."

"And I suppose you'll throw in something about seeing you through the babyhoods of nine kids and counting?" he asks.

"Definitely. And I'll even add that there were two sets of twins in the mix."

"And a baby demon."

She raises an eyebrow. "Mulder-"

Before she can say anything he raises a finger. "Okay, okay, technically Louie is only a half-demon. But he liked the chair too."

"I bet he did. You know," she reflects, "I was actually surprised you did anything much with him while he was in our care. When you first saw him in that baby carrier, I thought for sure you were going to make the sign of the cross."

"Ha." He snorts, then winces when Isaac startles. Fortunately the baby settles back down immediately. "Your mother would have liked it if that much religion had worn off on me, but no. I still don't think that making the sign of the cross would do anything, and I certainly didn't all the way back then."

"I guess some things never change," Scully says philosophically.

And as if to prove her right, someone knocks on the door downstairs. Scully looks up at him and groans. "I jinxed us, right? I thought too hard about it being nice and quiet."

Mulder shakes his head, and pats her gently on the shoulder. "I'll go see who it is." He knows that it can't be the kids, because the odds of all of them leaving their keys behind are astronomical.

"And then you'll send them away?" she asks hopefully.

"Probably not," he says with a sigh. "Alienating our friends and family wasn't on my to-do list for today. Even if they did show up at an inopportune moment."

"But if it's a salesman or someone trying to recommend a new religious service provider," she says eagerly, "you'll be extra mean to them for me, right?"

"Absolutely," he says, obviously struggling to maintain a straight face.

When he opens the door Mulder finds himself looking at Frohike and a trio of raven haired semi-acquaintances. He has no idea what Oliver and Cordelia's father looked like, but it's clear that both of Steph's children take after her at least in coloring.

Frohike and Steph look happy to see him, but it's obvious that the ten and twelve-year-old children have been dragged along unwillingly. "Good to see you, Mulder," Frohike says. "We thought we would stop by and welcome the new arrival."

Steph has been nodding along to this, but she's also looking around. "Where are the other kids?"

"At the park," Mulder explains, but he has to bite his tongue to keep from saying that he had sent them there to get them out of their hair.

Frohike's new wife looks disappointed. She turns to her kids and says "I'm sorry. I know that you didn't want to come with us, but I really did think that the other kids would be around to talk to."

Cordelia rolls her eyes as one would expect a twelve-year-old to, but Oliver looks more understanding. "The park is down the street, right?" he asks Mulder.

"Sure is."

The boy pushes his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, which is slick with sweat. It's only then that Mulder realizes how hot it is outside, and makes a mental note to call and reminds Page and Sammy to get everyone to drink regularly from the water fountain at the park. "Did you drive them there, or did they walk there?"

Even as sleep deprived as he already is, Mulder finally begins to understand the boy's line of questioning. Where he thinks Oliver is going with the questions is an outcome he would like to encourage, actually. "They walked there. It's not too far, even for Zoe and Brianna." He doesn't want to oversell it, so he doesn't add the fact that the girls are half of Oliver's age and therefore it would be a far easier trek for the two of them.

Predictably, Oliver turns to his mother and stepfather. "Can we walk there too? You could pick us up when you're ready to go home."

Steph apparently thinks this over for a second, and when she looks at Frohike he just shrugs. It makes Mulder tiredly wonder if Frohike feels awkward making parenting decisions for kids who are already that old. In his place he probably wouldn't want to rock the boat by disagreeing either, even if he did. "Okay." But then she turns to her daughter. "You can go with him, or stay with us. Up to you."

Cordelia thinks about this for a second, and Mulder imagines that he can see her wondering if she should throw a fit and declare that neither option is ideal. If this is what is on her mind, apparently she thinks better of it. "Well, I did want to talk to April."

Steph looks relieved. "Okay, Melvin and I will stop by the park to get you on our way home."

Oliver grins. "Good, cause it's too far to walk home from there."

"Scram," Frohike says good-naturedly, making shooing motions with both hands.

Both kids turn and leave, and Mulder pushes his friend's shoulder. "Damn, man, you sounded like an actual dad for a minute there," he says as soon as the kids are out of ear shot.

"I am an actual dad," Frohike declares, but there is a bit of uncertainty in his eyes nonetheless. It makes Mulder think that he is correct to suspect that Frohike still feels awkward in his new role. It has only been a few months, after all.

At least until Steph kisses his friend on the cheek. "He's not doing too badly for a rookie."

For half a second Mulder is surprised to hear her use the word rookie, because he eventually learned that Steph was widowed five years earlier when her husband was fatally injured by an inattentive driver at the scene of a car accident. But her late first husband had been on the police force for several years at that point, so maybe that was why the word holds no sting for her, Mulder speculates.

"Do the two of you mind waiting here for a minute while I go and let Scully know that we have visitors?"

To Mulder surprise, and slight confusion, Frohike's face turns beet red as soon as he says this. "Oh, um, that's probably a good idea."

"Unh huh."

It's only when he is more than halfway up the stairs that it finally occurs to him that Frohike is worried that they might walk in on Scully nursing Isaac if they bounded upstairs after him without warning. That actually would be a first, because somehow none of the gunmen has ever managed to do that despite the fact that only two of their babies were ever bottle-fed.

"That has to be something they've been deliberately mindful of," he mutters to himself as he reaches the top of the landing.

"What?" he hears Scully ask inside Isaac's room.

"Oh, I said that out loud?" he asks, wondering what other things he might have said out loud that he believed were thoughts. With a newborn in the house tiredness has already made his thoughts a little loose, and it's only bound to get worse before it gets better. "I was just thinking that none of the gunmen has ever burst in on you while you were nursing a baby."

Her response to this is to smile at him. "Mostly because they have always made damn sure to make a lot of noise when they thought it was possible I might be nursing one of the kids. I always got enough warning to throw a blanket over myself or adjust a shirt before they entered the room."

"Wow, I didn't know they had such a sense of decorum," Mulder says to her.

"I actually think it is more of a healthy sense of self-preservation. You know, fear that they may literally die of embarrassment if they actually saw a nursing woman's semi-exposed breast."

"Well, until it happens, they can't be sure that that isn't what would happen to them to them."

She laughs for a second. "Who is downstairs, anyway?"

Mulder blinks, realizing that he hasn't told her this yet. "Oh, it's Frohike and Steph. They want to see Isaac."

Scully rolls her eyes, looking remarkably like Frohike stepdaughter when she does so. "Of course they do."

"What?" Mulder asks, deliberately trying to sound innocent. "This guy is awesome, who wouldn't want to see him?"

Scully hands him the baby, and gets up. Leaning towards him, apparently to make sure that there's no way that she can be overheard, she whispers, "I think I have a new private nickname for Frohike."

"What?" Mulder whispers back, dying to know what she's going to say.

"Jump-the-Gunman."

Mulder smirks at the moniker. "I don't think we can really blame him for not realizing it's too soon. He's never had a baby himself," Mulder tells her, thinking that it's unlikely that he ever will, too. Apparently Frohike and Steph discussed additional children at length before they got married and decided that they probably didn't want to have any, which probably would've been a difficult, expensive, and possibly futile proposition considering Steph's age. "But I feel like Steph should know better than to show up the very day the baby came home."

Scully shrugs. "Some women just can't help themselves. At least they didn't show up while we were still in the hospital."

"Did having Luke–" he starts to say, but she shakes her head.

"Luke is a special case considering his own circumstances, so no, I didn't mind having him come see me. I'm just glad that the whole world didn't come trooping through my hospital room. So, I guess this is better."

Mulder pulls her against him with the arm that isn't cradling Isaac. "Hopefully it'll be a short visit."

"And then a nap," she declares.

"Absolutely," he says, and then he realizes she just means her. But still, he feels like he owes her given that although she and Frohike are friends too by now he still feels that most gunmen-related issues are primarily his fault because they were his friends first. "I'll keep watch while you nap."

"I know you will," she says with affection, and the three of them go downstairs to see the couple who is waiting to make introductions to their new son.

Later that night Mulder grabs Scully's wrist and pulls her back to the mattress when she shifts in bed in response to a cry by Isaac. She makes a sleepy noise of protest, but he kisses her cheek. "My turn."

Scully makes a noise that could be "okay" but she immediately rolls over and falls back to sleep. Grinning at her still form, Mulder climbs out of bed and heads down the hallway. They must have the baby monitor turned up loud because he can barely hear the newborn while standing right outside his bedroom.

"Hey," Mulder coos, and expertly picks the baby up. Isaac isn't wet, so he cradles him against his chest and heads for the kitchen. "Sorry, little guy, it's going to be a few minutes until I can heat up a bottle."

The baby roots against Mulder's night shirt, and he grins, remembering the first time Page did that and shocked the hell out of him. "Yeah...sorry, that's not going to help you, buddy."

Fortunately, the bottle of breastmilk is fully heated before the baby's grumbling can become full out wailing.

It fascinates Mulder a little that this little person isn't even three days old yet, but he's already mastered both a bottle and latching onto mommy. "Some people don't believe newborns are even conscious," Mulder remarks, and Isaac continues to gulp down his milk. "Shows what they know, huh?"

As soon as Mulder burps him, Isaac falls asleep. Therefore he doesn't notice that his father is studying him. The baby has Scully's ears, and Mulder is a bit worried that it looks like he's got his nose, though it doesn't look too bad on David and Jared yet.

I never really imagined this, Mulder thinks as he shifts the baby a little in his arms. We thought your sisters were the end of the line, but here you are. We're glad, you know. So happy you're here, even if we never thought there'd be another baby in this house that wasn't your niece or nephew. Sometimes you don't know how badly you wanted something until you get it.

And that really is the truth: until he and Scully found out that his vasectomy had failed, neither of them acknowledged that they still wanted another baby. Sure, they'd told themselves that they were resigned to having no more after their twin girls, but accepting something wasn't exactly the same thing as not wanting it anymore.

"Such a nice surprise," Mulder mutters, and starts the trek back to the nursery with his sleeping son in his protective arms. "We're so glad you're here, Isaac."

JCTTIOT Studio
Monday

The very first word out of anyone's mouth the second Mulder steps into the studio is "pictures?" and the surprising part is that the request is made by Wayne, not Mary Green. She has plenty of nice things to say about the newest Mulder, too, of course, but it strikes Mulder a bit odd that his boss is the most eager to see what the newest member of the family looks like... at least until Wayne opens his mouth.

"Man, he's cute. Do you think there's any chance Dana would be willing to show him off on camera?" He can practically see the ratings dancing in Wayne's head as he speaks.

"I think there's almost no chance at all," Mulder tells him.

"Oh well," Wayne sighs, but then he gives Mulder a sidelong look. "Can I at least ask her?"

Mulder makes a go-ahead gesture and the producer beams. Wayne's not above bribery, and she's not 100% above taking it, so he suppose there's slightly greater than a snowball's chance in hell that it could work out the way he wants.

Instead of railing against the couple's contributions towards overpopulation, Reed glances at the picture and says "cute" before returning his attention to his own smart phone. That feels like real progress, so Mulder's cautiously optimistic that their co-star won't give Scully a hard time when she comes back. Without her there it's going to be a long three months, even if Reed is on his best behavior. But he doesn't realize quite how long until his own phone rings during their break for lunch.

At first Mulder is pleased to get a call from his little sister, but that evaporates as soon as he realizes that Adrianna has borrowed her mother's phone and begins talking. "Hi Uncle Fox," Adrianna begins and she doesn't respond when he says hi in return, instead she just rushes on. "Mom said that I need to be the one to tell you-"

"Tell me what?" he asks, wondering if he should have any idea what she's talking about. She doesn't sound very happy about whatever it is, and he begins to wonder if Samantha gave her a hard time for not visiting Scully while she was in the hospital. It didn't bother Scully, so it didn't bother him either.

There's an uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line, and if not for hearing her do something in the background, he'd worry that the call dropped. "I, um, I decided to give my baby up for adoption," she says at last.

"Oh," he says stupidly. Then he casts about for something else to say. "What does Luke think about that?" Surely the boy must know if they're calling the aunts and uncles about it.

Adrianna sighs. "Luke...he's upset. He wants us to keep the baby, but I can't." Another sigh. "We broke up after I told him."

"Okay," Mulder mumbles. "Thanks for, um, letting me know."

"Yeah..."

Mulder hangs up before she can say anything else and then takes a few deep breaths. They don't help and he soon finds himself in tears.

"What happened?" Reed demands to know because he's the first one to notice, and the last person Mulder wishes would. "Did something happen to-"

Mulder shakes his head before Reed can finish the thought. "I just heard from my pregnant niece. She's decided to give my grand-nephew up for adoption."

He waits for Reed to tell him that that's a stupid reason for a grown adult to cry at work, but he doesn't. "I take it this is a surprise."

"That's an understatement," Mulder says, grinding a fist into his eyes. "I imagined Isaac and her little boy playing at family gatherings..." He sniffs hard, feeling ridiculous even though he recently read an article that says that many fathers of new babies are more emotional than usual too. Possibly due to sleep deprivation. "The last thing I heard was about how excited the father is about their baby. That was just last week."

Reed looks slightly puzzled. "Do you know him too?"

Mulder blinks. Of course Reed doesn't know. "I've known Luke since he was eight. Much, much longer than I've known my niece." It feels odd to admit that, but he's only known about Samantha's children for five and a half years.

"And you like him?"

"Sure. He's a good kid. Well, not exactly a kid since he's twenty-two now, but..." he trails off when he notices that he's babbling.

His co-star winces. "That makes it a lot harder to take sides, doesn't it."

Even though he's tried, Mulder suddenly finds the energy to wonder when Reed started to become a reasonable person. Sure, they still argue on screen, but Reed is a lot easier to deal with on a personal basis than he used to be. The years seem to be mellowing him.

Although it's been a long day shooting "Jose Chung," Mulder goes straight from the studio to his sister's house. He rings the doorbell, but it only dings twice before she answers the door. "Can I come in?" he asks.

Samantha nods tiredly. "Scott took Adrianna to her doctor's appointment," she says, and with that, Mulder relaxes just a tiny fraction. This conversation is going to be difficult enough, but it needed to be done face to face rather than on the phone, and honesty would be hard enough with his niece and brother-in-law present. He follows his sister to the living room, where he doesn't sit down, but starts pacing instead. "Fox, please," she says, "sit down."

He opens his mouth to protest, but sees their mother's expression of stoic suffering on her face, and sits down. He'll be protesting enough about something more important, anyways. "It hasn't been easy, has it?" he asks.

Samantha chuckles mirthlessly, looking away. "Seeing my daughter having to suffer through most of her senior year being harassed by so-called friends and family? Dealing with her morning sickness and mood swings? Or watching her heart get ripped out by the boy who helped get her into this mess? Short answer, no, it hasn't been easy."

Mulder frowns. "I thought you'd want her to keep the baby," he says.

"She is," Samantha's eyes are flat as she says this.

A shiver runs through him. The thought of abortion never even occurred to him, although he knows it's another alternative for young mothers-to-be. The fact that they were even contemplating it shows how desperate Adrianna must have felt. Oh God, he never thought any of his family would feel that edge of desperation outside of being roped into the Consortium, and the knot in his stomach grows exponentially. "That's not what I meant," he says.

His sister shakes her head, still looking away. "I know," she says, "imagine being the one who had to talk her out of it." Even looking away, her eyes are suspiciously bright with tears.

"I just don't understand," Mulder says, leaning forward. "How could you support separating a baby from his biological family when you yourself were apart from us for so long?"

Now she turns to look at him full on, with a look of pity he doesn't understand. "I can, because I was loved," she says. "I was loved by the Mulders, and then I was loved by Foresters." She inhales, then exhales slowly. "And our situations are completely different. I was lied to and kidnapped, then given away. The fact that I even had great adoptive parents is a miracle, considering my situation. But Adrianna…" Her small hands interlock, and her lips purse in another unconscious imitation of their mother. "She's still so very much a child herself. She's no more ready to be a mother than Isaac is to be a CEO."

"Don't tell Scully that," Mulder says, in an attempt to lighten the mood, but she only sighs. He wants to protest that at eighteen Adrianna is an adult, abet a young one, so it's not as though she's as helpless as the child Samantha seems to be making her out to be. But he doesn't, not after seeing Samantha's expression. "Okay. I'm sorry. It's just, the change of heart seems so sudden, you know? And I thought everyone was willing to pitch in and help–"

"Fox," she says, and he blinks, "I know everyone says things with the best intentions, but we've also heard things said with the worst intentions. My oldest is a sweet girl, but I have no illusions that she's a strong girl, or that she has any maternal leanings. And with Luke out of the picture, there's no reason why she should keep the child."

And whose fault is Luke being out of the picture? he wonders bitterly. He'd already heard that the breakup only happened after his niece had told Luke she is giving their son up. "But the baby... he's your grandson," Mulder tries again.

"I know," Samantha says, standing up. "But Adrianna doesn't want to be a mother. And before you tell me that this was an easy choice, let me tell you that no choice is easy. Everything comes with a price, especially when it comes to your children."

And Mulder is hit with a sense of déjà vu, remembering a conversation he'd had with their own mother and her own choice versus their father's, years and years ago, and to ones with a man he wished he never shared genes with. He also stands, but pulls his sister into a hug, surprising her. "I'm sorry," he says, "it's hard, being a parent even when the children get older, isn't it?"

He doesn't see, but instead feels her tears soaking his dress shirt. "I'm sorry, too," Samantha says, sniffling before straightening up, briskly wiping the dampness from her face. His sister is so, so strong, unlike her eldest daughter, but even the strong have breaking points. And it seems from this conversation, and stilted ones previous, that Adrianna's happened a while ago, and forcing her to become a mother at this point would only be construed as cruel and unusual punishment, rather than the joy it's been for most of the mothers in his family. "You should go," she says, "they'll be coming home soon."

He nods. He wants to say more, he thinks he needs to say more, but nothing he could say would make any of this any easier or more pleasant to deal with. He's laid out his objections, and she's rebutted with arguments that led to unexpected corollaries from his end.

And so, wanting to keep his sister rather than fighting bitterly for an outcome that would only put a chasm between them, he takes his leave. As he fastens his seatbelt, he thinks, At least I got to hug her. I hope there are other people around Adrianna who are willing to do the same and more.

And he drives off with a heavy heart, wondering if the prenatal photo he saw at Easter will be the only way he'll see his grand-nephew in this lifetime.