August 28, 2008

Mulder is staring out the window when Scully comes up behind him. When he glances at her he's a bit surprised to see that her arms are empty – Isaac has been fussy all day and has just wanted to be held. "In a way we're lucky–" she starts to say.

"We're lucky in a lot of ways," he interrupts with a smile. "But in what way exactly?"

"Summer birthday parties are much easier to plan than ones during the school year, and we lucked out with half of the kids."

"Well, that's true," he says grudgingly. Having a big party for the twins tenth birthday was her idea, and one she's remained committed to even after having Isaac. Fortunately, Christopher didn't want a big party and Sammy was happier to have Mulder bring him, his siblings, and a few friends to laser tag rather than have a gathering at home. Page's birthday isn't for nearly another month, and everyone hopes that the household will have settled back into what passes for normalcy by then.

"I don't think that anyone will get here quite yet–" A car pulls into the driveway and two little boys jump out, making her eat her words. "Well, at least we we're ready."

"David! Jared!" Mulder calls, and then bites his tongue, tensely waiting for his youngest to begin howling.

Scully bumps him with her shoulder. "Isaac isn't sleeping."

Glancing at her empty arms, he says, "He's not?"

"Nope. Page is playing with him. She said she has an idea for a project she can do for her health class."

"What kind of project?"

"She wants to see if she can convince her teacher to let her do a report on infant development rather than having to carry around a mechanical baby," Scully explains. "I have no idea if the teacher will go for it, but if she wants to spend more time with him…" She shrugs.

"What, Dad?" David asks, finally appearing.

"Your guests are beginning to arrive," he says. The two little boys have run back to their car for something, which is the only reason they haven't already knocked on the door. "It's time to host."

"How do we do that?"

Mulder opens his mouth and then shuts it. It wasn't a question he anticipated.

"Since you've managed to get here quicker," she says, looking back at Jared who is on the stairs with only one shoe on yet. "You be door greeter. Jared can entertain the kids in the playroom until everyone is here."

"Mooommmm," Jared protests. "Do you have to call it the playroom? We're ten now, you know!"

"Yes, I know. I remember the day you were born quite vividly," she tells him dryly.

"Well, yeah, we're pretty special," Jared says cheekily.

"Not to mention getting kidnapped after dad got shot has got to be memorable," David adds. "Dad, did you really steal Uncle Byers' clothes?"

"Yup."

"Ha."

Mulder opens the door when it's knocked on, and the kids begin to come at a steady pace after that. Teena and Missy arrive too, but Samantha's family doesn't.

XxX

After most of the guests arrive, Mulder volunteers to wait for the stragglers, which is something he's lavishly thanked for by both twin sons. He doesn't blame them, at their age he would have been eager to play with friends and cousins by that point too.

"No Samantha yet?" Scully comes to ask him at one point.

"No," he says with a sigh. "I was hoping to get the chance to talk to her…"

"I know," Scully says sympathetically.

"Dad!" a voice upstairs shouts. "We need you!"

He glances out the window and shrugs before going to see what William is yelling about.

It takes Mulder five minutes to help William and Christopher extract Wallace from Christopher's dresser, and both boys swear that they have no idea how the half-grown animal got in behind the drawers. Since there are a lot of people, and lots of noise, in the house, he figures that the kitten has just gotten scared. This in mind, he shuts him in the room after they make sure all the dresser drawers are closed.

By the time he's halfway back down the stairs, there's someone knocking. When Mulder answers the door, he's a bit surprised to only see Alyssa and Drew on the stoop. He quickly looks behind the kids to see if he can catch sight of Samantha, but when he doesn't, he offers a somewhat forced smile to his niece and nephew. "Is your mom here?"

"Nope, just us," Drew tells him. "Are the other kids inside?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Mulder says, waving vaguely into the house. Fortunately, they can all hear the kids, so the little boy doesn't need more directions.

Though Drew might not fully grasp that the grownups aren't getting along, Alyssa is fourteen and more than old enough to get that. "Um… Mom dropped us off, Uncle Mulder. She asked me to give her a call when the party's over."

"And I suppose you're supposed to go out to the car when she gets here," he says irritably. His niece just shrugs helplessly. "I think Page is up in her room, probably April too. Oh, and Emily got here about fifteen minutes ago." It's not fair to put Samantha's children in the middle of their fight any more than it would be to put his own there, so he sternly tells himself to be nice. "They'll probably make themselves scarce until it's time to have cake, and I'm sure you're welcome to join them."

"They don't have to help you and Aunt Dana with the party?" Alyssa asks, making him sure that she had to help with Drew's last party. It had been back in January, which is probably a good thing considering how must stress his family has been under since around February.

"Oh, April and Page both did a lot to help set up. We're sparing them having to actually wrangle the legions of ten-year-old boys around here, though." This time his smile is a little more genuine.

"How many little boys are in a legion?" she asks, looking slightly less tense herself.

"I don't know. You've only got one brother, but doesn't he seem like a crowd all by himself, sometimes?"

At first she doesn't seem to realize he's joking, but then she smiles. "I think I know what you mean."

"Um, how was camp?" Mulder asks. He knows that Samantha's three younger kids got home over the weekend, which must make it interesting around their house. After nearly three months away, their older sister must look very different to them considering she's now eight months pregnant.

"Better than being at home would have been," Alyssa mumbles. Speaking up a little she says, "Not too bad. I only got one sunburn and this year I was old enough to be a junior counselor so I got to boss kids around more than the older kids bossed me around."

"That sounds like a plus," he comments. "I never went to camp, but I always wanted to."

"Both my parents liked it when they were young, so we had to go," she says with a shrug.

It stings a little to be reminded that there's still a lot about his sister's past he knows nothing about…and may never if they don't start getting along better. But none of that is the girl he's talking to's fault. Gesturing towards the stairs, he says, "Go on up. There's no way you won't hear when it's time for cake."

"Thanks."

He can't tell if she's thanking him for the invitation or for ending their awkward conversation.

"Your sister isn't here?" a voice asks behind him.

"Sorry, Mom." He's not surprised to see that she looks unhappy about this. "Maybe next time."

"Maybe," Teena says, but she doesn't smile. "I remember her holding grudges as a little girl. But maybe she's outgrown that tendency."

Fat chance, he thinks but doesn't say out loud. From his mother's skeptical expression, there's no need to say it.

September 3, 2008

"Any questions?" Doggett asks after what seems like a two-hour long debriefing. At least neither Reyes nor Harrison has glazed-over eyes, which he supposes is more a testament to their ability to endure boring conversation than an endorsement of his own public speaking skills.

"Well," Leyla begins brightly, "I think the case sounds fascinating."

"You think that skinned bodies sound fascinating?" he asks dryly.

"Sure! Maybe it involves wendigoes. Or selkies."

"As murder victims?" Reyes asks. Unlike her significant other, she's genuinely curious rather than sarcastic. "I mean, I don't think the bodies would be so bloody if they were naturally slipping out of their skins themselves. So you're thinking that someone got the drop on them?"

Leyla squirms. "Well…"

"Maybe we should table this until tomorrow," Doggett suggests.

"Okay." He can tell by the look on the blonde agent's face that she's going to be up late coming up with vaguely plausible explanations for why the two dead people that were found down by the docks might have been supernatural beings.

"Then I think we're done here."

As they start to get up, Reyes grabs his hand to get his attention. "Since we both have our cars today, would you mind stopping for groceries on your way home? I'll pick Jon-Jon and Rebecca up if you do."

"Sure. Got a list?" he asks. She gives him a sheepish look and hands him a small sheet of paper. "You know me too well."

"Aww," she glances around to look for Leyla, but the other agent has already vacated the office. Then she kisses him on the cheek. "I'd say just well enough."

"Love you too," he says, and pockets the list. "I'll see you at home."

An Hour Later

Samantha allows herself to stew for a few days, hoping that her brother will come around, but he doesn't budge, even after she misses her nephews' party. It irritates her that her brother is not inclined to spare her from having to talk to those people when it would be so much easier for him to talk to them than for her to.

Scott and Adrianna are less onboard with the idea of talking some sense into those people, so it is only with great reluctance that she has gotten Adrianna to provide an address for Luke's parents. As Adrianna handed it over her eyes were sad, and Samantha sensed that she was being silently asked not to make things worse. Unfortunately, she is not sure that she won't.

Somehow it feels surprising that she has never been to the home that Luke lived in before starting college and still comes back to during the summers. Half-remembered stories told to her by Adrianna suggest that he lived elsewhere in childhood, first in New York and then an apartment in Falls Church, Virginia with his father and sister and adopted brother until they all moved into a house with the mother of Luke's two youngest siblings just a few months before the boys started college.

As she drives through the neighborhood and tries to spot the house based on Adrianna's description, she wonders how much blame she can lay at Luke's father's feet for being a bad influence. Sure, he married Luke and Hannah's mother, but Samantha knows for certain that he is not married currently.

"With the role model like that," she mutters darkly to herself as she circles the block for a second time.

She and Scott should have discouraged Adrianna from remaining friends with Luke after that vacation a few years earlier. It had all seemed rather innocent at the time, especially when their friendship had to be mostly internet-based considering that he was away for school beginning just a few weeks after the two met.

Eventually she spots a house that matches the address Adrianna provided. It's nicer than she expects, so perhaps that's why she overlooked it at first. It looks rather respectable, she grudgingly admits to herself, and not at all the low class picture she had in mind considering the man is living in sin with a woman who had given him not one, but two more children.

Determined not to be a pushover, she marches up to the door, and knocks firmly. If Mister Doggett is home, she plans to give the man a piece of her mind.

Samantha is somewhat startled when the door is opened by a small dark-haired girl rather than an adult. The wide-eyed child takes one look at her face before calling "Mommy?" in a quavering voice.

Samantha immediately feels bad that she's doing so poor a job of hiding her emotions that she's scared a little kid, but somehow the guilt doesn't make her feel less fierce. At the back of her mind, however, she is vaguely aware that this is one of the two children whose parentage she is using to justify such an ill opinion of the Doggetts.

"Can I help you?" Monica Reyes asks as she reaches for her little girl with one hand. The other hand is wrapped around the waist of the baby boy perched on her hip. Monica studies her face for a moment before asking uncertainly, "Mrs. Hill?" The little girl hides behind her mother's legs.

"Yes," Samantha says, and even she is surprised by how frostily it comes out.

"What can I do for you?" Reyes turns and puts her son in a playpen and hands him a toy before murmuring to the little girl about going to play in her room. Rebecca looks back uneasily, and then scampers off in the direction of what is probably her bedroom.

Samantha glances down at the baby boy, wondering how much of their conversation he can understand. Probably not much, she decides. "I want to speak to you and Luke's father about what Luke has done now."

The dark-haired woman just looks confused. "I'm sorry, John's grocery shopping. What has Luke done?" she asks carefully.

All at once it dawns on her that the woman isn't screwing with her. She genuinely doesn't have a clue what Luke has done. Either Luke has gone behind everyone's back, or he's sworn his father to secrecy. Either one would be stupid. "When we demanded an answer to why Luke filed with the Virginia paternity registry, he informed us that he is not going to sign the baby's adoption papers."

"He's not going to sign…" Ms. Reyes repeats, confusion evident. "He plans to keep the baby himself?"

"Obviously," Samantha snaps. "I take it that you didn't know that?"

"We didn't know what?" a gruff voice asks.

Samantha is slightly startled that he's entered the house without her noticing. Maybe he came in through the kitchen considering that he was supposed to be bringing home groceries. "That Luke is keeping the baby," Samantha tells him.

"You've got to be kidding," he mumbles.

"I take it you didn't put him up to it, then," Samantha says, her tone a bit less icy now.

"No, of course not," he shoots back.

"No, I hoped he would, but we haven't ever discussed it," Ms. Reyes says, and this earns her a dark look from her significant other. She shrugs unapologetically.

"I'll call him tonight," Mr. Doggett says sourly.

She feels a brief spark of hope. "You'll get him to change his mind?"

"I'm going to get him to explain what the hell he's thinking," he says. "But he's a grown man, so it's not like I can order him to do anything."

"He's twenty-two," Samantha objects.

"Yeah, and that's an adult," he replies evenly. "You daughter is an adult too, even though you don't treat her like one."

She's about to open her mouth to ask him how he dares to say that, but it's true. It's not something that she likes to think about, but neither she nor Scott have really been treating her any differently than they did before she turned eighteen.

"We'll talk to him," Reyes promises with a weak smile.

Not that there's any benefit from her speaking to him, Samantha thinks, since she's probably happy that he wants to keep the baby from what she said. "Right." She hesitates. "If you can't talk sense into him–" And it takes her a lot of restraint to keep from speculating out loud what amount of effort they'll make to. "-I'll let you know when the baby is born."

"Okay," Mr. Doggett says. He sounds like he feels as uneasy about it all as she does.

That Night

After dinner Doggett thinks he's finally in the right mental space to call Luke without blowing up at him. Still, it takes him a little longer to dial than it normally would. As soon as the call connects, he says, "Luke, we need to talk."

"What about?" his oldest son asks, tone already sounding wary.

It's all Doggett can do not to sigh out loud. The boy obviously has an idea of why he's calling, and it makes him mad all over again that he didn't have the sense to tell them about his plans before he and Gibson left for school.

"Look, Monica got a visitor before I got home this afternoon. Adrianna's mother."

"Mrs. Hill came to see you?" Luke asks, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, she did. And she told Monica that you refuse to sign the paperwork so the baby can be adopted. You wanna to explain that to me?"

"I'm not going to sign," Luke replies. "I'm just not. I already submitted paperwork to the registry acknowledging that I'm going to be a father, and I'm not signing the adoption papers."

Doggett frowns at the wall, as if his glare could travel several thousands of miles away and be seen by the son on the other end of the line. "What do you mean, you won't sign?"

"Exactly what you said, Dad." Luke sighs, and Doggett can imagine that he's wearing the same frown as he is. From the noise in the background, it sounds like Luke is outside while his classmates going from one class to another. Doggett hopes that he can focus on the conversation at hand. "Look," Luke says, "I know Adrianna doesn't want him, but I do. I want to keep our kid, Dad." He pauses, then says firmly, "I'm going to, too."

"And how do you plan to take care of the baby and take grad classes at the same time?" Doggett sighs himself. "Do you have enough to pay for daycare or a babysitter? Or do they have some kind of service for Bucky students?"

"No, they don't, at least not one I can afford, but there's a handful of students who've put together a daycare collective that's much cheaper than the usual babysitters here. If I keep working at the restaurant, I think I can swing the daycare–"

"How are your classes so far?" Doggett interrupts.

"Fine, why?" his oldest son asks, obviously confused about why he'd as.

Doggett exhales. Give me strength, he thinks. "I mean, what's your course load like? How many hours do you have to spend on class and your class assignments in order to keep your grades up?"

Luke seems thrown by this segue, but that only silences him for a moment. "A little longer than undergrad, but it's not going to be a problem," he answers confidently.

"Have you started your part-time job yet?" Doggett goes on.

"Um, not yet," Luke answers honestly. "Not until Monday."

"From what I recall, with your part-time job and full course load in your first four years of college, you averaged about six hours of sleep a night when you kept on schedule, and three to four when you worked overtime and did your assignments last-minute. And even if Gibson didn't say anything, I know what you're like on less than six hours of sleep. Do you think you can handle sleeplessness for four years, first while finishing school and then working?" Doggett asks. "A kid's needs come before sleep, even at night, Luke."

"Four?" Luke's voice cracks like it did when he first hit puberty. "I thought babies were just, you know, babies for a year until they walk and talk. Then they sleep through the night like normal people."

"Son, ever hear of something called Google? Look up infant and early childhood development." Luke must be able to hear his dad's noisy sigh almost as if he were right there, rather than transmitted through microwave towers. "I know you weren't around much when Rebecca was between one and three, but how can you have forgotten how often Hannah got me up nights, especially after your mother left?"

Luke doesn't say anything, so he imagines his son is trying to remember back when Barbara left and it was just him getting up in the middle of the night when she'd been sick, had a nightmare, or just woke up missing her mom. Maybe Luke had slept through more of that than he imagined possible.

Doggett sighs again. "You've got a scholarship, and that means you're gonna have to keep your grades up. That's gonna take a lotta time. So will working, even if it is part-time. And you're gonna need, no, you're gonna want sleep, especially once you have a baby in the house. Raising a baby is a full-time job, son, even if you do have a little help."

"Dad, it sounds like you don't want me to raise my baby," Luke says quietly. "I thought that you, of all people, would know what I'm going through. I mean, like you said, Mom left us when Hannah was so little, and you still found a way to make it work."

I do what it's like to raise a small child on your own, which is why I don't know that I want you to go through it, Doggett thinks irritably. "Nobody doubts you love that kid, Luke, nobody. And you're right, I know what being a single parent is like. I also know that I'm damn glad that we had people like the Mulders helping us, even housing us while I was at Quantico, because I couldn't have done it by myself. I'm a proud man, Luke, but I'm not too proud to admit that after your mom left, I needed help bad."

"And I'm getting help," Luke breaks in. "Daycare collective, remember?"

"How reliable are they?" Doggett asks. "You said 'a handful of students'. Have they been in business long, have you worked with any of them, do any of them have kids of their own?"

There's a pause. "I don't, I don't know. I just saw a flyer in the student lounge. Oh God, I'm gonna be a terrible dad. I was gonna let a random bunch of people watch over my kid because it was cheap." From the thump it sounds like Luke has leaned against a wall, as if it could shoulder the added worries.

"At least you thought about childcare." Doggett shakes his head. "But you need to think deeper. You have to think like both parents, Luke, both a dad and mom. And you have to think about what's best for the kid, no matter what."

"You think I haven't?" Luke shouts, surprising them both a little. From the sound of scuffing shoes in the background, Doggett wouldn't be surprised if the outburst has caused a few students to stop and stare at Luke. It makes him wonder if his son actually notices them enough to be even a little embarrassed.

Luke takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I've thought about this, Dad. Maybe not as much as I should, but I will. I know I'm the one who can do what's best for my child. And that's why I'm not signing the papers."

Doggett closes his eyes. Dammit. "Okay," he says. "All right. I'll see you at the end of the month, then."

"Why's that?" Luke frowns.

His father huffs a laugh. "That's because I'll be bringing your baby up to you, you numbskull."

Luke might imagine himself in the delivery room or waiting outside it, but he's got to save his money for actually caring for his child, which is something Doggett begins to mentally prep a lecture about at the first sign of protest.

There's a pause, and if Luke has considered objecting to the plan, he uses those seconds to think better of it. "Dad," Luke attempts a whine, but he ended up laughing with tears in his eyes. After clearing his throat, he says, "Thanks, Dad."

"Tell me that a month after living with the kid." Doggett smiles in spite of himself.