A/N: Another transition chapter. I apologize profusely. And sorry it took me so long to get this up. I was too busy thinking about subsequent chapters.

She didn't sleep well to say the least. Her mind was going in 15 different directions and it wouldn't close down. It had been years since she'd had to deal with that. She couldn't remember how to relax. She burrowed into the covers hoping that the warmth would lull her to sleep. Normally when she had Mulder related problems, she called her mother or Monica. Her mother wasn't an option anymore, and she never called Monica after 9 o'clock.

She sighed and rolled over again, glancing at the clock. She'd only been trying to sleep for 20 minutes. She couldn't get up and pace; Mulder would definitely know something was up. Instead she reached for the journal she kept on her nightstand. When all else fails, write it down.

She wrote furiously, her words coming to mind at 50 times the speed she could write them. She knew that she'd probably never go back and read what she'd written, but it felt good to let the words bleed from the pen with abandon.

It was an hour before she was finished, and she reached over and turned the light off, and drifted into sleep.

When she woke up in the morning, she could feel two sets of eyes staring at her.

"Yes?" she asked, sitting up as the kids crawled up onto her bed.

"We want breakfast," Hannah said, yawning.

"You know where the cereal is."

"But... dad is asleep on the couch. We didn't want to wake him up," Joshua explained somewhat sheepishly.

"You guys can go out there, it's fine."

They just stared at her.

"He's not going to bite, I promise."

They didn't move.

She sighed and stood up from the bed.

"You two are going to drive me crazy one day," she commented as they followed her into the kitchen. Mulder was sitting up on the couch, rubbing his eyes. He hadn't slept much either.

"Morning, Mulder. Breakfast?" she asked, breezing past him.

"Uh, yeah, sure."

He stayed seated on the couch for a few moments and listened to the noises in the kitchen.

"Mom, can I have Coco Puffs?"

"Joshua, since when have I had Coco Puffs in this house?"

"Well Anthony's mom always has them when I spend the night over there."

"Yeah, well Anthony's mom is also..." she trailed off from the insult. "Never mind."

"What mom?"

"Nothing, it wasn't nice. Now, do you want Shredded Wheat or Cheerios?"

He groaned.

"How about French toast?"

"That wasn't an option, dude."

"Please?"

"Can you wait half an hour?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, French toast. Hannah?"

"French toast for me too please mommy. And a banana."

Mulder walked into the room slowly, not really sure what to do. Where should he stand? Sit? Should he offer to help Scully or should he play with the kids? He thought back to when he had lived with them before. A typical Sunday morning usually included breakfast. But that was usually at his mother-in-law's house. Scully would usually get herself and Joshua ready in the morning, and Mulder was in charge of dressing Hannah. More often than not, Scully had to come and undo what he had done; a bow wasn't right, a skirt was on backwards, or even the time he had put her in Joshua's pants and wondered why they were too big. He began to feel useless.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you grab five eggs out of the fridge?"

He smiled. She'd sensed his discomfort.

"Sure. Anything else while I'm in there?"

"The milk please."

He did as he was told and joined her at the counter.

"I'm sorry it's so awkward," she whispered, cracking one of the eggs into the bowl.

"It's okay. It'll get better."

"Mom, can we watch Tom and Jerry?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"How do you suggest I go about this, Scully?" Mulder asked once the kids had left the room.

"I don't know." She sighed. "It might not be too hard with Hannah, she takes everything in stride."

"What about Joshua? He keeps looking at me the way Bill used to."

"He's curious, not insane, Mulder."

He smiled and poured the milk into the bowl of eggs.

"Enough milk?"

"Perfect. You haven't lost your touch."

Their eyes locked for a moment and neither one moved. He wanted nothing more that to reach out and touch her, but he had no way of knowing what kind of reaction that would get.

"So, what's the plan for today?" he asked, breaking eye contact and taking the bowl from her so he could beat the eggs.

"We're going to go and visit mom's marker. You're welcome to come by the way."

"I'd like that."

"The kids have to do their homework at some point, but other than that, I don't regulate Sundays that much."

He nodded as she added the cinnamon and nutmeg to the egg mixture.

"Can we talk later?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

"What do I not want to talk about?"

"Touché," she replied with a smile. "Yeah, we can talk. I'll give the kids something else to do for a while."

"Sounds like a plan."

The visit to the cemetery was uneventful. The kids each left a few flowers, Scully left a bouquet of her own, and Mulder just stood there. He felt more loss now than he had when his own mother had died so many years ago. Maggie Scully had been a friend first. She had seen him in desperate situations, watched him mourn, watched him laugh. She had been the only person outside of Scully herself that ever came close to understanding him. She'd been there for most of the major events in his adult life. Sometimes when he remembered his childhood, he imagined Maggie standing in the place his mother had filled in reality. He'd never admit that to anyone.

Scully stood next to him and he looked down to meet her eyes.

"Ready?" she asked, her voice tight, holding back her own tears.

"Yeah, I think so."

They walked to the car together where the kids were already waiting in the backseat.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for letting me come out here with you."

"She would have wanted it. She loved you."

He nodded and the got in the car.

The short ride back to the house was quiet, as if Maggie's spirit had settled a blanket of calm over the car. Mulder could feel the reassurance and support, just as he had felt every time he had been in a room with her. He briefly wondered if all Scully women had that influence.

"Kids, I want you to get your homework done before I have lunch ready," Scully announced as they all entered the house.

"Mommy, I have subtracting homework and I need help," Hannah said, in a half-whine, half-plead.

"I'll help you, honey. Go get it and bring it in here."

"Mom, do I have to do it all now? Can I do some of it later?" Joshua asked, eyeing his Xbox.

"How much do you have?"

"I have a worksheet in all my subjects plus twenty minutes of reading."

"Bring it all in here and we'll see how much you can get through before lunch."

Hannah returned with a math workbook, three pencils, and various papers under her arm.

"I got it mommy. We have to subtract three number numbers from other three number numbers. And we can't use a calculator."

"Alright. Go get yourself situated while I get the roast in the oven."

Mulder followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.

"Subtracting, Scully? She's five."

"She also skipped kindergarten and tested at an almost second grade level in everything."

"Are you kidding?"

"Nope. She is definitely your child."

"And yours. Did Joshua score that high on his tests too?"

"He could have skipped a grade but he didn't want to leave his friends. It works out better because he hates homework of any kind and if it challenged him more than it already does I would probably have thrown him out a window by now. He is definitely your child too."

He just rolled his eyes.

"You know, you could help Hannah with her homework. I'm sure she'd like that."

"I don't know, Scully."

"You don't want to?" she asked, her voice reaching the pitch it always did before she got mad.

"No, I do. I just... I don't want to mess anything up."

"You're not going to have a chance to do it right unless you go in there. Prove it to her, to me. Prove that you're dad and you're here. Be the dad she's missed."

"Are you sure she'll want me?"

"Mulder, she will be thrilled to have some attention from someone besides me. Really, I promise."

"Okay. I'll go."

She gave him an encouraging smile before he went into the living room.

"Hannah, can I help you with your homework?"

"Can you do subtracting?"

"Yeah, I think I still might know a thing or two."

"Okay. Here, I even have an extra pencil."

She handed him a pink pencil that was bite-marked almost to the graphite. He smiled and sat down next to her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It was the first time he had really touched any of them since arriving almost 24 hours before. She grinned at him before turning back to her paper and working on the first problem. He smiled again and watched her work.

Later that afternoon, Scully sent the kids outside to play in the relatively warm autumn air. She and Mulder sat on the couch, half facing each other, half facing the back window. The kids were fully visible, and as much as she had mellowed out about things, Scully was still afraid that her kids would be taken from her.

"So, you wanted to talk."

"I wanted to ask you something, first of all."

"What's that?"

"Why did you move?"

She sighed and examined her nails thoughtfully.

"I know you think I was trying to get away from you, but that's not the case. The mortgage payments were too much and I couldn't pay all the bills. So I decided to move into something smaller."

"Scully, you had my money. It was more than enough to pay for the house."

"I know that. But I wasn't sure what you needed and I didn't want to use money you needed to survive. Besides, this house is closer to everything. We weren't trying to create a life without you. It took me over a year to move out of that house. I hated doing it but I felt like I had to."

He sighed. She'd had to sacrifice a lot more than he had anticipated. He had never really thought about what his leaving, especially so long term, did to her.

"Do you have to work a lot?"

"Not too much. I teach at Quantico in the mornings and I teach a human anatomy class at the high school in the afternoon. I'm usually done by four, so I don't have to miss out on a lot with the kids."

"But you still have to miss some stuff."

"Yeah, I do."

He sighed and watched the kids play for a few minutes.

"I don't know them anymore," he said quietly.

It wasn't too long before she cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Joshua plays baseball. He's the youngest on his team, but he's really pretty good. He started out with t-ball but he hit the ball so hard that the coaches had to teach him to hit softly. He plays basketball too, although the gross motor skills need a little work. I swear he's going to hit a growth spurt soon and by this time next year he'll be almost as tall as me. He's freakishly overprotective of Hannah, but he can also be so mean to her that she won't speak to him for days. He's more stubborn than you and I put together, but once you're on his good side, you're his best friend."

Mulder smiled.

"Hannah is a princess and she knows it. She knows exactly what faces to make to get what she wants. She loves to whine, but she's slowly growing out of it. She loves to sing, I don't know where she got her voice from, but she's really got some power. She's independent, but once bed time rolls around, she's one again and she sucks her thumb and wants to be rocked to sleep. I'm still trying to figure out if she's more like you or me. She has your temper, by the way, so watch out for that."

They were quiet for several minutes.

"I know that doesn't make you feel included, or like you know them, but it's a start. You know, three months from now, things could be normal again. We could be the family we used to be."

"It's just awkward. I want them to trust me and feel safe with me, but... you've raised them so well, they don't really need me."

"Don't say that, Mulder. They need you. We've just been working around that for such a long time. But once you become a part of our routine, they'll realize how much they want you here."

"Do you want me here?"

"Yes. As hard and as undesirable as it's been, I don't resent you. I don't hate you. I still love you just as much as I ever did. That's not going to change. The whole thing is transition, that's all. Things will fall into place if we work at it."

"I hope so."

"Is there something else you wanted to ask me?"

"Sort of. I already know the answer, but I really need to ask it just because."

"No, Mulder, there was not anyone else while you were gone," she said, answering the exact question he was going to ask. "Not a date, no flirting, not even a fleeting glance in the supermarket."

"Me neither."

"Good."

They smiled together and he reached out and touched her hand. She didn't pull away, but gasped slightly before turning her hand over to grasp his. She watched as their fingers laced together slowly, and she had to take a deep breath to keep from crying.

She'd missed this man.