Thank you to those of you who reviewed the last chapter and have added it to their favorites or just started following. Also a thank you to those of you who checked up on me last week. I am still alive, although it's been a hell of two weeks and I am so very sorry that I have been behind I am so very ashamed. It comes down to a number of things but the biggest is I have started my senior year and it is a lot more hectic than I initially planned on it being.

But I am back with this and hopefully another next week.

Part 31

Papa's Girl

Things between them were tense, incredibly so. It almost killed her to hold steady to her restraints. She wanted to shake him, to feel the skin of her hand against his face and hear the cool hard crackle at the sound of slapping skin. She so desperately wanted him to understand what was going on, but, in turn she couldn't understand him. Instead she trailed behind, stayed a few paces away and tried her best to not interfere too much in the little girl's time with her Papa.

"We didn't change much, I promise." Her voice was chipper and innocent as she pulled her father through the front door, her hand keeping a death grip around his own. Scully feared she wouldn't let go, but understood the girl's fear. If Mulder wasn't being so suddenly shy around her she could have assured she would be standing beside him and holding on with the same fierceness. But he was and now she wasn't.

Funny how things turn out after you get what you wished for.

Danica was still prattling on as she walked her father though the house and pointed out the small things that had changed. He was relieved to see that his pictures were still on the walls and his respective things were still in their place. They hadn't changed anything, all in hope for his return. Thank God for large miracles but fear those who started it. "And this …" She stated as she stood beside him for a minute, one foot poised in the air to move the other planted, frozen. She stared at their clasped hands, her little lip in between her teeth as she gnawed in worry.

Mulder crouched down in front of her, his hand squeezing hers. "I won't go anywhere." He assured her, understanding and recognizing the worry immediately. She pressed her forehead to his, something they had started doing since the night before. She whispered a word and he repeated it, as slowly she pealed herself away from him.

Promise hung between them as Mulder crouched completely still. He promised he wouldn't go anywhere to his fearful daughter and that was exactly what he was doing. "This is Polly." She told him as she appeared on the stairs, the brightly colored cat hanging onto her arm for dear life. "Mama got her for my birthday. She and Grandma were worried about me lots, because I was sad." Scully could have sworn she felt her heart plummet like a penny in a well. Had they been so obvious about their sheer worry? She hadn't thought so, but clearly the seven-year-old had sought out her ulterior motives before she had even realized they were there. "Isn't she pretty, Papa?" She asked as she crouched in front of her father and placed the kitten on the floor.

Mulder nodded with a grin, he didn't much care for cats, but it was the smile on his child's face that made it worth it. He had barely looked at the animal, instead preferring the pale completion he had missed terribly. "She looks like a leopard." He told her with a childlike excitement. The girl nodded with the same enthusiasm as she let the creature go.

Looking around the foyer she tried to map out the next thing to share with her father, nothing had changed in his study and she had shared with him that morning her admiration of the stars, she knew he wouldn't have much care for the kitchen unless he was hungry and the backroom was always a 'nothing place'. Her mind jumped to the yard and their tree house, but it was in shambles now and in her mind she knew he would be disappointed. He laughed at her softly as he bopped her noise. "What are you thinking about?" He asked her, always aware of the many shades of her faces.

Standing up from her place she looked at him, her face compelled a little further. She moved around his body so she could collide with her mother's legs. Her arm wrapped around one as she pushed her face as best she could into Scully's hip. "Papa, I broke the tree house." She whispered, her eyes refusing to meet his face while her hands played with the edge of Scully's shirt.

Mulder let out a simple sigh as he moved to stretch his legs to their full height. "Hey, hey," He moved towards her, his back bent and his hands out stretched. "It's okay." He told her, a promise in his words. She parted from her mother's side to step into his arms and within a second he had her holstered up to his height. "We'll build another one yeah?" She shook her head.

"I don't want another one." She told him softly into his neck. Her little body relaxing into the small comfort she had missed so badly. She shivered at the thought of his disappointment as she felt his body shift. But he didn't speak, he didn't yell, he didn't sound disappointed at all. Instead he pressed a kiss to her fiery hair.

The silence followed them through the house, the child content as long as she was in her father's arms, while Scully walked behind them cautiously, worried that he still didn't quite have his feet under him yet. "I have a better idea." He told her. "Is the platform still there?" He asked knowing that she knew what he would be talking about.

Danica sat up in her father's arms, enough to look around the room and ask her mother the same question, without the words. With Scully's nod the girl turned back to her father's scarred face. "I still won't have to share it will I?" She asked with a curious innocence. Mulder shook his head as he shifted his arms as to hold her better.

"No sharing required, apart from me that is." The girl ginned happy to make the sacrifice. "But we will have to wait for it to be dark first and I'll need to look for something in the garage. The girl nodded, accepting what he had to say, excitement already cursing through her little body.

When night fell Mulder had Danica up on the platform that once was intended to be the floor of a tree house. With his old telescope he sat with her just staring at the sky and pointing out with his best attempts the constellations he knew. Danica, already knew more than he did but was happy to sit and just listen to her father talk while she fell asleep, his body beside her and the stars above her.

It was when he tucked Danica up into bed that he addressed the silence between himself and Scully. She had been in the kitchen when he found her, cleaning away at dishes. He wasn't looking to fight, but something bubbled up in him when he found pacifiers in a draw. "You've made yourself at home." His words came out with a frustrated grunt.

The woman who had known he was in the room but ignored his presence until he spoke had turned as fast as she could to stare at him. "What else was I supposed to do Mulder?" She huffed. "You were dead. It was expressed very clearly in your will that Danica was in my care and that everything was left to her; the money, the house, everything. I couldn't leave, I couldn't make her pack up her things and go. It has taken us six months to find our feet in this world without you. Six months!" He scoffed. "What?!" She hissed at him, careful not to raise her voice as to not disturb little ears.

He pointed at her stomach. "It seems like it took you a lot less longer to get over me being gone than it did for her. She's still the same." He could feel the angry heat radiating from her and yet he wouldn't drop it.

"That little girl is broken because of you."

He moved around the counter. "Don't be so daft, Scully. She's a little girl not a toy! I didn't break her, she's fine! You on the other hand, you …" He stopped his hands up in the air. For once he couldn't find the words.

"Me, what? I helped a man raise a little girl he stole. I loved her and him in return. No – no questions asked! And I get treated like this, from the father of my child."

"She's not yours." He hissed.

"She is mine." She replied in the same tone as she moved for the dining room. Stopping, she turned in the doorway to look at him. "but I wasn't talking about Danica." She seethed as she turned on her heel and tried her best to walk for the door.

Nothing happened for a moment and it wasn't until she reached the door that she heard his footsteps on the floorboards. "Scully, Scully wait!" She heard his socks slide across the floor and felt his hands around her waist. He had pressed a kiss against her mouth and it had taken all of Scully's control to push him off. "Shit, Scully. I, I didn't –"

She stopped him, "No, you did. You need some time to think and time with your daughter. I have clearly gotten in the way, too much." He shook his head, his hands grasping for hers, as she moved to pull the door open. She pushed him away as Mulder suddenly realized what he had done, the things he had assumed and assumed incorrectly.

He let her go as she tugged away from him for the third time realizing that the fight was in vain and best not fought at all. She was right in saying they needed their space, this world felt so different to him, a whole different place on its own, an alternate universe he had accidentally been dropped into. He could not believe his little girl couldn't have possibly grown that much in his absence, he could not accept that he had missed six months of Scully's pregnancy – life had gone on while he was stuck in misery. But he didn't know how much misery they had lived through. Time waited for no one, but it took the bereaved to notice that.

He couldn't sleep that night, instead found himself at the end of Danica's bed waking the small child from her fitful sleep. He knew that he shouldn't have woken her, that he should have sung the same Elvis song he had been singing for years. But he couldn't stand watching it, he couldn't see her pain. Not after he had caused so much of it. "Now, I'm not being philosophical old dad here, but Danni my dear," He soothed after he climbed onto the girl's bed and let her snuggle into his shoulder. The girl twisted her head too look up at him with earnest blue eyes. "I think I have too." She moved her head back down, her fitful sleep causing her eyes to still droop. "Time waits for no one. Not ever dear old dad and I'm sorry I missed all that time this year." The girl shrugged.

It wasn't important anymore and even though she didn't voice it. He knew that she thought it enough that he was back. He didn't sleep that night, instead he held her while she slept and in the early hours of the morning he found himself wandering the halls, back and forth in front of the room that had just been an empty space for so long but now had a use. He hadn't noticed there were things in the room until he saw the door open. It wasn't set up per se, more pieces of furniture were lying unfloor, assembly attempted but not completed.

He crouched on the floor, the white wooden pieces in front of him. Everything was set out neatly leaving the man curious and shocked that his usually ship shape partner left something in complete, he would have guessed that she only had just started before he woke up, but the slight dust on everything told him otherwise.

Setting himself in the small oval space void from furniture pieces he settled in. The sun was three hours from thinking about arriving and sleep was nowhere in his mind, by the time he heard Danica padding down the hallway, curiosity and Polly nipping at her heels everything in the room was set up. He stood in the doorway, admiring his handy work. The room was still void of a specific color, but the soft grey of the walls sat nicely with the delicate white furniture waiting for the child it was to be used for.

Danica's little face pressed against his side as she joined her father in admiration. "What do you want to do today pumpkin?" He asked with his hand on her head.

She tilted her head up at him, her little pajamas still awing her body. "Where's mom?" She asked sweetly, innocent to what had happened the night before. "She would like this." She smiled at him applauding his handy work. His heart sank. He knew she would, but he also held that fear that she would kick his ass for doing something she 'was capable of doing' herself. "It hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows for us, Papa." She looked at him sincerely pure innocence burning in her eyes.

He wanted to laugh at her phrasing but the melancholy beat him to any other emotion. Bending down he scooped her up in one swift move and took her giggling down into the kitchen. "We were going to go to the Air and Space museum today." She told him around a mouthful of cornflakes. "I like space." For the seventh time in two days he heard it again as his daughter mumbled about the stars and Jupiter.

Mulder had to admit that listening to his little girl talk, watching her face light up and her eyes sparkle while she spoke so clearly about something that she loved so passionately made his heart swell with pride. She had found something, the most compelling of things to put her mind to and she was going at it with a force he could only readily describe as his own fearless ambition. "You can come if you want." She broke through his thoughts as the man realized his daughter was back on the topic of Smithsonian museums and the wonder they held inside them. He had wondered briefly if Scully was going to keep her word about taking the girl, neither woman nor child had intended his return and now things had changed, views, misconstrued ones at that had been shared and even though he was ready to beg at her feet for forgiveness he also realized that he had made the scales tip.

Popping down from her place on the kitchen island, bowl in hand Danica reached on the tips of her toes to slip the crockery into the sink. Turning around to smile sweetly at her father, the girl played with her orange hair that reached halfway down her back. "Can I call mommy?" She asked, her socked feet slipped across the floor inching her closer and closer to the phone. Mulder nodded giving her the go ahead while he stared at the child who was suddenly so grown up. With the phone off the hook Danica hoisted herself up on the bench and dialed her mother's number without thought. Little legs swinging against the counter she grinned at her father while she listened to the phone dialing through.

The girl chanced a look in her father's direction every now and then as she spoke quietly into the phone with her finger curling around the cord. He could she her teenage image, the young girl infatuated with the boy on the other end of the phone or submerged in conversation - that would end up costing him too much to think about - with her best friend. She was growing up and doing it too fast for his liking. Putting the phone back on the hook Danica slipped off the counter. "Mom said it was up to you if we went, I told her you said it was okay." The man laughed, Danica hadn't asked such a question nor had he even heard her reply to her mother.

She smiled at him, a cheeky grin he recognized from some of his old childhood pictures. With a flash of vermillion Danica was up the stairs and out of sight calling something about clothes with a little orange cat following at her toes.

"What are you wearing?" He asked the smartly dressed girl when she appeared in his bedroom doorway. A coat sat around her shoulders, but at her hip the fabric split and flared. It was of a finer fashion sense and he had to admit it looked good on his more than average child. With her hands on her hips, the girl raised a brow before looking her father over and repeating his question. "Jeans." He answered weakly, suddenly intimidated by his daughter's mean stare.

"A coat." She answered as she straightened her hands across her grey leggings. The man nodded his head laughing with a, 'fair enough' as the girl ran out the door yelling something along the lines of "Mom's here, hurry up!"

He chuckled down the stairs as he followed the squeals of his daughter. Scully smiled up at him softly from her place by the door. "I don't want to talk about it, not in front of her." She commented before he had the chance to say something. She didn't want to fight, not where Danica could hear. The last thing she needed was to hear that her parents were disagreeing.

Mulder couldn't help but cringe at the look of his partner, standing in the doorway of his home, of their home, looking as though she wasn't wanted. "Danica said I could come." He shrugged as he pointed to his jeans and navy shirt as a form of explanation, hoping that the child had actually asked her mother the question. Scully nodded as she watched the girl skidded across the floor in front of her in search for her shoes. A chorus of 'be careful' followed the girl as she missed the kitten who darted in front of her legs.

Falling flat on her bottom Danica tilted her head to look at her parents, the both of them holding their breaths. She tilted her head back a little further before she let out a full blown belly laugh. Letting her body fall the rest of the way to the floor. She let her parents watch her in utter confusion as the girl, for the first time in a long while, laughed joyously.

And the laughter didn't stop. Together Danica soared through the busy streets of tourist filled Washington D.C. with Danica on his back, one of his hands behind him to hold her in place the other spread like a wing beside him. Mulder had picked up a jog as they moved the sidewalk belonging to Constitution Avenue. The girl on his back had her arms out so she could feel the air rush past her little body, the laughter that erupted from her was contagious. Walking behind the man and the girl Scully couldn't help but notice that it wasn't only those two who were caught up in it. Passersby were smiling and children were laughing, it may have been her own bias, but she knew it wasn't because of the marvelous museums. It was because of the giant man and his tiny daughter. The fox and his wolf cub.

Danica's cries of absolute joy continued throughout the day and followed them to a grassy patch out the front of the Museum of Natural History. She tumbled and rolled and played and squealed, it wouldn't stop. Neither adult had thought they had seen the girl so happy and both were content to sit back and watch her. When she ran herself tired the girl was easily lured to sit down with the offering of lunch.

She plopped down beside her mother with a slight huff as Mulder handed her a bought sandwich. "Papa," She looked up at him eagerly as she nibbled on the sandwich. He regarded her with a hum as he watched the child recline against her mother. "I'm getting a brother!" She giggled as she shifted slightly at the feeling of Scully's fingers in her hair.

"Or a sister." Her mother corrected with a cringe at the slight look of discomfort on Mulder's face.

"I want a brother." She hummed with a giggle when fingers tickled her sides. "Are you happy, Papa?!" She jumped up again, her food suddenly gone. "Mom was sad 'cause you weren't here …" She stopped, her hands jumping to her mouth as her eyes grew wide. "That was 'upposed to be a secret." She whispered and then with a shrug of her shoulders she slumped back down to the ground again completely unaware of the look behind hard between her parents.

"Can't keep a secret." Scully laughed as she pressed a kiss to the girls' temple. "Such a Papa's girl. Can't keep your mouth shut and you never stop moving." She held the girl down as her legs jiggled, her eyes drifted to the tall man who sat in exactly the same way, his leg never steady.

The girl and her father laughed as yet again Danica jumped up and was ready to run again. "Grandma said I looked like Papa in my uniform. Can I show him, can I? Can I?" Scully held up her hands to stop the girl, she had to tell her to breathe for a minute due to Danica's rampant behavior.

"Danni, he's not going anywhere anytime soon, okay? You can show him another day. Right now, no more running around for a few minutes, please." The girl nodded with a pout, she was far too eager to keep moving but instead she sat herself in her father's lap and enjoyed the cool weather and the silence of her family just enjoying being together.

Anyway, it's shocking I know, I actually have no idea how I managed to ramble on for six pages and not have Mulder and Scully sit down properly and talk ... I just don't know what to have them say. So it happened in imagination land, like it did in the show. ... yay!

I have to go, being screamed at for something I haven't done yet, but I am sure I'll hear from you all throughout the week. :)

Until next time,

A