Mulder had left their bed to sleep in the office. Scully didn't want to think about what that meant. He walked in the house while the kids were at the table eating their breakfast, and Scully was at least thankful that they didn't notice his terrible mood.
"Where were you?" Scully asked, sitting down with a bottle of water. Coffee and the smell of it had been making her nauseous.
"Our 7 a.m. departmental evaluation," he said, causing Scully's heart to drop into her stomach.
"Son of a bitch," she whispered to herself. She'd forgotten all about it, between Bellefluer and the way she had been feeling and the kids.
"Relax, I let Skinner know you weren't feeling well."
"How was it?"
"Serious. Scully, they're intent on 'reducing costs,'" he said, making air quotes with his fingers.
"Yeah, well we all know what that means," Scully was desperately trying to feel the outrage that he was feeling. That place had been her world for seven years and had been shut down more than once in that time. Each shut down had sparked a fiery energy in her, a relentlessness in finding the truth and seeking justice. She did not feel that now.
"I've never seen an evaluator act the way this one did. They have an agenda, Scully, and it's to close the X-Files."
"What's an agenda?" little Megan asked, looking up from her plate of bananas. It was just then that the adults realized that the kids had been listening. Sometimes it was still hard to remember they were there all the time.
"It's like a schedule. And speaking of schedules, I think we're running a little late this morning," Scully explained, running her fingers through Megan's fair hair. "Finish your breakfasts guys so you'll be ready when my mom comes around to take you to school."
"Do you want some of my bananas Dana?" Megan asked sweetly, holding up her plate to Scully's face. The look of disgust that Scully gave the fruit was apparent, making Mulder wince. On top of everything else, he didn't want to have to worry about Scully's health too.
"No thanks baby, can you please go brush your teeth? I'll be in there in a second to fix your hair."
Megan and Zach both got up from the table to race to the bathroom. Scully's mom had gotten them both electric toothbrushes a few days ago and the novelty of them had still not worn off.
"You're still not feeling any better?" Mulder asked, reaching out and grabbing her hand.
"I don't feel light-headed anymore. Just a little nauseous."
"I don't like how you're so calm about this."
"When you get sick, you don't like it when I get worried either."
"I'm not living with a chip in the back of my neck," he said, quietly, but still expecting her to hear it. It was out of his mouth before he could convince it to come back, and he instantly felt bad for bringing it up. She didn't need to be thinking about that.
"Shut up Mulder," was thankfully all she said before she herself went to get ready for the day.
XXX
Maggie arrived right on time, just like she did every day, to pick up the kids. Unlike every day, though, Scully and Mulder did not exchange one word as they got ready themselves to head off to work.
And then an unexpected knock came at the door. And when Mulder answered it, he found his boss and two people he thought were dead.
Marita Covarrubius and Alex Krycek sat at Scully's kitchen table, the same place where her children sat every day in the same house where her children lived, and talked about the Smoking Man's intentions to restart the Project using the crashed UFO that nobody had found in Oregon. They assured them it was there and it was the only thing that would be able to restore CGB to his former prominence in the world of underground lies. Mulder dove head first and immediately believed this with all of his heart. It made sense. The situation in Bellefluer was repeating the same sequence it had taken seven years ago when his journey with Scully started, and all of the signs pointed to a UFO crash. Knowing what he knew now would help him know what steps to take, where he would be wasting his time, and what avenues would be the best to investigate. And there was an overwhelming need for proof that he felt deep inside of him. The evaluator had sparked that in him. The need to prove himself.
Scully, however, thought going back to Oregon couldn't be a worse idea. Once the two informants and Skinner left, Mulder assured her that she would not be going.
"I'm not going to let you risk your life," he'd told her.
"And I'm not going to let you risk yours."
"Scully, think of what could happen if what they're saying is true."
"Mulder, I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking. You can't be serious about going back to Oregon," Scully didn't want to seem angry or scared, but she was both of those things. And if she were being perfectly honest with herself, she was more than a little of both. After all, he was the one who had practically begged her to leave the state, along with the X-Files, because he felt it was too dangerous for her anymore. But their partnership had been one of equality, so how could he put so much energy into worrying about her without at least anticipating that she might do the same? Something ominous was going on in Oregon, and she wanted to stay far away from it. For more reasons than Mulder expected.
"Scully, you heard him. Think of everything we've investigated over the years… learning the truth about all of it…"
"We've been in this same situation before, Mulder. And even if this were somehow different, even if you could know what you've been looking for, at what price does it come?"
"You can't expect me to walk away from this opportunity. This is bigger than you or me. This is bigger than even the X-Files. This is the truth."
"And why do you believe that? Because Krycek, a man who has betrayed you time and time again, says that it is? What happened to 'trust no one,' Mulder? And if you're going to trust anybody, at least don't let it be that piece of shit."
"Something is happening in Bellefluer, Scully. The same thing that was happening seven years ago and that brought us together. This is a chance to know, and I can't pass that up."
"What I'm concerned for, Mulder, is not just you. And it most certainly isn't me. It's for Zach and Megan. With everything that's happened to them, Mulder, and everything we've gone through to fight for them, I can't believe that you would just walk away like this."
"I'm not walking away."
"You wouldn't know it if you were! What if you went out to Oregon and never came back? What if your precious 'truth' ends up costing you your life just like it has had the potential to do many times in the past? You said it yourself, Mulder, there has to be an end. And it's not just for me."
"I'm really surprised at you, Scully. Yeah, six, seven years ago, I would have expected this—you trying to convince me that it wasn't worth it. But now? After everything that has been done to you and has been taken from you, I would have thought that you wanted answers just as much as I did. Little did I know that your feelings never changed. The work has always meant more to me than to you."
Scully bit her lip so hard she thought she was going to draw blood. How dare he say that to her, when she'd suffered so much loss at the expense of the X-Files? Tears threatened to escape her eyes because he had no idea what she'd discovered… a wish that had come true. But just because she was thinking about them rather than the pursuit didn't mean it wasn't important to her. There were other things now, though.
"Here's the bottom line: if I'm going to keep doing this with you, Mulder, if we're going to raise these kids together, then you need to change. I can't have you running off because someone claimed they saw lights in the sky. I can't risk losing you because you went chasing after shadows in the dark. You need to make a decision, Mulder, and you need to make it now."
She was surprised at how hard she was breathing. From the very beginning, and even after they had entered into a relationship, he had made it clear to her that the kids were his responsibility, that he understood if she needed to step back. But he should have known that it was absurd of him to think that she could do any less than what she was doing right now. It hurt right to her very core that her partner could not stop his old ways. Once upon a time, she had asked him to be the father of her child.
"You can't ask me to do that, Scully. Just like I didn't ask you to do this," Mulder intended his words to bite at her. He was mad. He was mad because he failed to realize how much the very essence of Fox Mulder would change when Zach and Megan entered into his world. He was mad because he didn't expect his life to be ripped out from under him once he carried their tired and scared bodies out of their mother's care. He was mad at Scully for her ability to mold herself into the role she now played to the children—something he was quickly coming to understand he was hardly prepared to do.
"Fuck you!" she spat at him with all her might. "You ask me to go on this journey with you, rescuing Zach and Megan and going through the custody proceedings, and then pretend like you never wanted me here in the first place? You're a thoughtless bastard, Mulder. And don't you dare hide behind your past. Just because your father was an absentee drunk and your mother popped pills doesn't mean you can abandon these kids and me like you were abandoned your whole life!"
He tried to get a word in edgewise, but the biggest surprise of his life was about to be screamed at him from the mouth of the woman he loved.
"I should have known. I shouldn't have been so stupid. From the moment I met you, you've been the same. Sacrificing everything, even lives and effects that you don't have any right to give, for what you think is at the end of this road. And I was an idiot for thinking that once Zach and Megan came along and when you told me you loved me that things would change!" she confused Mulder by walking over to her kitchen table and rooting through her purse. Shaking violently, she pulled out a medium-sized piece of photograph paper, hoping her sweating hands wouldn't ruin the image printed on it.
"I should have known you'd be a terrible father," she said in a cold, dead tone of voice as she slammed the item in front of him on the kitchen table. And before Mulder could get his mind wrapped around what was going on, she had stormed out of the apartment.
The photograph paper had landed face-down, and Mulder's natural curiosity compelled him to pick it up before he tried to go after Scully. In a way, he knew she was right. All of his childhood he'd spent wondering why his father couldn't be there for him in a variety of different ways, a question that once he'd begun to understand the answer only made him hate the man more. But was he on that path? Was he going down the same road his father had, leaving Megan and Zach to turn out like he had and for the cycle of dysfunction to perpetuate itself? Mulder would have liked to think that he was a better man than Bill Mulder, but obviously not everyone agreed with him.
There was an image on the paper, one that was unmistakable, but took Mulder a minute not only to comprehend, but to analyze.
It was a sonogram. Dated only the day before. With Scully, Dana K printed neatly at the top.
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