She's holding a quarter and thinking of the past, sitting on the half of the bed she still thinks of as hers, even though it's been a year since she's shared a bed with anyone.

She should be asleep, should be exhausted, but when she closes her eyes, she sees ashes floating on water, hears her mother's last words carried on a dying breath.

He picks up the phone on the first ring. "Mulder."

"It's me," she whispers, testing the weight of the coin in her palm. She knows the outline of the necklace by heart, the way it fits against her sternum, how it warms the spot beneath her throat.

"Scully…how are you?"

There was a time she would have bristled, but the softness in his voice holds nothing but concern, and her pride is tired.

"I couldn't sleep."

He sighs, there's the telltale creak of a porch chair in the background. She imagines she can feel his breath against her cheek, the way she had when he'd held her by the lake. She misses him fiercely in that moment, and it's a surprise, almost pleasant, to miss him like this; to think of him with longing instead of regret.

"I was thinking about Mom, thinking…she never knew her grandson because of me."

"Scully—"

"She knew it was time. She adjusted her will, she made sure her affairs were in order…and I wasn't there, I didn't know. It was too hard, after I…after we…"

She trails off. His steady breaths on the other end of the line are the only indication she isn't talking to herself.

"Sometimes I wonder if she hated me as much as I hate myself," she continues. "For tearing our family apart, for…not having the strength to keep him. And now she's gone, and as much as I miss her…all I can think about is him."

Why is it so hard to say his name? she wonders. You birthed him and loved him and let him go. The least you can do is say his name.

"William," Mulder says hollowly.

"William," she echoes, like a prayer, barely a whisper.

When he finally speaks again, it's with a gravelly tenor, every word carefully measured. "You kept him safe, Scully."

"We don't know that—"

"You know," he insists, gentle but firm. "You know because you can feel it."

She thinks back to those nights when she'd sat in the darkness and sobbed, sensing his presence like a ghost haunting her soul. When she closes her eyes, he's there, he's always there.

"What do you think he looks like?" she asks before she can stop herself, because the words are finally coming to the surface after so much silence, and the release is cathartic, heady, like the first time they made love.

"Like you," Mulder says with the measure of a man who's waited fourteen years to answer the question. "Only a little like me. Darker hair. Blue eyes."

She sniffs. "Even the freckles?"

"Only when he gets too much sun," Mulder says, a smile in his voice.

"Tell me more."

Another creak, louder this time. She imagines him settling into the chair with a beer between his knees, the weak porch light casting shadows in the overgrown yard. There's a pang of homesickness, but she puts it aside for another time.

"He, um, he likes space. He got a telescope for his thirteenth birthday. He wants to work at NASA, be an astronaut or a scientist—"

"—because he believes we're not alone," she says, quirking her lips. "He has his father's curiosity and proclivity for…strange and unusual phenomena."

"Yeah. He's tried ghost hunting, but he always falls asleep before he can catch anything."

"So he figured out how to wire his camera to a motion sensor, and he caught what he thinks is an orb—"

"—but he wants proof. It'll take more than a single picture, because as much as he wants to believe, he's skeptical until proven otherwise."

"He convinced his parents to get a dog when he was six…he wanted a real dog; a lab or a retriever, with a real dog's name, like…Jasper."

"Jasper?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Or Rex."

She grins, her imagination spinning the tale faster than they can tell it. "He's bright. Advanced classes. His parents can't figure out how he keeps getting on the Honor Roll when he never seems to have homework."

"He plays baseball and basketball. He's tall for his age."

"His clothes never seem to fit; the pants always have to be taken out at the hem."

"He used to stay up all night reading comics under the covers until his parents caught him and took away his flashlight."

"I sense you're speaking from personal experience, Mulder."

"In that case, he snuck into his dad's garage and stole the flashlight back," he says. "Some rules are meant to be broken, especially when the fate of Spider-Man is on the line."

She shakes her head, smiling to herself. "Does he have brothers or sisters?"

"No. It's just him…and Rex. But he's happy. He's loved…"

Mulder trails off, and the picture fades, the void in her heart making its presence known.

"Does he wonder about us?" she asks, wavering.

"Every day," he says without hesitation, the words soft in her ear. "He's curious. He asks questions his parents can't answer, but someday he'll find the answers for himself."

She swallows thickly. "You believe that?"

"I do. You'll have your answers, too, Scully. Someday."

"Maybe we both will," she whispers, and for the first time in years, she believes it.