Days became weeks and Mulder was still staying with Scully. Her concern for him was only growing and she couldn't let him out of her sight.
There were bad days, and then there were bad days.
Mulder cried more often and longer than Betty did. Yet those were the silent tears and Scully often learned about them by finding a wet pillow or turning towards Mulder casually while watching a movie or doing a house chore.
She made sure he was fed, clean and warm, just like she did for Betty. She didn't know what else to do.
Mulder kept refusing therapy. He never openly said no to any of her recommendations, but Scully could see the fear form in his eyes. He would shrink into himself, seemingly becoming a little smaller in front of her eyes.
Those were the hard days, but in their minds turned into best memories. They were watching their child, a little miracle, grow and discover their world.
Betty's smile had the power to make everything feel perfect, if only for a moment, filling them up with strength for whatever was to come. She was the reason Mulder got out of bed at all.
Mulder and Betty truly had a calming effect on each other. With time, Scully realized that if one of them was crying, the best way to console them was to put them in each other's arms.
"Come on, Betty," she said one evening when Mulder was finally sleeping. "Shh… Don't wake your father, he needs rest."
The child in her arms started to cry louder. She was fed and all her needs were met. Scully had no idea what was wrong. She even tried singing to her, but that only made things worse.
"You really want your dad, don't you?" she finally sighed, taking the screaming baby to the bedroom.
Mulder was sleeping on his side, and he didn't wake when Scully put Betty next to him. He merely shifted and Scully placed his hand on the baby's tummy, which produced a happy, quiet baby.
There was enough room left on the bed, so Scully lied down too, keeping the baby secured between her and Mulder. She watched them, amazed with their bond. It was too precious to even be jealous of.
It reminded her of the bond she shared with her own father.
"I have my own Starbuck now," she whispered with a smile, thinking of her Ahab.
"We are not calling her that," Mulder murmured in response.
"You're awake," Scully noticed.
"I'm always awake," he opened his eyes and smiled. He started to stroke Betty's tummy, lulling her to sleep.
"You really should try pills," Scully offered in vain. Mulder was in a phase of refusing any medication, afraid they would somehow make him forget what happened to him, all over again. While Scully felt that wouldn't be a bad thing, and knew that it was impossible for sleeping pills to have such an effect, Mulder was adamant to live with the truth.
"I don't think I'm dreaming," he said after a pause, closing his eyes again. It was easier for him to talk that way, like a little child who thinks nobody can see him if he can't see anybody. "The memories… They come when I'm half-awake. They make so much sense, Scully, but how do I know they are real? How do I know I haven't made everything up, like I had done with Samantha's abduction?"
Scully didn't answer. She could only suggest a therapy, but it would be in vain to mention that. Besides, Mulder had done lots of therapy in regards to Samantha, some of them very questionable, some plainly insane, but some were perfectly rational and traditional. Yet, none of them brought him to the truth.
"What if…" he continued hopefully. "What if it never really happened?"
"We have the files, Mulder," Scully reminded him. "It happened."
"Yeah," he agreed, turning onto his back. He stared at the ceiling. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"Why do you put up with me? Why am I here? Why are you still here?"
Scully sighed and turned towards ceiling as well. A strange déjà vu feeling overcame her. For a split second, she was sure she remembered lying on Mulder's bed with him, just like this, watching them both on the ceiling mirror.
But that was insane. It never happened. She never saw a mirror on the ceiling and it didn't make sense to put it there. Maybe she was too tired, or perhaps Mulder's ability to create false memories somehow became contagious…
"This is where I want to be," she finally said. "Plus, my little Starbuck is refusing sleep without her giant teddy bear…"
"A giant…?" he turned back towards her. "Starbuck?"
"Mhm," Scully turned as well, grinning playfully. "Starbuck Jones."
"Jones?" Mulder's eyebrows rose in confusion, even more when Scully started to blush.
"I used to write it all over my notebooks," she explained. "He was my very first love interest and I had big plans for our life."
"Did he know?"
"No. It never happened. We moved before I gained the courage to tell him."
Betty opened her eyes and looked around, trying to decide whether to smile or cry.
"Go to sleep my little Starbuck Mulder," Mulder whispered to her in a lulling voice and she decided to go with a smile.
"See," Scully smiled as well. "You like the nickname."
"Nope," Mulder denied. "I was giving it a fair chance. It lost."
"We'll see about that," Scully gave up. For now.
"I'll take her to her bed," Mulder said. He picked up the baby, who fell asleep again as soon as she touched his chest.
Lucky girl, Scully thought to herself. She liked to be held just like that, by the same man.
Mulder was a really good father, willing to do everything for his little girl. Everything but one thing. He never changed a diaper.
Scully didn't mind having the diaper duty, but it started to annoy her when she realized Mulder was unwilling to do it even when she was away. He would just leave the baby unattended until Scully returned home, which Scully suspected might have been hours in some occasions.
That wasn't ok.
Mulder's excuses ranged from I haven't noticed to I was just about to, and Scully believed him at first, until the day she just had enough.
One day, after her therapy session, Scully came home to a screaming baby whose diaper might have become radioactive at that point.
"It's ok, mommy is here," Mulder tried to hand her the baby, but Scully took a step back.
"I don't know what's wrong with her," he said sheepishly.
"She needs her diaper changed, Mulder," Scully said coldly, taking another step back. She wasn't going to let him off the hook, not this time.
"Can you do it?" Mulder seemed desperate to hand her the baby, but Scully wasn't having it.
"No. I want to see you do it."
"I really need to use the bathroom, Scully."
"She needs it more, from what I'm seeing."
They took a staring contest, neither of them willing to compromise. Betty started to scream louder, feeling more and more uncomfortable.
Finally, without a word, Mulder turned and took Betty to her room. Scully followed them, but Mulder didn't go to the changing table, instead he placed Betty in the crib and walked away.
"Oh no, you don't!" Scully followed him, royally pissed.
"I need to use the restroom," he said, closing the bathroom door in her face.
Scully crossed her arms and waited. Betty's cries for help were breaking her heart, but she was doing it for her. If she changes the diaper now, Mulder would win. Betty would be clean sooner, but she would keep getting in the same situation whenever she was left alone with Mulder. Scully was determined to put a stop to it, today.
She waited, but no sound came from the bathroom. No running water, no flushing… Mulder was in there for more than necessary, and he didn't seem to be doing anything. Except hiding.
"Mulder!" she started to bang on the door, but there was no answer. "You better come out or I swear I'm gonna break this door!"
She tried the knob, and to her surprise it wasn't locked. Mulder was standing at the sink, openly crying.
"What the hell is going on?" Scully couldn't understand. He was an FBI agent, he couldn't possibly be this scared of a dirty diaper.
"I can't," was all he said. "I can't."
"Mulder, I've seen you touch way grosser stuff than a baby's poop."
"It's not that, Scully."
"Then what is it? What is going on? You're just going to let her cry, rather than dirty your hands? Is that it? I can't always be around to do it for you. She needs you, Mulder!"
"You are here now, Scully," he pleaded. "I don't want to fight. Please."
"She's your daughter too," Scully tried to stay calm, but she was losing patience. Betty's cries were driving her crazy. "This is your responsibility too."
"I. Don't. Want. To hurt. Her," he said through his teeth, clutching the sink with both fists.
"She isn't made of glass, Mulder," Scully said, completely missing his point. She turned around, retrieving for now. Mulder could wait, Betty couldn't, but after she's changed he would hear more from Scully, she promised herself.
"Do you know how many child molesters were abused when they were children?" Mulder's voice, suddenly cold, stopped her.
"What?" she turned back towards him and he bravely met her eyes with a stubborn determination.
"I am a profiler," he continued. "A good one. I can't ignore years of training and first hand experiences. I won't."
His voice was so hard and self-accusating that Scully had to take a moment to escape it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm her suddenly shaky body. Did he really just say he was capable of molesting his own daughter? Her own daughter!
Unable to face him, she turned again to go to Betty, but the sudden rage erupted from her in the hallway and before she knew what she was doing, she was holding her gun, marching back to the bathroom and pointing it at Mulder. He instinctively raised his hands and took a step back.
"Scully, what are you doing?" he asked slowly in his hostage-saving, negotiating voice.
"I am a mother," Scully said calmly, but deadly. "Protecting her child."
"Put the gun down," Mulder tried to reason with her, but she wasn't having it.
"Go change the damn diaper!" she now screamed in a fierce rage of a hormonal post-partum mamma bear whose baby's father had just been accused of being capable of unspeakable monstrosities.
"Scully," Mulder tried again. "Give me the gun."
"Change the diaper!" she ordered, waving the gun. "And if you try anything, anything with my baby… I swear to god, Mulder it will be the last thing you ever did!"
"Scully…"
"Damn it, Mulder! I've shot you for less!"
She took a few steps away from the bathroom door to give him space to get out, then motioned with the gun in the direction she wanted him to go. Mulder hesitated for a second, but then did what she told him to. He walked backwards, keeping his eyes locked with hers and making sure his body stayed between the gun and the baby at all times. Not that he needed to, as Scully maneuvered her moves very carefully so that at no point gun would be pointed towards the baby.
She parked herself across the changing table, holding the gun pointed at Mulder's shoulder. Without a word, he picked the baby from the crib and placed her on the table. Betty smiled at him, then resumed crying. He wanted to cry with her when he unwrapped the diaper, faced with it's impressively uncomfortable content that he made her endure for way longer then necessary.
"I'm sorry, baby," he whispered while cleaning her up, for a moment forgetting about the gun at his shoulder. He carefully wiped her clean, put the cream on her soft skin and dressed her in a clean diaper. He'd never done it before, he hadn't even watched Scully do it, but all the equipment was arranged in such a logical and practical way that he almost instinctively guessed each step of the process.
Betty rewarded him with a huge smile, and after snuggling her a bit with his back turned to Scully, Mulder finally placed her in the crib and turned towards her mother.
"Give me the gun," he said firmly, slowly approaching her.
Scully's eyes filled with unshed tears. She let him come close and obediently placed the gun in his hand.
"It's unloaded," she gasped.
Mulder opened the gun to check her claim, then put it in his pocket. "I don't want guns around her. Ever again."
"I need to be able to protect her," Scully explained, hating how apologetic her voice sounded. Mulder just shook his head, so she went on. "I'm an… I was an FBI Agent. I'm trained for this. You of all people know how many individuals broke into my place, how many times I was a target. I can't risk-"
She didn't get to finish the sentence as Mulder suddenly grabbed her head and kissed her, so fiercely and desperately as if his life depended on it. Before she realized what was happening, he pushed her against the wall, pressing her body with his. His grip was hard, his tongue was hard, his… other gun was hard.
It ended as quickly as it started. Mulder abruptly pulled away, staring at Scully while she was catching her breath.
"You see," he said, suddenly sounding defeated. "I'm too damaged to be a father."
Scully wished she had another gun to pull on him.
"Mulder," she said slowly. "What I just saw was a grown man aroused by a grown woman with a gun, not an infant. There's nothing pathological about that. Well, maybe the gun part is a little worrying, but other than that…"
They both nervously chuckled, then just stood there, processing the events of the last half an hour or less.
Mulder felt the weight being lifted off his shoulders. His worst fears didn't come true. He wasn't even aware of those dreads until Scully confronted him, forced him to face them. Some molested children grew up to become just like their abuser. He just happened not to be one of them.
He happened to become a father. As weird and as impossible as it sounded, he was a father to a perfect little baby girl. After finally changing her diaper for the first time, he knew there was nothing he couldn't do for her. He was capable of giving her everything his parents gave him, and so much more that they couldn't. Uncovering alien conspiracies, solving the X-Files, defeating consortium… It wasn't for Samantha, like he used to passionately believe for years. It wasn't even for finding the truth about what was done to him.
It was for Betty. It was about making the world a safer place for his child.
It was all for Betty.
"Mulder," Scully's voice made him come back from the depth of his thoughts, into his body, where he realized the tears were washing his face. He shook his head, but then he nodded, looking at the woman whose lips he could still taste on his own. She tasted like a fresh start and new possibilities. She tasted like healing. Well, she was a doctor after all.
There was so much he wanted to tell her, the years of partnership, of friendship, chasing monsters, late night talks, stakeouts, protecting each other with their lives, fighting for the truth and justice no matter the cost…
So many losses. So many victories. Million little things.
It all fit into two simple words.
"Help me."
A huge smile lighted Scully's face, because she could see the shift in him, a glimpse of the old Mulder, and a glimpse of the new one. He made a huge leap forward and she was there to catch him on the other side.
She cried with him as he slid into her embrace, wrapping himself around her, holding onto the only one he could completely and unconditionally trust.
It was the closest thing he ever experienced to making love.