Title: Baby, It's Cold Outside Author: abracadabra Rating: PG Spoilers: S8, S9, but I've written my own baby timeline... Summary: Scully talks to William. Keywords: SPOV, Angst Disclaimer: We know they belong to CC, 1013 and Fox, but I certainly wish they were mine. Thanks: to Lovesfox (Kim) and Mortis for reading, supporting and suggesting. Dedicated to Denise who told me I had to write her a vignette by 31 December or...something would happen. To Denise: don’t hold your breath waiting for more, Sis and get to your studying! Date: 6 December 2001 Baby, It's Cold Outside ~~;;~~;;~~;;~~;;~~ Dana Scully's Apartment November It's been an unusually cold fall...in so many more ways than mere meteorological terms. So, I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that the first snow fell long before the turkey was on the table at my mother's house. The snow had started to fall at midday, heavy and relentless in its attempt to cover Georgetown from pavement to rooftop. Late into the evening, it continued and settled around me thickly, sometimes silencing my sadness, my fleeting trepidation and my more than occasional despair. I am better at tamping down those feelings during the day when I can pretend things are as bright as the sky, as hopeful as the sun's rays. When I'm busy walking through my varied roles as consultant, sometimes F.B.I Agent and always mother. Always mother; truly my favorite role. It is the night that is the worst, the times that my heart aches so much I swear it will burst from the confines of my chest. The night is his; belongs to my purposefully errant husband, my former work partner, my so recently departed lover, my life, my Mulder. The night is still and its very stillness allows my thoughts to spin and twist and twirl until the tears flow hot and free. But, I am not only Dana Scully, Fox Mulder's wife and lover and friend. I am mother to William David Mulder, our loving and beloved miracle, our son. And when I gaze into his eyes, the baby's blue having given way to a not-quite-characterizeable and bewitching hazel, a smile creeps over me. He is his father's son in more ways than one, even with his reddish hair and my nose. Mulder would laugh, happily, knowing that William did not inherit the Mulder nose... On this night, William stirs, his nocturnal habits almost predictable. I stand over his crib, reaching my hand over the white-washed bar and gently drag the backs of my fingers against the soft down of his cheek. He stirs and I chuckle as one perfectly formed little eyelid flutters open as if he's deciding whether to awaken or fall back to sleep. I want... no, I need to hold him close to me, my smallest memory of his father, but I know just how much he needs his sleep. So I watch. I watch silently hoping he'll rouse from his slumber. I wonder, not for the first time, if he shares the connection I share with his father. The connection that even now catches me unawares as it washes over me in soothing waves letting me know he is with me yet he is far from me. I feel him around me for all too few precious moments-- but at least these moments do not unhinge me as they did when he was taken so long ago. And William stirs again, this time two almost oval eyes look directly at me through the foggy gray/black of our room with just enough white snow light filtering in through the blinds. His bent arms engage simultaneously with his legs as they try to move the Pooh quilt from his chubby body. I have found one thing he and his father do not share. While Mulder senior makes awakening and dragging his long, warm body from our bed something of a slow-paced drama, Mulder junior moves in earnest from the minute his eyes open, almost as if he is letting me know he's ready for the world. "I love you little William. You do know that." I smile at him and am filled with joy at the small upturned lips that mimic my expression, his arms reaching out to me. Wrapping him in the blanket, I lift him above me, his legs and arms wriggling with the freedom of being air- bound. All previous thoughts are vanquished as I draw him to me, the surprising heat of his body against my chest and shoulder sending waves of sheer happiness and contentment through me. I turn my head to look at him as he seems to do the same with me--and we collide, mother and son. Careful not to show the grimace from the pain to my jaw caused by such a small, but hard head, our eyes lock and then he turns his attention back the way it came. I look over my shoulder to see what has attracted him this time, my curious son, and find his eyes riveted to the venetian-blinded window. "What do you think of this, your first snow, little man?" He chortles and gurgles and coos, his head lying just briefly on my shoulder and then he's up and raring to go again. We walk to the window and I adjust the slats so the view is nearly unobstructed. "You know, your daddy loves the snow, too. Actually, he's not much older than you are when it snows." My son seems to contemplate this tasty morsel about his father, one eye trained on my lips before he returns to his watch on the falling snow. He holds himself up and away from my body, my hand traveling immediately to his back as he rears up and back into me. I rock him, something I've decided must be inbred as I found myself moving in that way since the first time I held him. He smiles again, this time his small index finger doing what it does best, pointing at the window. Although his ability to form sentences of any coherence known to anyone other than himself is not yet present, the extended finger tells me all I need to know. It is at once a statement, 'look at that', and a question, 'what is that?'. This time, he tries to urge me closer to the window, the weight of him pushing against me, arm and finger indicating where I need to be. I raise the blinds and the brightness of the falling flakes backlit by the street lamps is dazzling. The quiet is broken only by William's delightful babble. "Kisses for mommy", I tell him, my lips touching his cheek followed quickly by his mouth on my chin. "Your daddy would be proud of you, you're creative." I want to sit, but he lets me know he doesn't want to leave the window. I risk his frown and a whimper to pull the rocking chair to the window, sitting him in my lap. For some reason, settling in with him allows a profound sadness to nestle into me and I hug him to me tighter, causing him to squirm and wiggle. He looks at me and I swear I can see that miniature bottom lip threatening to pout. I can only hope he will develop my 'eyebrow' as well. Easing my hold on him, I rock us. "It's nights like this that I miss him the most, you know." I guess I'm talking to him, our son, but he seems oblivious, still much more enthralled with the snow that drifts in the updrafts outside our warm cocoon. "When my mind has time to think about him, to wonder if we did the right thing, if he really had to leave, if he really should have left." He wrenches his body, turning, trying to figure out how to face me. When his efforts are unsuccessful, he becomes frustrated, his brow furrowing and his porcelain skin coloring crimson. He can be intensely serious when he sets his mind upon a task in his usually blissful world. I want him to fend for himself, to be able to set his own path, choose his own goals, so I give him some time to figure out how to get where he wants to go. But sometimes, his still-new mind can't puzzle out the mysteries of life and he needs a parent. He needs two parents. I need his father. He had to go and I know that, but William doesn't. I pull him up onto his feet that try to push off my thighs. He has discovered jumping; his little legs surprisingly strong, propelling him off my lap--with a little help from me. "He had to go, William, but he wants to be here. I almost think that you somehow already know it, too." His hand opens and closes and he places his palm against my mouth. He smiles again, enigmatic, making me wonder whether his gesture and facial expression are telling me to stop talking or encouraging me to continue. Or maybe he's just touching me, connecting with me. And maybe I'm learning how to read him as well as I am able to read his father. It's not so bad that William cannot tell me verbally what he is feeling; I'm used to hearing silent thoughts and not-so-often spoken feelings. "Your father is remarkable, you have to know that about him. He loves you in more ways than I can count, but he also wants you and me to be safe. How sad is this world, William, if the only way we can be safe is if he isn't with us? Can you tell me that?" My tears surprise him and he leans forward, his plump little tongue lapping at my face. Does he like what he finds? If he keeps it up, can he take away all of my tears? Would that he could. "The ironic thing is that your father used to see conspiracies in everything; I mean it. I would roll my eyes at him like this and sometimes he would laugh at me, just as you are now. But, as was the case more times than I cared to admit, he was right. I don't know where that instinct in him came from, but I learned to trust it implicitly." As is usually the case, he wants to change his position again. He has tired of our bedroom and wants to explore the rest of his home. We pass his changing table and the desk next to it, a picture of him and Mulder, father and son. Mulder had just come out of the shower that morning. 'That' morning. Still in his towel, I tried to step back, to leave the room with William. It was too much to feel drawn to him and to know he was being drawn away. His eyes took us into his gaze and he tilted his head to one side, assessing, memorizing. William, barely able to hold his own head up for more than a few moments at a time, had lifted his head from the hollow of my neck and shoulder and returned his father's gaze. Father reached out for son and son cleaved to him, his back against his father's bare and still damp chest. I'm still not sure whatever possessed me to find the camera. The look on their faces causes something deep inside me to flare, to feel profound loss and supreme joy. When we reach the living room, he points again and we move to the large widows. "You should be sleeping, sweet William." I know he should, but he knows he should experience all that there is and then some. Such an adult manner for one so young, I muse. "Where were we? I was telling you how your father wants you to be safe, how he'd gladly lay down his own life for you and for me." And he continues to point, although I know by the movement of his eyes and how he babbles what surely sounds like 'dadadada', that he is hearing me. "We want him to be safe, too, don't we? We want him to make things right, make things all better, so he can come home to us. It's not really 'home', is it, without him?" I think I'm asking myself the questions because my child doesn't seem to have any answers for me. In a surprise, but not infrequent gesture, he quickly leans against me, laying his head on my chest and wrapping his small arms as far around my neck and shoulder as he can manage. My tears flow freely into his hair, but he doesn't move from his infant embrace. ~~Finis