Part One See prologue for disclaimer and other information. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The Thirteen Days Of Christmas-December 24: Christmas Eve Scully grasped the book in one hand and moved over to the couch, tucking her legs under her as she sat down. She opened the book and flipped through the pages, seeing the familiar sketches at the beginning of each chapter. A burst of laughter from the floor made her look up and smile. Rhiannon was there sprinkling ripped up wrapping paper on Mulder, who was patiently letting her do it, while trying not that hard not to laugh. It brought a warm mushy feeling to Scully's heart knowing that Mulder would do absolutely anything for their daughter. Scully's eyes darted back to Rhiannon. Over the past 15 months she had grown so much. The little peanut of a baby grew into an active toddler who was already trying to walk and talk (although her vocabulary mostly consisted of "mama", "dada", and "no", the last of which she knew how to use very well). Her eyes stayed the same bright blue color, but her hair color had deepened from the golden red color to a richer red color, with more of Mulder's brown coming through. She was pulled out of her thoughts by Mulder crawling over to her and sitting down by where her feet were. "What do you have there?" he asked, craning his neck to look at the book in her hands, with the title 'The Thirteen Days Of Christmas' emblazoned on the cover. "It's an old Christmas tradition of mine," Scully smiled at him. "My father got me this book while he was in England once when I was eight. I had to have read it through in a matter of hours. It's a real Christmas book, if you can't tell by the title. After that every Christmas I'd take out the book, and read one chapter a day, from December 24th to January 6th." "Isn't that some religious holiday?" Mulder asked as he went to steer Rhiannon away from the brightly lit Christmas tree. He scooped her up into his arms and she giggled. He carried her over to the couch and set her down next to Scully. Rhiannon snuggled into Scully's side and Scully wrapped an arm around her. "In answer to your question before, yes, it's the Feast of The Three Kings," Scully said, watching Mulder sit down on the couch on the other side of her. "Anyway," Scully blushed a little, "I had always thought that when I had kids of my own I'd continue my tradition with them. And last year was so crazy, going out to that supposedly haunted house and trying to figure out where Rhiannon would stay I never got a real chance to start," she said wistfully. "Well you can start this year," Mulder said, pressing a kiss to her temple. Rhiannon crawled across Scully's lap and placed a small hand on the book. She looked up at Scully and said "Mama?" meaning 'What's this?' Luckily Scully knew all the nuances of baby speak by now. "It's a book, Rhiannon. I'm going to tell you a story." Rhiannon knew what a story was. It was time to snuggle up in Mama and Dada's laps and get all nice and warm, and listen to Mama's pretty voice. She crawled onto Scully's lap and sat there, resting against her stomach. Scully laughed and kissed Rhiannon's head. With her little girl on her lap and Mulder's warm weight resting against her side Scully began her story. 'When Prudence Kitson asked her father what he would like most for Christmas, he sighed and said "A husband for your sister." Her brothers, James and Christopher, agree with him. Their elder sister, Annaple, had looked after the family ever since Mama had died. She was charming and pretty and well meaning, but she was also a very bad cook. She forgot the pie in the oven or the stew on the fire so often that dinner was burned five days out of seven. Sometimes she even forgot what she was making and put sugar in the meat pasties, or stewed the pears in vinegar, or tied the cake mixture in a cloth and boiled it over the fire. But although she was hopelessly vague in the kitchen, she was very brisk everywhere else; much too brisk for the family's comfort. "James, have you made you bed? Pru, have you mended your hem? Christopher, your hair needs cutting. Papa, give me your coat, I must let out the buttons; you're beginning to put on weight.....' XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Mulder walked into the darkened kitchen, the only lights being the multi-colored ones traveling in from the living room. He moved over to where Scully was sitting at the kitchen table, staring out at the night sky and the water. "She's down for the count," he said as he sat down at a seat opposite from her. "That's good, she's been wired all day," Scully said, sliding a cup of coffee over to him. "What kid isn't on Christmas Eve?" Mulder smiled at her. Scully smiled back at him. "Yeah, I remember it took hours to get my parents to get us all to sleep on Christmas Eve. Even then me and Missy would always sneak downstairs to try and figure out what we were getting." She took a sip of her coffee and then asked Mulder a question. "What about your family, Mulder? Did you have any Christmas time traditions?" "You mean aside from my uncle who always said 'When I was your age I had to walk seven miles uphill, in the snow, both ways, without shoes?'" Mulder smirked, reaching for his coffee cup. "Everyone has an uncle that says that, Mulder," Scully said. "Yeah, and besides my uncle lived in Brooklyn so that story became pretty unlikely pretty fast. My family's traditions.....huh. I guess you have to realize that my family is pretty crazy in this department also. Uh, my mother's Jewish, so she would celebrate Hanukkah, but I think that it was mostly to please her parents, because my mom is not an overly religious person. When I was little though I always loved watching the candles burning. My dad's side is a mix of Protestantism and Russian Orthodox, and they both celebrated Christmas. Every year we trekked down to my dad's parents home in New York city to be with the rest of the family, which, considering that my grandmother had six kids, was pretty big by the time I was born. "I remember that my grandparents would get the biggest and most perfect tree they could find, sometimes heading miles away to get it. And on Christmas Eve, we would all decorate the tree, with some of the decorations being older than my grandfather. Then when we were finished someone would start a fire in the fireplace and my great-grandfather who amazingly was still alive (although I think he did hit a hundred before he died) would sit down in this old armchair and we'd all crowd around and listen to him tell stories, of what his childhood was like back in Russia, of things my grandmother did as a kid which got a laugh out of everyone because my grandmother is one of those people who's so strong willed that even from childhood she was always getting into trouble. He'd tell some about the work he'd done back during Prohibition and The Depression and how no one could ever prove that he was in the Russian Mafia..." Scully cut him off there. "Mafia, Mulder?" she asked with a disbelieving look on her face. Mulder grinned mischievously at her. "I told you my family was crazy. Things went downhill after Sam was abducted though. Both my parents pretty much stopped celebrating anything at all. There were no Hanukkah candles that year, and my father called up the rest of the family to say that we weren't going to the Christmas gathering that year. It was hell in there. "But surprisingly things had gotten better that year, even if I didn't feel it. It was late at night on Christmas Eve, and I was up in my room reading, and I heard the doorbell ring, which was strange because no one really paid calls at that time of night. Then I heard my father yelling at someone, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Soon my I heard Dad storming up the stairs and throwing the door to my room open and he tells me to pack a bag, I'm going away. At first I'm just sitting there, totally puzzled as to what just happened, but then my grandfather walks into the room, and he tells me that I'm going back to the city with him for Christmas vacation. We caught the last boat off the Vineyard and drove all night to make it back to New York, and we got there at dawn. I remember walking into their house, and my grandmother meeting us at the door smelling of these cookies she always baked at Christmas and just giving me a hug. After that I had pretty much moved in with them and they eventually got official custody of me after my mom's mother called social services a few days after that." "Wow," Scully said after he had finished his tale. She reached over and took his hand. "I think your grandparents did an excellent job with you Mulder, you turned into a wonderful person," she smiled at him. Mulder blushed a little and ducked his head. "I'll always be grateful to them for taking me home with them. I can't imagine how much worse things would have gotten if they didn't." He turned his eyes to look out the window. The sky was a strange deep grey color, one only seen when it's about ten minutes away from snowing. "It looks like it's about to snow," he remarked. Scully looked out the window and smiled. "Maybe we'll have a White Christmas this year," she said as she got out of her seat and walked over behind Mulder and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Rhiannon will love that," she remarked. Mulder twisted around in the chair and rested his head against her. "Yeah, she will." Scully suddenly grinned and ran a hand through his short spiky hair. "I've got an idea," she said. "Let's make some Christmas traditions of our own," and with that she tilted his head up and kissed him passionately. Mulder responded immediately and wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her back. When they pulled apart after a long while of kissing Mulder looked up at her and ran his hands over her back. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Scully," he smiled. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX End of Part One-December 24: Christmas Eve