Begin: Paracelsus VIII
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  Dear Melissa,
  
  Both my pencils have been sharpened into a pile of wood shavings, so I
  borrowed one from the porter.  It was late, and the car was quiet, so he
  stayed to make polite conversation, asking if I was writing to my wife. 
  To my surprise, I heard myself answering that I was not, that I had sent
  a telegram to my wife before I boarded the train.
  
  I didn't notice the drift, but my boat seems to have come to rest
  against a different shore.  Of course, being Fox Mulder, I didn't
  realize that until I'd collided with the dock.
  
  In the locked, right-hand drawer of my desk in the library, underneath
  the ledger, the cashbox, and a sapphire necklace I'm trying to keep
  hidden until Dana's birthday, is an impressive collection of letters –
  all addressed to you.  And I am sure, when I reach DC, I will add this
  one to the stack.  I have been married for almost a year, I have Emily
  and another baby on the way, and I care so much for Dana, yet I still
  find myself writing to you.  It does not seem reasonable, but then, I
  seldom do things reasonably.
  
  That was what my mother said when my father told her you and I were
  getting married.  And the reason you and I were getting married, aside
  from my undying love, of course.  I was staring at the rug, too ashamed
  to look at her, and she patted my cheek, smiled sadly, and said, "You
  never love reasonably, do you, dear boy?"
  
  No, I suppose I never do.
  
  I know what Dana's thinking; I'm thinking that very same thing.  I do
  love her.  And Emily.  And Dana's mysterious stomach upset, which the
  doctor feels should be remedied by Christmas.  I love who I am with
  Dana, and the man I see reflected in her eyes when she looks at me.  I
  like that man.  I have no intention of losing him.
  
  I can't tell her what the future holds, or, if I could relive the past,
  assure her I would make the same decisions.  In fact, I could assure her
  I would not.  That's the stumbling block of mortality: when a man looks
  to yesterday, it's unchangeable, and the future is an ethereal dream. 
  We grasp at tomorrow and rewrite the past, but the only moment we really
  have is the one we hold in our hands.  And right now, Melly, I have more
  than I ever dreamed of.
  
  I have our boy.  And we are going home.
  
  Mulder
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  As disasters went, it wasn't particularly tragic.  In early August, an
  underground fire had caused the main shaft of the Davlon mine in
  Pennsylvania to cave in, trapping workers more than a thousand feet
  below the surface and cutting off their only means of escape and source
  of air.  Of the one hundred and eighty men and boys who'd descended the
  shaft that morning, one hundred and ten had been crushed or suffocated.
  
  Mining was known to be dangerous work, and accidents were a frequent
  occurrence, as they were in factories and mills. Nor was anyone
  surprised there were bodies of boys as young as eleven and twelve when
  no one below fourteen was supposedly allowed underground.  The scandal
  about to hit the newspapers was the coal company's response to the
  accident: to leave the miners to die.  For two days, despite thousands
  of volunteers, no effort was made to dig the workers out or to put out
  the fire.  Rescue attempts probably would have been futile, given the
  depth of the mine and the extent of the cave in, but it was galling the
  company considered its miners so dispensable that it didn't even try.  
  
  But the story wouldn't hit the AP wires until tomorrow morning, which
  gave Mulder a little more than twelve hours before it ran on the front
  page of every newspaper in the country.  And twelve hours before America
  sucked in a collective disapproving breath, and the company locked its
  gates against a storm of public outrage.
  
  After a tense afternoon of waiting and arguing with the supervisors,
  trying to convince them he wasn't an agitator or a reporter, he'd
  greased a few palms and been given an unenthusiastic go ahead.
  
  The supervisor had appraised Mulder's silk vest, the gold chain on his
  pocket watch, his polished boots and fine horse, and asked in disbelief,
  "You got a boy here, Mister?"
  
  "I think so.  I just want to check.  I won't cause any trouble."
  
  "We'll just be sure of that," the supervisor had responded, and assigned
  two burley men to escort him, ordering them not to let Mulder out of
  their sight.
  
  It reminded him of being given a tour of Hell after the fire had burned
  out.  It was still Hell; it had just cooled and gathered a layer of
  grime.  Although he hadn't touched anything, he seemed to attract coal
  dust out of the air.  It coated his skin and crept underneath his
  fingernails.  It got in his mouth and in his throat and clogged the
  corners of his eyes.  It mixed with sweat and collected in the creases
  of his wrists and the insides of his elbows.
  
  Lean, wary faces watched him and his escorts as they rode past, the
  whites of their eyes a stark contrast to their dirty skin.  He'd lived
  in Army camps, which stank to high Heaven, and seen the south after the
  war, but this was worse. The atmosphere was permeated not only with
  unwashed bodies and waste, but long-term poverty: empty bellies and
  paper-thin dresses and children who'd never worn shoes or seen a book. 
  The laundry hung to dry between the dilapidated company houses wasn't
  white, but dingy gray, and the aroma of salt-pork, flour, and boiled
  potatoes hung in the air, although he couldn't imagine eating anything
  cooked in this place.  He couldn't imagine doing anything in this place
  except getting out and getting someplace, anyplace else.
  
  He dismounted, leaving Aramis and walking along the benches of children
  picking through the coal as it came down the chute, pulling out the
  chunks of slate and rock.  He'd already been told Sam, if he worked in
  the camp and wasn't in the bunkhouses, was probably in the mines, but
  they also wouldn't let Mulder in the mines to check.
  
  "I'm looking for a boy named ‘Sam,'" he said, raising his voice to be
  heard. "He can play guitar.  He plays well.  And he can draw.  And read
  and write.  Tall, black hair, dark eyes.  He might be called another
  name.  Does anyone know him?"
  
  There was no response.  The children kept their heads down and eyes
  focused on their work.  There was the scrape of knuckles against rock, a
  few coughs, and nothing else.
  
  "Anybody seen the boy?  He work at this chute?" one of his escorts asked
  tersely, and four-dozen frightened heads automatically shook "no."
  
  "Thank you," Mulder added awkwardly, though no one seemed to be
  listening.
   
  A bell tolled loudly, resonating through the camp and echoing off the
  hills, and the sorting paused.  The children looked at each other from
  underneath their lashes, then continued working.
  
  "What does the bell mean?" Mulder asked, and no one answered. "What does
  it mean?" he repeated sharply.
  
  "Cave in," a little voice said, its owner bent over the chute, nimble
  fingers methodically sifting through the chunks of rock. "Maybe a fire. 
  Bell means somebody's dead." 
  
  "Isn't anyone going to do something?" he asked through his teeth.   
  
  His pulse beat a dozen times inside his ears before one of his escorts
  said casually, "Day shift's almost over.  We can go to up to the mine
  and see if your boy's comin' out."
  
  Mulder wanted to snap, "What do you mean if he's coming out?  He's
  either coming out or I'm grabbing a pickaxe and going in," but he
  didn't.  He bit his lip nervously and followed the others to the opening
  of the main shaft, leading his horse after him.  
  
  The crowd had begun assembling as soon as the bell tolled -- hollow-eyed
  women with small children streamed out of the camp and making their way
  to the mine.  They gathered at the base of the slope and waited.  One
  woman had her sleeves rolled up, her forearms were still wet from dishes
  or laundry.  Another held a baby Emily's age on her hip and, with her
  free hand, thoughtlessly clutched a spatula; in one of the coal company
  shacks, her husband's dinner was probably burning.  They waited to see
  which of the miners would walk out and which would be carried.  Ten
  could be dead, or twenty, or all.
  
  He wanted to shout, "My God, how can you live like this?  How can you
  just stand there?" but he didn't.  He bit his lip harder and watched as
  the first boys, the ones in charge of opening and closing the mine doors
  and driving the mule-drawn coal cars, emerged.
  
  After them, the teenagers and young adults trudged out, moving like old
  men.  Their backs were bowed from stooping in the low tunnels, and many
  wore trousers wet to the knee from standing in water.  He could feel the
  ache in their joints as they moved, each step an effort.  Every inch of
  their exposed skin was black with dust, and their clothes were only dim
  reflections of their original colors.  Mulder had no idea how the women
  waiting could tell them apart, but they could.  He watched as family
  after family was reunited, relaxed, and walked home for the night.
  
  A stretcher bearing a mangled body was carried out, its upper torso
  crushed by falling slate.  The corpse wasn't Sam, but there was still a
  tense moment while Mulder convinced himself it wasn't.  No one reacted;
  the body didn't seem to belong to any of the women.  He was no one's son
  or brother or husband.  One of the mine bosses pulled the sheet over the
  expressionless face and the stretcher moved on.
   
  "Company'll take care of him," someone murmured.
  
  A fresh group of men and boys assembled for the night shift, waiting to
  descend into the shaft, as the last of the day shift straggled out.  The
  mine doors were open, and the cool, dank air wafted up.  A series of
  lanterns lit the first few yards, and he could see the rough walls, the
  timber support beams along the sides, and the steel tracks for the coal
  cars along the bottom.  Then the shaft descended, darkened, and there
  was nothing.  Mulder squinted and stepped forward as though he could see
  into the black depths.
  
  "Sorry, Mister," one of his escorts said blandly, turning to leave, but
  Mulder didn't move.  Not yet.  After so much, he wasn't going to just
  walk away.
  
  "Mister, we said you could look, and you looked.  If he's not going in
  and he didn't come out, and he ain't in camp, he ain't here.  We don't
  got no secret place we hide folks."
  
  Mulder ignored them, and his escorts looked at each other, trying to
  decide if it was worth the effort to drag him away.  They must have
  decided it wasn't, because they leaned against a pile of railroad ties
  and resigned themselves to wait.
  
  For ten minutes, no one emerged, then a man stepped out, pulled off his
  battered helmet, and announced, "Dog's alive; candle's burning."
  
  The crowd of men surged forward, carrying their picks and shovels with
  them.  Odds were, of the two hundred men going to work that evening, one
  wouldn't be alive the next morning.
  
  "They send a dog and candle down.  If the dog comes back alive and the
  candle's still burnin', there's good air to breathe," a woman waiting
  beside Mulder explained quietly.  She squeezed a man's hand, then
  released it as he followed the crowd into the mine, whistling and
  securing his helmet as he went. 
  
  "Are there any men from the last shift in there?"  
  
  She nodded tensely. 
  
  "Live men or more bodies?"
  
  "They always bring out the bodies, when they can find them," she
  answered, the thin fabric of her bonnet flapping against her cheek in
  the breeze.  The others had gone – either into the shaft or back to the
  camp – so only she, Mulder, and his bored escorts remained.  She crossed
  her skinny arms, waiting, hawk-like eyes focused on the entrance to the
  mine.
  
  The change was miniscule.  She exhaled, closed her eyes briefly, and
  seemed to say a silent prayer of thanks. "That's my boy," she said,
  lifting her chin toward the top of the hill. "The other yours?"
  
  He looked up, watching two teenagers coming out of the mine, stretching
  tiredly and taking their own sweet time.  One grinned, loping coltishly
  down the slope to his mother.
  
  "Slowpoke!  Scare me half to death, why don't you?" the woman fussed at
  her son, smacking him on the back of the head and scolding him as they
  walked away.
  
  The other stopped, staring at Mulder and letting go of the rope
  fashioned into a makeshift lead around a dog's neck.  He took off his
  helmet, revealing a clean expanse of skin between his eyebrows and
  hairline, and swung his pickaxe down from his shoulder, letting it thud
  dully against the ground.  The rest of his face, like the others, was
  powdered black with coal dust, but the eyes hadn't changed.  Melly's
  eyes. The high cheekbones, the full lips, and the gentle brown eyes were
  exactly the same.
    
  "Yeah," he mumbled to no one, feeling electricity shooting down his
  spine. His voice sounded odd, as though he was speaking from far away.
  "That's my boy."
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  He wasn't certain what to say or do, and when that was the case, he
  usually said and did too much.  He'd lost a sweet, trusting, chatterbox
  of a boy and found silent, vigilant young man, and he wasn't sure what
  to do with him.
  
  Except not let him out of his sight again.
  
  "I knew it was you," Mulder continued as the waiter laid out dinner on
  the table in their hotel room.  Samuel wasn't ready for the noise and
  chaos of the restaurant downstairs. "When they said you owed the company
  store almost five dollars, all for licorice.  How do you eat five
  dollars worth of licorice, Sammy?  Was it a dare?"
  
  From the bathtub in the corner, Samuel stared at him numbly.  His
  handsome face seemed more angular, watchful, without its boyish
  roundness and innocence.  His eyes looked as though they'd witnessed a
  thousand years of pain.  After a few seconds, he took a breath and sunk
  below the surface of the water, letting his black hair swirl around his
  head, and not answering.
  
  Mulder sighed uncomfortably, nodded to himself, and closed his mouth. 
  Sam was there, alive, and in one piece.  Conversation could come later.  
  
  After the waiter left, Mulder put Sam's battered guitar aside and poured
  hot water into the basin.  He stripped off his vest, shirt, and cotton
  undershirt to wash, scrubbing off the nervous sweat and coal dust.  It
  would probably take more soap and water than the hotel had, but it was a
  start.
  
  He paused, bracing his hands and staring into the mirror over the
  washbasin.  It was real.  He'd found Sam.  The certainty of it settled
  over him like evening dew, making him shiver.
  
  "What happened to your back?" Sam asked, arriving at a total of thirteen
  words he'd said since he'd followed his father out of the camp hours
  earlier.
  
  Mulder twisted, trying to see.  On his left shoulder blade were three
  parallel, half-healed scratches.  Dana needed to trim her fingernails.
  
  "Nothing.  Probably a tree branch.  Sam… Samuel, we need to talk about a
  few things."
  
  The manager had sent up a change of clothes, and Sam put them on, once
  again looking like a gentleman's son.  Once they were both clean,
  combed, and dressed, they sat at the table and appraised the feast the
  restaurant had sent up.  Sam dropped the linen napkin on his lap, picked
  up his fork, and went to work.
  
  It was good to see some things hadn't changed.  Watching his son, now
  clean and decently clothed, began to eat, Mulder felt a small amount of
  the tension inside his body release.
  
  "Do you know Grandfather died?" Mulder said slowly, as though hearing it
  slowly made it any easier.
  
  Sam nodded that he did, focusing on his lamb chop.  The obituary had
  been in the papers, as had much speculation as to who the Massachusetts
  Legislature would appoint to fill the Senator's seat for the next term. 
  Anyone but Spender, if Mulder had his way.
  
  "Grandmother's having difficulty understanding all that's happened. 
  She's fine, just a little confused."
  
  Sam nodded again, his knife accidentally scraping the plate.
  
  "Poppy's fine.  Her baby, Sadie, is two years old now.  I'll send a
  telegram in the morning and let everyone know we're coming home.  Even
  Grace is still there.  Your room's exactly the same."
  
  Again, there was no response except a nod.  As they ate, Sam's silver
  knife clinked against his china plate, as did Mulder's wedding ring
  against the stem of his crystal goblet.
  
  "Why didn't you come home, Sam?" he asked finally.
  
  His son looked up, and Mulder waited while Sam seemed to search for
  words, trying several times before he said, "I did.  The train stopped
  in DC," he answered uncertainly. "I just didn't get off. I'm sorry,
  sir."
  
  "I was worried about you.  I didn't know where you were.  If you were
  dead or alive.  Why didn't you write?  Why didn't you…" He trailed off,
  swallowing although his mouth was empty.
  
  Sam's face twitched, and he glanced around the room, looking lost.
  
  "It's fine.  Don't worry about it, son.  Eat," Mulder ordered gently.
  "Then you can get some rest.  We both can.  It's a long trip home."  
  
  *~*~*~* 
  
  Outside the train, the miles slid past, Pennsylvania falling away to the
  Allegheny Mountains.  Inside, time slowed to a crawl.  The huge steel
  mills and factories became sleepy little towns nestled among the hills,
  safe from the rest of the world.
  
  Sam dozed, often startling awake when the train lurched or there was a
  loud noise.  Mulder opened the little window, letting some air in while
  his son slept fitfully on one of the two upholstered benches in their
  first class nook.
  
  "You lost a few ancestors here," he told Sam, who woke again as the
  train eased out of the Cumberland, Maryland station. "During the French
  and Indian War."
  
  Sam ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face, and
  asked sleepily, "On which side?"   
  
  "Both.  One French on my side; one Indian on your mother's." His son
  looked less than interested in his genealogy, so Mulder offered, "Do you
  want a drink of water?"
  
  "No."
  
  "I have some paper.  Do you want to draw?"
  
  Sam took it, getting as far as sharpening a pencil with his pocketknife
  before he put it down and shook his head. "It's so loud.  I can't
  think."
  
  "It's all right.  We'll be home soon," Mulder assured him. "A few more
  hours and we'll be home."
  
  His son turned his head toward the window, letting his hand rest on the
  sill so the wind caressed it. "I forget that home is real.  Everything
  feels different.  I feel different," Sam said quietly, watching the sun
  dancing shyly behind the tree leaves. "Wrong."
  
  Mulder lay down his pencil and put his fist to his mouth as if waiting
  for a cough.  As much as he didn't want to admit it, the change in his
  son frightened him.  From the time he'd learned to walk, Sam had been an
  active, happy child.  Talented.  Kindhearted.  There was a wall around
  him now, and Mulder knew what it took to build walls that high.
  
  "You aren't wrong.  You're still my Sammy.  You just need some time. 
  Some rest.  A few square meals.  And you needed out of that hellhole."  
  
  "I liked mining," he said in the same distance voice, as if Mulder
  wasn't even present. "It's quiet.  Dark.  No one bothers you.  You can
  hear the men working, but they're far away.  Everything feels far away."
  
  "But you're not a miner." 
  
  "I'm not a soldier," Sam responded flatly.
  
  Mulder opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.
    
  Sam licked his lips, then caught the top one between his teeth. "I got
  angry at them for dying.  The rebel soldiers: no matter how many I shot,
  they kept coming. There were so many of them.  They knew I'd shoot, but
  they kept coming.  And dying.  Hundreds of them.  They didn't even try
  to get out of the way.  I hated them for being so stupid."
  
  "Every man feels that way, Sammy.  It's part of war."
  
  His son looked at him briefly, vacantly, and then went back to staring
  out the window as the miles rolled past. 
  
  "Sammy, I need to tell you something.   You've been away a long time
  and- Your mother-" he started awkwardly.  He'd spent hours trying to
  think of a way to approach the subject, waiting for an opportunity, but
  there didn't seem to be a gentle segue. "I'm married, Sam.  I've
  remarried.  Her name is Dana."
  
  He wasn't sure what reaction to expect, but he got absolutely none.  He
  wanted to ask if Sam had heard him, but he was sitting directly across
  from Mulder; obviously, he had.
  
  "Her name is Dana," Mulder repeated. "She's Irish.  I met her near
  Savannah.  She's, she's nice.  A little headstrong, but nice.  She's not
  at all like your mother, but I think you'll like her.  I like her."
  
  "Do you love her?"
  
  "I… I care for her.  Very much.  We have a… There's a little girl named
  Emily.  And, uh…" 
  
  He stopped, changing his mind.  That was enough news for the time being.
  
  "You and your wife have a daughter?"  
  
  "She's-" Mulder stopped speaking and exhaled slowly. "She's just
  learning to walk."
  
  Sam was quiet for far too long, then finally said, "I'm glad."
  
  "Are you?"
  
  "I don't know," the boy answered tiredly. "I don't know what I am."
  
  Samuel pulled the shade down over the window, blocking out the orange
  and violet sunset, and watching the decorative tassels on it sway back
  and forth as the train rocked forward. 
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  Dana brought him a cup of tea, and then tucked her dressing gown around
  her and sat beside him in the hallway outside Samuel's bedroom.  It
  didn't matter what the crisis was, she had a tea for it.  He took a
  small sip.  Her husband bringing home his long lost and much-traumatized
  son to his new wife and family: peppermint tea.  It must soothe
  heartaches as well as stomachaches.
  
  "I would ask if you plan to sit and watch him all night, but you are
  already halfway there," she whispered, slipping her hand into his,
  interlacing their fingers.  Her palm was warm from the teacup, and she
  smelled of sun-dried cotton, the nursery, expensive soap, and clean
  hair.      
  
  Mulder responded by maneuvering so he was leaning back against the wall,
  and she was sitting between his legs, his hands covering hers on her
  abdomen.  He should tell her to it was late, to get from the cold floor
  and go to bed, but he didn't.  It was nice to have his arms around her. 
  Like Sarah, she stabilized him, giving him a sandbar to stand on in the
  ocean, a place to rest and momentarily stop treading water.
  
  "He's real, Dana," Mulder repeated wondrously for what had to be the
  thousandth time. "He's really there.  I keep expecting to wake up and
  have his bed be empty again, but he's really there."
  
  Their words were barely breath with sounds attached, but Samuel slept
  on, still in the suit he'd worn on the train and, for the moment, lost
  in the heavy, velvet oblivion dreams.  He was sprawled across the
  sheets, his jet-black hair falling across his face and his soft, pink
  lips parted slightly as he dreamt.  A candle flickered on the night
  stand, and Grace lay at the foot of the bed, daring anyone to come near
  his boy.
   
  "He is beautiful."
  
  "Don't let him hear you say that.  He hates being called pretty."
  
  "But he is," she insisted. "Even after seeing the photographs, I did not
  realize…" She looked back at Mulder's angular face, then through the
  open doorway at Samuel. "He-"
  
  "He looks more like Melissa," Mulder answered. "He's a good boy, Dana. 
  I know he seems standoffish, but he's really not.  He's just been
  through so much."
  
  Their train had been delayed outside DC, so they hadn't arrived home
  until almost eleven.  Dana had been waiting up, but Poppy was gone and
  Emily was asleep.  Grace had met his boy at the front door with a full-
  body wag, baying excitedly and sniffing for news.  Sam had greeted Dana
  politely, then wandered through the house with Grace at his heels for a
  while, silently noting the changes.  He'd declined tea, struck a few
  chords on the piano, looked around, then politely told them goodnight
  and gone to his bedroom.  Judging from the light beneath his door, Sam
  hadn't gone to sleep for another three hours.
  
  "Would he tell you how he got to the mines?"
  
  "He said that was the train's last stop.  End of the line.  As far away
  as he could get, I guess." He paused, leaning his head back against the
  cool wall. "In the camp - I don't think he wanted to come home with me
  so much as he did it because I expected him to.  I know he blames me,
  and he should.  I was the one who fell asleep.  Melissa should never
  have been having another baby in the first place, but- I kept looking
  for him when the truth was he just didn't want to come home.  He wasn't
  lost; he just didn't want to be found.  At least, not by me."
  
  "Did he say that?"
  
  "No, of course not.  He's not going to say that."
  
  "Maybe it was not that he did not want to come home, but that he needed
  someone to help him find the way.  War is bad enough for a man, but for
  a boy – with everything else that had happened… Perhaps he just could
  not.  You could not.  You were right: there are ghosts here, Mr. Mulder. 
  There are restless spirits that haunt you still.  Perhaps your son could
  not face them alone, either."
  
  "I didn't go home because I was looking for him."
  
  "Well, then you spent several months looking for him in my barn."
  
  He smirked uncomfortably, but it was true.  War was horrible beyond
  comprehension, especially for those who marched off expecting glory. 
  Every soldier came home changed, hardened, and a few never came home at
  all because they were so changed they couldn't face their old lives. 
  For some, the end of the war was like A.D.: they dated their lives from
  that point forward and forgot all that had come before – including their
  homes and families.
  
  "I did not mean-" 
  
  "I know what you meant, Dana; I was just thinking about it."
  
  She inhaled, shifting her hand against her belly.
  
  "What's the matter?"
  
  "The baby is moving."
  
  "Does that mean something's wrong?" he asked urgently.
  
  "No, nothing is wrong.  He is just moving.  He had been for a few days. 
  Can you feel him?"
  
  She leaned back, and Mulder put his palm where she indicated, tilting
  his head and concentrating. "What does it feel like?"
  
  "Like a butterfly flapping its wings.  Just a little flutter."
  
  He pushed her dressing gown aside, repositioned his hand against her
  nightgown, and pressed again, trying to detect any motion. "No, I don't
  think I can.  I'm not… No, I don't think so.  But you can?"
  
  "Yes, I can feel him."   
  
  He leaned back, leaving his hand where it was – on a new beginning.
  
  "He's real too.  I haven't forgotten that," he said quietly, slowly. 
  Moonlight made words and emotions easier. "And I won't, Dana.  I do love
  you.  And Emily.  And this baby. I've been thinking about what you said
  – that I never would've married you if I'd truly thought Sam was still
  alive.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit."
  
  "What have you decided?"
  
  He kissed her earlobe, then dragged his lips across the soft, warm skin
  of her neck. "That it's late, and I've missed you, and sometimes I think
  too much."
   
  *~*~*~*
  
  His parents had been openly affectionate, both toward their son and with
  each other.  Never vulgar, but demonstrative.  Bill Mulder loved his
  wife, and he hadn't been embarrassed about showing it.  They'd been
  known to hold hands and even kiss in public, which had raised some
  polite eyebrows.  In private, he'd often found his mother sitting on his
  father's lap or with her hand on his thigh.
  
  From them, Mulder had learned there was more to love than the two
  extremes society deemed acceptable: chivalrous, untouchable adoration or
  flat-on-her-back, close-your-eyes-and-think-of-England intercourse. He'd
  learned it didn't make him less of a man to be gentle, or more of a man
  to be cruel.  Saying he'd been a bad lover to Melissa was like putting a
  sundial in the shade and then blaming it for not telling time.  He'd
  certainly tried.
  
  From Dana, he'd learned women could be willing, active participants, and
  he could be playful – that lovemaking wasn't always serious business. 
  He was allowed to be silly or sweet or naughty, whispering things to her
  that made him blush at breakfast.  He was even allowed to give in to the
  rougher, animal side of his nature.  So was she, which was a toe-curling
  experience that left a grin on his face for hours afterward. 
  
  And none of that was deviant.  God didn't seem to mind.  Men minded. 
  Dana's priest probably minded, and the good reverend at Christ Church
  would have, but Mulder had never seen fit to mention it.
    
  Their bedroom door was barely closed before she was in his arms, his
  mouth hungry for hers. "I missed you," he repeated huskily, gathering up
  her nightgown and pulling it over her head, then throwing it carelessly
  to the floor.  His boots went flying, landing across the room with two
  dull clops, and his vest, shirt, and trousers followed, buttons popping.
  
  He picked her up, her legs around his waist and her arms around his
  neck, and carried her to the bed.  Her slight belly pressed against him,
  and he wasn't sure it was acceptable to find that erotic instead of
  repulsive or embarrassing.  The idea she was carrying their child, and
  he'd caused that, was primitively, instinctively arousing.  He wanted to
  kill something ferocious and bring it to her as a bloody trophy.  He
  wanted to pound his chest and piss in the corners to mark his territory. 
  And if not for the terrifying, life-threatening prospect of her having
  to give birth, he'd want to make her pregnant again as soon as possible.
  
  That might be deviant. 
  
  Setting her on the mattress, he pulled his mouth breathlessly from hers
  to ask, "I won't hurt the baby?"
  
  "Nil, tá mé go breá," she answered impatiently, her eyes dilated with
  arousal, and probably unaware she wasn't speaking English. 
  
  "Of course you're fine," he murmured sarcastically, caressing her
  breasts and enjoying the exotic, lilting syllables in his ear. "How
  would I say ‘I love you'?"
  
  He raised her nipple to his mouth and her breathing quickened, her skin
  flushed and hot under his fingertips. "Tá grá agam duit," she whispered
  hoarsely.
  
  "Tah grah ugum ditch," he echoed, crawling forward so she fell back
  across the blankets, legs apart. "No, I like hearing you say it better."
  She reached to pull the covers down, and he stopped her. "Do you think
  you need more covering than a man, love?"
  
  "Nil, mo rún," she answered, putting her arms around his neck again and
  pulling him close. 
   
  "Moron?" 
  
  "Mo rún – my lover," she whispered to him.
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  It wasn't really awake, but it wasn't asleep either.  It was the
  comfortable state of being skin-to-skin with another human being in the
  cool darkness before dawn and having no need to open his eyes or move
  for a few more minutes.
  
  He put his hand on Dana's stomach again, still trying to feel any
  movement.  She yawned and shifted closer to him, mumbling something as
  she slept.
  
  "Father," Samuel's voice said hesitantly.
  
  Mulder rolled over quickly and opened his eyes, seeing his son in the
  doorway.  He hadn't heard footsteps or the door opening, so Sam might
  have been there for some time, watching them. 
  
  "Sammy," he said surprise, reaching back and pulling the sheet higher to
  cover Dana.  With no one else in the house at night except Emily, they'd
  never thought to lock their bedroom door.  Or to be quiet as they made
  love.  Sam, though, used to finding his mother in the bed and his father
  on the sofa, had thought nothing of walking in. "What's wrong?"
  
  "I came to see if you were awake."
  
  "Yeah.  Yes, I'm awake.  Are you all right?" He pushed up on his elbow
  and combed his fingers through his tousled hair nervously.
  
  Sam nodded. "I'm fine.  I was just awake.  I had a dream.  No one else
  is up."  
  
  "I'll get up.  Go start a fire in the kitchen stove and we'll have
  coffee.  I can make biscuits.  Or something akin to them."
  
  He nodded again, but still didn't move. 
  
  "Sam, I don't have any clothes on.  I can't get up until you leave."
  
  "Oh," his son responded calmly, then turned away, quietly closing the
  door after him.  Within a few seconds, Mulder heard footsteps descending
  the stairs and the cast iron door on the kitchen stove squeaking open.  
  
  "Do you want me to fix breakfast?" Dana asked, not as fast asleep as
  she'd been pretending.  She sat up, watching him dress. 
  
  "No, he wants me."
  
  "I could-" 
  
  "No, he wants me.  Just give us some time.  All right?" He leaned down,
  kissing her forehead, and smiling encouragingly.  She moved to kiss his
  lips, but he pulled back before she could, and then buttoned his shirt
  as he left.  
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  Instead of eating it, Sam was slowly dismantling his biscuit, pulling it
  apart morsel by morsel and dropping the pieces to Grace.
  
  "I don't know how to get them not to burn on the bottom.  There must be
  some sort of trick to it," Mulder decided, peeling the black part off of
  his. "Maybe-"
  
  "I'm sorry I interrupted you," Sam said suddenly. "And your wife.  I
  wasn't thinking."
  
  "You didn't interrupt.  We were just sleeping."
  
  "I don't think she likes me."
  
  Mulder raised his eyebrows, wondering if he'd heard right. "Of course
  Dana likes you.  She was staying out of the way last night, letting you
  get settled in.  She just doesn't want to intrude.  Why do you think she
  didn't like you?"
  
  "She didn't talk to me."
  
  "Sammy, you didn't talk to her."  
   
  "Oh," he mumbled and went back to dissecting his burnt biscuit.
  
  Mulder stirred his coffee, though there was nothing in it to stir except
  coffee.  When he tapped his spoon on the rim of his cup, Sam jumped.
  "Sorry," he said, setting his spoon aside.
  
  "You shaved your beard," Sam observed next, several minutes later.
  
  "And you started growing one," Mulder teased, reaching over to stroke
  beginning hints of a mustache.  Sam pulled back warily, so he dropped
  his hand and elaborated, "I shaved it after, uh, after the funeral, once
  I was back at my post.  I started out looking like Lincoln but realized
  you were right - I looked more like a grizzly bear - so I shaved it off. 
  It was gone by the time I saw you in Atlanta.  I did see you in Atlanta,
  didn't I?"
   
  Sam nodded, but answered, "All of it."
  
  "Yes, it all went." Most men wore, if not full beards, then at least
  sideburns, goatees, or mustaches.  Few were clean-shaven.  For years,
  Mulder had vacillated between sideburns and a closely trimmed goatee.
  "I've started to grow it back a few times, but it bothers Dana's skin."
  
  "She's expecting, isn't she?" 
  
  "Yes, she is.  I didn't think you'd notice yet, so I was waiting to tell
  you.  Would you rather have a little brother or sister for Christmas?"
  
  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew that hadn't been the
  right thing to say.  Damn it, nothing seemed to be the right thing to
  say.  He wanted to grab his son and hold him close, to make all the
  nightmare monsters under the bed go away.  He wanted to launch into a
  lecture about how much he'd loved Melissa and how Dana wasn't a
  replacement or a betrayal.  He wanted to shake him and shout, "I'm your
  father, and I love you, Goddamn it!" but he didn't.
  
  "You fixed my bedroom window," Sam finally said, like that was the next
  logical topic of conversation. "The broken pane."
  
  "I think Dana had someone fix it when I telegraphed we were coming home. 
  Byers, probably.  I was saving it for you.  You and that baseball… I
  told you if you broke another one, you were fixing it."
  
  "That was five years ago."
  
  "I meant it."
  
  For the first time, Sam grinned hesitantly, giving the rest of his
  biscuit to Grace and reaching for another.  He didn't eat them, but he
  liked to crumble them.
  
  From the nursery upstairs, a high-pitched voice announced she was awake
  and wanted her "Dah-dah-dah-dah," immediately, each syllable getting
  louder and more insistent.
  
  "It's five o'clock. You can set your watch by her," Mulder said, getting
  up from the kitchen table. "It's Emily.  Would you like to meet her?"
  
  The floorboards above them squeaked as Dana got up, but Mulder looked up
  and said loudly, "I'll get her," and the feet shuffled back to bed.
  
  Sam kept his distance as Mulder lit the lamps in the nursery, and got
  ready for a diaper change.  Emily watched from the crib, standing up and
  clutching the iron bars like a prisoner desperate for release.
  
  "Dah-dah-dah, upuh."
  
  "I'm hurrying, Miss Impatience.  All right; come here," he said, lifting
  her up. "Up we go.  You always want what you want right now, don't you?" 
  
  Sam wandered closer, watching as a dry diaper replaced a wet one.
  "Doesn't her nurse do that?  Or Poppy?"
  
  "They do, but Poppy doesn't come until six.  She'll start spending the
  night soon, though.  And Dana needs to rest.  I can do it.  We get a dry
  diaper, a drink of water, eat some crackers, sometimes we even take a
  bath, don't we, Emmy?" he said melodically, lifting her high in the air
  and kissing her belly before settling her against his chest.  Emily
  sucked her thumb, eyeing Sam warily. 
  
  "She doesn't look like I thought she would."
  
  "She looks more like Dana," Mulder answered quickly.
  
  Sam was quiet a long time, looking around the dim nursery, and the back
  at Emily.
  
  "How old would she be?" he asked finally. "Mother's baby?  Sarah.  If…"
  
  Mulder inhaled, then exhaled slowly. "She'd be two, now, Sammy," he said
  quietly. "She'd be walking, talking. I think about that too, sometimes." 
  
  Sam leaned against the crib, traced one cast iron railing with his
  finger. The oil lamps flickered warm yellow light, keeping the darkness
  at bay.  On the street outside the house, wooden cart wheels rolled
  slowly across the cobblestones as the sleeping city began to awaken.
  
  "Dahdah?" Emily asked.
  
  "What, sweetheart?"
  
  Emily kept hold of a fistful of Mulder's shirt, but reached out for Sam
  with one damp hand, curious.
  
  "She wants you, Sam.  Do you want to hold her?" he offered. "You don't
  have to."
  
  To his surprise, Sam nodded that he did, holding out his arms.
  
  "She sometimes doesn't like strangers.  She's, uh, you need to…  Be
  careful to- Sammy- Yes, like that."  
  
  There was a rocking chair near the window, and Sam sat down, Emily on
  his lap and his back to the door.  Mulder hovered, thinking it was a
  two-second whim, but minutes passed, silent except for the rocker
  creaking against the floorboards and Sam murmuring to her. Occasionally,
  Emily answered in her secret language, an entire universe condensed into
  ten or so of the most important single-syllable words.
  
  Grace made a protective lap around the room, then settled beside the
  rocking chair, keeping one floppy ear directed at the door.  He opened
  his eyes, checking on Mulder, exhaled a rumbling breath from deep in his
  chest, and closed them again.
  
  Sam pointed out the window to a lantern bobbing on the sidewalk below,
  telling Emily it was the night watchman making his last round.  His
  shift started at dusk when he lit the gas streetlamps, and ended at
  sunrise when he extinguished them.  Fascinated, Emily reached out,
  thinking she could catch the light and hold it in her hand like a
  firefly.
  
  Mulder backed away, leaning against the edge of the crib until he saw
  Dana coming to check on them.
  
  "Is everything all right?" she whispered as he joined her in the dark
  hall.  She wrapped her robe tightly around her and smoothed her hair
  back. "Where is Emily?  I thought you were getting her.  And where is
  Samuel?  Is he all right?"
  
  Mulder tipped his head toward the rocking chair slowly swaying beside
  the dark window. 
  
  "What are they doing?"  
  
  "They're talking, I think."
  
  "Talking?"
  
  "Talking," he answered, putting his arms around her shoulders, rocking
  her back and forth to get her to relax.  She covered his hands with
  hers, standing in front of him as they watched Sam with Emily. "And
  everything's going to be fine," he told her, feeling the first glimmer
  of certainty that it really would. "He's going to be fine.  He just
  needs time.  And we're fine.  We're going to be fine.  How do you say
  that?"
  
  "Táimid go maith," she supplied, leaning her head back against his
  shoulder. 
  
  "We are fine?"
  
  "Almost.  More like ‘we are well,' I think.  It is similar to the way
  you say that you are not good, you are just less bad.  Táimid go mait."
  
  "Tah-mwidj go mah," he repeated after her.
  
  *~*~*~*
  
  End: Paracelsus VIII