Begin: Epilogue

You're getting to be an old dog now, Lucille, I tell her, conveying my 
words through fingers over her velvet ears and the sudden coarseness of 
her whiskers.  She surrenders her face to my hand, the way her owner 
did a decade ago.  Ten years ago tonight.

My wedding band gleams dull on my right hand.  It's been there for six 
years now and on my left hand for three before that.  A symbol that I'm 
not married anymore, but that I'm never really alone, either.  I 
remember noticing 'Lizabeth's ring when I met her - a pledge of her 
eternal love for a person who left this world too soon.  I understand 
now.  We who were living are now dying, with a little patience. 

I remember the awful daring as I touched her for the first time as a 
lover and how she closed her eyes in a moment's surrender - one small 
stray step in her long wait for her one in five billion.  In that 
moment, we created life and set a course that an age of prudence can 
never retract.  Two cells joining, proving us immortal - proving that 
we have existed.    

It's an odd anniversary to remember after this long.  There are so many 
others - births, deaths, weddings.  Too many deaths.  I relive the 
deaths often enough.  But tonight, banished to my home office for being 
an uncool dad, I remember creating a life.  

I can hear that life now in the silence from the living room.  Silence 
from a bunch of nine-year-old boys including my son always means 
trouble was brewing.   By the pricking of my thumbs...  I should 
probably go check - see what they're doing inside that green tent 
pitched in the middle of the floor; their backyard camp-out relocated 
due to rain.  No, let Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn have their fun.  I'll 
get up if I hear screaming.  Keep Will from giving Skinner's kid 
another black eye.

Skinner's kid - um - David - is the reason for my exile to what Will 
calls "my room" tonight.  Yes, you have to invite David to your camp-
out, Will.  Yes, I know he's an over-privileged brat - that's what 
happens when a father has his first child after fifty.  No, no playing 
tricks on him; he's only six.  Well, it's because of Dad's work, Will - 
you have to be nice to people when you're an Assistant Director and 
that includes not beating up the Director's son.  

Invite him or no camp-out.  That's final.

"But, Dad!  That is SO uncool."  I was called uncool by a nine-year-old 
boy wearing some teen-sensation t-shirt with holes in it - holes in it 
that he cut - and shaved lines into the back of his hair - which he 
tried to dye blue last week.  Right, I'm uncool, Will.

I cringed when I first found out I had a son named "William."  William 
Todd Mulder.  I was seeing years of flashbacks to my father every time 
I looked at him and he was still less than a month old.  Apparently, I 
was too out of it to tell the nurses at the hospital what his name was, 
so they just asked me my name and wrote down "William."  At least it's 
not Fox - I guess the nurse couldn't bear to do that to an innocent 
child, so she used Todd.  Son, do you know you'd be named Matthew if 
your father hadn't been having a psychotic break right after you were 
born?  That I'd agreed to the name 'Lizabeth wanted - Matthew - before 
I realized "Matthews" was her married name.  I can't envision my son 
named Matt.  Or calling him Todd, as cruel a joke as that would be.  So 
Will it was.

Will has turned out to be a perfectly appropriate name, though. 

THERE'S the screaming, so I open my office door and yell the magic 
phrase: "I'll take the computer!"  Whatever they're doing, I'm sure my 
son is the ringleader.  

The sounds of pain die down and Will assures me everything is "fine," 
matching Scully's inflection perfectly.  Through great effort, I do not 
smile.

"David?"  I am a trained investigator - I know which one will crack the 
fastest.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Mulder, sir?"  Skinner may be an over-indulgent father, 
but he's also an ex-Marine.  David appears in front of me, standing 
almost at attention in his Ralph Lauren kid's wear collection, 
innocence painted across his cafe au lait face.  

"What are you all doing?"  Please don't let it involve fire.  No 
campfires in the living room.

Big brown eyes twinkle at me.  "We're searching for Bigfoot, sir."  

Didn't realize Bigfoot was hiding under my coffee table.   I'll have to 
vacuum more often - there's going to be massive hairballs.

"Will!"  I'd stake my life my son isn't going to answer with "Yes, sir, 
father, sir?" I'll be lucky if I get a "yea, Dad?" followed by a denial 
of guilt, instead of a burp.  

I get a burped "What?"

"Bigfoot has never been sighted in Georgetown, Will, but if you keep 
looking, David is not to be Bigfoot anymore. You understand?"  Of 
course he understands - the boy is brilliant.  

"Got it, Dad.  Davie not Bigfoot.  Pizza, Dad?"

Will has forgotten that time we spent at Grandma's dinner table two 
hours ago.  Those were called vegetables, son.  Those belong to the 
other food group - pizza, Chinese take-out, super-valu meals, and 
vegetables.   Try them - you should be genetically predestined to 
thrive on them since 'Lizabeth was vegetarian.  Any mention of his 
biological mother intrigued him, so he took a tentative taste of Mrs. 
Scully's home cooked beans and then spit them out, a green pile of mush 
on his plate.  Nature verses nurture.   

I call for pizza.  Yes, deliver it.  I leave five elementary-age boys 
alone long enough to come get it and I'll come back to more blue hair, 
shaved heads, and the FBI Director's son penned in a makeshift cage 
with my kid poking sticks at him.  Again.

Returning to the couch, I turn my TV to "the Nazi channel."  I've 
assured Will that the History Channel shows topics besides WWII, but he 
claims to never have seen them.  I have no proof of that, he says.  No 
scientific evidence.  One vote for nurture.

The dog hauls herself stiffly up on the couch again and nests between 
my sprawled legs, warm against the denim.  Her muzzle against my thigh 
has a spot that's exactly the same caramel color as 'Lizabeth's hair.  
Lucille sighs a contented dog-sigh and closes her eyes, at peace with 
the world.  I scratch behind her ears, enjoying the closeness.  She's 
the last thing I have of 'Lizabeth's.

My son, yes, is biologically hers.  Half her genes and a little over 
eight months of gestation and that's about it.  When we say "mom" in 
this house, it means Scully.  When I speak of "my wife," I mean Scully.  
Always will.

I found out as much as I could about 'Lizabeth for Will's sake.  
There's no close family living, obviously no old boyfriends or lovers I 
could ask.  I got him a copy of her yearbook from a ritzy girl's 
school, downloaded from the Internet the articles she'd published.  
Will doesn't understand neuroanatomy completely, but he knows more 
about it than other nine-year-olds.  He has her thesis and her 
dissertation, her old Texas driver's license, and a few pictures 
of us together.  I'm still holding out on her journal, although I've 
read it and there's nothing he can't see in a few years.

His most prized possession of her is a videotape one of her professors 
at Georgia State had kept of her giving her first husband a practice 
neuropsych test.  Will watches it, entranced by her shy stumbling over 
the questions as she reads from the manual, knowing she's doing this 
for a grade.  Her husband, Scott, is teasing her, being boyishly 
uncooperative, and mugging for the camera. The dog is in the video, 
too, a half-grown puppy getting into everything.  At one point, Lucille 
drags in a pair of 'Lizabeth's panties and jumps up with her front paws 
on the table, holding blue bikinis in her mouth.  Scott falls out of 
his chair laughing as his wife runs after the dog.  'Lizabeth is maybe 
twenty-five years old and the picture of young happiness.   She doesn't 
know her husband will be dead in a year and she'll join him in five.  
I've only seen the tape once; I watched it before giving it to Will, 
but he's watched it over and over, trying to remember another mother he 
never knew.

I never really knew her either, Will.  Just a beautiful creature that 
floated in and out of my life and left me with you.  A woman with all 
her edges sanded down to smooth tranquility; carefully practiced poise 
and subservience concealing a brilliant mind and a tortured soul.  

I knew Scully, though.  She still comes to me at night, smiling at me 
with her blue eyes and laughing at my stupid jokes.  The office in the 
basement still smells like her, although I was relocated up to the 
fourth floor about five years ago.  Will, the dog, and I still go in at 
night, sometimes.  When you're an AD, no one questions you bringing a 
dog into FBI headquarters.   I tell people she originally belonged to 
one of the Men In Black, and was therefore privy to top secret 
government materials.  Will and a security guard made her an ID badge 
one night and insisted they ran the prerequisite background check.  I 
let her wear it on her collar whenever we enter the building and the 
guards just smile.  An odd quirk of AD Mulder - likes to take his dog 
and kid everywhere.  Can't keep a secretary, either - another quirk.  
Just like he likes to sit in his old basement office and stare at the 
door at night.
 
I miss her so much I ache sometimes.  I listen for her to come home 
after work, wait for the garage door to go up as she turns into the 
driveway.  The office door opens and I look for her, listen for her 
heels against the polished marble floor.  I answer my cell phone and 
expect to hear "It's me, Mulder."  "I'm fine, Mulder."  "You're crazy, 
Mulder!"  "Come to bed, Mulder."  "I love you, Mulder."  I only hear 
those words at night - in the brief time before sleep takes me away, 
I can hear Scully whispering to me.

I know she's not coming back - no psychosis this time - but I still 
watch, like an old dog staring out the window, patiently waiting for 
his owner to come.  Wherever Scully is, waiting for me, I know she's 
watching back.  Mrs. Scully gave me a poem about a mother watching for 
her children - anxious if they were late, in winter by the window, in 
summer by the gate.  I think Mrs. Scully understands; Ahab is 
somewhere, standing beside Scully, and watching for his wife.  

I'm sorry to be late, Scully.  I have to take care of our son.  He's a 
little rough around the edges, but you'd be so proud of him - he wants 
to be a scientist, just like you and 'Lizabeth.  To study the brain - 
the brains of serial killers, unfortunately, but I'm not surprised.  He 
plays on a little league baseball team - bats lefty.  Got that toilet 
training thing down a long time ago, although there were some setbacks 
after you died.

Oh, God - why did you have to leave me, Scully?  This world is so 
lonely without you.  The bulbs you planted came up the Spring after you 
died - tulips and daffodils and the crow-kiss things bloom every year 
in remembrance.  The ME said you were right, Scully.  You were 
pregnant.  I don't know how, but you were.  I had them run some tests 
on the fetus and it was a little girl.  Would have been the same age 
difference between Will and her as between Samantha and me.  I think 
she would have had red hair.  Sudden hemorrhage resulting from a 
malignant brain tumor behind your sinus cavity, Scully, just like 
before.  They said you wouldn't have felt any pain.  I had to replace 
the carpet, though.   I know, we had just put it in, but I couldn't get 
the blood out.  I scrubbed and I scrubbed, but the stain was too deep.  
It happened right here beside the couch.  You were sitting on my lap, 
kissing me with those cold vanilla lips and suddenly the room was 
painted with blood.  You were gone by the time the ambulance got 
here.  Then I found Will in the kitchen, covered with more red.  I 
picked him up and held him and wouldn't let go until your mother got 
here and convinced me it was just ketchup.  The ketchup I was able to 
get up from the kitchen floor - Lucille actually licked most of it 
clean - but the pool of the blood we were sitting in when you died left 
a stain for the rest of my life.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

My voice calls "Dad..." from the living room, except it's about forty 
years younger.  It's the same mouth, the same brown hair that I 
originally hoped would lighten to dark red, but never did.  He's tall - 
looks like he's going to have my build - and we walk the same.  The 
school tested his IQ last year and it's impressive.  All those books we 
read him at bedtime paid off.  Remember that first night, Scully?  When 
we kept trying to have sex and Will wouldn't go to sleep and then he 
wouldn't sleep alone?  It doesn't seem like eight years ago, but it 
was.  

I look for 'Lizabeth in him - I can see her if I search hard enough.  
Fair skin.  Features softer than mine - more gently bred.  Likes 
animals and the sky at night.  Likes the Blues - he calls it my 
"oldies" music, but he always listens.  He's inherited her housekeeping 
gene, too, which is good since I seen to be a genetic mutant in that 
area.  Will has his own method of methodically organizing things known 
only to him and the housekeeper that comes three times a week.  I 
am completely out of the loop - just like with 'Lizabeth.  I do know 
that last week all my underwear got labeled to avoid confusion.  Wonder 
of the Attorney General suspects she's sharing a podium at press 
conferences with a man with "Dad" written in his boxers?  

I love our son.

I see you in him, too, Scully.  When I hear him say "please" and "thank 
you"- to strangers, of course, not to me - I remember you teaching him 
that even before he could talk clearly.  When he collected fall leaves 
and caterpillars changing to butterflies last fall, I remembered him 
emptying his pockets for you to identify every twig and bug he'd 
collected.  When he's sick, he still wants to hear "Jeremiah Was A 
Bullfrog" sung off-key as he goes to sleep at night.  Still loved Dr. 
Seuss, although I'm not supposed to tell his friends that, and Shel 
Silverstein poems.  

Don't think your life didn't make a difference, Scully.  It made a 
great deal of difference to a great many people.  You're immortal now, 
just like I am.  Immortal in one sweet, brilliant, willful, hot-headed, 
little boy.

"Dad?" the voice calls again, almost sounding polite.  The pizza must 
be here - Will's more respectful when he realizes I'm the one with the 
money.  I grab a piece for me and a piece for the dog and retreat back 
to my lair as Will glares at me.  I'd make a joke about not being 
allowed to eat with the white folks, but I'm not sure if that would be 
considered racist or not and Skinner's kid is here.  Better to err on 
the side of caution - Will already knows enough ways to be obnoxious.  	

I was surprised when Skinner told me he was getting married, although 
not shocked.  I knew he was lonely.  Once the dust settled after I came 
back from paternity leave and Scully and I figured out what we were 
going to do with our lives, Skinner became a frequent visitor in our 
home.  He still swore he came to see the dog.  Took her for walks to 
attract women.  I told him to take Will, too - that was a surefire 
combination.  Worked for me.  Also gave Scully and I a chance to have 
sex.   I teased Scully that she automatically got wet when Skinner 
appeared at our front door.  She glared at me for a while before she 
finally laughed - Scully and I had a lot of things we needed to work 
through together.

Anyway, apparently it worked, because one day Skinner came back with a 
beautiful accountant with hair like black silk and smooth toffee skin.  
He asked me what I thought, once, right before they got married - what 
I thought about him marrying a woman who was biracial.  I was stunned - 
first that he wanted my opinion, and second, that my self-assured boss 
has any hesitancy about public sentiment.  Of course, when you're in 
line to become Director of the FBI, public sentiment carries a bit more 
pressure than a few crass comments from an occasional redneck peanut-
picker.  I watched my gentile, Catholic, skeptical, infertile Scully 
teaching Will the thumbkin song in the floor and told Skinner you had 
to go with who you loved, no matter what the consequences were.  A 
moment of something wonderful is better than a lifetime of nothing 
special - that's from a movie Scully loved that always put me to sleep.  
If he loved her, public sentiment and peanut-pickers be damned.  
They've been married for seven years now.

Christ, Lucille - that was MY piece of pizza.  You'd think you'd have 
learned some manners in all this time.  Put it down for one second...

The Nazi channel is showing a blimp with a swastika crashing in flames.  
I love to see that Nazi symbol burn.  I think you're right, Will.   All 
WWII, all the time.  Smart boy.

Phone.  Phone's ringing.  Sorry, Will, my legs are still longer.  
Sometimes people even call wanting to talk to someone besides you, 
Will.  Shocking, I know.  My name isn't even mentioned on the voice 
mail message.  I hold the portable phone out of his reach as he scowls 
at me, his forehead wrinkling like Scully's.  My son inherited 
'Lizabeth's tendency to make lots of acquaintances and his father's 
tendency to treat them like crap.  Point for nature.	

Cool.  The phone actually is for me.  Byers asking if I want company.  
Come on and bring the rest of the Gunmen, I tell him.  Give me some 
leverage against the posse of lost boys organizing in the living room.  
Better bring your own pizza, though - the three I just paid for have 
been attacked by hungry wolves.  I got four bites.  Okay, here's Will - 
he wants to ask his Uncle Frohike something.

Damn it, Frohike, you better not be telling my son what I think you're 
telling him.  Hacking isn't cute when your father is a High Bureau 
Official.  Last month, Will got suspended for intercepting and 
reworking his gym teacher's e-mail so it looked like she was sending 
bomb threats to the principal.  I agree, Will, gym teacher is not a 
nice lady.  The correct term is neurotic, self-righteous bitch, and she 
probably deserved it but I can't tell you that.  I'm supposed to be a 
responsible single father-figure now.  I am proud of you, son - just 
don't get caught.  Can't tell you that, either.  

That's right, suspend him for three days.  Brilliant.  Make him stay 
home from the school he doesn't want to be at anyway to watch TV, play 
with the dog, eat junk food, and annoy me because him being home also 
means I have to work at home.  Take him to work with me, my ass.  Do 
you want the entire Bureau - hell, the entire Federal Government to 
grind to a halt?  Are you forgetting why you want to suspend him?  
Fine.  Three days suspension.  Idiot principal.  Behavior modification 
at its best.  'Lizabeth would have had that school in court before 
they could blink. 

I took his computer.  And Play Station.  For two weeks.  THAT'S 
punishment.  

There's so many decisions, Scully, and I hope I'm making the right 
ones.  Do I send him to the private school his teachers keep 
suggesting?  I had a rough enough time being a gifted kid in a regular 
school - do I want Will to have to go through that?  Or do I send him 
to the private school and teach him that he should only associate with 
other rich, white, smart kids?  I don't want to raise a bigot.  Or a 
chronic underachiever.  What about his behavior?  God.  What do I chalk 
up to just being all boy and what should I try to do something about?  
Is blue hair okay?  I'm fine with it - it'll grow out.  I try to pick 
my battles these days.  What about the fighting?  "Slugger" has his 
father's temper and a low tolerance for teasing. Do I ground him, do I 
take privileges (and trust me, our son has privileges - I should never 
think of Skinner's kid as overindulged compared to ours), do I spank, 
do I yell, what, Scully?   

Then there's the big question.  There's never going to be another woman 
sleeping in our bed, Scully - but I get so lonely.  I can see fifty 
now, but I'm not dead.  Do I start dating - introduce yet another 
mother figure into Will's life?  Do I sneak around - cheap sex that 
you're watching every minute of?  I know I'll never love another woman 
the way I loved you, but I think I could be content.  I would have been 
content with 'Lizabeth.  Is that wrong?  Is it betraying you? 

Do I trade in the car?  Switch dry cleaners?  Grow a beard?  Take 
vitamins?  Take Will to Europe for the summer?  Get a flu shot?  Get 
another dog?  Fire my newest incompetent secretary?  Buy a new couch or 
have the old one reupholstered?

I know I survived thirty years without you, and even made some fairly 
good decisions in that time.  I'm also in charge of several thousand 
agents now, although none of them gives me as much trouble as you and I 
must have given Skinner.  I just like to talk it over with you in my 
head, Scully - see what you think.  Sometimes, I'm even sure you answer 
me.

Ah - the reinforcements have arrived with pizza and beer.  No, you 
can't have a beer, Will.  Go play in the tent and let Dad talk to some 
grown-ups besides Grandma for once this weekend.   I get another 
Scully-scowl.  Maybe that's why they don't bother me; I've been scowled 
at by the best and built up an immunity.  

The Gunmen - actually, the Gunpeople, to be politically correct, are 
not complete yet.  Langly, according to Frohike, is in the middle of 
unleashing some "kick-ass kung fu" on, um, um - someone, Mulder.  No, 
don't tell me; I don't want to know.  Frohike wisely barricades my 
office door against a raid by pizza-seeking lost boys and we dig in, 
throwing crusts to Lucille so she never has to get up off the couch.  

Susanne and Byers are in jeans tonight - possibly the first time I've 
ever seen them out of their suits.  She's sitting on the floor between 
Byer's legs, trying to suck up the cheese before it falls off her 
slice.  I'm not telling her that's the spot where Scully died - she 
doesn't know.  Susanne didn't reappear until after Scully was gone, 
although I think she met her in Vegas once.

Susanne was just there one day right after Scully died.  Walked in to 
the Gunmen's HQ with enough hard evidence to expose the entire 
consortium.  Never said a word about where she'd been - still hasn't - 
but we went public.  Real public.  Went to Skinner and then to CNN.  
Brought down half of Congress in this country and a load of dirty 
officials in others.  Research on the vaccine was successful and the 
threat of colonization - recolonization, actually - vanished.  
Overnight.  It kind of made my head spin how fast everything changed.  

No Scully - again.  No consortium.  No aliens.  Will, dog, empty office 
and house and bed.  My life certainly went in cycles.

It's amazing how fast Skinner and I got promoted when they realized we 
were right.  Will and I actually accompanied Skinner and Michelle, his 
wife, and Byers and Susanne to dinner at the White House.  They said I 
could bring whomever I wanted as my guest, so I brought my son and dog.  
They're both small - together they add up to one guest.  I let Lucille 
squat in the rose garden.  Just my way of showing my appreciation for 
the integrity of our elected officials.

I want to ask Susanne if she knows anything about Scully, sometimes.  
And then again, I don't.  The timing of Scully's death and her 
reappearance couldn't be coincidental.   Was it a trade - losing my 
Scully to gain my proof?  That sounded awfully self-centered, but we 
never did find that black-lunged bastard that claimed to be my father.  
Was my truth a final, twisted gift from him?  For that matter, was my 
son a gift from him?  If so, I don't want to know.  Susanne isn't 
inclined to tell.  She has the same look in her eyes that I saw in 
'Lizabeth's when her guard was down - the look of a tender woman who 
had seen too much.

My private line rings - Will doesn't bother to run for the phone this 
time.  It's Angie telling me an unknown hacker has gained unauthorized 
access to Bell Atlantic mainframe.  

LANGLY!  

Angie says she's already in the office, waiting for me.  I close my 
eyes, take a deep breath, and give my head a little shake, trying to 
figure out how to explain this to my newest secretary.  Thank you for 
telling me, Angie.  No, you can go back home, Angie.  No, I'm not 
coming in, Angie.  We have entire divisions that deal with computer 
hackers - the personal attention of the AD isn't required on a Sunday 
night.  Unless I let my son use HIS kung fu on this hacker, I'm not 
going to be of much use.  All I have to do is sign paperwork in the 
morning and listen to reports.  It isn't even actually my division, 
Angie.  VIOLENT CRIMES, Angie - not computer hackers.  No, you're not 
going to get paid overtime for this, Angie - no one told you to come 
into the office - although you can take Monday off and I'll answer my 
own damn phone.  You're only paid to be in the office after work hours 
when I request you be in the office.  Yes, Kimberly is always in the 
office because Skinner is always in the office and he CALLS HER.  SHE 
DOESN'T CALL HIM AT HOME TO TELL HIM THINGS THAT CAN WAIT UNTIL 
MONDAY MORNING!"

"Did she quit?" Frohike asks.  I nod affirmatively, feeling deflated.  
"How long did this one last?"  

"Three weeks.  And don't start on me - I was spoiled by the best."  I 
hide behind another beer.  Skinner is going to kill me.  They're 
transferring personal assistants Kimberly recommends from other Bureau 
offices for me at this point.  It's a desperate, hopeless quest.  I've 
had the best.

Frohike has enough sense not to mention it's been years since I was 
spoiled by the best.  Not the best secretary - just the best person at 
anticipating my needs.  Intuitively knowing when she was needed.  
Letting me run with my genius while she kept me safe; tied up the loose 
ends.  Someone who knew me, completed me, worked with me, fought with 
me, and kicked my ass as necessary.  Six years.

Skinner even loaned me Kimberly - for which I'm sure he paid quite a 
price - after I went through five personal assistants in the first 
seven months I was an AD.  Kimberly is FABULOUS - there's no arguing 
with that.  Always there when I needed her, never underfoot when I 
didn't.  Except she's a small woman with red hair.  She never blinked 
when I called her "Scully," but I did.  Scully had only been gone about 
a year - it was a roller coaster year both personally and 
professionally - and I could see myself getting in big trouble if I 
spent too many evenings alone in an otherwise empty office with 
Kimberly.  So I sent her back to Skinner's office with "she has red 
hair" as my explanation.  He never asked any questions.   

Since then there has been a steady steam of women and a few men, each 
lasting about a month before we got on each other's nerves.  Skinner 
said he hadn't seen this many women parade in and out of my office 
since before Scully was assigned as my partner.  Today, I laugh at 
that.  Four years ago I told him to go fuck himself and walked out.  

I finally cooled off and went back to his office and apologized.  
Skinner accepted my apology and said nothing else about it for the next 
three years.  Now he's back to hassling me.  My five year grace period 
on either being a grieving widower or on being a new AD must be up.

Langly has arrived and I ask him if his call waiting is working.  He 
looked sufficiently innocent and puzzled.  Good - I hate arresting my 
friends.  Have a beer, Langly.  Don't touch my laptop, Langly.

Oh, God - what was that?  

Wow - how many beers have I had?  Little shaky on my feet.  Great, AD 
Mulder, lit.

Nose bleed.  Scully.

David is bleeding!  

Oh my God!  He's bleeding!  Scully is bleeding!  I can't make it stop!

She's going to bleed to death!

Close your eyes - maybe it will go away.

Breathe, Mulder.  

A nosebleed.  David's bleeding, not Scully.  I pinch his nose closed, 
stopping the flow, my breaths coming fast and hard.  It's stopping.  
It's stopping.  It's okay.  Just a nosebleed.  Calm down.  They're just 
flashbacks.  Just flashbacks.  Breathe.

I think I'm more upset than David is.  He has his father's stoicism.  I 
have my father's guilt.

"He fell," Will tells me.  Sure he did, Will.  Right into your fist.

"You have about two seconds to tell me the truth, Will."  

I will not hit my son.  I will not hit my son.  I am upset and a little 
drunk and I will not hit my son.  Breathe.

"He really did fall, Dad."  Will is close to tears.  From experience, I 
know that doesn't mean he's telling the truth.  It just means he can 
cry on command.

"I fell out of the club house, Mr. Mulder, sir," David adds, his voice 
nasal with my fingers still clamped on his nose.  Byers brings me a wet 
towel to mop off David's face.  I examine his wire-rimmed glasses and 
they seem serviceable.   Will actually broke them last time.

Breathe, Mulder.  There are blankets draped over the dining room table 
and couch cushions on top of it.  They're telling the truth.  Breathe.

"Okay, Will.  Sorry.  I just got upset there for a second.  Look, I 
think it's time for bed."  I'd like to escape this situation as quickly 
as possible.

"No problem, Dad.  You gonna buy me something now?"  

I'm going to ignore that, but the answer was probably "yes."

"You know I'm going to have to tell Skinner I let his kid bust his nose 
AND that my secretary quit again, don't you, Will?"

"Beverly?  Or Jamie?"

"No, Angie.  I don't think you've met her yet."  You are trying to 
distract me from David's nose and what you all were doing on the dining 
room table, son.   Look around - do you see a turnip truck Dad could 
have fallen off of recently?

"At least he can't write you a memo about David's nose."

That's a very good point, son.  

"Did you and Grandma go to mass this morning, Will?"  Will nods - I was 
almost certain they did.  Mrs. Scully never misses a chance to pass on 
that Catholic guilt.  "You take communion?"  Will nods again and opens 
his mouth, sticking out his tongue for me to see.  No burns.  It's an 
old joke, and probably a highly inappropriate one, but it relieves the 
tension.  

"You should try it, Dad - you'll get burned for sure."  

Oh son - you're about to find out that your old Dad's kung fu can still 
beat your kung fu.  Prepare to be tickled.  No, I don't care if you're 
too old for it.  We need to let off some steam.

Eventually the children are nestled all snug in their beds - sleeping 
bags - still wearing their regular clothes.  No one wears pajamas on a 
camp out, Dad.  This is also a good point.  

Lucille is trailing me through the quiet house as I make one final 
check for the night.  In the dim living room, Will is sitting on the 
couch instead of asleep in the tent with the others.  He looks at me 
without a scowl - a rare invitation these days. 

I am no longer Dad, the all knowing, all conquering, hero.  I have 
become Father - doler out of money, driver to sporting activities, 
maker of rules and taker of privileges.  I miss the long talks with my 
bud.  I miss being his best friend.  He's been my Scully-substitute 
whenever she's away, even though I know that's not fair to him.  It's 
much easier to be his friend than to be his father.  Will's father is a 
guy who bitches constantly about anything and everything - not like Fox 
Mulder at all.

I am no longer Agent Mulder - rash, driven, a little crazy; cris-
crossing the country with his partner Mrs. Spooky in search of answers 
to questions no one thinks he should even be asking.  I am Assistant 
Director Mulder - all powerful, all knowing.  I make the rules, give 
the orders.  I am no one's friend and everyone's superior.  I have 
thousands of children called "agents" that see me exactly the same way 
my son does.

I am no longer Scully's Mulder - her friend, her lover, her partner, 
her husband.  I am... well, I am lonely.  Only at nightfall, ethereal 
rumors revive for a moment...

I settle beside him on the old couch, the dog climbing up between us 
with difficulty.  I wait for him to speak.  The best way to get a kid 
to talk is to shut your mouth and listen.

"Is that how she died, Dad?"  He had to mean Scully.  We've been over 
how 'Lizabeth died when he was born enough times.  

I nod.  "She had a tumor in her brain that we didn't know about and it 
ruptured - it burst, and she bled to death.  Do you remember seeing 
her, Will?"  I didn't think he did.  He saw the paramedics come in the 
house, but I locked Will out of the office once I was able to let her 
go.  Then I was busy holding him covered with ketchup in the kitchen 
while they carried Scully's body out.

"No, but I heard Uncle Byers telling Susanne about it."

I wait.  The dog is fast asleep, snoring softly between us.  The hairs 
around her nose are gray now, like mine at my temples.

"I hear people whispering.  About Elizabeth and Mom and you.  Things 
I'm not supposed to hear.  I want to know what the secret is.  Is it 
about me?"

"There's no big secret, Will.  We've always told you the truth.  I was 
married to Elizabeth before you were born and then Mom and I got 
married."

He's not buying it.  Didn't think he would.

"It's a long story," I hedge. 

He's going to wait me out.  Having a brilliant child sucks sometimes.  
Another point for nature - the passive waiting game was a 'Lizabeth 
trick.  Scully usually yelled.

I didn't get very many child development classes as an undergrad - one, 
I think - and none at Oxford.  In general, I have no professional 
training in the psychology of children, so I usually just wing it when 
necessary.  I've been winging it for nine years now and it shows.

One thing stands out in my mind, though.  An old professor who 
cultivated a white beard and smoked a pipe of sweet cherry tobacco 
telling me "you give children only as much as they can carry."  He'd 
asked me, in my twenty-four year old splendor, to pick up something 
heavy- a tall stack of books - which I did easily.  Then he asked me 
how many I thought a four-year-old could carry and I told him maybe 
two.  A ten-year-old?  Four or five.  A fifteen-year-old?  Almost 
as much as an adult, but not quite.  

"Ah," he said, sounding an awful lot like a fictional British detective 
I was fond of at the time, "Ah - that is the key.  You only give 
children as much as they can carry - whether it's books or 
responsibility or knowledge.  Any more will only cause them hurt and 
frustration." 

Only what we can carry.  I've gotten my share.  No one ever waited, 
checked to see if I could carry it, they just piled it on.  I never 
wanted to see that happen to my son.  I think sometimes I would trade 
the rest of my life for one more night with Scully, but this... This is 
free for the taking.  Tonight, I'm still in charge.  I'm still his 
friend.  I'm still Dad, the all knowing and all powerful.  

"Once upon a time..."

"Is this a fairy tale, Dad?  'Cause I'm too big for fairy tales."

"Not this one, you're not.  Once upon a time, there was an FBI Agent 
named Mulder.  And he was very angry at things that had happened to him 
and he was very lonely.  And one day, he looked up and saw another 
agent who was going to be his partner - Agent Dana Scully."

"That's Mom, right?"

"Will, do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Keep going, Dad.  This is cool.  Kind of like The Princess Bride."

Our nine-year old son has just labeled me "cool" Scully.  Did you hear 
that?  

Yes, I'm sure you did.  I can hear you smiling.

"Well, Agent Mulder wasn't too sure about Agent Scully, but she was so 
smart and so pretty that he decided to try to be her friend.  It was 
hard, because Agent Mulder could be a great big butt sometimes.  But 
one day, Agents Mulder and Scully became best friends, and after that, 
no matter what they did, neither one of them could ever really be alone 
again..."
	**********

End: The Wasteland Series: Epilogue