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Her apartment smells like a bakery. In front of her there are trays of sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, and in the oven, a batch of snickerdoodles is just about done. This is probably enough, she thinks, looking at the flour covering every surface and the mess of pans and utensils awaiting her in the sink.
Finally, the timer dings. She checks on the snickerdoodles - which look pretty good, honestly - and takes them out to chill beside the other trays.
“And then he called me a self-righteous egomaniac. Can you believe that, Will?”
The dishes can wait, too, she decides with a grin to herself, dropping her flour-covered apron somewhere and quickly wiping off her hands. She walks up behind the sofa, careful not to distract the Mulder men, who are in deep conversation.
“That’s right buddy, they were pretty mean. So, like I said, I’ll take you to a haunted house as soon as you’re able to hold a baseball bat, but not that one!” Mulder exclaims very seriously to the seven month old in his arms.
William just blinks and gurgles out a happy sound. He’s such a happy baby and, by God, he makes them so happy.
She circles the couch then, staring straight at Mulder with a hopefully convincing stern expression on her face, crossing her arms.
“Are you already recruiting our son into the X-Files, Mulder?”
“It’s never too early to start training the future rookies of the FBI, Scully,” he exclaims, fully joking. Scully knows he hates the idea of William going anywhere near a law enforcement career as much as she does.
“Hmm-hmm. You know his fine motor skills are developing just fine, but I doubt he could do much more than clutch a file and drool on it right now.”
“Which already makes him better qualified than half that bullpen!”
Both of them snicker softly, trying not to disturb William from his constant blabbing of boo-boo-boo, his favorite syllable this week. Though he has let out the occasional “da” and “ma” among his chains of sounds, there has been no signs of a mama or dada just yet. Mulder is anxious, but Scully assures him that Will’s development is on perfect schedule and it’ll likely be a few more months before they hear an actual word from him.
Still, Mulder chats with him constantly. So does Scully, but since she has gone back to work on half-days at Quantico, Mulder spends the most daylight with Will at home, and from his own account, spends the entire day just babbling as much as their baby. They must have fascinating conversations like this every day, she thinks. She wishes she could record it all and watch it once she’s home.
“By the way,” he says while softly rubbing their son’s belly over his onesie, grinning at him as he squeals happily and filling Scully’s heart with joy, “your mom called while you were cussing out the blender. She wanted to make sure it’s all set for tomorrow.”
“As I told her on several occasions,” Scully answers, giving up on standing there and throwing herself on the couch beside Mulder and Will, flour be damned, “We’ll be there tomorrow at 10 a.m. and stay until the 26th.”
“I think she’s just a little eager, Scully,” he says gently. “We can’t blame her, the past few Christmases haven’t been stellar.”
Scully just huffs out a breath and holds out her arms. “Gimme my son.”
With William carefully cradled against her chest, she leans back on the couch and closes her eyes for a minute. Her body is tired but the contentment she feels overrides everything, listening to her son’s soft little sounds as he squirms a little in her arms then relaxes. Listening to her Mulder’s soft breathing as he leans back beside her, one hand reaching out to rest against her thigh. Even with her eyes closed she can feel his gaze on her, probably with that soft look he gets when he sees her with Will. Like this is everything he ever wanted. She definitely feels the same.
The apartment is warm, her favorite boys are right beside her, and the scents wafting from the kitchen - butter, vanilla, ginger - it all compounds into the perfect sensory lullaby. Without meaning to, she falls asleep, secure in the knowledge that this is home.
-x-
Maggie Scully’s house is livelier than usual on this Christmas Eve, with all of her children and their families visiting.
Bill Jr is there, being his grumpy self, but his mother’s and his wife’s combined warning glances have ensured he stays quiet and doesn’t cause a scene about Mulder. The sight of William being his adorable self even manages to mollify him a bit.
As for Charlie, Scully is especially excited to introduce him to her son for the first time. Her kid brother aahs and oohs very appropriately upon meeting little William and immediately asks to hold him.
“The eyes and the hair don’t lie, Dana. He’s a Scully through and through, even if not by name.”
“He’s a Scully by name, too. Scully-Mulder, actually.”
“Oh, you guys are hyphenating? How modern of you,” her little brother teases.
She rolls her eyes. “Only for William, Charlie. We’re not married, you know that,” she corrects, but he only waves his hand dismissively.
“Not yet, anyway. If you ask mom- well,” he interrupts himself, “better not ask mom. She gets overexcited about you two.”
As if summoned, Maggie appears beside them to ask for Scully’s help getting some dishes out. She leaves, trusting Charlie not to drop William on his head for a few minutes. Her mom does not say anything while they work peacefully in the kitchen, but Scully can feel she’s just holding herself back from saying something, whatever it is.
It’s only about a quarter of an hour later that she finds herself in the living room once more. She spots Charlie - but no William. Before she can call out to him and ask, the familiar tone of Mulder’s voice calls out to her instead.
When she turns around, she lets out a startled laugh. William is laying back on his father’s chest, a fluffy, tiny little crochet Santa hat on his head and an accompanying white beard on his face. The sight is adorable and utterly hilarious. Behind her, she can hear her mother’s delighted voice saying she’s going to get the camera.
“Where did you even get that?” she asks, coming up closer to inspect the fabric.
“Tara apparently has gotten really into crochet,” he says, pointing with a nod to the other side of the room where a three-year-old Mattie is attempting to chew on his crochet beard, much to the amusement of his father who has mellowed out throughout the afternoon after all that eggnog.
William doesn’t seem bothered by the foreign things on his head and face. Instead, as usual, he seems utterly content to lay there in his father’s arms and receive their complete attention. He’s so easygoing, her baby; a familiar lightness settles on her chest as she looks at him lazily waving his arms around and chanting another chain of syllables.
Maggie’s arrival with the camera has them shifting into the center of the room, William and Mattie upfront to show off their little Santa accessories for grandma, supported by their fathers who awkwardly stand next to each other, while Scully and Tara stand to either side smiling at their babies.
As the camera goes off thrice, Scully can hear Charlie pleading with his own toddler daughter to stop trying to eat the tinsel from the Christmas tree on the corner.
All is well in the Scully household.
-x-
Late at night, when everyone has retreated to their rooms, Scully shuts the bathroom door behind her and pads back into the guest room she’s sharing with Mulder and William. The scene she’s greeted with is not unfamiliar, but it never stops bringing a fluttering to her chest. Will is making soft, tired little sounds against his father’s shoulder while Mulder gently rocks him, murmuring words too low for her to make out and occasionally kissing the side of their baby’s downy head.
Gentle. He’s always so, so gentle with him. She has known for years that there is a tender side to Fox Mulder - one he usually let out more freely when either or both of them weren’t in the best of health. But the way he acts with his son far surpasses anything she’d seen before from him.
She loves watching them like this. Her Mulder men. Her boys. A surge of affection rushes through her at the sight, so powerful it threatens to choke her. She steps fully into the room then, closing the door. Mulder’s soft, loving gaze doesn’t change as he moves it from William to her. Unable to resist another moment, she leans into his space and kisses him for longer than she had planned.
Smiling at the dazed look on his face once she steps back, she drops a little kiss on Will’s head and retreats to her suitcase. At the bottom of it she finds what she was looking for - a silvery, crinkly package wrapped tight with a knot from a golden string.
In the meantime, Mulder has settled a now sleeping William into the travel crib and sat down on the bed, looking at her curiously.
She brings the package to him, a little shyly now, second-guessing. But this is Mulder, she reminds herself.
“Scully, what’s this?” he asks, and she offers it up for him to take it. “I thought we said no presents.”
“We did. Um, this is for Will actually. I know we also said it’s too early for him to really understand or remember anything…” she trails off for a moment, watching Mulder’s eyes light up in recognition as he opens the package. “But it didn’t feel right to just gloss over it for this first year while he’s spending Christmas with my family.”
Mulder takes out the object and turns it around slowly, inspecting. That soft gaze is back on his face.
In his hands is a soft, colorful, plushy version of a dreidel. William won’t know what it is for a couple of years, other than something fluffy that he can clutch and hug and drool on, but Mulder will.
“Scully…” he tries to say but his voice catches. He clears his throat and tries again. “Scully, this is… You know I don’t… but-”
She can understand everything he’s saying even though he’s yet to finish one sentence. “I know, Mulder. But it’s still a part of you, and so it is a part of him, too.”
Scully sits down beside him and debates on whether to bring down the mood like this, but he needs to know, needs to understand.
“When you were… When I thought Will was never going to meet his father, I constantly worried about so many things, and one of them was whether I could ever do you justice, so he could know you through me. And I figured I could squeak by on the family history and the paranormal interests. That I could bring him to a ball game every once in a while and buy him Knicks jerseys. But I’m afraid I don’t know the first thing about Jewish customs. I swore to myself I would try, I’d research, I’d find someone to help. But I was certain it wouldn’t be enough. I was terrified of falling short and letting this aspect of his identity be erased over time. And thinking that a part of you, a part of everything you gave him could just fade away…” she doesn’t finish the sentence, there’s no need to. Her eyes are wet and so are his, and somehow they’ve been holding hands the entire time she talked.
With his other hand he reaches her face, brushing back a strand of hair and caressing her cheek before bringing her closer to press a kiss into her hair.
“I’m so sorry for the burdens you had to carry all alone, Scully,” he says, shushing her when she tries to protest that it’s not his fault. “But I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take him to the ball game and you can take him to the science museums. Hell, we’ll go to all of these together as a family. And I’m not exactly an authority on all things Jewish either, but I’ll give him everything I know, that I remember. And we can look up the things I don’t. Everything will work out because it’ll be the three of us, together, okay?”
She buries her face into his chest, sniffing. “Okay.”
They sit there on the bed, embracing, while William sleeps beside them. The clock strikes midnight and they greet their first Christmas together, as a family. Scully prays for more holidays like this, for the rest of her life.