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Title: Intermission Summary: Time to rest, just for a moment.
"Whose turn?" Mulder asks. It's the reflex action of his hand reaching for the lamp that woke him, rather than the soft mumbles, prelude to a wail, from the other side of the room. He squints with tired eyes at the blurry digital clock, rubbing at his stubble. William has not yet begun to hit the high notes of his nocturne, but his baby sputterings are slowly building into a full-fledged 3am solo. Scully sighs audibly, rolling onto her back and covering her eyes with one bare arm, blocking the light for one last moment. It's only the second night, and she of all people knows how blessed they are, but it has been a year of restless nights, and she stopped thinking in terms of full nights' sleeps months ago. She's sore and her stitches itch like nothing on this earth, and she's never been so grateful for Mulder's presence. She damps down the wild alarm bells in her mind. Nothing short of a hungry newborn's cry could have provided the power to focus on something beyond Mulder's almost certain imminent departure. "Draw for it." Scully hitches herself up against the wooden headboard of the bed, and begins pumping her fist. She gets Rock. Mulder gets Scissors. Happily conquered hazel eyes meet happily grateful blue ones. She slips under the duvet again, giving his warm chest a pat on the way. Dropping a kiss on her messy hair, Mulder rises and grabs his dressing gown, an amusing but well-intentioned welcome-tofatherhood gift from Scully's mother, from behind the door and hitches it loosely over his shoulders, streetlight-streaked in the glow from the large window. "Coming, baby G-man, coming." He turns to the tall white crib against the wall. Scully thinks one day she should tell him she knows he's hedging his bets and losing on purpose. Meanwhile, she's thrilled. The scars of deliberate emotional distance, of preparing for a worse horror than could be imagined, seem to have fallen away from him the moment he held Will in his arms. "Hey, Will." Hearing his father's voice, William knows comfort is at hand. His cries become less frantic and more impatient as Mulder scoops him up. He is carried into the kitchen and the night's milk supply is quickly located and warmed.
Scully enjoys a moment of warm half-awareness under the duvet, and assesses her current situation. There is a lot to be thankful for, and even more to wonder at. The cold gut-twist of darker questions, the constant running and the horror of the next possible discovery are, for the moment, alleviated. They are safe; they are healthy; they are being left alone by everyone except those unlikely allies in enforced recuperation, Margaret "I brought casserole" Scully and Walter "That's an order" Skinner. She tells over her blessings, more awake now. Nobody's ill. She hasn't even got a fever from the episiotomy stitches. Nobody's missing. Not even Mulder. Nobody's sending urgent and cryptic messages. (For now, she'll regard that as a good thing.) Mom and Skinner aren't overtly intrusive more than once a day each, and they actually seem to like each other, although Skinner is painfully awkward in Maggie's presence. He knows he can never make up to her the harm that befallen her family, under his supposed command and protection. He has yet to accept the freely-given forgiveness of a Navy widow who was raised in Belfast. Mom understands the need for grace in troubled times more than anyone should ever have to. In the past few months, her baby's father, who makes her consider the real possibility of destiny as often as the fickle winds of fate, has returned to her, literally from the dead. Somehow they have kept each other from going insane over the contemplation of the most hideous unspoken agreement of their lives. "He's treating you horribly, Dana," Maggie protested, sometime last month. "Why is he--" "Mom, leave it alone. He's hurting, it's all so strange still. Can we even understand what it must be like to come back to life and find a very pregnant partner?" "Well! I'm not saying it isn't a miracle, because it is, but he knows the facts of life, surely?" How to explain to her mother, already so thrilled at the prospect of another grandchild, that the dates were all wrong--months wrong and impossible? That she and Mulder had to be prepared to destroy and expose the truth of the newborn the moment it arrived, should it be the implant they feared? It had never been voiced. How could they? Yet here they are...a living, breathing Mulder, a two-day-old baby pronounced healthy by the doctors, and beautiful by all wellwishers. Instead of a panicked, tense strangeness and desperation to be together, it's been quiet and calm, and very good for all of them. He stayed with her the first night William came home, and never really left. Soon they'll have to talk about their living arrangements, and discuss the radical changes to their relationship, but for now, having her two favorite men nearby is more important. She gets to stare at Mulder's lower lip and large, strong hands as much as she wants, and sleep cuddled up next to him, if not draped over his chest. The cataclysm that she half-expected, were they to drop all pretense and simply be together, never happened. After all this time, it was simply a matter of picking the right moment, as weird and inappropriate as the moment turned out to be. "I'd give anything to just say the words that I want to marry you," he'd said, releasing her from a sweet kiss, warm breath against her temple, as the baby fussed in his arms between them. She fought down a wave of hysterical laughter, induced by nerves stretched tight and the hormones flooding her system. "You just did." "Don't answer." "I won't." "Okay if I stay?" "Don't you dare leave." How like them to move in perfect counter-rhythm to arrive at a place of undeniable truth. A marriage with no vows, a passionate celibacy, and a sure knowledge of their joined destiny despite the mortal danger to both if they stayed together. But on the rare occasions, these past years, that time has paused for them to catch their breath, his warm bulk has been her fortress and her sustenance, and she like a cat she has examined every inch of this new territory. The broad expanses and dips, the soft and the rough, the arousing, ticklish, and the pleasant. The scars and the unmarked skin. All of it a curious light olive-golden, well-formed and mature. All of it open to her at last, the mystery unraveling slowly and surely. It's a spiritual communion, a whispered chant for the pre-dawn hours. The warmth of his eyes as he watched her hand stroking over his skin last night still turns her inside out. His wonderful hands lay still at his sides except to touch her cheek, her hair, and once the inside of her wrist. His patience is infinite. He was always more patient than she was. She's pretty sure he'll drive her insane with it as soon as she gives him the all-clear. They're pretty great parents after all. She wonders why that surprises her now. Even in their most miserable opposition, they've always been in each other's corner, always been partners despite everything and determined to do their best for each other. They pull the excellence right out of one another, sometimes painfully, but these days, kindly and with much laughter and warm kisses, for each other and for their baby. She has given birth to a child whose reality as a miracle is becoming more and more evident. She fully admits she and Mulder have created an X-file of their own, and one that they must come to understand in their own terms, the scientist and the searcher. Who orchestrated this miracle, and why? What is the nature of the miracle and what are the implications? She both dreads the answer and knows she must and will have it, as soon as she can. For certainly an agenda beyond theirs benefits from William's presence. Is it the fact of his birth, his being a normal human baby at all? Is he a normal human baby, as he shows every sign of being? They have planned a battery of tests on the tiny child that defies the imagination, from DNA screening to placenta analysis to brainwave recording to telepathy and telekinesis games (with the assistance of Byers, Frohike and Langly, those arcane honorary Uncles.) Or has William a larger role to play, later in life? Do the forces that brought him into being even know? For both nights of his short life, she has lain awake wondering this. Or is he simply a miracle, born out of the fierce and clear-burning love of an infertile woman and a man who would defy the gods to find the truth? And now all three of you, and everyone around you, are each other's weaknesses. And strength, she tells the voice firmly. That, too, it concedes. "Little lamb, who made thee, She listens to Mulder turn Blake's musings on the divine spark of life into a lullaby. Last night it was Tennyson, some lines from Idylls of the King. When it's her turn, it's her grandmother's Irish plainsong chants she sings, strangely appropriate to her atonal singing voice, of Selkies and changelings, Tam Lin and Rose McCann, and a few ripe sailors' shanties for good measure. Something about being a mother has brought out the Celt in her as nothing has since the passing of her sea-enchanted father. The last vestiges of sleepiness leave her and she flips back the covers, stepping slowly over to her terrycloth dressing gown. "Gave thee life, and bid thee feed, She steps into the living room, knotting the belt of her robe, and smiles, seeing Mulder sitting in the easy chair with Will. Mulder's eyes are closed as he murmurs, and the baby rests against his father's chest, already projecting the same casual, loose-limbed aura as Mulder. The empty feeding bottle stands on the table. They're enjoying one another's company in a way Scully can only hope they imitate in later life, simply and without fuss. Carefully she angles herself hip-first onto the sofa, wincing a little, and Mulder's free arm comes to support her. He pulls the sofa-blanket up over all three of them, and in the silence of the hours before dawn, they listen to each other's heartbeat.
Author's Note: After spending two weeks with my sister after the birth of her son, I have to say that even uber-moms need time to rest and recuperate! "My darling girl, when are you going to understand that "normal" --Aunt Frances Owens, "Practical Magic"
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