Family is the Greatest Gift
Rating: PG.
Category: Skinner/Mulder family, no slash, and no spanking
Comments: Thanks to Rachelle for her help and encouragement. Also thanks to Xanthe for letting me post my first story which has no actual discipline
Summary: Skinner and Mulder reflect on their last 7 years together.
Spoilers: Story begins at the end of episode Dead/Alive. I am using Danville universe with Rachelle's permission. One minor change, Scully is not pregnant.
Disclaimers: The character's are not mine, a guy with the initial's CC owns them.
I'm sitting here next to his bed, a place I had never expected to be
again. My God, 3 months ago I stood by his grave. I had buried my
son. Now he lies in the bed before me, sleeping peaceful. My Son,
alive. Miracles still happen.
I think back to 7 years ago when he was assigned to my department, I
didn't know how important this young man would become to me as he
walked into my office. It did not happen immediately. At first, I
thought he was a pain in the ass, a punishment from my superiors. I
had heard of him of course, he was brilliant, the best profiler at
the bureau, but uncontrollable. But we learned to work together. He
does not trust authority figures, starting with his father, but
gradually, he realized that I was on his side. I started to realize
how much he was putting his life in danger. That "I don't need
anyone's help" attitude was going to get him killed. So one night I
took my father's advise and gave him a good spanking. Me, Walter
Skinner, by the book Skinner they call me, spanked his agent. I
thought I just threw my career away but he accepted it, acknowledged
his need for someone to haul him back in line. And from there our
bond grew until about two years ago when the aliens first
experimented on him.
Sometimes I still can't believe he was turned into that child Alex
Krycek left on my door step that morning. At first his partner, Dana
Scully and I searched for Mulder, not knowing what had happened to
him. How could we possibly have guessed? It was so preposterous. Then
the hospital's testing revealed the baby had Mulder's DNA. So we
concluded the child was his clone until at last, we learned the
truth. From Krycek, yet again. The baby was Fox Mulder, not a clone,
not Fox's child but Mulder himself, reduced to a 10 month old. So I
asked myself, where does the child belong? I took him to his mother's
but she said no. Thank God. At the time, I thought she was a selfish
bitch but her decision was the right one. Somehow she knew this was
Fox's second chance for a happy childhood and that I was the one who
could make that happen. And so, I knew God had answered my prayers,
had given me a child long after hope had been abandoned. And I was
going to make sure that my son, Fox, had the childhood he missed the
first time around.
He aged incredibility fast, because of the alien technology. In the
span of just a little more than eight months, Fox grew from being a
couple months old to near forty. The adjustment was hard for both of
us when he became a man again. We worked through it, sometimes, when
he needs to, he still calls me dad. And he will always be my son. He
was back to Fox Mulder, agent of the FBI for about seven months when
the bastards took him again. But it was different this time, he was
abducted right before my eyes, to a spaceship...And there was nothing
I could do. He was gone in a blink of an eye. They kept him for seven
long months, only to return him to us, dead. I knew a pain I'd never
conceived of when we buried him. But there are miracles and 3 months
later he is alive. How? I don't understand it myself and I don't
care. My son is alive.
This brings me back to the present, sitting here in a hospital room.
He woke from his coma a couple of hours ago, Scully was with him. I
got to the his room minutes later and have not left his side since.
My family will all be here tomorrow. The doctors tell me he will
make a full recovery but it will take months. He is just like a
newborn after the months of torture and weightlessness. The doctor
thought the news would upset me. No, it doesn't. Two years ago I
got the privilege of becoming Fox Mulder's father and taking care of
him is part of that privilege. One I would not miss or delegate to
anyone else.
One month later: McLean, Virginia
Walter looked around the family room for Fox. They had converted it
into a bedroom for him to use during his recuperation. His balance
and coordination were slowly returning and the physical therapy was
strengthening his muscles but he still was very weak and tires
easily. He was also not allowed to get out of bed without someone's
help and then for only short periods of time.
This was the period in Fox's healing process that Walter dreaded. No
two ways about it, Fox William Mulder was a terrible patient. His
personality went from an intelligent 40 year old to a bratty 2 years
old in the blink of an eye at times like this. And Walter Skinner
did not know what to do about it. He would try to cajole, then talk,
then scold, and finally threaten. But nothing worked. If he turned
his back on Fox for one minute, the Kid was out of bed. His normal
way of treating bratty or disobedient behavior would be to put Fox
over his knee but the doctor said Fox needed to be handled very
gently right now and that he should not get emotionally upset. Well,
a good spanking usually got all of Fox's emotions running on high, so
no spanking. Tomorrow, Walter realized was Fox's doctor appointment
and Walter was going to have a talk with the man. But right now he
had to find Fox, again. "Fox were are you" yelled Walter.
In the back yard, behind the garage, I sit idly on the new grass with
my back against the wall, thinking about everything that's happened
to me in the last seven years. How I've gone from a lonely, obsessed
FBI agent with one friend, my partner Dana Scully, to having an
entire family. My very big loving family which included grandparents,
aunts, uncles, cousins and the very best Dad in the whole world.
Sometimes I wished I'd been born a Skinner but then, maybe, I
appreciate their love more because I had to search for it. I had to
live a long time...and deal with a lot of shit in my life but somehow
I've come out the other end whole...And sane...And happy.
Walking into the Assistant Director's office all those years ago, I
never accepted to walk out with a family. But that's what happened.
It was not an overnight thing but something that we both worked
towards everyday. Even before either of us knew that's where we were
headed. Slowly, so slowly I began to start to trust AD Skinner. Even
Scully did not trust the man at first, but I knew she was wrong...
Call it one of my hunches, I knew he was on our side. I'm not even
sure why I knew, or how-but I knew.
That is not to say I wasn't reamed out almost every other day in his
office. Skinner would bellow that I took to many chances, was going
to get myself killed one day. After a pretty nasty case, where I was
almost killed, he called me to his office to offer me a deal. See I
did some really stupid shit and was going to get kicked out of the
bureau. Well, making a long story short, he told me he would save my
job and my life if I agreed that I needed some guidance. Well, his
guidance generally turned out to be an object of some kind applied to
my bear backside. It could be a hand, belt, paddle, and of course, my
favorite, the razor strap. See this thing has it's own name, it's
called the Persuader... Well, I guess I was really fucked up because
I accepted his deal.
The funny thing is, it was the best deal I ever made. Slowly our
relationship started to change. He became a sort of surrogate father.
Because not only was he good at the discipline but he was good at
giving hugs too. Then we started to spend time together, dinners,
sports events, movies, stuff like that. When he found out I was
going to be alone for Thanksgiving, he invited me to Danville, there
I meet his entire family. They treated me just like one of them,
like I was the AD's son. Me being Fox Mulder, I got into some trouble
with the AD and got introduced to the Persuader that weekend, but
that is another story.
So does my life settle down and we all live happier ever after? No.
Did I mention, that I am searching for my sister, who I believe was
taken by aliens? Well, the aliens apparently wanted to mess up both
the Mulder children because they turned me into a baby. God,
sometimes I can't believe it myself. But it did happen and thank God
for a man named Walter Skinner. See my mother did not think she could
raise me again so she basically left me high and dry, Maybe it was
something she knew was best for me. Or maybe she just didn't want to
be bother. So who came to my rescue? AD Skinner, that's who. My Dad.
Being his son was the best eight months of my life. I never felt so
loved, wanted, safe and secure. It was hard when I became an adult
again but we got past the rough stuff and had this really great
relationship. Then the aliens strikes again. Sometimes my life sounds
like a bad movie. Yes, I was taken by them this time for seven
months. On the spaceship, experimented on, the hole nine yards. They
dumped me back on earth and tried to turn me into one of them. But to
my rescue again came my Dad and Dana Scully. They stopped the virus
and I am on my way to recovery.
Oh shit, I hear my Dad yelling. The poor guy is going to have a
coronary. I am not that helpless, I can get out of bed without
falling over. Want to know a little secret? I know what the doctor
told my Dad. Not to get me emotionally upset. So for the time being,
Fox can be as bad as he wants and my Dad won't lay a finger on me. I
know that I am being really devious but, come on, a guy has to have
some fun when he is stuck in bed all day. And once in a while I ought
to get to put one over on him right? Right?
The End