Home and Free
Elizabeth L. Iacono
PART TWO
Disclaimer and the like in part one.
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Mulder startled when he heard the doorbell ring,
making him jump out of the seat at the kitchen table
where he was sitting. He took a deep breath and stood
up. It was now or never, he thought, and he went to
open the front door to a part of his past he thought he
left behind years ago.
He opened the door to find Skinner standing there,
still attired in his suit with a neutral expression on
his face. "Hi, Sir, come on in," Mulder said, standing
back and holding the door open.
Skinner walked into the entryway, unsure of what he
should do or say. He decided to start with something
neutral. "Uh, it took me longer than I thought to get
here. You're pretty out of the way here."
Mulder shrugged. "It's what I was looking for," he
said. The two men stood there at an impasse until the
sound of fast footsteps echoed around the entryway.
Skinner turned to the direction of the stairwell,
where the footsteps were coming from, and stared.
Standing about halfway down the stairs was a little
girl of about three years old by his best guess, with
wet hair that looked dark slicked back into a braid.
He noticed the girl's eyes, colored somewhere between
blue and green, darting back and forth between him and
Mulder, who was also staring at her.
Suddenly Mulder walked over to the foot of the
stairwell and reached over to pick the little girl
up into his arms. He turned back to Skinner, and
the girl eyed him fearfully and buried her head in
Mulder's neck. Mulder bent his head to talk to her.
"Mara, this is Walter, that friend we were telling
you about." Mara tilted her head a little to reveal
one eye that stared at him. Then Mulder turned his
attention back to Skinner. "Sir, this is Mara, my
daughter."
Skinner's eyes went over to the little girl, who
was still burying her head in Mulder's neck. For the
first time though, he noticed the thin silver band
that was on Mulder's left ring finger. As Mulder bent
down to talk to Mara in quiet tones, Skinner did a
little mental math. By his estimation Mara couldn't
be more than three years old and Mulder had only been
gone for a little over four years. And by the looks of
the ring on his finger he was married, but given the
other dates it was an awfully short time to find someone,
get married, and have a child. Unless he went with his
original, and probably a hell of a lot more plausible,
thoughts about who the mother was...
Mulder's voice broke him out of his thoughts.
"Sir, why don't we go into the kitchen, dinner should
be almost ready." As they turned to go into the kitchen
Mara leaned over Mulder's shoulder and said to Skinner,
"Watch out, he cooked."
"You're not funny, Mara Jade," Mulder said as she
giggled and Skinner rolled his eyes.
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Scully stood at the head of the stairs, listening
to Mara's introduction on the first floor. As much
as she wanted to go down and participate, she just
couldn't get her feet to move. She kept wondering
what the reaction of Skinner would be to see her
there. Although she would have to wonder about his
investigative skills if he didn't suspect that she
was Mara's mother.
After what seemed like forever she got her feet
moving down the stairs. One step at a time, heading
towards the first floor, where the past waited. Soon
she was standing silently in the doorway to the kitchen
watching Mara, Mulder, and Skinner, who was standing
there a little awkwardly. Scully could tell that he
felt out of place here. She listened Skinner speak
to Mulder as he put the finishing touches on dinner.
"So who's her mother? She couldn't have just
appeared here."
Scully cleared her throat from the doorway, and
both men turned. She noticed Skinner's look of
somewhat surprise and felt a smile spread across her
face. "Oh, come on, you can't be surprised," she said.
With that comment everyone seemed to relax.
Dinner went smoothly, keeping to relatively safe
topics, but both Mulder and Scully knew that there
were questions Skinner was dying to ask. From his
constant glances at Mara they guessed that many of
the questions were about her. Soon dinner was
finished, the dishes loaded up in the dishwasher and
they adjourned to the living room, with Mulder and
Scully settling on the couch and Skinner in the
armchair. And that was where Skinner finally got
the chance to ask the questions he'd been desperate
to know for over four years. "So why did you leave?"
he said simply.
Mulder and Scully shared a glance, as if they
were trying to get their story straight. In reality,
they were just figuring out where to start. "I guess
it started after the El Rico case," Scully said,
beginning the story. "At that time, even though we'd
gotten the X-Files back, things were looking pretty
bleak. From the looks of things no matter what we did
we'd still be in trouble when the colonists came. So
we'd decided that soon, when the time was right that
it would be time to leave and just start over. At that
point in time we'd been involved since the summer
before that.
"That time came right after the Brown Mountain
case. I don't know what it was about it but after
that we just had to leave. Within a month we had
all the preparations made to leave. But just in
case we had managed to formulate a sort of vaccine
against the black oil virus from our blood because
we were both exposed to sorts of experimental
versions of the vaccine. After that it was just a
matter of turning in our resignations."
Here Mulder picked up the story. "I've got a
cousin in this area, and he helped us make living and
job arrangements here after we left. Scully
re-certified with the medical boards and I got a
teaching certification. Pretty soon we'd severed
all ties and settled here. We also got married around
that time too. That was in June.
"That October we found out that Scully was
pregnant. That was something we really didn't
expect." Mulder and Scully shared another glance
here. They knew that Skinner didn't know about
Scully's infertility, it was something that was
kept very quiet. "And then the next June Mari was
born. Ever since then it's been pretty much like
this. Real quiet and, dare I say it, almost normal."
Skinner sat back in the armchair. The explanation
was much more mundane than he had come to expect from
the two of them, but it seemed to make sense. In their
new lives they seemed happier than they were before,
hell, anyone would be considering the things they lived
through anyone would be. The family life seemed to fit
them though, almost like the perfect reward after a time
of hardship.
Suddenly Mulder lifted his frame up off the chair.
"C'mon, Mari," he said, bending down to the little girl's
level who was playing with some dolls by the TV set.
"It's time for you to go to bed."
"Awww, do I hafta?" Mara whined. "I'm not tired yet."
"Yes you have to, Mara Jade," Mulder said as he
picked her up. He carried her over to Scully, who
leaned up and kissed her on the cheek.
"Good night, baby," Scully said. "I'll be up to
tuck you in in a little bit, okay?"
"Kay," Mara said and kissed Scully back. With
that Mulder carried her upstairs to begin the bedtime
routine that Mara always protested and dragged out for
lengths of time.
Here Skinner found, in the midst of this usually
private family moment, an opening to speak. "I'm
guessing that Jade is Mara's middle name?"
Surprisingly Scully laughed. "No, her middle name
is actually Rowan, but Mulder calls her Mara Jade after
a character in a book he read a while back."
From the expression on Scully's face he couldn't
help but wonder just what kind of book Mulder had read.
He was cut off though by Scully asking him a question.
"Mulder had said something earlier that the reason you
were trying to find us was something to do with the
vaccine?"
Skinner nodded. "Yes. The vaccine was reproduced
and a world wide vaccination program was started. A few
months back we found out the vaccine worked because of a
string of bee attacks. Bees from each site were found
to carry the virus but there were no deaths from the
virus. The only deaths were from bee sting related
anaphylactic shock. After that I heard from our
cigarette smoking friend that colonization was
indefinitely stopped."
"Wow," Scully said, impressed and echoing Mulder's
comment from earlier that day. "I'm incredibly happy
that it was useful," she sighed, almost at a loss
for words.
Skinner glanced at his watch. "It's getting
pretty late, I should get going if I'm going to
find my way back to my hotel anytime soon."
"Well it was great having you come visit," Scully
said honestly as she went to retrieve his coat from the
hall closet. Skinner got up and followed her into the
entry way as Scully continued speaking. "Will you be
keeping in touch?" she asked.
"I think so," he said as he pulled the coat on.
"Tell Mulder I said goodnight." He pulled open the
front door.
"Will do," Scully smiled.
Skinner turned back to her in the doorway, a
sudden thought striking him. "I was wondering if
I could tell your mother about this visit. I've
stayed somewhat in contact with her and I know she's
been very worried about you."
Scully bit her lip. She wanted to keep the
privacy they had attained over the years. But she
knew with this one visit from Skinner would be the
start of their re-introduction into the lives they
had run away from. So he might as well just tell
them. "Okay," she nodded. "You can tell her."
"Okay," Skinner said. "Goodnight." And with
that he walked out the door. In the car on the way
back to the hotel he thought about what he would say
to Mrs. Scully. He was pretty damned sure that she
wasn't going to expect this, married with a child
leading normal lives. Hell, he himself was expecting
something along the lines of constantly running from
the shadow government.
Once back in his room he checked the clock.
Given the time difference it should be about late
afternoon back in the states. Mrs. Scully should
hopefully be home. He picked up the receiver and
dialed the long string of numbers for an international
call. "Mrs. Scully?" he said when someone picked up.
"You're not going to believe what I found...."
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December 21, 2003
Scully-Mulder household
The brightly decorated Christmas tree cast a
wonderful glow over the living room. Mara jumped up
and down excitedly, looking out the front window into
the night-darkened road every five seconds. "When're
they gonna be here Mommy?" she asked Scully when she
walked in the room.
"Soon," Scully smiled as she nervously adjusted
a picture frame on the mantle. Mulder walked up behind
her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Calm down," he whispered in her ear. What had
happened what this. Shortly after Skinner had called
Scully's mother her mother called them up, and Scully
had told her mostly everything, leaving out some of the
more extraterrestrial parts of the story. Maggie
Scully was very surprised about the existence of Mara,
especially after they had originally learned that Scully
wasn't going to be able to have children. But she was
surprised and very happy for the two of them. One of
the things she wasn't surprised about was that Scully
and Mulder were together. She'd known they were made
for each other from years back.
They'd kept in touch too, and somewhere along the
line Christmas plans were made. Eventually it was
decided that Maggie, Scully's brother Charles, his
wife Lydia and their two kids would come and spend
Christmas there in Scotland with them. Bill refused
to go with them on the grounds of "She ran off with
that son of a bitch?!? Why the hell would she do
that?..." and the tirade went on. Mulder had invited
his mother too, but she was spending Christmas on a
cruise with her sister. It was going to be a tight
squeeze, Mulder and Scully didn't have that much
space for guests in their little house, but they
managed to make a plan that would fit everyone in there.
And now, they were all due at the house shortly.
Mara was jumping excitedly to see the relatives she
was going to meet. Scully was prowling around
nervously, wondering what was going to happen when
she saw her mother for the first time in four years.
And Mulder was there trying to calm both of them down,
for once having the cool head in the situation.
"Mommy, Daddy, I think that's them!" Mara exclaimed
as a pair of headlights turned into their driveway.
Scully turned in Mulder's arms and looked at him,
one corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. "Well,
here goes nothing," she said.
Mulder leaned down and kissed her sweetly on the
lips. "Everything'll be okay, you'll see."
The doorbell rang and Scully's head whipped
around. "I'll get that," she said. She reluctantly
slipped out of Mulder's arms and walked to the front
door, watching Mara run past her to Mulder. She stood
by the door with her hand on the knob, composing
herself for what was about to come. Then, she slowly
opened the door to reveal her mother's smiling face.
"Hi, Dana," Maggie said, and the two women hugged
as if no time had passed at all.
"Hi, Mom," Scully said, hugging her mother tightly.
"Where's Charles and Lydia?" she asked when they had
pulled back.
"They're getting all our things out of the car.
I came in ahead of them." Maggie stepped back. "Let
me get a good look at you." Her eyes appraised Scully
in that way only a mother could. "Oh, you look great
honey."
"Thanks Mom," Scully smiled.
"Now when am I going to meet my granddaughter?"
Maggie asked, grinning.
"This way, Mom." Scully led her into the living
room, where Mulder was standing with Mara behind him
holding tightly to his leg.
"Hello, Fox," Maggie said, the smile still not
budging from her face.
"Hi, Mrs. Scully," Mulder said almost bashfully,
as if he were twelve years old again.
"I think it's safe to say that you can call me
'mom' now, no matter what Bill says," Maggie said.
"Well that may take a little getting used to but
I'll certainly try," Mulder said.
"And who is this?" Maggie asked, bending down to
look at Mara still clutching Mulder's leg.
Scully knelt down next to her. "Mara, this is
your grandma, I've been telling you about her. Mom,
this is Mara Rowan Mulder."
"Hi," Mara said, waving a little hello.
"I'm very pleased to meet you," Maggie grinned.
"Hey, do you like dolls?" Maggie asked, knowing exactly
what to ask.
Mara's eyes lit up. "Yeah, I've got lots. You
wanna see them?" she asked, releasing her grip on
Mulder's leg.
"I'd love to," Maggie said. Mara grabbed her
hand and led her upstairs, with Maggie turning around
to shoot Scully a wide grin.
Mulder took Scully in his arms once more. "That
went well," he said.
"Yeah, it did," Scully agreed, smiling up at him.
"Still nervous?" Mulder asked.
"No. I have a feeling that everything is going
to be wonderful," she smiled.
"Good," Mulder grinned, and leaned down to kiss
her again. They pulled apart when they heard Charles
and his family coming through the door, a loud, raucous
and happy bunch. Soon they were all gathered around
the living room, celebrating the way things should be
celebrated. Together.
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I hope you liked it! And I hope any Star Wars fans
caught the book reference, I think she's a pretty
cool character. ;)
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'True love, it's the
greatest thing in
the world.'
Miracle Max
The Princess Bride
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'Men will fight bravely
and be heroes, but for
a last ditch defense
against any odds...get
a mother.'
Lightbringer
High Wizardry
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