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They used to play a game while driving to new cases in Small Town, USA: they made silly, impossible predictions.
Think those Amish with hyper sex drives came back?
Think we’ll catch another witch?
Another elephant autopsy?
Psychic insurance salesman?
Alligator?
There was the common belief that history would repeat itself, but from her personal experience, it didn’t. Mulder would think about aliens and witches being involved, or houses being haunted, and a small part of her wanted him to have that, to actually witness what he’d longed to witness, even if they were vampire wannabes with fake fangs or silly teens fibbing.
But she had such a hard time with this… recurrence—it had happened once, of course it could happen again.
Scully sat with Mulder on the plane, with the child in his lap, both sleeping soundly. Was this what she wanted back in the winter of ’98?
What did she want back in that January? What did she hope when she called him?
Now, it was a different time, a different child, a different Mulder, and a different her.
So, so much had changed, but it felt like history repeated itself.
It all started while she was attending a medical conference in Seattle. Mulder had tagged along, but that was common nowadays. They rarely traveled, but when they did, they always went together. Dr. and Mr. Scully—people thought they were a gay couple.
She had woken up that morning like it was any other morning, naked and in Mulder’s arms. Morning call was at 6:30, and it felt a lot earlier than that; nevertheless, she answered the phone without a second thought.
“Dana…” A man’s voice came through. “The baby needs your help. Your child is waiting, Dana. Go now. Mountlake Terrace PD.”
“I’m sorry, who’s this?”
It sounded… like Ahab, and the message chilled her to the bones. The call was disconnected a second later, and it was Mulder who returned the phone back to its cradle as the dial tone rang in her ear.
On the way to Mountlake Terrace PD, neither of them mentioned the similar phone call she had received five winters ago. Mulder feared he would jinx something; Scully feared… everything.
Walking into the police station, they were greeted by a young officer. Scully wondered if she would see a little girl, strawberry blonde and blue eyes, with a bob cut or long double ponytails. Would she be three or seven this time?
The child was sitting on a sofa with another officer, eating a jelly donut while wriggling in the way little antsy children do. Red and sticky raspberry jelly around those little lips, chin, and cheeks. The child looked up and waved, friendly as a lark.
Scully stared; she probably gawked, for the child looked exactly like Mulder did when he was three, nearly identical to that photo she had cherished so much, the black and white photo of little Fox holding his baby sister.
Except this child had red hair and blue eyes. A baby Fox Mulder with her colors.
He was all smiles as he wiped his little hand on the paper napkins on his lap, probably never had eaten a whole jelly donut all by himself before.
“There you are,” the officer said as he stood up; he was also all smiles, too. “Kids will be kids, right? Bet she charged you two 10 bucks an hour to watch your boy, too. He’s a pleasure though, I got one at home just about his age.”
The officer picked up the toddler and handed him to Scully. Mulder grabbed a napkin off the table to wipe the jelly off the boy’s face. She was too stunned to say anything.
“We’re so grateful, is there something…”
She listened to Mulder conversing with the officer; how could he be so calm right now?
“Officer Tucker will have the paperwork ready for you to sign.” The officer patted the child’s head, “Bye-bye, sweetie!”
“Honey,” Mulder said to her, his hand anchoring her to the core. “Why don’t you two wait in the car? I’ll be right out.”
The average 2-year-old weighs about 27 lb, Scully thought as she sprinted out of the building, with the child waving goodbye and blowing kisses as if he were riding a float in a parade. She felt like she and Mulder had just gotten away with robbing a bank.
To hell with the conference. They were on the flight back to Maryland two hours later.
Three DNA tests confirmed he was their long-lost son. Bloodwork and body scans quieted their worries. Healthy and happy and back.
“I don’t know what he likes to eat, Mulder.” She felt stressed out and hid her face in Mulder’s arm one night soon after they came home; she was no longer the same Dana Scully from years ago. “He doesn’t have any of his toys, he doesn’t know his name, doesn’t know who we are… what if he has a favorite blanket…?”
“Scully…”
“What about his parents? What happened to them?” She was feeling so guilty.
“Scully… Dana, baby, we are his parents… You know that, right?” Mulder’s hazel-green eyes burned into hers.
She nodded, and he helped her ease back into his embrace. Mulder started kissing her temple and ear, down her neck as his hand circled—
“Boogey in black.”
Both of them gasped as their son’s voice came from the cracked-open door, and the toddler approached the bed. “Wa-wa here?”
Their son called himself Wa-wa, but they had tried everything from Wallace to Waldo to Watson to Wayne and everything in between; the boy did not seem responsive to any.
“I think he wants to sleep with us.” Mulder sighed as his mouth gave her another kiss. “Was this what we signed up for?”
She watched as he picked their son up and plopped him right in the middle between their bodies. The child grabbed ahold of Mulder’s arm and closed his eyes contentedly.
Mulder’s hand landed on her arm and stroked it up and down. “I’ll bring him back to his room later. Then I’ll help you sleep.” He whispered with a leer.
She stroked his leg with her foot, up and down, up and down. The lavender smell of baby shampoo made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. History may repeat itself, but the ending might not.