Period of Adjustment
Philemom

Disclaimer: Just borrowing, don't sue the poor stay home mom
Summary: At the beginning, it's always a little rocky
Spoilers: None
Timing: Post season 8
Classification: MSR
Archive: Anywhere - just keep my name on it and let me know where it's
headed.
Rating: PG
Feedback: egbement@yahoo.com if you can find it in your hearts


Period of Adjustment
By Philemom


When he left, she was sleeping.  And as much as he wanted to wake her,
he didn't.  Every minute of sleep was a blessing and he wasn't going to
disturb that.  As much as he wanted to, needed to, he wouldn't.

Because last night they'd fought again.  Because her words still echoed
in his ears.  "I was prepared to raise this baby alone, Mulder.  And
sometimes I think it would be easier if I was."

In a fog, he made his way to work.  Down the long trek to the basement
of the FBI.  A part of him was thrilled just to make this trip.  If not
for the valiant work of Agents Doggett and Reyes, he'd still be banned
from the building.

Mulder may have turned the X Files over to Doggett, but the man had
refused to accept them.  He'd worked, well, doggedly, until their
rightful owner was running them.  And as happy as he was to be back at
the X Files, it was tarnished by his deteriorating relationship with
Scully.

It seemed he wasn't fated for balance in his life.  Whenever one part
was leveling out, the other became horrible skewed.  And he didn't have
a clue how to straighten it out again.

He stood at the closed door, his hand poised to twist the knob.  A
sudden flash from eight years ago assailed him.  When Scully first
knocked on this door, when he first saw her.   When he first began to
lose his heart to her.

And now that he'd lost it completely, he wasn't sure she even wanted it
anymore.

"What's the matter, Agent Mulder?  Lose your keys again?" Doggett let
the elevator doors close behind him and walked slowly towards his
partner.

"No," Mulder said, twisting the knob and taking his place behind the
familiar desk.  Watching Doggett taking the place where Scully should be
only soured his mood.

"So."

Mulder let the word go, staring at the pictures of Samantha and Scully
holding Will on his desk.

"How's the baby?" Doggett tried again, looking for anything that would
pick Mulder up out of the funk he'd been mired in lately.

"Fine."

Strike two, Doggett swore inwardly.

"Has he turned over yet?" Doggett wracked his memory for the
things-to-talk-to-new-parents-about file.  "He's gonna be a pretty
active kid, if the pregnancy is any indication.  I remember when he'd
kick.  Almost knocked Scully out of her chair."

Mulder stood so fast, he knocked over his chair.  He cleared his desk
with a swipe of his hand and left the office without another word.

"And John Doggett goes down swinging," Doggett muttered, burying his
head into his hands.


Scully placed Will in his bassinet and sent a silent prayer to the
baby-nap angels that he'd sleep for at least an hour.  He'd been cranky
all morning and it had taken nearly twenty minutes of rocking just to
get him to close his eyes.

Probably picking up on my mood, she thought.

She couldn't believe the things she'd said last night.  She'd meant
every word, but still couldn't figure out which neural impulse had
failed causing the hateful words to come out.  And now, she couldn't
shake the look on his face when she'd said them.

Over eight years, Scully thought she'd seen his every expression, every
facial nuance that made up Mulder.  She'd been wrong.  The shock, the
pain, the deep sadness that merged in his muscles was one she'd never
forget.

After Will's birth, Scully had been positive that they were finally on
the right track.   That they'd finally passed all the barriers his
abduction and return from the grave had caused.  Mulder had held their
son, and kissed her with such incredible tenderness, Scully had been
sure her heart would burst with love for both of them.

But in the days that followed, he'd pulled back from them even more than
when he'd left the hospital.  He rarely spoke.  He wouldn't hold or feed
the baby, he'd only stare.   He didn't even touch her anymore.  They
slept side by side, but miles apart.  If he hadn't insisted on giving up
his apartment right after Will was born, Scully was positive he'd be
living there now.

Scully refused to harbor regrets over her outburst.  Something had to
change, and change soon, if they were to continue.  They couldn't live
like this, she thought, swiping angrily at the tears forming in her
eyes.

A knock sounded suddenly and Scully sprinted to the door before it woke
the baby.

"Agent Doggett?" Scully opened the door to the last person on earth she
expected at ten on a Monday morning.

"Would it bother you a lot to call me John?" Doggett asked before he
even entered the apartment.  "I'm really beginning to miss my first
name."

"Of course not, Ag. . . John." She stumbled a bit, but got it out.
"Come on in."

Doggett hadn't been to the apartment since right after Will was born.
Seeing it now, he felt a wave of nostalgia.  His house had looked
exactly the same when Luke was a newborn. Bibs and cloth diapers were
strewn across the furniture, bottles were stacked in the sink.  And it
looked like a stuffed animal factory exploded in the living room.

Scully had passed by him and took a seat on the couch, staring at
something just over her knees.  "How's it going?"

"I'm fine," she said, a bit too quickly.

"Really," he drew the word out.  "Glad to hear it."  Unsure of himself,
but desperate to do something, he reached over and touched her
shoulder.  He'd by God get one of them talking, come hell or high water.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" Scully sniffed once before allowing the tears to
come again.  Scully hated every tear that fell, but they fell anyway.
Moreso lately as tensions rose between she and Mulder.

The tears abated after a few minutes. "It's gonna be okay, you know,"
Doggett said softly while she wiped the damp trails on her cheeks.

"How, John?  How is it ever going to be okay?  I have a healthy, human,
baby boy, but his father won't come near either one of us anymore.  He
looks at Will like he's going to start bleeding green at any minute.  He
treats me like a piece of china that's already cracking.  We don't talk,
we just exist." She paused and took in a deep breath.  "Or we fight."
And that was the hardest part to handle, Scully thought.  Fighting about
a case was one thing.  Fighting about this new partnership was another.

She felt anger begin to rise up when Doggett smiled at her.  "I said
something funny?"

"Yeah, kinda.  My ex-wife screamed that speech at me when Luke was a
month old.  Without the references to green blood, of course.  If memory
serves, I was an inconsiderate, unfeeling, heartless son-of-a-bitch.
All things being equal, I liked your version a little better."

When Scully only looked at him, he continued.  "Let me guess, Will isn't
sleeping much, is he?"

"If we're lucky, we get an hour straight," Scully confirmed.

"So.  You had a difficult, stressful pregnancy.  Now you're barely
sleeping, and your body is adjusting to not being pregnant anymore.
Added to that, you are dealing with Mulder who we all thought was dead
two months ago.  You gave birth in less than ideal surroundings with a
bunch of strangers watching you.  People you thought were going to take
him away from you.  Am I missing anything?"

"Only that I haven't had an adult conversation that didn't revolve
around diapers, spit-up, lactation, or the condition of my uterus in six
weeks."

They both chuckled over that.  It seemed to break the dismal pall that
had been omnipresent since he walked in.

"So how did you get past it?"

"We talked a lot, cried a lot.   Then Luke started sleeping more
regularly, and I got more comfortable around him." Doggett felt the
familiar ache of loneliness for the son he'd only had a few short years.

Doggett's cell phone chose that moment to shrill.  As he answered,
Scully went to the windows and pulled up the shades.  When the streams
of sunlight hit the laundry, she began moving through the apartment
gathering it up.

When he ended his conversation, Scully was just finishing up the dishes.

"I've gotta get back to the basement," Doggett said behind her.  And she
nearly knocked him over when she wrapped her arms around him.

"Thank you, Ag-" she stopped herself, "John."

That's how Mulder found them when he walked into the apartment.  Scully,
with tears in her eyes, her arms locked around Doggett's middle.

"Am I interrupting?" Mulder ground out sarcastically.

"No," Doggett took a step back.  The barely contained anger in Mulder's
eyes had him fighting the urge to run like hell.  "I was just leaving."

"Something you want to tell me?" Mulder asked as the door closed behind
Doggett.

"I was just thanking him." Scully placed the last bottle on the drying
rack and wiped her hands on a nearby towel.

"For what?"

"For being there when I needed to talk." Scully threw the towel onto the
counter, lowering her voice so as not to wake Will.

"Like I'm not here?  Or is it that you prefer your ex-partner now?"

"It was different talking to John."

"John?"

"Yes," Scully purposely let that question pass without comment.  "He's
been a parent, Mulder.  He knows first hand about what it's like with a
newborn in the house."

"He seems to know a lot of things first hand," Mulder grumbled.

"Mulder," Scully's hackles raised in defense of her friend when she saw
something spark in Mulder's face.  "You're jealous," she said
incredulously.

"Damn right, I'm jealous, Scully.  This is my son, but he felt the first
kicks.  He stood by you during the early crises.  He watched as Will
grew inside you.  And now he's the one you turn to when you need to
talk.  It seems all I did right was donate some DNA."

Not knowing what else to do, Scully moved directly in front of him,
taking his hands in hers.  "You did more than that Mulder.  For eight
years, you've stood by me through every conceivable trauma.  The deaths
of my father and sister, cancer, abductions.  You helped me try and have
a baby even when most doctors said it was impossible.  You comforted me
when those procedures failed.  And then you gave me the greatest gift of
all."

"William?" he asked, voice soft to hide the emotion building.

"No, Mulder," Scully squeezed his hands.  "You."

Eyes locked, Mulder pulled Scully to him and placed his lips firmly on
hers.  He poured all of his frustration, love and fear into it and was
rewarded with Scully's energetic response.  She deepened the kiss and
wound her arms firmly around his neck, her fingers fisting in his hair.

They were just coming up for air, when Will broke them apart.  "Will you
get him while I warm the bottle?" Scully asked, still breathless, and
feeling optimistic for the first time in weeks.

"Uh," Mulder hesitated.  "Why don't I warm the bottle?"

Scully felt her heart sink.  He was still avoiding Will.  Maybe John was
right, it would take time.  As she walked to the bedroom and picked him
up, something else John said clicked.  Something about him getting more
comfortable around Luke.  It couldn't be that simple, could it?

"Here you go," Mulder smiled slightly, handing the warmed bottle to
Scully.

"Keep it," she said firmly.  "You're feeding him."

"Me?" he croaked.  "Scully, I. . ."

Scully didn't let him finish.  With her free arm, she pushed Mulder into
the couch and passed him the baby.  She noticed the slight shake in his
hands.  Without a word, she positioned Will in the curve of Mulder's
arm, tied the bib and handed him the bottle.

"Stay with me?" he asked quietly.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said in the same tone.

A peaceful silence enveloped the room, broken only by Will's sucking.
Scully watched as father and son stared at one another.  Will brought
his hand up and placed in onto Mulder's cheek, exploring.  When his
fingers reached Mulder's mouth and he placed a kiss to them, she didn't
even try to keep the tears from falling.

Scully had been upset to learn that she wouldn't be able to nurse Will.
The stress of his delivery had stunted her milk production.  But as she
watched Mulder feeding his son, she thought that maybe it happened for a
reason.

"He needs to burp," Scully hated to interrupt them, but didn't want him
spitting up half the bottle, either.

"Are you sure I won't crush him?" Mulder asked hesitantly.  When he'd
watched Will sleeping that first night, he'd been awed by how small the
baby was.  Then he'd looked at his own hands, done some quick
comparisons and decided that handling his son would have to wait until
the baby was bigger.

He held the baby awkwardly to his shoulder and patted his back.  At
Scully's urging he put a little more force into the light taps and was
rewarded with a resonant release.  Scully gave him the go ahead nod and
he returned Will to the crook of his arm and placed the bottle back in
his mouth.

Tentatively, Scully mentioned that she needed a shower. Mulder waved her
off towards the bathroom with an instruction to take her time.  "We've
got man stuff to talk about."

She left them reluctantly, but the idea of a shower without Will's
fussing was too tempting to resist.  Although she couldn't hear the
words, the bass of Mulder's voice carried into the room.  Stealthily,
she tiptoed back to the living room in time to hear Mulder ask "Can you
say baseball, Will?"

She finished her shower in record time, still a little uneasy leaving an
anxious new dad alone with a temperamental baby.  The quiet in the
adjoining room disconcerted her further.

Donning her robe, she opened the bathroom door wide enough to see the
couch.  And her breath caught in a gasp.

Mulder sat where she'd left him on the couch.  William lay across his
chest, head pillowed on Mulder's shoulder.  His hands were wrapped
around the baby securely.

 Both were fast asleep.

Touched beyond bearing at the sight before her, Scully felt her heart
fill as fast as her eyes.  Not wanting to disturb them, but not wanting
to leave either, Scully sat gently next to Mulder.  The quiet in the
room grew and she felt herself drifting into sleep.  Just as she was
about to doze off, she felt a hand on hers.

Their eyes met and the same time their hands clasped. Green pierced blue
and for a moment, neither Mulder nor Scully even breathed.  And the
words of love, future and togetherness that passed were as real as if
they'd been spoken.

Simultaneously, they closed their eyes again and napped with their son,
hands together, hearts melded.  A family.

-end-