Flight into Egypt 7:  Going Home

Author:  Vickie Moseley

Going Home:  Chapter 5 Beach House

Beach House

Ocean City, MD

June 6, 2005

6:30 pm

It had been worth it.  It had been so worth it.  Mulder smiled contentedly from his Adirondack lounge chair as he watched Ben and Nate play frisbee with Matt (as he preferred to be called) and Will on the sand. 

Mulder would remember till his dying day the look on Bill Scully, Jr.'s face when he and Scully walked into St. Francis Church with their children.  Mulder knew Bill expected him to stay at Maggie's house while everyone attended Mass.  Well, he didn't stay home in Montana, he sure as hell wasn't going to stay home in Baltimore just because Bill Scully expected him to!  Even Tara had a surprised look on her face as Mulder led his family into the pew and then held the twins so that his partner could kneel and pray for a few minutes before the Mass began.  When he opened up the hymnal and sang, without even really needing to see the words, the opening hymn, he thought Bill was going to explode and Charlie was going to bust a gut.  

Although Mass had been fun, well, except when Missy decided to chew on the collar of his polo shirt, leaving it a sopping wet thing against his neck, the drive out to Ocean City had been wonderful. The twins had fallen asleep, even William grew drowsy on the long ride and Mulder and Scully finally had Maggie all to themselves, just for a little bit.  The three of them talked about adult things, the kind of conversations he and his partner had on a thousand car rides through their time at the Bureau.  It made him remember why he'd stayed on the road with her all those years. 

The beach house was the icing on the cake.  He was almost shocked to find that the house was everything Bill had promised and then some.  It sat apart from other houses on the beach, giving it the appearance of having more land than it actually did.  Mulder couldn't figure out how it had escaped some developer's condo plans, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  When he walked with Scully out on the beach for the first time, Will holding on to his leg and watching the churning water with trepidation and the twins holding Scully's hands, he felt like he'd just come home after a very long absence.  The salt spray, the seagulls, the lull of the pounding surf at high tide transported him back to his childhood on the Vineyard.  He was so happy he felt as if he might cry.  When he looked over at his partner, her eyes told him she understood as tear tracks streaked down her face.  He leaned over and kissed her. 

It hadn't taken long to get the twins interested in seashells, even though they seemed more interested in them as chew toys.  Will finally ran to the surf with his father, letting the water lap at his bare toes.  Once he figured out that it wasn't going to eat him, he let himself enjoy the waves as his father did.  They spent the first night playing on the beach, joined eventually by Charlie and his family.  Ben and Nate insisted on building a fire and after putting the small children to bed, the adults came out and sat by the blaze, watching a million stars sparkle above them. 

When the sun rose over the ocean, there was a soft tap at their door.  Mulder opened it to find Charlie in shorts and running shoes.  "C'mon, old man.  Race ya on the beach!" he said with his trademark smart-ass grin Mulder had come to know in the last couple of days. 

"You're on, youngster.  Let me get ready, I'll be down in five minutes." 

Mulder found not only Charlie, but Ben and Nate ready to take a run down the beach.  They started out at an easy lope, but after a mile, broke out and the two young men gave the two older men a run for their money.  When they returned to the house, sitting on the deck to let the ocean breeze cool the sweat from their bodies, Mulder turned to Charlie and socked him playfully in the shoulder. 

"That was a set up!" he declared breathlessly as he gratefully accepted a bottle of water from Nate.  

"Nah, Uncle Fox.  Dad just didn't want to be left behind all by himself this time," Ben assured him.  Mulder graciously accepted his new nickname.  It was somewhat better than what Matthew had been calling him -- Mr. Mulder. 

"They run my ass ragged all the time.  I just figured you needed to see what you're in for in about 10 years," Charlie said between gasps for air and sips of water. 

"Hey, I'll be an old man by the time Will can run that fast.  He'll have to push me in a wheelchair," Mulder said, shaking his head and wiping his face with the hem of his Knicks shirt.  "C'mon, let's see if we can work the high tech coffeemaker I saw in the kitchen." 

Breakfast came and went, each member of the family slowly making their way to the kitchen to the smell of coffee and in search of sustenance.  When the dishes were being put in the dishwasher, Matt asked if he and William could hunt for shells on the beach. 

"I was just headed out that way," Maggie said and grabbed her sun hat and a couple of empty sand buckets from near the door.  "C'mon, boys.  Let's go play!" 

Scully leaned against the counter next to Tara and smiled.  "This was a good idea," she confided.

Beach House

11:15 am

Mulder had found a quiet spot in the downstairs family room, an old leather sofa not unlike his from the apartment on Hegal Place.  He'd started out reading a battered copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, a book he'd wanted to read for a while but had never found the time.  After the second chapter, he'd drifted off to sleep. 

Pounding footsteps on the wooden stairs to the lower level and his son's tearful entreaties woke him suddenly. 

"Daddy!  Daddy, Matty called me a bad name!" Will hiccupped around his sobs. 

Mulder sat up and then held out his arms to the little boy.  Will quickly fell into his father's embrace as Mulder pulled him up on his lap. 

"Hey, there, buddy.  It's all right.  Now, what happened?  What did Matty call you?"  Mulder could just imagine what kinds of language a child who had grown up in military housing might be capable of peppering in his language. 

"He said I was a bastard!  And he said Missy and Sammi are bastards, too!" Will cried and hid his face in his father's shirt. 

"He was just calling you names, Will.  I bet he doesn't even know what that word means," Mulder consoled.  Will hid his face and cried all the harder.  "Let's go talk to Matty," he finally said, in the hopes he could calm his son.  

He carried the boy up to the kitchen where there was a tense silence.  Mulder looked around, noting that Bill and Matt were the only occupants of the room and that tears were streaking down the older boy's cheeks, too. 

"I spanked him," Bill said evenly. 

Mulder started to say something in the boy's defense but Bill held up his hand to stop his words. 

"I spanked my son for calling his cousin a name.  I thought, wrongly, that he was just being a bully.  I come to find out, not only was it not a wrong name, I've been lied to all this time." 

Mulder opened his mouth and then closed it without a word.  He felt his stomach drop to somewhere around his knees. 

"You never married her?" Bill accused angrily.  "You knocked her up, left her with a baby she had to give away, took her from her family in the dead of the night, got her pregnant again and you never married her!"  The last few words were shouted so loud that the others came running. 

"Mulder?" Scully asked as she came in from the deck.  "What's going on?" 

"Take Will outside, Scully," Mulder said tersely. 

"No, what is all the yelling about?" 

"You're not married, that's what the yelling's all about!" Bill bellowed at the top of his lungs.  "What the hell are you doing with that ring on your finger?" he shouted, grabbing her left hand up to show them both before dropping it like a hot rock.  "Is lying all you know?" 

Maggie, Tara, Charlie and Karen appeared from various parts of the house.  Maggie looked frantically from her son to her daughter and her daughter's partner.  Mulder was deathly pale, clutching his son to his chest, holding his hand over William's little ear as if hoping to keep the boy from hearing the words flying through the room.  Dana was beet red, shame coloring her cheeks. 

"Bill," Maggie said, holding out her hand in an effort to calm him down.  "You don't know what they've gone through -- " 

Bill wheeled on his mother, his eyes widening in horror.  "You knew?  You knew they weren't married and you let them act like they were?" he whispered, betrayal thick in his voice.  "You let them sleep together under your roof like it was nothing?"  He looked around at the other faces in the room.  Charlie was showing shock, as was Karen.  Tara had tears streaming down her face and her hand to her mouth.  Bill shoved his way through the throng of people crowded in the kitchen and stormed out of the back door.  After a heartbeat, Tara ran after him. 

Maggie turned to her daughter, shaking her head slowly.  "I knew this would come out, Dana," she said bitterly. 

Mulder finally found the strength to move.  He hugged Will tightly to him and then handed the boy over to Maggie.  With one look at his partner, he turned and headed up the stairs to their room. 

"Mom -- " Scully started to speak, but Maggie jerked her head toward the stairs.  With a quick kiss on her son's cheek, she followed her partner. 

Mulder was tossing a few items in one of their suitcases.  He was rather intent on his work, or he chose to ignore her as she came into the room. 

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" she asked, taking a pair of running shorts out of his hands.  He grabbed the pants back and shoved them in the suitcase. 

"Back to the condo.  Where I belong."  He spoke tersely, his anger coloring his tone. 

"Mulder, what do you want to do -- get married to make Bill happy?  That's a pretty damned poor reason -- " 

He zipped the case shut and turned on her, grabbing her by the arms.  "You're right, Scully.  Marrying me to please your brother would be a horrible idea."  Sarcasm dripped off every word.  "I would never want you to do anything that you didn't want to do."  He grabbed the case off the bed and headed out into the hallway. 

She tugged at his arm before he got to the stairs.  "What are you talking about?" she demanded. 

"Nothing, Scully.  Just like always, I'm talking to the wind," he huffed, pulling his arm away from her grasp.  "Kiss the girls for me.  I'll call when I get in tonight." 

"Mulder!  You can't go like this!  This is insane!" she called after him as he made his way through the main floor of the house, heading toward the door.  She caught him at the car, as he tossed the case into the back seat. 

"Get your purse.  I need you to drive me to the rental car place in town. I don't want to leave you stranded," he said evenly. 

She crossed her arms, her temper flaring.  "No, you just want to leave me," she spat. 

He rested his head on his arms atop the car roof.  "No, I don't want to leave you," he said tiredly.  He turned his head so he could look at her.  "But I can't sleep in the same house with you and not sleep in your bed, Scully and that's the only thing that would appease Bill.  I haven't done that for over two years and I can't start now.  So let me go back to the city -- " 

"We'll go with you," she said, tears streaming down her face. 

"No, you and the kids stay.  If we all go back now -- no, we can't do that.  It would kill your mom, Scully.  Can't you see how this is tearing her up even now?  If I'm out of the picture, Bill won't have a focus and the kids can get to know their family." 

"I don't know that I want them to get to know those people," Scully whispered.  "I don't want you to leave us."  

He lifted his hand to her cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb.  "I could never leave you, Scully.  If you haven't figured that out by now, nothing I say could possibly convince you.  But I can't be the object of Bill's anger.  And I won't let him ridicule the way we've chosen to live our life together.  So I think it's best for me to go.  You'll be home in a few days.  We'll be together soon." 

Her face crumbled as she reached out to embrace him, clutching at his back as she had many times before when she thought she was about to lose him forever.  "Please be there when we get back," she begged. 

He smiled, even though he knew she couldn't see him, and kissed the crown of her head.  "I will be.  I love you, you know that." 

She nodded her head against his chest.  "I love you, too," she said, muffled by his shirt. 

He kissed her again and then pushed gently at her shoulders.  "Go, get your purse.  I want to get the other car and then you can come back here and fix the kids some lunch." 

"What do I tell Will?  He's going to want to know where you are," she said, tears threatening again. 

"Tell him -- tell him I went to work.  He understands that.  Just tell him I had some work to do in the city and I couldn't stay out on the beach." 

She nodded weakly, wiping at her face.  He nodded toward the house and she took off at a trot toward it. 

Charlie was standing in the foyer, watching them through the screen door.  "Is it true, Dana?" he asked timidly. 

She bit her lip and nodded, looking away.  "I have to get my purse." 

"Where're you going?" he asked, grasping her wrist lightly. 

"I'm taking Mulder to the Lariat office in Ocean City to get another car.  He's going back to DC today.  We'll be joining him at the end of the week." 

Charlie looked like he wanted to say something, but simply shook his head and walked back to the kitchen.  She found her purse and quietly left the house. 

Crystal City Place

8:35 pm

On his way  back to DC, Mulder shoved his pain into that part of his mind he'd almost forgotten.  He knew he loved Scully and he knew Scully loved him.  He knew that they were as strong, if not stronger, than they'd ever been.  But he also knew that much of what Bill had yelled at him was true -- he had ripped her from her family in the dead of the night, forcing her to run away with him.  So what if they were able to retrieve their son, so what if he'd made her a good life in Montana?  They were still living a lie, even now, when they were able to come back and face the truth.  That hurt him more than anything. 

After their midnight disappearing act, Maggie had packed up Dana's apartment and his and put everything in storage.  She'd been paying $125 a month for items probably best left on the curb for the trash pick up.  So, since he was in a frame of mind to clear out the old, he drove directly to the U-Store-It, located in Georgetown. 

The first thing to meet his eyes when he opened the wide garage door to the unit was his old couch.  He couldn't help but smile as he let his finger trail over the worn leather.  He thought about shipping it back to Montana, but wondered if it was worth it.  Better yet, he'd see if Walter and Kim might have a family room or den they could put it in.  He'd call Kim and see if she'd be interested in looking over the furniture.  He and Scully had all the furniture they needed in Montana.  What Kim didn't want and Scully didn't think they could ship back to Alexandria, they would donate to the Salvation Army or Maggie's parish. 

It was the boxes on top of his old desk that caught his eye.  Four banker style boxes, sealed with duck tape.  Two were marked Dana's Desk, two were marked Fox's Desk.  Those were loaded into the back of the rental car to be sorted through back at the condo.  He was really surprised to find his and Scully's suits, all of them, in large U-Haul cardboard closets.  Whatever else had been in their dressers, Maggie must have donated to the poor, but she'd kept all of their suits.  Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed several of the drycleaner's bags and hooked them on the clip in the backseat of the car.  With one last look at their belongings, he closed the door to the unit and locked it.  

When he arrived at the condo, George was there to help him with the suits and boxes.  After dumping his treasure on the dining room table, Mulder immediately stripped and headed for the shower, rinsing off the dust and grime.  While toweling off, he stood by the phone, trying to decide if he was ready to call and wish his children goodnight.  The phone rang as he was just about to reach for it. 

"Mulder," he said.  It felt odd and yet so natural to answer the phone that way again.  

"Good, you got there safely.  I was worried."  He smiled when he immediately recognized his partner's voice. 

"Yeah, I even made good time." 

"Then why didn't you call sooner," she chided.  Her voice sounded strained, he knew she'd probably been crying again. 

"I'm sorry.  I stopped at the storage place.  I'm going to call Kim, ask her if she wants any of that furniture.  My stuff was crap but you had some really nice things.  I thought if there were a couple of pieces you want to take back to Montana, we could see about shipping them by rail." 

"Yes, I would like my dresser and armoire.  And how about your couch?" 

"I thought I'd see if Walter wants it.  I don't have room for it at home." 

"You could put it in the office," she suggested.  "But if you're ready to part with it, sure, see if Walter would like it." 

"Scully, your mom kept all our good clothes," Mulder said. 

"Wow.  I wonder if I can squeeze into any of them now," Scully mused. 

"You're still tiny," he assured her. 

"I've given birth twice, Mulder.  I don't think I'll be seeing a size 4 any time again.  But your suits should still fit.  And they definitely wouldn't be out of style." 

"Oh yeah, I'll be the Professor in the Armani.  That should get me a raise or two from the Administration," he joked. 

"Still, you should keep some of them.  We could pull them out, just for each other." 

"Me in Armani and you in . . . nothing?" he suggested coyly. 

"I like that idea.  Or me in one of your dress shirts and you in . . . one of your ties," she shot back in whispered tones. 

He crowed with laughter.  "I knew it, Scully.  You were always hot for my ties!"  He sighed, wishing she were beside him rather than three hours away.  "So, how're my little buddies, all of them?" 

"Will was a little upset that you left, but I explained that you had work, like you suggested and that he could talk to you tonight.  He seemed to accept that.  Missy woke up cranky, but I think it's just the tension in the house.  Bill hasn't spoken to anyone except Tara for the whole day, not that I have anything to say to him.  Sammi is taking it all in, she's been playing with Karen and Charlie, but I think she misses you." 

"How's my other buddy?" he asked tenderly.  "The one who doesn't think she can fit in to a size 4 anymore." 

"She misses you horribly.  She can't understand why we're talking on the phone and not holding each other.  She hates her brother at this moment -- " 

"Scully, hey, none of that," he said when he heard her voice crack.  "It's just till Friday, love.  We've been separated for almost a whole year!  We can do four days, can't we?" 

"But I never wanted to do four minutes," she whispered.  "I never want to be alone for another second," she continued until all he could hear was her choked sobs. 

"Scully, Scully, listen to me.  It's all right.  Really.  It will be all right.  We just need to let Bill have some time.  Look, you dry your eyes and let me talk to Will, OK?" 

The rest of the phone call was spent listening to good night kisses cast over the line and repeating one bedtime book, remembered not so much by an eidetic memory but by near constant repetition over the last two years.  Finally, he wished his partner good night, again telling her he loved her and hearing the same from her.  With a heavy heart, he placed the phone back on the charging unit. 

The boxes on the table whispered to him as he walked past them to get a beer from the fridge.  With nothing else to keep him occupied, he opened his Rolling Rock, dug a paring knife out of one of the kitchen drawers and neatly sliced through the tape on one of the boxes marked with his name.  With some trepidation he peeled back the lid and peered inside. 

He smiled fondly at the contents.  No monsters here, just the contents of his old desk.  He found his address book, mostly blank pages except for Sen. Matheson.  Matheson had lost his last election and was currently vying for a seat on the appellate court in Massachusetts.  Mulder silently wished his former mentor luck.  

There were bills now three years past due, a notice that his subscription to the Magic Bullet was due for renewal in June 2001, a few old magazines that he'd kept for the articles.  Hopefully it was Scully who had cleaned out his desk while he was in hiding in New Mexico, because he didn't see a single Celebrity Skin in the box.  

Since the first box had been so innocuous, he decided to tackle the second one.  Here he found the contents of the bottom drawers of his desk.  His gun locker, empty, but still useful.  They had a new gun locker for their weapons in Montana, and he'd been damned happy to have them the previous summer when a super soldier had kidnapped the twins.  But they didn't need two lockers, perhaps Skinner would know someone at the Bureau in need of a good one.  

Under the gun locker was his family photo album.  Because of the size, it was wedged into the bottom.  He tugged on it and something fell out of the binding.  A small velvet bag with a silk cord tie. 

His heart stopped.  Of all the nights to find this bag, he had to find it when the issue was so close to his thoughts.  With numb and stumbling fingers he loosened the silk strings and pulled open the small bag.  Holding his palm under the opening, he upended the bag, spilling the contents. 

A perfect one-caret diamond ring in a platinum setting sparkled as beautifully as it had the day he'd bought it.  Tucked in the bag was the receipt for the ring, kept so that the jeweler would size it to fit the intended owner's finger.  The ink on the receipt was starting to fade, but the image was still clear enough to read.  February 12, 1997.  Mulder thought back to the moment he stepped into the little jewelry shop on Wisconsin in Georgetown.  He'd just left Scully off at her apartment, secure in the knowledge that she intended to fight her cancer.  He still couldn't say what had come over him, but he'd stopped the car and walked to the store without conscious thought.  He found the ring, the perfect ring, in a selection of more than fifty other equally beautiful diamonds.  He pulled money out of his trust fund to pay for it.  And then, ever the coward, he'd hidden it in the back of his family album, waiting for the day when he could gather the courage to give it to Scully, to ask her to be his wife. 

Carefully dropping the ring back in the bag and laying it aside, Mulder opened the first of the boxes marked with Scully's name.  In another life, he would have been hesitant to open the box.  Days gone by when he found her hospital room empty and curiosity borne of guilt caused him to read a journal written directly to him but never meant for his eyes.  But now he felt bolder by years as more than just her work partner, as her life partner as well.  

Most of the box was similar to what he'd found in the first box.  Her address book, a 2002 calendar with William's and his birthdays marked with circles but with times listed only for William's pediatric checkups.  Flyers for take out food, another bad habit she'd picked up from him.  The normal detritus of a busy professional woman who had become a single mother through no fault of her own.   His heart ached as he looked at a snapshot, taken by a Polaroid camera, of William in the arms of a shopping mall Santa. 

He found an album, just as he'd had in his own desk.  He was startled when he opened the cover to find a note to him written in her florid style on the back of the cover. 

"Mulder, 

I know how much it hurt you to leave us.  But you have always been with us in our hearts.  I've collected this album for you, so that you may know your son as he was while you were gone. 

Happy Father's Day 

Scully" 

His throat closed up and he found his vision swimming with unshed tears.  With tender care, he turned the pages, wiping the dampness from his cheeks from time to time so that none of it would fall and mar the images beneath his trembling fingers.  Pictures of William as he remembered him -- a tiny bundle of arms, legs and head wrapped in a blanket that he had picked out on a whim.  Later pictures of William sitting in a car seat, William resting in the lap of Walter Skinner, friend and protector.  William with Monica Reyes and John Doggett, looking at a Christmas tree. 

Mulder closed the book as it ended, with a picture of William holding a huge chocolate Easter Bunny, all brown drool and happy three-tooth smile. 

How could she have given him up?  Rather to see him happy, healthy, than snatched from his family as Samantha had been.  He realized in that moment, as he never had before, the full weight of her decision.  Scully was simply trying to ensure that the past did not repeat itself in their lives. 

Mulder laid his head down on the cover of the album and cried himself to sleep. 

to be continued in Chapter 6

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