#bill scully

[aloysiavirgata]

Unremarkable house, Brother Bill, rooster

Mulder is in the big hammock out back, sprawled like a Roman Emperor. The chickens are out, pecking for bugs among the goat droppings. He has a lemon shandy in a frosty glass. He has a tomato sandwich with tomatoes from their garden and homemade bread. He has Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell next to him.

He has misgivings.

Scully enters his field of view, stage left, “Mulder, you’d better put those damn chickens away before he gets here, especially Francisco. That rooster is a complete menace.”

She glares at the enormous bird. They’ve had a few scuffles, she and Francisco. There have been Band-Aids and three stitches.

He slurps at his drink. “You don’t think your brother wants to see my big cock?”

She is silent for a long moment. Then, “I swear to God I will literally kill you, Mulder. I will shoot you and I will bury you out here and I will put a big gazebo over your grave and every time I sit in it I will think about how much you had it coming.”

She stalks back to the house.

“Jesus,” Mulder says to the chickens. “Someone is in a mood.”

***

It’s an awkward greeting, but not as awkward as he’d imagined. He and Bill have always hated each other, which makes it easy to pick up where they’d left off, like two enemy pirate captains running into one another at a bar in Tortuga.

Bill, per usual, looks like he was waiting for the Dulcolax to kick in. Douchebag plaid shorts that Rob Petrie wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot golf club.

He sweeps his sister up in a massive hug and she got rather teary and Bill, to his credit, looks a bit pink around the eyes and nose as well. He puts his sister down after a moment, smoothing her hair.

Bill and Mulder then acknowledge one another’s undeniable existence on the material plane. Shake hands like sulky but well-mannered children after a baseball game.

***

Now they’re on the deck while Mulder tends the grill, three gorgeous steaks from a neighbor’s cow before him.

“It’s beautiful out here, Dana,” Bill says.

“Mostly Mulder’s doing,” Scully replies, sipping at the wine her brother had brought. “He’s honestly a wizard with this property.” She glances at him when she says it and he smiles back.

“Really?” Bill says. “Well, color me impressed. Mulder, I had no idea you were such an adept little homemaker.”

Mulder moves the steaks to a serving platter. “Oh, sure. Dana just uses me for cooking, yardwork, and sex.”

Bill chokes on his beer and Scully closes her eyes for a beat the way Anne Boleyn must have when they led her from the Tower.

Mulder sets the platter on the table, uncovers the potato salad and the asparagus. Sourdough rolls and goat-milk butter.

“Now Bill,” he says, “you tell me if that steak is too rare and I’ll pop it right in the microwave for you. Let me know if you need anything else, some A-1 or ketchup or anything at all. I want you to feel at home.”

Absolute daggers in Scully’s eyes.

Bill coughs lightly. “Everything looks fantastic, thank you both.”

“It was good of you to make the drive, Bill,” Scully says, loading up plates with food. “I know it’s a bit of a haul.”

Bill smiles indulgently. “Couldn’t be this close to my kid sister after so long and not swing by!”

“Though we would have understood,” Mulder says, warmly. He butters a roll and passes it to his brother in law. “Never feel obligated.”

Bill narrows his eyes as he accepts the bread. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to need some new pictures of the kids,” Scully says brightly. “Matthew must have grown six inches since that school photo you sent, Bill! And Mom says Claire has lost two teeth.”

“I’ll tell Tara to send some,” Bill says, puffing up.

They eat in silence for a time. Knives cutting through the tender steaks and stabbing into waxy potatoes and young asparagus. Butter dripping down chins.

“It’s a shame William isn’t growing up here,” Bill says, wiping his plate with another roll. “Dana, how could-“

Her fork clatters to her plate and he shuts up.

A roaring silence like an event horizon.

“Bill,” Scully says, sweetly. “We have the most beautiful rooster to show you.”

[randomfoggytiger]

"BILL SCULLY"

*-*-*-*-*

The Bill Scully POV series, re-edited to fit canon's timeline. [Ao3]

Many thanks to @baronessblixen, who kept this series going; and to @justice-for-queequeg for the X-Cops prompt.

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 1-

"Mr. Mulder, I Know Something About You"

The first time Bill heard the name Fox Mulder was the day after his sister and her partner were sucked almost dry and hospitalized in Washington State for nearly two weeks. One fuzzy, panicked call from Tara and one fuzzier, harried call from his mother sketched in the slim details: Dana was on the mend, she’d been investigating a missing loggers’ case with her partner--

“What 'partner'? She’s in the field?”

She had been, for months. He’d forgotten to ask at their father’s funeral, convinced that her height and lack of experience had kept her teaching at Quantico.

“Dana's mentioned him once before, I think. You know how tight-lipped she is about her life.”

“Mom, do I need to come home? Is she….”

“No, Bill. But I’ll call you if she takes a turn for the worse.”

So, Bill stayed on board; and Dana got better, and Tara celebrated over the phone, and Maggie remembered the name: Fox Mulder.

*-*-*-*-*

The second time Bill heard the name Fox Mulder were the days following his sister’s abduction.

His mother talked of little else-- with Dana’s captor dead, any possible leads had died with him. There was nothing now but faith and hope.

“But I know Fox will call as soon as he finds her.”

Fox. His sister, Tara had told him, still called him Mulder. Then again, Tara’s attention was currently wrapped up in calendars and planners and endless negatives. For that matter, his was, too; and what little time he had to think of family he thought of her, alone, counting the rising costs of their countless tries, alone, while he worked as often as he could to cover those costs, alone. And his sister, somewhere, alone; and his mother back in Maryland, alone.

Dana and her former partner’s professional relationship wasn’t a top priority, or even a distant concern.

*-*-*-*-*

The third time Bill heard the name Fox Mulder was after promising his eldest sister that Tara would try her fertility herbs. His wife was curled up on one side, quiet, when Melissa stuck her toes in his other side, slyly smiling.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” she concluded, setting aside the herb pouch and pinning him with her eyes, “why haven’t you given Dana a call? She hasn’t said it, but she’s been expecting one.”

“Don’t start, Missy.” He’d have disengaged, too, but Tara’s head was pressing into his neck, a sure sign she was falling asleep. And sleep was precious these days, what with the hormone shots and regular appointments and never-ending stress. He’d promised to shoulder her troubles for nine more weeks; and whether this was a test or not, Bill Scully had and would never back down from his word.

Melissa, opportunistic woman that she was, had banked on it, waiting for her sister-in-law’s “dozing” tea to kick in before launching the subject. “Billy, you know you want to talk to her. What’s the problem? I mean, she almost… we almost lost her. Why can’t you let whatever you’re holding onto--”

“Miss--” he stopped, voice abruptly, temporarily, startling them both.

“You owe it to her, Bill. You two haven’t talked in months-- no one’s too busy to pick up the phone and call. It’s Dad all over again; but Dad was blind to what it did to us."

“And what about Dana? She's back on her feet and running straight toward her crazy cases and top-secret autopsies. You can’t point a finger at me without three pointing right back at her. At least I try to be there for my family.”

“You weren’t there when she was gone.”

He swallowed, angry and stung. “And who was, Melissa? You?”

Her toes gripped his hip, guilty. “Fox.”

*-*-*-*-*

The fourth time Bill heard Fox Mulder’s name was during his sister’s not-so-secret battle with cancer. His mother called often to vent and cry, unable to share her worries and pain with her only living daughter and unwilling to burden Tara with more stress.

Fox had become a footnote of late, so consumed was he and Dana in their work.

“Mom, how can you let Dana run herself down like that? She should be resting or looking into treatments-- anything rather than chasing after rag magazine cases half across the country!”

“Bill, not everyone can run to sea to escape their problems. Not even you.”

*-*-*-*-*

The fifth time Bill heard Fox Mulder’s name was after he’d met the man-- watched him fill Dana’s head with insane theories about chips and government conspiracies and backed off, awed, when Dana’s cancer miraculously went into remission.

He was roaming the halls, searching for coffee to wash down the remainder of his rage over Fox Mulder’s red eyes and dazed expression when he noticed another government type walk stiffly towards the nurse’s desk, brusquely flash a badge, straighten his stiff spine and stiffer tie, and promptly demand to see “Fox Mulder.”

“I know where he is,” Bill cut in, saving the nurse the hassle but still getting a glare for his trouble. “Bill Scully. How can I help you?”

“Yes-- I was sent to bring him back for questioning; and we’re expected in,” he looked significantly at his watch, “forty minutes. If you would take me to him--”

“Take Mulder where?” Bill snapped around to see Walter Skinner, A.D., striding over, eyebrows drawn and face grim.

“Yes, Sir. Agent Mulder is being called in for--”

“The committee’s been disbanded until further notice, Agent Colton; and until I have those further orders, my agents are not to be bothered or contacted while they are in this hospital. Is that understood?”

Bill watched the other man’s jaw lock, grind, and shift as it worked its stubborn way around “Understood, Sir.” Then Agent Colton turned tail and fled, heels thudding down the tile on their thunderous path to the elevator.

A.D. Skinner wasn’t done yet. “My apologies, Mr. Scully. That agent was out of line; and I'll see to it that your family isn't bothered again.”

It was best to nod and let the A.D. think he was frustrated with the intrusion.

Mulder could have been mid-conversation or on his way out by now. Instead, he would still be on that bench long after the family left. He seemed the type.

*-*-*-*-*

The sixth time Bill heard Fox Mulder’s name was over another phone call, mere months before the birth of his child.

“Bill Scully? You might not remember me, but my name’s Ethan, Ethan Minette, and Dana and I used to date back when, well rather, right after she was recruited by the FBI. She ever mention me? Yes? No? Anyway, not important. Calling about information you might possibly have on, lemme check… Fox? Mulder, yep, Fox Mulder. Dana’s partner? There was a case she was involved in recently, really gruesome, real Frankenstein abomination stuff; and Colton, Tom Colton? You know him? Dana’s friend? Anyway, we keep in touch, we’re related somewhat, you know? And he named you as a hot tip and I was wondering if you…. Yeah, yeah, I can wait.”

He and Tara fought afterward: Tara as big as a house, ready to cave the roof in.

“Dana’s coming for the holidays, Bill! And you two will spend the week in stony silence avoiding each other and, and Mom and I will have to try to keep the peace instead of celebrating our first Christmas as a growing family, and-- and how could you do that, Bill? After all Fox Mulder did for our family?”

Bill was lacking even to his ears; and, after cooler heads prevailed, he dialed Ethan back up and insisted his name be kept out of the article. Ethan talked doubly fast, banging a pen up and down every other word for emphasis as he cajoled and steamed about losing necessary credibility; but, inevitably, gave in.

“I’ll only do this because you’re Dana’s brother and she was a real sweetheart. But if I need to call you in future…?”

“I don’t have any more information.”

Dana skipped most of Christmas, anyway.

*-*-*-*-*

The seventh time Bill heard Fox Mulder’s name was when he flew in for Emily Sim’s hearing.

“I need him as a witness if I’m to have any chance getting custody of Emily,” Dana had stated carefully, meticulously avoiding eye contact. Bill still caught her bewilderment and fear… and joy.

“When’ll he get here?”

“Tonight, tomorrow… he didn’t say when, just that he’d be here.” He caught her smile, too.

“Dana…” Her head snapped up, and he paused. “We’ll be there.”

“Bill, you don’t have to--”

“We’ll be there, Dana.”

And they were.

And so was Fox Mulder.

Bill left with Tara, tired and emotional, and Maggie, displaced and confused, after exchanging silent, cursory greetings with his sister’s partner. While he slowly walked away, both women in tow, he heard a curt “Dana Scully and Fox Mulder” echo behind him.

And, in spite of everything, he sent up a prayer for both.

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 2-

"You Up For Joining Us?"

Bill had arranged it with Dana ahead of time: Dad’s first mates guarding the perimeters while Charles, Hessa, and the kids stood inflexibly in the middle.

As usual, their mom slipped away from the rules, tying her trembling bereavement to Dana's strength; and Tara drifted closer to him, burrowing tighter into his grip until Bill pulled her against his shoulder.

Charles’s grief hissed out in great huffs of air, Dana’s voice cut the silence with undetectable questions, and their mother's answers wobbled thinly, distant and dismayed.

“Bill, don’t you let go,” Tara whispered, both aware he was the one trembling.

And all Bill could think about was Melissa, taking the long route home over the vast, watery grave of the late Captain Scully.

*-*-*-*-*

The house was quiet: Dana had left immediately after the service to work, face closed and lips sealed; Maggie had slipped from room to room until she shut herself away to cry; and Charles had wrangled his pedigree wife and two sons into the car to revisit old Maryland Scully haunts.

“I should call Melissa,” Bill rasped, rubbing a hand across his eyes, wondering if his father would already have done so. So many “done so��s still to learn.

“I’ll give her a ring if she doesn't check in by five.” Tara plopped a husband-sized mug of childhood memories and cinnamon sticks to his side of the couch and pulled a wife-sized chair up next to him. “Why don’t you put your feet up, Sweetie? I made Mom’s apple cider you love.”

“How do you always know what to do?”

“Because I have you captured between… what did Dana say were the ribs right on top of the heart?”

“I can’t remember.” He sank down next to her, mood softening despite the Charles-shaped headache throbbing between his eyes. “Did you get to talk to her?”

“Mm, no. She was… I think she wanted to be left alone. She had her face on, y’know?”

“Angry? At you? What'd she say?”

“Nothing! She wasn’t... she was, y’know, withdrawn. Quiet. So, I left her alone.”

The couch, Bill realized, was comfortable; and he slipped his dress shoes off to half sit, half recline along the length of it. That, and the drink was good. “There’s something a little extra in this, Honey. What’d you put?”

“Dad’s ashes.”

Both of them snapped up at Charles’s voice, his towering torso and knitted brows appearing in the doorway a second later. “I’m driving Hessa and the kids back to the hotel. We still doing the photo albums?” The pretense was hollow: everyone knew he and the wife would find and excuse and be out before it got too dark.

Bill wondered why his brother still bothered. “Yeah, if Mom’s up for it.”

“Great. See you guys then.” The torso and scowl slid away, light steps tripping over themselves down the hall and out the slammed door after a few customary noises.

“Just couldn’t keep it to himself, could he? Had to spread it to everyone else.”

Tara sighed and reached for one of his cinnamon sticks. Both knew they were hers, anyway.

*-*-*-*-*

A few weeks after the police and the FBI and the press had turned his sister’s apartment upside down, Bill walked in and was nearly crushed by his mother’s fierce hug and flashing, determined eyes.

“Dana will be back soon, and you know how fastidious she is about her apartment. I want this place ready for her when she gets here.”

“Mom--”

“And we won’t argue about it, William Scully, especially when there’s work to be done.”

They worked until the moon streamed through the garishly taped window, sporadically reflecting off of tiny, bloodied specks of glass previously concealed in the carpet.

“Hidden in plain sight,” his mother had muttered; and Bill quickly distracted her with Melissa's spotty news and his and Tara’s five-year plan: a child hopefully by next year, or an incumbent relocation to better technology in California.

He didn’t tell her no one expected Dana to return, and that he and Tara decided to name their first daughter after his lost sister.

*-*-*-*-*

Melissa picked up on his fourth attempt.

“Billy, is something up? Mom called, but I’m usually not at this number--”

“Melissa, Dana’s back.”

“Day’s back? Where’d they find her? Is she okay?”

“She’s in a coma.” The seconds hand ticked louder and louder in his ears. “Look, Melissa, I know you hate hospitals, but Mom needs you there."

“Of course. I’ll join you three as soon as I can. Is Charlie with you? Tara, Hessa?”

“It’s just Mom.”

More silence, then a pitying, “Oh, Bill….”

“Can’t be helped, so keep an eye on them for me, Missy-- and leave the woowoo talk out. Mom has enough on her plate as it is.”

“I’ve got a bus to catch and a flight plan to figure out, so I'll be unreachable for a bit. And don’t call Mom because it’ll be quicker for me to get there. Love you, call you soon.”

“Love you, Miss.”

*-*-*-*-*

Melissa was back in California, whiling the hours away with tea and toffees for Tara until night fell and the latter went to bed. Bill found her stuffed in the corner of their temporary love seat, plucking contemplatively at the cheap threads poking from its arm.

“Burning the midnight oil? That’s more Dana’s style.”

She smiled warmly and leaned over to yank the pathetic thrift store cushion from Bill’s designated indent. “I haven’t had a talk with her like that for years. Now, she’s so…. She used to have such free-flowing energy, but she’s blocked all the paths off into their own, separate loops instead of connecting them back together. Like us." Melissa locked eyes, rebukingly shaking her head at the Scully stubbornness. "We just got her back, but we're all no different than we were right before Dad died.”

“Well, what do you suggest I do? Ditch Tara and fly across the country on the hope that Dana or Charlie will clear their schedules and meet up? I don’t have time to iron out the family problems anymore; and all you’ve gotten them to admit is that Dana wishes she had more time for us, and Charles only remembers we exist once or twice a year."

Melissa slowly nodded, blinking once, twice, in silence.

“Missy? Is there something wrong?”

“Mom had a dream again.”

He scoffed and looked at the ceiling in disbelief. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“It’s important, Bill. Mom had a dream like the one before Dana disappeared, only… she didn’t see who was in danger or why. And she’s frightened to death-- afraid it’ll happen all over again. And even if she were to tell Dana, Day's so closed off she won't listen to her inner voice anymore."

“Men and women put their lives on the line of duty every day, Miss, and nothing bad happens. The nut that took Dana lucked out on a one-in-a-million chance; and it won’t happen again no matter how many guys she puts away. If Dana wants to waste her second chance on the field and her superiors green light her antics, then there’s nothing I or you or Mom or even Charles can do to change her mind.”

Melissa fiddled with her fingers, spacey and distant. “It’s not just that, Billy. I’ve had a feeling lately.” She returned to the present, studying his face for a long moment before clutching, desperately, at his arm. “And it feels permanent.”

Her conviction was both moving and goading. “Then feel this, Missy: a year from now, Mom’ll be having nightmares about the baby crawling around this rat trap apartment until a house on base opens up. Dana will take just enough time off to visit for the holidays, Tara might dye her hair red again to fit into the Scully family Christmas photo, and we’ll all pretend you aren’t handing off hosting duties to your roommate while secretly keeping your niece to yourself.”

Melissa was charmed, if not relieved. “With our luck, it’ll be another boy. Besides, you and Tara want one, anyway.” Elbowing him playfully in the gut, she scooted over and shoved the pillow against his shoulder. Voice softening, she wistfully added, “But if it were a girl, I’d be devoted to her. We Scully women have so few people to look out for us.”

*-*-*-*-*

There was no Christmas, no baby, and no warning; only another somber gathering, one less family member, and a gray, lifeless inscription:

MELISSA

SCULLY

BELOVED SISTER

AND DAUGHTER

1962-1995

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 3-

"Think He'll Call You Tonight"

Charlie was the one that convinced their father.

“But Dad, Dana wanted a gun, too, and she’s really good at being careful, and she does everything else with us, and we have the money to get one, and it’s a really nice one, and Bill and I’ll keep an eye on her and teach her and make sure she doesn’t shoot anything that you told us not to--”

And whether or not it was his arguments or his enthusiasm that won out, Dana was surprised with a BB gun a couple months shy of her birthday, both boys brimming with pride over their recently emptied pockets.

Charlie saw the snake first; but Bill boldly grabbed it, tossed it into a shorter patch of grass, and took the first shot. The air rang with pings and tiny thuds as the snake absorbed pellet after pellet, writhing in pain and shock; until, finally, it stopped wiggling and lay still, limply waiting for death to claim it. Dana had walked towards their target-- Bill assumed for closer range-- and startled her brothers by weeping over the snake’s dead body in her tiny hands.

The attack of conscience was swift: their youngest sister, who was more prone to outraged anger than tears, broke down; and Charlie, who was more likely to cry than holler, yelled at Bill and ran off into the woods.

Their mother was no less furious than their father though Dana fessed up honorably-- refusing to let her brothers take all the blame. Both she and Bill apologized, took their punishment, and were forbidden from shooting until both parents deemed them more responsible.

Charlie didn’t reappear for hours. After dark everyone was worried; and the house and woods were canvassed until late into the night. It was Melissa’s idea to double back and check his room; and Dana who caught sight of his leg, dove under the bed spread, and grabbed him to her, apologizing over and over.

Bill noticed his brother never quite shook the quake in his hands before a shot.

*-*-*-*-*

Bill was out of the house before his brother reached the rebellious teen years. He was annoyed, nonetheless, when home would ring him or he’d ring home and Melissa would insist on telling Charlie’s latest scrape amidst laughter that cracked a sentence in three different places. Dana would take over and summarize her sister’s spotty narrative; and Maggie would hear the commotion from the hallway and insist on excusing some of his behavior.

Excusing. Bill heard that a lot.

Melissa never let anyone off the hook, including him. “Charlie and Dana have stories on you too, Billy, so I wouldn’t test either of their patience. He’ll be home any minute if you want to hear a few.”

“I’m good, thanks.” And the conversation inherently turned to a new thought experiment in Melissa’s collegiate classes or Dana’s impending graduation and solidifying plans for medical school.

*-*-*-*-*

Tara and he had just gone steady when Bill got Melissa’s letter. Grateful that she’d canceled their night out immediately, he’d hugged his sweetheart goodbye and booked it to the nearest payphone.

“Mom, he just met her; and now he’s going to throw away his future and marry the girl? What kind of sense does that make?”

“Bill--”

“I know you’re scared Mom, and Dad must be furious, what with Melissa dropping out and now Charlie--”

“William Scully, will you calm down--”

“Is that Bill?” That was Charles. “I want to talk to him, Mom.”

“Charlie, don’t make this a bigger deal than it needs to be.”

“He’s already poking his nose in, isn’t he? Huh? Making assumptions about Hessa and me behind our backs-- give it over, Mom, he can say it to my face--”

Bill hung up, unwilling to let the situation spiral out of control.

His father called a couple days later, fresh off the boat and abreast of the particulars. And sharply disappointed. “You’re going to fly over here when your command can spare you, and we’re going to talk through this thoroughly. Don’t ever put your mother in this position again, William.” 

The meeting took place in his parent's new home in Maryland, paint and pine sol and candles warring against each other for supremacy.

Charlie refused to try even one year of college, determined to bind himself to Hessa and break into the stock market with her godfather’s tutelage. “I figure facts and figures are my specialty,” he’d cheekily dismissed, “and where better to put them to use?”

Dana immediately lapped him by throwing out a few facts and figures he hadn’t contemplated; and Charlie, offended, had tried to deflect the uncomfortable moment by focusing on her recent, intimate knowledge of family planning and retirement. That's when Melissa had piped up with a pointed hint towards adolescent secrets their father was still ignorant of; and the focus was naturally shoved firmly back where it belonged.

Bill flew back to Maryland six months later, best man at his brother’s showy wedding, staring at the pew where his father, stone faced, mother, apprehensive, and sisters, irritated, sat. Melissa and Dana thawed for the bride, giving her a congratulatory kiss-- which she lightly returned-- while their mother welcomed Hessa as the newest Scully. But the captain only nodded, and Bill only smiled.

*-*-*-*-*

He and Tara were married, Melissa was somewhere around the world, Dana had dropped medical school for the FBI, and Charles and his two Baybrook-blooded kids were living off of his wife’s investment properties when the Scully patriarch suddenly and unexpectedly died.

Charles hadn’t revisited the past-- let alone his family-- but Bill knew the residual resentment from their father’s withdrawal lingered. Partly because Charlie’s college fund had not gone towards Charles’s investment projects, and partly because Captain Scully only privately acknowledged the marriage after the birth of his first grandchild. 

Given the state of their unsteady relationship, it was shocking that the late captain’s son was the only one who understood his father’s unorthodox cremation. 

“It makes strange sense, though I’ll bet Missy put it in his head.”

Tara, who had been quiet since the burial plans were announced, shakily looked up from her lap. “I think it was me. We were talking about Melissa’s book on Celtic traditions and practices a year or so ago; and I mentioned that I could have seen him being cremated if he were born a couple hundred years ago. I guess--”

They were silent, warring between irrational anger at Tara and higher reason. Bill hugged her to himself, shielding her unnecessarily, as Charles’s stare strayed from his sister-in-law to his father’s urn, thoughtfully distant.

*-*-*-*-*

It was Charlie who called two years later.

“Bill, she’s… she’s dead. Died, uh, thirteen hours ago. And… and, uh, Mom says she understands you won’t make it for the funeral… and.... She didn’t call me, Bill, either, because she thought Melissa’d pull through. And Dana’s back-- Dana was off the grid for a bit. We think the guy that got Melissa was after… anyway, one of us’ll call back with details when we can. …I’m sorry, Bill.”

*-*-*-*-*

A switch had flipped after Melissa’s death: while Bill was at sea, the absent siblings spent more time at home. Charles had-- Tara reported-- became a regular, doubly so a regular philanthropist. He helped Maggie patch up various expenses, recommended his wife’s hairdresser to Dana and covered the difference a few times, and funded Tara’s recuperative trips to and from Maryland and California between grueling trials and pregnancy tests.

“Are you doing okay, Mom?” Bill asked, spending yet another Saint Patrick’s Day on yet another floating hunk of metal.

“Hmm. Melissa was going to throw a party today. Did you know that? She started a new tradition after Dana was returned last year.” Her breath came raggedly over the line. “I miss her, Bill. And your father." 

“Yeah, Mom.”

She paused, then sighed a long, sad sound. "Are you going to be alone for the holiday?”

“Some friends are throwing a celebration later. One of them even looks like Charles, strangely. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

“I know, Bill. I’ll let the others know you thought of them.”

“Okay, Mom. Bye.”

*-*-*-*-*

Dana’s cancer blindsided all of them.

Maggie let out the secret in tears a few weeks after Dana began and ended her treatment, heated and lost and afraid. “She won’t try chemotherapy anymore because she wants to work-- she just pretends it doesn’t exist and refuses to talk about it. I don’t understand her, Bill. And I don’t know how to tell Charlie because he feels they’ve gotten so close over the last few months. It’ll hurt him; and I don’t want to hurt my baby.”

Bill, so furious he was calm, told her to fly out to Tara. “I know she’ll enjoy having you around, Mom. And maybe Dana will decide to share it with us on her own.”

Dana did not tell anyone else, choosing instead to pretend nothing was wrong: congratulating Bill and Tara on their impending parenthood, sloughing off Maggie's subtle references, and running around thoughtlessly while her health weakened and worsened.

A day before Bill’s arrival, his mother called: Charles had finally been told; and-- at the mention of late-stage cancer-- hadn’t taken it well, venting choice words about being the last to be considered before hanging up. 

Neither he nor Hessa joined them for Dana’s last supper. Despite the desperation of the next few days, he'd remained withdrawn and unreachable.

*-*-*-*-*

“Charles? It’s Bill-- Dana’s in remission. She asked me to give you a call in case you wanted to drop by. We’re calling it a miracle, Charlie. A new beginning, Dana said. If you want.”

For once, Bill was happy her paranoid partner was there to keep his sister company-- anything to distract her from picking up the phone, dialing, and getting bad news on top of good.

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 4-

"You're Not Here, Dana-- You're a Million Miles Away"

He didn’t know what had gone wrong.

Dana was fine at the airport. She'd been chatting, laughing even, fresh off the plane, debating some feminine topic with their mother as the two wheeled their luggage closer and closer to the exit. Catching his eye, she’d lit up-- like a firecracker, as Melissa used to say-- and even quickened her pace to soak up “a Big Brother Bill hug”-- another Melissa maxim which rubbed off on the rest of the family.

Maggie had deferred the passenger side; and the three of them chit-chatted and caught up on the drive to the base. They’d asked spirited questions about Tara while Bill, per his wife’s specific instructions, refused to give away any hints about how big she’d gotten. “He’s a dad already,” smirked Dana. The teasing and good-natured snipes trailed after them until they turned the last corner.

Everyone had been delighted with each other, Tara had had her fun surprising her guests, and no one had seemed, in his mind, bothered about the sleeping arrangements.

It was the phone call that did it, he realized: Dana had come charging up the stairs, tense and distraught, insisting on driving someplace he knew she’d never been before. Somewhere he’d never been before, either, for that matter.

“Bill-- I had a call, just now. I need to take the car.” In hindsight, she’d been unnaturally pale, nails digging into the stair railing.

He'd taken her, of course. He’d taken her despite how vague her story sounded, waited outside the crime scene until Dana finished poking around, heard her pronouncement-- a voice that sounded like Melissa’s-- then driven her home. She’d remained tight-lipped about what had happened; but that was to be expected: nothing had come from their detour other than a sense of confused embarrassment. They’d both silently moved on from it as soon as possible.

It was after the phone call that she'd begun to withdraw.

*-*-*-*-*

Tara went to bed early: up at four and likely tidying and cleaning until their guests arrived after noon, the day had caught up with her-- so Bill supposed-- after the last of her luxurious dessert disappeared from the plate. That, and his sister had sat quietly through the meal, seeming bruised rather than pleased during his wife’s happy monologue at dinner.

“Bill, is everything okay with Dana?” Tara sighed as he helped maneuver her around the temporarily cramped room. “She’s been awful quiet since you two returned from the crime scene.” 

“I think she’ll be okay. Probably just processing.”

“So I didn’t offend her?”

Bill stopped pulling the quilt back, turning to assess how badly his wife’s feelings had been hurt. “It’s the case, Honey, don’t worry about it. You know how I get about work sometimes--”

“But Bill, this seems different. Maybe she was hurt, somehow, by what I was saying about a family or becoming a mom; or she feels guilty because Melissa’s not here.”

“If it’s more than just the case, Mom’ll get it out of her; and if it’s about us, Mom'll fill us in later. I don't think there's cause for worry, Sweetheart.”

Tara sighed, sat down on the bed, and reluctantly smiled as he bent to take off her comfortable house shoes. “You’re so good to me, Bill. I just want this Christmas to be perfect-- it’s the first since… well, a few firsts since.”

“The past few holidays have been hard on us Scullys. We’re due a really, really good one.”

“Baby here included?”

“I thought he was supposed to arrive after Christmas.” Their son was supposed to be here already. 

“You’d better hope it’s a boy then, Bill Jr., because the Scully women seem to have a mind of their own.”

He nodded, grabbing her empty glass to refill downstairs. “Still thinking of Melissa for the name?” The old game had been exhausted, months ago; but they moved it forward, regardless, in darker moments. 

She smiled, reaching out to catch his arm and pull him closer. “As long as we’re still thinking of Matthew for a boy.”

*-*-*-*-*

Melissa was an inescapable presence this Christmas. She lingered like a benevolent ghost, lounging on the sofa from the corner of his eye or twinkling companionably from the photographs displayed around the house.

The creaking floorboard, however, was a reminder that Dana, not Melissa, was up and wandering. It was after midnight at least, but she was probably still on East Coast time, Bill assumed; or, of course, she was taking a private call and would be flying out when it was light. Try as he might, the thought that his remaining sister would be called back to work with Mulder-- away from her family, over the holidays, after a miraculous cancer remission-- made his blood boil.

He waited up after the car drove off, arguing himself out of calling Ethan Minette back to retract his retraction.

Dana had never been good at sneaking out; and he listened to her tiptoe back in before sunrise, settle in the dining room, and stay there as the minutes, then hours, ticked by.

The morning newspaper thudded against the front door, the sun began to rise, Bill slid down before his military wife or mother could wake and start the day.

“Dana?”

*-*-*-*-*

He knew disappointment should be second-nature by now with Dana and promises she couldn’t keep. Likely, the sting was keener because Melissa, for as flaky as she’d been, had never pretended or promised to be someone she wasn’t: she coasted in and out of their lives whenever the mood struck but always with a tenderness to their fixed positions. Even Charles didn’t hide who he was or what he’d decided behind a false front. His littlest sister, meanwhile, passed herself off as stalwart and dependable before jerking left and ditching medical school, the FBI mainstream, and familial obligations.

“Alright,” he’d agreed. “Lunch!” And she’d tightly smiled; and left.

Although this was her work and her business, it was quickly becoming the family's problem: Tara, puzzled by this impossible situation, did her best to distract Maggie by hostessing her around; and Maggie, tight lipped whenever Dana’s name came up, tried to talk over ruffled feelings and assure everyone her daughter would be there for the Christmas party, of course, so nice to meet friends of Tara’s, they were such nice people, reminded me of the Stotes family we knew in ‘75, remember them, Bill?

It was the Scullys' first Christmas after so much grief and miraculous second chances-- his and Tara’s as much as Dana’s-- and still, Dana flaked.

“It’s work, Honey. You know how that is,” Tara reassured, taking on the previous night's role of comforter. “God and country come first in your jobs.”

It wasn’t country Dana was putting first. Or God.

Bill kept these thoughts to himself, let Tara pull back the covers for him tonight. He even smiled when she promised to refill his empty glass of water after New Year’s.

“After New Year’s,” he agreed.

*-*-*-*-*

Dana left with Detective Kresge before Bill finished an insignificant morning errand.

“She didn’t even say hello to you or Tara, just left? I thought she wanted this vacation, Mom.”

“Dana does, Bill. She’s just… going through a hard time right now.”

“And she doesn’t want to share that with us? Just wants to sleep here most nights and leave in the morning before I can even say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’?”

And it had come tumbling out. Dana and Maggie, huddled at the table mere hours ago, denying and insisting about PCR tests and a long-lost Scully daughter.

“I know Melissa, Bill-- she would’ve never had a child without telling me. Dana is believing in this possibility because she sees that little girl as a chance that was… taken away from her. And,” she paused, gripping her arms and steeling her voice, “I know my babies. I know myself. There were so many small things after your father passed…. Sometimes, I’d see him from the corner of my eye, smiling at me; or I’d hear his voice late at night, announcing he’d suddenly arrived back from deployment.”

“But, Mom--”

“Yes, I know they weren’t real; but there are things that feel real, and your sister is struggling with them right now. This Christmas has been hard, Bill, as much as we do our best to make it a beautiful time for you and Tara and the baby. Dana has more than the loss of her father and her sister to wrestle with.”

*-*-*-*-*

The day passed in preparation for the evening’s party, more decorations and more food and more people filling up the space before Bill could take a moment to relax. An innocent remark about his late father flew completely over his sister’s head; and, tired of walking on eggshells, he asked her to help him in the kitchen.

Careful Billy, you meddler, Melissa used to tease. Perhaps that was her version of wisdom; and perhaps he should have remembered it before his directness came across as accusation, slipping from one point of irritation to the next without tact or grace.

You know Dana hates how direct we are, Billy: it shoves her into a corner that she can’t escape from.

It’s never stopped you, he'd said.

Yeah, well, why do you think she doesn’t ask me for advice very often? she'd replied, poking him companionably.

Bill mumbled their back and forth, alone, with somber fondness.

*-*-*-*-*

He’d been given the picture shortly after Melissa became a more permanent fixture in their lives.

“It’s a good one, isn’t it? Had it taken before… you know.”

They’d been sitting in his rattrap apartment listening to Tara prattle to one of her girlfriends about how happy she was to unpack the last of their things-- relaxed and hearty and if not happy then something close to it. Their little sister’s abduction and return had unsettled them, unsettled him; and her quick recovery and dogged insistence on going back to work soon, too soon, rankled. But Bill had finally given in and called up Dana at Melissa’s insistence-- the wound, though it remained, was healing.

“I never understood why you left for so long without at least calling more than once in a while.”

“Bill, I just… I needed to resettle after Dad died. You all were there for Mom, even Charlie; but I….” She shrugged, changing the topic by pointing at the photograph. “My friend took that right before I had to jump in the car to go. She said, ‘Think of a beautiful memory and I’ll capture it forever’; and the most beautiful thing I could think of was the smile you flashed me after I threw an orange right between Harry Pinklewhit’s eyes.”

He’d laughed in spite of her non-answer; and their conversation drew Tara in, who’d also laughed at nine-year-old Melissa’s incredible throwing arm.

Bill didn’t feel like smiling when he’d handed over that photograph to Dana, the question of Melissa's legacy laid to rest in the replica of his sisters' girlhood bedroom. He and Tara, his mother, and Melissa had been where Dana now stood-- defying the inevitability of loss. Painful as it may be, the facts would give her an opportunity to grieve and move on.

Standing in the doorway as Dana, rebellion and determination in her eyes, slid past him with the social worker, Bill wondered when-- or if-- she would ever accept it.

*-*-*-*-*

The three had resolved not to question his sister further. If she was pursuing adoption, then a decision would be finalized either way; and in the end, this Christmas was about the four of them.

“Five”, Bill amended; and Tara had teared up and given him a big hug.

Determined to have a good time on Christmas morning, even if the youngest Scully might get up and walk out on a moment’s notice, they’d flocked in, woken Dana, and pounced on the presents before she’d completely defogged-- a strategy unintentionally spearheaded by Tara. Seizing the opportunity, Bill swept along beside her, kneeling down to hand over the biggest present she'd been drooling over for the past month. His mother gravitated to Dana, snuggling up next to her on the couch; and teamwork or group effort or separate but uniting plots seemed to successfully keep his sister from bolting.

Until he’d gleefully stumbled to the door and inadvertently shepherded in Dana’s latest twist in the case.

“According to this… I… am Emily’s mother.”

And what could anyone say to that?

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 5-

“You're Only Going to End Up Hurting Yourself”

The first time Bill Scully saw Dana’s child was after the hearing.

Maggie showed him Emily’s picture in passing-- though when or how she’d gotten it, he hadn't known-- mumbling, “I said she doesn’t look like Melissa; but she does, doesn’t she, Bill?” Mulder’s car drove up then; and his mother dashed off to put the photo back.

While Dana and her partner spilled out and wove around each other-- indescribably in-sync shadows-- Bill thought, Yes, she does look like you, Melissa-- more like you than Dana.

*-*-*-*-*

He allowed Mulder to stay past polite visiting hours, maintaining a silent, though stern, distance. Because of this man's testimony, Dana stood a chance. Her daughter stood a chance.

“Bill, I’m so tired,” Tara whispered, massaging her drooping head with both hands. She looked up, eyes clouded with confusion and grief-- for Dana, for this little girl, for their first Christmas as a growing family. “I just want to get some sleep.”

His own headache seemed to radiate from the top of his skull to the slope of his shoulders: everything tensed, everything ached. Wearily standing, he nodded. “Then let’s get you to bed, Honey.”

“He won’t think it’s rude?”

“I don’t think the normal standards apply to him, Tara. It’s late, anyway.”

They lumbered to the staircase, fatigued, when his sister poked through the doorway. “You guys okay?”

Of course they weren’t. His sister was murdered. His other sister had an unidentifiable chip in her neck. His brother had only recently started speaking to him-- “A gift, for bygones” the Christmas box had read. His wife’s hard-won holiday was shot. His baby was due two weeks ago. His little sister had a daughter that wasn't hers. His mother was almost sick with worry. The pain never stops.

“Could you take Tara’s other arm so we can…?”

And Dana did, like he knew she would: a need to be of use. Perhaps as penance, for everything.

*-*-*-*-*

He should have expected Dana and Mulder would vanish in the night.

He woke a fitful hour later to the surprise of an eerily quiet house; and was still more surprised that the two of them had not simply dropped into a deep sleep on the couch rather than… wherever they’d gone. He didn’t know which outlook was more grim: the thought she’d followed her partner back to his motel or the suspicion that they were both chasing down another lead in the Sims’ case.

It was after eight when the phone rang, about the time his mother would be up and about.

“Hello? Um, it’s Dana… Mom, if you can pick up the phone--”

“Dana? It’s Bill.”

He heard her long sigh through the wire, wondered how many times she’d watched the clock to increase her odds of avoiding him. “Bill. Hi.”

“Where are you, Dana?”

“I’m… at the hospital. Emily’s sick.”

The pain never stops. “She is? How sick-- what happened?"

“I don’t know. She has a rare disorder that was being treated before her parents’ murder. We don’t… we’re working on a thorough diagnosis right now so we can cure her.”

“Do you want us to be there with you?”

“No. No, I, uh, think it’s best that you and Mom and Tara keep your distance, for now. Until we know something.”

“Is her condition communicable?”

“Bill…. It’s safer if you three stay away.”

“Dana.”

“...Yes?”

“We’ll pray for her.”

*-*-*-*-*

Maggie intended to call Dana after lunch, but by eleven o’clock the three of them had checked into labor and delivery. By four, Dana still hadn’t answered her phone; and by five they were transferred to a private room.

“Mom, leave it!” Bill yelled, his wife’s excruciating grip sapping away the last reserves of his patience; but it was Tara’s pleading “Mom,” that drew her back.

It was late when his sister reconnected; and, with labor stalled and an epidural in, he nodded-- with his wife's go-ahead-- at Maggie, who hurried to wherever the Sim girl's ward was and back in under forty minutes.

Matthew was over six hours old before Dana called again. From his periphery, Bill watched his mother grab the phone and dodge into the hall as Tara shifted slightly in her sleep. His all-consuming focus, however, was on the quiet baby in his arms-- staring at his son’s tiny, clenching fists; wondering if his baby hairs would rust like his sisters’ or darken like his own.

He didn’t glance up when Maggie reentered and approached; but he snapped to attention when her quivering exhale broke the silence.

Tears were streaming down her red cheeks, black makeup smearing in small splotches around her eyes.

“Bill….”

Emily was gone.

*-*-*-*-*

Dana poured her grief into meticulous planning. Despite wanting to do more, the family was only allowed to assist with sorting paperwork and dialing up Bill's priest for the funeral service.

Between baby Matthew’s homecoming, Tara’s recovery, new parenthood, and necessary arrangements, it took over a week before Bill realized Mulder no longer came to the house.

*-*-*-*-*

The first time he saw Dana's child in person was at her wake.

She was Melissa-blonde-- the red not yet prominent enough to shift her from strawberry to flaming-- and Dana chubby. Her pretty little dress still smelled new, its blue perfectly complementing the small, gold cross necklace draped across her neck.

Bill stood silently by as the funeral director lowered the coffin lid, refusing to think about the fact he’d never gotten to look into his niece's eyes.

*-*-*-*-*

New flights were booked two days before Emily’s funeral; and two days after, his mother and sister were packing for their return trip back to D.C.

“D.C.? Don’t you want to spend time with Mom in Maryland?”

Dana had paused and straightened to her full height. “No. My extended leave is almost up. Besides, I need to get back to work.”

“Back to work? You want to go back to work after everything?”

“Bill,” she snapped; then deflated, slumping onto the bed. “I can’t have this discussion right now.”

“Dana… we almost lost you, we’ve lost Melissa-- now Emily’s buried in my church cemetery. When will it be enough?”

“Bill, please. Don’t.”

She was going to cry. With the lack of sleep, the unreality of the past few weeks, and the infuriating nature of this impossible situation, even he might cry.

As if on cue, Matthew’s wails and Tara’s animated shushes floated down from the master bedroom, by turns swiftly grieved and swiftly soothed. Bill stood, half-in and half-out of Dana's door, trying to fathom the overwhelming protective surge that coursed like fire under his skin. In a split second, something ripped or erected or split apart-- hard to define, but powerful in its finality.

Turning to walk away, he added, “Fine. But tell Mom not to call me when you’re in trouble again, Dana-- I won’t lose my child, too.”

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 6-

"Creating This Whole Scenario to Fulfill a Dream"

He'd crunched the numbers again three weeks after Dana left, woken in the darkest hours of the morning by nightmares of his sister’s likenesses swallowed up in cold little graves.

Tara and Matthew found him at the table later, head in his hands and papers strewn about in anger.

"Bill...." She stopped, drew to his side, dribbled tears onto his hair.

"We were supposed to have a little Melissa.” He groaned, thumbing his eyelids.  

"We could always--" Tara suggested weakly, stopping short when Bill grunted violently.

"None of them will be like her.” Dana’s her. “With Missy’s smile. Or hair. Or face.” 

"I know, Honey. I know."

*-*-*-*-*

Bill stopped asking questions.

On Sundays, he stood before a God that impossibly created human life in under a month. On every fourth Sunday, he stood before Emily’s headstone and read Sim over and over until his eyes burned.

*-*-*-*-*

Tara-- lovely, exhausted, but determined Tara-- shoved Matthew at him and disappeared into the attic the day she hit eight weeks postpartum. Reappearing twenty minutes later sweaty, winded, and just as determined, she lugged Emily Sim's box of belongings in her wake, politely demanding her husband unpack it.

Emily had more drawings than toys: incomprehensible sketches in crayon or marker or even ink were stacked thickly in unassuming animal folders, one a face, another a misspelled object. Emily, Seven Months or Emily, Age Two decorated the bottom right of most pictures in careful cursive. Bill found he couldn't begrudge her adopted mother this, at least.

There were only two photo albums-- the misplaced Scully having been an only child-- and most photographs captured scattered holidays, birthdays, and yet another trip to the hospital.

It was Bill who discovered the tape first, resurrecting Emily Sings Us Her Song from layers of packing like a holy relic. He dragged Matthew's bassinet next to the couch and attacked the VHS system with a vengeance. Tara just managed to lay their son down properly when he flipped the remote around and pressed play.

*-*-*-*-*

Emily was on her second chorus of "The Mice Ate the Cake While the Rat Was Away" when Bill felt Tara press close. He lifted an arm up, squeezed her closer, and secured her tight to the spot northeast of his heart.

"What is it?" she asked, her hand rubbing circles wherever it flitted and landed. They both knew he was shaking.

"She's--" Bill admitted in relief, "--she's nothing like either of them, Honey. Melissa was watchful; and Dana was serious. She's too... solemn."

His wife nodded slowly. "And sad."

They watched Emily pause her drawing, look over her shoulder, and loop the chorus once more.

"And sad."

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 7-

"Because the FBI Has Nothing to Hide"

Charles hadn't bothered to call or catch up since New Years; nevertheless, the phone went off an hour after Matthew's head finally hit the pillow.

"Bill, you catching the COPS episode tonight?"

Bill, wrist-deep in receipt sorting, was not.

"Dana and her partner are on the air." And Charlie laughed and laughed, tears mingling with his wheezes while Bill yelled "What?" and stumbled from the kitchen to the couch.

Agent Mulder. He should have known. "Catch... catch him?" Dana's partner mumbled, pointing diffidently at a sketch of.... No.

Bill's stream of consciousness must have broken a new record because Charlie was now guffawing and Tara was whispering violently from the other room. Eyes glued to his sister's awkward relay of their superior’s directive, he barely registered either. 

"'Nothing to hide'?" he exploded. "Wasn't Skinner the assistant director at the--" Bill caught the word back before the moment soured over past cancers and absences. "Why's he-- why's Dana still participating in this--"

"C'mon, Mulder, do the werewolf stance again!" Loud slaps echoed through the wire: Charlie was either smacking his thigh or the wall in unbridled ecstasy. "She hid behind the EMT door, Bill, you should have seen it."

Mulder did much worse: release a litany-- an irrepressible ramble-- on the technicalities of werewolves. Bill, Christianity lost in rage, bellowed, "Oh, for--"

"Bill!" Tara hissed, head shooting through the doorway. He jolted, mouthed a sorry, and miserably watched her eyebrows scrunch skywards in recognition. "Hey, isn’t that Dana on the tv?" 

"Always wanted to be a cop when I was younger," his brother drawled, voice touched with regret. "Just couldn't trust 'em after their behavior during my truancy period."

"And you thought Wall Street was a more honest profession?" Bill scoffed. The anger of losing a hundred-dollar sure investment-- how many years ago was that? Too many-- would burn until his dying day.

"Can it, Bill."

But Charles said it like he used to; and they hung up friends.

*-*-*-*-*

-CHAPTER 8-

"I've Already Lost One Sister to This Quest You're On"

It would be easy to miss anyone amidst the tidal wave of Saturday morning shoppers. Head down, leaning over a folder, Fox Mulder looked like every other slim, dark-haired American male knocking back a burger and soda.

Bill, eagle-eyed and resentful, picked him out from across the food court.

Mulder hadn't noticed his approach; and, not one to pass up an opportunity, Bill slapped a food tray on the table loud enough to startle. He was pleased when Mulder twisted upright with shock and a touch of outrage pinched in the corners of his mouth.

“Mr. Mulder.”

“Bill.”

A few years ago, Dana's partner would have hunched defensively, posturing against oncoming judgment. Now, he seemed roughened, gazing warily out from under distrustful forehead lines and disheveled, sharply cut hair. His sleeves were too large; and he pushed them further up his forearm as his eyes carved unblinkingly into Bill's. 

“Dana with you?”

“Yeah.”

Of course she was. When wasn’t she.

Tara had run into her in the deli aisle. From his wife’s tactful “two salads, two sandwiches, and two cups of dessert”, it didn’t take a math degree to deduce his sister was still traveling in pairs. Bill figured if he found one of them, he’d attract the other.

Hence, the impromptu lunch meet.

Mulder watched, without disguise, while he pulled the cart close and sat in the only available chair; then, shrugging, took another bite of the thickly wrapped, thickly layered burger Dana most certainly hadn't wasted money on.

“On a case?”

“Yes.”

“Staying long?”

“We have a flight out this afternoon.”

Of course.

Ripping off a poptart wrapper, Bill grunted. “Was she planning to stop by, or was that too out of your way?”

He watched Mulder’s jaw clench, unhinge. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“I’d have to see her first.”

“You saw her at Christmas.”

“And then work came up.” He leveled a glare across the table, refused to back down when it was leveled back.

“Not every Christmas, Bill.”

“Yeah. Just the big ones.”

Mulder’s chair scraped backward, its raucous jerk spinning a few heads. Bill figured he had about five seconds before his chance to see Dana turned tail and stormed off.

“Mr. Mulder.” As expected, the other man politely paused mid-sweep, hand poised around a hill of crumbs. “I’m not here to argue. I just want to see her.”

To his credit, Dana’s partner digested his words, and sat-- albeit stiffly, with clear intent to ignore.

In silence, they waited.

And waited.

“She said she’d be awhile,” Mulder disclosed, working his way through a mound of fries.

“She usually doesn’t take this long.” Pivoting in his chair, Bill scanned the room. Even if she were close, her head wouldn’t clear the shoulders crowding together.

“She does when it’ll be awhile.”

“Mr. Mulder, I know her. Dana’s up and out the house in under an hour, back from an errand in under two. Always has been.”

“When she has to be. Scully usually prefers to take her time.”

There was no mistaking the challenge in that ambiguous statement; but Bill swallowed his response and counted it for glory.

“She loved these as a kid,” he abruptly confessed, pointing at the unfinished half of his poptart. “We’d fight over the brown sugar ones. When she was really little, Dana’d get mad and try to argue it wasn’t fair I got the bigger piece because I was older. So, Mom gave her have one all to herself. That cured her. Dana’s always been sensitive to junk food. Makes sense why she became a doctor.”

Mulder was still, posture slowly unwinding as he balled up the food trash and nodded once.

“Charles stole a couple cookies from the jar one time and needed an accomplice to help finish them. He begged her; but she didn’t want to feel 'sugar sick' later, so refused. After he was punished, Melissa caught Dana crying about it in her room.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t know the answer after seven years with her, Mr. Mulder, you never will.” It was a cheap shot, Bill owned, but earned.

His opponent flinched but didn’t waver. “She felt she’d let him down.”

“She always was a little Mother Teresa.”

Mulder tilted forward, elbows planted on top of his reading material. “Is that what you think she does? Make her choices based on the weak and wounded? Find a charity case and become its bleeding heart?”

“I think you underestimate her nature.” Plowing over Mulder's snort, he insisted, “You buy her unbeatable act because it allows you drag her across the country no matter how much pain she's in. Dana would rather die than admit defeat. And I think you feed her inclination to go above and beyond so that it won't become a solo act, chasing your little...."

It was too hard to keep anger alive, the recollection of darker times grim and sobering.

"Little green aliens," Mulder finished. “If that’s what you believe, then you don’t know your sister, either.”

When he stood this time, both knew Fox Mulder wasn’t coming back. But he stayed a moment, contemplating, before reaching out to briefly touch Bill's shoulder. "But... you can, Bill. You can know her."

Without another word, he tossed his trash, offered a parting nod, and walked away, head disappearing above the crowd as he meandered further and further off.

And Bill sat, and waited, and wondered.

*-*-*-*-*

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

Tagging: @today-in-fic.

[cecilysass]

Honest Man (3/3)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 3

When it’s obvious Bill is down for the count, Mulder follows Scully back out into her living room. She doesn’t pause to look or speak to him. She marches straight into the kitchen and begins to wordlessly fill up a glass of water at the sink.

“Scully,” he begins, unsure of what he’s about to say.

“Sounds like you’ve had an exciting evening,” she interjects crisply.

“Yeah. Exciting.” He steps sideways to attempt to gauge her expression, but she’s facing the sink.

“You gave Bill marital advice?”

“Yeah, I–” Mulder shrugs. “I did. He asked. I guess he and Tara had a fight. I, uh, wasn’t sure what to say, but he insisted. I did the best I could.”

She watches the water glass fill with laser focus. “Then I guess I’ll know how to explain it to Mom if they end up divorcing,” she replies without affect.

“Yeah,” Mulder says glumly.

“Thank you for driving him here tonight,” she says formally.

“Uh, of course.”

“Apparently it ruined some plans.”

“Scully,” he says plaintively. “It wasn’t … a date.”

She turns from the sink to regard him frostily, and he feels like he’s lying to her, although he isn’t. “It wasn’t,” he repeats.

She looks like she wants to say something, but thinks better, pinching her lips together. She sets the water glass on the counter.

“Bill thought I was on a date, but I wasn’t,” he adds.

She turns around, showing her back to him again, to close the cabinet. Then she rests her palms on the countertop, appearing to closely study the design of her own kitchen shelving.

Her small, silk-covered shoulders rise and then fall.

“You know, I bet I can guess this story,” she says in a strange, distant voice. “You met up with Diana Fowley after work because she had some important information about the X-files that she said she had to share right away. On a Friday night. Over drinks.”

He sighs. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Of course, you didn’t mention this work-related meeting to me this afternoon at work.”

“No, you’re right. I didn’t.”

She doesn’t move, her back still to him. He suspects she intended to place the glass of water on the bedside table next to Bill, but she doesn’t touch it again. She just leans against the countertop, as though collecting herself.

Mulder knows she’ll be angry at what he says next.

“Diana asked me to do some unofficial fieldwork for the X-files. She thinks if I do, if she can put it together into a convincing report—”

“She can request you back on the X-files,” Scully finishes, her head bobbing up and down in a knowing nod. “As her partner. Right?”

“Right,” Mulder says, a lump in his throat. “Exactly.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Scully turns around now, and with a jolt he sees there are tears streaming down her face, though her expression is neutral.

“We both know what’s going to happen,” she says flatly.

Mulder is dumbfounded. “Do we?”

“Of course,” she says sharply. “You’ll do it. You’ll be her partner. It’s what you want, isn’t it? You told me what your priorities were on our first case. The X-files come before anything and anyone else. I know perfectly well that includes me.”

Mulder is appalled to hear his own words cited back to him like that. It’s not an especially pretty picture she presents, of a man so single-minded, so disloyal that he would so predictably toss aside his partner of six years, his best friend.

“I’m sure she made all kinds of implicit promises to help assuage any discomfort you might have.” Scully’s words grow venomous, full of more overt anger than she normally reveals. “She offered to give you a little more than just the X-files, too, didn’t she? She made it very hard to refuse? Made you feel like you wouldn’t be lonely?” She places her hands over her face in apparent regret. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That’s … unnecessarily petty of me. I’m not thinking straight.”

Mulder shifts weight from one foot to another, watching uncomfortably as she hides her face. He isn’t sure he should tell her that her guess about Diana was so on target.

“Scully, she expressed concern for your career,” he points out gently instead. “She argued that you would be able to get a better placement in the Bureau. Which is true, and something I wish you would think about.”

Scully lets her hands drop from her face and looks at him incredulously. “Is that what she said?”

“Yes,” Mulder says, “and while it’s true that—”

“Mulder,” she interrupts with a bitter laugh, “you’re fortunate that violent criminals are usually men, because you can be truly terrible at profiling women.”

He’s taken aback. “Am I terrible at profiling Diana? Or am I terrible at profiling you?”

She looks up at the ceiling, considering for a moment, then drops her gaze down to meet his eyes again defiantly. “Both.”

He feels something crucial is being lost in this conversation. He’s getting this wrong, for sure. “It’s not like I told Diana yes.”

She smiles humorlessly. “You didn’t tell her no either, did you?”

“Well … I didn’t say those words, no.”

“So, what, you did an interpretive dance?”

Brushing past him out of the kitchen, she speeds into the living room, Bill’s glass of water apparently forgotten. Mulder follows behind her.

“Listen,” she continues in a different, more placating tone, “I’m not angry. Not really. You’ve always been upfront about who you are.” She turns to look at him with a sad smile. “I shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

She means this to be conciliatory, but it’s like she spit in his face. That familiar feeling burns in his chest, his old friend from boyhood: shame.

“No,”’ he says urgently, “you should expect something else. You can’t just think that I— I’m not just…. you don’t get it at all.”

“What don’t I get?”

“Look,” he says earnestly, “back when we first started to work together, I didn’t understand that you and I were going to…”

Scully groans, collapsing into a chair in her living room, her head flopping into her hands. “Oh god, I really don’t want a speech like this.”

“What? I just want to explain.”

“I don’t see what there is to explain.” He watches her trembling fingers swiping a fresh round of tears away, and he scrambles to sit on the couch across from her.

“Scully—”

“Look,” she says, smoothing her hair back, visibly calming herself down. “It’ll be okay. Really. I don’t need a partner breakup talk.” Her voice wavers a little. “I’ll probably go back to Quantico. I’m sure after a while you could even consult with me on cases. I might need a little time to adjust first.”

“I haven’t—”

“And I don’t want to talk to her, Mulder. Only you,” adds Scully fiercely as an afterthought. “I don’t trust her. You shouldn’t either.”

“Jesus, I’m not going to do it, Scully,” he manages to get out. “I wouldn’t … I couldn’t do that.”

She looks uncertain for the first time in the conversation. “You’re … really not?” she says.

He shakes his head emphatically.

She regards him quizzically. “So you plan on turning her offer down entirely?”

“Of course.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah, soon,” he shrugs. “I mean, what can I say?” He attempts a charming smile. “I’m finding all those background checks more interesting than I thought.”

She doesn’t return the smile. She seems to find a little thread on the arm of the chair that she plucks at, her tongue darting out to swipe over her bottom lip.

“What?” he says, his stomach knotting. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she says, continuing to pinch the thread on the chair. “I … guess I just don't completely believe you.”

Again Mulder is stunned. “You don’t believe me?”

“No. Not entirely.” Her eyes won’t meet his, like she feels guilty for the sin of mistrust.

“Why… not?”

She swallows, then raises her eyes to his. “I suppose I worry … that you’re telling me what I want to hear. So you don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of me being upset.” She straightens her posture. “And if that’s the case, Mulder, I wish you would just show me the respect of telling me the truth. So I won’t be unpleasantly taken by surprise later.”

“The inconvenience of you…” He stops, holding back his anger. “Since when do we not believe each other, Scully?”

Her nostrils flare, but her tone is icy calm. “Since you started going on secret dates with ex-girlfriends trying to recruit you to be their new partner behind my back, I suppose.”

“It was not a date,” Mulder repeats in a hiss.

“What exactly do you think a date is, Mulder?”

He sucks his teeth in irritation, jerking his limbs around restlessly on the couch. “Well, for one, I think a date is primarily about someone trying to initiate a relationship, not about work.”

“And you’re saying this wasn’t about both?”

There’s a moment of silence.

Mulder feels the beginning of a headache throbbing in his temples, and his eyes flash longingly towards the door. Maybe he should just leave. Maybe that’s for the best. He could try explaining this all again in the daytime, when Bill isn’t here, when they’re both in better moods.

Then his eyes fall back on Scully.

She looks small and defeated in the chair, looking at the floor, tears still visible on her cheeks. He wonders if it’s possible she might cry more if he were to leave now. He thinks about her belief that he’d go back to the basement office without her. How sure she seems to be that he would do it.

Something deep inside him aches like an old, unhealed wound. He knows he won’t be leaving. He knows it in the same certain way he knew he was going to take Bill home from the bar tonight. It doesn’t even feel like a real choice.

He squirms around on the couch again, trying futilely to get comfortable, and it makes something in his pocket poke him in the thigh.

“Oh,” he says softly, remembering. He digs his hand into his pocket to fish out an object. “I, uh, brought you something, Scully.”

She looks up at him warily. “What? An autopsy report?”

“No, no,” Mulder says. He extricates it from his pocket. It’s slightly dented, but otherwise unblemished. He leans over to hand her the coaster he’d picked up from the table at the bar.

“What’s this?” She examines it with a frown.

“It’s just a coaster.”

“Did you steal this, Mulder?”

“Yeah,” he admits sheepishly. “I stole it from the Honest Man Pub.”

“That’s almost painfully ironic."

Mulder shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges,” Scully reads from the coaster. “Herman Melville.”

“It reminded me of you,” says Mulder, feeling a little self-conscious. “Melville. Truth. You know. All your favorites.”

“You stole this for me on your date?”

“Scully,” Mulder says, “it wasn’t a…” He stops himself, closing his eyes. “Yeah. I stole the coaster on my date.”

Scully is holding the coaster in her fingers, turning it over and over, and she looks up at him.

“So you and Bill were at the Honest Man Pub tonight,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says.

“I like that place,” she muses softly. “Good food. I like the chicken club sandwich.”

He nods. “I do, too. I didn’t eat tonight though.”

She stares in mystification at the coaster, her brow creasing. “What … what was Bill and Tara’s fight about?”

“Oh.” Mulder scratches the back of his neck. “Tara wants to go back to work, and I guess Bill doesn’t want her to.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Scully replies.

Mulder just nods numbly.

“What did you tell him?”

“Uhhh … nothing too remarkable. Be completely honest, admit when you were a dick, listen to her.”

“Did Bill listen?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mulder says. “I hope so.”

“Why do you hope so?” Scully asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Bill’s been nothing but awful to you,” Scully says, her eyes fixed on him. “It sounds like he’s been awful to Tara, too. Why would you try to help him at all?”

“I don’t know,” Mulder says truthfully. He considers. “He wanted to be better. And… it seems like despite how he acted, he actually does love her. I just hoped he could get it together.”

Really and truly, Mulder hadn’t intended for this statement to have any double meaning. But in the chair across from him, Scully goes unusually silent and still.

He has thirty seconds of horror replaying the words back, thinking about how she must have heard them. About the implications. About what he might have revealed inadvertently.

There is a short but unbearable stretch of silence.

“So why didn’t you eat?” she asks at last.

“What?” he says, swallowing.

“You said you didn’t eat at the pub,” she points out. “You didn’t eat dinner?”

“Oh,” he says. “No. Because the night ended early. The Bill thing. And Diana sort of decided she needed to, uh, raise the stakes.”

“Raise the stakes,” repeats Scully.

“Yeah …” He rubs his hands together in agitation. “I don’t think I was as enthusiastic about her offer to be partners again as she thought I’d be,” he says. “She tried to raise the stakes. Manipulate the situation. I wasn’t that wild about it.”

“How did she try to manipulate the situation?” Scully asks.

“It was like you said before,” he says reluctantly. “She made some offers. Like she thought she had to do more to … you know. To compete.”

“Compete.” Scully repeats. “Compete with what?”

Mulder doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I’ve known her a long time, and I think her heart is more or less in the right place,” he says. “But I think she felt like she needed to compete with … you know, Scully. The reason I wasn’t going to say yes.”

Scully’s face is blank, and Mulder realizes in shame that he is going to have to spell it out. “I have a partner. I don’t want a new partner. She tried to compete with that.”

Scully’s clutching the coaster tightly in one hand, wide-eyed.

“Anyway, I don’t like feeling manipulated like that,” Mulder says, shrugging self-consciously. The more he thinks about it, the more clearly he sees it. “Diana knows things about me from our past together, and she … tries to use those things as a lever with me. She knows that relationships are a big deal to me, that intimacy in a relationship is a big deal to me.”

“Is that true?”

“Yeah,” he says, feeling his face warm. “Does that surprise you?”

“No,” she says, almost a whisper.

“I mean, you’re right about what you said. In some ways.” He looks closely at his hands. “I went there with a goal, thinking she might give us some avenue to work on the X-files. But there’s no way I’d… there’s no way I would choose to go back to the X-files … like that. Without you, I mean.”

She is only continuing to stare, her face unchanging. He wonders what she is thinking.

“I guess I can’t prove to you that I’m telling you the truth,” he says, suddenly feeling deflated. “The only evidence I have is a lack of evidence. That Diana asked me to come home with her, and I … didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Mulder huffs in frustration. “That’s what I’m saying, Scully. What I’m trying to tell you. I don’t want that.”

Scully’s eyes fall again on the coaster, her brows knitting together. She examines it thoughtfully. “Instead you went home with Bill.”

“Right,” he says. He tries to smile. “Obviously I’d never miss a chance to go home with a Scully.”

To his great relief she offers a tiny, enigmatic smile in response. “You two did seem to hit it off surprisingly well tonight.”

“Yeah, he’s my favorite redhead now,” Mulder says. “You’re second, though, don’t worry.”

Through her smile the beginnings of fresh tears begin to pool in the bottom of her eyes.

“Aw, I’m just kidding,” he pleads. “You’re still my favorite.”

“Really that is evidence you were telling the truth, isn’t it?” she reasons, wiping her eyes. “You brought Bill home safely, even though he’s been an asshole to you for years. You tried to help him.”

“He wasn’t so bad tonight.”

“I didn’t believe you,” she says. “I thought you’d do anything to get the X-files back.” Her voice lowers tremulously. “I’m sorry, Mulder.”

“No, come on,” he says, frowning. “I see why you came to that conclusion. It wasn’t unfounded. But I…” He scrunches closed his eyes, then opens them. “It actually isn’t … just the work for me any more. I have some other priorities.”

“Do you?” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

She’s staring hard at him now, her eyes darting back and forth across his face.

He stands from her couch, hoping he projects more confidence than he feels, and walks directly over to her in her chair. She tracks his movements warily.

He extends his hand. “C’mon, Scully,” he says roughly.

Her eyebrows lift higher, but she places her hand in his, and he lifts her to her feet, drawing her as close to him as he dares.

“Let me show you my priorities,” he says.

It would be much smoother if he just kissed her, but he doesn’t. He hesitates. It’s his habit to check in with her, after all. He always wants to know what she thinks, and that’s one reason he knows he loves her.

Her eyes are round. Her face has lost some color. But her body, her center of gravity, is tipping ever-so-slightly towards him.

Solemnly he nods, and his hands slide around her waist. Her body feels tiny, warm and fragile, slippery with silk.

He bends down to let his lips cover hers. One light kiss, slightly hesitant. Then another firmer, more hungry. He feels her shiver a little in his arms, and he wants to feel it again. 

Tilting his head reverently, he begins to kiss her from every angle, his hands moving up and down, up and down her back. His palms graze the soft slope of her rear end once as he caresses her, and then stop to grasp her there intentionally. He's beginning to feel dizzy, lost in the barrage of sensory details. It’s the kind of kissing that hides nothing, he realizes dimly. Not his swift, overwhelming arousal. Not the fierce intensity of his emotions. That should probably worry him a little, but it doesn’t.

Her own arms have wound around his neck, and it almost feels like she’s trying to climb him, her own mouth pushing in farther towards him, her body meshing into his. He can hear the frantic, uneven quality of her breath. And it occurs to him: she’s not hiding very much, either.

“Bedroom,” she whispers into his ear.

“What about Bill?” Mulder whispers back urgently.

“He won’t know,” Scully says. She pulls back to look at him, her cheeks flushed deep pink. “Does it bother you?”

“Noooo,” Mulder says, shaking his head. “Not enough to stop, anyway.”

They start to move towards Scully’s bedroom, still entangled, Mulder walking forward and Scully taking backwards steps.

He’s distracted by kissing her again and again, and neither of them notice Bill’s shoes on the floor, still lying where they had remained after they both had worked so hard together to remove them.

Scully stumbles backwards first, which pulls Mulder off balance, too. They both crash loudly into an end table on their way down to the floor.

“Fuck,” Mulder exclaims as they land in a pile. He sits up, feeling a bruise rising on his knee already.

Scully pushes herself up and puts her hand over her mouth, laughing. “Are you all right, Mulder?”

“Yeah, you?”

She nods, still laughing, pushing an errant strand of hair from her face. “Wait. Shh.” She abruptly quiets and leans over, placing her finger over his lips, tilting her head to listen seriously for a beat. Then she relaxes and smiles again. “If that didn’t wake Bill up, he’s really out.”

Mulder doesn’t feel as amused. He’d wanted this to be more perfect. “Not an auspicious start,” he says, trying to sound light, but feeling some knots of anxiety.

Scully’s expression softens. She scoots towards him on the floor, taking a firm hold of his forearms.

“It’s okay,” she says soothingly, her forehead pressing to his. “Small hiccups.”

“I know,” he says, feeling silly. “But—”

“Truth, uncompromisingly told, will always have its ragged edges.”

She smiles playfully, her thumbs running back and forth lightly over his arms. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in her pajamas, saucily quoting bar coaster wisdom back to him, Scully is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. His hands find her face, cradling her cheeks.

“Right, Mulder?” 

“That’s right,” he whispers back at her, barely vocalizing.

“And that’s what this is, right, Mulder?” she says, her voice cracking slightly on his name. “The truth?”

In response he leans in and kisses her in a way that he hopes tells her everything, that leaves no secret hidden.

Then he whispers softly in her ear. “That’s right.” Another kiss, this one infused with pure hope. “That’s absolutely right.”

***

[lorevelvet]

🗿thoughts

Bill Sr Scully is the superior Bill

Pros: raised Dana Scully

Had Bill Jr, thus propagating the Bill population

Had a cute nickname for Dana and read with her

Came back as a ghost twice, one of those encouraging Scully not to die

Cons: died in S1

Was not pleased w his daughter’s career choice

Was kinda snarky about Scully’s Christmas tree that one time

Probably wouldn’t like Mulder (although I always thought Maggie saw how Mulder felt about Scully and loved him for it, maybe he would have felt the same)

Bill Scully Jr

Pros: loved his sister

Dedicated to his military service

Cons: Bill Jr sucks

Never understood Scully’s dedication to her own career and her partner

He sucks

Bill Mulder

Pros: loved his kids, even Fox, who was not biologically his (I suspect he always knew)

Realized the error of his ways later in life and was ready to tell Mulder everything but died before he could

Never met Scully but I bet he would have liked her

Cons:

Made teena choose which kid got taken which is a dick move

Helped run a massive coverup w the Smoking Man for decades

In conclusion, Bill Sr is the best Bill

Edit: William Scully-Mulder

Pros: cute baby

Psychic/telekinetic

Alien cult was obsessive w him (not sure if this is a pro or con)

Cons: killed people

Kind of a fuckboi

Faked his death

In conclusion, Bill Scully Sr is still the best Bill

[poangsecretsanta]

Mulder becomes a Scully

Dana was unhappy, this much Bill knew from the moment she’d arrived. It was her first Christmas after she had recovered from her cancer and she was about to be an aunt, this should have been a jubilant holiday. 

Bill was on edge about becoming a father, with Tara’s delivery overdue his nerves were frayed and he wished his father’s stoic presence was there. Bill tried his best to rally his little sister, begged her to be present with them, but in every encounter she seemed a million miles away. 

Bill knew it was more than this mysterious case and that little girl she seemed to latch onto. He wanted to blame her Partner, that he was dragging her away from them; but the hardest fact to face was that this was all of Dana’s own doing, her choice to keep a moat between her and them. Each time he reached out to her, he felt like he was rejected; and it frustrated him to see her so withdrawn.

Bill did not understand how or why Dana was trying to adopt this previously unknown child. The thought that it could be her biological daughter made him dizzy, but a big part of him wanted this for her. This could be the blessing she needed to get her life on track and away from her FBI work. 

Bill was honored to support his sister in the adoption hearing, speaking honestly of her capacity to care for others and her ability to provide a stable home. As a Naval Officer and a blood relative, he hoped his testimony would hold more weight. 

On leaving the judge’s quarters, Bill was shocked to see Fox Mulder there, ready to be a character witness. Dana’s boss had provided a glowing reference for her via phone already and Bill could only wonder at the fact the man flew across the country to be there for her. 

With a scold and a sigh, Bill resented the man’s presence, ready to send him packing the moment he was done helping Dana. With one fierce look Maggie Scully informed Bill he would be doing no such thing and begrudgingly he had no recourse but to accept his fate.

Perhaps Bill would have remained sullen and cold, but that it was like a switch had been flicked on and suddenly Dana had arrived with them. So Bill endured his presence if only to get to spend time with his sister and for that he was rewarded. At dinner Dana was animated, laughing as Tara told her of her pregnancy war stories. Bill wanted to attribute her change in mood to her adoption proceedings looking more positive, but his wife knew better.  

“It’s him Bill. I don’t know what’s going on between them, but you need to work out how to make peace with him or else you’re going to lose her.”

Bill wanted to hold a grudge, but it was clear Fox Mulder would do anything for his sister so there was no question as to where he would be staying while he was in town. 

That night Dana was surprised to find Tara struggling to reach the clean towels in the linen closet as she went upstairs to put her paperwork away. Dana intercepted it for her with a questioning look. 

“It’s for Fox.”

Dana smiled as her brother walked over with some spare bedding and a pillow stacking it on to Scully’s arms. 

“Here you go short stuff,” Bill said with a razz in his voice, knowing his sister was poking her tongue out from behind the pile of linen. Placing them all in her room, Scully stopped in to say ‘thank you’ to Bill and Tara for letting Mulder stay with them. 

Bill didn’t mean to tear up as she hugged him but he felt connected to her in a way that had been missing for so long. Helping Tara to bed, the women laughed as Bill played nurse maid with Tara’s pillows, building a retaining wall to keep her partially upright. 

Grabbing Dana’s hand, Tara assured Dana that Fox was welcomed to stay here anytime. 

Bill nodded in silent confirmation, and Dana beamed at them both. 

The days ahead were filled with melodrama; Dana’s child battled for her health in the same hospital Tara struggled with a complicated delivery. Finally Mathew was born and sweet Emily passed away, Uncle Bill seeing her one last time through the glass window as she slept in her coma.

Holding his son in his arms Bill felt the weight of what his sister had lost and he wondered how she would ever carry on. 

The service for the little girl was brief. The family sat through Mass and once again, Bill watched Dana pull away from her family. A part of him wondered if losing a child you didn’t know about hurt as much as one you knew from inception, but his heart told him that the Scully family was wired to love their offspring no matter what. Whether he understood how or why the child came into being no longer mattered, Bill was there to mourn the loss of his young niece.  

As Bill left Dana behind in the church he wished she’d reconsider driving back with them, he needed to know she was ok. It was the bouquet of flowers he saw Fox Mulder holding as he entered the church that calmed his mind. It was such an innocuous gesture amongst all the injustices that had taken place but it meant something. 

While Bill may never consider the man a friend, he could see that he was a safe place for his sister. For all of Fox Mulder’s faults he was the one she had chosen, and that made him de facto family. 

Dana insisted on taking a Red Eye back to D.C with Fox after the funeral. Stopping over at the house to pack their things, Fox waited on the porch for Scully to change clothes and finalize her luggage. 

Bill made his way out onto the porch and noticed that Mulder tensed his body as he saw him approach. A part of him enjoyed the fact that the man anticipated an uncomfortable confrontation, but Bill was there on a mission of peace. 

“Does she talk to you,” Bill asked, trying to keep his frustration at bay. 

“Only when she wants too,” Mulder replied with a shake of his head. 

Bill gave a knowing grunt and patted Mulder on the shoulder. 

“You look after her,” Bill said with a serious warning tone. 

“We look after each other,” Mulder replied with a cocky defiance that reminded Bill of why the man grated on him.

Before Bill could make his way into the house he heard Fox Mulder’s voice.

“Hey Bill, thanks for letting me stay, I appreciate it.”  

Mulder stood up and offered Bill his hand, it was a peace offering. 

“Any time,” Bill said with a firm shake and a nod. 

Maggie Scully and Dana arrived in time to witness the exchange but knew better than to mention anything. Instead, Dana hugged her brother longer than she had in years, telling him to send lots of pictures of her nephew. As Dana hugged her brother, Maggie gave Fox another hug goodbye and ordered him to come for dinner when they all got settled at home. 

Maggie and Bill watched as the rental car drove away, silently they both understood that Fox Mulder was now part of their family.

@thursdayinspace

[buzziightqueer]

scully family thoughts !!

scully’s familial ties are so interesting. being closer to her father and brother as a kid, the skeptical & traditional paranormal non-believers, versus her mother and melissa who spoke of visions and had a thinking outside of the typical realm. how much it mustve impacted her own beliefs and her initial skepticism towards mulder in his line of work. losing her father and her abduction occurring so soon after and the only people there to comfort her being her mom, her sister, and mulder similar to her cancer treatments later. seeing that terrible side of bill's unwillingness to accept her reasoning and hope and instead blaming her and her newfound openness for the death of her sister and her current predicament. it mustve been such a stepping stone for her to see the strong men in her life reduced to an unsupportive source and a ghost of her past

[mulderscreek]

And Scene! Prompt - Bathroom Blues

Write a scene about:

Set in an AU season 8, have Scully have Bill Scully or Bill Mulder stay with her for moral support while Mulder is missing. Have her pregnancy and his prostate make them compete for the bathroom in the wee hours.

Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your scene on your own tumblr, post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.

[fbisgayesttrio]

(correct answer is Bill btw)

[snailpebbles]

official bill scully hater

(for now at least, mayhaps just a disliker)

[x-files-polls]

Monday Funday

[aloysiavirgata]

I love! LOVE how you write Bill! Especially with Mulder and its effect on Scully. (Not a prompt) Just came to say anytime you write something where Bill is being Bill, just know you’ve got a guaranteed fan! I bet even in a world where Jackson met him, he’d just be an extension of Mulderisms giving him a run for his money

Thank you so much!!! Bill Scully is an absolute guilty pleasure of mine and the thing is if I were in Bill’s shoes I’d probably punch Mulder’s face to the other side of his head.

He’s an ass but he’s NOT a bad guy - sorry not sorry.

[randomfoggytiger]

Started working through the Bill Scully fic series to make it canonically accurate (a few tweaks here and there.)

Might have one more chapter in me.

We shall see.

[cecilysass]

Honest Man (1/3)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter One

He almost never goes out to bars in Alexandria, and when he does, he’s typically in some kind of despairing mood. But Mulder isn’t despairing tonight. He’s hopeful.

It’s hope tempered with some reservation, of course. He’s not stupid—the other shoe can always drop—but there’s definitely a feeling that there could be less troubled paths ahead. If all goes well.

The pub is crowded, so he stands in the entrance scanning the room for her, feeling strangely awkward, like an adolescent boy. He jogged a little to get here at the time they arranged, and Mulder’s uncomfortably sweating now in his work clothes. He loosens his collar and tie.

She’s sitting with stately posture at a side booth, a menu propped in front of her. She spots him and raises a single hand.

He eagerly makes his way across the room, ducking in between the people making their way to get a drink at the bar, and slips into the seat across from her. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry I’m late.”

“I’m used to it, Fox,” she says, coolly amused. Diana slides him a menu. “It’s given me plenty of time to look over the culinary options here at the Honest Man Pub.” She draws out the name of the bar in an affected way, a little mockingly.

He smirks at her. “Come on. Who doesn’t like an Honest Man, Diana?”

“Who indeed.” She smiles tightly. “As it happens, I remember your taste in restaurants, so I’m not surprised.”

“Mozzarella sticks,” he says, pointing a finger at the menu enthusiastically. “You want to share some? I’m starving.”

“No thanks. I ordered a negroni.”

“Look,” Mulder gestures towards a woodcut illustration of Abraham Lincoln on the cover of the menu. “It’s Honest Abe, Diana. Trustworthy. You sure you don’t want a burger or something?”

“I’m really not hungry,” she says. But she, too, flips the menu over to look at it. She traces Lincoln’s face with her fingertip. “You think it’s supposed to be a reference to that story about chopping down the cherry tree?”

“That was George Washington.” Mulder sets the menu down and gives her a mildly admonishing look.

“What? I’m no historian,” she says dismissively. “And what politician has the luxury of honesty anyway?”

Diana’s not wearing her work clothes, he notices in surprise. Unless she wears a form-fitting black dress to work, and he doesn’t think she does. He chews his lip, wondering why she bothered to go home to change, especially because he’s pretty sure she lives in DC.

After the server passes by, and Mulder orders his beer and mozzarella sticks, he turns his attention back to her. “Well? What’s up?” He folds his hands on the table. “You made it sound like good news.”

Her cocktail is placed directly in front of her, and she murmurs a polite thanks to the server. “Potentially it is,” she says. “I need your help on a case, and I think if you do well, it could be … a step in the right direction.”

He tries to play it cool, even though this is exactly what he hoped. “My help? Did Kersh have a personality transplant or something?”

“This would be outside of official channels,” she explains. “At first, anyway.”

There are several cardboard coasters on the table with quotes printed on them in homey, old-fashioned typeface. The one nearest Mulder reads: “An honest man is always a child. - Socrates.” He pushes the coaster around the table with his fingertip, nodding slowly. “I’m listening.”

“There have been a series of credible sightings of unusual crafts flying low outside of Groom Lake,” she says in a low voice. She sips her drink, meeting his eyes. “I know you’ve probably been following it. Kersh doesn’t want Jeffrey and I to spend too much time there. But you could go.”

“Under what auspices?”

“It would have to be extracurricular.” She shrugs, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly. “You’ve done this sort of thing before, Fox.”

“Shiner Bock,” the server says cheerfully, setting a bottle down in front of Mulder. “Your mozzarella sticks should be out soon.”

“Thanks,” says Mulder. As the server darts off, he takes a slow sip, mulling over Diana’s words. “How would this be a step in the right direction?”

Diana leans towards him, her glass resting against her cheek. “Jeffrey and I have received some information about experimental craft at Groom Lake,” she says softly. “If we could put that together with your field work—and what you already have in the files—then we could have a report they’d have to take seriously.”

Mulder can’t help but feel excited, but he takes pains to mask it, chuckling cynically. “I’ve been down this road before, Diana.” He shrugs. “It never amounts to much. Plus, Kersh is already looking for any reason to chuck me out of the Bureau. This could easily be it.”

She reaches across the table and clasps his hand tight. “Not if I have your back.”

He frowns a little, confused by her meaning. She’s much more open to this than he expected. Still, his whole soul cries out to get back to working on the X-files. It’s almost all he thinks about these days. If there is a way forward here, he needs to hear all of it.

“We’ve always made a good team,” Diana points out. “We could be again. And this is your life’s work. You’re wasted in the bullpen.”

“Yeah,” Mulder says uneasily, “but what would—”

“I knew it.” interrupts a booming voice startlingly close to their table.

Mulder looks up blankly, and it takes him a half second to place the tall, pink-faced man towering angrily over them.

He knows Bill Scully’s face very well—associates it with some of his most emotionally vulnerable moments, in fact—but seeing it here in this Virginia bar, out of context, gives him a moment’s pause.

“I just knew it,” repeats Bill, his eyes narrowing. He squints down at Mulder murderously. “You’re not even worth … one of her goddamn pinky toes, you no good son of a bitch.”

“Bill,” Mulder murmurs, staring back. The man seems to be swaying slightly from side to side as he spits words out, as though he’s insulting Mulder on rough seas. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

Bill leans over, placing a palm flat on the table, and Mulder can distinctly smell whiskey on his breath.

“You have some nerve,” Bill hisses. “This is how you treat her? After everything you’ve done? Now you’re just out … on some date?”

Diana gives him a significant, questioning look, and Mulder straightens in his seat, his eyes scanning behind Bill’s back for a sign of who might be accompanying him. “I think you‘ve had a few too many tonight,” Mulder attempts genially. “You’re not making much sense. Why don’t I—”

“Why don’t you shut your damn mouth for once in your life?” Bill bellows. The group of young people at the next table looks over, watching them now, their expressions half interested and half alarmed.

Bill turns his attention to Diana, pointing one of his large fingers at her like a scolding father, even though Mulder is pretty sure Diana is at least Bill’s age, if not older. “What do you know about this guy, miss?” His words are definitely slurring. “How much did he tell you? Did you know he’s a dangerous sonofabitch?”

Diana smiles stiffly. “I’m safe, thank you.”

“Well, when he asked you out,” Bill says to her, gesturing sloppily, “did he mention he’s been fucking my sister for years? Destroying her life? Breaking her heart?”

He knows Bill’s drunk, and he knows Bill doesn’t have his facts right, but Mulder can’t help feeling the sting of shame over what he’s being accused of. Part of it, anyway. He hears himself inhale sharply by reflex.

Diana’s eyebrows have arched in surprise. She looks pointedly at Mulder. “Oh? Is that right? Who’s your sister?”

“My sister Dana,” Bill spits out, slamming his hand on the table for emphasis. “My baby sister.”

“Ah,” Diana responds conversationally. “You’re Agent Scully’s brother.” She seems unfazed by this information. “We both work with her, actually. Why don’t you join us for a moment?”

She scoots over in her seat, gesturing calmly to the spot next to her. Mulder doesn’t move, paralyzed with horror at the way this is unfolding.

Bill looks at Diana a moment, his jaw clenched, and then, to Mulder’s shock, slides in next to her in the booth, turning to direct his glare at Mulder.

For a moment Mulder just stares, slack-jawed, back into the man’s furious face. Bill seems to be waiting for something—for Mulder to explain himself, probably.

“This … isn’t a date,” Mulder begins, pointing between Diana and himself. “It’s work. And you need to understand that your sister and I aren’t in a romantic relationship either. Or a, uh, sexual relationship.”

Bill chuckles, shaking his head slowly, then abruptly changes mood, pounding his fist loudly and suddenly on the table and causing both Diana and Mulder to startle.

“Then why?” he demands, meeting Mulder’s eyes intensely in a way that reminds him, unsettlingly, of Scully. “Why does she do it? Why does she put up with you?”

“I … really don’t know,” Mulder admits miserably. “You’d have to ask her.”

“I know my sister,” Bill says, his features softening a little. “There are only … a few reasons why she would do it.” His tone goes cold. “Does she know you’re on a date?”

“No,” Mulder answers quickly, “but it’s not a—”

“I hate you,” Bill leans forward to whisper to him. “I hate you for what you’ve put her through. Now you’re cheating. On a fucking date. Jesus.”

“Yo, Scully,” comes a masculine voice from the bar. “Where’d you go?” Mulder looks around nervously, half expecting to see his partner, but of course the voice is calling for Bill. A group of men in their 30s and 40s, all with square shoulders and military haircuts, seem to be looking in this direction. Bill doesn’t even look back at them.

“You don’t understand,” Mulder says. He feels panicky and anxious. “It’s not a date. And Scully’s my partner, not my—”

“Jesus, shut the fuck up,” Bill groans. He slides out of the booth. “Don’t you ever get tired of your annoying-ass voice?”

He does, actually, more often than one might think.

“Bill, wait, are you—” Mulder stops suddenly.

He realizes what he was about to ask—are you going to tell Scully that you saw us here?—sounds completely at odds with what he has been telling Bill, what he has been telling himself. That question doesn’t make him sound like a partner out talking about work with a colleague.

It makes him sound like he thinks he’s doing something wrong, something he needs to hide.

The truth is that he does think Scully would be angry to know he’d met Diana here. She would be angry for a whole snarl of tangled reasons—and yeah, hurt, like Bill says. He doesn’t especially want her to know.

“Am I what?” Bill sneers, turning back around jerkily.

“Are you … okay to get home?” Mulder mumbles. “You have a ride?”

Bill gives him a look of withering contempt. “That’s none of your fucking business.” He turns and staggers back towards the bar.

Mulder watches him go, trying to swallow back his self-loathing. He realizes after a second that his fists are clenched.

“Fox,” Diana says in concern. “Are you all right?”

He says nothing for a beat, making a game attempt to pull himself back together.

“Yeah,” he says to Diana. He takes a fast swig of beer. “That guy—he, uh, just really hates me.”

“I gathered,” Diana says. She looks at Mulder appraisingly. “You seem to be taking what he says awfully seriously.”

“Well,” Mulder says grimly into his beer, “it’s just he’s not entirely wrong.”

Diana leans back in the booth, lifts her glass to her beautiful lips, and takes a careful sip. “No,” she says coolly, “he’s not.”

Mulder exhales raggedly. “Gee, Diana,” he says, “don’t hold back how you feel on my account.”

“He’s wrong about plenty,” she breathes. “He underestimates you, like most people do. But he’s not wrong that your work has hurt Agent Scully.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he snaps at her. He pauses to compose himself. “I don’t want Scully to be hurt,” he says in a more controlled voice. “I never have. Her choices are her own.”

“And your choices are your own,” Diana says. Her eyes are dark and shining. “You know, Fox, I hope that if all goes well with this initial foray at Groom Lake, we might all be a little more ambitious in our choices.”

Mulder shakes his head rapidly, still rattled by the encounter with Bill. “Ambitious in our choices how?”

“Well,” she says. “Thinking longer term, I don’t know if Jeffrey is working out on the X-files. I think he might prefer to be elsewhere at the Bureau. And if he does… then I’d be asked for my preference in a partner.”

Mulder looks up quickly. “And you’d … want to work with me?”

“Of course,” she says, giving him an inviting look. “Who else would I want?”

There’s an uncomfortable pause. Mulder toys with a coaster on the table idly.

“Do you think they’d even listen to you?” he wonders. “They’re really not my biggest fans right now. Kersh in particular.”

She fishes an ice cube out of her drink, sucks on it a little. Then she meets his eyes, and there is a dangerous spark. “I can be very persuasive, Fox.”

Mulder’s fingertip worries the corner of the cardboard coaster back and forth, back and forth. He hasn’t asked the biggest question. “And what about Scully?”

“What about her?”

“I couldn’t … leave Scully behind in the bullpen.”

“Without you,” Diana says, sipping her drink, “she wouldn’t be in the bullpen for very long. They would give her a better placement in no time. She’s only stuck there because of you.”

Mulder’s eyes remain on the scuffed tabletop as he considers the truth of this statement. Scully certainly is only being punished because of her links to the X-files. Were she cut free from him, she probably would be given a fresh start.

“I don’t know,” he says bleakly. “I don’t know if I could even do it without her.”

Diana makes an exasperated hiss. “Fox,” she says. “Of course you could. What is this codependency you’ve developed? You weren’t like this before.”

Mulder rubs the bridge of his nose. “Diana, I–”

“Mozzarella sticks,” announces their server, his voice surreally peppy as he places the basket on the table. Mulder nods and smiles miserably, his eyes down on the fried cheese.

As the server walks away, Diana reaches over and places her hand over his. It’s light and soft as silk. “I could be the partner you need, Fox,” she says softly. “If you give me a chance.”

Her fingers now are caressing his hand lightly. Mulder’s taken aback. “I remember … how to calm you down,” she adds, almost a whisper. “How to reduce your stress.” She runs her fingertip down the back of his hand, a subtle but effective gesture. “And I’m not someone who is easily hurt.”

As opposed to Scully? he wonders. Is that what Scully is? Easily hurt? Is that why I’ve hurt her so much?

Somewhere to Mulder’s left there is a loud discussion at the bar. Despite Diana’s surprising advances, Mulder finds his attention drifting over there. He recognizes Bill’s voice, speaking loudly to the bartender, and looks for him in the crowd.

“I’ll tell you what,” Diana adds, reaching out with her finger to gently direct his chin back towards her. “Come over tonight.” Under the table he feels her foot brush against his calf, ostensibly accidentally, and she’s successfully got his full attention back. “We can discuss your Groom Lake fieldwork more privately. I can … convince you of everything else.”

Mulder closely watches her face, every nuance of her expression. “Oh yeah?” he says guardedly.

“Hey folks, you doing all right here? Need ketchup or anything?” The energetic server is suddenly smiling broadly next to the table, hands on his hips, and Mulder can sense Diana’s annoyance from across the table.

“We’re fine,” Mulder says, still staring at Diana, “but I’m going to need to get these mozzarella sticks to go. And our checks, please.”

“Coming right up.” The server obligingly darts away.

Diana’s foot brushes up his calf again, this time with less pretense of accident. “Is that a yes, then?” she says, the barest hint of a smile.

In the background, Mulder is aware of a flurry of activity at the bar—the bartender’s voice firmly declaring something about someone not being served any more.

He looks back at Diana, who looks very beautiful, curvy and enticing in the dress he now realizes was strategically chosen to showcase her body for him.

Then his eyes fall down to one of the coasters on the table. He reads it, then reaches down and picks it up impulsively, sliding it in his pocket.

“Diana,” he says, suddenly sounding more certain than he expects, “I’m going to have to get back to you.”

***

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Christmas Carol (5x06)

There was a time when Dana adored him. Mom said all little girls looked up to their big brothers, but she was only half right. Bill could still feel phantom pains from his childhood brawls with Missy, but when Dana was young, you would have thought she lived in the space on the ground where his shadow lay. He couldn’t count how many times she bumped into his back when she’d follow too close behind him, or how often he rolled his eyes when she’d pretend to be interested in whatever he was into.

He didn’t realize how much her admiration meant to him until it wasn’t so freely given.

Even in name, he was trying his best to honor his father’s legacy. Of course Mom said he would be so proud, but over time, he realized Dana was his only mirror into seeing how true that was. The colors that spanned his uniform didn’t have the same effect as the glint in her eyes when she looked at him and saw their father.

He hadn’t seen that glint in years.

Dad had always told him that he was setting an example for his siblings, but he was too young and too dumb, so he treated the privilege like a burden. As a kid, his attempts to emulate his father’s authority were sloppy and mean, something Dana realized far sooner than he did. As an adult, he recognized how great his father was at commanding respect while never letting his kids question how much they were loved. 

If he had to pinpoint the moment everything changed between them, it was when she called him saying that she was joining the FBI after spending years in medical school. He’d been exhausted from his deployment, and the words just slipped out. 

“Dad’s going to be so disappointed in you.”

He might have been the one with their father’s name, but she was daddy’s little girl. Even though he thought his statement was true, he felt the need to spit the acrid taste of the words out of his mouth. Melissa and Charlie might’ve reveled in rebellion, but he and Dana lived their lives in a way that ensured a statement like that would never be true.

She got mad, he apologized, they moved on, but their relationship was never the same. It made him feel guilty that her estimation meant so much to him, and he returned the favor by watering the seed of doubt in her mind so that it became an invasive weed woven into her psyche.

Sometimes Bill wondered if it would have been easier to mend their relationship if she was partnered with anyone else. He called Mr. Mulder a sorry sonofabitch a few weeks before, but he was preaching to the choir. Maybe that’s what pissed him off so much. Mulder does blame himself. There’s nothing Bill could ever say to that man that he hadn’t said to himself a thousand times over.

Her partner knew, yet nothing changed. They hadn’t slowed down, they hadn’t taken a break, and Dana was stuck living a life devoid of all the things she’d dreamed of growing up. Mr. Mulder never saw the childhood crayon drawings of a doctor with red, shoulder-length hair. He didn’t know about how often Melissa and Dana speculated about baby names or gushed about what their future husbands would look like. But Bill always thought about his baby sister and how often she came home, battered and bruised, to an empty apartment. Dana might love her work, but her work wasn’t keeping her warm at night.

She barely even saw her family any more. It pained him more than he could say that his children would only get to know his family through trips to the cemetery and Christmas visits.

And even that wasn’t a guarantee.

Bill watched as Dana walked back into the living room and sit down after contributing a hefty addition to next month’s phone bill. His eyes were drawn to her fingers as she worried the cross that hung around her neck. What used to be an act of devotion now just looked like thoughtless muscle memory in effect.

“Mulder’s on his way here,” she stated matter-of-factly.

He knew by her body language that this was information he was expected to accept without argument. In a measured tone, he asked: “Did he get a room at a hotel?”

“No.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mom’s hands still as her back straightened. Despite being an empty-nester for nearly two decades, she was still prepared to intervene in her children’s fights. Only this time, she was beaten to the punch.

“I can’t wait to meet Mulder! I’ve heard so much about him,” Tara beamed from his side.

Dana offered his wife a polite smile, but Tara’s last comment earned him a biting glance.

Mom, picking up on the subtext his wife hadn’t, was quick to try and prevent an argument. “I’m always glad to have him around. He’s like a part of the family.”

Bill held back a wince as his incisor dug into his lip. He wanted to say that this was his house and that he should have a say who gets to be here. He also wanted to remind his mother she didn’t seem to consider him family when she was sobbing on the ride back from the hospital, lamenting  that Dana needed to give chemo another try instead of a goddamned piece of metal.

But he didn’t. He knew his mother would remind him that the little piece of metal did work and that Mulder had effectively saved his only living sister’s life. Just like he knew Dana would threaten to leave if he didn’t welcome this man into his home and keep his mouth shut about the fact they would likely be sharing his guest bed.

He was tired of being the bad guy when all he wanted was his family to be back together.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on AO3!

@gaycrouton

[agent-troi]

Saw your tags--

Oh, yes, he's Selfish, not gonna deny that.

I just see him as a man who is kept in check by the people he respects the most-- Tara and Maggie-- and not so much Scully. I got the impression he backed off during the Emily arc; and he wouldn't like (or probably respect) Mulder after; but there'd be a "do not touch sign" between he and Scully concerning that topic and he'd stay clear of it. At least, that's my headcanon. ;)))

I did include the nurse's annoyance at him for a hint that he might not be coming across as nicely or rightly as he thinks he is.

hard agree with all of this!