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slippinmickeys · 9 months ago

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Three Part Harmony (25/25)

You can read this fic in its entirety here.

(This post includes the Epilogue which is in a separate chapter on AO3.)

As he entered the doorway, Mulder heard a feminine shout, and he paused midway in, as a dozen men were hurled through the air, sailing past him as if they were scraps of paper blown by a stiff wind. They landed limp as rag dolls against the outer walls of the lodge. One of the men’s goggles were knocked off when he landed and a pair of sightless eyes stared up at Mulder.

In the center of the room lay the prone body of Rhonda, her blonde hair light against the dark wooden floor. She was not moving.

Mulder shouted Scully’s name as she leapt off the low dais in the back of the room and ran toward the older woman, William bouncing along on her hip. The boy noticed Mulder in the doorway and shouted an excited “Hi!”

Scully turned to Mulder, her surprise at seeing him the briefest of expressions before she held out their son.

“Take him,” she said, breathless. Mulder tucked the big Smith & Wesson into the back of his pants.

“She okay?” Mulder asked, swinging William up into his arms as Scully knelt over Rhonda, her fingers held to the woman’s pulse point. He turned the boy so that he couldn’t see their friend on the floor, not knowing how he would react to the sight.

“She’s breathing,” Scully said, relieved, then started to explain. “I was distracted with the chopper and-”

Out beyond the lodge, through the windows facing the lake, Mulder could see the smoking wreckage of several helicopters, a fire burning an oil slick on the surface of the water. She didn’t have time to explain to him what had happened.

“There are more men, Scully,” Mulder interrupted.

She shook her head once, winced.

“How many?”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

Scully glanced up at him, her hand on Rhonda’s unconscious shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” she said, looking at his arm.

“Grazed me,” Mulder said, though it felt like a little more than that, and the sleeve of his shirt had a slowly growing stain of warm blood. More leaked out as he repositioned William.

There was no more time to address his injury, as there was a loud noise from the direction of the kitchen and the pounding of boots on the floor.

Scully rose, throwing an anxious look at Rhonda, and Mulder darted for the small stage, which was surrounded on three sides by thick, muscular log walls; no one would be able to get to them from behind.

Scully followed him and they turned to face the men who pounded into the room, weapons up, a dozen of them streaming in from the kitchen with more darkening the doors that led in from outside.

William reached up and pressed his starfish of a hand onto Mulder’s face and looked at him earnestly. Mulder, feeling Scully’s anxious thoughts skittering along the edges of his mind, pressed a long kiss to the boy’s soft rounded cheek.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he whispered.

Zero hour had come.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When the men started streaming through the doors of the lodge, they did not shoot. Scully looked briefly at Rhonda who lay still as the grave on the floor of the lodge. She could feel William and Mulder at her back. She’d killed the men who had hurt Rhonda when she’d been distracted by the incoming helicopters, but she couldn’t worry for their friend now. She stood serenely on the small stage, her arms out to her sides, like she was about to bow at a curtain call. The men rolled in, one after the other, purling around Rhonda as if she were a boulder in a river. More and more of them filed in, crouched and in formation, guns all trained on Scully’s chest.

When the flow of troopers finally slowed to a stop and the room was nearly filled, one of the men stepped forward.

“Give us the boy,” he said, the laser sight on his automatic rifle hovering shakily over the center of her chest.

She could feel William, a little confused, but happy to be held by his father, who was cooing sweet words into the boy’s ear. As it was, the door to his gifts and his thoughts remained fully open, despite the fact that the music had stopped. Scully didn’t think he’d seen Rhonda go down, struck on the head by one of the mercenaries when Scully was bringing down the helicopters. The boy had seen his adoptive mother killed, and Scully wasn’t sure how he’d react to seeing someone else he cared about go down in a similar way. He might slam the door closed on their connection. She needed to move fast.

The man took another step forward.

“Give us the boy,” he repeated, “and no one else gets hurt.”

“Despite appearances,” Scully said, raising her voice so that all of the men could hear her. “You’re not in a position to be making demands. Put your weapons down or I’ll put them down for you.” She’d killed the men who’d rushed in and attacked Rhonda when she was otherwise engaged, but she’d just as soon these men surrender as have to kill again.

To punctuate her statement, she sent the rifle of the man who’d spoken flying out of his hands to clatter into the now empty piano bench.

The stunned man didn’t react at first, but behind her and in her mind, she could feel William’s thoughts bend toward confusion and very quickly turn to concern.

“Wan?” the boy said.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Mulder tried soothing him.

Scully turned her attention fully to the men in front of her. She could hear them breathing, could smell their cortical sweat. Leather gloves creaked as hands gripped weapons and one or two of them began chewing gum nervously. There was no more time to lose. With no small amount of concentration, she reached out and sent all the rifles of all the other men into the air and out the open doors of the lodge.

At least half of the men then went for their sidearms.

“Ah!” she called out to the room like a school marm. “Put them down!”

“Wan!” from William. Scully could feel his confusion, his alarm. He was now looking for Rhonda in earnest after he’d noticed the piano bench empty.

She was clocking where all the other weapons the men were carrying were when William saw Rhonda’s body laying on the ground. He began to shriek, an animal sound. A fox in the woods.

Several things happened at once: One of the men lost his nerve and drew his pistol, firing a single bullet directly at Scully’s chest. And Scully, thinking she was about to feel the mental door between her and her son slam closed, instead felt a surge of power so large that she was practically lit from within.

The single bullet the soldier fired stopped in mid-air about two feet in front of Scully and then dropped to the floor with a light tinkling of metal.

There immediately followed a moment when the world held its breath. A moment that contained all of the potential energy that existed. It was the stone knife to the lamb’s neck, it was angor animi, it was a Pompeiian raising his eyes to the hills. Everyone felt it.

And then, against the backdrop of William’s wails, every black clad militant in the lodge went completely rigid in unison, their arms falling stiffly to their sides, their heads thrown back, and each of them rose twelve inches off the floor, hovering in suspended animation; like columns in the air, like string hanging from a floating balloon.

Scully thought back to the two men in William’s nursery when she first entered it those weeks ago; it was a more otherworldly thing than anything she had yet seen. And she’d seen a lot. But she hadn’t done this on her own. William had sent the power through her, and she could feel it knocking around her skull like a pinball. Their son whimpered in his father’s arms, overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed, too. Something wasn’t quite right. A shot of weakness looped around her once, as if the surge of energy had tapped her well dry.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Mulder?” she said shakily, her voice wet like she had a runny nose. The lodge was quiet, and she felt a warm trickle on her upper lip as she turned to him.

Mulder, still standing behind her and holding their son, paled, his eyes wide.

“Scully-” he said, but before he could go on, she heard the scrape of a shoe on the floor from behind the floating men. Then the acrid scent of cigarette smoke.

They both turned to look.

XxXxXxXxXxX

William had settled to a distressed quiet in his arms. Mulder watched as two figures picked their way through the floating men as one would move through a cornfield. He vacantly wondered if the militants would part like party balloons if pushed.

There was a leaden thing in his stomach, something dark that twisted his insides when Scully turned to him, blood leaking from her nose.

And here, coming through the mass of suspended bodies was a further nightmare: Special Agent Bryson and a dead man with a tracheostomy port slowly leaking smoke into the stale air.

“Well,” said the Cancer Man hoarsely. “This is impressive.”

He felt Scully go rigid under his hand.

“You’re dead,” she said, like she was talking to a corpse that had yet to be convinced.

“Am I? I feel quite the opposite.”

The Smoking Man appeared to be dressed for a business meeting; pressed suit, black wool coat. Bryson was dressed down, jeans and leather sneakers, a black leather jacket like the kind Mulder wore in another life. He had a gun in his hand. The men stopped their approach in front of the first row of militants, Rhonda’s unconscious body only a few feet from Bryson’s scuffed shoes. They didn’t even look down at her, and Mulder was insulted by proxy.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow you both apart right now,” Scully said.

“I only need one,” the Smoking Man replied, arrogantly blowing a column of smoke out of his trach tube. “And it’s drying on your upper lip right now.”

Scully reached up to touch her lip, drawing her hand back to look at the blood.

“I probably wouldn’t shop for my next Faraday cage in the snack aisle,” the man went on.

Mulder thought of the greasy Lay’s bag they had shipped Scully’s chip in. The heavy feeling in his stomach, already in his socks from witnessing Scully’s bloody nose, plummeted further.

He could hear Scully swallow thickly, could feel a flutter across their connection–a confusion and sharp pang of concern–but she didn’t flinch.

“If you’re implying that I have another nasopharyngeal mass eating its way behind my eyes,” she said, “then I have nothing to lose.”

“But your son does,” the Smoking Man said.

Mulder could feel the anxiety from both Scully and himself twist together like the snakes of a caduceus. William squirmed. Scully, standing next to him, began to tremble.

Bryson still had the pistol in his hand, but he wisely kept it lowered. “Give us the boy,” the agent finally spoke.

Mulder had held his own silence for long enough.

“We all know that’s not happening,” he said, stepping forward to stand by Scully’s side.

“Then perhaps we’re at an impasse,” the Smoking Man said.

“No,” Scully disagreed. “We’re at the part where I kill you both and take my chances with cancer.”

Cancer had been a nagging and very grave concern in the back of Mulder’s mind since he’d reluctantly pulled the chip out of Scully’s neck in the veterinary office, but hearing the word out loud raked the air in a way that made his shoulders tense.

“If you kill us, you’ll never stop being hunted,” said the Smoking Man.

Next to him, Scully shifted on her feet.

“Mulder,” she said in his head. “Something’s not right-” and then their mental connection was cut. Mulder could no longer feel Scully or their son.

Alarmed, Mulder tried to keep a cool head, and a cooler facade.

“What do you care?” he said, stepping forward and angling William more toward Scully. “You’ll be dead.”

“I care about what happens to my grandson,” the old man said.

Mulder felt a surge of rage so strong he felt almost incandescent with it. If he’d been the one gifted with using William’s powers, there’d be a smoldering depression where the Smoking Man stood, nothing left of the man but pieces. In his arms, and despite their lost connection, William whimpered.

Beside him, Scully fell to one knee with a quiet groan.

Mulder immediately reached down to help her.

“Are you feeling alright, Agent Scully?” the Smoking Man asked. There was no concern in his words. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Scully?” Mulder asked quietly, flitting his gaze back and forth between her and the two men.

Scully looked up at him with a look of grave concern. “Mulder, I can’t,” she whispered. And Mulder immediately knew she’d lost the ability to wield William’s power. Whether it was the surge of force they’d used to send all the militants skyward, or if her cancer had indeed come back and was weakening her to the point of inability, Mulder couldn’t be sure.

“A boy needs his mother, and she’s dying,” the Smoking Man said. “I’m willing to make you a deal.”

Bryson had been watching the exchange warily, and, with one eye on an ailing Scully, and another on Mulder’s bastard of a father, he raised the gun halfway up.

“Deal?” Bryson said, incredulous. “Since when was a deal a part of the plan?”

The Smoking Man turned slowly to look Bryson over with an air of cool indifference.

“Plans can be changed,” the old man said. He then turned back to Mulder and Scully.

Mulder’s mind was flailing in a hundred directions at once. Scully was still on one knee, her hand on the floor as if it was the only way to keep herself from keeling over.

“The chip,” the Smoker said. “And your lives back. No more running.”

“No, Mulder,” Scully said weakly from knee-level. Mulder wanted to vomit. He’d either lose Scully or his son. She looked up at him with a beseeching look.

“No,” Mulder finally said, looking up at the two men, the choice killing him. “You can’t have William.”

The Smoking Man held the burning cigarette in his hand up to the trach tube and took a deep inhale.

“You misunderstand me,” the man said, exhaling from his throat. “You’d keep your son. What I’m offering you is the chip to save Agent Scully’s life, and your name cleared in the death of Knowle Rohrer and the boy’s adoptive parents. The child is yours. You can live together as a family. Free from pursuit.”

Though Mulder found the idea of being beholden to Cancer Man abhorrent, a part of him wanted nothing more than Scully and his son and their freedom at whatever cost the universe–or his repellent biological father–deemed necessary.

That part of him spoke. “In exchange for what?” He could barely get the words out, and he felt Scully’s small hand grip his ankle.

The Smoking Man smiled. “Blood and tissue samples. Bi-annually. From all three of you.”

Mulder’s stomach curdled. “For what purpose?”

“For the sake of all mankind,” the old man replied as though he were a god-like distributor of benevolence. “You three are humanity’s last chance. You’re our hope. Our Purity Control.”

Scully’s hand on his ankle tightened and he looked down. Her eyes were raised to his, her skin pale. She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. The blood on her lip was drying, a dark smear the color of regret.

It already felt like he was losing her, and he couldn’t bear it, not again. His lost son was warm in his arms.

He was going to take the deal.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Rhonda hadn’t seen it coming. She was playing her heart out, men streaming in from behind her, but she hadn’t turned to look. Play, she told herself. And keep playing. No matter what.

Then there was a giant conflagration outside the window of the lodge, and the bright light of an explosion lit up the piano in front of her, and then: darkness.

When she began to come back to herself, it was to ringing in her ears and a headache to end all headaches. If she lifted her head, she was sure she would puke up whatever was in her stomach, so she just didn’t move at all; curled up like she was, the hard floor was better than nausea.

As the ringing in her ears lessened, she began to hear voices, and she fluttered her eyes open, trying to take in what she was seeing.

Above her, impossibly, there were black-clad military men floating in the air. All in the same prone position. Like penitent men before their god, they hovered, unmoving, arms down, hands out, as if seeking benediction. And then, at her far left, up on the small stage the kids used to put on rainy-day shows, was Mulder, William and Scully, the latter with blood oozing out of her nose and on a knee, barely able to hold herself up. Adrenaline flooded Rhonda’s veins.

She was about to leap up and run to their aid, nausea or no nausea, when she began to register what the voices she was hearing were saying.

“A boy needs his mother,” a rough voice said from very close to where she was laying. “I’m willing to make you a deal.”

A hint of movement and then:

“Deal?” came an incredulous voice, even closer to her. “Since when was a deal a part of the plan?”

The second voice sounded familiar, and Rhonda slowly turned her head slightly until she saw a scuffed leather shoe very close to her face. Her gaze followed the length of the man’s leg and up, up until her eyes settled on the last person she’d ever hoped to see–the man who had caused such heartache from the day he set foot in her little diner: Agent Bryson.

She swallowed the knot in her throat and listened intently.

The rough-voiced man was offering a deal to Mulder and Scully. A chance to live their lives openly with their son. At least that’s what it sounded like. Rhonda looked at Mulder. He looked agonized, defeated.

“All right,” he said quietly. “We’ll do it.”

“Mulder no!” hissed Scully.

But then, from above her, “No deals!” Bryson shouted, and she watched him raise his gun at the little family. “We’re taking the boy. Now. She’s in no position to stop us!” Scully, who had been such a wonder the rest of the day, made no move to defend them, and Rhonda realized with dread that they were at the mercy of Bryson, and this other, perhaps more benevolent man.

Bryson shifted on his feet and took a step past her toward the raised platform. He was still very close to Rhonda, but now his back was to her.

Rhonda’s mind raced. What could she do to help? Was she even capable? She could no longer feel the gun that they’d given her tucked into her pants. It must have fallen out when the militants attacked her, a memory that was now groggily coming back. However, the pencil-thin syringe of ketamine that the family had stolen from the vet clinic to make it look like they’d broken in to rob the place was still in her back pocket. If she could just move her arm a little, she could pull it out.

She shifted slightly. Bryson didn’t seem to notice. She eased her hand into her pocket and slowly, ever so slowly pulled it out.

“Give me the boy!” Bryson said, taking another half step toward the family.

Rhonda eased the syringe up to her mouth and put the cap between her teeth, slowly baring the needle.

Bryson took another menacing step forward. One more step and he’d be out of her reach.

Rhonda had the syringe out and the needle free, but she began to shake. Her heart was fluttering in her chest like a songbird trapped in a fireplace. She took a deep breath. I will never be a victim again, she thought.

And then she lunged forward, her head screaming as she did so, and plunged the needle of the syringe through Bryson’s pants and deep into the flesh of his calf, shoving the depressor down and sending the entire contents of the syringe into the man’s leg.

The agent shouted and jumped back, swinging around and pointing his gun down at Rhonda, but he was too late, the damage had been done, the empty needle still sticking out of his leg.

Elated, Rhonda laughed. Irreverently, the laugh of a man walking the Last Mile. Still laying on the floor in all her fifty-five year-old glory, probably looking like a hog tied down for slaughter, Rhonda Fitzsimmons belted out a victorious guffaw. The man was going to shoot her, but she didn’t care. He took a stumbling step to the side, the drug taking effect, but she could see his finger tightening on the trigger.

Then the explosive blast of a pistol.

And Rhonda, who was certain she was on the very brink of death, watched as the man she’d known as Special Agent Bryson fell to the floor with a gaping, bloody exit wound where his forehead should have been.

Rhonda scrambled to her feet.

Mulder was standing on the small stage, smoke still leaking out of the barrel of his gun, holding William in his other arm. The baby had started wailing at the sound of the gunblast and Rhonda rushed to take him from his father, who looked dazed and was breathing hard.

Behind her, there was a calamitous THUMP! She turned and saw that all of the hovering bodies had fallen to the floor. The only man still standing amongst the pile of black-clad flesh was an older gentleman in a suit, who had a mechanical round hole in the center of his throat. He took a step away from the body of Bryson with a distasteful wince and brushed at his sleeve.

“You’ve made the right choice, son,” the Smoking Man said.

Mulder, looking even sadder and more defeated than ever, finally lowered the gun. Rhonda noticed there was blood weeping from his upper arm.

From the floor, Scully looked up. “Mulder,” she said weakly. Rhonda eased her way down next to the woman with William still in her arms. Scully rolled shakily into a sitting position and took her son, pulling him in and holding him close. The baby started to calm.

“I’ll include your new friend here, too,” the Smoking Man said. Rhonda inhaled, surprised. The old man was thrilled with the young family’s capitulation, and was further sweetening the pot. “She can go back to her life.” He smiled, snake-like. “You have my word,” the Smoking Man said.

Mulder laughed mirthlessly. “Your word doesn’t mean much.”

“I saved her life before,” the man said, nodding toward Scully.

“But that’s not what you’re doing right now,” said a voice from the doorway closest to the lake.

Everyone turned, en masse.

Standing in the doorway with a gun trained on the Smoking Man was the bald FBI agent who had given her his card in the diner. Assistant Director Skinner. And behind him stood another man with a narrow face and narrow features, who was holding a large manila envelope and the package that Rhonda had mailed for Scully the first morning they’d woken up in her cabin.

“All you’re doing now is peddling lies and writing checks you can’t cash,” Skinner went on, walking through the door, never taking his eyes off of the smoker. “Agent Doggett,” Skinner barked, and the other man stepped forward.

“I have your chip, Agent Scully,” he said in a broad New York accent. “And the merc you sent to take it from me,” Agent Doggett went on, now looking at the Smoking Man. “Who is in protective custody and willing to testify he was part of a hit squad you hired that killed young William’s adoptive parents.”

From beside Rhonda, Scully inhaled expansively.

“I also,” the man went on, walking into the room to stand before them, “have surveillance footage from not five days ago showing Knowle Rohrer walking into a pharmaceutical plant in San Jose, California.”

Skinner, his gun still trained on the older man, looked over at Mulder and Scully.

“Doggett and Reyes have been on this since you left. Digging through the mire. This son of a bitch has been behind it all, pulling all the strings. But he doesn’t have a damn leg to stand on. He doesn’t have Scully’s chip, and he doesn’t need to clear your damn names. We’ve already done that.”

At this, Agent Doggett kneeled down and looked directly at Scully, speaking in a more tender voice. “You don’t have to run anymore.”

The younger woman sagged in relief. Mulder seemed to wilt, lowering himself to the floor where he wrapped an arm around Scully and their son.

“Your timing is impeccable sir,” he said to Skinner.

“All credit to the agents on the X-Files,” Skinner said. “They brought it all to me last night.”

“What about William?” Scully asked tremulously, interrupting. “How do we know he won’t keep coming after him?”

Everyone, Rhonda included, turned to look at the Smoking Man, who had the audacity to look magnanimous.

“He’s my genetic legacy,” he said, his hoarse voice still somehow a little prissy. “And the hope of all mankind. One day, you’ll bring him to me.”

Rhonda wasn’t even sure which gun the blast came from, but the old man crumpled to the floor, a round hole in his forehead. The sound of the shot reverberated, bouncing off the log walls of the lodge until its echo degraded into a long and powerful silence.

“Maybe this time,” Skinner said after a long, quiet moment, holstering his gun and turning to the little family, “he’ll stay dead.”

Agent Doggett walked over to the old man’s body and toed his shoulder until he flopped loosely onto his back, his head lolling like a rag doll. A long line of smoke drifted from the trach tube up and into the air above his body, dissipating into nothing. The agent, seeming satisfied, nodded to himself and pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Monica,” he said, and meandered to the door of the lodge and out with the phone to his ear.

Skinner walked over and knelt down next to Mulder and the two men spoke in low voices.

Beside her, the baby pulled himself away from his mother’s shoulder and leaned back to turn, however improbably, toward Rhonda. His eyelashes were clumped together with tears, but he was calm, and with the countenance of an old soul, he looked her dead in the eye.

Rhonda smiled. He was a flower, pressed between the pages of a book. She glanced toward the piano. He was the first person in forty years who had made her want to play.

And here, Rhonda thought, their story ended where it had begun; under the outstretched arms of a lofty hemlock, where an out of tune piano played a bit of Chopin.

THE END

EPILOGUE

Late fall in Maryland normally saw dreary skies and drearier temperatures, but the day was sunny and the Japanese maple in Margaret Scully’s backyard was a brilliant orangey red in the dappled light. Three Dog Night played quietly from the tinny radio that sat in the kitchen window, and Maggie swayed quietly to it as she stood in front of her sink, dish soap suds up to her elbows. The doorbell rang.

She was not expecting company, and had been jumpy about visitors for months after a visit from law enforcement not long after her daughter had gone into hiding.

Maggie wiped off her hands and thought sadly of Dana, whom she hadn’t heard from in weeks. If it was the police again, or that dreadful agent from Director Skinner’s ‘task force’ who had visited once and asked invasive personal questions, she’d give the man a piece of her mind. She didn’t believe a word of anything that had come out about her daughter and Fox, and when Agent Bryson had shown her a local newspaper article from one of the mountain states, she’d shoved it back at him without reading it and had told him to get the hell out of her house.

Everything that had happened to her family in the last decade, that had happened to her daughter, the man Dana loved, her grandson…The country had changed from the one her late husband had fought for, and she was glad Bill wasn’t around to see what it had become.

She took a deep breath before she gripped the doorknob. It was just as likely to be Girl Scouts or a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of sugar, but she’d become accustomed to expecting the unexpected.

Nothing could have prepared her for what greeted her when she opened the door.

“Dana!” she practically shouted, reaching out to pull her daughter into the house before anyone saw. When she noticed who was standing behind and a little to the side of Dana, she froze.

Fox Mulder stood there, a smile on his face, holding an also-smiling little boy; her grandson, whom she had thought was lost to her forever.

“Dana?” she said again, this time breathlessly, her knees weakening beneath her.

“Mom,” her daughter said, wrapping her in a warm embrace. “Are you all right?”

Dana must have noticed her shaking.

“Yes, yes!” she said, stepping back so the three of them could trundle inside.

Once they were all standing in the entryway, her daughter stopped in front of her and Maggie finally got a good look.

Dana’s hair was appalling; long and dark, her red roots showing in a slash of color at the top of her head. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and on the back of her neck Maggie could see a small bandage taped in place. It looked familiar somehow, but she didn’t have time to recall.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not knowing what to do with her hands. She wanted to smell the baby’s head. She wanted to squeeze Fox’s hand. She wanted to take up her daughters face and cant it to the light. She wanted to reach out and embrace all three of them at once. Instead, she pushed her hands into the loose pockets of her cardigan.

Mulder seemed haggard and perhaps a little gaunt, but the baby he held was bright-eyed and smiling, and by the looks of the way he was leaning in Fox’s arms, eager to get down and explore the house.

“We wanted to reintroduce you to your grandson,” Fox said, connecting eyes with his son for a moment.

“Gama?” the boy said when Mulder looked away.

Maggie felt the sting of tears.

“How?” she said. Then, “I don’t care how,” she reached for the baby and Mulder handed him over. “Are you safe? Is he safe?”

Dana reached out and touched her arm.

“It’s over, Mom,” she said, squeezing gently.

“Over?” Maggie said. Her grandson had grown, felt heavy in her arms. He gazed up at her. Rounded cheeks, soft lashes. He looked like Charlie. A little like Fox.

“Skinner is bringing the paperwork over this evening. We’ve been cleared of all wrongdoing,” Fox said.

Maggie felt her mouth slacken in shock. “And William?”

“He’s ours,” Dana said. “He’ll always be ours.”

Margaret Scully’s prayers had been answered. All those candles she’d lit, all those matches she’d shaken to smoke, suddenly worth all the melted wax. Thanks to St. Sebastian, St. Anthony; patron saint of runners, patron saint of things lost. She’d go to church first thing in the morning.

“We were hoping…” Fox started, rubbing the back of his neck. He traded a look with Dana.

“Can we stay with you for a bit, Mom?” she asked. “Untying all the banking stuff may take some time, and then we’ll need to find our own place.”

“My god, of course!” Maggie said, elated. In her arms, her grandson was wiggling, eager to be let loose. She leaned down to set him on the floor, but he swung his feet down and began toddling around the second she let go.

“He’s walking!” she said.

Both of his parents smiled proudly.

Maggie was fit to be tied. She was two seconds from crossing herself. Her daughter would get to watch her son grow up. Dana would get to watch with maternal pride as the bones of him grew as long and lanky as his father’s. She’d get to watch him grow and stumble with the capricious energy of youth, rangy and uncoordinated as a colt. As a mother of sons herself, the thought made her tender hearted.

As it was, he was uncoordinated now, and the boy stumbled as he approached a side table and grabbed onto a doily that was hanging gently off the side. The bit of lace slid, and with it came the lamp that was resting on top of it, toppling off the table and headed directly for the tender head of the baby.

Maggie gave a shout of alarm, but the sound arrested in her throat.

Instead of falling, the lamp hung in the air for a moment and then gracefully re-alighted, setting itself gently back on the tabletop. William, unaware that he’d escaped disaster, made a gurgling sound and then toddled happily toward the sofa.

Maggie swung her eyes to the boy’s parents. Dana’s gaze confidently followed her son’s movements, but Fox gave her a chagrined smile.

“There are,” he said, “a few things you should probably know…”

#the x-files #fanfic #my fic #msr #no longer a WIP #three part harmony

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