#which is part of why writing his pov is kinda fun ahdjdnsksk

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

one word? omg omg can u do ‘children’ pls (IM GOING TO CRY)

I've never seen you as a mother before, Mulder had said once, and it was like a revelation. He'd seen her with the Eves, with Kevin Kryder, even once with her godson because he'd stopped by while she was babysitting. Scully's gentleness is something he's not sure he'll ever learn the end of, but he's all but entranced to see her like that. He doesn't register it as mothering at first, but once he does, he can't forget the thought.

That same conversation in Home, Pennsylvania held more than just that realization, though. They'd brushed up against something, the prospect of their futures — even, tentatively, backhandedly, a future together; one, singular future. Über-Scullys and genetic compatibility were as close as they could get, being who they are, to hinting at something more.

Mulder has been thinking about it since the case in Maryland, with the subliminal messaging via television tapes; he'd thought Scully was dead, and it hit him like yet another flash of sudden insight: he loves her. And somehow, despite the horrors playing out around them in Home, that's the main thing on his mind. She lets him flirt, lets him put his hand on her back and talk about starting a family, and he wants to tell her. He wants to tell her he loves her, that he wants that future and family with her, but all he can say is "I've never seen you as a mother before".

And nearly a year later, seeing her with her very real daughter, seeing her lose her daughter, he wants to tell her again. It's the wrong time, she's barely hanging onto her emotional control now, but he drives her back to his hotel room instead of her brother's house after the small funeral and wants to tell her he loves her. He's seen her with children before, but he's never seen her so bright and hopeful as those few minutes they played on the floor with her daughter. It's exceedingly selfish to be thinking like this right now and he knows it, but when he sees her turn her face away in the passenger seat so he doesn't see her cry (even though he knows she's crying), something in him aches with longing.

Sand in a casket makes him grit his teeth, because no matter what else Emily was, she was a little girl and she was Scully's little girl. He's always had a soft spot for lost little girls — he has a psychology degree, he knows exactly why — and while he wants nothing more than to comfort Scully right now, he also has some kind of belated protective instinct that makes him want to avenge her lost little girl. Scully deserves so much better. Emily deserved a life.

He'd once told Scully he hadn't thought of her as a mother before, implying then that he had a new perspective — and he did; the thought took root in his mind, Scully with a child, children, a future together. It wasn't until he saw her with Emily that he fully conceptualized what that meant; he would have given up anything for Scully and her little girl — his work, his search for his sister, everything he's put his whole heart into for so long. He would have asked Scully to marry him.

Now, he lets her into his hotel room and watches her curl up, fully clothed, on his bed. She doesn't say a word, and he doesn't either. He doubts she wants him very close right now, but he sits at the end of the bed and gently, tentatively reaches out and rests a hand on her ankle. He's here if she wants him to be; however she wants him to be. He can't comprehend her pain at finding and then losing her child, and his own pain is irrelevant. He should have told her before now about her ova, he thinks, because now she's grieving her inability to have children as well as the daughter she did have.

He'd never seen her as a mother before; now he sees it painfully clearly.