Ceilidh Paul
rrooomsy_heckels@hotmail.com
 

CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Post-"Truth"; Angst
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: "William"; "The Truth"
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit being made.  All characters/concepts
property of 1013 and FOX.
SUMMARY: "Some moments are harder than others-
and this moment is hardest of all."  Mulder has an encounter with one
thought lost long ago.
AWARD ELIGIBILITY: 2004 Spooky Awards
 

***

The playground sand was thick and wet under
his feet, damp from the heavy winter air.
The temperature had risen rapidly in the
last two days, and the mounds of snow that
had dominated the landscape just days
previously had been reduced to rotting grey
piles.  The ground squelched with water,
and it rose and pooled around the toes of
his shoes as Fox Mulder stepped back out of
the sandbox.  The grey sky was huge over
his head, and the only object that gave any
definition to the horizon was the creaking
swing set that sat at the edge of the
parkette.
 
In the sandbox, only a few yards away from
him, heart-lurchingly close, a tiny shape
cooed happily and reached for a handful of
the thick wet particles.  The small toddler
was swathed in an immense blue snowsuit,
abandoned white mittens dangling at his
wrists, suspended from a fraying string
that threaded through his sleeves.  His
tiny hands were red from the cold and damp
from the sand.  Mulder itched to put them
between his own and warm them.
 
The brown-haired woman hovering on the
toddler's far side immediately reached out
and seized the wrists, admonishing gently.
Mulder strained for her words, but they
were whipped away by the wind that pushed
constantly at his back.  The little boy
frowned, and then sat firmly down in
consternation.  The woman patiently hauled
him back up again, and brusquely knocked
the clinging sand off the back of the
battered blue nylon suit.
 
Mulder scuffed at the soil beneath his
feet, and the woman looked over in slight
irritation.  After glaring at him for a few
more minutes, she took the toddler firmly
by the hand and strode over to him.
 
"Look," she said icily when she reached
him.  "I don't mean to sound rude or
accusatory, but may I ask why you are
hanging around a children's playground
without a child, and why you have been
staring at my son and I for the last half
hour?"
 
Mulder smiled as best he could.  "I'm just
taking in the scenery, ma'am," he said.
"I'm from out of state, and I just wanted
to look around the town.  I was enjoying
the wind and the fresh air.  I don't often
get breezes as crisp as this at home."
 
The woman seemed to calm down, and she
offered her hand.  "I'm sorry about that,
but you were worrying me.  I'm not usually
so confrontational.  My name is Elaine
Vandekamp.  And you are?"
 
"Sam Mulder," he replied smoothly.  "And
this is your son?"
 
The woman tugged the boy's hand, and he
looked up at her sullenly.  She nodded
toward Mulder, and the tiny face turned to
look at him.  The impact of looking the
toddler full in the face knocked Mulder's
breath out of him with a sudden jolt.
*Scully's eyes*, was all he could think.
*Scully's eyes*.  Their electric blue bore
into his face with drilling force, and they
seemed to see right into him, piercing him,
knowing him.  They drank him in and cut him
up, and when his breath returned it rushed
up and choked him.  Mulder's eyes began to
cloud.
 
The small boy tilted his head and then
reached up and pushed his hood off with
both hands, in a familiar tucking motion.
It floored Mulder, and all he could see
before his mind's eye were visions of
Scully tucking her hair behind her ears
over and over, the exact same motion and
gesture he saw echoed by the form in front
of him.
 
"Hi," the boy said, and his voice was so
tiny and perfect and young that Mulder felt
the breath go out of him again.
 
"Hi," Mulder echoed, unable to say
anything else.  I made you.  You're mine.
 
"I'm almost three," the boy stated
matter-of-factly.  "But you're older than
that."
 
"Don't be rude," Mrs. Vandekamp.  "We
talked about that."
 
The child ignored her and continued talking
to Mulder.  "I'm almost three, but really
I'm old.  And your name isn't Sam."
 
Mrs. Vandekamp frowned and tugged the tiny
fist enclosed in her own.  "Don't be
rude," she repeated.  She then turned to
Mulder and smiled stiffly.  "I'm sorry,"
she said.  "We've had a bit of a problem
with this kind of behaviour from him.  My
son has a very active imagination."
 
"That's all right," Mulder said faintly.
"I don't mind at all."
 
The boy smiled enigmatically.  "You're the
fox," he continued; then he seemed to go a
bit red, and his brow furrowed.  "Off!"
he demanded to Mrs. Vandekamp, and was
instantly a normal child again.  The woman
helped him unzip the jacket half of the
snowsuit, and a glint of gold shone from
around his neck, nestled at the back among
the delicate strands of bright red hair
that crowned his head.

"What's that?" Mulder asked quickly.

Mrs. Vandekamp pulled a delicate chain out
from under the boy's thick red sweatshirt,
and on it was dangling a tiny golden cross,
an exact replica of the one piece of
jewellery Mulder would know anywhere.  His
heart skipped a few beats.

"Well," she said firmly.  "We'd better
get going.  We've got a long walk home."

Mulder stepped forward.  "Please," he
asked quietly.  "Please let me give you a
drive?  It would be my pleasure."  At the
woman's wary look, he supplied: "Your son
looks very tired, and I know how hard it is
to walk anywhere with a tired child."

"Do you have children, then?" Mrs.
Vandekamp asked.

Mulder gazed at the boy for a moment, and
then answered slowly.  "I had a son, but I
lost him more than two years ago."

"I'm so sorry," the woman said, seemingly
reassured.  "That must have been beyond
horrible."

"It was," Mulder replied, and then
abruptly changed the topic.  "Now, please,
allow me to give you a ride home."

Mrs. Vandekamp nodded slowly and followed
him to his rental car, shiny and new with
dealership Wyoming plates.  She climbed
into the backseat with the toddler on her
lap, and Mulder got into the driver's seat
and started the car.

"Where to?"

As she gave him directions, Mulder watched
the small boy in the rear-view mirror
humming to himself and stroking the
upholstery.  His heart felt as if an
enormous weight were about to crush it
completely.  The boy's red-gold hair
flashed in the light from the landscape
rushing by outside the car window, and
Mulder couldn't help feeling as if he was
the most beautiful thing that he had ever
seen.  *And we made him*, he thought again.
*I want Scully to see how impossibly
beautiful he is*.

*I can't, Mulder*, Scully had said, weeks
ago, her voice shaking in the quiet of
their apartment in the charged moments
after he had surprised her with the results
of his clandestine search.  *Why can't you
understand that?  I said goodbye, I made
the only choice I could.  I died inside
when he was carried out my door, and
there's nothing left in me; I'm not strong
enough to die again.*  Later, when his
anger had worn her down and his resolution
scratched at her guilt, she'd said: *I'll
go to Wyoming with you, but don't you dare
expect me to set foot outside our room.*
This morning he'd left her hunched and
soundless on the bed.

"So," Mrs. Vandekamp said finally,
discomfited with his long silence.  "Do
you have a wife?"

"Yes," Mulder said.  "In a loose
application of the word.  We've been
together for eleven years now."  His chest
pounding with his own daring, Mulder leaned
over and pulled something from the glove
compartment.  "This is she and I, about
three years ago.  She's holding our son."

Mulder passed the photograph back,
deliberately placing it in the child's
hands first.  The boy's incredible electric
eyes flew as wide as they could go,
astonishment and something else
indescribable burning out from them.

Elation slammed through Mulder.  *He
remembers, he thought.  Somehow, some way,
he remembers.*

"Mine," the boy said.  "I want it."

Mrs. Vandekamp reached out and seized the
photo.  "Give that back right now!" she
exclaimed.

"It's all right," Mulder said quickly.
"You can give it back to him; he can keep
it.  I've got more copies at home."

The woman looked wary, but handed the
photograph back to the child, who clutched
it tightly in one hand, spreading the other
over Scully's image.

"Mine," he repeated quietly.  Mulder felt
his heart crack.

The horizon was rippled with not too
distant mountains as they came out of the
wide valley floor, and the grass seemed
greener where it poked between the piles of
slush.  The weak March sun filtered through
the uniform grey sky, and the land began to
roll through the pavement, foothills
swelling the ground.

Mrs. Vandekamp pointed Mulder down a semi-
visible road, and the car instantly began
to rattle from the pebbles that jumped and
spat beneath the wheels.  The toddler
giggled and clapped his hands together.

"He loves this road," she said weakly.
"He knows he's going home."

With a wrenching pang, Mulder remembered
another car, another woman, in another
state, another homecoming.  In the backseat
of that car had been the same child, but
tinier and more infinitely fragile.  Mulder
could still feel the grin that had spilt
his face all the way through the DC traffic
jam, the grin that he had still worn as he
and Scully had parked and jogged to the
back door, lifting their beautiful treasure
and kissing his forehead.

Scully had whispered in the baby's ear, her
eyes and features alight with joy.  Mulder
could hear her words, soft and warm in the
May sun that still shone eternally in his
memory.  *Welcome home, William,* she had
whispered, and the words had hung like
honey in his ears.

Mulder brought himself back with the sharp
prickle in his eyes, and found Mrs.
Vandekamp staring at him concernedly.

"It's all right," he mumbled, and then
cleared his throat.  "I miss my son very
much, that's all.  Some moments are just
harder than others."

The woman smiled gently, and then flicked
her gaze away.  "Well," she said.  "This
is it.  Thank you very much for the ride
home; I appreciate it, and so does Lee, I'm
sure."

"Lee?" Mulder shot out harshly.

"Yes," Mrs. Vandekamp replied hesitantly,
back on guard again.  "His name is Lee."

"Is it short for anything?" he demanded,
throwing caution to the wind.  His name.
That was the one thing Scully had managed
to say to him before he had left their
motel room.  *He's still William,* she'd
said faintly to his stiff back.  *What ever
else he isn't anymore, he's still William.
I made sure of that.* Mulder felt the
bitterness of betrayal rise in his throat.
She'd broken yet another promise.

"Yes, it is a short form," Mrs. Vandekamp
was saying.  "It's short for Liam, which
in turn we shortened from..."
*Please,* Mulder thought.  *Don't let
her be lying again.*

"... William."

Mulder felt the breath ebb out of him
again.  He smiled as best he could to cover
the situation, and pulled to a stop in
front of a driveway crowned with a bright
red mailbox, emblazoned with VDK in black
stencil.

Mrs. Vandekamp began to climb out of
the car, but Mulder jogged around to the
back passenger side and opened the door for
her.

"Please," he said, his voice
slightly desperate in the heavy air.
"Please, let me carry him into the house
for you."

The woman eyed him for a long moment,
and then something seemed to clear behind
her eyes.  Her expression lightened as if a
shroud had been lifted from it.

"Yes," she responded thickly.  "Of
course you can."

Mulder reached out his arms slowly and
reverentially, and with infinite care
transferred the boy- the baby, really- to
his embrace.  The tiny body's warm weight
pressed against his heart, soft and dense
and faintly perfumed.  As he began to walk
down the driveway, he buried his face in
the damp mess of the red-gold hair, and to
his joyous and heartbroken astonishment, he
felt the gentle press of tiny arms
encircling his neck.  Every emotion
conceivable ripped through him, but through
it all was a deep and fathomless love that
he'd felt since the first moment he'd held
this child in his arms.

With a sudden ache, Mulder realised
that they were at the door of a low white
farmhouse, a state flag snapping in the
wind, and that the time had come to put the
baby down.  Slowly, agonisingly, he
loosened his grip, but the boy did not.

Mulder turned his head, and whispered into
the miniscule ear beside him, his lips
grazing the silken skin.

"I love you, William," he scratched
out.  "I always have, and I always will.
Remember that."

He let the warm body slide from his
embrace, to land on his feet on the wooden
steps.  Mulder's arms were immediately
colder than they'd ever been before,
shivering and naked to the wind.

He turned from the electric blue eyes
before him with the speed of ripping a
bandage, and he walked quickly away down
the porch steps.  Every step burned him
anew.

"Mr. Mulder," Mrs. Vandekamp called
after him unexpectedly.  When he turned
around, she cleared her throat and
continued awkwardly.  "Some day, one day,
I'll tell him about you.  He'll want to
know."

Mulder nodded sharply, then turned and
fled, his steps racing him into his car and
then carrying him away down the road, out
into the foothills, and out of the life of
his son.

***

Later, Mulder let himself into the
dark motel room, and took in Scully's
huddled form on the far bed.  Her shoulders
were hunched and her back was twisted into
a ball.  He could see that her arms were
wrapped around her chest as tightly as a
vice and that her eyes were fixed on the
shadowed, smudged, and dirty wall.  Her
hair was mussed and slightly greasy.

Every inch of him still burned and
scorched with pain, his skin chafing with
agony where his clothes touched him.  He
wanted nothing more than to fall to the
floor and never stand up again.  Feeling
his legs begin to shake, he sat down on the
stained, dilapidated armchair and stared
into the distance.

"So?" Scully asked, her voice
floating in a myriad of shame and hurt,
thick and scratching with tears.

"They call him Lee," he answered,
and it was all he could manage.  As he sank
to his knees, he remembered what he had
said to Mrs. Vandekamp, and recognized the
unequivocal truth of it.

Some moments are harder than others-
and this moment is hardest of all.
 
 

THE END

***