Father's Day (PG-13)

Mulder let himself into the hotel room.  It was on the fourth floor, but he automatically slipped the chair under the wobbly knob, then dropped the fast food bag on the dresser.

Scully would be proud that he was at least tired of fast food, but this place had no kitchen and he didn’t want to be out in public long enough to eat.  He’d stayed here for three nights, tonight would be the fourth and last night here.  He hoped in a few weeks he’d feel a little more secure about staying somewhere for some length of time.

Being on the run was still surreal to him.  It had only been a few weeks and already it felt like a year.  He wanted to go home.  He wasn’t doing any good out here so far, being on the run meant he’d spent more time hiding than investigating what had consumed his life for so long.

Now the answers were even more vital, and he was getting less done.

This place looked just like every other place he had stayed.  He was still doing okay finance-wise; he was staying in places he would never consider for Scully or . . . Even he felt the need to stay armed in the neighborhoods he now inhabited.   He ran his hand over his face.  It could now be called a true beard, no longer just scruff.  It was a good start on a disguise.  He’d picked up a pair of glasses as well, with clear glass, which he wore when he was out.

The baseball cap looked worn and used now, no longer new or fresh.  He’d been to the laundromat last night, so he had clean clothes.  Big deal, right now he didn’t care about any of that.  He wanted to talk to Scully, see her, hold her.

He needed to remember why he’d thought this was a good idea.  It had seemed like the only thing to do at the time.  He’d wanted to protect her, protect them.  Was it working?  He didn’t dare contact them, not yet.  But he had gone to the libraries of every city he’d stayed in so far and checked out the newspapers in DC.  She was okay, she’d put the ads in the personals, he’d recognized them.  He couldn’t respond, not yet, but maybe in a couple of weeks he could email her at the new address they had created. 

A couple of weeks, how in the hell could he go that long?

He looked around the drab room again.  The bedspread was brown.  Oh yeah, before this dump had purchased it, it had probably had some fancy color name - hot chocolate, date nut, but it was brown.  The walls had no real color, but they might have one time been beige.  The furniture didn’t match and he’d put folded paper under the dresser himself to keep it from rocking.  He knew most of the rooms in this hotel were rented by the hour.  That was why he had asked for clean sheets and put them on the bed himself.  The brown bedspread only covered the bed when he wasn't in it.  The only 'good' thing about the place was price.

God, he was in a mood.

Oh hell, he knew what was wrong.  It was Father's Day.  Not a day he'd given any thought to for years, decades, but this one . . .  It was the first Father's Day where he was an honest-to-god father, and Scully and Will were so far out of his reach he might as well have been on the moon.  That brought a grim smile.

Procreation had not been a high priority for him.  It hadn't been in the top 100 of things he wanted to accomplish in his life, until Scully.  Then, when she'd asked for his 'help' with the in-vitro, it had bulleted to the top one or two.  It hadn't worked, not to get her pregnant, but it had for all intents and purposes blown apart what was left of that barrier they had tried to keep between them.  The barrier had been eaten away piece by piece over their years together, until it was symbolic only, but that request . . . and they had come together, whether in grief, or comfort or knowing that they were truly in each other's lives for better or worse.  His body had penetrated hers and hers had taken life from his.  And she had gotten pregnant.  Then, of course, he'd been abducted by aliens.  You could almost laugh.  But he'd missed so much and now he was missing even more.  Their son, growing so fast now that you could almost see it, except he wasn't there.

He needed them.  Damn he needed to see them, to sustain himself if nothing else.  When had he become such a wimp?  Fox Mulder, loner extraordinaire, wanting to go home and be with his woman, his son.  He had to keep them safe, hold onto that thought, it was to keep them safe and learn what he needed in order to do that.  Maybe not a candidate for father of the year, but he'd do what he had to for his family.

Happy damn father's day . . .