Title - All Around My Table
Author - Miranda
E-mail - miranda119@juno.com
Rating - G
Category - V
Spoilers - Fight the Future, Momento Mori
Keywords - Mulder/Scully married
Summary - Mulder looks around his table one evening in the future, and is
amazed by what he sees.
Disclaimer - These characters belong to Chris Carter but I'll be really
nice to them.  Probably nicer than he'll ever be!  


All Around My Table

She lost me about 15 names back.

"So then I said 'Well, maybe he likes Angie' because he's always looking
at her during social studies but then Jordan said that she heard Alexis
say that Brandon said that Justin said he likes me!  I was so freaked out
then I asked Kaylie to ask-"

"Melissa!" I hear my wife say in an amused, yet stern voice.  "Less talk,
more eating."

"Mo-om!" Melissa whines in a tone I don't think I'll ever grow accustomed
to.  "This is important!  Don't you care about my life?"

"Of course I do." her mother replies evenly as she spoons a few peas into
Emily, our two year old daughter's mouth.  Emily promptly spits the
vegetables on to her high chair.

"Yucky." she declares and tightly presses her lips together.  Undaunted,
Mom returns to her own food until Emily realizes she is not being fed.

"Daddy?" I hear another voice, and look at my six year old daughter
Samantha.  Her red hair glistens in the light of the sun shining into the
dining room as her blue eyes sparkle.  "Daddy, I got picked to be line
leader today."

That is my Samantha.  Never have I known such a sensitive human being. 
Everything is important to her.  Everything means the world. I
momentarily wonder if her teacher realizes that she has, most likely
without so much as a second thought, given a little girl a treasure she
will store in her memory for a long time.  Samantha sees the joy and the
hidden wonder in everything about living.  She makes me stop and ponder
things I would have otherwise gone through my entire life never thinking
without her presence and influence on my life.  My dear little Samantha.

"So what?" Melissa laughs, but cuts off the rest of her remarks to her
younger sister as she catches the warning signal her mother flashes
wordlessly at her. 

Melissa is my impetuous daughter.  She is ten and knows everything there
is to know and has long since declared she is no longer in need of her
parents.  She may be outspoken and tactless and naive right now, but
Melissa will eventually outgrow this awkward stage and will accomplish
great things.  She is talented and persistent.  She is a leader and a
motivator.  She will make us proud. 

"Yucky." Emily announces again in a huff and tries to cross her arms
across her chest for effect as she spits a second spoonful of vegetables
onto the high chair.  At two, we can already see the hint of a very
stubborn little girl in our youngest.  She knows what she wants and she
is determined to get it.  I guess I see myself in her the most of all
three of my girls, because I know my own tendency to stubbornness to the
point of foolishness.  I would have gone through life alone had it not
been for the wonderful woman sitting across the table who showed me in
her wisdom and quiet strength that I am not always right, that I do not
have all the answers.  She balances my weakness, she makes me whole and
complete.  I wish for my willful baby girl a soul mate as mine, who will
take her will and soften and refine it, bringing out the good and
suppressing the bad as her mother has done for me for so many years.

I look around my table at my four 'women' who have become my world, and
tears fill my eyes.  Melissa has resumed her story, Samantha is now
staring dreamily out the window, and Baby Emily is nodding off in her
high chair, so only my wife sees the moisture that brims in my eyes.  She
understands my emotion.  These girls, this life, this family - is a
miracle.  A miracle straight from Heaven's hand that in all normal
circumstances could not have been.  A marriage that was delayed years
because of hardship and trouble and all the problems of the world that
Dana and I had to solve first.  Three beautiful daughters that caught us
completely by surprise every time, since Dana had been rendered barren
and without means of reproduction years before we were even married.  

"What a miracle.." I mouth to my wife. She is used to hearing me say
this. She smiles, and my heart leaps.  My heart always leaps, without
fail, when I see her smile.  Maybe the greatest miracle of all is how
this beautiful and intelligent and caring and admirable angel ever could
have loved a man so inconsiderate and driven and attached to as many
demons as I was when she found me.  I don't deserve her devotion, but she
has always given it.  And she was so patient.  She has since told me that
she was ready to marry me only a couple years into our FBI partnership.
It took me five more to realize the same thing she had known all along. 
The truth that was so obvious to everyone but me... I sought my
fulfillment in finding out conspiracy and chasing ghosts from another
time, and all the while the only thing I needed for fulfillment stood
next to me.  Quietly, calmly holding my hand as we trudged along the path
of life together, never asking more of me than I could give, never for a
moment giving up on me, always there when I needed her.   And I've needed
her always.

Suddenly I'm filled with an overwhelming desire to hold her in my arms. 
She knows this, and she is clearing the dishes and food away, and
instructing Melissa to put Emily in her crib and do her homework and for
Samantha to take a bath.  Moments later we are alone and I draw her into
my arms, pulling her tightly to my chest and threading my fingers through
her silky red hair.

"I love you so much." I whisper close against her hair.  She hugs me
tightly in response.  A moment later I gently push her back and place a
loving kiss on her familiar mouth.  As I delight in the feel of her lips
against mine, I remember the first time I touched them with a kiss.  I
was in a dark place - I was about to lose her.  I was forced by the
circumstances to tell her what she really meant to me, and I had started
to kiss her.  It had only been an instant our lips were together, but the
moment had locked within it the truth about our everything I was
searching for.  I needed her, and nothing else really mattered when it
all came down.  I had to be with her.

And now our three daughters are the proof, the scientific evidence and
production of that love.  They only have lived because we have loved. 
And that is an amazing thing to me.

"I love you." Dana says softly when our lips have parted.  And I have
that feeling of peace and rest.  She loves me.  She will be there.  And
there is nothing else I need.  

"What a miracle..." I whisper again, and she smiles.

And my heart leaps.

THE END