Title: Another Fond Memory
Author: Spock
Category: MSR
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, CC owns 'em, had to drug 'im. I own Katie
and Lynn, though.
Spoilers: None really.
Feedback: spockdaggoo@yahoo.co.uk
Summary: William tells his daughter Katie about her grandparents.
Author's note: This is a story in the same post-series universe as A
Fond Memory was written. In that story Mulder and Scully passed away,
in each other's arms, thinking about their first time. Well, they left
their son, William, William's wife Lynn and a granddaughter, Katie,
and this is a story about love and remembrance.

Chronologically:
This fic is preceeded by Their Fondest Memory 
and A Fond Memory

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Part 1: Katie

"That last day, when they were taken from us by those unseen hands of
time, my gramps decided to tell me the story about how he and grandma
got together. He told me it was because I was old enough, and could
'better understand the finer points'. We were sitting on the porch and
there was a light fall breeze, and we were draped in warm Navajo
quilts. Gramps had his Knicks sweatshirt and corderoy pants and
sneakers that were all...."

"Katie?"

The young ash blonde woman stopped dictating to herself and looked up
from her diary and saw his father hovering at her bedroom door.

She hadn't even heard him open it. She had been busy writing down
everything she could remember about her grandparents' last day. The
diary was already full of memories, about what they had ever told her,
taught her and given her, and there was so much she wanted to remember
about them, so much she wanted to be able to tell her own
grandchildren.

"Are you okay?"

She smiled at her father and nodded, putting down her pen. She looked
down at the diary, closed it and moved to put it in her desk drawer.
As she closed the drawer her eye caught the picture sitting in the
middle of her desk. She had made the frame herself, in kindergarten,
and the apple-color papier mach matched the color of the dress her
grandma wore in the picture.

It was a picture of her grandparents kissing under the shade of one of
the apple trees out in the backyard of their house. There they were,
vibrant and young sixty somethings, and it hurt to look at them. The
funeral had been two weeks ago, the wound was still fresh, and she
felt a tear trickle down her cheek, sprung out of the seemingly
bottomless fountain of grief in her heart. She looked up at her
father, feeling nothing but a new wash of misery, and sobs escaped her
clogged throat.

"Oh, Katie...", she heard her father say. She closed her eyes. She
felt the bed dip as her father sat down beside her. As he put his arms
around her she leaned into him, turned to him and cried into his denim
shirt, feeling utterly helpless for the third time that day.

"Daddy...", she croaked, as a new wash of tears was freed.

"Shh, sweetie", she heard his soothing velvety voice and it reminded
her of her grandfather's.

"I miss 'em", she snivelled out loud and clenched the lapels of his
shirt.

"I know", she heard her father say softly.  

"Why haven't you cried, daddy?", she managed into his chest.

No reply.

She swallowed her tears, pulled back and tried to focus on the
expression on her father's face. He looked sadder than she had ever
seen him. Having just lost his parents had to be hurting him, surely?
She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her sweater.

"Daddy?"

Katie gauged her father's reactions as she backed away from him
slightly. Could she ask him how he felt? He had been so closed-off
since that morning,  when she had walked into the kitchen and launched
herself into his arms, sobbing, she had expected him to break down
with her, but he hadn't. He hadn't even shed a tear at the funeral.
And now he sat with her, trying his best to comfort her, but his eyes
remained inexplicably dry.

"Daddy?"

"What, sweetie?"

"I need to know...", she felt her lip quiver.

"Yes?", he raised his eyebrow at her, and she swallowed a new wave of
emotion.

"Why haven't you cried about gramps and grandma?", mentioning them
pushed a new wave of tears to spill over her already wet cheeks. She
unceremoniously wiped them away with the back of her hand.

Her father took a deep breath and reached for the framed picture of
her grandparents. Katie's eyes were blurred but she saw that his hand
was shivering as he lifted the picture and brought it to the space
between them on the bed. Katie sat perfectly still, waiting for her
father to say something. She watched him looking down at the picture,
trailing his right index finger over the couple tucked safely
underneath the glass. What must he be thinking?

After a few minutes of silence her father cleared his throat. She
looked up at him.

"Dad once told me that he didn't cry when he found out that mom had
given me away for adoption."

"What?" Katie felt struck in the gut. What did he mean? What was her
father telling her? She quickly thought about the tenderness of her
grandpa, he had been an emotional man, surely he had cried? He must
have, she reasoned and looked at her father, pleading with him to say
that it wasn't true.

"All he and mom had then was a picture of me" She watched him look
down at the framed picture again. "but he never cried. Mom was
completely devastated, but dad, dad never cried"

"Oh, daddy..." Katie didn't really understand what he was telling her.
Was he telling her that her gramps hadn't cared for his son, and that
it was for that reason her daddy couldn't cry about his daddy? Katie
didn't want to believe this, she looked at her father in distress
borne out of disbelief.

"He told me that he wouldn't allow himself to cry, because he knew in
his heart that we would be reunited."

She watched her father fight the emotions that the picture evoked in
him. Her father's clarification had eased her pain, but still she
wanted to cry. She would cry for both of them. Make up for the unshed
tears of the past, and the present.

"Daddy, it's okay to cry", she whispered, feeling her eyes well up
again. She put her hand on her father's cheek. She watched him look at
the picture and close his eyes. He nodded, and she felt him lean into
her palm.

"It's okay, daddy...", she said firmly this time, because she could
now see that he needed her strength, the way she had needed his. Soon
she felt him shiver and saw the first tear roll from the corner of his
eye.

"I miss them, Katie..." he croaked and broke down in front of her. She
put her arms around her father as he cried. His sobs broke her heart
all over again, and they cried together. They shared the pain.

After a few minutes of cathartic crying, she ventured to pull away
from him. His dark brown hair was all tousled, and she imagined hers
was as well. She wanted to remember them with her father, she
realized.

"Tell me something about them, daddy, something I don't know"

He looked at her and smiled then, seemingly having found a story in
his memories worth sharing with his 18-year-old daughter. She beamed
at him and reached for her drawer.

"Mind if I make notes?"

"I knew sending you to college was a mistake", he quipped.

She chuckled. Her father was his father's son, and for that she was
eternally grateful.



Part 2: William


He had been lost, but his daughter had pulled him back to the fold.
She had reminded him of the importance of mutual support, of family
and of mourning the loss of the ones close to your heart. Katie was
such a romantic, and it was largely due to his parents' influence on
her. She would die rather than live a loveless life, they had made
sure of that. He knew this because he, too, had searched far and wide
for love. And he had finally found it in Lynn. He knew he would spend
the rest of his life making Lynn happy, the way his father had decided
to never let his mother go. Their legacy would live on in Katie, and
he would make sure she treasured that legacy, although he was pretty
sure she needed no coaxing.

"Katie, I don't know where to begin" He had so many stories, so many
small nuggets of gold that he kept close to his heart, but there was
one in particular that followed him wherever he went.

"Anything, I'll take any little crumb you have to offer"

"OK", he said, and saw the spark of interest ignite in his daughter's
eyes. He looked around in her bedroom, she was away at college most of
the time now, but after the funeral she had been staying at home more.
The walls had posters of horses of kittens and such, and it was
adorable, but she wasn't a chick anymore, he realized as he looked at
her. She was a beautiful young woman, with long ashblonde hair and her
eyes were deep and expressful. She would break some heart along the
way, he was sure of it.

"Daddy? The story, daddy."

Her gentle tug on his shirt pocket awoke him from his reflections.

"The story? What story?", he said, biting his lip.

"Don't even go there", his daughter exclaimed and swatted his hand.

"Where?"

"Daddy!"

He chuckled. How should he begin? His dad had taught him the
importance of a good prologue but his daughter was looking more and
more miffed by the minute.

"OK, here goes, Katie. You've got your pen ready?"

"Yes! Now begin already"

"Before your mom and me got together I went to dad's and mom's house"

"Which one?"

"Which one what?"

"Which house?"

"The only one they ever lived in together, Katie"

"Oh,OK" 

He looked down at the picture between him and his daughter. He had
played hide and seek in that garden. He had hid behind that apple tree
a thousand times, and his dad had always found him.

"OK, so I went there by bike one day to ask my dad a question"

"Is this only about gramps?" 

He thought he saw a hint of sadness in Katie's eyes.  The possibility
that not every story about his parents was sprinkled with romance
seemed out of place in his daughter's cosmology. He smiled at her.

"Katie, honey, do you actually think that that's possible?"

He heard her hum her answer and he chuckled.

"OK, there was this...thing...that I needed to know"

"Did you want to know about the birds and the bees, daddy, coz if you
are gonna tell me a story about the birds and the bees, I think I will
pass..."

"Katie, I was 18, I already knew about the birds and the bees, thank
you very much. Your father wasn't a loser, you know, besides, having
grown up in a household with Mr Mulder and Ms Scully was like growing
up in an aviary/bee hive"

Katie rolled her eyes at him and they both burst out laughing. 

"True, so true, daddy"

"OK"

"So, what were you going to ask him about then?"

He pondered a while. How was he going to tell her about this? Go right
out and tell her? She was looking intrigued, her interest peeked by
his sudden pause. Ah, damnit, he had said A, he had to say B.

"I wanted to know how he had known that grandma loved him"

"Oh...", Katie gasped, and he knew that she would not let this one go.
He watched her turn a blank page in her diary, her pen poised above
the empty slate, ready to archive a special memory.

"Well, we sat down on the couch in the den"

"The Love Mobile?"

He couldn't believe his dad had told Katie about that godforsaken
couch. He had been the witness to many a love fest on the creaky
thing, involuntarily of course. Once he had brought some friends over
to watch some TV in the den. Oh, God, how embarassing had that time
been?

"Uh-huh"

"And then you turned to gramps and asked him the question?"

"Yup"

"Just like that, daddy?"

"Yes, just like that, I was a man, not a wuss"

"Sorry, daddy, please continue"

"OK, so there I was, staring at my father, awaiting some sort of
response, and he just..."

"He just what?"

"He just started grinning at me..."

"I can totally see that"

"And I was like, 'What are you grinning at?', and he just kept on
grinning like a madman"

"Poor daddy, what did you do?"

"Well, I wasn't going to sit there and take the abuse, so I got up and
he stopped me"

"He stopped grinning at you?"

"Yeah, he just told me to sit back down, and I did"

"Then what happened?"

"He turned all serious and saw straight through me and asked 'You've
met someone, haven't you?'"

Katie looked emotional all of a sudden, and he smiled at her.

"I nodded at dad, and he smiled at me"

"Who was it, daddy?"

"Your mommy"

"Oh...", Katie managed, and he watched her take a deep breath. He
smirked at her.

"What?"

"You haven't even written a word, Katie". He was pointing at the blank
page in her diary.

"Well, you haven't told me anything of worth yet", she huffed
indignantly. He chuckled at her, and he knew his chuckle was
infectuous, and that soon she would join him, which of course she did.

After their mirth had subsided, he decided to bring out the good
stuff.

"What we didn't know, dad and me, as we sat there on that couch, was
that mom was listening in on our conversation"

"Ooh, goodie", Katie almost clapped her hands in eager anticipation,
she was in so many ways still his little baby girl. She must have
noticed his escape into Katie Memory World, because she was almost
bouncing up and down on the bed, trying to attract his attention.
Well, he was glad that she liked his story. She had always loved the
bedtime stories he had read to her.

"Daddy!"

"OK, OK, Katie, settle down, will you?"

"So, what did gramps say?"

"He told me that there was a method"

"A method?"

"A method of love detection"

Katie was rolling her eyes at him and he knew exactly what she was
thinking of. She was thinking of Fox Mulder, the goofiest most utterly
endearing creature to ever have walked the planet.

"OK, so I was rolling my eyes at him, my mouth agape, and he was
tapping the side of his nose, nodding sagely"

"I can see that, I can totally see that!", his daughter exclaimed in
triumph, no doubt already planning how she was going to describe it in
her diary.

"Yes, he was tapping his nose and took a deep breath and lowered his
voice and said: 'Wills, I'm going to tell you something I haven't told
anybody else, something I want you to keep to yourself."

"Goodie"

"I said: 'Sure, dad' and he inched closer to me, still speaking in a
hushed voice he said: 'If she can't look at you, she's yours'"

William tried to imitate the way his dad had said those words, and he
seemed to be successful in his attempt, because Katie was all ears,
not moving a muscle, barely even breathing, he noticed. She really
wanted to hear the story, it seemed.

"And then grandma sprung out of the shadows and beat gramps to a
pulp?"

He chuckled at her, and she followed suit. This was a great way to
handle the grief, he thought, it was cathartic to tell these stories,
wasn't it? Katie was so smart, writing down her memories, working
through the sadness. He was glad she was able to joke about them. He
resumed his story.

"No, do you really think she would at that stage of the conversation?"

"No, I guess not, she wanted more facts, didn't she?"

"Oh, yeah, she wanted more to sling his bal..." Shit, he shouldn't be
talking like this with his young daughter, should he?

"Oh, daddy, you know what? You ARE gramps"

"No, I'm not"

"You are a lot like him, daddy"

"No one can be like him, Katie, no one"

"I think it's sweet"

Was Katie really comparing him to his father? Well, he wasn't as
goofy, as handsome, not as brilliant and not as intuitive as his
father had been. What were the similarities then? Hair color, long
fingers and a slender frame? But there wasn't much else, was there?

"Katie, do you want to hear this story, or not?"

"OK, daddy, give me the details."

"Thank you" 

He took a deep breath. 

"OK, there I was staring at dad..."

"...in disbelief"

"in disbelief and I asked him to please clarify"

"Well, maybe you are like GRANDMA, daddy, you want hard facts, I know
that about you"

William sighed. His daughter really wanted to see any trace of his
parents in him, didn't she? Would it help her in her grief? Or make it
worse?

"Katie, stop comparing me to them, OK?"

Katie was muted, and he reproached himself for having been to harsh in
tone. He hadn't meant it as a reproach. He just couldn't believe
anyone could ever compare to his parents, they were too special, too
heroic. He had just had the privilege to be a part of their lives,
that was all.

"Katie, we are connected to them, of course we are, we are family.
Ain't nothing gonna change that, you know that, don't you?"

He lifted his palms to his daughter's cheeks and cupped her face,
looking at her intently as he went on.

"They live on in us, Katie, in you and me. You look a lot like my
mother, do you know that? Your eyes, the way you roll them and the way
you raise your eyebrow." He followed her elevated eyebrows with his
thumbs and gave her a peck on the nose and pulled back.

"We both have that from her" Katie squeaked, and he nodded. Yes, he
had that too, didn't he?

"OK, Katie, the story..."

"Daddy, do I have anything from gramps?"

He looked at the deep emotion evident in his daughter's eyes.

"You bawl a lot"

"But you said that gramps didn't..."

"You know, after I was returned, he bawled like crazy, all the time,
mom told me there was no stopping the happy tears"

"Oh"

"Yupp, Special Sap Fox Mulder, couldn't put me down,not even when he
shot hoops in the backyard, coz he was afraid I might disappear
again."

"Oh"

"OK, back to the story?"

"Yes, please, daddy"

"OK, so then dad leaned back in the couch and a smile was tugging at
the corner of his mouth."

"I miss that pout"

He knew full well what pout his daughter was referring to, but he
wasn't going to let her distract him now that he had gotten into the
narrative. He continued gruffly.

"What pout?"

"Gramps' pout"

"Well, he wasn't pouting then, Katie, he was smiling"

"Why was he smiling?"

His gruffness was soon reaplced by odd sentamentality as he thought of
his dad smiling at him.

"He was thinking about mom, of course"

"Of course, so what did he tell you?"

William remembered regretting ever having mentioned the whole thing to
his father, sitting there looking stupid, no doubt, waiting for his
dad to say something informative on the subject of love. He should
have known better, he should have known that his dad would fall into a
smug silent scully trance. But he sat there, nonetheless, waiting for
those words of wisdom.

"Finally he turned to me and said: Wills, your mother doesn't know
this, but I knew that she was in love with me before I went to her
apartment and..."

"and then grandma sprung out of the shadows..."

"Katie!"

"What?"

"Must you destroy my story? You're throwing off my groove"

"What? How?"

"I don't like it when people beat me to the punch"

"So, she sprung out of the shadows then?"

There was no containing Katie's utter exhilaration when he nodded at
her. He gave in.

"Yes. My mother, having hidden behind the den door, pushed it open and
strode maliciously to us on the couch and glared at my dad"

"Her hand on her hips, or folded in front of her?"

"Take a guess"

"Hands on her hips?"

"Right on, Katie"

"I knew it"

He smiled at the memory. Well, he didn't particularly like the idea of
his parents being angry with one another, but it was a refreshing
change to see that they could be at odds, too. It made them a bit more
normal. Or at least on the surface. William knew that they couldn't be
angry for real. They were insanely in love, they couldn't fight for
more than perhaps three minutes.

"You know they really weren't angry, right?"

"Yes, of course I know, they were in love."

He had such a smart daughter, he mused. Although you'd have to have
been really stupid not to have seen the sparks that flew between his
parents. They could have had the chemistry department of the local
college set up lab in that den.

"So, what did she say, daddy?"

William tried to remember the exact words, and he searched his memory
bank.

"She stood there, hands on hips, glaring down at dad and burst out: 'I
wanna hear this, Mulder, tell our son exactly how your LOVE DETECTOR
works'"

"She sounded pissed"

"Katie!"

"Ooops, sorry, daddy"

"You're just like him"

"Like gramps? Really?"

"Hrmpfr..."

"Or just like YOU?"

"Nevermind, yes, she was...angry, and she was impatiently drumming her
fingers on her hips"

"I can totally see that"

"Yes, well, my DAD decided to grab my mother at that moment, and she
ended up on his knee"

"I can TOTALLY see THAT!"

"Unfortunately, I had to see THAT up close and pretty darn personal"

"...on the Looorve Mobile..."

He had to look up at her at that. She had sounded just like his
father. Same suggestive tone, same leer, why had they always invited
his parents over? Why??

"Yup", he said, resigned to his fate of never being rid of his dad.

His daughter sighed dreamily, and he realized he had skipped a few
details, like the flailing angry arms of his mother and her kicking
malicious feet wreaking havoc on his dad's calves. He resumed with
vigor.

"Katie, it wasn't a pretty picture, nothing for your little diary
there" He pointed at the scarlet velvet booklet on her light blue
comforter.

"What do you mean?" She sounded anguished all of a sudden.

"You just said that they weren't really angry...?"

"My dad held my mom tightly and pulled her backwards towards him,
trying to gain control of her. Mom was kicking and growling, but to no
avail, he was stronger and she couldn't help but still in his
grip,Katie, she scowled some fierce"

"That must have hit her pride?"

"Oh, yeah, she had to stay like that, until..."

"Until what?!"

He saw his daughter's eyes grow wide and he shook his head inwardly.
She was adorably, endearingly cute in her curiosity.

"Until I cleared my throat and asked my dad: 'So, this is how I should
handle MY situation?'"

"You didn't ?"

"Oh, yes, I did"

"What did gramps say?"

"He said: 'No, this is the second stage, first you have to make sure
she loves you'"

Katie chuckled. Her chuckle was contagious, too, and William felt the
chuckles bubble to the surface and burst out through his throat. They
had been so silly, his parents, hadn't they?

"So, how DID the love detector work?"

William dried the tears that had formed in the laugh fest, and thought
about his father's silly theory. He had always had a theory for
everything, and love was no exception.

"So I went on, wanting to finally be able to get some answers from my
dad and leave the Love Mobile to the horny fifty-somethings, and asked
him, asked him to prove his theory now that mom was there, too."

"Did she debunk his theory?"

"Will you be quiet?"

Katie drew a doodle in her diary and whistled as if not hearing him.
Cheeky girl.

"Well, anyway, dad hugged mom to his chest and exclaimed: 'See, she
can't face me still, shes so in love!'"

"But she couldn't look at him, he was holding her in a tight grip from
behind!"

"Yeah, I glared at him. This was his brilliant theory proven? I got up
and sauntered towards the door, mumbling something about not getting
any help for my dilemma, and they heard me. Dad released Mom and they
got up from the couch"

"They wanted to give you advice?"

"Yes. My mom walked to me where I stood at the door and took my hand.
We all sat back down on the couch, me in the middle"

"Like on that last day?"

William felt a lump of emotion in his throat. His parents had told him
how proud they were of him and how much they loved him when they had
sat on his couch downstairs. He looked down at the picture and felt
his daughter take his hands in hers. They held hands in quiet
remembrance.



Part 3: Mulder


Mulder cleared his throat.

"Wills, true love doesn't come very often, for some people it never
does"

He felt Scully's glare without even looking at her. He knew that she
didn't like his intro. He leaned forward and caught her fiddling with
the hem of her dress.

"Well, anyway", he went on, seeing that William was checking his
watch. "Your mother and I never told each other how we felt, we just
went on avoiding the issue, and yes, sometimes it was even difficult
to look at each other"

He waited for Scully's rebuke, but it never came. He raised his
eyebrow in surprise. Well, wonders never cease.

"So, you mean to tell me that if Lynn.."

"Lynn?", he asked and William nodded. He saw his son's face blush
over.

"Don't interrupt him, Mulder"

He heard Scully's reproach tone and he leaned back in the couch.
Scully was still pissed at his little display of TLC, damnit was it
his fault that she was still so damn sexy? He sighed in resignation.

"Go ahead, Wills"

"So, dad, what you're saying is that if Lynn avoids looking at me,
she's in love with me? That...that doesn't sound like a watertight
theory to me"

"No, it doesn't, does it?"

"Don't meddle into this, Scully, this is a guy thing", Mulder huffed
pompously, and tried to sound as convincing as possible when he
continued.

"Wills, listen to me now, don't wait for seven odd years like your mom
and I did. If it feels right, and you can't stop thinking about Lynn,
if you can't stop imagining yourself with her, in every possible
way..."

"Mulder!"

Scully's outburst wasn't warranted, he felt. He leaned forward and
continued along the same lines that he had begun, spelling out for,
not only his son, but for his honeybunch the intricacies of love.

"If she haunts you day and night, if you can't eat, or sleep because
she's always on your mind, then go to her for godsakes, be brave and
bare your soul to her, before it's too late."

"But, what if she doesn't love me back?"

His son looked forlorn. What was he supposed to say now? That life
would go on? If Scully hadn't reciprocated, he had gone off and eaten
a bullet most likely, not something he would recommend to his son. To
his relief Scully intervened.

"William, is it better to go on hoping, to just sit idly by and hope
that she will come to you? Watch someone else take her because you
were too afraid to let her know that you love her? You don't want
that, William, believe me. There's nothing worse than constant fear
that someone will take away your only hope for true happiness."

Mulder let Scully's words sink in. He got up from the couch and went
to her, pulled her up and buried his face in her neck.

"Not in the cards, my love"

"Gotta love them cards"



Part 4: William



"So, I sat there, watching my parents hugging each other"

"I wish..."

William looked at his daughter.

"What do you wish, sweetie?"

"I wish they were here..."

Her voice trailed off and he saw her eyes well up again. This was the
hard part of reminiscing. Talking about the past, which was no more.
It burned. He held her in his embrace, his own eyes growing moist.

"You know, Katie, they will never be lost to us"

She snivelled into his already pretty drenched denim shirt.

"They will live on in our hearts and in this little diary of yours"

She pulled away from him and looked down at the book.

"You know, someday, someone might want to write a mini series about
them, Katie"

His daughter was rolling her eyes at him.

"They did save the world, you know"

Katie nodded.

"Didn't you mention this guy you met in college, who produces
commercials?"

"Chris?"

He nodded at his daughter. He had a suspicion that this Chris fellar
was the target of his daughter's affections by the way her eyes lit up
at the mention of the boy's name.

"Couldn't you ask him to...?"

"Yes?" 

His daughter beamed at him.

He opened his mouth to utter the words his mother had said to him. He
thought about how the advice his parents had given him about Lynn had
given him the courage to tell Lynn he was in love with her. He swiftly
shut his yap.

No way in hell was he going to push his daughter into the arms of some
college kid!


The End

Feedback always appreciated at spockdaggoo@yahoo.co.uk


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