Summary: Mulder and Scully receive a letter at Halloween.

This story is part of my series following the episode 'The Truth.'

"What is it Scully, what's going on?"

Mulder had come home to a dimly lit living room and a somber Scully, sitting on the sofa with tears in her eyes. She had an envelope in her hand, and a photograph had fallen near her feet. He approached her cautiously, sliding one hand down her shoulder as he kneeled beside her.

His right hand covered hers easily as he retrieved the photo with some trepidation. It was easy to guess what she'd received in the mail, in a plain brown envelope with no return address. The photos, documenting each week of their son's life away from them, often brought him to a similar, weepy state of affairs.

He usually tried to hold back his underlying emotions, knowing she would break down as soon as he did. She'd already been crying today, it seemed, and his chin quivered with the strain of holding back an answering sob. He slid next to her on the couch, putting his arm around her before he dared look at the snapshot.

"Scully?" he whispered softly as he kissed the teardrops from her eyes.

"He's... he's a p-pumpkin," she stammered uncharacteristically.

Mulder hadn't heard her stutter but a few times in their nine and a half years together, and it affected him greatly. He swallowed the unwelcome lump in his throat, then simply nodded against her mascara-streaked face.

He shifted even closer, pulling her snuggly against his chest with his right arm. The three by five exposure dangled delicately from his left hand as he kissed her gently, working downward from her hairline to the corner of her tightly drawn lips. The familiar, sweet caress relaxed and comforted her, curtailing her labored breathing and soft sobbing.

"Better?" he cooed quietly, carefully stroking one velvet cheek with his neatly-trimmed beard.

"Little," she breathed against his lips, before kissing him for the first time that day. They had gone to bed early, and she had risen before dawn for an early Wellness clinic. She loved her new job; she loved her new life in California. There was only one thing missing: the child in the photograph, outfitted by his grandmother in bright orange and a touch of green.

When the soft kiss ended, she urged him to look at the photo with a tiny nod in the direction of his left hand. He had managed not to mangle the thing to pieces, according it the same reverence as a valuable piece of evidence at a crime scene. It had been a long time since Mulder had worked the site of a murder and she breathed a sigh of relief for small blessings.

Scully smiled at his long, thin fingers, imagining what William's hands would look like when he was grown. His hands, her expertise in the autopsy bay--who knows what their son would choose to do with his life? She knew Mulder wanted him to play baseball, and she was all for that, too... but she also saw her son in front of a grand piano, making the most exquisite music she would ever hear.

He shifted away from her so he could hold the photo with both hands, at just the right distance without his reading glasses. Maggie looked as happy as William in the shot, holding the nineteen-month old toddler from behind as he stood on a dining room table for the camera. They both knew he was walking already, silently mourning what they'd lost of his childhood development, and refusing to discuss it aloud.

If this was all they had for now, it would have to be enough. He was safe and happy with his grandmother; they were in their Santa Monica living room, watching him grow up without them.

Mulder clutched at the precious evidence of William's continued existence, and whispered, so softly she could barely heard him, "Next year, he's gonna be a Yankee."

fin

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