Title: On His Doorstep 
Author: Kristen 
E-mail: Cookie8...@aol.com 
Category: SRH 
Keywords: SSR, MSF 
Ratings: PG-13 
Summary: Skinner gets a surprise 

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AD Skinner was exhausted when he got home, like he was almost every evening. 
While Mulder and Scully were his best agents, they also caused him the most 
headaches. Today, for example, he spent the entire day justifying their 
abnormal expense reports to his superiors, then chewing out Scully because 
once again, Mulder did not show up to receive his own dressing down. He hated 
yelling at her. He knew half of what went on in the X-files office was not 
her fault, but he had to do what he had to do. 

He sat down heavily on the sofa, his head aching, eyes burning, and back 
sore. "I'm getting too old for this," he mumbled to himself. In reality, he 
wasn't that old only, 49, but he felt like 65. "When did you get so old, 
Walter?" Sighing, an refusing to give into the depression, he reached over 
and called for a pizza. He could hear Scully's voice in his head, "Keep 
eating like that, Sir, and you'll take a heart attack by 50." 

"Well Scully, fifty isn't that far away." 

While he waited for his pizza, Skinner flipped channels on the TV. The 
delivery boy said forty-five minutes, so when he heard a knock at his door in 
twenty, he was surprised. "Who is it?" Skinner was shocked when no one 
answered, so he opened the door cautiously, his gun drawn. No one was there, 
but there was something on his doorstep. Carefully, and still on guard, 
Skinner stooped down to look into the small box on the ground. Inside, under 
a small white blanket was a tiny, mostly likely newborn baby. It was wrapped 
in a blue sleeper, but to Skinner's untrained eye, it was impossible to tell 
the sex. "Who's little baby are you? Where's your Mommy?" he asked it, like 
it could answer him. 

Just then, the baby started to wail, and Walter had no idea what to do. As he 
inspected the box for some evidence of the child's identity, he came across a 
note, addressed to Walter Sergei Skinner, F.B.I. 

Dear Walter,
This is your daughter. She doesn't have a name. 
She was born six days ago at home. I'm sorry, but 
I can't take care of her right now. I'm 
sorry, I know she'll be safe with you. 
          Janice 


Janice. Of course. It was one time, and they were so careful. The baby was 
still crying, and by this time, he'd drawn a crowd. 

"Sir," one elderly lady asked, "Is that your baby?" 

"Yes, ma'am," Walter replied, still unsure of what he should do. 

Carefully, he lifted the box into his arms and carried it into his apartment. 
In a near panic, Skinner set the baby down a dialed Scully's number. 

She answer on the second ring. "Scully" 

"Agent Scully, this is AD Skinner. I need you to come to my apartment right 
away." 

"Sir, is this an emergency, or can it wait, I'm out with friends." 

"It cannot wait, Agent. What's your twenty?" 

"I'm about 90 minutes away, Sir. I'll send Agent Mulder and meet you." 

"Agent Scully..." But she'd all ready hung up. 

Skinner looked in the box at the still wailing baby, and sighed. "Well, 
little one, you are about to be introduced to the one and the only Fox 
Mulder. Not bad for the first week of life huh? Oh, what is it, baby. I don't 
understand." Walter tried looking at the baby, he tried patting it's belly, 
but nothing soothed her desperate cry. 

A few moments later, there was antoher knock signalling the arrival of Ageny 
Mulder, along with his pizza.  "So, Sir, Agent Scully said you had an emergency." 

"Yes, Agent Mulder, this is the big emergency." Skinner said motioning to the 
baby. 

"Oh, God, I was hoping for little green men." 

Skinner quashed the urge to pummel Mulder for the comment, he couldn't afford 
to anger his agent. There was chance that his rogue agent knew more about 
babies than he did and losing his experience, however slight, was not a 
chance he was willing to take. 

"Well, guess you're not that lucky, Mulder," he replied through clenched 
teeth. He was really trying. 

"Who's baby is this, Sir?" Mulder asked, looking from the baby to Skinner. 

"Apparently, it's mine, Mulder," the AD answered flatly, like it shouldn't 
shock Mulder that he was the father of that six day old baby. 

"Sir, pardon me, but how could that be.. how can you have a baby? I mean, 
you're divorced, you don't date, not that I know of anyway," Mulder realized 
he was stammering and the clouded look on his bosses face told him that this 
was one time silence would be prudent. 

"How she got her doesn't matter, it's what we do with her now that does. 
What do I do? She won't stop crying?" His voice was desperate and his tone 
pleaded with Mulder to help him out of the situation. 

"Well, in my experience, Sir, if you feed them, they shut up," Mulder said 
smartly as he continued to stare at the squalling newborn in the crate on 
Skinner's table. 

The baby was small and seemed lost in the fluffy blue sleeper it was dressed 
in. To Mulder's eyes, the child appeared to be a boy, blue sleeper, no hair, 
but he wasn't sure. It was hard to tell on a baby this young. 

"Sir, eventually one of us is going to have to find out what the baby is. We 
can't keep calling it an it." 

"The baby is a girl. It was in the note," Skinner informed Mulder giving him 
the sheet of paper. 

Mulder scanned the words and then looked up at the AD inquisitively, "Who's 
Janice?" 

"She's no one. It was a one night stand, it meant nothing, but obviously 
caused something, well anyway..."he trailed off. 

"Go, Sir!" Mulder said, winking at him. 

"Shut up, Mulder! Okay, first things first. This baby is obviously hungry 
and the only thing I have to feed her is pizza and beer and the last time I 
checked, babies did not eat pizza and beer, so one of us has to go to the 
grocery and get some baby food and the other one has to stay here and 
entertain the baby," Skinner said, staring at the baby and scratching his 
head. "Definitely going to pull rank on this one," he though to himself. 

"Okay," said Mulder,"I'll go to the grocery and you entertain the Scream 
Machine here." 

"Oh, no, Mulder. This is one case I'm going out on myself. Rank has its 
privileges." 

"Yeah, yeah," Mulder mumbled as he watched Skinner put on his shoes, his coat 
and finally his hat, and walk out the door. 

"Okay, Mulder," he said aloud, "if you can entertain fish, you can entertain 
a baby." 

Just then the phone rang and Mulder offered up a silent prayer that it was 
Scully. 

"Hello, Skinner residence," he answered, hopeful. 

"Hello, Mr. Skinner this is Marcia Kramer and I would like to congratulate 
you on choosing Metropolitan Long Distance. To commend you on this wise 
decision... 

Click. Mulder slammed the phone down and swore, causing the baby to cry 
harder if that was possible. Mulder once again moved to pick her up, making 
shushing noise and funny faces as he did. Nothing was working, the child 
just squalled as her held her with his forearm under her little body and 
stuck his tongue out at her. 

"When your Daddy get hope, Baby Skinner, he's dead man." 

Meanwhile, Walter frantically ran from one grocery aisle to the other looking 
for the baby supplies. Finally he stopped a stock person and asked where he 
could find diapers, formula and all that stuff, and the girl indicated aisle 
14 at the end of the store. 

Both walls of the aisle were covered with various baby items and he looked at 
them, clueless. Finally he decided to just get one of everything there was, 
there was a chance this baby was going to be with him for a while, so best to 
stock up. 

The woman checking out the items looked at him in awe. 

"How many children do you have, Sir?" she asked as the amount on the receipt 
climbed over two hundred dollars. 

"Just the one. Six days old,"he said, with some pride in his voice. 

"Where's your wife?" she asked. She was nosy, was Skinner's thought. 

"She had a family emergency and left me with the baby. We ran out of stuff 
and I don't remember what she bought," he smiled shyly and blushed from the 
top of his head. 

The women began deleting all of the items for toddlers and older infants, 
taking the bill down to just over sixty dollars. 

"What's her name, Sir?" 

"The baby, um... Melissa. Melissa Skinner," he told her, realizing it felt 
very natural to call the child after Scully's dead sister. 

"And, your wife Mr. Skinner, is Melissa her name, too? I love it when 
families do that, name girl babies after their mommies. We did that." 

"No, my wife's name is not Melissa," he answered, thinking these question were 
none of her business, but yet the answers, although they were lies spilled 
easily from his tongue. 

"What is her name then?" 

"Dana," he said, realizing he wished it was true, "Her name is Dana." 

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Meanwhile, back at Skinner's apartment. Trouble was brewing. Fox Mulder was 
standing in the middle of the sitting room holding the screaming baby. Above 
him, he heard a thump. Then another and another with the faint bellows of "be 
quiet down there!" He sighed. Babies were so not his thing. Give him green 
aliens any day. Then he had a brainstorm. What did mothers on Opera do to 
their baby? They sang! He took in a deep breath and began to croon. 

"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. Two can be as bad as one. 
It's the loneliest number since the number one." He stopped. It didn't seem 
physically possible but the baby had started to cry even harder. He felt the 
beginnings of a migraine. The constant roaring was really getting to him. 
Where was Scully! She was never there when you needed her. She was good with 
bloody kids... He continued with the song in a vain attempt to soothe the 
child. 

"No is the saddest experience you'll ever know, Yes, it's the saddest 
experience you'll ever know. Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll 
ever do. One is the loneliest number, whoa, worse than two." He gave up. 
There was no point continuing. Then he heard a knock at the door and smiled 
in relief. 

"Hello?" Scully called as she swung open the unlocked door and was greeted by 
a tremendous wail. Kind of like a siren she mused to herself. She scanned the 
room and found Mulder standing in the middle of the room looking completely 
helpless with a towel over one shoulder, and a baby on the other. 

"Mulder is there something you haven't told me because the last time I 
checked, you didn't have a baby." 

"It won't stop crying!" Mulder whined. I've tried everything. I've even 
sung!" He protested. 

"No wonder the baby's crying." She laughed. "What's her name?" She asked. 

"Dunno. It's Skinner's though." He said. 

"It?" He stared at him. 

"There is NO way I'm gonna check. You're the doctor. You do it!" He pouted 
like a child and placed his hands on his hips. 

"You're a completely hopeless you know that." She told him. "Erm. Do you have 
any diapers or food. You know. Stuff like that." 

"No. Skinman went to the grocery store about 20 minutes ago to get the baby 
junk." He informed Scully. 

She looked at him. "Okay so we got to stop him or her crying. What do you 
suppose we do?" 

Mulder stared at her in shock. "What do you mean what do we do? Skinner and I 
thought that you'd at least know." He trailed off. 

"Do I look like a mother to you?" She threw at him. 

"No, but, well, you're a woman," he said stupidly. He had to shout of the 
racket the baby was making. 

"That doesn't mean I automatically know what to do with babies. I can tell 
you this though, we have to change the diaper," she said wrinkling her nose. 

As if on cue, Skinner kicked at the partially open front door and walked in 
with his arms full of shopping bags. "You have no idea how much shit these 
kids can need!" Skinner swore, not noticing he was in the presence of a lady. 

"Sir, are you sure you needed all that stuff?" Scully asked. 

"Oh, Da...Scully, thank God you're here. We are at a loss, I don't know what 
to do with babies, Mulder doesn't know what to do with babies, she's crying 
hyserically, I don't know what she wants." Then Skinner saw Mulder holding 
the baby in an almost lopsided fashion, "Mulder what are you doing holding 
her like that? Even I know not to do that." 

"Oh, God, Mulder, here give me the baby," Scully commanded taking the tiny 
infant into her arms and snuggling her next to her breast. 

"Sir, do you have any diapers in that bag?" 

"I have many diapers in these bags. I don't even know what kind she should 
have?" he almost whined. 

"The baby is a she?" she asked 

"Yes, that's what the note said. This little one is my daughter." He said it 
with a tone of disbelief. 

"Sir, I don't even want to ask how that happened. Find a diaper in there for 
newborns. She can't be more than a few days old," Scully lamented, laying 
the baby down on the sofa. 

"Scully, do you have to do that there," Skinner asked, "That is an Italian 
leather sofa." 

"I don't think she cares. I have to change her and you have to learn how. 
Come stand behind me." 

Mulder stood back and felt kind of like the fourth wheel. Scully lay the 
little baby down and removed the dirty diaper. She noticed Skinner had his 
eyes closed. 

"Sir, if you don't watch you can't learn. I'm not that great at it, but I 
have changed diapers before." 

"Scully, she's a girl, should I be seeing this..." he knew it was stupid but 
it came out too quickly. 

"This is your little girl, you are going to be doing this diaper thing for a 
least the next 20 months or so. Now, put aside those foolish school boy 
notions and watch." 

Scully looked so at home with the baby. She removed the diaper and placed 
her hand on the baby's tiny stomach. The baby squirmed at bit, but as soon 
as the offending diaper was removed, she stopped crying. 

"That was all you needed, huh?" Scully cooed "All clean." 

"Well, if you guys have everything under control..."Mulder said, all ready 
half way out the door, "I'll just be going." 

Skinner waved his hand in acknowledgement, but he didn't take his eyes off 
Scully. She looked so perfect with a baby to tend to, if only he'd..."No, 
bad thought, Walter, bad." 

"What is her name, Sir, did the note say?" 

"No, so, I named her myself. Scully, I'd like to call her Melissa, if you 
don't mind?" 

Her eyes misted over as she met his eyes over his perfect baby daughter, "No, 
Sir, I don't mind at all." 


The End