Summary: This work of fan fiction is an answer to the “Nursery Files: Thanksgiving 2010 Thankful/Angstful Challenge”. (see end notes for challenge details)

Author's Note:
I try to stay as true to canon as I can, as well as staying as true to the canon of my own works of fan fiction, and to keep up with a consistency through out all of my stories, to make them as seamless as possible. To read my other stories, please visit me at Gossamer: http://fluky.gossamer.org/author/16428-1.html

Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving Day 7:15 a.m.
W. Virginia, Mulder/Scully residence

Struggling slightly with the weight of a twenty-pound bird and the heavy pan it was resting in, Dana Scully slid it carefully into the pre-heated oven, then closed the door and removed the large mitts from her small hands. Thirty seconds later, her husband of a year and a half, and “partner” for nearly two decades, entered the kitchen.

She blew out a breath. “Perfect timing, Mulder. You managed to avoid the entire turkey preparation- including picking the damn thing up and sticking it into a hot oven!”

Fox Mulder smiled guiltlessly at her. “You’re the one that wanted such a huge bird. And I do have some impeccable timing, I’m inclined to agree.” He paused long enough to kiss her on the bridge of her nose. “They didn’t call me ‘Mr. Perfect-o Time-o’ back in my Academy days for nothing, Scully.”

“Right,” she snorted, her eyebrow arched high on her forehead. “I don’t think anyone has ever called you that in your entire life! Your track record speaks for itself, Mulder.”

“What are you implying?”

“That you’re always late! And that you pride yourself on that fact, especially when there’s a job to be done that you don’t want to do.”

“Remember, I’m not the one who told me that I’m unfit for kitchen duty,” he informed her, “so bite me!”

“Don’t tempt me,” she warned him, moving away from him to start on the next task at hand at the counter next to the microwave.

“No, don’t tempt me, hot stuff,” he teased, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze, then hovering behind her, resting his chin upon her shoulder and nuzzling her neck. “So, what are we doing, my dear?”

“We?” she repeated sarcastically, about to chop up some boiled potatoes, so she could prepare them for mashing. Between his nuzzling of her neck and the barely-there kisses he placed along her jaw line, she was having a difficult time concentrating. “Mulder, do you mind?”

“Never!” he admitted gleefully, and she had to agree with that assessment. “Do you want some help, my love?”

“Mulder, I thought we agreed that the best help you could offer me was to stay out of my way this morning and to keep away from the food entirely until it’s placed on the table for dinner?”

He shrugged. “Technically, I never did agree to that.”

“Yes, you did!”

“Do you have it in writing?”

She groaned. “Well, technically, I didn’t even ask you, I merely banned you from the kitchen until further notice.” She chopped up another potato, and nicked her finger in the process. It stung and she grimaced.

“Here, honey,” Mulder said, thinking quickly and grabbing for her injured hand. He sucked the tiny bit of blood her cut had emitted between his lips, then kissed the tip of her finger before reaching into the cabinet above them and retrieving a Band-Aid, whereupon he wrapped it deftly and efficiently. “See? I can be of good use in here! Nurse Mulder is at your service, Doc.” He winked at her.

Scully smiled at him. “Thank you, Nurse Mulder, but I’m not so sure that licking my wound is going to have the same effect as Neosporin.”

“Neosporin, bah!” he groused. “Ain’t nothing have the healing power like Mulder’s juices. It’ll cure what ails ya.” He leered at her, then marveled at how, after so long together, he could still elicit such a deep blush from his beautiful wife.

“Mulder juice, huh,” she repeated, trying to bite back a grin.

He nodded vigorously. “Comes in a couple of different flavors, I might add, if you’re wanting to experience something a little more exciting.”

“All right, thank you,” she laughed, “I don’t need a detailed description. Now, shoo! I’ve got stuff to do here, Mulder, and the clock keeps ticking.”

While he made no attempts at leaving the kitchen or her vicinity, Mulder did step back to give her more room to work. Just watching her chopping so quickly exhausted him and he finally sighed, “Scully, why are you so gung-ho about mashing up a bunch of stupid spuds, when you could easily get the same desired effect from a box?”

“Instant mashed potatoes?” she declared, her scandalized expression making him smirk. “My mother would kill me, then roll over dead herself if I ever served instant mashed potatoes at a Thanksgiving dinner, Mulder!” She shook her head at such blasphemy.

Mulder shrugged, not sharing her outlook. “Yeah, well, your mother’s not here, Scully. She’s stuck at Bill’s this year. I know the women in your family have some sort of... sixth sense, but I don’t think it stretches this far across the miles, just to hone in on a box of potato flakes.”

“That’s not the point!” she told him, starting the mixer and yelling over it so he could hear her. “It’s the principle of the matter! And that little crack about potatoes from a box only reiterates the reason why I don’t want your help in the kitchen on any given holiday- especially Thanksgiving, which focuses on food, and especially with company coming over.”

“Which reason is that?” he asked in amusement. Her anal-retentiveness was coming out in full force and he intended to have a little fun with it.

“Reason number two, Mulder. You don’t use instant anything on a meal as important as Thanksgiving!”

His brow furrowed. “Well, what’s reason number one for keeping me out of dinner preparation- not that I’m complaining about it!” he huffed.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” she snickered, turning off the mixer and checking the potatoes for lumps. She didn’t find any, but she ran the mixer again- just to be sure. Ignoring her husband’s teasing stare, she said, “Reason number one would have to be what I caught you doing with the turkey last time!”

He blinked in confusion. “Huh? Scully, last year we went to your mom’s house!” he yelled over the sound of the mixer. “The year before that, we went to Charlie’s! And if I recall, the year before that, you had to work a shift that day, so we just got some catering service to deliver the food! So, uh, I’m not even sure what you’re griping about here!”

“Thanksgiving, 2006!” she explained, then turned off the mixer for the second time, and again, checked for any lumps. “I walked in and you had the raw turkey on the kitchen table, and you were making it dance and interacting with it, as if it were a ventriloquist’s dummy!” She looked both shocked and appalled by a memory she’d just as soon forget.

“Oh, yeah,” he remembered it, too, but with much more fondness. “I was trying to get him to do the moon walk. It was pretty funny...”

“It was nauseating,” she corrected him in a haughty tone. Still not satisfied as to the potatoes’ smoothness, she ran the mixer for a third time.

“My God, woman!” Mulder cackled, making sure to be heard over the mixer. “You are so a-”

“No! Don’t say it, Mulder!”

“You are-”

“I am not!”

“ANAL!!!” he crowed triumphantly and loudly, just as she’d shut off the mixer. His booming voice reverberated off the kitchen walls and traveled beyond. Somewhere, miles away, an elderly woman baking a pie heard the faint echoing of, “Anal... anal... anal...”

“Shut up, Mulder!” Scully instructed him, looking about ready to bodily throw him out of the kitchen herself. He knew, despite her diminutive size, that she was more than capable of it. “I am not anal! I am... organized, precise, orderly...”

“Put it all together and it still comes down to anal, Doc!” he laughed, coming back to her and hugging her from behind.

“Yeah, well... you’re... you’re a pain-in-the-ass, Mulder!” she retorted, narrowing her large, blue eyes.

“At least I’m your pain-in-the-ass,” he agreed, then let go of her, turned around and bent at the knees so he could bump his butt playfully against hers. His knees cracked. “Jesus! You’re so damn short!” he complained, brooding over that fact, as well as his age, which, from time to time, showed itself plainly.

She kindly refrained from mentioning the arthritis she was sure he was getting in his joints, but he wasn’t exactly off the hook either. “Anal and short?” she exclaimed, finally satisfied that the potatoes were lump-free and then she moved on to wash and chop up the organically grown carrots she’d purchased specially for this meal. “Wow, just keep those compliments coming at me, Mulder, and I might not even let you eat at all!”

“You know you will, anyway, Scully,” he brushed off her taunt. “All I have to do is give you my puppy-dog eyes and you’re a complete goner.”

“No, I’m not,” she lied, but he heard her grumbling under her breath about those damn puppy-dog looks he was so infamous for.

Wisely letting that point slide, he meandered over to the oven and took a quick peek at the turkey. It looked delicious and his mouth watered at the glistening bird. He noticed another pan, with uncooked, homemade stuffing setting a top the stove, already prepared and waiting its turn in the hot box. “What’s this, honey?” he asked. “You’re not cooking the stuffing in the bird this year?” His lower lip jutted out comically, all for her benefit. He looked so very disappointed.

“Don’t worry, sad-sack, there’s stuffing in the bird, as well. I just decided to set some aside to cook on its own.”

“Why?”

“Because, darling,” she sighed wearily, putting all the cut carrots into a boiling pot of water, then adding some butter and herbs to the brew, “not everyone likes stuffing that was cooked inside the bird.”

“Why the hell not?” he asked. “Oh, God! Don’t tell me that Reyes finally went all out New Ager and turned vegan on us!” He looked truly horrified at the prospect.

“No,” she assured him, then paused. “At least, she hasn’t made any claims that she had... But you know, even some people without vegetarian inclinations prefer their stuffing cooked outside of the bird.”

“Name one,” he challenged her, folding his arms across his chest and secretly enjoying all of the bantering and the arguing that filled up their hours together. It reminded him of the good old days. Plus, it was fun and she was the only person who could really match wits with him this way.

“Well, Charlie and I always liked it that way,” she told him, adjusting the heat on the stove for the carrots, and shouldering past him to reach for something else.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Then why have you always made it in the bird until now?” he pondered.

“Because I know that’s how you prefer it,” she replied quietly, mentally checking off completed tasks on the to-do list in her mind and starting on the next one.

“Aw...” he cooed, causing her to roll her eyes at him. He ignored that, and gave her another hug from behind. “You did that just for me, honey bunch?” He caught her chin in his hand, gently turned her face towards him and stole a quick kiss from her luscious lips.

She eagerly kissed him back, then reluctantly broke away to continue with her Thanksgiving preparations. She was on a schedule, after all. “Of course, I did, poopy head,” she teased him. “I do it all for you, or so you claim.”

“You did say that, Scully,” he reminded her. “On that vampire chase in Texas! When will you own up to it?”

She laughed wickedly. “As soon as you admit to how you serenaded me with the ‘Theme from Shaft’!”

“That did not happen!”

“Sure, Mulder, sure...”

“It didn’t!”

“Well, then, I never said, ‘I do it all for you,’ either,” she informed him, raising her eyebrow and nodding with finality.

“Damn, you’re stubborn, Scully,” he pouted.

“Wow, anal and short and now stubborn?”

“You are anal,” he insisted. “Hello? Two kinds of stuffing? And your height speaks for itself, star-shine!”

Scully started slicing apples for a pie. “Keep that up, star-shine, and you’ll have absolutely nothing to be thankful for later tonight!” She gave him a pointed look.

“Oh, Scully,” he leered at her, “we both know what an empty threat that is. You want it as much as I do! You always do. Besides, you’re a woman in her sexual prime! You cannot deny yourself any more than I could deny you.”

She glanced over, noticed his appreciative gaze. She needed to nip that in the bud right now, or else she would never get dinner ready in time for their guests’ arrival.

“No, Mulder,” she corrected him. “The age of a woman’s sexual peak is typically anywhere from 35 to 45. I turned 46 in February, if you recall.”

He came up behind her yet again, this time blowing in her ear. “Well, you could have fooled me, Doc.” He noticed the apples she was slicing. “Mmm, onto dessert now, I see. May I...?”

“No, you may not!” she decried. “Thanksgiving, 2005- I made two pies, and before Bill, Tara and Matt even got here, you had half the pumpkin eaten and were three slices into the apple!”

“And, in case you’ve forgotten, we haven’t spent another Thanksgiving with them since,” he announced proudly. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me for that?”

She tried not to smile, but did a lousy job of it. “No pie until after dinner!”

“Fine,” he sighed in defeat. “So, how many pies are you making this year? What kinds?”

“One apple, one cherry and two pumpkin.”

“Hmm, not that I’m complaining, since I’ll get all the leftovers, but you’re making three kinds of pie?”

“Why? Do you think I should have made a banana cream, as well?” She pondered over the idea, trying to remember if she had the ingredients to add that to her menu.

“Jesus, no!” he cracked. “Anal...”

“Shut up,” she muttered. “I’m not being anal. I’m being... thoughtful.”

“Yeah, thoughtfully anal!”

“Mulder...”

“Anally thoughtful?” he tried again.

“Beat it,” she hissed, moving fluidly through the kitchen, getting out the pre-made pie crusts- one of the few things that she didn’t bother trying to make from scratch- and began to put the apple pie together. The process made Mulder think of Dr. Frankenstein creating his monster, but with much more tasty results, and he decided to keep the conversation flowing. It... helped her keep moving, he decided, not to mention, it entertained him. Plus, he was feeling a little hesitant about dinner- not the food, but the guests they had invited to eat with them. Scully’s monotone was always a reassuring sound.

“So... what did I do that was so heinous in 2004?” he asked lightly, hopping up on the counter next to the pie crusts, until she swatted him in the ass, and he jumped back down, instead settling for leaning beside her.

“Carrots, Mulder. Carrots! The morning of Thanksgiving, you fed all the carrots I’d bought for the meal to a bunch of pesky rabbits lurking on our property.”

“But they were cute, little bunnies, Scully!” he defended his actions with an innocent expression. “They had nowhere to go and nothing to eat. And, they reminded me of you.”

“What are you saying, Mulder?” she asked. “That my nose twitches or that I have really big ears?”

He snickered as he kissed her, leaving a tiny wet spot on her cheek. “Neither. They were all just so little and cute and tiny, is all.”

“You are so full of it,” she had to laugh.

“I am, I really am,” he agreed. “And that takes us to 2003...?”

“Oh, do not get me started on 2003,” she groaned, annoyed even at the memory. “It was the first time I’d seen Mom since... since William...” She quieted for a moment, and he rubbed her back, soothing her while she bit her lip and regained some measure of composure. “Things were still so... strained between her and I. I was so surprised when she accepted the invitation at all, so I really wanted everything to be perfect for her, and then I got called in for an emergency at the hospital and was there most of the afternoon, which left you to do the cooking...”

“Hey, I did all right,” he insisted, defending his honor. “Your mom didn’t complain.”

“Well, of course she wouldn’t, Mulder. That would make her appear ungracious.”

“And we could never have any Scully appearing ungracious,” he sniggered.

“French fries, Mulder!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Instead of mashed- or even baked- potatoes, you made fucking french fries!”

He laughed at the sound of her “f” words all in a row. “Ah, I say po-tay-to, you say po-tah-to, Scully. It all comes out the same in the end.”

“No, Mulder. I said po-tay-to, and you said french fries!”

Mulder flinched. He hadn’t realized till now just how much of a sore spot this still was with his wife. He sighed. And she always told him to let things go? Sheesh! “At least I didn’t make instant potatoes,” he reminded her and she rolled her eyes at him.

“You overcooked the turkey, too, and the only vegetable you had to offer was a salad.”

“Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch, Scully,” he grumbled. 2003 was, indeed, a bad year in kitchen lore. “I did the best I could. If it hadn’t been for your stupid job, then you could have made the meal, and everyone could have rejoiced to the heavens of your superior culinary skills.”

Scully noticed his grumpy change in demeanor and realized her own pent up anger over that holiday fiasco of the past had put him in that mood. She didn’t want a grumpy husband to help her greet their guests later. Nor did she want him brooding all day and spoiling the special plans she had made for the two of them once they were alone. She pursed her pretty lips and made a sympathetic face. "You’re right, Mulder. You did just fine with the talents you have, limited though they are.” She offered him one of her most dazzling smiles.

Mulder sighed. How could he stay angry when she pulled out the big guns like that? “So generous, Master Chef,” he retorted, and he kissed her. “But that year turned out all right, though. I mean, you and your mom...”

“That’s true,” she had to agree. “Mom and I reconciled and I think we grew closer. Plus, I learned such a valuable lesson in my life.”

“What’s that?”

“To order catered food whenever I’m working and can’t make the meal myself,” she deadpanned.

“Hardy har har,” he muttered playfully, and gave her bottom a squeeze, making her squeak in surprise, and she swatted at his arm.

“Go outside and play, Mulder,” she snickered.

Glutton for punishment that he was, he dared to surge onward. “So, what was the problem with 2002? That was our first Thanksgiving as a cohabitating couple, as I recall...” Mulder smiled fondly.

“Ah, yes, 2002. The year that started it all... that was when you dipped into our provisions, Mulder, and Skinner showed up right after dinner to check on us and make sure we were all right. When I offered him a slice of pie for dessert, I had no whipped cream to garnish it with, since you’d used it all up the night before...” She made a realization and started to blush furiously.

Mulder’s grin rivaled that of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. “Oh, yeah! Funny, but I seem to remember a certain delectable red-head who indulged right along with me that night before, and yet, I don’t recall any complaints coming from her hot, little, whipped cream covered self at the time.” He gave her a wanton gaze, which made her blush even harder.

“Well,” she began, her throat going dry, “I was merely upset that you used it all up and didn’t tell me before hand...”

“I see,” he whispered, standing beside her, just close enough to where their bodies were lightly touching. He could feel the heat coming off her small body in intense waves. “Scully, how many cans of whipped cream did you buy this ti-”

“Ten,” she admitted, her blush becoming more of a flush of desire, covering her face, her neck, her upper chest, wherever was visible.

He put a hand on her shoulder and she dropped a spoon onto the counter, clattering noisily. She let him gently turn her towards him. “Ten, huh,” he said, and his eyes crinkled merrily, even as his voice grew soft and husky. “You think that will be enough, honey?”

“I hope not,” she blurted with a wink, and before she knew what hit her, Mulder had her in his arms, her feet dangling above the floor, as his lips devoured her mouth.

“I know how I can be of help in the kitchen now, Doc,” he murmured to her in between passionate kisses.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned, as he began to suck on her neck. “I... I mean, how... can you... help me...?”

“A stressed out... chef could affect... the quality of the... meal,” he went on, punctuating every few words with another kiss or a lick. “... and since we’re... having company over... and since I know... you want to... make a...” He groaned when she playfully bit him on the Adam’s apple. “... good impression... the best job I can... offer to do is to... oh, God, Scully! ...Keep the chef... in a very... happy... state of mind...” He began to squirm when she sucked that same spot.

A timer beeped and Scully reluctantly stopped her ministrations, although since Mulder still had a firm hold of her, her feet were still dangling a few inches above the floor. “Mulder,” she sighed regretfully. “I’ve got to get back to work now. I’m on a schedule. Got to keep my nose to the grindstone...” She gave him an apologetic smile.

“But what about my work?” he asked. “I’m very serious about doing a good job and I’ll gladly grind your stone, with my nose, if you prefer, although I do have even more willing body parts, if you’re so inclined to make use of them...” He winked suggestively.

She laughed, kissed him again, then patted his shoulder as a signal to set her down, which he reluctantly did, his lower lip- still swollen and glistening from her kisses- nearly quivering and looking grumpily at her.

“Don’t worry, Mulder,” she promised. “After I finish in here, I’ll need to take a shower...”

“Yeah?” he inquired with interest, daring to sound hopeful.

“Yeah, and I might need someone to wash my back...” she paused, watching his frown start to subside. “... or my front,” she added and was rewarded with a full-wattage Fox Mulder smile, the kind that made her weak in the knees and took her breath away.

“Or?” he asked, his eyes twinkling at her.

“Oh, did I say or?” she smirked. “I meant and.”

“That’s more like it,” he replied with enthusiasm. They kissed once more, then Scully got back to work on another pie. Eventually, Mulder was put to work, chopping and mixing everything up for the macaroni salad. Considering there was no cooking involved and the fact that she was right there to make sure he didn’t get too distracted or- usually worse- too creative, she thought it was safe enough.

After all the food had either been prepared- or was cooking, baking or simmering- Scully set the table, while Mulder checked some email. He had offered to help, but she only reminded him of Christmas 2008, when he’d tried to be creative with some marshmallows and pinecones to make place cards and decided to handle it all herself.

He teased her mercilessly. “Oh, Scully, when are you going to get that OCD taken care of?” He was rewarded with a hard smack on his rump that did nothing to chastise him and everything to turn him on further. Somehow, that seemed like worse punishment. And somehow, he thought Scully had realized that, as well.

The pies were cooling on the counter. The turkey was nearly done and everything else was, too. Once she made sure the house was in order (living room tidy, guest bathroom clean with fresh towels, guest bedroom looking livable- just in case- kitchen cleaned up, and of course, the dining room checked over another three times), Scully finally was satisfied at how things were progressing enough to let Mulder guide her back towards the master bathroom, for a “relaxing” shower.

“Oh, but Mulder, I forgot to sweep off the front porch!” she exclaimed, and started back for the hallway.

“No, you don’t.” Mulder took hold of her hand, tugging gently but insistently for her to follow him again. “Scully, the porch is fine. The porch looks great, in fact! Come on, let’s go shower together!”

“It does? Why? Did you sweep it?” she asked, raising an incredulous eyebrow at him.

“Uh... sure,” he lied easily. “Now, let’s get you all nice and tidy like the rest of the homestead. I’ve got two hands right here that are ready and willing to take on such a dirty job.” He used those hands to caress her shoulders, before reaching out to give both of her breasts a quick, playful tweak.

She rolled her eyes, even as she smiled indulgently, before, once again, taking his offered hand and starting into their bedroom, which connected with the master bathroom.

“Oh, wait!” she cried, just steps from the doorway. “Mulder, did you also get a chance to sweep off the front steps to the porch?”

“God damn, Scully,” he groaned at her in exasperation, “do I have to bodily pick you up and carry you into the tub over my shoulder?!”

She gave him the look. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Okay, no, I wouldn’t, but jeez, what’s it take for a guy to get lucky on Thanksgiving Day around here?”

“Break the wishbone and end up with the bigger half?” she teased.

“Smart ass,” he quipped, pulling her into the bathroom with him, but gently. He wanted to conserve his energies for the fun he was about to have... if he could ever convince her to get into the shower with him.

“Please, Mulder,” she joked, “it’s not just my ass. My whole damn body is smart.”

“Smart is sexy,” he laughed in agreement as he turned on the water, letting it heat up for a moment. “Arms up,” he instructed, and she acquiesced, so he could remove her tank top. After taking a moment to admire her lovely attributes, he then bent slightly and yanked her pajama bottoms- as well as her underwear- down to the floor, where she held onto his arm and stepped out of the remainder of her clothing.

Scully tossed her dirty laundry into the hamper in the corner, and turned back around to find Mulder standing, nude, beside her, wearing nothing but a smile. She sighed, marveling at how quickly the man could get out of his clothes. “You know, maybe for once I would like to undress you, love.”

“You take too much time, and you know the old saying: You snooze, you lose, Scully.” He pushed aside the shower curtain and stuck his hand in to check the water’s temperature. Satisfied that it was plenty hot, he stepped inside and held the curtain open for her. “Come on, Doc, I’m getting lonely in here and we don’t have a lot of time.”

She glanced at the clock- in the shape of a toilet; Mulder’s contribution to the decorating- that was appropriately hanging above their toilet. Carefully stepping in with him, she said, “Monica and John aren’t expected for two more hours.”

“Yeah, well, between you deciding what to wear and then ‘plating’ every dish like Wolfgang Puck, I’m just counting my blessings that I’m getting you in here with me at all!”

“Oh, I’d nearly forgotten!” she gasped in realization. “Presentation of the meal is such an integral part of a successful Thanksgiving dinner! Hope you don’t mind a quickie this time, honey.”

“Quickies are my specialty, Scully.”

“Uh, that’s not really something to brag about, Mulder.”

“Very funny. I was simply trying to make the best of things. At this point in the game, I know I have to take what I can get. Plus we need to ration out this passion of ours, because we’ve got some whipped cream covered love making to attend to tonight!” He winked, then reached for her and pulled her small, wet body to his. He bent down so that he could kiss her, but paused momentarily, pondering. “Hey, Scully? You think it’s okay to French kiss on this very American holiday?”

“Only you would even wonder about something like that, Mulder. And yes, I think it’s very okay. Besides, America is the great melting pot, so anything French should have its place in our traditions... especially French kissing.” She tugged on his neck, urging him to bend further for better access.

They kissed passionately once, and he carefully lifted her up into his arms, whereupon she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“You know,” he babbled as she began licking little droplets of water from his neck and shoulders, “like many holidays, Thanksgiving actually began as a solemn religious day of fasting and prayer...”

“Oh, I love it when you go all History Channel on me during foreplay,” Scully chuckled, nibbling on his earlobe.

“Well, never let it be said that I don’t know how to turn you on, Doc,” he moaned. “God, this is what I’m most thankful for...”

“Me, too,” she agreed, kissing him tenderly, but then felt compelled to add, “Just don’t you dare mention any of this at the dinner table.”

He kissed over her jaw line and relished the sound of her groan. “But isn’t it a tradition to tell everyone what you’re thankful for on Thanksgiving?”

“Shut up and kiss me, Mulder,” she replied.

“With pleasure!” he agreed and did so.

Mulder sat on a kitchen chair, freshly dressed after their shower, his hair still slightly damp and sticking out in a few places, but with a suit and tie- Jesus, Scully, it’s not like we’re going to church, or anything!- he was otherwise looking good and ready for a nice dinner party. Scully had wisely figured out what she had wanted to wear to the event last night, and was sporting a very pretty blue dress that had Mulder’s appreciation, but he did grumble about the lack of cleavage it revealed- even though secretly, he couldn’t complain over Scully’s modesty, considering who their dinner guests were to be today. She still had taken over a half-hour to get dressed and gussied up, which left her ONLY forty-five minutes to start “plating”.

Watching in fond amusement, Mulder smirked as his beautiful wife bustled about the kitchen, making every dish presentable to her standards, which meant she put most fine dining restaurants to shame. So, every time she passed by him, he would smile lovingly at her, inhale the scent of her perfume and then whisper, “Anal...” at her, loud enough for her to hear, of course.

“I’m not anal!” she had groaned, this conversation, or some form of it, having gone on during most of their partnership through out the years. “Maybe you’re just an anarchist!”

He stuck his tongue out at her playfully, like the proud anarchist he was. “Well, look who’s flinging the “A” words around now!” And she had noted that he hadn’t argued her point either.

But from then on, whenever he called her anal, her automatic rebuttal was to retort anarchist. They were merely terms of endearment, really, between two people who truly loved each other and had for years.

“So... Doggett and Reyes finally tied the knot,” Mulder murmured quietly, more to himself, his hand stroking his freshly shaved chin.

“You were at the wedding,” she reminded him, “a year ago.” She garnished her carrot platter with some parsley for color.

“Hey, you know what parsley and pubic hair have in common?” he asked her with a grin and veering wildly off course.

Scully sighed. “Mulder, why must you tell me this tasteless joke every Thanksgiving?”

He shrugged. “I’ll stop telling it when you stop using parsley.”

She rolled her eyes. Like that was gonna happen. “Fine,” she relented. “What, Mulder? What do parsley and pubic hair have in common?”

“They’re both there for presentation,” he cackled shamelessly, nearly looking as if he were about to high-five himself.

“Ba-doom-ching,” she stated dully, her mouth a straight line. Her eyes were smiling though. “Wow, that gets funnier every time you tell it.”

“Doesn’t it?” he agreed, leaning over to snag a quick kiss. Then he sat back down and out of her way again, and continued his ruminating over their soon-to-arrive dinner guests. “Kind of a copy cat thing, wouldn’t you say?” he asked.

Distracted over her task, Scully frowned, staring at her latest masterpiece. “Are you saying that it looks the same way as the last time, or that it looks the same as someone else’s work?”

“Oh, no, Martha Stewart,” he teased, and chuckled at her one-track mind. And she had the nerve to complain about him? He affected a snobby intonation and said, “Your parsley presentation is superb, my dear! Fabulous, beautiful, divine!” He smacked his fingers over his open mouth to produce a “pop” sound and she laughed. “No, I was referring to Doggett and Reyes.”

“They’re copy cats?” she repeated in confusion. “How do you mean?”

“Ah, you know, two agents assigned together down in the basement of the FBI’s X-Files division. They have some tough cases, they save each other’s asses, they fall in love... get married... have a... baby...” He winced involuntarily over his last word and was thankful that Scully had been too busy to notice.

He knew that John and Monica were bringing their little one with them to dinner- and why wouldn’t they? But he feared how having a baby around might affect his beloved Scully. Holidays always hit her the hardest when it came to memories of their son. They reminded her of all the first of William’s holiday celebrations years back, and how she had spent them with him, and how she would never get to spend another... Of course, he’d never really gotten to spend any holidays with their child at all, but somehow, he felt that not knowing what he was missing probably hurt less than Scully’s getting a small taste of parental bliss before having it all taken away from her.

Still consumed by her delicate task at hand, Scully didn’t see the darkness creeping up into her husband’s eyes, didn’t detect the sadness in his tone. “Well, that’s not exactly how it happened, Mulder. Remember? They knew each other long before, back when John’s son, Luke...” And she stopped, unable to complete that sentence out loud. This was supposed to be a joyous occasion and here they were both brooding with their own private lamentations. “They knew each other a long time ago... Plus, they got married before they had the baby.” She paused long enough to give him a pointed look.

“Details, details,” he chided, glossing over the fact that the whole marriage issue was still a bit of a touchy spot for Scully, and trying to retain a chipper demeanor, despite the melancholy mood that discussing babies had brought up in him. “They still waited till they were on the X-Files together before they got it going on.”

“It didn’t take them seven years, either,” she informed him, her eyebrow raised most fetchingly above one of her lovely, blue eyes.

“No, but you said so yourself that they knew each other before.”

“Details, details,” she snickered, and he grinned as she threw his own remark back at him. He was moving towards a better mood now. Bantering with Scully always cheered him up. She really was the only person he felt could not only match wits with him but also put him in his place.

“Smart ass,” he retorted, inducing a smile of her own. “Anyway, it still doesn’t compare to what we found, the life we have together, the love we share.”

She stopped what she was doing long enough to reach out a hand to caress his handsome face. “Nothing can compare to what we have, Mulder,” she agreed.

He resisted the urge to enfold her in his arms and ravish her. The painstaking process of “plating” seemed to take her longer each year, as she tried to come up with new ways to dazzle her guests, and if he continued to interrupt, she might never get done. “Why do you think they got married?” he asked her instead. “I mean, deep down I know that Doggett had a thing for you. Maybe he still does.” He narrowed his eyes at the realization.

Scully glanced at him with a look that told him she thought he was crazy. She affirmed that look by saying, “Mulder, you’re crazy! John doesn’t love me. He loves Monica!”

“Well, sure, I’ll give you that. Monica’s... interesting...”

“Mulder!”

“Okay, she’s very... nice and kind and all that touchy-feely shit. She’s extremely weird, but ever so nice.”

“I must be a weirdo magnet,” Scully muttered. “My best friend is a weirdo and I’m married to one, too.”

“I thought I was your best friend,” he protested.

“You are, I meant, my best girlfriend.”

“Which brings us to this... I know she’s been a great friend to you- to both of us, I guess- but Doggett just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would normally... appreciate her type.”

“Her type?” Scully repeated and Mulder bit his lip. He was well aware of the fact that, for as different as she and Agent Reyes were, they were incredibly close and he further knew that Monica had been there for her back when she’d still been at the FBI, and he’d gone into hiding, and Scully had been forced to become a single parent. Picking on Monica put him on some incredibly thin ice.

“Um...” he began, but she cut him off.

“Apparently, John does go for her type, Mulder. He and Monica were dating for a long time, and have been married for a year now. And now they have a two-month-old baby. You certainly can’t get better confirmation than that!”

He folded his arms across his chest. Sometimes, when she put him in his place, it wasn’t so fun. “They’re still copy cats,” he pouted.

“No, they’re- we’ve already established here that it took a lot less time to them to fall in love and get married.”

Mulder shook his head in disagreement. “No way, Scully. I have always loved you. And I would have married you at any time.”

“Liar,” she smirked.

“Hey, you never asked me... although, if I recall, I did ask you way before.”

“Oh, yes, it was over the phone, asked rather flippantly, and only after I spouted off about the intricacies of witchcraft. How very romantic.” She pursed her lips, unknowingly driving him mad with want for her.

“Aw, you remembered,” he gushed, actually touched. “I really meant it, you know.”

“Right, Mulder, sure.”

“All you had to do was say, ‘yes’, honey, and we could have been doing the mattress mambo well before the turn of the century.” He offered her a toothy grin.

“Wow, Mulder, when you put it that way...” she teased him.

“I still say Doggett fell for Monica only after he realized he had no chance with you. That’s when he decided to go for X-Files hottie number two.”

“Mulder,” she warned him, “I don’t think any of that is even remotely true, and in fact, it sounds rather insulting to them both, but either way, please keep your ruminations over Monica and John’s love life to yourself- especially when they get here.”

“Will do,” he promised, his attention momentarily diverted to all the whipped cream in the fridge and not wanting to risk angering her so much that she wouldn’t want to use it with him later.

“Besides,” she went on, recalling a long ago conversation she’d had once with Reyes, regarding her feelings for Doggett, “I’m sure that deep down John has always loved Monica, just as she’s always loved him.”

“She was probably just settling, too, once she realized that she didn’t have a chance with you, either,” he blurted.

“Oh, Jesus, Mulder! That’s ridiculous! Don’t make me regret telling you about her... alternative lifestyle choices.” Her baby blues pierced right through his skin and into the depths of him, and not in a good way.

“I told you, I won’t say anything stupid,” he vowed, holding a hand over his heart, but he felt more amused than fearful. “I just find it... interesting. I’ve never really known a lesbian before, Scully.”

Scully huffed. “Oh, I’m sure you have, Mulder, but just didn’t realize it. Not everyone announces their sexual preferences to every person they meet. Besides, Monica is not a lesbian; she’s bisexual- not that there’s anything wrong with either one.”

“I know, Scully, I know, don’t go ruffling your politically correct feathers. And it doesn’t bother me. I’m an enlightened male, aren’t I?” He ignored the raised eyebrow she cast his way. “I’m cool with it all, honestly. I guess it’s just kind of... disconcerting to know that not only am I going to have to keep my eye on old ‘Dog’ today, but on his wife, as well.”

“Mulder, you don’t need to keep your eye on anyone! For one thing, Monica and John are happily married- to each other! For another thing, even if one of them did make an advance at me, I would immediately refuse.”

He grinned, knowing full well he’d never have reason to question her fidelity, as Scully was the epitome of loyalty, but he was having too much fun riling her up to stop now.

“Why not, Scully? They’re not your type?”

“Frankly, no,” she admitted. “John is nice, but he’s just so... I mean, he’s too...”

“Ugly?” Mulder offered helpfully.

“Mulder, don’t be an ass! John is just so... rigid, I guess. Too by-the-book, too...”

“Anal?” he chuckled.

“Shut up, Mulder,” she chided, but couldn’t bite back her own grin. “And yes, maybe he is. In some ways he’s too much like me. We’d drive each other crazy- we frequently did when we were partnered together.”

“But you and I are as different as night and day, Scully, and you’ve told me on numerous occasions that I drive you crazy.”

She laughed. “Oh, well, you’re a special case, Mulder. You have the ability to drive anyone crazy.”

“You’re too kind,” he snickered. “And... so what about Monica?”

“Huh?”

“Why isn’t she your type? Why would you refuse her?”

“What? You mean besides the fact that I’m straight, she’s a woman and we have no... connecting parts?”

Mulder guffawed loudly at her choice of words. “Day-um, Scully! Yeah, I mean besides all that. It never stopped her, anyhow. And you yourself have told me just how much Monica is like a cross between your sister, Melissa, and me- two people you just adore. So, what else you got?”

“Oh. Um, well... I... make it a rule never to date someone with a bigger bust line than mine?” she tried again, which only made him laugh harder.

“Wait a minute! Does she have a bigger bust line?” he asked, sizing them up in his mind.

“I don’t know,” she muttered in annoyance. “I mean, yeah, I guess so.” She glanced down at her handiwork and nodded approvingly to herself.

“Have you ever seen them... eh, I mean, her, you know... nak-”

“No, Mulder,” she sighed, wearily, “I haven’t.”

“So, then, what makes you so attracted to me, but not to her, I mean, besides the lack of connecting parts?” he joked, winking at her.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Scully blew out a breath. Literally, saved by the bell from any more of this asinine conversation. How did he get her to even talk about such nonsense? She straightened out an imaginary crease in her dress, then started for the front door, her husband close at her heels. He took her hand and looked imploringly at her, his puppy dog eyes out in full force and demanding an answer.

“Mulder, I love you most because you’re you. There’s no one else truly like you, no one as intelligent, as intuitive, no one as caring or loving... there’s no one as precious to me as you are. You’re my... constant. My touchstone.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, then headed towards the front door again.

He had to force back the tears, her words having a profound effect on him. He remembered with perfect clarity the day they had both avowed to be each other’s touchstones, so many years ago. He wasn’t sure why, but the holidays- with maybe the exception of Halloween, when he was too busy trying to eat up all the candy and scare the shit out of her- always left him feeling rather sentimental, especially in regards to his wife. He knew he often annoyed her with these “talks” he enforced upon her, realized she was a more private person than he, and verbalizing emotion was not her greatest strength, but he couldn’t help himself. It happened every damn year around this time, and usually popped up now and again, at least until after New Year’s.

But considering their guests were just outside the door, and Scully was about to admit them, he kept his philosophical waxing to himself, and instead took his place at her side as she reached for the doorknob. Before she could turn it, he leaned over to whisper into her ear, “And here I thought you loved me best because I’m the best lay you’ve ever had.”

He rested his hand over hers and turned the knob and the door opened to reveal the two FBI agents, John Doggett and Monica Reyes, who held their infant daughter in her arms. They were greeted by a slyly smiling Fox Mulder and a furiously blushing Dana Scully, who glanced once over at her beloved with a look that said he was in for it just as soon as there were no witnesses around.

“Hi, ya,” Doggett said pleasantly in his Georgian born New York accent, gingerly pushing his way past the couple standing in the doorway, blocking his way. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but he was currently carrying a banana cream pie, a bottle of wine, the photo album that his wife had insisted on bringing- chronicling their daughter’s life, thus far- an overflowing diaper bag, diapers being the least of which it was stuffed with, and, of all things, Monica’s damn purse! He felt like he was ready to topple over from the strain of just carrying it from their car to the house. He tried to shake hands with Mulder, but couldn’t quite manage. “Sorry, got my hands full...”

“Oh, hey, let me help you,” Mulder offered, and glanced once at Scully, waiting for her smile of approval for being so nice, which she gladly gave him. He took half of the stuff Doggett was juggling, and then the two men shook hands properly.

“Come on in, of course,” Scully said, jump starting into hostess mode. She awkwardly accepted a kiss on the cheek from her former FBI partner, then took a peek at her husband, silently willing him to refrain from turning into a caveman. To her amazement, he said nothing, although she noticed the brief glare that passed over his features, before his face returned to a look of bland pleasantry.

Scully’s attention then turned to Monica, her close friend, and the woman’s beautiful baby girl, who were entering the house and advancing towards her in a rush of motion.

“Dana!” the tall, lovely brunette exclaimed happily, wrapping her free arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders and pulling her close for a sideways sort of hug.

“Hi, Monica,” Scully replied, returning the embrace, her blue eyes light and happy, which made Mulder smile.

His expression turned into outright shock as he watched Agent Reyes lean down and kiss his conservative wife squarely on the mouth. He felt his groin involuntarily tighten against his trousers, even as the green-eyed monster within began to feel a little antsy. “It’s getting kind of hot in here,” he murmured under his breath, but noticed that Doggett’s face mirrored his own. The men nodded silently at each other.

“And how is my little goddaughter?” Scully went on, oblivious to the men’s discomfort over an innocent kiss between friends. She looked questioningly at Monica for a moment, silently asking for permission, and received a smile of approval, before scooping the baby into her arms and holding her close against her chest. “Hello, Rosemary,” she cooed.

Mulder marveled at how the former FBI agent and pathologist, and current surgeon could be reduced to a pile of soft-talking, silly-face-making goo over one, small human being. Not that he could blame her. Rosemary was a very engaging baby and cute as a button.

She was also wide awake and she regarded her pretty, red-haired godmother with affection and a certain amount of amusement, an expression that resembled her mother’s greatly. The infant made a gurgling noise, grinned toothlessly and reached out with a chubby, slobbery hand to pat the woman’s cheek.

“Aw, see, I told you she’d remember her ‘Auntie’ Dana,” Monica confirmed, sighing at the sweet scene, and the other adults gathered around responded in kind.

Hmph, Mulder thought, a strange and fleeting moment of jealousy taking hold, Scully’s never that tolerant when I slobber on her...

He shook off the ridiculous notion, then watched as his wife smiled with a look of pride, and made another silly face at the infant, holding her higher and kissing one of the child’s rounded cheeks. “You get more beautiful every time I see you, little angel.”

Remembering to keep up his nice-guy and good-host demeanor, Mulder joked, “You talking to the baby or Monica?” which elicited a giggle out of the two women. He gave Reyes a quick hug, and dared to glance over at Doggett, who couldn’t keep the glower momentarily off of his face. It appeared that he wasn’t the only guy who had to rein in his cave-man instincts. He began to entertain the idea that perhaps John loved Monica more than he had given him credit for. He kept his interesting pondering to himself though, and didn’t even tease Doggett about it. Scully would be so proud.

The group made their way further into the house, coming into the living room, Scully still carrying the baby. Mulder took the pie and the wine their guests had so graciously bought- Just what we need, more pie!- and stashed them away into the fridge, then returned to the living room, somewhat confused. Back in the kitchen, Scully’s feast awaited on hot plates, or tucked away in next to the pie and the wine Mulder had just brought in, ready to eat. After she had put so much work into the meal, he would have thought she’d be anxious to start eating it. He knew he was ready and willing. Despite Scully’s suggestion that he eat something for breakfast, Mulder had refrained from doing so, to save room for the gut-busting dinner he was anticipating. Plus, he’d worked up even more of an appetite during his sexual gymnastics work out with Scully in the shower not too long before. He was hungry, dammit! He threw his best “puppy-dog” eyes at her once he returned to the group, but to his great horror, she had not even noticed it, too wrapped she was kissing and fawning over the baby.

Damn babies, he grumped, why they gotta be so cute?

Monica was sitting beside Scully on the sofa and she looked up at John expectantly. He seemed to read her mind, and he brought over the photo album she’d been wanting.

“Dana, you have to see these pictures! Some of them are even different from the poses that I sent you!”

“Okay,” Scully eagerly agreed and Mulder bit back a sob. His stomach started growling at him.

John once again took his cue, and lifted the squirming baby out of Scully’s arms while his wife opened up the album and scooted closer to her friend. The two women huddled together and perused the album, spouting ooh’s and ah’s over young Rosemary’s pictorials. Mulder scratched his head, wondering over Scully’s doting over the baby pictures. She and Monica sat there, looking at each and every photo with studious glee, Monica offering a story for each pose, and Scully offering a compliment in return. What he couldn’t quite grasp was why the women were so enthralled with a two dimensional picture when the real thing was currently squirming and fussing in her father’s arms not four feet away.

His stomach growling again, Mulder stared at the book in Reyes’ hand, trying to ascertain the length of the photo album. It was pretty big. He hoped it wasn’t completely full. But he was grateful for the fact that at least there was only one of them.

Taking a tentative step closer to where Doggett stood trying to soothe his cranky daughter, Mulder heard Monica say, “Her eyes are turning brown, like mine.” She sounded disappointed.

“You have beautiful eyes, Monica,” Scully complimented, and Mulder could tell that she meant it.

“Really beautiful eyes,” Doggett reiterated, somewhat distractedly. “And it makes sense, anyway, seeing as she takes after you in every other way, Mon.” He smiled affectionately at the two women in his life.

“Thank God for that,” Mulder mused, and it was only when he noticed everyone staring at him, that he realized he’d said it out loud. Chuckling nervously, he added, “’Cause who wants a daughter with a five o’clock shadow, right?”

John and Monica laughed in agreement- and even the baby smiled and cooed- while Scully raised her eyebrow at him, knowing that he had barely escaped a bad situation by the seat of his pants.

Swallowing loudly, Mulder edged even nearer to Doggett for a better look at the star of the day. It was true, he had to admit, even though he had never taken the time to notice before, but little Rosemary was her mother’s daughter. From the dark shock of hair sprouting on her head, to the shape of the nose, and of course, the smile, albeit the baby’s was still toothless, she looked just like her mama. Mulder remembered when the child had been born, and Scully calling him from a birthing center in D.C. to tell him about her. She had been acting as Monica’s midwife. Monica had asked her because she was such a good friend, as close as sisters, plus, since she had helped deliver Scully’s baby years before, she thought it would be cosmically in tune with the universe (or whatever such shit she had spouted to get Scully to comply months before) for her to return the favor. And how could Scully refuse that? So, Monica Reyes-Doggett had been the only pregnant woman in that birthing center to have a doctor for a mid-wife. Mulder could recall with perfect clarity the breathless wonder in his wife’s teary voice when she had phoned and told him that the baby had been born, and was a beautiful little girl who looked just like her mother. Seeing as how all newborns looked alike to Mulder- red-faced and squalling and usually bald- he couldn’t fathom as to how she could tell, but looking at Rosemary now, he saw just how right Scully had been.

Mulder stood at Doggett’s shoulder now, and he peered into the baby’s face, observing not only her, but him, in a new light. There he was, a Gulf war veteran, former New York cop, and currently an FBI agent. He was a man of fifty, and the years- and the mileage- plainly showed. He was also the husband to a beautiful, intelligent woman and a new father to a pretty baby girl. Mulder did not begrudge either John or Monica this newfound happiness. He also knew that not even they could be as happy as he was with his beloved wife. No two people could love each other more than he and Scully did.

But he had to admit, if only to himself, the melancholy feeling that took hold of him, watching Agent Doggett interacting with his baby. Mulder had never had gotten much of a chance to bond with his own tiny, bundle of joy, his son, William. And, he had to face the fact that he never would again. Even if, by some miracle, he and Scully were blessed enough to find their son someday, somehow, they would not be presented with the cute, chubby baby of his memories, but a growing boy. He turned nine this year. He’d be old enough to wonder about his past- that is, if his adoptive parents had ever clued him in to it- and old enough to harbor sadness and resentment towards them. He didn’t know for sure, he couldn’t say, as he had never had been witness to such an experience, but Mulder could imagine that trying to logically explain the virtues of giving their son up for adoption to protect him and keep him from harm’s way couldn’t appease the hurt a kid would feel at what he might construe as abandonment.

“Could I hold her?” Mulder blurted, surprising everyone, including himself. All eyes were upon him, and John looked like he was about to come up with an excuse as to why he shouldn’t, when Monica smiled from her place on the couch and replied, “Of course! You’re her ‘Uncle’ Mulder, after all.”

Scully just beamed then, her blue eyes glistening in the soft light wafting in through the blinds at the window, as she gazed lovingly at her husband, before giving Monica’s hand a squeeze.

Doggett still didn’t look too keen on the idea, but he sighed in resignation and forced a smile, handing his baby daughter over to Mulder. “Mind her head,” he instructed.

Mulder nodded, then stared down into the tiny face of Rosemary again. She stared up at him, wearing a quizzical expression, as if unsure whether this new person was trustworthy. Mulder couldn’t help himself; his face broke out into a grin, one that apparently met with favor with the youngster in his arms. Rosemary giggled and reached a tiny hand up to grab for his nose.

“Always with the nose,” he grumbled playfully, while Scully and Monica watched approvingly.

Even Doggett seemed impressed. “Well, what do ya know... I think she likes ya, Muldah.”

Mulder smiled, becoming acquainted with his little guest. “All the ladies love me, John,” he murmured. “It’s a curse, really...”

Doggett snorted good-naturedly. “Yeah, sure, Muldah.”

“So... Rosemary Dana Doggett,” Mulder mentioned, reciting the baby’s full name while leaning down to give her an Eskimo kiss, and inhaling the sweet scent that only an infant could produce. “Are you named after Rosemary Clooney? You know, George’s aunt?”

The girl seemed to have found that statement funny and she giggled and cooed, again trying to get her hands on Mulder’s protruding nose.

“No,” Doggett answered for his daughter. “She’s named after Rosemary Hollingsworth Doggett.”

“Never heard of her,” Mulder replied, blowing raspberries against the baby’s hand and making her squeal in delight.

“That’s my mother,” Doggett said dully.

“Oh, well, that makes sense,” Mulder chuckled sheepishly. “And her middle name is Dana... after Scully.”

“That’s right.”

“How come not after Monica’s mom?” Mulder didn’t mean to pry, but he was curious... and he was hoping that it had been Monica’s idea to add Scully’s moniker to the mix, not Doggett’s.

“Well, her mom’s name is Maria, which sounded a little too like Mary.”

“True.”

“So, Monica thought since Dana is her best friend and all, and since they’ve been through so much together, well, she decided to make Rosemary’s middle name ‘Dana’. It is an honor, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mulder replied, trying not to sound defensive. He was quick to add, “Scully’s certainly worthy of it.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Sure it wasn’t your idea?” he asked before he could stop himself, then bent his head forward to kiss the baby... and to hide his embarrassed blush.

Doggett seemed to understand and he took no offense to it. “Uh, no, it wasn’t, Muldah. Completely Mon’s idea, I assure you. I don’t know if you realize how close they got during that time you were away some years back. It was hard on Dana, being on her own and taking care of Will- uh, I mean, she missed you and needed someone to talk to, I guess, so she and Monica got incredibly close...” The older man averted his ice-blue eyes, a gesture that the suddenly guilt-ridden, teary eyed Mulder appreciated.

“Yeah, I was gone... and you were sort of... blind to what you had, as well.” He wasn’t trying to be an ass. He was merely making a point. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

Scully and Monica continued to peruse the photo album, as they chatted aimlessly about colic, teething and diaper rash.

“Yeah, you’re right, Muldah,” Doggett could admit. “I was a little blind to what I had right in front of me for a long time. Monica is a good woman- I always knew that... it just took me awhile to understand that she and I... were meant to be together...” His voice trailed off and his ears burned blood red.

It was pretty obvious that Agent Doggett wasn’t all that comfortable talking about emotions or relationships. Mulder couldn’t exactly fault him for that considering he was much the same way. The only person he felt comfortable discussing such things with was his wife, Scully, and even that comfort had taken them years to slowly develop.

“They met at a time they were going through a similar situation, I guess,” Mulder heard Doggett continue. “They were both lonely and they needed each other.”

Mulder nodded and stole a glance at the two women sitting on the sofa. They were currently in their own, little world, heads together, speaking quietly to each other. Monica had an affectionate arm slung casually over Scully’s shoulders. Mulder knew from years of being with Scully that, with the exception of immediate family, young children, and himself, she was not usually the most demonstrative person when it came to physical displays of affection. She wasn’t cold or unfeeling- not by a long shot- but rather, just a private, introverted sort of person who sometimes had difficulty expressing herself that way. But it wasn’t lost on Mulder that his beloved wife was being very tolerant of Agent Reyes’ openly affectionate ways. In fact, she didn’t seem bothered by it, or even self-conscious about it in the slightest.

“They became close then,” Doggett was still rambling on, and both men paused as the women laughed about something Scully had said. Reyes leaned in closer, glancing briefly at Mulder and her husband, then whispered something into her friend’s ear, at which they laughed again. It was all very intimate and, Mulder was sure, innocent. That didn’t stop him from experiencing both jealousy and arousal at the same time yet again.

“Yeah... really close,” Mulder had to agree. “Guess it’s a good thing, I mean, seeing as neither of us were... available to them at the time, that they had each other.”

The two men looked at each other for a moment over Mulder’s choice of words. “Had each other?” Doggett whispered, battling his own conflicting feelings, no doubt. “You don’t really think that they... I mean...”

“No, of course not,” Mulder was quick to reassure the man. “Scully was always totally devoted to me, I realize that now. I guess she always has been, even when I didn’t want to see it. Plus, well, she just doesn’t swing that way, if you get my drift. And as for Monica...” he paused, realizing that the tall brunette sometimes did swing that way. “Uh... I, well, just think how lucky you really are, John. She’s had a taste of the fairer sex- probably literally- and yet, she still chose you. See? Something to be grateful for.” He offered up a hopeful grin.

Doggett rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks a lot, Muldah!” While he had never held any true animosity towards homosexual or bisexual people, it still hit a little too close to home that his own wife was of the latter. He was always, deep down, just the slightest bit worried that someday she might change her mind and go back to playing for the home team again.

The baby took this opportunity to get in a lucky swipe and bopped the unsuspecting Mulder on the nose. “Whoa! Again with the nose, short stuff! What’s the deal?” he laughed, then looked to his wife with a mischievous expression. “Hey, Scully, I just realized, with Rosemary here, you’re not the shortest one in the house anymore.”

Doggett and Reyes laughed, while Scully made a face at him. “Very funny, Mulder.”

“Yeah, but she won’t be shorter for long, Dana, so don’t get too used to it,” Doggett added, his blue eyes gleaming. He’d made a funny and was quite proud of it.

“Now, now, let’s let Scully have her glory, Dog,” Mulder scolded him in a mocking tone. “She’ll be taller for at least the first... two or three years.” He chortled. He would never grow tired of short jokes.

Doggett laughed along side Mulder, even as Scully’s eyes began to narrow. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Muldah. Her mama is pretty tall, so she still might outgrow your wife within this first year.”

“That’s true,” Mulder replied with a nod.

Monica noticed the trademark Scully eyebrow was in place high above her eye, and rising higher by the second. As sexy as it looked, the special agent knew her friend well enough to know this meant trouble. “Uh, guys... unless you want to eat a microwave dinner outside on the lawn, you might want to stop goading the chef.”

Mulder pulled out the puppy dog eyes look and said, “I’m sorry, Scully. You know I think that you’re practically perfect in every way.”

“I’m not Mary Poppins, Mulder, but thank you,” Scully accepted his lame attempt at an apology.

“Uh, yeah, Dana,” Doggett added, sounding equally contrite, “You know, in the right light, you could actually pass for average height... what with those big heels you wear.”

“Thanks a lot,” Scully sulked.

Rosemary snuggled against Mulder’s chest, began rooting and whimpering. Monica, so in tune with her baby’s every need, recognized the signs immediately. “Oh, looks like someone is hungry.”

“I sure am,” Doggett began. “You wouldn’t even let me have a damn snack before we got here.”

“I was talking about the baby, John,” Monica clued him in.

“Oh, right, I knew that.”

“Well, why don’t we get the little one fed, then the rest of us can start dinner?” Scully suggested and they all agreed wholeheartedly.

“I’ll feed her,” Mulder offered, his instant attachment to Rosemary seemingly coming from out of left field and giving them all a shock. Scully watched him, a peculiar look on her face. The sight of her husband holding a baby in his arms again warmed her heart, while at the same time, broke it. She envisioned distant memories of him holding their newborn son during those few short hours he had gotten to be with the child before going into hiding. She blinked back a few unshed tears.

Mulder noticed his beloved’s distress, and he mistook it for envy, so he was about to offer the task up to Scully instead, when Monica informed him gently, “I breast feed her, Mulder.”

“Oh,” he said, mildly embarrassed and purposely avoiding the disconcerted and somewhat comical expression appearing on John Doggett’s face. “Well, I guess I won’t then.”

Monica’s eyes twinkled. She was the kind of person who could find humor in just about any situation, and often did.

“Would you like a little privacy?” Dana asked, ever the gracious host. She rested a hand on her friend’s arm. “You can use the guest room. There’s a nice rocking chair that I just bought in there.”

Glancing briefly at her husband and his uneasy look, Monica nodded in the affirmative. She was a very natural sort of person and she found the act of breast feeding her baby to be natural as well. It would not have bothered her in the slightest to do so in front of Dana, or even Mulder. But she knew her uptight husband would not see it that way. Deciding to avoid an awkward scene between the two men, she gratefully accepted Dana’s invitation to feed her daughter in privacy.

She and Scully stood together from the sofa and walked over to the men and the baby. Monica took the now fussy Rosemary from Mulder’s arms, smiling at him. Then she turned to Scully. “Third door on the left, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Dana,” Monica replied, and with that mischievous twinkle appearing in her dark eyes again, she leaned down and gave Scully another quick kiss upon her pursed lips before disappearing with the baby down the hall.

As the two men stared at Scully, slack-jawed, she blushed furiously, then forced herself to straighten and announced, “Well, I think I’ll start getting dinner on the table.” She turned on her heel and made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Uhh...” Doggett began.

“Hey, Scully, wait up!” I’ll help!” Mulder called, racing after her and leaving their dumbfounded guest alone in the living room.

Mulder found Scully in the kitchen, already removing dishes from hot plates and the refrigerator. She was quietly humming what he recognized to be a Christmas carol, although he could not discern which one. Most of them sounded too much alike to him anyway, especially when his wife hummed them. She was pretty cute about it though and he smiled as he tapped her shoulder. She actually jumped from the contact, nearly dropping the green bean casserole to the floor.

“Jesus!” she exclaimed. “Mulder?”

“I’m here to help, Doc, your humble servant.”

She snorted. “Servant is questionable, and trust me, love, you’ve not a humble bone in your body.”

He puffed out his chest in manly pride, taking her smart remark as a compliment. “Okay, your proud servant is here to help.”

“Huh,” she smirked. “And I was going to call you my devastatingly handsome servant, but proud works just as well. Here, take the green bean casserole and the carrots out to the dining room table, please.”

“Uh, Scully...?”

“Can you handle grabbing the dinner rolls, too?”

“Probably not,” he cracked, but she thrust them at him, anyway, and he stood besides her, precariously balancing the dishes in his hands.

“Let’s see... I’ll grab the mashed potatoes and the gravy boat...”

“Scully?”

Not listening and not realizing he was still standing next to her, Scully spun around and nearly toppled into him, stopping herself just in time. “Mulder! Come on, let’s get a move on here. I thought you’d be more willing, considering I could hear your stomach growling as far away as the couch.”

“She kissed you,” he murmured dumbly, the true reason he had followed her into the kitchen. He hadn’t sounded exactly articulate, but the blush that immediately appeared on his wife’s face told him that she’d known precisely what he was referring to.

“Yes,” she agreed vaguely, picking up a butter dish.

“On the lips...” he added.

“I remember.”

“Twice!”

“Oh, Mulder, what are you trying to say here?”

“Scully,” he admitted, “I honestly didn’t know whether to feel jealous or horny.”

She rolled her eyes at him, just like she used to when they worked together at the FBI and he would point to a light in the sky and claim it was a UFO. “Don’t sell yourself short, darling. I’m sure you managed to feel both just fine.” With that, she took the dishes in her hands and hurried off into the dining room.

Grinning like that wily animal he was named for, Mulder gleefully followed after her, carefully juggling the green bean casserole, the carrots and the dinner rolls without incident.

The four adults stood together- Scully was holding Rosemary- around the dining room table, which displayed the glorious feast that had been prepared on this joyous day of giving thanks, and that was fit for royalty. Considering the ravenous looks in everyone’s eyes- particularly Mulder’s and Doggett’s- Scully said grace rather hastily, and ended with a humble, “Amen”.

The others echoed the sentiment, even Mulder, who, although still would never call himself a religious man, had grown more accepting and appreciative of his wife’s rituals and traditions over their years spent living together.

Scully was about to suggest that everyone take their seats, when Rosemary added her own contribution to the prayer by belching loudly into her godmother’s ear. “Goodness!” Scully replied, staring down at her small guest, a look of sheer amazement on her face. The child’s burp had seriously rivaled some of Mulder’s best efforts.

“See, told ya she takes after her mom,” John cracked, and everybody laughed as they sat down around the table, Mulder and Scully seated at the two heads, Doggett and Reyes seated across from each other in the middle.

Mulder was mildly surprised by Monica’s lack of embarrassment over her husband’s claim, as she merely grinned from ear to ear and had said, “Yep, that’s my girl!” with more than a hint of pride. He knew that if he’d ever said something like that regarding his own wife, particularly in front of other people, she’d have turned bright red, then would have kicked his ass at the next available opportunity. Of course, it was entirely possible that Doggett’s own ass might need a sling later that night for his remark, but Monica seemed much more in control of keeping feelings of embarrassment in check. Or...

“Oh, that takes me back... remember that time, Dana? We’d gotten into that peach schnapps? Add the guacamole and chips and... KABOOM! What an explosive night that made for, huh?” And the pretty brunette laughed heartily at the memory.

Scully stared at Monica, that old familiar blush everyone here knew and regarded so endearingly creeping up on her lovely face. Mulder stared unabashedly at her, confused and intrigued. He and Scully had shared so much about their lives during the time they’d been forced to live apart, and he’d been in hiding since being reunited, but this story he’d never had the pleasure of hearing.

“Scully?” he asked, his voice ever so sweet, underlying the burning curiosity. “What happened on peach-schnapps-and-guacamole night, honey?”

Monica’s dark eyes went wide. As much as their male companions had caused their gracious hostess so much grief already today, she honestly hadn’t meant to contribute to it. Seeing as how she thought back fondly to that night, as one of fun and silliness, she naturally assumed her friend did, too, and would not have been ashamed to have had it re-told. “Uh, nothing, guys,” she said quickly. “Forget about it.”

“No, I wanna know, too,” Doggett quipped, and Monica gave him a stern glare and made a mental note to herself to kick his ass later.

“Hey, why don’t we just go around the table and do that whole I’m-so-grateful-for thing,” Reyes suggested, but her suggestion was ignored.

“Come on, Scully,” Mulder urged. Right now he was treading on thin ice, but he couldn’t help himself. He loved his wife more than anything and didn’t like putting her on the spot- although, technically, he felt Monica had done it this time- especially in front of company, but he just had to know about this mysterious night. Besides, he knew that Scully would forgive his prying... eventually... probably...

Since Scully knew that the guys would not leave this alone- most notably, Mulder- and since she figured she was already blushing as brightly as was humanly possible by now, she opened her mouth to speak, but not before giving Reyes an exasperated ‘thanks a lot!’ look- to which her friend offered her an apologetic smile- and said, “Fine, all right. Okay... one night, after a particularly brutal case, Monica was feeling rather depressed over the outcome and so I invited her back to my place for a drink and...”

“Whoa!” Mulder exclaimed, his eyes wide, just as Doggett declared, “Damn!” with an equally shocked expression.

“Oh, please!” Monica interjected, as Scully groaned in annoyance. “Not everything is about sex! Is that all you guys think about?”

“No,” Doggett promised, just as Mulder winked at his wife and admitted, “Well, yeah.”

“Well, we didn’t... you know,” Monica informed them. “I mean, not on that night.” And she stuck her tongue out at her rapt audience.

She received a stern look from the redhead seated next to her. “Monica, please don’t encourage them!”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway,” Scully went on, just daring anyone else to interrupt her again, “we drank some peach schnapps that I had around the house- I think it was a birthday gift from Frohike the year before. We were discussing the case, and I guess we didn’t realize that we had nearly emptied the bottle! Since Monica was to be driving home later, we decided to eat something, to counterbalance the alcohol we ingested, and I remembered that Mom had given me some avocados. I had some tortilla chips, and Monica used her mom’s recipe for guacamole, so we made the food, ate the food, continued to drink the schnapps. Pretty soon we were both stuffed and pretty tipsy, and well, biological wonders that we humans are, one thing led to another and we started... I mean, not purposely, because it is rude to do in front of company, but...”

The men at the table listened to her every syllable, the delicious food laid out before them even momentarily forgotten. They noticed that Scully seemed to have trouble saying anything more.

Monica rolled her eyes. How could a doctor be so squeamish about bodily functions? “She burped,” the tall woman informed them all. “She let out the loudest burp I’ve ever heard coming from someone so small... well, until Rosemary came along, that is.” And she smiled affectionately at her daughter.

Mulder laughed heartily, even though he realized that Scully was probably more than a trifle angry that her Thanksgiving meal she had worked so hard on, with the food and the atmosphere, had turned to burp talk over dinner. Doggett was a bit more subtle, trying to refrain from chuckling, but he failed miserably.

“You didn’t tell the whole story, Monica,” Scully sniffed. “Like how you turned the rest of the evening into a burping contest and started belching through my house, like some big...”

“Like a big pig?” Doggett supplied helpfully. Mulder and Scully eyed him in surprise. He shrugged and said, “Hey, I know my wife.”

“Thanks, John,” Monica grumbled at him, but her eyes still twinkled in merriment. Nothing seemed to faze this woman.

“Uh...” Scully stammered, “I guess that’s one way to put it... Anyway, it quickly became a game as to who could produce, you know, the loudest belch.”

Mulder glanced over at his wife’s best friend with a newfound respect. Perhaps Scully’s claims all these years at how much alike he and Reyes were weren’t entirely unfounded. “So, who won?” he had to know.

“Oh, come on, I think it goes without saying,” John said proudly, reaching across the table between the corn and the sweet potatoes to squeeze his wife’s hand. Monica gave him an indulgent smile, silently marveling at how it easy it was to impress her husband.

“Well, she may have won,” Scully blurted in a fit of daring, “but it was a close call.”

“That’s true,” Monica had to concede. “You did get some good ones in there, I admit it. Didn’t the neighbors start banging on the walls after awhile, complaining about what they thought had to be a frat party, going on next door?” She winked at Dana.

“Yeah, I think I remember something like that,” Scully responded with a Mona Lisa smile.

Mulder eyed his wife in utter amazement. Who was this woman sitting at the other end of the table with the cat-who-swallowed-the-canary grin? “Hmph,” he grumped. “You never burp like that for me!”

Scully sighed. “Can we please just eat now?”

“Thought you’d never ask!” Doggett fairly growled, his mouth watering, his hand all ready to stab a fork through a piece of turkey.

“No, wait a second,” Monica spoke up, recalling Scully’s traditional upbringing and all her sentimental rituals. “Let’s go around the table and say what we’re grateful for before we start making pigs of ourselves.”

Mulder, who already had a healthy helping of turkey and mashed potatoes on his plate, groaned, as did Doggett, who was eyeing the sweet potatoes with wanton despair.

“Eh, sure, Mon,” Doggett agreed. “But lemme go first... Um, I’m grateful for my beautiful, belching wife-“ Monica and Mulder laughed, as Scully gasped in surprise, “and my beautiful, baby girl. And I’m grateful for all my family, and all of Mon’s, and for all our friends and I’m sure they’re all grateful for the same stuff, too, so let’s eat!”

“John!” Monica exclaimed, without her usual touch of good humor.

“Aw, jeez, I’m just hungry, is all.”

“Well, I’m grateful,” Monica began, and her husband sighed, knowing that his wife was grateful for so many things, “for all of my family and friends. Especially my piggish husband-” Scully and Mulder chuckled at that, while Doggett made a face. “And I’m so grateful for my beautiful daughter, my parents and siblings, John’s family and for my best friends, Dana and Mulder, who are some of the most wonderful people I know.”

Scully smiled sweetly at the woman, and cleared her throat, to go next. “I am grateful for my family, mom, brothers, sisters-in-law, niece and nephews... and for my husband, Mulder, who is... the best friend and confidant, and the best... lover I’ve ever had.” Monica and John grinned knowingly, while Mulder nearly choked in surprise over the piece of turkey he had snuck into his mouth a moment ago. “I’m grateful to have had my son,” Scully went on, her voice going quiet, her eyes turning melancholy. “Wherever he is right now, I believe that he is safe and happy and... loved. I... I am grateful to my friends, particularly the three guests seated at this table with us. You have helped me in the past, and I’m sure you’ll be there for me in the future, too.” She kissed little Rosemary’s button nose, smiling at the infant, who angelically smiled right back. “And I’m grateful for... for children- the blessings they are, and the blessings they give are truly miracles.” Blinking back a few unshed tears, Scully blew out a breath, then looked expectantly at her husband.

Mulder straightened in his chair, all eyes on him now. While he was a prolific speechmaker, when it came to lovey-dovey emotions, he was absolutely horrible... unless his only audience was the beautiful redhead he went to bed with every night. And even then, he often screwed that up. But he put his focus solely on Scully during this speech, just the blue of her eyes and the sweetness of her smile putting him more at ease. “I’m, uh, grateful to my wife’s family, the Scully’s, who’ve accepted me- for the most part- into their crazy brood.” This elicited smiles all around, none brighter than from Scully herself. “I’m grateful to my own family, such as it was, Samantha in particular. I’m grateful for my boy, William. I miss him... but I...” and he, too, paused, growing misty-eyed, just as Scully had, while talking and thinking of their cherished son. “I know he’s... where he needs to be, right now. I’m grateful to good friends, like old Dog here, or Burpy over there,” and he gestured to Reyes, who snickered. “I’m really proud to know them and glad they’re nice enough to let us spend time with their cute, little rug rat. And Scully...”

Again he took a moment to gather his thoughts and compose himself, as his existence literally evolved around this woman. She truly was his shining star, and he was merely grateful for the luminescence while remaining in her orbit. “... um, I... you’re everything to me, I hope you know that. You’re like... listening to music during a stake out from the old days. You’re... a tall glass of iced tea on a hot, summer’s day. You’re that first ray of sunshine, that first sign of spring after a long, bleak winter. You’re truth and beauty and light to me. You’re my... better half, my touchstone... you’re my past, present and future and I love you more than I could ever say...”

Momentarily forgetting about the other people in the room, Mulder zoned in on his beloved’s face, watched as she wiped away a few tears, just as he did the same. He wanted nothing more than to leap across the table and hold her tightly to him, never letting her go. And he realized that he was bringing down the house with all of his mush talk and that something with a little more levity was in order now. The corner of his mouth quirked in a mischievous smile. “And, most importantly, you’re the one I’m planning on covering in whipped cream tonight, for my own private dessert.” He licked his lips in anticipation while Scully turned scarlet. She always had a hard time adjusting to how quickly he could change tactics on her.

Doggett and Reyes gave whoops and shouts of approval, whistling and laughing at Mulder’s provocative last statement, and Scully hid her face behind the baby’s head.

“So, uh, we’re all grateful and now we’re all starving to death,” Doggett exclaimed. “Can we please just eat now?”

“Yes!” Scully agreed and everyone grabbed up their plates- Monica helped Scully fill hers, as she was holding Rosemary in her arms- and they began the most favored Thanksgiving ritual of all- pigging out!

An hour later, the four adults sat around the dining room table, trying to retain some semblance of civility, by not making further pigs of themselves. It wasn’t looking too promising at this point. While Scully was secreting TUMS from her pocket, Mulder and Monica were quietly burping into their hands and Doggett had unapologetically loosened the belt on his pants.

“Dana, that was one helluva meal,” Doggett congratulated her, before letting loose with a belch himself.

“Thanks, John,” Scully chuckled.

Mulder smiled at her, opened his mouth to echo the sentiment and burped quite loudly. “Uh, yeah, what he said.”

“In some cultures, belching after a meal is considered a compliment to the chef,” Monica said, then covered her hand over her mouth and doing so. “See? That means it was delicious!”

“Well said,” Mulder agreed, and he reached into his pocket for his own stash of antacids, and passed them around to his guests, which they eagerly accepted.

“Thank you, everyone,” Scully replied, although she managed to steel herself from returning the gassy sentiment. “So, I take it none of you are going to be ready for dessert any time soon?”

“No!” they all chimed in at once, making the redhead laugh. Her movement awoke the baby slumbering on her shoulder. Rosemary rutted around, then opened up her sunny eyes and smiled widely at everyone.

“Welcome back, sweetheart,” Scully murmured sweetly to the infant, and Mulder felt a pang in his chest that he doubted was heartburn. He watched as his beloved talked softly to Rosemary, while patting her baby bottom in a soothing manner. After a few seconds, a decidedly un-delicious smell began to permeate the dining room.

“Uh-oh,” Scully said, glancing down at the baby in realization.

Mulder sniffed the air, then wrinkled his nose. “Scully, did you-”

“No, I didn’t,” she grumbled at him. “Little Rosemary here needs a change.”

“Oh, sure, blame the innocent, little baby,” Mulder teased her.

“Whew!” Monica exclaimed. “Nope, that’s definitely Rosemary’s handiwork. No wonder she woke up happy.” She chuckled, then looked to her husband. “John...?” she asked hopefully.

“Aw, Mon...” he groaned, patting his bloated belly. “I just ate! I can’t even move.”

“We all just ate,” she informed him. “And besides, I fed her.”

“Well, it ain’t like I could,” he retorted. “So, what? You get the going in stuff, and I gotta deal with the coming out stuff?” He didn’t seem too thrilled over this unfair division of duties.

Mulder thought back to a somewhat similar conversation he and his wife had gone through when their son was first born. He’d had his first lesson in diaper changing 101 fairly quickly, and, recalling the bittersweet memory, it had been a difficult lesson, to say the least. “Uh, I can change her,” he volunteered. He smile in response to the eyebrow that raised high above Scully’s pretty, blue eye.

“Go for it,” Monica told him, at the same time, Doggett said, “I ain’t gonna stop you.”

“Hmm, I guess my fate is sealed, then,” Mulder announced bravely, managing to stand up and heave his full belly into a forward motion. He walked over to Scully and took the baby from her loving arms and into his own. “Come on, shorty. You’re getting a little ripe, so Uncle Mulder is here to save the day.”

The baby gurgled approvingly. He carried her into the living room to retrieve the diaper bag, then headed down the hall to the guest bedroom. Keeping the tiny child safely tucked away in his left arm hold, he used his right hand to open up the pink, “Winnie the Pooh”- How appropriate!- diaper bag and grabbed out a clean diaper, as well as a changing pad. He fished around through it some more, looking for some baby wipes, but couldn’t seem to locate any.

“Uh-oh, short stuff. There are no wipers in here. Looks like we’re gonna have to go for either toilet paper, or a wash cloth.” Neither prospect seemed all that desirable to him, especially the thought of Scully yelling at him for using a wash cloth to clean up baby poop. “What did I get myself into?” he asked rhetorically, and the baby farted on his arm, making him laugh in spite of himself. “Yep. That answers my question.”

Doggett appeared in the doorway, carrying a thin, rectangular, plastic pink box in his hand. “Hey, Muldah, might be needing this.”

“What is it?”

“Baby wipes.”

“Oh, yes. I was wondering where they were. I mean, with as much stuff as you guys have crammed into the diaper bag, it didn’t make sense that you’d forget something as important as baby wipes.”

John chuckled as he handed them to Mulder. “Yeah, that’s Mon, packing everything but the kitchen sink! The diapers barely fit! The bag got so stuffed that she had to put the wipes in her purse. Women!”

The baby frowned and grunted. “Present company excepted, shorty,” Mulder added and she calmed as he gently set her down on top of the changing pad. He began to unbutton the bottom half of her sleeper and carefully got her legs out. Though he felt a little rusty, he’d thus far done everything right.

“Ever done this before?” Doggett felt compelled to ask, concerned over Mulder’s experience in this area, although not enough to volunteer to take over for him.

“What? Change a shitty diaper? Yeah, even though I only had a matter of hours with William before I had to leave, he actually gave me a run for my money in that short span of time, believe it or not. I got lot’s of practice, Scully made sure of that.”

The older man smiled sympathetically. “Yeah, they’re good at that. Making sure we get our fair share of smelly diapers, I mean.”

Mulder shrugged. “Well, I’ve had years of practice wiping my own ass, and a baby’s butt is a lot smaller, so it’s got to be easier, wouldn’t you say?”

Doggett made a face of disgust. “Sound reasoning, Muldah. You sure got a unique perspective on things.”

“Thanks,” Mulder replied, deciding to take that as a compliment.

“So, uh, when you first did this, the shitty diaper thing,” John said, grimacing as Mulder peeled back the soiled diaper to reveal the offending article, “how did you do?”

“Are you asking me whether I got covered in caca, John? No, I did just fine actually... well, until Will pissed in my face...” he responded absently as he hurried about his task with a sense of urgency. “Girls can’t piss upwards, can they?”

Laughing out loud, John told him, “Not that I’ve seen so far. Jesus, in your face? Really?”

“Went into my damn mouth and everything.”

“Fuck that shit! Jeez, the worst that Luke ever did...” John quieted for a moment, as if lost in a long ago memory of a life since past. Mulder even glanced up at him to see if he was all right. Upon noticing the glassy-eyed expression, he kindly turned back away. “Well, he used to get the front of my shirt once in awhile, if I wasn’t quick enough.”

“Trust me, that’s nothing compared to having it inside your mouth!”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that.” Doggett watched as Mulder wiped the baby’s bottom clean, then deftly slid a new diaper beneath it, then folded up the smelly one and handed it to the girls’ father. “Gee, thanks, Muldah! Where you want me to toss this thing?”

“I’d suggest a toxic waste dumping site, but since there are none of those around, I’d settle for the trash can out back.”

“Gotcha!” Doggett left to rid the house of the vile, foul-smelling diaper, while Mulder vigorously rubbed a large glob of hand-sanitizer on his hands- Scully kept a bottle of the stuff in nearly every room during flu season- then picked up the baby and held her to his chest.

The feel of her small form snuggling against him brought up more memories of William, his beloved son. He sighed heavily, letting his chin rub against the child’s soft hair. This was how he always pictured his child in his mind- a tiny babe still squirming and gurgling and barely able to hold his head upright. Scully had gotten to see their boy reach the age of eight months, but truthfully, the baby hadn’t even started walking yet, and had barely gotten his first couple of teeth. He silently wept for the loss of their son, not into death, but from their lives, even if he remained safely ensconced into their hearts for always.

Wherever you are, son, however big you’ve gotten, you’ll always be my baby boy. Mine and your mom’s...

His tears dripped onto Rosemary’s head, and sensing his dismay, she began to sniffle, too. Mulder glanced down to see a look on her face that mirrored his own. “You, too, huh?” he asked, rubbing her back in empathy. “Yeah, it’s the holidays, kid. They’ll get you every time.”

The baby sneezed in his face and it made him smile.

Doggett came in from the cold outdoors, and washed his hands in the kitchen sink. Making himself at home, he peeked into the fridge and snagged a beer, sipping on it for a few minutes, then leaving the half-empty bottle on the counter next to the sink. He ventured into the living room, expecting that “Muldah” had finished his dirty job and had rejoined the ladies.

He didn’t see Mulder anywhere, but instead almost walked in on a private conversation going on between his wife and Scully. They were seated on the sofa, discussing something quietly. Scully looked teary-eyed, while Monica was rubbing soothing circles of touch against the smaller woman’s back, just as she had done for him after many a harrowing case. He stayed in place at the entryway, hidden in shadow, watching the curious scene unfold before him.

“I just miss him so much,” Scully was sniffling, and John cocked his head in momentary confusion. They all knew that Mulder was somewhere within the house, so...

“I know, Dana, but he’s safe, and that’s what’s important here.”

Ah, Doggett thought in realization, it’s William. She’s missing her boy, just like Muldah does. Just like I still miss mine. Jeez, how long has it been now, since she had to give him away...?

“Eight years, Monica. I haven’t seen him since... I don’t even know what he looks like now, or if I’d even recognize him if I saw him on the street! How awful is that? I feel like the most horrible mother in the world!” Scully hid her face in her hands.

“Dana,” Monica whispered so quietly, that Doggett had to strain to hear her, as she wrapped her arms around her best friend, “You made the ultimate sacrifice for him, all to keep him safe. That makes you a wonderful, selfless mother in my book.”

“Thank you,” Scully whispered back, resting her head on the brunette’s shoulder. “I just wish I could see him again... I’ve tried to broach the subject with Mulder, but I never can get the words out...”

“Well, try again sometime, maybe after the holidays,” Monica suggested. “I know emotions run high around this time. But after the New Year, sit down and discuss your feelings with him. I’m very sure that he feels the same. And even if by some slim chance that he doesn’t, you know he would respect your feelings on the matter. He loves you so much, Dana.”

Scully nodded. “Yes, he does. And... that’s a good idea you gave me. I... I think I’ll do just that.” She cried for a little longer, soaking the shoulder on Monica’s sweater, before forcing herself to stop and sit up straight. “Monica, I’m sorry to break down like this, especially on Thanksgiving, with you as my guest. I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”

“Honey, we’ve witnessed each other giving birth. Do you really think that missing your son on a holiday and crying on my shoulder for awhile can be at all awkward after that?”

“No, I... I guess not,” Scully admitted, and she worked up enough control to offer a smile.

“Look,” Monica went on, wearing a decisive expression that frankly worried her husband lurking in the shadows, “I know you’re a busy woman, being a doctor in a busy hospital, as well as helping your husband stave off alien colonization and all, but I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

Scully stared attentively, glad to be put back into a situation where she could help, do something more constructive than cry her eyes out and wallow in misery. “Of course,” she instantly agreed.

“Well now, it’s a pretty important favor. Not something to be agreed to lightly.”

“Monica, what is it?”

“I’d really like it if you and Mulder would agree to become Rosemary’s legal guardians- you know, should something happen to John and I.”

“I- I...” the petite redhead stammered, her eyes going wide. “Monica, I thought you would be asking one of your siblings something like that.”

No way in hell... Doggett thought, feeling that Monica’s relatives were all a little too flaky to be raising his daughter should the need arise. He and Monica had been going through the process of updating their wills and life insurance after the birth of their daughter, and while they’d never fully discussed the issue, he had assumed that his brother and wife would raise Rosemary should the unthinkable happen. He had never even entertained the notion of Dana and Mulder taking the child. Not that he thought his former FBI partner wasn’t a capable parent, but he’d just never been too sure about her life-partner and whether or not he was a capable parent.

“Nah, John thinks my family is too flaky,” he heard Monica say, and it caused him to blush. Was it that obvious, or was it that she just knew him too well. “And frankly,” she went on, “I think his brother and sister-in-law are a little too stuffy. But you, Dana, you and Mulder would be a perfect fit. That is, if you’re willing to take on the responsibility.”

“Yes!” Scully exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear. She embraced her friend, grateful for her trust. “Thank you. I know what this means to you, Monica, what she means to you. I don’t know if you’ll ever know how much it means to me, though.”

“Hey, don’t start celebrating, we’re not dead yet,” Monica joked, and Scully looked properly chastised. “But I’m glad you feel this way. I know what my daughter means to you, yes. I know you love her nearly as much as I do, and that you would do absolutely everything in your power to protect her and keep her safe, especially if John or I weren’t around anymore to do it ourselves. This is the right decision.”

Scully swallowed the lump in her throat. “I think so, too.”

“And, you know, whenever we can get together, I’d like to, not just on holidays, but whenever time allows. I want Rosemary to get to know her Auntie Dana really well. I want you to be a big part of her life, just as you are in mine. The agreement you just made makes you a second mother to her, you know? And I couldn’t think of a better woman for the job. You’ll be such a great role model for her.”

“Me?” Scully asked in surprise, as she wiped a few more tears- these of the happy persuasion- from her cheeks.

“Definitely! I mean, look at how brilliant you are, Dana. You’re a former FBI agent, and pathologist. You’re also a scientist, and a full-time doctor. Plus, you’re the bravest and kindest person I know. What’s not to admire?”

“Monica, I can’t tell you how... honored, how humbled, how... genuinely touched I...”

“You don’t have to, Dana,” Monica replied with a heartfelt smile, and realizing that, for as brilliant as Scully was, verbalizing her feelings was not her strong suit. “The look on your face says it all.”

The two women embraced again, and Dana surprised Monica and John- still watching, unobserved- by reaching up and kissing her friend’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said for the countless time, the joy she felt making her nearly incoherent.

“Hmm, you’ll probably want to discuss this more with Mulder before you guys sign any paperwork,” Monica said, amused by her friend’s stammering and tamping down that fleeting feeling of arousal she still often got around her friend.

“I will,” Scully promised, “but I know he’ll be just as honored as I am, and say yes.”

I don’t know about this... Doggett thought in concern, backing away and heading down the hallway to the guestroom. He’d have to have a talk with his well-meaning, but spontaneous wife very soon. (He was actually not aware, but Monica had, indeed, put a great deal of thought into her decision.) He marveled at the fact that his wife knew what he’d really thought of about her family. He also grumbled over the realization of what she thought of his.

Halfway down the hall, he heard his daughter getting fussy and realized that it was probably time for her to eat again. He wondered if his wife would start leaking breast milk all over their gracious hostess while they continued to hug and kiss and fawn all over each other. The thought almost made him laugh, until he noticed that, instead of tears, Rosemary could now be heard cooing. Doggett rounded the corner and stepped through the guest bedroom’s doorway to find Fox Mulder holding his baby daughter gently in his arms and singing softly to her in an off-key voice that was even worse than his own.

Mulder was currently butchering Edison Lighthouse, making up his own lyrics to the famous, old song: “Yes, she is a baby!
And no, I don’t mean maybe...
She burps just like her mom-mee!
Oh, but love grows
Where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me!”

Doggett had to laugh, which startled Mulder and he glanced up, wearing a sheepish expression. “Oh, hey. She was getting a little fussy, so I thought that a song was in order.”

“Yeah, it’s feeding time again.”

Rosemary seemed to understand what her father was referring to, and her large, dark eyes lit up in excitement and anticipation, causing both men to smile.

“Oh, I hear ya, Rosemary,” Mulder enthusiastically agreed. “I know I never refuse a nice, juicy breast.”

“Muldah!”

“What? I was talking about chicken.”

“Whatever... Eh, listen,” John said, growing quiet and Mulder took note of his change in demeanor. “I, uh, got something I’d like to ask you first, before we head back in.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s about Rosemary...”

A few minutes later, the two men- Mulder still carrying Rosemary- ambled down the hallway back towards the living room, both smiling over a decision that had been quietly and calmly agreed to in the span of a moment or two. There had been no crying, no hugging or handholding, and certainly no kissing! But like Scully and Reyes, Mulder and Doggett had made an important decision regarding young Rosemary’s future.

“Five bucks says they’re still in the living room slopping all over each other,” John wagered.

“’Slopping’, huh? I bet your wife just loves that romantic part of you, Dog.”

“Hey! I don’t talk like that to her!”

“I see, you just save it all for me. Well, I’m touched.”

“You know, you’re a real pain-in-the-ass, Muldah,” John informed him.

Mulder nodded. “When you’re right, you’re right, John.”

They returned to the living room, but their wives were not there. After Mulder pestered him for five bucks, Doggett finally gave it to him, still wondering where their wives were.

“Wonder where they went?” Doggett murmured.

“Maybe they decided we give them too much grief and that they’re better off with each other, so they went into the bedroom to celebrate,” Mulder deadpanned.

Doggett stared at him. “You’re a sick man, Muldah.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Hearing familiar voices coming from the kitchen, they continued their search in there. Once at the doorway, they found Scully and Monica preparing dessert for them all, Scully slicing and dicing her way through the pies while Monica poured four cups of coffee into matching, festive mugs. Neither woman noticed their audience.

“Monica, could you please get me the whipped cream from the fridge?”

“Sure, Dana.” The tall brunette meandered to the refrigerator and opened the door. She noted the ten cans of the stuff and smiled knowingly, as she grabbed one and let the door shut as she walked over to her friend. “Boy, what I wouldn’t give to see you guys having your own private dessert later on tonight.”

Scully blushed. “Monica!” she cried, scandalized. “Hence the term private!”

“I could be a fly on the wall,” Monica joked.

“And I could have my fly swatter at the ready,” Scully retorted.

“With nine full cans of whipped cream? Come on, Dana, I think you’ll be a little too busy to go swatting at flies, much less even noticing one.”

“You’re a sick woman, Monica, you know that?”

“That’s what they keep telling me.”

Doggett glanced over at Mulder. This conversation held a twinge of deja vu and was starting to get a little weird.

Mulder grinned at the man, then blurted, “Speaking of being a fly on the wall...”

“Jesus!” Scully cried out in surprise, just as Reyes sputtered, “Fuck!”

“That’s real sweet,” Doggett cracked, marveling over their choice of words. “The fairer sex, my ass!”

“Nice, John,” Monica playfully scolded him.

“Hello, ladies,” Mulder said, still smiling. “Mmm, is it dessert time already?”

“Actually, it’s dinner time,” Doggett pointed out, gesturing to the baby, who was practically salivating as she eyed her mother.

“Ah, yes,” Monica agreed, putting her hands on her aching breasts and smiling. “And here I though all that tingling came from holding you close, Dana,” she deadpanned, winking at her friend.

“Ooh, hot!” Mulder teased, waggling his eyebrows, which elicited an eye roll from Scully, a chuckle from Reyes and a look of horror from Doggett.

Monica took Rosemary from Mulder and left the kitchen, speaking softly to her daughter, and quietly telling her all about her auntie and uncle, and how they would be there for her, just as Mommy and Daddy were. Scully started taking the plates of pie and coffee into the living room. John grabbed a couple of items and followed after her, but Mulder grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“Wait,” he said, reaching into the fridge and snagging an unopened can of the whipped cream. He slid it into the other man’s jacket pocket. “Here.”

“All the pies have whipped cream already, Muldah,” John said in confusion.

“No, this is for you and Monica. You know, for later.” He winked.

“Uh...”

“She won’t need to be a fly on our wall, if she’s too busy having some fun at your place.”

Doggett smiled in understanding. “Yeah, thanks... So, um, what exactly should I do with this...”

Mulder shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus, Dog, it’s a wonder you ever had Rosemary at all!”

“Up yours, Muldah!”

“Just... just try to use your imagination,” Mulder stifled a chuckle.

John stared off into space for a moment, and a sudden idea occurred to him, and he began chuckling, too. “Oh, right. This will be an interesting night...”

Mulder nodded approvingly, then the two men ventured back to the living room.

The four adults had their pie and coffee in the living room in front of a roaring fireplace. Scully had asked Mulder to get a fire started while Reyes had been in the guestroom feeding Rosemary, and Doggett had gone in there to check on his family.

So many emotions seemed to be swirling around the room, while the two couples chatted amicably about mundane things, which was a nice change of pace from the hectic lives they all lived. Though both Mulder and Scully still missed their son terribly, each of them felt, in their own private way, a better understanding and acceptance of Scully’s decision to give him up for adoption so many years before. There would always be a part of them missing, due to his absence from their lives, but their hearts were salvaged by the thought that he was somewhere safe from harm and protected by parents who loved him almost as much as they did.

And, they knew they were to be a big part of Rosemary’s life- parents-in-waiting, so to speak, should the unfortunate need arise, but most certainly as beloved an aunt and uncle as any blood relative could be. Like Doggett, who still missed his own son to this day, they found hope and renewal and a great amount of love with the tiny baby who dozed contentedly on her mother’s lap after a full meal and a couple of tastes of the whipped cream that her father insisted she try.

The sky outside grew darker and Monica realized that they should get going, since they had a long drive back to the hotel they would be staying at in the middle of their journey back to D.C. They packed up their stuff, and Scully packed a cooler for them with some leftovers for a snack on the way. When no one was looking, Doggett slipped his can of whipped cream into the cooler, as well, then loaded the car while Monica changed the baby once more before hitting the road.

When everything and everyone was ready to go, they all gathered together at the front door for good-byes.

“Be careful driving,” Scully instructed Doggett, giving him a heartfelt hug.

“Will do, Dana. Thanks for a great meal.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“Hey, Burpy, take care of Burpy, Jr. here,” Mulder cracked, planting a brotherly kiss on Monica’s cheek, then leaning down to kiss the baby on the brow.

Monica laughed. “Of course, Mulder. And next time we get together, we’ll have to have a contest of our own!”

“Oh, God,” Scully sighed, as John chimed in, “She’ll kick your ass, Muldah, trust me on this.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Mulder replied, then turned to shake Doggett’s hand, but both men paused, mesmerized over the prospect of watching the farewell between their wives.

Monica and Scully noticed their intense stares, Mulder grinning wolfishly and Doggett looking as if were slightly constipated. Not wanting to freak out her husband anymore tonight, Monica went to kiss Scully on her cheek, but Scully, who, surprisingly enough, thought that John needed to lighten up a little, gave her own husband- as well as Monica- an unexpected thrill when she turned her head at the last second and kissed her dear friend smack dab on the lips and lingered for a moment longer than she needed to.

“Goodnight, Monica, I’ll call you soon,” she said, then kissed her goddaughter goodbye as well.

“Goodnight, Dana, you great kisser, you,” Monica joked, reaching out to squeeze her friend’s arm affectionately.

“Oh, yeah?” Mulder challenged, and he moved for Doggett, his full lips pursed for a kiss, but John was too quick and he backed away, nearly causing Mulder to fall on his face into the doorframe.

“No way, Muldah, you sicko!”

“Well,” Mulder huffed playfully, “I never. What’s the matter? Is it my breath?”

The two men then proceeded to insult each other for the next minute- the man’s version of affection, Scully guessed- before shaking hands and promising to hang out again soon. Then the dinner guests were off into the twilight evening, John even thoughtful enough to close the gate at the end of their property behind them as they left.

Before bedtime, Mulder and Scully cleaned up the kitchen and dining room, loading the dishwasher, and stashing the leftovers away into the over-stuffed refrigerator; or rather, Scully did the dirty work, while Mulder kept sneaking bites here and there of the different foods as he shoved them haphazardly into the fridge. During that time, they discussed what John and Monica had asked of them separately, regarding Rosemary. Both of them had felt honored by the request and were mutually satisfied with each other’s decision to say yes.

Once everything was cleaned up, Scully shooed Mulder out of the kitchen and told him to go wait for her in the bedroom, to which he eagerly complied. He had enthusiastically stripped down to his boxers, and lay sprawled out on the bed, waiting for her. He waited for quite some time before it occurred to him that his wife was most likely rearranging the fridge to her liking. Rolling his eyes at her anal ways, he impatiently began looking through a medical journal that Scully had on her bedside nightstand, for lack of anything else to do. When he found that the theme for this month’s issue delved into open wounds and all the nasty infections they could incur, he shut it quickly, trying to ignore the unpleasant churning in his stomach. He was nearly ready to succumb to his full belly and fall asleep, when his beloved finally found her way into the bedroom, carrying a tray with two slices of pie and two flutes of wine with one hand, and with a grocery bag looped over the other arm.

“More pie?” he asked in frank surprise, and his stomach lurched involuntarily.

She shrugged, grinning at him like she was hungry for more than just food. “I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth tonight... sweetheart.” She waggled her eyebrows at him, and he laughed appreciatively, just as any discomfort over his full belly evaporated in favor of his growing libido.

Instead of tackling her and taking her right where she stood, he restrained himself, certain that she would appreciate his finesse much better. “After what you ate at dinner and dessert, you’re still hungry?” he teased her. “Is one of your legs hollow, or something? Where are you putting all this food?”

“You’re so romantic, Mulder,” she muttered good-naturedly. “You really know how to talk to a lady, don’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do... at least, one particular lady I know.”

“Prove it,” she challenged.

He got on all fours and crawled across the bed towards her, as she set the tray and the bag on her nightstand. Once he knelt before her on the bed- making them nearly appear the same height- he began to slowly undress her as he whispered, “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever known, Doc. Not only are you intelligent, compassionate, intuitive, but you’re so damn beautiful it takes my breath away... And you’re the best cook I’ve ever had the pleasure to... taste of...” He smiled lovingly at her, his eyes turning bright green, and she shivered in anticipation, knowing full well what that meant.

“And that works out so well, darling, since you have the most voracious appetite I’ve ever had the pleasure to... sample of my bounty...” She ran her fingers through his silky, dark hair as he nuzzled her breasts. His large hands caressed her fair, lightly freckled skin with the utmost reverence and care, and already she knew she was in for a very satisfying evening.

“Well, my voracious appetite covers so much more than the food you made for dinner, my love. What I am most hungry for will always be just you.” His lips covered hers, his tongue gently pushing out and coaxing her mouth to open beneath his.

When he finally let her up for air, Scully was breathless and her face was flushed with arousal. She hugged him closely to her body, relishing the hard, lean feel of him pressed against her. “God, Mulder, you really do have a way with words. It’s almost... poetic.”

“Oh, did you want poetry?” he asked, the gleam in his eyes turning playful and she knew he was about to get down and dirty now. “How about this for poetry? There was once a hot, little Doc Who loved her husband’s big-”

“Mulder!” she exclaimed, interrupting his dirty limerick, her eyes growing wide. “Did I say poetic? I meant pathetic!” She stuck her tongue out at him, then squealed in surprise when he grabbed her and got her on the bed, whereupon he yanked off his boxers in a hurry, and hovered enticingly above her.

“You’re in for it now, Scully.”

“Looking forward to it,” she replied, giving as good as she got.

“Oh, I bet you are...” He glanced over at the tray with the pie slices setting upon it. “What? No whipped cream?” he asked.

“That bag is full of can of whipped cream,” she informed him, looking quite the seductress, and his mouth began to water. “Incidentally, there were only eight full cans in the fridge. What happened to the ninth?”

“I gave it to Doggett,” he replied absently, as he began to run his tongue along the smooth skin of her shoulders.

“Oh? Is there something going on between you two?” he gasped, feigning shock.

“Ha ha, beautiful, but at least we guys were more discreet about our lust. We weren’t smooching shamelessly at every possible moment, unlike you and your girlfriend!”

She grinned deviously, understanding that picturing she and Monica together that way, while making him a bit jealous, also turned him on beyond belief. She’d never truly understand, of course, as the idea of he and Doggett having sex did absolutely nothing for her. “Yeah, I thought you’d appreciate that. So, you only gave him one can? Monica’s pretty tall and lanky, Mulder. I would imagine it would take more than just one can to cover her all over...”

“Hmm, is that an estimation or experience you’re basing that assessment on?” he teased her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know...”

“Actually, yeah, I would!”

Scully had played along for as long as she could before his insinuation brought on a bright blush to her lovely face. “Very funny, Mulder.”

“I thought so,” he agreed. “But no, I only gave Doggett one can because he’s just a beginner, after all.”

“A beginner?” she repeated with a laugh. “Mulder, may I remind you that he’s a man on his second marriage, having sired two children, and that he’s got a beautiful and very adventurous wife?”

“Again, how do you know that, Scully?”

“We’re women; we talk.”

“Bragging about your sexual escapades, huh?” he snickered, and she tweaked his nipple by way of reply. “Ow! Jeez, baby, you can be so rough! But I only meant that Doggett is a beginner in the art of food-centric lovemaking. I didn’t want him to get overwhelmed with too much of a good thing, so I started him out slowly, so he can work his way up to it.”

“And how do you know so much about his experience, eh?” she retorted, turning the tables on him.

“Why? Does that turn you on, Scully? Thinking about me and old Dog?”

She snorted. “God, no! I mean, you’re the sole occupant of those kinds of fantasies, Mulder.”

“Aw, Scully. You know you’re the only one... really, for the longest time, you’re all I’ve thought about,” he admitted sincerely.

Knowing the way the male mind thought, she doubted that were completely true, but she knew that it was close to the truth. He wouldn’t have said so otherwise. “Thanks, love.” She strained her neck and managed to snag his chin with a kiss, the stubble bristling most pleasantly against her lips. She quietly pondered at some other areas where she would enjoy that sensation...

He growled seductively at her, as if reading her mind. Reaching into the bag resting on the nightstand close to his head, he grabbed the first can. “Speaking of artistic inclinations, I’m feeling rather creative, myself.”

Mulder popped the top off and the two lovers gazed at each other in pure lust and anticipation. Despite the occasional awkwardness of the day, despite the angst they’d both experienced from bittersweet memories brought on by the holiday, this Thanksgiving had turned out as something to be very grateful for, after all...

Outside, a couple of hungry bunnies- affectionately known as Starbuck and Scout- found the stash and nibbled on some pilfered, uncooked carrots that the tall, dark haired human, who’d named them, had managed to smuggle out to them early that morning. They observed the light going out in the window above their heads, and as they munched away, they could hear the sounds of whipped cream being sprayed, and laughter and love emanating from the homestead.

The End

End Notes:

Special thanks to Neoxphile, at Haven for the challenge and the inspiration to write this piece. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my tale of holiday woes- and humor. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Thanksgiving 2010 Thankful Angstful Challenge <--go here to read other fics for the challenge.

The Challenge Elements include:
* Set the fic at Thanksgiving 2010
AND...
-Option A, Thankful: Somehow Mulder and Scully have Thanksgiving dinner with William
OR...
-Option B, Angstful: Mulder and Scully have dinner with [pick at least one pairing: Bill Jr. and Tara; Charlie and his wife; Doggett + spouse; Reyes + spouse] and Scully and/or Mulder feels uncomfortable around the couple's young child.

My story, seeing as it was written by me, and I’m quite the rebel, has a bit of both elements, being thankful and angstful at once, but using option B.