Title: Halloween Surprise
Author: NotHappening
Spoilers: IWTB
Category: challengefic, kidfic

Summary: Seven year olds are notoriously unreliable witnesses to the paranormal...

Seven year olds are notoriously unreliable witnesses to the paranormal, but the one who knocked on Mulder and Scully's door the night before Halloween just might be the most credible witness they had ever encountered.

October 30, 2008
Rural Virginia

Prior to the fateful knock, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were enjoying a normal evening at home. Of course, normal wasn't a word used often to describe anything about these two former FBI agents.

"You want butter on the popcorn, Scully?" Mulder's voice carried easily from the kitchen to the living room where his partner was fiddling with the DVD player.

"No, Mulder, I do NOT want butter on the popcorn! You always ask and I always say no, and you always..."

She was interrupted by a large bowl of popcorn being passed in front of her face. "...and you always butter it anyway. Why do you bother to ask?"

"Because I'm a gentleman, Scully, and a gentleman always asks. But I know you love it with butter. Deny it if you will, but I see the rapture on your face when you have no alternative but to eat the popcorn with butter."

He leaned in for a quick kiss and she could taste not only the generous portion of butter but salt as well. "And you know I'll do anything to keep that look on your face."

Scully ignored the innuendo, having lived with them for many years even before their current co-habitation.

"I can't get this thing to work! Dammit! Mulder, why did you have to buy a DVD player with so many features and functions and buttons? All I want to do is watch the movie and it's worse than doing brain surgery."

Mulder grinned, leaned in and pushed a sequence of buttons, and the familiar FBI warning appeared on the screen. "It's the last bastion of male superiority, Scully. You're the scientist on this team; the one with all the technical savvy. I've gotta have some area where I'm king."

"And I swear you constantly mess with this thing just so it requires your 'special' intervention, King Mulder!"

"You got to pick the movie." Mulder was sprawled on the couch with his feet propped on the sofa table and the bowl of popcorn in his lap. He patted the couch next to him. "Come on, Scully. I promise I'll behave."

Scully plopped down next to him and scooped up a handful of popcorn, and presented him with a sultry grin as she tasted the treat.

"Hmmmm…..very good, Mulder. I hope you still think tempting me with butter is a good idea when I'm so fat I can hardly fit on the couch."

Mulder's hand made a long, slow sweep from her knee and up her thigh and chuckled at the shiver his touch provoked.

"All the more to love, Scully, all the more to love!"

Deciding a change of subject was in order, Scully moved his hand back to the popcorn bowl. "So tell me again why you are so set against this movie anyway? It got great reviews and was the blockbuster of the summer."

Mulder grimaced. "The Dark Knight! Really, Scully, how cliché can the movie industry get anyway? I don't know, but there's something about this movie that makes me want to throttle old Batman. I'm sure there were better movies released this summer that probably got completely overshadowed by this over-publicized, highly funded debacle."

Scully laughed. "So tell me how you really feel."

Just as the movie began, there was a timid knock at the door. Mulder and Scully shared a curious glance and Scully shrugged. They weren't expecting anyone and, truth be told, given the remoteness of their home, there wasn't much chance of even a random Jehovah's Witness stopping by. Mulder unfolded from the couch, passed the bowl to Scully and crossed to open the door.

"Trick or Treat!" Standing on the porch was a child, approximately 7 years old, dressed head to toe as Batman! The child extended a colorful, plastic Halloween treat bucket and waited.

Mulder turned to Scully with a scowl. "I'm telling you, Scully. It's a conspiracy! Batman is taking over the world."

"I'm not really Batman." The little boy leaned in and whispered for Mulder's benefit. Mulder grinned broadly as Scully joined him at the door, curious about the child.

"That's OK, Sport. Today is not really Halloween either. You're out a little early, aren't you?" Mulder felt a chill as he looked into the unwavering, clear blue eyes that returned his look without so much as a blink.

"Are you alone, sweetie?" Scully peered out onto the porch but didn't see anyone nearby. "Where do you live? You haven't run away, have you?"

"I'm not running away from anything. But I'm running TO something." The child's voice had the quality of a very wise and patient adult explaining a difficult concept to a child.

"And what is it that you are running to?" Scully's voice was a whisper and she knelt down to the little boy's level.

"You! I'm running to you, Mommy!"

Suddenly the little boy flung himself into Scully's arms and held on tightly. His sobs were heartbreaking and a shocked Scully could do little but hold him and stroke his back. Trembling and with her own tears very close to the surface, Scully held the boy away and gently removed the mask covering his face and hair. Scully cried out as his dark auburn hair spilled out of the mask.

"OMG, it can't be! It isn't possible!" There was a slight breathless pause. "William?"

His head nodded but his gaze never left her face. "I missed you, Mommy."

He looked up at Mulder, tears streaking his cheeks. "And I missed you too, Daddy. Can I come home now?"

Mulder sank to the floor beside Scully and their son. He reached out to stroke the boy's face and his heart broke all over again remembering the unendurable pain of losing him so long ago. His voice was barely audible when he finally spoke.

"We missed you too, Tiger. We missed you every day." He pulled the child into a strong embrace and couldn't stop the flow of tears down his face. His eyes locked with Scully's and one of his arms reached to pull her into a three-way embrace.

Neither of them was aware of the man standing in the doorway behind them until he spoke.

"If I had any doubts before, this certainly would have erased them."

Mulder and Scully looked up to see the sad-looking man staring at the poignant reunion. Mulder stood and turned to face the man, effectively putting himself between the man and his family.

"Who are you? What is this all about? Did you take him from his adopted parents?" Mulder's voice had a barely controlled edge as he rapidly fired questions at the stranger. "If you've hurt him in any way..."

But the stranger simply shook his head and spoke softly. "I would never hurt him. He's my son...my adopted son. My wife and I adopted William when he was just a baby."

Mulder was confused. "And, what? Now you've decided you don't want him any longer? What the hell are you doing here?"

"May I come in? I'm not sure I understand completely what's happening, but I'll try to explain if you're willing to listen."

Scully had joined Mulder's side and waved the man into the house, but she held William close between them.

"Please, come in and have a seat."

The man's voice was tired. "A week ago William announced at breakfast that it was time for him to go home. We tried to talk to him, to tell him he was already home. My wife recently gave birth to a baby we thought we could never have, and we thought at first that William might be feeling that he wasn't wanted anymore. We kept reassuring him that we couldn't love him anymore even if he was our biological child and this new baby wouldn't change that.

When he kept insisting that it was time for him to go home, we tried to tell him that it wasn't possible, that we had no idea where you were or how to get in touch with you or even if you would want us to. He just kept smiling that beautiful, knowing smile of his and said he knew how to find you and, of course, you wanted him to find you because it was time.

We called the adoption agency but they wouldn't give us any information. We wanted to contact you before we just showed up. We didn't want him to be disappointed, but I see now that he was right. I drove him across county, following his direction, and he led us straight to your door. "

Scully turned to the little boy who still held her hand firmly in his and looked into those soulful eyes. "William, baby, how did you find us? And why now?"

She choked on a sob as she realized he might misinterpret the highly charged emotional scene.

"We are so happy to see you, William, never doubt that. You are part of us, have always been and always will be, and we love you very much. Can you just help us understand?"

William smiled at his mother and nodded.

"Sure, Mommy. I know you let me go live with my other mommy and daddy so I would be safe and happy. You needed to find Daddy so ya'll could make everything OK. I was too little to help."

He moved to his adopted father and placed a comforting hand on the man's knee and spoke softly to Mulder and Scully. "They were so sad when I came to live with them, but after I got there, they were happy, and that made me feel happy. They took real good care of me and for a long time I only felt sad and missed you really bad when everyone was asleep and the house was real quiet.

I didn't tell them because it would make them sad again but I knew someday it would be time for me to come back to my real home, and to you, Mommy, and to my real Daddy."

Mulder stood beside Scully's chair and wondered if he could even speak with the huge lump of emotion lodged in his throat.

"And how do you know it's time now, William?"

William turned to his father who knelt down so their eyes were level. "I just know. They will be OK now because now they have their very own little baby and he will make sure they aren't too sad that I'm not there anymore."

His little hand reached up to touch Mulder's face and his next words were for Mulder only as his voice took on a tone that belied his young age. "And I'm not a baby anymore. Now I can help."

Mulder swept him into his arms and held him tight. He didn't have to ask what William meant. He had known all along that their son was the key that would help him and Scully find a way to forestall the alien invasion.

He could never talk to Scully about it, could never have anticipated this moment, but he always held a kernel of hope in his heart that he would know when it was time for them to find William. He had never dreamed that his son would return to them on his own and that their child was the one who controlled the timetable.

**

After a lot of conversation, reassurances and arrangements to take care of the legal issues involved with William returning to his birth family, the man who had been his father for seven years left to return to Montana.

A very exhausted William was tucked into the middle of Mulder and Scully's bed with each of his parents bracketing his sleeping form. Neither parent slept as they lay, fully clothed, on either side of their child alternately stroking his hair and sharing the reality of the miracle between them.

Scully's voice was barely a whisper. "OMG, Mulder, what are we going to do? Can we really keep him with us? Is it really safe for him? God, I'm so afraid to let myself hope for such a miracle."

Mulder reached across their son to caress her cheek.

"I believe he knows that it's safe for us to be a family again. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't."

When she started to protest he leaned over and silenced her with a quick kiss. "I don't know how or why he knows, but he does and we have to trust that...trust him, Scully."

He settled again on his side of their son, and his smile had the effect of washing away Scully's doubts and fears.

"And, what are we going to do? I don't know about you, but I'm going to lay here and watch him sleep until I can't hold my eyes open any longer. And, first thing tomorrow morning we're going to get this little guy a decent Halloween costume and we are going Trick or Treating."

Scully smiled in spite of herself. "And just where are we going to do that, Mulder? There isn't a house within miles of here."

"We're going home, Scully. We're taking our son to see his grandmother tomorrow, and it's going to be the best 'treat' she's ever had. And then we're going to introduce him to Skinner and John and Monica.

We're going to paint his room any color he wants, buy a hell of a lot of toys, and start to make up for the years we missed being a part of his life.

The rest of it...whatever comes after that, whatever we find ourselves up against...well, that will just have to wait while we celebrate this miracle.

We'll face life together, as a family, because our son is home, Scully. Our son is home!"

THE END