The Gossamer Project Author - Title
- Date - Spoilers -
Crossovers - X-Files - Adventures
- Stories - Vignettes
Other stories by jeri
From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 09:59:34 -0500
Subject: The Man to His Left by jeri
Source: direct
Reply To: ggal1116@yahoo.com
TITLE: The Man to His Left
AUTHOR: jeri
E-MAIL: ggal1116@yahoo.com
RATING: PG
CATEGORY: SR (H? You tell me.)
KEYWORDS: MSR/M, Babyfic
SPOILERS: Christmas Carol/Emily, all things, Requiem
ARCHIVE: Sure, just drop me a line!
STARTED: July 20, 2000
FINISHED: July 21, 2000
SUMMARY: You never know who you'll meet at the
doctor's office.
**DISCLAIMER: You know who CC owns. The Mulders
and the Scullys, that's right. Well, all the others
herein are mine, so getcher hanzoff! ::Grrrowwlll::
(Sorry, my disclaimer muse is a little over-
protective...)
NOTE: This is not a part of either 'Sleet and Ice'
or 'Vulpecula'. My gas is running low on those for
the moment, so I'm taking a little side-trip for
the moment. Don't fear, faithful readers (all 5
of you...), S&I and V will return after this brief
commercial break.
^*^*^
November 4, 2002
Norverds Family Care Center
The elevator doors closed in front of Mulder's face,
and the bundle in his arms lunged severely to the
right, straining towards the panel of buttons that
directed the elevator's motion.
"Go ahead, Banana. Hit the '2'."
The hand that escaped the bundle did as Mulder
directed, and as the elevator began moving, a
shriek of delight filled the tiny space.
"Uppa, Daddy?"
"Goin' up, Banana," Mulder confirmed, grinning
at the face of the bundle. The face was surrounded
by a large, thick, fleece hood, as was the rest of
the child's body.
All too soon, the elevator stopped, and the doors
opened revealing a hallway lined with doors. From
behind one door, however, came a raucous noise.
Mulder frowned with chagrin, knowing that his
destination lay behind the door that held back
the hullabaloo.
With resignation he headed for suite 204, thinking
once again how he hated doing doctor runs during
flu season. But a muffled sneeze from the fleece-
clad baby in his arms spurred him onward, more
determined than ever to survive this trip.
Cautiously, he opened the door and was instantly
blasted by the heat of the room. He made his way
to the receptionist's window, carefully avoiding
the toddlers that were sprawled in his path.
"Hi, sir. Sorry about the crowd; all the docs are
running behind today. Cold season, ya know?"
Mulder nodded. He knew all too well. Scully was
presently bed-ridden with a strain of the influenza
bug that seemed to not care that she'd gotten a
flu shot this year. Once more, nature outsmarts
medicine.
"That's fine. I've got nothing else to do. Um,
it's Anna Mulder to see Dr. Waterston." He shifted
the patient on his hip, anxious to put her down.
"Okay. Well, it should be close to an hour's wait.
If you'd like to reschedule for tomorrow, we'll
put you on top priority..."
"No, that's okay. I can wait."
"All right, well, Dr. Waterston should be ready
to see you in about an hour."
With that task complete, Mulder sought out an
empty chair. Luckily, one was available, but if
his appointment had been twenty minutes later, he
knew he'd be on the floor with the kids.
He sat down in the chair, trying awkwardly not to
bother the rather large woman to his right, or the
uncomfortable-looking man to his left. He stood
Anna at his feet and quickly removed her fleece
jacket. He heard her sigh in relief as she became
free of her bindings.
He smoothed back her fine, chestnut hair and did
his best to fix the barrette that was well on its
way to falling out. In the last two years, he'd
become quite adept at being a hairdresser.
"Sarah Verrena?" called a doctor from the doorway.
Mulder looked up and saw that it was Anna's doctor,
Maggie Waterston. With a shake of his head, Mulder
marveled for the bzillionth time how she'd ended
up as their pediatrician. It had been luck of the
draw, really. When they looked at the list of
family-care doctors provided by the Bureau's HMO,
Maggie had just happened to be the one that went
most-highly recommended. Scully had confessed that
she'd never even tried to find out what Maggie was
doing with her life when Daniel was in the hospital.
When Scully had first called Maggie, the doctor
was wary, as she rightly should have been. But
when Scully explained that she was calling to see
if Maggie would be Anna's pediatrician, Maggie
was more willing, knowing that Scully really
didn't have any interest in Daniel's life anymore.
"Daddy? Puzzle?" Mulder focused his attention
back on his daughter. She was pointing towards
a small table that was covered with puzzles. He
noted that there were two other children there
already, a girl of about seven and a boy that
looked four or five.
"Go on over, Banana," he encouraged, giving her
a gentled push on her behind. "Go pick out a
puzzle and show me when your finished, okay?"
"'Kay Daddy," Anna agreed, already toddling over
to the table.
Mulder pulled his trusty paperback from his coat
pocket, reading it with one eye, keeping the other
on Anna. After the incident at the mall last month,
Mulder watched his miracle child like a hawk, and
Scully had to gently remind him to give Anna room
to breathe sometimes.
The Mall Incident wasn't anything terribly serious.
Well, it seemed serious at the time, and even now
he still felt a chill when remembering it, but he
knew when Anna was older, they'd all laugh about
it.
Anna had gotten restless just sitting in her
stroller, so Scully had let her out, holding
tightly on to her hand as she walked. He and
Scully had separated while she looked for his
birthday present, and Anna had started calling
for her daddy. Scully had looked up, saw a tall,
dark-haired man a few feet away and let Anna run
over to him and grab his hand. Then Scully turned
away.
Meanwhile, Mulder was in another store completely,
not even tempting the urge to spy on his wife to
see what she was buying him. He finally exited the
store to see if she'd finished yet. She was waiting
outside the store with her purchase and an empty
stroller next to her. Nervously, he'd asked where
their daughter was, and she glared at him, telling
him not to scare her like that. He insisted he
was serious, and she panicked, running into the
store to try and find the baby, while he started
searching the hallway, calling out her name in
case she'd just wandered off.
Luckily, the misidentified man had noticed that
it wasn't his Timmy who'd grabbed his hand, and
quickly notified the nearest mall cop that he'd
found a lost child. When Mulder rushed to him and
asked if he'd seen a little girl, yea big, purple
dress, chestnut hair, the cop replied that a lost
child of that description was just turned over to
the proper authorities. Five minutes later, Anna
was happily back in her parents' arms.
Both Mulder and Scully had blamed themselves at
first, but eventually they realized it was just
an honest mistake, and they counted themselves
lucky that Anna had ended up in the right hands.
But since then, they either avoided large, crowded,
public areas, or kept her in her stroller.
"Finis'ed, Daddy," Anna proclaimed, proudly holding
up the completed puzzle for her father to see.
"Great job, Banana," Mulder grinned. He sensed the
man to his left's interest, and his heart swelled
with pride. "Keep up the good work."
As Anna hurried back to the table to do another
puzzle, the man commented, "Pretty quick. How
old's she?" The slight British accent surprised
Mulder.
"Two in late January. Anna's got this thing for
puzzles. She's like a puzzle prodigy or something."
Mulder replayed his words when he heard the man's
quiet chuckle. "Sorry, guess I sound like every
parent, huh?"
"Quite all right," the man assured. "Wouldn't be
normal if you didn't sound like that. I'm not
saying that she isn't smart, of course; I haven't
the foggiest idea of her development rate. But I
do know that she's adorable, and will probably
turn out to be a beautiful woman."
Mulder grinned, enjoying the praise of his baby
girl. "Don't I know it. I'm already creating a
screening process that will be applied at any boy
who even dares ask her where the cafeteria is."
The man laughed. "Well, now I know you are her
father," he joked. "My father was the same way
with both of my sisters. I've got three boys, so
I can't say I know the feeling, but my wife seems
to feel the same way towards ours. Will, our
eldest, just got dumped by his first girlfriend."
Mulder grimaced. "Ouch. Been there," he emphasized.
"Haven't we all," agreed the man. "Anyway, his
mother...oh, she's driving him up the wall! I
think she's as broken-hearted as he is, probably
even more so!"
Mulder laughed softly along with the man, thinking
that Teena Mulder never showed her sorrow when
her son had found Amy Moll, his first steady
girlfriend, making out in Eric Rothschild's Chevy.
The man began to describe exactly how his wife
was dealing with her son's pain, and Mulder found
himself wondering why he was actually interested
in this stranger's story. He supposed it was due
to the fact that he had at least an hour's wait
until it was his turn for the doctor and he'd
already read the book he'd brought twice before.
"...here today. That's Stevie over there." Mulder
looked over at the child across the room. He held
a book in his hand, and he trapped his lip between
his teeth in intense concentration.
But the fact that the boy was reading wasn't what
caught Mulder's eye. What Mulder noticed was the
mop of bright red hair and pale complexion of the
boy, characteristics that for years had been
Mulder's vision of Scully's possible children.
"Jesus..." Mulder whispered, just loud enough to
catch the man's attention.
"You okay, buddy? You look a bit pale."
Mulder shook his head, quickly glancing at Anna
to make sure she was where she was supposed to
be. "Yeah, I'm fine. Your son, he..." Emily Sim's
face flashed through Mulder's mind, and an idea
popped into being. "I'm sorry if this sounds
presumptuous, but...did you adopt him?"
The man's face showed shock, and Mulder wondered
if he was correct. But then the man said, "No.
He's ours. Granted we didn't expect him--our other
two are fifteen and thirteen--but he came about
the old fashioned way. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, he just bears a remarkable resemblance to my
wife, and...uh, she donated some of her ova to a,
um, foundation a few years ago," Mulder half-lied.
"She needed some extra money, and she knew how
white babies were hard to come by in adoption
agencies, so..."
The man 'mm-hmmmed' so Mulder shut up, seeing that
he'd covered well. "Ever come across any of those
kids?" He asked curiously.
"Just once. It was, uh, quite an experience."
Ain't that the truth, Mulder thought to himself.
"I imagine it would be. So," the man said, swiftly
changing topics, "what do you do for a living?"
Mulder began to feel wary with this new line of
questioning, yet still somehow felt that the man
could be trusted. "I'm an FBI agent."
The man blinked. "Whoa. Dangerous business there.
Bet your wife has her share of worries."
Mulder shrugged. "Well, I've got a desk job now.
I'm rarely out in the field anymore, a decision
I made when I found out about Anna. Anyway, my
wife was FBI, too, but she quit a few weeks into
her maternity leave. That's when I was offered the
desk job, which was a promotion with a bigger check,
so we could afford for her to stay home."
"That's good. I just got back from England. My kids
lived there all their lives, but the job threw me
back across the Pond finally. I was only supposed
to have that particular position for two or three
years, but it stretched into sixteen."
"Really? I went to Oxford for college."
"Get out! I've been teaching history at a prep
school in Oxford. Got to know the campus pretty
well. When'd you go there?"
"Graduated in '83. But I hung around the area for
another couple of years; I'd planned to stay a
lot longer, but my, uh, girlfriend and I had a
pretty messy break-up, and she grew up in England,
so I decided to get back on Yankee turf. That's
when the Bureau requited me."
The man nodded. "Well, I got there in '86, so I
must have just missed you. Hell, maybe I didn't.
Maybe I was at the pub the night your, uh,
girlfriend kicked you out, and we swore to be
lifelong friends. Wouldn't that be a gas?"
Mulder laughed. The idea was intriguing, and
indeed, he did remember going to a pub the night
he found Phoebe wrapped around a man he later
found out had been her husband for the last five
years.
Before the man could share any more sob stories,
Anna appeared at Mulder's knee. "Nappy, Daddy."
Mulder smiled gently and pulled her into his lap.
"You sleep, Banana?" The little girl nodded. "You
just relax, sweetie." He felt her body go limp as
she rested against his chest. He placed his palm
to her forehead and frowned at the heat that he
found. "Darn. I'll bet she's got the bug." With
a sigh, Mulder heaved her up to his shoulder,
where she loved to fall asleep.
The man to Mulder's left recognized that their
conversation had been abruptly ended, and he
picked up a magazine to pass the time.
Indeed, time did pass, and Mulder finally realized
that everyone that had arrived before him, save
the man to his left, had left the office.
A few minutes later, Dr. Waterston and doctor
appeared at the door together, each calling a new
patient:
"Anna Mulder?" Mulder stood, gently waking Anna
and praying she wouldn't burst into tears.
"Steven Scully?"
Mulder gaped in shock as the man to his left stood
in response to the second name. "Wait, your name
is Scully?"
The man nodded. "Yeah? C'mere, Steven! Don't tell
me we *did* vow to be lifelong friends," he joked.
Mulder shook his head. "No. But, uh, tell me: do
you have any siblings?"
The man nodded again. "Three. An older brother
and two older sisters. Well, one sister, really.
My oldest sister died oh...about seven, eight
years ago. Why?"
Mulder just shook his head again, completely
dumbfounded. "Are you Charles Scully? Youngest
son of Navy Captain William Scully and his wife
Margaret?"
Now the man looked wary. "Yes. How do you know me?"
Mulder grinned. "I'm Fox Mulder. I'm your brother-
in-law!"
By this point, everyone in the waiting room was
watching the exchange intently, as though it were
a scene from "As the World Turns".
Charles gaped. "You're the bloke...you're Dana's
partner? That's my niece?"
"I guess so. That's my nephew?" he returned,
motioning to Stevie.
"I guess so," Charles grinned. "Nice to meetcha,
Fox! S'bout time I met my brother's arch nemesis!"
Mulder shook Charles' proffered hand. "I am so
glad to meet you, too, Charles. I could use an
ally. Oh, and this is Anna Melissa," Mulder
explained, pleased to see the grateful smile that
spread across his brother-in-law's face.
"Fox," Charles said, tossing his arm around Mulder
as they began to walk towards their bemused doctors,
"I believe this is the start of a beautiful,
*lifelong* friendship."
Scully was feeling much better by the time Mulder
and Anna returned from the doctor's.
"How'd it go?" she asked, hugging them both. "Was
it terribly crowded?"
Mulder nodded and grinned. "Yeah, it was. But hey,
Scully, you'll never guess who was sitting to my
left..."
THE END
^*^*^
EXTRA NOTE: My apologies to any British reader
who felt my portrayal of a man who has lived in
England for the last 18 years was beyond stereo-
typical. I've never been to England, I don't know
any real Brits, and I really pulled all that out
of my ass at the last second. Forgive me, I have
nothing but desire to visit your gorgeous island.
4 out of 5 doctors say expressing your enjoyment
of a fanfic to its author increases your life
expectancy 23-23.8 years. The other doctor was
killed by Cancerman before we could ask him.
jeri quinne, president, xpab (x-philes against bees)
Gain membership by writing to: ggal1116@yahoo.com
The Gossamer Project Author - Title
- Date - Spoilers -
Crossovers - X-Files - Adventures
- Stories - Vignettes
Other stories by jeri
/ Please let us know if the site is not
working properly. Set story display preferences .
Do not archive stories elsewhere without permission from the author(s).
See the Gossamer policies for more information.
/