Chapter Text
Mulder didn't remember how it was brought up, but one second they were talking about the prevalence of Wendigo sightings in Montrose, Michigan, and the next, they were talking about Mulder's plans for Christmas; or rather, his lack thereof.
"You're not going up to Greenwich to see your mother?" Scully asked from across their desk, her hands halting mid-task as she turned her full attention his way.
"She always does stuff with her bridge friends. Most of them are widows, so they spend holidays together. She invited me, but I get the impression it was an invitation out of courtesy rather than genuine desire," he answered with a shrug, suddenly becoming focused on the case report he'd been putting off for the better part of an hour.
He was used to it, but he couldn't deny that his mother's indifference stung. Then again, so did sitting together by a sad excuse for a Christmas tree as dry pine needles collected on the carpet where Sam once delighted in opening presents. There was only so far a conversation could flow when the only thing they had in common was a void. They could try dancing around it for a while, but they were bound to get sucked in eventually.
Indifference and ambivalence were more welcomed than that alternative.
While he was good at masking his hurt, Scully's expression showed she felt the pain on his behalf. "I'm sorry," she apologized, pouting her lips.
"Don't be. I've always found the holidays to be relaxing here. The bureau's shut down because it's a federal holiday, so I get the whole Hoover Building to myself," he explained in a forced bravado, leaning back in his chair. "I can blast some tunes while I organize the office. Maybe I'll find a juicy case for us to pursue in the next millennium."
"Mulder, you're not serious," she lamented. When he was unable to think of a response, she demanded, "Come to my family's Christmas."
"I'm a harbinger of misfortune for your family. I'm not going to intrude on one of the only days you're all together."
She tsked her disapproval with a shake of her head. "You're not intruding. My mother loves you and asks about you all the time. Remember how many leftovers she asked me to bring you after Thanksgiving? You'd save me the strain of lugging all that Tupperware if you just joined me from the get-go."
"Those leftovers kept me fed for over a week, Scully. Maybe that's actually been my nefarious plan all along," he teased.
The joke didn't land as her worried gaze bore into him. If Scully ever pitied him, she was gracious enough to not show it, but he knew she felt his pain like a phantom limb. They were similar in that regard. It was hard arguing against the only person in his corner; somehow, his best interests were inexplicably entwined with her own. "I want you to come with me," she stated before adding a soft, "Please."
That's how he found himself speeding down Highway 50 at 5:30 am on Christmas Day, breaking multiple speeding laws in the hopes he'd make the 6:00 am Scully family roll call.
Initially, Mulder presumed he'd make the drive with Scully, but it turned out she was staying the night at her mother's to help her prepare. Mrs. Scully, using her daughter as a middleman, told him he was more than welcome to join, but he didn't want to intrude more than he already was. Of course, fate had other plans, and he was now running late. Taking another nervous look at the clock, he tightened his grip around the steering wheel.
After about twenty minutes on the freeway, Mulder saw the unfortunate sight of a minivan pulled off on the side of the road. The yellow flashing of the hazard lights reflected across the snow, as if the orange tint were outstretched fingers reaching towards Mulder for help.
"You've gotta be kidding me," Mulder whined, glancing at the clock that hadn't moved since the last time he looked at it. In the grand scheme of things, he supposed being 10 minutes late wouldn't be the end of the world. After all, it was probably only that early because of Scully's young nephew, and maybe he wouldn't even be awake yet. Besides, he knew Scully would tell him to pull over and help if she had been in the car with him.
He pulled to the side of the road ahead of the minivan before flashing on his hazards and getting out of the car. The frigid air nipped at his exposed skin, and it was then that he realized the man on the side of the road was severely ill-equipped for the weather, trying to fix the car with just a hat and an old windbreaker to protect him.
"Hey, do you need some help?" Mulder shouted against the wind.
The pom-pom on the man's hat bobbed in the air as he turned to look at Mulder. "Hey, thanks for stopping! Um… I don't know, to be honest. I just got this rental car, and it crapped out on me. This isn't really my area of specialty, so I can't figure out what's wrong."
As Mulder approached the vehicle, he felt relieved he'd decided to stop as there was a woman sitting in the passenger seat and several kids in the back of the van. "What happened?"
"We wanted to surprise my family for Christmas, but we heard a loud pop, and then it seemed like the rear-wheel drive stopped working. I thought it was just a flat, but the axle itself looks slightly bent," the man explained while rubbing his pink-tinted hands together.
Mulder nodded as he spoke, but ultimately the explanation didn't really help him understand anything. "I'm sorry, I don't know much about cars either," he replied with an apologetic grimace. "But I could take you and your family to where you need to go if it's nearby. Or at least to the nearest gas station so you could call someone to tow your car and deal with it later."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't want to be a burden."
"Honey, is everything okay?" Mulder turned and saw the lithe blonde woman standing on the other side of the hood, looking nervously between the two men.
Mulder presented the woman a friendly smile as her husband responded, "He's offered to drive us to Mom's so we can get out of the cold and call someone to take care of the car." Then turning back to Mulder, "We're only about ten minutes away, we're heading towards Annapolis."
"But we wouldn't want to keep you away from your own family," she replied cautiously. From the way she was clutching her purse strap and glancing back towards the van, he could tell she was less than enthusiastic about trusting a complete stranger and he couldn't blame her.
Mulder noticed a toddler with unruly ringlets staring at him through the window, listening to their conversation. "It's no problem at all. Besides, I wouldn't want Santa to change his mind and give me a pile of coal because I didn't help people in need," he explained, waving at the girl. Then, reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out his identification to show the couple. "I'm with law enforcement too, so I can't in good conscience leave all of you stranded on Christmas. If you'd prefer, I could take you into town, but I can't guarantee when or if any of the shops will be open."
The tension in the woman's shoulders seemed to dissipate at hearing that. "That's very kind of you. The family home isn't far away, so hopefully, it won't be too inconvenient," she assured.
Mulder felt a twinge of relief. If he was lucky, he could drop them off and make it to Maggie's before Bill blamed him for ruining Christmas for his son.
As the couple rounded up their kids, Mulder frantically wiped the seats clean of sunflower seed shells and gathered all the trash in his backseat so he could hide it underneath the spare blanket in his trunk, making room for the family's presents and luggage.
"Sorry, it's going to be a tight fit," Mulder stated upon seeing the family of six approaching his vehicle.
"We're used to that," the woman chuckled before instructing her children to sit on each other's laps in the back seat.
Once they were all situated and buckled in as well as they could be, Mulder pulled back onto the highway. Luckily, from the instructions he'd been given, they were heading in the same direction as Mrs. Scully's home. He would still be late, but it didn't look like this would set him back too badly.
"Is the heat okay?" he asked, looking in the rearview mirror at the family. Aside from the couple, it looked like there were two teenage boys, a boy who looked around seven, and the little curly-haired girl.
"It's great, thank you," the wife replied, then subsequently asked. "What branch of law enforcement do you work in?"
"Oh, I work for the F.B.I.," Mulder replied, purposefully keeping it vague.
"Honey, maybe he knows your sister," she beamed.
He had to resist the urge to cringe at the thought he was sitting in the car with the family of one of his less-than-gracious colleagues. Last thing he needed was to try and do a good deed, only to hear his reputation extended beyond the Hoover Building gossip mill. Then again, aside from Scully, there weren't many female agents, and he didn't speak with the secretarial pool very much. Maybe he could lie and say he was Walter Skinner, though the presence of hair might give it away.
Mulder turned and watched the man pull off his hat, running his hand through his curly, titian hair. "I'm pretty sure she's inseparable from her partner. I haven't really heard her mention any friends other than him. Which reminds me, I think we might finally meet him at the house."
"I'd love that. Let's just hope your brother hasn't scared him away."
All the dots started to connect, and before he could form the question, he blurted out, "Charlie?"
The man in the passenger seat turned and cocked an eyebrow at him while an amused smile tugged on his lips in a perfect replica of his sister's visage. "How did you know my name?"
"I'm Mulder. I mean, I'm Scull-Dana's partner," he stammered, unable to resist doing a double take. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen the resemblance before. The hair, the freckles, the aquiline nose — this was a Scully.
"Get outta here! I can't believe it! We've heard so much about you, but I was starting to think you were an urban legend," Charlie exclaimed.
"I hope whatever you've heard hasn't been from Bill Jr.," Mulder joked.
Charlie made a dismissive gesture with his hand as he chuckled. "Nah, trust me. When I hear anything from Bill, I presume the opposite to be true. Besides, he's outnumbered three to one. Actually, four to one now since I'm officially Team Mulder."
Three to one? Mulder never got a chance to meet Scully's dad, so that had to have meant Charlie heard good things about him from the three Scully women. The small allusion to Melissa made him instinctively want to apologize, but he decided it was probably best not to bring it up right now.
Mulder decided to try and switch the conversation to his passengers instead. Scully didn't mention Bill very much because of their tension, and Melissa was still sometimes too painful to talk about. Charlie had always been pretty neutral, resulting in Mulder knowing quite a few tidbits of information about the youngest Scully. One of which was that he started having children quite young. Logically he knew that, but seeing the teens felt jarring when looking at the young man in the passenger seat.
"So, let me guess. Michelle?" he stated, switching his gaze to Charlie's wife.
"That's me," she beamed, seemingly pleased to know Scully had mentioned her.
Then turning his attention to the young teenagers, "Dave and Mike?" He received two impressed smirks before moving onto the young boy, "I believe you're Josh? America's #1 Babe fan?"
"Christmas means carnage!" the boy squealed.
"You bet it does," Mulder chuckled, unsure if that was a quote or the kid's true feelings on the holiday. "And… I'm forgetting if Dana has mentioned the little miss," Mulder added, tentatively.
The young girl blushed at the attention and buried her face into her mother's neck. "This is Amanda," Michelle answered.
"We found out we were pregnant with her the year Matthew was born. It uh… didn't seem like the best time to mention it." Mulder saw him look at his wife in the rearview mirror before adding, "I think I might've unintentionally hurt Dana's feelings with how long we waited, though. She hates being left in the dark."
Mulder understood what he meant and nodded softly. "Well, I've heard Mrs. Scully and Dana mention that they miss you, so I bet they're going to be ecstatic. Plus, maybe escorting you there will earn me some points in Bill Jr.'s book," he joked.
"Hey, if you figure out how to score some points with him, make sure you share that piece of information with me," Charlie joked.
Mulder's previous anxiety about attending the event was starting to lessen. No matter what, if Bill Jr. was a dick to him, it seemed like Charlie was on his side. Besides, everyone would be focused on Charlie's family so he could hide in the background with Scully. His favorite pastime.
"I'm so glad you're coming," Michelle beamed. "For years Maggie has been telling us you two were meant to be together, and Dana always speaks so fondly of you. I'm glad you finally took the plunge."
Heat crawled up his neck at the woman's words, but before he had a chance to refute them, Charlie was speaking. "I'm glad she's finally dating someone without an AARP membership."
"Oh, um, we aren't together…like that," Mulder stammered, hoping they didn't hear the disappointment that bled into his words.
The car went silent for a moment as the couple tried to extract their feet from their mouths. As the pause lingered, one of the teens decided it was time to speak, simply adding, "I thought he was our uncle."
"What's an AARP?" Josh added.
"You can turn here," Charlie instructed, pointing towards an upcoming street sign.
Mulder maneuvered his way onto the unplowed street while Michelle started apologizing. "I'm sorry for being presumptuous, I just-"
"Don't be. We get it all the time. Dana invited me because she knows I usually don't do much for the holidays otherwise," he chuckled, pulling in behind Scully's Ford.
As he glanced up, he caught sight of Scully peering out of the window. She was gnawing on the skin by her nail, the way she did when she was nervous. Her hand dropped from her mouth upon locking eyes with Mulder. A beaming smile spread across her face as she waved at him before turning away from the window, presumably to come out and meet him.
Mulder felt guilty that his delay might've caused her to think he had ditched her or slept in, but his guilt started to dissipate in lieu of his excitement to see her reaction upon realizing he'd brought Charlie and his family with him.
"I can help carry in the presents so you can bring the kids inside and get warm," he offered, deftly exiting the car to open Michelle's door.
"Thank you so much," she replied appreciatively, wrangling the toddler on her hip as she unbuckled Josh.
Mulder unlocked the trunk and began removing all the luggage. As he did so, another wave of insecurity washed over him while he set his own gift for Scully on top of the beautifully wrapped presents Charlie and his family had brought. Usually he got his gifts wrapped at department stores, but this year he did it himself and it showed. Wrestling with the scissors and tape proved more difficult than he anticipated and his fingers had a few band-aid-covered battle scars as proof.
But, with the sound of the front door opening, he knew it was beyond far too late to run to the store and pick up something new.
"Hey, Dana! Did ya miss me?"