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“Daddy! Daddy!” he hears before a tiny figure emerges from the foyer and comes leaping towards him.
“Whoa there!” Mulder says, scooping up the endless ball of energy that is his son. “Someone’s in a good mood. Did you have a fun day at school, Will? It was a nice treat having Mommy pick you up, huh?”
Will nods his head in excitement and lets out all in one long breath, “School was fun and when Mommy picked me up she let me stay and play on the swings and we swinged together and I showed Mommy how high I can go!”
“Swung together,” Scully corrects from the doorway.
Mulder smiles over at her to greet her, happy to have her home early from the hospital for once.
“It sounds like I missed out on some fun swinging activity.”
“You can come next time, Daddy.”
“Okay,” he agrees, setting Will down next to him, his arms growing a little tired from the 50 pounds of solid weight. Will was only six but he had inherited his dad’s sizing, having outgrown all the other kids in his class already.
“Willy, show Daddy what you made for him today,” says Scully.
“Okay!” Will practically shouts, still amped up from the surprise of his mom picking him up from school instead of Mulder. He rummages through his Buzz Lightyear backpack and pulls out a crinkly sheet of paper from the bottom. He had inherited his father’s lack of tidiness as well. “Here, Daddy! I drew this for you!” Will says, extending the paper towards his father.
Mulder takes the paper to examine it. Drawn in blue scribbly marker are two figures with big loops for fingers and stray lines for hair. Above the figures, in his neatest handwriting possible, it reads: Daddy and Me = Best Friends. But “Friends” is missing an I, and the S is backwards.
“That’s you and that’s me!” says Will as he reaches up to point at each figure.
“I see! You gave me a big nose and big ears.”
“You have a big nose and big ears, Daddy,” Will states so matter-of-factly that Scully can’t help but giggle.
Mulder feigns hurt and sends a goofy frown Scully’s way, which only makes her laugh harder. “It’s true,” she says. “I love your big nose and big ears.”
Will nods his head in agreement. “Me too, Daddy.”
“Thank you,” Mulder says. “I love your drawing, Willy.” He scoops his son back up into his arms and hugs him tightly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Scully grins watching her two boys share their sweet moment, before Will squirms out of his father’s arms. “Mommy, can I put this on the fridgerator, please?”
“I think that’s a great idea, Will!” she replies, ignoring his mispronunciation of the word “refrigerator”. He didn’t pronounce many words wrong anymore, but this slip-up was so cute she never wanted it to change.
Will runs off with his drawing into the kitchen. When Scully turns back to look at Mulder she notices tears welling up in his eyes.
“You’re such a sap,” she says rolling her eyes.
“Oh come on! That was adorable! I can’t help it.”
Scully presses her lips softly to his. “I can’t believe you’re his best friend.”
“Mhm,” Mulder hums. “And he’s mine.”
“So what am I? Chopped liver?”
Mulder laughs and pulls his wife into a hug. “No, you’re Mom. Which is a far superior ranking than best friend. Just you wait, one day he won’t even want to speak to me, let alone remember ever thinking of me as his best friend.”
“I hope that day never comes.”
“Me too. Is there a way to keep him from growing up? I swear just yesterday he was kicking and screaming while getting his diaper changed.”
“Oh jeez. Don’t tell me you miss those days. I certainly don’t.” Scully thinks back to when William was just born and Mulder wasn’t dead anymore and then he was gone again and everything in her life was chaotic.
“Maybe not all the days. But some were nice. I could hold him in one arm at one point. Now I can barely carry him for more than 10 minutes before I feel my back giving out.”
“Old man,” she laughs.
“Hey!” He tickles her sides and she laughs more, this time more violently, before settling back into his hug, underneath his chin where she’s always fit for the last 14 years.
“We did pretty good so far, didn’t we?”
“Scully, we’ve managed to raise a tiny human for six years without setting anything on fire. The world isn’t going to end. Judging by that drawing he’s probably going to be the next Picasso…”
Scully laughs some more and Mulder presses his lips to her forehead.
He came back and William was normal and they were okay.
“Yeah, I’d say we did pretty good.”