Ok, I am finally taking up my courage to send in a prompt. I really don’t want to bring any boring stuff to your desk. However, I will never be over how Existence handled William‘s birth and the aftermath. So could you give us your version? 🥺What happens in Funfetti Universe when Mulder enters the cabin and sees them for thr first time? Does William show his gift right away? Did he lead Mulder to the right place? Could he change his haircolor an hour after his birth just like Tonks did?
Thank you so much for sharing your work with us. I just reread The Unseelie Court, such an intense casefile.
Monica at the foot of the bed, Scully prone and vulnerable on top of it.
There was much Scully wished to forget from that day—the pain—pain from which there was no escape—but some things she always wanted to remember; Monica’s stalwart encouragement, her concerned but steady confidence.
And William. She would always remember William. How he came roaring into the world at full volume, if not at full speed.
Mulder came not much later, in what Scully dully remembered from the aftermath, the oxytocin wearing off, the searing, aching pain of a burning tear. Her audience had left and Monica had delivered the placenta but there was bleeding, bleeding. Blood.
Still, Mulder stumbled into the room—dazed, amped up on adrenaline, eyes scanning for the threats that had witnessed the boy’s birth and exited in deference, in respect. Prostate, with lowered eyes and humbled hearts—beings that had once been people, flawed and complicated people.
“Scully,” he said, pulled up short next to the brass daybed, the room smelling intensely of blood and dust.
Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t two dozen human replacements driving away, it wasn’t Scully with a warm bundle on her chest, it wasn’t Monica’s wide, concerned eyes.
Scully had found it difficult to find her voice, but her hand found his, warm and firm and unyielding.
“I have a helicopter,” he’d said, breath wafting over her face. He moved to let go of her hand, like he would go out and fly it himself, like he’d be right back with her ticket.
“You have a son,” she said, correcting him.
When he looked down at the hot little thump of flesh, the baby stared right back at him. He knew enough that the boy’s eyes should be sightless and unable to track, but they followed his father’s movements, and they were bright and sharp and knowing to a degree that Mulder shuffled uncomfortably on his feet.
Then Scully’s eyes fluttered shut and the baby began to wail and Monica Reyes grabbed Mulder by the shoulder and gave him a look so pinning and serious that he stumbled out the door and under the rotor wash and the Ray-Ban-wearing, gum-snapping chopper pilot said “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” And an hour later Scully was in surgery and William was temporarily in the NICU and Mulder sunk to his knees in a hospital chapel and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in.