Title: Confessing Grace
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: sequel to 'An Accidental Father'
Summary: Grace Scully learns the truth about her parents.
Disclaimer: I own nasing! Really, I don't. All you see here (that you recognize, anyway) is the creation of someone else. I take no credit.



Grace Katherine Scully sat on her bed, consumed by the silence that engulfed her. Her television was off, the radio as well... even the whir of her computer's internal fan had been silenced by shutting it off completely... she was sitting in complete silence, the gravity of the nothingness almost as profound as the thoughts weighing on her mind.

Grace was thirteen, had turned so about two months ago, celebrating alone with family in what was already a fond memory. Life had been good then... so simple, no doubts, no worries, nothing at all like THIS to worry about.

Grace sighed heavily, feeling herself weighted down by life which had always before been her ally, as she turned to look across the room at her bedroom mirror. She looked at herself a long time, staring at her image reflected back at her.

It was a face she'd look at before like this... looked at while seeking someone else. She usually sought to find her mother in herself, looking for features that would perhaps bring her closer to feeling like she somehow knew her in some form in the flesh. Of course, if she listened to what all her family told her, she wouldn't need bother searching, for everyone told her she was a spitting image of her late mother, Dana Katherine Scully.

She was taller than her mother had been, she understood (about 5'4"), slim but not skinny. Her red hair was a straight, fiery and thick mop that extended to her shoulders. She'd always kept it that length, since she was a little girl. She'd decided to have it cut real short once (which she had to admit had looked rather good on her), but the moment she'd come home and her father had seen her a harrowing sadness had come into his eyes. He'd croaked out, "Oh, Grace... you look just like your mother," then turned and left the room to hide his grief from her before he broke into tears (which she knew he did, though he tried to hide it). She'd never had her hair that short again.

Her bright blue eyes sat over a small, Roman nose spattered with freckles. Her skin was pale, almost the color of cream. No denying the Irish in her, that was for sure.

But this time, it was not her mother that she sought in her own reflection... it was her father.

She stared at her image, fighting desperately with a desire wrought from fear to find something in her that could link her to the man she'd known her entire life as her father. She didn't want to face the fact it might be true... that he was not her real father.

The man she'd known her entire life to be her dad was Fox Mulder. He'd raised her, on his own, from the day she was born as far as she knew. She'd gone through photo albums of her life, and from the tiniest baby he'd been there with her, holding her and guiding her through life like a father did.

Grace looked down at her floor, where one such photo album rested, closed. She smiled faintly... he'd looked so young and handsome then. She suspected all daughters found their fathers handsome, but she'd had friends over before and while going through her early childhood years in those pictures more than one had commented on how 'hot' her dad had been. Hazel eyes so intense, dark hair untouched by gray, that unique yet fitting nose, defined and expressive mouth... Grace looked up at the mirror again. None of those features could she find in her face, hunt for them though she might.

The problem was, she realized with a sad sigh, she just looked too much like her mother. Exactly like her mother who had died in the hospital during childbirth... having her. Though her father and family from her mother's side insisted it was no fault of hers, she still felt a guilt at having been the cause that took this loved women from all these people to whom she'd been so important... people who now were the center of Grace's world. In simply being born, she'd come into the world hurting them... and now she was getting some of that pain back.

Grace laid back on her bed, flopping down with an exaggerated sigh of frustration. She pushed aside the Zoology and Chemistry books that sat on her mattress, paying no heed to the commotion as they crashed to the floor. They were the last thing on her mind at the moment, though usually she could lose herself in science books enough to ease her worries. She thought about going outside and maybe playing with their little dog Stubb, but she wasn't in the mood to be cheered up.

What had her so concerned was what she had found in the filing cabinet earlier that day. She had been flipping through one of their many filing cabinets, looking for her report card from school last year to compare her rate of improval or decline (something she did when she felt she needed incentive or motivation in her schoolwork). She'd found a file with her name on the tab, written plainly in her father's handwriting, 'GRACE'.

Stopped by seeing her own name, she naturally became curious. She'd justified looking at the file by saying that it couldn't be wrong for her to look at it when it obviously concerned her, and even if her father found it so... well, it would be too late by then, and at the moment the risk outweighed the consequences... she wasn't an angel, after all, she could have her 'rebel moments' as Dad called them.

She'd pulled the file, sitting on the floor with it in her lap. She opened it and found most of the usual legal documents. School records, class registrations, health records from when she was a baby... the typical stuff, after a while she just flipped aside a chunk without checking what was in it, assuming it must be more of the same. What she found in the back of the file, however, she had not been prepared for. She saw the edge of her birth certificate. Curious, having never seen her own birth certificate before, she'd withdrawn it and righted it to study the legal paper.

Her name was emblazoned on the top, 'GRACE KATHERINE SCULLY.' The name of her mother was below that, with a fork that went on to trace some of her genealogy (enough to go through Grandma Maggie and Grandpa William Scully).

The next piece of information she saw, however, floored her entirely. She'd looked down at the line provided for the father, fully expecting to find 'Fox William Mulder'... as it should rightly be in her mind. She was stunned to absolute motionlessness when instead she found the name 'Christopher R. Walker', followed on the genealogy side by two blanks. Christopher Walker?! Who the HELL was HE?! Why was his name on her birth certificate where Mulder should be?

And then the thought she'd fought initially came forth again, and she'd blinked back shock and the desire to pass out as she entertained the notion, 'what if Dad's not my father?'

In a dazed blur, Grace had moved to put the certificate back, finding tucked inside the very back of the file an old, yellowed envelope. Written in faded ink on the face of the envelope was 'MULDER'.

Grace had stared at it a long time. The handwriting was vaguely familiar... what she thought was her father had shown her papers before where her mother had written long-hand... it was a letter written from her mother to her believed father.

Though curiosity nagged at her, Grace had not looked at the letter. It was not addressed to her, though it was in her file, and she had to assume that it might be private between her dead mother and the man she'd grown to known as father. That and the fact she didn't know if she could handle anything else like this at the time... her head was reeling and her world turning upside down as it was.

Sliding the filing cabinet shut, having completely forgotten about her self-assigned task concerning her school grades, she'd gone to her room. She'd sat there in silence, thinking, for two hours like she'd never done so before... leaving her where she lay now.

Christopher Walker? Who was that? How could it be true? Fox Mulder was a model father... exemplary if you took into consideration he was a single parent. It couldn't be true... he'd been too good to her, he loved her too much, and she loved him too much for him not to be her father.

But the logical, systematic side of her could not be so easily convinced. She had to know... so now she'd resigned to waiting for 'Dad' to get home... he would be in any minute from work where he was a criminal profiler with the FBI.



****



When Mulder opened his front door, moving into the living room, he was stopped unexpectedly to find Grace standing in the hallway entrance; she usually was in her room or at the kitchen table doing homework... not standing in the hall waiting for him. Mulder blinked, then closed the door and greeted, "Hey, Grace... how was your day?"

Grace did not answer, and for the first time he really looked hard at her. Her face was twisted... a look of fear, confusion, hope, and disbelief all manifesting in those blue eyes of hers. He could look at her sometimes, when she had such intense expressions, and could swear he was looking at Scully all over again. He loved Grace like his own, but seeing her look SO MUCH like her mother sent a renewed ache throughout his body... she was his kindest blessing and worst curse all in one.

Mulder set down his keys, shedding his overcoat quickly, "Grace... what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Grace, tears threatening and voice weak (though she fought hard to hide her emotions) asked faintly, "Who's Christopher Walker?"

Mulder froze, feeling the color drain completely from his face as he looked down at Grace, her eyes pleading with him for a reassurance that Chris was nobody... a typo, a stranger with no bearing in their lives.

But this was a Scully, with a heart so much like Dana's, and nothing short of the truth would suffice. Though the child in her longed to be soothed and told everything was all right, the Scully in her begged to know the gritty, ugly truth. Mulder's loyalties always laid in the heart of the Scullys.

Mulder looked down at his hands, gathering a weak breath, wondering why, if he'd known this was coming sooner or later, he didn't feel better prepared for it. He felt like turning around and walking out the door... coming back in and pretending the last two minutes hadn't happened.

Instead, he answered, "He's your biological father."

Mulder looked up to find Grace crying. He hated more than anything to see her like this... for he knew what it took to get his adopted daughter to cry. It was almost what it had taken to get Scully to cry.

Mulder stepped toward Grace, seeking to comfort her like he had when she'd been a little girl, "Grace, please... come here..." arms reaching out to her... for her.

Grace stepped aside, moving away from his advance. Mulder stopped in his tracks, not about to push her. He'd had to come to terms with discoveries about his family himself... he knew better than anyone what Grace was feeling right now. She was just too confused to know whether or not she wanted a comforting shoulder to cry on, much less from him when he'd been the vessel of her deceit.

Grace's chin quivered and her voice trembled as she sought his face, asking weakly, "He's... my father? How... why didn't you tell me?"

Mulder was quiet a moment, moving to the couch... indicating that this would be an actual lengthy discussion while at the same time stalling in any conceivable way. He sat down, turning to look at Grace where she stood by the hallway and pleaded with her, "Please... come sit down... I'll explain everything as best I can."

Grace moved closer, sitting down on the other end of the couch, watching Mulder... feeling betrayed.

Mulder sighed, "I had every intention of telling you eventually, but I didn't know when would be the best time. I considered telling you when you were little, have you always know that I wasn't..." Mulder paused a moment to recollect his thoughts, "I just wanted what I thought would be best for you... I didn't know when it was right to tell you, so it just keep getting put off... time passed... I'm sorry it came to this."

Grace was silent, processing everything. "So you're... you're not my dad?"

Mulder shook his head, though it pained him to.

Grace started to really cry at this. How could she love him so much and find out he wasn't her father? Was his fatherly love for her also a hoax... a lie since she was a baby as her parentage had been?

Mulder seemed to hear the questions she asked in her mind... he always had a knack for knowing what was going on inside her head (she often wondered if he'd known her mother so completely).

Mulder shifted closer, not attempting to touch her but wishing to bridge the physical gap between them as he said softly, "Grace... look at me."

Grace looked up, meeting the face she'd adored her whole life like every other daddy's girl did.

Mulder said earnestly, "I love you. You know I do... don't second guess that. I know this might be confusing right now and you're not sure what to think, but you can be certain of that one thing, that I love you. I don't care what any paper says, you're my daughter to me, and I love you as much as any father does his little girl."

Grace DID feel a certain comfort at this, but it was not enough to stave off the strong sense of betrayal. One does not have to be happy with a person to still love them... of course Grace loved Mulder like a father, but she wasn't sure right now if she was mad at him or not.

Grace sat in silence a long time, working through all she was hearing in her head, imagining the implications it held that she had never chanced to consider before in her life. To his credit, Mulder said nothing. That was one of the things she'd always loved about her 'Dad'... he knew when silence WAS golden. Grace knew that she thought a lot to herself, and either other people didn't do it as much or they didn't treasure it like she did, for they always seemed to feel conversation was needed to fill in space. Mulder wasn't like that, he liked to get lost in his head too, and therein respected when Grace wanted and NEEDED to be lost in hers.

Grace was the one to speak next, doing so as she stood from the couch, "I need to think for a while."

Mulder nodded, not trying to bring her back as she moved toward her room... he had some serious thinking to do now as well.



****



It wasn't until nine o'clock that night that Mulder saw Grace leave her room. He was in the kitchen, microwaving some Campbell's soup for dinner. He was sitting at the table solemnly, eyes watching the green digital numbers on the microwave count down monotonously. The lights in the rest of the house had been turned off, only the light over the kitchen window shedding illumination into the room. Grace and Mulder both liked it like this when they were thinking (Mulder supposed she'd just picked up his habit, even though Scully had started doing it too before she died). The semi-darkness cleared their heads... both wanted the darkness tonight.

Mulder felt someone nearby and turned his eyes to the kitchen entryway. Grace stood there quietly, not saying a word but looking at him evenly.

Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, rushing to Mulder's brain the memory of what Scully had looked like when they were first partnered together... when she used to have hair long enough to make a ponytail. Everyday that Grace grew she looked more and more like her mother.

Grace studied Mulder a while, meeting his eyes in silent communication, then said faintly, "Tell me everything."

Mulder nodded, rising from his seat and leaving the heated soup untouched... he moved toward Grace, escorting her without speaking to his bedroom.



****



Mulder opened the filing cabinet and withdrew the file titled 'GRACE'. He set it on the bed, looking down at Grace as she stood beside him. She was staring at the file that had so rudely informed her of the lie she'd lived her life under.

Mulder patted the bed, "Sit down... I'll try to answer any questions you have."

Grace crawled up on to her father's bed, sitting on it as she had done numerous times as a little girl.

Mulder perched himself on the edge, looking down at the file, "You know your mother was in the FBI with me a long time ago... that we were partners."

Grace nodded. She knew bits and pieces about her mom... everyone seemed to find it painful to talk about, so she'd not pushed for information, though she was dying to hear some.

Mulder sighed, "Well... the work we did was... dangerous. Very."

Grace nodded again... she remembered seeing knife marks and bullet wound scars on her dad's body... he was literally patched with them, though he'd not gotten hurt since she was born. His job as a profiler was much safer.

Mulder continued, "I guess it was all my fault... it always seems to be. I had this mission I was on... a quest. Actually, looking back on it now, it was an obsession. For the longest time, nothing mattered to me in my life but my quest... my search."

Grace asked, "A search for..."

"My sister."

Grace thought a moment, "Samantha? She was kidnapped, right?"

Mulder was quiet a long time, unable to answer, and when he did his voice was strained, "I told you that so you'd have some clarity... but I don't know if she was kidnapped. I never believed it... because I was there when it happened. I was with her when she was taken from our house."

Grace's eyes grew wide... shocked she'd never heard this before.

Mulder dropped his head, eyes drawing away from the file on the covers, "I was twelve and Samantha was eight when it happened. We were playing Stratego in the living room, watching TV, when the electricity suddenly went out. The house started to rattle, colored lights filled the windows, and then the door slowly opened... there was a blinding white light... a figure in the doorway... and Samantha screamed. I saw her suspended in the air... I called her name and ran to the china cabinet, crawling on a chair and knocking down the safety box with my father's gun... but as I knelt there before the weapon a light shot down on me... and I... I couldn't move. I was frozen... scared, and I watched the being take Samantha away..."

Grace could only stare at Mulder, stunned. His face was hard and cold in his strongest attempt to distance himself from emotional pain... to deny how much it hurt.

Grace asked softly, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

Mulder was quiet a minute, almost as if he'd not heard her, then said, "I think I felt angry at my quest... because it ultimately took your mother away from me."

"How did it do that?" Grace questioned.

Mulder tried once more to explain, "After she... my sister, was taken... all I thought of night and day was finding her. I missed her so much, I just wanted to find her. I felt like I had to... because I hadn't done anything to save her when they took her."

Grace questioned hesitantly, "Who is they?"

Mulder smirked faintly, looking up at her as he said, "Extraterrestrials."

Grace sat back, suspiciously eying him. He couldn't be serious, could he? ALIENS? He had to be joking, but this was most certainly not the time or place to kid around, and the look in his eyes... he looked dead serious.

Grace protested warily, "But there's no such thing as aliens."

Mulder laughed, "Why did I know you were going to say that? Scully... uh... your mom, didn't believe in them either... not at first."

Grace frowned, "Now I'm just confused."

Mulder sighed, "It's really hard to explain... the entirety of it, anyway. How it relates to your mother is that she was assigned to me originally to stop me in my work with the paranormal."

"The X Files, right?"

"Yes... the X Files. She was sent to stop me." Mulder sagged down, the spirit seeming to leave him as he muttered, "Your mom was far from my enemy... she was my only ally... the only person in the world I could trust. She was my... best friend."

Grace watched her adopted father's face, the pain and grief resurfacing there. She asked softly, "You loved her, didn't you, Dad?"

Mulder wasn't sure what tugged at him more; that he would finally be able to admit to Scully's daughter how much her mother had meant to him or the fact Grace had called him 'Dad' despite all she'd learned recently.

He nodded, "I loved her more than anything, Grace. I would have done anything for her... I still love her."

Grace was silent, waiting for more of the story.

Mulder took a breath, "I told Scully all about my sister, about what had happened, my quest to find her... she understood. Scully always did that... understood me like no one ever had before. She helped me look for her, even when she didn't believe as I did that it was aliens who took her. And then... then I guess... I guess we got too close, or they wanted to hurt me... because they took her."

"Took her?"

Mulder nodded, "Your mother was abducted."

Grace gasped, shocked. She could only stare at Mulder, lost for words.

Mulder's brow furrowed, "I looked so hard for her, Grace... never had I searched for Samantha as hard as I looked for Scully. If they were trying to divert me from my work by taking her, it worked. I couldn't stop until I found her again.

"She showed up in a hospital three months later... in a coma. They'd done such awful... terrible things to her. I was..." Mulder looked up at Grace, "I'm not the good person you think I am, honey. I was bent on revenge... I wanted to kill every last person responsible for your mother's condition. I sat at home, gun in hand, waiting for them."

Grace was aghast... such a gentle man as her father bent on murder?

Mulder looked down at his empty hands, "In the end, I didn't do it... I went to Scully's bedside and sat with her all night... hoping she would wake up, because I needed her."

Mulder looked once more at the file, "After she recovered and came back to work... things got confused. She and I... we cared a great deal for each other, but we were never really good at actual communication... not real stuff like our feelings for each other. Scully put in a letter of resignation. I thought she did it because she didn't think our work worth the risk of what had happened to her. I agreed in my own mind... I couldn't bare to see her hurt, and it would have killed me for that to happen to her again.

"Grandma said your mother left for my sake... that she felt she was holding me back from my search for my sister... that she was weighing me down." Mulder smirked, "I remember Maggie talking to me, saying that Scully's reason for leaving was she 'wanted to set me free'.

"Well... your mother and I didn't talk for a year after that. I thought I was doing her a favor by keeping out of her life. I wanted her to have a normal life, and any life with me in it was bound to be anything but... I though she'd want me to leave her alone. Turns out Scully was staying away from me so that I could go on with my work. We were fools, Grace... even adults can be childish idiots sometimes.

"Your mother... she started to act strangely. Grandma still talked to me often, and she'd tell me about your mother. Scully had been acting strange, doing uncharacteristic things... one of them was dating on and off some man named Chris Walker."

Grace sat up straighter, eyes alert and ears completely open as he talked.

"None of us knew who he was... Scully had stopped talking to her family. She was self-destructing; and then she became pregnant with you."

Grace asked, "But... how is it I came to live with you?"

Mulder sighed, "About a week before you were born, I was severely injured in the field... shot in the stomach. The hospital they brought me to was the one where your mother then worked as a doctor. She took care of me, even stayed with me while I was in the operating room... I never even got to see her, I was unconscious the whole time. When I woke up, Maggie was there and telling me that Scully was having complications with her pregnancy... that they were going to induce labor in an attempt to save you both. I tried to get up and go to her, but I was too hurt to move... when I woke up the next morning she... she was dead," an unrestrained tear slid down his face, "and you'd been born."

Mulder picked up the file, holding it in his lap a moment, "When I was a little stronger... enough to go down to the neonatal ward to see you, a lawyer met with me, Grandma, and Uncle Bill to read us her will. In Scully's will, she left you under my care."

Grace was silent a moment, thinking, then asked, "Why would she do that if... if she'd not spoken to you in a year? Or, for that matter, if she'd not been acting like herself?"

Mulder reached into the file, withdrawing the worn envelope, "I had those same questions... then the lawyer gave me this. It was a letter Scully wrote to me," he pulled out the letter delicately, like it was sacred, then unfolded the paper and began to read:

"By the time you read this, I'm not sure we've patched things up between us. I hope we have... I never wanted to lose your friendship. You were my best friend through so much... I hope to God we got that back. I know for a while after I left things were difficult... I was only staying away to help you... without me in the way you were free on your quest. I never stopped caring about you, even when I would not contact you. It was all what I felt would be best for you... I know it wasn't for me. I felt terrible not seeing you... I miss you.

"I know all this might seem strange to you... what I've become... Chris, the baby... everything. It seems strange to me. I don't recognize the person I've become. The real Dana Scully still seems to linger behind me in the basement office we once shared. Maybe if I weren't such a coward I could call you, talk to you, and I know that if I could just see you again everything would be all right. But I can't... it's not fair to you. You deserve so much more than I could ever give you, Mulder... and for that reason I had to let you go. I remember Ahab telling me once when I was a kid... if you love something, set it free. That's all I wanted for you, Mulder, for you to be free.

"I don't ask you to understand what I've been doing these last few months... I don't even understand it. I felt lost, fallen from grace, however bleak it may have been before. And I felt I would be lost forever until I found out I was pregnant. Maybe in this child I can regain what grace in life I once had. I hope so... I fear the stranger who looks out from the mirror at me every morning.

"When Chris died, I did not grieve his loss... not while I still grieved losing you. I never loved him... he was yet another development in my new and unfamiliar life that I wanted to run from... run to you and hide my face from it in your arms. Maybe one day, when my decision a year ago is not so raw on our minds, we can get back to that.

"If you're reading this, then something has happened to take me from you and my baby. If we haven't been able to patch things up, then I wouldn't blame you if you don't want to take on the responsibility my will has laid out for you. I just know of only one person I always entrusted with my life... one person I would have faith in to care for my child. If it's too much for you to do alone, I'll understand. Mom would love to have her grandchild in her care. I just want you to know that you're my first choice... you were always my first choice.

"Mulder... I still love you. I never even told you before that I did, but I had loved you... and I still love you. I'm sorry I had to go, but please understand I thought it was the best for you. Whatever you decide, I know it will be what you feel is right in your heart, and I have complete faith in that.

"Lastly, if you ARE reading this, then I'm sorry for leaving you. I'm sorry for ditching you, and I'm sorry that you have to read this letter at all. I would have wished for so much more than this for both of us... I guess some wishes are even beyond God.

"I trust you will make the right decision, whatever it is. I have all my trust in you... as always. All my love and all my trust.

"Your partner,

"Dana Katherine Scully"

Mulder lowered the letter to his lap, overwhelmed by reading it again, seeing it, having to voice it aloud for the first time in his life.

Grace sat quietly, watching his reaction while at the same time letting what he'd read her sink in, finally asking, "May I see it?"

Mulder carefully handed her the letter.

Grace laid it on the bed before her, staring down at it... reading the last words of her mother over and over. She finally looked up, finding Mulder watching her, "Is this where I got my name?"

Mulder nodded, "Maggie told me to name you... but I realized after I read this letter that Scully already had."

Grace nodded, smiling ever so faintly, then looked down again at the letter. "My real father's dead, too?"

Mulder nodded, "Died in a motorcycle accident only a few weeks before you were born."

Grace frowned, muttering sadly under her breath, "I've never met either of my real parents..."

Mulder blinked slowly, wishing there was something he could do for her, but there was nothing anyone could do in this situation.

Grace looked at the file still near Mulder, musing, "So my birth certificate in there... it's true?"

Mulder nodded, reaching in and withdrawing her birth certificate, also thumbing through and finding a second document. This he also pulled out.

The second paper was her adoption papers... THIS legal paper having Mulder's name on it.

Grace looked at both a long time, thinking, then asked, "If you had legally adopted me... how come you didn't change the father's name on my birth certificate to yours?"

Mulder blinked, not expecting that question. His face betrayed his surprise as he stumbled, "Well... I... it hadn't even crossed my mind, actually."

Grace frowned, actually very deeply hurt by this.

Mulder saw it in her face and jumped in, "No... not like that... not because I didn't want it to be. I didn't change it because... I guess I didn't feel like I had a right to. This was Scully's decision... I was just honoring that. And, when I planned on eventually telling you... I thought it might be something you needed to see."

Grace nodded vacantly, looking down at the birth certificate, "But you can do it... I mean, it's possible, right?"

Mulder nodded, "Yeah, there's a legal procedure for it... many adoptive parents have the children's birth certificates changed."

Grace nodded, not saying more.

After a long pause, Grace slid from the bed and stood, taking the birth certificate with her. Mulder did not try to stop her.

When she was at his door, she turned and asked, "If I'm not yours," a pained expression covered quickly with a heavy swallow, "and you and my mom were... separated... why did you take me?"

Mulder recalled a similar question from the FBI psychologist Karen Kosseff. He tried to recall exactly what he'd told her. "Because... first of all, Scully asked me to, and I would have walked off a cliff if she asked me to. Mostly, though... I never had friends... I was closer to Scully than anyone in the world. She was the closest thing I had to someone who could be my wife. I knew that, even if we'd not been apart like we had been, you would have become the closest thing I had to a daughter of my own... regardless of who your genetic father was."

Grace nodded, seeming to mull over this in her head, then turned and left the room.



****



Mulder was sitting at the kitchen in the middle of the night... anything but tired. He couldn't sleep... no surprise there, though. He kept wondering how Grace was going to handle the knowledge that he wasn't her father... never had been biologically. Would she be angry... upset... wish she'd known her REAL dad? Would things change between them? Would they stop feeling like a family and start feeling like strangers living together? He didn't know he could handle that if they did. He'd known all along that Grace's real father was another man, but he'd still taken her under his wing as his own child. Scully's child.

He was sitting in the silence, lost in worried thought, when a soft voice called to him, "Dad?"

Mulder jerked, looking up to see Grace standing where she had been before. She was leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen entryway, hands behind her back and shoulders uneven as she supported her weight on the doorway.

Mulder took a moment to process what she'd called him. 'Dad'... she'd called him Dad... like she used to.

Mulder finally regained his speech, "What is it?"

Grace hesitated a moment, then asked, "Would it be all right for me to ask for a late birthday present?"

Mulder smiled gently, glad she was not noticeably mad at him though understandably a little debased by the nature of the question (considering the earlier conversation), "Yeah... of course... what do you want?"

Grace pushed off the doorjamb, walking over to where he sat at the table. She withdrew from behind her back a paper, which she set down on the table in front of him.

Mulder looked down at it... it was her birth certificate... no doubt one she'd been staring at in confusion for the last couple of hours.

Grace spoke, "I want to have that changed legally so that it says that you're my father."

Mulder looked up at Grace, speechless.

Grace smiled, that loving and bright smile he'd thought he might never see again. She said bluntly, "I don't care what that paper used to say or what my genes tell me... you're my father."

Mulder reached out to her, grabbing her hand and pulling her over to him. Grace sat down in his lap, leaning against his chest and resting her head on his shoulder... just like she used to do when she was a little girl.

Mulder rested his lips against the top of her head, looking between the red mass of her hair and the paper on the table. He wrapped his arms around her, asking, "You sure, Grace?"

"I'm positive, Dad."



END