Title: Under the Dust Lies a Child
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Sien Und Zeit
Summary: Mulder and Scully clean out Teena Mulder's house after her death.
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.



I offered to help Mulder when he told me he was going to clean out his mother's old house. I knew that he probably didn't want me doing it, so I had mostly asked to help out of courtesy. After all, for all our sharing, our childhoods are typically pretty strictly off limits. His was too painful, and mine annoyingly normal that we both chose not to talk about it.

Actually, I didn't talk about mine with him for two reasons. One was truly for his sake. I knew that compared to his, MY childhood was perfect. And I have to admit, I had no complaints and still don't. I had three great siblings, loving and caring mother and father, and an exciting life of constantly changing locations. And I KNOW Mulder's was the opposite. We might not know the intimate details, but we know enough... enough for me to know his childhood was a veritable hell. I don't want to talk to him about my childhood... it feels like I'm rubbing his face in it since mine was so... average.

The other reason is more selfish. My family was very loving... everyone absolutely adoring everyone else... it was almost so Waltonesque it makes ME sick. So it is very painful for me to talk about it knowing that there are now members missing. Every time I linger on my youth I think of Dad (good old Ahab) and Missy... it hurts. It hurts like hell and I just don't want to talk about it.

Mulder's family was the same in THAT respect... that he can't look back on it without feeling sadness and hurt... so we avoid the issue completely. A 'don't ask, don't tell, because most of it is understood by inference anyway' policy. And it has been working good... I certainly didn't foresee a change in the future.

Mulder's been... a little down lately. Not really the angry-depressed he usually gets. Normally, when Mulder gets bummed out, it's a kind of hostile 'angry at the world' depression where he is QUITE unpleasant. This time... it's a docile, withdrawn-repose depression. God forbid, almost a depression of heavy-hearted acceptance. That's new to Mulder... a gentle, calm depression. I guess he really is getting older. Well, I guess we both are.

It was brought on noticeably (the way it is visible now) when his mother died, but I'd been seeing a change in him for a long time. I can't really explain when it started... just a gradual easing, as if he was finally resigning to the fact that some bad things were out of his control. I'm a little worried... all the other 'Mulder-moods' I know how to handle... this is as foreign to me as the idea of what childhood for him must have been like.

Mulder, for a while after he learned of his mother's passing away, went through a period where he just got quiet. THAT scared me. Mulder always has an opinion about everything, but around that time I couldn't get more than two words out of him. He was apathetic... as if it didn't matter.

It has been getting better though. The silent shell he'd drawn into was slowly cracking open again, and I was finally seeing a return of my Mulder. Well... not MY Mulder. What had become of my Mulder... this now almost calm, slightly irritable partner nearing forty years old.

So when he told me he was going up to his mother's house over Thanksgiving and cleaning out her place, I had offered to help.

He'd looked startled. I would have too. I mean, I was offering to blow off my family dinner to clean out an old woman's house. Like I said, I didn't expect him to accept anyway. His mom was part of his childhood, that dark area we never ventured into in the other's life. I expected him to say no.

But he looked at me silently for a moment, even smiling gently at me as he nodded, "If you're sure... I'd love your help."

This time I looked surprised, but at that moment I knew that it was what I had really wanted him to say. I flash him my best-friend-in-the-whole-world smile and answer, "Great... I'd be glad to help out." Somehow, I think I know he doesn't want to be alone, and I have to love him for wanting me to be the one to keep him company in his dark hour. Of course, the only indication I give him of how much I understand his position is that rare smile.

For THAT special smile I flashed him I got one of my own in return. That smile he gives me that tells me, in a hidden Mulder-language way, that he appreciates me beyond words. The feeling is mutual.

So we trekked up to Connecticut, reached Greenwich, then arrived at Mulder's mother's old house.

Even looking around at Teena Mulder's house, knowing it was the residence of the woman that raised the man I love so now, it still doesn't seem right. I look at the scattered items, knickknacks of sentimental value, and it still doesn't fit. Though it is not a trinket-filled nest like I knew it wouldn't be, it still doesn't seem to be the kind of environment I would pin for being the house of Fox Mulder's mother. I guess I always pictured Mulder's mother to live as her son's virtue possessed... surrounded by academia and tender compassion.

Of course... I know Mulder, not his mother. She is an enigma to me, and knowing how poorly she treated my partner as a child I'd prefer to keep it that way. Don't know her and don't WANT to; not when she didn't have the presence of mind to see Fox for the incredible individual he is.

Mulder moved through the house, fingers lightly touching objects here and there, as if remembering... biding good-bye or fighting to hold on to the last link to his past that had slipped away.

When he'd done this, myself waiting patiently in the foyer pretending to be preoccupied with a dull painting of a garden, he came to get me.

"You wanna start in the upstairs rooms?" he asked me.

So here I am, in the upstairs spare bedroom. Her extra bedroom is full of boxes. I open them, going through each, looking for items that could be given to charity, picking out any of the things I feel Mulder might want. That's one plus of our long partnership... I have a pretty good idea of how Mulder's mind works (better than I think he knows I do), and I have a knack for guessing what he might have developed an emotional attachment to.

I reach for another box, glancing at the different piles on the bed I have already sifted through and separated.

I open the next box, startled by what I find.

It is an old box, a cloud of dust flying as I pry open the cardboard flaps that probably haven't been moved in twenty years.

I look down into the box and absolutely pause. Kid stuff... children's things. I've found a box of things from one of the kids. Either I am looking at things that belonged to Samantha or my partner as a young boy. Either way I am startled by the permitance for its discovery. He had to know I might chance to run into these things or something like them... he was not afraid to let me. Bless him and his adorable self! Of course, maybe it would be too hard for him to come across them himself.

I reach into the box, pulling out an old lunch box with the front design stripped off from age. I open it carefully, peeking inside.

In it is, on the top anyway and foremost in sight, a worn and tattered Indian Guide patch. Yep... this is Mulder's stuff.

Along with the patch are small army men, smooth and worn from play, their faces nearly completely gone from wear and casting an eerie faceless nature that seemed to protent and taunt young Fox with the horrors he would encounter as a man. Still, I smirk... the mental picture of my Fox Mulder playing with toy soldiers is amusing and I can't help it.

I also find a scrap of paper in the lunch box. I unfold it to read the content and it perplexes me. Written in handwriting I can oddly recognize as the precursor to the handwriting of my partner I know so well now is, "Green is sleepy, red is pain."

I stare at this a long time, setting it beside me. I have no idea if Mulder would want it, but I'd like to know what it means.

Peering inside the lunch box again, I find that most of what is in here are those similar scraps of paper. I suddenly see in it a habit of Fox Mulder I know well. His office is littered with little bits of paper here and there, notes and thoughts he jots down and stacks away. It's a big reason why his office is so cluttered. He was doing this even as a kid.

I pull out another sheet of paper... then another. Most of it turns out to be just mental notes, almost like a diary, but in typical guy-Mulder fashion cut all to hell and dismembered completely. 'Just the facts' written down on the scraps of paper, most impersonal or generic. Titles of books he'd either read or wanted to read. Little wishes and dreams... like what he wanted to be at different points. I though I was going to literally lose my eyeballs when they popped open at reading one that said, "Maybe I will be a doctor," but then I actually think about it and realize... Fox Mulder would have made a great doctor. He's caring, a humanitarian, fine hand-eye coordination. He may have become one of THE best surgeons with those dexterous hands of his.

The only thing left in the box after the sheets of paper was a full-color illustrated picture of a cardinal bird and a finely detailed colored depiction of grass. I put these aside in the 'to ask Mulder about' pile as well.

I return my attention to the cardboard box, looking inside. I find a toy gun... more like a ray gun. How cute.

The next thing I see, however, throws me for a HUGE loop.

As I look down into the box, my eyes fall upon a stack of papers. I don't really believe what I see, so I pull them out and look closer.

They are all sketches... drawings. I had no idea Mulder had many friends, much less ones that could draw like this and would be generous enough to give them to him.

The first sketch is of a swan, hmm... never really thought of Mulder into birds. The swan is very well executed... EXCELLENT when you consider a kid did it. The second is a sleeping dog, what appeared to be a tired mutt. The third is what pauses me (though I still have quite a few to look through yet). It is a picture of Mulder's mother... sitting on the couch and Samantha next to her, obviously sick and lying on the couch with a blanket.

Why would somebody want to draw Mulder's family? It is this thought that makes me flip the page over. I can't believe what I see. Written on the back is "FOX, 10/25/73"

MULDER drew this!! I had no idea!! I didn't know he could draw! Could he still? Why hadn't he told me?!

I gather up the drawings, the pictures of the bird and grass, and the scrap of paper and hurry downstairs much faster than is probably rational or certainly necessary.

Mulder looks up at me as soon as I stumble into the living room. He looks okay with this... maybe even a little content to be saying some form of farewell to all these things. He's even almost happy.

He greets me with a forlorn, tame smile as he sees I have things in my hands, "Hey, Scully... what do have there?"

I pull away the drawings, keeping the rest of the items in my other hand. I step toward him, holding out to him the drawings, "Mulder... did you draw these?"

Mulder takes the drawings from me, recognizing them the moment he sees them, "Oh... yeah. Eww... these are embarrassing."

I blink at him, still stunned, then ask, "Mulder... why didn't you ever tell me you could draw?"

Mulder shrugs, "Don't know... cause I'm not that good at it."

I am stunned, "Mulder... THESE are great and you were twelve when you did them. It would take me all day to draw anything like this, and it would STILL be awful."

Mulder chuckles, tossing the sketches idly to the couch, "I don't know, Scully... guess I didn't figure it mattered."

I stare at him a moment, still in a mild form of shock, and ask gently, "Can you still draw like that?"

Mulder grins, "Well, I should hope I've improved some in nearly thirty years."

I still can't believe it. "Do you have any other drawings... have you done any since then?"

Mulder looks at me. He seems absolutely confounded that I would be so surprised and impressed by this hidden talent, "Um... yeah, at home. Why... you want to see them?"

I'm sure I scoff, maybe even nearly say 'DUH', "Yes... of course I do."

Mulder shakes his head, STILL confused that I'm making such a big deal out of this, but damnit he is actually GOOD. "Okay... I'll show you when we get home then," and he looks down a little incredulously at the sketches on the couch. He must have absolutely NO idea how talented he actually is at drawing.

I look down at the scrap of paper in my hand, "I found this upstairs, a little piece of paper." He looks at me, obviously waiting for me to read it. I do, "Green is sleepy, red is pain; what is this, Mulder?"

Mulder smirks, then reached for the paper, a piece of nostalgia to jog his memory maybe or perhaps just wanting to feel the old paper between his fingers again, "It's um... well, you know I'm dichromatic colorblind, right?"

I nod... I heard it somewhere, from the Lone Gunmen I think. I do remember being a little upset that I had had to find out from someone other than Mulder himself. Mulder is continuing his explanation, "I can't see red or green. My parents didn't even know for quite a while, and I didn't know anything was wrong with me. I remember when I was five, at Christmas, my mom was putting up decorations and she asked me to pick up a green teddy bear. We had two Christmas teddy bears...a red one and a green one. She asked me to get her the green one and I brought her the red. She knew it wasn't just a silly mistake and took me to the doctor and found out I COULDN'T see red and green. Anyway... once I knew that I was missing something, couldn't see something other people did, it started to bother me. When I was in school when I was nine, I asked one of the kids in my class what red and green looked like. I wanted to find out what I was missing. After a lot of thinking, he said that green was a color that makes you sleepy and red is a color that makes you mad or when you're hurt. I just wrote it down... kinda hoped I could figure out what exactly I was missing."

I frown... that's really sad and I find myself again wanting to lament 'poor Mulder', but of course I don't. I hold up the two pictures, one of the red bird and the other of grass. "Is that what these were for?"

Mulder looks at the pictures and nods, "Yeah, trying to place the feeling with the color."

I look at the two pictures in my hand, asking softly, "Did it work?"

Mulder scoffs, as if mocking his own childhood naivete, "No... they just always look equally gray to me."

Mulder moves toward the couch, gathering up the drawings. He's being pretty rough with them, as if they mean nothing. I start to get suspicious, "What are you going to do with those?"

Mulder looks a me, as if there is only one logical thing to do, "I was going to throw them away."

"No!" I interject more frantically than I mean to. I regather my calm at Mulder's stunned, worried look, "I mean... if you don't mind, I'd like to have them."

Mulder has that adorably lost and confused look on his face, "You want to keep them?"

I nod... of course I do, please give them to me!

Mulder shakes his head, shrugs, then hands them to me. THANK YOU! What a treasure indeed. Mulder is still perplexed by my obsession with his sketches when he muses with a teasing smirk to hide his genuine bewilderment, "I had no idea you were into art, Scully."

I bite my tongue to keep from saying that I'm just interested in HIM, and instead turn and tenderly tuck the aged sketches into my bag by the front door then trudge back up the stairs to finish going through the box from a little boy named Fox Mulder. To think that buried under all this dust lies a child.



END