Blood of Abraham - Chapter Seven

by Mik

There was a party at my place when I got home, and no one had invited me. Not only were the Gunmen still there, but Mrs. Holden had come across, ostensibly, I later learned, to return the coffee cup she'd carried away on Thursday, although she had her boney old fingers wrapped around yet another one when I got there. More surprising, Scully was in the middle of it all, Bram bouncing on one of her very nice knees. They were talking and laughing and the kid was in his element, cooing and flapping his hands in the air.

They all turned as one, when I came into the living room, staggering under the girth of two packages of diapers. Their smiles all froze guiltily, and then one by one faded, as if disappointed at my appearance. I made no comment, and carried the packages through to my bed. When I came back out, Mrs. Holden was there, holding out a cup of coffee for me. "Thank you," I muttered. "What's going on?"

I got an amazing full dozen explanations from a mere five people...at least that's how it sounded to me. Then they all stammered into silence and looked at one another when I held up a hand in protest. "Never mind. How was the kid?"

"He's such a good baby," Mrs. Holden said to fill in the sudden hush.

"And he looks so much like you," Byers added. Everyone looked at him warningly, as if they'd all taken a blood pact not to mention that fact to me. I'd never seen Byers look chagrined before.

"He does," Mrs. Holden agreed, as if to rescue John from his faux pas. "You must be such a proud papa." She beamed at me.

I felt my face getting hot as the Gunmen and Scully looked up at me. It even seemed that Bram was looking at me, waiting for me to admit he was mine. Maybe I should have lied, kept everyone happy, but I couldn't, and frankly, I was almost grateful that I couldn't. "He's not mine," I said, with what I hoped was enough regret to mollify everyone. "He can't possibly be." I shrugged at Mrs. Holden who had whirled on me in accusation. "Look, I'd like to claim him, honestly. He seems like a really nice kid, but...he just can't possibly be my son. I haven't had sex with a woman in two years."

Mrs. Holden made a sort of choking noise.

"What about with a guy?" Frohike suggested lewdly.

Hotter face still. "Look, Frohike, it's only in your universe that men can give birth. Out here in the real world it's not happening." I gestured with the coffee cup toward my neighbor. "And let's have a little respect for the ladies, huh?"

People started talking again loudly, in a discordant chorus. And then, like their smiles earlier, they all started to fade. Mrs. Holden making excuses about her daughter, and the Gunmen all mumbling and overstepping one another 'til, as they reached the door, they also reached an agreement...skeeball. No, I have no idea, either.

Then it was just Scully, the kid and me. I was leaning against the bedroom doorframe, drinking coffee and looking at her. She had Bram on her lap, resting back against her, while she looked at me. "Really, Mulder," she said, at length. "You left him with them?"

I dismissed them with a wave. "I needed to get more diapers. They needed the experience."

Her eyes widened. "Good Heavens, why? None of them are planning to reproduce, I hope."

"They're going to babysit for a couple of days." I pushed away from the doorframe and reached for the kid with my free hand. To my surprise, the kid reached back. "I'll be da - Scully, did you see that?"

She looked down. "Yes." She looked up. "And?"

"Skinner says that's something a three month old would do." I let him draw my finger toward his mouth. "Skinner thinks he's more than six weeks old."

She pushed my hand away from Bram's mouth. "How would he know anything about Bram?"

"Didn't he tell you?" I held my hand out again. "He came over Friday to check on me, because you had him thinking I was actually sick. He saw the kid then. Well, actually, first he saw that bear." I pointed. "It was kind of a giveaway."

"Oh, no," Scully looked alarmed. "What did he say?"

"Well, he made me tell him the truth," I admitted. "That wasn't particularly fun. But he did agree I needed the time to make sure the kid wasn't a relation. Actually," I smiled because Bram had succeeded in getting my finger into his mouth this time before Scully could stop him, "it wasn't a bad visit. He seemed to have fun with the kid. Let me catch a nap while he sang songs and played Uncle Wa - Skinner."

She caught the slip. "Uncle Walter?" she said in that dry, knowing tone of hers.

"Well, you should have seen him." I pulled my fingers free and indicated the whole of my living room. "Walking him around and baby talking him and singing songs. And," I added, trying to prove my case, "he sent that bear."

She didn't say anything. She just looked at me.

"And that's not the point, anyway." I backed away from her. "The point is he thinks Bram's older than six weeks."

"Well," she said, turning Bram to face her, "He might be right at that. But he is small."

"Yeah, he said something about...'failure to thrive'?" I prompted.

"Oh, I don't know about that." Her eyes went over him in swift assessment. "His skin is healthy, he's very alert and active, not apathetic, no indication of jaundice or malnutrition." She settled him back in his carrier. "Maybe he was premature. But, Mulder ..." she shook her head. "That outfit."

"Yeah," I said around the coffee cup. "I'm going to blame it on sleep deprivation."

"Good, you can also use that excuse when you burn it," she advised, standing. "I need to get going."

"Well, it was nice seeing you for a whole five minutes, anyway." I put the cup down and reached for her bag, slung over the bedroom doorknob. "What brought you down this way?" I asked, holding it out to her. "Just checking up on me?"

"Oh." She turned, digging through her bag for her keys. "I was down at Quantico, following up on another matter, and checked on your tests." She produced the keys and shouldered the strap. "They aren't quite done but we should have preliminary results tomorrow or Tuesday. I thought I'd drive by and let you know. Thought it might give you the strength to get through another night."

"Thanks," I said with feeling and a smile. "I could use it. He definitely is not apathetic at bedtime."

She got as far as the door before she had to express her opinion. She whirled on me. "The Gunmen? Mulder, really."

"Well, you won't let me ask your mother," I retorted.

She pulled the door open. "Maybe Uncle Walter ..."

I gave the door a push. "Goodbye, Scully."

Uncle Walter! I looked at my watch. He should be here any time. I flicked the lock in place, and made a dash for my bedroom. I skidded at the door and looked at the kid. "Can you be good for five minutes, and let Uncle Mulder get a quick shower?"

Of course, the answer to that was no. Just for asking, his face darkened and he let go a wail he must have been saving for just such an occasion. In desperation, I snatched the carrier up, and put him on the floor in the bathroom. "Kindly avert your eyes," I told him, tugging my shirt over my head. "I don't know which one of us will be more traumatized by this." I kicked off my shoes and tossed them out into the bedroom. "I'm serious...you'd better look away, this isn't going to be pretty." I leaned in and started the water.

I decided to leave the bathroom door open so the kid wouldn't get a lungful of steam. I don't know why I felt shy about shucking my jeans in front of him, maybe it was his intent stare, and sort of pathetic little post wail sniffs. I wanted to put him out in his crib, but I just couldn't do it. Finally, sighing a brave, "Nothing for it," I pulled the buttons of my jeans and let them drop.

The kid watched my jeans fall, and then raised his eyes back to mine with what seemed like envy. He couldn't get out of his clothes that easily and it wasn't fair. "I know, I know. Look, I promise," I said, stepping into the shower, "let me get through this, and I'll get you into something else and never make you wear that again." I pulled the curtain into place and stepped under the water.

Periodically I'd peer around the curtain and damn if the kid didn't do that big silent grin thing at me and kick his feet around. He thought we were playing! We got through my shower without any major conflicts, and I was able to get into clean jeans and a clean denim shirt, without a peep of protest from him. Then I kept my promise, got him out of that sailor suit, wrapped it in brown paper and marked it 'Toxic, do not use!' and put it back in the box of things Cherub had lent to me.

I was loading coffee cups into my dish rack when I heard the rap on the door. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I went to the door and let him in. And felt this silly little warm spot in me. I almost grinned. "Welcome to the asylum," I said, as he handed me a bag from the deli. "Just put on fresh coffee."

"I could use some," he agreed. He had another bag in his hand and he took it on through. "Where's nephew?"

Just like that, he insinuated himself into what might laughably be referred to as my family. I left the bag on the table and followed him. "As you can see, we haven't killed each other yet."

"It's the early days, Mulder, give him time to get to know you. Hi, there, Sport." He dropped to his haunches in front of the sofa, where Bram was sprawled in his carrier, looking like a lazy king, in a purple striped pajama type thing. Skinner opened the bag and produced a squeaky rubber frog that made Bram straighten somewhat and reach for with a loud sound that almost sounded like approval. Then Skinner pulled out a white, floppy thing that looked like a boneless rabbit. He held it up. "I saw this in a shop near my house yesterday. The place specializes in imports from Australia and the UK. Given your sojourn at Oxford, I thought you might appreciate it." He slid it over his hand like a puppet and wiggled what one must assume were front paws, and rubbed the face against Bram's nose. "It's a bath cloth." He held it up to me. "I noticed you didn't have any bath toys for him."

I took the rabbit off his hand. Was it possible for an embroidered face to look intelligent? This thing looked almost wise. Maybe it had some inside tips for the care and quieting of infants. "Cute." I looked at the kid, who was chewing on the frog. "You were right about him being older than six weeks. Scully agreed with you after looking at him again. She thinks he might have been born premature, which would account for his size." I pulled the puppet on and made his head waggle. "This was really nice of you."

"My pleasure." He shrugged his shoulders. Standing behind him while he knelt in front of the carrier, I had a really good look at his shoulders. I'd never realized just how big they were. "There are so many fun things out there for babies, and I have so few opportunities to buy any of them."

He stood abruptly, turning as he did so, and there he was, nose to nose with me. "I...uh ..." I swallowed. "Ready for a sandwich?"

He seemed amused by something. "Yeah, sounds good. Hope you like meatball. That's what I got."

"Yeah. Fine." I backed away, feeling foolish. "Have a seat. Beer or coffee?"

He actually considered it. This is one of the amazing things about this man. When presented with a choice, he did not answer out of hand, he considered it, he weighed the options, he made a thoughtful decision. "You know, I believe a cup of coffee would be very good right now," he said as he settled onto the futon next to the kid. He looked down at Bram. "Don't you agree?"

I handed the bath bunny back to him and went into the kitchen. Frohike's line of questioning had unsettled me, and having Walter S. Skinner here on a planned social occasion was rattling me to rubble. The only thing that could make me more unstable at that moment was finding out he was gay. As if. I laughed at myself and filled cups. "Here you go. I'll get the sandwiches and plates." I held out the remote for my television. "Want to see if anything's on?"

When I returned with two plates and two sandwiches, Skinner and Bram were discussing the merits of the Sunday afternoon NFL game versus a Spongebob Squarepants marathon. Since it was the Seahawks and the Rams, Spongebob won.

I never realized there were homoerotic undertones to a cartoon about a sponge. I was starting to squirm, wondering if Bram ought to be watching this. When the pink thing...whatever it was, yelled 'Patrick needs love, too!' I was wondering if I ought to be watching it. "How did he get the pineapple under the sea?" I finally had to ask.

For some reason, Skinner found that funny enough he nearly choked on his sandwich. But he didn't give me an answer. He just wiped his mouth, chuckled again, and continued to watch.

But somehow, as entertaining as a gay sponge and a pink...whatever it was might be, our attention gradually went back to the kid in his carrier, trying to eat a rubber frog and drooling all over himself. It was amazing that something that wet could be appealing, and yet both of us continued to sneak looks at him until we gave up, turned off Spongebob and gave him our attention.

He played up to that. The wet, drool slimed frog got tossed in Skinner's lap, and he gamely retrieved and returned it. Bram seemed to be pleased with that response and threw it again. When Skinner returned it to him a second time, he let out an effusive 'ooooooh' and looked at me triumphantly, as if to say, 'He's so well trained.'

Since I really wasn't contributing anything to the entertainment, I gathered up our plates and cups. "More coffee?" I offered.

Skinner was making faces and strange sounds at the kid but somewhere in the middle of it, he managed to convey to me that he would take more coffee.

I went into the kitchen, mystified. What was it about that kid? Everyone turned into mushbrained fools around him. Why couldn't I? I caught myself fervently hoping that the DNA test would come back denying any possible connection between us, so I could turn the kid over, relatively guilt free, to people who could take care of him, and appreciate what a little wonder he was. I didn't have it in me to be a father...no, I suppose I was capable of being a father, I wasn't capable of being a daddy. I had no business raising him.

When I returned to the living room, coffees in hand, Skinner had him out of the carrier and was holding him up, burrowing his bald head into the kid's stomach. Bram was making this almost maniacal cackle and kicking his feet everywhere. "Gee, I had no idea you were so easily amused. Maybe my mistake all these years was not in the way I wrote my reports, but in the way I delivered them. If I'd printed them out on a baby, you'd have loved them."

Skinner was chewing on the kid's belly and ignoring me. I had a pang of jealousy. Not that I wanted Skinner chewing on my belly...well, not really, but I'd love someone taking that much interest in me. So I sat and watched this...this morphed version of my ex boss having fun with a creature that so far had only caused me frustration and sleepless nights. "You know, maybe you ought to adopt him," I suggested, and not at all sarcastically.

"Me?" Skinner lifted his head. "I thought about adoption, once. But not this one." He turned his attention back to Bram. "No, he's yours. He should be with you."

"How do you know that?" I sat forward intently. "What makes you say that?"

"Because he is, Mulder." He gobbled on the kid again and Bram shrieked, arms and legs flailing. "Just look at him."

"Skinner, just look at me." I tapped my chest. "There is no way. Seriously. It's not possible."

He did look at me. "One thing I've learned after working with you and the X-Files for so many years," he said mildly, yet with conviction, "is that anything is possible, Mulder. And I believe it is possible that this baby is yours."

"It's not possible that it's mine." I shook my head. "It's Samantha's."

He continued to smile at Bram, but his voice took on an edge for me. "You find it more probable that this child belongs to your sister, who was abducted when she was eight, and...forgive me for being cruel, Mulder, is in all likelihood dead, than to you? That makes no sense. You're alive and breathing."

"Yeah, but not procreating," I argued. "Not even doing what it takes to procreate."

"Oh, we all do that," he told Bram in a pleasant tone.

"No, we don't." I took a deep drink of coffee. "As much as it pains me to confess this, I haven't been with a woman in ..." I sighed. I'd told Scully and the gunmen two years but it was probably more like five. "... a very long time."

"What about men, Mulder?" He wasn't looking at me, but his voice cut right through me. "Have you ever been with a man?"

End Chapter Seven

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