From: "Dream Cole" Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 13:41:40 -0600 Subject: xfc: NEW: Family - The Dream Series (PG) Source: xfc Title: Family Author: Dream Cole E-mail: dreamcole@hotmail.com Archive: Just let me know. Rating: PGish. Classifications: V, MSR (Okay, MSM), S Spoilers: None. But I'm ignoring any episode that said Scully could not have children. So you can say it didn't happen or there was some miracle between then and now. This is kind of a continuation of the Dream Series, although it is quite obvious what happened. If you are interested in reading the others in the series, please e-mail me and let me know. Summary: Becoming a family happens when you least expect it. Disclaimer: I don't own em. I'd like to, but I don't. Quick note: This is a continuation from Awe and Despair and the rest of the fanfic in the series so if you haven't read those yet you might want to go read them. You'll probably get the picture of what's going on, but just in case... :-) Family "Dream, *please* don't move around so much... you're going to muss up your dress." I had earlier watched my wife struggle to calm our oldest daughter down, who had been busy spinning around in circles, watching the way the bottom of her white dress puffed out as she twirled. I had peeked a glance at the child in my arms, also dressed in a white dress, wide awake but keeping quiet and simply glancing around the room with large eyes, trying to absorb everything. This was probably the best and worst idea we've ever had: family portrait time. When I was little, before my sister was... gone... we took some professional pictures, as did Scully's family. Anyway, we wanted to have pictures taken, and we decided to have them done now. It had seemed like a good idea. The photographer had decided that the pictures would look more dramatic, more elegant, if they were in all white. Which meant that we had to be in all white. Females in white dresses; males in white pants and white shirts. Which meant we had to go shopping... boy, was *that* an adventure. Also, the color white is basically not conducive to... anything. Dream hasn't been allowed to drink, eat, color or even move. Six-year-olds just don't have the tolerance for that much sitting. Gen, on the other hand, didn't seem to have as much of a problem. But she'd always been very quiet and still...not really a fussy baby, come to think of it. Not as though Dream has been a horrible infant, but Gen was different somehow. She hardly cried and seemed content to just explore the world. She would sit quietly and play happily with one toy, fascinated with it, trying to learn everything about it until we took it away from her. And even then, she wouldn't put up a fuss and scream about it-- she would accept it and look for something else to interest her. "Dream, please just sit down. Stop twirling, stop moving, just sit," Dream's frustrated mother had properly chastised her, and the child plopped to the floor, staring wide-eyed at me as if to find out what she did wrong. I had watched my wife race around the apartment, gathering baby things for Gen, extra white clothes, just in case, and assorted other things that she just shoved in a bag. Coming back over to us, she had looked at her daughter and sighed. "Dream, would you please stand up? You're going to wrinkle your dress." Poor Dream, she had looked so frustrated. I had winked at her, and she came over to stand by the door with me. The sooner we could get this over with, the better. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* "Okay, could you just turn your head a little to the left? Yeah, that's good... wait, wait, that's too much. Okay, that's perfect. Don't move, don't blink, don't even breathe..." The shutter went *click* and the flash went off. "Perfect, folks. This is looking great." Who would have thought taking photos could be this much work, especially with two kids? I guess it does seem complicated, but I thought they could just make us sit there, smile and we'd be gone within an hour. Three hours later we're still posing for different pictures. Mom and baby. Mom and both girls. Mom and Dad. Dad and eldest daughter. How many different combinations of us did they need? "Okay, just one more and then we'll be just about finished," he plucked Gen from her mother's arms and placed her in the little bassinet they had for her, decorated in white sheets. Then, they put Dream on a stool so that she was looking down at her little sister. This seemed like a complicated picture, how was he going to get them both to pose perfectly? Gen waved her little arms around, giggling slightly at the sight of her big sister. Then, she reached out to Dream, her eyes full of awe and her smile growing bigger. At the same time, Dream, leaning over the bassinet, smiled sweetly at her little sister and reached out to stroke the soft downy hair on Gen's head. A flash and a click and the picture was taken. Perfect. "I'd say that's a wrap. Thanks for coming. I'll call you when the proofs are in, and you can come take a look, okay?" The photographer led us to the door and we went home, where we could change and run around and spill things without Scully having a heart attack. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* "Oh Mulder, what do you think?" I wandered over to where my wife was sitting in the living room with the book of the proofs of the photographs we had taken. She slowly turned the page and we stared at the perfect images of us in various poses. "How will we decide what to get?" I asked. Every photo looked perfect. There was one of my wife and the girls, smiling sweetly at the camera. And there was the one with me holding Gen, her green eyes staring into my green eyes, a slight smile on both of our faces. Then there was the one with the two children reaching out to each other, and the one of all of us, close together with peaceful expressions on our face. "Wow hon, we look..." my wife trailed off, unable to find a word appropriate enough to describe how we look. I looked some more at the picture of the four of us all together. I didn't know what it was, but it looked good. Familiar, comforting, inviting. "We look like a family," I realized. Scully looked up at me, and we shared a smile. We had become a family. THE END Author's Notes: This story popped into my head last night but for some reason was hard to get out and I'm still not pleased with. Thanks to my beta Dark Ravenette for encouraging me and taking on this work and making it better. Feedback is always welcome... I'm kinda wondering if anyone is even reading these stories or if I should just stop.