From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:58:12 -0600 (CST)
Subject: It Wasn\\'t His Child by Neoxphile
Source: direct

Reply To: Neoxphile@aol.com


Title: It Wasn't His Child
Author: Neoxphile
e-mail: neoxphile@aol.com
Spoilers: "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man," "William"
Category: Challengefic
Keywords:  Pre-XF, Christmas 
Rating: PG-13
Find the rest of my Christmas fic here: 
http://www.mulderscreek.com/xmasreruns.html
Disclaimer: Characters created by Chris Carter etc

Summary: Bill Mulder gets a letter on Christmas Eve of 1965 that
leaves him shaken.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Chilmark, Massachusetts
December 24th, 1965
3pm

"It's starting to look a lot like Christmas," Bill Mulder muttered to
himself as he looked out the window. He had shoveled the driveway
three hours earlier, but there was already another five inches of
snow piled up on both the driveway and on the top of his new car.

Pulling on his boots again, he figured that at least one member of
the household would be excited by the snow. His four-year-old son Fox
had added the line "and can we please have a white Christmas?" to his
nightly prayers a few days earlier. He and Teena had themselves to
blame for having shown him White Christmas when it had come to a
second run theater in town.

Right now, the boy was in the kitchen with his mother, helping her
decorate sugar cookies into the shape of angels, stars, snowmen, and
Santa Clauses. Bill also knew without looking that his almost
one-year-old daughter, Samantha, would be watching them from the
safety of her high chair. Teena might even give the little girl a
ball of dough to mash.

This Christmas would be better than the last, Bill was sure of it.
Last Christmas had been stressful, which had been understandable
considering that Teena had been eight months pregnant at the time.
Like all three-year-olds, Fox had been a bundle of energy, and it had
been up to Bill to rein him in. He'd done an okay job of it, but even
now he thought it would've been more fun had Teena been able to
participate more in all of the Christmas goings on. Now that Samantha
was here, Bill and Teena plan to spoil both of their children.

Just before he headed out the door, Bill's eyes drifted towards the
Christmas tree. They didn't linger on the sparkling ornaments, or the
cheerfully lit Christmas bulbs, but instead landed upon a brightly
colored package. Fox had seen a stuffed Marvin the Martian in a toy
store, and begged for it. At the time, Bill had told him that they
couldn't afford it, though that wasn't true. He hadn't enjoyed lying
to the little boy, but he wanted to see him open it on Christmas
morning. For some reason, Fox had a deep affinity for the strange
alien in the Looney Tunes cartoons.

"He's like me, Daddy," Fox explained in the midst of his request at
the toy store, not that this statement was very illuminating. Bill
had been tempted to ask him in what way was the alien like him, but
he really didn't want to know if his son had the goal of destroying
puny insignificant humans.

It wasn't this package, but something else that made Bill bend down
and pluck an object from the tree. On one of the lowest branches one
of Samantha's pacifiers hung. Smiling, Bill walked into the kitchen
with the object dangling from his fingers. "Who put this on the
tree?"

Fox looked at him with such wide-eyed innocence, that it was
difficult not to laugh. "Not me," Fox swore.

Going along with this, he turned to his infant daughter. "Samantha,
please don't put your pacifiers on the Christmas tree." The baby
laughed, and held out chubby hands for her belonging. Bill gave it a
quick rinse at the sink before handing it to her. "Here you go, Baby
Girl."

She continued to grin at him around the mouth guard after she popped
it into her mouth.

"You gonna shovel snow?" Fox asked, apparently having noticed that
Bill had on his boots and winter coat.

Bill reached down and ruffled the boy's hair. "Sure am."

"You need help?"

He pretended to consider the offer. "I think your mom needs help with
the cookies more."

"I am helping her," Fox insisted.

"You should continue to do that. I think your mom appreciates it,"
Bill said, shooting a look at his wife.

"Oh yes. Fox is a lot of help in the kitchen today."

The little boy beamed.

"Is anyone going to put blue icing on a star?" Bill asked. "I sure
would like a blue star cookie to eat after I finish shoveling."

"I can do that!"

"Would you? I'd like that an awful lot."

"Yup!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Armed with a red metal shovel, Bill soon set about ridding his
driveway of snow again. When he got to his car, he threw the shovel
aside. It wouldn't do to scratch the paint job with the sharp metal
edge of the shovel, so he used a broom that had seen better days
instead. He was still clearing off the car when a vehicle pulled up
at the foot of the driveway.

Looking around, Bill soon saw that it was the mailman. He looked the
man up and down, and noted that in this weather, at least, he was not
required to wear shorts. The man carrier must consider that a
blessing.

"Cold enough for you?" the mailman asked as he approached. Within
seconds there was a dusting of snow on the man's hat.

Bill held out his hand for the mail. "Cold enough to suit me, that's
for sure. My little boy is getting the white Christmas he's been
asking for, so I guess it's not all bad."

"Guess not, then. Little kids and their Christmas wishes, nice that
you didn't have to do anything for this one."

"Sure thing."

The mailman tipped his hat. "Tell the Mrs. and the little ones I said
to have a good Christmas, now."

"Will do. I hope that you and yours do as well."

"I got goose waiting on me and home for dinner," the mailman
remarked. "Can't beat that."

Bill watched him walk away, and wondered if he'd been telling the
truth. He'd never heard of anyone actually having goose outside of
the classic Dickens tale. If he recalled correctly, the mailman's
wife was originally from England, so perhaps she brought the
tradition over with her.

It was only after the mailman drove off, the Bill looked down at the
mail in his hand. There were a couple of Christmas cards, one from
Teena's cousins, and another from someone Bill had known while
serving in the military. The last thing was a letter and though it
had no return address it was addressed to Bill too.

Stuffing the shovel under his arm, Bill walked into the house. It
wouldn't do to open the mail out in the snow, and that had no
intention of letting up from the looks of it.

Teena and the children were still chattering in the kitchen, which
felt nice and cozy coming in from the cold. After he stripped off his
coat and boots, Bill sat in his easy chair and opened the letter.

To his surprise, the first thing that he noticed was not the letter
itself, but two fifty dollar savings bonds that fell out of the
envelope and onto his lap. Puzzled, he picked them up. One said Fox,
and the other Samantha. His first thought is that some well-meaning
relative, but one who had no idea what to buy young children, had
sent the savings bonds as an extravagant Christmas gift.

Reading the letter soon disabused him of that notion.

William,
I hope this holiday season finds you well. It seems unfair to expect
you to buy Christmas gifts for someone else's children, so I've
enclosed savings bonds to help ameliorate the expense.

Given Teena's less than loquacious, perhaps some might even say
laconic, nature, I'm sure this comes as a surprise to you, but I'm
sure that if you question her, she'll be forthcoming about the affair
we've conducted behind your back. It was nothing personal, William.
In fact, I feel a small measure of guilt over having betrayed you
this way.

And least you worry, Teena and I have broken off our tryst.  My new
bride Cassandra has promised to present me with an heir I can
acknowledge, so there's no further need to spread my seed in other
men's fields.

Your friend,
CGB Spender

Friend.

He let the letter drop to his lap. In the back of his mind, there had
always been a worry that something like this might be true. Bill had
been fifteen the summer that the mumps had torn a wide swath through
the summer camp where he was a junior councilor. The illness itself
hadn't been so bad besides the swelling below the belt, but when his
mother arrived, she'd cried over how this disease was probably
robbing her of her chance to be a grandmother. It was something she'd
never let him forget about, and he'd been happy to triumphantly show
her his newborn son, the proof that all her worries had been
fruitless.

And now he was left wondering if his mother had been right to worry
all along.

From the way that Spender had always looked at Teena, he could tell
that the man had something bad on his mind. It hadn't occurred to him
that it had been as bad as adultery, but it wasn't a stretch to
believe that. But would Teena? Would she have betrayed him?

"Bill?" Teena called from the kitchen. "Fox made that cookie you
asked for."

For a moment he sat there frozen. Should he eat it, a cookie that was
probably made by Spender's son?

His indecision broke when a small voice cried, "It's blue like you
wanted."

Bill slowly got to his feet. Even if the boy wasn't his, he didn't
know that. All he knew was that his daddy asked him for a special
cookie, and he'd made it. "Be right there!" He forced his voice to be
as jolly as possible.

Teena kissed him on the cheek as he came into the room, and it was
all he could do not to stiffen and pull away. Instead he endured it,
and looked instead at the children. Didn't everyone say that Fox had
his smile?

The little boy held out a cookie on a napkin. "Do you like it?"

"It's great!" Bill said before he looked at it. Then he did actually
look at it. It wasn't a masterpiece you might find in a cooking
magazine, or even in a subpar bakery, but you could tell that a lot
of love had gone into making the sloppily iced cookie. He took a bite
so he could say something else positive about it. "Wow, yummy."

"Really?" Fox's eyes sparkled.

"I can't think of a time when I had a better cookie."

"I can make you more!"

Bill reached down and ruffled the boy's hair. "That would be really
nice, Fox."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A sense of loss overcame Bill that night as he supervised Fox as a
little boy wrapped Christmas gifts for Teena and Samantha. Normally
he would be amused by the child's antics, but a specter of doubt hung
about the room. Still, he made every effort to hide his feelings.

Fox picked up a box, and set it back down. "Could you carry this
downstairs, Daddy? I think it's too heavy for me and I might drop
it."

"Certainly. Your mother has our Christmas stockings laid out on the
bed, would you go and get those please?" Bill asked, knowing that all
of the gifts that had been taking up space in their bedroom for the
past two months had been wrapped, so there was no danger of Fox
seeing something he shouldn't.

"Yup!"

Bill was only halfway down the stairs when the little boy reappeared
with the colorful stockings clenched in his fists. "Gonna nail them
to the fireplace?"

He laughed, surprising himself. "No, Son. There are hooks that we
have to screw in. Maybe you don't remember from last year." He
certainly wouldn't have remembered from the year before, Bill thought
to himself.

"Oh. Momma said we can each open a present tonight, can we? Can we
really?"

"Not until after dinner!" Teena's voice floated into the room, making
it clear that she was listening to them from the kitchen.

"You heard your mother. After dinner you and your sister can open a
present each." Actually, after dinner they would open two presents.
He hadn't thought that the Christmas pajamas Teena was intending to
dress them in that night made for much of a fun present, so he had
insisted that they each be allowed to open a small toy too.

"Yay! But Samantha's gonna rip her paper all up," Fox warned him
seriously.

"We know. That's what babies do their first Christmas."

"Then next year she's gonna learn better?"

"Probably. It would be good for her if she saw you be a good role
model tonight."

"I can do that. I can open my present real neat."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to hold you to it."

"Yeah, okay."

In spite of his gloomy mood, he found it hard to not find some joy in
Fox's enthusiasm. Even if it's true, it's not the boy's fault, he
reminded himself. This carried over to giving Samantha her bath, even
if he did find himself studying her face and looking for traces of
himself there.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bill found it hard to sleep that night, and unlike the little boy
down the hall, it wasn't because he expected Santa to visit.

He hadn't known himself to be a consummate actor, but Teena didn't
stare at him with worry or ask if there was anything wrong, so he
decided that he should be awarded an honorary Oscar. In fact, she was
there at the sleeping peacefully beside him.

CGB had been his adversary at work since before Bill and Teena
married. If she had betrayed him, which wasn't something he was sure
that he wanted to take the other man's word for, when had it started?
And more importantly, why?

Not for love, that he was certain of. Not the way she looked at
Spender with a mix of fear and contempt. Maybe it was pity, Bill
decided as he tossed and turned. They talked about having children
just months after they began dating, but quite a long while after
they married had passed without any sign of imminent arrivals. That
had depressed them both. Then a miracle, and they were expecting Fox.
Had his mother told Teena about her doubts about his ability to
father children? It seemed very likely. Perhaps his wife had turned
to another man in order to get the children they both wanted so much.
It was hard to condemn her for that, when adopting instead would have
robbed her of having biological children too through no fault of her
own.

Why had Spender sent the letter? He couldn't see it as a harbinger of
a desire to claim the children as his own. First, despite the barb
about a promised heir, the man seemed to loathe children. Second, as
passive as Cass usually was, even she was likely to balk at the
prospect of raising her husband to legitimate children. Not that Bill
was going to let that bastard get his hands on either of the
children. No, Spender probably had no designs on the children at all.

Instead Bill decided that the letter was merely meant to needle him.
And the galling thing about that was that Spender obviously believed
that there could be no negative consequences to himself stemming from
the revelation. Realizing this left Bill nearly as angry about that
as the deception itself. Things were too precarious at work to openly
show animosity, and that would undoubtedly have Spender laughing up
his sleeves.

Bill was still awake, working through how he could take some sort
revenge when Samantha began to cry. Teena shifted, but he leaned over
and said, "I'll get her."

Though the baby was wet and cranky, she smiled broadly and began to
coo when she saw Bill. It was hard not to smile back. "Your daddy's
girl, aren't you?" he whispered back. Samantha responded with a wet
gurgle that might have been a laugh.

Soon dry and content, Samantha watched him until her eyelids became
too heavy, and she fell asleep. The look she gave him was one of
complete trust, and Bill didn't want to let anything erase that. He
adjusted her blankets, and leaned down to kiss her on the forehand.
"Good night, Sweetheart."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Christmas Morning

"No, Baby, give me that." Teena extracted wet wrapping paper from her
daughter's mouth. As Fox predicted, the baby was making quite a mess.
But she also seemed to be enjoying herself too, which the adults
thought was important thing.

"Open this one, Fox," Bill said as he tossed a present the boy's way.

"Wow, this is neat!" Fox said excitedly as he tore the paper off of
the plush alien.

"Your dad went to four stores to find that," Teena told the little
boy. "I hope you appreciate it."

"I do!" 

Fox launched himself at Bill, and gave him a hug. He didn't realize
that he returned stiffly until he saw the look on the child's face.

"Is everything okay, Daddy?" Fox asked, looking a little scared. His
hazel eyes fixed on Bill's, requesting reassurance.

Bill gave him a wan smile that brightened when he saw the death grip
Fox had on the cartoon Martian. "Everything's fine, Buddy."

It wasn't, but there was no sense in the boy knowing that.

No, Bill thought as he pulled another gift out from under the tree
and put it into Fox's waiting hands, if he had anything to do with
it, the boy would never know. Denying Spender this boy's love was the
best revenge he could take on his enemy.

                                   
                                  The End

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Author's note:

Challenge elements

Write a holiday baby or kidfic that contains all of the following
items:
- someone quoting a single line from a holiday song or movie
- a stuffed alien
- christmas stockings
- a baby's pacifier 
- a letter or card

(eventually) find more fics written for the challenge - including
yours? - here www.mulderscreek.com/tnf/challenge42.html