TITLE: First Night
AUTHOR: Rachel Vagts
FEEDBACK: rvagts@willinet.net
WEB SITE: http://www.geocities.com/rvagts
DISTRIBUTION: Yes, but please let me know. I'll archive at Gossamer.
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: V, H
SPOILERS: Post Existence
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully spend their first night at home with the baby.
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on the characters and situations created by 
Chris Carter, the Fox Network and Ten Thirteen Productions. As such, the 
characters named are the property of those entities and are used without 
permission, although no copyright infringements are intended.

NOTES: Many thanks to my great betas: Michelle Kiefer, who helped me out, 
even though it was her birthday and Gerry Hill, who came back from 
vacation.  Additional notes at the end.

The First Night
By Rachel Vagts

"Is it on?" Scully asks.  I swear I was asleep, but who knows.  I roll over 
and look at the solid red light.

"Yes, it's still on.  He's asleep.  You should be too, 'cause eventually 
he's going to wake up."

I hear her move on the bed beside me and roll over so I'm facing her.

"He's fine, Scully.  I can hear him breathing."

"You can?" she asks.

I nod.  I can hear his little snorts and whistles.

"I can't," she answers.  "What if he rolls over?"

I really try not to sigh.  "He's 36 hours old, Scully.  He's not going to 
roll anywhere for months."

"I can't hear him."

There's no way she's going to be satisfied until I take action.  As I slip 
out from underneath the warm covers I have a moment of shock that I'm here 
at all.  Her acknowledgment that William was my son moved quickly to a 
kiss, then sitting on the bed, then finally her asking me to stay.  I 
stayed.  Heck, I had been waiting for that offer since they had dug me up, 
nearly 3 months before.  Now that she'd asked me back in, I wasn't going to 
do anything to mess that up.

"I'll get him," I say, reaching down to touch her back.

"Thank you, Mulder."

I can hear the relief in her voice.

As I enter the newly converted nursery I pause.  I'm bringing the baby to 
her, but where is he going to sleep?  I know that some people bring the 
baby into the bed with them, but I'm not quite ready for that step.  As a 
pretty intelligent guy, I'm sure I can figure something out.

I carefully pick up our sleeping son and carry him in to his 
mother.  Surprisingly, he doesn't wake up or even really squirm in my 
arms.  I am amazed once again by how tiny he is.

"Here, you hold him.  I'll get the crib," I say, handing the baby to Scully.

I hurry back to the nursery, now understanding why they put those god-awful 
casters on the cribs.  When Langley and I were trying to get the damned 
thing together, I was cursing them and their little wheels that turned and 
spinned while I trying to screw them in, but now I'm just gonna push this 
baby bed right into Scully's room.

BAM!

Shit.  It won't go through the door.  Well, good thing we assembled it in 
here, instead of in the living room.  Damn.

Five minutes later I have Scully's "Do-it Herself" kit out and the crib 
comes apart much more quickly than it had gone together.  I hope this will 
bode well for the reassembly.

I begin to carry the pieces of the crib into Scully's room.  She's occupied 
with feeding the baby and doesn't appear to notice the fourteen trips I've 
made back and forth.

As I make my final trip in, she looks up and shakes her head.

"Mulder, what are you doing?" she asks.

"He needed to sleep somewhere and if you haven't noticed, I do roll around 
a bit."

She mutters something.

"What was that, Miss Helpful?" I snap.  I didn't mean to, but I had just 
pinched my finger on the damned caster.  Again.

"I was just thinking out loud...that I probably should have gotten one of 
those portable cribs."

"Well, that's helpful now.  Do you think you could come over here and hold 
this end up while I tighten the bolts?"

Scully slips from the bed and pads over to me.  Holding William in her left 
arm, she supports the end of the crib with her right while I turn and turn 
and turn the screwdriver.  Scully was definitely getting a cordless 
screwdriver for Mother's Day.

"It..."

"What," I snap again.

"Give it here," Scully says, taking the screwdriver from me.

When she hands it back, I notice it has a ratchet feature that saves me all 
of the additional screwing.  Of course that is the only screwing I am going 
to get for a while.  I should have left it alone.

Scully's assistance aside, I finish reassembling the crib (note to 
self:  harder the second time because you threw away the directions) and 
reach for the baby.  William has somehow remained asleep during my assembly 
and is now slurping and smacking his lips.

"Let me put him down," I say, reaching for our precious child.  I take the 
baby from Scully and carefully lay him back down (on his back, not his 
stomach).

"Mulder," Scully calls quietly as I head back to bed.  "What's this piece?"

Of course there is one screw left over.  There is always a screw left 
over.  I pick the baby up again and hand him to Scully.  William safely 
removed from the crib, I lean down on it and bounce.  Nothing.  I take the 
baby back from Scully and settle him down again.  Wherever the screw went, 
it doesn't seem to be that important.

  We head back to bed.  As I snuggle back down under the covers, I reach 
for Scully's hand.

"Is that better?" I ask.  She nods and I turn out the light.

*~*~*~*
Twenty minutes of tossing and turning later, I turn the light back on.

"Are they always make that noise?" I ask.

"Do I look like an expert?" Scully responds.

Honestly, I figure she is.  I had seen the piles of books she had to plan 
for the little guy's arrival.  All I had was a dog-eared copy of Dr. Spock 
I had stolen from the doctor's office.  I didn't remember anything about 
heavy breathing.

The truth was out...our child is loud.  He snorts, he snuffs and he 
breathes...really, really loudly.  There is no way we could possibly sleep 
with him in the room.

"Can you hear him now?" I ask.  Scully responds by slugging me.  I have the 
sense she is as exhausted as I am.

"You brought him in here," she answers.

"But you wanted him here."

"I don't anymore."

*~*~*~*
The third time I put the crib together is really the best.  By this point, 
I have a routine.  I know where the glitches will be and avoid them.  I do 
not put the casters back on and there are no leftover parts.

Crawling into bed, I once again pull the covers up over my body.  As Scully 
shifts next to me on the bed, she begins to snore.  Two things are 
immediately clear to me:  she is asleep and our son has not inherited his 
nocturnal habits from me.

FIN

Additional author's notes:  I have to admit...I cribbed this true story 
from my friends, Eric and Sarah.  As is so often the case, as soon as they 
told me about it, I could see Mulder on the floor with his screwdriver.

Feedback gladly accepted at rvagts@willinet.net.