FIC: "Heartsong: The Best of Friends" (1/1) DSR, MRR Disclaimers: They're none of them mine except most of the younger generation. Category: SR...a little H, maybe a little A Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Doggett House, XFMU, SHODDS and yes, LJP, you can have it if you want it. Anyone else, please ask! Feedback: PLEASE! To or Rating: PG Spoilers: To be on the safe side, Season 8 thus far. I may later take the series slightly AU, but I'll let you know if and when I do that. Note: I'm assuming the IVF worked and Scully's doc just lied or goofed. Keywords: SDR, Mulder/Reyes, future-fic. IF YOU'RE AN M/S 'SHIPPER, BAIL NOW! Part of the "Heartsong" series if the rest of the series ever gets posted. Dedication: To coolbyrne, who I subconsciously borrowed Caitlin's name from (read her story "Get Ready" and you'll understand--don't worry, hers is 'Shipper safe ), and to Cassie because she got so excited that her name appeared in the story when I posted it to DSL. ;-) Summary: Family and friends gather for a day off and Doggett remembers the turning point that brought them to this place. A glimpse into a possible future. "Heartsong: The Best of Friends" by Julie L. Jekel "Give it up, Mulder. I'm not falling for that and you know it." "No, I'm serious, Doggett. There's an alien standing right behind you." "Don't you know me better than that by now?" The two adversaries stood eye to eye, already half out of breath from the confrontation. Both had changed over the years, silver gradually conquering the two different shades of brown in their respective hair and stress lines deepening into bona-fide wrinkles. One stood on the verge of retirement and the other would be following not long after, but one thing remained unchanged. Blue eyes met hazel evenly, neither pair about to back down. Then Fox Mulder did the unthinkable. He straightened, shrugged, and rocked back on one foot, putting an almost concessionary distance between them. "Suit yourself." John Doggett blinked, suddenly caught off guard. What the hell? What was Mulder up to? Less than a second later, the answer tapped him on the shoulder. He spun to scold the unwelcome interference, only to reel backwards in shock, tripping over his own feet and landing square in the middle of the wet grass. "Holy Sh...!" "John!" Dana's voice scolded him mid-curse from the sidelines, where she was just barely holding in a merry smile. "Not in front of the children, please!" Mulder, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to make a break for it and make a touchdown. Standing over her seething friend, Monica's laughter echoed inside the head of the silver alien costume she had somehow donned while he wasn't looking. "You really should keep more of an open mind, John," she teased him, echoing words his wife had spoken to him years ago. "Now wait a goddamned cotton-pickin' minute!" he protested from the ground. "That's cheating if I ever saw it!" Mulder was strolling back from the end zone, a decidedly wicked grin covering most of his face and his hands casually tossing the football into the air and catching it. "Of course it was. How else are we supposed to have a chance of winning this game?" "Yeah, what's the harm in evening the odds a little?" Frohike shouted from the tin bleachers, waving his cane at them like some sort of instructive pointer. The older man may have been almost lame and blind as a bat, but his hearing hadn't aged a bit. Doggett let his eyes wander over the opposing team, which consisted of the much more basketball-inclined Mulder, Monica, their oldest son, Danny, and the decidedly unathletic Langly and Byers. They really weren't much of a match for him, Skinner, Caitlin, and her other two younger brothers, Jimmy and David, despite the fact that Caitlin had her mother's height and build and Skinner was pushing seventy-two. He sighed and fixed a glare on the man who was both his wife's partner and his partner's husband. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that, Mulder?" Mulder chuckled and extended a hand to help him up. "I've been called many things over the years...that more often than anything, I think." John accepted the hand, resisting the temptation to pull the other man down to join him on the field instead--let him walk around the rest of the day with the seat of his jeans wet too. But he didn't want to set a bad example for the kids: they already had Mulder and the three Gunmen to do that for them. "Time out?" Dana's partner asked, and Doggett nodded. Now that he thought about it, damn, he was thirsty. Eight-year-old Emmy seemed to read his mind as always, meeting him halfway to the water cooler with a paper cup of cold lemonade. She ran carefully so as not to spill, and looked up at him with an innocent smile that was far younger than her years. He smiled in return before he bent to press a firm, loving kiss to the top of her sandy auburn curls. Missy was a moment behind her fraternal twin, latching onto his free hand with one of her small ones, and wrapping the other around her sister's now lax palm. "Emmy and I have been keeping score," Missy announced proudly, speaking for both of them. "That's great, you two," John beamed at the younger of the two girls. "Did you count that last touchdown Todd cheated me out of, Emmy?" Both the twins knew Mulder as 'Todd,' the nickname Caitlin had bestowed on him as a child, just as Mulder and Monica's children all referred to Doggett as 'Copper,' again following their big sister's lead. For a moment, nothing, then Emmy slowly shook her head and he ran a hand through her hair again. It was hard, raising a retarded child, but he and Dana had once almost given up hope on ever having a baby of their own. She was barren and in her forties--chances had never been slimmer. The twins had been the result of their avowed last try, and to get two healthy little girls out of it--even if one of them wasn't "normal," by everyday standards--was a blessing beyond compare. Besides, he'd gotten used to abnormal with this group, and Mulder and Monica and their brood had been there to help every step of the way. One more blessing he'd never dreamed of fifteen years ago. A few feet away, Caitlin was also gulping down a cup of lemonade in between bursts of conversation with her best friend, Nobilee. A snatch of the girl's discussion drifted over to him. "...anyone ever mention you have a very weird family?" He laughed, making Missy giggle in imitation. Still hanging onto his daughter's hand, he began to stroll back to where Dana was waiting. His mind wandered back thirteen years, to the day three-year-old Caitlin had started building the bridge that enabled them to become this "weird family"... ***** "NO! Nonononononono!" "Caitlin, honey--" Dana tried to contain the little girl, but the three year old bundle of energy had already wiggled out of her arms. She stomped across the floor of the Doggetts' entry hall, her favorite red Mary Janes slapping noisily against the linoleum. She marched over to where Doggett and Mulder were glaring at each other in the doorway. "Caitlin, do as your mother says--" John started to scold her, but she stamped again. "NO! Not 'till you stop fighting!" she insisted with classic Scully stubbornness. "Kitty-Cat, you're too young to understand now--" Mulder tried, the bristle never relaxing from his posture. "I 'stand perfec'ly. You don't 'stand," she argued. "Todd 'n Copper's supposed to be bes' friends. Gramma tol' me so." Dana had followed Caitlin back into the room by now and tried to collect her again, but the child would not be still. John shot her a look, wondering what she was talking about. His wife shrugged. "Mom showed her 'The Fox and the Hound' over the weekend, but I don't understand what that has to do with this--" Caitlin scrunched up her face in three-year-old frustration. She pointed to Mulder. "You're my Daddy Todd," she stated firmly, then she aimed the same pudgy hand at Doggett. "And you're my Daddy Copper. So why're you a'ways fighting? You're s'posed to be bes' friends." For a moment, the three adults fell silent in wonder. Then Dana spoke softly. "'The Fox and the Hound.' As far as she's concerned, that's you." At three years old, her daughter already had the Mulder appreciation for irony. Caitlin nodded, pleased that her parents had finally caught up with her. "Nobody thought Todd 'n Copper should be friends 'cause they're 'nat'ral en'mies.' But they didn' care. Gramma says Daddy Todd and Daddy Copper are 'nat'ral en'mies' cause you both loved Mommy and she married Daddy Copper, but..." Here she focused specifically on Mulder and the full mouth she had inherited from him curled into a dainty pout. "But Daddy Todd married Monica and she's really nice, so why can't you be bes' friends now?" ***** Of course, the reconciliation hadn't happened overnight, or even quickly at all. But the little girl's Scully-solid logic--and their mutual embarrassment at carrying their rivalry so far that it had taken her to point it out--had given them both the will to move in the right direction. A shriek drew his attention back to Caitlin just in time to see her lunge after an escaping Danny, who triumphantly gripped the beloved gold-lam'e baseball cap that she'd been wearing a moment before. It was the two teenagers' favorite play of sibling rivalry, fighting over that hat. Having inherited his mother's fascination with world religions, Danny had dubbed it "The Dome of the Rock"--with all that implied about the head that usually wore it--and was constantly "rescuing" it from his sister's "infidel hands." This time the younger Mulder came tearing across the grass, stumbling melodramatically to his knees in front of Emmy. He pressed the hat into her empty hand with a conspiratorial grin. "You keep this safe for me while I distract the Rock, okay?" he asked, before racing off again to the sound of Missy's excited squeals and Caitlin's shrieks of fury. Yeah, it was a weird family. For thirteen years, he and Dana and Mulder and Monica had raised their children as siblings, even though only Caitlin shared DNA with all of them. But he knew anything Danny or the other boys would do for their own sister, Cassie, they'd do for his girls. And Missy and Emmy were in turn as utterly devoted to the four Mulder children as they were to Caitlin. But maybe weirdest of all was that Caitlin's childhood wish had come true. It had taken sixteen years and a lot of struggles, but now it could honestly be said that he and Mulder were best friends. That they all were--he, Mulder, Dana and Monica, Skinner, Byers, Frohike, Langly...and a few other assorted odd types they'd managed to pick up along the way. The Fox and the Hound had finally gotten it right. FIN "The Best of Friends" from "The Fox and the Hound" When you're the best of friends Having so much fun together You're not even aware, You're such a funny pair You're the best of friends Life's a happy game You could clown around forever Neither one of you sees Your natural boundaries Life's one happy game If only the world wouldn't get in the way If only people would just let you play They say you're both being fools You're breaking all the rules They can't understand, the magic of your wonderland Hu-hu-hu When you're the best of friends Sharing all that you discover When that moment has past, will that friendship last? Who can say? There's a way! Oh I hope... I hope it never ends 'Cause you're the best of friends