From: Kel Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 13:10:16 -0500 Subject: NEW: Papa's Got a Brand New Bag (1/1) TITLE: Papa's Got a Brand New Bag BY: Kel feedback: ckelll@hotmail.com website: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Realm/9374/ SPOILERS: Within, Without, War of the Copraphages, Jersey Devil, and Season 9. RATING: NC-17. KEYWORDS: MSR, Babyfic, Humor, and possibly MulderTorture DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Borrowed in a hopeless attempt to show their creator how to play nice with them. Also not mine: "Dead Skunk," by Loudon Wainwright III. SUMMARY: David Duchovny wants to spend more time with his kid, less time at work. That's not a crime. Maybe Mulder would make the same decision. THANKS: To my beta-while-you-wait pals, Linda and Erin. To Trelawney, who came up with the basic scenario. Usually I write too slowly to pilfer anyone's ideas, but Tre must have been snoozing. Papa's Got a Brand New Bag Eat, sleep, defecate, and procreate. That's all we do in life, according to an entomologist I once met. It's the universal agenda. For a long time I didn't expect to complete the list, but now I have. The mundane miracle of birth was my one perfect accomplishment. My perfect daughter. If only she would let me accomplish those other three goals. Scully and I both took time off to welcome the new arrival. After three months, Scully was back at the Bureau, but I wasn't ready. I asked her if she was catching any flack over that, over me being a stay-at-home dad. "Nobody messes with me, or they'd have to answer to Doggett," she said. That made me feel *so* much better. Three months later Scully asked me when I was planning to come back to work. "I'm not," I said. I hadn't put it into words until she asked the question, but once I started to weigh my options, I knew I had already decided. Monsters will be with us always. There is only one Katherine Claire. Scully had more questions then, questions I didn't think she would have to ask. Was I feeling all right? Was I sleeping okay? Did I have a sense of futility? "I'm not depressed, Scully," I assured her. "But why should we pay someone to take care of Casey when I want to do it myself?" Scully and I had spent days on end arguing over names, but by now the choice seems inevitable. Katherine Claire. When she's older she might want to be "Kate" or "Kathy," but for now she's K.C.--Casey. I stay home with the baby, and Scully goes out to bring in the bacon. We're lucky in one important respect. I happen to have some bacon of my own. My father and mother took their secrets to the grave with them, but they left behind a small fortune. When I was the last living Mulder, it didn't matter to me, but now I have a daughter. I'm still pulling in the occasional government check, not as a civil servant but as a consulting criminologist. You know the difference between a special agent and a consulting criminologist? About a hundred bucks an hour. We could manage on Scully's salary if we had to, but it wouldn't be much fun, and we couldn't afford to pay Angella. She comes in every morning and does all those things that have to be done even though no one wants to do them. Without Angella I couldn't be a consultant. I'd be struggling to acheive the cockroach agenda. Eat, sleep, defecate, and procreate. It's easy for cockroaches. They're not particular about privacy. Eating isn't too hard. One day I'd like to finish a meal while it's still hot, but I'm sure that day will come. I gave up the sunflower seeds for now, but I get to eat a lot of stuff that Casey leaves over. Yogurt isn't that bad when you're hungry. Sleeping is another story. People will tell you that babies sleep a lot, but it isn't true. Not my daughter, anyway. Casey likes to stay up late and wake up early. "My, I wonder where she gets that?" Scully said tartly when I ventured to share my observation. Last night Scully got home from work around six-thirty. I had the swing set up in the kitchen so Casey and I could admire each other while I cooked. "Look who's here!" said Scully, cooing with delight. "Are you making supper? You are?" She wasn't talking about me, either. Now, you might think that Casey would greet her mother in a warm fashion and then return her attention to me, the one who spent every moment of the day insuring her safety and well being. But no. As always, the kid was delighted by the arrival of Super Mommy. Neither of them seemed to remember that I existed. My girls giggled and smiled and made silly noises at each other. Finally Scully gave me a kiss and headed upstairs to change out of her work clothes. Casey called after her in distress and Scully came back to carry her along. I looked at the clock, calculating. Scully was home on time, for once, and I could have dinner on the table by seven. Afterwards, Scully could bathe the baby while I cleaned up the kitchen. . . then add another half hour for story time. . . . We went to the park today, and that always wore her out... no nap either, which meant I had to watch "Dumbo" instead of "Animal House," but it would be worth it. I was breathing hard, because this might just work. We started our dinner. Casey was tired and cranky, and I think she was catching on that what Scully and I were eating might be a bit tastier than the steamed chicken I'd served her an hour earlier. I knew she wasn't hungry, but I gave her some rice so she could participate in the meal. She flipped a spoonful at me, and Scully did a lousy job stifling her laughter. I put the baby's apple juice in her sippy cup. It doesn't bother me one way or the other, but Scully's got a hate-on for the bottle. Casey doesn't care if it's juice, but she wants her milk in her bobba. I poured some Merlot into the Tiffany glasses. There was no point in saving them for company, now that we were down to only three. A Formica table, plastic placemats, and hand-blown goblets. "Wine," Scully commented, giving me a very warm and knowing smile. "Yes," I said. She took a sip and then a forkful of stir-fry. "Tired?" I asked. Getting Casey to sleep wouldn't do me any good if Scully nodded out as well. "No-o-o." She stretched out the syllable and dabbed her tongue against her lower lip. "Is there anything you need to do for work?" I asked. "Mm," she agreed. "I need to brush up on anatomy." "Oh, I see," I said. Usually our meals together seem to be over in a flash. Takes about five times as long to cook and clean up as it does to eat them. Today I just wished Scully would shovel it in and be done with it. "What about you? Don't you want to finish your book proposal?" she asked. "Done," I said. "*You* dropped it in the mail for me this morning. You did, didn't you?" She stretched languidly. Hot damn. She was hornier than I was. "I'm not sure, Mulder. Maybe I lost it." "No matter," I said. "I have a new idea for a book. Applied anatomy. Think you can help with the research?" I ran my finger around her ear and down the side of her neck. She laughed. "That's a terrible line," she said. "I lust for your body," I said in a robotic monotone. "Much better." She leaned in toward me. "Try it again." "I want you, woman," I said. The shameless wench. She was running her foot up my calf. "I want you too, Mulder. I--oh, stop that!" Even when she isn't jalapeno-hot, that finger on her ear does her in. "Stop cause you don't like it?" I asked innocently. "Or stop--" "Ahhh-eeeeh!" Casey's shriek shattered the air. It wasn't her bored cry or her cranky cry. It was her out-and-out something's wrong S-O-S. Sitting one foot away from me in her tested and approved highchair, my daughter had hurt herself. There was only the slimmest crack between the tray and the armrest, but Casey had been exploring it doggedly at every opportunity, and this time she'd managed to trap her pinky in the minuscule space. Scully freed the little finger and as she kissed it and blew on it, I released the straps and lifted Casey out of the chair. She continued to wail until Scully took her from my arms. I snapped off the tray, laid the infernal device on the floor, and stomped on it twice. Twice was enough to establish that the highchair was stronger than my foot. "It's okay, baby," Scully said as Casey's sobs subsided. "Daddy won't let the chair hurt you any more." Dinner was over. I hobbled around and straightened the kitchen. There's no reason Casey's bath has to take an hour. She's not that big. But Scully makes it into a gala event. I rinsed out the sink and sat down to read the paper. The Knicks were leading when I fell asleep last night. I turned to the sports page and learned they had lost. I love the New York Times. They had plenty of Knicks coverage but only two paragraphs about the Clintons' impending divorce. I must be the only man in America who couldn't care less about the Clintons' divorce. At least the Clintons managed to get married. Scully and I are still in negotiation. "*I've* never done it before," she sniped when I suggested she was being too picky about the details. My overriding concern is Casey--I don't want to leave her in legal limbo. Scully's operating on some different wavelength entirely. As I scanned the front page, I heard the water drain from the tub. We were still on schedule, and I found myself humming. "Mulder! You're a nut-case!" Scully's voice was loud enough to carry down the stairs, but she sounded amused, not angry. "Now what?" I shouted back. "These pajamas!" she answered. "I'm throwing them out." Casey was growing out of her stretchies, and I'd cut the feet off some of them as a stop-gap. If Scully had gotten as far as pajamas, we were still on track for some quality sack time. Inspiration struck me, and I took the wine glasses out of the dishwasher and cleaned them by hand. I would allow some time for the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Stellaluna, and then I'd head up the stairs with the rest of the wine. I was too distracted to read any more so I started my rounds early, checking that the doors were locked and the alarm was activated. I flipped on the baby monitor to gauge how much longer until Scully was mine. The room was quiet. Nothing. "Thank you, Casey," I thought to myself. I took the bottle and the glasses and I tiptoed up the stairs. "Sleep, Casey, sleep." Past the baby's room to our room. The door was open a crack and I pushed it gently so it wouldn't creak. The lamp was dimmed. Scully was waiting for me in a nightgown. I love nightgowns. They practically remove themselves. "Scully," I said. "Shh." Finger against the lips like a kindergarten teacher. "I brought the wine," I whispered. "Oh, how cozy," she said. "Get in." I leaned over her and gave her ear lobe a nibble. "Is that what you wanted me to stop doing?" I asked. "Or was it--" "Mulder," she a little sharply. "You *know* you want it," I said. "She's almost asleep," Scully whispered. For crying out loud. She had the baby in the bed with her. That's her favorite thing. She'll take Casey into bed, and they cuddle up with a picture book until both of them fall asleep. Then I get to carry the baby to her crib. You can imagine how much this enhances my sex life. Not bragging, but I know how to put the baby to bed. Take one baby, one bobba, place baby in crib, and sing "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" three times, decreasing the tempo and volume with each repetition. Scully hates this. She hates the song and she hates the bobba. Even when it's full of water, which cannot possibly promote tooth decay. "Dada." Casey was all smiles. She grew considerably less personable when I picked her up to take her to her room. It's a fact of life that babies sometimes cry. But if this baby cried now, my night was over. I danced her out of the room, trying to be as entertaining as I possibly could. If Scully would have just put her down in her crib to begin with, she'd be asleep by now. Scully knew it too. She watched us waltz out the door as if I was taking Casey to enlist her in the Army, but she didn't say anything. I wished I'd brought a bottle of water up with me. I could only hope the Binkie would do the trick. "Good night, Casey," I said. "Daddy loves you. Good night." She took the Binkie out of her mouth and looked at me accusingly. "Bobba," she said forlornly. "Bobba." "Casey is a big girl," I said. "No bobba tonight. Binkie. See?" I did a little pantomime to show her how wonderful it was to suck on a Binkie. I handed it to her and she clutched it in her hand. "Tink?" she asked. I cleared my throat, hoping Scully had the TV on. "Crossin' the road, late one night, he shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right. . ." I heard Scully's exasperated sniff. Well, I couldn't have heard it, but I knew she was doing it. It's an educational song, I tell her. It's about crossing the street. ". . .Woulda seen that station wagon car, it run over the skunk, and there you are. You got your dead skunk in the middle of the road, dead skunk in the middle of the road, dead skunk in the middle of the road, and it's stinkin' to high heaven!" I could picture Scully's disapproving frown, but damn, Casey was happy. "Tink!" she said. Her eyes were drooping and I think I could have gotten away with just that first verse but I finished the song to make sure. I closed the door as quietly as I could, gingerly releasing the doorknob and letting it turn. Then back to our room, where I repeated the maneuver to close the door behind me. There was really no point, of course. Babies know when you're having sex. Scully was still awake, reading in bed. "Mulder, I have to get up early," Scully said, putting her glasses and the magazine on the nightstand. "Doggett and I need to be at the airport at seven." I just love hearing about Doggett at times like these. Doggett and no sex, my two favorite topics. But I held my voice steady, and I answered very calmly. "Scully, it is freakin' nine o'clock!" "I know it is, but I need to be out of the house at six. So I'd appreciate it if instead of discussing the time of day, you would drop your drawers and get into bed." There was a time in our relationship--a very short time, now that I think of it--when I would have savored the moment and teased her along. But I've learned to go for the sure thing. I shed my clothes in a pile and took a flying leap onto the bed. If Scully couldn't keep up with me, I'd take care of it afterwards. Scully wasn't waiting for foreplay. She arched up under me, grabbed a pillow, and jammed it behind her back. I pushed aside the easy-off nightgown, and as I took her nipple in my mouth she took my cock in her hand. She guided the head of my cock against her clit and then she slid it into her very ready vagina. My lips still secured around her nipple, I flicked it with my tongue as I lowered my body onto her. That's when the phone rang. Scully, don't, I thought desperately. Don't answer it. There was an audible pop when she rolled over to take the phone. That was her nipple leaving my mouth. The other sound was more of a "fulp." "Oh, hi, John," Scully said. I was on my hands and knees, and she was on her side below me, chatting with Agent K-Nine. "You tell them that's unacceptable," Scully said. "Call the SAC at home and ask him to confirm the decision. He'll back down." I tried to turn her onto her back again, but I didn't have much leverage. She waved me off with the hand that wasn't holding the phone. "We got zero cooperation last time," she said into the phone. "They locked Mulder in the drunk tank." I didn't want to believe what was happening. I was biting back everything I wanted to say, and my vocalizations escaped as huffs and grunts. "No, you didn't wake the baby," she said into the phone. You didn't wake the baby, that's just Mulder crying, I thought. She shoved at my arm, and I rolled onto my back next to her. "Come on, Scully, wrap it up," I said. "Mulder says Hi," she told him. "John, if they're dicking us around it's because they have something to hide." Dicking us around. I pointed at my hard-on, trying to show Scully she had more urgent matters to tend to. And she turned to me. "Mulder, could you get my briefcase, please?" she asked. I thought about explaining to her how difficult it would be for me to walk just now. Instead I climbed out of the bed on her side, crawling over her as obtrusively as I could, and padded downstairs to get her briefcase. They were still at it when I returned. I set the briefcase on the floor by the bed, and then, instead of crawling over her again, I climbed back on top. She switched the phone to her left hand and tried to push me off. I ducked away from her arm and started to suck on her nipple. "We have the report from the forensic anthropoligist and other documentation from the Smithsonian," she was saying. "The autopsy findings were considered ambiguous, but there are mutliple sightings. Including Mulder's, of course." I was starting to feel nostalgic about the Jersey beast woman. She didn't ignore me. I surrendered the nipple and rolled over next to Scully. "Give me the phone," I said. "Mulder wants to talk to you," she told Laddie Boy. She gave me a puzzled look as she handed over the phone. "Hey, Doggett," I said, without giving him a chance to speak. "If you're going to Atlantic City, remember to pick up some saltwater taffy. Later, buddy." I flipped the phone closed and tossed it aside. Unfortunately it slammed against the wall, and kind of hard at that. Scully glared at me as if I was the one who had broken the mood and ruined the evening. I turned on my side to reach for her. "Forget it," she sniffed. I tried my really nice smile. "It can't be healthy for you," I said. "This constant frustration--" "Good night, Mulder." She reached to turn out the light. Damn it, we had been so close. Should I push it? I thumped down onto my back, letting my legs take up as much room as possible. I waited, to see if she would say something. "Scully?" She didn't answer me. I ran my big toe up along her calf. "Are you asleep?" I snaked my arm behind her neck and pulled her closer. Yeah, I know. It was lame, pathetic, and thoughtless. Besides, she didn't answer. "You asleep, Scully?" I asked a little louder. Well, if she was really asleep, she couldn't possibly mind if-- "Mulder!" She awoke with a start. "What are you doing?" "Um," I said. "You woke me!" Her voice was thick with sleep. How does she do it? >From awake to sound asleep in sixty seconds. "Scully. . .I. . ." I was beyond pathetic. "I have needs?" It came out as a question. "Mulder," she said. "It's right here." And she handed me the remote. So I watched CNN and ESPN and then, so help me, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." I finally fell asleep to an infomercial for pressure cookers. I awoke the next morning when Scully's lips brushed across my shoulder. I thought at first she'd taken pity on me, but no, she was just saying good-bye on her way out the door. "You broke my phone," she said, thrusting it at me. She sat on the edge of the bed, dressed and ready to go. "Next time turn it off," I said sullenly, "or just don't answer. And I didn't even throw it that hard." She started doing that thing she does on my stomach, like she's drawing pictures with her finger. She thinks it turns me on, and it does, but only because I know it turns her on. It always feels like it's about to tickle. "Tell me you're sorry and tonight, when I get home, I'll make it worth your while," she said. I started to babble: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "Okay. Tonight," she said, laughing a little. She turned away and started to rise, but I lunged after her and caught her in my arms. I held her and kissed her as long as she let me, which turned out to be a long time. "Tonight? Promise?" I asked her when we broke for oxygen. "Yes, promise," she said, and then she kissed me again. A short kiss that would have been longer, but that's when we heard the car horn outside. Doggett's okay, but he doesn't have a lot of class. "I have to go," Scully said. "I know. I'll miss you," I said. And then she kissed me on the cheek. "That's for my girl," she said. I lay back on the bed, resting my head on my arms and watching as she stepped into her shoes and out the door. Through the baby monitor, I heard the door to Casey's room open and close as Scully sneaked a peek, and then the room was quiet. Another hour of sleep would be most excellent, I thought, making myself comfortable. That entomologist was wrong, you know. Eat, sleep, defecate, procreate. Those are all very nice. But I know there's more. # # # # # Feedback to ckelll@hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Realm/9374/