This submission was brought on by a real life experience that I just had to vent<g> Enjoy all and tell me what you think! From: K@tie at DKScully@juno.com Category: MSR/Humor Date: May 17th,1997 Spoilers: If you've seen up until "Home" you'll be okay. Summary: Mulder and Scully spend the day babysitting Scully's nephew and niece, discovering what it's like to be parents, and more importantly being parents together ;*) Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and Bill Jr. do not belong to me. I suppose Scully's nephew doesn't either because they mentioned him in "Home", but didn't give him a name. Anyway, her niece is mine cause I made her up to give M&S a bit more of a challenge. All characters who aren't mine belong to CC, 1013, and FOX Network. Author's Note: This story is dedicated to all hard working babysitters like myself who have to suffer through this on a weekly basis. Most of the time, it's a nightmare, and a darn shame that it would make a 13 year old girl decide to be a celibate<g> Anyhoo, I figured it would be a good thing for M&S to go through together so they have some idea of what's coming when they start "Pumping out the oober-Scully's", as Mulder once put it ;*) Oh Baby! As soon as she got the call, Dana knew this Saturday would be D-Day. Her older brother Bill Jr. had asked her to babysit his children, Christina and Sam. They were cute kids, but Sam was three and Christina had just turned one. They were quite a handful! Flashbacks of "Babe" ran through her mind, and she shivered. Well, this time she had learned her lesson and decided not to go it alone. Yup, she had asked Mulder to join her, and after five minutes of dealing, he agreed. In exchange for him helping her, she had to feed him breakfast in bed the following Sunday morning. Not that she minded, really, because the thought of seeing him in bed made her smile everytime she considered it. She picked him up Saturday morning, and described the kids to him on the way to her brother's house. She hadn't bothered to mention little details because she was afraid he'd throw himself in front of the speedy morning traffic after hearing what they were up against. When they got there, Scully knocked on Bill's door, and heard little feet thumping to greet her. Bill opened the door with a huge smile on his face. "Good to see you, Dana." "It's good to see you too, Bill. Hi Chrissy. Hi Sam," She said smiling warmly down at them. Sam grinned at her and attached himself to her leg. Mulder smiled. "Bill, this is my partner and best friend, Fox Mulder, he's here to help me babysit." Bill nodded, smiling, but not really paying attention. Dana could tell he just wanted to get out of there, and that scared her a bit. Little Christina made small baby noises, and took awkward steps toward Mulder, attaching herself to his leg. He looked to Scully for help. "She likes you, Mulder. Pick her up." She offered with a sly smile. Mulder sighed inwardly, and bent down to pick her up. Christina was surpirsingly light, and fitted nicely on Mulder's hip. They all went inside, and waited in the kitchen for Bill to give them orders. "Alright, it's pretty simple. Don't give them too much sugar, Chrissy gets a bottle of warm milk around three, and Sam's lunch is in the refrigerator. Order a pizza for dinner, and Jen or I should be home around six. Other than that, as long as you keep them alive, have fun." He said, patting his younger sister on the back in a sort of taunting way. She smiled it off. As soon as he left, Dana turned to look at Mulder, to come up with a game plan. This would have been fine, but when she turned around, he wasn't there. "Mulder?" She called, picking up Sam. "In here." He answered from the family room. She walked in to find Christina laying on his chest, trying to stuff her passifyer in his mouth. Dana giggled, and looked at her partner laying helplessly on the ground with a baby holding him there. It was almost too much. "Scully, help me out here." He pleaded. She laughed again, set Sam down to play with his trucks, and picked Chrissy up off of Mulder. "Chrissy, I don't think Uncle Mulder wants your nee nee." Chrissy giggled a tiny baby laugh, all bubbly and happy. She tried to mimic her aunt. "Uncle Mudder," she tried. Her words were slurred together, but understandable. Dana's eyes went wide. "Mulder, do you know what just happened? Chrissy said her first words! She said Uncle Mudder!" Scully managed through a fit of giggles and smiles. "Mudder?" He questioned. "She means you. I said Mulder, but since baby's aren't very good with letters like L, she called you Uncle Mudder, isn't that cute?" "Yeah, wonderful." Scully looked at him, shook her head, then turned back to Chrissy, and gave her an Eskimo kiss. "So what are we gonna do, Scully?" "Oh, I don't know, how bout we put a movie on? That should keep them entertained." "Sounds good to me." "Sam, what movie would you like to see?" She held her breath, hoping with all her might the answer wouldn't be... "Babe"! He exclaimed happily. Dana sighed, and set Chrissy down to play with her brother. After looking through their video library, which consisted mostly of Barney and Spot, she found "Babe". Dana sat down with Sam on her lap. Mulder was on the floor with his back up against the couch, Christina in his lap. After the first twenty minutes, Mulder fell asleep. Chrissy noticed this, and squirmed around in his lap until she could stand on his thighs, and give him a big slobbery kiss on the nose. His eyes flung open and saw a giggling, red headed, blue eyed baby millimeters from his face. He sighed after a minute, remembering where he was. Dana was watching this whole exchange, and laughed. Mulder turned to look at her with a smile. "Mulder, I really think she's got a crush on you. I mean first I walk in to find her on top of you, and then she's kissing you." She said with a huge grin. "Let me tell you one thing; if I'm going to marry a Scully, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be this one." Even though he said it in jest, she didn't think he was fully joking. The softness in his voice suggested he was being quite serious. Nevertheless, she let it go, and took note that he didn't fall asleep for the rest of the movie. Lunch could have been worse, but they didn't get away without peanut butter and jelly all over the table and white linoleum floor. Chrissy had her bottle with no glitches. It was about an hour after the kids were fed that they ran into a problem. Mulder was playing with Sam and his trucks when he smelled something that nauseated him. "Hey, Scully," He called. "I think we got a problem here." "What's the matter?" She asked when she entered the family room from putting Chrissy in her crib. "Well, I think Sam here dumped some load, and I don't mean from his toy trucks." She laughed. "Well...take care of it." "Scully, you know I don't have as strong of a stomach as you do. I can't even watch you do an autopsy for more than five seconds." She gave him a "Yeah right" look, but picked Sam up anyway. "Sammy, do we have a dirty diaper?" "No." He said forcefully, shaking his head. She smelled him, and said, "Oh, I think we do." "No, no, no!" He protested. "Come on, Sam," She said, laying him on the floor, grabbing a new diaper and some baby wipes. Sam kicked and figited, but Dana held his legs in the air, and wiped him clean. Mulder stood from a distance with a sea sick look on his face. She turned to look at him, and laughed when she saw how ill her partner was getting over such a natural thing. He gave a weak smile, and nod to her amusement. After Sam was clean, Dana put him to bed with his bottled filled with apple juice. She came back down and saw that the pizza had come, and Mulder was in the family room eating it. "Hey, save some for me." She said with a small grin. He smiled back, and took another big bite. "So they're finally asleep, huh?" "Yep, down for the count," She answered triumphantly. She sat down beside him, and picked up a piece of pizza. "You know, Scully, this experience has taught me a lot. I never thought it could be so hard to be a parent." He said, shaking his head. "Hard? What do you mean? I did all the work." She said lightly. "No, really, I do know what you mean. It's almost scary that they depend on you so much." "You're not kidding." After a pause, he said, "Hey Scully?" "Hmmm?" She asked through a yawn. "What do you think it will be like when we have kids?" She almost choked on her pizza, but quickly regained her composure. He couldn't have meant... "Oh, I don't know. Probably something like this I guess." He sighed with a slight hint of a moan. "Nah. I think our kids won't poop as much." She laughed softly, still deciding if he was implying... Right then Christina took the liberty of ruining the moment by crying. Dana sighed and slowly rose. She went to go pick up Chrissy, and Mulder silently followed. He stood at the doorway and watched Scully comfort the baby. She picked Chrissy up, held her close patting her back gently, and rocked back and forth. In minutes her crying subsided, and she fell back asleep. Scully set her softly back in the crib and turned, surprised to see Mulder watching her from the door. "This is the second time I've seen you be a mother, Scully. You're very good at it." He whispered. She blushed and smiled shyly. They walked back to the family room and sat on the couch. Mulder was silent for a couple minutes. He was thinking about how it felt today, being a parent with Scully. She would be the perfect mom. He only hoped that he would be the dad. After all they had been through together he had finally realized that if they never found the truth, it wouldn't matter. They had each other. He couldn't stand it any longer, he had to tell her. "Dana?" She turned and held her breath. If he used her first name, he was being serious. "I learned a lot today. Mostly I learned what it was like to be a dad. But the important thing was that I learned it with you. After all these years I realize how much I love you, and how much I want us to have children of our own someday." She looked at him with happiness in her eyes. "Do you really mean that?" "With all my heart and soul." "I love you too," she said falling into his embrace. He kissed her on the forehead. "No matter what happens Dana, I'll always love you." She snuggled closer to him, and soon they were both asleep. Bill walked in at six. "Dana? Everything go okay?" He walked into the family room to find his sister and who he knew was his future brother-in-law sleeping peacefully on the couch. The End! Hope everyone enjoyed my version of M&S babysitting! All comments can be sent to DKScully@juno.com ThanX for reading!