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Mulder missed the summers he’d enjoyed as a younger man.
Now the heat got to him so fast. Scully said something about him being ill as a consequence of his abduction, something vague and poorly explained by science that was leaving him exhausted and dizzy half the time. He was also pretty sure it was hotter in the summers than it had been when he was younger.
But he pushed through the migraine to walk Baby William in the fresh morning air before it got too hot to be outside.
All his little energy went to keeping William alive. Scully worked at the CDC Washington headquarters now and he played house all day. He was shocked the baby was three months old last week. Time flew when your entire life was a series of diaper changes and bottle feedings, with the only respite being a nap on the couch in front of the television while the baby slept. Half the time he was so tired he couldn’t manage any cleaning, leaving a frustrated Scully concealing her disappointment when she came home to a pile of dishes.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love being a father but he would be damned if he lied and said it wasn’t the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Still, he pushed himself to walk with the baby a few times a week, trying to convince himself the exercise could stave off turning 40 next month and the spare tire that was accumulating around his middle, which he could tell disappointed Scully as much as the dishes did.
He was lost in thought, struggling with how the migraine was warping his vision, so lost in thought he managed to get himself and the baby lost on a random side street. He felt a little panic but tried to keep his head clear. He was a resourceful guy. He was a former FBI agent.
After wandering for about half an hour, just as he was about to knock on a door and ask for directions, the sky opened up like it did around southeastern rivers and dumped an ungodly amount of water onto him and William.
A head peeked out of a building across the street and waved them over.
The portly woman stepped aside to let him in.
“You and the little one are soaked. Let me find you a blanket in the donation bin.”
Mulder looked around in the lobby as William fussed, wondering where he was. When she came back he put together the bin of tiny hats and the star of David over the door and realized he had wandered into a synagogue.
He remembered from his 5 minutes working in counterterrorism, not to mention the deep paranoia of his grandparents who had fled pogroms, that it was very rare for synagogue staff to let a stranger in. He figured they had probably assumed if he was pushing a stroller he wasn’t much of a threat.
He wrapped William in the blanket to warm him up and stammered a thank you to the woman.
“Talmud study is starting in the library,” she said.
“Oh. That’s alright. If we can just wait for the rain to pass—“
“Well if you want to poke your head in for coffee feel free.”
Coffee did sound inviting and might help his migraine, so he crept into the library after all.
“Ah” said a boisterous man sitting at the table. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Mulder got chills.
“I’m teasing! What’s your name?”
“Oh. I go by Mulder. I’m just here to warm up and bum some coffee.”
“Well, you are welcome to sit with us.”
“I’m uh. An atheist.”
The big man, who Mulder guessed was probably the rabbi smiled.
“Who here is an atheist?”
Half the room raised their hands.
“You can be an atheist and learn Talmud. If you want.”
Mulder sat, getting curious despite himself.
“I don’t even really know what the Talmud is.”
“A compendium of Jewish commentaries and legal decisions spanning about two thousand years,” said the older woman sitting next to Mulder.
“I don’t know any Hebrew,” Mulder said, feeling like he was back in Brooklyn hunting a golem again.
“Raise your hand if your Hebrew is weak,” said the rabbi.
Half the room raised their hands again.
“Anyone can learn, one word at a time.”
The rabbi started explaining a section of something called Bava Batra. Property law. Something about ownership of chickens when they were found away from the coup.
“And then we get to a famous passage. Rabbi Yirmeya asks, ‘what happens if one foot is within 50 cubits and one is outside?’”
“For this farfetched question, he was kicked out of the house of study!” Laughed a younger man.
“Yes exactly. But is it such a ridiculous question? Let’s discuss in chevrusa.”
Mulder got paired with the older woman, named Rebecca. She asked him what he thought and he figured you should pull a King Solomon and say you were going to cut the chick in half. She laughed and argued that it depended on if other factors pointed to the chick being from a different coup.
“What if…” Mulder shifted. “What if the chick got stolen and when it gets put back it doesn’t fit in anymore?”
She tilted her head in confusion.
“A farfetched question that will get me kicked out of the house of study?”
“Not my house of study,” she reassured him. “But I’ve never heard the question framed in terms of harm to the chick. It reminds me of the teachings on redeeming hostages. That you do everything you can to get them back. Interesting to think of a chick held hostage.”
They talked back and forth a little longer and Mulder excused himself to change William, getting their blessing to go in the women’s restroom to use the changing table. When he got back, only the rabbi was in the library, reading from a large, ornate book.
“Come sit. How is it that I have never seen you here before?”
“I just came in to get out of the rain.”
“But you are a Jew?”
“I guess technically but I didn’t grow up with any of it and my partner— I guess she’s my wife now. She and the kid are Catholic. So not really. But thank you for letting me sit. It was really nice to get out of the rain.”
“You take care of the baby?”
“Yes. She’s got the better resume so she works and I’m the housewife. Which is good if extremely tiring.”
“I remember when my daughter was that little. An extraordinary effort.”
“We get by.”
“It’s a blessing.”
“It is. We worked pretty hard to have him.”
“I couldn’t help but hear one of the questions you asked your chevrusa. What if the chick was stolen and doesn’t fit in anymore?”
“Yeah.”
The rabbi tilted his head.
“Are you such a chick?”
Mulder cleared his throat from the tightness forming there.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s a long story and you’ll think I’m crazy but I got ab— I got kidnapped and tortured when I worked at the FBI. Was gone a few months. Came back to a 6 month pregnant girlfriend and um. I didn’t know she was pregnant when I was taken. Kinda just had to repress what happened and figure out how to be a dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. And now I’m sick all the time. And tired.”
“I can only imagine.”
“But it was so nice to talk with other adults. My wife and I just talk about the baby. So it’s nice to do really anything different.”
“We meet Tuesday and Thursday for study. You are welcome to come back. And perhaps your wife and yourself could come for Shabbat dinner at my home.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t want to intrude. But maybe we’ll come back.”
“It was nice to meet you, Mulder. I’m Rabbi Yehudah.”
…
That night when Scully got home to an almost clean house he was actually excited to tell her about his day for once. She looked at him in shock when he said he had spent most of the morning at a synagogue.
“What happened to my husband the staunch atheist?”
“Half of the room was! It wasn’t really about God. It was about each other. It was so nice to get out of the house.”
“It seems like it really did you good.”
“It did. We might go back.”
...
And they did. Will and Mulder even joined the occasional minyan when someone had to say Kaddish. They did eat at the rabbi's house a few weeks later. It was on the floor of the library with other children that Will learned to sit, and then to crawl and eventually to stand and take his first steps from his adopted grandmother Rebecca towards his beaming father.
And so it was that Scully was not bemused nor surprised when Mulder slid her a brochure about rabbinical school one evening about a year later, wondering if she would support him on another irrational quest.