Time Enough for That by Amal Nahurriyeh Email: amalnahurriyeh@gmail.com Summary: People grow into things. Genre: Gen Rating: PG (grown-up language) Angst Level/Warnings: This is a giant puddle of pointless cute, unless horses upset you. Universe: Mulder-containing. Timeline/Spoilers: Happens circa 2025, if I am not doing math poorly. Author's Notes: Apparently my unconscious thought we could all do with a large dose of cute. Helpfully betaed by colebaltblue, who helped prevent horse-related fail. "So," Will said calmly. "Casey, huh?" Mulder smiled. They were watching her ride her horse around the ring for her dressage lesson. Dressage struck him as the stupidest sport ever invented, but Casey liked the control, and Hippolyta, big, muscly thing that she was, apparently had a knack for the horse part, so he sat and watched them do the same thing over and over again three afternoons a week, when the weather was good and he didn't have anything more pressing. "Casey," he said. Will leaned into the fence of the practice ring. He looked like his other father when he did that, surveying his cattle out at the ranch; funny how someone could share no genetics but a fistful of mannerisms with someone, how much that experience marked a person. "Were you planning on telling me?" He'd seen the shock on Will's face when he'd noticed. He'd kissed Scully, and returned Mulder's hug, and then turned to watch his baby sister thunder down the stairs, and his face had frozen up. Mulder'd been expecting it, because with very little warning, at sixteen, Casey had started looking like the cigarette-smoking stranger who would, in negative thirteen and/or positive-ten years, change the world. Will'd recovered quickly enough that Casey hadn't even noticed his reaction, but Mulder had been expecting this all afternoon. "I though I'd let you figure it out," Mulder said. Will was silent for a good long time. "How long have you known?" "Since she left. I think that's why she sent me after her. She wanted me to know. Plus, she left some evidence behind for us to check out." Will nodded, his eyes following Casey as she pulled Hippo to a stop, paused, guided her into one of those sideways things that were apparently difficult. "Who else knows?" "Me and your mother. We told Monica Reyes, just because it seemed right." Will snorted. "That explains a lot." He shook his head. "But she doesn't." "Not yet." Mulder sighed and picked at the rough wood of the fence. "We'll have to tell her, when she gets old enough. But for now--" He made a dismissive hand gesture. "Let her be a kid for a while. Time enough for that." He'd learned to wait out Will's silences; they were longer than Scully's, and less pointed, more conversational, and they always ended with questions. It amazed him that he had a son like this, a real adult now, with an apartment and a girlfriend who, it seemed, was on the fast track to becoming a fiancee, who could stand and talk about time travel like it was a real thing. "It fits," he said, eventually. "It explains why we could do the thing. How she knew how it was going to go down. And why she made sense, I guess, because of the thing." Mulder had never ceased to be amused by the way no one in his family would talk directly about the fact that they're all apparently super-powered telepaths. "I never really considered it, but there's no way I should have trusted her, not the way I did. I guess I took for granted that she was there to help me, because she felt right, but I wasn't that stupid." "You climbed in a helicopter surrounded by dead bodies with a bunch of strangers, Will," Mulder said. "You kind of were that stupid." "You're an asshole," Will said companionably. "Well, obviously," Mulder said. "That's the whole reason I had kids, so I could raise up a little army of minion assholes to do my bidding." "Who knew a plan that bad would work out?" Will waved at Casey, where she'd paused in the ring, and was scrutinizing them. She waved back and regrasped the reins. "You know, it's funny. I haven't really thought of her in years. It's like, the whole family thing eclipsed all the really important world-ending bullshit we were involved in." Mulder shrugged. "I think I had my whole life to get used to the idea that the apocalypse was going to be a soap opera." "Lucky you. Hey, monster," Will said, as Casey rode over to them. "What are you talking about? You're all serious business," she said, pausing Hippo at the fence. The horse, who knew Mulder didn't get her, leaned over and nudged his head with hers, and then went snuffling around his hands to see if he had anything to eat on him. He should have bought her a damn pony like a normal person. Casey patted her neck. "The apocalypse. Also time travel," Mulder said. She rolled her eyes. "I really think we need to get some normal interests as a family." "Okay," he said to his daughter, the world-saver. "Whatever you say."