Like a Valentine

Part Two

Emily sits in her booster seat at the kitchen table. Scully has made eggs and toast per her daughters request.
Mulder had come and gone in the night, leaving nothing more than a glow illuminating from Scully as evidence.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby?" Scully spoons out a portion of the eggs onto the plate with Scooby-doo on it.
"I think I need to go to the 'warium..."
"You do?" The child is full of surprises, that Emily. Scully fixes her own plate and joins her daughter.
"Yeah. 'member last week when Mulder was talking about sharks?"
"Yes?" She doesn't.
"He said they're in the ocean, but also that they're in the 'warium. In big tanks. He said you can look at them close up and they can't touch you..."
"Uh-huh." Scully puts a little butter on her toast and then a little on Emily's.
"I think we should go see them."
Scully nods, licking her fingers clean from the grape jelly.
"Me, you, and Mulder."
That really got her attention.
"What's that?"
"Me, you, and Mulder. I think he should come."
"Oh. Okay, well. I'm sure we could arrange that."
Her heart skips a beat thinking about calling Mulder up to ask he join their outing to the aquarium on this warm and perfectly-day-off-work-Saturday per Emily's request.
"Good. I think we should pick him up at his house."
"Oh, you do?" Scully giggles and motions to the scooby-doo plate.
"Well, we're not doing anything until you finish your plate. Why don't you eat, and I'll call up Mulder and ask if he wants to come?"
Emily, fully motivated now, forks up her eggs and stuffs them in her mouth.
"Tell him he must come."
Why is she so insistent now? Nothing has changed. Scully has yet to tell her about the conversation she and Mulder had...and how they really do like each other like a valentine. None the less, Scully calls him up in her bedroom and gives him quite the morning monologue.

"Wow. Mommy, look at that one!"
Emily's all over the place. It's a miracle Scully doesn't have a heart attack. Every few seconds the child runs in a different direction. Maybe a child-leash isn't really THAT bad. Mulder shuffles around, a big goofy grin plastered on his face, and every once in awhile Emily will ask him a question about a fish or request he looks at something she finds absolutely interesting.

"Mulder read that." Emily pretends she has learned something from an information read on the wall next to a large tank.
"Woah. The electric eel is capable of generating over 800 volts of electricity! It uses that large electrical discharge for defense and to stun prey. Most of the time they only generate about 10 volts for navigation and to locate prey because they have poor eyesight and live in murky waters. Electric eels have three different electrical organs that are made up of thousands of electrical generating cells called electrocytes."
He's reading right from the information bubble. it's a way to inform her without insulting her from the fact that she cannot read that well just yet.
"—Electric eels are air breathers and must be able to return to the surface to breathe or they can drown! Did you know that, Emily?"
Emily stares at the long knife fish with her mouth just barely gaped open.
"THERE'S TWO!" She screams seemingly out of nowhere.
Mulder laughs, and Scully abruptly turns from across the room.
"No, there's three!! there's one in the back over there!" Mulder adds, just as excited.
"What? Where? I don't see it..."
Mulder thinks for a split second before picking the child up for a better view. Emily, surprisingly, doesn't mind it one bit. She even thanks him when he puts her back on the ground.

From that moment everything changed.
When they get to the tunnel of glass, where all kinds of fish and even sharks swim overhead, Emily's got Mulder's hand in hers. Scully trails behind them with a bright smile. Maybe that talk won't be as difficult and awkward as she thought.

"Mulder, Mommy said you are allowed to join us for dinner tonight." Scully, of course, hadn't even mentioned it.
"Oh really, now?" Mulder glances over to Scully, who's driving, and grins.
"Well, I'd like that."
Emily, pleased with herself, smiles and requests her mother turn up the radio because she loves this song.