"I wasn't sure what I was allowed to want," he admits, not quite meeting her eyes. It's obvious in retrospect, he's sure, that he'd been in love with her long before ever attempt a kiss. If things had happened the way they'd hoped, rescuing her eggs and implanting them with the help of science, he'd have wanted that child, too. But he hadn't had any real claim on the kid. No real claim on Scully, either.

Not that he does now, exactly - claim is simultaneously caveman and aspirational - but there's more room to talk about it.

"If you leave my name off the birth certificate, that'll get us a little further." It's no great loss, he reasons; he knows the truth, and he's not about to get bent out of shape by some incomplete record-keeping on the part of the Social Security Administration. When William's old enough, he'll know, and that's what matters. "Skinner'll go to bat for us, not that it'll matter much with Kersh on the scene. And I'll play the distantly appreciative coworker -" this with a tease of a smile - "if it keeps you on the X-files."