Author: BehindNorthernLights
Archive: Yes, yep, yeah, mmm hmmm - If you could keep my headers attached and lemme know where it goes, that'd be cool!
Spoilers: None that I know of off the top of my head.
Rating: G
Classification:  Pre-X-Files, Pre-XF.  
Summary: An addition to the collection of the Mulder home/Scully home comparisons. Cookie baking and childish discussions in the Scully home and te Mulder home.
Disclaimer: The X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter’s and 1013 Productions. Wishing they were mine, but they aren't. Please no suing the poor fanfic author!

Also archived at:www.iloveteenamulder.tumblr.com

Title: Daydreams and Cookies

*~*~*~* Scully Home *~*~*~*

Melissa Scully dotted the purple icing along the edge of the butterfly shaped cookie, humming a little tune to herself as she worked.  She, her mother, and her sister Dana were making sugar cookies for Christmas.

Maggie had told Melissa that a butterfly was hardly befitting for a Christmas cookie, but Melissa had persisted, and had rifled through the collection of cookie cutters until she found the perfect shape.

After all, why couldn't butterflies be a Christmas cookie?

When Melissa had made her way all the way around the cookie, she stopped and looked up at her mother, "Mom, do you think that faeries and elves are real?"

Margaret looked up at her from where she helped young Dana frost a little star cookie, "Of course not, Missy. Where would you get such a silly idea?"

Melissa shrugged, "Kathy Einarsen told me during class that her aunt and uncle told her all about faeries."  

Young Dana looked up, fascinated by what her sister was saying, and accidentally iced Maggie's fingertip.

Maggie smiled at Dana, then turned her attention back to Melissa, "I don't know that I like you talking to Kathy Einarsen. She fills your head with nonsensical ideas that simply aren't true. It would do you well to keep your head out of the clouds, Missy."

By now Melissa was ignoring her mother, already back to her humming as she piped yellow icing along the wings of the butterfly.

Sometimes Melissa's mother drove her crazy.

She could be so close-minded when it came to the lesser known wonders of the world. She didn't believe in faeries or dragons, thought the idea of witches and vampires was "nonsense," and wouldn't even entertain talk of ghosts or psychics.

There was a time, though, long ago, when her mother had let it slip that she believed in prophetic dreams.  

That once upon a time she had a dream about Melissa falling into a thicket of brush and vines on the way home from school, and losing her beloved necklace. That dream had come true.  

But now, years later, her mother seemed to suppress the belief, and refused to talk about it.

She was now, in Melissa's mind, a hopelessly practical woman.

"Well, why can't they be real?" Melissa pressed on as she worked.

Margaret sighed.  She loved her daughter, but sometimes Melissa's sillyhearted notions could be too much for her.

Melissa had been more and more interested in the unseen and magical lately, and it frustrated her pragmatic mother beyond belief.  If Melissa would just focus on the practical, she could have a perfectly normal, acceptable life ahead of her.

A life of a business woman, housewife, mother, teacher...something respectable and normal.

But, no. Melissa had expressed an interest long ago in being a "healer," whatever that meant.  Maggie didn't really know. She had once asked if Melissa meant a doctor or a nurse, but Melissa simply shook her head, and said "Nope. A healer like a shaman."

She and her husband William just hoped that this "phase" of Melissa's would pass someday soon.

Melissa's voice continued, "I mean, we believe in angels and saints even though we can't see them..."

"Melissa Scully..." her mother looked irritated, "That is another thing entirely, and you know it. We don't believe in faeries or elves because the idea that they exist is stupid, childish nonsense."

"I wanna see a faerie!" Dana said excitedly, "Are they real, Missy? Are they?

Melissa smiled and nodded, "Yep, I think they are. And I'm going out to look for them tonight!"

"Me too!" Dana chirped happily.

"No," Maggie said, wiping the icing off of her fingers, "Melissa, you will be doing your homework tonight. Something useful that will actually help your future. And you will also stop filling your sister's head with such ridiculous tales."

Dana looked defeated, but caught the glimmer in Melissa's eye, and smiled widely - she knew her free spirited sister.  She also knew without a doubt that the two of them would be off looking for faeries tonight. Even if their mother did think it was stupid.

*~*~*~* Mulder Home *~*~*~*

Samantha danced her way to the kitchen table, holding a cokie high in the air as she sang "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."

While a twirl of her newly acquired skirt, and a small flourish, she handed the cookie to her brother, "Merry Christmas, Fox."  

He set the pencil down on his open math book, and smiled at his baby sister whose apron was covered in flour and icing, "Thanks, Sammy. But you know Christmas isn't for 3 more weeks."

She spun around again, admiring her own skirted reflection in the oven door, "Yep! But I have to say it early when I give you a cookie! It's a rule!"

Samantha Mulder was always making up random rules around the house. Well, when she wasn't dancing, singing, or going after the sweets in the kitchen.

"Well, thanks, Sammy," Fox said, stuffing the whole cookie into his mouth.

"Welcome!" she chimed, going back to her Christmas caroling as she made her way back to the counter where her mother stood rolling out dough.

Samantha clapped her hands together and a plume of flour filled the air, "We have to get these perfect before Santa and the elves come down the chimney! Otherwise he's going to get mad and tear up the whole house looking for food. We need to leave him loooottts and lots of cookies."

Teena Mulder cocked an eyebrow and let out a small laugh, "Where on earth did you hear that, Sam?" She set another perfectly flat stretch of dough in front of her daughter.

Samantha raised the cookie cutter, and got back to work, "From Fox."

Teena looked over at Fox who was grinning wildly. Teena and Bill had given him the "job" of eating the cookies left out for Santa years ago when he had stopped believing in Santa himself.  

"Is that so? Well, your brother is full of all kinds of information."

Fox's grinned widened, "Yeah, Mom. Santa can get preeeettty cranky when he doesn't get enough cookies at Christmastime..."

Teena shook her head with a smile, "Well, then, we'd better get this recipe perfected so that we can make him lots and lots of cookies this Christmas. Maybe if we make him enough he'll even shovel the walkway for us."

Teena gave a small wink to her son, who laughed, and shoved another small cookie into his mouth.

Samantha rounded up another cookie cutter, a bat this time since she had insisted on also using Halloween cookie cutters for the Christmas cookies, "You know what Alison Masterson told me?"

She pushed the cookie cutter into the dough and continued, not waiting for a reply, "She told me that only babies believe in Santa and the elves, and that elves aren't real. Are elves real?"

Teena looked over at her daughter. Samantha's brow was furrowed in concerned contemplation, and her pink cheeks contrasted with the white of the flour that covered her nose.

Teena brushed the flour from Samantha's nose, "You tell Alison Masterson that elves are real, and that you heard it straight from your mother."

Samantha's face lit, "Really? I will. Alison Masterson you think you know everything, but you don't. I mean, really..."  

Teena and Fox laughed at her dramatic little rant, that sounded remarkably like a perturbed woman from the country club.

"So how do you know elves are real?"

"Because, buttmunch, moms know everything," Fox said from the table, mouth full of yet another cookie.

"Yeah, but, I mean, did you see one or something?"

Teena shook her head, and took another baking sheet of cookies to the oven, "I haven't, no. But books are full of people who think they have. Folklore... fairy tales. I mean, the ideas for those stories must have come from somewhere."

Teena returned to the counter to see both Fox and Samantha watching her, waiting for more elvin proof.  Fox had always been interested in fantasy and mysterious beings, so it didn't surprise her that he was suddenly interested in the conversation.

Teena began rolling out more sugar dough as she talked, "Long ago, when I was a little girl just a few years younger than you, Sam, my grootmoeder and opa told me stories about the elves. The little people who lived between heaven and earth.  And how they would see them from time to time in the rising moonlight. Now, elves weren't anything like the kabouters who lived in dark caves. The elves were different. They were creatures of the air and of the light."

Teena looked up to see her children's gazes fixed on her, waiting for more.

She continued, "They told me that elves are little tricksters who love the kind and generous, and that they do nice things for people who are happy and pleasant. And that if you look very hard, you can sometimes see them playing and dancing in the moonbeams"

Fox was the first to speak, "Well, if they like the light, and let's say they were really real, could...well, could you maybe go outside and see them in the day? Like right now or something?"

He looked towards the waning sunlight that streamed through the window of the kitchen and Teena went back to rolling the dough, "Not according to grootmoeder. She said that they are too delicate for the heat and get burned by the bright sunlight, so they only come out to dance and play when the sun sets."

Sam's eyes were as big as saucers, and she looked over at her brother. Teena could tell instantly where this was headed.

"I want to go out tonight and look for them!" Sam practically shouted.

In an instant Fox was standing beside her at the counter, "Yeah! I mean, ya know, someone ought to go out with Sammy here to make sure that she stays safe..."

Teena smiled, "I'll tell you what. Once your father gets home, we'll make a big pot of drinking chocolate, take these cookies out to the porch, and you two can hunt for elves once we get you bundled up for the cold."  

Sam was already jumping up and down, Fox's grin couldn't have gotten any wider, and Teena couldn't remember a time when she had been so happy to make a batch of Christmas cookies.

~~~ Fin ~~~