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Title: Anabelle 02. Telling the Story Summary: Anabelle confronts Mulder about who she really is, and Mulder tells the story to Anabelle and Scully. This is the second story in the Anabelle series. The encouraging feedback sent by people really speeded up getting this part out. I recommend that you read Anabelle 01-Mulder's Secret first to get a handle as to what's happening in this story, but if you don't, here's the background. Anabelle is Mulder's daughter, but he gave her to his aunt to raise Anabelle as her own child. In the last story, Anabelle overheard Mulder and another Aunt talking and found out who she really was. Here, she's confronting him about it. Don't worry, Mulder and Scully will show up eventually. Story takes place in between 'Bad Blood' and 'Patient X'. Note: I'm fooling around a little with the timeline here. Going by Mulder's age, he graduated from High School in 1979 or 1980, and from the show he entered into Oxford in 1983. That leaves a big gap unaccounted for. For this story, he graduated from High School in '79, the year he turned 18, and from there went directly into Oxford until '86. This way it works out better with my plotline. After all, this is fanfic, I get to fool around with the time line a little bit. Note 2: Anabelle's character may seem a little different here, but this is the way I originally imagined her including the basketball and baseball(especially after 'the Unnatural')posters and sci-fi stuff from the first story. I just expanded her character a little bit. Feedback: Will be eagerly responded to at RhiaRamsay@aol.com Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are not mine. Anabelle Morgan is mine, and if CC wants to borrow her, he's going to have a hell of a time trying to make her fit into the show :) Friday, February 25, 1998 Anabelle Morgan was strange. She knew she was. She didn't deliberately try to be weirder than other, it just happened. The things she liked were not what the mass population liked. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. The new haircut suited her. It just brushed her shoulders and had bangs that dangled somewhere near her cheekbones. That wasn't the major change, though. The real change was her hair color. Starting with her bangs her hair was dyed every color of the rainbow, from her bright crimson bangs the colors had a stripe on either side of her head, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, meeting in a thick violet stripe on the back of her head. The best part was the look on everyone's face when she said it was permanent. Anabelle also liked to design and make her own clothes. It was another talent tossed up there with her ability to play the guitar and her attempts to play basketball and baseball and the stack of handwritten pages of parts of stories residing in the bottom of her desk draw. For some reason she just found herself dissatisfied with the clothes she saw in the stores, so she began to make her own. She could have more fun dressing this way anyway. Today she wore a short black skirt with a slit in the side (she did get some basics at stores) and a loose, dark red blouse. Underneath the blouse she wore a black corset-style tank-top she made from scratch ('thank God for books on how to make Victorian fashions,' thought Anabelle). It was actually an honest to God corset, but not pulled closed as tight as the old fashioned ones. The corset had little silver embroidery worked into it. She grinned at her reflection, her dark lined eyes squinting. Aunt Kate had freaked out when she saw some of the outfits she'd made, especially the ones based on something seen in medieval times. Her face twisted at a sudden grim thought and sat down on the bed to pull on her boots. She'd given up thinking up Aunt Kate as 'Mom' anymore, there wasn't any point to it. Or referring to her deceased Uncle David as 'Dad'. They weren't her real parents. Her real father was Fox Mulder, the man previously thought to be her cousin and closest relative. At her birth, she guessed, the decision was made to give her to be raised by Aunt Kate and Uncle David as their daughter. Anabelle could just imagine Mulder at her birth in April of '82: Twenty years old and probably a nervous wreck. He was in his third year of college at Oxford and still had four ahead of him. He wasn't in any condition to raise a child. Yet she saw him constantly. Around then Aunt Kate was working on an archeological dig right outside of Oxford for about five years, finishing up at almost the same time Mulder graduated. More often than not Mulder ended up baby-sitting her, and from her recollection he didn't mind one bit. But now, she was almost sixteen years old, aware of her true parentage, and ready to do something about it. It was time to tell Mulder what she'd overheard in the restaurant last week. See, Anabelle had a little thing about the truth: if she knew the truth, she didn't believe it should be hidden, at least in most cases. She figured it was another thing she'd inherited from him, along with the birthmark on her right cheek, although she didn't have his height. That was one thing that puzzled her. From what she'd overheard she made a guess as to her birth mother was, and realized she'd only met her once in her life in some godawful fiasco in Cornwall, England in 1991. Because of that, Anabelle had two long scars running the length of her back in a slight V shape, which caused some people to give her the name Angel Wings. Her birth mother, Jennifer Fairchild, she recalled with her photographic memory was very tall, very blonde, and had a perpetual tan. Anabelle barely hit 5'2", refused to tan (when she did she turned into a lobster), and Mulder's dark hair. Anabelle stared down at her knee high, high heeled boots. She had her plan for getting down to D.C. Right before 10:30 lunch she'd cut out, giving her thirty minutes to get to the 11 p.m. train to D.C. at Penn Station. Her eyes wandered to her gym bag in the corner of her room, stuffed beneath an old baseball jersey. The gym bag, which normally contained sneakers and sweats now held a trenchcoat, scarf, big sunglasses, and a long red wig courtesy of the High School drama department. Anabelle grimaced. That was the bad part about having a police captain for an uncle. Any sort of truancy had to be deftly executed. "Anabelle!" Aunt Kate's voice echoed throughout the old brownstone. "Hurry it up! You're going to miss the bus!" Anabelle sighed, reached for her gym bag and the other bag that served as a backpack/pocketbook. The other bag held no books today; she had no intention of doing any work. She ran out of the room and down the stairs to be met by Aunt Kate by the front door, dressed in a power suit. She had a big meeting with a museum today, and those things lasted for hours, she knew from experience, and that bought her plenty of time to get out of town safely. "Bye!" Anabelle said and pulled open the front door. "Wait a sec," Aunt Kate said, her short brown hair wiggling around her ears. Anabelle pulled up short on the stoop. "What?" she said, a little angrily. "Where's your jacket?" Aunt Kate questioned with her hands on her hips. "I left it in school," Anabelle lied adeptly. Actually her everyday jacket was hanging up in her closet. "I'll bring it home later," she said with a very Mulderish grin. With that Anabelle ran off down the stoop, her rainbow colored hair streaming behind her, in a mad attempt to get to school on time. Two black marks in one day would not go over well at all. Did it really matter that the other black mark would be for cutting? 10:30 a.m. J. Edgar Hoover Building Basement Office Dana Scully stared at the paper in front of her on the desk, but she didn't really see it. Ever since she'd woken up that morning she had a feeling of something. She wasn't really sure, but she could have sworn it was a feeling that something major was about to happen. She tried to dismiss it, but the feeling kept coming back, and Scully spent the rest of the day on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. Suddenly a warm, heavy hand dropped down on Scully's shoulder and she almost jumped out of her seat with surprise. She whipped around to see a slightly startled Fox Mulder standing behind her. She immediately became less wary and relaxed. "Sorry, Mulder," she said. "You okay?" he asked. "You seem a little jumpy today." Scully leaned back in her chair and sighed. "I'm fine," she said in her classic response. "You just startled me." Mulder's face suddenly broke into a grin. "Who else would ever come down to our basement hole to startle you," he said. Scully smiled a little. "No one who wants to climb to the top of the ladder," she quipped back. "I'm okay, Mulder," she reassured, and turned back to her desk. But Mulder's hand was on her shoulder once more. She twisted her head back to look at him. "Seriously, Scully, if anything's bothering you don't hesitate to tell me about it," he said softly. Scully reached her hand up and covered his with it. "Thanks," she said just as softly, "but I'm really okay. Don't worry." Mulder smiled at her once more before removing, with a slight bit of hesitation, his hand from hers and going back to his desk. At the same time Anabelle was breezing past Madison Square Garden and into the entrance to Penn Station. She was able to get out even earlier than expected due to the fact she had a substitute in the period right before lunch. The sub was a real newbie; he let her go down to the library, something subs weren't supposed to do. From there it was an easy step out of the building and into the crowds of a late morning in Manhattan. In a small, no questions asked diner Anabelle had put on the long red wig, buttoned on the trenchcoat with the fitted top and flared skirt, knotted the dark red silk scarf around her neck (a great find for five bucks at a thrift shop), and slid on the big black sunglasses. The gym bag folded up and was pushed to the bottom of her other bag. She was now Miss Cecily Clifton, in the states on vacation from England, in case anyone asked. This was the extreme measures she took to make sure she didn't get caught. After spending the first four years of her life in England she'd pretty much mastered all the nuances of their accent, although she guessed between Aunt Kate, Uncle David, Mulder, and his close friend Nicholas Slider she'd ended up with a properly American accent. Anabelle walked up to the ticket booth in Penn Station, put on her 'Miss Cecily Clifton' persona, and answered the question of "How may I help you?" "Yes I'd like one ticket on the 11:00 direct to Washington D.C." The teller punched in a few numbers on his computer. "That'll be thirty dollars. And how will you be paying for that?" he asked. "Cash please," Anabelle said. Cash was untraceable, she knew. Maybe she was being overly paranoid but she didn't want to take any chances. Besides, cash was all she had. She reached into her pocketbook, retrieved the money and handed it over. The teller handed her the ticket, and said "Have a nice day." "Thank you," Anabelle said with her accent, grabbed her ticket, and took a seat to wait until her train arrived. Within half an hour Anabelle was comfortably ensconced in the plush seat of the train chugging its way down to D.C. She reached into her bag and pulled out a book to read during the uninteresting ride. But she couldn't concentrate on it. Her head was too busy trying to figure out how exactly to break the news to Mulder. "Hi, guess what, I know I'm your daughter," wouldn't go over too well she knew. She figured she'd get to D.C. first and then call from there to ask him to meet her somewhere. "Let him stew for a while," she thought angrily, but then thought it out. She wasn't really angry with Mulder. She realized he was probably too much of an emotional train wreck at the time to do much of anything. She couldn't-or shouldn't-be mad at Jennifer Fairchild, she was dead. But the aunts and uncles, Mary, Tony, Kate, and Brigid, she could be pissed as hell at them. They made the choices from the beginning. She looked out the window, biting her silver polished nails in exasperation. 2:45 p.m. Basement Office Scully twisted her face into a grimace and childishly stuck her tongue out at the form she was filling out. Their latest case-or should it be fiasco?-in Texas resulted in a town full of missing people who Mulder believed were vampires, just barely escaping a 446 million dollar lawsuit, and a whole buttload of paperwork. She looked over at Mulder's empty desk, and wished he was back from his short break to help take her mind off the tediousness of the paperwork. The ringing of the phone shattered the stillness of the office. Scully gladly dropped the paperwork and reached for the phone. "Scully," she said. The voice that answered her was not one she was expecting. It was, to Scully, somewhere between a young child's voice and an adult's voice. It was a high, tentative voice, and could almost be termed musical except for the traces of a New York accent coloring her words. "Uh, hi, is Mulder there?" the voice asked. "Who is this?" Scully asked, pushing down the feelings of jealousy beginning to radiate from the pit of her stomach. For all she knew it was just a friend, but that irrational little voice in the back of her head kept wondering if he had a secret girlfriend somewhere. "Uh..." Scully could tell the woman was becoming very hesitant. "Uh..." Anabelle stuttered into the pay phone at the D.C. train station, tapping her foot nervously on the dirty floor. Scully sounded nice (Anabelle had never met her before), but she was damned sure Mulder hadn't told Scully who she was. He didn't even tell his ex-wife from what she could guess, though from all observations she knew Mulder was much closer to Scully than he ever was with his ex. "Uh...just a friend. Is he there?" she asked, biting her lip. "He's just stepped out of the room. He should be back any minute," Scully said courteously, but bells were starting to go off in her head. This could have been what was causing that feeling that something was about to happen. The door to the office opened and Mulder walked back in. His white dress shirt had the sleeves rolled up and his tie, a silk rendition of After Dark's flying toasters, was loosened around his neck. Scully covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. "There's a woman on the phone for you," she said to him, holding the phone out. Mulder took it from her and covered up the mouthpiece once more. "Who is it?" he asked, wrinkling his brow. Scully shook her head. "She didn't say." He put the phone to his ear. "Mulder." "Hiya, Mulder!" came Anabelle's familiar voice. "Anabelle?" Mulder said, his face wrinkling in puzzlement once more. She never called him at work. Scully looked up at him, although his face was intent on the phone in his hand. She guessed he knew the woman who called him and felt those jealous pangs begin anew in her stomach. With extreme will power she pushed them back down. "What's wrong?" he asked, expecting the worst. He moved to sit down on the edge of his desk, noticing Scully's eyes following him all the way. "I'm fine," Anabelle reassured over the slightly staticky connection. 'Is that static?' Mulder wondered, "because it sounds a hell of a lot like people.' "I just wanted to have a little talk with you," she continued innocently. Warning bells went off in Mulder's head. Innocent was not Anabelle Morgan's style. "Yeah, sure, what do you want to talk about?" he said. He looked over at Scully and saw her face was just as puzzled as his. Anabelle bit back a smile. It was going to be interesting to hear Mulder's reaction when she told him that she was right there in D.C. "Actually..." she began Mulder heard Anabelle's voice come over the lines clearly without a bit of hesitation. "Actually I really don't want to talk about this over the phone. D'you think I could meet you somewhere?" "You're in D.C.?" Mulder said, his voice raising above its normal volume. Scully startled at the outburst. "What the hell are you doing here? Why-" He was cut off by Anabelle's insistent and exasperated voice. "Look, this is really important. I really have to talk to you. How about I just meet you somewhere, say, I don't know, the Jefferson Memorial." Mulder grew serious at the sudden quietness of Anabelle's voice, indicating her own seriousness. "Okay, I'll be there as soon as possible," he soothed. "But what exactly is this about?" he asked, trying to get a better grip on things. He heard Anabelle take a deep breath. "Remember that conversation you had with Aunt Mary last weekend?" 'Conversation?' Mulder thought. 'What conver-', then the memory kicked in. Suddenly he felt his face go white and his blood run cold. 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,' ran through his head. Scully saw Mulder's face go white, whiter than she'd ever seen it. She walked over to him, nearly positive he was going to faint. She grabbed onto his arm, but he was still solidly sitting on the desk. She heard the woman's voice through the phone. "You guys talk awfully loud, Mulder, and you forget walls have ears. I'll see you soon then, kay?" She saw Mulder's head nod, and he said "Okay," and the other phone clicked off. Mulder let the phone slide out of his hand and let his head fall into his hands. Scully retrieved the phone from the floor and put it back in its cradle. She turned back to Mulder who still had his head in his hands. She sat down on the desk next to him and rubbed her hand across the back of his neck. "You okay?" she asked. Her former jealously was now replaced by intense curiosity about what was said to make him react like this, but she wasn't going to push him yet. He didn't look ready for it. "Yeah, I'm okay," Mulder said, straightening up and rubbing his hands over his face. "What was that all about?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Mulder groaned and Scully could have sworn she heard him mutter "Trouble." "Why's this woman trouble?" Scully asked, trying to figure out his problems. She also wanted to know exactly who 'Anabelle' was, but couldn't think of any way to put it nicely. Mulder looked at Scully with a solemn face. "Trouble just seems to follow her around." Before Scully could ask what that meant exactly Mulder began to speak again. "Look, Scully, I've really got to go meet her." He pushed himself off the desk and retrieved his suit jacket from the desk chair. Scully saw the signs of when Mulder was beginning to shut her out. She slid off the desk and turned to him quickly. "Mulder, who exactly is she? Are you sure you know what you're getting into?" Mulder finished putting on his suit jacket and sighed. "I don't really know what I'm about to get into, but I HAVE to do this." Scully's eyebrow raised in silent question. "Look," he continued, "why don't you come to my place for dinner tonight. I'll order a pizza, and then I'll tell you the whole story." Scully looked into his eyes. She could tell he was being honest and knew this was probably the best chance she'd get to ask any questions about the mysterious 'Anabelle'. "Okay, why not?" she said, shrugging her shoulders. Mulder's face broke into a slight grin. "Good. I'll see you then. I don't think I'll be coming back in today." He reached for his briefcase and piled in there a stack of paperwork. Then he walked over to the coatrack and put on his trenchcoat. "See you tonight, Mulder," Scully said in way of farewell. As he headed out the door he looked over his shoulder and grinned at her. "See you then," he said, and disappeared up the stairs. Scully sighed and turned back to her paperwork, all the while hoping that Mulder would come out of whatever he was about to get into safely. Mulder walked along the lined path having parked his car in a nearby lot. The bulk of the Jefferson Memorial loomed beside of him. He was hesitant to round the corner and head to the front of the building, yet at the same time knew he had to confront his fear. He turned the corner of the building and looked up the stairs of the memorial. There was a crowd of elementary school kids on a trip. His eyes slid around. There was a jogger in sweats ahead of him on the path. On the far side of the marble stairs there was someone sitting in a long black coat with multi-colored hair. Mulder drew up short. That had to be her. No one else he knew would be crazy enough or stupid enough to do that to themselves. He walked up the stairs towards her. Anabelle's rainbow colored head turned at the sound of the approaching footsteps, and her face broke into a sudden smile. "Glad you could make it," she said. Mulder sat down on the cold steps next to her, his trenchcoat folding under him. "Uh..." he stuttered, "I don't know what to say." Anabelle shifted her seat slightly, her coat falling open to reveal knee high boots with skinny heels. "Why don't you just tell me what happened," she said, her dark blue eyes boring into his hazel ones. Mulder leaned back and rested his elbows on the step above him. "Okay, uh, Jennifer, your mother-" "Jennifer, please," Anabelle said with a sick look on her face. "I can't think of her as a mother," she said, recalling the only time she met her. "Okay, you met her in college, you knocked her up, then what?" Mulder shot her a look. "Well, getting pregnant gave her the chance to get out of Oxford. The only reason she was there was because her father was paying for it. She didn't want anyone to know she was pregnant anyway. Her original plan was to give you up for adoption as soon as you were born." "I'm guessing you didn't like that idea?" He nodded. "Yeah. I didn't like the idea of handing you over to some strange family. It didn't feel right." Mulder shifted positions to rest his forearms on his legs. "And I guess I wanted to see you again, y'know, to help raise even if I wasn't ready for it." "So Aunt Kate and Uncle David took me in," Anabelle said calmly. Mulder looked at her. "It's Aunt Kate now? What ever happened to calling her mom?" Anabelle shrugged and looked off into the distance. "I just can't think of her that way anymore. Ever since last Saturday, things just changed." Mulder put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. By this time the school kids had cleared out and they could continue their conversation privately. "So then Jennifer had you, and handed you over to us." "Therefore absolving her of any maternal responsibility," Anabelle said with a sour look on her face. "So then what?" "Well you pretty much know the rest. You were supposedly born in Oxfordshire, England on April 1, 1982, to David and Katelyn Morgan. That's the official story. The only difference between that and the real story is the parents' names. After that we took you back to Oxford, you guys did have a flat there, Aunt Kate went back to her digging, and I got stuck baby-sitting you more often than not." "Okay, question," Anabelle said, her eyes darting up to the darkening sky. "Did Sess and Nick know who I was? They were your roommates." Cecily Duncan and Nicholas Slider were Mulder's roommates and probably the best friends he had during his Oxford years. Their sophomore year they pooled their money and managed to rent a flat for the rest of their time there. They were there for all the problems, Anabelle's birth, and a little problem named Phoebe Green. "Yes, they did. Actually they're the only ones outside the family who have any clue as to who you really are." Mulder looked down at her, still huddled under his arm. "Anymore questions?" Anabelle laughed humorlessly. "Oh, I got a whole stack of them." "Fire away." With her questions Mulder felt a sixteen year old weight lift off his chest. "What did the Aunts tell the family?" That was how they referred to the four MacKinnell sisters, as the Aunts, because someone was always an aunt to another. Technically, though, Mulder's mother didn't really count anymore. She'd pretty much separated herself from the rest of the family. Mulder winced. The lies were not his idea, but the Aunts, Mary, Katelyn, and Brigid, had decided this was the best way to make everything easier on the family. His own parents couldn't care less. His father was drunk, and his mother was the equivalent of stoned because of the Valium she'd been popping since Samantha's abduction. "Well, seeing as Aunt Kate was in England for over a year they just told Tam, John, and Barrett that you were hers. Ariel wasn't even born yet so that wasn't a problem there. Although I think Tam suspects that something's up with you and your 'parentage'." Anabelle straightened up under Mulder's arm. "Back up a second there. You said the only ones who knew outside of the family were Sess and Nick. What about your ex?" Mulder grimaced and leaned back on the stairs once more. By 'ex' Anabelle meant Diana Fowley, Mulder's ex-wife. It was a short, bitter marriage that fizzled in about two years. Basically he hated talking about it. In the almost six years he'd known Scully he'd only mentioned it once or twice. "No, she didn't know either." "Thank God," Anabelle muttered. Anabelle hated Diana. She'd even gone so far as to trip her down the stairs at Thanksgiving of 1989. Of course when Diana picked herself up off the floor Anabelle was nowhere in sight. Then, another thought occurred to her. "You didn't tell Scully either, did you?" "No," Mulder said, wrinkling his brow. "Not yet at least. Why?" Anabelle snorted in a most unladylike way. "I think you're going to have to." She looked over at his face, still puzzled. "Okay, I did a little research." He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. Her research, he knew, had gotten her into trouble before. "It wasn't anything too bad," she said with a contrite look on her face. "Just some looking through papers and a few discrete phone calls from a pay phone." "You are too damn nosy, Anabelle, you know that?" Mulder grumbled. "It's naturally inherent curiosity. And from what I can tell, it's inherited," Anabelle said, looking pointedly at him. Mulder shrugged. "Whatever. What did you find?" "It's Aunt Kate's latest dig. She's got a fully funded grant to go to Africa for two years for the Boston Museum. Which means I get shipped somewhere because if I was going with her she'd have told me already because her flight is scheduled for March 15th." "So where are you going?" Mulder asked. Anabelle grimaced slightly and looked skyward. "I think...they're sending me to go stay with you." She leaned back and waited for the outburst. 3...2...1... "What?!?" Mulder exploded. A whole list of reasons ran through his head for why he couldn't take a fifteen year old girl in. His schedule, he was hardly ever home. There was no space in his apartment for her, and on and on. But the fact remained that she was his daughter, and deep down he knew he'd do anything for her. "Yeah," Anabelle confirmed. "I found this out because she'd already registered me for school down here. You ever hear of Kensington Academy?" she asked somberly. Mulder nodded. "Yeah, it's that really ritzy high school that has a majority of senators and other politicians kids." He looked over at her. "They registered you there?" he said incredulously. "You're going to be in hell." "No shit, Sherlock. It gets worse: the tuition is already paid up for the remainder of this year and all of next year. The papers say my first day is March 20th," she whined, slumping against the marble wall that acted as banister for the steps. "I guess that means I better go apartment hunting," Mulder said with finality. "Yeah, your place now has been through the wringer anyway. Maybe it's time," Anabelle shrugged. Mulder grinned. "So any other 'big things' you need to tell me?" Anabelle bit her lip. "Uh...remember that song I was practicing for western civ last week? It wasn't really for western civ. I just wanted to give you that metaphorical kick in the ass you need relationship wise," she smirked. He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Do you ever learn?" "Nope. Although the same thing could be said about you." 6:00 p.m. Mulder's apartment Scully stood at the door to Mulder's apartment, afraid to knock. All afternoon her mind had been wondering who exactly 'Anabelle' was. The thoughts she could come up with frightened her. But her fear was overruled by curiosity and she rapped on the door. The door opened to reveal Mulder, changed into casual clothes just like herself. He was casually attired in a black V-neck sweater and jeans. "Hi," he said. "C'mon in." She stepped into the apartment and immediately the spicy smell of hot pizza assaulted her senses. She sniffed her approval. Mulder went into the small kitchen, retrieved the pizza, some plates, napkins, and two bottles of beer. Scully took the beer and plates from him and they settled themselves down on the couch, the pizza and other items setting down on the coffee table. Scully opened up the pizza box and dished the slices out. They ate in silence for a few minutes, the only noise was the TV softly blaring behind Mulder. After she finished her first piece she put the plate down and turned to Mulder. "All right, Mulder, spill it," she said. Mulder looked up innocently. "Hmm?" he said, his mouth full of pizza. "Anabelle, Mulder. Who is she?" Scully asked, folding her legs up under her. Mulder sighed and put his plate down on the table. He stared around the room, his eyes taking in every little detail. Scully picked up on the stalling and gently nudged his leg with her foot. He got the message. "Anabelle is my daughter." Scully felt her jaw drop. Of all the scenarios that had ran through her mind that afternoon that was not one she expected. Thoughts began running through her head. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" was what she managed to get out, albeit a little shakily. She'd known him to be secretive before but never to this degree. Mulder grimaced and leaned back against the arm of the couch. "Because Anabelle herself didn't find out I was her father until last week." With those words Mulder began to tell the story for the second time that day. "So no one aside from those few know who she is?" Scully asked, entranced by Mulder's story. She could picture a young Mulder faced with decisions that could affect his life and the life of a baby, yet at the same totally unprepared for what fate had thrown at him. Suddenly, she understood why Mulder hadn't told her before. He was only trying to make things best for his daughter. She would have done the same thing for Emily. "Nope. I hope you're not mad for me springing this on you now," Mulder said in a rare form of apology. She shook her head and covered his hands, clasped in his lap, with hers. "Don't worry about it. I understand." Mulder smiled sheepishly and let his head fall forward. "I just have one question. How was all this pulled off without anyone finding out about it?" Mulder leaned his head against the back of the couch, liking the feel of her hands on his a little more than should be liked for two people who were just friends. "Everything was off the record. I think Jennifer's obstetrician was an old friend of the family and did what she asked because of her father's money once more. Anabelle was born at her home, not at a hospital, so there's no records of a birth there. The birth certificate was filled out so Kate and David were the parents, and as for any other things that needed to be covered David had some friends in high places so they were able to cover up any involvement of Jennifer or myself that they didn't catch before. This thing is so secret not even the Gunmen know about her." Scully let out a little incredulous laugh. "The Gunmen don't even know this?" "If they'd have found anything relating to it they would have definitely confronted me about it. The thing is, I may have to tell them some thing soon. Kate's got another big dig coming up, and Anabelle's pretty sure she's getting shipped here. She found the application for an area school," Mulder sighed and ran his hands over his face. "If you need any help with this, Mulder, please don't be afraid to ask," Scully said, her heart going out to her best friend. "It's just...I never really thought of myself as a father before. Sixteen years later I still can't see myself as one. And now, all of a sudden, I have to be a father to a fifteen year old girl who hasn't had an easy life either and..." he trailed off, his body slumping against the couch. Scully stretched out on the couch and reached over to cup his face in her palm. "You'll do fine, Mulder. I've no doubt of that. But if you ever need any help at all with this, I'll be here." She smiled at him in a reassuring way that made his heart beat a little faster than normal. "Okay," he whispered, and grinned back. At that moment there was an insistent rapping on the door. Mulder reluctantly entangled himself from Scully's hands and got up from the couch. Now, the rapping began to sound more like kicking, or someone taking their anger out on his door. He pulled open the door, and groaned. "I thought you were going home," Mulder said to a very wet looking Anabelle, who was standing at his doorstep with her arms crossed over her chest. "Okay, one, it's snowing out in case you haven't noticed and everything is off schedule. Two, I called home but before I could even get out the word 'hello' I hear Aunt Kate ranting to someone in the background about 'Where the hell is that damn girl?' I can only assume they're talking about me. So I need a place to stay for the night while they cool off a little. Please?" she begged with inherited puppy dog eyes. Mulder closed his eyes and let his head fall to his chest, shaking it all the way down. "Fine," he said, and held the door open wide. "Get in here." Scully heard the voices at the door, one Mulder's familiar voice, and the other the voice from the phone that afternoon. She realized her earlier wondering of when she would meet Mulder's daughter was about to be fulfilled. Mulder walked back into the living room with Anabelle trailing behind him. He waved a hand behind him. "Scully meet Anabelle, who should have been on her way home by now," he said rolling his eyes heavenward. Anabelle walked over to where Scully was seated on the couch, stuck her hand out and smiled brightly. "It's great to finally meet you," she said honestly. Scully accepted the hand and smiled back. "Same here." Anabelle was not what Scully expected she'd look like. Mulder hadn't given her any details on her looks so she was truly surprised. Anabelle was only about her height and build when Scully expected her to have more of Mulder's height, with dark blue eyes and hair painted in every color of the rainbow. Anabelle turned to Mulder. "D'you have any sweats or something I could borrow? These clothes are soaked." "I'll find something," Mulder said, and walked into his little used bedroom. Anabelle moved to sit down on the couch next to Scully. "Y'know," Scully said to her, "this is not a thing I would expect to hear from Mulder," she said about that night's revelations. "Y'know what, me either," Anabelle said in a confidential voice. "But I'm getting used to the idea." She paused for a minute, but then spoke again. "So I can guess this one of those things you really didn't know about him." "Got that right," Scully said softly. "Kind of like the time you and Nick got a little carried away with that speaker system for that music appreciation class," Anabelle yelled in Mulder's direction. "No!" Mulder's voice came out of the bedroom. "Don't say a word about that!" Anabelle turned back to Scully. "Y'know, I've got some real interesting tales about the old college years at Oxford, if you want to hear them." Scully grinned widely. "I'd love to hear it." In the bedroom they heard Mulder's groan of exasperation. The Next Morning Mulder felt something shaking his shoulder. He mumbled and pulled his warm blanket closer to him. He didn't notice his blanket beginning to stir. Finally he regained his senses and realized his 'blanket' was actually Scully, sleeping on top of him from where they had both sacked out last night. Anabelle, who was now insistently poking his shoulder, had taken the seldom used bed for herself. He heard Scully sigh, try to lift herself off him, but then gave up the effort and collapsed back on top of him. His arm automatically went back around her waist. "Look, I'm going to get going," Anabelle said, standing over him and Scully. "It's stopped snowing, and I better get home before the shit really hits the fan. I'll talk to you again soon, but you're going to be the one to tell the Aunts that I know 'The Big Secret'. It's your secret more than mine, and they're mad at me enough already. I'll see you soon, Dana. Bye, Mulder," she said, and breezed out the door. Scully snuggled closer into Mulder's chest. She hadn't meant to fall asleep there really, but it had gotten late, the snow was still coming down, and to be honest she was having fun listening to the things that had happened to him in college. Some time after Anabelle had went to bed, claiming Mulder's seldom used bedroom on account she was a guest. They had stayed up late to watch a movie. Scully figured she must have dropped off during it and Mulder soon after. They must have moved in their sleep. The last thing she remembered was sitting next to Mulder, her head beginning to fall sleepily on his shoulder. Somehow she ended up sleeping on top of him, acting as a living blanket. She'd never admit it out loud, but she liked waking up with him holding her. "I like her," she said. "That's just because she told you all those humiliating stories about me," he said, pulling a blanket off the back of the couch. Within minutes the two agents had fallen back asleep, never realizing their hands were intwined on the soft leather of the couch. Later That Day Anabelle pushed open the door to the basement kitchen of the New York City brownstone. Gathered around the table was Aunt Kate, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Tony, Mary's husband who was a rather influential person in the N.Y.P.D. "Where the hell have you been?" they all chorused. She smiled at them. "Taking a mental health day," she said. It was true. The secret she'd been carrying for a week was off her chest and she was feeling truly better. Now, it was up to Mulder to tell the rest of them. "I should ground you for a year for this," Aunt Kate grumbled. "Yeah, but I still wouldn't learn from it, so it's a futile effort," Anabelle grinned. Aunt Kate waved a hand in the air. She knew in a few weeks Anabelle would be living with someone else in a few weeks. He was the investigator, he could figure out where the hell she spent the last twenty-four hours. "Whatever," she said with finality. Anabelle smiled and headed up the stairs towards her bedroom. Things were looking up. End
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