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Title: Anabelle 09. Book of Secrets Summary: Does one secret have the power to change the lives of three people? From a long time ago..."Two years later...anyone remember this series? I'm going to be posting this as a WIP, so please don't get upset at any cliffhangers." Those were the original notes, or at least from the original version of this part. These are the real ones. It's finally finished. After nearly three years, countless versions, supportive friends, and wonderful betas, this thing is finally ready for the world. It's the so-called 'big part' of the series, where things really happen. I'd just like to say thanks for waiting for this, and I truly hope that you enjoy it. And I'd like to thank my three wonderful betas: Maeve, for having patience with me and listening to me ramble; Brie, for putting up with my random questions and plotlines that may or may not happen, and for her lovely handwritten betawork (Hershey 2002! Can Bob the Builder pitch a tent? *veg*); and XL, for, amidst all the missing e-mails, the best damn beta and support. Thank you, all of you. :-) One more thing: I'm gonna be blunt here. You HAVE to read the stories that come before this otherwise I guarantee you will be lost. You can find them at http://www.zilmamebrika.org Disclaimer: Anabelle Mulder is mine, and some random other characters are also mine. Anyone you recognize from XF isn't mine. Archiving: I'll send it to Gossamer. It should go to Ephemeral through all-xf, so that's fine there. If any lists I'm on have archives, it's okay there too (I haven't been on mail for a while, I'm out of the loop). Zilma, you always have anything I do. Anyone else, please ask first before archive this, thanks. Feedback: Will be appreciated, especially with this series. Send it to LolaRavenhill@yahoo.com or RhiaRamsay@aol.com May 26, 1998 The night was dark and silent, the air heavy with the heat that ushered in the late spring. The woman slipped into the house silently, careless of the illegal act. Dr. William Aries, the homeowner, was out of town, the perfect time to carry out her mission. She was certain he wasn't stupid enough to bring such sensitive files out of the safety of his home. The plan was simple: retrieve the patient files before they could be returned to the patients themselves. She refused to let it happen. The personal information was never meant for consumption - the patients themselves didn't know thee files existed, and it was going to stay that way. She moved throughout the large house, wondering which room should be her first stop. Would Aries be creative and secrete the files away somewhere, or would he hide them in plain sight? She walked into his office. Sitting down at his desk she began to rifle through the papers lying on top. It was a waste of time though; the papers weren't amidst the scattered contents of the desktop. With a flick that pushed her light blond hair back over her shoulders, she moved on to picking through the drawers. Still the search revealed nothing, much to her frustration. She finally gave up and stared around the room, looking for places that could hide a bundle of papers. Spotting the pictures on the walls, she silently moved towards them. With strong fingers she ripped open the backings on all of them, hoping to find what she was searching for. Nothing! She sighed angrily and leaned back against the wall. There weren't any safes hidden behind the pictures and filing cabinets were absent from the room. She moved on. The next place she decided to try was Dr. Aries' bedroom. As she was on the stairs she heard a creaking noise behind her, and froze in her steps. Next came the sound of footsteps, and then the beam of light from a high power flashlight. At the foot of the stairs appeared a uniformed police officer. "Ma'am, you're under arrest for breaking and entering." 'Shit,' she thought. She was positive she had taken care of the alarm, but her efforts apparently failed. She was not, by far, a trained thief, but she knew enough to make a plan to escape. As the cop made his way up the stairs he began to read the Miranda Rights. "You have the right to remain silent. If you give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law-" That's when she made her move, as the cop was pushing her up against the wall, getting ready to handcuff her. She shoved back against the cop, sending the mass of flesh flying into the other wall and pushing him off balance. The flashlight hit the steps with a clatter, splintering their sharp-angled shadows. Then she dashed down the stairs, taking the steps several at a time. She ran through the corridors of the house, skipping around furniture and corners. Finally, the front door loomed ahead of her and she burst through it, running into the surrounding forest. A trained thief would have remembered gloves. She'd left her fingerprints all over the house. May 28, 1998 6:45 a.m. Silence greeted Anabelle Mulder as she entered the living area of the apartment. Usually she was greeted by the sounds of her father, Fox Mulder. Oftentimes he was in the room, making coffee, looking over files, things like that. But now you could see the dust settling. Which was pretty damn weird. She pushed further into the living room, almost tiptoeing for fear of disturbing something in the air. Anabelle couldn't put her finger on it, but something felt very wrong. Feeling nervous, she tugged at the hem of her skirt, twisting the fabric between her fingers. Her footfalls were the only noise in the room, practically the only noise in the house aside from her breathing. Her eyes scanned the room, landing on the comfortably worn furniture that had traveled with them from Mulder's old apartment. Various items of both Anabelle's and Mulder were littered across the living room. All in all, nothing looked out of place. Except for the pristine piece of white paper propped up on the kitchen counter. "Oh, shit," Anabelle said aloud, even though no one else was there to hear her. That one piece of paper had the power to make her relax or turn her into a frazzled bunch of raw nerves. She was betting on the latter; her track record had never been good at things like that. Knowing that waiting would just make it worse, she swooped down on the counter and snatched the letter up. The quick movements of her hands opened the folds of the paper, and she began to read rapidly. "Belle, First off, I know you're going to show this to Scully, so I won't bother telling you not to. Secondly, I have to go away for a few days. I can't go into detail about it, but it is incredibly important that I go. Tell Scully that no matter how much she'd like to kick my ass for ditching her, she cannot try to find me and follow me. As much as this bothers her (and, I'm betting, you) this is for both of you, to try and keep you safe. If things go as I think they do, we'll probably have a lot to talk about when I get back. Mulder" The first thought that crossed her mind--well, there wasn't a thought, just a speechless look of blank shock. The second thought was, 'I have got to tell Dana about this.' A quick glance at the clock told her that she could run to her apartment and catch her just before she left for work. Without another thought she crumpled the letter in her hand and ran out of the apartment, not even remembering to lock the door behind her. Boot covered feet pounded the Georgetown pavement in a rather painful fashion. But the pain of overworked feet and lungs was ignored until she found herself stomping up the stairs to Scully's apartment. With an exhausted sigh she collapsed against the wall next to the door and reached out a tired arm to bang on it and announce her presence. As she rested there panting the door was pulled open to reveal Scully, one hand occupied trying to put an earring in. The look on her face suddenly became puzzled at the sight of Anabelle. The words "What are you doing here?" were barely out of her mouth when Anabelle shoved the letter into her hands. Scully's eyes widened with comprehension, anger, and a slew of other emotions as she read over the letter. "When did he leave?" she asked. "I don't know," Anabelle shrugged, moving into the apartment. "He was there when I went to sleep, that was about 11:30. I woke up at 6, but I can't be sure that he was there then, I went straight into the shower and I don't remember hearing anything." Towards the end of her speech she had started to ramble nervously, so Scully took the chance to calm her down. "It's okay, Anabelle, it's okay." "He's done this before, right?" Anabelle said nervously. "This isn't anything that out of the ordinary." Scully nodded, glancing down at the paper again. "Yeah," she sighed. "Ditching is an art he's mastered in all its forms." "Will he be okay?" Scully looked up to meet the younger girl's eyes, which were wide and blue and blinking. "I hope so." With that statement Anabelle's frantic demeanor seemed to change and she slouched against the doorjamb with resignation. "So what can we do?" "You're going to go to school," Scully said firmly. Anabelle gave her a look, but Scully didn't budge one bit. "That's the best thing you can do right now, to try and make it through the day." Anabelle nodded, even though she felt like making it through this day was going to be an impossible feat. "Well, what about you? What are you gonna do?" Scully's spine seemed to straighten with knife-sharp resolve. "I'm going to start looking for him." An arched eyebrow that she seemed to pick up from Scully herself greeted this statement. "Didn't he say not to look for him?" "That's never stopped me before," Scully practically smirked. "Still, the best thing for you is to go to school and go about your everyday business. Let me worry about finding him." She glanced down at her watch. "And I think that if you run you'll be able to catch the bus." Anabelle glanced down at her own watch, and winced. "Yeah. Thanks so much, Dana. I'll call later and see if you've found anything." She spun on her heel, ready to dash back out the door, but the long necklace she was sporting became tangled on the lock. She hurriedly pulled it loose and ran off. Only when she was sitting on the bus panting for air that she was able to check out the damage to the necklace. It was a rather pretty necklace that she had unearthed from one of the still-packed boxes the night before. The chain was a simple, delicate silver, but the charm dangling from it was the interesting part. It was a silver five-pointed star, covered in twisting vines and leaves that made it look as if it were grown, and not hammered out by a metal smith. She used to think that it was a locket, that some of the vines almost looked like a lock for a tiny key, but closer investigation proved it was just a necklace. She almost marveled at the strange timing of finding the necklace, because she remembered that Mulder had given the necklace to her years ago, while they were still back in England. In those times, he was almost always there when she needed him. But now... 'I'm gonna kick your ass when you get back,' she thought, looking in the window at her grim reflection. Later That Day With a growl that resembled that of a frustrated animal Scully flopped back into Mulder's desk chair. There was no sign of Mulder anywhere. She'd gone through the usual stops trying to find him. First, on her way to work, she drove past the apartment and noticed a detail Anabelle hadn't noticed: Mulder's car was missing. She didn't have any real cause to check the plane manifests, but her gut said that Mulder was behind the wheel of a car, either his own or someone else's, somewhere. Once Scully had gotten to work a quick call to Skinner's secretary proved that Mulder had requested five days off for personal reasons. Finally she tried his cell phone, so many times that her finger almost blistered. Shocker that it was, the phone was turned off. She reached out and pulled the note to Anabelle off the desk. Judging from what Mulder said in it, he was onto something big. She just wished that he would have shared it with her. And if it was something that involved her.... she'd really kick his ass when he got back. Aside from Mulder's concern for the two of them, she couldn't divine anything else from the letter. Her eyes flitted back over the desk as she tossed the letter back to its former position, and they landed on something fairly out of place. Stuck in the frame of the picture of Samantha was the picture of her and Mulder when they were kids. Mulder was not usually the picture on the desk person. Samantha's picture was a mainstay, but nothing else. There wasn't even a picture of Anabelle there (which could be attributed to the fact that no one at the bureau knew of her existence, and the picture of a teenaged girl on his desk could lead to more questions than he wanted to get into). In the few weeks since the picture had surfaced they hadn't talked about it aside from that one afternoon. There just didn't seem to be a good time that wasn't truly awkward for either one of them. However she was damn sure that the picture wasn't in the office a couple of days ago. She couldn't imagine what had prompted Mulder to pull it out again, unless... Scully's brain seized on that thought. Did the sudden appearance of the picture have something to do with why he left? She was leaning forward to pull the picture from the frame when her knuckles brushed against something, giving her a paper cut. As she hissed with the slight pain she saw what had cut her. Stuffed under the desk blotter was a file folder, now tinged slightly red with a drop of her blood. Scully tugged it out from under the blotter. It was a blank manila folder, with no distinguishing markings on it. Hoping that it could possibly help her find Mulder's whereabouts, she flipped it open. Inside the folder was an unremarkable stack of papers, at least at first glance. Once she started reading them, however, it was another story. Almost every paper had to do with Jennifer Fairchild, Anabelle's birth mother. The first few pages were just general information, from birth certificate (June of 1961) to death certificate (Summer of '91), and some legal documents tossed in between. As she made her way through to the center of the stack Scully's stomach began to twist uneasily. The next set of papers outlined a medical problem that Jennifer had when she was fifteen years old. The papers weren't quite clear about what was wrong with her, but they were crystal about the end result. Because of this illness, Jennifer's ovaries were removed in order to save her life. Scully leaned back, landing hard against the chair. Assuming the documents were real, it would mean that it would be impossible for her to get pregnant without medical intervention. Things were not making sense to her. She obviously didn't want Anabelle; that was apparent from what Mulder had said to her about the situation at the time. He also said that the pregnancy was definitely unexpected. Scully was nearly positive that he hadn't been to any fertility clinics at the time, and in vitro fertilization was only in its infancy at that time, not something a college girl who didn't want a baby would go through. So, if she assumed that Jennifer could not get pregnant on her own, how the hell did she have Anabelle? She would also bet ten to one that this was what Mulder was investigating. It was understandable why he wouldn't tell Anabelle about it, but she couldn't puzzle out why he wouldn't tell her. There was something truly odd going on, and Scully didn't like it one bit. 5:00 p.m. Two days later and there was still no word from Mulder. Scully had almost reached the 'tearing her hair out with frustration' stage. At least with most of the other times Mulder took off she'd have some idea why, if not where, he'd run off. Now all she had was a cryptic note, a file of paper which may or may not have had something to do with it, and one very nervous and very scared teenager. Anabelle was taking the whole situation a lot worse than Scully was. From what Mulder told her, the girl's mental state was still on shaky ground, and weekly therapy was still a necessity. In the past two days she had degenerated into a nervous train wreck. Scully had therefore made the decision not to share the papers she'd found with her. She neatly stacked some magazines on the coffee table, making sure the room looked all right. Anabelle was going to be staying with her for a few days (or until Mulder returned). Anabelle had insisted that she would be fine on her own, but Scully got the feeling that she was just putting on a brave front. Also, this way Scully could make sure she ate and slept a little. It was doubtful that she had been doing those things on her own. There was a loud thudding on the door, signaling Anabelle's arrival. Scully pulled the door open to see a tired looking girl--complete with cat accessories. Said cat was teetering awkwardly on her shoulder. "I couldn't bear to leave Grimma home alone," Anabelle explained with a half shrug of her free shoulder, which sent the cat scrabbling for a hold. Scully eyed the litter box warily. "It-it's okay. We'll just find an out of the way place for that," she replied, motioning to the tray in her hands. A couple of minutes later the box was stashed in THE farthest, out of the way corner of the apartment possible and Anabelle was sitting on the couch picking uneasily at her nails. "Have you heard anything from him yet?" she called out to Scully. "Same as two hours ago," Scully replied, sitting on the other end of the couch. "No word yet." Anabelle huffed and slumped back into the couch. "And you're sure he didn't leave any hints behind?" "Positive," Scully said, resisting the urge to grind her teeth. It was probably the tenth time that day alone that she had heard that question. Anabelle was well meaning, but she could get annoying. It must have been a family trait. Anabelle must have caught on to Scully's irritation though, because she grimaced and rubbed her palms on her jeans. "I'm sorry. It's just...I've never been through this before. All the time I've heard about these disappearing acts it's always been after the whole thing happened, and from Mulder's point of view. Hearing about everything like that, it always seemed like some sort of great adventure. "But now? Huh. I thought I'd freaked out when Mulder ended up in the loony bin for a while, you remember that? Granted, it could have been because of my own fears, but I was still all panicky." She took a deep breath. "Do you ever get used to it?" "No," Scully shook her head. "You don't get used to it. I know why he does it though. He's just trying to protect us. But I still have to resist the urge to strangle him afterwards." She said with a grin, and Anabelle let out a little giggle. "He always tries to protect me, you know?" Anabelle said. "I used to think it was sort of weird. But since what's happened in the last few months I understand why he's always acted like that. Looking back, he has been more of a father to me than David Morgan usually was." She cleared her throat roughly. "D'you have anything to drink here? My throat's kinda dry." "Sure," Scully said, getting up. "Water okay?" At Anabelle's nod she headed into the kitchen. Scully had always suspected that the situation between Mulder, Anabelle, and the rest of their family was a little more complicated than the history he had given her. The unspoken dynamics that existed in every family were especially tense in that one. Did they love each other? Scully guessed yes, but the other things in there, between Samantha, Anabelle's existence, David's death, and everything else, had put some strains in there that weren't going to be mended anytime soon. Scully's mind was sorting through various possibilities for the family, when Anabelle's voice floated into the kitchen. "Please tell me I'm not reading this correctly and that days of worry and sleep deprivation have affected my vision to the point that I'm hallucinating." Scully turned to see the infamous file being held aloft in Anabelle's hand. "Where did you get that?" She could have sworn she'd put it back in her desk when she was finished. "On the table, under a pile of magazines." She smirked a very bitter smirk. "I was looking for something to read and guess what I found." The arm holding the file dropped. "So is it true?" "Which part?" Scully stalled, wishing the conversation in front of her would just go away. "The part that says it was medically impossible for Jennifer to be my birth mother." Scully's silence and glance towards the floor was answer enough. Anabelle groaned and sank to the floor. She covered her face with her hands and resisted the urge to scream. Scully sat down next to her and wrapped her arm around Anabelle's shoulder. "How the hell did this happen?" Anabelle whispered through her fingers. Scully shook her head. "I don't have the slightest idea. It can be explained medically, how she could have become pregnant using someone else's ova, but it wouldn't make sense from what you and Mulder told me about her and the situation." Anabelle pulled her hands from her face and turned slightly teary eyes to Scully. "D'you think this is what Mulder disappeared to investigate?" "Given that I found this file in his office, I'd have to say that he is probably looking into it," Scully said carefully. "There is a test we can do," she continued slowly. "I haven't been able to authenticate these papers. I don't know if what they're saying is true. There is a test though, that takes a couple of hours. It would basically tell us if Jennifer is a possibility for your genetic mother. It wouldn't confirm it, but it could definitely rule her out. The only thing we would need are samples from you and Jennifer, some saliva, or skin." "Would hair work?" Scully nodded. "Yeah." Anabelle nodded thoughtfully. "I think we have some of her hair back home actually." She smirked cruelly. "In one of her more romantic periods years ago, when they were first dating, she cut off a lock of her hair, tied it in a ribbon, and gave it to Mulder as a keepsake. He found it again when Jennifer killed herself, used it to confirm that the body was hers. I don't know why he kept it, even now." "That'll work just fine," Scully murmured, giving her a one armed hug. J. Edgar Hoover Building 6:35 p.m. The curvy brunette walked into the room, tugging her lab coat on. "Dana, this better be good." Scully, leaning back against a counter, grinned and looked over at Anabelle. "Nancy Leopold, meet--" "Anabelle Morgan," she introduced herself. Scully shot her a puzzled glance, and she shrugged slightly. She'd explain later. "Nan's an old friend of mine from high school," Scully continued. "We're lucky that she's here tonight." "It's not luck, I drew the Friday night shifts this month because I don't have luck," Nan said, with a sly look towards Anabelle's odd hair. "So you wanted me to do a test for maternity?" "Yeah. This," she held out the baggie full of hair, "and Anabelle." Nan took the hair and moved over to one of the counters. "Is this for a case? Or just out of curiosity?" "Just curiosity," Scully said, trying to keep the nervous feeling contained to her stomach. "Okay, we'll keep this off the record." Nan moved over to Anabelle, brandishing a swab. "I just have to swab the inside of your cheek, that'll be enough." Anabelle opened her mouth and stood there uneasily, looking pained, even though the process was over in a matter of seconds. "And there you go. I'll just run this through, and in a couple of hours I'll have your answer." Anabelle let out a huge sigh, and Scully smiled at her. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" "It's not just that, you know," Anabelle said. "I do," Scully agreed. "We're not going to do any good waiting around here though." "Got that right," Nan called out from the other side of the room. "You'll just annoy me hanging around here." "Friend of yours, huh?" Anabelle smiled. "Come on," Scully said, leading her out of the room. "I'll show you where we work." Once they had left Nan exhaled sharply and resisted the urge to bang her head against the counter. She'd been dreading this day for a long, long time. Oh well. At least no one can say that she was the one who gave away this secret first. All she had to do now was perform a simple test for an old friend. ** I realize I'm taking a lot of liberties with the 'science' in this part, so please bear with me. ** "Man, I haven't been in this place for a long time," Anabelle said as Scully pushed open the door to the office. "You've been here before?" Scully asked, moving towards the desk to look at some of the papers she'd left there earlier in the day. "Long ago, probably right after Mulder and Diana got divorced. Late 91', probably," she said, sitting down in the desk chair and spinning it around once. "It was a lot less cluttered then." Both women fought hard to push down the feelings of distaste that rose at the mention of Diana's name. Scully looked around at all the things packed into the office, and wondered just how long it had taken Mulder to accumulate it all. "So what do we do until the test results are back?" Anabelle continued. "It'll be a few hours until Nan finishes the test." She sat down at her work area. "I'm going to work on some of this paperwork until we hear from her." Anabelle pushed some multicolored hair behind her ears and turned to the computer. "All right, let's see if I can get to the internet from here." After countless games of solitaire, a sheaf of paperwork, five web pages, and a game of garbage can basketball, the call came. Scully answered the phone and hung it up a couple of seconds later. "They're ready," she said. The two women walked out of the office and headed upstairs. Nan took a deep breath, crossed her arms over her chest, and silently rehearsed her lines. She knew the results were correct, had known even before the test had been run. Now she had to act surprised. Nan also had to get a sample from Dana was well, to prove it to her. 'Just go look in a mirror' wasn't a comment her friend would react well to. She ran a hand through her wispy brown hair, and sighed. Seventeen years ago on that road trip she'd never imagined that things could turn out like this. They'd strongly suspected she was pregnant, even went out to buy the test. But things went to hell, and Dana disappeared. A month had passed, and finally Dana turned up in a hospital, with no memories of the whole summer. To makes things unimaginably worse, Nan and the other girl they traveled with were threatened: silence or death. You tell her anything about boys or babies and it's your head. It was an easy choice for her to make. It was a choice she regretted now, and hoped that maybe through this she could sort of put things right. Scully and Anabelle walked through the door, and Nan bit the inside of her lip. "You said you had the results?" Scully asked, closing the lab door behind them. "Yeah," Nan said, moving to pick up the printed results. "According to my tests, whomever this hair sample belongs to, there is a 99.999 and on and on percent chance that she is not your mother." She glanced up at Anabelle's suddenly pale face, and the hand Scully had placed on her upper back. "I don't know if those are the results you wanted or not, but that's what they turned out to be." She sucked in a lungful of air, and continued. "I also found something else that was a little bit odd. I ran some other tests while I was doing this one..." Nan directed her glance towards Scully. "Is there any chance, Dane, that her birth mother could be related to you? Because in those other tests I found a few similarities with some of the genetic records that you have on file here." With a puzzled look, Scully moved closer to her. "What other tests did you run?" "Just some basic genetic ones," she hedged, all the while knowing that there weren't any other tests, she was just going on instinct. "I can take a swab from you, if you'd like, just to be sure. Maybe this genetic thing is just a mistake. It's late, and I spent the night awake with a son who couldn't sleep, maybe I'm just seeing things. But it can't hurt." She watched Scully and the teenager trade a look, and mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that she could get the sample. "Okay," Scully finally said. Nan silently picked up another swab and ran it over the inside of Dana's mouth. "Give me a few hours to do my magic on this. Go out, get something to eat, and when you come back, I should have something." "I could use some food, Dana," Anabelle said, even though the paleness of before had morphed to a slightly green shade now. Or maybe it was just the light reflecting off her hair. "All right," Scully said. "Thanks again, Nan. You don't know what a big help you've been." "Anytime," she replied as they walked out of the lab. 'Don't start thanking me yet,' she thought. 'I get the feeling results I'm going to give you will confuse you so much you won't know which way is up anymore.' She turned back to her workstation. Maybe she'd just leave the results on Dana's desk and run for home... In the streets around FBI headquarters were plenty of little bars and restaurants where one could go to get food and drink. Scully and Anabelle entered one and, despite the heavy Friday night crowd, found an empty table. After they had ordered, Scully a chicken salad and Anabelle soup and a veggie burger, Scully spoke. "How are you doing?" Anabelle sighed and fiddled with the strap to her black tank top. "I have no idea. This could mean so many things. My brain hurts just thinking about what it all means." Scully took a sip of her water. The next question that was on her mind wasn't a pleasant one. "I hate to ask this," she started, "but I think I have to. Is there a chance that Mulder might not be your biological father either?" She shook her head. "I know he's my dad. I had actually asked him the same thing when everything first started to hit the fan, because I don't trust Jennifer Fairchild worth a damn." "With good reason." Anabelle nodded. "Uh-huh. Mulder told me that right after I was born he had a paternity test done himself, because there were some...oddities, I guess, around the time I was conceived, summer of '81. Basically, Mulder had disappeared for a while. Not disappeared, really, but ran off. Legend according to Nicholas Slider has it that he and Jennifer got into a really bad blowout fight, and Mulder ran off to cool his heels for a while." That sounds typical, Scully thought. "It was the end of May, there were no classes to attend, so why not leave? Eventually Nick got a phone call a few months later, right before school started that year, saying that Mulder had been in a pretty bad car accident somewhere in Scotland. Nick went up to claim him and took him back to Oxford. Really mangled up. From what I've heard, it wasn't a pretty sight. "When he got back, Jennifer was pregnant. That's why the blood test, which showed that Fox Mulder is definitely my biological father." Anabelle exhaled and grabbed for her iced tea. "Boy, what a mouthful." "This whole situation keeps getting more and more confusing," Scully said, leaning back against the padded booth. "Got that right," Anabelle agreed. She was silent for a moment, fiddling with the star necklace she'd been wearing for the past few days. "Dana, can I ask you a question?" she blurted out. "Sure." Anabelle bit her lip. "Do you think that it's bad of me to be sort of relieved that Jennifer isn't my biological mother?" Scully sighed, and wished she had something stronger than water to drink. "Why do you feel relieved, first of all?" She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Remember what she did to me? It hurt so much, not only what she did to me, but that it was my own mother. It's one of the many reasons I'm still struggling through therapy. To know that it wasn't my mother treating me that way, it makes me feel a little better." "Then I don't think it's wrong or bad of you to feel that way, not at all," Scully assured her. "She hurt you in a very serious manner, in a way no mother should hurt her child. I think it'd be very natural for you to feel some relief at not being connected to her in this way." Anabelle nodded, running a hand through her hair. "I hate to be a pest, but can I ask another question?" "Go ahead." Scully had lots of questions herself, but there wasn't anyone out there that she knew of right now who could answer him. 'Mulder, when you get back, we have so much to talk about,' she thought. "If Jennifer had her ovaries removed, how could she still carry a child?" "Well, I mentioned before that it would be possible with someone else's ova, right?" "Yeah, but from what I remember of Jennifer, the only way she'd do that was if you paid her dearly," Anabelle grumbled. She rubbed her forehead with her hand, covering up her eyes for a moment. "If Mulder was here, he'd be calling it a freakin' conspiracy." "It is very confusing," Scully agreed. She took a deep breath, and wondered how much she should share with Anabelle. Belle wasn't totally naive, but Scully was pretty sure that she hadn't been filled in on the workings of the conspiracy and all their factions floating around out there. If she stayed with them though she would eventually be exposed to them anyway. "There is a group of men out there that Mulder and I have been investigating, a sort of conspiracy that operates outside the governmental boundaries, that have the ability to do this sort of thing. Mulder's father, your grandfather, had thrown his lot in with these people when he was a young man. They've been experimenting on people for years. These were the people who abducted me four years ago. "They also created a daughter with my ova, taken from that abduction. I only learned about her last December. She passed shortly after I met her due to an illness she had suffered with her whole life." Scully looked up to meet Anabelle's wide eyes. "I believe that these people could have easily made Jennifer pregnant with someone else's ova. For what purpose, I haven't the slightest idea." "I'm sorry," Anabelle exhaled after a short pause. "That must have been so hard." Scully nodded. "It was. But Mulder was able to help, just by being there." She quieted for a moment, flashing back to that time. Her family didn't believe her, thinking she was grasping at the straws left behind by infertility. Mulder was there though, supporting her, standing up for her even if he didn't agree. Even when she told herself she didn't need his help... "I didn't believe it myself, that things like this could happen, but there is proof out there. Emily was proof. There's a chance that you could be proof also." She grimaced. "I don't like the idea of being proof of a conspiracy." "I don't either," Scully agreed. Their food came and they spent a few minutes eating, lost in thought. "Okay, I've got a really odd thought," Anabelle said after a while. "It's...it's really out to lunch, but it's just a what if." "What is it?" Scully said, putting her fork down. Anabelle fidgeted in her seat, an uncomfortable look on her face. "Okay. You know how the tests Ms. Leopold did showed that whoever my biological mom is is related to your family. Well, what if it turns out that you are my biological mother? What if they'd done it to you before, and you just don't remember?" Scully was lucky she had put the fork down, otherwise it would have hit the table after that statement. "I, I don't know what to say to that." "You don't have to say anything," Anabelle shrugged, picking at the bun to her veggie burger. "It's just an idea." "I'm not sure I like the idea," Scully said softly. "Because if it's true, it means that there's a good chance that you weren't conceived between two people who loved each other, but that you were possibly created for a purpose. And I don't like that." Belle seemed to shrink into herself, and knotted her hands together. "For what it's worth, I'd rather you turn out to be my mom than Jennifer or some stranger." "For what it's worth, me too," Scully replied softly. There wasn't much to say after that, so they finished eating with the bare amount of talking, and headed back to the Hoover building. When they reached the basement office, Scully found that a file folder had been shoved under the door. Her name was written across the front of it in Nan's neat block printing. "That was fast," she murmured. Feeling Anabelle peering over her shoulder, she flipped open the file. As she read, she could feel her eyes widen and the color begiin to drain out of her face. "Holy shit," she heard Anabelle whisper behind her. Scully dropped the file onto the floor and headed for the ladies room. She was splashing some water onto her face, attempting to clear her head, when she saw the door open in the mirror. Anabelle walked in carrying the infamous file. "You know, we do sort of look alike," Belle said, moving closer. She stopped when she got next to Scully, and they both stared in the mirror. "I think we're going into shock," Scully mumbled, splashing more water. "Slow reaction time, incoherence..." She sucked in a breath, trying to calm her body down. Finally, she looked back into the mirror. "Same eyes," Scully whispered, and Belle nodded. "Same height too," Anaabelle continued. "No one on the other side of the family is shorter than 5'6". They always wondered why I was such a shrimp," she rambled nervously. She seemed to wilt though, and sank to the floor, sitting down below the row of sinks. Scully sat down next to her, and their shoulders pressed together. "Any ideas how this could have come about?" Scully tipped her head back against the counter. "I've been thinking about what you said happened to Mulder in the summer of 1981. That was the summer Nan and I went on a road trip. I'd just graduated from high school and it was our first taste of freedom. But like what happened with Mulder, I'd ended up in the hospital towards the end of the trip, except because of illness, not an accident. It also affected my memory of that summer. So I guess something could have happened that I don't remember." Something itched its way down her spine. It didn't occur to her before, but there was no way Nan could have done the tests she was thinking of that fast. Now that she thought about it, Nan didn't seem all that surprised, almost like she knew what she was going to find...'What the hell are you doing, Nan, and what happened on that trip?' she worried silently. "He mentioned once that you two probably met when you were both younger," Belle said, breaking into her thoughts. "Maybe something came from that." "I just wish there was more proof!" Scully exclaimed, clenching her left hand into a fist. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Belle nodding in agreement. "We've got to tell Mulder," she said, and dug out her cell phone. She hit the speed dial and waited. Instead of a not available message, this time she got a busy signal. "What the hell are you doing, Mulder?" she sighed. Shaking her head she dialed in the second number, the one for Nan's cell. She had a few questions to ask her also. At that very moment Mulder was sitting in the passenger seat of a car. Handcuffed to the door, with his dead ex-girlfriend at the wheel as they sped toward the home of Dr. William Aries. He could only hope that the person on the other side of his cell phone would be able to hear well enough to help him out of the mess he'd gotten himself into... As they drove along, Mulder mentally reviewed how he'd landed in this improbable situation. It had all started about eight days ago, with a phone call from his old friend Nicholas Slider... ::Mulder, you are not going to believe this.:: ::What happened?:: ::Earlier today I got an anonymous packet of papers concerning one Jennifer Fairchild.:: ::What did they say?:: ::Some are stuff you already know, birth and death. But the others...let me fax 'em to you, man.:: Mulder could barely believe what he was reading. If it was true that Jennifer was infertile, had no ova in her at all, how did she get pregnant in the first place? And if this was true, who was Anabelle's real mother? Was it possible that this consortium had been messing in he and his daughter's lives from before she was even conceived? It was truly a disturbing thought. It had weighed like a block of lead on his mind. The block became even heavier when, two days later, he had received a startling phone call from a Dr. William Aries, inspiring even more thought on the matter. ::Mr. Mulder, I've no doubt that you've received the papers I sent to Mr. Slider by now.:: ::I have. Why do you want me to see them?:: ::Because it is time you knew the truth about your daughter, the woman who carried her, and her real biological mother.:: ::What can you tell me?:: ::Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything definitive over the phone. I'd rather do it in person where I can hand you the documents. But I can tell you this. Take a good look at your daughter, and then look at your partner.:: Even though it gave him a sick feeling deep inside, he looked at Anabelle, he looked at Scully, and he compared the two. Once he did, it was hard to ignore the similarities. It was in their looks, their movements, even in some small little actions that he'd once believed she'd picked up from Scully in the few months they'd known each other. He now remembered that Belle had been doing them all her life. He could have been looking too much into things, he had no physical proof, but he couldn't deny the sparks his instincts were giving off. Three days later, he'd received a call from Dr. Aries requesting a meeting with him. Mulder could hear the urgency and alarm in his voice, and he had a good reason for it. His house had been broken into the night before, and the only foreign fingerprints in the place that were scattered over his wrecked property belonged to a previously believed to be dead Jennifer Fairchild. Mulder agreed to meet with Dr. Aries two days later, the twenty-ninth of May, in a little roadside diner in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. So, early the next morning he left the note for Anabelle and Scully, and headed out to Ohio. The day after that Dr. Aries arrived, and they had their conversation. ::I'm sure you've figured out by now that I was trying to tell you that Agent Scully is your daughter's biological mother.:: The first sheaf of papers--full genetic workups of himself, Scully, and Anabelle, dated around 1984, all saying that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were the biological parents of Anabelle Morgan. ::How did this happen?:: The second sheaf of papers--not detailed, but the gist of them said of an abduction in the summer of 1981, a time when his own memory was admittedly fuzzy. ::However, Mr. Mulder, there is the matter of Jennifer Fairchild. She was approached by a group of men, mutual acquaintances of ours, to carry a fetus for a rather handsome sum. That was to be the extent of her involvement. No emotional attachments were required. She was just to be the incubator for about seven months, and after that she could go on her merry way. Alas, Jennifer is not in the best of mental health, as her attack on your daughter seven years ago proved. After that she was removed from circulation by them, so to speak.:: ::You mean the staged suicide.:: ::I do. A few months ago she was deemed fit to be released back into society under a new identity, but apparently she is still unstable. Ransacking my house for those papers is proof of that.:: ::What was your role in all of this?:: ::I was the doctor who performed the procedure on Ms. Scully and Ms. Fairchild. I was a project doctor specializing in reproductive matters up until about a year ago, when I retired. I was able to take those files with me when I left. I have no doubt they have duplicates.:: Dr. Aries claimed he had some more papers secreted away at his home that Jennifer didn't find, papers so sensitive he didn't dare carry them with him. He invited Mulder to be at his house in Searsport, Maine so he could share them. Feeling paranoid, the doctor suggested that he and Mulder head up there separately and meet at his house in the wee hours of the morning of May 31st. The next day, they had gone on their separate paths. However, Mulder was detained by a deranged, formerly dead ex-girlfriend who had decided to take him hostage and drive him to Maine herself. "You are fucking insane, Jennifer, you know that?" Mulder grunted, tugging at the handcuffs. "Aww, poor Fox, do you think I'm mental?" she simpered in a sickly sweet voice. "Do I at least get out of these cuffs for a bathroom break on the way to Maine?" he groused. Mulder hoped he could drop enough subtle hints so that the person listening in over his phone would be able to anticipate where they were headed, and that Jennifer wouldn't catch onto it. "You can have a piss when we get to Dr. Aries," Jennifer said, keeping her eyes on the poorly lit road. 'Didn't even have to push for that one,' Mulder thought. He looked outside at the sign that said 'Welcome to Connecticut' and sighed heavily. "Goodbye New York, hello Connecticut," he mumbled just loud enough for the phone to pick it up. It was going to be a very long night. In the meantime Assistant Director Walter Skinner was listening over the phone at the predicament his agent had gotten himself into. He turned to his computer and began to research who exactly Dr. Aries of Maine was and how he could possibly beat Mulder and his kidnapper named Jennifer there. The sudden halt of the car jarred Mulder awake. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and saw Jennifer pulling the keys out of the ignition. He must have fallen asleep somewhere along the way. In the recesses of his mind he had a fleeting thought that he was lucky Jennifer hadn't castrated him in his sleep. Somewhere off in the horizon the sun was just beginning to rise. "We there?" "We are. Drove eight hours through the night to get here. You passed out somewhere around hour number four," Jennifer replied, tossing the keys onto the dashboard. "Now, to have a little chat with the dear Doctor Aries, the bastard who put that thing in me." "That thing is a person," Mulder said through gritted teeth as he watched Jennifer get out of the car and move around to his side. Jennifer didn't hear him though as she wrestled his other arm in front of him and into the cuffs. She then hauled him out of the car. Dr. Aries' house was a simple, two story, wood and brick structure, and surrounded by trees and gardens. It seemed to not give any clues to the events that its inhabitant had been involved with in the past. Mulder winced as she kept pulling at the cuffs, bringing him closer to the house. He stumbled once, almost getting a mouthful of dirt. In his scramble to get back to his feet, he noticed a car concealed in some bushes a small distance away. Mulder hoped that Skinner was in that car. The front door to the house was still broken from the break-in and the two just walked right in. Mulder gulped nervously, seeing his service weapon held aloft in Jennifer's hand. Jennifer headed through the house with the knowledge she had from last time, and headed straight for Dr. Aries' den. With a kick the den door flew open to reveal the doctor, a small, roundish man with greying hair and a bald spot, sitting calmly at his desk, his fingers tapping on a file folder in front of him. Jennifer aimed the gun. "I should shoot you right there for what you did to me you bastard." 'She's really losing it,' Mulder thought, trying to stay as still as possible. The doctor's hand stillled. "If I recall correctly you got yourself into it. You accepted their terms and payment. It was all your choice." Her hand shook, and her finger twitched on the trigger. Mulder let his body tense in anticipation of whatever move she was about to make. Before she could do anything though Mulder heard the sound of a gun cocking behind him, and a body move through the door. "FBI, drop your weapon!" a low voice growled. 'He got the message,' Mulder thought with relief as Jennifer spun around and aimed the gun at Skinner. "If you don't drop the gun I will shoot," Skinner continued, moving slightly closer to her. Jennifer smirked at him, and didn't let her arm drop. Mulder quickly got out of her range, and moved over to where the doctor was still sitting at his desk. With subtle, controlled movements so as not to distract Jennifer, he handed Mulder the file that was on his desk. Mulder tucked the file under his arm and turned his attention back to the standoff on the other side of the room. Jennifer was slowly advancing on Skinner, the gun still held out in front of her. "Jennifer, don't do it," Mulder said. She scoffed, and rubbed one sweatshirt covered arm on her jeans. "God, Fox, you were a moron in university, and things don't seem to have changed since then." "He will not hesitate to shoot you," Mulder continued. "You--" he was cut off with a wave of Dr. Aries' arm. The doctor stood up and walked around the desk near Jennifer. He was a good six inches shorter than she was, and they were an odd looking sight. "Ms. Fairchild, these files that you wish to destroy are my property to do what I choose with. They are not yours, nor do they mention you in them. Your part in this was over sixteen years ago, and you are the one who keeps involving yourself in it, not I. It is only in your fantasy world that you are of any importance. Now leave here, leave these people alone, before I call your keepers," Dr. Aries said in an icy tone. While not seeming to look defeated, Jennifer dropped the gun and spun to look at the doctor. Dr. Aries just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest. After an interminable moment Jennifer placed the gun on an armchair behind her, and began to walk out of the room. Skinner started to leap after her, but a well placed kick to Skinner's leg left him gasping for air, and Jennifer strolled out of the room. "We need to go after her," Skinner growled, rubbing the sore spot on his leg. "It's no matter," Dr. Aries said, returning to his desk. "I can make one single phone call and within the hour she'll be locked up so tightly she'll never breathe fresh air again. I cannot believe they thought her sane. Trust me when I say it'll be more effective than anything the police or FBI could do." Skinner moved closer to the desk, reaching for Dr. Aries' arm. "I don't like vigilante justice. We need to go after her, and bring her in for questioning." From outside they heard the sputtering sounds of a car starting up. A second later, there was a squeal of tires, and the acceleration of the engine. Mulder moved to the window to see a cloud of dirt and debris rise behind the speeding rental car. Skinner turned to run down the stairs, but Mulder's voice stopped him. "Let it go, Sir. It's not worth it." Skinner sighed, but stopped. "Sir?" Mulder continued, holding up his cuffed hands. Skinner dug the key out of his pocket and walked over to him. "How the hell do you get into these things, Mulder?" he asked as he undid the lock. "My incredible luck," he deadpanned, massaging the feeling back into his wrists. "She an old friend of yours?" Skinner asked, walking over to pick up Mulder's gun. "Friend is a polite word for it." Dr. Aries butted in, hanging up the phone. "Mr. Mulder, that staged suicide was not as far off as you think. She was close to doing herself grievous bodily harm that night." "Why didn't they just let her kill herself then?" Mulder asked, twisting the closed file in his hand. "Why set up the whole elaborate scheme? Why let her out so she could come after me and..." he hesitated, not knowing how much to reveal in front of Skinner. He shrugged. "I have no idea. The extent of my involvement with her was over as soon as the procedure was." Dr. Aries looked at Skinner. "Mr., uh..." "Skinner," the A.D. filled in. "Mr. Skinner, if I could please have a moment alone with Mr. Mulder, there is something private I need to discuss with him." Skinner glanced at Mulder, who nodded. "I'll be okay, and out in a few minutes. Just don't bother to call the cops. Dr. Aries is right, they can't do anything to help us in this case." He hesitated for a moment, then nodded once. "I'll be waiting right down the hall." Skinner walked out, and pulled the door shut behind him. "What do you want to discuss?" Mulder said, watching the doctor seat himself back in his chair. "Read the file," he said, motioning with a tip of his chin. Mulder flipped open the cover and began to look through the different pages. He felt a cold chill race down his back after reading the first page, and he quickly flipped through the remaining ones. "What the hell is this?" he hissed, tearing his eyes away from the first picture in the file. "A man deserves to know just how many children he has, Mr. Mulder," Dr. Aries said, leaning back in his chair. "Is that why you're showing me these?" Mulder asked, leaning back against the wall. "Yes, it is." Mulder looked back down at the first picture. It was a black and white candid shot of a dark haired teenaged boy walking down a city street somewhere. The boy was slender, and of average height, maybe 5'7" or so, but seemed to be in that still growing phase. His hair hung down over his eyes, and was being blown about slightly by the wind. "That first picture is of Ethan. It's an old picture but it's all I have. Ethan Ravenhill. He is your daughter's twin brother. Imagine my surprise to find two fetuses when I performed the procedure. He is the older twin by twenty minutes. Jennifer gave birth to both, however Ethan was removed from the house before you even arrived there. At the time these records were compiled, Ethan was living with his foster parents in Boston, Massachusetts. Things have most likely changed since then." Mulder swallowed, trying to get some moisture into his dry mouth. He wasn't succeeding. He could see some of Anabelle in Ethan's face, and he saw a lot of himself also. He flipped to the next two pictures, both on the same page. This time they were in color, of two nearly identical infants, each with green eyes and a sprinkling of dusty red hair over their heads. "What about these other two?" "The boy on the left is Quinn, and the girl on the right Thea. They were born in January of 1997. They are also yours and Ms. Scully's, as I'm sure you can tell from the records. Why they were created, I do not know. If there was a purpose I was not filled in on it. I have it on good assurance though that the twins are still alive, in good health, but still in their watch. My source said that a woman under their pay is caring for them." "You're sure they're not in danger?" Mulder insisted. Dr. Aries nodded. "Almost positive. I don't know what exactly Ethan's status is, but if he was in poor health or in trouble, I know that I would have heard about it." "Is that all you have to show me?" he said in a near whisper. The adrenaline of earlier had faded and Mulder felt close to crashing right now. It was becoming hard to control the emotions beginning to run through him. "Yes, that's all that I've got to share with you. I wish I could tell you more, what the children are like, where they are and who they are living with, but I don't have that information," Dr. Aries said, looking almost sad about it. "I know that after this day I will not be allowed to say more. In a few hours I do not know where I'll be." "Why risk it?" Mulder asked. "Like I said," the doctor sighed. "A man deserves to know how many children he has." "Thank you," Mulder said, realizing that that was all Dr. Aries was going to say. Clutching the file close to him, he walked out of the door. He passed by Skinner who was waiting at the end of the hall and walked outside. He had been heading for the car in a mechanical fashion and almost had the key in the ignition when Skinner pulled the driver's side door open. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked Mulder. "Driving home," Mulder said, still attempting to start the engine up. "Not in this condition you're not." Mulder shot him a dubious glance. "Mulder, you look like crap. You'd probably end up crashing the car on the I-95. Let me drive us back." Mulder stared out the windshield for a moment, then slid out of the driver's seat. Skinner was somewhat right. With all the things going through his head he really couldn't concentrate on driving right now. Skinner got into the car, started it up, and began to head for home. On the long ride back, Skinner had tried to divine from Mulder the nature of the case, the papers, and just about everything else that had happened. To his credit, Skinner had gone along with Mulder's desperate idea and had basically saved the day, but Mulder felt that this information was to be only between himself, Scully, and Anabelle right now. Mulder spent most of the fourteen hour ride slouched against the side door, staring out at the trees. It was dark when Skinner pulled up to Scully's apartment. He gave Mulder an odd look at his choice of location, but didn't say anything. Mulder grabbed his bag from the back of the car and headed inside. He knocked on the door, but no one answered. Shuffling the bags around, he pulled his key out of his pocket and slid it in the door. The apartment was darkened, save for the flickering light from the television. Dropping his bag by the front door he walked into the living room. Scully and Anabelle were both there, sound asleep. Anabelle was spread out over the couch with an old knit blanket over her, and Scully was on the floor next to the couch, a throw pillow under her head. He knelt down by Anabelle's head first, and brushed some stray hair away from her mouth. "Hi Dad," she mumbled, still asleep. Otherwise she wouldn't have dropped the word 'Dad' so casually. Mulder brushed a kiss against her forehead. "You're back." He heard Scully's bleary voice behind him, and he twisted around. "What happened?" she asked, pushing herself upright. He shook his head. "It's far too much to go into right now," he whispered. "We should get some sleep before we talk." Mulder started to stand up, when he felt Scully's hand grab onto his sleeve. "Wait," she said, pulling him back. "There's something we found out while you were away." Scully reached for a file on the coffee table and handed it to him. In the dim light of the television he flipped it open. He only had to look at the first page to realize that the two of them had been investigating the same thing he was. "I know," he sighed deeply. "I know about all of it, and more." He looked up to meet her eyes. "We'll talk about it in the morning though. I can't think about it right now." "Okay," Scully whispered. Mulder stood up and pulled Scully along with him. Without talking about it, they walked to her bedroom. Scully handed him a pair of pajama pants that she kept there for nights he crashed on the couch, and with their backs turned to each other, got into their nightclothes. She turned out the lights and they both slid into her bed. For some reason, it felt perfectly natural to be sleeping together. Right before they fell asleep their hands brushed up against each other, and their fingers tangled together. End
WHOO HOO! S'finally finished! Two freakin' years later! :-D Started June, 2000 Finished July 16 (12:26 a.m. *g*), 2002 Final finishing date, after betas March 6 (3:52 p.m.), 2003
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