Title: Retam Sullet 
(An Alternate Universe *Tellus Mater*)

Author: Onemillionandnine

Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com

Archive: sure!

Rating: Earnest NC17 for birth, sex, and death not filmed through a
soupy lens.

Category: LGM, Novel, Angst, Mytharc, Sequel, alternative version of a
pre-existing fic story.

Summary: Small changes in timing can make a huge difference in the
course of events.

Disclaimer: I am not Chris Carter. Hell, I'm not even affiliated with
1013 or Fox. So believe it when I say that there is nothing official
or sanctioned about this story.

Thanks: good beta is an exasperating and difficult task and doubly so
when there is a lunatic at the helm. MaybeAmanda no doubt feels like
she's been shanghai'ed by pirates and fed nothing but anchovies and
lima beans on a voyage in search of the great albino cetacean. You
deserve laurel wreaths and to be carried through the streets on a
litter by a retinue of MulderClones, babe. As if there was ever any
question. And, as always, thanks to my husband for things fairly
unmentionable, even for me. Notes: I was so traumatized by Jump The
Shark I wrote this. It was cheaper than therapy. Further Note: the
events of Jump Shark never took place in my universe.

American Sign Language Note: ASL is a language just like Portuguese or
Swahili with its own grammar and figures of speech. Conversations
taking place in that language have, for purposes of fiction, been
translated for intent and meaning, rather than literally.

Notes on the name Ringo: In Japanese it means Apple.  It is the stage
name of one Richard Starkey - drummer.  It is also the name of a
character played by Marion Morrison (better known as John Wayne) The
Ringo Kid, taken from an Anglicization of the Rio Rincon, or Corner
River, so named for its many snakes and turns.

***OTHER NOTE*** - Thanks to Livia Balaban for 'Seti Troopers,' - what
a great idea ;-)


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Part One


A story can only be improved by a clear sense of setting, and this is
no exception.

It was November 21, 2004. Unseasonable cold blew along a flinching
eastern seaboard. John Ashcroft was still attorney general and
although under severe pressure for the un-American activity of filling
out a subscription card, The Lone Gunmen News' subscribership had
dwindled to next to nothing, the number of actual readers had
increased tenfold. The gun shops, independent bookstores, and pagan
supply houses willing to carry the paper found themselves unable to
keep up with demand.

For the publishers, though, it was as much of a hand-to-mouth
existence as ever. And while the public interest was encouraging, the
fact that civil liberties were slipping away like so many suds down a
drain was not.

Langly and Frohike were just settling back into their
around-the-warehouse routine after two weeks uncharged in Montgomery
county lock-up, when Byers saw an unfamiliar figure on the front door
surveillance camera.

"Someone's at the door," he said, surprised.

"Anybody we know?" Frohike asked, elbow deep in wires as usual, from
across the room.

"I don't believe so," Byers answered. "No one I know, at least."

"Cop?" Frohike asked.

"A boy," Byers replied. "Or rather, a young man. I think."

Langly had rolled over from the game on his screen and was now
scrutinizing the surveillance monitor. "And I'm supposed to be the
blind one," he muttered. "That's a girl."

Frohike peered at the monitor. "I know you don't see the real thing on
a regular basis, but the ones in the magazines you got with the pages
stuck together, those are girls. And that,"  he pointed to the figure
on the screen, "looks like a boy to me."

Langly folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head and glaring
at Frohike. "Nuh uh."

"Uh huh." Frohike glared back.
 
"One way to settle this," Byers said, crossing the room and throwing
open the door locks.

The figure in the door stood almost as tall as Langly, with ramrod
straight posture.  The newcomer was pathetically underdressed for the
weather, wearing an unraveling black polyester sweater over layers and
layers of t-shirts and a pair of torn, filthy jeans. The person's hair
was a month away from clean-shaven scalp, and stood up in tiny
chestnut brown spikes.

"Well?" Langly said as the others stared.

The guest swallowed and reached for the small of his or her back.

Langly and Frohike leapt back from what they were certain was a gun,
one ducking, the other stumbling and finally sprawling on the floor,
swearing.

Both were more than slightly embarrassed when the would-be assailant
presented John Byers with a small spiral notebook.

"What's it say, Byers?" Frohike asked, trying to regain his composure.

Byers read the words printed in unnaturally precise block letters
aloud. "My name is Thea Fidelis. Gibson Praise told me to come to you.
He said you know where my parents are."

"Thea," Langly repeated the name, dusting himself off. "Told you she
was a chick."

"Fidelis? Sorry, kid," Frohike said. "I'd remember anybody with a
handle like Fidelis, and it doesn't ring any bells."

"But we do know Gibson Praise," Byers said.

"We know OF Praise. It's not the same thing," Frohike replied.

Byers looked at their visitor. Making deliberate eye contact, he
asked, "Thea, are you deaf?"

Thea frowned at him and tapped the notebook.

ARE YOU DEAF? Byers wrote neatly.

The girl frowned and printed rapidly, NO, IT'S AN ACT. She rolled her
eyes.  JUST WAIT UNTIL I BUST MY HELEN KELLER MOVES.

WE DON'T KNOW ANYONE NAMED FIDELIS, Byers wrote, quelling his
irritation.

She took the notebook and wrote more slowly this time.

These words Byers did not speak.  "Oh," he said, surprise in his
voice.  He passed the palm-sized book to Frohike.

Frohike's brows rose, and he passed the book to Langly.

"Bullshit," Langly muttered. "She's too old."

"I don't know," Frohike countered. "Take a close look and tell me that
face isn't familiar. Really familiar."

Langly looked at the words in front of him, then at the girl, then
back at the words.

MY PARENTS ARE NAMED DANA SCULLY AND FOX MULDER, it said.

He grabbed the nearest pen and wrote in his spidery script, THEY'RE
DEAD.

Thea wrote, GIBSON SAID YOU WOULD TELL ME THAT. BUT IT'S A LIE. GIBSON
TOLD ME MY PARENTS ARE ALIVE AND YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM.

Frohike grabbed a sheet of paper from a nearby printer tray. HOW WOULD
GIBSON KNOW ABOUT US? he scribbled.

The girl shrugged. HE READ HER MIND, I SUPPOSE.

Byers took the paper anxiously. WHAT ELSE DID PRAISE SAY ABOUT US?

HE SAID MY MOTHER THOUGHT YOU MADE A PRACTICE OF COMMITTING AN AVERAGE
OF FOUR PROSECUTABLE OFFENSES BEFORE BREAKFAST, BUT SHE STILL BELIEVED
YOU WERE ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS. She looked from man to man. THOSE
WERE HER THOUGHTS, ACCORDING TO GIBSON.  YOU GUYS. ANGELS.

Frohike frowned. "That sounds about right," he offered.

IF YOU WANT US TO BELIEVE YOU, WE'RE GOING TO NEED PROOF, Langly
scratched out on the page, his knee bouncing nervously. BLOOD, DNA
WORK.

She didn't seem at all bothered. SURE, I'D LIKE TO BE CERTAIN MYSELF.
She wrote back. I ONLY KNOW WHAT GIBSON TOLD ME.

"Ask her if she came from a lab," Frohike instructed Byers.

"What kinda lab?" Langly asked.

"You know what kinda lab," Frohike replied.

Langly whistled. "Dude, that would be a hell of a story, wouldn't it?
We could blow it all wide fucking open couldn't we? The whole
military-industrial complex, the whole Roswell-Project Paper
Clip-everything."
 
"And get a first-hand chance to know how Wile E. Coyote feels when the
anvil falls on his head? No thanks." Frohike shook his head. "The
fewer people know about her, the better." He took the pad from her
hand and scrawled, WHO WERE YOUR MANUFACTURERS?

ZEUS, she wrote back in her unnatural penmanship. I WAS GROWN IN COSTA
RICA BUT I BELIEVE MOST OF MY DESIGN WAS A COMBINED DEUTSCHE NIPPONESE
EFFORT.

HOW DID YOU ESCAPE? Frohike wrote.

I DIDN'T. I THINK THEY WERE HAVING BUREAUCRATIC PROBLEMS, she
answered. THEY MISPLACED US, SO WE LEFT.

WE WHO? Byers wrote.

GIBSON AND I. WE WERE ON OUR OWN FOR FOUR YEARS. THEN HE DIED, she
replied.

SO YOUR TRAIL - IT'S COLD? Byers continued.

At this, she simply nodded.

"Good," Frohike said half under his breath.

The girl snatched her pen and wrote clearly, ARRANGE THE TESTS. WHEN
SHOULD I COME BACK?

Langly leaned forward when he saw the note and snatched her by the
sleeve, steering her to sit in front of a monitor.

He leaned over her and typed.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

TO FIND FOOD AND A PLACE TO STAY, she typed quickly.

YOU HAVE MONEY FOR A MOTEL? he asked.

She frowned.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO STAY? Langly insisted.

She lifted her chin. I'LL FIND SOMETHING.

NO WAY, Langly typed. STAY HERE.

She shook her head. NO, she typed.

Frohike nudged her slightly to the side so he could get at the
keyboard. BLONDIE'S RIGHT, he typed. STAY WITH US. WE HAVE ROOM AND
THIS PLACE IS PRETTY SECURE, JUST INCASE YOUR TRAIL ISN'T AS COLD AS
YOU THINK. Then he turned to Langly and Byers, making sure Thea
couldn't read his lips. "But I'll be damned if we lead her to Mulder,
daughter or not.  She could still be a spy."

"Damned skinny spy," Langly said. His lip curled. "And she smells like
a dumpster. I'll bet that's where she's been sleeping."

"Yes, I noticed." Byers nodded. "And if she isn't who she says she is,
it'll be a lot easier to keep an eye on her if she's here." He scanned
her familiar features again briefly. "And if she is who she says she
is, well, we should do what we can for her."

Frohike nodded. PLEASE? he typed. YOUR PARENTS WOULD EXPECT US TO KEEP
YOU SAFE. YOU'LL BE SAFE HERE.

She shook her head. NO. NO OFFENSE, BUT HOW DO I KNOW I CAN TRUST YOU?

The three men blinked at one another for a moment. "Good question,"
Byers mumbled.

After a moment's thought, Langly turned back to the keyboard. GIBSON
TOLD YOU. WE'RE ON THE SIDE OF ANGELS. YOU TRUSTED HIM, RIGHT? WOULD
HE LIE TO YOU?

Thea bit her bottom lip. She shook her head 'no' quickly, as if, now
that someone had asked, she wasn't entirely certain.

JUST UNTIL WE CAN RUN THE TESTS, Langly typed. JUST A FEW DAYS.

She hesitated. OKAY, she typed. JUST A FEW DAYS.

****************

The tests confirmed every word she had told them.

The few days she had promised Langly stretched into weeks, then
months. The first time Byers found her dressing in the kitchen before
dawn, a room was cleared for her.

One day, Langly noticed equations crammed into the margins of her
notebook where he expected to see doodles.  That same day, he began
explaining to her the work that took up the majority of his attention.

Frohike noted she never needed him to explain anything twice. He also
noted that Langly didn't once accuse her of the high crime of
stupidity.

The following month, her room mates scrounged up enough cash to pay an
oral surgeon to remove her wisdom teeth.

Two years, four months, and two days after she had first arrived in
Takoma Park, Thea Fidelis was still there.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Thea Fidelis had only once before stolen something she could not
justify. She was a small child and her transgression involved a spoon.

It never occurred to the men responsible for her well being to give
the child a toy. During a brief visit to the estate of CGB Spender to
examine her growth, development, ability to perform on a standardized
test, she stole a spoon from the old man's tea set. A sugar shell
really, small and silver with wavelike curls swelling around the
bottom. When she looked into the scanty, tarnished bowl, she could see
her own face reflected. It became her poppet.

She did not play with it as if it were a doll. Usually, she simply
held it in her pocket.  At the worst of times, though, she'd pull it
out, then sit and stare into her own face in its shell, and pretend
she wasn't alone.
   
The second unjustified theft was a kiss from Ringo Langly.

Even years later, certain aspects of unfolding events stood out Thea's
memory.  She remembered being gripped by an anxiety akin to physical
pain in the hours between making the decision to kiss him and having
the opportunity to actually do it. She remembered very clearly the
moment when he began to respond, his body moving toward her and his
mouth relaxing and opening, his oven mitt caressing her back.

His stumbling backwards and retreating, first to his room, then
leaving the house altogether.

She made convincing excuses to Byers and Frohike, then spent the night
sitting on his bed, fingering his books, his dice, his plastic bag
full of twist ties and wondering if he hated her. Wanting to throw
herself on his mercy.

Thea had never risked so much in her life as she did the moment she
took Langly in her arms. She was no longer presumptuous enough to
simply want something and take it.  The tight frown of Richard Langly
was far more terrifying than any of the tortures meted out by CGB
Spender. Before the kiss, she was sure Ringo liked her. She had no
problem stealing what was necessary for subsistence but there was no
way on earth she could justify a kiss. A kiss?

She must have been insane.

Of course the blowing-up-in-her-face part was inevitable.  She didn't
look anything like the women in the magazines he kept between his
mattress and box spring, so why would he want to kiss her? She was
stupid, stupid, stupid and now it felt like a hole, like Gibson had
died again, even though she knew it was wrong to compare the two.

She considered herself wise, jaded even, when it came to human
behavior. And perhaps her life had afforded her a certain
understanding of the nature of powerful men and their sycophants, of
sadism and loneliness, and of the struggle for survival, but she
sorely overestimated her understanding of relationships between adult
men and women.

At that point in her life Thea equated sexual intercourse with
reproduction and pleasure with her own hand. She kissed him because it
was something she had wanted to do for a very long time. In the act
she had neither reason nor goal but simply want, want akin to blind
greed. Her thought went no farther than his lips.

Thea, of course, had no way of knowing that, although he'd
occasionally had sex that involved no kissing at all, Langly had never
in his adult life had a kiss that did not lead directly to sex. It
never occurred to him when he was kissed, by the same girl who had
been his partner in a four-handed keyboard attack on Dow Chemical two
hours earlier, that she had anything other than sex in mind.

They were both in possession of a rather debauched form of naivety.
What followed could not have transpired otherwise.

When he came in the next morning with his hair even less brushed than
usual and his shirt inexplicably wet and smelling like Mountain Dew,
she attempted to explain, apologize, and lie lie lie. Her words flew
so fast he didn't understand a single one. Then all of the sudden he
was angry, yelling and signing at her. And as resilient as she tried
to be, there was a catch in her chest and tears broke out like water
through busted plumbing and he tried to fighting them off at first and
then...then...then he kissed her. He held her face in two hands and
his tongue shot into her mouth like lightning to ground.

Certain things stood out about the experience, later: the agony of
waiting for his judgment; the repeated kissing and the repeated
pushing away; him standing, face to the wall, before he admitted
haltingly that he wanted her. That he was afraid but not enough to let
it stop him.

Not until he asked if she was a virgin did she realize he meant to
have intercourse with her. She was immensely flattered. She thought
perhaps it was the best idea anyone had ever come up with. Of course
it was; Ringo was brilliant.

She had read about sex in medical texts. She was thoroughly aware what
was occurring on a physical level. Changes in the pattern of blood
flow, increased heart rate, surges of adrenalin. She was utterly
unprepared for the way he touched her, as simple and tentative as his
ministrations were. She had never seen a grown man naked, let alone
achingly erect. She found him exquisite and unnerving.

She did not understand the words he mouthed at her. Did not know he
said what he was afraid to sign. Did not recognize the words 'I love
you.' Did not understand why he would not let her touch his penis.

She never expected him to take her nipple into his mouth, suckling her
like a baby.  She was amazed at the way the sensation went straight to
her clitoris.

She stared at his face. His soft hair was spread out cross her chest,
his hawkish nose nestled against her, his eyelids trembling as if in
dream. There was something unfamiliar about his face without his
glasses. She had the fearful sensation that she was with a stranger.
Naked Langly, without glasses, shy and seeking comfort at her breast
even as he pressed his almost unbearably warm erection against her
leg, was totally foreign to her. He looked...different. Not frail or
weak, not delicate or needy or pensive, but 'something' she was
uncertain how to articulate.

Suddenly, she was aware of the quality of maleness in an entirely new
way. He smelled like musk and black pepper.  The most beautiful
freckles spread themselves across his shoulders like flakes of gold.
He looked other-worldly, a study in pale colors, tone on tone.

He seemed so grown-up this way, naked with his arms around her, and
she felt so young and stupid that her own fear infuriated her. He had
to be the smartest person alive to think to do this, this thing with
her nipples. His touches were so intense she waited in pained
anticipation of what he would do to her next.

This was sex. She kept feeling as though she was about to swoon. His
left hand moved from her ribs down to her hard hip bone. She made
fists reflexively.

DO YOU WANT ME TO STOP? he spelled with the fingers of one hand.

She shook her head.

OPEN YOUR LEGS, he spelled.

He seemed surprised when she complied. They both shivered when he
gently spread her labia.

His thumb skated reverently over her sex. She recognized right away
the pattern of his motions. Her name. He was spelling her name on her
clitoris again and again. His hand between her thighs felt nothing
like her own. Her orgasm blew like an explosion of ice.

She tried to beg him with her lips, her brain was a burning funhouse
maze of thought insisting NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW no matter
where she turned. Her every nerve ending screamed for penetration. He
stared up at her totally void of understanding.

FUCK ME NOW LANGLY she spelled.

O.K. he spelled back.

He climbed on top of her with awkward slowness and laid there
motionless for a long while, the tip of his penis not quite
penetrating her. Had she been able she would have screamed in
frustration. She rocked her hips. Mouthed a word she hoped he would
recognize.

PLEASE.

He stopped her hips with his hands. He signed, ARE YOU SURE? IT'LL
HURT, I THINK. I'VE HEARD IT HURTS.

She nodded, on the teeth-gritting edge of something that was like
anger or desperation without being either one.

Slowly, incrementally, he penetrated her.

He was right. It hurt.

There was a surreal element to feeling one's own body tissue tear. She
was surprised at the unforgiving hardness of him. She did not realize
she made a sharp squeaking sound. She was surprised at how quickly the
pain stopped once he began to move more rapidly.

She expected it to feel different, like they were one person. Instead,
she felt every vein and ridge of him moving inside her.  She was
reminded how close they were, but still separate, his narrow body
pushing against hers, his large hands squeezing her small breasts. She
was surprised at the second orgasm she felt rise as he ejaculated
inside her, taking her unaware. She felt the groan in his throat at
the same time as his seminal fluid surged into her.

Afterwards, snuggling against her, he frowned worriedly when she asked
if she had performed badly.

NO, I JUST - I FORGOT THE RUBBERS.

Regret that he had neglected to employ prophylaxis? She wrinkled her
forehead and fought to conceal how stunned she was. His purpose had
been pleasure only. She felt a wonderful cold in the pit of her
stomach. There was no utility in this except maybe, just maybe, to
share. How decadent. How beautiful. Incredible. She fought the lump
that wished to rise in her throat, keeping her face blank.  This was
about the two of them, together, nothing else, no purpose beyond
pleasing one another. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

YOU COULD GET- He didn't know the sign.

WHAT? She asked.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE BABIES COME FROM? he signed uneasily.

OTHER THAN A LAB? SEX. BABIES COME FROM SEX, Thea signed
matter-of-factly. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ONE? she continued.

He grabbed his glasses off the top of the clock. He looked so alarmed

UP CLOSE, I MEAN? she amended her question.

He blinked. YOU'VE NEVER SEEN A BABY?

ONLY FROM A DISTANCE, she answered. LIKE AT THE ZOO.

Of course, it would have been fine with her to have a tiny Langly
growing in her uterus. Better than fine. But Ringo seemed bothered by
the idea. Well, she supposed, if he'd wanted offspring he would have
them by now, wouldn't he?

She closed her eyes, secure in the statistical unlikelihood of
impregnation.

He tucked the quilt around her shoulders. Although his hands were
cold, his semen was warm and sticky and seeping out onto her bloody
thighs.
 
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

When she woke, he was sitting tensely on the edge on the bed, already
showered and dressed.

ARE YOU MY GIRLFRIEND NOW? he signed.

She rubbed her eyes before she signed, WANT ME TO GET YOUR NAME
TATTOOED ON MY ASS TO PROVE IT?

I'M SERIOUS, he signed, his eyes darting furtively.

SO AM I. Something feral flickering at him from behind her eyes. I'M
NOT PHILOSOPHICALLY OPPOSED TO THE IDEA OF BRANDING EITHER, BUT ME,
NOT YOU - YOU DON'T HEAL WELL AND BESIDES, YOU GET BITCHY WHEN YOU'RE
IN PAIN.

THEN SAY IT, SIGN IT, WHATEVER, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, THAT WE'RE
TOGETHER, he signed rigidly.

She tilted her head, her eyes wide.  I ALREADY TOLD YOU I LIKE YOU.

He didn't know how to ask this. LIKE ME HOW? THE SAME AS YOU LIKE
BYERS AND THE MAYOR OF MUNCHKIN TOWN?

I-

She paused and looked down suddenly, mesmerized by the bedspread. I
DON'T KNOW, THAT'S WRONG, I KNOW BUT I... I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL
YOU.

GIVE IT A SHOT.

YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I'M OUT OF CONTROL LIKE I'M NOT ALONE, LIKE I,
I, I LOVE YOU.  She winced, awaiting his response.

With an awkwardness born of utter unfamiliarity with what he was about
to do, he leaned over and kissed her with closed lips. Warmth spread
across his cheeks as he was gripped with wonder. Oh god, it was real.
He felt himself blush darker, imagining she understood the words he'd
mouthed at her while they fucked.

I love you. I do.

He thought them again, his arms wrapped tight around her.

That evening, at dinner, he laid his hand on her knee underneath the
table.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


end 01

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The first time she gave him head they were playing D&D at Kimmy's.

Langly'd had a couple of beers and Mordo The Wise hadn't been wise
enough to keep him from getting his cape-wearing ass kicked and losing
his last two hundred bucks on the final roll of the night or morning
or whatever 5 a.m. is when a guy had been up since the morning before.
Regardless of the time, he lost his money to Langly.

The two conspirators snuck off while everyone else was polishing off
the last of the beer and pizza.

They were laying on the floor in between the bed and a pile of coats,
kissing, when Thea stuck her hand down the front of his jeans.

He moved back a little and signed, YOU WANNA, UM, YOU THINK YOU MIGHT
GO DOWN ON ME?

Her forehead wrinkled.  WHAT?

NEVER MIND, JUST NEVER MIND.  He was irritated and trying
unsuccessfully not to show it.

NO, she signed, not even pretending to be polite, WHAT ARE YOU ASKING
ME? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Oh.  That changed everything. He wracked his brain for a way to say
it. He picked his glasses up off the night stand.

A BLOW JOB, he signed. GIVE ME A BLOW JOB?

That apparently wasn't clear enough because she repeated herself
again.  WHAT IS IT? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

His heart was pounding in his chest. The few times he had it - all of
four - he'd never had to spell it out.  It sounded a lot dirtier if he
had to say exactly what he wanted.

He took a deep breath and signed, I WANT TO PUT MY DICK IN YOUR MOUTH.  
His hands weren't exactly stumbling, but he wasn't signing smoothly,
either.  YOU DON'T HAVE TO. I JUST THOUGHT I'D ASK.

She slapped herself on the forehead.  FELLATIO! YOU WANT FELLATIO.
I'VE READ ABOUT THAT.

He nodded; verbally he had shot his wad.

"OKAY, BUT YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HELP ME OUT. I'VE NEVER DONE THIS
BEFORE.  She lifted his shirt up over his head then bent to pop open
his jeans.

SOME QUESTIONS, she signed once she was in between his legs with his
dick bouncing against her face.

GO AHEAD.  Like there was much of a choice on his part.

THE SENSATION? IS IT LOCALIZED IN A PARTICULAR AREA OF THE PENIS OR
ARE THE NERVE RECEPTORS DISTRIBUTED EVENLY?

THE HEAD, he answered.  It wasn't the world's biggest turn on to have
his rod treated like a piece of hardware. SPREAD THROUGHOUT, BUT MORE
CONCENTRATED IN THE HEAD.

She was already rubbing her face against it like a cat, only she
didn't make him sneeze.  HOW SHOULD I START?

He put his thumb on her lower lip and pressed down softly.  YOU COULD
KISS IT.

So she did. She ducked her head and kissed his cock, top to bottom and
back again.  Then she...

He couldn't account for it, she lost it and her dry kisses went all
over him, testicles to urethra and back again. She stopped and lookup
at him.

NOW LICK IT, he signed, trying to keep his breath even.

She nodded and started.

It was good. Real good. So good that after a few seconds he had to
close his eyes and just enjoy it. It was the first time he'd ever
really relaxed when he was getting head.  Hell Thea was the first girl
he'd felt comfortable being in the same room with since he was 12.

Mmmmmmmmmm it was even better when she slipped his piece into her
mouth. Big, soft lips and slow, wet tongue all around him. And she was
slowly taking it deeper and deeper and. . .

Was she trying to deep throat him? Oh fuck.

Oh fuck!

Langly was coming and he was still in her mouth. He tried his best to
pull out, but she pushed her face down onto his dick and grabbed his
hands like some intense game of mercy.  He watched, fairly freaked
out, while she swallowed and swallowed.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT, he told her while she wiped her wet face on
the Beat Farmers shirt she had taken from him.

She was smiling like he'd done something for her instead of the other
way around. WHAT PART DON'T I HAVE TO DO? I THOUGHT IT WAS PRETTY
COOL, LIKE A MAGIC TRICK, SURE AS HELL BETTER THAN MAKING FORT KNOX
DISAPPEAR. TOO BAD I AM ALL HOT NOW. I GUESS THAT'S WHY MY ARM'S THAT
LONG, HUH?  WAS I OKAY? DID I DO OKAY?

He had to shake out his hands before he signed to her. YOU WERE
EXCELLENT.  BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO SWALLOW.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I DO?

SPIT? ALL THE OTHER TIMES, I MEAN, NOBODY EVER SWALLOWED MY, UM,-
EJACULATE?

JUST SAY C-U-M, OKAY? he suggested.  WHEN YOU TALK LIKE THAT YOU MAKE
ME FEEL LIKE I'M IN THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE.

YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUT OF THE LAB BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE THE LAB OUT OF
THE GIRL, ME AND POPEYE, WE POTATO WHAT WE POTATO.

Y-A-M. YOU YAM, NOT POTATO.  He giggled.  IT'S A HEARING JOKE.  YAM
SOUNDS LIKE...

Still smiling, she cut him off.  WHAT IF I LIKE IT? WHAT IF I LIKE TO
SWALLOW IT? WHAT IF I THINK IT'S GOOD?

Oh fuck.  The way she signed *good,* with her hand on her mouth then
back down to her lap, that was real sexy.  PLUS IF NO ONE EVER
SWALLOWED IT BEFORE THEN- she gave him this look, happy but scary too,
like she wanted to suck his dick all over again or something -THEN I'M
THE FIRST

Langly just had to gape at her for a minute. Sometimes it felt to him
like she was his first everything. Things seemed weird, like he wanted
to say something but he wasn't sure what. He shut his mouth.

I SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING BEFORE NOW BUT YOU KNOW, 
WELL, I THINK YOU'RE PRETTY, THEA.

She frowned at him, pissed off all of the sudden. YEAH, RIGHT.  PUT ON
YOUR GLASSES, she signed and pressed them into his hand.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

If asked, she would have said it was the best six weeks of her life up
to that point. Her own physical and emotional reactions led her to
believe skin-to-skin contact with Ringo Langly induced a state not
unlike intoxication.  Although she would have been offended by its
application, the word 'giddy' would have been appropriate to describe
some of their behavior.

Around the third week, she did begin to feel some anxiety when her
menses did not arrive. She tried to convince herself her breasts were
tender from Langly's daily attention. She had something of her
mother's talent for denial.

By the fifth week, she was torn between rosy joy at the idea of
carrying Langly's child and utter terror of being rejected by him.
Langly, of course, was blissfully unaware.

She made the decision to leave Takoma Park when she was no longer 
able to button a pair of Ringo's tighter jeans. It still took her eight
days to work up the nerve to follow through.

**********

She did not need to be able to hear them to know they were arguing.
Byers had followed her into her room as soon as they'd gotten home
from Delaware and started jabbering this ridiculous shit at her. How
he was shipping her off to live with his aunt in Olympia, wherever
that was. How Langly was clearly taking advantage of her. She had been
too shocked to argue. If this was what he was telling her, she could
only imagine what he was saying to Ringo. It was clearly time to
leave.

Then he was in the kitchen shaking his fist at Ringo. She was going,
the few things she wanted to take with her crammed into an old surplus
military canvas bag. She walked past the room on her way out and saw
John's clenched hand connect with Langly's jaw. Ringo swayed for an
instant then fell, not unconscious, but hurt and knocked completely
off-balance.

She sprinted to him before she could stop and remember that she was
leaving. She dropped her bag and cradled Langly's head in her lap
while Langly winced and rubbed the side of his face.

ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS, BYERS? she signed, livid. WHAT DID HE 
EVER DO TO YOU?

THEA, I TOLD YOU BEFORE, HE'S USING YOU, Byers signed back 
his right hand clearly pained.

"Fro, get me an ice pack, will ya?" Langly croaked.

"Get it yourself, Stud," Fro answered, leaning against the counter.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S WRONG? HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WAS DOING 
SOMETHING BAD TO ME? WERE YOU THERE IN BED WITH US? Thea signed, 
squinting. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN HIM MISTREAT ME?  HAVE YOU EVER 
SEEN RINGO HURT ANYONE?

THEA, Byers leaned in ignoring Langly and signed slower, smaller, YOU
NEED TIME AWAY TO THINK ABOUT THIS, GET SOME PERSPECTIVE, 
MEET BOYS YOUR OWN AGE.

"Fuck you - she's mine. She wants to be with me, you hear that?  Me!
You can't just send her off somewhere," Langly snarled, his usually
keen sense of self-preservation utterly abandoned as his inner
Neanderthal reared its sleepy head.  He was ready to hurl invective at
Byers until his associate felt compelled to beat him to death.

I DON'T WANT TO MEET BOYS MY OWN AGE. THEY ARE ALL 
MORONS.  BESIDES, I'M PREGNANT AND THAT USUALLY DOESN'T 
GET A GIRL A LOT OF DATES, she signed, biting her lip angrily.

WHAT? Byers asked certain he had misunderstood the sign.

I AM GESTATING AN EMBRYO IN MY UTERUS, she signed.

Byers' mouth dropped open.

THERE IS A BABY IN ME. LANGLY'S BABY. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND 
THAT SIGN? She gestured, frustrated, as the men went still and silent.

"Oh god no," Byers whispered, and slumped down into the couch.

Ringo's feelings were not immediately discernable since Melvin
Frohike's instantaneous response had been to grab Langly by the tender
top of his ear and pull with a slight twisting motion until their
faces were near level.

"Of all the dumbass, bonehead, moron bullshit ," he punctuated each
snarled word with a slap to the back of Langly's skull.

Each slap elicited a whined "Shit!" from the recipient.

Thea picked Frohike by the back of his thick neck and he let go.

But Langly didn't stop. "Shit Shit Shit!" he repeated, his breath
growing ragged, tears threatening to overflow from his eyes. He shook
his head to hold them back but instead they rolled down his face. He
couldn't get his brain around the 'why' of any of it - why he was
crying, why his chest hurt, why his brain had gotten really slow
really fast, why they had to find out, why really cool things couldn't
last.  Or why she was leaving.

He could tell she was leaving. That he knew, even through his sudden
fog, white cotton panties and cash in a bag meant she was dumping him.

But pregnant? Thea couldn't have a baby - she was just a kid. And he
couldn't have a baby, either, because he was just, well, just a guy
who lived in a warehouse and had made a whole seventy-two dollars and
fifteen cents last month. He felt like he was being sucked into a
black hole.

Lord Manhammer, undisputed king of the meltdown, who screamed and
swore and abused inanimate objects at the slightest provocation and
who never had much cool to lose in the first place, was losing what
little he had.

With her mother's efficiency, Thea walked to the cabinet, prepped the
nebulizer with Prednisone, plugged it into the jack nearest the couch,
sat Ringo down beside Byers and placed the breathing mask over his
face.

ANY CHANCE WE COULD SEDATE HIM FOR A WHILE? she signed
to Frohike.

THAT'S NOT THE WORST IDEA YOU'VE HAD TODAY, he signed 
before he began riffling through drawers. He tossed a pill bottle her way. 
WHEN HE WAKES UP FROM ONE OF THESE BABIES, IT WILL BE 
A BRAND NEW DAY.

She caught it deftly. Read the bottle, she nodded.

RINGO, YOU ARE FREAKING OUT, she signed. TAKE ONE OF THESE.

NO WAY, he signed, his shoulders heaving. SO YOU CAN CUT AND 
RUN WHILE I'M ZONKED? He pointed to the canvas bag, bleeding cash 
and underwear, abandoned on the floor.

She seemed desperate herself, suddenly. TAKE THE PILL.  YOU'RE ONLY
MAKING YOUR SELF WORSE. YOU'RE HAVING A PANIC ATTACK. FUCK. 
YOU SHOULD BE ON ANTI-ANXIETY MEDICATION.  TAKE THE PILL NOW.

SWEAR YOU'LL BE HERE WHEN I WAKE UP.

YES, RINGO, I SWEAR.

"Fro, promise you'll make sure she doesn't go anywhere."

"The level of trust you two have is truly touching. But yeah, I'll
keep her here." He walked toward them with a glass of water, eyeing
Byers thoughtfully. "You look like you could use one, too."

He shook his head. "It's midnight; I think I'll go to bed now," and he
walked, toward the door, shaking his head all the way. But in the
doorway he stopped and turned around.

ALTHEA? He was the only one who ever spelled out her whole name.
PROMISE ME YOU WON'T RUN AWAY FROM HOME. DON'T ADD 
TO THE MISTAKES ALREADY MADE, he signed wearily.

Thea nodded, gnawed by guilt, not because of her own actions, but
because of Byers' reaction.

Ringo, meanwhile, was fighting to stay awake. Every time his eyes
closed, he forced them wide again. Within a few minutes he was gone
and Thea stretched out her drugged asthmatic aging prince full length
on the couch, the breathing mask still on his face.

SWEETHEART, YOU AND ME NEED TO HAVE A TALK, Frohike signed, 
sitting down.

I THINK I NEED TO GO, she signed. I HAVE FUCKED UP ROYALLY.

YOU PROMISED THOSE TWO LUNKHEADS YOU WOULD BE HERE 
WHEN THEY WOKE UP, Frohike signed tersely.

I ALSO SWORE I WOULD TAKE OUT THE TRASH, SO WHAT'S 
YOUR POINT?

THAT STUPID ASSHOLE LANGLY THINKS YOU LOVE HIM.

Thea raised her chin defiantly. WHO SAYS I DON'T?

LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT THE MALE ANIMAL, 
T-BONE. TELL A MAN YOU'RE HAVING HIS BABY THEN DUMP HIM AND 
IT IS A GOOD BET HE'LL ASSUME THE ROMANCE IS OVER. Frohike 
rubbed  his palms together when he finished signing.

SHORT MAN, she signed impatiently, WERE YOU NOT IN THERE WITH 
ME WHEN HE LOST IT? HE DOES NOT WANT ME TO HAVE THIS BABY. 
I KNEW HE WOULDN'T. Her jaw kept clenching and unclenching.

HONEY, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

RIGHT. IF I STAY MY CHOICES ARE - she pretended to count them off on
her fingers - LET'S SEE? SUCTION, RU 486, DILATION AND 
CURETTAGE, OR, OH YES, RINGO HATING ME AND HIS BABY.

Frohike frowned. I MAY LIVE TO REGRET THIS, THEA, BUT WHAT IF I
PROMISE TO BACK YOU UP ALL THE WAY? HAVE YOUR BABY, KEEP 
YOUR BABY. GIVE BYERS A NIGHT COOL OFF AND HE AIN'T GONNA 
DISAGREE. AND LANGLY, HONESTLY, I'D SAY THE GUY IS MORE 
SCARED THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

Thea paused before signing, HE DOESN'T HATE ME?

Frohike shook his head. GIVE HIM A WHILE TO GET OVER THE SHOCK 
AND HE'LL BE OBNOXIOUSLY PROUD.

Thea looked doubtful.

BUT THIS IS THE EASY PART, SWEETIE. YOU'RE LOOKING AT A 
LIFETIME COMMITMENT.

She straightened her shoulders. I KNOW THAT, she signed.

YOU KNOW BUPKIS. A BABY IS MORE WORK THAN YOU CAN EVEN 
IMAGINE AT THIS POINT.

YOU EVER HAD ONE, MELVIN?

I HAD TWO, AND I WAS A LOUSY DAD.

RINGO WILL BE A GOOD DAD?

Frohike nodded. SURE HE WILL. JUST GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO GET 
USED TO THE IDEA, he signed even as he said, "even if I have to kill 
him to make him one."

Thea smiled but looked slightly nauseous.

YOU NEED ANYTHING? Fro asked.

She shook her head. Thea walked over to the refrigerator and pulled it
open. Melvin Frohike watched as the girl he knew better than either of
his own daughters chugged half a gallon of milk straight out of the
jug.

I COULD USE A NEW SOLDERING IRON. I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT'S
WRONG WITH MINE. AS SOON AS I FIX ONE THING, SOMETHING ELSE 
CRAPS OUT ON IT.

BABY, THAT THING IS OLDER THAN YOUR BOYFRIEND. I MEAN, ANY 
SPECIAL FOOD OR ANYTHING YOU GOT A HANKERING FOR?

She appeared to give the matter serious thought. SPINACH, she signed.
I COULD EAT MY WEIGHT IN SPINACH.

Frohike nodded. He felt obligation to the girl on more levels than he
knew what to do with. She was not only the daughter of Dana Scully and
Fox Mulder, but she was a friend who had once carried him, shot in the
ass, the length of a football field. She was a good hacker and a
better investigator, and hell even the fact that this was Langly's kid
she was carrying made him more tangled up in the whole thing. Plus,
when she wasn't eating him out of house and home or making some mess
and failing, spectacularly, to clean it up, he just plain liked Thea.

I WANT YOU TO SEE SOMEBODY, he signed.

She frowned. He knew she was uncomfortable with the very idea.

NOT A DOCTOR, he signed carefully. A MIDWIFE.

Thea pursed her lips. YOU KNOW, I COULD REALLY DO WITHOUT 
SOME HIPPY CHICK STARING AT MY TWAT RIGHT NOW.

JESUS, DON'T EVEN TELL ME WHERE YOU LEARNED THAT WORD, 
he signed. IT'S NOT SOME HIPPY CHICK. IT'S AN OLD FRIEND OF YOUR 
FOLKS. HIS NAME'S CHUCK BURKES, HE USED TO CONSULT FOR 
THEM FROM TIME TO TIME.

A MIDWIFE WHO CONSULTS FOR THE GOVERNMENT? She raised an 
eyebrow.

MIDWIDERY IS SOMETHING HE PICKED UP IN INDIA. MORE OF A SIDELINE. HIS
REAL PROFESSION IS A LITTLE MORE ESOTERIC, he signed in explanation.

HE'S NOT A DOCTOR? Thea asked.

HE'S A TECH TYPE GUY. YOU'LL LIKE HIM. I'D LIKE TO GIVE HIM A CALL AND
SEE IF HE CAN DROP BY TOMORROW, Frohike tried make it sound low-key.

I'M NOT SICK. She scowled. I'M JUST REPRODUCING.

YOU WANT TO GET THIS BABY OFF TO A GOOD START?

She seemed to consider the question, then nodded.

YOU ARE GOING TO NEED TO HAVE PRENATAL CARE, Frohike signed, feeling
sad and old, but vaguely hopeful underneath it all.

She looked dubious.

IF YOU WERE STILL IN THE LAB, WOULDN'T THE DOCTORS FOLLOW THE BABY'S
PROGRESS? THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT, HONEY. I KNOW YOU WANT RINGO'S
BABY TO BE HEALTHY AND I KNOW YOU'LL LIKE CHUCK. He signed trying to
reassure her.

She had run her hands through her short hair so many times it was
standing on end. YOU'RE SURE HE'S NOT A DOCTOR?

SCOUT'S HONOR, Melvin signed. Tough as she was Thea was as jumpy as a
cat about certain things.

I'M GOING TO PUT LANGLY TO BED. DO I NEED TO PRETEND LIKE I'M GOING TO
MY OWN ROOM AFTERWARDS? she signed tiredly.

AT THIS POINT, Melvin grumbled as he signed, THAT WOULD BE AN INSULT
TO BOTH OF US.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Ringo woke up with his face stuck to the sheet and the profound
sensation of being hung-over.  His head was ringing but he'd had the
sweetest dream about fucking T. She'd been so tender, so gentle. When
he thought about it, he knew it wasn't real. That and they'd driven
through DC on a clear day with no traffic and hit nothing but green
lights. Then his shoe stuck to some bubble gum and he was about to be
eaten by an escalator.  He couldn't sort it out. He tried to remember
if That was before or after the mall full of giant rabbits. Had he
watched Night of the Lepus lately?

Shit!

He attempted to open his eyes, only to realize they were crusted shut.
He rubbed them carefully, trying to dislodge the seal, bit by bit
flaking them clear. As he continued rubbing, he began to remember a
less pleasant dream. Everyone started hitting him and T said she was
pregnant.  And then she was going to leave him. As if he hadn't played
that particular scenario out in his head a couple of thousand times
over the last six weeks.

He tried to bury his face in his hands and wound up shrieking
'OOOOOOOWWWWWW!' to no one in particular.

So the second one wasn't a dream after all.  At least the getting
punched part was verifiable. Byers really had hit him.

He laid his pillow over his face trying to remember. He had called
Byers a cocksucker; Byers had said, no, That was, in fact, what Langly
had turned T into.  He recalled accusing Byers of being jealous, of
wishing he was the one getting blown.

So Byers had clocked him.

And then Thea was there.

Pregnant? Did she really say she was pregnant?

 As much as he wanted to stay in bed and avoid the night before, he
had to get up and see if she was still there.

So Ringo pissed, put on his robe, and staggered around, squinting for
Thea. He found his glasses on the kitchen table.

Dressed, pressed, and nicely brushed, Byers looked at him. "Well, if
it isn't the proud papa," he said, as sarcastic as Ringo had ever
heard him.

Ringo answered him, cringing. "Lay off, will ya?  I know I screwed up.
Is Thea still here?"

Byers nodded. "Chuck Burkes," he enunciated too clearly for Ringo's
comfort, "is giving her a pelvic exam."

"Burkes?" Langly repeated dumbly.

"Did you know he was a licensed Nurse Midwife?"  Byers had a sip of
his coffee.

Ringo shook his head considering the possibility and finding it weird.

"Neither did I, but it seems he is."  Byers took another drink.

Langly tested exactly how far he could open his mouth before the dull
ache became a roar, and took a minute to think. Since Thea wasn't
gone, he lost his urgent desire to see her. In fact he'd like to put
off talking to her until he came up with a half an idea of what their
next move should be.  Next he tried moving his mouth side to side.

"Owwwww! Where's Fro?"

"Translating," Byers answered. "And also, I would imagine, protecting
Chuck just in case he manages to irritate the new mother-to-be."

Ringo laid his face on the cool Formica table top. It felt really
nice. Maybe he could get a bed made out of the stuff.

"How's your, um, face?" Byers asked, watching Langly closely.

Langly shrugged. "Okay. Think Fro gave me a concussion, though."

"Why did you do it?" Byers asked quietly.

Langly's head was still pressed to the table.  "Fu...you mean, sleep
with her?"

"Sleep with, impregnate, whatever. All of it."  He leaned a little
closer to Langly. "What were you thinking?"

Langly whispered something unintelligible to the table.
 
"Excuse me?"

"Love. I love her," Langly repeated softly. "The pregnant thing was an
accident."

Byers looked surprised. "You're certain?"

"About what?"

"That you love her?" Byers cleared his throat and squared his
shoulders. "Because if you do, your course is clear."

Langly rubbed his eyes again. "I got about four functioning brain
cells this morning. Get to the point, Bruiser."

"Langly, you are living with a, a woman, who is carrying your child,
who you also claim to be in love with." Byers folded his hands neatly
on the table top. "It seems fairly obvious what you should be doing."

"Me and T - married?" He pictured the awful powder blue tuxedos from
his older brother's wedding in '83, then for some reason Fro dressed
up as a flower girl. "Oh yeah that'll work "

"Then maybe you don't love, her after all."

"Kiss my ass, Suit."

"Either you love her and you want to spend the rest of you life with
her or this is just about you getting your questionable needs met.

Langly said nothing.

"Look Langly, we all get lonely, but your actions are having serious
repercussions, for all of us.  You realize she was leaving because she
wants to have this baby and she was worried what you'd say? She's very
young. Too young to be expected to make a rational decision about
this. "

If she was too young to make a rational decision, how the hell was she
old enough to get married?  Langly frowned closing his eyes. He wanted
to tell Byers he'd marry her that day, but he couldn't. It was scary.
She was the only chick he'd ever been with more than once. And he had
strong feelings for her, man, did he ever.

Every time they screwed he'd get choked up and wind up making her
swear they'd be 'buds for life.' That was easy. He couldn't imagine
not having her with him.

But married? And a baby? It made his head feel light and his stomach
rise.

"It's not her, Byers. It's me "

"I'm sure she'll find that very comforting when she's living on the
street with your child."

"Fuck off."

"Or perhaps they'll both wind up in a lab somewh-"

Frohike and Burkes wandered in to the room deep in conversation.
"-dates she gave me can't be right."

"You're sure?"

"What's the word?" Langly asked from behind his hands.

"Looks like you're off the hook, Blondie. Burkes says there's no way
she can be six weeks and she swears up and down that's the first time
you two did the deed."

"Chuck's wrong," Langly groaned, his face still hidden.

Burkes looked surprised. "Excuse me?"

"Let me show ya something." Langly stood up, pulling his robe close
around him, and gestured to them to follow him to his room.

"If this was medieval Europe," he began, peeling the sheets off his
mattress and revealing a dark, bat-shaped stain at its center, "you
could put it out on the sidewalk for all the old women of the village
to have a look at, too."

"Well, I've seen enough," Byers said to no one in particular, and left
the room.

"Six weeks ago, huh?" Frohike leaned closer to the mattress.  He
touched the blood stain with one finger.

Langly dropped the sheets in a pile at his feet.  "If she's pregnant,
it's mine."

"Oh, she's definitely pregnant," Chuck said, looking puzzled. "Very
pregnant. Look, I'm going to get out my ultrasound out of the car.
I'll be right back."
 
Frohike and Langly eyed each other for several uncomfortable minutes,
until Langly couldn't take it anymore.  He sat heavily on the edge of
the bare mattress and covered his face.

"I love her, Hickey." Langly's his breath was starting to come in
gasps. "I, I, I don't know if I can do this."

Frohike sighed heavily. "Pull yourself together, Tough Guy. You freak
out on her again and the kid's gonna split. She's 17, she's deaf,
she's pregnant, she's got nobody but us and none of her marketable
skills are exactly legal."

Langly somehow managed to sniff back tears and snarl at the same time.
"Watch it."

"I meant hacking and B & E, Dumbass.  She needs you for this. Don't
fool yourself into thinking she'll be better off without you."

"Man, I gotta go talk to her."

"Damn straight you do," Frohike agreed. "Just remember-you make her
cry - I make you cry - again."

So Langly trudged off to see Thea. Too bad he had no idea what he was
going to say.
 
:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

end 02

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

The next time Frohike saw either of them they were kissing.  One of
Thea's fists was wrapped in Langly's wet hair and his head was bent
back uncomfortably. Ringo's eyelids were fluttering - he looked, in
that second, as if Thea's kisses had a narcotic effect. It took Melvin
Frohike aback, but he supposed they'd had their talk.

And they had, such as it was.

Ringo, red eyed, the left side of his face a vivid blue bruise,
smelling of sweat, sleep, and medicine, let himself into her room to
find her bent over, pulling jeans up over her naked ass.

She turned around, mildly surprised.

SORRY. He had practiced signing an apology all the way to her room so
he was ready when he burst in on her.

NO BIG. YOU OKAY, RINGO? Her brow wrinkled as she signed.

I FEEL LIKE CRAP BUT I DON'T THINK I NEED TO FILE FOR PERMANENT
DISABILITY, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN. HOW ARE YOU FEELING? he signed,
staring at her flat stomach.

MY CERVIX IS TIGHTLY CLOSED AND MY UTERUS IS LARGE AND HARD, MY BLOOD
IS HIGH IN IRON, LOW IN SUGAR, AND CHOCK FULL OF HUMAN CHORIONIC
GONADATROPIN, MY BLOOD PRESSURE IS LOW, AND CHUCK SAYS I HAVE THE
HEART RATE OF A TREE SLOTH.  HE MADE ME DRINK THE GROSSEST DRINK -
here she shook her shoulders and stuck out her tongue in revulsion -
AND I'VE GIVEN SO MUCH BLOOD AND URINE I THINK I'VE BEEN CLEARED TO
RUN IN THE KENTUCKY DERBY. She shook her hands when she was done.

THAT'S COOL BUT, UM, he faltered, HOW DO YOU FEEL?

HUNGRY? she signed.

YOU PISSED AT ME?

NO, she signed and shook her head at the same time.  Biting the inside
of her cheek she went on, YOU MAD AT ME?

He shook his head back at her. He took a deep breath in preparation
for what he was about to tell her.  T, I LOVE YOU.

She waited a moment, then signed, YOU LOVE THE BABY TOO?

He fidgeted. I'LL LOVE THE BABY WHEN IT GETS HERE.

BUT YOU DON'T HATE IT? YOU PLAN ON LOVING IT?

He pushed his glasses up and smiled, albeit unconvincingly.  CHUCK
WANTS TO GIVE YOU AN ULTRASOUND. WOULD IT BE COOL IF I WAS THERE WITH
YOU?

He must have said the right thing, because Thea took this as her cue
to grab Langly roughly and kiss him thoroughly, forgetting for a
moment about his jaw.

As soon as she let him go he signed, MIND IF I TAKE A SHOWER? I'D LIKE
TO BE DRESSED THE FIRST TIME I SEE MY KID.

His kid, Langly thought. It looked weird, it sounded weird, it *was*
weird. But with the two of them for parents, it was bound to be a
weird kid.

In some way he couldn't quite explain, Langly found that thought very
comforting.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Langly hated the ultrasound even before it started. The 
light was off in Froman's room and Thea liked light.

Burkes explained that because she was so early it would be 
necessary to do the ultrasound internally. Which meant he 
took a slender wand attached to the monitor by a short 
coiled cord, rolled a condom onto it, slathered the thing 
in blue conductive goo and put it in her. 

Langly thought he was going to faint. Thea looked bored.

Ringo reached out and held her hand. She spelled into his 
palm. YOU OKAY?

He shook his head. YOU? DOES IT HURT?

PLEASE, she signed shaking her head and she rolled her eyes 
trying keep still for the exam, YOU ARE EASILY TWICE THE 
DIAMETER OF THAT PROBE AND YOU DON'T HURT ME. 

Ringo was embarrassed. He knew he was utterly average and 
the probe was small. Thea was no delicate flower. What was 
wrong with him?

Suddenly Burkes spoke. "Well look at that, you don't see 
that every day. Actually, I personally have never seen that 
before. Wow."

Langly practically jumped out of his skin. "What?!?!" 

RINGO? Thea signed, looking panicked. WHAT'S WRONG?

"Sorry, that was unprofessional of me," Burkes said, 
straightening himself.  He looked at Thea and shook his 
head.  "There isn't a problem," he said, enunciating each 
word very carefully. He gave her the thumbs up. "Everything 
looks great."  

Langly blinked. He felt as if something was squeezing his 
brain. "So everything is okay? Normal?" 

Burkes shook his head. "Not normal, no. More like unusual."
He nodded toward the monitor, then held up three fingers as 
he smiled. "What you've got here is triplets."

Langly made a conscious effort to slow his breathing 
despite the feeling of vertigo that seized him. "Triplets? 
She's going to have three uuhhh three uuhh--" 

Thea's eyes grew wide. THREE? She signed

"Three, yes. Which is unusual without fertility treatment."  
Burkes pointed to a few dark bean-shaped areas on the 
screen that, to Langly, looked no different than the rest 
of the image. "One, two, three. There is an increased risk 
of spontaneous abortion with multiple pregnancies, but 
she's in great physical shape, really great shape."  He 
turned his attention to Thea again. "Your blood sugar is 
low, hematocrit high, large pelvic opening. It's almost 
like you were designed for this.  The only weird part 
is. . ." Chuck's voice trailed off. 

Langly swallowed. "What?" 

"See this?" Chuck drew both their attention to the screen.   
"These are the babies and-" he pointed slightly higher on 
the screen "-this is the placenta." 

"Why is that weird?" 

"One placenta means they started out as a single zygote. 
Which means they're identical. Identical triplets. Most 
midwives or OBs never see a case like this. "This is the 
opportunity of a lifetime."  He slipped the wand out and 
tossed the condom in Frohike's wastepaper basket. "I have to 
thank Frohike for calling me in." 

"Let me tell her about it, okay?" Langly told Burkes.

"Sure," Burkes agreed as he helped Thea off the bed and 
began packing his equipment.  "This is incredible, though, 
Langly. Special. Make sure she knows that."

He tried. He really did. He didn't know if he succeeded. It 
didn't matter what was going on in her head, most of the 
time Thea had three whole facial expressions in her 
repertoire, which Langly privately named The Big Scully 
Smile, The Mannequin, and The Crying Like a Duck. He didn't 
know if he was relieved or disappointed that he got The 
Mannequin.

I THINK HE MIGHT BE RIGHT. I THINK I WAS DESIGNED TO DO IT 
LIKE THAT she signed, after wiping herself indelicately 
with Frohike's bed sheet, standing and buttoning her jeans. 
I THINK IT EVEN MAKES SENSE. 

The rest of the day was strange and uncomfortable. The 
Gunmen worked on the paper because it gave them something 
to do, but they spoke as little as possible. 

Langly tried to work on a piece he had researched on the 
link between specific food additives and violent behavior, 
but somehow he wound up reinforcing the group's many 
internet firewalls, instead.  Having finished that, he made 
sure every office chair in the place rolled freely and 
provided optimal lumbar support. He didn't realize it, but 
in his own unique way, he was already anxiously nesting.

Thea, for her part, drank a gallon of milk while furiously 
typing on the floor while Langly worked on her chair. Her 
article was fairly typical for her - a Marxist 
deconstruction of the capitalist propaganda content of the 
latest Saturday morning cartoon.  Byers would have to edit 
for length and readability and it would inevitably wind up 
being about a third of its original length.  She kept 
herself busy, just in case Langly was trying to ignore her.

Langly spent the day practically pining to ask her to play 
the new game he'd gotten fresh from Hong Kong that 
afternoon but he was so worried what the guys would say he 
couldn't. Around midnight he gave up - but instead of 
proposing a simulated fight to the death he stood beside 
her monitor and signed WANT TO GO TO BED?

BEST OFFER I'VE HAD TODAY, she signed. NIGHT GUYS, she 
signed to the other two, who bade them goodnight with 
studious carelessness.

Langly made certain to look them both in the face, 
nervously defiant, as he led her away by the hand.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


His bedroom door at her back, Thea unceremoniously stripped 
off her shirt and made an attempt to engage Langly in their 
traditional out-of-the-other-guy's-eyeshot liplock.  

She did not seem to understand his problem. Perhaps certain  
intricacies of human sexual behavior were permanently 
beyond her grasp.  

Not even a full two months away from her virginity, she was 
fluent in the mechanics of sex. Thea held a solid 
understanding of touch and pressure. She knew that her lips 
on her lover's nipple would bring his hands to her hair 
with Pavlovian dependability.  She knew from experience 
that three slow wet circuits along his shaft with her 
tongue would leave him shuddering and unable to sign.  She 
had no idea why he was looking at her that way. Afraid. 
Like they had never done this before.  

But as far as he was concerned, they hadn't.  

Before that day he had been aroused and impressed by her 
utter lack of sexual shame. At that particular moment, he 
was horrified that she realized Fro and Byers knew what 
they were about to do and she didn't care at all.  

Besides, she was pregnant.

She had no idea that, even under ideal circumstances, he 
spent at least a half an hour after sex feeling guilty. She 
had never been able to decide exactly what he meant when he 
signed 'dirty,' since it seemed to mean both too perverse 
to contemplate and too pleasurable to pass up. It had taken 
him almost a month to work up the nerve to ask for 
fellatio. He would have been begging for it every day after 
that but she was so eager he didn't have a chance.  

Thea Fidelis had spent her first five years of life in a 
Plexiglas tank. The information she received in the topic 
of 
sex was no more biased than the information wires fed into 
her 
brain on a thousand other topics. She had strong urges  
herself since her fifth year out of the tank.  Later, in 
her life above water, she saw women try to use sex to save 
themselves and fail miserably. Tiresome, risky, and they 
didn't seem to enjoy it. The entire thing seemed stupid. 
The trouble  was she had been designed for sex, to desire 
it, to excel at it. She was also designed to rank the 
welfare of her  loved ones above her own. She was a 
praetorian and despite the modifications that had been made 
to the original model, she was her father's daughter.  

From the beginning she noticed things about Langly. The way 
sometimes his pupils would grow wide when they were 
wrestling. The way his gaze rested on her several seconds 
longer than it ever fell on Frohike or Byers.  She had a 
certain t-shirt that was tighter than most of her others, 
and when she wore it, he would frequently put an abrupt end 
to wrestling mid-game with some completely lame excuse.  He 
was different. He had those feelings Gibson lacked. Though 
she hadn't believed they were aimed at her.

Until the kiss.

Overnight, a world that had been sepia toned became vivid 
Technicolor. For Thea, it was the difference between 
knowing the atomic weight of carbon and holding a perfect 
diamond in her hand. Once she put her research into 
practice with the object of her adoration, her sexual 
feelings were roughly as conflicted as the average golden 
retriever's.  

The situation was somewhat different for her lover. 

Richard Langly received a wealth of messages about sex in 
his early life, most of them contradictory. His parents 
produced seven children but he had only ever seen them kiss 
on the cheek.  Inseminating cows was a yearly activity on 
the farm, but human reproduction was a skillfully avoided 
topic. Little Ringo watched Captain Toby longer than he'd 
believed in God. Still, somewhere in the neighborhood of a 
thousand Sundays spent keeping a church pew warm took their 
toll. He might have been an iconoclast, a rabble rouser, 
and an undoubted atheist, but somewhere beneath it all, he 
was a nice God-fearing Lutheran boy. 

Marybeth Langly's grip extended beyond the grave and all 
the way to Takoma Park, Maryland, when her son looked at 
the topless girl beckoning him from the bed. He couldn't 
talk. He couldn't sign. The only thing he didn't have a 
problem doing was getting it up. 'Chagrined' may not 
have been the right word, but it was close.  

Another realization pummeled him. Exactly two people  
claimed to love him in his entire life. One had given birth 
to him. The other was laying on his bed, the signs of his 
residence not yet apparent, but he was growing in her, too.  
He wasn't used to thinking in those kinds of terms.  

It made his head hurt, but Byers was right - he'd feel a 
lot better if they got married.  She didn't seem much like 
a wife, but then he wasn't exactly promising husband 
material himself. He'd never want to spend the rest of his 
life stuck with a wifey-type chick, anyway. But then, if he 
married Thea, she'd be his wife.

If he had been one of those androids from the original Star 
Trek series, he would have blown up already.

He closed his eyes and tried thinking it through again. 

He'd spent his entire adult life bitching about not getting 
laid; it looked like that one had turned around and bit him 
on the ass in a big way. It was one of those things that 
left him feeling remarkably clueless. Marriage? Kids ? He'd 
seemed pretty safely distanced from the possibility until 
Thea came along.  

A scene from his boyhood sprang to mind. He was 14, 
listening to music in his room when his father called him 
to the kitchen table.  

He could hear the low rough voice even now.  "Take this as 
a warning, Ringo. You get some girl bad off, like Tommy did 
Meg, and you're gonna marry her. Don't think you're too 
good to pay for your mistakes."

His mother made him jump running her palm down the back of 
his neck and granting him her unsolicited vote of 
confidence. "Ritchie wouldn't do that, would you, Baby?"

His father had actually laughed. "Marybeth, this fool'll 
get in trouble with the first girl dumb enough to let him."

But things with Tom and Meg seemed to work out okay.  And 
if Tom Langly could do it at 18, Richard Langly could do it 
at 37. 

He hoped.
  
He sat on the edge of the bed and watched Thea casually 
playing with her nipples. Oh lord, he could so do this. He 
ran his finger along the top edge of her jeans then dropped 
his head in defeat.

Byers and Frohike were still out there, still knew what 
they were doing. I'M SORRY, he signed to her I JUST...I 
CAN'T...THE GUYS, THEY KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING, GOING TO DO.

She looked at him curiously. IF THEY DIDN'T GUESS AFTER THE 
PREGNANT THING, IT WOULD BE KIND OF PATHETIC.

He didn't know what to say to that.  

IT DOESN'T MAKE YOU FEEL WEIRD? he signed.

NO. WHY? SHOULD IT? She stretched on the small bed. FROHIKE 
BRINGS HOME WOMEN SOMETIMES. REMEMBER THAT REALLY DUMB ONE, 
DOT? YOU DIDN'T THINK THEY WERE READING SPINOZA IN HIS 
ROOM, DID YOU?

She had him there. He shrugged.  

WILL YOU MAKE ME COME? She unbuttoned her pants. OR DO I 
HAVE TO DO IT MYSELF? 

Langly swallowed hard. RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME? he 
signed, fascinated and scandalized. He thought it was 
possibly the hottest offer he'd had in his life.  He felt 
slightly faint.  

IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ME HAVE AN ORGASM, she 
signed casually.  

He removed his shoes and sat vigilantly at the foot of the 
bed. She seemed surprised that it interested him so much. 
She slipped her hand down the front of her jeans, actually, 
she was wearing his pants, his jeans, her hand, her hot 
wet... ohgodohgod. He leaned forward in hope of getting 
closer look.

TAKE THEM OFF, he signed, tapping her knee.

She arched her eyebrow.

YOUR PANTS. SO I CAN SEE BETTER. I MEAN, IF YOU WANT TO, IF 
IT'S OKAY, he back-pedaled. 
 
She grinned the big grin and slipped them off. When her 
back arched mid-strip, he thought for a brief second that 
he was going to have to get his inhaler.

The first two fingers on her left hand were rubbing little 
circles on her clit. He watched enraptured, not even aware 
his right hand was pressing intermittently against his  
straining erection. Thea, however, noticed and was suddenly 
exponentially more aroused.  

WILL YOU OPEN YOUR- ? He faltered. He had a hard time with 
descriptive terms for female anatomy.  

IF YOU GET OUT YOUR PENIS, she signed stopping her hand for 
a moment.

She spread her labia.
 
He loved her hands. They were elegant, with long, tapered 
fingers and perfect blunted ovals for nails, even if the 
edges tended to be ragged and chewed.  A chick's hands. 

Her clit was firmly between two fingertips, like a 
cigarette. He'd never seen anything like that in a movie. 
It was possibly the coolest thing he'd seen in his life. 
How could he marry a chick like that? It would be like 
finding the rarest, most beautiful butterfly. 

Then sticking a pin straight through its chest.  

He struggled to throw off the sickening  glare of
Self-consciousness even as he watched Thea's fluttering 
fingers, like this was his own personal porno movie. He 
could all but feel her gaze stroking him. It was easily the 
dirtiest thing he'd done in his life.

Sure, he was uncomfortable but not uncomfortable enough to 
stop, not as long as her hand was moving, not as long 
as his eyes were on her.

Then she started making that noise, that  muted but 
insistent whining that seemed to emanate from the hollow 
of her throat and meant orgasm was no more than ten seconds 
away.

He forgot to feel vulnerable, unattractive, and ashamed.
  
Like that he fell, his hand a blur, his pale eyelashes 
fluttering. His shoulders hunched and his hips jerked.  
White pearls of semen began to jet everywhere, spilling in 
surges on Ringo's hand, abdomen, and bed. 

He was still shaking and stuttering when she took his hand 
in hers and licked it clean.  By the time her tongue had 
moved on to collect the shining drops from the stream of 
light red hair that stretched to his navel, he was no 
longer shivering, but gasping like a fish in the bottom of 
a boat.  

"Oh Oh Oh," he whispered.

THAT WAS THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE, she signed, smiling broadly 
at him.  

He wasn't sure whether he felt like he'd robbed a bank or 
won the lottery.
 
John Byers did not immediately start to watch Ringo and 
Thea closely; he simply began to pay unobtrusive attention 
to what he would have noted peripherally only a short time 
before. Only the smallest of visible changes had taken 
place. They still spent most of their time at their 
monitors - intent, focused - or leaning over the same 
keyboard, all their touches inconsequential, glancing.

All this time, he had assumed that Langly was attentive and 
lacking his ever-present sarcasm with Thea because she was 
young, female, and handicapped. Byers had been dead wrong. 
He failed to take into account how often Langly looked at 
her, or how often he brought her things - ideas, articles, 
games, new software - and when something caught her fancy, 
the man would get that smug 'just hacked the D.O.D.' look. 
He took suggestions from her that, coming from anyone else, 
would have merited a resounding 'fuck you.'  

His uneasy conclusion was that their behavior didn't seem 
to have changed at all. Thea and Langly had been in love 
for some time.

Byers used to think all Gunmen were equal in Thea's eyes. 
No more. She gazed at Langly, Byers realized, just like 
Mulder gazed at Scully. She jumped to his defense even when 
he didn't exactly deserve it. She also scrutinized him from 
the very beginning. He was unsettled to recall the day, 
just a few months after her arrival, when she observed 
conversationally that Ringo would eat anything red. He 
would. It was true. But in 16 years neither he nor Frohike 
had ever spent enough time thinking about their associate's 
eating habits to draw that conclusion. She couldn't get her 
clothes washed without prodding but she could keep a 
painstaking mental record of Langly's asthma attacks and 
myriad allergies. She never put Frohike in a headlock.

He'd always imagined Langly was, well, a bit naive. He 
seemed that way even now, his arms wrapped around her in 
his sleep. Naive didn't seem like the right word for a 
grown man going to bed with a girl not even old enough to 
sign a lease.

They had fallen asleep on the couch, again. Her heartburn 
must have been bothering her. She had three pillows wedged 
tightly behind her back, keeping her in a sitting position 
as she slept. Langly was in the fetal position both on top 
of and beside her, and it looked uncomfortable. The couch 
clearly hadn't been designed for two six foot tall people. 

Byers became uncomfortably aware that, in his sleep, 
Langly was nuzzling Thea's nipple through her t-shirt. 

John Byers replaced the quilt they had kicked off, poured 
the cereal he had come for, and returned to his bed.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

end 03

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


It was all Kimmy's fault. He got out the ice cream 
sandwiches. A case of cheap ice cream sandwiches. Everyone 
else just devoured them like a pack of bespectacled  
hyenas. Everyone, that is, except for Thea. It was Mordo's 
roll and she would have sworn she smelled the sugar in the 
air. It made her skin itch and it set her teeth on edge.  

She looked at Ringo. He was sucking the ice cream out of 
the middle the way he always did. He tilted his head as he 
pulled in his cheeks. If she kissed him right then his 
mouth would taste cold and chocolaty.

She barely made it to Kimmy's bathroom in time to vomit.  
Instead of the toilet she let the vomit go in his 
sink - the sink was closer.

"Oh gross!!!! Shut the door, will you! Christ on a crutch, 
Manhammer, 32-of-A  has the manners of Genghis Khan. Where 
was she born, in a barn?"

"Lay off Kimmy. T's just got some food poisoning. Besides 
she came from a lab not a barn, that was you, Kimmy the dog 
faced boy." It was a joke of his to tell the truth - since 
nobody'd believe anyway.

"Didn't you use that excuse last week - food poisoning, the 
week before that it was stomach flu. You wanna know what I 
think?" Kimmy said gleefully.

"No, Kimmy, nobody wants to know what you think," Langly 
said pushing his glasses up with his middle finger.

"I think Fido caught something, alright. I think Shaggy's 
knocked up Scooby. Ruck me Raggy," Kimmy howled in 
pseudo-ecstasy, enjoying his cartoon imitation a bit too 
much.

"SHUT UP KIMMY! And if you call her that again I'm gonna 
beat your misshapen head in." Langly stepped toward him.

"I think," Kimmy smirked but backed up cagily, "Lord 
Manhammer's little boyfriend is going to have puppies."

Langly slammed Kimmy into the wall but once he got him 
there was at a loss for what to do next. "Go buy some 
apples, sphincter boy," he sneered, dragging Kimmy by the 
front of his shirt across his living room.

"What?" Kimmy was frightened, puzzled, and vaguely pissed 
off.

"She likes apples and all you have around here is crap that 
makes her sick. And stop talking shit - if she's such a 
dog, how come every time she bends over I catch you 
checking out her ass? GO! NOW!" And with that he threw 
Kimmy out his own front door.

He leaned against the wall wondering if he had lost his 
mind. All the guys were staring at him like a pier full of 
netted fish - they gasped, they gaped, they stared 
unblinking.

Until Thea came out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth on 
her arm. All eyes turned to her.

She looked around at the shocked and somber faces and 
laughed like a seal. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE ASSHOLES?  She 
signed to Langly.

KIMMY FIGURED OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT, he signed.

SO? Her eyes swept around the room. She gestured to Mordo, 
signing very, very slowly. She grinned. ANYBODY WANT TO SEE 
MY BELLY? 

Langly scowled and Mordo nodded.  Langly felt himself blush 
when she unzipped her jeans in front of everyone to show 
off the hard, shallow dome that had mere weeks before been 
utterly flat.

Male pride zinged through him like adrenalin. He'd done 
that. No one even had to ask. That was his work and 
everyone knew. Macho? Did he feel macho?

Langly couldn't exactly explain why he suddenly had goose 
bumps, just that he did. Watching Mordo and a couple of 
brave others touch Thea's naked abdomen, the hair on his 
arms stood up and his spine went straight. He, who embodied 
post-industrial man with his extended adolescence and his 
life lived devoted to abstracts concepts, had a Neanderthal 
impulse. He wanted to take a rock and bash in the skull of 
any male who dared to lay a finger on his woman. Needless 
to say, the feeling shocked him and he stood very still 
until it passed.

Then he said something sarcastic.

The game proceeded very close normal except that from time 
to time Langly would notice his gaming buddies, who, he 
grudgingly admitted, were Thea's gaming buddies too after 
the last two years, stealing looks at her. Looks that 
ranged from fear, to lust, to curiosity, to embarrassment. 
He wanted to make them stop prodding her with their eyes, 
set up a little screen around her, make her wear a veil or 
something. Maybe even a ring. The thought thrilled, 
embarrassed, and horrified him in equal parts.

She sat the way she always had, closer to him than to 
anyone else, but careful not to touch. He drew a few inches 
nearer and slipped his arm around her waist. That felt 
better. He puffed out his chest and rolled.

When Kimmy returned an hour later, he had apples. Granny 
Smith and Red Rome.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

He finally got it together to propose. He wasn't feeling 
too guilty, or scared, or tense. It was amazing really, 
that it only took him sixteen days of going over it in his 
head to do it, considering how much time Langly spent 
feeling 'not right.' At eight weeks, the pregnancy was now 
obvious - when she was naked, she looked like a boa 
constrictor that swallowed the rabbit.

The two of them were sitting at their monitors, same old 
same old. When he sent the words to her screen.

WANNA GET HITCHED?

He held his breath as he watched her puzzle over the words. 
It wasn't a hard question. She either wanted to or she 
didn't.

LIKE A HORSE? AND YOU CALL ME KINKY!

He rolled his eyes at the monitor. Langly typed in the next 
words impatiently.

MARRIED, T - DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED? TO ME?

This time her brow smoothed as she read.

Her answer was swift, if not effusive. 

OKAY.

He found himself smiling and wanting to jump up and down, 
although he sat very still. 

OKAY? REALLY? YOU WILL?

SURE. YOU THINK SHORT MAN WILL HAVE LUNCH READY SOON? 

Langly wanted her to be more excited. He was excited. He 
didn't realize an officially recognized union was roughly 
as significant to her as a trip the DMV.

I GOT YOU A RING, he typed hoping her lack of enthusiasm 
was all in his head.

WHAT FOR? She asked.

Could that be right? He thought over her life as he knew 
it. She'd been in a tank, and a lab, and a deaf school, and 
then living on the street with Gibson. Was it possible in 
all that she'd missed the significance of a wedding ring? 
Maybe even marriage in general? She wasn't dumb she had to 
know what it was, but maybe the deeper meaning had by 
passed her.

A WEDDING RING, T. IT'S TRADITIONAL. He waited for her 
response. 

Oh. I'VE NEVER KNOWN ANY MARRIED PEOPLE. HAVE YOU?

He stared at the screen for a minute before he started to 
type.

A FEW, YEAH. 

LIKE WHO? 

Langly blinked, then typed: 

BYERS WAS MARRIED WHEN WE FIRST MET HIM BUT SHE KICKED HIM 
OUT FOR SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME WITH ME AND HICKEY. FRO WAS  
MARRIED MANY MOONS AGO, IN THE 70's. ALL MY BROTHERS AND 
SISTERS HAVE BEEN MARRIED SINCE THEY WERE YOUR AGE. MY 
PARENTS WERE MARRIED. I COME FROM A LONG LINE OF MARRIED 
PEOPLE. IT'S WHAT MOST PEOPLE DO, T.

He saw an expression flicker across her face, but from his 
vantage point he couldn't see what it was.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN MARRIED BEFORE?

Oh that's what that look was. Cool. It made him feel 
reassured that she was jealous. He waited a second before 
he replied with a smug: 

NO

GOOD. CAN I SEE THE RING?

IT'S IN MY ROOM, he answered. SHUT DOWN AND I'LL SHOW YOU. 

They went to his room but somehow didn't get around to 
looking at the ring that day.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Yves Adele Harlow looked peevishly into the surveillance 
camera in the alley and tapped her foot. She would never 
have imagined those two geniuses could be so abominably 
stupid. Careless. Idiotic. True, Langly had always 
evidenced a certain impulsiveness. Miss Fidelis had 
appeared to be more sensible than that, but Yves supposed 
there were certain things being reared by lab techs might 
not prepare one for. Still, she mused, a Zeus Genetics 
nursery was most likely no more dehumanizing than the 
average daycare center.

Yves had assumed the girl would get him into bed at some 
point. She'd just reckoned that anyone intelligent enough 
to do the work Thea did was also smart enough to use birth 
control. Hearing buzz that Langly had bared Fidelis's belly 
to a throng of geeks somewhere and beaten Kimmy Belmont 
bloody, Yves was embarrassed that she hadn't been more 
proactive.

"Guys," she waved at the camera, "let me in." After a 
moment, she heard the snick of seven locks and saw the 
face of Melvin Frohike.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" Frohike said 
mock-graciously.

"Where are they?" She asked him point blank.

"I take it you're here to offer congratulations?" Byers 
looked up from his accounting.

"So it's true, then?" she asked.

Byers nodded.

"Where'd you hear? If it was Burkes, I'm gonna kick his ass 
but good," Frohike fumed.

"Where haven't I?" she asked casually. "Word around the 
cyber campfire these days is that Ringo Langly beat Kimmy 
Belmont senseless for insulting one Thea Fidelis, then 
proceeded to proudly display Miss Fidelis' distended 
abdomen to the assembled crowd."

Frohike and Byers stared wide eyed. "Crap," Frohike 
whispered.

"We knew we weren't going to be able to hide it forever." 
Byers sounded resigned.

"I'v heard the tale from eight different sources in the 
past forty-two hours. In one version, Kimmy wound up 
unconscious. In another, your young associate was carrying 
triplets," Yves continued.

"The part about the triplets is true," Byers replied, "but 
we saw Kimmy yesterday and he looked fine."

"He did seem kinda..." Frohike winced

"Furtive?" Byers supplied.

"Squirrelly," Frohike amended.

"When isn't Kimmy squirrelly?" Yves asked rhetorically. 
She let out a sigh. "My god, those two are stupid."

Frohike shrugged. "It happens everyday, sweetheart; boy 
meets girl."

"Thirty-seven is hardly a boy," Byers interrupted.
 
Yves frowned. "So where are they?"

Frohike cracked his knuckles as he spoke. "Myra and Jerry 
Lee are out looking for a judge who doesn't have a grudge 
against the groom to marry them." 

Yves considered it. There were an avalanche of factors that 
would make a legal marriage a difficult pursuit for them. 
Langly's mouth and epic number of court appearances over 
the last decade and a half had made him less than beloved 
by the judiciary of the along the eastern seaboard. Even if 
they had given a false date of birth for Thea, and she was 
certain they had, the communication problem would not be 
easy to overcome. Chances were a judge would look at 
them and see a young handicapped girl and an older man 
with an arrest record a mile long who all but breathed 
contempt of court. 

They'd be home soon.

And they were. Yves watched Langly surreptitiously stroke 
Thea's belly on the surveillance camera.

Thea signed when she walked through the door, 
YVES, YOU LEAVE GIGANTOPITHECUS AT HOME?

"I took the liberty of sending Jimmy after Chinese," Yves 
answered.  "He should be back soon,"

ANY LUCK? Frohike signed to Thea and asked Langly.

Langly shook his head. WE COULDN'T EVEN GET THE 
LICENSE, they signed together.

"Why don't you just break in and make yourselves one? 
Surely that option occurred to you," Yves said, relying on 
Langly to translate for Thea.

Thea looked at Yves and nodded but Langly glared.

"'cause this is a marriage, not a parking ticket," Langly
snorted.  

Pleasantly, Yves said, "I may know someone. But first we 
need to have a talk."

Langly pursed his lips as he signed the conversation for 
Thea. "About?"

"Your offspring," Yves said.

Thea rolled her eyes then reached for one of  the dozens of 
note pads that she'd left around the offices. WHY IS 
EVERYONE OBSESSED WITH MY PREGNANCY? she wrote. 

BECAUSE, MY DEAR, IT IS YOUR PURPOSE, Yves wrote underneath

"Somewhere a feminist weeps," Frohike commented.

"This is precisely what her makers designed her to 
do - find a male with exceptional traits and breed. I have 
to say, her idea of *exceptional* is probably not what CGB 
Spender had in mind. Gustatorum non disputum est, though."

Thea began to write frantically as soon as Langly finished 
signing what Yves had said.

FUCK SPENDER AND FUCK ZEUS. I'VE BEEN MY OWN GIRL FOR A 
LONG TIME NOW. I'M NOT THEIR CREATION ANYMORE. THEY DON'T 
CONTROL ME. THEY'VE GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

Yves cocked her head, unimpressed by the rant.

ONE MORE CRACK ABOUT RINGO AND I'LL BREAK YOUR CUTE LITTLE 
NOSE, Thea wrote and again shoved the paper into Yves face.

ARE YOU QUITE FINISHED? Yves wrote back. "Is she quite 
finished?" she asked Langly.

Behind her on the monitor Jimmy Bond banged the door 
vigorously with his forehead, arms laden with takeout. 
"Who wants Chinese?" he called at the top of his lungs.

WELL, AT LEAST THERE'S FOOD, Thea signed.

In the kitchen, takeout boxes blooming like white lotuses 
along the counter, Jimmy held a cold pack to his forehead 
while the others loaded plates. 

"Now," Yves said as they sat to eat, "are you ready to 
discuss this?" 

Jimmy signed. It was a small irony that he was the best 
hearing signer of the group.

SURE, HIT ME WHEN I'M HALF-DRUNK ON FRIED FOOD, Thea 
signed. 

"What do you know about why you were made?" Yves asked and 
Jimmy signed.

TO PROTECT AND SERVE, SAME AS YOU, Thea answered, wiping 
the grease off her lips with the back of her arm.

WHAT? Byers asked, almost dropping his fork. 

SAME AS HER, Thea signed laconically. HER REAL NAME IS LOIS 
RUNCE AND HER FATHER'S SOME BIG SHOT BILLIONAIRE 
WHO BOUGHT HER FROM ZEUS GENETICS.

All eyes turned to Yves.

Yves shrugged and toyed with her chop stick. "Enough money 
and the right connections can buy anything." She sounded 
very bored. "Even the carefully manipulated genes of an 
advanced human." 

THEY'RE SISTERS, Jimmy signed, beaming. ISN'T THAT COOL?

"Crap," Langly groaned.

"It's a rather simplistic way of putting it," Yves 
explained. "I entered this search to uncover my own 
origins, in the process I came across quite a few secrets." 
She turned to Thea. "Some of them are yours."
 
LIKE WHAT? Thea frowned, chomping her way through an 
eggroll. 

"The lab in Costa Rica where you were made was 
destroyed by Struckhold's men in a fire. There were only 
two survivors - you and your fellow clone."

Thea's jaw clenched and her hand went unconsciously to her 
belly. Langly sat very still.

Thea moved her hand from her belly and signed, THAT HAS 
NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CHILDREN.

"On the contrary, it has everything to with them. It also 
has everything to do with why you can't stay here," Yves 
explained. "You were designed to select the optimum male 
available and breed true super-soldiers. Not praetorians, 
Thea, but actual indestructible super-soldiers. The fire 
was set to destroy you and the others like you." 

Thea closed her eyes.

In unison, Langly and Frohike said, "What the fuck?"

After a moment, Thea opened her eyes.  Langly thought she 
was going to throw up. YOU'RE SAYING SPENDER WASN'T 
SATISFIED? HE WANTED TO BE ABLE TO BREED SUPER-SOLDIERS 
OUTSIDE THE LAB IF THERE WAS A POWER STRUGGLE, RIGHT? 
Thea signed.

Yves nodded. "The larger group of consortium members 
thought your project was dangerous enough to attempt to 
destroy all evidence it ever existed, even amongst 
themselves."

"These are still my kids, right?" Langly asked, all 
thoughts of finishing his food having vanished. 

"Yes," Yves said icily, "and they will possess all 
your strengths and none of your multitude of weaknesses. 
Which is why Spender sought to breed Thea with 
a young man named Gibson Praise."

Thea's knee was bouncing convulsively. Langly, Byers, and 
Frohike were staring, first at Yves then Thea.

I'LL HAVE AN ABORTION, Thea signed flatly.

Yves arched one brow. "Which part of 'indestructible' did 
you find confusing?"

"What the fuck are we supposed to do?" Langly groaned.

"I suggest Thea leave, go into hiding, and attempt to be 
the best mother possible."

NO WAY, Langly signed. SHE ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE WITHOUT 
ME.

"Make no mistake, Langly - the parties interested in 
your children are brutal." Yves said "If you go with her, 
you'll be endangering Frohike and Byers." 

Frohike spoke. "What if Byers and I went with them?" 

"That is one possibility I've considered," Yves answered. 

SO WE'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO DROP EVERYTHING? SCREW TRUTH AND 
JUSTICE, SCREW THE PAPER, LET THE LIARS AND THE CHEATERS 
CONTINUE UNHAMPERED BECAUSE MY STUPID ASS IS REPRODUCING? 
Thea signed violently.

"It is my opinion that the welfare of your children should 
come first." She pinned Langly with a pointed glare. "Or am 
I mistaken about that?" 

Langly shook his head. "Go on." 

"To that end," Yves continued, "I've prepared a place where 
you should be able to live in comfort and anonymity.  I am 
even prepared to provide you with a modest monthly living 
allowance."

Thea stood. DON'T TAKE THIS WRONG, BUT I'M GOING TO GO
VOMIT NOW she signed as she left the room. 

"Gosh, you're lucky, Langly," Jimmy said as he watched 
Thea's retreating back. "I mean she is gonna make such 
a beautiful bride."

Langly gave Jimmy a look he used to give him fairly 
frequently back in the days when he lived at the 
headquarters.

"I keep trying to convince Yves that we should start a 
family." Jimmy gave Yves' thigh a friendly little squeeze. 
"Isn't that right, honey?" 

Yves lifted his hand from her leg and placed it on his own.  
"Jimmy, pl-" 

"I mean it, Langly. This super-soldier thing seems kinda 
scary now, but think about it. Do you have any idea what 
this is gonna save you in doctor bills?"

Langly blinked. 

Jimmy continued blithely. "So are you guys wanting to go 
with a church or a temple for the wedding? 'Cause I know 
Agent Mulder was Jewish, but that kind of thing is counted 
through the mother, right? And you've got a certain, don't 
take this the wrong way, a certain gentile look to you. if 
you wanted to go with a Jewish ceremony, though, I know a 
great rabbi, grew up next door to me, and-"

"We're both atheists, Jimmy."

"No problem." Jimmy's grin kept getting wider and wider.
"I know a Unitarian guy who could handle that. Gee, I 
love weddings." 

Langly gave the other man a dark scowl. "We've sort of had 
other things on our minds." 

"Of course you have. But you know, I'd be thrilled to help.  
More than help. Just consider me your own personal wedding 
planner. Now, what-" 

"Jimmy?" Yves attempted to divert him from his goal.

"-kind of flowers does she like?"

"Jimmy," Yves reprimanded. 
 
"Flowers make me sneeze until my eyes swell shut." Langly 
answered

"Silk," Jimmy nodded. "Easy enough. How about cake? 
Something smallish, maybe two-tiered?"

"Thea won't eat cake."

"Does she have a dress picked out?"

"I don't think she wants one."

"Jimmy!" Yves snarled.

"No flowers, no cake, no dress? What kind of wedding is 
that?"

Langly rose. "I'm gonna go find T." 

A quick search revealed she had taken the group's 
VW bus.


~:~:~:~:~:~~:

end 04


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Something was bad wrong with a world where the most obvious 
place a guy's pregnant girlfriend could go was the 
skatepark. But the bus was in the lot, parallel parked. Mad 
and on a tear, Thea was still Thea.

"Thank you, Jesus," Langly muttered as Jimmy pulled the  
Ferrarri next to the battered VW. He was out of the car 
before Jimmy could kill the engine.

Inside, two pretentiously unkempt teenaged boys slouched 
against a wall.

"You spy Hush on the half pipe?" One boy said to the other.

"Them was some torrid fuckin' grinders, no?"

"I mean her tits - it's like, ummm, guess who got a visit 
from the mammary fairy?"

"Shit," Langly muttered and set off for pipe at a run. He 
suppressed the futile urge to scream her name.

As he drew close, he saw her face, saw her body, recognized 
the meditative posture as she drew to her full height then 
crouched improbably low in response to the curved concrete. 
He watched her rise along with her board in perfect 
air-borne continuation of the arc of the structure. She 
pivoted in the air, descending gracefully in the same 
imaginary bow she had ridden upwards. Only the grating 
sound of wheel meeting pavement to testified she was no 
longer floating. If she hadn't been pregnant, it would have 
taken his breath away.

He reminded himself for the tenth time that night that 
there were few things dumber than yelling at a deaf person.

All his ambiguous emotions evaporated in the buzz of the 
yellow lights. There were cigarette butts everywhere. The 
concrete felt sticky under his shoes. Every thirty seconds 
the image of Thea falling and bleeding forced itself behind 
his eyes. He craned his neck until he could see the one 
person who could help him, a medium set guy his age with a 
short black ponytail; Beauchamp, the owner.

"Hey, want somethin'?" he asked as Langly ran up with Jimmy 
close behind.

"You gotta get Thea, um, Hush," Langly pointed. "You gotta 
get Hush outta there." 

"How come?"

"She's pregnant"

"No shit? Man, you know what insurance on the this dump 
costs me already?" Beauchamp stepped into his plywood 
office and grabbed a bullhorn. "Everybody outta the pipe," 
he repeated through the horn four times. The skaters 
started hopping out one at a time. Eventually, Thea rode 
alone, too oblivious to realize. Beauchamp frowned picked 
up a handful of gravel.

"What're you gonna do?"

"Get her attention."

"What if she falls?"

"It never made her fall before." He hit her squarely 
between the shoulders with a piece of gravel.

She failed to notice. It took three hits to the back before 
she finally looked up.

DAMN, she signed to herself.

He would not yell. He would not yell. Langly promised 
himself he would not yell at her. She circled the bottom of 
the pipe twice before riding up to face him.

I NEEDED TO GO FOR A RIDE, she signed. I TOOK  THE VAN. I 
HOPE NOBODY MINDS.

THEA, Langly signed very deliberately, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU 
THINK YOU'RE DOING?

Thea rattled her skateboard then tucked it under her arm. 
KNITTING, she signed.

YOU COULD GET HURT. AND SO COULD. . .? he signed poorly, 
gesturing at her belly.

BABIES? she signed. I COULD DRINK DRANO AND SMOKE CRACK AND 
IT WOULDN'T MATTER TO THEM.

YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT YVES SAID? He didn't know if it was a 
statement or a question even as he signed it.

IT MAKES SENSE, RINGO. PERFECT FUCKING SENSE, Thea signed 
flatly.

I WOULDN'T BELIEVE HER IF SHE SAID MY ASS WAS ON FIRE, he 
signed irritably.

YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO. IF YOUR ASS WAS ON FIRE YOU'D KNOW, 
she signed.

ARE YOU READY TO COME HOME NOW? WE CAN TALK WHEN WE GET 
BACK OR WHERE EVER YOU WANT. JUST COME HOME, he signed.

SOMEONE TAILED ME ON THE WAY, JIMMY. She waved at the man 
standing behind Langly. WOULD YOU MIND IF RINGO AND I TOOK 
YOUR CAR? YOU COULD DRIVE THE BUS BACK. HUMOR THE POOR 
STUPID PREGNANT GIRL? She slipped off her matte black 
helmet. AND PUT THIS ON.

SURE, he signed looking sublimely ridiculous in her helmet. 
YOU'LL LET LANGLY DRIVE, RIGHT? AND YOU COME STRAIGHT HOME?

I WILL ABSOLUTELY LET LANGLY DRIVE, BUT I THOUGHT MAYBE WE 
NEEDED TO TALK, FOR A WHILE BEFORE WE WENT HOME, YOU KNOW, 
ALONE.

WELL, OKAY. JUST BE CAREFUL.

As soon as Jimmy was out of sight, Langly tugged at her 
sleeve. SOMEBODY REALLY FOLLOW YOU? 

Thea scratched  behind her ear. I JUST WANTED TO DRIVE THE 
FERRARI.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

For Thea, driving was the motorized equivalent of 
skating - she knew it and understood it in the marrow of 
her bones and the deep animal recesses of her brain. It 
would have been an understatement to say she excelled at 
either. The visceral nature of the act soothed her.
If there weren't other things on his mind, Langly would 
have found it fascinating. But that night, he couldn't take 
any vicarious pride in her natural ability. As it was, all 
he felt was grateful that every click of the odometer saw 
her a little less twitchy. He was so pleased to see the 
tension drift away from her body that he made no objection 
as they neared the Capitol.

It wasn't a place he went if he could avoid it, and for a 
crazy minute, he wondered if some Mulder-Scully homing 
beacon was pulling her to the reflecting pool. But she went 
right past it and instead, parked them near to the tidal 
pool that swirled off the river and into West Potomac Park. 

Thea climbed out of the car and began walking.  Langly 
followed, although she hardly acknowledged his presence. 
She stood and stared at the Japanese cherry trees planted 
around the pool's rim. She turned and cast her eyes in the 
direction of the Holocaust Museum. Then she turned back to 
the trees.

THEY'RE LATE, she signed, waving at the trees. THEY 
SHOULDN'T HAVE BLOSSOMS THIS LATE IN THE YEAR.

He positioned himself in front of her. IT WAS A LONG 
WINTER.

She pulled away and began striding ahead of him.

He followed all the way to the Jefferson Memorial, feeling 
stupid. 

I'M SORRY, Thea signed.

YOU OUGHT TO BE. I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE THE FUCK YOU WERE, he 
signed, leaning against a marble column.

NO, I MEAN ABOUT EVERYTHING. I BET YOU'RE SORRY YOU EVER 
SAW MY FACE, she signed, staring intensely at him.

Langly recognized a tension in her that reminded him of 
Mulder when whatever was happening in his head was 
so big it obscured his vision of the world around him. It 
was usually a precursor to something really stupid.

Langly folded his arms across his chest and shook his head 
'no.'

I'M SORRY ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US THEN, she signed. I'M SORRY 
I GOT YOU MIXED UP IN THIS SHIT. SORRY. SORRY. She leaned 
forward and kissed him softly, more of a brushing of 
lips and a breathing of each other's breath than a real 
kiss, and pressed Jimmy's keys into his hand.

He shook his head and dropped the keys. She was already 
walking away. 

He wanted to tell her something, something to make her stop 
and never try to leave again but he didn't know what it 
would take.  He had no choice but to grab her by the wrist, 
but he couldn't sign a single word holding onto her arm. 
Fuck. fuck. fuck.

He dragged her toward base of the Jefferson Statue and 
pinned her there, his knees on either side of her, so  
there was still no way she could get away without hurting 
him and they both knew it.

She was gritting her teeth. L.A.N.G.L.Y. she spelled 
one-handed.

FORGET ABOUT BABIES AND SUPER SOLDIERS AND EVERY BAD 
FUCKING THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF THE 
WORLD BEING YOUR FAULT FOR A SECOND, OKAY? I WANT YOU WITH 
ME. FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE. THAT'S WHAT I WANT. 

She raised her eyebrow. DON'T BE STUPID, LANGLY. YOU'LL 
FIND SOMEBODY ELSE. SOMEBODY GIRLY AND APPROPRIATE. 
SOMEBODY NORMAL. SOMEBODY BETTER.

BETTER? He squinted. YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?

She shook her head.

It took him a few seconds to decide not to cloud the issue 
by pointing out that appropriate, normal, girly chicks - or 
chicks of any kind -  had never exactly beaten a path to 
his door. 

Thea was looking intently over his shoulder. WE HOLD THESE 
TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT? She signed. THEN WHY THE FUCK 
WOULD ANYONE FEEL COMPELLED TO SAY IT, MUCH LESS CARVE IT 
IN STONE? 

Langly felt a sudden, intense urge to grab the person most 
important to him in the world and shake vigorously. He 
wanted to ask - no demand - to know how she could be 
so...so...

. . .it was pissing him off so much he couldn't even find 
the word.

She nodded at the wall again, a brief ugly laugh erupting 
from her mouth. ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR - WHAT A LOAD OF 
CRAP - SPENDER DIDN'T ENDOW ME WITH JACK SHIT. I'M NOTHING 
BUT A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. HOW DUMB AM I THAT I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT?

YOU ARE A PERSON, he signed, frustration threatening to 
overwhelm him. 
 
I'M A THREAT TO THE WORLD, A DANGER, I AM-

His hands shot out in interruption. YOU ARE A PERSON, he 
repeated. 

I WAS DESIGNED WITH THE SOLE PURPOSE OF BREEDING 
SUPER-SOLDIERS.

SO WHAT? I AM THE FIRST MEMBER OF MY FAMILY IN THE 
FUCKING HISTORY OF MANKIND NOT TO RAISE COWS. SO WHAT?

SO THIS. She pulled her lower lip to her chin, revealing a 
row of tiny black letters and numbers tattooed on the shiny 
epithelial tissue deep inside the fold where lip met mouth. 
MY DESIGNATION, she signed when she let go.

He didn't know what to say. She let him see her cunt before 
she let him see her lab number. What did it mean? It meant 
something, right? He couldn't tell.

He leaned closer, smelling the garlic and ginger on her 
breath. He pressed two fingers to open her lip, drew even 
closer, scrutinizing the string of characters. He wasn't 
sure why but he tried to commit them to memory. 

PC524P113T62989-8-40

WHAT DO THEY SIGNIFY? He didn't move his legs but leaned 
away just enough to allow her room to sign.

MY X CHROMOSOME IS FROM PURITY CONTROL SUBJECT 524, 
FROHIKE'S 'DELECTABLE AGENT SCULLY'. THE SECOND X IS 
FROM FOX MULDER, PRAETORIAN 113. THEN THE REST IS ME - T 
FOR 'PROJECT THERMOMETER,' EXPERIMENTAL LOT 62989 FOR MY 
START DATE JUNE 29 1989 - SUBJECT 8 OUT OF 40 UNITS.

His breath was quickening and his head was swimming. He 
lifted his chin defiantly. I DON'T CARE. 

BUT YOU ASKED ANYWAY, she signed small. 

He felt her little belly pressing against him and looked 
Down. Her eyes followed. 

If Richard Langly had been born with the gift of physical 
eloquence he would have dropped to his knees and kissed her 
abdomen, wrapped his arms around his unborn children, but 
he had not so he did not. He was awkward. It was also 
arguable that except for insults and technical language he 
was not verbally nimble either. He certainly wasn't Fox 
Mulder.

THEY AREN'T AN EXPERIMENT, he signed, his eyes on the 
Bulge at her waist. SOME ASSHOLE IN A LAB DIDN'T DO THAT. 
WE DID. YOU AND ME. IN MY BED. REMEMBER?

I REMEMBER YOU WISHING YOU USED A CONDOM, she signed 
without meeting his eyes. 

I DIDN'T PLAN ON KIDS. SO WHAT? I DIDN'T PLAN ON FALLING 
IN LOVE, EITHER.

AND THAT'S REALLY WORKED OUT FOR YOU, HASN'T IT? she signed 
sarcastically. 

I ASKED YOU TO MARRY ME BECAUSE I WANT TO BE WITH YOU, he 
signed, realizing it wasn't a lie, not really. WHATEVER 
HAPPENS, WE'LL DEAL, OKAY? TOGETHER. BECAUSE IT'S WHAT WE 
WANT AND SCREW EVERYTHING ELSE. IT'S ONLY SOME STUPID 
TRAGIC THING IF WE LET IT BE. 

When he stopped signing, he rested his hands on her rib 
cage.

She didn't agree or nod or sign OKAY. Instead, she offered 
assent by bending her neck enough to lay her forehead on 
his shoulder. She licked her lips, drawing a strand of his 
long blond hair into her mouth.

He reached his arms around her. "It's okay, Baby, it's 
gonna be okay," he whispered, wishing she could hear him.

She lifted her head to look him in the eye, forehead to 
forehead. He couldn't help but smile when she smiled. They 
rubbed noses for a second, sharp and beaklike to broad and 
rounded, smearing his glasses in the process. 

H.O.M.E. He spelled into her hand.

She nodded just enough for him to feel. She leaned back 
stretching against the foot of Jefferson, took off Langly's 
glasses and began wiping them on the bottom of her t-shirt. 

Intent as she was at cleaning the lenses, she inadvertently 
flashed her tits at a group of camera-carrying tourists on 
the steps of the Monument.
 
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Jimmy Bond had a marked tendency to fixate. He was so 
focused on the idea of a wedding between two people he was 
very fond of that, in the end, Langly and Thea decided it 
was easier, with in reason, to just let him have his way. 
No need to waste all that natural enthusiasm.

Everyone but Langly agreed that his designated 'funeral 
suit' simply would not do. So Jimmy took him shopping. It 
was something very much like Hell.

Jimmy knew entirely too much about material and drape and 
cut for Langly's liking. Langly would have been hard 
pressed to choose between a suit fitting and a full-body 
cavity search. At least the cops wore gloves. 

In the end, though, he had a suit. A suit that he never 
would have been able to afford and certainly one he never 
would have chosen. Oh Lord, he thought during fitting 
number three, he was letting Jimmy Bond pick out his 
clothes. This whole wedding thing was really getting out of 
control.

Another bad sign was that Byers gave it his approval. 
"Japanese design, double breasted, good fit." He qualified 
his endorsement when he saw Langly's dismay at his initial 
assessment "Slightly, um, loud, though. The lapels are 
wide," he added generously.

Yves called it aubergine.

Jimmy called it purple.

Frohike called it Robitussin and accused them of shopping 
Cab Calloway's estate sale.

Thea didn't notice. She had removed the casing on Byers's  
monitor and was trying to fix it without getting fried.

Langly didn't think twice about her doing stuff like that 
normally but, shit, pregnant? He nudged Frohike. Frohike 
nudged Byers.

Langly was about go read her 'the safety boy riot act' as 
Thea now called it, when Yves tapped her gently with a 
pencil.

YOUR TURN, DEAR, she wrote on the table with her finger.

Thea looked up and addressed the men in the room, signing 
WE, WHO ARE ABOUT DIE, SALUTE YOU!

Frohike looked from Langly to Thea and back again. "You two 
would bitch if you were hung with a new rope."

"We aren't shoppers, okay? Is that crime? Or does everyone 
have to be a good little consumer around here all of a 
sudden? "

"You could show a little gratitude, asshole."

Langly just scowled. Jimmy threw his arm around him.
"Langly knows I know he appreciates. . ." he trailed off, a 
confused look on his face. "Well, I know Langly knows..." 
he was hoisted by his own mental petard again. "Um, me and 
my little buddy are cool, right?"

Langly winced.

"Gilligan, kiss Mary Ann goodbye. We do have work to do." 
Frohike groused.

WHAT DID HE SAY? Thea signed.

YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW, Langly signed back, and  
pecked her cheek.

***

Thea's forced march in search of a wedding dress went much 
differently.

Yves was no Jimmy Bond. After the twelfth dress was deemed 
utterly unacceptable by both women, they sensibly went out 
for burgers, then they had their legs waxed.

Rather than return empty-handed, Thea finally selected a 
pair of black leather pants slung low enough to completely 
bypass her expanding belly. While not traditional, Yves 
couldn't argue that they were unflattering, nor could she 
deny their classic appeal. In the end, she simply shrugged 
and paid the clerk.

None of Thea's housemates asked to see the dress. They 
trusted Yves. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

The next afternoon, they were married.

Thea spent the morning, after much cajoling, with Yves at 
the Georgetown Aveda salon. Langly spent a lot of quality 
time with his inhaler.

For the record, he loved the leather pants. He had no idea 
she could look like that. It was one thing to marry the 
girl you loved, but it was something else to realize at the 
altar she had the best pair of blowjob lips you'd ever seen 
in your life. Painted red. A sliver of Thea's belly was 
visible below the hem of her white cotton t-shirt. He never 
knew pregnant could be so sexy. She didn't look like T; she 
looked like a chick. A really hot chick. He was profoundly 
grateful his pants were loose.

This marriage thing, he reflected, was definitely a stroke 
of genius. 

When Frohike saw her, he leaned in and whispered, 
"Nothing's says 'I do' like a pregnant broad in leather," 
which made Langly wish he had asked Byers to be his best 
man.

"Shut up," he hissed. 

"I hear black leather is the new white taffeta," Frohike 
whispered back.

"Shut up," Langly repeated.

Thea strode up to him, smiling, and kissed his hand. 

LANGLY, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, she signed, oblivious to the 
Justice of the Peace. DO I LOOK OKAY? I CAN GO WASH THIS 
SHIT OFF IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT.

NO, he signed back, small. IT LOOKS GOOD. YOU LOOK GOOD.

ARE YOU READY? The Justice of the Peace, whom they'd had to 
go all the way to Baltimore to find, signed.

They took the standard vows - love, honor, cherish, 
sickness, health, richer, poorer, forsaking all others, 
'til death do us part. As two people who spent their time 
devoted to ideals largely considered passe, they 
scrutinized the words more carefully than most, but gave 
the standard replies.

I DO. I DO.

Langly placed the plain white gold ring with a single clear 
diamond on her finger. Two months pay my ass, Thea thought. 
That thing had taken all his savings and she knew it. How 
many times had Ringo lectured her about the economics of 
the jewel trade? The artificial inflation of market value 
through P.R.? Tying diamond jewelry to notions of fidelity 
and love? War after war financed by tiny paper packets of 
the gem? And now he had the nerve to put one on her finger?

But he was smiling. So she guessed it was okay.

Thea timed the whole event at twelve minutes. It seemed to 
her like an awful lot of time, money, and energy had gone  
into that twelve minutes. Though, honestly, if the ceremony 
had gone on much longer, she would have fallen asleep and 
Langly probably would have had some kind of twitchy fit.

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU HUSBAND AND WIFE. YOU MAY KISS THE 
BRIDE, the JP signed.

Langly hesitated. Everyone was watching. There were exactly 
12 guests, if you counted Kimmy, who invited himself. Even 
that was too much of an audience for Langly. Thea barely 
noticed. She leaned in, placed two fingers delicately 
behind either of his ears pulling him forward, and 
proceeded to suck face. It was the best part, as far as she 
was concerned. 

Jimmy cried. If Byers and Frohike teared up slightly, they 
both sniffed it back before too many people noticed. 

Yves, who had been elected matron-of-honor by default, 
thought for a disturbing moment she recognized exactly what 
Thea saw in Langly. Shuddering, she forced herself to think 
of Jimmy stepping out of the shower with only a towel 
around his waist. 

That felt much better.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

The reception was held in a small but well-appointed hall.  
The wild revelry consisted mostly of Yves and a dozen hackers 
swilling beer and Dr. Pepper and talking shop. Byers drank and 
drank and smiled pleasantly at everyone. He was well on his way 
to being stinking drunk. Jimmy had disappeared shortly after 
the bar opened. The bride was sitting on the groom's lap. The 
two of them appeared to be enthralled by something they were 
doing on a laptop in the far corner of the room.  

Frohike rolled his eyes. He was going over the few 
photographs he had managed to get them to stand still for.  
Thea and Langly, side by side, heads together, arms around 
each other's waists.  A matched set, like a pair of salt 
and pepper shakers. 

He was surprised to see two extra images in the camera's 
memory.  They were clearly Mr. and Mrs. Langly's handiwork, 
but he'd be damned if he could figure out when they'd taken 
them.  To the best of his knowledge, the camera had never 
left his pocket.  That sticky fingered little wench, he 
thought without rancor. She probably thought it was funny. 

Langly had had much better luck getting Thea to smile.  She 
looked like Scully with her high beams on. Langly himself 
looked like a completely different person in the picture 
Thea had taken. Same nose, same hair, same chin. It was 
Langly, all right, but not him at all.  There was no other 
way to describe it. 

Jimmy burst in, breathing hard. He all but ran to where the 
bride and groom were hunkered over a monitor. 

IT'S READY, he signed, tapping Langly's shoulder with what 
looked like a set of room keys. 

"Huh?" Langly said.  Thea signed a question mark to her 
forehead. 

"It's our last gift, a surprise from me and Yves, the 
bridal suite. You know, a romantic weekend," he frowned a 
little. "Well, it's not really the weekend but-"

"This is...really, you shouldn't have," Langly said 
slowly. Both he and Thea had looks of decided apprehension 
on their faces.

"I told you it was a bad idea," Yves yelled across the 
room. 

"Nawww, honey," Jimmy yelled back. "He's just being 
polite."

"That'll be the day," Frohike muttered, scurrying over in 
case his intervention was needed.

YOU'VE SPENT TOO MUCH MONEY ALREADY, Thea signed. 

HEY, YOU GUYS ARE FAMILY. He leaned down and enveloped them 
both in an exuberant hug.

Langly made a face that suggested his ribs were cracking. 

"Thank him and go to your room," Frohike growled thumping 
Langly on the back of the skull. 

"Sure, Dad," Langly answered. 

He didn't sound completely sarcastic. 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: 


They held hands all the way up to their room. 

The minute the door was opened, Thea walked through, 
staring. Well, Langly thought, that answered the thresh 
hold question. It was okay; he knew his limitations. The 
last thing he needed on his wedding night was a hernia.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Thea signed, agape.

Jimmy The-Wedding-Fairy-With-Testosterone-Overload Bond had 
not only gotten them The Bridal Suite, he had filled the 
place with candles. Lit candles. Hundreds of lit candles.

Langly thought it might have been cool, sort of, if they 
had been a couple of girls.  

YOU WOULDN'T THINK A PLACE LIKE THIS WOULD RUN OUT OF LIGHT 
BULBS, she signed.

Langly smirked. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ROMANTIC.

Thea frowned. Romantic was one of those words, he knew, in 
her opinion, bordered on meaninglessness. 

Still, something about the light must have been working for 
her from the way she looked at him.  She just shrugged and 
pulled her shirt up over her head.

What happened next was difficult to reconstruct. 
Essentially, Langly backed up to get a better view, 
tripped, broke a mirror, knocked over some thirty-odd 
candles, got wax all over the carpet, and started a small 
fire, which Thea, half-naked, smothered with the bedspread 
in a matter of seconds.

THERE WENT JIMMY'S SECURITY DEPOSIT, she signed, stomping 
the spot where the fire had been highest one more time to 
be certain.

Langly had his right arm thrown over his face. FUCK, I'M 
SORRY, he signed at last, but his new bride was so busy 
racing around the suite blowing out all Jimmy's handy work, 
she didn't notice. 

He followed her. JIMMY MEANT WELL, he signed when he had 
her attention. 

DOESN'T HE ALWAYS?  DO PEOPLE REALLY DO THIS KIND OF SHIT? 
IT'S IMPRACTICAL. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ELECTRIC LIGHT?  I NEED 
TO SEE WHAT I'M DOING, she signed as she blew out the fifty 
or so candles on the dresser. 

Langly shrugged. 

MAYBE YVES AND JIMMY DO THIS KIND OF THING, BUT I REFUSE, 
she signed. THAT REMINDS ME. YVES GAVE ME SOME FELLATIO 
POINTERS.   WANT TO RUN A TRIAL AND YOU CAN GIVE ME AN 
HONEST EVALUATION?

Langly swallowed hard. The idea of Thea getting blow job 
advice from Yves made him feel dizzy. 

She moved toward him.

He backed up. T, I'M GOING TO HAVE A TOUGH TIME AS IT IS.

COME ON, RINGO, IT'S NOT LIKE WE HAVEN'T DONE THIS BEFORE. 
She smiled broadly.

He couldn't help but smile back as he signed, BUT WE 
WEREN'T MARRIED. AND YOUR LIPS LOOK REALLY...

REALLY WHAT? She frowned.

LUSCIOUS. THAT'S THE WORD - YOU HAVE LUSCIOUS LIPS. AND 
YOUR PANTS ARE HOT.  He was breathing heavily and he kept 
nodding to himself as he signed. FUCK, REALLY HOT. AND I'M 
WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL OVER-STIMULATED RIGHT NOW.

Thea raised a skeptical brow. Then she advanced on him 
until he fell backwards onto the bed. Her next move was to 
pounce, straddling him.

Prior being taken to bed by Thea Fidelis, sex had been 
something Ringo Langly did to women. Or to put it more 
accurately, if he was drunk enough to make some kind of 
pass and exceptionally lucky, sex was something some 
undiscerning female LET him do to her or, a couple of 
incredibly embarrassing times, on her.  Now with Thea, all 
he had to do was show up. And it was very, very good.

The only problem was, in his heart, he had some rather 
unforgiving ideas about what it meant to be 'a man' and 
what 'a man' ought to be able to do on his wedding night. 
Premature ejaculation wasn't one of them. Despite his high 
goals, it seemed like a real possibility he might come 
before she got his pants off.

He closed his eyes and felt her hands sifting through his 
hair. He felt the heat of her crotch through leather and 
gabardine. Fellatio was completely out of the question.

He was already dead.  Or at least that was what he told 
himself.

Thea slipped off his tie, planted her lips on his Adam's 
apple.

Ringo made a distinctly unmanly high-pitched whimper in the 
back of his throat.

Thea unbuttoned the throat of his shirt and dragged her 
painted lips over the newly exposed skin. It took all his 
self control not to shake with pleasure. She moved to the 
next pearly button, kissed the smooth white skin as she 
proceeded to turn back the cream colored fabric.  His hips 
bucked reflexively against her.  He fought to lay still as 
the third kiss came. Only his elbows jerked as her mouth 
made contact with the few curly reddish hairs on his pale 
chest.   He wished he knew how many buttons his shirt had. 
Seven? Twelve? Fuck, her kisses just went on and on.  Nine. 
The answer was nine. His chest was shining wet, his shirt 
was hanging open and both of them were breathing hard. She 
casually undid the cufflinks that had nearly defeated 
Langly and Frohike's combined intellectual powers then she 
brought his wrist to her mouth like a chick in a vampire 
movie and sucked. She placed that hand on her upward 
pointing tit and moved on to the other cufflink.

Lather, rinse repeat. Or something like that.

He was totally incoherent.

She bit her red lips and moved to unbutton his pants with 
exquisite concentration.  Like a frightened rabbit he 
scrambled out of reach.

IF YOU TOUCH ME RIGHT NOW I WILL COME, he signed wildly.

Thea's brow furrowed. THAT'S HYPERBOLE, RIGHT? she signed.

NO, he signed, IT'S A FACT.

OKAY, TELL ME WHAT TO DO, she signed kneeling on the foot of 
the king sized bed.

There was a certain irony in the situation. A beautiful 
woman, topless no less, offering to do whatever he asked, 
and he wanted her to spend at least the next half hour not 
touching him. With her shirt on.

He closed his eyes and signed quickly COULD WE DO 
SOMETHING ELSE FOR A WHILE?

WHATEVER YOU WANT, LANGLY, she signed earnestly.

T, he signed DON'T CALL ME THAT. WE'RE MARRIED.

Thea looked confused WHAT DID I CALL YOU?

LANGLY. I MEAN YOU'RE THEA LANGLY NOW, AREN'T YOU? YOU 
DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR NAME IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. I 
JUST, YOU KNOW, MY NAME IS RICHARD, IT'S WEIRD FOR YOUR 
WIFE TO CALL YOU BY YOUR LAST NAME. He frowned at her.

SORRY. She fidgeted.

IT'S OKAY, I'M NOT MAD OR ANYTHING, IT'S JUST WEIRD He 
signed slower.

RICHARD. DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY CALL YOU THAT? she asked. 

MY MOM DID. BEFORE SHE DIED. WELL, SHE CALLED ME RITCHIE, 
he signed. WOULD YOU MIND PUTTING ON YOUR SHIRT? YOUR TITS 
AREN'T HELPING ME RELAX.

SURE, RITCHIE, she signed and went to look for her t-
shirt.

She came back with her pants off and her shirt on. He still 
found her attractive but, in a rumpled t-shirt and panties,  
she was a lot less overwhelming. At least as long as he 
didn't look at her legs. She sat back on the edge of the 
bed and he saw the glint of metal on the bottom of her 
naked foot.

WHAT'S THAT? He pointed.

She picked a coin off her sole YVES MADE ME DO THIS STRANGE 
THING. SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING BORROWED, 
SOMETHING BLUE, SILVER SIX PENCE IN YOUR  SHOE. BEHOLD THE 
SILVER SIX PENCE. She tossed it to him.

That's when he realized she was wearing a pair of blue 
panties he had never seen before.

IT'S TRADITIONAL, he signed, BUT I NEVER HEARD THE PART 
ABOUT THE COIN BEFORE.

Thea was looking at him peculiarly MY NAME IS THEA LANGLY 
NOW?

IF YOU WANT IT TO BE. WE'LL BE A FAMILY  PRETTY SOON. IT 
WOULD BE EASIER IF WE HAD THE SAME NAME. BUT NOBODY'S GOING 
TO MAKE YOU.

She stretched out along the foot of the bed holding her 
stomach, staring up at him for several seconds before she 
signed  HOW ABOUT RICHARD? LET'S ALL BE RICHARD.

It took him a moment to realize she was joking.

He made what he knew Thea called the not-amused-face and 
stretched out his arms.

Thea rolled onto her side ENTERTAIN ME, RITCHIE.

WHAT DO YOU WANT? A PUPPET SHOW? he signed back sarcastic.

TELL ME A STORY. ABOUT NEBRASKA, she signed.

NEBRASKA BLOWS GOATS. He was beaming now; his loathing 
for his boyhood home was a favorite topic.

IS THAT A TEAM SPORT OR DO THEY DO IT INDIVIDUALLY? She 
signed raising her eye brow.

BEFORE I WENT TO COLLEGE I HADN'T BEEN OUT OF THE STATE. He 
thought about telling her about his first day of class at 
MIT, or the great witch hunt that resulted in his expulsion, 
but she'd heard both those so many times she could probably 
tell them herself.

DO YOU EVER MISS IT? she signed. THIS IS THE LONGEST I'VE 
EVER BEEN ANYWHERE. SPENDER MOVED ME ALL THE TIME.

She had never talked about her life before. When she had come 
to stay with the guys they would occasionally tell stories 
about things that had happened to them, but she had never 
joined in.

Langly suddenly realized he knew nothing about her, in the 
way he imagined most men knew about their wives. Sure he 
knew she had his back, no matter what, he knew she loved 
him, he knew she'd do what it seemed to her needed doing 
but...had she ever had a pet? A friend other than Gibson 
Praise? It didn't seem likely.

YOU TELL ME SOMETHING.

OKAY, WHAT? she cocked her head.

ANYTHING. WHAT WAS IT LIKE IN THE TANK? WHAT DID YOU THINK 
ABOUT? he signed lazily.

THE SAME AS YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IN YOUR MOTHER'S UTERUS, MOST 
LIKELY.  STUFF-THOUGHTS NOT, YOU KNOW, SELF-THOUGHTS. LIKE
'ISN'T IT FASCINATING HOW PI JUST GOES ON AND ON FOREVER AND 
IT'S NEVER THE SAME?'

YOU THOUGHT ABOUT MATH?

She nodded. 

T, NOBODY THINKS ABOUT MATH IN THEIR MOTHER'S UTERUS. YOU 
DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT, FOR ONE THING. YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT 
ANYTHING. 

She looked confused. THERE ISN'T SOME PHYSICAL 
SYSTEM FOR TRANSFERRING INFORMATION FROM MOTHER TO EMBRYO? 

NO, he signed. JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE IN YOUR BODY DOESN'T 
MEAN THEY KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW. HUMANS ARE BORN WITH NOTHING 
BUT INSTINCT.

Puzzlement clouded her expression. HOW DID YOU LEARN TO 
READ? AND DO MATH? 

FROM TV, he signed as if it were the most obvious thing in 
the world. JUST IMAGINE WHERE I'D BE IF WE HAD MORE THAN 
TWO CHANNELS WHEN I WAS A KID.

Her brows knit. SO WHEN THE BABIES ARE BORN THEY WON'T  
KNOW ANYTHING?

He shook his head.

SO EVERYBODY STARTS WITH NOTHING? FROHIKE? BYERS? THEY 
STARTED OUT NOT KNOWING ANYTHING?

EVERYBODY BUT YOU, he signed suddenly understanding how she  
could read and write four languages but often couldn't 
figure out what 'appropriate' meant in any given 
situation.

TELL ME SOMETHING FUNNY, he signed, hoping for a 
distraction from the weirdness.

After a moment, she signed, ONE TIME I PISSED MY PANTS IN A 
FAMOUS TEMPLE.

He wracked his brain trying to think of a famous temple. 
WHAT FAMOUS TEMPLE? he finally asked.

OUR LADY, she signed.

WHERE'S THAT?

PARIS. YOU KNOW, IT'S IN THAT VICTOR HUGO BOOK.

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL? YOU PISSED YOUR PANTS IN NOTRE DAME 
CATHEDRAL?

ISN'T THAT WHAT I JUST SAID?

TELL THE STORY, SHAHERAZADE, he rolled his eyes.

THEY SPLIT RHEA AND ME UP- she began. 

WHO? he interrupted.

MY SISTER. YOU KNOW, THE OTHER ONE JUST LIKE ME? WE WOULD 
BE LESS CONSPICUOUS APART. ANYWAY, THIS COURIER WAS 
SUPPOSED TO HAND ME OFF TO SOMEONE ELSE AT THE TEMPLE-

CHURCH, he corrected.

WHATEVER. BUT THE NEXT MAN WAS LATE. A RAILROAD STRIKE 
SLOWED HIM DOWN I THINK, AND ANYWAY, THE GUY WHO HAD ME WAS 
A TRUE ASSHOLE, COULDN'T SIGN, WOULDN'T LEARN EVEN BASIC 
SHIT, WOULDN'T WRITE WITH ME OR ANYTHING, JUST PUT FOOD IN 
FRONT OF ME AND THREW ME IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF A 
TOILET A COUPLE OF TIMES A DAY. SO THERE WE WERE, WAITING 
AND WAITING AND THE OTHER GUY WAS LATE AND I PISSED MY 
PANTS. HE WAS SO EMBARRASSED. IT WAS FUNNY, she signed, 
snorting.

It didn't sound that funny to Ringo. HOW OLD WERE YOU? he 
signed.

SIX OR SEVEN. SOMETHING LIKE THAT. She scratched the small 
of her back. WHERE WERE THEY TAKING YOU?  He asked.

She spelled R.O.U.M.A.N.I.A.

ANOTHER COMPOUND?

NO, AN ORPHANAGE.

Richard Langly suddenly felt very cold.

IT WASN'T BAD, she assured him.  MOSTLY EVERYONE IGNORED 
ME. THERE WERE NO TESTS OR ANYTHING. FOOD WAS JUST A LITTLE 
TIGHT.

That did not make him feel better. HOW LONG WERE YOU THERE?

SEVEN MONTHS, she signed. THEY WANTED TO MAKE SURE THE 
PEOPLE WHO BURNED THE LAB DIDN'T FIND ME. I JUST DIDN'T 
KNOW WHY I WAS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO KILL.

SO HE MOVED YOU AROUND, LIKE A SHELL GAME?

OR THREE CARD MONTE? REMEMBER ATLANTIC CITY?  She grinned.

He would never forget.  It had been one of her first field 
trips and she'd stolen 50 bucks from a young sidewalk con 
artist's wallet while he bilked the gullible before Byers 
had had a chance to intervene.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO R.H.E.A.? he asked.

She shook her head. NEVER SAW HER AGAIN. 

YOU EVER MISS HER?

NOT ANYMORE.

CAN I HOLD YOU? It seemed like an appropriate request.

IT'S OKAY TO TOUCH YOU NOW? 

He nodded. She slid up to lie beside him. He held her to 
him face to face.

I'M OKAY. YOU LOOK GOOD IN YOUR SUIT, she signed small 
between them.

YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY, NOT JUST OKAY, he signed back. 

I AM HAPPY, she signed. SINCE I'VE BEEN WITH YOU GUYS, I'VE 
BEEN HAPPY. IT'S A GOOD LIFE. HOW COULD I WANT MORE THAN 
WHAT I HAVE HERE?

If he was her, he would want a lot more than Ringo Langly's 
sorry ass, but he guessed for someone who characterized a 
half a year in a Rumanian orphanage as 'not bad,' life at 
LGM headquarters was dangerously close to utopia. It seemed 
to him nothing but dumb luck that he had her.

He wasn't sure how to express what he felt. He hadn't read 
a love poem since freshman comp and even then he had barely 
paid attention. It had seemed like a load of crap to him 
then. It didn't now.  He wished for a book of good 
descriptive technical language for what was happening, what 
it meant. T could read it over his shoulder then she could 
draw an exploded diagram. Together they would come up with 
a couple of working formulas so if something went wrong, 
they'd know how to fix it.

T, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I'VE FELT THIS GOOD,  
he signed back earnestly. THIS HAPPY.

He tried to kiss her but as happened from time to time, 
both their considerable noses got in the way.  Thea, as was 
her basic nature, took charge, stilling his face between 
her hands, tilting her own head just so, and sucking at his 
mouth fiercely. He moaned. His eye lashes fluttered behind 
his glasses and she stared. He inhaled and smelled her 
arousal. Instantly, he felt intoxicated. He had an idea.

When she broke the kiss to come up for air he brought his 
hands between them. I'D LIKE TO TRY SOMETHING. SOMETHING 
NEW.

SURE, she signed, I'M GAME.

SOMETHING I'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE.

YOU'LL BE EXCELLENT. YOU ALWAYS ARE, MANHAMMER, she signed 
leering at him.

YOU WON'T BE TOO MAD IF I BLOW IT? YOU WON'T LAUGH?

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? DOES IT INVOLVE HARNESSES AND A 
TEAM OF CIRCUS MIDGETS? NOT THAT I'D RULE THAT OUT AS AN 
OPTION, BUT SOMETIMES A GIRL NEEDS A LITTLE WARNING FIRST.

ORAL SEX.

WE ALREADY HAVE ORAL SEX.

He raised his eye eyebrow in parody of her.

His meaning dawned and she looked delighted. YOU WANT TO 
PERFORM CUNNILINGUS ON ME? 

He nodded, wanting to say something cool or funny. He could 
think of neither. YOU WANT TO HELP ME OUT? he asked. LET ME 
KNOW WHEN I'M ON THE RIGHT TRACK?

She nodded. ABSOLUTELY, she signed, and stripped off her 
panties without fanfare.

Langly really didn't want to screw this up. Nonetheless, he 
had some anxiety about how it would taste.

Thea knew fear when she saw it on Ringo's face.

WHY DON'T WE SAVE IT FOR ANOTHER TIME? she signed, then 
tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, then traced the 
curl of his lobe with her index finger.

Internally, he thanked her profusely. ARE YOU SURE? He 
signed bravely.

I REALLY JUST WANT TO FUCK YOU TONIGHT, OKAY.  HUMOR ME? 

He nodded eagerly.

She removed his glasses, set them on the night stand behind 
her, and ran her thumb over his long white eyelashes. With 
both hands, she felt his sharp cheek bones, his hard jaw.

She let him go, wiggling until she sat at the head of the 
bed. Slowly and tentatively as always, he lifted her shirt, 
sucking one large dark nipple into his mouth without 
breaking eye contact. He took her other breast in his hand, 
noting that it wasn't his imagination, they were getting 
bigger, heavier. He was so lucky.

He sucked harder. Now her large eyes blinked in an effort 
to stay open. He smoothed the palm of his free hand over 
her - over her - 

Mons Pubis. That was what she called it. Drove him crazy;  
she sounded like an anatomy text, with a Latin name for 
every part. 

He said pussy. And he used the term fairly indiscriminately 
to refer to her clitoris, vagina, labia, and even the act 
of sex itself, as in 'give me some pussy, T?'  It 
inevitably inspired her to roll her eyes as the sign he 
used was actually 'kitten.'

Regardless of what it was called, it was already very, very 
wet. 

He slipped one finger into her and moaned. A second finger 
followed. Then his thumb against her clitoris.  She moved, 
grinding herself against his hand. He brushed his thumb 
back and forth slowly. He had figured out one thing during 
the first regular sex of his life; if he gave her slightly 
less stimulation than he thought she wanted, it tended to 
work out better. Against all his instincts, he kept it 
slow.  

Then, haltingly, he tried something he'd read about but 
never done. He pushed his fingers in deep, deeper than he'd 
ever dared before, curled them inside of her and... 

KERPOW! Thea was shaking and bucking and kicking and her 
back arched up off the bed. If it had been a cartoon there 
would have been those multicolored action balloons 
everywhere.

It frightened him enough that he let go of her tits and 
jumped clear.

She sat up looking disheveled and flushed. THAT WAS 
EXCELLENT!  RITCHIE, THAT WAS EXCELLENT. WHERE DID YOU GO?

He was standing wide eyed at the foot of the bed.

ARE YOU OKAY? he signed, squinting to see her reply.

YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I'M OKAY. I NEVER HAD AN ORGASM LIKE 
THAT BEFORE IN MY LIFE. WHERE DID YOU LEARN THAT?

He shrugged, trying to seem casual. FOUND IT ON A SITE.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN; THE SPREAD OF 
INFORMATION IS A BEAUTIFUL THING, she signed, still 
shuddering.

He grinned slyly and crawled back into bed. Then he did 
something else he had never done before - he stuck his 
still wet fingers into his mouth. Not exactly cherry Kool-
Aid, he thought, but it wasn't bad. Like Swee-tarts, 
without the sweet. All sharp and tangy, almost metallic. 
Nothing like he imagined. Maybe next time...

Before he could finish the thought, Thea flipped him onto 
his back, pulled his pants and shorts down to his knees in 
one motion, and mounted him. 

At first, she moved slowly. He smiled, reached out and 
touched  two fingers to her clitoris. She leaned forward 
and sucked his ear lobe into her mouth. His hips pushed 
back raggedly. She bore down, but he knew she was still 
restraining herself. Three more beats with her pelvis and 
she was shaking with the effort it took to hold back.

She closed her eyes, threw back her head, dug her hands 
into his shoulders, and with a shift into overdrive, she 
began to move furiously. He gasped again and again as her 
ride became violent. 

Langly realized, suddenly, that he was struggling for 
breath. Thea must have realized it too, because she 
stopped. For a solemn moment, the two stared at each other. 
Then, with exaggerated care, she climbed off of him.

SORRY, she signed. I GOT CARRIED AWAY. SORRY.

His wet cock waved in the open air. LAY DOWN, he signed, 
ignoring his aching shoulders and the tightness in his 
chest. Her hand prints throbbed on his white body, vivid 
red, soon to go crushed purple.

Pants around his ankles, he found his inhaler on the floor 
and settled in on the edge of the bed for a few minutes of 
undisturbed breathing.

He removed his pants the rest of the way after his wheezing 
evened out, climbed back onto the bed, but Richard Langly 
was no Thea Fidelis. He penetrated her gingerly, paying 
lavish caution to her hard little belly. He sat bolt 
upright as he fucked her, his hands on her newly smooth 
legs. His thumb tracing the mole on the inside of her thigh 
that looked to him like a spot of milk chocolate. He let go 
and reached to touch her cheek, jerked into her a few more 
uncoordinated times.

Thea was panting, insensible, and suddenly spasming around 
him.  

As soon as he realized what was happening, he was coming, 
too. He poured himself into her for twenty seconds 
that seemed to last much longer. 

Her nearly closed eyes shot open with painful exaggeration, 
and both her hands went to her abdomen.

WHAT'S WRONG? he signed, terrified he had hurt her somehow.

FLUTTERING. THEY'RE FLUTTERING. LIKE WINGS MOVING, she 
signed, looking surprised and overwhelmed. 

He laid his large hands delicately on her belly and felt 
the tiniest quake.

It was real. She was pregnant. There were real, live people 
growing inside her because he had fucked her. In his entire 
life, he had never felt more like a man.  Or more like a 
scared kid. 

YOU'RE GOING TO BE A MOTHER, he signed not knowing what 
else to say. But the word that came out of his mouth was 
'mama.'

She nodded in response.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

end 06

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

John Byers rarely got the opportunity to drive. Langly had 
commandeered driving duties since the earlier nineties, and 
when he wasn't driving, Thea wanted to. It usually didn't 
bother Byers, but periodically he was gripped by the desire 
to be in control of a motorized vehicle. That particular 
day was one of the rare times in question. He offered, then 
insisted on being the one to pick up dinner.

In the days since the newlyweds had returned from 
Baltimore, the changes in all four of their lives had 
become more pronounced.  The air of tension had evaporated. 
Thea and Langly seemed like any other married couple. 
Perhaps that's exactly what they were. 

Byers was seeing something similar to a normal life unfold 
before his eyes. A normal life belonging to someone else. 
Ringo Langly. He fought off envy as unworthy and 
unbecoming. On the whole, he was very pleased on their 
behalf.

Every morning they sat elbow to elbow at the kitchen table, 
Langly with his Cap'n Crunch and Thea with her dry whole 
wheat toast mounded with bacon, marking their newspapers 
intently. Langly would gaze adoringly at her over the tops 
of his black glasses; she would run her foot down the back 
of his calf while cursing the 
military/entertainment/industrial complex, her highlighter 
clenched in her teeth.

They still spent an unseemly amount of time playing games 
on the computer. They still enjoyed inventing crude terms 
of abuse. The phrase 'blows goats' was currently en vogue, 
the intensified 'blows syphilitic goats' and the active 
'goat blowing' also being popular. 

The paper did not appear to be suffering. Investigations, 
of a non-life-and-limb-risking nature, were swimming along. 
The quality of the writing itself, something he tended to 
scrutinize when he was feeling out of sorts, seemed somehow 
improved.

But John Byers was an honest man. He could not deny there 
had been a shift in priorities for everyone, himself 
included. It was as if there were some magical significance 
to the fact that Thea was carrying three fetuses. He felt 
the inexplicable desire to both mourn and celebrate.

There was no disavowing the fact that the Truth, the 
Struggle for Justice, the paper as his own personal reason 
to get up in the morning, had taken a back seat to those 
three tiny lives. He had been distracted from the cause 
that had consumed the majority of his adult life basically 
because Langly had been too impulsive to take ten seconds 
and put on a condom.

He was flustered to find himself grateful for what amounted 
to an oversight.

At first he had been furtive about his sudden interest in 
pregnancy and child development. Then one day he realized 
Frohike had the latest edition of 'What to Expect When 
You're Expecting' hidden in the bathroom under a stack of 
Fortean Times. Now, it was common practice for the two of 
them to while away the evening reading child care tomes as 
Langly surfed parenting sites. Thea would just roll her 
eyes and set about trying to make sure the van did not 
fall prey to entropy.

YOU PEOPLE NEED A HOBBY THAT DOESN'T CENTER AROUND MY 
REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, she would sign, a wrench tucked under 
her arm.

Nonetheless, Byers suspected it secretly pleased her.

He stood at the check-out counter waiting longer than he 
should have, thoughtfully examining the green and gold 
flecks on the Formica. He paid, finally, took his 
grease-stained paper sack to his VW bus, only to find 
Marita Covarubbias sitting neatly coiffed in his 
passenger seat. 

For a moment, he didn't know where to put the cheese 
steaks.

"I've come to offer you my help, Mr. Byers," Ms. Covarubbias 
said earnestly.

He nearly laughed. "I beg your pardon?" 

"I've come to offer you my help. With Thea Fidelis."
 
He was befuddled. "Why would I need your help?" 

"Surely you realize you've taken a viper into your nest." 
Her blue eyes looked straight into his.

"Oh?" He gave up and set the paper bag behind his seat.

"Thea Fidelis is dangerous, poorly designed. Surely you 
have seen her impulsiveness, her temper, Mr. Byers?  Surely 
you know by now she can be nothing by a liability to your 
cause?"

Byers waited. 

"I am giving you the opportunity to have your problem taken 
care of." 

Byers blinked, surprised by her offer, by her affected 
concern, by her clear underestimation of him. He wished all 
villains were always so transparent. "You want her 
children." 

"You won't be able to control the children anymore than 
you have been able to control the mother," she warned.

"I see," he said as neutrally as he could. 

"I could make it worth your trouble. I know about Dr. 
Modeski. I could see to it that the two of you are free to 
be together, without fear, without reprisal." 

He gaped. "You expect me to find my own happiness at the 
expense of Langly and Thea - and their children?" 

"You truly believe Richard Langly is the father?" she 
asked.  Clearly, she believed no such thing. 

"Why shouldn't I?" 

Marita licked her lips. "How long do you think a man like 
Langly can hold her interest, Mr. Byers? Thea Fidelis was 
designed with heightened needs, needs your associate can't 
begin to meet. How long do you think it will be before she 
sets her sites on Jimmy Bond? On you? Even Melvin Frohike? 
Who's to say she hasn't already? One male can't begin 
satisfy her. It's simply a matter of time." 

"Slandering an innocent girl won't convince me of 
anything," Byers replied, surprised by his own anger. 

"An innocent girl?" Incredulity dripped from Marita's 
words. "That girl will be the mother of gods, Mr. Byers. 
How innocent can she be?"

"Gods?" He almost snorted. 

"Gods," she repeated, her eyes suddenly seeming lit from 
within. "Gods to be molded to suit whatever agenda one 
pleases." Her voice became quiet. "The bidding will 
be...intense."

"And you honestly believe I will be party to this?"

"I believe you will do what you always do, Mr. Byers. I 
believe you will do what is right."

"You're right," he answered. "And that's why I 'm not 
having any part-"

She interrupted him with a gun to the ribs. "Oh, I think 
you are. If Thea Fidelis is the daughter of Fox Mulder I 
believe her to be, she will trade herself for you, without 
hesitation."

It wasn't the first time Byers had been on the wrong end of 
a gun, and although he felt sweat slick his palms, he knew 
it probably wasn't the last.  But he also realized, as he 
twisted her wrist away from him, that Marita had gravely 
under-estimated him. 

Shock and surprise crossed her face as the delicate bone in 
her wrist snapped.  

He soon discovered, however, that she was tenacious. She 
fought dirty. With every muscle in her body, she battled 
for control of the gun.  Byers knew that was one 
thing he could not allow.  

The struggle was dizzying, disorienting. Half of everything 
in Byers told him that Marita was a woman, and that 
fighting a woman was wrong.  The other half, the stronger, 
smarter half, told him she would kill him in an instant if 
she had the chance. He had to remind himself to breath. 

She chose at that instant to risk it all by crushing her 
body toward him. Byers was quick enough to anticipate her 
next move and managed to get the gun pointed away from 
himself. Somehow, it seemed, Marita had gotten confused 
about the position of the gun in the tussle. Rather than 
shooting Byers in the arm, the bullet pierced her own 
throat. 

The artery was severed. Blood pulsed everywhere.  There was 
no time for last words or much of a death scene. 

In less than a minute, she was dead.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Byers came home with a bloody corpse and cheese steaks. 
Both his suit and the interior of the van were a total loss 

YOUR TIE LOOKS LIKE A BLOODY KOTEX, Thea signed when she 
saw him.

THEA, THIS IS SERIOUS, Byers signed.

ARE THE CHEESE STEAKS ALL RIGHT?  AT LEAST TELL ME
THE BLOOD DIDN'T SOAK THROUGH THE SACK, Thea signed.

Langly threw up.

Frohike called Yves, who arrived shortly thereafter. Yves 
had a plan. 

Three days later, John Wilson, Melvin Quinones, and Richard 
and Althea Torvald split into two recently acquired 
vehicles for the 2500 mile drive ahead of them.

Ten hours later, an electrical short began a fire that 
destroyed a warehouse in Takoma Park, Maryland.  The only 
things found in the ruins were ash, a few bits of charred 
bone, and a molar from each of the former occupants

According to the fire marshal, nothing remained of the 
warehouse's contents larger than a standard pawn.  The 
marshal was an avid chess player.

He had never played three card monte in his life.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Langly woke up in a convenience store parking lot just as a 
dawn was breaking, stiff and disoriented, with an aching 
dry socket near the back of his mouth. They were somewhere 
in the middle of the country, by the look of things.

A note slipped down off the dash:

Don't panic: I'm pissing and buying coffee. T.

Great Thea, he whined inside his head. She'd promised she'd 
only drive a few more hours, but it looked like she'd gone 
on through the night. Either that or there weren't any 
motels to be found and she'd just pulled over in a likely 
parking lot to catch some sleep.

Langly hated this part of the country, all flat and 
nothing, just like where he'd grown up. He popped his neck 
and pulled his glasses out of the glove compartment. He 
could stand to drain the lizard himself.

Where were they, anyway? It wasn't like her to get lost. 
Unfortunately, it was like her to get lured hundreds of 
miles off course by signs for the *Famous Union Leaders Wax 
Museum and Sausage Stand.*  He wondered what kind of 
roadside attraction she could find in a place like this. 
There was nothing he could see but corn fields and highway 
and cows. 

He ran a brush over his head. It really did look like 
Nebraska. There were even bare patches in the pastures on 
either side of the road from natural salt deposits. He 
tucked his ponytail in the back of his shirt and grabbed a 
baseball cap from behind the truck seat. 

He realized there was a large smear on his glasses. He was 
concentrating on cleaning the greasy slash on the coated 
plastic when he walked into the fluorescent lights of 
Love's Country Store.

"Daddy, I swear I was not the one that scraped your truck," 
the high nasal voice of the clerk seemed to be addressing 
him.

"Excuse me?" Langly put his glasses back on. The speaker 
was a thin blonde teenager in a brown and orange polyester 
smock.

Her forehead wrinkled for a moment. "Uncle Ringo?"

"Uhhh, you seen a pregnant girl around here? Short brown 
hair? About this tall?" He put his hand on top of his head.

"Uncle Ringo, it's me, Becky!" she yelled, running around 
the counter and throwing her arms around his neck.

"We're in Saltville?" he asked.

"Seventeen miles off the interstate, same as always."

He winced. Thea had stayed up all night and driven to 
fucking Saltville, fucking Nebraska. And they were all 
supposed to be dead. 

He looked hard at Becky, who was busy grinning at him. 
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to see Tom. Tom could keep his mouth 
shut better than anyone alive.

Pop! A peanut ricocheted off the side of his head. 

Thea stood outside the women's room door, as inscrutable as 
ever, throwing legumes.

WHAT'S WITH LETTING THE BIMBO GROPE YOU? she signed.

SHE'S MY...MY...I DON'T KNOW THE SIGN. MY FEMALE 
RELATIVE, MY BROTHER'S DAUGHTER. BESIDES SHE'S ONLY 
A... He stopped before he signed the word 'kid' just 
in time to realize his wife and his niece were the 
same age. Wait, maybe Becky was older. Shit!

WHAT? SHE'S ONLY A WHAT? Thea signed irritably before he 
took her by the hand dragging her over to her newly 
discovered in-law. JUST ONE MORE WORD AND WE'LL HAVE A 
SENTENCE.

HER NAME IS BECKY.

"Becky, this is my wife, Thea," he said, smiling tightly. 
"She's deaf and I have to go to the bathroom." 

With that, he left the two of them alone. 

*****

The two girls stood there, all eyes, evaluating each other 
in the manner universal to 17 year old female homo sapiens 
the world over.

Becky was the genuine article, a real live teenager. Her 
shiny yellow hair in a trendy coif, wearing no more and no 
less but the exact amount of make-up prescribed in the 
fashion magazines she pored over. Becky made the best of a 
bad situation when it came to the orange and brown smock. 
She dated. She blew what cash she had and was always 
borrowing money from her father. She went to sporting 
events to see and be seen. She flirted with every male that 
crossed her path. 

Becky appraised her Uncle Ringo's wife. She was around her 
own age, Becky thought, which was kind of creepy.  She was 
tall, too, as tall as Uncle Ringo, and pregnant in what 
Becky considered a tacky way, with a good six inches of 
Firm, round belly protruding from the bottom of her black 
muscle shirt. Unfashionably low slung jeans, canvas tennis 
shoes. She was dressed, Becky realized, like a boy. 

Usually you had to go to Omaha to see something like that.

On a deep, instinctive level, Becky Langly was uncertain 
whether she was attracted or repelled. Either way, her 
reaction occurred on a magnetic level. The brunette's bored 
expression tipped the scales in favor of appeal. Her short 
hair was wet from the bathroom sink and parted on the side. 
With her large unpainted eyes, her too broad mouth, her 
large nose, high hard cheek bones, Becky would never have 
called her pretty. It did not matter. On some fathomless 
plane of her soul, although the other girl was clearly 
pregnant and Becky had never, would never, consider herself 
even slightly bisexual, she found herself responding to the 
woman before her as though she were a piece of prime male 
flesh. 

Becky was extremely surprised. 
 
She blinked rapidly. The entire exchange took less than 
15 seconds.

A low, nasal voice clipped the air. "Why is there a three 
foot long scratch on the side of my truck?"

A man stood just inside the door.  He was wearing jeans, 
t-shirt, and a John Deere baseball cap. Becky breathed a sigh 
of relief.

"Your brother's in the restroom."

"What's that got to do with my truck?"

"It's Uncle Ringo."

"Ringo?" he repeated in disbelief.


*************

It seemed like slow motion when he reached out and shook 
Thea's hand. She smiled at him, squeezing back firmly. He 
touched her wedding ring fleetingly then shook his head.

Dammit! What had she done wrong? She tried to keep smiling 
as she took his hands and laid them on her belly. People 
liked that, right? Strangers were always trying to touch 
her stomach now. Maybe that would fix what ever she had 
done. 

His whole body stiffened. She was screwing it up worse, she 
thought. The babies kicked. He took a step backwards just 
as Ringo stepped out of the men's room.

T, he signed at her, WHAT'S GOING ON?

I DON'T KNOW. I DID SOMETHING WRONG, I'M SORRY, RINGO, I 
DON'T KNOW WHAT. I TRIED TO LET HIM TOUCH THE BABIES, FEEL 
MY STOMACH. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME. I'M SORRY.

IT WAS A BAD IDEA TO COME HERE, T.

I KNOW. I WANTED...I WANTED TO SEE FOR MYSELF. YOU SAID HE 
COULD KEEP A SECRET.

IT'S COOL, T. LET'S GO, he said it and signed it at the 
same time. "You guys'd be better off if you forget you saw 
us," he told his brother. 

"Like Hell we will," Tom Langly answered. 

"Just forget you saw us, okay?" Langly said reaching into 
his wallet to pay for whatever Thea had bought.

"She already paid," Becky lied.

"Don't tell any body we were here, okay?" Ringo insisted 
walking backwards out the door.

Langly climbing into the their new pickup and wondering why 
Thea was still standing on the sidewalk, just looking at 
him. 

The truck smelled like cows. He wanted to puke.

His brother stood staring as well. "That's my truck, dumb 
ass."

Ringo climbed out of the vehicle. He looked at one truck, 
then the other.  Except for a long scratch down the side of 
the one he'd just been sitting in, they were identical.

Thea stood beside Tom, printing in her notebook. Ringo 
watched as they passed her notepad back and forth for what 
seemed to him like very long time. Without warning, Thea 
and Tom walked over to him. 

"My sister in-law wants to see the farm," Tom said, hopping 
up into what was clearly his truck. Thea climbed in on the 
passenger's side

Ringo didn't believe he was in a position to argue. 


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Henry "Hank" Langly was in the barn, not thinking about his 
son, Ringo. His fourth child had always been a sore spot 
with him, the kind of occurrence a less stubborn man would 
have taken as a sign from God to stop reproducing. He 
firmly believed he was not to be blamed, in any event. 

He had not intended to get MaryBeth pregnant so soon after 
the twins but those kinds of accidents happened to people 
all the time, and they usually didn't turn out so badly. 
Ringo managed to be premature, though, so right away the 
boy was expensive and worrisome. And, in his father's 
opinion, the most contrary person on the face of the earth. 
When he put his arm around Marybeth outside the neonatal 
intensive care and told her the boy would pull through, 
it was the last time Ringo let him be right about anything.

It never seemed like all Ringo's cylinders were firing to 
Hank. He spent too much time staring into space or saying 
things that made no sense. His mother, of course, jumped 
right in to defend him. What else was she supposed to do? 
But when the boy taught himself to read before he started 
school, Hank's fear that something wasn't right was 
confirmed. To a man who valued his children primarily on 
their ability to perform chores efficiently, an awkward, 
bookish boy with a tendency to malinger was a special 
torment.

Hank Langly made a policy of ignoring his offspring until 
they were big enough put to work. Until then, they were 
their mother's problem, to be referred to in the third 
person only, as in "Can you shut them up or am I gonna 
hafta take the TV out to the barn?"

It was a classic division of labor along gender lines; Hank 
raised dairy cows, MaryBeth raised farm labor.

When Ringo was 12 and Bobby and Eddie were 8, the twins  
could milk four cows in the time it took their older 
brother to finish one. Of course, he might have done better 
if he didn't try to read and milk at the same time.  After 
a while, Hank learned enough to frisk Ringo for books when 
it was time to start to work.

The boy grew quick enough, but no matter how much he grew, 
even his sisters could outwork him. Hank piled more chores 
on the boy in hopes of toughening him up. Mule-like, Ringo 
slowed his pace even further and complained more bitterly.

The boy seemed naturally disrespectful. Sly, smart-ass 
comments about everything seemed to slip out of the corner 
of the boy's mouth at the slightest opportunity. And these 
comments were usually directed at the one person a boy 
should respect - his father. 

Hank did what had been done to him on the rare occasion 
he had been stupid enough to flout his own father's 
authority; he gave him a lick or five with his belt. It 
seldom worked on Ringo. The boy had the irksome habit of 
hollering before leather ever met skin, just to get the 
sympathy of anyone in ear shot. Hank was never sure exactly 
how much was sincere pain and how much was for show.

It went downhill from there. So, by the time Ringo got the 
scholarship to go to school back East, Hank Langly was 
downright relieved. You couldn't expect to win every time, 
and six out of seven was still a good track record. He 
didn't think about the boy much after he was gone. 

He watched from the barn door as Ringo got out of Tom's 
truck with a girl. A pregnant woman. It looked like he'd 
finally started breeding.

Well, Hank hadn't sired a pansy after all. 

The Egghead held her hand and stared at her like she was 
made of gold. 

Better late than never. Maybe.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

In the house, Meggy Langly was feeding her granddaughter 
and having a cup of coffee.

"What did Becky say about the truck?" she called when she 
heard the front door squeal.

"Doesn't matter," he yelled.

"That wasn't what you said when you left."

"I got somebody with me you're gonna want to see."

Meggy snorted softly. "Unless it's the Prize Patrol or 
Harrison Ford, they can wait until I finish my coffee."

Tom elbowed his brother in the ribs.  Ringo didn't know 
what to say.  "What's the chance of getting something to 
eat?" was all he could think of.

Meggy dropped the baby's spoon and turned in her chair.  
Next thing Langly knew, she was running toward him, 
screaming. "Ringo!" She kissed him firmly on both cheeks. 
"And who's this?" she asked taking Thea by the hand. "Is 
this your - oh!?" She stopped mid-sentence. "Oh, Ringo!" 
she said reprovingly.

"'member when you told me I'd find a girl who'd appreciate 
me if I just waited? Turns out she hadn't been born when 
you said that," Ringo told his sister in-law, his shy 
swallow and averted eyes belying his blustery tone.

Meg bit the inside of her mouth. "Well, looks like it's too 
late to get after you now," she muttered. "Honey " she said 
smiling and gathering up Thea's hands in hers, "can I get 
you some breakfast?"

"She's deaf, Meggy," he said taking the small green book 
from her shirt pocket. "Write it out." 

"Lord, Ringo!" Meggy hissed.

Thea signed to Ringo excitedly, LOOK, THEY HAVE A BABY.

"Whose kid?" he asked Meg

"Little Tommy's," Meg answered.

"Jeez, he's 23, Meg," Tom interjected.

"Where's his mom?" Ringo asked for Thea.

"HER mom, Amy, is at work at the plastics factory outside 
of Omaha," Meg answered uncertain who she should address.

"Amy who?"

"Amy Langly," Tom sneered.

"Amy's mom is Mandy Clevenger," Meg supplied.

Ringo's eyebrows shot up involuntarily. When he was 
sixteen, he was sure that Mandy Clevenger had been put on 
Earth to torment him. Long black hair, huge brown eyes, 
captain of the girl's basketball team, he could never 
figure out why everyone else paid so much attention to the 
twins when Mandy Clevenger leapt around the gym like a 
goddess. Of course she never said two words to him. Now she 
was someone's grandma. That was weird. Beyond weird, 
actually, and right into surreal.

Meggy picked up the baby and offered her to Thea.  Thea 
squeezed Ringo's arm excitedly.

CAN I? she signed to him.

DO YOU KNOW HOW? he asked.

I READ IN A BOOK, she answered.

"She doesn't have any experience with kids, so she might 
need a little help," he told Meg.

Meg's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Well, no time like 
the present."

"I think I need Ringo out in the barn," Tom said. Ringo 
signed dutifully.

Thea nodded, barely noticing Ringo for once, mesmerized by 
the baby. Ringo was slightly wounded.

"We'll be fine. You two go on," Meg assured them.

Ringo didn't know what to do, other than comply. 

******** 

Tom Langly asked as soon as they were away from the house, 
"So, what's going on, Ritchie?"

Langly grimaced. "It's complicated." 

"I got time." 

"Tommy, in a couple of days someone's probably going to 
notify you that I'm dead. I've pissed off some people."

"Like her dad?"

Langly shook his head. "Her dad's a friend of mine."

"That's how you treat your friends? Walt Einer's my friend 
and if I caught him messing around with one of my girls, 
I'd still be looking for my gun."

"Tom, I'm gonna say this slowly so you'll understand." He 
enunciated his insult very clearly.  "Her father is not 
looking for us. I'm an investigative journalist, you 
stupid hick, and I've pissed off the mob." It sounded 
like a good lie, something they could swallow in Nebraska. 
Super soldiers and government plots only played to the 
militia guys.

Tom looked skeptical. "And they're gonna kill you in a 
coupla days?"

"Noooooooo. We faked our deaths, Einstein. It'll probably 
be another 24 hours before they notify you."

"Her parents know she's okay?"

"Yeah. She's been living with me two years already. It's 
not like it happened-" Ringo Langly blurted. Fuck, there 
was no way he could straighten this out. Tom would never 
believe he lived with her two years without so much as a 
kiss. He wanted to break something.

"How old is she, Ringo?" Tom kept his voice low and even.

"17. And she's deaf, not mentally defective or anything.  
She's a damn genius. She can read and write four languages. 
She's got math theory so intense maybe two hundred guys in 
the country can touch her," Ringo said matter-of-factly. 
"I'm not taking advantage of her, I swear." 

"15, Ringo? Damn!" Tom threw his hat on the ground and 
walked away in disgust.

Ringo promised himself he would not run after him. He 
promised himself. Then he promised himself again. And then 
he trotted behind him like a puppy.

"You know, if that was my girl you'd be in jail right now?" 

"If that was your girl, I'd belong in jail," Ringo agreed. 

Tom nodded and grunted in affirmation.

"How'd you meet anyway?" Tom looked at his shoes. 

"Like I said, her folks are friends of mine," he said 
quietly.

"Which one? Byers or umm, Dohickey?"

"Frohike, but it's not either one of them." He sniffed 
arrogantly.  "I do have other friends, you know.

Tom didn't say a word.

"T's parents are FBI agents. I consult for them from time 
to time." It was more of the truth than he'd mean to reveal, 
and he closed his eyes.

Tom shrugged. 

"We been together pretty much 24/7 the last couple of years 
and I never have to explain what I mean to her. That 
doesn't happen a lot for me." Ringo leaned against the 
corrugated metal of the barn; it was already getting hot 
from the sun. "You ought to be able to talk to the chick 
you love, right, without feelin' like you're from another 
planet."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Shit! I forgot! Ringo's so smart 
nobody understands him. He's unique."

"Cut it out," Ringo snapped.

"He's special, he's the loneliest guy in the world and all 
us morons can't hope to fathom his depths, so I guess it's 
okay if he messes around with teenaged girls." 

"Okay." Ringo shut his eyes. "Here's something you can 
understand.  Remember when you were first dating Meg? Or 
before that even, when we'd be in our beds with the light 
out and she was all you could talk about? 'Meggy 
Gilbransen's got the best butt of any girl in school.  
Meggy Gilbransen made the best dessert at the senior class 
bake sale. Meggy Meggy Meggy blah blah blah blah blah blah 
blah.'  And later, when she turned up pregnant, as mad as 
Dad was, you told him you weren't sorry 'cause you were in 
love."

Tom grunted, profoundly embarrassed.

"For the first time in my life, I know what that feels 
like." Ringo pushed his glasses up again.

Tom scratched his forehead, trying not to look astonished, 
and wound up looking deeply pained instead.

Ringo leaning his head against a tractor, unable to look 
Tom in the eye. "She's the first person who told me she 
loved me since Mom. This is my chance. I don't think I'm 
gonna get another one."

Tom couldn't hold back his incredulity any more. "You mean 
you never-?"

"Of course I've gotten laid, moron." Ringo sighed. "I just 
never developed what you'd call a serious relationship."

Tom was speechless. What his brother was describing was so 
totally alien to him, so totally out of his realm of 
experience, he didn't know how to react. 

Tom looked at the ground. Some things you didn't want to 
know about your brother. It didn't fit with the image he 
had in his head. He wanted to ask him what their mother 
would say. He wanted to wake up and this whole thing to be 
a bad dream. He studied Ringo's shoes as an uncomfortable 
thought settled over him: his brother was not the same boy 
who had left the farm twenty years ago. Something had 
happened to him, and he now had a life, a life Tom knew 
nothing about, and might not understand even if he was 
told. 

"T was just this kid hanging around and like, one day I 
realized she'd turned into my best friend, then one day she 
was...everything."

Tom cleared his throat. "Yeah but she might grow up sooner 
or later."

"Screw you."

"Look, no matter what kind of crap you might try to tell 
yourself, you know it's wrong "

Ringo kicked at the ground. "I love her, Tom." 

"Is that why all I keep hearing is why this is such a great 
deal for you? You ever stop and think about what she 
needs?"

"I can be what she needs."

Tom looked dubious. "Is that so?"

Ringo grimaced. "I guess we oughta be going."

"No, stay. I'm finished chewing you out, the least I can do 
is feed you."

Ringo stared at him, arms folded across his chest.  "Think 
Meg'll make dessert?"

Tom smirked and nodded.  "Doesn't that little girl know 
how to cook?"

Ringo smirked back. "She's not exactly skilled in the 
wifely arts. I mean-" he stopped, stammered, "she, um, 
she's  pretty skilled at some. But she just can't cook or 
do laundry, and she's a slob, but, um..." He blushed.

Tom almost laughed out loud. He'd forgotten how much fun 
Ringo was to tease.

"How's she compare with Nancy?" Tom asked, trying to keep 
his face straight.

Nancy Squalls. Two years younger than Ringo, Nancy had been 
the other school geek. Short, stocky, with Coke-bottle 
glasses, greasy black hair and tits only slightly smaller 
than Bosnia and Herzegovina. Everyone in a three county 
radius knew she had it bad for Ringo all the way through 
school. She might have had a shot at him if she'd bathed a 
little more frequently. His standards might not have been 
high but he drew the line at girls who stunk.

"She still here?" Ringo asked, trying not to wince. 

"She's principal over at the junior high school," Tom said, 
trying not to smile

"You two done giggling? You sound like a couple of school 
girls." The old man stuck his head out of the barn. It was, 
Ringo thought, difficult to believe he was only a few years 
older than Frohike. "You married her, right, this girl 
genius?" It was the longest string of words he'd said to 
Ringo since the boy was 12.

"Yes, sir." The words jumped out of Ringo's mouth unbidden.

"Well, it's done then, no point in talking it into the 
ground. I want to get a look at Mrs. Egghead." And with 
that, he led his two sons into the house, muttering, 
"Couple a sissies, if you ask me. Least Bobby and Eddie 
would have knocked the hell out of each other, but, no,  
all you two do is yack."

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

end 07

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


When the men entered the house, Thea and Meggy were on the 
couch adrift in a sea of photo albums. The baby was 
clinging to Thea's neck and laughing. The minute she saw 
Ringo, her hands shot out in sign.

LOOK, SHE'S GIVING ME PICTURES OF YOU. AND THIS THING.

Ringo winced, striding over to her. WHAT THING?

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT SHE SAYS IT WAS YOUR
FAVORITE WHEN YOU WERE SMALL. She reached into the shoe box 
beside her and brandished a palm-sized blue and white 
square with a bright yellow knob.

He took it from her hand. IT'S A MUSIC BOX. SEE THIS SIDE? 
He turned the box around and twisted the dial. Inside, a small 
disc turned. Thea saw a little ship on the sea, riding on the 
waves as bright day became starry night. Although the toy 
was plastic and the technology was crude, she seemed to find 
it charming.

"You stole that thing off the crib for years." His father 
shook his head.

"It was mine," Ringo shot back, almost good naturedly. 

AND PHOTOGRAPHS. She waved a picture of a painfully small 
infant in an incubator, tube down his throat, thread-sized 
IVs attached to his disproportionate head, cotton pads 
covering his papery eyelids. Shaky handwriting on the back 
gave the date as July 16, 1969. YOU'RE TWO DAYS OLD AND 
LOOK HOW SICK YOU ARE, ALL WIRED UP LIKE I WAS. 

Ringo took the picture too but said nothing.

"I took that," his father said. "The only reason they let 
me was that you were so bad off. Your mother wanted a 
picture." The older man stepped closer.

YOU AND YOUR MOTHER? Thea signed, handing him the picture.

Sure enough, it was, but he didn't remember ever seeing it 
before. His plain, thin mother, all big eyes and Dumbo ears 
and streaky white blonde hair. She looked to be on the 
downhill side of yet another pregnancy, while he would have 
been about five, wearing his first pair of black glasses.  
He was either handing her a cup or taking a cup from her. 
Their eyes met in a way that suggested neither knew what 
to make of the other.

AND THIS ONE. She handed him another photo. WHEN YOU 
FINISHED SCHOOL. YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT HAT THAN THE OTHER 
PEOPLE.
 
I WAS, UM,  V.A.L.E.D.I.C.T.O.R.I.A.N. THE TOP OF MY CLASS. 
I HAD THE HIGHEST GRADES. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING
ABOUT? 

YES, RITCHIE, I WENT TO SCHOOL, YOU KNOW. She rolled her 
eyes. SOMETIMES YOU ACT LIKE I WAS RAISED IN A SKINNER BOX.

He chose not to bicker. Instead, he looked at the photo. 
The only long haired boy in the cluster of caps and gowns, 
he wore the blank look of resistance. He was sweating in 
his first Ramones shirt underneath the red nylon robe.  

When the picture was taken, he realized, he was Thea's age.  
A girl like her would have killed him back then. He would 
have had a heart attack before she could get his pants off. 
Of course, she hadn't been made yet when he graduated from 
high school.

He blinked.  It seemed wrong that his early life could be
summed up so completely by a few snap shots. But it looked 
to him like all that was missing was one with him getting 
his ass beat for the heinous offense of smarting-off to his 
father.

Thea stood up holding the baby with one arm. She extended 
her free hand to her father-in-law as politely as she knew 
how.

Hank Langly shook it vigorously, giving Thea a long look 
that made his second son want to sock him.

Hank turned his head to Tom. "I don't know what you got all 
worked up for. Looks to me like Ringo's child bride here 
could go bear hunting with a stick. It's pretty clear who 
got the raw end of this deal."

Ringo had forgotten his father's knack for reducing all 
human experiences to economic transactions.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

They spent that night on the farm not in his boyhood bunk, but in 
his parents old bed. His father had, in his own way, insisted, 
saying he was alone now and every other bed in the house besides 
Tom and Meg's was meant for one person. Ringo didn't have it in 
him to admit they spent their nights on a narrow single mattress 
and box springs set on the floor. 

They weren't used to so much room. Ringo spent a long time 
staring at his mother's vanity, at the thin veneer over particle 
board and two narrow drawers, at the large octagonal mirror 
facing the foot of the bed. He knew if he opened the drawers her 
things would still be there. He didn't want to see them.

The whole set had been a wedding gift to his mom from her in-
laws. Everyone talked about it like it was some extravagant 
gesture, but on cursory inspection, he could see it was just some 
cheap mass produced job. Well kept, though. 

He thought about Mulder for the first time in a while. He 
wondered what kind of wedding presents his mother had received. 
Pearls? Real china instead of Melmac? A summer house in Rhode 
Island so you could retreat in peace when hoi polloi like the 
Kennedys invaded Martha's Vineyard come summer? Still, when Hank 
Langly brought Marybeth Skaarsgard from the next farm over, he 
had more to give her than Ringo did when he married the daughter 
of a man with millions of bucks squirreled away in several not-
quite-legal hiding places. Hell, Langly'd cleaned out all his 
savings to buy her a ring that didn't look like it came from a 
cereal box, only to realize too late he couldn't feed his 
children a ring. He closed his eyes.

When his grandfather was liberating concentration camps and 
puking his guts out beside the mass graves, Thea's was spiriting 
away the bastards responsible and adding untold money and power 
to his already considerable family fortune in the process.

His family was full of true assholes; hers was all comic book-
sized heroes and villains. She had Mulder, his face shining and 
his trench coat flapping behind him like fucking Batman, and 
Cancerman, her grandfather, whatever-the-fuck-his-real-name-was, 
subverting anything right and good and sacred.

At least Hank Langly wasn't part of a conspiracy to alter the 
human genome. At least he wasn't a Nazi sympathizer or 
collaborator or whatever you called Bill Mulder and CGB Spender 
and the rest of those sons of bitches who experimented on real 
live people, like they were nothing, less than nothing.

Ringo recalled the first time Mulder had asked him to identify a 
Project Paper Clip scientist from a yellowing photograph. It had 
turned out to be Victor Klemper, smiling, holding a plate full of 
potato salad at a Mulder family backyard barbeque.

He wondered if it had been Klemper or another in the sea of 
German and Japanese war criminals he'd identified for the agent 
over the years who had been responsible for designing his pretty, 
smart, tough young wife, who stood, unflinching, with six million 
dead behind her. He could not honestly say if she was just 
another victim, or his own personal Girl From Brazil. All he knew 
was that either way, it had not been her choice.

His father's nagging voice suddenly filled the back of his head. 
"You knocked her up, and you married her," Hank told him. "No 
matter what else she is, she's yours."

Of course, his father would never take into account that he 
loved her.

He cracked his knuckles and looked around. He'd never gotten a 
good look in this room before. When he was growing up, this room 
had been forbidden, a restricted area. You'd have thought his 
parents kept plutonium in here.

He was almost one hundred per cent certain he had been conceived 
in this bed. Laying in it with his wife, he wasn't sure how he 
felt about that. 

THIS IS AMAZING, she signed.

THIS IS NEBRASKA, he replied. I THINK WE HAVE DIFFERENT 
DICTIONARIES.

MEGGY IS NICE, Thea signed. I LIKE HER.

He knew that meant something. Thea never liked other women. 
Respect was usually the best they could hope for.

I LIKE HER, TOO, he signed, thinking of how his family had  
stared when the two of them signed. For about the millionth time, 
Langly understood why Thea held such a low opinion of people in 
general and hearing people in particular.

YOU LIKE HER MORE THAN THE REST OF THEM, Thea, never one for 
tact, observed.

Ringo shrugged, MAYBE BECAUSE SHE'S NOT A BLOOD RELATION.

YOU'RE SO LUCKY TO HAVE A FAMILY.

YEAH, I AM, he signed back. YOU, THE BABIES.

NO, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. She rolled her eyes. YOU GREW UP IN A 
HOUSE, THE SAME HOUSE FOR YEARS, WITH BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND A 
MOTHER AND FATHER. LIKE ON TV, ON THE WALTONS.

I MUST HAVE MISSED ALL THOSE EPISODES WHEN DAD HIT JIM BOB WITH A 
BELT.

Thea looked down. Ringo realized neither of them was particularly 
interested in having the bad childhood pissing contest.  Beside, 
they both knew she'd win. 

He touched her chin before he signed, trying to gather her 
attention.  IT'S OKAY, MAMA. THE FUCKED UP PART IS MY DAD'S 
TRYING REALLY HARD. THIS IS THE COOLEST HE'S EVER BEEN WITH ME.

I'M SORRY. HERE ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE AND YOU ALL KNOW EACH OTHER 
AND YOU HAVE THE SAME GENES AND YOU LOOK LIKE THEM - YOUR NOSE IS 
EXACTLY LIKE YOUR... She let the sentence go unfinished.  I HOPE 
THEY LOOK LIKE YOU. She touched her belly. THIS IS SO COOL, TO 
SEE WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

EVERYBODY HAS A FAMILY, T, he signed, then regretted it. IF HE 
KNEW ABOUT YOU, MULDER WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST ONE ON A PLANE 
TO COSTA RICA.

Thea frowned. YOU THINK?

WITHOUT A DOUBT. YOU ARE SO LIKE BOTH OF THEM. THAT THING YOU DO 
WITH YOUR EYEBROW - THAT SPOCK THING? SCULLY DOES THAT. AND THE 
THINGS YOU THINK ARE FUNNY - JUST LIKE MULDER. AND YOU LOOK LIKE 
THEM. LIKE MULDER MOSTLY, THOUGH. YOU'RE MORE LIKE YOUR DAD IN A 
LOT OF WAYS.

IS HE PRETTY?

HE'S NOT MY TYPE, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN, he signed with a 
smirk. 

She punched him in the arm.

BUT CHICKS REALLY GO FOR HIM, SO I GUESS HE'S NOT QUASIMODO. 

She took this as a cue to strip off her shirt. I DON'T LIKE 
CHICKS, she signed bare-breasted.

Langly's eyes widened. NO, THEA. NO WAY. NOT IN THIS BED.

IT APPEARS TO BE STRUCTURALLY SOUND, she signed, then thumped the 
mattress. 

NO WAY. I WAS PROBABLY CONCEIVED HERE. FORGET IT. 

Ringo could see her pupils dilate as she considered the idea. IN 
THIS BED? IN THIS ROOM? 

He nodded. He watched her hands reverently smooth the still made 
chenille bed spread. He knew the way  she thought, knew she was 
seeing strands of DNA combining like puzzle pieces. He kept 
seeing his hulking father and skinny birdlike mother naked and 
felt slightly ill.

I THINK THEY'VE CHANGED THE SHEETS SINCE THEN, THOUGH, he signed, 
silently wishing she would put her shirt back on. 

RITCHIE, I AM SO TURNED ON.

Ringo stepped back. NO WAY, T, NO WAY.

WAY, she signed, leering.

DO I HAVE TO GO SLEEP ON THE COUCH? BECAUSE I WILL IF I HAVE TO. 
I'M NOT KIDDING.

She stroked the thin skin that stretched over his knuckles.

He looked at her sharply.

I WAS JUST HOLDING YOUR HAND, she signed. I CAN'T EVEN TOUCH YOU 
NOW?

YEAH RIGHT, FIRST YOU HOLD MY HAND THEN YOU GOT ME PINNED LIKE A 
BUG AND YOU'RE PULLING DOWN MY ZIPPER WITH YOU TEETH, he signed 
only half irritated. BEEN THERE. 

MORE LIKE A BUTTERFLY, she corrected him, smiling slyly.

A MOTH, he compromised.

YOU'RE USUALLY A VERY COOPERATIVE VICTIM,  she signed.

I MEAN IT. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS HERE. JUST LAY WITH ME 
TONIGHT, OKAY? BE MY FRIEND?

ALWAYS, RITCHIE. She nodded with her forehead wrinkled. He 
promised himself he'd make it up to her at the next cheap motel.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


After breakfast, everyone shook hands and slapped each other on 
the back, and made promises about visits no one was going to 
keep. Ringo and Thea left. 

There was a much-used paper sack in the driver's seat of the pick 
up and a note:

YOUR MOTHER WAS SAVING THIS FOR YOU.  

A quilt. A field of white with interlocking white rings. Red 
embroidered birds and flowers. A wedding quilt. 

He didn't recognize the handwriting.

 
:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


Taos, New Mexico. Passing time and waiting to pick up the 
deed and the keys for the new house from Jimmy and Yves' 
lawyer. It took awhile to find the lawyer's office, but 
Langly noticed one thing right away - Taos wasn't DC. 

Every building in town looked the same - squat, square 
variations on the theme of mud, all looking like they 
had risen spontaneously from of the ground. The streets 
were all profoundly twisted and about half as wide as
they should have been.

The weirdest thing, though, was the people. Against the 
bland earth-tone backdrop, it looked like a dozen 
circuses had all pulled into town at once. A pair of chicks 
in sports bras and cut-offs with shaved heads were playing a 
heavy round of tonsil hockey waiting at the cross walk. 
He could have sworn he saw a guy wearing Fro's furry vest. 
He saw a Sikh carrying a scimitar, a dude in what looked to 
him like 18th century knee pants and a tri-corn hat, a person 
of undetermined gender with Maori facial tattoos, numerous 
women in saris, and four different guys sporting old-fashioned 
over-the-shoulder-and-wrapped-around-the-waist-a-couple-of-times 
type kilts, probably from the one and only kilt store he'd 
ever seen, which seemed to be doing a brisk trade. Obvious 
tourists wandered the streets, gawking, and wore shorts 
and fanny packs. They might as well been painted green.

Definitely not DC.  No, in Taos he was - normal. He looked 
exactly like he'd come from the same *long-haired-white-
guy* factory as half the passersby. This was one place he 
and T and Fro could pass unnoticed. Yves knew what she was 
doing. 

Only, now that he thought about it, in all the ambling 
herds of humans, he hadn't seen a single suit.

Byers was screwed.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: 


Ringo hadn't seemed even slightly fazed when the lawyer 
explained the house was deeded to Thea Torvald only. "Mrs. 
Bond was very clear," the man said when Thea objected.  
There was, it seemed, a not inconsiderable cashiers' check 
to be handed over Mrs. Torvald as well.

Thea was flustered. She never been thrown so far off 
balance before. 

An hour later and thirty minutes to the north, 
trying to unlock the front door while Ritchie scruffed-up 
the back of her hair with his fingers, she felt her eyes 
water. She brushed them dry with the back of her arm. For 
most of her life she hadn't even owned the clothes on her 
back. A house?

She looked up. Two stories. Solar panels. The only apparent  
dependence on the outside world was a phone line. Her heart  
beat like a fist trying to pound its way out of her chest.

She pushed open the door. The house was full of stuff.  
Yves or Lois or whatever she was calling herself hadn't 
just given her a place where she wasn't a guest or a 
student or an inmate. She had furnished it.

Thea opened the kitchen cabinets. Dishes. Glasses. Pots. 
Pans. She stared at the couches and chairs in the cavernous 
room that took up the whole ground floor, then took the 
stairs at a run. Four doors and a long hall.

The first three were bedrooms, the last with two dressers 
instead of one and a ridiculously large bed. Her babies 
thrashed and wiggled inside her.

She opened door number four carefully. Three little  
baby...what were they called? Cribs.  A changing table. 
Other things, too, and she wasn't sure what they were.  
Little toys. Spinning, suspended sculptural things that  
needed winding. Three little dressers. 

She pulled open a drawer. Profoundly tiny clothes nestled 
inside like small mammals in hibernation. She found  
herself unrolling what turned out to be a pair of 
miniscule pastel green socks. She was crying and she had no 
idea why. 

She felt a soft touch to her arm and jumped. She didn't 
realize Ritchie was in the room. How embarrassing to be 
caught crying like some idiot girl.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER?" He leaned against the dresser.

Thea felt greedy. She had Ritchie for her own - he'd 
promised 'til death do us part, and Ritchie's promises 
meant something, not like hers.  She had Byers and Frohike 
to look out for, too. She was going to have Ritchie's 
babies. Who was she to have a house on top of all that? 
Her own house, one nobody was going to move her out of. 

She also had twelve thousand dollars in her pocket.

Her cheeks flushed and her chest felt cold. 

NOTHING, RITCHIE, she signed. YOU KNOW ME, I'M A DUMMY.

He frowned. YOU'RE A GENIUS. WHAT'S WRONG?

RITCHIE? She began, then stopped. She didn't know what she 
wanted to tell him, so she swallowed hard and shrugged.

Ringo bit the inside of his mouth and put his arms around 
her.

She rubbed her tears with his hair, seized by the sudden 
urge to count all the electrical outlets.  


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

For years, John Byers had blamed the constant bickering on 
Langly.  All it took was being trapped alone with Frohike 
in a van to jolt Byers into recognition of the fact that 
Melvin Frohike really was an incredibly frustrating person. 
And a terrible driver.

The first bone of contention had been 'The Indian.' The 
motorcycle was huge and took up most of the room inside the 
new van. Frohike would not leave the vehicle behind, 
knowing it would be destroyed. He likened it to leaving a 
puppy and the Mona Lisa in a burning building. Byers 
secretly wondered if Fro would still be married if he'd 
shown that much devotion to his ex.  Every curve required 
an eye turned back to the machine. It did not take great 
intellectual prowess to understand how they had found 
themselves lost in the West Virginia hills for a half a 
day.

Frohike though, had had the gall to challenge Byers' 
ability to read a map.

The stereo was another issue. Frohike's music was both 
terrible and depressing. Leonard Cohen was a circle of hell 
unto himself. Byers found himself feeling nostalgic for 
Langly's miserable singing voice cranking out Motorhead or 
Ramones songs hour after hour. And what kind of person, he 
had to wonder, cranked the AC up so he could wear a leather 
vest while driving through the south in the summer? John 
Byers' teeth chattered  from Georgia to Oklahoma City, 
where he broke down and hung his head out the open window 
as Frohike croaked along with the stereo. After twenty 
minutes, he gave in and rolled up the window. Oklahoma City 
in June smelled like a giant stockyard.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

In the desert of eastern New Mexico, Byers and Frohike 
watched two glittering boxes  chase each other through the 
mid-afternoon sky for twenty minutes before they 
disappeared off the flat horizon with incongruous speed.


It was painful not to follow them. The desire to chase was 
almost a phantom itch for Byers, and he could tell, for 
Frohike, too. Their old lives, already a missing limb.
But neither spoke. They simply got back in the van and 
drove. 

Hours later, Byers stood in the men's room of the Tucumcari 
Wendy's and stared in the mirror. The image was 
disconcerting. In a t-shirt and jeans, his head and face 
shaved down to bare skin, no trace of John Byers remained. 
He scrutinized the glass for some hint of himself and found 
none. Without knowing where he was going, he walked past 
the familiar form of Melvin Frohike and onto the dusty 
sweltering concrete of Tucumcari.

Three hours later he returned to the van with the red and 
blue Holly Sugar trademark tattooed on the tender skin on 
the left side of his head.

He climbed into the driver's seat without comment. 
Cigarette butts and beer cans pointed the way to destiny 
and the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Frohike's snoring 
comforted him all the way to their new home.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

His first night in New Mexico, while everyone else slept, 
Melvin Frohike sat at his new kitchen table, gripped with 
nameless dread. It sat in his gut like cold, greasy 
cabbage. What if they had hitched their wagon to an 
imploding star?

The fact that he didn't say any thing negative, or at least 
more negative than usual, didn't necessarily mean he didn't 
have any misgivings. He didn't see the point; what was done 
was done. He knew Thea. He knew Langly. He knew there was 
no way that particular genie was going back in the bottle.

Still, he wrestled with himself. Over the last couple of 
years, how many late nights had he trudged past them on his 
way to bed, leaving those two innocents alone to sit side 
by side on the red couch, caught up in some Hong Kong 
action extravaganza or anime blood-and-guts melodrama, with 
repressed sexual tension, like a sleeping tiger, in the 
room? How many times had he watched them leaning over the 
same keyboard, arms tangled, without stopping to see what 
was looming on the horizon? Could he have done anything 
about it? Or was sex as inevitable as gravity? Would it be 
too much to expect a guy to put on a raincoat before he 
took the fall?

Thea was young, but she was flexible. She learned; she 
grew. She'd taken everything Langly could teach her about 
hacking and now stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with him. 
Frohike had no doubt she would accept the challenges of 
motherhood as matter-of-factly as she took everything else. 
It was the Scully in her. He had never seen her fail to 
cope.

Langly was the one who worried him. 'Mercurial' was not the 
right word. You never fucking knew with the guy. He might 
rise to the occasion admirably. Then again, he might crash 
and burn. He was a study in screwed up. Neuroses, thy name 
was Ringo. 

Most people who knew them both would have said Byers was 
the repressed one; they couldn't have gotten it more wrong. 
Frohike knew that, other than being 'Captain Do the Right 
Thing,' Byer's only real hang up was anger. In his own 
gentlemanly way, Byers was actually fairly smooth with the 
opposite sex.

Anger, however, was the only emotion Langly felt entirely 
at ease with, but scratch the tin foil armor and he was a 
child. Some part of Langly was younger than Thea had ever 
been. He'd seen the two of them watching cartoons on 
Saturday morning after Saturday morning, Langly unabashedly 
enthralled and Thea analyzing the propaganda content. Her 
comment? "Gibson liked TV. too."

Not that she was exactly pristine when it came to the 
lowliest of all media. But in this milieu, her taste and 
Goldilocks' did not coincide much - although the two of 
them watched "Junkyard Wars" with the fervor of hockey 
Fans, Thea's fascination with boxing turned Ringo's 
stomach.

Langly might deny that Thea had taken virginity as well as 
lost it last March, but Frohike remembered one particular 
drunken night all too well.

1998. Russ Meyer marathon. Entirely too much vodka. 
Conversation had gone from women in general to specific 
women. Byers pissed and moaned about Susanne. Fro himself 
had complained about the fact that all the women he hooked 
up with were inevitably cut from the same bewildering 
marriage-obsessed cloth. Mulder whined about not having 
been laid in years, then spent forty minutes wondering 
aloud if Scully loved him, without managing to say 
her name once. 

Out of the blue, Langly burst bitterly forth with "Yeah, 
well at least you guys've actually *had* girlfriends." 

Kind of made Mulder's problems seem inconsequential. 

Langly didn't come out of his room for three days after 
that, and when he finally emerged, his response to a 
heartfelt offer of a hooker was a suggestion that 
Melvin Frohike do something very uncomfortable with a 
length of coax cable.

The same traits that at first made Langly knocking-up a 
chickadee who was less than half his age fairly easy for 
Mel to swallow were beginning to make him worry. Seriously, 
what kind of grown woman would want him?

In truth, the guy was immature. When he was twenty, it 
seemed like he had a chance of growing out of it, but by 
the time he hit his mid-thirties fundamentally unchanged, 
the outlook was not so rosy. Melvin wondered if maybe  
Langly hadn't missed the ship bound for the promised land 
of adulthood when they started the paper. He wondered if it 
was something he had done, something about the way he and 
Byers had treated him all these years that had helped him 
to turn out this way, rather than some internal malfunction 
of the growth mechanism. It was hard not to treat him like 
a kid when he acted like one. And it was hard to stop 
acting like a kid when you were treated like one, day in 
and day out.

Frohike was chagrined to realize he credited Thea with 
more self-possession than he did Langly, but being 
chagrined wouldn't make him change his opinion. When the 
shit hit the fan, Thea always, inevitably, did the thing 
that needed doing, no matter how difficult or distasteful.

She wasn't perfect; Frohike knew she had her blind-spots, 
namely diplomacy, Richard Langly, and the entire medical  
profession. But she was grindingly pragmatic and stoic to a 
fault. Like the father she had never known, being 
responsible was basic to her nature.

Since Langly and Thea had gotten married, there was 
something about the whole arrangement that set Frohike's 
teeth on edge. Goldilocks was always playing with her 
wedding ring, for one thing. For another, every evening 
they would snuggle up together on the couch, and the night 
they had driven nearly across the whole goddamn country had 
been no exception. Thea sat up fingering that hair, that 
stupid hair of his, the broad, satisfied smile of a woman 
spreading itself luxuriously across her face. Langly 
nuzzled her belly, all dimples and twinkling blue eyes. He 
looked 14, not less than a month away from 38.

Frohike had felt physically ill at the sight and suppressed 
the desire to grab Langly by the collar and give him what 
for. Didn't that moron realize what a serious situation he 
had gotten them all into? Langly should have been sweating 
bullets, not grinning like an idiot. Frohike wanted to 
shake him hard, but it wouldn't have done any good.

Either way, Ringo would show what he was made of when the 
moment of truth came.

And he might wind up impressing them all. The only thing 
they could do was wait and see. 

That scared the shit out of Melvin Frohike.

The best he could hope for at the moment was a distraction. 

It came.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Melvin Frohike went into the coffee shop for a cup of 
coffee. He had no idea it would be the day he would really 
begin to love the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

He ordered in Spanish, because he could, and because he 
thought it might win him some points with the veritable 
bevy of Latina waitresses buzzing around the joint like so 
many lipsticked bees. The Joker beside him felt compelled 
to comment.

"That's some serious fucked-up Espanol, Cuz."

Melvin Frohike frowned. "I believe I was speaking to the 
young lady."

"Sheesh, Wanda ain't no young lady. 'sides,Cuz, she's 
married. So's-" he began to point "-Mary Lou, Delores, 
Yolanda, Lolo, Barbara ain't married but she ain't single, 
if you know what I mean." 

Frohike gave him a hard look, but said nothing.  

"So where you from?" the other man continued. "I know it 
ain't here, but you don't sound like no Mujado neither, and  
you sure don't look like a Mujado." He took another sip of 
coffee.

"Cubano - second generation," Frohike answered. "Melvin  
Quinones is the name." He offered his hand.

"Gilbert Garcia. They call me GG. That your bike I saw you 
come up on?" He said referring to the Indian, of course; it 
always attracted attention from anyone breathing without 
assistance.

"Yeah," Frohike answered, playing it cool.

"Then you're gonna be seein' a lotta me." GG grinned a 
sideways little grin. "I own the Harley Shop." 

"Maybe I'll see you around town, then, CUZ," Frohike 
enunciated clearly. "I do all my own work on that girl."

"For reals?" GG looked impressed. "You wanna take me out to 
get a good close look at her?"

"Sure."

"How long you had her for?" GG asked, pushing his way 
through the coffee shop door. 

"My old man bought her new in '46. He passed to me in '73. 
She's never been outside the family," Melvin felt compelled 
to add as they stepped into the parking lot. 

They shot the shit for a good twenty minutes, talking 
engines and horsepower and what was wrong with anything 
made in the last 20 years. By the time they returned to 
their cooling cups of coffee, Frohike had the admiration of 
his new acquaintance and a job as a mechanic at the Harley 
Shop. 

Just as Frohike sat, the sharp cry of "Donuts Donuts 
Donuts" rent the air. He looked up. 

A vision of delight met Melvin's eyes. This vision was 
plump, mid-to-late forties, and slightly taller than 
average. A scarf held back long, dark tresses with fine 
streaks of gray. She was heavily made-up, and had a pair of 
breasts like cantaloupes fighting to escape from behind her 
apron. The coup de gras was a tray of chocolate doughnuts 
in her arms.

"Cindy!" GG enthused, looking up from his coffee. "Just the 
lady I wanted to see! Gimme two blueberries, Meja."

"Oh GG, you just love me for my doughnuts." She laughed.  
Her laugh tinkled like a slightly off kilter bell.

"You got that right.  You got too many ex's for me, Meja. I 
don't want no woman whose been around the block more times 
than I have." 

"So what do you do?" she teased, setting the donuts on a 
plate in front of him. "Go down to Sante Fe and cruise the 
nunnery?" 

"Maybe." GG tipped his head toward Frohike. "Meet my new 
best friend, Cuba." 

"Pleased to meet you." Cindy had a devastating smile. 

"The pleasure is mine," Frohike responded. "Say you wouldn't 
happen to have a couple of those donuts in chocolate for a 
guy who knows how to treat a beautiful woman, would you?" 
Mel smiled, feeling good.

"Does Cuba here lay it on thick or what?" GG laughed 
stuffed a donut in his mouth.

"You bet I do." Cindy batted her eyes at Frohike. "I have 
eclairs, too"

"You don't say?" Frohike responded. He left the shop 40 
minutes later with a job, a new nick name, a date, and a 
tell-tale trace of custard in the corner of his mouth.

That night, he learned Cindy was 52, adventurous, cheerful, 
not overly talkative, never went anywhere without lipstick, 
and had no interest in either matrimony or cohabitation. 
Her only draw back was a surly teenaged daughter with 
something resembling a life of her own. 

All in all, Melvin 'Cuba' Quinones had found his perfect woman. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

end 08

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

It took exactly four days for John Wilson (formerly Byers) 
to obtain gainful employment. Work opportunities in the 
tiny hamlet of El Rito were limited to working in one of a 
handful of small recording studios, the single winery, or 
leading wealthy tourists on fly fishing or kayaking trips, 
none of which exactly suited his personality or abilities. 
He was, therefore, forced to look farther a-field. The 
full-time position he was offered at the Harwood Public 
library was perfect; the forty five minute drive to Taos 
was less than many urban commutes and the view was lovely.

His first day on the job he spent mostly setting up audio 
visual aids for a University of New Mexico satellite's  
'Introduction to Anthropology' class taught in a basement 
meeting room. The professor was young and pleasant; he 
thought he might want to take a class from her in the 
future.  Maybe two. 

Soon, they chatted regularly over their sack lunches at 
the picnic tables in front of the small library garden, 
but, other than missing her on the days she had no classes, 
he thought little of it.  He enjoyed her company. She was 
intelligent and personable. He'd made a friend. It was 
that simple.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Ringo's well-built pretense of autonomy shattered when he 
took the first regular joe-job of his life. He had to leave 
Thea by herself for eight hours a day, nine and a half if 
you counted the commute. He couldn't stop thinking about 
her. They hadn't been apart like that since they'd met. He 
imagined every male in El Rito aching for her attention. If 
he was one of these imagined suitors, he would start by 
bringing her broken electronics, then steal her affection 
with amazing feats of sexual prowess.

He could never quite figure out what would happen between 
presenting her with the busted amp and the bedroom, though.
How lame was that? He couldn't for the life of him figure 
out how to seduce his own wife. That was just pitiful. 

Every second of his work day he wondered where she was, 
what she was doing, and who else was thinking about her.

Ringo had always had a special disrespect for jealous 
husbands, so it was a pain in the ass to realize he was 
one. Before they had ever slept together, he'd gotten a big 
clue and ignored it - a boy at the skate park bought her 
some cheese fries one night. It had made Ringo uncomfortable 
but he didn't ask himself why. Back then, he didn't want to 
know why he felt unreasonable hostility toward a baby-faced 
kid whose mom picked him up in a Volvo. He didn't need the 
aggravation.

Ringo Langly might not have had a lot of first-hand 
experience with relationships, but this he knew; to possess 
a thing was also to be possessed by it. Unfortunately, he 
treasured the illusion of freedom. Too bad it was too late 
to pretend. He, and it, were long, long gone.

The only solution he could find was to attend to his job 
only when it was unavoidable and spend the rest of his time 
chatting with Thea. He lowered the bar at a local ISP 
already renowned for spotty service and a surly help-line, 
inspiring his co-workers to more sarcasm and even more 
lackadaisical repairs. Any time he was put on the spot 
about his use of company time, his reply was, "She's 
pregnant," as if it was well-understood that gestation 
required a modem connection. If he was not a bad employee, 
he did a remarkable imitation of one. It was a wonder he 
lasted the 21 days he did.

He had been engaged in wanton cyber-sex with Thea on his laptop 
while repairing a line and wound up knocking out internet 
connections for half the company's 4000 customers. When his 
supervisor apologetically let him go, the only person who was 
surprised was Ringo Langly. But he wasn't what you would call 
heart broken.

He went home to his wife, with a twinkle in his eye and a 
spring in his slouching step. He walked through the front 
door at noon to find her reading a stack of children's 
books Byers brought home a few days before.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? THIS RED FISH, BLUE FISH BOOK? IT'S 
VERY STRANGE. AND THIS ONE? WHY IS THIS CAT DOING THESE 
THINGS? IT HAS A TIE BUT NO SHIRT. WHY IS IT BIPEDAL? THE 
KIDS SHOULDN'T HAVE LET IT IN THE HOUSE, THE FISH WAS 
RIGHT. She shook the books at him.

I GOT FIRED, he signed trying not to smile.

COOL, she signed. WANT TO PLAY THE NEW GAME 
I DOWNLOADED?

MAYBE I GOT A BETTER IDEA, he signed, peeking at her 
through a lock of hair.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

When Frohike came home early, he was greeted by the sight 
of Langly, kneeling naked in front of the couch playing 
hide the bratwurst with his big-bellied wife. She was on 
the sofa with her long legs thrown over his freckled 
shoulders as he thrust lazily. She raised her eyebrow at 
Frohike.

My god, she's limber, Melvin thought as he got back in the 
car, wondering how much time he ought to give them. 

When he returned, they'd gone upstairs.  But he decided he 
was never, ever going to sit on that couch again. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~ 

A week later Ringo had not made even the most cursory 
attempt at finding employment. Instead, he and his young 
wife repaired several mixing boards deemed unsalvageable by 
the neighbors four houses down, also known as Discobolus 
Studios, and were repaid with cash, a crate of avocados and 
a his pick of several rare CDs. Neither John nor Melvin 
was exactly sure what they'd done for whom, but stuff began 
to pile up in a striking manner: camping equipment, 
pressure cookers, a tattoo gun, two more couches, a Tesla 
coil, three scuba tanks, an antique wicker pram, a crate of 
smoked kippers, a box of obscenely juicy imported oranges, 
and most of a butchered deer.  

Ringo insisted what they were doing was better than a job 
since it was part of the barter economy. Byers couldn't 
follow his reasoning, but then, he didn't put a lot of 
effort into it.

July was on its way and John laid on the couch drinking a 
beer and thumbing through The Journal of American Medicine, 
reminding himself that envy was a petty emotion and was 
utterly beneath him.

He watched the couple spending their usual evening time at 
the monitor. He glanced carelessly at Ringo running his 
pinky along the inside of her arm and looked quickly back 
down at his article on necrotic bowels. Langly stopped at 
her wrist. Did he feel her pulse? What else did he feel 
with her there on his lap? Did he even notice? Or was he 
too focused on the information on the screen to realize 
what he held in his arms?

Byers took a sip from his Sam Adams and closed his 
eyes. He didn't even realize he was drifting off until 
Langly woke him.

"See ya in the morning," he called as Thea pulled him by 
the hand in the direction of bed. Langly made a point of 
stopping on the stairs and yawning theatrically. It was 
pretense. Pure Pretense. They would be downstairs again in 
an hour, languid and hungry and musky smelling. Thea would 
rummage through the refrigerator for meat and Langly would 
eat Cap'n Crunch from a mixing bowl.

"It's okay," Frohike said as soon as they were gone.

"Of course it is," Byers answered, blinking to himself, 
unsure of the topic.

"Situation like this," Frohike went on from his own 
couch, "it's the most natural thing in the 
world to be a little jealous." 

"I'm not jealous," Byers replied quickly, still blinking 
rabbit-like.

"Anybody would be." 

Byers was silent a long moment. "It's like a fairytale " he 
finally said softly. "The worthy knight, after many 
adventures, finds the lost princess, evil sorcerers, 
magical beings, true love." It reminded him of Mulder and 
Scully, but he didn't say that our loud. 

Frohike either couldn't or wouldn't suppress a derisive 
laugh. "Sounds like a load of crap to me."

"You said anyone would envy..." John looked bewildered as 
Frohike cut him off mid-sentence.

"I meant because they're like a couple of goats." Frohike 
laughed again and took a pull at his own beer. 

"That sounds like obfuscation to me." Byers frowned primly 
as he said it.

Suddenly Frohike became slightly more serious, his smile 
More wistful. "You know what's special about those two 
knuckleheads? They're friends. Yeah, they're probably in 
love, too, but a man and a woman goin' at it like rabbits 
and still best friends? That's something you don't see 
everyday." He took another pull at his beer.

To this, Byers had no reply. He had never considered that 
friendship and romance could co-exist. All his 
relationships were based on idealization. But then, now 
that he thought about it, all his relationships ended in 
disappointment and disillusionment, too. For the first time 
in his life he considered there might be some correlation 
between the two.

He had in all honesty spent more time over the years with 
his dentist than he had with Susanne Modeski. It was a 
sobering thought.

Out of the blue Doctor Wilde came to mind.

He set down his copy of JAMA and thought about her for a 
good long time. Then he made a well-thought-out plan. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day at lunch he offered her the brownie he had 
packed for himself and asked if she'd do him the honor of 
accompanying him to the town 4th of July parade.

Her reply? "Chocolate and librarian's biceps? Oooh! How 
could I refuse?"

John blushed.

---------------------------

It was, by any standard, a good first date.

They ate red, white, and blue missile Popsicles he 
bought from a street vendor, laughed at a flotilla of 20 
sequin wearing welsh corgis running in formation to give 
the illusion of a low and rather doggy American flag, 
raised their eyebrows at three teenaged girls in red 
checkered bikinis with the Declaration of Independence 
painted on their bodies. John even managed to catch a 
handful of candy thrown by a volunteer fireman from the 
back of the gleaming polished fire-truck. They had fun.  At 
least, John did.  He hoped Amanda had, too. 

Three days later they went out for lattes at a trendy 
book-filled coffee shop. Amanda told him about her 
childhood, her family, her parents, her friends. John 
listened attentively and hoped she didn't notice when he 
didn't share the same facts about himself. 

Two days after that, they attended a poetry reading. 

Three days later, there was a trip to the Saint Vincent de 
Paul thrift store during lunch, where he bought Thea a 
tent-like maternity dress. Amanda looked surprised. "For a 
friend's wife," was all the explanation he gave, realizing 
that, even as he said it, he may have made a major 
miscalculation. But two days after that, they made a trip 
30 miles south to the Drive-In Theatre in Espanola.

Everything was going according to plan. 

He did his best not to arouse his house mates' suspicions. 
He claimed he was working late, or doing volunteer work for 
the animal shelter or any number of other likely excuses. 
If anyone could ruin his chances with Dr. Wilde, it was the 
people he cared for most in the world.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~ 

One Friday at the end of August, the four of them - Ringo, 
John, Melvin, and Thea - were scarfing down a pleasant 
dinner of black olive and anchovy pizza, when John's ruse 
began to unravel.

It started when Thea spied a bit of blue fabric peeking out 
of the pocket of John's khaki pants. Having little or no 
cap on her natural curiosity, she didn't think twice about 
pulling the fabric quickly out of his pocket to reveal a 
pair of cotton panties. She stood and waved them in the 
air.

John lunged. Thea ran. Just as he was about to reach her, 
she tossed them over his head to Ringo, who held them just 
beyond Byers's grasp. John jumped frantically, Ringo 
smirking down at him as he tossed the underpants back to 
Thea. John miscalculated, attempting to bring Ringo down 
before the panties left his hand. But he tackled too late, 
and they laid on the floor face-to-face for a second while 
Thea ran upstairs with the underpants, her belly like the 
prow of a ship.

In such close quarters, Ringo realized John's face smelled 
suspiciously like he'd been, as Ringo would put it later to 
Thea, looking shyly away, 'on a pearl diving expedition.'

Ringo slid easily out from under John. "Sorry," Langly 
apologized. "That uhh got uuuuuhhhh outta control. Um, 
congratulations. Where'd you meet her?"  

John chose to ignore him.

"Aww c'mon, Johnboy, you know all about my lady," Langly 
tried to ingratiate himself a little too late.

"Lady?" John snorted. Thea was creeping down the stairs by 
this time, and Byers stood stock still and crossed his arms 
at her.

WHO IS SHE? Thea demanded, the panties dangling 
from her hand. WHAT'S HER NAME? WHERE DID YOU MEET? DO YOU 
LOVE HER? WHY DON'T YOU HAVE HER SPEND THE NIGHT?

GIVE ME THE PANTIES NOW, John signed stonily.

JOHN, she signed, WHAT'S HER NAME?

UNDERPANTS NOW, he signed. 

FUNNY NAME, Thea signed. She held up the underpants in 
question.  I HAVE SOME JUST LIKE THIS. HAYNES HER WAY. 
COMFORTABLE.

THOSE ARE BRIEFS - YOU WEAR BIKINIS Langly interjected.

Thea rolled her eyes. WHAT KIND OF UNDERPANTS DOES CINDY 
WEAR, FRO?

SHE DOESN'T. Frohike signed, still at the table.

"EEEEeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww," Langly squealed and signed 
simultaneously. "That is not an image I want in my head. 
They let her cook like that?"

YOU'VE HAD YOUR FUN, KIDS. GIVE THEM TO HIM BEFORE I GIVE 
YOU BRATS THE  ASS PADDLING YOU DESERVE, Frohike signed, 
ignoring Langly's comment. JOHN'LL INTRODUCE US TO MISS 
UNDERPANTS WHEN HE'S READY. 

"She's a doctor," John snapped, then cringed.
 
JOHN'LL INTRODUCE US TO DOCTOR UNDERPANTS WHEN HE'S READY, 
Frohike amended. NOW GIVE HIM THE PANTIES. 

Langly smirked, first at Frohike, then at Byers.  Thea 
stuck out her tongue, but allowed the article of clothing 
in question to drift down into John's hands.

Even after they learned her name, Thea and Ringo continued 
to refer to Dr. Wilde as 'Dr. Underpants.'

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: 

Amanda  stood over the potato display in the grocery 
store, lost in meditation. She was feeling very favorably 
disposed toward John Wilson right at that moment, 
thinking she'd cook him something tasty, ply him with a 
good wine, and then. . .

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice came from behind her.  She 
stepped out of the way of the shopper she'd been blocking, 
and much to her surprise, caught a glimpse of her amorata 
turning into the produce section.

With a woman.

A pregnant woman.

A very pregnant woman who appeared to be wearing the 
maternity tent he'd bought a month earlier when she'd gone 
with John to the thrift shop.

An enormously pregnant woman who kissed John soundly on 
the cheek.

Amanda felt her heart rise to her throat.

That shit. That bastard. He already had a baby on the way, 
from the look of things. He was obviously playing Johnny 
Appleseed, spreading the fruit of his loins as far as 
possible. 

Shit. She felt sick to her stomach. She had really trusted 
that cheating son of a bitch. 

Amanda wished the floor would open and swallow her.  
Instead, she stepped a little too quickly backwards and  
accidentally stumbled through the doors marked EMPLOYEES 
ONLY.

Shit. 

She was ready to sneak back out, when some wily part of  
her brain realized she could see without being seen from 
her new vantage point. She stood, watching through the 
round windows as that son of a bitch and that poor, 
incredibly pregnant woman picked their way through the heads 
of endive. 

"Hey," a voice startled Amanda. She turned.  A round faced 
man with MIKE and PRODUCE MANAGER embroidered on his shirt 
was giving her a hard look. "I'm sorry ma'am, but you 
can't-" 

"I think my boyfriend is cheating on me or with me or, or 
something," she sputtered. "I'm not entirely clear on the 
semantics of the situation right now. I'm just-" 

Mike cut her off. "Yes, I'm sorry, but ma'am-"

"Look." Amanda pointed.  Anger was rising in her. "Those 
two. By the lettuce. Look at them."

"Ma'am, I-" 

"Look!" 

"Okay." Mike said, peering through the smudged window. 
"The guy with the holly on his head?"

"He's the one."

"Oh. I know that girl. She comes in a lot but she's usually 
with a different guy."

Amanda scowled. "Great. So they're both cheaters."

"I don't think so, I - oh, look. There he is, her regular 
squeeze, the one with the cereal, mas wheto."

Most white, indeed, Amanda thought. This new guy was the 
very model of your standard northern New Mexico Anglo male, 
and looked like someone had dipped him in bleach. He was 
about two shades shy of albino.

Mas wheto said something to John and dumped the cereal into 
the basket. DressWoman slipped her hand into the new guy's  
hip pocket and simultaneously brushed the top of John's 
head lightly with her other hand.

"Could be one of those free love things," Mike said. "Like 
up at the Lawrence Ranch. You know, share and share 
alike?"

"Shit," was all Amanda could think to say. All she wanted 
now was to get out of the grocery store without being seen. 
"You have a back door here?" 

Mike shook his head.  "Other end of the building." 
 
"Shit," she repeated. She wasn't about to abandon her food 
for the sake of that sleaze. The hard part was going to be 
making it through the check-out line. 

She almost made it, too. 

She was mid check-out, her inner voice screaming at the 
cashier to 'hurry-up-dammit-hurry-the-fuck-up!' as she 
smiled pleasantly.

"Amanda," John's gentle voice came up right behind her. 
"Hey." He smiled when she turned reflexively toward him. 
"Fancy meeting you here." 

There he was. Behind him, a small, gnomish older man wearing 
fingerless gloves appeared to giving a grocery list the 
once-over. Mas wheto, as she thought of him now, was 
browsing his way through a copy of some trash tabloid, 
scowl on his face. And up close, DressWoman looked young. 
Indecently, damned-near illegally young. 

The John Wilson Amanda knew - or thought she knew - would 
never be involved with a teenaged girl. Or was her mother 
right about all men being morally inferior to the average 
dog? Or - a light shone at the end of Amanda's emotional 
tunnel and she prayed it was not a train - could she be his 
daughter? A much younger sister?

She was grasping at straws, she realized, as disappointment 
settled in her gut. 

"Hi Amanda," he repeated.

"Oh, John, hey," she answered, flipping a stray tendril of 
hair back behind her ear. She was trying to sound light and 
casual instead of deflated and defeated. 

The gnome behind John cleared his throat theatrically.  

"Oh, um, Amanda, I'd like to introduce you to my, um,  
housemates." 

"Your um housemates?" 

"Dr. Amanda Wilde, meet Melvin Quinones." 

She made herself smile again as the gnome took her hand. 
"Mr. Quinones." 

"Mel is fine, Dr. Wilde," he assured her, and kissed her 
hand soundly.

Amanda swallowed. "Pleased to meet you, Mel."

"This is Ringo, um, Richard Torvald," John supplied as 
Langly leaned over the cart and shook her hand.

"Ringo's okay, better than Richard, anyway. Nice to meet 
you." 

"Likewise."  She squeezed his hand forcefully.

For a moment, all eyes focused on the pregnant girl.

Amanda went for broke. "And this?"
 
"This is my wife, Thea," Ringo supplied.  "She's deaf." The  
other men began to sign back and forth rapidly with the 
girl, whose fingers moved so quickly Amanda was almost 
incredulous.

Suddenly, the girl's eyes lit up and she leaned forward 
extending her hand over the top of the grocery cart. But 
her belly was too big and no matter how she squirmed, she 
couldn't reach. Finally, Thea stamped her foot in 
frustration, gave up, and just waved. 

Everyone laughed, even Amanda, although her laugh was 
somewhat uneasy. 

Amanda waved back. "Hi." 

"So-" John began.

"When is she-" Amanda said, then remembered that she 
should be talking to Thea. She turned to face the girl and 
was careful to make eye contact. "When are you due?
 
"December," Ringo answered as Thea signed.  Before the 
surprise could register on Amanda's face, Ringo added, 
"It's triplets.  So, John tell you about the potluck yet?"

"No." Amanda turned to John. "There's a lot John hasn't 
told me." 

"Well, I was going-" John began, but Mel cut him off. 

"Just a few friends and neighbors. Is El Rito out of your 
way?" 

"Actually, I live in El Rito," she said slowly, giving John 
a pointed look, "although I'm not home a lot."

"Small world, huh?" Ringo smirked and she didn't 
particularly like it. "Tomorrow, 7:30, 8:00.  We'd love if 
you could join us, wouldn't we, *John?*"

John looked pale suddenly, but agreed.  "We would, Amanda.  
We really would," he said sincerely. 

"Pot luck?" Amanda asked.

Three of the four nodded. "We expect about 25 people." 

"Sounds like fun," she said with little real enthusiasm.  
If nothing else, she'd get some answers. "I'll be there." 


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: 


Byers still hadn't figured out the protocol for announcing 
oneself at the door of a yurt. There was nothing to knock 
on and just walking in was something he still wasn't quite 
comfortable with, especially under the circumstances. He 
scratched the back of his neck for a moment, then called, 
"Hello? Amanda?" 

In response, a small curly mop came rushing out the bottom 
of the door flap and attempted to leap into his arms. He 
lifted it. "Hey, Spot." He laughed for an instant, taken 
aback. At least the dog's feelings hadn't changed.

A moment later, the flap pushed open and Amanda stood there 
in her bathrobe. It was the first time he'd seen her out of 
her ever-present khaki shorts, aside from the few times she 
had been utterly OUT of her khaki shorts.

"May I have my dog back please?" she asked quietly.

The dog in question attempted to bury his head in John's 
chest. Amanda was clearly less than thrilled.

"I believe I owe you an explanation," he said lightly.

"If you want to lie to me, that's your business," she 
answered softly.

"I was concerned that you might find my friends somewhat, 
um, off-putting I guess, and I didn't want you to get the 
wrong idea."

She pulled her robe more tightly closed. "And what wrong 
idea would that be, hmmmm?" 

John did not answer immediately; he was not certain there 
was a right response.

"That's about what I thought," she muttered. "Look, John, I 
finally found a good spot for my satellite dish and Seti 
Troopers is about to start, so I'd appreciate if you'd give 
me my dog and go-" 

His words came out in a rush. "I live with three other 
people - Melvin and Ringo and Ringo's wife Thea.  You met 
them at the store. We've lived together for years. Well, not 
Thea, but-"

"It's not some stupid alternative life-style thing, is it?" 
she sniffed. 

John's eyes went wide. "What?" That was when he noticed how 
terrible she looked. Her eyes and nose were red and puffy, 
and her hair looked like she's combed it with a hand mixer. 

"Polyamory," she mumbled. "Polyandry. Group marriage. 
Something stranger I don't even want to know the name for."

"Absolutely not," he assured her. "God, no. And I shouldn't 
have said I lived in Dixon, either." 

"No," she agreed. "You shouldn't have. What the hell is 
this all about?" 

"It's a complicated situation," he began.  Off her look, he 
quickly added, "Complicated, not kinky. I've known and 
worked with Ringo and Melvin since the late 80's. Most of 
the time it was just cheaper and easier to share living 
accommodations, so we did.  Do.  We still are."

Amanda folder her arms across her chest. "And Thea?" 

"Thea's been living with us for almost three years." 

"How old is she?" 

John scratched his chin. "Almost 18." 

"She's been living with the three of you for three years 
and she's only 17? I hope she hasn't been married to your 
friend for that long, John." 

"No," he said. 

"No," Amanda repeated, clearly angry. "So why was a 15 year 
old girl living with three supposedly adult males?" 

John hesitated. Honesty was one thing, but he wasn't sure 
how much he could tell her without just plain scaring her. 
He didn't want that. 

"Thea's parents are friends of ours. She needed a place to 
stay.  We let her." 

Amanda looked skeptical. "And now she's married to Ringo 
and pregnant with triplets?" 

"Shit happens."  John shrugged. "On the upside, she and 
Ringo are madly in love." 

"How do her parents feel about this?" 

John exhaled slowly.  "They don't know." 

Amanda gave him a long, hard look. "Give me my dog, John." 

"I struggled with it myself, Amanda, but they're in 
love, he isn't taking advantage of her. It's a weird 
situation, but it's, god, it's okay, it really is." 

She shook her head.  John, I-"

"Look," he said, knowing he sounded desperate. "Come to the  
potluck. See everyone in their natural habitat. You'll see that 
it's unconventional, but it's not bad. And, and, um, if you 
don't come I won't know anyone but my friends." He held out 
Spot. "Please?" 

She took her dog and, for a moment, their hands touched and 
the top of her robe slipped open.

"Probably," she replied. She hesitated a moment. "It's 
three minutes until the credits roll."

"Right," John nodded. "Seti Troopers. I'll get going." 

"I, um," she hesitated, "I was going to ask if you'd like 
to come in." 

John blinked. "Sure. I, am I forgiven?" 

"No," She answered. She held open the door flap. "But I 
might need someone to adjust the dish.  You'll do." 

John wasn't stupid. He went inside. 


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


Thea wasn't exactly hiding when she stowed herself in a 
comfortable office chair behind the bank of speakers 
Ritchie had assembled for the party.  She liked feeling the 
thump of the sound system all over her body, and even the 
babies moved in rhythm. It was a cool trick of theirs, she 
thought: they were smart and they weren't even born yet.

Besides, it wasn't really hiding.  She was just eating 
cherries from a paper sack and...avoiding.

This was NOT like any party the guys had in Takoma Park. 

This first party in New Mexico was busier than any at the 
old warehouse, more animated, more people. No one had the 
slightest interest in a friendly game of D&D. And most 
different of all, there were lots and lots of chicks. They 
never used to have chicks at their parties. 
Unless you counted her.  And she didn't. 

It wasn't like she had a problem with Byers and Frohike 
having women. She didn't, honest. It seemed like nearly 
every guy in New Mexico had a female, and so did a lot of 
the women. It was kind of relaxing to consider there were 
women who preferred other women sexually and therefore 
could be safely assumed to have no interest in Ringo.  She 
liked two or three of the smarter ones and deemed the 
coupled-up females pretty harmless, overall. It was all the 
unattached women floating around her house like free 
radicals that made her clinch her jaw.

And her husband was acting weird. 

Robert Thompson had ridden his horse over and brought her 
the sack full of cherries. Ritchie had made that 
face - that pissed-off face where the corners of his mouth 
went down and his nostrils flared. When she offered him a 
cherry, Ritchie signed NO THANKS and stalked off somewhere. 
Sitting where people wouldn't see her and feel compelled to 
try to communicate with her seemed like the best option. 

Her ass was starting to fall asleep so she struggled to her 
feet. Ritchie surprised her by sticking his head around 
the corner.

GOT ANY CHERRIES LEFT? he signed.

She held out two on a common stem. YOU STILL MAD?

He looked embarrassed, started to sign something, then 
appeared to think better of it. Blond hair swayed as he 
shook his head, popping the cherries into his mouth.

She reached out and ran two fingers along his cheek, traced 
his jaw. He stepped closer, as close as her distended belly 
would allow. She drew two fingertips down the bridge of his 
nose and watched as his right hand went unconsciously to 
his now straining crotch. With one finger, she touched his 
mouth.

Ritchie buried his face in her hand, nuzzling the palm.

WANT ME TO SUCK YOU? she signed, drawing her hand away.

HERE? NOW? WHAT IF SOMEONE SEES?  he asked.

IF SOMEONE SEES US, THEY WILL CONSIDER THEMSELVES 
FORTUNATE, she answered, the slightest smile on her lips.

I LOVE YOU, Ritchie signed. YOU'RE SO DIRTY. 

Thea was poised to pop open all the buttons on his jeans at 
once when a head of long wavy chestnut brown hair poked 
itself into the cubby where they stood.

Robert Thompson. Damn!

The two men traded speech, rapid-fire. Thea wishing she 
could lip-read more than her name and a few vital words.

She signed a question mark to her husband.

SOMEONE AT THE FRONT DOOR. I THINK IT'S DR. UNDERPANTS, he 
signed back.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Thea replied. LET HER IN BEFORE 
SHE CHANGES HER MIND! 

Ritchie grinned and took off for the door.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


Potluck. Yeah. Right. 

Amanda wasn't stupid; she knew a party when she saw 
one.

It was loud.  It was crowded.  On top of that, there was a 
line of behemoth American-made motorcycles parked in front 
of the house. 

But part of her was curious to see if John's friends were 
as odd as he'd let on, and part of her didn't want to know. 

Spot wagged his tail. She could turn around, fire up the 
generator, watch an old Seti Troopers DVD, and eat the 
garlic roasted peppers and rice crispy treats she'd brought 
along in the relative comfort of her yurt. It sounded a lot 
like a plan, really. 

As she stood there deliberating, the door opened.

It was the blond roommate. What was his name? Paul? She 
knew it was one of the Beatles. Damn, no way she could run 
away graciously now.

"You're here. Cool." He gave her a measuring look that  
made her feel nervous.  "Loverboy was gonna be pathetic if 
you were a no-show," he added laconically.

She tried to smile and nod. "Oh, I-"

Suddenly the blond's face lit up. He looked 12, complete 
with dimples.

"RicekrispytreatsAAALLLLLRRRRRRRIIGGGGHHHHTTTTTT!" he 
squealed. He took the plate from her hands, yanked back the wrap,  
and shoved one into his mouth. "By bub usta bake deez," he said 
with his mouth full.

"Yes," Amanda smiled. "One of the treasured ethnic 
delicacies of my people. They have sustained us through 
times of great famine and many episodes of the Brady 
Bunch." 

The blond just stood there, nodding and chewing. 

"Next time I could bring bologna sandwiches on Wonder bread 
with mayonnaise."

"And Kool-Aid?" he asked, shoving a second square into his 
mouth.

"Cherry," she answered. "Unless you prefer grape?" 

"Cool."  But he still didn't ask her in. 

For some bizarre reason, Spot suddenly developed amorous 
designs on John's roommate's foot. The roommate didn't 
notice; he was chewing with an ecstatic look on his face.

Fortunately, the gnomish hand-kisser she'd met in the 
grocery chose that moment to stick his head through the doorway.

"Let the lady in, willya, *Ritchie*?" he said, slapping the 
blond on the back of the head. "Sheesh."

"Why doncha ever make me rice krispy squares?" Ritchie said 
as soon as he swallowed.

"Why don't you bring me flowers?" the tiny man answered.

"Why don't you blow me?" 

"In your dreams, Farmboy." 

Further volleying was interrupted by John poking his 
head between the two combatants.

"Amanda!" he said breathily. 

No one, she realized as John took her hand and led her into 
the bustling house, had ever looked so pleased to see her 
in all her life. She was suddenly very glad to be there. 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Amanda had no idea that the next day she was investigated 
within an inch of her life. 

Her middle name was Lynn.  (It took Langly some time to 
explain to Thea that *Amanda Lynn* sounded like *a 
mandolin* and why that was funny.) 

They also learned Amanda was the only child of prosperous  
blue collar parents who divorced when she was ten years 
old, that her father had been a plumber and her mother a 
secretary, and that both were now deceased; her only 
grade below an A in her entire school career was a D 
in typing in 11th grade; she had lived on a series of 
scholarships and grants and her late father's nest egg 
until earning her Ph.D.; she had owned a succession of 
small, long haired pure breed dogs and her groomer bills 
were high; she taught but preferred to excavate; she had 
had a series of serious, long-term relationships with 
various grad students, but had never married; she was 
apolitical to a degree Thea found peculiar; and best of 
all, she had no ties to any known conspiracy.

They deemed her safe.

Not that John would have listened to them if they had any 
objections.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

 
A leopard cannot change its spots, nor a zebra its stripes. 
And a man who has spent forty five years being a boy scout 
is unlikely to be transformed by something as shallow as a 
shave, a haircut, and a new name.

Whether he was called Byers or Wilson, John Fitzgerald 
still carried an extensive first aid kit, a jack, jumper 
cables, and, since Frohike had a habit of ripping the seat 
out of his pants, a sewing kit whenever he left the house. 
It was practical. 

And so, his day began with saving Barney. Yes, THAT  
Barney. The eight-foot tall soft-sculpture dinosaur in the 
children's library had been injured in a violent 
tussle between three 2-year-old girls.  This resulted in   
tiny Styrofoam balls spilling everywhere. As the only 
person in the immediate vicinity with both a sewing kit and 
the appropriate colored thread, John had been elected to 
mend the behemoth.

He sat on a stool behind the circulation desk, stuffed purple 
legs thrown over his shoulders, intently focused on 
his repair job. 

"John?" 

He did not recognize the voice, and so, he did not look up. 

"John," the voice again, and this time there was something 
familiar in the intonation. "John, is that you?"

Oh Lord. It couldn't be... 

He looked up. 

It couldn't be, but it was. 

"Susanne?"

She let out a small laugh, and it sounded like a caged bird 
fluttering its wings. "That's quite a disguise. I almost 
didn't recognize you."

He smiled shyly, lifting his hand reflexively, scratching  
the tattoo on the side of his head. If she noticed it, she 
said nothing.

"Susanne, I..."

"I know you weren't expecting me."

"No," he replied honestly. That last thing he'd been 
expecting was Susanne Modeski. "How have you been?" 

She gave a tight little smile.  "Good. You?" 

"I've been-" He stopped.  "How did you find me, Susanne?"

"I have resources," she said a little cryptically. 
"Contacts.  People who owe me favors."  

"Oh," he replied as calmly as he could. If Susanne could 
fine them, that meant anyone could. 

"But don't worry," she rushed to assure him. "Jimmy said 
you and your friends are perfectly safe." She gave a weak 
smile. "I wouldn't have come otherwise, John." 

"Right." He nodded and licked his suddenly dry lips.  
"Susanne, if you're in any kind of trouble..."

"No." She shook her head. "I'm not in any trouble, at least 
not anymore."

"Then, why are you here?"

She smiled. "I'm here for you, John."

"For me?" John gaped. "Susanne, I...you...you and I barely 
know each other."

"I realize that." She kept glancing down at her hands as 
she spoke. John noticed a thin fish-belly white band of 
puckered skin on the ringer finger of her left hand. "I 
just, I just thought you and I might have a chance."

"I'm with someone," John blurted out. 

Susanne blinked. "Oh."  

"Someone I am serious about, I mean," he said, much to his own 
surprise.  

"Someone who knows John Byers?" she asked.  "Or someone who 
only knows John Wilson?"

Byers looked at her, hard.  Amanda knew him only as John 
Wilson. But. . .

"Someone who knows *me*," he answered.    

"Well, then." She seemed to draw herself in tight, "I guess 
I'm going to have to hurry back to Denver if I'm going make 
it in time to cash in your plane ticket."

Byers nodded.  "Yeah.  I guess you are. I-" he stopped. 

"Yes?" 

"Thanks for stopping by," he said, and held out his hand.  
"Have a good life, Susanne." 

She gave him the tiniest sigh and the thinnest smile as she 
clasped his hand and shook it. "You too, Mr. Wilson."  And 
she walked away. 

Byers sat back down. He picked up his needle and thread. He 
was surprised at how little her departure bothered him. He 
realized he'd probably never Susanne Modeski again. He was 
surprised how little that bothered him, too. 

He thought maybe he would stop at the jewelry store after 
work.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

In Amanda's yurt on the edge of village, they lay in her 
bed enjoying the crisp September morning. Afterglow city.

Lightly, her fingers tripped over his stubbly head.

"Amanda, do you have any regrets about your life?" John 
said quietly into her side.

She didn't say a word, just kept stroking.

"I do," he answered his own question. "I regret not having 
a wife."

"Oh," she replied. 

"Not having a family," he went on. 

Amanda was silent a long moment. "You could still have those 
things."

"Could I?" 

She nodded.  "Sure." 

"Could I have them with you?" he asked, glad the air was still 
and he was able to speak softly.

"With me?" she echoed.

"Theoretically?" he asked. "Hypothetically?" 

"Maybe," she answered after a pause. 

It wasn't a 'no,' and to John, it sounded enough like a 'yes' to 
make him push his luck.  "Do you think. . .perhaps you might 
consider. . .we might. . .not *try* to conceive, exactly,  but. . 
.not try 'not' to?" 

She stopped stroking. "John," she whispered. "You're serious?"  

"Dead serious. Would you give it some consideration?" he asked, 
too nervous to raise his head and look at her. "Take as long as 
you like and let me know. Get back to me, you know, um. . ."

"John, I can't exactly think about it rationally." The stroking 
began again but, John noted, it was a little less casual, a 
little less easy. "I can't say it hasn't been on my mind, either. 
My biological clock is striking like Big Ben at midnight."

"That's hyperbole if I've ever heard it." He smiled.

There was a long pause. "And, if, um, when I get pregnant? What 
then?"

He knew this one. "We'll get married. We should get married 
either way, I think."

"We should?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Oh," she answered neutrally. "Um," she began, and cleared 
her throat softly, "let me think about it? Okay?"

"Of course." He snuggled against her.  "Of course."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

~:~:~:~:~:~~:~:~:~:~:~

They'd had never had a disagreement more serious than what 
to watch on TV, so it took awhile for the others to realize 
exactly what they were seeing. Eleven o'clock p.m., 
November 1st, after three years of cohabitation and six 
months of marriage, Langly and Thea had their first real 
fight. Frohike battled a compulsion to mark it on his 
calendar. 

If he'd known the reason they were shooting off 
sparks like a bad wiring job, he would have been far less 
amused.

~:~:~:~:~:~~:~:~:~:~:~

Langly and Thea sat thigh-by-thigh on the couch staring at 
nothing, arms folded across their chests, both too 
stubborn to move. 

To his credit, Langly was right. He quoted statistics. 
Triplets were by definition high risk, particularly when it 
came to delivery. He signed small between them, listing  
intrauterine growth retardation, breach delivery, immature 
lungs, snarled umbilici, placenta abruptia, and myriad 
other reasons logic dictated she give birth in a hospital.

On her side, Thea had negative experience, paranoia, gut 
Instinct, and naked terror. She was her father's daughter. 
Despite the weight of facts, she stuck with what her gut 
was telling her. And her gut, in this case, was telling her 
'no.'

Neither Byers nor Frohike had any idea there was even a 
question. Langly didn't tell them; he thought he could 
handle convincing her. He hadn't had any luck getting her 
to a doctor since they left Maryland, but this would be
different. It had to be.

She did not tell him she was beginning to feel odd and 
restless. She went to bed, though what sleep she got was 
shallow and unsatisfying.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


It was already snowing when John and Melvin set out for 
work the next morning. Standing at the window in the front 
of the house watching them disappear down the road, Thea 
felt a strange compulsion to pick the clothes up off the 
bedroom floor. That accomplished, she waddled around the 
house putting away any books she was able to reach, despite 
the nagging pain in her back. While she stood rubbing her 
lower back against the bedroom door jamb, her amniotic sack 
broke and she doubled over as the contraction hit. It hurt 
a lot more than she had expecting. 

One thing became immediately obvious - she was in 
labor. There was no denying that. 

Before Ringo woke, she pitched the emergency cell phones as 
far out the window as her arm would send them sailing into 
the blowing blizzard. As if in conspiracy with her, the New 
Mexico State Highway Department closed all paved roads 
within 50 miles of their home. Half an hour later, the 
phone lines went down. The generator-less fools in that 
part of the world were soon without electricity, as well. 

It was nine a.m. before Langly got out of bed, and by then, 
they were well and truly stranded.

Thea flatly refused to tell Ringo what she'd done with the 
truck keys.  When he hot-wired the ignition, she flatly 
refused to get in the truck.

He knew it was pointless to yell, but he couldn't restrain 
himself. He got scared. He yelled. He begged. 

She refused. Flatly refused. 

He watched her body tense, intermittent contractions 
stilling the pacing she had been possessed by, reminding 
him a tiger he'd once seen at the DC zoo. The tiger kept 
leaping at the electrified chain link. Her somewhat 
primitive personality had always been part of her charm, as 
far as Langly was concerned. In labor, however, and snowed 
in, it lost some of its exotic appeal. She seemed 
dangerous, yes, but dangerous and pathetic.

YOU REALIZE YOU COULD DIE? he signed as another intense 
contraction passed. 

IT WOULD BE BETTER TO DIE THAN TO SEE MY KIDS IN A LAB, she 
signed back at him.

WHAT IF THEY'RE NORMAL? he asked.

WHAT IF THEY AREN'T? she answered as another wave of pain 
seized her. 

He watched her stand through four sets of contractions. By 
the fifth, he was whipped. He couldn't fight the elements 
and a girl with a head like a rock. He sat on the couch.

YOU WIN.

WHY DON'T I FEEL MORE GRATEFUL? her hands snapped at him 
as another pain started.

And so it went. He gathered the supplies he knew he'd need. 

The first hour, the pains were about five minutes apart. 
Then, for most of the next hour, three. Langly put his arms 
around her when she'd let him. He petted her head until she 
batted his hand away.

I HATE HURTING, she signed in a calm moment.

Langly nodded. It required most of his self-control not to 
remind her that she could be out of pain if she would give 
in on the hospital issue.
 
I HATE FEELING WEAK, POWERLESS, LOSING CONTROL, she 
amended. I HATE NOT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT TO DO.  

He nodded again, understanding. The trouble was, he knew 
exactly what to do. 

What followed was an hour of...well, a whole lot of 
nothing. Followed by another. Then another. And 
another. Nothing happened except more pain and more snow, 
but Thea had stopped even her fairly mild complaining and 
it worried him. He could see her belly go rigid every 
couple of minutes. Her eyes had long since glazed over.
If he asked her a direct question, she would answer with 
either a nod or a shake of the head.

He stood over the sink and washed his hands for a very long 
time. If she got an infection and died, it would be his 
fault. If he didn't do something quick, she would die, and 
it would be his fault. If she lost the babies, it would be 
his fault. If the cords were tangled, one or more of the 
babies could be becoming more and more brain damaged by the 
second, and that too would be his fault. It was all his 
fault, it seemed. 

The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

It had been twenty years, but thanks to his dear old dad 
and a farm full of cows, he understood the basics of labor 
and delivery. Well, bovine labor and delivery. And he'd 
been doing a lot of reading on the subject of human labor 
and delivery lately, too.

He was well aware that Thea wasn't a cow, but they were out 
of options. 

T, he signed, I KNOW WHAT TO DO. I'M GOING TO HELP YOU, 
OKAY?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? She had been in pain for so 
long she was worn down and not entirely coherent.

THEY'RE STUCK. I AM GOING TO REACH IN AND UNTANGLE THEM.

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO, she signed, shaking her 
head violently.

I HAVE TO.  

DON'T DO THIS TO ME, RITCHIE, I CAN'T, I CAN'T TAKE ANY 
MORE PAIN. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE, I'M TIRED, I 
DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I CAN'T HAVE THESE BABIES, I 
SURRENDER.

THEA, he signed slowly with his very clean hands, IT'S TOO  
LATE TO CRAP OUT NOW. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WHEN YOU 
ASKED ME TO FUCK YOU. YOU WANTED TO GET PREGNANT. I'M NOT 
STUPID. YOU MIGHT PLAY THE POOR DUMB DEAF GIRL WHEN IT 
SUITS YOU, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE ACCIDENTS. YOU GOT WHAT YOU 
WANTED. YOU GOT ME AND YOU GOT PREGNANT. I LOVE YOU, AND 
NOW WE ARE GOING TO HAVE OUR KIDS. SHUT UP AND LET ME 
HELP YOU. THE SOONER I DO THIS, THE SOONER IT WILL BE OVER.

It was the harshest thing he'd ever said to her. The worst 
part was that he knew every word of it was true. 

DON'T HURT ME, she begged.

He knelt in between her legs, one hand resting on her 
abdomen, then he reached inside past her dilated cervix and 
slowly, carefully began turning and untwisting his 
offspring. The sounds she made could not fairly be 
described as crying or screaming, but neither could they be 
described as truly human. Whether she chose to trust him 
or was simply unable to struggle he could not decide, but  
he was grateful she did not fight him. 

It seemed like hours, but it took roughly seven minutes 
before the first bluish, gooey boy was delivered. Before 
Langly fully realized he had nothing to clear his tiny 
airways, the boy sneezed forcefully and began to scream. 
He turned a healthy, robust pink at an alarming 
rate. 

Langly wrapped plastic-coated wire around the cord, 
cut carefully, laid the baby on Thea's chest. The 
frightened father reached inside for the next boy. The 
cords of the remaining two were wrapped tightly together. 

Langly turned and turned and turned and turned for 
something close to 10 minutes. He saw Thea struggling not 
to struggle, her hands clenched tight. Finally, the next 
boy was free. This second baby looked worse than the first, 
but recovered just as rapidly.

By the time the third was delivered, the first showed no 
signs beyond blood and vernix of having been very recently 
born. His head was now perfectly round.

The last baby, however, appeared to be dead.

Ringo stared, lost. The baby was black. It was clear his 
oxygen had been cut off for a while. Not knowing 
what else to do, Langly held the naked little corpse to his 
chest, rocked it gently, kissed its head. After a few 
minutes, the strangest thing happened. 

The baby moved. Stretched. Coughed blood and mucus all 
over his father's shirt, and started to cry.

"Holy shit," Langly whispered rubbing the boy's back.

The boy went from black to blue to perfect-peachy-magazine- 
ad-baby pink in minutes. After a little nervous hysterical 
laughter, Langly wrapped the boy, and went back to work on 
Thea.  He kept the last baby beside him. 

The new father saw to it that his wife was cleaned and 
wrapped in warm blankets. Immersed in thought, he tended 
the fire. 

There were so many things going on in his head. He 
shuddered to think how much pain he put her through, how 
much pain men in general put women in general through. He 
wondered why they weren't all lesbians. Why homo sapiens 
didn't die out. Stupid fucking evolution. 

Stupid Fucking Ringo Langly should have spared her all this 
and remembered the damn condom. 

The baby squirmed against his chest. His sons were 
gorgeous. He loved them. The minute he saw them, he loved 
them. They were best thing he'd seen in his life. He was 
amazed he had a part in producing anything so. . .pretty.

He was glad he forgot the condom. He was glad he was male, 
and at the same time, belatedly sick to his stomach. 

Thea sighed, drawing his attention. She seemed alright, not 
too much blood, placenta in one piece. All that was in 
her favor. She didn't seem to be in pain anymore. 

He would never ever be able to pay her back for this, for 
this gift. He had the sudden inexplicable desire to see his 
mother, forgetting for a second she was dead.

Finally, Langly and Thea made long weary eye contact. 

YVES WAS RIGHT, she signed, running her finger over the 
tiny nodule on the back of one son's neck. 

Langly had noticed. LOOKS LIKE IT. I MEAN, THE LAST ONE 
WAS...HE WAS DEAD, he signed. 

Thea's eyes widened. DEAD? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, DEAD?

NOT BREATHING. STIFF. COLD. DEAD, he signed, realizing it 
was only shock and exhaustion that made him communicate 
such a thought so easily. BUT HE SEEMS OKAY NOW, he added, 
signing less sharply.  

He looked down at his hands. There was dried blood under 
his fingernails. 


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


From her spot on the couch, Thea watched her husband. He 
was holding their son, the one he insisted had been dead, 
and staring at the child, mesmerized. He hugged the baby to 
his chest, kissed the little head again and again.

She realized he liked them. Whatever they were, Ritchie 
liked them. 

She pulled back the blanket and exposed the two squirming 
bundles on her chest. For the first time, she looked at the 
faces of her children. White, feathery hair was crusted 
with the evidence of birth, large blue eyes stared up at 
her, already focused. Their noses were bridgeless, like 
all infants, but already familiarly pointed at the tip. 
Their chins deeply cleft. 

They were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen. 

She breathed them in. Babies? Was it her babies? 
Ringo's babies? Of course his babies would smell 
delicious. 

One of them was looking her in the eye and opening and 
closing his mouth against her arm, like a fish in a tank. 
She opened and closed her own mouth back at him and stroked 
the soft skin on the other baby's back. The one she was 
rubbing was calm, his cheek against her breast, his breath 
deep and even. He was simply enjoying her presence, her 
touch. The feeling was mutual.

Langly crossed to the couch and touched her arm. HE'S 
HUNGRY, he signed, sitting beside her on the floor. HE'S 
DOING THAT BECAUSE HE WANTS YOU TO FEED HIM. 

HOW? 

LET ME HELP. Baby on his shoulder, he carefully took her 
breast in one hand and rubbed her nipple against the hungry 
baby's cheek. Within seconds, the baby was nursing 
intently.

YOU DID EXCELLENT, Langly signed. LOOK AT THESE 
GUYS - YOU ROCK.

THEY AREN'T NORMAL, she signed, really thinking it for the 
first time. 

Langly shrugged as best he could while holding a baby. HOW 
NORMAL COULD THEY BE WITH US FOR PARENTS? 

YOU LIKE THEM? she signed.

He nodded. OF COURSE I LIKE THEM. THEY'RE MY KIDS. 

It was too much.  Suddenly, it was all too much. She 
started to cry. 

T?

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? she signed. I DON'T KNOW 
HOW TO DO THIS.  I'LL MESS THIS UP.

Langly stroked her sweaty hair. I LOVE YOU. WE CAN FIGURE 
THIS OUT. DON'T WE ALWAYS?

YES. WE DO, she answered tiredly. WE'RE A COUPLE OF 
FUCKING GENIUSES, AREN'T WE? 

Langly gave a small laugh. YES, he answered solemnly. 

I LOVE YOU, RITCHIE. 

SORRY I HURT YOU. SO SORRY. SORRY. SORRY. YOU FORGIVE ME?  
He signed the word 'sorry' tensely, his eyes cast down, his 
flattened fist moving counterclockwise on the center of his 
chest. He smeared his shirt with blood.

Thea nodded tiredly.

Soon after the five of them drifted off to sleep in front 
of the fire under a quilt made by MaryBeth Langly.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Frohike called as soon as he was able. "Byers and I spent 
the night at Cindy's," he told Langly. "You two alright up 
there? 

There was a long pause on Langly's side.

"What happened? Is she okay?"

The pause went on. 

"Dammit, freak, what's going's on?"

Finally Langly spoke. "Congratulate me."

"Congrat-? Oh." Melvin felt faint for possibly the first 
time in his life. "Congratulations. Is everybody okay?"

"Yeah. And Yves was right."

"Yeah?" Melvin gulped. "How's the new mother?"

"She's okay, considering." 

"Considering what?" 

"Considering the babies got stuck and I had to reach up 
inside her like she was a damn cow." He sounded like his 
same old piss-and-vinegar self, but Frohike thought he 
heard a ragged edge threatening to turn into tears.

"You keeping tabs on her temperature? Watching for 
infection?"

"Yeah, and she ain't exactly being Little Mary Sunshine 
about it, either."

"When is she?" Frohike chuckled. "So what are they, 
anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Boys or girls? Pink or blue? Do they have little...?" 
Frohike snorted

"Boys. All boys "

"I'll pick up Byers at the library and we'll stop by the 
store on the way home - I'll get diapers, bottles, formula, 
what else?"

"She's got milk."

"Already? You think it's gonna be enough?"

"It's enough."

"Anything else?"

"You think they got home vasectomy kits at Wal-Mart?"

Melvin Frohike gave the receiver a stunned look. As far as 
he was concerned it was the most mature thing Langly had 
said in all the years he'd known him.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Three minutes later Cindy's phone rang.

It was Ringo.

"Uhhh I forgot something "

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I uhh I need you to get some..."

"Some what?"

It sounded like  "mumble-mumble-brake-pads" coming from 
Langly's end of the phone.

"Brake pads? why do you want brake pads?"

"I said 'sanitary pads,' Numbnuts."

Frohike laughed. The guy might be growing up but he still 
had a ways to go.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


That evening, roughly 24 hours after the birth, John stood 
at the doorstep behind Melvin. It felt electric.  It felt 
as if it was one of his childhood Christmases, when Santa 
Claus was alive and well and midnight mass at the Episcopal 
Church had lent a solemn air to the holiday and John felt 
sat perched in his pew, reasonably confident he had been a 
good boy.

From behind the door he could smell Thea's favorites, 
coffee and bacon, along with the delicious perfume of pinon 
wood on the fire. Underneath he caught a disturbing whiff 
of blood. There had been a birth, he reminded himself. 
Blood was normal. He wondered how Langly managed, until he 
was caught off-guard by a sound oddly familiar sound.

Low. Nasal. With a definite twang. Something like Langly 
singing, but the tune was Gilbert and Sullivan and the 
words were wrong.

"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium/
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium/
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium/
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium/ 
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium/ 
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium/
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium
And...and...fuck, I  can't remember the rest." 


The singing stopped and talking started. "You like that 
buddy? Soona taught me that when we had chemistry together 
about a million years ago. Yeah, he's dead, like your 
Gramma. Too bad they'll never get to see you. They'd have 
liked you, all of you. My mom used to..."

Langly had been singing his child the periodic table of 
elements. Byers couldn't help but smile.

The door opened. John and Melvin looked at each other and 
at their friend standing in the kitchen with a baby in his 
arms. John felt  his heart swell until he though it might 
split at the seams.

Langly brought the boy closer. The three men formed a 
huddle around him. Byers held his breath. 

A dense crown of feathery white hair stood up from the 
infant's head. Bright blue eyes focused intelligently on 
the two new faces. The baby gripped his father's wrist, 
looking from one man to the other and back again. the 
vivid pink rosebud mouth seemed to frown in concentration.

Without conscious intent, Byers took the boy from his 
father's arms.

"Quit boggarting the kid,"  Frohike grumbled.

"There's more where he came from, Fro," Langly replied.

Byers felt strange. His skin tingled. The newborn grasped 
his coat sleeve. Kicking free of his blanket, the boy 
exposed 
a freshly severed umbilicus between his tiny diaper and 
snowy white shirt, and opened and closed his 
mouth, guppy-like, at the man who held him.

"What's that?" Byers asked. "Why is he doing that?"

Langly said, "That? He's hungry."

"Feed him for god's sake, Ringo," Frohike said.

"I'm going to as soon as there's a feeding station open." 

It took John a minute to realize what his friend was 
saying. There were two more babies upstairs, with Thea. 

Lord...Thea, how was she?

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Frohike didn't know when he'd felt so excited. All sober 
reservations and concerns aside, he wanted to see Thea and 
he wanted to see the rest of those babies.

Knowing her as well as he did, Frohike should have realized 
there was a good chance when he opened her bedroom door she 
was going to be topless. She had a baby at either tit and 
all the modesty of a stray cat. 

SHORTMAN! JOHN! LOOK WHAT WE DID WHILE WE WERE SNOWED IN. 
YOU CAN'T SAY WE AREN'T PRODUCTIVE, she signed, smiling. 

All Melvin could do was stare. The boys were wiggling and 
sucking as loud and vigorous as  puppies.  After the 
embarrassment of seeing the Kid's tits ebbed, he was able 
to take a good long look at her. 

She looked great and awful at the same time. She had that 
ashy color of an olive-skinned person who'd lost blood. 
Broken capillaries like red snowflakes fell across cheeks 
made chubby by pregnancy. Despite all that, or maybe 
because of it, her eyes gleamed. Like a soldier, she seemed 
bloodied but victorious.

The funny thing was Mel suddenly realized he'd seen the 
girl mentally fatigued, physically exhausted, and plain old 
fashioned sleepy, but never relaxed before that minute.

She wound a hank of hair at the crown of one baby's head 
into a curl around her finger as she gazed up at Melvin 
expectantly. After a minute she signed a question mark with 
her free hand.

Frohike forced a smile. He couldn't think of a single sign 
to her to tell her how he felt.

CAN I? he gestured at the babies, whose hunger seemed to 
be slacking off.

LIKE YOU NEED TO ASK, she signed, snorting.

Carefully, he took one boy in his hands. He seemed 
unnaturally strong for a newborn. There was something else 
hinky, too. His head. The little guy held it up on his own 
without even a hint of wobble. And it was round 
and smooth, not even the littlest bit out of shape. Not at 
all like he had just been squeezed out.

WE NEED TO NOTIFY YVES. HAVE SOME TESTS RUN, the older man 
Signed, even as he tucked the boy under his chin for a warm 
hug. He noted the way Thea tensed. She had to have expected 
it; she had to have known it was necessary.

OKAY. BUT ONLY THE TESTS RITCHIE AND I APPROVE. THIS IS A 
ONE-SHOT DEAL. THEY AREN'T... She paused for a word, 
looking something between angry and afraid.

LAB RATS, Langly supplied for her.

She nodded and rubbed the thigh of his jeans. WE MADE THEM 
FOR...FOR... FOR... LOVE.

NOT AS A SCIENCE PROJECT, Langly finished. She nodded. 

"Get off it, Blondie," Frohike said and did not sign. "You 
did this because you were too excited about popping The 
Kid's cherry to take any precautions." He inhaled and added 
in a conciliatory tone, "But it looks like you did alright 
in spite of yourself."

Byers had surrendered the baby in his arms to Thea, then  
scowled at Frohike. Frohike found it unsettling.

WHAT? Thea signed. WHAT DID HE SAY RITCHIE? JOHN?

Neither answered her.

Frohike leaned forward and touched his thumb to her chin. I 
TOLD HIM I WAS PROUD OF YOU. BOTH OF YOU.

He wasn't sure how it happened but the next thing he knew 
Langly was hugging him.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~ 


Like that, they were parents. 

It proved that evolution tends to be cataclysmic rather 
than the incremental. In a few gushes of blood, hot sticky 
fluid, and other unidentifiable nastiness, their lives 
changed forever.

Although his standard reply to any outside query was, "I 
had it under control," in the privacy of his own opinion, 
Langly was a bungling incompetent who'd lucked his way 
through the whole birth.  Thea would never seem 
indestructible to him again. In her miserable labor, he had 
seen the long shadow of a girl stripped bare of intellect 
and strength, a girl afraid and totally unprepared for what 
was happening to her. Somehow, this epiphany lowered his 
estimation of himself and raised his estimation of his 
wife, though he would never have been able to explain why.

Some things seemed to come as a surprise to both of them. 
Thea and Langly both had labored under the delusion that 
childrearing, like all the Lone Gunmen's other endeavors, 
would be a group effort. They were shocked when Frohike and 
Byers contributed little beyond a brief evening stint in 
the rocking chair and the occasional martyred diaper 
change.

Neither of them started with even the most vague notion of 
how much work three infants would entail. Although there 
had been seven children in his family, any and all 
childcare was deemed the sole purview of the female members 
of the Langly family. Showing too much enthusiasm for 
babies, not unlike exhibiting excessive interest in art, 
literature, school, or housework, would immediately cause 
one's masculinity to come under suspicion.

Within days of the birth of his own sons, the already keen 
edge of resentment Ringo held toward his father sharpened 
radically. Hank Langly was an idiot and every, every, every 
single thing he'd ever told his son about the world was 
wrong. When the boys were older and Ringo had the chance,  
he was going to sit down and write a refutation of every 
piece of ignorant, stupid, and wrong-headed advice the old 
man had given him, and then he was going to drive to 
Nebraska and nail it to the cowshed like Martin Luther and 
the fucking Wittenberg Door.

Thea, on the other hand, hadn't been misinformed; from what 
Ringo had seen, she'd been clueless.

Nevertheless, she dealt without complaint. He wasn't sure 
if it was exhaustion or something else, but she seemed 
softer all of a sudden. Maybe softer wasn't the right word; 
more like the wire that held her strung so tight for so 
long had snapped. Sometimes it surprised him how much she 
seemed. . .like a mom.

Their years of practice working together served them well. 
Within three weeks, they were a well-oiled, if harried, 
walking-kissing-rocking-feeding-diaper-changing machine. 
Ringo had literally screamed when Byers innocently remarked 
at what 'easy' babies they were.

While it was true they slept twelve uninterrupted hours 
every night of their little lives, it was also true the 
babies spent the other twelve hours in valiant effort to 
keep their digestive tracks engaged from one end to the 
other.  They nursed for hours at a stretch. Then they shit, 
had explosive gas, maybe spit up a little, and started all 
over again. The entire process was made more difficult by 
the fact that their mother had given birth to three 
children but had come equipped with only two nipples.

Her insistence on using breast milk only had lasted one 
nerve-wracking week. Although Ringo would be the first to 
admit formula definitely made for grosser diapers, he could 
deal; his measurement of disgust had been recalibrated.

For all the hard work and the grind of it, cuddling on the 
couch in front of the fire with his wife and kids filled 
some gaping hole in him he had never thought anything could 
get to. It was hard to imagine there had been a time when 
he didn't want this.  If his father had been too fucking 
macho to blow on a baby's belly and make it giggle, screw 
him.

Ringo, caught up in a weird spontaneous moment of baby 
tickling, lifted Thea's shirt to blow on her belly, too. 
She snorted and laughed her drunk seal laugh and all of a 
sudden he was aware it was his mouth on the smooth skin 
below her navel and they both held their breath. He looked 
at the babies shiftily. They watched their parents with 
interest. Their mother was biting the inside of her mouth. 
Their father's glasses were smeared and rapidly fogging.

Sex. He had been playing at it before but now he knew what 
it was, what it really was, the way a man could only when 
he'd held his wet, bloody baby in his shaking hands, 
praying to something he didn't believe in that everybody 
would survive.

He knew now that sex wasn't over when he shot his load; it 
only started.

His brooding and paralysis were interrupted when a baby 
pitched himself forward and grabbed a fist full of long 
blond hair.

"OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!" Langly pulled away, unclenching the 
small hand carefully.

TONIGHT? Thea signed as he re-braided his hair quickly.

He shook his head.

COME ON, RITCHIE, I AM RECOVERED, she signed seductively.

WHAT ABOUT ME? I'M THE ONE WHO HAD AN OPERATION, REMEMBER?  
WE SAID WE'D WAIT UNTIL DR. STEINBERG GIVES ME THE ALL 
CLEAR, he signed frowning, then his expression softened. 
SIX WEEKS FROM NOVEMBER SECOND, THAT WAS OUR DEAL.

OK, BUT I'M COUNTING THE DAYS. YOU MAKE ME WAIT TOO MUCH 
LONGER AND I'M GOING TO WIND UP WITH A SERIOUS CASE OF 
REPETITIVE STRESS INJURY, she grinned as she signed. She 
smiled more these days, he noticed.

Ringo rolled his eyes. I'LL BUY YOU A WRIST BRACE.

Thea laughed like a seal again and punched him in the arm. 


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


For whatever reasons, the gods didn't want Frohike to get any 
sleep that night.  He laid under flannel sheets and wool blankets 
and anticipated each tick of the clock for the better part of an 
hour after that. Then he found his feet moving downstairs of 
their own volition, dragging the rest of him along for the ride.

Who should be on the monitor in the dark downstairs but Langly, 
tense as a wire and focused on one of his stupid games. A stupid 
game he appeared to be losing.

"What're you doin' down here?  Kids'll be up in the morning," 
Frohike said, pulling back Langly's headset.

"Fuck off, Dwarf." Langly groaned as his character took what 
appeared to be a painful head-butt from something with spikes 
studding its cranium.

"What happen? She kick you outta bed? Miss I-can't-get-enough 
kicked you outta bed?" Frohike asked, sarcasm dripping from his 
words. 

"Butt out, Melvin." 

Frohike stopped in his tracks.  "'Butt out Melvin?'" he echoed. 
He'd expected some creative insults at the very least.  "That's 
the best you can do?" 

And then, much to Frohike's surprise, Langly ignored him.  Which 
set all his alarm bells ringing. If Langly wasn't rising to the 
bait, something was wrong.  Bad wrong. 

Frohike tugged the headphones off again. "Hey," he said, "if I 
went to your room right now would Xena, hacker princess, be 
bawlin' her eyes out?"

Langly shrugged, but looked pained. On the screen, his character 
let out a painful keening cry, and fell to the cyber-ground,  
died. "Shit," he muttered.

Frohike waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.  Hell, it wasn't like he was going to get any sleep, 
anyway. 

"She thinks I'm unsatisfied. Or out of love. Or somethin'" he 
whispered.

"Why would she think that?" Frohike asked.  "What dumb-ass thing 
have you done now?"

Langly frowned. "I haven't done anything." 

Frohike frowned right back. "You haven't done anything?" 

"Exactly," Langly mumbled. 

"What the fuck? You musta done some-" And then it occurred to 
him. "Oh. You mean you haven't 'done' anything. As in, 'you" 
haven't 'done' any 'thing,' is that it?" 

"Fuck off." 

"So she's right?" Frohike asked

Langly's head snapped around to face Frohike. "What?" 

"The thrill 'is' gone?" 

"As if."  Langly glowered. "Now fuck off." 

Frohike reached to his left and pulled a wheeled desk chair out 
of the alcove. "Hey, Langly, no shit now.  If The Kid's unhappy, 
there isn't going to be any joy in Muddville for any of us.  Now 
you can be an asshole, or you can let me try and help." 

Langly looked at him, then looked away again. Frohike wondered if 
they were going to go another five rounds of The Waiting Game 
when every inch of Langly's body became still and he whispered, 
"I've, umm, been having a, um, a hydraulics issue."

Frohike's puzzled that over for a minute. "Oh," he said at last.  
"Oh. Oh shit. Have you seen your doctor about it? You see him for 
every other damn thing." 

Langly mumbled something with his face covered by his forearms.

"What?" Frohike enunciated clearly.

"It's not like that. It's, um, a selective problem, a very 
selective problem." Langly twitched while he said it.

Frohike was utterly exasperated by Langly's suddenly delicate 
sensibilities. "'Selective' how? Will you just spit it out?" 

"I don't think we should be talking about this," Langly said 
finally.

"I don't think we should either, but here we are."
 
"She's my wife, man, the mother of my kids. This is supposed to 
be, ya know, sacred or something, just between the two of us," 
Langly stuttered.

"Have you discussed this with her?" 

"Not exactly," Langly said dejectedly.

"You mean, 'not at all,'" Frohike shook his head.  "Man, if 
anybody ever needed therapy..." 

Langly resolutely looked at the monitor. 

"So how many times have you tried?"

Langly looked perturbed again. "Let's just say tonight proves 
definitively that the third time is not the charm." 

Frohike sighed heavily. "Okay, look, what's the problem? You've 
been snipped, so you can't knock her up again. So what are you 
worried about? 

"I don't wanna hurt her," Langly finally whispered.

Frohike couldn't help it.  He snorted.  "Trust me, Langly.  If 
you hurt her, I'm pretty damn sure she'll let you know."

Langly gave a non-committal shrug. 

"Wanna know what I think?" Frohike asked. 

Langly shrugged. "You're gonna tell me either way."

Frohike sighed again. "Seems to me if you screwed her once and 
saw she was none the worse for wear, so to speak, the problem 
would pretty much be solved."

"Yeah? Well, tell me, oh Swami, how I'm supposed to do her this 
one magical time if I can't, I can't, you know?"

Frohike rose. "Follow me." 

And Langly did.

"You say a word about this to anyone, including The Missus, I'll 
kick your ass," Frohike said as he led Langly into his small, 
sparsely furnished room. 

"A word about what?"

Melvin opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pill bottle.  He 
placed a small blue diamond-shaped pill in Langly's hand.

Frohike knew he was dealing with Captain Psychosomatic. He knew 
it might as well be a sugar pill, and he sort of wished it was, 
those little guys weren't cheap.

"A word about that." 

Langly snorted. "Shit. Is this-? It is, isn't it?  Shit."

"It takes about half an hour to kick in, then you should be good 
to go," Frohike explained. 

"Okay," Langly said, closing his fist around the tablet.  The 
younger man suddenly seemed taller, Frohike thought. "Okay.  And, 
uhh, thanks."  Langly left them room then, and Frohike would have 
sworn there was a spring in his step. 

"You're welcome, dumb-ass," Frohike replied after Langly was too 
far away to hear.  But there was a smile on his lips even as her 
crawled beneath the covers once more.   

He did not notice when, a few moment's later, sleep finally 
overcame him.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


Langly sat for some minutes on the edge of the bed watching his 
wife sleep. He still didn't feel entirely at ease in his own 
room. He knew Yves and Jimmy meant well, but a mahogany sleigh 
bed only slightly smaller than the island of Trinidad wasn't 
anything close to what either one of them was comfortable with.

He looked around the room. The only way you could tell it was 
theirs was the debris piled everywhere. It was probably a bad 
idea for the two of them to be allowed any horizontal surface. 
All the mirrors were weird too but those came with the room. Six 
months and he still wondered who'd need to look at themselves 
that much. 

And why.

When, suddenly, the why occurred to him. 

It took five minutes to point all the mirrors at her sleeping 
form. From one vantage point he could see her long legs, her 
profile, a full view of her face, even her suddenly very-there 
tits. 

He stared at those tits. They looked uncomfortably full even 
under layers of fabric.  Engorged breasts was the trade-off for 
the boys sleeping through the night. As usual, she got the bad 
end of every good deal - he got laid, she got pregnant; he got 
three gorgeous sons, she got excruciating labor.

It was so ironic. He'd always wanted good luck, just never at 
someone else's expense. Especially not hers.

In the day time, as long as everyone had their clothes on, their 
relationship made good solid sense to him. She was the best bud a 
guy could hope for and he never had to worry or feel gay about 
it. Now she'd given him the best thing in the world, these three 
sweet little guys he never had to worry about being awkward or 
uncool with.  

So he was pathetically in love with her; well, who the fuck 
wouldn't be?

It went beyond that, though. With her, he wasn't annoyed or 
uncomfortable. He didn't feel like he was blindly groping to 
fulfill some mysterious, unspoken demand like he did when he had 
tried to talk to other women. The two of them could sit and be 
still, only touching knee to knee, or they could stay up half the 
night signing and scribbling to each other in her notebook; 
either way, it was just easy to be with her.

In bed, though, it was different. Since a couple a of weeks after 
the boys were born, every time she stripped off her clothes, 
WHOOSH! she turned into the star of every sexual fantasy he ever 
had. She was all tits and ass, her body all soft and lush. It was 
like crawling under the sheets with a centerfold every night. 

And there was no way he could justify it, especially now, 
especially after telling her it was all her fault, after telling 
her to shut up and take it, after reaching up inside her after 
she shook her head 'no,' mouthed 'nonononononon,' over and over 
after she begged him to stop, to make it stop. 

He felt sick.

In a flash, he realized Thea would probably never get back the 
coltish body he had made love to that first time. Without 
particularly wanting, to he now understood what made Byers get so 
weird. But was it true? Had he really forced the bloom? Or did it 
just happen?

He looked at her in the mirrors. Drool was slipping out of the 
corner of her mouth. He reached out and wiped her cheek with the 
side of his hand. His feelings for Thea were a mess. All he knew 
was that he needed her and no matter how sorry he felt for 
hurting her, it wasn't sorry enough.

He ran one finger shyly over her nipple. Her tits were so hard, 
so full. It had to hurt.  

Well, there was something he could do about it. Carefully, he 
lifted her t-shirt and slipped his mouth over her large brown 
nipple. He sucked and swallowed. Sucked and swallowed. Sucked and 
swallowed. Sucked and. . .

She was so delicious. Whatever it was that was more than smart, 
loyal, and really, really hot...well, to tell the truth those 
things were more than enough. But this, this was perfect. 

When he had been a 12 year old boy in a land-locked state and not 
completely sure what you'd see if you looked between a girl's 
legs, his first wet dreams were about mermaids, about kissing 
them, touching them, sucking on their tits. Just like he was 
doing to Thea now. 

He raised his hand to cup her sleeping cheek only to realize she 
was watching him.

For an instant, he was afraid she would think it was dirty of him 
to do this, and not dirty in a good way. 

T.H.I.S. O.K.A.Y? he spelled at her one handed.

She nodded, her eyes wide, her smile soft. W.A.N.T. T.O. T.R.Y. 
T.H.E. O.T.H.E.R. S.I.D.E? She spelled and ran her free hand 
through his hair.

He looked. Milk was spilling from the other breast in fat drops.

He nodded. He switched sides, making an attempt not grind his -
YES! Thank you, Pharmaceutical gods! - hard-on against her. The 
last thing he wanted was to rush it. 

Both her hands rubbed his head now. 

Thea Thea Thea, he thought, and even if she could have heard him 
he wouldn't have said the words. They would have made him cry. 
Was it supposed to be like this? Why did he have to want her so 
bad when she already belonged to him? 

He looked up at her face and continued to suckle until he felt 
drunk with milk and there was no blood to carry oxygen to his 
brain.

He still didn't understand why she would want him, though. He was 
nothing but a mass of flaws - not much to look at, clumsy, 
penniless, and twenty years older than she was. Still, she made 
it clear she wanted him, crooked teeth, thinning hair, asthma, 
weak stomach, and all. It didn't make any sense.

It was hopeless.  Man/woman things had never made any sense to 
him. There was no way he could sort this out. All he could do was 
let it ride. Try to do his best for her.

Whatever that was. 

He was confused, but it became abundantly clear what she wanted. 
Like so many times before, she signed, FUCK ME, RINGO.

Blue plaid boxers met white cotton bikini briefs and there was 
friction. A strand of his hair found its way, tongue-like, into 
her mouth. He drove himself against her crotch without thinking.

He took hold of her shirt where it was bunched up under her arms 
and lifted it over her head, his pelvis shoving harder against 
hers. He kissed her chin, running his hands up and down her long 
smooth arms. 

He tried to slow himself down but found he couldn't. There was 
too much momentum.

Her kisses were wet wet wet over his cheeks, her body was already 
doing that writhe underneath him. His thumbs stroked the soft 
rise of her ribs as she pulled his boxers down to his knees. He 
pressed his weight down on to her, made a few gentle stabs with 
his cock against her thigh, tried not to groan too loud. Only her 
damp panties stood between them. 

With quick purpose, she fought to squirm free of her only 
restraint, nearly throwing Ringo onto the floor. In a misguided 
attempt to steady himself, Ringo accidentally put his foot though 
the leg hole. For an odd second, they were both wearing her 
underwear.

Damn damn damn.

Two seconds later, Thea ran three spit-slickened fingers the 
length of his dick and he forgot all about the panty thing.

He meant to take it slow. He meant to draw it out until she 
couldn't take it, until he knew she was ready and wet and as 
loose as she could get. But it was late and he was so turned-on 
and she seemed so turned on already and they hadn't fucked, not 
gotten down had actual sex, since August, and here it was almost 
Christmas. 

He didn't have a choice, there wasn't enough opposing force in 
the world to slow the power coming to bear on him.

He pulled out of her kiss. He took his cock in his hand. She 
stared at him, wide-eyed, and nodded.

Langly gulped softly. This was the point where he'd lost it 
before. 

He pressed his other hand against the soft rise of belly that 
remained below her navel and found himself staring at the angry 
red stretch marks that ran to her ribs.

He had to remind himself to... breathe, Langly, breathe...

She could have died because of him.

...Open the mouth, draw air into lungs. Not too difficult. At 
least, not in theory.

Died, because he was so busy thinking with his dick he didn't 
stop to consider the consequences of his actions.

...Inhale.

...Exhale.

...Inhale.

...Exha-

She bucked her hips. He could feel the heat and moisture without 
even touching her. She was giving him that look, that same look 
as the first time. 

FUCK ME NOW, RITCHIE.

He fumbled for a moment, but that was normal.

He let out a sigh with the first solid stroke. He was terrified 
and relieved. 

She lifted her hips to draw him back in. He obliged, drained of 
all individual will. She took his narrow hips in her hands to 
drive him harder. On his fourth thrust, her insistence turned to 
something else. Her pelvis rose high off the mattress, her head 
flew back, she arched her back hard lifting him with her. Her 
long legs wrapped themselves around his waist.  He pulled away 
and slammed in again, hard. 

He groaned. It was the most frustrating thing in the world not to 
be able to talk to her at that moment and have her hear him. But 
he spoke anyway, holding the sides of her face with his splayed 
fingers.

"I love you, T, I missed this so much. You're so hot. I never, I 
never meant to hurt you," he said loud and clear and inches away 
from her face.

He stared at her as he moved above her, absorbed by her face. She 
would never be pretty like a made-up girl. She would always be 
matte finish as opposed to the high gloss of other chicks. But 
her face was nice to him, thick rough lips, MulderNose, and all. 
She was who she was, new tits or not. She was Thea.  She belonged 
to him. And he belonged to her.

When he came, it was like falling down a flight of stairs. One 
hand away from the railing and he was plummeting, 

But when he hit bottom, he was still as hard as when he started.

Damn Frohike. 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


Thea's heart beat wildly as Ritchie carefully moved off her.

YOU STILL LOVE ME? she signed.

He nodded. EVEN MORE THAN BEFORE, he signed slowly, deliberately. 

WAS I OKAY? THIS WON'T BE THE LAST TIME? she signed, cringing, 
wondering if she was making a mistake, wondering if she should 
even put words to her fear now that he had fucked her.

He grabbed his glasses off the night stand then signed slowly, 
YOU'RE KIDDING, RIGHT?

She had no idea what was happening inside his head. She only knew 
she had a painful desire to know Ritchie still wanted her, not 
just as a bud, not just on account of the boys, but for her own 
sake. She wrestled her fear and asked outright. YOU STILL THINK 
I'M HOT, RIGHT?

"Oh yeah," he whispered, nodding again.

She stared waiting for more.

YOU'RE THE HOTTEST CHICK IN THE WORLD, T.

She signed a question mark.

BECAUSE, he signed. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND YOU'RE MINE.

She looked at him, her blood running hot and cold. YOU LOVE ME 
AND, she repeated, I'M YOURS.

YUP, he signed. 

She felt the chilly sensation of milk filling her breasts again.  
She pulled him to her by the back of his head and she began to 
kiss him, her tongue tracing the uneven edge of his front teeth. 
He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and in one smooth gesture, 
pulled her on top of him. She ground her crotch against his hip 
until their combined fluids smeared out onto him in a thick 
slurry. Only a minor adjustment brought his stiff erection back 
inside of her. But this time, she was above him, milk dripping 
down onto his chest, hot and sticky and sweet. The smell of him 
filled her nose, her open mouth, her lungs, like black pepper and 
musk. A trail of drying semen glazed across their skin. Her 
entire body was sensitized, alert. His hand reaching up to touch 
her mouth felt like a stroke to her sex. Every place he made 
contact with her body was aroused, sexualized. His fingers 
gripping her shoulders sent her skin to gooseflesh. His right 
hand moved to clutch her waist and she began to shiver.

Inside, she shook as well. He wanted her. He loved her. He didn't 
want anyone else. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Before that night, every time she had come to orgasm with him 
inside her, he had had no choice but to join her. He was too 
inexperienced and aroused to be able to hold off. 

But this night was different. With one ejaculation under his belt 
already and a little chemical assistance, he felt her warm 
familiar squeeze and didn't automatically accede defeat.

Instead, he closed his eyes and enjoyed it.

His eyes shot open and he whimpered in shock, however, when he 
felt sloppy slippery pussy replaced by very mobile mouth.

Sweet Jesus, she was licking it all off him. 

He tried to look away, but wound up looking straight at the image 
of the two of them in a mirror. It surprised him that they didn't 
look at all geeky or awkward. In fact what he saw was kind of...

She was smiling with his dick in her mouth. All doe-eyed and... 
and...

And sucking him clean. Oh Jesus. 

He couldn't believe it. She sucked harder, pulling in her cheeks. 
Their eyes met in the mirror.

Oh Jesus. 

This was them, together. This is  what they looked like, what 
they were. For the first time in his life, he caught a glimpse of 
himself that he didn't find utterly repulsive. And Thea - Thea 
was beautiful. 

Holding his eye, she swirled her tongue in a circle around the 
head of his cock, then slowly drew him down until his soft 
coppery pubic hair brushed her swollen lips. They were gaze to 
gaze and he was all the way down her throat. He wanted to reach 
down and touch her face. He wanted...he didn't know what he 
wanted. His chest felt tight.

He began to pulse slowly, almost gently, into her mouth. She 
swallowed, her eyes shining as he wiped a drop of glistening  
something from her lower lip. In response, she grinned. He smiled 
back.

He planted a kiss in her sweaty palm.

MY LOVE, she signed. YOU ARE MY LOVE.

Impulsively he pulled her up and kissed her, shocked at himself 
and the harsh taste of her tongue.

When he got up in the morning to change diapers, he had heavy 
circles around his eyes, but his bitching was transparently 
jovial.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

end 10

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

 
Thea's life suddenly began to click into place.

She used every bit of experience and information that 
seemed applicable to their situation; she utilized every 
inner resource she could tap. She had never been happier in 
her life. Or more strenuously tested.

Even the project scientists knew a human infant required a 
human touch, so twice a day the Crawford clones had 
massaged the children in their tanks. Thea remembered and 
carefully rubbed her babies. 

In the tank, the electrodes stimulating her developing brain 
had shown her human faces, words, sights, told her their 
version of everything she needed to know. She gave a revised 
edition to her children, even though it was some months before 
she had definitive proof that they understood her signing. 

In the lab, her pleasure centers had been stimulated so that she 
responded emotionally to dependence and intelligence. Ritchie 
would not have liked to know that, so she did not tell him. 
Still, what was charming in the father was equally endearing in 
the sons. Alert blue eyes and tiny grasping hands were familiarly 
entrancing to her. The babies had that same wide-eyed look of 
fascination as Ringo, the same utterly disarmed and disarming 
dimpled grin, and a very familiar squint-and-flared-nostril 
combination that occurred roughly five seconds before their faces 
turned red and their mouths flew wide open. Ritchie called it 
crying, but the babies never seemed to have any tears.
She and Ritchie never let that go on for long anyway. To 
tell the truth, they seldom set the boys down when they 
were awake. They responded very positively to being held.

It was harder than anything she had ever done. She knew she 
had grown weak and complacent in her years with the Gunmen. 
When she first came Maryland, she was so used to crushing 
work that she was often forced to do chin-ups on the shower bar 
until she was anywhere near tired enough for sleep. Takoma  
Park had been work in other ways. Numbers, which had long 
been a pleasant distraction from boredom and worry, became, 
for the first time in her life, a challenge.

Thea realized she had lucked out when she came to the 
Gunmen's lair. In retrospect, it was good training for 
motherhood. If it had not been for her time at the paper, 
she would have been utterly unequipped to deal with her 
offspring beyond the necessity for nutrition and hygiene.

She looked up from the boys in her arms to the one in 
Ringo's. Her husband no longer felt like a responsibility 
to her. His looks still enchanted her, he was still 
brilliant and kind, but he no longer seemed endearingly 
frail. Like the first time she'd seen him naked, she was 
struck by how strong he really was. It was strange to know 
someone not only cared enough to want to protect her, but 
could actually pull it off. Ringo felt like a comrade, a 
partner, another self, now. That didn't mean, of course, 
that she wouldn't bash-in the skull of anyone who tried to 
hurt him.

Ritchie was talking to the baby, and as far as she could 
see, the baby was talking back. The guys laughed at her  
whenever she suggested that, but it sure looked the same 
to her. She eyed all three boys appraisingly.  A bath and 
one more feeding and they would go to sleep. Then she and 
Ritchie could grab some monitor time. Internally, she 
raised her fist in the air - victory was in sight!

Frohike looked somewhat agitated as he left the mud alcove 
that housed his monitor.

WHAT'S EATING YOU, SHORTMAN? she asked.

NOTHING BAD, SWEETHEART. I GOT MAIL FROM YOUR MOM AND DAD. 
THEY'RE COMING FOR CHRISTMAS AND BRINGING YOUR LITTLE 
BROTHER AND SISTER, he answered.

BROTHER AND SISTER? Thea gaped. I HAVE A BROTHER AND 
SISTER?

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Frohike sent the first email after Thanksgiving dinner. 
 
Dear Marty,

We love the new place. Remember back when we promised your 
lovely wife we'd keep an eye out for a muffin like the one 
she ran into in San Diego several years back? I know we 
should have told you sooner, but we ran into one that 
bears a striking resemblance awhile ago. Less frail and 
a little older, though. This recipe has more in common 
with the ones she's come up with at home in the past 
few years. You'll understand that we kept it under our 
hats until it was kitchen-tested.

We'd love to have you up over winter vacation. Just don't 
expect me to ski.

Love

Aunt Martha

-----------------------

The reply came the following Saturday.


Dear Aunt Martha,

Do I seem like the type to make an old woman with a wooden 
leg risk her life on skis? I am wounded. Laura can't wait 
to see you all. Of course, we'll be bringing the muffin 
home with us. Does this recipe travel well? Expect us the 
18th. Evening.

Love

Marty


------------- 


Frohike answered.


Dear Marty,

We can't wait to see you. As for taking the muffin home, 
you'll have to talk to your cousin Richard about that. He's 
developed a fondness. Don't be hasty and plan to bite off 
more than you can chew.


Love Aunt

Martha

P.S. You said evening -  should I hold dinner?

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Mulder still didn't get exactly what it meant. Apparently the 
Gunmen had located one of Scully's children and Langly didn't 
want to let go? How wrong did that sound? It didn't make any 
sense. Well, they'd find out soon enough. 

The snow and the moonlight fell gorgeous on the mountains and the 
clusters of adobe houses. On one side of the highway surged the 
Rio Grande. On the other side was El Rito, a village with no 
visible roads, no street signs, and every damn house the same 
color - mud. The only notable structure around looked like it was 
probably a Buddhist temple. It was too dark to see the blue house 
trim Byers had mentioned, too snowy to see much of anything else.  
There was no choice but to follow the Gunmen's instructions 
scrupulously. He hated that.

He stopped the car and threw it into reverse. Backwards, on the 
highway, in the snow, at night, with the kids in the car. Scully 
give him 'the look.' 

The directions seemed pointlessly complicated. He suspected it 
was one of those Gunmen things that served no function other than 
to indulge some frustrated 'Mission Impossible' fantasy. 

Finally, he gave up. He went back to the last mile highway 
marker. 
He zeroed out the odometer. He went 1.73 miles, then made a sharp 
right. He watched out for the dip. He would have followed the 
snaking dirt road to the fourth house past the two rusted-out 
water heaters then gone due north, but the road was completely 
obscured by snow. He bottomed out in a ditch he hadn't even seen.

Shit.

He saw the water heaters standing against each other like drunken 
soldiers and managed to squeal his way out of the hole full of 
snow. He counted four houses, estimated where he would put the 
road if it was up to him. Counted three houses north. 

There it was. Or maybe it wasn't. But he decided to aim for that 
house none the less. 

As he got closer, it seemed more likely to be the right place. It 
had all the hallmarks he could identify in the dark - adobe, two 
story, corrugated tin roof. It also seemed to be surrounded by an 
inordinate amount of stuff, like the owners were holding a snowy 
midnight yard sale. He began to hum the theme from Sanford and 
Son.

Whoever lived there was going to get a visit from the Levine 
family.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


The man who greeted them was a surprise - they just didn't see 
forty-something white males with shaved heads sporting tattooed 
sprigs of holly on the side of their pink craniums in Delphi, 
Alabama. She had been about to apologize for having knocked on 
the wrong door when she realized she hadn't.

"Agent Scully!" the smiling door-opener greeted her. "I mean, 
Dr. Levine. Come in." 

She blinked up at the blue-eyed man. Kind eyes, pretty eyes, very 
familiar. OMIGOD - it was John Byers. 

She found herself throwing her arms around his neck in delight.

"You can leave your shoes in the foyer," he told her before 
smiling over her head at Mulder, who had a sleeping child in his 
arms. "The beds are all upstairs but there's a couch you can put 
him down on in the living room."

Mulder placed Danny down on the couch and as quickly as possible 
set back out for the car before he could say much more than 
hello. 

Scully stood stiffly in the living room, uncomfortable after her 
initial exuberance. It was a large room and seemed to take up the 
entire main floor. On the far side was an electric range and 
single deep porcelain sink flanked by long, narrow wooden work 
tables. Near the center of the room was a huge, obviously 
home-fabricated wood stove, conical, surrounded by a metal gate 
on all sides. Small, door-less nooks with tools, workbenches, and 
computers jutted off the opposite side of the room. Four large 
afghan-draped couches faced the cooking area.

A young woman sat in a rocking chair close to the fire, a 
swaddled baby on either shoulder. A third infant cooed on 
Frohike's lap. Frohike? He looked exactly the same - greyer, 
balder, but the same.

Mulder huffed in and put Sylvie down beside Frohike on the couch 
then stood looking around, taking it all in. 

Scully blinked. THEA? she signed, incredulous.

The girl nodded excitedly.

Suddenly things began to fall into place. 

Mulder touched her arm.  "Laura?" There was concern in his voice. 
"You okay?" 

"Oh god, Marty," Scully said quietly.  "I know this girl. I met 
her when I was first pregnant with Danny and you were-, well,  
she was with Gibson Praise." 

She looked at Thea again, then at Sylvie.  Thea, she saw in an 
instant, looked so much like her little girl, almost as if she 
were an older version of her. YOU'RE MY DAUGHTER? Scully signed.

Thea stood, continuing to rock the babies as she signed.  HIS 
TOO, she pointed at Mulder. 

Mulder lifted his brows, but said nothing. 

I CAME FROM BOTH OF YOU. It seemed to Scully that Thea was 
becoming flustered, because the signs began coming quickly and 
erratically. I MEAN, I CAME FROM ZEUS. THE LABS. I'M SORRY, I'M 
SORRY. I'M NOT REALLY A MORON. I JUST, I NEVER MET MY PARENTS 
BEFORE, NOT WHEN I KNEW THEY WERE MY PARENTS, AND I DON'T 
REMEMBER YOU BEING SO SHORT.  

YOU'VE GROWN. Scully smiled, surveying the tall girl before her. 
Her eyes were filling. WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING WHEN WE MET 
THE FIRST TIME?

IN ARIZONA? YOU WERE SEARCHING FOR HIM, she gestured at Mulder 
with her nose, AND I WASN'T SURE. GIBSON DIDN'T TELL ME UNTIL 
LATER.  

Scully nodded. WHERE IS GIBSON? ARE THESE BABIES HIS? Scully 
asked.

NO. Thea shook her head. GIBSON DIED.  

Scully's mouth became a hard line as she tried to puzzle it out. 
'Richard has developed a fondness,' Frohike's note had said. Did 
that mean. . .? 

HERE, GRANDMA. Thea offered Scully a baby. 

Scully thought about protesting for about a nanosecond.  Instead, 
she gingerly pulled back the little blanket. 

Oh, Oh. Her breath came in little bursts. Beautiful. Big blue 
eyes, head full of feathery white hair, and the sweetest little 
cleft chin.

Cleft chin? 

Oh God.

All the baby needed was a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses and a 
Megadeth t-shirt. 

BOY OR GIRL? she asked Thea.

ALL BOYS. CLONES. I MEAN, IDENTICAL. RITCHIE LIKES IT BETTER IF I 
SAY IDENTICAL. PEOPLE GET NERVOUS WHEN YOU SAY CLONES.

Mulder's voice came low and perturbed from behind her. "How old 
is she, Scully?"  Realizing his mistake, Mulder immediately 
signed, THEA, HOW OLD ARE YOU? 

HERE, GRANDPA, HOLD A BABY. Thea handed him a warm bundle 
identical to the one she'd handed Scully a moment before. THIS IS 
JOEY.

"Lovely," Mulder muttered. "I have a grandson named after a 
Ramone."  HE'S A GOOD LOOKING KID, he signed to Thea with some 
difficulty.  It had been a while since either Scully or Mulder 
had had to sign while holding fifteen pounds of baby. THEY ALL 
ARE.

I THINK SO, TOO.  Thea beamed. THEY LOOK LIKE THEIR FATHER. 

"Yeah, about that-" Mulder took a deep breath and turned to 
Frohike "-where *is* Langly, anyway?"

"He went to the outhouse 45 minutes ago and hasn't come back." 
Frohike shook his head as he said it. "The chicken shit."

JOSEPH IS A BEAUTIFUL NAME, Scully said and signed at the same 
time. She shot Mulder a look meant to suggest he should shut up 
and do it now.  IT WAS MY MATERNAL GRANDFATHER'S NAME.

Thea nodded excitedly. I KNOW.  WE DID SOME RESEARCH. I WAS 
CURIOUS.  

Scully smiled. WHO IS THIS? she gestured to the baby in her own 
arms.

"That's Kenny," Frohike supplied.

"After Soona?" Mulder asked. 

Frohike and Byers nodded. 

"So let's get back to my first question." Mulder turned so his 
back was to Thea. "How old is she?"

Frohike and Byers looked at each other.

"Guys," Mulder said, "don't make me beat it out of anyone." 

"It's complicated," Frohike finally answered. "She's tank-grown. 
Accelerated development. She says she was conceived in 1989. But 
Mulder, who the hell really knows with these guys?"

Mulder scowled then turned back to Thea and Scully. "Jesus," he 
muttered. 

"You can understand why we were hesitant to let you know about 
her at first," Byers said. "When she showed up we had no idea 
what her affiliations were, if she was who or what she claimed to 
be. 

"Anyone could have sent her," Frohike added, "hoping to get to 
you 
two."

"Even once we confirmed that she was your offspring, she still 
could have been a plant intended to flush you out of hiding," 
Byers jumped in.

"But we couldn't exactly turn her out on the street, either," 
Frohike said.

"She turned out to have quite an aptitude for certain endeavors," 
Byers said earnestly. "She's very good. Sort of a chip off the 
old block," he smiled unconvincingly. "Which, in some ways, made 
her more dangerous." 

"She started out just hacking," Frohike said.

"We aren't that irresponsible. But for such an intelligent person 
she has a surprising amount of difficulty grasping the meaning of 
simple things, like 'stay in the van'," Byers went on. 

"She has a very cool head in a crisis," Frohike said, "and she's 
persistent. You might say stubborn. Strong as an ox, too." 

"By the time we figured she was legitimate, we didn't want to see 
her out on her own again," Byers explained.  "We figured we 
could, at the very least, keep an eye on her.  That that's what 
you and Scully would do if the situation were reversed." 

"And by that time, well," Frohike shrugged, "she didn't want to 
be anywhere else, either, if you know what I mean." 

Mulder had been looking back and forth during the rapid-fire 
exchange. Finally, he just shook his head as if to clear 
it and looked down at the baby in his arms. "Yeah, I'm pretty 
clear 
on what you mean." 

"Melvin and I had no idea she and Langly were, um, intimate," 
Byers added. "Not until, well..." 

"Until the damage had been done, so to speak." Frohike swallowed. 
"Don't kill him, Mulder." 

Mulder seemed to think about this, then he addressed the boy in 
his arms. "Me? Kill your daddy? I wouldn't dream of it." He 
looked up. "I might bruise him a little, though." 

"Byers already did that," Frohike said, pantomiming a punch to 
the jaw.

"Good for your Uncle John," Mulder said in a high baby-talk 
voice. "I think you have your grandma's mouth, Joey. That's good 
because your daddy has no lips. He's the chicken-lipped man. He 
could be an X-file. Have you heard of the X-Files?"

Scully rolled her eyes. She snuggled Kenny close to her chest and 
something caught her eye. A dark figure was outside the window, 
watching.

"Mulder," she said quietly, adrenalin coursed through her 
veins, "someone is at-"  

Before she could finish the thought, Thea turned and rapped on 
the window.

DAMMIT, RITCHIE, she signed through the glass, GET IN THE HOUSE 
BEFORE YOU FREEZE TO DEATH!

A gust of cold and a chattering of teeth later, Langly was 
standing in front of the wood stove shivering. Thea signed as she 
tended to him.

RITCHIE, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? She stripped off his 
snow-plastered flannel shirt. She pulled his wet thermal over his 
head next. DO YOU WANT TO HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL? IS THAT  
YOUR PLAN? ARE MY PARENTS REALLY SO SCARY THAT YOU'D HAVE TO GO 
STAND OUT IN THE SNOW LIKE THAT? THESE ARE YOUR FRIENDS, 
REMEMBER? She pulled off a layer that seemed to consist of at 
least three black t-shirts. His skin was shockingly blue-white. 
Thea rubbed his chest and arms vigorously before wrapping her 
arms around him. DON'T BE SO STUPID.

Scully blinked. She doubted Langly had ever been in better 
shape. Corded muscles in his arms and chest left little doubt in 
her mind as to who'd chopped the winter's worth of firewood she'd 
seen stacked outside. Obviously, regular sex with a vigorous girl 
half his age had worked miracles for Langly. 

STAY IN FRONT OF THE FIRE, I'LL GET YOU SOME DRY CLOTHES. Thea 
signed. AND COFFEE, I'LL GET YOU COFFEE, TOO. She looked around.  
OH, I SHOULD GET EVERYONE COFFEE, RIGHT? IF YOU WANT IT, I MEAN. 
YES? 

Scully nodded. PLEASE, she signed. CAN I HELP?

Thea shook her head. NO. She turned back to Langly. THAT WAS 
STUPID, RITCHIE. REALLY STUPID. She left the room.
 
Heavy silence hung in the air for a moment, interrupted only by 
the crackle of the fire.  

"Um, hi," Langly all but whispered.

"Nice babies," Mulder said.

"Very nice babies," Scully agreed.

"We like 'em," Langly said. 

"I bet half the fun was making them," Mulder said in an even tone 
that Scully knew meant he was barely holding his anger in check. 

Langly groaned. "Jesus, Mulder, I didn't...She...I...we...Jesus." 
He dropped his head into his hands and groaned again. For a 
moment, Scully was afraid he was going to start hyperventilating.  

"Oh, spare us the tale of how you were ravished by a teenaged 
virgin, Don Juan," Frohike snorted. "It's gone from funny to 
pathetic, okay?"  

Scully looked down at Kenny. "You suppose she's like Betty, 
Mulder?" 
 
"The thought crossed my mind," Mulder answered. Scully could see 
he was stroking Joey's tiny palm. "But I'm still thinking about 
bruising him, just on principle." 

Langly groaned again. 

"Jo-ey, Jo-ey," Mulder sing-songed. He turned to her. "Scully, 
I've made a decision." 

"Oh?" 

"Let's have another baby."


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Scully blinked at him.  "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear 
that," she said, smiling at Kenny. "Your grandpa is a silly, 
silly man - very silly. I've considered selling tickets."

Despite the soporific effect of baby snuggling, Mulder was still 
pissed. "Well, we could take you home with us," he told Joey in 
that sing song voice.  "There are three of you, after all. Who's 
going to notice?"  

Byers snorted. "You know the term 'mother bear with her cubs'?" 
he asked. "Thea was the one they had in mind, Mulder" 

"Langly wouldn't let you get very far, either." Frohike assured 
him. "He's a dumb-ass, but he loves his kids." 

By this time, Thea had returned with Langly's dry clothes and 
headed off to make coffee, a task which appeared to both 
challenge and perplex her. Langly, redressed, took the third baby 
from Frohike's arms. 

Mulder nodded. "What's his name, *Ritchie*?" 

"Ted," Langly said. "After his mama." 

"What, no Dick Jr.?" Mulder said as smarmily as possible.

For two seconds Langly looked at Mulder with an expression 
Mulder knew mirrored his own - a squinting smile that was 
no smile at all. 

Byers, Frohike, and Scully traded expectant looks. Suddenly, 
something clanged loudly from the other end of the room. All 
three babies startled at once. 

"Does Thea need help?" Scully asked. "With the coffee, I mean?" 

Langly shook his head. "No, she's cool."

Thea interrupted the conversation by appearing with a tray of 
coffee and cookies.  She set it on the coffee table, seeming 
inordinately pleased.  HAVE COOKIES, she signed. AND COFFEE.

Mulder watched as, without fanfare but in a nonetheless seamless 
waltz, Thea and Langly passed infant, cookies, and gulps of 
hot beverage back and forth. They sat in the rocking chair 
together, Thea wedged between Langly's legs, the baby somehow in 
both their arms.

HAVE YOU SEEN BEAUTIFUL? Thea asked, shifting the baby's face 
toward Scully.

LANGLY SAID HIS NAME WAS TED, Mulder signed.

HIS FIRST NAME IS TED, Thea signed. FOR HIS MIDDLE NAME, I NAMED 
HIM BEAUTIFUL. AFTER HIS FATHER. IT'S A NICE NAME? she asked.

Mulder kept his hands still.  "Beats a woodland creature, I 
guess," he said to Scully.

Scully gave him a scowl. IT'S LOVELY. THEY ARE ALL LOVELY BABIES.

Thea smiled. 

SO, THEA, Scully signed as she perched on one of the sofas. BYERS 
SAID YOU HAVE SOME SPECIAL ABILITIES.  MATH?  

I HAVE A CERTAIN DEGREE OF COMPETENCE WITH NUMBERS AND PATTERNS, 
Thea signed and took another sip from her shared cup.  

"She's a damn genius," Frohike said. 

There was a sharp knocking at the door accompanied by a shrill 
bark, and Byers took off like he'd been shot from a canon. 
Minutes later a parka'd figure carrying a Bichon Frise stood 
shaking snow off in front of the fire. The narrow viewing 
tube at the front of the coat unzipped and there, somewhat to 
Mulder's surprise, stood a woman. 

She was some where between Langly and Byers in height, straddling 
the line between voluptuous and chubby, with thick, curly blonde 
hair that looked to Mulder like it had been carefully combed with 
a 
wrench. 

Byers gave a her a warm kiss in greeting. "Hey, hon." 

Byers had a girlfriend? 

Byers had a girlfriend.

"Amanda Wilde, Martin and Laura Levine. Marty and Laura, this 
is Amanda." 

Amanda looked like she was trying hard not to smirk. "Thea's 
parents, right?  I've heard, well, I've heard almost nothing 
about you." 

"Oh really?" Mulder shook her hand. 

"Oddly, every time I ask, these goons just look at each other. So 
what are you? Fugitives from justice? Part of the witness 
protection program?"

Scully smiled as she shook Amanda's hand. "Something like that." 

Mulder smiled. "Now we're going to have to use our mind control 
ray to erase your memory of this meeting."

"Could you erase my first semester of grad school while you're at 
it?" 

"I'll have to charge extra for that," Mulder countered.  

"I have a little socked away, so what the hey. I'd just blow it 
on my cabana boy here, anyway."  She turned to Byers. "The 
weather's turning nasty. You almost ready to go?" 

"You're taking our rebel without a serviette away?" Mulder 
asked.

"Kronk is spending the night at my place so you and yours can be 
spared the couches of death." 

"*Kronk*?" Mulder asked Byers.  Byers just shrugged and blushed. 

"We don't want to put anyone out," Scully said. 

Amanda held up her hand. "Kronk cooks. Then does the dishes. Then 
sweeps. And then he hacks into a satellite so I can get 'It's a 
Wonderful Life' in Mandarin with Spanish subtitles. It's pure 
self-sacrifice on my part."

"You're spoiled," Byers told her, grinning. 

Frohike sniffed. "That's what that funny smell is" 

"Cuba!" Amanda swatted him with her glove. 

"*Cuba*?" Mulder asked. 

Frohike shrugged. 

Byers already had his coat and was carefully putting on his 
gloves. "Well, I'm off to sleep in a yurt with a Bichon 
Frise."

"A yurt? Is a yurt what I think it is?" Scully asked. "Like a 
tent? In this weather?"  

"I have a generator. And a rug. A wood stove. It's pretty warm." 
Amanda replied. "Right, John."  

"I love your yurt," Byers replied almost automatically. It was 
clear they'd had something like that conversation before.  

"You spend enough time there," Frohike said. 

Byers scowled at Frohike, shook Mulder's hand, then pecked Thea 
and Scully on the cheek. WE'LL JOIN YOU FOR BREAKFAST, he signed 
and said. He picked up the dog and all but dragged his lady 
friend out the door, which shut firmly but not too loudly 
behind them.

"Whoa," Mulder said. "Whoa. That was...did we fall down the 
rabbit hole, Scully? If you tell me you've found the love 
of your life, Melvin, oh, I mean, *Cuba*, I'm going to plotz."

Frohike tilted his head and shrugged. "They call it the land of 
enchantment for a reason."

"No shit?" 

"No shit." Frohike nodded. "Her name's Cindy. She's a baker. Made 
the cookies you're scarfing down. You know what a sucker I am for 
women in the food service industry."

"And she's got these enormous..." Langly began. 

Mulder turned to Langly. "My wife and daughter are in the room, 
*Ritchie.* Watch your mouth." 

Langly shrank back. YOU SLEEPY, MAMA? Langly signed as small as 
he could, but Mulder still caught it. 

THEY CAME ALL THIS WAY, Thea signed and then yawned. I DON'T WANT 
TO CRAP OUT ON EVERYONE. 

WE'LL STILL BE HERE IN THE MORNING, Scully signed.

SLEEP, Mulder signed. FROHIKE AND I HAVE A LOT OF CATCHING UP TO 
DO.

GO ON, KID, YOU KNOW YOU NEED IT, Frohike agreed.

After Langly and Thea had collected their offspring and climbed 
the stairs, Mulder turned to Frohike.

"When were the babies born? July? August?"

"November 2nd," Frohike answered. 

Mulder heard Scully's breath catch.  Emily had been born on 
November second, he remembered. 

Mulder frowned. "No way those babies are 6 weeks old." 

"They're pretty advanced for six weeks," Scully put in.

"The best we can understand it, Thea's ova were changed. I don't 
pretend to know how they did it, but they did," Frohike said 
quietly. "Those grandsons of yours are super-soldiers"

"The super-soldiers are alien-human hybrids," Scully said. "If 
she's our daughter, Thea isn't an alien." 

"I've often wondered if Langly's from another planet, though," 
Mulder countered. 

"They're as human as you are," Frohike said. "But there's iron 
woven into every strand of DNA they have."

"What?" Mulder asked. "DNA doesn't work like that."

"Theirs does." 

"You have proof?" Scully asked. "Show me." 

Frohike nodded. He disappeared into a tiny mud cubicle and 
returned with a disc. "These are the tests that we've been able 
to have done discreetly. We wanted to do a few more, but Thea put 
her foot down. She said she spent too much of her own life as a 
science experiment. Langly backed her up, of course, so it was a 
done deal." 

"I understand," Scully replied coolly, taking the disc. She 
stepped efficiently to a monitor. When Mulder attempted to 
follow, she gave him a pointed look.  "I'll be right back," she 
said.  She wanted, apparently, to be alone. 

Frohike sighed. "I guess some things never change."

"She needs some time to digest." Mulder settled into his seat. 
"I've gotten used to it. She'll let me know what she finds."

He and Frohike sat watching each other, unsure of what to say.

"So," Mulder said as quietly as possible. "No bullshit now, tell 
me what happened, Frohike "

"Where do you want me to start?" Frohike asked.

"The beginning usually works."

"You asked for it."  Frohike explained it all, as best he could. 

Mulder sat back after a good ten minutes and frowned. "Why does 
the D&D bother me more than the naked Twister?" he asked when 
Frohike's story reached its end. 

Frohike snorted.  

"So you think Langly seduced her unintentionally?" Mulder asked. 
"His forbidden love communicating with her through what, binary 
code? My heart goes pitter pat." 

"Nothin' that girl's got is repressed, Mulder," Frohike answered.  
"Dumb-ass told himself it was innocent and friendly because that 
was what he wanted to believe. That's what he was comfortable 
with. You ask either one of 'em and they'll tell you the 
initiative was all hers. But you know Langly's luck - first time 
out of the box, he knocks her up." 

Frohike chuckled, and Mulder wondered at the bald-assed absurdity 
of life. He wished he didn't see the humor in it, but he did. 
It was a ridiculous world they lived in. He shook his head.

"Who knows about the existence of the babies, outside of the 
family?" Mulder asked.

"Friends, neighbors, the usual. But because of the home birth, we 
managed to avoid an official record."  Frohike said. 

"Yeah.  I'm still trying to wrap my brain around Langly 
delivering triplets by firelight." 

"Tell me about it." Frohike curled his lip. "But I guess he 
learned something practical growing up on that dairy farm, 
after all." 

The rolling of an office chair interrupted their conversation.  
Scully stood and walked toward them, looking concerned but 
resigned. 

"Diagnosis, Dr. Levine?" Mulder asked, attempting to keep the 
mood light. 

"They're Langly's and they're Thea's. And Thea is definitely 
ours." 

"Congratulations.  It's a girl," Mulder said. He felt 
gut-punched. Until Scully's confirmation, it was all just 
theoretical.  Now it was fact. 

Scully didn't look amused. "The babies definitely possess 
anomalies consistent with those we saw in Billy Miles and the few 
other super-soldiers we were able to examine. I don't understand 
how it was done, but it was done."

"Wow," Mulder said. 

"From a chromosomal standpoint, they are completely human.
But along the branched helix surface which they could have 
inherited from you or me, every cell appears to be what amounts 
to steel-reinforced.  There are some other chemical reactions 
going on with functions I can't explain." She paused and exhaled 
deeply. "From what I can see, Frohike is right. They can't be 
hurt. Physically."

"Just emotionally," Mulder added, the slightest smile on his 
lips.


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


"Well," Scully said, sitting down heavily on the edge of Byers' 
double bed.  She'd changed into pajamas and washed off her 
make-up and had been trying to digest it all.  It wasn't 
working.

"Well," Mulder repeated, sitting beside her but avoiding her 
eye.

"So," she said. 

"So."

"Stop that, Mulder." 

Mulder smiled, then is expression grew serious. "Scully, let's 
take them back with us. Thea and the babies, I mean. We could 
manage it."
 
"Are you serious?" Scully asked. She looked at him. "You are, 
aren't you?" 

He didn't answer.

"Just how do you propose we do this, Mulder? Handcuffs or duct 
tape?"

"But if we explained - "

"Explained what?" 

Mulder frowned.  He looked like a petulant two year old. "I don't 
know.  Just explained."

Scully shrugged. "What could we say that wouldn't permanently 
alienate Thea and Langly, and probably Byers and Frohike, too?" 

"I hear it's good to open with a joke," Mulder deadpanned. 
"Lightens the mood."

"Experience suggests I'd say something wrong and then you'd say 
something worse and we'd probably never see those boys again. Is 
that what you want?"
 
"No," Mulder shook his head. "It's just- She's just so young." He 
sighed and shrugged. "It's weird, though, isn't it, how sometimes 
the smallest event can lead you somewhere you couldn't have ever 
predicted?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"If I hadn't followed Susanne Modeski to that electronics 
convention in Baltimore, I wouldn't have spooked her to the point 
where she willing to ask three strange if sympathetic men for 
help. And if she hadn't brought the three of them together, I 
probably wouldn't have met them.  And if I'd never met them, 
Gibson couldn't have told Thea to go to them. And-" 

"And you wouldn't be a grandfather at the ripe old age of 45," 
Scully concluded for him. 

"Exactly."  

"I think the moral here is, 'never go to electronics 
conventions.'" 

"Sound advice." He gave her a gentle smile. "I was expecting a 
child.  A little girl, maybe two or three years old.  Maybe even 
a baby. One new child to worry about.  Not four."

"Five, if you count Langly." 

Mulder shuddered theatrically. "If he calls me 'dad," I'll hurt 
him. I'll hurt him bad." 

"If he calls me 'mom,' I'll help you hurt him bad."

He held out his hand to her. "Deal." 

They shook on it, then fell into silence again. "You know," he 
said and ran his hand through his hair, "Byers and Frohike would 
never do this to me."

Scully yawned behind her hand. "I think most of the doing was 
done to Thea." 

"Ha ha," Mulder said, without mirth.  "She's 17.  He's 38. And 
the worst part is, I keep getting the feeling I'm not as angry as 
I 
should be." 

"That's understandable. Strong family resemblance aside-" 

"Hard to miss that nose, huh?" 

"-she's a stranger, Mulder." 

"She is." He nodded. "She has your hands, though." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah. I noticed right away.  When she was signing." 

"Your nose." 

"Poor kid," Mulder said. "She looks a lot like Sylvie." 

Scully's voice was small.  "Like Emily, too."  

Mulder nodded, then wrapped his arm around her and pulled her 
close. Another moment of silence passed. "I feel cheated, Scully. 
We should have had a chance to spoil her and discipline her and 
take her to the playground and break up fights for her. She 
should have been ours."

"She's practically an x-file," Scully said into his chest. "That 
makes her ours, right?" 

Mulder suddenly realized he was blinking back tears. "I tasted 
her coffee. That's an x-file right there."

She chuckled. "That was coffee?"
 
"It might have been tar," Mulder amended. 

"That would explain why it stripped all the flesh from the back 
of my throat." 

Mulder snorted. "When you think about them, it's kind of sweet." 

Scully pulled back so she could look into his face. "Sweet?" 

"Conspiracy theorist meets the lab experiment of his dreams," he 
said. "It's like a valentine from Groom Lake."

She nodded. "All things considered, he doesn't seem like such 
a bad son-in-law. It could be worse."  

Mulder shrugged. "I guess it could be Frohike." 

"And they do make beautiful babies."

"No argument there," he agreed. He dropped a kiss on her 
forehead.  "You know, if I didn't love the guy, this wouldn't 
hurt so much."
 
For a moment, Scully just blinked at him. "You really do keep 
unfolding like a flower, Grandpa."

Mulder smiled. "I believe my official title is 'Grandpa Dude.'"

Scully yawned. "Let's get some sleep, Grandpa Dude.  I have a 
feeling this house isn't real quiet after 6 a.m."

They crawled into Byers' bed. After a few moments of tossing and 
turning, Scully sighed dramatically. "What are we going to do 
when Sylvie wants to get married?"

"Sylvie's 5, Scully, and I'm 45. With any luck, I'll be dead by 
then."


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


"I love you, cold, unfeeling robot arm," the green-faced alien on 
the screen declared, the accompanying text scrolling 
simultaneously by. 

Scully watched her eldest daughter sign along. Apparently, Thea'd 
seen this episode before.  At home, this cartoon was on the 
censored-television list. Too disturbing, Scully felt, too 
violent, and the entire premise set Mulder's hair at attention. 
Grim little alien invaders, even of the animated variety, were 
not welcome in the Levine household.

A horseshoe of pillows surrounded Thea as she nursed two babies 
at once. The third - Kenny, Scully thought, but she wasn't quite 
sure yet - was being bottle-fed on his father's lap. Danny 
stroked a baby's foot intently, while Sylvie sat on the other 
side of her newly-discovered sister, absorbed by the forbidden 
cartoon.

Sylvie poked Thea's bicep.

IS THE ROBOT ARM HIS MOM OR SOMETHING? Sylvie asked.

MORE OR LESS, Thea answered, BUT NOT A GOOD ONE.

AND HE'S HUGGING THE SCARY LADY BECAUSE SHE REMINDS HIM OF THE 
ROBOT ARM? Sylvie went on with her stubby fingers.

Thea nodded, turning her face back to the screen. IT'S LIKE THAT 
SOMETIMES.

Sylvie poked her again. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN GROWN UP?

I DON'T KNOW. Thea frowned. WHY?

YOU HAVE TO BE GROWN UP TO GET MARRIED AND GET A RING. YOU HAVE A 
NICE RING. I LIKE IT. IT'S LIKE THE ONES IN THE GUMBALL 
MACHINE AT THE PIGGLY WIGGLY, ALL SHINY AND SPARKLY. MY MOM'S 
RING IS BORING. 

Thea smiled. YOU WANT TO WEAR IT FOR A WHILE?

Sylvie nodded like a crazed marionette.

Langly looked at the two of them over the tops of his glasses 
"Don't lose it, Sylvie," he said. DON'T FORGET SHE HAS IT, T, he 
signed.

Sylvie spied her mother on the staircase and shot up like an 
exploding kernel of popcorn.

MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A SISTER? Sylvie yelled 
and signed standing on tip toes, as if to make herself better 
heard.

OF COURSE SHE KNOWS, DUMMY, SHE'S THEA'S MOTHER, TOO, Danny 
signed, sitting up straighter. SHE'S MY SISTER TOO, YOU KNOW.

YOU ALREADY HAVE A SISTER, Sylvie signed, the diamond ring on her 
thumb glittering as she did so. THEA IS MY SISTER.

WELL, SHE'S DEAF LIKE ME, HEARING GIRL, Danny answered. SO THERE.

IT IS TOO EARLY FOR THIS, Scully signed and said. WAIT UNTIL I 
HAVE HAD MY COFFEE, AT LEAST. 

WHO DOES SHE BELONG TO? Danny pressed.

Scully looked at Thea. Thea looked at Scully.

ALL OF US. WE'RE ALL FAMILY. EVERYONE BELONGS TO EACH OTHER 
Scully said. It sounded like the answer her mother would have 
given.  She wasn't too sure how she felt about that. 

WHAT ABOUT HIM? Danny asked, practically jerking his thumb into 
Langly's ear.

"He ours, too," Sylvie chimed. HE BELONGS TO T, SO HE BELONGS TO  
US, TOO, RIGHT?

Langly looked at Scully over the tops of his glasses, waiting to 
see what she said.

Scully shrugged. That one was tougher. WHAT DO YOU THINK? She  
signed.  

HE MADE US BREAKFAST WHILE DAD WAS RUNNING, Sylvie said and 
signed. I THINK WE SHOULD KEEP HIM. 

HE WARMED UP PIZZA. PIZZA IS NOT BREAKFAST, Danny argued

IF YOU EAT IT IN THE MORNING, IT'S BREAKFAST, Thea explained. 

"It's definitely breakfast." Langly spoke as Sylvie nodded in 
agreement. "If you eat it at lunch time, then it's lunch. At 
dinnertime, it's dinner.  It's not too complicated." 

SEE? Sylvie looked smug. SO CAN HE BE OURS?

SURE, Scully signed. WHY NOT?  

DO I GET A SAY IN THIS? Langly asked, mock seriously. 

Simultaneously, the three women in the room signed, NO.

Langly looked more than a little surprised. "Oh." 

"CONGRATULATIONS. YOU'RE A LEVINE." Scully smiled. "ANY REHEATED 
PIZZA LEFT?" 


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Scully was waiting for the coffee to finish, and Mulder was 
making his way through a second bowl of forbidden Cap'n Crunch, 
when the ceiling started flashing. 

"Doorbell?" Mulder frowned. 

"Phone, I think," Scully replied.  

"I think you're right," he said, shoveling more cereal into 
his mouth. "It's either the phone or a nuclear melt down." 

Scully was too decaffeinated to come up with a reply.  Instead, 
she watched the scene taking place on the other side of the 
cavernous room. Thea was on the phone. The ear piece was cupped 
against her cheek and she appeared to be tapping into the 
receiver.

Scully raised her eyebrows. Thea appeared to be bickering over 
the phone in Morse code. 

Well, that was different.

Thea set down the old rotary phone, shaking her head. Langly was 
sitting up with a lap full of babies, yawning, telling Sylvie 
something Scully couldn't quite hear, and Sylvie, in turn, was 
signing something to Danny that Scully couldn't quite see. 

MY PARENTS COME TO TOWN AND EVERYONE I KNOW LOSES THEIR MIND! 
Thea signed emphatically to the room at large.

Langly signed a question mark to his forehead.

NOW WE ARE SUPPOSED TO MEET AT LAMBERT'S IN TWO HOURS. 

LAMBERT'S? Langly asked, wide-eyed.

SHORT MAN SAYS DR. UNDERPANTS IS BUYING. 

Sylvie and Danny giggled. 

"What's Lambert's?" Mulder said and signed simultaneously. "And 
do I want to know who is Dr. Underpants is?" 

"Lambert's is entrees at fifty bucks a pop," Langly answered. 
"Dr. Underpants is John-Boy's honey. Amanda." 

"Ah." 

Sylvie and Danny giggled harder. Sylvie signed 'DOCTOR 
UNDERPANTS' over and over.

SO NOW WE ALL HAVE TO CHANGE CLOTHES, Thea complained. 

Scully looked both Thea and Langly up and down. They were covered 
in those tell-tale spit-up stains she remembered less than fondly 
from Danny and later Sylvie's infant days. Changing into 
something clean didn't sound like a bad idea. 

THAT MIGHT BE TRICKY, Langly signed.  

Thea frowned. IS ANYTHING CLEAN? 

ALL THE BABY STUFF, he answered. 

Thea scowled. ONLY THE BABY STUFF?

Langly nodded.

YOU'LL LOOK REALLY HOT IN THAT ONESIE WITH THE BABY DUCKS ON IT, 
RITCHIE. Thea scowled. SERIOUSLY, THERE ARE NO BIG PEOPLE 
CLOTHES? 

Langly pushed his glasses up with his thumb and forefinger. WHEN 
WOULD I HAVE DONE LAUNDRY, T? IN MY SLEEP?

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL. She shrugged as she signed, COULD I 
BORROW-

Her husband cut her off. I HAVE EXACTLY ONE CLEAN SWEATER. WANNA 
ARM WRESTLE FOR IT? 

THEN WHAT WOULD YOU WEAR? She scowled harder. 

THEA, Scully signed, I'M SURE MARTY- 

She stopped. Danny and Sylvie were looking at her expectantly. 

-I'M SURE YOUR FATHER HAS SOMETHING YOU CCAN BORROW. MARTY? 

She looked at her husband. He was giving her a slow, sweet smile.  

I'M SURE I DO, he agreed. 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

end 11

*************************** 

By the time Mulder, Langly, Thea, five children ranging in age
from infancy to seven, and one very hungry Scully tracked John,
Amanda, Frohike and Cindy from Lambert's to the Taos court
house, the general level of irritation had reached near-fevered
pitch. Mulder told them all he was considering painting 'WILD 
GOOSE CHASES ARE US' on the side of the minivan.

Langly headed up the parade, baby carrier in hand, barreling into
the judges' chambers, ready and willing to throw one of his 
patented hissy-fits. He stopped short, though, when he saw John 
in a suit for the first time since they'd come to New Mexico. 
Amanda stood beside him, wearing a dress, hothouse flowers tucked 
in her wild halo of blonde hair.  She appeared to have a death-
grip on a bouquet. 

Langly's mouth fell open. "Wha?"

"I believe the phrase is 'Gotcha!'" Byers beamed.

"We had to," Amanda grinned, "so why not make it fun?"

"You had to?" Langly repeated as Thea and Scully flanked him,
trading raised eyebrows.

"Yup." Byers's smile stretched wider.

Thea gestured to her wedding ring with the one hand that was not
lugging a baby. Scully nodded. AND PREGNANT, she signed.

GOOD, Thea signed small, setting down the carrier in her own
right hand. I THOUGHT MAYBE SHE WAS TOO OLD.

She received glares from half the wedding party for her trouble.

Ringo was busy looking Amanda up and down. She looked the same.
The silvery grey sweater dress didn't hide anything and she
looked the same. But then, she was built about as different from
Thea as she could be. And there was probably only one. But
still...

Ringo stared harder.

Mulder leaned in the doorway, holding his children by the hands,
smiling as if he'd known from the start. He probably did, Langly
thought; the guy had voodoo.

Langly recovered from his surprise enough to swallow and notice
Frohike smirking at him.

"Copy cat," Ringo accused John.

"You're smart, Ringo, but you didn't invent human reproduction,"
Scully reminded him.

"Yeah," Frohike chimed in. "If you two came up with the idea,"
signing with his short fingers as he spoke, "you'd need a surge
protector and forty feet of coax."

YOU DON'T? Thea deadpanned.

Mulder coughed.

The Judge cleared his throat. "Can we start now?"

"Please," Amanda said with a nervous laugh. "If I have to wait
much longer, I'm eating my bouquet."

"Do you, John Fitzgerald Wilson, take this woman, Amanda Lynn
Wilde to be your lawfully married wife, to have and to hold, to
love and to cherish, for richer for poorer, for better and for
worse, in sickness and in health, from this day forward forsaking
all others as long as you both shall live?"

John's eyes were shining and his smile was ever-widening. "I do."

Langly wondered how Byers managed to remain calm enough to be so
happy at his own wedding. Amanda, at least, displayed a
normal human amount of anxiety. She shifted from foot to foot,
played with her bouquet, accidentally scattering lavender on
the floor but the delight never left her eyes.

The judge asked Amanda the same questions he'd asked John.

"I do?" The way she said it sounded like a question and her
voice had a distinct quaver all of a sudden. "Yeah, I guess I
do."

"By the power vested in me by the state of New Mexico I now
pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss your bride. Now get out
of here so I can have lunch."


~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Thea sat in Lamberts and looked down the long table at her 
family. Her mother was eating eagerly, and didn't seem to have 
eyes for anything other than her lunch. Thea found something 
comfortingly familiar in the woman's stiff intensity, something 
that drew her like a magnet. She could feel a bond between them.

Her father, on the other hand, was speaking and signing  
animatedly to a rapt audience. He was so cool, so human.  It was 
like he had that 'something' she was missing, something she 
wanted for herself.  She'd known him less than 24 hours, but she 
felt a strange twinge whenever she looked at him. She frowned. 
She thought maybe she should despise him, but it was impossible: 
no one had ever tried so hard to win her approval in her life.

Danny and Sylvie were arguing, but she realized it was 
meaningless, like the fights Ritchie and Shortman were always 
having. They were so funny, her brother and sister, so animated 
and interesting, and it was peculiar to see her own face 
reflected back at her in miniature.

Her eye followed the line of the table. Frohike had something 
with mole sauce, by the smell of it, and Cindy had salmon. Cindy 
was laughing, as usual, and playing with the hair at Frohike's 
nape. Fro was grinning and giving Cindy the half-hearted pretense 
of annoyance and struggle, but his eyes never left Fox Mulder.

John and Amanda weren't taking much interest in anything but 
each other, though. Their hands laid on the table intertwined. 
Amanda's finger rubbed John's ring. He smiled at her, his eyes 
wide and sparkling, and plucked a stray flower from her hair. 
They looked perfectly happy. More than that they seemed content.
Generally, Thea didn't believe the universe owed anyone anything, 
but in this case she was willing to make an exception. Really, 
all the guys deserved whatever kind of happy they wanted. 

The young mother turned both her brain and her eyes back to 
Frohike. He said neither he nor Cindy wanted to be together full 
time, but he might have lied to make her happy. He had it in him.

Thea waved across the table.

YOU GOING TO JUMP SHIP NEXT, SHORTMAN? Thea signed. 

Frohike chuckled. YEAH RIGHT. AND LEAVE YOU TWO WITHOUT ADULT
SUPERVISION? NOT WHILE THERE IS BREATH IN MY BODY, SWEETHEART.
He seemed to sense something because he added soberly, BESIDES I 
HAVE WHAT I NEED RIGHT WHERE I AM.


:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~


Beyond anyone's control, the chain of events that had been set 
into motion when a dying Gibson Praise sent his faithful friend, 
the biological daughter of the two FBI agents, to Takoma Park, 
was playing itself out.

John Byers was no longer pining for someone he barely knew. He
had found a woman he not only loved and cherished, but genuinely
liked, and was looking forward to spending a deliriously happy
life with her. Melvin had his virtual son, his Goldilocks, who
fought him at every turn, and who he wouldn't trade the world for,
even if he'd never admit it to his face. What was more, he had
three loud, demanding baby boys who were both an irritant and a
comfort in his old age, not unlike their parents. He had a woman
he enjoyed immensely, who had as much interest in matrimony as he
did, meaning none. Ringo Langly had finally become a man, even in
his own scathing estimation, and he would never be lonely again.
Thea Fidelis, lab project and granddaughter of CGB Spender, had
fulfilled every imperative that was seeded in her branched DNA
by her makers, yet managed to do it all in ways they would never
have approved of.

Sad tales have definite ends; death, loss, breaking apart. 
Those events are linear in nature and make for good
story-telling, affording the narrator a clear stopping point. In
telling her teenaged sons the whole true story of how they not
only came to be, but how they came to be in a village of three
hundred souls in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Thea was at a
loss for a proper conclusion.

She felt she should draw in some thread the boys were 
well-acquainted with. Like the way their grandparents, along 
with their young aunt and uncle, returned to El Rito twice a 
year, every year, after that, like a small flock of 
over-achieving migratory birds.

Or should she end with the birth, that second June in New Mexico,
of John and Amanda's daughter, Rachel Elizabeth? Or even with the
addition, 13 months later, of Rebecca Ann?

Should she make their decided differentness part of the story,
too?  How, as soon as they could crawl, they developed what 
would become a disturbing life-long delight in receiving large 
electric jolts, apparently because it tickled? How they walked at 
six months and produced their first stumbling words and signs 
just days later? How at 3 they were mistaken for 6, and at 6 for 
10 or 11?

In their small village, they were little remarked upon. It was 
Thea's observation that it was difficult to find people odd when 
you saw them on a daily basis. She and Ritchie had tried to do 
the best they could for their sons. Sure, they kept them away from 
crowds and strangers because the risks were too great. But if the 
boys watched mournfully as the yellow school bus stopped and 
picked up passengers every morning,  at least they weren't alone 
- most of the kids in El Rito were home-sschooled.

Despite their needle-sharp intellects and unnatural strength, 
they were in many ways like other children: they cried pitifully 
the first time they watched Dumbo; they nagged their parents for 
a puppy; they went through long periods of studiously mimicking 
their father's behavior down to the smallest nuance; they often 
attempted to bypass their parents, when a negative answer seemed 
likely, by asking Frohike's permission instead. Fortunately, that 
never worked. 

There were, however, moments that were not so normal. Once, 
during a game of tickling, Joey separated Ritchie's shoulder and 
cracked three of his ribs, and while Ritchie had recovered 
quickly enough, Thea wasn't sure if, ten years later, Joey was 
entirely over it.  At six, Kenny had accidentally severed his 
right had at the wrist; it had reattached itself in seconds. 
Teddy and Joey had, out of curiosity, engaged in a bout of 
mutual dismemberment a few days later, with identical results.

At 18, the boys were six-and-a-half-foot tall, handsome, 
intelligent, and kind. But they were still babies. Her babies. 
And so much younger than she'd been at that age.

Kenny never knew when to shut up. Joey never knew when to assert
himself. Teddy? Well, Teddy was the worst of all. Something -
anything - would pique his interest and he would follow it half
way to Albuquerque before you even realized he was gone. They
were good boys, if by 'good' you meant 'wouldn't hurt a fly,' much
less eat meat once they realized what it was, but not so good
that they were above sneaking out of the house after curfew and
taking Ringo's truck to meet their friends out on the Gorge
Bridge. 

Her concern was that they were unprepared. Sheltered. She didn't 
care what their father said; they were too young to go away to 
college.

She looked at them lined up across from her on a ratty old couch.
They seemed to be all lemon-blond hair and sharp knees and
elbows. Her eyes turned from face to face to identical face. The
features that were quirky on their progenitors combining to form
a face that looked like it came from a recruiting poster for the
Aryan Super Man - Spender's wet dream, multiplied by three.
And no more soldiers than Ringo was. Nothing would have upset the
old man more. In a real sense, she had won her struggle to be
free of Spender, not by fighting, but by loving. By loving Ritchie.

The boys were still staring at her, and her story had just sort of
petered out.

She did not exactly believe that she and Ringo had done a bad job
with them because she couldn't think of anything she would have
done differently, but there were some issues she still didn't
know how to resolve. Neither she nor Ringo had been exactly
smothered by a surplus of attention as children, never mind
affection. The awkward, unsubtle pair of them had striven to
cherish their sons and perhaps they had gone too far. Teddy,
Kenny, and Joey had grown up so buffered that, for them, evil was 
mostly hypothetical.

They had no idea they were brilliant or chillingly handsome.
Ringo had drilled them on the notion that they were to avoid
sports at all costs. Their advantage would be striking and
ridiculous, not to mention as fair as shooting Vikings in a
barrel.

Ritchie's myriad warnings about sex made the sports speech seem 
mild in comparison, but she didn't know what other options he 
had. It would be so easy for them to hurt a girl, maybe even kill 
her. And what if there was a pregnancy? 

What would happen when they realized how extraordinary they were?  
How could Ritchie want to let them go when the stakes were so high? 
Ritchie was deluded to think they were ready to be on their own
in a dorm bigger than the entire village they called home. How
dare he tell her that? Where did he get off?

Joey was blinking rapidly, running one hand through his long
hair. Kenny leaned forward, his much shorter locks still managing
to fall in his face somehow. Then he squinted, giving her
that look, that pissy Ringo look, and said, IS THERE A POINT TO
THIS STORY, MOM?

IS THERE A POINT? Thea signed, dumbfounded.

Kenny nodded. APART FROM YOU USED TO BE A NYMPHOMANIAC AND DAD
WAS KIND OF...

KIND OF A PERVERT, Teddy supplied.

SO YOU, RIGHT NOW, TODAY, ARE YOUNGER THAN DAD WAS WHEN WE WERE
BORN? Joey signed.

THAT IS IMMATERIAL, she brushed off the question.

SEEMS PRETTY MATERIAL TO ME. MR. ETHICS, MR. DON'T-THINK-WITH-
YOUR-DICK, MR. WHAT-WOULD-NOAM-CHOMSKI-DO WASN'T TOO GOOD TO
STICK IT TO HIS BUDDY'S TEENAGED DAUGHTER? YOU WERE YOUNGER THAN 
WE ARE NOW? Teddy signed, aghast.

SO OUR NAME ISN'T TORVALD? Joey continued on in the vein that
interested him. IT'S REALLY LANGLY? AND GRANDPA'S NAME IS MULDER?
GRANDMA AND GRANDPA WERE COPS AND YOU GUYS HAD A NEWSPAPER?

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? IT SEEMS KIND OF DULL, Kenny blustered,
making it perfectly clear how much he was rattled.

"Except for the gratuitous sex," Teddy added, talking.

DULL? Thea repeated in amazement. YOUR DAD HAS AN ARREST RECORD A
MILE LONG. AND THERE IS NO GRATUITOUS SEX IN THIS STORY.

AIN'T LIP READING A BITCH? Kenny signed

"Clueless," Kenny belatedly corrected his brother, out of the
corner of his mouth. "I was going to say clueless."

THE WAY YOU TELL THIS STORY, YOU AND DAD SOUND LIKE A COUPLE OF
TRUE NIMRODS, he signed.

HOW COME ALL YOU EVER TOLD US ABOUT BEFORE WAS THE LAB? Joey
asked.

AND NEVER ANY OF THIS SECRET IDENTITY CRAP? Teddy went
on. THERE'S MORE TO THIS STORY, ISN'T THERE? MORE YOU AREN'T
TELLING?

She let that question slide unanswered. There were many things
they still didn't need to know, as far as she was concerned, even
though she suspected they had known about their parent's 'secret'
hacking for years.

Kenny took up the thread. THE GUY THAT RAN THE PROJECT WAS YOUR
GRANDFATHER? GRANDPA MARTY'S DAD? THAT'S COLD.

"Kinda like callin' your dad a Nimrod." Their father's voice shot
out across the room.

"Sorry," Kenny called back.

Their mother turned around. HE MEANS HE'S SORRY HE DIDN'T REALIZE
YOU WERE BACK.

THAT'S WHAT I FIGURED, Ringo signed back to her.

"What did she tell you?" Ringo asked. WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM? he
signed at her.

She shrugged. ABOUT THE PAPER.

"And how you popped her cherry," Kenny offered. "In detail."

"You really set the hotel room on fire on your wedding night?" 
Joey asked. 

"Dude, if I did a tenth of what Mom says you did, you'd ream my
ass into next week." Teddy couldn't help calling his father on 
the things his mother had said. "'Today on 'Who's a Hypocrite,' 
our special guest is Ringo Torvald!'" 

"Make that 'Richard Langly,'" Joey corrected. 

THERE'S A LOT MORE TO THIS THAN YOU ARE TELLING, ISN'T THERE? 
Kenny signed again at both of them, but he got no reply.

Their father pushed up his glasses with his thumb and forefinger
and sighed long and deep. "Scram, guys."

"Huh?" they replied low and nasal and in unison.

"You heard me, scram, I got nothin' to say on the subject. I know
your mom isn't gonna lie to you, and some things I got nothin' to
say about. This is one of 'em," Ritchie explained.

"That's your comment?" Kenny was incredulous.

"No comment?" Teddy added.

"That and, you know, real life usually doesn't have a point."
Ringo walked over to the sink, ran himself a glass of water. He
nodded at the door. "Now, scram."

Suddenly stirred into action, Kenny and Teddy raced each other to
the exit. Joey hung back. "Where are we 'sposed to go, Dad?"

"Why don't you go to Taos, pick up some dinner?" He fished his
keys out of his pocket.

CHINESE? GARLIC FRIED CHICKEN FOR ME? Thea signed.

SURE MOM, Joey signed. IT WAS A COOL STORY, BY THE WAY.

As he shut the door behind him Ringo signed, WHAT DID YOU
TELL THEM, T?

Thea shrugged, closely examining a thread hanging loose from the
bottom of her shirt.

SOME THINGS A KID DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR PARENTS.
PROBABLY DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW, he signed slowly, holding her eye.

I STARTED WITH HOW I STOLE A SPOON AND TOOK OFF FROM THERE. She
forced a smile. WANT TO DO A RE-ENACTMENT?

AM I GOING TO NEED TO WEAR AN OVEN MITT? The corner of Ringo's
mouth twitched while he signed.

Thea uncrossed her legs and leaning forward, signing. HOW ABOUT
THE PART WHERE YOU ASK ME IF I KNOW WHERE BABIES COMES FROM?

That was it. The grin broke through despite his best efforts.
I THINK WE KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT ONE

Thea's reply was to strip off her t-shirt and sign CARE TO
REMINISCE?

COME HERE, YOU, he smirked. Although it was he who took her in
his arms, it was she who led him to the couch, walking backwards
until they were twined together there.

Her hands slipped to the buttons of his jeans.

Hands. Faces. Bodies. Their personal language.

Of course, Ringo had neglected to give his sons so much as a dime
for their foray in search of dinner, and of course, they chose that
moment to tumble back through the door.

SHIT!! Thea signed, bare-chested.

Ringo covered his face with his hands. 

So did his sons.

Thea folded her arms across her breasts. Ringo, realizing his jeans 
were still half-undone, tossed his wallet to the boys. 

"Thanks, Dad. We're all gonna hafta g-gouge out our eyes now," 
Teddy stuttered in the doorway. "Would it be too much to ask you 
two to get a room?"

The door slammed behind him.

DID YOU SEE THAT? THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO LEAVE HOME, she signed.
IT'S NOT LIKE WHEN YOU LEFT NEBRASKA, RITCHIE. THEY'RE HAPPY
AT HOME WITH US. 

MAMA, he signed, reaching out and touching her face, HOW OLD
WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE ON YOUR OWN?

She glared at him. 11, 12, SOMETHING LIKE THAT. BUT I HAD GIBSON. 
IT'S NOT THE SAME.

NO, IT'S NOT THE SAME, he agreed.  THEY AREN'T GOING TO  BE 
PICKING POCKETS AND EATING OUT OF DUMPSTERS. THEY'LL BE HOME AT 
CHRISTMAS AND IN THE SUMMER. YOU CAN WRITE THEM WHENEVER YOU 
WANT. THEY CAN CALL OR EMAIL IF THEY NEED ANYTHING, OR IF THEY 
GET LONESOME.  HELL, WE COULD  GO CHECK ON THEM IF WE FELT LIKE 
IT, BUT THEY'D PROBABLY GET EMBARRASSED.

I DON'T KNOW. Thea, still bare-chested, scowled. WHAT IF I SAY I 
JUST DON'T WANT THEM TO GO?

Ringo looked at her over the tops of his glasses.  THEY AREN'T
GOING TO GROW UP HANGING AROUND THE HOUSE, SPENDING THEIR LIVES  JERKING OFF AND TRYING TO BEAT EACH OTHER'S HIGH SCORES ON 
WHATEVER NEW GAME THEY GOT THIS WEEK. TRUST ME, IT DOESN'T WORK.

Thea looked away.

Ringo stepped gently on the toe of her tennis shoe to get her 
attention. She looked up sadly.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE TO MAKE 
THEIR OWN DECISIONS, he signed patiently. THEY'RE AS CLOSE TO 
GROWN-UP AS WE CAN MAKE THEM. THEY HAVE TO DO THE REST 
THEMSELVES. 

Suddenly, Ringo's expression changed. YOU'VE SPENT HALF YOUR LIFE 
BEING A MOM, HAVEN'T YOU?

Thea frowned. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?

I DON'T KNOW. He shrugged. BUT WHATEVER IT IS, DO IT WITH ME?

Thea smiled a crooked smile. She pressed one hand against his 
chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her palm. ALWAYS, she 
signed one handed. ALWAYS. 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

End 12/12

End Retam Sullet

THANKS FOR READING!