Title: The Family G-Man
Authors: Neoxphile and FelineFemme
Rating: we're shooting for NC-17, ya'll better take cover 
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9

Category: Alternate Reality, Snark, Family Fic, plus a dollop Angst
for the beginning (and despite what chapter one leads you to believe,
this is *not* a character death story)

Disclaimer: So yeah, we're going to be borrowing CC's characters, and
the idea behind "The Family Man," which put a twist on "It's a Wonderful Life" 
which blatantly copied "A Christmas Carol." We hope the print doesn't get
blurry from being a copy of a copy of...

Website: with pictures! http://www.mulderscreek.com/familygman.html

Summary: What if he could go back and change things, save the son one
lost and give the other the family she wanted? Could it keep them
safe? 

In season eight Scully finds herself coping with Mulder's disappearance with
some unlikely help. Things don't go as smoothly as hoped when Mulder is
found, but they get better before long.

~*~*~
Season Eight - chapters 90-103
~*~*~

Chapter Ninety

Early September 2000
Hours Later

The sky is beginning to bleed pink into dark blue as Skinner's car
pulls into Mulder and Scully's driveway. He glances over at his
passenger and sees that her eyes are closed. "We're here." he says
purposely a little too loud, hoping that he won't have to do more to
wake her.

"Thanks for the ride," Scully says to his relief.

"No problem. One of Mulder's strange friends said that they'll bring
your car by later this morning."

"Great." Scully covers her mouth to trap a yawn.

"Whose car is that, though?" Skinner asks, pointing.

"You don't even want to know." Skinner stares, since for the first time
in hours she's showing emotion. Annoyance. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Right." Skinner tries to think of something supportive or otherwise
inspirational to say, but fails. She's already heading for the door, so
he shrugs and backs out of the driveway.

~*~*~

It's very quiet in the house. Scully feels guilty for not having been
there to help Michelle get the kids to bed, but morning will come soon
enough and with it the necessity of telling the kids that Mulder is
missing.

There's light spilling out in the hallway from under the door of
Michelle's room, so Scully knocks softly.

When she opens the door, Scully finds herself struck by how young the
nanny looks. Scully is only ten years older, but the weight of the
world is making her feel twice the girl's age. If not more. "Dana! I
wasn't expecting you to be home for hours."

"You weren't waiting up?"

"No. I couldn't sleep so I decided to read for a while." Scully could
see a book lying spine up on a chair. "So, they released you. You're
okay, then."

"It was just dehydration. I'll be fine." She finds herself thinking
that it's nothing 48 hours of sleep couldn't cure. Not that she'd even
be getting eight.

"I'm sorry-" Michelle begins, but Scully cuts her off.

"Right now we're operating on the assumption that he'll be fine. Please
don't offer condolences just yet."

A faint pink creeps across the nanny's cheeks, and Scully feels a
modicum of guilt when she mumbles "Of course."

"Where's Alex?" Scully asks, glad for a change of subject. "I saw his
car out front. Did he come with my sister?"

"In the guest room, and no." Michelle gives her an anxious look. "He
insisted on spending the night since you weren't here. That's okay,
isn't it?"

"Yes. I'm going to go talk to him. Good night."

"You too." The light is doused seconds after Michelle closes the door,
so Scully decides that she must be trying to sleep again.

It's not okay with her that Krycek is there without Missy, but she
upset the girl enough without complaining about that too. And it's not
as though the nanny could have kept him out if he was bound and
determined to get in.

Too tired to spare any diplomacy for her sister's beau, Scully opens
the door without knocking and flips a switch, flooding the room with
light.

"Krycek."

He sits up and rubs a fist across his eyes. "They let you out sooner
than I expected," he says before yawning.

"Why are you here?" she bluntly demands to know.

"I promised."

"Promised who?"

"Mulder. I promised if anything happened to him I'd help you protect
the kids."

"From who?"

"It's a little complicated-"

"Never mind. We'll talk about it later." Scully walks away, unaware
that she'd see a look of astonishment on his face if she turned around.

~*~*~

Morning 

Without Mulder there, Scully barely sleeps. It's not the first time
that he's been gone, and not even the first time she didn't know when
he'd be back. But it is the first time since she met him that she ever
truly wondered if he would be back. Given this, she only makes it to
the shallows of sleep, rarely pulled under by deeper waves. Any time
that she does manage to dream, it's of terrible things happening to
Mulder, and that makes her afraid to sleep, too.

When she forces herself to get out of bed, she feels as though she
didn't sleep at all. It hardly comes as a surprise to find both nanny
and pest in the hallway when she exits the room.

"Are the kids still asleep?" she asks them.

"Yeah."

"Good. Let them sleep in."

"Okay," Michelle says quickly. "What are we going to tell them when
they wake up?"

It was a good question. It was her first instinct to just tell them
that Mulder was away on a case by himself. Since he'd done it before,
they'd accept that explanation. It wouldn't work, though. People were
bound to forget that Page and Sammy were old enough to understand if
someone slipped up in front of them.

"The truth," Scully says at length.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Krycek asks worriedly.

She glares at him. "They're bound to find out, so they'd feel scared
and betrayed, instead of just scared. And I want to talk to you in
private. Now."

Michelle excuses herself, but the other two barely notice. "Why did you
say that Mulder asked you to protect the kids?"

"Because he did ask me to."

When she looks at his face, he seems to be telling the truth, which
only convinces her that he has become a better liar. "Why would he do
that?"

To her surprise, he sighs. "I knew you'd never just accept the simple
truth. Here, let me show you."

Once he's in the guest room, he digs through a duffel bag and takes out
a folder which he hands to her. "He asked me to help you protect the
kids if anything happened to him just after he saw these."

As she looks through the photos, it becomes much more plausible that
Mulder extracted that promise from someone he can't stand. "He asked
because you're ruthless."

"Yes. And an interested party." His finger points at Emily in a
picture. "Someone has been watching the kids for a long time. I don't
know who."

"The smoking-"

Krycek shakes his head. "No. Marita stole the pictures from his mail.
He didn't send them to himself."

"So we have other enemies," Scully says bitterly.

"Don't we always?" Krycek doesn't sound cynical, which makes her
unaccountably sad. "I know you'll hate me for it, but I'm going to stay
here until Mulder gets back. I owe him a debt and it's time to repay
it."

He didn't say 'if he comes back' which is probably why she doesn't
refuse immediately. Instead she tries a different tactic. "What about
your kid? Whoever our 'friend' is, they've been watching her too."

"I know. I've been giving Missy some shooting lessons, but I think
she'll be safer spending the nights with us."

Scully grits her teeth. The idea of not one, but two more people in the
house doesn't fill her with joy. The thought of boarding houses is
summoned up and quickly dismissed. "Right. We can put a bed in Page's
room."

Krycek studies her face, but she doesn't protest, which is obviously
what he's been expecting. "Missy wants her tonight, though. So she can
get her ready for the first day of school."

Which, Scully realizes, is the next morning. "Fine."

~*~*~

When the kids wake up later in the morning, Scully kisses the little
ones but gathers Page, Sammy and April and brings them to her room.
Although she doesn't realize it as she settles them on the bed, this is
the second time they've received bad news there in just a few months.

Before she can even think of where to begin, Sammy gets to the point.
"Where's Daddy?"

"That's something we need to talk about," Scully says softly. "Daddy is
missing."

"What's missing?" April wants to know.

"It means we don't know where he is," Scully tells her.

"He's lost?" Page asks.

"Yes. He's lost."

"He should ask for directions."

Even though she's depressed, it's all Scully can do not to laugh. "Not
that sort of lost, Sweetie. I mean that we don't know where he is, not
that he doesn't know where he is."

"Why not?"

Scully stares at her children. Even though she swore to tell them the
truth, there's no way that she's going to tell her children that their
father was abducted by aliens. It would frighten them, and despite her
high opinion of Skinner, she's not sure she believes his account. "His
phone isn't working, so we can't figure out where he is."

"Is he hurt?" Sammy asks. "Like in the hospital?"

"No. I don't think he's hurt." And she hopes that he isn't. "Just
lost."

"Will he be home soon?" Page asks.

"I don't know when he will be home. We'll all have to pray that he will
be home soon," Scully tells them.

"Okay."

"Guys, even though we're going to pray, it might be a while before he's
home. I hope not, but I want you to know that now."

"But I want him home now!" April says, surprising her mother with her
outburst.

"So do I. So do I." 

~*~*~

The Next Morning

Mulder is missing, but life goes on. Even for Scully. Less than 36
hours after being released from the hospital, she's already submerged
in day to day life. Still, her mind wanders constantly.

"Are you done, Mommy?" Page looks impatient and Scully feels mild
surprise that she's been holding a hairbrush for who know how long.

"Uh, sure." Page's straight blonde hair looks neat, so Scully must have
brushed it. "You look great."

"Thanks. Is Emily gonna be in my class?"

First grade, Scully thinks. Her first day of real school and her daddy
is missing it.

"Mom?"

"Yes. I forgot to tell you that Auntie Missy called me a couple of days
ago to say so." Just then a car appears in the driveway. Scully looks
out the window and a familiar redhead is behind the wheel. "It looks
like they're here now."

"Yay!" Page grabs Scully's hand and pulls her towards the door. Mulder
was going to bring Page to school so Scully could take Sammy and April
to meet their new teachers. Missy volunteered to fill in for Mulder,
and though Scully's grateful to her sister, she can't help but feel
that Page ought to have a parent their too.

Page, however, doesn't seem upset that her mother has made the painful
choice between her and her timid three-year-old sister. In fact, she
smiles up at Scully and says, "Tell April that preschool is fun and the
teachers are nice."

"I will. Give me a kiss." 

Page does, and is about to skip off when Scully stops her. "Wait. I
almost forgot to take a picture of you."

"For Daddy," Page says, quietly breaking Scully's heart.

~*~*~

Missy is in no hurry to get the kids to school, so Scully takes the
opportunity to speak to her while the girls go to look for something
they absolutely must bring with them. A toy of some sort. She wishes
her life was so uncomplicated.

"You have to talk to him, Missy. The last thing I need is your
boyfriend underfoot-" Scully says as soon as they're alone.

"Fiancé," Missy corrects.

"What?" Scully gapes at her.

"I'm sorry, Dana... I was hoping to break the news at a happier time,
but I'm not sure there's going to be one any time soon."

"Are you pregnant or something?" Scully asks impatiently.

"I don't know yet," Missy admits.

"So Krycek asked you to marry him, what, to do the right thing? That's
a first."

"Dana! First of all, I said I don't know yet. And second, I hadn't
planned on saying anything to him until after I know one way or the
other, so you can just cross that off your list of possible motives.
Not all men are like Fox."

Scully stares at her, torn between saying it's a pity, or a blessing.
Missy doesn't notice. "Aren't you at least a little happy for me? It's
the stable family thing you and Bill have been wishing on me forever."

"Missy-"

She hurries on before Dana can make a swipe at Alex's likelihood at
providing stability. "And I think a little brother or sister would be a
good thing for Emily. She's a sweetheart but even I can tell she's not
as mature as Page. And I've wanted a little boy since you and Fox had
David and Jared..."

Scully gives her head a slight shake in effort to clear it. "You just
caught me by surprise, that's all."

"So this is surprise, not disapproval?" Missy asks archly.

"Yeah. I'm happy for you. Really. But I want him out of my house, and
in yours."

"So do I. But he's a stubborn man."

"You're well matched there," Scully says pointedly.

"Yes, of course. I'm the only hard-headed Scully," Missy says dryly.
She notices that the kids are back and grabs her purse. "Come on,
girls."

~*~*~

As Scully's fingers brush the lump on her forehead, she hisses in pain
and drops the foundation she's been trying to apply to it into the
sink. Her fingers automatically reach for it, but she stops. It's not
as though a bit of flesh colored makeup is going to disguise her
injury.

Instead she stares hard at her reflection. Although it has only been a
couple of days since Mulder's disappearance, and since she was last
able to sleep soundly, unattractive purple rings her eyes like faint
bruises. The fact that she's pale only serves to accentuate them.
Without quite planning to, she grips the edges of the sink and leans
her head against the mirror with a sigh.

"Mommy?"

She looks up quickly, and sees that her younger daughter is staring at
her with some concern. "What's up, Sweetie?" Scully asks, trying to
pull herself together, if only for April's sake. April didn't have too
much to say about anticipating her first day of preschool, so Scully
wonders if that's what's on her mind now that she realizes that she'll
be going soon.

April sits on the closed lid of the toilet and doesn't say anything at
first. She seems occupied by swinging her feet and letting her slippers
bump against the porcelain. Eventually her bright brown eyes lock onto
Scully's tired ones. "We're going to miss Daddy for a long time."

Something like fear ceases Scully's heart for a second, at least it
doesn't until she chides herself for being dumb enough to believe even
for a second that Mulder is dead and their daughter somehow knows this.
"Why do you say that?" she asks carefully.

April shrugs her little shoulders. "He's far and far ‘way."

"We don't know that for sure," Scully tells her quickly.

"Uncles said," April replies stubbornly. 

Scully sighs. She knew that telling the kids was the right thing to do,
and clearly this has just been proven. There's no way the lot she knows
would be able to keep a secret of that magnitude. "They're good guys,
April, but they're just speculating." Upon seeing her daughter's blank
look, she adds. "I mean they're just guessing. Daddy could be back very
soon."

"Yeah," April says, slipping off the toilet and running for the door.
"But he won't."

Bewildered, Scully just stares after her. There's still twenty minutes
to go before she has to drop Sammy and April off, and it's already been
a long morning.

~*~*~

Hoover Building
An Hour Later

Scully's way into the basement office is blocked by several men who are
ransacking the office. None of them bother to look up when she gets
there.

She blinks in disbelief before asking "What are you people doing? This
is my office."

One agent looks up and gives her a cool look before returning to what
he was doing. "I realize that."

"Why are you here?" She demands to know.

"We're gathering evidence."

"For?"

"If we're going to locate agent Mulder, we need these things."

"You're wasting your time here-"

"With all due respect, Agent Scully, your opinion doesn't count for
much."

This makes her bristle. "How am I supposed to work with all of you in
here?"

"Scully?" She looks up at a touch to her shoulder.

"Skinner, did you know about this?"

"Not until I got here a few minutes ago."

"How am I supposed to get anything-"

"Don't worry about that for now. We're supposed to go have a
conversation with someone. The one in charge of looking for Mulder."

"Who?"

"Our brand-new deputy director. Alvin Kersh."

"You're not serious."

"Wish I weren't," Skinner says. He steers her towards their
destination.

~*~*~

Kersh's Old Office

Kersh looks up from packing things from his desk into a box. "A.D.
Skinner, Agent Scully. Thanks for getting right over. I don't want to
lose any time. We have one of our own missing and the only acceptable
outcome is that we find him safe and alive. I'm sure the two of you
agree."

"That goes without saying, sir," Skinner agrees, but he grimaces, as if
nearly choking on the "sir."

"Doubly for agent Scully, I'm sure." Kersh bobs his chin in her
direction. She doesn't in any way dispute his assumption. "Good. This
comes at a stressful time, with my new appointment. But I'm thankful
for your cooperation in the hunt for Mulder."

Scully gives him a look of mild disbelief. "Our cooperation? With due
respect, there aren't two people better qualified to be directing this
action, sir. We could be doing so much more if-"

Kersh shoots her a disapproving look. "We never assign people this
close to a case like this, I'm sure you're aware. Right now, you and
A.D. Skinner are our best leads to explain Mulder's disappearance. I
want your statement taken ASAP."

"Your tone makes us out to be suspects, sir," Scully says and Kersh
stares at her.

"Taken by who?" Skinner asks.

"My task force leader on this, Special Agent John Doggett. He's waiting
to hear from you now." Scully's eyes widen in surprise, but she starts
to follow Skinner. Kersh stops them with a look. "One more thing.
Anything leaves this building about aliens or alien abductions or any
other nonsense that might cast the Bureau in a ridiculous light - you
can forget about helping to look for Agent Mulder. You'll both be
looking for new jobs instead." He looks back down at his packing.
"That's all."

Once they're out in the hallway, Scully looks up at Skinner. "I don't
believe this."

"This isn't about finding Mulder. This is about Kersh covering the
FBI's ass," Skinner gripes.

"Why do I get the feeling they'd be happy if we never found him at
all?"

"Look... I saw what I saw. I have to make a statement in there. I'm not
going to tell them it didn't happen," Skinner reassures her.

"Well, you heard Kersh. They don't want the truth. You give them the
truth, and they'll hang you with it."

Skinner shakes his head. "They can hang me with a lie, too. I'm not
going to sell Mulder out."

"What good are you to Mulder if you give them the power to ruin your
career?" she asks, and he doesn't answer. "We will find him, but not by
committing career suicide."

Even as she says it, the memory of April's innocence conviction that it
would be a long time until they saw Mulder again returned unbidden.

"We'll bring him home soon," Skinner says, which doesn't reassure her
much.

~*~*~

They no sooner enter the bullpen than a man they know to be agent Crane
is rushing over to accost them.

Crane exudes an air of all business, which briefly reminds Scully of
the old saw about all work and no play. Something that definitely does
not apply to her boyish spouse.

His attention, however, is focused on Skinner rather than her.
"Assistant Director, you can come on back with me. Agent Scully, I'll
ask you to please wait on the wall until we call you." Skinner
reluctantly follows him, and the look he gives Scully makes her worry
what he's going to say when they take his statement.

Scully goes to sit, but a man already seated stands suddenly and
crosses the distance between them. It only comes as a mild surprise
when he enfolds her in a hug. "Dana, how are you holding up?" His blue
eyes are filled with concern.

"About as well as can be expected, John," Scully says, sighing deeply.
"I was startled when Kersh said you'd be heading the task force to find
Mulder."

Doggett nods slightly. "I volunteered for the duty. They probably think
I thought it would be a good career move." He doesn't need to elaborate
on which They he means. "How are the kids taking it?"

Scully spreads her hands helplessly. "The big kids are upset, the
little ones confused. Christopher looks for Mulder everywhere..." Tears
begin to prick at her eyelids, but she forces them down. "And to make
matters worse, my sister's finance decided to move in to help out."

"Why does that make things worse?" Doggett asks curiously.

She laughs, a short, brittle bark. "There's nothing like having a
double agent in the house. I don't even want him in her house."

"If this guy worries you-"

Scully pats Doggett on the arm. "That's sweet, John, but he's not like
that. I might dislike him intently, but I'm not worried about him being
a danger to me or the kids. To strangers, maybe, but he takes this
family business seriously. He and my sister have been dating for years,
and they have a daughter. Who is also living with us at night, but
that's a different gripe."

"Ah," Doggett says, seeming to be at a loss.

"So," Scully says, trying to sound more cheerful. "Which one of the
kids hates you more for the move?"

Doggett smirks. "That would be Hannah, surprisingly. I thought that
Luke would be the more upset given that he's in high school, but he
said that his school was full of 'losers' so he doesn't mind the fresh
start. Hannah, on the other hand, is devastated by the loss of her
preschool classmates who are going to be in kindergarten together
without her. She's spent the last 36 hours sulking."

"Maybe you can make her happy by bringing her over to play with my
girls and my niece. If there's anything my house has, it's an excess of
playmates."

"That would be nice. We should do that sometime soon."

When Skinner comes back out to tell her Crane wants to speak to her
next, he looks surprised to see her chatting easily with Doggett.
Before she goes to Crane, she says "This is agent Doggett. Mulder broke
his son's leg a million years ago...so we've known each other a while."

"My kids and I crashed at their house for four months," Doggett tells
Skinner cheerfully.

"Oh, you were the house guest," Skinner says a bit gruffly, but more
nicely than Scully would expect him to treat what he must consider an
interloper.

They're already beginning to talk about Mulder when Scully leaves them.

~*~*~

That Night

It makes Scully ache when she notices that Page and Sammy are putting
on a brave face, and trying to distract the twins, who have been clingy
since she got home. Trying not to sigh again, she calls them over and
kisses them both on the tops of their heads. "Hey, I've got to get
these guys into the tub. Why don't you go play Legos before bed?"

"Okay, Mommy," Sammy agrees with a serious nod of his head. 

"Don't leave any on the floor for the baby to find later, okay?"

"Yeah," they agree, then go and find April and Emily to play with them.

It doesn't take her long coax David and Jared up the stairs ahead of
her and Christopher. Five minute later the tub fills while she
undresses the three little boys. All of them are fascinated by bubbles,
so she puts a lot in to distract them before sitting Christopher in the
tub chair. Then she gives them their toy boats.

While her youngest sons laugh and splash each other, she takes a
pregnancy test. It's not the best time of the day for it, but she's
pretty sure, so it'd only be confirming what she thinks she already
thinks she knows.

Five minutes more tick by while she washes the boys' hair.

Once she looks at the results she flips down the toilet seat and sits
down. Then she covers her face with her hands and cries. It's the first
time since they've been married that Mulder wasn't nearby to learn the
results of a pregnancy test. Deep in her heart she's already sure that
it'll be longer before he finds out than when she was nervous to tell
him that she was carrying Page. Something tells her it might be much
longer.

When the three little men in tub get bored, she dries her face, rinses
them off, and dries them too with big fluffy towels. Just a few minutes
later all three are dressed in blue sleepers that are decorated with
stars, and she at least is ready for them to go to bed.

Christopher is asleep almost as soon as his head hits the crib
mattress, but David and Jared don't seem to look at their younger
brother as an inspiration, but watch impassively from the vicinity of
their mother's knees until she takes them by the hand and leads them
down the hall to their room. "Come on," she encourages gently, and they
toddle along willingly enough.

One bedtime story later, both pairs of hazel eyes are beginning to
droop. Eventually they both sigh and lie down in the cribs that she and
Mulder have been meaning to replace with toddler beds. Standing, she
closes the book and puts it back on the shelf. She's about to leave the
room when a small voice stops her. "When Daddy home?"

She turns back, and sees David's inquisitive look. How do you explain a
situation like this to someone barely two years old? Shaking her head,
she just says "Soon, Baby," and turns off the light.

A quick look into Page's room reassures her that the other children are
still playing peacefully, so she goes to the master bedroom to write an
e-mail to the gunmen.

~*~*~

Her fingers are flying across the keyboard as she fills the gunmen in
about Kersh's insane manhunt, but even over the steady clicking, she
hears the familiar squeak of the floorboard outside her bedroom door.
Glancing at the doorway, she notices that something is blocking the dim
light that spills under it at the edges.

She gets up, and hauls the door open, expecting to see one of her
children on the other side. To her surprise, there's a faint noise as
something plastic breaks, and it only takes her a second to realize
that the hallway nightlight has just been assaulted. She turns her head
to see who could have kicked the light out of the socket and soon sees
a shadowed figure moving rapidly down the hallway.

A figure much too large to be one of the kids or even the nanny.

"Alex?" She calls tentatively, but the man, and she's now sure that
it's a man, doesn't turn to look at her. She's only a couple of feet
from her room, so she makes the decision to grab her gun out of the
nightstand. It seems to take her forever to unlock that drawer and jam
a clip into her weapon, but she and Mulder agreed when Page was a baby
to always keep their weapons unloaded and locked away.

The figure is already thundering down the stairs when Scully returns to
the hallway. "Stop!" she calls, but she is ignored. Thankful that she's
not wearing any shoes that would slow her down, she races down the
stairs herself, barefoot.

He gives her chase, and she's soon running in the yard, trying not to
slip on the grass that the sprinklers have watered since dark. Whoever
he is, he races ahead, and she collides with someone who steps out into
her path.

Before she can land on her butt, strong arms catch her. "What are you
doing?" Krycek asks her, giving her a look that seems to wonder if
she's lost her mind.

"Following someone. I saw someone in the house- There!" She points, and
Krycek turns to see someone run past the potting shed. In the faint
light still exuded by the solar spotlight, they see a glimpse of a
man's face. A face that looks a lot like Mulder's.

"Mulder!" Krycek shouts, and gives chase himself. It doesn't surprise
Scully much when her future brother-in-law returns, alone and panting.
He bends over for a second, with his hands on his knees. When he's able
to talk again, he looks up at her. "He just disappeared. Why would
Mulder run away from us?"

"I'm not sure that was Mulder," Scully says.

"What are you talking about?" Krycek asks, then understanding dawns on
his face. "Do you think it's one of... them?"

"Mulder wouldn't run from us," Scully says grimly. "We better go in. In
case it comes back."

Krycek shivers, despite the fact that it's still in the 70s. "Are you
worried that-"

"I'm worried about everything," Scully says before heaving a heavy
sigh.

~*~*~

Hours Later

Krycek's bladder wakes him out of a sound sleep, and he pads down the
hallway towards a bathroom. The nanny's room, like the master bedroom,
has a bathroom attached, but not the room that he's crashing in. As he
leans a hand against the wall to help him keep his sleepy balance,
Krycek finds himself marginally grateful that the toilets in these
other bathrooms are full-size and not extra small like those in the
elementary schools.

While he washes his hands he notices bathrobes that can only belong to
Sammy and Page. There's as much stuff in the room that speaks of little
boy ownership as for his sister, but Krycek imagines that will change
in a few years. At least there are four boys, not four girls, given
they'll be sharing bathrooms during their teen years.

He's about to return to his room when he hears snuffling coming from
the baby's room. Before his daughter landed in his life, he would have
been able to walk on by without any pangs of conscience, but fatherhood
has changed him, so he finds himself opening the door.

Christopher is standing up in his crib, his tearstained face turned
towards the door. For a moment he looks surprised to see Krycek, and
then a little scared. Krycek smiles at him. "Hey, Chris. It's Uncle
Alex. Remember me?"

At the sound of his voice, Christopher calms down and holds out his
arms. Krycek picks him up, only a little awkwardly, with his good arm.
"Let's go see Mommy, huh?"

Krycek knocks softly at Scully's door before turning the knob. To his
dismay, she hadn't woken up. He considers waking her for a moment, at
least until he realizes that she's sleeping with one of Mulder's shirts
clutched in her hands. The tail end of it is near her nose and he bets
that it smells like the missing man.

It's not something she'd want people to know, he realizes
instinctually. She wouldn't want people to know that she's missing her
husband so desperately, that there are cracks in the stoic facade she's
thrown up since they got the news that Mulder is missing. He backs out
of the room as quietly as he can. He won't even tell Missy.

Back in the hallway he wonders if he ought to wake up the nanny, but
that seems like a bigger hassle than just helping the baby himself. "So
which is it, Kid, hungry or wet?" He eyes the little boy speculatively,
and decides that he's probably too old to be waking up in the middle of
the night to be fed. Probably.

At the changing table he discovers that his instincts were correct. It
doesn't take him nearly as much effort to change a diaper as he thought
it would. Then again, if Mulder could do it, why couldn't he? "If Missy
and I give you any more cousins, I guess I could do this part," he
whispers to Christopher.

Christopher smiles up at him, but his eyes are drooping. Once he's
gotten the sleeper buttoned back up, he ruffles the little boy's hair.
"You know, I wonder if you and your big sister are going to stay
blonds. Missy said that her dad was a blond too, until he was in his
mid-teens. Your mom's pretty lucky having a sister and brothers. You
too, of course. Who has more brothers and sisters than you? I always
wanted some myself." It doesn't strike him strange to be confessing
this to a one-year-old, given that the boy won't tell on him. "What I
really wanted was a big brother, but it's sort of hard to get one of
those."

Eventually the regularity of Christopher's breathing tells Krycek that
it's safe to go back to bed. For just a second he finds himself
pretending that he's the one who grew up with a houseful of siblings
who might have protected him.

~*~*~

Hoover Building 
Morning 

Although efforts were made to clean up after agents ransacked the
office, everything looks slightly off. At first Scully was determined
to set things to rights, but she ran out of steam not long into the
project.

Feeling tired of everything, she sits down and stares at Mulder's
poster. Its single line of text is wrapped against her ring finger, and
she wonders if Mulder's still wearing his wedding ring, or if it has
been taken from him too.

"Dana?"

She looks up at the use of her first name, since it's a rarity at work.
"Yes?"

"I've been hoping to talk to you alone," Doggett says, closing the
door.

"Why?"

"I've talked to a lot of people, but I haven't gotten to ask you what
you think happened to your husband."

"I don't know," she says, suddenly feeling wary. The look on his face
suggests that he's heard a theory, and doesn't like it.

"Really? You're the only one who doesn't seem certain that they know
what happened to him." Scully has to concentrate on not squirming like
a naughty child when his icy blue eyes lock onto hers. "I'm sure you've
heard the prevailing theory, though, that he was abducted by aliens?"

"I've heard it."

"But do you believe it?" She doesn't say anything, and he seems to take
it for a yes. "I guess I just find it hard to swallow that a scientist,
a serious person, could buy that. Ever see an alien, Dana?"

Scully bristles, hurt that someone she thought of as a friend could
divorce that relationship from a case. "You want me to go on record? I
will go on record to say this - that I have seen things that I cannot
explain. I have observed phenomena that I cannot deny. And that as a
scientist and a serious person it is a badge of honor not to dismiss
these things because someone thinks they're B.S."

"So you think he was abducted?" Doggett asks. 

"I don't know." She shakes her head. "Wherever he is now, he didn't go
willingly."

Doggett is beginning to look frustrated. "Let's look at this logically.
I know you trust AD Skinner, so I understand why you want to believe
him. But what exactly does his story amount to? He put the hood to the
car up, and while he was looking at the engine the interior of the car
was filled with a bright light. He tripped. Agent Moldah wasn't in the
car when he picked himself up. Why does that story say 'alien
abduction' rather than another type of abduction? The man has enemies.
Maybe the bright light was the headlights of an SUV."

"And the shape Skinner said he saw in the sky?" Scully asks.

"A low flying aircraft," Doggett says dismissively. "Can you tell me
it's less plausible than the theory your boss has pinned his beliefs
on?"

"No."

"All right then." Doggett looks somewhat relieved. The phone in his
pocket begins to ring. "Sorry. I have to take this."

"You won't get much reception down here. Too many metal beams in the
basement You're better off stepping outside," Scully tells him with a
straight face.

"Thanks for the tip."

As soon as he leaves, she picks up the phone on Mulder's desk.
"Skinner? Doggett's not going to be any help. He's dead-set against the
mere possibility of alien abduction... I thought we could keep him in
the loop, but it doesn't seem wise."

Doggett returns a couple of minutes later. "That was security. They
have a record of Moldah having been here late last night."

~*~*~

Scully, Skinner and Doggett meet with the rest of the Taskforce in the
Bullpen. Agent Crane is wearing a pained expression. He motions for
them to take a seat, and they do with some reluctance.

"As you probably know, someone came into this office after hours and
removed some material. Files. We don't know exactly what just yet."
Crane says. He seems to think that they know exactly what he's getting
at. They don't.

"Who did?" Skinner asks.

"The office here is secured by a pass-card lock and whoever came in
last night used the pass-card belonging to Agent Mulder."

"You think Agent Mulder took the files?" 

"We're wondering about Agent Mulder's state of mind. In your statement
you said prior to his disappearance Agent Mulder had felt threatened by
the FBI."

"No, no," Skinner denies. "No, that's not what I said. I said he felt
the X-Files were threatened by budget cutting. There was an accountant
here just last week, and he made the usual threat."

"Is there anything you're not telling us about Agent Mulder or his
attitude? Do you think he'd ever retaliate against the FBI?" Crane
asks.

"Agent Mulder was only after the truth." 

"As are we, Assistant Director," Kersh says, glowering at the agents.
None of them are cowed. Scully bites her tongue to keep from voicing
her opinion on his personal quest for the truth.

"Agent Scully, Where were you last night?"

"I was at home," Scully tells him calmly. "With my children."

Crane nods, then turns to Skinner. "We see from your phone log, you
were here until at least after 10:00."

"You think I came in here last night using Agent Mulder's pass-card?"
Skinner asks, disbelief evident in his voice.

"You were the last person to see Mulder."

"Am I being accused of something?" he asks belligerently. 

Crane doesn't have an answer for him. At least not one that comes from
speaking aloud. He gets up and walks off without another word, and
Skinner is hot on his heels, repeating his question.

Scully looks at Doggett. "Skinner is telling the truth. There's no way
he'd lie about Mulder going missing in his presence."

"I believe him," Doggett says. "But that still doesn't tell us who used
Moldah's card to get in there."

"You think it was Mulder?"

"If not him, then who?"

Scully doesn't answer him.

Doggett sighs. "All right. I got some light on this. Maybe you can help
me out here, Agent Scully."

Scully gives him another wary look; his sudden use of her title strikes
her as too business-like after his earlier familiarity. "What is it?"

Doggett hands her a file. "Agent Moldah's medical records—recent stuff,
over the last year. Did you know about a medical condition? Either of
you?"

"Yes, of course," Skinner says impatiently from the doorway. Scully
only nods.

"So a year ago, he was hospitalized. Something to do with his brain?"

"There was a problem with his temporal lobe," Scully acknowledges. 

Doggett pokes a finger at Mulder's file. "An undiagnosable condition,
it says. Irregular brain activity."

"For a little while, yes. Then he got better," Skinner tells him.

Doggett shakes his head. "But he was back in the hospital again in
October, wasn't he?"

Scully looks away. "Someone tried to 'cure' him by doing some brain
surgery. It seemed to work. But he got an infection and it was hard to
shake it. He was back in the hospital in October and sick again, though
not as badly, off and on for months after that."

"But he recovered," Skinner objects. "There was a full recovery." 

"When was that?" Doggett asks.

"In May," Scully tells him. "He was given a clean bill of health on the
tenth of May," she adds, unwilling to talk about how Mulder had come
home miraculously cured after his encounter with the sin eater.

"You're sure about the date?" 

"Positive. It was just three weeks before we lost our youngest
daughter."

Doggett blinks in shock. "You lost a baby?"

She shrugs and has trouble meeting his eyes. "I was involved in a car
accident and the baby came too soon. She was stillborn."

"I'm so sorr,." Doggett sputters.

"It's hard, but you go on. We both tried to move on." Scully thinks
about Mulder coaxing her to try again. The thought of whether or not
that had been a good idea considering current circumstances surfaces,
but she pushes it firmly away. Mulder will be back soon.

"Did he?" Doggett asks softly.

"What are you getting at?" Skinner demands to know.

"It's clear that this has been a rough year for him. To be so sick, to
lose a baby... any person might crack under the strain."

"Don't be foolish," Skinner snaps at him. "You make it sound like he
lost his mind and ran away."

"Mulder wouldn't leave his kids," Scully says adamantly. But even as
she says the words, she's reminded of the close call their marriage had
in the spring. Mulder was prepared to walk away then, if that was what
she wanted him to do.

"Are you sure? I would have said the same thing about my ex-wife, right
up until the day she told me she was leaving me." There's bitterness in
Doggett's voice. "How far would Moldah go to find his truth? Are you
sure he wouldn't take the opportunity if it arose?"

"The opportunity for what?"

"To end the mysteries in his life. Whatever it was he was trying to
prove, how bad did he need to prove it?"

Scully feels a weight crushing her as she admits the truth. "It was his
whole life once upon a time. But that was before. Before we got
married."

Skinner looks confused. "Agent Doggett, what are you trying to say?" 

"That Agent Moldah probably found himself in a place none of us want to
go. Life-threatened, work-threatened, and all for naught. Nothing
proven. The effort in vain. No motivation to go on left. Unless he
rolled the dice, took one big last chance to make it."

"You think that Mulder was here? That he broke in to steal those
files?"

"I don't see who else it could have been."

"Why?" Skinner asks. "To prove what he's known all along?"

"Or cover it up. Create doubt. To protect his kids by destroying
evidence. I get Moldah, I really get him. I understand obsession,
believe me. But the question is, how far would he go? I mean, so far as
to stage his own disappearance?"

Skinner looks outraged. "Scully, I know what I saw. I not going to sit
here and listen to this. I watched it happen."

Scully stares at Doggett. "Please don't report your suspicions. As a
friend, John, I'm asking that you don't tell anyone that you suspect
anything like that."

"I don't plan to. It wouldn't help anyone to find him, since we have no
idea where he'd go." Doggett leaves them there, and they watch him,
suspicious of what he's up to now.

When they're alone, Skinner puts his hand on Scully's shoulder. "I
don't believe any of that."

"Neither do I," Scully says, but her voice is a bit shaky. "He wasn't
depressed. He wanted to..." She trails off, not quite ready to tell
anyone about her pregnancy. "He wanted to celebrate the fact that he's
better. We had plans... he wouldn't leave on his own."

"I know."

Thinking about what Doggett said, however, she wonders briefly if he
would leave to protect the kids. It's possible that he got a lead on
whoever it was that was watching their family and Missy's and went to
find the guilty party. She dismisses the thought. He wouldn't have gone
away like that, even if it was his plan. He would have told her and
Skinner. Wouldn't he?

~*~*~

Scully and Mulder's House
That Night

"Who wants to hear a bedtime story?" Langly asks after they've been
there for twenty minutes.

"We do!" Page says, speaking for the group.

"Upstairs then," Langly tells her. He picks up the twins, and the older
kids nearly trip over each other in their eagerness to hear what they
call "Uncle Stories." Langly looks over his shoulder. "You guys owe me
one."

"Yeah, you love it," Frohike grumbles good-naturedly.

Skinner picks up a map and shows it to Scully. "These are records of
microburst activity. What we read is UFO activity since Mulder's
abduction."

"I think this is a waste of time," she says skeptically.

"No, it's not. Just look at them." 

"I'm looking, and what I'm seeing is activity all over the southwestern
states."

"That's right."

"Mulder, Billy and Teresa all disappeared from the northeast, not
anywhere on this map." She reminds them.

"But if Mulder is on that ship, this is where he is now." Skinner
points at the map.

"In the Arizona desert?" 

"This is what we have to go on."

"Okay. Say this is true ... then how do we even begin to start finding
him?" There's a long, awkward pause.

"We..." Frohike trails off. "Knowing where they're going, that's got to
help us in some way."

"I get it," Scully says, suddenly animate.

"You get what?"

"What you saw, why they took Mulder, why they're in Arizona now—it all
makes sense. Why do people refuse to believe in aliens and UFOs after
all these years of sightings and eyewitness accounts? Why?"

"Because there's no real proof," Frohike says. 

"Because, maybe, if there are aliens they're simply going around and
they're... and they're removing all of the evidence before it becomes
proof," Scully says. "This isn't Mulder who's going around and
collecting this stuff. It's them. Someone is trying really hard to
clean up any proof that might change people's minds about aliens."

"Why would they be in Arizona, then?" Skinner asks.

"Because they are looking to find that which is not in my computer or
Mulder's computer or in the files that were removed from the FBI. They
are looking to find the whereabouts of good, hard proof. That in this
case exists in a person, in a boy named Gibson Praise."

"If that's true, then the boy is in danger," Skinner tells her.

"I know. But only if they get to him before we do," Scully says.

"Do you even know where he is? The last I knew, Mulder hadn't told
where he'd put the boy."

"I'm not exactly sure, but I know who knows."

"Can you get in touch with that person?" 

"Yes. You ought to go home and pack, Sir."

"Me?"

"I can't do this alone, and I don't think we can get John Doggett
involved in this. He's just going to be getting in the way, looking for
Mulder. He's not there, but John won't believe that if we say we're
following a lead. No matter his faults, John is a good friend. And as a
good friend, he's going to be completely dedicated to finding Mulder.
Right now, that's only going to hurt us."

~*~*~

The Following Day

"Skinner, pull over," Scully demands. 

He does as she asks, and she hastily unhooks her seatbelt and stumbles
from the car. She gets a few feet away before she throws up the chicken
salad sandwich that she'd eaten earlier in the day. Without having to
be asked, Skinner hands her a bottle of water so she can rinse out her
mouth.

"Food poisoning?" he asks a little sardonically. Neither of them had
thought much of the meal that they'd been served on the flight.

"No," she says as she settles herself back into the passenger seat.
"Bad timing." She wonders if he understands the subtext, but isn't up
to talking about her condition.

Seeming to sense that, Skinner just glances at her before turning his
face back to the road. "You feeling better? I need some navigation."

Scully nods, mostly to herself. "Agent Reyes said that we should meet
her at a diner about ten miles from here. There's a turn off about five
miles up and we take it."

"You sound as though you trust her," Skinner remarks.

"Mulder and I worked a case with her once, and Mulder's been in touch
with her on and off since... so yes, I trust her."

"Good. It's nice to be able to trust someone in this mess."

~*~*~

Frank's Diner

As Skinner parks, Scully looks through the windows and catches sight of
a familiar brunette sitting alone in a booth. Despite everything, she
finds herself beginning to smile. Skinner is right, it is nice to be
able to trust someone.

Reyes looks up when the bell over the door to the diner chimes. "Agent
Scully."

"Agent Reyes," Scully replies, sliding onto the seat across from the
other woman. Skinner looks uncertain for a second and chooses to sit
next to Scully. "This is my boss, AD Skinner."

Reyes offers her hand for a shake. "Nice to meet you, sir."

"You too. I just wish it was under better circumstances." Skinner's
voice is a little gruff. "Could you catch us up to speed?"

"Right." She nods to herself. While she gathers her thoughts a waitress
appears and Reyes and Skinner order coffee. Scully asks for juice,
instead. Reyes speaks in a low voice when the waitress leaves. "I got a
call last night from Gibson telling me that something was wrong. I
asked him what, and he said that agent Mulder was there in the dorm
room with him."

"He said Mulder was there?" Scully asks, surprised.

"Actually, he said 'At least it looks like Agent Mulder. It's something
that looks like him.' Before I could ask him to elaborate, I heard the
sounds a struggle and him telling someone to let him go. After that I
made two phone calls. One was to his school to have the resident
advisor check on him, and as I suspected his room was empty. The second
was to book a flight to get out here."

"I'm a little confused," Skinner says, and both women look at him.
"What is your relationship to Gibson? I know that you're not his
mother, at least."

At this, Reyes looks surprised. "He doesn't know?" Normally amicable,
she shoots the waitress an annoyed look when the woman returns with
their drinks.

"I guess it didn't come up," Scully says apologetically. "Skinner, this
is the person that Mulder brought Gibson to when he needed to keep him
safe."

"I guess you could look at it like my place was a stop on a modern
underground railroad," Reyes says cheerfully. "Gibson and I have been
in touch since, and agent Mulder and I placed him at the current school
after it seemed like he was being made a while ago."

"So you're definitely an interested party, here," Skinner surmises.
"Good."

Reyes holds out her hands. "At the moment, there's nothing more
important to me than getting Gibson back safely. If the two of you are
ready, to leave, I'll show you how to get to his school."

"I hope we get there first," Skinner says. The women exchange a glance.
They hope so too.

~*~*~

 Less Than an Hour Later

To Scully's vast dismay, Doggett is at the school, marshalling agents.
He approaches as soon as he notices that they're there. "How did you
know we were here? I tried calling you both early this morning, but I
couldn't get through to either of you."

"It's a long story," Scully says halfheartly.

Doggett eyes Reyes. "Uh, hi."

He doesn't look any less confused by their presence, but he ignores
them in favor of the business at hand. Addressing the gathered agents,
he says "Footprints outside the boy's window suggest that they went out
that way. Spread out!"

Agent Crane bellows, "The kid's on the loose! You have the photo!
Move!" and everyone scatters.

Everyone but Scully, Skinner and Reyes, who just stand there and
exchange helpless looks.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-One

Arizona

Sand is kicked up when the other agents speed off. A hot sun beats down
on the sand creating a hazy glare that waters their eyes.

 "What do we do now?" Skinner asks Scully. This surprises her at first,
since she's used to him being the one with orders.

She shrugs. "Same as them. Look for Gibson."

"Right."

Scully grabs Reyes' arm. "It's too complicated to explain, but whatever
happens, don't shoot the thing that's pretending to be Mulder. And if
he's shot near you, cover your face."

The look Reyes gives her is curious, but it doesn't hold the skepticism
that Doggett's would. "I trust you'll explain later."

"I'll try."

The three of them go off in different directions, each calling Gibson's
name.

~*~*~

Scully is still playing at looking for Gibson under Doggett's direction
when she hears the boy yelling. Startled, she darts in that direction,
keeping out of sight as much as possible.

When she catches sight of them, it feels like she's been doused with
something cold. Although her eyes want to believe that the man dragging
Gibson by the arm is her husband, her mind and heart know it isn't.
Mulder couldn't radiate such an alien coldness.

Gibson doesn't seem to think that it's Mulder, either. He never uses
Mulder's name, and she can't imagine Gibson ever being that terrified
of someone he knows. "Stop it! Please! Let me go! Stop it! Let me go!
Let me go!"

As she watches from behind a stunted tree, Doggett runs into sight. He,
unlike she or Gibson, clearly believes that it's her husband. "Let the
boy go! Let him go, Moldah!"

Mulder's imposter stares impassively at him. In his grip Gibson
continues to struggle.

"Let him go, or I will be compelled to use my weapon. Now, I don't want
to do that, Agent Moldah. I don't want to shoot."

"That's not Mulder," Scully says, coming forward.

Doggett looks stunned. "Where did you come from? And what are you
talking about?"

"That's not Mulder," she repeats. "That's not my husband."

Doggett looks at her like she's lost her mind. "Of course it is!"

She shakes her head. "Let Gibson go! He won't tell anyone. None of us
will."

"What the hell-" Doggett mutters to himself.

Its eyes study her, seeming to consider her words. To her surprise, it
throws the boy roughly aside. Gibson lands on the ground with a yelp.

Concerned, Scully runs to him. Gibson looks up at her, cradling his
ankle. Tears shine in his eyes and he points at a large stone half
buried in the ground. "I hit that."

She quickly examines his ankle. "I think it's broken. I'll have to find
something to splint it before we can move you."

"Yeah, okay," Gibson says through gritted teeth. He catches her eye.
"It's really not him, you know."

"I know," she says, and starts to pay attention to Doggett. Though she
and Gibson know that it's not Mulder, it's clear that her new partner
doesn't. The man and alien have edged towards a ledge.

"Moldah! Where are you going? Jesus, no!" 

The thing pretending to be her husband takes a deliberate step
backwards and falls over the edge of the cliff.

Doggett is staring down in horror when Scully joins him. The body
splayed on ground below looks very much like Mulder. And also dead.

The fact that the imposter might be dead doesn't bother Scully, but it
clearly does Doggett. He turns to her with anguish filled eyes. "Oh God
Dana. I didn't think that he'd do anything like that. He had to know
that he was at the edge..."

"He knew," she says calmly. 

Which irritates him enough to snap at her. "How can you be so... So
cold? That's your husband lying down there!" Doggett points a finger
before realizing that he's pointing at empty sand.

"The thing that you watched fall wasn't my husband," Scully tells him.
"So why should I care what happens to it?"

"How can you say it's not him?"

She gives him a long look. He looks hot and tired, and pissed at her.
"Do you think Mulder has super powers? Because I can tell you that he
wouldn't just walk away from a fall like that. No man could."

Doggett is clearly at a loss for words, and doesn't have a reasonable
explanation for his team when they catch up to him.

"Agent Doggett, where did he go?"

"I'm..." Doggett looks down at the bare patch of sand below them. Using
the back of his hand he wipes sweat out of his eyes before looking at
agent Crane. "He fell."

"Fell where?"

He just points down. Crane gives him an incredulous look. "How could he
have fallen and then just gotten up and walked away?"

"I don't know!" Doggett snarls. "He just did."

"Right." Agent Crane pulls out his walkie-talkie. "Suspect was last
seen below this ridge. Convene the search there." When Doggett makes no
move to join the pack of agents that are scurrying off, Crane looks at
him from over his shoulder. "Aren't you joining us?"

Doggett shakes his head. "I can hear the ambulance coming for the boy.
I'm going to go with him to the hospital, and see if I can get anything
out of him."

Crane seems to accept this. "I'll keep you posted on our progress."

"You do that."

By the time the ambulance arrives Skinner and Reyes have found Scully.
Doggett looks at a loss when the paramedics load Gibson onto a
stretcher. Scully gives him a tight smile. "Why don't you ride with the
boy? We'll follow you."

"Thanks." The expression on his face suggests that he has no idea why
he's thanking her.

~*~*~

Even though it's a weekday afternoon the emergency room is full of
activity. Doctors and nurses fly by them, trailing the hems of white
lab coats in their wake. There's not a lot for the agents to do while
they wait for Gibson to be treated. None of them was asked to be in the
exam room, and they hadn't insisted.

Of the four of them, Reyes seems the most uncomfortable with the
silence. Something like relief appears in her brown eyes when she
thinks of something to say. She turns to Scully "How is your son or
daughter taking all of this?"

"My son or daughter?" Scully repeats blankly.

"Agent Mulder told me that you were pregnant when he brought Gibson to
me..." Reyes trails off anxiously. What if something had gone wrong and
she was bringing up a very sore subject?

To her surprise agent Doggett suddenly looks delighted. "You don't know
why she's confused!" He turns to Scully. "Go on, tell her how many kids
you have."

"More than one?" Reyes asks, and Doggett's smile gets bigger.

"Six," Scully says, suddenly sounding tired.

"Six?" Reyes repeats as though she's sure she's misheard.

"When we first met you, Mulder and I already had two children," Scully
tells her. "Our oldest, Page, turns six this month. Sammy is five.
April is three. David and Jared just turned two. And our baby,
Christopher, is one."

Reyes notices that Skinner darts his eyes towards her with a
questioning look, but Scully doesn't acknowledge his gaze. She chooses
not to make an issue of it, because surely it has nothing to do with
her. "Wow."

"That's what everyone says."

She tries to think of something to say, something reassuring to a
person who might very well end up raising six children on her own.
Nothing comes to mind. She could say that they'll find him, but how
many times has the poor woman already heard that?

A doctor striding towards them spares her any further efforts to come
up with something meaningful to say. The doctor's gray eyes scan their
faces. "You're with the FBI, right?"

Scully quickly scans the waiting room, and Reyes believes that she
knows exactly what she's thinking. They are the only people there who
are not wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts, so I did not take a
psychic for the doctor to figure out which particular group people were
the FBI agents.

"Yes," Skinner says, speaking for them all.

"Gibson suffered a pretty bad break. At first we were not sure if he
was going to need surgery to have a pin put in, but we x-rayed a second
time and decided against it. We've put him into a plaster cast. It's
old-fashioned, but more rigid which is what he really needs. It will be
quite heavy though, so he will probably tire quickly on crutches." The
doctor looks around the room again, for what they are not certain. "His
parents haven't arrived yet? I should really be explaining this to
them."

"The boy is an orphan," Skinner says gruffly.

"Oh. Then who-"

"He is to remain in FBI custody. So you're speakin' to the right
people," Doggett informs the doctor.

"Okay then. As I said he's probably going to have difficulty getting
around. He'll need help."

"And he'll get it. I assume that you will have some sort of written
instructions for us," Doggett suggests forcefully.

The doctor looks faintly intimidated. "Of course. I'll have a nurse
type them up for you."

"Thank you very much, Doctor," Doggett says dismissing him.

It only takes a second before the doctor wanders away looking for much
out of sorts.

Scully stares at Doggett. "What was the plan? Find Gibson, and then?"

He looks chagrined. "The plan was to find Gibson, find Moldah, and
bring Moldah back to DC. Moldah was no longer supposed to be a threat,
so Gibson was not supposed to be in danger, and therefore there was no
plan to continue to have anything to do with the boy. Obviously that
has changed now."

"Obviously," Scully repeats.

Rather than get defensive, Doggett begins to question Scully and
Skinner. "Why are you here? Unless someone broke protocol there was no
request for your presence on the task force here. How did you even know
that we were out here looking for him?"

"They didn't," Reyes told him. "I called them and asked them to come."

"Why?"

"When Gibson was in danger two years ago agent Mulder brought him to
me. I helped agent Mulder find a private school for Gibson. Later on,
when Gibson thought that his cover might have been blown, we arranged
for him to attend school out here," Reyes explains. "When I got a call
from Gibson last night telling me that he believed he was in danger
again, I immediately called agent Scully. Until she arrived we had no
idea that the danger that Gibson perceived was connected to an agent
Mulder's disappearance." Which, strictly speaking is not true, but she
does not think that agent Doggett needs to know that. "Actually, until
I spoke to her, I had no idea that he even was missing."

Doggett swings his hard-eyed stare toward Scully and Skinner. "You
didn't know that we were looking for Moldah out here?"

They are very good at feigning innocence and their expressions do not
give them away. Or perhaps he just doesn't know them well enough to see
the lies that their eyes hide.

He still looks suspicious, but he doesn't seem prepared to call them
liars. "Since you are not part of the task force, and our only
objective with the boy was to follow his trail in hopes of finding
Moldah, perhaps the three of you ought look after him until Moldah is
found."

"In DC?" Skinner asks.

"No. Here."

Scully shoots him an alarmed look. "Here? Wouldn't he be safer in DC?"

"If he's with three agents, I hardly see the venue adding to or
detracting from his safety," Doggett says blandly.

"You're using this child. You're hoping that he will lead Mulder to
you," Skinner says angrily.

Doggett shrugs. "I believe in utilizing all available resources. From
what I've heard about you, you have a similar mindset."

This assessment clearly irritates Skinner. "I don't understand how a
father could have consider a child a resource."

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree," Doggett says, effectively
ending the conversation.

~*~*~

Oasis Hotel

It surprises Scully somewhat that Skinner proves to be very adept at
making hotel arrangements considering that it had always been
Kimberly's job to do that for him. He decides that rather than rent two
rooms he would instead rent them a two-room suite. That way there are
still two separate bedrooms but they share common room, so they can
more easily look after Gibson.

The first thing that Scully does when they get to the hotel room is to
have Skinner help her settle Gibson for a nap. Even though the boy
claims not be tired. Her next order of business is to go to the bedroom
that she and Reyes will share in to make a phone call home.

While she talks on the phone Reyes unpacks her own overnight bag. It
doesn't bother Scully that her phone call is overheard.

"Alex... no, I just wasn't expecting you to answer... I don't think
he's out here. John Doggett has different opinions, but... hopefully
it'll only be a day or two before he realizes this is futile, and then
we get back home... good. I'm glad they're doing okay. Yeah, can you
tell them I missed them too? Thanks... no, sure put her on... Hi, Baby.
I wish I was home too... looking for Daddy. You knew that... I'll tell
him that, soon as we find him... love you too. Be a good girl for
Michelle and Alex. Bye."

Reyes gives her a curious look. "One of your daughters?"

"That was April. My three-year-old," Scully tells her. "She wanted to
make sure we're looking for father."

"Agent Scully-"

Scully tries to ignore the feeling of unshed tears pricking at the
corners of her eyes. "A couple of days ago, she told me that we weren't
going to see her father for a long long time. It's easy to dismiss
that, I mean she's three. But then, she already has a knack for knowing
things that she couldn't possibly know."

"She sensitive," Reyes suggests in a tone that indicates that she's
using a different definition of the word sensitive than the most people
do. "I was like that too when I was little kid."

Scully sighs. "I bet no one wanted to believe you either."

"Pretty much."

"But I think no one would want to believe her," Scully says. "Nobody
wants him to be gone for very long."

"Of course," Reyes says quickly.

"I'm going to go check on Gibson," Scully announces before heading for
the door.

~*~*~

In the next room the boy is lying on one of the full-sized beds,
thumbing through a comic book instead of making any attempt to nap. The
smile that Scully gives him is genuine. "X-Men, huh? I think it's only
a matter of time before my oldest son gets into those comics too. He
begged his father to bring him to that movie this summer."

"I saw it too," Gibson says, and winces as he pushes himself up with
his arms. "Is that my pill?"

For a moment Scully is confused, because she's forgotten that she's
holding a plastic cup of water and his pain medication. "Oh, sure.
Here."

"Thanks." Gibson quickly downs the entire glass of water. He then gives
her a hesitant look. "Do you want to know?"

"Know about what?"

"About Mulder," Gibson tells her. "He's not dead."

"I know he's not..." She trails off, realizing that any denials about
her fears are useless when it comes to a mind-reader. "Maybe know is
too strong a word, but I think I'd feel it if he were dead."

"Those dreams you've been having. Those come from him." 

"You mean the nightmares?" she asks, thinking of Mulder being trapped,
held down and tortured.

Gibson gives her a disapproving look. "They're not nightmares."

"Gibson, those are the worst dreams I've ever had-"

"Dreams aren't real," Gibson says making a finger of ice run down her
spine. "These aren't nightmares. He's reaching out to us."

"Are you saying that we're dreaming about things that really happen to
him?" she asks in a strangled voice.

"I wish I could tell you that they're not real, but I don't want to lie
to you." Gibson's eyes are sad. "There is one good thing about these
dreams, though."

"What could possibly be good about them?!"

"As long as we have them, you know he's alive," Gibson says softly.

"You'll have to forgive me that it doesn't give me much comfort." It
costs her a lot of effort to keep her tone even.

Gibson's eyes are luminous. "At least you don't have to claim them.
You're entirely human."

"Sometimes I doubt that," Scully tells him. "You know... you know that
nobody blames you for this. Not even a little bit."

He gives her a hard look. "I know you believe that. Now." Before she
can reply he's picked up the comic book and started looking again.

Not knowing what to say, she leaves him to his own devices.

~*~*~

Washington, DC
Meanwhile...

Still slightly resentful of Alex's decision to bring Emily to her
sister's house every night, Missy has picked the girls up from school
and brought them to her house for the afternoon. That way she has some
time with her daughter.

Things are going pretty well as she engages them in making paper dolls.
Once Emily gets up to use the bathroom, however, Page fixes her with a
serious look. "Aunt Missy, I want to ask you something."

"Go ahead," Missy encourages.

To her surprise, Page looks around, apparently making sure that Emily
isn't on her way back down stairs. "Is my Dad with the baby?"

Missy's brow creases. "What do you mean, Sweetie?" At first she thinks
Page means Christopher.

Page doesn't mean her brother. "Did he die and go to heaven to be with
the baby?"

"No!" Missy exclaims. "As far as anyone knows, your Dad is fine. He's
just lost."

"Are you sure?" her niece presses.

"As sure as anyone else. Why do did you think he might be in heaven?
Did someone tell you he died?"

Page shakes her head. "No one told me. I just thought it."

There has to be a reason, Missy decides. "If someone at school was
teasing you, it's okay to tell me. It's not tattling. "

"No one said," Page insists. "I just thought...the baby couldn't stay
here. So maybe Daddy went to take care of her."

"No...I know she was really little, so you're thinking that she needs
to be taken care of like your little brothers," Missy notices her
nodding. "But when a baby goes to heaven like she did, God is the one
who takes care of them. He wouldn't take one of their parents away from
the rest of the family to look after them because the rest of you need
them more."

"Are you sure?" Page asks in a small voice.

"I'm sure," she tells her firmly, but a new worry arrives. "Page, did
you tell Sammy and April about your theory?"

"Nope."

"Okay."

Emily returns a minute later, and the girls go back to playing like
nothing important had happened. Missy wonders what she herself was
thinking about at their age. It certainly wasn't about dead siblings,
but missing fathers... that one she could relate to.

~*~*~

Oasis Hotel

The rest of the day passes rather slowly into night. Skinner looks more
annoyed by their enforced sloth than anybody else. Gibson still
pretends to be entertained by his comic books and Scully and Reyes try
to watch a Lifetime movie on TV but the reception is fairly snowy.
Skinner makes no attempt to amuse himself. Instead he paces the room.

Considerately, he waits until there's a commercial before he begins
ranting. "I can't believe we're stuck here in this stupid hotel. If
they want to find Mulder they ought to have us go back to DC. That's
where he disappeared from. No matter what Doggett thought he saw today,
it wasn't Mulder. It's asinine for us to stay here-"

A sharp knock on the door cuts him off in mid-sentence. Still looking
aggrieved Skinner stomps over to the door and opens it. A surprised
looking Doggett is standing on the other side.

He pushes his way past Skinner. "Good. You're here. I need to talk to
you."

Skinner does not bother to conceal his impatience. "We're all ears."

"Has Moldah come by here?"

"Of course not," Scully says sharply. 

For just a second Doggett's shoulders sag, but he quickly straightens
up. "He's just disappeared. We combed every inch the grounds around the
school, but we didn't find a single sign of him." He turns to Scully
with accusing look. "And you don't look like that surprises you."

Scully gives him an icy look around. "I told you earlier. That was not
my husband. The thing you saw? It's long gone by now. There's no point
in continuing looking for it."

"Right. Because it's an alien. And it's beamed itself back to the
mothership," Doggett says sarcastically. "I don't know what you guys
are playing at. Maybe it's some sort of' haze the new guy thing'. I
don't know. All I do know is that it's not very funny."

"Look at us. None of us are laughing," Scully tells him.

"New guy?" Skinner asks. "That makes it sound like you intend to stick
around."

"Maybe I might," Doggett says stubbornly.

Before sparks can fly Gibson crutches his way over to the two men.
"It's not gone."

"What?" they both ask simultaneously.

"The thing. The one that you were looking for," Gibson says, looking at
Doggett. "It's not gone."

Doggett seems confused but Skinner pierces the boy with a look. "How'd
you know it's not gone?"

The boy shrugs his shoulders. "I'm not sure where it is, exactly, but
it still near enough."

"Near enough to what?" Doggett asks. No one seems inclined to answer
him.

"To be a threat," he says cryptically.

"Then we should go look for it," Skinner says abruptly. 

He makes a move to go for the door, but Doggett stops him. "Wait. Where
are you going? Why are you ready to run off at a child's say so?" The
new agent is clearly agitated.

Reyes looks surprised. "You must know that Gibson reads minds."

Doggett puts his hands on his face. "Another one." He groans. "I should
have known. The second I saw you in Moldah's house..."

"They're not crazy," Gibson tells him. "You just don't understand."

"Clearly," Doggett scoffs.

Skinner ignores Doggett's breakdown. Instead he turns to Gibson. "Where
do you think it is?"

"Still out there. Somewhere near the school. He doesn't know I'm gone."

"Right," Skinner says decisively. "Doggett. You and I, let's go look
for it."

Doggett laughs abruptly. "Sure, why the hell not? But you two-" he
points at Scully and Reyes. "Stay here and protect the boy. 'It' might
not know that it's supposed to be out in the desert still."

"Okay," Scully says calmly. Reyes gives her a questioning look, but
doesn't otherwise contradict her. "Call us if you find...anything."

~*~*~

An unexpected calm falls over the hotel suite once Skinner and Doggett
have departed. Scully flicks through the TV channels, and Gibson begins
to yawn. And keeps yawning.

"I'm going to take a nap," he announces. "For real this time."

"Sure, let me help you-" Reyes began, but he cut her off.

"I can do it. I'm not a baby, you know," he says, groping for the
crutches leaning against the couch.

"No one said you were..." Reyes trails off as he leaves the room faster
than she thought possible.

Scully looks over at the puzzled look on Reyes face. "Don't take it
personal. Kids get like that."

"At how old?"

Scully lifts her shoulders and lets them fall. "Four? I hear it gets
even worse as they hit adolescence. And it can't be easy for him, being
so small for his age. People probably underestimate him on a regular
basis."

"You sound like the voice of experience," Reyes remarks.

"I'm five-two fully grown. I was always small for my age," Scully
acknowledges.

"His whole life is rough. We keep in touch through e-mail, and I can
tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's not happy," Reyes tells
her, sounding depressed. "I should have done what I wanted to last
year."

"What was that?"

"Try to adopt him."

"Why didn't you?" Scully asks curiously.

"Your husband didn't think it was a good idea. He thought trying to
give Gibson a normal life wouldn't work out, and that he'd still be a
target. Well, now he's got an abnormal life and he's still a target."

"I'm kind of surprised that Mulder told you that." 

"He must have had his reasons. Can I ask you a question?"

"I guess so." Scully is instantly wary. That's usually code for
uncomfortable topics.

"Why do you call him Mulder instead of Fox?"

Surprise makes Scully smile. "I tried calling him Fox, back when we
first worked together. He grimaced and said 'I even made my parents
call me Mulder. So please call me Mulder.' Ever since, he's been Mulder
to me too."

"Fox is a lovely name. I can't imagine why he hates it."

"I've never gotten a good explanation, either. But I can tell you this
- we have four little boys, and the words  'Fox Junior' have never come
out of his mouth."

"We'll have to ask him someday," Reyes tells her, and Scully feels an
unexpected welling of gratitude. There's nothing tentative in the other
woman's statement. She really believes that he'll come back.

"Sure. Right after 'Where have you been?'"

~*~*~

Skinner returns alone about an hour later. He looks grim.

"No luck?" Scully asks eventually when he doesn't say anything. She's
been trying to read a book and ignore the reality TV fair that Reyes
finally settled on. It irritates her with its mindlessness.

"No. We looked everywhere and we didn't any sign of him."

"Maybe Gibson was wrong," Reyes offers from the couch. "Maybe he left
the area."

"Maybe," Skinner says with a sigh.

Scully's phone begins to buzz, so she grabs it off the end table beside
her. She notices that Skinner's expression is a little off, but doesn't
think much of it. "Scully."

"Hey. It's Doggett. We didn't find anything."

"I know. Skinner told us."

"Who did?" He sounds really puzzled, which irritates her even more than
the idiots pretending to be pirates on the TV.

"Skinner. You know, the man you brought with you to investigate the
school again?"

"Agent Scully..." Doggett's slow voice says over the phone-line.
"Skinner's right next to me in the car. We're pulling into the parking
lot of the hotel now."

"That can't be-" Scully starts to say, but she drops the phone when
Skinner approaches angrily.

She's still fumbling for her weapon when two crashes happen at the same
time: the door to the suite bursts open, but behind her she hears
Gibson shout "That's not Mister Skinner!" She turns her head in time to
see a crutch fly through the air.

It hits a Skinner. Which Skinner, however, she can't be sure since she
turned her back when Gibson shouted. Each of them is dressed in an
identical fashion, and has identical scowls.

The one nearest her looks alarmed when she trains her gun on him.
Looking past him, she catches Doggett's eye. "Which one did you come in
with?"

A bewildered Doggett points at the one on the left. "Him. But Dana, how
can there be two of him? Does Skinner have an identical twin?"

"Were you with him every second, Agent Doggett?" Reyes asks.

"No. We split up. Could someone explain-" 

"Then which one he brought here doesn't prove anything," Reyes says.
"It's impossible to know if the one he arrived with is the one he left
with."

"Gibson?" Scully asks. "Which one is Skinner?"

The boy's face falls. "I can't tell. Not with them standing together
like that. I'm not even sure I can tell while they're in the same
room."

"Okay then," Scully says calmly. She pulls a long slender object out of
her pocket. "I thought to bring this with me before we came out here."

Only one of the Skinner's eyes react to the revelation, but she's not
sure how good a tell it is considering that the real Skinner probably
had found out about it long ago.

Scully presses on the device, and the sharp metallic spike reveals
itself. Looking at the two men claiming to be her boss, she asks them
"Who goes first?"

"What do you mean?" one demands to know.

"The way I see it, the only way we'll know which one is the real
Skinner is by stabbing both in the neck. Just enough to break the skin.
At first. Again, who wants to go first?"

"On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with
the red roses?" Reyes murmurs, but only Gibson seems to hear her say
it.

"I will," the other one says, sounding disgusted. 

Scully nods. "You two, if that one moves, shoot him in the neck."

"Right," Reyes agreed readily. Doggett still seemed dazed.

The first Skinner places his neck on the couch, and Scully dutifully
wields the weapon meant to kill the aliens. Since this "Skinner" has
volunteered readily, she assumes that it's really her boss. "Get it
over with," he snarls, bolstering her conviction.

At least until she's got the spike pressed against the delicate skin of
his neck. Then he grabs her wrist so quickly that she can only gasp as
he forces her fingers to loosen their grip. She holds on as tight as
she can, terrified to be disarmed, but it's a losing battle.

Until there's a sharp bang, and it stumbles away from her. Not quickly
enough to keep her from burned eyes, however. She crumples to the
floor, her hands pressed to her face.

"Get some water! And a face cloth!" Gibson shouts at someone. There's a
scurry of feet, the sound of a running tap, and several seconds later
someone reaches her side. Someone wipes a damp cloth across her eyes.

"Dana? Are you okay?" Reyes asks, sounding very worried. 

"No. I'll need to go to the e.r. I think," Scully says, looking up at
the blurry woman standing over her. "Who...?"

"I shot him," Doggett says, sounding more than a little awed. Reyes
glances at him, and then down at the ground. Near him and Skinner is a
puddle of green fluid, and some discarded clothing. "But where did he
go?"

"Do you think he disappeared into thin air?" Skinner asks sharply.
"He's right there on the floor. That's him, and you killed it."

They continue to argue a moment or two longer before Reyes and Gibson
yell at them that they need to bring Scully to the hospital.

~*~*~

Two Hours Later

The doctor that treats Scully seems to believe that she's somehow come
in contact with hydrochloric acid, because he spends nearly half the
exam lecturing her on safety around toxic chemicals. She's too tired to
bother trying to come up with a plausible story that's closer to the
truth, so she just endures it.

She's still sitting in the exam room waiting for her chart to be signed
off on so she can leave when Doggett appears. "How are you doing?"

"As well as can be expected. There shouldn't be any lasting effects."

"Good. I've put an APV out on the perp."

This raises an eyebrow. "What perp?"

"The guy who did this to you," Doggett replies, sounding as if this
ought to be self-evident.

"John, there is no perp, not any more. You killed him."

"I think I'd know if I'd killed someone," Doggett says stiffly.

"You saw it! It dissolved after you shot it in the neck!" Scully
exclaims angrily.

The skeptical look never leaves Doggett's face. "I saw something. I'll
grant you that much."

"What's your interpretation of what you saw today with your very own
eyes?" Scully asks. "Starting with early this afternoon."

"I saw someone made up to look like agent Mulder fall off a cliff."

"Someone?" she asks him sounding like she can barely believe her ears.
"How do you explain that someone looking exactly like my husband?"

He doesn't look intimidated. "Actors. That would be my guess."

"Actors?"

Doggett frowns little. "Doubles. They say that Saddam Hussein had
hundreds of 'em."

"And you think that the motive for hiring an actor to look like my
husband is?" Scully asks impatiently.

All at once Doggett looks sure of himself. "To ruin his reputation. He
has enemies. You've said so yourself. What better to way to ruin a
man's reputation then make it seem like he's doing something crazy like
kidnapping a young boy?"

"Sure. And how do you explain the dueling Skinners? More actors?"

Doggett looks confused for a second, but quickly regroups. "We were
worried about you. After he splashed that stuff in your eyes, he took
advantage of our confusion and ran off."

The look in his eyes causes Scully to feel a deep disappointment. She'd
thought after seeing two Skinners he would believe the truth. But it
clearly was not the case. She felt a crazy urge to laugh when she
wondered what Mulder would say about trying to make a skeptic believe.
If he were there to ask none of this would be a problem.

"How much longer do you plan to waste our time out here?" Scully asks
him.

"As soon as you're cleared to leave, we've got a flight back to DC,"
Doggett says. "At least we should. Skinner is calling about tickets
now."

"What about Gibson?"

"I'm taking custody of the boy."

"On whose authority?" she demands to know.

"AD Kersh's. It'd only put other people in danger if we returned him to
that school, so it seemed best to have him guarded on a constant basis.
I can't think of a better way to do that than to have custody of him."

"I suppose neither you nor Kersh asked him how he feels about it."

Doggett blinks. "He seemed to like Luke when they met last year. I
don't think it strikes him as a bad deal."

"Except for the fact that you think he's going to be live bait to bring
Mulder to you."

"No," he denies, but there's a lack of conviction in his voice. "I've
been officially assigned to the X-Files now, so it makes sense to keep
him near. That's all."

That's all, she thinks. If only.

~*~*~

Mid-Flight

Doggett and Gibson sit a few rows back, which is something that Scully
feels a small measure of gratitude for. Friend or not, Doggett isn't
someone she feels like talking to just then. And having a mind reader
sit next to her would make her feel paranoid. He can probably read her
thoughts from anywhere on the plane, but the distance gives her the
illusion of privacy.

Watching him talk to Reyes before they got on the plane had been
painful. It evoked her memories of leaving Kevin Kryder behind after
resolving his case. The other woman may or may not have talked to
Gibson about wanting him to live with her, but it was evident that he
knew either way. And for all of Doggett's assertion that he was happy
with his new arrangement, it was plain to see that he'd rather of
stayed with her. Just as they were walking away, Scully thought she
heard Reyes tell him that she'd look into being transferred to DC.
Though she wasn't sure if that's what she said, whatever it was did put
a smile on the boy's face.

The navy blue outside the jet's window insists that she ought to be
able to sleep on the flight, but her brain doesn't agree. Instead her
mind races as she tries to cope with conflicting emotions.

Even though she told herself repeatedly that they weren't going to find
Mulder out in the Arizona desert, she's still vaguely disappointed.
She's relieved that the exam showed that no lasting harm to herself or
the baby would result from her encounter with the alien bounty hunter,
but a bit ashamed too since she'd given her unborn child little thought
all day. This baby feels more like a dream to her than any of the
others have, and it bothers her that she can't figure out if it's
because she's lost another recently, or because her husband isn't there
to help her believe it's real. She has the impulse to keep the baby
entirely to herself until he returns, but part of her is afraid that
her pregnancy will be obvious long before then.

She's also resigned to the fact that Missy will most likely tell her
within the coming days that she and Alex are expecting a baby too.
Missy had tried to play off uncertainty, but she could tell that her
sister was holding back, maybe because she didn't think she could deal
with others having good news. And Scully wasn't sure that she could.

Most of all, she is conflicted about returning home to her children.
It's what she wants more than anything, because it only took being
apart from them for a few hours before she missed them intensely. She
wants to gather them to her, and know they're safe. But she doesn't
want to explain to them that their father is still missing. That
they're no closer to finding him. She can't bear to break their little
hearts.

But she knows that she will.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Two

The Scully/Mulder (and Krycek?) household.
5:37 a.m.

Scully shut the door behind her and locks it. She felt terrible about
using the kids as a diversionary tactic, but honestly, Krycek said he'd
promised Mulder to take care of their kids - why did he want to butt in
on Gibson Praise, too? Honestly, as if John was incapable of taking
care of kids... although she did share Krycek's reservations about John
using Gibson to find Mulder.

The redhead frowns. 

That's the *only* thought they're agreeing on, and her scowl deepens,
thinking of how nearly the double agent had her thinking one more kid
wouldn't hurt. As if Emily staying over wasn't enough, that Krycek
wanted to bring a teen boy in as well??? Sighing, she slowly sinks onto
the bed. It's so tempting to lie down, but she knows if she does,
she'll never be able to leave for work, and she's not even close to
ready yet.

"Dammit," she sighs, and starts when the phone rings. "Jeez." Picking
up, she says, "Scully."

"Dana, thank goodness," her sister says at the other end.

"Missy? What's wrong?" Scully wonders. It's rare that she hears from
her sister in the morning, rarer still that said sister sounds grateful
to be talking to her.

"It's about Alex," Missy says without preamble. "He thinks Emily should
be staying at your place this weekend, but it's been *a week* since
I've seen my baby..."

Any other time, Scully would be happy to hear these maternal sentiments
from her older sister, but right now, with her hormones sending her
into emotional loops, plus with Mulder missing and the dubious Krycek
setting up shop as nanny - well, let's just say she's not quite in the
right frame of mind to appreciate it. "Missy, he's here out of
obligation, though I'm still not sure why," she admits, "but settling
custody disputes between the two of you, well, I honestly don't think
that's my job."

"I don't care!" Missy shouts. "Look, he has to listen to you ‘cause
you're his boss. Tell him he has to let Emily stay at my place this
weekend or you're garnishing his wages!"

 She would laugh if she could, or maybe she should replay that earlier
argument to her sister. "I'm not his boss, he's my pain in the ass,"
Scully groans, and not just because this second argument's giving her a
monster headache. The nausea's kicking in again, and with this kind of
distraction, she's in no mood to fight, much less deal with her
sister's relationship crap. "Missy, just talk to him," she mutters,
willing her bile to stay in her churning stomach.

"Dana," Missy whines, and you'd think their birth order's been
switched. "I've tried, and he's still fixated on this idea that all the
kids herded together would make them safe."

"I know, but he's *your*," Scully almost chokes on the word, "fiancé,
why don't you, I don't know," she starts waving her free hand, trying
to think clearly, "blow him or something?" Then she hits her head. Man,
she is *not* thinking clearly.

"Is that how you solve your problems with Fox?" Her older sister
pounces on the opening. "Sex?"

"If talking doesn't work," Scully says between her teeth, "try shooting
him in the shoulder."

"Da-naaaaaa," Missy drags out the second syllable, "I'm being serious!"

"So am I," Scully snaps. "Look, I know you, and when you set your mind
to something, you get it done. Right now, you're wasting time trying to
persuade me when you should be persuading him. I don't care what you
do, take off his other arm and beat him over the head with it for all I
care, just do it!"

Missy's about to snap, "Okay!" but finds that her stomach's starting to
churn uncomfortably. When her stomach settles, she strives to remember
the last thing Dana said and regain momentum. "Couldn't you give him a
day off or something?"

"I'd LOVE to give him a day off." Scully closes her eyes, as if that
would make the pounding and nausea go away. "If you want, I'll even
DRIVE Emily over--" and claps a hand to her mouth, dropping the phone
before running to the toilet.

"Hey, I can just drive over and GET her!" Missy yells back, before
doubling over and clapping a hand to her own mouth.

When Scully gets back to the dropped phone, all she hears is a
disconnected tone and she puts the cordless back onto the set.
Groaning, she sheds her pajamas before hitting the shower, selfishly
hoping that her sister is throwing up more than she did and not
regretting the thought one bit.

~*~*~ 

The X-Files Basement Office

This is one of those days when she'd love to have a cup of coffee – or
perhaps a shot of valium would do the trick. Nobody should have to deal
with two arguments before a shower, and yet, she'd had just that with
Missy and Krycek. In a way, she knows she should be happy that she has
people to depend on, family to argue with, and then a shudder goes up
her spine. She had automatically included Alex Krycek as part of the
family. Yikes. Can this day get any worse?

She can hear male voices chattering in the hallway, getting closer.
"So, this is where the bad kids are banished to," one says.

Another chuckles, "Put me down here I'd probably cook up a lot of
crazy ideas, too."

She can hear the men laughing, and now she forgets about coffee or
valium, she'd like an assault rifle. The two men, with Doggett in
front, stop laughing when they see her. Idiots. It's clear that
Doggett, Styrofoam coffee cup in hand, is surprised to see her, even
though it is her office. "Good morning," she says levelly.

"Morning." He nods, with a casualness that would, to most observers,
cover his tenseness. He turns to the two jokers. "Uh... I'll catch you
guys later." They say nothing, but their posture and averted eyes
display clearly what they think of the short redhead standing in the
middle of the office.
 
"Are you sure you're in the right office?" Scully says, raising an
eyebrow.
 
A lesser man would have been taken aback by the belligerent and
commanding tone, but Doggett's time in the Marines and years with his
ex-wife have made him mostly immune to this sort of thing. Mostly.

"Sure am," he says mildly, "been here all weekend and early this
morning and went over every X-File in the cabinet there to get an idea
of what exactly you and Fox have been working on." He holds up his
Styrofoam cup. "Just left to get some coffee." He knew it would be a
little strange working with a friend, but after reading all those
files, he's surprised things aren't stranger. Hell, he's surprised
*she* isn't stranger.
 
Scully forces herself to breathe normally and give this
friend-who's-turned-into-an-insensitive-prick/coworker a chance. After
all, even she didn't come into this office with an open mind, and it's
not like John had personally experienced weird shit before being thrown
into an actual X-File. "Well," and she finds herself forcing herself to
be not just civil, but friendly, "do you have any questions?"
 
"Just a few," he says, and she can see he's got at least a thousand,
especially if he's read all the files he's claimed to. "Maybe first you
could tell me where your area is here and... uh.... where mine's going
to be."
 
Now she's taken aback. Good question. Every thing in this room was so
much hers and Mulder's, the mundane and insane objects alike all shared
with her partner, that she wasn't quite sure where to put the new guy.
She almost smiles. ‘New guy'. Yeah, John was joking earlier, but
apparently, Kersh's assignment is sticking. "We'll play musical chairs
later," she says, "for now, we've got a case."
 
He raises both eyebrows. "Okay."
 
As she turns on the slide projector, he turns off the ceiling light.
"Homicides: Two," Scully says matter-of-factly, as if she's run all the
cases by herself for years rather than weeks, "in Idaho. White male,
62, undertaker by profession, he was killed on his front porch about
ten feet away from his wife." She presses the button for the next
slide.

"Holy God," Doggett breathes, as an image of a tall man fills the wall,
the dead man's face and neck all torn and bloody. The
ex-Marine-and-ex-cop winces as he stares at it.
 
"Cause of death was blood loss from numerous deep wounds ... from
bites." She pauses, then addresses him in her teacher voice. "Any
thoughts, any questions?"
 
Doggett walks closer to the image, squinting harder. "'Bites'?"

"On his head, torso and hands. Two of his fingers are missing, eaten
off," Scully replies, a small smile on her face. For some reason, Darth
Vader's "Now the student has become the master" comes to mind, and
while it is fun being the one with more expertise in this office, for
once, she hopes it won't remain the case for long.

"By what, an animal?"

Doggett's question brings her back to the here and now. "These were
murders," she emphasizes the last word deliberately. "The bites on his
wife appear to be human." The next button push shows the slide of the
dead woman.

The lines in his forehead deepen as he sees the woman's picture. "I've
seen some violent crimes, I mean, some seriously screwed up stuff, but,
uh... this is extreme." He turns around to face her. "Is there
demonstration of motive?"

She shakes her head. "Not according to local P.D."

Man, she's worse than the FBI instructors, he thinks, before he
belatedly remembers that she *was* an instructor before joining Mulder
in this basement office and those crazy cases. "Is there any pattern,
uh ... ritual or anything?" Somehow, he isn't surprised when Scully
shakes her head. So he gives in, something he rarely did in either
basic or FBI training. "I gotta admit, Agent Scully, I'm at a loss."

Hate to go all Zen on you, John, but since Mulder isn't here, it's my
job to get you up to speed. "Well, that's a good place to start."

~*~*~

Burley, Idaho
11:18 a.m.
 
They pull up to the man's house in a blue rental, cops still swarming
around the scene. A large red-haired man, hands on hips, turns and
walks over when they step out of the car. "You the folks from the FBI?"
 
Here we go, Scully thinks. "Yeah."
 
"Yale Abbott, Cassia County Sheriff's."
 
"Hi. Agent Scully," she says, shaking his hand. "This is Agent
Doggett."
 
As if she'd said the magic words, the detective ignores her once
Doggett's introduced. "We like to think we can handle our own problems
around here, but a couple hotshots up in the county seat seem to think
this is beyond us," he gives a look of shared confidence to the other
man. "Not that we don't appreciate your coming out all this way to give
us a hand," he smiles in what he thinks is a friendly fashion.

"Well, I hope we can. I have to admit I'm a little baffled by what I've
seen."

Detective Abbott raises his eyebrows and his britches. "Oh, really?"
Scully interjects in a brisk, business-like tone, as if she hadn't been
rudely ignored by the big idiot, "Understand, Detective, that we've
seen cases like yours regularly on our unit. Agent Doggett has only
just been assigned to the X-Files." Even a blind man can see the
detective's attitude is condescendingly polite, but she proceeds to
ignore that. Somebody's gotta be a professional around here, and she'll
be damned if it isn't her. "I can assure you that there's nothing
baffling about human bite marks." 

That smug-ass smile is still on his face. "Well, that's just what I was
getting around to, ma'am. We're not so sure now that these bites are
human." His heavy boots clump onto the porch, and they follow after
him. "The bodies were discovered by neighbors, so there was
contamination of the general crime scene. My boys did a real damn good
job of separating the various shoe prints and pulling these. Come on
over." Like a kid at show-and-tell, he shows them a dusted animal-like
footprint with four toes. "Right there, see that?"

Doggett's finding that pleading ignorance in this scenario is better
than faking knowledge. "What is it?"
 
"It's not human, I know that," the detective answers, drawing up his
chest.
 
Scully hunches down, inspecting it. "It's not quite animal, either."

Detective Abbott doesn't bother to hide his condescension. "There's
only four toes."

She stands back up, giving the detective a level look, as if he were
shorter than her. That's not an unheard of birth defect," she says
matter-of-factly, "no more rare than polydactylism."

The two lawmen stare at her, then at each other. "What did she just
say?" the detective looks at his fellow man for a translation.

"I assume she means it could be human." Doggett turns to his partner.
"Is that a fair assumption?"

Maybe I should just go home, take a nice long shower to wash the
testosterone and stupidity off my skin, and play with the kids, she
thinks, but her more reasonable side tells her that that would be
acting as narrow-minded as the men. Dammit. When she answers, she
doesn't bother to hide her irritation. "I say that assumption is the
problem here. A strange print is found and immediately the most
important piece of evidence is just thrown out to try and force an
explanation. Maybe this print can help explain those bite marks." She
waves at it, then unconsciously planting herself in front of it as if
to protect it.
 
"How?" the detective asks.

She smiles sweetly, but Doggett can see there are steel teeth in it.
"We just got here, detective, and you want us to solve something with a
print you can't even identify?"

Though she be little, yet she is fierce, Doggett recalls from a
Shakespearean play in a long-ago English class. Trying to smooth things
over, he says, "Well, I have to say I've worked a lot of homicides but
if the victims laid out here for any time at all in a setting like
this, it'd be pretty remarkable if they didn't attract animals."

John, John, Scully wants to hit her head against the porch post, please
don't tell me stupidity is contagious. "I think that post-mortem
predation is definitely a consideration here, but I only see one print
and if it were an animal there would be numerous prints all over here
and in the yard." They look at all the deputies and technicians
standing in the yard. And only now the local law start walking
carefully, searching for any clues they may have inadvertently
contaminated. "What do you think, Agent Doggett?"

I'm thinking that maybe I should look for another office, but Doggett
says aloud, "I'm going to go take a look around." He makes his escape
by going into the house.

"You know I got two old folks in the morgue mauled beyond recognition,"
the detective states the obvious, while Scully looks up at the porch
rafters. "I have no motive to go on, no intent. There's not one shred
of evidence that cries out for a human explanation, yet you stand there
telling me flat out that what we're looking for is a man. Thanks for
everything, Agent Scully. We'll take it from here." He starts to walk
off, satisfied by the sound of his noise, er, voice.

"I'm sure your explanation will mollify all those hotshots down at the
county seat, Detective, and relieve any general anxiety about what this
thing might be ... but only until it strikes again." There's a slight
smile on her face, but it's one that she'd recognize on her husband
rather than her own. "And one more thing: I never said that what you're
looking for is a man." She lets him leave, and she exhales, wishing it
was possible to empty a bottle of wine without hurting her baby. Yeah,
and Doggett might start believing in aliens today.
 
As if prompted, Doggett calls from inside the house, "Agent Scully."
He waits until she joins him at the foot of the stairs. "That a second
print?" he points to the bottom step.
 
She nods. "It could be, but I'm not sure if it tells us anything."
 
"Well, maybe there's no prints in the yard because whatever made these
didn't go through the yard," Doggett says reasonably. "It came through
the house."

"Well, if anything, I'd say this print leads up the stairs." Scully
looks up, and so does he.

They go upstairs, and when he looks under the bed, Doggett calls out,
"Think I've got another partial here." He knows this is still a trial
period, for the both of them, it seems, but the whole thing is starting
to border on the ridiculous. Just because there's a question of what
might have killed the old couple doesn't mean it's some kind of
mysterious X-File. After all, there were a few casefiles with mundane
resolutions. "You know, there is a more obvious explanation."

"Mm-hmm," Scully says, still intent on the print.

"The more basic answer is what we're dealing with here is simply a
man," he proposes, already knowing she won't like his answer. It seems
she's determined to be stubborn about the whole thing, to make it an
X-File. "A psychotic killer with a deformed foot. You're familiar with
the principle of Occam's Razor?"

She turns and gives him a look. I'm a physician and a physicist, of
course I know. But she simply answers, "You take every possible
explanation and you choose the simplest one." Then her chin lifts, and
she tilts her head expectantly. "Unless you have a simple explanation
as to how a killer with a deformed foot leaves a print only every 25
feet."

"No." Not yet, anyway, he thinks.

"Or to what he'd even be doing up here," Scully continues, as he walks
over to the window.

"I don't know," he grunts, trying to open the damn thing. "I'm trying
to figure it out just like you are." Of course. Painted shut. What he
needs is more clues, not some ironic metaphors.

Scully, on the other hand, goes into the small closet. Wow, the guy
must be a mortician, she thinks, all dark suits and white shirts. Or
Mulder gone monochrome. It would be a joke she'd share with Mulder, she
thinks, looking up, and misses him all over again. "Agent Doggett," she
says, and they both look up at the open hatch to the attic.

Helpfully, he grabs a chair, and she stands on it, then he boosts her
up into the attic. She blinks, trying to get her eyes adjusted to the
darkness. There are only slivers of light, which doesn't illuminate the
room, but rather emphasizes how dark the damn place is. "There's gotta
be Jungian symbolism around here somewhere," she mutters, suddenly
feeling very weary. Is she missing Mulder so much that she's
improvising wiseass remarks in his place? Granted, her snapping at the
detective was well-provoked, but she usually didn't respond to idiotic
provocation like that, even during her previous pregnancies.

"What do you see?" Doggett's gravelly voice interrupts her ruminations.
"Agent Scully?"

She smiles and shakes her head. Of the two of them to go exploring in a
dark and possibly dangerous place, it's a pregnant doctor rather than
the ex-cop that's up here, though only one of them is aware of that.
Her hand's on her gun as she replies, "Right now, not a heck of a lot."

Her reply prompts him to haul his ass up there, finally. She tries to
open a nearby window, but, like the bedroom window downstairs, it ain't
budging. "If there was anything up here, it might have gone out that
window."

Doggett reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small Mag-Lite. Switching
it on, he asks, "You ever carry one of these?"

Let's just chalk this up to hormonal amnesia, she thinks, like I'll
ever tell him. "No, never," she replies drily, pulling out her own
Mag-Lite.

Must be my lucky day for finding weird clues, Doggett thinks, seeing
two mutilated fingers on an old table. " ‘V' for victory," he mutters.

"What?" Scully turns around.

Doggett straightens up. "You said the male victim was missing two
fingers? Well, how did the fingers get up here?" He waves his
flashlight at the ghastly sight.

Scully looks at the fingers, and the smell of bile makes her own bile
rise. Turning away, she forces herself to swallow, and she amazes
herself by answering calmly, "Well, from their smell, I'd say they were
regurgitated." She doesn't bother to hide her disgust. "Recently."

"By what?"

Scully looks up at the attic rafters and isn't surprised to see some
deep gouges in the wood. The ironies just keep on coming, she thinks, I
catch the high claw marks, John gets the floor prints and slimy
fingers. "I saw those marks on the porch, too," she notes.

Doggett looks up, too. "Looks like, to me... I don't know. Like it
was... it was..."

She finishes the sentence. "Hanging there?"

~*~*~

McKesson Residence
5:51 p.m.

 Later that day, Scully is thankful she's done with both the autopsy
and yet one more argument with Doggett about what might have killed the
old mortician. Oddly enough, however, she was starting to lean towards
"animal attack" when Doggett came in with that old newspaper clipping.

Thanks to both clipping and autopsy, however, the detective and his
crew are in the house, too. Goody. Scully is busy rooting around the
cupboards and notes that the sight and sound of all those callous men
wreaking havoc in the house is probably making Mrs. McKesson spin in
her grave.
 
Meanwhile, upstairs, Doggett's checking out the deep gouges in the
windowsill, latex gloves on hands. The detective thuds rather than
walks over, his boots hitting the old wooden floorboards heavily with
each step. "You see those marks, right? And the ones over here on the
rafter?" the cop jerks a thumb upwards as Doggett looks up. "If you ask
me, those look like claw marks. I don't care what kind of a savage he
is, what did this isn't human."
 
Doggett's eyes crinkle at the edges, although his lips purse
automatically, as if accustomed to watching his words. "Well, if I may
speak for Agent Scully, I think we're both prepared to concede that
point, Detective."
 
"Then you know what this thing is?" Detective Abbott raises his
eyebrows.
 
"I've got a newspaper article I want to show you," the FBI agent says,
reaching into his jacket. He hears Scully coming up the stairs, and
times his reveal more slowly, since he'd like Scully to see the look on
the detective's face when he shows the guy the article. "A rather
strange account from 1956..."
 
Scully hates to steal the new guy's thunder – wait, who is she
kidding? Even if it is John Doggett, she's glad to have something
decent to show for it. "I found a photo album. I think it's our first
break on this case."
 
The detective turns around. "What is it?" he says it out of bland
courtesy rather than real curiosity.
 
She holds up the photo album, bagged in plastic. "The victim's
daughter – Ariel - her dead body was pulled from the river here last
week."

Detective Abbott barely nods. "I got that call. Had to come tell Mrs.
McKesson the bad news. You trying to say there's some kind of
connection?" He gives her a dubious stare.

Scully returns the stare and then some. "Well, you not only told her
mother that her 62-year-old daughter was dead but that her body had
been horribly and inexplicably burned. A daughter who, by the way, she
hadn't even seen in over 40 years. Since 1956, to be exact - which is
the date your article says those first killings started." Doggett
glances at his newspaper article, then back at her.
 
As she expected, the detective turns back to Doggett. "Do you see the
connection?"
 
Doggett hates to be made a fool of, he really does, but even he's not
sure what's going on now. "I'm not, uh... sure where you're going with
this, Agent Scully."
 
As if she's talking to a group of small children, Scully states simply
but firmly, "The daughter is the connection."
 
And, like a small, and obstinate, child, detective Abbott asks, "How
is that?"

How to explain a Mulder-leap to a man who hasn't met her husband, much
less dealt with the unexplained on a near-regular basis? Even she's not
sure, but she knows in her gut that that's the call her husband would
make. "I don't know exactly," she admits, without apology, "but these
killings only started up since her burned body has been found."

Now the detective stares at her in out-and-out disbelief. "Honest to
God. You just jump at whatever explanation is the wildest and most
far-fetched, don't you?"

Scully's only inward consolation is that Mr. Testosterone would be
giving Mulder that same look, albeit with a little less condescension
for having been born with a penis. "Well, I suggest that you jump at
it, too," she snaps at him, "because her body may have been burned for
a reason and you're going to want to exhume it in order to find out
why."

Detective Abbott squints at her. "You want me to dig up a dead body
when I have real people out there whose lives are in real danger?"

"Hey." Doggett steps between his partner and the cop, sensing either a
pissing match or an all-out brawl, and uses both his body and his
lowered voice as a buffer, or at least a more reasonable front of the
FBI to the cop. He's relieved when detective Abbott gives his assent
and leaves, but sees that his partner isn't too pleased about what
transpired. Or at least, that's how he'd phrase it in his report,
should it have to come to that.

She doesn't pull any punches when she asks, "What did you say to 
him?"

Oh boy, he thinks. "Well, I told him to dig up the body. Isn't that
what you wanted?"

"What else did you say to him?"

He'd like the pause to last forever, and it shows. "Well, I told him
that you were... um... a... leading authority on paranormal phenomena
and who are we to argue with an expert."

She wants to scream, hit her head repeatedly against a wall, and tear
her hair out, not necessarily in that order. "Look, I am not an
expert," she declares. "I am a scientist who happens to have seen a
lot. I am just making a leap here."

If he was Hannah's age, he'd be shifting from one foot to the next,
biting his thumbnail. Hell, he'd do it right now if she weren't
standing in front of him. "Well, I am sure you have your reasons."

 "So, what, you told him to exhume the body when you don't even
necessarily believe me yourself?" she says, not bothering to hide her
frustration. Honestly, it's as if he'd never heard of the X-Files
before coming to this small town.

This is one of those days when he'd cheerfully throw up his hands and
walk out like that detective, but he's part of the X-Files now, and
besides that, there's no way he'd let Scully tackle the bizarre cases
by herself with a bunch of kids at home. Call him sexist or crazy, but
he was both raised and trained never to leave a partner or a woman in
the lurch. So he tries to make amends with the fiery woman who's as
much a legend down in the basement as Mulder.

Sighing, he replies, "I told you I spent the weekend looking through
that cabinet full of X-Files and I saw how pretty much every X-File
broke - with a leap." His mouth purses a little. "Now, maybe I'm just
an old-fashioned cop, but I don't take leaps. In my experience, leaps
only get people killed," he explains, wondering if she'll at least give
him a break.

Fat chance. "Well, I'd say that you're taking a pretty big leap
believing in that article... about a human bat," she holds his pale
blue eyes with her own. He stares back, then nods before walking away.

~*~*~

Slade River
4:28 p.m.

For some reason, she isn't too surprised when the detective is attacked
and killed by the monster, but it gives her no pleasure having her
theory vindicated by his death. Scully wonders how Mulder continues to
go out on a limb each and every single case, knowing that his ideas,
even his very person, will be mocked, even though he's more than often
right. Hell, she wonders how he's managed to put up with her skepticism
forcing him to work that much harder, and that serves to remind her not
only of her missing husband, but also to give her new partner a little
slack.

Which is why she's gratified to see Doggett's willing to do a little
give and take when it comes to linking the victims with the creature
who looks like a bat, but kills with human intent. Granted, it took
autopsying Ariel McKesson's body to do that, plus Doggett's article to
put the pieces together, but at least he wasn't holding anything back.
She was relieved, of course, when she and Doggett found Myron Stefaniuk
alive and well the next morning, having hunted all over the damn place
trying to find him. Or at least alive and grumpy. Scully can understand
why the old man doesn't believe, since fear and denial can be tempting
alternatives when dealing with a bizarre death threat. Heavens knows
she's had plenty of time and occasions with which to indulge in both.

Which is probably why she and Doggett are sitting in the rental car,
watching Mr. Myron Stefaniuk through binoculars. While the old man is
filling five gallon gas cans from a tank in his yard with a plastic
siphon, Scully remarks, "You know, we've been out here for nine hours.
The only thing this man seems to be in danger of is terminal
loneliness," she mutters, and Doggett chuckles at her joke. With the
evidence in front of them, however, Scully's less jovial and more
depressed. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is all just a," she pauses,
hating to admit to yet another mistake in the same case, "a grand
coincidence and we're wasting our time out here."

Now he looks at her. "You were so sure before."

She closes her eyes, rather than facing his look of disbelief and
disappointment. "Yeah, I was sure of the facts as I had deduced them
scientifically. Maybe I'm... I'm trying to force them into shape. Maybe
I'm manufacturing a theory."

He's not letting up, not after all she's been through with not only
him, but the detective and the old man. "Well, what happened to taking
a leap?"

"Maybe I'm just trying too hard," she says miserably.

"To do what? To be Mulder?" She opens her eyes, and sees he's serious.
"You know, I'm not Oxford educated. About all I know about the
paranormal is men are from Mars and women are from Venus," and he's a
little relieved to see a small smile on her tired face. "But I don't
think you're wrong, Agent Scully."

Now she's curious. "What makes you say that?"

He shrugs. "Well, I'm no Fox Mulder, but I can tell when a man's hiding
something." He looks out over at their stakeout subject. "Myron
Stefaniuk fishes a woman out of the river who's been gone for 40 years.
He has a brother he hasn't seen in over 40 years. A brother who just
happened to hunt down some kind of creature over 40 years ago."

"Well, what does he have to hide?" Scully also looks at the old man.
Doggett finally allows a real smile to cross his features, which have
been forced into a kind of mask for at least the last 48 hours. "Well,
that's what I'm hoping this good cop work is going to show us."

Scully glances over at him and smiles back, then raises her binoculars
again. They both watch as Stefaniuk hauls the last of the gas cans into
the back of his truck. From a safe distance, they follow his truck,
which appears to be loaded with more supplies than just gas cans, to
his raft by the river. "That's good cop work, all right," Scully
remarks when the old man places the gas cans on the raft and begins
hauling them across to the island in the middle of the river.

"I got a good idea of who he's delivering to, don't you?" Doggett
murmurs as they watch Stefaniuk continue his labors.

"How are you with boats, Agent Doggett?" she asks with a straight face.

~*~*~

Bird Island 
9:17 p.m.

In a way, this is almost too easy, Scully thinks as she and Doggett
join Ernie Stefaniuk in his cabin. It's as if the human bat is playing
a gruesome game of connect-the-dots: the mortician and Mrs. McKesson
leading to Ariel McKesson, leading to the detective's death, leading to
Myron Stefaniuk, leading to Ernie Stefaniuk. So far, the old men are
winning the odds, but it still feels odd to her, especially after
seeing that bat nailed to the door.

"How's a man supposed to live when his fear becomes obsession?" Ernie
looks from one FBI agent to the other. "You'd do the same thing. Who
wouldn't who wanted to live?"

Doggett squints at the older man. "You never left the island?"

Ernie shakes his head. "44 years - I wouldn't dare knowing it was out
there. That it could come back for me."

Doggett's eyes become more piercing. "You know something about it?
About what this thing is?"

The old man takes a quick read off the man in the suit, then replies,
"I know on the evolutionary ladder bats are real close by the apes and
just as we came from the apes so might a man, sprung from a bat. To
live and hunt like a bat but with the cold-blooded vengeance of a man."

Scully frowns. "Even if that were true, sir, how could it possibly find
you out here on an island?"

"I needed to cut off all contact," he answers heavily. "Communication
could be only one-way. My brother helped me." Ernie chokes a little,
"And then there was my wife."

"It was her body your brother pulled in," Doggett says, understanding.
It's painful to watch, much less hear, Ernie's story. "She gave up
everything to be with me. I forbade her to tell her mother. Forty-four
years on six acres of island, she made only one demand. To be buried in
consecrated earth. She was a Catholic her whole life," he gasps, tears
running down his face.

Scully and Doggett look at each other before she replies. "Mr.
Stefaniuk," she says, deciding to be direct, even though it's like
adding more bad news on top of his pain, "it's killed four people. All
of whom would have had traces of your scent through various degrees of
contact with your wife's body."

Ernie's gaze goes from teary to sharp. "My brother?"

"Your brother's okay, Ernie," Doggett reassures him.

Ernie shakes his head. "But he had contact with Ariel's body. It'll
come after him, too."

Scully jumps in to calm the old man down, his paranoia rising again.
"He's all right. We spoke with him earlier today."

"Today? Today, he might have been fine but this thing hunts likes a
bat," he says, his eyes wide. "It only attacks at night."

Doggett looks at Scully, and the phrase, Oh shit, is on their face, if
not their lips. "Stay here," Doggett tells his partner, pulling out his
gun. "Stay with him."

Scully nods, also pulling out her own weapon as her partner leaves.

 ~*~*~

While Doggett gets a face-to-face with a creature he didn't quite
believe, Scully takes a look out the window before closing the drapes.
As she tells Ernie about how she and Doggett tracked him down, it
doesn't take long before even her not-quite-Mulder-leap makes her
uncomfortable. "Well, I," she pauses, "I made the connections, but it
was Agent Doggett that got us out here."

The old man's eyes are sharp. "You ought to be wishing he hadn't."

"Excuse me?" Scully says, surprised.

"The moment you stepped foot here," Ernie clarifies. "You're marked
now, you know that."

There's no way in hell I'm sitting on this island, away from my
children, away from the world, away from searching for Mulder, she
thinks defiantly. "Sir, I'm here to protect you."

"And how are you going to do that? You thought of everything," he
notes. "Except that."

Dammit, he's right, she thinks. Mulder would've taken that into
consideration. Dammit! "Well, this thing, Mr. Stefaniuk," she says,
forcing herself as much as him to believe, "is still flesh and blood.
It can be killed." 

He coughs rather than laughs. "What do you think? It's just going to
come walking through the door, there?" he points, and they both look at
the door. "It's waited 44 years. It'll wait out there as long as it
takes until you can't stand it anymore." He lowers his head. "How long
can you wait, huh? A lifetime? To live in fear like this, a young woman
- are you prepared to sacrifice family, chhildren and spend your life
terrorized by a monster?"

Before she can or would answer, a loud beeping sounds from a monitor on
the table. As they move toward it, she sees a radar display. "What is
that?"

"It's ground radar," Ernie answers, nervous. "The sensor's set at ten
feet high. Anything big enough to set it off is coming in through the
trees."

There's a thumping on the roof, and Scully automatically points her gun
upwards. She fires through the roof nine times, then five more times.
Her eyes wide, gun still upraised, she asks, "You hear it?"

"No," he says, but there's no relief in his voice.

While she reloads, Scully says, "Maybe I got it. Maybe I killed it."

Cautiously, she opens the door and looks out, but sees nothing. "If
you've got a gun, get it," she says without turning around. Gun out,
the petite agent closes the door and goes outside. Looking up at the
roof, she sees more of nothing. Her heart hammering, she continues to
inspect the perimeter with her weapon out, forcing her eyes to adjust
to the murky night.

It isn't long, however, before she hears Ernie scream and spins around,
seeing a shotgun blast explode through the roof. All of her maternal
instincts, plus her more-than-human ones are telling her to run the
hell away, but she can't. Running back inside, she sees the damn mutant
bat savagely attacking Ernie. Hearing her, it looks up, its mouth
bloody, and it almost seems as if it's telling her she's next. Without
hesitating, Scully fires into its back, but the freak screeches and
flies out. Running after it, she's surprised by Doggett coming in,
looking like he's already met the monster.

"Agent Scully," he rasps, relieved to see she's all right, that he's
not too late. When her eyes widen, he doesn't have time to turn around,
the monster comes at him from above and slams him to the ground.

Sonofabitch, Doggett thinks, the adrenaline keeping him angry and awake
enough to fire as much as he can, but the damn thing still flies off,
shrieking like a stuck pig. His head pounding, he grimaces as Scully
grasps his arm to pull him up into a sitting position. "You okay?" he
asks, rotely.

She forces herself to smile. "Yeah, I'm okay." Scully's already noted
how he winced when she pulled him up, plus his eyes already unfocusing.

"But you're not, Agent Doggett. Whoa, I got you," she says, gently
laying him down. She's relieved that he's now out for the count, since
she figures he probably wouldn't enjoy screaming while she checks out
his battle scars. When the mutant bat screeches, Scully whips her head
up, staring into the trees, trying to locate the creature. "Dammit,"
she sighs, pulling out her gun again, this is gonna be a long night.

~*~*~

X-Files Office 
Two Weeks Later

Sitting behind the desk, Scully closes her eyes, using Mulder's
nameplate to tap out a rapid, but soothing, rhythm. Today was actually
a good day at home. Granted, she's still getting used to the idea, much
less the sight, of Krycek playing with her children, but she has to
admit he's pretty good with them. She groans. Out of all the weirdness
she's encountered on the X-Files, why does it have to be the stuff at
home that's the weirdest? Her brilliant husband and partner, after
sharing a haunted home and large family with her, being abducted by the
freaky aliens they've sworn to fight against, who apparently asked Alex
Krycek, of all people, to help look after the kids. Yes, Krycek, a
dubious double agent, being not only her sister's lover and father of
their artificially-created child, but also her children's nanny. What
the hell happened to her life??? "Okay, maybe he will be good for
Missy, but it doesn't mean I have to like it," she glares, slamming
Mulder's nameplate on the desk.

 Doggett's eyes widen when he walks in. "Sorry I'm late," he says, "did
I miss anything?"

 Scully sighs, shaking her head while murmuring a mental apology to
Mulder for abusing his property. "Um, no, come on in," she says when
she sees Doggett hesitating at the doorway.

Doggett holds up a paper, seemingly businesslike, but more like a white
flag, as he walks in. "I received a fax up in my old office from
Ernie's brother, Myron Stefaniuk."

She sits up. "He's alive? Where is he?"

Handing the fax over, Doggett makes a face. "He doesn't say. He sent
this from a small storefront business just across the state line in
Wyoming. He's gone into hiding."

Scully scans the fax, then looks up. "Do you believe it, Agent
Doggett?"

He can see that's a loaded question, especially in this office.
"Believe it?"

"That this thing is still out there and someday it's going to come
after us?" she asks. Not that she doubts his integrity or willingness
to put himself in the line of fire, it's just that, yeah, this office,
the casefiles, have a way of taking the most out of you, making you
question not only your beliefs, but also your sanity at times. She's
not sure how Mulder did it on his own for so long, but if she can't
rely on John to be there, she might as well do this on her own.

"I'm pretty sure I hit it, Agent Scully. Pretty sure you hit it, too."
His pale eyes hold her own, meeting her challenge. In a lighter tone,
he adds, "The guys upstairs were making some noise about this case -
about what's in our field report."

Scully nods. "Yeah. You'll get used to it." Her eyes fall on Mulder's
nameplate, and she almost smiles. Okay, Mulder, looks like the new
guy's staying. "Agent Doggett," and his eyebrows go up, "I'll see that
you get a desk here."

"All right."

It feels weird, but she knows she has to say it. After all, it's the
first time she's even close to getting along with someone in this
basement office other than Mulder. "And I just want to say, um... thank
you for watching my back."

The guy looks surprised, but also relieved. "Well, I never saw it as an
option. I'm sure you don't either," Doggett says seriously. When it's
apparent she's not going to press the issue, he goes over to the file
cabinet and starts looking through it.

While he's occupied, Scully looks at the nameplate again. Hope you
don't mind, Mulder, she thinks, but John's gonna be here a while. She
doesn't quite smile, but there's something like it as she picks up the
phone to ask about a desk.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Three

Dexter Community Hospital
Late October 2000
11:02 a.m.
 
Life's full of ironies, Scully mentally observes as she squats down to
face the silent little blond boy clad in white t-shirt and overalls, a
young boy examined me, and now I'm examining a young boy. Earlier that
morning, when she'd gone over to pick Doggett up for their current
case, Gibson Praise, propped up on crutches, had silently appraised her
and her unborn child, then smiled, and she appreciated his discretion.
It also helped that Luke was hassling his father about how long he and
Gibson could play videogames, right up until the frazzled man got to
the door. Finally, the older Doggett had snapped, "If I hear a word
about playing past ten from Hannah, you're both grounded," shuts up the
younger Doggett.

The memory bringing a small smile to her face, Scully now holds up the
lighted instrument, telling Billy Underwood in a gentle voice, "I'm
just going to shine this light in your eyes, okay? You're doing great."
The boy doesn't blink, and she nods, quickly putting the instrument
away. "See? Nothing to it."

Doggett puts down the "Missing" poster when Scully turns to looks at
him through the window. He nods, then turns when the middle-aged
Sheriff Sanchez joins him at the window. "He won't speak?" the FBI
agent asks.

The gray-haired man shakes his head. "No, not even to his parents."

Doggett's eyebrows go up. "Are they here, his parents?"

The sheriff nods wearily. "Oh, they've been here around the clock. I
took his prints... It's him." He nods at the child. "Boy should be a
teenager by now, but look at him. Explain to me how that can be."

That's more Scully's expertise than mine, he's about to say, but rather
than confuse the guy further, only replies, "I can't say, Sheriff. I'm
just here to find out who took him."

Now the sheriff's staring at the kid with a frustration born of
bewilderment with the unexplained. "I talked to everyone at school and
no one saw him come back or how. The boy just come out of the blue."

Scully leaves the room and closes the door behind her, raising an
eyebrow when she sees two deputies carrying boxes down the hall. "Are
those the case files?" she asks, joining the men.

Sheriff Sanchez turns, then nods. "Oh, yeah. Plenty more where those
came from. There's lots of files. There's just not much in them." His
expression grows sour. "We never even had a suspect."

Doggett nods, then points, "Have them set them over there, would you."

As the sheriff directs them to a table, Scully says quietly to her
current partner, "Okay. Well, what we've got here is a healthy
seven-year-old boy who was born seventeen years ago."
 
Doggett's expression doesn't change as he watches the men load the
table with boxes. "Yeah, a healthy boy who won't speak."

~*~*~
 
A couple looking to be around the agents' age comes down the hallway,
looking both concerned and purposeful. The woman with short curly
blonde hair and blue eyes asks, "Excuse me? Are you finished with
Billy?"
 
Scully looks up at them. "Mr. and Mrs. Underwood?

Mrs. Underwood blinks at them uncertainly. "Um, you're with the FBI..."


Scully smiles, but it's all business. "Yes. I'm Agent Scully, and this
is Agent Doggett. We are, uh, investigating this case."

Mrs. Underwood's smile, however, is that of a mother reunited with her
long-lost son. "It's a miracle, isn't it?"

Scully and Doggett look at each other, silently asking, Do you wanna
take it? When Doggett steps away, Scully stops short of rolling her
eyes. "Mrs. Underwood," she pauses, wishing she had more to go on,
"whatever your son has been through, it has somehow affected his
physical condition."

"So we've been told by every doctor here," Mrs. Underwood says,
impatience wearing her voice thin. "We just want to take him home.
After ten years, can we do that?" She casts a pleading look at the
agents, then her husband, who holds her.
 
Before Scully can say yes, Doggett takes a large paper evidence bag
from one of the file boxes. "Not yet," he says, walking into the room.
"I want to talk to him first."
 
Scully's startled, but is willing to let him try another tactic. They
all watch through the window as Doggett closes the door. "How you
doing, Billy?" Doggett says in a friendly enough voice. "My name's
John. I'm gonna have a seat over here, is that okay? Is that all
right?"
 
When the boy doesn't answer, Doggett sits at the table, making sure
he's within peripheral vision. "Billy, I want you to know that you're
not alone," the FBI agent says in a reassuring voice. "I've talked to
lots of other boys and girls who've been hurt just like you. Sometimes
when they talk about it the hurt starts to go away. You want to talk
about it, Billy?" he asks, while Billy says nothing, just drawing the
same symbol with black magic marker.
 
Okay, maybe the kid needs to see the big picture, have more control of
the situation, Doggett thinks. "You know, maybe you think bad things
happened to you because you've been a bad boy... but I'm here to tell
you, that's not true." He shifts his position so he's more in the kid's
view. "The bad guy is the one who took you away and it's up to you and
me to get the bad guy. See, 'cause as big and tough as I am, I can't do
it alone," he says in a cajoling tone. "I need your help. Can you tell
me about him, Billy? What's his name? What did he look like?" Eagerness
makes his voice more abrupt than he'd like, but the longer Billy takes
to talk, the farther away the kidnapping bastard will get.
 
Still no answer. All right, maybe a little bribery will do the trick,
Doggett sighs inwardly, getting the dinosaur-covered backpack from the
evidence bag and setting it on the desk. "You remember this, don't you,
Billy? Would you like to have that back?" When Billy reaches for it,
Doggett's relieved to see he's got some recognition of his life,
remembering something precious, and pulls it out of Billy's reach.

On the other side of the window, Mrs. Underwood is aghast. "What is he
doing?"

Scully is similarly flabbergasted, but doesn't want to tell her that
Doggett's using an interrogation trick, albeit a juvenile, but
sometimes effective trick. Before she can come up with some Mulder-like
b.s. the woman will buy, Doggett says, "All I want is his name."

That's what sets off the formerly flaky woman and turns her into
avenging mother, swooping into the room to pick up both her little boy
and his backpack. "Who the hell do you think you are?" she shouts at
Doggett. "He's only a little boy!" Cradling Billy to her chest, she
carries him out of the room.

"Mr. Underwood...?" Scully calls after the father, who follows his wife
out of the hospital. Dammit, Scully thinks, running in the room. "What
the hell do you think you're doing?" she snaps. Hell, she understands
the stakes, but even she knows that pushing a child like that in front
of his mother is asking for it. "Have you really worked kid cases
before, Agent Doggett? Child abductions?"

Doggett stands slowly, holding her gaze with his own. "I worked the
child abduction task force. I know the horror stories, but this kid can
help us."

She shakes her head. "This isn't just a horror story. This is a
biological impossibility."

"Well, that's your area of expertise," he says levelly. "I just want to
put the person who did this out of business. Billy just didn't show up.
He got away or was let go. And if he can talk, he can tell us by who.
Or he can look at photos in the files and point to the man who did this
so this doesn't happen to some other little boy."

Scully wants to shake the man, really, she does. "You are ignoring the
fact that he is still seven years old."

"Failure to thrive," Doggett shoots back. "Isn-isn't that the term? I
mean, aren't there diseases that delay puberty and so on?"

"I told you," Scully replies evenly, wishing she wouldn't see so much
of herself in Doggett's understandable skepticism, "he's *not* *sick*."

"Good," Doggett says, not willing to admit any other implications of
her statement. "Then he can talk." And walks away from the one person
he least wants to talk to right now, yet the only person who probably
has even a clue about what the hell's going on right now, closing the
door behind him.

~*~*~
 
6:37 p.m.

Doggett takes a swig of coffee as he holds the cell phone to his ear,
counting each ring as how many times the kids are tackling each other,
trying to get to the phone first. On the eighth ring, a rushed voice
says, "Hello!"

"Luke, you better be playin' nice with your sister," Doggett says,
keeping the smile from his voice, even as it spreads across his face.
 
"Aw, Dad," the teenager whines, "she was the one who tackled Gibson,
not me." A high-pitched voice in the background wails, while another
yells, "It was Luke!"

Now he chuckles, and then realizes it's only been a few hours since he
last did so, but it feels like years. Damn. "Hey, anybody gets hurt,
I'm gonna have Agent Scully fix you up without any anesthetic."
 
His son chuckles, remembering his dad's last case and how banged up he
got. "Hey, how's Mrs. Scully doing?" Luke asks.

"Uh," Doggett wishes for the hundredth time that the FBI couple would
use normal appellations so that he and his kids could properly address
them without tripping over themselves, "she's okay, I guess."

There's a pause. "Dad, you didn't piss her off again, did you?"

"How come I'm the bad guy?" Doggett sits up. "She's the one talkin'
about how a kidnapped kid showing up healthy is a weird thing."

"Oh, boy, this sounds more like Gibson's thing," Luke murmurs, "hey,
Dad, I'm gonna hand you over to Gib." Before his father can cut him
off, he adds, "And you're eating a real meal, right? None of that
vending machine crap."

"Hey," his father protests, but it's a weak one. In front of him, next
to the boxes of files, is a mostly-filled coffee cup, a bag of peanuts,
a bag of cookies, and a sandwich, all courtesy of vending machines.
"I'm on a case."

"I know," Doggett can hear his son smirking, "after this, I'm gonna
call Mrs. Scully and tell her you ain't eating right."

"Hi, Mr. Doggett," a new voice comes on the phone before he can
properly chew out his oldest child. "Wow, don't take it out on me."

Now Doggett frowns sidelong at his cell. "You can't possibly read my
mind at this distance."

The teenager laughs. "No, but I guess you're probably ticked off at
Luke for talking to you like a kid."

He's gonna be a helluva shrink when he grows up, Doggett groans, or an
even spookier profiler than Mulder. "Ha, ha," he makes a face. "Don't
tell me you know the answer to the case already."

"I'm a mind reader, Mr. Doggett, not a fortune teller," Gibson says,
and Doggett can swear the kid's smirking, too. "But if it makes you
feel any better, even that doesn't help sometimes. It sure didn't keep
me out of crutches or a cast."

Doggett nods, remembering that in the recent past, the teen's so-called
abilities got him endangered by some serious wackos, one of whom seemed
to be Agent Mulder himself. That still didn't sit right, how everything
went haywire... ah, never mind, gotta focus on this case, he tells
himself. "Yeah, well, I think Agent Scully's got the market cornered on
weird explanations for medical conditions."
 
"Mr. Doggett? Why did Luke say this case was more my kind of thing?"
 
Now the agent sighs. What to tell him, when he's not even sure what's
going on himself? What the hell. "I just said that Scully seemed to
think it was weird some kid shows up healthy after being kidnapped for
ten years."

"What's so weird about that?"
 
Oh boy. "Well, Billy was seven when he was taken, and he's still seven
now. And he doesn't talk."

"Yeah, that is kinda weird," Gibson says, and even Doggett has to
agree, given even the bare bones of the case, that it would certainly
rate high on the weird-shit-o-meter. "Hey, Mr. Doggett, wouldn't you be
worried if one of your kids shows up without aging or talking after
being gone for ten years?"

Doggett starts to say something, but then gets hit by an odd sense of
déjà vu that's irritated him while on the child abduction detail when
he was on the police force. After all, neither Hannah nor Luke have
been kidnapped, but for some reason, the sense of loss always resonated
with him while working those cases, as if he had lost a child. "Well,
yeah," he says grudgingly. "Doesn't look like his parents are too
worried, though."

"They're probably happy to get him back," Gibson says, and there's a
hint of envy in those words. "But it's gonna be hard for everybody,
because it's so weird."

"As soon as me an' Agent Scully get to the bottom of this, everything
should be okay," he tells the boy, and then wonders if he's reassuring
Gibson or himself. Jeez.

"Just don't be surprised if she brings up aliens or the paranormal,"
the teenager says, sounding almost as old as the agent, "you guys are
on the X-Files, remember, not the regular missing persons division."

"How could I forget," Doggett mutters. It seems everyone and everything
has conspired to remind him what a crazy division this particular
basement office is. When he hears his daughter whining in the
background, though, he also remembers the reason why he joined the FBI
in the first place. "Hey, Gib, could you put Hannah on?"

"Sure," Gibson says, taking no offense. "And don't forget to eat some
real food."

Doggett's about to give the kid some wiseass remark, but then his
little sweetheart says, "Hey, Daddy."

His grin's stretched from ear to ear, his eyes crinkling as he croons,
"How's my little sweetheart?"

"Daddy, Luke's mean," she complains, and he can picture her matching
pout.

"Aw, Sweetie, he's probably thinkin' he's the man of the house now." He
grins.

He can still hear her pouting as she goes on, "But Daddy, they're
drinkin' all the Coke and won't let me have none."

"Have any," he corrects her, but in the same soft drawl she's got.
"Tell them I said to share, okay?"

"Okay!" his little girl says brightly. "Luuuuuke," she says in a louder
voice, "Daddy says you hafta shaaare!"

The groans in the background indicate that they're busted, and they're
probably thinking of ways to get her back, but not tonight. "Just one
Coke, okay, Hannah? Otherwise your teeth are gonna fall out."
 
"Ewwwwwww." she grimaces, "okay, just one. An' Daddy?"

"Yes, Hannah?"

"I love you."
 
Damn if it doesn't get to him every time, his heart's just full to
bustin', as his late father used to say. "Love you, too, Sweetie. You
be good now, you hear?"
 
She giggles, "Okay," and he can practically see her dimply smile.
 
"Bye, Sweetie, an' tell your brother and Gibson I love ‘em, too."

"Okay! Bye!" 

When he hangs up, he frowns a little. Wait, did he just pass on his
love to Gibson, too? Ah, whatever, there's enough to go around, he
grins, opening up another file box. God knows this case will give him
little reason to smile or anything like that, if the first box was
anything to go by. Sighing, he picks up the cup and takes a large gulp
of coffee, then opens the next folder full of what looks to be more
fruitless interviews.

~*~*~

9:48 p.m.

Scully almost shakes her head when she walks into the office, seeing
Doggett reading the files in an almost obsessive fashion. Guess
Mulder's not the only one to forgo creature comforts on a case, she
thinks, seeing the discarded junk food wrappers on the table. "You
going to sleep here, too?"

Doggett sits up, surprised to see her there. "What time is it?" he
asks, checking his watch as he does so. Just twelve before ten, he
notes, it's not bedtime yet.

Smothering a smile at his reaction, Scully says instead, "I spoke with
the doctors who treated Billy. I looked at his charts."

"And what, did you find something?" he asks, his eyebrows up.

"Yes and no," she says, deciding to soften the blow, since she knows
he's not going to like what she's found. Hell, *she* doesn't like it,
and she's supposedly the senior member of the X-Files. What showed up
is that Billy is the same boy who was taken ten years ago."

That's the big news? Doggett wants to shout, but smothers his
frustration. "We know that."
 
"No," she says, deciding to toss subtlety out the window. "I mean the
*same* boy. He has no cavities. He has no tooth decay. He still has
four baby teeth that he's never lost. He had a routine blood test six
weeks before he disappeared in 1990. His cell counts, his enzymes, his
hormone levels, they are all *exactly* the same as they were ten years
ago."

"Now, how can that be possible?" he asks, hollowly.

*Now* you get the picture, she thinks. "It's medically *im*possible."

He hates to ask, he really does, but the cop in him is determined to
see this through. "So, what's the punch line? Where are you saying he's
been?"

How can I say this when I don't quite believe this myself? she wonders.
"There are," she says, looking at the files, "X-File cases that
describe similar paranormal findings. Alien abductees who came back
with anomalous medical stats," she finishes, looking at him.

He starts to bite her head off, when he remembers Gibson's words, and
sees she looks just as uncomfortable positing her theory as he is
trying to wrap his mind around it. All right. "Well, that's one
theory," he says, without any heat, "an' if that's the best science can
come up with, ‘anomalous', then okay."

She's surprised he didn't go for the jugular, but she's not about to
look a gift horse in the mouth. "I'm not saying that I can explain it,
Agent Doggett, but this is definitely not normal." Then she tilts her
head. "All right, so you think science came up short. What did your
‘good cop work' come up with?"

Answering her challenge, Doggett gets another file. "I went back to the
witnesses at the crime scene the day Billy vanished, to this guy,
Ronald Purnell." He opens file to display the mugshot of a teenaged
boy. "He was detained, questioned and dismissed as a suspect."

She looks at the stats, then at her partner. "What's your interest in
this guy?"

"He's a high school dropout, convicted of possession, arson, and
shoplifting since 1990," he says, closing the file.

When she sees the seal and logo on the file, however, her eyes grow
wide. "These are juvenile records. These are sealed by the court, Agent
Doggett," she emphasizes "court", as if that would underline the
seriousness of the situation. We're not supposed to have these." Is it
me, or does everyone I work with have a problem with obtaining things
legally? she thinks, conveniently forgetting her own forays into
filching information.

He plants his hands on the table. "Look, unless you've got some way of
makin' Billy talk without traumatizing both him an' his family, I'm
gonna do whatever it takes to catch this guy, Agent Scully."
 
She stares at him, then says quietly, "I'm surprised you haven't
suggested bringing in Gibson to read Billy's mind."

Doggett looks startled, as that hadn't even crossed his mind. He'd said
he'd use whatever it took, but now... "That ain't even an option," he
answers evenly, staring right back.

She holds his gaze, then nods. "Right," she says, "we're the agents in
charge." And without another word, she picks up the illegally-gained
file, perusing its contents, with Doggett joining her in absorbing
information from other not-quite-properly-obtained files.

~*~*~

Dexter Community Hospital 
11:09 a.m.

He'd gone out to see Ronnie Purnell at his home earlier this morning,
both for a chance to shake a tree and see if anything useful fell out,
and to get out of the hospital and away from all those files. Looks
like his trip was in vain, since he got nothing from Purnell and he's
back at the hospital, since it seems Billy had just threatened his
(younger? older?) brother Josh.

Right now, he and Scully are staring at the bagged, bloody knife held
by the sheriff. Sheriff Sanchez tells them, "Just got word back from
the lab. Ran the blood twice and no doubt about it. It's the little
boy's."

Doggett looks up at the man. "But I thought you said he wasn't cut," he
says, taking the knife.

The older man shakes his head. "No, it's the other son I'm talking
about, Billy - the boy who was kidnapped."

"That doesn't make any sense." Doggett frowns.

Scully frowns, too. "No, Billy wasn't cut either."

The sheriff's expression doesn't change as he agrees, "No, but he
definitely handled the knife. His prints are on it."

"Where did he even get it?" Doggett looks at the knife, certainly not
the type they sell in toy stores or even in supermarkets.

The sheriff shrugs slightly. "His father's never seen it before. He's
no hunter," he snorts a little. "Never cleaned an animal, which is
about all a knife like that's good for... except for killing, of
course."

Okay, point taken, Scully thinks, you do subtle really well, Sheriff.
"Well, I hate to say this ... but I think that the best thing for Billy
and his family is if he's removed to an institution under the
observation of people who are experienced in these things."

Now Doggett looks at his partner. "You mean, remove him? Take him away?
After all his family's been through?"

She stares right back. "This is not a normal child, Agent Doggett, and
this is not a normal act."

An already familiar stubbornness settles on his face. "You make it
sound like he's possessed. Call the exorcist," he mocks. Then he snaps,
"He's a kid - a kid who's been through who knows what kind of hell.
Give him a chance. How do you know he's not trying to communicate
something?"
 
She raises an eyebrow. "And what's the message?" When he can't answer,
she plows on. "Yes, he's a kid, Agent Doggett, you're right. He's a kid
who materialized out of thin air, unaged. Do you not somehow recognize
how strange this is?" Scully's already crossed alien abduction off her
list, given the medical results and lack of UFO sighting corroboration,
but there's so many things wrong about this child that she doesn't even
know where to begin to theorize from.

Rather than simply yelling the first insults that come to mind, Doggett
looks down at the knife in his hand to give him some time to think.
It's only then that he notices a simple five-armed symbol is engraved
on the knife handle. "Did anybody notice this?" he changes the subject.
"This symbol?"
 
The sheriff blinks, then shifts his weight a little. "Yeah. Yeah, uh, I
was going to mention that to you 'cause it's... uh," he looks
embarrassed, "kind of weird."

Doggett doesn't care about the man's embarrassment, now they're getting
some clues. "Weird how?"

Sheriff Sanchez does his best to look the other man in the eye. "Well,
like I told you, we tried everything to find that boy, and who abducted
him went so far as to bring in a police psychic ten years back - came
up with that very same symbol."

Ah, figures, Doggett thinks, and tries to keep his voice level as he
prompts further, "So how exactly did he come up with it?"

"She," the sheriff corrects the agent. "Sharon Pearl. Couldn't say how
it came to her."

Scully, however, puts two and two faster than the men. "I've seen this
symbol before, too."

Doggett looks at her in surprise. "You have?"

Without another word, Scully goes into the observation room, picks up
the paper Billy was drawing on and holds it up against the window for
the men to see. It's rendered with a childish hand, mostly in black
crayon, but the five-clawed symbol is unmistakable in its repetition
all over the paper. Get it? she thinks as she and the paper face the
men. The look on their faces show they got it, and she finally thinks,
Good.

~*~*~

Underwood Residence 
5:53 p.m.

In the Underwood's living room, a woman who looks like she could be
Scully's older sister is testing a handheld tape recorder. Not that
Doggett would say that out loud, but Sharon Pearl has similar dark
auburn hair and light green eyes like the sister he recalls seeing at
his FBI graduation party. While they're waiting on the psychic, Doug
Underwood walks over to them, gives Pearl a glance and mutters, "This
is great. Now I've got a psychic sitting in my living room who's going
to tell me what's wrong with my son."

Scully doesn't blame him, but since the psychic's the only one who's
gotten anything useful to this case so far, she tries to smooth things
over. "I understand your misgivings, Mr. Underwood, but perhaps you can
look at this as just another avenue."

The man looks at her as skeptically as he looks at the psychic. "An
avenue to what?"

Doggett tries to steer them onto the main track without sounding like
he's totally all for this hogwash himself. "We're going to solve this
case, Mr. Underwood. We're going to find out who did this to your son,"
he says as firmly and sincerely as he can.

"And then what?" Underwood snaps. "What am I left with? A kid who stabs
knives into his brother's mattress? You don't know the half of it. He
gives everyone but his mother the creeps with that stare of his."

Doggett would like to say that he understands, but this reaction from
the kid's own father is putting a clearer picture on the knife attack,
a picture that he's starting to see sounds less like the typical
missing child reunion and more like something ominous. "I just know
that this is going to tear you apart," he replies, almost by rote.
"It's going to tear your family apart. And you can't let it. You've got
to save them from the damage this can do."

The other Underwood boy, with his dark hair and eyes, looks more like
his father as he comes down the stairs, especially with his dubious
expressions at the newcomers. "I'll be happy to save what I can," Mr.
Underwood says. "Come on, Josh. Let's go." The father takes his son by
the hand, and they leave the house without looking back.

The psychic, meanwhile, looks at her watch. "Is this going to happen?"

"Shouldn't you be telling us that?" Doggett asks.

Pearl smiles. "You're no doubt confused, Agent Doggett. I take psychic
readings, not see through walls."

Doggett's about to retort, but then Mrs. Underwood brings her
not-quite-normal son downstairs. "Sorry to keep you waiting," Lisa
Underwood apologizes.

"Mrs. Underwood, I'm Sharon Pearl," she shakes the other woman's hand.
"I consulted on your son's disappearance back in 1990." After the
mother nods, Pearl kneels down to the boy's level. "And you're Billy?"
As she looks at the unsmiling boy, her friendly expression shifts to
shock, then horror, but keeps holding on to the boy's hands.

Ever observant, Scully asks, "Ms. Pearl? Are you okay?" 

"There are very powerful forces at work here," Pearl replies, her voice
shaking. "Working through this boy. Drawing him to his brother. I feel
this force," she finally releases Billy's hands and stands. "I feel
this force," she frowns, then looks directly at Scully, "coming through
you. You lost someone just like Billy."

Scully looks at Doggett in surprise. Suddenly, the psychic starts
thrashing about, speaking gibberish, and if that wasn't surprising
enough, the woman's forehead begins to throb and swell. Tears run down
her face as the skin ripples into the five-armed symbol, but she
doesn't stop speaking the strange, rapid syllables that come as quickly
as the symbol.

"Oh, my God," Scully rushes to the woman, checking her vitals. She
looks up to see the adults still staring in horror, and she barks,
"Call 911!" As Doggett pulls out his cell, Scully tries her best to
make the woman comfortable, pushing the fallen tape recorder away as
she cradles the still-convulsing woman in her arms.

Dear God, dear God, Scully prays inwardly, hoping against hope that
Billy isn't similarly possessed like the boy in the Holvey case. As far
as she can tell, neither parent is into old European magic or beliefs,
but it's possible his kidnapper was, and as she continues with these
comforting thoughts racing through her head, she pulls off her jacket
sleeve and uses it as a makeshift gag so Pearl won't choke.

~*~*~

Darkness has fallen quickly, and Scully watches as Mrs. Underwood takes
her still-silent son back into the house. Once the ambulance has left
her sight, Scully joins Doggett in their rental car. "Well, they've got
her stabilized and it looks like she's going to be okay... if you're at
all curious about her condition," she adds when Doggett's expression
hasn't changed since she got in.

His face a study in stubbornness, he replies, "I'd be more curious if I
believed it."

Now she looks at him curiously. "Believed what?"

"The act," he says bluntly.

Scully raises an eyebrow. "You think that was an act?"

"It's pretty standard fare, isn't it?" he looks at her directly. "Float
a few choice revelations, as if they came from on high, roll around on
the floor..."

She stares right back. "You saw that symbol appear on her forehead."

"It's a damn good trick," he shrugs. "Don't ask me how she does it."
When Scully takes out the tape recorder, Doggett groans when he hears
the ‘psychic's' incoherent mumblings. "Agent Scully, please," he makes
a face.

"No, I think you want to hear this," she says, much like a parent
telling a child to swallow medicine. "Now listen to it backwards."

She'd only found it by mistake, idly hitting the wrong button while
reading the paramedics' chart before they'd left. Aloud, the only sound
is a semi-deep voice, garbled by the tape, singing, "When you wake ..."

Doggett sits up. "What was that?"

"You shall have ..." the strange voice continues singing.

"It's a boy singing," Scully replies, straightforward.

They listen as the voice goes on, "All the pretty little horses..."

"Lyrics," she adds, softly singing along, "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry...
go to sleep, little baby..."

"You hear that, under the noise? Now..." she says, looking back at the
recorder.

Doggett's attention, however, is drawn by the sight of Ronnie Purnell's
car pulling up across the street. "What's he doing here?"

~*~*~

Ronnie Purnell stops his car in front of the house, his eyes on the
front door, a mixture of fear and hope on his scraggly features. When a
small hand touches his shoulder, he starts, but that's nothing to the
shock and horror of seeing little Billy sitting in the passenger seat
next to him. "Get away from me," he gibbers in fear. He puts his hand
on the car door handle to escape, but another shadow's in his way.

"Ronnie, open up the car!" Doggett shouts, knocking on the window. Then
he sees the little blond boy in the delinquent's car, and his blood
pressure goes up several notches. Purnell, seeing Doggett's reaction,
panics and starts the car. That only serves to piss Doggett more, as if
the day wasn't crazy enough. "Ronnie. Ronnie, stop the car!" he says,
even as the car pulls out, and he runs after it. Passing his partner,
Doggett yells, "Agent Scully, he's got Billy!"

Without another word, Scully slides over to the driver's seat and
circles the block to cut off Purnell on a side street and both cars
screech to a halt when it's clear there's nowhere for him to go. Scully
pulls out her gun, then gets out of the car. "Get out of the car!" she
yells, angry. "Now!"

The thin man does, hands up. Doggett catches up with them, and roughly
turns Purnell against the car. "Don't move, Ronnie," he growls. Then he
sees Billy's not in the car. "Where's Billy?"

Okay, now Scully's confused. "I thought you said Billy was in the car?"

To answer her question, Doggett snaps at the handcuffed man. "Where's
Billy?"

Still shaken, Purnell doesn't answer. Frustrated, not only with Purnell
but also with the entire freakin' day, Doggett shoves him, then
exhales. He looks in the backseat, then pops the trunk. No sign of the
kid. Shit!
 
~*~*~

Later, at the sheriff's office, Doggett watches as Sheriff Sanchez
books Purnell, his cold blue eyes squinting hard at the younger man.

Watching her new partner, Scully almost smiles. "Count to ten, Agent
Doggett," she advises instead.

Now he rounds on her. "He took Billy."

She sighs, although she can't deny reacting quickly when he'd shouted
Purnell had Billy. "He couldn't have."

"How are you going to back that up with Billy now missing from his
home?" he looks at her, as if daring her to pull some cockamamie theory
from God knows where.

She answers his glare with a steady gaze. "By the certain knowledge
that not five minutes earlier, I saw him enter his home with his
mother." And unless he's into riding with strangers or even a suspect
from his past, which I doubt highly, Billy, by all rights, should be
safe at home.

"I saw him!" Doggett hears his voice rising, and quickly turns down the
volume, knowing that loud doesn't equal right or even sane at this
point. "I saw Billy riding in the car with Ronnie. Why else would
Ronnie take off like he did?"
 
"It's impossible, Agent Doggett, like everything else about this case,"
she concedes. "Like how Billy can be in his home one minute and then in
Ronnie's car the next. Everything about this case is impossible."

"This kid is the key, Agent Scully," Doggett says firmly. "I've been
saying that from the beginning and I'll say it now."

The sheriff walks in, interrupting their argument. "Agent Doggett,
Agent Scully, I got bad news on top of worse. Josh, the Underwood's
other little boy, has disappeared." As they stare at him, he answers
back, "I'm not joking, not even close. I got the parents out here now.
Come on."
 
Scully follows the sheriff into another room where the Underwoods are
waiting, worried. To her surprise, Doggett doesn't join her, but
instead tells her, "I've got to talk to this kid, Agent Scully. I'm
absolutely sure." Sure, she thinks, whatever. And then she again
remembers not to underestimate the man's stubbornness, nor his resolve
in following whatever leads he deems necessary to get to the bottom of
things. Must be something about this office that attracts that type of
person, I guess, she thinks, and turns to the parents.

~*~*~

As Purnell is escorted into an interrogation room, Doggett's already
there, waiting. "Have a seat, Ronnie," he says.

Purnell looks at him, then sits. "I know what you're going to ask," he
says sullenly, "but I got no answer."

"Well, there can be only one answer, right? I mean, why else did you go
to the house? You went there for Billy, to get him back," Doggett
stares at the guy, almost willing him to spill.

"No," Purnell mutters. 

Guess we gotta bring up the obvious fact, Doggett thinks. "You had him
in your car."

Now Purnell looks panicked. "I don't know how he got there."

"Then why go to the house at all?" Doggett scoffs. 

"Because I didn't believe you," he stares up at the tall man. 

"You didn't believe what? What's so hard to believe, Ronnie?" he
squints down at the guy.

"You said I could talk to him," Purnell replies.

A-ha, Doggett thinks. "You needed to talk to him. After all those
years, you couldn't live without him. You wanted him back. All those
years, Ronnie. All those years. Where'd you keep him?"

Purnell's face contorts, a mixture of frustration and even a little
amusement. "Man, you don't understand."

"You were sorry you let him go," Doggett continues his line of
thinking.
 
"No, I," and now his voice starts to shake, "I couldn't let him go."
 
"Who else knew about him? Your mom?"

"No," Purnell says dully.
 
"Where'd you keep him?"
 
Purnell stares straight ahead. "I didn't."

"What did you do to him?!" Doggett wants to punch the guy out, but
instead slams his hands on the table.

Purnell starts. "I didn't do anything," his voice shakes as he can't
escape the steely gaze of the man in front of him. "I took care of him.
I-I sang to him... you know, so he wouldn't be afraid."
 
Oh hell, Doggett thinks. But at least he knew his gut was right when he
figured this kid would provide answers. He just didn't think it would
turn out this way. "Afraid of who?" he lowers and softens his voice, as
if coaxing out a wounded animal. "Who was he afraid of, Ronnie?
Somebody else involved? Somebody else make you do it? He take that
other kid, too? Billy's brother? He take him?" Now Purnell looks at
him, worried. "You're afraid of him, too, aren't you? You're a victim,
just like those other kids. Is that right? You... me, Billy. This is
our chance, man. What's his name?"

~*~*~

Baker County, Oklahoma 

Later that night, a squad of police cars and one rental car pour into
the Purnell trailer yard. Scully and Doggett fairly jump out of their
car, guns at the ready, and run to the barn door. "FBI! Cal Jeppy! Come
out!" Doggett yells. He enter the barn with a handful of cops, and when
they see no trace of their suspect, they lower their weapons, pulling
up the floorboards. To Doggett's mingled relief and rage, they find
little Josh bound and gagged, but he looks otherwise okay. Opening a
trapdoor and metal grate, they all help to free the boy. "All right,"
Doggett murmurs in a soothing voice as the boy stares at them in fear.
"It's okay, Josh. You're okay. We're not going to hurt you."
 
Scully, in the meantime, sees Cal Jeppy running toward the wooded area.
"Agent Doggett," she shouts, "he's on the run!"

Doggett and the cops run out of the barn, while Scully walks in to tend
to the little boy. As if on a foxhunt, Doggett and the others run past
the weathered buildings, and he shouts to the others, "He's in the
woods!" As they run into the woods, he yells, "Watch your fire! There
may be another boy!"

It seems like forever, but it's only been a few minutes when they catch
up with the gasping, overweight man. Doggett, flashlight in one hand,
and gun in the other, is the first to reach him in his flashlight beam.
"Down on your knees!" he barks. Panting, Jeppy nods, his eyes on the
man's gun. "Hands in the air! Where's the kid?!"

"He's in the trailer," Jeppy stammers, his hands raised.
 
"Other kid!" Doggett yells.
 
"There's no other kid," the kneeling man answers.

"Billy Underwood!" Doggett straightens his arm to give his gun more
reach.
 
Obviously scared, Jeppy replies, "There's no other kid!" Then his eyes
move away from Doggett, and it looks like he's about to wet his pants.

Doggett, his gun still on the suspect, turns around. The little blond
boy is standing just a few feet away. The FBI agent turns back to the
suspect and sees, as well as hears, the other cops coming. "Get this
man in cuffs!" he shouts. "Read him his rights! The kid's over...," his
voice trails off when he doesn't see Billy. Thinking perhaps all the
people and the noise scared the boy, Doggett walks over to where the
boy was standing, intending to call a search for Billy. That intention
is quelled when he looks down and sees a small exposed skull. Dammit.

~*~*~

The next morning, the area is taped off with crime scene tape. Doug and
Lisa Underwood are looking at the little crude grave, holding each
other as Doug cries softly for a son he's lost twice.

Doggett watches them, but it hurts too much to see, so he joins his
partner standing a few yards off. "I don't believe it," he says for
what feels like the seven thousandth time. He's not sure if he's trying
to convince himself, his partner, or say something normal in the face
of unbelievable events and unspeakable tragedy.

I know, Scully thinks, but that's not what you want to hear. "Agent
Doggett, there's the clothes, the age and condition of the bones, the
location of the grave. There is no doubt that that is Billy Underwood's
skeleton that is in that grave."

"We spent time with this boy." He stares at her. "Doctors took Billy's
blood. You examined him yourself. Now, I can't accept it. I can't
believe we're asking them to."

"I know, but the forensic evidence is going to come out, and what then?
What if I'm right?" And if we find that was Billy's tangible ghost we
all spent time with, then what? She knows it'll be a while before John
admits to himself there are things he can't explain, but neither will
she put up with a knee-jerk skeptical reaction, doubting for the sake
of doubting.

He looks frustrated, as if knowing where she's leading and not liking
it one bit. "Well, what then, Agent Scully? What we do? We move on, let
it go, case closed?"

She exhales. "Look, I know where you are with this. I have been there.
I know what you're feeling - that you've failed and that you have to
explain this somehow." That same strange feeling of straddling the
doubter's and the believer's world, akin to a sort of déjà vu, hits her
again. "And maybe you can."

"Not if that's Billy's body, I can't," he says, as mulishly as any of
her children.

She gives him as much understanding and patience as she would Sammy or
the other boys. "But maybe that's explanation enough. That that's not
Billy's brother lying in that grave, too," she gestures towards the
grieving couple. "That that man who did this is never going to be able
to do it again. Isn't that what you wanted, Agent Doggett?" And now she
looks at him.

"Agent Scully, don't ask me to believe that this is some kind of
justice from beyond the grave."

I'm not asking, she thinks, I'm just confirming what you know in your
heart, even if your mind doesn't want to believe it. "All I'm saying is
that maybe you succeeded," she says, whether you're willing to see that
or not."

~*~*~

Several hours and a time zone later, Doggett is back home, back to his
normal life with his normal kids, who are normally bugging him. "Dad,
can we have ‘Quake III'? It's a multi-player game so me and Gib can use
it at the same time," his oldest child nags.

"Or if you want, we can pay half and you can pay half," Gibson offers,
hitting him with the double whammy of both sounding reasonable and
looking forlorn in his crutches.

Hey, wait, did he just include Gibson as part of that "his normal kids"
clause? When he sees the bespectacled kid grinning at him, he groans.
"What's the rating?" he asks, even though the boy did have a reasonable
offer.

The two teens share a look. Uh-oh. "Um, it's rated 15+, so it's okay."

Doggett raises an eyebrow. "I seem ta recall it bein' rated M for
mature. And you know where I stand on that."

"Aw, man," Luke groans, and Gibson shrugs. "Guess we'll save our
allowance for something else." He picks up a basketball and grumbles,
"C'mon, Gib, we better play some ball before Dad suggest something
dorky like Pokemon or something."

As both boys shudder, Doggett laughs, then walks over to his little
girl, who's been humming to her favorite teddy bear. When he takes a
seat on the couch next to her, she smiles, then opens her mouth to
sing,
"When you wake, you shall have 
All the pretty little horses. 
Dapples and Grays 
Pintos and Bays 
All the pretty little horses."

A chill goes down his spine. Where'd she learn that song from?

Hannah repeats the chorus in a clear, sweet voice,
"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry 
Go to sleep my little baby. 
When you wake, you shall have 
All the pretty little horses. 
Dapples and Grays 
Pintos and Bays 
All the pretty little horses."

Then Doggett claps, and Hannah dimples. "Hey, Daddy." She smiles, and
he smiles back, "didja hear me?"

"Yes, I did, honey," he says, leaning forward. "Where'd you learn that
song?"

She shrugs. "Luke an' Gibson wouldn't play with me last night, so Billy
came over an' taughted me how."

"That's taught," he corrects her gently. "Billy? Billy who?" But he's
already got a pretty good idea.

"I dunno," she says. "He was nice, an' taughted, um, taught," she
catches herself, "me that song. It's the only one he knows, though, but
he said you'd like it. Then he said he hadda go home, so he can't play
here anymore."

"I see," her father says. "Well, I do like it." As he hugs her, he
pushes away any thoughts of the X-Files, or any weird shit, from his
mind. And for the rest of the day, he plays tea with his little girl,
then basketball with the boys, ending with dinner and more arguments
about violence in videogames that *does* have him threatening to buy
them Pokie-whatever-the-hell-you-call-it. Everything an American man
could pray for: a normal day in a normal life, with his normal kids.

Mostly.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Four

Washington DC
November 2000
3:00 a.m.

Steam is billowing out of the shower, and the entire bathroom is filled
with a hazy white mist. Scully sits on the floor by the tub with David
on her lap. He's exhausted and leans his head against her breast, but
he can't sleep. Even the steam isn't doing much to clear up his
congestion. She wishes desperately that he could sleep, because she's
been up half the night with him.

Her phone, resting on the vanity, goes off startling them both. She
holds her breath, but the miserable toddler doesn't cry. "Hello?" she
answers impatiently. To her annoyance it's her boss, telling her about
a mass slaying at a cult. She looks down at David, and makes a quick
decision. "I can't come in today, sir. I've been up all night with
David, and I'd be no good to anyone...right. I'll give him a call."

Once she hangs up on him, she shifts her son to a more comfortable
position. "Don move Mommy," he protests weakly.

"Sorry, Baby, but my arm was falling asleep." He soon closes his eyes,
and she dials her partner.

~*~*~

Falls Church, Virginia
3:26 a.m.

Doggett knocks his phone to the floor and swears at it before he
manages to answer. "Yeah."

"It's, uh, it's Dana. Scully. I'm sorry to wake you."

"What's up?" he asks sleepily.

"I got a call about 20 minutes ago from Assistant Director Skinner. He
has a situation."

"What is it?" Doggett asks beginning to feel more alert.

"An Agent is dead. Um, Skinner had him surveilling a religious cult in
Pittsburgh. And all the followers are dead, as well."

"What happened?" Doggett is beginning to feel like he's playing twenty
questions.

"It sounded to me as though he's having difficulty determining that,"
Scully tells him. "I'm assuming that it's an X-File."

"Uh huh. I'll pick you up." He offers.

"I'm sorry, John. I can't go. I've been up all night with one of the
boys."

"Is he okay?" Doggett asks, thinking about how young her kids are. Most
of the likely suspects are just babies.

He hears a tiny, unhappy voice say something to her and surmises it's
one of the twins before she says, "It's just a bad cold."

"I hope he's feeling better soon." And he really does. It's only been a
week or so since Gibson's cast came off, so he's had his recent fill of
under the weather kids too.

"So do I. I haven't been to bed yet." She gives him the address to met
Skinner before saying goodbye.

Once Doggett hangs up the phone, he sighs and pads down the hall to his
son's room. Since he knows that the boy is sleeping, he doesn't bother
to knock. Before he can even approach the bed his son sits up and rubs
his eyes.

"What's going on, Dad?" Luke asks with a yawn.

"I've been called in to work."

"Oh."

"I wanted you to know in case Hannah woke up and was scared," Doggett
tells him.

"Okay."

"I probably won't be home before you go to school. I can trust that you
and Gibson can get yourselves and your sister off to school on time,
right?"

"Of course," Luke says a little sharply. "Are you going to wake Gib up
to talk to him too?"

"No," Doggett replies as he glances over at the boy sleeping in the
other bed. The boys get along well, but he swears that he detects a
faint note of jealousy in his son's voice. Maybe Hannah rubbed it in
when he asked her to pass along his love to both boys a few days ago.
"I know you'll pass the message along."

"Right," Luke says before lying back down. Doggett shuts the door
behind himself, and goes to get dressed.

~*~*~

Skinner is still waiting for Doggett to show up when his phone rings.
"Skinner."

To his surprise it's not Doggett. Instead, it's Scully again. "I hope
this isn't a bad time."

"No, not really. I'm still waiting for agent Doggett."

"I think I need to cut back my hours," Scully surprises him by saying.

"Because one of your kids is sick?" Skinner asked, feeling puzzled.

She sighs. "No. Well, not exactly. I've been thinking about this for...
it's been on my mind since Mulder vanished. I think the kids need me
around more."

"Okay," he says automatically.

"Okay?" Scully sounds as though she expected it to be a more difficult
fight.

"Yes. I've almost been expecting this. Though I have found your
devotion to the X-Files to be admirable, it's understandable that you
would want to spend more time with your children, at least when you're
the only one they really have. We could arrange for you to take leave
until Mulder is found-" he says, but already he's dreading having just
one agent on the X-Files, especially with the renewed effort by the
powers that be to handicap the department as much as possible.

"No!" she says quickly. "I want fewer hours, but I still want to be
involved. Especially if my involvement could help bring Mulder home..."

"Of course. I should've thought... we'll just scaled back your hours
then." He pauses when he's struck by both relief and sudden
inspiration. "What do you think about that woman we met with in
Arizona? Agent Reyes."

"I think she's a good agent. One with an open mind," Scully says
firmly. "Why do you ask?"

"Didn't you say that you and agent Mulder had worked with her once upon
a time on a case that involved cultists?"

"Years ago." she agrees. "Cultists and chickens."

"Odd combination. But I wonder if she be up to a little assistance in
this case," Skinner says, beginning to formulate a plan.

~*~*~

When Doggett arrives, he has to push his way past reporters and camera
men. One bold woman thrusts a microphone in his face. "Care to comment
on this case, agent...?"

"I just got here," Doggett snaps automatically, putting up a hand to
bat the microphone away. "I haven't even been debriefed yet."

The reporter looks disappointed, but when he fixes her with a hard
stare she backs down and lets him go by without pestering him any
further.

After a couple more minutes of futile search, he finally finds Skinner.
"Scully's not going to be joining you on this case."

"Damn. I take it that the rugrat isn't feeling any better."

Skinner looks at him. "No. I've called someone in to work with you, but
her flight doesn't arrive for a while."

"Who?"

"Agent Monica Reyes. You remember her from-"

"Yeah, I remember her," Doggett says a little shortly. "Why her?"

"Cultists are her specialty," Skinner replies. "I thought it could be a
test run of sorts."

"Test run for what?" Doggett demands to know.

The look Skinner gives him is hard to read. "Agent Scully has decided
to cut back her hours. At least until we find Mulder."

"That surprises me," Doggett says.

"It surprises me a little too," Skinner tells him. "I know that if she
didn't have other responsibilities, she'd be out there looking for
Mulder eighty hours a week. With six kids to look after, even with
help, it's not possible. She made an off-hand remark about not wanting
the kids to feel like they've been abandoned by both parents, and I'm
sure that's at the heart of the matter."

"Probably," Doggett says, but he's distracted by thoughts about his
ex-wife's abandonment of his own children. "She's not one of those
women who is content to let the nannies raise the kids. I get that."

"Exactly. I was hoping that if things go well this case, we might be
able to lure agent Reyes to DC for good."

Doggett nods, but he's not sure what he thinks about that. He decides
to change the subject. "So, why don't you get me up to speed while we
wait for the Calvary to arrive?"

"I had some agents doing routine surveillance on a cult group called
the Ibogan Temple. Someone called in a tip that they were trafficking
narcotics." As Skinner speaks he leads Doggett back outdoors and
towards a vehicle parked out front.

"But somewhere along the way this turned into an X-File," Doggett
guesses.

"It seems so," Skinner agrees.

When they reach the SUV, the first thing Doggett notices is the
strange, distinctive smell of blood. The way it smells when there's
quite a lot of it. And quite a lot of it coats the interior surfaces of
the vehicle. In the midst of the blood is a dead man with a slash
carved into his forehead.

"Nasty wound," Doggett says with an intake of breath. "But it doesn't
make sense. That looks like it was done with an axe. There's no room to
swing one in here."

"Blood spatter on the seat says it happened right here."

"But how do you kill someone with an axe in a vehicle? Even if he'd
fallen asleep he'd of reacted, wouldn't he?"

"Apparently not. He never even upholstered his weapon," Skinner tells
him.

"This is weird. Now I see why it's an X-File."

"It gets weirder. Those coroners you saw scurrying around inside?
They're dealing with the other dead bodies. Twenty cult members with
identical wounds to this one."

"How many members to the cult?" Doggett asks. "Did they all die?"

"All but the leader. Anthony Tipet, a convicted murderer who claimed to
have found God. That may or may not be true, but he definitely found a
group of confused people who believed what he was shoveling."

"And now they're all dead," Doggett says sourly.

"And now they're all dead," Skinner agrees.

Doggett shakes his head. "Something doesn't compute. I don't care how
devoted they were. These people wouldn't just lie here and let their
leader bash their brains in. I got to figure at least one of them would
have had a problem with that."

"I thought of that too," Skinner replies. "So I'm having toxicology
labs run on all the victims."

"Including this one?" Doggett asks, waving his hand towards the dead
man they've been standing next to throughout the duration of the
conversation.

Skinner frowns. It deepens when an agent approaches and tells him that
they're unable to locate the dead man's partner. His phone begins to
ring, so he steps away to answer it. A moment later he returns. "Agent
Reyes' flight has arrived. You better go pick her up at the airport."

"What, me?" Doggett blinks at him.

"She's a potential addition to the division you're working on. Consider
it a bonding experience," Skinner says smugly. "Once you pick her up
you can go to agent Stedman's home and see if he's there."

There's nothing for Doggett to do but head for his car.

~*~*~

Airport

He doesn't even have to flag Reyes down before she notices him and
heads in his direction. This forces him to smile in spite of himself.
"I didn't think you would recognize me."

"I have a good memory for faces," Reyes tells him. "Besides, yours is
pretty distinctive."

Her comment leaves him feeling unnerved, so he changes the subject as
they approach his car. "The first thing Skinner wants us to do is go by
the missing agent's house and see if he's there."

"Right." she agrees, opening the passenger door.

A few minutes later Doggett's eyes dart towards his passenger for a
moment, then return to the road. "Skinner says that cults are your
thing."

"They're my area of focus, yes," Reyes replies. "That's why I was
called in to help."

"Rumor has it that's not the only reason why."

"Oh?"

"Word around the water cooler is that Skinner wants to talk you into
sticking around for awhile."

"That could be interesting" is her only response.

It surprises him a little that she actually does seem intrigued by the
possibility. "You'd consider relocating?"

"Sure. Why not? I'll be honest with you, working with cultists is not
what I expected. It's a lot less mysticism and a lot more human-caused
evil than I bargained for."

"Maybe the job isn't what you were hoping for," Doggett says, though he
has difficulty imagining why she's disappointed. "But you've got a life
down there. You don't mind pulling up stakes and starting over
somewhere new?"

When she turns towards him, he can see humor and her dark eyes. "Trying
to scare off the new kid, agent Doggett?"

"No!" he protests. "I'm honestly curious, since it wasn't easy for me
to do the same."

Reyes shrugs. "I have friends there, of course. But no one who would be
terribly inconvenienced, if you catch my drift. I don't even have a
pet. Moving just isn't that big a deal for single woman with no family
in the area, either. So what your story?"

"Ah... I agreed to head a task force to find agent Mulder. He's the
reason I consider the FBI to begin with, so I felt that I couldn't
refuse in good conscience. My kids complicated things, though. That's
what they do."

"You have two kids, right?" Reyes surprises him by remembering.

"Yeah. Luke's fourteen and Hannah's five." He doesn't bother mentioning
Gibson, since he already feels as though he's stolen the boy from out
from under her.

"What does your wife think about the move?" Reyes asks in what he feels
is a calculatingly neutral tone of voice.

"If I ever hear from Barbara, I'll have to ask her," he says, hoping he
doesn't sound bitter.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize that you were divorced," Reyes replies but
she does not sound flustered.

"That's all right. It's been two years so I'm over it. Mostly. She's in
Europe, last I heard. Once in awhile she writes letters to Luke. I'm
not sure he reads them."

Stedman's condo soon looms into view.

~*~*~

No one answers when they knock, so they get the building supervisor. It
takes a couple of minutes to convince the man that they're seriously
concerned. Eventually he pops the lock for them and hovers
apprehensively in the background. He doesn't even complain when Doggett
kicks the door to break the chain holding it closed.

Once they get the door to Stedman's place open, the smell of blood
assaults Doggett again like malicious déjà vu. It comes as no surprise
when they find the body on the bed in Stedman's room.

"Looks like he's been dead a while," Reyes comments.

Doggett gives her a sidelong look. She's surprisingly unflinching, and
he thought that was rare in women. At least rare in women who hadn't
been sharing the same air a Fox Mulder for the better part of a decade.
He feels a bit of admiration as he turns to speak to her. "How did the
killer get in? The door was locked with a chain."

"The window, maybe?" Reyes suggests, but she sounds doubtful. "I'm no
pathologist, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a suicide."

Doggett walks to the windows. He reaches up and fingers the locks.
"These are locked too."

"The bathroom?"

They leave the apartment shaken. All of the windows are still latched.

~*~*~

Kersh's Office 
2:18 p.m.

"Deputy Director, I'd like you to meet agent Monica Reyes," Skinner
says and she holds out her hand to the man. He takes it. "She's a
leading authority on cults, so I've asked her to assist agent Doggett
on this case."

Kersh looks relieved to learn that she's used to dealing with people.
"Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," she says with a charming smile. Doggett hides one of his
own, much nastier in nature.

Skinner produces a video tape. "This is a tape of our primary suspect."

"The cult leader?" Kersh asks.

"Correct."

On the TV Tipet begins to speak, obviously in the middle of what passes
for a sermon. " The body is but clay... a shell made by God to hold the
twin aspects of the Holy Spirit: Light and Dark. If we have the courage
to see into darkness we see into God... free of the clay which confines
us."

The tape freezes abruptly and Skinner puts down the remote control.
"Anthony Tipet served 12 years for the bludgeoning death of his wife.
After his release, he became a minister preaching a hybrid of
evangelical and eastern religions. He claimed a higher plane of being
could be reached by the Via Negativa-- the path of darkness-- the plane
closer to God. Once reached, it would let the spirit travel unhindered.
Tipet believed hallucinogens would lead him to this plane--
specifically compounds of the bark of an African tree... the Iboga."

"Did the victims take this drug?" Reyes is quick to ask.

"We didn't find any trace of that drug, or in fact any drug, in the
victims' blood."

"If he didn't drug those people before hitting them with an axe, what
did he do to get them to lie still while he bashed their heads in?"
Kersh asks.

"Tipet was paranoid but nothing indicates he was ready to take the
lives of his own people or our men," Doggett answers.

Kersh glowers at him, obviously annoyed. "This is our one and only
suspect. Are you telling me he didn't do it?"

"Whoever did this left not even a trace how: No prints, no forensic
evidence whatsoever. Agent Leeds' sedan, the cult house, Agent
Stedman's condo... were all locked from the inside."

"That's impossible," Kersh retorts. "You're telling me a fairytale."

"Unless Tipet took the drug and succeeded. Unless his consciousness was
there but his body was somewhere else," Skinner says, and his boss
swings his head in his direction, clearly seeing him as his new target.

"The X-File explanation. I take it this theory comes from Agent
Scully?" Kersh's voice contains bile.

"Agent Scully isn't working on this case," Skinner tells him. "She had
a family emergency."

"So you three reached this conclusion all on your own. Isn't that
refreshing."

"I don't think I'd say that we've reached a conclusion just yet,"
Doggett objects.

"That's the problem. I'm not hearing conclusions from any of you. If
this man has reached a higher plane then explain to me why 22 people
are dead including two FBI Agents. Now I want to hear what you're going
to do about it."

After the meeting they walk back down to the basement office. Well out
of earshot of Kersh, Reyes finally asks what has been on her mind since
early in the meeting. "Is the director usually so...congenial?"

Both men snort. "Always," Skinner says at last. He then turns to
Doggett. "I'm hoping that the coroner's report will give us more clues,
but even as a rush job it's not going to be ready until ten. Maybe you
could bring agent Reyes to her hotel. Go see your kids."

"No problem." Doggett is already fantasizing about getting an answer
that'll wipe the smirk off Kersh's face.

~*~*~

Falls Church, Virginia
5:30 p.m.

Doggett is fishing hotdogs out of the pot when the phone rings.
"Someone get that!" he bellows.

Hannah runs into the kitchen a minute later with the portable phone.
"It's for you, Daddy."

"Hello?" Doggett asks. The boys soon swoop in and begin dressing their
hotdog buns. Without being asked they help Hannah with hers first.

"Hi, John, it's Dana. How's the case going?"

"It's going to be a late night, but I'm hopeful that we're getting
somewhere. How's the sick kid?"

"It seems like he's on the mend." Scully pauses. "Do you think you're
going out all night?"

"Odds are."

"Why don't you bring the kids over tonight? They can do a movie night.
None of us will be getting up early since tomorrow's Saturday."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, it'll be fun for my kids to have them over."

"As long as you keep them away from the infectious toddler, sure."

"Okay, see you soon."

Since the kids eat like Hoovers, they're nearly done their supper by
the time he hangs up.

Doggett eats his own hotdog in four bites. "Grab some PJs, your
sleeping bags, and a change of clothes for tomorrow. You're going to
spend the night at Dana's while agent Reyes and I work overnight."

Gibson is quick to comply, as is a very excited Hannah, but Luke fixes
his father with accusatory stare. "Why can we stay here? We were fine
this morning. Gib and I are old enough to look after Hannah all night
too!"

Remembering the volatile moods of his own teen years, Doggett silently
counts to ten and reminds himself not to give into his son's spoiling
for a fight. "I know that."

"You do?" Luke gives him an uncertain look. It's obvious that he didn't
expect to be agreed with.

"Yeah. Dana's cutting back her hours and feels guilty about not helping
on this case. You know that working together hasn't been the best thing
for our friendship-" Luke nods too vigorously for his taste. "So when
she offered to have you kids over, I couldn't really say no. Okay?"

"Oh, okay," Luke says grudgingly. "It will be better between you when
Mister Mulder is found, won't it?"

"Sure. Being worried all the damn time is just taking its toll on her,
that's all."

Luke starts to head for his room, but he looks back at his father. "He
is gonna come back, isn't he?"

"Of course he is," Doggett says, but he looks away. 

At this point he'd be happy just to find the body. Just to give Dana
and the kids some closure. He'd like to think it'll end happily, but
he'd been a police officer for too long to believe in miraculous
conclusions.

~*~*~

Hannah feels no qualms about running in as soon as the door is opened,
but the boys hang back until Doggett nudges them forward. "Go on,
you're lettin' the cold air in."

Looking sheepish, they shuffle in. They haven't even taken off their
coats before Scully finds them. "Oh good, you're just in time to help
set up the tent."

"The tent?" Luke asks, but she's already headed up the stairs, probably
to find out why David is crying.

A small redhead rounds the corner and gives them a big smile. "Oh good,
you're here!" Sammy says. "Mommy said you could help us put up the
tent."

"Um. Isn't it too cold for camping?" Gibson asks.

This makes the little boy laugh. "It's cold outside. We're camping
inside!"

"I guess that makes sense," Luke remarks. Gibson shrugs.

They find Hannah the living room, dangling toys into the playpen over
Jared and Christopher's heads. Both boys looked outraged and near
tears.

"Hannah! Stop teasing them and give them their toys right now!" Gibson
hisses and to Luke's amazement she complies immediately. She pouts, but
hands them their toys.

"Thank God she's the youngest," Luke mutters. "A baby wouldn't stand a
chance in our house."

"Wouldn't that require your dad dating someone first?"

"Ha. Yeah no worries there." Luke smirks. "He hasn't looked at a woman
since my mom left."

"Here." Page thrusts an instruction book at them. "Uncle Alex said
he'll help when he gets back, but he's buying marshmallows."

By the time the grownups returned to the living room they've progressed
- with a little overly enthusiastic help ffrom the younger kids not
imprisoned in the playpen - to a state that makes the tent look like it
was half knocked down by a bear.

Krycek pitches in and the tent is soon upright. The little kids cheer
before scurrying off to find their sleeping bags.

"You boys wouldn't mind sleeping outside the tent, which you?" Scully
asks. "I told them you'd stand sentry against wolves."

"We don't mind," Gibson says. "But why are we camping inside?"

She sighs. "Sammy and Page read a book about camping and begged me to.
It's way too cold to go camping right now, but it's the first time
they've shown enthusiasm since... well, in a while anyway. So I decided
to compromise. Indoor camping it is. Between you and me I think it's
all the same to them. As long as they get to toast marshmallows."

Luke grins at her. "Just so you know, I toast the perfect
marshmallows."

Some of the tiredness leaves her face. "Then you're going to be very
popular tonight."

When the little kids come back with their sleeping bags it takes awhile
to roll them all out.

~*~*~

Even the teenagers seem to enjoy themselves that night as they help the
younger kids make smores and tell not-very-scary ghost stories.
Eventually Scully and Krycek bring Christopher and Jared up to their
rooms, but the rest of the little kids climb into the tent. There's the
expected amount of giggling and arguing for a couple of minutes, but
eventually they settle down without intervention.

As Gibson and Luke climb into their own sleeping bags, Sammy pokes his
head out of the tent. He gives them a long look. "Here." He hands them
a pair of long, slightly dirty sticks. "I got these outside while Mommy
was checking on David."

"Um, thanks," Luke says as he looks at the stick. "These are for?"

"The bears and wolves," Sammy tells him.

"Right." 

Sammy disappears back into the tent. Gibson shrugs and puts his stick
next to his sleeping bag.

~*~*~

10:22 p.m.

Doggett is just taking the cover off one of the coffees he bought on
his way to add cream when agent Reyes walks into the basement office.
She sits down in Scully's chair and makes herself at home.

After accepting a coffee she turns to him and asks, "Did he get the
coroner's report?"

"Yup. He left it for us."

"And I bet you already read it," she predicts. "Even though you just
got here."

"I get bored easily," he says slightly abashed. "According to the doc
every damn one of the victims was killed by a single blow from an ax
blade. One 6 to 8 inches long."

She sips her coffee and peers down at the pictures. "Anything special
about that ax?"

"According to a note from Skinner, these photos of wound patterns don't
match up to any known make or manufacturer."

"Maybe were not looking for the type of ax you find in a store," Reyes
suggests. "Could be an antique."

He nods and picks up a book. "Looks like you and Skinner were on the
same wavelength." There is a bookmark for a page that shows a
ceremonial ax. "Says here it was used thousands of years ago to cleave
the skulls of the unbelievers. Apparently this book was read by all of
Tipet's followers." He shakes his head. "It ain't our murder weapon
though."

"Why not?"

"It's on permanent display in a Calcutta museum," Doggett tells her.

"That's inconvenient. Does the museum sell replicas?"

"I don't know. The museum doesn't even open until 10 a.m."

"I guess we'll have to explore other avenues until then."

Doggett looks annoyed, but not at her. "Seems to me were little limited
on avenues, agent Reyes."

"We'll find another lead."

He tries not to let his incredulity show.

~*~*~

Scully and Mulder's Home
2 a.m.

Restless, Luke rolls over in his sleep and wakes up when the stick ends
up underneath him. He rubs his eyes with his fists, then opens them so
he can dislodge the stick from under his back.

But as he tries to settle back down, he nearly screams. Something is
looking at him.

"Gibson, wake up!" he hisses frantically and grips the stick in his
hands.

Gibson snorts and looks at him. "What?"

"What the hell is that?" Luke asks, pointing to the corner of the room.

"One of the ghosts," Gibson tells him with a yawn.

"One of the ghosts?!" Luke shrieks. "What do you mean one of the
ghosts?"

Gibson sighs and smirks at him. "You lived here for months, didn't you?
And you never realized that this house is haunted?"

"No. I mean, I know I heard Hannah talking to Page about ghosts, but...
that was just pretend."

"The ghosts are real, and they're harmless. Go back to sleep!"

"But..." Luke sputters. As he watches the ghost gives a slight wave of
its hand and melts out of sight.

"There. Now it's gone and you're safe," Gibson says, yawning again and
rolling over.

It takes Luke a while to go back to sleep, and the only way he can
convince himself to is to berate himself for being more scared of a
ghost than a six-year-old girl is. If little Page and even the younger
kids can sleep in the house ghosts and all, a teenage boy ought to be
able to as well.

~*~*~

Hoover Building
3:07 a.m.

In hope of a lead, Doggett and Reyes spend several hours calling
relatively local police departments to see if there have been any other
crimes of a similar nature. Reyes doesn't seem to mind the tedium, but
Doggett feels himself going slowly mad with boredom.

After he hangs up the phone for the seventh time in the past hour, his
gaze falls onto the phonebook and his eyes glaze over. He begins to
perk up a bit when he realizes that Reyes doesn't seem to be getting
the normal brush off.

"Let me ask him, okay?" She turns to Doggett. "Can I have your e-mail
address here, please?"

Bemused, Doggett quickly recites it, and listens as Reyes repeats it.
"Okay, thank you very much," Reyes says brightly to someone on the
other end of the phone.

"What's being e-mailed to you?" Doggett asks.

"Crime scene photos. They found a dead man in Pittsburgh tonight.
Apparently he was killed the same way as our victims."

"Bringing up our kill-count to twenty-three." Doggett looks grim. "They
didn't happen to have a witness, did they?"

Reyes' shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. "To the murder, maybe not.
But a camera snapped photos that fit Tipet's description at a payphone
earlier tonight."

"Do they suspect him?" Doggett asks quickly.

"Apparently. The phone's already been processed for evidence, and they
came up with nothing."

"Great. So we have no evidence, and I'm not even sure we've got a
motive. Why would a man looking for God be out there killing people?"
Doggett wonders aloud. "Skinner mistakenly believes I'm gonna think
like Moldah or Scully just 'cause I'm assigned to the X-Files. But I
need facts, not crazy theories."

Reyes gives him a look that he interprets to be as much indulgence as
sympathy, which does nothing to lighten his mood. "But crazy theories
are why I met either of them to begin with." She gives him another
look. "And I suspect it's the reason you know them too."

Instead of answering her question he turns to the computer because it's
chimed to let him know he has mail. The crime scene photos don't arrive
alone - they're accompanied by a list of phone numbers. He prints it
and hands it to her. "What's this?"

Her eyes quickly scan it. "Looks like they sent us a list of phone
numbers dialed tonight at that phone."

Doggett decides to run the names through the criminal database, and he
gets a single hit. A call was placed at 10:12 p.m. to someone named
Andre Bormanis. A man who turned out to be a drug dealer who served
prison time with Tipet.

Reyes gives Doggett a triumphant look. "I told you we'd catch a break."

~*~*~

Southwest Washington, DC
4:34 a.m.

When they get out of the car Doggett wastes no time. He bangs
forcefully on the door "FBI. Open up." A wild-looking man opens the
door, and neither agent fails to notice the barely healed wound on his
forehead. "Are you Andre Bormanis?"

"Doctor Bormanis," the man answers stiffly.

Doggett shows him his badge and Reyes does the same. "Agent Doggett.
Agent Reyes. Can we have a word with you?"

He nods slightly and they follow him into his home. It's less of a
house than a laboratory, with beakers of unknown substances bubbling.

Doggett is sure he hears Reyes mutter "-and caldron bubble" under her
breath. Louder, she tells Bormanis. "We're looking into an incident
from earlier tonight."

"I've been here all night," Bormanis quickly declares. He rests a hand
on an oddly placed table saw.

"Sure. But we believe you received a call from the suspect. Anthony
Tipet."

Fear blossoms in his eyes. "I didn't really talk to him. The machine
took the message."
 
"What did he want?" Reyes asks him. 

When he doesn't answer, Doggett stares at him. "We need to find him,
Dr. Bormanis. This man may have murdered 23 people. You wouldn't want
to be accomplice to that."

"In what way?" Bormanis squeaks. "I told you, I've been here all
night!"

"So you've said," Doggett says evenly.

"I'm not doing anything illegal here. I... I just... I just made him
stuff."

"Stuff," Doggett scoffs. "Drugs, you mean."

Andre Bormanis' eyes gleamed with fanaticism. "Hallucinogens were
Tipet's way into the depths of the soul, the heights of consciousness,
planes of being that our feeble brain chemistry cannot begin to
imagine."

"You sound as though you believe that," Reyes charges. He merely gives
her the sort of look you'd give a small child who is reluctant to
listen to the truth. "Is the mark on your forehead connected to your
belief?"

"It's a protection. At least I hope it is. Nobody took the trips but
Tipet. See, only his mind was strong enough."

"You know, I can't tell, doctor, whether you admire Tipet or you're
afraid of him. Those people he killed last night, did they admire him,
too?" Doggett pulls out a pair of handcuffs. "I'm taking you in for
questioning."

"I've answered your questions!" Bormanis protests become shriller when
Doggett knocks a pill from his hand. "I need to take that!"

The toe of Doggett's shoe crushes the errant pill when he drags
Bormanis out the door.

~*~*~

6 a.m.

"What's next?" Reyes asks as they watch a police officer escort a
still irate Bormanis down the police hallway.

"Probably the same SOP as down your way. Once they process him someone
will come find us and bring us to him so we can question him."

"Do you mind if I run next door for lattes then?" 

"Nah. But if you had one in mind for me, could you make it a regular
coffee instead?"

"Fine."

The door has barely closed behind her when Doggett's cell phone begins
to ring. "Doggett."

"Morning, John."

"Hey Dana, the kids behave themselves?"

"Oh sure. They're still sleeping, though. Skinner filled me in on your
case, so I got in touch with some friends of Mulder's. They'll drop by
today after lunch. They're a little unconventional, but I think they'll
be of some help."

"I appreciate all the help I can get," Doggett tells her.

"John, you're a good agent. Trust your instincts. I'll see you later.
Don't worry about picking the kids up at any particular time, I don't
have plans."

"Thanks."

He's no sooner hung up that the phone rings again. This time it's
Skinner, telling him about the lab results on the drugs that their
prisoner was working on.

Reyes returns, and he's grateful to take the coffee from him. "Skinner
says that Bormanis was making a super amphetamine, but I don't think he
wanted it for Tipet."

"Then who?" Reyes asks.

"I think...he's afraid to go to sleep."

"Speed would keep him awake," Reyes acknowledges. 
 
"I think we need to talk to him now."

They never get the chance to talk to him because by the time they get
an officer to open the door, Bormanis is already dead. Doggett gives
the body a grim stare - he feels his grip on the case beginning to slip
away.

~*~*~

FBI Headquarters
1 p.m.

During his lunch hour, Doggett picks up his kids and brings them home.
Reyes tags along, giving Hannah one more person to tell about the
sleepover the night before. She's still chattering when the boys close
the door.

There are voices coming from the basement office when Doggett and Reyes
return to the Hoover building. When Doggett opens the door he sees
three strange men having a heated conversation. One of them is standing
in front of a file cabinet, and seems intent on defending it from the
other two.

"And I'm telling you Mulder wouldn't mind. We practically solved half
these cases for him," Frohike says to Byers.

"Yeah, Byers, quit your whining-- nobody likes a crybaby," Langly tells
him.

"Agent Scully asked us to give our assistance not to go through her
f-files," Byers protests. He's the first to notice that Doggett and
Reyes are at the door.

"I hope the three of you are agent Scully's friends," Doggett tells
them.

"That's us," Byers says. "I'm Byers, and they're Langly and Frohike."

"And who is this charming agent?" Frohike asks, leering at Reyes.

She holds out her hand to the shorter man. "Agent Monica Reyes. I'm
assisting on this case."

"Monica. Lovely name," Frohike tells her.

"Byers, Langly and Frohike. You're the publishers of the Lone Gunmen,"
Doggett says.

Frohike looks thrilled. "Our reputation precedes us."

"Yeah. She's told me all about you. I know you're into some weird
stuff."

"And so are you, man," Langly says, pushing his glasses up the bridge
of his nose. "This case you're working on is deep stuff."

"Something feels deep every time the mysticism comes up," Doggett
grumbles. "I felt like I ought to have been wearing waders while
talking to the last guy."

"The recently dead guy," Reyes corrects. "We need all the help we can
get."

Frohike nods. "We'll give you a crash course in Tipet's kind of
damage." He switches off the light and turns on a slide projector. An
image of a pyramid with an eye hover within it lights up a screen.
"You're familiar with this image, I assume."

"I've seen the back of a dollar bill," Doggett says impatiently.

"In the renaissance it represented an all-seeing god," Byers tells
them. "We believe its meaning here relates to eastern religion, uh,
belief in the third eye or what the Hindus call the Sahasrara."

"A third eye?" Doggett asks.

"We all have a third eye. If we could open it, we'd see a new reality,
one closer to God. Or so the theory goes." Frohike rubs his forehead.
"If you believe that sort of thing."

"I see where you guys are going with this. Tipet believes he opened his
third eye."

"Yes, exactly." 

"But the placement of the wounds on his victims could suggest he's
trying to destroy theirs."

"That's may be."

"But if he's gotten closer to God, why would he kill people? And how?"

Frohike shakes his head. "We don't know why. But we might tell you how.
You've heard of MK Ultra?"

"The CIA mind control project started in the '50s," Byers tells them.

"I thought that was urban legend!" Doggett protests. 

"That's what you're supposed to believe, Man. They gave LSD to a bunch
of people to see what would happen. Being the government, they didn't
bother telling them first."

"They thought that class of drugs could open the human mind up to all
sorts of powers," Frohike explains.

"Wait, that doesn't make sense. Tipet was the one on hallucinogens, not
his victims."

"The CIA invested millions trying to create psychic assassins, failing
where Tipet has evidently succeeded," Byers corrects.

"Reaching a drug-induced higher consciousness using his mind as a
weapon against his victims," Frohike adds.

"You're saying that you think Tipet was one of those folks they
experimented on?" Reyes asks.

"Doesn't it make sense?" Langly asks her. "The assassin makes his
victims think they're being hit by an axe."

"Not that he's limited to that," Byers adds. "He could make them
believe anything was happening to them, and then..."

"Then it actually would," Frohike concludes. 

"If you believed that Tipet could invade your dreams and kill you in
them, you'd be afraid to fall asleep, wouldn't you?" Reyes asks. "The
last victim, he was creating a drug to stay awake."

"If I thought someone could kill me in my sleep, I'd stay awake as long
as I could," Byers agrees.

"Thank you for your help, gentlemen," Doggett says surprising them all
by bolting to his feet. Uncertain, Reyes stands too. She follows after
him, feeling like she's missing something.

The gunmen linger in the office. "I think he's on to something,"
Frohike remarks.

~*~*~

Meanwhile...

Since David is feeling better that afternoon, Scully decides to bring
the kids to the park. Not long after she brings them home, there's a
knock at the door.

A vaguely familiar-looking woman offers her a tentative smile. "Hi, I'm
Stacy Woodrow. My family just moved to the neighborhood last month."

"Oh. Nice to meet you," Scully says, wondering if she should offer to
shake hands. That seems little formal for new neighbor, so she doesn't.

"Thanks. I realize you probably have some sort of formal application
process, but do you have any openings?"

"Openings for what?" Scully asks blankly.

Mrs. Woodrow also looks confused. "For the daycare?"

"We don't use a-" she stops abruptly when recognition dawns. "I'm not
running a daycare."

"You're not?" The other woman looks disappointed. "So all the kids over
here all the time, they're all yours?"

"Y-" Scully thinks of how often her niece and Doggett's kids have been
around lately. "Four of the older kids aren't mine, but I do have six."

"Six kids, wow," Mrs. Woodrow says faintly. "You and your husband must
really love children."

Entirely sick of that sort of comment, she has to force her voice to
remain even. "We do."

Apparently Mrs. Woodrow gets the hint anyway. "Well... it was nice
meeting you."

Scully goes into the house shaking her head, imagining how gleeful John
Doggett would be if he knew.

~*~*~

Southwest Washington, DC
2:30 p.m.

"Where are we going?" Reyes asks as she slams the door to Doggett's
car.

"If Tipet is using drugs to kill people, he's going to need more,
eventually. If he killed Bormanis..."

"Then he knows that it's only a matter of time until his place is
emptied out," Reyes concludes.

"Exactly. He's got to get the drugs before the police show up and take
them all," Doggett tells her. "I'm hoping we beat him to the punch."

The door is unlocked and Doggett exchanges a look with Reyes. He's
pretty sure they locked the building behind them. Bormanis was a
suspect, but they hadn't intended to leave him open to looters.

As they cautiously enter they both hear the sound of a table saw. Guns
drawn, they run into the main lab. A man is standing next to the
whirling machine.

"Anthony Tipet. Anthony Tipet! Step away from the saw," Doggett tells
him.

Tipet gives him a pitying look. "You don't understand." 

"Please step away from the saw," Reyes urges.

"I didn't want this to happen... but I can't stop it," Tipet says,
looking Doggett in the eye. "He understands. He knows what can happen--
what will happen... unless I stop it."

To their surprise, Tipet slams his own head down on the blade. The
agents yelp and rush towards him, yanking at him. They're not strong
enough to dislodge him once the blade begins to cut his flesh.

Reyes lets go entirely, and makes a grab for the power cord while
Doggett continues futile efforts to pull him off the blade. By the time
the machine stops they're both speckled with blood and Tipet is quite
obviously dead.
 
~*~*~

Kersh's Office
Later

To the discomfort of both agents, they had to wait until the police
arrived and took their statements before they could wash the dead man's
blood off. Unsympathetic, Kersh has demanded an immediate audience, and
there are still maroon flecks on their suits when they stand before
him.

"I've heard that our murderer has committed suicide," Kersh intones.
They nod. "I suppose it's just as well. It certainly saves the tax
payers some money."

"Yes." Doggett replies, but his eyes are on Reyes' face. While he
himself is not in the least surprised by his boss' coldness, she seems
to be.

"AD Skinner tells me that you have a theory on his motive for killing
himself," Kersh continues.

"Tipet and his followers believed in something called the Via Negativia
- the path of darkness. Tipet himself thouught he reached it. Uh, he
believed that the drugs took him inside the subconscious minds of
anyone he knew... ... making the most horrific, irrational dream
imagery of their nightmares come true. That's why he kill himself - to
make it stop."

"And you believe that this is how he committed the murders?"

"Is it required that I do, given my assignment to this office?" Doggett
asks stiffly.

"No, I suppose not. It's enough that the murders have come to a stop."
Kersh turns to Reyes. "Agent Reyes, thank you for your assistance in
this case."

"You're welcome, sir." 

"Excellent job. Please have your report on my desk Wednesday," Kersh
says, dismissing them.

"Of course."

~*~*~

There isn't much in the way of conversation while Doggett drives Reyes
back to her hotel, but she eventually turns towards him. "You really
don't believe, do you? That Tipet was able to kill people in their
dreams."

"All I care is that he believed it," Doggett says stubbornly. "How he
really did it is far less important than the fact that he'll never get
to do it again. Why, do you believe all this happy horseshit about
controlling dreams?"

"Frankly, yes. It's Occam's razor, agent Doggett."

"What year were you born?" Doggett startles her by demanding to know.

"1968, why?"

His shoulders relax. "You sounded so much like Mulder I wondered if you
could be his missing sister. She was older than you, though."

"I don't know Mulder well enough to know if that is an insult or not."

"No, it's just..." Doggett trails off.

"You've known a bunch of hard-eyed realists, I take it. I'm not sure
that being your only company is healthy."

"Ha." He snorts. "So, what did you think of working in DC?"

"It was...different," is all Reyes will concede. It leaves Doggett
wondering if she'll accept the offer to transfer, if it ever manifests.

~*~*~

Late That Afternoon

Stretched across his parents' bed, David snores softly and throws a
fist above his head. When the phone rings Scully gives him a quick
glance, but he doesn't seem to be waking up.

"Hello?" she asks uncertainly. It's Skinner. She listens intently for a
couple of minutes then says "Thanks you for letting me know how the
case turned out, Sir" before she hangs up.

She immediately turns back to the laptop. Internet Explorer is opened
to a news article from a paper widely considered of dubious validity.
The headline of the article says "UFO Spotted In Earmark, Minnesota."

Nodding to herself she kneels on the bed and reaches up to the wall
with a blue pin. She stabs the pin into a US map, in the rough vicinity
of Earmark. The thin pin wavers slightly when she releases it, and
bounces against another pin. One of the fifty she's already pushed into
the wall.


~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Five

December 2000
Muncie, Indiana
8:07 a.m.

Scully stands in the midst of a bad car wreck, staring down at the
blood-smeared and broken windshield of the car, looking professional in
her matching dark jacket and pants, with a dark wine-colored blouse
that Page picked out for her earlier that morning. She sorely misses
her oldest child, who's already developing her own style, and not just
in fashion, and wonders how her other children will develop when she's
not there. Okay, when it's just Krycek to look after her kids. Granted,
it's not the first time he and Michelle have watched over them without
her, but just the thought of someone like him influencing her precious
babies... She's relieved to see the tow truck come to haul the wrecked
car, as the loud noise blocks out her nagging worries.

Her partner walks up in similar dark jacket and slacks, his light blue
shirt with dark blue tie a welcome change from the man who was
bleary-eyed and half-dressed earlier this morning, surprised to see her
as he was just getting his kids ready for school. His voice and
demeanor now fully alert and oriented, he tells her, "Car's registered
to a Curtis Delario, local address. So far, he's been unreachable."

She tilts her head at the huge v-shaped dent in the hood. "Well, it's
highly unlikely that wherever he is he feels like picking up the phone
this morning."

He acknowledges her comment with a slight flicker of amusement in his
pale eyes. "Muncie PD ran some calculations. Based on the distance
traveled, the length of the skid marks, they estimate the car was going
at least 40 when it impacted the object, which, according to their math
would require something 4,300 times the density of steel to cause the
damage we're looking at."

"Hmm," Scully murmurs, having done some basic calculations herself and
coming up with something similar. "It's interesting, isn't it? I mean,
uh... in light of the evidence." The tow truck driver calls out a
warning, and she and Doggett step back. Now that the car is off the
ground and on the truck bed, she sees the imprint of two large shoes on
the pavement. Kneeling down, she comments, "From their size and shape,
these look like men's shoes."

Uh-oh, here we go, Doggett thinks, but in a way, he's almost relieved
to have some reason, albeit crazy as hell, to have flown about an hour
and a half away from home with very little information and only a cup
of airplane coffee to tide him over. "I hope you're not suggesting that
what this car hit was a man, Agent Scully, because there's no way," he
responds mildly.

Ok, good, she thinks, he's awake and not too antagonistic. Maybe having
Reyes on board longer would be a good idea. "Well, these impressions in
the asphalt look pretty fresh to me."

Uh-huh. "I admit to the coincidence but you know as well as I that if a
man were here, he'd be splattered from here to tomorrow and there's
just no evidence of that," Doggett grouses in a voice as gravelly as
the road they're standing on.
 
She nods. "You're right, which is suspicious in and of itself. I mean,
this car definitely hit something and the only evidence that we have
are these two prints." Scully stands and walks away from the car,
Doggett following her, casting his eyes to the heavens as he does so
before bringing on his rebuttal.

"You know, I hate to ruin your beautiful theory with ugly facts,"
Doggett almost smiles as he brings the evidence to the picture, "but
stop to examine the incident. If a man were standing here, the driver
would have stopped."

"Well, it looks like he tried to," Scully retorts as they pass by the
skid marks.

"Well, even so, if a man were in the middle of the road with a car
coming wouldn't he try to move?" he raises his eyebrows.

"Unless he wanted to stop the car." Scully's left eyebrow goes up in
response.

Is it just me, or is she usin' her scientific deduction for evil
instead of good? "Yes, but if nothing less than a block of steel could
stop this car," Doggett tries to use that same reasoning to bring her
back to her senses, or at least some semblance of reality, "then, ipso
facto, it could not have been a man standing in the street last night."

"Or certainly no ordinary man," Scully says, unperturbed. She can
practically see him debating with himself whether to just leave her and
her crazy notions or stay and figure the damn thing out. Join the club,
she thinks, I'm only doing what Mulder would, and the fact that
Doggett's arguments would normally be my own only underlines how crazy
this whole situation is.

A middle-aged woman with short brown hair and warm, somewhat dowdy
clothes, runs out of the house. "Just tell me what happened," she
stammers, hysterical, "where is he? Where..."

As the cops hold her back from the crime scene, Doggett walks over.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" he says, flipping open his badge. "John Doggett
with the FBI. Do you know about this?"

"What happened?" she asks, her pale face already haggard for this hour
in the morning. "Where is he?"

"Curtis Delario, you know him?" Doggett asks her in a calm,
authoritative manner.

As if responding to the firmness in his voice, the woman stops
struggling in the cops' grasp, but she's no less worried. "He was a
friend of my husband's," she says, her pale eyes flickering between him
and the crime scene. "They worked together at the salvage yard."

Now we're getting somewhere, Doggett thinks. "Now, I want you to calm
down, Mrs...."

"Pearce," the pale woman finishes. "How am I supposed to calm down?
Finding this now, it..." Her eyes start to tear up.

"Well, we're not even sure he was driving the car last night," he tries
to reassure her.

"He was," Mrs. Pearce snaps. "He came over after my husband's funeral
and then he left and..."

Before Mrs. Pearce can finish, Scully calls out from a few yards away,
"Agent Doggett!" Excusing himself, he joins his redheaded partner at
the dumpster. She flips the lid open, simply stating, "Meet Curtis
Delario." As he grimaces, Scully's thankful that her nose isn't overly
sensitive today, and in a voice made steady by years of practice and
staring at similarly gruesome scenes, she remarks, almost offhanded, "I
guess he won't be much help clearing any of this up."

~*~*~

Later on, Scully finds herself in a familiar location, that is, the
morgue. Dressed in scrubs, she autopsies Curtis with an aplomb she
finds herself distantly admiring, even as most of her brain is occupied
with her children at home under the care of a dubious man soon to be
her brother-in-law and the maddening abduction of her husband.
Automatically, she measures the diameter of the holes in the dead man's
head, reading off numbers to the young male attendant who dutifully
takes notes on the chart.

As she finishes up, Doggett walks in, ignoring the assistant and
telling her, in his usual straightforward manner, "I think I got some
answers."

Goody, Scully thinks, can you tell me when the aliens are gonna return
my husband? Aloud, she retorts, "So do I. It wasn't the crash that
killed Curtis Delario. He was badly injured, but he was clearly still
alive when his body was pulled ... through the car's windshield."

Doggett looks taken aback. "Pulled?"

"Yeah, these five deep puncture marks match five fingers of one hand,"
Scully answers, demonstrating with her own hand.

A mixture of disbelief and disgust color his voice. "You mean, someone
just reached right in and..."

"Like a bowling ball," Scully finishes.

"That seems humanly impossible," Doggett murmurs, looking at the holes
in the dead man's head.

Time to think outside the box, John, Scully thinks. "Certainly for any
ordinary man."

You really enjoy sayin' that, don't you? Doggett thinks mulishly.
"Well, from the evidence I've gathered the man that did this is
actually less than ordinary," he says, almost enjoying the look on his
partner's face. "I was able to reconstruct a section of the windshield
and lift a print from the glass."

"Whose?" Scully's now curious.

"Raymond Aloysius Pearce," he says, as if reading the file he's just
opened, although he's memorized the contents within already. Husband of
Nora Pearce, woman I spoke with at the accident site." He shows her the
Indiana State Police file with Pearce's prints.

"Hmm," Scully murmurs as she looks at the documents.

"Her recently deceased husband," Doggett adds, sounding happy to drive
a stake through Scully's theory.

"Well, if he was recently deceased then it must have been an old
print," Scully says reasonably.

"Well, what you would think," he says, a slight smile on his face as he
builds his own theory, "except along with the print there was evidence
of fresh blood and it belongs to Ray Pearce, too."

~*~*~

The Pearce Residence

"Agent Doggett, I don't understand. Before, you were talking about
Curt. Now you want to talk about Ray?" Doggett isn't surprised to see
confusion on Mrs. Nora Pearce's face. He is surprised, however, that
there's another man in the house, a tall man in his fifties with
balding gray hair who's sitting next to her. He was introduced as Harry
Odell, the man who runs the salvage yard where the late Ray Pearce used
to work, and, in light of recent events, Odell is understandably
protective of the widow.

"What was their relationship, Mrs. Pearce - your husband and Curtis
Delario - outside of work?" he asks.

She stares at him as if he's slow. "I know what their relationship is
now. They're both dead," she retorts, a little anger briefly pushing
back the grief and confusion.

Doggett leans forward. Good, at least she's thinking clearly, even if
she's a little antagonistic. "Going back through your husband's medical
records it says that he died after a long, debilitating illness?

"Gulf War Syndrome," Mrs. Pearce says bitterly. "No one will cop to
that, but I aim to prove it - put the blame where it belongs."

He isn't surprised that she'd rather blame the military for her
husband's death. Nobody said grieving a loved one's loss was ever easy,
or made you a saint. "I'm having trouble proving something myself, Mrs.
Pearce. You signed a form to have your husband's body cremated, but it
appears it never happened."

Now confusion creases her features. "What do you mean? They gave me the
ashes. They were at the funeral," she says, hysteria coloring her
voice.

"Well, I can't find a record of Ray's body ever even being at the
crematorium," Doggett says.

Now Odell speaks up, clearly irritated. "Oh, for crying out loud.
Hasn't this woman grieved enough?"

The agent gives him a level look before returning to question the
widow. "Let me get to the point, Mrs. Pearce. Is it possible your
husband is still alive?"

"Still alive? Is this a joke?" She looks from her late husband's boss
to the FBI agent, disbelief at the agent's gall apparent.

"Because we have evidence to suggest that maybe your husband was
involved in the death of Curtis Delario," Doggett says, watching both
employer and widow carefully.

Odell goes from aghast to angry in less than ten seconds. "Are you
saying Ray faked his death?"

Doggett is nonplussed by the older man's reactions. "We found Ray's
blood and fingerprints on Curt's car."

"I watched him die," Mrs. Pearce says, tears in her eyes but with
determination to bring the truth to this idiotic agent in her voice. "I
nursed him when he was sick, when he couldn't eat. What you're saying
is impossible. He couldn't even walk or... lift his head at the end,"
she finishes, her voice choking as the tears win out over her anger.

"Ray Pearce worked for me nine years," Odell jumps in when he sees Mrs.
Pearce falter. "He was a good man. He never raised a hand to anyone,"
he ends, more defensive than anything, which makes Doggett curious
about both Ray Pearce and Harry Odell.

~*~*~

Chamber Technologies
10:23 a.m.

The next day, after Doggett goes to the salvage yard to check out the
crime scene and the body of Harry Odell, he heads over to Chamber
Technologies, thanks to finding a handy invoice in the shredder with
that header on it. Once there, he finds himself in the company of a
shortish, dark-haired and definitely geeky scientist, Doctor Pugovel.
Pugovel, oblivious to the FBI agent's ruminations, is showing off
diagrams on a computer monitor. "They're called smart metals," he says,
enthusiasm obvious in his jerky hand gestures. "The idea is to one day
build things that are indestructible. Cars, equipment built of alloys
with molecular memory. If damaged, they'd rebuild into their original
forms."

"All by themselves? That's pretty cool." Doggett smiles, thinking how
much he'd save on car insurance if his car was made of something like
that.

The scientist seems to know what the other man's thinking, and
deprecation in his voice, responds, "And right now, all a
metallurgist's pipe dream. But beside the point of your visit, I would
imagine."

"Well, you tell me." Doggett shrugs. "I found a document at a crime
scene listing Chamber Technologies. An employee number on the document
was assigned to a Doctor David Clifton."

Doctor Pugovel looks startled. "Doctor Clifton's no longer here."

Okay, now he's really curious. "What happened to him?" Doggett asks in
the same mild, friendly tone.

"He, uh, he left the company," the scientist replies, not looking at
the agent. "I'm actually his successor in this department."

"Do you have any reason to deal with a man named Harry Odell or a
business called Southside Salvage?" Doggett presses him.

"No, I don't deal with materials," Doctor Pugovel answers, nearly
shouting his "no". "Nor did Doctor Clifton for that matter. Our work
here is all theoretical," he stresses. "We have an environmental
manager who's in charge of waste management but disposal is done at TSD
Facilities, definitely not city salvage yards."

Yeah, nice cover story, Doggett thinks, already planning to dig up more
info on this place. But to give the scientist a false sense of
security, he decides to leave for the time being. "Thanks for your
time, Doctor..."

"Pugovel," the good doctor fills in the blanks with some relief.
"German, no H. You need me to spell it for you?"

"No, no. That's quite all right. Thanks." Doggett smiles a little.

~*~*~

Walking away from the nervous Doctor Pugovel, Doggett calls his
partner.

"Scully," she answers from the morgue.

"Hey, it's Agent Doggett," Doggett says. "I'm at Chamber Technologies."

"Did you find Doctor Clifton?" she asks, looking at the body of Harry
Odell.

"He's no longer with the company," Doggett answers laconically. "But
his successor says his work here was entirely conceptual. Everything's
done on computers."

Now Scully's eyebrow quirks up. "What kind of conceptual work?"

"Thing called smart metals. It's pretty incredible - metal alloys
designed to rebuild themselves." He grins. "Imagine if cars were made
of the thing – I could be drivin' a Lamborghini for decades."

Scully chuckles. Men, she smirks, Mulder would probably want our
minivan built of the same damn thing. "Uh, yeah, right," she says. "As
it happens Ray Pearce's illness is pretty incredible, too. I've
reviewed Ray's medical records from the Virginia. What his wife was
calling Gulf War Syndrome is nothing of the kind. His entire cellular
makeup was affected by exposure to some non-identifiable contaminant -
a metal."

Doggett frowns. "What are you saying? Ray Pearce has become some kind
of metal man? Because that only happens in the movies, Agent Scully."

So does most of the things that happen on the X-Files, but I know it'll
be a while before you actually admit that real life is weirder than you
think. "Does it, Agent Doggett?" she smirks.

Instead of answering her, he sighs. Then he says, "Tell you what. I'll
press this guy here a little more on the issue."

She decides to ease off on him, partly because she isn't quite done
with Odell's autopsy, having been diverted by Pearce's lab results from
the Virginia. "Well, maybe there's a reason why he's not being
perfectly forthcoming," she says mildly.

~*~*~

Later that night, Scully finally manages to get out of the morgue,
thankful for the fresh air. Then she sees the rental car pull up to the
side and park, and smirks inwardly, Out of one cramped quarters and
into another. As she gets into the passenger side of the car, Doggett
tells her, "Sorry I'm late."

"It's all right," Scully says, allowing her posture to droop a little.
"I just got the blood test back on Ray Pearce and it was indeed the
same Ray Pearce who was pronounced dead three days ago. But that's not
all. By all medical standards he should still be dead. His blood has
enough metal alloy in it to ... uh ...poison an elephant," she manages
to complete the analogy, stopping herself from giving him the precise
amount down to the thousandths in metric.

"Except that he's still a man, Agent Scully and he's going to act and
think like one even if he is more powerful than a speeding locomotive,"
Doggett makes a face.

"But then the question is, why kill his friends? I mean, if he was
wronged somehow wouldn't he go to them for solace? I mean, to his wife,
at least?" she frowns, sitting up.

Handing over a file, Doggett replies, "That's why I was late. I asked
myself that same question. Ray was an outpatient at the Virginia. He
had a history of substance abuse. Did some time for a couple of DUIs."

"This was ten years ago," Scully says, her eyes rapidly scanning the
contents of the file.

"Cleaned up his act." Doggett nods. "He met Nora and married her in
'91, checked himself into a rehab and got straight." Then he twists his
torso to face her directly. "This was a guy to root for, Agent Scully.
This was a guy that overcame adversity and made a life for himself." He
doesn't realize how much he sounds like Nora Pearce until he finishes
his little speech.

"Until three days ago." Scully looks up from the file and closes it.

Doggett stares at her. "I've busted a lot of killers, Agent Scully and
dollars for doughnuts, they fit a profile. But the Ray Pearce in this
file is no murderer, let alone a guy that would hunt down his friends
and crush their skulls."

Now Scully looks at him, hating to burst his bubble, but needing to
bring the ugly facts back into the picture. "Agent Doggett, the man
that we're speaking about withstood impact from a speeding car and two
shotgun blasts at short range. Even if we can find him, who's to say we
can stop him?"

They look at each other. "Aw, shit," he mutters.

"Yeah," she sighs, "let's go."

~*~*~

Chamber Technologies 
9:52 p.m.

All right, we got ‘im, Doggett thinks when the metal door slams shut on
the chamber, sealing the man known as Ray Pearce in. At least, he's
reasonably sure that's Ray Pearce when he and Scully follow the SWAT
team into the room outside the chamber. Nobody turns on the lights, as
if doing so would jinx the whole operation. "Make sure that door is
secure!" Doggett barks to the SWAT team.

His partner turns to the nerd in charge. "Doctor Pugovel, are you sure
he can't open that door from the inside?"

He's nervous, but confident now that the dead man walking is trapped
inside the metal chamber. "I've got a manual override on the door,"
Doctor Pugovel tells her. Then there's a loud hollow thudding sound,
followed by a large bump appearing on the metal door. "What the hell
was that?" he asks, then jumps when it happens again.

"Ray Pearce," Scully deadpans.

There's more pounding and bumps showing on the door, and now even some
of the SWAT guys raise their weapons, as if ready to fire. "The door is
four inches thick," Doctor Pugovel says, but it's less of a reassurance
than a reminder to himself. When there's more pounding, the scientist
quickly moves behind the FBI agents. "I don't think it's going to
hold!" he cries.

Doggett doesn't bother turning around. "You'd better hope it does
'cause if it doesn't, he's coming after you and I don't know if we can
stop him." He wishes that he had heavier artillery like the SWAT guys,
but it's not like the FBI runs across metal men very often. Hell, it's
not like he did while in the service, but at least they got some decent
firepower. When nothing happens after a round of pounding, he's
curious. It's not like the guy would run out of oxygen that fast, but
he doubts Pearce would go down that quickly after putting dents in an
inches-thick metal door, either. "Open it up," he says, his voice
authoritative, but his eyes burning with curiosity.

Scully, taking her cue, shouts, "Get it open!"

Now Doctor Pugovel looks the computer screen, checking the readout.
"There's a rupture in the chamber," he says, a mixture of disbelief and
fear in his voice. "I don't believe this."

The door is finally opened and the FBI agents follow the SWAT team
inside. Pearce, or at least the man they figure is Pearce, is gone,
leaving only a huge hole opened to the outside.

~*~*~

Within the chamber, Scully stares at the wall, a metallic-looking
liquid moving on the torn edges. This is one of those times she wishes
Mulder and Sammy were with her, they would get a kick out of this.
"Agent Doggett," she says, the only other available person would be
remotely be interested. "Look at this. You see this?"

Doggett dutifully comes over and squints at the mess on the wall. "What
is that? Is that blood?"

"Turning itself into metal," Scully answers to the positive.

Seeing that she could do more with the metal blood smear thing than
him, Doggett leaves the chamber and helps the SWAT team hustle the
researcher out of the room. "Get him out of here! Get him out of the
building!"

"I didn't do anything to the man! I didn't do anything," he stutters to
the armed men.

"You want to argue about it or let us get you someplace safe?!" Doggett
grabs his arm.

"Where's that?" Doctor Pugovel whines. "Where's safe?!"

"It's not in here." Doggett stares hard at the shorter man. Doctor
Pugovel caves, and the SWAT team moves the scientist out without any
trouble. While they're doing that, Doggett notices several blue
huge-ass drums with the yellow Chamber Technologies logo on them. He
glances over at Scully, then heads on out, hoping his hunch will pan
out.

~*~*~

It's past midnight, but there's quite a bit of activity at the police
station. Doctor Pugovel is led into a room, quite indignant. "You mind
telling me what's going on here. It's not enough that my life's been
threatened! I'm being treated like a criminal..." His voice trails off
when he sees what else is in there other than Doggett and Scully.

"Not without cause," Scully says, steel in her voice.

The scientist stares, horrified, at the metallic corpse within the
glass case. "Oh, my God," he breathes, unable to take his eyes off it.

"Do you recognize this man?" Scully asks flatly.

"We're assuming you don't know too many guys in this particular
condition," Doggett adds sarcastically.

Now he jerks away from the case. "It's not what it looks like," the
short man says desperately.

Doggett's eyebrows are up. "Is this Doctor Clifton - Doctor David
Clifton - your predecessor?"

Doctor Pugovel opens his mouth, swallows several variations of pathetic
excuses, then finally says, "Yes."

"You care to explain how he ended up in a Chamber Technology hazardous
waste barrel?" Doggett pushes on.

"It was his idea. I was against it," Doctor Pugovel says, feeling free
to put the blame on the dead man.

Doggett narrows his eyes. "If you knew, you might've told me about this
when I first came to see you."

"He, he was dying... and he was afraid," Doctor Pugovel says, looking
back at the metal man in the glass case.

"Of what?" Scully asks.

He looks at her, his eyes wide. "That it would hinder progress or halt
it. That it would finish us."

I ain't no scientist, but duh, Doggett thinks, borrowing a phrase from
his son. "Oh, you're finished," he says. "One way or another, your work
here is done."

"We didn't know this was going to happen!" the scientist looks from one
agent to the other, desperate. "We were just trying to push the
envelope, do the right thing for the company. Then he got sick. He
was... he was working with an alloy with a genetic algorithm built into
it. It converted electrical energy into mechanical. Gave it memory."

Scully shows no emotion or mercy as she adds, "And it poisoned him."

"We immediately shut down the project," Doctor Pugovel says quickly.
"But it was too late. He didn't have any family. His work was his life.
He wanted to leave us to continue working on the science."

"And leave you to ship this barrel and his body to Southside Salvage
where it infected somebody else," Doggett concludes, disgusted.

The scientist is obviously panicked. "I don't know how that happened, I
swear to God," he protests. That barrel was supposed to go to a
designated site!"

Scully looks at the nervous wreck, then at her partner. "Let me talk to
you for a second," she says, and they walk out to the hallway, leaving
the current scientist with the remains of the late scientist, along
with a good number of cops. "I think he's telling the truth."

Doggett nods, then a movement about fifteen feet down the hall catches
his attention. A familiar figure runs through, then disappears into the
elevator. "What the hell is she doing here?"

Scully turns around to see what he's looking at, but there's no one in
sight. "Who is it?"

"Nora Pearce, Ray's wife," he says grimly, and they run towards the
elevator.

~*~*~

Later, they catch up with Mrs. Pearce, but then get a bit of news while
she's escorted away to another office. "Want us to take the woman in?"
one of the officers asks.

"No, I want to talk to her first," Doggett tells him. The officer nods,
then stands at the doorway. When Doggett looks back at the woman, she's
defiant, although still nervous. Good, that means she's still got a
conscience, he thinks. "You might be interested to know that your
husband just broke through a second-story wall and eluded a dozen cops
at St. Clare house. You happy about that, Mrs. Pearce? Does it make you
happy to know that he killed a young woman there, a volunteer named
Larina Jackson?"

Scully looks dispassionately at the woman. "That makes three people.
Three people that he's killed and for what?"

It's obvious that Mrs. Pearce is shocked by what she's heard, but
defends her him nevertheless. "Because they made him what he is," she
says tightly.

Doggett leans into the widow's face. "They say this young woman he
killed tonight had been concerned for him - concerned for Ray's
welfare."

And Scully continues to pound the facts into the woman's head.
"Whatever Ray is, whatever he's become, it was an accident," she
emphasizes the last word. It was not those people's fault, Mrs.
Pearce."

Mrs. Pearce looks from one agent to the other, as if to convince them.
"Harry and Curt knew about it."

"No, they were innocent, just like Ray was," Scully says, but finds
herself in the uncomfortable position of seeing this woman's point of
view. Hell, if she didn't have all the facts about Mulder's abduction,
she'd be bringing down the town of Bellefleur and the entire FBI with
her bare hands. "They didn't know that this was going to happen."

"These people here knew about it. They got documents on it," Mrs.
Pearce hisses.

Okay, screw sympathy, Scully thinks, her spine now ramrod straight.
"Oh, so that's what this is about? This is about looking for somebody
to blame?"

"Ray sent you here, didn't he." Doggett squints hard at the widow, "to
find that person, to get a name?"

"The Ray I know... died. And the man responsible should pay for that,"
she adds stubbornly.

Scully just wants to beat some sense into this woman. Honestly, she'd
rather deal with mutants or aliens, at least they have a brain, if not
a heart, and one could freely kick the shit out of them to get some
answers. "So who is it? It's the CEO here? The owner? Give us a name,
Mrs. Pearce, before someone else has to die," Scully says, clearly
implying that it would be Mrs. Pearce's fault should her undead husband
kill again.

"I... I never gave him a name," Mrs. Pearce stammers.

Now Doggett's reached the same point of frustration Scully has, feeling
that he'd be better served by hitting his head repeatedly against the
wall. "Get her out of here. Put her on 24-hour watch," and he walks out
of the room, followed by his partner.

~*~*~

Much, much later that night, after Ray Pearce had killed his wife Nora,
Doggett and Scully show up to yet another site of attack. Scully's
tired of never being ahead of Pearce, but rather coming in after he's
done some damage, and misses Mulder for his insane insight. Taking in
the scene in front of Owen Harris' home, with various EMTs taking care
of the small family, she is suddenly reminded of her own, and promises
herself to call, especially if that means waking up Krycek. Then she
walks over to where her partner is standing, beside the damaged car.
"Ray Pearce," she says simply.

"He came here to kill this man, but something stopped him, didn't it?"
Doggett frowns at her. Then he turns his scowl on the car, its
hand-shaped dents taunting him. "Makes no sense. Ray Pearce was a
determined killer looking for someone to blame. Why stop here?"

"Wherever Ray Pearce went, the answer to that question went with him,"
Scully answers flatly, "but I can tell you why he came after Owen
Harris. It was his name Nora found in the file. He was the accountant
who authorized the shipment of hazardous materials to Southside
Salvage."

"But if Owen Harris is the guy Ray holds responsible, why'd Ray let him
live?"

Good question. "Probably for the same reason that drove him to kill in
the first place. Some flicker of humanity." She puts a hand to the back
of her neck, then rotates her head, hearing and feeling a satisfying
crack as she does so.

Doggett looks at her with a mixture of disgust and sympathy. "Eugh. I
hear ya. Do you think he's gonna try again?"

Scully closes her eyes, suddenly very, very tired. "Who knows? But if
recent events are any indication, I don't think so."

~*~*~

Hours and hours later and hundreds of miles away, Doggett tucks his
little girl into bed. "Good night, Hannah."

"'Night, Daddy." She smiles sleepily before yawning.

He brushes her bangs from her forehead and plants a light kiss there,
then stands. If there's anything that makes the butt-numbing long
hours, the mind-numbing reports in triplicate, and mind-boggling cases
worth it, it's coming home and being able to tuck in his little girl.
Then he turns off the light and walks out, leaving the door ajar. Yeah,
nothing like coming home to a normal home and a normal life.

"Dad, Gibson's cheating," Luke says when Doggett enters the boys' room.


"It's not cheating, it's knowing the right combination to press at the
right time," Gibson retorts. "How could it be cheating to actually read
the manual?"

Doggett exhales. Yeah, normal, like the only metal guys walking around
being on some teens' videogames. "You're both smart kids," he says
finally, "but Luke, do yourself a favor an' read the manual, an'
Gibson, don't rack up easy points an' cheat."

"But, but," they both sputter. 

He grabs the manual and a controller. "This is a FPS, right? Then I
should be able to whup both your butts once I see how this baby
handles. Aren't you glad it's Friday?"
 
Both boys groan, knowing they've been had, but take perverse delight in
schooling the "old man" on the finer points of movement from different
angles and destroying metal zombies with more creativity than Doggett
thought possible in a game. Maybe I should take the boys along, he
thinks, his thumb, pointer and middle fingers hitting multiple buttons
in different patterns. When he sees Gibson grinning, he thinks better
of it, and nearly gets beheaded by a monster with a chainsaw for an
arm. "Oh, come on!"

Granted, it turns out to be another long night, but he doesn't regret
one single minute of it.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Six
"The Spy Who Loved Me"

The Mulder-Scully Home
Christmas Eve Day

It's less than half an hour until the wedding ceremony is scheduled to
start, and Krycek has yet to make it up the stairs. He knows it's his
fault for insisting on his new family indulging in some Russian wedding
traditions, but it's disturbing to see how well the Scully family
enjoys the "ransom for the bride" part. In a way, he supposes it's what
normal American males have to go through to even date somebody's
daughter or sister, but the oldest Scully son, Bill, is much too
enthusiastic for his own good.

Now Krycek wishes he'd paid more heed to Melissa's warnings, but it's
not like he doesn't have anything up his own tuxedoed sleeves. "Think
fast!" he shouts when he sees the larger man barreling down upon him
again. Bill doesn't pause in his lineman-like tackle, but Krycek uses
the same taser that knocked out the younger brother at the front door
on this older brother. Well, since he doesn't have any friends on his
side, he might as well even the odds, right?

Wasting no time, he runs up the stairs, but something catches his foot,
and he tumbles, grabbing the handrail with his one hand just in time.
"The hell?" he mutters, and the chill in the air, along with childish
giggles, paints a clear picture of the culprits. Ghost kids. Figures
they'd get into it, too. "Hey, somebody's gotta be on my side!" he
yells at thin air, then scowls. Okay, Charlie was at the front door,
Bill was at the foot of the stairs, he's guessing the one at the top of
the stairs is-

"Oh, boy," he says, facing the business end of Scully's gun. 

She smiles sweetly, enjoying this even more than her older brother.
"Hi, Alex," she says.

"Well, at least we're on a first name basis now," Krycek quips, holding
his hands up.

Dana Scully grimaces. "Drop the taser and kick it down the stairs." 

Krycek tries to put on an innocent face, but there's no bargaining with
the woman with the gun. Down goes his non-lethal weapon, and he sighs.
"Are you gonna put a bullet in my shoulder like you did Mulder, or do I
get a cold-cock?"

She blinks. "Pistol whipping? I hadn't thought of that." Then she
smiles widely, the hold on her gun unnervingly steady.

Dammit! Twenty-five minutes to go, and I'll probably go to church in a
casket if she has her way, Krycek thinks desperately. Then a flicker at
the corner of his eye gives him an idea. "You guys can do whatever you
want for a week, I'll clean up after you," he begs, "just take the gun
away from the lady, please?"

Scully stares at him like he's crazy, and then the gun is jerked out of
her hands. As if that wasn't undignified enough, invisible children's
hands push her out of the groom's way, and she cries, "I'll get you for
this!"

Before running to the door at the end of the hall, he tosses her a
devilish grin, "Too late, your sister's already got me!"

Scully sighs and sits down, as the surrounding ghost children
materialize and giggle.

~*~*~ 

When he opens the door, the smile on his face drops into slack-jawed
surprise. "Mrs. Scully," he says, not sure if the old lady's suddenly
gonna break his legs or something. With the Scully family, he's learned
not to underestimate any of them.

"Alex." Maggie Scully rises from the chair she's in and walks over to
him. He doesn't do anything, and shock makes him stiffen in her
embrace. She laughs. "My goodness, my children have really gotten you
worried," she says.

He returns a shaky smile. "Yeah, well, I know I'm *never* gonna piss
Melissa off," he tells her.

Now she laughs heartily. "Oh, Alex, you've got a lot to learn about
married life," she chuckles. "But there is one thing you need to tell
me before you can see my oldest daughter."

Krycek looks at her warily. "What's that?"

"When you asked me permission for Melissa's hand, you told me that you
love her and Emily so much, you'd do anything for them." She pauses,
and he nods. "People have told me you were untrustworthy, but can I
trust you," she clasps his hands in hers, "can I trust you with Melissa
and Emily and whoever else may come along, no matter what?"

"I'd kill myself before I'd betray them," he tells her, feeling that
already-familiar twinge of guilt whenever his character, hell, his
life, came into question around these people. He's surprised Mulder
hasn't drunk himself into a stupor at any family gatherings.

"I'd rather you not," Mrs. Scully says wryly, but her eyes are more
perceptive than he'd like. "Besides, I know you promised Fox you'd help
watch over my grandchildren, and you've kept that promise so far." Her
smile is both a comfort and a warning. "Remember, we Scullys are a
tight-knit clan. We support each other, no matter what."

He'd like to believe her, he really would. But this whole "family"
thing sounds too good to be true, especially in light of the few
gatherings he's been to. "Including a wandering daughter and her
dubious lover?"

To his surprise, she pinches his cheek. "Don't you know that wandering
is in our blood? Or that the prodigals are the ones the good Lord
searches after?" Then she calls out, "Melissa, dear, take your husband
out of here, you're going to be late!"

Melissa fairly flies out of the bathroom, a redheaded vision in white,
her welcoming smile broadening when she sees the look on Krycek's face.
"Come on, Alex," she says, grabbing his hand, "the limo's waiting
downstairs!"

It's rare that Krycek finds himself bewildered, but he is, as he passes
his laughing mother-in-law, his stunned sister-in-law, and unconscious
brothers-in-law. "Remind me never to do traditional again," he breathes
when they're safely ensconced in the black limousine.

His gorgeous bride chuckles. "For all that you try to be a rebel and
everything, you really are old-fashioned," she says, snuggling against
him.

"Just don't tell anyone," he mutters, and she giggles, kissing him. He
takes that as encouragement, and deepens the kiss, catching his fingers
in her delicately-done hair.

~*~*~

It is, for all intents and purposes, an otherwise lovely and
surprisingly traditional wedding. Page is an enthusiastic flower girl,
tossing petals every which way, while Sammy is a very solemn
ring-bearer, handing over the rings with the weight of pride and
responsibility on his round little face. Bride and groom say their vows
with a sincerity that surprise those who know them, and even Skinner is
expecting something to go awry at any moment. Father McCue smiles on
occasion, knowing that this event is something of a miracle, evidenced
by the fact that this is probably the only time the wayward older
Scully sister will ever be in church with the right attitude. The only
odd notes are that Emily is the bridesmaid, and Scully is the best man,
standing in for her husband, but all things considered, it could've
been weirder.

Once they get outside the church, Melissa waves cheerily to everyone,
"See you in a while, don't wait up!" Then she and Krycek hop into the
limo without further ado, the attendees cheering after the departing
vehicle.

"Um, what's she mean by that?" Frohike asks Scully.

Scully, feeling guilty about being relieved that yet another Scully has
escaped Frohike's advances, replies kindly, "Well, according to
tradition, the bride and groom and their close friends check out all
the famous landmarks before going to the reception. A last hurrah, I
guess. But since Missy's friends were hard to get a hold of, it's just
the bride and groom."

The bald man shakes his head. "Maybe Russians feel bad their kids don't
go to the prom, so they set up their wedding like one."

"Dude, you never went to your prom, so what's your wedding gonna be
like?" Langly jeers.

Before blood is spilled, Skinner shows up and offers the Lone Gunmen a
ride, which they politely decline, preferring to head to the reception
in their less-than-reliable van. Scully manages to herd her mother,
Emily and her excited children into the minivan without losing anyone
or adding more to the vehicle.

Once back at home, she and the rest of her family tidies up the
backyard, and with her mother's help, she unloads her refrigerator of
all its contents, that is, tons of Russian dishes, a few mildly obscure
Native American and Asian entrees, and quite a bit of drinks. "It looks
like we're feeding the neighborhood," she remarks as table after table
is filled with food.

"With men here, especially your brothers, it's the same thing," Mrs.
Scully remarks to her daughter, and they both laugh as the guests step
out onto the decorated lawn.

~*~*~

Of course, everyone makes a big to-do when the bride and groom finally
show up, and they're offered bread and salt, as well as toasts all
around. Krycek hugs his bride, and when Emily rushes up to them, he
catches her up in his arms. It doesn't take long before everyone helps
themselves to the wealth of food, the gaiety of music, and, for the
adults, the copious drinking of alcohol. "Tradition!" a rather unsober
Frohike shouts, raising his glass before downing it.

Both Skinner and Doggett sigh, and Luke and Gibson laugh at the
synchronicity. "Dude, I betcha the fifth person to go down is that guy
over there," Luke points to Bill Scully. "And no cheating."

"With this loud music, it's kinda hard to." Gibson smiles, "why fifth?"

"Makes it more interesting." Luke shrugs, helping himself to another
pirogi.

"Speaking of interesting, do you think they'll do that other thing?"
the shorter teen asks.

"Huh? Oh, you mean the stealing the bride thing? Huh, who knows," Luke
mumbles around his food.

"Because I think your dad and Mr. Skinner are considering it."

"Hey, I thought you couldn't hear that kind of thing!" Luke yelps.

Gibson grins. "Sorry, they're closer, and sometimes, your dad sounds
like you." He taps his head.

"That's kinda scary," Luke mutters, and Gibson nods. Then the taller
teen grins back. "Hey, you wanna bet that Krycek nails them here
instead of later?"

Now Gibson groans. "Luke, the point of ‘stealing the bride' is just
some crazy way to show how much the groom loves his wife – or that
she's hot."

Luke looks from his friend to the bride, dancing with her husband and
daughter to some weird-sounding music. "Okay, for an old lady, she is
kinda hot," he admits.

"You wanna bet that Krycek nails you for calling her an old lady?"
Gibson laughs, and he ducks out of his friend's swing.

"Hey, I said she was hot, too!" Luke retorts, then blushes because the
music stopped and everyone heard his last remark. "Gib, do something,"
he mutters.

Gibson Praise looks at everyone, who looks rather curious. "He said she
was hot," and he jerks a thumb at the bride.

As everyone laughs and Luke chases his so-called friend around the
backyard, Skinner and Doggett "kidnap" their willing victim while
everyone's distracted. When Luke finally tackles Gibson, the fallen
teen cries out, "Hey, where's the hot lady?" A big hubbub ensues, with
Krycek tears through the wedding party to get to his bride. Doggett and
Skinner are smirking when he catches up to them, but their smirks drop
off when he kisses them, then drags his wife away while they're wiping
their faces like two little boys, much to the laughter of onlookers.
"He didn't nail them," Gibson smirks also, dusting himself off. "You
owe me five."

"It was a now or later thing, so it's off," Luke scowls. "That dude is
gross."

"Hey, you wanna steal her?" Gibson grins.

"No way!" Luke is appalled. If the groom kissed his dad, what's he
gonna do to a guy like him?

"I promise no kissing." Gibson puts a hand on his heart. Then he nods
to his friend's unspoken question. "Really, I do."

Now an evil grin, similar to the one his father wore earlier, appears
on the younger Doggett's face. "Let's do it."

Needless to say, the rest of the evening was very entertaining, indeed.

~*~*~

December 25, 2001

"Mmm, Merry Christmas," Melissa mumbles into her husband's chest.

Krycek wakes to feeling warm air hitting his cold chest, and
automatically puts his hand there to feel the source without opening
his eyes. When his hand meets long wavy hair, lips kiss his chest, and
a tongue laps his left nipple. "Whoa!" his eyes fly open. He smiles
when he sees Missy smiling impishly at him, her hair all bed-sexy
around her face. "If this is how you start Christmas, we're really
gonna have to celebrate it."

Missy shakes her head, but she's smiling. "So, what did you get me for
my Christmas present?"

He makes a show of blinking. "Wait, I had to get you a present on top
of our honeymoon?" She slaps his chest, and he chuckles. "It's a
surprise."

She raises an eyebrow at him, then pouts. "Fine, then." Then a slow
smile creeps across her lips, and now Krycek's getting nervous. "Ve
haff veys of making you tolk," she says in a bad imitation of old
cartoon villains.

Krycek smirks at her. "Sure you do," he says, but there's a small part
in the back of his mind that wonders if getting married to her is a
good idea. What if she's found out what he really does for a living,
such as it is? She dives under the covers, and he's clueless until her
mouth is wrapped around a very important part of his anatomy. "Oh my
God," he groans. As she continues to work her exquisite torture, he
finds his hips moving to the beat of her ministrations. Just when he
feels himself about to come, she stops abruptly. "Hey!"

When she throws back the covers, there's a smirk on her face. "Well?"

He throws his head back against the pillow. "Okay, I admit you're very
good at torture," he sighs.

"Well?" Missy repeats, sitting up and away from his very disappointed
member. "What's my Christmas present?"

Suddenly, he laughs. "We have an amazing daughter," he chuckles.

She frowns at him. "Emily is my Christmas present?"

He laughs harder. "No, she's not," he wheezes, wiping his eyes. She
whaps his chest again, and he chuckles again. "But she *is* amazing."

"Duh." His beautiful wife rolls her beautiful green eyes.

He sits up and catches his wife by the shoulders. "I think it's also
amazing that she can keep a secret for so long," Krycek says, kissing
her on the lips. "She must get that from me."

"Just because I want to know my present doesn't mean I can't keep
secrets," Melissa looks unmollified by the kiss.

"Come on," he says, pulling his wife out of bed.

"Wait, it's cold," she complains, and while she wraps a robe around
herself, he pulls on his boxers. "You're not gonna freeze in that?"

He shrugs. "You want to see your present, right?"

"Yeah, but-"

He wraps his arms around her. "Your body heat will keep me warm," he
says simply, leading her to the kitchen.

~*~*~

"So, what's the big secret?" Melissa wonders, as her boxer-clad husband
takes her into the kitchen.

"This," Krycek says, reaching above the refrigerator to hand her a
small box.

Her eyes widen slightly, but she takes the small box from him. Opening
it, she finds a key. It looks suspiciously familiar... "Alex, don't
tell me my Christmas present is a copy of my car key?"

"Not quite," Krycek says, and gets down on one knee. "Your Christmas
present is deciding wherever you want to go, whether it be by car,
plane, boat, whatever. And wherever you are, that's where our honeymoon
will be."

"Anywhere?" Missy raises her eyebrows.

"Anywhere."

"Cost doesn't matter?"

"Money is no object."

"Really?"

"Really."

There's a sudden, wistful look that surprises him, and for a moment,
Krycek wonders if he did the right thing. Then she wraps her arms
around him. "That's sweet of you," she says in a voice husky with
feeling.

"Uh, thanks," he says, hugging her back.

When she pulls back to look up at him, her eyes are shining with unshed
tears. "I'd like to see your family," she says.

"What?" he says, more than a little shocked.

"I know you'll think it's silly, but maybe it's being pregnant, or
getting married, or the crazy combination of the two, but I'd like to
see your family. To know where you came from, that sort of thing," she
says in a rush.

"I'm afraid we'll be visiting a lot of unromantic places," he says,
"namely cemeteries. Is that okay with you?"

"They're all dead?" Missy says, shocked. She figured he was distant
from his family, maybe with one deceased parent, but she never
thought...

"Trust me, they were lucky," he says without a trace of humor. "Are you
sure you want to go?"

She nods. "Wherever you are, that's where our honeymoon will be." And
she hugs him again, because it looks like he needs it.

~*~*~

Pleasant Meadow Memorial Cemetery
Syracuse, New York
December 27, 2001
5:19 p.m.

The couple is warmly dressed, and the tall flame-haired woman places a
rose on the small metal nameplate. She notices that the other graves
are likewise abandoned, the names of most barely noticeable under the
overgrown grass. "I take it you haven't been here for a while," she
says to the man standing next to her.

"Not since they died," he agrees.

She carefully kneels down and brushes the grass away from the grave
marker to better see the date. "It says November 2, 1984."

"Yeah."

Then she looks at the marker again and frowns. "It says Grant and
Laurie Evans."

"Yeah."

She looks up at him suspiciously. "Are you sure we're at the right
place?"

"Yeah." He sighs, then kneels beside her. Looking down at the placard,
he goes on, his voice flat, "Their real names are Grigori and Ilena
Krycek."

"What?"

As if he hadn't heard her, Krycek continues in his flat voice, "We
moved to the United States when I was thirteen, and my whole life
changed. Not only my name, but my parents' as well, and we were only
allowed to converse in English. After one too many ass-kickings in
school, I learned to develop an American accent real quick, as well as
how to fight back." He pauses. "I learned a lot of things, most of them
shortly before they died."

"Oh."

"I learned a lot of things later," he says, "like the fact that I have
no other family other than you, Emily and our baby. And that's all that
matters."

 "Oh."

He shakes his head. "My only regret is that they didn't get to see what
a hot, sexy mama I married."

"Alex," Missy starts to scold him, but she smiles anyway. "Trust me,
they know."

He sighs, "This isn't one of your New Age feelings, is it?"

Then she slugs him. "No," she says while he's rubbing his arm, "I know
it as a mother and a wife. They know."

"Oh."

And just as fiercely as she hit him, she hugs him. "You idiot."

He smiles into her hair, hugging her back. "Yeah."

~*~*~

Off the coast of Virginia
December 28, 2001

"It's far beyond the stars
it's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
my heart will lead me there soon," 

Bobby Darin croons into their ears via the little earbuds attached to
the walkman.

The newlyweds are staring out into the open sea, squinting at the
wintry scene. "I wasn't there for my father's funeral," Melissa says
softly. "Even Charlie and his wife made it, but not me."

"Hey." Krycek squeezes her shoulders, "it's not like you had a cell
phone back then."

She shakes her head. "But I should've known, at least. I mean, I wasn't
as close to my father as Bill was, or even Dana, but I should've known.
Right? Aren't you supposed to know when your loved one is gone?"

"It's a nice thought, but I don't think it works that way," he
disagrees. "Besides, I think the dead have better things to do than
hang around us."

"You think so?" she raises her eyebrows at him. "Just in case, humor me
a little."

He smiles a little. "Sure."

"No more sailin'
so long sailin'
bye bye sailin'...
move on out, captain," the long-dead singer trails off.

Melissa shakes her head. "Dana used to call Dad ‘Ahab' after the guy in
"Moby Dick", but I just called him Dad. ‘Captain' was what he was at
work, and ‘Sir' was something even my brothers called him on occasion,
but to me... he was my father. Human. Yelled at us once in a while, but
never raised a hand against us because he didn't have to. And even
while I rejected and rebelled against authority, even his, I still
loved him."

Krycek nods. "I can tell."

Melissa laughs. "If he were alive, you probably wouldn't. Man, I used
to really enjoy pushing him to the edge, even if it was at some fancy
dinner." She smiles widely. "Dana used to have this crazy idea that
what she did, going into the FBI, disappointed Dad. The thing is, he
loved us all in his very opinionated way. Oh, he'd give us grief here
and there, but no matter what we did, he was damn proud of us."

She pulls the earbuds out of their ears and tucks the wires into the
pocket holding the walkman. "That's why we're here, I want to show off
my husband to my Dad." Melissa turns a bright smile to the sea. "Dad, I
want you to meet Alex Krycek. He only looks like the kind of man you
warned me about," and she chuckles at Krycek's expression, "but he
loves me and Emily, and the new baby we're about to have. Alex, meet my
dad, who is capable of kicking your ass, even if it doesn't look like
it."

Krycek nods slightly at the open sea. "Mr. Scully, I promise to take
good care of your daughter and grandchildren. You're probably not too
happy with the fact that the kids came first, but don't worry, we're
legally married, and we love each other, and Missy keeps me in line."

As she squeezes his hand, he goes on, "I'm guessing you're more like
Bill and Dana, but I'm fairly sure that you'd still spoil your
grandkids silly. Oh yeah, Emily's our daughter, and she's a real bright
and beautiful girl, just like her mommy." He smiles. "And if you see my
parents, let my dad win at arm-wrestling once in a while. The Cold War
should be over where you're at, and my dad likes showing off in front
of my mom."

"Just like his son." Missy grins, and Krycek playfully knocks his
shoulder against hers. "Take care, Dad. It was nice seeing you again."
She waves and takes her husband's hand in hers, taking them back to the
car.

"Remember, just once in a while, and don't make it look easy," Krycek
says over his shoulder.

"Alex," Missy snorts, "come on."

He kisses the top of her head. "You've got a weird idea of what a
honeymoon is."

She gives him an impish smile. "Like we were ever normal?"

He wraps an arm around her before opening the car door. "We have our
moments."

~*~*~

At An Undisclosed Location
December 29, 2001

In a cabin somewhere not too far from civilization, Mr. and Mrs. Krycek
are spending some well-deserved quality time secluded in the snowy
woods. The newlyweds are snuggled on a well-cushioned wooden couch,
blankets covering their legs and cups of cocoa within reach. The
husband has just closed his eyes, satisfied that the flickering fire in
the fireplace is on a steady burn, and wraps his arms around his
flame-haired wife.

"Mm, this is good." Melissa Krycek smiles into her husband's chest,
likewise closing her eyes.

He absently strokes her long hair. "If we ever celebrate our
anniversary, can we not do it around dead people?" Alex Krycek asks.

"Sure." Missy chuckles, feeling but not seeing his answering smile.

"Good," he says, heartfelt.

Then she straightens up and gives her husband a quick peck on the lips.
When his eyes fly open, she answers the unspoken question. "Thank you."
As she makes herself more comfortable in her new position, she says,
"Does that mean you'll do whatever I want you to for the rest of our
marriage?"

He snorts. "I love you, Melissa Krycek, but don't push it."

"Good to know, Alex Krycek." She grins, then brushes a lock of his
bangs from his forehead.

"Are you flirting with me?" he says. "Because if you are, I like where
this is going."

Missy laughs, and he falls in love with her all over again. "Just want
to remind you that even though you've got me, and then some," she puts
his hand on her belly, "that our marriage is gonna be even better than
our wedding and honeymoon."

He gives her a look. "Does that mean the trigger-happy members of your
family are holding a truce with me and that we'll spend less time
around cemeteries?"

"Mmm," she says, nibbling on his ear.

"What does that mean?" he tries to clarify the answer, but is starting
to get distracted by where her hands and lips are. "Hey, come on..."

Rather than answering him, she unbuttons his jeans while licking his
Adam's apple, and once she gets her hands on what she wants, she starts
sucking on his neck like a horny vampire. "Mmm, Alex," she moans on his
throat.

He groans, but knows the answer to his question doesn't really matter.
After all, he thinks while he rubbing her sensitive spots, she's right,
he's got her, and then some. And when she sits on his erect member, he
gives her everything he's got - and so does she.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Doctor Parenti's Office
January 3rd, 2001

The waiting room is too brightly lit, and Scully tries not to sigh. The
only magazines offered are Times and Parents. She's been too involved
with her own life to care much about current events, and she highly
doubts that there's anything of interest in the parenting magazine.
There probably aren't any articles like "How to cope with pregnancy and
six children while searching for your alien-abducted spouse."

"Dana?"

Scully looks up and sees Missy coming towards her with a radiant smile.
Her sister's added height makes her carry her baby differently, and her
pregnancy is much more noticeable despite only being a couple of weeks
farther along. But that could be Missy's sweet-tooth at work as well.
"All set?" Scully asks.

"Yeah."

"I take it that things are going well, judging from the look on your
face."

"Couldn't be better," Missy replies. "And I just found out the baby's
sex!"

"That's great," Scully tells her, wondering if she'll soon receive the
same news herself. "Are you going to share or surprise people?"

"It's a boy," Missy says happily. "Alex told me he thought it was going
to be, and it looks like he was right."

"It's been known to happen now and then," Scully tells her with a
forced smile.

"Thanks for coming with me," Missy says. "I don't think Alex would have
volunteered to chaperone Emily's class trip if he'd of known that I'd
have this appointment today."

"Probably not." It has never struck her as overly strange when Mulder
had gone on class trips with the kids, but the thought of her
brother-in-law being in charge of a group of six-year-olds strikes her
as bizarre. He was a capable double agent, but this just seems beyond
his scope. She's sure that the girls will give her all the gory details
when they get home. "Is Emily excited?" she adds as an afterthought
"About the baby, I mean. Not the class trip."

"I think so. She's been telling me forever that she wants a sibling,
not just cousins, so that's a good thing. So far there haven't been any
hurt feelings about it that I can detect. I'm sure she'll take to being
a big sister just like Page did. Or I did, come to think of it."

"That's great," Scully says, but she's thinking about the age gaps.
Page and Missy were still babies themselves when they lost their
positions of "baby of the family." Emily is six. There has to be a
difference. "I've got to be at work in an hour, are you ready to
leave?"

"Sure, just let me pay the receptionist. I'll only be a minute."

~*~*~

Hoover Building

Her sister's excited chatter about how happy she and Alex are wears on
Scully, so she's not sad when she drops her off. It's not that she
wants to be happy instead of Missy, but the fact that she's so damn
happy is making her more acutely aware of the fact that she herself is
miserable. She's in such a rush that she doesn't do anything when she
notices that Missy has left her ultrasound behind - she decides that
her sister can get it from her later.

Scully's mood doesn't improve much when she finds Doggett chatting with
a strange man by his new desk. Both men look up at her, and to her
puzzlement, both seem to recognize her.

"I'm sorry, Agent Doggett, I didn't realize that you had an
appointment," she says preemptively, once the stranger has said "hi."

"This is Duffy Haskell. he says he knows you or you know him." Doggett
doesn't bother to hide the doubt in his voice. Apparently her lack of
recognition shows.

She flashes the stranger an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I don't
remember meeting you, Mister Haskell."

"I contacted you about my wife About eight years ago because she was an
alien abductee."

"Oh, I see now. That was before my time here. But, uh, is there
something I can help you with?" she asks, taking a seat at Mulder's
desk.

Duffy Haskell practically falls out of his seat when he begins speaking
excitedly. "She's dead. My wife is dead now. They killed her. Kath- my
wife."

"I checked the files. Mr. Haskell wrote several letters to Agent Mulder
describing his wife's abduction experiences."

"My wife gave birth to an alien," Duffy insists.

A shiver races up Scully's spine as she remembers Mulder's long-ago
joke about giving birth to an alien himself. "I-I thought you said that
your wife was murdered."

"That's the reason they did it."

"Wow. That's...Why don't you pretend that agent Doggett and I have no
idea what you're talking about? That way you can tell your story
without worrying about us missing anything because you assume we
already knew and didn't," Scully suggests. She gives the phone a brief
glance, and wonders how soon 911 would arrive if it turns out that
Duffy is violent as well as delusional.

Duffy seems not to have any idea that she thinks he's nuts. "Kath was a
multiple abductee. The aliens did these procedures on her. Tests and
whatnot. One procedure would give her cancer while another one would
cure her. Stuff like that. For years, you see. And then, this year,
they came right into our bedroom and implanted an alien embryo in
Kath."

"I don't suppose that you have any, uh, medical proof of this?" Scully
asks.

Duffy hands her an envelope, which clearly contains an ultrasound
photo. "I have an ultrasound here. Anyone with a trained eye can see
that is a bizarre pregnancy. Especially for a woman who was never
supposed to be able to conceive. I doubt you'd ever get the doctors to
cop to any of that."

"What doctors?"

"We've been through three sets. They're all in on it. They're all in
cahoots."

"So you're... saying that it was the doctors that killed your wife?"

"And stole the alien baby. That ultrasound is proof," Duffy insists.

Trying to remain professional, Scully takes down contact information
and tells him that they'll be in touch. Still a bit manic, Duffy thanks
them profusely before leaving.

Scully glowers at her partner "Thank you, Agent Doggett. I'm sure the
rest of my afternoon can't possibly be so amusing."

"I thought you'd find it interesting, actually," Doggett replies
mildly.

"Your definition of interesting is wildly different from mine.
Unbelievable, totally preposterous, sure. Interesting, no."

Doggett still doesn't look flustered. "It sounded like something Mulder
would jump at. I thought that might interest you."

"Did you."

"Come on, Dana, a story about alien abductions, cancer and remission
and a subsequent alien pregnancy? We both know he'd of gone for this,
big time."

"So you were thinking, what, we'd have a good time awash with
nostalgia?" Scully says, an edge of annoyance creeping into her voice.

"No," Doggett replies. "I thought... maybe if we figured out what was
going on here, it might give us a lead on Mulder and other abductees."

"All right," Scully says tiredly as Doggett wanders off. Her eyes find
Mulder's poster, but she's not really seeing it.

~*~*~

Once Upon A Time
January 3rd, 1999

It should be fairly quiet in the house because Mulder has taken Page,
Sammy, April and Emily to a movie, but it's not. Instead Missy has come
over, apparently to continue to argue about her Christmas revelation.

"I know that you don't like him-" Missy begins. She has David on her
lap and doesn't notice that her gesturing has pulled the bottle out of
his mouth until he cries.

Scully's eyes widen in disbelief. "Don't like him? For God's sake,
Missy, the man is a double agent! What on earth could you possibly see
in him? Tell me that!"

"He made a promise to me, and he kept it," Missy says calmly.

"What sort of promise?" Scully demands to know. She doesn't notice that
Jared is flinching at the sound of her raised voice. "It had to be one
hell of a promise!"

"Alex promised me that if he got better, he'd come back. And he did."

"Got better? What are you-" Scully stops suddenly. "Your sick friend a
couple of years ago, that was about Krycek?" Instead of feeling any
empathy for Krycek, she begins to feel angry that she'd tried to cheer
up her sister over him.

Missy nods slowly. "Alex had a brain tumor."

"Had?" Scully asks.

"Had. He got some treatment in Mexico, and came back healed."

"I'm sure he got it by poking around something he shouldn't have,"
Scully grumbles. "He's forever sticking his nose in dangerous
business."

"Actually, he was abducted and given cancer," Missy says evenly.

Scully puts the hand not holding Jared's bottle over her face and
moans. "Don't tell me that you believe in aliens too! I get enough of
that from my husband."

"Well, I don't think that Fox is off his nut, but Alex thinks it was an
experiment conducted by men, not aliens."

"Why would anyone give a person cancer?" Scully asks.

Missy shrugs. "Why would anyone make a child like Emily? We think the
two things are connected."

"Emily's not sick, is she?" Scully asks in alarm.

"No. She and Alex are both healthy. Despite what they endured."

"You're sure he's cured?" Scully asks, even though she's loathed to
sound concerned about him. Because it's not him she's worried about -
she doesn't know if Missy and Emily could cope if he died, even if the
rest of the family despised him.

"Everything looks good," Missy tells her. "He'll be touched that you
care."

"I'm sure."

~*~*~

Present Day
Hoover Building

When she breaks from her memory, Scully tries to laugh similarities the
off. It's not as though Alex was the one pregnant, so the fact that he
suffered cancer after an abduction and was cured has to be a
coincidence. She makes fair headway at convincing herself this until
she happens to look down at the corner of the film Duffy Haskell gave
her.

The doctor's name is printed on a small rectangular sticker. Kath's
doctor and Missy's doctor have the same name.

When she notices this a pit forms in her stomach. The addresses are
different, however. Unsure that this proves anything, she dashes off a
quick note to Doggett and grabs her purse.

~*~*~

Zeus Genetics
Germantown, Maryland

There's no one in the reception area when Scully enters the Zeus
Genetics building. There is, however a board with the names of doctors
on it. The doctor Parenti who works here has the same first name and
middle initial as the man who saw her sister earlier in the day.

Why he is working at two practices is a question she finds the answer
to in the literature neatly stacked on the desk. Instead of an OB-GYN
office like the one Missy went to, this is an office that apparently
specializes in helping couples conceive.

Convinced that there's no one around that she can get more information
from, Scully is about to leave when she hears voices coming from down
the hallway. One of them sounds scared. Her right hand brushes her
waist, automatically reassuring herself that her weapon is at the ready
if it comes to that.

"This is my baby. I have to know..." a woman moans, and Scully chides
herself for being alarmist. The woman isn't in danger.

A doctor is in the middle of reassuring the woman when Scully finds
them. The doctor looks annoyed when his hysterical patient continues to
insist that he doesn't know what's wrong. "Just try and stay calm." He
snaps at her. "There are no similarities between your baby and the
others."

"What others?" Scully asks loudly. Both patient and doctor look up at
her.

"There were two recent failures-" the doctor starts to say
automatically before giving Scully a suspicious look. "What are you
doing here?"

"I'm here with her," Scully says, pointing at the woman who now seems
barely conscious. She wonders if she's worn herself out, or if she was
drugged.

"All right," the doctor surprises her by saying. "Can you keep her
company for a couple of minutes while I get another doctor? She
obviously doesn't want to believe me when I tell her that she's fine."

"Sure," Scully agrees readily.

While the doctor is gone, Ms Hendershot opens her eyes and reaches for
Scully's wrist. "I can't stay here. Something's wrong with my baby."

"What?" Scully asks, trying to sound as compassionate as possible.

"Look!" the other woman says weakly, gesturing towards an ultrasound
film near the exam table.

"Can I take this?" Scully asks her.

"Take it. I have more copies."

"Thanks. I'm sure your baby will be fine," Scully tells her, but the
other woman has already closed her eyes again.

A light shines dimly in an adjacent room, and Scully's curiosity gets
the best of her. She pushes the door open and nearly screams. The walls
of the room are lined with shelves. And on each shelve there are jars
of formaldehyde containing deformed fetuses.

Trying not to be sick she quickly scans the rows of doomed children.
Though most of their deformities are grotesque, she sees nothing that
would suggest "alien fetus" on cursory examination.

Worried that the doctor will soon reappear, Scully goes back to the
woman and glances at her chart, knowing now her name at the very least.
Once the doctors return to speak to their patient, Scully makes her
escape.

~*~*~

Scully doesn't bother going back to the office before trying to reach
her own OB-GYN. "Hi, this is doctor Scully. I was hoping to be able to
speak to doctor Hart today? ... No, just an appointment to speak to
him...Sure, I can be there in twenty minutes. Thank you very much."

Forty minutes later, Scully is still mentally sending grateful thoughts
to the woman who canceled her appointment at the last moment. She
glances over at doctor Hart, and is dismayed to see that he looks quite
concerned.

He stabs a finger at one of the three ultrasound photos she asked him
to look at. "I hope this is your sister's."

"Yes, it is. Why?" 

"These other two..." Hart looks depressed. "There's something seriously
wrong with both of these fetuses."

"In what way?" Scully asks.

"At this stage of gestation, the fetuses shouldn't look like this. You
see how they still have that alien-like appearance we associate with
early pregnancy? It looks like they've merely gotten larger instead of
developing properly."

Her eyes widen involuntarily at the expression "alien-like" but she
forces her voice not to betray her thoughts. "Are you saying that this
will affect the babies' viability?"

"Definitely. I doubt either of these fetuses will be born alive," Hart
says, seeming sad. "Your sister's baby, on the other hand, looks
perfect. Was there a reason you were concerned about her as well?"

"Her husband worked with these two women," Scully improvises. "I was
afraid that he might have been exposed to whatever toxin that caused
the problems with their pregnancies."

"Well, it looks like he lucked out. Or maybe it wasn't a toxin that
damaged chromosomes in men's gametes," Hart tells her. "But he might
want to consider a new line of work, for the sake of his own health, if
he's exposed to stuff that can cause this sort of birth defect."

"I'll suggest it to him," Scully lies.

~*~*~
Basement Office

Doggett looks up when Scully drops a folder on his desk. "The jury's
still out on whether or not Duffy Haskell is crazy, but he was right
about one thing."

"What's that?"

"There was definitely something wrong with that baby. The OB I showed
the ultrasound to said it shouldn't still look 'alien-like' at that
stage of development."

"So you're saying his wife was carrying an alien fetus?" Doggett
doesn't make any effort to disguise his skepticism.

"Of course not!" Scully snaps. "I'm sure you are familiar enough with
fetal development to know that it takes a while into the pregnancy
before a baby looks human. Big heads, little bodies and large dark eyes
come first. These babies didn't get any farther than that, just got
bigger."

"These?" Doggett asks. "Duffy Haskell's wife was carrying twins?"

"No, I did some snooping and was given a second ultrasound by another
of that doctor's patients. Something is going on there, John. Nothing
good."

"Maybe," Doggett concedes. "I'm looking into Duffy Haskell, doin' a
background check."

"You think he's crazy," Scully decides.

"I think he's a piece of work. There's more to look into, but so far he
doesn't look like man of the year."

~*~*~

Scully-Mulder Home
Early Evening

Missy slides the ultrasound film towards herself and smiles at her
sister. "I swear that I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached. They
say that being pregnant makes a lot of women forgetful. Did you ever
experience that?"

Scully's eyes widen, but she immediately remembers that her sister
doesn't know that she's pregnant so did you is more appropriate than do
you. "Um... I don't think so."

"But you can't recall." Missy looks pleased with herself.

"Ha ha. Look, Missy... there's something I was hoping that we could
talk about before you left."

Her sister's expression immediately sobers. "What's that?"

"You're going to be mad at me-"

"Why?"

"Okay, I found out today that your OB is the same OB that Doggett is
investigating."

"Why would that make me angry?"

"I...I took your ultrasound and two from the case with me to show to
the OB I've always used in the past. he says your baby is fine" Scully
hastens to reassure her sister. "But the other two babies...aren't. I'm
sorry I didn't ask you if it was okay first."

"Well, you were concerned. I guess that's forgivable."

"I'm not done," Scully says, handing her a small white card. "There was
a cancellation at his office, so if you want this appointment, it's
yours."

"Dana-"

"Missy, I just want your baby to continue to be fine," Scully tells
her. "You don't want to keep a doctor who is being investigated, do
you?"

"Is he going to go to jail?"

"At this point I have no idea," Scully admits.

Missy puts the card in her pocket. "If you'll go with me, I'll go to
this appointment."

"You've got a deal. Are you mad?"

"Nah, you're just helping a rookie out." Missy gives her a hug. "But
call me before anything else like this, okay?"

"Promise."

~*~*~

The Following Morning

A smiling nurse serves as the instrument of Scully's undoing. She waves
her over to the reception desk while Missy pays. "I was going to have
the receptionist give you a call to remind you about your appointment
Friday, but here you are, so I can save a call."

Scully's eyes widen in dismay when she realizes that her sister has
gone very still beside her. "What sort of appointment, Dana?" Missy
asks quietly.

"Prenatal!" The nurse says cheerfully before Scully can think of an
explanation.

She and Missy walk out of the building without a scene, but she can
feel that her sister is a building storm. So it comes as no surprise
when Missy turns on her as soon as they're out the door.

"You're pregnant?!" Missy shouts, making a woman walking past them
stop, nearly tripping herself in the process.

Scully winces. "Yes."

"Is the baby Fox's?" Missy demands to know.

Shocked and indignant, Scully fires back, "How dare you ask me
something like that! I would never cheat on my husband. How could you
even think that?"

"Fox has been missing since August! More than four months!" Missy looks
angry. "What else am I suppose to think?"

Hands shaking with anger, Scully practically rips her coat open and
then smoothes her shirt over her somewhat rounded belly. "You should
think people aren't nearly as observant as they'd like to give
themselves credit for. Look. And no one, not one person, has asked why
I've put on weight."

"Mom mentioned it...we thought it was stress," Missy says, her voice
calmer. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

To Scully's surprise, she finds herself beginning to cry. "I didn't
want anyone to know before he does."

"Oh Jesus, Dana." Missy puts her arms around her. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," Scully says, trying to pull away, but Missy won't let
her. "Where is he?"

"I don't know. But I know he's coming back," Missy says soothingly.

"How can you know that?" Scully demands, feeling tired.

"I just do. So do you." 

It's meant kindly, but Missy's sereneness makes her feel resentful.

~*~*~

Mulder-Scully Home
Evening

Scully's index finger traces the thin edge of Ms. Hendershot's
ultrasound. Ever since she got home, she's been victim of an internal
struggle: does she share what she's learned or not?

Before she arrives at a decision a shadow blocks her light, making her
look up. Krycek is looking down at her. "What?" she asks impatiently.
Most days they have an uneasy truce, but her nerves are especially
frayed.

"Congratulations." His voice is cautious. "Missy told me."

"Of course she did." 

Not two hours after leaving the doctors, Scully had gotten a phone call
from her mother - who proceeded to spend most of the conversation
scolding her for keeping the news to herself.

"She of course can't figure out why you haven't expressed your delight
at having yet another baby, but I get it," Krycek continues.

"Do you."

"Yeah. Not only do you have to worry about your missing husband, you
have to worry about this baby. You can't go running off to God knows
where to look for him because you'd risk your pregnancy if you did -
and you'd never forgive yourself if something happened to this one too,
because it could be the last child Fox Mulder will ever father."

She feels a chill as she looks up at him. He's the last person on earth
she'd expect understanding from.

Seeing her shock, he sneers. "I'm not a sociopath, you know. I
understand other people's feelings. I just don't let that get in the
way of self-interest."

Scully shivers, and not just because it's January. There is one good
aspect to her new brother-in-law's ruthlessness, she instantly decides:
he's the type of man who wouldn't let moral quibbles do anything to
stop him from protecting what he holds most dear. Like her sister.

"I think I already knew that," she says lightly. Scully is in no mood
to get into a deep discussion about the subject. Instead she turns to
him and asks "If there was something wrong with your baby, would you
want to know?"

Fear flashes over his face, making her feel guilty. "Do you know
something Missy and I should?"

"No, sorry. I put that badly. Hypothetically, if everyone was telling
you that your baby was fine, but one person knew that it wasn't, would
you want to know?"

He looks torn for a second. "It would hurt, but I'd want to know."

Scully nods. "That's what I thought. Could you let Michelle know that
I've got to run an errand?"

"Sure." He stares at her. "I'm not sure I could tell someone that,
though."

Her shoulders rise and fall. "It's not my idea of a good time, but the
Hippocratic oath and all."

"Right."

~*~*~

Hoover Building
Meanwhile

Duffy Haskell shoots Doggett a nervous look. Doggett thinks he's wise
to feel uneasy, because Skinner is nailing him with his patented
I'mVeryAngry look. Eventually the man breaks under it.

"What am I being accused of? What did you call me in here for? You were
going to help me." He turns to Doggett beseechingly. "I thought you
were going to help me. Where's agent Scully?"

"Busy," Doggett says shortly. As far as he's concerned it's none of
their business what Scully does out of the office, least of all this
man's.

Gesturing to a folder on his desk, Skinner begins to speak. "As
president of the Ohio Mutual UFO Network you sent Agent Mulder a series
of very threatening letters which he passed on to me, Mr. Haskell.
Something of a habit with you, sir. Writing letters... threatening
letters. Isn't it?"

"No one will believe me." Duffy groans dramatically.

"You wrote a letter to a Doctor Lev saying you would kill him if he
hurt your wife," Skinner continues calmly.

"Doctor Lev killed my wife. He stole the alien baby out of her womb.
And he'll do it again, to some other woman!"

Doggett looks serious too. "Well, I can't find any documentation that
the two of you were even married, Mr. Haskell. Let alone any history or
evidence of foul play. Doctor Lev is a serious physician, a leader in
the field of birth defects. His peers hold him in the highest regard.
Why would he ever kill your wife?"

"That's why I came to you. You're the FBI, you're supposed to find
those answers."

"Mr. Haskell, your allegations aside, it's a crime to threaten anyone.
One you could be arrested for."

"Am I being arrested, then? Is that what you called me here for?" Duffy
demands to know.

"Not today. Mr. Haskell, we're sorry for your loss, but if you persist
in these threats and in disseminating these stories we're going to have
to enter your name in the federal system as a dangerous individual."

"I'm alone now because of them. They took everything from me," the
other man declares. "And if you weren't such heartless bastards, you
might care. Maybe the next woman they kill will be someone you care
about."

With that, Duffy Haskell storms out.

~*~*~

Hendershot Home

When the woman answers the door, Scully offers her a slight smile. "You
may not remember me, but we met earlier this week."

Hendershot looks confused. "We did?"

"I accidentally stumbled into your exam room while looking for
something else."

Faint recognition blooms on the woman's face. "I think I remember you
now."

"What I didn't mention when you offered me the copy of your ultrasound
is that I'm actually in a position to help you. I'm special agent Dana
Scully with the FBI."

"My ultrasound is an FBI matter?" Hendershot asks skeptically.

"Not solely, no. But I'm investigating your doctor. That's why I was at
the clinic."

"You said you're in a position to help me, in what way?"

"You seemed very concerned about your baby's health, so I showed your
ultrasound to my own OB, along with a couple other films."

"And what did he say? I can tell by your expression that it wasn't
good. There's something desperately wrong with my baby."

"I'm sorry," Scully says gently. "I'm afraid that you are right."

"Like a deformity?" Hendershot asks nervously.

"I guess," Scully says noncommittally.

"Do you think he's... going to die?"

"It's a good possibility," she finally admits. "My doctor said he
thought the baby might be stillborn."
 
"Oh no." Hendershot looks like she's about to faint, so Scully helps
her to a chair. "I thought, all along I thought... it's just so
horrible to hear it out loud."

"I'm so sorry," Scully says sincerely. "But I thought you had the right
to know what my OB told me."

"Which was what, exactly?" There's the smallest amount of hope left in
the other woman's eyes, and Scully is loathe to kill it.

"Um...that the baby wasn't developing normally. It still looks pretty
primitive, not what you'd expect a baby almost to term to."

"Did he mention anything about aliens?" Hendershot startles her by
asking.

"Well, yes, he said 'alien-like' but he was being figurative-"

"I don't think he was," Hendershot says slowly. "All my life I wanted
children. But I'm afraid of what's growing in me. That it even
happened."

"Getting pregnant?"

"I had a boyfriend. When I looked at the dates, there was no way. Now
I'm sure it was an abduction. I'm sure of what's inside of me." She
grimaces, as if in pain. "I guess I won't have a long wait to find
out."

Scully's eyes widen in alarm. "Are you in labor?"

The other woman bobs her head. "Yeah."

"We've got to get you to a hospital, then!"

"No!" Hendershot disagrees. "They'd kill my baby. A friend of mine gave
me someone to call when it was time. He should be here soon."

"Who did you call?" Scully demands to know, but Hendershot refuses to
tell her.

~*~*~

Five minutes later a vehicle roars into the driveway so fast that
Scully cringes, fearing for her own car. Three men jog up the path and
soon are knocking forcefully on the door.

Hendershot lets them in. "Thank God you're here."

"It's a good thing you called us," one of the men tells her. "You and
your baby will be safe with us."

"Wait!" Scully cries as the other two men hook Ms Hendershot under the
elbows and begin to drag her away.

They ignore her. Scully blocks the doorway so the third man can't
leave. "Who are you?"

"That's classified, Ma'am," he tells, sounding bored.

Scully reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out her FBI badge.
"You're interfering with my investigation. I demand that you identify
yourself."

He doesn't look the least cowed by this. "Knowle Rohrer, Department of
Defense."

"What does the DoD want with Ms Hendershot's baby?"

"To see it safely born," Rohrer says flatly. "The longer you insist on
delaying us, the more remote that possibility becomes." He turns and
waves his hand. The vehicle takes off, leaving him there.

"I her want location, now!" Scully shouts at Rohrer.

Shrugging, the man takes a small notepad and pen out of his coat pocket
and writes something down. "This is the hospital we're taking her to."

She gives him a suspicious look, but accepts the paper. "Thank you." 

As she walks to her car, she hears him on his cell phone, apparently
calling for a ride.

~*~*~

Three Hours Later

The next few hours leave Scully completely frustrated. The hospital
Rohrer directed her to has steadily professed ignorance about
Hendershot's condition, until suddenly she's being summoned by a nurse
who gives her a room number.

To Scully's surprise, Ms Hendershot smiles when she sees Scully enter
her room. In the crook of her arm, there's a bundle wrapped in a blue
blanket. Her OB must have been wrong, Scully decides, because it
appears that the baby survived its birth.

She approaches cautiously, steeling herself to see a hideously deformed
newborn. When she sees the face she flinches.

"Isn't he perfect?" the new mother asks in a rapt tone.

"Yes," Scully replies mechanically. 

The baby is, quite obviously perfect. It's hard to look up at the
smiling face and not feel a rush of pity.

"It looks like we were all worried for nothing. The ultrasound was just
defective, or something."

"Must have been." Scully forces a smile. "You must be tired. I'm glad
things worked out for you."

"So am I," the beaming new mother says before looking down at the baby.

Scully slowly walks out to the hallway, feeling haunted. 

Back during the summer, before Mulder disappeared, if someone from the
Syndicate had arrived at her front door with a tiny baby girl and told
her that it was her daughter, would she have believed them? Would
skepticism kept her from believing that someone had gone to
extraordinary lengths to fake the baby's death, and then cure her?

Or would she have accepted the baby with open arms, and force the
doubts so far to the back of her mind that she wouldn't feel them?
Would she have been so relieved, so happy, that she'd of believed?

As she walks down the hallway she tells herself that she couldn't be
deceived that way. But she looks over her shoulder to see Ms Hendershot
cuddling "her" baby, and is no longer sure.

~*~*~

That Night

At some point during the evening, a nurse must have coaxed Ms
Hendershot to send the baby to the nursery so she could get some rest,
because the baby is there when Doggett gets to the hospital. Scully's
been waiting half an hour for him to arrive.

Doggett doesn't say anything as he joins Scully at the nursery window.
She turns to him, and her expression is unexpectedly fierce.

"Look at that baby," she tells him, pointing an accusatory finger at
the offending infant.

He does, and sees nothing but an ordinary baby lying in a bassinet
labeled "Baby Boy Hendershot." Confused as to what's upsetting her, he
says "Looks like a normal, healthy little boy to me."

"Exactly." she hisses. "That's impossible. The baby Ms Hendershot was
carrying wouldn't look like this. There were severe congenital
deformities, so severe that they were clear on an ultrasound."

"Maybe it's a miracle," Doggett suggests lightly.

She gives him an icy stare. "Miracles are easier to believe in than
aliens?"

"It was a joke-"

"I don't think it was, John," she says quietly. "And I don't know how
to get through to you. If you can't make yourself even consider the
possibility that there is sentient life not of Earth, you'll continue
to fail at your primary mission here. You're of, and will remain of, no
use when it comes to locating Mulder."

He feels indignation begin to well up - until she begins to speak
again. "And that's a problem because I don't want my kids to grow up
without a father, or this baby to either." When she puts her hand to
her belly, the meaning behind her words is unmistakable.

His eyes fly to her face. "You're pregnant?" With effort he resists the
urge to remark that it oughtn't have surprised him. "Why didn't you
tell me?"

"Until this week I haven't told anyone."

"But why?"

"He's always the first to know." The defeated tone of her voice worries
him. "I didn't want to tell anyone because that'd be admitting that he
may not be back soon. But now..." she sighs. "Now it's getting too hard
to ignore."

Doggett wonders why she chose the word ignore rather than hide, but
doesn't feel right asking. "I'm sorry."

"Why? None of this is your fault."

"I didn't say it was. I'm just sorry that you've felt the need to
shoulder this burden alone. You have people who could help you cope-"

"I know," she says fiercely. "At the cost of being an object of pity."

He can't argue that. "Everything has a trade-off."

"Yes."

"I told you I'd help you. I said we'd find him. I intend to keep my
word."

"Thank you," she says stiffly.

"I don't know how much you care now, but another agent, Farah, did a
background check on Duffy Haskell for us."

"Did he find anything illuminating?"

"Yeah. Haskell was a complete crackpot. And dead."

"And dead?" Scully raises an eyebrow.

"I don't know what his game was, but the guy we saw wasn't Duffy
Haskell. The real Haskell has been six feet under for a long time. So
it seems like this alien baby crap was just that - crap."

"I guess it was," Scully agrees, but she's not so sure.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Eight

Skinner's Office 
January 11th, 2001

It's not the first time, but Doggett is running after his partner. Ever
since he told her A.D. Skinner had something so important it needed to
be told in his office, the little redhead has been going on full steam,
especially since she's been told next to nothing about the details.
Sometimes, it's when you have no information that you start imaging the
craziest things, and Doggett wishes he could've told Scully everything
right there in the basement office just to kill the tension. But it's
not his case anymore, and Skinner has more of a right to break it to
her than he does, so he goes along with the maddening setup.

Scully, for her part, isn't waiting patiently and walks towards her
boss, who looks even more apprehensive than she did minutes earlier.
"What? What is it?"

"Let's go into my office," the balding man says, stepping away from the
door.

Scully, rather than Skinner, leads them into Skinner's office and
watches as he closes the door. When he turns around, she snaps, "All
right, what's going on here?"

"A report came in last night from Montana," Skinner says in his usual
terse manner. "About a UFO encounter."

"What kind of encounter?" Scully prods him.

"A young man chased a bright object flying low across the sky," Skinner
says as calmly as he can. "Tracked it all the way to a big field where
the UFO disappeared ... but where he claimed he saw an alien." He
pretends not to notice Doggett looking away.

It's apparent that she's on her last straw. "Assistant Director, I've
got drawers full of reports that begin just like that. Are you going to
tell me what's so important about this case?"

He's looking at her, but it's as if he's trying to telegraph something
else entirely. "Young man's named Richie Szalay. UFO nut from
Bellefleur, Oregon. Agent Mulder was in contact with him last spring."

Scully looks at her partner, then at her boss, putting two and two
together and getting everything from Linear A to a Morris-Thorne
wormhole to Euler's Planar Graph Formula, all in an effort to avoid the
obvious answer. Biting the bullet, she asks, "Are you trying to tell me
this has something to do with Mulder?"

Now Doggett speaks up for the first time since they walked into the
office. "He's trying to tell you that it might."

Skinner adds, "Richie Szalay didn't find an alien last night. He found
a woman. A woman whose name you will remember - Teresa Hoese."

Scully's face is a study in control. "Teresa Hoese was the young mother
who was abducted here the night before Agent Mulder was."

"And who was returned last night."

Scully stares at Skinner. "Returned?" She hates how desperate she
sounds, how hopeful and needy and not at all like the calm agent in
charge she wants to be at this moment.

Skinner's eyes flicker away towards Doggett momentarily before
answering, "Hanging onto life by a thread."

~*~*~

St. Jean Hospital 
Helena, Montana

The three FBI agents walk briskly down the bright, sterile hallway,
none of them looking at each other. They really haven't said anything
of consequence to each other since getting on the plane, and now
they're meeting with Teresa Hoese's doctor. A young, dark-skinned man
comes out to meet them. "Who, who is Mr. Skinner?" he asks, looking at
Skinner and Doggett.

"I'm Skinner," the tall bald man replies. "You Doctor Desai?" 

"I was just told you were on your way. That you flew out here all the
way here from Washington, DC.," Doctor Desai says with more than a
little disbelief.

"Yeah, we're here to see Teresa Hoese," Skinner says.

"I know," the doctor nods. "I just wish someone would tell me these
things because this woman is in no condition..."

"What is her condition?" Scully breaks in.

When he looks at her, he notes her appraisal and judges her to be at
least cognizant of what's happening. "She's circling the drain. In
twelve years, I have never seen anything near this level of
mistreatment."

"Doctor, it's important we see the victim and talk to her if we can
about what happened," Doggett interrupts.

"Just promise me, whoever did this, you guys will do everything in your
power to catch them." The doctor looks at each of them. He leads them
to an intensive care room, his voice now hushed. "By rights, this young
woman shouldn't even be alive." When they see the patient, they know
why. Teresa Hoese, whom Scully last saw as a vibrant yet concerned
young mother, is now lying unconscious on the bed, hooked up to various
wires and tubes. There are three bruised scars on each of her cheeks
like a grotesque acne pattern. "The medics said she asked for her baby
last night, but she hasn't said a word otherwise," Doctor Desai says,
looking down at the pale woman, "I suspect it's all she's holding on
to. What's upsetting is... it's almost like someone was experimenting
on her."

Skinner asks, because he knows Scully can't. "What exactly did they do
to her?"

The doctor turns to face the bald man. "Inside her cheeks, there's
tissue damage in a linear pattern," he replies, describing a litany of
horrors in a detached manner only doctors can manage after long shifts.
"Her chest was cut into and organ tissue in her abdomen's scooped away.
In the x-rays I see damage to the soft palate."

Without looking at him, Scully asks, "In the x-rays, did you see, um...
anything else? Like foreign objects."

Now the doctor is confused. "I'm not sure what you mean."
 
"Little pieces of metal. Implants," she clarifies.

"No, I didn't," Doctor Desai says definitively.

The door opens and two police officers walk in. "There was an Agent
Doggett requesting a police report," one of them says, looking around
for any sign of a badge.

Doggett steps forward and takes the file from the cop, glancing through
it quickly. He looks back up at his partner and boss, then says drily,
"You're welcome to stay here and discuss foreign objects but... looks
like we got a suspect."

~*~*~

Later that afternoon, Doggett, Skinner, and Scully bust into Richie
Szalay's motel room like gangbangers. Or at least, that's how Scully
feels as Doggett invites himself in, followed by the A.D. and herself.
There's some kind of UFO show on the TV, she notes, and her eyes are
more on the walls than on the pasty, extremely normal-looking guy
Skinner is currently questioning. "Richie, if you live in Oregon...
what are you doing in Montana?"

His eyes are moving from one agent to another, but now they focus on
the big bald guy. "My buddy, Gary, right? He was abducted. I, I came
looking for him."

Doggett's looking at the UFO pictures taped to the wall, but he asks,
"So, you just came out here on a lark?"

Richie frowns. "No. I was following the news."
 
Doggett turns around. "The news?"
 
The young man points at the pictures Doggett checked out earlier. "All,
all that's in the last two weeks. Yeah, I go on these Internet chat
rooms to talk about sightings and junk. After Oregon there wasn't a
whole lot but then all of a sudden in Montana," his voice breaks with
shock, "I, I never... I, I never thought I'd find Mrs. Hoese like that.
Not in a million years."
 
Doggett's eyes are devoid of sympathy. "Richie, when you found that
woman's body, you said you saw somebody with her. You told the police
it was an alien. You know what a moulage casting is, Richie?" As
expected, Richie shakes his head. "It's what the cops take when they
find shoe prints. They do these plaster castings and the ones they got
from the field that night were from 9½ Nikes. You ever hear of an alien
in Nikes?" he finishes harshly.

"Doesn't mean it wasn't," Richie says.
 
Doggett stares at him like he's nuts. "Did it ever occur to you that it
wasn't an alien but a man?"

"Then what about his spaceship?" the pasty guy asks the FBI agent.

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that Doggett thinks the kid's
stuck in the Twilight Zone, and he gives Scully a look before leaving
the room. Scully follows him out. "Agent Doggett? What was that in
there?" she says, reining in her anger.

He gives her a hard look. "That was pressing a witness to get to the
truth."

"You refuse to believe that anything other than a man could have done
this," she says, returning his look tenfold. "Could have done what we
saw to that woman in the hospital."

"It's not worth arguing about. The point here is to find Mulder," he
says, trying to get back to the original point.

"And for months, we have been looking for a break, which is what we've
got here," she says, just as reasonably.

"What we've got is hope. But let's be honest, Agent Scully, about what
no one wants to say." She looks at him, a question mark on her face as
plain as day. Ah, shit, he thinks. "Bad as you want to find Mulder,
you're afraid to find him, too." He walks away from her, not wanting to
see the look on her face, nor wanting to face the sudden guilt he feels
for having to drive the truth home to a pregnant woman and mother
wanting a sliver of hope for news of her missing husband.

~*~*~

Later that night in her own motel room, Scully puts away the paperwork
gathered on Richie Szalay, a little depressed to find that he's been to
the same chat rooms and alt-sites she's been, and more than a few of
the photos tacked to his motel wall matched her own. At the time, she'd
thought some of the sightings were hoaxes, since they were worded in
much the same way as the dead-ends she'd tracked. So. Richie got lucky,
so to speak, and Teresa got luckier, in that she was still alive.

Lucky. She closes her eyes and leans back, exhaling. Staring at the
window, she sees her reflection, ghost-like, staring back at her,
looking less real than the night scene outside. To break out of her
funk, she calls home. "Hey," Krycek answers on the first ring.

It's almost disturbing to note how used to her "nanny" she's gotten.
"Is Page or the others awake?" she asks.

"Most everyone's in bed," her brother-in-law answers. "Except for
April. It's like she's got a bug up her ass all day."

Scully sighs. "Fine. Let me talk to her."
 
It isn't long before a little girl's voice pipes through the phone
lines. "Hi, Mommy."
 
A tired smile crosses Scully's face. "Hi, Sweetie," she says. "How are
you?"
 
"Mommy," April says, "Daddy's coming home soon, right?"
 
Scully's eyes are wide. "Who told you that, April?" she asks, trying to
keep her voice steady.
 
"Nobody," is her the simple answer. "But he's coming home soon, right?"
 
Scully's mouth opens and closes. Now she knows what Krycek meant, and
wishes she had some kind of great answer like she does for Quantico
students. "April..." her voice trails off, unsure what to say next.
 
"Uncle Alex thinks I'm silly," her little girl tells her, "but it's
okay. He's coming back, I know it."
 
Scully sighs, wishing she had the incredible faith her daughter has.
Then she looks at her ghost-like reflection in the motel window, the
street lights shining like constellations. "The stars are pretty,
aren't they?" she says in lieu of something intelligent or comforting.
 
"Yeah." April smiles, "goo'night, Mommy."

"Good night, sweetheart," Scully says, wishing she could hug her girl
right now, less for her daughter's sake than for her own. When she
hears the click of the replaced receiver, she hits the power button on
her cell and slouches. Then she wraps her arms around herself, finally
allowing the tears to fall. It's a long time before she's tired enough
to fall asleep, but when she does, it's a deep and dreamless sleep.
 
~*~*~

St. Jean Hospital 
January 12th, 2001

The next morning, Scully interviewed a very befuddled yet concerned
Doctor Desai concerning Teresa Hoese's disappearance, then finds
herself with more unexpected company. "Agent Reyes," she says, shaking
the taller woman's hand. "What brings you out here?"

"I got a call from Agent Doggett about the woman who was found," Reyes
replies, standing in front of a series of x-rays, "Teresa Hoese, and
the kinds of injuries she suffered. I must admit, it's fascinating."

Scully blinks. "Fascinating?"

The raven-haired woman nods, looking rather crisp in her dark attire.
"I was looking for implants, but I haven't found any."

"Implants? I don't understand," Scully admits. Why was Agent Reyes
called out here if her specialty was ritualistic abuse?

Reyes, however, is answering the other question. "Metallic implants,"
she says straightforwardly. "Placed in the body, oftentimes in the
nasal cavity. Sometimes made of bone or cartilage making detection a
little more difficult."

"Yeah, I'm well aware of how they work." Scully half-smiles.

Reyes frowns a little. "You said you didn't understand."

Scully decides to clear the air and start over. "Excuse me, I, I, uh,
I'm very confused. I'm not sure why you're here, unless Agent Doggett
called you over for another case."

"From what Agent Doggett said, it seems like there was cult
involvement, and I'm not entirely discounting that, in light of Ms.
Hoese's current abduction."

"You don't believe aliens were involved?" Scully frowns.

Reyes waves a hand at the x-rays. "From what I've seen, it's apparent
that this woman has been experimented on. But it's possible that a cult
may be involved in the second kidnapping, which is why I was called
in."

"I see," Scully says evenly. "So that's why Doggett and Skinner are
combing the hills for some kind of UFO cult."

Reyes nods. "I'm going out there soon myself. Coming?"

Scully shakes her head. "No offense, Agent Reyes, but I don't think
that's the right direction to be looking."

The taller woman smiles. "None taken." She puts a hand on Scully's
shoulder. "You know I have feelings, right? Right now, I am feeling
your fear. And fear's not going to help you find him or anyone else, no
matter where you look."

As she walks out, Scully stares after her, wondering why she's lost all
hope, while everyone else around her has it in abundance. "The best
lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate
intensity," she mutters, "Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the
Second Coming is at hand." Walking out, she rubs her upper arms,
determined to believe, like April, that her husband will be coming home
soon.

~*~*~

Later that night, Scully is back at the hospital, getting ready to
autopsy the body Reyes found in the field earlier that evening. A young
Caucasian male is lying on the metal table, and behind her are Skinner
and Doggett. I'm not gonna crack, Scully tells herself, this is my job,
my part. In spite of the inner pep talk, her voice starts out shaky
when she turns on the recorder, "Examination of victim, Gary Edward
Cory, reveals cuts and abrasions from ligature or binding devices,
accompanied by distal and proximal bruising radiating in a symmetrical
pattern around the ankles, the wrists... and the face."

The door swings open, and Richie Szalay walks in with a cop. The shock
is palpable, and it takes him a while to get the words out of his
gaping mouth. "Oh, my god, Gary," he says, looking like he's about to
cry or throw up, maybe both.

Scully swallows a sympathetic sob, and her voice is rough when she
tells him, "You can go now, Richie. They just need you to sign a form."
She watches as he puts a hand to his mouth, then staggers out of the
room, followed by the silent police officer. She doesn't notice her own
tears have fallen until her boss speaks up.

"Dana..." Skinner steps forward.

Oh boy, he's calling me by my first name, that's bad, she thinks.
Quickly wiping her face with the back of her gloved hand, she says
briskly, "I'm okay. There's work to do here."

Both men look at each other, then at her, before leaving the room. It's
not like they can do the autopsy, but they know they'll incur holy hell
if they bring in someone else to do the job. While Skinner walks off to
make a few phone calls, Doggett walks over to the waiting room. He
finds Agent Reyes there, who hands him a cup of coffee. "Times like
these, I bet you wish you could smoke, too." She smiles at him.

He shakes his head. "I don't know how she's doing it in there." He
looks down at the Styrofoam cup in his hands. "If anyone's got a right
to break down, it'd be her."

Reyes nods. "I understand. That's why you're so determined to find
Mulder alive."

Doggett takes a gulp of rancid coffee before answering. "It's why I
can't stand here and listen to all this mumbo jumbo about spaceships,"
he finally says.

She looks like she's heard and seen his kind of reaction before, and
most likely, she has. "I saw what I saw, John. I'm not going to lie to
you. But whatever it was, it led to this. It's the man I saw in the
field." She holds out a photo of the man, as well as a stats sheet. "He
goes by the name Absalom. A religious zealot who escaped a shoot-out in
Idaho. Where he was the nominal leader of a doomsday cult who believed
aliens would take over the world at the millennium." She smiles a
little when she sees the look on his face. "Disgraced when they didn't,
he fled and tried a more ecumenical scam: credit card fraud. I ran the
plate on the pickup truck. It's registered to a farm about an hour from
here."

~*~*~

It doesn't take long for the FBI to storm the farm grounds, and while
Dogget takes the lead in the invasion, Reyes follows after the main
contingent, trying to calm the panicked cultists before it turns into a
Waco situation or worse. She comes upon Scully, who's found Teresa
Hoese, alive and, surprisingly, very, very well. With the help of the
other FBI agents, they track down Absalom, and it's Scully and Doggett
doing the interrogation, with Skinner and Reyes looking on from another
room. The man, tall and tanned, his longish white hair showing traces
of blonde, looks like your average outdoorsman, save for the burning
intensity in his pale eyes. "I said I can't explain why it happens," he
says in a quiet voice. "Or how. Only where."

Doggett's own pale eyes are a contrast as they flash icy steel at him.
"I got 46 of your followers rounded up out there at your compound. You
make me go to them for a straight answer, it's only going to make it
worse for you."

Absalom looks less frustrated than resigned. "How many times can I tell
you?"

"Night's early. Coffee's hot." Doggett shrugs.

Seeing the other man's impassiveness, the cult leader says, "The ships
come in, drop the abductees all messed up. I go and get them so I can
help them."

"Just like you helped Teresa Hoese when you left her for dead?" Doggett
cuts in.

"Agent Doggett," Scully says gently. Playing good cop, so to speak,
Scully continues the questioning. "You say that these abductees are
returned with severe injuries. But that doesn't fit the pattern of any
alien abduction model."

"That's what I'm trying to explain. I predicted there would be an alien
invasion at the Millennium," Absalom stares at her, his eyes wide as if
trying to make her see things from his side. "I was right, it turns
out. 'Cause that's when this all started."

Scully's trying to be polite, but inside she's about as impatient as
Doggett with this man. "Sir... given the criminal charges against you,
you couldn't be a less credible witness, so stop trying to validate
your theories and just give us the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth," the cult leader says, starting to rise. "I
only want to help these people."

Scully gives him a look, and he subsides somewhat. "So these video
cameras that you have around your compound - how do they help?" she
raises an eyebrow at a stack of videos lying nearby.

He merely glances at them before answering. "Abductees... live in fear
of being taken again. The cameras give them a sense of security."

"Or makes them afraid to leave," Doggett tosses it in.

Scully looks at Absalom. "Do you have videotape of how you happened to
heal Teresa Hoese?"

"No," he says simply.

"Do you have videotape of this man?" Scully says, her voice made husky
by its soft volume, as she hands over a copy of Mulder's photo. Absalom
looks at it, as if trying to place the face, then shakes his head. When
she takes it back, she struggles to keep her composure in front of
everyone, but a slight hitch in her breathing gives her away.

As Doggett glances at the two-way mirror, Skinner remarks, "He's hiding
something."

"Yeah, that's for sure," Reyes replies, wishing she had a cigarette.

~*~*~

Scully is on the phone, talking with Page, who's become the "bossy
oldest sister" role in all its glory, and it's at times like this that
Scully's glad Melissa never really lorded it over her – but then again,
she wouldn't have put up with it in the first place. As she gives her
absentminded "uh-huh"s over the cell, she unlocks the motel door, then
flips the light switch. Nothing. Great. "Honey, sorry, something's
wrong with the light," she says quickly to her eldest child, then pays
more attention to the light switch. Great. The breaker must be out. As
she pulls out her flashlight, something in the room catches her eye,
and she freezes, oblivious to her daughter's queries of "What's wrong,
Mommy?"

There, in the dark motel room, is Mulder, glowing as if he's made of
phosphorescence. Not the fake alien Mulder, but her Mulder, whose mouth
opens as he stares longingly at her. "Oh my God," she breathes, as if
to talk louder than a whisper would break the spell. He reaches out to
her, and she to him, tears welling up in her eyes, when someone's voice
distracts her.

"Agent Scully?" Scully whips around, dropping her phone. Agent Reyes is
standing by the open doorway. Okay. When she glances back into the
room, however, Mulder is gone, and she silently curses the Reyes'
presence for making him disappear as she picks up her cell phone. "What
is it?" Agent Reyes asks, oblivious to the other woman's thoughts.

"Hold on," Scully tells her, thankful for a bit of a reprieve between
herself and the taller woman as she blinks away her tears. Back to her
phone call, she apologizes, "I'm sorry, Sweetie, it looks like I'm back
to work again." As Page voices her disappointment, Scully smiles a
little. It's not like she can tell her, "Honey, I saw your daddy, but
it was like a ghost of him, but I don't really think he's dead, and no,
I can't tell you why." That would only open up a can of worms she's not
ready to deal with at this point, either with her daughter, or the new
agent, or herself, really. All she knows is, she's seen Mulder, and
he's alive. That's all that matters.

Once she's said her goodbyes and goodnights, she hangs up and looks at
the taller woman, her composure fully restored. "I'm sorry, that was
Page, my oldest." To Reyes' earlier unanswered question, she replies,
"I saw him." As Agent Reyes stares, uncomprehending, Scully goes on, "I
saw something." Then she prompts the other agent, "So, what's going
on?"

~*~*~

In the video room, Reyes shows Skinner, Scully and Doggett footage from
the some of the hundreds of tapes gathered. "I reviewed these tapes
from the compound. There are some things here I want you all to see."

She shows them something familiar to her, a scene where Absalom and
another, older man, are loading a body into the back of a pickup.
"They've got a body in there."

"Who is it?" Scully stares hard at the monitor, as if that would make
the image clearer.

"You can't tell from this angle," Reyes replies.

"Well, then where's another angle?" Scully asks.

"This is the only angle I could find," Reyes almost shrugs, but wisely
refrains. "Take a note of the older man. We don't have a name yet, but
watch this."

Onscreen, the older man walks into a building. He passes through a
shadow, and when he comes out he looks like Doggett. For his part,
Doggett yelps, "What the hell just happened?"

Reyes smiles a little. "That's what I'd like to know."

"Wow. That's still that old man."

Doggett turns to her, scowling. "The hell it was. That's me, and I
never even went in that building."

Scully nods. "Exactly. We have to get back out there." She leaves,
wondering if this is another alien bounty hunter, or something else
entirely. After all, something healed Teresa Hoese, and it sure as hell
wasn't Absalom. With numerous questions on her mind, she's followed by
the others, with other questions on their minds as well.

~*~*~

The four FBI agents walk into the compound, but are stopped by a guard
from entering one of the buildings. "Halt. Identify yourself," he says.

Scully, not wasting any time as she gets out of the car, flashes her
badge. "We're looking for someone. A man who may be one of the
detainees."

Skinner adds, "We need some bodies out here to help search the woods."

Entering the buildings, they find a group of people standing near the
door. "FBI," Scully flashes her badge yet again. Looking around, she
doesn't see the old man, and then remembers his shapeshifting ability.
"Where is he? A man who works with Absalom, he heals people." As
expected, nobody answers her, but she doesn't have to like it. "Look, I
know he's here. I need to speak with him." On a hunch, she calls out to
a young man standing in the back of the group. "You," she points, "in
the back. Step out." Hesitantly, he does so." "Come with me."

He follows her into a room, with Agent Reyes watching the proceedings.
"Take a seat," she tells the young man, who does so. "What's your
name?"

"Jeremiah Smith," he answers quietly.

"Did you heal these people?"

"No."

"Did you heal Teresa Hoese?" He starts to get up, but Scully's hand is
quicker, pushing his shoulder down, and he stays seated. "Look, I know
who you are."

Someone knocks at the door, and Reyes comments, "Agent Scully." The
door opens, and Reyes nods at Scully. "I'll be right outside," she says
before closing the door behind her.

When Scully turns back, she gasps when she sees that the young man has
become the older man seen in the videotapes. "You're going to expose
me," Jeremiah Smith says in the same quiet voice. "You're putting
people in danger - Abductees all over the country. I save them. I'm the
only one."

Scully stares hard at him. "Do you know where my husband, where Mulder
is?"

"You came crashing in here," Smith says calmly. "I was trying to help
him, too."

"Where is he?" she leans over the table, then nearly gives herself
whiplash as the door opens suddenly.

"You'd better come with us," Skinner says heavily.

Scully looks back at the man, or being, calling himself Jeremiah Smith,
who has now taken the form of Absalom and looks very frightened. "You
must protect me," he says in Absalom's voice.

Torn, Scully goes to Skinner and Reyes. "What is it?" she asks, their
faces telling her that they don't want to tell her.

Skinner glances at the younger agent, then tells Scully, "It's Mulder."

~*~*~

In an open field, illuminated by the moon and various floodlights, is a
group of agents standing around a body. Scully rushes forward, followed
by a concerned Skinner. "Where is he?" she demands breathlessly, "How
bad is he?" She moves aside a few agents who are blocking her view.
Amazingly, it seems every damn agent is out there in the field, so she
forces her way through the gauntlet, "How bad is he hurt?"

Finally getting through, she sees Mulder's body and runs over. Kneeling
beside him, she gently touches a face that is horribly scarred and
bruised, his body wrapped in a blanket to cover his nakedness. "No,"
she breathes, then her breathing and pitch becomes higher and faster.
"No. No. No. He needs help." She stares wildly at the agents, who seem
to have turned into stone around her.

Doggett, on the other hand, pulls her away from the body, his tone
gentle, "It's too late."

She glares at him, her entire body language screaming, I don't need
your help, pity, or kindness. "He needs help!" she snaps, shoving him
away.

The only one who can help is Jeremiah Smith, she thinks, running back
towards the compound. He healed Teresa Hoese, he can heal Mulder, too!
With that hopeful thoughts, her legs carry her back to the building
faster than she left, but a bright light blinds her a few yards from
reaching the door. Looking up, she sees an object hovering overhead,
full of lights, and she screams, "NO!" She forces her shaky legs and
burning lungs to take her faster to the door, but as she does so, the
building shakes, the glass shatters, and the light abruptly vanishes as
quickly as it came.

She runs into the building, down the hall, and into the room where
she'd left hm, locked up and under guard. The man called Jeremiah Smith
is gone, and with him, so is her hope. "Shit," she coughs, trying to
regain her breath beyond her burning lungs and now queasy stomach.
Breathing heavily, she pulls out her flashlight and scans the room
again, leaning against the doorframe for support. No sign of the young
man nor old man called Jeremiah Smith. Shit!

"No," she shakes her head in disbelief, "this is not happening! This is
not fucking happening!" She pounds the doorway with the side of her
fist, but the pain will not bring back the healer, nor will it assuage
the sudden fear, guilt and despair that now overwhelms her. "Dammit!"
she yells, hitting the doorframe again, unaware of the tears now
streaming down her face, or of Skinner, Doggett or Reyes silently
gathering behind her like a funeral procession in their dark suits.

~*~*~

Chapter Ninety-Nine 
"Coping

January 12th, 2001

The morgue is quiet. If not for the erratic kick of the baby, Scully
thinks she could fall asleep. It's actually all she wants to do,
weighed down as she is by the twins exhaustion and grief.

Instead she forces herself to carefully examine her husband's body. She
won't do an autopsy - in fact no one will because she's honoring Bill
Mulder's request that his son be buried in accordance to the religion
he was haphazardly raised in. She didn't agree because she thinks
Mulder would care about Judaism now, but she allows his father to
believe that if it gives him some measure of comfort.

Instead, she said yes merely because she can't bear the thought of
further mutilating his battered body. Perhaps it's a bit hypocritical
given how many times she's been the one wielding a scalpel over chilly
flesh, but she's sure she'll lose her mind if even one more cut is
inflicted on him. Even if he can't feel it, indeed even though he'll
feel nothing at all ever again.

As she stares down at his hurts, she can't help but wonder what they
did to him. Although if what Gibson had told her months before is to be
believed, she has a pretty good idea from her nightmares. When was the
last one, she wonders. Eventually she stopped waking with them still on
her mind, probably a ploy from her subconscious to keep her from going
mad. But she feels that she ought to remember the last one. The dream
that must have come while he was dying. Or had she been awake at the
time, making Mulder's final moments just that much more alone?

"Dana?" a hesitant voice makes her look up. Doggett is standing in the
doorway, looking terribly uncomfortable. "I...Let me drive you home,
okay?"

There's a type of fear in his eyes, Scully notices detachedly. As if
he's worried that any second now she's going to throw herself over
Mulder's body and begin wailing that she can't live without him. Not
that a funeral pyre scene doesn't hold some appeal.

"Okay." She walks to him, and only pauses a moment to look back at
Mulder. Staying won't erase the inevitable, just prolong it at best.

She tries not to notice the relief on Doggett's face as he ushers her
out to his car.

~*~*~

Doggett steals a glance at Scully when they reach a red light. She
looks so small and so wounded that he feels like weeping himself.

He can't figure out why it would be so, but he feels an echoing
empathy. Not mere sympathy, but deeper, as if it were a shared pain.
That bothers him because he doesn't know why. He liked Mulder, but they
weren't particularly close. He's never known anyone else who'd died so
tragically, either.

"I don't know how I'm going to tell them," Scully says huskily. 

Her voice breaking the silence startles him so much that he finds
himself making a rash reply. "I'll help you. We can tell them
together."

When she says "okay" in a small voice, he kicks himself because he
can't back out.

~*~*~

The kids cry, the nanny cries, and Doggett even thinks that he sees
tears in the eyes of Scully's nutjob brother-in-law. Though that might
have been a trick of the light since Scully complains that the two men
never get along. Never would now, Doggett realizes.

"No no no!" Page cries, running off immediately after Scully tells them
the worst thing she ever will: We found your father tonight and he's
dead. "It can't be true!" floats down the stairs.

The adults watch the girl run off in stunned silence before Michelle
goes after her. Scully looks torn, but she has a tear-stained April on
her lap already.

What really gets to Doggett, though, is the oldest boy's reaction.
Little Sammy is just a few months older than Hannah, but Doggett
watches him desperately try not to cry. In the end his tears spilled
over, just like his sisters. To Doggett's surprise, Alex is the one to
comfort the little boy, holding Sammy as he sobs against his chest.
Upon further reflection he decides that he shouldn't be overly
surprised - Scully has always granted her brother-in-law a grudging
respect for his surprising abilities with kids, both his own and hers.

Doggett himself has his own arms full, wrangling the twins, the ones
who have no idea what is going on. He feels guilty for taking the easy
job.

And what of Christopher, he finds himself wondering. The baby is
already down for the night. Even David and Jared, as young as they are,
can be made to understand that Mulder is gone. But the baby? It's easy
to picture him looking everywhere for his lost father. Unless he
forgets him, and glancing at Scully's grief-stricken face, he can't
decide if that would be better or worse.

When he leaves, it feels like he's left them on the titanic deck after
taking one of the lifeboats for himself.

~*~*~

Falls Church, Virginia

Doggett is scarcely in the house for five minutes when the phone rings.
He makes a desperate grab for it, hoping to silence it before it wakes
the kids.

"Yeah?"

"Is she okay?" a concerned voice asks on the other end of the line.

"Monica. I wasn't expecting you to call..." He trails off, wondering
why he's so surprised that she's checking in. "Not really. She broke
the news to the kids when I brought her home, and they fell apart, just
like you would expect. She's not doing too much better herself. I'm
glad that the nanny and her brother-in-law are there tonight." He
admits.

"I wouldn't expect any different," Reyes tells him. "I think we all to
some degree expected that he was just going to come waltzing through
the front door, didn't we? To have that expectation so brutally torn
apart..."

"I know." He sighs. "I expected the guy to come home too. Moldah, he
was larger than life. One of those people you never expected to be laid
low, not like this."

"I'm sorry, John. I know he was your friend too," she says quietly.

"Sure, but his friends aren't the ones people should be worried about.
Not like the family he left behind. They're the ones we've got to be
there for." Doggett corrects her.

"No," she surprises him by saying. "Of course we should take care of
widows and children, but they're not the only ones who hurt when a man
dies. His friends are wounded too, anyone who knows him is. It's easy
to fall into the trap of pushing aside our own feelings about a death
in order to help someone else through their grief, but eventually we've
got to own our feelings as well. It's better if we can do that at the
same time."

"You sound like you know what you're talking about," Doggett says with
a weak laugh.

"I've lost enough people to have an idea of what works and what
doesn't." Instead of letting this statement darken the conversation,
she says "What are you doing Friday?"

"Nothing special, why?"

"Let's go to a bar and toast the man lost," Reyes suggests. "Celebrate
who he was and mourn what he could have been."

"All right," Doggett agrees, wondering why he is. "How does nine
sound?"

"Good. I'll pick you up. You knew him better so I think it'll take you
more drinks."

"Okay." 

By the time he hangs up, Doggett feels a little less depressed than he
did when he left Scully's.

~*~*~

Scully's Home
The Next Day

A gentle touch to Krycek's cheek wakes him up. He smiles when he
realizes that it's Missy. "You're over early."

"Dana called me this morning and asked me to come over." She looks
happy about something, which strikes him as odd considering the fresh
tragedy. "To help you pack."

"Pack?"

"Yup." Only then does he notice that she has a pile of folded up boxes
and a roll of tape on the floor by her feet. "I'm so glad that you're
coming home!"

"Okay...why don't you get a start on the light stuff, like clothes?
Nothing heavy-"

"I won't break, Alex," Missy says archly.

"I know, I just...let me be a gentleman, okay?" He kisses her cheek.
"Is your sister downstairs? I need to talk to her."

"She was in the kitchen last I saw."

"Great."

Once he leaves the room, he drops the casual facade he'd adopted for
his wife's sake. Scully hadn't said a word the night before about her
plans for him, and he hates to be ambushed this way.

Scully gives him a cool look when he enters the room. "You're not going
to let Missy pack everything herself, are you?"

"You could have said something last night," he gripes as he pours
himself a cup of coffee.

"I think forewarning you would have affected my success rate at getting
you out of my house today. You won't break my sister's heart, so it'll
work out this way."

He seethes to himself a little, because he knows she's right. All hell
would break loose if he went upstairs and told Missy that he was
staying. Still... "Have you really thought this through? The kids-"

"The kids are no longer in danger. Mulder is dead- " Krycek winces at
her matter of fact tone. "- and therefore the crusade against him must
be too. If there was even a real threat at all."

"We can't know that for sure-" he protests feebly.

She gives him another cool look. "How long has it been since you
stopped insisting that Emily sleep here every night? Weeks and weeks,
to Missy's vast relief. Deep down, you realized to that this threat is
nothing more than a bogeyman to keep us on edge. My kids will be fine
with Michelle and I to look after them, especially considering that
I'll soon be home 24/7."

For some reason the allusion to maternity leave catches him off guard.
He somehow forgot that she'll soon be home with a new baby too. Missy
isn't the only one anticipating quality time spent with a newborn.

"Are you sure you want me to go?" he asks at length. When she nods it
feels like being fired unexpectedly from a familiar, if not well-liked,
job.

"We'll be fine. The sooner we adapt to not having a man around the
house, the better."

"You say that like you'll never remarry," Krycek kicks himself for
blurting out.

Her laugh is brittle. "Single men line right up to marry women with
this many kids."

He thinks of saying something lame like that there are probably some
men who would overlook that, but it doesn't sound right, even in his
head. Even if they can be in each other's presence without one of them
pulling a gun, they still don't have the sort of relationship where
that sort of comment would fly.

Instead he says "It'd be hard to live with someone else after being
married to Mulder, anyway."

"No doubt." She puts her cup down and gives him a contemplative stare.
"We got off point a little, though. As I said, I believe the crusade
against Mulder must be over. You, however, aren't dead."

"You've noticed," he can't help but retort.

She nods thoughtfully, which sends an inexplicable chill down his
spine. "So you could still be a target. You, my sister, Emily, and
eventually the baby. Promise me you'll stay on your toes."

Maybe he the chill was his mind predicting what she was going to say,
but still, he got a nasty jolt when it was put into words. "I'd do
anything to protect them."

"I know. And I'm going to hold you to it."

Suddenly eager to be home, Krycek skips stairs in his haste to help
Missy pack his stuff.

~*~*~

January 15th, 2001

It's the Ides of January, not March, but the end result isn't much
different. It's just a different warrior that's fallen. Snow blankets
the cemetery, the white expanse broken only by a gaping brown hole
mostly covered by a casket. The casket is to the left of a small
headstone with the word "Angel" and a single date from the June before
on it.

The widow and her children stand before the new grave. A toddler is on
the widow's hip, one leg around her swelling waist. A young blonde girl
and a small red-haired boy hold hands with two identical boys who are
even smaller still. Standing slightly ahead, another little girl
studies the closed casket.

"April," Scully says in a choked voice. She holds out a hand. "Come
here, Baby."

Her daughter starts to obey, but stops, looking over her shoulder. When
she finally reaches her mother's side, she says, "Daddy is sleeping."

Pain lances Scully's chest. "No April. Your Daddy is gone. He's not
coming back."

"Will," April insists stubbornly.

Oblivious to the conversation between mourners, the minister drones on.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We are here to deliver the body of Fox
Mulder to its resting place. We pray to God to deliver his soul and to
resolve the deep mysteries Fox Mulder sought so tirelessly to uncover.
Let us pray now for his eternal peace."

Tears roll down Page and Sammy's faces, but they don't let go of their
brothers' hands. Seeing this makes Scully want to close her eyes, but
she can't. When she looks down at the twins' faces, she just sees
confusion, which is somehow better.

"'I am the resurrection and the life,' saith the Lord; he that
believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live; and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die.'"

To Scully's utter shock, Teena and William Mulder stand together during
the ceremony, actually getting along. The kids wander over to their
grandfather, and she's relieved to temporarily cede responsibility for
them.

Teena approaches her, looking uncertain. "Can I hold him?" she asks,
holding out her arms.

"Of course," Scully says quickly, giving her Christopher before her
automatic doubts overwhelm her.

Teena offers a brittle smile. "He doesn't look much like Fox, does he?
Not with this blond hair and your eyes. But I see my son's mouth." She
gently touches Christopher's rosebud lips.

"And his ears," Scully says, trying not to cry.

"Yes." Teena nods to herself before carrying Christopher over to his
siblings and grandfather.

Scully looks at Skinner, who is still nearby, although he had taken a
few respectful steps back while she spoke to her erstwhile
mother-in-law. She looks up at him as she says, "He'll never know the
answers to the questions that haunted him most of his life, now. His
family and his search, those things were his whole life. It never
bothered me, you know, knowing that there was something else that was
as important to him as us. The truth. But now, knowing that he never
found it..."

"Maybe he learned enough. And he loved you and the children with all
his heart. He had a fuller life than most," Skinner says firmly.

"I'm not supposed to be here!" Scully says, beginning to cry. "I'm
supposed to be old, comforted by my grown children and a covey of
grandchildren. I'm not supposed to be this young, carrying a baby
who'll never know his father, and with three more boys who won't
remember him. It isn't fair!"

"I know," Skinner says quietly, reaching for her hand. "I know."

She doesn't let him, but instead takes one step back. There's no
tremble in her voice when she says "You'll probably need it in writing,
but I'm going to start my maternity leave early. Immediately. HR can
use my accumulated vacation time to make up the difference."

"I'm sure it won't be a problem," Skinner says automatically before
asking, "Are you going to come back?"

"At this point, I don't know."

"Okay," Skinner tells her. "Take your time deciding."

~*~*~

Later

"Grandma, I'm tired." Sammy sighs, rubbing at his already red eyes.
Maggie sighs and looks down at the paper plate sitting in front of her
grandson. Half the food on it is untouched.

"You want to take a nap?" she asks, knowing the answer is probably yes.
Page and April went to bed as soon as they'd finished eating too.

It's not even five o'clock but Scully, Maggie, and Sammy are the only
ones awake since Missy's family and Scully's friends went home. Even
Michelle pled exhaustion and went to bed herself after putting the
babies down.

"Yes." He pushes the plate across the table. "I'm all done."

"Do you need help getting ready to sleep?" He shakes his head. "You can
put your jammies on yourself?"

"Uh huh." He slips off his chair and throws himself at her for a quick
hug. A minute later the silence in the house thickens after the sounds
of his feet on the stairs fade away.

Maggie drifts into the living room where she finds her daughter curled
up on the couch, staring off into space.

"You haven't eaten anything," Maggie points out.

Scully turns towards her listlessly. "I'm not hungry." 

"Be that as it may, you need to eat for the baby's sake."

"At the moment I don't care what the baby needs. Not in the least."

"You don't mean that," Maggie says, nervous about the sudden irritation
in her daughter's voice. "You want this baby."

"Do I?" Scully shifts towards her mother. "Maybe if I hadn't been
pregnant, I could have found him in time."

"You can't blame the baby for that!"

"I can blame whoever the hell I want." Scully growls.

"Fine," Maggie says icily. "If you really feel that way... It's too
late for an abortion, but I'm sure you can find a home for him. Maybe
your sister would want to take him, but that may not be a good idea if
you don't think you could keep yourself from blaming him for Fox's
death-"

"Mother, do you have to be so goddamned self-righteous? I know you
think having been a military wife makes you an expert on raising
children without help, but it's not the same! Dad came home!" Tears
begin to slide down Scully's cheeks, even though she's still furious.
"He came home every time!"

Maggie squelches her impulse to be angry when she sees the naked pain
on her daughter's face. Not everyone reacts to death the same way, so
she decides lashing out probably isn't all that unusual.

Scully doesn't protest when Maggie gathers her in her arms. "I know,
Baby. I know he came home."

"Why couldn't Mulder?" Scully tearfully demands to know, and Maggie has
no answer for her. "John and Skinner, they expect me to be grateful
that we found his body. But I'm not. I'm just so angry..."

Neither of them say anything for several minutes as they wait for the
currents of Scully's angry outburst to dissipate from the room.

Eventually Maggie finds herself broaching a subject that she hadn't
planned to bring up yet. "Dana, Missy and I are planning to visit
Charlie soon. We'd like to bring the kids with us."

"Which kids, exactly?"

"All of them, unless you object. I think they could use a change of
scenery." She refrains from adding that the rest would do Scully good,
too.

"No, if you think the two of you can handle seven kids between you,
fine," Scully tells her.

"We'll manage. Page and Emily will probably enjoy bossing the rest of
them around," Maggie says with a slight smile.

"No doubt. I suppose it's a good thing they don't spend much time
around Bill. He's a poor role model for being the oldest."

"He could have been worse." Maggie turns slightly pink when Scully
raises an eyebrow. "I'm sure I could think of a few ways how."

"Well, he wasn't Hitler, I'll give him that much," Scully says
grudgingly. "When do you plan to see Charlie?"

"In two or three weeks."

"That soon?" Scully looks surprised.

"We've been planning this for a couple of weeks. Before...There's a
website offering discounted fares, probably trying to dig out of the
post-holidays slump. Anyway, your brother suggested it at Christmas.
Now Brandon will have even more cousins to play with."

"Do you ever think that it's strange?" Scully asks.

"That what is, Dana?"

"Both Brandon and Mattie are only children. I know Bill and Tara wanted
more kids, but Charlie and Elaine chose to have just one."

"No, it doesn't strike me as so strange, at least not where Charlie is
concerned. To be honest, of all you kids, he's the one I least expected
to have children. So to have one first! That was quite a surprise. I'm
also surprised that Bill and Tara haven't adopted to increase the size
of their family. When I asked him about it, though, I wasn't stunned
that she's the one who doesn't want to, but wants to keep trying for
another baby. He doesn't care as much about genes as she does."

"You thought he'd end up with more kids?" Scully asks curiously.

"Oh yes. You may not see it yourself, but you and Bill are a lot alike.
If not for Tara's medical problems-" Maggie notes the shock on her
face, and decides that her children have never discussed which member
of that couple has fertility issues. "-I'd of expected they'd have a
house full of children, too. Who knows, he might change her mind yet."

"Maybe," Scully agrees. "And I think you're right."

"About?" Maggie watches her pull herself to her feet.

"Getting something to eat. What about you, Mom, hungry?"

"I could eat," Maggie tells her, trying not to sound too relieved that
Scully is taking care of herself.

"Good. There's so much food I won't have to cook for a month. Good
thing we bought that chest freezer a couple of years ago." Talking
about something she did with Mulder saddens them both, but Maggie is
more sure that her daughter will get through it now than she was a half
hour ago.

"That's handy," Maggie says, following her into the kitchen.

~*~*~

Skinner's Office
January 17th, 2001

After shuffling some papers on his desk for a few seconds, Skinner
looks his guest in the eye. "Agent Reyes, thank you for coming in this
morning."

"You're welcome," Reyes says, but her eyes are curious. He hasn't told
her the reason he requested her presence.

Skinner decides that there's no point in beating around the bush. "When
you assisted agent Doggett with a case this fall, I hoped that it could
be a dry run for an offer to instate you on a more permanent basis come
agent Scully's maternity leave, which I expected to begin in April.
Agent Mulder's recent death changes things."

"I'm sure," Reyes says, but he can tell that she isn't following his
line of thinking.

"Agent Scully has decided to start her maternity leave this week, which
is understandable. Up until now I expected that she'd be back this
summer. At this point that's up in the air. And of course, we're
permanently down one agent, even if she does decide to return after the
baby's born."

"Right..."

"So instead of asking you to join the X-Files on a temporary basis, I'm
hoping you'll consent to relocating here for the long term...for good."

"Oh. Sure," Reyes says casually, surprising him by the speed of her
answer.

"If you need more time, I understand-"

"No, I've been hoping that you'd offer me a permanent transfer,
honestly."

"Why?" Skinner asks, then nearly kicks himself for blurting out what
he's thinking.

"I like it here."

"Okay then. I'll work out the details with your old field office,"
Skinner tells her.

"Great."

Skinner shakes his head as she leaves, shocked that it was that easy to
convince her, but unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth.

~*~*~

Early February 2001

When Maggie and Missy arrive the kids say goodbye easily - except the
twins who hang on Scully's legs. It gives her a pang when she looks
down at them...it's usually Mulder they do this to. Or was.

"Why don't you get everyone else in the car?" Scully asks her mom.
"I'll bring them out to you."

"Fine." Maggie picks up Christopher and takes April's hand. The other
kids skip ahead, chattering to Missy.

"Hey, aren't you ready to go visit Uncle Charlie and cousin Brandon?"

"Nope," Jared tells her. "You be lonely."

"Home all alone," David adds morosely.

Scully crouches down. "I'll miss you kids, but I want you to have fun.
I'll be fine. The baby makes me tired so I'll sleep a lot and you won't
miss any fun at home. Okay?"

"Okay," Jared says reluctantly, reminding Scully a lot of his father
when she used to try to talk him into something. David, on the other
hand, looks like Mulder did when he believed her.

"Bye, Mommy," David tells her before placing a sloppy kiss on her
cheek.

Jared gives her a serious look. "Don't be sad."

"I won't." Scully hugs them both. "I love you, guys. Have fun with
grandma and auntie."

"Okay," they both tell her and hug her back. She takes their mittened
hands and leads them out to the car where her mother is waiting with
Christopher. Missy has the bigger kids in her car already, and she
shoots Scully an impatient look as the little boys take their time
stomping through the snow.

Soon enough Scully is in the big quiet house, and it hits her: she lied
to her small sons. Even though they've barely left, she already feels
lonely. Belatedly, she wishes that she'd insisted on keeping
Christopher home with her, because her arms are already feel empty.

Looking down at her belly, she says aloud, "I guess it's just you and
me, kiddo."

When he kicks, she tells herself that it's not because of anything
she's said, but she feels better anyway.

~*~*~

Two days after Maggie and Missy take the kids to see their uncle, a
small hand plucks at Scully's blanket, making her murmur into her
pillow "What, Sammy?"

This doesn't get her an answer, nor do the little fingers stop pulling
at the covers. Trying not to sigh, she rolls over and looks over the
edge of the bed.

The little boy standing there isn't her eldest son. In fact, this child
is not even alive anymore. But the expression on his transparent little
face shows woe and concern.

To her credit, she doesn't scream or fall out of bed. Instead she looks
at the ghost and asks in an even voice "Was there something you
wanted?"

The ghost vigorously nods his head and beckons with one hand.

She pulls herself upright and tries to decide if she ought to honor his
obvious desire for her to go with him. It doesn't seem too sane to be
seeing ghosts and doing what they want, but everyone else insists that
the "ghosts" are real, so if it's insanity it's shared and contagious.

The small ghost looks impatient.

"I'll go with you if you'll tell me one thing," she says impulsively.
"Is my husband here, in the house?"

When he shakes his head, she feels a crushing disappointment. If ghosts
have to be real, why can't Mulder be there? It wouldn't be like having
him alive, not at all, but it might be some comfort to have a small
part of him around.

"Of course not," she says aloud. The ghost frowns at her, and she
nearly laughs. "It's ironic, you have to admit that. Unless you died
before learning the meaning of the word."

This seems over the ghost's head, and she sighs. Sammy probably
couldn't define irony either, and this child hardly seems older. "How
did you die so young?"

He makes no move to acknowledge he even heard the question as he leads
her into the hallway. Instead he holds out one vaporous hand.

"Take your hand? All right." She reaches for it, fully expecting to
close her fingers on nothing, like trying to hold a handful of smoke.

But the small hand is warm and solid, much like her own children's.
There's a strange pulling sensation, and the world yawns dizzily. She
closes her eyes against it in a bid to hang on to consciousness.

~*~*~

When she opens her eyes, she's instantly struck by a sense that
something isn't right. The little ghost who brought her to the hallway
is gone. Stranger still, the kids' coat rack isn't in the hallway, and
there's something wrong with the lights. They're far dimmer than they
should be, even for a February morning. Before she can quite work out
what's going on, she's startled by the sounds of voices downstairs.
Men's voices.

Although she presses her back against the wall, she's soon seen. A
teenage boy, no older than Luke or Gibson hurries up the stairs towards
her. "You shouldn't be up here, Ma'am," he tells her, pinning her with
a pair of curious hazel eyes.

"I..." I have no idea what's going on, is what she meant, but it didn't
think it would be wise to say so.

"Are you here to see one of the flu victims?" the boy asks. "They're up
in the attic."

"No." The flu, she wonders, which flu? Improvising she says, "I thought
I could help out."

"Oh, are you a nurse then?" he asks eagerly. "My parents said that the
hospital hoped to send a couple by."

Though it's on the tip of her tongue to correct him, she doesn't. By
now she's realized that the lights are wrong because they're gas, not
electric. And the boy's clothes also suggest a bygone era.

Hers do as well, but more alarming than the outfit she never put on is
the fact that she's slender. If she's actually in the past, her unborn
baby didn't make the trip through time with her. She tries not to think
about it.

"Yes. I'm a nurse," she says at last. "Nurse Scully. I'm not from the
local hospital," she adds quickly, foreseeing problems if the expected
nurses show up and rightly can't identify her. "I was visiting my aunt
and she suggested that I offer my help here."

The kid impulsively holds out his hand. "I'm Saul Mulder. My parents
own this house."

Scully's eyes widen involuntarily as the puzzle pieces fall into place.
Their house is haunted because people died of the flu in it. They've
known for years that some sort of tragedy must have occurred in the
house - as much as she tried to convince herself and Mulder both that
the ghosts he recorded before Sammy's birth were some sort of defects
on the tape - but this wasn't nearly as awful as the possibilities
could be. At least there had been no violence.

And this was Saul's connection to the wandering spirits who still
haunted the home he'd grown up in. She finds herself wondering if he
saw the ghosts himself, over the long years he lived in the house.

"Are you alright, Ma'am?" Saul gives her a concerned look.

She snaps to. "I'm fine. I was just thinking about how I knew someone
with your surname back in Massachusetts."

"One of my brothers lives there!" Saul says eagerly. "Maybe you know
him."

"Actually, it was a young girl I went to school with."

"Oh. Probably a distant relation in any case," Saul says, looking
slightly disappointed. "There are a lot of Mulders."

Not any more, Scully thinks, but doesn't say. Mulder has never talked
about cousins, so it seems as though his parents and his children are
the end of the family line. "There are a lot of Scullys too. My aunt
told me that your family is caring for some of the victims of the flu.
How did that happen?"

"Oh, it was my father's idea. He wanted to serve in the war, but they
told him he was too old." Saul's expression suggests that this didn't
go over well with his dad. "When this flu broke out, they told him
there was something he could do to help the war effort - provide a
place for the children of servicemen to recover from their illness."

"But they haven't all gotten better," Scully decides out loud.

"Nope. We've had to bury a few." Saul's casual tone surprises her, but
he's been living in a house where death has been a frequent visitor.

"That must be sad. Them being children, and all," she suggests.

"Yeah, but they don't really leave." Saul's voice is low, and he
studies her face, looking for a reaction.

"You've seen ghosts?" Scully wishes she could tell the boy that his
great-nephew has seen them too. It would make him think that she was
completely insane, though, so she doesn't.

"According to my folks it's my imagination but I've heard them playing
in the house. Seen a couple too."

"Were you scared?"

"Of course not! Little kids like that, they don't mean no harm." Saul
grins suddenly. "They gave the maid a right scare, though, appearing in
the hallway when she carried up the wash. Last thing she said to me was
'Saul, you was right about them ghosts!' She quit straight away after
that though."

"Poor woman."

"Nah, one of the neighbors hired her. She's a fair sight happier in a
house that isn't haunted." He glances at one of the light fixtures on
the wall. "The neighbor's got electric lights, not gas like this.
Father keeps saying that we'll get them too, but he says we can't until
the sick kids are gone. The flu is going to go away, isn't it?"

"It will. There have been other epidemics like this, and none of them
lasted more than a few years," Scully tells him, groping for facts she
learned in a virology classes.

Saul doesn't look impressed. "Father said this all started two years
ago. People thought it'd go away the first year come summer, but it
just hid out until it got cold again."

It's 1920, Scully realizes. The last year of this particular flu. "I'm
sure that I heard that there are fewer and fewer cases being reported.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's gone all together before."

"Tell that to the kids upstairs," Saul says wistfully. "We've been here
yakking too long. You wanted to see those kids, didn't you?"

"I do," she says.

But her mind races as she follows Saul to the familiar set of attic
stairs. What if she somehow managed to catch the flu and brought it to
the present? This worry doesn't stick, though, because she's not
pregnant in this time. If she couldn't bring the baby into the past,
then she shouldn't be able to bring the virus into the present day. She
hopes.

What worries her more, however, is that she's not going to be able to
do much for the sick children. Even though she probably knows more
about how to treat them than people of the current age do. Especially
because she does.

All "wisdom" on time travel insists that the traveler do nothing to
change the past, least they change the future. Not that she doesn't
wish to change the past. She'd do anything to keep Mulder out of his
grave, but it's impossible to know how one could change that sequence
of events from eighty years in the past. Change the wrong thing, and
Mulder might never have been born.... So as tempting as it is to try to
change the present from the past, she doesn't dare to. It's far too
reckless.

~*~*~

Instead of being filled with discarded belongings, this boy's future
belongings she realizes, it's host to two rows of iron bed frames.
Small figures covered in blankets fill half of the available beds.

Scully grabs the boy's wrist as he wanders closer towards the sick
children. "Aren't you afraid that you'll catch it?"

"Nope. My father thinks we're immune. Some people are, you know."
Scully nods at his declaration. "Since there have been sick kids here
going on three months and none of us has had so much as a sniffle, he
thinks we're safe."

"Okay." 

She lets him go, but he stares up at her when she makes a move to check
on the children. "Don't you worry about yourself, Ma'am?"

"No. I've been a nurse so long that I think I'm bullet-proof when it
comes to germs."

"'round enough of them, maybe you are at that." Saul grins. "There
aren't as many kids up here as usual - and none of them died recently -
so maybe you're right about the flu getting better."

"Maybe." Scully looks down at the small sweaty children who fill the
beds. "Do people come and check on them? Family, I mean."

"Mostly," Saul says. "Mothers, grandmothers, a couple have mostly grown
brothers or sister. They're scared to get it, but they come anyway.
Except for him." Saul points at a bed in the middle. "We don't even
know his name. A constable brought him around three days ago, found him
in an alley, and he hasn't been awake to tell us who he is."

"Oh, that's so sad," Scully says, edging towards the mystery child. "I
think I'll sit with him."

"If you like," Saul says indifferently. "I need to go do my chores, but
nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Saul." Scully smiles at him.

There's another woman up there tending to the children, and Scully asks
her if it's okay if she pulls a chair over to the boy. The woman
doesn't seem to care one way or another, so she does. It's not until
she's sat down that a chill creeps up her spine.

Just looking at the boy, she knows that he's not going to get better.
It's not that he looks any sicker than the other kids, but that she's
seen him before.

This boy is the ghost who brought her here.

~*~*~

She waits until the other woman has left the room to speak to the boy.
Leaning close she whispers "I know you. Why did you bring me here?"

In response to the sound of her voice the boy tosses his head, but
seems no closer to gaining consciousness.

Frowning, she touches his forehead and gasps at the heat. Feeling a
person's head isn't really a good indicator of fever, but it seems
impossible that he could be so hot and not be feverish.

"I really need to know," she continues to whisper. "But more
importantly, how do I get home?"

When he still fails to rouse, she settles back in her chair, and
wonders why the hell she's there. She's not going to save him, or
indeed any of the kids in the room, because they all seem past the
point of no return, and there's nothing in the room that would help her
aid them. And she's probably not going to witness the boy's death,
because it doesn't seem likely to happen immediately.

Eventually the heat of the attic makes her drowsy and her head begins
to nod. Right before she falls asleep she feels a small hand reach for
hers, and the world tilts again.

~*~*~

The feeling of warm flesh fades away, as does the boy who had been
holding her hand. He smiles as he flickers out of her vision all
together.

Shaken by the abrupt return to normal, the first thing Scully does is
run her hands down her belly. To her relief, it has its familiar
contours. Almost immediately the baby kicks, confirming his presence.

She lets out a breath she didn't even know that she was holding. As
much as she tried to push her worry to the back of her mind, she had
been terrified that the baby might still be missing when and if she
made it back to her own time. Despite the comments to her mother the
day of the funeral, she knows full well that she'd be devastated if
anything happened to the baby.

"I want to talk to you," Scully tells the empty room, and when no one
appears, she begins to feel foolish. The ghosts have never spoken to
anyone - at least not to her or Mulder - so why was she convinced that
the little ghost would present himself for interrogation?

Still, she looks around, hoping to see a transparent shade looking
expectantly at her. Her little prankster doesn't return. That, however,
doesn't stop her from addressing him. "What was that about? What was
the point?"

A sliding noise makes her jump and look about wildly. Eventually she
sees what caused the noise - a framed picture of Mulder's father has
come free from one of its two hangers, and is now hanging askew on the
bedroom wall.

~*~*~

Bill Mulder's Home
2 p.m.

The sound of the doorbell wakes Bill from his light doze. An announcer
on the TV gives the current score, so he hasn't been asleep long
because it's the same game.

Yawning and barefoot, he goes to the door. To his surprise, his
daughter-in-law is on the other side. Trying not to grimace, he steels
himself for a discussion about Fox. "Dana, come in."

She shivers a little as she hangs up her coat and scarf. Something in
his chest aches when he notices how her sweater outlines the swell of
her belly - this grandchild is already unfortunate and he's not even
born yet.

Once the settle in his living room, she gives him a weak smile. "I was
hoping you could tell me about your uncle Saul."

This request startles him, because he wouldn't in a million years have
suspected that is what's on her mind. "Uh, sure."

"He grew up in our house, didn't he?" she asks.

"Sure. He inherited it. Four boys, and only two outlived their parents.
Uncle James died during World War two, and Uncle Andrew in a house
fire. His whole family with him, it was a terrible accident... My
father didn't inherent because he was the youngest, and people didn't
split up estates back then like they do now. Sorry, I'm rambling,
aren't I?"

"No," Scully tells him. "I never knew any of this about your family.
Mulder never told me about your uncles."

Bill gives her a sad look. "I'm not sure how much Fox knew himself, to
tell the truth. Andrew and James both died long before he was born, and
Uncle Saul...though we were close when I was a boy, we didn't talk much
after I got married."

"He didn't like Teena?"

Bill smothers a laugh. "You'd of thought that was why, but it was
actually my job he couldn't accept, not my wife."

"He knew what you...did?" Her voice sounds uncertain.

"Probably more than he ought to of. I was so young when I was drawn
into that web... Even then I knew that my folks wouldn't understand, so
I turned to my favorite uncle for advice. And he gave me plenty. All of
it was to get out while I still could. I didn't listen of course. But
you know that."

"Yes," Scully concurs. 

"The last time I spoke to him, Teena was pregnant with Fox. He said to
me 'Will' he was the only one to call me that 'You're involved in
dangerous stuff, Boy. One of these days it's going to take you down. Or
maybe it'll be even worse, it'll come to haunt that pretty wife of
yours, or that baby you're expecting. Get out now, or mark my words,
you'll live to regret it.' Of course he was right. I thought about
telling him that after we lost Samantha, but there didn't seem to be a
point." Bill sighs. "I've spent half a life time wishing I'd listened
to him."

The look on his daughter-in-law's face suggests that she wishes he'd
listened to his uncle too. "That must be hard," she says.

"What is it that the Buddhists say, life is suffering? They're right.
And so much of it is our own fault." He looks up at her with a faint
smile. "Not that my son lived long enough to screw up that badly with
his kids. But I don't think he would have ever, not even if he lived to
be a hundred."

"Mulder was one hell of a man," Scully says and he detects a note of
pride in her voice.

"There aren't many like him. Saul was like him, though. That's what you
wanted to know, isn't it?" She nods. "If I could take it all back, they
would have known each other. Then he would have had a better role model
than me."

To his surprise she gets up and kisses him on the cheek. "Don't sell
yourself short. You had a hand in how he turned out."

"I suppose."

"Thank you for speaking to me today."

"Any time, Dana."

As she walks out to her car he finds himself making an impulsive vow -
he needs to be a better grandfather than he was a father. It's
important to stay a part of Fox's children's lives.

~*~*~
 
Chapter One Hundred

March 31st, 2001
Late

April looks up at her mother as Scully bends to tuck her in. Her
serious, curious expression has Scully smiling despite the lateness of
the hour. Giving the purple comforter one finally adjustment she asks
her daughter, "What are you thinking about?"

"My birthday."

"Ah, that's tomorrow, isn't it? I almost forgot," Scully teases. "What
does my girl want for her fourth birthday, I wonder?"

"Just one thing." 

"What's that?"

April snuggles deeper into her bed. "To see Daddy," she says
tentatively, perhaps already anticipating her mother's reaction.

A dark look creeps over Scully's face. "Sweetie, you can't. Daddy
died."

"I know," April agrees. 

This confuses Scully. "When someone dies, we can't see them any more."

"But we will," April tells her. 

"April," Scully starts to say, but the little girl closes her eyes
tightly, and refuses to look at her.

Scully waits a moment before waddling to the door and shutting off the
light.

~*~*~

April 1st, 2001

Doggett pulls into Scully's driveway but makes no move to get out of
the car. Instead he gives his passenger a questioning look. "Are you
sure she'll want to see us?"

Reyes taps the brightly colored box on her lap. "Correct me if I'm
wrong. Today is April's birthday and Dana invited Hannah over for cake,
didn't she? And we drove all the way over, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but do you really think she's up for company? Maybe she was just
bein' polite."

Reyes looks exasperated. "If you were seven and a half months pregnant
and home with just the kids and the nanny don't you think you'd like to
have other adults to talk to?"

Doggett smirks. "If I seven and a half months pregnant my main priority
would be avoiding the tabloid reporters."

Reyes swats him, making him laugh. 

"Are we there yet?" a sleepy voice demands to know. Even now that she's
five, Hannah still doesn't last more than twenty minutes in a moving
vehicle before falling asleep.

Doggett reaches over the seat and brushes her dark bangs out of her
eyes. "We're here."

"Good." She quickly climbs out of the car, giving her father no choice
but to follow her. Doggett places the present in her arms as they
approach Scully's front door.

The door swings open, and Page waves to them. "I'm official door
opener," she informs them. "Mommy's in the kitchen."

"Thanks Page," Doggett tells her. "You're doing a good job."

"I know," Page acknowledges, and Doggett hides a smirk at her smugness.
She and Hannah disappear into the depths of Scully's home.

As soon as they're out of the girls' earshot, he leans down and
whispers to Reyes, "Dana better watch out, that one is going to be just
like her father."

"One of them is bound to be," she whispers back. Her warm breath near
on his neck sends a shiver through him he's reluctant to acknowledge,
as much as he's enjoyed occasionally seeing her outside of work -
platonically of course - since the week of Mulder's funeral.

Scully catches sight of them and waves them forward. "Hey, glad you
could make it."

"Thanks," Reyes says for the both of them. "How are you doing? It won't
be long now."

The older woman grimaces slightly. "The last month an a half are the
longest part of any pregnancy." A slightly wistful expression
accompanies her next statement, "I suppose I shouldn't complain, since
it's the last time."

"Yeah..." Doggett casts about for a change of topic. "Do you have a few
minutes to talk, one on one?"

"Sure. Missy's watching the kids and we plan to let them play a while
more before serving cake."

"I'll give your sister a hand," Reyes volunteers, excusing herself.

After gesturing to the couch, Scully slowly lowers herself into an
armchair. When she notices Doggett watching, she says, "I can get off
of this one without help."

"Must have been harder when you were pregnant with David and Jared."

"True. What's on your mind? I'm sure you weren't hoping to talk about
how ungainly I currently am."

"Kersh tried to pressure me into transferring to another division
within the FBI." Doggett decides to leave off the fact that there was
also an offer to promote him as well.

"What did you say?" Scully asks, looking curious.

"I said no. If Monica is the only one on the X-Files, they'll plow her
under for sure. It's not that she's not a good agent, just that she's
new and has no standing. Without me there the X-Files would be gone for
sure."

"And you don't want to see that happen."

He shoots her a startled look. "Of course not. It's Mulder's legacy.
Don't you agree?"

"I'd prefer to think that his legacies are here-" She touches her
belly. "-and in the other room."

"Well of course," Doggett says quickly.

"I'm sure he'd be touched that you're trying to keep his dream alive,
but don't unless it's somehow yours too." She looks him in the eye.

And he doesn't flinch. "I've grown accustomed to looking for the
answers to big questions, and they don't get any bigger than on the
X-Files."

"Give it some thought. Before you find yourself unable to escape."

"I'm going into this with both eyes open," Doggett attempts to assure
her. She looks unconvinced.

"Right." She pulls herself to her feet. "I hope you like chocolate
cake."

Feeling nonplused he follows her, hoping he won't be expected to wear a
paper hat.

~*~*~

Falls Church, Virginia
11:17 p.m.

Thunder grumbles outside of Doggett's window that night, chasing a
driving rain, but he's fast asleep and doesn't notice it. What
eventually does wake him, however, is the sound of his bedside phone.

"What?" He yawns into the phone.

"It's Skinner. I want you to meet me at the Bureau in about 20
minutes."

"How come?" Doggett asks grumpily. His bed is warm and comfortable,
making him relish being out in the elements even less than he usually
would that late.

"I got a call from the police. Pathologist down in Wilmington, North
Carolina. Fishermen pulled in a dead body 50 Miles offshore which
they've now identified as Billy Miles."

"Should I know who Billy Miles is?"

"I thought you read the case files," Skinner says shortly.

"Yeah, but I've just been woken from a sound sleep. Give me a hint,
would ya?"

"The first case Mulder worked with Scully involved this kid. He was a
multiple abductee. Most recently he and Teresa Holsey vanished from a
DC hotel room days before Mulder went missing."

"He was with Holsey? But you said they found a body. Why can't that
wait until tomorrow?" It's not like the guy was Mulder, Doggett finds
himself thinking.

"The hurry is that it's not a body anymore. Billy Miles is, as unlikely
as it sounds, alive. It's like that old nightmare scenario about waking
up during your autopsy. Lucky for Billy, they realized that he was
alive before they began cutting."

"I'll be right there."

~*~*~

"What's going on, Daddy?" Hannah appears in the doorway, rubbing her
eyes.

"I've got to go into work, Sweetie. You and the boys can sleep, though.
I should be home soon." At least he hopes so.

His daughter scowls. "Luke's not the boss of me."

"When I'm not here you need to do what he says," Doggett says in as
stern a voice as he can at that hour. "I don't like hearin' that you
give him a hard time."

"But he deserves it!" Hannah insists.

"Hannah."

She changes the subject. "This work stuff, is it about April's Daddy?"

"What?" Doggett is started by the question. "What makes you think
that?"

Hannah shrugs. "April said her Daddy was coming home for her birthday."

"Did she tell you that today?"

"Yup. And lots of other times. But we can't talk about in front of Page
and Sammy 'cause they say she's a liar. And Sammy cries." Hannah looks
a little guilty.

Doggett decides to deliberately lie to his daughter for the first time.
"I have no idea why my boss needs to see me."

"Oh." She looks disappointed. "I hope April's daddy does come home
tonight. Having one parent is less fun."

This makes Doggett wince, but not as much as Hannah's next comment.

"Luke says you got to marry someone who likes us. Monica likes us." She
gives him an expectant look.

"Let's get you back to bed," he mumbles.

~*~*~

Hoover Building Parking Garage

Doggett pulls up beside Skinner and walks over when the other man
gestures to the passenger seat.

Skinner glances at him as he gets in the car. "You look shook up."

"Hannah informed me tonight that April has told her 'lots of times'
that Mulder was coming back for her birthday. Today. On the other hand
Hannah also told me who I should marry." Doggett chuckles nervously.

"April is damn good at unsettling adults," Skinner says gruffly. "When
Mulder was in the hospital she told Scully's mother that Mulder could
hear people's thoughts. April wasn't quite two and a half at the time."

"What's so strange about a little kid believing that?"

"It was strange because it was true."

"Oh." After an uncomfortable silence he asks, "You told Agent Scully
any of what you told me on the phone?"

"No. Not yet." 

"Maybe you shouldn't. Judging by April's conviction that her father is
going to miraculously return from the dead, I think it's safe to say
that Dana and her kids have a lot of healing left to do. We wouldn't
want to go ripping scabs off their wounds, would we?" Doggett shoots
Skinner a pleading look, willing him to agree that telling Scully would
be cruel at best.

"John, I understand your instinct to protect her, but I've known her
for several years. The last thing she would want is for us to shield
her from this, like she was a child in the need of protection from
harsh truths. If this pans out the way I hope it will, she'll be the
first to know."

Doggett looks out the window. Skinner's tone tells him that there's no
way that he's going to be convinced, so trying further to change his
mind would be futile at best.

~*~*~

The graveyard looks different at night. The severe look of the
headstones is softened by the snow that blankets the ground and piles
in small drifts on the tops of the stones. The rain is lighter here,
but it's doing its level best to disperse the snow that stubbornly
clings to the scene.

Skinner moves quickly, leaving widely spaced footprints in the snow.
Feeling less of a compelling sense of determination, Doggett trudges
behind him.

"Sir, what are you hoping to find here? Best case scenario?" When his
boss doesn't answer, he plunges on. "I know we all feel like Moldah's
death was tragic and unfair, but the science that put him in his grave
doesn't give one whit about that."

Skinner eyes him over his glasses. "As far as science is concerned,
Billy Miles ought to be dead right now, but the fact is that he isn't."

"We're not just digging up a grave tonight," Doggett says. "We're
unburying things that could lead to a lot of heartache, and not just
for us. Are you sure this is the wisest course of action? When Scully
finds out-"

"What if I listened to you, and we don't do this?" Skinner's tone is
harsh. "And she finds out that we didn't bother to make sure instead?
Do you think she'd have a greater peace of mind from wondering if her
husband was buried alive and if something could have been done about
it?"

"No."

"Then consider your objections evaluated and over-ruled."

When they finally reach their destination in the center of the
graveyard, there's already a backhoe digging into the ground beneath
Mulder's recently placed grave marker.

In a final desperate bid to get his boss to see reason, Doggett says
"How could he possibly be alive? We saw what he looked like three
months ago, and even then he wasn't... unblemished."

"The same can be said for Billy Miles. The state of his body, the
tissue damage, it all points to him having been in the water for
months, as if the craft that returned him accidentally dumped him into
the ocean when it returned Mulder. But his metabolism merely slowed
down to a nearly imperceptible rate. He's got a pulse. We're here to
find out if Mulder does too." Skinner sounds even less like he's in the
mood to listen than earlier.

Doggett gives up. "Fine." 

*

When he notices that the men excavating Mulder's grave are being
excruciatingly careful not to disturb his daughter's adjoining resting
place, Skinner feels an unexpected burst of gratitude. These men are
taking their duties seriously, which he is sure Scully will appreciate
no matter how things turn out this night.

It's sad, he thinks as he looks at the baby's headstone. There might be
a second chance for her father, but she didn't even get a first chance.

~*~*~
 
US Naval Hospital
Annapolis, Maryland
3am

Still stunned that Skinner's wild hunch is true, Doggett leaves
Mulder's room and rejoins Skinner in the hallway in time to see the
swinging doors explode open. Scully looks frantic when she runs to
them, but Doggett suspects that she's still holding onto realism
despite the wild hopes Skinner's call must have whipped up. The biggest
evidence of this is the fact that she doesn't have any of her children
with her.

"Is it true?" She demands to know before she's even reached them. "He's
alive?"

"He's not dead," Skinner says noncommittally.

"Dana, he's not in good shape," Doggett warns her. "Doctors won't even
hazard a guess as to whether or not he'll ever regain consciousness."

"That doesn't matter. Not tonight," Scully says, starting to walk past
Skinner.

Skinner surprises Doggett by her by taking her arm to stop her. "I wish
you wouldn't go in there right now."

"I have to." When she looks up at him, there are tears shining in her
eyes.

He gives in. "All right. We'll go in together."

Doggett gives him a pointed look that clearly states that it isn't a
good idea, but Skinner shakes his head. Neither of them are brave
enough to keep the man's wife from him.

Skinner puts his arm around Scully's waist, and Doggett realizes that
she's shaking. Still determined, however, she makes her way to Mulder's
bedside. Once safely seated in the chair already pulled up beside the
bed, she puts her head on his chest and begins to cry.

Watching this, Doggett wonders if she's crying because she thinks she's
in the presence of a miracle, or because she's sure he'll never
recover. He doesn't have the heart to ask before he and Skinner leave
the room.

~*~*~

A Few Hours Later

"Your mother is telling everyone that this is a miracle."

Scully looks up in alarm and sees her brother-in-law standing in the
doorway. "She hasn't said anything to the kids yet, has she?"

Krycek shakes his head. "No. Missy convinced her that it wouldn't be a
good idea until we knew if he was going to recover. Why do you look
stunned?"

"I'm not used to Missy being the voice of reason in my family." 

"It happens now and then," Krycek says with a slight smirk. "You'll
probably have messages on your phone from your brothers when you get
home, though. Missy wanted to come too, but I asked her to stay home."

"I don't blame you. The last thing she needs is to fall in this
weather." Scully doesn't acknowledge the fact that she's nearly as
ungainly as her sister in the snow lately, but she does say, "I've had
more practice."

"He been awake at all?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm going to check on the other man they found
in just a bit and see if there's anything to be learned from examining
him."

"Well, try not to catch space herpes."

"What?"

"I guess you missed Ice Pirates. It was a spoof of Star Wars back in
the early eighties. Space herpes was a disease space travelers caught."

"Oh." She gives him a tight smile.

"I've got to report back to your sister." He pauses in the doorway.
"Good luck."

"Thank you, Alex."

~*~*~

Meanwhile...
Hoover Building

"You look distracted," Reyes notes.

"I am," Doggett tells her. "I keep thinking about what a mistake it was
for Skinner to have told her."

Reyes gives him a piercing look. "Don't you think she had the right to
know? This isn't a mere partner we're talking about, but the man she
married."

"It's just." Doggett gives her a helpless look. "It's not right to get
her hopes up. Not when it's unlikely that Moldah is ever going to see
the outside of that hospital room."

"Maybe she deserves some hope right about now," Reyes tells him.

"Even if it's a false hope?"

"Even if," she says. "Hope might not be on Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
but people don't function very well if they don't have any."

"I know. It's just..." Doggett breaks off, frustrated that he's the
only one who seems to be looking out for Scully. Everyone else is
completely caught up in a fantasy of Mulder getting better. He has the
feeling that it's going to be left to him to pick up the pieces when
the dream shatters.

~*~*~

Billy Miles' Room
That Morning

The man on the bed doesn't look much like he did before his
disappearance in May. Now he's as bloated and gray as you'd expect
after months in the water. At least Mulder had been dumped on solid
ground.

Scully sighs and picks up his chart. It's a masterpiece of
understatement, just listing one aliment - acute hypothermia.

While she stands there, monitors begin to howl and the unconscious
man's body thrashes in convulsion.

Once the convulsion passes, Scully gives him a cursorily exam and
discovers that he has a fever and swollen lymph glands. She presses the
call button for a nurse.

Space herpes, she thinks to herself.

"Who are you?" the nurse asks. "Billy hasn't had any visitors."

"I'm doctor Dana Scully with the FBI. Is he being treated by Doctor
Lim?"

"Yes."

"Could you have him paged, please? Mister Miles just had a seizure and
I'd like to discuss treatment options with him."

The nurse squints at her. "The FBI agent they brought in-"

"My husband," Scully says quietly.

"Oh." The nurse gives her a sympathetic look that's centered on her
belly. "I'll have the doctor come speak to you."

"Thank you."

"Why don't I have him meet you in your husband's room?" the nurse
suggests, already leading Scully out into the hallway.

~*~*~

Mulder's Room

"Mrs. Scully?" Scully looks at doctor Lim as he enters the room. She's
not pleased that he's called her "Mrs."

"Doctor Scully," she corrects firmly. 

"Yes, of course." Lim says uneasily. "Nurse Banks said you wanted to
speak to me?"

"I've examined both my husband and Mister Miles-" She gives him a look
that dares him to object, but he doesn't even met her eyes. "-and I'm
fairly certain that they're suffering from some sort of infection or
virus."

"That's probable. We've been giving them broad-spectrum antibiotics."

"Have you noticed any improvement?"

"It's been less than twenty-four hours since they were administered to
Mister Miles." Lim equivocates. "Even less in your husband's case."

"So I take that the answer is no," Scully says evenly. "It's impossible
to know what they've been exposed to, so to pin our expectations that
their illness is caused by a bacteria is foolish. What I'd like you to
do is to give them both a course of antivirals."

"I'm not sure that's-"

She forces him to meet her eyes. "It wouldn't take a lot of effort to
get a court order that will force your hand. I'd think you'd like to
avoid that sort of messiness. The hospital usually prefers to avoid
involving the legal department."

Lim is easily cowed, she notes with some satisfaction. One allusion to
being sued, and out of his mouth pop the magic words "There's no need
for a court order."

"Today?" Scully prods.

"All right." Lim looks less like he's afraid that she's going to pull a
warrant out of the pocket of her maternity top.

"The sooner the better," Scully tells him as he flees the room.

Once she's alone in the room, she looks down at Mulder and begins to
feel something like hope. For the first time since she found out that
he's alive, she allows herself to picture him out of this bed.

~*~*~

Scully's Home
Afternoon

The fact that Scully's mother and sister have been over since the wee
hours of the morning is wearing a bit on Michelle's nerves. The two
women keep exchanging glances that are full of meaning, and she wishes
that they would just go somewhere for a while so they can have the
conversation they're obviously dying to. She can't understand why they
haven't already, given that being around the kids and not talking is
obviously frustrating them both.

And her too. She has things well in hand, so she can't quite figure out
why they've set up camp in Dana's home. That they keep asking if she
has called is grating on her as well.

Which is why she's immediately put out of sorts when the kids begin to
argue. They usually get along, which might be why she's so shocked.

Page insists that she, Sammy and April draw pictures, and the two
younger kids instantly bend to their eldest sister's will. Things don't
go south until Maggie makes the innocent mistake of asking them what
they're drawing.

"We're drawing pictures for Mommy," Page and Sammy both declare,
showing the adults pictures of houses and fish.

April, on the other hand, doesn't say anything at first, but continues
to concentrate on what's she's drawing. Eventually she puts the crayon
she's been clutching aside and smiles up at Maggie. "I drew a picture
of a flower for Daddy."

Sammy scowls at his younger sister. "Why? He can't ever see it."

"Yes he can," April insists, holding the picture to her chest.

"Dead people can't see anything," Page points out. "And he is."

"No..." April protests.

"Is so," Sammy insists. "That's what the funeral was for, Dummy."

"Sammy!" Maggie cries. "Do not call names!"

"But she is being dumb," Page says coldly. "And acting like a baby
too."

It's on the tip of Michelle's tongue to defend April's belief that her
father is alive, but pointed looks from the girl's grandmother and aunt
kill that desire. Instead she holds out her arms to April. "Let's go
check on your flowers."

"Okay," April agrees, her voice a bit watery.

Michelle looks down at the girl and wonders, not for the first time, if
the child can read minds. In case she does, Michelle makes an effort to
telegraph one thought to her. I believe you.

~*~*~

That Night

"Doctor Scully?" A tentative voice gets Scully's attention. She sees
doctor Lim standing in the doorway. He looks as anxious as a small boy
about to show his report card to a parent.

"Yes?"

"I, uh, thought you'd like to know that Mister Miles' condition has
much improved over the past couple of hours." Lim says nervously.

"Improved in what way?" Scully gets out of the chair and approaches the
other doctor.

"Oh, his fever's gone, the swelling in his lymph glands is going down,
he's regaining his color... and he's awake."

"He's awake?" Scully asks eagerly, "Can I speak to him?"

"Yes. I told him I was going to see you and he seemed pleased by the
idea of seeing you."

"Can I see him now?"

Scully hurries to speak to Miles, but she goes away disappointed. He's
seems cognitively intact, but remembers very little of his long ordeal.
"There was a blinding light, and then I was gone." Is about the extent
of what he's able to tell her.

And as the night wears on, Scully feels her grip on hope beginning to
loosen. The antivirals were given to Mulder no more than fifteen
minutes after they were administered to Billy, but he seems no more
likely to wake than he did when he was first admitted.

~*~*~

Federal Correctional Facility
Perkey, West Virginia
April 3rd, 2001

Doggett gives Absalom an impatient look as he sits across from him in
the interrogation room. "I was told you wanted to speak to me."

Even though waiting to see what will happen with Mulder is wearing on
everyone's nerves, Doggett would rather be in DC still, not here in
Virginia because a con wants to speak to him. Skinner apparently sensed
his reluctance, because he insisted Doggett go before he could even
attempt to put it off.

"Oh yes. I'm very pleased to speak to you." Absalom does look
delighted.

"About?" 

"I just wanted to know how it feels."

"What feels?" Doggett asks suspiciously. 

"To have thrown a monkey wrench in their plans, of course."

"Whose plans?"

"Don't play stupid, agent Doggett. You know very well whose plans I
mean."

"Suppose I do, how have I thrown a monkey wrench in their plans?"

"Not you in particular, but your group." Doggett realizes he means the
FBI. "To be honest, I'd preferred to speak to agent Scully, but I know
she's busy today. Do you know what they had planned for your friend
Mulder?"

"No."

"He was going to come back as one of them. They infected him with their
virus, and expected it to replace him body and soul. But your clever
agent Scully defeated their plans with simple modern medicine. Still
himself, he'll go on to ruin the rest of their plans. It's exquisite."
Absalom's eyes shine with excitement.

"Don't you think you're being a little hasty celebrating? Moldah hasn't
even woken up."

"Hasn't he?" Absalom asks, raising his eyebrows.

~*~*~

Mulder's Room
Afternoon

Feeling exhausted and desolate because the wonder wrought on Billy
Miles hasn't been duplicated on Mulder, Scully finally gives into the
emotions she's been holding in check for two days. She puts her head on
his chest, and begins to cry, this time in despair.

She freezes when she thinks she feels him move, but it doesn't repeat
itself, so she chalks it up to her imagination. At least until a
peevish voice says "Stop that. I'm getting soggy."

Pulling away, she gasps and looks down. His eyes are open. "You're
awake!"

"You look surprised," he says, sounding rusty.

"It's April, Mulder," Scully tells him. "You've been missing since
August."

"Oh. Anybody miss me?" Mulder asks.

"We've all missed you!" Scully declares, leaning down to hug him.

When she does, a smile lights up his face and he reaches out a hand to
touch her belly. "I guess try try trying again was successful."

"Very," Scully says with a short laugh. "The fruit of our labor ought
to make its appearance in May."

"I can still do the math," Mulder teases. "But I'm glad to know the big
news immediately."

"There's some other news, but I'm not sure you're up to it yet."

"How bad can it be? You're worrying me, Scully. Is it about the kids?"

"No, it's about Missy."

"Is she okay?" ::I know she's been living on borrowed time...::

To his surprise, she laughs. "Physically, she's fine. Mentally, I'm not
so sure...do you want the bad news or the worse news?"

"Start with the worst, and it'll get better from there."

"Missy married Krycek on Christmas Eve."

"Jesus," Mulder says weakly. "I always thought she'd dump his sorry ass
one day."

"There's always divorce," Scully suggests.

"What's the rest?"

"Uh...a couple of weeks before we have our latest baby, we're going to
welcome a new nephew to the family."

"We'll never get rid of him now." Mulder groans. But secretly he's not
that upset. Krycek has inexplicably grown on him.

"He, um, I figured out how to cure you because of him. Space herpes."

"What?"

"He made a stupid joke about a movie character getting space herpes,
which lead me to giving you and Billy Miles an antiviral. If not for
that stupid joke..."

"How's Billy?" Mulder asks urgently.

"He seems like his old self, why?"

"I felt guilty, about him and Teresa. I told them being in DC would
keep them safe."

"They're both fine, Mulder. We got her back in January." Scully
smoothes his hair with one hand. "She's back with her baby now."

"Oh, good," Mulder says, swallowing a yawn.

"What are we going to tell the kids?" Scully asks giddily.

"We'll think of something," Mulder rumbles.

"April knew," Scully confesses. "She's been telling people all along
that you'd be back. And you are! It's amazing."

Mulder doesn't have anything to say about that, and it doesn't surprise
her that his eyelids have already fallen. But this time it seems to be
a normal sleep.

~*~*~

Out in the hallway Doggett looks into the room and feels a deep
confusion. The logic he's been relying on his whole life told him, once
they found Mulder in that field, that it was the end for the man.
Clearly this was wrong. What other solid beliefs that he holds could
also be built on sand foundations? It scares him a little to think
about it.

~*~*~

Chapter One Hundred And One

April 7th, 2001

Ah shit, Mulder thinks as the flashbacks hit him. The only thing he's
thankful for is that he's sitting down, clad only in a blue hospital
gown on the paper-covered examining table. His breathing is harsh and
unsteady while his pupils dilate, but he's unaware of his physical
reactions to the psychological trauma, only that when it's over, he's
still alone. Absent-mindedly, he touches his scars, forcing himself to
breathe deeply before the doctor and his wife come back in. He's still
on his breathing exercises when Doctor Lim walks in, followed by
Scully. "Mulder?" she asks, concern on her face.

He forces a smile on his face, but it's obvious how much his effort is
costing him. "All things considered, it could be worse." He pushes
himself off the table, then starts to walk around a bit, giving himself
some literal space between them so he doesn't have to look at them.
"Hey look, dead man walking," he comments, his voice somewhat steadier
than his legs.

Scully's got herself a nice view of his ass through the open back of
his hospital gown, which isn't bad for a dead man, really. When she
remembers the doctor's got the same view, she quickly tells him, "Well,
you might want to consider sitting down when you hear what we have to
tell you."

Mulder does so, hoping it's the same news as before. "Hoo boy," he
says, looking at their faces. Maybe not.

Doctor Lim rushes to reassure the patient. "It's good news, really," he
tells the man who was literally dead for about three months. "I can't
possibly exaggerate the inconceivability of you sitting here. Let's be
honest... your recovery is nothing short of miraculous."

Scully chimes in, "Thanks to a course of transfusions and antivirals,
your body has rid itself of the virus that was invading it. The scars
on your face on your hands, on your feet, on your chest, they, they
seem to be repairing themselves." As Mulder lightly touches his scarred
face, Scully covers his hand with her own. "Mulder, you are in perfect
health."

Very relieved to find some things haven't changed, especially with the
brain disease already out of the way, Mulder says, "I better be,
especially with a new kid on the way." Without knowing it, he smiles a
genuine smile as he shifts his hand from his face to her tummy. He
looks up to see her smiling back at him, and he finds his smile
widening.

"How do you feel, Agent Mulder?" Doctor Lim breaks in.

The corner of his mouth goes up. "How soon can I indulge in, um,
‘strenuous' exercise?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows at his wife.

The Asian-American doctor, surprised, laughs loudly while the redheaded
woman blushes. "Um, I wouldn't advise anything too strenuous at this
point," he strives to regain some professionalism, but really, this
whole situation is insane, what do you tell a man who's been
underground for three months and now acting like he's merely been
unconscious for half an hour? Opting for the safest course, he plows on
valiantly in the face of medical unknowns, "I'd suggest taking your
time, Agent Mulder, with everything from eating and exercise to
socializing. As much as possible, I'd recommend drinking vitamin- and
mineral-enriched drinks, as well as lots of bed rest."

"I can do bed rest," Mulder leers at Scully, who swats him. "What?"

"Mulder, let's go home before they have to hospitalize you again."
Scully groans, but very much relieved that this is her husband in front
of her, for better and for worse.

"Uh, okay," Doctor Lim says, then unfolds a wheelchair sitting on the
side. "Hospital policy," he tells the agent who's about to protest. "We
need you two to sign some papers," he starts off as Mulder sits down in
the wheelchair.

"Before we do that, can we see Billy Miles?" Mulder asks.

"All right," the doctor says, looking from the patient to the wife, who
looks similarly startled.

~*~*~

"Hey," Mulder says when Billy Miles is in sight, "mind if we come in?"

The young man, who was staring out the window, turns around, his eyes
wide. "Agent Mulder," he says, and then notices the redheaded woman and
Asian doctor behind him.

"How are you doing?" Mulder asks, having a pretty good idea of what the
kid must be feeling right about now.

Billy shakes his head. "Weird," he admits. "I mean, they tell me I'm
fine, thanks to," he nods at the pregnant woman, "Agent Scully, but I'm
starting to remember..."

"Yeah," Mulder interrupts when he sees how uncomfortable the young man
is. "Do you have any plans when you get out?"

Billy Miles blinks, surprised. "Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure
if I'll have a job back home, since I was gone so long and all." He
chuckles mirthlessly. "I really haven't thought about it much,
especially since everyone I know back home is either gone or probably
wishes I were, too."

"The sooner you have a game plan, the easier it is," Mulder says. "And
with your experience and intelligence, you could start again anywhere."

Billy smiles self-deprecatingly. "Who'd want an abductee ex-cop?" he
questions. "Especially one who'd been drowned and dead for a while?"

A voice answers, "You could stay with us, until you think of
something." They all turn to see Teresa Hoese standing there with her
baby, shifting a little in the doorway. "I wanted to see how you were,
especially since they said you woke up."

"Teresa?" Billy looks at her.

"I'm working part-time at the Smart-Mart, but baby-sitters are
expensive on top of rent," the young woman says evenly. "If you
wouldn't mind looking after my baby, I'd be happy to put you up until
you figure out what to do next."

"Uh, sure," Billy says. "But I've, I've never babysat before." 

Teresa Hoese shrugs a little. "You'll pick it up," she says. "Are you
okay to get out of here?"

The young man on the bed looks at the doctor, who shrugs. "As fine as
Agent Mulder here, maybe even a little better, since he woke up first."

Billy nods, then swings his legs over the bedside. Doctor Lim quickly
opens a wheelchair, smiling a little as the patient sits down in it. "I
never thought I'd be discharging two former dead men, but I guess
strange things happen." He wheels Billy out the door, and Teresa and
her child follow after him.

Scully takes the handles of her husband's wheelchair, then quickly
grabs her husband's shoulders and shoves him back down into his seat.
"Hospital policy," she admonishes him when he turns around to pout.

"Can't a living dead man get a break?" he whines, then grins as she
snorts before giggling.

Then she regains her composure, and he gives in somewhat gracefully.
"Let's go, Mulder," she sighs, pushing his wheelchair out the door. It
isn't long before they're out the door and down the hallway, but
they're quite a ways away from the trio that left before them. "You
think they'll hook up?" Scully leans down to murmur beside Mulder's
ear.

He smiles a little. "Are you hedging bets, Doctor Scully, or is it
professional curiosity?"

"Well, it's nice to know that they're looking out for each other, even
more so since they've gone through the same things and came from the
same town," she shrugs, straightening up, "you never know what might
happen."

Mulder chuckles as they catch up to the doctor and unwitting pair.
"Like the doctor said, strange things happen."

~*~*~

"Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig-jig," Mulder quips when Scully
pulls into the driveway. Wow. Last time was pretty awkward, but then,
it was just him, Scully, and pre-natal William. This time, there's
kids, a nanny, and others who've seen him put in the ground... this is
gonna be really, REALLY weird, he thinks, even for him.

"Mulder, you okay?" Scully asks when she opens his door.

"Is there a protocol for reuniting with your family after you've been
dead?" he asks her, feeling mildly queasy.

She smiles and squeezes his shoulder. "You've survived death, you can
survive this," she replies, all but dragging him out of the minivan.
"Come on."

"Okay," he says, and rings the doorbell. 

Before Scully can separate the house key to open it, the door swings
opens to reveal their oldest daughter. Page stares at her father, her
face a picture of shock and more than a little fear, then she runs from
the doorway, crying. "Um, I'm sure she'll be okay," she tells Mulder,
putting a hand on his arm. He starts when she does so, and she's
saddened to see the accompanying look of shock and sorrow on his face.
"Give her time."

"Uh, yeah," Mulder says, forcing himself to walk across the threshold
and into his house. Yeah, my house, he reminds himself, trying to
prepare himself for any similar reactions from his family or others,
okay, I can do this, it's my home, my family...

"We're home," Scully calls out, although she's sure Page probably told
everyone by now, if the doorbell hadn't. It isn't long before they hear
the stampede of little and big feet, and everyone who can walk or run
does so, piling into the living room, and Scully finds herself holding
her husband's hand as if it were one of their children's, for
reassurance. "Daddy's home," she says unnecessarily.

"Hey," he says, and isn't surprised to see shock on everyone's faces,
even though Scully had told them about his, well, resurrection. No,
wait, April's not shocked, but she's crying, and running towards him,
arms stretched out. "Daddyyyyy," she sobs, and he bends down and
catches her in his arms, tears also running down his face. "Shhh, baby,
it's okay," he murmurs, stroking her soft hair.

"They said you was dead," she sniffles, "they said I was lying when I
said you was sleeping."

And not for the first time does Mulder regret his promise of silence,
but he'd rather have April crying now than not have her at all. Hugging
her to himself, he tries to comfort her, "You were right, I'm here,
Sweetie, it's okay..."

Soon, he feels the impact of another small body, and he looks up to see
Sammy, tears streaming down his chubby cheeks. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he
cries, clinging to his father's neck tightly. He's soon joined by his
younger brothers, who don't know why everyone's crying, but they want
to be part of the big hug, too.

"Mister Mulder," Michelle breathes, tears in her eyes, carrying
Christopher over on unsteady legs. "Wow."

He smiles up at her crookedly. "How're you doing?"

She hiccups, her voice choked by tears. "I should be asking you that." 

Mulder frees a hand to reach out for his youngest. "Can I hold him?"
 
"Sure," she says, and places the baby gently into his father's arms.
 
Scully finds herself tearing up from a multitude of emotions, one of
which is guilt that she didn't believe as much as April. Another is
sorrow that Page is still hiding from her father, and as a former Navy
brat, she can empathize with both reactions, albeit on a lesser scale,
since her father never died before coming back home. God, she prays
silently, you've given us all another chance, please, please, keep our
family together, forgive me my doubts, just please, please...

A crash from upstairs makes everyone jump, then look up. "I'll get it,"
Scully says, wiping her face.

Mulder starts to argue, then remembers his eldest daughter's reaction
and subsides, surprised when his remaining children hug him harder.
Wow, it's gotta be a weird day when your kids are comforting you, he
thinks distantly, nodding at his wife while she heads upstairs.
Shifting Christopher so he fits in one arm, he smiles a little as he
ruffles Sammy's hair, pats David and Jared's sweet little heads, then
strokes April's longer hair. Five out of six ain't bad, he thinks, I
should be thankful that I've had better relationships with my kids than
most dads, especially considering the weirdness we've surrounded them
with.

Then he feels his legs start to give out from the strain of being
smooshed by most of his children. "Okay, guys, Daddy's gotta sit down
now," and feels guilty when April and Sammy spring back from him,
knocking down David and Jared in the process. "Hey, hey, sorry, guys, I
just gotta put a chair under me," he apologizes, rubbing the twins'
dark heads when they start to stutter and cry. "Come on, up we go."

He shepherds them over to the couch, while Michelle disappears into the
kitchen. Boy, it's gonna be a long day, he thinks, and he knows it's
gonna feel longer with Page feeling the way she does.

~*~*~

The next day, Mulder's watching a tape of last night's news, since
Scully insisted that he go to bed early rather than subject himself to
"that bloodthirsty schlock that passes itself off as news." For once,
he agreed, figuring if he couldn't handle Page freaking out in front of
him, he probably couldn't handle even trauma separated by a tube.
Today, however, he's feeling stronger psychologically, and leans
forward while the reporter breathlessly states to jerky White House
footage, "Again, our top story is the death of a man who jumped the
fence at the White House last evening, his name now released. Howard
Salt, a federal employee working on the US Census, got as far as the
White House front door yesterday where he was stopped by security and
shot accidentally by his own gun. According to a Secret Service
spokesman, Salt appeared to be irrational and resisted arrest, shouting
unspecified grievances against the U.S. Government and demanding to
speak with the President. Co-workers describe him as likable and
hardworking." He sighs, then shifts his arm under Christopher who'd
just grumbled in the way babies do.

The doorbell rings, and he stands up, baby in arms, only to find he and
Scully have reached the door at the same time. He smiles a little and
does the "ladies first" gesture with his left arm, stepping back as she
opens the door. "Hello, sir," he says, seeing a tall bald man frowning
hard at him.

"We need to talk," Skinner says, pushing past him and walking inside. 

"Okay," Mulder says, shrugging to Scully's silent question, but already
knowing what's in store. "About what?"

"About your request for reinstatement, Kersh wants to put you behind a
desk," Skinner says tersely once they've reached the living room.

"Let me guess, he wants me as AD to promote the FBI's image for the
recently resurrected," Mulder quips, causing the bald man to sigh in
exasperation and Scully to sink onto the couch with a groan.

"I think Kersh wants you to quit, Mulder," she rebuts with a straight
face. Even though he'd woken up from nightmares more than once last
night, you'd never know it by his easy manner right now.

"It's more than that," Skinner mutters. "He wants to punish you, to
hurt you."

Mulder gives his boss a sympathetic look. "And you by putting you in
this position. And Scully, for not giving up on me," he looks at her,
and she squeezes his hand. "If this is his way of congratulating
someone for coming back from the dead, I'd hate to think what his
Mother's Day gifts are like.

Scully looks up at him. "We're not going to just sit around and let
this happen, are we?"

He sits down next to her, still holding her hand. "Scully, you're going
to give birth in a couple months. Now, I know you can bounce back to
work quickly, but they've been know to use even a short time to shut
down the X-Files." He pretends not to notice Skinner looking away,
keeping his eyes on his wife and partner. "Don't worry, I'll be back in
the basement before they can change the lock on the door."

"They're not closing the X-Files," Skinner interjects, his face a study
of pained restraint. "Kersh aims to keep them open with Agent Doggett
in charge with Agent Reyes to assist."

Scully and Mulder wear expressions of shock, each for different
reasons. Scully asks, "Doggett's in charge?" while at the same time
Mulder blurts out, "Agent Reyes was assigned?" They look at each other,
then at Skinner, then at each other again.

"Doggett was assigned to find you," Skinner replies, "he stayed on
because he believed in you, if not your work. Agent Reyes was recently
assigned not long after you, uh, went under."

"I see," Mulder notes his boss's discomfort. "If Kersh is putting John
in charge, the guy's either doing a really good job, or he's still a
dyed-in-the-wool skeptic that Kersh hopes will leave the office soon
enough." He shrugs when Skinner's lips flatten and Scully sighs. "I
guess Agent Reyes got her wish to be a part of the X-Files, but I guess
I'll have to prove myself and then some if Kersh figures all positions
are filled. That's his game plan, isn't it?" he looks at Skinner.

"Pretty much," Skinner admits. 

Then Mulder smiles, and it's something Skinner never thought he'd see
again, and one that gets Scully's heart beating faster. "Then I think
it's time to play ball, huh?" he says, his tone light and mischievous,
but his eyes are dancing with excitement, already starting to put
things together. When Michelle comes out with some milk for
Christopher, he hands the baby over. "Sorry, Michelle, Scully's gonna
keep you company instead of me," he tells her.

The nanny looks rather stunned, and she's not alone in her expression.
"Mister Mulder?" she asks, wondering if being dead a long time made him
crazy. Well, crazier.

His smile turns brisk. "I'm going to work," he says, and there's
something like a perverse joy he feels watching everyone think he's out
of his mind. Just like the good old days, he thinks. "And Michelle?"

"Yes?" she asks, still stunned. 

"Could you just call me Mulder?" he says. " ‘Mister Mulder' is my dad
and that kinda weirds me out."

They all look after him, not moving, as he practically runs out and
dashes up the stairs. "Um, Scully?" Michelle finally breaks the
silence.

"Yes?" Scully snaps out of her daze to look at the young woman.

"Is, is he okay?"

The concern in the nanny's voice and face, while it ordinarily should
have evoked some measure of sympathy, instead sets her off into a
sudden fit of giggles. "Yes," Scully wheezes, to Skinner's and
Michelle's further astonishment, "he's okay. He's more okay than he has
been in a long time." A moment later, she snorts, then she laughs so
hard she has to sit down, not just from that statement, but also from
the other two's looks of mirrored concern for her own sanity.

~*~*~ 

"Agent Reyes," Mulder says, walking into the basement office, "hi."

Reyes spins around, then drops both her jaw and the files she's
holding. "Holy shit," she says, and then smiles suddenly. "I'm sorry, I
just didn't expect-"

"Expecting the unexpected is an on-the-job skill." Mulder smiles wryly,
walking over to help her pick up the fallen papers. "Welcome to the
X-Files."

She blinks, then bends down to help him help her collect and rearrange
the files, a bemused smile still on her lips. "It's one thing to hear
it, but it's another to see it," she says, looking at him when the
files are finally collated. "Wow, you look really good."
 
"Thanks," he says, "where's Doggett?" 

"John's taking the kids out for a movie," she says, "he says it's to
celebrate his promotion, but I think the thought of taking a job that
his newly-resurrected friend's got kinda weirds him out and he'd rather
being among normal than here." She shrugs, then puts one of the files
into the in box.

He almost smiles at the déjà vu of that phrase. "Why didn't you join
them?" he asks, putting away one of the files.

Her eyebrows go up, and then she smiles. "For a man who's been six feet
under for three months, you're pretty sharp," she says, reappraising
him.
 
"That's why they call me Spooky," he deadpans, but can't help smiling
back when he closes the file drawer. "Go on, crash the theater. I
promise I'm not going to take over cackling with maniacal glee, I'll
just catch up on what's been happening since I've been gone."

She gives him a keen look, and he almost squirms, having forgotten
briefly that she's a pretty sharp observer herself, "feelings" and all.
"All right," she says, "but if you start throwing parties down here,
you better call me." Reyes favors him with a brief grin, then sails out
the door with her purse and jacket.

Once he hears her footsteps fade, he slumps against the file cabinet.
Jeez, it felt like he was a teen lying to his mom about doing his
homework when he really wanted to jerk off to some porn. "Anyways," he
mutters, now giving his office a more careful scan, noting which things
had been moved, missing, and added. He's not sure how often the Gunmen
have been doing their sweeps while he'd been gone, so he doesn't trust
the computers just yet, nor the phone, with any unsecure searches.
Still, he's relieved to hear that Doggett and his kids are out of the
house, especially since, if memory serves him, this is about the time
Absalom busts out of jail and hightails it over to Doggett's place. And
this time around, he knows and likes the guy already, and would feel
pretty shitty if he got kidnapped by that nutcase.

I wonder if it was Gibson's idea to go out, Mulder suddenly thinks, I
wonder if he knows about Absalom's escape and his intentions. He
wouldn't put it past the kid to do something like that, and if the boy
is as canny as he remembers, he wouldn't be surprised if Doggett
would've leapt to the suggestion, rather than stay here and play boss
while sweating under that necktie. Mulder grins at the image, then
opens the drawer of the desk closest to him. "Time to reacquaint myself
here," he says, pulling his nameplate out and propping it on the edge
of the desk, then doing the same with Samantha's picture. Stretching,
he's relieved to find that the ceiling is still filled with pencils,
then gets to work searching for bugs, under the guise of
refamiliarizing himself with his surroundings.

~*~*~

FBI Task Force Briefing Room
4:45 p.m.

"He goes by the name Absalom. A self-styled prophet Agent Scully and I
apprehended in Montana where he commanded members of a small UFO cult,"
Skinner states, standing before a roomful of serious, absolutely
dedicated agents, with a photo of Absalom, talking about the cult
leader's escape. Meanwhile, at the back of the room, Doggett is hitting
the redial button on his cell for the umpteenth time, frustration
showing in the twitch of his jaw and restless pacing. Scully watches
him, concerned, before giving her attention to the other agents and the
assistant director.

Skinner, seemingly oblivious to Doggett's actions, hits the clicker for
the next slide. The photo is of a prison cell wall, with "Fight the
Future" and "Forever..." scrawled in capital letters. "These words were
found on the wall of his cell after he escaped from a work detail forty
miles from the state prison. Now, we don't know they mean, but Absalom
claimed to have knowledge of an alien invasion. There were also claims
of healings of numerous abductees ... that have been subjected to alien
torture." The next photo is of the abductees found in Absalom's
compound. The formerly sober agents don't bother to hide their
amusement, but Skinner is far from joking. "Claims that have never been
substantiated... or refuted."

The next slide is that of Teresa Hoese, taken in the hospital, her
features barely recognizable, before she was healed. "But evidence of
torture was real," Skinner sets his level glare at every man and woman
in the room, and the agents, as expected, shut the hell up. "Now, the
only way we're going to get answers is to bring this guy in," he says,
putting up a picture of Absalom in his prison orange. "Just know the
man that you're looking for is dangerous. He's a felon, and he is
capable of physical violence. All right, that's it."

When most of the agents have left the room, Skinner strides towards the
back, to where Agents Doggett and Scully are standing. "Agent Doggett,
what the hell is going on that you couldn't give the opening speech?"

Doggett finally snaps his cell phone shut, exhaling before he speaks.
"I can't get a hold of Agent Reyes."

"Reyes?" Scully frowns, mirrored by her boss.

"It's an X-File, right? And last I checked, Agent Reyes is part of the
X-Files." He frowns down at Scully. "You don't think she woulda got a
new phone or something, do ya?"

Scully shakes her head. "While her ideas about the supernatural are
rather, well, unusual, in all other matters Agent Reyes is very
reliable. Besides, she'd give us her new number if she did." Doggett
nods, and Scully's about to elaborate when her own cell beeps. When she
sees the text message, she sighs. "Well, it looks like we've got at
least one believer in the basement office."

Skinner and Doggett give her uncomprehending looks until she shows them
her phone, the message reading, "Where is everybody? Come on down.
Mulder."

~*~*~

Everyone stromps down into the X-Files office, where they find Mulder,
light blue dress shirt and dark blue slacks, sitting behind the desk,
every bit the picture of a model agent, save for the fact that his feet
are propped up on the desk and there's a huge-ass grin on his face.
"Hey," the original agent of the X-Files division greets them.

Scully sighs. "Mulder..."


"Who says you can't go home again?" Mulder puts on an innocent face,
then waves at Doggett. "Hey, John."

Under other circumstances, Doggett would be happy to see him, hell,
he's relieved to see the guy's not only alive and talking, but that
he's ready to work. Still, he's gotta say it. "Agent Mulder, I don't
have time for this. What the hell are you doing here?"

Mulder blinks. "Nice to see you, too." Then he holds up a photo,
asking, "Does your rush have anything to do with this? This Absalom
abductee class picture?"

Scully stares at the photo, then at him. "Yes... It does. Why?"

He'd smirk, except he notes that odd tension in the room that hasn't
been explained. Doggett's here, so why's everyone all uptight? He
forces his own tone to be light as he explains, "Because I noticed that
the man who was shot on the White House lawn is one of the men in that
photograph. Top right hand corner. In profile. Howard Salt, if I'm not
mistaken."

Doggett glances at the photo, then at Scully and Skinner. "You're
right. What about it?" he snaps.

I'm pretty sure we're friends this time around, what stick lodged
itself up his ass this time? Mulder wonders. But he shrugs, the picture
of nonchalance, figuring Doggett's uncomfortable to see a dead man
walking, like so many others. "Well, let's just say I got a real big
hunch. This Howard Salt was a multiple alien abductee, worked for the
U.S. Census Bureau. Wanted to get word to the President, unspecified
grievances. What do you want to bet those grievances were?"

"You think he knew something?" Scully goes for the bait.

"I think they killed him for it," Mulder answers.

"The man jumped the White House fence," Skinner jumps in, his tone
indicating case closed. "He had a gun."

Mulder leans forward. "Once again, I'm a betting man. I'm betting he
had more than that."

"Moldah, this ain't no conspiracy," Doggett groans.

"You sure about that?" Mulder asks.

"You're being paranoid, Mulder. Even for you," Skinner grunts.

"Do you want to hear something really paranoid? The FBI gets its way,
there's going to be nobody down here to ask the paranoid questions.
Nobody to find those faces in those photographs." Then he pauses.
"Speaking of paranoid believers, where's Agent Reyes?"

~*~*~

FBI Evidence Room
9:48 p.m.

"Mulder, I know you know this, but if anything leaves this room you
could be in violation of the law." Scully sighs as they sneak into the
room.

While looking around the room, Mulder's thankful that some things
haven't changed, like the lax security around this particular room. At
the same time, he's hoping against hope that Reyes wasn't taken in
place of Doggett, since Doggett said he never saw her last night. Could
be that she decided to leave her cell off for an appointment, but it's
not like anyone's peeked at her appointment book, if she had one. He
keeps the banter light, however, as he replies, "Really? When I was
dead I was hoping maybe they changed the rules."

"Mulder, just being here could be used by Kersh as cause for
dismissal," Scully hisses.

"Then why don't you shut the door so he doesn't find out," Mulder
suggests, and after a beat, she does just that. She's such a rebel, he
grins inwardly, then pulls out a swiss army knife and starts cutting
the plastic off of a stack of boxes.

Scully sighs again, as if that would have any effect on her wayward
husband. "So you'll risk the consequences even though there may be
nothing here?" she argues, but pulls out her flashlight to help
illuminate matters physically, if not mentally.

Bingo, Mulder thinks, pulling out the laptop in less time than he did
last time, and hits the "on" button. "The last time I checked, working
the X-Files was meant finding the truth, no matter what," he looks up
to face her. She gives him an equally level look, with no eyebrow
raised. Okay. "Look, Scully, I need to make sense of what happened to
me. So that I can stop it. Because if I can't stop it, it could happen
to anyone. It could happen to you. And who's to say it's going to stop
there?"

"Okay," Scully concedes. After all, she'd put up with Krycek only
because they were reasonably sure that the kids were at risk during
Mulder's disappearance. "You do realize they could put you in prison
for what you're doing here."

"Yeah, well, compared to where I just was, prison would be a Princess
cruise," he smirks half-heartedly, and Scully heads for the door. "Ooh,
this looks sexy," he comments as the screen fills with numbers. "The
entire hard drive is taken up with this. Ten gigs of memory and for
what? If this is porn, it's got way too many numbers and not enough
pictures."

Scully takes her hand off the doorknob and heads back to where her
husband and the laptop are. "It's been encrypted."

Mulder flashes her a blinding smile. "Look out, Scully, I'm going to
book myself on that Princess cruise."

She stops herself from rolling her eyes. "I'll book it for you," she
retorts, effectively hiding the laptop inside her thick jacket and over
her unborn baby, rebuttons it, then sails out the room. Mulder smiles
more gently, covering up the boxes again before following her out of
the room, locking the door behind them.

~*~*~

Reyes' Apartment
9:48 p.m.
 
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Skinner asks while Doggett
unlocks the door with keys borrowed from the building super. "We've got
people dedicated to the Absalom manhunt, and you should be at the head
of it right now."

"Moldah's got his hunches, I got mine," Doggett grunts, walking into
the living room. There isn't much to see, since the walls are pretty
bare, and most of the floor is occupied by boxes rather than furniture.
He flips on the light switch, but it doesn't improve the scene by much.
It looks like someone's recently moved in, which is exactly what Reyes
had done, having moved out of the hotel and into more permanent
quarters. "If Absalom missed me, it's possible he grabbed her instead."

"That's a big if," Skinner says, "it's not like Agent Reyes is high on
the list on anyone's radar. Hell, she's barely made waves since she got
here, and that's surprising."

"We haven't had any big cases since she was assigned," Doggett grunts,
opening various drawers in the kitchen. "None, except the one where we
found Moldah's body at Absalom's compound. Absalom saw her there, that
I'm sure of, and if he was plannin' on doin' somethin' crazy, she'd be
just as good a target as me."

Skinner narrows his eyes, but says nothing. He's noticed that Doggett's
accent has become more pronouncedly Southern during times of stress,
but he figures he'll keep that under his hat until a poker game. In the
meantime, there's nothing unusual about this place, just a lot of
unopened boxes... oh, shit. "Agent Doggett," he says.

"What?" Doggett leaves the kitchen to discover what Skinner's looking
at.

"Unless she's really clumsy at opening boxes, this shouldn't be here,"
the AD says tersely, staring at blood splatter on the floor behind a
pile of boxes, along with a bloody boxcutter and discarded masking
tape.
 
"Ah, shit," Doggett sighs, then pulls out his cell phone.

~*~*~ 

Federal Statistics Center 
Crystal City, Virginia 
1:11 a.m.

The FBI guard on duty is bored, but his interest is piqued when a tall
woman with long dark hair comes walking towards his booth. She's
followed closely by a guy with long white hair, and the guard figures
they're lost tourists or something, but puts on a business face. Over
the intercom, he asks in as brisk a tone as he can manage at this time
of night, "State your name and your business."

"Special Agent Monica Reyes, FBI," Reyes replies in the same tone. The
turtleneck top itches like crazy, but it's doing a good job hiding both
the gun taped to the base of her neck as well as the bandage on her
left jugular. She's not sure if it's a good or bad thing that her
hair's long enough to cover both the goose egg she suffered when she
was first taken, as well as the muzzle of the gun, but in a weird way,
it's nice to know she can carry weapons in places other than her
holster. That is, if she felt like killing herself anytime soon, which
she doesn't.

Her dark eyes take in the security, and wonders, not for the first
time, if this crazy asshole thinks he can get away with this. The guard
types in her name and gets both her picture and record. Satisfied, he
buzzes them through, but still a little curious about the May-December
couple, since the old guy's got his hand on her back, all possessive
and everything. As they walk through, they don't see the guard look up
at another monitor, but continue walking as if it's normal for FBI
agents to walk into the stat center with an unidentified civilian.

"All right, we made it past the door," Reyes remarks in as
conversational a tone as she can manage, under the circumstances.
"What's so important here that you'd risk getting caught?"

His eyes taking in the labels on the doors, his hand resting between
her shoulder blades where he'd taped the gun, he replies, "I just need
access to wherever they compile all the available data from the current
US census."

"And then what?"

He smiles, as condescending a smile as she's seen on a crazed criminal.
"Then you pick up the phone, and you tell the FBI why you aren't coming
to work until somebody pays us some serious attention."

Great, just great, it's only until after I get my new place that I get
the shit, she thinks. "Just to let you know, we might not make it that
far. We passed through an x-ray scanner back at the gate."

"Well, you better hope we make it," Absalom says in a tone businessmen
reserve for their lackeys. "I'd hate to see you die in vain."

"Then I'd like to know what's so important about some statistics that's
going to get me killed," Reyes says evenly. "At the very least, I'd
like to know I didn't die for nothing."

"It's all in the census data," the cult leader says, almost dreamily.

"What's in the census data?" she frowns. 

"Proof," he replies, stopping them in front of a glass-walled white
room with two computer stations and several large server banks, as if
it was stuck with 1960s technology. "That they're already here. That
they're already among us." He tries to open the door with his free
hand, but it's locked. Turning his calmly mad gaze on her, he tells
her, "The proof is in there."

Before she can ask who "they" were, a SWAT team enters the corridor.
Shit. With reflexes quicker than one would expect, Absalom grabs Reyes
tightly, holding the taped gun, and pulling her long hair off her neck
in a painful ponytail to reveal the weapon. "I got a loaded gun pointed
at this woman's head! She's an FBI Agent!"

"Please, just do what he says!" Reyes shouts, holding her badge out to
the faceless men pointing their guns at her. Okay, part of her knows
they're aiming at Absalom, but when she's facing the business end of a
gun, that FBI part of her seems to shrink.

Indifferent to her plight or his own mortality, the white-haired cult
leader continues to rail at them, "I'll pull the trigger! Back off!"

Ignoring both gunman and agent, the SWAT team moves in closer. Fuck,
are they trying to get her killed??? Who the hell's side are they on,
anyway? "Just put the guns down!" she shouts. "Dammit, listen to him!"

Before she can blink or take another breath, one of the SWAT guys
shoots Absalom in the head. Stunned, Reyes watches the cult leader
slide to the floor, his expression as flabbergasted as her own. She's
unaware of the bullet burn on her left temple, since she's wondering in
a disoriented fashion if the SWAT team's going to take her out next.

~*~*~

Later, in the harsh light of day, Reyes is sitting across from Skinner,
the bandages around her neck and forehead, making it look like she
escaped from the ER. In some respects, she did. Skinner is seated
behind his desk, while Doggett's in the chair next to Reyes'. There's a
hint of amusement in his tone, if not his face, as Skinner says, "It
may not be the best way, Agent Reyes, but it's certainly one way to
catch an escaped convict."

Reyes shrugs, a little uncomfortable. "Next time, I'll try not to get
knocked out or cut before taking them in," she says, wishing makeup
could cover up her injuries, but really, there's no way to pretty up
flesh wounds without making it worse.

"So Absalom claimed the U.S. Census Bureau had data information that he
was after that connects to this man who was shot on the White House
lawn?" Doggett leans towards her.

She smiles, relieved that the attention's off her and back on to the
case, such as it is. "He said there was proof they were here among us,"
she answers, but a sudden thought makes her lips purse when she thinks
of who "they" are.

"Sir," Mulder says, opening the office door.

Skinner raises his eyebrows, but isn't that surprised to see him.
"Agent Mulder," he says mildly.

"Agent Reyes," Mulder says, taking in the bandages, "huh, getting
injured on a seriously freaky case-slash-by a freaky guy and threatened
by our own people, guess that makes it official. You are part of the
X-Files." He holds out his hand, and Reyes shakes it, an "oh, brother"
look on her face. "So, what did you guys find?"

Reyes blinks. "Nothing. Absalom said there was proof "they" were here
inside the census data, but before he could elaborate or even get
inside the room, he got shot." Then her dark eyes sharpen, even as a
small smile comes to her lips. "You know who they are, don't you?"

"I got a hunch," Mulder says with the same smile. "I think you do,
too."

She shrugs, lifting her right shoulder. "I do, but unless someone can
talk to the dead, I don't think we'll be getting any more hints from
Absalom." She smiles when Doggett grimaces and Skinner sighs. "Besides,
even if we got a subpoena to search that room, we could be staring the
answers right in the face without even knowing what we're looking at."

Mulder nods. "Then again, if the government can't keep track of illegal
aliens, what makes Absalom think they can keep track of actual ones?"

Doggett rises to his feet. "What do you mean by that?" he frowns.

Mulder's already on his way out. "Let's just say I've got another
hunch, but I don't want the new division head and agent to get into too
much trouble. Besides, I'm sure you've got ample material to work with
from the manhunt that won't require a medium to give you clues, right?"
he waves as he walks out.

Doggett sinks back down into the chair. "Something's wrong," he
mutters.

"What do you mean?" Reyes frowns.

"What I mean is," Doggett puzzles it out while he talks, "it seems like
the whole thing's shady. Why did they have to kill Absalom? If SWAT was
skilled enough to take out a man with a hostage at gunpoint, they
could've just as effectively crippled him. And, no offense, Monica, but
if they took out Absalom, why didn't they take you out, too? After all,
they could've erased all witnesses." He exhales, rubbing his forehead.
"Dammit, now I'm starting to sound as paranoid as Moldah."

"You're a smart man," Skinner concedes, "that's why I didn't fight your
promotion in front of Kersh. But you're right, this is shady. And you
know why they killed Absalom, to cover up his link to Howard Salt, and
to the Statistics Center."

"And they didn't kill me because they knew if they did, it would only
make you look for the answers that much more," Reyes finishes, a grim
look on her face. "Trust me, I was surprised SWAT didn't gun me down,
too, since their weapons were on me for longer than necessary. That
wasn't my imagination," she gives Doggett a look.

"Hey, I believe you," he holds his hands up. "Now, I don't believe
we're talkin' about little green aliens in America," and Reyes fails to
reign in her smile, "but I do believe that there's something in that
building that folks are willing to kill to protect. I'm curious to find
out what, aren't you?"

"Since I was nearly killed to find it, hell, yeah," Reyes answers.

"Well, agents, get to work," Skinner says, and watches them walk out.
Then he sighs, masking a prayer that this case, that's already opened a
can of worms and then some, doesn't kill off Mulder, having come back
from the dead so recently, or anyone else, for that matter.

~*~*~ 

Meanwhile, back at the Mulder and Scully home, Frohike opens the door
for Mulder. They smile at each other, and Frohike clears his throat.
"You know, it's really not fair. You've been dead for six months and
you still look better than me." Then he puts on a smirk. "But not by
much."

The sudden hug doesn't surprise him, but Mulder chuckles at the
strength of the little man, nonetheless. "I'm just glad you didn't make
a move on my wife." He grins.

"Hey!" Frohike lets go to glare at him. "I would never... okay, almost
never," he admits grudgingly when his compatriots join them.

"I think it goes without saying that we're all, uh, tremendously
relieved," Byers interjects in his usual polite manner, but smiling
behind his tidy beard and moustache.

"And not just ‘cause we had to talk Fro here out of comforting a
certain redheaded agent," Langly smirks.

Ignoring both the tall blond's comment and the short man's
embarrassment, Scully remarks, "Well, the Gunmen were able to decrypt
the data that you found on Howard Salt's hard drive. It was a series of
file directories that were downloaded the day that he died."

Mulder plays along, for now. "Downloaded from where?"

"The FSC, the Federal Statistics Center," Langly replies.

Byers adds, "A government information bank used by the U.S. Census
Bureau where your Mr. H. Salt worked."

"Surprise, surprise," Mulder says. "Okay, what are you waiting for? An
open invitation from the FSC to crack their firewalls?"

The blond man scowls. "Hey, I've got great kung foo, but I've never
seen such a radical counterdefensive."

"Fifteen minutes after Howard Salt was shot at the White House,
firewalls went up on every data bank at that very facility," Scully
tells her husband.

"Well, why do that?" Mulder grins as Scully and Frohike exchange
glances. "Because I'm right. Because they would kill to protect what's
in those files."

Byers holds up his hands. "Unless you've got a password, we don't see
any way short of that of getting a hold of this data."

"And the thing is, even if you have a pass code you still have to break
into the FSC just to use it." Then Langly pauses. "Wait, you're not
gonna..." he frowns, "dude, you just got back from the dead, you're not
seriously thinking about going there, are you?"

"I was thinking about it, yeah," Mulder says, then winces when Scully
stomps on his foot. Wow, she's gotten subtle, he thinks, last time she
only got the boys to gang up on me. "I plan on wrestling Doggett for
the honor. After all," he smirks, "he's the new division head. I wanna
see what he's got, and if he beats me, then he gets to do some funky
poaching. You don't mind, do you?" he asks the Gunmen, who visually
confer, then shrug. He grins. "May the best man win, then."

~*~*~

Reyes is behind Doggett's desk, standing over the photos of Absalom,
the abductee group, the prison cell walls, and others, along with
various papers in the case file. She looks up when Doggett comes in.
"What did you find?"

Doggett gives her a grim look. "I found that someone's been in the
evidence room, taken something from Salt's box. Judging from Moldah's
oh-so-helpful manner earlier, I'm guessing it was him that took that
something, but I have no idea what, since nobody bothered to itemize
Salt's possessions." He sighs. "One would think the FBI would do better
with chain of command, but either someone's getting sloppy, or they
really want to bury this thing."

"He's a nutcase who jumped the White House fence with a gun," Reyes
says mildly, "among other things."

"Like what?" Doggett asks, standing beside her to look down at the
photos. He notices there are more photos and forms than before, some of
them involving Howard Salt, others, Absalom's shooting, and one with
Reyes in it.

As if she hadn't noticed her picture in the file, Reyes answers, "For
some reason, the media neglected to mention that Salt had a computer
diskette he wanted to give the president. For the same reason, the
Secret Service also neglected to put that into their official report."

Doggett frowns. "So how did you know about it, if it ain't in the
report?"

Reyes mouth twists. "A friend in a high place," she says lightly.
"Wanna guess what the password on the label was?"

Doggett shakes his head. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"I'll give you a hint, it's three words," Reyes says. "Anything come to
mind?" She waves a hand over the photos.

He looks at her, then at the photos. "I'll be damned," he breathes.

~*~*~

That evening, Doggett dials, then smirks when he hears the other person
answer. "Merry Christmas," he says, "got a present for you."

"You shouldn't have," Mulder says. "I didn't get anything for you."

"Sure you did," Doggett says, "whatever you took out of Howard Salt's
box in the evidence room." He grins as the other man groans. "So, what
did you get?"

"His laptop," Mulder admits.

"Figures," Doggett says, "get anything interesting?"

"A general idea, but apparently, someone would need to be in the
statistics center with a password to get the actual data," Mulder says
as neutrally as possible. "You wouldn't happen to know what that would
be, would you?"

"I'd need to see you in person to tell you," Doggett says, then knocks
on Mulder's car window. "Fight the Future."

Mulder actually jumps in his seat, then scowls when he sees the other
man laugh. Dammit. "And to think I thought I beat you to the punch."

"Yeah, right," Doggett says while Reyes pulls on a pair of black
gloves, "if Agent Reyes had her way, she'd be bustin' down the doors
while we'd be outside twiddling our thumbs."

Mulder raises his eyebrows. "Let me guess, you were busy trying to talk
her out of it."

Reyes grins while Doggett purses his lips. Then Doggett asks, "Where's
Agent Scully?"

"Playing lookout, but apparently she figured you guys were okay,"
Mulder makes a face. Some lookout. "She told me that if you showed up,
I was to be backup."

Reyes smiles. "I like her more and more," she says. "I'm going to go
with another hunch and say you've got friends inside, possibly tech
friends?" His grimace is her answer. "Well, we better get moving if we
want to get our hands on those files."

"You do realize this could be a trap, right?" Doggett asks, putting a
hand on her arm.

She nods. "You know that, too, but that isn't stopping you. Come on."

~*~*~

Federal Statistics Center 
Crystal City, Virginia

Inside the compound, everybody, as if by some unspoken agreement, is
wearing comfortable black clothes, as if that would hide them from
sight. However, they are also wearing a mike and earpiece, which is
much more practical for their purposes, as well as packing heat. "Guys,
we're sitting ducks out here, are you ready?" Mulder asks.

"Use the bushes if you need a toilet," Frohike snaps, as he and his
friends are hanging by harnesses in a vertical corridor of security
cabling.

"You can start walking now," Byers says as pleasantly as possible. 

"Is the system bypassed?" Mulder checks. 

"You'll know if it's not," Langly says, oh-so-reassuringly. 

"Great," Doggett mutters.

"Okay, we hijacked the feed from the surveillance cameras," Langly
says, and the three agents hustle over and below the guard's window.

"What the guard is seeing on his monitors are still-frames from ten
minutes ago," Byers explains.

"Nice." Reyes smiles, then tenses as they hear the phone ring.

"Say cheese," Frohike says.

"We'll be watching them get busted if I don't find that override
circuit," Langly snaps. "This wiring must have been color-coded by
Helen Keller."

"Everything's under control, Mulder," Byers says, trying to calm his
friend down and now the obviously worried agents still on screen. "Just
hold tight."

"Party!" Langly whoops when he finds the damn wire.

Frohike punches in a code and the door near Doggett clicks open. "Open
sesame," the balding man grins.

"Follow me," Reyes says, once they're down the hallway. Mulder and
Doggett look at each other, then jog to catch up. "Hopefully, your
friends will have opened the glass doors by the time we reach it."

"Hear that, boys? The lady's counting on you." Mulder grins, and isn't
surprised to hear various chatter from the Gunmen saying they're
working as fast as they can.

When she reaches the glass doors, Reyes pulls on the handles, then
pushes them. Then she frowns, touching her earpiece. "Who's working on
the locks?"

"Whoops, sorry about that," Frohike apologizes while his fingers are
typing away. "Okay, there you go." The door opens and the agents walk
in.

Langly's nasally voice reports, "There ought to be two work stations in
the middle of the room. Either one will give you access to the data, so
I say log on and start downloading."

"In the meantime, we'll try and keep the firewall disabled so you can
transmit the data out," Byers adds.

As Doggett takes point by the glass doors, which don't seem so
protective any more, Reyes takes one station, Mulder the other, and
they both type in "Fight the Future." "Type fast, get the files, and
get out," Mulder tells them as the files practically fly past his nose.

"That's the plan," Doggett mutters as he tries to look for some kind of
blind or shield to hide the agents from anyone passing by. Honestly,
the room's like a damn fishbowl, and he's rushing up to one of the huge
computer terminals to see if it can be moved. No good, the thing's like
a wall. So he goes back to the glass doors, gun out and safety off.

Reyes is sending the files to not only her own e-mail, but to various
others, in the hope that if her account has been targeted, none of the
others has. "So what exactly are in these files?"

"Information about people being targeted because of their genetic
profiles for abduction and replacement by alien facsimiles, doing to
them what they tried to do to me, Billy Miles, Teresa Hoese and a host
of others," Mulder answers. "Let's start off with the Washington Post
and go on from there."

"Forward it to the CNN for all I care," Doggett says tersely, "just
hurry."

A phone jingle cuts through, and the Gunmen answer, "Hello."

"Guys, get them out of there," Scully's voice is crisp and carries over
the radio receivers.

"Right now that's basically impossible," Byers says helplessly.

"Fine, then you tell the armed men in jeeps to go back home," Scully
snaps.

"Oh, shit," the three agents chorus, then look at each other.

"Hope you guys managed to get something out, because now they've got
the data trapped and I can't get it uploaded, let alone start
transmission," Langly interjects.

"Mulder?" Reyes looks at him, who checks his monitor and shrugs. She
sighs. "Well, I hope I got something out there."

"I hope we make it back alive out there," Doggett comments as the other
two agents leave the computer stations and pull out their guns. It's
not fair, he just got promoted, albeit unfairly, and now he's gonna get
killed. What the hell???

"What's happening, Byers?" Scully's voice is tight with panic.

"I'm trying to figure that out," Byers answers the phone, then raises
his mouthpiece. "Everyone, are you there?"

"Yeah," Reyes answers first. "Exit plan that doesn't involve us making
our last stand here?"

"Um," Byers races through the schematics, "there's really no good way
out of there. Except, uh..."

The agents can hear the clacking of boots against tile, heavy artillery
against flak jackets, and aren't looking forward to the encounter.
"Except what?!" Mulder practically screams, ready to boost both Doggett
and Reyes up into the ceiling vent if Byers doesn't hurry the hell up.

The proper member of the Lone Gunmen snaps to. "Okay, uh, here's what
you do...."

~*~*~

Reyes' Apartment
The Next Day

 "Okay, so give," Doggett says, opening another box. "Who's the friend
in a high place?"

Reyes sighs, putting down the still-wrapped frying pan. "One of the
reasons why I transferred to New Orleans," she says. "Brad Follmer."
 
It takes Doggett a moment to place the name. "Assistant Director
Follmer?"
 
She nods. "You know, you don't have to help me unpack," she says,
giving him an out.
 
He gives her a look. "You just moved here, got kidnapped and shot at,
risked your life to get some info that didn't even make it past the
computers, the least I can do is help you do something as mundane as
opening a few boxes."
 
She chuckles. "Mundane. Interesting description."

"You know what I mean," he mutters. "Besides, I enlisted the boys to
come over and help out after school."
 
Reyes blinks. "You could think of other ways to punish them, you know."


"What? Oh," Doggett laughs. "No, it's no problem. ‘Sides, I figure,
with more muscle, it'd make things go a lot faster."
 
"Just be careful," she cautions, "some things are -"

"Ow!" Doggett recoils from a newly unwrapped object. "The hell?"

"Sharp," Reyes finishes weakly. "Are you okay?"

Doggett checks his hands. His right middle finger's bleeding from a
small cut, but other than that, he's okay. "Sharp things, check," he
grimaces, then frowns at the thing. It's a mirror, but it's surrounded
by what seems like thousands of gold-brushed metallic leaves or petals.
"Jeez, if you had this thing out, you coulda just thrown it at
Absalom," he groans.

"Poor baby," Reyes teases him, "let me see."

He holds up his hand. "It's just a scratch," he says, then jerks his
hand away when she reaches for it, smashing it against his t-shirt to
stop the bleeding.

"Yeah, and it's making a mess on your shirt," she comments. When he
looks down, she laughs. "Come on." She takes his hand and looks at it.
"You're right, it's just a scratch."

"See?" Doggett says, wondering why women made such a big deal about
cuts and things. He's about to say more when she sticks his finger into
her mouth and sucks on it. Something about the way she looks at him
while she's doing it dries up any arguments, any words, hell, any
thoughts, other than, Damn, that feels good and she looks good doing
it.

"Hey, Dad, hey..." Luke's voice trails off when he sees Agent Reyes
with his dad's hand in her mouth.

"Hey, guys," Reyes says, smoothly taking his finger out and removing a
Band-Aid from her back pocket. Without missing a beat, she wraps
Doggett's finger in the Band-Aid, then lets go, smiling at the boys.
"Thanks for helping me unpack."

Gibson smiles back, "Wouldn't miss it for the world," he says. Then he
turns to his friend. "Careful when you unwrap some of that stuff,
though, some of them's got sharp edges."

"Why didn't I get the warning before they did?" Doggett asks, gingerly
moving the mirror to the side using the bubble wrapping as gloves.
 
"I think she got distracted," Gibson replies, then gets hit by a flying
dishrag. "What?"

"For your hands," Reyes says, tossing another to Luke. When Doggett's
back is turned, however, she sticks her tongue out at the boy.

The shorter teen laughs. "Okay, but maybe you'd better give Mr. Doggett
a couple of those."

"Duh," she says, but pauses to look at the man's backside before
tossing him the dishrags.

Gibson rolls his eyes while Luke groans, "Aw, gross."

Doggett pulls the dishrags off his back and straightens up. "What's
gross?" He knows Monica's got some interesting beliefs, but if they
translate to her interior decorating...

"Nothing," Gibson says, while Luke shrugs. Both boys are studiously
taking care with unwrapping the boxed items. "You wouldn't understand."

Doggett shrugs, since Luke's been saying that a lot recently. "Okay,"
he says, obliviously squatting over another box and cutting it open.

Both boys look at Reyes, whose attention is back on Doggett's rear
view, then at each other. It was gonna be a loooooong afternoon.

~*~*~

Chapter One Hundred and Two
"New Life (After Death)"

May 15, 2001

It's been a while since he's cracked open his journal, especially since
his abduction, but Mulder takes out the slim book and twirls the pen in
his fingers before starting.

"Is it no less of a miracle, the birth of a child, no matter how often
it's happened in this family of ours? Is it no less of an answered
prayer that a new life comes into this world, helpless, vulnerable, and
so full of potential? That a child should bear the hopes and dreams of
its parents and that parents should be charged with the
responsibilities and joys of raising this child, that is a mystery even
the X-Files cannot hope to comprehend.

There have been countless times in my life that events have occurred
that is beyond my limited imagination, both good and bad, that nothing
could adequately explain - and that is what this new chance at life
brings. Not just for me, but for Scully, for Melissa, for Alex... if
there can be numerous chances for me, then why not him, too?

And why do we continually take second, nay, our numerous chances for
granted?"

He smiles over at his sleeping wife, lying peacefully in the hospital
bed, so different from the last time. But then again, William isn't her
first child, nor is he "special," just another baby boy among baby boys
sleeping in the maternity ward. This time, he's got a lot of brothers
and sisters, both parents here to stay, two cousins he didn't have
before, and an aunt that should've died years ago plus an uncle who
would've bit the a week from now. Yeah, nice to know a lot has changed,
Mulder brushes his wife's hair from her temple, whereupon she lets out
a loud snore. Chuckling, he leans over, then kisses her forehead.

"I love you," Mulder murmurs to his sleeping wife, still blissfully
unconscious. "Always have, always will."

~*~*~

Washington Memorial Hospital
May 5th, 2001

There is a small crowd in the pastel hallway, a small blonde girl, a
thin blonde woman, a short redhead, a short middle-aged brunette, a
tall black woman, a short Saudi-American woman, and a middle-aged
redhead. They are all staring at the swinging doors where a tall
redheaded woman was wheeled through, attended by doctors and nurses.
The black woman is the first to speak when the doors have stilled.
"This is the first baby shower I've gone to where the baby actually
showed up." Desiree grins.

"Babies rarely come when you expect," Mrs. Scully says, "I worry
considering how long it's been since Emily was born. Should I?" She
looks at the middle-aged woman with bright red hair expectantly.

Lizzy shakes her head. "There's nothing to worry about," she says,
squeezing Mrs. Scully's shoulder. "But this hospital has the best NICU
if there should be any complications."

"Knee-cue?" Mrs. Scully looks up, puzzled.

"Neonatal intensive care unit, N-I-C-U," Faizah replies. "I interned at
one for a semester, but I was so glad when they switched me to
podiatric. I'd rather reset broken bones than try to handle fragile
little creatures."

Desiree laughs. "And that's why you were the muscle of the traveling
sisterhood. Still can't believe you're a doctor, though."

Faizah shrugs. "Seeing the country with you guys was nice, but my brain
was starting to turn to mush. No offense, Moon Child."

The waif-like blonde turns at the sound of her name. "Hm?"

"Never mind," the short, dark-haired woman sighs. "Your mom said you're
a doctor, too, right? What in?"

Scully smiles a little. "Well, I'm currently a field agent with the
FBI, but I have a degree in forensic pathology. As a mother, however,
I've gotten a little more used to dealing with babies." Then she looks
at Melissa's friends, who look about as mismatched as Mulder's. "I
never got a chance to really talk with you at the shower, how did you
all meet?"

"I picked up Missy in some small town in Georgia," Desiree replies.
"Since she was the only white woman at the bus stop with a backpack, I
figured I might as well help the girl out."

"I'm glad you did." Mrs. Scully smiles warmly.

"Yeah, well, at least she was out of high school. This girl," she jerks
a thumb at Faizah, "Was running away from home."

"My parents were narrow-minded back then," the Saudi-American woman
says matter-of-factly, "And they were practically railroading me into
either marrying some guy the next city over or working at my dad's
business. Selling vegetables," she says in a perfectly morbid tone.

Desiree shrugs. "I could kinda understand. I mean, I grew up in a small
town, not many job options, and the only thing I had was a beat-up blue
Mustang. College didn't sound good, and neither did the military, no
offense, Mrs. Scully." The older woman shakes her head, and the black
woman goes on. "So just driving around the country sounded good to me,
even if it was with some crazy white girls."

"I'm not white." Faizah glares.

Desiree smiles, holding up her hands. "Yeah, yeah, sorry. Anyway, at
one of those New Agey kinda places, Moon Child joined us."

"She was sleeping in the backseat," the short woman adds, "And when we
woke her up and tried to kick her out, she started talking about auras
and telling us stuff about our travels. Pretty spooky shit, really."
Then she remembers the little girl sitting two seats over, a storybook
in her lap. "Um, don't repeat that word, okay?"

Emily nods. It's one of Daddy's Words, she knows.

On the other side of her is the skinny blonde lady. "It's not spooky,
it's true," Moon Child says, her voice high and thin, her blue eyes
wide and unfocused. "Some people fear what they cannot fully explain."

Faizah rolls her eyes and Desiree chuckles, and it's obvious to the
others that this is an old argument. "Anyways, what's really crazy is
how fast Alex came over," the short woman says, glancing at the closed
doors. "I mean, wasn't he at your place with your husband and kids? How
did he get here before we did?"

Scully nods. "It's not that much farther away from here than The Krycek
Residence," she says, although she has to admit that, considering how
often she and Mulder have been to the hospital, living where they do
puts them in close range to a good many. "And I'm pretty sure that your
daddy can be rather resourceful in shortcuts, right, Emily?"

The little girl looks up from her storybook again. "Daddy drives fast,"
she simply states, then goes back to her book.

And with that, the women had to be satisfied, at least until Missy and
Alex come out of the delivery room.

~*~*~

Doggett's House 

At the moment, there is a rather large herd at Doggett's backyard.
Doggett's at the grill, cooking up all sorts of meat for the pre-race
party, but Luke and Gibson are hauling out coolers with enough soda to
serve a small army, and Reyes is bringing out the chips and dip.
Mulder, for his part, is on Daddy Duty, since he was the one who
brought his kids over in the first place. But he doesn't mind, since it
means there's some grownups around that he gets to play with, since
Krycek left for the hospital.

Hefting Christopher onto his left hip, Mulder makes his way over to the
smiling FBI agent. "You're into NASCAR?" he asks Reyes, who is opening
a bag of hamburger buns.

Reyes shrugs. "Kind of. But I am into picnics." Her gaze wanders over
to Doggett, who's helping Sammy, standing on a plastic chair, put the
meat on the grill.

"I see." Mulder grins, and she grins back. "And is he kind of into
numerology?"

She shrugs. "Let's just say he's more open to me hanging out for
burgers than he is to other things. For now." But her smile reappears,
and Mulder can only shake his head. He never thought he'd see anyone
more aggressive than John on a case, but seeing Monica on the hunt for
John... he figures the guy should just be counting down the days left
to singlehood, really.

Then a small hand tugs on his jeans. "Daddy, you have to be our
butler," Page says, in the same semi-imperious tone her mother uses.

And since it's only been a couple of weeks since she got comfortable
being in the same room with him again, much less talking with him,
Mulder obeys. "As you wish." He bows, careful to keep Christopher from
falling.

"The tea party is this way," his little girl continues in the same
tone, but there's a smile on her face as she leads her hapless father
into the house.

Reyes smiles, waving him off as he follows Page to join Hannah and
April in the kitchen. Then her smile becomes a little more predatory as
her eyes wander over to the master griller.

"Be nice," a young voice admonishes her, and she turns to see Gibson
handing her a Coke can.

Taking the can, she tries for an innocent look and fails. "I'll try not
to say anything too embarrassing, okay?"

"Okay," Gibson shrugs, then walks over to his friend. "I'll bet you she
says something totally embarrassing in the next ten minutes."

"Make it five," Luke says, then gulps his Coke. "Loser has to do dishes
for a week."

Gibson grabs a 7-Up from the cooler. "Winner has the first hour of Tony
Hawk for a week."

"Deal," Luke says, and they toast cans, check their watches, then watch
their respective elders at the grill.

~*~*~

Speaking of chicks, Mulder's youngest daughter pats his arm. "Daddy, do
all boys watch cars on TV?"

"Um, some do," Mulder says, startled out of his reverie. "But some
girls do, too. Like Auntie Monica." He points over to the woman leaning
forward, as intent as the boys and man watching the screen.

"Okay." April nods peaceably while Page and Hannah look mildly shocked.

"But cars are for boys," Hannah says.

"Who says?" Mulder asks, not as a challenge, but curious.

The little girl looks at the boys on the couch. "Luke says," she says,
"an' Daddy always asks Luke to help fix the car. Even Gibson helps
Daddy fix the car."

"Oh," Mulder says, as his mind races faster than the cars onscreen. "I
think he asks them to help because they're big enough to help, not
because you're a girl. When you're bigger, you can help your daddy fix
the car, too."

"Really?"

Don't let her down, John, Mulder thinks, even as he says aloud, "Sure."

Then Page asks, "How come you don't work on the car, Daddy?"

Because I suck at it, is on the tip of his tongue, but just barely
holds it back. "Because we have a good minivan," he says, "And if it
needs to be fixed, your uncles can fix it." With duct tape, wire and a
prayer, he thinks, but also holds that back. "Of course, if John's up
to fixing cars, he could fix ours if it ever needs help. Right, John?"

"What's that?" Doggett turns to his friend, now that commercials are
on.

"I said you could fix our minivan if it ever needs it," Mulder says
over the din of the TV and kids. "Maybe even get Hannah to help."

Doggett blinks, then looks at his little girl, who, to his surprise,
actually looks excited at the idea. "Sure," he says. "But she'd have to
practice on our car first."

Now Luke looks surprised. "Hannah wants to work on your car?"

"Yes," she says shyly.

"Cool." Reyes smiles warmly, and Hannah smiles back. "When you get
good, you can teach me."

"I could teach you," Doggett says, a little hurt.

Reyes chuckles. "I think I'd be less distracted if Hannah was my teacher," 
she says and grins unrepentantly when he blushes. Luke makes a face,
while Gibson sighs and shakes his head, the peanut gallery to this
little comedy.

Then Mulder realizes that this isn't the first time that Reyes has made
a move on his friend. Whoa. He'd always thought of John as aggressive,
but perhaps it wasn't true in terms of relationships, especially after
a divorce. Heh heh, good luck, Johnny boy, he thinks, and raises his
plastic tea cup to Reyes in salute. She raises her Coke can back, even
as Gibson groans, "This is so embarrassing."

Then Luke checks his watch. "You get first dibs on Tony." He makes a
face when his friend grins.

~*~*~

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the ladies and little girl are at the
cafeteria, since the shower was cut short mere minutes after starting,
and everyone's rather hungry by this time. After the women share
stories of work, motherhood, and chasing goldfish dreams with
butterflies (that would be Moon Child), they switch to stories about
Melissa. Mindful of Emily, they keep their stories as PG as possible,
keeping the subtext intact. Well, no one was really quite sure what
Moon Child was talking about, but then again, half the things she said
never quite made sense, anyways.

"He's here," the waif-like blonde suddenly sits up straight, her blue
eyes wide.

"Who?" the women ask, looking around.

Moon Child looks at them, her eyes clear and focused, and that
unsettles them more than anything they've seen or heard so far today.
"The child, of course," she says, her voice still high and thin, but
her gaze unnervingly steady. "That is what we came here for, is it
not?"

"You're right," Mrs. Scully says, then laughs, startling the others.
"You're absolutely right. Well, I suppose we'd better wait until the
doctor comes by."

Scully pulls out her cell, ostensibly to check on her husband and the
kids, but really to check the time. Hm, 5:19 p.m. She wonders how
Melissa's holding up, if she gave in and got an epidural, or if Krycek
needed to be sedated... an irreverent giggle escapes her lips, catching
herself and her mother by surprise. "Um, nothing," she says, her face
reddening to nearly match Lizzy's dye job.

~*~*~

Doggett Residence
6:22 p.m.

The adults are knocking back cold ones while watching the pre-race hype
on TV, the teens are busy playing Tony Hawk in their room, and the
little ones are sleeping in Hannah's and the guest room. The cell phone
rings, and Mulder grabs it, heading into the kitchen. "Mulder," he
answers his cell in a low voice.

"Mulder," Scully says on the other end of the line, "Is everything
okay?"

"Uh, yeah," Mulder says, closing the door behind him. "I was just
giving John and Monica some breathing room. Is, um, is your sister
okay?"

"Yeah," Scully says, "in fact, they practically had to knock Kry - I
mean, Alex out because he was yelling at the birthing staff that they
were killing her." She giggles, and Mulder's got the feeling she
would've happily administered the anesthetic if given the chance.
"Anyways, Missy's resting in bed right now, along with her little boy."

"Have they named him yet?" Mulder wonders.

Scully chuckles, and Mulder knows it's not good news for Krycek. "Alex
hasn't woken up from his sedatives yet, but they've got time." She
pauses, and Mulder wonders if Krycek woke up yet. "I can't believe
Missy gave birth without any drugs. She told me she heard horror
stories about women who were given epidurals being unable to walk
afterwards, and she was determined not to let that happen. Sometimes I
wonder if being pregnant for the first time later in life makes you
incredibly paranoid or insanely brave."

"Maybe both," Mulder replies, remembering the last go-round and
Scully's experiences. Then again, she'd had good reason to be paranoid,
and Scully giving birth in that godforsaken town in the middle of
nowhere - what the hell was Doggett thinking? "Anyways, she's sleeping
now, so I'm sure come tomorrow, she'll be demanding something stronger
in her IV."

His wife chuffs a short laugh, "Probably. I'm going to talk with the
doctors before I go home tonight, but Mom's gonna stay here with Missy
and Alex. How are the kids?"

"Blissfully unconscious," he answers, "We're over at John's place, so
I'm gonna wait a bit until I take the kids home."

"John's place? Why?" Scully asks, surprised.

"Well." Now Mulder fidgets, feeling about as little as his kids, "When
Krycek left, I didn't have anyone to play with."

He makes a face as he holds his cell away from his ear, his wife is
laughing that loudly. "Any time now," he mutters, his eyes up at the
ceiling, waiting until she's breathless for her to stop laughing at
him. "I love you, too, honey," he sighs a long-suffering sigh.

"Hee hee," his wife chortles, "Oh, oh, Mulder, you are too cute."

"Sure." Mulder scowls, unconsciously looking like Sammy scowling as he
does so, "as a trained psychologist, I know you really meant to say,
‘Oh, Mulder, you're too immature'."

Now Scully laughs at his fake Scully voice. "That's not what I said,
nor what I sound like." She smiles. Yes, he can practically hear her
smiling through the phone. "I don't sound like Minnie Mouse on helium."

"Yes, you do," Mulder argues, but he finds himself sliding towards the
dark side, that is, agreeing with his wife that he's being silly.

"I'm hanging up soon," Scully says, "When I get home, I expect to see
you behaving like a grownup and the kids behaving like the angels they
are."

Before Mulder can retort, she cuts the connection, true to her word.
"Aw, man!" Mulder groans, then hits his forehead repeatedly. "Argh,
stupid, stupid, stupid..."

~*~*~

Meanwhile, in the living room, John Doggett, finding himself alone with
the very fetching Monica Reyes, is starting to sweat nervously.
Granted, it's not the first time he's been alone with her, but this is
not work, nor is it a hi-bye greeting. She's just a friend, he tells
himself, just like Fox and Dana, just a friend from work. Yeah, that's
it.

His calming thoughts are shattered when she leans against his arm, her
long legs sprawled out on the rest of the couch. "Hey, John," she says,
"Who's your favorite racer?"

"Huh?" He blinks, doing his best not to push her off his arm like a
grade school boy. "Oh, uh, they're called drivers."

"Drivers?" Reyes frowns a little, and now Doggett finds himself unable
to look away from her lips. "That's kinda boring."

"Well, that's what they are." Doggett shrugs.

Reyes nods, then tilts her head back as she takes a swig of beer. He
can't take his eyes off the way she looks as she swallows from that
long-necked bottle, nor the way she licks her lips when she's done.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" she asks when she sees him
staring, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Uh, no, not now," he lies, flustered. "So, um," he sits up, as if that
could straighten his thoughts, "I never got around to askin', but, what
do you usually do for fun on the weekend?"

Now she shrugs. "Not much. Watch TV," she points at his screen with her
bottle, "maybe some jogging or working out at the gym, and if I'm bored
out of my mind, catch up on my magazines. And that's if we're not on a
case, of course."

Doggett blinks. "That actually sounds pretty good."

Reyes laughs, surprised. "What? That's boring!"

He shakes his head. "I love my kids, but it's been a while since I've
had some time to myself, you know? And when I do, it's usually ‘cause
I'm on the job, and it's miles from relaxing."

She smiles, and he finds himself smiling back. "Well, you should give
yourself a day off every now and then. Luke and Gibson are old enough
to take care of themselves as well as Hannah, right? Let them be the
men of the house once in a while, and you can go out and, you know,
relax." She lifts one shoulder, "Worse thing you could do is enjoy
yourself."

His clear blue eyes shift away from her, actually thinking about it.
Yeah, why not? It's not like he's abandoning them or anything, just a
day off to be a grownup without having to work. Aside from watching TV
and the kids, he doesn't really do much on the weekends. "Damn," he
mutters, not realizing how sad his life must seem to others. "Yeah,
sounds like a good idea." Then he pauses. "You know, I don't even know
where to go. I've been working and looking after the kids, I wouldn't
know the first place to even get a decent bite to eat outside the
supermarket."

"That's easy," Reyes says, "There's a little stand on M Street that has
the best Polish sausage in the city. You should try it."

As she and he look at each other, there's a moment, not quite vertigo,
not quite déjà vu, but it feels both familiar and displaced at the same
time. Doggett, suddenly uncomfortable, takes a swig from his bottle,
hears the cheesy commercial on TV, sees Mulder coming back from the
kitchen, and somehow, the world is right again. Okay, that was weird,
he thinks, as Mulder picks up his own beer. "So, everything okay?"

Mulder nods. "Yeah, Scully said her sister Melissa just had a healthy
baby boy, but they're staying at the hospital overnight. Scully's gonna
come home soon, so," he shrugs, "Sorry, we can't stay for the actual
race. Guess I'll go and wake the kids."

When he leaves the room, Doggett and Reyes look at each other. "Let me
guess, sometimes Mulder needs a day off, too?" Doggett raises his
eyebrows.

Reyes smiles. "Don't we all?"

He can't argue with that, so he clinks his beer bottle against Reyes'
raised one, and, as if they'd planned it, they both lean back against
the couch and each other, watching the commentators going into
overdrive on superfluous details as they do their pre-NASCAR hype. They
only move a little when they wave the kids goodbye and shake Mulder's
hand. Otherwise, the rest of the evening, they're vegging out on beer
and NASCAR and each other's company.

~*~*~

The Mulder-Scully Home

Dinner was rather lively, since Scully was sharing stories about Missy
interesting friends, Page and April were talking about their tea party,
Sammy and the twins were running around, and Christopher seemed to
interpret food as toys. Then Mulder stands and puts his hands into a
T-shape, "Okay, hold on! One person at a time speaks!" When his wife
and children look at him questioningly, he shakes his head. "Who needs
TV when you've got family?" he mutters rhetorically.

"Huh?" Sammy looks up, causing his younger brothers to knock him over.
"Ow!"

As Scully's mouth drops into the comforting-mommy face, Mulder hustles
over and picks his boys off the floor. "Okay, big guys, up, up," he
says, as Sammy scrunches his face, David crosses his eyes and Jared
bounces his head around like a bobble-head. Then he ruffles each boy's
head. "Maybe you guys should try football."

"Or maybe not." Scully grabs Mulder by the scruff of his shirt and
pulls him up partway. "Not until they've got protective gear on."

"So you're open to football?" He smiles at her. "Cool."

Then she whaps the top of his head. "We'll discuss this later."

Now he's standing, but there's a look in his eyes that's playful and
flirtatious. "You know how much I like the rough stuff." He winks at
her.

Now she's blushing, "Mulder, not in front of the kids."

He wraps his arms around her, his eyes on hers, a smile on his lips. "I
trust you not to shoot me," he leans in, still smiling, "I could make
football worth your while."

"I don't think we're talking about football anymore," Scully says
breathlessly as his lips come closer to hers.

"We're not?" He smiles, then kisses her.

"Ewwwww," the boys say, while the girls smile and giggle.

~*~*~

Later that night, Scully's walking down the dark hallway, lit
flashlight in hand, to get a midnight snack. Out of habit, she stops by
each of her children's bedrooms, careful not to shine the light too
closely to her babies' faces, but breathing a sigh of relief and love
when she sees them sleeping peacefully. That is, until she comes near
the end of the hallway and hears sniffling. Forgetting all about her
craving, Scully rushes in, flips on the light switch, and is at her
son's side quicker than she would have thought possible.

"Oh, Sammy, Sweetie, what's wrong?" she asks when she sees her son's
tear-streaked face. Her heart gives a lurch when he flinches at her
touch. "Sammy?"

"Mommy!" he wails, then throws himself into her arms, sobbing harder.

"It's okay," Scully says, her throat tight with worry, but stroking his
tousled hair, holding him close. "It's okay, shhh, Mommy's here, it's
okay..."

"No, it's not," he says, muffled by her shoulder. "I still got the bad
dream."

Oh, thank goodness, Scully thinks, even as she says, "Bad dream? What
bad dream?"

His little fingers twist into her night robe more tightly, almost
painfully. Not looking at her, he tells her, "I dreamed that we buried
Daddy. I dreamed that Daddy was alive inside there, and he was scared.
So he yelled a lot, and brokeded the box."

"Yeah, that sounds scary," Scully agrees, and wonders how long he's had
this dream, especially if it's a recurring nightmare like he said. And
why hasn't she noticed before?

Before she can further mentally berate herself for being a bad mother,
her little boy says in a small voice, "There's some more."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Sammy says, his voice getting choked up with fear, "Inside my
dream, Daddy's all gross an' scary like a dead man. And he comes
pounding on our door, and he, he wants to hurt us!"

Now Scully's eyes well up, and she hugs her son to herself. "Oh,
Sweetie, I'm so sorry you had this bad dream for so long. Why didn't
you tell Mommy?"

He doesn't answer, because he's crying too hard to. Then he wipes his
face with his pajama sleeve, snorts up his snot, and does his best to
put on a brave face, even though his eyes and nose are still red and
his breathing is hiccupy from crying. "I dunno," Sammy replies at last,
"Everybody was so happy when he came home. I didn't want to make you
sad."

Oh my God, Scully thinks, I've taken my children's resilience and
acceptance of strange things for granted, I'm surprised we aren't all
in therapy in one way or another. She'd honestly thought it was only
Page that had a problem with Mulder's return, but she of all people
should know better than to assume, especially with her family.

Wiping off the rest of the tears from his face, Scully puts on her own
brave face for her brave little boy. "It's okay," she says, "You should
know that if you have any more nightmares, or if there's any problem,
you come to me and Daddy, okay? We love you, and we always will. It's
our job as parents to protect you, okay, not the other way around." She
ruffles his hair, and he makes a face, trying to smooth it. "So next
time you have a nightmare, what do you do?"

"Tell you and Daddy," Sammy answers promptly. Then he adds, "Even if
Daddy's the scary man?"

"Especially if Daddy's the scary man," Scully says. Between her own
military upbringing and Mulder's divorced parents, she doesn't want to
repeat any cycle of any kind of trauma on her children, or worse,
inflicting more damage due to her and Mulder's unusual jobs. Then
again, it's not like she expected to see Mulder alive again after being
buried... Before she ties her mind into some torturous emotional
Gordian knot, she hugs her son again. "Okay?" she asks, looking him
straight in the eye.

Sammy, his dream as vivid and frightening as Mulder's ever were, is
still scared, but nods. "So I have to tell Daddy, too?"

"Not tonight," Scully tells him, and he looks as relieved as a prisoner
in front of a firing squad is to get a reprieve. Oh boy. "But tomorrow,
we'll have to tell him."

"You're gonna be there, too?"

"Of course," Scully answers, shocked. Then her craving kicks in again,
and she smiles fondly at her oldest son. "You want some milk? I was
going to get a snack."

He shakes his head, then hugs her tightly. "Good night."

She leans her head against his, smiling. "Good night, Sammy." Kissing
his forehead, the smile is still on her face, and he smiles back,
although it's a smaller one. "I love you."

Then he makes a little boy icky-face. "Love you, too," and Scully
wishes that her baby wasn't growing up so fast. "Can you leave the
light on?"

Okay, not so fast. "Sure," she says, closing the door softly behind
her.

~*~*~

"Mulder," Scully says when she gets back in bed, "Do you ever think
that what we do would affect the children?"

Mulder pushes his laptop to the side, the online article on radioactive
disposal at Groom Lake no longer sounding quite as interesting. "What's
wrong?"

"It's Sammy," Scully says, not looking at him. "He's been having
nightmares." She twists her robe tie in her hands, "Ever since you got
back."

He's quick enough to put two and two together. "I take it Page isn't
the only traumatized by my comeback," he mutters, but there's no
sarcasm in his voice, just weariness.

"No," she agrees. "I was hoping it was the case, but honestly, I'm
surprised we haven't checked our kids into therapy, considering all
they've seen and experienced."

Now his tone is droll. "You sound like you're surprised you're not
checked into an institution," he says and smiles when she sticks her tongue
out. "Seriously, though, I think you checking in on Sammy is a good
idea. God knows, I don't want him thinking that he's gotta suffer
through the nightmares alone."

She squeezes his hand, wondering, not for the first time, how Mulder
turned into a fine FBI agent and father, considering what he grew up
with. "As long as they're our children, they'll never fight alone."

"When was the last time I said I love you?" Mulder asks, keeping her
hand in his.
 
"Just now." Scully smiles.

He raises her hand and kisses it. "Do you think it was a mistake?"

She frowns. "What was?"

"Coming back."

Her eyes fill with tears. "No," she says, grabbing him by the collar of
his t-shirt, "don't ever say anything like that ever again, got that?"

Mulder, surprised, can only stare at the large blue eyes boring a hole
into his own. "Okay," he says. "Wow."

Still holding onto his collar, she asks, "What do you mean, ‘wow'? You
idiot, of course things are gonna be strained, if not strange, but we
want you here! We. Need. You. Here," she says, shaking him with each
word, "dammit!"

He grabs her shoulders to stabilize his position and his vision. "Whoa,
got it. Um, thank you."

She pushes him off, and he lands with a "whoof." "Don't thank me,
idiot. Just be there for us." Then she notices at the dumbfounded look
on his face. "Wait a minute... were you aiming for pity sex, too?"

"Uh, no," he stammers, but it's obvious he's lying by the way his lips
twitch. "Aw, damn..."

"Mulder!" Scully puts her hands on her hips. "God!"

And for the rest of the night, Mulder suffers the righteous indignation
of his beautiful, pissed-off wife.

~*~*~

The next morning, Melissa wakes up to see a bunch of sleeping people.
"Wow," she croaks, but there's a smile on her face. Her mom's sleeping
in the plastic chair, while her friends, Desiree, Faizah, and Moon
Child, are sharing a fold-out cot, and her little girl is snoring
peacefully on the padded chair. Then she remembers... "My baby," she
says, struggling to sit up. "Where's my baby?"

"Missy, you're up," her mother says without opening her eyes. Then she
sits up, blinks awake, and yawns. "Honey, don't sit up, lie back down."

Melissa does as her mother says, but it's with great effort. "My baby,"
she repeats, "Where is he?"

The smile her mother gives her is a weary, if loving, one. "Under the
careful watch of his father," she replies. "I'm glad this hospital is
so understanding, because even I would have pushed him out of the baby
ward hours ago. For some reason, that man is even more paranoid than
Fox about his child."

"Oh, okay." Melissa smiles back, her body relaxing. "Well, it's his
first." She notes her mother's surprise, and wants to smack her
forehead. "First son, you know?" she adds.

Now Mrs. Scully chuckles. "Oh, I remember how your father was like when
you were born," she says, "When Bill Jr. was born, he was so proud as
if he'd given birth himself," and Melissa snorts. "But when you were
born," and her eyes mist with something suspiciously like tears, "Oh,
he was so amazed, like he'd been given artwork by Da Vinci himself. He
was so..." And now the tears roll down her cheeks, but she blows her
nose first.

"Mom," the eldest Scully daughter says, "Mom, it's okay." She starts to
sit up again, but her mother gets up and stands beside her. "I, I just
want to see my baby."

Mrs. Scully strokes her daughter's hair out of her face. "I know,
Sweetie," she says, "how are you feeling? Do you need any water?"

"No, I," Melissa starts to argue, then coughs. Smiling weakly, she
says, "Could I have a little water?"

"Of course," her mother says, handing over a plastic cup of water with
a straw. "As soon as you're feeling stronger, we can take you out to
see your son."

Melissa nods as she sips the water. Honestly, she doesn't know how Dana
can do this over and over again, giving birth to one child is tiring
enough. That, and she's thankful that her mother didn't stop with Bill
Jr. "Thanks," she says, meaning it for a lot of things.

Mrs. Scully bends over and kisses her daughter's head. "You're
welcome," she replies.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

Now Melissa looks embarrassed. "Could you see if Alex is behaving
himself? He gets really cranky if he's gone without sleep or food for a
while."

"If you're used to that from your husband, taking care of a newborn's
going to be a breeze," Mrs. Scully says, leaving her daughter laughing
in bed.

~*~*~

When Mrs. Scully turns the corner, she sees a familiar sight, that of a
proud father smooshed against the glass window with a goofy smile on
his face. "Alex," she says, and laughs when he jumps away, startled.
"Good heavens." She smiles, shaking her head, "don't stop staring at
your child on my account."

"Sorry," he says, looking at the ground while running a hand through
unkempt dark hair. "It's just-"

"I know," Mrs. Scully interrupts, hugging him like she would any of her
children, "it's amazing, isn't it?"

When she lets go, he finds that he misses mom hugs, and wishes like
hell that his parents were alive again, if not to hug him, then to see
his firstborn. Well, first child born of the woman he loves. "Yeah, it
is." He smiles, looking through the glass to watch his baby boy,
sleeping soundly. "Isn't he the most perfect baby you've ever seen?"
Then he realizes how stupid he sounds to a mother of four. "Well, he's
perfect to me," he mutters quickly.

"Of course he is," Mrs. Scully squeezes his arm reassuringly, "He
should be."

He sags with relief. "Yeah, I knew that," he says. Then he quickly hugs
her, "Thanks."

For some reason, she's struck with the urge to pat him on the head like
she did when her boys were little, but knows he's embarrassed enough at
how obviously silly he's acting. "I'm sure you'll have your hands full
soon enough when the baby comes home," she says, "have you two decided
on a name yet?"

"Oh! Um, not really," he answers, "Well, Missy wants a Russian name,
and I want an American name... I mean, I know times have changed and
all, but I still think it's easier for a kid to go through school with
a regular name than one hard to pronounce."

"I see." Mrs. Scully nods, then she looks through the glass. "I think
that'll be the least of your worries, at least in the near future,
however."

"Really? Why?" he asks, panicked.

Now her lips twitch upward, something that her daughters have picked up
from their mother. "You're going to be losing sleep on a regular basis,
feeding and changing a crying at all hours - and don't forget Emily's
going to have to deal with not being the only baby in the house."

"Oh yeah." Krycek blinks. "Well, she's already the kid's second mother,
making sure Missy eats right and sleeps enough, thankful that the
baby's healthy, and I'm holding her to her promise that she'll change
diapers at least once a week."

Mrs. Scully chuckles. "Be patient when she changes her mind, all
right." She smiles, remembering a little Melissa making the same
promise when Dana was newborn. "You know, I never get tired of seeing
new grandchildren. It's like getting a second chance."

Krycek looks at her, confused. "But you're a great mom."

She pats his arm, "I'm glad you think so. But I've made my mistakes,
being a wife, being a mother... At least as a grandmother, I get to
spoil them rotten, while leaving the real parenting to you folks."

"Great," Krycek tries to frown, but fails, "Now we know who to blame if
the kids turn out to be like the ‘Different Strokes' gang."

"What?"

"Uh, nothing," he says, then sees a nurse rounding the corner. "Hey!
Yeah, you! Can I take my kid out to see his mother?"

"Oh, boy," Mrs. Scully watches as the poor nurse is hounded by the
overeager father. "Should I help Alex or the nurse?"

~*~*~

Chapter One Hundred And Three
"Welcome Back"

May 6, 2001
 In the end, neither the nurse nor Alex Krycek required Mrs. Scully's
help, for which she was profoundly thankful. However, someone had
notified security, who kept a close eye on both the nurse, who handed
the small baby boy over to his father, and Krycek, who carried said
small boy to his mother. Mrs. Scully followed behind the odd
procession, not bothering to hide her smile as she watched the proud
papa lightly rock his infant son, patting him every so often to calm
him down. Not for the first time, Mrs. Scully is thankful that her
daughters have found good men to have families with.

Her heart swells with happiness, hoping against hope that every day for
Alex and Missy will be just like this, with the best of intentions,
actions, and words. It isn't until the security guard turns around that
she sees the taller man's expression, and it switches from grimly stern
to a sudden, goofy grin. Mrs. Scully finds her own going from surprised
"o" to an answering smile, and the smile stays on her face when her
son-in-law asks, "Was he flirting with you?"

The older woman blinks, then scraps her original answer. "Would it
surprise you if he did?" she asks in the same tone. Forget telling him
the guard was a fellow new father, she thinks, suddenly feeling as
rebellious as her daughters.

 He smiles. "Wouldn't surprise me a bit. You're a charming woman,
Maggie Scully," and he winks at her before going into Melissa's
well-occupied room.
 
She shakes her head as she walks after him. What a terrible flirt, she
sighs inwardly, even as the huge smile returns to his face, seeing his
sleeping wife. "Don't wake her, now," she tells him.
 
He looks a little startled. "Wouldn't dream of it," he says, then
carefully places the baby boy on his mother's right shoulder, since her
left arm was hooked to an IV. He moves her right arm so it's cradling
her son, then makes sure the hospital bed guardrails are sturdy so
neither child nor mother moves too much. "There," he says, and crosses
his arms, surveying the scene of mother and child proudly as if
Michelangelo had painted it.
 
Oh brother, Mrs. Scully thinks, he might be worse than Bill.

 ~*~*~

 Meanwhile, back at Mulder and Scully's house, breakfast is the usual
controlled chaos that occurs in any household with children. "So,
what's his name?" Page asks around a mouthful of cereal.
 
"Page, don't talk with your mouth full," Scully admonishes her eldest
child. She's about to answer the question, however, when her next
eldest child jumps in with another question.
 
"Does that mean I get to be his big brother, too?" Sammy wonders.
 
"Cousin's not the same as brother," Page declares, having swallowed
her cereal.
 
"Baby, baby, baby," David and Jared chant, waving their spoons around.

 "Mommy, where's the bread?" April paws through the refrigerator.

 The cats, in a fit of pique, hop onto the table and meow at the human
occupants for both attention and food, and Sammy, easily diverted from
his confusion over his new cousin, waves his toast at them.
 
Scully her eyebrow raised, takes the toast away from him. "Sammy, you
know better than to do that," she scolds him. While he pouts, she tells
him, "And take Teliko and Piper off the table, they don't belong
there."
 
"Okay, kitties, come on," he says, and finds that corralling cats is
no easier than herding his little brothers. "Come on!"
 
As they jump nimbly off the table, Mulder pulls a frozen loaf of bread
from the freezer. "Sorry, April, this bread's icy," he says, then uses
the sink edge to crack the slices apart. "There we go."
 
"Daddy, they're still icy," she admonishes him.
 
"Ah, but observe," he says in his magician voice. With a large
flourish, he pulls out two slices of cold bread, pops them into the
toaster, sets the level to the highest possible, and depresses the
button. Then he waves his hands over it, muttering, "Alakazam,
alaka-most, when this bread comes out, it shall be toast!"
 
April giggles, but watches nonetheless. When it pops out a crispy
brown, she claps. "It's toast!"
 
Some of the other children turn their attention to the spectacle.
"Daddy, can I have magic toast, too?" Sammy asks.
 
"There's no such thing as magic toast," Page scoffs.
 
Scully, her hands full with refereeing the twins, looks up. "Mulder,
what have you been doing?"
 
Mulder holds his hands up, his face the picture of innocence. "Just
toast," he says in a "this-is-a-surprise-to-me-too" kind of voice.
 
"Sure, fine, whatever," Scully replies in a
"don't-bullshit-me-this-early-in-the-morning" kind of voice. Then
Christopher starts crying, and she sighs. "I'm sorry, baby, just a
minute," and turns her attention to feeding her youngest child. Well,
outside the womb, that is.
 
Once everyone's fed and most of the mess is cleaned up, Mulder walks
over to his beloved wife, great with child, wraps his arms around her
and kisses her head. "I love you," he murmurs as her eyes fly open in
surprise.
 
"What was that for?" she asks.
 
He smiles lopsidedly at her. "No reason," he replies, brushing her
long red bangs out of her eyes. "I better get to Sammy before he puts
the twins in his jammies again."
 
Scully grabs him before he can leave her, then pulls him down for a
kiss. "I love you, too," she says. "No fair you being all romantic on
me without any warning."
 
Then his smile widens, and he scoops up Christopher from the high
chair. "That's the best time," he says, and runs up the stairs with his
youngest son, taking two steps at a time.
 
Scully sighs, hands on her hips. "That man." She shakes her head. Then
she smiles and takes her time up the stairs, one step at a time.

 ~*~*~

 In the hospital room, everyone is finally awake and crowding around
the mother and newborn. "Mommy, can I hold him?" Emily asks. "I'll be
careful."
 
"Okay," Melissa says, gingerly handing over her baby to, well, her
bigger baby. "Move your arms like this," she repositions her daughter's
arms, "That way you keep his head up and support the rest of him, too."
 
"Wow." Emily's blue eyes are shining as she takes in the fact that
she's actually holding her baby brother, and that he's a lot heavier
than her dolls. "Mommy, he's so soft."
 
"Yeah, he is." Her mother smiles at her children. Wow, I have more
than one child, she thinks, and even though she knew this before,
seeing it right here and now pretty much brings it home. Then she
thinks, Our kids must be good-looking because their parents are, and
laughs out loud.
 
"Girl, I hope you're thinking clean thoughts," Desiree mutters as
Faizah snorts. "If not, don't say anything."
 
"Hey, I'm curious." Krycek grins, then withdraws when he sees Mrs.
Scully sigh. "Or not."
 
Melissa shakes her head, suddenly tired. "No, nothing like that," she
says, yawning on the last word. "Oh," she puts a hand to her mouth,
"I've been sleeping so much, I don't know why I'm tired."
 
"Having a child takes a lot out of you," Faizah says, and Desiree
rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."
 
"Now I do," the redhead sighs, leaning back against her pillow and the
raised portion of the bed. "I don't know how Dana does it, having one
kid after the next."
 
"So you're not gonna have any more babies?" Emily asks, looking up
from her little brother. "I was gonna ask for a baby sister next."
 
Everyone looks at the little girl, then at the mother, and they all
burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" Emily asks, while at the same
time Melissa groans, "It's not funny."
 
Melissa starts when a hand suddenly rests on her forehead, then
relaxes when she sees it's Moon Child. "You should rest now," the
blonde waif tells her friend. "Perhaps by tonight you shall be rested
enough to return home."
 
"Mm, that sounds good," the redhead closes her eyes. "Did my aura tell
you that?"
 
"It's merely common sense," Moon Child replies, oblivious to the
sudden stares.

~*~*~

8 a.m.

All is mostly quiet on the western front after Scully leaves to bring
the kids to a mass. He offered to come along, maybe even instead of
her, but she just patted him on the head like he was a small child
himself. "I like bringing them to church, Mulder. You hate it, so enjoy
your Sunday morning."

Since it's just him and Christopher at home, they spend some quality
time lying belly down on the playroom rug and running trains over the
floor, and occasionally each other. The toddler shrieks with laughter
every time Mulder runs an engine over his foot.

"So, do you think it's funny, or it tickles?" Mulder asks him.

"Again!" Christopher demands instead.

"That used to be Page's favorite request, too. Well, in her case it was
more like a royal decree." Mulder smiles, thinking about the sea
monster trip. It had been a lot of fun until the dog was almost eaten.
"You're not nearly as bossy."

"Who is?" Christopher asks, shrugging - which leaves Mulder staring at
him open-mouthed.

"Are you sure you're not even two yet?"

Christopher holds up one finger. "I this many!"

"Until August, anyway," Mulder agrees and holds up two fingers. "Then
you'll be two."

"No."

"Actually-" Mulder's thought is cut off when the phone rings. "Dad?"

~*~*~

Half an Hour Later

Bill Mulder looks up from reading the newspaper when his son bursts
into the room, precariously balancing Christopher on one hip. "Fox."

"Dad, what happened?" Mulder cries, depositing Christopher the chair
next to Bill's hospital bed.

"Son, I'm going to be okay," Bill says quickly. "I went to the doctor
earlier today because my leg was bothering me-"

"Bothering you how?" Mulder wants to know, realizing that Scully will
want to be debriefed.

"It was red, swollen and hurt like a son of a-" Bill's eyes cut to his
youngest grandson, who is busy playing with Mulder's keys. "-gun. The
doctor decided that it's a blood clot, so here I am."

"Are they going to do surgery?"

"Nah, at least not as a first resort. She said they've got a medicine
they call a clot buster, so they're going to try to get rid of it that
way. There isn't supposed to be much risk, but-" Bill reaches for a
stack of paperwork on the end table. "-there's a little. I want you to
sign this, Fox."

"What is it?"

"Medical power of attorney. Basically, if there's ever a time I'm not
able to make medical decisions for myself, they'd ask you to make
them."

"Okay," Mulder agrees cautiously.

"Do you remember your mom's uncle Glenn?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"At the end they had him on machines, and it wasn't even him any more.
He was just a husk. I want the plug pulled before then."

"I thought you said there wasn't much risk."

"There isn't, but I'm thinking ahead, Son. I'm not a young man. This
sort of thing might become an issue someday, so this afternoon seems
like a good one for settling things."

"Right."

"Thank you, Fox," Bill says after Mulder signs the paperwork. "This
will let me be easier."

"No problem."

The two of them watch TV for quite a while before Christopher begins to
get fussy. "I guess you need to get him home for a nap." Bill says,
yawning a bit himself.

"That's probably best. Love ya, Dad." He bends down so both he and
Christopher can hug him. Christopher also pats him on the cheek, making
Bill smile indulgently.

"You too. Drive safely."

"I will," he says without smirking. It's been decades since he got his
license, but Bill always warns him to be careful anyway. He usually
does anyway, but he figures the warning is a Dad thing. Someday he'll
be warning Christopher to drive his grandkids carefully, too.

Bill has already turned off his reading lamp by the time Mulder shuts
the door behind himself.

~*~*~

"Mulder?" He turns at the sound of his name, and sees Scully staring at
him. "Did you decide to come and visit Missy on your own? I was going
to come back later because they just threw everyone out of the room-"

"No, my dad's here," Mulder tells her, and quickly explains the
situation. "He will be okay, won't he?"

"He'll probably be right as rain before you know it," Scully reassures
him.

"Good." Mulder exhales noisily. "Hey, guess who's learning sarcasm?" he
asks, pointing at the child in his arms.

"You can't leave me one that won't talk back?" She looks half-serious.

"Well. There's always the next one." He grins, and tells her about
Christopher's pronouncement about his oldest sister. "Where's everyone
else?" he asks, looking around for the rest of the kids.

"The Sunday school decided to have a movie day. I think they're
watching that new movie Joseph that came out last year. I'm going to
pick them up in a couple more hours."

"Ah, okay. I think we need to get this one home soon. He's a bit
cranky."

"Aww, just like his parents," Scully says with a smirk. She laces her
fingers between his as they head for the exit.

~*~*~
 
11:32 a.m.
 
The only other people in Melissa Scully's room is her husband and
newborn child, everyone else being currently at the Krycek home since
hospital regulations could only be bent for so long. "It's pretty quiet
without all those chicks around," Krycek murmurs, leaning in the chair
as they wait for the doctor to give the okay to go home. "No offense,
but your friends are pretty weird."
 
"This feels pretty weird, too," Melissa notes as she breastfeeds her
son. Then she sits up, pulling her breast away from her son's
super-suction mouth, "Hey, ow, whoa! These are real, not plastic!"
 
"Mind if I have a go, then?" Krycek smirks.
 
His redheaded wife rolls her eyes at him. "Please. This whole thing is
weird enough as it is. I mean, I'm a mom without giving birth, then I'm
a mom giving birth this late in life..." She leans back, and her son
starts hiccupping, then starts a thin, high wail. "I'm sorry, sorry,"
she says, repositioning her baby against her nipple, "For a kid, you're
not real gentle." Then she looks up at her husband. "Like father, like
son, I guess."
 
"Hey!" Krycek tries to look indignant, but ends up smirking. "If he
hurts you too much, do you think I could kiss them to make it feel
better?"
 
"Alex!" Now he's chuckling, so she throws her plastic cup at him.
"Shut up!"
 
He holds up the cup with his false hand. "You've got lousy aim, love."
He smiles. "We better work on that."
 
She sighs, knowing there's no stopping him when he's like this. "If
you want to make me feel better, Alex, try sticking an Oreck vacuum to
your nipple and flipping the on switch."
 
"Kinky," Krycek approves with a leer as the doctor walks in. "So, are
they clear to leave?" he asks in the same insouciant tone.
 
The doctor looks at the scruffy man in the black leather jacket and
the redhead belatedly covering both her chest and child with the thin
hospital blanket, then nods. "As long as Mrs. Krycek gets a decent
amount of rest and nutrients, I don't see any problem," he says, "If
you could just sign here." He hands the clipboard over to Krycek, who
signs off. After taking back the clipboard, he pulls out the fold-out
wheelchair. "Take care," he waves as he leaves.
 
When the door closes, Krycek looks at his wife. "I guess once the
human leech finishes his lunch, we're good to go."
 
"That description makes me feel so much better," Melissa mutters,
"I'll just turn the vacuum cleaner on high."
 
~*~*~

 Meanwhile, Reyes and Doggett find themselves holding down the fort.
Well, if the fort was located in a basement office of the Hoover
building and one's definition of "holding down" included tossing wadded
paper balls into Styrofoam coffee cups, playing football with folded
paper, and idly flipping through the meager files that read more like
pranks than actual X-Files. "I swear, this is boring as hell," Doggett
sighs. "And I don't care if any secret conspiracy group might hear us,
hey guys, feel free to make things less boring."
 
Reyes chuckles, closing shut a book on were-creatures she'd taken off
the shelf. "You ever hear of the phrase, ‘careful what you wish for, it
might come true'?"
 
Doggett shrugs, then stretches. "Sometimes I think Mulder's ideas are
full of it, and I don't mean sincerity. Unless they're sincerely full
of it, then, yeah."
 
"John," Reyes sighs, then casts her eyes upwards to see the ceiling
full of pencils. She can't help but smile as she sees the other efforts
of the original X-Files agents. "Well, at least we're not the only ones
bored around here."
 
He looks at her like she's finally lost her mind. "Uh, Monica, we're
the only people in this room as far as I can tell, and the only bored
ones, for that matter."
 
She points up at the ceiling. "Ever wonder why the interior decorators
bothered to plug the ceiling with lead?"
 
He looks up and grins. "Oh. Yeah. That'll do it."
 
"So, wanna add more pencils?"
 
Doggett looks around, narrowing his clear blue eyes as he takes in the
unorthodox décor. "Nah, I think we should do something else to this
room."
 
"Like what?" Reyes frowns at him. "You know if you throw out the
bottled specimens, they'll kill you."
 
"It's tempting, but no," he answers. "I was thinking something less
destructive." He pulls open his desk drawer and pulls out the new
unofficial decorations. "What do you think?"
 
The smile on her face is pure mischief, which matches his own. "You
are simply devious, John, you know that? It's nice to know that under
that cool, professional exterior lies a mind just waiting to pull
pranks."
 
"What are you waiting for?" He grins, uncapping a felt tip marker.

"You wanna bet Skinner sees this before Mulder and Scully?"
 
"I'd rather place my bets on how early Scully's gonna give birth now
that her sister's done it," Reyes takes a marker. "You game?"
 
Doggett starts writing down numbers. "Bring it."

 ~*~*~

 "I've got a bad feeling about this," Mulder sighs, idly stirring his
coffee.
 
"What do you mean?" Scully frowns.
 
"Not checking up on the office," he answers. "What if John and Monica
are t.p.'ing the place?"

 Now Scully sighs, accompanied by an eye roll. "Mulder, they're FBI
agents, not drunk teens," she tells him. "Goodness knows I trust John
to behave himself, and Monica knows better than to disturb your erratic
filing system."
 
"Yeah, but-" he starts to protest when she shuts him up with a kiss.
"Okay."
 
She smirks. "Wow, I should do this more often when we're out in the
field." She smiles as she arranges the last sliced sandwich.
 
"You wouldn't dare," he says, his voice "shocked" but his face all
smiles.
 
"Don't push it," she does her best to keep a straight face, but fails.
"Mulder, you dork."
 
He grins widely. "And you love me for it," he says, kissing her
forehead before he swoops in and carries both the tray of sandwiches
and the tray of drinks. "I believe the natives are restless," he
comments mildly as the din of the children in the living room carries
into the kitchen.
 
"Then I guess you're the sacrifice," Scully says, pushing him from
behind.
 
"Hey!" Mulder spins around. "Ladies first."
 
"Careful with the trays!" Scully scolds him, thankful nothing's
spilled or fallen off. "Enough playing, concentrate on balancing those
things."
 
"Yes, ma'am," Mulder replies, pretending to be hurt, but inwardly
thankful he didn't spill anything. God knows the kids are making enough
of a mess for him to add to it. "Okay guys," he says in a louder voice,
"sit down, food's here!"

 ~*~*~

 And, contrary to his directions, they all swarm around his legs as if
to crawl up the tall man to get their sustenance. "Daddy, Daddy, me
first, me first!" Sammy tugs at his pants.
 
"Sammy, I'm the oldest." Page bats at his hands.
 
The twins have monopolized his left leg. "Daddy, Daddy," Jared cajoles
while David whines, "Food, food."
 
Scully nimbly steps around her harried husband and their starving
children to sit beside her second daughter and youngest son. "Thank you
for looking after Christopher," she tells April.
 
"He's hungry, Mommy," April says before her tummy gurgles. "Me, too."
 
"Sorry, Baby, as soon as Daddy can move, we'll get something for you
and Christopher, okay?" Then Scully looks at her husband, who is
mouthing "help me" while trying to walk with children attached to his
legs without spilling anything. "Just a minute."
 
When she takes the trays away from him and puts them on the coffee
table, Mulder's shoulders sag with relief as his children swarm over
the sandwiches like ants at a picnic. "I owe you ten," he says, and she
laughs at him. "What?"
 
"For a guy who's handled aliens, mutants, and crazies, it's just funny
to see you swamped by our sweet babies." She grins.
 
He makes a face before handing over a half-sandwich and sippy cup.
"Next time, you be the food-bearer and I'll just sit back and laugh."
 
"You won't because you love me," she says with absolute conviction,
then hands the sandwich over to April and sits Christopher up for a
drink. "Right?"
 
There's no winning with this woman, he thinks, it's either love or
insanity. "Right," he says, then catches Sammy wolfing down his
half-sandwich. "Hey, hey, you'll choke if you eat too fast." And ends
up thumping the kid's back lightly when the boy does, indeed, choke on
a bite too big. "Oh, boy..."

 ~*~*~

 The Krycek Home
 
Later that afternoon, once Melissa has shooed off her friends back to
their varied homes and most of the painkillers have worn off, the new
mother rolls over on her side and grimaces. "Mom," she groans, "My twat
feels like I've turned the damn thing inside out and boxers have been
using it as a punching bag. Ugh, I think I could cheerfully be a nun
for the rest of my life."
 
Mrs. Scully looks shocked, then erupts into a peal of laughter, which
makes her daughter groan some more. "Oh, Missy, it may hurt now, but it
won't last for long. Otherwise I wouldn't have had you, Dana, and
Charlie."
 
"Thanks," Melissa mutters, closing her eyes. "Maybe I should have had
an epidural."
 
Her mother checks her watch, then picks up the pills on the table.
"Time for your meds," she says, "I'll remind Alex to give you these
every six hours."
 
"Make it one," her daughter groans, and her mother smiles.
 
"I'm sure after so long between Emily and this one the body forgets,"
Mrs. Scully strokes her daughter's hair once Melissa swallows the
pills. "Goodness knows, I'm sure if I were to have a child now, I'd be
in much worse shape." And she stretches her hands at her hips to
illustrate her point.
 
"Mom!" Melissa laughs. The thought that she's again lying to her
mother about Emily's birth also being from her own womb, however,
sobers her quickly, although she tells herself that someday, she'll
tell her mother the truth. "Ow, ow, oh, don't make me do that again,"
she whimpers with tears in her eyes and her hand on her stomach, "But
if you ever tell Dana that, make sure I'm in the same room so I can see
her face."
 
"All right." Mrs. Scully shakes her head, then hugs her eldest
daughter. "You get some rest now, I'll check up on the little one."
 
"Thanks again," Melissa says, then yawns. "Wow, those are fast." And
promptly closes her eyes before her mother is out of the room.

 ~*~*~

 "How is she?" Krycek stands when he sees his mother-in-law come in to
the living room.
 
She waves him down. "Missy's just tired," she says, "I just gave her
the painkillers, so the next time is in six hours." As he checks his
watch, she adds, "Have you gotten around to naming my new grandchild
yet? It feels awkward calling him ‘the baby' or ‘little one'."

 "Oh, uh," the new father stumbles, looking everywhere until he sees
his daughter.
 
"His name's Ryan," Emily says. "Ryan Nikolai Scully Krycek. Doesn't it
sound like he could be the next president?"
 
Krycek looks more shocked than his mother-in-law. "What?"
 
"I think you're right, having a American name would be easier, ‘cause
some of my classmates have a hard time the first day of school," the
little blonde girl says. "But I like Nikolai, too. Was that my other
grandfather's name?"
 
"Yeah, it was." He hugs his daughter. "You're a smart girl, you know
that?"
 
She beams up at him. "'Cause I'm your daughter," she agrees, snuggling
into her father's embrace.
 
Mrs. Scully smiles. No, in this respect, Emily's more like her mother,
but doesn't want to disagree with anyone at this point. "Well, now that
you've given your little brother a name, and an impressive one at that,
are you going to help your mommy and daddy take care of him?"
 
"Of course!" Emily says, and her raised voice wakes the baby up,
making him cry. "Uh-oh."
 
"It's all right," her grandmother tells her, leading the little girl
over to the baby. "Babies cry when they need to eat, have their diapers
changed, or go to sleep."
 
"Like my littler cousins," the little girl says, and Mrs. Scully nods.
"How do I know which cry is which?"
 
And as she told Emily's mother so many years ago, Mrs. Scully replies,
"You'll learn. But usually, you start by checking the diapers, and if
that's clean, then you can feed him with the bottle. If he's not
hungry, then you can rock him to sleep."
 
"Wow, that's hard," Emily says, and then she looks up at her
grandmother. "Do I have to smell his diapers?"
 
Mrs. Scully chuckles. "Usually, you can smell his diapers if he did
his business already," and the little blonde girl makes a face.
"Sometimes you have to open it up and smell it a little," and she
demonstrates. To her inner relief, it doesn't seem like Ryan's done
anything in there yet, "Looks like we don't have to change his
diaper." Emily looks rather relieved, too. "So that leaves two more
things."
 
"Food and sleep!" Emily chirps, and Ryan hiccups, then wails again.
"I'm sorry."
 
"Guess you'll have to keep your voice down for a while." Krycek walks
over. "I'll get the milk ready, you can carry him on your shoulder and
pat his back to see if he needs more sleep." He waves and makes his way
to the kitchen.
 
"Okay!" Emily calls out, then looks crestfallen when Ryan starts
crying again. "Sorry."
 
"Here, let me help you." Mrs. Scully lifts the baby boy out of his
bassinet and hands him over to his older sister. "There, got him?"
 
Emily nods, then cradles him against her shoulder like she's seen her
cousin Page do for her baby cousins. "Like this?" she stage-whispers.
 
"Like that." Mrs. Scully nods.
 
"Don't worry, Ryan, your big sister will take care of you when Mommy's
sleeping," Emily continues in her stage-whisper, and Mrs. Scully puts a
hand over her mouth to cover a small case of the giggles, remembering a
similar scene thirty years ago with the little girl's mother and uncle.

At least this time, she's closer to the girl in case she accidentally
drops her brother. Goodness knows, Charlie still hassles his eldest
sister about that one.

 ~*~*~
 
While Emily spends the next couple of days learning the fine arts of
being a big sister with the help of her cousins, her Aunt Dana is
marveling at the child in her own belly. "He's kicking so much, he'll
probably come out a soccer player," she gasps, thankful she's sitting
down. The house seems so quiet without the kids, but for today, she's
relieved that she doesn't have to worry about them while being
distracted by her own pregnancy.
 
"I'll have a ball ready for the kid, then." Mulder grins, and she
sticks her tongue out at him. "Hey, you started it."
 
Scully closes her eyes. "No, he did," she mutters. "Or maybe there's a
memo for kids to come out earlier that their mothers haven't heard
yet."
 
"Maybe." Mulder shrugs, "or maybe he doesn't want to be too far behind
his cousin."
 
Scully smiles a little, her eyes still closed. "I'm surprised you
haven't suggested an alien conspiracy yet."
 
"Oh, it's definitely *not* aliens," he says, so vehemently that his
wife opens her eyes to look at him. Then he tones down a bit, also
surprised at himself. "But it's not like we can exclude the paranormal
entirely, since there's a whole host of wisdom in old beliefs
surrounding childbirth. Most of which I'm unfamiliar with, currently,"
he adds sheepishly.
 
She shakes her head. "Wow, a whole area of knowledge about which you
are wholly unfamiliar with. Will wonders never cease."
 
He puts his hands up. "Hey, that doesn't make me any less of an
authority on weird shit."
 
Scully giggles, "I'll remember to put that on your diploma, then."
 "You don't mess with my credentials, I don't mess with yours," he
retorts in a lofty tone. Then a familiar, paranoid look returns to his
face. "Hey, you think John's messing with our office?"
 
His wife sighs a long-suffering sigh. "Mulder, if you're so worried
about it, why don't you go over and find out? I swear, you're more
comfortable leaving our kids in the hands of others than you are about
leaving the office to others."
 
"It's not like that," he protests, then realizes she's right. Whoa.

"Um, I'm gonna go pick up the kids, then, and we'll swing by the office
on our way home."
 
She pats his head fondly, "You do that." She chuckles when he makes a
face brushing his hair with his fingers. "Go on, me and the bump will
still be here when you get back."
 
He kisses her forehead. "I love you."
 
"Love you, too." She smiles, then shakes her head when he leaves.
"Silly man."
 
~*~*~

Later that night in the Krycek household, once Mulder and his children
have cleared the area, Emily sits beside her weary mother on the bed.
"You know what, Mommy?"

 "What, Sweetie?" Melissa says, smiling a little as her daughter turns
away to give the illusion of privacy as she breastfeeds little Ryan.

 The little blonde girl pauses. "I think it's okay for you to wait
until I get a sister," she says finally.
 
"And why is that?" Melissa says carefully, both to smother the laugh
threatening to bubble over and the attendant pain that laughter would
cause.
 
"'Cause I'd need lotsa help, just like Page does," her daughter says
in all seriousness. "And I'm not good at being a big sister yet, so
Ryan's good practice."
 
Melissa pauses in her breastfeeding, staring at Emily. Then the
dreaded fit of laughter hits, her stomach killing her as she doubles
over. "Ooh, ooh, owwwww, ohhhh," she groans, tears in her eyes even as
her son wails for a completely different reason. "Sorry, baby," she
says, wiping her eyes and her son's, and trying to reposition the
infant without further pain, but it's not working.
 
"Mommy, are you okay?" Emily grabs her mother's arm. "Is Ryan hurting
you?"
 
"No, no," her mother gives up on explaining, since she's still in too
much pain. "Can you help Mommy put Ryan back where he can get some
milk?"
 
"What?" Emily looks stunned, then bites her lip, trying not to look
directly at her mother's semi-nudity. "Um, okay."
 
Guess somebody had to have a sense of modesty in the family, Melissa
thinks, too bad I'm gonna be the one to have let her know modesty and
practicality don't always go hand in hand, especially when it comes to
babies. "Just lift up Ryan, yeah, just like that, whoa, okay, thanks,"
Melissa sighs, finally leaning back as her baby boy resumes feeding.
"Mommy's not as strong as she used to be, but give me some time."
 
"Okay." Emily nods, looking away again. "Um, Mommy?"
 
"Yes, honey?" Missy murmurs, her eyes back on her son.
 
"Do you need to get shots, too? ‘Cause I can give you some if you need
to feel better."
 
"Huh? No! No, it's not that," Melissa rushes to reassure her daughter.
"Giving birth isn't easy, that's why I'm feeling so weak. But I'll be
back to normal after a while, don't worry."
 
"So it's all the baby's fault that you're not okay?"
 
Oh boy, even Dana wasn't this incisive as a child, Melissa sighs
inwardly. At least for Mom's sake, I hope not. "No, it's not that,
either. Look, Emily," she says, her voice unconsciously slipping into a
more mommy tone, "There are some things that you go through in life
that might be painful for a little while, but in the end, it's worth
it. Like giving birth - my body's sore, but I'm so glad that Ryan's
here, and after a while, I'll be healthy enough to run after you and
Daddy."
 
"Really?"
 
"Really," Melissa says firmly. She's relieved only when her daughter's
worried look eases off. "Besides, I don't trust your Daddy not to stay
out of trouble for long."
 
"Oh, he's good!" her little girl says quickly. "Um, I mean..."
 
"What did he do?" the redhead raises an eyebrow.
 
And they spend a good portion of the afternoon discussing Alex
Krycek's misdeeds and what exactly should be the consequences of such
deeds.

 ~*~*~
 
Meanwhile, back at the office, Doggett and Reyes are totally busted.
No if's, and's or but's about it, they are totally and completely
busted. As if it wasn't bad enough that the room is practically covered
in post-it notes like an office blizzard hit the room, the fact that
they were busy scribbling on more didn't help matters. "Hi." Reyes
smiles widely, and Doggett blushes hard enough for the both of them as
he futilely tosses the incriminating evidence aside.
 
"Wow," Mulder drawls, counting on years of poker face to carry him
through, "And here I thought the worst that could happen was Skinner
changing the locks."
 
"Daddy, how come there's yellow paper all over?" Page asks, her eyes
wide.
 
"Why don't you ask Uncle John and Auntie Monica?" Mulder says blandly.
 
The little girl with the big eyes looks at them, their guilty
expressions, and the state of the room. "You guys are in
churr-ah-buuull," she states as only a big sister can. Her younger
siblings nod in agreement. It's not often that grownups get caught
doing dumb stuff, and this was definitely dumb stuff.
 
"Yes, they are," Mulder agrees, unable to keep the smile off his face.
The smile stays on his face as he pulls out the camera he'd used
earlier to snap "cute family shots" with his kids and Krycek's, and
commences to use it as a tool for future blackmail, or at the least,
serious embarrassment. "Say cheese."
 
"Aw, come on," Doggett whines, "we're gonna clean it up."
 
"Yeah." Reyes nods. "See, it's not permanent." She peels off a few
from the desk to prove her point.
 
"Your daddy's gonna be so mad," Sammy comments.
 
The two official X-Files agents look at each other, then laugh. "I
don't think we have to worry about that." Doggett smiles.
 
"Yeah, you got other people to worry about, like me," Mulder says, and
their laughter dries up. "And Luke, and Hannah, and Gibson."
 
Suddenly, Doggett's at Mulder's side. "You're not gonna tell them
about this, are ya?" he says, his drawl more pronounced.
 
Mulder pretends to blink in surprise. "I have to tell somebody," he
says, "As a responsible citizen and adult. Or would you rather I tell
Skinner?"
 
"No, no," Reyes says, appearing rapidly on Mulder's other side. "You
don't have to, really."
 
"Really." Mulder looks from one agent to the other, who are acting
like his own little troublemakers. "Then you don't mind if I tell,
well, anybody else that comes by the office. I've got nothing to lose,
being on hiatus, but you two," he trails off.
 
"Just tell the kids," Reyes says hastily.

"Hey!" Doggett protests. "I live with them, you don't!"

"I know," she says coolly, "but I'd rather have them know than our
colleagues or boss, wouldn't you?"

"Aurrrghhhh," Doggett makes a noise similar to a compactor grinding a
car into a pancake. "Okay, fine, sure."

"Wow, you're good, Daddy," his eldest child looks up in admiration.
"You musta been a great older brother."

"I'd like to think so," Mulder says, and the familiar shaft of guilt
lodges itself inside his heart. Oh well, serves him right trying to
lord it over his coworkers, he sighs inwardly.

~*~*~

Doggett didn't mean to go out shopping, but thanks to he and Monica's,
er, Agent Reyes' earlier misdeeds and their getting caught, he's not
only buying cleaning equipment for the basement office, but also
cake-making supplies. In short, chick stuff. Not like he says so out
loud, because the cake is for Hannah, who's making cupcakes for a
classmate's birthday. The old lady behind them, however, sees the
shopping cart's contents, or the fact that they're nice people, and
decides to make conversation.

"Goodness, that's an awful lot for a little girl," the old woman
comments.

"I got two older brothers, so they can help me," Hannah chirps.

The old woman raises her nonexistent eyebrows. "They help you cook and
clean? What about your mother?"

"Oh, Mommy's far away," Hannah says, "And the cleaning stuff's for
Daddy. He got busted," she whispers.

"Thanks, Sweetie," Doggett groans, but the fact doesn't escape him that
Hannah already regards Gibson as part of the family. Hell, the boy's
grown on him, too, but still... Before the granny gets any more wrong
ideas about his family, as it seems she thinks Barbara's dead as well,
judging by the sudden sympathetic cluckings, the person in front of
them is gone, and he pushes the shopping cart forward. "Come on,
Hannah, we're next." He nudges her.

"Okay." She smiles, and he can't help but smile back. "Daddy, if Gibson
gets tall like Luke, does that mean he won't be nice to me?"

Distracted, Doggett almost puts his wallet on the conveyor belt but
stops in time. "Why's that?"

"'Cause Luke said he was all grown up, so he doesn't have to be nice to
me, an' since Gibson is younger, he has to be."

I am gonna wring that boy's neck and throw him into next year, Doggett
thinks, but says aloud, "That's no excuse. I'm all grown up and I'm
very nice." He grins, and she giggles. "Besides, family has to be nice
to each other."

 "Okay." Hannah nods seriously as if he's spoken gospel, "So that means
Gibson's a better brother than Luke."

Hoo boy. "I wouldn't say that in front of Luke," he admonishes her,
then pulls out his credit card when the cashier tells him the total.

"And I think Luke and I need to have a little chat."

"Like you and Uncle Mulder?"

Out of the mouths of babes, Doggett sighs inwardly. "Yeah, like that."

He can't leave the supermarket with Hannah and the groceries soon
enough, that's for sure.

~*~*~

That night, Scully is crying, but mostly because her family is making
her laugh so hard, her hand on her belly as if to hold that laughter in
for her unborn child. "I can't believe they did that!" she gasps
between her laughter. "I can't wait to see that film developed!"

"Yeah, well, wait ‘til you hear what John and Monica did," Mulder
murmurs in her ear.

She stares at him, a smile on her lips. "What, what did they do?"

"Oh yeah," Page jumps in, "Uncle John and Auntie Monica did something
baaaaaad."

"Yeaaaaaah," Sammy adds in the same sing-song tone. "Daddy tookded
pictures, too."

"Took pictures," Scully corrects him, then turns to her husband. "Okay,
I give. What was this bad thing that they did?"

Then everybody explodes into explanations, with much gesticulation,
until Scully puts her hands into a T-shape. "Time out!" she says, "one
at a time!" Then she points at Sammy. "Okay, tell Mommy what happened."

"How come I don't get to tell?" Mulder pouts in an exaggeration of
their kids.

She doesn't want to tell him that he acts like that anyways, but raises
an eyebrow, "Wait your turn." While he pouts for real, she turns to her
oldest son. "Okay, Sammy, tell Mommy."

Puffing with pride, her redheaded boy regales her with the story of How
Uncle John an' Auntie Monica Was Putting Yellow Sticky Paper All Over
the Room and We Busted ‘Em, with more than a little help from Page and
Mulder. April gets her water, because she's giggling so hard, the
little girl thinks she's got hiccups. Then David pulls at Jared's hair,
and Jared yanks his brother's hair right back, and soon Mulder's in the
middle of that, until David tries to reach for Jared and ends up
yanking Mulder's nose instead. That's when Scully's giggles turn into
belly laughs, and her other children join in.

~*~*~

Either Late At Night, or Early In the Morning
May 15th, 2001

It's the middle of the night, and Scully feels like she's less a
mother-to-be-again and more like a walking bladder. Yawning, she forces
herself out of the warm, comfortable bed and out into the cool night,
wrapping a robe around her as she shuffles to the bathroom. It doesn't
take long to relieve herself or wash her hands, and as another monster
yawn escapes her lips, her water breaks.

"Great," she mutters, "why couldn't this have happened over the
toilet?" Part of her wants to clean up the mess, but the more pressing
issue, that is, her unborn child, is telling her to hurry the hell out
of there.

Without further delay, Scully goes back to the bed, but not to sleep.
"Mulder," she says loudly, shaking him roughly, "get up."

"Mm?" He blinks at her uncomprehendingly.

"My water broke, we need to get to the hospital," she says in her
take-charge voice.

It only takes a second for him to sit up, and a few more to grab the
bag, his wife, and the keys. "Okay," he says, ready to go.

Well, not quite. "Mulder, I think you need a few more clothes," Scully
points out, and then Mulder realizes he's in his briefs and undershirt.
Oops. It's not the first time his wife's labor has left him ready to
run off half-cocked and half-dressed. Even as she chuckles, he quickly
pulls on a pair of jeans, socks, and his black leather jacket, then
goes for the bag, the keys, and his wife again. "Better let Michelle
know," he says, and she nods as they rush out the room.

Within minutes, they've notified the nanny, jumped into the car, and
are out of the driveway. And then they hit the midnight crowd, which
are made up of singles returning from partying, delivery truckers on a
long haul, or politicos on their way to making transactions not
normally done during the daytime. "Great," Scully sighs, "Just when we
need it," she glowers at the large sixteen-wheeler that seems to take
up three lanes, then hisses as a contraction hits her.

"Could be worse," Mulder quips, "You could be in some middle-of-nowhere
town in Georgia stuck with Reyes while the rest of us are battling evil
alien pod people."

Scully grits her teeth before shooting her husband a look. "You have a
weird imagination," she says before another spasm of pain hits. "OH!"

"Driving as fast as I can through the gridlock," Mulder mutters
hurriedly, ignoring the honking horns and middle fingers as he drives
like aliens are after him.

~*~*~

Having broken at least several traffic laws and perhaps a couple laws
of physics, Mulder gets his wife to the hospital before she can
strangle him. "My wife's about to give birth!" he shouts as he and
Scully hustle through the ER.

"Fill in the form and get in line," the orderly mutters, not looking up
from his Tetris game.

Mulder's ready to cheerfully strangle the pimply kid when his wife
pulls out her cell phone. "Doctor Hart? Yes, this is Dana Scully, I'm
at the hospital, my water broke about fifteen minutes ago, my
contractions are less than twenty seconds apart, and there's an idiot
at the front desk," she says evenly, then pauses. "Yes, thank you."

When she hangs up, she grabs the scrawny orderly by the collar of his
scrubs. "Don't you ever give a woman in labor that kind of attitude,
got that?" she shouts, shaking him a little before pushing him off.
"Come on, Mulder, Doctor Hart's getting a room prepped," she says
without looking back.

Mulder couldn't be more surprised than if she'd pulled out her gun and
badge. Hell, the kid looks as if she's done just that and pissed his
pants, and he grins. "What she said." He smiles nastily before running
to catch up with his wife, who's just doubled over with another
contraction. "Come on," he murmurs, and they make their way through a
hospital they're way too familiar with, what with all the kids and
work-related injuries.

~*~*~

In spite of the late hour, it doesn't take long for everyone to fill up
the waiting room, and soon Mulder's got company and coffee, both very
welcome at this time. "Has it been just a week since we were last
here?" Krycek asks.

"Yep," Melissa says, patting Ryan's back as she walks to and fro. "I'm
surprised the staff doesn't know us all by name by now."

"Be glad they don't, they keep calling me ‘Fox'," Mulder makes a face.

"It's your name," Mrs. Scully sighs. "I don't see why that's such a
problem."

Mulder shakes his head. "It just is," and is saved from further
elaboration when Sammy and the twins use his arms as a makeshift
tug-of-war rope. "Pull harder, guys, maybe you can stretch them so my
arms can touch the ground like a caveman."

"Daddy, don't be silly," Page scoffs, then yawns. "How come the baby
wants to come out so late?"

Actually, he's a week early, but Mulder smacks his inner wiseass before
replying, "Maybe he's so excited to see you all that he couldn't wait
for tomorrow."

"Maybe." Mrs. Scully smiles, then shifts the sleeping baby in her arms.

"Little Christopher won't be the baby any more, will he? Not like he'll
notice very much." Then she smiles at April, who's curled up on one of
the plastic chairs, already fast asleep.

Melissa yawns, and Emily pipes up, "Mommy, can I hold him now?" Her
hands are already reaching up for her little brother before she
finishes the question.

Her mother smiles. "Sure thing, Emily. Careful, now," and she gently
puts her baby boy into her baby girl's waiting arms. "Okay?"

"Okay," Emily whispers loudly, and Mulder chuckles, seeing the contrast
between the shy, withdrawn little girl he and Scully'd first met so
many Christmases ago and this bright, energetic child so eager to share
her love and attention with a new sibling. I'm so glad, he thinks, I'm
so glad we've all got this second chance.

And as the tears begin to fill his eyes, the doctor comes out, looking
pleased but surprised. "That was the easiest delivery I've ever seen,"
Doctor Hart says, shaking Mulder's hand, "Your little boy just wanted
to be here, I guess."

"Yeah," Mulder says, his voice suddenly hoarse. ::William's back,:: he
thinks as the others surround him and congratulate him or hug him.

~*~*~

That Night

Though he's disappointed to have narrowly missed witnessing William's
birth for the second time, Mulder is relieved that there was no danger
this time, not aliens, and no ghost town in the middle of Georgia
without safe and adequate medical facilities.

::So,:: Mulder thinks as he holds William for the first time in more
than nine years ::we meet again. I meant it when I promised that you'd
still be born, and here you finally are. Things are going to be
different this time around. This time you have six older siblings and
Emily as a living cousin rather than a dead sister. Your mom seems a
lot happier, if busier, and there shouldn't be any pesky aliens after
you. Which isn't to say you're not a miracle, because you are, but
you're a much lower profile one. Welcome to the world, Little boy, I've
been waiting on you forever.::

"What are you thinking about, Mulder?" Scully asks sleepily.

"How every new life changes the world a little bit."

"And their parents' world a lot."

"That too."

~*~*~

end eight of ten

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