Begin: A Moment In the Sun: Part VI 

*~*~*~*

"How is he?" Mulder had yelled over the din of the 
fans greeting the other players outside the stadium.  
No one even noticed him; they probably thought he 
was there to carry the luggage.  The driver finally 
turned off the bus engine and he could hear and 
breathe a little easier inside the phone booth. 
"How's my boy?"

"I'm fine, thank you for asking, Fox," Phoebe had 
answered, sounding tired.  She was at the payphone 
around the corner from their apartment, and in the 
background, he could hear Will whimpering and traffic 
slogging past.   

"I meant you too, honey.  You know that.  How's 
everything?"

"Where are you?"

"Detroit.  We just got here and we have a game in a 
few hours.  Lou Gehrig's not going to play, so I'm 
in the line-up; that means I'm batting.  Hitting."  

Someone tapped on the door of the phone booth and he 
turned, coming face to face with Lefty Gomez through 
the smudgy glass.  Lefty Gomez wanted to use the 
phone.  Mulder still mentally addressed his 
teammates using both their first and last names: 
Someone wake Bill Dickey; it's time for practice.  
Joe Gordon was next in line to use the john.  Lou 
Gehrig wasn't batting today; he wasn't feeling up to 
it.  These were the New York Yankees, for God's 
sake, and he felt like a kid who got on their bus by 
mistake while trying to get to his Aunt Greta's in 
Normal, Illinois. 

"Where is Detroit?"

"A long way from home.  Listen, someone else wants 
the phone.  Does William need anything?"

"He needs the rent paid, Fox."   

He looked around the cramped booth like he was going 
to find an easy answer. "Stall the landlord.  I 
won't get a check for another few weeks.  I don't 
think I can get an advance."

He couldn't; he'd already asked.  When he hit .300 
in The Show, they'd be glad to give him an advance.  
While he was still an untried rookie, he'd better be 
glad they were paying him at all.

"He said he's going to evict us from the flat if 
it's not paid by Friday.  I can't live like this, 
Fox." 

He turned his back to Lefty Gomez and the rest of 
the team and slouched over the pay phone. "Okay, 
I'll get it.  Don't worry.  I'll wire the money 
tonight and I'll call tomorrow morning at ten to 
make sure you got it.  Give my boy a kiss for me."

He waited for her to say something, but there was 
only the crackle of static over the long-distance 
line: she'd hung up.  He pushed the cradle down to 
end the connection and asked the operator to put 
another call through to his parents' number in 
Boston, fishing the last of the change out of his 
pocket.  He'd called when William was born, eager to 
tell them they had a grandson instead of the 
granddaughter Mulder had been expecting.  His mother 
had sent a bouquet of flowers with a hundred dollars 
cash inside the card: probably her secret cookie jar 
stash.  His father hadn't come to the phone.

"Rosa, it's Fox," he told the maid who answered. "I 
need to talk to Mom, please."

"She can't come to the phone, Mr. Fox," the old 
woman responded.

"Is she there, Rosa?"

"She and Mr. Mulder: they're both here.  She's not 
gonna be able to come to the phone no more, Mr. 
Fox."    

"Did Dad find out she talked to me?"   

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Do you think he'll talk to me, Rosa?  It's 
important."

"No, I don't think so, Mr. Fox."

He opened the folding door of the phone booth and 
bent down pick up the suitcase he'd dropped, nodding 
politely at Lefty Gomez as though it was just 
another day.

Across the street from the stadium, a sign glowed in 
a dingy window, a beacon for sure things and last 
chances.

"You got a kid, Mister?" the nosy man behind the 
counter of the pawnshop had asked as Mulder slipped 
off his heavy wedding ring, weighing it in his hand.  
Gold was gold, but he was hoping a family man might 
get a slightly better deal. "How old?"

Providing they didn't fire him after his first game, 
the Yankees played Detroit again in a month; he 
could get the ring out of hock then.  Phoebe, 
miserable in the last months of her pregnancy and 
then exhausted and frustrated as a novice mother, 
was already accusing him of bedding every woman in 
the neighborhood.  Mulder hadn't even had sex on 
American soil yet - with Phoebe or otherwise - 
although he was still optimistic.  He wasn't sure 
how he'd explain coming home without his wedding 
band, but he'd think of something before he had to 
face his wife again.

At the time, he'd had no idea Phoebe and William 
wouldn't be there when he got home.

"He's three, almost four," Mulder had answered, 
laying it on the counter. "Months.  Three months." 

*~*~*~*

They must be back in Manhattan.  The car hit a 
pothole large enough to swallow a Volkswagen, 
jarring Mulder awake and reminding him where those 
five chilidogs with extra onions had gone.  

A damp beach towel was wadded under his cheek, but 
otherwise the back seat made a nice, if cramped, 
bed.  Raising his head, he saw Em still asleep on 
Will's lap in the front seat, her new cat clutched 
tight.  They'd found 'Kitten' prowling the parking 
lot as they were leaving and Emily had insisted he 
was homeless.  He was friendly and tolerant enough, 
so they'd agreed, but 'Kitten' was a misnomer for 
the grizzled old tabby.  He peaked out over the 
collar of Mulder's jacket, which was draped over 
Emily, surveying his new family with his one good 
eye.  Privately, Mulder thought the animal was on 
its last leg; he wasn't sure the cat had enough 
working appendages left to warrant a plural 'legs,' 
but Emily was in love.  Like her mother, she took in 
strays.

The sun had left Mulder and Will bronzed and drowsy, 
but Scully and Emily's fair skin was pink despite the 
sunscreen and hats and beach umbrella.  Will had one 
tanned arm around Emily and the other hanging out the 
window, talking easily with Scully as she drove.  

"You really put zucchini in it?" Will was saying, 
"That sounds horrible."

"It's like the carrots in carrot cake; you grate 
them fine and you can't really taste them," Scully 
responded. "You can add nuts or raisons or 
applesauce and some people even put in carrots or 
pears or pineapple.

"Carrots should only be eaten with peas.  Peas and 
carrots.  And zucchini shouldn't be eaten at all.  
It's bread?  How is it bread?"

Mulder smiled to himself, shifted contentedly, and 
settled back down to his nap.  Will would die if he 
thought anyone besides Scully could hear him blowing 
his cool cover.  Mulder was 'Daddy-O', but Scully was 
'Dana,' and she filled some maternal, big sister, 
intermediary, confidante role in his son's life.  If 
Will had a secret, and he had a file drawer full of 
them, Scully was more likely to know it than Mulder.
 
"It's a dark, moist cake baked in a loaf pan.  Your 
father likes it.  I don't think he realizes it has 
nutrition in it."

"Dad likes just about anything you do," Will said 
lightly, then turned to look out the open window.  
He raised his hand, opening his fingers so the cool 
air caressed them. "Did he tell you what happened 
this morning?"

"Yes, we talked about it."

"It wasn't her fault.  She's not like that, not 
usually.  I was being disrespectful.  Mother- Mother 
loves Dad as much as she hates him, and every time 
she looks at me and sees him, she hates me.  And when 
she sees him happy with you, she hates me even more."

Mulder knew how badly Scully wanted to say 'She 
doesn't hate you, Will' but she didn't. "Do you 
really think she feels that way?" she asked instead.

Will hesitated.  Poor kid; it couldn't be easy going 
through life as a helping verb. "No.  She doesn't 
hate me.  I don't think she even notices me most of 
the time.  Dad doesn't love her.  He never did.  She 
tries to make him pay attention to her, but all she 
does is annoy him.  He doesn't care about her, so 
it's easier for her to pretend I don't exist."

"You're still her son," Scully responded, a hint of 
anger creeping into her voice. 

"Like Emily's your daughter?"

"Yes," she answered softly.

"I'm sorry," he apologized immediately. "I shouldn't 
have said that.  Dad- Dad told me.  About Emily's 
father.  That he'd-" The passenger seat squeaked as 
Will shifted uncomfortably. "That he did something he 
shouldn't have."

Mulder closed his eyes as Scully glanced in the 
rearview mirror, her gaze hidden by her sunglasses.

"Dana-" The seat squeaked again. "He told me because 
I asked.  I didn't tell anyone.  And I won't.  Dad 
thinks you were very brave.  And so do I."
      
The car slowed, then made a gentle right turn.

"Last year, I didn't mean what I said about him and 
Mother getting together.  It wasn't true.  Not for a 
long time.  And I shouldn't have called you names.  
I was just angry.  I didn't mean that, either."

"I know."

He resettled Emily on his lap, then draped his arm 
out the window again.  As Mulder looked up, the 
skyscrapers whizzed past like giants peering down at 
the populace, keeping watch as the lazy sun slid 
into the dark formality of evening.  

"Do you mind if I live with you?  I'm won't be any 
more trouble."

"Do I mind?  Of course I don't mind; that's like 
asking Mulder if he minds if Emily lives with us.  
He's going to find a bigger place next week."

"We're going to need a house bigger than the one he 
has?  Is there something I should know?"
   
Scully cleared her throat, ignoring that. "Mulder is 
going to stay in New York with you, and once this 
semester is over, Emily and I are moving back here 
as well.  He's going to find a bigger apartment in 
Manhattan so you can stay at Packer.  There's no 
sense in you changing schools when you only have one 
more year.  And Emily's doctors are here."

"So you finally set a date?"

"I'm sure he wants to talk to you about that 
himself."

"I already accidentally overheard him talking to 
Mother this morning.  What about your school?  Are 
you transferring?"

"I'll finish this semester, and then take some time 
off and go back when I can.  I'm going to stay home 
with Emily for right now."  

"And with the baby?" There was another uncomfortable 
pause, more throat clearing, then Will meekly added, 
"Mother asked why you two were getting married. 
That's what started everything this morning."

"There's no baby; that's not why we're getting 
married," Scully answered almost too softly for 
Mulder to hear.

"He told Mother he wanted a little girl.  I guess I 
was just hoping…"    

"He said that to her?"

"Well, he said it last year in the hospital.  They 
were talking about why you uh, why you were, uh, 
gone for so long, and he was pretty doped up."   

Mulder leaned forward and slid his hand between the 
driver's seat and the door, caressing her hipbone as 
she drove.  Leaving one hand on the steering wheel, 
she laced her fingers through his and glanced in the 
rearview mirror.  She was still wearing sunglasses, 
so he couldn't see her eyes, but he could see his 
reflection in the lenses.

"Why can't you just go to school in New York?" Will 
persisted. "I don't think Dad would care, even after 
you're married."

"I'm not quitting school, I'm just taking some time 
off.  I want to be with Emily right now.  And with 
you," she quickly amended, stopping and putting the 
car in reverse to back into a parking space. "It's a 
fulltime job keeping up with you and your dad. 
Mulder, are you awake back there?"

Obviously awake, Mulder sat up and looked around, 
trying to figure out why they were parked in front of 
Phoebe's apartment building instead of The Plaza.   

"Will needs to get his book bag.  It has his report 
in it."

"It's due tomorrow," his son added, twisting sideways 
in the front seat. "I called from the beach and 
Mother didn't answer.  I don't think she's here.  I 
just need to go up and get it."

"You and that book bag." Mulder yawned, rubbing the 
towel indentions on his cheek. "Do you want me to go 
with you?"

Scully had a smug tilt to her chin, indicating that 
was what she had planned all along.  He curled his 
lip at her like that Elvis kid everyone was going 
crazy about; as if he hadn't lived thirty-nine fairly 
productive years on this Earth without her planning 
his every move.   

"All I need is my book bag.  And some clothes."

"Why can't you wear mine?" he responded, wanting to 
do this as quickly as possible. "Just for tomorrow." 

They already weren't going to be able to have dinner 
before the opera, and they were going to be late if 
they didn't hurry.  Mulder liked Faust, and he liked 
to get there early so he could be sound asleep on 
Scully's shoulder fifteen minutes into the first act.

Will smirked and silently outlined a square in the 
air with his index fingers. "Besides, the last time I 
borrowed your clothes, my shorts had 'Scully' written 
in them.  That's too weird to even think about."
       
It wasn't weird; it was the pair Scully slept in, and 
it was a joke, but as they got out of the car he 
murmured in his son's ear, "That's because those are 
the pair with the balls in them."

Will gaped at him, too taken aback to speak.  That 
should teach him to call his father 'sku-whah-air.'  
His son's stunned expression kept Mulder amused 
through the lobby and on the elevator and he was 
still grinning as Will unlocked the apartment door.

"I knew you must have left them somewhere," Will 
finally responded, taking six minutes to think up 
something witty.  Mulder swatted him gently on the 
back of the head, then tousled Will's picture-perfect 
hair like he was scratching for fleas. "Hey, stop it.  
What are yo-"

Will wound down like an old phonograph and came to a 
halt.  Phoebe was asleep on the sofa, still in her 
silk robe from that morning and showing more leg than 
a teenage boy needed to come home to.  

"She's here," Will whispered, demonstrating an 
amazing grasp of the obvious.

"Just go get what you need," he answered, closing 
the front door quietly.

While Will retrieved his book bag and a few shirts 
and pairs of slacks from his bedroom, Mulder got the 
blanket off Phoebe's bed to cover her.  He should 
just let her lie there and be cold, but old habits 
died hard.  Once an albatross necklace, always an 
albatross necklace.  

Draping the blanket over her, he noticed the open 
prescription bottle on the rug and, to his growing 
discomfort, a half-empty bottle of vodka. "Phoebe, 
you okay?" he asked tiredly, jostling her. "Phoebe?"              

She didn't respond, so he picked up the prescription 
bottle, noting it had been filled at the drugstore 
three days ago and was now empty.  He didn't know 
what 'Miltown' was, but he was betting she wasn't 
supposed to take all of it in three days.

Opening the window, he called for Scully to come up 
and saw her quickly get out of the driver's seat and 
pick up Emily. 

Pulse; she had a pulse.  And she was breathing, but 
only in little short, shhallow pants. "Don't you dare 
do this to Will!" he ordered, shaking her shoulders. 

"Is she okay?" Will asked from the hallway, coming to 
see what the commotion was about.

"What is this?" Mulder asked curtly, holding up the 
prescription bottle.

"Nothing.  She just needs some coffee and she'll wake 
up."

"What is it?" he barked.

"Tranquilizers; nerve pills."  

"How many does she usually take?"

"The doctor said to take one if she can't sleep."

That wasn't an answer. Will was an amateur pharmacist 
as much as he was an amateur bartender. It had always 
made Mulder uneasy that he could rattle off does and 
indications as quickly as Scully. "William, now!  
This isn't a game!"

"If they're 400's, she's not supposed to take more 
than four a day.  If she does, it makes her too 
groggy."

"What's an overdose?"

"Twenty-four hundred milligrams.  Six pills."  

"She won't wake up," Mulder told Scully as she came 
in, handing Emily off to Will and bending over 
Phoebe. "She took Miltown, 400 milligram tablets. 
There were two-dozen in this bottle three days ago 
and it's empty.  And vodka."

Dana Scully, meet Phoebe Mulder; Phoebe: Scully.   

"Put her on the floor: flat," Scully ordered, and 
Mulder shoved the coffee table out of the way and 
slid his arms under her knees and shoulders, easing 
her off the sofa.  Scully steadied her head, which 
lolled drunkenly. "Will, call an ambulance."  

"She just needs some coffee and she'll wake up," Will 
offered again, holding Emily in the background.

"Call an ambulance!" she ordered. "Now.  Do it now!"

*~*~*~*

"We'll keep her under observation for a few days, and 
then relocate her to a residential facility for long-
term treatment," the doctor was explaining, tapping 
his pen on his clipboard in a way that indicated he 
felt these big words were wasted on Mulder.  He was 
in charge of many important crazy people and he was 
in a hurry to get to them.

"You mean you'll commit her," Mulder said tiredly, 
leaning against the cool wall of the long, windowless 
hospital corridor. "You mean you'll put her in a 
mental asylum.  It was just an accident; she wasn't 
trying to commit suicide."

"Mr. Mulder, she swallowed four times the amount of 
tranquilizers needed to overdose: that's twenty-four 
pills. She then drank alcohol so she wouldn't vomit.  
What do you think she was trying to do?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "I don't."

"Of course you don't.  We're the professionals.  
We'll take good care of your wife.  Don't worry.  
And I wanted to tell you: I'm a big fan of yours.  
Nobody smacked those balls like you did."   

Mulder had about a thousand responses to that 
statement, but none seemed worth the effort. "Is she 
awake?"

"She's groggy, but you can see her for a little bit."

Mulder stared at the wooden door for several seconds 
before he pushed it open and stepped into the room.  
He was tired: tired of her, tired of this game.  He 
wished he had a magic eraser so he could erase her 
from the picture and leave Will, but it didn't work 
that way.   

"Fox?" she said softly, turning her head to him, her 
pretty eyes glassy and unfocused.  This was the 
psychiatric ward and she was on a suicide watch; the 
straps around her wrists were fastened to the sides 
of the bed so she couldn't get up or hurt herself.  
The nurses had dressed her in a thin white gown that 
hit mid-thigh and showed some of the best legs in 
Manhattan and would have been sexy if it hadn't been 
so pitiful. 

"Some day, huh?" 

"I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

"I know; it was an accident."

"I didn't know you'd want him," Phoebe murmured 
slowly, blending the phrases together like sugar 
folding into meringue, "Give me money like… others.  
Didn't know you'd want to get married."

Mulder put his hands on his hips and rolled his head 
from side to side, trying to make sense of what she 
was saying. "Is that why you did this?  Phoebe, we 
haven't been married in a decade.  Scully's great 
with Will; why do you care if I marry her?"

"Nice guy: sweet, shy, rich.  Lonely.  Easy mark.  
But you wouldn't walk away, Fox.  Supposed to walk 
away- Stupid Yank.  Wasn't supposed to really get 
knocked up, but I could've fixed that."

"Phoebe, I don't understand."

His words didn't even seem to register in her hazy 
brain. "So nice.  Didn't want to be married, but- 
Nice to me.  Like I was worth something and you 
wanted the baby so much.  So, marry the rich chump," 
she rambled, slurring her words. "Wanted you to want 
me, but you didn't.  Just him," she mumbled, turning 
her face back to the wall. "Just him."
 
In the industrial-strength insanely white hospital 
room, his watch ticked loudly as seconds and then 
minutes passed.  Until he was sure she was asleep, 
Mulder was so still he could feel his pulse throbbing 
in his palms and the air passing over his lips as he 
breathed.  Then he backed slowly out of the room, 
blindly feeling his way as he went.  He slipped 
through the doorway as effortlessly as fog, and then 
pulled the door closed, feeling a little better as 
the latch clicked into place.    

"Are you all right, Mr. Mulder?" some young nurse 
asked when she almost walked into him.

"No."  

No, he was certainly not all right. 'All Right, 
Mulder' was a town outside of Normal, Illinois; he'd 
missed that bus a long time ago because of this 
woman.  When he was twenty-three, he'd gotten drunk 
and been sold a ticket to the suburbs of Hell, 
Michigan, while his luggage went to Lawyersville, New 
York.  He never had been good with maps and that 
layover in Intercourse, Pennsylvania had screwed up 
his sense of direction for too many years.

Scully had the car; if he was lost he could always 
call her to come get him.       
 
"Sit down," the little nurse said, looking ready to 
candy-stripe something as she dragged a chair into 
the hallway. "Your wife is going to be just fine.  
You don't need to wworry.  Sometimes it's just a 
little bit scary seeing her like that, but she'll get 
better.  Sit down, Mr. Mulder.  Your wife will feel 
much better tomorrow."

Mulder sat.  Good dog, Mulder: pat, pat. 

"She's not my wife; my wife is with the kids.  They 
were upset and Scully took them home.  She'll be back 
at seven," Mulder told Miss Candy-Striper from 
Happyland, Oklahoma. "Em has to see the doctor.  
She's sick."

"Then who is that?" She pointed at the closed door on 
the other side of the corridor with a perfectly oval 
fingernail.   

He exhaled and shook his head from side to side. "I 
have no idea."

*~*~*~*

Mulder took sinister pleasure in thwarting Miss 
Candy-Striper's mission to spread good cheer.  No, he 
wasn't hungry; no, he didn't want coffee; no, he 
didn't want to talk; no, he didn't want anything 
except to occupy his designated chair outside 
Phoebe's hospital room and wait for Scully and 
morning.  After repeated attempts at brightening his 
life, she finally gave up and went home at six a.m., 
which left Mulder a solid hour of wonderfully morose 
silence.      

No one else on the ward seemed to give a damn about 
him, and he liked it that way.  Until further notice, 
the bluebird of happiness had been replaced by the 
grizzled buzzard of malcontent.

Sneakers squeaked down the waxed hospital corridor 
and came to a stop in front of his chair with a final 
anxious yelp.  Once there, they started rocking back 
and forth as his son shifted his weight from the 
dingy canvas tips to the worn rubber heels and back 
again.  When Mulder didn't look up, the shoes 
eventually came to a standstill except for some 
nervous toe wiggling.

"So, how was Faust?" Will asked, sounding as if he 
was going eighty miles-per-hour in third gear.    

Without disturbing his Thinker pose, Mulder answered, 
"It was great.  Wonderful evening: the arias, the 
ambiance, the women in horned hats and steel 
underwear.  Hey Will, was there anything in your book 
bag you actually needed yesterday or was it just a 
ploy to check on your mother when she didn't answer 
the phone?"

The sneakers started rocking again.  Mulder's dark 
moods always made Will nervous, as though teenagers 
had cornered the market on angst, and being an adult 
was all sweetness and light.   

"Yeah, I thought so," Mulder mumbled.  He finally 
raised his head to see Will was holding Emily, still 
in her bunny-printed pajamas and looking tearfully 
unhappy. "Why aren't you in school?" he asked 
tersely, then repeated to Scully as she finally 
caught up with Will. "Why isn't he in school?"

Scully threw up her hands and tilted her head to the 
right, indicating the joyful series of events that 
had been the last twelve hours. "The same reason Em's 
still wearing her pajamas and almost brought Kitten 
to her doctor's appointment."

"The Gods are against you?"

"I'm beginning to think so."

"You're not the only one." Mulder stood, stretching 
his aching back. "She's okay, Will.  Your mother's 
just resting; just like she was when you called the 
nurses' station at one, and at three, and at five."  
He squinted at his watch. "It's seven, right?"

"Seven-oh-five," William corrected.  

"Yeah," he grunted, rubbing his eyes. "Anyway, the 
doctor just saw her and she's fine."

"My doctor?" Emily asked apprehensively.

"No, not your doctor," Scully said immediately. 
"Another doctor."

"I don't want to see my doctor," Emily insisted 
loudly, turning the nearby nurses' heads. "I don't 
like him."

"I know you don't," her mother responded, then 
exhaled like she was being deflated through her lips. 
"Mulder, I brought you clean clothes.  Come change; 
there's a nurses' lounge.  Will, watch Emily.  Fran," 
she asked a passing nurse, who seemed to be an old 
work acquaintance, "Could you keep an eye on them, 
please?"

"Sure, Dana," the woman answered, wrinkling her nose 
at Emily, who didn't wrinkle back.  After so many 
medical tests, Em distrusted anyone wearing white; 
even the milkman was under suspicion.   

Scully picked up the shopping bag she'd brought and 
walked away, not looking back to see if Mulder was 
following.  He was left standing in front of his son, 
Em, and the wrinkly-nosed nurse, looking less than 
master of his domain.  Pretty soon he'd be the little 
old man who stood outside the dressing room holding 
his wife's purse while she tried on bras.  

"William, watch Em for a few minutes," Mulder 
ordered, because Scully saying it wasn't sufficient, 
and then slouched down the hall after her.     

Will raised an eyebrow, but kept his mouth shut, at 
least until his father was out of earshot.
 
"Bad morning?" he asked her, closing the door of the 
nurses' lounge after them.

She looked at him like a disenchanted hero trying to 
decide if the villain was really worth the bullet or 
if she should just pistol-whip him and keep walking. 

"Bad morning?" she answered. "I had to drag Emily out 
of the hotel and into the car.  Literally, drag.  She 
doesn't want any more needles and I can't blame her, 
although the alternative- Will's been climbing the 
walls all night; he's upset and he thinks his 
mother's overdose was his fault.  No one has slept.  
No one ate breakfast except that damn stray cat, who 
then peed on the rug.  I yelled at The Plaza parking 
valet.  I had to make Will pull over and let me drive 
because he was running red lights.  That also 
involved yelling.  Then, he promised Emily a pony to 
get her out of the car and into the hospital.  I 
think I'm wearing two different shades of beige 
stockings.  Yes, you could say it's been a bad 
morning."  

"Any word about the, um, future of the bunny?"

She shook her head 'no,' which could mean the rabbit 
was in no mortal danger or could already have been 
sentenced to death; he didn't know. "Still no 
comment," she clarified, not wanting to discuss it. 
"What about you?  You have that 'show me to the 
scotch' look on your face, and that worries me."

"Me?  I have a 'look'?  You're late; I'm wearing the 
stupidest grin I own, sweetheart," he retorted, 
getting both ends of his mouth to tilt upward 
simultaneously and, with his stubbly beard and 
disheveled hair, looking like an evil scarecrow.     

Scully crossed her arms and leaned back against the 
dented lockers. "You.  You have a look.  She was your 
wife; I'm sure you're upset-"

"Ex-wife.  Ex.  Over.  Done with.  All she is to me 
is a check I sign every month and a giant pain in the 
ass."

She shook her head again, not buying his act.  

"I don't need you to come to my rescue and bandage my 
boo-boos.  I'm a big boy.  I'm fine."

"You're not fine.  You're so far from fine, you 
should have a sign around your neck warning people to 
keep their fingers clear of the cage because you may 
bite." 

He barred his teeth at her and growled, but she 
didn't look amused.

"All right; I'm not fine," he admitted sarcastically. 
"You could add up all my issues and have a decent 
Greek play.  It was my mother and her overly zealous 
toileting training.  I fear abandonment, indigestion, 
and big green bugs.  When rejected, I 
narcissistically self-destruct with women who remind 
me of my sister in order to reinforce my self-serving 
guilt complex.  I'm obsessive, self-centered, 
insecure, cynical, and still a closet romantic.  I 
read Robert Browning's poems, but I don't admit to 
liking them.  I'd wear women's shoes, but who can 
find tasteful spike-heeled, thigh-high boots in a 
size twelve?  I repress, project, displace, 
intellectualize, and sublimate, all in one swoop.  No 
one is ever more disappointed with me than me.  And I 
hate opera.  And zucchini bread: it's an aberration 
of nature.  There, I feel much better now.  Thank you 
for listening."
 
"Oh, for God's sake, what's wrong, Mulder?"  

He started to tell her, then hesitated, then didn't.  

When she asked again, he shrugged, feeling a 
dangerous kind of power and eye-of-the-storm calmness 
in not answering.  There was safety in smoldering 
fury.  It was as though he was wearing armor and 
nothing could hurt him unless he allowed it to.  He 
was bulletproof.  He could leap tall buildings in a 
single bound.     

"I know you and Phoebe got into it yesterday morning, 
but you can't possibly think her overdose was your 
fault."

"I don't.  For the first time in twenty-seven years, 
I don't think something is my fault.  In fact, I 
couldn't care less.  In fact, I wish we hadn't found 
her in time."

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, fishing 
around for his super-human invincibility and only 
finding some blue lint.  He must have left his cape, 
tights, and phone booth in his other pants.  

"No, nothing's wrong at all.  All right: sit," she 
requested, backing him toward the sofa and beginning 
to unbutton the shirt he'd been wearing since Monday 
morning.  It still smelled of sand and ocean air and 
yesterday, like an innocent memory pressed and 
preserved between the pages of his mind. "Let's get 
you cleaned up and maybe you'll feel better." 

"Damn it, I can dress myself, Scully.  I'm not 
helpless." 

"I'm just trying to help," she answered angrily, 
jerking at his buttons. "I can do it faster than you 
can."

"I don't need your Goddamn help!" he barked at her, 
pulling away. "I don't need anybody's help."

Giving up, she sat on the torn vinyl sofa, putting 
her elbows on her knees and her forehead on her 
palms.  For a second, he thought she was going to 
cry, but she didn't. She just looked tired and alone.

"I'm sorry, honey; I didn't mean to yell.  I know 
you've had a long night." There was a little sink and 
mirror beside the nurses' lockers, and he rinsed his 
face, then stared at the lines around his eyes while 
she didn't answer him. "Sorry," he muttered again.
 
"Is it-"

"No.  Whatever you're going to guess, the answer is 
no." He stared through the man in the mirror and said 
angrily, "Phoebe went to bed with me so I'd give her 
money for an abortion.  That was it; that was the 
only reason she did it, except she accidentally got 
knocked up.  Really being pregnant wasn't part of the 
con," he almost spat, speaking as crudely as he felt. 
"And neither was me wanting to marry her.  Will's 
always told me she hates him and he's right.   She 
got stuck with a kid she never wanted in the first 
place and a husband she was trying to play for a 
chump, and I never had a clue."

"Does Will know this?"

"No, usually she tells him I got drunk and forced 
her.  When she was seventeen, according to Phoebe's 
math.  By my math, she was twenty-six." There was the 
Gregorian calendar, the Hebrew calendar, and the 
Phoebe calendar, which ran on dog years and vanity.

Scully came to him and, too tired to fight back, he 
let her hand stay on his shoulder as he leaned over 
the sink and rested his forehead against the cool, 
smeary mirror. 

"I'm so sorry," she said sadly.

"I guess I had a crush; she was pretty and fun and 
one of those girls who made you feel like everything 
you said to her was brilliant.  I knew she didn't 
love me, but I thought she at least liked me.  I did 
everything I could to make it up to her: I married 
her, I left school, I alienated my family." He tried 
to stop talking and couldn't; the words kept spilling 
out like spaghetti sauce boiling over onto the 
stovetop. "I keep thinking 'If she didn't want the 
baby, why didn't she just say so and make both our 
lives easier?'  And then I think of Will and I think 
'what kind of man am I that I could even think 
that?'"

"You don't have to love where a child came from to 
love the child," she said softly, rubbing his back 
through his wrinkled shirt.  

"Yeah," he muttered.  He turned around and buried his 
face in her hair, swallowing hard. "Why'd he hafta 
promise Em a pony?  Why not a puppy?  Where the hell 
are we gonna put a pony?" Mulder whispered to her, 
sniffing.
 
"Basement," she whispered back, holding him close.  

The buttons on the front of her dress pressed into 
his chest, and the crinolines under her full blue 
skirt sighed and compressed as he crushed her against 
him, afraid she might get away.  He ran his hands 
over her breasts and down and around her waist.  His 
fingertips still touched, but they wouldn't soon.   

"I hate her," he confessed, exhaling angrily. "I 
can't think of anything nasty enough to call her."

"I can, but I grew up around sailors."

His chest rumbled as he almost laughed, then sniffed 
again. "Sorry, honey.  I'm sure you didn't need 
anything else to deal with today."

"Emily sees Dr. Calderon at eight; we're supposed to 
be there at seven thirty to get ready."

"You're really going to try?"

"I'll try.  I'm not forcing her.  I'll cajole, I'll 
bribe, and I'll plead, though.  Will you be okay?"

He nodded, loosening his death grip on her body. 
"Yeah.  Yeah, I'll be okay.  Let me calm down, get 
some coffee, and I'll be up to help.  Tell Will to go 
with you and Emily, just in case."

"Just in case of what?"

He didn't answer.  He didn't know.

"I'll tell him," she answered.  Leaning back against 
the sink with his eyes closed, he felt her mouth 
lingering on his for a moment, then heard the door 
opening and closing as she left.

*~*~*~*  

He could have a hot, flavored beverage that didn't 
taste like coffee, didn't taste like cocoa, or didn't 
taste like chicken soup.  There were options for 
extra sweet and extra cream, but none for extra 
caffeine, which was what he needed.  Mulder stared at 
the buttons and rattled the change in his pocket, 
trying to decide.  

Behind him, someone dragged a chair across the floor 
to the vending machines with a jerky, nerve-wracking 
screech.  Thinking the next machine might have 
something better, Mulder looked over and saw a boy 
climbing on a metal folding chair to reach the 
selection buttons.

"Do you need help, buddy?" he asked out of habit, 
then realizing who it was said, "Gibson?  Wow.  It's 
good to see you again; I was worried about you."
 
"Hello, Mr. Mulder.  No, thank you, Mr. Mulder.  I 
don't need help," the solemn child responded, pushing 
the button for chicken soup.  A paper cup dropped 
down and began filling nosily.

Noting the boy was wearing hospital pajamas and 
slippers, Mulder offered, "Do you want me to carry 
that upstairs for you?" The children's ward was one 
floor above them and the stairs were just around the 
corner. "I'm going up anyway."

"No, thank you, Mr. Mulder."

"Okay.  Be careful then.  It's hot.  Wait and we'll 
ride the elevator together.  I'd like to meet your 
Mom and Dad."

As Mulder dropped his nickels in the slot of the 
first machine and pushed the buttons, Gibson climbed 
down from the second one and pushed the little door 
aside to get his cup.  The kid always had seemed to 
live inside his own head, so it didn't surprise him 
when Gibson politely said, "Goodbye, Mr. Mulder," and 
turned away.  

"Bye," Mulder answered.  They were going in the same 
direction; he could catch up later.  He didn't worry 
until he saw Gibson open a security door marked 'high 
voltage.' "Whoa; wait a second, buddy.  That's the 
wrong-"

He bolted through the door after Gibson, catching up 
with him in a narrow service corridor.  It sloped 
gently downward and grew gradually smaller until it 
disappeared into a pinpoint of light far in the 
distance. Overhead, rusting pipes and ductwork hung 
from the ceiling like post-modern spiders' webs, and 
water stains crawled down the cement walls. "You're 
not supposed to be back here.  Come on; I'll walk you 
upstairs."

"I'm supposed to be back here," he asserted.

"No, you're not.  You'll be in trouble.  Big 
Trouble," Mulder, not the disciplinarian of the 
house, added. "Where's your mother?  Your real 
mother?"

Gibson shrugged, fogging his glasses as he tried to 
sip his soup.

"Stop that.  You have parents somewhere.  You didn't 
come from Diana's Rent-a-Kid-to-Impress-Mulder store.  
Who takes care of you?"

From behind his steamed lenses, Gibson blinked in 
confusion.

"Who brought you to the hospital?  Why are you here?"

'And why aren't they watching you?' he wanted to ask.  
Diana had said her 'son' was six, but to Mulder he'd 
seemed closer to Em's age.  After that day in Central 
Park, he'd called the police to report a possible 
kidnapping, unsure of exactly how crazy Diana had 
been.  She was insane enough to bug his phone, and 
Gibson certainly wasn't her son.  After searching, 
the police had concluded no one named 'Diana Fowley' 
existed, nor did a missing child fitting Gibson's 
description.  They'd 'continue to investigate all 
avenues,' which was what detectives said when they 
had no idea and just wanted annoying, crazy people to 
go away.        

"Gibson, why are you in the hospital?" he repeated in 
frustration.

Blink.  Sip. "I live here."

Mulder relaxed, tilting his head from side to side 
and popping his neck. "Buddy, sometimes I feel like I 
do too.  Come on, let's go find your Mom and Dad." 

Sighing, Mulder took the cup so Gibson wouldn't burn 
himself and turned back to the door to the lounge.    

When he tried the knob, it was locked. "Oh, damn it," 
he muttered under his breath. 

"I drink all the soup first and then eat the noodles 
out of the bottom of the cup," Gibson said as though 
someone had asked a question.

"What?" Mulder asked, jiggling the knob again.

"You wondered what I was doing at the vending 
machines.  I like the chicken soup.  Not the hot 
chocolate, though.  All the cocoa sinks to the bottom 
and makes icky black sludge.  Mr. Mulder, can I have 
my cup back?"

"Yeah; here.  Stay right here." He handed it back 
while he looked for a way out.  There were several 
identical doors, but each one he tried was locked.  
While he jiggled and cursed, Gibson turned away again 
and ambled down the dim hallway. "Gibson!  Come back- 
Damn it!"

Gibson had opened a door opposite and a few yards 
down from the one they'd come through.  Mulder had 
tried it, but it must have been stuck.  Not knowing 
what else to do, he groaned and went after the boy 
again and found himself in some sort of medical 
laboratory or exam room.  

The room was so cold he expected to see his breath 
forming white clouds in front of his mouth.  
Experiments had been set up to run overnight, and 
amber liquid drained slowly through glass coils and 
into flasks.  Metal cabinets lined an entire wall and 
low stainless steel tanks punctuated another, their 
metal sides covered with frost.  The tanks were 
refrigeration units, probably, given the hum of the 
compressors attached to them.  In the center of the 
lab was an operating or examination table bordered by 
trays of surgical instruments and equipment.  Above 
the table, an adjustable spotlight glared down, 
illuminating nothing. 

"No one's here, Mr. Mulder," Gibson assured him, 
crossing the tile floor in his slippers. "No one 
comes until eight."

"We still can't be here," he insisted, trying to 
figure out where 'here' was.  They'd had Emily in 
this hospital so many times he thought he had the 
place memorized, but Mulder hadn't seen this area 
before. "I mean it," he added.           
 
Gibson sipped his bullion as he crossed the room, 
seeming to know where he was going, but fogging his 
glasses again in the process.  While he stopped to 
wipe them on the hem of his pajama top, Mulder tried 
the door at the back of the lab and found it was also 
locked.  Getting increasingly angry, he tried the 
front door they'd come in and it was bolted as well.  
It must have locked automatically when they entered.   

"Great.  We can't get out.  Maybe there's a phone."

The doorknob turned easily under Gibson's hand, and 
Mulder's stomach started to get nervous.   

"Where are we?" he asked sternly, propping the door 
at the back of the lab open with his foot and putting 
his hand on Gibson's shoulder to stop him.  Outside 
the door, bare light bulbs sputtered every fifty 
feet, revealing another identical cement hallway 
lined with unmarked black doors.  It was also cool, 
but damp, as though they were underground.  It 
reminded Mulder of a beehive with all the bees away; 
it had the same empty stillness of activity on hold. 
"Gibson, stop playing games.  We're not supposed to 
be down here."    

"I am."

"You are?  You're supposed to be here?" Mulder asked 
in confusion. 

"No, not right here.  This is the Dr. Calderon's lab.  
My room is down the hall, but I can open the door.  
It's a secret.  They don't know I can do it."

Keeping his hand on the doorknob, Mulder squatted 
down so he and boy were eye-to-eye. "You must be in 
the same research project as a little girl I know," 
he said sympathetically. "She doesn't like the 
needles either.  Are you sneakin' out, buddy?"

"No, I'm not a hybrid.  I was born this way, like 
you.  Mr. Mulder, can we feed the ducks again 
sometime?"

"A-a hybrid?"

Gibson nodded. 

Stunned, he leaned back, propping open the door like 
a human doorstop.  Every few seconds, he glanced up 
at Gibson, who waited patiently. "A hybrid," he 
repeated. "A hybrid with what?"

"With Them.  Mr. Mulder: the ducks?"

"Sure," he mumbled.  

His 'Them' were the same as Gibson's 'Them.'  He 
found that strangely comforting: there really was a 
'Them,' whatever the hell 'Them' was.  Were.  Anyway, 
he wasn't just flypaper for brunette fruitcakes.  
Diana was a 'Them;' something to keep him occupied 
and away from Scully.

It was a Picasso: all the important features were 
there, but shuffled together into a confusing 
mishmash.  Once someone told Mulder what he was 
supposed to see, it was obvious, but until then all 
he saw was an anatomical tossed salad.  Once he had 
the magic Them decoder ring, the pieces started 
falling into place; all he needed was some time to 
think.  

"It's the implantation room."

"What is?  To implant what?" Mulder thought he asked 
aloud, but might not have.  Reality was getting 
disjointed.  If the world had been a merry-go-round, 
he'd have knelt at the edge and pushed with his foot 
to get it moving a little faster.

He looked back at the operating table and noticed 
stirrups at one end like doctors used as women gave 
birth.  These, though, had straps so the patient's 
legs could be tied apart.  Further up were two more 
straps to fasten wrists down.  Doctors didn't allow 
fathers in delivery rooms, but he couldn't imagine 
four-point restraints being standard issue.

"They're coming.  She needs you," Gibson said in his 
toneless way, always sounding like he was relaying 
bulletins from his own private radio. 

"Who's coming?" he asked.  He scrambled to his feet, 
looking up and down the corridor for the bad guys. 
"Who needs me?"

"The girl and the woman from the park."  
 
Heart pounding, Mulder hurried after Gibson, who 
again opened the door at the front of the laboratory 
with no problem. 

"That was locked.  How did you do that?"  

The boy didn't respond, but crossed the hallway and 
opened the original 'high voltage' security door that 
had led them through the looking glass in the first 
place.  He moved aside to let Mulder rush past him, 
instinctively reaching for a revolver that hadn't 
been on his hip since WWII.

And suddenly Mulder was back in Normal.  The glaring 
lights over the coffee machines and the smell of 
sticky-sweet pastries were overwhelming in comparison 
to the mechanized sterility of the laboratory and the 
stale air of the catacomb of service corridors.  

"You didn't put any money in the vending machine," he 
realized, feeling disoriented as he turned back to 
look at Gibson. "You can work the machines somehow, 
just like you can open those locks.  And you answered 
questions I was only thinking.  How is it you can 
make the coffee machine work without coins, but you 
had to push the button to choose soup?" 

He shrugged. "I just like to push the button.  
Goodbye, Mr. Mulder," he said politely, quickly 
closing the metal door.  

"No, wait-" he said desperately as the latch clicked 
into place.  

Mulder tried the door, but it was locked.  He 
listened, but there was only the air conditioner 
blowing through the overhead vents and the distant 
cacophony of voices in the hospital lobby.  

"Open the door, Gibson!  Come on, buddy…"

Damn it, he'd had a clue: something tangible he could 
hold in his hand and feel growing warm under his 
fingers like a woman's body.  It was there; concealed 
by steel plate and hinges and hiding in plain sight.  
He'd put the border of the jigsaw puzzle together and 
now he just needed to fill in those tricky middle 
pieces. 

Bad guys.  He needed bad guys.

He pounded on the door with his fist until people 
started wandering in, looking at him warily, and 
backing away.   

His watch said seven nineteen; barely any time had 
passed at all.     

His coffee, extra cream, no sugar, since he'd 
probably share with Scully, was waiting in the 
dispenser behind the little plastic screen.  Prowling 
the room, Mulder drank it carelessly, burning his 
mouth, and then ran his tongue along his teeth, 
comforted by the unpleasant, familiar sensation.  
 
Beginning to doubt himself, he looked around the 
lounge nervously, waiting for someone to jump out and 
yell 'April Fool!'     
 
How many hours had it been since he really slept? 
He'd spent last night in the emergency room and the 
psych ward with Phoebe, and the night before that at 
Yankee Field with Frohike. Forty-eight hours?  Sixty?  
The universe was just starting to get a little 
unfocused.  It was just a paranoid, self-serving 
hallucination.  It was all perfectly explicable and 
related to some hard to pronounce medical condition 
Scully would know.    

He tried the security door one last time, found it 
locked, then stared curiously at the metal folding 
chair still in front of the vending machine.  Picking 
up his coffee, he started to take the elevator, then 
decided the stairs would be faster.
                
*~*~*~*

As he stepped out of the stairwell and saw Will and 
Scully, with Emily in her arms, walking toward him, 
he realized it was the beginning and the end.  

Mulder didn't often think of how much taller he was 
than Scully: she didn't seem as small as she looked. 
He and Will were roughly the same height and build, 
though, and she looked so small beside him.  She was 
saying something, and Will tilted his head down, 
listening, then nodded in understanding.  Whatever it 
was, Will would handle it.  Watching his son walking 
slightly behind her, jaw set and head high, he was 
seeing the end of a boy and the beginning of a man.  
It made him proud, but sad, mourning the childhood 
moments that would never come again.   

Emily's face was flushed; she'd been crying again, 
and her mother had the same determined expression as 
Will.  And they were leaving.   

Mulder and Scully had already discussed it; whether 
it was worth putting Em though this every month: if 
all the shots and trauma and tears made enough 
difference to bother.  She wouldn't get better; every 
doctor they'd seen had been specific about that.  Dr. 
Calderon managed to slow the progress of the disease, 
but the side effects of his treatments made her just 
as sick as the mysterious auto-immune anemia, and she 
dreaded the hospital.  They'd spent many late nights 
talking about it, about when to stop fighting.  This 
morning, it was time to stop.

"Where've you been?" Will asked tersely, sounding 
paternal.

"Chasing rabbits.  Are we going somewhere?"

Will nodded, and as Mulder got closer, he saw 
Scully's eyes were slightly bloodshot and her cheeks 
were damp. Emily was curled against her chest, 
sniffing, and refusing to look up.  

"I can't do this," Scully said hoarsely.  

"Do you want me to try?"  

Emily liked the 'I get a shot; Mulder gets a shot' 
game.  Not as good as 'Bub gets a shot and Bub gets 
another shot,' but close.  The bandage on the back of 
Will's hand indicated they'd already played that one 
while unsuccessfully trying to get Em to let them put 
her IV in.

"No, I want to go home."

"Okay," he said quietly, putting his arm around her 
shoulder. "We go home."

"I can't do this to her," she repeated shakily. "I 
won't let this be her life.  She deserves to be a 
little girl."  

"Okay.  We're going right now," Mulder assured her.  
Without being asked, Will took Emily from Scully.  
Temporarily relieved of her burden, Scully leaned 
into Mulder as though they could merge into one, 
mindless of anything else around them. "Right now," 
he reiterated, stroking her hair and the hot skin on 
the back of her neck. "We're taking her home."

"Miss Scully!" Dr. Calderon curtly, probably having 
been alerted by his nurses. "What is the meaning of 
this?  Is there a problem, Miss Scully?"

"There's no problem; we're just leaving."

"I wasn't addressing you, Mr. Mulder.  Miss Scully, 
let's speak in my office." 
  
Scully's back rose and fell as she took a deep 
breath, then composed herself, squared her shoulders, 
and answered, "We're taking her home. I'm withdrawing 
my daughter from your project."

"It's not that simple, but I can see you're upset.  
Let's speak privately.  Right this way, please.  
Right this way, please," he repeated firmly.

When Dr. Calderon said 'privately,' he probably 
hadn't meant 'with Fox and William Mulder looming 
behind her like barely tamed guard dogs,' but that 
was what he got.  He could take it or leave it.

"You're a nurse, Miss Scully," he said, sliding into 
the oversized chair behind his desk and leaning 
forward, sympathetically folding his hands. "You're 
aware of the repercussions of withholding treatment, 
even for a short period.  Your daughter is very ill 
and very valuable to our research.  I'm sure we can 
reach some mutually beneficial agreement."

When that offer didn't get a nibble, Dr. Scanlon 
added, "I can assure you the consequences of this 
hasty decision will be," he paused to purse his lips, 
"dire.  To everyone involved."

"Don't threaten me," she responded evenly, getting up 
from her chair. "How do I know what you're doing 
isn't making her sicker?"

"I can assure you it isn't.  It's the only thing 
between her and," he did that annoying lip-pursing 
thing again, "the inevitable.  I would say what 
you're doing, withholding medical treatment, 
constitutes child abuse.  You're the mother of an 
illegitimate child and you're living with an 
alcoholic womanizer who's already lost custody of his 
own son.  I believe criminal charges were filed 
against you last year for having an abortion.  Is 
that correct?  Those charges were dropped, but I can 
see how a judge might not be sympathetic to your 
position now, given your questionable history."

If Will hadn't been 'in the know' about all the dirty 
laundry before, he was then.  Mulder shook his head, 
speaking for the first time since they entered the 
opulent office. "Don't try it; my lawyer will bury 
you."

Calderon ignored him and continued addressing Scully. 
"You must understand that you can't just walk away 
from the project."

"Watch me," Scully responded, growing larger.  

A side door opened and two men slid out of the 
proverbial woodwork, one nursing his cigarette.  Dr. 
Calderon pushed back from his desk, distancing 
himself.

Mulder tensed.  Smokey probably wasn't at the 
hospital because he volunteered to read to sick kids 
in his spare time.  The hair on the back of his neck 
bristled as though a storm was approaching.    

"Mr. Mulder," the smoking man nodded, leaning against 
the edge of the doctor's expensive desk. "Miss 
Scully.  Is there a problem?"

"No problem.  We were just leaving," Mulder 
responded, reaching for Scully's hand. 

"I'm sure we can reach some agreement," the old man 
echoed casually.  He leaned close, blowing smoke in 
Scully's face. "Very sure."  

The smoking man didn't move, but his goon did, 
blocking Will and Emily's path to the office door. 

"What are you doing?  Who do you think you are?  This 
is a hospital, not a prison," Mulder argued. "Anyone 
can seek or refuse medical treatment.  We're 
refusing.  To Hell with your study."

"We've invested a significant amount of time and 
money in this child," Dr. Calderon piped up, 
personifying the word 'pipsqueak.' "She's worth a 
great deal to us."

"Bill me," Mulder snapped.

Smokey smiled so coldly Mulder shivered.

There was a flash of silver as the goon drew and 
raised a gun, pointing it directly at Will's head.      

Sound stopped and seconds stretched into hours.  

Will froze, holding Emily tightly against him.  His 
terrified brown eyes cut sideways at the gun and then 
at his father as his chest swiftly rose and fell.  

Mulder saw, but didn't hear Goon cock the pistol, 
pulling the hammer back with his callused thumb.  He 
leveled the barrel inches from the hair Will was so 
fond of fixing and waited for the order.  

The world became a series of stark, silent black and 
white textures, like an Ansel Adams photograph. 
'Don't hurt him, don't hurt him, don't hurt him,' 
Mulder prayed silently.

Goon hesitated, shifting his weight between his feet 
as he adjusted his stance.

Will trembled, but he didn't blink.  

Mulder saw a tear trickle out of the corner of his 
son's eye as Emily hid her face against his shirt, 
gripping fistfuls of the soft cotton fabric.

The expensive clock on the wall finally ticked, the 
brass pendulum swinging with perfect Swiss precision, 
and color flooded back into the world.  Mulder could 
see it: it was blood red.  He'd always wondered what 
color true red was.  It was the color a father saw 
when someone threatened his child.

The only muscle Mulder purposely moved was his 
diaphragm to breath, and only because that was 
necessary.  He could feel his heartbeat in his ears 
and his fingertips tingling with fury, ready for 
battle.  With the static intensity of a soldier, he 
waited, which was a thousand times more difficult 
than attacking.  

"Think this through, Miss Scully," a distant voice 
rasped. "Would he ever forgive you if something 
happened to his son?" 

Inhale.

The smoking man leaned even closer until his lips 
almost brushed her cheek. "We don't want the boy.  
Tell Mulder to take him home, Miss Scully.  Let them 
walk away while they still can."  

Exhale.

Smokey glanced down at her abdomen, his eyes 
caressing her body like a lover's hands. "I know your 
secret," he added dramatically.

Inhale.

"And I know yours," she responded coolly. 

"Don't play games with me, little girl," he hissed.

Exhale.

She didn't flinch as she added, "And I can prove it."

He shook his head, not believing her. 

Inhale.

"A majestic December day in Central Park," she 
answered, sounding like she was quoting something. 
"Miss Scully carries a blue book with a paperclip 
marking her favorite chapter." She paused, tilting 
her head back defiantly.

Exhale.

"Check," she breathed. "Your move."   

Inhale.

The smoking man recoiled, surprised, and Mulder threw 
his cup of scalding coffee in the goon's face, 
grabbed the gun, and shoved Will and Scully through 
the door in front of him.  

"Run!" he ordered them.

He turned back and kicked Goon hard in the ribs, 
hearing and feeling the bones give. "Don't you ever-   
You son-of-a-bitch!" Mulder shouted at him, grabbing 
Goon by the hair and slamming his head against the 
floor.  It made a dull, satisfying sound, like a 
melon splitting as it hit the sidewalk.

"Dad!" Will yelled from halfway down the hall.       

"Down the stairs," Mulder yelled back, following, and 
disappointed he didn't get to break as few of old 
Smokey's bones as well.

As they pounded down the metal stairs, the alarm 
sounded for hospital security, and there was the 
heavy sound of the men's shoes chasing after them.  
They burst into the lobby and rounded the corner, 
only to be intercepted by a hapless security guard.  
Mulder punched him in the jaw and kept running, 
chalking up his second assault charge of the morning.  
At the hospital doors were a half-dozen more guards, 
and he could see red and blue lights flashing through 
the lobby windows as the patrol cars arrived outside.

Whirling around, he grabbed Scully's wrist and 
ordered Will to head for the vending machines. "Open 
the door, open the door, open the door," he chanted, 
hearing the footsteps getting closer.  Scully started 
to falter and he put his arm around her shoulders, 
keeping her moving.  Saying a final silent prayer, he 
jerked the knob and the 'high voltage' door opened.   

"I can tell you where your sister is," the smoking 
man said breathlessly, bracing one hand on the coffee 
machine as he gasped and coughed. "She's alive, 
Mulder.  Or I can destroy you."

Mulder hesitated less than a heartbeat, then followed 
Will and Scully into the musty corridor, closing the 
steel security door firmly after him.  

He panted, bracing his hands on his knees as he tried 
to catch his breath and makes some sense of whatever 
had just happened.

Scully leaned back against the damp cement wall, 
looking pale and disoriented. 

"Honey, are you-" 

Mulder grabbed her shoulders as she slid slowly to 
the floor, fainting.  Emily started crying again, and 
Will tried to shush her, jiggling her nervously. 
Under the bare light bulb swinging dizzily from the 
ceiling, as he picked Scully up, his watch read seven 
twenty-six.

*~*~*~*

Either a hundred and ten pounds of pretty woman was 
heavier than it used to be or he was getting old.  
Mulder paused to adjust his grip on Scully's limp 
body, trying to find a way he could hold her that 
didn't make his arms ache.   

"Where are we going?" Will asked, shifting Em against 
his chest.  He'd gotten her to stop crying, and now 
she was just terrified into silence.    

In the distance, more men were shouting and more 
boots were pounding angrily against the hard floor.  
The lynch mob sounded as if it had gained a few more 
supporters and caught the scent of blood.   

"Keep going," Mulder ordered, commanding his feet to 
start moving again.   

They were underground; that was all his senses told 
him.  Having no idea where the tunnels led, they 
tried every knob they passed and entered any room 
they found unlocked.  It was an unscientific system, 
but so far it had kept them ahead of Them, and that 
was what counted.  

Will seemed to think there was a plan.

Actually there was.  It was 'we don't die today.'  
The rest was details.  

The first open door had been Dr. Calderon's lab, 
which was either some sort of hub or Gibson's 
favorite shortcut, then another corridor, then a 
series of archives with shelves of boxes to the 
ceiling, and now another identical corridor.  Gibson 
could be carefully, remotely directing their escape 
or they could be circling mindlessly like cattle 
being steered toward the slaughterhouse; he didn't 
know.              

"This one's unlocked," Will whispered thankfully, and 
braced the door open with his foot while Mulder 
carried Scully inside.  His son stopped short, mouth 
agape, and the door banged closed behind them, 
announcing their location and almost certainly 
locking them in.  Will pulled Emily a little tighter 
against him, protectively cradling her head in his 
hand.

Holding Scully in his arms, Mulder pivoted in a 
gradual, stationary circle, trying to take it all in.  
He could see it, but he couldn't process what he saw.  
If much of the morning had been surreal, then this 
room was pure science fiction.   

"You know, I understand the doctors being angry at 
Dana pulling Em from their research study," Will 
murmured. "That made sense.  And you did hit those 
men.  I'm a little uncertain as to why there's a 
concrete maze down here, or how you know where we're 
going, but I thought I'd ask later.  When people 
aren't chasing and pointing guns at me.  But, 
Dorothy," his son said deliberately, almost 
reverently, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."    

There were dozens of high tables, each containing a 
woman's heavily pregnant, nearly nude, sleeping body.  
IV's dripped into their arms, and tubes, oxygen, 
Mulder guessed, ran into their mouths.  Each had her 
groin and chest covered with light blue fabric, but 
her swollen abdomen exposed.  From the ceiling, long, 
needle-like probes extended downward and into their 
stomachs.       

*'A needle going into my belly.  And a drill like a 
dentist would use,' he remembered Scully's sleepy 
voice telling him after he woke her from a 
nightmare.*  
 
"What are they doing down here, Dad?"

*'They're building a better human: smarter, 
healthier, more athletic,' Frohike had speculated 
last year, 'And they're doing it against people's 
will.'*  

"I think," he said uncertainly, "They're making 
babies."

"I don't think - and I'm not telling you how I know 
this - but I don't think this how people normally do 
that," Will responded.

*'She's an experiment,' Scully had whispered when 
he'd insisted she tell him what was wrong with Emily. 
'And the experiment, for her, failed.  She's 
something that was never meant to be.'*   

Mulder had a pounding in his temples he was blaming 
on his lack of sleep and a queasy stomach he 
attributed to the bad ccoffee he hadn't drunk. "Just 
keep walking, Will.  Don't think; just keep moving."

*'They took the baby,' she'd sobbed Christmas night, 
not really awake. 'You hate me.'*

Under the blue-black lights, the room was completely, 
eerily silent.  The women didn't move; didn't even 
seem real.  As they reached the last row, one's belly 
shifted suddenly, and Will jumped away like he'd been 
burned.

"It's the baby.  The baby's kicking," Mulder assured 
him, but his son didn't look comforted.    

*'You really think any government would just throw 
away decades of research attempting to create a 
super-soldier?' Frohike had asked, lying back in the 
grass with him in Yankee Field and staring up at the 
stars. 'There are whispers that we didn't; that we 
brought the Nazi and Japanese scientists to the US 
and put them to work in our labs, on our agendas, and 
now we've had ten years to perfect the science.'*

He didn't think either of them breathed again until 
Will tried the knob on the metal door at the back of 
the room and it turned.  Mulder looked back, assuring 
himself he'd just seen what he thought he'd just 
seen.  

*'Of course, Mulder,' Scully had told him, walking 
out of his bedroom at The Plaza after the first time 
they'd made love. 'It all sounds so silly.  Of 
course, I would make up a story like that instead of 
just picking out a late husband off a tombstone.'*

In the next corridor, the cement walls widened and 
were bordered by row after row of what looked to be 
steel card catalogues used in libraries.  For a 
while, he read the labels on the drawers: years 
beginning with 1947 and a code of letters.  
 
*'Except that my part was a joke: they had me 
maintaining medical records and storing tissue 
samples," she'd said of her time in the Army, 'I 
never laid a finger on a live person. Within a few 
months I started getting sick and fainting and the 
doctor said I was going to have a baby.'*

1949 DKS-ALK.

Files: lots and lots of files.  They started to blur 
as he passed them, carrying Scully and concentrating 
on keeping his feet moving.  

1954 DKS-FWM.

*'Then, they have files that have something to do 
with vaccinations for anyone I thought to ask about: 
me, you, your sister, the President, Hoover, 
everyone,' Frohike had told him.*  

Eventually the cabinets stopped, as did the light 
bulbs overhead, and there was only smooth darkness.  
He could hear his and Will's feet moving, and Em and 
Scully's soft breathing; his plan was still working.  

"You still back there, Dad?"

From behind him, Mulder responded that he was, 
feeling Scully's arms tighten around his neck.   

"We're out of hall," Will informed him uncertainly. 
"Wherever we were going, we're there."

Mulder squatted down and gently set Scully against 
something solid, feeling brick instead of cement.  
He stood, suppressed a groan, and ran his hands over 
the walls in search of some way out. 

"I'm open to suggestions."

"I suggest we hurry," Will answered, listening to the 
approaching voices.  Their pursuers were close enough 
that Mulder could see their flashlights, pinpoints of 
light bobbing in the distance.  

He checked the pistol.  As far as he could tell, it 
had a full clip: six bullets.  It sounded like more 
than six people were after them, though, and there 
was nowhere for Will, Em, and Scully to get out of 
the line of fire.  He flicked the safety off, just in 
case.

*'Those men will kill you and not think twice,' 
Scully had promised himm ages ago. 'I shouldn't have 
told you.'*  

"Up," he decided, seeing a stray beam of light glance 
off a rusted metal bar. 

"Up?"

"Up," Mulder confirmed, exploring the iron rungs 
fastened into the brick about seven feet from the 
floor.   

As the lights and voices closed in, Will told Emily 
to hold on to his neck tightly, put his hands on the 
bottom rung and pulled himself up.  Propping Scully 
on her feet, Mulder listened to him climb into the 
darkness above them.

"There's a manhole cover," he called down, and metal 
squealed nosily over asphalt as he pushed it aside.  
Mulder squinted into the sunlight, seeing the 
particles of dust floating through the yellow air. 
The sun seemed foreign, as though days had passed 
while they were underground. "It's an alley: come 
on," Will ordered, leaning over the manhole and 
partially blocking out the sun. "Hurry up."

"Scully, honey, you have to wake up," he tried, 
jiggling her.  She'd been semiconscious for several 
minutes, and she opened her eyes, trying to focus on 
him. "I can't lift us both.  I'm going to lift you 
up.  Grab a rung and hang on.  I'll be right behind 
you.  You understand?"

She nodded.

As the flashlight beams got close enough to be faint 
rays instead of pinpricks, he put his arms around her 
hips and lifted her up, feeling the weight against 
his shoulder lessen slightly as she grabbed the bars.  
Will came back to help, and a few seconds later they 
were sitting in an alley behind a row of rundown 
stores and dreary restaurants.  

Mulder helped Will slide the manhole cover back into 
place, then looked around again, trying to figure out 
where they were.  Someone had knocked over a 
trashcan, and empty tin cans and limp newspapers 
littered the alleyway.  The place was overwhelmingly 
real.  It smelled of soured milk and wet cardboard 
and coffee grounds: like used things.  

"Third Avenue," Will answered the unspoken question. 
"That's the Third Avenue El, I think," he said, 
pointing up.  Overhead, the elevated subway tracks 
cut the morning sky in two. "I think we're a few 
blocks behind the hospital."

On the oil-stained, gritty asphalt, Scully clutched 
her daughter, arms shaky but eyes vigilant.  She ran 
her fingers through Em's sweaty blonde hair and 
murmured softly, trying to sooth the frightened girl, 
but all the while watching the shadows like a hunter 
watches the horizon.

"We need to keep moving," Mulder said, switching the 
pistol from the back waistband of his pants to the 
front.  In the tunnel below them, he could hear men's 
voices shouting in confusion.  

Even in New York, people looked at them oddly as they 
hurried up the steps to the station.  Families 
generally didn't get on the subway looking like war 
refugees from the land of Casual Sportswear.  Mulder 
ignored the stares and found Scully a seat among the 
commuters, putting Emily on her lap.  

The last passengers crowded in and doors of the 
subway car closed.  And they waited.  

"Move, move," he prayed under his breath, talking to 
the driver somewhere far down the tracks. "Move," he 
pleaded.

His shoulders and arms were so tired they trembled.  
His right fist was sore; the knuckles bruised where 
he'd hit the hospital guard.  All Mulder had done was 
knock him out, but that goon might or might not get 
up again, which would make Mulder a murderer.  Self-
defense, Byers would claim, although it wasn't.  
The need for self-defense had ended when Mulder had 
grabbed the goon's gun.  The rib-breaking kick and 
head banging had just been for the primal, teeth 
barring pleasure of it.  

*'Are you a murderer, a rapist, or a mobster, Mr. 
Mulder?' Scully had asked him the morning he'd first 
followed her home, planted himself on her front 
stoop, and refused to leave. 'Married, insane, or a 
communist?'*

Scully held Emily close, watching the men shoving 
through the workday crowd to get up the metal steps 
to the platform.  Smokey was with them, pointing 
frantically at the El and yelling.  Scully flinched 
back against her seat, and Mulder put his hand on the 
gun in his waistband, drawing more curious looks.

*'You don't understand, Mulder: there's nothing wrong 
with me,' she'd told him as he'd pleaded with her to 
stay, telling her he'd make everything right. 
'There's nothing wrong with my daughter.  You're 
welcome to love us, but we don't need you to fix 
us.'*  

Beside Mulder, Will held tightly to the overhead rail 
and stared out the window, watching a group of men in 
suits cursing as the subway car slid away from the 
station.  Mulder put his hand on his son's shoulder 
and Will startled at the touch, like a soldier who'd 
seen one too many horrors.  In Will's air-
conditioned, prep school, freshly starched-and-
pressed world, this wasn't happening.   

*'There will be a price, Mulder,' she'd promised him. 
'So what do you think I'm worth?'*

Mulder grabbed for the rail as the car lurched 
forward.  As the El settled into its slow, slapping 
pace along the tracks, he rested his forehead against 
the round glass window of the door, letting the train 
take him downtown.  

On the other side of the glass, Smokey and his men 
watched from the edge of the platform.  Smokey threw 
down his cigarette, grinding it disgustedly into the 
grate with the well-polished toe of his shoe.

*'If you keep asking questions, it doesn't matter who 
you are.  They will get to you,' she'd assured him.*

Scully reached out, weaving her index finger through 
his belt loop and leaning her pale cheek against his 
hip.  He rested his hand on her head, stroking her 
hair absently.  His watch, when he squinted to look 
at it, said seven forty-eight.
  
*~*~*~*

They needed help.  Mulder was too tired to see 
straight, and Will was acting like he'd convinced 
himself this was a 3-D movie.  It looked real, but 
that was just the funny glasses.  Scully was normally 
great in emergencies: gunshot wounds or small kitchen 
fires, but she seemed stunned, keeping one hand on 
her flat stomach and one on Emily's shoulder.

They needed someone who would believe this paranoid 
story: that there were Nazis or Communists or someone 
kidnapping women, making them have babies, and then 
using those babies for God only knew what. They were 
breeding superior athletes or genius scientists or 
super-soldiers, and they were doing it under one of 
the world's best hospitals in the middle of 
Manhattan.  That something about Mulder and Scully, 
separately, but especially in combination, made their 
genetics vital to this breeding project.     

They needed someone shadowy, someone just a hair this 
side of dishonest, and someone who had all the right 
connections to all the wrong kind of people. 

They needed Melvin Frohike.     

And two subway trains and a taxicab later, they were 
there, pounding on the reinforced door of his loft.  

"Office hours start at ten," he muttered, seeing only 
Mulder through the peephole.  He opened the door in 
his helmet, undershirt, and pajama bottoms, 
scratching himself irritably. "What, Mulder?"

"Get inside," Mulder ordered, and Will ushered Em and 
Scully out of the freight elevator and inside the 
loft, and Mulder slipped in after them.    

Surprised, Frohike paused mid-scratch.

"What's-"

"We're in trouble.  I need to get Scully and Em 
someplace safe.  And I need Byers.  I think I 
probably just killed someone."

"Oh," Frohike answered, as though Mulder had just 
asked for mustard on his hamburger rather than 
ketchup: it was a less conservative choice, but still 
within the realm of normal. "Okay.  I'll make 
coffee."   

Frohike's place looked like a newly divorced man was 
trying to furnish an enntire apartment with only one 
room's worth of belongings, the empty space just 
being filled in with junk.  It had always looked like 
that, throughout all the years Mulder had known him.  
There was a great deal of iron and exposed brick and 
broken testaments to the Electrical Age that Frohike 
was going to get around to fixing 'just any day now.'  

Will shoved a pile of magazines and a dissected short 
wave radio off the sofa and sat down, putting his 
elbows on his knees and covering his face with his 
hands.  In addition to everything else, Will was 
worried about his mother.  Mulder wanted to say she 
was half naked, doped to the gills, tied wrist and 
ankle to a bed, and probably couldn't have been 
happier, but he didn't.  Whatever Phoebe was, and 
he'd finally thought up a word for it, she was still 
Will's mother.

Scully took Emily to the bathroom, then just sat at 
the kitchen tabble and did nothing.  The ice 
dissolved slowly in the glass of water in front of 
her, and the condensation dripped down the sides to 
form wet rings on the tabletop.  Em wandered to the 
couch, eventually curling up against Will and 
watching everyone with big, frightened eyes.  

"Honey," Mulder said hesitantly, as Frohike called 
Byers' office, trying to explain the situation. "Do 
you remember something we saw on television, on 
Alfred Hitchcock?" he whispered, standing behind her 
and stroking his fingertips over her shoulders. "A 
man breaks in a house and attacks a woman, and when 
her husband returns home, the policeman tells the 
husband to take her away for a little while, just 
take her someplace different for the night until she 
can calm down. So they're driving to the hotel, the 
husband and the wife, when the wife says she sees the 
man who attacked her walking on the sidewalk.  The 
husband stops, gets out, and beats the man to death, 
then gets back in the car and keeps driving, thinking 
he's avenged her.  A few minutes later, the wife 
points out a different man and insists he's the one 
who attacked her.  And then another man and then 
another, and the husband realizes she's so upset 
she's just pointing out every man they pass.  That's 
how I feel.  I'll kill 'em, honey, but I need you to 
tell me who the real bad guys are."     

She leaned her head back against his stomach, closing 
her eyes.

"What am I, Scully?" he finally asked. "Is it just a 
genetic fluke or is it something else?  Did Samantha 
just get lost playing in the woods one day, or was 
she one of those women underneath the hospital?"

"I don't know.  I don't know anything about Samantha.  
And a year and a half ago, I thought the only special 
things about you was a complete lack of mechanical 
ability, that you could hit a baseball, and that I 
loved you."

"When did you realize there was something,
s-something else?"

"When I woke up in the hospital to my mother crying 
and the police explaining I was going to be arrested 
for having an abortion.  The last things I remembered 
were you teasing me about my overly neat packing and 
then a knock at the door a few minutes later.  I 
hadn't even realized I was going to have a baby."  

"Wanna see me bend a pen with the power of my mind?" 
he said softly, caressing her cheek. 

"When I was in the Army, I paid attention to what I 
was filing.  Most of it made no sense, but some did.  
I guess they expected me to be so humiliated I'd give 
up Emily and walk away with my tail between my legs, 
but I didn't.  Those phrases I asked Mr. Frohike to 
put in the paper last Thanksgiving, after you were 
shot, those were the names of project files: Blue 
Book, Paper Clip, Majestic Twelve. 'A majestic 
December day,'" she clarified, staring blindly at the 
empty kitchen wall. "I was letting them know I knew 
or had something, that if they hurt you or Will, I'd 
go public.  If they left us alone, I'd stay quiet."

"Was that what the man was looking for in our house?  
Something he thought you had?"  

She swallowed, then took a tiny sip of her water. "I 
think so."   

"You said you weren't sure the doctors were helping 
Emily.  Was that true?  I was the one who started 
taking her to all those doctors. She started out with 
a sore throat and just kept getting worse.  Maybe 
they were the ones making her sicker and I didn't 
realize it.  The Nazis used to do that: see how long 
it took babies to die of exposure or children of 
typhoid.  Is that what's happening?"

"I don't know," she answered irritably.   

"Why did they try to kill me?"

"Mulder, I don't have all your answers.  Maybe 
because they had what they wanted from you; they had 
the babies, and you were causing problems.  Maybe 
because I told you about Emily.  Because you won't 
stop asking questions.  Because if you had believed 
me, and stood up and announced you believed me, 
people might have listened."

"I do believe you.  I know what I saw, Scully."  

"I'm sorry," she answered, picking up the cold glass 
and holding it against her forehead, then her cheek. 
"I never meant to hurt you.  You can't imagine how 
many times I tried to make myself walk away."

"Like you could get rid of me," he teased gently. 
"You can't outrun me in those damn high heels, 
anyway." 
    
"Byers is on his way," Frohike announced, sticking 
his head around the corner. "I need to make a few 
more calls, and then we're ready to go.  And I need 
to have Langly transfer some money, Mulder.  A pretty 
good amount."

"That's fine.  Whatever you need."

Scully's chair squeaked against the linoleum as she 
stood suddenly, covered her mouth with her hand, and 
bolted for the bathroom.  Her glass spilled, and 
Mulder reached for a dishtowel to mop off the table 
before the water could hit the floor and make a clean 
spot.

Will looked up as she passed, then glanced at his 
father, then lowered his head again.

"Congratulations," Frohike mumbled, hearing retching 
a second after the bathroom door slammed. "I didn't 
realize.  How far along?"

"Not very." Mulder concentrated on wiping off the 
kitchen table, scrubbing off some jelly smears while 
he was at it.

"That changes things; it ups the ante.  They'll come 
after that baby."

Mulder nodded tiredly, tossing the damp towel in the 
sink. "They already tried."

"I'll have Langly transfer seventy-five thousand.  
He'll shuffle your account and a few others around to 
cover his tracks so it doesn't look like you funded 
this.  He doesn't exactly launder money for the mob, 
but occasionally he spot cleans it."

"Seventy-five thousand?"  

His last year with the Yankees, he'd only made fifty 
thousand, before taxes.  He'd made money playing ball 
and he'd invested it, but between alimony and tuition 
and medical bills and two houses in two cities, there 
was a lot of outgo and no new infusions of cash to 
pad the nest egg.  He couldn't stand to just write a 
check for seventy-five thousand dollars.  

"I need to make Dana and Emily disappear.  Forever.  
If you want to be sure they're safe, they have to 
disappear from the US Government.  Hell, they have to 
disappear off the face of the planet.  And now 
there's a baby coming.  That takes a lot of money.  
It might take more than that."

Scully emerged from the bathroom, then immediately 
turned around and hurried back inside.  

"Dad?"

"She's okay.  Give her a minute.  Are you okay, 
Will?"

Instead of answering, Will just smirked and put his 
face back down on his open palms again, shaking his 
head 'no' and laughing nervously.

The toilet flushed a second time, and the door 
opened. 

"I need to talk to Mulder.  Alone," she said as all 
the men pretended they hadn't noticed her morning 
sickness.

Since there was no 'alone' in Frohike's loft, Mulder 
followed her to the hallway, feeling like a kid on 
his way to the principal's office.

"If you're going to tell me you're going to have a 
baby, give me a minute so I can act surprised," he 
kidded tensely, leaning against the paneled wall 
beside the freight elevator.  He put his hands in his 
pockets so he'd have something to do with him. "Okay, 
now I'm ready."

"Mulder- I, uh, God, I'm not sure how to say this."

"Try, 'Mulder, I'm going to have a baby.  We're going 
to have a baby.' I have my stupid grin ready."

"But I shouldn't be.  I told you that."

Something about her tone made him swallow, trying to 
get a lump to go down.  According to her, she had no 
memory of conceiving Emily, or of even most of her 
pregnancy.  She called it 'missing time,' which was a 
phrase popular in the UFO novels Agent Dales used to 
lend him.  Mulder had teased her about it until he'd 
realized she hadn't found it funny to have no memory 
of months of her life.

"Well, do you think someone's," he ran his tongue 
over his teeth, "done something to you?"

"Yes, but that someone would be you."

He slouched slightly, examining the cracked tile 
mosaic on the floor.  It had been those black-rimmed 
reading glasses, bare legs, and bobby socks; no man 
could be expected to control himself if he woke to 
that in bed beside him.  

"I didn't mean to say it like that.  Mulder, whether 
you say it or not, I know how much you want more 
children.  I know how difficult it is for you to stay 
with me, knowing that won't happen."

"That's not-"

"Just don't interrupt.  Please.  Let me speak.  
Mulder, this shouldn't be happening.  I've seen the 
doctor's reports, and this shouldn't be happening.  
If I thought there was any chance of me actually 
carrying a baby to term, don't you think I would have 
told you?"

"I don't understand."

"Maybe this is an ectopic pregnancy: a pregnancy 
somewhere outside the uterus.  If it is, that's 
dangerous and I'll need surgery.  Or, if it's not, if 
the baby's growing where he's supposed to be, the 
uterine walls have significant scar tissue.  And the 
cervix is weakened.  Spontaneous abortion is a real 
possibility." Seeing the look in his face, she 
clarified, "A miscarriage."

"Which part's the-"

"The 'ouch, not so deep' part.  The cervix has to 
stay closed as the baby grows or else labor starts 
too early.  Just- please stop looking at me with 
those expectant puppy dog eyes and seeing maternity 
clothes.  Just because we've conceived a baby doesn't 
mean we're- It doesn't mean I can manage to have 
one."

He nodded, checking that mosaic on the floor again. 
"If you're sure, absolutely sure, do you want to stop 
this now?  Frohike knows good doctors; I know he 
does; he's arranged things for Phoebe." He found a 
good place on the inside of his lip to gnaw. "I don't 
know where we're going or what's going to happen.  
Those men at the hospital will take this baby, if 
they can find us.  I don't want you mu-miscarrying 
somewhere where we can't get to a doctor.  Just tell 
me what you want, honey."

"What do you think I want?"

He shrugged, afraid to speculate. He had his mental 
picture all conjured up: getting to coach his son's 
little league team or going to his daughter's dance 
recitals.  Actually, he'd be happy to coach his 
daughter's baseball team and go to his son's dance 
recitals. 

"I want to try.  I just wanted you to know the 
possibilities."

Mulder nodded, not risking looking up. 

"All right?"

"All right," he mumbled, following her back inside 
the loft.

*~*~*~*

It was a cold dream of the black, white, gray, and 
red variety.  He could always see color in his 
dreams; that was how he knew it existed.

"She just turned four," Scully had answered, 
buttoning the top button of her coat as she walked 
beside him, her head barely coming up to his 
shoulder.  

This had been before he'd started calling her 
'Scully,' of course.  It had been just after 
Halloween 1953, right after he'd quit playing ball, 
and a few weeks after he'd stopped drinking.  And a 
week after Will had accidentally cracked him in the 
head with a baseball bat and sent him to the Mercy 
Hospital Emergency Room for stitches.

"My son's fourteen.  It changes things.  It changes 
everything," he had commented, watching Emily running 
down The Boardwalk in front of them.  Except for the 
wind and the distant waves pounding the beach, her 
feet on the weathered planks and their voices were 
the only sounds.

The cold, salty Atlantic air caressed his face with 
its icy fingers, draining color from the world like 
an artist rinsing water over his pallet.  The early 
November sun lurked behind the clouds, casting long 
shadows as Coney Island stretched, yawned, and 
hesitantly woke to winter.  Above them, the sky was 
dense and heavy, threatening snow.  

"Having a child– Both of us having children makes 
everything automatically," He hunted for the right 
phrase, "Less casual." 

"Yes, it does," Scully responded, hands deep in her 
pockets. "You can run now, if you like."

The brisk wind colored her cheeks scarlet and blew 
her auburn hair out of the neat bun she'd had it in 
at the hospital.  She kept tucking the strands behind 
her ears and they kept whipping around her face 
again.  Below her coat, the fluttering skirt of her 
nurse's uniform still had a red splatter of blood 
droplets on the hem.

"I don't run; I have a policy.  I was only saying: 
seeing someone when kids are involved: the stakes are 
higher.  It isn't fair to be casual."

"Are you used to casual?"

He had considered the intoxicated blur of the past 
month, then responded, "I've tried it."

"I'm sure you have."

"It's overrated." Mulder hesitated, then asked, "Did 
you like Aiello's?  I know it's a little odd, but-" 

"No, I liked it.  It was different," she said 
cautiously. "Emily liked it.  Were all those people 
sideshow performers?"

"Yes.  It's a favorite of the locals.  If you want to 
eat breakfast with a tattooed man and a bearded lady, 
that's the place.  Will loves it.  We go there for 
pancakes on Saturdays if I can get him out of bed 
before noon."

"Is that your son?  Slugger?  Will?"

"William."  The word formed a white cloud in front 
of his lips.

"Can I ask-"

He stopped and leaned back against the wooden railing 
above the empty beach.  If she asked, she was at 
least interested.  

"He lives with his mother in Manhattan; before that 
they lived in London.  It's very over between his 
mother and I; we've been divorced a long time.  My 
father died last year; my mother lives in Boston.  I 
flew up to check on her a few weeks ago.  I grew up 
there with a younger sister named Samantha.  I played 
professional baseball from 1939 until last season, in 
between being drafted into the Army and a few 
injuries.  I guess you could say I had some trouble 
adjusting to retirement, but I'm doing better.  I 
think I have my act together now.  I'm trying, at 
least.  Again, there's a lot at stake."   

"Did you meet your ex-wife during the war?"

"No, I met her when I was in school.  What about 
you?" he had asked, refocusing the discussion. 
"What's your life story?"

"You're looking at it," Scully answered, watching 
Emily. "I went to college, became a nurse, and then, 
in what my father thought was an act of rebellion, 
joined the Army to go to one of the M.A.S.H. units 
in Korea.  Then Emily came.  Now it's just the two 
of us."            

"That's the whole story?" he asked.

"No.  Was that your whole story?" She glanced up at 
him, then turned away, calling for her daughter to 
come back so they'd have a buffer to fill the silence 
between waves.

"No," he mumbled, following her down The Boardwalk.  
The hinges creaked as a few garish booths opened, and 
the cotton candy machine began to spin pink silk 
threads. "No, that's not nearly the whole story."

"I didn't think it was," she answered, stooping down 
to tighten the strings on her daughter's hood.   

"Are you a daddy?" Emily asked pointedly, looking 
over her mother's shoulder at him.

"I am.  I have a son named Will."

"Is he big?"

"He's about-" Mulder held his hand even with his 
eyebrows. "This big."

Her mouth formed a silent 'wow.' "We don't have a 
daddy.  Or a Will." 

"Oh, well, uh.  You don't have a lot of room.  You 
have a cat, though.  He's probably less trouble."

"He's a stray."

He glanced at down Scully, who was taking in this 
dialogue with an amused glint in her eyes. "Help me 
out here."

"Mommy says he's a Tom Cat," she continued. "And 
I'll be sorry.  She lets him in, though."

"Your Mommy's a smart lady."

Scully didn't respond, but she smiled as she stood 
up, and he put his hand cautiously on her back as he 
turned her toward the car. "I need to be back in 
Manhattan for a meeting in an hour," he explained, 
listening to the weathered gray boards creaking under 
their feet. "But if you want, I'd like to take you to 
dinner Friday," he offered. "We'll go someplace 
without dwarfs."

"You're not going to make your meeting."

"They'll wait."

"Emily and I could take the subway home," she 
offered, walking beside him. "Then you'd be less 
late."

"Am I doing that badly?"

She stopped, looked at him, then laughed, a sound 
that had seemed out of place in the stark 
surroundings. "Aside from getting me fired, following 
me home like some lunatic, coercing me into going out 
with you by charming my daughter, buying me pancakes 
in a restaurant full of circus freaks, dragging me 
for a walk in the Antarctic, and giving me the 
Readers Digest happily-condensed version of your life 
story, no, I'd say you're doing very well."

He stared at his shoes, having no idea how to 
respond.  It sounded like a crappy morning when she 
said it that way. "I almost didn't go back to the 
emergency room this morning," he finally told his 
shoes. "I was going to have my doctor take the 
stitches out."

"I almost wasn't there; my shift was supposed to end 
at midnight."

"Must be fate," he said lightly, uncomfortably.

She considered, then decided, "Fine: dinner Friday.  
Now take me home before I pass out from exhaustion 
and the police find my frozen body under The 
Boardwalk clutching some cotton candy."

He glanced up uncertainly.  "You're sure?"

"No, I'm completely not sure, but fate is fate," she 
had answered, carrying Emily on her hip as they 
walked down the broad, endless Boardwalk.  Hours 
before the thin, off-season crowds would arrive, it 
had seemed like they were almost the only people on 
the planet. 

It was a nice dream.

*~*~*~*

"There he is," Frohike said sharply, and Mulder 
raised his head from the kitchen table, wiping a few 
minutes' sleep from his eyes.  He pointed out the 
window to the street below. "Finally.  Let's go." 
  
Although he could have afforded whatever he wanted, 
John Byers drove a pristine, baby blue, Studebaker 
station wagon: whitewall tires, chrome bumper, 
luggage rack, and all.  And he drove it slowly.  He 
was waiting at the corner below Frohike's apartment 
building for the light to change, his blinker 
flashing patiently.  Going 'right on red' made Byers 
nervous.

"Don't give him that," Mulder said as Frohike started 
to hand Will a pistol. "He doesn't know how to use 
it."

"I do.  One of Mother's friends showed me."

Mulder didn't even want to consider all the possible 
definitions of who 'Mother's friend' could be.  
"Fine.  Whatever.  Scully, are you okay?" He shoved 
the goon's handgun back in his waistband, then pushed 
the button for the freight elevator.

Scully picked up Emily, nodding that she was ready.   

As the elevator slowly lowered them to the ground 
floor, the sun was shining, shimmering bright yellow 
through the mental grating.  The world had continued 
turning, except it seemed cheapened, like a dime 
store ring when the shine wore off, the ugly metal 
showed through, and it began to turn the skin green.  

"Beside Wollman's ice-skating rink in Central Park," 
Scully said, startling everyone. "In locker thirteen.  
The key is inside Emily's Kitty: the stuffed one.  
Take what's inside the locker and go to Mr. Skinner 
at the FBI.  Tell him you want to make a deal."

"What's inside the locker?" Mulder asked as the doors 
opened.

"The truth," she answered. "Pandora's box."

Byers was parking exactly eighteen inches from the 
curb as the elevator doors opened to the parking 
garage.  He locked the station wagon, then hurried 
toward them, bringing two Macy's shopping bags.

"What is this?  Langly just dropped this off at my 
office.  Why am I carrying this much cash?  And what 
is this about you killing someone, Mulder?  I called 
the hospital; there's no record of any disturbance 
this morning.  Are you insane?  I'm supposed to be in 
a meeting right now."

By trade, Byers did property law, which he insisted 
was more complex than 'finders keepers, losers 
weepers,' and suited his buttoned up personality.  He 
was to 'paranoia' and 'aggression' what 'mild' was to 
'Tabasco.' Confronted with a non-legal crisis, he 
usually started jabbering facts and statistics like a 
frantic chipmunk.  His wife Susanne was the cool head 
of the two: the Army would have done better to draft 
her during WWII.

Without comment, Frohike took the shopping bags, 
putting them on the passenger-side floor of his 
truck.

"Dad, I have school," Will blurted suddenly, which 
was code for 'who's going to take care of my mother?'

"It's okay, Will; you can stay with Byers for a 
little while," Mulder decided as calmly as possible, 
barely able to believe he was deciding it at all. 
"Don't give Susanne a hard time.  You can stay in the 
city, go to school, check on your mother.  As soon as 
it's safe, I'll contact you.  All right, Will? You're 
coming up on seventeen years old; you-"

"Wait, why is he staying with Byers?" Frohike 
interrupted as Byers just stood there with his mouth 
open. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going with Scully and Em."

"No, you're not.  I can hide them; I can't hide you.  
You're Fox Mulder; your face is on baseball cards and 
cereal boxes around the world.  I could send you to 
Siberia and you'd still stick out like a sore thumb."

"Who's going to Siberia?" Byers demanded.

"No one," A voice answered from the shadows behind 
them.  Six heads turned, and Alex Krycek stepped out, 
carrying a sawed-off shotgun. "No one's going 
anywhere except the ladies.  Dana, let's go.  Bring 
the girl."

"Not a chance," Muldder responded, raising Goon's 
pistol.  Scully and Emily had been the last ones out 
of the elevator, so they were between him and Krycek.  
She stopped, pulling Emily against her chest, ready 
to run.

"My gun's bigger than yours."

"And Freud would say there's a reason for that.  
You're the guy who shot me.  You were in our house.  
Who the hell are you?  What do you want?"

Will nodded in agreement, edging toward Scully and 
Emily with the gun Frohike had given him in his hand.     

"Don't move, boy," Krycek snapped, alternately 
pointing his shotgun at Will and then at Scully and 
Emily.  From the other side of his truck, Frohike 
cocked his old Army rifle, which made three weapons 
against one.  Mulder didn't know how well Frohike and 
Will could shoot, but he'd have no problem nailing 
Krycek at this distance.

His finger twitched in anticipation, molding into the 
steel of the trigger.

Krycek seemed to realize that, and looked around 
nervously. "You won't shoot.  The boy won't shoot."

"Don't bet on it.  What do you want?" Mulder 
demanded, still aiming past Scully's shoulder and 
directly at Krycek's head. "Who are you?"

"Just the errand boy.  I'm what Daddy did in his 
spare time. You can consider me the next generation," 
he said sarcastically.  

Mulder jerked his head for Scully to come toward him.  
She knew enough about guns to move sideways, getting 
out of the line of fire.  As soon as she reached 
Will, Emily pulled away, hurrying to Mulder as 
quickly as her stiff joints allowed. "Stay behind me, 
honey," he told her, keeping his pistol trained on 
Krycek as Emily clung to his left leg, terrified.

"She's grown," Krycek said absently. "Since last 
year: she's grown."

"They do that.  She's not yours.  And Scully's not 
going with you. Turn around, scurry back into the 
gutter, and tell whoever you work for to back off 
before I put their secrets on the front page of every 
newspaper in this country."

"Can you tell when she's thinking about me?  I bet 
you can't, Mulder.  I've watched you with women," 
Krycek spouted off, his eyes darting randomly around 
the parking garage.  He was stalling for time, either 
waiting for backup or calculating his next move. 
"I've sat on the other side of the lens and just 
watched you.  You're not that damn suave, although 
I'd like to have been in your shoes a few times.  
That blonde: the actress last spring.  Not a natural 
blonde, but still.  You picked her because she 
reminded you of Dana, didn't you?  Get drunk enough 
and you couldn't tell the difference in the dark.  
Petite, fair, blue eyes." He paused to whistle under 
his breath. "Damn.  And Diana's not bad, either.  We 
paid her to be very, uh, enthusiastic.  So can you 
tell, Mulder?  I bet Dana told you she doesn't even 
remember me."

"Shoot him," Scully's voice said from nearby and he 
pulled the trigger, putting the bullet in the middle 
of Krycek's forehead.  The body hit the cement floor 
before Mulder heard the gunshot.   

"Jesus Christ!" Byers exploded, sounding like a 
hyperactive metronome. "You just killed him!"

That was another brilliant statement of the obvious.

"Let's go," Frohike barked, hurrying around to the 
driver's side door of his truck. "If he's here, my 
phone must be tapped.  There'll be more men coming.  
Byers, take care of the body."

"The hell I will.  I'm a lawyer.  This is aiding and 
abetting murder.  This is the type of thing we're 
specifically not supposed to do."

Still clutching the gun, Mulder squatted down and 
picked Emily up, setting her on his left hip.  This 
wasn't real.  This absolutely was not happening.  

"Get in," Frohike ordered, starting his truck. "Dana, 
Emily: now."

In slow motion, Mulder opened the passenger-side 
door, and Emily crawled inside.  She liked to sit in 
the middle so she could help shift gears: Mulder let 
her do it in the Porsche.  

"Mulder?" Scully said numbly.

"Get in," he responded, holding the door open.

"I want to go to a movie," she said suddenly. "To one 
of those really awful science fiction movies you 
like.  We'll sit up front with Em and eat popcorn and 
Will can sit in the back with his latest girlfriend 
and pretend he doesn't know us."

"Okay, we'll do that," he answered automatically, his 
nose still stinging from the gunpowder.

"You said you'd teach me how to hit a baseball. You 
always said you would and you never did."

"We'll do that the next time around," he promised, 
closing the door. "I'll call you later," he lied, 
keeping his hand on the door handle. 

She stared at him through the glass window, blinking.  
In her universe, this wasn't happening, either.  It 
was just another Tuesday morning.  She'd just be 
getting home from her early class and they'd have a 
second cup of coffee and read the paper.  The kitchen 
would smell like soap bubbles and toast.  Emily would 
climb on Mulder's lap and insist he read the Lil 
Abner comic strip and do all the voices.

The truck started backing away, and he saw Scully 
tell Frohike to stop, trying to twist the expensive 
engagement ring off her finger. 'Keep it,' he mouthed 
silently. 'Come back.'

It wasn't eloquent, but it was the only thing he 
could think of.

"Dad," Will said from behind him.  Mulder had 
forgotten Will and Byers were still there.  Wondering 
where all the air on the planet had gone, he turned 
around, seeing Will pointing at Krycek's body.  The 
corpse was dissolving into a yellow and green puddle 
and smoking as though there was a cloud of lime  
Jell-O forming over it. "What is that?"

"Oh my God," Byers mumbled.

As he, Will, and Byers stared at the melting body, 
trying to comprehend what it might be, tires squealed 
as Frohike ran the red light outside the parking 
garage, taking Emily and Scully wherever they were 
going.  Within seconds, there was nothing left of 
Alex Krycek except the sawed-off shotgun and a few 
scraps of leather and denim cloth.

There was nothing left of anything.  It just turned 
to mist and drifted away in the morning sun.

Mulder's watch said ten-o-five.  He tapped it with 
his fingernail, then held it up to his ear, certain 
it must have stopped.  
 
*~*~*~*

In the back seat of the car, Will held the film up to 
the glowing red sunset, squinting at it. "Could be a 
girl with birth defects," he proposed, unwinding a 
few more inches from the reel and studying it 
carefully, trying to see the body the doctors were 
examining on the metal table. "Some weird syndrome.  
Or it could be exposure to radiation."

"Could be."  

It wasn't.

As it grew darker, Coney Island came alive with 
lights, outlining the roller coasters and Ferris 
wheel like patterns of white stars against the velvet 
of space.  The sticky-sweet smell of cotton candy and 
funnel cakes drifted down The Boardwalk, mixing with 
the old salt fragrance of the sea.  They'd decided 
they wanted dinner at Aiello's, then forgotten they 
were hungry once they got there, so they just sat in 
the parking lot for an hour, taking turns speaking 
every ten minutes.

In the front seat, Mulder was sitting sideways with 
his back against the driver's side door and his feet 
hanging out the passenger side window.  He watched as 
another plane took off, arched away from them, and 
disappeared into the last of the sunset, thus ending 
the movie in Technicolor splendor.

"Could some sort of hairless monkey," Will continued.

It wasn't.

"Yep.  Could be one of those hairless monkey autopsy 
films the government doesn't want us to see."  Mulder 
put his feet down and pivoted around, then opened the 
driver's door. "I'll be back."

He hesitated before he picked up the pay phone, then 
grabbed the receiver and dialed quickly before he 
lost his nerve.  

"It's Mulder.  Don't hang up," he said when Scully's 
mother answered. "I was wondering if you'd heard from 
Dana.  I'm not sure where she is and I was hoping she 
might call you."

Mrs. Scully answered that she hadn't seen nor heard 
from her daughter, then asked evenly what was wrong.  
Her jury was still out on whether Fox Mulder was 
friend or foe.

"We had a fight.  She's upset.  She took Emily and 
took off.  She's pretty sore at me."

"And why would that be?" Maggie asked icily.

"I just don't want her to do something stupid again," 
he answered evasively. "I'll fix things; I just have 
to find her."

There was a long silence on the other end.  To hell 
with this shadowy government hybrid-breeding project: 
Bill Scully was going to kill him first.

"You'll fix things?"

"Yeah, it's no problem.  I mean, I'm not marrying 
her, but I'm not abandoning her, either.  I care 
about her.  She's great fun."  

He bit his lip so hard the coppery taste of blood 
trickled back onto his tongue, and was relieved when 
the line went dead.  Out of curiosity, he listened 
and heard a second click a few seconds later.  They 
were listening; mission accomplished.
 
Victory should feel better.  
  
Hands on his pockets, he walked slowly down the long, 
shadowy boardwalk and back to the car.  The ocean 
seemed endless, as though there was nothing between 
him and the end of the world.  He paused to look up 
as another plane flew over, staring at it until it 
was out of sight.  

"That's the seven-ten to London," his son informed 
him. "There's also a redeye at eleven.  The last 
flight for DC took off about half an hour ago; she 
could have been on that one, too."

"She and Em could be anywhere, Will, and it's nowhere 
you or I would ever think to look.  This is what 
Frohike does best.  He'll send her someplace safe: 
that's all we need to know.  If we know where they 
are, we could put her and Em in danger."

"You gave her a lot of money, Dad," he said warily, 
testing the waters. "I know there's money, but I 
thought it was invested.  Where do you have that much 
cash just sitting around?"

"Don't worry about it."  

"I do worry about it.  Taking care of Emily had to 
cost a bundle, plus my mother, plus what you gave 
Dana, plus I'll have college-"

"College?  I thought you were going to drop out and 
be a bum?  Will, I didn't budget college; I budgeted 
bail," he teased, then added, "The Yankees made me a 
really good offer to come back for one more season.  
We don't need to worry about money."   

As Mulder opened the driver's door, the light glinted 
off a silver dime store lipstick case that had 
accidentally fallen down beside the seat.  He picked 
it up and it was still warm, like the sidewalk just 
after dusk.  He sat down tiredly, holding the case in 
his palm.

"Should I ask about the baby?  Or if Emily is going 
to be okay?  Or about that man you shot and why he 
bled green?"

"No, you probably shouldn't," Mulder mumbled.  

Will nodded, focusing on the metal film case lying on 
the passenger seat.  The white label stuck on it read 
'Roswell, New Mexico 1947: Project Blue Book.'   

"Do you think she's coming back?"

"I don't know.  Tomorrow, I'll take this film to 
Walter Skinner and see if it's worth what I think 
it's worth.  I'll see if he can help me make a deal."

"Is it real?" Will asked, unfurling a few more inches 
off the reel. "What are these doctors autopsying on 
here?"

An alien.  They weren't breeding superior humans 
anymore; they were trying to breed alien-human 
hybrids.     

"It doesn't matter.  It's either the government-
created a hoax to make people think aliens exist, or 
it's the real deal.  Either way, I bet whoever made 
it doesn't want it shown on the evening news."

"And Dana had it the whole time?" 

"Yeah, she had it the whole time."

By the time he and Will had returned to The Plaza 
that afternoon, They, the omnipresent 'Them,' had 
been through the suite like a tornado, searching for 
the film.  It wasn't there, of course.  It was in a 
locker across the street in Central Park where Scully 
had hidden it.  And Kitty, stuffed Kitty, was still 
on the floor of Emily's bedroom.  Real Kitten was 
under the bed, hissing at everyone.  Mulder's World 
Series rings were missing, but everything else was 
just ransacked.  Curiously, the police found no 
fingerprints, nor had anyone noticed anything 
suspicious happening on the top floor of one of the 
world's most conscientious hotels.  

Mulder opened the glove box, putting Scully's 
lipstick beside a spare set of keys she'd left there.  
She'd had half a dozen sets made so she stood some 
chance of finding one when she needed them.

"Sixty-eight Saturday afternoons: that's not nearly 
enough," he said softly, draping his arm across the 
front seat and around nothing.  In the back, Will 
looked down from the film stock. "Nineteen months; 
that's four hundred and seventy-six days, but only 
sixty-eight Saturday afternoons.  That's two 
Christmas's, but only one summer."

Will leaned over the seat, not understanding. 

"It's not enough," Mulder repeated. "I keep thinking 
this isn't happening; that it's a bad dream and I'm 
going to wake up and they'll be here." He looked up 
at the sky again, then back at Will. "You're here, 
though.  You wanna go see a movie?"

"I'm not a kid anymore.  You don't have to buy me a 
milkshake and make it better, Dad."

"What about 'Killers From Space' or 'Invaders from 
Mars,'" he answered, reciting the movie marquee from 
memory. "Or simply 'Them!'"

"Or 'The Creature Walks Among Us,'" Will suggested.  

Neither of them wanted to go back to The Plaza where 
all the phones had bugs and all the mirrors had 
lenses behind them.    

"Nah, I'm tired of seeing the creature get his ass 
kicked.  How about 'Earth Versus the Flying 
Saucers'?" He looked back and Will and forced an 
exhausted grin.

"Does Earth win?"

"My God, I hope so." 

*~*~*~*

End A Moment In the Sun: Part VI